8 October 28, 2014 (1) Kabul...

October 28, 2014
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(1) Kabul...
role in ensuring peace in Afghanistan within the framework of regional cooperation,
the president believed.
About regional economic cooperation, he said Afghanistan
wanted to have deep relations
with Saudi Arabia.
In response, Al Saud said his
country respected Afghanistan
as an important Islamic state
and wanted to improve ties
with it. Regional stability was
the most important need, he
said, promising Riyadh would
take all steps to ensure peace in
Afghanistan. (Pajhwok)
(2) Etisalat...
within the country.
In addition, these employees
can benefit from flexible working hours and study leaves during their final exams.
‘I was not able to continue
my education before I joined
Etisalat. Now I have a bachelor degree, and this has only
been possible with the help of
Etisalat`s educational program
for its employees.’ said Saleema Hasas, a local employee
of Etisalat.
Ever since the program has
started, numerous local employees have completed their
higher education during their
employment with Etisalat.
Meantime, Samiullah Stanikzai, a local employee of
Etisalat and one of the few
Afghans in the country with
Chartered Certified Accountant qualification has completed his studies with the help of
Etisalat`s education programs
for local employees.
‘Development of societies
where we operate has always
been our priority. Etisalat
through its educational program is considering to provide
Afghan society with experienced leaders so that they can
lead both the company and the
country toward a better future.’
Said Mr. Salah Zerguerras,
CEO of Etisalat Afghanistan,
‘ We are committed to provide
the people of Afghanistan with
education and job opportunities, and support the people
and the government of Afghanistan in all areas that contribute
in growth and development of
the country.’
Etisalat, one of the fast growing telecom companies in Afghanistan, has strived to play
an active role in development
of Afghan society through preplanned programs.
Strengthening sports at different levels, organizing educational and religious programs,
food distribution and supporting various social and cultural
programs are some of the areas
on which Etisalat, as part of
its social responsibilities, has
focused since its launch in Afghanistan.
About Etisalat Afghanistan: Etisalat Afghanistan is part of
Etisalat Telecommunications
Group, headquartered in UAE,
one of the largest telecommunications groups in the world.
Etisalat Afghanistan launched
their services in 2007 and has
rapidly become the fastest
growing telecommunications
service provider in the country
with an active base of 4 million subscribers. The company
aims to be at the forefront of
its market based on quality, innovative services and competitive pricing, with unsurpassed
coverage in every province in
the country. Since 2007, the
company has invested US$
300 million in Afghanistan and
is the first telecom company to
launch 3.75G services in Afghanistan. (PR)
(3) AG, ...
was ordered by a presidential
decree to reopen the case. Since
then, law enforcement officials
have simultaneously undertaken efforts to apprehend the
suspects in the case that remain
at large, some of them abroad,
such as former Milli Bank
Chairman, Muhibullah Safai,
and New Kabul Bank Chairman, Massoud Musa Ghazi.
The Ministry of Interior (MoI)
has reported that it is working
with Interpol to track and arrest the men.
The Kabul Bank case received
international attention in 2010
and 2011, when there was a
depositor panic in response to
revelations that over 900 million USD had been embezzled
by top executives at the bank.
President Ghani has given the
Attorney General a month and
a half to prosecute the case.
The Attorney General’s office
was able to refer the case to the
appellate court according to
the timeframe set by the president, but the court of appeal
rejected as it had already done
three time before.
“In the perspective of the Attorney General, there is no
problem with the case, unfortunately, it is the fourth time
that the appellate court has
rejected it,” Attorney General
spokesman Basir Azizi said on
Monday. “We will soon refer
the case to the appellate court
after completion of the reassessments.”
So far the Kabul police have
arrested only seven of the 18
suspects being brought in for
the re-prosecution. Two executives of the bank - Sher
Khan Farnood and Khalilullah
Ferozi - are aid to be in jail,
but many others have fled the
country.
“The Police are conducting
their job in this respect and
those individuals who fled the
country will be arrested in joint
support with the Interpol, and
this depends on those countries
where these individuals have
fled,” MoI deputy spokesman
Najibullah Danish said.
The special court in Kabul had
sentenced Muhibullah Safai
and Massoud Musa Ghazi to
three years imprisonment, but
they were released on bail on
behalf of the Ministry of Finance (MoF). The two men
left the country after President
Ghani issued his order to reopen the bank case.
“Chiefs of the Mille Bank and
New Kabul Bank were released on bail by credible institutions and haven’t returned
to the country and still they are
on the run,” Azizi said.
On the basis of the presidential order, the appeal court is
obliged issue the final decision on the case within 45
days. Based on the presidential
deadline, the attorney general,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
(MoFA) and the central bank
were also charged with recuperating the money that was
stolen by the bank executives,
much of which has been transferred abroad. (Tolonews)
(4) Pakistan...
its role in the fight against terrorism, blaming Pakistan for
failing to stop militants.
Some 173 rebels had been
killed in the past one week
during various encounters
with Afghan forces, Siddiqui
claimed. (Pajhwok)
(5) Ahmadzai....
construction company representatives who called upon
him at the Presidential Palace
here.
A statement from the Palace
said the president urged them
to lift their professional capacity and skills to be able to safeguard a long-term partnership
with the government.
Ahmadzai also underlined the
importance of regulating the
alliance of engineers to guarantee quality construction and
have a reliable data on civil engineers and their skills.
Hinting at growing investment
in the sector, the president noted engineering colleges should
be upgraded in line with modern knowledge and techniques.
He asked construction companies to prove their ability to
earn first-hand contracts.
Ahmadzai warned against trading of contracts and threatened
stern legal action against those
found guilty of this practice.
He assured the visiting delegation their concerns would be
addressed thoroughly. (Pajhwok)
(6) Ahmadzai...
the security officials are saying that the Islamic State has
not managed to infiltrate in
Afghanistan so far. However,
insurgents belonging to a faction of the Hezb-e-Islami led
by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar said
earlier in September that they
consider to join the Islamic
State militants who are currently fighting in Syria and
Iraq.
There have been growing concerns regarding the growth of
extremism in educational institutes, specifically in Kabul university amid fears that the insurgent groups have infiltrated
among the university students
to hire them for insurgency activities in the country. (KP)
(7) Massoud ...
agreement to form a unity
government was reached between Dr. Abdullah Abdullah
and Dr. Ghani’s camps following mediation by US Secretary
of State John Kerry to resolve
the election deadlock which
was marred by massive fraud.
(KP)
(8) MoI
A statement from the embassy
said the US government would
hand over a state-of-the-art
Media Operations Center for
use by professors and students
of Kabul University.
At the signing ceremony, US
diplomats and representatives
from the ministry discussed
university partnerships, scholarship programmes and other
forms of partnerships. (Pajhwok)
(8b) Gov ...Hundreds
of
Afghan soldiers lose their lives
every day by putting the security of the nation first; however, they receive no attention
when they need the government’s support.
Arif and soldiers like him are
continuously demoralized by
the government’s negligence
toward their health.
“I was referred from one organization to another,” Arif said.
“I went to the parliament and
met legislators. They referred
me to the Ministry of Defense
(MoD) and some other institutions, but no one listened or resolved the issue.”
Meanwhile, the MoD recently
reported of the initiative to distribute modern health services
to all army soldiers.
“We have the best hospitals in
the country, including 200-bed
military hospital of Sardar Mohammad Dawoud Khan and
400-bed military hospital,”
MoD spokesman Gen. Zahir
Azimi said. “But we must not
forget that the expectations of
the wounded and ill soldiers
are much more.”
In the past a year, the ANSF
took the security responsibility
of more than 90 percent of the
country from foreign troops.
Since then, their casualties
have also increased.
Since 2001, about 6,500 ANA
soldiers have been killed in
roadside explosions and suicide attacks and hundreds of
others-- including the National
Directorate of Security (NDS)
forces-- have been injured.
The number of security personal serving in different ranks
of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) is expected
to reach 352,000 by the end of
the year. (Tolonews)
(9) State-...
the company needed government subsidy to survive, but
after its privatization, the company is in profit and this year
has made around 300 million
AFN.
“When the Breshna Company
was owned by the government,
it had losses...But now we
have considerable net revenue,
and provide better services,”
Breshna Company head Mirwais Alemi said.
While comparing Breshna
Company income to the government owned companies,
a number of House of Representative members said that
potential government revenues
have been wasted.
“We know of the widespread
corruption in the government
owned businesses and there is
no one to oversee them,” said
Muhammad Azim Mohseni,
Deputy at the Financial and
Budget Commission of House
of Representatives. “The wasting of government income is
very concerning and the gov-
ernment must ask the heads
of government owned businesses about their decreased
revenue.”
Breshna Company officials
have argued that poor management and strategy are the main
causes of the failings of government owned businesses.
In addition to the 34 government owned businesses the
Ministry of Finance has reported on, the government has not
said anything about the partially active ones, but officials did
say that some partially active
government owned businesses
rent their properties to the private sector for high prices and
then only pay part of the revenue back to the government.
(Tolonews)
(10) US Engine...
of the Bilateral Security
Agreement (BSA) by Kabul
and Washington, it has restarted operations, preparing for an
ongoing, if reduced, presence
of foreign troops in Afghanistan after this year.
In its first step, USACE signed
an agreement with ABA, giving it certification for material
testing laboratories. On the basis of the agreement, any company that doesn’t do proper
quality checking of construction materials will be excluded
from the agreement and their
license will be cancelled by the
USACE.
“The U.S. army corps engineers has completed almost
eight billion dollars worth of
construction in Afghanistan
over the past decade comprising over one thousand projects,
we are down to our last ten
percent of projects with one
hundreds projects remaining in
Afghanistan, with the remaining value of 700 million dollars and that will extend until
December 2017,” said Colonel
Peter Helmlinger, the head of
USACE.
Meanwhile, ABA officials assured that the construction
material being used in the labs
would be checked according to
modern standards. “An agreement was signed between USACE and ABA, and after signing of the agreement today,
all companies in Afghanistan
must meet the standards and
ABA will provide certificate
to the companies that have
the standards,” ABA chairman
Naeem Yasin said.
USACE officials have said that
in addition to building military
facilities for the Afghan security forces, they will also work
in the social service and civil
infrastructure spheres. They
promised to help revive the
Kajaki Dam in Helmand and
Dalah Dam in Kandahar. (Tolonews)
(11) New ...
gazette without any delay.
He said the publication was a
legal necessity and important
for the people concerned in order to have sufficient information about the newly approved
measure.
According to Kohistani, a deliberate delay in publication of
an approved law was a serious
crime. He said individuals responsible for the unnecessary
delay should be punished in
accordance with the criminal
law.
Meanwhile, an official at
the Ministry of Justice said
the publication had been delayed due to some difficulties
in translation of the law into
Pashto, Dari and English languages.
Abdul Rahim Daqiq, the publication in-charge at the ministry, said technical issues in
the law would be resolved in
15 days and the law would be
ready for publication.
Earlier, the Mines Ministry
had rejected the existence of
any technical difficulties in
translation of the act.
Javed Noorani, a mining expert, said publication of the
new mining law had been
delayed due to recent amendments to some articles of the
law.
He said the law was first
brought to parliament in 2012
and the first man who opposed
the bill was incumbent president Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai.
Noorani alleged one reason
behind the delayed publication
could be President Ghani’s opposition to it.
However, some experts suggest further amendments to the
law if some clauses are in conflict with the country’s interest.
They stressed prompt publication of the law. (Pajhwok)
(12) Call E....
permanent and 15 contractbased teachers and we will
try to prepare more students
for the entrance test,” he said,
saying 10,000 students were
expected to attend the second
phase.
Deputy Governor Mohammad
Hanif Gardiwal told Pajhwok Afghan News many high
school students from Nangarhar were often denied the
change to make it to university.
He said the Higher Education
Ministry should expand enrolment capacity at universities
so that more students could be
absorbed.
He said they planned to conduct pre-entry test preparation
programmes in various parts of
the province in order to enable
students to pass the entrance
exam.
Shabana, one of the students
who attended the preparation
programme, said a number
of students could not quality
the entrance test because they
lacked proper information
about the exam. (Pajhwok)
(13) Offensive...
attacks after capturing two security posts in the Surkhabad
and Kala Masha areas, killing
eight policemen.
Residents of the said areas say
insurgents have expelled residents from their homes to use
them as bastions for attacks
on security forces in Yakh
Tun, Surkhabad, Korkosham,
Charpayan, Woni and several
others villages.
However, government officials are yet to confirm these
reports.
The governor’s spokesman,
Samim Khpalwak, told Pajhwok Afghan News the military
operation had been launched
in the Ghorak district but latest updates could not be ascertained because telephones did
not work in the area.
Ghorak, which is about 100
kilometres north of Kandahar City, shares borders with
Helmand and central Uruzgan
provinces.
The insurgents had been in
control of the town until they
were driven two years ago as
a result of a military operation.
However, residents say the
government’s writ could be
felt only in the district centre,
where a foreign forces’ military base exists. The rebels rule
all villages and roads connecting with the district centre.
In previous interviews with
Pajhwok Afghan News, residents had said that insurgents
had not only intensified their
activities but had also mined
the highway leading to Kandahar City.
Seeped in poverty and deprived of basic facilities of
life, the district’s population
is estimated at 8000 individuals, with most associated with
farming and livestock. (Pajhwok)
(14) UK Pu...
problems in Afghanistan cannot be solved without foreign
aid, but there had been problems stemming from the presence of foreign troops.”
He said the withdrawal of foreign troops would leave the
rebels with no excuse to continue fighting because they had
long been claiming their fight
was against foreign troops.
Meanwhile, 215th Maiwand
Military Corps deputy commander Gen. Ghulam Farooq
Parwani told Pajhwok Afghan
News the last group of UK soldiers left the Camp Bastion at
the Shorab Base on Sunday.
He said three Afghan National
Army (ANA)’s battalions had
been deployed to the adjacent
Camp Bastion and the Camp
Leatherneck, where an airport
has also been built.
“Foreign troops would not take
part with us in operations in the
past as well, but we had some
agreements on assistance when
needed,” said Parwani.
Maj. Gen. Syed Malook, the
215th Maiwand Military Corps
commander, had said the withdrawal of British troops from
Helmand would create no security vacuum. He said the
Afghan troops had the ability
to conduct operations on their
own.
In late 2001, the British troops
arrived in Afghanistan as part
of the US-led invasion of Afghanistan to topple the Taliban
regime and crush Al Qaeda.
Since 2005, the British troops
had been stationed at Camp
Bastion and their numbers
reached 10,000 in 2006. The
number of UK troops was reduced to 2500 two years ago
when security transition began.
The British troops will leave
Afghanistan over the next two
months and a small number
will remain in Kabul to train
Afghan forces beyond 2014.
The UK lost 453 soldiers to the
Afghan conflict during the past
13 years. (Pajhwok)
(15)No Factory...
rofessional workers, he had to
wind up the factory.
Jafar, a daily wager, who supports his family of seven members, said he often returned
home without finding any
work.
“If factories are established, it
would not only create jobs, but
also develop the country and
increase the government’s revenue.” (Pajhwok)
(16)7 Dead as
Hussain said the third bomber
fought with security personnel
after the site was surrounded
by security forces. The fire
exchange lasted at least three
hours, he added.
As usual, the militants claimed
responsibility for such attacks,
with the group’s spokesman
Zabihullah Mujahid saying
several Afghan security forces
had been killed in the wellcoordinated attack. (Pajhwok)
(17) Herat
plea that there is a real threat to
his life in Afghanistan.
The protesters urged the government to take stern action
against those involved in writing and publishing this article.
Participants of the rally, mostly
Herat University students, said
deliberate acts of disrespect to
Islam should not be tolerated.
(Pajhwok)
(18)Kabul...
reason behind the insecurity is
the government’s vague policy
toward the Taliban.
“The president must have a
clear definition of enemy; not
having a clear definition of enemies of Afghanistan will empower the Taliban,” military
analyst Saleh Muhammad Regestani said.
This is while during his first
week at office, President
Ashraf Ghani had ordered the
country’s security institutions
to take a new strategy in maintaining the capital’s security.
“Security forces need to take
serious preparations for security of the capital and it’s surrounding areas,” the president
had stressed.
The insecurities in Kabul are
as a part of the growing insecurities all around the country
in the past few months. (Tolonews)
(19)Work on...
accident, but has not provided
details about where the rockets
were fired from.
“Further investigations are
underway,” MoI spokesman
Sediq Sediqqi said.
Analysts claim that a main reason behind the insecurity is the
government’s vague policy toward the Taliban.
“The president must have a
clear definition of enemy; not
having a clear definition of enemies of Afghanistan will empower the Taliban,” military
analyst Saleh Muhammad Regestani said.
This is while during his first
week at office, President
Ashraf Ghani had ordered the
country’s security institutions
to take a new strategy in main-
taining the capital’s security.
“Security forces need to take
serious preparations for security of the capital and it’s surrounding areas,” the president
had stressed. The insecurities
in Kabul are as a part of the
growing insecurities all around
the country in the past few
months. (Tolonews)
NYC boy being
observed for
possible Ebola
symptoms
NEW YORK - A nurse who
treated Ebola patients in
Sierra Leone was being allowed to go to her home state
of Maine after New Jersey
forced her into quarantine,
and the U.S. military said
Monday it was isolating personnel returning from West
Africa.
A dozen soldiers were in
isolation at a military base in
Italy, including Major General Darryl Williams who
oversaw the military’s initial
response to the Ebola outbreak, even though none are
showing symptoms of the
virus that has killed nearly
5,000 people in Liberia, Sierra
Leone and Guinea.
Dozens more troops will be
isolated in the coming days
as they rotate out of West Africa, where the U.S. military
has been building infrastructure to help health authorities
treat Ebola victims, the Pentagon said. Colonel Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman,
described the precautions as
“enhanced monitoring.
With concerns about the
spread of Ebola to the United
States still high, a 5-year-old
boy who arrived from Guinea has exhibited a low-grade
fever and will be tested for
the virus in New York, city
officials said. They said the
results will be available later
on Monday.
The case of nurse Kaci Hickox, put into quarantine on
Friday under a New Jersey
policy that exceeded precautions adopted by the U.S.
government,
underscored
the dilemma that federal and
state officials are facing in
trying to prevent the spread
of Ebola.
Governor Chris Christie,
who has defending his state’s
policy of automatic quarantine for medical workers
returning from treating patients in Liberia, Sierra Leone
and Guinea, said on Twitter
that Hickox would be allowed to return to Maine
and can complete her 21-day
quarantine at home.
The New Jersey Department
of Health said in a statement
that Hickox “has thankfully
been symptom free for the
last 24 hours” and that in
coordination with federal
health officials and her doctors “the patient is being discharged.”
“She will remain subject to
New Jersey’s mandatory
quarantine order while in
New Jersey. Health officials
in Maine have been notified
of her arrangements and will
make a determination under
their own laws on her treatment when she arrives,” the
department said. The 21-day
quarantine matches the incubation period of the virus.
The department said she will
be taken to Maine “via a private carrier not via mass transit or commercial aircraft.”
A lawsuit is now unlikely,
her attorney said on Monday.
“She was quietly happy,”
said attorney Steven Hyman,
who said he had spoken to
the nurse by telephone. “She
wants this part of her ordeal
to be over. She wants to return to her life.”
Hickox publicly criticized
her quarantine, saying public health experts and not
politicians should be making quarantine decisions. The
health department said she
was “initially found to have
no symptoms but later developed a fever,” prompting the
decision to put her in isolation, it said. (Reuters)