Institute for War & Peace Reporting: Accusations of brutality are nothing new for General Abdul Rashid Dostum, who commanded an Uzbek militia faction throughout years of civil war in Afghanistan. The international watchdog group Human Rights Watch has repeatedly alleged that he is a war criminal.      Full news...

AP: The Philippines and Afghanistan were the most dangerous places for journalists in Asia in 2006, while Thai media suffered under a new military government and dozens of reporters remained behind bars in China, a U.S. media rights group said Tuesday in its annual report.      Full news...

The Independent: The proposed legislation has been criticised by the country's human rights watchdog and Malalai Joya, one of the few MPs who did not approve the bill, describing it as being tantamount to "forgiving national traitors".      Full news...

DPA via TeluguPortal.Net: The United Nations office in Afghanistan has voiced strong opposition to the Afghan parliament's approval of a bill granting immunity to war-criminals and exempting them from judicial proceedings.      Full news...

Khaleej Times: Afghanistan's parliament has granted immunity to all Afghans involved in the country's 25 years of conflict, lawmakers said on Thursday, despite calls by human rights groups for war crimes trials.      Full news...

Institute for War and Peace Reporting: "The girl who was exchanged for a dog" has become a sensation around the world, sparking outrage in human rights circles. But the canine connection is a minor part of the story, a curiosity that served as a hook to bring the case to public attention.      Full news...

Seven Oaks Magazine: In early September, Canadian military personnel stationed in Afghanistan's Kandahar province spearheaded NATO's Operation Medusa, aimed at Taliban strongholds in the Panjwaii and Zhari districts of that province. Accustomed to seeing the Canadian Forces' role as that of peace-keepers, many observers were stunned by reports that the Medusa offensive had resulted in hundreds of enemy combatants killed along with five fatalities suffered by Canadian soldiers. Meanwhile, there was a largely unreported civilian exodus as some 80,000 people fled their homes while "at least 50 civilians were killed over several weeks of bombing" (New York Times, Nov 27, A12).      Full news...

BBC - Five years ago, after the fall of the Taliban, Afghanistan's new government pledged swift action to improve the lives of women. But a recent report by the international women's organisation Womankind Worldwide said millions of Afghan women and girls continue to face discrimination and violence in their day-to-day lives.      Full news...

BBC News: Gulsoom is 17-years-old and married. Last year she tried to commit suicide - she failed. She set fire to herself but, against the odds, survived with appalling injuries. Her plight reflects that of a growing number of young Afghan women, campaigners say.      Full news...

A local commander and his 11 men gang-rape a 22-year-old woman in Shahre Buzurg district of the northeastern Badakhshan province on Nov.28. The crime took place in the Shah Dasht village, by a local warlord called Mujtaba who belongs to Jamiat-e-Islami Afghanistan led by Burhanuddin Rabbani (now member of the parliament).      Full news...

Pajhwok Afghan News: A commander of the National Army Unit of Shindand Airport in Herat Province injured a headmaster and student of high school and beat more than 20 teachers.      Full news...

BBC (Persian Services): According to a report from the Northern Province of Takhar, tens of people staged a demonstration to protest rape of a girl by police in the Dasht-e-Qala district of this province. Also it is reported that selling of women has become very common in Faryab province in north of Afghanistan and each woman is sold up to 50,000 Afghanis (around US$1,000).      Full news...

RAWA - Sanobar, 11-years-old daughter of Gulsha, an Afghan widow, has been abducted, raped and then traded in exchange for a dog by warlords in Aliabad district of Kondoz province in North of Afghanistan.      Full news...

PeaceReporter - Lashkargah: I don’t know their names, I don’t even know their age. They weren’t in condition to talk. They are five “presumed Taliban” arrived on Tuesday to the Emergency hospital in Lashkargah, placed in south Afghanistan. They are coming from the Kajaki area, in the eastern land of Helmand province, they travelled for hours through the dust of the desert. But to be arrived is just a great fortune.      Full news...

The Canadian Press: NATO air strikes in southern Afghanistan's Kandahar province killed nine civilians and wounded 11 others Wednesday, the provincial governor said. NATO said an operation was believed to have caused "several" civilian casualties.      Full news...

Pajhwok Afghan News: Thousands of people on Monday staged a protest demonstration against the presence of armed commanders in the northern Takhar province.      Full news...

Human Rights Watch: Presidents Bush, Karzai, and Musharraf should act immediately to stop the increasing insecurity and attendant human rights abuses gripping southern Afghanistan and Pakistan's border areas, Human Rights Watch said today. The three leaders are meeting tonight in Washington.      Full news...

BBC NEWS: Unidentified gunmen have killed a top women's affairs official in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, security officials say.      Full news...

RADIO FREE EUROPE/ RADIO LIBERTY: A UN-backed rights watchdog has expressed continuing concern over violence against women in Afghanistan.      Full news...

Cursor.org: For every American who dies in either Afghanistan or Iraq, about 17 innocent Afghan or Iraqi civilians perish. The overall cumulative death count for both Americans and civilians in Iraqi is approximately ten times greater than in Afghanistan (data accessed on September 17, 2006).      Full news...

Pajhwok Afghan News: Taliban have publicly executed a man for his alleged involvement in a murder case in the Garmsir district of the southern Helmand province on Saturday.      Full news...

Indo Asian News Service: Poverty, hardship and unemployment are driving women in Afghanistan to prostitution, with suicide the only option to escape their miseries, says a UN study.      Full news...

New York Times: Taliban militants killed a woman and her 13-year-old son after accusing them of spying for the government and for foreign troops in southern Afghanistan, the Afghan government said Wednesday.      Full news...

Pajhwok Afghan News: Three staffers working with a private television channel were beaten by armed men while covering a demonstration against former Mujahideen leader and current Member of Parliament Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf in Paghman district of Kabul on Saturday.      Full news...

RAWA: On 1st July 2006, hundreds of people from the Paghman district of Kabul demonstrated against Rasul Sayyaf, a fundamentalist leader of the Itehad-e-Islami party and a current member of the Afghan parliament. The protesters accused Sayyaf and his armed militia of extorting their lands and imposing crimes against them.      Full news...

Globe and Mail: As a cameraman in the Afghan parliament, Omid Yakmanish thought he had a routine job, until he was attacked and threatened with death.      Full news...

IRIN: Seven aid workers lost their lives in Afghanistan on Tuesday in two separate incidents. At least four were killed in the northern Afghan province of Jawzjan when unidentified gunmen ambushed their vehicle, a government spokesman said in the capital Kabul.      Full news...

CTV.ca News: Up to 80 suspected Taliban militants and an unknown number of civilians died after U.S.-led coalition forces bombed a village in southern Afghanistan.      Full news...

RAWA: On April 18th 2006, hundreds of people in the Takhar province of northern Afghanistan staged a demonstration to raise their voices against the brutalities of the war- and drug-lords whose presence has become a dominating factor in their homeland.      Full news...

IRIN, a UN humanitarian news and information service: Sitting in a small restaurant in a busy bazaar in Maimana, capital of Afghanistan’s northern Faryab province, Abdul Hadi, 36, worries out loud over the fate of his family in Kata Kala village, some 80 km away.      Full news...