Full Coverage: Afghanistan

24.03.2006 The United Nations Security Council extended the mandate of the four year-old United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan which expires on 24 March, for an additional 12 months in order to continue assisting the Afghan leadership during the next phase of rebuilding the country.

23.03.2006 After Pakistan confirmed its first cases of bird flu in two farms in the North West Frontier province, neighbouring Afghanistan has also confirmed the outbreak.

21.03.2006 A powerful new militia dubbed "the Pakistani Taliban" has effectively seized control of swaths of the country's northern tribal areas in recent months, triggering alarm in Islamabad and marking a big setback in America's "war on terror".

20.03.2006 Extremists behead teachers and burn down schools in the Canadian army's new patrol territory in Kandahar province, leaving teachers to assemble their charges underground four years after the fall of the strict Taliban regime.

14.03.2006 The Taliban’s old adversaries in northern Afghanistan are disarming – but some of their weapons are being smuggled to the insurgents in the south.

08.03.2006 AfghanistanÂ’s new law on mass media was launched last week in Kabul by the Minister of Information Culture and Tourism, Said Makhtoum Raheen. The law reforms the country's existing press law and also guarantees freedom of expression in the country.

07.03.2006 The United Nations today expressed shock at the "cowardly" murder of an Afghan national contracted by the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN HABITAT), who was dragged from the car he was travelling in and shot dead on Saturday. Mohammad Hashim, the latest in a series of aid officials murdered in Afghanistan, was visiting project sites in Bala Buluk district of Farah province.

03.03.2006 The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says that based on last yearÂ’s returns it is budgeting to assist an estimated 150,000 Afghan refugees to voluntarily return to their homeland this year from Iran, host to one of the largest refugee populations in the world. UNHCR Iran adds that should the number of voluntary returns increase, it will adjust its programmes accordingly.

03.03.2006 European diplomats expect Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai to reform the Supreme Court which is currently based on religious law instead of civic law and only has men as judges. Both - the Europeans as well as the Afghans - accept that it is a tall order but agree that there is a need for reform in the judiciary at all levels.

02.03.2006 A new pilot project to capture cases of violence against women in a comprehensive database has been launched by UNIFEM in Afghanistan. The database will be used to analyze trends and determine strategies to tackle the issue, including identifying gaps in nation-wide response mechanisms and service provision for victims.

02.03.2006 The US government says the cultivation of opium poppies in Afghanistan fell by nearly half in 2005. The Afghan government has urged farmers to stop growing poppies.