Feature / Analysis

An 'Afghan redneck' creates art in a war zone

Editor's note: Aman Mojadidi is an American artist of Afghan descent who has staged public art projects in Afghanistan for the past nine years. He spoke at the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh in June. TED is a nonprofit dedicated to "Ideas worth spreading" which it makes available through talks po...

Afghanistan's security prospects after NATO withdrawal

NATO-led forces have been in Afghanistan for so long now that it is almost hard to remember why they went in. Governments often repeat that it was in direct response to Al-Qaeda's attacks of 9/11, planned from Osama Bin Laden's Afghan base. But that does not explain why now, more than 11 years l...

Iranian Energy Minister Conveys Ahmadinejad's Message to Karzai

TEHRAN: Iranian Energy Minister Majid Namjou, who is on an official visit to Kabul, submitted a message from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai. In his message, President Ahmadinejad has underlined the necessity for Iranian companies' more active participation and...

Qatar set to host Afghan art expo

Qatar will this year host an exhibition of Afghan art in an apparent cultural-cum-political move as Doha prepares to mediate between the Kabul administration and the Taliban, to seek peace in the war torn country. A top official said yesterday that the Museum of Islamic Art (MIA) will organize the...

In Afghanistan, teaching music to overcome war's percussion

KABUL: When insurgents launched a brazen attack that turned into a nine-hour siege in the heart of the capital, many government and Western offices shut down for the day. Down the road from the attack, young Afghan students at the Afghanistan National Institute of Music were playing Bach and Mozart,...

Rising seas shift bay agency's mission

S.F. BAY Conservation panel's focus now on coping strategies Leadership changes in regional agencies rarely attract attention, so it wasn't a big story last year when new people stepped into the top two posts at the Bay Conservation and Development Commission.But this is an era when the commission'...

Species on the Move Present a Conservation Challenge

The American Redstart has an enviable calendar. The tiny songbird spends its winters in Central and South America, then beats the sweltering heat of tropical summers by flying north to breed.For scientists, the globe-trotting habits of migratory species like the Redstart pose an immense challenge: A...

Selling little girls to pay back debt

The mother of a little Afghan girl cannot even turn to face her daughter. She looks down in shame as she explains why she must hand the girl over to drug lords. The father of the girl has done what many Afghan farmers must do to finance their opium farms: borrow money from drug traffickers. But th...

'Games Without Rules' dominate Afghanistan's tangled history

Afghan-American author Tamim Ansary tracks the past of his native country Tamim Ansary was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, to a father believed to descend from Arab brothers who conquered the city some 13 centuries ago. According to legend, their bodies remain to this day in a pair of hillside tombs w...

Eyeing rich bounty, China in line for Afghan role

KABUL: China, long a bystander to the conflict in Afghanistan, is stepping up its involvement as U.S.-led forces prepare to withdraw, attracted by the country's vast mineral resources but concerned that any post-2014 chaos could embolden Islamist insurgents in its own territory. Cheered on by the ...

Afghan Governor Positions for Presidency

Regional Leader, One of Most Powerful Outside Kabul, Seen to Have Near-Total Control, Denies Corruption Allegations MAZAR-E-SHARIF, Afghanistan: Giant billboards of Governor Mohammed Atta Nour far outnumber the portraits of President Hamid Karzai on the streets of Mazar-e-Sharif, the hub of norther...

Researchers link infant brain infection to central African rainfall

A grotesque and devastating brain condition that stalks infants in sub-Saharan Africa waxes and wanes with rainfall, opening a new door for how health officials can manage it, according to recent findings.Researchers studying hydrocephalus in Uganda found that the infections leading to the condition...

A Rape a Minute, a Thousand Corpses a Year ,Hate Crimes in America (and Elsewhere)

Here in the United States, where there is a reported rape every 6.2 minutes, and one in five women will be raped in her lifetime, the rape and gruesome murder of a young woman on a bus in New Delhi on December 16th was treated as an exceptional incident. The story of the alleged rape of an unconscio...

Afghan Torture Allegations Shine Spotlight On Prisoner Transfers

International pressure is mounting on the Afghan government to take action against widespread torture, mistreatment and sexual abuse in detention facilities. The calls for reform have grown louder since the release on January 20 of a damning UN report that says a growing number of prisoners are be...

John Kerry uses Senate hearing to warn Afghanistan over elections

Secretary of state nominee says second tainted presidential contest will cause abandonment by west after 2014 withdrawal John Kerry, who is shortly expected to be confirmed as the next US secretary of state, has warned that Afghanistan must hold a legitimate presidential election next year or risk ...

Afghan Airline Ferried Opium, U.S. Alleges

KABUL: The U.S. military has blacklisted Afghanistan's largest private airline, alleging it is smuggling "bulk" quantities of opium on civilian flights to Tajikistan, a corridor through which the drugs reach the rest of the world. Kam Air was barred this month from receiving U.S. military contract...

John Kerry: Mr. Climate

President Barack Obama’s chief global climate cop won’t be stationed at EPA or on the White House staff. He’ll be at the State Department.Obama’s choice of John Kerry as the nation’s top diplomat is the strongest signal to the international community — and the smart set in Washington’s political cla...

Energy's Latest Battleground: Fracking For Uranium

No tour of Uranium Energy Corp.’s processing plant in Hobson, Tex. is complete until CEO Amir Adnani pries the top off a big black steel drum and invites you to peer inside. There, filled nearly to the brim, is an orange-yellow powder that UEC mined out of the South Texas countryside. It’s uranium o...

Why India’s Waste-to-Energy Industry Won’t Catch Fire

K.S. Sivaprasad, an engineer from India, spent four decades perfecting a factory that accepts city trash, dries it, picks out the burnable elements and ignites them to create electricity. His first full-scale plant chews through 700 tons of garbage a day and delivers 5.5 megawatts to the power grid....

Govt Rejects Amnesty Report on Refugee Deaths

The Afghan government has dismissed as baseless an Amnesty International report that blames the deaths of 17 Afghans, mostly children, in displaced person camps on poor government management. Afghanistan's National Disaster Management Authority (ANDMA) deputy chief said the report was baseless and...

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