IWPR: Residents of a southern village tell of a night of violence at the hands of foreign and Afghan soldiers. Abdul Manaan claims he suffered slashes to his neck during a nighttime raid which locals say was carried out by a mixed force of foreign and Afghan troops helicoptered into Toube on November 18. Eyewitnesses say the soldiers killed 18 civilians in an attack that was brutal even by the standards of the Afghan conflict.      Full news...

By Marc W. Herold: Thought and language, which reflect reality in a way different from that of perception, are the key to the nature of human consciousness. Words play a central part not only in the development of thought but in the historical growth of human consciousness as a whole. A word is a microcosm of human consciousness...      Full news...

AFP: UN rights chief Louise Arbour criticised Afghanistan Tuesday for stalling on a plan to address atrocities and human rights abuses committed in its more than two decades of armed conflict.      Full news...

VOA News: Afghan security officials say Taliban militants have hanged five policeman in southern Afghanistan as a public warning to others.      Full news...

BBC Persian (translated by RAWA): Members of Afghanistan parliament accuse some officials of Pul-e-Charkhi prison in Kabul for raping women prisoners. A delegation of Afghan parliamentarians who recently visited the prison say some women become pregnant after being raped.      Full news...

Deutsche Welle: A leading human rights group has called on NATO-led forces in Afghanistan to stop transferring prisoners to local authorities out of fear they could be tortured. NATO said there is no evidence of abuse.      Full news...

IWPR: It was the coup of a lifetime for a team of young journalists from Helmand. After protracted negotiations with the Taliban, they were invited to film the insurgents' stronghold in the northern town of Musa Qala. They would be the first reporters allowed into Musa Qala since the Taliban hoisted their white flag above the district centre last February.      Full news...

Pajhwok Afghan News: A number of private security companies operating in conflict zones were engaging in new forms of mercenary activity, a United Nations team warned on Tuesday.      Full news...

The Post: The killings of innocent people and human rights abuses in Afghanistan are being committed by war criminals and warlords since 20 years. After the Soviet withdrawal, these warlords and criminals killed thousands of people in Kabul and molested over 0.3 million women all over the country. These criminals have hijacked Afghanistan. According to a report on human rights, violence, political intimidation, and attacks on women are discouraging political participation and endangering gains made on women's rights in Afghanistan over the last year.      Full news...

Xinhua: Beheaded bodies of two Afghans, who were abducted by suspected militants days ago, have been found in Rashidan district of central Afghanistan's Ghazni province, the provincial police chief said Saturday.      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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Toronto Star: Wira Darwishi's sad brown eyes betray decades of worry and questions. More than 20 years ago, three members of her family – a brother, uncle and cousin – vanished. For years, Darwishi wondered silently about their fate.      Full news...

AFP: NATO warplanes killed six Afghan civilians, most of them women and children, in an air strike during a battle with Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan, a district governor told AFP Friday.      Full news...

Reuters: Around 100 angry Afghan Sikhs carried a coffin to the United Nations headquarters in Kabul on Monday, accusing Muslims of stopping them cremating the dead man.      Full news...

Institute for War & Peace Reporting: While attention focuses on fighting in southern Afghanistan, there are parts of the north where the law is made not by Kabul, but by militia commanders who use violence and intimidation to maintain their hold over the civilian population.      Full news...

PressGazette.co.uk: Award-winning journalist Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy talks to Colin Crummy about her latest film charting the experiences of women in AfghanistanSix years after Hardcash Productions' Beneath The Veil, which examined the plight of women in Afghanistan, broadcast journalist Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy returned to the country. The resulting film, Afghan?istan – Lifting The Veil, offers a bleak insight into life in the country post-Taliban rule, as Obaid Chinoy meets women forced into marriage and living in poverty, but desperate to escape.      Full news...

Pajhwok Afghan News: The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Sunday voiced concern over the predicament of women prisoners in Afghanistan. Dr. Shukria Nuri, head of the UNODC, told a day-long conference on the issue that women were held in Afghan jails in inappropriate conditions that were contrary to the concept of human rights and other international norms.      Full news...

EurasiaNet: Two men from one family were dragged from their home in Paktia Province on August 19 and beheaded, Pajhwak Afghan News reported. The attack occurred around midnight in the village of Abdal in Zurmat district, according to Din Mohammad Darwesh, a spokesman for the provincial governor.      Full news...

Pajhwok Afghan News: A number of people in Takhar refer to their province as ‘kingdom of bandits' and blame some of the local commanders of intervening in the government affairs, usurpation of peoples' land and properties, violence against women and unlawful conducts. But the commanders say such claims are baseless.      Full news...

OhmyNews: Decades of civil and social upheaval has intensified traditional social pressures on Afghan women who were already suffering at the hands of poverty and decadent social traditions. All this was coupled by the economic dislocation of a large section of Afghanistan society. In such a situation, Afghan women found an easy escape in suicides. The trend of suicide, which started in the early years of this decade, is now practiced by desperate Afghan women throughout most parts of Afghanistan.      Full news...

Pajhwok Afghan News: In the last one-month, cases of self-immolation have considerably increased in Balkh province and four women have committed self-immolation.      Full news...

AFP: More than 100 people, many of them widows, called for international help in identifying remains found in the latest mass grave to be uncovered in Afghanistan.      Full news...

Yemen Observer: "The conditions of my imprisonment were those of a small-scale Guantanamo," said Kamran Mir Hazar, "with four persons crammed into a dark 2-by-3 meter cell, without any contact to the outside world, and no access to a lawyer." The 31-year-old journalist and author was recently arrested on the street by agents of the Afghan secret police.      Full news...

Pajhwok Afghan News: Taliban have executed the four judges they had kidnapped from Andar district of Ghazni last week. Their bodies were retrieved by police in the district this morning, officials told Pajhwok Afghan News on Wednesday. The slain also included a senior official of the Paktika courts.      Full news...

Pajhwok Afghan News: 'The last day she came to the school, instead of answering the questions, in her Chemistry exam paper she wrote that she would never come to school again', says Frohar about the late Farida. A student of class tenth at Khadijatulkobra high school, located in the center of Kundoz province, Frohar was class-fellow and best friend of 18 year old Farida who has committed suicide on July 11, 2007.      Full news...

CTV.ca News: A growing number of Afghan women are attempting to escape a life of abuse by setting themselves on fire, a study by a human rights group has found.      Full news...