Full Coverage: Afghanistan

28.12.2005 Pakistan made clear on Tuesday it was not bound to offer a transit facility for trade between Afghanistan and other member states of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).

27.12.2005 Managing director of Parwaz Microfinance Institute Katrin Fakiri said that institutions of microfinance would greatly affect business of the usurers and would also help in protecting women from forced marriages.

21.12.2005 Afghan President Hamid Karzai swore in the new members of parliament Monday in what is considered the conclusion of the U.N.-backed plan to bring democracy to Afghanistan. Despite facing an uphill battle, many of the delegates are optimistic about their country's future.

20.12.2005 After three decades of coups, chaos and bloodshed Afghanistan's parliament reopened yesterday amid hopes that it will root the nation's fledgling democracy.

20.12.2005 Accounts from detainees at Guantánamo reveal that as recently as last year the United States operated a secret prison in Afghanistan where detainees were subjected to torture and other mistreatment, a human rights group said.

12.12.2005 UNITED NATIONS: Needy ex-fighters and their families in Afghanistan have begun receiving United Nations food packages under an initiative of the country's New Beginning Programme. Afghanistan has a population of 29 million people, and is one of the poorest countries in the world. The nearly 1,000 families benefiting from the distribution will receive wheat, oil, salt, beans and other foodstuffs. The assistance, which was provided by the UN World Food Programme (WFP), is surplus food left over from last year's distribution to demilitarized and demobilized Afghan Military Forces when they underwent the Disarmament Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) process. The deliveries, which began last Wednesday, will run until mid-January.

05.12.2005 KABUL: President Hamid Karzai opened a regional economic conference Sunday with a pitch for closer cooperation, casting his country's fragile new stability after decades of war as a crucial chance to boost trade and growth.