Afghanistan Country Facts and History

Afghanistan has the misfortune of sitting in a strategic position at the crossroads of Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and the Middle East. Despite its mountainous terrain and fiercely independent inhabitants, the country has been invaded time after time throughout its history. Today, Afghanistan is once more embroiled in war, pitting NATO troops and the current government against the ousted Taliban and its allies. Afghanistan is a fascinating but violence-wracked country, where East meets West. Capital and Major Cities Capital:  Kabul, population 4.114 million (2019 estimate) Kandahar, population 491,500Herat, 436,300Mazar-e-Sharif, 375,000Kunduz, 304,600Jalalabad, 205,000 Afghanistan Government Afghanistan is an Islamic Republic, headed by the President. Afghan presidents may serve a maximum of two 5-year terms.  The current president is Ashraf Ghani (born 1949), who was elected in 2014.  Hamid Karzai (born 1957)  served two terms as president before him. The National Assembly is a bicameral legislature, with a 249-member House of the People (Wolesi Jirga), and a 102-member House of the Elders (Meshrano Jirga). The nine justices of the Supreme Court (Stera Mahkama) are appointed to terms of 10 years by the President. These appointments are subject to approval by the Wolesi Jirga. Afghanistan Population In 2018, the population of Afghanistan was estimated at 34,940,837 million. Afghanistan is home to a number of ethnic groups. Current statistics on ethnicity are not available. The constitution recognizes fourteen groups, Pashtun,  Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, Baloch, Turkmen, Nuristani, Pamiri, Arab, Gujar, Brahui, Qizilbash, Aimaq, and Pasha. Life expectancy for both men and women within Afghanistan is 50.6 for males and 53.6 for females. The infant mortality rate is 108 per 1,000 live births, the worst in the world. It also has one of the highest maternal mortality rates. Official Languages Afghanistans official languages are Dari and Pashto, both of which are Indo-European languages in the Iranian sub-family. Written Dari and Pashto both use a modified Arabic script.Other Afghan languages include Hazaragi, Uzbek, and Turkmen. Dari is the Afghan dialect of the Persian language. It is quite similar to Iranian Dari, with slight differences in pronunciation and accent. The two are mutually intelligible. Dari is the lingua franca, and around 77% of Afghanis speak Dari as their first language. About 48% of the people of Afghanistan speak Pashto, the language of the Pashtun tribe. It is also spoken in the Pashtun areas of western Pakistan. Other spoken languages include Uzbek 11%, English 6%, Turkmen 3%, Urdu 3%, Pashayi 1%, Nuristani 1%, Arabic 1%, and Balochi 1%. Many people speak more than one language. Religion The overwhelming majority of Afghanistans people are Muslim, around 99.7%, with between 85–90% Sunni and 10–15% Shia. The final one percent includes about 20,000 Bahais, and 3,000–5,000 Christians. Only one Bukharan Jewish man, Zablon Simintov (born 1959), remains in the country as of 2019. All of the other members of the Jewish community left when Israel was created in 1948, or fled when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Until the mid-1980s, Afghanistan also had a population of 30,000 to 150,000 Hindus and Sikhs. During the Taliban regime, the Hindu minority was forced to wear yellow badges when they went out in public, and Hindu women had to wear the Islamic-style hijab. Today, only a few Hindus remain. Geography Afghanistan is a land-locked country bordering on Iran to the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan to the north, a tiny border with China at the northeast, and Pakistan to the east and south. Its total area is 251,826 square miles (652,230 square kilometers. Most of Afghanistan is in the Hindu Kush Mountains, with some lower-lying desert areas. The highest point is Noshak, at 24,580 feet (7,492 meters). The lowest is the Amu Darya River Basin, at 846 ft (258 m). An arid and mountainous country, Afghanistan has little cropland; a scant 12 percent is arable, and only 0.2 percent is under permanent crop-cover, the rest in pasture. Climate The climate of Afghanistan is arid to semiarid with cold winters and hot summers and temperatures varying by altitude. Kabuls average January temperature is 0 degrees C (32 F), while noon temperatures in July often reach 38 Celsius (100 Fahrenheit). Jalalabad can hit 46 Celsius (115 Fahrenheit) in the summer. Most of the precipitation that falls in Afghanistan comes in the form of winter snow. The nation-wide annual average is only 10–12 inches (25–30 centimeters), but snow drifts in the mountain valleys can reach depths of over 6.5 ft (2 m). The desert experiences sandstorms carried on winds moving at up to 110 mph (177 kph). Economy Afghanistan is among the poorest countries on Earth. The per capita GDP is estimated in 2017 as $2,000 US, and about 54.5% of the population lives under the poverty line. The economy of Afghanistan receives large infusions of foreign aid, totaling billions of U.S. dollars annually. It has been undergoing a recovery, in part by the return of over five million expatriates and new construction projects. The countrys most valuable export is opium; eradication efforts have had mixed success. Other export goods include wheat, cotton, wool, handwoven rugs, and precious stones. Afghanistan imports much of its food and energy. Agriculture employs 80 percent of the labor force, industry, and services 10 percent each. The unemployment rate is 35 percent. The currency is the afghani. As of 2017, $1 US 7.87 afghani. History of Afghanistan Afghanistan was settled at least 50,000 years ago. Early cities such as Mundigak and Balkh sprang up around 5,000 years ago; they likely were affiliated with the Aryan culture of India. Around 700 BCE, the Median Empire expanded its rule to Afghanistan. The Medes were an Iranian people, rivals of the Persians. By 550 BCE, the Persians had displaced the Medians, establishing the Achaemenid Dynasty. Alexander the Great of Macedonia invaded Afghanistan in 328 BCE, founding a Hellenistic empire with its capital at Bactria (Balkh). The Greeks were displaced around 150 BCE. by the Kushans and later the Parthians, nomadic Iranians. The Parthians ruled until about 300 A.D. when the Sassanians took control. Most Afghans were Hindu, Buddhist or Zoroastrian at that time, but an Arab invasion in 642 CE introduced Islam. The Arabs defeated the Sassanians and ruled until 870, at which time they were driven out again by the Persians. In 1220, Mongol warriors under Genghis Khan conquered Afghanistan, and descendants of the Mongols would rule much of the region until 1747. In 1747, the Durrani Dynasty was founded by Ahmad Shah Durrani, an ethnic Pashtun. This marked the origin of modern Afghanistan. The nineteenth century witnessed increasing Russian and British competition for influence in Central Asia, in The Great Game. Britain fought two wars with the Afghans, in 1839–1842 and 1878–1880. The British were routed in the first Anglo-Afghan War but took control of Afghanistans foreign relations after the second. Afghanistan was neutral in World War I, but Crown Prince Habibullah was assassinated for purported pro-British ideas in 1919. Later that year, Afghanistan attacked India, prompting the British to relinquish control over Afghan foreign affairs. Habibullahs younger brother Amanullah reigned from 1919 until his abdication in 1929. His cousin, Nadir Khan, became king but lasted only four years before he was assassinated. Nadir Khans son, Mohammad Zahir Shah, then took the throne, ruling from 1933 to 1973. He was ousted in a coup by his cousin Sardar Daoud, who declared the country a republic. Daoud was ousted in turn in 1978 by the Soviet-backed PDPA, which instituted Marxist rule. The Soviets took advantage of the political instability to invade in 1979; they would remain for ten years. Warlords ruled from 1989 until the extremist Taliban took power in 1996. The Taliban regime was ousted by U.S.-led forces in 2001 for its support of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. A new Afghan government was formed, supported by the International Security Force of the United Nations Security Council. The new government continued to receive help from  US-led NATO troops to battle Taliban insurgencies and shadow governments. The US war in Afghanistan was officially ended December 28, 2014. The U.S. has approximately 14,000 troops in Afghanistan engaged in two missions: 1) a bilateral counter-terrorism mission in cooperation with Afghan forces; and 2) the NATO-led Resolute Support Mission, a non-combat mission providing training and support to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces.   Presidential elections were held in the country in September 2019, but an outcome has yet to be determined. Sources Afghanistan. CIA - the World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency.Adili, Ali Yawar, and Thomas Ruttig. Afghanistan’s 2019 Election (7): Dithering over peace amid a lacklustre campaign. Afghanistan Analysts Network, Sept. 16, 2019.  Geographica World Atlas Encyclopedia. 1999. Random House Australia: Milsons Point, NSW Australia.Afghanistan: History, Geography, Government, Culture. Infoplease.com.US. Relations with Afghanistan. United States Department of State.

Types Of Communication Of Starbucks Baristas Essay

Various Types of Communication of Starbucks Baristas A discourse community is a group of people who share common interests and have their own unique communication system. Communication is crucial in defining the discourse community. For example, outsiders may not understand a conversation between two professional doctors or engineers because their conversation might contain too much unique terminology. Researching the communication of discourse communities can help us have a better understanding of the discourse community- who they are, and what they care about. The â€Å"Starbucks language† nicely reflects the mission and belief of the company and therefore gives the company soul. Since founded in 1971, Starbucks and its baristas have been dedicating to provide legendary services to its customers. Now Starbucks become the biggest chain coffee company in the world with more than 21 thousand stores around the world and millions of loyal fans. â€Å"Starbucks language† can somehow explain why Starbucks is so attractive to p eople. At Starbucks, Grande latte is probably one of the most frequent terms people hear. But few of them realize that these two words are â€Å"Starbucks language† meaning coffee with milk created by Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, in 1985. Howard Schultz explained: â€Å"Starbucks created the language for its baristas and customers because when Terminology became general expression, the brand established.† (2:30) Starbucks baristas replaced small cup with tall cup, andShow MoreRelatedThe Channels Of Starbucks Coffee Company1332 Words   |  6 PagesThe channels of communication are constantly evolving due to technological advancements, from snail mail, to email, and now the ability to have virtual meetings with streaming videos that allow all participants to view what’s happening irrespective of location. Organizations now have to adapt their communication, especially in the realm of small groups, Starbucks Coffee Company is no exception. 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National Culture Understanding the Cultural Diversity

Question: Discuss about theNational Culturefor Understanding the Cultural Diversity. Answer: The following paper is going to comment on the thoughts pertaining to the national culture and cultural conflicts. As a compact definition of national culture, it can be stated that national culture is a set of discipline, customer, rituals, beliefs and behaviours that impact upon the daily life style of the people living in a country. The following paper has been segmented into two different parts. One argues the thought process of Hofstedes survey on the move and motif of the national culture. The researcher has conducted his survey through the questionnaire that has been sent to the employees of IBM. It has been argued that his process has been unauthentic as he misjudged the mode of representation. He should not have conducted such survey on the very topic. The second part of the paper chronicles an incident showing real life cultural conflict in an academic institution between an African student and a Japanese one. through the description of the incident it has been portrayed that cultural conflit is still in vogue even in the world of multiculturalism. There raise a question pertaining to the application of collectivism upon individualism. I personally doo agree with the view point of Professor Brendon McSweeneys argument against Hofsteds work on national culture. The latter has generalised about the whole national population in each of his case countries. the questionnaire made by him was targeted in a general sense and the respondents were not addressed in a particular manner. The respondents were only the employees of certain company that is IBM. With scrutinising the employees of only one company one cannot understand the movement of national culture in a generic sense. The basic problem with Professor Hofstede lay in the fact that his survey did not address the greater mass of the individual countries. Professor McSweeney has justly questioned the ability of the survey questions in making firm decisions on the national culture and its structural movements in different countries. He argued that greater number of masses was not address and cultural aspects depend on the economic status as well. Therefore, it would b e unjust to survey a certain economic class and conclude something (Avruch 2009.). In terms of my country, there is a huge cultural diversity. From north to south and east to west the diversity is so vivid that surveying only a particular group of employees would not provide us with authentic data and information. Therefore, the conclusion remains absurd and invalid. A country like Canada has people from different cultures. Moreover, the countries like UK, USA has been witnessing cross cultural population in differetn parts of them. Therefore, the survey s not going to provide us with a firm insight of actual cultural motif of a particular country standing in 21st century. An Englishman is not always violent while watching football. Hofstedes second assumption that respondents were already permanently...programmed ...with no interacting cultures again raised a matter of conflict. The authenticity of Hofstede was doubted as he has taken a small cell of IBM while presenting the move of the national culture. It was quite challengeable as the whole country could not be represented by a mere organisation. Moreover, the organisation has its own culture and it was obviously going to be challenged if the organisational culture was supposed to be compared with that of the entire country. So far my own country is concerned, one can find various types of people from different cultural background. Since, I believe, that the cultural differences is only vivid in terms of the economic differences, this survey was totally invalid. Cultural conflict is something that the modern world has been facing since the industrial boom in the European countries (Trueba, Jacobs and Kirton 2014.). The concept of nation and culture has now become much more diversified than it was before the World Wars. I had read a book written by an Indian writer. The novel was named The Shadow Lines where the sense of culture and nationalism was at its apex point. The character of the novels- all Indians (though not in nature) were highly multidimensional. The Amitava Ghosh novel dealt with the definition of nationalism and national culture. There is no doubt that the cultural essence begins with the pride of the countries (Choudhury 2016). In the lecture delivered by Fons Trompenaars in TEDx, it has been vividly depicted that the cultural differences in different countries before 1950s was quite expressive whereas post 1950s world experienced what we know as globalisation that has entailed the sense of multiculturalism. However, the quest ion remains the same- whether the cultural difference have been eradicated from the world. The answer, I suppose is an absolute No. I would like to chronicle an anecdote that reflects that the cultural conflicts still remain as it was before the 1950s. The only difference lays in the fact that social cohesion has led the conflict into internal level. If I take the example of Australia, it is a paradigmatic example of social cohesion. As a global hub for education and employment, Australia has come with the opportunity to provide better future for the job seekers as well as the students. However, in recent times I have faced a cultural conflict with a student of Africa. Though I was a passive witness of the conflict I could clearly sense that it was nothing but the cultural clash between the African student and a Japanese one. The clash started with a very minimal attitude (Boubakri et al. 2016). My Japanese friend had his cultural habit to bow down and greet someone. Seeing this, my friend from Congo laughed and tried imitating him. The imitation ended up in a fight. I had to intervene into the matter and separat e them from each other. The only way I was able to stop them was by making them understand in a rational manner. I understood that only separation could end the fight and it did so. Fons Trompenaars has mentioned two different terms in his TEDx lecture: individualism and collectivism. In order to extract the benefits from the collective view points from different cultures and different people, we need to focus on the priority set upon individualism over collectivism and vice versa. Connection of different viewpoints will obviously end up ntoo a mutual understanding of e people who could generate the concept of respecting the cultures of the others. The movie Dictator has a dialogue, which clearly states the cultural differences that is even more deliberated by the governing authorities when the Security Chief of the US police says to the protagonist that all outsiders are Arabs. I personally believe that the cultural conflicts and confrontation can be overcome only through rational upbringing of the people from different countries and cultures. Different viewpoints help us understand the positive value of multiculturalism. It acts as the adhesive for gluing diff erent form of people all together. One of the most effective benefits of multi-dimensional viewpoints in cultural aspect is to bring the people under the same shade by providing them the feeling of sharing space. The sharing ability is the ultimate cure for the cultural differences (Sinha 2014.). Conclusion: It can thus bee concluded that the cultural conflict caused by the priority of a collective self over an individual self. The values of an individual that encompass the entire existential importance of the person entail confliction against the same values of the other. Establishment of the value in different modes and defending approach to the same of ones culture during the crisis period reflects vehement cultural clash between two or more people belonging to different cultural background. In the aforementioned incident, my Japanese friend tried to defend his own culture in a different country from a different person. The cultural conflict in that case was caused due to the mockery and disregard which was not expected at all. Reference: Avruch, K., 2009. Cross-cultural conflict.Conflict Resolution,1, pp.45-57. Boubakri, N., Guedhami, O., Kwok, C.C. and Saffar, W., 2016. National culture and privatization: The relationship between collectivism and residual state ownership.Journal of International Business Studies,47(2), pp.170-190. Sinha, J.B., 2014. Collectivism and Individualism. InPsycho-Social Analysis of the Indian Mindset(pp. 27-51). Springer India. Trueba, H.T., Jacobs, L. and Kirton, E., 2014.Cultural Conflict Adaptation. Routledge. Choudhury, B., 2016.Amitav Ghosh: Critical Essays. PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd..

Just A Story Essays - Frank Sinatra, Grammy Legend Award

Just A Story Albert watched through the window of his fourth floor apartment as she unloaded the groceries from the back of her Oldsmobile. He sighed, and walked away from the window to water the plant he had named after her. If he hurried, he could make his way down to the mailbox while she was on her way into the building, as he thought about doing every Wednesday when she did her grocery shopping, but the thought of speaking to her made him nauseous and his knees quivered uncontrollably. Tonight was going to be the night, he told himself. He was going to ask her to dinner. He would just walk up the stairs and ring her doorbell, and bring her daisies. Just before eight o'clock, because he knew she would be home. She was always home for the latest episode of Murder, She Wrote, as he knew because he could hear the theme song blaring through his paper-thin ceiling, every Wednesday at eight o'clock. He ironed his khakis in an attempt to look just perfect for the occasion, and ran a comb through the non-existing hair on his head. He could hear her walking up the stairs, and Albert imagined her popping popcorn for her favorite television show, and washing up from a long day at the coffee shop. He had never actually been inside the coffee shop, but instead watched her work from outside the large window. He watched all the other customers inside ? construction workers on lunch breaks, businessmen sitting alone with the New York Times, and the ladies who play Bridge and flaunt their new manicures ? all sipping cappuccinos that she had poured, and devouring French Toast that she had gracefully carried to the table. Tonight was his chance to speak to her like the men who drink her coffee, only this would be different. After all, he had even picked her daisies. He trembled just thinking about it, and thought diligently about how he should introduce himself. He walked into his bedroom to search through his closet for the perfect shirt to wear when eight o'clock approached. As the sun begin to set, Albert could hear Frank Sinatra playing from her apartment above and attempted to calm his nerves by staring out the window as the stars appeared in the sky. Maybe he would bake cookies for her to waste a little bit of time ? chocolate chip, like the ones he had smelled burning from her apartment the other day. He poured flour into a bowl and sang along with Sinatra. He stirred a bag of chocolate chips into the bowl to the rhythm of the music and thought about how happy she'd be. He cracked an egg into the bowl and suddenly, he no longer heard the music or footsteps from above. As he continued to stare out the window, he noticed two figures linking arms as they walked through the parking lot. His eyes widened and he suddenly realized why the music had stopped playing. There she was, in the parking lot, with a man in a suit, and she in a blue dress with her long hair pinned up in the back. They began to tango under the stars, among the cars in the lot, and the man produced a red rose from his jacket pocket. Albert looked at the daisies he had picked just for her, and wiped a tear from his cheek. He continued to gaze out the window as they proceeded to dance in the silence of the night, and paid no attention to the egg yolk that dripped down his newly ironed khakis. Creative Writing