Afghan Citizens Should Install Security Cameras At Houses, Says Taliban

Popalzai's colleagues in the protest movement told Afghanistan International that after her detention, they have received no information about her whereabouts.

Popalzai’s detention comes at a time when last week, another women rights activist, Zarifa Yaqoobi, and four of her colleagues had been detained by the Taliban in western Kabul.

The Taliban detained the five activists during a press conference where they were announcing an Afghan Women’s rights group in Kabul.

Many international organisations, including the United Nations, have reacted to Yaqoobi’s arrest and demanded her immediate release.

After the arrest of Yaqoobi, the Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said that the women’s rights activists receive orders from outside Afghanistan to echo trust deficit with the Taliban regime.

The Taliban's foreign ministry stressed that Afghanistan and Pakistan have been close neighbours with shared culture and brotherhood.

The ministry also added that hundreds of thousands of Afghan immigrants in Pakistan have not been active politically and have contributed to the country’s economy.

The Taliban’s objection to Pakistan comes at a time when recently it was reported that over 1000 Afghans have been imprisoned in Pakistan's Sindh province.

The Taliban Consulate General in Karachi announced that nearly 1,300 Afghan citizens have been imprisoned in the province of Sindh.

Meanwhile, another report indicated that earlier a Pakistani border agent harassed an Afghan woman at the Torkham border crossing with Pakistan. However, Pakistan announced that this agent had been dismissed after the incident.

This English film is supposed to tell the true story of the Afghan robotic girls’ team, who rose from the heart of a closed and patriarchal society and achieved unprecedented success through hard work and perseverance.

The Rotobics team was eastablished in 2017 by Roya Mahboob, an Afghan entrepreneur living in the US, whose goal was the advancement of Afghan girls in the field of science and technology.

The team was able to participate in international robotics competitions and meet prominent politicians too.

Tom West, the US special representative for Afghanistan, announced the printing of the new Afghani banknotes in October 2022.

The exact amount of the newly printed banknotes has not been announced yet.

West had said that Afghani banknotes were printed based on two currency denominations. According to him, newly printed Afghani banknotes will replace the money in the Afghan financial system.

The Taliban-controlled Central Bank said that the newly printed Afghani banknotes will be distributed based on reasonable monetary policies, balanced with economic growth, and according to the need for Afghani currency in the market.

The Central Bank has emphasised that old banknotes will be collected and disposed off based on specific regulations.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Taliban had previously said that the Moscow Consultative Format would be incomplete without the participation of the group.

According to Russian officials, the representatives of China, India, Iran, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan will attend the Moscow Format meeting.

The Taliban participated in a similar meeting that was held on October 20, 2021. However, Zamir Kabulov, the Russian Special Envoy for Afghanistan said that the Taliban had not been invited to this year’s meeting.

At the Moscow consultative meeting on Afghanistan last year, participants had asked the Taliban to form an inclusive government in Afghanistan.

Although the Taliban claim that they have formed an inclusive government, the international community, including Russia, which is hosting a meeting on Afghanistan again in the coming week, has criticised the group’s exclusionary policies.

The Russian Foreign Minister has too emphasised on Tuesday that the Taliban have not yet fulfilled their commitments to form an inclusive ethnopolitical government.

Sergey Lavrov also added that he discussed Afghanistan with his Indian counterpart in Moscow.

Indian foreign minister too said that Delhi and Moscow have discussed Afghanistan’s various issues and that his country will attend the upcoming Moscow Format meeting.