The New Misery Index.(Afghanistan)(Brief Article)

The 55-year-old grocer is not by nature a melancholy man. But years of economic struggle have darkened his mood. Abdullah has set up shop in Kandahar, a hometown he shares with Osama bin Laden, the suspected Saudi terrorist. The West's war against bin Laden means nothing to Abdullah. What matters is that since the United Nations imposed its second set of sanctions on Afghanistan last month, the country's currency has plunged nearly 30 percent. That has drastically raised the prices of the imported Pakistani and Iranian milk, sugar, flour and biscuits he sells. "There is no business," says Abdullah, standing in front of his shop. "People do not have any money. Sanctions will add further to our misery."

Aghanistan's 20 million people were already suffering terribly. The average income is now $10 a month. More than 2.5 million Afghans depend on U.N. agencies for food. Last week the World Bank warned that the country is headed for a major famine. In Kabul and Kandahar, where the Taliban has its headquarters, hungry kids forage through garbage dumps, competing for scraps with stray dogs. Refugee camps along the border with Pakistan are jammed; in recent weeks some 500 people have frozen to death in Herat. "There is no job here," says Shergul Khan, a 35- year-old taxi driver in Kandahar. His life is so bleak that he wants to return to the Pakistani city of Quetta, where he lived as a refugee for 10 years. Pakistan's U.N. Ambassador Munir Akram calls the new restrictions--which place an embargo on arms sales to ...