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Current scientific research shows that danger stimulates brain power and inventiveness, and the benefits are lasting. Today’s buzz phrase is “transcranial magnetic stimulation” (TMS), the use of magnetic fields to improve soldiers’ powers of reasoning. I am much happier in my job than the equivalent civilian. My colleagues and I give it a 64 per cent satisfaction rating compared to barely 50 per cent in the general workforce. Among the things I like are the security of employment, the pension provision and the health care. Surprisingly, the “excitement of the job” is less appreciated, although 83 per cent of us agree that we are proud to be in the Service. Although much attention is paid to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, the most common mental problems we face are alcoholism, loneliness...
Tuesday, 19 June 2012
Thursday, 17 May 2012
Servicemen steal and sell nearly $2 million in guns
Investigators have tracked down around $1.8 million in missing US military weaponry, and no, the loot wasn’t just left behind in barracks and bunkers. Instead it went directly to street gangs. The results of a nearly two-year-old probe established to investigate missing military gear reveals that nearly $2 million worth of assault rifles, night-vision goggles and other guns and gadgets were pilfered by servicemen from within the Armed Forces and then sold illegally both through local outlets to gangs and on the Internet to residents of foreign countries. So far more than 60 people have been implicated in the undercover sting, which began nearly two years ago by officers with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Along the way, federal agencies as diverse as the Department of Homeland Security,...
Sunday, 13 May 2012
Two British servicemen shot dead by Afghan police they were training
The killing in Helmand province is the latest in a growing spree of Afghan personnel killing their Nato allies. The soldier from 1st Battalion Welsh Guards and one airman from the Royal Air Force were shot dead on Saturday in Lashkar Gah district. One of the policemen was shot dead in an ensuing gunfight and the other fled and has yet to be caught. Fareed Ahmad, a spokesman for the Helmand provincial police, said the policemen opened fire at 3pm at a joint Afghan-coalition compound. He said a third Afghan policemen fired at the attackers, killing one and wounding the other, who escap...
Tuesday, 1 May 2012
Nine killed in Syria suicide blasts
In fresh attacks on symbols of state power, twin suicide bombs exploded near a government security compound in northern Syria and rockets struck the central bank in Damascus, killing nine people and wounding 100. The regime and the opposition traded blame, accusing each other of dooming a United Nations plan to calm violence that has largely failed so far. The head of the UN observer mission acknowledged that his force cannot solve the country's crisis alone and urged both sides to stop fighting. Monday's attacks were the latest in a series of suicide bombings that started in December and have mostly targeted Syrian military and intelligence positions. The regime routinely blames the opposition, which denies having a role or the capability to carry out such attacks. After other similar bombings,...
Tuesday, 24 April 2012
Opiates Killed 8 Americans In Afghanistan, Army Records Show
Eight American soldiers died of overdoses involving heroin, morphine or other opiates during deployments in Afghanistan in 2010 and 2011, according to U.S. Army investigative reports. The overdoses were revealed in documents detailing how the Army investigated a total of 56 soldiers, including the eight who fell victim to overdoses, on suspicion of possessing, using or distributing heroin and other opiates. At the same time, heroin use apparently is on the rise in the Army overall, as military statistics show that the number of soldiers testing positive for heroin has grown from 10 instances in fiscal year 2002 to 116 in fiscal year 2010. Army officials didn't respond to repeated requests for comment on Saturday. But records from the service's Criminal Investigation Command, obtained by...
Saturday, 21 April 2012
Afghan Forces Seize 10 Tons of Explosives
Afghan security forces have detained five insurgents - three Pakistanis and two Afghans - with 10 tons of explosives authorities say the militants intended to use in attacks in the capital, Kabul. A National Directorate of Security spokesman, Shafiqullah Tahiri, said if the explosives had been used, the result would have been "large scale bloodshed." Tahiri said the explosives were brought into Afghanistan from Pakistan. He said they were found in Kabul in 400 bags under piles of potatoes in the back of a truck. Afghan officials have long accused Pakistan of harboring insurgent groups. Pakistan has denied supporting or giving sanctuary to insurgents on its territory. Afghan cities and the diplomatic and government areas of Kabul were hit by a wave of attacks...
Friday, 20 April 2012
Ariell Taylor-Brown, Military Wife, Learned Of Husband's Death Through Facebook
Military wife Ariell Taylor-Brown always knew that her husband, Staff Sgt. Christopher Brown, might be killed in the line of duty. What she never expected was to find out through Facebook. Sgt. Brown, a native of Columbus, Ohio, was killed April 3 in Afghanistan by an insurgent bomb. He had just begun his fourth tour one week before he was killed, according to CBS Denver. When a tragedy like this occurs on the battlefield, military protocol is for the soldier's next of kin to be informed by messengers who come to the house. Taylor-Brown, who has two kids with Sgt. Brown and is 11 weeks pregnant with the couple's third child, didn't find out through those messengers. "It was a girl in his platoon. She wrote to me and told me to call her immediately," Taylor-Brown told NBC4i. Taylor-Brown,...
Tuesday, 17 April 2012
Monday, 16 April 2012
British terror supergrass sentence cut by two years
jailed British terrorist has had his sentence cut by two years in a supergrass deal after giving evidence about an al Qaeda-linked “martyrdom” plot in New York, it was revealed today. Former teacher Saajid Badat was jailed for 13 years in 2005 for plotting with shoe bomber Richard Reid to blow up a transatlantic airliner in 2001 in what an Old Bailey judge said was a “wicked and inhuman” plot. He has now had his term reduced by two years under the first “supergrass” deal involving a terror convict, after providing intelligence to US prosecutors investigating an alleged plot to blow up the New York subway on the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attack. Details of the deal — kept secret for more than two years — were revealed today by the Crown Prosecution Service as a trial of the alleged...
Sunday, 15 April 2012
Western embassies targeted in Afghanistan attacks
Gunmen have launched multiple attacks across the Afghan capital Kabul. Western embassies in the heavily-guarded, central diplomatic area are understood to be among the targets as well as the parliament building in the west. There are reports that up to seven different locations have been hit. The Taliban has admitted responsibility, saying their main targets were the British and German embassies. There is no word at this stage on any casualti...
Taliban free hundreds from Pakistan prison
Hundreds of prisoners are believed to have escaped from a jail in northwest Pakistan after it was attacked by anti-government fighters armed with guns and rocket-propelled grenades. Some of those who escaped from the facility in the town of Bannu, in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, early on Sunday morning were "militants", an intelligence official told the Reuters news agency. "Dozens of militants attacked Bannu's Central Jail in the early hours of the morning, and more 300 prisoners have escaped," Mir Sahib Jan, the official, said. In Depth Profile: Pakistani Taliban "There was intense gunfire, and rocket-propelled grenades were also used." Many of those who escaped following the raid were convicted Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) fighters,...
Thursday, 5 April 2012
Viktor Bout: Judge Sentences Arms Smuggler Victor Bout To 25 Years In Prison
US judge has sentenced Russian "merchant of death" arms smuggler Viktor Bout to 25 years in prison for conspiring to sell weapons to anti-American guerrillas in Colombia. Bout, 45, was accused of selling arms to despots and insurgency groups embroiled in some of the world's bloodiest conflicts and was the inspiration for the arms smuggler played by Nicolas Cage in Lord of War. US District Judge Shira Scheindlin decided to give Bout the minimum required sentence of 25 years on one count and 15 years for each of the three other counts of which he was found guilty, to run concurrently. "Twenty-five years is sufficient," Ms Scheindlin said after Bout made a statement to the court, insisting he was innocent. When a prosecutor said in court that Bout agreed to sell weapons to kill Americans,...
Tuesday, 3 April 2012
Canadian man detained in Spain 'extremely thin and weak,'
Philip Halliday, the Nova Scotia man who has been detained in Spain for more than two years on drug-trafficking charges without a trial date, is extremely weak and thin but in good spirits, his family said Monday, hours after returning home from their first visit to him in jail. "It was pretty emotional. It's hard to describe. Definitely a lot of hugs, some tears," Halliday's son, Daren, told Postmedia News. Philip Halliday, 55, was arrested in December 2009 about 300 kilometres off the coast of Spain aboard a converted Canadian Coast Guard research vessel, the Destiny Empress. Inside a hidden compartment, authorities found more than 1,000 kilograms of cocaine with an estimated street value of $600 million. Halliday, an ex-fisherman who spent more than 30 years dragging scallops off the...
$10 mln bounty on LeT founder Hafiz Saeed
The United States has put up a $10 million reward to help arrest Pakistani Islamist leader Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, suspected of masterminding two spectacular attacks on Mumbai and the parliament building in New Delhi. The offer comes at a time of heightened tension between Washington and Pakistan and increases pressure on Pakistan to take action against the former Arabic scholar, who has recently addressed rallies despite an Interpol warrant against him. India has long called for Saeed's arrest and said the bounty - one of the highest on offer - was a sign the United States understood its security concerns. Only last week Saeed evaded police to address an anti-U.S. rally in Islamabad. "India welcomes this new initiative of the government of the United States," External Affairs Minister...
Sunday, 1 April 2012
Taliban target Afghan security forces
Mullah Dowran, a regional Taliban commander in eastern Afghanistan, has told Al Jazeera that the organisation is now targeting Afghan security forces. "We announced we would forgive them many times. We showed them leniency many times in the fight. We tried to make American targets the priority, but the damage created by Afghan forces has become more and more every day. Now they are our priority," Dowran said. The Taliban are not only targeting police and soldiers, but also seeking out their family members in a campaign to persuade them to defect. Al Jazeera's James Bays reports from Kunar province in eastern Afghanist...
Sunday, 25 March 2012
Whitney Houston full autopsy report to offer more details
Whitney Houston’s full autopsy report may offer more clues about whether the singer suffered a heart attack before her drowning death, officials said Friday. The full report, which is expected to be released in a few weeks, may include test results and physical descriptions of the singer’s heart that will show whether she suffered a heart attack, Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter said. The report is being compiled and Winter said he did not have access to its findings, which might show whether there were any obvious signs such as discoloration of her heart that would suggest Houston had a heart attack before slipping underwater in a bathtub at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Feb. 11. Houston’s death has been ruled an accidental drowning, with heart disease and cocaine use listed as contributing...
Pakistani Taliban training Frenchmen
Pakistani intelligence officials say dozens of French Muslims have been training with the Taliban in northwest Pakistan. The officials said on Saturday they were investigating whether Mohamed Merah, a Frenchman of Algerian descent suspected of killing seven people in southern France, had been part of this group. Merah traveled to Pakistan in 2011 and said he trained with al-Qaida in Waziristan. He was killed in a gunfight with police Thursday in the French city of Toulouse. The officials said 85 Frenchmen have been training with the Pakistani Taliban in the North Waziristan tribal area for the past three years. Most have dual nationality with France and North African countries. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the med...
Friday, 23 March 2012
Taliban victim Captain Rupert Bowers saw son born weeks ago
Captain Rupert Bowers, 24, was days away from leaving the war zone for good — and returning to his family — when a blast struck him. The decorated officer had flown home last month to be at wife Victoria's side for the arrival of son Hugo. He then returned to the frontline to finish his six-month tour — and was killed by the IED explosion during a patrol in Helmand on Wednesday. The death of Captain Bowers, from Wolverhampton, takes the British toll in Afghanistan to 405. Tributes last night poured in for the popular officer — who received a Mention in Despatches for rescuing two comrades while under heavy Taliban fire in 2007. Captain Bowers — of 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment — was also wounded in battle in 2009, but still wanted to return to the frontline. Lieutenant Colonel Colin...
Monday, 19 March 2012
Five suspects killed in Bali anti-terror raids
Indonesian police have shot dead five suspected militants on the island of Bali, officials say. The men, killed in two raids on Sunday, had been targeting several locations in Bali, the chief of Indonesia's anti-terror unit told the BBC. Officers also seized firearms and ammunition on the island, where a bombing in 2002 killed more than 200. They are thought to be linked to Jemaah Islamiah (JI), a regional militant group with al-Qaeda connections. The group was responsible for the 2002 Bali bombings and has carried out attacks across South-East Asia. "This is... a splinter group of Jemaah Islamiah,'' police spokesman Saud Usman Nasution told Reuters news agency. Police said that splinter group carried out bank robberies in Medan, Sumatra in western Indonesia in 2010 and was also...
Wednesday, 14 March 2012
'Car in flames at Camp Bastion' after Leon Panetta plane lands
Leon Panetta arrived to meet with troops, commanders and Afghan government officials just days after a US soldier went on a deadly shooting spree. Around the same time, a vehicle got onto the runway at the base and caught fire, sources said. If the reports prove to be correct, it would be an embarrassing breach of security for British forces. The driver, a local male civilian employed at the base, is being treated at Camp Bastion's hospital for his injuries, a spokeswoman at the base said. One British serviceman suffered minor injures in an earlier incident which may be linked to the same vehicle. The spokeswoman added: "Procedures were put in place to account for the whereabouts of all military and civilian personnel and, to achieve this, movement within Camp Bastion was restricte...
Tuesday, 13 March 2012
Taliban fire at delegates visiting Afghan massacre site
Taliban militants opened fire on an Afghan government delegation visiting one of the two villages in southern Afghanistan where a US soldier is suspected of killing 16 Afghan civilians. The delegation was talking with families of the victims in Balandi village on Tuesday when they heard shooting, said Qayum Karzai, a brother of the Afghan president who was part of the group. He said he did not believe anyone was killed in the attack, but he had heard reports of one person wounded in the foot. "We were giving them our condolences, then we heard two very, very light shots," said Karzai. "Then we assumed that it was the national army that started to fire in the air." He said that the members of the delegation were safe and were heading back to Kandahar city. An Associated Press reporter...
Dutch activist arrested in Morocco
A young Dutch-Moroccan activist was arrested in Morocco on Monday. The Dutch Foreign Ministry has confirmed the detention of Yuba Zalen to Radio Netherlands Worldwide. Mr Zalen is a member of the 20th of February movement, a young protest group inspired by the Arab Spring and calling for greater democracy in Morocco. He was in Morocco to report on the unrest in the northern town of Ait Bouayach, where dozens have been injured in clashes with security forces. Moroccan media are barely reporting on the unrest. Activists say that local internet cafés have also been closed down. The website Amazightimes.com reports that Yuba Zalen is likely to appear in court in the town of Al-Hoceima on Thursday. The Dutch section of the 20th of February movement has called for his immediate relea...
Revolt in the city of Bni Bouayach in the mountainous area of the Northern Rif in Morocco
The city of Bni Bouayach in the mountainous area of the Northern Rif in Morocco has been sealed off since Wednesday, March 8. All the repressive organs of the state, the army, the gendarmerie together with the secret and public police, have joined forces to blockade the small city. The inhabitants live in fear of police terror and the raiding of houses and arrests. Other repressive forces are hunting down activists who fled into the neighbouring mountains to escape arrest. The media black-out is total. This violent intervention is the dictatorship’s response to peaceful demonstrations organised by the young unemployed and the activists of the 20F movement that have been ongoing for many months. The protest is against the generalised lack of jobs and bad social and economic conditions in this...
Moroccan appeal court confirmed a death sentence
A Moroccan appeal court confirmed a death sentence Friday against the mastermind of the April 2011 Marrakesh bombing that killed 17 people, and handed a death sentence to one of the others convicted.The chief judge of the court confirmed the death sentence against Adil Al-Atmani, the mastermind of the bombings, in which 17 people -- Moroccans, French and Swiss nationals -- were killed and dozens more wounded.And it converted the life term handed down to his chief accomplice Hakim Dah to a death sentence.But the death sentences are unlikely to be carried, with capital punishment in the process of being taken off the statutes.The court also increased...
Protests Spread in Morocco's North Rif Mountains
Anti-government protests in Morocco's impoverished northern Rif mountains are spreading after a second village clashed with police resulting in serious injuries and 10 arrests, reported the state news agency. For the past 10 days, there have been demonstrations in the small village of Beni Bouayache following the arrest of a local activist. On Sunday they spread to the nearby town of Imzouren. The state news agency said a number of police were injured when they stopped a protest march at Imzouren headed for Beni Bouayache. The report said some injuries were grievous without further details. Chakib al-Khayari, an activist with the Rif Association for Human Rights, said 20 policemen had been injured in Sunday's clashes, but he didn't have figures for the locals wounded. "We don't know the...
Sunday, 11 March 2012
US soldier has killed 16 Afghan civilians, including nine children,
A US soldier has killed 16 Afghan civilians, including nine children, after entering their homes in Kandahar. Sky sources said the Afghan victims also included women and elderly men. Minister of Border and Tribal Affairs Asadullah Khalid, who is investigating the incident, said the soldier entered three homes, killing 11 people in the first one. The Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) coalition confirmed the incident but did not release the number of killed or injured. Sky defence reporter Mark Stone said: "Details are still sketchy and various death tolls have emerged. "It appears to be an isolated incident and the soldier is believed to have been a staff sergeant." Isaf Deputy Commander Lt Gen Adrian Bradshaw said: "I wish to convey my profound regrets and dismay at...
United States service member walked out of a military base in a rural district of southern Afghanistan on Sunday and opened fire on three nearby houses, killing at least 15 civilians
United States service member walked out of a military base in a rural district of southern Afghanistan on Sunday and opened fire on three nearby houses, killing at least 15 civilians, local villagers and provincial officials said. Related Security Fears Lead Groups to Rethink Work in Afghanistan (March 11, 2012) U.S. and Afghanistan Agree on Prisoner Transfer as Part of Long-Term Agreement (March 10, 2012) Afghan Officer Sought in Killing of 9 Colleagues (March 9, 2012) Connect With Us on Twitter Follow @nytimesworld for international breaking news and headlines. Twitter List: Reporters and Editors Readers’ Comments Share your thoughts. Post a Comment » Read All Comments (1) » The shooting risks further inciting anti-American sentiment in Afghanistan and troubling a relationship that...
Thursday, 8 March 2012
The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the roadside bomb that killed six British soldiers on patrol in Afghanistan
The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the roadside bomb that killed six British soldiers on patrol in Afghanistan, saying they were "very proud of it".Image 1 of 4From top left: Sergeant Nigel Coupe, Corporal Jake Hartley and Private Anthony Frampton. From bottom left: Private Christopher Kershaw, Private Daniel Wade and Private Daniel Wilford Photo: MODSources had already indicated the device that killed the six men – five of whom were under the age of 22 – was not a legacy bomb but one planted "recently".They were named today as Sgt Nigel Coupe, 33, Pte Christopher Kershaw, 19, and Pte Daniel Wade, 20, Cpl Jake Hartley,...
Six dead UK soldiers set to be named
Six British soldiers killed in southern Afghanistan by a Taliban bomb are to be named by the Ministry of Defence later. Five from 3rd Battalion the Yorkshire Regiment and one from 1st Battalion The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment died while on patrol on Tuesday. It is the biggest single loss of UK life in Afghanistan since 2006. Meanwhile, head of the Armed Forces General Sir David Richards has told the Times the UK will "hold its nerve" in Afghanistan. He said the British military strategy would remain unchanged, with service personnel set to continue combat operations in the region until the end of 2014. The deaths took the number of British military deaths in Afghanistan since 2001 to 404. More information has emerged about Wednesday's incident. 'Powerful bomb' Senior army and intelligence...
Friday, 2 March 2012
two more U.S. troops killed over Koran burning
The desert's nighttime chill had taken hold at a small U.S.-Afghan base in the Taliban's heartland: the home village, in fact, of Mullah Mohammed Omar, the movement's founder and supreme commander. For the American troops manning the outpost, though, the danger came not from outside the wire, but from within. Hours before dawn Thursday, Afghan assailants, including a man hired to teach Afghan soldiers to read, shot and killed two U.S. troops and wounded a third, Afghan and American officials said. The soldiers slain at the base in Kandahar province were the fifth and sixth U.S. military personnel to die in a span of eight days at the hands of Afghans they had worked alongside. ALSO Photos: Marines leave Camp Pendleton for Afghanistan Afghan attacks over Koran burning renew debate...
U.N. in Afghanistan says Koran burners should be punished
The United Nations joined Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday in calling on the U.S. military to take disciplinary action against those who burned copies of the Koran at a NATO air base, calling the incident a "grave mistake". Despite an apology from U.S. President Barack Obama, the burning of the Muslim holy book at the Bagram base north of the capital ignited a wave of anti-Western fury across the country. At least 30 people were killed in protests, including two American soldiers who were killed by an Afghan soldier who joined the demonstrations. "After the first step of a profound apology, there must be a second step ... of disciplinary action," Jan Kubis, special representative for the U.N. secretary-general in Afghanistan, told a news conference. "Only after this, after...
Tuesday, 28 February 2012
Paul Conroy claimed to be 'safe' in Lebanon after being smuggled out of Homs
Conroy, a British photographer working for the Sunday Times, and Bouvier, a French correspondent for Le Figaro, were reported to have travelled safely out of Syria overnight and were in Lebanon on Tuesday morning. "We've just had word from Beirut," said Mr Conroy's father, Les, on Tuesday morning. They are understood to have been smuggled out of a besieged enclave of Homs by the Syrian opposition. However, there were conflicting reports over whether they had been successfully evacuated. Miles Amoore, Sunday Times correspondent in Afghanistan, tweeted that they were still in the Baba Amr area of Homs. Both journalists suffered leg injuries last Wednesday during a barrage that killed Marie Colvin of the Sunday Times and Remi Ochlik, a French photograph...
UK photographer Paul Conroy out of Homs
British Sunday Times photographer Paul Conroy has been evacuated from the besieged Syrian city of Homs and is in neighbouring Lebanon. He was smuggled out of the Baba Amr district on Monday with help from the Syrian opposition and Free Syria Army fighters, diplomats told the BBC. The whereabouts of the French Le Figaro journalist Edith Bouvier remain unclear. The two were wounded in an attack on a makeshift media centre last Wednesday. American Sunday Times journalist Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik were killed. The Syrian Red Crescent said earlier that it had reached Baba Amr on Monday, bringing out three Syrians, including a pregnant woman, her husband and an elderly female patient, but that it had been unable to bring out the Western journalists or the bodies...
Thursday, 23 February 2012
France reporter Edith Bouvier asks for Syria evacuation
The French journalist who was wounded in an attack on the Syrian city of Homs on Wednesday has asked to be evacuated from Syria quickly, saying she needs urgent medical attention. Edith Bouvier was injured in the attack that killed journalists Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik in the Baba Amr suburb. In a video posted online by opposition activists, Ms Bouvier says she has a broken femur and urgently needs an operation. She asks to be evacuated to Lebanon. There is growing pressure on Damascus to give access to civilians trapped by the onslaught. 'Very difficult' In the video, Ms Bouvier praises the doctors who have been treating her and says they are doing what they can. Photojournalist William Daniels, who is also French, appears alongside her and says she has not lost her smile....
Wednesday, 22 February 2012
Sunday Times journalist Marie Colvin killed in Homs
Marie Colvin, the respected Sunday Times journalist, was killed today alongside French photojournalist Remi Ochlik in Syria. The veteran correspondents were killed by a rocket as they fled the house they were staying in, which was hit during shelling in Homs, a witness told Reuters. Colvin, the only journalist from a British newspaper in the besieged city, had covered conflict for The Sunday Times for the past two decades. French government spokeswoman Valerie Pecresse confirmed the deaths. At least two other Western journalists, and seven activists were reported to have been injured after in excess of ten rockets hit the house. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said it was investigating reports that a British photographer was also injured in the incident. Yesterday government...
Syrian troops kill 27 in village raids
Syrian troops and militia loyal to President Bashar al-Assad captured and then shot dead 27 young men in northern villages and two foreign journalists were killed in shelling of the besieged city of Homs, activists said on Wednesday. The two Western journalists were killed on Wednesday when shells hit the house they were staying in, activists and witnesses said. They were named as Marie Colvin, an American working for Britain's Sunday Times newspaper, and French photographer Remi Ochlik. A witness told Reuters by phone that shells hit the house where the journalists were staying and a rocket hit them as they were escaping. Violence continued to spread. Several YouTube videos taken by local activists in Idlib, which could not be independently confirmed, showed bodies of young men with...
UN watchdog says nuclear talks with Iran failed
The U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday it had failed to secure an agreement with Iran during two days of talks over disputed atomic activities and that the Islamic Republic had rejected a request to visit a key military site. In the second such trip in less than a month, a senior team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had travelled to Tehran to press Iranian officials to start addressing mounting concerns that the Islamic Republic may be seeking to develop nuclear weapons. The outcome seems likely to add to already soaring tension between Iran and Western powers, which have ratcheted up sanctions on the major oil producer in recent months. "During both the first and second round of discussions, the agency team requested access to the military site at Parchin....
US says it will 'consider other measures' to end bloodshed
The comments, made by officials at both the White House and the State Department, marked a shift in emphasis by Washington, which thus far has stressed its policy of not arming the opposition and has said little about alternatives. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will meet with representatives of some 70 countries in Tunis on Friday for the first "Friends of Syria" meeting to coordinate the international community's next steps to respond the nearly year-long uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. "We still believe that a political solution is what's needed in Syria," White House spokesman Jay Carney said. "We don't want to take actions that would contribute to the further militarisation of Syria, because that could take the country down a dangerous path. But we don't...
Afghan Koran burning at Bagram sparks fresh protests
American demonstrations are under way in the Afghan cities of Kabul and Jalalabad over the burning of copies of the Koran by Nato troops. Shots have been fired in Kabul, where protesters have gathered outside a US military base. On Tuesday, the US commander in Afghanistan, Gen John Allen, apologised after soldiers put copies of the Koran in an incinerator at Bagram airbase. The charred remains of the books were found by local labourers. Protesters in Kabul shouted, "Death to America!" and threw stones at the main US base in the city. Pro-Taliban slogans At least four policemen have been injured, reports the BBC's Andrew North, in Kabul. Witnesses at the protests in Kabul said security guards were firing into the air. There are also reports of people chanting pro-Taliban slogans....
Sunday, 19 February 2012
'IRA' drug-gang linked to double British murder
The "IRA" gang referred to in a British murder trial last week as running the drugs trade in Liverpool is almost certainly a mixture of local gangsters and their Dublin and Limerick-based associates, gardai believe. The mention of the gang came in the murder trial of Thomas Haigh, 26, who was convicted last week of the double murder of two men referred to as gangland "enforcers", David Griffiths, 35, and Brett Flournoy, 31. Both men were shot dead, their bodies burned in a car and then buried on a remote Cornwall farm in June of last year. The court heard that Haigh was a low-level member of a Liverpool drugs gang. He said he had been forced to carry out a drugs run to South America and to oversee the cultivation of cannabis plants at the farm in Cornwall to pay off a €40,000 debt to the...
US marines involved in Afghan drug trade
Another whistleblower emerges from the US military as retired Lt. Colonel Daniel Davis accused US military leaders of painting a distorted picture of Afghanistan. Press TV has interviewed Wayne Madsen, investigative journalist in Washington about the accusations of lies fed to the American public. He discusses startling revelations about the drug lords in Afghanistan and their relationship to President Karzai and the US Special Forces and US marines. What follows is an approximate transcript of the interview. Press TV: why is it that whenever a military official resigns or suddenly comes out of the US armed forces a secret is revealed about what happens behind the scenes. The questions is will we be expecting more of these unraveling stories? Madsen: Well, it’s hard to say. What...
Saturday, 18 February 2012
India wants Italian ship captain to surrender
New Delhi wants the captain of Italian ship Enrica Lexia and two marksmen who shot dead two Indian fishermen to surrender to Kerala Police on Sunday after several rounds of diplomatic confabulations on Saturday culminated in a telephonic conversation between External Affairs Minister S. M. Krishna and his Italian counterpart. Rome wanted the three to be permitted to go in return for a joint investigation into the incident. But in the conversation late in the evening, Mr. Krishna turned down the offer an hour after Kerala Chief Minister Ooomen Chandy sought the Central assistance to persuade the captain and the two security personnel to give themselves up. Mr. Chandy said his government was left with no option but to arrest the Italians after receiving advice on the issue from the State's...
Saturday, 4 February 2012
Canadian woman charged in Gadhafi smuggling plot
The Mount Forest, Ont., woman held in a Mexican jail since November in a suspected plot to smuggle Moammar Ghadafi's son and his family out of Libya has been charged with falsifying documents, organized crime and attempted human smuggling. The charges were laid the same day Cyndy Vanier's family released a letter outlining what she calls deplorable conditions endured in the Mexican jail where she is being detained. Vanier, 52, was picked up in Mexico, where she and her husband have a winter home, last Nov. 10 and held without charges until Tuesday when a judge ordered warrants against two women and two men for a suspected plot to whisk Saadi Gadhafi and his family to Mexico. Those four people were Vanier, a mediator specializing aboriginal dispute and president of Vanier Consulting,...
BTricks
