Afghanistan's coach Mohamed Kargar says he is confident that his team will soon get a good position in Asian soccer.

"We will soon obtain a satisfactory position for football in Asia as our young players are working hard," Kargar told Reuters in an interview late on Saturday.

India, 118th in the Fifa world rankings, beat Afghanistan 2-0 in one of the early matches of the AFC Challenge Cup in Chittagong on Saturday. Fifa President Sepp Blatter inaugurated the tournament in the capital Dhaka, one of two venues for the 16-team competition.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The Afghan man who faced the death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity flew to Italy on Wednesday evening, hours after Afghan lawmakers declared that he should not be allowed to leave the country.

Abdul Rahman, 40, has been granted political asylum by Italy. He was spirited out of Afghanistan in secret. An Italian Embassy official in Kabul said he was not aware of how he was flown out of Kabul.Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi told reporters Wednesday in Rome that Rahman was with the country's Interior Ministry, which is in charge of immigration.

"I say that we are very glad to be able to welcome someone who has been so courageous," Berlusconi said.

Rahman was released from Afghanistan's highest security prison Monday after mounting international pressure from world leaders, human-rights workers and Christian groups. His asylum raises fears here that other Afghans will convert to other faiths, just to be able to leave the country.The case has been a test for the fledgling Afghan democracy, struggling to find its way after the fall of the harsh Taliban in late 2001. The country's constitution protects human rights and freedom of religion but also sets up Islamic law as the overriding law of the land. Many conservative Muslims here believed Rahman's conversion should be punished by death.

By the end of the year at least 30 percent of seats on all public buses in Afghanistan will be reserved for women under a United Nations-backed programme launched in a country where drivers now speed past stops if only women are waiting while men refuse to give up seats for women, the UN said on Tuesday. "It is a historic moment in women's life in this country," said equal opportunities minister Massouda Jalal after signing a memorandum of understanding with deputy transport minister Mohammad Waezzadah and UN Development Fund for Women programme director Meryem Aslan.

The young Afghan boy dying from cancer, who has won the hearts of Canadians nationwide, could be receiving palliative care a Pakistan hospital within days.In the meantime though, Namatullah, whose name means "gift from God," has taken a turn for the worse.Dr. Adrian Norbash and his staff received an unexpected call to the gate at Canada's military base in Afghanistan just before sunset on Monday.

Taj Mohammad told the physician his grandson, who has been diagnosed with advanced facial cancer, was suffering a severe stomach ache because the painkillers had worn off.While Norbash ordered more medicine, the boy's relief will be merely temporary as his prognosis is grim.

On Saturday, Namatullah and his grandfather travelled five kilometres from their home to reach the Canadian base in the hopes that doctors could help him.Doctors treated the six-year-old but found the facial cancer was too advanced to save him.

They decided the best solution was to move the boy to a palliative care hospital in Quetta, Pakistan, where nurses could administer painkillers to ease his suffering in the last days of his life.