Politics
Afghanistan’s water crisis goes regional
Over four decades of war, Afghanistan wielded limited control over five major river basins that flow across its borders into downstream neighbouring nations.
But as Taliban authorities swept to power and tightened their grip on the country, they have pushed for Afghanistan’s water sovereignty, launching infrastructure projects to harness precious resources in the arid territory.
Dams and canals have sparked tensions with neighbouring states, testing the Taliban government’s efforts to build strong regional ties, as they remain largely isolated on the global stage since their 2021 takeover.
At the same time, the region is facing the shared impacts of climate change intensifying water scarcity, as temperatures rise and precipitation patterns shift, threatening glaciers and snowpack that feed the country’s rivers.
Here are key points about Afghanistan’s transboundary water challenges:
Central Asian states to the north
Afghanistan is emerging as a new player in often fraught negotiations on the use of the Amu Darya, one of two key rivers crucial for crops in water-stressed Central Asia, where water sharing relies on fragile accords since Soviet times.
Central Asian states have expressed concern over the Qosh Tepa mega canal project that could divert up to 21% of the Amu Darya’s total flow to irrigate 560,000 hectares of land across Afghanistan’s arid north, and further deplete the Aral Sea.
Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are likely to face the biggest impact, both joined by Kazakhstan in voicing alarm, even as they deepen diplomatic ties with the Taliban authorities — officially recognised so far by only Russia.
“No matter how friendly the tone is now,” water governance expert Mohd Faizee warned, “at some point there will be consequences for Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan when the canal starts operating”.
Taliban officials have denied that the project will have a major impact on the Amu Darya’s water levels and pledged it will improve food security in a country heavily dependent on climate-vulnerable agriculture and facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
“There is an abundance of water, especially when the Amu Darya floods and glacial meltwater flows into it” in the warmer months, said project manager Sayed Zabihullah Miri, during a visit to the canal works in Faryab province, where diggers carved into a drought-ridden plain dotted with camels and locusts.
Iran to the west
Iran is the only country with which Afghanistan has a formal water sharing treaty, agreed in 1973 over the Helmand river, which traverses Taliban heartland territory, but the accord was never fully implemented.
Longstanding tensions over the river’s resources have spiked over dams in southern Afghanistan, particularly in periods of drought, which are likely to increase as climate shocks hit the region’s water cycle.
Iran, facing pressure in its parched southeastern region, has repeatedly demanded that Afghanistan respect its rights, charging that upstream dams restrict the Helmand’s flow into a border lake.
The Taliban authorities insist there is not enough water to release more to Iran, blaming the impact of climate pressures on the whole region.
They also argue long-term poor water management has meant Afghanistan has not gotten its full share, according to an Afghanistan Analysts Network report by water resources management expert Assem Mayar.
Iran and Afghanistan have no formal agreement over their other shared river basin, the Harirud, which also flows into Turkmenistan and is often combined into a single basin with the Morghab river.
While infrastructure exists on the Afghan portions of the basin, some has not been fully utilised, Faizee said.
But that could change, he added, as the end of conflict in Afghanistan means infrastructure works don’t incur vast security costs on top of construction budgets, lifting a barrier to development of projects such as the Pashdan dam inaugurated in August on the Harirud.
Pakistan to the east
Water resources have not topped the agenda in consistently fraught relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Afghanistan’s Kabul river basin, which encompasses tributaries to the greater Indus basin and feeds the capital and largest city, is shared with Pakistan.
The countries, however, have no formal cooperation mechanism.
With the Afghan capital wracked by a severe water crisis, the Taliban authorities have sought to revitalise old projects and start new ones to tackle the problem, risking fresh tensions with Pakistan.
But the lack of funds and technical capacity means the Taliban authorities’ large water infrastructure projects across the country could take many years to come to fruition — time that could be good for diplomacy, but bad for ordinary Afghans.
- Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand witness large scale devastation.
- At least 176 people perish in Thailand and three in Malaysia.
- Indonesia’s death toll reaches 502 with 508 more still missing.
PALEMBAYAN: Rescue teams in western Indonesia were battling on Monday to clear roads cut off by cyclone-induced landslides and floods, as improved weather revealed more of the scale of a disaster that has killed close to 700 people in Southeast Asia.
Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand have seen large scale devastation after a rare tropical storm formed in the Malacca Strait, fuelling torrential rains and wind gusts for a week that hampered efforts to reach people stranded by mudslides and high floodwaters.
At least 176 have been killed in Thailand and three in Malaysia, while the death toll climbed to 502 in Indonesia on Monday with 508 missing, according to official figures.
Under sunshine and clear blue skies in the town of Palembayan in Indonesia’s West Sumatra, hundreds of people were clearing mud, trees and wreckage from roads as some residents tried to salvage valuable items like documents and motorcycles from their damaged homes.
Men in camouflage outfits sifted through piles of mangled poles, concrete and sheet metal roofing as pickup trucks packed with people drove around looking for missing family members and handing out water to people, some trudging through knee-deep mud.
Months of adverse, deadly weather
The government’s recovery efforts include restoring roads, bridges and telecommunication services.
More than 28,000 homes have been damaged in Indonesia and 1.4 million people affected, according to the disaster agency.
Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto visited the three affected provinces on Monday and praised residents for their spirit in the face of what he called a catastrophe.
“There are roads that are still cut off, but we’re doing everything we can to overcome difficulties,” he said in North Sumatra.
“We face this disaster with resilience and solidarity. Our nation is strong right now, able to overcome this.”
The devastation in the three countries follows months of adverse and deadly weather in Southeast Asia, including typhoons that have lashed the Philippines and Vietnam and caused frequent and prolonged flooding elsewhere.
Scientists have warned that extreme weather events will become more frequent as a result of global warming.
Marooned for days
In Thailand, the death toll rose slightly to 176 on Monday from flooding in eight southern provinces that affected about three million people and led to a major mobilisation of its military to evacuate critical patients from hospitals and reach people marooned for days by floodwaters.
In the hardest-hit province of Songkhla, where 138 people were killed, the government said 85% of water services had been restored and would be fully operational by Wednesday.
Much of Thailand’s recovery effort is focused on the worst-affected city Hat Yai, a southern trading hub which on November 21 received 335 mm (13 inches) of rain, its highest single-day tally in 300 years, followed by days of unrelenting downpours.
Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has set a timeline of seven days for residents to return to their homes, a government spokesperson said on Monday.
In neighbouring Malaysia, 11,600 people were still in evacuation centres, according to the country’s disaster agency, which said it was still on alert for a second and third wave of flooding.
- Ex-Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina, sister Rehana also sentenced.
- Case relates to illegal allocation of a plot of land: local media.
- Prosecutors highlight political influence, collusion abuse of power.
DHAKA: A Bangladesh court sentenced British parliamentarian and former minister Tulip Siddiq to two years in jail in a corruption case involving the alleged illegal allocation of a plot of land, local media reported.
The verdict was delivered in absentia as Siddiq, her aunt and former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, and Hasina’s sister Sheikh Rehana — all co-accused in the case — were not present in court.
Hasina was sentenced to five years in jail and Rehana to seven, the local media reports said.
Hasina, who fled to neighbouring India in August 2024 at the height of an uprising against her government, was sentenced to death last month over her government’s violent crackdown on demonstrators during the protests.
Last week, she was handed a combined 21-year prison sentence in other corruption cases.
Prosecutors said that the land was unlawfully allocated through political influence and collusion with senior officials, accusing the three powerful defendants of abusing their authority to secure the plot, measuring roughly 13,610 square feet, during Hasina’s tenure as prime minister.
Most of the 17 accused were absent when the judgement was pronounced.
Siddiq, who resigned in January as the UK’s minister responsible for financial services and anti-corruption efforts following scrutiny over her financial ties to Hasina, has previously dismissed the allegations as a “politically motivated smear”.
Britain does not currently have an extradition treaty with Bangladesh.
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has said his partner, Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis, is half-Indian and that one of their sons has the middle name “Sekhar” after Indian-American physicist and Nobel laureate Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar.
Speaking on Zerodha founder Nikhil Kamath’s “WTF is?” podcast, Musk said: “I’m not sure if you know this, but my partner Shivon is half Indian,” adding: “One of my sons with her, his middle name is Sekhar after Chandrasekhar.”
Musk also spoke about Zilis’s background when asked where she grew up, saying she was given up for adoption as a baby and raised in Canada. “She grew up in Canada. She was given up for adoption when she was a baby. I think her father was like an exchange student at the university or something like that… I’m not sure the exact details,” he said.
Zilis joined Musk’s AI company, Neuralink, in 2017 and is currently the Director of Operations and Special Projects. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Philosophy from Yale University. Zilis has four children with Musk — twins Strider and Azure, daughter Arcadia and son Seldon Lycurgus.
Earlier this year, in March, it emerged that Musk had another child, his 14th, with Zilis.
“Discussed with Elon and, in light of beautiful Arcadia’s birthday, we felt it was better to also just share directly about our wonderful and incredible son Seldon Lycurgus,” Zilis said in a post on X, without saying when the child was born. Musk responded with a heart.
Her announcement came two weeks after conservative influencer Ashley St Clair said that she also recently had a child with Musk.
Appearing on the latest episode of Kamath’s podcast, Musk also said that America has “been an immense beneficiary of talent from India, but that seems to be changing now”.
His comments come at a time when the American dream for thousands of Indians is turning sour due to rising US visa restrictions and policy unpredictability.
— With additional input from Reuters
What’s keeping drivers from buying EVs? Key reasons at a glance
U.S. Black Friday online sales hit record $11.8 billion, Adobe reports
What if Sun goes dark? Experts examine deadly reality behind upcoming sci-fi film
-
Sports1 week agoWATCH: Ronaldo scores spectacular bicycle kick
-
Entertainment1 week agoWelcome to Derry’ episode 5 delivers shocking twist
-
Politics1 week agoWashington and Kyiv Stress Any Peace Deal Must Fully Respect Ukraine’s Sovereignty
-
Business1 week agoKey economic data and trends that will shape Rachel Reeves’ Budget
-
Politics1 week ago53,000 Sikhs vote in Ottawa Khalistan Referendum amid Carney-Modi trade talks scrutiny
-
Tech6 days agoWake Up—the Best Black Friday Mattress Sales Are Here
-
Fashion1 week agoCanada’s Lululemon unveils team Canada kit for Milano Cortina 2026
-
Tech24 hours agoGet Your Steps In From Your Home Office With This Walking Pad—On Sale This Week