Two and 1/2 months after the actual Presidential election, Afghanistan has named incumbent President Hamid Karzai as the winner, after the challenger, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, dropped out of a runoff. The runoff had been scheduled after a large number of Karzai ballots had been declared fraudulent.

Questions surrounding a second attempt at another presidential election arise. With only one choice, Hamid Karzai, left after contender opposition leader Dr. Abdullah Abdullah withdrew there may be no need.

As the Obama administration weighs sending more troops into Afghanistan to fight the Taliban, a senior U.S. official has made his thoughts on the U.S. policy in that country known. Matthew Hoh, a key U.S. official in Afghanistan has resigned in protest over U.S. policy in the war-torn country.

President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, bowing to international criticism of this year's presidential election, has agreed to a runoff election between him and his chief opponent on November 7.

The front-page of the September 23rd Wall Street Journal carried the story “Congress Presses on War Plan” by Yochi J. Dreazen, Neil King Jr. and Peter Spiegel. What caught my attention in the article was a statement about the NBC-Wall Street Journal poll conducted between September 17th and 20th in which “59% of respondents said they were now ‘less confident’ that the war would come to a successful conclusion.”

According to the September 20th Los Angeles Times article “Afghan Jew a one-man upholder of tradition” by Mark Magnier reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan, Zebulon Simantov says he is the last Jew in Afghanistan.

According to Yochi J. Dreazen’s top front-page story “Call for an Afghan Surge” in the September 16th Wall Street Journal, if approval is forthcoming there will be “as many as 40,000 new troops, in addition to 62,000 now” in Afghanistan. Yochi reports:

While people still continue to fight over whether or not health care should be provided for all, and the morality of allowing people to die because of lack of health insurance, here is the sad story of a soldier who re-enlisted to get insurance for his family, then later died in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is making efforts to build up its tourism industry as part of its economic recovery, but when will it be that people could consider traveling to Afghanistan safe?

Despite calls from the US and other parties, both of the top runners for the Afghan Presidency have claimed they have won. Despite both parties’ early claims of victory, no official results for the 2009 Afghan elections have been released.

During the height of the swine flu panic, Afghanistan locked up its only pig. Yep, as a Muslim country, there was only one pig in the entire nation, in a zoo. He was sequestered for his own protection, but he's now been released.