Afghanistan's election committee says the second round of the country's presidential election will go ahead despite the withdrawal of opposition candidate Abdullah Abdullah. This leaves only one candidate in the race for the presidency: current President Hamid Karzai.

Mr Abdullah said today that his decision to pull out had not been an easy one but that it was for the good of the country and a protest against "the misconduct of the government and the Independent Election Commission".

He described the situation in Afghanistan as so bad that a second round of voting on 7 November would, if anything, be more unfair than the first. He went on to appeal for calm and called on his supporters not to take to the streets.

After the first round, international observers stated that widespread vote rigging involving at least a quarter of the votes had taken place. The irregularities worked in favour of President Hamid Karzai, who obtained just under 50 percent of the vote.