The Guardian: I bought The Kite Runner in the hope that it might provide some insights into Afghanistan, one of the many areas of the world about which much is said through the lens of the powerful, but little is seen of the actualities of the everyday lives of the people. What I read was anything but. Full story ...

VOA: An official at Iran's Interior Ministry says the estimated 1.5 million Afghan refugees illegally living in the country could face arrest and detention for up to five years. Full story ...

ION: A man in his thirties suddenly threw himself on a busy road in Kabul and yelled, “kill me and drive over me. They can’t feed us; the easier way is to kill me and my children. Oh people, for God's sake, come and kill us,” shouted the apparently exhausted man lamenting the government's failure to provide him with a livelihood. Full story ...

BBC News: After two years in which the violence in Afghanistan has become worse, it is hard to see signs of hope in 2008. The detailed new international commitments, and promises of more money, put forward at the London Conference in January 2006, made little headway as the war against the Taliban went into a new phase. Full story ...

IRIN News: A man named Mumtaz in southern Zabul province of Afghanistan first shaved wife, Nazia’s head and then cut off her ears, and nose and damaged her teeth on the first day of Eid ul Adha, an Islamic ritual of sacrifice. “One night he hit me so much that I fainted. When I regained consciousness I found my head had been shaved. I cried so much, but he did not care.” Full story ...

The Telegraph: Agents from MI6 entered secret talks with Taliban leaders despite Gordon Brown's pledge that Britain would not negotiate with terrorists, The Daily Telegraph can disclose. Full story ...

The CorpWatch: In September, on a tree-lined street in the most expensive neighborhood in Kabul, dozens of men rolled out of armored vehicles in front of a little-known U.S. security company. Backed up by Blackwater guards, Afghan authorities and Americans from the FBI and the U.S. State Department quickly headed for the offices of United States Protection and Investigations (USPI). Once inside, they arrested four of the Texas-based company's management team and confiscated 15 computers. The two Americans arrested were later released, while the Afghan managers remain in custody. Full story ...

SPIEGEL ONLINE: An 11-year-old child bride sits next to her 40-year-old fiance. For UNICEF, this was the Photo of the Year. Dutch writer Leon de Winter laments the perversity of this wedding picture and the frightening relativism of the West. Full story ...

AntiWar.com: Hamid Karzai is the grandson of Khair Mohammed of the village of Karz, not far from Kandahar. He was an indigent member of the Popalzai tribe with a large family who migrated to Kandahar seeking a better life. Normally, when a Pashtun is of noble stock he's known by a patronym, but more humble tribal members do not have that privilege. Therefore, perforce they resort to descriptive names like Karzai, Pashto for "born in Karz." Full story ...

RAWA: But now through Australian media were informed that Sayad Anwar Shah and Sayed Zubair, both cousins of the well-known Afghan criminal Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf (fundamentalist leader of Itehad-e-Islami Party and currently member of the Afghan parliament), were running a religious school in Australia. But according to a recent news item in Australian papers, the director has been charged with fraud over the alleged theft of $355,934 from the college's federal funding. Full story ...

The Telegraph: The British Army says it is "taking seriously" claims that children were shot and several adult villagers had their throats cut during a secret military operation by unidentified forces in Helmand province. Full story ...

IWPR: Residents of a southern village tell of a night of violence at the hands of foreign and Afghan soldiers. Abdul Manaan claims he suffered slashes to his neck during a nighttime raid which locals say was carried out by a mixed force of foreign and Afghan troops helicoptered into Toube on November 18. Eyewitnesses say the soldiers killed 18 civilians in an attack that was brutal even by the standards of the Afghan conflict. Full story ...

IWPR: Journalist Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi says his brother Parwez has been jailed and threatened with death because of his own reporting on human rights violations in the north. Full story ...

IWPR: Private security companies are contributing to the rising tide of lawlessness, according to both Afghan and international experts. Former commanders, ex-special forces, demobilised militias – at times it seems like the streets of Kabul are crammed full of strongmen looking to capitalise on their most marketable skill – the ability and readiness to fight. Full story ...

The Times: A suicide bomber packed a car with explosives and blew it up next to a minibus transporting Afghan soldiers early today, killing at least 16 people, including several children. Full story ...

Pajhwok Afghan News: Around 60 children have died of pneumonia in the Kiran-wa-Manjan district of the northeastern badakhshan, residents claimed on Monday. But the Public Health Ministry officials rejected their claim as exaggerated. Full story ...

BBC News: Digging into what the latest opinion poll really means, security still came out as the main concern, but of those polled who said things were moving in the wrong direction, the economy was at the top of their list. Full story ...