CORRUPTION: Afghanistan, Iraq Near Bottom of Transparency Index

Despite billions of dollars spent by the U.S. and other countries to improve governance in Afghanistan and Iraq, the two countries remain among the world's most corrupt nations, according to the latest edition of Transparency International's (TI) Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI).

AGRICULTURE: Exporting Afghanistan

The 60 hectare stretch of farmland in north Kabul's Badam Bagh neighbourhood looks much like farmland all over this country. Colourful rows of neatly planted crops stretch out from a dusty road and up the gentle slope of an arid ridge.

U.S.: Army Underreporting Suicides, Says GI Advocacy Group

According to a soldiers' advocacy group at Fort Hood, the U.S. base where an army psychiatrist has been charged with killing 13 people and wounding 30 in a Nov. 5 rampage, the official suicide figures provided by the Army are "definitely" too low.

U.S.: Army Sends Infant to Protective Services, Mom to Afghanistan

U.S. Army Specialist Alexis Hutchinson, a single mother, is being threatened with a military court-martial if she does not agree to deploy to Afghanistan, despite having been told she would be granted extra time to find someone to care for her 11-month-old son while she is overseas.

POLITICS: Corruption in Afghanistan Cuts Both Ways

Unfortunately for both Afghans and Americans, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Barack Obama, his counterpart in Washington, missed a chance to reset the critical relationship between their two countries and move the dialogue in an honest direction.

POLITICS: U.S. Seeks to Limit Warlords in Karzai Cabinet

The Barack Obama administration is talking tough to Afghan President Hamid Karzai about the need for decisive action on corruption and governance reform, but its main objective is to prevent particularly corrupt and incompetent warlords from getting plum ministries as rewards for helping clinch his fraudulent reelection, IPS has learned.

U.S.: Obama’s Outreach to Muslim World Teetering

U.S. President Barack Obama's extraordinary efforts since his first days in office to reassure Muslims in the Greater Middle East about U.S. intentions in the region have suffered a series of setbacks that threaten to reverse whatever gains he has made over the past 10 months in restoring Washington's badly battered image and influence there.

AFGHANISTAN: Teenagers Enlist in Army, Police

Niamatullah joined the Afghan National Police (ANP) for the same reasons that many Afghan men do.

AFGHANISTAN: Abdullah Plays For Time

Soon after President Hamid Karzai acceded to a runoff two weeks ago, challenger Abdullah Abdullah put forward an avalanche of requests so complex, that his objective remains unclear.

AFGHANISTAN: NATO Supporting Insurgents? Not Exactly

The U.S. and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) have spent billions of dollars, sacrificed hundreds of lives and worked for years to fight insurgents and foster democracy in Afghanistan.

AFGHANISTAN: U.S., NATO Forces Rely on Warlords for Security

The revelation by the New York Times Wednesday that Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, has long been on the payroll of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency is only the tip of a much bigger iceberg of heavy dependence by U.S. and NATO counterinsurgency forces on Afghan warlords for security, according to a recently published report and investigations by Australian and Canadian journalists.

AFGHANISTAN: Poll Finds Optimism, Amid Political Disenchantment

As debate continues in Washington over what its next steps should be in Afghanistan and as the total of NATO-led coalition deaths in the country approaches 70 for the fourth straight month, a new survey says Afghans are slightly more optimistic about the future of their country than in years past.

AFGHANISTAN: The Cheap Way to Hell

For the last three weeks, 30-year-old Ghulam Nabi has lain in a Kabul hospital bed, suffering. His face is etched with hopelessness, loneliness and despair over the life he once had and has now lost forever.

US-AFGHANISTAN: Kerry Argues for Counterinsurgency Lite

Amid growing speculation and partisan bickering over what President Barack Obama will do about the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, an influential Democratic senator Monday warned against deploying tens of thousands more U.S. troops there.

AFGHANISTAN: No Refuge For Victims of Violence

The rate of civilian casualties in Afghanistan during 2009 has increased exponentially if compared with previous years.

AFGHANISTAN: NATO Members in Waiting Mode

Corruption, doubts over Afghan leadership, and faltering public support have emerged as the main stumbling blocks to a demand for more NATO troops in Afghanistan.

DEVELOPMENT-SOUTH ASIA: Women’s Peace Offensive

‘Give peace a chance' may just be another cliché for many, but for women who have suffered the ravages of war, endless strife and other forms of conflict, joining hands to find meaningful solutions to their collective aspiration lends it a whole new meaning.

U.S.: Veteran Army Officer Urges Afghan Troop Drawdown

A veteran Army officer who has served in both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars warns in an analysis now circulating in Washington that the counterinsurgency strategy urged by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal is likely to strengthen the Afghan insurgency, and calls for withdrawal of the bulk of U.S. combat forces from the country over 18 months.

U.S.: Pro-War Officials Play Up Taliban-al Qaeda Ties

U.S. national security officials, concerned that President Barack Obama might be abandoning the strategy of full-fledged counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan, are claiming new intelligence assessments suggesting that al Qaeda would be allowed to return to Afghanistan in the event of a Taliban victory.

/CORRECTED REPEAT*/POLITICS: Pakistan’s Offensive, Afghanistan’s Risk

For generations, Pakistan's southern Waziristan region has been a launching pad for insurgent military operations in Afghanistan

CANADA: Harper Courts Religious Right, But Quietly

Stephen Harper's ruling Conservative government has managed to muddy the ideological right-wing aspects of his political agenda to stay in power in Canada without alienating his western and rural base of moral and social conservatives.