Six In The Morning

Allies Target Qaddafi’s Ground Forces as Libyan Rebels Regroup



By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and ELISABETH BUMILLER

Published: March 20, 2011

TRIPOLI, Libya – American and European militaries intensified their barrage of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s forces by air and sea on Sunday, as the mission moved beyond taking away his ability to use Libyan airspace, to obliterating his hold on the ground as well, allied officials said.

Rebel forces, battered and routed by loyalist fighters just the day before, began to regroup in the east as allied warplanes destroyed dozens of government armored vehicles near the rebel capital, Benghazi, leaving a field of burned wreckage along the coastal road to the city. By nightfall, the rebels had pressed almost 40 miles back west toward the strategic crossroads city of Ajdabiya, witnesses and rebel forces said. And they seemed to consolidate control of Benghazi despite heavy fighting there against loyalist forces on Saturday.

Japan death toll likely to top 18,000

Progress reported in controlling crisis at stricken nuclear plant as authorities battle fallout of quake and tsunami.

Last Modified: 21 Mar 2011 05:16

Police officials say that the death toll from Japan’s massive March 11 earthquake and tsunami is likely to exceed 18,000.

Hitoshi Sugawara, a police spokesman, said on Monday that Miyagi, one of the of the hardest-hit prefectures, might account for 15,000 deaths alone, .

“It is very distressing as we recover more bodies day by days,” Sugawara said.

The National Police Agency said the overall number of bodies collected so far stood at 8,649 and some 13,262 people have been listed as missing.

The financial cost of the disaster was estimated to be some $235bn, the World Bank said in report on Monday, adding that Japan may need five years to rebuild.

US Army ‘kill team’ in Afghanistan posed with photos of murdered civilians

Commanders brace for backlash of anti-US sentiment that could be more damaging than after the Abu Ghraib scandal

Jon Boone

The Guardian, Monday 21 March 2011

Commanders in Afghanistan are bracing themselves for possible riots and public fury triggered by the publication of “trophy” photographs of US soldiers posing with the dead bodies of defenceless Afghan civilians they killed.

Senior officials at Nato’s International Security Assistance Force in Kabul have compared the pictures published by the German news weekly Der Spiegel to the images of US soldiers abusing prisoners in Abu Ghraib in Iraq which sparked waves of anti-US protests around the world.

Robert Fisk: Remember the civilian victims of past ‘Allied’ bombing campaigns  

People such as Raafat al-Ghosain are often tragically forgotten in the fog of air attacks.

Monday, 21 March 2011

How life past catches up with life present. The Americans killed Raafat al-Ghosain, puctured above, just after 2am on 15 April 1986. In the days that followed her death, United States officials claimed that Libyan anti-aircraft fire might have hit her home – watch out for similar American claims in the coming hours – not far from the French embassy in suburban Tripoli.

But three weeks later, the Pentagon admitted that three bombs dropped from an F-111 aircraft as part of the US attack on Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, in reprisal for an attack by Libyan agents on a Berlin nightclub, had “impacted in the vicinity of the French embassy” and had caused – to use the usual callous euphemism – “collateral damage”.

Brazil’s ‘City of God’ embraces Obama

Symbolizing his desire to connect with everyday Brazilians and support this nation’s efforts to tackle crime and drug trafficking, President Obama spent an afternoon in Brazil’s notorious City of God shantytown.

By Taylor Barnes, Correspondent / March 20, 2011

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

On a dirty rooftop littered with soda bottles, Anderlucia Nogueira began to complain, loudly, about Barack Obama, despite the fact that a handful of snipers were staked out on the roof next door to guard the US president.

Under a cloud of secrecy, Mr. Obama was visiting her favela (shantytown), the once crime-ridden City of God made famous in a 2002 film of the same name. His two-day visit to Brazil, part of his first presidential trip to South America that will also include stops in Chile and El Salvador, began Saturday in Brasília when he met his counterpart before flying on to Rio de Janeiro with his wife and daughters.

Symbolizing his desire to connect with everyday Brazilians and support this nation’s efforts to tackle crime and drug trafficking, he visited the City of God with a Unit of Pacifying Police (UPP), a two-year-old security program that places high concentrations of police in select favela communities to root out armed drug traffickers.