News from the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)
RAWA News
News from the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)
RAWA News


 

 

 





 


 


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  • October 23, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    North Afghanistan ‘a bridgehead for drug-trafficking to Russia’
    RIA Novosti: Afghan regions controlled by the Northern Alliance serve as a bridgehead for drug-trafficking to Russia, a top Russian drug control official said on Friday. "In the fight against the Taliban, the U.S. has used the Northern Alliance forces, which we are supporting even now," Viktor Ivanov, director of the Federal Drugs Control Service, said at a meeting at the General Staff Academy.      Full news...

  • October 22, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    UN details ‘devastating’ impact of Afghan opium
    AFP: Afghan opium is unleashing a "devastating" impact across the world, according to a new UN report, funding the Taliban and other terror groups and killing thousands in consumer countries. Afghanistan produces 92 percent of the world's opium in a trade that is worth some 65 billion dollars (43 billion euros), feeds some 15 million addicts worldwide and kills around 100,000 people annually, the report said.      Full news...

  • September 28, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    How Can 40,000 Troops Fix Chronic Corruption in Afghanistan?
    The Christian Science Monitor: Gen. Stanley McChrystal reportedly wants 40,000 troops for Afghanistan. But Obama is worried that the government of President Hamid Karzai is too corrupt. Comments by President Obama and his advisers this week suggest that the administration is slowly coming to the conclusion that the Afghan government - and not the Taliban - is perhaps the most serious impediment to progress in Afghanistan.      Full news...

  • September 15, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Afghan junkies risk triggering AIDS explosion
    CNN: Afghanistan's reputation as the world's leading narcotics supplier is well-known, but in a squalid ruin in Kabul, the country hides a darker secret -- a huge home grown drug addiction problem now on the brink of fueling an HIV/AIDS epidemic. Here junkies lie in their own filth, wasted limbs poking out of blood-spattered clothing as they blank out the abject misery of their surroundings. In one room, a veritable narcotics bazaar offers pills and drug paraphernalia -- with hits retailing at less than $4.      Full news...

  • August 29, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Afghanistan’s hidden heroin addicts
    Toronto Star: The flame from a match pierces pitch-black darkness, casting an eerie glow on dirty, feral faces. Sucking sounds. Lungs expand with the inhalation of heroin fumes. A gulp and an aahhh. There's more furtive movement nearby, scratching, the rustle of newspapers crunching underfoot, foul-smelling bodies pressing in. These are the human moles of Kabul, drug addicts who live in the stark ruins of the Russian Cultural Centre, all rubble and dank subterranean warrens.      Full news...

  • August 7, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Karzai family’s wealth ‘fuelling insurgency’
    The Telegraph.co.uk: The president's brothers, Mahmoud and Ahmed Wali, are accused of having amassed millions of pounds since Mr Karzai took office even as most of Afghanistan remains poverty stricken. The development has fuelled a popular disillusionment and anger with the leadership that the Taliban has exploited. Ahmed Wali Karzai has been dogged by allegations, which he denies, of involvement in the country's $3 billion opium trade, while Mahmoud Karzai has been accused of using his brother's influence to build a business empire that has made him one of the country's wealthiest men.      Full news...

  • August 6, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Opium ravages Afghan villages
    Toronto Star: In dozens of mountain hamlets in this remote corner of Afghanistan, opium addiction has become so entrenched that whole families – from toddlers to old men – are addicts. Cut off from the rest of the world by glacial streams, the addiction moves from house to house, infecting entire communities. From just one family years ago, at least half the people of Sarab, population 1,850, are now addicts.      Full news...

  • July 16, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    AFGHANISTAN: “Opium eases my pain, keeps my children quiet”
    IRIN: Tordi, 45, finally quit her opium habit after six stillborn births and delivered a healthy baby girl. “I was using opium to ease my body pains and to be able to work better,” she told IRIN in her home in the Shortapa District of northern Balkh Province. Addiction, long hours of hard labour and poor nutrition had weakened Tordi’s body so much that she almost died during her sixth delivery before her family rushed her to a district hospital.      Full news...

  • July 4, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Karzai's pardons nullify drug court gains
    Boston Globe: When five drug traffickers in military uniforms were caught transporting heroin in a police truck in 2007, it was a victory for a dogged team of Afghan investigators and their US mentors who are waging a Quixotic battle against narcotics, the nation's largest industry. But in April, Afghan president Hamid Karzai pardoned the five men. One was the nephew of a powerful politician managing Karzai's reelection campaign, and the presidential decree ordering their release notes that they had ties to a well-respected family, according to a senior Afghan official.      Full news...

  • July 4, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    News editor captures 'the real thing' in Afghanistan
    The Age: FRIENDS said he must have a death wish, going to Afghanistan. But online news editor Gregor Salmon was sick of watching disjointed images of the place on CNN. He wanted to find the truth behind the labels: the Taliban, warlords, guns and opium. And he was up for an adventure. With the help of local translators and "fixers", he spent eight months criss-crossing Afghanistan, interviewing hundreds of ordinary Afghans.      Full news...

  • June 28, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    U.S.-built bridge is windfall for Afghan drug trade
    McClatchy Newspapers: In August 2007, the presidents of Afghanistan and Tajikistan walked side by side with the U.S. commerce secretary across a new $37 million concrete bridge that the Army Corps of Engineers designed to link two of Central Asia's poorest countries. Today, the bridge across the muddy waters of the Panj River is carrying much more than vegetables and timber: It's paved the way for drug traffickers to transport larger loads of Afghan heroin and opium to Central Asia and beyond to Russia and Western Europe.      Full news...

  • June 27, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Power of the Poppy
    The Wall Street Journal: Today, the good, the bad and the ugly all flourish in Afghanistan—sometimes together, sometimes apart. But it’s not clear who is benefiting most from the drug trade. Is it the Taliban and al Qaeda or members of ­Afghanistan’s U.S.-backed government? Statistics vary wildly, but the U.N. estimates that drugs bring in upward of $300 million annually to the Taliban’s coffers. That still leaves billions unaccounted for.      Full news...

  • May 13, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Drug trade permeates Afghanistan
    McClatchy Newspapers: Afghanistan produces more than 90 percent of the world's opium, which was worth some $3.4 billion to Afghan exporters last year. For a cut of that, Afghan officials open their highways to opium and heroin trafficking, allow public land to be used for growing opium poppies and protect drug dealers. The drug trade funnels hundreds of millions of dollars each year to drug barons and the resurgent Taliban, the militant Islamist group that's killed an estimated 450 American troops in Afghanistan since 2001 and seeks to overthrow the fledgling democracy here.      Full news...

  • May 11, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Afghan drug trade thrives with help, and neglect, of officials
    McClatchy Newspapers: The drug trade funnels hundreds of millions of dollars each year to drug barons and the resurgent Taliban, the militant Islamist group that's killed an estimated 450 American troops in Afghanistan since 2001 and seeks to overthrow the fledgling democracy here. What's more, Afghan officials' involvement in the drug trade suggests that American tax dollars are supporting the corrupt officials who protect the Taliban's efforts to raise money from the drug trade, money the militants use to buy weapons that kill U.S. soldiers.      Full news...

  • May 11, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Karzai’s brother threatened McClatchy writer reporting Afghan drug story
    McClatchy Newspapers: Ahmed Wali Karzai is feared by many in southern Afghanistan, and being threatened by him, in his home, isn't something to be taken lightly.In a place like Kandahar, I try to take precautions — letting my beard grow and wearing the traditional Afghan outfit of baggy pants and a long tunic — but at the end of the day, there's no protection when the most powerful official in the region orders you to leave. So after a quick consultation with locals, I decided to do just that.      Full news...

  • May 10, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Only small-time Afghan drug dealers serve time
    McClatchy Newspapers: The Pul-I-Charki prison rises out of the dirt fields and mud walls on the edge of east Kabul like a medieval fortress, its castle towers surrounded by checkpoints and machine gun nests.The prison is meant to hold some of Afghanistan's worst criminals, those who officials fear would buy or fight their way out of provincial jails. However, when a reporter asked to interview big-time drug dealers being held there, especially from Helmand or Kandahar, prison officials said they had none.      Full news...

  • April 22, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    UN warns of rise in Afghan hashish production
    AFP: Dishevelled and blind in one eye, the 57-year-old hashish dealer has no fear that police might try to stop the trade he conducts from a petrol station on the edge of the dirty Kabul River. "If you give them 100 afghani (two dollars) and a joint, they would say carry on," said the man who gives his name as Mahtaabudin. "I am not afraid of anyone," he said gruffly, only agreeing to talk after he has lit a cigarette of heady hashish made from cannabis resin which he shares with some of his customers on the station's verandah.      Full news...

  • April 16, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Drug Addiction, and Misery, Increase In Afghanistan
    NPR: 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. A United Nations survey begun this month is widely expected to show that at least 1 in 12 people in Afghanistan abuses drugs — double the number in the last survey four years ago. 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...

  • February 19, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Afghanistan Still World's Opium Capital
    IPS: Despite the heavy military presence of the United States and other Western powers, Afghanistan remains the world's largest illicit producer of opium, according to a new study released by experts who monitor the worldwide trade in narcotics on behalf of the United Nations. "Afghanistan is the source of over 90 percent of the illicit opium in the world," Mylven Levitsky, a member of the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), told a news conference after releasing the board's latest study on the global trade in illicit drugs.      Full news...

  • February 18, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    ‘Two-thirds of Afghan police take illegal drugs’
    The Telegraph: Almost two-thirds of Afghan police in the British-garrisoned province of Helmand are using illegal drugs, it has been estimated. A British official working in the province claimed in a document released to the BBC under the Freedom of Information Act that 60 per cent of police staff in the area regularly took drugs. The unnamed official said drug use among the police was "undermining security sector reform and state-building efforts as well as contributing to corruption".      Full news...

  • January 28, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Afghanistan cultivates drugs on record vast area under US invasion
    The News: Illicit drugs production, an issue of global concern in Afghanistan, has set a new record of peak escalation in the war on terror period as compared to previous Taliban-led rule over the land-locked country. “Almost a twenty times additional land has been brought under drugs cultivation in seven years of US-led forces’ control and Karazi administration in Afghanistan,” said official sources while handing over the latest statistics on the neighbouring country.      Full news...

  • January 18, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Drug Trade Remains A Contentious Issue For ISAF, Afghan Government
    Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Even as new figures point to gains in the battle against Afghanistan's drug problem, the issue remains deeply contentious for the government in Kabul and NATO-led forces. No one, however, is willing to assume ultimate responsibility or to say whether Afghanistan has turned a corner. It remains unclear how much of the decline in opium poppies is a result of government action and how much is owed to weather conditions like drought or cold. Afghan officials tend to emphasize the constraints under which they operate. The country's counternarcotics minister, Colonel General Khodaidad, complains that the drug trade is an "international problem" fueled by Western demand and that the Afghan government has insufficient resources at its disposal.      Full news...

  • December 10, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    The CIA and Drugs
    Capitol Hill Blue: On August 18, 1996, the San Jose Mercury initiated an extended series of articles about the CIA connection to the crack epidemic in Los Angeles. Though the CIA and influential media like The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times went out of their way to belittle the significance of the articles, the basic ingredients of the story were not really new -- the CIA's Contra army, fighting the leftist government of Nicaragua, turning to smuggling cocaine into the U.S., under CIA protection, to raise money for their military and personal use.      Full news...

  • December 7, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Peter Prontzos: How many Canadians will die for nothing in Afghanistan?
    Vancouver Free Press: The 101 Canadians who have been killed in Afghanistan believed that they were serving our country, and for that they deserve our respect and gratitude. We must not forget or trivialize their ultimate sacrifice. But there is an awful truth that we tend to avoid, a truth that must be proclaimed if we are to end the killing on all sides of that bloody conflict. The truth is that those 101 brave Canadians died for nothing. Their lives were taken away from them, and from their loving families and friends, for a lie. More accurately, they died for a series of lies.      Full news...

  • December 1, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Children at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS in Afghanistan
    UNICEF: With 504 recorded cases, Afghanistan has a relatively low number of confirmed HIV cases, but experts on the disease are raising alarm bells for an expected rise in reported numbers, especially among street children. “Children are at high risk to contract HIV in Afghanistan,” said Dr. Malalai Ahmadzai, UNICEF Maternal Health and HIV Specialist. “Those children who have lost their parents due to war, those children who are doing street work and labour, and also those children who may be at risk because of transmission from mother to child.”      Full news...

  • November 30, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Government cars ‘used to smuggle drugs’
    Quqnoos: DRUG smugglers are using the cars of high-ranking Afghan officials to traffic drugs through the country, the Ministry of Anti-Narcotics has said. Officials are trying to break the smugglers network, a ministry spokesman said.      Full news...

  • November 28, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    UN: Taliban could clear 500 million Dollar from 2008 drug trade
    The Associated Press: The Taliban and other warlords could clear almost half a billion dollars from Afghanistan's opium trade this year — money that will help finance insurgent attacks, the U.N.'s drug czar said. Antonio Maria Costa, head of the U.N.'s Office on Drugs and Crime, said the Taliban also appears to be stockpiling the drug to manipulate its price, after several years in which production surpassed world demand. Afghanistan produces over 90 percent of the world's opium, the raw ingredient for making heroin.      Full news...

  • November 27, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Corruption and Warlordism: A critical review of Corruption situation in Afghanistan
    This deliberate fostering of culture of impunity was based on political compromises as the President did not want to offend warlords and criminals by punishing the members of their syndicates. This approach of the government offered the most conducive medium for corrupt officials and culprits to get protected in the criminal networks and safe havens. Criminal warlords, human rights violators, kidnappers, and notorious commanders who are currently in the state institutions or have their members of their networks actively working in key government positions further deepened this problem.      Full news...

  • November 24, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    CIA, Heroin Still Rule Day in Afghanistan
    AmericanFreePress.net: The U.S. has been in Afghanistan for over seven years, has spent $177 billion in that country alone, and has the most powerful and technologically advanced military on Earth. GPS tracking devices can locate any spot imaginable by simply pushing a few buttons. Common sense suggests that such prolific trade over an extended period of time is no accident, especially when the history of what has transpired in that region is considered. While the CIA ran its operations during the Vietnam War, the Golden Triangle supplied the world with most of its heroin. After that war ended in 1975, an intriguing event took place in 1979 when Zbigniew Brzezinski covertly manipulated the Soviet Union into invading Afghanistan.      Full news...

  • October 15, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    How Deeply is the U.S. involved in the Afghan Drug Trade?
    The Huffington Post: America's local allies in Afghanistan, the politicians and warlords who overthrew Taliban in 2001, are up to their turbans in the heroin trade. Drug money is the blood that courses through Afghanistan's veins and keeps the economy limping along. The U.S.-installed Karzai regime in Kabul propped up by US and NATO bayonets has only two sources of income: cash handouts from Washington, and the proceeds of drug dealing.      Full news...



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