New York Times: The White House says it believes that Ahmed Wali Karzai is involved in drug trafficking, and American officials have repeatedly warned President Karzai that his brother is a political liability, two senior Bush administration officials said in interviews last week. Neither the Drug Enforcement Administration, which conducts counternarcotics efforts in Afghanistan, nor the fledgling Afghan anti-drug agency has pursued investigations into the accusations against the president’s brother.      Full news...

Telegraph.co.uk: In the diplomatic cable written by Fran?ois Fitou, the deputy French ambassador, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles is also quoted as saying that the coalition's military presence is "part of the problem not the solution". In the cable, dated Sept 2 and published in the investigative and satirical weekly Le Canard Encha?ne, Sir Sherard is quoted as having said that "the current situation is bad. Security is worsening, but also corruption, and the current government has lost all credit."      Full news...

Middle East Times: A new book by a German journalist takes an in-depth look at the West's failing attempts to win the war in Afghanistan. Merey's book is reporting in the best sense -- it includes several chapters detailing Afghanistan's key problems: the corrupt and inefficient government of Hamid Karzai; the drug industry that no one has been able to contain or even destroy; NATO bombings that have led to civilian casualties; Pakistan's secret financing and influencing of the Taliban. He tells the story of a man who wants to join the Taliban together with his two sons, because ISAF troops accidentally killed his third boy.      Full news...

AFP: Mohammed Hashim Wahaaj, a large Afghan doctor with a bushy beard, thought he was going to die. He says his abductors were not from the extremist Taliban insurgency, who have kidnapped and killed scores of people they accuse of working for the government or its international allies. These were just criminals profiting from a climate of lawlessness and impunity in which government officials at the most senior levels are getting away with crime and corruption, the softly spoken doctor said.      Full news...

IWPR: The competence and credibility of the Afghan judiciary is being called into serious question by two controversial convictions which have caused an international outcry. The two cases, the most recent concluded last month, concern alleged transgressions of Islamic law, with critics claiming the convictions are deeply flawed and should be overturned on appeal. Some have suggested that the cases expose what they see as the creeping Islamicisation of the judiciary, insisting that the bench is composed of religious hardliners with Taliban sympathies.      Full news...

Reuters: Afghanistan is facing one of its worst food shortages in years as winter approaches, with prices of the staple wheat rising 60 percent in the first half of the year after Pakistan slapped export bans, a poor harvest and drought. Rising prices are hitting what is already one of the poorest countries in the world, with more than half of the population living below the poverty line. Households dependent on wage labour can afford to buy a quarter of the wheat they bought in 2007, according to the World Food Programme. This in a country where the majority of household wages are spent on basic foods such as cereals.      Full news...

PAN (Translated by RAWA): Unknown armed men stole 20 to 30 historical relics including a Buddha statue from the National Museum of Herat. Three unknown armed men had entered the museum (in Arg Ikhtyaruddin of Herat) from the rooftop two nights back and stolen about 30 historical literary objects. The missing artifacts included a Buddha statue; two stone-made literary works from the Buddhism era; and other relics of the pre-Islamic and Islamic era, including some dishes of the Ghaznawyan era.      Full news...

PAN (Translated by RAWA): Head of the attorney of Kunduz claims that drug-trafficking is taking place in Sher Khan Bandar (Port) but it's not being stopped, but the authorities of Sher Khan Bandar deny the claims. Hafizullah Khaliqyar, the head of the attorney of Kunduz told PAN in an interview that alcoholic drinks are imported into Afghanistan from Tajikistan and drugs (heroin and opium) are smuggled by Afghanistan into Tajikistan.      Full news...

BBC Persian (Translated by RAWA): A family in Qunduz province in North Afghanistan has claimed that four people had raped their 12-year old daughter. This girl who herself was present in the binoculars of the press told reporters that first she had been kidnapped on the way from her home to the city and kept in an unknown place for a night. This 12-year old also said that four men had raped her.      Full news...

PAN (Translated by RAWA): Five people including a police commander of the security of Hazar Samch had gang-raped this girl who lived in her home with some children. This incident had occurred three nights backs to an 18-year old girl in the Hazar Samch district. The girl told one of the rapists that she had recognized him and he had intended to kill her with a bullet of his gun but she got away with an injury.      Full news...

The New York Times: One of the most experienced Western envoys in Afghanistan said Sunday that conditions there had become the worst since 2001. He urged a concerted American and foreign response, even before a new American administration took office, to avoid “a very hot winter for all of us.”      Full news...

PAN (Translated by RAWA): In 2007, out of 42 million Afghanis earned from the tax of billboards, 17 million has been wasted by the Kabul Municipality. The Municipality has two statistics of the money earned from billboards in 2007. Mahtabuddin Ahmadi, head of the cultural facilitation sector said the income was 33 million whereas Wahabuddin Sadaat, deputy of facilitation of the city sector of the municipality, announced the amount to be 24 million.      Full news...

The Frontier Post: In the contemporary time, Afghanistan is under the grip of chaos, anarchy and became a home base for terrorism. It seems that the land is without state, society and system and has been converted into "failed state" because of chronic un-ended war imposed by the United States.      Full news...

The Independent: The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, has pardoned three men who had been found guilty of gang raping a woman in the northern province of Samangan. The woman, Sara, and her family found out about the pardon only when they saw the rapists back in their village.      Full news...

PAN: local commanders and local officials still forcibly collect money by different names and forms from the farmers in northern Afghanistan, farmers and shepherds lamented. Commanders and local officials get unlawfully ten sheep as well as cash money from shepherds while they graze their sheep on different areas and mountains.      Full news...

ReliefWeb: The average Afghan household pays an estimated $100 in petty bribes every year. With around 70 per cent of the population surviving on less than $1 per day, the burden on families is enormous. A staggering $100-$250 million is paid in bribes every year. This is equivalent to half the national development budget for 2006.      Full news...

Quqnoos: The men jailed for raping and killing a seven-year-old girl in the northern province of Takhar were let out of prison early because of police corruption, the murder victim's family have said.      Full news...

CNN: The young Afghan girl sits in the center of the room, weeping. Using her hand and her blue scarf to hide her face, she recounts how she was brutally raped by five gunmen. The girl's tragic case is one of many in war-torn Afghanistan, activists say. "This is just an example among thousands of other cases," Shaima, a member of RAWA, tells CNN. "The rest go unnoticed by the media."      Full news...

Quqnoos: The deputy head of the National Directorate of Security (NDS), Dr Abdullah, told parliament on Tuesday that a "number of delegates" in Parliament "supported drug traffickers and terrorists", our political correspondent said.      Full news...

“Reporters Without Borders calls for the release of Mohammed Naseer Fayyaz, the host of the programme Haqeeqat (The Truth) on privately-owned Ariana TV, who was arrested yesterday by members of the Directorate for National Security (DNS) at the government's behest." "The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by reports that Afghan television reporter Mohammad Naseer Fayyaz was detained one day after his television station aired a documentary that was critical of some cabinet members and their ministries.”      Full news...

Telegraph.co.uk: Thomas Schweich, who served as the State Department's most senior anti-drugs in official in Afghanistan until last month, said that Mr Karzai's overriding concern was to hold power. This had led him to protect 20 government officials, all linked to drug trafficking.      Full news...

PAN: Rampant corruption and consistent violations of rules by top government functionaries have forced the first-ever female head of the Independent Administrative Reform and Civil Service (IARCSC) Commission for the eastern zone to quit her job - but not before exposing brazen malfeasance in the upper echelons.      Full news...

PAN: Five of the 24 electronic attendance system machines purchased by the SEAL project for the Afghan parliament were destroyed on purpose. A number of the employees of Lower House of Parliament stated the damage was done for personal spites and purposes and the wrongdoers are the ones who do not want incorruptibility in the state.      Full news...

IWPR: Remote Afghan province is home to major trading post for heroin destined for Europe and arms for Taliban and other militants. In the middle of the river, local mafiosi cut deals that will arm Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan, as well as al-Qaeda and other militant groups in the wider region. In return for Russian-made weapons, they trade Afghan heroin that will eventually be sold on the streets of European cities. The major profits go to those with the clout to call on adequate protection. “The big smugglers are backed by governments in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia,” he said. “These smugglers can pay huge amounts of money. But we don’t do badly.”      Full news...

PAN: Confirming that corruption is now a deep rooted malice in the country, a global corruption index has placed Afghanistan on 172nd spot in a list of 180 countries. The Global Corruption Report 2008 gives Afghanistan just 1.8 points out of a total score of 10.      Full news...

CounterPunch: Can anyone state exactly why foreign troops are fighting in Afghanistan? What is the collective aim, the specific mission, the ultimate objective, of the 60,000 soldiers there? I ask this because as I write the total of US deaths in Afghanistan “and region” is over 450, and news has come in of the killing of more British and American soldiers. And I wonder what all of them have died for.      Full news...

The Washington Post: Afghan opium poppy cultivation grew 17 percent last year, continuing a six-year expansion of the country's drug trade and increasing its share of global opium production to more than 92 percent, according to the 2008 World Drug Report, released Thursday by the United Nations. Afghanistan's emergence as the world's largest supplier of opium and heroin represents a serious setback to U.S. policy in the region. The opium trade has soared since the U.S.-led 2001 overthrow of the Taliban, which had eradicated almost all of the country's opium poppies.      Full news...

BBC Persian: Some Afghan villagers say that despite the contribution of billions of dollars to this country in the past six years, their lives have not even changed slightly. They said that corruption had caused a lot of money that was supposed to be used in economical projects to come into the hands of a few people.      Full news...

The National: Low salaries are forcing many of Afghanistan’s teachers to take on second jobs so they can feed their families. Despite promises that their wages would be increased, schoolteachers in Kabul said there have been few improvements since the US-led invasion in 2001.      Full news...

Aftenposten: Some cultural treasures allegedly carried out of Afghanistan by a Norwegian soldier are 4,000 years old, and the country wants them back. News magazine Ny Tid reports in its current edition that Afghan authorities are seeking return of ancient coins and a bottle that a soldier recently offered to an Oslo museum.      Full news...