BBC News Online: World: South Asia

UN report criticises Taleban

A United Nations report on religious extremism has accused the Taleban authorities in Afghanistan of using religion to take an entire society hostage.

The report -- which covered twenty-five countries -- described religious extremism as an ever growing scourge and said the situation in Afghanistan was the epitome of it.

It said that women there had been reduced to pariah status, being afflicted by social, economic and cultural exclusion.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service