Anti-Taliban tribal militias come with baggage
A U.S. effort to get tribes to form militias to fight off insurgents in return for development aid doesn’t always deliver the desired results in a society saddled with rivalries, feuds and warlords.
By Alex Rodriguez, Los Angeles Times
June 19, 2010
Reporting from Jalalabad, Afghanistan – The morning raid caught members of the tribal militia by surprise. By the end of the attack on the camp on a patch of desert scrub in eastern Afghanistan, 12 fighters of a group that had dared to take on the Taliban were dead.But their attackers were not Taliban militants. They were fellow Shinwari tribesmen, incensed that the militia had commandeered a swath of their land.
The incident this year highlights the pitfalls of establishing militias in Afghanistan, a country marked by tribal rivalries, age-old feuds and warlords.
World Cup fans champion beer as breakfast choice
By David Nakamura
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Tucked into a booth at Summers Grill and Sports Pub near the Court House Metro station on Friday, federal government contractor Kim Aslen placed her breakfast order: a sausage-and-egg burrito and a pint of Blue Moon beer.
It was 7:45 a.m.“What? It’s not like I’m chugging it,” said Aslen, 31, when asked about her beverage choice. She was wearing a T-shirt and shorts and working on a report titled “Draft Agenda.”
Call it the “liquid breakfast.” In a city of buttoned-up government workers known to imbibe only the occasional lunch cocktail, the World Cup in South Africa has Washington soccer fans bellying up to the bar to watch games on television before they normally even get to work.
USA
Peddling Relief, Industry Puts Debtors in a Deeper Hole
THE NEW POOR
By PETER S. GOODMAN
Published: June 18, 2010
PALM BEACH, Fla. – For the companies that promise relief to Americans confronting swelling credit card balances, these are days of lucrative opportunity.
So lucrative, that an industry trade association, the United States Organizations for Bankruptcy Alternatives, recently convened here, in the oceanfront confines of the Four Seasons Resort, to forge deals and plot strategy.At a well-lubricated evening reception, a steel drum band played Bob Marley songs as hostesses in skimpy dresses draped leis around the necks of arriving entrepreneurs, some with deep tans.
U.S. military criticized for purchase of Russian copters for Afghan air corps
By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 19, 2010
The U.S. government is snapping up Russian-made helicopters to form the core of Afghanistan’s fledgling air force, a strategy that is drawing flak from members of Congress who want to force the Afghans to fly American choppers instead.
In a turnabout from the Cold War, when the CIA gave Stinger missiles to Afghan rebels to shoot down Soviet helicopters, the Pentagon has spent $648 million to buy or refurbish 31 Russian Mi-17 transport helicopters for the Afghan National Army Air Corps. The Defense Department is seeking to buy 10 more of the Mi-17s next year, and had planned to buy dozens more over the next decade.
Europe
Lavish royal wedding stirs up Sweden’s republicans
By Toby Green Saturday, 19 June 2010
It has been described as a true-life fairytale wedding. This afternoon in Stockholm Cathedral, Crown Princess Victoria, next in line to the Swedish throne, will marry not a fellow aristocrat but an ordinary citizen – her former personal trainer.Yet instead of Sweden settling down in unison to watch Daniel Westling join the nation’s royal family, the event has become a focus for growing antipathy towards the monarchy in a country that emphasises equality.
Germany and France examine ‘two-tier’ euro
Germany and France are examining ways of creating a “two-tier” euro system to separate stronger northern European countries from weaker southern states.
By Alex Spillius in Washington and Bruno Waterfield in Brussels
Published: 7:00AM BST 19 Jun 2010
A European official has told The Daily Telegraph the dramatic option was being examined at cabinet level.
Senior politicians believe their economies need to be better protected as they could not cope with another crisis on a par the one in Greece.The creation of a “super-euro” zone would initially include France, Germany, Holland, Austria, Denmark and Finland.
The likes of Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal and even Ireland would be left in a larger rump mostly Mediterranean grouping.
Middle East
Police building attacked in Yemen
SATURDAY, JUNE 19, 2010
Armed men have attacked a building housing Yemen’s intelligence services in the southern port city of Aden, sparking a clash with security forces.Security officials said heavily armed men entered the building’s detention facility on Saturday after clashing with the building’s guards.
Nearby residents said they could hear heavy gunfire and see plumes of smoke rising from the scene of the fighting.
The attackers were reported to have freed a number of people being held at the facility.
Does Israel suffer from ‘Iranophobia’?
Some Israelis argue that an ‘Iranophobia’ holds unnecessary sway over Israeli thinking about a wide range of problems, from rearming of Hezbollah to the ‘terrorist’ activists aboard the Gaza flotilla. Should Israel see less of a threat in Iran?
By Scott Peterson, Staff writer / June 18, 2010
Tel Aviv, Israel
Barely a day goes by without a strident warning from a top Israeli official, politician, or general about the nature of the “threat” Iran poses to the Jewish state. It’s unprecedented. Or it’s imminent. Or it’s existential. And it is declared to be behind every Israeli problem, from the rearming of Hezbollah in Lebanon to the “terrorist” humanitarian activists aboard the Gaza flotilla.
How powerful is that anti-Iran mindset in Israel? How is fear of an Iranian nuclear weapon heightened by the blasts of anti-Israel invective from the neoconservative government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran?“We are making them stronger than they are,” says David Menashri, the director of the Center for Iranian Studies at Tel Aviv University. “
Asia
Strikes threaten China’s status as the factory of the world
By Clifford Coonan in Beijing Saturday, 19 June 2010
A rash of new strikes in China, in defiance of the country’s long-standing aversion to industrial action, is posing an unprecedented threat to its reputation as an exporting powerhouse.Chinese workers have long been banned from forming labour unions independent of the Communist Party. But yesterday, after one strike by employees of a Toyota supplier earlier this week, another group in the city of Tianjin took industrial action over wages.
UN launches $71m appeal for Kyrgyzstan refugee crisis
The UN has announced a $71m (£48m) flash appeal for Kyrgyzstan, where it says some 400,000 people have been displaced by inter-ethnic fighting.
The BBC Saturday, 19 June 2010
The Central Asian state’s interim leader believes the number of people killed since violence erupted just over a week ago may be as high as 2,000.Up to a million people are said to have been affected by fighting between the Kyrgyz majority and minority Uzbeks.
Many of those who fled their homes are staying in Uzbekistan.
Uzbekistan’s government has asked the UN to launch a similar appeal for its own camps next week.
Africa
Rwanda frees US lawyer
Aljazeera
Rwandan authorities have freed a US lawyer charged with genocide denial and threatening state security.The authorities allowed Peter Erlinder to leave custody on Friday on health grounds while investigations continue.
Rwanda’s foreign ministry said the release of Erlinder, who worked with the Tanzania-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) prior to his arrest in May, would have no impact on the severity of charges levelled against him.
A Rwandan judge granted bail on medical grounds to Erlinder, who was accused of promoting an ideology that minimises Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.
FIFA making enemies at World Cup in South Africa
Posted on Sat, Jun. 19, 2010
By Kate Fagan
Inquirer Staff Writer
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – While the majority of South Africans, as well as invading soccer fans, are oblivious to the minority’s growing frustration, there is a definite undercurrent of anti-FIFA sentiment.And it seems to be spreading.
South Africans are discouraged by FIFA’s “domination of the country,” its “draconian branding rules,” and the “mafia-like control of the country’s public space” – this according to the Mail & Guardian, a Johannesburg newspaper.
Earlier this week, police detained a group of Netherlands fans, all women, for “ambush marketing.” The women wore orange minidresses that, if you looked closely enough, featured tiny Bavaria beer labels. The brand was “an unlicensed beer brand.”