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LOOSE LINKS (3#) -

We've been having a lot of thunderstorms around here lately. As a result, I've accumulated some links to interesting articles and such, but haven't had a chance to post them. Consider this entry a bit of catchup.

# Afghan Places: At a conference in London, US and UK officials discussed how to standardize the transliteration of place names in Afghanistan.

# A description of a Casablanca Detective Novel which has been translated from Arabic into English called The Final Bet by Abdelilah Hamdouchi, now available in hardback and will debut in paperback come September.

# Jane Perlez interviews Ahmed Rashid, who says:

"The Pakistani Army needs to make a strategic decision to dump support for the Afghan Taliban leadership in Quetta."

Rashid is in the process of introducing
his new book, Descent Into Chaos.

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