Meeting other interested parties, Russia, Pakistan, ....
He is also a dab hand at repairing helicopters, allegedly.
Meeting other interested parties, Russia, Pakistan, ....
He is also a dab hand at repairing helicopters, allegedly.
China wants to be the big world player yet the first thing it does is call on the west for assistance to Afghanistan. It can show how it is going to be the new world leader by fixing Afghanistan. Sort of show "the west" how it's done. If their actions are as big as their talk, everything should be peachy in Afghanistan shortly.
Meanwhile I'll sit back and watch the shit hit the fan.
Well the worst they can do is abjectly Fail, like us.
Female students join male peers as Afghan universities reopen
February 2, 2022
"Afghanistan's public universities on Wednesday opened for the first time since the Taliban took over the country last year, with female students joining their male counterparts heading back to campus.The Taliban administration had not officially announced its plan for female university students, but education officials told Reuters women were permitted to attend classes on the proviso they were physically separated from male students.
A Reuters witness in the eastern city of Jalalabad saw female students entering via a separate door at Nangarhar University, one of the large government universities opening this week.
Under its previous rule from 1996 to 2001, the hardline Islamist Taliban had barred women and girls from education. The group says it has changed since resuming power on Aug. 15 as foreign forces withdrew, but has been vague on its plans and high school-aged girls in many provinces have still not been allowed to return to school. Some private universities have reopened, but in many cases female students have not been able to return to class.
The international community has made education of girls and women a key part of its demands as the Taliban seek more foreign aid and the unfreezing of overseas assets.
The United Nations late on Tuesday praised the inclusion of female students at the country's public universities, appearing to indicate official confirmation.
"(The) U.N. welcomes the announcement that public universities will begin re-opening 2 February to all female and male students. So crucial that every young person has equal access to education," the U.N.'s mission to Afghanistan said in a Tweet late on Tuesday.
An education official who asked not be named because he was not authorised to speak to media said universities had been given different options to keep female students isolated, including separated classes and staggered operating hours to divide the genders.
Khalil Ahmad Bihsudwal, the head of Nangarhar University, told Reuters male and female students at the institution would attend separate classes, a practice already in place in many provinces.
Only universities in warmer provinces opened on Wednesday. Tertiary institutions in colder areas, including Kabul, are due to resume on Feb. 26.'
Female students join male peers as Afghan universities reopen | Reuters
A tray full of GOLD is not worth a moment in time.
U.S. Department of the Treasury
Frequently Asked Questions - Newly Added
Released on 02/02/2022
963. Can humanitarian organizations ship cash into Afghanistan for use in delivering humanitarian assistance?
"Yes, cash shipments to Afghanistan may be authorized under General Licenses (GL) 14, GL 18, or GL 19, provided that they are ordinarily incident and necessary to effectuate the activities authorized by the GLs.
As with all OFAC GLs, GLs 14, 18, and 19 are “self-executing,” meaning that persons who determine that such activities are ordinarily incident and necessary to their authorized activities within the scope of the GLs may proceed without further assurances from OFAC."
One of 7 notices of relaxations, all relating to Afghanistan.
It and the others can be found here:
Stupid idea as it will all get nicked by the talitubbies.
Better to airdrop some bags of rice, blankets and shit.
After the US’s catastrophic exit from Afghanistan, the programme should have been cherished, not abandoned.
Many have been puzzled by the policy choices of the Biden administration vis-à-vis Afghanistan since the United States’ disastrous withdrawal from the country last August. It is not clear whether these choices are aimed at appeasing domestic audiences or collectively punishing a people for the unsuccessful ending of a long and costly war. Either way, they are causing immense suffering to Afghans who have already suffered enough.
Indeed, the list of recent US policy choices that have been objectively harmful to the Afghan people is seemingly endless. After the withdrawal in August, for example, the US failed to swiftly evacuate and resettle thousands of Afghans who had helped its troops and suddenly found themselves at risk of retaliation. Many of these people are still in limbo in third countries, or in hiding in Afghanistan some six months later. After the Taliban takeover of Kabul, Washington also renewed sanctions and froze Afghan funds, leaving the country’s banking system in shambles. All this led to an unprecedented humanitarian crisis, leaving eight out of nine families in Afghanistan in need of food aid. A few months later, President Joe Biden signed an executive order splitting $7bn in frozen Afghan funds held in US banks, allotting half for the benefit of the Afghan people, but keeping the other half available for possible seizure by victims of the September 11 attacks.
And a few weeks ago, the US added one more inexplicably vengeful policy to this list: it cancelled the Fulbright Foreign Student Program in Afghanistan for the 2022-23 academic year.
This may seem like a minor development in the grand scheme of things. But for dozens of young Afghan scholars, it marked the shattering of all their dreams and hopes for a better future.
Fulbright, America’s flagship educational exchange programme with the stated aim of “building bridges between the US and other countries”, provides Afghan graduate students with the opportunity to obtain a fully-funded masters degree in the US.
On January 28, 140 Afghan semifinalists of the programme – who all passed a rigorous review process based on academic excellence, leadership skills, work experience, command of English, and strength of study/research objectives to reach this level – received an email that perhaps changed their lives forever. It read: “Due to significant barriers impeding our ability to provide a safe exchange experience, the selection process for the Fulbright Foreign Student Program in Afghanistan for the 2022-23 academic year will not move forward.”
Across the country, semifinalists, who had sacrificed so much and worked so hard to be considered for the life-changing opportunity, were left devastated.
“I begged my relatives to pay for my TOEFL test [Test of English as a Foreign Language, passing of which is a prerequisite to admission into the Fulbright Program] and took it when Kandahar was in the middle of intense war,” a semifinalist named Sayed Abdul Rahim Afghan tweeted. The night before the test, I couldn’t sleep because of the sounds of incessant gunfire and explosions. And this is the reply we get after one year.”
The cancellation has “ruined my life”, Noor Mohammad, a semifinalist from rural Paktika, an area that has been devastated by war, drought and poverty for over 40 years in southeastern Afghanistan, told the media. “I had planned my entire career and life around it and sacrificed everything else for it. I am in shock now and do not know what to do.”
Many others revealed how they’d had to borrow money or work as labourers to pay for language courses. They explained how after hours of back-breaking manual labour, they studied for TOEFL at night, in candlelight, with no electricity or internet access. They explained how they now feel hopeless, lost.
I was deeply saddened by these accounts because I know too well how painful such a loss would be.
Some years ago, I too was a high school student in rural Afghanistan who dreamt of securing a Fulbright scholarship and studying in the US. I lived in a village in Nangarhar, where I had no access to electricity, clean drinking water, or even a chair to sit on while I studied. I would wait by a muddy road early every morning for a truck to pass by, so I could jump on the back to go to a language course in Jalalabad. It took years of hard work, many sacrifices, but in the end, I did it: I became a Fulbright scholar.
The programme allowed me to attend Oregon State University (OSU) and live in Corvallis, one of the most beautiful college towns in the US.
Throughout the programme, I had the opportunity to meet and exchange ideas with Americans from all walks of life – academics, professionals, my neighbours. I told them stories of Afghanistan, and they shared their experiences of American life with me.
I had the opportunity to meet Professor Francis Fukuyama, and exchanged emails with Professor Noam Chomsky. I had long, friendly discussions over coffee with a pastor, a priest and a rabbi. I presided over the Muslim Students’ Association (MSA) for over a year at OSU and arranged iftars for Muslims during Ramadan. I attended academic and cultural programmes organised by Indigenous and Black American student clubs.
The Fulbright Program undoubtedly changed the trajectory of my life. It also taught me so much about life, and the importance of people-to-people relationships beyond borders. I had the opportunity to see how Americans in urban centres and rural areas alike go about their lives knowing very little about Afghanistan and Afghans despite the US’s extensive involvement in my country. I saw how common it is for them to assume “all Afghans are terrorists”. But I also saw how open they can be to learn, once they meet an Afghan.
This is why the US State Department’s decision to cancel the Fulbright scholarship programme for Afghan scholars in 2022-23 is devastating and unacceptable.
This decision undoubtedly crushed 140 young Afghan scholars, including 70 resilient girls, who had worked incredibly hard to reach the semi-finals. But the cancellation will not only harm them.
This unfortunate decision will also harm the US and its already much-tainted legacy in my country.
According to the State Department, around 960 Afghans have benefitted from Fulbright scholarships since 2003. That means, since the US invasion of Afghanistan, 960 bright young Afghans had the opportunity to study in the US, learn about American culture, teach Americans about their country, and become “bridges” between the two nations.
After the US’s catastrophic exit from Afghanistan, such cultural, academic and human connections are more important than ever before.
The US now has to decide what legacy it wants to leave behind in Afghanistan after ending its 20-year occupation: A legacy of collective punishment and abandonment, or a legacy of mutual respect and cooperation.
Since last August, the Biden administration’s policy choices consistently signalled a preference for collective punishment. Largely thanks to the US, my country is currently on the brink of famine, its economy is strangled, its central bank reserves are frozen and people do not have access to their savings.
But this does not have to be the US’s legacy in Afghanistan. It is not too late to change course, and do the right thing.
Reviving the Fulbright scholarship programme for Afghans could be a small first step towards correcting the US’s recent missteps in Afghanistan. It would not only show the semi-finalists that their hard work was not for nothing, but also signal to all Afghans that the US is still willing to build bridges between the two countries.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
Mohsin Amin
Fulbright Scholar, Afghan Analyst and Researcher
Why cancellation of Fulbright Program in Afghanistan matters | Opinions | Al Jazeera
Potential efforts to reboot Afghanistan certainly are not coming from the USA.
Aid, scholarships and assistance are a privilege - not a right.
Is ownership of your own Governments funds, too?
Twelve months after the Taliban took power in Afghanistan and promised "amnesty for all", data suggests they are the largest perpetrators of violence against civilians in the country - killing at least 418 people.
Since 15 August 2021 - when the capital Kabul fell - the Armed Conflict Location and Event Project (ACLED) has recorded 961 incidents of violence involving civilians - and over half of them were allegedly carried out by Taliban fighters.
Habib Khan, founder of Afghan Peace Watch that works with ACLED to track political violence, said the figure could be even higher.
Afghanistan: The Taliban had promised 'amnesty for all' - but they are responsible for most violence against civilians | World News | Sky News
The next post may be brought to you by my little bitch Spamdreth
What a silly c u n t you are hoohoo.
We don't have dictators, we have these things known as free and fair elections. Perhaps that's a term with which you are not familiar.
FULL- https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202208/1273069.shtmlNow the US, a superpower in its downfall, can only retain its hegemony by creating confrontations and dragging a large number of countries into the muddy water. The US is no longer able to bring the world peace, stability and development, but only engages in messing around the world. Sun Xihui, an associate research fellow with the National Institute of International Strategy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, believes that provoking major powers like China and Russia is one means through which the US destabilizes the world, and sowing confrontation based on ideology is another.
You know Global Times is just a mouthpiece for the Chinese government, right?
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