Ivo R Toniut

Opium production in Afghanistan has been on the rise   😞 since the US invasion in 2001. Last year 9,000 tonnes were produced, an increase of 87%! 😱 As a result, the record number of people turning to drugs in desperation is also increasing.

The Italian Embassy in Kabul hosted today 14 March 2018 the Joint Committee to move forward on the project for the construction of the 155 km road from Herat to Chishti Sharif funded with Italian taxpayers' money. In the pictures below, the First Secretary Ugo Ferrero with the Afghan Minister of Public Works Yama Yari and representatives from the Ministry of Finance of Afghanistan, the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), and the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation in Afghanistan (AICS Kabul). Italy is financing the Herat-Chishti Sharif Road Project with a Soft Loan worth approximately 92.3 Million Euros and 2.0 Million Euros as a Grant to UNOPS for technical assistance; the Intergovernmental Agreement has been signed on April 2016.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif on Monday invited Pakistan to take part in the Chabahar Port project. According to Dawn News this came as Zarif sought to ease concerns of Pakistan over India’s involvement in the port. Zarif also meanwhile extended the invitation to China. “We offered to participate in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). We have also offered Pakistan and China to participate in Chabahar,” said Zarif, who is on a three-day visit to Pakistan. While in Pakistan, Zarif held bilateral talks with his Pakistani counterpart Khawaja Asif and addressed a trade conference, Dawn News reported. This move comes after Iran last month signed a lease agreement with India, which would give India operational control of the port. Dawn news stated that Zarif said both Pakistan and India need to link through sea and land routes in order to boost development in eastern and south-eastern Iran and in south western Pakistan. Minister Zarif also said the Chabahar port project was n...

Some drivers complain that they are forced to make undocumented payments in high tonnage scale at Hairatan dry port in the northern Balkh province. They say the operators of the scale ask them to pay the toll, but don’t give them official receipts. Due to rampant corruption in the country’s freight weighing stations, Afghanistan’s High Economic Council decided in December 2017 to transfer control of some high tonnage scales, including Hairatan port’s scale, from the Ministry of Public Works (MoPW) to the Ministry of Finance (MoF). Traders and drivers say the amount of money they pay at the key northern port is different from day to day. Jalil, a driver, told The Heart of Asia: “These payments go to the pockets of local officials because neither a receipt is given to drivers nor is the amount of payments specific. The money is paid as per the agreement of both sides.” A security source from the port reveals to The Heart of Asia that drivers were not being asked to pay the money when ...

The Ministry of Interior has deployed thousands of security force members to ensure security at the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project.   Work on the Turkmenistan section is going to be completed while work on the Afghanistan section of the pipeline project started few weeks ago in Herat province – in the west of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. “Thousands of security force members have been deployed to ensure better security for the TAPI project,” a spokesman for the Ministry of Interior said. According to the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum, technical and economic teams are working on the project right now. “The pipeline has reached Afghanistan. We are focusing on technical work of the project in order to ensure better implementation of the plans and programs of the project inside Afghanistan,” said officials of the Afghan Ministry of Mines and Petroleum.

Недавно Министерство обороны Афганистана подписало контракт на поставку партии российских вертолётов в распоряжение афганских авиационных сил с правительством Республики Беларусь. Подписание контракта состоялось в Нью-Дели. В соответствии с условиями соглашения афганский лётный парк пополнят 4 штурмовых вертолёта модели Ми-35. Средства на приобретение винтокрылых машин выделит индийская сторона.

Officials of the Afghan Ministry of Mines and Petroleum say they have established committees to tackle problems relating to 15 mining projects in the country. Officials said the ministry has prioritized the issue of resolving these problems. “This issue is a priority and resolving the problems around these projects is very important for the people of Afghanistan and for the country’s economy,” said the acting director of legal services for the ministry of mines. However, mining experts have said that in the absence of a clear vision for the development of mines in the country, problems in relation to the projects will continue. These mining experts also said the lack of capacity within the ministry of mines is an ongoing challenge. “I think that in the present situation, the Ministry will not be able to solve these great problems of mines; maybe it's a start, but if we do not have a clear vision for our projects, it's unlikely that we will achieve results,” said a legal expert...

Ismaelkhil Mandozayi District, Khost Province, Afghanistan – The azan sounds from the village mosque as people gather for the noontime prayer. Shir Khan, 39, leaves off working on his crops and walks past fields of ripening wheat, across the flowing waters of the irrigation canal, toward the village mosque. It has been more than 15 years since Shir Khan returned from Pakistan to his native village, Melani Kalay, more than 15 kilometers west of Khost city in southeastern Afghanistan. Nestled in a broad sweeping valley, and surrounded by bare brown hills, the inhabitants of the village have long endured both floods and water shortages. In recent years, however, they have seen a great deal of improvement in their lives with the help of the National Solidarity Programme (NSP). Some 15 years ago the village had no irrigation canal nor enough water for its people. The farmlands in the village were dry, especially in summer, the peak growing season, and locals had to work as day laborers in...

In order to boost trade through Chabahar port, Iran is working to connect Chabahar’s railway line to the railway network in the country. Officials of the Iranian Embassy in Kabul said that the development of Afghanistan's railways to the north and east of the country could play a major role in expanding trade between Afghanistan, Iran and Central Asian countries. “We are working to connect the Chabahar Free Zone to Afghanistan; to South Asia, to Arab countries, to Central Asia, through the national railway lines of Iran; in fact to the Caucasus region and via Turkey to Europe,” said the economic advisor to the Embassy of Iran in Kabul. Meanwhile, a number of businessmen have called for export companies to standardize packing in order to increase exports. “It's clear that the issue of certifications and other issues have been raised; businessmen must standardize (packaging), and businessmen must invest in this and when they invest in packaging and processing, they themselves h...

Crossing Salang Pass in 2018 will leave you shaken because despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent over decades on improvements, most of the road is now little more than a dirt track. >>> READ ARTICLE @ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/corruption-at-13000-feet-afghanistan-struggles-to-maintain-a-treacherous-mountain-trade-route/2018/01/21/293720d6-f4cf-11e7-9af7-a50bc3300042_story.html

Укрепление отношений Пакистана с Россией, Китаем и Ираном мешает влиянию Вашингтона на Исламабад. Об этом говорится в отчёте управления генерального инспектора Госдепартамента США, с которым ознакомился RT.   «Китай, Россия и Иран продолжают поддерживать связи с Пакистаном, что отрицательно сказывается на американском влиянии и потенциальных сдерживающих факторах», — подчёркивается в документе. Отмечается, что на фоне сложившейся ситуации США намерены усилить свои позиции в соседнем Афганистане. Так, в 2018 году туда планируется направить ещё 3 тыс. американских солдат. Кроме того, Вашингтон хочет заменить поставленные для афганских ВС вертолёты Ми-17 российского производства на американские Black Hawk. Только в 2018 году на эти цели будет выделено более $700 млн. >>> ПОДРОБНЕЕ — в материале RT.

Strade, scuole e ospedali per far ripartire l’Afghanistan. L’Italia, attraverso la Cooperazione allo sviluppo, ha donato 2,5 milioni di euro alla Banca Mondiale per sostenere una serie di progetti volti a dotare il Paese asiatico di una serie di infrastrutture di base, dalla fornitura di acqua pulita al sistema di gestione di rifiuti passando per la costruzione di strade e strutture sanitarie. Il contributo confluirà nell’ “Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund” (ARTF), fondo gestito dalla Banca Mondiale e dal governo afghano, e sarà erogato a favore dell’intervento “Citizens’ Charters Afghanistan Project” (CCAP), prima fase del più ampio “Citizens’ Charter National Priority Program” (2016 -2026) ovvero la “Carta dei Cittadini”, un patto tra lo Stato ed il cittadino al fine di garantire alla popolazione servizi ed infrastrutture di base e contribuire al rafforzamento dei “Consigli per lo sviluppo comunitario”, organismi di governo locale eletti dalla popolazione ed a forte presenza fe...

A foreign Consortium of 5 companies has shown interest in investing about 1 billion dollars in the Kokcha dam project in the northern Takhar province of Afghanistan, however the Afghan government is not satisfied with their terms. The Consortium (made up of two European companies, a Chinese company, a Malaysian company and one Kazakh firm) is ready to build the dam based on a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) and then sell the power to Afghan government for a period of 10-15 years before handing over the dam to the Afghan State. The consortium has bid for the contract on two occasions, and on both occasions they were the only participant in the tender. The Consortium wants to build the dam based on a PPA agreement, but government wants them to work under a Public Private Partnership (PPP) agreement. According to a Senior advisor to the Afghan President, the project will be probably put out to tender once again with the hope that companies with terms more satisfactory for the Afghan gove...

Afghanistan has many investment opportunities in various areas: President Ashraf Ghani  Four new factories will be built in capital Kabul with $12 million and 150 million Afghani of investment by the private sector. The Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation, and Livestock (MAIL) said Saturday that the new factories will be built in Bagrami district of Kabul province. According to a statement by MAIL, the factories will mainly operate in agriculture and livestock sectors. The statement further added that the factories will process agricultural products, oil production, and food stuff for the chicken farms. The factories will be built in a complex type structure and around $12 million along with 150 million Afghanis will be invested by the private sector. The Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation, and Livestock is optimistic that the exports of the agricultural products will increase besides helping the domestic requirements once the factories start operations. According to MAIL, ...

The TAP project will run alongside the key TAPI gas pipeline that traverse a large section of Afghanistan to Pakistan and then India. Asian Development Bank (ADB) country director for Afghanistan Samuel Tumiwa has said the bank is committed in financing the Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan (TAP) power project. He said that the economic cooperation will also help to enhance partnerships and improve stability in the region. “The Asian Development Bank is committed to financing TAP. We have put aside some money to finance it. Asides from the benefits from greater electrification, it is also good economic cooperation between the countries. So when we have good economic cooperation between the countries, the case is so strong that everything else, security issues and political issues get sidelined and you get good cooperation between these countries which will bring stability in the region,” he said. Meanwhile, officials from the power supplying company Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherka...

Angelina Jolie in Jalalabad , # Afghanistan October 2008 Photographer Marco Di Lauro

A margine della seconda conferenza del “Kabul Process”, il Ministro degli Affari Esteri della Repubblica Islamica dell’Afghanistan, Salahuddin Rabbani, ha incontrato presso il Charchinar Palace del complesso presidenziale afghano (ARG) l’Inviato Speciale Italiano per l’Afghanistan ed il Pakistan, Min. Plen. Alberto Pieri, che ha guidato la delegazione italiana a Kabul. Durante l’incontro le parti hanno discusso delle prospettive di pace in Afghanistan, dell’importanza del supporto della comunità internazionale agli sforzi del governo afghano per la stabilizzazione del Paese, della necessità di tagliare le reti di sostegno ai gruppi terroristici nella regione e di cooperazione bilaterale (quale il recente impegno di 120 milioni di euro da parte dell’Italia per aiutare le forze di sicurezza e difesa afghane) . Il Ministro degli Esteri afghano ha elogiato la preziosa collaborazione che l’Italia, come Stato amico, continua a prestare all’Afghanistan in svariati campi, ricordando soprat...

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