IRIN: Authorities are striving to improve health conditions for women in Afghanistan, where maternal mortality and female life expectancy indicators are the worst in the world, says a new report. According to the State of the World’s Mothers 2011 report, published on 24 June by NGO Save the Children, about 50 women die in childbirth each day in Afghanistan. Full story ...

PAN: A NATO airstrike killed at least 13 civilians, mostly women and children, in the Doa Manda district of southeastern Khost province, an official said on Thursday. The early morning airstrike on Wednesday was carried out in Kamalkhel village of Syedkhel area at around 4am, the district police chief, Lf. Hameedullah, told Pajhwok Afghan News. He said all the dead were civilians and belonged to the same family. Full story ...

IRIN: Only 48 percent of Afghanistan’s population have access to safe drinking water and only 37 percent use improved sanitation facilities - with serious health implications, especially for children, according to the UN Children’s Fund. Full story ...

CNN: At least 25 people were injured Sunday when a man on a motorbike hurled a grenade at a high school in northern Afghanistan, an official said. The blast injured at least 17 students at the school -- three of them seriously -- said Ahmad Jawed Bedar, a spokesman for the governor of Faryab province. Full story ...

CBS News: About four in 5 Americans approve of President Obama’s plan to bring troops home from Afghanistan and more than half would approve an even bigger withdrawal, a new CBS News/New York Times Poll finds. In fact, most Americans do not think Mr. Obama’s proposed troop withdrawal goes far enough. Fifty-nine percent of Americans think even more than the proposed one-third of U.S. troops in Afghanistan should be withdrawn. Full story ...

The Washington Post: The Afghan government lashed out Tuesday at its former central bank president, who fled to Virginia and announced there Monday that he had resigned in fear for his life. Officials here have accused him of involvement in a major bank scandal and said he had nothing to fear but the law. Full story ...

Al Jazeera: Afghanistan has levelled fresh accusations against Pakistani forces for shelling its border areas, despite denials from Pakistani officials. Ratcheting up tensions between the two neighbours, a senior Afghan border security official said that dozens of mortars landed on Sunday in the eastern Kunar province, injuring and killing several. Full story ...

Associated Press: The farmer picking apples in the outskirts of Kabul must pay the Taliban $33 to ship out each truckload of fruit. The governor sends in armed men to chase workers off job sites if the official bribes aren't paid. Poor neighborhoods never get their U.N.-provided wheat, long since sold on the black market. Full story ...

VOA: A new U.N. report on illegal drugs says Afghanistan accounts for the majority of the world’s production of opium, while trends show production in Burma to be on the rise. The report also found that between 12 and 21 million people worldwide use opiates, with three-quarters of them using heroin. The U.N.’s drug czar, Yury Fedotov, said at the report’s launch Thursday... Full story ...

PAN: More than 80,000 people in the Afghanistan’s western provinces are vulnerable to landmines, a demining coordination centre announced on Wednesday. The Mine Action Coordination Centre for Afghanistan (MACA) said Wednesday that the residents of 140 villages in the provinces of Farah, Herat, Ghor and Badghis were still at risk, despite a recent reduction in mine-related casualties. Full story ...

CNN: Far away from the war, in the remote hills of badakhshan, there is another battle raging. Trundling into the valleys on dusty roads ripped up by large SUVs, an Afghan task force is heading towards their target: an industry so profitable that many fear it's Afghanistan’s only viable option once the West pulls its troops and money out. Full story ...

PAN: Ongoing cross-border attacks from Pakistan have displaced hundreds of families in eastern Kunar province, the provincial council said, calling on the Afghan government to prevent the shelling. For the past two weeks, Pakistani forces have been shelling villages on the Afghan border. So far more than 14 people, including women and children, have been killed as a result. Full story ...

Politics.co.uk: Early on Saturday Brian Haw died of lung cancer. It was the end of a life whose last ten years had been among the most unusual in modern British history. He had devoted himself to a solitary protest against Britain's foreign policy, earning himself an unusual place in the history books. His dogged unshakeable stubbornness was as British as the red buses constantly passing by. Full story ...

Xinhua: Continued Taliban-led insurgency, insecurity incidents, high rate of unemployment and poverty have been main obstacle to delay the return of over six million Afghan refugees from neighboring states. “Almost all Afghan refugees living in neighboring country of Iran prefer to return home country, but they were forced to stay abroad due to continued war, insecurity and high rate of unemployment in Afghanistan,”... Full story ...

Mehr News Agency: The president launched an attack against the U.S.-NATO forces occupying his country on Saturday, saying the motives behind their presence were suspect and complained that their weaponry was polluting his country, The New York Times reported. “Every time when their planes fly it makes smoke, when they drop bombs they have chemical materials in them, our people get killed but also our environment is damaged,” Karzai said. Full story ...

AFP: A cornerstone US policy to turn Afghan farmers into armed watchmen to keep out the Taliban has hit controversy and been scaled back over allegations of infighting and illegal taxation. In Marjah, the 1,150 trained local police or “arbaki” patrol an area transformed from insurgent hotbed into a mostly peaceful farming district in southern Afghanistan since a military operation 15 m Full story ...