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Article: The Toughest Job In the World: Hamid Karzai's great strength is that he's a nice guy. But in Afghanistan, that could also be his undoing.(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Newsweek
- Article date:
- December 31, 2001
- Author:
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Byline: Babak Dehghanpisheh and Ron Moreau
The Wall Street of Kabul is a place called Shahzadeh Market. And the closest thing that Shahzadeh Market has to a Master of the Universe is Said Fahim Khaksar. Dressed in a black leather jacket and a white skullcap, Khaksar flicks through grimy wads of rupees, dollars and afghanis with fingers ringed in gold. In recent weeks he has lost $10,000 doing what comes naturally in Afghanistan: betting against the future of his currency--and his country. Instead, the afghani has tripled in value against the U.S. dollar, a stunning signal of confidence that something is going right in Afghanistan for a change. A key reason: the ...