Spero News: Today, while the internet makes it possible to find similar information about the conflicts in the world in which the US is participating, either as primary combatant or as the chief provider of arms, as in Gaza, one actually has to make a concerted effort to look for them. The corporate media which provide the information that most Americans simply receive passively on the evening news or at breakfast over coffee carefully avoid showing us most of the graphic horror inflicted by our military machine.      Full news...

PAN: Soldiers of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) shot dead three family members of a former Jihadi commander in southern Helmand province, officials said Saturday. Abdul Ahad Khan the former commander in Kabul confirmed the attack by foreign forces left three members of his family dead. ISAF helicopter opened fire on his family members at eight pm, he added, his three-months old granddaughter had survived the attack.      Full news...

Reuters: Survivors of a strong quake in a remote corner of eastern Afghanistan say they spent a freezing night in the rain outside the collapsed remains of their homes because promised government help did not reach them. The local government said it had sent over 200 tents and around 600 blankets to the quake zone, and other assistance was on its way. But residents said they had seen no sign of the help, and spent a frightening night outside, with 7 or 8 aftershocks.      Full news...

Globe and Mail: What started eight years ago as a military operation to deprive terrorists of a safe haven from which to launch attacks on the West morphed, in the eyes of many, into something much grander: an exercise in nation building and bolstering human rights. The hopes for an improvement in the lives of Afghanistan's women have been sorely challenged recently by a series of events, from the horrific acid attacks on schoolgirls in Kandahar and the targeted assassinations of female politicians and police, to what is seen as the ultimate betrayal: the Afghan government's endorsement of the family law bill that appears to legalize rape in marriage.      Full news...

OpEdNews: Last month, the new Afghanistan parliament passed the "Shia Family Law" which legitimates marital rape and child marriage for Shia Muslims who make up ~15% of the population. At least 300 women protested the law, with their faces exposed. Nearly 1,000 Afghan men and their slaves turned maniacal and stoned the protesters. Police struggled to keep the two groups apart, reports the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA).      Full news...

PAN: The family of a 10 year old child who was sexually abused by his neighbor in Sarobi district of Kabul province demanded justice from the government. He said Perviz, 10 was molested by a son of former Jehadi commander Muhammad Dad, 22. He said: "Parviz, a mentally retard child was playing outside the house and son of Muhammad Dad took him to an empty yard and molested him".      Full news...

Common Dreams: On April 4th, at a large demonstration in Strasbourg, France, U.S. Sergeant Matthis Chiroux planned to publicly apologize to Afghan peace activist Malalai Joya for participating in the occupation of her country; however, before he could do so, the demonstration was disrupted by attacks of the French police. He made his apology instead on April 5, 2009, at the NATO Congress in Strasbourg.      Full news...

Associated Press: A group of some 1,000 Afghans swarmed a demonstration of 300 women protesting against a new conservative marriage law on Wednesday. The women were pelted with small stones as police struggled to keep the two groups apart. The law, passed last month, says a husband can demand sex with his wife every four days unless she is ill or would be harmed by intercourse — a clause that critics say legalizes marital rape. It also regulates when and for what reasons a wife may leave her home alone.      Full news...

Global Pundit: Sgt. Chiroux, an Individual Ready Reservist, publicly refused activation and deployment orders to Iraq, citing the war as “an illegal and immoral occupation”. He has also chosen to stay on U.S. soil to ” to defend himself from any charges brought against him by the military”. Chiroux declared in a recent press release “My resistance as a noncommissioned officer to this abhorrent occupation is just as legitimate now as it was last year”.      Full news...

The Associated Press: A NATO operation killed six civilians Monday, including a woman and a young girl, in a mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan, villagers and officials said. But the military alliance said its force killed four to eight "militants." The governor of Kunar province, Sayed Fazelullah Wahidi, said four men also died in the NATO air strikes. Five houses were damaged, and one was demolished, Wahidi and villagers said.      Full news...

Reuters: Taliban militants publicly executed a man and girl on Monday for eloping when she was already engaged to marry someone else, an official said, in a sign of the grip the Islamists have over parts of Afghanistan. Hashim Noorzai, head of Khash Rud district in southwestern Nimruz province, said the two were executed by gun shots in front of a crowd of villagers.      Full news...

RAWA News: While much continuity with Bush policies exists, some opportunistic changes in the execution of the Afghan war have been made. Most are inspired by the aim to better market “the good war” to the American public. For example, under Obama U.S/NATO forces are relying less upon deadly air strikes which are 4-10 times more deadly for Afghan civilians than are ground attacks. As a consequence, the monthly total of Afghan civilians killed by US/NATO action has declined moderately at the same time as the monthly death toll of occupation forces has risen.      Full news...

The New York Times: The Obama administration is basking in praise for its welcome commitment to shut down the American detention center at Guant?namo Bay. But it is acting far less nobly when it comes to prisoners held at a larger, more secretive military detention facility at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. In February, the new administration disappointingly followed the example of the Bush White House in opposing judicial review for prisoners who have been indefinitely detained at Bagram without any charges or access to lawyers.      Full news...

Reuters: The father of a seven-day-old boy said on Thursday his infant son died in an overnight raid by Afghan and U.S. forces, with the U.S. saying it was investigating the claim. A female school teacher was also killed and the child's mother wounded, the father said, during the raid in Ali Daya village in Khost province, where Taliban fighters are active      Full news...

DPA: A provincial governor in south-eastern Afghanistan said Thursday that US-led international troops killed five civilians including two women and a 7-day-old child and wounded two other women in an operation against suspected militants. The coalition troops conducted an operation in a village near Khost city, the capital of the province of the same name Wednesday night "after they claimed that they were attacked by small arms fire," Hamidullah Qalandarzai, the provincial governor, told the German Press Agency DPA.      Full news...

Common Dreams: The proposed new Afghan law requiring (among other things), women to have sex with their husbands on demand and not leave home unescorted, has shocked the West. But for women in Afghanistan whose rights have always been bargaining chips to be given or taken away for political gain, it comes as no surprise. Despite the rhetoric from the Bush Administration in 2001 that “to fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women (Laura Bush),” Bush’s own military strategy set the stage for the new Taliban-like law today. In hiring the fundamentalist warlords of the Northern Alliance to defeat the Taliban, the US knowingly sacrificed women’s rights for political gain.      Full news...

IRIN: Much of the international aid to Afghanistan over the past seven years has been spent to achieve military and political objectives, and the current approach to aid lacks “clarity, coherence and resolve”, a group of international NGOs has said. “We feel a pull on our sleeves pulling us to the military tent,” said Dave Hampson, a representative of Save the Children UK, adding that funds for aid agencies were being tied to military and political conditionality more than ever before.      Full news...

Times Online: Tom Coghlan, reporting for The Times in Kabul, has been leaked the full text of new laws in Afghanistan, under which a woman from the minority Shia community will not be able to leave the house without her husband's permission and cannot refuse him his marital rights. 'The wife is bound to preen for her husband, as and when he desires,' the law says. According to the United Nations Development Fund for Women, the new law legalises the rape of a woman by her husband.      Full news...

Times online: This grainy footage appears to show a 17-year-old girl being beaten by Islamic radicals in Pakistan’s northwestern region of Swat, where Sharia law was introduced after the government reached a truce with the Taleban in February.A local Taleban commander in the militant stronghold of Matta, 25 miles from the regional capital, Mingora, ordered the girl to be flogged a week ago after accusing her of adultery, according to local reporters.      Full news...

The Guardian: Hamid Karzai has been accused of trying to win votes in Afghanistan's presidential election by backing a law the UN says legalises rape within marriage and bans wives from stepping outside their homes without their husbands' permission. The Afghan president signed the law earlier this month, despite condemnation by human rights activists and some MPs that it flouts the constitution's equal rights provisions.      Full news...

AP: The Afghan government had arrested two TV presenters, one for a programme apparently offensive to Muslim clerics and another for interviewing a Taliban spokesman, a media watchdog said Tuesday.Reporters Without Borders said it was "disturbed" by Monday's arrests of Fahim Kohdamani of Emroz television, who is still being held, and Ajmal Alamzai of Ariana TV, who was released just before midnight Monday.      Full news...

AFP: Afghan officials said five men killed in a US-led raid Sunday were all civilians, countering a statement from the military that said they were militants from a "terrorist network." The claim was the latest in a string of allegations of civilian casualties at the hands of foreign forces who are in Afghanistan to fight against insurgents, including Taliban and Al-Qaeda extremists.      Full news...

IRIN: "We feel disappointed, isolated and oppressed," said Ravil Singh, a Sikh leader in Nangarhar Province, eastern Afghanistan, adding that local people "are good to us". "We have too many problems but we get no help to solve them. A lot of our houses, shops and other properties have been seized by powerful people, commanders and warlords.      Full news...

Daily Times: Respect for press freedom has fallen sharply in recent weeks in Afghanistan, a fact-finding mission report by international media watchdog, Reporters Without Borders said on Monday. The Paris-based organisation’s report said, “The murder of Jawed Ahmad, a reporter for various Canadian news media in Kandahar, the newspaper Payman’s closure as a result of pressure from conservatives and the government, and the supreme court’s confirmation of Perwiz Kambakhsh’s 20-year jail sentence are all evidence that press freedom is in serious crisis.”      Full news...

PAN: Officials in central Logar province say five members of the same family were killed in a raid by the US-led coalition forces last night. Spokesman for the provincial governor, Din Mohammad Darvish, told Pajhwok Afghan News Saturday that the US forces raided the house of one Abdul Rashid last night, killing him and his four sons in Naw Khar village of the Charkh district.      Full news...

The Independent: My brother is an innocent man. He has already spent more than a year in jail, and he's been sentenced to 20 more years in prison. But the warlords and the murderers who are in power, they are free. It's a joke. People are angry. They are fundamentalists. Some of them are criminals. Some of them are powerful. Some of them are in the government, and they are playing political games with the fate of an innocent man. We must struggle for justice. We must struggle for free speech. Our society cannot live without these values.      Full news...

Amnesty International: Freedom of expression in Afghanistan faces increasing threats from the government as well as anti-government forces, Amnesty International warned today. Amnesty International learnt on Monday that the Supreme Court, on 11 February 2009, secretly upheld the 20-year prison sentence handed down to student and journalist Perwiz Kambakhsh on blasphemy charges.'If President Karzai is serious about defending free expression in Afghanistan, he should immediately and unconditionally pardon Kambakhsh,' said Zarifi.      Full news...

PAN: Residents of Lashkargah, capital city of southern Helmand province, on Wednesday staged a protest demonstration against the US-led coalition forces and Afghan government. They alleged that a civilian was killed and another wounded when a shell hit them in Spini Kotta area of the city during an operation by the foreign forces last night.      Full news...

Globe and Mail: A young man who helped Canadian reporters gather news in Afghanistan and was imprisoned by U.S. forces for nearly a year of self-described “hell” was gunned down Tuesday in the centre of Kandahar city. A week before he died, Mr. Ahmad sent e-mails to several Canadian journalists asking for help leaving the country. He wanted letters in support of a Canadian visa application, hoping to leave Afghanistan this spring, but he did not explain his eagerness to get away so quickly.      Full news...

Frontline: “Nothing has changed for us in this new Afghanistan,” said 16-year-old Seema, in early 2007, whose father was killed by a U.S. “liberating” bomb in October 2001. IN a widely quoted recent interview (on the National Public Radio network), Sarah Chayes proclaims, “Taliban Terrorising Afghanistan”. Afghanistan’s problems, Sarah Chayes implies that Afghanistan’s troubles call for military solutions.4 Give birth to “human rights” and electoral democracy with U.S. precision bombs and Special Forces.      Full news...