Author: |Posted: 2:03 pm on 19/11/09
Category: World News Blog
Kabul was the emptiest of cities this morning.
The only way to move around – given the universal ban on private vehicles that has successfully staved off the predictable attack by the Taliban – was on foot. The traffic that usually blocks the city vanished.
We found ourselves learning that routes between places we normally travel actually take 20 minutes on foot, rather than an hour by car in the gridlocked streets.
The emptiness just added to the surreality of the occasion. Behind high walls, with foreign dignitaries, an almost virtual president of a virtual government was taking office for another five years. read more
Author: |Posted: 11:33 am on 02/11/09
Category: World News Blog
The West first bends President Karzai’s arm to concede to a second round of voting. Few people see how the fraud or insurgent-led violence of the first round won’t worsen this time.
Then the challenger drops out. Why would he stay in? He won’t win, and prefers a principled withdrawal to an unruly defeat.
So now the West tries to bend Karzai’s arm into cancelling the election… read more
Author: |Posted: 4:18 pm on 28/10/09
Category: World News Blog
The problem with Afghanistan is that every prescription has a noxious side-effect; every answer raises more questions.
The Taliban is trying to disrupt the second round of the Afghan elections, hence today’s attack on UN staff in Kabul. Having risked death to vote in the first round, and seeing how the government tried to cheat to stay in power, it seems likely that many Afghans won’t bother to vote on 7 November. Who can blame them? read more
Author: |Posted: 6:51 pm on 26/08/09
Category: Gary Gibbon on Politics
The UK ambassador in Kabul gave journalists in London a teleconference briefing today about the Afghan elections and it’s blown a bit of wind into the sails of a story The Times reported last week.
An employee of the independent election commission in Afghanistan told the paper that only 150 had turned out to vote in Babaji district, part of the area UK forces re-took in Operation Panther’s Claw at a cost of 10 dead and an estimated 150 wounded.
The problem is that the ambassador couldn’t rubbish the figure to us. It may be right. It may not.
The full figures are not now expected until 17-21 September and even that deadline could slip. Instead ambassador Mark Sedwill gave various reasons why turnout was expected to be low. read more
Author: |Posted: 12:27 pm on 24/08/09
Category: World News Blog
Our team have been blogging all last week from Afghanistan on the elections, but they’re not the only ones commenting.
Soldiers who know the front line only too well have been posting their comments on our blogs, including Lt Col Brown on Nick Paton Walsh’s reports from his embed at Camp Keating.
Read, digest and feel free to join the debate.
Author: |Posted: 3:05 pm on 21/08/09
Category: World News Blog
Nothing in my morning today amounts to anything like scientific research. But it does chime with what the scientific experts are now saying.
I’ve been along to a number of Kabul high schools in the past hour or two with some simple questions.
Ana I have received simple answers from the helpful and efficient people who run these polling stations.
As they cleared away the ballot boxes a pattern quickly emerged as we moved from one polling station to another in the schools.
The basic story emerging is that somewhere between 20 and 30 per cent of expected voters actually came along to cast their vote yesterday.
Author: |Posted: 2:24 pm on 21/08/09
Category: World News Blog
It was a simple and unoriginal idea.
Stick your finger in the indelible ink, then see how easily it washes off.
Across Afghanistan, the plan was to prevent repeat voting by putting this ink on the right index finger of each person brave enough to vote.
There were drawbacks; the Taliban had threatened to hang, behead, or remove the finger of anyone caught with such a stain.
But there was another more complicated problem.
Author: |Posted: 11:30 am on 21/08/09
Category: World News Blog
For the past week the Channel 4 News team has been on the frontline of the Afghan elections.
The team has been with soldiers in Helmand to the hospital wards of Kandahar and into the halls of political power – it’s been a week of insight and analysis.
The pictures displayed were taken from our team based in Kabul, showing cameraman Soren Munk at work.
On Monday we had a special report from inside one of the US army’s remote outposts on the Pakistani border. Nick Paton Walsh and cameraman Stuart Webb encountered the reality of the conflict as they came under heavy fire whilst on patrol with coalition forces.
Author: |Posted: 1:11 pm on 19/08/09
Category: World News Blog
Alex Thomson casts an eye over the main rivals to President Karzai in this week’s Afghanistan presidential election.
Three leading candidates – and even by Afghan standards there’s a lot to choose from.
No leading women in this race of around 36 presidential wannabees. But hey, this whole pooling gig is in its early days just now.
So what have you got as you peruse your ballot paper (and probably do that as fast as possible in case the Taliban decide to target your friendly local polling station)?
Author: |Posted: 12:41 pm on 19/08/09
Category: World News Blog
Nima Elbagir guest blogs from Kandahar hospital, Afghanistan. The pictures are taken by and copyrighted to Jacob Simkin.
When the Obama administrations’ then nominee for the top job in Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal faced the Senate Armed Services committee in early June his message was unequivocal – civilian casualties were the major operational issue.
“This is a critical point. It may be the critical point. This is a struggle for the support of the Afghan people.”
Just under a fortnight later the British launched Operation Panther’s Claw in the North of Helmand, quickly followed by the US’s Operation Strike of the Sword to the south. Both designed to clean out the Taliban stronghold that Helmand had become.
A month into Panther’s claw we travelled to Mirwais Hospital in Kandahar City.
