In this bulletin:

· Suicide bomb targets U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan; 1 soldier, 2 Afghans hurt
· Afghanistan aims to cut opium fields by 40 percent in 2006
· 'Afghan govt officials involved in drug trade'
· Al-Jazeera crew members arrested by US forces in Afghanistan
· Rethinking Nation-Building
· Desperate Afghan farmers returning to opium
· London Conference, the last hope for Afghanistan
· Trade pact with Tashkent
· Kyrgyz minister hails U.S. airbase
· Iran nabs 210 tons of drugs in 10 months
· Women in Afghanistan
· Blair predicts tough times in 2006
· South Korean troops treat patients, help reconstruct Afghanistan
· Pacific Solutions: From Afghanistan to Aotearoa
· EDITORIAL: Is India hankering for a zero-sum game again?

Suicide bomb targets U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan; 1 soldier, 2 Afghans hurt

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CP) - A suspected suicide bomber detonated explosives in a car near a U.S. military convoy Monday in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, killing himself and wounding an American soldier and two passers-by, officials said.

The convoy was attacked as it drove through the city, a former Taliban stronghold and the site of a string of recent suicide bombings. One U.S. soldier was slightly hurt, said Sgt. J.C. Woodring, a U.S. military spokesman in the capital, Kabul.

Kandahar Gov. Asadullah Khalid identified the wounded passers-by as a woman and a child. Both were taken to a local hospital.

No Canadians were involved in the bombing, said Capt. Francois Giroux, a Canadian Forces spokesman based in Kandahar. He added Canadian troops did go to the scene to help secure the area.

The blast follows a string of suicide attacks and comes days after a top Taliban rebel commander, Mullah Dadullah, said more than 200 insurgents were willing to kill themselves in assaults on U.S. forces and their allies.

Afghanistan's government dismissed the claim as propaganda, though President Hamid Karzai said last month that he expects attacks to continue.

Last year was the deadliest in Afghanistan since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban in 2001 for harbouring Osama bin Laden. The fighting killed about 1,600 people as militants belonging to the Taliban, al-Qaida and other groups have stepped up attacks.

Eight Canadians have been killed in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. There are now about 680 Canadian troops in Kandahar province and 700 in Afghanistan. Two thousand Canadian troops are to arrive in February.

Their mission is to improve the security situation in southern Afghanistan and help with the transition from the U.S.-led multinational coalition to NATO leadership in the spring.

Afghanistan aims to cut opium fields by 40 percent in 2006

Kabul (AFP) - Afghanistan said it aimed to slash the area of land used for growing opium by at least 40 percent this year, playing down UN estimates that output in the world's biggest producer would rise.
Deputy interior minister in charge of counternarcotics General Mohammad Daud said that the area used to cultivate poppies, from which heroin is derived, had dropped 40 percent in 2005.

"Our aim for the future, for 2006, is to further reduce poppy cultivation. In the lowest to maintain the 40 percent and in the highest we hope to double it," Daud told reporters in Kabul on Monday.

The general rejected a warning given last month by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime that Afghan opium production could increase in 2006, after showing a decline last year. "We don't agree with that UN report," he said.

In August the UN announced that there had been a 21 percent drop in land planted with poppies, although this only translated into a 2.4 percent drop in output to 4,100 tonnes because of favourable weather conditions for the crop.

The international community has pinpointed drug production in Afghanistan, which pumps out more than 85 percent of the world's opium, as one of the greatest threats to the war-scarred country's future.

Remnants of the Taliban regime -- which was ousted by US-led forces in late 2001 for harbouring Osama bin Laden and continues to carry out attacks -- were encouraging farmers to cultivate opium, Daud said.

"Yes, the Taliban using statements and leaflets are encouraging farmers to grow poppy," he said.

Daud said that after "public awareness" seminars for provincial officials, farmers and tribal and religious leaders his ministry would send 1,300 troops to the provinces to carry out poppy eradication on January 20.

He added that his ministry's counter-narcotics efforts last year had been successful and that more hundreds of drug smugglers were detained and tried under a newly-launched drug judiciary system launched in mid-2005.

More than 120 tons of drugs including heroin and hundreds of laboratories were destroyed last year. "Fortunately in 2005 our successes were significant ... 715 alleged drug smugglers have been detained and tried," he said.

Daud admitted that some officials were also involved in the lucrative trade but said they would be rooted out. "There will not be any exception (and) they will be pursued whether they're government officials or others," he said.

He said the focus of poppy eradication for 2006 will be on provinces such as southern Helmand, the top drug producing region in 2005, northeastern Badakhshan and western Farah. Eastern Nangharhar, which was the second largest drug producing province in 2004, saw a dramatic 90 percent drop in poppy cultivation last year.

'Afghan govt officials involved in drug trade'

New York, Jan 2 (PTI) Afghanistan is fighting a losing battle against drug traffickers with a large number of government officials involved in the trade, a newly elected Afghan MP has claimed.

"The chain of narco dollars goes from the district to the highest levels of the government," newly elected member of Afghan Parliament Amanullah Paiman was quoted as saying by Newsweek magazine.

Paiman, who is from far northern province of Badakhshan had studied the country's drug problem. Narcotics constitutes more than half of the economy amounting 2.7 billion dollars annually, according to the United Nations.

The accusation, the magazine says, is supported by the public complaints of Ali Jalali, a former Interior minister who quit the job this past summer. He has repeatedly said he has a list of more than 100 high-ranking Afghan officials he suspects of involvement in the drug trade.

A source close to him, fearful of being killed if identified, told the magazine that Jalali's unpublished list includes at least 13 former and present provincial governors and four past or present cabinet ministers. One of the minister's chief reasons for resigning was his frustration over President Hamid Karzai's failure to sack and prosecute crooked officials, Newsweek says.

But Karzai is in a difficult position. Many of the figures under suspicion were useful to the US in the overthrow of the Taliban. "His options are limited," senior presidential adviser Javed Ludin said adding "the same people who are being accused by some in the international community of being drug traffickers ... Are our most reliable partners in the war against terrorism.PTI

Al-Jazeera crew members arrested by US forces in Afghanistan

Kabul (AFP) - US forces have arrested three employees of the Al-Jazeera pan-Arab satellite TV channel for filming near a US base in the Afghan capital Kabul, said bureau chief Samar Allawi.

Correspondent Waliullah Shaheen, cameraman Nasir Hashimi and driver Mahmood Agha were filming the removal of concrete block barriers which had been installed outside all military bases and offices of foreigners for protection.

"After the declaration of the Afghan interior ministry that all the cement blocks will be removed, our team went to film the removal and they were detained by US forces," Allawi told AFP Sunday.

"We have not been given a clear answer so far about why they have been detained," he said.

A US military spokesman, Lieutenant Mike Cody, said security forces on contract to the coalition detained the trio, took control of their equipment and passed them on to Afghan police.

He said the three were held after they were seen "filming security features in the vicinity of Camp Eggers in Kabul." Afghan police were not immediately available for comment.

Rethinking Nation-Building - By Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart, Sunday, January 1, 2006; Washington Post op-ed

In 1945 the future of capitalism as the organizational form of the economy and democracy as the organizational form of the polity was far from certain in the advanced industrialized world. Today there is a remarkable consensus on both the preferred economic and political forms. With globalization of the media, the benefits of membership in the wealthy democratic club are beamed daily to the homes of billions of people who in turn aspire to the economic opportunities and political freedoms that the market economies and democratic societies have delivered to their citizens.

Yet the daily experience of so many people in poor countries is confrontation with the realities of failing or fragile states, criminalized and informal economies, and the denial of basic freedoms. It is not resentment of the West but exclusion from the right to make decisions in their own countries that feeds the resentment of the poor. At the same time, the networks of violence that have declared war on the security and order of ordinary people in the developed world are making use of the territory of failed states to expand their bases of destruction.

The path to security is not just investment in the institutions of security. The price tag for security in a fragile state can quickly run into billions of dollars a year. A sustained analysis by NATO of the best means of achieving security in Afghanistan showed that credible institutions and public finance would contribute more to security than would the deployment of troops. Nor is the answer money alone; in these countries, money cannot be translated to capital, because such things as the rule of law, transparency and predictability are lacking. The state is the most effective, economical way of organizing the security and well-being of a population, just as the company is the most effective approach in a competitive economy.

Thus the need for functioning states has become one of the critical issues of our times. Global political, economic and security institutions must have a new goal: to promote the emergence of states that can fulfill their necessary functions. This goal provides a unified answer to numerous initiatives, including debt crisis, implementation of the Millennium Development Goals, and security.

It also requires that we make clear what functions need to be performed by a state if it is to have internal legitimacy and external credibility. We have proposed a framework of the 10 most critical functions the modern state must perform, which was endorsed by a group of leaders of post-conflict transitions last year. The functions include maintenance of a monopoly on the legitimate means of violence, the nurturing of human capital, and creation and regulation of the market. We have also proposed that state-building or sovereignty strategies be devised to meet the goal of having the state perform each of the 10 functions -- strategies backed by compacts between the leadership of countries and the international community on the one side and citizens on the other to create capable states that deliver value to their citizens. And instead of thousands of reports, there should be a single global report on state effectiveness, compiled with the involvement of global and local civil societies and issued by a credible international organization.

For this to work, the global institutions must receive renewed attention. Despite some obvious shortcomings of the United Nations and international financial institutions, the fact remains that if they did not exist they would need to be invented. We must not succumb to calls for their abolition or further weakening.

Revitalization of these organizations will require sustained attention from the leaders of the Group of Eight industrial nations, which need to agree on a program of reform. It is critical to redefine their tasks and coordinate their activities. In turn, their leaderships need to become models of transparency in recruitment, evaluation and promotion of staff members. U.N. agencies need the resources to tackle state-building in fragile and conflict-ridden states. The decision at the U.N. summit in September to create a peace-building commission provides the United Nations with the opportunity to demonstrate its commitment and capacity for serious reform.

The international system needs reordering, with a new role for the United Nations, international financial institutions and security organizations. The wars of Europe between 1648 and 1945 were made history by collective security institutions. With that experience in mind, the nature of current threats and opportunities can now be confronted.

Ashraf Ghani is chancellor of Kabul University. He was adviser to the United Nations during the Bonn process and the establishment of the first post-Taliban administration in Afghanistan, and was Afghan minister of finance from 2002 to 2004. Clare Lockhart is a fellow of the Overseas Development Institute in Britain.

Desperate Afghan farmers returning to opium - December 31

JALALABAD, Afghanistan (AFP) - For three years Gulam Gul has been growing wheat, rice, radishes and cauliflower -- anything but the opium that his family once depended on. The work is hard and his income too low to support his 13 dependents, and he is planning a career change -- to merchant in a bazaar.

"When I was growing opium, for one season I was earning 200,000 rupees (3,345 dollars). Now I get 60,000 rupees for one season," Gul says in his field on the outskirts of Jalalabad, where the Pakistani rupee is commonly used.

He and other farmers ripped up their opium poppies because the government ordered a halt to Afghanistan's huge production of illicit opium, which makes up more than 85 percent of the world's total and is used to make heroin.

In eastern Nangahar, of which Jalalabad is the capital, the order was particularly successful with a more than 95 percent reduction in the poppy cultivation this year. The province was the second largest producer in 2004.

But many Nangahar farmers, especially those in remote, mountainous areas, have turned back to the lucrative crop this planting season which began a few weeks ago, says former agriculture minister Sayed Aziz Zaheer, who oversaw the drop in output.

"I know people have already planted in the far districts. Between 40 to 50 percent of them are in mountainous areas -- it's far away where people cannot see it," he says.

One reason is that farmers have not been successful in switching to other crops, in part because the government has failed to distribute promised fertilizer and seeds, Zaheer says.
"I say for the next year poppy cultivation will increase because the government hasn't fulfilled their promise," he says.

Another reason is that opium is so much more lucrative than other produce: income from opium poppies was around 5,400 dollars per hectare (2.47 acres) this year compared with about 550 dollars for wheat, according to UN figures.

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime also expects opium production to creep up in several provinces, including Nangahar, after slipping in 2005.

In August the office announced there had been a 21 percent drop in land area planted with poppies, although this only translated into a 2.4 percent drop in output to 4,100 tonnes because of favourable weather conditions for the crop.

The decline was nonetheless the first since the 2001 toppling of the Taliban government, under which Afghanistan's opium production was largely unchecked until the hardliners ordered a ban in 2000 in a bid to avoid international sanctions.

But the ouster of the Taliban also meant the collapse of law and order which saw a resurgence in the crop first grown on a large scale in Afghanistan in the early 1980s.

The new US-backed government now has support in its fight against the drugs trade -- which is equivalent to 52 percent of the official gross domestic product -- from its international partners, notably Britain and the United States who stress the link between drugs and terrorism.

To curb production, eradication programmes must be stepped up, says an American official involved in the counter-narcotics efforts, adding though it is likely to take at least 20 years for "overall elimination" of the crop.

There should be more "prosecution of traffickers, more law enforcement, and removals of some corrupted local officials involved in the trafficking," he says, under condition of anonymity.

The government is defensive of its efforts in its "war on drugs", regularly releasing details of the smashing of makeshift heroin labs and confiscation of batches of opium.

It has also enlisted mullahs in this devout country to preach against the scourge, but resisted suggestions that it legalise its opium and turn it towards the production of legal painkillers.

Authorities are reluctant to resort to chemical spraying, such as used in Colombia -- which is the world's leading producer of cocaine with 480 tonnes annually despite the huge US-sponsored spraying, but some of Afghanistan's partners say this is the answer.

"If the government doesn't take action and reduction cannot be sustained, the idea of aerial spray will certainly be revisited. Not in one or two years, but it's a cloud in the horizon," says a Western official.

For Gulam Gul, in his field outside the city of Jalalabad, the risk of jail or having his crop destroyed is not worth the money to be made from opium, which he grew for years under the Taliban.

"If the government destroys my crop, I am a poor person. What would I do?" he asks, taking a break from meticulously sweeping grains of rice into a pile.

London Conference, the last hope for Afghanistan
Mohammad Najeeb Azizi - Frontier post 31 Dec. 05

The Afghan government in 2004 — as a major policy for state building — put out a proposal of US$ 28 billion for the reconstruction and development of Afghanistan in seven years entitled “Securing Afghanistan’s Future”.

The proposal aimed at building the foundations for a democratic, secure and stable Afghanistan with a prospect of long-term financial sustainability. It was a detailed document with elaborations of pragmatic investment in social and human capital, physical infrastructure, economic management, security and natural resource development with goals to reduce the poverty, increase sense of human security, capital creation, promotion of private sector and ultimately economic growth and prosperity. The international community promised only $7 billion over five years and left the Afghan policy makers in the middle in terms of sustained decision making.

Since the Iraq war, Afghanistan is no more a first priority in the mirror of developmental assistance. Already, developed countries have forgotten their promises to the Afghan people they made before their invasion. It seems they have lost the sense of fear of Al-Qaeda attacks. Though, no clear words have been spoken, but the actions show that international players assume that it is now the headache of the Afghan government to take care of the remnants of Taliban and international terrorists.

It is vital that the international community understands that investment in securing Afghanistan is a far lower cost than the cost of investment in consequences of insecurity in the country. The unavailability of financial resources, sound planning, coordination between donors and the Afghan government are pre-requisite for a politically and economically sustained Afghanistan.

The recent decision of Washington to start pulling out military forces from Afghanistan is a big blow for the confidence of Afghans in the US friendship. Many doubt NATO’s sustainable and effective role in Afghanistan. How long will NATO keep their semi-neutral role and to what extent they will be ready to tolerate the losses against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda insurgencies?

If lack of US interest and its partners continue declining in the coming five years, then only time will decide how Afghanistan will be traded to its neighbors in this game and at what cost. The international experts have proposed that an annual growth of 9%, along with a major role played by the private sector as the engine of development, will move Afghanistan towards sustainable prosperity. The donor countries over emphasize that the failed development models elsewhere will cure all the problems of the country as a miracle, making the shattered economy and war-torn society as a successful example for others.

It is no more a controversial topic amongst academics that economic growth never means ultimately poverty reduction, higher standards of living and equitable distribution of wealth. The major international financial institutions with their decades of experience ignore the fact that their dictated policies in Afghanistan are moving nowhere in the arena of social welfare and human resources development. Current economic policies by no means reveal that any wise consideration has been given to identify the real force of progress and improvement in the country.

After the initial steps of developing guiding documents such as the National Development Framework and Securing Afghanistan’s Future under the leadership of former Finance Minister, Dr. Ashraf Ghani, it is time that government authorities come up with the comprehensive Afghanistan National Development Strategy (ANDS).

Many were concerned at the beginning of the process of the ANDS as the responsible team was looking at unique cases of Africa and Central Asia as a development model with no direct or indirect link with post conflict situation of Afghanis-tan. National and international experts have been working since June 2005 to overcome the shortcomings of previous inscriptive initiatives to produce a document for the London conference that will not only make the donors pleased but also care for the challenges of Afghan people.

The Tokyo and Berlin conferences were great and positive steps but their outcomes were by no means optimal and perfect. The fact that $13 billion in funds were pledged, with merely $3.5 billion disbursed, is no less alarming for Afghan masses than their disbelief in the seriousness of international partners. Playing with words and expressions have been common in all political games over history, however, it will not be an easy task in the major upcoming London conference.

Even after four years of invasion, Afghans are waiting for the fruits of regime change. It is not enough for the poor Afghans to be told that you can shave your beard with no fear now or you can go out without Burqa! Let’s hope the objective of spreading democracy in other regions brings quicker and proper fruits for the victims of wars. The London conference will be a test for all to regain the confidence of Afghan people and improve international credence.

A failed conference in London will crash hopes and decades may require winning the trust of people again, who have been living with no proper food, water and shelter. The Afghans will continue to merely hope that their international friends will pay the price of their previous mistakes and let Afghans live a peaceful life.

* The writer is a Ph.D Candidate and serves the Embassy of Afghanistan in Tokyo as Economic Specialist. The views in the article are that of writer and do not represent the government of Afghanistan.

Trade pact with Tashkent – Dawn
ISLAMABAD, Dec 31: Pakistan and Uzbekistan have agreed to enter into a trilateral transit trade agreement with Afghanistan to benefit from the Gwadar port facility and land routes.

A decision to this effect was reached at the second meeting of Pakistan-Uzbekistan Joint Ministerial Commission held in Tashkent on Dec 29-30, said an official announcement on Saturday.

A 10-member delegation led by Federal Minister for Water and Power Liaquat Ali Jatoi and comprising secretaries of economic affairs division and communication, additional secretary food and agriculture, adviser to the ministry of water and power and senior officials of commerce, interior and foreign affairs represented Pakistan.

Both sides agreed to enhance cooperation in bilateral trade, scientific and technological fields, telecommunication, food and agriculture, and signed a joint protocol in this regard.

The two sides signed a protocol to organize mutual visits of business delegations, hold single-country exhibitions, and promote cooperation in the fields of water and power, science and technology, food and agriculture, tourism, culture, information technology and telecommunication.

The two sides entered into an understanding, in principle, that Pakistan would purchase cotton from Uzbekistan on a regular basis.

With a view to creating favourable conditions for bilateral trade, both sides agreed to develop cooperation between banking and financial institutions of the two states.

Pakistan offered technical and financial expertise in the textile sector and a credit line of $5 million to Uzbekistan for import of textile machinery and other engineering goods from Pakistan.

The two countries agreed to establish a joint committee on science and technology and start short-term training courses in various fields for each other.

Kyrgyz minister hails U.S. airbase

(Interfax News Agency Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)BISHKEK. Dec 30 (Interfax) – The deployment of the U.S. airbase at Manas Airport in Kyrgyzstan meets the interests of Central Asia, Kyrgyz Defense Minister Lieut. Gen. Ismail Isakov told Interfax on Friday.
"The U.S. airbase continues to play an important role from the point of view of security in the Central Asian region," he said.

The U.S. base was deployed to accommodate military airplanes belonging to the international anti-terrorist coalition's member-nations as part of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.

The main tasks of the base include "countering terrorism and maintaining stability in Afghanistan. Hence, the period of the airbase's functioning depends of the timeframe of the operation," Isakov said.

The Russian airbase Kant in Kyrgyzstan serves different purposes, the minister said. The Russian base was set up under the Collective Security Treaty and a treaty signed between Kyrgyzstan and Russia, he said, adding that "it is a key and long-term element of the regional security system."

The Kant airbase will host joint combat training exercises, Isakov said. "For instance, pilots from our two countries will polish their flight skills there," the minister said.

Iran nabs 210 tons of drugs in 10 months

TEHRAN, Jan. 1 (Xinhuanet) -- Iranian anti-drug police have confiscated over 210 tons of illegal narcotics throughout the country from March to December 2005, the official IRNA news agency reported on Sunday.

Mehdi Abouei, head of Iran's Police Anti-Drug Headquarters, was quoted as saying that the figure showed a five percent increase compared to the same period in 2004.

The haul included 4.35 tons of heroin, 4.9 tons of morphine, 36.3 tons of hashish and 165.3 tons of opium, Abouei said.

Over 87,900 drug traffickers had been arrested and 194,000 addicts rounded up during the same period, said the official, adding that 30 police officers had also lost their lives during the operations.

Drug addiction and transportation has been a serious social problem in Iran, a country sitting in the crossroad linking drug producing Afghanistan and Pakistan and markets in the Persian Gulf states, Central Asia, western Europe and other regions.

According to the official statistics, there are at least 2 million drug addicts in Iran.

The country also accounts for 80 percent of the opium and 90 percent of the morphine intercepted worldwide, according to the International Narcotics Control Board.

Tehran spends 5 billion US dollars annually on anti-drugprograms, and over 3,100 police have lost their lives in conflict with drug smugglers during the past two decades. Enditem

Women in Afghanistan - Aunohita Majurridar 12/31/05 The Financial Express (Bangladesh)

The Women's Reservation Bill has been pending for nearly nine years in the Indian Parliament. Yet, Afghanistan - which has a track record of some of the lowest human development indices for women - has more than 25 per cent seats reserved for women for both Parliament and the provincial councils (the equivalent of India's state assemblies).

While it is true that the presidential style of governance, and the absence of a Parliament, have made it possible to push through a law that might otherwise not have secured consensus, Afghanistan can still be justly proud of this achievement. As it can be proud of the fact that equality between men and women is enshrined in its Constitution, adopted in 2004.

Afghanistan has adopted the single non-transferable vote (SNTV) system. This means that the woman candidate who polls the highest number of votes among the women candidates in her province will go to Parliament - even if she polls well below the men contesting from the constituency.

The road to Parliament, however, is not easy for women. The law notwithstanding, religious conservatives have no compunctions about openly opposing women's right to participate in the elections. Or in issuing dire threats and warnings to anyone who dares defy this edict. An unspoken question before Afghanistan's voters, therefore, is: Will these women remain symbolic ciphers in Parliament or will they be able to have their voices heard?

The statistical indicators that define the status of women in Afghanistan do not offer much hope: Every 30 minutes, a woman in Afghanistan dies of pregnancy-related complications. The maternal mortality ratio is 1600 per 100,000 live births. The literacy level of women is 14.1 per cent; well below the male literacy rate of 43.2 per cent. Half as many girls enrol in school as boys. Women still get sold into marriage to pay off a drug debt. Young girls get forced into marriage, often the second or third wives of men old enough to be their grandfathers. Women die as a result of domestic violence. In capital Kabul alone, 50,000 women are widows and heads of households.

Although the Taliban's treatment of women was the most visible sign of their oppression, they were only an extreme manifestation of the patriarchal, misogynist social structures that have existed in Afghanistan and continue to be practised fairly widely. It is a common myth that the advent and removal of Taliban was the beginning and end of women's oppression. Even the Panjshir area, where the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance operated, was and is one of the most conservative areas. While urban educated women in Kabul have had freedom at varying points of time, depending on who the ruler has been, women in most parts of Afghanistan have not experienced any such liberation.

Commenting on the inadequacies of the criminal justice system in a 2003 report, Amnesty International stated: "At the moment, [the system] is more likely to violate the rights of women than protect and uphold their rights." Even now there is sufficient anecdotal evidence to demonstrate this. In this context, what is the likelihood that women will be recognised as legitimate representatives of the people? Not high and certainly not without a fight. Recognising this reality, civil society groups, NGOs working with women and the Ministry of Women's Affairs are all making efforts to arm women candidates. Not with the guns, grenades and ammunition that their male counterparts have used all these years, but with the powerful weapons of information and networking.

In the first step of its kind, at least 50 women candidates from different provinces met in a hotel room in Kabul in August (2005). This Afghan Women's Network (AWN) initiative provided them with a platform to exchange views, share problems and get to know each other. Shinn Sahani, consultant with AWN, described the meeting as the first step in setting up an advocacy commission that would work to bring candidates together and link them to civil society groups as well as business houses that could fund them.

Afifa Azim, a coordinator of the AWN, says the initiative will provide research-based information on issues relating to women's rights, health and education to help women make informed decisions. This will enable them to vote jointly on women's issues and enable them to become effective parliamentarians. "The interaction with NGOs and civil society will enable awareness-raising About women's issues and build a bridge between NGOs and the Parliament."

Minister for Women's Affairs Masooda Jalal is optimistic about the women candidates. Though her ministry is cash-strapped, she says she has used their meagre resources to advocate for women's participation in the elections. The ministry persuaded the president's office and the Ministry of Interior to write letters to all the security commanders in the provinces asking them to ensure security for the women candidates.

Jalal has also made proposals to the donor community for training women to enhance their professional capacities. Reeling off statistics on the condition of women arising out of the "traditional. negative practices", Jalal says "poverty in Afghanistan has a female face". If they vote as one bloc in Parliament, she says, women can push through many issues.

One woman candidate firmly standing her ground is Sharifa Zurmati Wardak, 38, from the volatile Paktia province. Wardak, who has never left the country, saw the passage of the Soviets, the Mujahideen and the Taliban in all their brutality. Working with international aid agencies, she would walk the streets of Kabul, picking up dead bodies and attending to casualties. Women, she says, have never taken to arms, or looted or killed and are, therefore, better qualified to be in Parliament.

Asked whether she may be reduced to being a symbol in Parliament, Sharifa fires up. "Do you think I will be a symbol after all this hard work? If I thought that, I would never contest. I have given my word that I will work for the people. This is a question of my dignity. After all the pain and suffering I have seen, how can I remain just a symbol?"

Women like Wardak - who have shown tremendous courage, fighting against amazing odds to stand up and be heard. This is a long way for Afghan women to have come, even from as recently as the last elections (the presidential elections in October 2004), when some districts in Afghanistan could not register a single woman voter. NewsNetwork/WFS

Blair predicts tough times in 2006 – Daily Times

LONDON: Prime Minister Tony Blair said Saturday that new threats were coming Britain’s way and big decisions on its future had to be made - but people should be thankful to live in such a “great country”.

In his New Year message nearly six months after London was hit by apparent Islamist suicide bombers, Blair vowed he would not “let our resolve slip” in the fight against terrorism. Britain faces challenges that will affect the country’s prosperity and security for the next half-century, Blair warned. He also said there would be no let-up in British efforts to bring peace and democracy to Afghanistan.

Blair has pledged that 2006 will be one of his last years in office, but he faces potential revolts from his own centre-left Labour Party MPs on several key issues which he hopes will form his legacy - rather than his decision to lead Britain into the war in Iraq.

On the day he became Britain’s 10th-longest serving prime minister at eight years, 245 days in power, Blair said Britain would begin the New Year “in a strong position”. “Britain in 2006 will continue to be one of the most successful countries in the world with a strong economy and good public services. We live in a beautiful, prosperous country where most of us work hard and live decent, honest lives.

“In an age of rapid change, new challenges and threats will emerge constantly but we should always be grateful for what a great country Britain is.” He said domestic reform would be matched by the necessary international agenda “as we continue to fight terrorism and bring hope and democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq.

“We will not let our resolve slip to tackle the dangers we face, both at home, as so tragically illustrated on July 7, and abroad.” From controversial reforms on health and education to Britain’s lingering military presence in Iraq, Blair has his work cut out convincing not just the country at large, but his own party in particular. The once-unassailable Blair could face a humiliating defeat early in 2006 on proposed education reforms aimed at giving more power to schools. afp

South Korean troops treat patients, help reconstruct Afghanistan - Sunday January 01, 2006 by Kim Min-seok - Joongang

BAGRAM: This is a war-devastated land where the danger of terrorism lingers. A 20-year war began when the Soviet Union invaded in 1979, after which the tyranny of the Taliban regime drove the people into lethargy and despair.

To prevent Afghan resistance forces from hiding in the mountains, the Soviet military cut down most of the forests. Later, the people continued cutting the trees for firewood. Mountains were denuded and water resources dried up. The infrastructure has been destroyed; electricity is available only six hours a day. Under these poor conditions, South Korean troops have been providing medical treatment for Afghans here.

South Korea’s Dasan and Dongeui units, 208 soldiers in all, were dispatched to Afghanistan in 2002, after U.S. troops toppled the Taliban. The medical and engineering units have since been serving both allied forces and Afghan residents.

Although peacekeeping missions do not include combat roles, the South Korean forces in Afghanistan live on the edge of danger. The 50-kilometer (31-mile) road connecting the capital city of Kabul and their base in Bagram is a regular target for terrorist attacks.

"Even if your vehicle is attacked, do not get out of the car and do not open the door," First Lieutenant Andrew Kim of the 18th Engineering Brigade warned as our convoy prepared to depart for Bagram on the night of Dec. 23. Journalists were asked to sign a waiver in the public affairs office of the Combined Forces Command, Afghanistan, stating they were knowingly going into danger. Flak jackets and helmets were a must.

Leaving Kabul, five Humvees armed with M-60 machine guns pulled out after midnight and quickly reached 60 kilometers an hour. Radios and data links crackled with communications from military headquarters about the locations of friendly and possible enemy forces. Lieutenant Kim, keeping his eyes fixed intently on his monitors, said it was his 30th transportation mission.

"Ambush Valley," as Lieutenant Kim called it, is located about 30 kilometers north of Kabul and traversing it is the most dangerous part of the trip, he said. Allied forces were attacked here three days earlier by Taliban guerrillas armed with rocket launchers, and a bomb killed 15 people just a few days before that, he said.

This trip, however, was uneventful. Pulling into Bagram after 70 minutes, we journalists were welcomed by the Korean commander, Colonel Yuk Pan-su. After a night’s sleep, we awoke to see a crowd of Afghans near the front gate of the base. One, Izramai, 24, said he had been in an automobile accident and had traveled from Kabul for medical treatment.

He was examined by Captain Goh Yeom-gyu, an orthopedic specialist, who diagnosed him as having broken bones in his neck and shoulders. Apajuli, 9, is a regular visitor to the Korean clinic. He suffers from epilepsy, a common illness in Afghanistan, medics here said. The doctors said that a lack of proper sanitation in most villages has triggered the spread of tuberculosis and other lung diseases. Social problems add to the medical woes; children join the labor force when they are only six years old, before their bones are strong enough to handle the hard labor required. The average Afghan lives only to age 42, the doctors said in concerned voices.

Captain Goh said the Korean medical units put all their efforts into treating the Afghan patients, but lack of equipment causes problems. "We don’t have precision examination equipment and we are not equipped to carry out a wide range of surgical procedures," he said. "All we can do is provide some drugs, put on plaster casts and do some rehabilitation to ease their pain."

Despite such shortcomings, the Korean medical units are extremely popular. "Not only among residents of Bagram and Kabul," said Captain Park Eun-mi, a nurse. "Some [patients] travel three days from the southern city of Kandahar."

Four Army doctors treat 200 patients a day, Captain Park said. Since the troops deployed on Feb. 27, 2002, the South Korean medical units have treated 180,000 patients.

The Korean units’ engineers also get high praise from other allied forces. "Because South Korean troops carry out construction work smoothly inside the bases, the U.S. forces are able to concentrate on road work outside the bases," said Colonel Michael Flanagan of the 18th Engineer Brigade, of which the Korean engineers are part. "This is a good example of sharing roles between the United States and South Korea," he said.

The South Korean soldiers have also taught Afghan workers to read blueprints and use other construction technology. With that training, they cut the time to construct a high school building by a year.

Pacific Solutions: From Afghanistan to Aotearoa - January 2– TV New Zealand

Just days before the al-Qaeda attack on America's World Trade Center, 438 Afghan refugees were adrift in a dangerously overlo aded small boat off the coast of Australia, fleeing the persecution of the Taliban regime. They were rescued by the MV Tampa and became the centre of a media maelstrom as the world changed forever.

Refused entry to Australia, many found refuge on the tiny island nation of Nauru, but 140 of the group - mostly families and unaccompanied children - were accepted by New Zealand.

Pacific Solutions: From Afghanistan to Aotearoa tells the story of the refugees' experience, the new home they found in New Zealand, and follows the remarkable quest of their families to join them.

This intimate documentary examines the political context of their journey and the looming refugee crisis facing our world. Under family reunification programme the "Tampa Boys" were allowed to invite their immediate relatives to join them in New Zealand; to rebuild families shattered by war, persecution and asylum.

Director and cameraman James Frankham travelled to Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, following the families of the newest New Zealanders as they prepare to leave. Some are still living in exile, most will have to travel great distances and few have ever been in a plane. All will leave the friends and extended family members they have come to rely on.

It is a time of tension, but also hope; for the prospect of living in New Zealand ends many years of hardship and the long-awaited reunion with lost children. This documentary captures both the moment of reunion and the difficult process of cultural adaptation as they forge a new life in new land.

Frankham says he had to rely heavily on the use of small digital camera formats, record his own sound and direct his own shots: "This economy of production had unforseen pay-offs; I was able to capture intimate family moments and travel with the families in the first person, sequences that I'm sure would not have been possible with larger equipment or bigger crews."

"Making this film put me in touch with people who had experienced the kind of treatment that no human should have to tolerate, and I travelled with families at the fulcrum of their lives; from persecution, to a new life with new opportunities. But for many this transition was bitter-sweet. The promises of life in the modern-world were confusing, sometimes fell short of their expectations and were consistently riddled with difficulties."

"Pacific Solutions is their story, not mine. It is a tale of struggle against little-understood powers, and the rickety bridge constructed between disparate cultures by the most courageous people I am ever likely to meet."

EDITORIAL: Is India hankering for a zero-sum game again? Daily Times Jan. 1 06 (Pak)

B Raman, a former chief of India’s RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) who now works for South Asia Analysis Group, has put out an analysis that seems a major throwback to the pre-Islamabad Declaration period when relations between Pakistan and India were at their lowest ebb. Mr Raman says: “The struggle for an independent Balochistan is part of the unfinished agenda of Partition.” He does not stop there. After referring to the so-called Baloch resistance as their “second war of independence”, the uprising of the 1970s being the first, he wants India to draw the world’s attention to the “ruthless massacre of Baloch nationalists at the hands of the Pakistan Army”. He likens the situation to the East Pakistan crisis in 1971 and proposes an alliance between Baloch and Sindhi nationalists, the Shias of Gilgit and Baltistan and the people of Pakistan ‘Occupied’ Kashmir. “Their strength will be in their unity. Disunity will be fatal.”

Earlier this week, India’s Ministry of External Affairs took a swipe at Pakistan on the Balochistan issue saying that New Delhi was concerned over the military action in that province and hoped that the situation could be resolved through a political dialogue. Pakistan countered the Indian statement by saying: “We are intrigued by this provocative statement at this time when both countries are engaged in the peace process to address all issues including the Jammu and Kashmir dispute.” Other analyses coming out of India suggest that New Delhi has taken the decision not to sit back and let Pakistan take pot shots at India for human rights violations in Indian-held Kashmir.

It appears that the proposals of de-militarisation and self-government in Kashmir put out by Pakistan have persuaded India to adopt this course of action even as it “studies” the proposals and doesn’t dismiss them out of hand. If Pakistan can chide it (India) on the issues of human rights, use of state violence and the idea of self-government especially vis à vis Kashmir, why can’t India pay it back in the same coin vis à vis Balochistan, Gilgit and perhaps even Sindh? In this context, former bureaucrats like Mr Raman come in handy because it was Mr Raman’s job at RAW to present fantastic scenarios to his government.

Pakistan has not taken this lying down. On December 29, General Pervez Musharraf referred to a “neighbourly” country’s involvement in Balochistan. So the ball has been set in motion. Tit for tat.

There are two issues here. First, the question of the linkage between India’s concern over Balochistan and Pakistan’s position on Kashmir. Balochistan is not a disputed territory but Kashmir most certainly is. Kashmir’s disputed nature is reflected in legal instruments, from UN Resolutions to bilateral agreements between India and Pakistan. Even the Islamabad Declaration has Kashmir as one of the dialogue baskets. Pakistan has never pointed to unrest in any other part of India — and there are several insurgencies going on in India’s periphery even as we write this. This is because what India does internally is India’s own affair. Kashmir does not fall into that category.

The other aspect deals with India’s attitude. The logic of engagement, despite its glacial pace on outstanding issues, is leading things in a direction that may not suit India’s status quo outlook. Indeed, in frustration General Musharraf has sometimes said that India is interested in managing rather than resolving the conflict. To this end, it can be argued that India is still stuck in competitive bargaining instead of distributive bargaining, which can offer both sides a win-win situation. We do not know how, for instance, India’s petroleum minister, Mani Shankar Aiyar, might be inclined to react to Mr Raman’s analysis. We say this because Mr Aiyar has invested much time in keeping the agreement on the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline project on track. The pipeline has to pass through Balochistan. Its logic dictates that India should wish for the writ of the Pakistani state to prevail over all of Balochistan rather than that the pipeline project should be endangered by an armed insurgency in the region.

This new Indian tack might have made sense in a zero-sum mode. But it defies the non zero-sum logic, the direction in which the region is headed. It should definitely be resisted by saner elements in the Indian establishment. Similarly, New Delhi has no business making an insidious connection between Balochistan and Kashmir if it doesn’t want Pakistan to start screaming about the Maoist trouble in India, or the state of affairs in the northeast, or the rabid nature of Gujarat state, etc. If India wants to be a big power, it should get rid of the pathology of a small power. *

[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.]