An intelligence official said one of the suspects had identified himself as Ahmed and said he came from Egypt. “He is in his 60s and has been living in the area for about two years,†the official said, on condition of anonymity.
“Two female undercover agents posing as village women visited the home and then intelligence agents conducted the raid,†another security official said.
“He is an old Arab claiming to be Egyptian and married to a local ethnic Pashtun girl.â€
Small Part of Afghanistan’s Pilfered Cultural Heritage Returned
Investigators for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency tracked down the two stolen coins in the United States a few months ago, after they had surfaced earlier in Pakistan.
The Indo-Greek coins, dating to between 171 and 160 B.C. — soon after the time of Alexander the Great – had originally been discovered by a 1971 French-led archeological expedition near the Oxus River in northeastern Afghanistan.
Handing the coins over to Karzai after a brief signing ceremony, Michael Garcia, Homeland Security’s assistant secretary for immigration and customs enforcement, said the effort to help Afghans to recover their rich cultural heritage reflected “that great spirit of respect and cooperation that exists between our two countries.â€
Women and the Democratization of the Middle East
Driving across town today I heard PBS’s To the Point discussion on women in the middle east. It is worth listening to.
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Audio Link
First Lady Laura Bush is just back from her good-will tour of the Middle East. Along with touting education in her speeches in Jordan, Israel and Egypt, she emphasized the importance of women’s roles in any democracy. In Afghanistan, women comprised 40% of the voters in the most recent elections. Just last week, women in Kuwait were granted the right to vote. Yet while many women in the Middle East are starting their own businesses, millions of others are seriously disadvantaged in education, healthcare and the justice system. Life is an often violent hardship. Guest host Diana Nyad speaks with social anthropologists, women’s advocates, activists, and a State Department coordinator who accompanied Mrs. Bush on her recent trip about democratization of the Middle East and the daily struggle for women there.
“What’s another name for pirate treasure?”
Heinrich Schliemann’s famous “Gold of Troy” at the Pushkin Museum’s “booty” exhibition.
None have been seen in public in more than 60 years. All are spoils of war, seized by Soviet troops from the ruins of Berlin in 1945 and carted back to Moscow. The exhibition – especially because of its timing – could easily be viewed as either a memorial to the ravages of war or as the taunt of a boastful victor.
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The most famous is a collection of gold known as Priam’s Treasure, recovered by the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann in 1873 in what he believed to be ancient Troy. The Pushkin displayed the treasures in 1996 and has since dropped any question of its return. The gold is back in storage.
Afghan Music Project
Adam Gouttierre and Chris Becherer, both MBA students at UC Berkeley, blogging about their trip to Afghanistan as a part of the Afghan Music Project (AMP). “The Afghan Music Project (AMP) is a social venture with the goal of raising the awareness of the beauty of traditional Afghan music and the tragic, but uplifting, story of Afghan women through a professionally recorded album. Proceeds from the AMP album will go towards funding educational scholarships for Afghan women.” Their blog entries have been extremely interesting so far (Link) – particularly as they talk about the impact of the Newsweek article (Link) and the rumored kidnapping of another westerner (Link).
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From boingboing.net
Pakistani Women Athletes Beaten Down by Islamists
LAHORE, Pakistan, May 14 — More than two dozen people were detained Saturday after taking part in a foot race that included women, defying a ban imposed after Islamic hard-liners had attacked participants in a similar event.
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Authorities banned women from competing in foot races after hard-liners, who regard women’s participation in sports as against Islam, attacked runners at a similar event in Punjab province last month.
A Reuters photographer said police also beat and arrested protesters from Islamist parties who had planned to attack participants in the race.
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Among those arrested was group of female rights activists who attempted to lead a rally demanding for women the right to run in marathons alongside men.Pakistan’s internationally known human rights activist Asma Jehangir was also arrested, witnesses said.
“The police surrounded Asma’s office and detained her as she came out of the office along with other participants,†witness Abdullah Iqbal said.
New York Times (login required)
Pakistani authorities had banned women from taking part in marathons last month after violent protests by hard-line Islamic parties. A marathon in Gujranwala, 85 miles south of Islamabad, in early April was attacked by a mob of Islamic extremists wielding batons and guns. Cross-fire between the police and the Islamists left 80 people injured.
The organizers of the run on Saturday said they wanted to highlight violence against women and protest against the increasing influence of Islamic extremist political parties.
James Opie on Afghanistan
I stumbled across this piece by the author James Opie.
Two basic streams of carpet designs can be identified in Afghanistan in the past several centuries. One is an urban design tradition of finely and precisely organized patterns, produced by professional carpet designers on the equivalent of graph paper. Given that weavings of this sort were produced in urban areas, this can be thought of as a “city†design tradition. Designs in such rugs are more formal, echoing Persian design influences.
Tribal designs represent a second and largely independent stream. Motives and patterns differ from tribe to tribe, depending very much on the traditions of the various groups and, to a lesser extent, on the inventiveness of the individual weavers. This second design stream of “tribal†rugs is the dominant one in Afghan weaving. An amalgam of the two streams can be found in certain workshop rugs that produced larger rugs with traditional tribal designs.
Luke Powell Photographs
Mr. Powell’s beautiful photos offer unique perspectives on Afghanistan, and his use of light to sculpt the landscape is consistently georgeous.
Afghan Women TV in Kabul
Afghan broadcasting authorities have just reserved a TV frequency for the Voice of Afghan Women association to open what is expected to be the first women’s community television channel in Kabul.
The registration fee has been paid thanks to a project of UNESCO’s International Programme for the Development of Communications (IPDC), which will also provide a transmitter with antenna and essential TV production equipment to the women’s association.
Bumper Crop
