In a well-guarded hotel on top of a high hill, a lively audience of Afghans and US VIPs watched the season finale of Afghanistan's version of American Idol. Singers performed on a star-shaped stage while cutting-edge graphics flashed in the background.
Only a couple hundred meters down the hill, thousands of Afghans demonstrated on Friday against the publication of Prophet Mohammed drawings in Denmark, yelling "Down with Denmark" and "Death to America."
The protesters burned flags of the Netherlands and Denmark and an effigy of a Dutch filmmaker and lawmaker.
Richard Holbrooke, a former US ambassador to the UN under former US president Bill Clinton, was among the VIPs watching the filming of Afghan Star. But because of the protests outside, he couldn't leave the hotel when he had planned to. He took note of the irony.
"I love it, fabulous. Better than American Idol," Holbrooke said of the show. "It shows the two Afghanistans. The riots down there and the show up here."
Holbrooke skewered the way US President George W. Bush's administration has handled the Afghan conflict, saying Washington "neglected" the country "and now we're playing catch-up."
He said any of the three remaining candidates for president -- Republican Senator John McCain and Democrat senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama -- would do better in Afghanistan than Bush.
"All three candidates will put more emphasis on it than President Bush," Holbrooke said in the hotel lobby.
"The war in Afghanistan is going to go on longer than the war in Iraq, at a lower intensity," he said.
But Holbrooke, a supporter and adviser to Hillary Clinton, said the Democratic candidates would phase out of Iraq faster than McCain and put more resources into Afghanistan.
He said Clinton would like to increase support for agricultural programs to help create jobs in the country.
Inside the ballroom of the hotel, Rafi Naabzada, a 19-year-old ethnic Tajik, was voted the winner of the third season of Afghan Star, the country's most popular TV show.
The two finalists -- including Hameed Sakhizada, a 21-year-old ethnic Hazara -- together received more than 300,000 text message votes.
A female singer from the Pashtun tribe, was voted out last week, finishing in third place.
She had drawn criticism from conservative clerics in Afghanistan, who said women should not be singing on TV.
Saad Mohseni, the founder of Tolo TV, which produces Afghan Star, said that the show is helping to bring about social change in Afghanistan.
"Not just in music, but in the way people voted, the way they lined up in an orderly manner [outside the show] ... the way the losers are gracious. No one is threatening violence. That's a huge change," Mohseni said.
He estimates that 11 million Afghans watch the show.
The country's population is about 30 million.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS