 NATO pressed its members Tuesday to deploy more troops to Afghanistan's volatile south, but Germany resisted any permanent expansion and Canada complained of bearing the brunt of an increasingly bloody mission.Despite the strengthening Taliban insurgency and unexpectedly high casualties, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer insisted the alliance would prevail in its first mission outside Europe. He also expressed hopes that by 2008, Afghan forces could begin taking over security tasks."I would hope that by 2008, we'll have made considerable progress ... (with) effective and trusted Afghan security forces gradually taking control," he said.Defeating Taliban forces "will require the full commitment of our alliance," U.S. President George W. Bush said Tuesday, calling the Afghanistan mission -- which has mobilized 32,800 troops -- NATO's No. 1 operation....
http://www.cnn.com
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Editor - 15:51:00 11-28-06
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 Report: Afghan Officials Aid Traffickers |
Afghanistan's criminal underworld has compromised key government officials who protect drug traffickers, allowing a flourishing opium trade that will not be stamped out for a generation, an ominous UN report released Tue said. The fight against opium production has so far achieved only limited success, mostly because of corruption, the joint report from the World Bank & the UN Office on Drugs & Crime said. The findings show a "probability of high-level (government) involvement" in drugs, said Doris Buddenberg, the UNODC's Afghanistan representative & co-editor of the report. The report in particular presented a strong indictment of the Interior Ministry, which runs the country's police, & said Afghanistan's criminal underworld could not operate without the support of the political "upperworld." "The majority of police chiefs are involved," one senior police officer told the report's authors on condition of anonymity. "If you are not, you will be threatened to be killed & replaced."...
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,232443,00.html
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Editor - 15:39:00 11-28-06
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| Judge reinstates wrongful death lawsuit for Iraq contractors |
A Wake County judge ended nearly two years of legal limbo Monday by agreeing that the wrongful death lawsuit filed by the families of four private contractors killed and mutilated in Iraq could go forward in state court. Blackwater Security Consulting, the Blackwater USA division that trained and deployed the high-level security guards, had argued that it was an extension of the military and that the case shouldn't be heard in any court, and particularly not a state court. Wake County Superior Court Judge Don Stephens lifted his long-standing stay on the case Monday after the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals and U.S. Supreme Court denied Blackwater's requests. "It's ours, whether we want it or not and whether or not we understand why it belongs to us," said Stephens, adding that the case will continue forward in January or February. Blackwater attorneys declined to comment on Stephens' ruling....
http://www.thestate.com/mld/mercurynews/news/special_packages/iraq/16108793.htm
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Editor - 15:31:00 11-28-06
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| US Air Force seeks $33.4 bln in extra 2007 funds |
The U.S. Air Force on Tuesday said it asked Pentagon officials for $33.4 billion in extra funding for fiscal 2007 to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and costs related to the "longer war on terror." U.S. lawmakers have grown increasingly frustrated about the Pentagon's continued use of emergency budget requests to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, given that the military's costs there are predictable to some extent. The Air Force submitted an initial $17.4 billion supplemental budget request in August for fiscal 2007, which began on Oct. 1, but increased its request by $16 billion this month based on new ground rules allowing costs beyond the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, said spokeswoman Maj. Morshe Araujo. "In total, the Air Force FY07 supplemental request now exceeds $33 billion," Araujo said....
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N28248374.htm
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Editor - 15:30:00 11-28-06
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| Astronomers Discuss Opportunities Offered by NASA's Plan to Return to the Moon |
The moon has very little atmosphere, and lots of dust. Those are some of the things being considered this week at the home of the Hubble Space Telescope, where astronomers are discussing the opportunities offered by NASA's plan to return to the moon, including the possibility of a telescope on the lunar surface. The moon is a large, stable platform with very little atmosphere to interfere with viewing the stars. However, the size of any lunar telescope; whether it would be built on Earth and unfold on arrival, or be assembled on the moon; and how it would be funded all remain to be decided. Scott Horowitz, a NASA associate administrator, told the group the space agency is still early in the design stage for the next moon rockets and vehicles but wants significant capability to transport scientific instruments, living quarters and other cargo to the moon. "We're building a pickup truck and we're going to fill the bed with whatever we can,"...
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=2685652
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Editor - 15:25:00 11-28-06
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| Bush says troops will stay till task accomplished. The only thing he will accomplish is getting more troops killed, and for what? To save his ass? |
Bush said on Tue the hand of al Qaeda lay behind sectarian violence racking Iraq, and he would not pull troops out "before the mission is complete." Bush, speaking in the Baltic republics before a NATO summit, deflected talk of "civil war" — a description which could increase pressure on him to withdraw US forces. "There is one thing I'm not going to do. I am not going to pull our troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete," he said in a speech at the University of Latvia. In Baghdad, US military spokesman Major General William Caldwell said there had been a "dramatic spike" in killings and forecast violence would rise in weeks to come but still did not meet the military's definition of civil war. Where do we get these Idiots? They think nothing is, until they come up with their definition. These same Idiots kept giving us “their military's definition” that the Resistance was destroyed. With leaders like this maybe we should have re-invaded Grenada instead. ...
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2684313
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Editor - 09:37:00 11-28-06
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