Hazara Nation

Even Mother Nature was cruel on the day 15 years ago when rampaging thugs chopped off Marzia’s fingers for a gold ring and shot dead her nine-year-old son when he cried out to object.

It was a bone-chillingly cold morning, she recalls, when militia loyal to Pashtun warlord Abdul Rab-Rasoul Sayyaf – now a parliamentarian – captured her village, west of Kabul and dominated by ethnic Hazaras.

Poverty-stricken Afshar, a complex of mudbrick houses at the foot of a barren and rocky mountain, was crushed in the orgy of murder, rape and looting.

In a post-assault attack on the village, gunmen smashed into her simple house, says the illiterate housewife in her 40s. They demanded a gold ring she was wearing.

“I couldn’t take it off. One of them stepped forward with a bayonet and said ‘I will take it off,’ and chopped my fingers,” she says, holding up a hand missing the thumb, fore and middle fingers.

Her son Samad cried out. “When he chopped my fingers, my son jumped towards me and wailed ‘Oh, nanai (mother)’. Another man turned his gun and fired at him,” she says, her lips quivering. “My son died in my arms,” she says, wiping away tears with the palm of her butchered hand.

The number of dead in what has become known as the Afshar Massacre is not clear: a United Nations report says 300 civilians, almost all ethnic Hazara Shiites, were killed but villagers say even more were slaughtered, some decapitated.

Hundreds of Hazara men were rounded up and corralled into forced labour – or just disappeared. Villagers claim 1,200 men were taken away.

One was Marzia’s husband, Sayed Mohammad.

Sitting near his wife in their one-room home, he says he was accused of being a combatant, beaten, and forced to dig trenches and wash dishes for his captors for six months before he was freed, half-paralysed and mentally ill.

The February 1993 Afshar campaign was one of the worst episodes of the 1992-1996 civil war that erupted when internationally supported militias that had driven out the Soviet occupiers turned on each other.

The ethnic-based factional fighting – in which all sides are accused of atrocities, including the Hazara – killed around 80,000 civilians in Kabul alone, according to rights groups.

An almost daily barrage of rocket and artillery fire reduced large parts of the attractive capital to rubble.

The conflict was ended when the Taliban Islamic militia took power in 1996, initially welcomed for restoring calm after the chaos. But they too brought terror before being ousted in a US-led invasion late in 2001.

“The Afshar Massacre is one of the worst brutalities of the civil war,” says Horia Musadeq from the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.

“It is just one example of hundreds of incidents Afghans suffered. Hundreds of civilians were killed, women were raped and many men were captured, held and tortured,” he said.

A 2005 Human Rights Watch report implicates Sayyaf – now an ally of President Hamid Karzai – and other figures such as Burhanduddin Rabbani, president at the time and now also in parliament.

“The Afshar campaign was marked by widespread and serious violations of international humanitarian law,” it says, and calls for “justice-seeking mechanisms to sideline past abusers from political power”.

Karzai in late 2006 signed a Peace, Reconciliation and Justice Action Plan that seeks to “establish accountability” – which some fear could see a backlash from strongmen worried about having to face a judicial process.

Just weeks later the parliament voted in a bill that would give groups and factions amnesty against prosecution. Its position on individuals is vague.

Karzai admitted at a meeting in December, at which Marzia was among several victims who pleaded for justice, that this was a concern.

“There are tyrants in our land,” he said. “We must move with lots of caution so as not to cause lots of noise and more human rights violations.”

The United Nations has meanwhile expressed disappointment at the delays in implementing the action plan, which also provides for investigations of atrocities and memorials for those killed.

Marzia says she wants justice, even if only from “great God”.

Responding to such calls is vital for Afghanistan to recover from its three decades of war and to revive the national spirit, Musadeq says.

“We can’t survive as a nation unless we give justice to war victims. Can you imagine that those who have killed her or others’ children sit in the parliament, live in palaces and drive Landcruisers?” she asks.

“When Sayyaf speeds past a victim in his Landcruiser, kicking up dust, think how it feels. It feels really bad.” Read the full story

Iran News

Hundreds of people have abandoned their homes and moved to urban areas in different parts of Afghanistan, and some have reportedly migrated to neighbouring Pakistan, due to worsening food insecurity, largely resulting from soaring food prices and low cereal supplies, provincial officials said.

At least 1,000 food-insecure people have left their homes in several parts of the northeastern province of Badakhshan over the past month, Nasir Hemat, the provincial head of the Afghan Red Crescent Society
People have moved to other provinces and some have gone to neighbouring countries,” said Hemat, adding that in various parts of the province some people were eating grass due to lack of food.

Hundreds of locals have also been displaced in Alburz and other districts in the northern province of Balkh, local Kabul-based media said, quoting several residents and one provincial official.

Food-insecurity-related displacements have also been reported in southern Kandahar, Zabul and Helmand provinces where a “spreading armed conflict” has affected civilians and has impeded humanitarian and development access.

“We have received unverified reports that people have been displaced due to food-insecurity in Arghistan and Marof districts of Kandahar, and also in different parts of Helmand and Zabul provinces, and that some families have migrated to Quetta [in Pakistan],” Najibullah Barith, president of the ARCS in Kandahar Province, told IRIN from Kandahar.

Vulnerable

Prices of food - critically wheat flour - have increased by over 100 percent in Afghanistan over the past year, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock.

While millions of vulnerable Afghans have already been exposed to “high risk” food-insecurity, there are mounting concerns that price hikes could be compounded by drought and low cereal production in 2008. All this will adversely affect vulnerable communities.

“Below-average levels of rain and snow during the 2007-08 wet season, high food prices, and low regional cereal supplies are likely to lead to increased levels of food insecurity for small-scale farmers, rain-fed agriculturalists, pastoralists and poor households in urban areas,” said a report by Famine Early Warning Systems (FEWS) of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) released on 24 April.

Aid agencies have warned that vulnerable Afghan households may not be able to cope with worsening food-insecurity, and “additional shocks” will probably lead to mass displacement and starvation.

Immediate remedies

In an effort to control soaring food prices and mitigate their impact on destitute Afghans the government has earmarked US$50 million to buy and import food items from regional markets, a spokesman for President Hamid Karzai said in Kabul on 22 April.

Afghan food markets are affected by a strict ban imposed by the Pakistani government on wheat flour exports. Pakistani officials say their country is also affected by increasing global food prices.

Given Afghanistan’s weak coping and response capacity, millions of its food-insecure and highly vulnerable citizens are increasingly becoming a heavy burden for the UN World Food Programme (WFP), which already feeds over five million Afghans.

To alleviate the food-insecurity crisis aid agencies and the Afghan government should work on “well-targeted food assistance”, improve peoples’ purchasing power, exempt commercial food imports from tax, boost regional cooperation to mitigate the impact of high food prices, and tackle widespread food-insecurity, the authors of the FEWS report recommended. Read the full story

Iran News

A study published in March by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) on the mental state of Iraqis in Jordan and Lebanon has pointed to mounting social and economic problems as the cause of increased domestic violence.

"Most families prefer to sweep their problems under the carpet because [to them] reputation matters more than anything else," said Shankul Kader from the Jordanian-Iraqi Brotherhood Society, a non-governmental organisation trying to help the Iraqi community in Jordan.

"The fact that most men are forced to stay at home due to the lack of jobs, and the lack of social interaction among the refugees, has heightened tension in households," the study said. It revealed that 15 percent of women interviewed in female-only focus groups reported an increase in family violence.

"A well-raised Iraqi woman should tolerate everything in silence... My husband has no other way to get rid of his anger," one woman told researchers.

Since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, over half a million Iraqis have moved to Jordan, hoping to return home when things improve.

Few jobs

Most Iraqis in Jordan are middle class, but over the years their savings have run down, and there are few jobs. Only about 22 percent of Iraqi adults in Jordan work; the rest are jobless, according to a recent study by the Norway-based FAFO Institute for Applied International Studies.

A large number of Iraqis rely on financial aid from relatives outside the Middle East, mostly in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Sweden, while others rely on temporary jobs, as immigration rules prevent them from holding permanent jobs.

"Men resort to violence because of social and economic pressures. Iraqis in Jordan are living in constant worry about their future," Shankul said.

Activists involved in helping Jordanian women survive domestic violence say their doors are open to Iraqi women. Asma Khader, a women's rights activist and lawyer, said the Jordan Federation for Women is engaged in activities to help abused Iraqi women. "Social barriers remain the biggest challenge in tackling domestic problems," she told IRIN. Read the full story

Sydney Morning Herald
Peter Manning

Australia's a remarkable country. Cambodian, Yugoslav and Vietnamese Australians who once shot at each other now live in the same city, sometimes the same suburb. The same goes for Arab and Jewish Australians. There are Jewish fighters from 1948 who successfully established the state of Israel and there are Palestinian refugees living in Sydney who were driven from their homes.
But you should have heard the groans of disapproval when Kevin Rudd's paean of praise for Israel's 60 years of democracy in Federal Parliament on March 12 was mentioned two weekends ago at the Arab Film Festival in Parramatta. In this swinging federal seat, the largely Arab-Australian audience was not impressed.


I suspect it wasn't disapproval of Rudd's perceived romance with Israel (they're used to that with John Howard and Bob Hawke). It was the seeming insensitivity of a new Prime Minister so intent on collecting brownie points.
Mention was made of Rudd's highly popular acknowledgement in his February 13 address to Parliament of the sufferings of the indigenous people of Australia. But how could he congratulate the Israelis without even a mention of the dispossession of 78 per cent of the land of the Palestinians, an event that saw 700,000 of them (most of the population) driven out of historic Palestine?

Palestinians call it "the nakba" (the catastrophe). Today, 5 million Palestinians live in refugee camps in surrounding Arab countries, unwelcome visitors waiting to return to their homes and villages. The continuing reality of "the nakba" poisons Western-Islamic relations around the world.

This month has a particular ring to it. It is the height of "the nakba". Whereas Israelis and Jewish people everywhere may celebrate May 8 as the day Israel was created 60 years ago, for Palestinians the catastrophe of the loss of their land spread over months. It began when the United Nations voted on November 29, 1947, to partition Palestine, and it continued throughout 1948.

For many decades afterwards it was the Israeli propaganda narrative that the Palestinians had simply abandoned their country, not fought enough for it and left for friendly Arab countries. The narrative conveniently defined the Palestinians as ignorant and cowardly.

But since the opening of the Israeli archives in the past decade, that narrative has been demolished by a younger band of Israeli historians - Avi Shlaim, Benny Morris, Ilan Pappe, Tom Segev and others - who have argued that the period from December 1947 to May 1948 involved a series of massacres designed to terrorise the native population into abandoning their homes and fleeing to safety.

And in Pappe's latest book, The Ethnic Cleansing Of Palestine (Cambridge University Press, 2006), he draws from the archives of David Ben-Gurion, Haganah and Irgun papers and other sources to reveal how deliberate and articulated was the famous Plan Dalet of March 10, 1948 - the plan by Jewish leaders to ethnically cleanse Arab cities (like Haifa and Jaffa) and villages getting in the way of the creation of the Jewish state.

The result was a series of massacres during April and May 1948, the most important in Deir Yassin on April 9. Jewish soldiers burst into the village and sprayed it with gunfire. Those not dead were gathered together and shot. A number of the women were allegedly raped and then shot. Ninety-three villagers were reported to have died.

The Herald of April 10, 12, and 13, 1948, reported the horror as "Jewish terrorism". In such attacks, many were robbed by Jewish troops of their jewellery, furniture and goods.

Today, many Jewish Australians remember this war firsthand, even if many did not witness the sort of horrors alleged at Deir Yassin.

Equally, many Palestinian and Arab Australians have their own stories. I have spoken with some. Their memories are as sharp as a tack. One man from Jaffa recalls as a boy being fired on as he tried to board a ship to leave his home town. Further up the coast, refugees from the Holocaust were arriving on boats that were "illegal" in the terms of the British Mandate.

Jewish Australians were made to feel, once again, acknowledged and proud by their federal Christian leaders on March 12. Arab and Palestinian Australians, also damaged by their history, were left feeling outsiders, abandoned, in exile, just as a new government arrived so full of hope and promise.

It would be good if Rudd in May could redress the balance.

Peter Manning is adjunct professor of journalism at UTS and the author of Us And Them: A Journalist's Investigation Of Media, Muslims And The Middle East (Random House, 2006). He is completing a PhD on "The Creation Of 'The Palestinian' In The Sydney Press". Read the full story

The Age

A fear of failing Australia's citizenship test is stopping refugees from applying to become citizens, a Victorian ethnic group says.

Ethnic Communities Council of Victoria chairman Sam Afra said refugees, who often had little or no education, feared failing the test and this stopped them from seeking citizenship.

"There are a lot of people we have spoken with who were afraid of going to the test," Mr Afra said.
"It's created a barrier with these types of people. They've been traumatised, never had education or been to school and the fear of failure is a big issue.

"The people feel `why are they testing us, if they didn't want us, why did they bring us here?'"

His comments came after the federal government on Monday announced it would review the citizenship test, as results show refugee groups had higher fail rates than others doing the test.

The government also said there were fears the level of English used in the test had "crept up" to native speaker level, rather than the basic level supposed to be used.

Mr Afra said in refugee groups such as Iraqi and Sudanese, the fail rates were up to 20 per cent, compared to 5 per cent fail rates overall.

He said it was unrealistic to expect one test could fit all.

"If you lived in a refugee camp for the last five or six years, you didn't have school, you went through trauma, all these wars, problems, how do you expect people who come from these areas, who have never had English or didn't have education in general, to come straight away and ... be able to get up that to that level?" he said.

Since the test was introduced last October, 1,286 people failed it at their first attempt.

Mr Afra said the refugees who failed their first attempt would probably never go for the test again and so never become citizens.

He welcomed the government's review of the test and said there should be concessions for refugee groups who came from "less fortunate" backgrounds, or these people would remain stateless.

"We are not saying don't do the test because a lot of people come from better educated, calmer areas, no wars," he said.

"But if you take the big extremes, there is a big gap." Read the full story

reported for physicsworld
Synchrotron proves Europeans were not the first painters to use oils

Europeans are often a little to eager to take credit for innovation. Copernicus may have formalized the heliocentric model of the solar system in the early 1500s, for example, but the Pole only did so with the help of vast tables of astronomical measurements taken 200 years earlier in Iran. Even the scientific method itself, often thought to have emerged from Galileo’s experiments in Italy around the same time, has its roots with Arab scientists of the 11th century.

Similar lapses of history occur in the art world. Many still think of oil painting as a European invention of the early Renaissance, perfected by the 15th century Flemish painter Jan van Eyck, who supposedly stumbled across the medium while experimenting with glazes. But they too are mistaken.

A whole mythology sprang up around van Eyck’s so-called invention of oil painting,” explains Jenny Graham, an art historian from the University of Plymouth, UK, and author of the recent book Inventing Van Eyck. “But it has long been recognised that oil painting was documented in the 12th century or even earlier and may have originated outside Europe.

The Passionate Eye

Filmmaker Hadja Lahbib's documentary provides vivid portraits of two powerful Afghan women leaders in defiance of conventional notions about the country's extreme repression of women. Habiba Sorabi is Afghanistan's first female governor. Aisha Habibi, also known as Commander Kaftar, is the country's only female warlord. Both women wear head scarves. The governor dresses in long-skirted Western-style suits over pants; the "commander" in more traditional long layers over pants.
Their dress is the only predictable thing about them. The governor is trying to bring democracy to Bamyan, where the Taliban infamously destroyed ancient Buddha statues. She won't tolerate tribal infighting or discrimination against women. She's seen openly advocating family planning, speaking to a gathering of men in a mosque and helping a family caught up in an arranged-marriage drama. The commander's rule, although autocratic, covers many of the same issues on a smaller scale. She oversees a community of more than 2,000 villagers in the remote Saijan Valley. We see her settle a dispute between neighbours and deal with a son who has assaulted his mother. Although the two women represent the old and the new order, that they exist at all in Afghanistan is heartening. In capturing everyday routines, Lahbib reveals a beauty and dignity in the lives of ordinary Afghans. And Afghanistan is gorgeous to look at, too, thanks to Louis-Phillipe Capelle's cinematography. Read the full story

Afghan News Agency

Three policemen and a civilian were killed while four more received injuries during two separate incidents in central Bamyan and western Badghis provinces.

At least three cops were killed as their convoy hit a roadside bomb in Ghormach district of western Badghis province, official said.

Abdul Ghani Sabir deputy governor of the province told Pajhwok Afghan News the bomb exploded in Qala-e-Wali area near Ghormach district.
He blamed anti government Taliban for the attack that damaged police vehicle.

Qari Yousuf Ahmadi spokesman of the Taliban claimed the responsibility for the attack saying they inflicted great casualty on the police personnel.

Also on Wednesday at least five were killed and injured after a minor dispute between two families in central Bamyan province, Muhammad Kabir an eyewitness told Pajhwok Afghan News the dispute erupted after two people disputed over water.

He said the incident afterwards got more heat causing the two sides to get arms and knives and attack each other.

Brig Gen Muhammad Awaz Nazari police chief of the province told Pajhwok Afghan News Muhammad Hussain was killed while four more received injuries, he said condition of the two wounded was critical.

Police had arrested eight from two sides for the incident. Read the full story

The Times
Lucy Gordon

Flowers amid the rubble, pain hidden by smiles, expats in bikinis just a few feet away from local women in burkas...a diplomat's wife describes her first year in Afghanistan

My husband Jamie and I have been living in Afghanistan for a year now. Jamie is on a posting with the British Embassy in Kabul and I work for an organisation that makes radio, theatre and television programmes for social development. I started writing my blog as soon as we arrived because small details are quickly forgotten, and I knew I would never have time to explain them all to family and friends. Getting to know a place is like slowly peeling an onion - each layer leads to another - but the more I learn about Afghanistan, the less I understand; there are fewer answers and more questions than this time a year ago. But an experience is made up of the people with whom you share it. My Afghan colleagues are the reason I have grown to love a country that is not my own, and it has been the best start to married life I could have wished for.

May 21, 2007

Someone once said to me that they thought the expression “war-torn” must first have been used to describe Afghanistan. But as we flew over Kabul, I noticed how neat it looked. The straight walls around houses, built by men for protection and to hide their women, added to the formulaic pattern of the city. To an accompaniment of snorting and phlegming from my neighbour, we hit the runway. I put on my headscarf and hoped I wouldn't look too much like the new girl.

In Kabul airport's only terminal, a few dirty yellow light bulbs shed a gloomy light. It was dark and hot. I was a given a landing card to fill in and noticed that my hand was shaking so much that I couldn't write my name. I headed out of the terminal, trying to look as if I knew where I was going.

I was looking out for Abdullah Fahim, who was meeting me, but nobody is allowed within half a kilometre of the airport for security reasons, so I had to bump over potholes and through car parks to the meeting area to find him. Behind a wire gate hordes of men were standing around, waving signs and yelling into mobiles. There was Abdullah, standing amid the dust in a crisp white shalwar kameez. A huge grin appeared through the glossy black beard. He is the finance manager for my new employers. I was very pleased to see him and, had it not been for Afghan conventions, would have hugged him.

June 7, 2007

Ahmed, our driver, picked me up late in the morning. He is only 22 but, like many Afghan men, looks at least a decade older. He has piercing turquoise eyes buried in a brown face, and short thumbs which he taps on the steering wheel in time to the Hindi pop on the stereo. He is quiet with a serious disposition, but I quickly managed to shatter this when I tried out my first few lines of Dari and asked him if he had a husband. His face exploded into laughter as we narrowly missed hitting the car in front.

We picked up G, a female colleague, and went to L'Atmosphere, one of many gated places for the xareji (foreigners) to go boozing, tanning, gossiping and skype-ing. As we walked through security, Western girls sauntered in, peeling off headscarves and jeans, heading to the bar to order pinot grigio and spinach salad to eat by the pool. As they lay about in bikinis, five metres away, just through the wall, there were women walking the streets in burkas. It seemed like two worlds divided by an eggshell.

We ordered drinks with a few other girls. The conversation centred on disappointment over a beetroot salad, and an army tank that had driven into a group of Afghan civilians. After a few glasses of wine, the chat veered towards sex, lies and ... a recent outbreak of tapeworms among the foreign community. I'm not sure whether I was more concerned about tales of marauding lonely men (ratio of expat men to women in Kabul, 3:1) or the worms. Maybe being married with a bulletproof stomach is a good start.

*****

Ahmed survived all the bombing in Kabul despite living in the Khair Khana area, which was all but flattened. It is hard to work out who was responsible for most of the destruction of this once-thriving city. The expats say it was the Mujahidin and then the Taleban; the Afghans say it was the Russians and then the Americans. I asked Ahmed how they coped and he said: “We waited to die.” I realised that behind every face I would meet in this country was a labyrinth of painful experiences. A smile can hide so much, and everyone here smiles.

As we clunked down the bumpy roads, I couldn't help thinking that this was a country of extremes. If you half-shut your eyes, against a background of brown dust and rubble you see life - hard life, but life nevertheless - green trees, purple flowers, blue burkas, pink piles of radishes, bunches of bananas, 20 types of Japanese vehicles, and brown-skinned ragamuffins with green eyes. A truck with 50 bags of twinkling goldfish swinging from it creaked across the road. Among the men in faded shalwar kameez, a group of little schoolgirls, looking like penguins in their black coats and immaculate white headscarves, chattered along the road.
June 16, 2007

G and I were sent on the ambush training course with Ahmed on my second day of work. On a hill overlooking Kabul, we were greeted by a huge blond Canadian wearing combat pants and wraparound shades. He stood with his legs about 3ft apart and said: “Youz all are going to get into the car and drive about. These guys with rags on their heads are going to ambush you in various ways with Kalashnikovs or RPG launchers, and we'll instruct you what to do.”

Ahmed hurtled around the dusty tracks, with G and me rolling around in the back seat. Suddenly he braked and shouted: “Ambush, get down!” We had to leap and hide. Instead we fell, howling with laughter, from the car and landed in a heap by the wheel - a tangle of headscarves and flip-flops with poor Ahmed trying to guard us. Then we had to scuttle round the Toyota and leap into a ditch.

For stage two, Ahmed was shot by the Kalashnikov-wielding attacker and G and I had to drive the car out of danger. Even shaking hands with a man here is a reasonably big thing, so imagine having to clamber through the gap between the front seats and sit astride Ahmed, weave your left leg over his right leg, and step on the accelerator.

G had to go next, which meant that I was in charge of pulling Ahmed's torso out of the way so that she could drive. Not wanting to pull his shoulders, I tugged him back by the shirt and, as G sat on top of him, all his shirt buttons popped undone. Ahmed took it on the chin, and we are still on speaking terms.

Our office is in the Qal-I-Fatula district. I have never been received at work with so many smiles, welcomes and general politeness. At our first meeting was an incredible, indelible Afghan lady called Mahbouba. If Afghanistan has a future, this lady will be part of it. She is huge and passionate, wears orange and pink and has a giant Afghan hound. She is one of the grandchildren of the late King Habibullah, calls everyone “sweetie” or “honey” and has a voluminous laugh. The meeting was to discuss her suggestion to be the “voice of hope” on one of our radio programmes. She is brave. Two weeks ago, Zakia Zaki, a radio journalist from Parwan province, north of Kabul, was shot dead in her bed. Her seven children and husband were in the house but could do nothing to help. There are dark forces everywhere in this part of the world who don't agree with women working and will do anything to make this known.

July 21, 2007

Security. It's like a cloud covering the sun. The strange thing is that the fear you feel has no relation to how safe you are. And so, in day-to-day life in Kabul, the pain of the security restrictions is much worse than the anxiety of something going wrong.

Our house is in a quiet street. In the garden are vines, an apple tree, a pear tree and two tortoises, Hamid and Rashid. If I were going to be any animal in Afghanistan, I'd be a tortoise. You look like a hand grenade, so no one picks you up, and when things get too much you can just retreat into a peaceful little shell.
August 3, 2007

The Ministry of the Interior has banned travel for foreigners on all roads in and out of Kabul without armed escorts. There are reports that roadside bombs and abductions are on the rise. I've had my first outbreak of claustrophobia, owing, I'm sure, to not being able to walk about. I think your mind needs to walk as much as your legs do. The pace of walking allows you to look at things in detail and think, slowly working out where you are and why you're there. A car travels too fast for you to take in what's going on around you, let alone process it in your head. So my feeling of frustration was a physical one - a desire to climb out of my own body coupled with a heavy pressure on my chest and shoulders, a bit like you feel when you're taking off in an aeroplane. I had an irrepressible urge to run about in the street like a child, throw a ball really hard, climb a mountain, skim stones and jump in a river. I had to resort to Davina McCall's Power of 3 workout DVD in our sitting room. Her commentary was so irritating that I had to turn the volume off, but I did feel better afterwards.

Sometimes you feel you might cry for no reason at all. Now I know the antidote - you just have to do something constructive. This morning I made a mushroom risotto, and luckily the onions were so strong that Ali Jan, the lovely cleaner, didn't have any idea that I was sobbing.

August 4, 2007

I'm growing really fond of my team at work, but we have a long way to go with our quality control. Six years ago this country emerged from 30 years of fighting and political upheaval, a tyrannical regime and mass emigration. I was expecting shattered buildings, broken lives and scattered families. But the thing I'm finding hardest to get used to is the lack of training, organisation of thought and confidence. Confidence is what enables you to dare to try something new and to learn from it. But no one has put their trust in our team before, so they aren't very confident - how could they be?

September 16, 2007

We had to film a theatre performance in Baharak, a village three hours' drive south of Faizabad. Women and men can't watch together, so we laid on performances for women in secure zones such as girls' schools. This one was for the men. By 9am there was a crowd of 200 in the bazaar, where the cast were setting up the stage. It was my job to film the audience, so I walked into the crowd. As I tried to focus on a father who was holding up his young son, I felt at least three hands on my bottom. I turned around to an infinite horizon of dark eyes, black beards and turbans. I yelped and shouted in English, and three policemen with Kalashnikovs came to shoo away the bottom-pinchers. So much for the respectful: “Salaam Waleikum, hand on chest, I would never dream of touching you, let alone shaking your hand, madam.” Despite the crushing weight of conservative and religious conventions, there is always something human buried beneath, trying to get out.

October 14, 2007

Editing a video with a charming Hazara man, I asked if he was looking forward to Eid. He said no, as life was so hard. You are often brought back to the grim reality of the present situation for ordinary Afghans. There is no luxury for people here. There is no padding. No heating in winter. No hot water. Intermittent electricity from a loud and smelly generator. No socialising with the opposite sex. No cinema for girls. No holidays. No travel, except trips to see family in Pakistan. No fun. Life is tough. Like brakes with no brake pads, flesh and feelings rub directly against the cold bare steel of life.

November 20, 2007

Ahmed was telling me that he used to watch football matches at Kabul Stadium. But when the Taleban took control of the city, they held public executions there instead. Sometimes he would turn up thinking he was going to a match, and have to watch Talebs slitting throats. He admitted there was a mixture of fascination and fear. Maybe his recent grumpiness is only a tiny sideeffect of the memories he carries around.

As Jamie and I began our holiday, the Afghan flag at Kabul airport was hanging at half-mast. The day before, there was a huge suicide bomb in the northern town of Baghlan that coincided with a visit by some MPs, five of whom were killed. About 70 people died, mostly children who had been taken out of class by their teacher to greet the dignitaries. Such events in Afghanistan are remembered for a month or two before they are replaced with the next one.

December 7, 2007

Ahmed has stopped working with us. I miss him. Much to his annoyance, Ahmed wasn't armed, but I always felt that the relationship of trust that we had established with him would be more valuable in a conflict than a weapon. What's the use of a gun if you don't care much about your passengers?

February 1, 2008

The irony of the attack on the Serena Hotel in Kabul is that it has always been viewed as one of the safest places in the city. Many people who come to Kabul see only the inside of that hotel and the journey to it from the airport. Seven people were killed.

Suddenly all those regulations don't seem so ludicrous. When attacks are turned from army convoys to civilian hang-outs, the layers begin to peel off to reveal the true challenge of establishing peace here. Whoever said that all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing had a point. Yet in Afghanistan the good man has no choice. For every human being, the first priority is keeping our families alive. What goodness is left to help to patch up your country?

March 21, 2007

Yesterday the finals of Afghan Star, the local equivalent of Pop Idol, were held in the ballroom of the InterContinental Hotel, on a hill overlooking Kabul. We were invited. The event coincided with the republication of the Danish Muhammad cartoons and there were demonstrations all over Kabul. We drove past rows of riot police and soldiers on rooftops who were pointing their guns at the crowds below.

What an interesting juxtaposition of fledgeling popular culture only metres away from chanting mobs of protesters. Angry mullahs at the bottom of the hill, pop idols crooning at the top. Teenagers with greased-back hair, tight jeans or white suits were jostling for space in the aisles and performing on the stage. Quite a lot of the girls in the audience were wearing baseball caps on top of their headscarves.

One woman from Kandahar was knocked out in the semi-finals but allowed to sing at this event. These women risk their lives by competing on national TV. One of the Afghan Star contestants now travels everywhere with a bodyguard. The risks for ordinary Afghans trying to make it to the top far outweigh the risks for foreigners here.
www.lucygordon75.blogspot.com Read the full story

Blacktown-based Sudanese refugee Faustino A'boka believes he's got a debt to pay to Australia for helping him start a new life.

And to do so he has started working as a volunteer of the Australian Red Cross Calling Appeal.

Mr A'boka, chairman, Equatoria Community Welfare Association and a former charity recipient, has collected $120 (including a personal donation of $7) and from door-to-door travels in his furst four days around residential Prospect.
"This is the first time since my arrival in Australia in 2001 I have collected donation for the Australian Red Cross," he said.

"The organisation is very selective about its volunteers as they are very careful about picking only responsible volunteers."

Mr A'boka said that despite being given an official receipt book, identification badge and a Red Cross bag, convincing people of legitimacy was a tough task.

"But I really feel good as I am now returning the favour given to me when Australia opened its door to my family and other refugees," he said.

According to information provided to Mr A'boka, the money raised would be used by the Red Cross to help HIV victims, families in crisis, those affected by natural disasters and other humanitarian works across the world.

Mr A'boka, who works as a casual teacher, also offers his service as interpreter in the Blacktown and Nepean areas and is trying to raise $150,000 for his organisation.

"We are getting there. Our Sudanese Awareness Night raised about $13,000 - that includes the $12,000 discount offered by Lander Toyota for the purchase of their vehicles." Read the full story

ABC.AU

Having fled repression and come to Australia seeking a better life, refugee children in Adelaide have enjoyed a memorable experience on the sports field.

They have taken part in a soccer clinic in the northern suburbs with some of the stars of the game.

The aim is to help the young refugees integrate into Australian society and make new friends.

More than 100 children had their pasts far from their thoughts as they took to the pitch among Adelaide United players, who coached them in soccer skills.
More than 120 young refugees took part in the school holidays training session and United player Richie Alagich was impressed with the skills on display.

"They're having a fantastic time and obviously there's a lot of skill being shown out there," he said.

"I think that's just a natural progression, obviously they're playing back home, they just play out there in the streets and they just get out there and have fun and enjoy themselves and the skill level is quite impressive."

Too few facilities

But many of the children who are keen to develop their sporting skills could find it hard to get a local soccer club to welcome them.

The locals say Adelaide's northern suburbs have too few coaches, club volunteers or facilities to nurture all those who are keen to build their soccer skills.

The juniors' chairman at Salisbury soccer club, Bud Costanzo, wishes he could offer more.

"It's sad, I mean I hate turning kids away," he said.

"Unfortunately there's not much you can do about it, there's only so many kids you can take in."

Salisbury Council hopes it can make soccer clinics a regular feature, with a different Adelaide United player each week. Read the full story

Afghan and NATO forces fought a series of clashes with insurgents on Saturday in what may be a sign of increasing guerrilla activity as the spring weather allows more freedom of movement for the fighters.Three Indians and one Afghan driver working on road construction in southwestern Afghanistan were killed in a suicide car-bomb attack, Afghan officials said.

A Taliban spokesman took responsibility for the attack.

The Defense Ministry reported that 24 Taliban fighters had been killed in a battle with Afghan and NATO forces in the southern province of Zabul.

In Kandahar Province, four policemen were killed when Taliban insurgents attacked a poppy eradication team in the district of Bandi Temur, the Kandahar police chief, Sayed Agha Saqib, said.

Afghan authorities said that they had discovered a grave in northern Balkh Province containing at least 100 bodies believed to be victims of a Taliban massacre in the 1990s, Reuters reported. Read the full story

Afghan authorities have discovered a mass grave containing at least 100 bodies believed to be victims of a Taliban massacre in the 1990s, security officials said on Saturday.

The grave was discovered in the northern province of Balkh, about 15 km (10 miles) from the city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

Provincial security official Abdurrauf Taj said about 100 bodies had been found in the grave, which is about 100 metres (yards) from a residential area.

"We expect the number may rise," Taj told Reuters.
Residents of the area said they suspected the dead were members of the Hazara ethnic minority, massacred after the Taliban captured the area in the late 1990s.

"These were all innocent people killed by the Taliban," said shopkeeper Mohammad Sami.

Provincial security commander Sardar Mohammad Sultani said the dead may have been massacred by the Taliban and investigators hoped to determine the truth.

None of the bodies were being moved until a team from Kabul inspected the site, Sultani said.

Mass graves from Afghanistan's three decades of war are occasionally unearthed in different parts of the country.

Last year, a grave containing several hundred bodies was found in the northeastern province of Badakhshan. (Reporting by Thair Qadiry; Writing by Jonathon Burch; Editing by Robert Birsel) Read the full story

The Buddhas of Bamyan, two momumental statues of standing Buddhas built during the sixth century carved into a side of cliff in the Bamyan valley of central Afghanistan, were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001.

Seven years after the Taliban destroyed the Bamiyan Buddha statues, an UNESCO mission working together with Afghan officials has finished gathering the remaining fragments of the monumental statues and is considering beginning the reconstruction works.

The Buddhas of Bamyan, which represented the classic blended style of Indo-Greek art, were two momumental statues of standing Buddhas built during the sixth century carved into a side of cliff in the Bamyan valley of central Afghanistan. The destroyed statues were the largest examples of standing Buddha carvings in the world as well as the most famous cultural landmarks of the region. The site was listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site along with the surrounding cultural landscape and archaeological remains of the Bamyan Valley.

At the moment, officials are doing a careful study and taking measurements, the first step of anastylosis, an archaeological reconstruction technique used to restore runied monuments using original architectural elements where possible.

"They are now collecting the fragments of the Buddha and they are putting in a safe storage" Nasir Mudabir, director of historic monuments in Bamyan, tells the Basque media group EiTB.

Amir Foladi, a representative of Agha Khan Foundation, says rebuilding one statue is very important and remarks that experts say there is a possibility as fifteen to twenty percent of the surface has remained".

However, according to Foladi, one of the two monumental Buddhas "one should be left as it is just to remember that during thirty years what happened to Afghanistan, specially to the cultural and historical site." Read the full story

Australia has a moral obligation to the hundreds of Iraqis who have worked for the defence force in the war-torn nation, Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon says.

Iraqi translators, drivers and other staff will be allowed to resettle in Australia with their immediate families in a deal that will remove them from the danger of revenge attacks by anti-coalition militias.

"Interpreters and translators have played a very significant role in assisting with strategy and protection, and we feel we have a moral obligation to resettle them in Australia," Mr Fitzgibbon told ABC Radio.
Long-time refugee advocate Marion Le said she "felt so proud" after hearing about the plan.

"I think it's great," she told AAP.

Ms Le said she hoped the decision was part of a changing immigration policy.

"I hope that what we are going to see is a more humanitarian focus by the government.

"It is dignified, responsible and responsive."

Mr Fitzgibbon said calls for the resettlement of the Iraqis had initially come from diggers.

"We heard that message very clearly, and expect up to 600 Iraqis will be involved in the process."

He said the government would rely on those who were in Iraq to nominate who should come to Australia.

"They are well categorised and the government has a database of them and what they have done, and we will ensure that security checks and health checks are done on each of the individuals and their families."

The government does not want to repeat the mistakes of the Vietnam War when Australia left behind almost all locally-employed staff during an abrupt withdrawal from Saigon, Mr Fitzgibbon said.

Already there had been some well-publicised cases of Iraqis facing retribution for their work with British troops.

Mr Fitzgibbon gave no indication the move foreshadowed an open-door policy for Iraqi refugees.

"There are 13,000 other places available in the broader humanitarian program so any other people who are able to demonstrate that they face persecution on any grounds are able to make application under the broader program."

Human rights lawyer Greg Barns called for the plan to be widened.

"There's a huge Iraqi refugee problem around the world who've been displaced by the war in Iraq and a lot of those people I think would be dismayed that their applications to come to Australia are taking much longer than those who stayed and have helped the Australian army," he told ABC Radio. Read the full story

By Kim Sengupta

Zalmay Khalilzad, the American envoy to the United Nations and an influential figure in the Bush administration, may run against Hamid Karzai for the Afghan presidency after resigning from his post.

Mr Khalilzad, who is Afghan-born, fuelled recurring reports of his political ambitions by appearing on television in Kabul to announce that he is to leave his job and wants to be "at the service of the Afghan people".

Although Mr Khalilzad, who holds US citizenship, added: "I have said earlier that I am not a candidate for any position in Afghanistan," his decision to step down from the prestigious UN job has been widely regarded as clearing the way for a run at the Afghan leadership, with President Karzai facing serious and mounting internal and international criticism.But Mr Khalilzad has his own share of baggage. He had once lobbied for the Taliban and worked for an American oil company, Unocal, which sought concessions for pipelines in the country. In 1997, he urged the Clinton administration to take a softer line against Afghanistan's Islamist rulers and wrote in The Washington Post: "The Taliban do not practise the anti-US style of fundamentalism practised by Iran. We should... be willing to offer recognition and humanitarian assistance and to promote economic reconstruction."

Mr Khalilzad, 56, became US ambassador to Kabul in January 2002 then was sent to Baghdad by the White House when the "war on terror" moved on to Iraq. He has visited Afghanistan several times, adding to the speculation that he saw himself as a political player in the land of his birth.

For months, Mr Khalil-zad's supporters are said to have been holding talks with Pashtun groups in the south as well as the Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras of the Northern Alliance, which now calls itself the National Unity Front, to offer him as a candidate who can bring the increasingly divided country together.

Mr Khalilzad is Pashtun but he was born in Mazar-i-Sharif in the north, and was schooled in Kabul. His followers say this background gives him the ideal qualifications to be a bridge-builder between the north and the south where the Pashtun population bitterly complain of being disenfranchised. The region has suffered most of the recent upsurge in fighting and has benefited little from reconstruction. Mr Khalilzad played a major role in Mr Karzai becoming President after the fall of the Taliban. But the Afghan ruler's popularity has slipped and he has been increasingly at odds with his Western backers, criticising British policy in Helmand and blocking the appointment of Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon as the UN envoy to Kabul. But Mr Khalilzad has himself been accused of undermining Lord Ashdown by failing to support him adequately at the UN for the Afghan job.

Critics say this was part of a long-term strategy to ensure he does not have another heavyweight international figure as a possible rival, controlling a vast budget, if and when he becomes president. Read the full story

Lava Kohaupt from the Melaleuca Refugee Centre says usually around 200 refugees come to the Territory every year but since July 2007 only 107 refugees have settled in the Territory.

Ms Kohaupt says the overall migrant intake has almost doubled in Australia since July last year and thinks the reduction could be a processing issue. She says the support centre is struggling.

"We are actually being paid per family arriving so if at the moment we will only have 60 per cent of our anticipated income, some staff have already taken voluntary cut of hours." Read the full story

DEFENCE Minister Joel Fitzgibbon says Australia has a moral obligation to resettle up to 600 Iraqis who have been assisting defence forces in the troubled nation.

Mr Fitzgibbon said Prime Minister Kevin Rudd especially didn't want a repeat of the aftermath of the Vietnam War.

Immigration officials are preparing to travel to Iraq and neighbouring nations to process applications.

Mr Fitzgibbon said Australian troops had raised concerns about the plight of locally-hired staff with him and Mr Rudd during a trip to Iraq late last year.

He has told ABC Radio "we heard that message very clearly, and expect up to 600 Iraqis will be involved in the process''.

"Interpreters and translators have played a very significant role in assisting with strategy and protection, and we feel we have a moral obligation to resettle them in Australia.''He said the Government would rely on those who are on the ground in Iraq to nominate who should come to Australia.

"They are well categorised and the government has a database of them and what they have done, and we will ensure that security checks and health checks are done on each of the individuals and their families.''

The Government does not want to repeat the mistakes of the Vietnam War when Australia left behind almost all locally-employed staff during a precipitate withdrawal from Saigon, Mr Fitzgibbon said.

Already there had been some well-publicised cases of Iraqis facing retribution for their work with British troops, Mr Fitzgibbon said.

Mr Fitzgibbon has given no indication the move foreshadowed an open-door policy for refugees from Iraq.

"There are 13,000 other places available in the broader humanitarian program so any other people who are able to demonstrate that they face persecution on any grounds are able to make application under the broader program.'' Read the full story

Australia has offered to take in hundreds of Iraqis who have worked for its troops, in recognition of the danger faced by those helping foreign forces, officials said Tuesday.

Defense Minister Joel Fitzgibbon said that humanitarian visas would be offered to Iraqis who worked as translators, interpreters and in other jobs for Australian troops. The workers' families would also be eligible.

Australia joined the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and still has about 1,500 troops in and around the country. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has vowed to bring home the 500-strong contingent of combat troops by mid-2008.

Spain, which withdrew from Iraq in 2004, offered asylum to dozens of Iraqis who helped Spanish troops or diplomats. Poland has also pledged to help local civilian workers when it withdraws troops from Iraq.But the U.S. — which has by far the largest foreign presence in Iraq — has come under intense criticism for failing to admit a bigger trickle of the more than 2 million Iraqi refugees, particularly those who have worked for the military, American agencies and contractors.

By May 2007, the U.S. had admitted fewer than 800 refugees. The number increased sharply after the Bush administration put in place new screening guidelines, but the figure continues to fall far short of targets. To date, over 3,500 Iraqis have been admitted to the U.S., according to government figures.

Up to 600 humanitarian visas were expected to be issued under the Australian plan. The candidates would be hand-picked by Australian officials and only allowed into Australia after undergoing strict health, character and national security checks.

"Anti-coalition forces have deliberately targeted individuals working with Australian troops and their partners in southern Iraq," Fitzgibbon said. "In response, the Australian Government will adopt a new visa policy to enable the permanent resettlement in Australia of locally engaged employees and their families at risk because of their engagement with the Australian Government."

A similar resettlement plan was adopted by Denmark, as it withdrew its combat troops in 2007, for about 200 Iraqi interpreters and other aides who worked for Danish troops in the country's south. Read the full story

MANY other Iraqis deserve to be accepted as refugees in Australia other than those the army wants to bring with it when it withdraws from the country, a human rights lawyer says.

The offer of permanent residence, announced by the Federal Government last night, will be extended to all so-called locally engaged employees and their families.

Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon said he expected up to 600 visas would be issued.

Lawyer Greg Barns said today there were many other Iraqis in difficulty around the world who deserved to be considered.

"There's a huge Iraqi refugee problem around the world who've been displaced by the war in Iraq and a lot of those people I think would be dismayed that their applications to come to Australia are taking much longer than those who stayed and have helped the Australian army," he said on ABC radio.
Mr Barns said the situation at the end of the Vietnam war, when Australia took many Vietnamese with it during the withdrawal, was different.

"In the case of Vietnam, the Fraser government did the right thing and it said that anyone who came in on a boat to Australia, and that included people from all around Vietnam, was entitled to come to Australia. It opened the doors," he said.

"What's happening here is we are selecting people that we consider have helped Australia over in Iraq."

Opposition immigration spokesman Chris Ellison said Australia was doing the right thing.

"If someone stands by our Australian troops in need we look after them. We don't leave them high and dry," he said.

"The crucial issue here is that these people are being targeted because they gave our troops assistance and their families are being targeted as well.

"It's only fair that Australia stand by them and look after them." Read the full story

The first group of 38 refugees - 23 of them children - have arrived in the Chilean capital Santiago. They were greeted by government leaders and members of the 500,000-strong Palestinian community.

Chile has given a warm welcome to the first group of Palestinian refugees to arrive in the country.

Thirty-eight Palestinians, previously stuck in no-man's land between Syria and Iraq, arrived in the country's capital, Santiago, after a 40-hour journey on Sunday.

The refugees, which include 23 children, were greeted at Santiago's airport by around 500 Chileans, many of them of Palestinian descent who waved Palestinian flags in their honour.

The group is the first of 117 refugees to be accepted by the Chilean government after a plea from the United Nations High Commission of Refugees (UNHCR) last year.
Fabio Varoli, head of the regional office of the UNHCR's Latin America Programme told Adnkronos International (AKI) the refugees had lived in the refugee camp of al-Tanf, after surviving violence and hardship in war-torn Iraq.

"They lived in a desert area, about 400 metres long, inside tents, where temperatures reached minus 10 to minus 15 degrees celsius in the winter, or 40 to 50 degrees celsius in the summer," Varoli told AKI.

The al-Tanf camp, located on a strip of land between Syria and Iraq, held 300 people in 2006 and now has 700 refugees.

Varoli, an Italian from the historic city of Pisa, travelled to the camp last year to help select who would be eligible for the programme.

"When they arrived to Chile, I was waiting at the door of the airplane to greet them, many of them remembered me, it was very moving," he told AKI. "They were smiling and very happy.

"There is a profound sense of gratitude to Chile for their solidarity with the refugees."

Upon their arrival, the refugees were transferred to the city of La Calera, 118 kilometres north of Santiago, where mayor Roberto Chahuan, himself the grandchild of Palestinian immigrants, welcomed them in front of 1,000 cheering supporters.

The mayor organised a lunch while a band played typical Chilean music and performed the country's national dance, the Cueca.

The Palestinian Authority's ambassador in Chile, Mai al-Kaila, and Chile's interior minister, Felipe Harboe, were also there to greet the newcomers.

"It was like a Latin-American postcard," spokesman for the Vicaria de Pastoral Social (VPS), Alberto Pando, told AKI.

VPS is a Catholic aid agency based in the capital Santiago that works with UNHCR to help refugees.-

"It has been so exciting for them (the Palestinians), there has been so much love, so much joy," said Pando.

The Palestinians travelled from the Syrian capital, Damascus, to Paris in a commercial airline, and after an eight hour layover they flew to Chile.

"Kids could be seen playing in the escalators at the airports, because many of them were born in refugee camps and thus had never seen one," Pando told AKI.

All of the refugees are Sunni Muslims and were received at the airport by an imam from a local mosque. He prayed with the refugees and also offered them advice.

Chilean president, Michelle Bachelet, is reportedly sympathetic to refugees because she was one herself.

She and her family sought asylum in Australia during the regime of former dictator Augusto Pinochet from 1973 until 1990.

According to Pando, when Bachelet studied in the German capital of Berlin, a Palestinian taught her how to say "refugee" in German.

A second group of Palestinian refugees is expected to arrive in Chile in two weeks.
Read the full story

Leader
Paul Riordan

HELP like the jobs offered by a Caulfield North bakery could mean big bikkies for refugees.

Jewish Aid Australia has helped members of the Dandenong Darfur refugee community to find employment in Melbourne.

The program has been piloted at local bakery Vicki's Bickies and has so far been a success.

Jewish Aid program co-ordinator Lisa Buchner said the program helped different communities come together and provided employment opportunities.

Ms Buchner said the program gave refugees an "opportunity to gain understanding and employment".

Aida Mohamed Adam Nour, 22, and Fawzia Sailh Mohamed, 19, said the opportunity had changed their lives.
"It means a lot it's changed me," Ms Nour said.

"I never dreamed I could work in Australia."

Vicki's Bickies director Vicki Davis said both young women had quickly picked up the skills and detail needed for the business.

"They have surpassed my expectations of any staff and it is a pleasure to have them in my kitchen," Ms Davis said.

Details: www.jewishaid.org.au Read the full story

There are increasing fears of an imminent outbreak of ethnic conflict in central Afghanistan over access to grazing land between Kuchis and Hazaras.

The estimated 2-3 million Kuchis (nomads) - predominately Pashtuns - have traditionally moved all over the country with their camels, sheep, goats and donkeys in search of greener pastures. At the start of spring they normally flock into the central provinces where most of Afghanistan's third largest ethnic minority, the Hazaras (9 percent of the population). The Hazara have warned that Kuchis will not be allowed to graze animals in "their" areas.

Hundreds of Hazaras demonstrated in Kabul on 30 March, threatening to take up arms and fight if Kuchi herders entered Bamiyan and Wardak provinces. "If the government does not stop Kuchis from entering our areas, we will do so by all possible means," said a leader of Hazara demonstrators in Kabul. "Down with Kuchis," chanted others.

Kuchis say their right to pasture-land has been denied by the Hazara minority and they have no option but to fight for it. "Because the government is weak and cannot ensure our legitimate rights we may have to fight for them," said a young Kuchi man, Nazargul.

"Dangerous" grievances

The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has indicated that parts of the country could be affected by more drought than usual in 2008. Kuchis in southern and eastern provinces - where drought is anticipated to be more severe - could thus be prompted to move to less drought-affected provinces in the north and centre of the country.

Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) and the Independent Directorate of Kuchi Affairs (IDKA) are concerned that clashes between Hazaras and Kuchis could be worse than in previous years. "Given that both parties lack confidence in the government's ability to solve their disputes they may try to defeat each other by violent means," warned the AIHRC's Hamidi.

The AIHRC warning was echoed by the director of IDKA who said grievances on both sides had become "dangerous". "There are strong possibilities that a future conflict could turn into a widespread battle with devastating results," said Daudshah Niazi, the head of the IDKA.

Kuchi elders complain that since the overthrow of the Taliban government in 2001, Hazaras have enjoyed strong international support and been given opportunities in the government and other decision-making bodies, while Kuchis have been perceived as collaborators of the mainly Pashtun Taliban and "terrorists".

"Because they are in a position of power, Hazaras have objected to all the traditional norms and laws in this country and have denied us access to a main source of livelihood," said Abdul Ghani, an elderly Kuchi.

Hazara leaders counter by saying they have been repressed by the more numerous Pashtuns for centuries - a situation which the Kuchis are trying to perpetuate. "We only want to end their oppression and only want our rights," said Ali Orfani, a Hazara leader in Kabul.

Government inaction?

The AIHRC blamed the government for not doing enough to end growing tensions between Hazaras and Kuchis.

"This problem recurs every year," Farid Hamidi, a member of the AIHRC, told IRIN in Kabul, adding: "The government has not taken appropriate measures to solve it."

In July 2007, after several people were reportedly killed in clashes between Kuchi herders and Hazara settlers in Behsood District, Wardak Province, President Karzai set up a commission to investigate the causes of conflict and recommend a solution. The commission made a number of suggestions - one of which was that Kuchis should have access to grazing lands in Hazara areas, according to the IDKA's Niazi, a member of the commission.

The president has yet to rule on the issue. A spokesperson for Karzai was not available for comment. Read the full story

From 2SER FM, Sydney

Last year the cost of detaining asylum seekers was $28 million - and it is those applying for refugee status - whether they have been granted asylum in Australia or deported - who are billed for the costs.

In one case an asylum seeker currently owes the government $271 000 for his time in a detention centre.This debt recovery was subject of a report released this week by the Commonwealth Ombudsman.

Jessica Minshall spoke with Mark Goudkamp, from the NSW Refugee Action Coalition, about what impact this debt has on the lives of people who have sought refuge.

Download

Read the full story

Department reviewing humanitarian clause, the final chance for many to stay here

"Canada is losing out on talented immigrants who are choosing to go to other countries, such as Australia," he said. Q: How will Canadians and would-be ...A unique clause in Canada's immigration law often used as a last resort by failed asylum seekers is under review in the wake of proposed new immigration rules.

The review is partly prompted by an estimated backlog of 35,000 applications under the "humanitarian and compassionate" clause, but immigration lawyers say it's a myth that the clause is being abused.

"It is a way for somebody to come and remain in Canada who otherwise would not be able to," said Queen's University immigration law professor Sharryn Aiken of the H&C clause, which has been in place for four decades.

"It's intended to be a positive program and the (immigration) officers are expected to exercise their discretion favourably toward the applicants," Aiken said.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada recently launched a three-month pilot project in Vancouver to streamline the processing of humanitarian applications.

"We're exploring whether to centralize the unit or not. We're looking at the best practices, trends and gaps to see how we can improve the process," said spokesperson Madona Mokbel.

H&C cases are often complex and people can file multiple applications, which cost $550 for each adult and $150 for minors.

"It's not black-and-white decision making and you have to consider all different circumstances. It takes a long time," said Mokbel.

The department did not disclose the number of backlogged applications, but said the process takes one to four years and the overall approval rate is over 50 per cent.

While some people believe the process is abused by "queue-jumpers," lawyers say the application is a crapshoot. There are no clear and objective guidelines to define the "unusual, undeserved or disproportionate hardship" that warrants a positive decision, they say.

The key to success is to prove one would suffer hardship if uprooted.

Toronto immigration lawyer Richard Wazana said immigration officers often look at the applicant's ties to Canada, such as employment history, community connection, civic participation and presence of family members, as well as the interests of the person's children.

"The majority of applicants are refused refugee claimants, who face removal from Canada and end up applying for permanent residency through H&C," Wazana said.

Queen's Aiken said it is a myth that the process is being abused by failed refugee claimants to delay removal and deportation because an H&C application doesn't stop border officials from booting the applicant out of the country. Also, giving birth to a Canadian-born child is only one of many factors and does not entitle a parent to remain in Canada on humanitarian grounds.

While the clause is often considered a catch-all to safeguard applicants who fall through the cracks of the regular immigration streams, some lawyers complain there is no appeal process and individual officers have too much discretion.

"The crux of the problem ... is (that) the H&C application is embedded in an exclusionary and racist immigration policy," said immigration lawyer Jared Will. "A person can immigrate to Canada only if the person can show that he or she is beneficial to Canada's economy." Read the full story

The Age

So this guy is walking down the street when another guy riding a bike shouts at him: "What are you looking at, you black f---wit?" The object of his attention stops, turns around and shouts back: "Hey … I'm brown!"The offender is so surprised by the witty comeback that he falls off his bike. "It serves him right for being colour blind," quips comedian Nazeem Hussain.

It might sound like the stuff of stand-up comedy, but it's a true story. It happened to Hussain just last month, as he was walking beside the River Torrens in South Australia. And, let's just say Hussain wasn't exactly forthcoming in helping the man get to his feet. "I basically laughed and ran," he says. "I didn't feel the need to help someone who called me a black f---wit."

Hussain, 22, recounts the story in good humour, and he includes the anecdote in his show, Fear of a Brown Planet, in which he co-stars with Aamer Rahman, and which is on at the Comedy Festival (The Age is a sponsor of the festival).

Here's another true story. When Hussain's sister started to wear the hijab, she noticed that some people began speaking to her five times more slowly. "Maybe they thought that the hijab blocks out understanding of English," he muses.

But all this poking fun at Muslims — and poking fun at people who poke fun at Muslims — has a point. "Laughter is universal," Hussain says. "You can talk to all audiences with humour. If you can laugh together, you can live together."

The first week of the show sold out, so clearly there are plenty of people who want to hear the message. But is this message simply preaching to the converted?

Research for VicHealth last year exposed the contradictions in Australian society over attitudes to race.

On the one hand, most people rejected the "socio-biological" arguments for racial superiority that prevailed in previous centuries. But more than one-third of the 4000 surveyed believed there were certain ethnic groups that did not "fit" into Australian society. The most commonly named groups were Muslims, Middle Easterners and Asians.

Those who are the most "visible" in their difference are most likely to be discriminated against, says Hass Dellal, executive director of the Australian Multicultural Foundation.

"Either you're Asian or indigenous or a Muslim wearing a hijab, or so-called Middle Eastern in appearance or African," he says. "Some people blatantly discriminate because they see these people as something different."
What's more difficult to nail, though, is whether the incidence of racism — or racial discrimination — is growing. The numbers paint a mixed picture. The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission received 140 race discrimination complaints between July and December last year, and expects the number for 2007-08 to surpass the 250 of the previous financial year.

Its state counterpart, the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, had 155 complaints on the basis of race in 2006-07, a fall from the 196 reported the previous year.

A 2006 Victoria University study of 500 refugees who came to Australia through the humanitarian entry program found a quarter had experienced racism and discrimination regularly. But, says one of the senior researchers, Associate Professor Michele Grossman, 90% felt positive about living in Australia.

They believed government policy had been favourable in terms of welcoming refugees. The discrimination was felt in their everyday interactions in areas such as housing, transport and education.

There seems to be agreement among the experts that Australia generally is one of the least racist countries in the world. Instead, they point to "pockets of racism" across the country.

"We are seeing more complaints," says federal Race Discrimination Commissioner Tom Calma. "Does that mean there is more racism or does it mean people are now realising they have an avenue to complain?" Even Calma can't answer the question, but he says the strong support for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's recent apology to the Aboriginal stolen generations suggests the vast majority of Australians are not racist.

Monash University politics lecturer Waleed Aly, a former board member of the Islamic Council of Victoria, confirms the complexity: "Australian society tends to proceed on assumptions that are fundamentally fair. That said, you'd be hard pressed to find a migrant group that hasn't suffered discrimination in Australia."

A version of this paradox was articulated this week for the Guardian newspaper by black British TV presenter Trisha Goddard, now living back in Britain after working in Australia in the 1980s and '90s.

"When I first went out to Australia, I thought it was the most racist place in the world. Every day was a struggle. It was blatant 'send her back where she came from' stuff. But I started rating, and the thing about the Australians is once you've battled through and made it, they don't care. It's like class: there is no class, you can be as rough as guts, but you make your money and you can sit next to the Queen. In England, you'll always be on the outside."

Racism has long had a place in Australian culture. The White Australia policy, which from the 1850s favoured European immigration, was finally buried in the 1970s by the Whitlam government.

But still, the issue has reared its head through different waves of migration. In generations past it has targeted migrants from Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Witness the ugliness of the 2005 Cronulla riots, in which young Anglo and Lebanese men clashed. Or reports of Muslim schoolgirls being harassed after the September 11 attacks. Or the unforgettable image 15 years ago of Aboriginal footballer Nicky Winmar holding up his football jumper and proudly pointing to the colour of his skin in response to racist jibes from spectators. (The AFL has since taken a strong stand against racism.)

Most recently, a hostel in Alice Springs was accused of racism after refusing accommodation to some Aboriginal women.

There were 119 anti-Semitic incidents in Victoria reported to the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission last year. "I've heard of situations where parents have told their kids 'don't wear the skullcap'," says chairman John Searle. "That is very distressing that here in Victoria in 2008 there can be concern and a fear of displaying your identity."

Last year, former prime minister John Howard, who regularly spoke of "integration", was accused of snubbing multiculturalism when he dropped "Multicultural Affairs" from the Immigration Department's title.

In the months before last year's election, then immigration minister Kevin Andrews — the minister who introduced the citizenship test featuring questions about Australian "values" — fuelled the flames when he expressed doubts about the ability of the Sudanese to integrate in Australia. He was quickly howled down.

Laurie Ferguson, the current parliamentary secretary for multicultural affairs, became the latest politician to bring race to the spotlight with his recent comments that refugees should be spread across a wider range of suburbs to avoid "white flight" from state schools — where Anglo-European parents apparently avoid government schools with large numbers of students from other racial backgrounds.

The words have been condemned by ethnic groups — Peter van Vliet of the Ethnic Communities Council of Victoria says they are "inflammatory, provocative, simplistic".

Ferguson last week said he did not believe there was any more evidence of racism in Australia "than any other country on this earth".

But the Government is reviewing the effectiveness of gestures such as Harmony Day, set up by the Howard government, and Ferguson wonders whether more attention should be directed to the issues that are "more hard-edged and intense".

Words, perhaps, that could be used to describe the tensions that flared in Dandenong and Noble Park last year. Senior Constable Joey Herrech was among those whose job it was to put out the flames. A police multicultural liaison officer, he watched the media storm brew after the bashing death of Sudanese teenager Liep Gony near Noble Park train station in October. Gony's death, allegedly at the hands of Anglo-Australian attackers, and the subsequent comments made by Kevin Andrews, sparked broad debate about the "settlement" issues of African refugees, and community outcry on both sides of the ideological divide.

The tension prompted police to install a brawler van and temporary police unit at the train station and step up patrols. The police have since reported a drop in crime around Dandenong and Noble Park.

"It's a really unfortunate way to summarise it, but (Gony's death) was the pinnacle. Something had to change," Herrech says. "The really unfortunate part was that someone died, but what it has done is clean the slate."

But in 20-year-old Angok Leuth's eyes, the events of last year did little to improve relations between police and Sudanese youth. The environmental science student and his cousin arrived on their own as refugees from Sudan's civil war in 2005, winding up in Dandenong, where many of the country's 23,000 Sudanese-born residents live. He was nearing the end of his VCE studies at Dandenong High School last year when the death of classmate Gony turned the public spotlight on him and other tall, dark young men like him.

"They put the blame on us when we were the victims," he says. "Even at the shopping centre or at the local station people were giving us looks like we were bad people or we were trying to bring things to Australia that weren't Australian, like we brought gangs to Australia."

Racial discrimination had been heaped on Leuth well before Gony's death. So when a young girl threw a tennis ball at him one day because "you're so dark I can't see you", Leuth simply notched it up as one of many negative encounters. Most hurtful, he says, is continually being defined as a refugee. "I feel like this is a home to me, but I don't understand why I'm called a refugee when I've got my Australian citizenship," he says.

Also feeling disconnected are the mostly Lebanese-Australian Muslims Fadi Rahman works with in Sydney's western suburbs. For these young men and women, being called a "wog" is commonplace. So is being called a terrorist. It all adds up to an insidious type of "ignorant racism" that Rahman says is evident across Australia. "There is a new scapegoat now for people and it just happens to be in the form of the Arab Muslim community," he says.

EACH area has its own unique issues, and there is no one way to combat racism, researchers say. The University of NSW is mapping racism across Australia, led by chief investigator Professor Kevin Dunn. Dandenong, for example, has to grapple with the multitude of ethnic groups living side by side and the impact that the rapid growth of emerging communities such as the Sudanese and Afghans has on the area's more ethnically homogenous neighbours.

In the case of Camden, on the outskirts of south-western Sydney, community outrage recently blocked proposals for an Islamic school in the area. Dunn pinpoints the discriminatory attitudes among some Camden residents as due to a lack of exposure to diversity. "There's nothing in their everyday lives, or not much, to confront their stereotypical image of Muslims."

Dr Helen Szoke, chief executive of the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, says racial discrimination in the workplace is a big issue, too. She has heard of Muslim people Anglicising their names on their resumes to improve their chances of getting a job interview.

A study of 38 migrants from Bangladesh and India tells of migrants' frustration at their skills or overseas qualifications not being fully recognised. One man who had been a senior mechanical engineer in Bangladesh could get work in Australia only as a mechanic. Some told stories of less experienced people getting promotions ahead of them. But, says study author Dr Ahmed Munib, an honorary research fellow at the Barwon Psychiatric Research Unit at Melbourne University, "Some people actually succeeded after lots of struggle and hardship … once they got their qualifications in Australia they had been able to proceed in careers quite quickly."

Amid the persisting debate about new migrants and their settlement needs and abilities there has been one enduring race-based concern — Aboriginal Australia. At various times dispossesed, dispersed and denied the right to vote and, in some cases, rear their own children, Aboriginal Australians have, since European settlement, experienced racism at its rawest.

"You only have to look at the conditions Aboriginal people live in in regional, remote and metropolitan Australia. No other Australians endure those conditions," says National Indigenous Times editor Chris Graham.

That discrimination also takes more subtle forms. In one case reported to the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, an indigenous woman with an above-average income was looking for private rental accommodation in a country town and had applied for several properties managed by one real estate agent. Each time she applied, she was told it was no longer available, although she later discovered the properties were still vacant.

But Kevin Rudd's apology might be the stimulus for changing attitudes towards indigenous Australians. Waleed Aly says it tapped into a sense of unease that perhaps Australians weren't doing all they could on race. That, he says, suggests that we are aware of the criticism that Australia has problems with racism and that we want to shed that image.

"I would argue that Australia is among the least racist societies on earth," he says. But he has no doubt that Australia is perceived poorly by other countries on matters of race. He believes past policies on refugees, Tampa, the stolen generations, the White Australia policy, Hansonism and Cronulla have damaged Australia's reputation — somewhat unfairly.

"The reality of Australian society is complex, but the international vision of Australian society is usually simple." And superficial.

One leading multiculturalism researcher, the Australian National University's James Jupp, argues it is the outdated images — of Anzac, of battlers and of the outback — that should be a starting point for change. "Lots of countries have myths that are out of date, in fact most countries do, but it makes people who weren't born here feel that the country doesn't belong to them," he says.

Meanwhile, Nazeem Hussain will continue to use humour to educate people. His comedy show includes "workshops for whities". For instance: "Just because I'm at the petrol station, doesn't mean I work here. So don't look at me sideways like I'm supposed to jump over the counter and start serving you."

Carol Nader is social affairs editor. Dewi Cooke is social affairs reporter.

■ Top-level public service jobs four times more likely to be held by a person from an English speaking background.

■ A 2004 study comparing job outcomes for migrants three years after arrival found that 47% of those from Britain and the US were using their qualifications, compared with 3% of migrants from non-English speaking backgrounds.

■ 92.5% of Victorian Government appointments to boards and authorities are of people who do not identify as being from a culturally or linguistically diverse background.

■ 9% of Victorian local government councillors born in non-English speaking background countries.

■ A 1999 study found that only 3% of roles in Australian television drama are filled by actors born in non-English speaking countries. Read the full story