Afghan Divide - regular coverage from the ground of the war-torn country by Afghan journalists for an international audience

IPS investigative series on local Afghans who have been abandoned or poorly treated by a complex web of U.S. contractors, their insurance companies, and their military counterparts despite years of service risking life and limb to help the U.S. military in the ongoing war in Afghanistan.

Mission Essential, Translators Expendable

Military Translators Risk Low Pay, Death

Pratap Chatterjee’s
report for CorpWatch

AFGHANISTAN: Insurgents Infiltrate Security Forces
By Lal Aqa Sherin*
KABUL - A Taliban fighter infiltrated the Afghan police force, killing seven Afghan officers and British soldiers. Similar attacks have taken the lives of U.S. troops.
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Q&A: "Karzai Assigned a Rabbit to Take Care of the Carrot"
Chris Arsenault interviews MALALAI JOYA, author and Afghan parliamentarian
VANCOUVER, Canada - In the aftermath of national elections widely condemned as fraudulent, the United States and its allies are wondering what to do about Afghanistan.
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U.S.: Obama Returns to Greater Middle East Mess
Analysis by Jim Lobe*
WASHINGTON - As Barack Obama arrives home from his weeklong tour of East Asia, he confronts a growing list of ever more urgent problems in the Greater Middle East that he inherited from George W. Bush's "global war on terror".
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AFGHANISTAN: Black & Veatch's White Elephant in Kabul
By Pratap Chatterjee*
KABUL - In a secluded valley a few miles from Kabul's international airport, Caterpillar turbines custom-built in Germany and giant transformers flown in from Mexico hum away at a brand-new power plant.
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CORRUPTION: Paying Off Afghanistan's Warlords

By Pratap Chatterjee*
KABUL - Every morning, dozens of trucks laden with diesel from Turkmenistan lumber out of the northern Afghan border town of Hairaton on a two-day trek across the Hindu Kush down to Afghanistan's capital, Kabul.
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CORRUPTION: Afghanistan, Iraq Near Bottom of Transparency Index
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - Despite billions of dollars spent by the U.S. and other countries to improve governance in Afghanistan and Iraq, the two countries remain among the world's most corrupt nations, according to the latest edition of Transparency International's (TI) Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI).
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AGRICULTURE: Exporting Afghanistan
By P.J. Tobia
KABUL - The 60 hectare stretch of farmland in north Kabul's Badam Bagh neighbourhood looks much like farmland all over this country. Colourful rows of neatly planted crops stretch out from a dusty road and up the gentle slope of an arid ridge.
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U.S.: Army Underreporting Suicides, Says GI Advocacy Group
By Dahr Jamail
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - According to a soldiers' advocacy group at Fort Hood, the U.S. base where an army psychiatrist has been charged with killing 13 people and wounding 30 in a Nov. 5 rampage, the official suicide figures provided by the Army are "definitely" too low.
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U.S.: Army Sends Infant to Protective Services, Mom to Afghanistan
By Dahr Jamail
VENTURA, California - U.S. Army Specialist Alexis Hutchinson, a single mother, is being threatened with a military court-martial if she does not agree to deploy to Afghanistan, despite having been told she would be granted extra time to find someone to care for her 11-month-old son while she is overseas.
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POLITICS: Corruption in Afghanistan Cuts Both Ways
Commentary by Melek Zimmer-Zahine*
KABUL - Unfortunately for both Afghans and Americans, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Barack Obama, his counterpart in Washington, missed a chance to reset the critical relationship between their two countries and move the dialogue in an honest direction.
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POLITICS: U.S. Seeks to Limit Warlords in Karzai Cabinet

By Gareth Porter*
WASHINGTON - The Barack Obama administration is talking tough to Afghan President Hamid Karzai about the need for decisive action on corruption and governance reform, but its main objective is to prevent particularly corrupt and incompetent warlords from getting plum ministries as rewards for helping clinch his fraudulent reelection, IPS has learned.
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U.S.: Obama's Outreach to Muslim World Teetering
Analysis by Jim Lobe*
WASHINGTON - U.S. President Barack Obama's extraordinary efforts since his first days in office to reassure Muslims in the Greater Middle East about U.S. intentions in the region have suffered a series of setbacks that threaten to reverse whatever gains he has made over the past 10 months in restoring Washington's badly battered image and influence there.
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AFGHANISTAN: Teenagers Enlist in Army, Police
By Lal Aqa Sherin*
KABUL - Niamatullah joined the Afghan National Police (ANP) for the same reasons that many Afghan men do.
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After working to strengthen independent media in Afghanistan for three years, IPS has teamed up with The Killid Group (TKG) and Pajhwok Afghan News (PAN) in 2007 to provide regular coverage from the ground of the war-torn country by Afghan journalists for an international audience. The partnership is a continuation of IPS's commitment to support local Afghan media, which has emerged as a platform for both debate and dissemination among the general public of diverse ideas, views and concerns about the country's past, present and future. And enhance pluralistic democracy by giving voice to Afghan citizens and civil society.