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January 19, 2012 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IWPR: As Afghanistan marked the eighth anniversary of its constitution this month, legal experts bemoaned the failure to put it into practice, blaming conflict, corruption and a culture of impunity. The constitution passed on January 4, 2004 laid out a vision of a modern Afghanistan committed to human rights, democracy and the rule of law. Full news...
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January 11, 2012 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IWPR: All Rahmatollah wants is the paperwork allowing him to cross from Afghanistan into Pakistan so he can take a sick relative for treatment. For the last fortnight, though, he has been standing outside the census office in the central Afghan province of Uruzgan, waiting to be served. “The officials aren’t here. Even if they are, they only work two hours a day,” Rahmatollah, a resident of Charchino district, told IWPR. Full news...
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January 8, 2012 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Three policemen were detained in connection with the abduction of children in central Logar and southeastern Paktia provinces, an official said on Sunday. One policeman in Paktia and two in Logar were arrested on the basis of complaints from residents, the Logar crime branch chief told Pajhwok Afghan News. Full news...
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January 1, 2012 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Residents of Mazar-i-Sharif, the capital of northern Balkh province, say electricity remains suspended for 22 hours a day in the city, but officials promise solving the problem soon. “We have the light for two hours in 24 hours since last six days,” said a resident of Dasht-i-Shor area on the outskirts of the city. Full news...
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December 22, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
CounterPunch: President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday ordered the release of a prominent presidential aide two hours after his arrest on corruption charges, according to two officials in the office of Afghanistan’s attorney general. The release capped a comedy of errors in which the attorney general’s office first announced the arrest of the official, Noorullah Delawari, on corruption charges... Full news...
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December 16, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
BBC News: US-trained Afghan village police have committed some human rights abuses, a US military inquiry has found. The investigation followed a report by Human Rights Watch that alleged some Afghan Local Police units had committed abuses including rape and murder. Recommendations made by the US investigation include increased human rights training for the ALP, plus stronger oversight. Full news...
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December 16, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Truck drivers have accused highways police of taking money from them illegally in southeastern Paktia province. Police manning checkpoints along highways took money from truck drivers for different reasons, owner of a truck, Jamal, told Pajhwok Afghan News. He alleged police on duty on the Khost-Gardez and Gardez-Ghazni highways were more merciless in this regard. Full news...
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December 16, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IWPR: Armed men stopping and robbing travellers on the highways are a recurrent theme in Afghanistan. But when the groups involved are being paid to provide security, there is clearly a problem. In the southern province of Helmand, people interviewed by IWPR said they were tired of the men working for commercially-run security firms who were making their lives a misery. Full news...
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December 14, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: The Pakistan Army and intelligence establishment are aiding 28 insurgents groups that are toeing their line, Afghan officials alleged on Wednesday. The Pakistani security agencies were using the militant outfits to achieve the goals that they could not realise themselves, the officials told a media briefing in Kabul. Full news...
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December 4, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Mail Online: Somalia and North Korea are perceived as the most corrupt countries, a report released this week said. New Zealand, on the other hand, comes in at number one with the most sparkly clean reputation for corruption. The report, released by German watchdog organisation Transparency International, ranked Britain as 16th least corrupt on a “corruption perceptions index” while the U.S. came in at number 24. Full news...
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December 3, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
CounterPunch: American soldiers are dying so that Afghan politicians can continue looting U.S. tax dollars. Foreign aid has long been notorious for creating kleptocracies — governments of thieves. The 50+ billion USD foreign aid that the United States has dumped on Afghanistan over the past decade is a textbook case of how foreign handouts drag a nation down. Full news...
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December 1, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IWPR: The elected assembly for the western Afghan province of Herat is under fire from police and prosecutors, who accuse its members of corrupt practices including getting crime suspects released. Allegations of interference in the affairs of local government and policing reflect tensions between the 19-member elected council and the executive, local observers say. Full news...
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November 27, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Kabul Municipality officials on Tuesday said that 70 percent of high-rise buildings in the capital were illegally constructed, blaming the relevant authorities for failing to take action in this regard. The Onyx Construction Company’s building in Kalola Pushta and others in Nawabad, Mirwais Maidan Road and Sara-i-Shomali were built without permission from the government, an official said. Full news...
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November 19, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Salon: It’s not exactly breaking news that Afghanistan is rife with corruption. But a new Congressional Research Service report obtained by Salon underscores just how bad things have gotten — and just how much taxpayer money is being lost to fraud. Full news...
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November 18, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Pakistan Observer: AS part of the Great War in Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai has convened a farcical show of hand-picked cronies in Kabul, called Loya Jirga, to endorse plans for long-term strategic relationship between the United States and Afghanistan that, among other things, would legitimize establishment of six US permanent military bases in the strategically located country. Full news...
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November 15, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Al Jazeera: A US-funded survey in Afghanistan says that 73 per cent of the population is satisfied with the government’s performance, a claim which leaders and analysts have disputed as being far from reality. The survey, published by Asia Foundation, a US-based non-profit with more than a dozen offices across Asia, also said that nearly half of Afghans think their country is moving in the right direction. Full news...
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November 14, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IWPR: In a parliamentary scandal of a peculiarly Afghan variety, former members are failing to hand back the firearms they were issued with. As well as around 400 Kalashnikov rifles and pistols, computers have gone missing from former members’ offices, parliamentary staff say. Although the loss of weapons and other items may seem minor in a country awash with guns and plagued with corruption... Full news...
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November 8, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IWPR: A controversial film depicting the plight of Afghan refugees in Iran was pulled at the eleventh hour in Kabul, sparking angry allegations that the authorities had caved into pressure from Tehran. As the furore over the cancellation escalated, the Afghan parliament summoned information and culture minister Sayed Makhdum Rahin, who has oversight over such events. Full news...
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November 7, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Times: If it weren’t for the tank traps and grey blast-walls, the extravagant mansions in Kabul’s most expensive neighbourhood would not look out of place in a fairytale. Ornately gilded pillars hold up pastel-hued balconies; brightly coloured domes crown mosaic walls made of mirrored tiles. Yet Sherpur district, which 130 years ago hosted General Frederick Roberts’s cantonment during the Second AngloAfghan war, is anything but magical. Full news...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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October 11, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Associated Press: A major investigation into an influential Afghan governor accused of taking bribes has been shut down and its top prosecutor transferred to a unit that doesn’t handle corruption cases, Afghan and U.S. officials said. The closing of the investigation into the former governor of Kapisa province, Ghulam Qawis Abu Bakr, comes on the heels of a grim, unpublicized assessment by U.S. officials... Full news...
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October 11, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
AFP: Opium production in Afghanistan, which fuels the Taliban insurgency, is set to rise by nearly two-thirds as prices soar after last year’s harvest was blighted by disease, the United Nations said Tuesday. Ten years after the 2001 US-led invasion to drive the Taliban from power, Afghanistan produces 90 percent of the world’s illegal opium, funding much of the militia’s insurgency despite an expensive Western eradication programme. Full news...
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October 4, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Warlords are trying to prepare owner documents of the land they have already grabbed in northern Baghlan province, the mayor said on Tuesday. Dozens of acres of land had been grabbed in Pul-i-Khumri by the strongmen, who were forcing municipal officials to give them ownership documents, Sahib Nazar Sangin told Pajhwok Afghan News. Full news...
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October 3, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Sydney Morning Herald: The standard of Afghanistan’s security forces is slowly improving but they still stand accused of human rights violations such as rape, murder and torture, according to a new study. The study, by Oxfam, found that although there had been slight improvements in training and education in the past few months, there are still serious doubts... Full news...
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September 16, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PTI: US President Barack Obama has identified 22 countries, including India, Pakistan and Afghanistan as major drug transit or illegal drug producing countries. In a presidential determination, Obama designated Bolivia Myanmar and Venezuela as the three countries that have demonstrably failed, during the previous 12 months, to make substantial efforts to adhere to their obligations under international counter narcotic agreements. Full news...
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September 15, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Associated Press: The military’s battle against contracting corruption in war zones is coming under scrutiny from lawmakers troubled by a Pentagon decision not to ban an Afghan-owned company from doing business with the U.S. after the firm was accused of operating an illicit protection racket. Full news...
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September 12, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Huffington Post: The Afghanistan Embassy in Norway apparently gave a frank character assessment of the Minister for Counter Narcotics when it posted the following biography: Zarar Ahmad Moqbel was born in 1966 in Parwan central province. He studied at the Habibia High School before doing graduation from the Pedagogy Institute in his native province. Full news...
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September 3, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Wall Street Journal: KABUL—American officers deployed as mentors in Afghanistan’s main military hospital discovered a shocking secret last year: Injured soldiers were routinely dying of simple infections and even starving to death as some corrupt doctors and nurses demanded bribes for food and the most basic of care. Full news...
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