Marja (town)
Marjah (also spelled Marjeh; Pashto/ fa, ) is an agricultural town in southern Afghanistan. It has been reported to have a population between 80,000 and 125,000, but some sources argue that its population is much smaller and is spread across 80 to 125 km2, an area larger than Cleveland or Washington, D.C. Another source described Marjah as "a cluster of villages" and "a community of 60,000 persons". The town sits in Nad Ali District of Helmand Province, southwest of the provincial capital Lashkar Gah. Operation Moshtarak (or the Battle of Mariah) took place in the area. Population and economy Marjah is geographically situated in one of Afghanistan's major belts of poppy fields, which are a source of funds for the Taliban. According to one figure, 10% of global illicit opium production in the year 2000 originated from the Marjah/Nad-i-Ali area. During the 1950s and 1960s the United States funded a scheme, run by the Helmand and Arghandab Valley Authority, to irrigate the f ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Poppy
A poppy is a flowering plant in the subfamily Papaveroideae of the family Papaveraceae. Poppies are herbaceous plants, often grown for their colourful flowers. One species of poppy, ''Papaver somniferum'', is the source of the narcotic drug opium which contains powerful medicinal alkaloids such as morphine and has been used since ancient times as an analgesic and narcotic medicine, medicinal and recreational drug. It also produces Poppy seed, edible seeds. Following the trench warfare in the poppy fields of Flanders, Belgium during World War I, poppies have become a symbol of Remembrance Day, remembrance of soldiers who have died during wartime, especially in the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other Commonwealth realms. Description Poppies are herbaceous plant, herbaceous Annual plant, annual, Biennial plant, biennial or short-lived Perennial plant, perennial plants. Some species are monocarpic, dying after flowering. Poppies can be over a metre tall with flowers up to 1 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Marjah Accelerated Agricultural Transition
The Marjah Accelerated Agricultural Transition (MAAT) was a project of the Afghanistan government and the United States Marine Corps in Marjah, Afghanistan to transition crop farmers from growing opium poppies to growing licit crops over the 2010 growing season. By ceasing to grow opium, one of the Taliban's main sources of income, US forces hope that the Taliban will have less money to utilize for combat. Farmers who wished to participate signed up with the NGO A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...s, which provide them with seeds and fertilizer to get started in MAAT. Farmers choosing to register with the MAAT program, were required to register their location, croppable land area and proposed crops. Farmer's lands were then checked to ensure that they had killed off the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large national audience. Daily broadsheet editions are printed for D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. The ''Post'' was founded in 1877. In its early years, it went through several owners and struggled both financially and editorially. Financier Eugene Meyer purchased it out of bankruptcy in 1933 and revived its health and reputation, work continued by his successors Katharine and Phil Graham (Meyer's daughter and son-in-law), who bought out several rival publications. The ''Post'' 1971 printing of the Pentagon Papers helped spur opposition to the Vietnam War. Subsequently, in the best-known episode in the newspaper's history, reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein led the American press's investigation into what became known as the Watergate scandal ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pashtun People
Pashtuns (, , ; ps, پښتانه, ), also known as Pakhtuns or Pathans, are an Iranian ethnic group who are native to the geographic region of Pashtunistan in the present-day countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan. They were historically referred to as Afghans () or xbc, αβγανο () until the 1970s, when the term's meaning officially evolved into that of a demonym for all residents of Afghanistan, including those outside of the Pashtun ethnicity. The group's native language is Pashto, an Iranian language in the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. Additionally, Dari Persian serves as the second language of Pashtuns in Afghanistan while those in the Indian subcontinent speak Urdu and Hindi (see Hindustani language) as their second language. Pashtuns are the 26th-largest ethnic group in the world, and the largest segmentary lineage society; there are an estimated 350–400 Pashtun tribes and clans with a variety of origin theories. The total popu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Helmand And Arghandab Valley Authority
The Helmand and Arghandab Valley Authority (HAVA) based in Lashkar Gah, Afghanistan, originally named the Helmand Valley Authority (HVA) until its expansion in 1965,(pdf) The Helmand Valley Project in Afghanistan: A.I.D. Evaluation Special Study No. 18 C Clapp-Wicek & E Baldwin, U.S. Agency for International Development, published December 1983 was established on December 4, 1952, as an agency of the Afghan Government.Report on Development of Helmand Valley, Afghanistan, 1956 Tudor En ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Taliban
The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state (polity), state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalist, militant Islamism, Islamist, Jihadism, jihadist, and Pashtun nationalism, Pashtun nationalist political movement in Afghanistan. It ruled approximately three-quarters of the country Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (1996–2001), from 1996 to 2001, before being overthrown following the United States invasion of Afghanistan, United States invasion. It Fall of Kabul (2021), recaptured Kabul on 15 August 2021 after nearly 20 years of Taliban insurgency, insurgency, and currently controls all of the country, although its government has Recognition of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, not yet been recognized by any country. The Taliban government has been criticized for restricting human rights in Afghanistan, including the right of women in Afgh ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid digital subscribers. It also is a producer of popular podcasts such as '' The Daily''. Founded in 1851 by Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones, it was initially published by Raymond, Jones & Company. The ''Times'' has won 132 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any newspaper, and has long been regarded as a national " newspaper of record". For print it is ranked 18th in the world by circulation and 3rd in the U.S. The paper is owned by the New York Times Company, which is publicly traded. It has been governed by the Sulzberger family since 1896, through a dual-class share structure after its shares became publicly traded. A. G. Sulzberger, the paper's publisher and the company's chairman, is the fifth generation of the family to head the pa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Operation Moshtarak
Operation Moshtarak (Dari for ''Together'' or ''Joint''), also known as the Battle of Marjah, was an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) pacification offensive in the town of Marjah, Helmand Province, Afghanistan. It involved a combined total of 15,000 Afghan, American, British, Canadian, Danish, and Estonian troops, constituting the largest joint operation of the War in Afghanistan up to that point. The purpose of the operation was to remove the Taliban from Marja, thus eliminating the last Taliban stronghold in central Helmand Province. The main target of the offensive was the town of Marjah, which had been controlled for years by the Taliban as well as drug traffickers. Although Moshtarak was described as the largest operation in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban, it was originally supposed to be the prelude to a much larger offensive in Kandahar that would follow Moshtarak by several months. ISAF chose to heavily publicize the operation before it was launc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lashkar Gah
Lashkargāh ( ps, لښکرګاه; fa, لشکرگاه), historically called Bost or Boost (), is a city in southwestern Afghanistan and the capital of Helmand Province. It is located in Lashkargah District, where the Arghandab River merges into the Helmand River. The city has a population of 201,546 as of 2006. Lashkargah is linked by major roads with Kandahar to the east, Zaranj on the border with Iran to the west, and Farah and Herat to the north-west. It is mostly very arid and desolate. However, farming does exist around the Helmand and Arghandab rivers. Bost Airport is located on the east bank of the Helmand River, five miles north of the junction of the Helmand and Arghandab rivers. Because of the trading hubs, it is Afghanistan's second largest city in size, after Kabul and before Kandahar. After several weeks of fighting in the Battle of Lashkargah, the city was captured by the Taliban on 13 August 2021, becoming the fourteenth provincial capital to be seized by the Ta ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Inter Press Service
Inter Press Service (IPS) is a global news agency headquartered in Rome, Italy. Its main focus is news and analysis about social, political, civil, and economic subjects as it relates to the Global South, civil society and globalization. History IPS was set up in 1964 as a non-profit international journalist cooperative. Its founders were the Italian journalist Roberto Savio and Argentine political scientist Pablo Piacentini. Initially, the primary objective was to fill the information gap between Europe and Latin America after the political turbulence following the Cuban Revolution of 1959. Later the network expanded to include all continents, from its Latin American base in Costa Rica in 1982. In 1994, IPS changed its legal status to that of a "public-benefit organization for development cooperation". In 1996, IPS had permanent offices and correspondents in 41 countries, covering 108 nations. Its subscribers included over 600 print media, around 80 news agencies and databas ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cleveland
Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. maritime border with Canada, northeast of Cincinnati, northeast of Columbus, and approximately west of Pennsylvania. The largest city on Lake Erie and one of the major cities of the Great Lakes region, Cleveland ranks as the 54th-largest city in the U.S. with a 2020 population of 372,624. The city anchors both the Greater Cleveland metropolitan statistical area (MSA) and the larger Cleveland–Akron–Canton combined statistical area (CSA). The CSA is the most populous in Ohio and the 17th largest in the country, with a population of 3.63 million in 2020, while the MSA ranks as 34th largest at 2.09 million. Cleveland was founded in 1796 near the mouth of the Cuyahoga River by General Moses Cleaveland, after whom the city was named ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |