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Afghanistan signs '$7 bn' oil deal with China
AFP via Yahoo! News - Dec 28 02:21am
Afghanistan on Wednesday signed an oil deal with China which could earn the war-torn country $7 billion over 25 years.
Afghanistan's first major oil exploration contract will see state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation develop three oil fields in the relatively peaceful north of the country along the Amu Darya river.
Under the deal, signed in Kabul by Afghan mining minister Waheedullah Shahrani and CNPC president Lu Gong Xun, Afghanistan will take 70 percent of the net profits, and the Chinese oil giant will pay 15 percent corporation tax.
"This will have enormous benefits for Afghanistan," Shahrani told reporters after the signing.
Energy hungry China, which is pushing into oil-rich countries to secure the resources needed to fuel the world's second largest economy, outbid four companies for the contract.
The deposits are estimated to contain about 87 million barrels of oil, relatively small globally but significantly profitable for Afghanistan, Shahrani said.
"If there are 87 million barrels of oil and each barrel is estimated at $100, Afghanistan will make about $7 billion in the next 25 years," the minister said.
Extraction along the Amu Darya river, which separates Afghanistan from its Central Asian neighbours, is not expected to begin until late next year, he added.
The joint-venture is being launched with Afghan company the Watan Group.
Afghanistan currently imports its oil and gas, mostly from Central Asian countries and Iran, which on Monday signed a deal to supply its neighbour with a million tons of fuel oil, petrol and aviation fuel a year.
Lu Gong Xun, who is president of CNPC's international branch, said his company has agreed to build a refinery and was expected to invest about $400 million in the project, which will also create hundreds of local jobs.
He said investment will expand if more reserves are explored in the future.
Six oil deposits have been discovered in Afghanistan, including one elsewhere in the north estimated to be worth 1.8 billion barrels, as well as in Herat in the west, Helmand in the south and Paktia in the southeast.
Afghanistan's natural resources could theoretically generate billions of dollars in tax revenue.
But exploitation of these resources faces massive hurdles due to ongoing instability, woeful infrastructure and endemic corruption.
Afghanistan, China sign first oil contract
By PATRICK QUINN and SLOBODAN LEKIC
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan's government signed a deal Wednesday with China's state-owned National Petroleum Corporation, allowing it to become the first foreign company to exploit the country's oil and natural gas reserves.
The contract, which covers the northeastern provinces of Sari Pul and Faryab, is the first of several such blocks to be put on the market in coming months, Afghan Minister of Mines Wahidullah Shahrani said during the signing ceremony.
Bidding information for blocks in neighboring Balkh province will be released at the end of February, and for the western Herat province by next summer, he said.
Afghanistan has been seeking to find ways to exploit some of its mineral wealth to offset the loss of revenues when foreign aid and spending drops when international combat troops leave by the end of 2014. The government has been keen to develop an oil-extraction and refining capability for the landlocked nation, which is entirely reliant on fuel imports from neighboring Iran and Central Asian nations.
"This will bring enormous financial benefits to the government," Shahrani said. "It will be an important step toward self-sufficiency."
The ministry listed the initial value of the project with CNPC as $700 million. But the total could be ten times greater if more reserves are found and developed, and if international oil prices remain at today's levels, Shahrani said.
The fuel pact allows the Chinese firm to research oil and natural gas blocks in Sari Pul and Faryab, an area known as the Amu Darya River Basin that was first explored by Soviet engineers in the 1960s. The Soviets estimated the reserves at about 87 million barrels, but both the Afghan and Chinese partners believe they will prove to be much larger.
CNPC will also build a refinery — Afghanistan's first — within the next three years, after the real size of the reserves is established with greater accuracy, said Lu Gong Xun, president of CNPC's international branch.
Shahrani said the deal calls for the Afghan government to receive 70 percent of the profits from the sale of the oil and natural gas. CNPC will also pay 15 percent in royalties, as well as corporate taxes and rent for the land used for its operations.
Afghanistan's army and police will set up special units to guard the project, Shahrani said.
The provinces of Sari Pul and Faryab are located hundreds of miles from the centers of fighting in the east and southeast and are considered relatively safe. As a result, the U.S.-led NATO force has already transferred or is turning over responsibility for security in large parts of the region to the Afghan army and police.
Surveys conducted by the Soviets have shown that Afghanistan sits on vast mineral wealth. Afghan and foreign companies already have shown interest, notably in its untapped copper, iron and oil deposits. But with poor infrastructure and security problems stemming from the 10-year war, most Western mining companies have shied away from firm commitments.
So far, companies from China — with which Afghanistan shares a small stretch of border in its east — have been in the forefront of investments in the nation.
Three years ago the China Metallurgical Construction Co. signed a contract to develop the Aynak copper mine in Logar province. Beijing's $3.5 billion stake in the mine is the largest foreign investment in Afghanistan so far.
The U.S. Defense Department has put a $1 trillion price tag on Afghanistan's mineral reserves. Other estimates have pegged it at $3 trillion or more.
But the potential windfall for the landlocked country will require international investment, a better transportation network and much improved security.
"This government must stand on its feet," said Mustafa Zahir, the head of the government's environment agency. "Without using our natural resources we cannot achieve this."
___
Associated Press writer Rahim Faiez contributed to this report.
U.S. pulls advisers from Afghan press center it funds
By Ernesto Londoño, The Washington Post December 28
KABUL — After funding and supporting the Afghan government’s press center for more than four years, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul announced Wednesday that it has withdrawn its advisers from the center amid concerns over the way it is being run.
The office, known as the Government Media and Information Center (GMIC), has become politicized in recent months, according to Afghan and Western officials, as pro- and anti-American factions within the Afghan government have sought to use its visibility to push certain causes.
The embassy’s decision to pull its advisers coincided with a news conference at the center Saturday at which members of a fact-finding commission appointed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai criticized night raids and house searches, controversial tactics employed by the U.S.-led military coalition. Their report prompted Karzai to announce that Afghanistan would not sign a bilateral agreement with Washington unless NATO stops carrying out night raids.
The embassy billed Wednesday’s move as a step in its effort to disengage from the minutiae of Afghan government operations. But the advisers’ departure from a center that plays an important role in shaping domestic and foreign news coverage of Afghanistan was surprising and raised the possibility that figures critical of the West’s engagement here could gain a greater hearing.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, Afghan government officials involved in media relations have described a power struggle at the media center that mirrors a broader fight for influence between presidential aides who are close to the United States and those who are working against the goals of the international community.
A Western official with knowledge of the embassy’s decision said it stemmed in part from “concerns over how GMIC has been managed and allocation of resources.” The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because those concerns have not yet been publicly disclosed. The center received $4 million last year, mostly from the United States and has said its international donors gave it $3 million this year.
The embassy had three advisers at the center. The U.S.-led NATO command also pulled the handful of troops assigned to it.
Embassy spokesman Gavin Sundwall issued a statement Wednesday saying the United States was “reassessing and reviewing its relationship” with the press center.
“We want to ensure that U.S. support and resources are used efficiently and effectively,” the statement said.
Sundwall said the decision was not made in response to the news conference Saturday. “This has been under consideration and happened to coincide with the press conference,” he said.
Sefatullah Sahaf Safi, the center’s deputy director, said the Americans left unexpectedly.
“We didn’t get any notice,” he said in a phone interview.
Safi said that the center, which operates out of a large white building with high-tech audiovisual technology, has been used by a wide range of Afghan and foreign officials.
“There is no restriction on who can offer press conferences and who cannot,” he said, “as long as we do not allow people to talk against the nation’s interests or insult individuals.”
He said the center will remain an independent government agency whether or not the Americans return.
“We hope this will be solved and they will continue to support GMIC,” he said.
Special correspondent Javed Hamdard contributed to this report.
Police: Afghan girl, 15, locked in basement, starved, tortured
By Masoud Popalzai, CNN Wed December 28, 2011
Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Police in Afghanistan say they have rescued a 15-year-old girl who was locked up in the basement of her in-laws' house, starved and had her nails pulled out.
Authorities in the northern Baghlan province said they were aware of reports that the girl was tortured after she refused to be forced into prostitution. But, they said, they were waiting for her to fully recover to talk to her and learn more.
The girl, Sahar Gul, was married off to a 30-year-old man about seven months ago. After her parents reported not seeing her for months, police launched their investigation, said Baghlan police official Jawid Basharat.
"After police rescued her from a dark room of her in-laws' house, we saw her nails had been pulled out by her husband. And she said with broken voice that her husband used to cut her flesh using pliers," Basharat said.
The girl was also denied food, he said.
Rahima Zarifi, director of the Women's Affairs Department in Baghlan, said Sahar was immediately hospitalized.
"She was in a very bad condition when I met her," Zarifi said. "The perpetrators had pulled out her hair by force. She was suffering a kind of skin disease and she didn't even have proper clothes on."
Police have arrested Sahar's in-laws, but her husband managed to flee.
The case, Zarifi said, highlights how women continue to suffer in parts of Afghanistan despite overall progress since the fall of the Taliban.
In the second quarter of this year, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) registered 1,026 cases of violence against women. Last year, 2,700 cases were recorded.
Earlier this month, gunmen attacked and sprayed an Afghan family with acid in their home after the father rejected a man's bid to marry his teenage daughter.
In another case, a 21-year-old, identified only as Gulnaz for her own protection, was sentenced to 12 years in prison after she reported that her cousin's husband had raped her.
Her plight attracted international attention when it came out that she had agreed to marry her attacker to gain her freedom and legitimize a daughter conceived in the attack.
She was eventually freed, following the president's intervention.
For Safety, Afghan Travelers Tune In to Taliban Ringtones
Wall Street Journal By DION NISSENBAUM and HABIB KHAN TOTAKHIL DECEMBER 28, 2011
KABUL - Afghan shopkeeper Nasratullah Niazai has developed a brisk new business over the past year. For about $2 a pop, he uploads into customers' cellphones a collection of Taliban songs and ringtones.
A skinny 22-year-old who operates a one-room computer store on the outskirts of the Afghan capital, Mr. Niazai is no Taliban. Neither are most of his customers.
Instead, the songs and ringtones romanticizing the insurgents' jihad against the infidel invaders serve as potentially lifesaving travel insurance for Kabulis who brave increasingly perilous countryside roads.
Sentries at improvised Taliban checkpoints, some only an hour's drive away from central Kabul, routinely check travelers' cellphones. As a result, government officials, police, soldiers, security guards, university students, translators for Western companies, construction workers and scores of others go to extraordinary lengths to scrub their phones of any evidence of links to the coalition and the Afghan government—and to masquerade as Taliban sympathizers.
Business has boomed in the past year, Mr. Niazai said. The songs that buyers like best, he said, are "the emotional ones sung by children with beautiful voices."
One consumer is Haji Mohammad Khan, a 35-year-old Kabul grocer. Whenever Mr. Khan ventures out of the city, he deletes secular music clips from his cellphone, makes sure all his contacts are in Pashto—the predominant language of the Taliban—and uploads well-known insurgent hymns.
"If they search your phone and see your videos and songs, they will think you are their sympathizer," he explained. "On occasion, it can save your life."
Afghans who travel beyond the capital say insurgents have forced Afghans to eat SIM cards, broken phones on owners' heads and interrogated travelers for hours about their contacts with foreigners.
"If you are going 30 or 60 miles outside of Kabul, you will surely find Taliban on the road," said a member of President Hamid Karzai's government. "If you have Indian music or Afghan music ringtones, they will tell you that you are not obeying Islamic rules and, in most cases, break our mobiles."
This official said that whenever he leaves Kabul, he routinely carries two SIM cards for his cellphone. One contains the numbers of Afghan leaders, Western officials, military officers and other contacts he needs to do his job. The other is the Taliban-safe SIM card that he pops into his phone outside the capital.
The growing popularity of Taliban-safe phones highlights the increasing sense of insecurity across Afghanistan—and in particular in Kabul—as the U.S. is withdrawing one-third of its forces by September.
United Nations officials, private security analysts and veteran aid workers in Afghanistan have all warned that it is becoming more dangerous to travel outside the Afghan capital. The U.S.-led coalition acknowledges increasing insurgent activity in provinces bordering Kabul, even as it says the Taliban have been seriously weakened in their southern strongholds.
Under Afghanistan's pre-2001 Taliban administration, music was deemed un-Islamic, and was banned. Shopkeepers were arrested for selling music cassette tapes. Music was forbidden at weddings. Musical instruments were prohibited.
The Taliban government, however, created exceptions for religious songs and jihadi chants, as long as the singing wasn't accompanied by instruments. In the 10 years since the Taliban regime's downfall, these insurgent tunes have evolved into a mini-industry.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, said the Taliban now have some 40 singers "with their beautiful and attractive voices," each of whom produces on average of one 12-song album every month.
The songs "give a lesson in bravery, manliness and protecting the country from the invaders," and "feature the situation in an artistic way." Plus, he said, they ensure that people don't turn to ungodly secular music.
While keeping Taliban songs on their phones may provide some security for Afghans traveling through dangerous areas, it can also create problems with their own government.
Earlier this year, Mr. Khan, the grocer, said he was helping a friend report a traffic accident at a Kabul police station. His phone rang, and a Taliban song echoed through the office. "When I am martyred will you come to my funeral?" the phone blared. "Will you put flowers on my grave?"
The officer filling out the report glared at Mr. Khan and asked him why he had the insurgent ringtone.
"I told him that I hate the Taliban, but I travel to a lot of provinces and this can save my life," Mr. Khan said. "The officer smiled and said: 'You coward.' "
Write to Dion Nissenbaum at dion.nissenbaum@wsj.com
3 NATO troops killed by bomb in east Afghanistan
12/28/2011 The Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan—Three NATO service members have been killed by a roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan, the alliance said Wednesday. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying the target was a U.S. military convoy.
NATO's statement said that the deaths occurred Tuesday, but provided no further details about the incident or the nationalities of the troops.
The Taliban said the attack took place in Paktiya province, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of Kabul.
The latest deaths bring December's toll of foreign troops killed in Afghanistan to 23, for a total of 539 deaths so far this year. The yearly tally is considerably lower than for 2010, when more than 700 troops died. The number of wounded has remained high, dipping only slightly from last year's total of more than 5,000 service members.
Also Tuesday, a community council leader in the Musa Qala district of restive Helmand province was shot and killed by insurgents along with his 20-year-old son and two-year-old grandson, the governor's office said.
A statement from the office said the attack occurred late in the evening, as council leader Adbdul Baqi was heading home from his office. There were no further details.
The U.S.-led coalition has started transitioning parts of Helmand to the government as part of a plan to cede full control of the country's security to Afghan forces by the end of 2014.
With Taliban ‘embassy,’ Qatar again punches above its weight
The Globe and Mail By Paul Koring Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2011
WASHINGTON - From hosting the al-Jazeera news network to sending warplanes to bomb Libya and calling for the ouster of Syria’s dictator Bashar al-Assad, Qatar is staking a claim as a key player in a region in turmoil, willing to rile its bigger neighbours in pursuit of its own interests.
In its latest diplomatic coup, Qatar will host a Taliban “embassy” – apparently at Washington’s request. Accepted by Kabul on Tuesday, the liaison office is designed to be a forum for peace talks that could end the decade-long war in Afghanistan.
While some see a sectarian pro-Sunni impulse in Qatar’s activist foreign policy, others regard it as purely pragmatic, coupling self-interest with ambitions to star on the international stage.
“This has been a sophisticated policy where Qatar managed to have a good relationship between the United States and other rivals in the region, like Iran,” Ibrahim Sharqieh, deputy director of the Brookings Doha Center, said in an interview with National Public Radio. “In order to protect yourself as a small, wealthy country, some sort of striking a balance is needed.”
With some of the globe’s biggest natural gas reserves, Qatar wields wealth and seeks influence far beyond its size. Occupying a sandy, low-lying 11,000-square-kilometre peninsula jutting into the Gulf, it would easily fit into Lake Ontario. Most of its 1.7-million residents are foreigners. Only about 300,000 are citizens.
Qatar is a dynamic conundrum, a desert wasteland with glittering city towers, booming trade, innovative investments and global ambitions.
It is home to a huge U.S. airbase yet remains on friendly terms with Tehran’s ruling mullahs across the Gulf. The Muslim country will be hosting the 2022 World Cup and despite fears that it will crack down on the consumption of alcohol, it promises to make allowances for the event.
To some extent, Qatar has nimbly stayed on the protesters’ side of the unfolding Arab Spring. It has backed pro-democracy forces in Libya, even to the point of training militias. It has marshalled Arab League sanctions against Syria’s embattled and brutal regime. In recent weeks, Qatar closed its embassy in Damascus and led the Arab League effort to force the recalcitrant Syrian dictator to accept an intrusive monitoring team.
But its pro-democracy stance is selective.
Qatari troops and tanks joined the Saudi-led intervention to crush the largely Shia uprisings in Bahrain last spring.
“When Qatar supports the call for democracy and free elections in Libya but assists in the smashing of demonstrations in Bahrain it is pursuing a foreign policy detached from principle,” wrote Elliot Adams, a senior fellow in Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Qatari diplomatic activity is designed to advance the interests of the tiny country and of its ruling family.”
Host to one of the world’s wealthiest populations, Qatar remains an absolute monarchy. While it prides itself on loudly calling for democracy in other Arab states, it allows none at home. The royal family owns al-Jazeera, the news network most widely watched and trusted in an Arab world usually stuck with dull and tame state broadcasters. Its bold, often ground-breaking coverage is rarely if ever at odds with the emirate’s domestic or international policies.
Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani remains the driving force behind Qatar’s transformation from sleepy Gulf backwater. For a few months, Canadian warplanes were based there during the 1991 Gulf War and it was the most excitement Doha had seen in decades. Four years later, then-crown-prince Hamad staged a quiet coup, ousting his father while he was vacationing in Switzerland, only to discover the tiny nation’s treasury was bare. Since then, the discovery of massive natural gas reserves, coupled with the emir’s unbounded ambition and a willingness to take risks rarely found among the conservative rulers of the Gulf, has transformed Qatar.
The latest gambit, hosting what seem certain to be Taliban talks with the Karzai government and perhaps with the United States raises Qatar's profile once more.
Qatar has long maintained good relations with the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic political movements. And the presence of senior Taliban in the emirate may confer legitimacy on the long-disparaged Islamic movement.
Qatar’s controversial decision was only grudgingly accepted by Mr. Karzai, who apparently fears that foreign powers – including the United States – will deal directly with the Taliban, sidelining his fragile and corrupt government. For Washington, a negotiated return to Taliban power-sharing in Kabul may allow U.S. President Barack Obama an exit with honour from Afghanistan.
Kabul's Stealth Attack on Human Rights
New York Times By PATRICIA GOSSMAN OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR December 27, 2011
Watershed moments in Afghanistan happen by stealth. Last weekend - the anniversary of the Soviet invasion 32 years ago - President Hamid Karzai rid himself of his most outspoken critic, a prominent official with one of the few government institutions in Afghanistan that actually performs well - the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. The move, announced Thursday, seems intended not only to silence a critic but bury the truth about the crimes of the past.
Why now? Ahmad Nader Nadery had anticipated losing his job - he, together with his colleague Ahmad Fahim Hakim, also dismissed, has been a thorn in Karzai's side for many years. Both had campaigned tirelessly against human rights abuses and electoral fraud. But this sudden move, scheduled while most of the West is on holiday, has a more ominous intent.
For the past several years, Nadery has been heading an effort to document war crimes going back to the time of the Soviet invasion. That effort is nearly done, and the long-anticipated report was scheduled to be released soon. Karzai's move seems designed to smother the report before it sees the light of day.
Talking about the past has never been popular with the Afghan government or its U.S. ally. Karzai's cabinet includes Vice Presidents Marshal Muhammad Qasim Fahim and Karim Khalili. Both men have been accused of war crimes in international human rights reports. U.S. State Department officials also have been nervous about the coming report, concerned that the release of details of Taliban atrocities in the late 1990s could upset delicate negotiations to get peace talks underway. "Now is not the right time," one U.S. official recently told me. The Americans fear rocking the boat just at the moment they are trying to hammer down a deal - and leave.
Sadly, not rocking the boat has been the American mantra for the past decade, and has only worsened insecurity. From the outset, the military campaign in Afghanistan reflected the narrow U.S. objective of defeating the Taliban and Al Qaeda and creating a government able to maintain stability following a troop withdrawal. Washington chose its allies among anti-Taliban forces, mostly comprising Northern Alliance warlords and their militias. The Pentagon consistently rebuffed concerns that these commanders, most with long records of war crimes, might prove to be a destabilizing factor. Ten years later, stability in Afghanistan is still an elusive goal.
But the past is not just the past in Afghanistan. In October, the United Nations published a report on rampant torture in Afghan government detention facilities. As a Western official who investigated torture under the Communist regime told me, just "replace 2011 with 1979 and guess what?" Things have barely changed. It is no surprise that the National Directorate of Security is known today by it's acronym from Soviet times, Khad. The practice of torture is the same, though it is not yet as pervasive.
That the past is repeating itself is no surprise to Afghans: When I was in Kabul in the late 1990s, people told me time and again that the only thing they feared more than the Taliban was that the warlords of the Northern Alliance might return to power.
The U.S. promise to build a democratic Afghanistan with respect for human rights seems all but forgotten, but it is still possible to salvage some measure of human rights protection. To start, the Obama administration and its European allies should raise concerns immediately with the Karzai government about the termination of the Human Rights Commissioners' appointments, and express strong support for the work Nadery and his colleagues have done.
Washington should urge that their replacements be people with strong track records in human rights. And the U.S. should encourage and welcome human rights documentation that seeks to bring to light the truth about the past, including via the commission's yet-to- be-published report. To paraphrase Martin Luther King, the great tragedy of this period in Afghanistan is the appalling silence of those who do not speak out for what is right.
Patricia Gossman is working with the Afghan Human Rights Commission on its forthcoming report.
UN says Afghan refugee strategy a 'big mistake'
By Joe Sinclair | AFP – Tue, 27 Dec, 2011
The head of the UN refugee programme in Afghanistan on Tuesday described its strategy in the war-wracked country since 2002 as the "biggest mistake UNHCR ever made".
Almost a quarter of the population of Afghanistan is made up of refugees returning from Pakistan and Iran. Many find themselves homeless, or living in slums under tarpaulin.
But Peter Nicolaus, UNHCR representative in Afghanistan, said the international community had failed to help returnees find a means of earning a living and therefore reintegrating into society.
"We made a big mistake, the biggest mistake UNHCR ever made," he said of the strategy which was implemented in 2002.
"We thought if we gave humanitarian assistance then macro development would kick in."
Nicolaus said only now, 10 years after the US-led invasion and with 5.7 million refugees having returned to Afghanistan since 2002, was the UNHCR focusing more fully on the issue of sustainable reintegration.
An international conference involving Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and the refugee agency is to be held in April to present the new long term strategy.
"It's the income that counts, the livelihood. In very simple terms we need to find jobs for the people coming back," Nicolaus said.
"You can build five roads to a village and the farmers will benefit because they can go to the next town to sell their vegetables.
"But the returnee doesn't benefit at all. He has nothing to sell at the market."
Nicolaus was speaking at a distribution centre for vulnerable returnees, who were gathered on the outskirts of Kabul to receive a package of blankets, clothing, tarpaulins, wheat and coal.
The UNHCR is set to help 34,500 families, or 200,000 individuals, around the country as the freezing winter sets in.
But the difficulty of working in Afghanistan was underlined when the Afghan Minister of Refugees and Repatriation Jamaher Anwary stormed out of the centre because there were UNHCR banners on display but no ministry logo.
Hundreds queued for assistance outside the walled compound, clutching the necessary papers that proved they were designated as being in need of help.
"My husband is old and I don't have money to take him to the doctor," said Parveen Shah, 56, from beneath a blue burqa, her hands stained with dirt.
"We live in a mud house and during the night it's very cold. My son is working washing cars but we don't have enough to eat."
Mohammad Tahar, 30, is one of the 3.7 million who have returned from Pakistan.
"I'm glad to be back in my own country but we are 20 in my family and we live in two rooms without electricity or drinking water," the shopkeeper said.
"This assistance is nothing for us."
UNHCR provides cash grants for returnees of $150. The money covers transport home and is supposed to help them survive the first few months of their new lives.
Three million registered Afghan refugees still live in exile, but the lack of jobs, food and shelter and the volatile security situation in many parts of the country makes it difficult for those who want to return.
Although the rate has slowed considerably, another 66,500 people came back in 2011. But the UNHCR estimates that 40 percent of all the returnees it has helped since 2002 are "not at all reintegrated".
"In Afghanistan a quarter of the population are returnees," said Nicolaus.
"This is what the donor community constantly forgets. This has been overlooked and it's still overlooked. Nobody has taken this seriously. It's a tragedy.
"We are now -- for the first time -- bringing this up in the spring conference."
As he spoke dozens of boys lined up with their wheelbarrows. Armed guards were stationed at the gate and on the roof.
The boys hefted the coal into the barrows in a cloud of dust. They piled the package of blankets and supplies on top and wheeled their goods away.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
AFP via Yahoo! News - Dec 28 02:21am
Afghanistan on Wednesday signed an oil deal with China which could earn the war-torn country $7 billion over 25 years.
Afghanistan's first major oil exploration contract will see state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation develop three oil fields in the relatively peaceful north of the country along the Amu Darya river.
Under the deal, signed in Kabul by Afghan mining minister Waheedullah Shahrani and CNPC president Lu Gong Xun, Afghanistan will take 70 percent of the net profits, and the Chinese oil giant will pay 15 percent corporation tax.
"This will have enormous benefits for Afghanistan," Shahrani told reporters after the signing.
Energy hungry China, which is pushing into oil-rich countries to secure the resources needed to fuel the world's second largest economy, outbid four companies for the contract.
The deposits are estimated to contain about 87 million barrels of oil, relatively small globally but significantly profitable for Afghanistan, Shahrani said.
"If there are 87 million barrels of oil and each barrel is estimated at $100, Afghanistan will make about $7 billion in the next 25 years," the minister said.
Extraction along the Amu Darya river, which separates Afghanistan from its Central Asian neighbours, is not expected to begin until late next year, he added.
The joint-venture is being launched with Afghan company the Watan Group.
Afghanistan currently imports its oil and gas, mostly from Central Asian countries and Iran, which on Monday signed a deal to supply its neighbour with a million tons of fuel oil, petrol and aviation fuel a year.
Lu Gong Xun, who is president of CNPC's international branch, said his company has agreed to build a refinery and was expected to invest about $400 million in the project, which will also create hundreds of local jobs.
He said investment will expand if more reserves are explored in the future.
Six oil deposits have been discovered in Afghanistan, including one elsewhere in the north estimated to be worth 1.8 billion barrels, as well as in Herat in the west, Helmand in the south and Paktia in the southeast.
Afghanistan's natural resources could theoretically generate billions of dollars in tax revenue.
But exploitation of these resources faces massive hurdles due to ongoing instability, woeful infrastructure and endemic corruption.
Afghanistan, China sign first oil contract
By PATRICK QUINN and SLOBODAN LEKIC
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan's government signed a deal Wednesday with China's state-owned National Petroleum Corporation, allowing it to become the first foreign company to exploit the country's oil and natural gas reserves.
The contract, which covers the northeastern provinces of Sari Pul and Faryab, is the first of several such blocks to be put on the market in coming months, Afghan Minister of Mines Wahidullah Shahrani said during the signing ceremony.
Bidding information for blocks in neighboring Balkh province will be released at the end of February, and for the western Herat province by next summer, he said.
Afghanistan has been seeking to find ways to exploit some of its mineral wealth to offset the loss of revenues when foreign aid and spending drops when international combat troops leave by the end of 2014. The government has been keen to develop an oil-extraction and refining capability for the landlocked nation, which is entirely reliant on fuel imports from neighboring Iran and Central Asian nations.
"This will bring enormous financial benefits to the government," Shahrani said. "It will be an important step toward self-sufficiency."
The ministry listed the initial value of the project with CNPC as $700 million. But the total could be ten times greater if more reserves are found and developed, and if international oil prices remain at today's levels, Shahrani said.
The fuel pact allows the Chinese firm to research oil and natural gas blocks in Sari Pul and Faryab, an area known as the Amu Darya River Basin that was first explored by Soviet engineers in the 1960s. The Soviets estimated the reserves at about 87 million barrels, but both the Afghan and Chinese partners believe they will prove to be much larger.
CNPC will also build a refinery — Afghanistan's first — within the next three years, after the real size of the reserves is established with greater accuracy, said Lu Gong Xun, president of CNPC's international branch.
Shahrani said the deal calls for the Afghan government to receive 70 percent of the profits from the sale of the oil and natural gas. CNPC will also pay 15 percent in royalties, as well as corporate taxes and rent for the land used for its operations.
Afghanistan's army and police will set up special units to guard the project, Shahrani said.
The provinces of Sari Pul and Faryab are located hundreds of miles from the centers of fighting in the east and southeast and are considered relatively safe. As a result, the U.S.-led NATO force has already transferred or is turning over responsibility for security in large parts of the region to the Afghan army and police.
Surveys conducted by the Soviets have shown that Afghanistan sits on vast mineral wealth. Afghan and foreign companies already have shown interest, notably in its untapped copper, iron and oil deposits. But with poor infrastructure and security problems stemming from the 10-year war, most Western mining companies have shied away from firm commitments.
So far, companies from China — with which Afghanistan shares a small stretch of border in its east — have been in the forefront of investments in the nation.
Three years ago the China Metallurgical Construction Co. signed a contract to develop the Aynak copper mine in Logar province. Beijing's $3.5 billion stake in the mine is the largest foreign investment in Afghanistan so far.
The U.S. Defense Department has put a $1 trillion price tag on Afghanistan's mineral reserves. Other estimates have pegged it at $3 trillion or more.
But the potential windfall for the landlocked country will require international investment, a better transportation network and much improved security.
"This government must stand on its feet," said Mustafa Zahir, the head of the government's environment agency. "Without using our natural resources we cannot achieve this."
___
Associated Press writer Rahim Faiez contributed to this report.
U.S. pulls advisers from Afghan press center it funds
By Ernesto Londoño, The Washington Post December 28
KABUL — After funding and supporting the Afghan government’s press center for more than four years, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul announced Wednesday that it has withdrawn its advisers from the center amid concerns over the way it is being run.
The office, known as the Government Media and Information Center (GMIC), has become politicized in recent months, according to Afghan and Western officials, as pro- and anti-American factions within the Afghan government have sought to use its visibility to push certain causes.
The embassy’s decision to pull its advisers coincided with a news conference at the center Saturday at which members of a fact-finding commission appointed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai criticized night raids and house searches, controversial tactics employed by the U.S.-led military coalition. Their report prompted Karzai to announce that Afghanistan would not sign a bilateral agreement with Washington unless NATO stops carrying out night raids.
The embassy billed Wednesday’s move as a step in its effort to disengage from the minutiae of Afghan government operations. But the advisers’ departure from a center that plays an important role in shaping domestic and foreign news coverage of Afghanistan was surprising and raised the possibility that figures critical of the West’s engagement here could gain a greater hearing.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, Afghan government officials involved in media relations have described a power struggle at the media center that mirrors a broader fight for influence between presidential aides who are close to the United States and those who are working against the goals of the international community.
A Western official with knowledge of the embassy’s decision said it stemmed in part from “concerns over how GMIC has been managed and allocation of resources.” The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because those concerns have not yet been publicly disclosed. The center received $4 million last year, mostly from the United States and has said its international donors gave it $3 million this year.
The embassy had three advisers at the center. The U.S.-led NATO command also pulled the handful of troops assigned to it.
Embassy spokesman Gavin Sundwall issued a statement Wednesday saying the United States was “reassessing and reviewing its relationship” with the press center.
“We want to ensure that U.S. support and resources are used efficiently and effectively,” the statement said.
Sundwall said the decision was not made in response to the news conference Saturday. “This has been under consideration and happened to coincide with the press conference,” he said.
Sefatullah Sahaf Safi, the center’s deputy director, said the Americans left unexpectedly.
“We didn’t get any notice,” he said in a phone interview.
Safi said that the center, which operates out of a large white building with high-tech audiovisual technology, has been used by a wide range of Afghan and foreign officials.
“There is no restriction on who can offer press conferences and who cannot,” he said, “as long as we do not allow people to talk against the nation’s interests or insult individuals.”
He said the center will remain an independent government agency whether or not the Americans return.
“We hope this will be solved and they will continue to support GMIC,” he said.
Special correspondent Javed Hamdard contributed to this report.
Police: Afghan girl, 15, locked in basement, starved, tortured
By Masoud Popalzai, CNN Wed December 28, 2011
Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Police in Afghanistan say they have rescued a 15-year-old girl who was locked up in the basement of her in-laws' house, starved and had her nails pulled out.
Authorities in the northern Baghlan province said they were aware of reports that the girl was tortured after she refused to be forced into prostitution. But, they said, they were waiting for her to fully recover to talk to her and learn more.
The girl, Sahar Gul, was married off to a 30-year-old man about seven months ago. After her parents reported not seeing her for months, police launched their investigation, said Baghlan police official Jawid Basharat.
"After police rescued her from a dark room of her in-laws' house, we saw her nails had been pulled out by her husband. And she said with broken voice that her husband used to cut her flesh using pliers," Basharat said.
The girl was also denied food, he said.
Rahima Zarifi, director of the Women's Affairs Department in Baghlan, said Sahar was immediately hospitalized.
"She was in a very bad condition when I met her," Zarifi said. "The perpetrators had pulled out her hair by force. She was suffering a kind of skin disease and she didn't even have proper clothes on."
Police have arrested Sahar's in-laws, but her husband managed to flee.
The case, Zarifi said, highlights how women continue to suffer in parts of Afghanistan despite overall progress since the fall of the Taliban.
In the second quarter of this year, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) registered 1,026 cases of violence against women. Last year, 2,700 cases were recorded.
Earlier this month, gunmen attacked and sprayed an Afghan family with acid in their home after the father rejected a man's bid to marry his teenage daughter.
In another case, a 21-year-old, identified only as Gulnaz for her own protection, was sentenced to 12 years in prison after she reported that her cousin's husband had raped her.
Her plight attracted international attention when it came out that she had agreed to marry her attacker to gain her freedom and legitimize a daughter conceived in the attack.
She was eventually freed, following the president's intervention.
For Safety, Afghan Travelers Tune In to Taliban Ringtones
Wall Street Journal By DION NISSENBAUM and HABIB KHAN TOTAKHIL DECEMBER 28, 2011
KABUL - Afghan shopkeeper Nasratullah Niazai has developed a brisk new business over the past year. For about $2 a pop, he uploads into customers' cellphones a collection of Taliban songs and ringtones.
A skinny 22-year-old who operates a one-room computer store on the outskirts of the Afghan capital, Mr. Niazai is no Taliban. Neither are most of his customers.
Instead, the songs and ringtones romanticizing the insurgents' jihad against the infidel invaders serve as potentially lifesaving travel insurance for Kabulis who brave increasingly perilous countryside roads.
Sentries at improvised Taliban checkpoints, some only an hour's drive away from central Kabul, routinely check travelers' cellphones. As a result, government officials, police, soldiers, security guards, university students, translators for Western companies, construction workers and scores of others go to extraordinary lengths to scrub their phones of any evidence of links to the coalition and the Afghan government—and to masquerade as Taliban sympathizers.
Business has boomed in the past year, Mr. Niazai said. The songs that buyers like best, he said, are "the emotional ones sung by children with beautiful voices."
One consumer is Haji Mohammad Khan, a 35-year-old Kabul grocer. Whenever Mr. Khan ventures out of the city, he deletes secular music clips from his cellphone, makes sure all his contacts are in Pashto—the predominant language of the Taliban—and uploads well-known insurgent hymns.
"If they search your phone and see your videos and songs, they will think you are their sympathizer," he explained. "On occasion, it can save your life."
Afghans who travel beyond the capital say insurgents have forced Afghans to eat SIM cards, broken phones on owners' heads and interrogated travelers for hours about their contacts with foreigners.
"If you are going 30 or 60 miles outside of Kabul, you will surely find Taliban on the road," said a member of President Hamid Karzai's government. "If you have Indian music or Afghan music ringtones, they will tell you that you are not obeying Islamic rules and, in most cases, break our mobiles."
This official said that whenever he leaves Kabul, he routinely carries two SIM cards for his cellphone. One contains the numbers of Afghan leaders, Western officials, military officers and other contacts he needs to do his job. The other is the Taliban-safe SIM card that he pops into his phone outside the capital.
The growing popularity of Taliban-safe phones highlights the increasing sense of insecurity across Afghanistan—and in particular in Kabul—as the U.S. is withdrawing one-third of its forces by September.
United Nations officials, private security analysts and veteran aid workers in Afghanistan have all warned that it is becoming more dangerous to travel outside the Afghan capital. The U.S.-led coalition acknowledges increasing insurgent activity in provinces bordering Kabul, even as it says the Taliban have been seriously weakened in their southern strongholds.
Under Afghanistan's pre-2001 Taliban administration, music was deemed un-Islamic, and was banned. Shopkeepers were arrested for selling music cassette tapes. Music was forbidden at weddings. Musical instruments were prohibited.
The Taliban government, however, created exceptions for religious songs and jihadi chants, as long as the singing wasn't accompanied by instruments. In the 10 years since the Taliban regime's downfall, these insurgent tunes have evolved into a mini-industry.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, said the Taliban now have some 40 singers "with their beautiful and attractive voices," each of whom produces on average of one 12-song album every month.
The songs "give a lesson in bravery, manliness and protecting the country from the invaders," and "feature the situation in an artistic way." Plus, he said, they ensure that people don't turn to ungodly secular music.
While keeping Taliban songs on their phones may provide some security for Afghans traveling through dangerous areas, it can also create problems with their own government.
Earlier this year, Mr. Khan, the grocer, said he was helping a friend report a traffic accident at a Kabul police station. His phone rang, and a Taliban song echoed through the office. "When I am martyred will you come to my funeral?" the phone blared. "Will you put flowers on my grave?"
The officer filling out the report glared at Mr. Khan and asked him why he had the insurgent ringtone.
"I told him that I hate the Taliban, but I travel to a lot of provinces and this can save my life," Mr. Khan said. "The officer smiled and said: 'You coward.' "
Write to Dion Nissenbaum at dion.nissenbaum@wsj.com
3 NATO troops killed by bomb in east Afghanistan
12/28/2011 The Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan—Three NATO service members have been killed by a roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan, the alliance said Wednesday. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying the target was a U.S. military convoy.
NATO's statement said that the deaths occurred Tuesday, but provided no further details about the incident or the nationalities of the troops.
The Taliban said the attack took place in Paktiya province, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of Kabul.
The latest deaths bring December's toll of foreign troops killed in Afghanistan to 23, for a total of 539 deaths so far this year. The yearly tally is considerably lower than for 2010, when more than 700 troops died. The number of wounded has remained high, dipping only slightly from last year's total of more than 5,000 service members.
Also Tuesday, a community council leader in the Musa Qala district of restive Helmand province was shot and killed by insurgents along with his 20-year-old son and two-year-old grandson, the governor's office said.
A statement from the office said the attack occurred late in the evening, as council leader Adbdul Baqi was heading home from his office. There were no further details.
The U.S.-led coalition has started transitioning parts of Helmand to the government as part of a plan to cede full control of the country's security to Afghan forces by the end of 2014.
With Taliban ‘embassy,’ Qatar again punches above its weight
The Globe and Mail By Paul Koring Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2011
WASHINGTON - From hosting the al-Jazeera news network to sending warplanes to bomb Libya and calling for the ouster of Syria’s dictator Bashar al-Assad, Qatar is staking a claim as a key player in a region in turmoil, willing to rile its bigger neighbours in pursuit of its own interests.
In its latest diplomatic coup, Qatar will host a Taliban “embassy” – apparently at Washington’s request. Accepted by Kabul on Tuesday, the liaison office is designed to be a forum for peace talks that could end the decade-long war in Afghanistan.
While some see a sectarian pro-Sunni impulse in Qatar’s activist foreign policy, others regard it as purely pragmatic, coupling self-interest with ambitions to star on the international stage.
“This has been a sophisticated policy where Qatar managed to have a good relationship between the United States and other rivals in the region, like Iran,” Ibrahim Sharqieh, deputy director of the Brookings Doha Center, said in an interview with National Public Radio. “In order to protect yourself as a small, wealthy country, some sort of striking a balance is needed.”
With some of the globe’s biggest natural gas reserves, Qatar wields wealth and seeks influence far beyond its size. Occupying a sandy, low-lying 11,000-square-kilometre peninsula jutting into the Gulf, it would easily fit into Lake Ontario. Most of its 1.7-million residents are foreigners. Only about 300,000 are citizens.
Qatar is a dynamic conundrum, a desert wasteland with glittering city towers, booming trade, innovative investments and global ambitions.
It is home to a huge U.S. airbase yet remains on friendly terms with Tehran’s ruling mullahs across the Gulf. The Muslim country will be hosting the 2022 World Cup and despite fears that it will crack down on the consumption of alcohol, it promises to make allowances for the event.
To some extent, Qatar has nimbly stayed on the protesters’ side of the unfolding Arab Spring. It has backed pro-democracy forces in Libya, even to the point of training militias. It has marshalled Arab League sanctions against Syria’s embattled and brutal regime. In recent weeks, Qatar closed its embassy in Damascus and led the Arab League effort to force the recalcitrant Syrian dictator to accept an intrusive monitoring team.
But its pro-democracy stance is selective.
Qatari troops and tanks joined the Saudi-led intervention to crush the largely Shia uprisings in Bahrain last spring.
“When Qatar supports the call for democracy and free elections in Libya but assists in the smashing of demonstrations in Bahrain it is pursuing a foreign policy detached from principle,” wrote Elliot Adams, a senior fellow in Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Qatari diplomatic activity is designed to advance the interests of the tiny country and of its ruling family.”
Host to one of the world’s wealthiest populations, Qatar remains an absolute monarchy. While it prides itself on loudly calling for democracy in other Arab states, it allows none at home. The royal family owns al-Jazeera, the news network most widely watched and trusted in an Arab world usually stuck with dull and tame state broadcasters. Its bold, often ground-breaking coverage is rarely if ever at odds with the emirate’s domestic or international policies.
Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani remains the driving force behind Qatar’s transformation from sleepy Gulf backwater. For a few months, Canadian warplanes were based there during the 1991 Gulf War and it was the most excitement Doha had seen in decades. Four years later, then-crown-prince Hamad staged a quiet coup, ousting his father while he was vacationing in Switzerland, only to discover the tiny nation’s treasury was bare. Since then, the discovery of massive natural gas reserves, coupled with the emir’s unbounded ambition and a willingness to take risks rarely found among the conservative rulers of the Gulf, has transformed Qatar.
The latest gambit, hosting what seem certain to be Taliban talks with the Karzai government and perhaps with the United States raises Qatar's profile once more.
Qatar has long maintained good relations with the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic political movements. And the presence of senior Taliban in the emirate may confer legitimacy on the long-disparaged Islamic movement.
Qatar’s controversial decision was only grudgingly accepted by Mr. Karzai, who apparently fears that foreign powers – including the United States – will deal directly with the Taliban, sidelining his fragile and corrupt government. For Washington, a negotiated return to Taliban power-sharing in Kabul may allow U.S. President Barack Obama an exit with honour from Afghanistan.
Kabul's Stealth Attack on Human Rights
New York Times By PATRICIA GOSSMAN OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR December 27, 2011
Watershed moments in Afghanistan happen by stealth. Last weekend - the anniversary of the Soviet invasion 32 years ago - President Hamid Karzai rid himself of his most outspoken critic, a prominent official with one of the few government institutions in Afghanistan that actually performs well - the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. The move, announced Thursday, seems intended not only to silence a critic but bury the truth about the crimes of the past.
Why now? Ahmad Nader Nadery had anticipated losing his job - he, together with his colleague Ahmad Fahim Hakim, also dismissed, has been a thorn in Karzai's side for many years. Both had campaigned tirelessly against human rights abuses and electoral fraud. But this sudden move, scheduled while most of the West is on holiday, has a more ominous intent.
For the past several years, Nadery has been heading an effort to document war crimes going back to the time of the Soviet invasion. That effort is nearly done, and the long-anticipated report was scheduled to be released soon. Karzai's move seems designed to smother the report before it sees the light of day.
Talking about the past has never been popular with the Afghan government or its U.S. ally. Karzai's cabinet includes Vice Presidents Marshal Muhammad Qasim Fahim and Karim Khalili. Both men have been accused of war crimes in international human rights reports. U.S. State Department officials also have been nervous about the coming report, concerned that the release of details of Taliban atrocities in the late 1990s could upset delicate negotiations to get peace talks underway. "Now is not the right time," one U.S. official recently told me. The Americans fear rocking the boat just at the moment they are trying to hammer down a deal - and leave.
Sadly, not rocking the boat has been the American mantra for the past decade, and has only worsened insecurity. From the outset, the military campaign in Afghanistan reflected the narrow U.S. objective of defeating the Taliban and Al Qaeda and creating a government able to maintain stability following a troop withdrawal. Washington chose its allies among anti-Taliban forces, mostly comprising Northern Alliance warlords and their militias. The Pentagon consistently rebuffed concerns that these commanders, most with long records of war crimes, might prove to be a destabilizing factor. Ten years later, stability in Afghanistan is still an elusive goal.
But the past is not just the past in Afghanistan. In October, the United Nations published a report on rampant torture in Afghan government detention facilities. As a Western official who investigated torture under the Communist regime told me, just "replace 2011 with 1979 and guess what?" Things have barely changed. It is no surprise that the National Directorate of Security is known today by it's acronym from Soviet times, Khad. The practice of torture is the same, though it is not yet as pervasive.
That the past is repeating itself is no surprise to Afghans: When I was in Kabul in the late 1990s, people told me time and again that the only thing they feared more than the Taliban was that the warlords of the Northern Alliance might return to power.
The U.S. promise to build a democratic Afghanistan with respect for human rights seems all but forgotten, but it is still possible to salvage some measure of human rights protection. To start, the Obama administration and its European allies should raise concerns immediately with the Karzai government about the termination of the Human Rights Commissioners' appointments, and express strong support for the work Nadery and his colleagues have done.
Washington should urge that their replacements be people with strong track records in human rights. And the U.S. should encourage and welcome human rights documentation that seeks to bring to light the truth about the past, including via the commission's yet-to- be-published report. To paraphrase Martin Luther King, the great tragedy of this period in Afghanistan is the appalling silence of those who do not speak out for what is right.
Patricia Gossman is working with the Afghan Human Rights Commission on its forthcoming report.
UN says Afghan refugee strategy a 'big mistake'
By Joe Sinclair | AFP – Tue, 27 Dec, 2011
The head of the UN refugee programme in Afghanistan on Tuesday described its strategy in the war-wracked country since 2002 as the "biggest mistake UNHCR ever made".
Almost a quarter of the population of Afghanistan is made up of refugees returning from Pakistan and Iran. Many find themselves homeless, or living in slums under tarpaulin.
But Peter Nicolaus, UNHCR representative in Afghanistan, said the international community had failed to help returnees find a means of earning a living and therefore reintegrating into society.
"We made a big mistake, the biggest mistake UNHCR ever made," he said of the strategy which was implemented in 2002.
"We thought if we gave humanitarian assistance then macro development would kick in."
Nicolaus said only now, 10 years after the US-led invasion and with 5.7 million refugees having returned to Afghanistan since 2002, was the UNHCR focusing more fully on the issue of sustainable reintegration.
An international conference involving Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and the refugee agency is to be held in April to present the new long term strategy.
"It's the income that counts, the livelihood. In very simple terms we need to find jobs for the people coming back," Nicolaus said.
"You can build five roads to a village and the farmers will benefit because they can go to the next town to sell their vegetables.
"But the returnee doesn't benefit at all. He has nothing to sell at the market."
Nicolaus was speaking at a distribution centre for vulnerable returnees, who were gathered on the outskirts of Kabul to receive a package of blankets, clothing, tarpaulins, wheat and coal.
The UNHCR is set to help 34,500 families, or 200,000 individuals, around the country as the freezing winter sets in.
But the difficulty of working in Afghanistan was underlined when the Afghan Minister of Refugees and Repatriation Jamaher Anwary stormed out of the centre because there were UNHCR banners on display but no ministry logo.
Hundreds queued for assistance outside the walled compound, clutching the necessary papers that proved they were designated as being in need of help.
"My husband is old and I don't have money to take him to the doctor," said Parveen Shah, 56, from beneath a blue burqa, her hands stained with dirt.
"We live in a mud house and during the night it's very cold. My son is working washing cars but we don't have enough to eat."
Mohammad Tahar, 30, is one of the 3.7 million who have returned from Pakistan.
"I'm glad to be back in my own country but we are 20 in my family and we live in two rooms without electricity or drinking water," the shopkeeper said.
"This assistance is nothing for us."
UNHCR provides cash grants for returnees of $150. The money covers transport home and is supposed to help them survive the first few months of their new lives.
Three million registered Afghan refugees still live in exile, but the lack of jobs, food and shelter and the volatile security situation in many parts of the country makes it difficult for those who want to return.
Although the rate has slowed considerably, another 66,500 people came back in 2011. But the UNHCR estimates that 40 percent of all the returnees it has helped since 2002 are "not at all reintegrated".
"In Afghanistan a quarter of the population are returnees," said Nicolaus.
"This is what the donor community constantly forgets. This has been overlooked and it's still overlooked. Nobody has taken this seriously. It's a tragedy.
"We are now -- for the first time -- bringing this up in the spring conference."
As he spoke dozens of boys lined up with their wheelbarrows. Armed guards were stationed at the gate and on the roof.
The boys hefted the coal into the barrows in a cloud of dust. They piled the package of blankets and supplies on top and wheeled their goods away.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com