Steeper Afghanistan pullout is raised as option

Some officials say move is justified by rising cost of war, death of bin Laden

By David E. Sanger, Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker

President Obama’s national security team is contemplating troop reductions in Afghanistan that would be steeper than those discussed even a few weeks ago, with some officials arguing that such a change is justified by the rising cost of the war and the death of Osama bin Laden, which they called new “strategic considerations.”

These new considerations, along with a desire to find new ways to press the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, to get more of his forces to take the lead, are combining to create a counterweight to an approach favored by the departing secretary of defense, Robert M. Gates, and top military commanders in the field. They want gradual cuts that would keep American forces at a much higher combat strength well into next year, senior administration officials said.

Forests fight back all over the world

Woodland density is going up after decades of decline, but concerns about deforestation remain. Andrew Marszal reports on the Great Reversal

Sunday, 5 June 2011

Forest density is increasing across much of the world after decades of decline, according to a new study by scientists from the United States and Europe. The change, which is being dubbed the Great Reversal by the authors, has important, has positive implications for carbon capture and climate change.

The research, carried out by teams from the University of Helsinki and New York’s Rockefeller University, shows that forests are thickening in 45 of 68 countries, which together account for 72 per cent of global forests.

HIGH-TECH JAPAN

The justice ministry is considering a plan to keep tabs on furloughed prisoners using “GPS-equipped cellphones and […] small devices attached to the wrist or ankle.”

Good times for keitai companies: NTT Docomo, KDDI and SoftBank all logged increases in their net profits and operating profits in fiscal 2010.

Meanwhile, NTT Docomo announced a tie-up with Twitter that will allow tweets to show up in iMode search results.

Japan and 20 other nations have adopted the Nagoya Protocol, which is “is aimed at setting rules for the use of genetic resources.”

Japan expressed its displeasure to Russia over a visit by Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov to the disputed northern islands last month.

Satoshi Furukawa, a 47-year-old former surgeon from Tokyo, will begin a five-and-a-half-month stint on the International Space Station this week.

NATO helicopters join Libya attacks

First use targets military installations, radar site, armed checkpoint near Brega

msnbc.com staff and news service reports

 British and French attack helicopters under NATO command struck Libyan military targets for the first time Saturday, increasing pressure on leader Moammar Gadhafi, commanders said. British Apache helicopters destroyed two military installations, a radar site and an armed checkpoint near the coastal city of Brega, the captain of HMS Ocean told the BBC. The choppers were deployed from the ship.

French Gazelle helicopters also took part in simultaneous attacks on different targets, the BBC reported.

“This successful engagement demonstrates the unique capabilities brought to bear by attack helicopters,” Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard, commander of Operation Unified Protector, said in a NATO statement. “We will continue to use these assets whenever and wherever needed, using the same precision as we do in all of our missions.”

Chaos in Yemen Drives Economy to Edge of Ruin



By ROBERT F. WORTH and LAURA KASINOF  

 Even as Yemen’s political crisis deepens, the country is on the brink of an economic collapse so dire it could take years to recover, and hobble efforts to rebuild its fragmented society.

After four months of mass protests and political deadlock, Yemen – already the poorest Arab country, a place where many people have become accustomed to mere subsistence – has had its domestic oil supplies and electricity network largely cut off by hostile tribes. Gas lines now extend for miles in the capital, Sana, provoking fights and new protests; electricity is available for only a few hours a day.

Blast rocks hotel in Libya’s Benghazi

A car bomb has exploded near a hotel used by foreign diplomats in Libya’s rebel-held city of Benghazi.

Last Modified: 02 Jun 2011  

A huge car bomb has rocked a major hotel in Benghazi, the Libyan rebels’ city in the east of the country, but caused no casualties, witnesses and police say.

Two cars were destroyed in the explosion, which occurred in the parking lot of the Tibesti hotel, used by rebel leaders, journalists and senior officials of the National Transitional Council (NTC), the main rebel administration in eastern Libya.

Hotel staff said there were no immediate reports of injuries and the cause of Wednesday’s blast was not clear.

A police officer said a bomb was detonated in one car and the blast damaged a second car parked next to it.

Karzai: NATO risks being seen as ‘occupying force’

Afghan president says he will no longer allow airstrikes on homes

msnbc.com news services

KABUL, Afghanistan – Afghan President Hamid Karzai angrily warned NATO forces fighting in his country that they risk becoming seen as an “occupying force” if they do not stop attacking Afghan homes with air strikes as they hunt insurgents.

Karzai said he would no longer allow NATO airstrikes on houses because they have caused too many civilian casualties.

A recent strike that mistakenly killed a group of children and women would be the last, he added.

Yemeni forces storm protest camp, killing 20

A medical volunteer says troops fired indiscriminately into a crowd.

By Iona Craig

Special to The Times

May 30, 2011, 1:08 a.m.

Reporting from Sana, Yemen- Yemeni security forces stormed a protest camp in a southern city early Monday morning, shooting indiscriminately, setting fire to the camp and killing at least 20 people, a medical volunteer said.

The city of Taiz has seen large anti-government protests calling for President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s ouster since early February.

Sadek Shugaa, a volunteer medic at the field hospital at the protest camp in Taiz, said he watched as snipers took up positions around the camp while other Yemeni forces used water cannons to clear the area early Monday.

The unstoppable march of the tobacco giants

How the industry ruthlessly exploits the developing world – its young, poor and uneducated

By Emily Dugan Sunday, 29 May 2011

More than half a century after scientists uncovered the link between smoking and cancer – triggering a war between health campaigners and the cigarette industry – big tobacco is thriving.

Despite the known catastrophic effects on health of smoking, profits from tobacco continue to soar and sales of cigarettes have increased: they have risen from 5,000 billion sticks a year in the 1990s to 5,900 billion a year in 2009. They now kill more people annually than alcohol, Aids, car accidents, illegal drugs, murders and suicides combined.

LAKE OF SORROWS

A University of Tokyo graduate student noted that a severely quake-damaged area in Fukushima is thought to have been the same location where the very large Lake Koriyama existed 100,000 years ago. A mere coincidence? We think not.

Kids evacuated from tsunami-hit areas and evacuees staying at the Grand Prince Hotel Akasaka took part in a tug-of-war with jet airplanes at Haneda Airport, part of the “Smile! Be Happy!” campaign.

Here we go again … TEPCO said it found “an abnormality” in a valve at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Niigata, used to pump cool water to reactors in the event of an emergency.

Meanwhile, TEPCO President Masataka Shimizu was on his knees during a trip to Fukushima, apologizing to people forced to evacuate by the nuclear crisis. Not satisfied with his apology, one guy had yelled, “Kneel on the ground!” Shimizu and his lackeys did just that.

Scientists are looking at using rape plants to extract harmful radiation out of the soil in Fukushima-something they have been trying out in areas near Chernobyl.

Speaking of which, levels of radiation found in soil near Fukushima’s plant “far exceeded the level of radiation the then-Soviet Union had used as a criterion for urging people to evacuate at the time of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster,” according to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy.

US researchers say that debris from the March 11 tsunami will hit the West Coast of North America in three years and twice be deposited in Hawaii, “leading to potential environmental and economic damage” by affecting fishing and shipping.

The International Pacific Research Center of the University of Hawaii at Manoa said debris from Japan, including parts of buildings and cars, will reach Hawaiian waters in 2012 and in 2014 the floating garbage will land in “California and Alaska in the United States, British Columbia in Canada and Baja California in Mexico.”

A government study revealed that fires and the March 11 tsunami destroyed over 1,600 hectares of forest in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures.