In parts of Afghanistan where there are no street names or house numbers, utility companies and their customers have adopted a creative approach for connecting.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — In parts of Afghanistan where there are no street names or house numbers, utility companies and their customers have adopted a creative approach for connecting. They use mosques as drop points for bills and cash, a “pay and pray” system.
Now the national postal service wants to phase this out by putting mailboxes on every street across the country, part of a plan to modernize a service long challenged by bureaucracy and war.
The lofty aspirations include introducing access to shopping via e-commerce sites and issuing debit cards for online purchases. It will be a leap in a country where most of the population is unbanked, air cargo is in its infancy and international courier companies don’t deliver even to the capital, Kabul.
The changes mean Afghans will pay higher service fees, a challenge as more than half the population already relies on humanitarian aid to survive.
The Afghan Post, like much of the country, still does everything on paper. “Nobody uses email,” said its business development director, Zabihullah Omar. “Afghanistan is a member of the Universal Postal Union, but when we compare ourselves to other countries it is at a low level and in the early stages.”
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Post offices in Afghanistan are vital for women wanting to access services or products they would otherwise be denied, since they are often barred from entering ministries or other official premises.
But the spectre of the Taliban’s edicts targeting women and girls also looms at the Afghan Post.
At the entrance to the main Kabul branch, a sign tells women to correctly wear hijab, or the Islamic headscarf. One picture shows a woman with a red cross over her visible face. The other has a green check mark over the face because only her eyes are seen.
Yeah, I don't buy it. The world does not need the people running the show there in any legitimate discourse. They want to run that place, let them as long as nothing leaks out.
I feel sorry for the women there but they where betrayed by their countrymen.
"Ran" in this context is part of a dialect of English in certain parts of the US. It is spoken that way, on purpose, by native speakers, and is thus perfectly correct.
Saying that it "makes people think you share teeth" shows that you are in fact aware of this cultural distinction and your problem with the usage is not about grammar but about classism, which is also clearly on show with your bigoted description of poor southern US people.
Under developed country is attempting to get some public services going after being occupied by not one but two white man empires within last 50 years... three if look back further when British did the thing.
You really got a low bar for "feel good"
Like it or not, Taliban expelled the US and is now the government. That's how these things work. This line of thinking is how we got into invading countries in the first... maybe people should learn the lesson finally.
Yeah yeah.. that's some revisionist history right there.
A group of Muslim fundamentalists took over a "country" and allowed binLaden and Co to use it as a base to reighn terror on the world and they got rightfully kicked in the teeth for it. That's how these things work.
When it was clear there was nothing to be gained there and there was no "winning" the occupiers left. It was a nice idea to try and get Afghanistan to be a fun running country.. but it isn't.. it is a tribal area ruled by warlords. And this does not work in the framework of the UN and such.
When the yanks left, it became apparent that getting the country functioning, was never possible because the people propped up to take the reigns had been more busy with enriching themselves than actually wanting a future for their coutrymen.
And now the country is again ran by Islamic fundamentalists and the people live in a hellhole again.
Whatever these terrorists do to try and gain legitimacy is irrelevant.
Lastly 2 white men armies... Sigh... So incredibly sad.
Why wouldn't I? If the Americans end up voting trump into office again, they will get what they deserve. More dead babies, more dead mother's, more school shootings, more income disparity if the left fails to keep Trump out of office.. they fucked themselves.
My worry would be that a country that chooses cruise missiles over school lunches and warplanes over public healthcare will actively try and export their brand of christofacism to the rest of the Christian world.
It's like with a drunk driver. I don't care if they fold themselves around a tree in their car. It's the others that get hurt who are the problem.
Flawed as the US is, they also do a lot of good in the world. Having the likes of China and Russia at the reigns would be worse for literally everyone.
I am sure Arabs will be happy to set them up with Sharia compliant financial system...
These people really do need some Jesus in their lives tho
Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’[a] but you are making it ‘a den of robbers."
heh, some far right is more progressive than others...some want to go back to 1939, some want to go back to 1775...and some want to to back to 0AD (the new testament is for chumps, I guess, GOP Jesus all the way)
The lofty aspirations include introducing access to shopping via e-commerce sites and issuing debit cards for online purchases.
It will be a leap in a country where most of the population is unbanked, air cargo is in its infancy and international courier companies don’t deliver even to the capital, Kabul.
Post offices in Afghanistan are vital for women wanting to access services or products they would otherwise be denied, since they are often barred from entering ministries or other official premises.
At the entrance to the main Kabul branch, a sign tells women to correctly wear hijab, or the Islamic headscarf.
She wanted to get her documents certified, a practical measure amid the country’s precarious economic situation and the sweeping restrictions on women and girls.
Hamid Khan Hussain Khel is one of the country’s 400 postmen, zipping around the capital on a motorcycle bearing Afghan Post’s jaunty blue and yellow.
The original article contains 734 words, the summary contains 150 words. Saved 80%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Maybe they could take some of the functional sorting machines our totally not political USPS director ordered mothballed for no reason and not anything to do with possible election interference.
Almost made it through an artice about a postal service without propaganda about a country the west destroyed and now sanctions to hell to make life miserable for its citizens is, actually a victim of their government structure and those poor women just need to remove their headscarf which is the real oppression. Not the starvation imposed upon those women by us but the headscarf.
Yeah it sucks how the AP is exposing you to the reality of how women are oppressed in Afghanistan, even at the post office. The story about the post office (which actually does link to to an article about the sanctions BTW) should be focused on how evil the US is, of course! It should never ever mention that women are required to be completely covered to be able to use the postal service. We don't want people to know about that!