German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg has said ‘We need more than just words. We need action also in Afghanistan by the Afghan government“. He was speaking hours after Karzai spoke in his inauguration speech.
In his inauguration speech, Karzai described corruption as a ‘dangerous problem’ and promised to organize a conference to find ways to counter the scourge. Karzai won plaudits for his inauguration speech from Western officials including the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who said it was an “important new starting point” as the US-led war stretches …

The United Nations is to pull its non-essential foreign staff out of Afghanistan after a deadly Taliban attack on a guesthouse for UN workers that killed 5 UN workers. The UN has about 5,600 staff in Afghanistan, about 80 percent of whom are Afghans, and the relocations will affect around 12 percent of total deployment.
United Nations has total of 1100 foreigners in Afghanistan and about 600 expatriate staff will be temporarily relocated either within Afghanistan or abroad.
UN spokesman Dan McNorton said:
Around 600 non-Afghan staff will be temporarily relocated. The …

Abdullah Abdullah who indicated his withdrawal from the Afghan Presidentail run-off elections has annouced that he will be no longer running for elections on November 7, 2009. Mr. Karzai’s only challenger in the Afghan run-off has accused the government not meeting the demands for a fair election free from frauds.
Dr. Abdullah told the reporters:
As far as I’m concerned, the decision I have reached is not to participate. I have strong, strong reservations about the credibility of the process.
Karzai who had been favorite to win the run-off after getting more votes …

The Obama administration’s coordinator of policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke said he is hopeful that the November 7, 2009  election will not see a repeat of the widespread fraud that caused a U.N.-backed election investigation to throw out nearly one-third of the votes cast for Karzai in the August 20, 2009 balloting. That pushed Karzai below the 50 percent mark he needed to avoid a runoff.
Holbrooke said:
It is reasonable to hope that there will be less irregularities this time for several reasons. Three, the international community, including the …

NATO defense ministers acknowledged that operation in Afghanistan was not working and agreed that they needed a new approach to seize the initiative from Taliban and al-Qaeda in a recent meeting in Bratislava, Slovakia. NATO defense ministers also backed a plan to shift towards a full-fledged counter-insurgency strategy without elaborating how the new plan will be made to work, or commit troops to the move.
While addressing to reporters, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said:
It does not solve the problems in Afghanistan just to hunt down and kill individual terrorists. …

One Laptop Per Child(OLPC) project for Afghanistan has designed a new pedal powered electric generator to provide electricity for laptops. The new design will make it easier for even children to charge the battery as they are using the laptop.
The design as shown in the picture consists of generator, a chain, gears and pedals. It seems to be a good idea but I am not sure for how long a child be able to use the laptop while pedaling for power at the same time. The design is not that child …

According to CNN, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced Monday that he is planning to increase the size of the U.S. troops by up to 22,000 troops in Afghanistan, Iraq and other missions around the world during the next three years.  The new deployment will expand the U.S. troop level from the current 547,000 to a maximum of 569,000 during the next three fiscal years.
The increased level of US troops will help to ease the strain of deployment, as many troops have faced repeated lengthy rotations in Afghanistan or Iraq.
Gates said that tThe …

US President Barack Obama has not complete ruled out sending troops to Pakistan to fight extremists in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area. In an interwiew with CBS Television show ‘Face the Nation’, he said that he will consult Pakistan’s leaders before going after terrorists hideouts in the country.
The president Obama further added, “If we have a high-value target within our sights, after consulting with Pakistan, we’re going after them. But our main thrust has to be to help Pakistan defeat these extremists.” 
Obama further said, “What we wanna do is say to the Pakistani …

Major Sebastian Morley, former commander of Special Air Service troops in Afghanistan spoke for the first time after he resigned in protest in late 2008 over the use of lightly armoured Land Rovers in war zones. He said:
The operations that we are conducting are so worthless. We hold tiny areas of ground in Helmand and we are kidding ourselves if we think our influence goes beyond 500 metres (yards) of our security bases.  It’s just crazy to think we hold that ground or have any influence on what goes on beyond the …

A former Taliban ambassador said on Monday that the militants sat with Afghan officials and Saudi King Abdullah over a religious meal in Saudi Arabia last month as the insurgency raged back home.
Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban’s former ambassador to Pakistan, denied that the get-together could be construed as peace talks. But President Hamid Karzai has long called for negotiations with the Taliban, and the meeting could spur future initiatives.
U.S. State Department spokesman Robert Wood referred reporters to the Afghan or Saudi governments for comment on the alleged meeting in …