Afghan President Hamid Karzai spoke about Afghan leadership andownership at the opening of the Afghanistan Conference in London.Karzai touched on his much publicized plan to re-integrate fellowAfghans into the government and mainstream society and applauded theefforts of the UN to take some Taliban members off of their blacklist.Karzai also said that Afghanistan is “looking forward to free and fairparliamentary elections,” continuing that the government plans to workwith the international community to prevent irregularities at the polls.
Marcus Mabry, international business editor of The New York Times, andJohn Authers, the investment editor for the Financial Times, talk toWorldFocus’ Daljit Dhaliwal about the impact of U.S. economic policiesoverseas, the risk of inflation in China, the fate of Japan’s economyand recovery efforts across Europe. Mabry says that though the UnitedStates has historically been the driver of the global economy,developing countries, in particular China, will have to begin to pickup the slack. Authers says eradicating severe unemployment will be key to economic progress.
Al Jazeera is reporting that secret talks among Taliban leadershas taken place in the Maldives. The meeting coincides with AfghanPresident Hamid Karzai’s introduction of a re-integration plan forTaliban fighters. The meeting, which sought to find a third solutionsomewhere between armed conflict and foreign occupation, took placewhile the U.N. removed some Taliban leaders from their blacklist. AlJazeera’s David Chater reports.
