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 12, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Afghan MP, Payinda Mohammad is Accused of Human Rights Violations
    PAN (Translated by RAWA): Tens of residents of Sar-e-Pul accused Payinda Mohammad in the “Complaints Hearing Commission” of the Parliament, the representative of Sar-e-Pul in the parliament, for rape, murder, seizure of land and other crimes and claimed that Younis Qanooni, Speaker of the Parliament, supports this MP; but the other side called the allegations “false”. About nine months back, Payinda Mohammad’s son had also raped a 12-year old girl in Sar-e-Pul.      Full news...

  • October 11, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Kabul seeks foreign funds to take on corruption
    The Financial Times: It shows he (General Ali Shah Paktiawal) owns four houses, one apartment, three farms, eight commercial properties and two factories in Dubai - a $2m (£1m, €1.5m) property portfolio far beyond the means of a senior policeman in Afghanistan. Western and Afghan security officials are adamant that Kabul's top cop is also one of its top criminals, profiting handsomely from the gangs who extract huge ransoms from the families of the wealthy Afghans.      Full news...

  • October 9, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Price tag of Canada's Afghanistan mission: up to 18 billion Dollar
    The Globe and Mail: Canada's efforts in Afghanistan will carry a total price tag of about $14-billion to $18-billion by the time troops are withdrawn in 2011, about $1,500 extra for every household in Canada, Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page reported today. Mr. Page's report says the real extra cost of the Canadian military mission — over and above what would have been spent for the upkeep of the military anyway — is billions more than Ottawa has estimated, and perhaps almost twice as high.      Full news...

  • October 9, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Ministry warns of severe food shortage
    IRIN: Afghanistan faces a deficit of two million tonnes of staple food - primarily wheat flour and rice - to feed millions of vulnerable people in the coming six months, the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL) has said. Drought has led to the failure of up to 90 percent of rain-fed agriculture and also damaged irrigated land, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said.      Full news...

  • October 9, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    The Surge That Failed: Afghanistan under the Bombs
    TomDispatch.com: Washington spends about $100 million a day on this war -- close to $36 billion a year -- but only five cents of every dollar actually goes towards aid. From this paltry sum, the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief found that "a staggering 40 percent has returned to donor countries in corporate profits and salaries." The economy is so underdeveloped that opium production accounts for more than half of the country's gross domestic product.      Full news...

  • October 9, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Lawyer demands release for Afghan reporter on death row
    AFP: The lawyer of an Afghan reporter sentenced to death on blasphemy charges accused authorities Thursday of holding his client beyond a legal deadline, as the young man neared a full year in detention. The appeal of Perwiz Kambakhsh -- arrested last October and sentenced to death by a primary court in January -- has been repeatedly delayed because witnesses who had first testified against him did not turn up to court.      Full news...

  • October 9, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    U.S. Study Is Said to Warn of Crisis in Afghanistan
    New York Times: A draft report by American intelligence agencies concludes that Afghanistan is in a “downward spiral” and casts serious doubt on the ability of the Afghan government to stem the rise in the Taliban’s influence there, according to American officials familiar with the document. The classified report finds that the breakdown in central authority in Afghanistan has been accelerated by rampant corruption within the government of President Hamid Karzai and by an increase in violence from militants who have launched increasingly sophisticated attacks from havens in Pakistan.      Full news...

  • October 7, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    3,200 Afghan civilians killed by NATO, US action since 2005: study
    AFP: Up to 3,200 civilians have been killed in NATO and US action in Afghanistan since 2005 but compensation payouts have been far lower than in other global cases, according to research by a US professor. The use of air power is growing, raising risks for civilians, University of New Hampshire professor Marc W. Herold says in research released on the anniversary of the October 7, 2001 launch of the invasion of Afghanistan.      Full news...

  • October 7, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Bearing Witness: The Afghan Tragedy
    The Nation Magazine: Seven years after the US invasion of Afghanistan, our devastated country is still chained to the fundamentalist warlords and the Taliban; the country is like an unconscious body breathing its last. The US government and its allies exploited the plight of Afghan women to legitimate its so-called "war on terror" and attack on Afghanistan. The medieval and brutal regime of the Taliban was toppled, but instead of relying on Afghan people, the United States and its allies pushed us from the frying pan to the fire and brought the infamous criminals of the "Northern Alliance" into power--sworn enemies of democracy and human rights, who are as dark-minded, evil, anti-women and cruel as the Taliban.      Full news...

  • October 7, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Ex-militia chiefs 'snatch up Kabul's green land'
    Quqnoos: Residents in Kabul have accused former militia commanders of snatching up the capital’s green spaces illegally and building large houses on them. The city council has confirmed that ex-jihadi commanders forcefully seized green land in the city and it promised to prevent future illegal land-grabs.      Full news...

  • October 6, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    The Matrix of Death: (Im)Precision of U.S Bombing and the (Under)Valuation of an Afghan Life
    RAWA News: US/NATO bombs kill about ten times more Afghan civilians with a ton of our “precision” bombs than we killed Serbs in 1999. More than 80% of Afghan civilian deaths today caused by the US/NATO are due to close air support attacks. They (Afghans) are only worth one-tenth of an Alaskan sea otter rather than forty camels. We spend ten dollars on the military in Afghanistan to pursue our geo-strategic aims and less than $1 on reconstructing the everyday lives of Afghans devastated by thirty years of war.      Full news...

  • October 5, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Reports Link Karzai’s Brother to Heroin Trade
    New York Times: The White House says it believes that Ahmed Wali Karzai is involved in drug trafficking, and American officials have repeatedly warned President Karzai that his brother is a political liability, two senior Bush administration officials said in interviews last week. Neither the Drug Enforcement Administration, which conducts counternarcotics efforts in Afghanistan, nor the fledgling Afghan anti-drug agency has pursued investigations into the accusations against the president’s brother.      Full news...

  • October 4, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    The struggle to save Afghan mothers
    BBC News: In valleys and villages across Badakshan, a province located in the Hindu Kush mountain range, such stories are common. Maternal mortality, when a woman dies during or shortly after pregnancy, is believed to be the highest in the world here. According to statistics published by the UN in 2002, the province had the highest rate of mortal maternity ever recorded.      Full news...

  • October 2, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Human Rights Violation in Afghanistan “has doubled”
    BBC Persian (Translated by RAWA): The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) says that human rights violation cases in the country have increased by two times as compared to last year. Continuation of the mafia culture in Afghanistan and “lack of concern” in the prosecution of the criminals are the main causes of increase in cases of human rights violation. Lack of security in Afghanistan was another cause of the continuation of human rights violation in the country.      Full news...

  • October 2, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    British Ambassador to Kabul 'says Afghanistan mission is doomed'
    Telegraph.co.uk: In the diplomatic cable written by François Fitou, the deputy French ambassador, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles is also quoted as saying that the coalition's military presence is "part of the problem not the solution". In the cable, dated Sept 2 and published in the investigative and satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaîne, Sir Sherard is quoted as having said that "the current situation is bad. Security is worsening, but also corruption, and the current government has lost all credit."      Full news...

  • October 1, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    The Afghan Plight -- Why the West is on the verge of failing at the Hindukush
    Middle East Times: A new book by a German journalist takes an in-depth look at the West's failing attempts to win the war in Afghanistan. Merey's book is reporting in the best sense -- it includes several chapters detailing Afghanistan's key problems: the corrupt and inefficient government of Hamid Karzai; the drug industry that no one has been able to contain or even destroy; NATO bombings that have led to civilian casualties; Pakistan's secret financing and influencing of the Taliban. He tells the story of a man who wants to join the Taliban together with his two sons, because ISAF troops accidentally killed his third boy.      Full news...

  • September 30, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Kidnappers target the rich, influential in Afghanistan
    AFP: Mohammed Hashim Wahaaj, a large Afghan doctor with a bushy beard, thought he was going to die. He says his abductors were not from the extremist Taliban insurgency, who have kidnapped and killed scores of people they accuse of working for the government or its international allies. These were just criminals profiting from a climate of lawlessness and impunity in which government officials at the most senior levels are getting away with crime and corruption, the softly spoken doctor said.      Full news...

  • September 30, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Fears Over “Islamicisation” of Judiciary
    IWPR: The competence and credibility of the Afghan judiciary is being called into serious question by two controversial convictions which have caused an international outcry. The two cases, the most recent concluded last month, concern alleged transgressions of Islamic law, with critics claiming the convictions are deeply flawed and should be overturned on appeal. Some have suggested that the cases expose what they see as the creeping Islamicisation of the judiciary, insisting that the bench is composed of religious hardliners with Taliban sympathies.      Full news...

  • September 29, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Food crisis competes for Afghan “hearts and minds”
    Reuters: Afghanistan is facing one of its worst food shortages in years as winter approaches, with prices of the staple wheat rising 60 percent in the first half of the year after Pakistan slapped export bans, a poor harvest and drought. Rising prices are hitting what is already one of the poorest countries in the world, with more than half of the population living below the poverty line. Households dependent on wage labour can afford to buy a quarter of the wheat they bought in 2007, according to the World Food Programme. This in a country where the majority of household wages are spent on basic foods such as cereals.      Full news...

  • September 29, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Waste management slipping out of control in Kabul
    IRIN: Population growth and the construction boom in Kabul over the past few years have resulted in the daily production of over 3,000 tonnes (109,500 tonnes annually) of solid waste. Some of this has been accumulating, causing serious health and environmental damage, according to Kabul Municipality. Medical doctors at Kabul’s Indira Gandhi Child Hospital (IGCH) said many children had picked up diarrhoea, dysentery or cholera from contaminated water. “Unsafe drinking water causes almost half of the diseases among children,” said Khalilullah Hodkhil, head of the IGCH.      Full news...

  • September 29, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    About 30 Historical Relics Stolen from Herat Museum
    PAN (Translated by RAWA): Unknown armed men stole 20 to 30 historical relics including a Buddha statue from the National Museum of Herat. Three unknown armed men had entered the museum (in Arg Ikhtyaruddin of Herat) from the rooftop two nights back and stolen about 30 historical literary objects. The missing artifacts included a Buddha statue; two stone-made literary works from the Buddhism era; and other relics of the pre-Islamic and Islamic era, including some dishes of the Ghaznawyan era.      Full news...

  • September 28, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Poverty, unemployment driving Afghanistan towards instability
    Xinhua: The war-torn Afghanistan has experienced a deadliest year in 2008 since the collapse of Taliban regime in late 2001 as so far this year more than 4,000 people including 1,445 civilians have been killed. Driving factors towards increasing instability, according to Afghans, is high rate of unemployment and poverty in the war-wrecked country. Many of those fighters joining Taliban insurgents are illiterate tribal people, young seminarians and low educated jobless youths.      Full news...

  • September 28, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Taliban revival sets fear swirling through Kabul
    The Sunday Times: Nobody seriously thinks the Taliban could take Kabul. The capital is surrounded by mountains, has only a few routes in and remained almost untouched during the Russian occupation. Afghanistan has more than 71,000 foreign troops under the leadership of Nato and the US, neither of which can contemplate defeat. It is hard to find any Afghan families who hanker after a Taliban regime that banned everything from girls’ schools to television and regarded public amputations and executions as entertainment. However, the fear among Kabulis is palpable. “There is a sense of dread of return to the dark days of the past,” said a western diplomat.      Full news...

  • September 28, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Afghan woman police director gunned down by Taliban
    Canwest News Service: As Afghanistan's most senior and most famous female police officer, based in the country's ultra-conservative south, Lieut.-Col. Malalai Kakar knew she was a marked woman. On Sunday, two days after taking part in a Canadian event to mark the end of Islam's holiest month, insurgents grimly confirmed her fears, shooting Kakar dead as she left her house.      Full news...

  • September 25, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Attorney of Kunduz: some authorities in Sher Khan Port involved in drug-trafficking with mafia
    PAN (Translated by RAWA): Head of the attorney of Kunduz claims that drug-trafficking is taking place in Sher Khan Bandar (Port) but it's not being stopped, but the authorities of Sher Khan Bandar deny the claims. Hafizullah Khaliqyar, the head of the attorney of Kunduz told PAN in an interview that alcoholic drinks are imported into Afghanistan from Tajikistan and drugs (heroin and opium) are smuggled by Afghanistan into Tajikistan.      Full news...

  • September 25, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Seven men gang-raped a 12-year-old girl in Kabul
    BBC Persian (Translated by RAWA): The police of Kabul say that they have arrested seven people for having raped a 12-year old girl in the city. The command police of Kabul said that the matter of the rape of the girl had been reported to them two days earlier and the girl had claimed that she had been raped by twelve men.      Full news...

  • September 25, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    People eat grass to quench hunger in Bamyan
    PAN: Almost sixty percent residents of Yaka-wolang district of central Bamyan province are facing starvation with some families reportedly relying on consumption of fodder, officials said Thursday. Muhammad Nasir Fayaz district chief of Yaka-wolang told Pajhwok Afghan News agriculture crop were affected by different infections the very reason faced the locals to hunger and posed great threat to their lives.      Full news...

  • September 23, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    German government invites an Afghan Warlord, The Left protests
    LEFT PARTY group in German Parliament: “By inviting the former warlord Haji Mohammed Mohaqeq to Berlin, the German government demonstrates once again that it supports the wrong concepts, the wrong instruments, and the wrong people”, explains MP Heike Hänsel. The spokes woman for development politics of the LEFT PARTY parliamentary group announced that she and her fellow MPs would establish a support network for democratic groups in Afghanistan.      Full news...

  • September 22, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Claim of Rape of a 12-year Old girl in Qunduz, Northern Afghanistan
    BBC Persian (Translated by RAWA): A family in Qunduz province in North Afghanistan has claimed that four people had raped their 12-year old daughter. This girl who herself was present in the binoculars of the press told reporters that first she had been kidnapped on the way from her home to the city and kept in an unknown place for a night. This 12-year old also said that four men had raped her.      Full news...

  • September 22, 2008 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
    Secret society campaigns for female rights
    The National: RAWA was founded in 1977 by a group of female Afghan intellectuals with the aim of building a government along democratic and secular lines. In the ensuing decades it has protested against foreign occupation and religious extremism, while carrying out such social work as running schools and medical services for refugees who fled to Pakistan. RAWA has never been able to operate openly in this deeply conservative society. Its leader was assassinated in the late 1980s and members now believe US-backed warlords and officials are among those who      Full news...



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