Check out our collection of photos over the past year featuring aspects of life in Baluchistan.

See the rest of the photos on our Facebook page as part of our “Friday Photos From…” weekly gallery. 

Baluchistan is the largest province of Pakistan, located in the south of the country and making up almost half of Pakistan’s land. The province that neighbors Pakistan’s restive Kyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, and Sindh Provinces, and borders on Afghanistan and Iran, has long been marred by regional rivalry and insurrection. Recently, it has been afflicted with a complicated mix of separatist, sectarian, and religiously motivated violence involving both homegrown and regional rebels. 

Daud Khattak, a veteran Pakistani reporter and senior editor for RFE/RL’s Pakistan service, Radio Mashaal, described Baluchistan as “the largest in area and the richest in natural resources, but the most backward and poorest from a human-development-index point of view.” 

Read more about Baluchistan: 

“Assassinations Mark Worsening Conflict In Balochistan” 

“U.S. Hearing On Balochistan Raises Hackles, Awareness In Pakistan”

For more information about Pakistan, visit Radio Mashaal.

Norouz celebrations in Kabul, Afghanistan. Photos by @RadioAzadi’s Sayedjan Sabawoon.

Afghans gathered at a fair full of music, rides, and food, while young men dressed in green, the traditional spring color, to try to kiss a holy flagpole raised during each Norouz.

But for thousands of poor Afghan families, the ancient festival is a vivid reminder of their woes as they struggle to make ends meet in one of the poorest and most volatile countries in the world….[read more]

#Russiaelections. In case you missed them: @BalmforthTom’s photos of protesters with Anti-Putin placards from early in the night in Moscow.

In case you missed last week’s “Friday Photos From…” photo gallery. Take a look at how a  Kyiv lyceum is reviving long-lost Ukrainian military school traditions.

ATTENTION! For this week’s “Friday Photos From…” we have shined our shoes, straightened our jackets, and smartly adjusted our hats to showcase a Kyiv lyceum that has started a special program for Cadet Corps, reviving long-lost Ukrainian military school traditions. 

February 23 marked the Day of Fatherland Defender in Ukraine, and RFE/RL’s photographer Andrii Bashtovyi visited this band of cadets at their lyceum. His pictures illustrate the life of young Ukrainian boys enrolled in a school that combines standard core classes with military education and patriotism training. 

Cadet traditions have been slowly lost in Ukraine and the lyceum’s teachers explain that the new program borrows some elements from the tsarist era when — especially during the 18th century — training of future commissioned officers was important to the Russian Empire. 

The school is currently in a period of transition, as cadets take some classes together with other non-cadet pupils but may become segregated in the future. Cadets stay at school five days a week, including overnight. In corridors, they walk obediently in uniforms. Those who don’t obey special rules and regulations lose shoulder straps on their uniforms, and it’s only with extra effort that they earn them back. 

See our original story by the Ukrainian Service of RFE/RL Radio Svoboda.

Five Reported Dead In Afghan Koran Protests

Photos by Radio Azadi’s Daud Wafa and Sayaed Jan Sabawoon.

Radio Azadi’s correspondent in Jalalabad says the shots were fired by members of the Afghan National Police who were trying to contain the surging crowd.