Taliban's Leadership Council Runs Afghan War from Pakistan
29 January 2010
Taliban's Leadership Council Runs Afghan War from Pakistan, The Guardian, 29 January 2010
EXCERPT: "The Quetta shura has long been the aching achilles heel of western efforts to defeat the Taliban. While the war is fought in Afghanistan, the thinking part of the Taliban - the one-eyed leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, and a council of about 14 other men - is sheltering on the far side of the border, in the western Pakistani province...
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UN Official Met Taliban in January
29 January 2010
UN Official Met Taliban in January, The Wall Street Journal, 29 January 2010
EXCERPT: "The United Nations' top representative to Afghanistan met with Taliban officials earlier this month, amid heightened efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the eight-year-old conflict, a U.N. official said Friday. The official declined to say how high-level the Taliban officials were. He said the Afghan government was informed of the meeting, which...
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Afghan Construction Fund to Spend $2.6 Billion over Three Years
29 January 2010
Afghan Construction Fund to Spend $2.6 Billion over Three Years, Reuters, 29 January 2010
EXCERPT: "Donors will provide around $2.6 billion to finance development in Afghanistan through a World Bank-administered reconstruction fund over the next three financial years, the fund said on Friday. Representatives of donor countries met in London on Friday, a day after a major international conference on Afghanistan, to discuss the Afghanistan...
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Georgia Offers Afghan Supply Route
29 January 2010
, The Canadian Press, 28 January 2010
EXCERPT: "Georgia's President Mikhail Saakashvili says he has proposed to the United States that his country become a logistics hub for the expanding U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. That might be a difficult offer for the Obama administration to accept. In a telephone interview with The Associated Press, Saakashvili outlined a...
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UN: De Mistura Is Next Afghanistan Envoy
28 January 2010
UN: De Mistura Is Next Afghanistan Envoy, Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, 28 January 2010
EXCERPT: "UN chief Ban Ki-moon said today he would appoint Staffan de Mistura of Sweden as his next special envoy in Afghanistan to help oversee a beefed-up civilian drive to bring peace there. De Mistura, currently a senior official at the UN World Food Program in Rome and former UN special envoy to Iraq, will succeed Kai Eide of Norway and...
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Afghanistan Conference Opens in London
28 January 2010
Afghanistan Conference Opens in London , Deutsche Welle, 28 January 2010
EXCERPT: "A major international conference on the future of Afghanistan has opened in London with over 60 countries taking part. At the beginning of the meeting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told delegates that international support would be strengthened to back up local Afghan security forces. In addition he said that a new fund would be established to persuade...
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Ottawa Adds $25M to Fight Afghan Drug Trade
28 January 2010
, Toronto Star, 28 January 2010
EXCERPT: "Ottawa is stepping up its efforts to combat the opium trade in Afghanistan and in turn tighten the flow of money to insurgents, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said Thursday. Cannon, who is attending the London Conference on Afghanistan, announced the federal government is contributing $25 million toward counter-narcotic efforts, including...
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Afghan Tribe to Fight Taliban in Return for Aid From US
28 January 2010
, The New York Times, 28 January 2010
EXCERPT: "The leaders of one of the largest Pashtun tribes in a Taliban stronghold said Wednesday that they had agreed to support the American-backed government, battle insurgents and burn down the home of any Afghan who harbored Taliban guerrillas. Elders from the Shinwari tribe, which represents about 400,000 people in eastern Afghanistan,...
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IMF Announces Debt Relief for Afghanistan
27 January 2010
IMF Announces $1.6 Billion in Debt Relief for Afghanistan, International Monetary Fund (IMF), 27 January 2010
EXCERPT: "The IMF Executive Board has endorsed debt relief of about $1.6 billion for the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, the institution announced on January 26. The announcement marks the end of a process that included clearance of arrears and debt reductions by Paris Club creditors since 1996 and will be followed by...
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Negotiating with the Taliban
27 January 2010
Talatbek Masadykov, Antonio Giustozzi, and James Michael Page, , London School of Economics - Crisis States Research Centre, 27 January 2010
EXCERPT: "The principal author of this paper, Talatbek Masadykov, has worked in Afghanistan as a Political Affairs Officer, as Head of UNAMA Field Office and as Chief of the Political Affairs Division. He spent some time as a...
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