In the great Helmand River Valley of southern Afghanistan, stands a rockfill dam, bearing testimony to USAID’s continued commitment to the country for more than half a century. In 1953, USAID contracted Morrison Knudsen, one of American heavy construction contractors that built the Hoover Dam, to construct this dam. Standing 100 metres (320 feet) in height, spanning 270 metres (887 feet) in length, and having a present storage capacity of 1.2-billion cubic metres (27,550 acre-feet) of water, the Kajakai Dam creates the largest multi-purpose reservoir in the country. For decades, water discharging from Kajakai has traversed some 300 miles of downstream irrigation canals, which stretch across parched formidable landscape, feeding 140,000 hectares of farmland with water.
Continue readingROAD TO REHABILITATION CONTINUES IN WESTERN AFGHANISTAN
Kabul, Afghanistan — Afghanistan recently witnessed the rebirth of one of its major lifelines, a roadway linking the nation’s capital to its southern city of Kandahar. Originally constructed by USAID between 1961 and 1966, the Kabul-Kandahar Highway had been debilitated by decades of war and neglect. USAID’s rehabilitation of the key portion of the country’s national road system has already brought enormous benefits. The travel time between Kabul to Kandahar was cut from two days to five hours, accelerating the flow of goods into and out of villages, and providing improved access to healthcare, schools and markets to the 35 percent of Afghanistan’s population that live within 50 kilometers of the highway. The highway also reaffirms the central government’s influence in this area.
Continue readingUp to One Fifth of the World’s Children Have Mental Problems
An estimated 10 to 20 percent of children worldwide have one or more mental or behavioral problems. Many disorders commonly found among adults, such as depression, can begin during childhood, the World Health Organization reports. Categories specific to childhood and adolescence include disorders of psychological development, including dyslexia and autism, as well as behavioral and emotional disorders, such as attention deficit/hyper activity and conduct disorders.
Korean homosexuals struggle with barriers
After years of wavering, Kim Byeong-suk, a 34-year-old part-time graphic designer, decided to come out of the closet and let his close friends know that he is gay.
“Call me Ishmael.”
When I turned twenty-two — I was about to graduate from college in Boston — I started experiencing intense anxiety. I was always a worrier with deep envy for people who have unyielding optimism for life. But what descended on me then was much worse than my usual worries.
Afternoons became petrifying and I had to stay inside, away from the windows and the setting sun. To this day, I don’t know why it was in the afternoon that I felt such anguish.
A Face Behind Pulitzer: Charles J. Hanley
As one of the three Associated Press correspondents, who reported that American troops massacred Korean civilians under a railroad bridge near a hamlet about 100 miles from Seoul in the fifth week of the Korean War in 1950, Charles Hanley became forever linked to the name of the village where the tragedy took place: No Gun Ri. Upon publication, the story immediately prompted a parallel investigation by the US and South Korean governments which had ignored the survivors’ claim for half a century. In April 2000, the story won the wire service’s first Pulitzer in investigative reporting.
Ex Nemo 