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March 31, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Independent: Afghanistan's President, Hamid Karzai, has signed a law which "legalises" rape, women's groups and the United Nations warn. Critics claim the president helped rush the bill through parliament in a bid to appease Islamic fundamentalists ahead of elections in August. Full news...
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March 31, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Guardian: Hamid Karzai has been accused of trying to win votes in Afghanistan's presidential election by backing a law the UN says legalises rape within marriage and bans wives from stepping outside their homes without their husbands' permission. The Afghan president signed the law earlier this month, despite condemnation by human rights activists and some MPs that it flouts the constitution's equal rights provisions. Full news...
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March 30, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: A Husband decapitated his wife and a police officer was detained in a case of embezzling 1.4 million afghanis in northern Jozjan province.Colonel Syed Abbas Sadat, crime branch chief of Jozjan police told Pajhwok Afghan News that Abdul Razaq, 22, killed his 18 years old wife with knife in Khawja Do Koh district on Sunday night. Full news...
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March 27, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Washington Post: A former U.N. official who oversaw reconstruction funds in Afghanistan diverted half a million dollars from roads, schools and clinics to fund his luxury lifestyle, according to a confidential internal U.N. investigation. The U.N. Procurement Task Force accused Gary K. Helseth, an American who headed the U.N. Office for Project Services (UNOPS) in Afghanistan from 2002 to 2006. Full news...
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March 26, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Quqnoos: An Afghan emergency hospital records 600 suicide attempts within a year. This is an enormous number of Afghans, mainly women, trying to commit suicide to flee violence in life. Based on the figures given by the Ibn-e Sina Emergency Hospital in Kabul more than 600 incidents of suicide attempts have been referred to this hospital during the past 12 months. Full news...
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March 26, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
New York Times: The Taliban’s widening campaign in southern Afghanistan is made possible in part by direct support from operatives in Pakistan’s military intelligence agency, despite Pakistani government promises to sever ties to militant groups fighting in Afghanistan, according to American government officials. Full news...
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March 25, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
AP: The Afghan government had arrested two TV presenters, one for a programme apparently offensive to Muslim clerics and another for interviewing a Taliban spokesman, a media watchdog said Tuesday.Reporters Without Borders said it was "disturbed" by Monday's arrests of Fahim Kohdamani of Emroz television, who is still being held, and Ajmal Alamzai of Ariana TV, who was released just before midnight Monday. Full news...
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March 25, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
AP: A roadside bomb ripped through a van carrying civilians on a road used by foreign troops in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing 10 and wounding six, officials said.In the south, three Australian soldiers were wounded in another blast.The attacks are a reminder of the dangers facing Afghan and foreign forces as thousands of new U.S. troops roll into the country to try to reverse the Taliban gains of the last three years. Full news...
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March 23, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Residents of Garoch village in eastern Laghman province, who fled their homes as a result of several US forces air raids, are in dire need of shelters, fuel and drinking water in their makeshiftarrangements near the capital city of Mehtarlam.Garoch village northwest to Mehtarlam is surrounded by mountains range connecting to Sarobi district of Kabul province came under US air-strikes thrice, forcing the residents to flee and take refuge in Mehtarlam city. Full news...
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March 23, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
AFP: Afghan officials said five men killed in a US-led raid Sunday were all civilians, countering a statement from the military that said they were militants from a "terrorist network." The claim was the latest in a string of allegations of civilian casualties at the hands of foreign forces who are in Afghanistan to fight against insurgents, including Taliban and Al-Qaeda extremists. Full news...
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March 22, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IRIN: The more than 1,000 children deported from Iran to Afghanistan’s western province of Herat in 2008 face poverty and are at risk of abuse, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and Most of the deported teenagers were working as economic migrants in the neighbouring oil-rich country where they are considered “illegal intruders” and qualify for forced expulsion. provincial authorities. Full news...
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March 19, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
CNN: The United Nations says that more than $15 billion in aid has been sent to Afghanistan since the U.S.-led coalition overthrew the Taliban in late 2001. But still, the hospital cannot afford to help the hundreds of children who stream in every day, desperate for care and cures. The government does pay for salaries and sometimes for fuel, but there is often a shortage of even basic supplies like syringes. Full news...
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March 19, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Suspected militants last night blew up two schools with powerful explosives in Nadir Shahkot district of southeastern Khost province, education officials said Thursday.Provincial education director Mosa Majroh told Pajhwok Afghan News on Thursday that some unidentified miscreants last night entered the schools and detonated powerful explosives inside the schools' buildings, destroying the buildings badly. Full news...
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March 18, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IWPR: Mirahmad has a very important job to do: he is the mirab, or water regulator, in his native Pushtrod district of Farah province. It is Mirahmad who ensures that the villages under his control receive adequate water for thWhen the state-sponsored National Solidarity Programme, NSP, gave Pushtrod 200,000 afghani (40,000 US dollars) to clean out the Nawbahar canal irrigation canal, he was overjoyedeir fields. Full news...
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March 18, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IRIN: "We feel disappointed, isolated and oppressed," said Ravil Singh, a Sikh leader in Nangarhar Province, eastern Afghanistan, adding that local people "are good to us". "We have too many problems but we get no help to solve them. A lot of our houses, shops and other properties have been seized by powerful people, commanders and warlords. Full news...
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March 17, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IRIN: Millions of trees have been lost in Nangarhar and the neighbouring provinces of Kunar and Nooristan and the ecosystem has been severely damaged because of deforestation, in part induced by drought, officials say. "In the past, over 134,000 hectares of land in the 11 districts of Nangarhar Province were forest, but now tree cover is down to less than 15,000 hectares," Nazir said. Large tracts of forest have also been lost to what were initially small fires. These often get out of control as Nangarhar only has two fire engines and very limited fire-fighting resources. Full news...
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March 17, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
RAWA News: A 27 years old Afghan woman committed self-immolation and died in Pushtoon Zarghon district of Herat province in Western Afghanistan on Monday, March 16. Local officials confirmed the incident and say apparently she had committed self-immolation due to domestic violence. They say an investigation has been started. Full news...
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March 17, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Daily Times: Respect for press freedom has fallen sharply in recent weeks in Afghanistan, a fact-finding mission report by international media watchdog, Reporters Without Borders said on Monday. The Paris-based organisation’s report said, “The murder of Jawed Ahmad, a reporter for various Canadian news media in Kandahar, the newspaper Payman’s closure as a result of pressure from conservatives and the government, and the supreme court’s confirmation of Perwiz Kambakhsh’s 20-year jail sentence are all evidence that press freedom is in serious crisis.” Full news...
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March 16, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Reuters: Afghanistan sits on one of the largest mineral deposits in the region, the country's mines minister said, urging foreign firms to invest in oil, gas and iron ore sectors. A U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) had shown that the war-torn nation may hold far higher amounts of minerals than previously thought, Mohammad Ibrahim Adel said. Full news...
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March 15, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IRIN: Life for Jamaluddin’s family was much better when they lived as refugees in Pakistan in the 1990s; things have got worse since they returned to Afghanistan in 2008. Like millions of other Afghans, war and fear of death forced Jamaluddin to flee to Pakistan. Insecurity, land disputes and lack of jobs have stopped tens of thousands of returnees from moving to their original areas and rebuilding their houses. Some households, including Jamaluddin’s, have set up tents and mud huts in different parts of the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar. Full news...
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March 15, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IRIN: There are indications that some Taliban groups fervently oppose the use of contraceptives and may start using the issue as a pretext to launch further attacks on health centres, experts say. A pro-Taliban religious leader spoke for almost an hour against the use of contraceptive drugs, calling them “illicit and non-Islamic”. “Birth gaps have positive impacts on a mother’s health and the practice is in compliance with Sharia [Islamic] law so we will continue to recommend it,” Abdullah Fahim, a spokesman for MoPH, told IRIN. Full news...
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March 14, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Angry with reported innocent killing of five persons of a family by the US forces in a raid in central Logar province last night, protestors besieged the building of Charkh district headquarters on Saturday. More than three hundreds protesting people, chanting anti-American slogans, called for an immediate trial of the killers. Full news...
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March 14, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Officials in central Logar province say five members of the same family were killed in a raid by the US-led coalition forces last night. Spokesman for the provincial governor, Din Mohammad Darvish, told Pajhwok Afghan News Saturday that the US forces raided the house of one Abdul Rashid last night, killing him and his four sons in Naw Khar village of the Charkh district. Full news...
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March 14, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Asia Times: As United States President Barack Obama simultaneously escalates and crafts a new strategy for the US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led counter-insurgency war and occupation in Afghanistan, critics say that the "surge" will send the country toward an "unmitigated disaster", the brunt of which will be borne by the civilian population. Full news...
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March 12, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Expressing its deep concern, Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) has said that 80 percent of children in western Ghor province have been forced into labor due to poverty. The human rights official described the child labor a stigma in the society and stressed the need for improving the situation and provision of education opportunities to the children. Full news...
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March 12, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IRIN: Wheat flour, rice and cooking oil prices have dropped by over 15 percent in the past three months but adequate food is still unaffordable for millions of Afghans living on less than US$1 a day, according to officials. The average price of a 50kg bag of wheat flour was 1,100 Afghanis (about US$21) on 10 March in Kabul, down from $36 in December 2008. A 24.5kg sack of rice has gone down to $25 from $37, and the cost of a 16kg canister of ghee is now $20 instead of $31. Full news...
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March 12, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Independent: My brother is an innocent man. He has already spent more than a year in jail, and he's been sentenced to 20 more years in prison. But the warlords and the murderers who are in power, they are free. It's a joke. People are angry. They are fundamentalists. Some of them are criminals. Some of them are powerful. Some of them are in the government, and they are playing political games with the fate of an innocent man. We must struggle for justice. We must struggle for free speech. Our society cannot live without these values. Full news...
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March 12, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Amnesty International: Freedom of expression in Afghanistan faces increasing threats from the government as well as anti-government forces, Amnesty International warned today. Amnesty International learnt on Monday that the Supreme Court, on 11 February 2009, secretly upheld the 20-year prison sentence handed down to student and journalist Perwiz Kambakhsh on blasphemy charges.'If President Karzai is serious about defending free expression in Afghanistan, he should immediately and unconditionally pardon Kambakhsh,' said Zarifi. Full news...
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March 11, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Residents of Lashkargah, capital city of southern Helmand province, on Wednesday staged a protest demonstration against the US-led coalition forces and Afghan government. They alleged that a civilian was killed and another wounded when a shell hit them in Spini Kotta area of the city during an operation by the foreign forces last night. Full news...
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March 11, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Ennahar Online: The UN diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi, who had participated in the reconstruction of Afghanistan after the Taliban, said that the country is in the process of ruin, in an interview published Tuesday by the U.S. weekly The Nation. The next conference on Afghanistan, scheduled for March 31 in The Hague and organized at the initiative of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, “comes after six very long years of waste,” he says. “We, the international community, have not helped much,” he says. Full news...
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