Afghanistan

Operation Mar Lewe was a three-day International Security Assistance Force operation started in the early hours of Friday 29 May 2009 when the... Taliban were attacked as the Afghan Security Forces and British Army struck at enemy positions around the village of Yatimchay, 6 kilometres south of Musa Qaleh, Helmand Province, Afghanistan. "Mar Lewe" is Pashtu for "snake wolf". The British Army forces were from the 2nd Battalion Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, a well trained, operationally hardened Light Role Infantry Battalion. Corporal Stephen Bolger, of the Special Forces Support Group, and Lance Corporal Nigel Moffett, of the Light Dragoons were killed by a roadside bomb during the operation.
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Operation Diesel was a raid by 700 British troops from the Royal Marines 45 Commando, 42 Commando, and the 3 Commando Brigade's Reconnaissance Force,... as well as armoured infantry and close reconnaissance from 1st Battalion Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment on a Taliban drug factory and arms stronghold in the Upper Sangin Valley in Helmand province, Afghanistan on February 7, 2009. According to the UK, the raid captured four drug factories and heroin and opium worth £50 million. These figures were later found to be inaccurate. No heroin was found but 1260kg of opium and a large quantity of the chemicals needed to make heroin were found and destroyed. The 1260kg of opium would make roughly 130kg of heroin. The total value of the opium seized was approximately $126,000 based on the farmgate price of opium in Afghanistan. Twenty Taliban fighters defending the drugs were killed. No UK personnel were killed in the assault. The raiders also captured a motorbike which had been primed as a suicide bomb.
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Operation Shahi Tandar, also called Operation Atal, was a series of operations by Coalition troops from the British 42 Commando Royal Marines, Royal... Canadian Regiment, 2-2 United States Infantry, and the Afghan national military in central Helmand province and the Western Panjwayi and Western Zhari districts of Kandahar, Afghanistan from January 7-31, 2009. One raid targeted a Taliban bomb-making factory in the Khakrez and Shah Wali Khot districts of Kandahar, Afghanistan January 7–9, 2009. In the raid, conducted by helicopter and armored vehicles, the coalition troops seized six large tubs of explosives along with 38 pressure plates used to detonate hidden mines. Also seized were 3,000 rounds of ammunition, AK47s, anti-personnel mines and 22 rocket-propelled grenades. The coalition troops reported that they captured eight Taliban bomb-makers and found 20 kg of opium with an estimated street value in Britain of £130,000. A Canadian soldier, Tpr Brian Good, 42, was killed by a booby trap during the operation. Lieutenant Colonel Charlie Strickland, commander of the 42 Commandos, stated that the operation had "dealt a serious blow" to the Taliban insurgency.
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The Balochistan conflict is an ongoing conflict between Baloch nationalists and the Government of Pakistan over Balochistan. Issues range from human... rights abuses, more autonomy, more royalties and in some cases to secession. Recently, militants have also clashed with the Islamic Republic of Iran over its respective Baloch region, which borders Pakistan. Shortly after Pakistan's creation in 1947, the Pakistan Army had to subdue insurgents based in Kalat who rejected the King of Kalat's decision to accede to Pakistan. A subsequent Baloch separatist movement gained momentum during the 1960s, and amid consistent political disorder and instability at the federal level, the government ordered a military operation into the region in 1973, assisted by Iran, and inflicted heavy casualties on the separatists. Insurgency, however, again gained strength in the 1990s and 2000s. Historical Balochistan comprised the Balochistan region. Its western region was the southern part of Sistan o Baluchestan province, Iran. In the east was Pakistani Balochistan. In the northwest the Helmand province of Afghanistan. The Gulf of Oman formed its southern border.
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The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is a specialised agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to... defeat hunger. Serving both developed and developing countries, FAO acts as a neutral forum where all nations meet as equals to negotiate agreements and debate policy. FAO is also a source of knowledge and information, and helps developing countries and countries in transition modernize and improve agriculture, forestry and fisheries practices, ensuring good nutrition and food security for all. Its Latin motto, fiat panis, translates into English as "let there be bread". As of 8 August 2008, FAO has 191 members states along with the European Union, Faroe Islands and Tokelau which are associate members. It is also a member of the United Nations Development Group. The idea of an international organization for food and agriculture emerged in the late 19th and early 20th century. In May–June 1905, an international conference was held in Rome, Italy, which lead to the creation of an International Agricultural Institute.
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The Economic Cooperation Organization is an intergovernmental organization involving seven Asian and three Eurasian nations, part of the... South-central Asian Union. It provides a platform to discuss ways to improve development and promote trade, and investment opportunities. The ECO is an ad hoc organization under the United Nations Charter . The common objective is to establish a single market for goods and services, much like the European Union. ECO's secretariat and cultural department are located in Tehran, its economic bureau is in Turkey and its scientific bureau is situated in Pakistan. The organization's population is 416,046,863 and the area is 8,620,697 km². The organization was founded by Turkey, Iran and Pakistan. Economic Cooperation Organization is an intergovernmental regional organization established in 1985 by Iran, Pakistan and Turkey for the purpose of promoting economic, technical and cultural cooperation among the member states. It was the successor organisation of what was the Regional Cooperation for Development , founded in 1964, which ended activities in 1979.
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The Group of 77 at the United Nations is a loose coalition of developing nations, designed to promote its members' collective economic interests and... create an enhanced joint negotiating capacity in the United Nations. There were 77 founding members of the organization, but the organization has since expanded to 132 member countries. Practically speaking , the group can be described as comprising all of UN members excluding the following: Algeria holds the Chairmanship for 2012. The group was founded on June 15, 1964 by the "Joint Declaration of the Seventy-Seven Countries" issued at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development . The first major meeting was in Algiers in 1967, where the Charter of Algiers was adopted and the basis for permanent institutional structures was begun. There are Chapters of the Group of 77 in Rome , Vienna , Paris , Nairobi and the Group of 24 in Washington, D.C. .
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The International Atomic Energy Agency is an international organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy, and to inhibit its... use for any military purpose, including nuclear weapons. The IAEA was established as an autonomous organization on 29 July 1957. Though established independently of the United Nations through its own international treaty, the IAEA Statute, the IAEA reports to both the UN General Assembly and Security Council. The IAEA has its headquarters in Vienna, Austria. The IAEA has two "Regional Safeguards Offices" which are located in Toronto, Canada, and in Tokyo, Japan. The IAEA also has two liaison offices which are located in New York City, United States, and in Geneva, Switzerland. In addition, the IAEA has three laboratories located in Vienna and Seibersdorf, Austria, and in Monaco. The IAEA serves as an intergovernmental forum for scientific and technical cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear technology and nuclear power worldwide.
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Massoud Nawabi also known as Ustad Nawabi, was an Afghan poet, writer, Director as well as a cultural personality, founder of Educational Committee... for Afghan Refugees , Afghan Cultural Center, Ghulam Habib Nawabi, Chief Administrator of the Afghan Ibn-e-Sina University and Principle of Ariana Mahajir High School. Massoud Nawabi was the Son of Ghulam Habib Nawabi, who was the last of the great Persian Poet and among the first to introduce modern Dari poetry to Afghanistan. Massoud Nawabi Born to a Intellectual and Educated family in Kabul Afghanistan. He was well known for his literary criticism and his cultural works. He had hundreds of students, many are now themselves poets and writers. He wrote many topics, contents and published magazines like Beenish , Pohyesh and Dewah on literary criticism in Persian Dari. He also initiated and edited several literary journals. Nawabi was one of the initial script writers and feature writers for some Afghan based drama serials and Afghan Films like Samarqand and Tabloye Khanavade.
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Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran", which in Persian means "Land of the... Aryans", has been in use natively since the Sassanian era. It came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia . Both "Persia" and "Iran" are used interchangeably in cultural contexts; however, "Iran" is the name used officially in political contexts. The 18th-largest country in the world in terms of area at 1,648,195 km , Iran has a population of around 79 million. It is a country of particular geopolitical significance owing to its location in the Middle East and central Eurasia. Iran is bordered on the north by Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. As Iran is a littoral state of the Caspian Sea, which is an inland sea, Kazakhstan and Russia are also Iran's direct neighbors to the north.
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Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan , is a sovereign country in South Asia. It sits at the crossroads of the strategically... important regions of South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. It has a 1,046-kilometre coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by India to the east, Afghanistan to the west and north, Iran to the southwest and China in the far northeast. It is separated from Tajikistan by Afghanistan's narrow Wakhan Corridor in the north, and it shares a marine border with Oman. The territory of modern Pakistan was the site of several ancient cultures, including the Neolithic Mehrgarh and the Bronze Age Indus Valley Civilisation, and has undergone invasions or settlements by Hindu, Persian, Indo-Greek, Islamic, Turco-Mongol, Afghan and Sikh cultures.
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Uzbekistan /ʊzˌbɛkɨˈstɑːn/, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan is the only doubly landlocked country in... Central Asia and one of only two such countries worldwide. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south. Before 1991, it was part of the Soviet Union. Uzbekistan is one of the Turkic states in Central Asia. Once part of the Persian Samanid and later Timurid empires, the region was conquered in the early 16th century by Uzbek nomads, who spoke an Eastern Turkic language. Most of Uzbekistan’s population today belong to the Uzbek ethnic group and speak the Uzbek language, one of the family of Turkic languages. Uzbekistan was incorporated into the Russian Empire in the 19th century, and in 1924 became a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, known as the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic . It became independent on 31 August 1991 . Uzbekistan's economy relies mainly on commodity production, including cotton, gold, uranium, potassium, and natural gas.
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Turkmenistan , formerly also known as Turkmenia , is one of the Turkic states in Central Asia. Until 1991, it was a constituent republic of the... Soviet Union, the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic . Turkmenistan is one of the six independent Turkic states. It is bordered by Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the south and southwest, Uzbekistan to the east and northeast, Kazakhstan to the north and northwest and the Caspian Sea to the west. Turkmenistan's GDP growth rate of 11% in 2010 ranks 4th in the world, but these figures are subject to wide margins of error. It possesses the world's fourth largest reserves of natural gas resources. Although it is wealthy in natural resources in certain areas, most of the country is covered by the Karakum Desert. The Turkmen government operates as a single-party system. Turkmenistan was ruled by President for Life Saparmurat Niyazov until his sudden death on 21 December 2006. Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov was elected the new president on 11 February 2007.
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