Kabul University

KABUL, Afghanistan - If they could sit down together, the chancellor and the hotheaded student activist who helped shut down his university might find that they are not so very different. After all, Afghanistan's history has dealt both men harsh blows. But that same history also divides them. The older one, attuned to what was lost in decades of war, seeks stability at all costs; the student, knowing just conflict and chaos, has no patience left for the older generation he blames for the violence.

Fifty-one female engineers graduated from a refresher course at Kabul University, some after updating skills that went unused because of the Taliban's discrimination against them. The students, all of whom are graduate engineers, received refresher instruction in civil engineering and water and sanitation engineering, including public health projects. Under the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban government, which was ousted by a U.S.

Before there was 9/11 in America, there was 9/9 in Afghanistan. On the eve of the attacks on New York and the Pentagon, assassins working for Osama bin Laden murdered Ahmed Shah Massoud, military commander of the anti- Taliban force known as the Northern Alliance. American intelligence officials say Bin Laden acted preemptively to eliminate a natural ally of the U.S. if Washington were to invade Afghanistan to topple the Taliban regime that had sheltered Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda followers.

At Kabul University and in a village on the outskirts of the capital, young women are breaking away from the traditional dress and roles to which they were restricted until recently. Unlike nearby South Asian and Middle Eastern countries, it is not uncommon to see women in modern, albeit modest, Western clothes conversing in the street with other women covered from head to toe in the traditional Afghan chadri.

The United Nations said Thursday that it is looking into claims of torture and execution of witnesses to the deaths last year of as many as 1,000 Taliban fighters whose bodies have reportedly been found in a mass grave. The U.N., which is running an assistance program in this devastated country, also condemned the shooting deaths by police of two students in a protest this week at Kabul University. The deaths were "in no way justified by self-defense or public safety concerns," it said.

When Rana, a former junior in English at Kabul University, first reluctantly donned a burka--the emblem of a woman's place in the new Afghan order--her heart sank. "I felt really bad," said the 23-year-old Kabul resident. "Since the day the Taliban came, I have felt that I am a woman, and that I have no choice in my life."

SHANGHAI -- China marked International Day Against Drug Abuse by executing 64 people accused of drug crimes, officials and state media said Wednesday. Other nations staged anti-drug rallies and burned piles of confiscated narcotics. Many of the Chinese executions came immediately after public rallies at which thousands watched as judges condemned the accused and authorities burned piles of seized heroin, Ecstasy and other drugs.

A coalition of Afghan Americans in California is seeking to grab the Bush administration's attention in hopes of carving out a role in helping rebuild postwar Afghanistan. About 400 leaders are expected to meet Wednesday in Fremont, home to one of the nation's largest Afghan communities, to plot a possible course for the war-ravaged nation. That effort comes as many leaders in the Afghan expatriate community in the U.S.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Violence broke out at the annual Shiite Muslim observance of Ashura here Saturday, but on a much smaller scale than security authorities in Kabul had feared. At least one person was killed and 16 others were wounded in clashes Saturday night between Shiite and Sunni students at Kabul University. But earlier in the day, Shiite marched in processions through city streets without serious incident one year after a suicide bomber killed more than 70 people at an Ashura procession in the capital.

When 1,450 Afghans from all corners of the country gather in the June heat to choose Afghanistan's future leadership, 160 seats will be set aside for women and six for Islamic scholars. That's a marked change from the Taliban days, when religious men ran the country and women were mostly banned from work. But according to rules announced Sunday for the grand council, or loya jirga, there also won't be an outright ban on members of the former Taliban regime.