Up to 800 fictitious polling stations were opened by Afghans loyal to Hamid Karzai, according to the New York Times. Allegedly, no one voted in these stations yet hundreds of thousands of ballots were still recorded towards Karzai’s re-election. One senior Western diplomat says it’s thought around 15% of the polling sites only existed on paper. In some provinces, the votes for Karzai exceeded the people who actually voted by a factor of 10. In Karzai’s home province of Kandahar, preliminary votes show 350,000 votes were turned in. Western officials reckon that only about 25,000 people actually voted there.

 
“Afghanistan becomes a part of the election campaign,” is the headline in today’s German daily Der Tagesspiegel. This is after Friday’s air strike by German forces in Afghanistan that killed 125 people. It is estimated that at least two dozen of those killed were not insurgents. Germany has some 4,200 troops stationed mainly in northern Afghanistan. Opinion polls show two-thirds of Germans oppose the mission. The news is galvanizing antiwar sentiments just weeks before the general election.

Israel is defying international pressure to halt settlement building in the West Bank. Today, Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to approve orders for about 500 new apartments. Officials have announced a subsequent partial freeze in settlement building. This is an attempt by Netanyahu it seems to balance the demands of all sides; The left-leaning Israeli daily Ha’aretz asks whether the Americans knew in advance of Israel’s intention to build these housing units in the West Bank.The paper says that even if there is an order to stop settlement expansion, settlers will most likely ignore it, especially in the more remote eastern parts of the West Bank…”even though the settlers’ success there will mean a death blow to the two-state solution.”

Two stories caught my attention in today’s Independent in the UK. Researchers appear to have resolved the mystery of where the red stone hats on Easter Island’s statues came from. A sacred quarry has been discovered where it is believed the hats were sourced. Of the 1,000 or so statues still standing on the island, only 70-75 hats have been discovered. This suggests the hats symbolised high birth and status. “They were perhaps even an early example of Pacific ‘bling’,” notes the paper.

Another article reveals the results of an online criminology study on perceptions of dishonesty. A woman is much more likely to consider something dishonest than a man is. For instance, 98% of women consider it dishonest for a man to conduct an online romance behind her back. Just 74% of men agreed. While women are more likely to consider something dishonest, they are however, less likely to convict that person of the offence. Females are more likely to excuse conduct by reference to the circumstances or character of the person involved.