Six In The Morning

Training suspended for new Afghan recruits

　

 By Greg Jaffe and Kevin Sieff, Sunday, September 2

KABUL – The senior commander for Special Operations forces in Afghanistan has suspended training for all new Afghan recruits until the more than 27,000 Afghan troops working with his command can be re-vetted for ties to the insurgency.

The move comes as NATO officials struggle to stem the tide of attacks on NATO forces by their Afghan colleagues. The attacks, which have killed 45 troops this year, have forced NATO officials to acknowledge a painful truth: Many of the incidents might have been prevented if existing security measures had been applied correctly.

But numerous military guidelines were not followed – by Afghans or Americans – because of concerns that they might slow the growth of the Afghan army and police, according to NATO officials.

Special Operations officials said that the current process for vetting recruits is effective but that a lack of follow-up has allowed Afghan troops who fell under the sway of the insurgency or grew disillusioned with the Afghan government to remain in the force.

Brahimi says change ‘unavoidable’ in Syria

New UN envoy for Syria says change is “necessary, indispensable, unavoidable” but hints he won’t call for Assad to quit.

Last Modified: 02 Sep 2012 05:35

Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN-Arab League Special Representative for Syria, has said that change in Syria has to be part of the solution.

The new envoy for Syria, who succeeds Kofi Annan, told Al Jazeera on Saturday that “change [in Syria] is necessary, indispensable, unavoidable”.

However, the man who has taken on the task of finding a solution to the Syrian crisis – has backed away from calling for President Bashar al-Assad to leave office.

He said his position is to engage all the parties and indicated that he would seek a negotiated outcome.

“It is too early to speak about who should go and who should stay. This is not a step backwards. Mr Assad is there and is the president of the present government,” he told Al Jazeera. “Kofi talked to him, and I will talk to him.”

Curiosity starts quarter-mile journey that could reveal secrets of Mars

The Martian rover is already sending back dramatic images that are changing our view of the Red Planet. Now it is inching forward on its most crucial and perilous mission

Robin McKie

The Observer, Sunday 2 September 2012

As extraterrestrial journeys go, it is not the most imposing challenge that science has faced. Yet the quarter-mile journey on which the Martian rover Curiosity embarked last week is being watched with breathless attention by planetary experts.

The $2.5bn vehicle, the most sophisticated machine to visit another world, was sent to the Red Planet to provide data that could show Mars is, or was, capable of supporting life. This task will require the use of a battery of instruments – lasers to zap rocks, neutron beams to analyse soil and drills to break up samples – which will be put through their paces on this, the Nasa craft’s first test drive.

Honest Italian pays heavy price for defying mafia

Threats force activist into hiding, but she won’t be silenced

John Hooper in Rome

IT WAS the severed rabbit’s head that did it.

Rosy Canale, an anti-mafia activist, had had threats before. But when the bloodied head arrived at her parents’ house in a neat little package on her 40th birthday, she fled.

Behind her, she left the ruins of a project that posed a subtle challenge to Italy’s most ruthless organised crime syndicate: the ‘Ndrangheta, the mafia that began life in Calabria, the ”toe” of the Italian boot.

Ms Canale knows all about its brutality. She used to own a restaurant and disco in the region’s biggest city, Reggio Calabria, and the ‘Ndrangheta wanted to push drugs there. ”I was to turn a blind eye,” she said, speaking by phone from an undisclosed location in the US.

Angola stays loyal to Dos Santos

 Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos and his MPLA party headed on Saturday for an overwhelming win in a poll criticised as not credible

– SHRIKESH LAXMIDAS, PASCAL FLETCHER

The National Elections Commission announced provisional results from Friday’s voting showing the governing party with 74.46% of the vote – well ahead of its nearest rivals with votes counted from nearly 60% of polling stations.

Under a new constitution introduced in 2010, an MPLA win means Dos Santos, who turned 70 this week, is elected for a further five-year term on top of the nearly 33 years he has already served as leader of Africa’s number two oil producer.

Silver-haired Dos Santos is Africa’s second longest serving leader after Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.

Immigration conundrum: Deport moms of minor U.S. citizens?

Immigration activists say parents of young American citizens or youths who have temporary permits should be exempt from deportation.

   By Brian Bennett

In the year since her husband was deported to Mexico for working in America without legal status, Leonor Ferreyra has struggled as a single mother.

At 3 a.m., she rises to feed her infant son, who suffers ear infections. At 6 a.m., she reports to work in a window factory. At night, she often fills out paperwork to try to stall her own expulsion to Mexico, which a judge ordered last year and then agreed to delay.

Ferreyra came to America illegally 18 years ago with an uncle after her mother disappeared and her father died. She pays her mortgage, has never been charged with a crime, and is desperate to remain with her three young children, all of whom were born in America and thus are entitled to stay.