 Ethiopian forces pushed to within 18 miles of the Islamist stronghold of Mogadishu today, as international criticism of their incursion into Somalia mounted. Shortly after dawn, Ethiopian soldiers and forces loyal to Somalia’s weak transitional government seized the key town of Jowhar, 50 miles north of Mogadishu. They later took Balad, further along the road to the traditional capital. The warlord Mohammed Dheere, who was chased out of Jowhar by the Islamists a few months ago, was at the front of the advancing troops - an indication as to how Ethiopia intends using former warlords to help control the captured territory. The rapid retreat of the Somalia Council of Islamic Court (SCIC) militias, who have mounted little resistance to the aerial and tank attacks in recent days, means that most of their territory gained since they rose to power in Mogadishu in June has now been lost. The Somali envoy to Ethiopia said today that the pro-government strategy would now ...
http://www.guardian.co.uk
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Editor - 12:26:00 12-27-06
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 Search begins for 'Earth' beyond solar system |
A European spacecraft took off today to spearhead the search for another "Earth" among the stars. The Corot space telescope blasted off aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan shortly after 2.20pm. Corot, short for convection rotation and planetary transits, is the first instrument capable of finding small rocky planets beyond the solar system. Any such planet situated in the right orbit stands a good chance of having liquid water on its surface, & quite possibly life, although a leading scientist involved in the project said it was unlikely to find "any little green men". Developed by the French space agency, CNES, & partnered by the European Space Agency (ESA), Austria, Belgium, Germany, Brazil & Spain, Corot will monitor around 120,000 stars with its 27cm telescope from a polar orbit 514 miles above the Earth. Over 2 & a half years, it will focus on five to 6 different areas of the sky, measuring the brightness of about 10,000 stars every 512 seconds...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/space/article/0,,1979017,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=12
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Editor - 12:24:00 12-27-06
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| Activists Call For Review of Atlanta-Area Police After 13 People Killed This Year |
Community activists on Wednesday called for the creation of civilian review boards to investigate police misconduct complaints, citing the fatal shooting of an elderly woman by Atlanta police and the killings of 12 other people by suburban DeKalb County officers this year."The police, no matter how difficult their job, are not exempt from community scrutiny," said the Rev. Joseph Lowery, co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and chairman of the Coalition for The People's Agenda.Lowery was joined by close to a dozen other activists. He said that the civilian review boards should have subpoena power and that Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin had told him she was not opposed to the idea.A spokeswoman for Franklin did not immediately return a call seeking comment.DeKalb County Chief Executive Vernon Jones said he would take Lowery's suggestion under advisement....
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,239239,00.html
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Editor - 12:16:00 12-27-06
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| U.S. signals support for Ethiopia in Somalia |
The United States on Wednesday signaled support for Ethiopia's military offensive in Somalia, saying Addis Ababa had reasons for concern about the country's internal warfare.The White House urged restraint by Ethiopia but also said the intervention should not be used as an excuse by Somalia's warring factions to avoid peace negotiations. "Ethiopia has genuine security concerns with regard to developments within Somalia," said Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the White House National Security Council. Johndroe added that Ethiopian forces were there "at the request" of Somalia's interim government, which wants to break the stronghold of the Islamic Courts Council on southern Somalia and Mogadishu. "We have urged, and continue to ...
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2754721
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Editor - 12:14:00 12-27-06
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| Violence plagues Guatemala decade after war's end |
The Guatemalan police put housewife Maria Lopez under protective custody last year after she informed on young street gang members who gunned down her sister in broad daylight.But a round-the-clock police guard did not stop the killers returning to shoot Lopez dead in the town of Palencia last month as she slept in bed next to her 10-year-old daughter. Ten years after the end of a civil war that killed about a quarter of a million people, Guatemala is still racked with violence, and struggling to overcome corruption, drug smuggling and poverty. Criticized by a presidential hopeful as close to becoming a "failed state," Guatemala has yet to meet most of the sweeping development goals promised in peace accords between the government and leftist guerrillas signed on December 29, 1996. ...
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2754630
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Editor - 12:12:00 12-27-06
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| THE WORLD FROM BERLIN Ethiopia's Invasion Seen Worsening Somali Chaos |
Ethiopia's offensive against the Union of Islamic Courts in Somalia risks plunging the region into a long war which may end up strengthening the Islamists. And if America sees the invasion as a chance to weaken Islamic radicalism, it's seriously misguided. Ethiopa's military offensive against the Union of Islamic Courts, which holds the Somali capital Mogadishu and much of central and southern Somalia, is a dangerous act of aggression that could lead to a protracted war and even strengthen the Islamists, according to German media commentators who see the conflict as opening up a new battlefield in the American-led global war against Islamic extremists. The UIC -- which seized Mogadishu six months ago -- has introduced law and order to the capital and much of southern Somalia for the first time in 16 years...
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,456726,00.html
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Editor - 10:31:00 12-27-06
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