In this bulletin:

• Little Damage Reported In Afghan Earthquake
• Afghan Reconciliation Plan Is `Ground-Breaking' Step, UN Says
• Attorney general indicts Bashardost
• Jailed Afghan Publisher Faces Possible Execution
• U.S. paid for media firm Afghans didn't want
• Civilian PS workers will be sent to Afghan war zone
• British troops to face Afghan drugs alliance
• IMF praises Afghan reconstruction
• Jobs vs. efficiency as Afghan Ma Bell goes private
• Pakistan Says Cement Exports to Afghanistan Decline
• Afghan hanged in Iran for crime committed as minor
• Ray of hope in Afghanistan?
• Pakistan opposes use for force against Iran over nuclear row
• Rockets hit southwest Pakistan during Musharraf's visit

Little Damage Reported In Afghan Earthquake By Griff Witte - Washington Post, December 14, 2005

KABUL, Afghanistan, Dec. 13 -- Afghan and Pakistani authorities reported little damage and no serious injuries Tuesday after a powerful earthquake struck before dawn in the Hindu Kush mountains near the border between the two nations.

The quake, with a magnitude of 6.6, shook buildings hundreds of miles away. Closer to the epicenter, in the remote northeastern Afghan province of Badakhshan, the rumbling lasted up to two minutes when the quake struck just before 2:30 a.m. local time.

But officials said the only damage had been to a few unused, run-down structures and the only casualties had been livestock. Badakhshan's governor, Abdul Majid, said that he had heard from authorities in every district and that there were no serious injuries to people.

The quake hit in a sparsely populated area, about 60 miles from both the Afghan city of Faizabad and the Pakistani city of Chitral. While damage assessment was not complete, aid workers expressed relief that there did not appear to be major destruction.

"I think everyone's keeping their fingers crossed that we may have gotten off lightly," said Adrian Edwards, spokesman for the United Nations here.

Just over two months ago, a magnitude-7.6 temblor killed at least 73,000 people and devastated the Kashmir area that straddles India and Pakistan.

Afghan Reconciliation Plan Is `Ground-Breaking' Step, UN Says

Dec. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Afghanistan creation of a truth and reconciliation program to address human rights violations during 25 years of civil war and bring perpetrators to account is a ``ground-breaking'' step, the United Nations said.

``This is a very positive step forward,'' Mehr Khan Williams, the UN deputy high commissioner for human rights, said yesterday in Kabul, according to the UN. ``It is also a ground- breaking achievement because it may be the first time a government has developed a comprehensive approach to transitional justice.''

President Hamid Karzai's government adopted a plan two days ago to address the country's past. An investigation recently by the Afghan Human Rights Commission said 69 percent of the 6,000 people interviewed reported they were direct victims of violations during the years of conflict, Williams said.

Afghanistan's civil conflict began in the 1970s before the Soviet invasion in 1979 and continued when the Soviet occupation ended 10 years later. Afghanistan held parliamentary elections in September and Karzai, who has run the country of 29.9 million people since the Taliban regime was overthrown by the U.S. in 2001, won the country's first direct presidential election held in October 2004.

``Thousands of people disappeared or were killed during the conflict and remain unaccounted for today,'' Williams said, according to the UN. ``Their families are entitled to know what happened to them. Future generations of Afghans should also be aware of these events.''

She was addressing the Transitional Justice Conference held in the capital, Kabul, the UN said.

About 300 government officials, human rights groups and other organizations are attending the two-day meeting that started yesterday, Agence France-Presse reported. The government's plan is to strengthen peace and understanding and avoid vengeance for past wrongs, Karzai said in a statement yesterday to the conference, AFP reported.

``Establishing a democratic government on the basis of justice cannot take place without healing of those grave wounds, which have been inflicted on the bodies and souls of our people,'' Karzai said. Candidates who stood in September's elections for parliament included individuals accused of human rights violations and criminal acts, Williams said.

Parliament is scheduled to sit for the first time on Dec. 19 and there is concern that some members may try to pass an amnesty law for violators, AFP said. Representatives from truth and reconciliation commissions set up in countries such as Sierra Leone and South Africa are attending the conference to share their experiences, the UN said.

Addressing such abuses is ``one of the most difficult tasks that any country can face,'' Jean Arnault, the UN special representative to Afghanistan, told the conference, according to the UN Web site. ``It is a challenge many countries have failed to meet - and have paid the consequences.''

Attorney general indicts Bashardost – Cheragh 12/13/2005

The office of attorney general on December 11 rejected the allegation of corruption and embezzlement made by former planning minister Ramazan Bashardost against Hanif Atmar, the minister for rural rehabilitation and development.

Bashardost was himself indicted for spreading inaccurate information and blackmail. Jalal Jalal, a member of the team which investigated Bashardost's claim, said they found no solid evidence to support his allegations.

Jailed Afghan Publisher Faces Possible Execution - The Washington Post 12/13/2005 By Griff Witte

KABUL, Afghanistan -- When Ali Mohaqeq Nasab returned to Afghanistan last year after a long exile, he thought the atmosphere had opened up enough to raise questions about women's rights and the justice system in his country's nascent democracy.

But now the magazine publisher's provocative essays have put him at the mercy of that system -- imprisoned on blasphemy charges and facing possible execution.

Nasab's case has ignited fierce debate over free speech in a country that has been rapidly modernizing since the end of Taliban rule four years ago, and yet remains deeply rooted in traditional Islamic culture and extremely sensitive about issues of religion and the role of women.

His offense, according to the Afghan courts and conservative clerics, was to contravene the teachings of Islam by printing essays in his monthly magazine, Women's Rights, that questioned legal discrimination against women, harsh physical punishments for criminals and rigid intolerance of Muslims who abandon their faith.

The essays, published in May, attracted the belated attention of a prominent Muslim cleric, who delivered a sermon several months later denouncing Nasab as an infidel. Nasab reported the incident to Afghanistan's justice system, but instead of receiving the protection he had expected, he was arrested, put on trial and sentenced to two years in prison. Nasab, 47, has appealed to a higher court, but so have the prosecutors. They contend the two-year sentence was far too lenient, and that unless he apologizes, he should hang.

"According to sharia law, if he does not repent and if he does not return to his religion, he should be executed," Abdul Jamil, who heads the public security division of the attorney general's office, said, referring to Islamic law.

In an interview last week in his cell, Nasab, a short, soft-spoken man with a graying beard, said he had no intention of repenting and that he could not return to a religion he never left.

"I haven't committed any sin to repent for. If I'm not a sinner, then why should I repent?" he said. "I'm a Muslim, and what I mentioned in my magazine doesn't have a single conflict with my religion. I'm more of a religious person than they are."

Nasab's conviction already has had a chilling effect on other Afghan journalists and threatens to seriously erode freedoms achieved since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, according to Rahimullah Samander, director of the Center for International Journalism here.

It has also put President Hamid Karzai, who heads a fledgling, Western-backed democratic government, in an uncomfortable position. Karzai has repeatedly expressed support for a free press, but the constitution prevents him from interfering in the decisions of the judiciary, which is dominated by religious hard-liners.

A Western diplomatic source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions, said various Western embassies expressed concern about the case to the Afghan government and were following developments closely.

Samander said the Karzai government generally has refrained from meddling with the country's nascent but rapidly proliferating media outlets, which include 350 publications, 40 radio stations and four independent television stations. The Nasab case, he said, has thrown all that progress into doubt.

"If they release him, they will show to everyone that they are serious about press freedom," Samander said. "If he is kept in jail, all this talk about press freedom will amount to nothing."

Karzai's spokesman, Karim Rahimi, said the government strongly supports free speech but cannot do anything to influence the courts. "The judiciary system is entirely independent," he said.

In his magazine, Nasab suggested that a woman's testimony in court should be given the same weight as a man's, rather than half. He also questioned whether cutting off the hands of thieves was too severe a penalty. Finally, he argued that it was up to God, not to man, to punish Muslims who convert to another religion.

Nasab, who studied Islam at a university in Iran, ran afoul of the government there after he published a book questioning its religious authority. After returning to Afghanistan, he began writing increasingly controversial articles based on views he said were supported by a careful reading of the Koran and shared by other Islamic scholars. But some Afghan religious leaders disagreed vehemently, and several campaigned for his arrest this fall. Turning to the judiciary for help, Nasab walked into a Kabul courthouse Oct 1. -- and was promptly handcuffed.

Just two weeks later, he was put on trial for blasphemy. The outcome was never in doubt, according to Ahmad Nader Nadery, who heads the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.

"The way the trial was conducted, it was very obvious that there was an intention that . . . without respect to rules and procedures, they were going to punish him," Nadery said, noting that Nasab was not allowed to choose an attorney and was shouted down by prosecutors and judges when he tried to speak.

Indeed, Nasab's essay in May amounted to a challenge of the very justice system that is now prosecuting him. Nevertheless, one of the judges said Nasab got a fair hearing and that his sentence offered "a great chance" for him to reconsider and apologize.

"We listened to him very carefully," said Alhaj Ansarullah Maulavi Zada, who heads the public security court. "We listened to him a lot. We gave him a three-day trial. But he couldn't answer the court. He was not showing any kind of remorse. He still said changing your religion is forbidden but it is not a crime."

Nasab contends that his prosecution was political, engineered by religious hard-liners who see him as a challenge to their authority and who are also biased against him because he is an ethnic Hazara. The Hazaras, distinctive for their Asian Pacific facial features, have long occupied the lowest rung in Afghan society. Mostly Shiite Muslims in a Sunni-dominated society, they have been victims of massacres, relegated to menial jobs and often forced to live in extreme poverty.

Even with press freedom protected by law, Afghan journalists have faced their share of constraints. Outside the capital, the Afghan news media are especially vulnerable if they challenge local powers such as militia leaders. A reporter in Nangahar province was recently taken hostage for a week after he wrote a story critical of authorities there.

"My colleagues are under threat," said Shukria Barakzai, editor of the newspaper Women's Mirror. "They haven't got any security, any safety while they are working."

Barakzai said Nasab's case should never have gone to the courts. A government-appointed media commission found him innocent of the charges against him. But not all of his fellow journalists have been so supportive.

Mohammad Fahim Dashty, editor of the Kabul Weekly newspaper, said Nasab chose the wrong time and place to raise such volatile issues. Dashty's newspaper has attacked the Karzai administration and the United States on warlordism and drugs. But he said Nasab crossed the line when he took on basic tenets of Islam.

"We know that Afghanistan is a very unstable country," he said. "We know that the tradition of religion here is very strong. So when you say something which is very new and which you believe, but nobody else does, it's dangerous. "It's a risk, and sometimes you have to pay for it. He is paying for it now."

The new Afghan constitution guarantees freedom of expression, but the law governing media says journalists should not discuss matters of religion or national security. The exact boundaries of what is permissible are ill-defined, and the courts seem inclined to interpret the limits rigidly.

After Nasab's conviction, the Supreme Court issued a religious edict, or fatwa , saying he "should be given the harshest punishment, so he will be a lesson to others." A group of 200 religious scholars and clerics in the southern city of Kandahar recently issued a fatwa that said he should be given three days to repent or be hanged.

"It is up to the central government whether they execute him," said the group's leader, Maulavi Ghulam Mohammed Gharib. "We have simply sent our message." Gharib said he had not read Nasab's magazine but had seen him interviewed on television.

Nasab conceded he was "concerned" by the fatwas against him. But he said he would not back down and hoped Karzai or international officials would intercede on his behalf.

"I made one mistake. When I heard there was democracy in my country, I came back because I'm an educated person and I wanted to help," he said. "I didn't know that still there was no democracy, still there was the influence of the Taliban and still there is the culture of the Taliban regime."

U.S. paid for media firm Afghans didn't want - 12/13/2005 By Kim Barker and Stephen J. Hedges - Millions spent despite complaints deals were 'rip-off' to taxpayers

KABUL - When The Rendon Group was hired to help Afghan President Hamid Karzai with media relations in early 2004, few thought it was a bad idea. Though Rendon's $1.4million bill seemed high for Afghanistan, the U.S. government was paying.

Within seven months, however, Karzai was ready to get rid of Rendon. So was Zalmay Khalilzad, then the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and now the American envoy in Iraq, according to interviews, e-mails and memos obtained by the Tribune. The complaint: too much money for not enough work.

Despite such grumbling, The Rendon Group, based in Washington, managed to secure even more U.S.-funded work with Karzai's government, this time a $3.9 million contract funded by the Pentagon, to create a media team for Afghan anti-drug programs. Jeff Raleigh, who helped oversee Rendon in Kabul for the U.S. Embassy, and others in the U.S. government said they objected because of Karzai's and Khalilzad's opposition but were overruled by Defense Department superiors in Washington.

"It was a rip-off of the U.S taxpayer," said Raleigh, who left the U.S. Embassy in September. Rendon departed Afghanistan in early October when its $3.9 million contract expired. But diplomatic sources said it is in line for another multimillion-dollar Afghan contract: a three-year deal to work on counternarcotics public relations.

The company's work in Afghanistan is just a sliver of the more than $56 million the Pentagon has paid Rendon since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, when it became one of the leading media consultants in the Bush administration's war on terrorism. It also is doing work for the Pentagon in Iraq.

Its performance, and the Defense Department's use of the company to shape its anti-terrorism message, has come under renewed scrutiny amid reports that the Bush administration hired Rendon to track foreign media and reporters and to help foreign governments shape their own anti-terrorism messages and images.

Advocates say Rendon helps fight propaganda from Islamic fundamentalists. Critics say the Pentagon's use of media firms such as Rendon blurs the line between public relations and propaganda.

Cost complaints - The company's fees also have been an issue. CIA staff members have complained about the group's work on other projects, such as a costly media campaign against Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. Officials at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul estimated that the work the company was hired to do on its second contract in Afghanistan could have been performed for about $200,000 rather than $3.9million.

The firm was to train five Afghan press officers, according to e-mails and people familiar with the contract. But it trained only three, and one has left her job.

Company founder John Rendon, a former Democratic political operative, said neither Afghan nor U.S. officials complained about his firm's work in Afghanistan. "I never heard that from Karzai," he said.

He said he won the second Afghan contract by applying anti-drug campaign experience he gained years ago as a state official in Massachusetts.

"I took that experience over to the Ministry of Interior and provided training to people in the ministry so they could use communications to support their police initiative," with good success, he said.

At least one Afghan official publicly backed Rendon--the deputy interior minister for counternarcotics. And a former U.S. government official who worked in Afghanistan with Rendon said the company did a good job of helping Karzai organize his media operations.

"There was just remarkable improvement," the former official said. "It was a fledgling government office, but they did a great job, really."

In early 2004, presidential spokesman Jawed Ludin asked the U.S. Embassy for $1 million to help develop his office. He spoke to Richard McGraw, a former Pentagon spokesman and congressional liaison working with the little-known Afghanistan Reconstruction Group, a small group of U.S. executives, lawyers and other professionals who advise Afghan and U.S. officials on reconstruction.

Instead of handing over money, McGraw suggested hiring Rendon, which already was working in the country for the Pentagon, Ludin said.

McGraw, who said he became familiar with Rendon's Pentagon work during his own service on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's staff, requested bids from Rendon and the public relations firm Burson-Marsteller. Rendon's bid was "far and away the best," said McGraw, who was the main public relations officer at G.D. Searle & Co. outside Chicago when Rumsfeld was the drug company's chief executive.

But Jim Lake of Burson-Marsteller's Washington office said McGraw asked only for a preliminary assessment, not a formal proposal that the company routinely prepares for competitive bidding.

Rendon workers spent about five months at the presidential palace on a contract reportedly worth $1.4 million. "I think they did an excellent job in a tough circumstance," McGraw said.

The contract ended in August 2004. Raleigh, who had replaced McGraw with the Afghanistan Reconstruction Group, pushed for a two-month extension because of the upcoming presidential election. But by then, Karzai and his staff had concluded that Rendon wasn't worth its pay.

"The president was really upset about it," said Ludin, now the president's chief of staff. Karzai also complained to Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador, who agreed with Karzai, U.S. officials said.

Several U.S. Agency for International Development and State Department officials said in interviews that Rendon's work had been inadequate and that others in the U.S. Embassy ended up doing a large share of media advisory work with Karzai's staff.

"There's been a sense of frustration that a lot of money is being wasted on consultants who, frankly, just aren't worth the money," said a senior U.S. official familiar with Rendon's work in Afghanistan who spoke on condition of anonymity. "They were very well-intentioned, but they weren't plugged into what was happening there."

A $3.9 million deal - But within a month of the contract's expiration, Rendon won a new contract through the Defense Department, $3.9 million to train Afghans in counternarcotics public relations at the Interior Ministry, officials said.

Raleigh said he told Pentagon officials that Khalilzad and Karzai did not want Rendon to stay, but that they worked out a plan to allow Rendon to report directly to Raleigh and Doug Wankel at the U.S. Embassy, instead of to the Pentagon. Wankel, who refused to comment for this story, works on counternarcotics for the embassy.

An e-mail from Wankel on Sept. 10, 2004, backed up Raleigh's account, saying Wankel had met with Khalilzad to discuss whether the Defense Department contract with Rendon would be canceled or continued. Wankel said in the e-mail that Khalilzad agreed to a third option--a 90-day trial in which Rendon would work under Raleigh and Wankel.

Rendon and the Afghan government would hire and train five Afghan media specialists and support all counternarcotics publicity, Wankel wrote.

At first, the company helped put on a counternarcotics conference, just after Karzai's inauguration in December 2004. But by January, the end of the trial period, Raleigh questioned where the money was going. He said the company should lose its contract, according to e-mails. But Rendon stayed.

Mary Beth Long, who oversaw the contract for the Pentagon, declined to be interviewed.

By May, Rendon was pushing to have its contract extended from the end of July through the parliamentary elections in September. Raleigh sent an e-mail to Long and others. "For the record, let me reiterate what I have been saying for months--paying The Rendon Group is a waste of taxpayer funds," Raleigh wrote.

But the Rendon contract was extended through the end of September for $600,000, according to interviews with officials.

"I don't think their performance was worth more than $50,000," said Lutfullah Mashal, until recently the spokesman for the Interior Ministry. "It certainly was not worth millions of dollars."

Civilian PS workers will be sent to Afghan war zone - 'Generally voluntary' six-month missions to start next year - David Pugliese, The Ottawa Citizen - Published: Wednesday, December 14, 2005

The Defence Department cleared the way last night to send federal public servants to the front lines in Afghanistan with an unprecedented new directive that will see workers serving overseas for six months at a time. With the guidelines now in place, the head of the Defence Department's largest union said he expects federal public servants to be in Kandahar by next year.

The e-mail detailing the directive was leaked to the Citizen last night and comes the same day Defence Department officials told the newspaper they were not in negotiations with their largest union to send federal employees on international missions.

The e-mail was sent to senior defence officials by Shirley Siegel, assistant deputy minister for human resources, civilian branch. The directive, she says, "provides guidance" for sending civilian workers overseas.

"Assignment of such civilians is generally voluntary," according to the e-mail. Public servants sent on international military operations will not be allowed to carry weapons, Ms. Siegel added. Some job descriptions will also have to be changed for those positions that might involve overseas work, she noted.

The Union of National Defence Employees initially had reservations about allowing its members to be sent overseas. But union president John MacLennan said the labour organization supports the new policy since it provides public servants with many of the same benefits that Canadian troops have in Afghanistan. The union represents 15,500 workers.

Under the terms of the agreement, the public servants would not be allowed to leave the Canadian base in Afghanistan, Mr. MacLennan said. The workers would receive separation allowance, danger pay and liability insurance in case of injury or death, among other benefits, he added.

Mr. MacLennan said he was told by Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier that he wants the federal workers to be part of overseas operations. "To what degree still has to be defined," said Mr. MacLennan. "Is it going to be 100 people or 10 people?"

The federal workers could include plumbers, electricians, clerks, cooks and mechanics, he said. Although public servants have previously done one- or two-week stints in war zones to repair specific equipment, this will be the first time they have been assigned to a military mission for an extended period, Mr. MacLennan said. He said the union has been in negotiations with the Defence department since September 2004 on the issue.

That's not what the department said earlier yesterday. "The Department of National Defence civilian labour relations division is not conducting any negotiations with the Union of National Defence Employees on the matter of civilians deployed to operations," Robert Newman, communications manager for the assistant deputy minister human resources, civilian branch, said in an e-mail to the Citizen.

He said the Defence department does consult with labour unions representing the civilian employees on a regular and frequent basis when policies and guidelines are being developed. Mr. Newman did not mention the new directive that Ms. Siegel said was posted on the department's website yesterday.

British troops to face Afghan drugs alliance - DECLAN WALSH IN KHANISHIN – The Scotsman

TALEBAN fighters have formed an alliance with drug smugglers in the lawless Afghan province of Helmand, months ahead of a large, politically sensitive British troop deployment.

Farmers, community elders and police told The Scotsman the Taleban had distributed "night letters" - threatening tracts pinned to mosque doors and shop windows - ordering farmers to sow poppy seeds during the current planting season. "They say, 'Cultivate the poppy or we will come and kill you'. A lot of people are very scared," said one local man.

Tackling the drug lords is one of the most pressing and difficult issues that will face the British Army. Last year, Helmand accounted for the highest poppy production of any Afghan province, and drug smugglers criss-cross the vast, inhospitable desert that covers its southern half. Leading provincial officials and police officers are believed to be among the top traffickers.

Now the Taleban is joining in. Recent intimidation tactics appear to confirm that militants, who once condemned opium as "un-Islamic", are turning to the drugs trade both to earn money and to undermine the authority of the Kabul government.

A British reconnaissance team has arrived in the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, to help plan to the UK deployment, scheduled for March or April. The British will be part of a 6,000-strong NATO expansion into southern Afghanistan that was agreed last week, allowing the United States to withdraw up to 4,000 soldiers. Canada is to send 2,000 troops to Kandahar province, the Netherlands has plans to send 1,100 to Uruzgan and Britain will take control of Helmand.

But the mission is becoming mired in political sensitivities. The Dutch, mindful of the Srebrenica debacle - when its isolated troops allowed a Serb massacre to take place - want guarantees of US back-up should its troops get into trouble.

The UK plan is also becoming bogged down. Early reports said the force would be 2,000 strong and led by the Paratroop 16 Air Assault Brigade. But sources say the Defence Secretary, John Reid, is having second thoughts.

Taleban violence has escalated dramatically in Helmand, which has seen two suicide bombings, the execution of aid workers and a string of roadside bombings in the past six months.

Last Saturday, about 50 Taleban fighters attacked a remote police station, leaving seven officers dead. Such attacks are part of a surge in Taleban activity that is worrying NATO and British planners. About 1,100 people have died in combat violence in Afghanistan this year, making it the bloodiest period since 2001.

In a videotape released on Sunday, al-Qaeda's No 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, praised the Taleban leader, Mullah Omar, for his victories against "crusaders and apostates".

IMF praises Afghan reconstruction

KABUL, December 12(Online): Afghanistan’s efforts to revive its economy have prompted praise from the International Monetary Fund, although it warned the success could be threatened by the drugs trade, insecurity and slow reform.

In a report issued after a fact-finding mission last month, the IMF said that four years after the removal of the Taliban, Afghanistan could see gross domestic product (GDP) growth of "about 14%" between 2005 and 2006 and saluted the "commendable" economic performance of the country.

Good rainfall had seen a "rebound" in the agriculture sector, which represents a third of the economy, although this is largely in the production of illegal opium poppies used to make heroin.

The reconstruction effort continued to drive the construction, trade, transport and telecommunication sectors, it said. Notwithstanding risks such as changes in the oil market or property rental markets, annual inflation was expected to decline to about 10%.

In a challenging environment, the authorities had "implemented sound macroeconomic policies and an ambitious reform agenda which have contributed to sustained growth and to the stabilisation of the economy", the report said.

The country still faced "formidable challenges, such as lingering insecurity, the effects of the illegal opium industry activities, and poor infrastructure and institutions". Afghanistan is one of the world’s poorest countries due to 25 years of war and is reliant on international aid, which made up 90% of its 2005 budget.

The IMF cited a UN report showing that opium production had dropped this year, but Afghanistan is still the world’s leading producer. In 2004, it produced 90% of the world’s opium, and the 21% decline in the area producing opium this year can be mainly attributed to concerted eradication efforts in the region around Jalalabad.

This year saw a sharp rise in attacks carried out by insurgents and criminal gangs. The violence has killed close to 1600 people, almost double last year’s toll.

The IMF report noted that development spending had been lower than expected this year. This reflected capacity constraints common in post-conflict countries, including unrealistic expectations on the pace of reform.

As a result of these continuing concerns, institutional reform is likely to be a major theme of a conference of international donors to Afghanistan in London next month.

The IMF report did not specifically mention corruption, but even the government has admitted it is a key obstacle to reform and a concern for international partners.

In September, the UN’s special representative to Afghanistan, Jean Arnault, called for "new governance", saying reconstruction was being held back by widespread corruption among officials, many of whom lacked the skills their jobs required or had links to drugs trafficking.

The IMF said it was ready to help Afghanistan focus on a reform agenda through its Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility, which is reserved for the world’s neediest nations. The programme should be in place by April, it said.

Jobs vs. efficiency as Afghan Ma Bell goes private

By Scott Baldauf | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN - Businessman Jamil Noorzaie doesn't know how many employees he has. The first estimate said 750 people. A month ago, the figure had moved up to 1,025 people. Mr. Noorzaie estimates that he only needs about 350 of them.

Such are the pitfalls involved in Afghanistan's first attempt at privatizing a government entity. Noorzaie, who is inheriting the staff of Afghan Telecom from the Ministry of Communication, hopes to turn the company into a profitable business and a model for other joint ventures here.

"I want people to pay attention to Afghanistan not just as a war zone, but as a marketplace with opportunities," says Noorzaie, an Afghan American who used to run his own telecom business in the Dallas area. "They should feel comfortable bringing their families here. Only then will there be the security in this part of the world."

Afghanistan has become a nation of state-owned industries that don't make anything, bureaucrats who don't do anything, and citizens who don't get anything from their government. The solution seems simple on paper: Tear it all down and start from scratch. Yet laying off thousands of well-educated bureaucrats would only add to the angry unemployed.

For now, the state is easing citizens into the free market and quietly making Afghanistan a decent place to make a buck.

While Afghan Telecom has not earned a profit for years, it expects to attract corporate partners into a country where the telecom industry has grown at more than 35 percent a year over the past four years.

At the end of the Taliban era, there were only two telephones for every 1,000 Afghans. Today, landline phones managed by Afghan Telecom reach just 36,000 subscribers, but mobile phone service has skyrocketed to 500,000 subscribers. By 2015, the government hopes there will be 3.5 million subscribers in Afghanistan, equivalent to 120 phones for every 1,000 citizens.

The Afghan government has awarded mobile-phone licenses to three private companies, but Afghan Telecom hopes to enter the market using a different technology. Afghan Telecom also has the right to develop a nationwide fiber optic network.

Noorzaie's first taste of running a state-run company came early, when job seekers arrived for interviews. "They used to say, "The businesses make me work a lot, so I want to come to Afghan Telecom,' " laughs Noorzaie. "I told them, 'I have news for you. We're making people work hard, too.' "

Layoffs are currently out of the question, he adds, so he must show that there is a reward for hard work. "If they see the results, they won't see us as an evil foreign company taking away jobs," he says. Mohammad Sharif, a 22-year veteran at the Ministry of Communication, is one of those few who, Noorzaie says, "gets it."

"A private company is better," says Mr. Sharif, head of general projects. "When they start to do something, they do it quickly and they finish the job."

Yet there are some here who think it is too early to privatize. Mohammad Hakim Marifat, a legal adviser at the Chamber of Commerce's reform commission, says that current laws allow foreign companies to dump products and force most Afghan businesses out of the market. Even in agriculture, where 80 percent of Afghans make a living, foreign buyers control prices and terms of trade. Afghan trucks cannot travel to Pakistan, for instance, but Pakistani trucks bring daily loads of goods.

"Every country in the world is dumping their trash, and ... trying to kill the country's ability to produce," says Mr. Marifat. "All traders want privatization, but can we protect it" from foreign competition?

David Garner, an American adviser to the Ministry of Mines and Industries says that there are dangers in moving too quickly. He advocates a three-step process. First, the ministry must commercialize, finding out what a particular state-owned business does well and what staffing it needs. Second, the business must figure out how to make a profit. Then, once the state knows the value of what it has, it can privatize.

"Let's say you have a coal mine that digs up 10,000 tons of coal a month," he says. "That operation may be sitting on a huge deposit, but the low output may make you say, 'Heck, we'll sell that for $1,000.' You may have given away mineral rights for a song."

Noorzaie says that Afghanistan has to start somewhere, and telecom just happens to be the business that offers the best opportunities for big change. "I want us to be a model for others to follow," he says.

Pakistan Says Cement Exports to Afghanistan Decline - December 13

ISLAMABAD, Dec 13 Asia Pulse - Pakistan's Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) has noted a fall in cement exports to Afghanistan over the last five months.
EPB official Ayaz Bashir said on Monday that Pakistan had supplied 664,365 tons of cement to the neighbouring country since August.

"About 129,958 tons of cement were sent to Afghanistan in July, 156,433 tons in August, 144,244 tons in September, 123,000 tons in October and 98,376 tons in November."

In the first week of December, he added, a mere 13,000 tons of cement were dispatched to Afghanistan, where the reconstruction process has slowed down due to the harsh winter.

However, Mustafa Khan of the Cherat Cement Factory also confirmed a decline in foreign sales, saying that construction work in both Afghanistan and Pakistan ground to a halt during winter.

Production levels at the biggest cement factory in the Northwest Frontier Province, and prices of the product remained steady despite the slump, said Khan. (Pajhwok Afghan News)

Afghan hanged in Iran for crime committed as minor   - Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, Dec. 12 – Monday’s edition of the state-run daily Hamshahri carried the photo of a young Afghan who was hanged in public on Saturday for a crime he was alleged to have committed as a minor.

Rostam Tajik, 20, was hanged in a public park in the central Iranian city of Isfahan, the state-run news agency reported on Saturday. The sentence was carried out in the presence of judicial officials. Tajik was sentenced to death for the murder of a woman on May 13, 2001, when he was 16 years old.

Ray of hope in Afghanistan? - Najmuddin A. Shaikh – DAWN (Pakistan) 12/14/05

EARLY on Tuesday morning an earthquake measuring 6.7 on the Richter scale hit north-eastern Afghanistan. The scale of the damage was not known at the time of writing but one can only hope that the tremors which were also felt in Balakot and Muzaffarabad have not done any further harm to a country already suffering from decades of war and doused the faint light at the end of the tunnel that some optimistic observers of the Afghan scene were beginning to see in Afghanistan.

Much of optimism has been generated by political developments. The parliamentary elections for the 249 member Wolesi Jirga (Lower House) and for the provincial councils (420 members) had a much lower turnout than the presidential elections but were correctly regarded as a success since despite Taliban threats they were held in a generally peaceful atmosphere and despite many irregularities and allegations of fraud were seen as being largely fair.

The 102 member Mushrano Jirga (Upper House), in which 68 members were elected by local bodies reached its full strength when President Hamid Karzai used his constitutional powers to appoint the remaining 34 members. The newly elected Afghan parliament is scheduled to meet on December 19.

Optimists also believe that Karzai’s effort to reach out to the Taliban is succeeding. They point to the fact that according to Sebghatullah Mojaddedi, a former president of Afghanistan and the head of the Independent National Commission for Peace in Afghanistan, known as “Peace Commission”, more than 700 Taliban, including the former Taliban foreign minister, Motawakil Wakil, have accepted the amnesty offer and have been reconciled with the government. Some of them like the infamous Mullah Rocketi have even become members of the new parliament.

On the economic front starting from what was an abysmally low base Afghanistan’s economy grew by 30 per cent in 2003 and an estimated 7.5 per cent in 2004. The Afghani, now pegged at 45 to a dollar, is relatively stable and agriculture is beginning a slow recovery with the wheat crop in 2003 being 58 per cent higher than in 2002. Vast sums of money have been expended by the Americans and the international community on reconstruction in Afghanistan and it is hoped that the conference being convened in London in January will bring further pledges of assistance for the rehabilitation of the economy.

The Demobilizing, Disarming and Reintegration (DDR) programme has been termed a success with claims being made that this Japanese financed UN programme has led to the disarming of the many official militias that existed in the country and has weakened the hold of the warlords. A degree of success is also claimed for the successor programme — the Disarming of Illegal Armed Groups (DIAG) started in June 2005.

The insurgency continues and has intensified in the last year but American and Afghan officials insist that this owes to the fact that the US-led coalition forces are now moving into areas that, in the part, were left in the hands of the Taliban, and while no one is now talking about the insurgency dying out there are claims that steady progress is being made in winning the hearts and minds of the people in the Taliban strongholds in the south and southeast of the country.

The pessimists’ view, and most would say the more realistic view, is that while there has been a marginal improvement in the economic situation and while the trappings of democracy have been introduced, the deteriorating security situation, the growing importance of opium production in the Afghan economy, the continued influence of the warlords, the corruption in government, the mismanagement of reconstruction efforts and the consequent disillusionment of the people have meant that the situation in Afghanistan is today worse than it was in the immediate aftermath of the American invasion.

The facts on the ground would appear to support this pessimism. Despite the expenditure of more than $5 billion in assistance, not one new power plant has been built in Afghanistan. Afghanistan has, at 70 per cent, the highest level of malnutrition in the world and is classified as one of the poorest counties in the world.

Much of the assistance is channelled through the NGOs and it is estimated that their overheads take up some 60 per cent of the amount. Afghans maintain that it is not 60 per cent but 80 per cent. In a recent statement, the Afghan transport minister disclosed that Ariana Airlines was paying two of its foreign advisers $2,000 per diem and that there were other ministries in which foreign advisers were getting $2,500 per diem. It is no wonder that many Afghans say only half jokingly that having suffered in the past from Soviet and Taliban rule they were now suffering under NGO rule.

An investigative report by the Washington Post last month on a USAID programme for building schools and clinics in Afghanistan showed that the programme had been an outstanding failure. An eight room school building cost $426,000 while other donors were building at between $40,000 and $60,000. Many of the buildings were found to be non-existent or collapsed shortly after they were built while a large number of them remained incomplete.

An example was that of a clinic opened in March 2004 with much fanfare in Qala-Qazi village just 30 miles from Kabul and which when visited 15 months later by Post reporters invited the following comment “Mold and mildew stained the ceiling. In one room, the ceiling had fallen. Paint inside and out had blistered and peeled off in sheets. Cracks crawled across exterior walls. In a side yard, two girls laboured in vain to pump water from a new, US-built well.”

The much publicized programme for reducing opium cultivation brought down the area under cultivation by 22 per cent but better weather conditions ensured that the crop was reduced only marginally from 4,200 tons to 4,100 tons. Drug eradication officials fear that since alternative crops and aid to farmers have been in short supply, the area under cultivation will go up again this year.

Since a farmer earns nearly $2,200 for an acre of opium poppies, while those growing wheat make about $220 an acre this is almost inevitable, particularly when virtually no effort has been made to eliminate the drug traffickers who make the major part of the money from the drug trade. It is well known that several of the new members of the Afghan parliament are prominent traffickers as are many of the officials in the Afghan administration.

The Americans have made it clear that their preoccupation in Afghanistan is with the Al Qaeda and they have little or no interest in devoting their resources to fighting the warlords or the drug traffickers many of whom have been their loyal allies in the fight against the Al Qaeda. In any case, they are now reducing their forces in Afghanistan and such forces as remain will focus on combing the hitherto inaccessible areas close to the Pakistan border to smoke out such elements of Al Qaeda as remain there.

Many of the Nato forces which are to move into South Afghanistan next year are reluctant to take on a combat role against the Taliban and the drug traffickers. It seems likely, therefore, that at least for the next few years the Taliban, who are said to be encouraging opium cultivation in the areas under their control and using drug money to finance their operations, will not be deprived of their access to drug money and Pakistan, Iran and Europe will continue to see their heroin addicts receive ample supplies from Afghanistan. There seems to be little doubt that in these circumstances the amnesty offer has had few takers from prominent Taliban.

As regards security, this year has been the deadliest in four years in Afghanistan, with violence claiming the lives of nearly 1,500 people. More than 90 American servicemen have been killed and thanks to the link that seems to have been established between the insurgents in Iraq and the Taliban/Al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan the suicide bomber has now become a part of the security scene in Afghanistan with ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) forces in Kabul also being targeted.

They can, in the coming years, be expected to increase their activities against the coalition forces and the Karzai government. It is no wonder that President Karzai said while in Saudi Arabia for the OIC summit, that his government will need US led coalition forces to remain in Afghanistan for another 10 years. It is also no wonder that European members of Nato even while agreeing to increase the size of ISAF to 16,000 and to take over responsibility for supporting reconstruction activity in the Taliban south of the country have not yet agreed to participate in anti-narcotics, anti-warlord or anti-Taliban operations.

The British, who are increasing their force presence in Afghanistan by 4,000 men and will be leading Nato forces, are pleading with the Australians and the New Zealanders to provide troops along with the Canadians for the anti-narcotics operations.

If they succeed one might see three forces operating in Afghanistan, a reduced American force operating exclusively to track and eliminate the Al Qaeda and their Taliban sympathizers, the British led effort to eliminate poppy cultivation and the warlords and the Taliban who support such cultivation, and lastly, the Nato forces supporting the provincial reconstruction teams. There could be hardly be a better formula for ensuring the failure of all three efforts and yet this is what seems to be on the cards.

Is there reason for optimism after this? I think so. There is too much at stake for the Americans and the Europeans and they, along with the rest of the international community, are at least agreed that Afghanistan cannot be abandoned. Past mistakes can be corrected. The disagreements within Nato notwithstanding, it will soon become apparent on the ground that no reconstruction will proceed unless there is military action against the Taliban and the drug barons. The January conference in London will provide an opportunity for closer scrutiny of what has gone wrong and what needs to be done.

The fallout from the Afghan situation on Pakistan is becoming increasingly grave. Despite the deployment of 60,000 troops in the tribal areas Pakistan has not, as recent reports from North and South Waziristan show, been able to root out foreign militants or even to establish military control over the area. Press reports suggest that it was Taliban representatives rather than the local administration that apprehended and then hanged “bandits” who were extorting money from travellers on a road in the vicinity of Miranshah, the largest city in North Waziristan.

Other reports claimed that the Taliban were now controlling, or at least patrolling, the streets of Miranshah. In South Waziristan, four people from the paramilitary forces have been abducted presumably by Taliban sympathizers.

While allegations of Afghan officials about Pakistan support for the Taliban can perhaps be ignored, we need to give serious thought to what their continued presence here is doing to the country itself. Whatever may have been our assessment of their value in the past, it should now be clear that our national interest requires us to expel all Afghan Taliban from our soil. This will certainly improve our relations with Afghanistan and curb narcotics and other smuggling into our country but these benefits, substantial though they may be, are less important than removing the threat they pose to our security interests. The writer is a former foreign secretary.

Pakistan opposes use for force against Iran over nuclear row

Islamabad (AFP) - Pakistan said it was against the use of force against Iran over its controversial nuclear programme and wanted to resolve the issue through dialogue.

"Pakistani is against the use of force on Iran's nuclear issue," Pakistan's foreign minister said during talks with his Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki.

Mottaki, who arrived in Pakistan on Wednesday, is making his first visit to the country since August when he was named to his post.

Kasuri reiterated Pakitan's support for the Iran-European Union dialogue and expressed hope it would lead towards an "amicable" solution, a Pakistani foreign ministry statement said.

Mottaki's visit to Pakistan comes ahead of December 21 talks between Iran and the so-called European Union 3 -- Britain, France and Germany -- on its disputed nuclear programme.

EU-Iran talks collapsed in August when Tehran ended its suspension of uranium conversion, a first step towards enrichment, and the planned talks are aimed at determining if negotiations can resume.

"The issue should be settled within the framework of the IAEA," Kasuri said referring to International Atomic Energy Agency, the global nuclear watchdog.

The two foreign ministers also agreed to raise the level of bilateral trade to one billion dollars and reviewed the progress of a multi-billion-dollar Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline, the statement said.

Nuclear-armed Pakistan has figured in the IAEA's investigation of Iran's atomic fuel reactor programme.

Pakistan in May sent parts from used nuclear centrifuges to the IAEA to allow the agency to compare microscopic traces of uranium on them with those found on devices in Iran.

The IAEA confirmed in August that the particles found at a key nuclear site in Iran were from Pakistani centrifuges, which were passed to Tehran by the disgraced Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.

Rockets hit southwest Pakistan during Musharraf's visit

Eight rockets slammed into a remote town in southwest Pakistan, coinciding with a visit of President Pervez Musharraf to the region which is troubled by a sporadic tribal insurgency.

No damage or casualties were reported from the rocket strikes at Kohlu, 220 kilometres (136 kilometres) southeast of the provincial capital Quetta where Musharraf is staying, Kohlu police official Muhammad Riaz told AFP on Wednesday.

On Tuesday two rockets were fired into Quetta after Musharraf started a three-day visit to the province to discuss development projects and address the military's Command and Staff College, officials said.

One of those rockets landed near the high-security Gulistan Road and another in the grounds of the Army Golf Club. "No casualty was reported as both rockets fell in the open places, but obviously created bangs and scared the residents," a police official told AFP.

A spokesman for the separatist Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA), Meerak Baloch, called newspaper offices to claim responsibility for the Quetta and Kohlu attacks.

"BLA will continue to attack the places where army generals visit as the treatment of rulers (military) towards Baloch population is like masters to slaves," Baloch said.

The tribes want more political autonomy, jobs and royalties from Baluchistan's huge natural resources and oppose setting up military cantonments in the province which borders Afghanistan and Iran.

The BLA has also said it carried out a car bombing outside a KFC restaurant in the southern city of Karachi on November 15, in which three people were killed. Baluchistan haa been in the grip of a tribal insurgency and sectarian violence since the begining of this year.

Separately, men riding a motorcycle shot dead a Shiite Muslim shopkeeper, Syed Ejaz Hussain, in Quetta late Tuesday, police said, in the sixth such killing of members of the minority community in the past two months. Shiites later demonstrated outside the hospital where the victim's body lay, demanding the government provide them security.

A spokesman for the Sunni militant group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi called newspaper office and claimed responsibility for Hussain's murder. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is blamed for hundreds of killings of Shiite Muslims in Pakistan in the last decade.

[Disclaimer: The content of this news bulletin does not necessarily reflect the view or policy of the Afghan Government, unless specifically stated as such. The collection of articles and commentaries from Afghan and international news sources is provided for informational purposes, and accuracy of the news is the responsibility of the original source.]