Poor Kabulis survive by eating domestic animals food

By Ayoub Arwin, BBC Persian (Translated by RAWA)

RAWA - September 17, 2009

At the moment my children only eat dry and hard bread, their last wish is to eat soft bread. They only think about bread.

Poverty in the month of Ramadan shows itself with much harsher face in the dinning cloth of most of the families in Kabul city.

In spite the sloping of billions of aid from the international community to Afghanistan, a number of families says they are still unable to fill their hungry stomachs. A number of these families have to eat the stored dried bread for the domesticated animals.

Marzia is the guardian of one of these families. Marzia with her sick husband and seven children is living in a rent room in a mountain slope in west of Kabul. The rent of her room is 500 Afghani (around US$10) per month, but her uncle, who is the owner of her house hasn’t taken the rent money for the last six years for the regard of her state because she is unable to pay it.

The monthly income of Marzia is 1,500 Afghanis equivalent to 30 dollars which she takes from the government as her husband's pension. Once her husband has been a worker of municipality but now extremely needs to be cured and this money is even not enough for the cost of his sickness. This man already was paralyzed and now he is also suffering from mental problem and is always needs someone to take care of him.

Non of Marzia's children has the ability to work, Sakhie, her eldest son studied till fifth class nut hunger dragged him towards the television workshop. His salary is only 200 Afghanis equivalent to 4 dollars per week. He hopes one day he himself could repair television and earn a good income.

On Marzias breaking fast cloth there is potato sauce, but she says most of the time her family eat tea and bread. The bread that they eat is cooked by Marzia which is made from very low quality flour.

On her dinning cloth there was a type of bread which was white in color and was send by her husband's brother. This was a valuable gift which was sent to this family especially for the breaking fast.

Three fingers sacrificed for a ring

Marzia can't work properly due to her three cutoff fingers. According to her in 1996 during the internal fighting of mujahideen, armed men raided her house, they killed her nine years old son and cut her three fingers for a gold ring.

Marzia said: "They asked where is your gold jewelry? I said I don’t have. (Pointing towards the gold ring) they said what is this? I said it can not be removed from my finger. They said we will remove it. They attacked with a gun knife and cut three of my fingers."

According to her these people also fired three bullets at her which injured her foot.

While Marzia was showing the picture of her killed son, she said I presented my destitution to the president Hamid Karzai, but I didn't get any help.

She said: "During the war, because of war I had no good life, after the war because of poverty and illness of my husband I had to find money for his treatment. I became a borrower until some one sent me a little help from Denmark."

Marzia says she wanted to give her small daughter for adoption in return for twelve thousand Afghanis, but her eldest son stopped her from doing that. According to her, she has been thinking about doing so a number of times.

Soft bread, the last wish

Marzia is not the only one who spends her life like this, in the poor areas of Kabul a lot of families spend their days searching for a piece of bread and for many nights sleep with empty stomachs.

In Kabul some people say they eat the dry bread which is stored for domesticated animals. They buy seven kilos of this bread for forty Afghanis and eat it with cold water.

The guardian of one of these families said: At the moment my children only eat dry and hard bread, their last wish is to eat soft bread. They only think about bread.

But not all the Kabulis are like this. Some families spend a lot of money inviting guests for Iftar to expensive hotels and their expense of one night is equivalent to the expenses of few months of Marzias family.

Afghanistan: Tragic Fate of Bombing Survivor

A year after her family died in an airstrike, a young girl still lives in the same village, alone and constantly in fear.
By Mustafa Saber in Azizabad

Seven-year-old Zahra looks like a typical Afghan girl in her traditional long dress and scarf, her short black hair peeking out from her head covering. She sticks close to home, seldom venturing far from her house. But it is not tradition that keeps her home but fear.

On the night of August 22 2008, all of Zahra’s immediate family was killed by American bombs. In pursuit of Taleban commander Mullah Siddiq, United States Special Forces and the Afghan army launched an airstrike on the village of Azizabad in Shindand district of Herat. An investigation by the United Nations said that 90 people, 60 children and 30 adults, died.

The American military initially denied that any civilians were harmed in the attack. Only after prolonged pressure, in October of last year, did they acknowledge that the strike killed 33 civilians.

Zahra’s father, mother, sister and two brothers died that night. She is the only survivor, together with her grandmother, Maryam, known in the village as Pori. One year later the two traumatized females, one seven years old the other 75, are still living in Azizabad, in a small, dirty, three-room house donated to them by a kind-hearted neighbor.

The house the pair inhabit has no doors and no windows. Inside it is dark and dusty – the floor is carpeted with old sacks. It looks more like a dirty storeroom than a place where people live. There are some teacups, two buckets full of water, three small pots and three threadbare blankets. Every day Zahra cleans and arranges the few items they possess.

The rest of the time she sits alone, staring into the void.

"I loved my family very much," she said, tears in her dark eyes. "Every moment I hear the voices of my mother, father, sister and brothers calling me, but I can’t see them. We had a good life. I used to play with my brothers and sister on the street. My father was Abdurrashid, my mother was Khumari, my sister was Huma and my brothers were Halim and Salim. The Americans killed them and now I am alone."

Suddenly bitter, she adds, "The American killed everyone in the village. They killed my friends and other children. I hate them."

She recalls the events of that terrifying day. "Explosions woke me up in the night. I ran to the desert, where I drifted off to sleep again. When I awoke, I ran home and I saw parts of human bodies scattered all around, and heard the cries of survivors," she said.

"I don’t remember who told me that my family were all dead dead. At first I didn’t believe it, so I went to see if it was really true. Then I saw their bodies, all mixed with blood and dirt. When they took all the martyrs to the graveyard to be buried, I was all alone and neighbors took me to their home. Then my grandmother learned of what happened, and now I am with her."

Now every time a plane passes Zahra cries and throws herself into her grandmother’s arms.

"I love my granddaughter," Maryam said. "I see my son in her soul. But when a plane passes overhead, she clings to me so tightly, and her body shakes so much, that I am afraid one day she will die. Then I will lose the last race of my son."

But Maryam may not be able to give Zahra the support that she needs. The older woman seems mentally unstable, constantly murmuring to herself and repeating everything she says many times.

Maryam, though, is resisting attempts by an aid organization to relocate her and her granddaughter to Herat city.

Soraya Pakzad from Neda-e-Zan, an organization that assists Afghan women in trouble, says that they had arranged accommodations for both Zahra and Maryam, but the latter refuses to leave Shindand.

"She does not want to leave the place where her son lived," Pakzad said. "When we showed them the accommodation we had prepared for them, the grandmother tried to get away as soon as possible, saying, 'The government wants to imprison us’."

She added that Zahra clung to her grandmother, fearful of strangers and crying easily, "Both Zahra and her grandmother are unstable."

Pakzad is worried about the Zahra’s future and is trying to raise money from other national and international charity organizations. "We are concerned that the grandmother will marry her off to somebody at a young age, and thereby make things even worse for Zahra," she said.

Zahra is not alone. Abdurrashid, 45, a resident of Azizabad, told IWPR that the people of Shindand district would never forget the events of August 22, 2008.

"The Americans massacred our people and then said that we were all taleban," he said bitterly. "This inhuman act will always be remembered, by people in our area and all over the country."

In the meantime, he and others try to help Zahra and Maryam as much as possible.

Others have also offered assistance. US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said she would help the girl after she heard about her plight on Radio Liberty. Also a politician who was thinking of running for president, Dr Dawood Mirakai, looked up Zahra during a visit to Azizabad and gave her some money.

But for now Zahra is still living in her broken house, in the same village, relying on occasional assistance from neighbors. She has two friends, Amina and Hangama, with whom she goes to school. She doesn’t learn much, she says.

"Other children have parents who help them. I have no parents," said Zahra. Then she began to cry. "I cannot talk any more," she said. "I must go now."

AU urges more weapons for Somalia

The African Union has called on the international community to send weapons to the UN-backed Somali government to help it fight Islamist militants.

The AU envoy to Somalia made the plea in the wake of the suicide attacks in Mogadishu in which 17 AU peacekeepers were blown up by the al-Shabab group.

"If we go after Shabab, we'd destroy them in no time," said Nicolas Bwakira.

He said the attacks should not deter countries from keeping to their promises to bolster the AU force.

The force currently operates with 5,000 soldiers, instead of an intended 8,000. Nigeria and Ghana have promised troops, but so far these pledges remain unfulfilled.

The UN has also said it will take over the mission - at an unspecified date.

Arms embargo

Mr Bwakira told journalists in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, that the deadly attack has not demoralized the force, despite more threats from al-Shabab.

"Peacekeepers do not come to play football or go to the beach - there is a risk to peacekeeping."

But he said the transitional government needed help to fight its "enemies".

"To be fighting with enemies, they need arms - arms which are superior to the capacity of Shabab's."

The BBC's Anne Waithera in Nairobi says there is currently an arms embargo on Somalia, but the United States has been supplying arms to the government after seeking an exemption from the UN.

Our reporter says those injured in Thursday's blasts are still being airlifted to neighboring Kenya for treatment.

Nine peacekeepers were flown to Nairobi on the day of the attack and an additional 20 arrived on Friday morning.

The deputy commander of the AU force in Somalia died in the attack when two vehicles with UN logos, packed with explosives, were driven into a peacekeeping base by the airport.

Shelling after the double bombing on Thursday left at least 13 people dead, mostly civilians, witnesses say.

"We do not run away when the situation worsens," said Lt Col Felix Kulayigye, a spokesman for the Ugandan military, which contributes about half of the 5,000-strong AU force.

Burundi, the only other country to have sent peacekeepers to Somalia, has declared five days of national mourning for the 12 of its peacekeepers who died.

But a Burundian government spokesman said it would not pull out.

Black smoke

The Islamist al-Shabab group said the attacks were revenge for a US raid on Monday.

This reportedly killed Kenyan-born al-Qaeda suspect Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, who was wanted by the US for attacks in Kenya.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned the blast in the "strongest terms".

It is believed Nabhan fled to Somalia after the attacks and was working with al-Shabab, which the US sees as al-Qaeda's proxy in Somalia.

Al-Shabab and its allies control most of southern and central Somalia, while the government, helped by the AU force, just runs parts of Mogadishu.

The country has not had a functioning central government since 1991, leading to a complete breakdown of law and order both on land and in recent years in Somali waters.

President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a moderate Islamist and former insurgent, was chosen in January after UN-brokered peace talks.

He has vowed to implement Sharia but al-Shabab accuses him of being a Western puppet.

Years of fighting and anarchy have left some three million people - half the population - needing food aid.

Ahmadinejad says Holocaust a lie, Israel has no future

By Parisa Hafezi and Firouz Sedarat

TEHRAN (Reuters) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the Holocaust a lie on Friday, raising the stakes against Israel just as world powers try to decide how to deal with the nuclear ambitions of an Iran in political turmoil.

"The pretext (Holocaust) for the creation of the Zionist regime (Israel) is false ... It is a lie based on an unprovable and mythical claim," he told worshipers at Tehran University at the end of an annual anti-Israel "Qods (Jerusalem) Day" rally.

"Confronting the Zionist regime is a national and religious duty."

Ahmadinejad's anti-Western comments on the Holocaust have caused international outcry and isolated Iran, which is at loggerheads with the West over its nuclear programme.

The hardline president warned leaders of Western-allied Arab and Muslim countries about dealing with Israel.

"This regime (Israel) will not last long. Do not tie your fate to it ... This regime has no future. Its life has come to an end," he said in a speech broadcast live on state radio.

Germany said Ahmadinejad was a "disgrace to his country".

"This sheer anti-Semitism demands our collective condemnation. We will continue to confront it decisively in the future," Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Ahmadinejad's comment "only serves to isolate Iran further from the world".

Ahmadinejad won support from Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah which fought a 34-day war with Israel in 2006. "Our belief and creed ... remain that Israel is an illegal entity, a cancerous tumour, that must cease to exist," Nasrallah said in a televised address.

Ahmadinejad will appear next week at the United Nations General Assembly and Tehran will hold talks on Oct. 1 with major powers worried about the Islamic Republic's nuclear strategy.

Western powers are concerned by what they have called Tehran's defiance and "point-blank refusal" to suspend uranium enrichment and address the issue as demanded by U.N. Security Council resolutions since 2006.

Instead of directly addressing those demands, Iran handed world powers this month a proposal that spoke generally of talks on political, security, international and economic issues but was silent on its nuclear programme.

Diplomats familiar with the Iranian proposal said it was vague and did not appear to pass "the smell test".

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it was time Iran showed it is serious about addressing international concern. "There will be accompanying costs for Iran's continued defiance: more isolation and economic pressure," she said.

NUCLEAR PROGRAMME

Ahmadinejad repeated on Thursday that Iran would "never" abandon its disputed nuclear programme to appease critics.

In an NBC-TV interview, he also offered no direct response when asked whether there were any conditions under which Iran would develop a nuclear weapon.

"We don't need nuclear weapons," Ahmadinejad said, speaking through an interpreter. "We do not see any need for such weapons. And the conditions around the world are moving to favor our ideas," he added.

The major powers suspect Iran's uranium enrichment programme is a cover for developing nuclear weapons. Iran has repeatedly said it is enriching uranium only to generate electricity, not for fissile bomb material, although it has no nuclear power plants to use low-level enriched uranium.

Next month's major powers talks with Iran offer no clear relief to Israel, which wants world powers to be prepared to penalize Iran's vulnerable energy imports but sees Russia and China blocking any such resolution at the U.N. Security Council.

The major powers, which include permanent U.N. Security Council members Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States as well as Germany, offered Iran trade and diplomatic incentives in 2006 in exchange for halt to uranium enrichment.

They improved the offer last year but retained the demand that Iran suspend uranium enrichment, something Tehran has ruled out as a precondition.

President Barack Obama, who came to office pledging to engage with Iran, has suggested Tehran may face harsher sanctions, possibly targeting its gasoline imports, if it does not accept good-faith talks by the end of September.

But Russia, which has veto power in the U.N. Security Council, last week ruled out oil sanctions against Iran.

Iran, the world's fifth-biggest crude producer, is seen as vulnerable to oil sanctions because it imports 40 percent of its gasoline to supply the cheap fuel Iranians see as a birthright.

TURMOIL AT HOME

At home, Ahmadinejad is facing strong opposition which erupted into unrest following his disputed re-election in June.

On Friday, Iranian security forces clashed with supporters of opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi and arrested at least 10 of them during annual anti-Israel rallies in Tehran.

Thousands of supporters of Mousavi, wearing green wristbands or shawls, were among crowds marching in the "Qods Day" rallies.

The state news agency IRNA said Mousavi and reformist cleric Mehdi Karoubi, both defeated candidates in June, had been forced to leave the rallies after being attacked by "angry people".

Reformist former president Mohammad Khatami took part in the rally, but was attacked by hardliners and had to leave after his robe was ripped and his turban fell to the ground, an ally of Khatami who accompanied him told Reuters.

The June vote, which was followed by huge opposition protests, plunged Iran into its worst political crisis in three decades and revealed deepening rifts within its ruling elites.

Opposition leaders say the poll was rigged to secure Ahmadinejad's re-election. The authorities deny it.

The opposition says 70 people died during protests after the vote. It contradicts the official death toll of 36 people.

2 more Uighur detainees at Gitmo heading to Palau

By JONATHAN KAMINSKY, Associated Press Writer

KOROR, Palau – Two more Chinese Muslim detainees held at Guantanamo Bay have agreed to be relocated to the tiny Pacific nation of Palau, their lawyer said Saturday, bringing to six the total who will resettle.

Palau has offered 13 ethnic Uighurs held at the U.S. military prison in Cuba a chance to move there — an arrangement that would ease President Barack Obama's plans to close the contentious facility.

The men have been held by the U.S. since their capture in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2001. The Pentagon determined last year they were not "enemy combatants" but they have been in legal limbo ever since. China regards the Uighurs (pronounced WEE'-gurs) as terrorist suspects and wants them returned.

But Uighur activists claim the detainees face persecution or death if they are returned there, and U.S. officials have struggled to find a country to take them in.

"Two more of our clients have agreed to go to Palau as the U.S. continues to look for a permanent home for them," Eric Tirschwell, the U.S.-based lawyer for four of the detainees, told The Associated Press on Saturday.

Their acceptance means six of the detained Chinese Muslims have now decided to move to the mid-Pacific state, which offered in early June to take in the Turkic Muslims from far western China.

That same month, four Uighur detainees were resettled in Bermuda.

Five of the detainees have declined even to meet with Palau officials.

The relocation agreements need U.S. Congressional approval, a process that is expected to take about two weeks.

"We are hopeful that this long overdue move to freedom will happen as quickly as possible and are doing whatever we can to make that happen," Tirschwell said in an e-mail.

There was no immediate response to requests for comment from Palauan officials or from the U.S. State Department.

Palau is a developing country of 20,000 that is dependent on U.S. development funds.

No Uighurs currently live on Palau, which has a Muslim population of about 400, mostly migrant workers from Bangladesh.

Made up of eight main islands plus more than 250 islets, Palau is best known for diving and tourism and is located some 500 miles (800 kilometers) east of the Philippines in the Pacific Ocean.

Indonesia police: DNA test confirms Noordin death

By ALEX KENNEDY, Associated Press Writer

JAKARTA, Indonesia – DNA tests have confirmed it was Southeast Asia terrorist leader Noordin Top who was killed days ago in a shootout with police, Indonesian police said Saturday.

Police used fingerprints to identify Noordin's body after a gun battle at a safe house in central Java on Thursday. DNA tests have confirmed those findings, National Police spokesman Nanan Sukarna said.

"There's no longer any doubt," Sukarna said.

Last month, authorities initially believed a terror suspect killed by police was Noordin, but DNA tests proved otherwise.

Police say Noordin, a Malaysian national, planned the 2002 and 2005 suicide bombings on the resort island of Bali and the July 17 attacks on the J.W. Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta. In all, he is thought to be responsible for the deaths of 222 people, mostly foreigners.

Sukarna said Indonesian officials were coordinating with Noordin's family in Malaysia to send his body back there "as soon as possible," but he did not specify a date.

Regional leaders have cheered Noordin's demise and were optimistic his death could help undermine terror groups throughout Southeast Asia.

"This is a very significant result," Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said in an interview Friday on Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

"This man has been a mass murderer," he said. "He's been responsible for the murder of Australians."

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak and Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong also congratulated Indonesia on Friday.

Strong quake hits Indonesia's Bali

JAKARTA (AFP) – A strong 6.4 quake rattled Indonesia's Bali island on Saturday, hours after a quake struck Sulawesi island, but there were no immediate reports of major damage or serious casualties from either.

The Bali quake hit at 6:06 am (2306 Friday GMT), at a depth of 36 kilometers (22 miles), according to Indonesian geophysics agency.

The epicenter was 101 kilometers southeast of Nusa Dua, an enclave of resorts located in the southern part of the holiday island.

"There are no indications that the tide in Kuta is rising. So it's pretty safe here," Kuta district police chief Dody Prawira Negara said.

Health ministry crisis center head Rustam Pakaya said that eight people suffered fractured bones and a pregnant woman was taken to hospital.

"There are no deaths or major damages, only cracks in several buildings," Pakaya said.

A 5.8-magnitude quake hit Sulawesi island several hours earlier, seismologists said.

The tremor struck at 3:34 am (1834 Friday GMT), at a depth of 103 kilometers, according to a revised report by the US Geological Survey (USGS).

The epicenter was 110 kilometers north-northwest of Ternate in the Moluccas and 260 kilometers east of Manado on Sulawesi.

The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center did not release a tsunami warning for either event.

Indonesia sits on the Pacific "Ring of Fire," where the meeting of continental plates causes high volcanic and seismic activity.