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March 28, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The New York Times: When a brother and a nephew of an Afghan vice president wanted to build up their fuel transport business, they took out a $19 million loan from Kabul Bank. When a brother of the president wanted to invest in a cement factory, he took out a $2.9 million loan; he also took out $6 million for a town house in Dubai. When the bank’s chief executive wanted to invest in newly built apartments in Kabul, he took almost $18 million. Full news...
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March 18, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
RT: The US government has denied an entry visa to Malalai Joya for her upcoming book tour for “A Woman Among Warlords”. According to a press statement released Joya, she was denied entry into the US because, “She was ‘unemployed’ and ‘lives underground’… Because of her harsh criticism of warlords and fundamentalists in Afghanistan, she has been the target of at least five assassination attempts.” Full news...
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March 18, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Independent: An Afghan warlord backed by US special forces faces persistent allegations that he launched a two-year spate of violence involving burglary, rape and murder of civilians, desecration of mosques and mutilation of corpses. Yet, despite repeated warnings about the atrocities Commander Azizullah is alleged to have committed, he has remained on the payroll of the US military... Full news...
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March 17, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: A recount of votes in southeastern Paktia province showed massive rigging had taken place in last year’s parliamentary election, an official said on Thursday. The recount, completed on Wednesday, had been ordered by a special court looking to allegations of fraud in the Sept. 18 election, said Paktia’s appellant court chief, Abdul Jalil Maulvizada. Full news...
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March 15, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
McClatchy Newspapers: Nearly 300 foreign advisers, most of them Americans, work at Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry, and hundreds more work in other government departments, a reliance on foreign expertise that raises doubts about the viability of the West’s exit strategy. Afghan President Hamid Karzai will announce later this month his plans for “transition” from heavy international involvement in Afghanistan’s governance and security to local control. Full news...
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March 8, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN (Translated by RAWA): A number of people in Kunduz claim that local militias take their money and mobile phones forcefully and in some cases even beat them up. They say that although this province has been cleared of armed anti-government forces, the people will distance themselves from the government if things continued this way, thus paving the way for the insurgents to return. The people demanded the government to dissolve this illegal force. Full news...
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March 6, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The New York Times: When one looks across the Arab world today at the stunning spontaneous democracy uprisings, it is impossible to not ask: What are we doing spending 110 billion USD this year supporting corrupt and unpopular regimes in Afghanistan and Pakistan that are almost identical to the governments we’re applauding the Arab people for overthrowing? Full news...
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February 28, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Huffington Post: The chairmen of the bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting decried on Monday a federal system that has allowed contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan to commit fraud -- then get hired again and again.“For the 200,000 people employed by contractors to provide support and capability in Iraq and Afghanistan, accountability is too often absent, diluted, delayed, or avoided,”... Full news...
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February 25, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
AFP: Corruption and waste has cost the US government billions of reconstruction dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to an official study on wartime contracting released on Thursday. The report found that “criminal behavior and blatant corruption” were responsible for much of the waste related to the nearly 200 billion USD spent since 2002 on US reconstruction and other projects in the two countries. Full news...
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February 21, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Associated Press: The village-level fighting forces the U.S. is fostering in hopes of countering the Taliban insurgency — the concept that turned the tide of the Iraq war — are having a rocky start, with complaints that recruits are not consistently vetted for ties to criminals and warlords. The U.S. hopes the nascent project will spark uprisings against the Taliban akin to the Sunni Awakening in Iraq, in which private militias rose up against al-Qaida. Full news...
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February 21, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
RAWA News: The Italian women’s organization, CISDA – Coordinamento Italiano Sostegno Donne Afghane - denounces the draft regulation promoted by the Council of Ministers in January 2011, whose adoption allows the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MoWA) to take over the management of the existing shelters for women within 45 days, almost all of which are operated by Afghan non-governmental organizations. Full news...
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February 19, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Rethink Afghanistan: Wisconsin’s Governor Scott Walker is using phony budget projections to manufacture a staged “fiscal emergency” in his state so that he can whack programs and political opponents, but even his fake “emergency” pales in comparison to the cost of the Afghanistan War to his state. Full news...
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February 14, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
McClatchy Newspapers: A U.S. contractor who’s continued to receive government contracts despite criticism of its work in Afghanistan got low ratings for its performance on two more high-profile projects in the war-torn country than had been disclosed previously. McClatchy Newspapers has learned that the U.S. government criticized Black & Veatch for poor oversight and delays on a Kabul power plant project... Full news...
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February 12, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
TOLOnews.com: Helmand Governor Gulab Mangal said insurgents receive training in Iran and Pakistan and are then sent to southern parts of the country to carry out attacks against the government and foreign forces. Governor Mangal said momentum of the Taliban has been reversed in most districts of the province and they no longer have the potential to fight. Full news...
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February 9, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Washington Post: An Afghan government probe of private security companies has accused 16 firms of violations that include employing too many guards, failing to pay taxes for up to two years, and keeping unregistered weapons and armored vehicles. The allegations, contained in a list being circulated in Kabul, represent the most detail to date about the government's case against several prominent U.S. and British security firms in Afghanistan. Full news...
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February 3, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Reuters: Afghanistan’s police force is only slightly more popular than the Taliban in the insurgent heartlands of the south, according to a survey commissioned by the UN. The results of the poll, published today, portrayed a police force widely viewed by Afghans as corrupt and biased, underscoring doubts about a planned Nato handover. About half the 5,052 Afghans surveyed across all 34 provinces said they would report crime elsewhere. Full news...
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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 re?lection 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 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...
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January 12, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
McClatchy Newspapers: For years, U.S. officials held up Kabul’s largest power plant project as a shining example of how American taxpayers’ dollars would pull Afghanistan out of grinding poverty and decades of demoralizing conflict. But behind the scenes, the same officials were voicing outrage over the slow pace of the project and its skyrocketing costs. The problems were so numerous that one company official told the U.S. government that he’d understand if the contract were canceled. Full news...
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January 8, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
IWPR: Nine years after Hamid Karzai came to power, Afghans have some harsh things to say about his performance. While some argue that his apparent shifts in position are the mark of an astute politician negotiating his way through difficult times, others say some of the compromises he has made have been disastrous for Afghanistan. Full news...
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January 7, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
t r u t h o u t: Efforts by the United Nations (UN), the US military and the Indian government to curb opium production in Afghanistan since 2007 have been largely ineffective, due in large part to the ties between the drug trade and the Taliban. Afghanistan is the world’s largest producer of opium, the raw material harvested from poppies to make heroin, as well as alkaloids like codeine and morphine. Full news...
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January 1, 2011 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Associated Press: Afghan President Hamid Karzai refused to remove a former warlord from atop the energy and water ministry despite U.S. pressure to oust the minister because Washington considered him corrupt and ineffective. Secret diplomatic records showed the minister — privately termed “the worst” by U.S. officials — kept his perch at an agency that controls $2 billion in U.S. and allied projects. Full news...
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December 29, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Wall Street Journal: U.S. officials in Afghanistan have spent thousands of hours over the past few years charting what they call “Malign Actor Networks”—webs of connections between members of President Hamid Karzai’s family, businessmen, corrupt officials, drug traffickers and Taliban commanders. Full news...
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December 28, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Huffington Post: President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly released well-connected officials convicted of or charged with drug trafficking in Afghanistan, frustrating efforts to combat corruption and providing additional evidence that the United States’ top ally in the country is himself corrupt. Full news...
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December 27, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Fiscal Times: In its bid to win the hearts and minds of Afghanistan’s teeming population, the United States has spent more than $55 billion to rebuild and bolster the war-ravaged country. That money was meant to cover everything from the construction of government buildings and economic development projects to the salaries of U.S. government employees working closely with Afghans. Full news...
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December 23, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Associated Press: U.S.-donated medicines and pharmaceutical supplies meant to keep the new Afghan army and police healthy have been disappearing before reaching Afghan military hospitals and clinics, and the government said it is removing the army’s top medical officer from his post as part of an investigation into alleged corruption. Full news...
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December 20, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Reuters: Waste and fraud in U.S. efforts to rebuild Afghanistan while fighting al Qaeda and the Taliban may have cost taxpayers billions of dollars, a special investigator said on Monday. Arnold Fields, special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, said the cost of U.S. assistance funding diverted or squandered since 2002 could reach “well into the millions, if not billions, of dollars.” Full news...
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December 19, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Associated Press: At two in the morning on Sept. 9, 2005, five DynCorp International security guards assigned to Afghan President Hamid Karzai's protective detail returned to their compound drunk, with a prostitute in tow. Less than a week later, three of these same guards got drunk again, this time in the VIP lounge of the Kabul airport while awaiting a flight to Thailand. Full news...
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December 18, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Independent: During the mid-1960s, America’s goal during a crucial stage in the Vietnam war was to defeat the enemy militarily. But it had no realistic political strategy to underpin the goal, and it was this which ultimately led to failure. America’s strategy in Afghanistan is now suffering from a similar weakness. Full news...
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