In the Afghan province of Bamian, women are uprooting traditional gender roles by taking up leadership positions. Carlotta Gall in the New York Times:
Zeinab Husseini, 19, sits in the drivers seat of her vehicle accompanied by her husband. Photo: Moises Saman for The New York Times
Far away from the Taliban insurgency, in this most peaceful corner of Afghanistan, a quiet revolution is gaining pace. Women are driving cars – a rarity in Afghanistan – working in public offices and police stations, and sitting on local councils. There is even a female governor, the first and only one in Afghanistan.
In many ways this province, Bamian, is unique. A half-dozen years of relative peace in this part of the country since the fall of the Taliban and a lessening of lawlessness and disorder have allowed women to push the boundaries here.
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Reports link Karzai’s brother to Afghanistan heroin trade
James Risen in the New York Times:
Ahmed Wali Karzai, President Hamid Karzai’s brother, in 2001. NYTimes
When Afghan security forces found an enormous cache of heroin hidden beneath concrete blocks in a tractor-trailer outside Kandahar in 2004, the local Afghan commander quickly impounded the truck and notified his boss.
Before long, the commander, Habibullah Jan, received a telephone call from Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of President Hamid Karzai, asking him to release the vehicle and the drugs, Mr. Jan later told American investigators, according to notes from the debriefing obtained by The New York Times. He said he complied after getting a phone call from an aide to President Karzai directing him to release the truck.
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