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July 1, 2012 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Reuters: Afghan journalists are locked in a row with their government over media freedoms, in what appears to be the latest attempt by authorities to appeal to the more conservative side of society ahead of the pullout of most foreign troops. A revised media law looks to significantly tighten the government’s grip over the fledgling but lively Afghan press corps Full news...
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July 1, 2012 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Hundreds of people on Sunday took out a protest rally east of Kabul, asking the government to launch the distribution of land plots to them in the Qala-i-Zaman Khan locality. The protestors blocked a road leading to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for several hours against traffic in the 16th police district, chanting slogans against the municipality department. Full news...
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June 29, 2012 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Police had arrested three suspects in connection with the beheading of a young girl in the Sawki district of eastern Kunar province, officials said on Friday. The victim, Shabana, an 11th class student, was brutally murdered by unknown gunmen who entered the house of Malak Qudratullah, the girl’s father, a resident of the Shalwatai area two days ago, the district chief said. Full news...
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June 27, 2012 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The New York Times: The policeman spoke with calm and assurance as he insisted that he could not have raped the teenage daughter of a local shepherd, because a mullah had married them just before intercourse. “Once the marriage contract is done, any sexual intercourse is not considered rape,” said Khodaidad, 42, who until he was detained in the case had worked for the American-trained Afghan Local Police. Full news...
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June 26, 2012 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: A man killed his pregnant wife believed due to a family dispute in the southern province of Ghazni, officials said on Tuesday. The 20-year-old, Kobra, was stabbed to death by her husband at around 12 am in Nawabad on the outskirts of Ghazni city, said Shokria Wali, director of women’s affairs department. Full news...
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June 26, 2012 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: A child was killed after Pakistani army fired 50 missiles at the Narai district in the eastern Kunar province, officials said on Tuesday. Pakistan fired 50 missiles on Sunday and Monday nights in the Batash area of the district, causing heavy losses and displacing people, the governor’s spokesman, Wasifullah Wasifi told Pajhwok Afghan News. Full news...
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June 26, 2012 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Nearly 200 people on Tuesday staged a protest in front of the municipality and accused the department of corruption and land grabbing. The protesters accused municipal officials were involved in land corruption and asked for the distribution of plots in the Qala-i-Zaman Khan area of 16th police district of Kabul. Full news...
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June 24, 2012 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Khaama Press: Afghan Attorney General officials on Sunday announced to detain a former Afghan parliament member Kabir Ranjbar over rape charges. Deputy Afghan Attorney General Rahmatullah Nazari said Mr. Ranjbar was arrested on Saturday after Afghan police forces found a kidnapped young Afghan girl from his home. The girl was kidnapped from Dehsabz district of capital Kabul around 9 months ago. Full news...
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June 24, 2012 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Residents recovered two dead bodies of civilians from a well on the outskirts of Ghazni city, the provincial capital of southern Ghazni province, an official said on Saturday. The bodies were found in the Noghi area on Friday, the governor’s spokesman, Sabawon, told Pajhwok Afghan News. Full news...
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June 23, 2012 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Khaama Press: According to local authorities in northern Sar-e-Pul province, more than 100 school students were poisoned in this province and were taken to hospital for treatment purposes. The officials further added the incident took place early Saturday morning at Hazrat Imam Zada Yahya high school and the main reason behind the poisoning of the students were unknown. Full news...
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June 22, 2012 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The New York Times: Twenty people were killed when seven Taliban militants shot their way into a much-visited lakeside resort here and took scores of hostages during an 11-hour siege, Afghan officials said on Friday. The 20 victims included the hotel’s manager, several private security guards and a police officer, officials said, and the seven attackers died as Afghan security forces battled into the compound. Full news...
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June 21, 2012 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Sixteen people were washed away and hundreds of livestock killed by floods in the northern province of Faryab, officials said on Thursday. The floods hit Dalbi and Qoraye villages of Almar district on Wednesday evening, when the 16 people living under two tents went missing, a tribal elder said. Full news...
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June 20, 2012 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Telegraph: Watan Oil and Gas, controlled by President Karzai’s notorious cousins Rashid and Rateb Popal, won the oil extraction contract in a joint venture with a Chinese state-owned firm despite accusations another of their companies used US funds to pay protection money to Taliban commanders. Full news...
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June 20, 2012 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Six members of a family were killed and four others wounded during a roadside bombing in central Logar province on Wednesday, officials said. Deputy police chief, Col. Rais Khan Sadiq, told Pajhwok Afghan News the nomadic Kochi family suffered the casualties when the tractor-trolley they were travelling in struck the roadside bomb at about 2pm. Full news...
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June 20, 2012 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Associated Press: A suicide bomber killed 21 people including three U.S. soldiers at a checkpoint in a packed market in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday — the third assault targeting Americans in as many days. Wednesday’s attack took place in a marketplace in the city of Khost, near the Pakistani border and about 90 miles southeast of the Afghan capital, Kabul. Full news...
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June 19, 2012 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
TOLOnews.com: The Fund for Peace released the eight edition of its annual Failed States Index (FSI), highlighting global political, economic and social pressure experienced by countries. In the Failed States Index Data 2012 Afghanistan is the sixth failed country in the world as the situation has got worst since last year’s number 7 position. Full news...
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June 19, 2012 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
AFP: Rights activists on Monday demanded the sacking of the Afghan justice minister after he suggested women’s shelters in the war-torn country were home to “immorality and prostitution”. Justice minister Habibullah Ghaleb told a conference organised by the women’s affairs committee of the upper house of parliament on Sunday that foreign-funded rights awareness groups had been encouraging young women to defy their parents. Full news...
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June 19, 2012 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: A commander was among 10 Taliban militants killed during a public uprising in the Andar district of southern Ghazni province, an official said on Tuesday. Over the past two months, angry residents began armed resistance against rebels after the forcible closure of schools and bazaars -- provoking anger among the people of Andar. Full news...
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June 14, 2012 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IRIN: Recent violence allegedly sparked by the behaviour of local police and militia groups in northern Afghanistan has raised fears that the planned withdrawal of international forces could lead to renewed violence even in the generally more peaceful north. “Violence has been increasing. Since the Karzai government has been in power we have not seen such high levels of violence here,” said Nadira Geya... Full news...
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June 14, 2012 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Guardian: Afghanistan has suspended a political party for the first time since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, a ban diplomats and activists say is a worrying sign freedoms in the country could suffer as western troops leave, taking funds and attention with them. The Solidarity Party angered powerful politicians with a demonstration in late April accusing a swathe of Afghan leaders, former leaders and commanders of committing war crimes... Full news...
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June 13, 2012 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Los Angeles Times: Children have been increasingly bearing the brunt of the war in Afghanistan, a new United Nations report says, detailing an array of hazards including recruitment of child bombers, school attacks and sexual abuse of minors in government custody. The number of children killed or injured in the Afghan conflict last year climbed to 1,756 -- representing an average of 4.8 child casualties a day... Full news...
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June 12, 2012 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Incidents of violence of violence against women in the western zone increased by 10 percent, with 194 cases registered since March 21, a human rights activist official said on Tuesday. Last year, 605 cases of violence against women were reported from Badghis, Herat, Farah and Ghor provinces, the regional chief for the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (IHRC) said. Full news...
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June 11, 2012 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Reuters: The Afghan government said on Monday militia loyal to army chief of staff General Abdul Rashid Dostum were disrupting oil exploration by a Chinese state firm, underlining the challenges facing foreign investors in Afghanistan. Afghanistan signed a deal late last year with China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) for the development of oil blocks in the Amu Darya basin in the north... Full news...
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June 11, 2012 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
CPJ Blog: Danish Karokhel, who won a CPJ International Press Freedom Award in 2008, messaged this morning concerned that the news agency he runs, Pajhwok Afghan News, and some other media outlets have been referred to the Attorney General’s Office by the Ministry of Information and Culture for reporting on an alleged bribery scandal involving a member of Parliament. Full news...
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June 11, 2012 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IRIN: Tribal elders in the northern Afghan province of Badakshan tend to have the final say over if and when a woman may divorce her husband. In the province’s remote rural areas traditional `jirgas’ (councils of elders), which are known to favour keeping families together, resolve disputes, and sometimes violate women’s rights in the process. Full news...
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June 11, 2012 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Huffington Post: As many as 100 people are feared dead in an earthquake and landslide that buried more than 20 houses in northern Afghanistan on Monday, officials said. Rescuers have so far pulled two women’s bodies from the rubble of the landslide in Baghlan province, said provincial Gov. Abdul Majid. The U.N. confirmed one other death and said houses were destroyed across five districts. Full news...
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June 10, 2012 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Though the government has ensured healthcare facilities for more than 54 percent of pregnant women across the country, only 34 percent could benefit from them due to strict cultural restrictions, officials said on Sunday. A ceremony marking “National Day of Safe Motherhood” was held in Kabul, where a message from Public Health Minister Dr. Suraya Dalil was read out. Full news...
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June 9, 2012 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Sydney Morning Herald: When the Taliban was ousted from Afghanistan in 2001, there were 5000 girls enrolled in schools across the country. A little over a decade on, that number is 2.4 million. Today, in the capital Kabul, the sight of dozens of girls walking to school together is so commonplace as to be unremarkable. But for girls in Afghanistan, getting an education remains a fraught, and at times, dangerous endeavour. Full news...
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June 9, 2012 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Water and Energy Minister Ismail Khan and Herat Mayor Mohammad Salim Taraki have encroached upon the properties belonging to Afghan Millie Bank’s founder Majid Zabuli, an official said on Saturday. High Office of Oversight and Anti-Corruption (HOOAC) Chairman Dr Azizullah Lodin accused the minister of grabbing Zabuli’s residence in Herat. Full news...
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June 7, 2012 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Common Dreams: Here in Afghanistan, the United States is spending 2 billion US dollars a week on war under the guise of improving Afghanistan. In Chicago at the NATO summit, Hillary Clinton, Madeline Albright and several influential female leaders came together and publicly claimed an American and NATO troop presence in Afghanistan was warranted in order to continue to improve the security of women. Full news...