World Bank endorses new Afghanistan approach which could unlock $300 million

World Bank endorses new Afghanistan approach which could unlock $300 million
A man walks past the World Bank building in Washington, DC on April 21, 2022. (AFP/File)
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Updated 16 February 2024
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World Bank endorses new Afghanistan approach which could unlock $300 million

World Bank endorses new Afghanistan approach which could unlock $300 million
  • The Bank’s new engagement will also revive a regional infrastructure project paused since Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021
  • On Thursday, World Bank also approved resumption of $1.2 bln energy project involving Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan

WASHINGTON: The World Bank’s executive board endorsed a new approach to its relationship with the people of Afghanistan Thursday under which new funds of around $300 million could be made available, outside the control of the Taliban authorities.
The Bank’s new engagement with Afghanistan, dubbed “Approach 3.0,” will also revive a regional infrastructure project that was paused after the Taliban took control of the South Asian country in August 2021, the Bank announced in a statement.
Under the approach, World Bank’s lending arm for some of the world’s poorest countries, known as the International Development Association (IDA), will make available around $300 million over the next 15 months, subject to further board approval, a spokesperson told AFP.
However, as with other World Bank funding in the country, the new funding would be deployed “through grants to United Nations agencies and other public international organizations,” the Bank said in a statement announcing the board decision.
“These funds will continue supporting basic services nationwide, particularly those benefiting women, and will be outside the control of the Interim Taliban Administration (ITA),” it added.
Since returning to power in August 2021, the Taliban authorities have imposed a strict interpretation of Islam, with women bearing the brunt of laws the United Nations has labeled “gender apartheid.”
In response, many governments, international organizations and aid agencies have either cut off or severely scaled back their funding for Afghanistan — with disastrous economic consequences.
The World Bank estimates that Afghanistan’s economy contracted by more than 20 percent in 2021, and by more than six percent in 2022.
The World Food Programme, which provides 90 percent of the food aid to the country, told AFP recently that it expects almost 16 million Afghans will need assistance this winter, with 2.8 million at an emergency level of food insecurity.
The World Bank said Approach 3.0 would continue implementing what it calls its “principled approach” to engagement with the Taliban authorities, which “puts women at the center of projects and ensures that project activities are implemented by and for women.”
On Thursday, the World Bank also approved the resumption of a $1.2 billion clean energy project known as CASA-1000, which involves three countries nearby to Afghanistan: Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan.
“Construction in the other three participating countries is nearly complete and these countries have requested that CASA-1000 activities in Afghanistan resume to avoid the risk of the project becoming a stranded asset,” the Bank said.
As with the IDA funding, this project will be carried out in a way that ensures it does not involve the Taliban government’s systems, it added.
The World Bank had more than 80 staff in Afghanistan before the Taliban took over, causing them to leave, according to an individual with knowledge of the matter.


Arsonists set Melbourne synagogue ablaze

Arsonists set Melbourne synagogue ablaze
Updated 12 sec ago
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Arsonists set Melbourne synagogue ablaze

Arsonists set Melbourne synagogue ablaze
  • Fire broke out at 4:10 a.m. in the Adass Israel Synagogue when some congregants were already inside
  • Members of the congregation form human chain to remove religious items from the damaged synagogue
MELBOURNE: Mask-wearing arsonists set a synagogue ablaze in a pre-dawn attack Friday in the Australian city of Melbourne, police said, sparking widespread condemnation.
The fire broke out at 4:10 a.m. (1710 GMT) in the Adass Israel Synagogue when some congregants were already inside, police said, gutting much of the building in the southeast Melbourne suburb of Ripponlea.
No serious injuries were reported.
A witness entering the synagogue for morning prayers saw “two individuals wearing masks,” Detective Inspector Chris Murray of the Victorian police arson and explosive squad told reporters at the scene.
“They appeared to be spreading an accelerant of some type in the premises,” he said.
The synagogue was “engulfed in flames,” he added.
“We believe it was deliberate. We believe it has been targeted. What we don’t know is why.”
Police will increase patrols as they hunt for the arsonists, who were wearing dark clothing, he said.
Detectives would be looking at CCTV footage and interviewing any witnesses, Murray said.
Television images showed firefighters hosing down the embers through the blackened door of the single-story building, which has a grey concrete facade.
A board member of the synagogue, Benjamin Klein, said a few congregants were sitting and praying inside when the fire started.
“They heard loud banging,” Klein said.
Liquid was poured inside the synagogue and set alight, he said.
“If this had happened an hour later, there would have been hundreds of people inside,” Klein said.
The congregants “ran out the back of the synagogue. One man who ran out — his hand got burnt,” he said.
“The fire was extensive,” he said.
“Inside is completely gutted.”
Holy books and furniture had been destroyed, he said, vowing however that the community would “rebuild.”
Members of the congregation formed a human chain to remove religious items from the damaged synagogue, including Torah scrolls — one of which was brought to Australia from Germany in World War II, the Age newspaper reported.
Klein said the synagogue had increased security over the past 12 months amid safety concerns, without giving further details.
In 1995, the synagogue was damaged by a deliberately lit fire, with walls and Torah scrolls burned.
Klein, who was a child at the time, said he remembered standing inside the damaged synagogue with his grandfather, who he said was a Holocaust survivor.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese “unequivocally” condemned the fire and said federal police would help the state to investigate it.
“This violence and intimidation and destruction at a place of worship is an outrage,” Albanese said in a statement.
“This attack has risked lives and is clearly aimed at creating fear in the community.”
The prime minister said he had “zero tolerance” for anti-Semitism.
“It has absolutely no place in Australia.”
The war in Gaza has sparked protests from supporters of Israel and Palestinians in cities around Australia, as in much of the world.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Daniel Aghion said the community had been living in fear of such an incident since the start of the war in Gaza.
“This for us is just evidence of that fear,” he told reporters.
“This is something that is the greatest manifestation of what we have been seeing and hearing in terms of threatening emails, threatening social media, threatening letters and all sorts of other material.”
Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack which triggered the Gaza war resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 44,580 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.

Three climbers missing on New Zealand mountain believed dead: police

Three climbers missing on New Zealand mountain believed dead: police
Updated 10 min 34 sec ago
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Three climbers missing on New Zealand mountain believed dead: police

Three climbers missing on New Zealand mountain believed dead: police

WELLINGTON: Police said Friday they believe that three climbers who went missing on New Zealand’s tallest mountain are dead.

Aoraki Area Commander Inspector Vicki Walker said: “We do not believe the men have survived,” five days after the climbers – two from the United States and one from Canada – went missing on Mount Cook.

Authorities earlier expressed “grave concerns” for the climbers who went missing, as efforts to find them stalled amid bad weather.

Strong winds meant an aerial search for the men could not resume as anticipated on Thursday, Police Area Commander Inspector Vicki Walker said in a statement.

The Americans — Kurt Blair, 56, from Colorado and Carlos Romero, 50, of California — are certified alpine guides, according to the website of the nonprofit American Mountain Guides Association. New Zealand authorities have not named the Canadian climber at the request of his family.

The men flew to a hut partway up the mountain on Saturday to begin their ascent and were reported missing on Monday when they did not arrive to meet their prearranged transport after the climb. Searchers hours later found several climbing-related items believed to belong to the men, but no sign of them, police said.

The search for the men stalled on Tuesday and Wednesday due to deteriorating weather conditions on Aoraki, also known as Mount Cook, with heavy rain and snow forecast.

Walker earlier hoped efforts would resume Thursday but said conditions on the day were unsafe.

Aoraki is 3,724 meters high and is part of the Southern Alps, the scenic and icy mountain range that runs the length of New Zealand’s South Island.


Trump appoints former PayPal COO David Sacks as AI and crypto czar

Trump appoints former PayPal COO David Sacks as AI and crypto czar
Updated 06 December 2024
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Trump appoints former PayPal COO David Sacks as AI and crypto czar

Trump appoints former PayPal COO David Sacks as AI and crypto czar

US President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday said he was appointing former PayPal Chief Operating Officer David Sacks as his artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency czar, another step toward overhauling US policy.
“He will work on a legal framework so the Crypto industry has the clarity it has been asking for, and can thrive in the US,” Trump said in a post on his social-media site Truth Social.
The crypto czar and other officials in Trump’s incoming administration such as the chairs of the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission are expected to reshape US policy on digital currency along with a newly created crypto advisory council.
Trump’s tech backers generally want to see minimal regulation around AI and cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, saying Washington would throttle growing innovative sectors with excessive rules.
Trump announced on Wednesday that he was nominating prominent Washington lawyer and crypto advocate Paul Atkins to lead the SEC, in a move celebrated by the industry.
Trump — who once labeled crypto a scam — embraced digital assets during his campaign, promising to make the United States the “crypto capital of the planet” and to accumulate a national stockpile of bitcoin.
Bitcoin broke $100,000 for the first time on Wednesday night, a milestone hailed even by skeptics as a coming-of-age for digital assets as investors bet on a friendly US administration to cement the place of cryptocurrencies in financial markets.
Born in South Africa, Sacks, 52, is a co-founder of venture capital firm Craft Ventures and an early leader of PayPal, a payment processing firm that was acquired by eBay in 2002.
Sacks is also a former chief executive of software company Zenefits and founded Yammer, a social network for enterprise users.
He was an early evangelist of cryptocurrencies, telling CNBC in a 2017 interview that he believed the rise of bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, was revolutionizing the Internet.
“It feels like we are witnessing the birth of a new kind of web. Some people have called it the decentralized web or the Internet of money,” he said.
Trump said Sacks will also lead a White House advisory council on science and technology. 


Trump says he picks former Senator David Perdue to be ambassador to China

Trump says he picks former Senator David Perdue to be ambassador to China
Updated 06 December 2024
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Trump says he picks former Senator David Perdue to be ambassador to China

Trump says he picks former Senator David Perdue to be ambassador to China

WASHINGTON: US President-elect Donald Trump said on Thursday he has chosen former Senator David Perdue to be ambassador to China.
“He will be instrumental in implementing my strategy to maintain Peace in the region, and a productive working relationship with China’s leaders,” Trump said in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.
Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, 2025, has said he will impose an additional 10 percent tariff on Chinese goods unless Beijing does more to stop the trafficking of the highly addictive narcotic fentanyl.
He also threatened tariffs in excess of 60 percent on Chinese goods while on the campaign trail.


Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy bring Trump’s DOGE to Capitol Hill

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy bring Trump’s DOGE to Capitol Hill
Updated 06 December 2024
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Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy bring Trump’s DOGE to Capitol Hill

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy bring Trump’s DOGE to Capitol Hill

WASHINGTON: Billionaire Elon Musk and fellow entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy spent several hours Thursday swapping ideas with lawmakers about President-elect Donald Trump’s DOGE initiative to dismantle parts of the federal government.
Meeting behind closed doors at the Capitol, Musk told the mostly Republican lawmakers they would be keeping a “naughty and nice” list of those who join in the budget slashing proposals and those who don’t, according to lawmakers who attended.
“We’re going to see a lot of change around here in Washington,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson, as Musk, with his young son on his shoulders, breezed by and into the private meeting.
Trump tapped the two business titans to head his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, a nongovernmental task force assigned to find ways to fire federal workers, cut programs and slash federal regulations — all part of what he calls his “Save America” agenda for a second term in the White House.
Washington has seen this before, with ambitious efforts to reduce the size and scope of the federal government that historically have run into resistance when the public is confronted with cuts to trusted programs that millions of Americans depend on for jobs, health care, military security and everyday needs.
But this time Trump is staffing his administration with battle-tested architects of sweeping proposals, some outlined in Project 2025, to severely reduce and reshape the government. Musk and Ramaswamy have said they plan to work alongside the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, headed by Trump’s nominee Russ Vought, a mastermind of past cuts.
“DOGE has a historic opportunity for structural reductions in the federal government,” Musk and Ramaswamy wrote in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. “We are prepared for the onslaught.”
Trump said Thursday that he would also name venture capitalist and former PayPal executive David Sacks to be the “White House A.I. & Crypto Czar” and lead the Presidential Council of Advisers for Science and Technology. Trump said in a social media post that Sacks would help “steer us away from Big Tech bias and censorship.” Trump’s transition team didn’t say whether Sacks would be a government employee or a temporary government worker who would not be bound by the same ethics and disclosure rules.
Sacks visited Mar-a-Lago earlier Thursday, according to an investor who held an event at Trump’s Florida club. The longtime conservative was key to introducing Vice President-elect JD Vance to donors, helping him prove he could raise money. Sacks hosted a fundraiser for Trump and Vance at his San Francisco home.
Musk and Ramaswamy faced a first test as they sat on a auditorium stage in the Capitol basement, as House and Senate lawmakers, almost exclusively Republicans, lined up at the microphones to share ideas for ways to address the nation’s budget imbalances.
Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., the chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, brought up the Department of Education as a good place to cut. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wisconsin, said to look at office space and how little of it is being used. Others talked about the need for workers to return to their offices.
Afterward, Johnson declined to say if Medicare, Social Security or other popular programs were off limits for cuts, describing this first meeting as a “brainstorming” session with more to come.
“They said everything has to be looked at,” said Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fla., who joined with Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, in launching what they are calling the DOGE caucus in the House, with more than 50 Republicans and two Democratic members.
Musk and Ramaswamy appeared to be taking it all in, Musk at times even taking notes, lawmakers said — experiencing a day in the life of congressional leadership, as the meeting went on and on, with lawmakers lined up 20-deep for their chance to speak.
“It was just what I’d hoped for, where it was a question and answer session, so that members could come up, express their ideas, concerns, ask questions,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who will chair a House Oversight subcommittee in the new year on DOGE.
To be sure, it wasn’t the full Congress participating, as most Democrats did not join.
New York Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi said when he heard Musk mention that he was open to hearing from Democrats, he dashed over to join toward the end of the session.
“Let’s do some things to try and make government more efficient — without hurting people,” Suozzi said.
Musk and Ramaswamy left lawmakers with the impression they would be back for more, holding regular meetings and starting a podcast or some other way to share information with Americans to gauge public support — or opposition — to the proposals.
While neither Musk nor Ramaswamy have much public service experience, they bring track records in private business — Musk’s operations have vast government contracts — and enthusiasm for Trump’s agenda, having campaigned alongside him in the final stretch of the election.
The world’s richest man, Musk poured millions into a get-out-the-vote effort to help the former president return to the White House. He is known politically for having transformed the popular social media site formerly known as Twitter into X, a platform embraced by Trump’s “Make America Great Again” enthusiasts.
Despite its name, the Department of Government Efficiency is neither a department nor part of the government, which frees Musk and Ramaswamy from having to go through the typical ethics and background checks required for federal employment. They said they will not be paid for their work.
One good-government group has said that DOGE, as a presidential advisory panel, should be expected to adhere to traditional practices of transparency, equal representation and public input — as happened with similar advisory entities from the Reagan to the Obama administrations.
The Federal Advisory Committee Act “is designed expressly for situations like this,” wrote Lisa Gilbert and Robert Weissman, the co-chairs of Public Citizen, in a letter to the Trump transition team.
“If the government is going to turn to unelected and politically unaccountable persons to make recommendations as grand as $2 trillion in budget cuts, it must ensure those recommendations come from a balanced and transparent process not rigged to benefit insiders.”
The nation’s $6 trillion federal budget routinely runs a deficit, which this year ran $1.8 trillion, a historic high, according to the Congressional Budget Office. It has not been balanced since the Clinton administration more than two decades ago.
Republicans generally blame what they see as exorbitant spending for the deficit, while Democrats point to tax cuts enacted under Republican presidents Trump and George W. Bush as the major driver.
Receipts last year as a percentage of gross domestic product came in just below the average for the past 50 years, while outlays were equal to 23.4 percent of GDP, compared to the 50-year average of 21.1 percent.
Some of the biggest increases in spending last year occurred with politically popular programs that lawmakers will be reticent to touch. For example, spending on Social Security benefits went up 8 percent, Medicare outlays increased 9 percent, spending on defense went up 7 percent and spending on veterans health care rose 14 percent, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Rep. Clay Higgins, R-Louisiana, said the significance of the meeting was that it was even taking place, “that there’s honest dialogue between Congress and two, like, rock star administration guys.”
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said he would like to see Musk testify before the House Armed Services Committee on the “bloated defense budget.”
“I’d like to see Elon recommend some cuts. Let’s have him testify,” Khanna said.