Economists have vehemently opposed Washington’s decision to establish the Afghan Fund and transfer $3.5 billion of Afghanistan’s frozen assets into a Swiss account. The economists said Monday the people appointed to manage the fund do not have the expertise to do so and collectively called for Afghanistan foreign reserves to be returned to the country. One economist, Sayed Massoud, said […]

Qudratullah Abu Hamza, Balkh’s governor, warned home owners Monday that houses rented to kidnappers and Daesh militants will be confiscated. Hamza called on residents of the northern province to support the IEA security forces and to not allow such elements to settle in residential areas. He said should home owners ignore this warning, the IEA will identify houses rented by […]

A top Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) official, Haji Bashir Noorzai, has been released after almost 20 years in Guantanamo Bay. He arrived in Kabul on Monday. He was one of the last Afghans detained at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, according to sources. According to the IEA’s foreign minister, the US freed the official on Monday in exchange for […]

The President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev called for the rapid completion of a corridor linking his country to Iran via Turkmenistan. In a meeting with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, held on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Samarkand on Friday, Tokayev highlighted the achievements of his recent visit to Iran. He also stressed the need to accelerate […]

In recent days renewed clashes have broken out between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the South Caucasus. Fighting between these two countries is nothing new. Since the early 1990s, what started as a “hot war” transformed into a long-lasting “frozen conflict” over Armenia’s occupation of Azerbaijani territory in the Karabakh region. In 2020, the situation boiled over and the second Karabakh […]

Wickremesinghe revives India’s plan for close economic integration With the Rajapaksas pushed into the background and due to the high powers vested in the Sri Lankan Executive Presidency, President Ranil Wcikremesinghe is now in a position to take his island nation closer to India and away from China by promoting economic, investment and national security ties. China’s distancing itself from […]

Data protection regulation in India has recently faced several setbacks. The Personal Data Protection Bill was introduced to India’s lower house on 11 December 2019. But the government withdrew the Bill after India’s Joint Parliamentary Committee proposed 81 amendments and 12 recommendations. A new bill with a more comprehensive framework, including modern digital privacy laws, will be released soon. There […]

Russia’s special envoy for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov said the United States is no longer included in the Extended Troika, and instead, Iran will take its place. In a televised interview with Sputnik last week, Kabulov said the US was using this structure to advance its own interests, and that Washington’s participation in the Extended Troika was not beneficial for Afghanistan. […]

The Iranian Ambassador to Afghanistan, Bahadur Aminian, says at least 6,000 Afghan citizens enter Iran every day and that only about half have visas. The rest enter illegally, he said, adding that these migrants risk falling victim to human traffickers. Speaking to the BBC Aminian said the only way to reduce the wave of refugees into Iran was to create […]

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan said Sunday the border clashes between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan were “alarming” and that continued clashes could affect the security of the region. The ministry of foreign affairs said in a statement “these clashes have caused problems for civilians on both sides, particularly, leading to the displacement of thousands of civilians on the Kyrgyz side. The […]