In this bulletin:

• Two foreign soldiers, dozen rebels killed in Afghanistan
• US: Several militants killed in Afghanistan clash
• INTERVIEW-Afghan "spring offensive" a myth - U.S. commander
• Netherlands provides more funds for Afghan police, prisons
• Australia probes Afghan detainees mistreatment allegations
• Local Pakistan gov't holds dialogue with Taliban on ceasefire
• Afghan ambassador to Canada hopeful change in Pakistan will improve safety
• US trains Pakistani killing machine
• Afghan government to award gold mining rights to private company
• Job creation should top of Canada's Afghan strategy: Kandahar leaders
• Helmand Gripped by Opium Harvest
• India finds no takers to build new Afghan parliament: official
• War zone work commendable despite lack of guidance, inspector-general says
• Food becoming larger concern than security in Afghanistan
• Afghanistan: One of the World's Most Difficult Places to Become A Mother
• World's medical leaders help Afghans combat disease

Two foreign soldiers, dozen rebels killed in Afghanistan

(AFP) 9 May 2008 - Two foreign soldiers were killed in action in Afghanistan on Friday, military forces said, while more than a dozen Taliban-linked rebels were killed in a separate battle involving air strikes.

A soldier with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force was killed in the eastern province of Paktia, which borders Pakistan, the force said, giving no details of the incident.

A trooper with the separate US-led coalition was killed meanwhile in Kapisa, adjoining Kabul, when a bomb struck a military vehicle, the US military said.

The nationality of neither soldiers was released, with such announcements left to the more than 40 countries with nearly 70,000 soldiers in Afghanistan helping the government to fight an extremist insurgency led by the Taliban.

The latest deaths take to 53 the number of international soldiers to die in Afghanistan this year, most of them in combat.

The coalition said separately its troops had killed more than a dozen insurgents in the southernmost district of Garmser, said to be a key route for Taliban reinforcements and resupplies from bordering Pakistan.

The soldiers had come under attack Thursday while on a mission to "disrupt Taliban support" in Garmser, where US Marines and British forces are also operating.

"Coalition forces responded with small arms and air strikes, killing several of their attackers," it said.

They were operating separately from the Marines and British soldiers on a similar ISAF mission in Garmser for nearly two weeks in which they say they have captured some Taliban positions.

Taliban fighters meanwhile attacked security forces on Friday about 150 kilometres (90 miles) from Kabul, on the main road linking the capital with the key southern city of Kandahar, police said.

Two private security guards were killed, Ghazni province police chief Khan Mohammad Mujahed told AFP. A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahed, said one of his group's men also died.

Meanwhile, in the eastern city of Jalalabad, police and a government official said on condition of anonymity that gunmen had stormed the house of prominent parliamentarian Hazrat Ali late Thursday and killed his father.

They took away with them three women and four children, they said. US-backed Ali, one of the strongest power brokers in eastern Afghanistan, was involved the 2001 US-led assault that drove the Taliban from power.

He also played a role in the Tora Bora operation that failed to stop Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden from escaping. No one has claimed responsibility for the incident and the motivation was unclear.

The daily unrest in Afghanistan, most of it rooted in Islamic fundamentalist resistance to the new Western-backed government or in the booming opium trade, is hampering the destitute country's efforts to rebuild after decades of war.

US: Several militants killed in Afghanistan clash

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) 9 May 2008 - Coalition troops have killed several militants in southern Afghanistan, the U.S.-led coalition said Friday.

A statement Friday said the militants were involved in weapons smuggling in the Garmser district of Helmand province.

Insurgents on Thursday attacked the coalition troops, who responded with small arms fire and called in airstrikes. The troops recovered weapons and ammunition from the militants following the raid.

The U.S. Marines pushed into Garmser late last month aiming to open a route to move troops to the southern reaches of Helmand, a center of the Taliban-led insurgency.

INTERVIEW-Afghan "spring offensive" a myth - U.S. commander

KHOST, Afghanistan, May 9 (Reuters) - The commander of U.S. forces in southeast Afghanistan on Friday dismissed suggestions of any renewed Taliban offensive, saying fighting might pick up in some areas but a full-on offensive was a myth.

"There is no such thing as a spring offensive," Colonel Pete Johnson, the commander of a taskforce from the 101st Airborne Division that is responsible for security in six Afghan provinces along the border with Pakistan, told Reuters.

"I think this year this myth is finally going to be debunked. Last year was the same thing -- it never materialised. This year it has not materialised and it won't materialise."

"Will there be increases in fighting and insurgent activity. Absolutely. But it's a weather-based construct, a seasonal construct, not a deliberate execution of an offensive. Increased activity is not a coordinated offensive."

The Taliban and militants allied to the group have traditionally increased attacks in past springs, when high mountain terrain becomes more passable and routes over the frontier between Pakistan and Afghanistan are more accessible.

The change in weather also tends to make it easier for militants to plant bombs under or alongside roads since the ground is softer and melted winter ice leaves potholes that are natural places to conceal mines or explosives.

In recent days there has been a small but measurable increase in such attacks. Two U.S. soldiers and a U.S. civilian were killed in a roadside bomb blast outside Khost on Wednesday, and an Afghan police chief and his bodyguard were killed in a separate IED (improvised explosive device) attack the same day.

Johnson said such up-ticks were to be expected but didn't change the overall security picture in his area.

"Quite frankly there has not been a significant shift in the historical context," he said. "Yes, there's more fighting right now than there was last month, but that's just the way the context works in east Afghanistan. The better weather allows the anti-Afghan fighters some more movement."

Comparing the first three months of this year with the same period in 2007, he said "direct fire" attacks -- when militants launch ambushes or engage U.S. or Afghan troops directly -- were down 50 percent and IED attacks were "virtually the same."

Regional security experts have raised concerns that a tentative peace deal between Pakistan's new government, which is taking a frostier approach to relations with Washington, and Taliban-allied militants in the northwest of the country could fuel increased violence across the border in Afghanistan.

Johnson said any such deal could cause problems if it allowed militants more space to manoeuvre, but he said relations with Pakistan's security forces across the border remained good, with monthly meetings to coordinate strategy.

"The fact is, it is a challenging area that is for the most part dominated by a population that doesn't recognise the border," he said.

"Historically and traditionally, there is infiltration of the enemy across the border both ways. This has traditionally been a backyard for fighting."

He said his officers, all of whom have spent months immersing themselves in Pashtunwalli -- the tribal code that governs much of the interaction between Afghans -- were building relations with key tribes on his side of the border in the hope of bringing influence to bear across the frontier.

"Some tribes are essentially astride the border ... We're hopeful there is some influence that crosses over," he said.

The amount of cultural anthropology U.S. officers now employ, more than six years into their operations in Afghanistan, is notable. All are quick to refer to tribal codes when discussing what is required to bring about improvements in Afghanistan.

"The decisive part of our operation, and the enduring part of our operation, is non-lethal," Johnson said, emphasising the importance he puts on dealing face-to-face with Afghan leaders.

"If we want to achieve a lasting effect in Afghanistan, we're going to do it through non-lethal means, and the most powerful means is going to be through dialogue."

Netherlands provides more funds for Afghan police, prisons

BRUSSELS, May 9 (Xinhua) -- The Netherlands will invest extra money to renovate prisons and police stations in Afghanistan, Dutch media reported Friday.

    Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen told Afghan officials about the extra funding during a lightning visit to Afghanistan Thursday, said the reports.

    Meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul, Verhagen criticized the human rights situation in Afghanistan, especially the situation in Afghan prisons.

    The Netherlands will set aside 1.3 million euros (2 million U.S. dollars) to jointly renovate and expand a prison in Kabul with Britain and Canada, the reports said.

    Verhagen discussed the treatment of the prisoners handed over to the Afghan authorities with Karzai, who said Afghanistan will maintain the moratorium on the death penalty.

    The Netherlands will also invest 2.2 million euros (3.38 million dollars) in the construction of police stations and checkpoints in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan, where some1,700 Dutch troops are stationed.

    The money will go to the construction of 11 police stations and six checkpoints in Tarin Kowt, daces Rawod and Chora.

    The Netherlands has spent tens of millions of euros on the training and salaries of police personnel in Afghanistan.

    Verhagen told Karzai that it is important to improve the quality and maintain the quantity of the police force in Uruzgan.

Australia probes Afghan detainees mistreatment allegations

SYDNEY (AFP)9 May 2008 - The Australian military Friday said it was investigating allegations that its troops mistreated suspected insurgents in Afghanistan, shortly after a special forces soldier was killed there.

A senior Afghan National Army commander raised concerns about the treatment of four alleged Taliban fighters at a meeting of international forces and local commanders last weekend, the Australian Defence Force said in a statement.

Australian public radio reported that the claims centred on four alleged insurgents taken into custody after Australian soldier Jason Marks was killed during a battle in southern Uruzgan province on April 27.

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) would not confirm the details or outline the nature of the alleged mistreatment.

"We take all of these claims very seriously and have consistently shown our willingness to be part of investigations into these matters," Australian national commander for the Middle East, Major General Michael Hindmarsh said in a statement.

"Our troops are well-versed in their procedures regarding the safe and humane treatment of detainees and we take our legal obligations in this regard extremely seriously."

Australia has around 1,000 troops in Afghanistan, the largest deployment of any non-NATO country, mostly assisting a Dutch-led reconstruction operation in Uruzgan, a former Taliban stronghold.

Lance Corporal Marks, 27, was killed in a firefight with Taliban fighters that the ADF said was characterised by a heavy exchange of small arms fire and rocket propelled grenades.

Four other Australian troops received non life threatening injuries in the exchange. =Marks, a special forces soldier, was the fifth Australian to die in combat in Afghanistan since 2002 and the fourth in the past seven months.

Local Pakistan gov't holds dialogue with Taliban on ceasefire

ISLAMABAD, May 9 (Xinhua) -- The ruling party in northwestern Pakistan province on Friday held dialogue with local Taliban operating in Swat valley to settle issues on negotiating table and restore peace in the area.

    The Awami National Party (ANP) of North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and the local Taliban agreed on ceasefire as confidence building measure, ANP spokesman Zahid Khan told a private Geo TV channel.

    Khan termed first round of the talks "positive" and expressed the hope that the negotiations would achieve positive results and normalcy would return to Swat soon.

    Swat used to be a scenic spot for tourists from around the world.

    The delegation of provincial government held talks with a seven-member delegation of Maulana Fazlullah, who is now leading a militant organization which once claimed that they would not lay down arms until the government would enforce Shariah law, or Islamic law.

    Taliban gave assurance that no vehicle and checkpost of the security forces or official building would be attacked during the ceasefire, Khan said.

    The new Pakistani government, since its formation in March, has pledged to hold talks with the militants who will renounce violence and lay down their arms.

Afghan ambassador to Canada hopeful change in Pakistan will improve safety

CALGARY — (Canadian Press) 8 May 2008 - Afghanistan's ambassador to Canada is hopeful that a change in power in Pakistan will improve security along the border between the two Middle Eastern countries.

The region just inside the Pakistan border is home to between two and four million displaced Afghan refugees living in camps. It's estimated between 30,000 and 40,000 cross the border between the two countries each day.

The area is a prime recruiting and training area for the Taliban, which then send new recruits into Afghanistan to fight against the government and NATO troops, including those from Canada.

"We hope that the new elected government in Pakistan is going to work in a very transparent and meaningful way with us and with NATO in order to address some of the issues that exist across the tribal belt," Ambassador Omar Samad said Thursday in an interview with The Canadian Press.

The Taliban and its al-Qaida allies have roamed freely through the region for years - largely under the watch of the government of former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf. But his opponents swept general elections in February and formed a coalition. The new leaders have made restoring the country's fired judges and revising Pakistan's role in the U.S.-led war on terror top priorities.

Samad said it would benefit both Afghanistan and Pakistan to bolster security there as soon as possible.

"That decision has to involve both countries as well as our friends and allies," he said. "It has to address the core problem of where these people are finding refuge, where they're finding funds, arms, training and recruitment.

"Anything short of that is going to perpetuate the problem for both countries."

Although there are Taliban "safe houses," said Samad, it is not believed there are any actual training camps within Afghanistan's borders. The Taliban have managed to regroup to a minor extent in some southern provinces but are limited in numbers and have taken heavy casualties.

"There are some elements who appear to be gaining strength in certain parts of the country for various reasons that are very local in nature," Samad said. "There are others who have lost the ability to mount frontal assaults and are resorting to classical hit-and-run attacks as well as sending suicide bombers."

Cpl. Michael Starker, 36, of Calgary, a member of the 15 Field Ambulance Regiment, died in just such an attack Tuesday when his patrol was ambushed in the Pashmul region of Zhari district, about 25 kilometres west of Kandahar city.

He was the 83rd Canadian soldier to have died in the war-torn nation since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001.

US trains Pakistani killing machine

By Syed Saleem Shahzad
Asia Times Online / May 8, 2008

KARACHI - A longstanding disconnect between the Pakistan and United States militaries is largely responsible for the inability of the "war on terror" to nail key targets such as al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, as well as military failures against the Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan.

Former US ambassador to Honduras, Mexico and the Philippines and presently Deputy Secretary of State, John Negroponte, aims to change this by creating special Pakistani units, trained by the US, to go after key figures.

"These programs have already started and will continue at length. Already, many teams of US military officials have arrived in Pakistan and have started basic training courses," a senior Pakistani security official told Asia Times Online on the condition of anonymity.

"Under these programs, US Army officers will come to Pakistan and maintain a close liaison with middle-ranking army officers, including majors, colonels and brigadiers. Some officers will then be selected to go to the US, where they will be trained in special operations," the official said.

According to other security contacts who spoke to Asia Times Online, the conventional fight against insurgents - that is, large deployments of the Pakistani army in the tribal areas - will be set aside and the newly trained special operations teams will go after irreconcilable hardline militants. The newly elected government in Islamabad at the same time will negotiate with reconcilable elements.

Pakistan is also to be given a new US aid package in the context of this counter-terrorism approach. The US Congress is soon to decide whether to triple non-military aid to Pakistan to US$7 billion.

The training by the US of Pakistani special forces is based on Negroponte's initiatives in Nicaragua and the Philippines, where indigenous armies were cultivated to further the US's battles. In the case of the Philippines, it is against the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group and separatists on the island of Mindanao. In Nicaragua, special forces were trained as a bulwark against the revolutionary Sandinista government in the 1980s.

The reasons for the new tactic in Pakistan are twofold. Firstly, the Pakistani army does not have extensive training in counter-insurgency, especially on its western borders, that is, Afghanistan. And for years, its strategic orientation has been India-obsessed, in particular fueling the insurgency in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Secondly, the US considers it vital to bring its military closer to Pakistan's. At a senior level, many Pakistani officers have a personal rapport with senior US officials. The chief of army staff, General Ashfaq Pervez Kiani, has attended three extensive courses in the US, where he has cultivated high-level contacts. The idea is to achieve the same contacts for middle-ranking officials as a tool for sharing intelligence and conducting joint military operations.

Despite the US giving Pakistan about $10 billion in military aid over the past seven years, the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan is stronger than ever and the Taliban have found safe heavens in Pakistan. Some officials in Washington suspect most of the US money has been used to build up Pakistan's conventional forces for use in possible future conflicts with India, rather than spent on counter-insurgency.

Under the new plan, any reward money for taking out high-value targets will go directly into the pockets of middle- and junior-level officers, who will be at the heart of the special operations teams. Previously, reward money has invariably ended up in the hands of the exchequer, rather than in those of informers or the security officials involved. This has acted as a disincentive for cooperation in the "war on terror", especially for a military that traditionally has had a soft spot for the Taliban.

Sensing the new moves, Pakistani militants have unilaterally broken various ceasefire agreements with the authorities and carried out two deadly attacks against Pakistani security forces in the past few days.

Some Taliban leaders have made unprecedented calls for the urgent and strict enforcement of Islamic laws, for instance, Maulana Faqir Muhammad of Bajaur Agency has ordered all men in the tribal area to grow a beard. The aim is to spread the insurgency at the grassroots level and close the gap between irreconcilable and reconcilable Taliban, thereby making the task of the new special operations units all the more difficult.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief.

Afghan government to award gold mining rights to private company

Kabul (Monster and Critics) 9 May 2008 - The Afghan ministry of mines will hand over the rights to mine for gold in the northern province of Takhar to a private Afghan company, an official said Friday.

Local media quoted Ibrahim Adil, Afghan minister for mines, as saying, 'An Afghan private company won the bidding last year and it would invest around 40 million dollars for extraction of gold located in the northern Takhar province.'

According to the minister for mines, the project by the unnamed mining company will create job opportunities for more than 4,000 people in the region.

'Scale and level of gold is not specified so far but according to the contract, 50 per cent of the income from the gold extraction will be given to the Afghan government,' Ibrahim Adil told local media.

The Afghan government signed a contract for extraction of copper with a Chinese company called Metallurgical Group Corp (MGC) in November last year.

MGC will invest 2.8 billion dollars to extract copper from the Ainak mine.

The Ainak copper mine, located 30 kilometres south-east of Kabul in Logar province, has over 12 million tons of copper, making it one of the biggest copper mines in the world.

According to the Afghan ministry of mines, the Ainak copper mine has been leased for 30 years to the Chinese company, which will pay 400 million dollars annually in tax to the Afghan government.

Job creation should top of Canada's Afghan strategy: Kandahar leaders

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Canadian Press) 9 May 2008 - The adage that 'idle are the devil's workshop' may date to the 12th century, but it has a particularly poignant ring today in southern Afghanistan as the annual poppy harvest winds down and NATO forces brace for a possible spike in violence.

Village leaders and power brokers throughout Kandahar province are pleading with the Canadian military and development officials to focus more money and attention on massive make-work projects.

Such jobs, usually back-breaking construction work, would serve to keep chronically under-employed, or jobless Afghan males of fighting age - between 18 and 25 - from falling into the clutches of Taliban recruiters.

"I would like to see the Canadians to mostly focus on the projects (where) they can create jobs," said Ahmed Wali Karzai, head of the provincial council in Kandahar and half brother to Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Canada's Conservative government, through a special cabinet committee chaired by Trade Minister David Emerson, is in the process of setting benchmarks - objectives to be achieved in Kandahar before the military mission ends in 2011.

Karzai said building infrastructure, that either didn't exist or has been pulverized by three decades of war, should be near the top of the list.

"Job creation is the key thing that the Canadian policy should be from now," he said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

A key leader in the volatile Panjwaii district, where Canadian troops have had to time and again retake villages from the insurgents, also agreed with that assessment.

Haji Agha Lalai said a promise of steady cash isn't the only reason young men join the Taliban, but is a very important factor.

"If they have more jobs here, if they are provided jobs they will not join Taliban," said Lalai, the shura or council leader in a farming community west of Kandahar City.

Tens of thousands of Afghans have been toiling in bone dry, 40C heat for the last few weeks to bring in the poppy harvest, expected to be the largest in southern Afghanistan in living memory. The picking, all done by hand, is expected to go on for another two or three weeks.

What comes after that is what worries NATO commanders in Kandahar and Helmand provinces, the two biggest poppy producing regions in the country.

Once unemployed, those thousands of mostly illiterate field hands become a deep recruiting pool for the Taliban. Often they are bought off with money made in large part from the spoils of refining poppies into opium and heroin for the illicit drug trade.

"The people here have a lot of capacity to work in different building projects. When the people (are) busy, their minds are not diverted towards negative activities," said Lalai.

The Canadian army has recognized the urgent need to get people working as the poppy harvest draws to a close.

There is one large road-building project underway west of Kandahar city, employing about 450 people and another paving project is planned for the near future. Local Afghans are also hired for the construction work when police checkpoints and stations are constructed, but only a few dozen at time.

Lt.-Col. Jacques O'Keefe, who's in charge of engineering projects, says he's tried to maximize the amount of local labour on the army's projects, but the roads and causeways currently being built serve a military purpose first and foremost.

Turning the same kind of effort into civilian infrastructure is possible and it has been suggested for a while, he says.

"There is a lot of money being injected into Afghanistan," O'Keefe said in an interview. "People ask nothing more than to earn an honest living, feed their family and go to work and have some hope. There is value in that suggestion."

The bulk of Canada's estimated $1.2 billion aid package goes into programs that are shared with the international community. The recent Manley commission report on the future of the Afghan mission recommended that Canada embark on a signature project to raise the country's profile.

Karzai said if the Harper government wants to raise Canada's profile in Kandahar the solution is simple: Build more roads, bridges and power stations and force civilian construction companies, especially foreign-owned ones, to hire local labour. Lots of local labour.

"Instead of using more machinery, let's use human power to create jobs in the community," he said, motioning out the window to a construction project up the street from his office.

"When you create jobs, people will be able to buy wheat - or fruit and stuff. You create a market for them. When Canadians approve projects, it should be very, very limited (in the use of) machinery."

By allowing people to earn $5-$6 a day, he said, you bring them "closer to the government."

In Iraq, the U.S. army is coming to the same conclusion as Karzai and Lalai, where in the city of Narhwan it has restarted an idle brick-making factory. The facility in the mostly Shiite-dominated community was reopened last year under the supervision of elements of the 3rd Infantry Division and now employs 15,000 local labourers, who would have otherwise been working for the insurgency.

Trying to come up with gainful employment for idle Afghans has been going on since the Canadians returned to Kandahar in February 2006. Cash-for-work programs, sponsored by the Canadian International Development Agency, have seen irrigation canals cleared and ditches dug.

But Karzai argued that the projects devised by Community Development Councils can provide only sporadic and short-term employment.

Helmand Gripped by Opium Harvest

Schoolchildren down pencils and migrant workers arrive to help gather opium paste from the poppy fields.

Institute for War & Peace Reporting
By Matiullah Minapal and Aziz Ahmad Tassal in Helmand (ARR No. 288, 09-Apr-08)

The distinctive red, white, and pink poppy flowers have all but gone from the fields in Helmand province, leaving in their place the bare pods containing valuable opium paste.

With harvest season, or “nish”, in full swing, the schools are empty, the fields are buzzing, and even the police are getting in on the action.

Gul Wali has come to Helmand from his native Nangarhar province in the east. Unlike Helmand, the undisputed centre of the opium industry, Nangarhar has made some progress in combating the illegal trade. That has prompted harvesters like Gul Wali to come in search of work.

“I am here for nish,” he told a reporter in Grishk, a district approximately 40 kilometres from the provincial capital Lashkar Gah. “But when the police stopped me, I told them I’d come to work as a stonemason. I thought Helmandis cultivated poppy secretly, like we used to do in Nangarhar.

“The policeman said, ‘Forget masonry. Come with me and help harvest my poppy – you’ll make a lot more money.’ That’s when I realised that everyone in Helmand, from simple illiterate farmers up to government officials, is involved in the poppy business.”

In 2007, Helmand accounted for an estimated 53 per cent of Afghanistan’s 8,200 metric tonnes of opium, making it the world centre of production. Almost half of the world’s heroin originates in this one dry and dusty southern province.

The Taleban hold sway over large swathes of territory, and reap political as well as economic benefits from allowing farmers to grow the crop without hindrance.

This year, experts expect the harvest yield to remain roughly at last year’s level instead of recording another annual jump. But in large part this stabilisation has come because there is little more arable land left in Helmand to cultivate.

With over 100,000 hectares needing to be harvested, seasonal labour is in short supply. “Nishgar” or harvesters like Gul Wali can command hefty wages, and even schoolchildren are being pressed into service.

“Our lessons have been cancelled,” said Zia ul-Haq, 14, who was working in a poppy field in the Nawa district.

His school in Lashkar Gah was almost empty, he said, explaining, “All my teachers and classmates have gone to nish. I want to buy a bicycle out of the money I make here, because I walk hours to get to school.”

Mohammadullah, a ninth-grade student in Lashkar Gah, is also playing truant.

“There were 60 pupils in my class, but now there are only five left,” he told IWPR. “I need money for my school costs, and you can earn a lot at this time of year.”

Hamidullah, 19, is in ninth grade at the Kart-e-Lagan school, in Lashkar Gah, but he has come back to Nawa for the harvest.

“I have to rent a room in Lashkar Gah to go to school,” he said. “I can’t ask my father or brothers for that money. I need to work to make money.”

His classmate Yar Mohammad has chosen to stay in school through the harvest, but he says it is lonely.

“There were 45 in our class before the harvest season, but now there are fewer than 20,” he said. “The rest have gone to work as harvesters. I think they’ll have a lot of problems when they come back, because they’ll have missed a lot of lessons.”

Another pupil at the Kart-e-Lagan school, who did not want to be named, said the spiralling cost of food had made poppy harvesting a necessity for many.

“Our teachers have also gone to work as harvesters, because they need the money,” he said. “A sack of flour now costs 5,000 Pakistani rupees [about 80 US dollars]. They can’t afford to buy even flour with the salary the government pays them. I wanted to go and work as a harvester, as well, but I didn’t go because I love my lessons.”

Mohammad Wali, head teacher at the Kart-e-Lagan school, insisted his staff and students were still in class. But he confirmed that teachers were hard pressed to earn enough money to live on.

"Our school is the only one whose students and teachers have not gone to the poppy harvest,” he told IWPR. “But our teachers have resolved to give up teaching unless the government issues them with land for housing. We cannot live on a salary of 3,000 afghani [60 dollars] a month. One sack of flour costs more than that.”

The recently-appointed provincial governor, Mohammad Gulab Mangal, rejected allegations that absenteeism was rife in the schools.

“It is not true that all the schools have gone off for the harvest,” he told IWPR. “It’s only those pupils whose families grow poppy. But Helmand does have a very bad education situation.”

The harvest is back-breaking work, in daytime temperatures that soar high into the thirties.

“I work ten hours every day in the hot sun,” said Hamidullah. “When I get up in the morning, I have a severe pain in my feet.”

The job involves making cuts on the poppy pod, causing it to ooze a whitish paste. When the paste has turned brown, usually the next morning, it is ready to be scraped off. That done, the pod is then scored again over a number of days, in a constant cycle of cut, wait, and scrape.

The nishgar use a distinctive tool to make the cuts, and a special sharp-sided spoon to collect off the paste. These utensils are sold openly in markets in Lashkar Gah.

One local farmer complained that he was stopped by police on his way back to his home in the countryside after buying the tools of the trade.

“I bought some tools for 40 afghani at the bazaar in Lashkar Gah,” said Khan Mohammad, from Marja district. “The police confiscated them at a checkpoint, saying they were illegal. It isn’t illegal in the city, where they sell these implements to everybody. But all of a sudden they are banned at the checkpoint. What’s that all about?”

Poppy eradication teams, led by Afghan and foreign troops, have made an effort to destroy a significant percentage of the fields.

Compared with 2007’s dismal showing, they have had some successes this year. Final figures have yet to be released, both for the eradication campaign and the harvest itself, but several thousand hectares are believed to have been destroyed.

The campaign has come at a high cost, both in economic terms and in the anger caused by the destruction of farmers’ future income.

“I had 24 jeribs of land [48,000 square metres] planted with poppy, but these thugs came and destroyed it all,” said Sher Ali, a resident of Nawa district. “Now I am bankrupt, and I owe 700,000 afghani [14,000 dollars]. If the government wants to eradicate poppy, fine. But they should then think about giving me a job. What am I supposed to live on? The price of food is sky-high, there are no jobs, nothing.”

Governor Mangal insists that the poppy has to go.

“Helmand will never have a good name and reputation as long as there is poppy cultivation in this province,” he said. “All the misfortune and problems that beset the province have been caused by poppy.”

But many of his constituents feel differently. “I am very happy these days,” said Bismillah, 45, a resident of Nawa district. “I have six sons, who are usually just hanging around. But these days they are very busy. Lots of people come to me and ask me to send my sons for nish.

“Each of them can make about 10,000 rupees, and all told they will bring in 60,000 [900 dollars], which is enough for us to live on for awhile. God protect this poppy!”

Matiullah Minapal and Aziz Ahmad Tassal are IWPR-trained journalists in Helmand.

India finds no takers to build new Afghan parliament: official

NEW DELHI (AFP) 9 May 2008 - Security fears have stopped even a single company from bidding to build a new parliament for Afghanistan after the Indian government floated tenders, an official said Friday.

New Delhi's Central Public Works Department had invited tenders last year for the multi-million-dollar project in Kabul, but did not receive any response by the February deadline which has now been extended.

"The agencies (companies) have not responded so far. But the tender process is still on and we have extended the deadline till June," an engineering official involved in the project said on condition of anonymity.

The official told AFP about 10 construction firms had shown interest, but then raised security issues after several Indian engineers were killed in Afghanistan.

An Indian worker was reported missing from the country last month, while two engineers were killed in the southwestern province of Nimroz on April 12 in a double suicide attack claimed by Taliban militants. Another Indian engineer was killed in a suicide attack in January.

"There were some apprehensions about security and insurance issues. We have called them and tried to assure them," the Indian official said.

The Press Trust of India said the parliament project had a budget of about 54 million dollars.

New Delhi has taken a major role in reconstruction and infrastructure development in Afghanistan and is a staunch supporter of President Hamid Karzai's administration.

It has given 750 million dollars' worth of assistance to Afghanistan since 2001.

War zone work commendable despite lack of guidance, inspector-general says

(Globe and Mail) 9 May 2008 - Canada's spies working in Afghanistan are doing so without a rulebook, the watchdog that reviews CSIS's operations says.

Eva Plunkett, Inspector-General of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, says the agents are doing "commendable work" but that laws governing the spy service need to be updated now that agents are being dispatched to war zones.

A "suitable policy framework" is needed to tell the spies what they should and should not do, she says in her "Top Secret" annual report to Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, which was posted, partly censored, on a federal website this week.

The findings allude to - but don't actually explain - the nature of CSIS's clandestine support for Canadian soldiers battling the Taliban.

"As you are aware, the Service has been in Afghanistan [CENSORED]," the public report says. "As such, the Service's role in Afghanistan is relatively new, but I am impressed with [CENSORED] on which I am informed."

But then, the Inspector-General notes their lack of guidelines: "The Service should now be well-positioned to develop a suitable policy framework to guide future [CENSORED] activities in this theatre. I do believe that those who serve in this environment deserve to be equipped with the policy framework to guide their work."

Within Canada, the spy agency's powers to identify targets, recruit agents, plant bugs and break into buildings are subject to strict guidelines and many levels of scrutiny. Whether these same activities - or even more invasive ones - can be legally done overseas remains a murky matter of interpretation.

Earlier this year, it was revealed that CSIS asked a Federal Court judge to sign off on spying warrants that would have allowed counterterrorism agents to follow Canadian citizen suspects to unidentified countries, and then intercept their communications. The judge said he had no authority to endorse any such warrants.

When CSIS was formed in 1984, it was envisioned as an agency that would operate within Canada under strict checks and balances.

In the past quarter century, spy agency officials have always upheld that CSIS's strength lies in the fact that its work is reviewed by multiple agencies. Today, however, the watchdog agencies are wondering how to keep in check its increasing foreign activities, which were never explicitly contemplated in the law.

In the new report from Ms. Plunkett, she points out that CSIS's legal relationship with both the Foreign Affairs and National Defence Departments are completely out of date, suggesting it's not clear where the role of being a soldier or diplomat stops and being a spy begins. This, she says, represents "a lacuna in the operational policy framework."

Parliament generally needs to clarify what Canada's spies can do in 2008, the Inspector-General says.

"Employees are keenly waiting for the related legislative provisions they view will be an invaluable tool to aid their intelligence-gathering capabilities," she says.

Reviewing CSIS's Canadian operations, Ms. Plunkett suggests she is disturbed by increasing sloppiness finding its way into the paperwork.

Clerical errors may not in themselves seem like a big deal, she says, but given that CSIS shares its files, including terrorism files, with nearly 150 countries, the consequences of any mistake can be huge.

"A transcription error could have potentially profound impacts," she says in the report. "The potential consequences, if action is taken by the Service, their interlocutors or the government based on these inaccuracies, could be grave."

Food becoming larger concern than security in Afghanistan

KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan (Canwest News) 9 May 2008 -- Export restrictions and higher taxes in neighbouring countries are worsening an already dire food crisis in Afghanistan.

Rick Corsino, the World Food Program's director in Afghanistan, said international response to a recent appeal for aid was impressive, but in a global food emergency, donations don't go as far as they usually do.

The branch of the program strives to buy food at reasonable prices in the region, but other nations in south-central Asia have their own food issues to deal with. Pakistan is expected to see its own wheat production drop this year.

"In a way, it's understandable. They are reluctant to export when they already expect to have their own shortfall," Mr. Corsino said from Kabul. "This means it's taking more time to get the food here, which is a worry."

On May 1, Canada announced it would donate an extra $50-million in food aid in response to a global plea from the United Nations for $755-million to assist in what has been called the worst food crisis in decades. An estimated 100 million are going hungry in the midst of it.

Of that $50-million, a fifth was earmarked for Haiti, but none specifically for Afghanistan. Still, the program applauds Canada as one of its top donors. However, the money won't last.

Aid from recent appeals will help feed Afghans until July, Mr. Corsino estimated. The crisis is likely to last much longer.

"At that point, we need to look at two unknowns -- how the harvest year turns out and which way the food prices go," he said. "Quite likely, we'll need another appeal."

The price of wheat has doubled in Afghanistan in recent months. At the beginning of 2007, the average rural family in Afghanistan spent 60 per cent of its income on food. Now, the same family spends more than 75% of its income to feed themselves.

Afghans in the province of Kandahar have brought up the crisis to Canadian troops repeatedly in the last few weeks. Some farmers have labelled it a larger concern than their own security.

"The price of flour is rising day-by-day," a representative from central Panjwaii recently said at a shura meeting, through a translator. "Flour and wheat are low in the district. This is very significant and important for the Panjwaii. This is becoming an emergency."

The situation is made worse in Kandahar, where the majority of Canadian troops are stationed, because years of conflict in the area have left large numbers of widows and orphans.

"These people get pushed farther and farther," Mr. Corsino said. "They begin to give up small things, then they move on to larger ones like health care and school fees."

After that, malnourished Afghans will begin to sell their farm implements and anything else that will bring in money. Mass immigration from rural areas to the cities then follows, which the World Food Program is seeing "right across the country."

Some also fear that desperate farmers will turn in greater numbers to the more profitable -- but illegal -- poppy crop. Fields of the key ingredient in opium grow across Afghanistan and are currently being harvested. Much of the profits from the poppies end up in Taliban pockets.

"People will do anything they need to survive," Mr. Corsino said. Years of war, poverty, consistent drought and harsh winters in Afghanistan all contribute to a lack of food.

On a diet that is almost exclusively tea, bread and rice, one in five Afghans -- and more than 40% of children under the age of five -- are undernourished.

In February, Canada donated $10-million in response to an Afghanistan-specific appeal made by the Afghan government and the UN. That donation translated to about 12,000 tonnes of wheat.

Canada's food contributions this year total $231-million.

Afghanistan: One of the World's Most Difficult Places to Become A Mother

(Radio Free Europe) 9 May 2008 - In Afghanistan's northeastern Badakhshan Province, Sharifa feeds rice and bread to her nieces and nephews. The six children are orphans who were left in Sharifa's care when her sister died.

Due to poor conditions, the children's mother bled to death while giving birth in her home. Sharifa says her pregnant sister was not able to travel over the rough roads to a medical center in the city of Faizabad -- just three kilometers from her village -- in time to give birth.

"My sister died while giving birth," Sharifa told the Reuters news agency. "Her orphaned children do not have anyone to take care of them. I am their aunt, so I have to come to take care of them. Sometimes I can't help them. There is no one to care for them. There is no clinic nearby, no cars, and no proper roads. When my sister was about to deliver a baby, we could not take her to the hospital. She stayed at home for one day and one night. Then she died."

Death during childbirth is a scourge in Afghanistan. On average, a woman dies there every 27 minutes from complications during pregnancy, according to the nongovernmental group Save The Children. It is a chilling statistic that contributes to making Afghanistan one of the most difficult places in the world to be a mother.

In fact, Save The Children's latest index on living conditions for mothers does not include Afghanistan among its ranking of 146 countries. That is because economic data was not available for one key category of the index -- a comparison of the incomes of Afghan men and women.

But the statistics that are available from Afghanistan -- data on women's health, education, nutrition, and personal safety -- confirm that life is very difficult for Afghan mothers. The data shows that one out of every eight women in Afghanistan dies during pregnancy or while giving birth. The only country where that situation is worse is Niger, where one out of every seven women dies during pregnancy or childbirth.

Afghan Deputy Health Minister Faizullah Kakar says that is why maternal mortality is now the top priority of his ministry.

"Maternal mortality [in Afghanistan] is the second highest in the world. There is an African country that I think has more [deaths] than us. But our maternal mortality is 1,600 for every 100,000 live births," Kakar says. "So that is a very important area of health that we are paying attention to. That is actually our first priority in health. So we are doing quite a few things to reduce maternal mortality."

A clinic near the border with Tajikistan, in the Ishkashem District of Badakhshan Province, is one example. When Mahenow became pregnant recently, her husband escorted her to the clinic on a donkey for an examination. Mahenow says the clinic has helped her learn more about the health risks she faces.

"In the past there was no hospital, no doctor, and no medicine here," Mahenow told Reuters. "That is why we were doing the deliveries at home. Now we have clinics and good doctors. So I decided to come to the clinic in order to become more aware of health issues."

Dozens of NGOs are also actively helping women who have little access to proper medical care. And it is not only pregnant women who are attending the NGOs' special programs.

Rona Azamyan is the coordinator of a midwife-education program in Faizabad that is offered at a series of schools. Azamyan says the goal is to educate women from isolated areas about how to help other women deliver a baby.

"These schools were established in order to bring down the rate of maternal mortality," Azamyan says. "We train local midwives who will be able to provide health services for mothers within the in communities remote areas where they are living. There are no proper hospitals in those areas. So they can save lives and help to rescue mothers from death during childbirth."

Indeed, Afghan men prefer their women to consult only women health workers. But that is easier said than done in a society where there are few female doctors or nurses and where little emphasis has been placed on educating girls.

The problem was worse during the Taliban regime, when girls were banned from schools and severe restrictions were placed on women leaving their homes. During those years, from 1996 to 2001, there were only about 1,000 female health-care workers in the entire country. They staffed female-only hospitals -- leaving women in remote rural areas without any health services. Still the situation remains far from ideal today.

One student in the Faizabad program, Momina Hinafy, says the death of her own mother convinced her that Afghanistan needs more women to be trained as midwives.

"The maternal mortality rate in Badakhshan was too high -- especially in the remote and mountainous districts," Hinafy told Reuters. "My mother died while giving birth. That is why I took the detour to become a midwife and help mothers. I want to help save the lives of other mothers."

Meanwhile, the government's plans call for more midwifery schools to be set up and for more female students to be assigned to medical and nursing schools. Authorities hope that will improve dire statistics like those compiled by Save The Children, which show that only 14 percent of all births in Afghanistan were attended by skilled health personnel during 2006 -- a figure comparable to Chad. In fact, only Ethiopia had a poorer score on that issue -- with trained health personnel attending to just 6 percent of the births there.

By comparison, qualified health personnel attended 90 percent or more of the births in countries like Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, China, and Azerbaijan.

At the end of the day, Save The Children stresses that statistics tell only a portion of the story about the harm caused to the well-being of Afghan mothers and their children by years of war, violence, and lawlessness. But it hopes that focusing attention on the problem will mean that more Afghan mothers will be alive to celebrate the next Mothers' Day.

World's medical leaders help Afghans combat disease

Source: Government of the United States of America

By Army Sgt. Jessica R. Dahlberg
Special to American Forces Press Service

BAGRAM, Afghanistan, May 8, 2008 – Medical leaders from coalition forces and international medical organizations gathered at the Jirga Center here May 5 for an all-day seminar to discuss infectious diseases that plague the Afghan population.

The seminar featured presentations by experts from Afghanistan’s Public Health Ministry and the World Health Organization.

‘The purpose of this seminar is to train U.S. and coalition doctors to treat Afghans the Afghan way,’ said Army Lt. Col. Mendalose Harris, a public health nurse assigned to Combined Joint Task Force 101 in Afghanistan.

Dr. Ahmad Jan Naeem, director of policy and planning at the Afghan Public Health Ministry, discussed the importance of infectious disease control. Most deaths in Afghanistan are a result of infectious diseases, he said. Dr. Sha Muhamad Rahim, a staff officer at the Public Health Ministry, spoke of five strategies being developed to combat infectious diseases.

The ministry is going to strengthen its resources so Afghanistan is better prepared for and can respond more quickly to an epidemic, he said. The ministry wants to develop Afghanistan’s infrastructure to extend to more rural areas and to develop a risk communication plan, he added.

But public health officials face some tough challenges, Rahim acknowledged. Some areas of the country are deemed unsafe for medical personnel, and difficult terrain makes rural areas hard to access. A shortage of woman doctors on the medical staff makes it hard to treat the female population, he added.

Afghanistan’s Disease Early Warning System now serves all provinces, collecting information about diseases and providing aid. Last year, the DEWS detected 165 outbreaks, Dr. Nanjibullah Assadi, the Public Health Ministry’s internal coordinator for the system, told the seminar participants. Tuberculosis, malaria and leishmaniasis -- the three main diseases discussed at the seminar -- all can be detected by DEWS, he noted.

Afghan Public Health Ministry officials want to reduce the global burden of tuberculosis by 2015, said Dr. Hamid Hassan Momand, national TB/HIV collaboration officer. The Public Health Ministry considers tuberculosis a priority, he said, and the organization plans to ensure access for diagnosis and treatment for each patient while reducing deaths and the number of cases.

Dr. Najibullah Safi, chief of the Public Health Ministry’s leishmaniasis and malaria programs, said Malaria is another high-priority infectious disease. Afghans living less than 2,000 meters below sea level and those who cultivate rice are most at risk for malaria, a mosquito-borne infectious disease.

Leishmaniasis cases have risen in the last 10 to 15 years because of political instability, sporadic diagnosis and treatment of cases, and the absence of vector-controlled activities, Safi said. Leishmaniasis, most often spread from one person to another by sand fleas, produces skin sores and can damage the liver and spleen if untreated.

Seminar participants said the cross feed can encourage teamwork among medical personnel, resulting in better health care for the Afghanistan population.

(Army Sgt. Jessica R. Dahlberg serves with 382nd Public Affairs Detachment.)

[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.]