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The NewNow is a group of global young leaders, who were brought together by Virgin Unite. Roya Mahboob is a member of The NewNow, alongside a nuclear physicist (Taylor Wilson), a peace activist (Viktor Ochen), a doctor/social entrepreneur (Uzodinma Iweala), an environmental activist (Farwiza Farhan), and a citizen journalist/human rights activist (Abdalaziz Alhamza). Virgin Unite is supporting these leaders in their quest to tackle some of the worlds toughest challenges, by helping to raise their voices and by fostering peer support and collaboration.

Roya Mahboob is an incredible tech entrepreneur from Afghanistan who became a CEO at just 23-years-old, and was named one of TIME Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World when she was 25. She is such an incredible change-maker, and were so fortunate to work alongside her at Virgin Unite - as a leader of The NewNow and by supporting her efforts to create education and entrepreneurial opportunities through the Digital Citizen Fund, The BRITE Initiative and the Afghan Dreamers girls robotics team.

Roya is on a mission to use tech to transform the lives of millions of women and girls in Afghanistan and developing countries around the world, which is no small feat. In light of the Talibans reinstated ban of high school girls receiving an education, and the news that women must now cover their faces in public and should only leave their homes in cases of necessity, with violations leading to the punishment of male relatives Royas work feels more important than ever. I decided to reach out to Roya to learn more about the situation and why it is so crucial to stand with Afghanistan and create education equality more broadly.

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Holly Branson interviews Roya Mahboob

Speaking to Roya made me feel so fortunate to live in a society with equal opportunities. There is a such an enormous cost to denying a girls education, and Roya spoke about a 2018 report from the World Bank which found that barriers and limited educational opportunities for girls cost countries between $15 trillion and $30 trillion in lost lifetime productivity and earnings.

It was also insightful yet concerning to hear about whats happening on the ground in Afghanistan at the moment, and what the Afghan people need the world to know. As Roya said:

They want us to not forget about them, to not abandon them. They want the world to see whats going on in Afghanistan Always remember that Afghan women deserve the same opportunities, and have the same rights, to go to school, have jobs and have access to justice.

Education should not be used as a tool for political gain Its not the 1990s - women and girls in Afghanistan will not give up their rights, and I hope the international communities stands behind them. I couldnt agree more, and its such an important effort that we all must stand behind. As John Kerry, the former US secretary of state, wrote in an opinion piece after he met Roya:

Lasting peace and prosperity in a unified Afghanistan will take root only when women have as loud a voice as men have.

Such true words, and its thanks to people like Roya that these voices will be heard.

Support the Digital Citizen Fund and learn more about The NewNows young rising leaders.

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Creating education equality in Afghanistan with Roya Mahboob and Virgin Unite - Virgin

The chaos that followed the Taliban takeover of Kabul in August last year saw India shutting down its mission and pulling out of Afghanistan. With the countrys economy in a shambles and diplomatic ties suspended India has still not recognised the Taliban regime bilateral trade, which took a hit in the immediate aftermath of the takeover, picked up again. Via Dubai, and its banks.

Afghanistan has been a major destination for Indian sugar, and India one of the biggest importers of Afghan spices and dried fruits, especially apricots and figs. The Taliban takeover took place at a time when Afghanistan was expecting a bumper crop of dried fruits, most of it meant for India.

With the collapse of the economy and no diplomatic relations, there was uncertainty over the fate of this bilateral trade which included other exports from India and was valued at $1.5 bn in 2019-2020.

But 10 months down the road, Indian traders say their Afghan exports and transactions are proceeding smoothly after a short interruption, even though total trade in the 2021-22 fiscal fell by nearly 40 per cent in value over the previous year.

Last fiscal, total trade was Rs 3,719.76 crore, as against Rs 6,106.20 crore recorded in 2020-21, according to trade statistics of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

While Indian traders said they lost a months trade immediately after the Taliban takeover, the Afghan-India air freight corridor, inaugurated in 2017 and which by 2021 connected Kabul, Kandahar and Herat to Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai, has remained suspended since August last year.

But Indian exporters have continued to send goods by sea to Karachi port, and from there by road to Afghanistan. Afghanistans exports have been trickling in through the Chabahar port in Iran, and the Wagah border with Pakistan.

Rahil Sheikh, managing director of MEIR Commodities, a Navi Mumbai-based agricultural commodities wholesale company, said trade resumed within a month of the Taliban takeover and is now back to the previous export levels of 60,000 tonnes of sugar from India every month.

Sugar is sent in large containers from Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust in Mumbai or the Mundra port in Gujarat to Karachi. From there, trucks transport the load via the land route into Afghanistan, he said.

Sheikh and other traders used to route payments through Afghan banks but now all transactions are routed via Dubai. Claiming traders are not facing payment troubles, he said the Taliban regime too is keen to maintain normal supply of essential commodities. Almost 90 per cent of sugar which makes its way into Afghanistan has its origins in the mills of Maharashtra.

For India, Afghanistan was the largest and the nearest source for import of apricots, dried figs, asafoetida (hing) and small pistachio nuts. Vijay Bhuta, director of Mumbai Spice Market and president of Dry Fruit Traders Association, confirmed that imports resumed within a fortnight of the Taliban takeover. Earlier, we were dealing with the bank in Afghanistan, but then most trade shifted to banks in Dubai, he said.

The Taliban regime and the Indian government are aware that trade has picked up, and that Dubai has emerged as a payment hub. According to data available on the Indian embassy online site, bilateral trade between India and Afghanistan crossed the US $1.5 billion mark in 2019-2020. Of this, Indias exports to Afghanistan were nearly US $1 billion (US $997.58 million) and Indias imports from Afghanistan around US $530 million.

Afghan exports have duty free access to Indian markets under concessions granted by India to Least Developed Countries in SAARC. The major exports from India to Afghanistan have been man-made filaments, articles of apparels and clothing accessories, pharmaceutical products, cereals, man-made staple fibres, tobacco products, dairy and poultry products, coffee/tea/meat and spices. Major imports from Afghanistan to India have been fresh fruits, dried fruits/ nuts, raisins, vegetables, oil seeds, precious/ semi-precious stones.

The rest is here:
Afghan economy in tatters, relations on hold, Delhi and Kabul trade via Dubai - The Indian Express

A Pakistani paramilitary soldier, right, and a Taliban fighter stand guard on their respective sides at a border crossing point between Pakistan and Afghanistan, on Aug. 21, 2021.Muhammad Sajjad/The Associated Press

Faced with rising violence, Pakistan is taking a tougher line to pressure Afghanistans Taliban rulers to crack down on militants hiding on their soil, but so far the Taliban remain reluctant to take action trying instead to broker a peace.

Last month came a sharp deterioration in relations between the two neighbours when Pakistan carried out air strikes in eastern Afghanistan. Witnesses said the strikes hit a refugee camp and another location, killing at least 40 civilians. UNICEF said 20 children were believed to be among the dead.

Pakistan never confirmed the April 15 strikes, but two days later its Foreign Ministry issued a sharp warning to the Taliban not to shelter militants.

The pressure has put the Taliban in a tight corner. The Taliban have long been close to several militant groups carrying out attacks in Pakistan, particularly the Pakistani Taliban, a separate organization known by the acronym TTP. The TTP and other groups have only got more active on Afghan soil since the Taliban takeover in August.

But the Taliban are wary of cracking down on them, fearful of creating more enemies at a time when they already face an increasingly violent campaign by Afghanistans Islamic State group affiliate, analysts say.

A series of bombings across Afghanistan in recent weeks, mostly targeting minority Hazaras, has killed dozens. Most are blamed on the Islamic State affiliate, known by the acronym IS-K. The bloodshed has undermined the Talibans claims to be able to provide the security expected of a governing force.

This week, the Taliban hosted talks between the TTP and a Pakistani government delegation as well as a group of Pakistani tribal leaders, apparently hoping for a compromise that can ease the pressure. On Wednesday, the TTP announced it was extending to May 30 an earlier ceasefire it had called.

The Taliban governments deputy spokesman Bilal Karimi said it is trying its best for the continuation and success of the negotiations and meanwhile asks both sides to have flexibility.

But past ceasefires with the TTP have failed, and already the current one was shaken by violence last weekend.

Pakistans frustration appears to be growing as violence on its soil has increased.

The secessionist Baluchistan Liberation Army killed three Chinese nationals in late April. The TTP and the Afghan-based IS have targeted Pakistans military with increasing regularity.

Militant attacks in Pakistan are up nearly 50 per cent since the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, according to the Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies, an independent think tank based in Islamabad that tracks militant activities. The group documented 170 attacks between September and mid-May that killed 170 police, military and paramilitary personnel and more than 110 civilians.

The United Nations estimates that as many as 10,000 TTP militants are hiding in Afghanistan. So far, Afghanistans rulers have done little to dismantle militant redoubts on their territory.

Prominent Afghans from southern Afghanistan, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said the Pakistani Taliban and Pakistani Baluch secessionists had established several safe houses in the area during the previous U.S.-backed governments rule and they have remained since the Taliban takeover.

The Pakistani air strikes in April marked a dramatically tougher stance. They came after a militant ambush killed seven soldiers near the border with Afghanistan. Pakistani and Afghani border forces often exchange rocket fire amid disputes over the frontier but it is rare for Pakistan to use warplanes on targets inside its neighbour.

The change came after weeks of political turmoil in Pakistan that unseated Imran Khan as prime minister. Khan had been an advocate of negotiations with militants and had campaigned for the world to engage with the Taliban after their takeover in Afghanistan.

Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program at the U.S.-based Wilson Center said Khan had a soft spot for the Taliban as well as a principled opposition to the use of force in Afghanistan.

With Khan now out of the picture and TTP attacks continuing, we can expect a stronger Pakistani readiness to use military operations, he said.

The Afghan Taliban are warning Pakistan against further military action, threatening retaliation.

The air strikes are not acceptable, Taliban-appointed Defense Minister Mohammad Yaqoob warned Pakistan in late April. The only reason we have tolerated this attack is because of our national interest, but it is possible we will not be so tolerant in the future.

The son of the Taliban founder, Mullah Mohammad Omar, Yaqoob is a powerful figure in the Taliban leadership, which is struggling to stay united amid disagreements about how to govern their war-ravaged nation.

The leadership council seems firmly split between two camps: the pragmatists and hard-liners. Pragmatists have pushed for global engagement and opening of schools to girls of all ages. The hard-liners want to return Afghanistan to the late 1990s Taliban rule when women and girls were denied access to most public spaces and a rigid and unforgiving version of Islam and tribal rule was imposed.

A flurry of repressive edicts of late suggest the hard-liners have the upper hand, including an order that women wear all-encompassing veils that leave only the eyes visible and a decision not to allow girls to attend school past the sixth grade.

Yaqoob falls among the pragmatists, according to several prominent Afghans familiar with the Taliban leadership. Still, there seems no decision among the leaders on either side of the divide to oust militants on their territory.

I do not see any quick fix to the Pakistan-Afghan situation. The Taliban will continue to provide sanctuary to the TTP and hope they can extend their own influence into Pakistan over time, said Shuja Nawaz, an expert and fellow at the South Asia Center of the U.S-based Atlantic Council.

So, expect the situation to deteriorate, especially with the (Pakistan) military calling the shots on Afghan policy, Nawaz said.

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Rising militant violence hurting Pakistan's relations with Afghanistan's Taliban rulers - The Globe and Mail

(excerpts)

Afghanistan - COVID-19

Quick update on COVID-19 on what our team in Afghanistan is doing, led by the Resident Coordinator, Ramiz Alakbarov. The UN team has been helping the health sector in Afghanistan, vaccinating people and providing socio-economic support. Our UNICEF [United Nations Childrens Fund] and World Health Organization (WHO) colleagues are working to fully vaccinate 20 million adults.

UNICEF is procuring and distributing vaccines and cold chain equipment and is working with communities and the media to boost vaccine uptake. Of the 14.3 million doses of vaccines supplied to the country from multiple sources, UNICEF has delivered 11.6 million doses thats more than 80 per cent of all vaccines that have landed in Afghanistan. As of the middle of this month, nearly 5 million people had been fully vaccinated which is around 25 per cent of target population. The UN in Afghanistan will help kick off a nationwide COVID-19 vaccination campaign towards the end of this month, aiming to reach around 5 million people.

Tajikistan

I was asked outside the briefing about the latest violence weve seen in Tajikistan. The Secretary-General is concerned at the reports of increased tension and violence in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast of Tajikistan, including the reported loss of life. He calls for restraint and for all efforts to be made to resolve the current situation by peaceful means. The UN will continue to monitor the situation closely.

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Daily Press Briefing by the Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General, 19 May 2022 - Afghanistan, Tajikistan - Afghanistan - ReliefWeb

It was presumed that after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, such militant attacks will be stopped. However, it did not happen

Representative Image: ANI

North Waziristan: Terrorist activities are on the surge in Pakistan border areas, especially in the North Waziristan district, according to the country's vernacular media.

The rise in the number of terrorist attacks has been costing the lives of several Pakistani soldiers. Reportedly, these militants have their bases in Afghanistan. They enter Pakistan from Afghanistan and after launching attacks on the former, retreat to their bases in Afghanistan.

Further, terrorist organizations like the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) have also been working from the Afghan bases, planning attacks against Pakistan. Notably, the Bloch National Army, another terrorist organization in Afghanistan has also been working with the TTP and ISIS, says Pakistan vernacular media.

The Baloch Army was also responsible for the suicide bomb attack on the Karachi University, killing three Chinese nationals. Although some of the insurgents get killed in the attacks, their terrorist activities refuse to stop.

It was presumed that after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, such militant attacks will be stopped. However, it did not happen. In such a case, the Taliban must take strict action against these terrorists, says Pakistan vernacular media.

Earlier, a total of 105 army personnel lost lives in such terrorist attacks within the first three months of this year, recording 97 soldiers and army officers.

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Excerpt from:
Pakistan: Surge in terrorist attacks in North Waziristan, other border areas - Firstpost