BBC, 12 February 2014 The BBC's Bilal Sarwary, who so far has publishes scores of beautiful photos from rarely seen corners of Afghanistan on his twitter account, has added some text to some of them now. Today: from Helmand. We hope that this will become a serial.
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IWPR, 10 February 2014 Now the ANSF are running into a major problem that dogged the interrnational forces and undermined their support in Afghanistan: civilian casualties. IWPR has cases from Helmand, involving the national army, police and the notorious Afghan Local Police.
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BBC, 7 February 2014 An Afghan man describes how he smuggled himself into Britain through the Channel Tunnel aged 14 after Taleban invaded his village and killed many members of his family. Watch a video here.
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Pajhwok News Agency, 6 February 2014 The list of 1400 companies and individuals involved in the illegal extraction of mines that had been released a year ago by the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum has not arrived at the Attorney General Office (AGO) yet, reports the Kabul-based news agency. And it is shrinking: Integrity Watch says the initial […]
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Raggazi Consulting blog, 31 January 2014 Mario Ragazzi celebrates the new Chinese Year of the Horse with a fascinating story of a diplomatic mission sent by Ahmad Shah Durrani to the court in Beijing in 1762, before the background of Qing expansion in Central Asia. Although the Afghan king sent four splendid horses (see them depicted […]
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Tolonews, 27 January 2014. A Parwan MP and family members of the civilians killed two weeks ago during a confrontation between Taliban insurgents and coalition and Afghan forces in Ghorband District have called into question the accuracy of the recent report submitted to President Hamid Karzai on the incident.
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The Guardian, 26 January 2014 Emma Graham-Harrison, reporting from Samangan, point to the often neglected social side of events in Afghanistan: "More than half of Afghan girls and boys suffer damage to their minds and bodies that cannot be undone because they are poorly nourished in the crucial first two years of life", acoording to […]
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IWPR, 20 January 2014 Residents say a local arrangement governed by "nerkh", part of customary law, has kept the peace in the district "to an extent rare in other parts of the country", IWPR reports. Although Zazi Maidan "shares a border with the restive northwest of Pakistan, people here say they are able to work […]
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Foreign Policy, 15 January 2014 Middle East Institute's veteran Afghanistan watcher Marvin Weinbaum gives us an interesting alternative read of the Afghan-US scuffles over the BSA and sees some Hezb-e Islami influence in it.
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New York Times, 13 January 2014 Panjshiris are preparing themselves against a Taleban comeback, reports the Times. "Western security experts and senior Afghan defense officials say Panjshiri boasts about squirreling away weapons throughout the valley are credible. … Panjshir is also the only province where uniformed agents from the National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan’s main intelligence […]
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Consortium News, 10 January 2014 A quick reaction by investigativ journalist Garteh Porter on former US defence secretary Robert Gates' upcoming book (print version to be out on 14 January), putting some of Gates' – probably not fully impartial – statements, and some telling omissions, in context.
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Le Monde diplomatique (English version), January 2014 Very interesting Article by the head of the Farsi version of the newspaper (which is available in print only as a supplement to Seda-ye Edalat journal, 60/6 rue Sarve, Ave Vali Asr, Tehran), but this version is accessible for subscribers only. A German version can be read in full […]
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