The US election will probably be very close. I don't think it's 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦𝘭𝘺 that Trump will win, but it's possible.

(He's been ahead of Biden in the polls for a while. Many people expect that to change soon, but it's already March and the numbers haven't really moved.)

Thread. People who still remember Afghanistan are already making contingency plans for that outcome.

Albert Torres, of the George W. Bush Institute, published a set of proposals in 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘏𝘪𝘭𝘭 on Sunday that probably won't get a hearing from President Biden.

thehill.com/opinion/450529…

The other day I wrote about Muhammadiyah's recent proposal to open girls' schools in Afghanistan.

I should have read their website more carefully. The group's work here—which has US government backing—has flown under the radar for over a year.

[link removed; see below]

Thread. Rina Amiri visited the organization's Jakarta headquarters on 26 August 2022 to discuss educational options for Afghan women and girls. One idea at that point was that they might study at Muhammadiyah schools overseas.

The meeting wasn't secret, but it wasn't well publicized.

I wrote almost two months ago about a serious legal error that seems to have been made by the directors of the Afghan Fund:



I haven't seen any sign that the issue has been resolved yet, so I think I should explain my concerns in more detail.

Thread.

https://twitter.com/JeffRigsby2/status/1677283983955210241

I realize the people involved aren't free to talk about this—two of them have told me as much—and that's fine.

But I want to make sure the problem is understood, and Twitter is my only platform for publicizing it.

(Although I intend to write something in a longer format soon.)

More cryptic news about Chinese investment in Afghanistan:



This time the potential investor is "Fan China Afghan Mining Processing and Trading", a company I don't think anyone has ever heard of before.

But in fact, this all looks very familiar.

Thread.khaama.com/chinese-mining… Khaama says FAMPTC is "a partnership between Afghanistan’s Watan Group and China’s Xinjiang Central Asia Petroleum and Gas Co (CAPEIC)".

Remember CAPEIC?

They announced back in January that they were taking a lease on the Amu Darya oilfield in Jowzjan and Sar-e Pul provinces.

Strange things are happening at the Fund for the Afghan People.

I don't think it's anything very sinister, but it confirms my suspicion that the US government is making a mess of the Fund's legal technicalities.

Thread. If you open you'll see three new items.

They've issued a revision to the Fund's charter (𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘵𝘴) and a "Statement", both dated 23 June. It seems a third Board meeting was held that day.

They've also posted the minutes of the second Board meeting.afghanfund.ch

I was going to save these until someone answered an email I sent, but I think I'll put them out now.

The Iranian government seems to be trying to deescalate. Two hours ago the interior ministry said the "brief conflict" with the IEA was over:

iranintl.com/202305293266

Thread. But both sides need to look at reconnaissance data the United States collected in 2021 and 2022.

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (nga.mil), which specializes in mapping and satellite photography, operates a website where it posts open-source research.

Amnesty International and the International Commission of Jurists have put out a new report on Afghan women's rights:

amnesty.org/en/documents/a…

It doesn't make the Taliban look good, to say the least. But there are reasons even the IEA should be pleased to see it.

Thread (1/58). I'll get my usual hobbyhorse out of the way first.

Unlike Amnesty's previous report on this subject, which came out in July, the new report acknowledges that most women's shelters (they say "some") shut down preemptively when the Taliban seized power.

They even cite Rozina Ali!

UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric has made two "clarifications" in two days.

On Tuesday he explained what the head of the UNDP had meant about Afghanistan, and on Wednesday he explained what the Deputy Secretary General had meant.

I'm not sure much clarity was added.

Thread. The press briefings for 18 and 19 April are available here:

press.un.org/en/2023/db2304…
press.un.org/en/2023/db2304…

On the 18th, Dujarric seemed to push back against the remarks of Achim Steiner, who said the UN might leave Afghanistan if no agreement was reached on women's employment.

Amina Mohammed, the UN deputy secretary general, announced Monday that an upcoming conference will "discuss granting recognition" to the Taliban:

voanews.com/a/top-un-offic…

On Tuesday, Zalmay Khalilzad confirmed on Twitter that the meeting is scheduled for 1 May in Doha.

Thread. A couple of other things also happened on Tuesday.

The UNDP released its latest report on the Afghan economy, 𝘈𝘧𝘨𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯 𝘚𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘰-𝘌𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘤 𝘖𝘶𝘵𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬 2023:

undp.org/afghanistan/pu…

But it's not actually the full report, just the executive summary.

House Republicans have asked SIGAR to examine ways in which the Taliban might gain access to US aid money spent in Afghanistan.

They've also asked it to look at the Fund for the Afghan People—something SIGAR has already said it intends to do.

Thread.

https://twitter.com/HouseForeignGOP/status/1636780129513881601

As @RepMcCaul notes, SIGAR's latest quarterly report found that "neither the State Department nor SIGAR have visibility on how much revenue the Taliban-controlled ministries may be collecting from fees and other payments from UN agencies or NGOs".

That's a legitimate concern.

"60 Minutes" just aired a long segment on School of Leadership-Afghanistan (SOLA): the country's only boarding school for girls, which evacuated 𝘦𝘯 𝘮𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘦 to Rwanda in August 2021.

It's a gripping story. But some facts have been left out.

(1/60)

cbsnews.com/news/sola-afgh… @LesleyStahl went to Kigali to see the school and meet its founder, Shabana Basij-Rasikh. So I can't fault "60 Minutes" for the depth of its reporting.

But there are things you can learn about SOLA only by being in Kabul. There are also things you can learn from research online.

Here we go again.

The 𝘎𝘶𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘪𝘢𝘯 ran an article yesterday—no, please don't stop reading. I promise I have another scoop!

The 𝘎𝘶𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘪𝘢𝘯 ran an article yesterday on domestic violence in Afghanistan. And it's massively misleading.

Thread.

theguardian.com/global-develop… The news hook for Ruchi Kumar's piece is an interview with an Afghan psychologist in exile.

But she also draws on research from Amnesty International and quotes Kevin Schumacher of Women for Afghan Women (WAW), formerly the largest operator of women's shelters in the country.

I've been wondering who serves on the Board of Trustees of the Fund for the Afghan People.

I've also wondered if all the trustees were lawfully appointed. It seemed possible that one was not.

This week there was a new development that may have answered those questions.

Thread. When I checked the Geneva commercial registry tonight, I found the list of trustees for the Fund had been updated.

The link is here:

ge.ch/hrcintapp/exte…

Scott Miller, the US ambassador to Switzerland, has been removed. In his place is "Jay Shambaugh of Chevy Chase, USA".

I can't take it any more. I think I'm losing my mind.

What am I even doing?

--

This is injectable medroxyprogesterone acetate. My pharmacist says it's a generic packed in Afghanistan, with active ingredient sourced from India.

It's commonly known as "Depo-Provera".

Thread. Like a lot of his colleagues in Kabul, my pharmacist also stocks levonorgestrel.

That's the emergency contraceptive sold in the US as "Plan B", although many Afghan pharmacies carry an Indian version with the charming brandname "Unwanted-72".

You see where I'm going with this.

The only thing worse than quote-tweeting yourself is quote-quote-tweeting yourself. But I was trying to remember if I'd ever mentioned Karen Decker, and this is what came up when I searched:

https://twitter.com/JeffRigsby2/status/1585619503425232897

Afghans don't like the way US officials talk to them.

Thread. I don't think they have issues with "black girl magic", although they may have wondered how much charas she smoked before sending that one.

What drives people crazy is public statements that ignore Afghan reality. And tweets about Black History Month are not the worst examples.

When Martin Griffiths, the UN humanitarian chief, told the BBC that shipments of physical dollars to the Afghan central bank stopped in mid-December, I thought it must be a misunderstanding.

But now Dr. Shah Mehrabi is backing Griffiths.

Thread.

https://twitter.com/TOLOnews/status/1612114379851407361

It's true that the central bank hasn't tweeted about any dollar shipments arriving since 14 December.

But they don't seem to be running out of hard currency. They also tweet the schedule of their dollar auctions, and the last one was on 8 January:

https://twitter.com/AFGCentralbank/status/1611635890148843520?s=20&t=417aLlOjZjybatOc8ZGm-g

The more I read about the Sino-Afghan oil production agreement, the less I understand it:

reuters.com/business/afgha…

Haters will say that's because I don't know much about the oil industry. It's true!

But it only takes a little research to see the numbers don't add up.

Thread. When this story came out, the first thing that seemed odd (once the investor was identified) was why China chose CAPEIC for the deal.

Because CAPEIC isn't an oil company, exactly. It's an "oilfield service provider": a contractor that provides technical support to oil companies.

There are no economic sanctions against Afghanistan.

Thread. This seems to be a subject of endless confusion. Until a few weeks ago I didn't understand it very well myself, so this thread is partly for my own benefit. I hope others will find it useful too.

Let's start with the most basic fact about Afghanistan's international relations.

This is Shewaki stupa, built in the first century CE and active through the ninth.

It's thirteen kilometers southeast of the Kabul Serena Hotel. I measured it.

Don't be fooled by the "Buddhist temple" (𝘴𝘪𝘤) marked on Google Maps. The dome is at 34.441023, 69.280727.

Thread. To get there you take the Gardez road, then turn off to the left at Beni Hisar.

The next couple of kilometers are rough, but if you follow this path the remainder of the drive is asphalt roads and concreted village lanes until you're almost at the site.

google.com/maps/dir/34.53…

Sometimes when a newspaper runs an inaccurate article online, they'll correct it after it's gone live. If they're honest, they'll explain what they've done and why.

If they're not so honest they won't. Most of their readers will never know.

But the Internet is forever.

Thread. The 𝘎𝘶𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘪𝘢𝘯's piece on the alleged killing of "Hamed Sabouri" is a case in point. It was published nine days ago and you can read it here:

theguardian.com/global-develop…

But what you'll see if you click on this link now is not what the paper's readers first saw on 18 October.

I found the charter of the Fund for the Afghan People.

It clarifies a few things, but there's a lot we still don't know.

Thread.

[c] It turns out that some records for foundations in Switzerland are stored at the cantonal (province) level, not the national level.

Click this link and type "Fund for the Afghan People" into the search bar marked "Raison sociale". Then click "Rechercher":

ge.ch/recherche-entr…