Word: kabul
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Kabul's Serena Hotel offered visitors to the Afghan capital a lot more than a place to stay. For the thousands of foreign journalists, aid workers, teachers, medical staff and entrepreneurs who have made the war-ravaged city a temporary home, the Serena was an oasis of tranquility. Its cafe served a good cup of coffee in a land of tea; its spa was a place for a hot shower in a snow-bound city where constant power outages reduce bathing to a bucket of water heated on a wood-burning stove; its gym offered a safe place to exercise...
...Tuesday Taliban spokesman Zaibiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the bombing, telling the Associated Press by phone that the insurgent group would increase attacks against venues frequented by Westerners. "We will target all these restaurants in Kabul where foreigners are eating," he said. "We have jihadists in Kabul right now and soon we will carry out more attacks." The Taliban's new targets don't show up on international assistance budgets or diplomatic mission logs, but they are the infrastructure that sustains the Afghan support effort. Those who congregate at the Serena don't live in fortified compounds walled off from...
...security officials and NGOs review safety regulations, the responsible response of many foreigners may be that the very venues that give Kabul its soul are off limits. Their freedom to roam the streets of Kabul, meet friends - both Afghan and foreign - at a restaurant or caf?, is likely to end. Already, the Australian embassy, which had been based at the Serena, has decided to move to a secure, isolated compound. This doesn't just limit fun for the foreigners; it walls off the understanding and communication that comes with spontaneous interaction. More barricades may bring the Westerners safety...
...Taliban's dynamiting of the giant Buddhas of Bamiyan in March 2001 was only the most dramatic expression of their mission to obliterate all "idolatrous" images from Afghanistan's pre-Islamic past. They also destroyed 2,500 other cultural artifacts from Kabul's National Museum of Afghanistan, many of them priceless. But thanks to the heroic efforts of curators, they didn't get it all. Hidden Afghanistan, a traveling exhibit that recently opened in Amsterdam's Nieuwe Kerk (New Church), gives a tantalizing glimpse of Afghanistan's stunningly diverse cultural legacy, and tells an engrossing tale about how these remnants...
...plot, which chronicles the life of an Afghani boy, Amir, and his best friend, a young servant-boy named Hassan. The two friends endure a difficult parting-of-ways, and Amir and his father must ultimately leave Afghanistan for America when the Soviets invade. Years later, Amir returns to Kabul in order to save Hassan’s son, a boy he has never met, so that he can atone for past transgressions. The story is an ambitious one, filled with surprises and spanning decades of Afghani history. The screenplay stays true to the original novel, and Hosseini?...