Hundreds of Afghan soldiers and police retook a district outside the capital from the Taliban on Friday, pushing out militants who had seized the area in fierce fighting a day earlier, a senior Afghan official said. Marajudin Pathan, the governor of Ghazni province, said a hastily organized force of more than 250 officers encountered no resistance when they swept into Giro. "The district is under our control," Pathan told The Associated Press by telephone. "There was no resistance because the cowardly enemy escaped." He said police, assisted by Afghan soldiers and troops from the U.S.-led military coalition, were combing villages in search of any fighters still hiding there. The Taliban takeover of Giro, just 110 miles from Kabul, helped undermine claims by the Afghan government and its foreign backers that President Hamid Karzai has expanded government control of the country. ...
http://abcnews.go.com
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Editor - 06:55:00 04-27-07
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 Pakistan 'tops death row league' |
Pakistan has more people imprisoned facing execution than any other country in the world, human rights group Amnesty International says. Nearly a third of the world's 24,000 death row prisoners are in Pakistan - "often held in extremely over-crowded conditions", Amnesty says. Its annual report on the death penalty said the number of people executed in 2006 fell by 25%, compared with 2005. But Pakistan was one of a few countries where executions rose sharply. Pakistan's interior minister has dismissed any suggestion of abolishing the death penalty. The Amnesty report said that at least 1,591 people had been executed in 25 countries last year, compared with 2,148 people in 2005. It said the vast majority of those executed in 2006 were in China (1,010), followed by Iran (177), Pakistan (82), Iraq (65), Sudan (65) and the US (53). The figure in Pakistan had nearly trebled from 31 the previous year, Amnesty said....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6597507.stm
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Editor - 06:54:00 04-27-07
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| Wildfires sweep Ga., hundreds evacuate Fires flare in drought-striken southeast of state, destroying buildings |
Wildfires flared up in drought-stricken southeast Georgia, destroying several buildings and forcing hundreds of fire-weary residents to leave their homes. Deputies on Thursday visited about 100 homes in and near Astoria, a tiny community three miles southeast of Waycross, asking people to leave as a wildfire in the Okefenokee Swamp approached. Most had just returned home after evacuating for several hours Wednesday. In the past 11 days, fires have blackened 95 square miles, or about 61,100 acres, of parched forest and swamp. Officials said 18 homes were destroyed. "My nerves just can't take it anymore," said Mary Howell, 51, as she packed stacks of framed family photos in the trunk of her Lincoln Towncar for the second time in two days. "I haven't slept in a week since this stuff started."...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18349445/
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Editor - 06:51:00 04-27-07
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| Facing Deadline, California Lawmakers Approve $7.8 Billion Plan to Improve Prison System |
The Legislature on Thursday moved to head off a federal takeover of the state prison system, approving a huge borrowing plan to add beds for inmates and refocus efforts on rehabilitation programs. But despite its scope nearly $7.8 billion in state money the bipartisan plan ran into immediate resistance by labor unions, prison reform groups and some lawmakers. They questioned whether it would fix the prison system or create even more problems by allowing room for thousands of additional inmates. The package would add 53,000 beds; boost education, job training and other rehabilitation programs; and allow the governor to continue to transfer thousands of inmates out of state. It includes more than $6.1 billion for construction of state prison cells, $300 million for various other prison improvements and more than $1.2 billion for 13,000 beds to be built at county jails. Local governments would contribute an additional $300 million. ...
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=3086947
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Editor - 20:25:00 04-26-07
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| Feds to enforce chemical security |
Six years ago, anyone in a boat could have gone up the murky Brazos River, hopped ashore & walked up to a tank holding one of the world's deadliest chemicals here at the nation's largest petrochemical complex. Today, that intruder wouldn't stand much of a chance of getting close to the round, 5-story storage sphere that holds a key ingredient needed to make plastic. Chain-link fences topped with 3 layers of barbed wire line the banks of the river running through Dow Chemical Company's 3,200-acre complex. Microwave-beam alarm systems & more fences ring the tank, surveillance cameras scan the perimeter, armed guards patrol, the tank's control room is secured, & the tank itself sits on a concrete slab equipped to quickly contain any chemicals released in an accident or attack. The post-9/11 security upgrades at this massive plant have made Dow an example of what must be done at chemical plants nationwide, says Bob Stephan, infrastructure protection chief at the Homeland Gestapo Dept....
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-26-chemical-security_N.htm?csp=34
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Editor - 20:04:00 04-26-07
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| N.C. military town mourns 9 lost in attacks |
Army Sgt. William Fleming can still see the nine paratroopers hovering over him after the anti-tank mine blew out his eardrums and ripped him with shrapnel last November. "When I got blown up, every one of them came and checked on me," Fleming says, his voice quivering as his hands move to cover his face. Now, every one of them is gone. On Monday, two suicide truck bombers attacked his reconnaissance scout unit's outpost in Iraq. The explosion killed nine soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division and wounded 20 others. Together, their deaths represented the single deadliest day for the division since the fabled unit lost 12 paratroopers in Vietnam in June 1969. It was the worst day for U.S. forces in Iraq since Dec. 1, 2005, when a roadside bomb killed 10 Marines in Fallujah....
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-26-fort-bragg-mourns_N.htm?csp=34
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Editor - 19:28:00 04-26-07
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