New York Times, 26 April 2016 “Women’s sports programs in Afghanistan, long a favorite of Western donors, have all but collapsed”, writes Rod Nordland in his hair-raising story. “With few exceptions, the sports programs have become riddled with corruption and been undermined by conservative Afghans who have never liked the idea of young women on sports […]
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Huffington Post, 12 April 2016 An almost forgotten issue: The Post looks at what Clinton and Trump say about Afghanistan during the continuing primaries.
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al-Jazeera, 11 April 2016 “Save money [to pay a smuggler]? What money? There’s no money to save. … Our only option is to go across the border into Pakistan only to be caught and brought back to the border.” For the poorest of the poor – Afghan IDPs –, prohibitive costs bar the way for them to […]
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BBC (Persian service), 5 April 2016 Interview (in Dari) with Amin Karim, leader of a Hezb-e Islami negotiations delegation in Kabul, that is about to start a third round of talks with the Afghan government (apparently through the High Peace Council). He says that his party has opted for talks “after 95 per cent of […]
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The Economist, 5 April 2016 The weekly reports from the eastern Turkish town of Van where Afghan migrants, after crossing the border from Iran, having been “beaten and extorted by smugglers and middlemen,” but were at least “expecting refuge. Instead they found a long queue to nowhere.” Of the 98,000 Afghan asylum-seekers registered in Turkey by […]
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Wall Street Journal, 5 April 2016 The US newspaper reports the mechanisms, funding and an example in Kot district of the People’s Uprising Program, a new paramilitary armament programme “to hold territory the army has recaptured from Islamic State in three districts” of Nangrahar. The fighters, “more than a thousand men [in Kot alone], … are […]
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Reuters, 14 March 2016 The agency reports that the Taleban Supreme (actually: Leadership) Council, after “secret meetings with Pakistani officials about two weeks ago … met at an undisclosed location and voted to reject the talks scheduled for early March with the Afghan government, according to a council member” – indicating how badly prepared the short-notice […]
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IRIN, 14 March 2016 Interesting wrap-up, with some new figures and assessments by the US SIGAR and ex-World Banker Bill Byrd. For example that the average yearly income per person in Afghanistan fell from $730 in 2013 to $680 the following year due to the post-withdrawal economic downturn.
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Foreign Policy, 9 February 2016 Interesting overview over the latest developments in the TAPI gas pipeline project involving Turkmenistan, Afghanistan (as transit country), Pakistan and India; about prospects for the Afghan economy deriving from it and all involved country’s energy needs.
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Express Tribune, 25 January 2016 Michael Semple’s comparison of the Afghan and Pakistani Taleban’s organisational structure, modus operandi and patterns of violence in the context of the Charsadda attack.
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Global Times, 24 January 2016 Probably China’s official position on its role in Taleban talks, in China’s official newspaper for the world.
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Washington Post, 23 January 2016 How metal scavengers and taxi drivers suffer from reduced mobility; artists, who can’t remove the walls, at least try to make them more colourful; and about the right to have proper security.
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