Jeff Rigsby

Afghanistan has one of the world's highest rates of childhood lead exposure, which causes permanent brain damage. Nearly all children here have significant lead poisoning. Researchers in the US have found the source of the lead. But nobody has told the Afghan public. Thread.

@naserkhwaja92 Can't be as bad as Afghan Wireless on my phone

@JeffRigsby2 you lied to me. The internet at Serena sucks 😭

@AFGCommentary I'm not seeing much progress on Mes Aynak either

People are probably tired of seeing me tweet that the TAPI pipeline, intended to deliver natural gas from Turkmenistan to India via Afghanistan, is never going to be built. The BBC has a good article today giving one reason why it probably won't happen. Thread.

But the TAPI concept, which is that power plants should be built locally to burn imported gas, isn't realistic under current circumstances. If there's going to be large-scale investment to supply Afghanistan and Pakistan with electricity, it has to be done another way. [end]

Afghanistan bears almost no responsibility for the broader problem of climate change, and it badly needs more electricity for basic humanitarian reasons. Building gas-fired power plants to meet those needs is justified, even if it contributes to global warming to a minor extent.

@naserkhwaja92 I miss Taverna... As far as I know the only Lebanese place in Kabul now is Chinar in Qala-e Fatullah, but the food there has made me sick more than once

@JeffRigsby2 The less they have on their menu, the better to be honest. Focus on quality, not quantity.

I take this back. The fast food at Ziyafat was freakin’ excellent. This was the best pizza I had and the burger was amazing.

With Braidi now holding a formal role at the Fund, we can be a little more confident that we know what's going on. The real problem, though, is that nothing seems to be going on. The money is still just sitting there, and it seems unlikely that will change any time soon. [end]

There must also have been a subsequent meeting at which Braidi's own appointment was confirmed, so we can look forward to hearing about that too. It's been surprising to see this level of carelessness in managing an entity with nearly four billion dollars in Afghan state assets.

The Fund for the Afghan People appointed a new executive secretary yesterday. Guillaume Braidi has replaced Andrea Dall'Olio, who left the organization some months ago. Thread.