The Taliban forecast an annual revenue of $2.1 billion, a measured decrease from the $2.3 billion raised domestically by the previous government in 2020. When the Taliban unveiled its first annual budget in May, security accounted for nearly 50 percent of total spending despite the lack of an organised insurgency against the Islamist movement.

Over the past year, the Taliban’s brand of governance has still focused on wartime imperatives of maintaining cohesion, cracking down on dissent and pouring resources on security issues. It’s even funny – they come with rows of bullets and their rifles to their new jobs as if it’s a battlefield.”īut the switch from battlefield positions to office jobs has not been accompanied by any policy transition. Now the length and breadth of government has been replaced with fighters. “The Taliban views these positions as war bounty, to be distributed among followers. Even the lowest-level positions in the civil service have been replaced with religious scholars,” said Tamim Asey, co-founder of the Kabul-based Institute for War and Peace Studies and a former Afghan deputy defence minister. “The country has been cleansed of capacity with the Taliban appointing madrassa-educated people with zero experience as ministers, deputy ministers and managers. But while the two city factions bickered, the brain drain effectively depleted Afghan ministries and institutions of skilled manpower. On March 23, when the Taliban made a last-minute reversal on a long-announced opening of secondary schools for girls, it exposed the splits between rival factions based in the capital, Kabul, and the group’s southern birthplace, Kandahar. Quoting Francis, Cañizares said that the local Church is ready to “welcome, protect, promote and integrate the migrants and refugees,” and they’ve made this known to Spanish authorities.(This is Part II of our feature story on Afghanistan’s brain drain. In these 630 people who’re arriving, “needing everything,” Cañizares said, the Church sees “the Lord himself, our true brothers with whom the Lord identifies simply men, women and children who are imploring and who have needs and who must be welcomed.” According to Cañizares, the local Church is ready to “welcome, help and tend to those who arrive,” with the archdiocesan community ready to act “guided only by its faith and Christian conscience.” The pope is with you, with the diocese of Valencia,” the cardinal said, conveying a message from Francis.Īfter the migrants dock in Valencia, they will receive assistance and, eventually, be distributed across Spain. “This is the path, don’t ever abandon it: that of charity remain steady in charity, in the good example, in the light and the good taste of charity and works of charity.

The pope welcomed Cañizares in the Vatican on Thursday, for a meeting that had been scheduled before the current crisis. I congratulate you and thank the diocese of Valencia for the speediness and generosity with which you’ve reacted, the example you’re giving of charity with these poor people.” In a message sent to the entire archdiocese of Valencia, the cardinal referred to a private meeting he had with Pope Francis, who reportedly said: “You’ve moved me, your behavior.

The quick response from Cardinal Antonio Cañizares and the faithful, after Italy and Malta on Tuesday refused to allow the ship to dock, also has “moved the pope.” As we read in one report from Crux:Ī rescue ship in the Mediterranean carrying 630 African migrants is on its way to Spain, where the Catholic Church in Valencia is coordinating rescue efforts. The Catholic diocese of Valencia in Spain has decided to accept the migrants. As the Italian government intensifies in its nationalism, it recently refused to accept a ship holding hundreds of refugees.

Speediness intensifies