Uncertainty

Six months is not long and July will be here before we know it. Pakistan has extended refugee status for 1.6 million Afghan refugees living in that country for six months.

"Pakistani officials have long expressed their frustration with the lack of progress in repatriating the world's largest refugee community - Afghans who fled the Soviet invasion and later, Taliban rule," reports Alex Rodriguez for the Los Angeles Times. "Many refugees have lived in Pakistan for more than three decades. Their presence is resented by many Pakistanis, who see the refugees as a source of escalating crime and accuse them of involvement in terror strikes across the country."

United Nations officials and others would prefer a more lasting resolution.

"The core protection challenge in Pakistan is the absence of a specific legal regime for the protection of refugees," reports the Office of the UN High Commissioner on Refugees. "Individually recognized refugees and asylum-seekers have difficulty in accessing basic facilities and essential services including education, health care and work in Pakistan. Many of them have limited income opportunities so they must survive through informal work arrangements."

Spies?

Pakistan has ordered six foreign workers of the charity Save the Children to leave the country. "The aid group had been under suspicion from authorities ever since a doctor accused of assisting the CIA in its search for the al-Qaida leader claimed that Save the Children had introduced him to US intelligence officers," reports Jon Boone for the Guardian.  Pakistanis suggest the workers had "engaged" the doctor who has been charged of setting up a vaccination program to catch Oasma bin Laden.

Save the Children has worked in Pakistan for decades and only six of the 2000 workers in the country are foreign nationals, Boone explains.

The charity issued a statement: "Save the Children is a global organisation and has a zero-tolerance policy for people involved in work that is not humanitarian and does not benefit children and their families. We reiterate our offer to the Pakistani authorities to examine our country office financial records and interview any of our staff concerned with our operation there."

Save the Children strives for transparency and offers a Donor Bill of Rights, that including transparency on mission and finances, ability to ask questions and the expectation "that all relationships with individuals representing organization of interest to the donors will be professional in nature."

Doctor Shakil Afridi, who helped the US pinpoint the location of Osama bin Laden,  is serving a 33-year prison sentence for treason. Pakistan should be very careful calling the Save the Children workers or Dr. Afridi a spy - unless, of course, bin Laden was working for Pakistan in an official capacity.

Photo of a group of children in Khost Province, Afghanistan, courtesy of funbobseye and Wikimedia Commons