IWPR, 3 June 2014 A story of war and neglect: Khost’s government-run almond gardens and fruit orchards are drying up. “I am the only gardener for the orchard,” the report quotes one Hakim Khan, 50. “If I walked all day, I couldn’t get from one side to the other. We have no equipment to work with, […]
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Digital Journal, 30 May 2014 Self-explanatory article with some intersting catch words: The Overseas Contingency Operations budget, Counter-Terrorism Partnership Fund, US private intelligence and military contractors, Expeditionary Warfare; Irregular Warfare; Special Operations; Stabilization and Reconstruction Operations.
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BBC, 28 May 2014 About 200 Afghans are among almost 1,000 migrants living in squalid conditions in the French port city of Calais, just across the English Channel from Britain. Among them was the man who grabbed the headlines this month when he set sail on an improvised raft to try and get to the UK, […]
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Stars and Stripes, 24 May 2014 An intersting rendering on Afghanistan’s only railway line and the US soldiers who work on its terminus, at Hairaton. (The Afghans who must be working there are not mentioned, for some reasons.)
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The Economist, 22 May 2014 The tale about two tribes in Nuristan who feuded since a hundred years, and finally made peace, after turning to the Afghan government for help.
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The National (UAE), 21 May 2014 The title says it all: interesting read for football fans. A disappointing draw for the Afghan team, under normal circumstances, but well done for a landlocked taam. We also learned that former Bundesliag coach Erich Rutemöller (formerly of 1 FC Cologne, Hansa Rostock, the Iranian national team, Esteqlal Tehran and the […]
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The Guardian, 21 May 2014 President Karzai “has suspended the three police special forces commanders responsible for securing the capital during crucial presidential elections, and plans to try them in a court martial for making illegal detentions and desecrating a mosque”, the British newspaper reports. “The three men have also been accused of collaborating with US […]
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IWPR, 19 May 2014 In remote villages of southeastern Afghanistan where people have no access to health centres, so-called village doctors, barbers and traditional bonesetters still perform services from circumcisions to tooth extractions or resetting dislocated limbs. According to modern doctors, hundreds of people die from such practices every year across Afghanistan.
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Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 19 May 2014 Interesting round table discussion of RFE/RL’s Qishloq Avazi blog, bringing together Alex Cooley from Columbia University, author of “Base Politics: Democratic Change and the U.S. Military Overseas” and “Great Games, Local Rules: The New Great Power Contest in Central Asia”; Artyom Ulunyan, head of the Balkan, Caucasus and Central […]
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Los Angeles Times, 8 May 2014 “The CIA is planning to close its satellite bases in Afghanistan and pull all its personnel back to Kabul by early summer, an unexpectedly abrupt withdrawal that the U.S. military fears will deprive it of vital intelligence while thousands of American troops remain in the country, U.S. officials said. […]
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IWPR, 1 May 2014 Southeastern Khost province suffers a shortage of qualified teachers and textbooks and only 152 out of 344 schools have a building. According to the deputy director of the province’s education department, “at the moment, [only] 30 per cent of teachers in Khost are professionals,”
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Think Progress (blog), 29 April 2014 Relatively short, but useful background on Afghanistan’s environmental problems, given the latest natural disasters in the country.
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