Global Voices Online

Vaughan Smith, founder of the Frontline Club for journalists in London, is video-blogging from Afghanistan on Frontline's blog. On September 1, 2007 he reported on a battle between British and Afghan soldiers against the Taliban.

Vaughan said:

The Green Zone is the area on either side of the Helmand River, which runs vertically through Helmand province in Southern Afghanistan. After a difficult walk we arrived at the start point of the operation and began what the military call an “advance to contact”. By 10am the Taliban obliged. The fighting went off and on all day as the British and Afghan soldiers moved from compound to compound. The Taliban would fire at us and normally run before soldiers were able to get there. The Taliban had prepared escape routes and most of the time they manage to carry their wounded and dead away.

Herat is not our Paris

Herat Blog says [Fa] many in Afghanistan believe that Herat, the third largest city in Afghanistan, is being reconstructed as government officials say. However, locals are saying that nothing is happening compared to a few years ago. The blogger quotes Naghib Arvin, a local journalist who argues:

Many think that Herat is Afghanistan's Paris and they want to stop the reconstruction project. Such an idea is no more than a joke. We should not stop reconstruction in Herat.

According to this journalist, two reasons that reconstruction may have stopped is lack of investment and support for local producers.

Do not make fun of people's accents!

Mohmmad Kazem Kazemi says [Fa] that he sent a letter to JameJam, the official magazine of Iranian TV, to protest against the television series Charkhaneh. He criticized producers of Charkhaneh, for making fun of Afghan people's accents and the way they speak Persian/Farsi. He says Afghans are hurt and offended by it. The blogger adds that in reality nobody in Afghanistan speaks as the characters do in the series.