What is the revised strategy in place to end the conflict? With the Taliban active in 70% of the country, has the West lost the battle for hearts and minds? What are the intentions of America and the UK in pushing a liberal agenda in the country and who is paying the price for this conflict? Our panel will discuss.

Chair

Jonathan Beale is the BBC Defence correspondent. Before joining the BBC in 1999 Beale had been an assistant to a Member of Parliament. Beale also spent two years in Brussels as the BBC’s regional Europe correspondent and Europe political correspondent, before returning to London to become one of the BBC’s political correspondents at Millbank. He’s also presented political programmes, such as The Westminster Hour on BBC Radio 4. He served in Washington DC covering the 2006 midterm elections. In 2009 he covered the Guantanamo military commissions.

Speakers

Christina Lamb is chief foreign correspondent for the Sunday Times and been reporting on Afghanistan for 30 years since the Soviet Occupation, with unparalleled access to all key decision makers. She has developed an extensive understanding of the country, its people and the ongoing conflict. Christina has been a foreign correspondent for more than twenty five years, living in Pakistan, Brazil and South Africa first for the Financial Times then The Sunday Times. She is the author of The Africa House, House of Stone: The True Story of a Family Divided in War-torn Zimbabwe, Waiting For Allah: Pakistan’s Struggle for Democracy, The Sewing Circles of Herat, My Afghan Years. Farewell Kabul and co-author of I Am Malala.

Sahr Muhammedally is a Director for MENA and South Asia at the Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC). She manages research, advocacy, and trainings on civilian protection and harm mitigation and advises governments and armed actors on civilian protection during all phases of operations. Sahr has worked for over 15 years in the fields of armed conflict, human rights, and counterterrorism and undertaken field work in Afghanistan, China, Indonesia, Iraq, Malaysia, Pakistan, Syria, and Yemen. Prior to joining CIVIC, Sahr worked at Human Rights Watch covering armed conflict and counterterrorism policies and practices in Afghanistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Pakistan, and at Human Rights First on US detention practices in Bagram, Guantanamo, and targeted killings. Sahr was a consultant with Human Rights in China examining the right to fair trial under Chinese laws and authored the American Civil Liberties shadow report to the UN Committee on the Convention against Torture on the United States’ second periodic review to the committee.

Kawoon Khamoosh works for the BBC World Service as a TV Journalist. He has been covering Afghanistan since 2008, including six years as a BBC Persian correspondent for Afghanistan based in Kabul.
Targeting mainly Afghan and Persian speaking audience, Kawoon has been telling stories not only about politics and conflicts but also life beyond war and battlefields. Kawoon was inspired to start work as a journalist when he finished high school, telling everyday life stories of the people suffering from suicide attacks and bombings, for a small radio station in 2008, where he found his way to work as an investigative journalist for Afghanistan’s 1tv media and some other local newspapers and TVs before joining BBC. He is currently based in London and work as a journalist for the BBC World Service.

Nick McDonnell is a novelist, journalist, and political theorist. Born in New York City in 1984, he studied at Harvard and St. Antony’s College, Oxford. His work has been published in twenty three countries and appeared on bestseller lists around the world. His new book, The Bodies In Person: An Account of Civilian Casualties in American Wars, will be published in the U.S. on September 18, 2018.

When NATO troops withdrew from Afghanistan the Afghan National Army (ANA) took control of Helmand Province, an extremely dangerous region where attacks by Taliban fighters are the order of the day.

The directors of Tell Spring Not to Come This Year accompanied an ANA company during a year of frontline duty in Helmand. The soldiers are paid irregularly, there are not enough supplies and their equipment is substandard. Saeed Taji Farouky’s cinemascope images lend an epic dimension to the soldiers’ daily lives. The private moments and bloody battles feel like a metaphor for the fate of this war-torn country.

In off-screen interviews, the protagonists talk about their doubts, their hopes and their dreams. At the same time the film shows the absurdity of the conflict from the point of view of these Afghan soldiers, in a country whose government is fighting an enemy that even NATO troops did not succeed in defeating in almost thirteen years.

Tell Spring Not to Come This Year received its world premiere at the Berlinale in February 2015 and was awarded the Amnesty International Human Rights award and the Audience Award for best documentary.

Directed by Michael McEvoy and Saeed Taji Farouky
Duration: 87′
Year: 2015

(l-r) Tonia Samsonova, Andrey Kurkov, Orysia Lutsevych, Robert Brinkley, and Gabriel Gatehouse

A year since revolution erupted in Ukraine has marked increasingly violent changes inside the country. Yet the transformation remains unfinished and it is uncertain where the conflict and efforts to reform corruption will go next as fighting intensifies across the east of the country.

To discuss the future of Ukraine, and whether 2015 will see an end to the conflict, BBC correspondent Gabriel Gatehouse moderated a conversation between leading experts at the Frontline Club on Tuesday 4 February. Panelists included: acclaimed Ukrainian writer and commentator, Andrey Kurkov; Chatham House Russia and Eurasia Programme research fellow, Orysia Lutsevych; former British Ambassador to Ukraine from 2002-06, Robert Brinkley; and Tonia Samsonova, a London correspondent for Echo of Moscow.

One year on
Since the most violent clashes of the Euromaidan protests broke out in Kiev on 18 February 2014, fighting has become increasingly bloody as Russia and the West have thrown their support behind different factions battling to pull the country in separate directions.

“From the point of view of being a Ukrainian, I clearly see the country being at war and being invaded by proxy forces supported, funded, trained, directed from the Kremlin,” said Lutsevych. “The nature of this conflict, the lens that’s personally helpful for me to understand this is the continuation of the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union has been reincarnated in Putin’s regime by using rule by force, by security forces to subvert countries in the neighbourhood. It is an oligarchy and kleptocracy and Ukraine refused to belong to this sphere of influence.”

The challenges that lie in front of Ukraine are huge, she added. “Russia is trying to undermine the transition on purpose in a systematic way using all possible methods: economic pressure, military pressure, propaganda and disinformation,” Lutsevych said. “And internally in the country indeed there are vested interests that are fighting back to preserve the old rules of the game.”

Brinkley emphasised that Russia should be stopped. “Because this is not just about Ukraine. Otherwise, this is going to undermine the entire basis on which our security rests. We’ve already been trying political and economic means. The pressure has been building up, it hasn’t stopped them yet. So I think we have to be inventive and look for other means.”

What next after a broken cease-fire?
Recent United Nations figures mark the death toll in the Ukraine conflict at more than 5,000 people since all-out battles between armed factions began in April 2014. Fighting has intensified in recent weeks as the September Minsk cease-fire agreement disintegrated, with calls from Russian-speaking rebels to mobilise more troops. What could possibly fix the situation?

“It’s apparent to everybody, especially since last August, that the Ukrainians on their own are not going to beat the Russians militarily,” said Brinkley. “Russia is bigger and stronger and has more armed forces. And so, really with a rather heavy heart I’ve come around to the view that we in the West have to help the Ukrainians to defend themselves. I don’t mean by sending our armies and our soldiers, but I do mean in terms of defensive weaponries and technologies.”

Kurkov agreed, but with reservations. “It’s clear that once the Ukraine army gets more weapons, Russian forces will get even more weapons,” he said. “It will probably mean full-scale war,” he continued, “and how long will the West only supply them with arms?”

If all sides in the country want to see an end to the suffering in Eastern Ukraine, said Brinkley, “abide by the agreement that was drawn up in September last year in Minsk.” There is a cease-fire, there is a peace agreement, “but it’s not being implemented.”

Fixing Corruption
Accusations of corruption are rife throughout Ukraine’s government and institutions. Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index ranks the country 142nd in the world, alongside Uganda. How can things get better?

“I think the fight against corruption should be started from the legal system,” said Kurkov. “Practically 100% of the judges,” he added, “should be replaced with either post-graduates or students or somebody.”

In other ways the country has made broad moves toward change, said Lutsevych. “Ukraine already restarted its political system with two consecutive democratic elections,” she said. “Only two current ministers in the new government that was just appointed two months ago have ever served in ministerial positions before. Only one member of the Cabinet does not speak English. Before it was one who spoke English. So it tells you the change of a generation that is now leading Ukraine.”

Yet other strong visual signs of reform are also deeply needed, she added. “I believe in symbolic police reform. This means people changing, uniforms changing, buildings changing,” Lutsevych said. “They have to show in a visual way that the country has changed and that the old rules are not working anymore.”

Watch and listen back below:

Is Libya on the brink of becoming a failed state? Three years after Nato-backed rebels overthrew Muammar Gaddafi and the country was held up as the success story of the Arab Spring, Libya is deeply divided.

The fragile government, which has seen three prime ministers since March, has been unable to impose authority on militia groups who refuse to disband. Power, fuel and water shortages disrupt daily life, the economy has not been restored, and the planned new constitution remains as yet unwritten.

As Libya’s parliament calls for foreign intervention to protect civilians from deadly clashes between rival militia groups, we will be asking what has gone wrong in the country. Where do the divisions lie and what can be done to pull the county away from becoming a failed state? We will be examining what the role of the international community should be in supporting Libya in its transition to democracy.

Chaired by Lindsey Hilsum, international editor at Channel 4 News and author of Sandstorm; Libya in the Time of Revolution.

The panel:

Huda Abuzeid is a filmmaker and TV producer who has been based in Libya since the start of the revolution in 2011. She is currently the director of the Rashad Foundation, a Tripoli based NGO, which initiates projects to support Libya’s transitional process.

Chris Stephen, Libya Correspondent for The Guardian and author of Judgement Day: The Trial of Slobodan Milosevic.

Ghazi Gheblawi, a writer, surgeon, public speaker and the editor of el-Kaf online newspaper on Libyan affairs.

Hassan al-Amin, a human rights activist and founder of Libya al-Mostakbal (The Future Libya). He is a former member of Libyan General National Congress and head of its Human Rights Committee.

Photograph: rm / Shutterstock.com

L-R: Dominic Medley, Martine van Bijlert, Quhramaana Kakar, Owen Bennett-Jones, Emal Pasarly, Michael Semple. Photo: Dan Tookey

By Dan Tookey

The Frontline Club abandoned familiar digs in Paddington on Tuesday 17 September in favour of the packed Shaw Theatre on the Euston Road. In partnership with BBC World Service for Afghanistan, they brought together five leading experts on Afghanistan to discuss the country’s recent past and near future.

Owen Bennett-Jones, freelance journalist, host of Newshour on the BBC World Service and chair of the evening’s discussion began by asking Dominic Medley, the Spokesman/Media Advisor to the NATO Senior Civilian Representative in Afghanistan from June 2010 to June 2013, to give the lay of the land from Nato’s perspective:

“At the end of next year the ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) mission comes to an end. It has been agreed that there will be a new mission called Resolute Support… Which will be a train, advise and assist mission. A lot smaller, a lot different; it will not be a conflict mission.”

“This is the culmination of the transition process that was worked on in the Lisbon summit in November 2010; the transition process of handing over security responsibility to the Afghan army and police.”

He continued that this process has been ongoing, with the ANA (Afghan National Army) now having responsibility for around 90% of the country and ISAF acting in a supportive capacity.

The packed Shaw Theatre. Photo: Will Spens

Emal Pasarly, the multimedia editor for the BBC Pashto-Persian service, reflected on what 2014 will bring:

“Everyone is asking whether Afghan troops will be capable of securing Afghanistan after 2014. The brief answer to this is yes.”

Although he thought there may be “cat and mouse” games provincially between the Taliban and the ANA, the cities would be secure.

Regarding the upcoming elections, Pasarly said the usual suspects would appear:

“Some will run for president and then withdraw in the hope of getting a cabinet seat. There will be those that know they will not win and will not get a cabinet seat but know that one day they will be known as those who contested the presidential election.”

He also referred to rumours that Dr Zalmai Rassoul, the Afghan Foreign Minister, had President Karzai’s support and, if true, could mean him winning the forthcoming election.

Michel Semple, Visiting Professor at the Centre for Conflict Transformation, Queen’s University, Belfast and affiliated to the Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy School, began by saying that “there are many conflicting narratives about Afghanistan.” The biggest problem in his eyes was that the conflict is ongoing:

“We didn’t end the conflict. It’s still ongoing. As NATO steps out, it hands over the conflict to the Afghans and that’s not good enough. Everything that we should have done and didn’t is unacceptable.”

Martine van Bijlert, co-director and co-founder of the Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN), was gingerly hopeful:

“Among Afghans I am sensing a feeling that this is actually a new time [and] something is going to happen. In the future, Afghanistan may not only be on the receiving end of international attention. You see the most optimism among the young generation – the educated boys and girls with good jobs – who tend to be in control of their lives.”

She continued that although “disaster, fragmentation is certainly a possibility, it’s not the default scenario.”

She argued that “we in the West have not learned from our mistakes:”

“Some people have said that Afghanistan was not ready for democracy but I think that is the wrong conclusion… The problem is that we will send the same institutions, organise the same sort of conferences. It will still be in the same way. We will design problems and spend money. We haven’t learnt.”

Quhramaana Kakar. Photo: Dan Tookey.

Quhramaana Kakar, the gender advisor for the Afghanistan Peace and Reconciliation Program (High Peace Council), outlined the successes made over the last twelve years and also attempted to dispel the myths of impending disaster:

“I hope to assure fellow Afghans that we will not be in the same position as in the 80’s and 90’s. We are not going to have another civil war and we are not going to have the Taliban coming to power again.”

She pointed to the American bases that will remain in the country as an assurance that the Taliban will not come to power again. Kakar continued that she believed Afghanistan can be hopeful, so long as the democratic institutions and processes remain.

As Pakistan gears up for crucial general elections in just over a week, on 1 May the Frontline Club hosted a panel discussion, First Wednesday: Pakistan goes to the polls, to consider the country’s prospects.

The panelists on the evening were journalist and author Irfan Husain,  Pir Zubair Shah of the Council on Foreign Relations, Umber Khairi, a producer and radio broadcaster with BBC Urdu at the BBC World Service and the High Commissioner of Pakistan to the UK, Wajid Shamsul Hasan.

L-R: Irfan Husain, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, Umber Khairi, Pir Zubair Shah Photo credit: Adil Shahzeb

Chaired by Paddy O’Connell of BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House, the debate aimed to give an overview of the main political parties contesting in the election – to be held on 11 May – marking their distinctions along religious and political lines. They also discussed their electioneering pledges as well as the ensuing threats and violence at rallies.

In answer to the question of the make up of the political parties, the panel agreed on their often ambiguous nature which makes some hard to distinguish along religious or political divides. The role of regional parties was also emphasised. In answer to a question of their importance, Shah explained:

“You have to be interested in the regional parties; besides Baluchistan you have to know what’s going on in tribal areas . . . who is running there, which parties are supporting them. In the tribal areas for the first time they have extended the Political Parties Act of Pakistan’s constitution; now you can run on a party political platform. However the situation there is still tenuous as attacks on secular party candidates are encouraging them to stand as independent.”

The changing face of the electorate was also linked to the emerging urban middle class, which seem to favour the party lead by Pakistan’s former cricketing hero Imran Khan. Pakistan Tehreek- e-Insaf (PTI), in Khairi’s view, is favored by younger voters but is also seen as a Taliban sympathizer:

“He is not a very experienced politician . . . he comes across as rightist. He is trying to form an alliance with Jammate Islami, a large regressive Islamist party, which has had association with Al Qaida.”

The role of the military, which over Pakistan’s 65 year history has toppled many elected governments, was also discussed. However, protracted legal disputes over its role in recent years has resulted in banning the country’s last military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, from contesting.

The question of crumbling economic infrastructures, possibly stemming from Pakistan’s intractable financial decline, was also highlighted in the discussion. Husain explained:

“The biggest single issue is currently recurring power shortages that the government could not get a handle on . . . so the country is on its knees . . . and there are areas in Pakistan where electricity goes out for 18 hours a day. . . . This is one issue I think the electorate is going to punish this government for.”

Forecasting the outcome of the elections, the panel agreed that a coalition was the most likely outcome. High Commissioner Hasan said that rural areas of Pakistan held majority votes and was therefore less hopeful for the prospects of PTI as it is more urban based. However, he foresees Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) making large scale gains in its traditional heartland province of Sindh, as well as sweeping the votes in Southern Punjab with its coalition partners.

For Khairi on the other hand, forecasting the outcome was likely to give a false picture:

“I wouldn’t like to make a prediction because when they did the voters verification, about 37 million were unverified and thrown out of registers and 36 million came in with new voters . . . it is a very unclear. I think there is going to be a coalition . . . but it is also an interesting election because it is the first time when there isn’t a right-wing religious party coalition contesting against specifically, say, PPP or Nawaz Sharif.”

Assessing the prospects of the other major parties, Pakistan Muslim League (N) (PMLN) and  PPP, Husain explained:

“The polls show that PMLN is ahead and will get the biggest number of seats so it’s very likely that he [Nawaz] will lead a coalition, but he is not expected to get an outright majority. Next to that in the polls is the PPP, which may or may not be part of a coalition. PTI is expected to do much better than before and pollsters are giving him [Khan] 15 to 30 seats out of 270. So we are looking at a coalition with Nawaz Sharif being the dominant player.”

Shah was more hopeful as the elections look set to bring in a second, consecutive democratic term in Pakistan’s history, but he was also critical:

“They have made progress on constitutional issues but face problems of power shortages and corruption and the elections in the regions are important to USA and NATO – all this is related and how you predict the outcome . . . PMLN, PTI and other religious parties will have a field day and the secular parties will suffer . . . the effect will be a hung parliament which can not do the basic things on security and foreign policy.”

You can watch the full event and listen to the podcast below:

http://soundcloud.com/frontlineclub/first-wednesday-pakistan-goes

Monday 15 April

China, meanwhile is scheduled to release its GDP data for the first quarter of the year, with analysts predicting robust growth of approximately 8%.

In Oslo, the Norwegian government will host, in conjunction with the United Nations, a major two-day conference on LGBT issues.

In France the government is due to publish a list of the wealth and assets of its ministers in the wake of the scandal surrounding disgraced former Budget Minister Jérôme Cahuzac and his secret bank account.

Finally, a four-day motions hearing will open in the case of Guantanamo detainee Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, who is charged over the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen that killed 17 sailors back in 2000.

Tuesday 16 April

On Tuesday, the German parliament’s budget committee is scheduled to consider legislation authorising the €10bn bailout of Cyprus, with reports suggesting the bill will reach the floor of the Bundestag on Thursday.

In the United States, the Commander of US (and NATO) forces in Afghanistan, General Joseph Dunford, is due to testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee. The focus is likely to be the country’s preparedness for the handover next year.

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg will hand down its judgment in the case of Haroon Aswat, who is fighting his extradition from the UK to the US on terror charges.

Finally in London, the Lord Mayor’s Easter Banquet takes place, which traditionally features an address from the British Foreign Secretary.

Wednesday 17 April

Wednesday also marks the deadline for British Home Secretary Theresa May to lodge an appeal in the case of radical preacher Abu Qatada, whom she is seeking to extradite to Jordan. Previous rulings have gone against the Home Secretary amid concerns about the Jordanian judicial process.

US Secretary of State John Kerry is scheduled to give public testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Although the hearing is nominally concerning Kerry’s departmental budget proposal, lawmakers traditionally take the opportunity to probe their top diplomat on the most pressing issues of the day, such as North Korea, Syria and Iran.

Lastly, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the long-awaited proposed comprehensive immigration reform legislation.

Thursday 18 April

On Thursday, Italian lawmakers are scheduled to begin the process of electing a new President to replace incumbent Giorgio Napolitano. The selection process is being complicated by squabbling between Pier Luigi Bersani and Silvio Berlusconi over whose faction should occupy the largely ceremonial position.

In Moscow, Bolshoi ballet dancer Pavel Dmitrichenko is due back in court over his alleged role in masterminding the brutal acid attack against the ballet’s artistic director Sergei Fillin back in January.

Meanwhile, IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings begin in earnest on Thursday with press briefings from Christine Lagarde and Jim Yong Kim on the global economic outlook.

Incoming Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, in town for the meetings, is scheduled to discuss the global economy and financial reform at an event organised by Thomson Reuters at the Canadian embassy in Washington DC.

Friday 19 April

On Friday, Time magazine is due to publish its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Nancy Pelosi, currently House Minority Leader in the US, will be in the UK where she is due to give a lecture at the London School of Economics.

Weekend

On Saturday, Turkey will play host to the latest meeting on Syria, which US Secretary of State John Kerry will attend.

Sunday will see Paraguayan’s go to the polls for presidential and legislative elections. Paraguay has been somewhat isolated since the impeachment of its then-President Fernando Lugo in the summer of 2012, considered by regional critics – understandably sensitive about such political interventions – a ‘soft coup’.

Finally, US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel will (reportedly) arrive in Israel for what would be his first visit since taking up the post earlier this year. The Iran threat, as well as the security implications of the Syria conflict, will be top of the agenda, assuming the visit goes ahead.

dutourdumonde / Shutterstock.com

October this year will mark 12 years since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan and with the 2014 deadline looming join us as we look ahead at the path to troop withdrawal.

Are the Afghan Army and the police ready to take on full responsibility for national security? How is the Karzai administration handling the transition and what will we see emerge from the elections in 2014?

In 2012 coverage of the situation in Afghanistan has been sparse, the war has become costly and unpopular with the public. We will also be discussing what role the western media should play in covering the transition in the year ahead.

Chaired by David Loyn, BBC foreign correspondent and author of Butcher and Bolt and In Afghanistan: Two Hundred Years of British, Russian and American Occupation.

The panel:

Tamim Ansary is an Afghan American author, his books include Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World through Islamic Eyes, West of Kabul, East of New York and most recently Games without Rules: The Often-Interrupted History of Afghanistan.

Freelance journalist Kitty Logan has been reporting on Afghanistan for over a decade. She first worked in the country on a UN project when the Taliban still held power in 2000. From 2002-2004 she was based in Kabul as Afghanistan producer/stringer for Sky News. In January 2013 she will have just returned from covering the latest news in Afghanistan.

Author and award-winning journalist Christina Lamb, most recently she was Washington Bureau Chief for The Sunday Times. She also worked as a foreign correspondent for more than 20 years, living in Pakistan, Brazil and South Africa.. She is author of many books including best-selling The Africa House, The Sewing Circles of Herat and My Afghan Years.

John D McHugh is a multimedia photojournalist and filmmaker. Since 2006 he has worked extensively in Afghanistan, covering the war against the Taliban. He has embedded with US, Canadian, British, Danish and Afghan troops. His work has been published in Newsweek, Time magazine, The New York Times, The Guardian and many others. He has recently made four films on Afghanistan for the People & Power strand on Al Jazeera English.

Neil Crompton, FCO director for Afghanistan and South Asia & Deputy SRAP. He has held many positions at the FCO including counsellor for the foreign and security policy group & JIC rep in  Washington, Iran coordinator and deputy director for Iraq and head of the Iraq Policy Unit.

A round up of world news in the week ahead from journalist resource ForesightNews.

By Jasper Wenban-Smith, international editor of ForesightNews.

Eurogroup finance ministers, after finally reaching an agreement on the latest €43.7bn disbursement to Greece last week, reconvene Monday in Brussels. Discussions are likely to include a significant focus on the planned establishment of an EU banking union from the start of next year. Also likely to feature are the proposed restructuring of the Spanish banking sector and creation of a ‘bad bank’ there later in December. A meeting of all 27 finance ministers from the EU follows on Tuesday.

At the International Court of Justice in The Hague, oral arguments open Monday in the long-standing maritime dispute between Chile and Peru. The case was filed with the court back in 2008 by Peru, which is seeking access to the rich fishing waters currently controlled by Chile. Arguments run until December 14.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, is due to arrive in Istanbul on Monday for talks with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The visit was initially planned for October but was delayed after Turkey grounded a commercial airliner travelling from Moscow to Syria on the suspicion it was being used to ferry arms to Bashar al Assad’s regime. Turkish frustration with Russia’s perceived intransigence at the UN over Syria is likely to come up in talks between the pair.

The ongoing violence in Syria is again likely to feature when NATO foreign ministers meet in Brussels on Tuesday and Wednesday. The meeting follows a Turkish request to the grouping, made last month, for Patriot missiles to be placed on its border with Syria. The planned exit from Afghanistan is also expected to feature heavily, and is likely to involve a briefing from General George Allen, who was recently in hot water over his involvement in the surreal FBI investigation into threatening emails that led to David Petraeus’ bombshell resignation as head of the CIA.

Also on Tuesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is due to address her Christian Democratic Union party conference in Hanover, as Germany begins the ramp up for general elections due next September.

On Wednesday, Thais will celebrate the 85th birthday of King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

Meanwhile, in Beijing, Japan and North Korea are due to begin a second round of talks after they met last month for the first time since 2008. Discussions will likely include the abductions of Japanese citizens by Pyongyang in the 70s and 80s as well as the DPRK’s nuclear programme. The meeting comes ahead of elections this month in both South Korea and Japan, with some speculating North Korea may be considering its second missile test under newly-crowned Sexiest Man in the World Kim Jong-un.

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi will be addressing the media after the bank’s Governing Council meets Thursday. Further comments on Greece, Spain and the overall health of the euro area are all expected.

Ireland is due to host a meeting of some 50 foreign ministers from the OSCE on Thursday, the largest gathering of its kind in the country has seen.

Meanwhile, having presented his highly-anticipated report into press standards last week, Lord Justice Leveson will on Friday be discussing privacy in the 21st Century at an event organised by the University of Technology Sydney in Australia. This will be his first public appearance since he published his report.

Also Friday, Ghanaians go to the polls to elect a president to the oil-rich West African nation. The strongest challenge to incumbent John Dramani Mahama (NDC) comes from Nana Akufo-Addo (NPP).

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is due to host counterparts from the Mercosur grouping. Venezuela’s recently re-elected President Hugo Chávez had been scheduled to attend, however it remains to be seen whether he returns in time from his latest trip to Cuba to receive cancer treatment.

Finally Friday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is expected in Turkey where he intends to visit refugees fleeing the conflict in neighbouring Syria.

The weekend sees France host from Saturday the fifth World Policy Congress in Cannes with the futures of the European Union and the Middle East top of the agenda. Speakers include Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti and UN/Arab League Special Representative for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi.

Lastly, Sunday sees the second election of the week, this time in Romania. Despite failing to have President Traian Basescu dismissed, opposition party the Social Liberal Union (PSU) is expected to fare strongly, setting the scene for a potential show-down between the President and parliament.

In a week that’s seen three “green on blue” attacks in Afghanistan, a divided panel came together to unpick the finer details of the country’s impending challenges. With foreign troops preparing to leave in 2014, the spectre looming over Afghanistan is a return to civil war. The expert panel debated whether the Afghan National Army would be able to prevent this outcome.

The guests were united in their belief that security would be the major challenge for Afghanistan post-withdrawal. It was stressed that foreign forces would not be abandoning Afghanistan as the Soviets had done when they withdrew in 1989. The audience heard that $4.1 billion would be spent each year to support the army and that NATO would offer continuing support until 2024 albeit behind the scenes.

“This is not a Soviet style abandonment of Afghanistan. In this case there are many strategic partnership agreements with the US so the idea is that at least some US forces will stay maybe 10,15 up to 20,000 for another 10 years. There are strategic partnership agreements with UK, Germany, France, Italy, Australia, Turkey. These, the government thinks will keep Afghanistan together and keep institutions running. If this happens I think the future is bright.” 

Questions were then raised about the ethnic groups that make up the ANA. It was stressed that the army roughly represented the country’s ethnic groups proportionally and that recruitment from the Pashtun south had increased 10% last year. However it was stated that men from this region, which has been a fertile ground for Taliban recruiters, were under represented in the ANA and currently make up only 1% of the force.

The debate moved on to reconciliation. Whilst the panel agreed that it was a requirement to prevent ethnic strife, they split when it came to defining what reconciliation meant. One view given was that for the US, it seems that reconciliation means splitting and undermining the Taliban rather than including them in meaningful peace talks. A robust approach to dealing with difficult groups was offered by another speaker, considering how to deal with governors that don’t want to engage with western forces. 

“It’s not about empowering absolute winners or absolute losers. The time now is for compromise, not for protecting fiefdoms and avoiding making difficult decisions that are in the longer term interest of Afghans.”

It emerged during the night that Afghanistan would need more than just a strong army to prevent civil war from engulfing the country. The experts agreed that robust civil institutions as well as a respect for the rule of law and human rights are required to make the nation sustainable after 2014.

“It’s important to make a balance between support to the Afghan national security forces, to the civilian causes, development and support to civil society including women’s rights groups. Unfortunately the biggest concern among many Afghans is that much focus will be drawn to the security.”

The panel concluded that it’s critical for Afghanistan’s future that the voices of ordinary Afghans are heard.