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Wikileaks, Strategic Communications and (Im-)Plausible Denials

Wikileaks, with its publication of some 75,000 classified US military documents on the war in Afghanistan on Sunday, has brilliantly made use of the summer slump. Instead of escaped crocodiles at lakes popular with swimmers (a favourite of the German media in former years) or silly ideas of backbenchers, we have been given the chance […]

29 Jul 2010 Thomas Ruttig • International Engagement

Aus Bündnistreue zur Sowjetunion: Eine kurze Suche nach der DDR-Entwicklungszusammenarbeit mit Afghanistan und den Spuren, die sie hinterlassen hat

Thomas Ruttig, in: T. Kunze/T. Vogel (eds.), Ostalgie international: Erinnerungen an die DDR von Nicaragua bis Vietnam, Christoph Links Verlag, Berlin, 2010. In Loyalty to the USSR: A short quest for GDR development cooperation with Afghanistan and the traces it left: Chapter in an anthology about the GDR – i.e. East German – engagement in […]

28 Jul 2010 Thomas Ruttig • External publications

Kabul Conference (4): Don’t Mention the War

The Kabul Conference has ended, the foreign ministers have left, the roads have reopened for traffic. Most Afghans seem unimpressed. Several of the ‘big speeches’, and probably quite a few of the ‘smaller’ ones, impressed upon the audience that it was actions, not words that would ultimately count. They are of course right and I […]

24 Jul 2010 Martine van Bijlert • Political Landscape

Kabul Conference (3): More plans and programs, but what has happened to the earlier ones?

There are mixed feelings among Afghans on the eve of Kabul International Conference. Many people who are involved in convening the Conference, are extremely excited and proud that it’s the FIRST international event being hosted and planned by the Afghan government during the past ten years. However, there are some other critics who continue with […]

20 Jul 2010 Thomas Ruttig • International Engagement

Kabul Conference (2): How to spend three quarters of a billion dollars

AAN has seen and studied the – not yet public – Afghan government’s plan to reintegrate Taleban who lay down their arms. We also took a look at an earlier draft (see an earlier blog) and have been following the process since well before the London conference. Now comes the moment, at the Kabul Conference, […]

19 Jul 2010 Kate Clark • Political Landscape

Kabul Conference (1): Outsmarted and made to pay

For weeks I have dismissed the Kabul conference as yet another conference – as something diplomats do, when they don’t know what to do. It was, as usual, preceded by a merry-go-round of pre-meetings and document-drafting-sessions and discrete enquiries (who is coming from your side? are you pledging?), which made it look like simply more […]

19 Jul 2010 Martine van Bijlert • International Engagement

New NDS boss – who is he?

The appointment of a new head of NDS (National Directorate of Security) has come with a lot less fanfare than the departure of the old one, Amrullah Saleh, who resigned after deep disagreements with the president over policy towards the Taleban. The acting director, Engineer Ibrahim Spinzada, has returned to the shadows and his day […]

18 Jul 2010 Kate Clark • Rights and Freedoms

Afghan civil society launches Access to Information campaign

This morning a large number of Afghan civil society organisations and several media organisations used the media attention surrounding the Kabul conference to launch a campaign highlighting the need for access to information and calling for the necessary legislation to be drafted. The demand is an important one. The pervasive ambiguity, the lack of clarity […]

18 Jul 2010 AAN Team • Rights and Freedoms

18 July 2010: Afghan Civil Society Launches Access to Information Campaign

This morning a large number of Afghan civil society organisations and several media organisations used the media attention surrounding the Kabul conference to launch a campaign highlighting the need for access to information and calling for the necessary legislation to be drafted. The demand is an important one. The pervasive ambiguity, the lack of clarity […]

18 Jul 2010 AAN • admin • Events

The Alchemy of Vetting

The vetting process on parliamentary candidates that was concluded on July 6 has resulted in the exclusion of 36 candidates for alleged links with armed groups, and a remarkable amount of confusion and doubt among those who tried to follow the process closely. There has been a consistent and intentional lack of transparency on where […]

16 Jul 2010 Fabrizio Foschini • Gran Hewad • Political Landscape