NPCC to present interactive seminar on Afghanistan

HOT SPRINGS — Afghan-American Tamim Ansary, author of West of Kabul, East of New York and co-author of The Other Side of the Sky, will present a 60-minute interactive seminar entitled Afghanistan after the Taliban at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the National Park Community College Auditorium.

The seminar will be conducted via a satellite broadcast.

This presentation is free and open to the public. Attendees will have the opportunity to call-in or e-mail questions to Ansary.

Some of the topic Ansarywill discuss:

◊How the Taliban came to power and who they were/are;

◊The American military intervention and its consequences;

◊The contending players on the current Afghan scene, which include warlords, drug lords, conservative clerics, Jihadist fundamentalists, exiled (and now returning) technocrats, old aristocracy, and American and other foreign interests;

◊The political measures that were taken to reinvent Afghanistan after the Taliban - the Bonn Conference, theconstitution, the elections, and more;

◊The "reconstruction" efforts in Afghanistan and their consequences, expected and unexpected;

◊Whether and why Afghanistan is slipping back into chaos.

The program, which is coproduced by Phi Theta Kappa International Honor Society and the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC), is the third installment of a fourpart Honors Satellite Seminar Series entitled Gold, Gods, and Glory: The Global Dynamics of Power.