Afghanistan: Taliban 'Admit' US Troop Attack

Taliban Insurgency: A Timeline

Updated: 4:44pm UK, Tuesday 18 June 2013

As Afghan forces take control of national security, marking a major milestone for the withdrawal of US-led combat troops, here is a timeline of the 12 years of Taliban insurgency in the country.

:: September 11, 2001 - al Qaeda hijackers fly passenger planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000 people. Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is known to live in Afghanistan, which is ruled by the Taliban.

:: October 7, 2001 - A US-led military campaign begins with air strikes against Afghanistan, followed by troops, to hunt down bin Laden and topple the Taliban.

:: December 2001 - The Taliban are forced from power, but bin Laden is not found. Plans are laid for an interim government and a multinational force. Hamid Karzai is appointed to lead the government and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) begins to deploy.

:: October 9, 2004 - Afghanistan's first presidential election takes place. Mr Karzai is proclaimed the winner. He is declared to have won another term in November 2009, amid accusations of massive electoral fraud.

:: February 2007 - Taliban insurgents attack at US base as vice president Dick Cheney visits, killing 24 people.

:: November 2008 - Barack Obama is elected US president, and vows to end the war in Iraq and focus on Afghanistan.

:: December 1, 2009 - Mr Obama orders a "surge" of 30,000 troops into Afghanistan but says withdrawals will begin in July 2011. The number of NATO-led forces reaches a peak of 150,000 in the summer of 2010.

:: May 2, 2011 - Osama bin Laden is killed by US special forces in the Pakistan town of Abbottabad.

:: June 22, 2011 - Mr Obama announces the withdrawal of 33,000 US troops by the middle of 2012.

:: July 2011 - Western troops and officials begin handing authority to Afghan forces in some areas.

:: August 6, 2011 - 30 US troops, mostly special forces, and eight Afghans die when the Taliban shoots down their helicopter in the biggest single loss for foreign troops in the war.

:: September 20, 2011 - Burhanuddin Rabbani, a former president and Mr Karzai's peace envoy, becomes the most senior politician to be killed since the start of the conflict in an assassination blamed by Afghan officials on the Taliban.

:: November 27, 2011 - US air strikes kill 24 Pakistani soldiers, prompting Pakistan to suspend overland NATO supply routes into Afghanistan for several months.

:: December 6, 2011 - At least 84 people die in suicide blasts at shrines on the Shiite holday day of Ashura. The biggest attack takes place in Kabul, killing 80.

:: February 2012 - Deadly protests kill 40 people and force Mr Obama to apologise after US troops burn copies of the Koran on an Afghan military base.

:: March 11, 2012 - A rogue US soldier walks off his base in Kandahar and kills 16 Afghans, most of them women and children.

:: February 2013 - Mr Obama announces 34,000 US troops will return from Afghanistan by mid-February 2014. There are currently 98,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan.

At least 3,336 foreign troops have died since the start of operations in 2001.

23.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

Amanda Knox Ruling Cites 'Sex Game' Theory

Italy's top criminal court has said its decision to order a retrial of Amanda Knox and her ex-boyfriend in the murder of Meredith Kercher was made because their acquittals contained shortcomings and contradictions.

The Court of Cassation also said the possibility that Briton Miss Kercher was killed in a sex game that had got out of hand needs to be revisited.

Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were initially found guilty of killing the 21-year-old Leeds University student, but both were cleared on appeal in 2011.

In March of this year, however, Italy's top court overturned the acquittals and ordered a retrial. That court has only now issued its written reasoning for doing so.

Knox was convicted in 2009

It picked apart the lower court's judgment freeing Knox, saying it contained "shortcomings, contradictions and inconsistencies" and "openly collides with objective facts of the case".

The high court's 74-page document also said the judges who freed Knox undervalued the fact that the American had initially accused a man of committing the crime who had nothing to do with it.

Miss Kercher's body was found in November 2007 in her bedroom of the house she shared with Knox in Perugia. Her throat had been slashed.

Knox and Sollecito have denied any involvement, saying they were not in the apartment at the time.

Raffaele Sollecito was Knox's boyfriend at the time of the murder

A young man from Ivory Coast, Rudy Guede, was convicted of the killing in a separate proceeding and is serving a 16-year sentence.

But Guede is not believed to have acted alone.

The high court judges said the retrial would serve to "demonstrate the presence of the two suspects in the place of the crime".

They said hypotheses that must be considered involve "a group erotic game that blew up and went out of control", and urged the retrial to conduct a full examination of evidence to resolve the ambiguities.

No date has been set for the retrial.

Knox, who left Italy a free woman after her 2011 acquittal, is back in Seattle and is not expected to attend the new trial.

Italian law cannot compel her to return as defendants can be tried in absentia.

She has recently released a book titled Waiting To Be Heard.

Knox was emotional in Seattle after her 2011 acquittal

Sollecito has spent time in Switzerland trying to start a new life, but it has emerged that his residency permit has been revoked by the Swiss authorities.

In his application, he failed to mention his involvement in a criminal case, Italian news reports said.

23.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

Dreamliner Diverted In Latest Boeing Setback

A Boeing 787 Dreamliner has landed safely after being diverted when pilots were made aware of a potential oil filter problem.

In the latest of a series of setbacks for the new model, United Airlines said a Dreamliner on its way to Tokyo from Denver was forced to land in Seattle as a precaution.

The planes were only recently returned to the skies after regulators grounded them worldwide due to overheating in lithium-ion batteries.

There was no initial indication that any problem with the plane on Tuesday was related to batteries.

"United flight 139 from Denver to Tokyo diverted to Seattle due to an indication of a problem with an oil filter," United said in a statement.

"The aircraft landed normally and without incident and we are working to re-accommodate customers."

Boeing said it was aware of the issue and was working with United and General Electric Co on the problem.

Regulators and investors are keenly following the progress of the 787 Dreamliner, Boeing's first predominantly carbon-fibre aircraft, which was more than three years late getting into service after a number of production setbacks.

Introduced by airlines in late 2011, the Dreamliner was grounded in January after batteries overheated on two Japanese jets in quick succession.

It resumed commercial service in May after Boeing installed a redesigned battery system on the 50 jets in service.

Two other planes are known to have suffered technical problems with engines since - but none of those were understood to be serious.

One Singapore-bound Dreamliner, operated by ANA, had to turn back in mid-flight because of a problem with the anti-icing system.

Thomson Airlines and British Airways are among UK operators buying the planes, attracted by the promise of lower fuel costs.

While Boeing has announced billions of dollars in deals at the Paris Air Show as well as the launch of a stretched version of its next-generation Dreamliner 787, it is still trailing behind Airbus in new plane orders.

So far, Boeing has racked up $29.2bn (£18.7bn) in firm orders or purchase agreements against $36bn £23bn) for the European aircraft manufacturer.

23.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

Kim Jong-Un 'Hands Out Hitler's Mein Kampf'

North Korea has threatened to kill the "human scum" responsible for an article that claimed its leader handed out copies of Hitler's autobiography for his birthday.

The article, by New Focus International, an online news portal run by North Korean defectors, said Kim Jong-Un had given copies of Mein Kampf to his top officials, urging them to study it as a leadership skills manual.

He distributed translations of the dictator's manifesto for his birthday in January, the report said, citing an unnamed North Korean official working in China.

"Mentioning that Hitler managed to rebuild Germany in a short time following its defeat in World War I, Kim Jong-Un issued an order for the Third Reich to be studied in depth and asked that practical applications be drawn from it," the source was quoted as saying.

North Korea's police agency has reacted angrily to the claims and has called the report a "thrice-cursed crime".

Hitler's autobiography Mein Kampf

"We are ... determined to take substantial measures to physically remove despicable human scum who are committing treasons," it said in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

"Sordid human scum will never be able to look up to the sky nor be able to find an inch of land to be buried after their death," it said. 

It also vowed to launch "merciless punishment of justice" against South Korea and the United States, accusing the two nations of encouraging the defectors to defame its ruler.

Mein Kampf (My Struggle), written in 1924 while Hitler was languishing in a Bavarian prison before becoming Chancellor of Germany, is both a vicious anti-Semitic tract and a rambling memoir.

The Kim family dynasty has ruled North Korea with an iron fist and pervasive personality cult for more than six decades.

Kim Jong-Un took over the isolated communist state after the death of his father Kim Jong-Il in December 2011.

23.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

Woman And Child 'Used As Slaves' In Ohio

A mentally disabled woman and her child were allegedly kept as slaves by three people who threatened them with snakes and a pit bull dog.

The woman and child, who the Federal Bureau of Investigation have not named, were held for many months in a basement in Ashland, Ohio.

Ashland is just 60 miles south of Cleveland, where three missing women who had themselves allegedly been held captive were discovered recently.

The FBI, who issued an indictment against the Ashland woman's alleged captors, said they threatened and abused her, and threatened the child with snakes.

Later, they allegedly forced the woman and child to sleep in a padlocked room with a "large iguana".

Jessica Hunt with her snakes that were allegedly used to terrify the child

The woman finally escaped by stealing sweets from a shop, prompting police to arrest her.

She told officers she would rather go to jail than go home as her housemates "were mean to her".

Her alleged tormentors have been arrested on human trafficking charges.

Jordie Callahan, 26, Jessica Hunt, aged 31, and 33-year-old Daniel Brown were detained on Tuesday and charged by the FBI with forced labour.

Callahan was also charged with an additional count of tampering with a witness. Callahan and Hunt are said to be in a relationship.

Stephen D. Anthony, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Cleveland Office, said: "These defendants violated the victim's most basic civil right, freedom, by exploiting her most basic instinct, the protection of her child.

"The FBI continues to aggressively pursue and bring to justice those individuals who abuse and harm innocent members of our community."

The FBI said the alleged 'slavery' began in May 2011 and continued until October 2012, when the woman was arrested by police.

They identified the woman only as S.E.

An FBI statement, outlining an affidavit which contained the allegations, said: "Callahan and Hunt forced S.E. to clean the house, do laundry, walk to the store to do their shopping, and care for their numerous pit bulls and reptiles.

Hunt and Callahan kept pit bulls that were allegedly used against the pair

"S.E. was timed when she went to the store and was not allowed to bring her child with her.

"At various points, Callahan threatened S.E. with a gun. S.E. and her child initially were forced to sleep on a cement floor in the basement with no mattress.

"Later, they were moved to a room upstairs, again with no bed or mattress.

"Callahan and Hunt also repeatedly taunted and threatened S.E. and (her child) with injury from the couple's snakes, including a poisonous coral snake, a ball python, and a Burmese python that weighed 130 pounds."

The affidavit said the three slammed a rock into the woman's hand on one occasion and injured her back on another so she could get medication for the pain, which they then used.

When she fled, one of those who she lived with alleged that the woman had abused the child herself. Police investigated, but have taken no further action.

Andrew Hyde, who has represented Callahan, called the charges against his client ludicrous and said the woman moved in and out as she pleased.

Mr Hyde said: "There was never any forced labour, any forced co-habitation. She was never forced to do anything."

He said: "She used this story to get out of trouble she was in," referring to the abuse she allegedly carried out on her child.

Mr Hyde accused federal investigators of not looking at all the evidence before jumping to conclusions.

Callahan's mother, Becky Callahan of Ashland, told the Associated Press that the allegations were "all lies."

She said that the alleged victim was friends with her son and Hunt, her son's girlfriend, and that they tried to help the woman out by offering her a place to live because she didn't have a home.

A federal defence attorney for Hunt, Ed Bryan, said his client will plead not guilty and said there were credibility issues with the mother.

A little more than a month ago, three women were freed from a house in Cleveland, Ohio where a man allegedly imprisoned them for a decade, raping them during that time and fathering a child with one of them.

Ariel Castro has pleaded not guilty to more than 300 counts against him, which include kidnapping, rape and felonious assault.

23.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

Three Die In Dutch Liquid Manure Tank

Three men have died after becoming trapped in a manure tank in a rural part of The Netherlands.

A fourth man was taken to hospital in a critical condition.

De Telegraaf said that one victim was the 26-year-old youngest son of the farm owner.

The detail was attributed to a neighbour involved in the rescue, who added that a 29-year-old man from Joure and a 42-year old man from Nijland also died.

The identities of the dead are yet to be confirmed by officials.

The neighbour said the youngest man was involved in cleaning the 10-metre high silo with three other people.

The farm is about 80 miles north east of Amsterdam

A witness said he apparently fell into the storage facility, which was only partially filled.

It is still unclear how the others became trapped inside. It is suspected that they were all overcome by noxious fumes.

Rescuers were forced to cut a hole in the side of the metal tank. Emergency crews at the scene included ambulance, fire and a rescue dive team.

The incident happened in the Friese Makkinga area of the country, some 80 miles north east of Amsterdam.

23.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

Boy Charged Over Sister's Wrestling Death

A 13-year-old boy has been charged with killing his five-year-old half-sister after he allegedly struck her many times with wrestling moves imitated from TV.

The boy, from New Orleans, was charged with second-degree murder.

"The 13-year-old reported he started to wrestle with the victim and practised WWE-style wrestling moves on the five-year-old," said Colonel John Fortunato, of the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office.

Those moves allegedly included repeatedly slamming the girl on a bed, punching her in the stomach, jumping on her and striking her with his elbow.

The girl complained of a stomach ache and when she stopped breathing, the boy called 911.

Emergency services could not revive her and she was pronounced dead in hospital.

A coroner's investigation found that the girl had died of multiple injuries, including broken ribs, lacerations of the liver and internal bleeding.

Wrestling's WWE has offered condolences to the victim's family, but it cautioned against attributing the death to the sport.

In a statement it said: "Authorities have already charged the accused with second-degree murder and determined that this was not an accidental death due to a wrestling move," the organisation said.

"As in similar cases, criminal intent to harm and a lack of parental supervision have been the factors resulting in a tragic death."

The boy had been left to babysit the girl by his stepmother when the alleged beating occurred, authorities said.

23.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

Indonesia To 'Make Rain' To End Sumatra Fires

Indonesia is to use weather changing technology to try to produce rain to put out raging fires on Sumatra island that have cloaked neighbouring Singapore in thick haze.

The city-state, home to 5.3 million inhabitants, has been pressing Jakarta to take action over the fires which have pushed air pollutant levels on the island to a 16-year high.

The government planned to use a technology called "cloud-seeding" to try  put out the fires, that are mainly centred on peatlands in Riau province, said Indonesian forestry ministry official Raffles Panjaitan.

Helicopters would be sent into the skies above Sumatra to inject chemicals into clouds, which prompt the formation of heavy ice crystals, and so speed up the production of rain, he said.

Bushes on fire in the area of Rumbai

But the helicopters, from the disaster management agency, will not be dispatched until Friday at the earliest, he added.

About 100 firefighters are tackling the blazes but finding them hard to extinguish because they are smouldering underground in carbon-rich peatland, mostly in palm oil plantations.

"It is extremely difficult to extinguish the fires which are burning under the surface of the peatland," Mr Panjaitan said.

He said the cloud-seeding operation would depend on weather conditions. "Hopefully there will be lots of clouds so that we can produce a lot of rain."

Singapore has its worst levels of haze since September 1997

The worst affected area is Bengkalis district, where 650 hectares (1,600 acres) of land is ablaze - 555 fires have been detected in Riau so far, up from 356 last month.

In Singapore, the Pollutant Standards Index soared to 172 at 3pm local time (0700 GMT), well past the officially designated "unhealthy" threshold of 100, according to the National Environment Agency website.

It was Singapore's worst haze reading since September 1997 when the number peaked at 226.

The haze problem is a recurring one which happens in the dry season as a result of forest fires in the sprawling Indonesian archipelago, some of them deliberately started to clear land for cultivation.

23.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

Obama Speaks In Berlin 50 Years After JFK

President Barack Obama has pushed for a reduction of the world's nuclear stockpiles in a speech at Berlin's iconic Brandenburg Gate.

His address comes 50 years after John F. Kennedy's famous Cold War speech in this once-divided city.

Mr Obama has said he was proud to pay tribute to a city that was a symbol of freedom.

"It is citizens who choose whether to be defined by a wall or whether to tear it down," he said.

"We can say here in Berlin, here in Europe, our values won," he added, speaking from a stage that had a row of bullet-proof glass.

In a wide-ranging speech listing challenges facing the world, Mr Obama said he wanted to re-ignite the spirit that Berlin displayed when it fought to reunite itself during the Cold War.

He promised to confront climate change, a danger he called "the global threat of our time".

Mr Obama met with Angela Merkel

"Today's threats are not as stark as they were half a century ago, but the struggle for freedom and security and human dignity, that struggle goes on," he said.

"And I come here to this city of hope because the test of our time demands the same fighting spirit that defined Berlin a half-century ago".

Mr Obama has called on Russia to agree strategic nuclear weapons cuts of up to a third and to also rein in strategic atomic arms. He said he wanted to move beyond a Cold War posture.

The president had previously called for reductions to the stockpiles.

But by addressing the issue in a major foreign policy speech, he is signalling a desire to rekindle an issue that was a centrepiece of his early first-term national security agenda.

Mr Obama's call for cooperation with Russia on the nuclear issue comes at a time of tension between Washington and Moscow, which are supporting opposite sides in Syria's civil war.

The US leader discussed non-proliferation with Russian President Vladimir Putin when they met this week on the sidelines of a G8 summit in Northern Ireland.

The secret surveillance programmes have stirred anger

Mr Obama's Brandenburg Gate speech is a momentous occasion.

On June 26, 1963, Mr Kennedy addressed a crowd of 450,000 in Berlin to repudiate communism and famously declare "Ich bin ein Berliner", German for "I am a Berliner".

In 1987, another US president, Ronald Reagan, delivered a famous address when he challenged then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

He famously said: "Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

Mr Obama himself gave a major speech in Berlin - but not at the Brandenburg Gate – in 2008, when he was a hopeful presidential candidate. At the time, an estimated 200,000 people who came to see him.

This time, his visit to Berlin was overshadowed by the scandal over secret US surveillance programmes.

Moscow and Washington could not bridge differences on Syria during the G8

The president, who also met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, once again defended the NSA operations, which have been unveiled in leaks to the The Guardian and The Washington Post.

He said "lives had been saved" and about 50 terror plots thwarted, in comments that echoed similar remarks by the NSA chief, General Keith Alexander, to Congress.

Before Mr Obama had even made his call for nuclear reductions, Moscow said it wanted other powers as well as Russia and the US to be involved in any discussions about further nuclear arms cuts.

"It's necessary to bring other countries that possess nuclear weapons into the process," said Yuri  Ushakov, Mr Putin's senior foreign policy aide.

23.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

Japan Agrees Nuclear Power Plant Safety Rules

Japan's nuclear watchdog has approved new safety requirements for atomic power plants, paving the way for the reopening of facilities shut down since the Fukushima disaster.

The new measures, approved by the Nuclear Regulation Authority, will take effect on July 8 when operators will be able to apply for inspections.

If plants pass the inspections - a process expected to take several months - they can reopen later this year or early in 2014.

All but two of Japan's 50 reactors have been offline since the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that triggered multiple meltdowns and massive radiation leaks at Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, 160 miles from Tokyo.

The plant, which barely runs on a precarious cooling system, has struggled with swelling contaminated water leaking out of broken reactors.

The guidelines require plants to prevent radiation leaks after accidents

Wednesday's decision comes nearly two weeks ahead of the legal deadline, with critics claiming it has been brought forward due to industrial and political pressure.

Utilities have complained about soaring fuel costs to run conventional thermal power plants to make up for the shortfall.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's pro-industry government has quickly reversed a nuclear phase-out plan since taking office last December, saying nuclear energy is key to Japan's economy.

Critics say the new requirements still have loopholes that make things easier for operators, including a five-year grace period on installing some mandated new equipment.

They also said the approvals only concern resuming reactor operations, while nearby communities lag behind in enacting relevant emergency and evacuation procedures.

The new requirements for the first time make it compulsory for plants to take steps to guard against radiation leaks in the case of severe accidents such as a core melt, install emergency command centres and enact anti-terrorist measures.

Operators are also required to upgrade their protection against tsunamis and earthquakes.

Fukushima Dai-ichi operator Tokyo Electric Power Co., or TEPCO, came under harsh criticism for underestimating the tsunami risk and building a seawall that was too low.

23.11 | 0 komentar | Read More