India proposed on Wednesday 5.94 trillion rupees ($72.6 billion) in defence spending for the 2023-24 financial year, 13% up from the previous period’s initial estimates, aiming to add more fighter jets and roads along its tense border with China, Reuters reported. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman allocated 1.63 trillion rupees for defence capital outlays – an expenditure that would include new […]

The government’s watchdog for Afghanistan reconstruction said Thursday that the Taliban is growing ever more oppressive, and lawmakers need to consider whether too many U.S. aid dollars are ending up in their hands. The report to Congress by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, is an update for lawmakers on rebuilding and aid efforts following the U.S. […]

Iran’s deputy minister of trade Mohammad Mousavi said Tuesday in a meeting that Tehran is considering setting up a trade center in Afghanistan in the near future. According to Mehr News Agency, Mousavi expressed hope that the establishment of this center will strengthen ties between Kabul and Tehran. He did not however say where the center would be situated. Addressing […]

Referring to Pakistan’s concerns about terrorism threats emanating from Afghanistan, Amir Khan Muttaqi, Foreign Minister of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA), on Wednesday called on Islamabad to stop blaming Afghanistan for insecurity. Speaking at a ceremony to inaugurate a drug addiction treatment center in Kabul, Muttaqi said that the root of Pakistan’s security problems is in the country itself […]

A U.S. general said in a memo on Friday that he believes the country will be at war with China by 2025, according to several news outlets that obtained a copy of the communication, The Hill reported. “I hope I am wrong,” Gen. Mike Minihan, a four-star Air Force general who leads the Air Mobility Command (AMC), said in the […]

The death toll in the suicide bombing that tore through a mosque in Pakistan rose to 87 on Tuesday, a hospital official said, a day after the one of the biggest attacks in the unstable South Asian nation, Reuters reported. The attack occurred in one of the most fortified areas of the northwestern Peshawar city, which houses offices of the […]

Russia and Pakistan to engage the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) capabilities to assist the situation in Afghanistan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said during a press conference after talks with his Pakistani counterpart Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in Moscow on Monday. “We have talked about the situation in Afghanistan a lot; this is directly connected to the goal of elimination of […]

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says that the distribution of cash aid to the needy is very important during this year’s extremely harsh winter. The spokesperson of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Afghanistan Caroline Gluck says that in this cold winter, it is very important to distribute cash aid to the needy in Afghanistan. Gluck, […]

The White House said on Friday it has no evidence to support reports claiming that Moscow has asked the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) to provide them with arms left behind by foreign forces in the country. John Kirby, coordinator for strategic communications for the US National Security Council told VOA that he can’t confirm the reports but “if it’s […]

Escalating threats from Islamist militants are casting doubt on the future of big-money Chinese mining projects in Afghanistan. Earlier this month, Xinjiang Central Asia Petroleum and Gas (CAPEIC) signed a 25-year oil extraction deal with the Afghan Taliban authorities for the Amu River oil field in northwestern Afghanistan. The company is expected to invest $150 million in the first year […]