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January 31, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The New York Times: The stitches and bandages are gone, but scars streak across one side of the girl’s face, across her cheek and behind her ear: stark testimony to the brutal attack she barely survived three months ago. When the girl, Gul Meena, is with other people, even those whom she knows at the shelter where she now lives, she pulls a veil across the damaged side of her face, often touching it gingerly and sucking in her breath. Full news...
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January 30, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Deutsche Welle: Afghan widows are struggling for survival. After their husbands’ deaths, the women are faced with rape, poverty and social condemnation. One of them considers her life to have ended before it ever really began. Gulghotay’s world fell apart she when heard the news of her husband’s death. They had been married for only three months and now he was suddenly dead. Full news...
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January 29, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Al Jazeera: Anisa Azam is a small woman with extraordinary courage. Her lined face makes her look older than her 40-something years, and there is a permanent sadness about her. Last March her daughter Khatera was murdered. Azam tried to prevent it: A few weeks before the death, she and her daughter went to a Kabul police station to report a history of spousal abuse, and threats against her daughter. Full news...
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January 28, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Killid Group: Efforts to clear Afghanistan of landmines have been painfully slow. At least 45 people lose their limbs every month to deadly anti-personnel mines, which have been banned by 161 countries. Afghanistan should have been free of landmines by the end of 2013. In December last year it was among four countries that requested extensions on their mine clearance deadlines. The country has been granted until 2023 to clear all mined areas. Full news...
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January 27, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Prensa Latina: Two bomb attacks in other southern provinces of Afghanistan killed 13 people, including 11 policemen, and wounded another 13, according to a report from official sources. In conflict-torn Kandahar province, an explosive device was activated while a patrol of agents was passing by and killed eight policemen and wounded six. Full news...
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January 25, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Washington Post: When I joined the Marine Corps, I knew I would kill people. I was trained to do it in a number of ways, from pulling a trigger to ordering a bomb strike to beating someone to death with a rock. As I got closer to deploying to war in 2009, my lethal abilities were refined, but my ethical understanding of killing was not. I held two seemingly contradictory beliefs: Killing is always wrong, but in war, it is necessary. Full news...
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January 25, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Wall Street Journal: The U.S. military has blacklisted Afghanistan’s largest private airline, alleging it is smuggling “bulk” quantities of opium on civilian flights to Tajikistan, a corridor through which the drugs reach the rest of the world. Kam Air was barred this month from receiving U.S. military contracts by U.S. Central Command chief Marine Gen. James Mattis, according to U.S. military officials. Full news...
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January 24, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Rabble.ca: The critics may love it, but Zero Dark Thirty has made U.S. senators John McCain, Carl Levin and Dianne Feinstein very angry. The trio of politicians says that, contrary to the movie’s allegedly true portrayal, torture was never used to gain information on the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden. But let it not be forgotten that torture was used in the hunt for countless other terror suspects. Full news...
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January 23, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
TOLOnews.com: An investigation is underway into the death of a 27-old-year woman found Wednesday morning hanged in her home in northern Jawzjan province, local officials said. The hanging took place last night in the woman Rahila’s home in the Shirik village of Jawzjan’s Aqcha district, the spokesman of 303 Pamir Police Zone in north Afghanistan, Lal Mohammad Ahmadzai, said. Full news...
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January 22, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The New York Times: It has long been a given that the air pollution in this city gets horrific: on average even worse than Beijing’s infamous haze, by one measure. For nearly as long, there has been the widespread belief by foreign troops and officials here that — let’s be blunt here — feces are a part of the problem. Full news...
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January 22, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
VOA News: The rights group Amnesty International says 17 people have died from cold weather conditions in Afghan refugee camps, and it warns against a repeat of last year, when 100 people died in the camps due to a lack of assistance. Amnesty made the announcement Tuesday, saying that most of the 17 who died in the first two weeks of January this year were children. Full news...
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January 21, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: A lawmaker and member of the National Front of Afghanistan, Mohammad Mohaqiq, denied involvement in seizing government-owned land and stealing the revenue of customs departments in northern provinces. Quoting sources in the Attorney General Office and the High Office of Oversight and Anti-Corruption, some media outlets on Sunday reported Mohaqiq and some other political figures had pocketed huge government funds Full news...
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January 20, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
BBC News: The United Nations says torture in Afghan prisons continues to be widespread despite its recommendations in a similar report in 2011. More than half of the 635 detainees interviewed by UN investigators said they had been ill-treated or tortured. The Afghan government says the claims are exaggerated, the BBC’s Quentin Sommerville in Kabul says. Full news...
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January 17, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
TOLOnews.com: Two girls are seeking justice for two separate rape cases in Afghanistan’s central and northern provinces, both accusing government personnel of raping them after they sought help from a previous rape. In northern Baghlan province’s Nahrin district, 13-year-old Zarbibi was allegedly raped by her cousin multiple times, and was subsequently raped by the police officer investigating her case. Full news...
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January 16, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
VOA Dari (Translated by RAWA): Officials in a human rights office in Daikundi province say that a 15-year old girl was raped in the Directorship Department of Women’s Affairs of this province. Six guards of this office have been arrested on suspicions of being involved. It is not yet clear whether the girl was gang-raped or raped turn by turn, but local authorities have said that her condition is not serious. Full news...
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January 13, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Associated Press: An explosion Sunday killed seven Afghan villagers as they tried to pull bodies of dead insurgents from the rubble of a village mosque after a night raid by NATO and Afghan troops, officials said. Four insurgents and an Afghan soldier were also reported killed in the operation. Night raids have long been a contentious issue between Afghanistan’s president... Full news...
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January 13, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
GlobalResearch: America came to stay. Accelerated withdrawal claims reflect subterfuge. Washington officials and media scoundrels don’t explain. Msinformation and illusion substitute for reality. Reuters headlined “Obama, Karzai accelerate end of US combat role in Afghanistan.” “Obama’s determin(ed) to wind down a long, unpopular war.” Full news...
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January 13, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: The crime branch chief for the Nahrin district of northern Baghlan province has been referred to the military prosecution office on the charge of sexually abusing a girl, an official said on Sunday. The girl was abducted from the Khanabad district of Kunduz to Baghlan province two months ago, the provincial police chief, Brig. Gen. Asadullah Sherzad, told Pajhwok Afghan News. Full news...
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January 12, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: A newly-wed woman was killed by her in-laws in the fourth police district of the capital of western Herat province, officials said on Saturday. Dunia, 22, was killed in Baraman area late on Friday, police spokesman, Noor Khan Nekzad, told Pajhwok Afghan News. With the motive behind her murder yet to be known, five suspects have been detained. Full news...
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January 11, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Christian Science Monitor: As two Afghan farmers tell it, they are part of the “good” militia in their northern province: unofficial armed men who protect schools, families, and farms, and have chased Taliban insurgents away. They are not part of the “bad” militia, they say, that since 2010 has especially traumatized parts of Kunduz Province by forcibly extracting “taxes” from villagers, and engaging in killings and rape – all in the name of fighting insurgents themselves. Full news...
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January 10, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Common Dreams: As Afghan President Hamid Karzai prepares to meet with Barack Obama on Friday and speculation swirls about the future US role as 2014 slowly approaches, one of Afghanistan’s leading peace advocates has a message that those in the US—increasingly cited for their war-weariness—rarely hear... Full news...
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January 9, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Vanity Fair: “Just look at this view,” said my guide, as he waved his arm expansively from right to left. We had just emerged onto the sun-drenched roof terrace of a so-called narco-villa in Kabul’s Sherpur neighborhood. Sherpur is the epicenter of an eye-catching architectural style in a district where the gusher of money from drugs and corruption has found full expression. Full news...
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January 9, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Al Jazeera: After spending 10 years as a refugee in Pakistan, Nafas Gol never thought she would be living in a tent in a camp for the internally displaced in Kabul. “[Afghan President Hamid] Karzai was everywhere saying ’come, your country is ready’, so I did,” she said. More than five million refugees have returned to the country since the US-led invasion in 2001. Full news...
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January 8, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Khaama Press: According to available figures, about 73 percent of people in Afghanistan lack access to clean drinking water and 95 percent do not have access to sufficient sanitation. As a result, diarrhoeal diseases are responsible for the death of 48,545 children every year in the country. Full news...
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January 7, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Killid Group: The Kabul sky is dotted with kites on summer evenings. For Mohammad Masoud Nassiri, 40, they bring back painful memories of the evening when his parents and sister were killed. Seconds before the blast he had left his father’s hand to run after a falling kite. Kites are a national passion in Afghanistan. Boys grow up learning how to get it into the air and “cut” a rival’s kite. Full news...
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January 7, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
World Socialist Web Site: As the 2014 deadline for the end of NATO operations in Afghanistan draws closer, the Obama administration is preparing for a continued US military presence into the indefinite future. The plans, reported by the New York Times, underscore the predatory, neo-colonial character of the American-led occupation. Full news...
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January 6, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: More than 20 people were severely beaten by a group of Afghan National Army (ANA) troops on Sunday on the outskirts of Mehtarlam, the capital of eastern Laghman province, residents said. The incident came a day after unknown individuals hauled down a national flag on a local police post and tore it up in Obozai area, said Malak Naqib Jalili, who got one his hands broken in the assault. Full news...
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January 6, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been stolen from three branches of the Afghan Millie Bank, a senior official said on Sunday. Several people have been detained on suspicion of complicity in the theft. Mohibullah Safi, the bank’s chief, told Pajhwok Afghan News that a moneychanger had filched 200,000 USD from the bank’s branch in Kabul. But security forces had arrested the individuals who stood guarantee for the moneychanger. Full news...
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January 5, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
WNN/RFE/RL: An Afghan prisoner serving 20 years for murdering his in-laws is now suspected of strangling his young bride during a conjugal visit. Din Mohammad, who is serving his sentence at a prison in the northern Samangan Province, is accused by police of killing his wife when she visited him on January 1. Mohammad was convicted in 2009 of killing his mother-in-law, brother-in-law, and sister-in-law during a bloody rampage. Full news...
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January 4, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Khaama Press: Afghan public health ministry officials announced at least one Afghan woman dies in every two hours across the country due maternal deaths. Suraya Dalil Afghan public health minister said majority of the mothers die during childbirth as a result of lack of proper healthcare. Full news...