PukhtoonistanGazette

 No Longer Unknown, Afghan Athlete Has Eyes on Gold

KABUL: It was only by chance that a 10-year-old Rohullah Nikpah found taekwondo. Unlike most Olympic athletes, Nikpah was not groomed from an early age to compete. Rather, he grew up in a refugee camp in Iran, and one day he accompanied his brother to a makeshift gym for a taekwondo sparring sessi...

 Afghanistan War: Militant Attacks Up 11 Percent

KABUL, Afghanistan: Insurgent attacks in Afghanistan during the past three months were up 11 percent, compared to the same period last year, according to the latest statistics on monthly violence released by the U.S.-led coalition. The figures, which NATO released on Thursday, also show that the n...

 Tajikistan Rebels Dig in Against Government Offensive

Armed militants in Tajikistan who recently fought deadly clashes with security forces have refused to disarm or hand over a former opposition warlord wanted by authorities despite a tense cease-fire. The Tajik prosecutor-general said Saturday the heavy fighting killed 17 troops, 30 rebels and one ...

 Crocker Looks Back on a Decade in Afghanistan

On July 22, a few days before Ryan C. Crocker, the American ambassador to Afghanistan, retired from his post, The New York Times interviewed him in his residence in Kabul. Mr. Crocker had been a Foreign Service officer in the State Department since 1971, and served extensively in the Arab world, i...

 Lessons from my talks with the Taliban

To judge by discussions I had with figures close to the Afghan Taliban in Dubai last week, on certain key issues the Taliban leadership and the US administration are far closer than most analysts believe. The chief obstacle to a peace settlement is likely to come not from Taliban links to al-Qaeda b...

 Coal Power Loses Its Luster in India as Costs Rise

Along India's narrow coastal belt of Mundra in Gujarat State, 500 miles (805 kilometers) northwest of Mumbai, several coal-fired power plants generate electricity so cheaply that authorities for the most part have overlooked damage to fishing and grazing, and harm to the vulnerable mangrove ecosyste...

 In India's Farming Heartland, Barely a Raindrop Falls

THAKURKI, India: Late last year, Ramdas Dadaso Shinde planted 2,000 pomegranate saplings, nurtured them with water from a tanker and waited for the monsoon to arrive in June, as it does almost every year in the western state of Maharashtra.Until then, he spent 150,000 rupees ($2,700) of his savings ...

 U.S. Builds Afghan Air Base, But Where Are the Planes?

SHINDAND, Afghanistan: Shindand Air Base has an 8,000-foot runway, a gleaming new headquarters complex and a cadre of motivated Afghan pilot candidates. Because of the way Washington operates, however, it lacks warplanes. The budding Afghan air force was supposed to receive $355 million worth of...

 Changed standards benefit Afghan force report: watchdog

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon's decision to change the standards used to grade the success of Afghan police and soldiers, who are a centerpiece of U.S. strategy for smoothly exiting the war in Afghanistan, helped it present a positive picture of those forces' abilities, a U.S. government watchdog reporte...

 Tales of Hope from Modern Young Muslims

Two writers who experienced racial violence in Britain as children have challenged a still fearful status quoIs opposition to reaction, reactionary? Or a loathing of religious bigotry, bigoted? To slam "Islam as oppressive of gay and women's rights", said a Guardian columnist last week, is to manife...