This regular bulletin has sought to find stories, whether good news or bad, about civilian life in Afghanistan, away from the fighting. It's the flipside of the media mantra 'if it bleeds, it leads'. It's compiled by Elayne Jude of Great North News Services

USAID offered a 90-day "trial" contract, with a possible extension, for someone to take "timely, attractive visual images" of USAID projects in Afghanistan for their public relations work.

The copy ran: "In Afghanistan, negative images flood both social and conventional media with little counter. This makes fresh, regularly updated photographs of USAID work . . . critical for effective social media messaging."

"Professional-quality" shots were sought for their Afghanistan public outreach program, including the website, Facebook page, Twitter feed and Flickr photograph feed. USAID are seeking to correct a public image of their work which is is negative or misleading.

USAID stated that "news photographs by their very nature focus on the negative." They felt "unable to compete . . . because of lack of skill and security limitations." .

One of the qualifications listed was an ability to do "unlimited travel in country." (as the State Department warns US citizens against inessential travel - see page 2).

After inquiries by the Washington Post, a USAID spokesman e-mailed the newspaper to say the announcement "was to help inform Afghans" about the agency's projects but that it "did not appropriately articulate that purpose and is being reevaluated." It no longer appears on the agency's website.

The Ministry of Defence has announced the death of Sapper Adam Moralee. Sapper Moralee deployed to Afghanistan on 10 September 2013 as a section sapper in the Close Support Engineer Squadron of the Task Force Helmand (TFH) Engineer Regiment Group. He worked throughout the TFH area of operations in the Helmand Province of Southern Afghanistan.

On Wednesday 5 March 2014, Sapper Moralee was working with his section within Camp Bastion, preparing engineer plant equipment for redeployment out of Theatre, when he was fatally injured. A full eulogy can be found on the next page.

When one hears the phrase 'child soldiers' it immediately conjures up the mental image of 9 year olds dressed in outsize military fatigues and bare feet holding automatic rifles in war torn area of Africa; certainly not images of 16 year old recruits in the UK. This was my initial reaction, when, as a Member of the Defence Committee this issue was raised in our discussions.

John Glen MP was very sceptical of the use of the phrase 'child soldiers' to describe 16 year olds being recruited into the British Armed Forces and believed it over sensationalised something that probably provided stability, discipline and best of all a 'trade and training' for those young people who had had a difficult start to their lives and may well have fallen on the wrong side of the law if they hadn't had the military to turn to.

Lately he has  come to question those assumptions and so have looked into it more deeply. These are his conclusions

For the first time since this monthly blog began, no UACV strikes have been recorded during February 2014, Elayne Jude reports for Great North News Services.

During this unprecedented hiatus, attention has focussed on an American citizen and suspected member of al-Qaida who is allegedly planning attacks on U.S. targets overseas. His case tests the parameters and contradictions of President Barack Obama's new targeting guidelines, and has attracted high profile media interest. Pentagon UACVs are barred from the country - undisclosed by some of the press at the US government's request but later revealed as Pakistan - where he's hiding, the CIA cannot strike militarily against a US citizen, and the Justice Department's case against him is incomplete.

The Defense Department was reportedly reluctant at first to place the individual on the targeting list. But eventually the Pentagon came around, according to an anonymous aide aide, who added that the C.I.A. had supported a lethal strike from the beginning.

President Obama will visit Saudi Arabia in late March as part of a trip that will also take him to Europe. He has some fence-mending to do with the Saudis, who have been concerned that the U.S. drive for a nuclear agreement with Iran will end sanctions against Tehran too quickly. Of major concern to the Saudis is the conflict in Syria and the American reluctance to get involved. This has strained relations between both countries, writes Nehad Ismail.

Saudi US relations go back to the early 1930s with the signing of an oil agreement in May 1933 between Saudi Arabia and Standard Oil of California (SoCal). A historical meeting between King Abdul Aziz, the first monarch of Saudi Arabia, and US President Franklin Roosevelt took place on February 14th, 1945 aboard USS Quincy. Since then, the Saudi-U.S. friendship has not only continued but has weathered many storms, including numerous regional and global conflicts and crises, developing into a relationship that today spans the fields of politics, economics, education, technology and other areas of human endeavour. This special relationship has been strained the US policy failure in Syria and the nuclear deal with Iran. Even Secretary of State John Kerry privately conceded to journalists that Obama's approach in Syria has failed.

3 rd March

Reports are that more than 6,000 air mobile Russian troops are now in the Crimea outside their base areas. How the crisis has unfolded over the last few days can be found on the second page.

Meanwhile the West dithers and talks, but offers no concrete support to the Ukraine. Putin clearly thinks he can do what he wants, as long as not too many people get killed. In the interests of balance, propaganda from the Russina Embassy in London can be found at the foot of this article. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said in Geneva today that Russian troops were needed in Ukraine "until the normalisation of the political situation".

The Russian rouble has fallen to an all time low on the international currency exchanges. There are now over 50 to the euro. The Russian Central Bank is selling foreign reserves to support it. Stocks on Moscow's MICEX main stock index also fell 9% in early trading.

Reports of the fast moving siutaion on Friday 28th February:

Rumours of Russian troops being flown into Crimea airports, which seem to be no longer under the control of the Ukraine national government, despite Crimea's airspace remaining closed.

Any Russian military movements in Crimea are "within the framework" of Moscow's agreement with Kiev on the deployment of military units in Ukraine, Russia's UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin is quoted as saying by Reuters.

President Obama says the US is in touch with the Russian Federation. He says that the US stands for the the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine in addition to its democratic future, and that "there will be costs" of external interventiuon. Prime Minister Cameron has spoken to President Putin. 

Armed men without insignia had earlier entered the Crimea parliament building.