Task & Purpose: When World War II came to a close, the United States put up roughly 120 billion USD in today’s dollars to rebuild Europe under the vaunted Marshall Plan. That still-celebrated project not only restored much of the continent physically after the war’s ravages, it also launched an era of economic prosperity that modernized much of the developed West.      Full news...

The Killid Group: There is nothing new here: Maternal mortality levels have shown little improvement. The majority of deliveries are at home in the absence of medical facilities. There are few female doctors and an acute shortage of mid-wives. Among the provinces with the worst records is Uruzgan. Hamid Agha, a resident of its Charchino district, says 10 women have died in child birth over a few months. “Clinics don’t exist in most districts in our province,” he says. “If there are they are just in name; no female doctor is appointed. In an emergency we take the patient, even a woman in labour, to Tirinkoot (provincial capital).”      Full news...

IWPR: Leeda stood waiting at a Kabul bus stop, braced for a daily commute that she said inevitably involved sexual comments and snide remarks from male passers-by. The young woman said she knew about recent legislation that would make such harassment a crime under Afghan law for the first time. However, she did not have high hopes for it. “Making laws is very easy in Afghanistan, but implementing them is impossible,” she explained, smiling. “I face many problems and am disrespected and pestered every day during my journey.”      Full news...

IRIN: An Afghan father recently described how his 15-year-old son lost both feet after stepping on a mine. He couldn’t get proper care in Kunduz City – the only trauma centre there had been destroyed – so he took a taxi more than 200 miles to Kabul. By the time his son received treatment, it was too late.      Full news...

The Killid Group: Officials in Farah reported that over 31 civilians including women and children were killed and injured during clashes between Afghan security forces and armed anti-government oppositions. Hakim Rasouli, head physician at Farah civil hospital, said that they were killed and injured yesterday afternoon in Todnak area of Balabolok district.      Full news...

IWPR: The majestic blue-tiled Hazrat e-Ali mosque complex in the centre of Mazar e-Sharif serves as a recreational space as well as a place of worship for many of the city’s residents. But Ahmad Javed, (not his real name), lounging on a chair near the public toilets, was there for business. The 15-year-old was waiting for customers looking for sex at the shrine, revered as the burial place of Ali, the son-in-law of Prophet Muhammad.      Full news...

The Killid Group: Officials at Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) urged National Unity Government (NUG) to provide citizens with clean drinking water. Abdul Ahmad Farzan, head of the provincial office of the commission in Kabul, said that the government is obliged to supply the nation with clean drinking water.      Full news...

The Guardian: For years, declining death rates among pregnant women have been hailed as one of the great gains of foreign aid in Afghanistan. In reality, however, Afghan women dying in pregnancy or childbirth may be more than twice as high as numbers provided by donors would suggest. Since 2010, published figures have shown maternal mortality rates at 327 for every 100,000 live births, a significant drop from 1,600 in 2002.      Full news...

Newsweek: A 20-year-old Afghan woman was allegedly gang-raped after escaping violence in her home, according to local media. The woman, a newlywed, was lured by a group of men and encouraged to elope with one of them after fleeing domestic violence perpetrated by her new husband, Afghan news outlet Khaama Press reports. The incident took place in northeastern Takhar province amid a surge in violence in the country over the past year.      Full news...

The Killid Group: Human rights activists want the police and security forces to deliver to the law the perpetrators of violence against women. Sima Samar, head of AIHRC (Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission) says, “If police do not help as much there can be no justice. We (human rights organisations) only monitor the situation.” Suraya Sobhrang of AIHRC says 3,000 cases of violence against women have been reported.      Full news...

The New York Times: An armed mob that included relatives of a young woman who had eloped with her lover stormed a police station holding the couple in eastern Afghanistan over the weekend, then dragged the lovers off and killed them, officials and witnesses said. The mob wounded three police officers, one of them seriously, the officials and witnesses said Sunday and Monday in providing accounts of the couple’s violent deaths, often called honor killings.      Full news...

The Killid Group: Afghan officials confirmed killing of 22 members of two families in foreign forces’ airstrikes in Sangen district of Helmand. US and Afghan forces targeted the area last Friday and asserted that armed anti-government militants fired bullets on them from the area. Later, tribal elders reported of civilian casualties in the airstrikes, a claim which was rejected by local officials.      Full news...

IWPR: The razor scars on 18-year-old Leila’s hands and neck bear witness to her past attempts at suicide. The Herat teenager told IWPR that she had become deeply depressed after her marriage to a 45-year-old man. “I married a much older man because of my parents,” she said. “Later, I realised that this was not what I wanted. I was controlled and banned from going anywhere, and his interference in every little detail of my life became unbearable...      Full news...

TOLOnews.com: Drug addicts living under the Pul-e-Sukhta Bridge in Kabul claim to give feral dogs in the area drugs so that they sleep next to them at night as they try to stay warm. Addicts say they spend between 500 Afs and 800 Afs a day on drugs, using money earned in any way possible. Doctors have warned however, that this practice is extremely unhealthy as the dogs carry diseases.      Full news...

The Associated Press: More than 900 children were killed in Afghanistan's conflict last year, the United Nations said Monday, calling it the most violent year for children since it started keeping records. The U.N. mission said the nearly 25 per cent increase in child deaths from the previous year was largely caused by mines and munitions left over from decades of conflict. It documented a 66 per cent increase in such deaths in 2016.      Full news...

TOLOnews.com: Senior officials on Monday confirmed 119 people have died in the past few days in avalanches and heavy snowstorms that gripped large parts of the country. They also confirmed that over 80 people were injured in weather related incidents. The minister of public works, Mahmood Baligh, said authorities have managed to reopen most key highways to traffic but urged motorists using the Salang Pass to chain their tyres.      Full news...

IWPR: A profusion of local militias in the northern Afghan province of Baghlan are presenting a serious threat to security, according to participants in a recent IWPR debate. The situation is further complicated by the semi-legal status of some of the armed groups, recruited by the government to try and help keep order.      Full news...

BBC Persian (Translated by RAWA): Zarina’s ears were cut off by her husband two days back. She is 23-years-old. She was 13 when she got engaged to her cousin and married him 7 years later. She is currently under treatment in the Abu Ali Sina Hospital in Mazar-e-Sharif. The doctors say that reattaching her ears is difficult in Afghanistan.      Full news...

IRIN: It’s a chilly winter evening in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar Province. Several men with blankets draped over their shoulders are playing cards under a solar-powered streetlight when someone turns on the radio. It’s time for Voice of the Caliphate, a programme broadcast by the so-called Islamic State on its pirate station.      Full news...

Zaranj News (Translated by RAWA): The district chief of Dashte Archi district of northern Kunduz province says that the shadow governor of Kunduz province, who had been injured in a blast, was taken to Tajikistan for treatment with the help of Russians. Nassruddin Nazari said that Mullah Abdul Salam was injured in a suicide blast a week back.      Full news...

IRIN: Bibi Mariam was milking her cow when it suddenly let out a wild howl and collapsed in a pool of blood. The so-called Islamic State and the Taliban were fighting near her village in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar Province. The stray bullet that killed her cow finally convinced Mariam to flee – joining a record number of Afghans displaced by conflict.      Full news...

BBC News (Translated by RAWA): Doctors in Herat hospital of Herat province say that 700 suicide attempts have been recorded in this hospital from the beginning of the solar year, and 33 of these have resulted in death. The methods used included hanging, taking poison and self-immolation.The most recent case was recorded the night before on Friday (27th January) when a 27-year-old hung himself to death.      Full news...

RFE/RL: Heavy snowfall and freezing weather has killed 27 children in a remote district of northern Afghanistan, an official says. Fifty centimeters of snow blocked roads in Darzaab in northern Jawzjan Province as temperatures plunged to minus 10 degrees Celsius, district Governor Rahmatullah Hashar said on January 26.      Full news...

Foreign Policy: Every year, Transparency International releases a worldwide ranking of national corruption. The calculation of each country’s score includes measures like press freedom, fiscal transparency, and rule of law. Out of 168 nations ranked, Afghanistan clocks in just two shy of last place at 166.      Full news...

Global Voices: Campaigners are calling for the Afghan government to follow through on promises to change parts of Afghanistan’s penal code that they argue actually serves to legimitise violence against women. Article 398 of the Afghan penal code states that a man who sees “his wife or other family members” in a compromising position and kills or injures one or both of them “in order to defend his dignity and respect” will not be prosecuted for violent assault or murder.      Full news...

TOLOnews.com: Reiterating calls for humanitarian assistance, the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation (MoRR) said on Sunday that out of 550,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) registered in the country, only 72,000 of them have been resettled in their regions. This comes amid a harsh winter, with temperatures expected to continue to drop.      Full news...

IWPR: Yagana spends her days and nights on the streets of Herat city, begging passersby for money to feed her drug addiction. She doesn’t know her exact age, although thinks she might be around 18 years old. She looks well into her thirties. “When I got married, I was very young, maybe 12 years old,” she told IWPR. “I did all the work around the house and got very tired.      Full news...

Common Dreams: A U.S. military bombing in Kunduz Province last year killed 33 civilians and wounded 27 others, according to a military investigation that concluded on Thursday. The bombing was not the same one that struck a Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in October 2015, which the human rights group said amounted to a war crime, but was part of a firefight waged by American forces during an Afghan operation to arrest Taliban commanders in Buz-e Kandahari in Kunduz in November of last year.      Full news...

Sputnik: On Wednesday, a US government report stated that Afghanistan’s security infrastructure must be stabilized to keep from becoming a sanctuary for terrorists, but noted that Afghan Security Forces are not yet equipped to secure the country without assistance.      Full news...

Pulse.ng: Ongoing conflict across different parts of Afghanistan forced over 623,000 people to leave their homes in 2016, according to a UN report published on Tuesday, January 10. At the beginning of 2016, the UN had only expected 250,000 people to be internally displaced in the war-torn country.      Full news...