Afghanistan
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Afghanistan sitting on a motherlode
Mountains in Afghanistan.Photo courtesy Paolo Alfieri via FlickrNothing like the revelation of precious metals in a far off land to get the hyperbole flowing — and stir up the cynics. And so it goes in the wake of James Risen’s New York Times report that the U.S. has identified nearly a trillion dollars in mineral […]
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Illegal logging funding Taliban attacks on U.S. troops
In case you didn’t have enough reasons to dislike the Taliban, The Wall Street Journal’s Yaroslav Trofimov looks at how they’re using revenue from illegal logging to finance attacks on U.S. troops (though, via some monumentally twisted logic, the article actually blames the logging ban, rather than the Taliban forces doing the logging and profiting […]
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KBR, Halliburton sued over war-zone’s toxic burn pits
Confronted with the need to dispose of enormous quantities of war-related trash including batteries, pesticide containers, medical waste and even human body parts, but lacking proper incinerators, private contractors working for the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan came up with a simple solution. They burned the trash in big, open pits. But now soldiers, […]
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Hit Below the Pelt
Snow Leopards Threatened by Increased Hunting in Afghanistan The ouster of the Taliban from Afghanistan undoubtedly had many salutary side effects — but not for the region’s snow leopards, according to a new report by three conservation organizations. One of the most endangered big cat species in the world, the snow leopard dwells in the […]