Attackers in uniform add to anxiety in Afghanistan  

Foreign troops say they’re increasingly concerned about the ‘enemy within,’ as deadly assaults by men who appear to be police or soldiers become more frequent. But those Western personnel also stress the importance of keeping anxiety in check in a climate of deepening mutual distrust.

By Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times

June 26, 2011

Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan– In late May, a NATO soldier was killed as he emerged from his tent. Two weeks earlier, two NATO soldiers were killed while eating a meal. In late April, eight U.S. troops were shot dead at a meeting at Kabul airport.

The attacks had one thing in common: The killers all wore Afghan military or police uniforms.

Foreign troops serving in Afghanistan say they’re increasingly concerned about the “enemy within.” Yet they emphasize the importance of keeping anxiety in check amid a climate of deepening mutual distrust.

“You can’t go out scared every day,” said Sasha Navarro, an Air Force staff sergeant based at Camp Mike Spann in the northern province of Balkh. “You have to be confident in your training, and keep your head on a swivel.”

SAY WHAT?

Dr. Satoshi Kanazawa from the London School of Economics’ management department took a lot of heat-as one might expect-for claiming in an article he wrote for Psychology Today that black women were “far less attractive” than women of other races. Guess he won’t be getting much action in Africa.

A disgruntled job-seeker in Nagoya was arrested after he hit the emergency button at a railway crossing. “My search for a job wasn’t going well, and I was irritated,” police quoted the 24-year-old as saying.

Former Yomiuri Giants pitcher Masumi Kuwata finished dead last in a low-level pro golf tournament he entered. His scorecard included a 93 and an 87. Ouch!

Despite ending up 36 over par for the tourney, Kuwata did not three-putt any holes. Go figure.

Another chucker, ex-MLB pitcher Chan-ho Park, was sent to the minor leagues by the Orix Buffaloes and was told to “stop fooling around” and get serious. The 37-year-old South Korean is in his first-and likely last-season here.

With the resignation of Prime Minister Naoto Kan on the horizon the political idiots who run this country are maneuvering to further their political power while Northeast Japan is mired in a recovery so slow that only time-lapsed photography might notice any movement. People left homeless are forced to endure a lottery system to be placed in temporary housing. TEPCO continues to misinform and lie about the health risks posed by the disaster at the Daiichi-Fukushima power plant but what the real condition of the four damaged plants remains a mystery even though they keep insisting there will be completely transparent  

Taking a page from America’s Republican party the Liberal Democratic Party has decided to hold hostage the implementation of a third supplementary budget or an extension of the current Diet session needed to  pass funding for earthquake recovery.  

So, as these fools argue over when Kan will resign and who will fill the power vacuum people in the stricken area continue to suffer from a lack of recovery effort and a complete lack of leadership from any quarter.

Inside the secret world of the geeks with the power to unleash anarchy  

Jerome Taylor tracked down one of Britain’s most feared hackers to find out what motivates this new criminal underworld

Saturday, 25 June 2011

They move within a shadowy underworld using skills most of us could never acquire.

Some see themselves as crime fighters, battling injustice, corruption and oppression. Others are pranksters – the kind of people who set light to bridges just to watch them burn. Plenty more do it simply to steal and get rich.

Hacking is as old as computers, but the current wave of high-profile assaults across the globe has led to unprecedented interest in who hackers are and why they do what they do.

The Independent tracked down one prolific British hacker who is engaged in a personal cyber war against LulzSec, the collective behind a string of attacks on websites as diverse as the CIA’s homepage, the Serious Organised Crime Agency, Fox TV and – most recently – the Arizona Police Department.

Libya rebels ‘in secret talks’ with Tripoli underground



By Bridget Kendall BBC News, Benghazi

A member of the rebels’ National Transitional Council (NTC) in Benghazi revealed they were holding secret talks to prepare for the regime’s fall.

The member said the talks were being held via Skype and satellite phones.

The rebels want to gauge the impact of pressure from Nato air strikes and shortages on morale in Tripoli.

Secondly, they want to involve the Tripoli underground opposition in their general strategy for ousting Col Gaddafi, so that if anyone is emboldened to take to the streets again in the capital it is woven into a bigger plan.

Afghanistan: France follows US in troop withdrawal

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has announced the phased withdrawal of its 4,000 soldiers serving in Afghanistan.

The BBC   23 June 2011

A statement said the French would follow the timetable of US withdrawals announced by President Barack Obama.

Mr Obama said 10,000 US troops would pull out this year, with another 23,000 leaving by the end of September 2012.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai welcomed the move, but the Taliban dismissed it as “symbolic” and vowed to continue fighting until all foreign forces left.

Continue reading the main story

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Start Quote

Our mission will change from combat to support”

President Obama

As it happened: Speech reaction

At least 68,000 US troops will remain in the country after the 33,000 have been withdrawn, but they are scheduled to leave by 2013, provided that Afghan forces are ready to take over security.

Oceans on brink of catastrophe

Marine life facing mass extinction ‘within one human generation’ / State of seas ‘much worse than we thought’, says global panel of scientists

By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor  Tuesday, 21 June 2011

The world’s oceans are faced with an unprecedented loss of species comparable to the great mass extinctions of prehistory, a major report suggests today. The seas are degenerating far faster than anyone has predicted, the report says, because of the cumulative impact of a number of severe individual stresses, ranging from climate warming and sea-water acidification, to widespread chemical pollution and gross overfishing.

The coming together of these factors is now threatening the marine environment with a catastrophe “unprecedented in human history”, according to the report, from a panel of leading marine scientists brought together in Oxford earlier this year by the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Al-Qaida turns to kidnappings as donations drop

‘That kind of money could go a long way to sustaining a terrorist organization,’ says expert

By STEPHEN BRAUN

Pressured by increased scrutiny of terrorist money sources and strikes aimed at its financiers, al-Qaida’s core organization in Pakistan has turned to kidnapping for ransom to offset dwindling cash reserves, according to U.S. officials, some of whom cited information in files retrieved from Osama bin Laden’s compound.

Bin Laden’s interest in kidnapping as a cash-raiser bolsters accounts that the financial squeeze has staggered al-Qaida, forcing it to search for alternative funding sources. Officials would not detail al-Qaida’s role in specific crimes, but the group’s affiliates have targeted diplomats, tourists and merchants.

NATO put on defensive over Libya attacks

‘This is another night of murder, terror and horror in Tripoli caused by NATO,’ Gadhafi aide says; NATO denies targeting civilians

msnbc.com news services  

TRIPOLI, Libya – The Libyan government accused NATO of bombing a residential neighborhood in the capital and killing civilians early Sunday, adding to charges that the alliance is striking nonmilitary targets.

Journalists based in the Libyan capital were rushed by government officials to a neighborhood where rescue efforts were under way at a destroyed building, which appeared to have been partially under construction.

HITTING THE ROOF

The TMG discovered that opium poppies were being sold at home improvement centers in Tokyo and 18 other prefectures.

A tanker truck spilled 18 metric tons of milk after overturning in a single-vehicle accident in Shiga Prefecture late last month. The 32-year-old driver suffered minor injuries, mostly to his ego.

The education ministry announced that the number of Japanese studying abroad has declined every year since 2004.

A collection of drawings of coal miners by artist Sakubei Yamamoto (1892-1984) are the first Japanese works that UNESCO will list as a “Memory of the World.”

Two Japanese climbers were killed-likely by an avalanche-after summiting Mt. McKinley in Alaska.

Panasonic and eight other companies have banded together to build a “sustainable smart town” in Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture. The village will feature, among other energy-saving devices, “a system for sharing electric vehicles.”