Final round of talks among the four participating counties of Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project would be held in Kabul on April 19 to finalise the structure of the much-needed energy project for India and Pakistan. Federal Secretary Petroleum Mohammed Ejaz Chaudhry, after his return from India where he attended 7th Asia Gas conference, stated this while talking to a group of journalists here on Wednesday.

A harsh winter has killed almost 40 children in Afghanistan in the past month, most of them in refugee camps in Kabul with aid groups warning Sunday of more deaths as temperatures keep falling.

Twenty-four children lost their lives in camps on the outskirts of the capital which houses thousands of Afghans fleeing war and Taliban intimidation in southern Afghanistan.

Others died from cold in the central highlands, public health ministry spokesman Ghulam Sakhi Kargar Noorughli said.

Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) on Thursday signed an agreement worth rupees 611.5 million for preparation of detailed engineering design and tender documents of Munda Dam Multipurpose Project here in Governor''s House.

The joint venture, comprising Pakistani, Australian and Japanese firms has been assigned to complete the task in two years.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Barrister Masood Kausar, KPK Assembly Speaker Kiramtullah Khan Chagarmati, Fata parliamentarians, tribal elders, political elites and officials attended the signing ceremony.

Frequent travels, past displacement and current repatriation of millions of Afghans have put the Afghan population at risk of infection with novel, possibly drug-resistant strains of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and treatment for such infections may prove challenging for the development of effective vaccines and antiretroviral therapies, a recent study shows.

The study, Patterns of HIV infection among native and refugee Afghans, was aimed at characterising and comparing the HIV epidemics prevailing among the Afghan refugees in Pakistan and the native Afghans in Kabul.

Experts at a conference on Tuesday said Pakistan would suffer 16 to 17 per cent drop in water supply from Afghanistan after construction of 13 dams on Kabul River.

They said time had come to enter into a water treaty with Afghanistan to avoid water related conflicts between the two countries.

They said with the active support of India many of these projects were in the implementation and designing phase.

The government is willing to part finance domestic companies in their global bid for the Hajigak iron ore mine in Afghanistan given the strategic importance of the war-torn country for India.

Afghanistan is looking for mining firms to open up a huge iron deposit, holding an estimated 1.8 billion tonnes of high quality ore, but potential bidders face a volatile security situation in a remote, mountainous region.

More than 10,000 ethnic Hazaras protested in the Afghan capital on Tuesday, calling for President Hamid Karzai to resign over killings of their kin by rival Kuchi nomads.

The angry marchers sent police fleeing on the outskirts of Kabul, then chased them until hundreds of officers and soldiers blocked one of the main roads into the city, next to Kabul zoo. The marchers then sat down in the middle of the road until one of their leaders, parliamentarian Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq, addressed the crowd and persuaded them to peacefully disperse.