UN says improving global literacy rates needs 'drastic measures'

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Video Report - #UKAmbassador #KimDarroch UK ambassador to US resigns as diplomatic crisis deepens

‘It Could Have Been Any of Us’: Disdain for Trump Runs Among Ambassadors

By David E. Sanger

Ask members of the Washington diplomatic corps about the cables that Sir Kim Darroch, the British ambassador who resigned Wednesday, wrote to London describing the dysfunction and chaos of the Trump administration, and their response is uniform: We wrote the same stuff.

“Yes, yes, everyone does,” Gérard Araud, who retired this spring as the French ambassador, said on Wednesday morning of his own missives from Washington. “But fortunately I knew that nothing would remain secret, so I sent them in a most confidential manner.” So did Mr. Darroch, who, alone and with Mr. Araud, tried to navigate the minefield of serving as the chief representative of longtime American allies to a president who does not think much of the value of alliances.

Mr. Darroch submitted his resignation the morning after Boris Johnson, who is likely to be Britain’s next prime minister, notably declined during a televised debate to defend the diplomat and also refused to criticize President Trump.

In his resignation letter, Mr. Darroch said the furor over his characterization of the Trump administration made it impossible for him to carry out his role.“Although my posting is not due to end until the end of this year, I believe in the current circumstances the responsible course is to allow the appointment of a new ambassador,” he wrote.

He came to that conclusion after he found himself in the vortex of what for years has been the definition of a classic Washington gaffe: He was caught in public saying something that is widely believed. It would have been stranger, his diplomatic colleagues said, if Mr. Darroch had been writing cables describing the Trump White House as a smooth-running machine.

“It could have been any of us,” one ambassador, who is still serving and therefore spoke on the condition of anonymity, said on Wednesday.

Until Mr. Darroch’s confidential cables appeared in the Daily Mail last weekend, none of the major ambassadors in Washington had been denounced by Mr. Trump as “wacky” and a “very stupid guy” — a description that the envoy’s friends are quick to say hardly applies to one of Britain’s most sophisticated diplomats and a former national security adviser.

Mr. Johnson’s failure to back the ambassador was met with withering criticism from opponents, including his rival in the leadership race, Jeremy Hunt, the current foreign secretary. Mr. Hunt called Mr. Trump’s comments “unacceptable” and said that he would keep Mr. Darroch in his job.“The fact that Sir Kim has been bullied out of his job, because of Donald Trump’s tantrums and Boris Johnson’s pathetic lickspittle response, is something that shames our country,” said Emily Thornberry, the British opposition Labour Party’s shadow foreign secretary. “It makes a laughingstock out of our government.”She added: “Just imagine Churchill allowing this humiliating, servile, sycophantic indulgence of the American president’s ego to go unchallenged.”

With a few exceptions — including the ambassadors from Israel and the United Arab Emirates, who have supported Mr. Trump’s every move — foreign diplomats in Washington these days describe living in something of a black hole.

Decisions that directly affect their nations’ trade relationships or troops are delivered with no notice. Their contacts inside the State Department, the Treasury and Congress freely tell them they have little idea what decisions Mr. Trump may make, or what he may reverse.

And the Trump administration has almost reveled in keeping foreign diplomats in the dark. While Mr. Darroch, following in the tradition of his predecessors, hosted receptions in the British Embassy’s grand ballroom and weekend cocktail parties under tents on the lawn overlooking Embassy Row, few administration officials have attended.

There were occasional appearances by Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, the president’s elder daughter and son-in-law, who also serve as the president’s senior advisers and live just a few blocks from the embassy with their children. A few other officials, like Kellyanne Conway, the counselor to the president, showed up at Mr. Darroch’s famous New Year’s parties, held amid the embassy’s stunning art collection.But those were rare occasions. Mr. Trump’s secretaries of state, Rex Tillerson and Mike Pompeo, did not appear to nurture the “special relationship.” Nor did Vice President Mike Pence, who lives next door to the British Embassy.While Mr. Darroch often tried to reach out to the White House and the National Security Council, like most of the ambassadors from NATO nations, he never quite felt that he broke into the inner circle.

In December, when Mr. Trump announced via Twitter that the United States was withdrawing forces from Syria — where both the British and the French have deployed troops, some of them dependent on the American forces for transportation and intelligence — Mr. Darroch was given no notice.

He called around the capital, reaching out to key members of Congress and national security reporters to glean information. To be fair, Mr. Trump’s own national security team was also taken aback, and the defense secretary, Jim Mattis resigned in protest. (Mr. Trump later insisted Mr. Mattis was fired.) Similarly, the White House barely gave allies notice of Mr. Trump’s decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear agreement last year, even though Britain, France and Germany had helped negotiate it. As one NATO ambassador noted, it took weeks for the administration to gather them and describe its new Iran strategy, which was composed largely of a series of 12 demands that Mr. Pompeo also announced in a speech. “For me, as a foreigner, it was fascinating,’’ said Mr. Araud, who now looks back at his tenure as French ambassador as a grand political science experiment. “It’s what happens when a populist leader takes command in a liberal democracy. These people don’t recognize or accept the idea that an ambassador or a bureaucrat could be of any use. They only want to deal with other leaders.” Mr. Araud recalled a moment in 2017 when France’s foreign minister was planning a trip to Washington. The ambassador gave the State Department two months’ notice to try to get on Mr. Tillerson’s schedule. They never heard back until a day before the event, Mr. Araud recalled, only to be told the meeting would last only 20 minutes.

“So the minister didn’t come,’’ he said.

Mr. Darroch was somewhat more successful. From his time as national security adviser, he had deep contacts in the intelligence agencies in the United States, and among the permanent class of national security specialists. But even in those conversations, officials often expressed mystification about how decisions in the Trump administration were made and policy generated.

Traditionally, the British ambassador would be brought in for consultations with senior American officials about major decisions under consideration in the Middle East, or in dealing with Russia, where Britain’s G.C.H.Q. — the Government Communications Headquarters, the British equivalent to the National Security Agency — often takes the lead in gathering intelligence.

But not in the Trump era.

All are examples of the chaos that Mr. Darroch had described to his successor as national security adviser, Mark Sedwill, in a 2017 memorandum that leaked on Saturday, leading to Mr. Trump’s declaration that the ambassador to America’s oldest ally was, in effect, persona non grata.Mr. Johnson, the front-runner in the prime minister’s race, said on Wednesday that he regretted Mr. Darroch’s departure, and that whoever leaked the ambassador’s messages should be “run down, caught and eviscerated.”There will be a new British ambassador, presumably appointed after Parliament selects a new prime minister to replace the departing Theresa May, and seats a new government. But under current conditions it is unclear whether that diplomat’s access will be much better.A comment from the State Department about Mr. Darroch’s departure on Wednesday blandly repeated its commitment to the “special relationship” between the United States and Britain.

The two nations “share a bond that is bigger than any individual,” the statement said, “and we look forward to continuing that partnership.” Stephen Castle contributed reporting from London.

Majorities of U.S. veterans, public say the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were not worth fighting

BY RUTH IGIELNIK AND KIM PARKER

Nearly 18 years since the start of the war in Afghanistan and 16 years since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, majorities of U.S. military veterans say those wars were not worth fighting, according to a new Pew Research Center survey of veterans. A parallel survey of American adults finds that the public shares those sentiments.

Among veterans, 64% say the war in Iraq was not worth fighting considering the costs versus the benefits to the United States, while 33% say it was. The general public’s views are nearly identical: 62% of Americans overall say the Iraq War wasn’t worth it and 32% say it was. Similarly, majorities of both veterans (58%) and the public (59%) say the war in Afghanistan was not worth fighting. About four-in-ten or fewer say it was worth fighting.

Veterans who served in either Iraq or Afghanistan are no more supportive of those engagements than those who did not serve in these wars. And views do not differ based on rank or combat experience.

Views do differ significantly by party, however. Republican and Republican-leaning veterans are much more likely than veterans who identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party to say the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were worth fighting: 45% of Republican veterans vs. 15% of Democratic veterans say the war in Iraq was worth fighting, while 46% of Republican veterans and 26% of Democratic veterans say the same about Afghanistan. The party gaps are nearly identical among the public.

Views on U.S. military engagement in Syria are also more negative than positive. Among veterans, 42% say the campaign in Syria has been worth it, while 55% say it has not. The public has very similar views: 36% say U.S. efforts in Syria have been worthwhile, while 58% say they have not.

Among veterans, these views are consistent across era of service, rank and combat experience. Republican veterans are significantly more likely than Democrats to say the Syrian campaign has been worth it (54% vs. 25%).

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/10/majorities-of-u-s-veterans-public-say-the-wars-in-iraq-and-afghanistan-were-not-worth-fighting/

One in four Pakistani children won’t complete primary education by 2030: Unesco

Amin Ahmed


New projections of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organ­isation (Unesco) show that one in four Pakistani children will not be completing primary school by the deadline of 2030.

The country will only be half-way to the target of 12 years of education for all, with 50 per cent of youths still not completing upper secondary education at the current rates, Unesco says.

Almost a third of the way to the 2030 deadline for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the new Unesco projections prepared for the UN High-level Political Forum opening in New York on Tuesday show that the world will fail its education commitments without a rapid acceleration of progress.In 2030, when all children should be in school, one in six aged 6-17 will still be excluded. Many children are still dropping out: by 2030, 40pc will still not be completing secondary education at current rates.

The new global education goal, SDG-4, calls on countries to ensure that children are not only going to school but also learning, yet the proportion of trained teachers in sub-Saharan Africa has been falling since 2000.

At the current trends, learning rates are expected to stagnate in middle-income countries and Latin America, and drop by almost a third in Francophone African countries by 2030. Without rapid acceleration, globally, 20pc of young people and 30pc of adults will still be unable to read by the deadline.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development emphasises leaving no-one behind yet only 4pc of the poorest 20pc complete upper secondary school in the poorest countries, compared to 36pc of the richest. The gap is even wider in lower-middle-income countries.Finance is also insufficient for accelerating progress: the Global Education Monitoring Report calculated in 2015 that there was a $39 billion annual finance gap to reach the goal and yet aid to education has stagnated since 2010.In addition, currently less than half of countries are providing the data needed to monitor progress towards the goal. “Countries need to face up to their commitments,” said the Director of the Unesco Institute for Statistics, Silvia Montoya. “What’s the point in setting targets if we can’t track them? Better finance and coordination are needed to fix this data gap before we get any closer to the deadline.”

Manos Antoninis, Director of the Global Education Monitoring Report, stated that “Countries have interpreted the meaning of the targets in the global education goal very differently. This seems correct given that countries set off from such different starting points. But they must not deviate too much from the promises they made back in 2015. If countries match their plans with their commitments now, they can get back on track by 2030”.

The report shows that many countries have prioritised equity and inclusion since 2015 to meet the goal, with school vouchers issued to indigenous students, tuition fees abolished for the poorest and conditional cash transfers given to refugee children.

Learning has been prioritised too, with a third of countries introducing learning assessments to look at trends over time, and one in four countries using learning results to reform their curricula.

The weakest synergies between countries’ plans and their education commitments are seen in the lack of cross-sectoral collaboration found only in links between education and the labour market.

#PPP ready for more sacrifices for democracy, says Bilawal

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Wednesday said that by going to jail his father Asif Ali Zardari and his aunt Faryal Talpur have rendered another sacrifice for the people.

Addressing a workers convention in Sukkur on Wednesday, he said that former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto sacrificed his life for the constitution while his mother and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto sacrificed her life for the sake of democracy. “But, the constitution and democracy are being attacked from everywhere,” he said, and added that PPP will have to again struggle for the protection of their rights. “We will not back away from the protection of constitution no matter our entire family and party is sent to jail,” he resolved. Bilawal said people’s constitutional, economic and democratic rights are being usurped. He said the PPP leadership is fully ready to give every sacrifice for the sake of the country and its people. he said a joint struggle will have to be launched to protect constitutional and human rights of the people of the country.

“They think they can intimidate us by sending us behind the bars. We are fully ready. Jail the entire family but we won’t backtrack on our resolve to protect the constitution,” he said, without naming anyone.

https://dailytimes.com.pk/427905/ppp-ready-for-more-sacrifices-for-democracy-says-bilawal/

Reporters Without Borders slams #Pakistan curbs on TV broadcasters

A global media watchdog has slammed the local authorities over the removal of three television channels from the country’s airwaves, saying the move was “indicative of disturbing dictatorial tendencies” as pressure mounts on journalists in Pakistan.

The statement from Reporters Without Borders (RSF) comes days after AbbTakk TV, 24 News, and Capital TV all had their broadcasts cut, after screening a press conference with opposition leader Maryam Nawaz.

Authorities say the channels were unavailable due to “technical issues”, but RSF described the outage as an act of “brazen censorship”.

“The RSF is appalled to learn that three Pakistani TV news channels have been suspended from cable networks at the behest of the authorities in reprisal for broadcasting an opposition leader’s news conference,” the watchdog said late on Tuesday.

It went on to pin the removal of the channels on the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA).

A senior official with knowledge of the case confirmed the move against the channels, saying the broadcasters had violated the country’s “code of conduct” and been warned against airing the press conference with Maryam Nawaz.Maryam is the daughter of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif — who is currently behind bars for corruption — and her press conference featured a judge reportedly claiming he had been blackmailed into convicting the former premier.The move came as Prime Minister Imran Khan’s administration vowed to block any media coverage and interviews of politicians “who are convicts and under trial”, according to leading English-language daily Dawn.

Last week, Geo News TV abruptly took an interview with former president Asif Ali Zardari off air shortly after it began. https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2019/07/11/reporters-without-borders-slams-pakistan-curbs-on-tv-broadcasters/

Channels blocked, ads slashed: The many ways Imran Khan’s Pakistan is hounding media

LAURA OPRESCU 

The media in Pakistan has for years worked under the shadow of scare tactics, but the situation seems to have worsened under the current government.

Three Pakistani news channels — AbbTakk, 24News and CapitalTV — were reportedly taken off air this month by the country’s electronic media watchdog which the country’s broadcasters said did not assign a reason or give them a hearing.

The watchdog, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA), also issued notice to 21 TV broadcasters Sunday for airing Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) vice-president Maryam Nawaz’s press conference over the weekend.

At the press meet, Maryam said the judge who sentenced her father, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, to seven years in prison on corruption charges last December was blackmailed into giving the verdict, a claim the judge has denied.

In its notice, PEMRA said the press meet contained allegations against the judiciary and state institutions, and the broadcast thus violated its regulations. It is reportedly for the same reason that the three channels were taken off air.

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Earlier this month, the telecast of an interview of opposition leader and former President Asif Ali Zardari, husband of former prime minister the late Benazir Bhutto, was reportedly cut offmidway by Geo News. Journalist Hamid Mir, the host, subsequently wrote on Twitter that “we don’t live in a free country”.

Mir, a critic of the Pakistan military and its notorious intelligence wing ISI, survived an assassination attempt in 2014 when six bullets had been pumped into his body. He had blamed the assassination attempt on the then ISI chief.

The media in Pakistan has for years worked under the shadow of scare tactics such as harassment and abduction, reportedly expected to toe an undefined red line that precludes criticism of the country’s powerful military.

But the control seems to have deepened under the Imran Khan government, which came to office last year, allegedly with the support of the military. ThePrint takes a look at recent steps that appear to have curbed press freedom in Pakistan.

Slashed funding

The government is the country’s largest media advertiser and its advertisements are the main source of revenue for news outlets in Pakistan.

In September 2018, PM Imran Khan created a ‘content committee’ that is mandated with approving all government advertisements before they are issued to print and electronic media.

Three months later, it was reported that Pakistan’s information ministry had heavily slashed ad prices for private news channels.

The 2018 State of Pakistani Media report by the Pakistan Press Foundation cited the same as one of the threats to local media.

This January, the federal cabinet approved the merger of PEMRA with the Press Council of Pakistan, a quasi-self-regulatory mechanism for print and digital media, to form a Pakistan Media Regulatory Authority (PMRA).

Several media bodies, including the PCP, have opposed the plan because of fears that it is another bid to throttle media freedom.

Fear, hatred, intimidation

In addition to regulatory oversight and reduced funding, journalists in Pakistan allegedly face harassment on social media, besides that inflicted in the realm beyond.

According to Facebook data, Pakistan had the second highest number of content restrictions based on local laws for the July-December 2018, 4,165 (India was first with over 17,000).

Facebook’s Transparency Report for this period states that the social media giant removed items reported by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority for allegedly violating laws prohibiting “blasphemy, anti-judiciary content, defamation, and condemnation of the country’s independence”.

Pakistani journalist Taha Siddiqui, the founder of safenewsrooms.org, a digital media platform that documents press censorship in the media and press in South Asia, has been openly critical of the government and the army. He survived an alleged abduction attempt last year and has been living in exile in Paris since February 2018, where he now teaches journalism at SciencesPo.

Facebook “extensively collaborates with the Pakistani government in taking down pages which are progressive, independent, or run by ethnic, religious, or sexual minorities”, Siddiqui told ThePrint.

According to Siddiqui, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) social media cells that target journalists predate the 2018 election. He said the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media wing of Pakistan’s military, trains university students in social media campaigning to label people with “progressive thoughts or independent ideas” as traitors or anti-Pakistan.

‘Whims of the ISI’

Officially, there are few limits on freedom of speech in Pakistan and many journalists get away with harsh criticism of the government, Lahore-based academic Dr Ammar Ali Jan wrote for Al Jazeera in 2018.

Jan said attacks on critical journalists appear to be determined by the whims of the ISI. Crossing this undefined red line has led to arbitrary arrests, abductions, murder and choked circulation or broadcasts.

In the lead-up to the 2018 election, Dawn‘s print circulation was restricted, while Geo TV was reportedly blacked out in cantonments and parts of Balochistan.

According to the State of Pakistani Media report 2018, vendors trying to sell copies of Dawnwere harassed by members of the army. Both news outlets were accused by the army of sympathising with the PML-N, which was then in chaos following corruption allegations against Sharif.

Dawn columnist Cyril Almeida was summoned to a high court on treason charges for an interview where Sharif appeared to reinforce India’s assertion that Pakistan-based terrorists orchestrated 26/11.

Jan was arrested in February for leading a protest against the death of Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) leader Arman Loni, who reportedly passed away in “controversial circumstances”. The PTM is a Pashtun vehicle for justice against alleged disappearances and extrajudicial killings of community members by the military. Reportage on PTM activities has seen websites being blocked and FIRs against journalists, the State of Pakistani Media report stated.

“There is no one standing up for journalists, and in that kind of an environment, self-censorship becomes a natural reaction to survive,” Siddiqui said.

He does not see Pakistan’s media climate improving in the near future.

“We’re basically moving towards the China model, where there cannot be independent voice or thought or opinion,” Siddiqui said. “Journalists are going to become stenographers, repeating what they government tells them… If democracies want to improve and correct themselves and become better, they need an independent and free media.”

PPPP issues rejoinder to the Election Commission of Pakistan

Secretary General PPPP Senator Farhatullah Babar has issued the following rejoinder to the statement of Election Commission of Pakistan today.
“The Pakistan People Party Parliamentarians is surprised and dismayed over the insistence of the Election Commission of Pakistan that all data pertaining to Form-45 containing the results of vote count of the 2018 polls was uploaded on its website and described it as twisting facts unbecoming of a constitutional body like the ECP.
“Form-45 containing vote count results was a basic document of vote count. It is mandatory that it is also signed by the polling agents of candidates contesting elections. An unsigned Form-45 has no legal value. This is what the Chairman PPP Mr Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has been saying all along.
“PPPP’s election Cell headed by Senator Taj Haider has complete data of Form 45 and other election related forms painstakingly prepared byFAFEN (Free and Fair Elections Network) pertaining to all the 78,467 polling stations for National Assembly in the country.
“95% Form-45 (numbering 74,302) do not bear signatures of polling agents. Only sixty five Forms 45 bear the signatures of polling agents of Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians.
“The ECP sometime back responding to it had asserted that polling agents of losing candidates left the polling stations on their own and that is why the forms bore no signatures.
“Polling agents of most candidates were driven out of the polling station no doubt as the ECP was helpless. Even if the presiding officers were unable to record that polling agents had been driven out they should have at least recorded, as required by law, that polling agents had left on their own. Moreover the ECP should at least have been able to produce Form-45 duly signed by the polling agents of winning candidates who should have been eager to sign their victory certificates. None of it was done for reasons not known.
“Some figures will help illustrate it further. In Baluchistan not one out of 2,427 Form-45 were found signed by a polling agents, in Sindh only 74 out of 17, 493 and in Punjab only 27 out of 43,971 Form-45 have been found signed by PML (N) polling agents and 39 by the polling agents of PTI candidates.
“In Khyber Pakhtun Khawa only 24 Forms 45 out of a total of 13,790 were found signed by polling agents of PTI, 13 of PML (N) and 18 by the polling agents of PPP.
“In the two constituencies NA 246 and NA 200 where Mr. Bilawal Bhutto Zardari was a candidate none of Form-45 is signed by the polling agent.
“No unsigned form-45 can be regarded as document authenticating election results. ECP insistence on flaunting unsigned Form-45 as proof of authenticity of vote count passes comprehension and only raises further questions”.
https://mediacellppp.wordpress.com/

Pashto Music - Sardar Ali Takkar - Umar Me Bass Dagha Wa ( Khkuley Kalaam)

Pashto Music - Kala Na Kala Saath Dha Jaam Kawa

Video Report - #NAB Launches New Case Against Maryam Nawaz

Video Report - #Pakistan - Why did #PEMRA pull the plug on three TV channels?

Video Report - پاکستان میں میڈیا پر دباؤ؟

Afghanistan’s Bloody Peace Process

By Ezzatullah Mehrdad

Even as officials continue to talk peace, violence has surged in Afghanistan.

Rohullah Nabizada, a 30-year old police officer and father of two, had returned to his duty in the provincial capital of Ghazni with the hope that peace talks between the United States and the Taliban would lead to the reduction of violence.

His hope was dashed by an explosive-laden Humvee military vehicle on May 22 this year. Nabizada became the first member of his family to lose his life to the ruthless war, already into its 18th year. Like thousands of others, Nabizada was sent back home to his mother in a wooden box.

Each morning, when the sunlight first hits remote Suka village in the Malistan district of Ghazni province, Khadija, Nabizada’s mother, cannot wash her face without crying. Her son is buried right in front of their house, on the top of a hill dedicated to fallen soldiers. The sorrow goes deep and she falls apart regularly.“They [the Taliban] are not forgivable,” said Basir Nabizada, father of Rohullah. “We do not forgive them and his mother does not forgive them.”

In July 2018, the United States opened direct talks with the Taliban with the goal of ending the war. But on the ground, the war continues, claiming the lives of members of government security forces and Taliban insurgents alike and deepening the country’s wounds. In late June and early July, violence surged across the country even as Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. special envoy on Afghan reconciliation, sat to talk with the Taliban delegation led by deputy chief Mullah Baradar in Doha, Qatar.

Dr. Orzala Ashraf Nemat, who directs Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unite, said that both the United States and the Taliban want to negotiate from a position of leverage. Thus, as Washington and the Taliban intensified their talks, they also intensified the ruthless combat across the country, Nemat explained.

Smoke rises from the car bomb detonated in Kabul on July 1, 2019. Photo by Ezzatullah Mehrdad.

On July 1, the third day of the seventh round of peace talks between U.S. diplomats and Taliban negotiators, Taliban fighters drove a car packed with explosive devices into a military installation in the capital, Kabul. The attack sent a tower of smoke into the Kabul sky and rocked the entire city.

Following the car bomb, five Taliban fighters exchanged bullets with security forces. The attack saw students of a nearby private school caught in the crossfire, with 52 of them wounded.

Conflicting reports suggested various causality tolls. The government confirmed 16 dead and 105 wounded, including media staff members of local TV channel Shamshahd, a leader in Pashto-language broadcasting. Unverifiable reports suggest the death toll reached as high as 40 people, including security forces and civilians.

On the same day as the Kabul bombing, U.S. senior diplomat Khalilzad announced an intra-Afghan dialogue scheduled for July 7-8.

After talks with the Taliban ended in Doha on July 6, Khalilzad paused negotiations so the intra-Afghan talks could take place. “The last 6 days of talks have been the most productive session to date,” said Khalilzad in a Twitter post.

But on the ground, the six days of talks coincided with bloodshed. Numerous attacks claimed the lives of scores of fighters from both sides. At least 264 pro-government forces and 58 civilians were killed in the country, the highest death toll of 2019, according to the New York Times.    

On July 7, even as a select group of Afghan activists, civil society members, and Afghan politicians sat face-to-face with Taliban officials, Taliban fighters loaded a truck with explosives and drove to hit an office of Afghanistan’s intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), in Ghazni city, the provincial capital of eastern Ghazni province.

The Taliban-claimed car bomb killed at least 14 people, including eight members of the security forces and six civilians. The attack wounded as many as 179 people, including civilians and schoolchildren attending a nearby school.

“They [U.S. officials] jump to peace,” said Daoud Naji, an independent political activist, who believes that previous peace talks failed because of the lack of a a ceasefire. “There is a fire that burns people. Are you ready to stop firing bullets for two years before any peace agreement?”

Naji called on the Taliban to come to Kabul and open an office to pursue their political interests: “Who knows, I may make a Talib [Taliban fighter] friend and they might see we are also Muslims in Kabul.”

But the Taliban group demands the full withdrawal of foreign troops before any agreeing to hold peace talks with the Afghan government or declare a ceasefire.

Still, many hoped that current peace talks would result in some kind of agreement between the United States and the Taliban. Without reaching any deal over a ceasefire, the Taliban could broker a deal with the United States based on U.S. troop withdrawal and Taliban assurances that Afghanistan’s soil will not be used by terrorist groups to attack the U.S. and its allies.

“It is easy to deal with the U.S.,” said Nazar Mohammad Mutmeen, a political analyst in Kabul. “But making peace with each other in the country is much more complicated.”

The continuation of the simultaneous fight-and-talk policy between the Afghan government and the Taliban could lead to a further surge of violence across the country.

“There is a difference between the political peace process and the social peace process,” said Rahim Hamidi, a peace activist. “The more violence [there is], the less nonviolence works.”

The political peace process has limited the sphere for the social peace process to allow Afghans to come together to make peace with each other, as the intensifying war has only widened the gap between the Afghan government and the Taliban.

During the last two decades of insurgency, around 100,000 people were killed and tens of thousands were wounded. The scars of the war have reached almost every family in the country, making it harder to reconcile those who were fighting for the government and for the Taliban.

Mr. Mutmeen, who was a Taliban official during the group’s rule, said that the victims of the war from both sides want peace more than anybody. “The five members of the Taliban negotiation [team] were imprisoned by the U.S.,” Mutmeen emphasized. “Mullah Baradar [the political deputy chief of the Taliban] is a victim of the war — he was twice wounded in U.S. airstrikes, lost family members, and he was imprisoned for ten years in Pakistan.”

The victims of the war may want the end of the war, but the real reconciliation has remained far distant. Thousands have been killed by suicide bombings, airstrikes, and bullets. Wives lost husbands. Children were orphaned; parents lost their sons and daughters to the war. Sisters lost brothers and brothers lost sisters.

“The gap and wounds have widened too much,” said peace activist Hamidi, who directs a project called Mothers of Peace. “An ice mountain is between the groups involved in the war and it is going to take a great deal of work to bring people together.”

“The Afghan war has also rooted in the social structure of the country,” Hamidi continued. “The culture of revenge has driven this war so long. If you lose a family member to the violence, you seek revenge.”

For now, there is no mechanism to collect the demands of the victims and incorporate them into the peace talks, Hamidi added.

The war has dragged on for so long and caused so much pain that resolving the conflict is now far more complicated than a U.S. troop withdrawal or even an agreement between the Afghan government and the Taliban. The scars of the war remain on the hearts of thousands of countrymen.

In the case of the fallen Rohullah Nabizada, the entire family shows an intense hatred toward the Taliban insurgents. Not only his parents, brothers, and sisters but even his cousins and aunts cannot tolerate seeing the Taliban return to power.

Mohammad Zia Mohseni, a high-school student and cousin of Nabizada, woke up in the early morning to learn that Nabizada had been killed in a Taliban attack. For weeks, he could not believe his cousin was gone. He set a photo of Nabizada as the wallpaper of his smartphone.

“When I hear the name of Taliban, I feel hatred and recall the memories of my cousin,” said Mohseni. “Peace with a terrorist and barbaric group is meaningless.  Living with the Taliban in the same city and neighborhood is not imaginable.”

Taliban-Pakistan Nexus An Obstacle To Afghan Peace – Analysis

By Neelapu Shanti

The increasing spate of attacks in Afghanistan by the Taliban once again highlights the grim security situation and extremist group’s true intentions, amid the seventh round of peace talks between the United States and the Taliban in Qatar.  

A powerful car bomb explosion by the Taliban on Monday (July 1) in the heart of Kabul city recalled the radical increase of bloodshed in both wars and everyday conflicts. The spiralling attacks in Afghanistan show that the density of everyday violence is proportional to the country’s quest for peace, fuelled by terrorism. Monday’s deadly explosion killing around 40 people and injuring more than 100, including women and children, spells the Taliban’s irrational thirst for a victorious war in Afghanistan.  

The epidemic culture of violence in Afghanistan is reflected in the reports of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA). From  January 1 to March 31, 2019, UNAMA documented 1,773 civilian casualties (581 deaths and 1,192 injured), including 582 child casualties (150 deaths and 432 injured).    

The ravaged history of Afghanistan’s foreign invasions and external influences fuelling terrorism makes it difficult for the country to discover its national identity. Viewing the recent developments, the Taliban has come to the table to negotiate peace in Afghanistan without involving the Afghan government.  

Peace and increasingly violent terror attacks by the Taliban are going hand in hand. Vicious extremist attacks, withdrawal of US troops, postponement of elections and inconclusive peace negotiations by the Taliban are subtle signals for Afghanistan in shifting the country’s agenda to an ‘Afghan-led Afghan-owned’ government. 

There are many signs of the Taliban’s unwillingness to restore peace in Afghanistan, with its aggressive attitude not fine-tuned with the interests of the people of the country, highlighting political contradictions.  

The Taliban’s preconditions involve the withdrawal of U.S and NATO forces, an interim government and setting aside democratic law, clearly indicating that it is bargaining for peace for lethal motives and not actually for the sovereignty of Afghanistan.  

The Taliban suicide bombers’ attack in Maroof district in southern Kandahar province on June 29 killed 19 government officials, including Independent Election Commission staff, who were deployed to register voters for the upcoming presidential elections on September 28. The security issue is raised at every stage, with catastrophic conditions created by Taliban factions while negotiating peace.  

It is important to understand who are the major players in destabilising Afghanistan. The Taliban insurgents have been receiving external support from other countries and one among them is Pakistan, which involves the re-emergence of the Pakistan-Taliban.  

Pakistan, which has been on the back foot after the Balakot attack, now wants to assert itself in the region. With the regressive Pakistani policy on Afghanistan, a variety of terrorism rears its head time and again, interfering in the political and economic integration of the South Asian region.  

Pakistan’s destructive potential for state sponsorship of terrorism in Afghanistan is apparent from it giving refuge to Taliban leaders in Pakistan, the deportation of Afghan Taliban leaders and the supply of arms and ammunition to the Taliban in Afghanistan. The blurring of lines between war and peace is currently drifting in the wrong direction.  

The United States’ role to end the 18 years of bloodshed in Afghanistan must bring a constructive outcome while negotiating with the Taliban. They cannot decide or completely rely on irrational ideologies of the Taliban for an absolute ceasefire. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s peace proposal at the Kabul Conference last year outlined a peace deal titled ‘Offering Peace: Framing the Kabul Conference,’ with a clear, altruistic motive catering for the welfare of the country and people of Afghanistan.  

Ghani’s offer of a peace deal with the Taliban included (a) constitutional rights of all citizens (especially women) being ensured (b) Constitutional reforms being undertaken through constitutional provisions (c) defence and security forces and civil services functioning according to the law and (d) no armed groups with ties to transnational criminal organisations, or with state/non-state actors, seeking influence in Afghanistan, to be allowed.

A peace deal, and peace in Afghanistan, would be a distant dream if the Taliban do not give up violence. The Taliban’s intention is to re-establish their regime with the support of Pakistan and other external terrorist factions. The Taliban has to come to meaningful terms with the government through a democratic process in Afghanistan.  

https://www.eurasiareview.com/08072019-taliban-pakistan-nexus-an-obstacle-to-afghan-peace-analysis/

IMF says Pakistan’s economy at critical juncture days after approving $6 billion loan

An IMF report said without bold reforms, Pakistan’s economy will remain critical given its largely unaddressed weak tax administration and tough business environment.

Pakistan is facing “significant economic challenges” due to a weak and unbalanced growth and that its economy is at a critical juncture where it needs an ambitious and bold set of reforms, the IMF has said.

Cash-strapped Pakistan, which currently has a currency reserve of less than USD 8 billion — enough to cover only 1.7 months of imports — approached the Washington-based International Monetary Fund (IMF) in August 2018 for a bailout package after the Imran Khan government took over.

The global lender last week formally approved the USD 6 billion loan to Pakistan, which is facing “significant” economic challenges on the back of “large” fiscal and financial needs and “weak and unbalanced” growth.

“Pakistan is facing significant economic challenges on the back of large fiscal and financial needs and weak and unbalanced growth,” David Lipton, First Deputy Managing Director and Acting Chair of the IMF Executive Board said.

Last week, the IMF approved the 13th bailout package for Pakistan since the late 1980s.

The latest bailout package is worth USD 6 billion, of which USD 1 billion is to be disbursed immediately and the rest in the next three years.

A decisive fiscal consolidation is key to reducing the large public debt and building resilience, and the adoption of the fiscal year 2020 budget is an important initial step, Lipton said.

Achieving the fiscal objectives will require a multi-year revenue mobilisation strategy to broaden the tax base and raise tax revenue in a well-balanced and equitable manner, he said.

It will also require a strong commitment by the provinces to support the consolidation effort and effective public financial management to improve the quality and efficiency of public spending, he said.

Observing that protecting the most vulnerable from the impact of adjustment policies will be an important priority, Lipton said that this will be achieved by a significant increase in resources allocated to key social assistance programmes, supporting measures for the economic empowerment of women and investment in areas where poverty is high.

A flexible market-determined exchange rate and an adequately tight monetary policy will be key to correcting imbalances, rebuilding reserves and keeping inflation low, he said, adding that an ambitious agenda to strengthen institutions and remove impediments to growth will allow Pakistan to reach its full economic potential.

In an accompanying report, the IMF said that Pakistan’s economy is at a critical juncture.

The legacy of misaligned economic policies, including large fiscal deficits, loose monetary policy and defence of an overvalued exchange rate, fuelled consumption and short-term growth in recent years, but steadily eroded macroeconomic buffers, increased external and public debt, and depleted international reserves.

Structural weaknesses remained largely unaddressed, including a chronically weak tax administration, a difficult business environment, inefficient and loss making state-owned enterprises, amid a large informal economy.

“Without urgent policy action, economic and financial stability could be at risk, and growth prospects will be insufficient to meet the needs of a rapidly growing population,” the IMF said.

The Fund-supported programme is expected to coalesce broader support from multilateral and bilateral creditors in excess of USD 38 billion, which is crucial for Pakistan to meet its large financing needs in the coming years, it added.

Pakistan has so far received billions in financial aid packages from friendly countries like China, Saudi Arabia and the UAE during the current fiscal year.