Welcome to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, meeting number 31.
We are again pleased to have this afternoon a briefing on the situation in Afghanistan. This is from a motion that came to our committee a number of weeks ago, a motion that asked that the foreign affairs and international development committee have regular briefings on Afghanistan. We have been pleased in the past to have had a number of experts on the situation in Afghanistan. We have had the department and the defence minister, and I think we as a committee are better off for the briefings we've had.
Today's witnesses are John Watson, the president and chief executive officer of CARE Canada; Najiba Ayoobi, who is the manager of Radio Killid; and Mihreya Mohammed Aziz, who is a camerawoman.
Also, we have with us at the table today an interpreter who will be able to let those witnesses know exactly what the questions are that we are asking them, so it's always good to have that.
We welcome you folks here. We apologize for the slight delay. There have been some fairly major announcements in the House of Commons with motions and other things that kept us there longer than we would normally have stayed.
To our friends here, welcome. We look forward to your comments, after which we will go into rounds of questioning. Because we are close to 30 minutes late in starting, we may extend the time a little bit. So please, the time is yours.
Perhaps, Mr. Watson, you would begin, followed by our other guests.