Project no. 1 NATIONAL (Conflict)

The urgent humanitarian mission to prevent famine and winter weather from further decimating Afghanistan's war-weary people is succeeding and the situation there improving, according to Andrew Natsios, the administrator of the US Agency for International Development.

While relief groups are still racing against the fast-approaching harsh winter to provide for the most endangered Afghans, they appear to meeting the challenge.

"In terms of the famine ... I think we've caught it in time," Mr Natsios told the press at the US State Department on December 10th 2001.

There are currently 12 million Afghans who have been affected by either the conflict or drought and of those seven million are severely affected, particularly in the Hazarajat, the central alpine plain, where the winter is especially harsh.

Some 1,800 tonnes of food per day are needed to meet the need countrywide and Mr Natsios said that figure had been exceded "substantially" almost every day since the end of last month. And, he said, contrary to some reports, food was being distributed to individual Afghans in need.

Even in the Hazarajat, he said figures provided the UN World Food Program and other relief agencies showed that the goal of getting 30,000 tonnes of food there before the end of December would be achieved.

Project no. 2 BAMIYAN (Conflict)

Afghanistan's new government has announced that it's to restore the giant Buddha statues at Bamiyan. The two Buddhas, which date back nearly two-thousand years, were destroyed in March by the Taleban, which considered them to be depictions of a false god. The Afghan Information and Culture Minister, Raheen Makhdoom, says several countries have already said they're willing to contribute to the project. He's plans to invite local and foreign specialists to a seminar to discuss how the restoration should be done.

Project no. 3 KABUL (Conflict)

You'll love this one...

On New Year's Eve, the people of Kabul watched their first buzkashi match for more than five years. The sport, which was discouraged by the Taleban regime, resembles polo, but uses a decapitated goat instead of a ball. The match was played in Kabul's Ghazi stadium, where until recently the Taleban carried out public executions; thousands of spectators gathered to watch, scattering when riders and horses charged towards the sidelines. The result was a victory for the team from Parvan province over their rivals from Balkh.