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January 31, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Wall Street Journal: Investigators probing massive fraud that nearly brought down Afghanistan’s largest bank have found the lender avoided scrutiny for years by giving clandestine loans—and sometimes outright bribes—to senior Afghan officials, said Afghan and U.S. officials and former bank insiders. Some of those who allegedly took Kabul Bank’s money were until recently among a small core group of cabinet ministers... Full news...
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January 31, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The New Yorker: In the spring of 2009, as the reëlection campaign of President Hamid Karzai was gathering momentum, a group of prominent Afghan businessmen met for breakfast at the presidential palace to see the candidate. Among them was Khalil Ferozi, the chief executive officer of Kabul Bank, a fast and freewheeling financial institution that had brought together some of the most colorful and politically well-connected Afghans in the country, including one of President Karzai’s own brothers. Full news...
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January 30, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
NCRI: A large number of Afghans took to the streets of Herat on Saturday to protest against the Iranian regime. The protest happened across from the regime’s consulate in Herat, with the protestors chanting, “death to Ahmadinejad” and “death to Khamenei,” referring to the mullahs’ President and Supreme Leader, respectively. Full news...
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January 29, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Sydney Morning Herald: An Afghan warlord accused of gross human rights violations and who was once close to Osama bin Laden has received the backing of the President, Hamid Karzai, for the important post of speaker of the new parliament. He has been accused of a string of atrocities during Afghanistan's civil war of the 1990s, in particular the killing of hundreds of Hazara civilians in Kabul in 1993. Full news...
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January 28, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
CNN: In August last year, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak was not happy with Saudi Arabia. He complained that the Saudis appeared to be funding an opposition candidate, Anwar Ibrahim, in upcoming elections. What's more, the Malaysian authorities suspected two senior Saudi princes of involvement. The Saudis launched an investigation, and uncovered something very different -- and more alarming. Full news...
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January 27, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
AFP: A former Afghan detainee testified to a Danish court Wednesday about his ordeal at the hands of US troops after Danish soldiers handed him over in 2002, describing it as a “nightmare.” “I blame Denmark a lot because it is responsible for the suffering that I went through during my four days of detention. It was a nightmare I can’t forget,” Ghousouallah Tarin testified in court on the second day of the case. Full news...
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January 27, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Eurasianet.org: A third of a million desperate people once lived in Maslakh, a camp of wind-blown mud brick houses erected upon a brittle lunar landscape in western Afghanistan. Ten years after the US-led invasion, the population of internally displaced waxes and wanes, subject to the whims of the country’s quarreling political factions. Full news...
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January 27, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
BBC News: The man and woman were accused of adultery in the district of Dashte Archi in Kunduz province last August. Hundreds of people attended the stoning but no-one was charged. The area is still under Taliban control. After viewing the footage, regional police chief Gen Daoud Daoud said those responsible could be recognised. Full news...
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January 27, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
MediaGlobal: Although a number of laws have been put in place to improve the lives of Afghan women, there are still significant obstacles to overcome; the road to independence appears to be a long and challenging one. Many women are turning to suicide in order to escape the violence they face. Afghanistan is the only country in the world where suicide rates of women outnumber those of men. Full news...
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January 26, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Mail Online: The impact of coalition operations in Afghanistan is often bogged down in statistics and political manoeuvring. But these photos of a devastated village in the Arghandad River Valley show the horror of war in stark reality. Tarok Kolache, a small settlement in Kandahar, has been completely erased from the map after an offensive by the U.S. army. Full news...
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January 26, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Home Daily News: Human Rights Watch warned about the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan, despite the presence of 150,000 foreign troops in the country. In its annual report for 2010, human rights groups say security has deteriorated in some areas of Afghanistan, irrespective of additional U.S. troops last year. Full news...
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January 25, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Reuters Canada: Foreign military assertions that security in Afghanistan is improving are intended to sway Western public opinion ahead of a troop withdrawal and do not reflect the reality on the ground, a security advice group said. “Indisputable evidence” that conditions are deteriorating included a two-thirds rise in insurgent attacks in 2010 compared with the previous year... Full news...
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January 24, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Vancouver Sun: Despite all the evidence that continuing to stay in this benighted country is worse than pointless, despite the fact that the majority of Canadians want to get out sooner rather than later and despite the fact that even Stephen Harper recognizes that the Karzai regime is one of the most repugnant and corrupt Canadians have ever been asked to support we are unable as a nation to extricate ourselves from this deadly mess. Full news...
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January 24, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
ENS: Mohammad Aref and his family are not looking forward to the Kabul summer. Last year, it meant stifling months shut up in the family home in the Khair Khana district, trying to avoid the fetid smell wafting in from the piles of rubbish in the surrounding streets. “We could not open windows to let in fresh air in any of the rooms all through the summer,” the 40-year-old said. Full news...
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January 24, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Xinhua: The number of civilian casualties has been soaring in the militancy-plagued Afghanistan as Interior Ministry had registered 38 civilian fatalities in the past one week, spokesman for the ministry Zamarai Bashari said Sunday. “In the past one week a total of 38 civilians had been killed across the country that indicates 31 percent rise in compare with the previous week,” Bashari told a weekly press briefing here. Full news...
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January 24, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Daily Mirror: THE war on terror is taking its toll on the mental state of British troops with a dramatic rise in the number seeking psychiatric help. The daily threat of roadside bombs, fierce gun battles and seeing comrades killed or horrifically maimed in the blood and dust of Afghanistan has led to a steep increase in the number of personnel suffering post-traumatic stress disorder. Full news...
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January 24, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
WSWS: The ACLU states that 25-30 of the 190 deaths that occurred under custody of the U.S. government at Guantanamo Bay were “unjustifiable homicides”. In our view, every single one of them qualify for this charge because their imprisonment and the war that brought them there was unjustified from the very beginning. - LMB Full news...
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January 24, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
CNN: In a far flung corner of northern Afghanistan, Aziza reaches into the dark wooden cupboard, rummages around, and pulls out a small lump of something wrapped in plastic. She unwraps it, breaking off a small chunk as if it were chocolate, and feeds it to four-year-old son, Omaidullah. It’s his breakfast -- a lump of pure opium. Full news...
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January 23, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Independent: The world’s deadliest pollution does not come from factories billowing smoke, industries tainting water supplies or chemicals seeping into farm land. It comes from within people’s own homes. Smoke from domestic fires kills nearly two million people each year and sickens millions more, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). Full news...
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January 22, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: A woman lost her life when a vehicle of international forces overran her in western Herat province, an official said on Saturday. The accident happened in Guzara district at 8pm when the woman crossing the road was hit by a vehicle of NATO-led forces, police spokesman, Col. Noor Khan Nekzad, told Pajhwok Afghan News. Full news...
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January 22, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
CNN: New documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union show “unjustified homicide” of detainees and concerns about the condition of confinement in U.S.-run prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, according to the ACLU. Thousands of documents detailing the deaths of 190 U.S. detainees were released by the ACLU on Friday. Full news...
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January 21, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Guardian: Farooq Wardak, the Afghan education minister and a key ally of President Hamid Karzai, claims that the Taliban leadership no longer opposes education for girls. The question is not whether this claim is true – teachers and students who continue to be terrorised by Taliban attacks would find it laughable – but why a senior Afghan official would engage in such misinformation. Full news...
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January 21, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IWPR: Shahbaz stands at the Kotai Sangi junction in Kabul with a set of builder’s tools, just as he does every day, hoping someone will take him on. “I have nine family members and I need to earn some money to feed my children,” he told the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR). “But there isn’t any work. I come in the morning and leave in the evening just like that.” Full news...
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January 20, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
RAWA News: The Obama administration’s effort to persist in carrying out a deadly war in Afghanistan outside the public’s eye has been succeeding. Three means are employed: tight control over news flowing out of Afghanistan; vastly greater reliance upon secretive night raids by U.S. Special Forces; and a stepped-up use of private contractors/mercenaries on the ground in Afghanistan. Full news...
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January 20, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IRIN: Pro-government militias in parts of Afghanistan are believed to be recruiting underage boys and sometimes sexually abusing them in an environment of criminal impunity, local people and human rights organizations say. In a bid to counter the intensifying insurgency, the Afghan government and US/NATO forces have been setting up controversial community-based militias, such as the Afghan Local Police, in insecure provinces. Full news...
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January 19, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IWPR: They sit patiently in the lobby of the directorate of women’s rights at the women’s ministry, their sad, bruised faces testimony to the years of ill-treatment and beatings they have been forced to endure. One of the women, Marina, 20, told this IWPR reporter that her family married her off when she was 14 to a drug-addict twice her age. Full news...
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January 19, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
UPI: International partners teamed up with Afghan leaders to discuss the seriousness of food security issues in the country, the World Food Program said. Louis Imbleau, the WFP representative in Afghanistan, met with Afghan leaders in Kabul to discuss bilateral measures needed to address food shortages in the war-torn country. Full news...
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January 19, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
BBC News: A roadside bomb has killed 13 civilians in eastern Afghanistan, government officials said. The interior ministry said in a statement that the vehicle, a motorised rickshaw, was hit in the morning. The dead include women and children. The attack took place in Khoshamand district in Paktika province. Full news...
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January 19, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Demotix: A growing number of Afghans — including children — are escaping the pain of war and poverty by using opium or heroin, for as little as a dollar a day. Experts say that the alarming trend is not being addressed by the Afghan government and its international partners, even though most officials acknowledge that the drug scourge threatens lasting stability in Afghanistan. Full news...
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January 19, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Newsmax: After no fewer than 10 quarterly reports to Congress, 40 percent of 56 billion USD allocated to civilian projects in Afghanistan, or 22.4 billion USD in U.S. taxpayer funds, cannot be accounted for by SIGAR, the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction. The original amount for civilian aid is being increased to 71 billion USD. Full news...