The spokesman's perspective:

Continuing our new series of video commentary, NATO Spokesman James Appathurai gives his personal perspective on recent articles discussing NATO. He invites you to write in with your own comments and opinions, which could be featured in the next installment.

E-mail comments to: press@hq.nato.int

Afghanistan - Canada's chief of the defence staff left Afghanistan yesterday calling for more helicopters and military help from NATO members reluctant to work in the country's troubled southern provinces.

Concluding a three-day visit to Kandahar, Gen. Rick Hillier said he would like to see more international ground troops in southern Afghanistan to speed up progress. "This is a NATO mission and that means it requires all of the NATO countries to do their utmost to be successful," he told reporters.

European NATO powers with troops in Afghanistan must directly engage the Taliban to help countries such as Australia who are being targeted, Prime Minister John Howard says.

Australia, Canada, the US, the Netherlands and Britain all have troops in the restive south of the central Asian nation but NATO nations such as Germany, Italy, France and Spain have so far refused, Mr Howard said.

NATO is taking a risk by not sending enough troops to Afghanistan and restrictions on deployment of some countries' soldiers hampers operations, NATO's commander in Afghanistan said on Saturday.

Afghanistan has seen an increase in violence this year, with more clashes with Taliban insurgents and more suicide bombings, killing as many as 5,000 people since January.

The public debate in both Canada and the Netherlands whether to stay or leave Afghanistan has been weighed in the cost of both lives and treasure. But for the Dutch there has been a lot of emphasis on treasure.

The enormous cost of the military mission — the biggest for the Netherlands since the Second World War — is a top of mind issue you hear from almost everyone here when Afghanistan is mentioned.

Afghan and NATO-forces killed and wounded more than 50 Taliban insurgents in a large operation in southern Afghanistan, the Afghan Ministry of Defense said on Monday.

The clash, in the southern province of Uruzgan on Sunday, comes as troops from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and Afghan forces are conducting a large offensive in the area against Taliban rebels.

The controversial U.S. proposals for a missile defence system partly situated in Europe will be a major subject at the NATO Bucharest Summit in April 2008, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said Monday.

Romanian President Traian Basescu and Scheffer, who is on a one-day flying visit to Romania, talked about the subjects to be discussed at the summit next spring.