A Canadian convoy was ambushed twice late Sunday by Taliban fighters armed with rocket propelled grenades and small arms, a Canadian military official said. The resulting firefights saw one Afghan National Police officer and a civilian mistakenly gunned down by soldiers. The initial attack happened in the vicinity of the governor's palace as the battle group convoy was moving between bases, said Maj. Dale MacEachern, a spokesman for the Canadian Forces. As rockets and automatic weapons fire slammed into the RG-31 Nyala patrol vehicles and Coyote armoured cars, the soldiers returned fire and stepped on it to get out of the area. A few kilometres away, one of the damaged vehicles broke down, the troops were forced to set up a security cordon and MacEachern said that's when insurgents attacked again....
http://www.thestar.com
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Editor - 21:39:00 02-20-07
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 Zogby Poll: Most Say Bloggers, Citizen Reporters to Play Vital Role in Journalism's Future |
Online survey finds general public, media conference attendees agree that traditional news outlets could do a better job. A majority of Americans (55%) in an online survey said bloggers are important to the future of American journalism and 74% said citizen journalism will play a vital role, a new WE Media/Zogby Interactive poll shows. Most respondents (53%) also said the rise of free Internet-based media pose the greatest opportunity to the future of professional journalism and three in four (76%) said the Internet has had a positive impact on the overall quality of journalism. The survey results were released by Pollster John Zogby as part of a conference of media industry insiders hosted by the University of Miami. In the national survey of adults, 72% said they were dissatisfied with the quality of American journalism today. A majority of conference–goers who were polled on the subject agreed – 55% said they were dissatisfied, and 61% said they believed traditional journalism ...
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1247
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Editor - 21:29:00 02-20-07
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| North Dakota Child Support Enforcement Turns To Debtors Prison |
Yesterday the Fargo Forum had an article which featured the director of North Dakota’s child support agency bragging about a “fundamental shift” in the attitude of his agency. New technology and an attitude shift have changed the way the state’s Child Support Enforcement program operates, said Mike Schwindt, its director. There’s a realization on the part of some people that it’s their obligation, their children, and they’re more willing to work with us to make sure that obligation is met, Schwindt said. At the same time, there’s been a fundamental shift within the child support program. The program collected a record $108 million in payments in 2006. Its overall performance is ranked second in the nation. You gotta love how they brag about all the child support they collect. As though that were a positive thing. A figure that should be increased instead of decreased. So what does this shift entail? Putting you in prison if you don’t pay your child support....
http://www.kxmb.com/getARticle.asp?ArticleId=96890
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Editor - 21:25:00 02-20-07
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| Bird Flu Outbreak Shuts Farms Near Moscow |
Farms and markets in the suburbs of Moscow were shut down by outbreaks of the avian flu over the weekend in a sign that the virus was moving westward along migratory bird routes, as it did last winter. Russian authorities confirmed Sunday that the H5N1 strain of the flu had been found on at least six farms within 30 miles of the capital. All appeared to be linked to Moscow’s main live poultry market in Sadovod, nicknamed the Bird Market. Masked officials were guarding empty stalls there on Monday, Reuters reported, and the police set up roadblocks around five villages, turning away visitors, searching outgoing vehicles for poultry and spraying disinfectant on tires. A Moscow prosecutor confirmed that residents of the villages had bought birds at the Sadovod market since Feb. 5....
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/21/world/europe/21flu.html?ex=1329714000&en=c3ab8ee338c856ea&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
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Editor - 19:44:00 02-20-07
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| Pakistan minister in India talks |
Pakistan's foreign minister is due to hold talks with his Indian counterpart, after vowing that the train bomb attack will not undermine peace efforts. During the scheduled peace talks in Delhi, Khurshid Kasuri and Pranab Mukherjee are likely to discuss Sunday's blasts in which 68 died. On Tuesday, Mr Kasuri paid a hospital visit to survivors of the attack. Indian PM Manmohan Singh has said the attack was an "act of terror" aimed at disrupting the peace process. Observers say while the attack casts a cloud over the talks between the two foreign ministers, it could inject urgency into the long-running process. Meanwhile, police in India have issued images of two men they believe got off the train just before the attack. The 68 victims, mostly Pakistanis, were killed after explosives started a fire in two carriages of the Delhi-Lahore train. ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6381261.stm
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Editor - 19:42:00 02-20-07
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| Audit finds U.S. anti-terror statistics inflated Marriage fraud, other non-terror issues counted in numbers since 9/11 |
Federal prosecutors counted immigration violations, marriage fraud and drug trafficking among anti-terror cases in the four years after 9/11 even though no evidence linked them to terror activity, a Justice Department audit said Tuesday. Overall, nearly all of the terrorism-related statistics on investigations, referrals and cases examined by department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine were either diminished or inflated. Only two of 26 sets of department data reported between 2001 and 2005 were accurate, the audit found. Responding, a Justice spokesman pointed to figures showing that prosecutors in the department's headquarters for the most part either accurately or underreported their data — underscoring what he called efforts to avoid pumping up federal terror statistics. The numbers, used to monitor the department's progress in battling terrorists, are reported to Congress and the public and help, in part, shape the department's budget....
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17249651/
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Editor - 19:40:00 02-20-07
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