For years, Australia has carried on a battle with illegal immigrants who try to enter the country by all possible means. The immigrants, mostly from Afghanistan and Iraq, have been met with warships, barbed wire, and detention in remote and inhospitable camps. International human rights organizations are concerned at the situation, but the Australian federal government of Prime Minister John Howard remains adamant that it will not take in illegal immigrants.
Kandahar, 6 January 2004 (RFE/RL) -- A bomb blast in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar has killed at least 10 people and wounded at least 15. Police said eight of the killed were children.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has praised Afghanistan's new constitution as a historic achievement. U.S. President George W. Bush says the document lays the foundation for democratic institutions and elections before the end of the year. But observers question whether a country emerging from more than two decades of fighting can be so quickly transformed. They say the ethnic divisions that still exist in the country will make implementation extremely difficult.
Brussels, 5 January 2004 (RFE/RL) -- Former Dutch Foreign Minister Jaap de Hoop Scheffer took over today as the secretary-general of NATO.
Kabul, 4 January 2004 (RFE/RL) -- Afghanistan's Loya Jirga passed a new constitution by consensus today, paving the way for the country's first full democratic elections.
Kabul, 4 January 2003 (RFE/RL) -- Delegates to Afghanistan's Consitutional Loya Jirga are reported to have been holding behind the scenes meetings and private talks in a bid to save the meeting from collapse.
Kabul, 3 January 2004 (RFE/RL) -- Afghan Transitional Administration Chairman Hamid Karzai today called on delegates to the country's Constitutional Loya Jirga, or grand council, to work toward consensus on the country's new constitution.
Prague, 2 January 2004 (RFE/RL) -- Delegates at Afghanistan's Loya Jirga are meeting behind closed doors today in an attempt to overcome differences over the country's future constitution.
In 1933, travel writer Robert Byron called the towering minarets of the western Afghan city of Herat "the most beautiful example of color in architecture ever devised by man to the glory of his god and himself." Today, the minarets and monuments of this ancient center of culture and learning cast but a faint shadow of their former selves. Earthquakes, wars, wind, and water have taken a disastrous toll. But as RFE/RL correspondent Grant Podelco discovered on a recent visit to Herat, efforts are under way by the Afghan government and the United Nations to save these celebrated treasures.
For centuries, the western Afghan city of Herat has been known as a center for art, literature, and learning. Today, however, the city is more closely associated with the iron-fisted rule of its governor, the self-styled "Emir of Herat," Ismail Khan. RFE/RL correspondent Grant Podelco just returned from a visit to Herat. He discovered a city more outwardly civil than the capital, Kabul, but one that on closer inspection is governed by a palpable climate of fear, an atmosphere only exacerbated by the publication this month of a damning report on the province's human rights record.
Load more
