KABUL: For years just after dawn, during harsh winters and hot summers, people would jostle to join the long line outside Iran’s embassy in Kabul to get a visa.
The rush prompted Tehran to impose restrictions for Afghan travelers, such as financial guarantees and return flight tickets.
It would take at least a week for the luckiest ones to get their visa approved, although there were hundreds of others who would enter the neighboring country through illegal and hazardous means overland.
They fled to Iran because of war, poverty, for a family reunion or used it as transit for making it to Turkey and beyond to Europe.
But US financial and economic sanctions on Iran in August have seen a dramatic drop in the numbers of Afghans wishing to travel to the Islamic republic.
Tehran has eased the visa restrictions to persuade Afghans wishing to go there, according to residents.
Afghans who used to go to Iran, legally or illegally for labor, are returning in big numbers as have some Afghan refugees who lived there for decades, because of the devaluation of Iran’s currency.
Afghanistan’s economy has also been suffering because Iran is a major trade partner, with billions of dollars of goods and fuel worth of imports coming from Tehran, according to traders.
The effects of the sanctions are felt in Afghanistan’s western region particularly Herat, the country’s second largest city.
“Unfortunately, the sanctions have had a direct impact in the western region both in terms of imports, exports and transit,” Saad Khatebi, the chief of Herat’s chambers of commerce told Arab News by phone.
Prices of basic foodstuffs, construction and raw materials have jumped as imports from Iran have ceased and traders are forced to supply them from other parts of the world, he said.
For a while, the sanctions became a business opportunity for some Afghans in the western region since they could smuggle dollars in cash to Iran.
But civil society activist Waheed Paiman said Kabul, under pressure from the US for a month, has barred Afghans from withdrawing dollars from their bank accounts. They have to instead cash their dollars with Afghanis, the country’s currency that has been unstable because of political and security threats.
“This is a far more serious problem for the traders just because of the sanctions on Iran, they cannot withdraw their dollar deposits. People are concerned,” he told Arab News.
Khatebi said the sanctions, restrictions on dollar accounts, bullying by strongmen, the threat of criminal groups and the recent imposition of tax by the Taliban on goods in the western region, may force traders to leave Herat.
Some analysts said the sanctions may provoke Tehran to increase its alleged assistance for Taliban militants in their campaign against US military presence in Afghanistan.
The sanctions have also affected the flow of trade through Chabahar port in Iran which was established two years ago and allows landlocked Afghanistan to have sea access sea for imports and exports.
The Indian-backed port complex is still being developed as part of a new transportation corridor for land-locked Afghanistan that could potentially open the way for millions of dollars in trade and cut its dependence on Pakistan, its sometimes-hostile neighbor.
Ahmad Farhad Majidi, a lawmaker from Herat, said Afghans “hope that on the basis of their needs and constraints, the US will make Afghanistan an exception from its sanctions package.”
“Tens of our money dealers have gone bankrupt, factories have suffered, people have lost jobs and that in itself will have an impact on the security of Herat and the trust of the people,” he told Arab News.
Haroon Chakhansuri, a spokesman for President Ashraf Ghani, refused to comment on the impact of sanctions or restrictions Kabul has imposed on dollar deposits in Herat.
But he told Arab News that Ghani discussed the matter with a visiting top US State Department official on Sunday.
Afghanistan hit by US sanctions against Iran
Afghanistan hit by US sanctions against Iran
- The effects of the sanctions are felt in Afghanistan’s western region particularly Herat, the country’s second largest city
- Prices of basic foodstuffs, construction and raw materials have jumped as imports from Iran have ceased and traders are forced to supply them from other parts of the world, Saad Khatebi, the chief of Herat’s chambers of commerce told Arab News
DHL cargo plane crashes into a house in Lithuania, killing at least 1
- The Lithuanian airport authority identified the aircraft as a “DHL cargo plane
VILNIUS: A DHL cargo plane crashed into a house Monday morning near the Lithuanian capital, killing at least one person.
Lithuanian’s public broadcaster LRT, quoting an emergency official, said two people had been taken to the hospital after the crash, and one was later pronounced dead. LRT said the aircraft smashed into a two-story home near the airport.
The Lithuanian airport authority identified the aircraft as a “DHL cargo plane flying from Leipzig, Germany, to Vilnius Airport.”
It posted on the social platform X that city services including a fire truck were on site.
DHL Group, headquartered in Bonn, Germany, did not immediately return a call for comment.
The DHL aircraft was operated by Swiftair, a Madrid-based contractor. The carrier could not be immediately reached.
The Boeing 737 was 31 years old, which is considered by experts to be an older airframe, though that’s not unusual for cargo flights.
UN chief slams land mine threat days after US decision to supply Ukraine
- The outgoing US administration is aiming to give Ukraine an upper hand before President-elect Donald Trump enters office
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the mines ‘very important’ to halting Russian attacks
SIEM REAP, Cambodia: The UN Secretary-General on Monday slammed the “renewed threat” of anti-personnel land mines, days after the United States said it would supply the weapons to Ukrainian forces battling Russia’s invasion.
In remarks sent to a conference in Cambodia to review progress on the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Treaty, UN chief Antonio Guterres hailed the work of clearing and destroying land mines across the world.
“But the threat remains. This includes the renewed use of anti-personnel mines by some of the Parties to the Convention, as well as some Parties falling behind in their commitments to destroy these weapons,” he said in the statement.
He called on the 164 signatories — which include Ukraine but not Russia or the United States — to “meet their obligations and ensure compliance to the Convention.”
Guterres’ remarks were delivered by UN Under-Secretary General Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana.
AFP has contacted her office and a spokesman for Guterres to ask if the remarks were directed specifically at Ukraine.
The Ukrainian team at the conference did not respond to AFP questions about the US land mine supplies.
Washington’s announcement last week that it would send anti-personnel land mines to Kyiv was immediately criticized by human rights campaigners.
The outgoing US administration is aiming to give Ukraine an upper hand before President-elect Donald Trump enters office.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the mines “very important” to halting Russian attacks.
The conference is being held in Cambodia, which was left one of the most heavily bombed and mined countries in the world after three decades of civil war from the 1960s.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet told the conference his country still needs to clear over 1,600 square kilometers (618 square miles) of contaminated land that is affecting the lives of more than one million people.
Around 20,000 people have been killed in Cambodia by land mines and unexploded ordnance since 1979, and twice as many have been injured.
The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) said on Wednesday that at least 5,757 people had been casualties of land mines and explosive remnants of war across the world last year, 1,983 of whom were killed.
Civilians made up 84 percent of all recorded casualties, it said.
Philippines’ Marcos says threat of assassination ‘troubling’
- Security agencies at the weekend said they would step up their protocols
MANILA: Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos said on Monday he will not take lightly “troubling” threats against him, just days after his estranged vice president said she had asked someone to assassinate the president if she herself was killed.
In a video message during which he did not name Vice President Sara Duterte, his former running mate, Marcos said “such criminal plans should not be overlooked.”
Security agencies at the weekend said they would step up their protocols and investigate the statement, which Duterte made at a press conference. The vice president’s office has acknowledged a Reuters request for comment.
An average of 140 women and girls were killed by a partner or relative per day in 2023, the UN says
- The agencies reported approximately 51,100 women and girls were killed in 2023
- The rates were highest in Africa and the Americas and lowest in Asia and Europe
UNITED NATIONS: The deadliest place for women is at home and 140 women and girls on average were killed by an intimate partner or family member per day last year, two UN agencies reported Monday.
Globally, an intimate partner or family member was responsible for the deaths of approximately 51,100 women and girls during 2023, an increase from an estimated 48,800 victims in 2022, UN Women and the UN Office of Drugs and Crime said.
The report released on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women said the increase was largely the result of more data being available from countries and not more killings.
But the two agencies stressed that “Women and girls everywhere continue to be affected by this extreme form of gender-based violence and no region is excluded.” And they said, “the home is the most dangerous place for women and girls.”
The highest number of intimate partner and family killings was in Africa – with an estimated 21,700 victims in 2023, the report said. Africa also had the highest number of victims relative to the size of its population — 2.9 victims per 100,000 people.
There were also high rates last year in the Americas with 1.6 female victims per 100,000 and in Oceania with 1.5 per 100,000, it said. Rates were significantly lower in Asia at 0.8 victims per 100,000 and Europe at 0.6 per 100,000.
According to the report, the intentional killing of women in the private sphere in Europe and the Americas is largely by intimate partners.
By contrast, the vast majority of male homicides take place outside homes and families, it said.
“Even though men and boys account for the vast majority of homicide victims, women and girls continue to be disproportionately affected by lethal violence in the private sphere,” the report said.
“An estimated 80 percent of all homicide victims in 2023 were men while 20 percent were women, but lethal violence within the family takes a much higher toll on women than men, with almost 60 percent of all women who were intentionally killed in 2023 being victims of intimate partner/family member homicide,” it said.
The report said that despite efforts to prevent the killing of women and girls by countries, their killings “remain at alarmingly high levels.”
“They are often the culmination of repeated episodes of gender-based violence, which means they are preventable through timely and effective interventions,” the two agencies said.
Russia says it downs seven Ukrainian missiles over Kursk region
Russia’s air defense systems destroyed seven Ukrainian missiles overnight over the Kursk region, governor of the Russian region that borders Ukraine said on Monday.
He said that air defense units also destroyed seven Ukrainian drones. He did not provide further details.
A pro-Russian military analyst Roman Alyokhin, who serves as an adviser to the governor, said on his Telegram messaging channel that “Kursk was subjected to a massive attack by foreign-made missiles” overnight.
