New York Times, 22 November 2010 ‘An episode that could have been lifted from a spy novel’ – or told by Mulla Nasreddin: The highest-ranking Taleb people in Kabul had been talking to after ‘heaving been flown to Kabul on a NATO aircraft and ushered into the presidential palace’ (apparently Western diplomats also saw him) […]
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Financial Times, 18 November 2010 Ahmad Rashid, after having spoken to him for two hours, discusses how Karzai now sees the world, how that has changed over the years and what that means for the cooperation with the West (no indications of breaking with the West yet, despite the FT headline).
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McClatchy Newspapers, 16 November 2010 Jonathan landay picks another hot iron: the privatisation of Karkar coal mine, again with some Karzai involvement.
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BBC, 15 November 2010 Scientists warn that the extraction of copper from the giant, Chinese-operated Aynak mine in Logar will destroy a 2,600-year-old Buddhist monastery with stupas when work begins. They say they are under pressure now to reduce a three-year unofficial deadline agreed between the mine’s operator, Chinese government-backed China Metallurgical Group Corp, and […]
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Maisonneuve, 15 November 2010 A Canadian internist who served in Kandahar’s Combat Surgical Hospital discusses how “[f]or someone used to the life and the pathologies of the rich and settled, much about practicing medicine in Afghanistan felt unfamiliar.” On diabetes, urbanisation, skinny Afghans, the Polynesian sea and much more.
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IRIN, 15 November 2010 A steady rise in food prices this year is posing serious risks for millions of Afghans, aid agencies say. The average wheat price in September was 7.3 percent higher than in August, and wheat prices in Afghanistan were ‘the highest in the region’, according to the WFP. Afghanistan is expecting a […]
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Washington Post, 8 November 2010 SIGAR reports: since 2005 Washington has supplied $6.6 million in salary supplements to employees in Karzai’s office. US agencies in Afghanistan
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NY Daily News, 5 November 2010 A range of opinions among the international military on the state of the insurgency: NATO spokeswoman claiming ‘low morale’, others stressing increasing tactical capabilites, but also a wider variety from ‘very competent to barely competent.’ With as closing statement: “If you ever underestimate this enemy, that’s the day they’ll […]
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ZDF, 5 November 2010 In this interview, Hekmaryar rejected any elections under President Karzai and says ‘We will only accept elections under Islamic rules and after we get freedom from all the occupational forces leave Afghanistan […]. All Islamic Afghan parties should have a consensus after this that they will not be a partner of […]
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AP, 5 November 2010 Hand-written ‘notes from Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar have surfaced in mosques all over Afghanistan’s ethnic Pashtun heartland, threatening death to anyone who takes up a government offer to negotiate for peace’, reports Kathy Gannon. She further quotes a former Taleban diplomat, now a member of the High peace Council in […]
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Washington Post, 3 November 2010 Joshua Partlow and Karen DeYoung report another governance desaster (after Marja): ‘Despite months of American prodding, the Afghan government has failed to fill dozens of key positions in Kandahar, leaving an ineffectual local administration that U.S. officials fear will cripple the battlefield progress the military says it is making in […]
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Pajhwok, 2 November 2010 The historic decorative glass industry in western Herat province is teetering on the brink of collapse due to lack of market, officials said on Tuesday.
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