Zarif Nazar is a producer and correspondent for RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan.
Problems with Afghanistan's schools go deeper than the often reported lack of buildings and threats of militant attacks. Amid growing concerns about what children are learning, officials are examining the entire school system -- from kindergarten through 12th grade -- to determine how to improve the quality of education.
Civil-service jobs in Afghanistan, from lofty gubernatorial positions to more modest secretarial positions, have traditionally been snatched up by the well-connected. But revamped testing procedures aim to change the culture of favoritism.
The Afghan government and foreign donors have provided significant funding to restore the ancient city of Ghazni, which will take up the mantle as an Islamic Capital of Culture in 2013. But less than a year before the monthlong cultural festivities that go with the honor are due to begin, negligence and insecurity are threatening to doom the project.
A shortage of blank passports in Afghanistan has led to a flourishing black market for the little blue books, according to Afghans who say they have had to go underground to obtain them.
Afghanistan's new roads cost millions to build. Now they're being destroyed by overweight trucks.
Elected local councils are Afghanistan's best hope for building democracy and marginalizing the Taliban. But they face enormous challenges.
The lack of affordable housing -- driven by a rapidly rising population, the wartime destruction of neighborhoods, and an influx of foreign contractors occupying choice locations -- has become one of the biggest social problems in Kabul.
Afghans protest the alleged mistreatment of their countrymen in Iran, including the killing of migrants trying to cross the border. What's behind the shootings?
The water carriers of Aqibi Silo are hardly the only child laborers in Kabul. But the fact that they are missing school to deliver water that should be delivered by public utilities outrages the people of their neighborhood.
Sometimes Iran's role in Afghanistan is open and transparent, sometimes it is secret, and at other times -- as in the case of the madrasah -- it is somewhere in between.
Kabul hosts a major conference with its international partners, and high on the agenda are deciding how much control the Afghan government should have over foreign aid and how to reduce corruption.
The Amu Darya, Central Asia's longest river, demarcates much of northern Afghanistan's border. But it is an unstable frontier that shifts as the river changes course, causing deadly land disputes.
Drug smuggling is big business in northern Afghanistan, where one-fifth of the country's illegal exports goes across the Afghan-Tajik border. The business enriches the drug lords. But it terrifies ordinary villagers, who often become pawns in the game.
Can local forces help turn the tide against the Taliban? Washington is looking at that possibility as it weighs a new strategy for Afghanistan. The model is the success of tribal forces in marginalizing Al-Qaeda in Iraq. But many Afghans say turning to local militias can be a risky business. We look at why in this second of a two-part series on local militias in Afghanistan.
For eight years since the U.S.-aided toppling of the Taliban, the residents of the Qala-i-Zal district of Konduz Province have relied on Afghan government forces for security. Now, with a resurgent Taliban, worried local officials have taken matters into their own hands.
With Western eyes focused on fighting the Taliban in Afghan's south and east, security in the previously peaceful north has dramatically worsened. Taliban numbers are growing, too few Afghan forces patrol, and German troops sent for reconstruction are reluctant to switch to a full combat role.
