tonight on "worldfocus" -- deadly violence in kabul just days before afghanistan's national election. in one city, the taliban danger so great, this reporter cannot leave her car. >> the taliban are active in this area. >> we'll have reports from around the country. from africa. two very bright 3 ideas, a cell phone charged by solar power and a bottle that purifies drinking water also run by the sun. and we'll take you to amman, jordan, where the threat of swine flu is changing smoking habits. after sharing the hookah smokers there are being encouraged to go at it alone. from the world's leading reporters and analysts, here is what's happening from around the world. this is "worldfocus." made possible in part by the following funders -- savidge. as election day in afghanistan approaches, tens of thousands of american and british troops there are doing all they can to guarantee the security of millions of afghan voters. but the taliban is doing all it can to let them know they are not safe. just today with the election now two days away the taliban launched a series of attacks on the capital city of kabul. a suicide car bomber attacked a naval convoy in the outskirts of the city. killing seven people, wounding another 50. two mortar wounds also landed near the presial palace. all this as the campaign around the country winds down. this was the scene yesterday in a rally in support of the chief opposition candidate former prime minister abdullah abdullah. a free and fair election, no doubt would help that cause. but security concerns remain front and center. in our "lead focus" tonight with the help our broadcast and print partners from around the world, once again we're going to have in-depth coverage of this important story. we'll offer you viid accounts from throughout that country beginning from the south of afghanistan here in the border with pakistan in kandahar province. zeina khodr of al jazeera english reports. >> we're leaving kandahar cities, driving on the highway leading to helmand. one of the roads the taliban threat tone shut down are if the elections. the whole province is not safe. but further you drive from the city center, the fewer signs of government control are found. women are expected to wear a burqa because the taliban are active in this area. we are close to the panjwayi district. and one of the many leaflets the taliban have put up warning people against voting in the election. and then distributes them in many areas in the south. and this is why the very fact that it's still on the wall, means the taliban is here. and we aren't even able to get out of the car to film freely. kandahar city, just like the rest of kandahar province, according to the government's assessment, is a high-risk area. elections won't be held in two taliban-controlled districts. attacks are usual here, but not mortar strikes. mortars were fired into the heart of the city days before the vote. some people started to think twice about voting. >> translator: we won't vote if the situation is like this. we don't want to risk our lives and the lives of our families. >> reporter: but police commanders at the scene of the attack put on a brave face.z >> translator: we give 100% assurance to the people of kandahar to take part in the elections, and i want people to help us prevent any incidents happening. >> reporter: never before would you see afghan police patrolling in american humvees. extra afghan security forces have been sent to the area. authorities are confident the taliban won't be able to stop voters from heading to polling stations. >> in case something happens, those will be i.d.s. which are difficult. or some sporadic shooting from outside of the city like from the districts but also we want to minimize those when we send forces to the district as well. >> reporter: the neighboring districts of kandahar city have a strong taliban presence, and thursday's voting day will show just how tight the noose is around this capital. zeina khodr, al jazeera, kandahar. next door in helmand province offensive by american and british troops has been under way for a while. one immediate goal is to push back the taliban so that more people can vote thursday but as lindsay hilsum after decades of warfare many afghan citizens remain skeptical about the motives of the foreign troops and fearful of their own safety. >> reporter: coming into land in what the british call a liberated area. seized from the taliban. the british ambassador has come from the helmand province deputy governor to encourage the people to vote despite taliban threats. from houses an old soviet tank. testament to three decades of war between afghan tribes and factions backed by sundry foreign governments and groups. we head for the bazar. the ambassador has abandoned his flak jacket. people have just returned to the village after fleeing the fighting. they're wary. some are undoubtedly reporting back to the taliban. they tell the visitors that the british have formed their houses. they don't see this as a liberation, at least not yet. >> it's perfectly natural that people want to see what the government can do for them. for them. compared to what the insurgency offers. >> reporter: the elders and heads of families have been called to ashura, a community meeting. this is all about reassuring the people that the government's in charge. backed by the military muscle of the british. but the taliban are never far away. i can hear the helicopter and military helicopter overhead all the time. because the british military know that the taliban know exactly where this meeting with all these important people is being held. it feels a bit like the 19th century in britain's third military adventure in afghanistan. >> my soldiers and i have been have been sent by her majesty, queen elizabeth ii all the way from great britain to help you against your fight against the taliban. >> reporter: the deputy governor tells the people they should vote in this week's election and that the government will bring development but it doesn't seem to convince. >> translator: with the situation like this, even if you brought a picture of my own father i wouldn't vote for him. what's the point? i'm not going to vote. >> reporter: the deputy governor is well practiced in the ancient art of telling foreigners what you think theyr. >> translator: through the meeting by speaking to the elders, we found out that people are very interested in voting in the election. of course the taliban is a threat to the poll but we won't give them a chance to disturb it. >> reporter: under the old soviet tank, there's hate to be gathered. in afghanistan, they've seen rule by kings and communists. warlords and jihadists. now it's democracy. the british say they're here for the long term. but today the ambassador are often ahead in the helicopter leaving behind them a small unit and a tremendous that it will be different this time. lindsey hilsum, channel 4 news, helmand. heading now a little north to the province known as oruzgan where australian troops are trying to ensure that voting can take place without incident. we wanted to share this report with you because it suggests that even if this week's vote goes smoothly, foreign troops are likely to be needed in afghanistan to ensure public safety for many years to come. it comes from sally sara of abc of australia. >> reporter: the people of oruzgan province are prying for peace. are operation for peace but threat of insurgent attacks is never far away. australian forces are being urged to stay in ora gon until security is stabilized. the federal government will have the final say but it will depend on how long it takes for afghan troops to stand on their own. >> it's a really difficult question. i think it's up to five years i think we meet in the first place. >> reporter: the commander of the australian task force believes it will be at least five years. >> and i think it could take longer. but clearly, i just couldn't put a time frame on it. yeah, in a nutshell it's going tok in the long hall. >> reporter: in the short-term coalition and afghan forces are trying to provide security for this week's presidential election. there's been a spike in attacks and there are fears that the taliban will do all they can to scare away from th >> by using indirect fire, by using ieds and also probably by suicide attacks. >> reporter: despite the risk, people turned out. there was a has been security presence for the australian-funded project. local community leaders say that security and development have improved. but uruzgan still has a long way to go. it's estimated that 95% of the people in this province can't read or write. this week's presidential election will be an important test of public confidence as insurgents try to derail stability and democracy. sally sara, abc news. a deeper sense of how afghans feel about this thursday's election can be found in today's "new york times." the editors of "the new york times" op-ed page askeseveral afghans to write about the mood in their communities. a business woman from kabul reflskepticism of afghan's elite. "a fair and transparent election even if one were possible would not be enough to set afghan toward stability. most educated afghans will not vote because they believe there is no candidate worth voting for. the candidates say they will fix roads or create jobs, but how? talk is cheap." another, a former aide worker writes about pessimism in his hometown. "demoralization and despair have reached such a level in kandahar," he says, "most people tell me they will not participate in thursday's presidential election." "one reason," he writes, "is because people are disbelieving that president hamid karzai's corrupt cabinet will allow another cab note win. another reason, he says, is that people are rightly fearing that the taliban would punish them." not all were downbeat though. a businessman north of kabul says that he's found no one who said that the elections had no value to them. i feel that the real means of democracy are slowly taking route in our country, and that we may be able to achieve a more peaceful and better afghanistan. joining us now for some more perspective on all of the developments in afghanistan as this election approaches is kimberly marten, a professor of political science at barnard college columbia university here in new york. welcome back. >> thank you, martin. it's good to be back. >> so let's talk seriously regarding this bombing in kabul today. is it a sign of what is going to happen on thursday, and is it an indication of the taliban are going to be able to disrupt this election? >> well, i think this was predicted and the important thing to keep in mind is that the campaigns have generated so much excitement and there are people who have been willing already to risk their lives and go out and prevent an alternative to the two other alternatives that are out there. you have karzai and his warlord coalition on one side. you have the taliban on the other. if that sense of excitement can continue over the next two days then even if there are some people in some parts of the country who cannot vote successfully the vote will make a difference. >> do you suppose people who were prevented from voting say by fear, will be resented by the taliban force. >> i think. there will be a contagion affect. the entire country has radio country, the entire country most of it has cell phone coverage at least during daylight hours and that means people know what's happening elsewhere in the country and when they see that are people are getting excited about these alternatives and they can vote, they will say, why not me? why is the taliban preventing me from doing this too? >> why are people excited? and the reason i ask that is you know you've got a tremendous amount of violence that's taking place. you the taliban that is resurging. you have no economy really at all. i mean, what i'm saying is there's a litany of reasons not to be enthused about what's going on. >> i think you are right. afghanistan has been in a chaotic situation for essentially 30 years now, but one sign of hope is that some of these candidates, like abdullah abdullah are gaining popularity and they're willing to come out and challenge the status quo. >> now had is the former foreign minister we should point out? >> yeah, exactly. exactly. he probably cannot win the campaign but he can give karzai a run for his money and he is saying look we've got to change things. we have to focus on economic development and we have to focus on developing a afghan national army that has quality. he is saying we don't want to rely on these warlords, rely on local militias to provide security. >> how would you say that the u.s. strategy is either working or not working in the buildup to this election? >> some things are going very well. it's a real positive sign that now the united states is pursuing a good counterinsurgency strategy where they say the one goal to provide security for the population and to allow economic development to happen by providing that security. some things are not so good. >> such as? >> there's not enough resource, there's not enough people, there's not enough money. and that means that some things are done on the cheap and the most important one, the dangerous thing is that the united states and its allies are now paying local militias to provide security for villages. >> but this was a strategy that seemed to work well in iraq. >> iraq, the question is still open, but in iraq, one major difference is that in fact, the shaikhs approached the united states. it wasn't that the united states said hey, anybody who wants to be paid, we're look for people to help us. instead it was a move that rose up organically in the sunni areas and they said, we want u.s. help. will you help us? but the biggest danger here and it's still an open question in iraq as well, is that if you don't have a strong national army that's not the set by those militia kinds of identifications you may never have real security in the country that allows economic development to go forward. so i'm doubtful about the long-term consequences for the policy in iraq as well. it's not been in place for more than a year or two in iraq yet. >> kimberly marten, a lot of ground to cover. thank you very much for joining us and helping us. >> thank you, martin, my pleasure. one other note about the election. we wanted to direct you to our website, worldfocus.org, where you can read the account of a u.s. marine who's helping train the afghan national army. there are of course still more than twice as many american troops in iraq than afghanistan. 132,000 in iraq, 62,000 in afghanistan. but yesterday at least according to the "washington post" the maliki government endorsed a national referendum that if approved would require u.s. forces to withdraw from the start of 2011. they are currently not scheduled to pull out until the end of that year. "the post" says the prime minister appeared to disregard the wishes of the obama administration. in a gesture to the iraqi government, meanwhile, the u.s. military may free members of a radical shiite militia believed responsible for the ambush and murder of five american soldiers in 2007. the account from "the new york times" says the policy would have once been unthinkable but now underscores how much american interests are taking a backseat to iraqi ones. in washington today encouraging notes were sounded about the prospects for peace in the middle east. this following a meeting between president obama and egyptian president hosni mubarak. but mubarak said progress will only occur if the rift between rival palestinian groups is healed. >> we are trying to solve the problem between hamas and the authorities in the west bank because this is quite an important. we should fill the gap here. we should bridge the gap because unless we reconcile their differences, there will not be stability there, there will not be stability even in israel. violence will reoccur. we are doing our best to bring about stability. there was another meeting of note today on russia's black sea. russian president dmitry medvedev got together with the israeli president, shimon peres. among their topics, middle east program. back in israel there were reports that israel has vowed from pressure from russia and has halted housing projects in the west bank. the israeli government has issued no construction permits there for months. staying in the game in this global economy means keeping up with technology, but in parts of the world where resources can be in short supply, it's often a surprisingly low-tech solution that carries the day. case in point, kenya, africa's first cell phone's powered only by the sun recently went on sell there. the phones which sell for $40 are expected to be very popular in the country's remote rural areas where electricity is often in short supply. and in those rural areas kenyans also face another shortage, one that affects 2 billion people world wide. a lack of clean drinking water. but as we hear now in this report from deutsche welle, the combination of sunlight and plastic bottles turns out to be an astonishingly effective tool. one that scientists cannot quite explain but that offers a simple solution. >> reporter: this is in southern kenya. every morning these girls walk to the water hole 2 1/2 kilometers away. clean drinking water is rare in rural kenya. a lot of water's also contaminated, full of insect larvae, bacteria and viruses. 2.2 million people die every year across the world from diarrhea. these plastic bottles are life insurance for the families here. the women fill the transparent bottles with water and place them on the roofs of their huts. solar water disinfection. bottles must be exposed to sunlight for at least four hours. >> translator: we've been using these solar bottles for 11 years. the technology destroys the germs. that's how we don't have to boil the water. the water from soil disinfection tastes better. we don't like the boiled water. >> reporter: water treated this way is no longer a health risk. there's a simple proof of the solar water disinfection. the statistics of a nearby clinic. dr. steve is the manager. >> we've had a decrease of bad cases. instead of using the bottle in the sun system of the cleaning water. so according to our records, for the first three, we got almost 20% decrease. the moment now i could say we have a 70% decrease in the cases that we have. >> reporter: accounts of illness has dropped by two-thirds and that's despite the fact that scientists exactly don't know how solar disinfection works. this is a swiss aquatic research institute. researchers here have been studying the method for years. first class student wants to understand what's happening to the bacteria and viruses. >> translator: is such a simple method that many people find it hard to believe that it works. in the field there are a lot of problems explaining it to people. the method is so clear and simple to use that a lot of people can't believe it can't do any good. >> reporter: this test is designed to show how the pathogens are destroyed. the researchers want to know more about the microbiological background so they can better explain the method. the equipment measures how many bacterias survive. the examination shows that the uva beams and sunlight. interrupt the energy supply and the transport processes in the bacterial cell, red means dead. the bacteria have been destroyed in 4 1/2 hours. >> translator: we've observed damage to the cell membrane which is a very important part of the cell. we've observed damage to proteins which are very important for the viability of the cells and we've seen that sunlight hits the cells right in the center. >> reporter: this is a simple but effective method. more than 2 million people across the world are using it to purify their drinking water. >> that report from germany's deutsche welle television. news today that general motor sayss has found a buyer for saab. the swedish car company it purchased in 1989 that has been trying to sell since february. the buyer a tiny sports car manufacturer that has only 45 employees and only makes 18 cars a year. of course each one of them is priced as close to $1.5 million% the deal is set to close by the end of the year. and then another economic story worth watching. a new report by the u.s. treasury department says that in june, china cut back its holdings of u.s. securities by more than 3%. the largest reduction in nearly nine years. experts say the chinese sell of close to $25 billion u.s. securities is worried. will increase inflation and reduce the value of the dollar.k china holds more u.s. government debt that any other country around the world. we want to close tonight with a couple of health stories from around the world that we suspect aren't getting a whole lot of coverage elsewhere. they provide a glimpse of how efforts to curtail smoking are taking hold. but only sometimes after fierce resistance. first in turkey, where close to 1,000 people protested about a smoking ban in bars and restaurants claiming it hurts businesses. the government says it will not back down from the new law. and when it comes to smoking, the hookah or water pipes are a common sight throughout much of the world. the pipes filter tobacco smoke through a beautiful water. and often smoked. but as we hear from our world partner from al arabiya. health officials worried about spread of swine flu are offering smokers of what they say is a healthier choice. "worldfocus" producer, translated the latest news from the front lines of the hookah smoking world in jordan. >> reporter: effort's being made to help prevent the spread of contagious diseases are crashing head-on with the move of hookah smokers here in amman jordan, but their rival which is known as disposable healthy hose is ushering in a new era of hookah smoking. >> translator: there are contagious diseases like influenza and the common cold. as this hose, you use it once and then throw it away or you can take it with you. nobody else uses it. >> translator: no one else breeds into it but its owner. it's free of germs. >> reporter: but some aren't convinced the new, so-called healthy hose will mean good health for its users. >> translator: changing the hose by itself is useless because what's in the hose will get in the water pipe. germs or viruses could survive in it for two to four hours. >> reporter: while this debate about hookah smoking rages, the health department is trying to convince people to change other habits to encourage a healthier lifestyle. they are recommending that people stop smoking, that they use disposable cups, and to be careful about hugging and kissing. al arabiya, amman. >> and that's al arabiya's take on one more way to keep the h1n1 flu at bay and that's also "worldfocus" for a tuesday night. you can get updates on all of our global news on our website that's worldfocus.org and also love to hear from you, so drop us i'm martin savidge in new york. thanks very much for joining us. we'll look for you back here tomorrow and anytime on the web. until then have a great night. "worldfocus" was made possible in part by the following funders -- -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com