Thursday, July 30, 2015

Libyan court sentences Gadhafi son, eight aides to death - AFP

A Libyan court on Tuesday sentenced slain dictator Moammar Gadhafi’s son Seif al-Islam and eight other defendants to death for crimes during the 2011 uprising. Former intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi and Gadhafi’s last prime minister Al-Baghdadi al-Mahmudi were also among those sentenced to death.

Seif al-Islam was not in court because he is held in the southwestern hill town of Zintan by militia opposed to the Tripoli authorities. The trial, which opened in the Libyan capital in April last year, has been dogged by criticism from human rights watchdogs and an unresolved dispute with the International Criminal Court in The Hague over jurisdiction in the case of the Gadhafi son.

The militia holding Seif al-Islam is loyal to the internationally recognized government that fled to the remote east last August when a rival militia alliance seized the capital and set up its own administration. - Read More at japantimes
Libyan court sentences Gadhafi son, eight aides to death

Mohammad Musa Shafiq, محمد موسی شفیق - کور پاڼه

محمد موسی شفيق په ۱۹۳۲ کی په کابل کی زیږیدلی وو ، پلرنی کورنی یی د ننګرهار د کامی په ولسوالی اوسیده  Read More at tolafghanistan:

Mohammad Musa Shafiq (1932–1979) was Prime Minister of Afghanistan:

Musa Shafiq (1932–1979) was Prime Minister of Afghanistan. He was an Afghan politician and poet. He became Foreign Minister in 1971 and Prime Minister in December 1972. He lost both positions when Mohammed Zahir Shah was overthrown on July 17, 1973.  He survived throughout the regime of Mohammed Daoud Khan, but was arrested after the 1978 communist coup d'état and executed along with many other non-communist politicians in 1979.

Mohammad Musa Shafiq was born in Kama districtNangarhar province, Afghanistan in 1932. Son of prominent Afghan politicians, civil servants and religious leader Mawlawi Mohammad Ibraheem Kamavi.

Mohammad Musa Shafiq was graduated from Kabul Arabic Religious High School. He earned his Master's degree from Al-Azhar University in Egypt. "He earned an additional Master's degree from Columbia University in New York, United States of America.

As prime minister, Shafiq sought closer ties with the United States and promised a crack-down on opium growing and smuggling. - Read More at Mohammad Musa Shafiq 

Mohammad Musa Shafiq - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


قاسم باز - محمدموسی شفيق څرنګه او دچا په سپارښتنه دشھيد سردار محمدداوودخان د جمھوريت په دوره کښی دنظارت څخه خلاص شو؟

پلار می راته وویل چی دا لومړی ځل و چی زما او د داوودخان پرمنځ کی داسی موضوع پیدا شوی وه ، پلار می وویل چی  وروسته د ګیلو او ګذارو نه محمد داودخان ماته وویل چی ځه ورشه ستا دوست می د نظارت د بند نه خلاص کړی منتظر تا ته وم چی ته یی کور ته ورسوی.

پلار می وویل چی ما ورته وویل کوم دوست می یادوی؟ . هغه ( محمد داوودخان) راته وویل چی محمد موسی شفیق یادوم. پلار می زیاته کړه چی داوودخان ماته وویل چی ما هدایت ورکړی کوم دولتی موتر درسره واخله هغه ( محمد موسی شفیق) خپل کور ته چی په قرغه کی دی ورسوه. پلار می وویل چی د ډیری خوشحالی څخه په جامو کی نه ځا ی کیږدم کله چی د داوودخان د کوره را ووتم بیرون صاحب جان د ګارد معاون ولاړ و، هغه ته می وویل چی موتر لری هغه راته وویل چی بلی ما ورته وویل چی راځه یو مهم کار لرم ته راسره اوسه ، دواړه په موتر کی کښیناستو صدارت هاغه ماڼی ته لاړو کوم کی چی محمد موسی شفیق د نظارت لاندی وه،  پلار می وایی چی تر دی ځایه صاحب جان  د جمهوری ګارد معاون لا په جریان پوه نه وه ، کله چی مونږ هلته ، کوم ځای کی چی محمد موسی شفیق تر نظارت لاندی ورسیدو ما ( صاحب جان) ته  وویل چی ته دلته اوسه زه محمد موسی شفیق ته د داوود خان پیغام رساوم. پلار می زیاته کړه زه یواځی ورننوتم ، کله چی د محمد موسی شفیق سترګی پر ما ولږیدلی له ځایه را پورته شو مونږ دواړو روغبړ سره  وکړو  ما ښاغلی محمد موسی شفیق ته وویل چی د خبرو وخت نشته کالی دی را واخله تاسی د دولت د ریس او صدراعظم محمد داوودخان  په امر د بند یا نظارت نه خلاص شوی یاست ، ما ته شخصآ محمد داودخان امر وکړو چی تاسی خپل کور قرغی ته ورسوم،  او زه هم په دی خاطر په تا پسی راغلی یم ،  پلار می زیاته کړه چی په ریښتیا د محمد موسی شفیق په شونډ کی تبسم د لری و بریښیده ، د صدارت څخه راووتو. 

زه او محمد موسی شفیق د موتر په شا ( عقبی ) سیت کی کښیناستو صاحب جان د جمهوری ګارد معاون او دریور مخکښی ناست وه خو کله چی موتر د صدارت  د څلور لاری (چاراهی) ته ورسید ما دریور ته وویل چی ښی لاس ته تاو شه، دریور هم موتر راتاو کی پدی وخت کی ما محمد موسی شفیق ته وویل مخکښی له دی چی تا  د قرغی کور ته ورسوم لازمه بولم  تا  د یوه نژدی او مهربان دوست کور ته بوځم ، فاصله دومره زیاته نه وه شفیق را ته وویل ، چی پوښتنه کولای شم کوم دوست کره، پدی وخت کی موتر د پیر سیداحمد ګیلانی کورته ورسید ما بیا دریور ته ور غږ کړو، بچیه چپ لاسته په دی کوڅه کی داخل شه  موتر هم داخل شو کله چی موسی شفیق د پیر کوڅه و لیده ډیر خوشحاله شو. موتر مو د پیر سید احمد ګیلانی دکور په انګړ کی و دراوه ، کله چی د ګیلانی نوکرانو مونږ و لیدو په منډو شول او ګیلانی ته یی خبر ور کړه چی خانصاحب د محمد موسی شفیق سره یوځای راغلل ، پیر ګیلانی هم په ډیر بیړه د کور عمومی دروازی ته ځان راورساوه  روغبړ مو سره وکړو، ما پیر ګیلانی ته وویل مخکښی له دی چی ما دی ( موسی شفیق) قرغی ته رسولی وای لازمه می وباله چی اول یی تاسو کور ته راولم ځکه چی تاسی  دده په خلاص کیدو کی زیاته کوشش او علاقه درلوده ، پلار می وویل چی د یوه مختصر چای  خوړو وروسته می محمد موسی شفیق د داوودخان د امر په اساس قرغی دده کورته ورساوه ، د خدای پامانی پر موقع (وخت) محمد موسی شفیق را ته وویل چی خانصاحب ما د خپل قدرت پر وخت کی تا سره هیڅ نه دی کړی خو که ورځ یی راغله زه به د ستا دا احسان ادا کړم . خدای پامانی مو سره وکړه ، ما (بازمحمدخان) دده د رسولو اطمنان د تلیفون له لاری د خپل ځوی  عبدالمجید باز په لاس داودخان ته ورساوه .

 محمد موسی شفیق  وروسته د خوشی کیدو د هر اختر د مبارکی لپاره به د محمد داوودخان کور ته راتلو.

ما د خپل ورور له خولی څو ځلی د ۱۳۵۶ کال په اخیرو کی واوریده ،  ځنی پنجشنبی ورځی چی  داودخان په خپل کور کی وی او دفتر ته نه ځی، داوودخان د خپل کور فامیلی موتر په محمد موسی شفیق پسی لیږی، هغه ( موسی شفیق) او داودخان سره غرمه تیره وی دواړه دوه پر دوه سره ناست وی.د افغانستان او جهان په وضعه سره خبری کوی.د ۱۳۵۶ کال اخیری شپی ورځی وی چی ورور می د پلار نه و غوښتل که ته جمهور ریس ته ووایی چی زه خپل تحصیلات تکمیل کړم او خپله ارکان حربی واخلم زما په غوض زما بل ورور چی عبدالولی نومیږی او د بالاحصار په غنډ کی د کوماندو او پراشتو صاحب منصب دی زما په عوض د ځان سره ونیسی ، پلار می دا موضوع د داوودخان سره شریکه( یاده )کړی وه هغه ورته په ځواب کی ویلی و چی دا کار به در ته و کړم هغه به امریکا ته د نظامی اتیشی په صفت در ته ولیږم چی هم تحصل وکړی او هم کار، او دا بل ځوی به دی د ځان سره ونیسم. خو لږ صبر راته وکړه په اتم ۸ د جوزا یو رسمی سفر واشنګتن امریکا ته لرم کله چی د هغی سفر نه بیرته راغلم زه هم ستړی شوی یم.

 د کار بوج ( اندازه) را باندی زیاته ده کابینه تبدیل کوم یو نفر چی اقلا نیم کار زما د اوږو څخه هم کم کړی (نوی) راولم، زه ددی کابینی سره ډیر په تنګ شوی یم، نو کله چی می پلار دا خبری ورور عبدالمجید باز ته کړی،  ورور می پلارته وویل چی پلاره،  دا شخص چی هغه ( محمد داوودخان) تاسی ته وویل دا نوی شخص محمد موسی شفیق دی بل څوک نه دی. -  Read More at  محمدموسی شفيق څرنګه او دچا په سپارښتنه 

(قاسم باز -  د سترګو لیدلی یاداښتونه (دریمه برخه-ختم
د سترګو لیدلی یاداښتونه (دوهم قسمت)  - قاسم باز

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

President Ghani Meets USIP Delegation in Kabul - president.gov

President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani met with a delegation of the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) to discuss peace and reconciliation.

In the meeting held at the Presidential Palace this afternoon, President Ghani thanked leadership of the Institute in its efforts to find ways for strengthening peace and stability in Afghanistan and highlighted the importance of a durable peace in Afghanistan and its relevance to the regional and global stability.

Commending the efforts and sacrifices of the Afghan National Security and Defense Forces in the fight against terrorism, the President stated that sacrifices of the Afghan forces benefit not only the region but also the world. - Read More at the USIP Delegation in Kabul
President Ghani Meets USIP Delegation in Kabul 

جمهور رئیس غني د امریکا د سولې د انستیتوت له رئیس او ځینو غړو سره وکتل

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, scientist and former president of India, dies at 83 - washingtonpost

Former Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, a scientist who was known as the father of the country’s military missile program, died July 27 after collapsing while delivering a lecture. He was 83.

Mr. Kalam fell sick while addressing students at the Indian Institute of Management in the Meghalaya state capital, Shillong, said P.B. Warjri, chief secretary of the state. He was rushed to a hospital but was declared dead after doctors could not revive him, Warjri said. India Today reported that the cause was a heart attack.

Mr. Kalam served from 2002 until 2007 as president, a largely ceremonial role but one that reflected the prominence he had attained. He was a scientist and science administrator for four decades, mainly at the state-run Defense Research and Development Organization and the Indian Space Research Organization.

He was credited with helping develop his country’s first space satellites. In the 1980s, he was helped design the nuclear-capable Prithvi and Agni ballistic missiles.

He played a crucial role when India tested its nuclear weapons in 1998. The test resulted in sanctions against the country but helped elevate Mr. Kalam to the status of folk hero in his country.

“We must think and act like a nation of a billion people, and not like that of a million people,” he said at that time. “Dream, dream, dream! Conduct these dreams into thought, and then transform them into action.”

After his presidential term, Mr. Kalam traveled to remote schools and colleges, speaking to students. Even after he left office, he received hundreds of e-mails each day from young people. He would reply to most of the children who wrote to him. - Read More at A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

Seeking Sanctuary, More Migrants Confront Land Route’s Perils - nytimes

SUBOTICA, Serbia. — They call it “the jungle,” but it’s really just a tangle of dirt paths through stunted trees near an abandoned brick factory.

Between 150 and 200 people — mostly men, with a smattering of young families — cluster in discrete groups in scattered campsites, most resting on dusty blankets, the earth blackened here and there by the remains of the previous night’s fires.

“We have people from Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Somalia, Morocco,” said Mohamd, 42, a former truck driver for a factory near Aleppo, Syria, who hopes to reach the Netherlands. “Am I forgetting anyone?”

With war continuing to plague the Middle East and Afghanistan, and thousands trying to flee Africa’s grinding poverty, the swell of refugees and migrants hoping to reach Western Europe shows no signs of abating this summer.

For the last few years, the most popular route has been across the Mediterranean on boats run by Libyan smugglers that aimed for the nearest islands off the Italian coast. But as that route has become increasingly dangerous — the range of threats include drowning, abandonment by unscrupulous smugglers and crackdowns by European border patrols — the human tide is shifting. Increasingly, migrants are following a land-based route into Europe by way of Greece and the West Balkans.

But with the alternative crossing come other perils: violence, exploitation, intolerance. Though most European countries are overwhelmed by the tide, fueling an anti-immigrant backlash in many places, Eastern European countries like Hungary, Serbia and Bulgaria are considered particularly hostile. 

For a bird, the trip from Damascus, Syria, to Szeged, just across the Hungarian border, is 1,200 miles. From Kabul, Afghanistan, it is 2,700 miles. The migrant’s route, though, is rarely the most direct.  - Read More at Seeking Sanctuary

Seeking Sanctuary, More Migrants Confront Land Route’s Perils

Sunday, July 26, 2015

دسائیس و جنایات در افغانستان ۱۷۰۰-۲۰۱۴ - فضل احمد افغان

بنابر درنظرداشت اینکه حب وطن جز ایمان و استفاده از قلم فرض است این بنده عاجز که هزاران مایل دور از مادروطن در عالم جلاوطنی در دردهای بیشمارجسمی و مادروطن میسوزد و میسازد چاره ای جز توصل به قلم نوک شکسته خود چیزی دیګری برای تسکین و مداوای دردهای ۳۶ سال اخیر خود و هموطنان ګرانقدر مخصوصآ جوانان و نوجوانان هموطنم که متآسفانه بنابر جبر زمان با دوری از آغوش مادروطن از آموزش زبانهای مادری محروم و تحت تآثیر منابع خبری کشورهای مقیم خود قرار ګرفته اند نداشت، لهذا مجبور ګردید که قلم بدست گرفته دستی به تهوری بزند و آن اینست که:

بلی وقتی از تهور حرف زده میشود مطلب این است که من کتاب اخیر خود را که تحت عنوان فوق شکسته و ریخته به لسان غیر مادری (انګلیسی) تحریر نموده ام نسبت کمی و کاستی ام در زبان اجنبی و یا با بیان واقعیتها ترس و هراس از این و آن خاموشی از حقایق اختیار نکرده بلکه توتله بودن را بهتر از گنگه بودن دانسته با قبول مسؤلیتها واقعیتهای ناګفته شده را در یک مجمعه حدود هشتصد صفحه ای تحت عنوان انگلیسی فوق با قلب شکسته ام و جندین تکلیف صحی دیگر گریه کنان در ناتوانائی جسمی و مادی در قید تحریر درآورده وبه زیور نشر سپردم تا هموطمنان عزیزم مخصوصآ نوجوانان که علمبرداران آینده مادروطن پدران و نیاکان خود اند از واقعیتهای نهفته که مادروطن عزیز ما را در طول سصد سال اخیر نه تنها دور از پیشرفتهای کشورهای مدنی به طرف بدبختی کشانیده بلکه افغانستان عزیز را در کره زمین به دوزخ مبدل تا اینکه حال کارد به گلوی ملت افغان رسیده و عنقزیب کشتی که از نیاکان به میراث مانده و در طول تاریخ لنگان لنگان با مقاومتها در مقابل طوفانهای متعدد تحمیل شده خود را به ساحل قرن بیست و یکم رسانیده در نتیجه دسائیس و جنایات عده ای از افغانهای جفاکار حق ناشناس در حق مادروطن خودشان و اجنبیان قدرتطلب توسعه ګر تشنه تیل و گاز در حق افغانها و افغانستان با ایجاد پدیده های سیاه یکی پی دیګر بکلی در حال غرق شدن است آگاهی تام حاصل و به خاطر خدا و مقدسات و وجایب ملی،انسانی و اسلامی واقعی و حب واقعی به وطن که جز ایمان است برای نجات مادروطن تمام اختلافات را کنار ګذاشته دست بدست هم داده متحدانه در جستجوی راه بیرونرفت برای نجات مادروطن شویم.  - Read More at afghan-german

دسائیس و جنایات در افغانستان ۱۷۰۰-۲۰۱۴ - فضل احمد افغان

Conspiracies and Atrocities in Afghanistan: 1700–2014 - More

Author Releases 'Conspiracies and Atrocities in Afghanistan' - More

Saturday, July 25, 2015

OP-ED - Afghanistan, Empires and the Grateful Dead - Roger Cohen

We had not planned to be in Afghanistan for the 1973 coup. In fact we had not planned much of anything. But that’s the way it turned out. When the Afghan king, Mohammad Zahir Shah, was ousted after a 40-year reign, we were in Kandahar in the courtyard of some hotel trying to learn how to ignore the flies. Another guest, who’d mastered the fly trick and attained imperturbability, had a short-wave radio. It picked up the BBC World Service news.

A coup? My two friends and I were on the hippie trail. This was not part of the deal, dude. Even Afghans seemed blown away. They of course had no idea that the overthrow of their monarch would presage decades of unrest in which the Soviet Union would find its quagmire and the United States discover the dangers of a short attention span.

They knew nothing of how the mujahedeen “holy warriors,” schooled in American-backed Wahhabi fundamentalism, would battle Soviet troops until they withdrew to an enfeebled Communist empire, how the Wahhabis would turn on their negligent American patron, how the Taliban would emerge to restore order, or how the United States after 9/11 would fight a long Afghan war with a disastrous Iraqi sidebar.

Nor did we. Afghanistan, even kingless, had majesty. Its coup seemed uneventful. We drove up to Kabul. I think we saw one tank.

The road to Afghanistan from London had led across a Turkey still impenetrable, where only the children smiled, the shah’s Iran, where Mashhad’s cobalt blue mosque made an indelible impression, and the dusty border near Herat, where we first became acquainted with the pride of the Afghan gaze.

Our VW Kombi was called Pigpen, named after the keyboardist of theGrateful Dead who’d died that year. The Dead loomed large, our sunshine daydream. “Truckin”’ was our anthem — until the cassette machine got stolen. Then we strained for the harmonies of “Uncle John’s Band.” In Kabul we had an Ace of Hearts painted on the front of Pigpen.

Up to Bamiyan we went and sat on the heads of the 1,500-year-old Buddhas, since destroyed by the Taliban as “gods of the infidels.” We gazed at the sacred valley. The peace seemed eternal; it would not be. Everything passes except the dream that it will not. In Band-e-Amir, the night sky was of a breathtaking brilliance. On my 18th birthday, I thought I found my star, blotted out the rest, and recalled the line from “Box of Rain” — “Maybe you’ll find direction around some corner where it’s been waiting to meet you.” Later, deep in the Hindu Kush, Pigpen broke down. Like so many before us, we limped out of Afghanistan but we brought the Kombi home. There is much to be said for journeys without maps. - Read More at nytimes

Afghanistan, Empires and the Grateful Dead


Obama discusses U.S. partnership with Afghan leaders: White House

President Barack Obama talked with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah on Wednesday about ways to strengthen Afghan forces and offered support for the Afghan-led peace process with the Taliban, the White House said.

"The President also praised the Afghan security forces' performance during the current fighting season," the White House said. - More at reuters

Obama discusses U.S. partnership with Afghan leaders: White House


Obama dines with Kenyan family after arriving in father's homeland

U.S. President Barack Obama dined with his step grandmother, his sister and other extended family members after arriving in Kenya for his first presidential visit to his father's homeland on Friday.

Obama's plane, Air Force One, landed in the evening in the Kenyan capital, where he will co-host a conference on boosting entrepreneurs in Africa before traveling on to Ethiopia.

After being greeted by President Uhuru Kenyatta and other top Kenyan officials, Obama was whisked through the capital.

Hours before Obama's arrival, police blocked major roads and emptied streets of traffic in the usually congested capital as part of a huge security operation.  In the darkness, excited Kenyans lined parts of the route to his hotel, cheering as Obama's motorcade passed by.

Once at his hotel, the president sat down with the woman he calls "Granny," also called "Mama Sarah," who helped raise his now deceased father as a child.  Obama's half sister Auma Obama and a few dozen other extended family members related were also present.

Wearing a suit and tie, he chatted amiably with the large family seated at long tables at a restaurant inside the hotel where he is staying - Read More

Obama dines with Kenyan family after arriving in father's homeland

Turkey stages first air strikes on Islamic State in Syria

Turkish warplanes pounded Islamic State targets in Syria for the first time on Friday, with President Tayyip Erdogan promising more decisive action against both the jihadists and Kurdish militants.

Hours after the initial attacks, fighter jets were launched in a second round against Islamic State, while others targeted militants camps of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in northern Iraq, according to local media.

Reuters was unable to confirm the second round of strikes. An attack against PKK camps in Iraq would likely mark a major blow to Turkey's already stalled peace process with the Kurds.

Friday's operations followed a telephone conversation between Erdogan and U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday, and were accompanied by police raids across Turkey to detain hundreds of suspected militants, including from Kurdish groups.

Ankara said it had approved the use of its air bases by U.S. and coalition aircraft to mount strikes against Islamic State, marking a major change in policy that has long been a sore point for Washington.

Turkey has been a reluctant partner in the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, emphasizing instead the need to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and said Syrian Kurdish forces also pose a grave security threat.

Erdogan said the crack down against Islamic State would be in tandem with an attack on the PKK, which Ankara describes as a separatist organization.

"In our phone call with Obama, we reiterated our determination in the struggle against the separatist organization and the Islamic State," Erdogan told reporters. "We took the first step last night." - Read More 

Turkey stages first air strikes on Islamic State in Syria


Turkey justifies Syria air strikes in letter to United Nations

Friday, July 24, 2015

BBC News - Helmand's Golden Age | Facebook

In 1952, American engineer Glenn Foster arrived in Afghanistan, carrying with him his 16mm camera. Glenn and numerous other construction specialists were hired by King Zahir to help build the new, post-World War Two country. Over seven years, Glenn shot hour upon hour of film, providing a unique and rare insight into Afghanistan of the 1950s  http://bbc.in/1oFCYv7 -  Read More at the Glenn Foster

BBC News - Helmand's Golden Age | Facebook


Rosanne Klass, Advocate of the Afghan People, Dies at 86 - nytimes

Rosanne Klass, a writer and human rights advocate who presciently warned against Soviet aggression in Afghanistan in the 1980s and its potential to unify rebels under the banner of Islam, died on Tuesday at her home in Manhattan. She was 86.  The cause was cancer, said Stephen T. Marshall, her cousin and closest surviving relative.

After the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in late 1979, Ms. Klass became a leading advocate of American military support for Afghan insurgents, who sought to topple a Soviet-installed regime in Kabul. As the war dragged on, she repeatedly prodded the public not to forget the toll it was taking on civilians there — a million or more casualties by the time Soviet forces completed their withdrawal in 1989.

“Afghans are wonderfully hospitable to foreigners — but not to would-be conquerors, whom they will fight to the death,” she wrote in 1980 in an op-ed article in The New York Times. “Since Islam is the unifying factor among the various ethnic groups, they are fighting under its banner.”

In the early 1950s, Ms. Klass tought English in rural Afghan schools with her husband, William K. Archer, — she was one of the first Western women to do so. Later, she wrote an acclaimed travel memoir, “Land of the High Flags,” which was published in 1964 and reissued in 2007 with the subtitle “Afghanistan When the Going Was Good.”

“Here, sky and earth seemed enemies glaring bitterly at one another, locked in a dogged struggle,” she wrote, until finally at dusk “the air was softened, as though the heat itself lay panting with exhaustion.”

Reviewing the book in The New York Times in 1964, Harrison E. Salisbury wrote, “By what sorcery is a girl wafted from the fat corn-and-hog lands of Iowa, over the very roofs of the world into Kabul, capital of the land of the high flags, there by a species of alchemy to transmute her fresh, fragile sensations into poetic prose that captures the very essence of the brave, proud people of Afghanistan?”

In 1988 Ms. Klass edited “Afghanistan: The Great Game Revisited,” a collection of essays that the historian Daniel Pipes described as “a work of clear vision and great importance.”

Rosanne Traxler Klass was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on March 29, 1929, to Raymond Klass, a lawyer, and the former Ann Traxler. Her brother, Philip, was a well-known debunker of U.F.O. sightings.

She received a bachelor’s degree in literature from the University of Wisconsin and a master’s from Hunter College in New York. Her marriage to Mr. Archer ended in divorce.

After working for The Times in the 1970s , she became director of the Afghanistan Information Center at Freedom House, a human rights watchdog group in New York, and a founder of the Afghanistan Relief Committee, formed after the Soviet invasion. - Read More at the Rosanne Klass

Rosanne Klass, Advocate of the Afghan People, Dies at 86

NASA Says Data Reveals Kepler 452b, an Earth-Like Planet - nytimes

Inching ahead on their quest for what they call Earth 2.0, astronomers from NASA’s Kepler planet-hunting spacecraft announced on Thursday that they had found what might be one of the closest analogues to our own world yet.

It is a planet a little more than one and a half times as big in radius asEarth. Known as Kepler 452b, it circles a sunlike star in an orbit that takes 385 days, just slightly longer than our own year, putting it firmly in the “Goldilocks” habitable zone where the temperatures are lukewarm and suitable for liquid water on the surface — if it has a surface.

The new planet’s size puts it right on the edge between being rocky like Earth and being a fluffy gas ball like Neptune, according to studies of other such exoplanets. In an email, Jon Jenkins of NASA’s Ames Research Center, home of the Kepler project, and lead author of a paper being published in The Astronomical Journal, said the likelihood of the planet’s being rocky was 50 percent to 62 percent, depending on uncertainties in the size of its home star. That would mean its mass is about five times that of Earth.

The star that lights this planet’s sky is about 1.5 billion years older than our sun and 20 percent more luminous, which has implications for the prospects of life, Dr. Jenkins said. - Read More at the  an Earth-Like Planet

NASA Says Data Reveals Kepler 452b, an Earth-Like Planet

Thursday, July 23, 2015

یاد بود از هشتمین سالروز وفات محمد ظاهر شاه، پادشاه سابق افغانستان - NoorinTv



یاد بود از هشتمین سالروز وفات محمد ظاهر شاه، پادشاه سابق افغانستان  - Read More

افغان چارواکو د افغانستان د پخواني پاچا محمد ظاهرد مړینې اتم تلین ونمانځه

 عبداله عبداله محمد ظاهرد هیواد د معاصر تاریخ ستر شخصیت او د د موکراسئ ملاتړی وباله . همدارنګه د محمد ظاهر لمسي مصطفی ظاهر وویل، نیکه یې تل د سولې، د موکراسئ او د ټولنیزعدالت ټینګولو ته هڅې کړي دي.ویډیو او ایډیت:ولی سباوون  - More at azadiradio

   افغان چارواکو د افغانستان د پخواني پاچا محمد ظاهرد مړینې اتم تلین ونمانځه

ازهشتمین سالروز وفات محمد ظاهرشاه یاد بود به عمل آمد - رادیو آزادی - More

His Majesty Mohammad Zahir Shah's (Father Of The Nation) 8th year remembrance day:

His Majesty Mohammad Zahir Shah's (Father Of The Nation) 8th year remembrance day ceremony. In Maranjan Hill. Kabul Afghanistan - More at 8th year remembrance day ceremony

Sardar Nadir Naim | فیس‌بوک


Mohammed Zahir Shah the last King of Afghanistan - Robinson Library

Mohammad Zahir Shah was born in Kabul on October 15, 1914, the son of Mohammed Nadir Khan. He was educated in Kabul until age 10, when he went to Paris with his father, who had been appointed Minister there by King Amanullah. He completed his primary and secondary schooling in Paris, and subsequently studied at the Institut Pasteur and the University of Montpellier

Zahir ascended to the throne on November 8, 1933, following the assassination of his father. Although he was only 19, he was able to rely on his uncle, Sardar Hashim Khan, as a trusted adviser and Prime Minister. Khan was known throughout the country as an honest and able official who had no aspirations to higher office, and was therefore well liked by the citizenry.

Zahir's primary focus during the first years of his reign was to update the nation's infrastructure. With Khan's help, he was able to obtain financial credit from Germany which allowed for a program of development. On August 17, 1940, he issued a declaration of neutrality which kept his nation out of World War II, and was able to continue his development program with American assistance after the war.

During a six-month tour of Europe in 1949, Zahir's European education and background made it possible for him to encourage European companies to invest in engineering projects. In the 1950's he visited Moscow for talks with Soviet leadership. These talks added Soviet financial and material aid to Zahir's modernization program. In 1953, his cousin, Sardar Mohammed Daud Khan, became Prime Minister. Daud, however, proved to be a less able administrator than Khan had been, and the king's modernization program almost came to a halt.

In 1963, Zahir declared Afghanistan to be a Constitutional Monarchy. A new constitution was written, in which it was decreed that no member of the royal family could hold office as Prime Minister, thereby removing Daud from office. The constitution, which aimed to combine Western political ideas with Islamic religious beliefs and social customs, established a two-house Parliament, free elections, freedom of the press, and gave women the right to vote. - Read More at Robinsonlibrary
Mohammed Zahir Shah, the last King of Afghanistan - Read More

Mohammad Zahir Shah, Last Afghan King, Dies at 92 - nytimes

KABUL, Afghanistan, July 23 — Mohammad Zahir Shah , the former king of Afghanistan, whose 40-year reign, which ended in 1973, was esteemed enough to earn him the title “father of the nation” in the current Constitution, died Monday in Kabul. He was 92.

“Zahir Shah was beloved by many people,” said Abdul Hamid Mubarez, one of Afghanistan’s best-known journalists . “For them, he was a mixture of Afghan and Western culture. He was educated in France and had a chance to observe the democratic system there. He brought back some very progressive ideas.”

Zahir never did become a dynamic ruler, always seeming more like a gentleman farmer at home on his property with a new breed of milk cows or fresh plantings of strawberries. But he did assert himself in the 1960s, introducing a constitutional monarchy and advocating greater political tolerance. His changes included new rights for women in voting, education and the work force.

These changes, in a deeply traditional Islamic society, were not popular with everyone. But his years were characterized by a rare long period of peace. This tranquillity is recalled now with immense nostalgia. 

Zahir was overthrown in 1973 while traveling in Italy, getting medical treatments for eye problems and therapy for lumbago. His successor was a slighted cousin, Sardar Mohammad Daoud Khan , whom the king had fired as prime minister a decade earlier. Zahir abdicated the throne rather than start bloodshed. But Afghanistan’s problems were just beginning

Living so far from home, the deposed king, like so many other Afghan exiles, watched helplessly as his country was wrenched apart. - Read More at the Last Afghan King

Mohammad Zahir Shah, Last Afghan King, Dies at 92 - New ...