Even when it's hard, ...

From the International Tribune for July 1:

Afghanistan will miss the deadline to set a date for already-delayed elections because of wrangling among officials and political parties, a senior official said Thursday. ...

Presidential and parliamentary elections already were delayed from June, and October is seen as the last chance to hold a vote before snow closes high passes in the Hindu Kush mountain range in dangerous eastern Afghanistan until the spring of 2005. ...

Political wrangling is not the only obstacle in the way of a vote. International officials have been cautioning for months that security is simply not adequate to hold the election. ...

News of the latest delay follows several weeks of attacks targeting election workers and registered voters. Two female election voters and more than a dozen Afghans who registered to vote were killed last week. ...

In March, [President Hamid] Karzai used a promise to disarm 40,000 irregular fighters by June 30 to win international pledges of billions of dollars in aid to rebuild war-ravaged Afghanistan.

But only 9,700 soldiers have given up their guns so far.

My last post on the Afghanistan elections was on June 14.