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Recently, a group of talented young Afghans found themselves abroad as great ambassadors for their country – for both good and bad reasons:

Four young Afghan students did more than merely stun their competitors when they came away with some of the top prizes at an international mathematics competition held recently in Almaty, Kazakhstan. They also changed how students from 22 other countries perceive Afghanistan.

Ahmad Mustafa Naseri and Mustafa Naseri, both 17 (and unrelated), students at the Turkish-run Afghan-Turk School in Kabul, won gold medals while Omid Sadiqyar and Mohammad Rafi Firoz, also 17 and students at a similar school in the northern Shiberghan province, were awarded silver medals following a day-long algebra competition in May.

Ahmad Mustafa said that while he was proud of his gold medal, he was saddened to discover that students from other countries thought of Afghanistan only as the home of terrorism, drugs production and internecine conflict.

“One competitor from Australia told me, ‘I was very surprised that Afghans were taking part in this competition – we always hear that Afghanistan is a major drug producer and a country for terrorists who are always fighting one another,’ " said Ahmad Mustafa.

But now, Ahmad Mustafa said, the Australian promised to return home and talk of the talented and brave Afghans he had met.

The Australian student is not alone – the negative image of Afghanistan is quite widespread, as the latest Harris Poll shows:

While the U.S. public has been paying a fair amount of attention to the situation in Iraq, they have not been paying as much attention to Afghanistan. However, when asked specifically about the situation in Afghanistan, U.S. adults, on the whole, feel quite negative about the prospects for success.

Sadly, there simply aren't enough gifted math students in Afghanistan to send abroad to unmake the negative image of their country being perpetrated by the Western media. Focusing almost exclusively on drugs and violence might make for exciting news, but it does great disservice both to the people of Afghanistan, who already have to work under great disadvantages to turn around one of the most impoverished nations on earth, but also to the international public, on whose strong support the Afghans are relying to rebuild their country.

Below, the past four weeks’ worth of stories from the other Afghanistan.

• Society
  
• Reconstruction
  
• Humanitarian Aid
  
• The Coalition Troops
  
• Security