-
May 1, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The News and Observer: Trafficked across the border from Pakistan with her 3-year-old son, Rukhma was handed to an Afghan who raped and abused her, then beat the toddler to death as she watched helplessly. He was jailed for 20 years for murder, but Rukhma ended up in prison, too. Full news...
-
May 1, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: The freedom of press, which initially improved in the first few years of the post-Taliban era, is now getting worse the head of the Committee to Protect Journalists have said. It improved, and now it is getting worse," CPJ Executive Director, Joel Simon, told Pajhwok Afghan News in an interview after releasing its first every Impunity Index. Full news...
-
April 30, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
One Planet, BBC World Service: Doctors in Afghanistan say rates of some health problems affecting children have doubled in the last two years. Some scientists say the rise is linked to use of weapons containing depleted uranium (DU) by the US-led coalition that invaded the country in 2001. Full news...
-
April 30, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Reuters: About 1,600 Afghan women die in childbirth out of every 100,000 live births. In some of the most remote areas, the death rate is as high as 6,500. In comparison, the average rate in developing countries is 450 and in developed countries it is 9. Virtually everyone in Afghanistan can recount a story about a relative dying in childbirth, often from minor complications that can be easily treated with proper medical care. Full news...
-
April 29, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Marc W. Herold: A comparison of Luftwaffe, Royal Air Force and U.S. Air Force deadliness for civilians can be made by setting Bath, Cologne and Luebeck off against the village of Kama Ado (also called Madoo) which was bombed by U.S. B-52H’s in three waves during the night of November 30/December 1, 2001. Full news...
-
April 29, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Afghan Victim Memorial: On Sunday, April 6, 2008 in the isolated villages of Payendeh Shawak and Baladeh Shawak in the Shawak Valley of the Do’ab district, western Nuristan Province about 15 kms north of the border with Laghman Province. In July 2007, the Taliban had captured the Do’ab and Mandol districts of Nuristan. Full news...
-
April 29, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Independent: The Independent's petition to save the Afghan student Sayed Pervez Kambaksh from the gallows has collected a staggering 100,000 signatures as the 23-year-old languishes in a cell in Kabul awaiting appeal. Full news...
-
April 29, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IRIN News: Hundreds of people have abandoned their homes and moved to urban areas in different parts of Afghanistan, and some have reportedly migrated to neighbouring Pakistan, due to worsening food insecurity, largely resulting from soaring food prices and low cereal supplies, provincial officials said. Full news...
-
April 28, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Reuters: Badakhshan, bordering Tajikistan to the north, is far from the fighting with Taliban insurgents in the south, but is still one of Afghanistan's poorest provinces. Those that fare worst live in the mountains where they are snowed in for up to six months of the year. In outlying districts such as Raghistan, Kohistan and Darwaz, there is little cultivable land and people survive on mulberries and other types of wild food, aid workers say. Full news...
-
April 28, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Times: President Karzai narrowly escaped with his life yesterday after Taliban gunmen attacked an Independence Day ceremony in Kabul, sending ambassadors and generals diving for cover, and dealing a fresh blow to Afghanistan's fragile security. Full news...
-
April 25, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Financial Times: The actions follow revelations on Thursday that the BND in 2006 spied on Amin Farhang, Afghan trade minister, allegedly because he had sought contacts with the Taliban. The BND placed a spying device in a computer used by Mr Farhang in Kabul, and observed his electronic correspondence, including emails, for six months from June 2006 onwards. Full news...
-
April 24, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
VOA News: A top U.S. military commander says Afghanistan could see record levels of violence this year, with many Taliban attacks in eastern Afghanistan originating from across the Pakistani border. Full news...
-
April 22, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
AFP: About 400 people demonstrated in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday against skyrocketing food prices, witnesses said, in the country's first protest at food costs rising worldwide. Full news...
-
April 22, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IRIN News: Shops and mud-huts owned by Afghan refugees in Jalozai refugee camp in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province have been demolished and refugees who still live there have been ordered to vacate the area by the end of April, according to Pakistani officials and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). Full news...
-
April 21, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Reuters: The government says free basic healthcare is available within two hours walking distance to 85 percent of the population, from just 9 percent in 2003. But people say they are far from adequate and decent healthcare is available only to those who can afford to pay, travel to the capital city, or go overseas. Full news...
-
April 21, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Reuters: Half of Afghan children are still not going to school and the biggest group missing out on an education are girls, the United Nations said on Monday."We still have 1.2 million girls of school age who do not have access to school in this country," Catherine Mbengue, head of UNICEF in Afghanistan, told the news conference. Full news...
-
April 20, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Middle East Times: During the previous year, an estimated 434,000 Afghans used hashish, 130,000 used opium and 41,000 used heroin, according to the UNODC. Some agencies report higher numbers, but this may be due to their failure to adjust the population base. While the population of Afghanistan is officially listed as 31.8 million, the UNODC figures are based on the figure of 23.8 million people who currently live in Afghanistan. The other 8 million, including refugees in Pakistan and Iran, live outside of Afghanistan. Full news...
-
April 20, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Reuters: Scarred by decades of turmoil and grief, 66 percent of Afghans suffer from depression or some form of mental disorder, and an increasing number are turning to illegal drugs, a top health official said. Full news...
-
April 18, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Radio Australia: A suicide bomb exploded outside a mosque in Afghanistan overnight, killing 24 people as worshippers were leaving after prayers. Full news...
-
April 18, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Associated Press: Roughly one in every five U.S. troops who have survived the bombs and other dangers of Iraq and Afghanistan now suffers from major depression or post-traumatic stress, an independent study said Thursday. It estimated the toll at 300,000 or more. Full news...
-
April 18, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
AFP: Ten Afghans have died and more than 100 have fallen ill with liver disease after eating wheat contaminated with a poisonous plant, heightening food insecurity in the country, officials said Thursday. Full news...
-
April 17, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IRIN News: Afghanistan would have great potential to ensure food security for its estimated 26.6 million people if donors invested in agricultural infrastructure and/or if the country's over 190,000 hectares of poppy were converted to wheat production, a senior official of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said. Full news...
-
April 17, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Associated Press: Military interrogators assaulted Afghan detainees in 2003, using investigation methods they learned during self-defense training, according to Pentagon documents released on Wednesday. Full news...
-
April 16, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Associated Press: Khadija Ahadi, the 30-year-old director of Faryat radio station in the western city of Herat, was targeted on April 6 and again on Sunday, said Rahimullah Samandar, head of the Afghan Independent Journalists Association. Full news...
-
April 16, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
AFP: An Afghan legislative committee has drafted a bill seeking to introduce Taliban-style Islamic morality codes banning women from wearing make-up in public and forbidding young boys from wearing female fashions. It also aims to ban women dancers performing during concerts and other public events as well as on television. Full news...
-
April 15, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
BBC: In northern Afghanistan it appears some parents are being driven by poverty and hunger to marry off their daughters at an early age. Jenny Cuffe investigates for Radio 4's Seven Days. Full news...
-
April 15, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
RFE/RL: In parliament, well-known warlords are there. In that situation, how do you expect [the] implementation of democracy and the rule of law -- unless those people are removed from their positions and weakened, at least, and educated people are given a chance -- [those] who think positively about the betterment of their country. Not for themselves. Those [warlords] are collecting money and putting the money in their pockets. They do little or nothing for the society and for the people. Full news...
-
April 14, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
WTOP Radio: The U.S. is on the verge of losing the war in Afghanistan, says a former top CIA official who was involved in attempts to capture and kill Osama bin Laden. Full news...
-
April 14, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Age: A recent report by British-based women's rights group Womankind has concluded that Afghanistan remains one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a woman. Around 80% of women are affected by domestic violence; over 60% of marriages are forced, some of them between elderly men and girls as young as eight; half of Afghanistan's girls are married before the age of 16. Full news...
-
April 13, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Washington Post: Afghan detainees held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are being transferred home to face closed-door trials in which they are often denied access to defense attorneys and the U.S. evidence being used against them, according to Afghan officials, lawyers and international rights groups. Full news...