Reuters: For the shy Afghan girl who sat quietly in a detention center with a pale blue headscarf, teenage rebellion had come at a heavy price: seven years in prison. Engaged to an older man who had offered $5,000 to her father but in love with a boy she spoke to on the phone, the 16-year-old girl was hauled before a court that found her guilty of running away from home, according to an account she provided.      Full news...

Reuters: Long the world's largest producer of opium, the raw ingredient of heroin, Afghanistan has now become the top supplier of cannabis, with large-scale cultivation in half of its provinces, the United Nations said on Wednesday. Between 10,000 and 24,000 hectares of cannabis are grown every year in Afghanistan, with major cultivation in 17 out 34 provinces, the U.N. drug agency (UNODC) said in its first report on cannabis production in Afghanistan.      Full news...

The Associated Press: The majority of Afghans live in dire poverty, despite an estimated $35 billion in aid being poured into the country between 2002 to 2009, the United Nations said Tuesday.A report by the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights claims that over a third of Afghans live in "absolute poverty" and about the same number are only slightly above the poverty line.      Full news...

RAWA News: Another year another peace rally. The wars rage on, and the struggle continues. Like at all the others, I felt inwardly horrified. A billion wailing voices echoed in my mind. On we go with this tragedy of intention and this comedy of errors while the bodies pile higher. I long to take the needle off this skipping record and rest it on my broken heart. There alone can truth be sourced. A mind is too easily corrupted.      Full news...

The Telegraph: Sediq Chakari, former minister of Hajj, and who is thought to be in Britain has been under investigation into his alleged involvement in a kickback racket which made hundreds of thousands of pounds from poor pilgrims. Mr Karzai's palace allegedly vetoed his arrest because of his close links to former warlords within the government an international official in Kabul told The Daily Telegraph.      Full news...

RAWA News: Examining a microcosm can shed light on the larger reality. I have chosen to analyze a small mountain hamlet, Chagoti Ghar (Chergotah), located some forty kilometers east of Khost city in eastern Afghanistan in a time frame separated by eight and a third years – November 23rd 2001 and March 24th 2010. Both times, two Afghan civilians perished as a result of foreign occupation fire. In both instances, the U.S corporate media was silent. Both times, to pierce the veil of silence spun by the American military industrial media information complex (MIMIC) a person had to turn to independent, regional media; in November 2001 to the Peshawar-based Afghan Islamic Press news agency and in March 2010, to the Kabul-based Pajhwok Afghan News.      Full news...

Rethink Afghanistan: recently, we spoke with Afghanistan-based journalist Jerome Starkey about his reporting on special forces raids that killed civilians and NATOs surprising–and disappointing–response. This video contains disturbing images, and an even more disturbing story of violence, and an attempt to silence a truth-teller. It shows why its absolutely essential that we keep pushing back against the Pentagon’s message machine.      Full news...

AFP: A CIA expert has called for recruiting Afghan women in a public relations bid to persuade skeptical Europeans to support the NATO-led war effort, according to a document leaked Friday. "Afghan women could serve as ideal messengers in humanizing" the mission for European audiences, particularly in France, according to the CIA analysis, posted on WikiLeaks, a whistleblower website.      Full news...

UN Dispatch: During the first half of Afghanistan’s civil war in the 1990’s, Hekmatyar’s forces committed atrocities that elsewhere in the world are met with international arrest warrants and indictments for war crimes and crimes against humanity –not hints of future inclusion in government.      Full news...

Reuters: The United States is considering a proposal to hold foreign terrorism suspects at the Bagram military base in Afghanistan, the Los Angeles Times reported this week, a new Guantanamo Bay just as it is trying to close down the original facility in Cuba. Given the amount of trouble that Washington has run into for running a detention centre where prisoners have no access to the U.S. court system, it sounds like a bad idea to be setting it up in Afghanistan, say experts.      Full news...

IRIN: Afghanistan’s hard-won post-Taliban human rights achievements are being eroded due to the persistent immunity from prosecution of powerful figures, the intensifying conflict, and the adoption of laws which undermine justice and human rights, a UN official warns.      Full news...

PAN: At least two Afghan civilians were killed and four others wounded in crossfire between NATO-led forces and Taliban militants in southeastern Afghanistan, officials said. A mortar shell fired by NATO forces hit a house in the Chargoti village, killing a teenaged couple and injuring a man, his wife and two of their children, Madad added.      Full news...

Reuters: The United Nations urged Afghanistan on Thursday to repeal a law that grants a blanket pardon for perpetrators of war crimes and rights abuses, saying the law could hamper efforts to make peace. Afghan and international human rights groups expressed alarm earlier this month at the law, which appeared to have been enacted unannounced and gives immunity to all members of armed factions for acts committed before the Taliban’s ouster in 2001.      Full news...

IRIN: Hidden on roadsides, behind boulders or on cultivated land, improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are killing or maiming dozens of civilians every month, according to rights groups and government officials. IEDs killed 773 civilians in 2009 - over 32 percent of the total 2,412 civilian deaths - according to the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.      Full news...

AFP: An avalanche struck a remote mountain area of northern Afghanistan two weeks ago, killing at least 35 people and burying houses beneath the snow, a local official said Tuesday. The disaster struck in Badakhshan province in the far north, but harsh weather and the remoteness of the province bordering China, Pakistan and Tajikistan meant local officials had to travel for weeks to seek help.      Full news...

The Nation: Taliban militants have beheaded four tribesmen accused of spying for US forces, police said. The bodies of four men were found near Mir Ali town in North Waziristan tribal district, which borders Afghanistan. Officials said the four were kidnapped by the Taliban about ten days ago.Gul Akber Khan, who lives in the village of Srakhula, just outside of Mir Ali, said he heard gunshots in the middle of the night.      Full news...

Newsweek: Mohammad Moqim watches in despair as his men struggle with their AK-47 automatic rifles, doing their best to hit man-size targets 50 meters away. A few of the police trainees lying prone in the mud are decent shots, but the rest shoot clumsily, and fumble as they try to reload their weapons. The Afghan National Police (ANP) captain sighs as he dismisses one group of trainees and orders 25 more to take their places on the firing line.      Full news...

Reuters: Afghanistan is the hardest place in the world to be a child, the South Asia regional director for UNICEF said, with high child mortality rates, poor levels of nutrition and rampant sexual abuse. "The situation in Afghanistan as a whole is one of the most dramatic in South Asia and also in the world. Afghanistan is the most difficult place to be born as a child," Daniel Toole said on a visit to Afghanistan this week.      Full news...

The Telegraph: Border officials have reported that a wide range of material made in Iran – including mortars, plastic explosives, propaganda materials and mobile phones – is ending up in insurgents' hands. A Taliban commander admitted that the insurgents had grown more dependent on Iran as Pakistan stepped up operations against the group on its territory.      Full news...

ABC News: Reports of sexual assault involving military servicemembers rose by 11 percent last year, but Pentagon officials said that was just what they were hoping would happen. There were 3,230 reports of sexual assault filed in Fiscal Year 2009, the Pentagon announced today. However, Pentagon officials see the rising numbers in a positive light because it has been a goal for the Defense Department to improve the reporting of cases of sexual assault....      Full news...

RT.com: Afghanistan’s unique location has made it home to the world's most complex civilizations that left a rich cultural heritage. But the war-torn country has now fallen victim to looters, stealing the nation’s artifacts. Ever since Afghanistan was invaded by Alexander the Great, nearly 2,500 years ago, the country has seen one foreign army after another. In recent times – the British, the Soviets – and now the Americans ...      Full news...

The Times: A family whose members were killed in a botched night raid in eastern Afghanistan have rejected “blood money” from the Government and vowed to carry out suicide attacks unless the perpetrators are brought to justice. Two pregnant women, a teenage girl, a policeman and his brother were shot dead on February 12 by unidentified gunmen. Eight men were arrested in the raid on the village of Khataba in Paktia province. They have all been released.      Full news...

Eurasianet.org: Sakina is angry. “Who is Karzai to forgive the deaths in my family?” she fumes. “Was his home looted? Was his son killed? What gives him the right to forgive on my behalf? He has no right.” The source of Sakina's ire is Afghan President Hamid Karzai's reconciliation initiative. The middle-aged widow from Dasht-e Barchi, a poor neighborhood of west Kabul, lost her husband and niece in the conflict, and feels that Karzai's administration is taking away her right to justice.      Full news...

The Times: A night raid carried out by US and Afghan gunmen led to the deaths of two pregnant women, a teenage girl and two local officials in an atrocity which Nato then tried to cover up, survivors have told The Times. In a statement after the raid titled “Joint force operating in Gardez makes gruesome discovery”, Nato claimed that the force had found the women’s bodies “tied up, gagged and killed” in a room.      Full news...

BBC News: At least 30 people have been killed and 46 wounded in four suicide bombings in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, hospital officials say. The first blast happened at about 2000 (1530 GMT). Officials said the biggest attack was aimed at the city's main prison. The Taliban said they carried out the bombings as a "message" to Nato.      Full news...

BBC News: Drug abuse is rife in the Afghan police force with up to four out of 10 recruits testing positive for illegal drugs in some areas, a US report says. The report for the US Congress said the illegal drugs trade "undermines virtually every aspect" of efforts to secure Afghanistan. Afghanistan produces 90% of the world's opium and the drugs trade is a key source of funding for the insurgency.      Full news...

HRW: The Afghan government should urgently act to repeal a law that provides an amnesty to perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity, Human Rights Watch said today. The law was published unannounced in the official gazette, bringing it into force, despite repeated promises by President Hamid Karzai that he would not allow the law to go into effect.      Full news...

The Los Angeles Times: The men come at dawn, a ragged, anxious collection of faces peeking through scarves and hoping for work as they stand in a traffic circle beneath billboards advertising war heroes and washing machines. They are bricklayers, gardeners, hole diggers and carpenters. Sometimes they are tapped on the shoulder, most times they are not, so they hunch amid the cars and fruit stands, knowing that the higher the sun climbs the lower their chances of returning home with money in their pockets.      Full news...

RAWA News:Let the numbers tell the story. The following presents a detailed summary and analysis of Afghan civilians killed directly - so-called impact deaths - by U.S/NATO forces in Afghanistan during a single month, February 2010. The Obama killing machine left 80-86 dead Afghan and Pashtun civilians. By contrast, the number in February 2009 was 50. The intent here is to set the record straight as regards Afghans killed by the U.S/NATO, and in so doing challenge the UNAMA to move beyond its “faith-based” counting.      Full news...

IRIN: As the world marks International Women’s Day, ambivalence, impunity, weak law enforcement and corruption continue to undermine women’s rights in Afghanistan, despite a July 2009 law banning violence against women, rights activists say. A recent case of the public beating of a woman for alleged elopement - also shown on private TV stations in Kabul - highlights the issue.      Full news...