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The latest edition of CWU‘s Women’s Talk includes a feature on Dispatches from the Kabul Cafe, which discusses its important messages about women’s rights. Journalist Heidi Kingstone creates a number of sketches that when drawn together provide a fascinating insight into life in war-torn Afghanistan. Living in the expat community between 2007 and 2011, Kingstone takes out her journalistic pen…
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The big decision facing any ex-pat in Kabul on any given Thursday, the start of the Afghan weekend, is what to do that night. In the glitz and glamour of Kabul’s party scene, the choice can be heavy as the security. There was the ‘Luna’ party at the new Kabul health club or the opening…
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When al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the Taliban fled Afghanistan, they made their last stand in Paktia province on the border with Pakistan. The Zazi valley, known during the Soviet occupation as “the gateway to Afghanistan,” is located on the southeast of the Tora Bora, literally white mountain. In 2001 hundreds of al…
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Monday I arrive in Kabul after a two and a half year absence, and there is much more construction, and a lot more sandbags, a sign at how much the security situation has deteriorated. I wonder if the construction is really changing the face of Kabul, but then I chastize myself for being an optimist….
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Old school mafia-style corruption in Afghanistan is like prostitution on a national level. While it is repeated as received wisdom that corruption is part of the culture, at this level the wholesale rape of the country is pure cannibalism. Corruption is at the core of the debate at present with the culprits lined up behind…
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For decades newspapers have chased the elusive younger reader in an attempt to boost circulation. Ironic of course in light of events which overtook the industry as we know all too well. No one young reads newspapers, and no one older either it seems. So, when I picked up a copy of one Canada’s prominent…
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