Good Afghan news just a click away

[Neo]

Good Afghan news just a click away

ARTICLE (March 03 2010): After moving to the United States, Abdullah Qazi got so sick of seeing his country in the headlines for all the wrong reasons he set up a website to spread good news about Afghanistan. Stories about war, fallen soldiers, suicide bombs, drug traffickers, kidnappings, acid attacks on schoolgirls - bad news had dominated since the 2001 US-led invasion overthrew the Taliban regime.

So he set up Good Afghan News - www.goodafghannews.com - to fill the gap. "Sure, you find sprinkles of good news here and there," Qazi told AFP by email from his home in northern California. "But they don't get the attention (they) need because they are usually in the same newspaper that's carrying three or four other articles telling people how bad things are in Afghanistan," he said.

And he's right - there are some good news stories in Afghanistan. Billions of aid dollars pumped into Afghanistan since 2001 have helped build roads, power stations, irrigation systems and hospitals across the country. Millions of children, including girls, are now going to school. Preventable diseases such as polio are being dealt with, thousands of clinics have been set up to provide much-needed health care in rural areas and despite enduring problems of corruption, millions of people vote in elections.

But alongside the aid efforts, 121,000 US and Nato troops are stationed in the country - soon to rise to 150,000 - to fight a Taliban insurgency. Many of these troops are helping train the Afghan army and police to ensure Western nations can start pulling out their own troops in about 18 months, as their presence in Afghanistan is increasingly unpopular both among Afghans and in their home countries. A massive offensive against Taliban insurgents and their drug-trafficking cohorts in the southern province of Helmand has compounded the constant drumbeat of bad news.

Operation Mushtarak has displaced thousands of families, and commanders say it could be weeks before the militants are pushed out and the booby-trap bombs they have left behind are cleared. The Nato mistakes are racking up a growing toll of civilians across the country and intensifying Afghan public anger about the foreign troop presence. These factors overshadow anything good that might happen, from exports of apples to fantastic international success in cricket, which has seen the national team qualify for the World Twenty20 finals.

That's where www.goodafghannews.com comes in, said Qazi. To make sure his message gets across, he illustrates his site with a smiley face wearing a traditional Afghan turban. "This site is different in that we only focus on the good news. If it is bad news we pass, because there are already enough sources for that kind of news," Qazi said.

The tone of the website is upbeat, the headlines sprinkled with plenty of exclamation marks along with photos of sports heroes, happy children and hard-working men digging irrigation channels and tending cash crops other than opium poppies. Unsavoury topics such as human rights abuses are dealt with in a positive light - for instance, falls in violence against women and child abuse.

"How sweet it is! It's an exciting day for Afghan sports fans all over the world," reads a headline about Afghanistan's basketball team at the recent 2010 South Asian Games in Bangladesh, where Afghan athletes won five gold medals. "More Afghans now with access to electricity," reads another headline on a long report about two small power plants in a remote northern Afghan village. Another article goes into detail about a girls' school in western Herat province being funded and built by foreign troops.

"The school includes 10 classrooms, six administrative rooms and a sports gymnasium. The school will accommodate the needs of 600 students," it says, reminding readers that the 1996-2001 Taliban regime banned girls from attending school.

In the few months since Qazi launched Good Afghan News with the slogan "Afghan News That Will Make You Happy," he has registered thousands of hits from Afghans, he said. "I could easily see thousands visiting the site every day. Everyone I tell about the site loves the idea and tells me they will spread the word," he said. But the best news from Afghanistan, he said, has yet to come. "My biggest wish? I would like to see a permanent peace in Afghanistan."