Impoverished Afghans Shoulder Burden of Health Care Costs: Study
18 April 2011
Afghanistan's government and foreign donors spend barely $10 a person on health, despite pointing to it as key to winning back support against a worsening insurgency that has dragged on for nearly a decade, a study said Sunday. The other $31 per person that makes up the country's meager health spend comes from Afghans themselves, many of whom struggle to provide doctors and drug care for their families from the $426 per capita they earn each year....
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Recent ANA Recruit Blows Himself Up Inside Military Base, Kills Afghan, NATO Soldiers
18 April 2011
A suicide bomber who had recently been recruited into the Afghan army blew himself up Saturday morning inside a military base, killing five NATO troops and four Afghan soldiers. Three more NATO troops were killed in subsequent attacks, according to the Associated Press, making Saturday one of the deadliest days for NATO forces this year. The first bombing took place in a courtyard at the headquarters of the Afghan army’s 201st Corps, known...
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Opium Cultivation to Decrease Slightly Overall but Likely to Expand in N-NE: UN
18 April 2011
Opium poppies are being grown this year in parts of Afghanistan where last year there were none, but overall cultivation of the drug will decrease slightly, the United Nations said in a report on Monday. Four provinces in the east, west and north of Afghanistan that had been "poppy-free" have returned to cultivation, the U.N. drug agency UNODC said in its "Opium Winter Rapid Assessment" report, a forecast of trends for the year ahead. But Helmand,...
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Iranian Engineers Kidnapped in Western Farah Province
18 April 2011
Twelve Iranian engineers and five of their Afghan colleagues were kidnapped by Taliban gunmen on Monday in a remote region of Afghanistan near its border with Iran, local officials and the Iranian government said. The men, who were working on a road construction project, were snatched at gunpoint in the Post-i-Road district of Farah province, which borders Iran, provincial government spokesman Naqibullah Farahi told AFP. Tehran confirmed the abduction...
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Taliban Insurgent Infiltrates Defense Ministry, Kills Two
18 April 2011
A gunman in Afghan army uniform opened fire inside Kabul's defence ministry Monday, killing two soldiers and wounding seven in an audacious strike at the heart of government claimed by the Taliban. The attack, which the militants said was aimed at France's visiting defence minister Gerard Longuet, was the third major assault on Afghan security targets in four days and one of the worst security breaches in years. "A person in Afghan army uniform opened...
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