What We Are Reading Today: Ridding the World of Landmines
This book offers a study on how global treaties can be used to establish successful national programs concerned with mine action programs, focusing on the capacity of world governments to implement the convention on the prohibition of the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel mines.
Afghanistan and Angola are two of the countries, among other nations, with a large number of landmines.
This book sets out to answer the research considering the disparate levels of success among countries committed to implementing the Mine Ban Treaty, according to a review on goodreads.com.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Arab News
3 hours ago
- Arab News
Imran Khan's party says has launched 90-day ‘do-or-die' movement against government
ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party announced on Sunday that its 90-day 'do-or-die' protest movement against the government has begun, saying that it would determine the future of the party. Earlier this month, the PTI announced it would launch a nationwide protest movement after the Islamic month of Muharram, following a ruling by Pakistan's top court denying the party reserved parliamentary seats for minorities and women. Tensions further escalated days earlier when 26 PTI provincial lawmakers were suspended by the speaker of the Punjab Assembly for 15 sessions, after they protested during Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif's speech on June 27. Gandapur arrived in the eastern city of Lahore from KP on Saturday to discuss the party's political strategy and finalize its protest movement against the government. 'We have announced a 90-day protest movement, which began yesterday [Saturday]… And it will be a do-or-die [movement] for us, whether we remain there [in KP government] or not,' Gandapur, flanked by the PTI's leadership, told reporters at a news conference in Lahore. The KP chief minister vowed that the party's anti-government protest movement will 'reach its peak' on August 5, marking two years since Khan was arrested after being convicted by a court for illegally selling state gifts. Federal Information Minister Attaullah Tarar termed the PTI protest movement a 'political gimmick,' saying that Khan's party had made several such announcements. 'He [Gandapur] has made several such announcements and these are political gimmicks,' Tarar told Arab News. 'PTI has lost street power and its credibility, and is heading toward irrelevance,' the minister added. Khan, who has remained in prison since then, says the charges against him are politically motivated and has denied wrongdoing. His party has held various protests demanding his release and an independent investigation into the elections of February 2024. Pakistan's government has denied the PTI's allegations and says the elections of February 2024 were transparent. It accuses the former prime minister and his party of attempting to disrupt the government's efforts to achieve sustainable economic growth through violent protests. In one of the PTI's protests in November last year, the government said four troops were killed in clashes with Khan supporters. The PTI rejects this allegation. 'REAL DECISION-MAKERS' Gandapur alleged that the PTI was being denied its right to hold peaceful protests, vowing that it would now mobilize people across the country. 'We will announce a plan accordingly, after taking all our local workers and leaders into confidence on how to proceed with this movement,' the chief minister said. On holding talks with the government, Gandapur said his government was ready to hold talks but with the 'real decision-makers,' indirectly referring to the military. 'Imran Khan has very clearly said this, '[I] will only negotiate with those who are decision-makers [military establishment]. What's the point of talking to someone who doesn't have any authority?',' Gandapur said. Pakistan's military says it does not interfere in political issues and rejects the PTI's allegations that it conspired with Khan's political opponents to oust his government in a parliamentary vote in April 2022.
Arab News
4 hours ago
- Arab News
Kabul's water crisis: How unsustainable foreign aid projects made it worse
KABUL: As Kabul makes global headlines for being on the brink of running out of water, experts say the crisis stems not only from natural and local causes, but also decades of unsustainable foreign projects and mismanagement of aid. About one-third of Afghanistan's population — around 12.5 million people — lack reliable access to water, according to the latest data from the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. In the country's capital, the situation is even worse, with the UN expecting that by 2030 its aquifers could dry up — a projection that has been in international media since last month, as that would make Kabul the first modern city to run out of water. 'Without urgent action, like bringing in surface water from other basins, Kabul risks facing a severe crisis, potentially a 'Day Zero' like Cape Town experienced a few years ago,' Obaidullah Rahimi, an Afghan scholar whose doctoral research at the University of Kaiserslautern-Landau focuses on urban water management, told Arab News. 'The city's groundwater can only cover about 44 million cubic meters — enough for just 2 million people at a modest per capita consumption of 50 liters per person per day.' This means that less than 30 percent of Kabul's 6.5 million residents have access to the WHO's basic water requirement to ensure minimum essential needs for health, hygiene, and basic consumption. Years of excessive and unregulated groundwater extraction, combined with prolonged drought, shrinking rainfall, and the thinning of the Hindu Kush snowpack — the primary natural source for the city's rivers and aquifers —have pushed Kabul to the edge. But these problems are not new and have only worsened as they have not been addressed over the two decades, when Afghanistan was occupied by foreign forces following the US invasion in 2001. Despite the billions of dollars that entered the country in foreign development projects, Kabul's water management systems were hardly touched. 'A significant portion of this aid was spent on short-term, small-scale projects without considering future impacts on the water balance of the Kabul basin and failed to establish large-scale water conservation infrastructure that could maintain and preserve this balance,' Rahimi said. Dr. Ahmad Shah Frahmand, a geographic information systems and remote sensing expert specializing in mapping changes in water surface areas, said that also the way the projects were implemented, along with the lack of knowledge transfer, prevented them from having a lasting impact. 'International donors funded networks and pipelines across Kabul, often constructed by foreign contractors with little local involvement. But within just a few years, many of these systems fell into disrepair due to poor construction and a lack of oversight,' he told Arab News. 'One of the biggest failings was the focus on short-term fixes over long-term solutions. Aid money was frequently funneled into demonstration projects — temporary wells, pilot programs, or highly visible installations that offered quick results but little durability. Meanwhile, large-scale infrastructure like dams, reservoirs, and water treatment plants received far less attention and funding.' According to Frahmand, less than 10 percent of the water sector budget was spent on training and maintaining local staff. 'Without skilled technicians, engineers, and maintenance crews, even well-built systems can crumble. And in Kabul, many already have,' he said. A report published by the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction in 2020 — a year before the withdrawal of American-led forces from Afghanistan — estimated that at least 30 percent of reconstruction aid, or $19 billion, was lost to waste, fraud, and abuse. Additional audits by the oversight agency suggested the true figure may have been 40 percent due to corruption and mismanagement. As foreign donors have left the country and international sanctions have been slapped on it since 2021, when the Taliban took over after the US forces withdrew, there are no funds for big infrastructure projects, especially as Afghanistan is already facing several other humanitarian crises. 'In a country desperate for stable infrastructure, these funds could have transformed lives. Instead, many projects stalled, failed, or were quietly abandoned,' Frahmand said, highlighting how urgent redesigning Kabul's water systems has been, as the city has not seen a comprehensive water management plan since 1978. 'Kabul's infrastructure was never built for the population it now serves. The existing water supply system, designed decades ago for a much smaller population, can no longer meet basic demand. Millions of Kabul residents now rely on tankers, private vendors, or unsafe wells to access water.' By 2030, as many as 2 million people could be forced to leave Kabul in search of water, according to projections by the UN refugee agency. Water loss could lead to the extinction of local fish species and a collapse of biodiversity in the region. 'The agricultural sector is already under immense pressure. The Food and Agriculture Organization forecasts a 40 percent drop in crop yields across Kabul province by 2035. For a population already grappling with food insecurity, this decline could tip entire communities into hunger and poverty,' Frahmand said. 'If urgent action is not taken, the coming decade could bring irreversible social, environmental, and economic consequences that reshape the city and the lives of those who remain in it.'
Arab News
6 hours ago
- Arab News
Imran Khan's party says 90-day ‘do or die' anti-Pakistan government movement underway
ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party announced on Sunday that its 90-day 'do or die' protest movement against the government is underway, saying that it would determine the future of the party. Earlier this month, the PTI announced it would launch a nationwide protest movement after the Islamic month of Muharram, following a ruling by Pakistan's top court denying the party reserved parliamentary seats for minorities and women. Tensions further escalated days earlier when 26 PTI provincial lawmakers were suspended by the speaker of the Punjab Assembly for 15 sessions, after they protested during Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif's speech on June 27. Gandapur arrived in the eastern city of Lahore from KP on Saturday to discuss the party's political strategy and finalize its protest movement against the government. 'We have announced a 90-day protest movement, which began yesterday [Saturday] and it will be a do-or-die movement for us, whether we remain there [in KP government] or not, ' Gandapur, flanked by the PTI's leadership, told reporters at a news conference in Lahore. The KP chief minister vowed that the party's anti-government protest movement will 'reach its peak' on August 5, marking two years since Khan was arrested after being convicted by a court for illegally selling state gifts. 'REAL DECISION-MAKERS' Khan, who has remained in prison since then, says the charges against him are politically motivated and has denied wrongdoing. His party has held various protests demanding his release and an independent investigation into the elections of February 2024. In one of the PTI's protests in November last year, the government said four troops were killed in clashes with Khan supporters. The PTI rejects this allegation. Gandapur alleged that the PTI was being denied its right to hold peaceful protests across the country, vowing that it would now mobilize people across the country. 'We will announce a plan accordingly, after taking all our local workers and leaders into confidence on how to proceed with this movement,' the chief minister said. On holding talks with the government, Gandapur said his government was ready to hold talks but with the 'real decision-makers,' indirectly referring to the military. 'They [military establishment] are the real decision-makers, so we will talk to them only as there is no point in talking to those [the government] who have no power to make any decisions,' Gandapur said. Arab News reached out to federal ministers and senior leaders of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party for a response, but did not receive one till the filing of this report. Pakistan's military says it does not interfere in political issues and rejects the PTI's allegations that it conspired with Khan's political opponents to oust his government in a parliamentary vote in April 2022. Pakistan's government has denied the PTI's allegations of stifling dissent and says the elections of February 2024 were transparent. It accuses the former prime minister and his party of attempting to disrupt the government's efforts to achieve sustainable economic growth via violent protests.
