Jubilee debt campaign
After determined campaigning by the global jubilee movement, more than $80 billion of poor country debt has been cancelled.
Russia has cancelled about $10 billion of Afghanistan's Soviet-era debt, equivalent to 90% of its debts. The debts date back to the Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989. This decision coincides with Afghanistan entering the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative in July, which will see around half of its remaining $1.1 billion debts cancelled by mid-2009.
Read the Jubilee Debt Campaign's new briefing papers on Debt and Education, Debt and Women & Debt and Climate Change available at www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk.