Full Coverage: South West Asia

31.05.2006 Afghan authorities have arrested four men in connection with the killing of three ActionAid staff members on Tuesday.

31.05.2006 From the uprising of the Taliban to the insurgency in Iraq, the West's strategy for tackling radical Islam is failing, argues Tom Porteous.

31.05.2006 Three women members of staff of international charity ActionAid were shot and killed yesterday while working in Afghanistan's Shaberghan province, 500 kilometres from Kabul.
* Seven aid workers killed

25.05.2006 While Afghani women have made great strides since the fall of the Taliban, there is one area where they seem to have taken a step backwards: the new cabinet. The lone female candidate failed to win confirmation.

23.05.2006 May 2006: One hundred and twenty-five women are no longer having to struggle to survive in Afghanistan's northern province of Faryab after interventions by an International Organisation on Migration (IOM) programme to learn new skills and start businesses.

18.05.2006 Leaders of the world's eight largest Muslim countries--representing some 900 million people--declared the right of Islamic countries to peaceful nuclear energy at a summit in Indonesia last weekend.

16.05.2006 The parent company of Fox News and Sky Television is moving into Georgia's media market. There is hope it will help raise journalistic standards in the former Soviet republic, but also concern that its conservative slant will stifle civil society.

16.05.2006 On Wednesday, May 17th, 2006, when celebrating of World Telecommunications Day, Afghanistan will have completed and launched two useful projects.

15.05.2006 Former militia commanders in Afghanistan's eastern province of Nangarhar have voluntarily surrendered a number of weapons to the Disbandment of Illegal Armed Groups (DIAG) programme, officials from the UN-backed initiative said in the Afghan capital, Kabul.

12.05.2006 In May 2005, Uzbek forces suppressed a popular demonstration, killing close to 1,000 civilians. Little has changed for the people of Andijan in the ensuing year.

12.05.2006 Shopkeepers in the town of Hawije, in Central Iraq, have pulled Iranian imports from their shelves after a militant group threatened to kill traders and burn down stores shops that failed to comply with a boycott.

11.05.2006 The Iranian regime is deeply unpopular among young and educated Iranians but a military attack would be the surest way to unite all Iranians behind the regime, argues Farhang Jahanpour.

10.05.2006 Is the US heading for war with Iran? Mary Walsh proposes a creative UN solution, while Trita Parsi diagnoses double-vision in US policy.

10.05.2006 Afghan MP Malalai Joya was physically and verbally attacked by parliamentary colleagues after she said that some were warlords and should be barred from sitting.

09.05.2006 Ministry of Communications of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan a long with United Nations Development Program (UNDP) organized the first ever National ICT conference in Afghanistan on May 25-26, 2006 at Loya Jirga Hall.

08.05.2006 With the nuclear threat of Iran looming, analyst Charles J. Brown argues that the international community must find a new approach to nuclear weapons possession. He outlines a four-point framework focusing on the "real reasons" why countries wish to go nuclear, forgoing the approaches of both the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Bush Administration.

05.05.2006 Iraq and Afghanistan rank among the world's weakest states, according to an annual index based on a dozen social, economic, and political indicators. Venezuela made the greatest progress towards stability in the past year.

04.05.2006 A new report charges the U.S. with creating a climate in which torture and ill-treatment can flourish. The UN is set to review U.S. compliance with global torture prohibitions over the next few days.

02.05.2006 The Bush Administration touts the reconstruction effort in Afghanistan as a success story, but a new report, "Afghanistan, Inc.", details the bungled reconstruction effort there.
* Poverty still a big problem, says rights group
* Afghan human rights survey shows hope in the face of hardship