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May 30, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IRNA: Afghan authorities have freed an aide to former Afghan Prime Minister Gulbaddin Hikmatyar, who was arrested in Pakistan in 2002, in an apparent move of reconciliation, Afghan sources said Friday. Full news...
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May 29, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Two children, after eating grass for a month together with their parents due to lack of food, have died in the northern Samangan province, government and human rights officials said on Thursday. Full news...
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May 29, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Marc W. Herold: The facts regarding Afghanistan’s revealed irrelevance to the United States (and a reluctant NATO) are visible to all who wish to look: on average for every $100 spent on military efforts in Afghanistan, a trifling $4.50 is budgeted (and an even smaller amount is disbursed) for so-called reconstruction efforts. Full news...
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May 28, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Not observing the pause between births, early marriages, not going to healthcare centers, being in contact with other diseases are the causes of increase in the number of women with tuberculosis in the country. According to the information of the Ministry of Public Health, last year about 40,000 women had this disease and about 8,500 of them died. 70% of the people with this disease were women. Full news...
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May 28, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
SocialistWorker.org: A U.S. Marine Corps general has decided not to bring criminal charges against two officers who led their unit on a March 2007 killing spree that left 19 Afghan civilians dead and 50 more wounded. By contrast, the U.S. media barely noticed. For its part, the New York Times featured an article on Afghanistan a few days later celebrating a "fierce battle" by a Marine unit that drove Taliban fighters outside of the southern town of Garmser. The article referenced last March's massacre--but not the Marines' decision not to press charges. Full news...
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May 27, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
VOA: Greater freedom for the women of Afghanistan was one of the promises of the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. U.S. and Afghan officials say there have been significant improvements, noting that some two million women and girls are now attending school, something that was forbidden under the extremist Taliban government. But despite Western efforts, many Afghan women say their lives have not improved significantly and an increasing number of women are committing suicide by burning themselves to death as a way to escape physical, sexual and psychological abuse. Mandy Clark reports from Kabul. Full news...
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May 27, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: An outspoken legislator was expelled from a session of the Wolesi Jirga, or lower house of parliament, for his strident criticism of proceedings and working of a committee, officials said here on Tuesday. Ramazan Bashar Dost, former minister planning minister, was ousted from a meeting of the Wolesi Jirga on grilling Emergency Committee members after he raised a series of objections to the absence of the bodys head, Vice-President Karim Khalili. Full news...
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May 27, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
BBC News: A month back, Abdul Jabar Sabit, the Attorney General of Afghanistan, blamed more than twenty members of the Afghan Parliament for committing crimes such as murder, embezzlement, rape, land-grabbing, beating, ill-speaking and misusing the governmental privileges. The Parliament announced that its members will not show up at the Attorney General. Full news...
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May 27, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Reuters: The prevalence of HIV is low in Afghanistan, but the potential risk factors for the spread of the disease remain high, the Public Health Ministry said on Monday. "But ... war, poverty, illiteracy, massive international and external displacement, the high level of poppy cultivation, drug trafficking and usage, the existence of commercial and unsafe sex, unsafe injection practices and blood transfusion are potential risk factors for its spread," the ministry said. Full news...
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May 26, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Two senators from Helmand told reporters in Kabul on Monday that many civilians were killed, wounded and displaced during the operation by NATO and Afghan forces. Haji Mahboob Garmsiri, a senator from the district, and Haji Sher Muhammad Akhunzada, head of the parliamentary committee for internal safety in the senate also from Helmand, said that the civilians were the worst sufferers in the operation. Full news...
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May 25, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Tolo TV: Some representatives of Helmand province in the Parliament say that military operations of the American forces have been taking place in this district in the past two weeks and the forces have also killed and imprisoned civilians. These representatives demanded serious attention from the government regarding the matter. The civilians in Garmsir District of Helmand Province are living in terrible conditions. Full news...
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May 25, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Tolo TV: Drought in Northern Afghanistan killed nine people in Samangan province. According to reports no welfare organizations inside or outside Afghanistan have helped these people as yet. Meanwhile, the local authorities have asked aid organizations and the authorities in the capital to pay serious attention to the families in this province or Northern Afghanistan will face huge disasters. Full news...
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May 25, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Observer: Afghanistan, struggling with a huge indigenous drug problem, has a new crisis. Its drug treatment centres - particularly in the capital, Kabul - are being inundated by heroin-addicted former refugees, many forcibly expelled from neighbouring Iran and Pakistan. 'The biggest problem now is the returning addicts. It is a tsunami coming to this country,' Suliman said. Full news...
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May 25, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
RAWA News: A young boy in Kabul committed suicide by eating 100 Phenobarbatone tablets. The neighbors said that he was the bread winner of a very large family and also had the responsibility of feeding his orphan nieces and nephews. One person said, “Because there were no jobs he was left unemployed. This is a major problem and our government has the responsibility to provide jobs for our youngsters." Full news...
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May 23, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: 55-year old Gul Murad lived a life of poverty in the Zedori village with his wife Anar Gul and eight children. Gul Murad had not had food for four days and died. When the people were burying him his wife went unconscious. When she was being taken to the Mazar-e-Sharif Hospital for treatment, she died on the way. At first the people thought she had died of the sadness caused by her husband’s death but later found out that she too had not eaten anything for days and had died of hunger. Full news...
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May 22, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The New England Journal of Medicine: Self-immolation is the act of burning oneself as a means of suicide. Although reliable data on the scope of this practice are difficult to obtain in Afghanistan and elsewhere, there are indications that self-immolation is occurring at a notable and steady rate. In 2004, in response to an apparent increase in cases of self-immolation in the country, the Afghan government, AIHRC, and the UNAMA undertook separate reviews of identified cases to try to determine why the practice was occurring. Full news...
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May 22, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Toronto Star: Three decades of war, millions of mines and unexploded ordinance (UXO) for children to trip over, suicide bombers, birth defects due to clannish intermarriage, congenital disabilities never corrected for lack of health care, ordinary ailments left untreated and the vast afflicted detritus accrued from preventable diseases such as polio, to say nothing of inestimable psychological trauma: Afghanistan is a wasteland of the mutilated and crippled. Full news...
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May 21, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: An influential international rights watchdog Wednesday renewed its call for Afghan parliament to reinstate its outspoken member Malalai Joya, suspended a year ago. Human Rights Watch (HRW), hailing the youngest member of the Wolesi Jirga as a bold human rights activist, said the 29-year-old had publicly criticised warlords and drug barons in her country. Full news...
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May 21, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
World Socialist Web Site: A United Nations investigator released a preliminary report last week citing widespread civilian deaths in Afghanistan, often at the hands of unaccountable units led by the CIA or other foreign intelligence agencies. Alston focused on civilian killings by US and other international military forces, citing 200 reported deaths in the first four months of 2008. Full news...
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May 21, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Adnkronos International: Taliban fighters in Afghanistan claim to have killed a woman by slitting her throat after accusing her of spying for US forces in Afghanistan. Full news...
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May 20, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Reporters Without Borders: RWB calls on the authorities to do everything possible to protect women journalists, several of whom have been attacked or threatened since the start of the year. One, Niloufar Habibi, has continued to receive death threats since leaving hospital after being stabbed on 15 May in the northwestern city of Herat and has to change residence every day. Full news...
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May 19, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Rabble.ca: Malalai Joya has a low tolerance for high-level corruption among public figures, elected and appointed, and she’s never been shy about saying so. Viewed by some as courageous, others as foolhardy, in my view her outspoken criticism cannot constitute legitimate grounds for permanent expulsion, without due process and with no appeal procedure from Afghanistan's Parliament to which she was democratically elected by her people. Full news...
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May 19, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Reuters: When 19-year-old Fatima returned to her home in northern Afghanistan after years as a refugee in Iran, she struggled desperately to earn a living. She briefly found work with an NGO, before being let go, and then spent two months learning how to weave carpets, before the factory shut down and she was again out on the streets of Mazar-i-Sharif. Full news...
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May 19, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Spiegel Online: A young Afghan has been sentenced to death for printing out a Web page in which Muhammad is described as a misogynistic prophet. The case will help to determine whether an Islamic country can open itself up to the West. Full news...
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May 18, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IRIN News: Sayed Ali (not his real name) said he sold his 11-year-old daughter, Rabia, for US$2,000 to a man in Sheberghan city, Jawzjan Province in northern Afghanistan to feed his wife and three younger children. With food prices in Afghanistan having soared over the past few months and the 40-year-old father unable to find work, he said he had no other choice but to sell his daughter to save his family from starvation. Full news...
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May 18, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
BBC: Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh was convicted in January of insulting Islam. But at the appeals court in Kabul the 24-year-old insisted he was innocent of all the charges. He said he was tortured into confessing that he had disrupted university classes by asking questions about women's rights under Islam. Full news...
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May 18, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Guardian: In an article I wrote in 2003, when I was still working in the country, I argued that "good governance, respect for human rights and the rule of law are not optional when it comes to rebuilding a country, but an intrinsic part of reconstruction." This week a UN expert made almost exactly the same point when he warned of "staggeringly high" complacency about civilians being killed by international troops and that foreign intelligence units may be carrying out death-squad type killings with impunity. Full news...
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May 16, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
AFP: A FEMALE Afghani journalist was stabbed and wounded today, authorities said, a day after unknown men threatened to kill her unless she quit her job at a local television station. "A woman came to my home and asked for a glass of water. As I was to bring her water she stabbed me in abdomen," Ms Habibi said. Full news...
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May 16, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Intermediadialogue.org: Although, the international media organizations have published detailed reports on the condition of freedom of speech and press in Afghanistan, but the real situation is something different from these reports. Because some of these organizations are either very conservative or are linked to the fundamentalist figures inside the government in order to keep their jobs safe. Therefore, we cannot trust the honesty in their works and reports. Full news...
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May 16, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Toronto Star: Six years after the fall of the Taliban, the cocooning burqa hangs on, even in a liberated capital rushing headlong into modernity, as if leaping millennia in one breathless hurdle. Tradition, family pressures, shyness and a sense of personal security without violation – all are given as reasons for clutching still to the metres of billowing fabric that cascade from scalp to ankle. Full news...