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January 27, 2015 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Killid Group: Travellers on many of Afghanistan’s roads are never sure of reaching their destinations. Armed groups routinely rob and also kill passengers in buses and other vehicles. According to eyewitness accounts, travellers on the busy Kabul to Kandahar highway are attacked even in the day time. Security forces are not able to provide every vehicle with armed escorts. Full news...
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January 26, 2015 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Officials and residents of central Bamyan province allege an influential man, Haji Ayan, has grabbed hundreds of acres of state-owned land along with other local strongmen. Eng. Khadim Hussain Fitrat, the mayor of Bamyan City, told Pajhwok Afghan News on Monday that Ayan and his associates had started selling plots of the land. Full news...
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January 23, 2015 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Huffington Post: There is a terrifying enemy threatening civilians in war-torn Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq. This is another foe besides the Taliban, Al Qaeda, the Syrian regime or ISIS. It’s a silent menace that may yet be the most powerful. It is hunger. Millions in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq are suffering each day from the lack of food. Malnutrition claims the lives of infants. Those who survive are stunted physically and mentally for life. Full news...
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January 22, 2015 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Residents of the Nesh district of southern Kandahar province on Thursday claimed police had established check-posts in their houses, but refused to pay rent. Abdul Rahman, who lives in Dara-i-Noor village, said police had long been using homes of residents as their posts without paying rent. In addition, police asked locals for firewood and money. Full news...
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January 21, 2015 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Human Rights Watch: Violence and threats against Afghanistan’s journalists by the government and security forces are increasing, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. These attacks put at risk the gains in media freedom in Afghanistan since 2001. The 48-page report, “‘Stop Reporting or We’ll Kill Your Family’: Threats to Media Freedom in Afghanistan,” documents harassment, intimidation, and attacks on journalists... Full news...
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January 20, 2015 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
RTT News: Afghanistan’s United Nations-backed de-mining agency says a record number of its personnel were killed or injured in 2014. The Mine Action Program of Afghanistan (MAPA) said Monday that 34 of its personnel were killed and 27 others injured in 37 security incidents in the war-torn country last year. Full news...
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January 18, 2015 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Residents of Khanabad district of northeastern province of Kunduz claimed hundreds of families in their area displaced due to increased insecurity, claiming their houses were looted by illegal armed individuals. Heavy clashes between illegal armed individuals and militants over the past four days left four armed men and eight rebels dead and 20 others wounded. Full news...
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January 17, 2015 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Khaama Press: Agriculture, Irrigation & Livestock minister-designate Mohammad Yaqub Haidari is on the most wanted list of the International Police (Interpol) for tax evasion. According to the information provided on Interpol website Haidari is wanted by the judicial authorities of Estonia for prosecution. Full news...
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January 15, 2015 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: An overwhelming majority of the ministers-designate and heads of independent departments lack requisite professional expertise, Pajhwok Afghan News has found. Only 15 percent of the nominees have mandatory educational qualifications and 63 percent are inexperienced, according to documents made available to this news agency. Full news...
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January 14, 2015 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Wall Street Journal: Rawail Singh, a leader of Kabul’s Sikh community, is a big supporter of recently sworn-in President Ashraf Ghani : His Facebook profile features a photo of the president holding his 4-year-old daughter during a campaign rally. But despite Mr. Ghani’s pledge to make Afghanistan more inclusive, Mr. Singh says he worries that his tiny religious minority could disappear as more Sikhs and Hindus leave their homeland because of persistent discrimination. Full news...
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January 14, 2015 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Gunmen linked to the Islamic State (IS) have established a training centre in the Khak-i-Safaid district of western Farah province, local officials said on Wednesday. The district chief, Abdul Khaliq Noorzai, told Pajhwok Afghan News the IS -- a group fighting in Iraq and Syria -- had emerged in Mazar Qala area about 20 days ago. Full news...
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January 13, 2015 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: The Central Statistics Office on Tuesday expressed its concern over lack of civic services in Kabul, putting the capital’s population at 4.2 million, most of them unemployed. The findings came in a survey that was conducted with technical support from the UN Population Fund (UNPF) in 2013. Announced today, the study covered 30 districts, including 3,068 areas. Full news...
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January 12, 2015 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Al Jazeera America: Shortly after the U.S.-led military invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the international community, together with the transitional Afghan government, set about standing up security forces to counter retreating Taliban forces and remaining Al-Qaeda fighters. Along with the Afghan National Army, in 2002 it established the Afghan National Police (ANP), which consisted of uniformed police, border police, anti-crime officers and civil order police. Full news...
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January 11, 2015 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: At least 119 schools in southern Helmand province remain shut because of insecurity, education officials said on Sunday. Of the 119 schools closed, 77 are situated in northern districts of the province. Education Director Abdul Matin Jafar told Pajhwok Afghan News 14 schools had been reopened this year while 119 were still close. Full news...
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January 9, 2015 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Antiwar.com: As recently as last week, the Obama Administration was loudly trumpeting the Afghan War as over. They’d been drawing down troops for months, making a huge deal of withdrawing the last of the US Marines from the nation back in October. Full news...
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January 8, 2015 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Washington Post: The scene beneath a crumbling overpass in this capital city was a vision from hell. Hundreds of figures huddled together in the shadows, crouching amid garbage and fetid pools of water. Some injected heroin into each other’s limbs or groins in full view; others hid under filthy shawls to cook and inhale it. An elderly man in a turban wandered among the addicts, showing them a snapshot of his missing son. Full news...
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January 7, 2015 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
RollingStone: Though many Americans may not have realized it, December 28th marked what the U.S. government called the official end of the war in Afghanistan. That war has been the longest in U.S. history – but despite the new announcement that the formal conflict is over, America’s war there is far from finished. In fact, the Obama administration still considers the Afghan theater an area of active hostilities, according to an email from a senior administration official... Full news...
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January 6, 2015 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Guardian: At the beginning of December Najib’s 10-week-old daughter fell ill, crying with stomach ache late into the night. The next day her chest seemed to hurt, so Najib took her to the doctor, who prescribed paracetamol for the pain, phenobarbital for sedation and the antibiotic cefixime to kill potential bacteria. But over the next few days the baby’s health deteriorated. “She was healthy. We did not expect that this disease would affect her like that,” Najib, 30, said. Full news...
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January 5, 2015 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Mirror: British soldiers were responsible for the deaths of almost 200 innocent men, women and children during eight years of fighting in Afghanistan. Most of those killed were victims of “collateral damage” when caught up in crossfire between British forces and the Taliban. Full news...
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January 4, 2015 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Common Dreams: “The only good Talib is a dead Talib.” These words, uttered half a decade ago by the head of intelligence for the NATO coalition force in Afghanistan, summon a far earlier American savagery. As the American empire affects to close the door on its war with Afghanistan, the words also serve as a sort of doorstop propping open our further intervention in this broken country. Full news...
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January 3, 2015 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN:On third consecutive day, hundreds of protesters took to the streets denouncing government for what they alleged authorities failed to investigate the tragic incident that resulted in the killing and wounding of scores of people attending a wedding ceremony. Several people were killed and wounded when mortars fired by Afghan troops hit a wedding party in the Mian Rodi village in Sangin district of southern Helmand province. Full news...
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January 1, 2015 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Al Jazeera: Mortar rounds fired during fighting between Afghan forces and Taliban fighters has killed at least 26 wedding guests in the southern province of Helmand, officials have said. Most of the victims of the attack late on Wednesday in Helmand’s Sangin district were women and children. Full news...
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December 31, 2014 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The New York Time: Early this year, officials in Washington extolled a rare success in the fight against the drug trade in Afghanistan: The authorities there had imprisoned a leading opium trafficker on the United States’ kingpin list, Haji Lal Jan Ishaqzai. The incarceration hinted at a newfound willingness by the Afghan authorities to prosecute criminals whose clout once made them untouchable. Full news...
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December 29, 2014 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Democracy Now!: In the 13 years since the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001, the country’s opium production has doubled, now accounting for about 90 percent of the world’s supply. To learn more, we are joined by Matthieu Aikins, a Kabul-based journalist whose latest report for Rolling Stone magazine explores Afghanistan’s heroin boom. Full news...
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December 27, 2014 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Killid Group: People in power have usurped more than 100,000 jeribs of public land in the west of the country. The government has obligingly looked the other way in half the cases, according to an investigation by Killid. Among the estimated 1,138 usurpers – 650 in Herat province alone – are two former governors, a former mayor and the mayor of Farah district who have taken over public land for private use with the support of cabinet ministers in the previous government. Full news...
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December 26, 2014 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Five civilians were killed and as many wounded in a NATO airstrike in the Baraki Barak district of central Logar province, the town’s administrative chief said on Friday. Eng. Rahim Amin told Pajhwok Afghan News the air assault took place late on Thursday night in Abjosh area. Full news...
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December 25, 2014 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Khaama Press: A woman was killed by her husband in central Logar province late on Wednesday night, local officials said Thursday. The main reason behind the murder of the woman is not clear so far, but the provincial human rights officials are saying that the woman is apparently murdered due to domestic violence. Full news...
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December 21, 2014 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Killid Group: No government can any longer shut its eyes to the problem of armed groups in the country. They are behind the almost daily crimes in Kunduz, Badakshan, Baghlan, Parwan and Bamyan provinces. Local authorities in Kunduz accuse the Kabul government of supporting the men, some 4,000 in number, who are behind the kidnappings, rape and robberies particularly in the province’s Khan Abad and Dasht-e Archi districts. Full news...
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December 19, 2014 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
UN News Center: Civilian casualties in Afghanistan increased by nearly 20 per cent in 2014 compared to the previous year and are expected to rise to a figure over 10,000 by end of December – for the first time since the UN mission in the country began keeping record in 2008. “Men, women and children are suffering an enormous human cost as the transition evolves in Afghanistan,” Georgette Gagnon, the Director of Human Rights at the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said... Full news...
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December 18, 2014 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Bloomberg Businessweek: “Do you want to listen to Taliban cassette?” Matiullah Matie asks as he steers his white Toyota Corolla along a narrow road surrounded by cornfields and mud huts. He keeps the tapes in the car for long drives, Matie explains, just in case he picks up a hitchhiker who looks like a Talib. “They think I am such a pious mujahid man,” the round, bearded businessman laughs. “They don’t know I am screwing them all.” Full news...