The Washington Post: Top officials in President Hamid Karzai’s government have repeatedly derailed corruption investigations of politically connected Afghans, according to U.S. officials who have provided Afganistan’s authorities with wiretapping technology and other assistance in efforts to crack down on endemic graft. In recent months, the U.S. officials said, Afgan prosecutors and investigators have...
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Archive for December, 2011
U.S. officials say Karzai aides are derailing corruption cases involving elite
NATO soldier killed in record month in Afghanistan
AFP: NATO reported on Sunday the 91st foreign soldier killed in what has been a record month for international troop deaths in Afganistan. In other violence, more than two dozen rebels were killed across the troubled nation, authorities said separately. In all, 311 soldiers have died in Afganistan so far this year, with the...
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Afghan drug addiction twice global average: UN
AFP: Eight percent of Afghans suffer from drug addiction, a rate twice the global average and a “major” growing problem for the world’s leading narcotic producer, a survey warned Monday. Issued by the Afgan government and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the report found around one million people in the country...
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Afghanistan hit by “alarming” rise in bombings: UN
AFP: Afganistan has seen an “alarming” near-doubling of roadside bomb attacks over the past year, a UN report said Saturday, as the US asserted progress was being made in the war-torn country. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said “security incidents” have risen significantly as US-led forces make a push in the south and militant...
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World’s Mining Companies Covet Afghan Riches
The New York Times: Mining companies around the world are eager to exploit Afganistan’s newly discovered mineral wealth, but executives of Western firms caution that war, corruption and lack of roads and other infrastructure are likely to delay exploration for years. “Afganistan could be one of the leading producers of copper, gold, lithium and...
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Update: Wikileaks “confirms” it has video of US massacre in Afghanistan
Raw Story: The whistleblower website that posted video of a US Army helicopter firing on unarmed civilians and killing two Reuters employees is ready to do it again, its founder says. (A screenshot of the clip appears at right; video available at this link.) Wikileaks’ founder Julian Assange says he has obtained video...
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Danger Looms if Afghan Vice President & Warlord becomes Country’s President
Veterans Today: What some Afgan natives and analysts call the most dangerous part of the world has reached a critical juncture, “a tipping point”. Per Guardian and New York Times reports, “President Hamid Karzai has lost faith in the US strategy in Afganistan and is increasingly looking to Pakistan to end the insurgency.”
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U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan
The New York Times: The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afganistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afgan economy and perhaps the Afgan war itself, according to senior American government officials. An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afganistan could...
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Khalil Nouri: Afghanistan: — Danger Looms if Afghan Vice President & Warlord becomes Country’s President.
Veterans Today: What some Afgan natives and analysts call the most dangerous part of the world has reached a critical juncture, “a tipping point”. Per Guardian and New York Times reports, “President Hamid Karzai has lost faith in the US strategy in Afganistan and is increasingly looking to Pakistan to end the insurgency.”
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