The United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution on December 29 calling for the appointment of a special envoy for Afghanistan to increase engagement with the country and its Taliban leaders.
The Taliban's hard-line Islamist government in Afghanistan has eliminated the Monitoring and Evaluation Department in the Education Ministry, a move that threatens the jobs of more than 5,000 people in Kabul and across the country and further erodes secular education in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan will launch a massive new polio vaccination campaign on December 25 aimed at protecting more than 8.8 million children, the Health Ministry announced on December 24.
In its latest restriction on religious freedom, the Taliban’s Ministry of Higher Education has ordered all private universities in Afghanistan to remove religious books that do not conform to the Sunni Hanafi sect it follows.
An Afghan journalist detained by the Taliban’s intelligence service has been released amid increasing concerns over mounting Taliban harassment of Afghan journalists.