Development projects and construction work around military bases make up an overwhelmingly large part of Afghanistan’s economy. With foreign troops withdrawing and declining aid, the country is looking for its future economic path.

The monetizing of nature is considered to be a promising tool stressing the economic relevance of environmental protection, however such an approach can pose social, cultural and ecological threats.

Afghanistan has a new mining law that aims to tap the potentially lucrative sector to fund the country's post-war development. Critics say, it falls short of international standards and could encourage further conflict and corruption.

Humaira Saqeeb was born in Kabul in 1982, during her school years she was a refugee. Today she is editor-in-chief of the "Women News Agency" and member of the “Women Political Participation Committee”. We talked to her about the ongoing violence against women in Afghanistan.

Factory-style livestock production is a critical driver of agricultural industrialization. Its remorseless expansion is contributing to climate change, deforestation, biodiversity loss, and human-rights violations – all to satisfy Western societies’ unhealthy appetite for cheap meat.

Siddiq Siddiqi is a spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior and head of its public relations unit. He is young, hardworking, serious, and optimistic about Afghanistan’s future. His focus is very much on bringing young people into politics.

Dr Faramarz Tamana is Head of the Strategic Studies Unit at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He also leads the Afghanistan Institute of Higher Education and teaches International Relations.

The Băile Tuşnad speech of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán must be analyzed in a wider contex: The Orbán regime is systematically taking control of all institutions that could have a role in containing the power of the government.

Afghanistan’s new mining law has serious weaknesses, warns Global Witness, as President Hamid Karzai signed the bill onto the statute books. The gaps in the law increase the risk that the country’s mineral wealth will fuel conflict and corruption instead of development, the campaigning group adds.

For the first time in the last 17 years an Indian Prime Minister has visited Nepal. Modi's challenge is to nudge the country on the path of stability and development without sounding ‘big brotherly’, says Avani Tewari in her blog.