Word: afghanistan
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Film Festival This unique biennial amalgam, sponsored by the Himal Association, showcases films about "mountains, mountain environments, mountain cultures and communities from various corners of the world," accompanied by discussion forums and exhibitions. Works at the sixth festival, being held Dec. 11-15, come from as far afield as Afghanistan, Peru, Croatia and Switzerland. After screenings in Kathmandu, the films are taken on the road for a tour of Nepalese cities and towns. Details at kimff.org...
...saint or even much of a statesman. But neither is he a despot, a fanatic, a sybarite, or an uncouth bigot--qualities that typify the leadership of countries for which the U.S. has also expended blood and treasure in defense of lesser causes. Our failures in Afghanistan so far have mainly been our own, and they are ours to fix. To blame Mr. Karzai is to point the finger at the wrong culprit in the pursuit of disastrous, dishonorable defeat."--11/11/09...
...China and the Muslim world. There's a lot at stake: the Central Asian country has the world's fourth-largest reserves of natural gas and substantial oil reserves, putting it in the same energy league as Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iraq. Plus, its position just north of Afghanistan could be hugely beneficial to NATO as it seeks more reliable supply routes to its troops on the ground there. But the West isn't being welcomed with open arms. "They just don't understand us," one businessman tells TIME in the capital, Ashgabat...
...Meanwhile, the West finds itself standing on the sidelines. Since 2002, U.S. officials have tried to secure the right to truck food and other supplies from Europe to its troops in Afghanistan via Russia and Turkmenistan, but have been consistently rebuffed. The U.S. has only been given permission to fly humanitarian supplies through Turkmen airspace - but no military hardware. Earlier this year, Gen. David Petreaus, chief of the U.S. Central Command, met with Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, who became Turkmenistan's new President when Niyazov died in 2006, but was unable to persuade him to open his country even a crack...
...With headlines crying "lies" and the defense ministry badly damaged, many expect the affair to reinforce German opposition to the Afghanistan deployment, which is the most substantial deployment since the end of World War II, and is taking on the character of a fighting mission. Some see the affair as a chance for Germany's government, and the Western alliance more broadly, to have a real debate about strategic goals in the Hindu Kush. "Zu Guttenberg is likely to emerge strengthened from this", Volker Perthes, the head of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, told TIME...