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ZAHIR'S SON TO FAST IN SUPPORT OF AFGHAN WOMEN

The son of Afghanistan's former monarch said on Friday he will join a daylong fast on Saturday to promote women's rights in Afghanistan. Prince Mirwais Zahir in an interview with Associated Press Television News also read a message by his father to the Afghan people calling for the participation of women in the country's political life. "Let us work together toward a not too distant future when we will see the direct collaboration of Afghan women in the reconstruction and development of our country," King Mohammad Zahir Shah's message said. "A society which excludes women's vision is a blind society," the message said. Zahir Shah, 87, was ousted from Kabul in a 1973 palace coup and has been living in exile in Rome. The king, who in 1964 gave women the vote, sent two women in his delegation to power-sharing talks in Germany this week. The talks are seeking to form a provisional government to replace the ousted Islamic fundamentalist Taliban regime. Under the Taliban women were forbidden to hold jobs, walk in streets unaccompanied by men or attend school. According to the Italian Radical Party, the fast's organisers, people supporting the initiative included former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. "Some 60 per cent of Afghanistan's population are women and their voices have to be heard," Radical Party leader and former European Commissioner Emma Bonino told a news conference Friday in Rome.

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