Reuters: They are known as "bacha bereesh," boys without beards, teenage boys who dress up as girls and dance for male patrons at parties in northern Afghanistan. It's an age old practice that has led to some of the boy dancers being turned into sex slaves by wealthy and powerful patrons, often former warlords, who dress the boys up as girls, shower them with gifts and keep them as "mistresses."      Full news...

AFP: Afghanistan is fifth last on a global index of human development, according to a report released Sunday, despite billions of dollars in aid and help since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001.      Full news...

The Associated Press: As many as two-thirds of the 77 people killed and 100 wounded in a suicide bombing Nov. 6 were hit by bullets from visiting lawmakers' panicked bodyguards, who fired into a crowd for as long as five minutes, a preliminary U.N. report says.      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...

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC): In its final Afghan Opium Survey for 2007 issued today, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) shows that opium is now equivalent to more than half (53%) of the country's licit GDP. Speaking at a conference in Brussels on the future of Afghanistan, hosted by Princeton University, the Executive Director of UNODC, Antonio Maria Costa, announced that the total export value of opiates produced in and trafficked from Afghanistan in 2007 is about $4 billion, a 29 per cent increase over 2006.      Full news...

The Herald Sun: THE US military is experiencing a "suicide epidemic" with veterans killing themselves at the rate of 120 a week, according to an investigation by US television network CBS. At least 6256 US veterans committed suicide in 2005 - an average of 17 a day - the network reported, with veterans overall more than twice as likely to take their own lives as the rest of the general population.      Full news...

RFE/RL: Afghan President Hamid Karzai has criticized members of his cabinet and deputies in parliament for corruption -- saying the problem is so widespread that it is setting back the reconstruction of the country. Karzai says the living conditions of ordinary Afghans are deteriorating every day while government officials think only about how to increase their personal wealth.      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...

Reuters: Corruption among Afghan officials is rife and government must be reformed to help end 30 years of war, misery and oppression, President Hamid Karzai said on Tuesday in an unusually frank assessment of his country's woes.      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...

Reuters: Private security contractors in Afghanistan add to the sense of insecurity, are often confused with foreign troops, employ former militiamen and may have links to crime, said an independent Swiss study published on Monday.      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...

CTV: As Afghan police scrambled to the scene of a bomb blast Tuesday that killed five lawmakers and dozens of children, Malalai Joya, haunted by death threats and assassination attempts in Afghanistan, sat on the other side of the world, clutching a cup of tea with her eyes cast downward.      Full news...

Associated Press: Two bomb blasts targeted a group of lawmakers in northern Afghanistan, on Tuesday, killing at least 64 people, including five members of parliament, the deadliest attack in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, officials said.      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...

Eurasianet: Much of the world's attention on Afghanistan is now focused on the country's Pashtun-dominated south and east, where Taliban fighters are battling NATO troops and U.S.-led coalition forces. But there is a different kind of tension in northern Afghanistan.      Full news...

The New York Times: Amid the multiplying frustrations of the fight against narcotics in Afghanistan, the northern province of Balkh has been hailed as a rare and glowing success. Two years ago the province, which abuts Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, was covered with opium poppies — about 27,000 acres of them, nearly enough to blanket Manhattan twice. This year, after an intense anti-poppy campaign led by the governor, Balkh's farmers abandoned the crop. The province was declared poppy free, with 12 others, and the provincial government was promised a reward of millions of dollars in development aid.      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...

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...