-
October 31, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
ABC Online: With the tragic death of three more Australian soldiers in Afghanistan, concerned citizens will be asking themselves whether the sacrifice of human lives (on all sides) can still be justified, despite predictable government reassurances, public indifference and the lack of proper media scrutiny. Full news...
-
October 31, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Al Jazeera: “After four decades of brutal dictatorship and eight months of deadly conflict, the Libyan people can now celebrate their freedom and the beginning of a new era of promise,” President Obama said last week. The capture and death of Muammar Gaddafi prompted him and other US officials to congratulate the Libyan people... Full news...
-
October 30, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Washington Post: Across the street from U.S. military headquarters in Kabul, shrouded from view by concrete walls, the Afghan intelligence agency runs a detention facility for up to 40 terrorism suspects that is known as Department 124. So much torture took place inside, one detainee told the United Nations, that it has earned another name: “People call it Hell.” Full news...
-
October 30, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Independent: Chinese mandarins in the 19th century were faced with the delicate task of explaining to their emperor the repeated defeats of his armies. To avoid embarrassing questions, they adopted the simple device of describing them all as victories. The British Army has adopted a similar approach in explaining its failure in Iraq and Afghanistan. Full news...
-
October 28, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
CNN: Nearly three years after President Obama declared the Guantanamo prison for terrorist suspects would be closed, the camp in Cuba remains open. Of the more than 750 inmates that were once held there, fewer than 200 remain now. CNN contributor Jenifer Fenton interviewed some of the former inmates, and one of the guards. Full news...
-
October 28, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Associated Press: Despite billions in international aid, Afghanistan remains one of the poorest nations in the world. Its high infant mortality rate is evidence that life remains hard for the Afghan people from the moment of birth. The infant mortality rate is considered an important indicator of a country’s level of health or development. Full news...
-
October 27, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Both legs of a child were blown off by a Taliban-planted roadside bomb in southern Kandahar province, where a joint Afghan-foreign force detained two suspected insurgents, an official said on Thursday. On his way home, the child he stepped on the bomb in the Khakrez district late on Wednesday, the governor’s spokesman said. Full news...
-
October 26, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Eurasianet.org: After a decade of involvement in Afghanistan, it appears the United States hasn't learned a critical lesson. Warlordism has been a key component in driving the country’s vicious cycle of violence. Yet as the drawdown of US and NATO troops proceeds, American policymakers find themselves reliant on warlord-led militias to fill security gaps. Full news...
-
October 26, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Dozens of people protested on Wednesday against a public representative from Kabul in the Wolesi Jirga, lower house of Parliament, for grabbing their land in the Bagrami district. Nearly 100 people staged a peaceful demonstration in front of the Wolesi Jirga, blaming MP Allah Gul Mujahid for seizing 100 acres of their land in the Shanan Qala area of the district. Full news...
-
October 26, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Reuters: Pakistan’s security service provides weapons and training to Taliban insurgents fighting U.S. and British troops in Afghanistan, despite official denials, Taliban commanders say, in allegations that could worsen tensions between Pakistan and the United States. Full news...
-
October 26, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The New York Times: A fuel tanker with a bomb hidden on board exploded Tuesday night on the road to Bagram Air Base, setting off an inferno that killed at least 10 people and left dozens more badly burned, many critically, local officials and witnesses said. The explosion happened in Parwan Province, about 35 miles north of the capital, Kabul, just one day before Afghan officials were to list the province as one of 17 areas under consideration for the second stage of security transition from NATO to Afghan control. Full news...
-
October 25, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
RFE/RL: Gray desert surrounds the camp, a forbidding compound of watchtowers, mud walls, and razor wire. Beyond the iron gates, dozens of makeshift tents dot the sands inside the compound, where hundreds of refugees -- men, women, and children -- lie in human excrement and other filth. Full news...
-
October 25, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IPS: A July United Nations report asserting that only 30 civilians died in targeted raids in Afghanistan during the first six months of 2011 reflected only a very small fraction of night raids in which civilians were killed, according to officials of the independent Afghan commission which had co-produced the 2010 report on civilian casualties with the U.N. Mission. Full news...
-
October 25, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Philly2Philly.com: Muammar Gaddafi was killed after being captured by the Libyan fighters he once scorned as “rats,” cornered and shot in the head after they overrun his last bastion of resistance in his hometown of Sirte. Three days later, the new leaders of Libya declared their country “liberated”, paving the way for an interim government. Full news...
-
October 25, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IWPR: Judges in Afghanistan’s southeast Nangarhar province have started sentencing anyone caught drinking alcohol to 80 lashes. When the Taleban movement was in power in Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001, penalties derived from Islamic law were routinely imposed, such as stoning for adultery and amputation for theft. The post-2001 Afghan judiciary abandoned such methods. Full news...
-
October 23, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: A young woman was allegedly hanged to death by her father-in-law in western Ghor province, officials said on Sunday. The 22-year-old was found dead on the outskirts of Chaghcharan late on Saturday, deputy police chief, Col. Abdul Rashid Bashir, told Pajhwok Afghan News. Full news...
-
October 22, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
NPR: Villagers from a violent part of southern Afghanistan say that Afghan troops, along with several American mentors, forced civilians to march ahead of soldiers on roads where the Taliban were believed to have planted bombs and landmines. No one was hurt. But if the allegations are true, the act would appear to violate the Geneva Conventions governing the treatment of civilians. Full news...
-
October 22, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IWPR: Falling ill in Helmand province of southern Afghanistan is a risky business, as the cure can be worse than the ailment itself, Residents say unregulated sales of pharmaceuticals, often administered by poorly-trained medics, pose a serious threat to people’s lives. Medicines well past their sell-by date are smuggled in from Pakistan and sold on the open market in Helmand and other parts of Afghanistan. Full news...
-
October 22, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Dozens of residents staged a protest demonstration in the capital Kabul on Saturday against Iran’s refusal to hand over the bodies of Afghan prisoners executed in Iran. Calling for an end to the executions, the protesters, including relatives of 26 Afghans executed in the neighbouring country over the past two months, gathered before Parliament. Full news...
-
October 22, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: The residents of Khanisheen district of southern Helmand province on Saturday accused private security guards of complicity in armed robberies. The guards of private security firms, deployed along highways, have hand in thefts, resident Balo Aka, told Pajhwok Afghan News. He alleged the guards brazenly searched passengers and extorted money from them. Full news...
-
October 22, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Reuters: At least two Afghan cabinet ministers have embezzled millions of dollars of public money, the country’s anti-graft chief said at the weekend, adding to Western pressure on President Hamid Karzai to clean up his government. Donor countries say corruption in Karzai’s administration is endemic, and a fundamental threat to their efforts to stabilize the country... Full news...
-
October 21, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: With almost 76 percent of schools across Daikundi province having proper buildings, more than 100,000 students are still studying under tents, officials said on Friday. A total of 334 schools are operating in the province, Director of Education Sardar Ali Jafri told Pajhwok Afghan News. As many as 118,104 students are taught under trees, in mosques and rented houses. Full news...
-
October 21, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Two men were killed and five others injured in gunfire at a protestors in Mazar-i-Sharif, the capital of northern Balkh province, on Friday. Hundreds of residents of the Sajjadia Township staged the protest for land ownership rights, blaming Deputy Governor Muhammad Zahir Wahdat and township director, Ghulam Rasul, for the resale of their plots. Full news...
-
October 20, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Reuters: A mass grave that might be decades old, containing dozens of skulls, was found in north Afghanistan on Thursday, Afghan officials said. Villagers discovered the grave in the Rustaq district in the province of Takhar, said Faiz Mohammad Tawhidi, a spokesman for the Takhar governor. Full news...
-
October 19, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The New York Times: One afternoon this summer, in a park beside the Ajmil River, I sat with seven residents of Shahabuddin, a collection of villages in northern Afghanistan’s Baghlan Province. It was the first week of Ramadan, and the park was almost empty, but still the men — some middle-aged, others stooped and gray-bearded — whispered conspiratorially and became silent whenever anybody walked close. Full news...
-
October 19, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Lawmakers from eastern Nangarhar province on Tuesday accused some of their colleagues and former jihadi leaders of having links with illegal armed groups blamed for insecurity and corruption. Senate Chairman Fazl Hadi Muslimyar told the upper house people of the eastern province had told him that a number of illegal armed had emerged in Nangarhar. Full news...
-
October 18, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Foreign Policy: Every night throughout Afghanistan, international forces launch kill/capture raids on Afghan homes. Over the past two years, the use of night raids, particularly by US Special Operations Forces, has skyrocketed-increasing at least five-fold since February 2009, indicating an important tactical shift by US and international forces in Afghanistan. Full news...
-
October 18, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IWPR: I was going from the centre of Kapisa province to my own district, Tagab, in a crowded taxi one day. Passengers normally chat to each other in Afghanistan, mostly discussing the political situation and the government’s activities and deficiencies. When the vehicle crossed a bridge or a road, the passengers complained that although they had only been built two months ago they had already been destroyed. Full news...
-
October 18, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Xinhua: “Yet again, a new cold winter is coming but I have no enough money to buy firewood after buying food staff with price increasing week by week,” said a resident in the Afghan capital of Kabul, Wali Khan, who came to buy brushwood in a firewood market. Khan, 45, head of an 11-member family, said he and two of his sons have jobs with low income to feed the big family... Full news...
-
October 18, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
CNN International: From dusk until dawn, 12-year-old Fayaz toils at his uncle’s blacksmith shop in Kabul. While other kids his age are in school, he’s swinging a heavy sledgehammer and doing physically exhausting work that he knows is not meant for a boy. But he doesn't have much choice. It has been that way since he was 7, when his father got sick. Full news...