KABUL, June 18 (Reuters) – Limping on his prosthetic leg as
he crosses a barren room scattered with a motley collection of
weights, powerlifter Mohammad Fahim Rahimi laments the poverty
and neglect preventing the large number of disabled Afghans from
pursuing sport.

The 29-year-old is the only Afghan athlete to have qualified
for this year’s Paralympics in London, but there is hope that
the Games will highlight the fate of Afghanistan’s estimated two
million disabled people.

LONDON (Reuters) – A bearded man in drag and the Afghan army make unlikely companions in an adapted Shakespeare comedy whose London staging has shone a spotlight on Afghanistan’s neglected arts scene.

Thirty years of war and conflict have severely hampered Afghanistan’s cultural development. Afghans boast a rich musical legacy and tradition of poetry, but many of the most talented go abroad, fleeing a film industry on the brink of collapse and a theatre industry that was throttled at birth.

KABUL (Reuters) – With most foreign combat troops set to withdraw from Afghanistan by 2014, Iran is using the media in the war-ravaged nation to gain influence, a worrying issue for Washington.

Nearly a third of Afghanistan’s media is backed by Iran, either financially or through providing content, Afghan officials and media groups say.

KABUL, May 24 (Reuters) – With most foreign combat troops
set to withdraw from Afghanistan by 2014, Iran is is using the
media in the war-ravaged nation to gain influence, a worrying
issue for Washington.

Nearly a third of Afghanistan’s media is backed by Iran,
either financially or through providing content, Afghan
officials and media groups say.

KABUL (Reuters) – Clouds of hashish and cigarette smoke float across a screen showing a dancing Pakistani woman, who evokes yowls of excitement from the hundreds of Afghan men passing their time in one of the capital’s rundown cinemas.

Once a treasured luxury for the elite, Afghan film connoisseurs are deeply distressed by the dilapidated state of their cinemas, which reflect an industry on the brink of collapse from conflict and financial neglect.

MAZAR-E-SHARIF, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Gulam recalls the evening she fled her home in northern Afghanistan on foot, running with her teen daughters under the cloak of darkness to avoid cooking a dinner for 20 Taliban insurgents.

“This Talib burst through my door and demanded I cook for them. But I had no money, and I was scared they would take my daughters,” Gulam said, pulling a stripy shawl tightly around her gaunt and wrinkled face.

WASHINGTON/KABUL (Reuters) – Shortly after sending U.S. troops to Afghanistan in October 2001, President George W. Bush focused so intently on freeing Afghan women from the shackles of Taliban rule that empowering them became central to the United States’ mission there.

More than a decade later, as his successor Barack Obama charts a way out of the unpopular war, Afghan girls are back in school, infant and maternal survival rates are up and a quarter of the parliament’s seats are reserved for women who at least on paper have the same voting, mobility and other rights as men.

WASHINGTON/KABUL, May 10 (Reuters) – Shortly after sending
U.S. troops to Afghanistan in October 2001, President George W.
Bush focused so intently on freeing Afghan women from the
shackles of Taliban rule that empowering them became central to
the United States’ mission there.

More than a decade later, as his successor Barack Obama
charts a way out of the unpopular war, Afghan girls are back in
school, infant and maternal survival rates are up and a quarter
of the parliament’s seats are reserved for women who at least on
paper have the same voting, mobility and other rights as men.

KABUL (Reuters) – Better healthcare and more girls attending school have knocked Afghanistan from its position as the worst place on earth to be a mother, Save the Children said in a major report on Tuesday, but stressed the precarious nature of any gains.

“More mothers are surviving and fewer children are dying and this is something we need to be celebrating,” said Rachel Maranto, Advocacy and Mobilisation senior Manager at Save the Children in Kabul.

KABUL (Reuters) – Spot made the clandestine journey from the Afghan Taliban stronghold of Helmand to the capital Kabul, where he is undergoing medical treatment before moving to the United States to live with the family of the Marine who rescued him.

His ears clipped and tail severed from his days as a fighting dog, the surprisingly docile ginger and white mutt is one of hundreds being adopted in increasing numbers by foreign soldiers, who pay vast sums to take their new pets home.