Top news in this Bulletin:

The special court on the Kabul Bank crisis will deliver its verdict at a public hearing next week, the head of the court said Sunday.

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The former head of Iran's central bank, Tahmasb Mazaheri, has been found in possession of a cheque worth 54 million euros ($70 million) by German authorities, the Bild am Sonntag weekly reported.

Mazaheri, in charge of the central bank until 2008, was searched by customs officers at Dusseldorf airport on January 21 after arriving aboard a flight from Turkey, the Sunday paper said.

The cheque, with a value of 300 million Venezuelan bolivars, was discovered in his hand luggage, according to the report.

The German customs office is investigating whether the cheque was part of a money-laundering operation.

After the report was published, Mazaheri said that the cheque was designed to finance the Venezuelan government's construction of 10,000 homes.

At least three people have been killed and one person injured in avalanches in northern Parwan province which struck late Sunday afternoon, local officials said.

The incident took place in Shikh Ali district of the province when two men and a woman who were walking on the street were trapped by the avalanche, provincial spokeswoman Roshna Khalid said on Monday.

"They wanted to go in a wedding party in the district by they were killed by an avalanche," she said.

It comes as heavy snowfall has obstructed major traffic route Salang Highway in the north of Afghanistan since Friday.

The maintenance and guard department has stopped traffic on the highway because of the poor weather conditions and the possibility of an avalanche in the area.

The road from the Tajikan area of Jabul Saraj district in Parwan to the Malkhan area of Baghlan province is empty and there are neither vehicles nor travelers throughout this route, local officials said.

The snowfall is expected to continue until Tuesday, but there is no clear sign when the roads will reopen.

Meanwhile, deputy public works minister Ahmad Shah Wahid on Monday said in a press conference has said that more than 14 avalanches have delayed work in most of the Salang area.

"We can't start work in the areas due to heavy snowfall and storms. We have vehicles to clear the streets" he said.

In early 2012, avalanches following an extreme storm in southern Salang killed 190 and left about 200 injured, an incident which raised criticism against the lack of preparedness of Afghan government departments.

Israel has implicitly confirmed it staged an air strike on Syria last week, with President Bashar al-Assad accusing the Jewish state of trying to further destabilise his war-torn country.

The foreign minister of Damascus' ally Iran, meanwhile, said he welcomed Syrian opposition leader Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib's stated readiness to hold talks with representatives of Assad's regime.

Four days after an air raid which Damascus said targeted a military complex near the capital, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak spoke to reporters in Munich on Sunday but refrained from explicitly confirming that Israel staged the strike.

Barak told the Munich Security Conference that the strike was "another proof that when we say something we mean it."

Wednesday's air strike targeted surface-to-air missiles and an adjacent military complex believed to house chemical agents, according to a US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The New York Times, citing a senior US military official, reported Sunday that the air strike may have damaged Syria's main research center on biological and chemical weapons.

Damascus has threatened to retaliate, further fuelling fears of a regional spillover of the country's 22-month conflict which the UN says has already left more than 60,000 people dead.

A fierce critic of both Assad and Israel, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel of waging "state terrorism" as he condemned the air strike on Syria as an unacceptable violation of international law.

"We cannot regard a violation of air space as acceptable. What Israel does is completely against international law... it is beyond condemnation," Erdogan told reporters.

Syrian ally Algeria also condemned the air strike, calling the action "a violation of international law, foreign aggression and a threat to state sovereignty and territorial integrity," in a statement released by the state news agency.

In the wake of the strike, US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta told AFP that Washington was increasingly concerned that Syria's "chaos" could allow Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah movement to obtain sophisticated weapons from Damascus.

Israeli armed forces chief Lieutenant General Benny Gantz on Sunday started a visit to Washington with the Syrian conflict and Iran's controversial nuclear programme on his agenda.

And US Vice President Joe Biden flew to Paris for talks on Monday with President Francois Hollande also covering Syria.

In Damascus, Assad accused Israel of seeking to "destabilise" Syria, state news agency SANA reported.

The raid "unmasked the true role Israel is playing, in collaboration with foreign enemy forces and their agents on Syrian soil," he told Saeed Jalili, who heads Iran's Supreme National Security Council.

Amid the insecurity, Israeli security sources said the Jewish state has plans for a buffer zone inside the Syrian border to prevent radical groups from approaching its territory.

"There's a plan in the military's northern command for the 'day after' according to which, when Bashar Assad is no longer president of Syria, there's a fear that terror elements will try to approach the fence," one source told AFP.

On the political front, key Damascus and Hezbollah backer Tehran also said on Sunday that it welcomed opposition chief Khatib's overture for talks with regime representatives.

"It's a good step forward," Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said at the Munich Security Conference, where he said he had held a "very good meeting" with Khatib.

Iran has joined UN Security Council members Russia and China in consistently backing Assad's regime throughout the almost two year-long conflict which has also forced more than 700,000 people to flee Syria.

After Khatib met Iranian and Russian representatives in Munich, opposition spokesman Walid al-Bunni told AFP by telephone that Moscow must now pressure Assad to end the spiralling conflict.

"The ball is now in Russia's court," the Syrian National Coalition's Bunni said, although he conceded that there has been "no breakthrough in Russia's stance."

On the ground, at least 16 people, among them 10 children and a rebel commander, were killed in a missile attack by the army on Sunday on a rebel-held area of the northern city of Aleppo, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Video distributed by activists showed a man describing the carnage. "I saw a 13-year-old's body sprawled on the ground, I saw mutilated body parts everywhere," he told the amateur cameraman.

The Britain-based watchdog, which relies on a network of activists and medics for its information, said at least 125 people were killed in violence across Syria on Sunday, among them 58 rebel fighters.

A woman and her two children froze to death in Logar province overnight as temperatures dropped below freezing, local officials said.

The deaths happened in Logar's Kharwar district Sunday night after the cold weather worsened and the roads through the district closed.

Heavy snowfall has also closed the roads from the Azar, Charkh and Barak-e-Barck districts to the capital of Logar.

Residents of Barak-e-Barrack told TOLOnews that they have not been able to get to food supplies, fuel or hospitals and called on the government for assistance.

Last month Amnesty International released a report saying that 17 Afghans, mostly children, had died in camps for the displaced and blamed poor government management.

Amnesty said the deaths occurred in the first two weeks of January in Kabul and Herat provinces where most of the country's half a million internally-displaced people live in makeshift camps.

But the Afghan government rejected the reports.

Last winter about 100 people, mostly children and the elderly, died in the camps. The Afghan government and international donors had been urged to prevent a repeat of the tragedy.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has issued a decree to control expenses within government departments, requesting they put off purchases of deluxe and expensive equipment and where possible to use domestic products.

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Israel has implicitly confirmed it staged an air strike on Syria last week, with President Bashar al-Assad accusing the Jewish state of trying to further destabilise his war-torn country.

The foreign minister of Damascus' ally Iran, meanwhile, said he welcomed Syrian opposition leader Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib's stated readiness to hold talks with representatives of Assad's regime.

Four days after an air raid which Damascus said targeted a military complex near the capital, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak spoke to reporters in Munich on Sunday but refrained from explicitly confirming that Israel staged the strike.

Barak told the Munich Security Conference that the strike was "another proof that when we say something we mean it."

Wednesday's air strike targeted surface-to-air missiles and an adjacent military complex believed to house chemical agents, according to a US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The New York Times, citing a senior US military official, reported Sunday that the air strike may have damaged Syria's main research center on biological and chemical weapons.

Damascus has threatened to retaliate, further fuelling fears of a regional spillover of the country's 22-month conflict which the UN says has already left more than 60,000 people dead.

A fierce critic of both Assad and Israel, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel of waging "state terrorism" as he condemned the air strike on Syria as an unacceptable violation of international law.

"We cannot regard a violation of air space as acceptable. What Israel does is completely against international law... it is beyond condemnation," Erdogan told reporters.

Syrian ally Algeria also condemned the air strike, calling the action "a violation of international law, foreign aggression and a threat to state sovereignty and territorial integrity," in a statement released by the state news agency.

In the wake of the strike, US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta told AFP that Washington was increasingly concerned that Syria's "chaos" could allow Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah movement to obtain sophisticated weapons from Damascus.

Israeli armed forces chief Lieutenant General Benny Gantz on Sunday started a visit to Washington with the Syrian conflict and Iran's controversial nuclear programme on his agenda.

And US Vice President Joe Biden flew to Paris for talks on Monday with President Francois Hollande also covering Syria.

In Damascus, Assad accused Israel of seeking to "destabilise" Syria, state news agency SANA reported.

The raid "unmasked the true role Israel is playing, in collaboration with foreign enemy forces and their agents on Syrian soil," he told Saeed Jalili, who heads Iran's Supreme National Security Council.

Amid the insecurity, Israeli security sources said the Jewish state has plans for a buffer zone inside the Syrian border to prevent radical groups from approaching its territory.

"There's a plan in the military's northern command for the 'day after' according to which, when Bashar Assad is no longer president of Syria, there's a fear that terror elements will try to approach the fence," one source told AFP.

On the political front, key Damascus and Hezbollah backer Tehran also said on Sunday that it welcomed opposition chief Khatib's overture for talks with regime representatives.

"It's a good step forward," Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said at the Munich Security Conference, where he said he had held a "very good meeting" with Khatib.

Iran has joined UN Security Council members Russia and China in consistently backing Assad's regime throughout the almost two year-long conflict which has also forced more than 700,000 people to flee Syria.

After Khatib met Iranian and Russian representatives in Munich, opposition spokesman Walid al-Bunni told AFP by telephone that Moscow must now pressure Assad to end the spiralling conflict.

"The ball is now in Russia's court," the Syrian National Coalition's Bunni said, although he conceded that there has been "no breakthrough in Russia's stance."

On the ground, at least 16 people, among them 10 children and a rebel commander, were killed in a missile attack by the army on Sunday on a rebel-held area of the northern city of Aleppo, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Video distributed by activists showed a man describing the carnage. "I saw a 13-year-old's body sprawled on the ground, I saw mutilated body parts everywhere," he told the amateur cameraman.

The Britain-based watchdog, which relies on a network of activists and medics for its information, said at least 125 people were killed in violence across Syria on Sunday, among them 58 rebel fighters.

US Defence officials on Sunday expressed their hope that US troops remain in Afghanistan after the Nato mission ends in December 2014, although they emphasised that no decision had been made.

US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta and chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Martin Dempsey made it clear to reporters on Sunday that the US is not leaving Afghanistan in 2014.

"In Chicago [in May], we also said that we're committed to an enduring presence," Panetta said. "And I believe that the president of the United States is going to do everything possible to implement the Chicago agreements."

"No one has ever suggested zero to me," Dempsey said, referring to the number of postwar troops in Afghanistan, although he stressed that "the decision on numbers hasn't been made yet."

He told reporters the US should expect to see "a long-term partnership/relationship" but declined to respond on whether it will be "thousands" of soldiers.

Ahead of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's visit to Washington last month, some White House officials had said that leaving no troops behind remained an option.

Any US troop presence after 2014 requires an agreement between Kabul and Washington.

A similar agreement was sought some years ago in Iraq for the US to leave a training and advising force there, but the talks stumbled on the matter of American troop immunity from Iraq's judicial system.

There are around 66,000 US troops in Afghanistan helping over 300,000 Afghan security forces fight insurgency.

Afghanistan and Pakistan leaders who met in London this week have noted significant progress in their relations since the last round of trilateral talks hosted by the British in September.

The meeting, led by British Prime Minister David Cameron, began with a dinner Sunday evening with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and continued Monday.

They were joined by foreign ministers, chiefs of defence staff, chiefs of intelligence, the Afghan national security adviser and the chairman of the Afghan High Peace Council.

The talks focused both on the Afghan peace process and on Afghan-Pakistan security cooperation, especially on border issues.

It is the third round of discussions since Cameron instigated the trilateral process last year, but it is the first time that foreign ministers, military leaders and intelligence chiefs are attending.

"The Afghan and Pakistani delegations agreed that the quality of dialogue and co-operation had significantly improved. They committed themselves to continue to make strenuous efforts in the spirit of mutual interest," a statement from the UK Prime Minister's office said Monday.

At a news conference with Karzai and Zardari, Cameron said "an unprecedented level of co-operation" had been agreed between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

He also called on the Taliban to take part directly in peace talks.

"This should lead to a future where all Afghans can participate peacefully in that country's political process," he said.

According to the statement from the UK leader's office, all sides agreed on the urgency of this work and committed themselves to take all necessary measures to reach the goal of a peace settlement over the next six months.

All supported the opening of an office in Doha for negotiations between the Taliban and the High Peace Council of Afghanistan as part of an Afghan-led peace process, it added.

Karzai and Zardari also agreed on arrangements to coordinate Taliban detainee releases from Pakistani custody in support of the peace and reconciliation process. Karzai made it clear that he viewed the Taliban releases as positive.

Commerce and trade issues were also discussed with the two sides agreeing that negotiations between the foreign, interior and commerce ministers will happen this month to address trade and border management issues, as well as matters related to refugee returns.

This comes as Karzai told British press that security was better in southern Helmand province before British troops arrived and questioned whether Nato forces had been fighting in the right part of the country for the past 10 years.

He said he was not sure whether western forces were pulling out because they thought they had defeated the threat that terrorism posed to their own countries or because they thought the mission was a mistake.

"They feel fulfilled with regard to the objective of fighting terrorism and weakening Al Qaeda, or they feel that they were fighting in the wrong place in the first place, so they should discontinue doing that and leave," Karzai said Sunday in an interview with ITV news before the meeting with Cameron and Zardari.

Britain has had around 9,500 troops in Afghanistan since 2001 with most of them based in southern Helmand province.

There will be no changes in Afghanistan's security situation after the withdrawal of the Nato-led foreign forces, Isaf said Monday.

Isaf spokesman Brig. Gen. Günter Katz said in a Kabul press conference that after the withdrawal in 2014, Afghan forces will be ready to take security responsibility and a number of foreign forces will remain to assist.

Katz emphasised that Isaf is optimistic about the ability of the Afghan forces, reiterating the statistic that most military operations are currently led by Afghan security forces.

Within two months, all operations will be led by Afghan security forces and Isaf will only have supporting role, Katz said.

"I need to be very clear: more and more Afghan National Security Forces are pressuring the insurgency and Isaf is supporting them more and more, since they are moving more and more to a leading role in this regard," he told reporters.

"It means the Afghan and Isaf together put pressure on the insurgency...relentless pressure, which we doing today and which we will do tomorrow and which we will do also in next 23 months to come."

Katz said that in the past ten years, most cities and villages have been cleared of armed insurgents and the anti-government forces have lost their battle ability, seen in their main tactic being suicide attacks or mine-planting, the result being that most of their victims are civilians.

The comments come amid fears among Afghans that the Nato withdrawal will see security deteriorate.

At least seven local police have been detained in north-eastern Kunduz province for various crimes including murder, security officials said Monday.

Afghan Local Police (ALP) chief Ali Shah Ahmadzai said that the detained men were known to have committed different crimes such as murder, robbery and misuse of uniform.

The ALP has been heavily criticized in the past for its officers violation of human rights, extortion, causing unrest among the people and misuse of weapons.

Ahmadzai said that group includes two national police who misused the local police uniform.

"The group is accused of taking money from the people, misusing weapons and bothering people in the province," he told TOLOnews.

Previously, a group of five ALP were arrested after being accused of murder, extortion, and injuring two women in northern Baghlan province.

"The local police fought with a man in the province who had illegal arms and as a result of the conflict two women were injured. The case is before the judicial organisations," Ahmadzai said.

Ahmadzai said the ALP's problems are linked to low literacy among its officers and the mental damage of three decade of war in the country. Efforts are underway to resolve the problems in this field, he added.

Afghan customs officials have stopped more than 600 Pakistani trucks seeking to enter Afghanistan at the Torkham border in what some have labeled a retaliatory move for Pakistan's treatment of Afghan traders in Karachi.

The Ministry of Commerce and Industries said that the trucks are without insurance and bank guarantees which, according to the Afghanistan Pakistan Transit Agreement (APTA), are required for trucks travelling across Afghanistan to Central Asian countries.

Pakistan has not allowed Afghan traders to transit business goods for these reasons, so the Afghan officials said they have decided to impose these rule to Pakistan's trucks.

"We took the decision in reaction to the recent actions of Pakistan," Ministry of Commerce spokesman Wahidullah Ghazikhil told TOLOnews.

Meanwhile, the Afghan traders whose goods have been halted in Pakistan's Karachi port welcomed the government decision.

"We are very happy with this decision," trader Mokammad Hassan Hasam told TOLOnews. "If Pakistan takes money from us for different excuses, our government should also take money from Pakistani traders – it will increase our incomes."

Some Afghan traders say that their foodstuffs have rotted in containers in Karachi port and asked the government to seek compensation from the Pakistan government, or for Pakistan to at least not fine the traders.

"The goods have all rotten in the port and we lost all our capital. At least the government should find a way that they don't fine us or charge us tax," Trader Ahmad Shah said.

Top news in this Bulletin:

Afghanistan and Pakistan leaders who met in London this week have noted significant progress in their relations since the last round of trilateral talks hosted by the British in September.

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Heavy snowfall has blocked roads into at least two districts of northern Samangan province, raising concerns for residents living in the cut-off villages, local officials said.

The roads into Dar-e-Souf Bala and Dara-e-Souf Payen have been blocked because of heavy snowfall and the residents are likely to face problems, provincial spokesman Mohammad Sediq Azizi said.

He asked government to help them to clear the roads.

"The people cannot come to the city of Samangan. The roads have been blocked and we need the help of government to clear the roads," he said.

It comes as a woman and her two children froze to death in central Logar province Sunday night as temperatures dropped below freezing, local officials said.

The deaths happened in Logar's Kharwar district after the cold weather worsened and the roads through the district closed.

Heavy snowfall has also closed the roads from the Azar, Charkh and Barak-e-Barck districts to the capital of Logar.

The major traffic route Salang Highway connecting the north and south of the country has been closed since Friday because of avalanche fears.

On Sunday, two men and a woman were killed and a woman was injured when avalanches struck the Shikh Ali district in northern Parwan province.

The snowfall is expected to continue until Tuesday, but there is no clear sign when the roads will reopen.

In early 2012, avalanches following an extreme storm in southern Salang killed 190 and left about 200 injured, an incident which raised criticism against the lack of preparedness of Afghan government departments.

The UN Security Council will take "very firm and strong" action against any nuclear test by North Korea, the council president said Tuesday.

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Kachin rebels fighting the government in Myanmar's far north said Tuesday new peace talks held in China were a limited step towards finding a solution to the bitter conflict.

The two sides discussed ways to establish communication channels, reduce military tension and work towards a surveillance system with the goal of achieving a ceasefire, according to a joint statement released Monday.

They agreed to hold another round of talks by the end of this month in the presence of observers and to continue political dialogue, after the one-day meeting in the Chinese border town of Ruili.

But the rebels were cautious about prospects for a durable peace in Kachin, where tens of thousands of people have been displaced since a 17-year ceasefire between the government and the rebels broke down in June 2011.

"Yesterday's meeting was only about preparations for further meetings between the two sides," Sung Lyut Gam, who headed the delegation from the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO), said on Tuesday.

"We cannot say exactly how optimistic we are about reaching a proper deal as we don't know what the other side is thinking," he told AFP. "It would be good if this kind of meeting continues in the future."

Chinese officials as well as representatives from the Shan and Karen ethnic minority groups also attended Monday's talks as observers.

The Myanmar government last month announced a unilateral ceasefire with the Kachin but the fighting continued, with government troops capturing a key outpost and edging closer to the rebels' headquarters near the Chinese border.

The Kachin, who are fighting for greater autonomy, say any negotiations should also address their demands for more political rights.

Almost a dozen previous rounds of talks failed to quell the violence.

Presidential spokesman Ye Htut said the fact that the two sides had managed to release a joint statement on Monday and that other ethnic minority groups wanted to be involved marked progress in the long-running peace efforts.

Fearing an influx of refugees, China has urged an end to the fighting, which has overshadowed sweeping changes in Myanmar under reformist President Thein Sein following the end of decades of harsh military rule in 2011.

President Karzai has questioned effectiveness of the West's intervention in Afghanistan and their mitives for leaving in an interview with British media this week.

To watch the programme, click here:

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President Hamid Karzai arrived in Oslo, the capital of Norway, Monday night to sign a long-term strategic agreement, Karzai's office said Tuesday.

"Karzai is to meet Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg today and will sign the strategic agreement between the two countries," the statement said.

After signing the agreement and meeting with Norwegian government officials, Karzai will fly to Egypt on an official trip, it said.

Norway has had around 97 troops in Afghanistan since 2003 with most of them based in the north of the country.

The trip to Norway comes on the heels of Karzai's visit to London where he met with UK and Pakistani leaders.

The trilateral summit hosted by UK Prime Minister David Cameron aimed to further the Afghan peace and reconciliation process amid growing fears for security deterioration when international troops leave Afghanistan in 2014.

Speaking in the press conference, Karzai thanked the UK Prime Minister for hosting the third summit between the three countries. He also called on the Taliban to take this opportunity to participate in the peace process so that all can participate in building their country's future.

The statement from Karzai's office said the President described the talks as "very frank and open discussion" and that hoped that the results will further improve the relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan as "very close, brotherly and good neighbourly".

At least four civilians have been killed and nine more injured in a bomb blast in northern Faryab province, local officials said Tuesday.

The incident took place in a hotel in the Khwaja Sabz Posh district about 10:30am local time, when an improvised explosive device (IED) went off, provincial police chief Nabi Jan Mullahkhil told TOLOnews.

The injured have been shifted to a hospital in the district, he added.

Two suspects have been arrested over the incident and police investigations are continuing, he added.

No group including the Taliban has claimed responsibility for the attack yet.

The Afghan government has welcomed the IMF's move to reopen credit lines to Afghanistan two years after corruption fears surrounding the Kabul Bank crisis had stopped most funds being sent.

Ministry of Finance officials said the International Monetary Fund's restored aid will encourage other donors to give to Afghanistan.

"We are not concerned about the amount of aid, what is important is that the [renewed] aid will encourage others to help Afghanistan," Finance Ministry adviser Najibullah Manili told TOLOnews Tuesday.

The IMF on Monday released a statement saying it had reached an agreement with Afghanistan on what reforms were needed for the country to receive the next aid installment.

It granted Afghanistan a US$133.6 million line of credit in November 2011 but to date has only disbursed two installments of about US$18 million each.

The statement comes after a two-week IMF visit during which Afghan authorities agreed on key certain conditions for the release of funds, including a tightening of monetary policy, the implementation of key structural benchmarks for submission of laws to parliament and strengthening banks' capital, according to the IMF statement.

Afghan authorities also agreed on implementing a value-added tax (VAT) in 2014 and increasing revenues by strengthening customs measures, the IMF said.

Indicating that growth and inflation were better than expected in 2012, the IMF said "the economic outlook for Afghanistan is broadly positive".