Associated Press: The Veterans Affairs Department is ramping up its suicide prevention programs. The VA has determined there were at least 283 suicides among veterans who left the military between the start of the Afghan war and the end of 2005.      Full news...

IRIN News: The Safi fur and wool factory, in Herat city, western Afghanistan, has more than 350 female and 300 male workers who earn only 300 Afghanis (US$6) for their 48-hour, six-day week. The factory produces coats, jackets, hats and other garments for the European and North American markets. There are more than 1,500 women working in four such factories in Herat city.      Full news...

The New York Times: Many former militia commanders and residents in northern Afghanistan have been hoarding illegal weapons in violation of the country's disarmament laws, giving the excuse that they face a spreading Taliban insurgency from the south that government forces alone are too frail to stop, Afghan and Western officials say.      Full news...

AFP: Children in Afghanistan are increasingly at risk as the country's security situation deteriorates and the central government's authority is weakened, the United Nations Children's Fund said on Thursday.      Full news...

CounterTerrorism Blog: "As the speaker of Afghanistan's Wolesi Jirga (the lower house of the National Assembly, the Afghan parliament) travels to the U.S. this week, there will be those who hail him as an example of how far democracy has come in this war-torn nation. Those people are wrong. Anyone with knowledge of Afghan politics knows Yunus Qanooni has been one of the biggest obstacles to success in this nascent democracy, more concerned with amassing power and lining the pockets of his warlord cronies than pushing for real change in Afghanistan. The most egregious example of Qanooni's true intentions came earlier this year, when he championed a bill to provide amnesty for anyone who has committed war crimes in the last 25 years.      Full news...

Daily Telegraph: Nato has "lost in Afghanistan" and its failure to bring stability there could provoke a regional sectarian war "on a grand scale", according to Lord Ashdown.      Full news...

USA TODAY: The cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could total $2.4 trillion through the next decade, or nearly $8,000 per man, woman and child in the country, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate scheduled for release today.      Full news...

The Independent: President George Bush will have spent more than $1 trillion on military adventures by the time he leaves office at the end of next year, more than the entire amount spent on the Korean and Vietnam wars combined.      Full news...

Reuter: Eleven members of an Afghan family have been killed in an air strike by Western forces near Kabul, the head of a provincial council said on Tuesday.      Full news...

Pink News: Young boys are being sexually abused in Afghanistan in line with a tradition where they are bought by older men to dance at parties. The practice of "bacha baazi", meaning "boy-play", is enjoying a resurgence in the North of Afghanistan where ownership is seen as a status symbol by militia leaders according to Afghan news site, e-Ariana.      Full news...

The Canadian Press: After the Taliban toppled from power, Qahir packed up his family and all they could take with them and crossed the border back into his Afghan homeland. Qahir, 57, had spent 19 years in Pakistan, most of them in a sprawling refugee camp. But six years later, he says he is "hopeless and disappointed."      Full news...

World Politics Review: KABUL, Afghanistan -- It's a daily ritual for 8-year-old Bismillah. Every morning, five grimy plastic cans slung over his tiny shoulder, he descends a rugged hillside, negotiating the steep pitches of scree and gravel with goat-like agility.      Full news...

IWPR: Panicked residents of Faryab province say a local warlord is exacting tribute and abusing civilians while the government does nothing to stop him. Shahabudin fled when life became intolerable for him in his native district of Pashtun Kot, in the northern Afghan province of Faryab. He claims that a former militia commander has taken over Pashtun Kot and is ruling virtually unchallenged.      Full news...

The West Georgian: It is hard to fathom that in the year 2007 there are women who are being thrown into prison for violating the mere freedoms that are taken for granted by so many. However, it is a very real situation that is occurring every day in Afghanistan. When a woman is safer in prison, there is something very wrong with her society.      Full news...

Reporters Without Borders: Out of 169 countries in the World Press Freedom Index, released by Reporters Without Borders, Afghanistan is put low on the list in the 142th. Afghanistan falling steadily in the index for the past three years due to pressure on the media from the government and the Taliban.      Full news...

IRIN News: Fifteen-year-old Razia (not her real name) has been imprisoned in Kandahar Province, southern Afghanistan, for escaping from her husband's house and eloping with another man.      Full news...

The Associated Press: When asked about her engagement party this summer, little Sunam glanced blankly at her family, then fiddled with her gold-sequined engagement outfit — a speechless response not out of shyness, but because she does not yet talk much. Sunam is 3.      Full news...

Pajhwok Afghan News: Some members of the Afghanistan parliament say that high ranking officials have prepared the opportunity for escape of Timor who was among supposed to be executed in Pul-Charkhi prison in Kabul along with 15 others.      Full news...

RFE/RL: Helmand, with a population of 1.4 million and an area roughly the size of Switzerland, is among the largest of Afghanistan's southwestern provinces. Its vast expanse of desert and arid mountains border Pakistan and stretch to within 100 kilometers of Iran. At the heart of the battle for Afghanistan's future, Helmand also is inarguably the country's most troubled province.      Full news...

Bloomberg: The execution of 15 prisoners in Afghanistan, the second confirmed use of the death penalty since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, is a concern, the United Nations envoy in the country said.      Full news...

AFP: The US-led "war on terror" has been a "disaster" and Washington and its allies must change their policy in Iraq and Afghanistan to defeat Al-Qaeda, an independent global security think tank said.      Full news...

Pajhwok Afghan News: Thousands in the eastern Kunar province took to the streets to demand removal of military bases from residential areas in face of mounting civilian casualties in attacks and clashes between militants and Afghan and foreign troops.      Full news...

BBC News: A woman and child were among the civilians killed in a raid by a US-led coalition force against a Taliban hideout in Afghanistan, officials say. The coalition said its forces responded to an attack by destroying the building in which militants were hiding.      Full news...

Dawn: A US congressional panel was warned on Thursday that the Bush administration's Afghan policy had totally failed and Afghanistan was on its way to be lost forever.      Full news...

IRIN News: Relief operations in insecure parts of Afghanistan are highly vulnerable to waste and corruption, local officials, residents, aid officials and analysts say. "The spending imperative, the weakness of the Afghan government, and insecurity have contributed to a high risk of corruption in 'postwar' Afghanistan," stated a July 2007 report by humanitarian think-tank Overseas Development Institute (ODI).      Full news...

The Epoch Times: Thirteen-year-old Mohammad Bahari swings the long-end of a grain broom in a quite street in uptown Tehran in the early hours of morning. His boyish face and small figure resemble a child of no more than 10, making it difficult to believe he's a contractor employee with the city.      Full news...

AP via CNN: Violence in Afghanistan has surged this year with suicide bombings inflicting an especially high toll on civilians, a new United Nations report says. The report said Afghanistan is averaging 550 violent incidents a month, up from an average of 425 last year. It said three-fourths of suicide bombings are targeting international and Afghan security forces, but suicide bombers also killed 143 civilians through August.      Full news...

IRIN News: The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has condemned the hanging of a teenager boy by Taliban insurgents in Sangin District of volatile Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan.      Full news...