Greetings All, from a very cold, wet and grey Kabul where winter has set in early and the dusty strets have accordingly turned into a gooey morass of liquid mud.

Not good. Tonight, as the state opening of parliament takes place in Westminster with the Queen's Speech at your end - I've been along to sample life in the Wolesi Jirga. Afghanistan's House of Commons will be one year old next month.

It's an often uncomfortable, even rowdy, chamber as former and not-so-former warlords; major drug barons; legendarily corrupt gangster-types and honest altruistic MPs all sit together by alphabetical order, not parties.

We'll meet Mullah Rocketi who fired so many rocket-propelled grenades at the Red Army they named him after them. Then he ran Jalalabad for the Taliban - now he's a good old honourable member of the House.

And so it goes. A fascinating and sometimes hilarious place in the country that was launched straight into democracy without any kind of truth and justice commission to deal with the recent past. But Afghans can and do turn up at the front door to protest about whatever - so it has some credibility - try that outside the House of Commons these days and you'll get nicked.

Women may sit in parliament here - indeed almost a third of seats are reserved for them - but outside, progress for womens' rights has been frankly dismal in the five years since the Taliban went. Tonight Kylie Morris reports on some harrowing cases - like that of a woman facing up to 14years in prison.

Her 'crime'? She was raped. And unless she can find several men who will testify to this fact, she will go down for adultery according to the law here.This, as a three day conference begins here in Kabul to try and counter the problem of young women settng fire to themselves because of the pressures of forced marriage and abuse within marriage.

And then there is Yuri - the Russian who stayed on. In fact the mujahideen found him apparently selling black market petrol to Afghans and imprisoned him for a while. But he ended up staying anyhow, marrying an Afghan and he's still here long after the Red Army packed up and headed for Moscow.

He still misses his Mum though. Plus, we hope Hanif Sheraz will be joining us live tonight to discuss what's moving in the Afghan media - that's after he has presented his TV news bulletin for Radio-Television Afghanistan.