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.

By Scott Stewart

On Aug. 23, Rolando Mendoza, a former senior police inspector with the Manila police department, boarded a tourist bus in downtown Manila and took control of the vehicle, holding the 25 occupants (tourists from Hong Kong and their Philippine guides) hostage. Mendoza, who was dressed in his police inspector's uniform, was armed with an M16-type rifle and at least one handgun.

According to the police, Mendoza had been discharged from the department after being charged with extortion. Mendoza claimed the charges were fabricated and had fought a protracted administrative and legal battle in his effort to be reinstated. Apparently, Mendoza's frustration over this process led to his plan to take the hostages. The fact that Mendoza entertained hope of regaining his police job by breaking the law and taking hostages speaks volumes about his mental state at the time of the incident.

After several hours of negotiation failed to convince Mendoza to surrender, communications broke down, Mendoza began to shoot hostages and police launched a clumsy and prolonged tactical operation to storm the bus. The operation lasted for more than an hour and left Mendoza and eight of the tourists dead at the end of a very public and protracted case of violence stemming from a workplace grievance.

Hostage-rescue operations are some of the most difficult and demanding tactical operations for police and military. To be successful, they require a great deal of training and planning and must be carefully executed. Because of this, hostage-rescue teams are among the most elite police and military units in the world. Since these teams are always training and learning, they pay close attention to operations like the one in Manila and study these operations carefully. They seek to adopt and incorporate tactics and techniques that work and learn from any mistakes that were made so they can avoid repeating them. Even in highly successful operations, there are always areas that can be improved upon and lessons that can be learned.

Indeed, in the Manila case, the events that unfolded provided a litany of lessons for hostage-rescue teams. The case will almost certainly be used in law enforcement and military classrooms across the globe for years as a textbook example of what not to do.