PAN: Wolesi Jirga, or lower house of parliament, has prepared a draft law which, when approved, will ban obscene movies, female dances and high-volume music at parties. Those indulging in such acts will be awarded deterrent punishments under the draft bill titled Law against Immoral Acts. The draft has been prepared in three chapters and 20 articles by a parliamentary commission tasked with countering drugs and immoral acts.      Full news...

PAN (Translated by RAWA): In Talaqan (capital city of Takhar province) nine men raped a 13-year old girl. Six people, including three policemen, have been accused of being involved in the crime and detained.      Full news...

Quqnoos: An Afghan human rights organisation has said the increase in the number of child rapes may drag the country into anarchy. Child rapes have risen sharply in recent years, according to Afghanistan’s Human Rights Organisation (AHRO), which claims most of the sexual assaults are carried out by government officials and other powerful men.      Full news...

CounterPunch: I’m really not sure what Bush, Obama, and McCain mean when they say they want to win in Afghanistan. And, I'm not sure they know either. It's probably just a public-relations gimmick to sound “tough on terror.” But, judging from what we've seen, they seem to think that “winning” means killing every last “terrorist” in Afghanistan. That sort of thinking is based on false assumptions and it's an unattainable goal.      Full news...

RAWA News: Muhammad Naseer Fayyaz, an Afghan journalist, news anchor and the host and writer of the political show “Haqeeqat” (The Truth) in ATN TV channel was arrested on July 28 by Directorate for National Security (DNS, Afghan intelligence service) for assessing and criticizing the actions of the Afghan government under Hamid Karzai.      Full news...

A 12-year old schoolgirl was gang-raped by five gunmen in Sarpul province in Northern Afghanistan. The girl and her family asked Hamid Karzai to prosecute the rapists and take their case seriously. They threatened that if they are not provided justice, the whole family will commit mass suicide to get rid of such life. They say, the local authorities keep silence on such cases and did not act to arrest those responsible.      Full news...

US & News: The war in Afghanistan reached a wrenching milestone this summer: For the second month in a row, U.S. and coalition troop deaths in the country surpassed casualties in Iraq. This is driven in large part, U.S. officials point out, by simple cause and effect. Marines flowed into southern Afghanistan earlier this year to rout firmly entrenched Taliban fighters, prompting a spike in combat in territory where NATO forces previously didn't have the manpower to send troops. "We're doing something we haven't done in seven years, which is go after the Taliban where they're living," says a U.S. official.      Full news...

MeriNews: Afghanistan has the highest rate of violence against women in the world. According to the ministry of Women’s Affairs, Afghan women lack their primary necessities and are subject to extreme violence. Girls are usually married before their legal age. During the last six months more than 2000 cases of violence have been registered throughout the country. It is said that most cases of violence against women are not reported due to the traditional and cultural complexities.      Full news...

ABC News: The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) says children in Afghanistan suffer more than in any other country in the world from violence, war and poverty. It says Afghan children are not only caught up in fighting between Taliban rebels and international forces, but there is also evidence of an increasing number ending up on the frontlines.      Full news...

IWPR: International pressure is all that stands between a young journalism student and the death penalty, say his supporters. A subdued, anxious crowd filled the courtroom of the Kabul Appeal Court on June 15 for the latest installment in the case of Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh, the Afghan journalism student facing a death sentence for blasphemy.      Full news...

BBC Persian: UN has accused some governmental authorities for having connections with armed, irresponsible groups. According to Afghan authorities and UN, till now more than 300 irresponsible armed bands of have been dissolved but there are about 2000 others in the country. UN and the Defense Ministry of Afghanistan said that most of these groups are involved in terrorist activities, smuggling of drugs and planned crimes.      Full news...

IRNA: Afghan authorities have freed an aide to former Afghan Prime Minister Gulbaddin Hikmatyar, who was arrested in Pakistan in 2002, in an apparent move of reconciliation, Afghan sources said Friday.      Full news...

AFP: A FEMALE Afghani journalist was stabbed and wounded today, authorities said, a day after unknown men threatened to kill her unless she quit her job at a local television station. "A woman came to my home and asked for a glass of water. As I was to bring her water she stabbed me in abdomen," Ms Habibi said.      Full news...

Intermediadialogue.org: Although, the international media organizations have published detailed reports on the condition of freedom of speech and press in Afghanistan, but the real situation is something different from these reports. Because some of these organizations are either very conservative or are linked to the fundamentalist figures inside the government in order to keep their jobs safe. Therefore, we cannot trust the honesty in their works and reports.      Full news...

The Independent: The city is awash with widows who have come with the same idea. It is one of Kabul's many problems, this influx of desperate humanity that has flooded the city with double, treble the people it ever housed before the Russian invasion in 1979. Three-quarters of Afghans are almost completely illiterate. Among widows, the proportion is much higher. Kabul is awash with street children, hundreds of thousands of them, scavenging through rubbish, selling plastic bags, repairing bicycles, labouring for shoe-makers, or asking for alms in return for sending unwelcome wafts of aromatic smoke from the tin cans they wave at likely-looking passers-by.      Full news...

The Associated Press: Khadija Ahadi, the 30-year-old director of Faryat radio station in the western city of Herat, was targeted on April 6 and again on Sunday, said Rahimullah Samandar, head of the Afghan Independent Journalists Association.      Full news...

AFP: An Afghan legislative committee has drafted a bill seeking to introduce Taliban-style Islamic morality codes banning women from wearing make-up in public and forbidding young boys from wearing female fashions. It also aims to ban women dancers performing during concerts and other public events as well as on television.      Full news...

The Age: A recent report by British-based women's rights group Womankind has concluded that Afghanistan remains one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a woman. Around 80% of women are affected by domestic violence; over 60% of marriages are forced, some of them between elderly men and girls as young as eight; half of Afghanistan's girls are married before the age of 16.      Full news...

ATN: An 8-year old girl was raped in the Takhar province. General Ziauddin Mahmoodi, the commander of the police of Takhar said that the man involved has been arrested and is in the custody of the police now. Dr. Ashrafuddin Aini, head of the Civil Hospital of Takhar said that the 8-year old is admitted in this hospital and is under treatment.      Full news...

AFP: Even Mother Nature was cruel on the day 15 years ago when rampaging thugs chopped off Marzia's fingers for a gold ring and shot dead her nine-year-old son when he cried out to object. It was a bone-chillingly cold morning, she recalls, when militia loyal to Pashtun warlord Abdul Rab-Rasoul Sayyaf -- now a parliamentarian -- captured her village, west of Kabul and dominated by ethnic Hazaras.      Full news...

PAN: A 16-year old girl was kidnapped by unknown armed men in the Nahreen District of Baghlan province. The parents of 16-year old Guldana claimed that she had been kidnapped by a group of five unknown, armed men in the middle of the night in the New City area.      Full news...

The Independent: There is no one as colourful and controversial among the warlords of Afghanistan as General Abdul Rashid Dostum, a man of immense power and huge wealth whose name became synonymous with bloodshed and betrayal during the long years of conflict.      Full news...

CBC News: More than six years after the United States invaded to establish a stable central regime in Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai's government in Kabul controls just 30 percent of the country, says the top U.S. intelligence official.      Full news...

AFP: Afghanistan's attorney general has suspended militia leader Abdul Rashid Dostum from his government post for not cooperating with an investigation into a raid on a rival, an official said Tuesday.      Full news...

The Washington Post: With its fortress-like outer walls and posh interior, its sumptuous brunches and post-sauna massages, the Kabul Serena Hotel was a symbol of both progress and privilege -- a haven for foreign visitors in a harsh, unfamiliar environment and an inaccessible tower for most poor Afghans.      Full news...

Asia Media (University of California): A crowd of people wait, cowering on the side of a road. They need to cross this road to get to their homes in the west of Kabul but they don't dare. Bullets are flying from all directions over their heads. So they keep their heads down, wait. Then there is a brief moment of ceasefire, a chance to cross the road unscathed and reach home. The first to dare is a man on a bicycle. He rides off, keeping his head low. Two children follow his example and start walking, first slowly, then quickly. Next is a woman. She grabs a girl's hand, leaves the crowd and starts running. The girl struggles to keep up with the woman. Moments later, a rocket is fired. It hits the cyclist and the two children who had followed his example and set off on the road. The three of them are instantly killed.      Full news...

IWPR: Personal feud becomes a test of the government’s ability and resolve to rein in powerful men with private armies. Even for General Abdul Rashid Dostum, it was an unusual sight. The burly former militia commander, atop his Kabul home, openly defied the police cordons surrounding him. Protected by his private militia and backed by thousands in the north, Dostum once again showed that he is above the law.      Full news...

The New York Times: Dozens of armed police officers laid siege on Sunday to the house of a powerful ethnic Uzbek leader, Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, in the diplomatic district of the capital, Kabul’s police chief said. The action came after about 50 of General Dostum’s followers attacked and briefly abducted a political rival Saturday night.      Full news...

Badger Herald: Every now and then, I run across a news story that reminds me of the importance of individual liberties in modern society. One of these stories came out of Afghanistan this Wednesday.      Full news...

Reporters Without Borders: A court in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif today passed the death sentence on a young journalist, Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh, for alleged blasphemy. The trial was held behind closed doors and without any lawyer defending him. His brother, fellow journalist Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi, told Reporters Without Borders: "I saw my brother leave the court. He was very anxious. All the family was, too."      Full news...