In this bulletin:

• Many Afghans outraged at US decision on Marines
• Foreign trooper among 16 killed in Afghan clash
• Canadians wounded in roadside attack
• Afghanistan Adds Hunger to Its Worries
• Two people die from hunger in northern Afghan province
• Orphans in northern Afghan province suffering from food shortage
• Pakistani Taliban leader says jihad in Afghanistan to continue
• Afghanistan urges Pakistan to stop attacks
• Pakistan talks lead to more Afghan attacks - NATO
• Pakistan not creating problems for Afghanistan, says Rice
• US admits to mistakes in Afghanistan
• French foreign minister wants new approach to Afghan aid
• Local, foreign management weak, Afghan rights group to tell Paris Conference
• Afghan defence official accuses Iranian president of disrupting situation
• Refugees in new Afghan drugs crisis
• ‘Key Qaeda figure died in Bajaur strike’
• Afghan parliament begins naming absent MPs: official
• Afghan government reportedly bans celebration of Teachers' Day
• Afghanistan: Stability continues to be undermined by Pakistan

Many Afghans outraged at US decision on Marines

By RAHIM FAIEZ, Associated Press Writer Sat 24 May 2008

KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan officials expressed outrage Saturday at a decision by the U.S. military not to charge U.S. Marines involved in a shooting spree that left 19 Afghan civilians dead in 2007.

Lt. Gen. Samuel Helland, the commander of U.S. Marine Corps Forces, Central Command, made the decision Friday not to bring charges after reviewing the findings of a special tribunal that heard more than three weeks of testimony in January at Camp Lejuene.

"I am very angry," said Kubra Aman, a senator from Nangarhar. "This is too much. They are killing people. First, they say it is a mistake, and after that they let them go without charges."

Afghan witnesses and a report by Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission concluded that a unit of Marine special operations troops opened fire along a 10-mile stretch of road, killing up to 19 civilians and wounding 50 other people.

Helland, commander of U.S. Marine Corps Forces, Central Command, decided not to bring charges against Maj. Fred C. Galvin, commander of the 120-person special operations company, and Capt. Vincent J. Noble, a platoon leader, the Marines said.

Helland determined the Marines in the convoy "acted appropriately and in accordance with the rules of engagement and tactics, techniques and procedures in place at the time in response to a complex attack," the Marines said.

The United Nations mission in Afghanistan condemned the decision. "It is disappointing that no one has been held accountable for these deaths," said Aleem Siddique, a spokesman for the mission. The U.N. "has always made clear that there must be increased transparency and accountability of all parties to this conflict if we are to retain the trust and confidence of the Afghan people."

The ruling was made after reviewing the findings of a special tribunal that heard more than three weeks of testimony in January.

Haji Lawania, who was wounded in the shooting that killed his father and cousin, called the decision a "grave injustice."

"It is true that there was a suicide attack against their convoy," Lawania said. "But I disagree that there was an ambush after the suicide attack."

Marine spokesman Lt. Col. Sean Gibson said Friday that the finding of the Court of Inquiry — some 12,000 pages — will not be released to the public.

Foreign trooper among 16 killed in Afghan clash

HERAT, Afghanistan (AFP) — A foreign soldier, two policemen and a dozen Taliban were killed in clashes in a key Afghan opium-producing area on Sunday, while three troops were hurt in a suicide blast in Kandahar city.

The soldier with the US-led coalition was killed "while conducting operations" in the southwestern province of Farah, the force said in a statement that gave no further details.

The operation appeared to be the same as one in the Bala Baluk district, in which Afghan police said two police officers were killed.

A dozen Taliban were also slain in the clashes, said police spokesman for western Afghanistan, Abdul Mutalib Rad.

Bala Baluk has seen a spike in Taliban activity in recent months. It is one of the Farah areas likely to a see a strong increase in opium production, according to a UN drugs survey.

Officials say Afghanistan's production of opium and heroin, the largest in the world, is closely tied to a deadly Taliban insurgency that feeds off the drugs trade.

Meanwhile, the suicide car bomb blew up near NATO troops in the southern city of Kandahar, Canadian and Afghan officials said.

Three soldiers with NATO's multinational International Security Assistance Force were wounded, ISAF spokesman Major Martin O'Donnell told AFP. He did not provide the nationalities of the soldiers.

Two children were also hurt in the blast, Afghan police said. Canadian Captain Fraser Clark confirmed the bombing was a suicide attack.

The Taliban have been behind a wave of such blasts, in an insurgency launched in the months after they were removed from government in 2001.

The US-led and NATO forces -- about 70,000 troops -- are helping the Afghan government fight the insurgency in a battle that has gained pace in the past two years, with 8,000 killed in 2007.

In other violence, a bomb planted on a bicycle exploded in Kandahar on Sunday, causing minor damage, police said.

ISAF also announced that one of its soldiers was killed Friday in the south when a wheel of a large truck he was working on fell on him.

Canadians wounded in roadside attack
Canwest News Service Sunday, May 25, 2008

KANDAHAR CITY, Afghanistan -- Four Canadian soldiers were wounded Sunday morning in a suicide bomb attack against a military convoy in Kandahar City.

The wounded soldiers were evacuated by ground transport to nearby Camp Nathan Smith and then flown by helicopter to the multinational medical facility at Kandahar Airfield. Canadian Forces spokesman Lt. Alain Blondin said later that all four are reported in good condition.

Witnesses to the incident, which occurred at about 11:30 a.m. local time, said two Afghan children were also injured in the blast, which occurred in the northwest outskirts of Kandahar City when a vehicle drove into the routine patrol convoy and detonated.

Large pieces of debris were flung up to 100 metres from the charred site of the blast, which killed the attacker and obliterated the vehicle bearing the improvised explosive device.

Abdul Ghani, an area resident who was sitting nearby watching children swim and play in the adjacent Lowala canal, said he and others were shocked by the loud detonation, which hurled pieces of the torn vehicle into the water. Two children were rushed to the city's Mirwais Hospital.

An alleged Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, said his organization, which is fuelling the armed insurgency against the elected Afghan government and the international military coalition that supports it, claimed responsibility for the attack. He identified the bomber as a man named Niqibullah of adjacent Helmand Province who had carried out "the blessed duty."

A short time after the attack on the Canadian convoy, an improvised explosive device placed on a bicycle by the side of the road in a different part of Kandahar City was detonated by remote control as an Afghan National Police convoy passed by. Neither the targeted district police chief nor any of his officers were harmed, but two civilians were slightly wounded.

Afghanistan Adds Hunger to Its Worries

Local Drought and Regional Shortages Drive Up Bread Costs

By Pamela Constable , Washington Post Foreign Service - Sunday, May 25, 2008

KABUL, May 20 -- By 7 a.m., the bakers of Sang Tarashi Street have been hard at work for hours, shaping globs of dough, slapping them into a hot clay oven and flipping them out at just the right second. A stack of fresh flat bread called naan sits invitingly by the window, and the familiar morning smell wafts into the street.

But the scene outside the window has a desperate feel. Customers ask for half their normal breakfast purchases. A carpenter counts out the equivalent of 40 cents and buys two naans, far too little to feed his family of seven. A gaunt man in a threadbare tunic hovers nearby, looking ashamed, until the bakery owner notices him and tosses him a piece.

"When the price goes up, your stomach has to shrink," said the man, a handcart hauler named Abdul Karim. "I used to be able to buy a sack of flour, and my wife could bake for us, but now it is far too expensive. I have to rely on this baker's kindness so my children can eat. I do my best for them and work hard all day, but it is not enough anymore."

As the global food crisis deepens, bringing inflation and shortages to many countries, Afghanistan -- already facing a protracted drought, entrenched rural poverty and an ongoing conflict with Islamist insurgents -- finds itself battling the added threat of hunger.

For generations, Afghans have depended on cheap, plentiful bread as their main staple. The country's principal crop is wheat, and its farmers produce more than 5 million tons in a good year. Although that is not enough to feed the entire population, wheat can usually be trucked in from neighboring Pakistan .

Since February, however, a combination of local drought and regional shortages has driven the price of flour here to once-unimaginable levels -- as much as $50 for a 40-pound sack. Pakistan, also worried about how to feed 160 million-plus people, has closed its borders to food exports, as have a number of other largely agricultural countries anxious to stave off domestic hardship and political unrest.

So far, Afghan authorities and international charities have prevented the wheat flour shortage here from reaching crisis proportions by finding emergency sources. The government has trucked in tons of flour from Kazakhstan, and the U.N. World Food Program has raised money to import 85,000 tons from major wheat-producing countries such as Canada and Australia.

In addition, enterprising smugglers have continued to bring in truck after truck piled with sacks of flour from Pakistan. Sacks are said to cross the border surreptitiously on donkey-back, via bribery at official crossing spots and buried deep inside cargo trucks carrying Afghan refugees and their belongings back home.

Nevertheless, the skyrocketing costs of flour and other staples have deepened public frustration with the government of President Hamid Karzai , which many Afghans complain has failed to meet even their basic needs. Foreign donors have given enormous sums for rural aid since the U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban rulers in late 2001, and Afghans wonder aloud where the money has gone.

"Now our government is a beggar, just like we are," said Wahidullah, 34, a carpenter buying bread for his family in Kabul's Old City neighborhood. "It is their duty to provide bread for the people and to be prepared for difficult situations. Even though it is a shame for us, we thank God they started buying flour from the Russians, or people would be eating each other."

One reason Afghan wheat production has suffered is that many farmers have shifted their resources to growing opium poppies, a far more lucrative crop that requires much less watering, little labor except at harvest time and no marketing. Afghanistan, barely able to feed a populace of about 30 million, is now the world's leading producer of opium and heroin.

Last week, Karzai called several hundred farmers from across the country to his palace and urged them to help switch the agricultural economy back from opium to wheat. In interviews afterward, however, rural leaders and agricultural experts said it would require substantial financial and technical aid for farmers to make the change.

"In my area, people have no choice but to grow poppies," said Mohammed Anwar, a member of parliament from Helmand province, the country's premier poppy-growing region. "Most of our farmers are poor. They don't have money to buy tractors or generator fuel. They don't have storage or irrigation facilities. With wheat, you have to water five or six times a season. With poppies, you water only once, and you earn so much more."

Only a small fraction of Afghanistan's arable land is planted with poppies, while about 90 percent is wheat. Last year, Afghan farmers had a good wheat yield of 5.6 million tons, but there was still a shortfall of half a million tons that had to be supplemented with Pakistani imports.

Tekeste Tekie, the senior official here for the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization , said that with better seeds and more irrigation, Afghanistan should be able to feed itself. But he also said agricultural development has been neglected, with half the nation's farmland still dependent on rainfall and vulnerable to drought.

"Even if every acre was switched to wheat, there would still be shortages," Tekie said. The FAO is developing high-yield seeds in projects across the country, but more help is needed. "Agriculture has not been given the attention it deserves," he said, "but with these soaring prices, suddenly everyone is talking about it."

At the central flour market in Kabul, there is little evidence of a shortage. Laborers unload sack after sack of smuggled flour from Pakistani trucks, and warehouses are piled high with sacks labeled in English, Urdu and Russian.

But amid the bustle of apparent plenty wander figures of desperate want -- women in blue burqas clutching empty sacks, hovering next to cargo trucks and peering into gloomy warehouses, hoping to glean spilled flour from the floors.

"We used to sell wheat from Helmand in the south, from Kunduz in the north, but now their people come here to buy from us," said Abdul Wahab, a flour dealer. He ticked off a list of causes: the drought, the government, the poppy boom, the Pakistani mafia and NATO . "There are troops from 30 countries here, but they should worry less about al-Qaeda and more about rebuilding our country," Wahab said.

In the bakeries of Kabul, teams of heat-flushed workers still ply their ancestral skills with precise coordination. Sitting cross-legged on a platform, they are in constant motion. One man forms a dough ball, the next weighs it, the next flattens it, the next leans over the oven and slaps it in, then waits a few minutes and tosses it with tongs onto the fresh-baked stack.

Zabiullah, 21, the window man at the Sang Tarashi bakery and the son of the longtime owner, hands out flats of naan and drops crumpled bills into a wooden box. Surveying the fringe of early morning beggars, he shakes his head.

"In my whole life, even in the civil war, we did not see prices this high," he said. "Now the fighting is long over, but flour is three times higher. Some of our old customers come and ask, 'In the name of God, please give me some bread,' " he said sadly. "How can I refuse them?"

Two people die from hunger in northern Afghan province

Text of report by privately-owned Afghan Ariana TV on 23 May

[Presenter] There is a saying that no one has died from hunger in the world yet. However, a husband and wife have died from hunger, and their eight children have been left orphaned. Sayful Rahman Samit, the district governor of Dara-e Suf, confirmed the report, and told Ariana TV that the eight children of the deceased couple were divided up among their neighbours.

[Reporter] In a telephone conversation with Ariana TV, Hajji Abdullah, a member of Samangan Provincial Council, confirmed the report of the death of a man and his wife due to hunger. He said Golmurad, a 55-year old man, and Anar Gul, wife of the man, died from hunger. Member of the provincial council said that hospital workers confirmed that the two had died from hunger in the province.

[Hajji Abdullah, provincial council member] I confirm this report. I met some relatives of the man, who also confirmed this, and his eight children were given to the neighbours to take care of them. The situat! ion is quite worrying in several districts of the province. People do not even have enough water for their livestock, and there are no foodstuffs in the market, and on the other hand, if people find something it is quite expensive that they cannot afford to buy it. We have been urging the government and aid agencies to pay attention to this situation but no one listens to all these warnings.

[Reporter] Members of the provincial council also warned that around 80 per cent of the population of Dara-e Suf lived below the poverty line, and that they had started eating plants to stay alive. Meanwhile, Sayful Rahman Samit, the chief of Dara-e Suf District, says poverty and famine are expanding all over the district, and that if the government and aid agencies do not take immediate action, there may be a human catastrophe in the district.

Orphans in northern Afghan province suffering from food shortage

Text of report by privately-owned Afghan Ariana TV on 23 May

Officials complain about a shortage of food for orphans in a northern Afghan province

[Presenter] Orphans in Badakhshan Orphanage are suffering from a shortage of food, lack of a proper residential area and other facilities. The orphans who lost their parents during the war say that they shared their problems with government officials several times but so far no action has been taken.

[Reporter] Around 125 children under the age of seventeen live in an orphanage in Fayzabad, the capital of Badakhshan Province. They children lost their parents during years of war. According to provincial officials in charge of the orphanage, the children do not have enough food to eat, and they live in a ruined building with poor health facilities.

According to the officials, no government official or aid agency has so far visited the children in the orphanage. Sayed Abdul Wahab, head of the orphanage, says more than 20 children are living in one room which was bui! lt to accommodate only six.

In addition to the shortage of food, there is a shortage of drinking water, and there is no ambulance to take children to hospital, which are the main problems in the province. He added that they recently appealed to the provincial governor to provide them with some assistance, and that the governor could only provide 10,000 afghanis from his personal account.

In another part of the interview with Ariana TV, he said the provincial Red Crescent had also provided some assistance to the orphanage. He called upon merchants and aid agencies to provide some assistance to these children.

According to the officials, they currently purchase foodstuffs for the orphanage's children on loan from the market. The orphanage was established around 20 years ago.

Pakistani Taliban leader says jihad in Afghanistan to continue

Sat 24 May 2008 - PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) - Top Pakistani Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud on Saturday said jihad, or holy war, would continue in Afghanistan, despite peace negotiations between the militants and Islamabad.

"Islam does not recognise boundaries and jihad in Afghanistan will continue," he told a group of reporters invited to his stronghold of South Waziristan tribal district near the Afghan border.

The Taliban, driven from power in Afghanistan by a US-led invasion in 2001, are active on the border tribal zone, where the Pakistani army has fought the Islamists since 2003.

The new government in Islamabad launched talks with local Taliban soon after winning elections in February, amid concerns that Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's military approach was spawning more violence.

Washington has been concerned by the change in policy since the coalition government was formed six weeks ago and began talks with the Taliban, whom US and NATO troops suspect are sending men to fight in Afghanistan.

"In the fight between Pakistani forces and Taliban, both sides are suffering, it should come to an end," Mehsud told reporters during the rare visit, while ruling out a similar move in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Pakistan has suffered an unprecedented wave of militant violence since last year and the current talks with extremists are aimed at transforming the recent lull in violence into a permanent peace with the Taliban.

More than 1,000 people have been killed in suicide bombings since the start of last year, including former premier Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated at an election rally in December.

The government blamed her killing on Mehsud but he denied his involvement.

Afghanistan urges Pakistan to stop attacks

Daily Times 25 May 2008

KABUL: Pakistan must not allow its soil to be used to launch attacks in Afghanistan, the government said on Saturday, after a Pakistani militant vowed to continue “jihad” while pursuing peace talks with Islamabad. The statement by Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud on Saturday was “naked interference” in Afghanistan’s affairs, Defence Ministry spokesman General Muhammad Zahir Azimi told AFP. “Our hope from the Pakistan government is to prevent its soil being used against our country,” Azimi said. Azimi reiterated calls by Afghan and Western leaders for a combined approach to fighting the extremism that straddles the border. “Any agreement must be based on regional and bilateral interests ... Any unilateral agreement posing threat to a second country would be against the interests of the region and the world.” Afp

Pakistan talks lead to more Afghan attacks - NATO

Sun May 25, 2008 - By Jon Hemming

KABUL (Reuters) - Peace talks between the Pakistani government and Taliban militants have already led to an increase in insurgent attacks in Afghanistan, NATO said on Sunday.

Faced with a wave of suicide attacks, Pakistan has begun negotiations with Taliban militants who control much of the mountainous region on its side of the border with Afghanistan and thinned out the number of its troops in the largely lawless area.

But the draft peace accords make no explicit mention of militants stopping attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud on Saturday vowed to carry on fighting Afghan and foreign forces in Afghanistan regardless of the talks.

"We have seen increased activity in the eastern part of the country especially which we believe can only be attributed to the de facto ceasefires and a reduction of Pakistani military activity," NATO's civilian spokesman in Afghanistan Mark Laity told a news conference.

"We respect the sovereignty of Pakistan absolutely but it's important they take into account the need to ensure that any agreements they make do not lead to an increase in violence in Afghanistan," he said.

Afghanistan was sending a high-level delegation to Pakistan in the coming days to voice their concerns over peace deals, said Afghan Defence Ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zaher Azimi.

"The people of Afghanistan and the government of Afghanistan are concerned regarding the announcement of Baitullah Mehsud and we hope Pakistan territory is not used against the people of Afghanistan, isn't used to kill our innocent people," Azimi said.

Previous peace deals between the Pakistan government and the Taliban all broke down in violence and merely gave the militants time to regroup, he said.

"The previous peace accords between the Pakistan government with insurgents

were a golden age for the insurgents; they re-equipped, prepared and launched operations against both the government of Afghanistan and the government of Pakistan."

Afghan forces, backed by more than 60,000 foreign troops, are engaged in daily battles with Taliban militants, mostly in the south and east, the areas closest to the border with Pakistan.

Afghan officials have often accused Pakistan of allowing the Taliban to use Pakistani territory as a safe haven from which to direct and launch attacks and also rest and regroup.

Forty-four troops from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have been killed in Afghanistan so far this year, a spokesman said, compared to 42 in the first five months of last year.

The number of ISAF troops in Afghanistan has risen from 33,400 in January 2007 to 50,838 now, the spokesman said.

More than 12,000 people have been killed in Afghanistan since the Taliban relaunched their insurgency two years ago.

Pakistan not creating problems for Afghanistan, says Rice

Dawn, By Anwar Iqbal

WASHINGTON, May 24: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said that despite differences over the Fata talks, the United States does not believe that Pakistan wants to exacerbate the situation in the tribal region or create problems for Afghanistan.

In a joint interview to BBC with visiting British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, Ms Rice also indicated that there were differences between the US and Britain over Pakistan’s efforts to seek a negotiated settlement to insurgency in Fata.

“I don’t believe that the Pakistani government wants to create circumstances in which terrorists can get breathing space,” said Ms Rice while explaining US views on the peace talks.

“I certainly don’t think that Pakistan wants to make this Afghanistan’s problem.” Ms Rice also rejected speculations that differences over the Fata talks could jeopardise US relations with Pakistan.

“To say that one is concerned is simply what- what friends do. It’s not to say that we’re not going to continue to work with this Pakistani government of which we have great respect,” she said.

Ms Rice said that the final US response to the peace talks would depend on how this was carried out but she was convinced that now there exists “a better shared sense of responsibility” between Pakistan and Afghanistan for the border and the regions around it and “hopefully, this will work.”

Ms Rice said the US recognised Pakistan’s decision to engage the militants as “a sovereign decision” of a friendly government.

“We certainly respect the government of Pakistan, and we fully respect their decision to try a course, but we do have concerns because we’ve been down this road before and it was violated before by militants, and as a result the ability to fight the terrorists (...) one has to worry that it will be curtailed,” she said.

“It is very important that any arrangement not permit terrorists to use that arrangement to plot or plan attacks and to strengthen themselves.”

The United States, she said, understood that fighting terrorism was not just about military action, and it also understood the importance of developing economic opportunities.

“One does have to be able to deal with irreconcilables through military action, but of course, you also have to win the hearts and minds of the people,” she said.

“And the United States has been more than willing to support the efforts for reconstruction and development in the Fata region, for the development of better economic prospects for people in the Fata region. So I think we will find common cause with the Pakistani government and common ways of dealing with this.”

US-BRITAIN: Ms Rice acknowledged that the circumstances of the US and those of its allies are not identical, so “we wouldn’t ask that all those countries behave the same way as the US on these issues”.

The BBC noted that one area of divergence between the two was Pakistan, and the deal that has just been struck between the new government and pro-Taliban militant leaders in the Swat valley and the Fata.“I think it’s important to be clear, one, there’s an elected Pakistani government that we support very, very strongly in the provinces as well as at the national level,” said her British counterpart while explaining his government’s policy on the Fata talks.

“Secondly, it’s got to be what the Pakistani government calls a multi-pronged strategy. That’s security, plus politics, plus economics, plus the social investment that’s absolutely necessary.

“Thirdly, the common cause that (Ms Rice) has talked about is to say -- we’re clear that there is a constitutional system that people should abide by. And if they’re willing to abide by it, they’re included. And if they self-exclude, then they have to face the consequences of the Pakistani army.”

Speaking a day earlier in Washington, Mr Miliband gave his support to the deal, saying: “We need to accept that government reconciliation efforts (in Pakistan and Afghanistan) will reach out to people that we are uncomfortable with.”

US admits to mistakes in Afghanistan

Frontier post 25 May 2008

NEW YORK (PAN): In a candid admission of flawed US policies after the Soviets left Afghanistan, Defence Secretary Robert Gates said that Washington remained at war in the conflict-devastated country because of the mistake it made. "We are at war in Afghanistan today because of mistakes we made -- I, among others, made -- in the end game of the anti-Soviet war there in the late 1980s," Gates said while addressing the second Special Operations Forces International Conference at Tampa, Florida. "If we get the end game wrong in Iraq, I predict the consequences will be significantly worse," he warned, believing America's strategic objectives were within reach but a lack of patience could doom those prospects. Afghanistan and Iraq were the most important battlefields in the fight today, noted the secretary, whose priority has been getting the US to a point where its strategic objectives were attainable in both the countries. "Just as the hollowness of communism was laid bare by the collapse of the Soviet Union, so too would success in those countries strike a decisive blow against the ideological underpinnings of extremist movements," he observed. Identifying Al Qaeda as a cancer, Gates said it was always looking to regenerate. "I fear that frustration over slow progress and dismay over sacrifices already made may result in decisions that are gratifying in the short term but very costly to us in the long term," he argued. About long-term prospects in the two countries, the secretary said the number of American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan would gradually decline but that did not mean an end to special operations missions. "Even as our regular troops reduce their presence and are replaced by Iraqis, special operations force levels will remain fairly constant and be the connective tissue of the overall mission. They will be in Iraq and Afghanistan for an extended period of time -- as a force to hunt and kill terrorists, and also as a force to help train Iraqis and Afghans," Gates concluded.

French foreign minister wants new approach to Afghan aid

by Carole Landry Sat 24 May 2008

PARIS (AFP) - French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner on Saturday said international aid efforts were failing in Afghanistan and called for a new approach to help the country rebuild.

Kouchner told a conference of some 40 humanitarian organisations that Afghans themselves must play a larger role in the development of the country which has been struggling to make a fresh start since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

"International aid has not fully yielded fruit since 2001," Kouchner said. "We must review our tools and our approach."

The one-day conference in Paris was to set the stage for an international donors' meeting that France is hosting on June 12 to raise funds for Afghan reconstruction.

"The main objective is what I call the Afghanization of international aid to involve all Afghans and ensure it benefits every one of them," said Kouchner.

Seven years after the Taliban were driven out of Kabul by US forces and their allies, much of Afghanistan's population remains poor and aid groups complain of too much focus being placed on the military effort.

NATO has deployed a 47,000-strong force drawn from 40 countries which is fighting remnants of the Taliban and supporting the weak central government of President Hamid Karzai.

"We know well that a sustainable solution cannot be solely military," Kouchner said. But he warned against pitting the international peacekeeping effort in Afghanistan against reconstruction plans.

"Let's not play up security against development, development against security. Afghans need both," he said.

Delegates at the conference including ACBAR, the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief made up of some 94 relief organisations, will set priorities for development projects and make proposals to be presented to donors next month.

An ACBAR report released in March charged that Western countries had delivered only 15 billion dollars (10 billion euros) out of the 25 billion dollars they had promised, undermining prospects for peace and development in the country.

About 40 percent of aid returns to donor nations as corporate profits and high consultant costs, according to the report.

"For every 100 dollars spent on the military operation in Afghanistan, seven dollars goes to civilian reconstruction," said Pierre Lafrance, of the Madera non-governmental organisation, which works mainly in agricultural development.

Afghan Education Minister Mohammed Hanif Atmar earlier this year accused donor nations of failing to provide enough aid to prevent a resurgence of the Taliban, saying "the West wants a victory at a discount price."

The conclusions of the conference will be presented to the June 12 donors' meeting, hosted by President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Afghan Finance Minister Anwar-ul haq Ahadi said Monday the government is hoping to secure 50 billion dollars in aid at the June conference to finance a five-year development plan.

One of the biggest projects is for the production of electricity, which reaches only about 10 percent of Afghans. There were also plans to build thousands of kilometres (miles) of roads as well as more dams and irrigation systems, the minister said.

Local, foreign management weak, Afghan rights group to tell Paris Conference

Text of report by Afghan independent Tolo TV, on 24 May

[Presenter] Civil Society and Human Rights Network has prepared a plan consisting of seven articles to be discussed at the Paris Conference.

The network has urged UNAMA [United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan], the EU mission in Afghanistan, and representatives of international governments and organizations in Afghanistan to include the recommendations of the network in their discussions.

The management board of the network says weak Afghan and foreign management systems, and a lack of coordination, have been fully visible in the past six years, and that the Paris Conference can be an opportunity to help address the problems. My colleague Hamed Haidari has more.

[Correspondent] The Civil Society and Human Rights Network says the level of crime is rising with each day, and that administrative corruption has markedly increased. The network says warlords impose their personal demands on the people, and that poverty has doubled the peo! ple's problems.

According to the network, the people of Afghanistan are fed up with weak management and leadership, and the lack of coordination in government departments has caused legal and executive shortcomings. The network adds that international confidence in supporting a weak system has also been harmed.

[Yunos Akhtar, member, Civil Society and Human Rights Network] It is right that civil society organizations have continuously spoke about these issues in this conference, and at other conferences, but the problem is that the international community has [so far] not very seriously engaged itself in this problem.

[Bari Salam, member, Civil Society and Human Rights Network] If we are supposed to invest in the government and to pay money for it, we should develop capacities, and there should be proper observation of the government's activities so that the government commits itself to establishing a system based on values, citizen's rights, and democracy! .

[Correspondent] The plan says that ensuring human rights, whic h include civil, political, and economic rights, should be at the top of the government's priorities, and that there should be serious efforts to develop democracy and the rule of law in Afghanistan.

Another article of the plan says the government should launch constructive programmes based on the principles of the sacred religion of Islam to prevent the exploitation of the beliefs of the people of Afghanistan by ideological extremists, and not allow the people once again to fall victim to rightwing or leftwing extremist ideologies.

Another part of the article says the people should be informed about the role of the international community in the present situation and in the future, and that the strategies of the government of Afghanistan and the international community should be simplified and explained. It also calls for more attention to civil society organizations and the political and private sectors of Afghanistan.

Afghan defence official accuses Iranian president of disrupting situation

Text of report by Afghan independent Tolo TV, on 24 May

[Presenter] The National Defence Ministry says Iran wants to create problems for America in Afghanistan.

In reaction to [Iranian President] Ahmadinezhad's disagreement with the presence of America in Afghanistan, Gen Yusof Nurestani, the deputy defence minister, says Iran trying to influence people the way people think and is benefiting from the situation in Afghanistan. My colleague Parwez Shamal has more.

[Correspondent] Gen Yusof Nurestani, the deputy minister of national defence, who was summoned by the Senate complaints committee today, said in response to a question from one of the members of the committee that the president of Iran wanted to create problems for America in Afghanistan.

[Atayee, member, Senate complaints committee] I have said that the coalition forces should increase the number of their troops in Afghanistan to a level that addresses our security situation. But we see that His Excellency Ahmadinezhad, our very respecta! ble neighbour, tries to pose challenges to their [US military] presence in Afghanistan.

[Yusof Nurestani, deputy minister of defence] You know that President Ahmadinezhad wants to create a problem for Americans here. What he says is not because they are sad that innocent people get killed in Afghanistan in bombardments by the US, coalition, or NATO troops. They do not comment for the sake of this. We all know that they want to disrupt the public mind and benefit from it.

[Correspondent] Iran's interference in Afghanistan's internal affairs has been an issue of discussion for some time now, but this is the first time that a senior military official has accused Iran of benefiting from the current situation in Afghanistan.

[Correspondent] Despite efforts, we could not contact the Iranian embassy in Kabul for their comments on the issue. The Iranian authorities have previously rejected any interference in Afghanistan's affairs, though.

Refugees in new Afghan drugs crisis

Workers expelled by Iran and Pakistan are going home hooked on heroin, reports Peter Beaumont from Kabul, which already has a drug problem

Peter Beaumont in Kabul - The Observer , Sunday May 25 2008

Afghanistan, struggling with a huge indigenous drug problem, has a new crisis. Its drug treatment centres - particularly in the capital, Kabul - are being inundated by heroin-addicted former refugees, many forcibly expelled from neighbouring Iran and Pakistan.

The new dimension to Kabul's spiralling problem of opiates abuse is most visible in the war-ruined shell of the city's Russian Cultural Centre, a warren of rubble and faeces-strewn rooms, where each night hundreds of addicts and street children come to sleep.

It is a place of disturbing images. Outside, men play cricket while addicts lie dozing. Inside, users gravitate to the dark places, crawl into disused turbine pipes to smoke heroin from foil or crowd into tiny rooms underground. The youngest and most nimble scale the walls like rock climbers to reach places beneath the roof where they sleep for safety. The most far gone inject their wasted legs and arms in full view of the passing traffic.

Of the dozens approached about how they came to be addicts, only one man was not a returnee from Iran, while the rest had first taken heroin there. The stories were strikingly consistent: they had fled the violence of the civil war or the Taliban era with their families, often being required to work long hours in Iran doing tough jobs.

Many told how unscrupulous employers offered them the drug, telling them it would make their work seem easier - and how in the end they had been rounded up and thrown back across the border, some after brutal treatment in Iranian detention.

At Kabul's Nejat treatment centre a few can qualify for one of the handful of beds after attending a series of awareness workshops. Mohammed Wali, 30, from Bagram, is typical. He was admitted a week before with five others; all say they became addicted in Iran. 'I left Afghanistan during the time of the Taliban,' said Wali. 'I am lucky in that I have a family to support me, although I am ashamed to say that I stole from them. By bad luck I am addicted. When I was working in Iran my employer was giving us opium to make us work harder. For the first 20 days I was given it for free, then I was told that I would have to pay for it. I was spending my earnings on the drug.'

The scale of the problem is revealed by the men's recollections. 'Ten to 12 of us were addicted by the time we returned to our village from Iran,' said Mohammed. Syed, another who was expelled, recalls: 'Six people working in my factory, including two of my brothers and three other villagers, were addicted.'

At the cultural centre the addicts smoke scorpion - a mixture of hashish and heroin - or shoot up, often with discarded needles found in the filth. 'I was working in the construction industry and I was walking home when they grabbed me and sent me to the barracks,' said one addict. 'They kept me there three days. Among the 300 people there, 200 I would guess were addicts.'

Others recalled similar numbers of addicts - usually citing between two-thirds and three-quarters of those held in detention.

While many of those expelled complained of insufficient food during their detention, some claimed they were beaten, and showed faint scars on shins and burn marks on wrists and arms. Their claims were impossible to verify.

'We are being swamped,' said Dr Tariq Suliman, director of the Nejat centre, the first Afghan charity to tackle addiction when it was set up 16 years ago. 'We have a waiting list of 1,000 to 2,000 people at any one time. We offer a syringe exchange programme, have a mobile outreach programme, and offer abscess treatment [a consequence of injecting impure heroin into veins].

'The biggest problem now is the returning addicts. It is a tsunami coming to this country,' Suliman said. 'For every addict we estimate that the issue impacts on up to five family members. And 90 per cent of the new addicts that we are seeing are coming from Iran. In the past two years we have just seen the graph rocket. The problem is compounded by the fact that donor agencies will not commit to support our activities in the long term. They will fund a project for a year, but they will not commit to 10 years. And that is the scale of the problem. It is out of control.'

Back at the cultural centre, Ali Raza, an addict thrown out of Iran, is berating a group of boys watching him inject - twice in each arm. He looks 70, but says he is 50. 'We are the worst,' he slurs. 'Don't come here. Don't walk on the way we passed by. Everyone hates us. Don't even take one puff.'

‘Key Qaeda figure died in Bajaur strike’

* US official describes Jazairi as explosives expert and ‘terrorist trainer’
* Officials believe systematic assault on terrorists paying off

Daily Times Monitor 25 May 2008

LAHORE: An Al Qaeda figure killed in a United States airstrike in Bajaur last week is believed to have been an Algerian allegedly involved in training militants and plotting attacks against the West, officials told the Los Angeles Times on Friday.

They said the Algerian, known by the nickname Abu Sulayman Jazairi, apparently died on May 14 in the strike that killed 14 people and destroyed a compound near the village of Damadola.

A knowledgeable US official and a senior European anti-terrorism official told the Times that Jazairi was thought to be dead.

They said that US anti-terrorism forces were targeting frontline planners in Pakistani hideouts, and Jazairi would be another in a series of recent losses for the Al Qaeda leadership.

“He was a significant person within the Al Qaeda ranks,” said the European official, requesting anonymity. “Not in the top five, but he’s up there. The suspicion is he was one of those individuals involved in training and targeting Western interests. There is uncorroborated intelligence that he was involved in plots against Europe.”

According to the Times, officials declined to discuss last week’s operation because of political tension in Pakistan over US airstrikes. In fact, it added, some doubt lingers about the identity of the man killed. The report referred to a statement of a senior Pakistani official in which he said he believed the slain man was not the Algerian but another foreign militant.

Despite the confusion, the US and European officials told the paper that their information about the militant’s identity seemed solid.
“There are good reasons to think that Al Jazairi is dead,” the US official said. The European official said that there recently had been allusions to Jazairi’s death on radical websites.

Explosives expert: Jazairi was an explosives expert and “important terrorist trainer”, the US official said.

“When it comes to training, this individual was an important figure ... People like him are vital to terrorist plots. That doesn’t mean he can’t be replaced. But when Al Qaeda loses someone with his experience, it matters.”
Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, have eluded pursuers, the report said, adding that an airstrike on Damadola in 2006 was thought to have narrowly missed Zawahiri.

Paying off: But officials said that a systematic assault on operational bosses was seemed to be paying off. A Libyan chief died in January during one of a flurry of airstrikes in Pakistan this year, according to the Times. Abu Ubaida Al Masri, the network’s external operations chief, died of an infectious disease about the same time and his Iraqi predecessor was captured in late 2006, it adds.

Officials said Jazairi surfaced in Pakistan about six years ago and was a mid-level figure who gained stature as other plotters and trainers fell. “He was someone you could imagine as a potential successor to Masri,” the European official said.

Louis Caprioli, a former anti-terrorism chief of France’s DST intelligence agency, said the increasing success and pace of airstrikes this year indicates that American spy agencies and their allies have made progress in infiltrating Al Qaeda in Pakistan.

Afghan parliament begins naming absent MPs: official

KABUL (AFP) — Afghanistan's parliament has started naming stay-away lawmakers, with a brother of President Hamid Karzai first on the list, in a bid to stop no-shows hobbling its work, an official said Sunday.

The lower house also voted Saturday to cut the salaries of MPs for each day they do not attend a session, the Speaker's secretary Mohammad Saleh Saljoqi told AFP.

"We have decided to expose the names of our absent MPs," the legislator said. "It's a moral punishment," he added.

"At the end of each week we will release the names of those MPs absent during the week and at the end of the month the names of those absent during the month," he said.

The first names to be given to the media were Qayoum Karzai, an elder brother of the president from Kandahar province, Fridoun Mohmand from Nangarhar and Abdul Wahab from Jawzjan.

These legislators had not attended a single session in the current term, Saljoqi said. At every session 80 to 100 MPs were absent, about 60-70 for no reason, he said.

The lower house, with 249 seats, was elected in the first full democratic parliamentary poll in 2005.

Seven MPs have been killed and one, Malalai Joya, thrown out for allegedly insulting the assembly on television. Low attendance has held up the work of the parliament for several months, one MP told AFP.

Recent pay rises for teachers took 35 days to approve while the passage of a media bill, which needs two-thirds of the House to be present, has been delayed for several months.

The attorney general, Abdul Jabar Sabit, threatened earlier this month to release to the media the names of 22 MPs accused of various crimes but who were ignoring summonses to his office. His office told AFP the allegations included land grabbing and murder.

Afghan government reportedly bans celebration of Teachers' Day

Text of report by Afghan independent Tolo TV on 23 May

[Presenter] Afghanistan's Teachers Union has marked Teachers Day in Kabul. Though a large number of school teachers and students marked Teachers' Day in Kabul, a number of teachers said that the Education Ministry had sent official letters to schools, asking them to avoid marking this day. Shakila Ebrahimkhel has more details.

[Correspondent] Afghanistan's Teachers Union marked Teachers Day, in which a number of teachers and students were present. Though this day was marked gloriously in the presence of senior government officials in the country in the previous years, teachers said that this day was celebrated this year on a small scale. A number of teachers in Afghanistan said that they did not have good living conditions and the government, in particular the Education Ministry, did not provide any kind of assistance to them.

[An unidentified female teacher] Teachers' living standards are is very low in Afghanistan.

[An unidentified male teacher]! Students were praising their teachers in one day. Teachers were happy in this day, but it [celebration] was prevented.

[Correspondent] A number of teachers and students marked Teachers' Day when school teachers in Kabul and a number of provinces went on strike over their low pay. They called for an increase in their salaries. The Education Ministry showed severe reaction to the teachers' strike.

[Ahmad Mo'alem, head of Teachers Union of Afghanistan] A presidential decree says teachers should not be used in official and unofficial gatherings.

[Abdol Jabar Paikan, head of Nationwide Union of Teachers of Afghanistan] Teachers' living conditions are very poor. They are suffering considerably.

[Correspondent] After teachers' strike, the government added 1,300 afghanis [approximately 26 dollars] to teachers' salaries. but a number of teachers still consider this increase as insignificant.

Afghanistan: Stability continues to be undermined by Pakistan

Daily Mirror, Sri Lanka, By Dr. Subhash Kapila Saturday, May 24, 2008

Afghanistan’s strategic and political stability could have been restored years back by the United States and NATO Forces but for the American permissiveness in not stamping down hard on Pakistan’s relentless undermining of the United States military operations.

It is amazing to witness that a country like Iran on Afghanistan’s western flank has not dared to stoke fires in Afghanistan despite its adversarial confrontation with USA. On the other hand, Pakistan on Afghanistan’s eastern flank, despite receipt of over of $ 10 billion in military aid from USA for operations against the Taliban and Al Qaeda and a designated “Major Non-NATO Ally” continues to undermine United States stability operations in Afghanistan. Continued undermining of Afghanistan’s strategic stability by the Taliban at Pakistan’s behest, if not checkmated forcefully and effectively by the United States forthwith could induce a Vietnam like situation for the United States. Can the United States afford such an eventuality in today’s emerging security environment when Pakistan’s strategic ally China is intent on denting United States global supremacy. It is not for nothing that there are growing reports of Chinese arms supplies to Taliban for operations in Afghanistan.

It is further amazing for strategic analysts and hard to comprehend that while the rest of the world is aware of Pakistan’s “double-timing” the United States, the American foreign policy and strategic establishments continue to be in a “state of denial” over Pakistan Army’s duplicitous role in Afghanistan.

It is an established fact that the Pakistan Army has in the past and even now with a civilian Prime Minister in place has constantly (1) Controlled Pakistan’s foreign policy with special reference to Afghanistan and India (2) Has a vice-like grip on Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and (3) Not allowed interference by the civilian establishment in Pakistan’s Proxy War on both fronts.

With its severe loss of public image in Pakistan, the Pakistan Army has only one option to regain it. They have to wrest Afghanistan in a repeat performance of 1996 through the Taliban.

Afghanistan’s strategic and political stability has constantly been undermined by the Pakistan Army and this needs to be examined in this Paper under the following heads

Pakistan’s Dual-Track Strategy of Undermining Afghanistan’s Strategic Stability

Pakistan’s Strategic Interests in Afghanistan Operate in Contradiction to United States Strategic Interests

Pakistan’s Dual Track Strategy of Undermining Afghanistan’s Strategic Stability

General Musharraf and the Pakistan Army have ostensibly gone along with the United States after 9/11 and US military intervention in Afghanistan, but they kept indulging in a dual-track policy of (1) Rhetorical support to United States on “global war on terror” (2) Arming, training, facilitating and logistics support for Taliban to indulge in Pakistan’s proxy war in Afghanistan against US and NATO forces.

Pakistan Army and its Generals painstakingly proclaim that they committed 80,000 troops and suffered 800 casualties in operations in the FATA, the frontier tribal region of NWFP province bordering Afghanistan in,aid of US military operations.

This is duplicitous rhetoric once again by Pakistan Army Generals for the following reasons:

Quetta region in Baluchistan, which is the main base of Pakistan’s proxies, the Taliban, was never the focus of the Pakistan Army.

Pakistan Army in the last six years has made no effort to liquidate Taliban main base in the Quetta region nor interdict the flow of Taliban and their logistics support from Quetta to Kandahar region and Southern Afghanistan – the main theatre of Taliban operations against US and NATO Forces.

Pakistan Army’s deployments and casualties emerged not in support of USA in Afghanistan. They resulted from Pakistan Army’s internal security – centric operations against Pakistani tribals challenging General Musharraf’s Army rule and policies.

Pakistan Army has made a distinction in it military operations discriminating between the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Al Qaedists mostly foreigners in FATA were targeted. since they posed the greatest threat to General Musharraf personally.

Pakistan Army scrupulously avoided military operations against the Taliban with the intention of conserving them as a strategic policy tool to regain control over Afghanistan, even if it involves undermining USA.

It also needs to be recorded forthrightly that the Pakistan Army operations in FATA were not intensified when United States security interests in Afghanistan demanded it, but were intensified only when the tribals revolted against General Musharraf’s misrule and policies and the suppression by Pakistan Army.

The major impediment that impeded the determined efforts of US and NATO Forces was that the United States continued to have a misplaced trust and faith that Pakistan would have behave as “a steadfast and enduring US Ally” to further US strategic interests in Afghanistan.

Pakistan and the Pakistan Army have behaved in a manner detrimental to US strategic interests for the following reasons:

Pakistan perceives Afghanistan as its exclusive “strategic backyard” serving its strategic interests at different levels.

Pakistan cannot afford to militarily occupy Afghanistan to secure its perceived strategic backyard. A proxy Taliban regime brutalizing Afghanistan on the pretext of Islamization provided the tool to secure Afghanistan for Pakistan as happened from 1996 to 2002.

The fostering and preservation of Taliban as a strategic asset was the foremost strategic aim of Pakistan Army to secure its ends in Afghanistan. The Taliban is the only option for Pakistan to re-subjugate Afghanistan.

The United States national security and strategic aims post 9/11 in Afghanistan have been as follows:

Afghanistan’s strategic and political stability be restored and Afghanistan’s emergence as a democratic and moderate Islamic nation be facilitated as a model for other Islamic nations.

Afghanistan’s re-emergence as the nursery of global Islamic terrorism under Taliban aegis and proxy for Pakistan be neutralized.

Afghanistan’s potential to be built up as one of the “pillars” of US security in Greater South West Asia be strengthened in the face of Iran in conflictual confrontation with USA and Pakistan increasingly emerging as an uncertain strategic ally of USA.

When the Pakistan and American strategic interests in Afghanistan as outlined above are compared there is not only a glaring mismatch but the two sets of US and Pakistan strategic interests in Afghanistan appear to be in gross contradiction of each other.

Pakistan all along has been aware of these contradictions and has followed a dual track strategy to ensure and secure its interests in a duplicitous manner.

Apparently, going strictly by the pronouncements and certifications of US Administration leaders on Pakistan vis-à-vis Afghanistan what appears is that the United States has not seen through Pakistan’s game.

In earlier Papers of this Author it stands brought out that there is a “visible disconnect” between US and NATO Forces commanders in Afghanistan and Washington officials on Pakistan’s reputation as a “credible partner” of USA in furthering US and NATO stabilization operations in Afghanistan. US and NATO Forces commanders have forcefully asserted that Pakistan is in league with the Taliban and undermining stabilization operations.

Afghanistan strategic stability is an achievable objective for the United States and NATO Forces in Afghanistan. Needless to state that a strategically and politically stable Afghanistan is an imperative not only for United States national strategic ends but also an imperative for peace in South Asia, South West Asia and Central Asia.

United States and NATO Forces in Afghanistan as it is have to battle against heavy odds in terms of (1) Availability of adequate military forces (2) Infiltration of Taliban forces from Pakistan at a rate greater than the build up of US and NATO Forces (3) Pakistan maintaining porous borders with Afghanistan to permit Taliban influx (4) Orders to US and NATO Forces for no “hot pursuit” of the Taliban in Pakistan and no military strikes against Taliban and Al Qaeda forces in Pakistan.

Majority of the challenges faced by US and NATO Forces in Afghanistan originate and are Pakistan-centric. It can be understandingly frustrating for frontline commanders in Afghanistan having to fight the Pakistan proxies, the Taliban, with one hand militarily tied by Washington’s pro-Pakistan or Pakistan-sensitive policy formulations.

At the risk of being repetitive from previous Papers of the Author, the way ahead for Afghanistan’s strategic stability lies in the following:

United States needs to de-link/divorce its Afghanistan strategic and military formulations from a misperceived obsession that Pakistan’s sensitivities must be taken into account by US and NATO Forces.

United States needs to dispel the myth that Pakistan is a willing and credible partner facilitating US stabilization operations in Afghanistan. The converse is more true.

United States needs to dispel the notion that Afghanistan is Pakistan’s “strategic backyard”. The proud people of Afghanistan will never accept to be Pakistan’s junior partner.

United States need to dispel the myth that it can bring Pakistan and Afghanistan strategically together in a harmonious cooperative relationship to serve US strategic interests.

The way ahead for the United States to stabilize Afghanistan lies in adapting itself to the strategic harsh reality that it is not Pakistan which would assist USA. Other countries too have legitimate strategic interests in Afghanistan and they have to be co-opted despite any Pakistani objections.

Concluding Observations

The United States needs to first recognize that the Taliban War in Afghanistan is not directed at the Karzai Government. The Taliban War in Afghanistan is a direct war against the United States.

The second strategic reality that the United States must come face to face with is that the Taliban is no rag-tag bunch of irregulars. It is an armed militia created and trained by Pakistan for the express purpose of securing Afghanistan for Pakistan. It did so for six years or so in the mid-1990s. The Taliban, again at Pakistan’s behest and guidance, is seeking once again to seize Afghanistan by proxy for Pakistan.

(The author is an International Relations and Strategic Affairs analyst.)

[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.]