Hamid Karzai appoints new cabinet ministers

Afghan President &to=http:// english.pravda.ru/main/2002/09/27/37393.html ' target=_blank>Hamid Karzai appointed a new cabinet which pushes out powerful warlords and installs technocrats capable of fighting drugs and driving reform.

The eagerly-awaited line-up was announced on state-run television more than two months after millions of Afghans went to the polls in the country's first democratic elections.

Two key Northern Alliance generals who helped the United States topple the &to=http:// english.pravda.ru/main/2002/01/09/25121.html ' target=_blank>Taliban were ditched -- defence minister Mohammed Qasim Fahim and Yunus Qanooni, who quit as education minister to run against Karzai for president.

Karzai instead picked out educated ministers likely to curry favour with western donors anxious to see &to=http:// english.pravda.ru/main/18/88/354/14723_wto.html ' target=_blank>Afghanistan rebuilt after 25 devastating years of war, says Channel News Asia.

Foreign Minister Abdullah and Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali, both popular in the West, were kept on. Masooda Jalal, the only women to run in the October elections and an outspoken critic of Karzai's reliance on warlords, was named minister of women's affairs.