Kabul Korrespondence

Every year in Afghanistan, when the days get shorter and the sun looses its intensity, then the rain starts to fall. Not long after it mixes with the 5cm of dust covering the city and its turns into MUD. the whole city is covered in the shit.

Everyone thinks we are mad moving around on motorcycles in this muck, but it beats being stuck in traffic for 2-3 hours. My recent work has been with the UN on J'bad road. It also happens to be the location of the best pizza in town. I usually pick one up on the way back to central Kabul.

If your going get serious about making music and playing live concerts, then you need a support band right......

Well, White City have unearthed a little gem in Kabul: Kabul Dreams are a young, vibrant and damn good Indy Rock Band. Maybe they are the only Afghan rock band in Afghanistan.......

Either way, we are proud to have them as our official opening act and we look forward to rocking the 'Stans with them in 2010.

Here's a sneak preview:

Check this bad boy out:


http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/11/20091124173646886405.html

(Reuters) – Eight years after a U.S.-led invasion ousted the Taliban from power in Afghanistan, the war-ravaged state is the most dangerous place in the world for a child to be born, the United Nations said on Thursday.

It is especially dangerous for girls, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said in launching its annual flagship report, The State of the World's Children.

Afghanistan has the highest infant mortality rate in the world -- 257 deaths per 1,000 live births, and 70 percent of the population lacks access to clean water, the agency said.

Another report published by Transparency International recently released its survey of corrupt countries. Afghanistan was ranked the second most corrupt, being only slightly better than Somalia (The U.S. was ranked 19th least corrupt).

This war has come at a high price. So far, we have spent 227 billion dollars in Afghanistan, with a proposed 73 billion to be spent there next fiscal year. There have been over 4500 casualties and 900 deaths of American troops. Meanwhile, almost 6600 Afghan civilians have died. These totals do not include our misguided detour through Iraq (which has cost 683 billion dollars so far, plus over 31,000 casualties and 4000 American deaths, and around 100,000 Iraqi civilian deaths).

The Washington Times
Mullah Mohammed Omar, the one-eyed leader of the Afghan Taliban, has fled a Pakistani city on the border with Afghanistan and found refuge from potential U.S. attacks in the teeming Pakistani port city of Karachi with the assistance of Pakistan's intelligence service, three current and former U.S. intelligence officials said.

Two senior U.S. intelligence officials and one former senior CIA officer told The Washington Times that Mullah Omar traveled to Karachi last month after the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. He inaugurated a new senior leadership council in Karachi, a city that so far has escaped U.S. and Pakistani counterterrorism campaigns, the officials said.

The development reinforces suspicions that the ISI, which helped create the Taliban in the 1990s to expand Pakistani influence in Afghanistan, is working against U.S. interests in Afghanistan.

"Some sources claim the ISI decided to move him further from the battlefield to keep him safe" from U.S. drone attacks, said Mr. Riedel, who headed the Obama administration's review of policy for Afghanistan and Pakistan last spring. "There are huge madrassas in Karachi where Mullah Omar could easily be kept."

The official said that neither Osama bin Laden nor al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri has been spotted in Karachi. The official said the top two al Qaeda figures are still thought to be in the tribal region of Pakistan on Afghanistan's border.

There also have been rumors circulating around Kabul that Karzai's administration will soon meet Top Taliban member in Saudi Arabia.... Maybe Mr O will drop in and add his take on the discussion.



My old friend Dom has a band in Japan, playing traditional ninja folk music. Quite interesting. Check it out:

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.channel&contributorid=11395252