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<channel>
	<title>Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org</link>
	<description><![CDATA[The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) news channel. RAWA is the oldest political/social organization of Afghan women struggling for peace, freedom, democracy and women rights in fundamentalism-blighted Afghanistan since 1977. ]]></description>
	<webMaster>rawa@rawa.org</webMaster>

 


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	<title>"Turn your grief into positive energy" (By Kate Hannan, about her volunteer work with RAWA)</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/tours/kate.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[December 12, 2006  -- Courage, hope, determination, steadfastness, devotion, action ….all these radiate from the RAWA members and supporters I met during my stay in Pakistan in October 2006.]]></description>
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	<title>RAWA communiqué on Universal Human Rights Day</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/events/dec10-06_e.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[December 10, 2006  -- Five years ago, America and their allies attacked Afghanistan in the name of bringing "Human Rights", "Democracy", and "Freedom" to the war-torn country. The Taliban regime fell and Hamid Karzai's puppet regime, which included the world-known Northern Alliance criminals or as UN envoy Mahmoud Mestri said, "the bandit gangs", took over in the name of a fake democracy.]]></description>
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	<title>HRW: Karzai Must Hold Officials Accountable for Past Crimes</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/hrw_crimes.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[December 12, 2006  -- President Hamid Karzai should immediately enforce a program to provide truth, reconciliation and accountability for war crimes and major human rights abuses over the past 30 years in Afghanistan, Human Rights Watch said today. The Afghan government should establish a special court to try those responsible, some of whom hold high office, as soon as possible, Human Rights Watch said.]]></description>
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	<title>New Taliban Rules Target Afghan Teachers: 2 teachers killed</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/talibanrule.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[December 9, 2006  -- The Taliban gunmen who murdered two teachers in eastern Afghanistan early Saturday were only following their rules: Teachers receive a warning, then a beating, and if they continue to teach must be killed.]]></description>
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	<title>Drug addiction on rise with Afghan kids</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/opium_kids.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[December 6, 2006  -- Afghanistan is the world's leading producer of opium and heroin, exporting drugs to Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the United States. But the scale of domestic drug abuse has only recently become apparent. The first nationwide survey on drug use, conducted last year by the Ministry of Counter Narcotics and U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, found nearly 1 million addicts in this nation of about 30 million people, including 60,000 children under age 15.]]></description>
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	<title>Warlords gang-rape a woman in Badakhshan</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/gangrape.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[November 29, 2006  -- A local commander and his 11 men gang-rape a 22-year-old woman in Shahre Buzurg district of the northeastern Badakhshan province on Nov.28. The crime took place in the Shah Dasht village, by a local warlord called Mujtaba who belongs to Jamiat-e-Islami Afghanistan led by Burhanuddin Rabbani (now member of the parliament).]]></description>
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	<title>100 suicide attemps among women in 8 months in Kandahar</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/suicide-100.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[November 29, 2006   -- Some 100 women have attempted suicide by committing self-immolation or taking poison during the last eight months in the insurgency-hit southern province of Kandahar, an Afghan human rights watchdog said on Wednesday. "Our data show that at least 64 women have attempted suicide by setting fire to themselves and 36 others have resorted to taking poisons such as rat killers during the past eight months," Najeeba Hashimi, head of women's rights in the Kandahar office of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), said.]]></description>
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	<title>Almost half of all Afghan children not in school - Oxfam </title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/education2.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[November 27, 2006   -- More than half of Afghanistan's children are not going to school because of a shortage of places and teachers, the aid agency Oxfam says. Girls in particular are losing out, with just one in five girls in primary education and one in 20 going to secondary school.]]></description>
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	<title>Afghanistan: Behind the burqas</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/ynetnews.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[November 24, 2006   -- Activist with Afghani organization for women’s rights RAWA tells Ynet women’s situation in Afghanistan even worse than before American invasion: Rape, kidnapping, murder go unpunished. ‘Without western interference, 9/11 could happen again,’ warns Sahar Saba]]></description>
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	<title>Violence against women on the rise in north of Afghanistan</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/women_north.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[November 16, 2006  -- Sexual abuse, murder and other crimes of different types are increasing in the Northern provinces of Afghanistan and this situation has provoked the intense concerns of human rights and women affairs' activists.]]></description>
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	<title>Meena among 60 Asian Heroes of Time Magazine</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/meena_time.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[November 13, 2006   -- Meena called the women of Afghanistan sleeping lions, pledging that one day they would awake and roar. In 1977, at the age of 20, she launched the country's first movement for women's rights, calling her group the Revolutionary Association for the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA). Its goals: the restoration of democracy, equality for men and women, social justice, and the separation of religion from the affairs of the state. But in a country mired in tradition and occupied by the Soviet Union, Meena's beliefs were threatening enough to get her assassinated. Ten years after founding RAWA, she was kidnapped and killed; many Afghans held agents of the local communist intelligence agency responsible.]]></description>
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	<title>Gap between rich and poor in Kabul (Photo Report)</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/images/h_kabul.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[November 2006   -- RAWA Photos from Kabul]]></description>
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	<title>Abuse of Afghan women: 'It was my decision to die. I was getting beaten every day'</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/women-life.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[November 24, 2006  -- Those who should be in the best position to help, women MPs, another supposed sign of the brave new Afghanistan, are themselves facing violence and intimidation. Malalai Joya, at 28 one of Afghanistan's youngest MPs, regularly changes addresses because of death threats. "When I speak in parliament male MPs throw water bottles at me. Some of them shout 'take and rape her'. "Many of the men in power have the same attitude as the Taliban. Women have not been liberated. You want to know how women feel in this country? Look at the rate of suicide," she said. ]]></description>
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	<title>Afghan Women Commit Suicide by Fire</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/suicide06-2.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[November 18, 2006  -- Blood dripped down the 16-year-old girl's face after another beating by her drug addict husband. Worn down by life's pain, she ran to the kitchen, doused herself with gas from a lamp and struck a match. Desperate to escape domestic violence, forced marriage and hardship, scores of women across Afghanistan each year are committing suicide by fire. While some gains have been made since the fall of the Taliban five years ago, life remains bleak for many Afghan women in the conservative and violence-plagued country, and suicide is a common escape.]]></description>
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	<title>Protesters for Jawzjan governor resignation</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/jawzjan.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[November 16, 2006  -- About 400 residents of the northern Jawzjan province Thursday in a protest rally urged Juma Khan Hamdard to quit his position as governor. Mohammad Rasul, one of the protesters, told Pajhwok Afghan News: "We don't want the governor, he belongs to Hezb-i-Islami party and is also involved in drug-trafficking."]]></description>
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	<title>Police rapes a girl in Takhar, Women are sold in Faryab</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/rape.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[November 7, 2006  -- According to a report from the Northern Province of Takhar, tens of people staged a demonstration to protest rape of a girl by police in the Dasht-e-Qala district of this province. Also it is reported that selling of women has become very common in Faryab province in north of Afghanistan and each woman is sold up to 50,000 Afghanis (around US$1,000).]]></description>
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	<title>Sanobar, 11-years-old girl is abducted and raped by warlords (with photos)</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/gulsha.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[November 5, 2006  -- Sanobar, an 11-years-old daughter of Gulsha, an Afghan widow, has been abducted, raped and then exchanged with a dog by warlords in Aliabad district of Kondoz province in North of Afghanistan.]]></description>
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	<title>WomanKind: No real change for Afghan women</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/womankind.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[October 31, 2006  -- An international women's rights group says guarantees given to Afghan women after the fall of the Taleban in 2001 have not translated into real change. Womankind Worldwide says millions of Afghan women and girls continue to face systematic discrimination and violence in their households and communities.]]></description>
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	<title>Social problems behind women's suicide in Helmand</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/suicide06.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[October 23, 2006  -- According to Women Affairs Department ill-treatment, domestic disputes and economic problems are behind the increasing incidents of women committing suicide in the southern volatile Helmand province, also known as centre of poppy cultivation. The officials said about 18 to 20 women, most of them young girls, had committed suicide during this year in the province. Of the 20 only four girls took their lives in the last month.]]></description>
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	<title>Stone Age still lingers on in Bamyan, many live in caves</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/bamyan_cave.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[October 18, 2006  -- Those living in caves near Buddha statue in the central Bamyan province have not enough stuff to offer to their honourable guests at this special day of the year, contrary to people serving their guests with dry fruit and sweets in other parts of the country. Of the total 3,000 caves at sides of Buddha statue, about 300 of the families are living in the caves.]]></description>
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	<title>30 killed as two warlords clash in Herat</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/herat_clash.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[October 18, 2006  -- Fighting between two rival factions has killed about 30 people in Shindand district of the western Herat province of Afghanistan, the provincial police said on Monday.]]></description>
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	<title>22 civilians die in southern Afghanistan offensives by NATO</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/nato-kill.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[October 18, 2006  -- NATO air strikes in southern Afghanistan's Kandahar province killed nine civilians and wounded 11 others Wednesday, the provincial governor said. NATO said an operation was believed to have caused "several" civilian casualties.]]></description>
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	<title>Millions face hunger in Afghanistan as drought worsens, warns aid group</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/drought06.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[October 18, 2006  -- 6.5 million people are likely to suffer chronic food insecurity due to the lack of rainfall this year, Christian Aid said.]]></description>
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	<title>Interview of Truth Radio in Canada with a RAWA activist </title>
	<link>http://archives.warpradio.com/bluntfm/bluntfm20061008ee.mp3</link>
	<description><![CDATA[October 8, 2006  -- Bryan Farnum and Bob Walberg Producer Truth Radio interview RAWA member on the current issues of Afghanistan]]></description>
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	<title>Five Years Later, Afghanistan Still in Flames</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/zoya_oct7-06.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[ZNet, October 11, 2006  -- Transcript of a speech by RAWA member Zoya at a benefit for RAWA (Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan), called "Breaking the Propaganda of Silence," organized by the Afghan Women's Mission on October 7, 2006. (download the audio files from our web site)]]></description>
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	<title>Takhar residents took to streets against armed men</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/takhar4.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[Pajhwok Afghan News, October 2, 2006   -- Thousands of people on Monday staged a protest demonstration against the presence of armed commanders in the northern Takhar province. The protestors demanded of the government to reign in the commanders, who had recently distributed arms to their supporters in an effort to press the government for conceding them more perks and privileges.]]></description>
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	<title>HRW: Human Rights Protections Need Greater Priority</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/hrw_warlords.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[HRW, September 27, 2006  -- Warlords with records of war crimes and serious abuses during Afghanistan's civil war in the 1990s, such as parliamentarians Abdul Rabb al Rasul Sayyaf and Burhanuddin Rabbani, General Abdul Rashid Dostum, and current Vice President Karim Khalili, have been allowed to hold and misuse positions of power, to the dismay of ordinary Afghans.]]></description>
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	<title>Top Afghan woman official killed</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/amajan.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[BBC NEWS, September 25, 2006  -- Unidentified gunmen have killed a top women's affairs official in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, security officials say. Safia Amajan, head of the province's women's department, was leaving her home for work when a gunman on a motorcycle shot at her, police said.]]></description>
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	<title>Rights Watchdog Alarmed At Continuing 'Honor Killings' in Afghanistan</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/honorkilling.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[RFE/RL, September 20, 2006  -- A UN-backed rights watchdog has expressed continuing concern over violence against women in Afghanistan. The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) released disturbing figures in mid-September on violence against women and girls, including dozens of cases of so-called honor killings.]]></description>
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	<title>Opium cultivation surges by 59% in Afghanistan</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/opium06.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[The Financial Times, Sep.4, 2006: Afghanistan now produces 92 per cent (6,100 tons) of the world’s supply of opium used to make heroin. Afghanistan’s opium cultivation surged by 59 per cent this year largely as a result of a Taliban-led insurgency that is pushing the southern part of the country to the verge of collapse, the United Nations drugs agency chief said at the weekend.]]></description>
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	<title>Afghan orphans reshape their lives at RAWA orphanages </title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/orphanages.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[RAWA, Aug.22, 2006: One of the criteria for selecting the children and taking them to the orphanage is their economical and social status; therefore, most of them are orphans, victims of child labor and street children forced to beg. They have been exposed to very hostile and painful environments, polluted by drug mafia, armed gangs and religious extremism.]]></description>
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	<title>Man publicly executed in Helmand</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/taliban-publicly.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[Pajhwok Afghan News, Sep. 2, 2006: Taliban have publicly executed a man for his alleged involvement in a murder case in the Garmsir district of the southern Helmand province on Saturday.]]></description>
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	<title>Suicide an option for desperate war-widows</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/suicide65.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[Indo Asian News Service, Aug. 14, 2006: UNIFEM Survey revealed: "65 per cent of the 50,000 widows in Kabul see suicide the only option to get rid of their miseries and desolation."]]></description>
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	<title>Taliban Kill a Woman and Hang Her 13-Year-Old Son</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/womanhanged.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[NY Times, Aug. 10, 2006: Taliban militants killed a woman and her 13-year-old son after accusing them of spying for the government and for foreign troops in southern Afghanistan, the Afghan government said Wednesday. The woman was shot and her son was hanged by an electrical wire from a tree on Monday in Helmand Province, said a spokesman for the provincial governor, Hajji Mohaiuddin. ]]></description>
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	<title>People of Paghman protest against Sayyaf, police kill 2 protesters (with photos)</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/paghman.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[RAWA, July 30, 2006: Hundreds of people from the Paghman district of Kabul demonstrated against Rasul Sayyaf, a fundamentalist leader of the Itehad-e-Islami party and a current member of the Afghan parliament. The protesters accused Sayyaf and his armed militia of extorting their lands and imposing crimes against them.]]></description>
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	<title>Journalists were beaten by armed men while covering anti-Sayyaf demonstration</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/beat-tolo.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[Pajhwok Afghan News, July 29, 2006: Three staffers working with a private television channel were beaten by armed men while covering a demonstration against former Mujahideen leader and current Member of Parliament Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf in Paghman district of Kabul on Saturday.]]></description>
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	<title>Vice and Virtue Department Could Return, Women and Girls Again at Risk </title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/hrw-virtue.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[HRW, July 18, 2006: A proposal to reestablish the Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in Afghanistan raises serious concerns about potential abuse of the rights of women and vulnerable groups, Human Rights Watch said today. President Hamid Karzai's cabinet has approved the proposal to reestablish the department, and it will go to Afghanistan's parliament when it reconvenes later this summer. It is not clear what the department's enforcement power would be. Nematullah Shahrani, the minister of Haj and religious affairs, who would oversee the department, has stated that it would focus on alcohol, drugs, crime and corruption. Afghanistan's criminal laws already address these issues.]]></description>
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	<title>NO END TO SUFFERING?</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/calcutta.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[The Times of India (Calcutta), June 24, 2006:  In an exclusive with Amrita Mukherjee, Mehmooda, a member of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), gets candid about the present situation of women in her country ]]></description>
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	<title>Afghan journalists living with fear</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/journalists.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[June 13, 2006: As a cameraman in the Afghan parliament, Omid Yakmanish thought he had a routine job, until he was attacked and threatened with death. It began when he filmed a parliamentary brawl and an attempted attack on a female MP last month. His footage was an embarrassment to many politicians, and the reaction was swift and violent.]]></description>
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	<title>UN details atrocities committed over 23 years of conflict in Afghanistan</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/un-sayyaf.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[June 13, 2006: A controversial UN report that has been shelved for 18 months names and shames leading Afghan politicians and officials accused of orchestrating massacres, torture, mass rape and other war crimes. The 220-page report by the UN high commissioner for human rights details atrocities committed by communist, mujahidin, Soviet and Taliban fighters over 23 years of conflict. Originally scheduled for release in January last year, the report's publication has been delayed repeatedly due to sensitivities over identifying former warlords still in positions of power.]]></description>
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	<title>Attack of Police to Girls Dormitory in Balkh</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/balkh.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[June 5, 2006: Tens of female students of Balk University have strike and closed the entry gate of dormitory to the faces of supervisors for their objection as what they have called the 'attack of policemen to girl's dormitory'. These girls who's number has been reported more than hundred, are saying that in the middle of last night (4th June), two policemen who had drunk alcoholic drink, by attacking to girl's dormitory in Mazar-e-Sharif, wanted to rape them. One of these girls who didn't disclose her name said: “last mid-night when we were all sleeping, two drunken men knocked the gate of the dormitory and when we woke up; they asked us to open the gate for them."]]></description>
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	<title>Afghan police part of the problem</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/police-3.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[June 6, 2006: Corruption is a growth industry for Afghanistan's police. They stand accused of extorting money from drug smugglers, gun runners, brothel owners and gamblers, in return for looking the other way. Those who refuse to pay can be arrested as part of an apparently virtuous clean-up campaign, and then released once they hand over the cash. The bribery and corruption surrounding the police force are just a fact of life for most Afghans. But it still came as something of a shock when the governor of the northern Balkh province took the region's law officers to task.]]></description>
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	<title>Death to America, Afghans riot after crash (with photos)</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/kabul-riot.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[May 30, 2006: Violent anti-foreigner protests raged across Afghanistan's capital yesterday after a U.S. military truck crashed into traffic, touching off the worst rioting since the Taliban's ouster. At least eight people died and 107 were injured before Kabul's streets calmed.]]></description>
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	<title>Hundreds Demonstrate in Takhar against Warlords, Murder of Children</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/suicide65.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[RAWA, May 14, 2006: The demonstration was provoked by the abduction and murder of two childern, 6-year-old Mohammad Yousif and 7-year-old Fraidon]]></description>
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	<title>Afghan police part of the problem</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/police-3.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[June 6, 2006: Corruption is a growth industry for Afghanistan's police. They stand accused of extorting money from drug smugglers, gun runners, brothel owners and gamblers, in return for looking the other way. Those who refuse to pay can be arrested as part of an apparently virtuous clean-up campaign, and then released once they hand over the cash.]]></description>
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	<title>'Attack of Police' to Girl's Dormitory in Balkh</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/balkh.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[June 5, 2006: Tens of female students of Balk University have strike and closed the entry gate of dormitory to the faces of supervisors for their objection as what they have called the 'attack of policemen to girl's dormitory'. These girls who's number has been reported more than hundred, are saying that in the middle of last night (4th June), two policemen who had drunk alcoholic drink, by attacking to girl's dormitory in Mazar-e-Sharif, wanted to rape them. ]]></description>
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	<title>Seven aid workers killed in Afghanistan</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/aidworkers.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[May 30, 2006: Seven aid workers lost their lives in Afghanistan on Tuesday in two separate incidents. At least four were killed in the northern Afghan province of Jawzjan when unidentified gunmen ambushed their vehicle, a government spokesman said in the capital Kabul.]]></description>
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	<title>US airstrike on Afghan village kills dozens civilians (with photos)</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/azizi.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[May 23, 2006: Up to 80 suspected Taliban militants and an unknown number of civilians died after U.S.-led coalition forces bombed a village in southern Afghanistan.]]></description>
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	<title>Poverty, violence put Afghanistan's fabled Kuchi nomads on a road to nowhere</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/nomad.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[May 14, 2006: One man lives penniless in a field under a patchwork tent with baying dogs roaming outside. Another, wearing a suit jacket and tie, glides past his silver Mercedes as he welcomes guests into his plush Kabul villa. Both are Kuchis, which means "nomads" in Pashtu language. Yet they have little in common, except their shared heritage and the view that the life of Afghanistan's wandering peoples is fading. Ten of the 249 seats in Afghanistan's parliament have been allotted to Kuchis, but many are filled by people who aren't nomads.]]></description>
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	<title>Attacks, 40% unemployment plague Afghanistan</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/unemployment.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[May 9, 2006: Afghanistan has some 25 million people; the country's unemployment rate is 40 percent, according to a CIA World Factbook estimate.]]></description>
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	<title>Malalalai Joya, female MP was physically and verbally attacked in the parliament floor</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/joya-insult.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[May 9, 2006: BOTTLES were thrown, insults traded and chairs knocked over in the bedlam. This was no bar-room brawl, however. It was the scene in the Afghan parliament on Sunday when a woman MP dared to stand up to a male colleague. Malalai Joya, 28, interrupted a former warlord as he praised the holy warriors — or Mujahidin — of Afghanistan during a debate to mark the anniversary of their defeat of communism. She declared that there were “two types of Mujahidin — one who were really Mujahidin, the second who killed tens of thousands of innocent people and who are criminals”.]]></description>
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	<title>US not interested in peace in Afghanistan: Kathy Gannon</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/kathy.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[May 5, 2006: The United States and its western allies have no interest in a stable and peaceful Afghanistan as the ravaged country continues to worsen under the Northern Alliance rule, who have big stakes in drug businesses and civil strife, says Kathy Gannon, a veteran journalist and Afghanistan expert.]]></description>
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	<title>HRW: Most of the 34 New Police Chiefs Are Human Rights Abusers</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/hrw-police.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[May 4, 2006: ... at least four of the current candidates for provincial police chief were barred from standing as candidates in last year’s parliamentary elections for having links to illegal militias.... Kabul’s police chief, Jamil Jumbish, has been implicated in murder, torture, intimidation, bribery and interfering with investigations into misconduct by officers directly under his control.]]></description>
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	<title>Lifting the veil on the Afghan sex trade</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/rospi06.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[April 9, 2006: The latest research by the underground women's rights organization the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) reveals that as many as 25,000 Afghan women worked as prostitutes in 2001 - 5,000 of those were in Kabul alone - with stark predictions that the number will rise as women and girls resort to selling themselves to escape poverty.]]></description>
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	<title>RAWA holds protest rally on the Dark Day of April 28</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/events/apr28-06_ph.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[To condemn the Black Day of entrance of the criminal fundamentalists in Kabul in April 28,1992, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) took out a protest rally in Islamabad. ]]></description>
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	<title>Afghanistan facing major health crisis</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/rawi-aap.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[National Nine News (Australia), April 27, 2006: Afghanistan is facing a health crisis larger than that experienced by Asian countries after the 2004 tsunami, an Adelaide forum has heard. Mariam Rawi, a member of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), has told the forum that despite Afghanistan receiving billions of dollars in aid, little has been done to address the country's lack of health services. ]]></description>
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	<title>People in Faryab complain of torture and illegal taxes by warlords</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/faryab.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[April 12, 2006: In many parts of Faryab, incidents of extortion and illegal taxes by warlords have become common. "Unfortunately, these warlords are supported and equipped by some high-ranking officials from inside the government," Habibullah claimed, adding: "To tackle this, the government should avoid employing human rights abusers and war criminals and strengthen the so-called disarmament process in the area." ]]></description>
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	<title>Gulbuddin terorist party has 34 members in the Afghan parliament</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/gulo-parliament.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[April 6, 2006: Hezb-e-Islami is back, green flag and all. The most radical and powerful of Afghanistan’s Islamic movements is an officially recognised political party which now claims to be one of the largest blocs in parliament. ]]></description>
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	<title>Afghan schools torched in war against education</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/schoolburnt.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[April 12, 2006: In the last six months, education has been under attack in southern and southeastern Afghanistan in an apparent attempt to erode what hope people still have in the weak central government and to panic them about their children's safety. Up to 50 schools have been set on fire, according to the country's Education Ministry. Up to 300 have shut down at some point, largely out of fear. ]]></description>
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	<title>Six school children killed in a rocket attack</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/schoolburnt.htm#childern</link>
	<description><![CDATA[April 11, 2006: At least six children were killed and another 14 injured after a rocket hit their school in eastern Kunar province, officials said on Tuesday. The rocket landed in the yard of the Salabagh primary school in the provincial capital of Asadabad, close to a US-led coalition base, said Zahidullah Zahid. “The students were studying in the yard when the rocket landed, killing six innocent girls and boys,” Zahid explained.]]></description>
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	<title>RAWA Child Sponsorship Program Expands in Afghanistan</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/child-expand.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[April 9, 2006: RAWA is expanding its successful child sponsorship program in Afghanistan. As a result of world-wide support, RAWA has substantially increased the number of sponsored children in recent months and immediately needs to add space to house and educate more children.]]></description>
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	<title>Defense of Abdul Rahman Misses the Mark!</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/christian.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[March 26, 2006: When Abdul Rahman, an Afghan Christian convert was arrested in Kabul, the U.S. and many other governments in the West seemed to wake up! Suddenly over this one man, there was an overwhelming --even global-- response to the fundamentalist Chief Justice Mullah Fazal Hadi Shinwari and the other mullahs surrounding him. Suddenly, all eyes in the Western World focused on single freedom while we are fighting for so much more. There are many others in our country that are not as “lucky” as Rahman to generate such global interest.]]></description>
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	<title>UNICEF warns of continued threat facing women and children</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/unicef.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[March 21, 2006: UNICEF's Deputy Executive Director, Ms. Rima Salah, has warned of a continued threat facing Afghan women and children from high rates of child and maternal mortality, low levels of school enrolment and neglect of children's fundamental rights. Speaking at the start of a week-long visit to Afghanistan, Ms. Salah expressed concern at the health, education and protection status of children and women; an estimated 600 children under the age of five die every day in Afghanistan, mostly due to preventable illnesses, some 50 women die every day due to obstetric complications, less than half of primary school age girls attend classes, while a quarter of primary school age children undertake some form of work, and an estimated one-third of women are married before the age of 18.]]></description>
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	<title>Christian convert faces death penalty in Afghanistan</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/convert.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[March 20, 2006: A man could be sentenced to death after being charged with converting from Islam to Christianity, a crime under Afghanistan's shariah laws, a judge said yesterday. The trial is thought to be the first of its kind in Afghanistan and highlights a struggle between religious conservatives and reformists over what shape Islam will take four years after the fall of the Taliban. Abdul Rahman, 41, was arrested last month after his family accused him of becoming a Christian, Judge Ansarullah Mawlavezada told Associated Press. The accused was charged with rejecting Islam.]]></description>
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	<title>Women rights situation in Afghanistan worries AIHRC</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/arm-taliban.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[March 6, 2006: Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) has voiced concern at the situation of women's rights in the country in 2005.  In a report released here on Monday, the leading rights watchdog pointed out that self-immolation and forced marriage cases remained high and there was still a shortage of healthcare and education facilities for the other half.]]></description>
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	<title>The Northern Alliance may supply arms to Taliban</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/wom-aihrc.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[Over the past few months, anti-government groups in the southern provinces have stepped up their attacks on Afghan army units and police as well as international military forces. Most officials and commentators, including President Hamid Karzai, have said the source of the violence is training camps and bases in Pakistan. However, a series of arms seizures in the north indicates that logistical support for the Taleban may be coming from an unlikely source: their former foes in the so-called Northern Alliance.]]></description>
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	<title>In Herat, curbs on sports perturb girl students</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/sport.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[Girl students in the western Herat province grumble in spite of their enthusiasm they are not allowed by school administrations to do take part in sports and recreational activities. As a result, they are left with no option but to join private sport clubs. But the director of the provincial education department says there is no hitch in female sports if Islamic veil (hejab) is observed and appropriate playgrounds are provided to schools.]]></description>
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	<title>RAWA Marks the International Womens Day</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/events/mar8-06.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[March 8, 2006 - Kabul: Over 1,200 women and men participated in an event organized by RAWA in Kabul to celebrate the International Women’s Day. The participants included a 12-member delegation of RAWA Italian supporters and a large number of journalists and guests.]]></description>
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	<title>Let us rise united and resolute for liberation and against the fundamentalism!</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/mar8-06_e.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[RAWA statement on the International Women’s Day, Mar 8, 2006: Another Eighth of March has arrived but still the Afghan women are hostage to the fundamentalists’ claws. The continuation of traitor-loving policies of Mr. Karzai and his sympathetic friends by the indication of US government is still like spears entering deeper and deeper into the injured face of our unfortunate people. Whenever the criminal “Emirs” and their commanders commit another heinous crime, instead of being sued, they are rewarded and receive higher posts.]]></description>
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	<title>Millions of dollars worth of aid money is being wasted</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/rebuild2.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[Ashraf Ghani: "More than 90% of the more than $1bn that was spent on about 400 UN projects in Afghanistan in 2002 was a waste of money"]]></description>
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	<title>The Whole Justice System of Afghanistan is Rotten</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/court.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[But some Afghan officials worry privately that any change to the composition to the Supreme Court could upset the man who is seen as most responsible for selecting the nine current justices: former militia commander, and current parliamentarian Abdul Rab Rasool Sayyaf. Both Shinwari and his deputy chief justice, Abdul Malik Kamawi, have been members of Sayyaf's militia group, the Ittehad-I Islami, since the anti-Soviet resistance days of the 1980s.]]></description>
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	<title>Gunmen attack HBL car, decamp with $320,000 in Kabul</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/hbl.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[Six armed men in police uniform attacked the HBL vehicle at the busy Sherpur roundabout in the center of the Kabul city.]]></description>
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	<title>7-year-old Samia, victim of family violence in fundamentalists-dominated Afghanistan (Photos and movie clip)</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/samia.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[7 years old Samia has a shocking story, she is one of tens of thousands of Afghanistan’s girls who fall victims of family violence in the male-chauvinistic society where fundamentalists promote and support dirty misogynistic customs.]]></description>
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	<title>Gulbar, an Afghan woman is burnt by her husband  (Photos and movie clip)</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/burning_p.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[Gulbar was admitted to a local hospital in Badghis province in Northern Afghanistan in November 2005. She has been burnt by her husband.]]></description>
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	<title>Some cabinet ministers in Afghanistan are deeply implicated in the drugs trade</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/drugs2.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[Some cabinet ministers in Afghanistan are deeply implicated in the drugs trade and could be diverting foreign aid into trafficking, the country's anti-narcotics minister has said.]]></description>
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	<title>Speech of RAWA member on gril's education in Afghanistan in an International conference in Lahore</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/lahore06.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[... In countries like Afghanistan, issues such as education can not be understood without taking into account the whole political system. But no doubt, the decades of war from 1979 through the present has badly affected the education sector and deprived a generation of the opportunity to be educated...]]></description>
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	<title>Gap between rich and poor widens in Afghanistan</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/gap.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[The gulf between rich and poor is most acutely apparent in terms of electricity. Most residents have no more than five hours of power every second night, if they are lucky. As temperatures plunge below zero, poor families huddle around wood stoves and make their way to bed by candlelight. In wealthy neighborhoods, diesel generators roar into action.]]></description>
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	<title>Dr Najibullah Lafraie: Fundamentalist in the Guise of Academician</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/lafraie.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[  ... but now that Najibullah Lafraie, in a rare show of shamelessness, has threatened RAWA supporters in Australia and is trying to put a mask on his fundamentalist face, I am compelled to write not only about our conversation but also to reject his statement. I hope it will also attract the attention of Mr. Throman Holi who as a lawyer of Najibullah Lafraie has asked our supporters in Australia to remove an article about Najibullah Lafraie from their website and apologies this 'foreign minister' of the criminals and killers.]]></description>
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	<title>Militants behead headmaster in S. Afghanistan</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/behead.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[In the latest wave of violent attacks, the anti-government militants in Afghanistan beheaded a headmaster of a school in the country's southern Zabul province Tuesday night, director of provincial education department said Wednesday. ]]></description>
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	<title>HRW: Warlords Dominate New Parliament</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/hrw-sam.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[On Monday, Afghanistans first democratically elected parliament in more than three decades will convene in Kabul. But many of the new legislators, including up to 60% of deputies in the lower house, are directly or indirectly connected to current and past human rights abuses. "But many Afghans are worried about a parliament dominated by human rights abusers."]]></description>
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	<title>Photo from a RAWA orphanage in Pakistan</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/orph45.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[Debora Picchi, Italian supporter of RAWA with childern in a RAWA orphanage in Pakistan.]]></description>
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	<title>The Women of Afghanistan: Abandoned </title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/satya.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[Advocating for women’s rights is extremely dangerous in Afghanistan and members of RAWA live in constant fear and must take careful precautions. Kymberlie Adams Matthews recently had the privilege to talk with one of RAWA’s leaders and for safety’s sake, we’ll call her Sohaila.]]></description>
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	<title>Afghan women still live in misery: activist</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/korea.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[An Afghan rights activist has used a human rights forum to warn that despite the ousting of the hardline Taleban, women in Afghanistan are still suffering discrimination on a grand scale. Contrary to what the world seems to believe, lifting the burqa has not eliminated the oppression, said Mariam Rawi of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA). She was speaking at last week Kwangju Forum for Asian Human Rights in South Korea.]]></description>
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	<title>The &quot;Miracle&quot; or a Mockery of Afghanistan?</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/seattletimes.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[RAWA response to "The Afghanistan Miracle" published in The Seattle Times (October 4, 2005) by Diane Tebelius]]></description>
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	<title>Secret identity activist visits campus</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/newzealand2.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[Afghani political activist Amena Shams (not her real name) visited Otago University (New Zealand) last week to speak about her experiences as a member of RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. ]]></description>
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	<title>Afghani woman pleads for genuine democracy</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/newzealand.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[Afghanistan fundamentalist warlords will turn on the west again if allowed to go unchecked, Amena Shams ]]></description>
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	<title>Hawkgirl (a poem by Thomas Fortenberry in memory of the Afghan poet Nadia Anjuman )</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/thomas2.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[ woman poet well-known in literary circles in western city of Herat (Afghanistan) has died after being severely beaten by her husband, authorites report. Nadia Anjuman, 25, died late on Nov. 1, said provincial police chief Nisar Ahmad Paikar. “We have arrested her husband, accused of killing her,” Paikar told AFP. The couple had a six-month-old daughter. Anjuman, a student at Herat university, had a first book of poetry printed this year. She was popular in Afghanistan and neighboring Iran.]]></description>
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	<title>RAWA AUSTRALIAN TOUR</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/sawan.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[RAWA’s Amena Shams was in Australia, speaking at many forums across the country. For all those who were fortunate enough to attend one of Amena’s many events, it was a great opportunity to reconnect directly with RAWA, to be inspired by news of RAWA’s ongoing work and to receive accurate, current information of the situation for Afghan women. For this 2005 tour events were organised in Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney, Lismore and Brisbane by a wide range of organisations including the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, the Boite, the International Women’s Development Agency, Immigrant Women’s Support Service, Melbourne University, Flinders University, Amnesty International, the Australian Peace Committee, WILPF, Darebin City Council, several private and government schools as well as many RAWA supporter groups and individuals.]]></description>
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	<title>Afghan carpet weavers are unpaid slaves, rights activist says</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/carpet.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[Children ... especially among carpet weavers... are addicted to nicotine and opium (given to them) in order to be calm]]></description>
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	<title>The US Rebuilding Plan Full of Cracks</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/rebuild.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[Inquiry reveals serious flaws in the US efforts to rebuild Afghanistan, suggesting that corruption and inefficiency caused millions of dollars to be wasted on useless projects.]]></description>
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	<title>Being a writer -or woman- still dangerous in Afghanistan</title>
	<link>http://www.rawa.org/rebuild.htm</link>
	<description><![CDATA[A woman poet Nadia Anjuman, 25, died in western city of Herat after being severely beaten by her husband.]]></description>
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