Naseer Ahmed

The day I left Afghanistan, Naseer drew me aside. "A promise?" he said. We looked at each other in the grimy light of a winter noon. We'd spent every day together for nearly a month. It was only then that it occurred to me-and the thought felt funny, somehow-that he was the best friend I had in this battered place. Naseer Ahmed is a 28-year-old translator, a dark, soft-bellied man with fingers like sausages and a quick laugh. He is an engineer who has been unemployed for months.

The day I left Afghanistan, Naseer drew me aside. "A promise?" he said. We looked at each other in the grimy light of a winter noon. We'd spent every day together for nearly a month. It was only then that it occurred to me-and the thought felt funny, somehow-that he was the best friend I had in this battered place. Naseer Ahmed is a 28-year-old translator, a dark, soft-bellied man with fingers like sausages and a quick laugh. He is an engineer who has been unemployed for months.

Jack Voss is convinced that in today's job market the one word on a resume guaranteed to send employers scurrying in the other direction is aerospace. Voss, a 55-year-old engineer with 30 years of experience, mailed out nearly 800 resumes, talked to two dozen headhunters, and elbowed his way through crowds at a dozen job fairs without getting a single offer. "They get cold feet as soon as I say I'm from aerospace," he said bitterly.

More than six months after Benazir Bhutto's assassination, the Pakistani authorities' investigation of her killing appears to have ground to a near-halt, with the trail growing colder. The elegant and charismatic former prime minister, one of the most popular politicians in Pakistan's history, was killed Dec. 27 as she left a campaign rally at a park in Rawalpindi, the seat of the Pakistani military.

Hidden from the outside world, an escalating war against terrorism in the wild badlands of northwestern Pakistan is feeding a seething anger, and many here are talking of new scores to settle with the United States. The hunt for suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters in the Pushtun tribal areas bordering Afghanistan has turned violent several times during the last few months.

The girl had been in the world just a few hours when they carried her out of the darkness, over the dirt yard and to the house where the hidden women of her clan awaited her arrival. They had been waiting all day, but they didn't mind. These women have been waiting in these dim rooms for years, waiting so long that they have turned anticipation into a state of grace.