Senator Obama met with President Karzai in Afghanistan yesterday and later reiterated his call for additional American forces to deal with conditions in Afghanistan that he described as “precarious and urgent,” capping a two-day tour as casualties continued to mount from violence in the war-torn country.

Mr. Obama joined Mr. Karzai for a “working lunch,” marking the first meeting for the Afghan president and the presumptive Democratic nominee. Mr. Obama’s colleagues in the congressional delegation visiting Afghanistan, Senator Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, and Senator Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat, were also at the lunch, Mr. Karzai’s chief spokesman, Humayun Hamidzada, said. Ms. Hamidzada said the heads of Afghanistan’s ministries of defense and foreign affairs, and Mr. Karzai’s national security adviser, also attended the nearly two-hour meeting.

Mr. Obama, interviewed in Afghanistan for CBS’s “Face The Nation,” called Afghanistan the “central front on our battle against terrorism.” He said the Iraq war had distracted attention away from this critical battlefront and that it is now time to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq and shifting more military resources into Afghanistan.

“If we wait until the next administration, it could be a year before we get those additional troops on the ground here in Afghanistan, and I think that would be a mistake,” he said. “I think the situation is getting urgent enough that we’ve got to start doing something now.”

SENATOR TO SPEAK AT BERLIN’S TIERGARTEN

Senator Obama will deliver a speech from Berlin’s Tiergarten Park this week after Chancellor Merkel expressed reservations about him speaking at the Brandenburg Gate.

Mr. Obama will deliver a July 24 speech in front of Tiergarten Park’s Victory Column, a 19th-century structure capped by a gilded angel, his campaign said in a statement yesterday. His remarks will focus on the “historic” partnership between America and Germany.

Mr. Obama canceled plans to speak before the Brandenburg Gate because he determined it would be “too presumptuous,” the presidential candidate’s foreign policy aide Denis McDonough said July 18.

‘HOUSING’ HOMELESS FOR THE DNC

Next month, more than 50,000 politicos, protesters, journalists, and security types will invade Denver for the Democratic National Convention.

Good news for local businesses. Bad news for the city’s large homeless population, which long has claimed the Mile High City’s downtown as its turf.

So while the delegates are reveling and the protesters are rabble-rousing, what will the nearly 4,000 homeless be doing?

Some will be kicking back in a local movie theater. Others will stroll around the Denver Zoo or Museum of Nature and Science. And others will play bingo.

All the events will be free, funded by Denver Road Home, a branch of the mayor’s office combating homelessness using United Way money.

So is this a Democratic Party ploy to sanitize the streets during the quadrennial political pep rally and nomination of Barack Obama? To keep the vagrants out of sight while the cameras roll?

A spokeswoman for one advocacy group says no. “We’re not hiding the homeless,” said B.J. Iacino of the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless. “We’re housing them.”

The special measures are planned because advocates say they fear the convention might traumatize the homeless, many of whom are Vietnam veterans suffering from mental illness, according to Jamie Van Leeuwen, head of Denver’s Road Home.

CLINTON ENDS JUNE WITH $25.2 MILLION DEBT

Senator Clinton reports raising $2.7 million from donors in June and ending the month with $25.2 million in debts after suspending her quest for the presidency.

The former first lady owes $12 million to vendors and lent herself $1 million in June for a total loan to her campaign of about $13.2 million. She suspended her campaign for the Democratic nomination on June 7. Clinton aides say she is giving priority to paying back money owed to small vendors.

Mrs. Clinton ended her campaign with more than $23 million designated for the general election. She is asking donors whether she can convert that money to the campaign account for her 2012 Senate re-election.