大象传媒

The 大象传媒's Najieh Ghulami travelled to Afghanistan to look at the role the internet plays in people's lives and how it could develop the country - one so critical to global stability.

Afghan bloggers show off their wireless gadgets with presenter Najieh Ghulami in the centre.

The Bam-Net internet cafe in Bamiyan, central Afghanistan. It is the only internet cafe in the entire district.

Najieh Ghlami interviews human rights blogger Batool Mohammadi in the Bazaar in Bamiyan.

Najieh Ghulami interviews internet entrepreneur Jamshid Sultanzada in Herat, western Afghanistan.

Inquistive kids pose for the camera in Bamiyan

Boys at an English Class in Herat. Learning English and computer skills can be key to a better life.

Beating the traffic in Herat. One Afghan man takes an unorthodox but effective approach.

Bamiyan Valley. The hole where one of the destroyed Buddha statue once stood is carved into the cliff face.

Najieh Ghulami with Producer Darius Bazargan on top of an abandoned Soviet era tank in Herat.

View of the dried out Kabul river from the run down Murat Khane neighbourhood in Kabul.

All pictures copyright Darius Bazargan

Surprisingly, Afghanistan's capital Kabul is one of the few cities in the world to have such wide wireless internet coverage.

But it came out of necessity, as three decades of continuous war left the land-based communications networks shattered.

Despite this coverage, the biggest users of the internet are not the Afghan people.

Most people simply cannot afford the service. For some, however, the internet has been life-changing.

Jamshid Sultanzada is an internet entrepreneur who now works for an Internet Service Provider (ISP). His whole world was changed by computers when, back in the 1990s, he started taking evening classes at a skills training centre during the years of Taliban rule.

Students at this centre have to pay a small fee to attend. But the two educational skills taught there are seen by students and staff alike as crucial for a better life: learning English and mastering computers.

Batool Mohammadi works at a human rights organisation, where she uses the internet to compose and file reports on the situation in Bamiyan Province.But she also writes a blog, aimed at introducing the reality of life here to a wider world.

Many see the internet as a tool for empowering their community, but there are also many in the Muslim world who have a problem with the very concept of the internet.

Afghanistan Online is broadcast on 大象传媒 World television on 13 March 2010 at 0310GMT and 1810GMT, and repeated on 14 March 2010 at 0310GMT and 1810GMT.