Halt Afghan economy ‘death spiral’: UN

Afghanistan's economy risks falling into a "death spiral" without urgent aid, with some Afghans already forced to sell their children and body parts to survive, UN chief Antonio Guterres said yesterday. The United Nations has reached less than 13 percent of its $4.4 billon fundraising goal for Afghanistan this year, the secretary-general told a virtual conference of donors co-hosted by the UN, Britain, Germany and Qatar. "Wealthy, powerful countries cannot ignore the consequences of their decisions on the most vulnerable," he said, after Western nations withdrew from Afghanistan last year and allowed the Taliban back to power.