The recent trash problem was compounded when employees of one of the multinational companies — men and women in green uniforms with crude brooms dispatched around the city — stopped working in a dispute with the city.

“The state is troubled; as a result the system of decision making is disintegrating,” said Galal Amin, an economist, writer and social critic. “They are ill-considered decisions taken in a bit of a hurry, either because you’re trying to please the president or because you are a weak government that is anxious to please somebody.”

One of the less discussed considerations of the Israel-Palestine conflict has been access to fresh water. Two of the three primary fresh-water aquifers in Israel and Palestine lie under the West Bank: the Eastern Basin and the Northeastern Basin. Israel also shares a coastal aquifer with the Gaza Strip. Israel cannot relinquish control over those aquifers without severely compromising its national security.

Among the many maladies plaguing Iraq, the absence of fresh water has assumed new importance given that some of the country’s other issues are in the process of being addressed. Iraq’s two main sources of fresh water, the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, are drying up

Iraq remains at the mercy of Turkey and Syria for its fresh water resources. Part of Iraq’s problem is that there is no international law that obligates Turkey or Syria to share their water

Mr Karzai's brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, who heads the Kandahar provincial council, called the claims "baseless".

The tribe decided before the election that it was dissatisfied with the performance of Hamid Karzai and announced it would back Abdullah Abdullah, the former foreign minister and main challenger.

Because the complaints commission has so many irregularities to investigate - 600 of them serious - our correspondent says final results of the presidential election may not be known until the end of September.