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Afghan Peace Must Be Explored With Utmost Urgency: UN Envoy

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(Last Updated On: October 24, 2022)

690980afghanistan14 September 2016 – Highlighting the challenges facing Afghanistan due to decades-long violence and instability, the United Nations envoy to the country stressed today that avenues for peace there must be explored with utmost urgency and seriousness.

“As one of the world’s most aid-dependent countries, it will be difficult for Afghanistan to achieve self-reliance as long as there is conflict,” Special Representative of the Secretary-General Tadamichi Yamamoto told members of the Security Council during a briefing.

“Conflict diverts resources, which would be better spent on developing Afghanistan and helping its people. Peace is therefore a requirement,” he underlined.

Mr. Yamamoto, who is also head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), went on to stress the need to resolve political tensions between two senior leaders in the Government to ensure that it is stable.

“No effective policies are possible if the Government is internally divided,” noting that tensions had surfaced, with public criticism by Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah about what he viewed as the incomplete implementation of the political agreement of 2014.

Mr. Yamamoto noted that the two leaders have met several times since then to try to identify the issues and to seek solutions. He said efforts are still under way, and further meetings are expected.

He nevertheless called on the leaders to show to the people of Afghanistan and to the international community that they are able to govern effectively. He also welcomed the recent signature by President Ashraf Ghani of the legislative decree for electoral reform as a constructive development in this regard.

“The political agenda must progress constructively, political stability must be maintained; and the elections must take place,” he said, telling the Council that the two year anniversary of the 2014 political agreement that established the National Unity Government draws near, the political oppositions have increasingly challenged the legitimacy of the Government.

“Nowhere is this trend more apparent than for children, among whom there has been an 18 per cent increase in casualties, with 388 children killed in six months,” he reported.

He noted that the country’s health and social systems could also face further strain as the number of people newly displaced by the conflict is being added to by a massive increase in the number of Afghan families returning back from Pakistan.

“If current trends continue, Afghanistan will have to meet the needs of at least one million people on the move,” said Mr. Yamamoto, adding that unless urgent measures are taken, thousands of families could suffer due to the upcoming winter season.

In his briefing, SRSG Yamamoto also noted some positive developments. In particular, he welcomed President Ghani’s comprehensive, long-term approach to tackling corruption, which seeks to develop the architecture needed to prevent corruption, as well as hold those responsible for corruption to account.

He also acknowledged the Government’s continued progress on other reform and mutual accountability commitments, in particular preparing for the country’s National Peace and Development Framework and successfully negotiating a new International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme.

Speaking on the upcoming Brussels Conference on Afghanistan, Mr. Yamamoto called upon the Government to “seize this opportunity” that meeting will offer.

He also welcomed the Government’s plan to hold a side event at the Conference to spotlight the challenges faced by the country’s women who were widowed by the long conflict.

Concluding his briefing, Mr. Yamamoto said that the country has an opportunity to build on its achievements of the past fifteen years and move towards stability and self-reliance.

“With effective government and the continued support of the international community it has every chance of succeeding,” he added.

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ISIS-K leader reportedly living in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province

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(Last Updated On: March 28, 2024)

Sanaullah Ghaffari, also known as Shahab al-Muhajar, is reportedly the ISIS-Khorasan (Daesh) branch leader and is holed up in Pakistan, Reuters reports.

The 29-year-old took over as leader in 2020 and under his leadership the group has carried out extreme attacks as a means of recruiting, Reuters reported.

Reuters noted that little was known about Ghafari before the deadly 2021 ISIS attack on Kabul Airport, which killed 170 Afghan civilians and 13 American soldiers.

But after Friday’s deadly attack in a concert hall in Moscow, which left 139 people dead, Ghaffari’s group has come under intense scrutiny.

Reuters reports that Ghaffari is said to have been involved in several attacks in Afghanistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan.

Pakistani officials said months ago that Ghaffari had been killed in Kunar province in Afghanistan in June last year, but Reuters has reported that he did not die and instead fled to Pakistan and lives in the border province of Baluchistan.

Abdul Matin Qani, the spokesman of the Ministry of Interior of Afghanistan, says that Daesh has been suppressed in Afghanistan for more than two years and has lost its operational capacity.

The last attack carried out by Daesh in Afghanistan was the attack on the Kabul Bank office in Kandahar last week which left three dead and 12 wounded.

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IPL: Sunrisers thump MI in record breaking match

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(Last Updated On: March 28, 2024)

It was raining records at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad on Wednesday with the hosts Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) clinching a 31-run victory over Mumbai Indians (MI) in Match 8 of the Tata Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024.

Sunrisers’ batting rewrote the record books on a batting belter after the posted 277 for three.

SRH now have the highest team score in the history of the IPL – beating Royal Challengers Bangalore’s (RCB) 263 for five from the 2013 season.

In reply, MI made a spirited effort, and at one stage, were contenders to do the near impossible. In the slog overs, the enormity of the target proved a bit too much, and SRH clinched victory, but not without numerous nervous moments.

To put into perspective the carnage we witnessed – Heinrich Klaasen’s 23-ball half-century was the slowest fifty of the SRH innings.

Travis Head, playing his first match for SRH, raced to the milestone in 18 balls. Abhishek Sharma got there even faster – in 16 balls – to record the quickest fifty by an SRH batter in IPL history.

While Sunrisers notched up the highest total in the 16-year history of the IPL, just as incredibly, Mumbai Indians almost paid them back with the same coin, their batters coming out with a nothing-to-lose attitude.

The sixes kept rolling off the Mumbai bats too, helping them keep up with the asking rate for most of the chase, eventually however, they ran out of steam and finished on 246 for 5, the highest IPL total in a losing cause.

As ESPNcricinfo reported, never were more runs scored in a men’s T20 match (523). Never were most sixes hit in a men’s T20 (38). At the end of the close to four-hour six-fest, only two bowlers returned with an economy rate of under ten an over.

Thursday, March 28 : Match 9

Thursday’s match at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur sees Rajasthan Royals go up against Delhi Capitals.

Fans in Afghanistan can tune in to Ariana Television to watch the match live from 6.30pm. Alternatively the match can be screened live on arianatelevision.com

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Magnitude 5.2 quake jolts Afghanistan

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(Last Updated On: March 28, 2024)

An earthquake measuring a magnitude of 5.2 on the Richter Scale jolted Afghanistan on Thursday afternoon, the National Center for Seismology reported.

The quake was at a depth of 70km and epicentered in the mountainous north-eastern area of Ashkāsham.

The jolt was felt across the region including in Kabul, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan

There were no immediate reports of any casualties.

In October last year, over 2,000 people were killed when four 6.3-magnitude earthquakes struck in Herat province.

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