Afghanistan's Taliban regime has agreed to sign a contract with a Chinese company to exploit oil in the Amu Darya basin in the country's north, the acting mining minister announced Jan. 5. The contract with the Xinjiang Central Asia Petroleum & Gas Co. (CAPEIC) is to be the first major resource extraction deal the regime has signed with a foreign company since taking power in 2021. "The Amu Darya oil contract is an important project between China and Afghanistan," China's ambassador, Wang Yu, told a joint press conference with Taliban officials in Kabul. Beijing has not formally recognized the Taliban government but has significant interests in Afghanistan, a country deemed critical for its Belt & Road Initiative.

Several international aid organizations have suspended their work in Afghanistan in response to a new Taliban edict barring Afghan women from working with any local or foreign NGO until further notice, while the UN is urging the "Islamic Emirate" to reverse its decision. The Afghan Ministry of Economy issued the order on Dec. 24, warning that any organization that fails to comply will have their licence to operate in the nation revoked.

Pre-Trial Chamber II of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Oct. 31 authorized prosecutors to resume their investigation into atrocities committed in Afghanistan since May 1, 2003, following a two-year hiatus. The Chamber found "that Afghanistan is not presently carrying out genuine investigations." The Chamber emphasized that the authorization is limited to crimes falling within the conflict as it existed at the time of the original investigation request in November 2017. The Chamber rejected that request in April 2019. This decision was overturned by the Appeals Chamber in March 2020. However, the investigation was halted following a request from the government of Afghanistan. ICC prosecutor Karim AA Khan sought to review the deferral in September 2021. At that time, Khan said he concluded, "there is no longer the prospect of genuine and effective domestic investigations into Article 5 crimes within Afghanistan."

It has been a year since the Taliban took back power—a year since desperate images at Kabul airport went around the world. Over those 12 months, Afghanistan has seen a reduction in conflict, but its economy has collapsed, record numbers are facing hunger, and it's projected that most of the population will soon be below the poverty line.

The United Nations Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) on July 20 released a report holding the ruling Taliban regime responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary arrests, and inhumane punishments in the first 10 months since they seized power. In total, UNAMA found that Taliban forces engaged in 239 extrajudicial killings, 313 arbitrary arrests and detentions, 46 cases of incommunicado detention, and 73 instances of torture. Most of the incidents targeted former Afghan National Defense & Security Forces (ANDSF) soldiers, officials from the previous government, ISIL-KP members, or National Resistance Front fighters. UNAMA also identified an additional 217 instances of degrading punishments and 118 uses of excessive force against civilians. Finally, Taliban forces also engaged in at least 163 rights violations targeting journalists and 64 targeting human rights defenders.

At a May 7 press conference in Kabul, the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue & Prevention of Vice released an order from Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, stating that women outside the home must cover their faces. The all-encompassing blue burqa, or chadari, which became a global symbol of the Taliban's previous extremist rule from 1996 to 2001, was proposed as a suitable covering. The text of the decree calls such covering "obligatory" for all "mature and noble" women. The mandate is imposed "in order to avoid provocation when meeting men who are not mahram," or immediate family. Tellingly, the order does not impose penalties on women themselves but on their male guardians. The fathers and husbands of women accused of going barefaced are to be summoned and, on repeat offenses, fired from government jobs or imprisoned.

Afghanistan authorities say some 60 civilians, including five children, were killed as Pakistan launched air-strikes across the border on Khost and Kunar provinces April 15 and 16. The strikes, carried out by both missiles and warplanes, follow a series of attacks by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in Pakistan's borderlands, including an April 14 ambush on a military convoy in North Waziristan district in the volatile Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Some 36,400 Afghan refugees lack a clear path to US citizenship or permanent residency, according to a report released by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Jan. 28. The report surveys the immigration status of more than 76,000 Afghan refugees now under the supervision of Operation Allies Welcome (OAW), a DHS-coordinated program aimed at resettling Afghans within the United States. OAW, initiated on Aug. 29, is the domestic counterpart to Operation Allies Refuge (OAR), the military effort to evacuate select Afghan citizens after their country fell to the Taliban that month.