In this bulletin:

• Bomber strikes Afghan restaurant – BBC
• NATO Soldier, 55 Insurgents Killed in Afghan Battle, AFP Says
• Afghan police: Suicide bomb kills two Canadian troops, civilian in Kandahar
• President Hamid Karzai Receives Phone Call from President Bush 
• Bush Presses Karzai On Afghan Drug Trade
• Afghan province targeted
• No talks with Afghan Govt in presence of occupation forces: Taliban Commander
• France may join Afghan front line
• France to seek review of NATO Afghan mission
• A French diplomat, who declined to be named, said on Monday that what was meant
• Afghanistan may destabilise Pakistan, India - Armitage
• Polish troops sent to Afghanistan may be used in combat - paper
• Trained Afghan troops 'are our exit strategy'
• U.S. to provide aircrafts to Afghan army
• Afghanistan rejects Iran's call to oust "occupiers"
• "Britain can never win militarily in Afghanistan"
• Alarm over Afghan school places
• Afghan Drug Boom Fuels Child Addiction Rates
• Farewell Party for Deputy Minister Zalmai Aziz - Nov 22, 2006
• The Croatian Defense Minister meets with Afghan FM
• Taliban release two Pakistani reporters held in Afghanistan
• Items from Afghanistan's museum in exile to head home
• FEATURE-Luxury goods highlight Afghan wealth gap
• Afghan raisins back to front
  Hindalco joins race for Afghan copper deposit

Bomber strikes Afghan restaurant – BBC

A suicide bomber has killed at least 15 people and hurt 25 - many of them children - in an attack on a restaurant in Afghanistan.

The attack took place in Orgun district near the border with Pakistan. The governor of the province said the intended victims were a district chief and an army officer, both of whom escaped with minor injuries.

Militants linked to the Taleban have carried out a wave of attacks in Afghanistan recently. Governor Mohammed Akram Akhpelwak said several provincial officials were hurt in the bombing.

He told the Reuters news agency the dead also included members of a militia working alongside US troops in the area. Sunday's attack is the deadliest since a suicide bombing in Kabul in September killed 16 people, two of them US soldiers.

Separately, Nato forces say they killed at least 50 Taleban fighters in two separate battles in the southern province of Uruzgan on Saturday. One Nato soldier was also killed, a spokesman for the alliance said.

Villagers in one of the affected areas told the BBC that 12 civilians had been killed in the air strikes but Nato said it could not confirm these claims. At least another five Taleban rebels have reportedly died in clashes with Nato troops in Kandahar province.

NATO Soldier, 55 Insurgents Killed in Afghan Battle, AFP Says

By Linus Chua - Nov. 26 (Bloomberg) -- A NATO soldier and about 55 insurgents were killed in southern Afghanistan in clashes between security forces and the rebels, Agence France-Presse reported, citing NATO's International Security Assistance Force.

The soldier and 50 insurgents were killed Nov. 25 in a battle in Uruzgan province after a base was attacked, AFP said, citing the security forces' statement. Another five insurgents died in air strikes by the security forces in Kandahar province, AFP said.

NATO leads a 31,000-strong force supporting the Afghan government's efforts to expand its control across the country and combating Taliban fighters mainly in southern and eastern provinces.

Afghanistan, a country of 31 million people, has created democratic institutions since the ousting of the Taliban in 2001, inaugurating its first parliament since 1969 in December after holding elections in September 2005.

Afghan police: Suicide bomb kills two Canadian troops, civilian in Kandahar

November 27, 2006 - 9:42 pm - KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) - A suicide bomber detonated himself Monday near a convoy of foreign troops in southern Afghanistan, killing two Canadian soldiers and an Afghan civilian, police said.

The attacker drove his car up to the convoy and then blew himself up, said Kandahar provincial police chief Ismatullah Alizai. Another civilian was wounded, and some 15 camels who were with a group of nomads were killed, he said.

Maj. Luke Knittig, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, confirmed that two ISAF soldiers were killed, but he didn't release their nationalities.

He said the soldiers were helping assist reconstruction projects in the Panjwaii and Zhari districts outside Kandahar. The areas have been the scene of heavy clashes the last several months.

President Hamid Karzai Receives Phone Call from President Bush  - Date of Release: 26 November 2006 

Arg, Kabul – H.E. Hamid Karzai, President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, spoke on the phone yesterday evening to H.E. George W Bush, President of the United States of America, before his departure for Riga, Latvia’s capital, to attend the NATO summit.

During this telephone conversation, President Bush assured President Hamid Karzai that the United States of America will reiterate its commitment at the NATO summit to the strengthening of security and reconstruction in Afghanistan.

The two Presidents discussed preparations for regional peace Jirgas of Afghanistan and Pakistan and the fight against narcotics and corruption.

President Bush renewed his country’s firm support for Afghanistan and assured President Hamid Karzai of the continued assistance of the international community and the United States of America in all areas and at the same time wanted Afghanistan to take effective measures in fighting narcotics.

Thanking President Bush for his phone call, President Hamid Karzai too emphasized the expansion of bilateral relations.

Released by the Office of the Spokesman to the President

Bush Presses Karzai On Afghan Drug Trade

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty - November 26, 2006 -- U.S. President George W. Bush has asked Afghan President Hamid Karzai to demand more action against Afghanistan's drug trade.

Karzai's office said today that Bush telephoned Karzai on November 25, ahead of the NATO summit in Latvia next week. At the summit, Bush is expected to press European NATO allies for more support for Afghanistan's battle against the resurgent Taliban.

Afghanistan's poppy crop yields about 90 percent of the world's opium, which is used to make heroin. Production jumped by nearly 50 percent this year.  (AFP)

Afghan province targeted

Alisa Tang, Associated Press  |  November 27, 2006 - KABUL, Afghanistan -- A Pakistani suicide bomber targeted a crowded restaurant yesterday, killing 15 people and wounding 24, including an Afghan special forces commander and a district chief, the provincial governor said.

The restaurant, in the southeastern province of Paktika, was destroyed, said Governor Mohammad Akram Akhpelwak. The attacker was believed to have been targeting the military commander and the district chief, he said.

The suicide strike was the 102d in Afghanistan this year. The attacks have killed 241 people, said Major Luke Knittig, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force.

Akhpelwak said the suicide bomber was from Pakistan, but he gave no further details. Afghan officials say most suicide bombers there come from Pakistan.

Violence has risen sharply in Afghanistan this year, and Taliban militants have launched a record number of suicide and roadside bombs. Militants launched about 20 suicide bomb attacks last year.

In other developments, three NATO soldiers have been killed in the past three days. This morning, a suicide bomber killed two soldiers in an attack on an alliance convoy in the southern city of Kandahar, a NATO spokesman said. The spokesman could not give the nationalities, but Canadians form the bulk of the International Security Assistance Force in Kandahar.

Another soldier died Saturday when insurgents attacked NATO-led forces near the Tirin Kot district of Uruzgan Province. NATO returned fire and called in aircraft, killing about 50 insurgents, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said yesterday. The nationality of the soldier was not released.

Also on Saturday, in the Panjwayi district of Kandahar Province, insurgents fired on Afghan army and NATO soldiers. A retaliatory airstrike killed about five insurgents, said the International Security Assistance Force statement. Three NATO soldiers were wounded.

In Zabul Province Saturday, 50 Taliban fighters attacked the Arghandab district chief's compound and clashed with police for about an hour, leaving one Taliban member dead, said a district chief, Fazal Bari.

President Bush called the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai on Saturday evening to assure him that the United States will reiterate its commitment to Afghanistan at the upcoming NATO meetings in Latvia, Karzai's office said. The meetings start tomorrow.

The two presidents also discussed proposals for a meeting involving leaders from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Karzai had proposed the idea at a White House dinner with Bush and the Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf.

Karzai has voiced hope that the meeting, called a jirga, might help solve the problem of militants crossing from Pakistan.

Yesterday, the US military said it was spending $34.5 million to build four regional hospitals and to refurbish the National Military Hospital.

No talks with Afghan Govt in presence of occupation forces: Taliban Commander

KANDAHAR: Mullah Ameen, an close ally of Taliban leader Mullah Umar and member of party’s Central Shura (council), has categorically stated that negotiations with the Afghan government is possible after the withdrawal of foreign forces.

Talking to a private TV, the Taliban commander said that they are operating in Afghanistan with the support of Afghan people and no foreign help is involved in their struggle against occupied forces.

Commenting on the role of meditation from Pakistan or any other Islamic country, the Taliban commander said that they would welcome any such move.

When asked about Mullah Umer, the Taliban commander said that he is in Afghanistan and leading the Taliban’s elements in a coordinated manner with the help of cassettes or letters.

Expressing his views regarding weapons quantity, Taliban commander said that there is no shortage of weapons as they can fight for the next 20 years against occupation forces with the help of weapons left by former USSR.

France may join Afghan front line

London – Sunday Times 11.26.06 - FRENCH and German troops who have been kept away from the fiercest fighting in Afghanistan could be used as emergency reinforcements for British, American and Canadian soldiers bearing the brunt of the war against the Taliban.

A Nato summit this week in Riga, the capital of Latvia, is expected to agree greater flexibility for commanders to call on coalition allies for frontline support.

British officers have described how military police and engineers have had to fend off Taliban attacks while well trained coalition troops remain far away in Kabul and the relatively peaceful north.

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Nato’s secretary-general, is urging all nations to lift the restrictions imposed on where their troops can be stationed. There has been a sharp disparity within Nato between European allies that have sought to minimise their casualties and concentrate on reconstruction, and Britain, Canada and the United States, which are committed to defeating the Taliban.

The Americans said: “We want all forces to be available to commanders on the ground. We can’t have forces who don’t go to certain places and do certain things.”

Germany, in particular, has come under criticism over Chancellor Angela Merkel’s insistence that German troops should remain in the north, although her government will now permit units to be sent for emergency short-term missions elsewhere in the country.

French troops are also likely to show more flexibility. An official pledged that if there were real danger they would help Nato allies in the south.

France to seek review of NATO Afghan mission

PARIS, Nov 27 (Reuters) - France will ask its NATO partners this week to set up a contact group to review and reorganise the alliance's mission in Afghanistan, a source close to French President Jacques Chirac said on Monday.

NATO took over responsibility for security in Afghanistan from the United States this year and the 32,000 troops in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) force are fighting the toughest ground war in the alliance's 57-year history.

Its mission is set to dominate discussions at a two-day summit of the 26-member alliance in Riga, Latvia, from Tuesday.

The presidential source said France would propose setting up a contact group that would comprise all the nations contributing forces to the ISAF mission, including non-NATO members like New Zealand, countries in the region and international organisations such as the World Bank and United Nations.

A French diplomat, who declined to be named, said on Monday that what was meant to be a NATO peacekeeping mission to Afghanistan risked becoming a mission that was trying to impose peace on the country.

The same source said any contact group would look to revise ISAF operations, but maintain its key objective -- to strengthen the Kabul government.

Afghanistan is going through its bloodiest period since U.S.-led coalition forces overthrew the Taliban's radical Islamic government in 2001.

The violence has seriously hampered development and reconstruction, raised fears the Taliban are gaining support in the countryside, and reinforced perceptions President Hamid Karzai has little control outside Kabul.

France has some 1,100 troops in the Kabul area which are under NATO control and up to 200 special forces tied to the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom. However, Paris is reviewing the deployment of the elite forces.

Rift Over Afghan Mission Looms for NATO

By THOM SHANKER – NY Times - WASHINGTON, Nov. 26 — NATO is bigger than ever, and it is reaching further than ever before, by taking the lead in the war in Afghanistan. But the Afghan mission threatens a rift within the Atlantic alliance between those nations willing and able to participate fully in combat operations in Afghanistan and those nations that are not.

The challenge represents a third generational test for the allies — one fraught with argument and angst like the others were. The first test was how best to face off against the Soviet threat, a challenge that gave birth to NATO in 1949. The second was whether to move beyond the boundaries of NATO’s members in the 1990s to halt ethnic bloodshed in the Balkans.

NATO’s 26 members and 11 non-alliance partners have committed 32,000 troops to Afghanistan, with 12,000 Americans assigned to the NATO portion of the mission. (Another 8,000 American troops are in Afghanistan carrying out counterterrorism missions solely under American command.)

Most nations have imposed restrictions on their member troops that NATO commanders say hamper their ability to move forces for missions and rescue other NATO forces that may get into trouble. The restrictions include whether troops are allowed to conduct missions at night, which parts of Afghanistan they may patrol and whether they are permitted to conduct offensive operations against the Taliban.

Pentagon and military officers say the list of nations with caveats, and the exact restrictions they have imposed, remains classified, to avoid helping Taliban fighters assess alliance weak points.

President Bush is expected to push for easing the restrictions when he meets with NATO leaders on Tuesday and Wednesday at an alliance summit meeting in Riga, Latvia.

Bush administration officials, diplomats from NATO nations and military officers said that how the alliance resolved the question of caveats would determine whether NATO’s leading role in Afghanistan represented a first step toward a broader future for the alliance — or a peak that, once attained, might never be scaled again.

Gen. James L. Jones, NATO’s supreme allied commander, told the Council on Foreign Relations in October that “there are about 50 restrictions that have an operational impact, that impact on the commander” in Afghanistan.

While NATO officials said progress had been made in easing restrictions since then, the senior American officer in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, said this week that problems remained, and that NATO nations needed to fulfill their commitments to send troops, as well.

General Eikenberry, chief of the Combined Forces Command-Afghanistan, said Tuesday that NATO nations had contributed only “85 percent of the level of what was promised.” Speaking at the Pentagon, he also said “there does remain the question of some countries that have particular caveats — that is, restrictions on their ability to commit to all missions of Afghanistan.”

Experts on alliance relations now in the private sector say the Afghanistan experience actually may raise the level of combat competence among those nations that entered the mission with caveats and reluctance to take on a heavy role in the fighting.

“I fall into the category of the half-full glass more than the half-empty,” said Gen. Joseph W. Ralston, who retired after serving as NATO’s supreme allied commander.

“We have seen a maturation in the past 11 years,” said General Ralston, now a distinguished senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a policy institute here. “And I think as the nations encounter the high-intensity conflict of Afghanistan, there will in fact be a positive outcome that comes from that.”

Daniel Fried, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, said that even nations with troops in Afghanistan under combat caveats contributed to reconstruction and overall security, and that the system, however difficult, was better than a wholly unilateral American mission.

“It is a success for the trans-Atlantic community that despite disagreements about Iraq, despite politics and partisanship, that NATO has undertaken a set of new missions with Afghanistan front and center that changed the nature of the organization,” Mr. Fried said.

He emphasized that the summit meeting’s work would be to respond to current security challenges and improve the alliance’s responses.

NATO is not scheduled to accept any new members at the Riga meeting. Even so, words of encouragement are expected for three nations — Croatia, Macedonia and Albania — in line for membership, perhaps as early as 2008.

And in an expansion of NATO’s relations with nations far from its traditional geographic sphere, members are expected to propose establishing an initiative for a global partnership to acknowledge the role that nations like Australia, Japan, South Korea, Sweden and Finland play in NATO missions.

These countries “do not seek NATO membership, but we seek a partnership with them so that we can train more intensively from a military point of view and grow closer to them because we are deployed with them,” said R. Nicholas Burns, the under secretary of state for political affairs.

“Australia, South Korea and Japan are in Afghanistan,” he said. “They have all been in Iraq, as you know. They have all been in the Balkans.” But Mr. Burns acknowledged that “for us, the No. 1 issue is Afghanistan.”

In a telephone interview, NATO’s secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, said, “The threats and challenges facing NATO as we speak are of a global nature: terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.” He added: “NATO today is transforming and adapting itself. We need 21st-century answers to 21st- century threats and challenges.”

Afghanistan may destabilise Pakistan, India - Armitage

SINGAPORE, Nov 27 (Reuters) - Failure to restore peace to Afghanistan may jeopardise stability in neighbouring Pakistan and have a knock-on effect on India, former U.S. deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage said on Monday.

Calling on the international community to pay more attention to Afghanistan, Armitage said persistent violence in that country might wreck Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's efforts to defeat the forces of religious extremism at home.

"I want to call your attention to Afghanistan. The stakes in Afghanistan are actually larger in the near term than they are in Iraq," said Armitage, speaking at a seminar for conflict mediators in Asia.

Continued clashes in Afghanistan could also have knock-on effects on India, which may already perceive itself to be surrounded by failed or failing states such as Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, he said.

Afghanistan is currently enduring its bloodiest period since U.S.-led coalition forces overthrew the Taliban's radical Islamic government in 2001, with insurgent attacks gathering momentum.

"The knock-on effects of a lack of success in Afghanistan will have enormous repercussions," Armitage said. The situation in Afghanistan was not "an Iran situation which is a future problem, but a problem now", he added.

Polish troops sent to Afghanistan may be used in combat - paper

Text of report by Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza website on 20 November

[Report by Pawel Wronski: "Afghanistan: Poles Will Go to Region of Bloody Fighting" - first paragraph published in boldface]

The Polish special forces being sent on the operation in Afghanistan may take part in bloody fighting in the south of the country.

Until now the Defence Ministry was maintaining that our soldiers were meant to participate in operations in eastern Afghanistan, which is a safer region. Yet as we have unofficially learned, commanders will be able to use the special forces in the contingent to Afghanistan throughout the country - including in the south, where bloody fighting is under way between NATO and the Taleban.

All the signs are that Polish units will join up with mobile US and British groups fighting the Taleban. NATO and the Americans are particularly anxious to reinforce the southern front. Germany recently refused consent for its soldiers to be sent to the south.

The Polish contingent of around 1080 individuals will include as many as 100 special forces troops, mainly from the GROM [Operation and Manoeuvring Reaction Group] unit. "NATO was particularly interested in this; forces of this sort are short in Afghanistan. The Germans do not have such units," we were told by one officer. "It is clear that such units will be governed by special rules. In the event of sudden operations, it is hard to consult anything on a diplomatic level," he went on to say.

It is already clear that the core of the force will be made up of soldiers from the 18th Air Assault Battalion, who will have some 60 armoured Hummers at their disposal. They will be supported by the 17th Mechanized Brigade (with some 30 armoured Rosomak transporters), plus logistics troops from Bydgoszcz.

The contingent will include Rys ambulances built upon the Skot body, but it will not include tanks - even though Land Forces commander General Wladyslaw Skrzypczak, himself a tankman, advocates the use of such weapons. The commanders of the NATO operation feel that tanks are not needed in Afghanistan and that it would be extraordinarily expensive to maintain them. We will, on the other hand, be sending ZSU antiaircraft guns mounted on an armoured chassis, which, firing forward, are meant to provide cover for our troops. Similar guns were employed by Polish soldiers in Iraq; fire from them was meant to halt cars with potential suicide bombers. All of this will be further augmented by several hundred trucks and other vehicles. Our units will be supported from the air by US helicopters.

At the General Staff on Friday, members of the Sejm National Defence Committee were familiarized with the plans for the Afghan operation. "In military terms, no fault can be found with the operations.," we were told Janusz Zemke (SLD) [Democratic Left Alliance]. "The units are select, well equipped, and are preparing for operations in the mountains. Doubts are raised as to whether the operation has good counterintelligence protection."

The commander of the whole continent will be General Tadeusz Buk, who has already handled the Iraqi mission. However, the Polish units will be subordinate to various operational commanders, such as the 82nd Airborne Division from the United States.

Poland has also received a post of deputy chief of the ISAF [International Security Assistance Forces] operation: this will be General Zdzislaw Goral, deputy commander of the NATO army corps in Turkey.

A reconnaissance team that returned to Poland on 9 November has presented a preliminary report on the conditions for action by Polish soldiers. The team likewise drew attention to the intensification of the situation in Afghanistan.

According to the Defence Ministry our soldiers will begin serving in February, although the first units will be deployed to Afghanistan as early as in December. The Americans have decided to finance the transport; the soldiers will go by plane, while the equipment will be sent on board a container ship that will deliver it to Pakistan, where it will travel by rail to the Afghan border.

Trained Afghan troops 'are our exit strategy'

November 27, 2006 - BY FISNIK ABRASHI

PANJWAYI, Afghanistan -- Bandoliers draped over their chests and rocket-propelled grenades slung on their backs, Afghan soldiers venture slowly out of their base of mud huts and green tents for a patrol with Canadian troops through this restive southern town.

Such operations are at the heart of efforts by the United States and NATO to bolster Afghanistan's forces and open the way for the departure of Western troops.

"They are our exit strategy," said Maj. Francoise Bisillon, who is part of the Canadian team that lives with and trains Afghan soldiers in Panjwayi.

'They know the ground'

Their patrol might not seem dangerous, but the area is a front line against Taliban militants. Clashes erupt in nearby fields almost every day.

Fighting over the summer in the province killed hundreds of militants, but dozens of civilians also died -- souring relations between locals and Western troops.

Few children wave as the patrol passes through the town, and local men sipping tea in front of shops offer only a steely gaze. Relying on local soldiers who know the terrain and can tell a farmer from a militant is vital.

"They are good fighters and they know the ground," Warrant Officer Daniel Parenteau, 38, said of the Afghan soldiers.

Over the weekend, one NATO soldier and an estimated 57 insurgents were killed in four separate attacks in southern Afghanistan, while a suicide bomb attack at a restaurant killed 15 people and wounded 24, officials said.

U.S. to provide aircrafts to Afghan army

The United States of America would provide aircrafts including chopper to Afghanistan National Army (ANA), Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Zahir Azimi said Monday.

"The U.S. would assist Afghanistan with some helicopters and transport planes during Afghanistan's current year," Azimi told newsmen at a press briefing here. Afghanistan's current year the 1385 ends next March 21.

The agreement to provide aircrafts was reached during the recent visit of Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak to the United States ended early in the weekend.

Pentagon which trains Afghanistan's new army has earlier provided a number of armored personnel carriers the Humvee and light assault rifles the M-16 to Afghanistan National Army to substitute the Russian-built Kalashnikov. Source: Xinhua

Afghanistan rejects Iran's call to oust "occupiers"

The News International (Pakistan) - November 27, 2006

KABUL: Afghanistan defended Monday the presence of the nearly 40,000 foreign troops on its soil, rejecting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statement that they were "occupiers" and should be made to leave.

The Iranian leader on Sunday called for the peoples of the Middle East and Afghanistan to join forces to drive out foreign troops.

"These forces are not occupiers," Afghan foreign ministry spokesman Sultan Ahmad Baheen told French news agency.

"The presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan is based on a United Nations Security Council resolution. They are here to prevent Afghanistan becoming a safe haven for terrorists," Baheen said.

"These forces will go back home when this is achieved," the spokesman said. "Iran understands this."

There are nearly 31,000 NATO-led International Security Assistance Force troops in Afghanistan and about 10,000 more foreign soldiers with a separate US-led anti-terror coalition.

"Britain can never win militarily in Afghanistan"

London, Nov 27 (ANI): NWFP Governor Ali Mohammad Jan Aurakzai has said that the British forces will never win in Afghanistan by military means, and that it should open negotiations with the Taliban. NATO was ignoring the realities on the ground, he said and added that the reason why Taliban numbers had swelled was because moderates were joining the militants. "Bring 50,000 more troops and fight for 10 to 15 years more and you won't resolve it. The British with their history in Afghanistan should have known that better than anyone else," the Dawn quoted Aurakzai as saying in an interview with Sunday Times reporter Christina Lamb. He added: "It is no longer an insurgency but a war of Pashtun resistance exactly on the model of the first Anglo-Afghan war. Then too (in 1839-42) initially there were celebrations.

The British built their cantonment and brought their wives and sweethearts from Delhi and didn't realise that in the meantime the Afghans were getting organised to rise up. This is exactly what Afghans are doing today and what they did against the Soviets." According to him, "the British should have known better. No country in the world has a better understanding of the Afghan psyche, and very little has changed there in the past couple of centuries. Instead of fighting, the only answer was to talk to the Taliban." Aurakzai, who over the past few months has negotiated a series of peace deals in Pakistan's tribal areas, further said: "This is the only way forward," he said, adding: "There will be no military solution, there has to be a political solution. How many more lives have to be lost before people realise it's time for dialogue?"

Alarm over Afghan school places – BBC

More than half of Afghanistan's children are not going to school because of a shortage of places and teachers, the aid agency Oxfam says.

Despite a five-fold increase in school enrolments since the Taleban were ousted in 2001, the education system simply cannot cope, the charity said.

About seven million children are out of school, with girls badly affected. The report urged rich countries to invest some $800m (£419m) to rebuild Afghan schools in the next five years.

The BBC's Mark Dummett in Kabul says that today there are so many pupils going to school in Afghanistan that a lot of them have to have lessons outdoors. Others make do in makeshift structures like tents while they await proper buildings.

Oxfam says there are not enough classrooms, books or desks. Teachers, especially women teachers, are in short supply. Our correspondent says that pay is so low at about $50 a month at best that well-qualified staff prefer other work if they can get it.

Under the Taleban, Afghanistan's girls could only attend classes in secret and there are still many fewer girls than boys going to school. "Girls are particularly losing out with just one in five girls in primary education and one in 20 going to secondary school," the Oxfam report said.

But Education Minister Hanif Atmar said the situation was not as bad as Oxfam had described. He told the BBC that his ministry did need much more money from international donors to meet the goal of educating every child for free but he said the government was working hard to increase the number of school places and improve the quality of teaching.

"The enrolment that we have in our schools today, at around six million children, we've never had in our history, so that's a great progress made.

"However, there are still challenges that need to be addressed. The critical issue is training of teachers, in particular female teachers, but for training we do need resources that we do not have adequately at the moment."

Oxfam's report was released on the eve of a summit of Nato leaders in Latvia. The alliance has a leading role in trying to bring security to Afghanistan.

The country has been promised billions of dollars by the international community for rebuilding, but Oxfam said too little was going on education.

"Rich countries are not providing nearly enough aid to Afghanistan despite their many promises. So far they give only $126m a year," it said.

Afghan Drug Boom Fuels Child Addiction Rates

Institute for War & Peace Reporting - By Sadeq Behnam and Sudabah Afzali in Herat (ARR No. 235, 24-Nov-06)

Idris, 16, sells cigarettes for a living. Walking along the road in Herat with a wooden box hanging from his neck, he confesses that he had moved onto stronger substances.

“I didn’t want to become addicted, but I started smoking since I was selling cigarettes,” he said. “Then I tried hashish with other kids. Now I can’t work unless I smoke hash two or three times a day.”

Idris is an orphan who lost his family in fighting when the Taleban were attacking the forces of local leader Ismail Khan back in the Nineties. Homeless, he sells cigarettes during the day and sleeps in city parks at night.

There are many young people like him in Afghanistan, where families have been torn apart over decades of war.

Nur Ahmad, 15, makes his living by shining shoes on the street. He, too, is alone: after his father was killed, his mother remarried but his stepfather threw him out of the house.

”I started on snuff, moved on to cigarettes and now hashish,” he told IWPR. “Now I smoke hashish with my friends every night.”

Observers say that drug addiction among children has risen precipitously in recent years. This is especially true in western areas like Herat, because of the influx of returning refugees from neighbouring Iran, where addiction rates are high.

Dr Abdul Shukur Shukur, of the Shahamat Centre, a non-government institution that helps combat drug abuse, told IWPR that he had seen a 20 per cent rise in juvenile addiction over last year. “We have children between the ages of six and 16 at our centre,” he said.

There are many reasons why children start using drugs, said Dr Shukur, including the lack of parental supervision, the large number of children orphaned by war, the return of refugees from Iran, and Afghanistan’s booming illicit narcotics industry, which means drugs are readily available.

Dr Shukur estimated that there are more than 2,000 drug-addicted children in the city of Herat alone.

A report issued by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime in late 2005 put the number of drug users in Afghanistan at 920,000, with 60,000 of them under 15.

This year and next, opium and its derivative heroin will be even more plentiful, as poppy cultivation is on the rise despite eradication efforts sponsored by the international community. UNODC estimates that 60 per cent more land was planted with opium in 2006, so that the harvest will hit 6,100 tonnes.

"Afghanistan is increasingly hooked on its own drug," UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said after presenting the latest estimates for cultivation and production in September.

Abdul Hai Mahmudi, who heads the Khoja Abdullah Ansari orphanage in Herat, says homeless children are vulnerable to addiction and to exploitation as “mules” carrying drugs for the traffickers.

“We have provided shelter for about 1,000 children, but that’s only 20 per cent of all the homeless children in the city. We just don’t have the capacity to take them all,” he told IWPR, saying some of the children in the orphanage were receiving treatment for their addiction.

Mahmudi said homeless children are targeted by smugglers because they make good couriers and arouse little suspicion with the police. Nur Khan Nekzad, press spokesman for police headquarters in Herat, confirmed this.

“We have caught ten children who were being used to smuggle drugs,” he said. “Through them, we have been able to arrest the traffickers standing behind them.”

Another cause of juvenile drug addiction is the widespread use of opiates to keep children quiet, said Juma Khan Karimzada, head of a charity that provides assistance to disabled children in Ghor, a province east of Herat

“The real reason for drug addiction in children is the high volume of poppy cultivation in the province,” he told IWPR. “Many parents use poppy paste to calm their children, and this then leads to addiction.”

Karimzada’s organisation is among several trying to combat the practice by getting the word out to parents, though the mosques and schools, but the problem persists.

Other people, including children, become addicted while harvesting the poppy crop through their long exposure to opium.

Mohammad Zarif, 17, who lives in the Braman district of Herat province, told IWPR that he became addicted while cutting poppy plants in nearby Farah province.

“I’m not happy that I’m an addict,” he said. “But I can’t stop - there is no treatment for me. There is no real employment, either, and I do anything I have to in order to get food and drugs.”

Sadeq Behnam and Sudabah Afzali are freelance reporters in Herat.

Farewell Party for Deputy Minister Zalmai Aziz - Nov 22, 2006

After a career spanning more than a decade in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, H.E. Zalmai Aziz has retired today.

Mr Aziz joined Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan in 1968 and has worked in a number of Ministry of Foreign Affairs departments and Afghan missions abroad including the Permanent Mission of Afghanistan to the United Nations. After 28 years living aboard, Mr. Aziz returned to Afghanistan at the request of the Afghan Government and rejoined Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2002. He initially served as the director of the U.N. Department and soon after as a Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs since 2003.

At the ‘farewell party’ which was held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Mr. Aziz, Dr Spanta said: “Today is indeed a sad day for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as one of our outstanding and experienced diplomats is leaving us for good, we appreciate all his invaluable hard work and contribution to this Ministry and we all wish him well”.

The Croatian Defense Minister meets with Afghan FM

Nov 25, 2006 - The Afghan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Spanta met with the Defense Minister of Croatia, Mr. Berislar Roncevic at his office on Thursday.

Both side discussed issues of mutual interest and concern. Dr. Spanta reiterated Afghanistan’s appreciation for the role the Croatian government has played in the stabilization and democratization process of Afghanistan, such as fight against terrorism, security and their PRTs in Badakhshan province. 

The Defense Minister of Croatia thanked the Afghan Foreign Minster for receiving him and expressed his country’s determination to increase its involvement in the stabilization of Afghanistan under ISAF. 

Dr. Spanta expressed pleasure at the elevation of the bi-lateral relations between the two countries and he welcomed Croatia’s decision to open its embassy in Kabul as a positive sign of the improving situation in Afghanistan, and of Afghanistan’s importance in world affairs.

Mr Roncevic invited the Afghan Foreign Minister on behalf of Croatian Foreign Minister to pay an official visit to Croatia and to deliver a speech at the Institute of Diplomacy there.

Taliban release two Pakistani reporters held in Afghanistan

Sun Nov 26, 6:40 AM ET - KABUL (AFP) - The insurgent Taliban movement in Afghanistan said it had released two Pakistani journalists after holding them for nearly five days because they had entered a district without its permission.

Pakistani evening newspaper The Star reported Saturday that one of its journalists, Syed Saleem Shahzad, had called his family to say he and a colleague named Qamar Yousafzai were detained by the Taliban on November 21.

"This morning the two journalists were released near the Pakistan and Afghan border," a purported Taliban spokesman, Mohammad Hanif, told AFP, without saying exactly where the men were apparently dropped off.

They were captured after entering the Baghran district of the southern province of Helmand without Taliban permission, he said. "Every time journalists try to come to the Taliban area they must first contact the Taliban," he said.

Hanif said Tuesday the Taliban had captured the men because "they were not carrying any travel documents". Baghran is remote, mountainous and sparsely populated. It is in the northern part of Helmand, where most of the British forces in Afghanistan are based.

The extremist Taliban movement, driven from power in late 2001, is waging an insurgency against the new government and says it controls certain remote districts, claims military forces dismiss.

Shahzad's wife Anita told AFP in Karachi Sunday: "They promised to release them today by 10:30 am but so far we have no information."

Shahzad, who has reported widely on the activities of the Taliban on both sides of the border, was in Afghanistan to cover the rebel movement, said The Star, a widely-read Pakistani newspaper.

The journalist also worked for the Hong Kong-based Asia Times Online. The Taliban have captured several foreigners and Afghans in their campaign to destabilise Afghanistan and undermine the new government and its international allies. They have accused many of spying for foreign forces or the government and executed some of them.

Italian photojournalist Gabriele Torsello was kidnapped on October 12 in Helmand province, which has this year seen intense fighting between insurgents and the military. He was released about three weeks later.

Taliban spokesman denied involvement in the kidnapping but the abductors had claimed to be with the militant movement.

Items from Afghanistan's museum in exile to head home

CBC News - Sunday, November 26, 2006 - The collection at the Afghanistan Museum in Exile, created in Switzerland in 1999, will be sent back to Kabul now that the situation in the city has been deemed stable.

The museum's officials decided to let the collection go after UNESCO, the United Nation's cultural agency, determined the Afghan capital is safe enough, according to The Art Newspaper, an international publication that covers the visual art world.

The museum is in the village of Bubendorf, 20 kilometres outside of Basel. Swiss scholar Paul Bucherer-Dietschi established the museum to house artifacts from the war-torn country.

Bucherer-Dietschi is the director of the Swiss Afghanistan Institute in Bubendorf, which safeguards historical papers about Afghanistan.

At the start of the museum's creation, Bucherer-Dietschi had been arranging to relocate the collection at the Kabul Museum through UNESCO. But it proved to be too difficult under the Taliban regime.

Although some pieces were taken out of the museum between 1999 and 2001, most of Afghanistan's cultural legacy was destroyed when the Taliban ransacked the museum in March 2001.

The Taliban were toppled by a coalition of U.S.-led forces and Afghanistan's Northern Alliance in late 2001.

The Swiss museum became a repository of Afghan artifacts donated by private collectors from around the world and has about 1,300 objects.

It includes 200 archaeological items, including finds from Ai Khanoum, such as a gargoyle of Alexander the Great's fighting dog and an important foundation stone from the site. All this material is to be handed over shortly to the Kabul Museum, which was reconstructed two years ago.

Pieces will be transferred to Kabul starting early in the new year.

FEATURE-Luxury goods highlight Afghan wealth gap

26 Nov 2006 12:48:05 GMT By Paul Holmes

KABUL, Nov 26 (Reuters) - If you are looking for a Hugo Boss suit and just happen to be in Kabul, Hamed Stores may be the place for you.

At $200 each, the suits that hang neatly from racks in the store are far cheaper than in the West. Owner Mohammad Rafi insists they are the real thing, imported from Turkey and Dubai.

The suits, the $14 shirts and the $8 ties also symbolise a growing wealth gap in Afghanistan, where 70 percent of the population lives below the poverty line on less than $2 a day.

"It's the way it is everywhere," Rafi, 32, said with a fatalistic shrug. "You have rich and poor but you have to keep on doing business."

Rafi pays $5,050 a month rent for his store in Kabul City Centre, the capital's swankiest mall and home to shops selling high-end clothes, jewellery, electronic goods and brand name shoes.

The mall opened 18 months ago, in better times for Afghanistan, and is a world away from the dusty streets outside.

Guards frisk visitors who pass through a metal detector but they also deter all but the better dressed Afghans from venturing into the mall's marble and glass interiors.

"It's too expensive here for 90 percent of the Afghans who come in," said Mohammad Yahya, a 32-year-old assistant in a store that sells Ecco shoes at $60 to $200 a pair.

"A lot of the people we call 'gawkers'," he said. "They ask how much the shoes cost and when we tell them, they leave."

Until a year ago, Yahya said he had been selling clothes to ordinary Afghans in one of Kabul's bustling bazaars. This, though, was better, he said.

Many of Afghanistan's wealthy few are citizens who returned from abroad after the U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban in 2001, eager to invest in rebuilding their nation.

Others are senior government officials and warlords. Some have grown rich on corruption or the illegal trade in opium, which some estimates say accounts for 60 percent of Afghanistan's Gross Domestic Product.

The disparity frustrates many Afghans, who see the ostentation and ask themselves what happened to the promise of a better life after the 2001 invasion and the billions of dollars of foreign aid pumped into reconstruction.

Five years on, basic services like running water, sanitation and electricity are still sorely wanting. Most homes in Kabul get electricity for just four hours every second night. Beggars remain a common sight.

The wealth gap dismays even some of the merchant class who cater to affluent Afghans.

Mohammad Reza Faiz returned to Kabul after 13 years in Iran three years ago with hopes that he could put his training as an agronomist to use in a job with the government.

"I was fed with the blood of the nation," Faiz, 39, said, referring to the education he got from Afghan public money. "I wanted to do something in return."

No job materialised so he opened a store in the Roshan Plaza mall with his younger brother Samayullah, selling outfits imported from India and China to women at prices ranging from $14 to $110.

"I regret coming back," Faiz said. "The whole situation in Afghanistan looks bogus to me and I am looking for something better. If I got the chance, I'd leave."

Business is no longer exactly booming either. This year, Afghanistan has seen its worst violence since 2001, pitting a resurgent Taliban against NATO and Afghan forces. Of the 3,700 people killed, some estimates say one quarter are civilians.

A spate of suicide bombings and other attacks in Kabul has subsided in recent weeks. But the big spenders have not returned.

"It's finished," said Abdullah, the 42-year-old co-owner of the Omer Farooq car salesroom who like many Afghans uses only one name.

"The situation has got worse with the bombings and kidnappings and the people who returned from abroad have left again. They have stopped investing."

Five days ago, Abdullah took delivery from Dubai of a new Lexus LX470 sports utility vehicle that now sits on his lot. He wants $90,000 for it, about $22,000 more than its list price in the United States.

"Before, we'd sell it in a week," he said. "Now it could take one month or two months or three. We just don't know."

Afghan raisins back to front
INDRA BHADRA - TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ MONDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2006

MUMBAI: Afghanistan is back in news, albeit for a more pleasant reason. The hilly country is slowly regaining its past glory as a large exporter of dry fruits and fresh fruits like pomegranates thanks to some help from India.

Once Afghanistan was one of the major producers of raisins and pomegranates in the world. But production of these delicious fruits lost out during the period of Taliban regime. But things have improved since 2002.

A good number of dry fruits like anjir, raisins, apricot and almond are imported from various countries to meet domestic needs. But fresh fruits like pomegranate, which is also cultivated here, has a good demand for imported ones. Traders mainly import pomegranates from Spain, Italy, Australia and Afghanistan. According to wholesale dry fruit dealers, Afghani quality is the best among others.

But pomegranate imports from Afghanistan came to a standstill during problematic days of Kabul. Looking its global appeal, an Ahmedabad-based NGO, Cluster Plus, has taken the initiative to import this commodity into various markets here since 2002. Now most of the Afghan dry fruits are coming here either Wagah border or via Karachi to Mumbai and JNPT ports. Talks are in progress between New Delhi and Kabul for air cargo as traders are facing some problems in the land route.

The central government has helped Afghanistan in regaining its lost glory as an exporter of dry fruits, Jagat Shah, CEO of the Cluster Plus told ET from Ahmedabad. Previously, there was no cold store facility in Afghanistan, but with the financial assistance of the Indian government, they have set up a cold storage in Kandahar with a capacity with 5,000 tonne. Further, ICAR has developed a new cultivation method for pomegranate. Earlier, it was cultivated only in three months (July-September), but now, it could be cultivated at least for six months, Mr Shah said.

Besides this, IFC has also joined hands with the Cluster Plus in restructuring Afghan dry fruit business in general and raisins and pomegranates in particular, according to Zafar Rushnaiwala, a senior official of Cluster Plus.

In India, annual production of pomegranates is around 500,000 tonne, of which 400,000 tonne is produced in Maharashtra alone, mainly in Baramati, Aurangabad, Latur, Kolhapur and Nasik. “But still there is a demand, so nearly 400 tonne are imported annually,” said Dinesh Rameshlal Dang, a wholesale dry fruit dealers in Vashi
APMC market.

Interestingly, prices have already shot up by nearly 25% to Rs 100/kg due to crop failures across the globe.
For this, Cluster Plus had already organised a road show in Delhi’s Azadpur mandi on November 21-23. Now, they plan a similar one in Mumbai on November 27 in association with the Mumbai Dry Fruits & Dates Association and Retail Traders’ Association. It will be followed up in other major cities soon

Hindalco joins race for Afghan copper deposit
PRINCE MATHEWS THOMAS - TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ MONDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2006

MUMBAI: HINDALCO Industries has bid for rights to develop Afghanistan’s Aynak copper deposits, which has proven reserves of 240 million tonnes. The project, which will require investments of $1billion over five years, is part of the government’s plan to revive the mining industry in the Afghanistan which took a hit during the Taliban regime.

Hindalco will have to compete with eight others, including Canadian Hunter Dickinson, China Metallurgical Group, US-based Phelps Dodge Corporation and Russian state-controlled foreign trade company Tyazhpromexport. Sources said that the companies were shortlisted by Afghanistan’s Ministry of Mines and Industries last week and the results will be announced in two months. “Extraction from the mines is expected to begin in two years,” they said. “It is premature to comment,” said a Hindalco spokesperson.

The move significance in the backdrop of Hindalco closing one of its smelters at its Dahej unit following raw material shortage. Hindalco had said that due to disruption of production in some mines globally, availability of concentrate in international markets has become scarce. Copper deposits in India are negligible.

Political and economic risks are high in Afghanistan and Indians working there have recently been targeted by the Taliban. Earlier this year, a telecom engineer from Hyderabad was kidnapped and killed by Taliban. last year, a driver with India’s Border Roads Organisation, which is helping Afghanistan rebuild its infrastructure, became a victim.

But Aynak is believed to be “safer” than most of the other 200 mining sites in the country. The deposit site, situated 30 km south of Kabul, was earlier an Al-Qaeda terrorist training camp. It was first explored by the erstwhile Soviet Union in the 1970s and is Afghanistan’s biggest mine. Afghanistan is believed to be rich in iron ore, natural gas, coal and petroleum.

If successful, Hindalco will need to invest at least $200 million initially to put the machinery in place, but experts say mining costs could be low as the copper ores are located near the surface and “thus easy to mine.” An industry analyst added: “Deposits of this size can produce up to 2,20,000 tonne of copper over 20 years.”

Hindalco’s Dahej facility has a capacity of 5,00,000 tonne a year and more than half of its copper concentrate requirement is met from its captive mines in Australia, which it acquired in 2003. The company’s latest initiative aims to make itself fully self-reliant in raw material needs. The Aditya Birla Group, say sources, is also looking at similar opportunities in Africa.

[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.]