Showing 1 - 10 of 17
The true cost of our 'wars' and 'wreckonomics'
Oped, David Keen & Ruben Andersson, Published on 16/02/2024
» In Constantine Cavafy's poem Waiting for the Barbarians, the much-feared barbarians never turn up. "Now, what's going to happen to us without barbarians?" the poem asks. "Those people were a kind of solution."
Talking sense with the Taliban?
Oped, John J Metzler, Published on 02/02/2023
» It seems like a profound contradiction; trying to convince Afghanistan's Taliban authorities to accept foreign humanitarian help for their own starving population. Thus as beleaguered Afghan civilians endure a brutal winter, the sanctimonious Islamic fundamentalist regime in Kabul has largely restricted international aid agencies because they employ women.
No justification for engaging with Taliban
Oped, Brahma Chellaney, Published on 19/08/2022
» In the year since the United States' disgraceful abandonment of Afghanistan to the Taliban, the country has gone down precisely the path any logical observer would have predicted: a medieval, jihadist, terrorist-sheltering emirate has been established. The US will incur costs for betraying its Afghan allies for a long time to come. But nobody will pay a higher price than Afghans.
Afghanistan newborns in peril
Oped, Christine Cipolla, Published on 12/08/2022
» Nearly a year ago when I visited Afghanistan, the medical system was about to shut down. The country's dedicated medical staff hadn't been paid in months, and the needed drugs and equipment for quality care weren't available.
Afghanistan faces famine, it can't be ignored
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 18/02/2022
» Because the Taliban have been designated as "terrorists", it is possible for the United States not only to embargo American aid and trade to Afghanistan, but also to block or at least seriously hinder efforts by other countries to send humanitarian aid. As a result, more than half the country's people -- 23 million at last count -- are suddenly near starvation.
Winter is on the way in Afghanistan
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 10/11/2021
» The first snow of the winter will reach Kabul any day now, and the death rate will start to climb: mostly children, at first, but it will not really be the cold that kills them. The cold will only finish the work that malnutrition began months or years ago -- but the other cause of their deaths will be a different kind of freeze.
Advocating for Afghan girls' education
Oped, Vitit Muntarbhorn, Published on 20/10/2021
» Afghanistan is a rugged country of great beauty straddling Asia and Europe, and it has been the scene of warfare and contestation for decades. The Taliban, a group connected to extreme violence, especially in the late 1990s, emerged as the power in control of Afghanistan recently, due to the void left by outsiders. This is their second time in power and the world can remember all too well that from the mid-1990s until 2001, their rule at the time was harsh and brutal, especially in their clampdown on the rights of women and girls. The latter suffered immensely from a lack of access to school, while the former were also prevented from employment.
The forsaken women of Afghanistan
Oped, Pinelopi Goldberg, Published on 17/09/2021
» Owing to the pandemic and other calamities, many referred to 2020 as a "biblical year". Now, however, it is starting to look like we are in a "biblical decade". Between the floods in Western Europe, the wildfires in Greece and Turkey, and the Delta and Mu variants of Covid-19, our planet and traditional way of life are coming increasingly under pressure.
China and the US: Too big to be equal?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 15/09/2021
» Never mind the destruction of the relatively free society of Hong Kong (no emergency airlift like in Kabul, Afghanistan, but the number of people fleeing Hong Kong may ultimately be larger). Never mind the persecution of the Uighurs, or the Orwellian surveillance society that the Communist Party is building, or the tens of millions who died in wars, famines and "cultural revolutions" to bring equality to China.
Healing the scars of a 40-year war
Oped, Peter Maurer, Published on 10/09/2021
» The scars of war last generations. Destroyed buildings can one day be rebuilt, but shattered limbs do not regrow. Children re-live trauma long after the bomb blasts subside. Family members killed leave a permanent void.