AP - Afghan President Hamid Karzai's brother says he made at least $800,000 by buying and then reselling a high-end Dubai villa using a loan provided by the chairman of the troubled Kabul Bank.

Reuters - Afghan security forces used batons on unruly customers scrambling to withdraw their savings on Wednesday from a branch of the graft-hit Kabulbank, the country's biggest private financial institution.

Reuters - A United Nations agency will report that opium poppy production has fallen in Afghanistan this year but there are enough stocks to keep supplying heroin production, the agency's new chief said on Wednesday.

AP - Afghan election officials said Wednesday that scores of additional polling stations will be closed during the Sept. 18 parliamentary vote because of the deteriorating security situation in the country.

AP - Two suspected U.S. missile strikes hit militant targets in northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, officials said, bringing to six the number of such attacks in the region in less than a week. At least 10 suspected members of a group attacking NATO forces in Afghanistan were killed.

AFP - A Japanese freelance journalist freed after a five-month hostage ordeal in Afghanistan says he used Twitter to announce he was still alive under the noses of his captors, who did not understand English.

AFP - Britain's special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan is quitting with immediate effect, London said Wednesday, following a reported clash with NATO and US officials on fighting the Taliban.

AP - A Japanese journalist held hostage in Afghanistan for five months managed to send out a message via Twitter that he was alive when his captors asked him how to use a cell phone.

AP - U.S.-led NATO troops in Afghanistan should be able to start handing off responsibility for security to the Kabul government sometime next year, Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Tuesday.

Reuters - The United States does not plan to contribute to a NATO request for 2,000 troops for the Afghan war, the Pentagon said on Tuesday, even as the head of the alliance held out the possibility of U.S. participation.