AFGHANISTAN-US: Mission Essential, Translators Expendable

Basir "Steve" Ahmed was returning from a bomb-clearing mission in Khogyani district in northeastern Afghanistan when a suicide bomber blew up an explosive-filled vehicle nearby. The blast flipped the military armoured truck Ahmed was riding in three or four times, and filled it with smoke. The Afghan translator had been accompanying the 927th Engineer Company near the Pakistan border on that October day in 2008 that would forever change his life.

AFGHANISTAN: Carpet Industry Crippled Without Govt Help

Carpet weaving has long been a part of Afghanistan's history and culture.

TRADE: Carpets – Made in Afghanistan for Pakistan’s Profit

The Afghan carpet weaving industry is Afghanistan's second largest, behind only agriculture in terms of size and number of people employed.

POLITICS: Pakistanis See U.S. as Biggest Threat

A survey commissioned by Al Jazeera in Pakistan has revealed a widespread disenchantment with the United States for interfering with what most people consider internal Pakistani affairs.

PAKISTAN: Ruined Farmers Say Children Won't Go to School

Fertile Swat's famous orchards of peach, plum and apple were just starting to ripen when the Pakistan military launched an air and land attack on Taliban fighters in end-April, uprooting tens of thousands of civilians.

CULTURE: Young Women in Chat Rooms Beware

Internet and mobile phones have spawned a new kind of marriage in the Gulf.

HEALTH-AFGHANISTAN: Patients at Private Doctors' Mercy

Thirty five-year-old Habibulah Khan walks out of a private clinic in the Afghan capital, covered in dust and looking dog-tired.

HEALTH-AFGHANISTAN: Private Care – Designed to Make Money

Forty five-year-old Rahima thought she was going to die. Her family had checked her into Shenuzada, a private hospital in Makroyan in the Afghan capital, for an operation on her abdomen.

POLITICS: U.S. Officials Protect Pak Military on Aid to Taliban

Despite evidence implicating the current Pakistani Army chief, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, in a major military assistance program for the Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan over the past few years, senior officials of the Barack Obama administration persuaded Congress to extend military assistance to Pakistan for five years without any assurance that the Pakistani assistance to the Taliban had ended.

AGRICULTURE: Disease Threatens Afghan Wheat Crop

Agronomists and crop experts fear that an aggressive disease that attacks wheat crops could soon reach Afghanistan, potentially threatening food security and initiatives to curb the cultivation of illicit crops.

AFGHANISTAN: Child Rapist Police Return Behind U.S., UK Troops

The strategy of the major U.S. and British military offensive in Afghanistan's Helmand province aimed at wresting it from the Taliban is based on bringing back Afghan army and police to maintain permanent control of the population, so the foreign forces can move on to another insurgent stronghold.

AFGHANISTAN: Govt Denies Legal Inequality

The head of the Afghan Supreme Court, Mohammad Zaman Sangri, denies that a legal double standard exists in Afghanistan, saying that all Afghans receive equal treatment before the law.

AFGHANISTAN: Rape – The Most Vulnerable Victims of Corruption

Being powerful in Afghanistan does not only mean that you can break the laws of government. It also means that you can abuse your fellow citizens in the most awful ways and never be punished.

AFGHANISTAN: Two Justice Systems for Poor and Rich

Three weeks ago, Afghan President Hamid Karzai pardoned five international narcotics traffickers after the Supreme Court found the men guilty and handed down a sentence of 12 to 15 years in prison.

RIGHTS-US: Judge Slams Govt Over Afghan Detainee

A federal judge last week excoriated U.S. government lawyers for advocating the continued detention of a detainee at Guantanamo Bay after his "confession" was ruled inadmissible because it was extracted through torture.

CANADA: Afghanistan Exit Could Bring Escalated Air War

Amid reports that the Barack Obama administration is quietly lobbying the Conservative government in Ottawa to keep Canadian troops in Afghanistan's Kandahar province beyond 2011, Stephen Harper is finding himself in an increasingly awkward dilemma.

US-AFGHANISTAN: Group Seeks Probe of Mass Graves

A prominent human rights group is calling on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate why the administration of former President George W. Bush blocked three different probes into war crimes in Afghanistan where as many as 2,000 surrendered Taliban fighters were reportedly suffocated in container trucks and then buried in a mass grave by Afghan forces operating jointly with U.S. forces.

PAKISTAN: Scared, But Terrible Camp Life Forces IDPs Home

Civilians who fled the Malakand region in northwest Pakistan after the army launched operations against the Taliban, are starting to trickle home. On Wednesday, the government said 2,885 families have returned to Swat and Buner.

Q&A: Geopolitics Antithetical to Human Development

Sam Worthington is the president and CEO of InterAction, a coalition of 175 U.S.-based non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that focus on aiding the world's most poor and vulnerable people.

Q&A: "The Killing of Women Is Like Killing a Bird Today in Afghanistan"

It is easy to understand why epithets such as brave and courageous often accompany the name of Malalai Joya. Slight of stature and serenely demure, the young Afghan woman’s past and present encapsulate the plight of her countrywomen.

PAKISTAN: Displacement Traumatic for Pregnant Women

Pregnant women uprooted by the violence in the Malakand region, northwest Pakistan, have suffered acutely in refugee camps for the internally displaced.