Passage 1:

There is definitely an economic situation, there is definitely a hardship, there is definitely much lesser income coming to the Afghan people. The reasons are clear: the closure of banking interactions between the Afghan banks and the foreign banks, the fact that hundreds of thousands of Afghans have left the country and among them, some very, very educated Afghans, the fact of the massive change that occurred, and before that the drought that affected Afghanistan. We hope things will ease a bit, there’s the United Nations Programme of assistance to the Afghan people, there is also the rest of the world helping, there is this immensely kind assistance from India coming to Afghanistan in terms of medical supplies and other necessities, especially the wheat that India has sent Afghanistan.

The tragedy in Ukraine has taken away attention from Afghanistan. We still keep receiving the assistance that was promised to Afghanistan, the engagement that was there is carrying on. But in terms of the larger international attention to the Afghan people and the situation here, that has decreased as a consequence of the conflict in Ukraine.

Who was the head of the state in Afghanistan in the 1996-2001 regime of the Taliban?