After a day of fanfare, hugs and speeches, new Afghan leader Hamid Karzai got down on Sunday to the job of rebuilding his shattered land, with a cabinet meeting, the first of his interim government. His ministers were likely to be eager to begin the tasks of growing food in a land hit by three years of drought, where women have no jobs, children barely received an education, 16 out of every 100 babies die at birth and life expectancy is just 43.

Karzai has pledged to begin swiftly the task of rebuilding his failed state.
But one of his first jobs is likely to involve the war still being waged in his country with a possible U.S. mishit on guests bound for his inauguration ceremony set to be on the agenda.
Local Afghans have contested U.S. assertions that its planes had attacked a convoy of al Qaeda leaders, saying that the dozens of dead were innocent villagers and tribal elders. Bureau Report