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October 1, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
BBC News: Afghans have begun two days of mourning for victims of the communist government in the late 1970s. It was prompted by a list naming 5,000 people who were killed or disappeared in that time. Many were conservative opponents of the government which seized power in April 1978 - a year before the Soviet invasion. The BBC’s David Loyn reports from Kabul. Full news...
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September 30, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Daily News Egypt: The revelation that the number of opium-addicted Afghan children has reached new highs is a sad, unintended consequence of the war in that country. It dramatically illustrates how adult war games can doom generations of children to a miserable life. It is one of the tragic legacies of a disastrous war. The extent of health problems in children as a result of such exposure is not known. Full news...
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September 29, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN (Translated by RAWA): Hundreds protested and demanded the public prosecution of the murders of the victims killed during Communist regime period, in Kabul city today. The protest started this morning from the Shahe Do Shamshera ziarat area. They raised slogans such as ‘war criminals and demolishers of our country should be publicly prosecuted’, while heading towards Zarnigar park. Full news...
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September 28, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Killid Group: An Independent Media Consortium (IMC) investigation reveals serious administrative corruption in the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriations (MoRR). Findings by the IMC have also implicated Refugees and Repatriation Minister Dr Jamaher Anwary. The minister got UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency, to transfer tens of thousands of dollars to the personal accounts of family members and others. Full news...
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September 26, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Human Rights Watch: A new Afghan government committee investigating prison conditions should focus on meaningful reforms to end torture and other pervasive abuses, Human Rights Watch said today. On September 8, 2013, President Hamid Karzai created a committee to “study the general conditions of prisons and detention centers, along with the condition and situation of prisoners and detainees” and submit findings and recommendations within three months. Full news...
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September 25, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Afghanpaper.com (Translated by RAWA): An authentic source at the Foreign Ministry of Afghanistan told our honorary correspondent this morning (Monday) that three government ministers were imprisoned for assaulting a Nepali woman. Ghulam Farooq Wardak, the Education Minister, Hazrat Omar Zakhilwal, the Minister of Finance, and Wais Barmak, the Minister of Rural Rehabilitation and Development, were all... Full news...
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September 24, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Killid Group: On Sep 16, the three-week period for filing nominations for the April 2014 presidential and provincial elections started. Afghan voters will be going to the polls to decide their leaders. But there exists an underlying fear that like in previous elections the warlords, former leaders of jehadist parties, immeasurably wealthy and powerful, will deal with the destiny of people. Full news...
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September 23, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Two leading civil society groups on Monday said their concerns about upcoming elections had increased due to lack of transparent and effective guidelines and the presence of biased commission members. In a joint statement, Afghan Anti-Corruption Network (AACN) and Anti-Corruption Watch Organization said the nation was witness to fraudulent presidential and provincial council elections last time. Full news...
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September 22, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Deutsche Welle: Pimps and customers call her Diljan. “I serve the rich and the executive class,” said the round-faced blonde with green eyes. “If the guys have money, they can have me for a night.” Depending on the nature of the service, her rates range from 20,000 to 90,000 Indian rupees (230 to 1,030 euros) for a night. Full news...
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September 20, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Global Research News: Remember, when President George Bush’s National Economic Council Director, Lawrence Lindsey, had told the country’s largest newspaper “The Wall Street Journal” that the war would cost between 100 billion USD and 200 billion USD, he had found himself under intense fire from his colleagues in the administration who claimed that this was a gross overestimation. Full news...
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September 19, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Global Research News: Somewhere in the Lester B. Pearson Building, Canada’s foreign affairs headquarters, must be a meeting room with the inscription “The World Should Do as We Say, Not As We Do” or perhaps “Hypocrites ‘R Us.” With the Obama administration beating the war drums, Canadian officials are demanding a response to the Syrian regime’s alleged use of the chemical weapon sarin. Full news...
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September 19, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Openbaar Ministerie: In the course of a War Crimes investigation concerning Torture and Killings, the International Crimes Unit of the Netherlands National Police has obtained Death Lists from Afghanistan, dating from the 1970s. Almost 5000 names are listed in these documents, in which the authorities meticulously recorded the regime’s killings. Full news...
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September 18, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IRIN: Sexual exploitation of boys, in particular the practice of “bacha bazi” (literally boy play) in which boys are “owned” for dancing and sex, remains one of the least talked about abuses in Afghanistan. It is an age-old custom, banned by the Taliban when they were in power, but now undergoing a resurgence. Full news...
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September 17, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Khaama Press: The United Nations in it’s latest report has revealed that female police officers are facing pervasive sexual violence and harassment by their male colleagues. The unpublished UN report was circulated among the senior interior ministry officials only, The New York Times reported. Full news...
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September 16, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Killid Group: Afghan exporters have defrauded the government of millions of dollars in income tax over the last four years. An investigation by the Independent Media Consortium Productions (IMCP) reveals a massive undervaluing of export figures by the private sector.* The investigation was conducted on the basis of information provided by the Chamber of Commerce & Industry (CCI), traders, and exporters. Full news...
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September 15, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Reuters: At least 27 miners in Afghanistan were killed in a coal-mine collapse, officials said Sunday, in an accident likely to reinforce worries about a sector that many Afghans hope can underpin the country’s development. The collapse occurred on Saturday evening in the northern province of Samangan, said provincial governor’s spokesman Sediq Azizi. Full news...
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September 14, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Truck drivers from the Bala Murghab district of western Badghis province on Sunday accused highway police of seeking bribes from them. They complained highway police took 2,500 afghanis (45 USD) in bribe from the driver of each truck plying the road and 20 afghanis from each of bus passengers. Full news...
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September 13, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Guardian: The amount of Afghan farmland planted with cannabis fell by nearly a fifth last year after one province launched a fierce eradication campaign, but a bumper crop meant that actual production rose compared with 2011, according to the UN. Officials in southern Uruzgan province, which borders Kandahar and Helmand, largely stamped out farming of the drug because of worries it was financing the Taliban. Full news...
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September 12, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Deeply concerned about increasing kidnappings for ransom in southern Kandahar province, the human rights office on Thursday said two minor boys were brutally murdered in captivity after their families failed to meet the kidnappers’ demand. Full news...
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September 11, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Washington Times: After spending 12 years and nearly 100 billion USD in rebuilding Afghanistan, the U.S. still lacks a “comprehensive anti-corruption strategy” for its reconstruction activities there, according to a report by the U.S. government watchdog in the country. Full news...
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September 10, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Killid Group: Farzana has been living with her son in a refuge for women in Sangcharak district, Sar-e-Pol province, ever since her release from jail. Her husband was killed four years after her marriage, and she spent eight years in jail for the crime. Her parents have not seen her since the night of her wedding. They believe she has sullied the family honour but Farzana insists she did not kill her husband. Full news...
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September 10, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IRIN: Fifty years ago, Dost Mohammad’s grandfather had 1,000 sheep grazing on the family’s plot of land on the outskirts of Kunduz City, Afghanistan. The family’s livestock numbers have since decreased significantly, but then, so has the size of their land. “We keep getting pushed further and further back,” said Mohammad. “We’re also having problems bringing our sheep to Badakshan. We will be killed today if we bring our sheep there.” Full news...
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September 9, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Al Jazeera America: A grainy photograph of a group prayer session wouldn’t normally trigger much attention in Afghanistan’s capital. But with speculation rife about who might run for the country’s presidency, the picture of former firebrand Jihadi leader Abdul Rab Rasoul Sayaf leading an evening prayer on the Afghan vice president’s porch stirred rumors about Sayaf’s political aspirations after it appeared on Facebook. Full news...
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September 8, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Xinhua: Ten people, including six suicide attackers, were killed and 120 civilians injured as a group of suicide bombers stormed a compound of National Directorate for Security (NDS), the country’s intelligence agency in Wardak's provincial capital Maidan Shahr 35 km west of Kabul on Sunday, the provincial government said in a statement released here. Full news...
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September 8, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Associated Press: Separately Sunday, Afghan officials said that an apparent NATO airstrike had killed 15 people – nine of them civilians, including women and children – in a remote eastern province where the Taliban are strong. NATO said 10 militants died in the strike, but that it had no reports of any civilian deaths. Full news...
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September 8, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Daily Beast: At first Mahkdoom Raheen seemed refreshingly different from the other ministers and advisers who were chosen by newly-appointed Afghan President Hamid Karzai for his first cabinet in 2002. It was soon after the overthrow of the Taliban, and Raheen was not a powerful warlord with a chilling history of human rights abuses, land-grabbing, and blatant corruption. Full news...
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September 7, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Police guards at the Iranian consulate on Saturday opened fire at protestors in western Herat province, killing one and injuring four others, an official said. The protest involving dozens of residents, mostly labourers, was staged in front of the Iranian consulate in Herat City, the provincial capital. Full news...
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September 6, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
AFP: The British military fired nearly seven times as many missiles from unmanned drones in Afghanistan last year as it did five years earlier, according to official data released on Friday. In 2012 British drones flew 892 missions over Afghanistan -- firing missiles on 92 occasions -- more than 10 percent of all sorties, junior defence minister Andrew Robathan said in a written statement to parliament. Full news...
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September 4, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Huffington Post: Afghan President Hamid Karzai should take urgent action to fight child marriage and domestic violence or risk further harm to development and public health in Afghanistan, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to the president. In the 15-page briefing paper, “Afghanistan: Ending Child Marriage and Domestic Violence,” Human Rights Watch highlights the health and economic consequences of marriage under age 18 and violence against women and girls. Full news...
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September 3, 2013 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
VICE: On a cold January afternoon last year, Qurban the bodyguard left his boss’s house in Bamyan province, Afghanistan to buy some coal at the bazar. Qurban's boss was Wahidi Beheshti – governor of a remote district in Bamyan province – who had been allowing Qurban, his wife Soraya and her 16-year-old sister Shakila to stay at his home. Full news...