IRIN: Farmers in Afghanistan’s top potato-producing province are complaining about declining profits, mainly because of cold weather, lack of storage facilities and bad roads. Potato cultivation in Bamyan Province, central Afghanistan, employs thousands of people and output can top 150,000 tons a year, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock.      Full news...

The National: Juma Gul’s muffled crying became noticeable only when she wiped the tears away using her burqa or slumped forward with her head in her hands. Speaking Uzbek, she described how she made the equivalent of about Dh440 by selling her baby daughter off for marriage. The girl’s fiancé had memorised the Quran and his father promised that her virginity would be respected until she was an adult. The couple eventually wed four years ago, when she was eight and he was in his late twenties.      Full news...

The Telegraph: The addition of Gen Dostum, who leads northern Afghanistan's Uzbek faction, sees Mr Karzai complete a controversial alliance of ethnic strongmen and former warlords for this summer's presidential elections. Mr Karzai last month defied international diplomats by choosing Mohammad Qasim Fahim, another ex-militia leader, as his running mate.      Full news...

Reuters: Taliban fighters beat musicians, shaved their heads and left them tied to trees overnight because they performed at an Afghan wedding, a village tribal chief said Monday, a sign of the fighters' growing influence. The militants have returned to areas in the east and south of the country, where violence has sharply spiked in recent years.      Full news...

RAWA News: A tacit agreement operates between the Obama administration, the U.S corporate media, most progressive U.S. liberals, and the United Nations Assistance Mission for Afghanistan (UNAMA). All dream to a lesser or greater degree of a future social democratic paradise in Afghanistan where girls’ schools would be flourishing and small farmers exporting pomegranates. Some debate exists over the means to achieve this end. Much ado has been made during the past five months as to whether the Obama approach to Afghanistan differs or not with that of its predecessor.      Full news...

Quqnoos: A US-led air strike has killed 22 people, including 10 civilians in the central Ghor province, officials said. Deputy Governor of Ghor province, Ikramuddin Rezazada revealed that at least 10 civilians were killed in Tuesday’s air raid, carried out by the US-led coalition forces. A day earlier, US forces in statement said a prominent militant commander, Mullah Mustafa, and 16 other insurgents were killed in the bombing. Later, Mullah Mustafa in a phone interview told Quqnoos that he is “not harmed in the incident”.      Full news...

RAWA News: Mohammad Hashim Zare, the governor of Jowzjan province in Northern Afghanistan, has been accused of wasting the aid donated to the people of this province by Turkmenistan, central government and other organizations which has been sent to the flood-affected people in that province. Ferouza Quraishi, the deputy of the Provincial Council of Jowzjan called the governor inefficient” and said the aid has not reached those in need.      Full news...

PAN: Nine children and 11 suspected Taliban insurgents were killed in a Coalition bombing raid in the northwestern Ghor province, a police officer said on Wednesday. Acting police chief Col. Zainul Abidin told Pajhwok Afghan News the airstrike by US-led forces in Shahrak district targeted dreaded Taliban commander Mullah Mustafa and his accomplices.      Full news...

IRIN: Attempts to set oneself on fire (self-immolation) are an extreme reaction often practiced by desperate women who lack access to justice and protection. Anargul, 25, set herself ablaze in Herat Province, western Afghanistan, in a bid to end her misery, and ended up with burns to her chest, belly, neck, hands and face. She told IRIN about her ordeal and why her attempted suicide has worsened her plight.      Full news...

The Telegraph: Heavy weapons are continuing to stream across the Afghan border from Iran despite Barack Obama's attempts to enlist Tehran's help in fighting the insurgency, officials have said. Border police say they are regularly intercepting consignments of anti-tank mines and mortars bound for Afghan militants fighting Nato-led forces.      Full news...

The Canadian Press: The trafficking and sexual exploitation of children in Afghanistan is a growing concern, Canada's Foreign Affairs Department was told in a confidential human-rights report prepared by senior officials. The illegal marriage of underage girls and the sexual abuse of young boys is commonplace, warned the Afghanistan Human Rights Report obtained by The Canadian Press under access-to-information laws. "Sexual violence is commonly reported but remains difficult to verify," said the partially censored review, written last summer.      Full news...

IRIN: Poverty, community pressure and the low quality of education mean 25 percent of children in Afghanistan aged 7-14 are at risk of leaving school and drifting into exploitative work situations, according to a new report by a Kabul-based think-tank. The cost of education, lack of role models and family pressures were cited as reasons why children often ended up being exploited in backstreet workshops, factories or as domestic servants.      Full news...

The Huffington Post: Many Americans are profoundly ignorant of history, even regarding distant countries where the United States finds itself at war. One need not know much about Afghanistan's rich and ancient history, however, to learn some important lessons regarding the tragic failures of U.S. policy toward that country during the past three decades.... The Reagan administration sensed the most hard-line elements of the resistance were less likely to reach negotiated settlements, but the goal was to cripple the Soviet Union, not free the Afghan people. Recognizing the historically strong role of Islam in Afghan society, they tried to exploit it to advance U.S. policy goals.      Full news...

IWPR: America pledges to reduce price paid by civilians in war against Taliban, but disputes Afghan estimates for Farah airstrike death toll. Sayed Karim, 72, is now all alone. The elderly, white bearded man bowed his turbaned head as he told of the 13 members of his family who were killed in a May 4 airstrike by United States forces in Farah province, on Afghanistan’s western border. “I am no longer young,” he sighed. “I cannot build a new life.”      Full news...

Reporters Without Borders: Radio journalist Zakia Zaki’s murder two years ago tomorrow is still unpunished and her husband assures Reporters Without Borders that the lack of progress with the investigation is almost certainly due to the influence of the murder’s masterminds. The director of Sada-e-Solh (Peace Radio), Zaki was gunned down in her home in Jabalussaraj, in the northern province of Parwan, on 6 June 2007.      Full news...

IRIN News: Facing unemployment, insecurity and lack of socio-economic opportunities at home, many Afghans, mostly young males, have increasingly resorted to costly and perilous illegal migration to European and other industrialized countries. Over 18,000 Afghan asylum-seekers were registered in 44 industrialized states in 2008 - a significant increase on previous years, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).      Full news...

USA TODAY: Despite Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's call to reduce the reliance on foreign aid contractors, the main U.S. aid agency is continuing to award multimillion-dollar contracts as it proposed to increase development spending in Afghanistan to $2.8 billion. An inspector general's audit released May 11 criticized DAI's performance on a $164 million contract to promote local governance. Success, the audit found, was "highly questionable" in part because DAI "had no overall strategy" for implementing local projects.      Full news...

MSNBC: Should detainees the United States has shipped to the Bagram air base in Afghanistan have the same constitutional right to challenge their detention in court that prisoners at the Guantanamo prison in Cuba have been given? President Barack Obama didn't answer that question in a May 21 speech outlining his policy for dealing with alleged terrorists. In fact, Obama didn't mention Bagram at all.      Full news...

Christian Science Monitor: The Haqqani network is considered the most sophisticated of Afghanistan's insurgent groups. The group is alleged to be behind many high-profile assaults, including a raid on a luxury hotel in Kabul in January 2008 and a massive car bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul that left 41 people dead in July 2008.... Haqqani's son Sirajuddin has now taken the reins of the organization, according to intelligence officials. The younger Haqqani has proved more dynamic than his father, expanding the network greatly in the last few years.      Full news...

Amnesty International: Millions of people living in southern and eastern Afghanistan, terrorized by the Taliban, other insurgent groups and local militias ostensibly allied with the government, suffered insecurity that further restricted their already limited access to food, health care, and schooling. Indiscriminate attacks, abductions and the targeting of civilians reached unprecedented levels. The Taliban and other anti-government groups significantly expanded their attacks to cover more than a third of the country, including areas once considered relatively safe in the centre and the north.      Full news...

CommonDreams.org: André Shepherd, who was stationed in Germany, refuses to deploy to Iraq. Many U.S. soldiers stationed in Europe who refused service in or support of the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan have been tried in U.S. military courts in Europe and imprisoned in the U.S. military's correctional facility at Mannheim; the most well known are Blake Lemoine (2005) and Agustín Aguayo (2006-2007). But Shepherd is so far the first to turn to the German government for help: last November he filed a formal application to the German government for asylum.      Full news...

The Canadian Press: An international aid expert says only pennies from each dollar being sent to Afghanistan are actually reaching the people who need help. Marco Vicenzino says he is appalled by the inefficiency of humanitarian aid efforts. Vicenzino, who is a strategic adviser for the Afghanistan World Foundation, says about 80 cents of every dollar goes back to donor countries - largely through the contractors doing the work.      Full news...

The Guardian: British pilots in Afghanistan are firing an increasing number of "enhanced blast" thermobaric weapons, designed to kill everyone in buildings they strike, the Ministry of Defence has revealed. Since the start of this year more than 20 of the US-designed missiles, which have what is officially described as a "blast fragmentation warhead", have been fired by pilots of British Apache attack helicopters. A total of 20 were also fired last year after they were bought by the MoD from the Americans last May.      Full news...

Reuters: An Afghan who has spent over six years at the U.S. military's Guantanamo Bay prison was only around 12 years old when he was detained, not 16 or 17 as his official record says, an Afghan rights group said on Tuesday. Interviews with the family of Mohammed Jawad, who like many poor Afghans does not know his exact age or birthday, showed he was probably not even a teenager when he was arrested in 2002, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission said.      Full news...

IPS: "It’s a matter of what I’m willing to live with," Specialist Victor Agosto of the U.S. Army, who is refusing orders to deploy to Afghanistan, explained to IPS. "I’m not willing to participate in this occupation, knowing it is completely wrong.".... On one of them, dated May 1, Agosto’s written statement appears: "There is no way I will deploy to Afghanistan. The occupation is immoral and unjust. It does not make the American people any safer. It has the opposite effect."      Full news...

RFE/RL: Afghan officials say Iranian-made weapons have been found in Afghanistan's southern Helmand Province, Radio Free Afghanistan reports. The commander of state military units in Kandahar, General Sher Muhammad Zazi, and Helmand Governor Gulab Mangal told journalists in Kabul that a significant amount of drugs was seized from militants in Marja along with the weapons in a May 26 operation.      Full news...

The Trentonian: If so, maybe it’s time to look at the other Afghan surge: its population growth. It’s been seven years now since George W. Bush committed American troops to Afghanistan. Since then, Afghanistan’s population has jumped by 22 percent. Under current projections, its population will be twice as large in 2026 as it was in 2001. That’s because the average Afghan woman has almost seven children, one of the highest fertility rates in the world.      Full news...

AFP: The Afghan government is planning curbs on Internet use, starting with blocking pornography sites, as the country's first fiber optic cable is due to be on-line in weeks, officials said Sunday. The communications and information ministries are studying limits on web access because the current "free Internet environment" is being misused in particular by the youth, communications ministry spokesman Abdul Hadi told AFP.      Full news...

MADRE: Women in Afghanistan are routinely denied basic human rights, including education, healthcare, freedom from violence, and freedom of movement. Afghan women who fight to change this reality are attacked and even assassinated by ultra-conservatives. Meanwhile, US airstrikes that kill civilians further endanger Afghan women and their families. They also increase the power of the Taliban and other reactionary forces as more Afghans turn to them for protection from the United States.      Full news...

The Times: Millions of pounds in taxpayers’ money have been wasted on failed reconstruction projects in Afghanistan, according to an internal assessment by the Department for International Development. An evaluation by independent consultants criticised the department’s approach to planning, risk management and staffing, and said poor co-ordination with the rest of Whitehall meant that the department was slow to shift strategy as the military effort moved to counter-insurgency.      Full news...