The Canadian Press: There's a lot the sooty-faced boy doesn't know. His own name, for one thing. Or how much money he earns dishing out bowls of rice from his weathered metal stand. But he knows it's his job to feed his family. The boy leans an arm on the counter to chat with a visitor. If he had a dish rag tossed over one shoulder and a white T-shirt stretched over a beer gut, he'd look like a short-order cook at some Canadian greasy-spoon diner.      Full news...

Le Monde Diplomatique: In northern Afghanistan, far away from the Taliban’s heartland, freedom remains elusive for most women. Forced marriages of young girls are still common and sex attacks are on the rise. Many say life has deteriorated after the US-led invasion because the occupation ushered in a new era of lawlessness. At the offices of the Afghanistan Human Rights Organisation in Sheberghan, Jowzjan province, women from throughout the region arrive with tales of misery and horror.      Full news...

Gulf Times: The year 2009 has been the deadliest for Afghan children since 2001, according to the Afghanistan Rights Monitor, a Kabul-based human rights group. From January to December 2009, about 1,050 children died in suicide attacks, roadside blats, air strikes and in the cross-fire between Taliban insurgents and pro-government Afghan and foreign forces, states ARM.      Full news...

AP: Thousands of Afghans shouting “Death to America!” protested the killings of children Thursday, the latest in a string of controversial cases in which international forces have been blamed for civilian deaths. There are fears the problem could get worse with 37,000 U.S. and NATO reinforcements already starting to stream into the country as part of a military buildup.      Full news...

PAN: The outgoing year was the deadliest year for Afghan children since the ouster of the Taliban regime in late 2001, a human rights watchdog said here on Wednesday. More than 1,050 children under 18 years of age were killed in suicide attacks, air strikes, improvised explosive device blasts and crossfire between warring parties in 2009, the organisation said.      Full news...

BBC News: At least 10 Afghan civilians, including eight schoolchildren, have been killed in fighting involving Western troops, President Hamid Karzai has said. Kunar governor Sayed Fazlullah Wahedi told the Reuters news agency officials could not visit the area "because of the presence of the Taliban".      Full news...

The Associated Press: While international forces in Afghanistan battle militants hiding in the mountains, aid agencies are fighting an even more elusive enemy: malnutrition. The World Food Program and UNICEF have launched a project to feed thousands of mothers and children — some too weak to cry. Aid workers hope a high-protein diet distributed through a network of village clinics can help them through the winter.      Full news...

Reuters: Rape in Afghanistan is under-reported, concealed and a human rights problem of "profound proportions", the United Nations said on Monday. Norah Niland, the United Nations' human rights representative in Afghanistan, said field research conducted late last year and early this year found rape affected all parts of Afghanistan, across all communities and social groups.      Full news...

Xinhua: Police in the northern Samangan province of Afghanistan found bodies of two children, a private television channel reported Monday. "Police found bodies of two children who went missing four days ago in Samangan's provincial capital Aibak," Tolo broadcast in its news bulletin. Both the innocent kids, aged 8 and 12 respectively, had been killed by stoning and stick, police said.      Full news...

The Telegraph: Afghanistan is one of the world's poorest countries, but three decades of war and an increasingly brutal Islamist insurgency have left it rich in martyrs and the misery their deaths leave behind. In little more than three months, in Kabul alone, devastating suicide attacks have killed around 100 people. About 300 people have been injured.      Full news...

Irish Sun: Children in Afghanistan are suffering from serious child abuse and high levels of mortality. United Nations officials, speaking in Kabul, have said children are being deprived in the worst possible ways with their rights being neglected despite vast flow of Western aid into the country.      Full news...

Reuters: Eight years after a U.S.-led invasion ousted the Taliban from power in Afghanistan, the war-ravaged state is the most dangerous place in the world for a child to be born, the United Nations said on Thursday. It is especially dangerous for girls, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said in launching its annual flagship report, The State of the World’s Children.      Full news...

Health News: New Delhi - Eight years after the start of the international campaign to end Taliban rule in Afghanistan, more than half of all children under age five suffer from malnutrition, a UNICEF official told the German Press Agency dpa Wednesday. 'Nutrition is somewhat better (now), but not much,' said Daniel Toole, UNICEF's South Asia director, as the UN agency for children released a report tracking global progress in maternal and child nutrition.      Full news...

PAN: Artillery and mortar shelling by the NATO-led international troops killed nine civilians in southern Afghanistan, locals said. People, who brought bodies of their slain relatives to Lashkargah, said the dead included three children and six men. They died as a mortar shell landed in the fields covered with maize crop, said the locals.      Full news...

CNN: A young boy dressed in women's clothing, his face caked in make-up, dances the night away for a crowd of men. The bells on his feet chime away, mimicking the entertainment and sexual appeal of female dancers. But there is no mistaking his pubescent body and face as he concentrates, focusing on every step in order to please his master and his master's guests.      Full news...

IRIN: Ahmad Wali died in a bomb blast in Kandahar city on 25 August and Samim was killed in a suicide attack in Kabul on 15 September. Both men left grieving families with little capacity to cope on their own. “We could not afford to pay the rent so we left our old home and have moved into a small room outside the city,” said Samim’s eldest son, Arif. “My children cannot go to school any more because we cannot afford their education,” said Wali’s widow, Pashtana.      Full news...

Seven-year-old Attiullah, who was wounded after a bullet entered his back coming out through his chest, sits on his bed at Mirwais hospital October 13, 2009 Kandahar, Afghanistan. According to his grandfather, Attiullah was shot by U.S forces as he was walking in the field near his home in the village of Sangissar, Panjway district watching the family's flock of sheep. The soldiers apparently shot at a vehicle that was supposedly Taliban and the boy got hit accidentally.      Full news...

IRIN: He sleeps in derelict outbuildings, eats dirty leftovers, wears tattered clothes and spends his days on the streets. He knows neither his name, nor his age, nor any relatives. People give him a wide berth despite - or because of - his frantic begging gestures. He is middle-aged and mentally ill in Kabul city. At least one in 10 of the over 700 street beggars arrested in Kabul in the past 10 months have mental disorders of some kind, according to officials in the government’s anti-begging commission.      Full news...

Reuters: An Afghan woman and a child were killed in a joint NATO-Afghan operation against insurgents in Afghanistan on Friday, sparking a protest by a group of angry villagers.... "House searches, killings and beatings of civilians have become daily business," said one villager.      Full news...

UNDP: This year's HDI, which refers to 2007, highlights the very large gaps in well-being and life chances that continue to divide our increasingly interconnected world. The HDI for Afghanistan is 0.352, which gives the country a rank of 181 out of 182 countries. By looking at some of the most fundamental aspects of people’s lives and opportunities the HDI provides a much more complete picture of a country's development than other indicators, such as GDP per capita.      Full news...

AKI: Two Afghan civilians were killed and two others were injured in the eastern Afghan province of Paktika on Thursday when a bomb exploded at a wedding party, according to a provincial official. The official said the blast occurred at a wedding party in Paktika's Argun district, the spokesman was quoted as saying.      Full news...

AGI: Six children and three women were killed during a NATO air raid in the province of Helmand, southern Afghanistan. The new accidental killing of civilians was reported by Daud Ahmadi, spokesperson of the provincial governor. The raid, which claimed the life of 4 armed Taliban, was ordered as a reply to an attack against a convoy of NATO and Afghan forces in a village located in the Nad Ali district.      Full news...

PAN (translated by RAWA): Five years old Fazila was killed in Sayad villige of Gosfande district in Saripul province yesterday morning. Fazila has been kidnapped and taken to a room by 40 years old Alem, one of the residents of the area, Ghulam Haider the security chief of Saripul told Pajhwok Afghan News.      Full news...

AFP: A young Afghan girl died after a box of public information leaflets, dropped by a Royal Air Force plane over Afghanistan, landed on her, a newspaper said Wednesday. The Ministry of Defence said it was investigating the accident which it described as "highly regrettable," The Times said. The drop occurred over a rural area of Afghanistan's southern Helmand province on June 23 as part of an information campaign, the newspaper said.      Full news...

AFP: AT least 30 civilians were killed when a bus hit a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan in an attack blamed on the Taliban, the interior ministry said. The dead included 10 children and seven women, the ministry said, revising an earlier toll from the local governor's office. "Thirty people were killed," the ministry said in a statement, adding that 39 others were wounded.      Full news...

PAN: US forces shot dead a schoolboy on his way home in the southeastern province of Paktika on Monday, the victim's father said. Ghulam Shah, father of the 13-year-old Zeeshan, told Pajhwok Afghan News his son was returning home on a bicycle from school. He alleged NATO-led soldiers opened fire on the boy in Madatkhel area on the outskirts of Sharan, the provincial capital.      Full news...

PAN: The man identified as Ahmadullah shot his wife, his children, wife and children of his brother before turning the gun on himself at the family's home in Ghuli village of the district, said district chief Yousuf Siraji. Siraji said the reason behind the suicide and murders is said be a family dispute that emerged in the family last week.      Full news...

IWPR: A year after her family died in an airstrike, a young girl still lives in the same village, alone and constantly in fear. Seven-year-old Zahra looks like a typical Afghan girl in her traditional long dress and scarf, her short black hair peeking out from her head covering. On the night of August 22 2008, all of Zahra’s immediate family was killed by American bombs. In pursuit of Taleban commander Mullah Siddiq, United States Special Forces and the Afghan army launched an airstrike on the village of Azizabad in Shindand district of Herat. An investigation by the United Nations said that 90 people, 60 children and 30 adults, died.      Full news...

IRIN: Twenty-eight deaths from cholera and/or acute watery diarrhoea (AWD) have been reported in Afghanistan in the past two months, the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) has said. At least 673 cases of AWD and/or cholera had been reported in 11 of the country’s 34 provinces, it said. According to the World Health Organization, cholera, which is rarely reported in Afghanistan, is an acute diarrhoeal infection caused by ingestion of the bacterium vibrio cholerae.      Full news...

IRIN: It was almost midnight when a massive bang awakened residents of Kabul’s fifth district on 5 September. A rocket had landed on a house killing three members of the family: the father, mother and a child. In the past month at least 10 rockets have been fired on different parts of Kabul, often killing or wounding civilians, according to the Ministry of Interior (MoI).      Full news...