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Afghan mullah who raped girl in mosque sentenced to 20 years
KABUL, Afghanistan — A mullah who raped a 10-year-old girl in his mosque was sentenced to 20 years in prison after a dramatic trial Saturday during which his accuser, weeping and shaking, summoned the...
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Young Afghan woman defies pledged marriage
KABUL, Afghanistan — Nine years before an Afghan girl named Soheila was born, her half-brother Aminullah eloped with a woman who had been betrothed to his cousin, an event that led to years of violent...
View ArticleOpium growing soars in Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan opium cultivation again rose to historic levels in 2014, U.N. officials reported Wednesday. And in a sign of how deeply entwined drug trafficking and the Afghan political...
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Kabul fortification signals long U.S. stay in Afghanistan
After 16 years of U.S. presence in Kabul, the new project is an acknowledgment that even the city’s central districts have become too difficult to defend from Taliban bombings.
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After 6,000 years of human habitation, one family and lots of mice
The Irbil citadel predates Iraqi Kurdistan, the Kurds and for that matter Arabs, Genghis Khan, the Persians, Greeks and Romans, all of whom passed this way. History is alive among its walls.
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Afghan girl, 11, has been in prison since birth with her mother, a convicted...
Afghanistan’s approximately 30 women’s prisons have several hundred children accompanying their mothers. Here’s the story of one of them.
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Santa reigns in remote Finnish outpost
At this time of year around 20 airliners a day, land here in the capital of Finnish Lapland, disgorging families from scores of countries, and bringing wide-eyed children to a reliably snowy place that...
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Afghan pedophiles get free pass from U.S. military, report says
The report did little to answer questions about how prevalent child sexual abuse was in the Afghan military and police, and how commonly the U.S. military looked the other way at the widespread...
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With the Mafia silenced, a grand opera house sings again
Shut down and forgotten for decades when the Mafia held Palermo in its grip, the resurgence of the great house is a symbol of the city’s rebirth.
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These African elephants have no tusks — no poachers either
In most African elephant populations, as few as 2 percent of the cows lack tusks. But among Addo’s 300-odd females, the rate is 90 percent to 95 percent, a trait that has evolved rapidly over the last...
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‘Play it again, Issam’: In Casablanca, a cafe is still a cafe
A former American diplomat from Portland, Oregon, cashed in her 401(k) to create Rick’s Café Américain, an ode to the classic film, in Casablanca, Morocco.
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Are ISIS fighters prisoners or ‘honored guests’ of the Afghan government?
About 250 ISIS fighters surrendered to the Afghan government. Their treatment is raising eyebrows.
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The Afghan army’s last stand at Chinese Camp
The battle is an object lesson in the difficult conditions under which many Afghan troops fight and the inability of their military to support and resupply them — especially when forces are stretched...
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From Orwell to ‘The Little Mermaid,’ Kuwait Steps Up Book Banning
KUWAIT — No book, it seems, is too substantive or too insignificant to be banned in Kuwait. Recent targets of the government’s literary censors include an encyclopedia with a picture of Michelangelo’s...
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‘Legacy of terror’: Questions, answers on the mass graves found in Iraq
BAGHDAD — More than 200 mass graves holding as many as 12,000 bodies have been found in areas of Iraq once controlled by the Islamic State, the United Nations said on Tuesday. The findings were...
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Afghan women’s soccer team accuses officials of sexual abuse
The Afghan government is investigating allegations that players on the women’s national soccer team were sexually and physically abused by male coaches and officials, including the head of the Afghan...
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Kurdish fighters discuss releasing ISIS prisoners
Maintaining the 3,200 prisoners has been a burden on the group, and the United States has helped pay for the effort. There is no indication that American aid would necessarily end, but without U.S....
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Santa arrested in Iraq? Social media says yes, police say no
Never mind who’s being naughty or nice, Santa Claus himself supposedly has had bigger problems in Iraq and Syria, where he either did or did not get arrested in the run-up to his big night this year....
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Afghan forces withstand 3 terror attacks at once
While demonstrating the capabilities of Taliban terrorists, three almost simultaneous attacks Friday in Kabul were handled by Afghan security forces, which officials took as a sign that training by the...
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Afghan women fear peace with Taliban may mean war on them
Horror stories at the hands of Taliban enforcers are a staple for any educated Afghan woman older than 25 or so. Now those women have a new horror story: the possibility that U.S. troops will leave...
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