Taking Part: An Afghan official photographed a police officer for his voter ID card at the registration office in Parwan Province. Registration got under way in October. Rafig Maqbool/AP

Insecurity and charges of fraud could hamper election offiocials’ ability to ensure popular acceptance of next year’s presidential poll results.

By Anand Gopal | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
from the December 24, 2008 edition

Kabul, Afghanistan – Evidence of fraud and poor security conditions are raising concerns that next fall’s presidential elections could be compromised.

With Afghans scheduled to go to the polls in less than a year, the …

Far from the political action
November 26, 2008
By Ron Synovitz

The section of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate that is responsible for domestic spying on Pakistani politicians has been quietly shut down.

Sources in Pakistan suggest the implications are entirely domestic and will have little bearing on Pakistan’s foreign policy or the ISI’s role in the counterterrorism effort, but Western experts note that the change comes as Washington has been privately urging Pakistan’s new government to rein in elements of the ISI that allegedly have links with Islamic militancy.

Critics maintain that Pakistan’s military leaders most often used the …

As he leaves Afghanistan, our correspondent reflects on a failed state cursed by brutal fundamentalism and rampant corruption

Thursday, 27 November 2008

The collapse of Afghanistan is closer than the world believes. Kandahar is in Taliban hands

The Red Cross has already warned that humanitarian operations are being drastically curtailed in ever larger areas of Afghanistan; more than 4,000 people, at least a third of them civilians, have been killed in the past 11 months, along with scores of Nato troops and about 30 aid workers. Both the Taliban and Mr Karzai’s government are executing their prisoners in ever greater …

This is a summary of what was said by UNHCR spokesperson Ron Redmond

The two-day meeting opens Wednesday at 10 a.m. in Room XVII with opening remarks by High Commissioner Antonio Guterres and a keynote speech by Tanzanian Prime Minister Mizengo Kayanza Peter Pinda. Both opening statements will be open to media, but the rest of the session will be closed. We will issue press releases on the opening day as well as at the conclusion of the meeting.

According to UNHCR’s latest statistical information, some 6 million people …