Kabul - The Afghan Taliban has allowed the UN to reopen its female-run bakeries just 24 hours after ordering them to close, officials in Kabul said yesterday.
The bakeries, which sell subsidised bread to thousands of poor women and children, were closed on Wednesday in line with a recent Taliban edict banning Afghan women from working for the UN and foreign aid groups. But a spokesman for the World Food Programme, Mr Khaled Mansour, said the Taliban reversed the order in a meeting between the UN and senior Taliban Foreign Ministry officials.