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March 31, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
TOLOnews.com: The sale and exchange of women as goods is rampant in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province with as many as two women traded per day, according to the findings of a sociology researcher. In a report obtained by TOLOnews, researcher Assadullah Ahmadi stated that he found some women had been traded up to five times in three Nangarhar districts... Full news...
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March 30, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Two civilians and 14 insurgents, including three Taliban commanders, were killed as NATO-led troops “mistakenly” hit a car in southern Ghazni province on Saturday, an official claimed. The airstrike took place in the Asfandi village on the outskirts of Ghazni City, the provincial capital, said the governor’s spokesman, Fazl Sabawoon. Seven of the civilians injured included two women and a child. Full news...
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March 29, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Los Angeles Times: The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will ultimately cost between 4 trillion USD and 6 trillion USD, with medical care and disability benefits weighing heavily for decades to come, according to a new analysis. The bill to taxpayers so far has been 2 trillion USD, plus 260 billion USD in interest on the resulting debt. By comparison, the current federal budget is 3.8 trillion USD. Full news...
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March 28, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: The governor of northern Faryab province on Thursday accused the local authorities of illegally distributing governmental land to people of his choice, leaving few plots for offices. Governor Mohammadullah Batash, addressing a foundation-laying ceremony for the justice department building, alleged: “Most of government-owned land has been gifted away to undeserving individuals.” Full news...
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March 28, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Associated Press: Barely able to walk even with a cane, Ghulam Rasool says he padlocked his front door, handed over the keys and his three cows to a neighbor and fled his mountain home in the middle of the night to escape relentless airstrikes from U.S. drones targeting militants in this remote corner of Afghanistan. Full news...
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March 27, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
TOLOnews.com: Religious and government leaders in eastern Ghazni province cancelled a music concert yesterday saying it was “haram” under Islam, a sign of the growing influence of Taliban extremists, Ghazni lawmakers said Wednesday. Two Afghan singers, Mohammad Anwar Azad and Abass Neshat, were to perform at the concert in Ghazni’s Jaghori district to celebrate the Persian new year... Full news...
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March 26, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IWPR: The 15-year-old refused to give his name, his eyes cast down as he sat in an empty room in the children’s correction centre in Kabul. Slowly, he began to open up and tell his story. An orphan, he left his home province of Sar-e Pol a year ago and came to the Afghan city to study at an Islamic school. One day while out in the city, he saw a man struggling to carry two bags of groceries. Full news...
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March 25, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Sydney Morning Herald: In the twilight that passes for reality in Afghanistan, the story of Hakim Shujoyi does not add up neatly – but there’s enough in its different parts to suggest that a monster is stalking the eastern flank of Oruzgan province. Personal detail is opaque, but not the contradictions from which Shujoyi draws inordinate power in Khas Oruzgan, a wild and mountainous swath of the province... Full news...
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March 25, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Killid Group: Despite national and international efforts to rein in child abuse, the violence has only increased, says new research. The AIHRC (Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission) says out of 140 cases of sexual attacks registered over the last two years, 80 were cases of abuse of children. They can be seen begging on street corners, or at work from morning to night. Full news...
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March 24, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Post-Journal: Americans have forgotten about the Iraq war, which began 10 years ago this week, and the Afghan war, the longest in American history, but the U.S. government is still throwing its weight around in both countries. The Iraq war, the pretext for which was nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, officially ended in 2011 with the withdrawal of virtually all of America’s combat troops. Full news...
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March 23, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Four children were killed and two others wounded by a bomb they were playing with in the Mianishin district of southern Kandahar province on Saturday, officials said. The roadside bomb exploded in the Zunto area, where the children found it, the governor’s spokesman, Ahmad Javed Faisal, told Pajhwok Afghan News. Full news...
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March 22, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Hundreds of residents, protesting the killing of three civilians in a clash between police and suspected militants in central Parwan province, lifted the blockade of a busy road on Thursday. In protest against Thursday’s killings in the Gul Ghundai area of Charikar, the provincial capital, the protestors blocked the Kabul-Mazar-i-Sharif highway, placing the body of one victim on the highway. Full news...
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March 21, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Huffington Post: Badakhshan -a beautiful province of Afghanistan nestled in the lap of Hindu-Kush Mountains is surrounded by gorgeous snow-caped mountains, splendid green valleys, turbulent rivers and fascinating lakes. Badakhshan came in the limelight of both national and international media in 2002, when the Ministry of Public Health Afghanistan discovered that Badakhshan had the highest rate of maternal mortality in the world: 6,500 out of every 100,000 women die during child birth. Full news...
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March 20, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
BBC News: Mountainous Nuristan is one of the most volatile and inaccessible provinces in Afghanistan, writes the BBC’s Bilal Sarwary. It is also one of its most insecure - could other parts of the country go the same way? Nuristan is geographically cut off from the rest of Afghanistan and has next to no infrastructure, few medical facilities and endemic corruption. Full news...
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March 19, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Khaama Press: Afghanistan is considered to have a highly strategic value during the 21st century in southern and central Asian regions, owed to its geopolitical situation and untapped mineral resources. The country has proven to be a key inhibitor for the newly formed republics in central Asia besides having a high influence and pressure on China, Russia and Iran. Geographical and geopolitical situation of a nation has a direct impact over the internal, external and economical policies of a nation. Full news...
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March 18, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Killid Group: The year has started badly for press freedom. The independent media watchdog, NAI, has warned attacks on journalists have risen in 2013. As many as 31 cases were reported since the beginning of the year compared to only 12 cases in all of 2012. The attackers in the majority of cases were “governmental authorities”, Abdul Mujib Khelwatgar, the executive director of NAI, told the press in Herat. Full news...
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March 18, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Killid Group: Afghanistan has untapped oil and gas wealth that could solve its serious energy problems and transform the country. Nematullah Tanin investigates. The country imports 3.5 million tonnes of oil and 250,000 cubic metres of gas. The Ministry of Mines and Industry says there are potentially lucrative oil reserves including the Amu and Tajik basins, in Katawaz in Paktika, Tirpool in Helmand and Abrez in Herat. Full news...
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March 17, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Twenty-three women and five men have lost their lives to domestic violence in western Farah province over the past year, an official said on Sunday. Included in the 154 cases of violence are the killings of 23 women, 64 divorce incidents and three instances of self-immolation, the women’s affairs director said. Full news...
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March 16, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Associated Press: Several hundred demonstrators are marching to the Afghan parliament building in Kabul, protesting the continued presence of U.S. special operations forces in Afghanistan’s troubled Wardak province. Kabul’s deputy police chief Gen. Mohammad Daud Amin says Saturday’s demonstration of roughly 500 protesters has been peaceful. Full news...
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March 15, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
RFE/RL: In early February, “Picture This” ran a photo gallery titled “Afghanistan As It Once Was.” The photographs were taken in Kabul in the late 1960s by William Podlich, a professor at Arizona State University. Podlich, a camera buff, spent two years in Afghanistan -- teaching and taking pictures. His daughter, Peg Podlich, was kind enough to share some of her father’s photos with RFE/RL. Full news...
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March 14, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Global Research: The United States has spent over 600 billion USD on its Afghan war effort, but most of the money has gone to military infrastructure and sophisticated weaponry; little of it has gone to the education of Afghan youth or to addressing the degradation of Afghan land. The children I am working with had never heard the word ‘ecology.’ Full news...
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March 13, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Killid Group: Nahoor in Ghazni province is picture postcard pretty. With plentiful water from streams and rain, it is green. There are orchards of apricots, plums, prunes and other fruit. Three decades ago it was the site of a bloodbath. Seventy-year-old Abdul Husain is a witness. From Deh Afghan, a village in Nahoor district, he says the scars left by war have not healed. Full news...
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March 12, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Unknown assailants blew up a newly-built school building in Qala-i-Naw, the capital of northwestern Badghis province, an official said on Tuesday. They lobbed a hand-grenade into the building on Monday evening , comprehensively damaging two rooms of the school in Kharistan area, the governor’s spokesman, Sharafuddin Majidi, told Pajhwok Afghan News. Full news...
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March 12, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IRIN: Sadaf Ahmadi*, 18, from the northern Afghan province of Badakshan, has arrived battered and bruised at a women’s refuge centre in Faizabad. It is her fifth such visit. Every time it is the same. Staff at the centre, run by Women for Women, an Afghan NGO, try to offer support, but every previous time local community leaders or the government courts send her back to her husband and the beatings continue. Full news...
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March 11, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Foreign troops opened fire at a private truck, killing its two occupants in the Deh Sabz district of central Kabul province, an official said on Monday. The incident occurred at 10:30am when the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) personnel fired shots at the vehicle of a private firm responsible for providing maintenance support to police, the Ministry of Interior spokesman, Gulam Siaddique Siddiqui, told Pajhwok Afghan News. Full news...
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March 11, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Huffington Post: Time and again, throughout America’s history, individuals with a passion for truth and a commitment to justice have opted to defy the unjust laws and practices of the American government in order to speak up against slavery, segregation, discrimination, and war. Even when their personal safety and freedom were on the line, these individuals spoke up... Full news...
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March 10, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Violence against women has dramatically increased in eastern provinces, where 220 cases were registered since the start of this year, compared to 40 incidents during the same period in 2012, officials said on Sunday. Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC)’s women wing head for eastern provinces, Sabrina, told a gathering marking the international women’s day, there were a total of 170 incidents... Full news...
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March 9, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Eight children and one policeman were killed on Saturday when a suicide attacker blew up his explosives on a road beside a joint patrol of Afghan police and international forces in this capital city of southeastern Khost province, an official said. The strike around 10:30am targeted the joint Afghan-US patrol in the Kandi area on Khost City’s outskirts, but eight passing civilians were killed... Full news...
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March 8, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Guardian: When I got married at the age of 14, I didn’t know that my husband used drugs. When I asked him why he was using heroin, he told me lies – he told me that he just smoked cigarettes, not that he was addicted to drugs. When he came home after he used drugs, he would usually beat me. Sometimes he would disappear for months at a time. Full news...
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March 8, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
AFP: Afghan teenager Shakila was shot in the back 13 months ago in the house where she worked as a maid for a wealthy local leader in one of the most progressive provinces of Afghanistan. Her murderer has never been arrested, and her family’s search for justice has laid bare the complex web of grinding poverty, attitudes towards women and a culture of immunity that plagues much of the country’s legal system. Full news...