Skateistan is a skating and education project based in Kabul, Afghanistan. It was set up by Oliver Percovich in 2007 and teaches children from all socio-economic backgrounds to skateboard. About 40% of its members are girls – a rarity in a country where until recently, women were banned from participating in sport. Some of the images featured here are from a new book Skateistan: The Tale of Skateboarding in Afghanistan.

Another day, another calamity: thirty killed by a suicide bomber at a funeral in Quetta; the commanding General in Swat blown up by Pakistani Taliban; renewed Indo-Pakistani fighting along the Kashmir border threatens to torpedo fragile reconciliation efforts. These events—all in the past six weeks—reinforce recent disclosures in the Washington Post confirming deep-seated official US doubts and fears about Pakistan.

Citing Afghans’ “exuberant” display of national unity and pride at the war-wracked country’s victory in a regional football championship as a “welcome sign” on the gradual path to normalcy, the top United Nations envoy there today also pointed to other recent political and security gains despite major challenges.

Ten years ago, Roeen Rahmani and some friends spent $300 on an overhead projector and a rented room to teach a business course to Afghans emerging from civil war and Taliban rule. Nobody showed up for the first class. Today, that initial effort has evolved into Kardan University, a private institution educating more than 8,000 students in programs ranging from political science to civil engineering. But for Rahmani, the school's chancellor, it's not enough.

The U.S. spent roughly $25 billion last year on what’s loosely known as security assistance—a term that can cover everything from training Afghan security forces to sending Egypt F-16 fighter jets to equipping Mexican port police with radiation scanners. The spending, which has soared in the past decade, can be hard to trace, funneled through dozens of sometimes overlapping programs across multiple agencies.

Taliban militants set off two suicide bombs in an attack on a U.S. Consulate in western Afghanistan Friday morning, triggering a gun battle with security forces that left at least two Afghans and seven attackers dead. The U.S. said all its personnel from the consulate in the city of Herat were safe and American forces later moved in to secure the site.

Afghan and Pakistani leaders met for critical talks last month as President Hamid Karzai traveled to Islamabad to sit down with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. It was Karzai’s first visit to Pakistan since Sharif, a former two-time prime minister, took the helm of a new civilian government in June. aimed at patching Kabul’s frayed relations with Islamabad and seeking the release of senior Taliban prisoners to revive the stalled peace talks. But the lead up to the meeting did not augur well.

The Afghan capital erupted in joyous pandemonium Wednesday night after the national soccer team defeated India to win the South Asian Football Federation championship. It was the first international soccer trophy ever for the war-weary nation and the first ebullient mass outpouring anyone here could remember.