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Taliban – Not Ready to Negotiate
June 19, 2011 | Dilawar Sherzai
The situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating with each passing day. Taliban, with their new strategy and summer fiesta are really turning considerably violent. On Saturday June 18, 2011 when President Hamid Kerzai has formally announced that Afghanistan and America have been engaged in negotiations with the Taliban leaders for maintaining...
Our Overgrown and Wasteful NGO Industry
June 18, 2011 | Mehdi Rezaie
Afghanistan has been a ground to a flooding of International non-governmental organizations (INGOs) in the years following the ouster of Taliban in 2001. These INGOs have always been an indispensable part of Afghanistan and more so over the past decade. As far back as 1970s foreign NGOs began operations in Afghanistan...
High Rate of Illiteracy: the Worst Threat Towards Stability Efforts in Afghanistan
June 18, 2011 | Abdul Samad Haidari
On the ground realities, Afghanistan has long had one of the poorest education records in the world, with a low rate of school attendance and a high percentage of illiteracy and still it persists. Today, the world is moving so fast with intensive focus on their educational system and educational quality that lead them towards...
Women Rights in FATA
By Akbar Mayo | June 18, 2011
FATA is the most horrible place for women on our planet where they do live in dark ages. Susceptible to social and psychological poverty, women in Federally Administrative Tribal Areas (FATA) have entitlement to nothing significant under 'Pakhtun code of honor.' With the arrival of Taliban, the situation is miserable beyond description. Sufferings...
Women; Yesterday and Today
June 16, 2011 | DilawarSherzai
With the evolution of socio-political setup in a society, the weaker strata of the society have to bear the brunt to a large extent. Women happen to be included in such strata. Through out most part of history, human societies have been patriarchal – men ruling over almost all the institutions in the society; where as women have been the subordinate...
A New Strategy for Empowerment of Security Forces
June 16, 2011 | Jawad Rahmani
To strengthen security forces and prepare them to hold responsibility after US and NATO military drawdown, which is about to start, Afghan government initiated a new strategy—employing clergies and Mullahs to teach and educate Afghan security forces Sharia laws and religious Issues. Meeting concerns, the officials have argued that...
The Unwanted US Withdrawal from Afghanistan
June 16, 2011 | Musa Khan Jalalzai
Frustration of the United States due to the unwinnable war in Afghanistan is clearly evident from the speech of US defence secretary, Robert Gates, in Brussels in which he threatened to leave the NATO alliance as its member states are not willing to provide sufficient fund and troops for Afghanistan. US Defence Secretary criticised NATO...
Envisioning a Better Future in Pak-Afghan Relations
June 15, 2011 | Mehdi Rezaie
The recent visit of President Karzai and his accompanying delegation to Pakistan was ground-breaking in many respects. Nobody can expect the troubled relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan with a long history of mutual distrust to improve overnight given this multitude of deep-seated problems...
Are we Really Concerned about our Environment?
June 15, 2011 | Mohammad Ahsan
The issues pertaining to environmental protection is one of the hottest topics at global levels. If human beings are to live on this planet, they need to work out effective plans for conservation of natural environment and put efforts for greener surrounding. Keeping in view the vitality of better environment for human lives, we need to...
The Costly Standoff between Parliament and Government
June 14, 2011 | Mehdi Rezaie
The standoff between the Wolesi Jirga as the lower house of the country's Parliament and the government headed by President Karzai has taken a sharp turn for worse. This costly political tug-of-war revolves around the special tribunal set up by the Supreme Court and endorsed by the government to investigate the cases of...
Concerns on Impact of Transitional Withdrawal
June 13, 2011 | Abbas Daiyar
Nowadays talks in political circles and among pundits in Afghanistan are mostly about the post-withdrawal situation and transition process since the US and NATO troops are going to start pulling out from next month. President Obama is going to announce his withdrawal plan and the number of outgoing troops in coming weeks. In...
More in Talks than in Practice
June 13, 2011 | Nasruddin Hemati
In a new report, the UN has an nounced that May was the deadli est month for Afghan civilians since 2007. This, on the other side, indicates the overall deterioration of security situation in the exhaustingly battled Afghanistan. Reporting the most recent security incidents in the country, news agencies said that ...
Afghanistan: Sunk Boat of Communism and Sinking Ship of Democracy, No Chance of Survival
June 13, 2011 | Latif Mohammadi
NATO policymakers in 2001 wanted to drive the Taliban out of Afghanistan and bring in a ship load of democracy activists to install a new brave democracy in the country but it would have been helpful if NATO military commanders reminded them...there is no water in Afghanistan. It is only mountains. The Soviets...
Security Transition Facing Serious Challenges
June 12, 2011 | Mehdi Rezaie
The transition of security responsibilities to Af ghan National Security Forces is set to enter into a critical phase from next month when five large cities around the country will be handed over to the Afghan forces. Mazar-e- Sharif, Bamyan, Panjshir, Herat and Mehtarlam are the major cities considered for the first phase of the transition...
North Waziristan Operation
June 12, 2011 | Akbar Mayo
North Waziristan operation is lurking somewhere in the denial of Pakistani generals. Thinking machinery of Pakistan Army seems to be suffering from the paralysis of analysis. Though army sources are denying any commitment regarding Operation against Haqqani group in North Waziristan, however, circumstances suggest otherwise. The US...
Oil and OPEC
June 11, 2011 | Jawad Rahmani
Day by day, the unsustainable- energy-exploiting universal economy becomes larger and larger, with no brake at the prospective. What happens? The answer as well as consequence is clear. Just put a glimpse to glamorous smiling of Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) members in political and economic night clubs! There...
Yet Another Chance for Afghanistan and Pakistan
June 11, 2011 | Dilawar Sherzai
President Kerzai has reached to Pakistan on Fri day, June 10, 2011, for a two days meeting with Pakistani officials. This is his first visit after the attack on Osama Bin Laden in Abbotabad. The basic purpose of this visit is to seek Pakistan's co-operation in bringing Taliban to negotiation table, which has been the basic objective of...
The Dark Clouds
June 09, 2011 | Abbas Daiyar
There are six months to December, when Germany on the 10th Anniversary of the Bonn Agreement on Afghanistan will host the Bonn Conference 2. We had heard about it for the first time last year in November and thought it will be another conference like the ones in Paris, London and Kabul to, as we say in Dari slang, "get...
Push for Steeper Military Pullout
June 09, 2011 | Jawad Rahmani
Unlike many, I was not much mindful of Osama bin Laden as I am of the, so-called, radicalism (bin Ladenism). However, he was recognized as the mastermind behind terror activities, but I assume him mostly a person, who like an injured jackal timorously concealed himself and hardly could organize and lead another 9/11 attacks, due to instant...
Kashmiri’s Death and the Future of Al-Qaeda in Af-Pak Region
June 08, 2011 | Mehdi Rezaie
Mohammad Ilyas Kashmiri, one of the highest ranking operational commanders of Al-Qaeda, has reportedly been killed in a U.S. drone attack on a compound in South Waziristan on Friday June 03, 2011. This will mark the end for one of the most notorious militant leaders of South Asia in recent decades. Both inside and...
Gadhafi Stands Still
June 08, 2011 | Dilawar Sherzai
Libya is in crisis. It is both severe and alarming. The situation prevailing there definitely points at the end of the regime of Moammar Gadhafi, who has been ruling the country for more than forty years. But, he himself is not willing to leave. Even after the heaviest NATO shelling of his whereabouts in Tripoli on Tuesday, June 07, 2011, his...
Rise of Malakand Taliban
June 08, 2011 | Akbar Mayo
In the last week of May, eight security personnel and civilians fell victim to four hundred armed Taliban who attacked Shaltalo check post in Dir, a frontier District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, located few kilometers away from Afghan border. Allegedly these were Afghan Taliban who invaded Pakistani territory and attacked Pakistani subjects. In...
A Message to Iraqis
June 07, 2011 | Jawad Rahmani
As the counter-time has started for complete American military withdrawal from Iraq, the joy and appreciation, on one hand, worry and anxiety, on the other, strike Iraqis at the same way. According to previous agreement between US and Iraqi government, the present 47,000 American military should leave the country by the end of this year. But definitely, these days,...
“The Oppressor Has Gone but the People Stay!!”
June 07, 2011 | Dilawar Sherzai
That is how it happens. Authoritarian governments, clinging to authority and turning voilent are abhored at the end; abhored so much that their sufferings are celebrated by their subject. So has been the case in Yemen. The departure of the President Ali Abdullah Saleh to Saudi Arabia after his injury in the rocket attack on the mosque where he,...
Saving RAWA
June 07, 2011 | Noorjahan Akbar
According to Doug McAdam, political opportunity is essential for the formation of any social movement or organization (51, 1982). The emergence of political freedom during 1963 and 1973, known as the Decade of Democracy in Afghanistan, allowed several political and social movements, including various women's organizations, and communist...
Indications Veto a Hasty Withdrawal
June 06, 2011 | Nasruddin Hemati
Having gone through some of the most trouble some experiences in the course of history and, in particular, in the recent decades, Afghans have got a clear outlook of how the country will handle the problems once the international forces make a complete withdrawal. They have stayed here more than a decade and have managed the overall...
This is How to Make Manufacturing Grow
June 06, 2011 | Paul Freedenberg and Michael
Manufacturing competitiveness depends heavily on the government's application of export controls. Export controls are a principal means of defending a nation's high technology advantage over potential adversaries. In the United States it has been 23 years since the last major re-write of the Export Administration Act ("EAA"), the...
The Threat of Terrorism in the United Kingdom
June 06, 2011 | Musa Khan Jalalzai
The recent terror incidents in the United Kingdom, specifically in Northern Ireland, indicate that terrorist and extremist groups have adopted new strategies targeting the national critical infrastructure of the country. As I have already warned in my detailed published report on future terrorism and violence in the UK, Northern Ireland...
We Need a Revitalized and Capable National Leadership
June 05, 2011 | Mehdi Rezaie
Afghanistan's post-Taliban experiment with democracy, deficient and imperfect as it has been, is increasingly coming under grave threats from both within and outside the country. A democratic political system that would promote pluralism, equitable distribution of national power and the right to self-determination...
The Syrian Episode
June 05, 2011 | Dilawar Sherzai
The Syrian protestors were mercilessly shot at on Friday as they were carrying out their protests against the 40-year rule of President Bashar Assad's family in Hama. 34 people were reported to be killed as the result of aggression of the regime's forces. This particular protest was demarcated in a sense that it contained the...
Unfettered Growth of Addiction
June 05, 2011 | Jawad Rahmani
I can hardly remember when I was a child, living in a poverty-striken district of Ghazni province. People all had miserable times and they were struggling daily to survive of hunger and starvation. One day, one of my elder classmates came to us and asked to collect all our pocket money. I am sure we were five students and put all our money...
Civilian Casualties and President Karzai’s “Last Warning”
June 04, 2011 | Mehdi Rezaie
President Karzai has reacted ferociously to the news of heavy civilian casualties as a result of coalition forces' raids on Taliban hideouts. The latest incident has marked a new low in the volatile relations between the president and the international coalition present in Afghanistan. The President had some very harsh...
Afghanistan Can’t Remain an Economic Burden
June 04, 2011 | Mohammad Ahsan
Afghanistan falls in the list of countries trapped in the vicious circle of poverty. It is estimated that around ¾ of all the Afghans in Afghanistan live below or slightly above the line of poverty. This makes them deprived of proper education, health facilities, good food and other basic necessities of life. Above all, their lives are posed to various sorts...
Resetting the Targets
June 04, 2011 | Farman Nawaz
Some recent incidents show that Pakistani religious circles have changed its stance about the role of Taliban. The two suicide attacks on Mollana Fazal ur Rehman of Jamiat Ullma-e-Islam (JUI) and an unexpected statement of Qazi Hussian Ahmad of Jamat-e-Islami about suicide attacks are the indicators of shift in the policy of Pakistani...
Dialogue will Be A Fruitless Effort
June 02, 2011 | Dr. Hussain yasa
Last Saturday, German magazine Der Spiegel reported that the US was involved in talks with the Taliban. The talks, the magazine said, is reportedly being facilitated by Germany, which is to host the second Bonn conference on December 5, this year. A week later, news agency PTI reported that the UK, too, is keen to enter into dialogue with the...