Afghanistan, Statebuilding Edition
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Anti-Taliban Militias 
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Pulitzer Center grantee Mujib Mashal explains how trans-boundary water tensions with Iran and Pakistan cast a shadow on the development of Afghanistan’s mainly agricultural economy.
In his reporting project, he’s found water murder, violent threats against political officials, farmers’ reluctance to diversify from poppy production until there’s enough water, and an international reluctance to get involved. Only 5 percent of aid money flowing into Afghanistan goes to the water sector, despite clear needs for infrastructure. Read more here.
(via thepoliticalnotebook)
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“By the end of next year our war in Afghanistan will be over” —President Obama, State of the Union Address, February 12, 2013
Read the debate over how to handle the transition.
(via foreignaffairsmagazine) -
The pomegranates of Helmand are rightfully regarded by Afghans to be the best in the world
(via allthingsmoroccan)
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A Hard Life on the 'Roof of the World' Beautiful photos… The Kyrgyz people of the Wakhan Corridor in Afghanistan live a traditional semi-nomadic life in an isolated, inhospitable land. There are no doctors, no trees and no roads, yet photographer Matthieu Paley keeps coming back.
The roof of the world.
(via projectmei)
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In Focus: Afghanistan: January 2013
In early January, President Barack Obama met with Afghan president Hamid Karzai, indicating a series of decisions that may accelerate the planned handover of power to the government of Afghanistan. Terms are still being negotiated, and final troop levels have yet to be decided, but NATO troops will be withdrawing from villages this spring, and prisons holding terrorism suspects will soon be under Afghan control. One big condition still left unsettled: an immunity agreement in which remaining U.S. troops would not subjected to Afghan law. These photos show just a glimpse of this conflict over the past month, part of the ongoing series here on Afghanistan.
See more. [Images: AP, Getty, Reuters]
