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.
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.
Pakistani and Afghan political and ethnic tribal leaders meet in Islamabad on Monday to try to agree on ways to tackle rising militant violence including the possibility of opening talks with the Taliban.
Iran said on Monday it had been invited by Group of Eight president Italy to an international meeting on Afghanistan, which is also expected to be attended by the United States. Italy wants to hold a conference bringing together the world's richest countries and Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, India, China, and Turkey among others to find ways of bringing stability to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The top United Nations envoy in Afghanistan today joined colleagues in releasing 21 doves ahead of the International Day of Peace for a country which has witnessed intensifying conflict over the past year.
Little by little, individuals and organizations are creating glimmers of hope across a country steeped in war that promise Afghanistan will once again flourish someday. Here are five things happening in Afghanistan that are helping its citizens get back on their feet, and what you can do to support those efforts.
Japan pledged this week to provide $5 billion in aid to Afghanistan over the next five years to and to speed the delivery of $1 billion for economic assistance to Pakistan pledged in April. The $5 billion will cover reconstruction programs such as support to Afghan police forces, vocational training for former Taliban soldiers, and agriculture and rural development.
Even after U.S. forces have left Afghanistan, U.S. civilians will remain to help the country build its democratic institutions and restore its agricultural economy, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee this week.
Several hundred women in Kabul, Afghanistan, many holding pictures of relatives killed by drug lords or Taliban militants, held a loud but nonviolent street protest today, demanding that President Hamid Karzai purge from his government anyone connected to corruption, war crimes or the Taliban.
A leading U.S. newspaper reports U.S. geologists have discovered nearly one trillion dollars' worth of untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan. The New York Times says U.S. officials believe the vast veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold, lithium, and niobium could "fundamentally alter" the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war.
School supplies traveled 7,800 miles from New York to Afghanistan after students from Windsor Central High School collected more than 70 boxes for the children and teachers overseas.
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