UN: Afghan civilians killed, injured rose 31 percent in first 6 months of the year
By Associated Press
August 9, 2010|11:44 p.m
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) – The number of civilians killed or wounded in the Afghan conflict rose 31 percent in the first six months of the year, and anti-government forces caused about three-quarters of the casualties, the United Nations said in a report Tuesday.“The human cost of this conflict is unfortunately rising,” Staffan De Mistura, the top U.N. envoy in Afghanistan, said about the report released in Kabul.
“We are worried. We are concerned. We are very concerned about the future because the human cost is being paid too heavily by civilians. This report is a wake up call.”
Making a profit on soldiers’ death benefits
‘It’s disgraceful on the part of insurance companies,’ McCain says
By Tony Capaccio and Patrick O’Connor
Why are large life insurance companies profiting from billions of dollars they hold on behalf of the families of fallen military service members?
Bloomberg Markets magazine senior writer David Evans posed that question in an article in its September issue. The article, which took a close look at practices at Prudential Financial, has sparked sharp criticism from Cabinet members, reform proposals from U.S. lawmakers, and a fraud investigation by the New York Attorney General.
The U.S. Veterans Affairs Dept. and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners say they are reviewing military life insurance arrangements.
USA
Pentagon to cut thousands of jobs, defense secretary says
By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Monday that the Pentagon will cut thousands of jobs, including a substantial chunk of its private contractors and a major military command based in Norfolk, as part of an ongoing effort to streamline its operations and to stave off political pressure to slash defense spending in the years ahead.
Gates said he will recommend that President Obama dismantle the U.S. Joint Forces Command, which employs about 2,800 military and civilian personnel as well as 3,300 contractors, most of them in southeastern Virginia.
On trial, ‘child soldier’ who grew up in Camp Delta
In the second of his dispatches from the US prison camp, Robert Verkaik witnesses Guantanamo’s legal process in action
Tuesday, 10 August 2010
The full-bearded man, tall and well-built, who shuffled into a military court in Guantanamo Bay yesterday hardly lived up to the description of “child soldier”.Omar Khadr was just 15 when he was captured by US forces on the battlefields of Afghanistan in July 2002.
He has matured from a vulnerable adolescent to a grown man while serving a third of his life at the US naval base in Cuba, in conditions which have been universally condemned by the outside world.
Europe
German police shut 9/11 plotters’ mosque after fears that it is again being used by radicals
Tuesday, 10 August 2010
A small mosque in Hamburg once frequented by September 11 attackers was shut down and searched yesterday because German authorities believed it was again being used as a meeting point for Islamist radicals.The Taiba mosque was closed and the cultural association that runs it was banned, officials said. “We have closed the mosque because it was a recruiting and meeting point for Islamic radicals who wanted to participate in so-called jihad or holy war,” said Frank Reschreiter, a spokesman for the Hamburg state interior ministry.
Death rate doubles in Moscow as heatwave continues
Moscow’s health chief has confirmed the mortality rate has doubled as a heatwave and wildfire smog continue to grip the Russian capital.
The BBC 9 August 2010
There were twice the usual number of bodies in the city’s morgues, Andrei Seltsovsky told reporters.Meanwhile, a state of emergency has been declared around a nuclear reprocessing plant in the southern Urals because of nearby wildfires.
Continue reading the main story
Related storiesMoscow smog: Readers’ experiences
Russia reduces harvest forecast
And there was a new warning over shortfalls in Russia’s grain harvest.Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said this year’s harvest, hit by fire and drought, would be worse than previously forecast.
Currently expected to be 65m tonnes, it could be as low as 60 million tonnes, Mr Putin said.
Middle East
Gaza’s biggest hospital caught in political, economic crossfire
By Liam Stack | McClatchy Newspapers
GAZA CITY, Gaza – Dr. Ehab al Ramlawy fanned beads of sweat off his face with the shiny black X-ray slide in the sweltering, dimly lit emergency room of Gaza City’s al Shifa Hospital.Sleeves rolled up over sweaty forearms, he leaned over one patient’s paperwork while he listened to a list of symptoms from the next. Behind them milled a restless crowd of the sick and infirm, bathed in the light from a nearby window, anxiously waiting for a piece of his time.
Nasrallah unveils ‘Hariri proof’
TUESDAY, AUGUST 10, 2010
Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, has tried to implicate Israel in the murder of Rafiq al-Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister.In a video address to journalists from an undisclosed location on Monday, Nasrallah said he had evidence to prove Israel’s complicity in al-Hariri’s assassination in Beirut, the Lebanese capital.
“He has not provided undisputed, solid proof that implicates Israel,” Al Jazeera’s Rula Amin reporting from Beirut said.
Asia
Pakistan floods: ‘We are now in God’s hands’
Habiba’s story is just one of tens of thousands in Sukkur where hungry and bewildered villagers have sought shelter
Saeed Shah in Sukkur, Pakistan
guardian.co.uk, Monday 9 August 2010 21.15 BST
Habiba arrived in Sukkur in the early hours of the morning, after travelling nonstop for three days to find somewhere that had not been washed away by the floods. She left her village, Marakh Bijarani 40 miles away in Kashmore district, with 60 neighbours and relatives packed on to one tractor and trailer, with a few clothes, cooking pots and bedding piled underneath them.Only half the village managed to escape – those who had taken refuge on the raised bank of a dyke at the moment when the water suddenly rushed in. Habiba made it out with two young children, but she has no idea what happened to her husband and five other children.
Frantic search for China landslide survivors in Gansu
Rescuers in north-west China are continuing a frantic search for more than 1,100 people missing after a huge landslide that has claimed 337 lives.
The BBC 10 August 2010
More heavy rain is forecast in Gansu province, with meteorologists warning that the area will be among those affected by typhoon Dianmu.The BBC’s Chris Hogg, at the scene, says there is thick mud everywhere, and underneath the debris are homes.
He says doctors are searching the upper floors of a crushed apartment block.
“Around me are relatives of missing people sitting dazed, shocked. Each of them has stories.“They think three or four of their family are inside but they can’t be sure. They say the mud swept down here and engulfed the apartment block,” our correspondent says.
On Monday evening the death toll jumped from 137 to 337 – and officials say that figure is expected to rise.
Africa
Rwanda’s Kagame set for big win
TUESDAY, AUGUST 10, 2010
Paul Kagame, Rwanda’s incumbent president, has claimed victory after early results gave him a huge lead in the country’s second presidential race since the 1994 genocide.Preliminary results early on Tuesday morning showed Kagame had won 92.8 per cent of the vote in 11 out of a total 30 districts, the national electoral commission announced.
Opposition and human rights groups said Monday’s elections were tainted by repression, murder and lack of credible competition, accusations which Kagame denied.
Latin America
Even rising drug violence won’t stop him from helping Mexico’s poor
Jerry Quick has been visiting Juárez, Mexico, for a decade, building houses and setting up job training programs.
By Josh Allen, / Correspondent / August 9, 2010
Ciudad Juárez, Mexico
Early on a Monday morning in June, Jerry Quick steers a pickup truck to a job site in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, just south of El Paso, Texas. The seven volunteers with him, all of them from Illinois, are here in this region of desert and mountains to build on a property for the poor. They’re joking and optimistic. They range from a former state police colonel to a high school student who first began traveling to Juárez last year.If it were 2005, or even 2000, when Mr. Quick first arrived on a trip to build homes for the poor, eight American volunteers in Juárez would have been a welcome but customary sight.