Pajhwok News Agency, 16 March 2014 Former defence minister Rahim Wardak has said at a press conference he is pulling out of the race but made clear that he does not support, or ask his followers to vote for, a certain other candidate.
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IWPR, 12 March 2014 "In the Shahi Qala area of Surkhrod district [in Nangrahar province,] eastern Afghanistan, half-a-dozen round towers lie scattered at intervals of a few hundred metres. They are Buddhist stupas" built when the area belonged to the Gandhara kingdom, writes the Institute for War and Peace Reporting. But they are crumbling, "as officials […]
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Washington Post, 9 March 2014 The US daily publishes an obituary about the "polarizing leader whose political and military career spanned the Soviet War and the American invasion…, [whose] battlefield experience inspired respect in many, [while] to others he symbolized a new generation of Afghan warlords who profited immensely from his proximity to power and foreign […]
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Express Tribune/AFP, 7 March 2014 Important reminder in election times: about one of the many unresolved problems that is even aggravated by the ongoing conflict – polio. Afghanistan and Pakistan are two of the worldwide only three countries where it is still endemic, and with conflict-related incomplete coverage by vaccination, new polio cases have emerged […]
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The Diplomat, 6 March 2014 "Sometimes timing in international politics can bereally bad – at least this is what those dealing with the Afghan withdrawal plans at the Pentagon must be feeling at this point", with the Crimean crisis building up, writes the author. "In the event that the United States and Europe decide to severely punish […]
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Reuters, 5 March 2014 An ambitious US-funded, $60 million project to build hospitals has run into the ground, with the largest hospital ever planned in the country unlikely to open in full, U.S. and Afghan officials said. "The USAID project started in 2008 and aimed to meet the medical needs of over two million Afghans by […]
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BBC Persian, 28 February 2014 An interesting reportage about a growing network of radical girls' madrassas centred in Kunduz, established by two mullas four years ago and called Ashraf ul-Madares. It already has branches in Takhar and Baghlan, and plans to expand to nine more provinces. According to civil society activists, the girls enroled in […]
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Fox News, 22 February 2014 "So who's getting rich off the war?", asks the right-wing US network and answers: "The biggest American benefactors of contracts in Afghanistan in recent years (…) DynCorp International, KBR and Fluor Corporation". And it says how: questionable track records, overcherging, enjoying almost monopolised access to contracts… Apart from that, it also mentions […]
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The Diplomat, 21 February 2014 "I am worried about the fact that in 1947 what is today India had a literacy rate of 18 percent and what is Pakistan today had a literacy rate of 16 percent — a difference of just 2 percent. Today, the difference is about 20 percent. Today, India has a […]
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Firstlook, 17 February 2014 The US National Security Agency "is using complex analysis of electronic surveillance, rather than human intelligence, as the primary method to locate targets for lethal drone strikes – an unreliable tactic that results in the deaths of innocent or unidentified people" (as AAN also has shown in one case from Takhar […]
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Los Angeles Times, 16 February 2014 "The Obama administration is making contingency plans to use air bases in Central Asia to conduct drone missile attacks in northwest Pakistan in case the [US] is forced to withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan at the end of this year, according to U.S. officials', the paper reports. … "Intelligence officials […]
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RFE/RL, 13 February 2014 Afghanistan makes an appearance in the world wide 17th annual Great Backyard Bird Count on 14 and 17 Fenruary, with also a photo contest involved.
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