The Daily Beast, 10 January 2012 Sami Yousafzai and Ron Moreau contribute another of their usually very enlightening reports, after talking to a ‘former Taleban diplomat’ (guess who) in Kabul and an active Taleban commander who provides some interesting thoughts and info: that the Taleban negotiators ‘care about only one issue: winning the release of […]
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Reuters, 9 January 2012 Only one in three Afghans has access to electricity despite years of spending to improve supply, the head of the country’s state owned power utility DABS says. Kabul is far better than the rest of the country, with around 70 percent of households connected.
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Los Angeles Times, 9 January 2012 A combination of factors is making this winter harder to bear as the number of displaced soars in Kabul.
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IWPR, 4 January 2012 The Kabul-based agency reports people’s perceptions of the security handover in three districts in Helmand. One resident quotes says that the handover was ‘a good thing but had come too soon for Helmand, where the Taleban were fully in control of some areas while the government only held major urban centres […]
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AP, 3 January 2012 The Taliban have confirmed officially on Tuesday that they will open an office in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar to hold talks with the United States, an unprecedented step toward a peace process that might lead to a winding down of the 10-year war in Afghanistan.
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IWPR, 3 January 2012 Farmers in Afghanistan’s Helmand province say they are determined to grow as much opium poppy as they can this season. Some blame official efforts to encourage them to switch to other crops, which they say have failed to lift them out of poverty. Others say the Taleban intimidate them into colluding […]
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Wall Street Journal, 29 December 2011 Article not only describes how Obama’s decision to withdraw troops puts the brakes on $300 million in projects for FOB Shahrana (Paktika), but also illustrates the contradicitons in US policy; ‘hearts and minds counterinsurgency’, kill/capture, moving the surge to the east, and now ‘rationalising’ and handing over
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AFP, 28 December 2011 Peter Nicolaus, head of the UN refugee programme in Afghanistan on Tuesday described its strategy in the war-wracked country since 2002 as the ‘biggest mistake UNHCR ever made’. He said the international community had failed to help returnees find a means of earning a living and therefore reintegrating into society and […]
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New York Times, 27 December 2011 ‘President Hamid Karzai has taken steps to disband a little-known, irregular police force financed by the American military with members in at least four northern provinces’, reports the NYT, ‘known as the Critical Infrastructure Police’ in Balkh, Kunduz, Jowzjan and Faryab as well as possibly in Sarepul provinces. And […]
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al-Jazeera, 26 December 2011 A detailed analysis of which role, how differently, the former Taleban residing in Kabul play in the peace process, with some interesting quotes about their relationship with the Taleban movement and Karzai’s mistrust about Zaeef and Mutawakkel for perceived closeness with the US and Britain.
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Washington Post, 23 December 2011 Karen DeYoung reports that a ‘tentative accord’ with Taliban negotiators that would have included the transfer of five Afghans from U.S. detention at Guantanamo Bay to house arrest in Qatar, where the Taliban planned to open an office, and the Taliban’s public renunciation of international terrorism has broken down. Reasons […]
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New York Times, 23 December 2011 ‘Mr. Karzai and his closest aides have forced out AIHRC commissioner Nader Nadery of the Afghan indepedent human rights commission, according to Afghan rights activists and Western officials. The final straw for the Karzai administration appeared to be a report that he has championed, which exhaustively details atrocities committed […]
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