AFGHANISTAN:The last king of Afghanistan, Mohammad Zahir Shah, was buried yesterday at a state funeral where thousands bid farewell to a monarch remembered for his peaceful reign.
President Hamid Karzai, a distant cousin of the king, led mourners following the coffin draped in the black, red and green Afghan flag as it was laid on a gun carriage for the short journey from the presidential palace to a hill above Kabul.
Zahir Shah was just 19 when he witnessed a deranged student assassinate his father in 1933. For two decades, he took a back seat while three uncles controlled government, but growing in confidence, he took power himself in 1953 and set about cautiously reforming his backward realm.
He carefully balanced competing cold war powers, receiving aid and construction projects from both communists and the West.
Zahir Shah declared Afghanistan a constitutional monarchy in 1964 for which Karzai hailed him as the father of Afghan democracy.
Few Afghans clearly remember Zahir Shah's rule in a country with one of the lowest life expectancies in the world and where intervening wars have clouded perceptions. But his 40 years on the throne was one of the most peaceful periods in Afghanistan's recent history where many women worked, drove buses and some even wore mini-skirts on Kabul's streets.
Meanwhile Taliban rebels said yesterday negotiations to free the 23 Korean hostages they are holding were at a crucial stage.
Talks between the Taliban and Afghan tribal elders, who are liaising with the Kabul government and South Korea, went on as a rebel deadline for Seoul to agree to pull its 200 troops out of Afghanistan passed yesterday.