Afstan: Peace in the valley/Star news coverage

The Globe and Mail finally finds some good news--read the whole story:

Battle-weary troops welcome relative calm
In southern Afghanistan, attacks are down and acceptance is up

And even the Toronto Star reports some good news (at the end of the story, and note the headline):

Two Afghan journalists who visited Toronto this week agreed it was vital for Canadian and other troops to stay to prevent a Taliban resurgence.

"People in Afghanistan want them to stay," said Najiba Ayubi, manager of Radio Killid in Kabul. "We've been through years of war, and we can't change things overnight by ourselves. If the troops left Afghanistan, it would send a very bad message. People would be saying: `If they go, why should we stay?'"

Ayubi said it would be wrong to ignore progress made since the Taliban was ousted in 2001. Schools have reopened, media have surged, and there is new freedom of expression. "Now there are about 200 media, including newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations," Ayubi said, adding women have found careers as journalists, filmmakers and media technicians.

Ayubi is in Canada with Mehria Azizi, Afghanistan's first camerawoman, at the invitation of Reporters Without Borders Canada and the Ottawa-based International Development Research Centre, to commemorate Jailed Journalists Support Day, today.

In Afghanistan, Ayubi said, mobile phone networks now connect people once isolated, and new private banks and financial services serve businesses and ordinary people.

"We used to go Pakistan when somebody sent money from abroad. Now we have banks and Western Union."

But the gap between city and village lifestyles is still too wide. "You can go just 10 kilometres outside of Kabul, Herat or (Mazar-e-Sharif) ... Women are veiled, and you won't see them on the street. There's no electricity, hospitals, schools or roads."

I would have thought the journalists' visit would have merited its own story but one gets what one gets.

Now this is what the Star considers worthy of a story on its own:

Canada's strategy is failing, MPs warned
...
Locked in an "unwinnable" war in Afghanistan, Canada must now look seriously at alternate strategies that could include an accommodation for the Taliban in the Kandahar region, the head of a major aid agency says.

Indeed, John Watson, president of Care Canada, attributes a recent lull in hostilities to the fact that high-level talks are already underway involving officials from Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan...