Word: helmand
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...trying to protect. This means Afghanistan's gains since the fall of the Taliban (more girls are going to school, health care has improved in the cities, business is booming and refugees are returning) are fragile and are threatened by the insurgency, which continues to rage in the south. Helmand--a province the size of West Virginia, with a population of just over a million--is its epicenter...
...local police are seen as scarcely more than uniformed thieves. Opium traffickers have a firm grip on the agricultural production of the province, providing credit, seeds and fertilizer to farmers, who have no other recourse than to grow the raw material for heroin--which in turn finances the insurgency. Helmand is the biggest opium-producing region in the world. And it is home to a Pashtun population that has historically resisted centralized rule. It is, says Chris Alexander, the U.N.'s deputy special representative in Afghanistan, "the place where the challenges that used to be nationwide have been swept like...
Sixty years ago, the U.S. government embarked on a massive reservoir and irrigation project and dammed the upper reaches of the Helmand River. In 1975 the Americans started the second phase, building a powerhouse and installing two 16.5-MW turbines at the dam's base. At the time, the dam provided enough power to light up the country's southern provinces, but they left room for a third turbine in the powerhouse and laid the groundwork for an even larger power station nearby that could bring the total energy capacity of the Kajaki Dam project up to 150 MW--nearly...
...strung. It's an overwhelming task, but one that is essential for bringing development and thus security to the country. The dam, says Mark Ward of USAID, "is a critical element in our support for Afghanistan, because it will provide the electricity to drive private-sector growth in Helmand and Kandahar." If Helmand were a country, it would be the fifth largest recipient of USAID funding. The dam is its star project...
...take place without security, and security is dependent on popular support. "We have to persuade them that we can provide security 24 hours a day and that they can tell the Taliban, 'We don't want you here,'" says Beattie. "[But] we don't control enough of Helmand to influence how the people think...