This interview with First Secretary M. Ashraf Haidari was originally published in International Affairs Journal, Vol. 3 No. 1, University of California at Davis.

Now is the time to finish the job we began in Afghanistan five years ago. Last year saw a desperate and vicious onslaught by a new generation of Taliban forces with enhanced logistical and financial support. More than 4,000 Afghans, many of them civilians, were killed in military actions in 2006, a three-fold increase from the previous year. Suicide attacks -- a phenomenon unknown to Afghans before 2002 -- jumped to 118 from 21.

With attitudes toward America in practically every part of the world already ranging from distrust to violent hatred, and seeming to worsen by the day, it may seem naive to think that public diplomacy can rescue us. But because the only sure way to protect us from terrorist attacks is to become less a target of their hostility, it is worth trying a different strategy than is now being practiced in our public diplomacy.

Do we Afghans ever think about our debt of service to Afghanistan and actually doing something about it? I think we hardly do so. But let us begin with the basic fact that the land we call home is diversely populated, geographically landlocked, politically and economically least developed, and unfortunately located in a predatory neighborhood where at least one of our neighbors sees its raison d'être partly dependent on instability in Afghanistan.

What is disaster pornography? Africans define it as the Western media’s habit of blacking out Africa’s stock markets, high rises, internet cafes, cell phones, heart surgeries, soaring literacy and increasing democratization, while gleefully parading her genocides, armed conflicts, child soldiers, foreign debts, hunger, disease, and backwardness.

Compiled by Molly Claflin and Millicent Jefferson

A two part summary of press reports on public diplomacy issues and the December 2004 Tsunami Crisis.  A supplement to John Brown’s Public Diplomacy Press Review.

CPD Media Monitor Report by Molly Claflin and Millicent Jefferson

A two-part summary of press reports on public diplomacy issues and the December 2004 Tsunami Crisis.  A supplement to John Brown’s Public Diplomacy Press Review.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 2 -- A key post in global soft power will soon be vacant: James Wolfensohn confirmed today that he expects to step down as president of the World Bank when his current term ends this spring.