Britain Delays Afghan Aid over Lack of IMF Deal
11 March 2011
Britain said on Wednesday it would delay payment of 85 million pounds ($137.6 million) in aid to Afghanistan this year, a warning shot to the government in Kabul over its handling of a banking scandal. The British Department For International Development (DFID) said the payment was being delayed because of the continued absence of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) support programme. IMF support is a crucial element for most of Afghanistan's donors...
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Reintegration Program Lacks "Oversight"; Money Unlikely to Attract Militants: Experts
11 March 2011
A controversial, opaque US defense initiative to make payments to Taliban fighters who renounce violence has been extended until September 2012. While a large, but unspecified amount of funding is devoted to the program, no one appears to be keeping track of how the money is being spent. A portion of the funds for the program, which is designed to draw off non-ideological elements from the Taliban, comes from the Commander’s Emergency Response...
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Mobility and Durable Solutions: A Case Study of Afghan and Somali Refugees
11 March 2011
Refugee situations are traditionally met with three durable solutions (local integration, resettlement and repatriation) in the long-run, or self-settlement and encampment in the interim. In recent years, however, some academics, institutions and policy makers have increasingly highlighted the viability of refugee mobility to refugee situations, and particularly to protracted situations where conventional responses remain elusive or ineffective....
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Gates Warns Allies about Early Exit from Afghanistan
11 March 2011
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates sharply rebuked the United States’ allies on Friday for preparing to effectively abandon Afghanistan, threatening what he described as tenuous progress in the nearly decade-old war.In a deliberately undiplomatic speech to NATO defense ministers, Mr. Gates called on European allies to put aside their domestic politics and work with the United States to secure the “semblance of normalcy” that...
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