The Afghan Impasse: The Envoy SpeaksU.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad discusses negotiating for peace in Afghanistan. Feb 07 25February 07, 2025Podcast at foreignpolicy.com
War and peace and war: Twenty years in AfghanistanAn extract from a new book by Andrew North who spent 20 years in Afghanistan – and was even kidnapped by the Taliban Aug 21 24August 21, 2024Article at opendemocracy.net
How Negotiators Failed for Two Decades to Bring Peace to AfghanistanTracing the missteps in American diplomacy. Aug 13 24August 13, 2024Article at foreignpolicy.com
How I became the Taliban’s portrait artistAfghanistan’s new rulers threatened to execute a British journalist. Then they found out he could draw Aug 09 24August 09, 2024Article at The Economist
The Taliban blindfolded me. I heard the click of a gun being loadedIn 2022 Andrew North was abducted in Kabul. Here he reveals for the first time how he was threatened with hanging — and asked to list the James Bond films he had seen Jul 27 24July 27, 2024Article at sundaytimes.co.uk
The Taliban blindfolded me. I heard the click of a gun being loadedIn 2022 Andrew North was abducted in Kabul. Here he reveals for the first time how he was threatened with hanging — and asked to list the James Bond films he had seen Jul 27 24July 27, 2024Article at thetimes.co.uk
Afghans fled the Taliban in droves. Now Pakistan wants to send them backHe was eating dinner with his family when the knocking began. Like many Afghans, Omid, a translator, had fled from Afghanistan in 2021 after the Taliban took over. He and his family snuck across the border to Pakistan, where they tried to keep a low… Dec 19 23December 19, 2023Article at The Economist
High Caucasus by Tom Parfitt review – beauty and trauma in the Russian south An epic trek through the mountains brings healing and understanding to a veteran journalist Tom Parfitt does not consider himself brave. At one point in his book about a four-month journey on foot through the hills, valleys and tortured history of… Aug 02 23August 02, 2023Article at The Guardian
The secret life of Afghans under the TalibanBy Ruhullah Khapalwak and Andrew North Since the Taliban seized back control of Afghanistan over a year ago, even those Afghans who tried in vain to flee on the last American flights out of Kabul have settled, somehow, into a new kind of life. In… Dec 05 22December 05, 2022Article at The Economist
West must learn to live with Erdogan the unpredictableAndrew North is a journalist who covers Afghanistan and the Caucasus. He is based in Tbilisi. Holding contradictory policy positions and being reliably unpredictable have become a core part of the Recep Tayyip Erdogan brand in the nearly two decades… May 26 22May 26, 2022Article at Nikkei Asia
Putin's claim that NATO threatens Russia is a self-fulfilling prophecyMoscow's actions have only solidified Ukraine's desire to join Western alliance Jan 06 22January 06, 2022Article at Nikkei Asia
Putin's claim that NATO threatens Russia is a self-fulfilling prophecyAndrew North is a journalist who covers Afghanistan and the Caucasus. He is based in Tbilisi. The NATO flag, with its muscular-looking four-pointed star, is an unlikely protest symbol. So, too, the logo of that other cornerstone of the Western… Jan 06 22January 06, 2022Article at Nikkei Asia
Is This the Future of Taliban Rule?Government workers are unpaid and the future of girls’ education is uncertain, but life goes on in the Afghan city of Herat The dress is red and revealing. On show in the window of a wedding gown rental emporium here in Herat, it appears to challenge… Dec 13 21December 13, 2021Article at New Lines
Eyewitness: Afghanistan As winter closes in on Afghanistan, a 12-year-old tries to save his familySaeed Gul wants to go to school. Instead he’s picking up rubbish on the streets of Kabul In the chilly half-light of a Kabul dawn, two girls are walking to school, engrossed in conversation, their backpack straps neatly arranged over the folds of… Dec 13 21December 13, 2021Article at The Economist
The View from HereOne thing never changes in Afghanistan, no matter who is in power. And that’s lunch. Whether it is a meeting with an official or a visit to someone’s home, it almost always finishes up with an invitation to break bread. It’s often awkward for the… Dec 11 21December 11, 2021Article at Airmail Weekly
'Everyone has a dream': Inside one Afghan family's struggleMAZAR-I SHARIF, Afghanistan -- Ruqia is painfully thin and weak, but her health has improved since Nikkei Asia met her in late October, when she was close to starvation. She manages a whispered greeting of "Salam aleikum" to her visitors as her… Nov 20 21November 20, 2021Article at Nikkei Asia
Afghanistan nightmare: a humanitarian crisis that threatens to dwarf all othersFollowing the U.S. withdrawal, desperation amid food and medicine shortages Nov 03 21November 03, 2021Article at Nikkei Asia
Eyewitness: Afghanistan How to get 120 Afghans out of KabulAs the Taliban took over, we used WhatsApp and hand-drawn flags to help people escape The question flashed up on my screen early on the morning of August 26th: “Do we have to get into the water?” The message was from an Afghan television host – I’ll… Oct 21 21October 21, 2021Article at The Economist
Divided Asia must face looming Afghan refugee crisisAndrew North is a journalist who covers Afghanistan and was previously based in Kabul as a correspondent for the BBC. "Do not come, do not come." That was the stern injunction from Vice President Kamala Harris this June to people from Central America… Oct 20 21October 20, 2021Article at Nikkei Asia
Two decades after 9/11, how delusion led to defeat in AfghanistanLate on Sept. 11, 2001, Najib was at home with his family in Kabul listening to a radio bulletin on the Pashto language service of the BBC. There was no such thing as the internet in Afghanistan then, and with almost no other information sources… Sep 08 21September 08, 2021Article at Nikkei Asia
