The small but important improvements achieved in maternal mortality in Afghanistan over the past seven years are being threatened by increasing instability.
Somewhere in international waters, close to the Pakistani coast, a Predator drone is launched from the USS Abraham Lincoln. The pilotless craft heads up over the beaches of Balochistan, and
The long shadow
Afghanistan's umbilical cord with its southern neighbour ensures that every political and economic shift in Pakistan is quickly reflected across the border. As such, as
Deborah Rodriguez's book, a high tale of determination, challenge, love and heartache, could easily be fiction. It is not. The Kabul Beauty School is the true story of
Kabul and Islamabad have taken an important step back from guiding the attempt at détente. Now it's up to the myriad others to take the nascent peace process forward.
Feryal Ali Gauhar's new novel is an unmitigated tale of horror – bestial fact stacked upon bestial fact, evoking revulsion and nausea. The book's jacket claims that
Five years of backward progress on securing the country now has NATO forces taking over security in Afghanistan. With few of the lessons of the past having sunk in, it appears unlikely that the country will breathe easier in the coming year.
Demands by the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan for 'Freedom, Democracy and Social Justice' remain as critical—and contentious—today as they were three decades ago.
If a border isn't recognised by those on either side, does it still exist? That has long been the burning question along the Durand Line, the 112-year-old frontier
Even though there is fear of electoral violence, even though parties are disallowed, even though this is an election organised to fit an international timetable, there is hope that the general elections of 18 September will give Afghans the politics of representation and deliver them from the gun.
The reconstruction of the Afghan economy hinges on the development of infrastructure, the restoration of the institutions of state and the economic space within which they can pursue a national development agenda. But what is the reality of aid-supported development in the country? Is the present mo
