Ghulam Hasan Hazrati authorised the broadcast of an archive recording of the singer Salma currently in exile

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Ghulam Hasan Hazrati authorised the broadcast of an archive recording of the singer Salma (currently in exile). It elicited a letter of condemnation from the supreme court, saying that it was un-Islamic. While there was plenty of music on the box, it was mostly recordings from the 1980s, and it featured only men. When I produced a concert of Afghan music in Kabul 18 months ago for the 70th birthday of the BBC World Service, we tried hard to get a woman on the bill. But, in the end, the interior ministry said that a performance could put the singer in danger from fundamentalist groups.What heralded a change was the arrival, three months ago, of a new boss of Afghan radio and television. A stronger condemnation came from the court, but Hazrati continued to broadcast archive recordings of women singers, although only of those who were conservatively dressed.That prepared the way for Rita Wazhma's broadcast for the Afghan New Year, in March. Hazrati answered by broadcasting more songs, with support (he claims) from President Karzai himself.

"As I performed I was continually remembering the last time I sang on television, 13 years ago."Restrictions on music in Afghanistan began before the Taliban. When the mujahedin took power in Kabul after the Soviet withdrawal, they forced women singers off television Most of them, like Wazhma, went into exile. When the Taliban took Kabul in 1996, they banned television altogether, forced women to wear burkas and stopped them working. Women had a brutal five-year purdah.With the fall of the Taliban, television was back on the air within 24 hours and women were on screen as presenters Music, though, remained taboo Women couldn't sing on television or radio or in concerts. Many of the problems could be resolved, they added, and work was being done by the National Patient Safety Agency.Also in the journal, Robin Ferner, director of the West Midlands Centre for Adverse Drug Reaction Reporting, said computers could reduce medication errors by as much as 60 per cent. But patients still died because of the remaining mistakes, he said, and a"timely and relevant" warning would prevent disaster..

"Thank God they're not killing me." That is the assessment of the musical sit-uation in Afghanistan by Farhad Darya, the country's biggest pop star. He has lived in the United States for the past 13 years, and is on his first visit back to Kabul. His latest release, Salaam Afghanistan, a greeting to his country, sold 5,000 copies in one day at a single shop in Kabul and was top of the charts for seven weeks. In burning cassettes, breaking instruments and beating musicians, the Taliban had enforced one of the severest bans on music ever known.

Despite the devastation and the hardship, what was apparent as Kabul reawakened was the hunger for music. People were dusting down tape players, and crates of cassettes were flooding in from exiles in Pakistan.Now tracks such as "Salaam Afghanistan" blare out from juice bars, stalls sell pirated DVDs, mostly of Bollywood films, and there's been a revolutionary musical event: in March this year there was the first new television broadcast since the early 1990s of a woman singer The honour went to Rita Wazhma, a Pashto singer "I'm very happy that we're able to sing again," she told me. Aspirin is a potential cause of Reye's syndrome.The NHS Information Authority regulates the use of GP computer systems, but gives only general references to safety, the researchers said. When tested, the system also allowed the prescription of aspirin to a child. The researchers said prescribing errors were common and could result in ill-health and death. The team, writing in the British Medical Journal, found all the computer systems they tested failed to detect many known errors, especially where certain drugs should not be used.The researchers, from Edinburgh, Kent and Nottingham, said the systems allowed the oral contraceptive pill to be prescribed to women with a history of deep-vein thrombosis, a known risk factor. Some hospital trusts have proposed the tests for all staff, and a pilot scheme is being set up in Scotland.Between 2001 and 2002, 60 nurses were reported to the regulatory body the Nursing and Midwifery Council over drink and drug problems..