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March 30, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Associated Press: The majority of Afghans live in dire poverty, despite an estimated $35 billion in aid being poured into the country between 2002 to 2009, the United Nations said Tuesday.A report by the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights claims that over a third of Afghans live in "absolute poverty" and about the same number are only slightly above the poverty line. Full news...
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March 29, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Telegraph: Sediq Chakari, former minister of Hajj, and who is thought to be in Britain has been under investigation into his alleged involvement in a kickback racket which made hundreds of thousands of pounds from poor pilgrims. Mr Karzai's palace allegedly vetoed his arrest because of his close links to former warlords within the government an international official in Kabul told The Daily Telegraph. Full news...
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March 25, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Reuters: The United States is considering a proposal to hold foreign terrorism suspects at the Bagram military base in Afghanistan, the Los Angeles Times reported this week, a new Guantanamo Bay just as it is trying to close down the original facility in Cuba. Given the amount of trouble that Washington has run into for running a detention centre where prisoners have no access to the U.S. court system, it sounds like a bad idea to be setting it up in Afghanistan, say experts. Full news...
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March 20, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Newsweek: Mohammad Moqim watches in despair as his men struggle with their AK-47 automatic rifles, doing their best to hit man-size targets 50 meters away. A few of the police trainees lying prone in the mud are decent shots, but the rest shoot clumsily, and fumble as they try to reload their weapons. The Afghan National Police (ANP) captain sighs as he dismisses one group of trainees and orders 25 more to take their places on the firing line. Full news...
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March 14, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Eurasianet.org: Sakina is angry. “Who is Karzai to forgive the deaths in my family?” she fumes. “Was his home looted? Was his son killed? What gives him the right to forgive on my behalf? He has no right.” The source of Sakina's ire is Afghan President Hamid Karzai's reconciliation initiative. The middle-aged widow from Dasht-e Barchi, a poor neighborhood of west Kabul, lost her husband and niece in the conflict, and feels that Karzai's administration is taking away her right to justice. Full news...
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March 11, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
BBC News: Drug abuse is rife in the Afghan police force with up to four out of 10 recruits testing positive for illegal drugs in some areas, a US report says. The report for the US Congress said the illegal drugs trade "undermines virtually every aspect" of efforts to secure Afghanistan. Afghanistan produces 90% of the world's opium and the drugs trade is a key source of funding for the insurgency. Full news...
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March 10, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Los Angeles Times: The men come at dawn, a ragged, anxious collection of faces peeking through scarves and hoping for work as they stand in a traffic circle beneath billboards advertising war heroes and washing machines. They are bricklayers, gardeners, hole diggers and carpenters. Sometimes they are tapped on the shoulder, most times they are not, so they hunch amid the cars and fruit stands, knowing that the higher the sun climbs the lower their chances of returning home with money in their pockets. Full news...
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March 7, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Independent: A major investigation has been launched into contracts awarded by coalition forces in Afghanistan that are worth hundreds of millions of pounds. The probe into construction and logistics contracts of the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) has been ordered by Major General Nick Carter, commander of Isaf forces in the south of the country. Full news...
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February 25, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Washington Post: A blizzard of bank notes is flying out of Afghanistan -- often in full view of customs officers at the Kabul airport -- as part of a cash exodus that is confounding U.S. officials and raising concerns about the money's origin. The cash, estimated to total well over $1 billion a year, flows mostly to the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai, where many wealthy Afghans now park their families and funds, according to U.S. and Afghan officials. So long as departing cash is declared at the airport here, its transfer is legal. Full news...
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February 25, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
AFP: Moves by the Afghan president to take control of a key election watchdog have dismayed diplomats and analysts who said today there is now even less chance that future polls will be free and fair. The president Hamid Karzai has changed a law to give himself control of the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC), a body that threw out more than half a million votes cast for him in last year’s fraud-tainted poll. Full news...
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February 22, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Washington Post: Afghanistan’s biggest private bank -- founded by the Islamic nation’s only world-class poker player -- celebrated its fifth year in business last summer .... Less publicly, Kabul Bank's boss has been handing out far bigger prizes to his country’s U.S.-backed ruling elite: multimillion-dollar loans for the purchase of luxury villas in Dubai by members of President Hamid Karzai’s family, his government and his supporters. Full news...
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February 12, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Independent: Osama bin Laden's favourite son, Omar, recently abandoned his father's cave in favour of spending his time dancing and drooling in the nightclubs of Damascus. The tang of freedom almost always trumps Islamist fanaticism in the end: three million people abandoned the Puritan hell of Taliban Afghanistan for freer countries, while only a few thousand faith-addled fanatics ever travelled the other way. Osama's vision can't even inspire his own kids. But Omar bin Laden says his father is banking on one thing to shore up his flailing, failing cause – and we are giving it to him. Full news...
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February 7, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Veterans Today: Open today’s newspaper and get a map of the battle zones in Afghanistan and Pakistan. You say they aren’t there? Open today’s newspaper and find out how many troops our enemies have, who their leaders are. Can’t find that either? Look in the paper to find out why we are fighting at all. Not there too? This isn’t half of it, we aren’t just being kept in the dark. It goes much further. Lets look at some things that just don’t add up. Full news...
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February 1, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
NPR: In Afghanistan, the theft of public and private land is a growing form of corruption. President Hamid Karzai has vowed to tackle the vexing issue. But one obstacle to his vision is his own brother, who is allegedly at the center of land grabs in Kandahar province. In Afghanistan, the theft of public and private land is a growing form of corruption.... The spoils of corruption can be seen several times a week at Kabul's tiny airport: bags of money heading out of the country. Full news...
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February 1, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
NewsoftheWorld.co.uk: A SIMPLE road being built in Afghanistan by the British government has cost more than a modern Formula One race track because of rampant corruption among locals. The spiralling bill for the four-mile stretch is set to top £70MILLION, up from £4.5million. A top motor racing circuit in Istanbul, Turkey, was completed five years ago for £65million. Full news...
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February 1, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
AFP: Afghanistan, one of the world's poorest countries, is sitting on mineral and petroleum reserves worth an estimated one trillion dollars, President Hamid Karzai said Sunday. "The initial figures we have obtained show that our mineral deposits are worth a thousand billion dollars -- not a thousand million dollars but a thousand billion," he said. Full news...
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January 31, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
New Statesman: Malalai Joya: "We Afghans know well that the US and its allies occupied Afghanistan for their own strategic, economic and regional interests and don't care about the wishes of our people. So the "liberation" of Afghan women was never part of the real agenda. It is just a lie. The so-called freedom given by the US to Afghanistan is enjoyed mainly by the warlords and drug lords, who are free to commit their crimes and do their drug trafficking." Full news...
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January 29, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Guardian: After almost nine years of international military operations, billions of dollars in aid and thousands of Afghan and international lives, what Afghanistan needed was a new vision to deal with the complex set of problems. Instead, world leaders pledged £87m to woo the Taliban back into government. Bravo, President Karzai! Bravo, international leaders! Full news...
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January 28, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Channel 4 News: Women were promised greater protection after the invasion of Afghanistan, but Nima Elbagir finds an increasing number have forced to self-inflict injuries to escape abuse. When the Taliban were still in power the liberation of Afghanistan’s women was a cause celebre in the west - a moral justification for the invasion. Yet by the end of last year the United Nations was worriedly reporting that the number of violent incidents against women had risen to their highest since the fall of the Taliban. Full news...
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January 22, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
McClatchy Newspapers: Although the FBI has acknowledged it improperly obtained thousands of Americans' phone records for years, the Obama administration continues to assert that the bureau can obtain them without any formal legal process or court oversight. The FBI revealed this stance in a newly released report, troubling critics who'd hoped the bureau had been chastened enough by its own abuses to drop such a position. Full news...
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January 22, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Le Monde Diplomatique: In northern Afghanistan, far away from the Taliban’s heartland, freedom remains elusive for most women. Forced marriages of young girls are still common and sex attacks are on the rise. Many say life has deteriorated after the US-led invasion because the occupation ushered in a new era of lawlessness. At the offices of the Afghanistan Human Rights Organisation in Sheberghan, Jowzjan province, women from throughout the region arrive with tales of misery and horror. Full news...
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January 21, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Canadian Press: Pity the poor Kabul traffic police officer. Adding to the hazards of the job - dust, chaotic traffic and the occasional beatings from irate drivers - comes new insult to injury: No pay. The government just doesn't have the money right now, yet another sign of the precarious state of the country. Shafi Muhammad said he wasn't paid last month, but he's been promised he'll get his money at the end of this month. Full news...
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January 19, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
BBC News: Afghans paid $2.5bn (£1.5bn) in bribes over the past 12 months, or the equivalent of almost one quarter of legitimate GDP, a UN report suggests. Surveying 7,600 people, it found nearly 60% more concerned about corruption than insecurity or unemployment. More than half the population had to pay at least one bribe to a public official last year, the report adds. The findings contrast sharply with a recent BBC survey in which the economy appeared to top Afghan concerns. Full news...
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January 12, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: A former Afghan president illegally ordered the sale of a state-run Ariana Airline aircraft, bought for 30 million US dollars from Russia in 1980, to Iran's Caspian Company at a throwaway price of $450,000. The shady deal involved a former diplomat, Engineer Abdu Rahim Syed Jan, who has now been named by President Hamid Karzai as his minister-designate of refugee affairs, reveal investigations conducted by Pajhwok Afghan News. Full news...
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January 11, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Fox News: Between 2004 and 2008, USAID showered more than $330 million on an obscure United Nations agency known as UNOPS to carry out development aid projects in Afghanistan. What happened next wasn’t pretty. Among other things, USAID apparently overlooked a growing stack of U.N. audits and investigations that pointed to fraud, mismanagement and lack of internal financial controls by UNOPS in Afghanistan... Full news...
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January 10, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The New York Times: In Kabul, even a traffic jam can provoke a comment on this Islamic nation's dismal state, which most people here believe is at its bleakest since the U.S. invaded to topple the Taliban in 2001. It's a striking sentiment when you consider it comes after eight years of international intervention, $60 billion in foreign aid and the lives of thousands of foreign troops and Afghan civilians. Full news...
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January 5, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: A high court chief in central Dai Kundi province has put a barber behind bars for refusing to visit his residence to trim his beard. Syed Ahmed, 38, a barber in the provincial capital of Nilli, ended up in jail for disobeying the order of Judge Daud Bakhtiyari. Full news...
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December 24, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
AP: The State Department's internal watchdog on Wednesday criticized the agency's nearly $2 billion anti-drug effort in Afghanistan for poor oversight and lack of a long-term strategy. The department's inspector general said the Afghanistan counter-narcotics program is hampered by too few personnel and rampant corruption among Afghan officials. Full news...
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December 23, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Times: When Afghan killers burst into a 12-year-old girl’s bedroom and shot her brother at close range it barely warranted an investigation. Police said that no one reported the crime. Were it not that the pair were President Karzai’s cousins — and that the murder had all the hallmarks of a revenge killing connected to a Karzai dynasty feud — the shooting would in all likelihood have languished as little more than a footnote in Kandahar’s long catalogue of violence. Full news...
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December 22, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
WSWS: Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai announced his second-term cabinet last Saturday, retaining roughly half of his incumbent ministers, including those with the closest ties to Washington. Also included in the lineup are figures tied to Afghan warlords who helped him rig the presidential election last August. Full news...
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