Category: South East Asia

Iran provides residency permits to one million Afghan refugees

Iran’s interior ministry says it has approved residency permits for more than one million Afghan refugees currently in the country. Sadiq Rezadoost, Iran’s Director General of Foreign Nationals and Immigrant Affairs of the Ministry of Interior, said that all nationals who came to Iran after the political developments in Afghanistan last year, or who were given papers in the past […]

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UN delegation meets with Haqqani over ban on female aid workers

The United Nations said its envoy to Afghanistan had pressed the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s (IEA) rulers Monday to reverse bans on work and education for women and girls to prevent further isolation of the crisis-ridden country. Markus Potzel, the acting head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), conveyed the international community’s call in a meeting in Kabul […]

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IEA’s supreme leader meets with Ulema Council members

The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhundzada held a consultative meeting with the heads, assistants and administrative officials of the Council of Ulemas of Kandahar, Helmand, Zabul, Nimroz, Farah, Paktika and Paktia provinces. The deputy minister of hajj, deputy head of the supreme court and a number of members of the Religious Publications Supervision […]

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IEA wants good relations with all countries, including Pakistan: Mujahid

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s (IEA) spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Tuesday that the IEA wants good relations with all neighboring countries, including Pakistan, and that the spate of “false” statements by Pakistani officials is regrettable. This was in response to recent remarks and a statement by Pakistani officials over the use of Afghan soil by militants against Pakistan. In a […]

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IEA discusses business opportunities with Tatarstan and Iranian businessmen

Nooruddin Azizi, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s (IEA) minister of commerce and industry met with representatives of the private sector of the Republic of Tatarstan and Iran in Kabul on Thursday where they discussed investment opportunities in the country. In a series of tweets, the ministry said that the deputy minister of mines and petroleum and representatives of the ministry […]

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Pakistan’s foreign minister tells IEA banned TTP is Pakistan’s ‘red line’

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari says it has been communicated to Afghanistan that Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is Pakistan’s red line, Pakistan’s media outlets reported. “The Afghan Taliban (Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan) have been told that our (Pakistan and Afghanistan) ties will not remain fine if the TTP is not stopped,” Bilawal said while speaking to the media at the Pakistani […]

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Senior UN officials says 97% of Afghans live in poverty

Martin Griffiths, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator told a Security Council meeting this week that 97 percent of Afghans live in poverty. He also said that two thirds of the population need humanitarian assistance and 20 million people face acute hunger. According to Griffiths, half the population in Afghanistan urgently needs access to clean […]

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Millions of Afghans Are Starving as US Stalls on Returning Central Bank Funds

In September, the U.S. created a foundation that was supposed to unfreeze Afghanistan’s foreign assets. Yet, interviews with trustees reveal that, in three months, no funds have been disbursed—or concrete plans made—to help the Afghan people. The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021 and, in response, Europe, the United Arab Emirates and the United States froze the Afghan central bank’s roughly […]

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Pakistan Ups the Ante With India on Terrorism

But will it succeed in persuading the world that India is a perpetrator of terrorism in the region rather than a victim? A flurry of developments over the last week in Pakistan suggest a visible shift in Pakistan’s policy towards India, particularly over the question of New Delhi’s alleged involvement in fueling militancy in the country. Earlier this week, Pakistan’s […]

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25 militants killed in Pakistan army raid on detention centre; one hostage dies

Pakistan’s security forces killed 25 of 35 Islamist militants holed up in a counter-terrorism centre in the northwestern city of Bannu, while one hostage and two commandos died in the operation to retake the compound, the army said. Militants being held at the centre took control of the compound on Sunday after overpowering their interrogators and taking their weapons, leading […]

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