Breakfast is being prepared at the Abdul Hamid Hotel. The proprietor, Abdul Hamid, is rushing around with his helpers preparing a meal of unleavened Afghan bread and a thick white butter, and omelettes. This is a popular breakfast stop, about two hours up from Bamiyan town into the hills on …

LONDON (AFP) – Britain’s battle against the drugs trade in southern Afghanistan has been a total failure, the troubled country’s vice-president said Sunday.The drugs eradication policy is simply too soft and it is time to get tough, Ahmad Zia Massoud wrote in the British weekly newspaper The Sunday Telegraph. Poppy …

SEOUL (AFP) – Nineteen South Korean former hostages who spent six weeks under threat of death from Afghanistan’s Taliban arrived home Sunday, saying they felt as if they had died and then got their lives back.The former captives had tearful reunions with their families at a hospital outside Seoul before …