AFP: Eight Afghans, including seven children, were killed in two separate blasts Friday, officials said, the latest civilian deaths to hit the troubled country. In the first incident, four children died when a roadside bomb went off as they played near their home in Nangarhar province, near the country’s eastern border with Pakistan. Full story ...
BBC News: More than 2.5 million people face hunger in drought-stricken areas of Afghanistan despite billions of dollars of aid that have poured into the country in recent years, aid agencies say. Many villagers have only limited supplies of food left as winter looms, as the BBC’s Mike Thomson reports from the central province of Bamiyan. Full story ...
The Christian Science Monitor: With his broad cheekbones, hair swept back under a sequined cap, and the gentle manner of a well-to-do Pashtun, Atal Afghanzai might easily pass for a doctor or an engineer. Instead, his career path led into a cloak-and-dagger world of covert armies and foreign agents, until a rare lethal run-in with an Afghan police chief landed him on death row in Kabul’s most notorious prison. Full story ...
Al Jazeera: A US-funded survey in Afghanistan says that 73 per cent of the population is satisfied with the government’s performance, a claim which leaders and analysts have disputed as being far from reality. The survey, published by Asia Foundation, a US-based non-profit with more than a dozen offices across Asia, also said that nearly half of Afghans think their country is moving in the right direction. Full story ...
The Daily Star: “The Taliban come to any house they please, by force. Then they fire from that house, and then [the International Security and Assistance Force] and the Afghan National Army fire at the house. But if I tell the Taliban not to enter, the Taliban will kill me. So what is the answer? Either ISAF kills me or the Taliban kills me. The people cannot live like this.” Full story ...
IWPR: In a parliamentary scandal of a peculiarly Afghan variety, former members are failing to hand back the firearms they were issued with. As well as around 400 Kalashnikov rifles and pistols, computers have gone missing from former members’ offices, parliamentary staff say. Although the loss of weapons and other items may seem minor in a country awash with guns and plagued with corruption... Full story ...
CBS News: The former prisoner of the American military in his native Afghanistan entered the office leaning on a crutch. He said he had trouble walking after spending a year confined to a 35-square-foot jail cell at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, about an hour’s drive north of the capital, Kabul. He agreed to speak with us only if we kept his identity hidden. We agreed to call him just “Mohammed.” Full story ...
PAN: A sharp increase has been registered in fuel prices over the 10 days in western Herat province, which borders a major gas exporting country, Turkmenistan. The price of a kilogram of liquefied gas has increased by 25 afghanis during the period, residents of Herat city, the provincial capital, say Full story ...
The Times: Assadullah Sher Mohammad, who is serving 12 years in Kabul’s notorious Pul-e Charkhi jail for raping and making pregnant a 19-year-old relative, said the EU “had done a good thing”. Yet his endorsement, first delivered when The Times visited him in jail two months ago and reiterated by his brother yesterday, has highlighted the EU’s growing isolation. Full story ...
AFP: Eight civilians including a newly-wed groom were killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan on Saturday, the latest innocent victims to die despite a Taliban call to limit their deaths. The victims, who also included a woman and a child, were killed in the eastern province of Laghman when their car was blown up as they returned home after the man’s wedding party late Friday. Full story ...
Politico: As the U.S. continues its efforts to help Afghanistan, a new poll shows that the percentage of Afghans who are suffering is rising, based on what they say about their lives. Three out of ten Afghans, or 30 percent, were determined in the latest Gallup poll to be “suffering.” This is 7 percentage points higher than in 2010, when 23 percent of Afghans were classified as suffering. Full story ...
AFP: A mother and daughter were killed in their home in eastern Afghanistan Friday by armed men who apparently accused them of “immoral activities,” officials and neighbours said. The two attackers burst into the home of the widow and her daughter in Ghazni city at around 4:00 am and shot them dead, said Ghazni provincial police chief Zilawar Zahid. Full story ...
PAN: A civilian was killed during a clash between Taliban fighters and security forces in the western province of Farah, officials said on Friday. The clash erupted on Thursday evening in the Shiwan village of Bala Boluk district when Taliban fighters attacked a police checkpoint, the district police chief, Maj. Abdul Basir, told Pajhwok Afghan News. Full story ...
Global Post: The European Union has banned a film that it commissioned about Afghan women in prison for “moral crimes”. The decision to block the release has led to row between the EU, the film-makers and human rights activists, the ABC reported. The documentary, called In-Justice, was reportedly withdrawn because of concerns for the safety of the women it portrayed. Full story ...
The Times: Sonia stole some money from her mother’s dresser and fled the house in such a panic that it was only in the road outside that she realised her shoes were different colours. But by then it was too dangerous to turn back. Shrouded in a burka and with tears streaming down her face, the 14-year-old was fleeing an arranged marriage to a Taleban insurgent. Full story ...
IRIN: Resettlement challenges in Afghanistan have discouraged refugees living in neighbouring countries from going home, with 60,000 returning in the past 10 months against 100,000 during the same period last year, officials said. "The most important [reasons] relate to lack of opportunities for livelihoods and shelter, but also due to insecurity in some parts of the country,"... Full story ...
Xinhua: In many countries, including Afghanistan, begging has been regarded as a taboo, but in this war- ravaged and poverty-stricken country, many people including women has adopted begging as a profession to support their families. “Continued conflicts have destroyed my life, claimed the life of my husband and forcing me to beg for alms in order to survive,”... Full story ...
IWPR: A controversial film depicting the plight of Afghan refugees in Iran was pulled at the eleventh hour in Kabul, sparking angry allegations that the authorities had caved into pressure from Tehran. As the furore over the cancellation escalated, the Afghan parliament summoned information and culture minister Sayed Makhdum Rahin, who has oversight over such events. Full story ...
The Times: If it weren’t for the tank traps and grey blast-walls, the extravagant mansions in Kabul’s most expensive neighbourhood would not look out of place in a fairytale. Ornately gilded pillars hold up pastel-hued balconies; brightly coloured domes crown mosaic walls made of mirrored tiles. Yet Sherpur district, which 130 years ago hosted General Frederick Roberts’s cantonment during the Second AngloAfghan war, is anything but magical. Full story ...
The San Francisco Chronicle: Hardly anyone noticed, but the Afghan government cut the budget for the state’s Independent Human Rights Commission by half this year, evidencing “the government’s lack of interest and political will in the promotion of human rights,” the commission said. Nowhere on Earth is the work of a human rights commission more important than in Afghanistan. Why is that? Full story ...
NNI: U.S. Special Operatiozns Forces (SOF) killed well over 1,500 civilians in night raids in less than 10 months in 2010 and early 2011, analysis of official statistics on the raids released by the U.S.-NATO command reveals.U.S. soldiers dismount from their vehicle and prepare to raid a series of compounds in the Maywand District of Afghanistan on Nov. 22, 2010. Full story ...
Daily Mail: One U.S. veteran of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan attempts suicide every 80 minutes, according to new study. In a staggering indictment on the lack of mental health programmes in the U.S. military, the report reveals 1,868 veterans made suicide attempts in 2009 alone. Many veterans face dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder, high employment and a loss of military camaraderie after returning from tours. Full story ...
Fox News (Blog): Ten years on and not halfway there. That was the assessment of the war in Afghanistan that was delivered last month by retired four star General Stanley McChrystal. In a speech, our “former top U.S. military commander in the war said the United States and its allies are only “50 percent of the way” toward achieving their goals,” Yahoo News reported. Full story ...
Green Left Weekly: Prime Minister Julia Gillard has urged Australians not to be overly concerned about the incident that left three Australian soldiers dead and five wounded in Afghanistan on October 29. But dissident veterans and ex-service people say that Gillard is dangerously deluded if she thinks what has happened lacks significance. Full story ...
The Seattle Times: A fellow soldier testified that Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs pulled out a tooth from an unarmed Afghan villager who had just been killed and offered it to him. “I didn’t say no. I just said, ’Yeah. I will get it later.’ Then I didn’t,” Pvt. Adam Winfield testified Wednesday. In the third day of court-martial proceedings against Gibbs, Winfield gave a chilling account of the May 2010 slaying... Full story ...
The Victoria Times Colonist: Judges in Afghanistan’s southeast nangarhar province have started sentencing anyone caught drinking alcohol to 80 lashes. When the Taliban movement was in power, penalties derived from Islamic law were routinely imposed. Stoning or amputation was the norm for someone convicted of adultery or theft. Full story ...
ABC Online: With the tragic death of three more Australian soldiers in Afghanistan, concerned citizens will be asking themselves whether the sacrifice of human lives (on all sides) can still be justified, despite predictable government reassurances, public indifference and the lack of proper media scrutiny. Full story ...
Al Jazeera: “After four decades of brutal dictatorship and eight months of deadly conflict, the Libyan people can now celebrate their freedom and the beginning of a new era of promise,” President Obama said last week. The capture and death of Muammar Gaddafi prompted him and other US officials to congratulate the Libyan people... Full story ...
The Washington Post: Across the street from U.S. military headquarters in Kabul, shrouded from view by concrete walls, the Afghan intelligence agency runs a detention facility for up to 40 terrorism suspects that is known as Department 124. So much torture took place inside, one detainee told the United Nations, that it has earned another name: “People call it Hell.” Full story ...
The Independent: Chinese mandarins in the 19th century were faced with the delicate task of explaining to their emperor the repeated defeats of his armies. To avoid embarrassing questions, they adopted the simple device of describing them all as victories. The British Army has adopted a similar approach in explaining its failure in Iraq and Afghanistan. Full story ...
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