BAAG blog, 11 July 2013 BAAG director Jawed Nader describes how a friend was recruiting staff for a call centre in Kabul – and found 300 people waiting, many of whom had lost better-paid jobs as a a result of the ongoing withdrawal of western troops. He quotes OCHA’s humanitarian coordinator saying humanitarian funding for […]
Recommended Reads
Washington Post, 10 July 2013 The US military has erected a 64,000-square-foot headquarters building in Helmand that comes with all the tools to wage a modern war – but is unused. The WP’s Rajiv Chandrasekaran calls it the ‘whitest elephant’ in Afghanistan. So, there are more white US elephants, and Rajiv names some more of […]
Recommended Reads
Vice.com, 6 July 2013 Visiting Kunduz ALP commander Nabi Gechi.
Recommended Reads
Afghanistan Today, 26 June 2013 An interesting look into the workings of Kunduz economy: The 2014 combat troop withdrawal gives some enterpreneurs the jitters, and it has its effects: ‘In 2012, a day labourer was paid on average 500 Afghanis (almost nine US dollars). The wage has now halved in some areas. Recession aside, finding […]
Recommended Reads
The Star, 21 June 2013 New hints at the possibility of a deal for exchanging prisoners made by the Taleban representatives in Qatar have rekindled hopes in the US of bringing home Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, prisoner since 2009. The Taleban, on the other hand, ask for the release of some of their senior officials long […]
Recommended Reads
The Express Tribune, 20 June 2013 This long article by the Pakistani newspaper offers Islamabad’s take of the opening of the Taleban office in Qatar. According to its many (unnamed) diplomatic sources “the real breakthrough in these negotiations came through personal diplomacy between John Kerry and Pakistan’s Army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.” It thus […]
Recommended Reads
El Snarkistani Storify feed, 19 June 2013 AAN guest blogger Gary Owens gathered examples of the apt and insightful social media presence of US Ambassador James Warlick.
Recommended Reads
IWPR, 13 June 2013 IWPR reporters track down the lot of a 100,000$ worth of medical help meant for the clinic of remote (and contested) Azra district of Logar immediately after it had been hit hard by a truck bomb in July 2011 (AAN then wrote about the ruthless attack). The materials apparently never made […]
Recommended Reads
Afghanistan Today, 6 June 2013 Safe houses and shelters are a life-saving resource for many Afghan women who have run away from violence or have been disowned by their families. But such sanctuaries as the House of Hope in Mazar-e Sharif can lose their funding after 2014 if the government does not step in to […]
Recommended Reads
al-Jazeera, 6 June 2013 Dozens of Afghans have been executed in recent months across the border in Iran, mostly for drug related offences, writes Bettany Matta. She looks into some individual cases, and also reports that the Taleban claim that they had taken up the issue in their recent meeting in Tehran: ‘We mentioned all […]
Recommended Reads
Poetry Foundation (no date) Read a fascinating article about one of the most popular Pashtun literary forms, the landay, in its 22 syllables a kind of Afghan haiku – and about them into picking up current events.
Recommended Reads
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 5 June 2013 Bashir Ahmad Gwakh teels the story how the air was let out of some over-hyped popular books about Afghanistan.
Recommended Reads
