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The American Empire in a Changing World



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Sunday, March 11, 2012

''Afghanistan joins railroad era —100 years late''

From Dawn

"KABUL: More than a century ago, fearing that his country might be swallowed up in the Great Game rivalry between the British empire to the east and the Russian army to the north, an Afghan king made a radical decision: He banned railroads.

That edict effectively kept out foreign troops for a number of years. But it also left the Afghan economy, once a wealthy crossroads of the ancient Silk Road trading routes, largely cut off from the world at a time when trains were the engines of development."

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