Afghanistan was once well known on the urban circuit as the place to stop for unmatched hospitality, fantastic food, sadly, have changed. More than 20 years of war and Taliban rule left the dramatic countryside peppered with landmines and reduced many of the finest monuments and minarets to rubble. The poverty left in wars wake has taken an impossible human toll and encouraged the theft and sale of priceless national treasures. On 9 October 2004, Hamid KARZAI became the first democratically elected president of Afghanistan. The new Afghan government's next task is to hold National Assembly elections, tentatively scheduled for April 2005