Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
China, India Scramble for Afghan Mines
Article
By Esther Tanquintic-Misa | November 14, 2011 11:39 AM EST
War-torn Afghanistan may have yet to create a concrete and definitive framework to be able to attract more foreign investments, but regional investors interested in its mining treasure remain undeterred even as the country still remotely sees the end of its inner problems.
Embattled as it continues to be, but competition heat led by China and India is on for its more than $1 trillion worth of minerals.
Even if corruption is prevalent, China and India chose to move on.
Concessions by foreign investors have been strictly monitored and carried out under the supervision of American experts and a host of institutions.
"Corruption is impossible. We are committed to transparency. We are committed to best practice," Nasir Durrani, deputy minister of mines, told AFP.
On one hand, in 2007, China won the extraction rights into the Aynak mine south of Kabul. According to Soviet-era data and a newer study by the United States Geological Survey, the mine could yield over 11 million tonnes of copper.
India, on the other hand, has its sights on the two-billion-tonne Hajigak iron ore mine in central Bamiyan province, where Durrani estimates could give up to $6 billion to the government.
Even Australia, itself a minerals and metals producing nation, has been wooed to invest in Afghanistan when Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard visited Kabul last week.
The predicted combined payout from the Aynak and Hajigak mines could earn the Afghan coffers at least half a billion dollars a year, according to a U.S. mining expert whom AFP did not identify. The figures will be a significant input to its largely foreign aid-dependent economy, but not until 2016.
Feasibility studies for rail projects have been lined up.
To be financed by the Metallurgical Corporation of China, the first will run a line from the Pakistani border to the Aynak mine, which it owns, and onwards to Kabul. It will link the Hajigak project to the capital and up to the Uzbek frontier.
The second rail route, which is being studied by the Asian Development Bank, will head south to Iran, where mineral supplies could be shipped to India.
To contact the editor, e-mail: editor@ibtimes.com
ibtimes
By Esther Tanquintic-Misa | November 14, 2011 11:39 AM EST
War-torn Afghanistan may have yet to create a concrete and definitive framework to be able to attract more foreign investments, but regional investors interested in its mining treasure remain undeterred even as the country still remotely sees the end of its inner problems.
Embattled as it continues to be, but competition heat led by China and India is on for its more than $1 trillion worth of minerals.
Even if corruption is prevalent, China and India chose to move on.
Concessions by foreign investors have been strictly monitored and carried out under the supervision of American experts and a host of institutions.
"Corruption is impossible. We are committed to transparency. We are committed to best practice," Nasir Durrani, deputy minister of mines, told AFP.
On one hand, in 2007, China won the extraction rights into the Aynak mine south of Kabul. According to Soviet-era data and a newer study by the United States Geological Survey, the mine could yield over 11 million tonnes of copper.
India, on the other hand, has its sights on the two-billion-tonne Hajigak iron ore mine in central Bamiyan province, where Durrani estimates could give up to $6 billion to the government.
Even Australia, itself a minerals and metals producing nation, has been wooed to invest in Afghanistan when Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard visited Kabul last week.
The predicted combined payout from the Aynak and Hajigak mines could earn the Afghan coffers at least half a billion dollars a year, according to a U.S. mining expert whom AFP did not identify. The figures will be a significant input to its largely foreign aid-dependent economy, but not until 2016.
Feasibility studies for rail projects have been lined up.
To be financed by the Metallurgical Corporation of China, the first will run a line from the Pakistani border to the Aynak mine, which it owns, and onwards to Kabul. It will link the Hajigak project to the capital and up to the Uzbek frontier.
The second rail route, which is being studied by the Asian Development Bank, will head south to Iran, where mineral supplies could be shipped to India.
To contact the editor, e-mail: editor@ibtimes.com
ibtimes
Quirky film of Afghan boy’s coming of age in a time of war
15 Nov 2011 15:08
Source: Alertnet // Emma Batha
Afghan boys play soccer in front of the gaping niche where a giant Buddha statue used to stand in the town of Bamiyan some 240 km northwest of Kabul, April 13, 2007. The Taliban destroyed two of the statues in 2001. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic
By Emma Batha
LONDON (AlertNet) - When documentary maker Phil Grabsky was filming in Afghanistan shortly after the fall of the Taliban, a small boy with a cheeky grin and brightly coloured hat leant into the shot. His name was Mir.
Grabsky was captivated. Over the next decade he returned numerous times to film Mir, his family and community, watching as the boy turned into a man – all against the backdrop of a country at war.
The result is The Boy Mir, a surprisingly humorous film which gives a very different view of Afghanistan to the one conveyed in television news footage.
At the start Mir is eight years old and living among 200 refugee families in caves alongside the ruins of the colossal Buddhas of Bamiyan which were blown up by the Taliban in 2001.
“Who would have thought we would end up living in a cave eating grass?” comments his mother Fatima.
Despite their extreme poverty, Mir has big ambitions: “I want to be a headteacher … or president,” he says.
When his family fails to get one of the houses aid workers are building for the cave-dwellers, they return to their home village in the north where they rebuild their war-damaged house.
Mir starts school and gets good grades. But his father Abdul is ailing and Mir sometimes has to miss class to plough fields with two donkeys he calls “my jet plane and my motorbike”.
By his early teens he is working in a coal mine. His grades slip. It’s a dangerous job, not least because the lamps are known to explode and kill people. But the ever cheery Mir retains his irrepressible spirit – even breaking into song and dance as he works.
Despite the unrelenting grimness there is much humour. In one scene Mir and his friends are seen jumping into a tank of brown water. They blow into their wet shorts to inflate them so that they can float.
In another scene his much older step-brother Khoshdel stands on a desolate mountain top waving a mobile phone around. He has climbed for two hours simply to get a signal, but he can’t pick one up. “I’ll just have to go to another mountain,” he comments.
SCHOOL
At 15 Mir is still shovelling coal for a pittance and has pretty much dropped out of school.
Abdul and Khoshdel urge him to continue studying if he doesn’t want to end up poor and exploited. But Mir is not sure. His work at the mine helps him fulfil his dream of buying a motorbike – or at least a share in one that promptly breaks down.
But by the end of the film he seems to be heading back to education.
Speaking after a recent screening at London’s Frontline Club, Grabsky said he had read that the spread of the mobile phone in Afghanistan is encouraging a new interest in school because if you are illiterate you can’t text.
Although Mir’s home region now appears free of fighting, the conflict continues to affect people’s outlook and their prospects for bettering themselves.
By his late teens Mir’s ambition is no longer to be a teacher - he simply wants to survive the war.
Towards the end of the film there is much bemusement when foreign troops turn up with a few notebooks as goodwill gifts. The locals are taken aback by the physical size of the soldiers, but also notice that they seem quite fearful.
They are unimpressed by the gift. “We can’t solve our problems with four notebooks,” comments one villager.
“The Boy Mir” is an update on Grabsky’s first film about Mir, “The Boy who Plays on the Buddhas of Bamiyan”, which followed the family for a year in 2002.
Grabsky describes Mir as an “ordinary boy living at an extraordinary time”.
“There are elements of Mir’s character to be optimistic about,” he adds. “But Afghanistan is extremely bleak and it gets bleaker all the time. I think it is worse now than at any time since…2002.”
Half the population is under 18. They do not want to fight, they just want food, an education and work, but there is no job market, Grabsky says.
He suspects Mir will still be living in the village in five years’ time, but adds that the Chinese may well eventually buy the mine and move Chinese workers in.
However, Mir is more fortunate than his peers in one respect.
The production company has teamed up with Save the Children and Afghan Aid to set up a fund. Donations will go towards Mir’s education, Afghan Aid’s community work in northern Afghanistan and Save the Children’s rural education programmes.
The Trust
Source: Alertnet // Emma Batha
By Emma Batha
LONDON (AlertNet) - When documentary maker Phil Grabsky was filming in Afghanistan shortly after the fall of the Taliban, a small boy with a cheeky grin and brightly coloured hat leant into the shot. His name was Mir.
Grabsky was captivated. Over the next decade he returned numerous times to film Mir, his family and community, watching as the boy turned into a man – all against the backdrop of a country at war.
The result is The Boy Mir, a surprisingly humorous film which gives a very different view of Afghanistan to the one conveyed in television news footage.
At the start Mir is eight years old and living among 200 refugee families in caves alongside the ruins of the colossal Buddhas of Bamiyan which were blown up by the Taliban in 2001.
“Who would have thought we would end up living in a cave eating grass?” comments his mother Fatima.
Despite their extreme poverty, Mir has big ambitions: “I want to be a headteacher … or president,” he says.
When his family fails to get one of the houses aid workers are building for the cave-dwellers, they return to their home village in the north where they rebuild their war-damaged house.
Mir starts school and gets good grades. But his father Abdul is ailing and Mir sometimes has to miss class to plough fields with two donkeys he calls “my jet plane and my motorbike”.
By his early teens he is working in a coal mine. His grades slip. It’s a dangerous job, not least because the lamps are known to explode and kill people. But the ever cheery Mir retains his irrepressible spirit – even breaking into song and dance as he works.
Despite the unrelenting grimness there is much humour. In one scene Mir and his friends are seen jumping into a tank of brown water. They blow into their wet shorts to inflate them so that they can float.
In another scene his much older step-brother Khoshdel stands on a desolate mountain top waving a mobile phone around. He has climbed for two hours simply to get a signal, but he can’t pick one up. “I’ll just have to go to another mountain,” he comments.
SCHOOL
At 15 Mir is still shovelling coal for a pittance and has pretty much dropped out of school.
Abdul and Khoshdel urge him to continue studying if he doesn’t want to end up poor and exploited. But Mir is not sure. His work at the mine helps him fulfil his dream of buying a motorbike – or at least a share in one that promptly breaks down.
But by the end of the film he seems to be heading back to education.
Speaking after a recent screening at London’s Frontline Club, Grabsky said he had read that the spread of the mobile phone in Afghanistan is encouraging a new interest in school because if you are illiterate you can’t text.
Although Mir’s home region now appears free of fighting, the conflict continues to affect people’s outlook and their prospects for bettering themselves.
By his late teens Mir’s ambition is no longer to be a teacher - he simply wants to survive the war.
Towards the end of the film there is much bemusement when foreign troops turn up with a few notebooks as goodwill gifts. The locals are taken aback by the physical size of the soldiers, but also notice that they seem quite fearful.
They are unimpressed by the gift. “We can’t solve our problems with four notebooks,” comments one villager.
“The Boy Mir” is an update on Grabsky’s first film about Mir, “The Boy who Plays on the Buddhas of Bamiyan”, which followed the family for a year in 2002.
Grabsky describes Mir as an “ordinary boy living at an extraordinary time”.
“There are elements of Mir’s character to be optimistic about,” he adds. “But Afghanistan is extremely bleak and it gets bleaker all the time. I think it is worse now than at any time since…2002.”
Half the population is under 18. They do not want to fight, they just want food, an education and work, but there is no job market, Grabsky says.
He suspects Mir will still be living in the village in five years’ time, but adds that the Chinese may well eventually buy the mine and move Chinese workers in.
However, Mir is more fortunate than his peers in one respect.
The production company has teamed up with Save the Children and Afghan Aid to set up a fund. Donations will go towards Mir’s education, Afghan Aid’s community work in northern Afghanistan and Save the Children’s rural education programmes.
The Trust
Afghan to be forcibly deported from Australia
AFP
Updated November 15, 2011, 12:41 pm
SYDNEY (AFP) - An Afghan asylum seeker who fears for his life if returned home is to be forcibly deported from Australia, the first such case under a new deal with Kabul, the government said Tuesday.
Ismail Mirza Jan, 26 and of the Hazara ethnic minority, fled Afghanistan 10 years ago and made his way to Australia via Pakistan, Iran, Greece and Britain, where he was refused refugee status in 2004.
He failed to disclose his British rejection when he arrived in Australia in February 2010 on false documents, claiming he had come directly from Afghanistan, the Sydney Morning Herald said.
A fingerprint trace revealed his earlier application, leading to the ultimate failure of his Australian asylum bid.
Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said Jan would be the first forced return under a deal struck in January with Kabul.
"Never before today has there been an involuntary return from Australia to Afghanistan so this underlines the importance of today," Bowen told reporters.
"Without today's agreement it would be impossible to contemplate involuntary repatriation to Afghanistan."
The deal allows Australia to forcibly deport Afghans whose claims for asylum have failed, and it was signed off as part of efforts to curb the thousands of refugees arriving here from the strife-torn central Asian nation.
Jan's father was killed by the Taliban and his family have fled to neighbouring Pakistan. He told ABC television he fears for his life.
"If I go there, I will be dead in my country. I have no-one there to protect me. I have no friends, no family there. So how can I live, relocate in Kabul?" said Jan, who claims he was coached not to reveal his failed British asylum claim by people smugglers.
"I told immigration it's okay, if they send me, you can send my dead body to my country because either way I'm dead."
A spokesman for Bowen declined to comment specifically on the case for privacy reasons but said only "Afghans not considered to be genuine refugees" were returned under the policy.
"People are only removed where their refugee claim has failed at multiple levels of assessment," the spokesman told AFP.
"This government is committed to a proper and robust assessment of asylum claims as a signatory to the Refugee Convention," he added.
According to the Herald, Jan will be charged Aus$32,782 (US$33,460) for his escorted deportation, which will take place on Saturday.
Australia temporarily froze all Afghan asylum claims in April 2010 after a surge in rickety asylum-seeker boats from Asia -- a move condemned by groups including UNHCR, the UN's refugee agency.
The freeze was lifted in September last year, but growing numbers of Afghans have been refused asylum after the government updated its safety assessments of the war-ravaged nation.
THE WEST AUSTRALIAN
Updated November 15, 2011, 12:41 pm
SYDNEY (AFP) - An Afghan asylum seeker who fears for his life if returned home is to be forcibly deported from Australia, the first such case under a new deal with Kabul, the government said Tuesday.
Ismail Mirza Jan, 26 and of the Hazara ethnic minority, fled Afghanistan 10 years ago and made his way to Australia via Pakistan, Iran, Greece and Britain, where he was refused refugee status in 2004.
He failed to disclose his British rejection when he arrived in Australia in February 2010 on false documents, claiming he had come directly from Afghanistan, the Sydney Morning Herald said.
A fingerprint trace revealed his earlier application, leading to the ultimate failure of his Australian asylum bid.
Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said Jan would be the first forced return under a deal struck in January with Kabul.
"Never before today has there been an involuntary return from Australia to Afghanistan so this underlines the importance of today," Bowen told reporters.
"Without today's agreement it would be impossible to contemplate involuntary repatriation to Afghanistan."
The deal allows Australia to forcibly deport Afghans whose claims for asylum have failed, and it was signed off as part of efforts to curb the thousands of refugees arriving here from the strife-torn central Asian nation.
Jan's father was killed by the Taliban and his family have fled to neighbouring Pakistan. He told ABC television he fears for his life.
"If I go there, I will be dead in my country. I have no-one there to protect me. I have no friends, no family there. So how can I live, relocate in Kabul?" said Jan, who claims he was coached not to reveal his failed British asylum claim by people smugglers.
"I told immigration it's okay, if they send me, you can send my dead body to my country because either way I'm dead."
A spokesman for Bowen declined to comment specifically on the case for privacy reasons but said only "Afghans not considered to be genuine refugees" were returned under the policy.
"People are only removed where their refugee claim has failed at multiple levels of assessment," the spokesman told AFP.
"This government is committed to a proper and robust assessment of asylum claims as a signatory to the Refugee Convention," he added.
According to the Herald, Jan will be charged Aus$32,782 (US$33,460) for his escorted deportation, which will take place on Saturday.
Australia temporarily froze all Afghan asylum claims in April 2010 after a surge in rickety asylum-seeker boats from Asia -- a move condemned by groups including UNHCR, the UN's refugee agency.
The freeze was lifted in September last year, but growing numbers of Afghans have been refused asylum after the government updated its safety assessments of the war-ravaged nation.
THE WEST AUSTRALIAN
Govt defends forced return for Afghan asylum seeker
Sally Sara reported this story on Tuesday, November 15, 2011 08:06:00
TONY EASTLEY: Refugee advocates have condemned the Federal Government's decision to forcibly deport for the first time an Afghan asylum seeker back to Afghanistan.
Ismail Mirza Jan is scheduled to be deported on Saturday. The 26-year-old says his life will be in danger if he's sent to Kabul.
Afghanistan correspondent Sally Sara reports from the Afghan capital.
SALLY SARA: This will be the first deportation of an Afghan asylum seeker from Australian soil.
Ismail Mirza Jan is in high security at Villawood Immigration Detention Centre in Sydney.
Mr Jan told the ABC's Lateline program that he fears he will be killed if he returns and says the department should just send back his body instead.
ISMAIL MIRZA JAN: If you send me, you can send my dead body back to my country because either way I am dead.
SALLY SARA: Ismail Mirza Jan arrived in Australia in February 2010 on false travel documents. His previous claims for asylum had been rejected by the United Kingdom and Ireland. He left Afghanistan as a teenager in 2001.
Mr Jan will be sent to Kabul but he says he's never been there and doesn't have any relatives in the area.
ISMAIL MIRZA JAN: I don't know what to do actually. So it's days of helplessness.
SALLY SARA: Refugee advocates in Australia have condemned the decision to deport Mr Jan.
Ian Rintoul, spokesman for the Refugee Action Coalition, says sending asylum seekers back by force will put lives at risk.
IAN RINTOUL: It's going to be a terrible, terrible precedent if the Government thinks that this removal is going to be the basis for sending so many other people back. Like, we haven't seen a forced removal to Afghanistan yet in the history of the refugee detention process in Australia and I think it is going to create a huge amount of anxiety for the people who are presently in detention awaiting their fate.
SALLY SARA: Back in January this year Afghanistan, Australia and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees signed a memorandum of understanding. At the time Immigration Minister, Chris Bowen stated clearly the deal would allow involuntary returns of asylum seekers who were not entitled to remain in Australia.
CHRIS BOWEN: Never before today has there been an involuntary return from Australia to Afghanistan so this underlines the importance of today. Without today's agreement it would be impossible to contemplate involuntary repatriation to Afghanistan.
SALLY SARA: Commissioner of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, Mohammad Farid Hamidi, says Australia should stop its plans for involuntary returns.
MOHAMMAD FARID HAMIDI: If a government or a state deports those Afghans they have a real problem in their own country. I think it is against all the international standards and international instruments which is providing support and protection for the refugees.
SALLY SARA: Ismail Mirza Jan is scheduled to arrive in Kabul on Sunday. Refugee advocates in Australia are trying any final legal avenues to delay or stop the deportation.
This is Sally Sara in Kabul for AM.
ABC
TONY EASTLEY: Refugee advocates have condemned the Federal Government's decision to forcibly deport for the first time an Afghan asylum seeker back to Afghanistan.
Ismail Mirza Jan is scheduled to be deported on Saturday. The 26-year-old says his life will be in danger if he's sent to Kabul.
Afghanistan correspondent Sally Sara reports from the Afghan capital.
SALLY SARA: This will be the first deportation of an Afghan asylum seeker from Australian soil.
Ismail Mirza Jan is in high security at Villawood Immigration Detention Centre in Sydney.
Mr Jan told the ABC's Lateline program that he fears he will be killed if he returns and says the department should just send back his body instead.
ISMAIL MIRZA JAN: If you send me, you can send my dead body back to my country because either way I am dead.
SALLY SARA: Ismail Mirza Jan arrived in Australia in February 2010 on false travel documents. His previous claims for asylum had been rejected by the United Kingdom and Ireland. He left Afghanistan as a teenager in 2001.
Mr Jan will be sent to Kabul but he says he's never been there and doesn't have any relatives in the area.
ISMAIL MIRZA JAN: I don't know what to do actually. So it's days of helplessness.
SALLY SARA: Refugee advocates in Australia have condemned the decision to deport Mr Jan.
Ian Rintoul, spokesman for the Refugee Action Coalition, says sending asylum seekers back by force will put lives at risk.
IAN RINTOUL: It's going to be a terrible, terrible precedent if the Government thinks that this removal is going to be the basis for sending so many other people back. Like, we haven't seen a forced removal to Afghanistan yet in the history of the refugee detention process in Australia and I think it is going to create a huge amount of anxiety for the people who are presently in detention awaiting their fate.
SALLY SARA: Back in January this year Afghanistan, Australia and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees signed a memorandum of understanding. At the time Immigration Minister, Chris Bowen stated clearly the deal would allow involuntary returns of asylum seekers who were not entitled to remain in Australia.
CHRIS BOWEN: Never before today has there been an involuntary return from Australia to Afghanistan so this underlines the importance of today. Without today's agreement it would be impossible to contemplate involuntary repatriation to Afghanistan.
SALLY SARA: Commissioner of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, Mohammad Farid Hamidi, says Australia should stop its plans for involuntary returns.
MOHAMMAD FARID HAMIDI: If a government or a state deports those Afghans they have a real problem in their own country. I think it is against all the international standards and international instruments which is providing support and protection for the refugees.
SALLY SARA: Ismail Mirza Jan is scheduled to arrive in Kabul on Sunday. Refugee advocates in Australia are trying any final legal avenues to delay or stop the deportation.
This is Sally Sara in Kabul for AM.
ABC
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