The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) announced today that it has temporarily moved some of its international staff in Kandahar to Kabul and instructed its national staff in Kandahar to stay at home. The announcement came after a spate of suicide bombings, attacks on supply convoys, and the fatal shooting of a young employee of a US-based development firm.
(Kabul) -- Afghan women in public life have always struggled, but the involvement of the international community in Afghanistan over the past eight and a half years opened space for women that did not exist under Taliban rule. Current trends, though, are negative. Women’s participation in politics and public life generally is declining, and, alarmingly, violence against women who venture out of the private sphere is spiking across the country.
Bad news out of Afghanistan's northern Baghlan province. Five UN workers went missing yesterday, and reports indicate that the five Afghans, all employees the UN Office of Project Services (UNOPS), were kidnapped as they drove back from a site visit.