Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Month: September 2009

UNODC Sees Afghan Drug Cartels Emerging – With One Eye Closed

Thomas Ruttig •

U.N. Sees Afghan Drug Cartels Emerging’, reads a headline in the 2 September issue of the New York Times. Now the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) got it. Or did it? The headline reminds of a 2008 World Bank paper (William A. Byrd, Responding to Afghanistan’s Opium Economy Challenge, The World Bank, South Asia […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

September 2009: New Book Out: Decoding the New Taliban

AAN • admin •

Edited by London School of Economics’ Antonio Giustozzi, the new book ‘Decoding the New Taliban’ combines a number of analyses of how the post-2001 Taliban made their way forward in various regions and provinces of Afghanistan. Additionally, cross-cutting issues – the Taliban’s link with the opium trade and their propaganda campaign – and the Pakistani […]

Events Read more

AAN Election Blog No. 29: ‘A fraud would go unnoticed’

Thomas Ruttig •

Imagine it is election-day and someone else casts your vote. It is possible because in many polling stations no one will ask for your ID card. Malalai Nassir (not her real name) was flabbergasted. When she went to the ballot box on election-day, the electoral staff did not check her ID card. No, that’s not […]

Political Landscape Read more

AAN Election Blog No. 28: Two Paktias?

Thomas Ruttig •

A member of the US PRT in Paktia also experienced that amazingly brilliant blue sky over Paktia. But the elections she saw were quite different from what I have experienced there. When I went to the polling site in Tandar village in Paktia, some 22 kilometres away from the provincial capital Gardez, on election-day on […]

Political Landscape Read more

Epistemology of Reconciliation debate

AAN • admin •

While analysts, journalists and diplomats obsess over the twists and turns of the vote count in Kabul, an interesting discussion on ‘Reconciliation’ unfolded in the American Institute of Afghanistan Studies on Wednesday evening. ‘Reconciliation’ did indeed prove to be a magic word loaded with politics, possibilities and polarities, drawing a packed house with no standing […]

Events Read more

AAN In The Media – September 2009

AAN Team •

VN sturen Amerikaanse gezant de laan uit (UN dismisses American envoy) De Standaard Daily (Belgium), 30 September 2009. Article on Gaibrath’s dismissal quotes AAN on the fact that the UN had initiated an internal inquiry into a leak to the press on the existence of fake polling stations. Conflict binnen VN over fraude Afghanistan (Conflict […]

AAN in the Media Read more

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