Afghanistan

by Franz-Stefan Gady 

If you need proof of how truly confusing the situation is in Libya, look no further than last Saturday's coverage of the conflict on CNN where one of their reporters, Reza Sayah presented the story of a Benghazi man identified as Al Mehdi Zeu who died fighting against the troops of Moammar Gadhafi. Al Mehdi's story was framed in a heroic manner, with the 49-year old oil company worker described as a man who sacrificed himself so that Libya's rebels might score a key victory.

The U.S. government denied a travel visa to Afghan women’s and democracy activist, Malalai Joya. In 2005, Joya became the youngest person ever elected to the Afghan parliament. She was suspended in 2007 for her denunciation of warlords and their cronies in government.

In this interview with writer, director, performer, and theater maker Kayhan Irani, we discuss the importance of art and artists in social movements, her experience working with artists in war-torn Afghanistan, the roles of artists in conflict zones like Libya and Egypt, as well as the role of artists on the American homefront.

This powerful panel, during the second session of Left Forum, dealt with the historical and ongoing struggle for equality and rights of Afghan and Pakistani women. After the viewing of Kathleen Foster’s documentary on the subject, Fahima Vorgetts of Afghan Women’s Fund and Dr.

On the 25th of February 2011, I got a chance to sit down with Atiq Rahimi, world-renowned author of Earth and Ashes, The Patience Stone, and A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear, and film director, at the Gaby Restaurant at the Sofitel Hotel on West 44th street in New York City while he was in the

There was an announcement quietly made in mid-December that could finally be the game-changer needed to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan.  The announcement wasn't made by Barack Obama or General David Petraeus and didn't involve sending more troops into the battlefield; rather it was made by a bank and involved a pipeline.

The US Foreign Policy establishment is being roiled by the revelations emerging from the Wikileaks secret document dump – or maybe it isn't.  While the embarrassing Wikileaks leaks have made front pages around the globe, the reality so far is more heat than light: Italy's Silvio Berlusconi is a sleazebag, Afghanistan's Hamid Karzai is corrupt and possibly nuts, Russia's Dmitry Medvedev is playing Robin to Vladimir Putin's Batman, China is cyberspying on the world and Saudi Arabia wants the US to take down the