Federal agencies will soon have the option of hiring certain military spouses without having them compete for federal jobs, under new guidelines the Obama administration issued Wednesday. The rules apply to the spouses of military service members relocating for a new assignment, some physically disabled spouses, and those whose husband or wife was killed in the line of duty. The widow or widower must remain unmarried before getting a job. Under the guidelines issued on Wednesday by the Office of Personnel Management, eligible spouses will be able to apply for a federal job and ask that recruiters allow them to bypass the traditional hiring process.

RESIDENTS fled Kabul in droves yesterday and many others vowed to stay away from the polling booths today as Taliban militants fought a fierce gun battle with police in the capital in another day of pre-election violence. Despite increasingly desperate appeals from Afghan and international officials for people to cast their votes in the country's second presidential election today, the Taliban campaign to disrupt the polls appeared to be bearing fruit last night, having left the Afghan capital eerily deserted. The latest violence follows a suicide bomb blast on one of Kabul's major highways on Tuesday that killed nine Afghans and one NATO soldier. More than 50 others were wounded when a vehicle laden with explosives rammed a convoy near a market and a US army training base. Earlier in the day, the Taliban launched two rocket attacks on the city, hitting the presidential palace -- the headquarters of President Hamid Karzai -- and Kabul's police headquarters. No one was killed in either attack. The government has ordered a media blackout on any election-day attacks to avoid inciting further fear among voters. Less than 24 hours before the polls were due to open at 7am (12.30am AEST), the streets of the usually bustling city, often maddeningly gridlocked with chaotic traffic, were almost empty, with little evidence that anyone was celebrating the country's Independence Day from British rule. "Independence from what, our mothers?" one Kabul carpet dealer, Rahim, asked. The international community has much riding on this election, with more than 90,000 US and NATO troops fighting a fierce Taliban insurgency in the south and east and billions of dollars invested in the country's post-war reconstruction. Many fear a low voter turnout would damage the credibility of the polls, already seriously dented by reports of widespread voter-registration fraud. While Mr Karzai remains the election frontrunner, it is unclear whether he will secure the minimum 50 per cent of the vote required to avoid a second-round runoff with his closest challenger and former foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah.

Taliban militants are seeking to live up to their threats to cripple the electoral process in Afghanistan, but fail to stop the slow trickle of voters to polls. In the latest of Thursday's insurgencies, men armed with hand grenades and machine guns opened fire on police from a three-story building in the Afghan capital, Kabul. The attack was followed by a heavy standoff between the gunmen and the police forces which lasted for almost two hours, leaving two of the militants dead. Thursday's presidential and provincial elections are held under tight security while hundreds of thousands of Afghan police, security and army forces are deployed across the country to quell a threatened Taliban insurgency. Some 100,000 foreign troops are also deployed and on high alert to safeguard the key elections