INDEPENDENT 2024-12-30 00:10:00


NY couple sues after dream wedding in Asia turns into nightmare

A New York couple is suing their wedding planner for turning their happy day into a nightmare when, among other things, the ceremony date was changed without their knowledge, a series of logistical screw-ups left guests stranded and the groom’s father was burned during a sacred Hindu fire ritual.

Jasmine Lau and Ashwin Kaja had hoped for a once-in-a-lifetime marriage in Myanmar, but claim “numerous and significant failures” by bridal consultant Sojourner Auguste ruined everything — and now allege they waited more than five years for a promised refund that never came.

Auguste, an Ivy League-trained architect whose destination weddings have been written up in The New York Times, Vogue and Glamour, is “regarded as an international tastemaker, designing meaningful and impeccably executed events for multicultural couples,” according to her marketing materials. “For close to two decades, she has earned a widespread reputation for honoring her couple’s unique heritage with the utmost thoughtfulness.”

Events organized by Auguste, are “miles from the ordinary, hosted in private estates, A-list hotels to one-of-a-kind architectural landmarks,” her company’s website says.

But Lau and Kaja contend otherwise, and blame Auguste for their purportedly botched nuptials.

Attorney Ed Keenan, who is representing Lau and Kaja in their lawsuit against Auguste, declined to discuss the case, telling The Independent, “We’d prefer to keep our comments confined to the court filings.”

Auguste did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

When Lau, a Hong Kong-born social entrepreneur with an economics degree from Yale, and Kaja, a Fishkill, New York, native and Harvard-trained lawyer, got engaged, they dreamed of tying the knot in Bagan, the historical center of Burmese culture and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Myanmar’s Mandalay Region.

The two set a date of December 31, 2017, and hired Auguste to plan the perfect destination wedding.

But, when the time came to get married, Lau and Kaja “would see the fruits of [Auguste’s] failed planning,” according to a lawsuit filed in New York State Supreme Court.

For starters, Lau and Kaja were shocked to discover that Auguste had “unilaterally changed the date of the ceremony just days before the wedding — without notifying the bride and groom and prior to the arrival of several guests,” the complaint states.

Scrambling to accommodate friends and family coming in from abroad, the couple, luckily, was able to move the date back to the original schedule, the complaint continues.

The next setback occurred at the pre-wedding reception dinner, when the hired videographers and photographers “were dismissed prematurely… resulting in memories of the event not being documented,” according to the complaint.

On the big day, Lau and Kaja assert they found the event site, a seemingly limitless savanna surrounded by ancient Buddhist temples and pagodas, to be “unprepared and in a disastrous state.”

Further, according to the complaint, “Guest logistics, including transportation, housing, meal preparation and dietary preferences, were handled poorly, creating chaos.”

Things took another turn for the worse once the Indian portion of the ceremony began, the complaint goes on.

“Mr. Kaja is Hindu, and Hindu religious ceremonies traditionally involve a small open fire, which requires safe handling,” it says. “The holder for the traditional fire ceremony was not brought, leading to burns on Mr. Kaja’s father.”

The guests wrote personal notes to Lau and Kaja, and some never made it back to the couple, the complaint alleges.

According to the complaint, the post-wedding reception Auguste arranged was also highly problematic, which claims she “neglected to place a cap on fees… resulting in the couple incurring thousands of dollars in additional costs.”

When all was said and done, Lau and Kaja “confronted” Auguste about her “numerous and significant failures” regarding their wedding, the complaint states. It says Auguste “acknowledged the shortcomings and pledged to take full responsibility.” So, after negotiating for nearly an entire year, the two sides signed a settlement agreement on December 6, 2018, the complaint explains.

Auguste was to reimburse the newlyweds a total of $20,000, between $5,000 and $6,000 of which would compensate Lau and Kaja for costs Auguste allegedly authorized without their approval.

The first payment would be due on December 22, 2018, and the final payment was to be made the week of April 2019, according to the complaint.

But, the complaint says, although Auguste told Lau and Kaja that she had wired them the first payment, the two never got it. After subsequently “ghosting” Lau and Kaja, Auguste “finally got back in touch and promised to make the past-due payments, and possibly all future-due payments, by the first week of March 2019,” according to the complaint. It says Lau and Kaja agreed, as long as Auguste promised to pay an extra $1,704 for the delays, along with an additional $100 to $200 a day if she missed any coming payments, the complaint states.

“[O]nce again, [Auguste] continued to miss all payments,” the complaint alleges.

Lau and Kaja again contacted Auguste, who “continued to make excuses,” according to the complaint.

“At one point, [Auguste] told [Lau and Kaja] to watch their bank account for a payment to arrive, and that window passed with no payments,” the complaint concludes. “On or about April 3, 2019, [Auguste] said [she] would send an email update on April 5, 2019. To date — more than five years later — [Auguste has] still not provided any update.”

The pair is suing Auguste and her company, Erganic Design, for breach of contract, demanding compensatory and liquidated damages to be determined at trial, along with attorneys’ fees and pre- and post-judgment interest from the date of default, at an annual rate of 9 percent.

An indie filmmaker seeks to challenge Bollywood narrative on Kashmir

When he was not even big enough to understand the term “collateral damage”, Arfat Sheikh’s father became that in Kashmir.

A renowned singer and cultural figure, Ghulam Nabi Sheikh was allegedly “disappeared” by police in the northern Indian state of Punjab in 2003.

The grief of losing his father and then never knowing where his remains lay left Sheikh with scars that would not heal. As he grew up in the conflict-torn valley – controlled in part but claimed in whole by India and Pakistan – he kept searching for answers that never came even as the “collateral damage” piled ever higher.

Sheikh found solace in stories. And then, aged 39, he decided to tell his own story of Kashmir. While learning the ropes of filmmaking, Sheikh says the narratives of Kashmir he found in mainstream Indian cinema rankled him because of the absence of Kashmiri voices.

After 2019, when the Indian government repealed an article of the constitution to take away the last remnants of the majority Muslim region’s autonomy, Sheikh says the suppression and erasure of the Kashmiri voice in Bollywood films in particular became severe.

He criticises films such as The Kashmir Files and Pathaan for perpetuating negative stereotypes of Kashmir by focusing solely on violence.

“Our voices are being suppressed and trampled upon. And we aren’t given a platform. We have not been given the agency to tell our stories,” Sheikh tells The Independent. “What’s happening since 2019 with a lot of these Bollywood films, the entire premise starts with ‘terrorism of Kashmir’.”

The revocation of Kashmir’s autonomy was accompanied by a months-long curfew, a communications blackout and a crackdown on all political activity.

The portrayal of Kashmir in Indian popular culture, and especially since 2019, is reductive, either romanticising the scenic beauty of the place or painting its people as villains in a story that wasn’t theirs, Sheikh complains.

This realisation, the filmmaker says, made him feel an urgency to reclaim his heritage and give voice to his silenced people. Out of this was born Saffron Kingdom, his first feature film.

The film, he says, is a response to the erasure of Kashmiri history and culture in mainstream Indian media.

Shot mainly in Atlanta in the US, it explores the intergenerational scars left by the violent upheaval of the 1990s in Kashmir. It follows a Kashmiri-American family as its multiple generations grapple with the lasting impact of the conflict and the loss of their identity.

The protagonist is a Kashmiri woman named Masrat, who escapes the valley with her son Rizwan after her husband is abducted by the Indian army. The mother and son rebuild their lives in Atlanta while coming to grips with the trauma of the insurgency back home, displacement and then the revocation of Kashmir’s autonomy.

Saffron Kingdom, produced by Daffodil Studios, is slated for release in 2025. It was screened at the Rome International Film Festival 2024 in October and received the best feature award at the LA Film & Documentary Awards. The film is also competing at the Chicago Filmmakers Awards 2025.

After Kashmiri rebels launched an insurgency against Indian rule in 1989, and New Delhi responded with a sweeping military crackdown, the Himalayan region was plunged into a prolonged conflict that left an estimated 100,000 people dead and many thousands consumed by “forced disappearance”.

Sheikh says that through his film he wants to shed light on the resilience of the Kashmiri people. “They are erasing us,” he says, referring to the Indian mainstream narratives. “They are erasing our history.”

Sheikh tells The Independent he chose actors for his film whose personal stories could enable them to resonate with the story of Kashmir.

“I wanted to break Hollywood’s hegemony,” Sheikh says. “My film [employs] 55 per cent women as cast and crew.”

The actors come from diverse ethnic backgrounds but none speak Kashmiri, the local language. As a result, the Kashmiri sprinkled throughout the film can feel a little jarring to the local ear – although large parts of the film are in English.

Sheikh realised that it would be difficult to cast Kashmiri actors, so he decided to seek actors from other minority backgrounds, those who could empathise with the themes of displacement and struggle that are central to the story.

“Art is persecuted in Kashmir,” he says.

“We don’t have our own film industry. And even if I wanted to get some people from Kashmir and fly them here, they would have never been able to go back to Kashmir because once this film is out, they would be persecuted.

“I made sure to tell my casting director, can you please make a disclaimer that if you have strong connections with India, you might not be able to go back to India, without giving much information about the script initially.”

The lead actress is an Aramean descendant of genocide survivors while some of the supporting cast is Egyptian, Syrian, Jordanian, and Persian. A prominent cast member from Venezuela brings her own narrative of struggle from South America.

“If you don’t speak up, don’t expect change. That is exactly what I am doing with this film,” the filmmaker says. “I am going out there, knowing it will have repercussions.”

France officially requests Indonesia to transfer death row prisoner

Indonesia has received a request from France to transfer the ailing French death row inmate Serge Atlaoui imprisoned since 2004, officials said on Saturday.

The 61-year-old French national has been held in Indonesia on drug charges as the authorities accused him of being a “chemist”.

“We have received a formal letter requesting the transfer of Serge Atlaoui on 19 December 2024. The letter was sent on behalf of the French minister of justice,” senior Indonesian law and human rights minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra told Agence France-Presse.

The request would be discussed in “early January” after the holidays, the minister said.

Atlaoui, who had spent almost 20 years in Indonesian prison, won a last-minute reprieve in 2015 and was excluded from being executed by a 13-member firing squad.

Earlier this month, he made a last-ditch plea to be returned home, Indonesian authorities said at a time the new administration of president Prabowo Subianto planned to give pardon to 44,000 inmates nationwide.

The father of four, who turned 61 last week and is reportedly suffering from cancer, wrote to the Indonesian government requesting to serve the rest of his sentence in his home country, according to Mr Mahendra.

Atlaoui was arrested in 2005 for involvement in a factory manufacturing the psychedelic drug MDMA, sometimes called ecstasy, on the outskirts of Jakarta. His lawyers say he was employed as a welder at the factory and did not understand what the chemicals on the premises were used for.

“We are forwarding a personal request from Serge Atlaoui to the Indonesian government which of course should be responded to by the French government, because this concerns the transfer of a prisoner,” Mahendra told a joint news conference with French Ambassador Fabien Penone after a meeting last week.

In the case of Atlaoui, Mr Mahendra said it was in the initial stages and will take some time because there has been no official request from the French government.

French ambassador Penone said that Mahendra has briefed him about the case and that he is working with the Indonesian government.

Atlaoui, from Metz, has maintained his innocence during his 19 years of incarceration, claiming that he was installing machinery in what he thought was an acrylics plant. Police accused him of being a “chemist” at the site. He was initially sentenced to life, but the Supreme Court in 2007 increased the sentence to death on appeal.

His case has drawn attention in France, which vigorously opposes the death penalty “in all places and under all circumstances”.

South Korean parliament votes to impeach acting president Han Duck Soo

South Korea’s parliament impeached acting president Han Duck Soo on Friday, just two weeks after similarly punishing president Yoon Suk Yeol for briefly declaring martial law earlier this month.

“I announce that prime minister Han Duck Soo’s impeachment motion has passed,” the National Assembly speaker Woo Won Shik said following a chaotic voting session. “Out of the 192 lawmakers who voted, 192 voted to impeach.”

The National Assembly has 300 members and the motion needed 151 votes to pass.

Tensions ran high in the National Assembly as lawmakers from the ruling People Power Party protested against the impeachment process. They objected to the speaker’s ruling that a simple majority of 151 votes was required to impeach Mr Han and not 200 as was the case for Mr Yoon.

The opposition had argued that a simple majority was needed to impeach Mr Han as this is the threshold for a cabinet member. The ruling party, however, contended that a two-thirds majority was necessary since Mr Han was now acting as president.

Most of them boycotted the vote and gathered in the chamber to chant “invalid” and “abuse of power” while calling for the speaker’s resignation.

Mr Han, the prime minister who took over as acting president after Mr Yoon was impeached and suspended from office, was accused by the opposition of “actively participating in the insurrection” and of failing to finalise his predecessor’s impeachment process.

“The only way to normalise the country is to swiftly root out all the insurrection forces,” opposition leader Lee Jae Myung said ahead of the vote.

The failure of Mr Han to approve three judges nominated by the National Assembly to fill vacancies on the Constitutional Court further inflamed tensions with the opposition Democratic Party, which had warned him of impeachment if the appointments weren’t made.

The Constitutional Court, which is preparing to rule on Mr Yoon’s impeachment by the parliament, currently has only six judges instead of nine. For Mr Yoon’s impeachment to be upheld, a total of six judges must approve it, leaving the outcome precariously dependent on unanimous agreement in the absence of a full bench. One dissent could save the president from permanent removal from office.

Choi Sang Mok, the finance minister, will assume the acting presidency now. Mr Choi had cautioned lawmakers against going ahead with the impeachment of Mr Han, warning that it could damage the economy given the already fragile political situation.

The impeachment of the president and the acting president in less than a month has thrown South Korea into unprecedented political turmoil.

Mr Yoon has avoided questioning over the rebellion charges brought against him for declaring martial law, and blocked investigations into his office.

The impasse between Mr Yoon’s conservative party and the liberal opposition has stalled governance in South Korea, disrupted diplomacy, and unsettled financial markets.

Osamu Suzuki, force behind iconic Japanese carmaker, dies at 94

Osamu Suzuki, the legendary businessman who turned Suzuki Motor Corporation into a global force, has died at the age of 94.

The company announced his death on Christmas Day, attributing it to lymphoma.

Suzuki, who led the company for over four decades, was known for his frugality and ambition. He famously drove the company’s expansion beyond its initial focus on inexpensive 660cc minivehicles, originally designed for the Japanese market and benefiting from generous tax breaks.

His leadership philosophy was rooted in cutting costs wherever possible, including ordering factory ceilings to be lowered to cut air-conditioning expenses and flying economy class even in his later years.

“Forever” or “until the day I die” were Suzuki’s signature humorous replies when questioned about his tenure at Suzuki, which he tightly controlled well into his 70s and 80s.

Born Osamu Matsuda, Suzuki adopted his wife’s family name, a common practice in Japan when a male heir is absent.

After joining Suzuki Motor Corporation in 1958, he worked his way up the ranks, becoming its head two decades later.

His most significant early contribution was rescuing Suzuki Motor in the 1970s when he brokered a deal with Toyota for engines that would meet new emissions standards. Suzuki’s boldness continued to pay off as he oversaw the launch of the Alto minivehicle in 1979, a success that led to Suzuki’s partnership with General Motors in 1981.

In the 1980s, Suzuki took a monumental risk by investing a year’s worth of earnings into establishing a presence in India, a country with a minimal automotive market at the time.

His goal was to build a national carmaker and, as he later explained, to be “number one somewhere in the world”. India’s car market then was tiny, with fewer than 40,000 vehicles sold annually, and was dominated by British models.

After the Indian government nationalised Maruti in the 1970s, the company had difficulty finding a foreign partner. Negotiations with Renault faltered, and brands like Fiat and Subaru rejected Maruti’s proposals.

A chance encounter with a newspaper article about Maruti’s deal with Japanese competitor Daihatsu led to a meeting with Suzuki Motor, resulting in a partnership. The first car, the Maruti 800, launched in 1983, was an instant hit, and today Maruti Suzuki holds around 40 per cent of India’s car market.

Suzuki’s influence extended to corporate culture in India, where he promoted equality by introducing open plan offices, shared canteens, and uniforms for both executives and factory workers.

Not all of Suzuki’s ventures were without trouble, however. In 2009, he negotiated a deal with Volkswagen, but the partnership soured due to disagreements over control and acquisitions.

The conflict culminated in an international arbitration case and Suzuki eventually bought back Volkswagen’s 19.9 per cent stake.

In 2016, Suzuki handed over the CEO role to his son, Toshihiro Suzuki, but remained chairman until 2021 to advise the company.

Additional reporting by agencies.

China unveils novel advanced military aircraft

China appears to have tested novel sixth-generation stealth military aircraft as videos of the warplanes went viral on social media.

Mysterious tailless aircraft were seen flying over Chengdu city in southwest Sichuan province, though the defence ministry is yet to confirm the speculation.

Both jets are tailless, meaning they do not have vertical stabilisers to help maintain control. Such aircraft are typically kept stable by computers that interpret the pilot’s control inputs and make it impossible to detect.

The test flight coincided with the birth anniversary of Mao Zedong, founder of the People’s Republic of China. The aircraft designs are separate from airframers Chengdu and Shenyang and may be among the most sophisticated manned fighters in the world.

The larger of the two designs is roughly diamond-shaped, with three air intakes for its engines, two alongside the fuselage and one on top – an extremely unusual configuration. The smaller one has a more conventional layout, but no tail.

Both have the lack of 90-degree angles typical of stealth shaping for reduced radar detection. “It really looks like a leaf,” Defence Times, a website based in Chengdu, wrote on Weibo.

The new Chinese aircraft are not the first modern tailless designs. The Northrop Grumman B-2 and B-21 stealth bombers are both flying wings, and several uncrewed aircraft, such as the Lockheed Martin RQ-170 and China’s CH-7, lack tails.

The Chinese military flaunts its new technology at the end of the Western calendar year in late December or January.

In May 2024, the military said its J-20 stealth fighter jet, also known as the Mighty Dragon, can easily reach supercruise. Beijing has reportedly deployed as many as 250 of the stealth aircraft, first introduced into service in 2017, but its capabilities are not publicly known.

At the November Zhuhai air show, China revealed the twin-engine J-35 stealth fighter jet.

As China continues to modernise its military, the designs “show the willingness of China’s aviation industry to experiment and innovate”, said Euan Graham, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

“Whatever the merits or demerits, it appears to be a highly original design,” he told Reuters. “They deserve kudos for that, and should shake off any lingering complacency that the U.S. and its allies always set the pace.”

The US defence department said it was “aware of the reports” but did not have an additional comment beyond what was included in its annual report on the Chinese military this month.

China on Friday also launched a new amphibious assault ship which is designed to strengthen the navy’s combat ability in distant seas.

The Sichuan, the first ship of the 076 type, is China’s largest yet, displacing 40,000 tonnes and equipped with an electromagnetic catapult which will allow fighter jets to launch directly off its deck, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

The ship is designed to launch ground troops in landing crafts and provide them air support. It is also equipped with the “arrestor technology” that allows fighter jets to land on its deck.

China’s first amphibious assault ships, the type 075, launched in 2019.

Chinese military expert Song Zhongping compared the Sichuan to a “light aircraft carrier”, according to state media Global Times.

Possible sale of Monet on Chinese social media causes disbelief

An art gallery’s claim that they sold an original Monet work on a social media platform has sparked disbelief on Chinese internet.

Gallery Boss’s Backyard Garden posted a Monet listing on Xiaohongshu, a Chinese social media and e-commerce platform often likened to Instagram, on 9 December.

The gallery post carried a picture of the painting, apparently a 1908 work from Claude Monet’s Nymphéas series depicting the famous water lilies in his garden at Giverny, France, along with the message: “Looks like no one on Xiaohongshu has ever sold a Monet Water Lilies before.”

Gao Zhen Yu, owner of the Xiaohongshu account who runs Gao’s Fine Art gallery in Avignon in southern France, claimed in the post to have records of the seven prior owners of the painting as well as details of when it was exhibited, The South China Morning Post reported.

The website of Gao’s Fine Art says they have galleries in Beijing, Taiyuan, Xi’an, and Mauritius as well. They claim to hold more than “5,000 contemporary and modern art masterpieces”, including works by Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Jean Dubuffet, Keith Haring, and classic works by artists like Peter Paul Rubens, Eugène Delacroix, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Monet.

When the post first went up, it got over 20,000 reactions as most users thought it was a stunt. But another post on 17 December by an account called Ours Gallery said a buyer identified only by their surname Tian had reached out after seeing Gao’s post and purchased the artwork for several hundred million yuan. Gao posted screenshots of a text conversation between the two which purportedly show the buyer confirming the purchase and arranging for it to be shipped to Switzerland.

The Independent has reached out to Gao for more information on the sale.

The post led to a flurry of activity on the platform as most users were baffled by the idea that someone would buy a piece of art of such value on a social media platform.

According to the SCMP, the painting in the post matches the details that appear in the Catalogue Raisonné, an annotated listing of an artist’s works. Monet’s Catalogue Raisonné, which was compiled by the Wildenstein Institute and first published in 1996, states that the last known appearance of this painting was in 1976, at a Christie’s London spring auction.

Earlier this year, an expert in art authentication managed to detect up to 40 counterfeit paintings for sale on eBay, including pieces supposedly by the likes of Monet and Renoir.

Is it right to cut Afghanistan off from international climate funding?

The Taliban’s demand for access to global climate finance amid Afghanistan’s worsening droughts, floods, and food insecurity has sparked a global dilemma: will the hardline regime’s inclusion be seen as legitimising their brutal curbs on women and girls?

At the recent Cop29 in Baku, the Taliban delegation attending as observers for the first time since 2021, made their case for a full party status in future climate negotiations and access to international climate funds.

“It is the right of our people, who are among the most vulnerable to climate change,” Mutiul Haq Nabi Kheel, the National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA) chief, tells The Independent. “We should not be invited as guests [in the next COP] but as full participants.”

The plea comes as Afghanistan endures relentless climate disasters. Earlier this year, flash floods in Ghor and Badakhshan swept through villages, killing dozens, displacing thousands, and washing away farmland. Prolonged droughts left over 12 million people, nearly a third of the population, facing severe food insecurity. The climate crisis has pushed the country, which contributes less than 0.1 per cent of global emissions, into a devastating cycle of drought, floods, and hunger.

The Taliban’s return to the climate stage has sparked a debate on whether the world can deliver aid to Afghanistan without recognising a regime that stands in direct opposition to human rights values. Any participation by the Taliban has led to a global pushback in the past.

When the de facto rulers sent officials to Qatar this year for a meeting with UN officials, Human Rights Watch said the move could do “irreparable harm to the UN’s credibility as an advocate for women’s rights and women’s meaningful participation”.

The concerns persist as the Taliban continue to isolate women from public life, even closing the last few remaining avenues of work such as paramedical and midwife training recently. In a 2023 report, Amnesty described the Taliban’s actions as “relentless and targeted oppression of women and girls”.

Yet the worst brunt of Afghanistan’s exclusion from climate finance, which has stalled critical projects that could mitigate the worst impacts of the climate crisis, has also been borne by its most vulnerable people.

Humanitarian groups and climate experts argue that inaction is punishing the Afghan people, not their rulers. “Try explaining to an Afghan woman how you’re helping her by holding back,” says Graeme Smith, senior consultant for Crisis Group. “If she sees her crops failing and her children going hungry, she doesn’t care about global politics, she cares about survival.”

Before the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021, the country had access to international funds such as the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and the Adaptation Fund. However, the Taliban’s lack of international recognition halted these flows overnight.

“About $2.8bn worth of ongoing infrastructure work just stopped,” Smith says. “Water projects, irrigation systems, they’re sitting out there, rusting in the desert.”

This funding freeze has left the international community reliant on UN agencies and NGOs to deliver climate-related aid through humanitarian channels. However, experts warn that these efforts, while essential, are piecemeal and lack the scale needed to address the challenges.

Srikant Misra, Afghanistan director for ActionAid, describes the shortfall in disaster preparedness: “In Ghor, we saw floods wipe out entire villages because people had no time to respond. Simple measures like check dams, flood barriers, or rain gauges could have saved lives. But there’s no funding for even these basics.”

Misra says the lack of community education, particularly in rural areas, increases the risks. When rains or snow come heavily, people don’t know how to react. Communities have no tools or information to anticipate disasters.”

For Afghan women, the consequences are disproportionately severe. “When disasters strike, women suffer the most,” says Shahin Ashraf of Islamic Relief. “They cannot access markets to buy food, and the rising costs of essentials like flour make survival even harder for families led by women.”

Despite the Taliban’s limited technical capacity and resources, they have attempted to address some of Afghanistan’s environmental challenges. Projects like the Kush Tepa Canal, which aims to provide irrigation to thousands, have been touted as key initiatives. Yet experts are skeptical of their effectiveness.

“They dug a trench in the desert,” Smith says, “but without technical expertise and funding, it’s unclear whether this will deliver long-term benefits.”

At the same time, climate adaptation requires national-level coordination, a challenge in Afghanistan, where the Taliban’s international isolation has left the government out of key discussions.

Smith explains that isolated, small-scale projects cannot replace the coordinated infrastructure planning needed to tackle floods, droughts, and water management. “Water flows across districts, across borders. Without a national plan, what are we really solving?”

The Taliban’s observer status at Cop29 was a start, but securing full party status at Cop30 in Brazil next year will be far more contentious.

The symbolic weight of such recognition, coupled with access to funds like the GCF, would put many governments in a political bind.

“Western decision-makers are held accountable by voters and social media outrage,” Smith explains. “If money flows into Afghanistan and the Taliban cuts ribbons on new infrastructure projects, the backlash could be immense, even if the funding saves Afghan lives.”

Despite this, humanitarian organisations stress that the international community cannot afford to ignore Afghanistan’s worsening climate crisis.

“This is not just about responding to disasters,” Misra says. “It’s about preparing communities for a future that’s already here, building infrastructure, supporting farmers, and empowering women.”

Afghanistan’s vulnerability to the climate crisis is compounded by decades of war and instability, which have eroded institutional capacity at every level. In villages across the country, families face impossible decisions. As droughts persist, crops fail, and floods destroy homes, the absence of resources leaves entire communities without a path forward.

Experts argue that solutions exist. While direct funding to the Taliban remains politically unpalatable, alternatives, such as channeling funds through UN agencies, NGOs, or regional partnerships, could allow critical work to resume.

“The people of Afghanistan cannot wait for political solutions,” Ashraf says. “We cannot punish women and children for the actions of a government they did not choose.”

Smith believes the focus must remain on results, not optics. “Climate change doesn’t care about politics. It’s hitting Afghanistan harder than almost anywhere else. If we’re serious about helping Afghan women and children, we have to find a way to act.”