opinions

Being a badinjan-e rumi is better than not being at all: Reflections on the life of an Afghan Minister

2020-05-11

One of my intellectual highlights of 2016 was discovering an autobiography written by a long-serving Afghan Minister. I came across the biography having met during the course of research in the Chinese city of Yiwu several traders whose families had emigrated from C

Afghan peace process — twists and turns

2020-04-23

By Syed Akhtar Ali Shah

While the Doha Agreement, brokered between the US and the Taliban, was hailed as a great breakthrough that opened the avenues for peace in Afghanistan, the skeptics called it a deal motivated by the narrow interests of the US — or worse — its total retreat, equated with surrender similar to that in Vietnam.

The major c

Four Priorities for a Global Pandemic Strategy

2020-04-12

By Josep Borrell

The world initially met the COVID-19 crisis in an uncoordinated fashion, with too many countries ignoring the warning signs and going it alone. It is now clear that the only way out of it is together.

BRUSSELS – The contrast between the silence of Europe’s streets and squares and the tumultuous, painful reality in m

How to Handle Coronavirus Pandemic in Afghanistan

2020-04-08

By Zohra Rasekh

An effective prevention of COVID-19 was stopping the virus from reaching and spreading inside Afghanistan. This was an action that the Afghan government needed to take three months earlier when Afghanistan’s next door neighbors, China and Iran, were hit hard by corona virus. That opportunity is gone. At this moment handling of the pandem

Only Peace Can Avert a COVID-19 Catastrophe in Afghanistan

2020-04-06

By M. Ashraf Haidari

As of this writing, over one million people in 181 countries are confirmed to have been infected by COVID-19 (coronavirus), according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center. The novel pandemic has left no race, nationality, ethnicity, religion, and ideology behind, as it continues ravaging