IRIN: There are indications that some Taliban groups fervently oppose the use of contraceptives and may start using the issue as a pretext to launch further attacks on health centres, experts say. A pro-Taliban religious leader spoke for almost an hour against the use of contraceptive drugs, calling them “illicit and non-Islamic”. “Birth gaps have positive impacts on a mother’s health and the practice is in compliance with Sharia [Islamic] law so we will continue to recommend it,” Abdullah Fahim, a spokesman for MoPH, told IRIN.      Full news...

PAN: Angry with reported innocent killing of five persons of a family by the US forces in a raid in central Logar province last night, protestors besieged the building of Charkh district headquarters on Saturday. More than three hundreds protesting people, chanting anti-American slogans, called for an immediate trial of the killers.      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...

Asia Times: As United States President Barack Obama simultaneously escalates and crafts a new strategy for the US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led counter-insurgency war and occupation in Afghanistan, critics say that the "surge" will send the country toward an "unmitigated disaster", the brunt of which will be borne by the civilian population.      Full news...

PAN: Expressing its deep concern, Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) has said that 80 percent of children in western Ghor province have been forced into labor due to poverty. The human rights official described the child labor a stigma in the society and stressed the need for improving the situation and provision of education opportunities to the children.      Full news...

IRIN: Wheat flour, rice and cooking oil prices have dropped by over 15 percent in the past three months but adequate food is still unaffordable for millions of Afghans living on less than US$1 a day, according to officials. The average price of a 50kg bag of wheat flour was 1,100 Afghanis (about US$21) on 10 March in Kabul, down from $36 in December 2008. A 24.5kg sack of rice has gone down to $25 from $37, and the cost of a 16kg canister of ghee is now $20 instead of $31.      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...

Ennahar Online: The UN diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi, who had participated in the reconstruction of Afghanistan after the Taliban, said that the country is in the process of ruin, in an interview published Tuesday by the U.S. weekly The Nation. The next conference on Afghanistan, scheduled for March 31 in The Hague and organized at the initiative of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, “comes after six very long years of waste,” he says. “We, the international community, have not helped much,” he says.      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...

Human Rights Watch: Afghan President Hamid Karzai should issue a pardon for Parwez Kambakhsh, a student and part-time journalist, whose 20-year prison sentence for blasphemy has been upheld by the Supreme Court, Human Rights Watch said today. The Supreme Court decision was the final stage in a highly politicized case that has repeatedly flouted Afghan and international law and highlighted the lack of professionalism among the Afghan judiciary.      Full news...

Xinhua: Around 10 million out of the whole population of the war-torn Afghanistan are jobless, a local newspaper reported Tuesday. "About 10 million out of 25 million populations of Afghanistan are without job," the newspaper Arman-e-Millie quoted Mohammad Zahir Kargar, the president of Workers Union of Afghanistan, as saying. Based on the remarks of Kargar, the daily said that high rate of unemployment and joblessness is the main reason for taking people towards committing criminal activities, armed robberies, suicide attacks and resorting to drug smuggling and addictions.      Full news...

IRIN: Less than 30 percent of the 166,000 tonnes of wheat the Afghan government promised to distribute to tens of thousands of people during the winter months (October-March) has been delivered so far, according to the Afghanistan National Disasters Management Authority (ANDMA). Severe drought which reduced domestic agricultural production by 35 percent in 2008, sudden hikes in food prices, and problems resulting from armed conflict have pushed about eight million people into high risk food insecurity, aid organisations say.      Full news...

BBC Persian (Translated by RAWA): At the threshold of International Women’s Day, Afghan officials give the news of self-immolation in eastern Afghanistan. According to the local officials of Herat province, a 45-year-old woman committed self-immolation due to ‘poverty and mental pressures’.      Full news...

The Christian Post: Drought-stricken and internally displaced, many Afghans can’t even be assured of one good meal a day for themselves and their family, reported a Church World Service staff on Friday. "Life continues to be difficult for all Afghans, but the tens of thousands of displaced Afghans and returnees from Pakistan and Iran are particularly at risk," says CWS Asia and Pacific Region Coordinator Marvin Parvez, who has also directed the CWS Pakistan/Afghanistan program.      Full news...

SBS: Dateline speaks with an Afghan family who claim to have witnessed several children being killed when Australian troops stormed their home in Oruzgan Province. Out of at least six people killed in the battle, five were children. We bring you an exclusive interview with the family of those children, who claim it happened without warning or provocation. This is how Australia first learnt that five children had been killed by ADF soldiers serving in Afghanistan.      Full news...

USA Today: Afghan demonstrators blocked the path of a U.S. military convoy in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday after an overnight U.S. raid killed four Afghans and wounded two, an official and protesters said. Protesters in the eastern city of Khost threw rocks at the convoy, shouted "Death to America" and burned tires in the road, sending up dark plumes of smoke. Several hundred men gathered in the street, preventing the vehicles from passing.      Full news...

New York Times: Eight years ago, Mahmoud Karzai was running a handful of modest restaurants in San Francisco, Boston and Baltimore. Today, Mr. Karzai, an immigrant waiter-turned-restaurant owner, is one of Afghanistan’s most prosperous businessmen.... Mr. Karzai’s swift rise has stirred resentment and suspicion among many Afghans, who have grown disaffected with the Karzai government and its seeming tolerance for insider dealing, favor trading, bribe taking and other unsavory activities.      Full news...

UNAMA: The High Commissioner noted that there has been a dramatic increase in threats and intimidation against women in public life or who work outside the home. Women working with government agencies, national and international organisations, journalists, police, and lawyers have all reported death-threat letters and phone calls. As a result, many women in public life have been forced to curtail their activities or abandon their jobs. The report calls for the protection of women and girls in both the private and public sphere and this must be translated into policies and concrete programmes.      Full news...

IRIN: A 25-year-old man we will call Shakir has told IRIN he rues rejecting an offer of “work” from a Taliban agent whereby he would get 500 Afghanis (about US$10) a day for carrying out attacks on government offices in Farah Province, southwestern Afghanistan. Those who accepted the offer are better off, he thinks. Shakir was deported from Iran three times in 2006-2008 and his efforts to find a job in his home district of Pushtroad have been unsuccessful.      Full news...

The Associated Press: The number of U.S. troops who have suffered wartime brain injuries may be as high as 360,000 and could cast more attention on such injuries among civilians, Defense Department doctors said Wednesday. The estimate of the number injured — the vast majority of them suffering concussions — represents 20 percent of the roughly 1.8 million men and women who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, where blast injuries are common from roadside bombs and other explosives, the doctors said.      Full news...

PAN: A furious husband, suspecting his wife of having illicit relations with another person, has reportedly cut off her ears in western Ghor province. Sherin Taj, 30, resident of Khoranj village of Charsadad district suffered the torture from her husband Abdul Qader on Monday night. Masuma Anawari, head of Women Affairs Department in the province told Pajhwok Afghan News Abdul Qader after badly beating his wife also cut off her ears and hairs with scissors.      Full news...

AFP: A joint inquiry by the NATO-led international force in Afghanistan and Afghan authorities has concluded that eight civilians were killed during a recent battle with insurgents in the south. In a joint statement, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force and the government of Helmand province said 17 other civilians were wounded in the February 23 firefight which erupted when an ISAF patrol was ambushed.      Full news...

The Associated Press: Afghan civilians will bear the brunt of an escalation in the Afghan war this year as thousands more U.S. troops deploy unless more is done by NATO forces and Taliban militants to protect them, a top Red Cross official said Monday. Civilian casualties in Afghanistan are "significantly higher" today than a year ago, and an intensification of the conflict this year could mean that consequences for many more Afghans will be "dire in the extreme," said Pierre Krahenbuhl, the director of operations for the International Committee of the Red Cross.      Full news...

Quqnoos: Residents of Kandahar province say that lack of job opportunities is the main reason that some youths in the province join the Taliban. Although unemployment has turned into a big problem all over the country, youths in Kandahar province believe that the government can overcome the problem by creating job opportunities for the people.      Full news...

Dawn: Western officials, the Afghan government and Taliban-linked mediators have been engaged in secret negotiations to bring elements of the group into Afghanistan’s political process, the Al Jazeera netwrok is reporting. The talks are reportedly taking place in Dubai, London and Afghanistan since the beginning of the year and revolve around the return of Gulbaldin Hekmatyar, the former Afghan prime minister, who has been in hiding for seven years, to Afghanistan.      Full news...

IRIN: A provincial official said about 400 families (around 2,000 individuals) had been displaced across the province over the past two months. Most of the displaced have set up tents or sought shelter in dilapidated houses in the outskirts of the provincial capital. Due to below zero temperatures and lack of access to safe drinking water, many internally displaced persons (IDPs), particularly children, are prone to diseases such as diarrhoea and pneumonia.      Full news...

Amnesty International: President Barack Obama approved the deployment of extra troops in Afghanistan last week and urged NATO allies to follow suit. "2008 was the most violent year for civilians since the fall of the Taleban and Afghans are increasingly resentful about civilians casualties caused by international forces during night raids and other actions of this sort," said Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific director.. "The challenge for the USA and its allies is to ensure that the surge of international troops into the country will provide better security for Afghans, and not put them at greater risk."      Full news...