Tag: Evening Edition

Military leaders say the spike in deaths reflects the deployment of additional troops into the Afghan theatre, which leads to a higher number of battlefield engagements with Taliban-led insurgents.

A total of 324 US soldiers have been killed in the Afghan war 2010, compared with 317 for all of 2009, according to AFP figures based on the independent icasualties.org website.

U.S. troop levels were cut to 50,000 before the partly symbolic deadline of August 31 set by President Barack Obama as he seeks to fulfill his pledge to end the war launched by his predecessor George W. Bush.

The six remaining U.S. brigades will turn their focus to training Iraqi police and troops as Iraq takes charge of its own destiny ahead of a full U.S. withdrawal by the end of next year.

The Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was caught in an international storm after it admitted its landmark 2007 report exaggerated the speed at which Himalayas glaciers were melting.

The review panel said the IPCC has been “successful overall” but called for leadership changes, stricter guidelines on source material and a check on conflicts of interest.

Torrential monsoon rains have triggered massive floods that have moved steadily from north to south over the past month, engulfing a fifth of the volatile country and affecting 17 million of its 167 million people.

Southern Sindh is the worst-affected province, with 19 of its 23 districts ravaged as flood waters swell the raging Indus river to 40 times its usual volume.

For nearly a month torrential monsoon rains have triggered massive floods, moving steadily from north to south in Pakistan, affecting a fifth of the volatile country and 17 million of its 167 million people.

Southern Sindh is the worst-affected province. Out of its 23 districts, 19 have so far been ravaged by floods, a statement by the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Friday.

For the first year after Erika Clark fled the fetid flood waters that destroyed much of the city, including her two-story town house, all she could think about was how to get back to The Big Easy with her two children.

The 29-year-old single mother longed for her friends, for the familiarity of her native town, and so she planned and plotted to get back.

Torrential monsoon rains triggered massive floods affecting a fifth of the volatile country — an area roughly the size of England — where a US official warned that foreign aid workers are at risk from Taliban attacks.

Villagers in the south fled from where the Indus delta merges with the Arabian Sea, trailing north in vans laden with furniture or crowded into buses, or in carts pulled by oxen. Some people were on foot, leading their livestock.

The trail of bloodshed started in the capital Baghdad before stretching to the north and south of the country, hitting 10 cities and towns in quick succession in tactics that bore the hallmark of the jihadist network.

Some 250 people were also wounded, security officials said, as a total of 14 car bombs wrought havoc for police and soldiers whose ability to protect the country is under close scrutiny as US forces have drawn down.

The White House described as “tough” the latest data tracking the housing sector, which was at the epicenter of the financial crisis, and vowed to do everything possible to keep the recovery on track.

Sales of single-family homes, townhomes and condominiums dropped to a seasonally-adjusted 3.83 million units from a revised 5.26 million units in June, said the National Association of Realtors (NAR).