Afghan Women Hold Demonstration in Kabul, Taliban Warns of Suicide Attack

According to Maiwandi, a commission comprising representatives of the Taliban’s Ministries of Defense and Interior affairs and the General Directorate of Intelligence has been established to retrieve the debt amount from its DABS customers.

According to the DABS spokesperson, the Taliban Prime Minister had ordered the formation of the commission.

Maiwandi said that the over 680 million Afghani debt has been collected from Kabul and other provinces of Afghanistan.

He has not provided details about the share of Afghanistan in the transfer of goods from Pakistan to Central Asia.

Earlier, Naveed Qamar, Federal Minister of Trade, and Investment of Pakistan had said that Islamabad plans to become a commercial hub by sending goods to the region through Afghanistan.

According to the Pakistani media, after the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, the obstacles to Pakistan's trade with Central Asia have been removed.

The National Union of Journalists in France held a meeting on October 12-14 in Paris. SNJ has sent a proposal to the French government and urged authorities to remain faithful to their commitments regarding the evacuation of Afghan journalists.

They have emphasised that France should take immediate action to deal with the current situation of Afghan journalists.

SNJ stressed that Afghan journalists are in a dire situation and while in hiding, they constantly change their safe houses.

According to SNJ, so far, 64 Afghan journalists have entered France, and 30 others have been relocated to Germany and Canada.

The National Union of Journalists in France added that over 174 Afghan journalists are waiting for their relocation from Pakistan and 81 others are in Iran.

SNJ reported that the visa appointments of journalists with the French embassy in Tehran have been cancelled in recent days.

SNJ has criticised the process of evacuation of Afghan journalists by France and stressed that the process of obtaining visa from a third country makes it in contradiction with the commitment of French President, Emmanuel Macron, to support Afghan journalists.

The UK Charge d’Affaires for Afghanistan reacted to a statement by Russian President Vladimir Putin who had said that western intelligence services, primarily American and British, fuel the formations opposing the Taliban, and stressed that these efforts are aimed at shelling the borders of Central Asian countries.

Shorter called Putin’s statement “classic disinformation” and that the UK supports stability, human rights, and good governance in Afghanistan.

Earlier, the Russian president had also emphasised that they had to prevent the return of civil war in Afghanistan. Putin added that he was aware of the dangers in the country and maintains necessary contacts with the Taliban leadership.

Meanwhile, Tomas Niklasson, the European Union's Special Representative for Afghanistan, had also said that he agreed with Putin for the first time that civil war in Afghanistan is not in the interest of the people of Afghanistan and Central Asia.

More than a year after foreign forces withdrew and the Taliban took power across the whole of Afghanistan, the country’s economy has withered and development aid and assets are still largely frozen, leaving the country facing its most serious risk of famine in 20 years. The past 12 months have seen Afghanistan’s fragile economy crumble, jobs disappear, livelihoods vanish, and climate shocks destroy homes and livelihoods.

GHI scores are based on the values of four component indicators – undernourishment, child stunting, child wasting, child mortality. While undernourishment represents the share of the population with insufficient caloric intake, child stunting indicates the share of children under age five who have low height for their age, reflecting chronic undernutrition. Child wasting reflects acute undernutrition in children under age five with low weight for their height.

For 15 countries -- including Guinea, Mozambique, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Burundi, Somalia, South Sudan, and Syria -- ranks could not be determined owing to lack of data, the report said.

A higher score in the index implies a worsening hunger situation, whereas zero is the best score – indicating no hunger. The GHI assigns the scores in five severity levels – low (9.9 or less), moderate (10.0-19.9), serious (20.0-34.9), alarming (35.0-49.9) and extremely alarming (50 or higher).

The latest index was published jointly on 13 October by international humanitarian organisation Concern Worldwide and Germany's Welthungerhilfe – one of the largest private aid organisations in the world.

Afghanistan (109th), India (107th) and Pakistan (99th) are the bottom three countries in South Asia.

The GHI found that South Asia has the world's highest levels of child stunting (low body weight to height) and child wasting (malnourished or emaciated) while south Saharan countries in Africa have the highest levels of undernourishment and child mortality rates.