Source: European Council on Foreign Relations
The EU’s approach to foreign policy and economic policy needs to account for the fact that, globally, the space between the two areas is increasingly narrow
The NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan has laid bare several urgent challenges for the European Union.
Source: Atlantic Council
Following the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, three heavyweights in the Gulf are carefully navigating the aftermath—each calculating what it stands to gain (or lose) in its relationship with the United States.
How does this development alter their perceptions of security, and how will it impact their dynamics vis-à-vis Washington? Based on recent travel to the region and several conversations with officials, here’s what to expect:
Source: Guardian
Some years ago, in Afghanistan, the anthropologist Scott Atran asked a Taliban fighter what it would take to stop the fighting, because families on both sides were crying. The fighter replied: “Leave our country and the crying will stop.”
Source: Al Jazeera
Amid concern that sanctions on the Taliban would worsen a continuing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, the United States has taken steps to pave the way for aid to flow into the economically paralysed nation.
Source: Al Jazeera
Pakistan has repeated its call for the world not to “abandon” Afghanistan following the Taliban’s takeover of that country, as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets his Pakistani counterpart on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
Source: Guardian
The Taliban will resume executions and the amputation of hands for criminals they convict, in a return to their harsh version of Islamic justice.
According to a senior official – a veteran leader of the hardline Islamist group who was in charge of justice during its previous period in power – executions would not necessarily take place in public as they did before.
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Source: Tolo News
Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, the defense minister of the caretaker cabinet, on Thursday evening in an audio message ordered all Taliban forces to respect the general amnesty that was announced by the Taliban leadership following the takeover of Kabul.
Source: Al Jazeera
Deep beneath the ground in one of the world’s poorest countries sits at least $1 trillion of untapped mineral resources, according to a report published by Afghanistan’s Ministry of Mines and Petroleum [PDF]. The South Asian country of 38 million people is estimated to hold more than 2.2 billion tonnes of iron ore, 1.3 billion tonnes of marble and 1.4 million tonnes of rare earth minerals.
Source: France 24 – The Observers
Photos of Amrullah Saleh, the former vice-president of Afghanistan, sitting in what looks to be a bank have been circulating online since September 20. While Saleh says he’s in hiding in the Panjshir Valley, pro-Taliban accounts and even some Afghan media claim these photos show him at a bank in the United Arab Emirates, after fleeing with “money stolen from Afghans”. But it turns out these photos aren’t recent.
Source: Live Science
With the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, the country’s archaeological remains face a grim future even if the extremist Islamic group decides not to loot or intentionally destroy them.
Continue reading The Taliban may be hunting for Afghanistan’s most famous treasure