Tag: Six In The Morning

Starvation returns to the Horn of Africa

Drought and war threaten millions with famine, as the refugee camps overflow .

By David Randall, Simon Murphy and Daud Yussuf in Kenya  Sunday, 3 July 2011

In the Horn of Africa, unseen as yet by the world’s television cameras, a pitiful trek of the hungry is taking place. Tens of thousands of children are walking for weeks across a desiccated landscape to reach refugee camps that are now overflowing. They are being driven there by one of the worst droughts in the region for 60 years which, combined with the war in Somalia and soaring food prices, is threatening a famine that could affect between eight and 10 million people.

The malnourished children, some of whom become separated from their parents on the way, are now arriving at the camps in northern Kenya at a rate of 1,200 every day.

China’s Communists mull the party’s future

The 90th anniversary celebration has some bemoaning the changes time has wrought. Oh, for the days when a man could hang a portrait of Mao above his couch.

By Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times  

Want to know what happens these days within a Chinese Communist Party cell?

Party members at the Jinxin Garden apartments get together once a month to discuss their volunteer projects, like raising money for earthquake victims and preventing neighborhood robberies. Or they plan excursions, such as a trip last week from their southern Beijing suburb to the Olympic stadium for a concert honoring the party’s 90th anniversary.

If it sounds as exotic as the Rotary Club, that’s precisely the problem. The 90-year milestone, celebrated Friday, prompts the question of how an ideology born out of the class struggles of 19th century Europe can remain relevant in the 21st century. By surviving to the age of 90, is the party a testament to endurance or is it merely old and in the way?

Revealed: British government’s plan to play down Fukushima

Internal emails seen by Guardian show PR campaign was launched to protect UK nuclear plans after tsunami in Japan

Rob Edwards

guardian.co.uk,  

British government officials approached nuclear companies to draw up a co-ordinated public relations strategy to play down the Fukushima nuclear accident just two days after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and before the extent of the radiation leak was known.

Internal emails seen by the Guardian show how the business and energy departments worked closely behind the scenes with the multinational companies EDF Energy, Areva and Westinghouse to try to ensure the accident did not derail their plans for a new generation of nuclear stations in the UK.

Read The Emails Here

Report: Pakistan ends US use of base for drone attacks

Ties between the two countries remain strained since the bin Laden raid

REUTERS  

Pakistan has stopped the United States from using an air base in the southwest of the country to launch drone strikes against militant groups, the defense minister was quoted as saying, as ties remain strained between the two countries.

Pakistan has long publicly opposed the missile attacks as a violation of its sovereignty, but has in private given support including intelligence to help target members of al-Qaida and the Taliban in the northwest region along the Afghan border.

Afghans Build Security, and Hope to Avoid Infiltrators



By RAY RIVERA

 For someone who had once joined an insurgent group, and whose family was tied to a top Taliban commander, Akmal had a strikingly easy path into the Afghan National Army.

The district governor who approved his paperwork had never met him. A village elder who was supposed to vouch for him – as required by recruiting mandates – did little more than verify his identity.

No red flags went up when, after just six weeks in the army, he deserted. He returned more than three months later with the skimpiest of explanations and was allowed to rejoin. “I told them I got sick,” Akmal recalled.

Europe Stifles Drivers in Favor of Alternatives



By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL

Published: June 26, 2011

ZURICH – While American cities are synchronizing green lights to improve traffic flow and offering apps to help drivers find parking, many European cities are doing the opposite: creating environments openly hostile to cars. The methods vary, but the mission is clear – to make car use expensive and just plain miserable enough to tilt drivers toward more environmentally friendly modes of transportation.

Cities including Vienna to Munich and Copenhagen have closed vast swaths of streets to car traffic. Barcelona and Paris have had car lanes eroded by popular bike-sharing programs. Drivers in London and Stockholm pay hefty congestion charges just for entering the heart of the city. And over the past two years, dozens of German cities have joined a national network of “environmental zones” where only cars with low carbon dioxide emissions may enter.

Attackers in uniform add to anxiety in Afghanistan  

Foreign troops say they’re increasingly concerned about the ‘enemy within,’ as deadly assaults by men who appear to be police or soldiers become more frequent. But those Western personnel also stress the importance of keeping anxiety in check in a climate of deepening mutual distrust.

By Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times

June 26, 2011

Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan– In late May, a NATO soldier was killed as he emerged from his tent. Two weeks earlier, two NATO soldiers were killed while eating a meal. In late April, eight U.S. troops were shot dead at a meeting at Kabul airport.

The attacks had one thing in common: The killers all wore Afghan military or police uniforms.

Foreign troops serving in Afghanistan say they’re increasingly concerned about the “enemy within.” Yet they emphasize the importance of keeping anxiety in check amid a climate of deepening mutual distrust.

“You can’t go out scared every day,” said Sasha Navarro, an Air Force staff sergeant based at Camp Mike Spann in the northern province of Balkh. “You have to be confident in your training, and keep your head on a swivel.”

Inside the secret world of the geeks with the power to unleash anarchy  

Jerome Taylor tracked down one of Britain’s most feared hackers to find out what motivates this new criminal underworld

Saturday, 25 June 2011

They move within a shadowy underworld using skills most of us could never acquire.

Some see themselves as crime fighters, battling injustice, corruption and oppression. Others are pranksters – the kind of people who set light to bridges just to watch them burn. Plenty more do it simply to steal and get rich.

Hacking is as old as computers, but the current wave of high-profile assaults across the globe has led to unprecedented interest in who hackers are and why they do what they do.

The Independent tracked down one prolific British hacker who is engaged in a personal cyber war against LulzSec, the collective behind a string of attacks on websites as diverse as the CIA’s homepage, the Serious Organised Crime Agency, Fox TV and – most recently – the Arizona Police Department.

Libya rebels ‘in secret talks’ with Tripoli underground



By Bridget Kendall BBC News, Benghazi

A member of the rebels’ National Transitional Council (NTC) in Benghazi revealed they were holding secret talks to prepare for the regime’s fall.

The member said the talks were being held via Skype and satellite phones.

The rebels want to gauge the impact of pressure from Nato air strikes and shortages on morale in Tripoli.

Secondly, they want to involve the Tripoli underground opposition in their general strategy for ousting Col Gaddafi, so that if anyone is emboldened to take to the streets again in the capital it is woven into a bigger plan.

Afghanistan: France follows US in troop withdrawal

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has announced the phased withdrawal of its 4,000 soldiers serving in Afghanistan.

The BBC   23 June 2011

A statement said the French would follow the timetable of US withdrawals announced by President Barack Obama.

Mr Obama said 10,000 US troops would pull out this year, with another 23,000 leaving by the end of September 2012.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai welcomed the move, but the Taliban dismissed it as “symbolic” and vowed to continue fighting until all foreign forces left.

Continue reading the main story

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Start Quote

Our mission will change from combat to support”

President Obama

As it happened: Speech reaction

At least 68,000 US troops will remain in the country after the 33,000 have been withdrawn, but they are scheduled to leave by 2013, provided that Afghan forces are ready to take over security.

Oceans on brink of catastrophe

Marine life facing mass extinction ‘within one human generation’ / State of seas ‘much worse than we thought’, says global panel of scientists

By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor  Tuesday, 21 June 2011

The world’s oceans are faced with an unprecedented loss of species comparable to the great mass extinctions of prehistory, a major report suggests today. The seas are degenerating far faster than anyone has predicted, the report says, because of the cumulative impact of a number of severe individual stresses, ranging from climate warming and sea-water acidification, to widespread chemical pollution and gross overfishing.

The coming together of these factors is now threatening the marine environment with a catastrophe “unprecedented in human history”, according to the report, from a panel of leading marine scientists brought together in Oxford earlier this year by the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Al-Qaida turns to kidnappings as donations drop

‘That kind of money could go a long way to sustaining a terrorist organization,’ says expert

By STEPHEN BRAUN

Pressured by increased scrutiny of terrorist money sources and strikes aimed at its financiers, al-Qaida’s core organization in Pakistan has turned to kidnapping for ransom to offset dwindling cash reserves, according to U.S. officials, some of whom cited information in files retrieved from Osama bin Laden’s compound.

Bin Laden’s interest in kidnapping as a cash-raiser bolsters accounts that the financial squeeze has staggered al-Qaida, forcing it to search for alternative funding sources. Officials would not detail al-Qaida’s role in specific crimes, but the group’s affiliates have targeted diplomats, tourists and merchants.