Tag: Six In The Morning

Steeper Afghanistan pullout is raised as option

Some officials say move is justified by rising cost of war, death of bin Laden

By David E. Sanger, Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker

President Obama’s national security team is contemplating troop reductions in Afghanistan that would be steeper than those discussed even a few weeks ago, with some officials arguing that such a change is justified by the rising cost of the war and the death of Osama bin Laden, which they called new “strategic considerations.”

These new considerations, along with a desire to find new ways to press the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, to get more of his forces to take the lead, are combining to create a counterweight to an approach favored by the departing secretary of defense, Robert M. Gates, and top military commanders in the field. They want gradual cuts that would keep American forces at a much higher combat strength well into next year, senior administration officials said.

Forests fight back all over the world

Woodland density is going up after decades of decline, but concerns about deforestation remain. Andrew Marszal reports on the Great Reversal

Sunday, 5 June 2011

Forest density is increasing across much of the world after decades of decline, according to a new study by scientists from the United States and Europe. The change, which is being dubbed the Great Reversal by the authors, has important, has positive implications for carbon capture and climate change.

The research, carried out by teams from the University of Helsinki and New York’s Rockefeller University, shows that forests are thickening in 45 of 68 countries, which together account for 72 per cent of global forests.

NATO helicopters join Libya attacks

First use targets military installations, radar site, armed checkpoint near Brega

msnbc.com staff and news service reports

 British and French attack helicopters under NATO command struck Libyan military targets for the first time Saturday, increasing pressure on leader Moammar Gadhafi, commanders said.

British Apache helicopters destroyed two military installations, a radar site and an armed checkpoint near the coastal city of Brega, the captain of HMS Ocean told the BBC. The choppers were deployed from the ship.

French Gazelle helicopters also took part in simultaneous attacks on different targets, the BBC reported.

“This successful engagement demonstrates the unique capabilities brought to bear by attack helicopters,” Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard, commander of Operation Unified Protector, said in a NATO statement. “We will continue to use these assets whenever and wherever needed, using the same precision as we do in all of our missions.”

Chaos in Yemen Drives Economy to Edge of Ruin



By ROBERT F. WORTH and LAURA KASINOF  

 Even as Yemen’s political crisis deepens, the country is on the brink of an economic collapse so dire it could take years to recover, and hobble efforts to rebuild its fragmented society.

After four months of mass protests and political deadlock, Yemen – already the poorest Arab country, a place where many people have become accustomed to mere subsistence – has had its domestic oil supplies and electricity network largely cut off by hostile tribes. Gas lines now extend for miles in the capital, Sana, provoking fights and new protests; electricity is available for only a few hours a day.

Blast rocks hotel in Libya’s Benghazi

A car bomb has exploded near a hotel used by foreign diplomats in Libya’s rebel-held city of Benghazi.

Last Modified: 02 Jun 2011  

A huge car bomb has rocked a major hotel in Benghazi, the Libyan rebels’ city in the east of the country, but caused no casualties, witnesses and police say.

Two cars were destroyed in the explosion, which occurred in the parking lot of the Tibesti hotel, used by rebel leaders, journalists and senior officials of the National Transitional Council (NTC), the main rebel administration in eastern Libya.

Hotel staff said there were no immediate reports of injuries and the cause of Wednesday’s blast was not clear.

A police officer said a bomb was detonated in one car and the blast damaged a second car parked next to it.

Karzai: NATO risks being seen as ‘occupying force’

Afghan president says he will no longer allow airstrikes on homes

msnbc.com news services

KABUL, Afghanistan – Afghan President Hamid Karzai angrily warned NATO forces fighting in his country that they risk becoming seen as an “occupying force” if they do not stop attacking Afghan homes with air strikes as they hunt insurgents.

Karzai said he would no longer allow NATO airstrikes on houses because they have caused too many civilian casualties.

A recent strike that mistakenly killed a group of children and women would be the last, he added.

Yemeni forces storm protest camp, killing 20

A medical volunteer says troops fired indiscriminately into a crowd.

By Iona Craig

Special to The Times

May 30, 2011, 1:08 a.m.

Reporting from Sana, Yemen- Yemeni security forces stormed a protest camp in a southern city early Monday morning, shooting indiscriminately, setting fire to the camp and killing at least 20 people, a medical volunteer said.

The city of Taiz has seen large anti-government protests calling for President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s ouster since early February.

Sadek Shugaa, a volunteer medic at the field hospital at the protest camp in Taiz, said he watched as snipers took up positions around the camp while other Yemeni forces used water cannons to clear the area early Monday.

The unstoppable march of the tobacco giants

How the industry ruthlessly exploits the developing world – its young, poor and uneducated

By Emily Dugan Sunday, 29 May 2011

More than half a century after scientists uncovered the link between smoking and cancer – triggering a war between health campaigners and the cigarette industry – big tobacco is thriving.

Despite the known catastrophic effects on health of smoking, profits from tobacco continue to soar and sales of cigarettes have increased: they have risen from 5,000 billion sticks a year in the 1990s to 5,900 billion a year in 2009. They now kill more people annually than alcohol, Aids, car accidents, illegal drugs, murders and suicides combined.

Pakistan’s top military officials are worried about militant collaborators in their ranks



By Karin Brulliard, Saturday, May 28,

 ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Embarrassed by the Osama bin Laden raid and by a series of insurgent attacks on high-security sites, top Pakistani military officials are increasingly concerned that their ranks are penetrated by Islamists who are aiding militants in a campaign against the state.

Those worries have grown especially acute since the killing of bin Laden less than a mile from a prestigious military academy. This week’s naval base infiltration by heavily armed insurgents in Karachi – an attack widely believed to have required inside help – has only deepened fears, military officials said.

Mladic health questions halt court hearing

Officials say interrogation will continue on Friday, despite former Bosnian Serb general’s poor physical condition.

Last Modified: 27 May 2011

 Former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic, captured in Serbia, has appeared in a Belgrade court, but his hearing was halted for doctors to assess his health, according to local media reports.

Mladic appeared frail and haggard during his court appearance on Thursday evening, and Serbian television station B92 reported that Milan Dilparic, the judge, had suspended the interrogation due to Mladic’s poor physical and mental health.

Mladic, who is accused of multiple war crimes charges, faces extradition to The Hague where he would be tried by a tribunal prosecuting cases relating to conflicts during the 1990s in the former Yugoslavia.

The 69-year-old, who commanded Bosnian Serb forces during the 1992-95 Bosnian war, is alleged to have orchestrated the killing of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica in 1995, as well as the four-year siege of Sarajevo.

India courts Africa, long wooed by China

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh takes a six-day trip to the continent, in an effort to boost business ties and drum up support for New Delhi in its bid for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council.

By Mark Magnier, Los Angeles  Times

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrives Thursday in Tanzania on the last stop of a six-day Africa trip designed to underscore his nation’s growing stature on the global stage, lobby for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council and signal to China that the South Asian giant is also a player on the resource-rich continent.

China has long targeted Africa under its “Going Out” strategy launched in 1998, and India, as part of a bid to make up for lost time, this week participated in the India-Africa Forum Summit, its second in three years. New Delhi said it would extend a $5-billion line of credit, fund 22,000 scholarships, set up a “virtual university” and support infrastructure and training programs on the continent.

Researchers see a pattern in rise of deadly tornadoes



By Brian Vastag and Ed O’Keefe, Tuesday, May 24

The extraordinary Joplin twister – the single deadliest tornado since officials began keeping records in 1950 – was a rare destructive phenomenon known as a “multi-vortex,” hiding two or more cyclones within the wider wind funnel.

Sunday’s storm smashed the southwest Missouri city’s hospital, left nothing but splintered trees where neighborhoods once stood, and killed at least 116, with the death toll expected to rise. The storm injured another 500 and and damaged or destroyed at least 2,000 buildings.