Posts tagged: Kabul

Afghan imams wage political battle against U.S.

admin •

Washington Post, 17 February 2011 The authors look at what is preached in Kabul’s mosques during the Friday sermons – a find a lot of hatred and xenophobia against ‘these Christians and Jews’: . ‘Let these brothers of monkeys, gorillas and pigs leave this country. The people of Afghanistan should determine their own fate.

17 Feb 2011

A Tahrir Effect in Kabul?

Thomas Ruttig •

Tunis, Cairo. Mass demonstrations in Sanaa, Amman and Algiers, smaller ones in Damascus, Nouakschott and Khartum. Even in Azerbaijan people started protesting after they realized that they had a Mubarak statue in the Azeri-Egyptian Friendship Park in their capital Baku. Many people have been asking: Is this the fifth wave of democratization now? And some […]

14 Feb 2011

The Afghan Bank Heist

admin •

The New Yorker, 14 February 2011 Keywords: Afghanistan;Kabul Bank;(Pres.) Hamid Karzai;Khalil Ferozi;Corruption;Sherkhan Farnood;Mahmoud Karzai.

14 Feb 2011

Kabul – Tunis

Thomas Ruttig •

The support for elections and the democratic movement in Tunisia promised by the EU and EU member governments seems to concentrate more on process than on content of elections. This sounds familiar from an Afghan angle. AAN’s Senior Analyst Thomas Ruttig was hoping that governments had learned from Afghanistan’s elections disasters – but hears the […]

19 Jan 2011

Flash from the Past: … but not without snow

Kate Clark •

Ten years ago, AAN’s senior analyst Kate Clark was reporting on the first snow of the 2000/2001 winter for the BBC from Kabul which, then, was still ruled by the Taleban; people then were hoping a horrific drought would finally be breaking. An estimated twelve million Afghans had been hit by crop failure, many were […]

13 Jan 2011

The Muhammad Omar everybody should listen to

In this Pashto Mashto blog, Fabrizio Foschini goes for a stroll in Kabul’s musical scene, according to his own, rather personal experience of it. I have always been a lazy student. When, on some Fridays, my ustad wakes me up shouting over the phone ‘Ahmad where the hell are you? Come, and today don’t bring your rubab! […]

5 Dec 2010

Afghan Government Declares Kabul Smog Holiday

Kate Clark •

From tomorrow, 1 December, until the end of the Afghan year (20 March), Kabul will enjoy a proper, two-day weekend. Every Thursday, government offices will be closed and workers asked to stay at home. But it is not a social achievement – it is a smog-induced extra holiday, an attempt to give this polluted city […]

30 Nov 2010

Taliban Leader in Secret Talks Was an Impostor

admin •

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) […]

22 Nov 2010

Participants Say Kabul Meeting Was ‘Brainstorming Session,’ Not Taliban Talks

admin •

Radio Free Europe, 7 October 2010 Abubakar Siddique talked to participants of the Abu Dhabi Process meeting in Kabul, amongst them Mulla Za’if who said that ‘a European research organization put together this seminar to discuss the problems in Afghanistan and how they can be resolved. It had opinion makers, intellectuals, and politicians from both […]

7 Oct 2010

4/5 October: TLO presents Uruzgan report

AAN • admin •

Our partner organisation The Liaison Office (TLO) in Kabul has presented its latest report in the Netherlands’ parliament and in the Dutch Embassy in Kabul: ‘The Dutch engagement in Uruzgan’ – an analysis of the four-year Dutch civil-military engagement in this southern Afghan province that ended on 1 August this year. The publication of the […]

1 Oct 2010

Kabul’s kitschy wedding cake architecture

Anne Feenstra •

Kabul is a city of dramatic contrasts. In the streets, shiny black-windowed limousines drive immediately alongside scruffy pushcarts with wobbly wheels. On the sidewalks, one-legged beggars hold out hands to well-dressed business men in sharp, knitted suits and gleaming shoes. In the built environment, too, these contrasts seem nearly infinite writes our guest blogger Anne […]

27 Aug 2010

In Kabul, a Service for Slain Aid Workers

admin •

New York Times blog, 13 August 2010 Rob Nordland reports from the memorial service for the murdered aid workers at the old British Cemetary in Kabul.

13 Aug 2010