The Huffington Post: Nearly 12 years after U.S. troops invaded Afghanistan, two-thirds of Americans think that the war was not worth the cost, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll released Friday. Twenty-eight percent think the war was worth it, and 43 percent say that it has contributed to the country’s long-term security. Full story ...

AlterNet: Drug users are drawn to bridges. They offer a modicum of privacy and camaraderie to go about the illegal business of staving off opiate withdrawal and tamping down painful feelings. On a recent trip to Kabul, Afghanistan, I stood among dozens of men injecting heroin and inhaling opium vapors huddled under scarves in small groups under the Pul-i-Sokhta bridge – the name means “burned bridge.” Full story ...

The Telegraph: The programmes – modelled on Western favourites such as The Voice and Pop Idol – are hugely popular in a country with a young population and where television ownership has rocketed since the Taliban were ousted from Kabul in 2001. At the same time there is a growing backlash against what many see as foreign values. Full story ...

The New York Times: There is not an ounce of fat on the wiry frame of Abdul Wahid, and no wonder. After he finishes his morning work shift, he walks 10 miles down mountain trails in northern Afghanistan to the first road, where he catches a bus for the last couple miles to the teacher training institute in Salang. He walks back up the mountain another 10 miles to get home, arriving well after dark Full story ...

The Killid Group: Only a fraction of Kabul’s streets are paved properly. The vast majority of roads are nothing but potholes and dirt. Yet contractors regularly overshootroad-building budgets. The Independent Media Consortium Productions (IMCP) investigates the money trail. Kabul Municipality has accused the Turkish-owned Copy International, and three Afghan companies, Hewadwal, Latifi and Quyash Niazi, of inflating road-construction costs. Full story ...

The Associated Press: Officials say a wave of bombings in southern Afghanistan has killed 15 people, including six members of the country’s security services. Omar Zwak, a spokesman for the governor of Helmand province, says there were four bombings. All of them took place late on Friday in different locations in Helmand. Full story ...

The Washington Times: A 3 million USD U.S.-contracted schools project in Afghanistan remains grossly unfinished more than four years after the start of construction because the Army Corps of Engineers did not hold the contractor accountable for the work it has been paid to do, a new report by a U.S. government watchdog says. Full story ...

Toronto Star: U.S. Marine Maj. Bill Steuber, like most people in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province, knew that local Afghan police were keeping young boys as sex slaves. The practice, known as bacha bazi, or “boy play,” was an open secret in Sangin, a town of 14,000 in Helmand. Full story ...

AFP: A court in Kabul ordered the early release of three people convicted over the torture of a child bride, an official confirmed Saturday, in a move denounced by activists as a blow for women’s rights. Sahar Gul, who was 15 at the time her ordeal, was burned, beaten and had her fingernails pulled out by her husband and in-laws after she refused to become a prostitute in a case that shocked the world. Full story ...

IWPR: “We aren’t treated as human beings,” Sikh businessman Amrit Singh said as he sat in his small grocery shop in the Kabul neighbourhood of Shor Bazaar. “When we are alive, we are disrespected, insulted and beaten…. And when we take our dead to the crematorium, which is our personal property, they won’t let us burn the bodies, saying it stinks.” “Do we have any rights in this country or not?” the 45-year-old asked. Full story ...

The Guardian: Under intense pressure from British and US troops, the Taliban have been demoralised and put on the back foot in the Afghan province of Helmand; yet they have proved remarkably resilient, and will try to “retake” the province once foreign forces withdraw, at the end of next year, according to a study published in the influential International Affairs journal. Full story ...

PAN: People of the Dasht-i-Archi district of northern Kunduz province on Tuesday staged a protest against an Afghan Local Police (ALP) member who killed two farmers after they refused to give him Ushr. The incident took place on Monday evening when ALP official Iftikhar asked the growers for alms, but they declined giving him wheat. The policeman shot dead the famers and injured a 12 years old boy in Bajauri village. Full story ...

Stars and Stripes: A new and dreaded word has crept into the local lingo of this bustling town in the shadow of one of NATO’s main logistical hubs: “layoff.” It was inevitable that thousands of civilian employees would be made redundant as NATO’s military operation in Afghanistan winds down after nearly 12 years of war. Full story ...

Xinhua: At least 16 Afghans were killed and 17 others sustained injuries as two suicide attacks rocked the southern provinces of Kandahar and Uruzgan on Friday, officials asserted. In the latest deadly suicide bombing which hit Uruzgan’s provincial capital Trinkot 370 km south of Kabul, 12 people mostly policemen were killed and five others sustained injuries, spokesman for provincial administration, Abdullah Humat said. Full story ...

RFE/RL: When Afghan President Hamid Karzai finally appointed new members to the country’s top human rights watchdog last month, it was meant to end a long period of limbo for a body that had lost five of its members. Instead, the president’s appointments have sparked an uproar in the rights community, both in Afghanistan and abroad. Full story ...

PAN: Dozens of people on Monday staged a protest against Kabul police for killing seven people in the Deh Sabz district of the capital. Seven civilians were killed and several others wounded last week during a clash between police and supporters of Haji Janat Gul, a brother of MP Allah Gul Mujahid. Full story ...