Tens of thousands of schoolchildren in Kabul are set to benefit from a $24 million donation from Japan, under an agreement signed today with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) to construct around 1,000 classrooms. And, the UN Mine Action Program for Afghanistan announced that the city's electricity supply has improved as a result of its mine-clearing operation in the north of the country.
The UN has reported a sharp decline in the production of opium in Afghanistan (used for heroin) and cocoa plants in Columbia (used to make cocaine). In these two countries, which produce over 90% of the world's supply, crop size has dropped 19 and 18 percent respectively since last year, reflecting government security efforts.
Band-e-Amir, a vast expanse of amazingly blue lakes set in austere desert cliffs, nearly 3,000 meters (10,000 feet) high in the Hindu Kush mountains, has opened as Afghanistan's first national park.
National Guard troops from a half-dozen heartland states are taking their civilian farming know-how to Afghanistan in a little-noticed aspect of the Obama administration's efforts to stabilize the war-torn country.
Small grants given directly to villagers have brought important changes to Jurm, where people have taken charge for themselves — using village councils and direct grants to bring new water taps, replace the poppy crop and offer women health care.
The Women's Action Plan for Afghanistan, outlined by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at the London Conference on Afghanistan on January 28, seeks to increase Afghan women's security, leadership in the public and private sectors, access to judicial institutions, education and health services, and ability to take advantage of economic opportunities, especially in the agricultural sector.
A remarkable scene played out this week between an aggrieved father and the most senior special operations officer in the United States military. Vice Admiral William McRaven -- the commander of Joint Special Operations Command -- showed up with two sheep, and in the cultural understanding of the region, surrendered himself. And the father -- who has lost two sons, two daughters and one grandchild -- accepted McRaven's apology.
Two years ago, residents of Kamich village in the Ghor province of Afghanistan tried to get the government to build a road so they can reach neighboring Herat province easier and more quickly. According to them, the government wasn't able to meet their needs and so they took matters into their own hands. On Sunday […]
According to the Afghanistan education minister, the Taliban's leadership is prepared to drop its ban on girls' schools, since having undergone an attitudinal and cultural change.
A remote control toy truck sent to Sgt. Chris Fessenden in Afghanistan by his brother helped to trigger a bomb meant to kill U.S. soldiers. In 2007, Ernie Fessenden teamed up with a hobby store owner to create a radio-controlled model truck outfitted with a wireless video camera to help his brother check for bombs under trucks. That souped-up toy ended up preventing the potential deaths of six soldiers two weeks ago.
In an Afghan capital scarred by years of war, a young Afghan woman has bet $1 million that her countrymen could use a little fun. She started the country's first bowling alley and it has become a symbol of hope.
Civilian casualties in Afghanistan dropped 15 percent in the first six months of the year, with deaths blamed on NATO-led troops and Afghan forces declining sharply, the United Nations said on Wednesday.
Afghanistan's new president-elect pledged in his victory speech on Monday to give women prominent roles in his government and told his nation that women are important to the country's future. The remarks came a day after a landmark agreement was signed by Afghanistan's two presidential candidates to share power.
Not yet 5am, a small pack of women savor the peace six mornings a week, before the men appear on Kabul's streets to hurl insults at them for breaking the gender barrier of acceptable female activity. "These girls are challenging a big taboo in Afghanistan, riding a bicycle."
The senior United Nations envoy to Afghanistan reported encouraging economic growth for that struggling nation. The country's gross domestic product (GDP) has risen by 13.8 percent in the last year.
More than 2 million Afghan children are currently being immunized in a United Nations-backed three-day polio eradication drive following a sixth reported case of the crippling and sometimes fatal disease in the south of the country this year.
The U.S. plans to double their construction workload in the next year to provide new roads, electric power and water distribution systems to the Afghan people, expanding their development work in the coming fiscal year beginning this month to some 600 projects, an investment of more than $1 billion.
Land in Afghanistan that is now free of mines has been donated to the workers who were injured while clearing those deadly weapons from the area, the United Nations said yesterday.
More than 38,000 anti-personnel mines have been cleared in the past six months across Afghanistan – one of the most heavily mined countries in the world – representing 10 percent of the total number cleared in the past 18 years, a senior United Nations official said Monday.
Opium cultivation in Afghanistan has gone down by a fifth as compared to last year, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported today. Thanks in part to good local leadership coupled with a drought, the Afghanistan Opium Survey 2008 showed a 19 percent decrease in opium cultivation to 157,000 hectares, down from a record harvest of 193,000 in 2007.
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