AfPakChannel, 5 September 2013 The Middle East Institute's Marvin Weinbaum, a former US diplomat in Afghanistan, argues that "the illusion that talks with the Afghan Taliban can result in a grand bargain" and the belief "that there exists a shortcut to ending the Afghan conflict" should both be shed. Attention should be given to "needed domestic reforms" in […]
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dvids, 3 September 2013 No, we did not make this up. (You also can subscribe to the author of this piece. We are sure more Pulitzer material will come out of him.)
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GQ, September 2013 Matt Aikins latest story: One year ago this month, under cover of night, fifteen Taliban, dressed as American soldiers, snuck onto one of the largest air bases in Afghanistan. What followed was a bloody confrontation highlighting a startling security lapse, with hundreds of millions in matériel lost in a matter of hours—the worst […]
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TOLOnews, 22 August 2013 Emal Faizi, spokesman of President Karzai, has said that the proposed Loya Jirga to collect input from the public on the Afghan-U.S. Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) would be convened within the next two months.
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The Guardian Weekly, 9 August 2013 Learn more about Orwellian language and scary, secret tactics that make one wonder about where democracy is going: the ‘disposition matrix’, deprivation of citizenship in the UK for dual passport holders, ‘Terror Tuesday’ and a drone programme that is said to (by some) to be ‘curtailed’ but to be […]
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Afghanistan Today, 4 August 2013 Nang Durrani, reporting from Shah Wali Kot district in Kandahar, is “carefully optimistic” about the local ALP unit.
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Los Angeles Times, 4 August 2013 Remote control again: “As the U.S. military presence dwindles in Afghanistan, officials are finalizing a $200-million plan to use smartphones, GPS-enabled cameras and satellite imagery to monitor relief projects that will continue in areas deemed too remote or unsafe for Americans to visit” – “a plan some call risky”.
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National Geographic, 1 August 2013 “Afghanistan is rapidly losing its heritage on a vast scale”, Philippe Marquis, the director of DAFA, the French archaeological delegation in Afghanistan, is quoted in this report about the increased, organised looting of the country’s archaeological artefacts. “I would say that 99 percent of the archaeological sites in Afghanistan have […]
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Christian Science Monitor, 30 July 2013 Article about the regional political economy of Herat province’s Salma Dam on Harirud River, ‘a $200 million project paid for and built by India, yet delayed by Afghanistan’s turbulent history of occupations, civil war, and insurgency’. The dam will more than double cultivatable land in the area, while it […]
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Foreign Affairs, 26 July 2013 The Afghan Taleban movement might become the victim of its own propaganda, writes Michael Semple in his latest piece for Foreign Affairs magazine. Reporting meetings at the funeral of a killed Taleb from a prominent Paktia family that took place in a Pakistani city and summarising discussions held there, he […]
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Financial Times blog, 18 July 2013 A very interesting piece by Ahmed Rashid who says that Prime MInister Nawaz Sharif seems to seriously work in ‘turning Pakistan around’. He also reports that there are ‘intense daily discussions led by Mr Sharif with the powerful military, intelligence agencies, experts and others on how to create a […]
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Human Rights Watch, 17 July 2013 HRW commentary on the dire conditions of prisoners in Guantanamo , among intrusive searches, force-feeding and the lack of commitment by President Obama to his repeated pledges for the closing of the prison.
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