HEALTH-PAKISTAN: ‘War on Terror’ Cripples Border Hospitals

Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) extends 27,220 sq km along the Afghanistan border and has been the target of a series of debilitating U.S. missile attacks since 2005.

AFGHANISTAN: Return of the Uzbek Warlord

The ugly riots and police firing that resulted in the deaths of at least a dozen people in northern Jowzjan province in the last week of May are being seen as signs of rebellion against the government of President Hamid Karzai by the warlord Gen. Abdorrrashid Dostum and his Uzbek community.

CANADA: Afghan Strategy Sharpens Ideological Divide

United Nations-style peacekeeping is getting a bad rap these days within Canada's military, 60 years after then Prime Minister Lester Pearson came up with the idea of mediating the Suez Crisis following the British-French-Israel attack on Egypt.

AFGHANISTAN: Poppy Fields Offer Jobs as Fighting Rages

While intense fighting rages around Afghanistan's famed poppy fields in the south, thousands of poor, jobless youths have poured in to embattled Helmand province to lance the lush-green poppy bulbs that promise massive yields of opium this year.

EU-AFGHANISTAN: A Country Seen as a Drugs Factory

When archive material showing Osama bin Laden hiding in an underground fortress is aired on Western news bulletins, the perception that Afghanistan is a lawless periphery is reinforced.

HEALTH-US: Suicidal and Facing a Third Tour in Iraq

At the beginning of May, Corporal Cloy Richards tried to kill himself.

IRAN: Afghan Refugees – Pawns in Standoff with West

As the Iranian regime firmly implements a plan to repatriate the bulk of an estimated one million Afghan refugees living illegally on its soil, it is apparent that the move is aimed at embarrassing the West over its failures in the region.

US-AFGHANISTAN: Deaths Mount with No End in Sight

While attention among policy-makers in Washington remains focused on Iraq, the war in Afghanistan has become an ongoing struggle to keep the country from deteriorating into a failed state.

ENERGY-CENTRAL ASIA: Wrangling Over Pipelines Wrecks Early Prospects

A combination of East-West geopolitical rivalries and haggling between former Soviet republics is delaying the construction of a series of oil and gas pipelines that could help alleviate the world's future energy supply concerns.

AFGHANISTAN: Coalition Killings Spark Furious Street Protests

Angry protests have erupted in two Afghan provinces against killings of civilians in military operations by coalition troops on Taliban targets.

CANADA: Afghan Prison Torture Scandal Rocks Military

Canadian General Rick Hillier and Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor have dismissed calls that they be investigated for war crimes over Canada's role in handing over to Afghan security forces detainees who were subsequently tortured.

POLITICS: Suspicion of U.S. Found Pervasive in Islamic World

Six and a half years after U.S. President George W. Bush launched his "global war on terror", suspicion of U.S. motives remains pervasive throughout the Islamic world, according to a new and highly detailed survey of four countries released here Tuesday.

THEATRE-U.S.: Iraq, Afghanistan War Vets Find Relief in the Footlights

The house lights go down and the stage lights come up on "The Wolf", the first production of VetStage, a non-profit theatre company run by veterans of the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It opens with a funeral: a Roman Catholic priest preparing to deliver a eulogy for a U.S. soldier killed by a road-side bomb.

Q&A: ‘Taliban Back Due to Karzai’s Poor Strategic Vision’

Former Afghan foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah warns that the government of President Hamid Karzai suffers from "shortcomings in strategic vision" that are contributing to a deteriorating security situation in an ethnically diverse country.

AFGHANISTAN: Taliban Executes Freed Italian Scribe’s Colleague

A young Afghan journalist, who was abducted along with the freed Italian journalist Danielle Mastrogiacomo in southern Afghanistan by Taliban militants, was killed 48 hours ahead of the expiry of a deadline for negotiations issued to the government.

PAKISTAN: Military Ruler ‘Floored’ by Burqa Brigade

For a tough military ruler, who in recent weeks removed the chief justice from office and allowed police raids on leading newspapers, Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf appears curiously paralysed by roving bands of the ‘burqa brigade' - veiled female religious scholars armed with sticks and ready to enforce Shariah (Islamic law).

PAKISTAN: ‘Missing Teenagers Lured by Islamist Militants’

"I am in search of my son, who went missing three months ago from the neighbourhood. We are told that he is in Afghanistan fighting alongside the Taliban," said Gul Afzal, a resident of Ghareebabad hamlet in Mardan, North Western Frontier Province (NWFP).

AFGHANISTAN: Journalists Appeal for Release of Kidnapped Colleague

Afghan and Italian press associations appealed Wednesday for the Islamic Taliban movement to release Afghan journalist Ajmal Naqshbandi, who was kidnapped on Mar. 5.

AFGHANISTAN: Media, Civil Society Stake Bold Claim as Leaders

Scan the pages of major newspapers around the world and the only news coming out of Afghanistan is about bomb blasts and the escalating conflict between the Taliban and NATO forces in the country's south.

PAKISTAN: Security Concerns Force Afghan Refugees to Stay

"Lack of security in Afghanistan is the main obstacle standing in the way of our going back," said an Afghan vegetable-seller, straddling a muddy narrow lane in Kacha Garhi, the oldest refugee camp in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), with a push-cart.

HEALTH-US: Top Army Hospital Swamped by Tide of Wounded

As a nine-member commission prepares to investigate allegations of ineptitude at the United States' largest and most prestigious military hospital, politicians in Washington are waiting to see if any more colleagues associated with the scandal will lose their jobs.