tagged w/ Troops
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KABUL (AP) -- Afghanistan on Friday banned the use of a fertilizer chemical also used to make bombs, giving farmers and other holders a month to turn in their supplies.
President Hamid Karzai's office issued a decree banning the use, production, storage, purchase or sale of ammonium nitrate and giving Afghans 30 days to turn in any supplies to authorities.
The decision was made after an investigation showed that militants had used the chemical in a series of bombings, according to a statement.
NATO-led forces already have been confiscating the chemical compound, urging farmers to use fertilizer containing urea nitrate instead. Ammonium nitrate fertilizer has been used to make about 95 percent of the bombs in Afghanistan, according to the military think tank Globalsecurity.org.
The government also ordered training for police and border customs house workers to detect the chemical.
It warned violators who fail to turn in supplies of ammonium nitrate will face court action.
Afghanistan's government gave U.S. and allied forces permission to confiscate ammonium nitrate in September and troops have been seizing huge quantities of fertilizer in return for compensation for the holder.
A joint force of NATO and Afghan troops found a truck carrying 10 tons of suspect fertilizer in the southern province of Kandahar earlier this month.KABUL (AP) -- Afghanistan on Friday banned the use of a fertilizer chemical also used... more
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The US is sending another 4,000 sailors and marines to Haiti for the earthquake relief effort, diverting them from deployments in the Gulf and Africa.
LINK : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8471460.stmThe US is sending another 4,000 sailors and marines to Haiti for the earthquake relief... more
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A man in this CNN report says "It's something that almost makes you embarrassed to be an American," as he watches doctors struggle to save lives with no help but what ever they can get CNN to lend them. Where's the U.S. military? Passing out care packages for photo ops?
The Israelis have a great field hospital facility set up, but they can't handle the entire country.
"Have the Americans set up a hospital yet....?"
"Not yet."
Any day now. Aaaany day.
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/world/2010/01/18/dnt.cohen.haiti.patients.dying.cnn.htmlA man in this CNN report says "It's something that almost makes you... more
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The officer who is the subject of the article suggests a more decentralized approach to winning the war in Afghanistan. While reading it I was reminded of the allegory in Avatar.The officer who is the subject of the article suggests a more decentralized approach... more
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juicie
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2 years ago
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Controlled chaos turned to confrontation when UN peace keepers were ordered to clear the street filled with Haitian men seeking jobs. Watch "The CBS Evening News" tonight, Monday, Jan. 18th, 6:30 p.m., ET/PT
VIDEO AT LINK:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6112288n&tag=apiControlled chaos turned to confrontation when UN peace keepers were ordered to clear... more
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URGENT NEED for RN Volunteers
Haiti Ravaged by Earthquake
Join your fellow RNs, National Nurses United members,
and the Registered Nurse Response Network
on an emergency mission to help Haiti
The Registered Nurse Response Network (RNRN) is a national network of direct-care RNs that coordinates sending volunteer RNs to disaster stricken areas wherever and whenever they are needed most. RNRN was organized in 2005 when Katrina and Rita — two of the most destructive hurricanes in history — dramatically exposed America's flawed disaster relief system.
Through RNRN, we hope to send experienced RNs to provide emergency medical support to Haitians who are dire need of medical care. "We are calling on nurses throughout the U.S. to join us in this critical effort," said National Nurses United (NNU) Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro.
"All of the hospitals are packed with people. It is a catastrophe."
— President René Préval of Haiti to the New York Times
I received this in a email from a nurse friend. But the real question is, why can the U.S. send 10,000 troops and we can to call for volunteer nurses?URGENT NEED for RN Volunteers
Haiti Ravaged by Earthquake
Join your fellow RNs,... more
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from source:
We had to cut down all the Pot on our base in Afghanistan and burn it! The weed grew wild like well weeds in your yard, we felt like DEA agents for a day.from source:
We had to cut down all the Pot on our base in Afghanistan and burn it!... more
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One minute they were talking about Fergie, the next minute A Company, 2nd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment came under fire from the Taleban.
This video captures the moment gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades rained down on the troops as they patrolled a river bed they had cleared of Improvised explosive devices the day before.One minute they were talking about Fergie, the next minute A Company, 2nd Battalion... more
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WASHINGTON — A U.S. army brigade of 3,500 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division will join more than 2,200 American marines in Haiti by week's end as worries mount over the potential for post-earthquake unrest in a nation long beset by political violence, rampant drug crime and gang warfare.
The deployment ordered by President Barack Obama is the American military's largest to the Caribbean nation since September 1994, when several thousand marines landed in Port-au-Prince to return exiled president Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power.
But even as the Pentagon rushes to meet urgent security and humanitarian needs, leaders from the United States and other Western nations — including Canada — are already grappling with a bigger question. Will the massive international response to the earthquake mark the start of a long-term commitment to prevent Haiti from sliding once again into crime-ridden chaos?
"All of the effort is in saving lives right now and that's as it should be. But even while you have all your attention into saving lives, you've got to be planning for a much larger security apparatus for weeks and months to come," says Kara McDonald, a Haiti expert with the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. "The challenges they are going to face in medium and long-term security issues are going to be enormous, and are going to run the gamut."
The U.S. troops will remain under American command upon arrival in Haiti but are expected to work closely with the existing United Nations peacekeeping force, MINUSTAH, which includes 7,000 soldiers and 2,000 police officers.
"We're not taking over Haiti," said P.J. Crowley, a State Department spokesman. "We are helping to stabilize Haiti, we're helping to provide them life-saving support and material and we're going to be there over the long term to help Haiti rebuild."
The immediate security threats are numerous and complicated — from containing potential disease outbreaks to guarding against outbreaks of looting, violent crime and widespread panic that attend a natural disaster of such huge scale.
The earthquake, however, also threatens to undo the fragile gains the UN force has made in recent years in providing Haiti a modicum of political stability and reducing the strength of street gangs in the most impoverished Port-au-Prince slums.
In recent months, MINUSTAH's training efforts had brought the size of Haiti's police force close to 10,000. Street gangs had yet to recover from a 2007 crackdown led by the UN peacekeepers.
"In Haiti, it's always two steps forward and three back. There's no doubt that the MINUSTAH operation was starting to pay dividends," McDonald told Canwest News Service.
"But the quake really decimates so much of that, especially in terms of beginning to train a police force. The challenge for responders is to see what parts of that effort can be salvaged. The United Nations is going to have to go through a recalibration of its own mission."
That effort will, in itself, be complicated by calamity visited on the UN itself in Tuesday's earthquake. The head of the UN mission, Hedi Annabi, was among several UN staffers killed. Another 200 were missing after the UN headquarters collapsed.
Among the biggest security concerns is the future of the Haitian government, which has been left in tatters and unable to function in the first days following the earthquake. Legislative elections had been scheduled for late February, and Haiti's electoral commission had already banned Aristide's party and a dozen other political groups from participating.
More At Link...
http://www.canada.com/news/Long+term+security+Haiti+daunting+prospect/2442701/story.htmlWASHINGTON — A U.S. army brigade of 3,500 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne... more
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Up to 10,000 US troops would be in quake-hit Haiti or stationed off-shore by Monday, the top military chief said Friday.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen stressed that not all those troops would be on the ground in Haiti as many of them would be on board some six Navy vessels arriving over the coming days.
"It looks like between 9,000 and 10,000 with the arrival of the Marines and the three ships that are associated with that," he told reporters.
Mullen said it was too early to say whether more ground troops would be needed beyond the 82nd Airborne brigade and the 2,000-strong 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit already ordered to Haiti.
"I think we'll have about 1,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines ashore today (Friday)," Mullen told reporters.
"And right now, I mean, literally as we speak, the Vinson (aircraft carrier) and the company from the 82nd Airborne who got there last night are focusing on delivering water from the helicopters offshore to the people of Haiti."Up to 10,000 US troops would be in quake-hit Haiti or stationed off-shore by Monday,... more
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President Barack Obama says he has "no intention" of sending US troops to fight militants in Yemen and Somalia and that Al-Qaeda's activities are still centered along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
"I have every intention of working with our international partners in lawless areas around the globe to make sure that we're keeping the American people safe," Obama said in a People interview to be published Friday. The magazine released a transcript Sunday.
"I never rule out any possibility in a world that is this complex... In countries like Yemen, in countries like Somalia, I think working with international partners is most effective at this point.
"I have no intention of sending US boots on the ground in these regions," he added.President Barack Obama says he has "no intention" of sending US troops to... more
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[I]t's impossible to grow accustomed to the extreme fantasy atmosphere and self-absorbed blindness that pervades American discussions over Terrorism, especially in the wake of a new scare. The Right, seeking as always to exploit Terrorism fears, falsely accuses Obama of not displaying "war" language and a "war" mentality, in response to which he and his aides step forward to affirm -- yet again -- that WE ARE AT WAR!, and to point to all of the times Obama decreed this to be so and all of the war actions he has ordered. So we've spent the last decade screaming to the world that WE ARE AT WAR!, that we're a War Nation, that we're led by a War President. That we are "at war" -- not just in Iraq and Afghanistan, but generally against Islamic extremists -- is an absolute bipartisan orthodoxy that must be affirmed by all Serious people. ... Yet even in the face of all of that, it is bewilderment and confusion that reign when our media stars and political figures talk about attempts to attack Americans. Why would they possibly want to do this? They must be crazy, or drunk with religious fervor, or consumed by blinding, inhumane hatred. Much of that is probably true for individuals willing to blow themselves up in order to slaughter as many innocent civilians as possible. But it's equally irrational to think that you're going to spend a full decade bellowing WE ARE AT WAR! to the world, send bombs and troops and all forms of death to multiple Muslim countries (both directly and through Israel), and not have that directed back at us.[I]t's impossible to grow accustomed to the extreme fantasy atmosphere and... more
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UN peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are using their aircraft to help protect endangered chimpanzees and other wildlife following a volcanic eruption in Virunga National Park.
Nyamulagira, one of two active volcanoes inside the park, started erupting early on 2 January (PDF). The lava has since moved 4 kilometres in three days. Luckily it has gone south, away from major human settlements and Virunga's famous mountain gorillas, which are further east.
But another endangered ape, the 40 eastern chimpanzees that live on Nyamulagira itself, could still be at risk if they are surrounded by lava, and as the plants they rely on for food become coated by abrasive volcanic ash. Park officials hope animals in the lava's path will simply move away from it. "Our rangers say birds and animals in the area are behaving in a disturbed way," boosting hopes that they will move, says park spokesperson Samantha Newport.
The UN multinational force MONUC is stationed in the DRC to protect civilians in a war that has so far claimed the lives of at least 5 million people. On Saturday it offered Congolese authorities monitoring the volcano the use of its Indian planes and helicopters.
But Congolese conservation authorities were unaware of the offer, and on Tuesday staff at Virunga were still trying to arrange a flight over park to assess the damage. After being contacted by New Scientist, staff were able to arrange for Innocent Mburanumwe, the chief warden for the southern sector of the park, to take a MONUC overflight. "We are very happy about that," says Newport. "It has also allowed us to check on deforestation."
New threat
Eastern chimpanzees, a subspecies of the common chimp, are classed as endangered because their numbers are dropping steadily, mainly due to deforestation, although the Ebola virus poses an added threat. In total they may number as few as 76,000, all living in east and central Africa.
Richard Carroll, head of African programmes for the WWF, fears that if the eruption destroys people's livelihoods, they will be more likely to hunt or cut wood for charcoal in Virunga, increasing the threat to wildlife.
"This also shows how dangerous it is to rely on a few fragmented reserves for entire species," he says. The eruption is not currently threatening mountain gorillas, but it could be disastrous if it did: around 200 of the 700-odd mountain gorillas left in the wild live in Virunga.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18340-troops-protect-chimps-from-volcano-lava.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-newsUN peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are using their aircraft... more
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xiola
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added this
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2 years ago
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Last month, President Obama announced that he would send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. Shortly after the decision was made, General David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, warned of increased violence in the Central Asian country as the new troops arrived. Now, retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who teaches international affairs at West Point and who has repeatedly visited Afghanistan to assess the situation there, is estimating that American casualties could go as high as “300 to 500 killed and wounded a month by next summer”:Last month, President Obama announced that he would send an additional 30,000 troops... more
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"Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has temporarily shut down Parliament until March, after the close of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. The move shuts down all parliamentary committees, including a probe into whether Canadian troops turned over Afghan prisoners to Afghan authorities to be tortured. Liberal House leader Ralph Goodale accused Harper of padlocking Parliament and shutting down democracy. Goodale said, “Three times in three years and twice within one year, the Prime Minister takes this extraordinary step to muzzle Parliament. This time it’s a cover-up of what the Conservatives knew, and when they knew it, about torture in Afghanistan."
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/31/headlines
(Scroll down at the link... above is a photo of Stephen Harper with Obama)"Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has temporarily shut down Parliament... more
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Mr Karzai has stated in the past that civilian deaths are a detriment to the U.S. occupation.Mr Karzai has stated in the past that civilian deaths are a detriment to the U.S.... more
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This Christmas I pray for a Revolution...
This Christmas Russian television announced that Obama plans to amass 1 million troops in the U.S. for an expected civil war.
This Christmas the White House announced that the bailouts are far from over and they may continue indefinitely. I happen to know that the banks were never in trouble. I happen to know they plan to take more money and don't plan on a job recovery at all. I recently worked at a J.P. Morgan Chase event and heard it from their mouths. The waiter staff was all foreign and I was the photographer. All was laid out in the open not expecting someone not on the 'inside' to understand what they were talking about.
This Christmas I overheard others complaining that they would receive family visits on more than one day.
This Christmas I heard a preacher that drives a Land Rover and lives in a well above average home tell a story. The story was of a church member that was about to lose his house. This church member was also a close friend of the preacher. The preacher's answer bellowed from his gluttonous belly, 'I'm so sorry, let's pray together.' I'm not sure what lesson we were supposed to learn from this story that I heard from the expensive speakers and watched on the top of the line video screen and cameras that hung from the rafters of the multi-million dollar building we sat in. I didn't get to ponder the story that long, for after telling the story the preacher then asked the staff to prepare the tithe baskets that would soon contain his salary instead of the past due mortgage payments for this church member.
This Christmas I, despite these distractions, remembered that it was Jesus' birthday that we are celebrating and not the lights, gifts, food and gifts aplenty. So, this Christmas I pray for a Revolution. Not one of guns and weapons and words, no, but one of the mind and heart. I pray for a Revolution of Love, Agape Love. Will you pray with me?This Christmas I pray for a Revolution...
This Christmas Russian television... more
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Sometimes the scary truth about America and our government can only be told by foreign sources.Sometimes the scary truth about America and our government can only be told by foreign... more
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In his speech announcing that he will be sending an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, President Obama said that we would “begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011.” Following this announcement, several of Obama’s closest advisors — including Gen. David Petraeus and Defense Secretary Robert Gates — downplayed a timeline for withdrawal and suggested that troops may actually not start exiting the country by the July 2011 deadline. Now, the Christian Science Monitor is reporting that a top commander told the press that the new troops may not be fully deployed until November, which would considerably delay our exit from the country:
"The full complement of American forces deploying to Afghanistan under President Obama’s new strategy will not arrive until November, a top commander here said. The new, more gradual timeline means it will take longer for Mr. Obama’s surge of forces to arrive, thus potentially blunting their impact in the surge’s initial phases and leading to a slower drawdown of forces after July 2011. [...]
Originally, the Obama administration had hoped to accelerate the deployment of the 30,000 additional forces in its get-in-and-get-out approach. The idea was to deploy new forces quickly and then begin a gradual withdrawal in July 2011. Senior administration officials said Dec. 1, the day Obama announced his new strategy, that it would take six months for all 30,000 troops to arrive."
But in subsequent testimony on Capitol Hill, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the bulk of the forces would deploy in the summer and “finish out by fall.” But the commander for day-to-day operations here said Monday it will probably take a bit longer. “It will happen between nine and 11 months by the time you get it all done,” Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez, commander of the International Security Assistance Force’s (ISAF) Joint Command, told reporters in Kabul Monday.
“The more we hear about the timeline, the more doubts I have that it is a meaningful timeline, in terms of transiting the military force out of the country,’’ Rep. Niki Tsongas (D-MA) told the press following a congressional hearing on the war last week.In his speech announcing that he will be sending an additional 30,000 troops to... more
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KABUL (Reuters) - The top U.S. military officer warned on Monday the first U.S. troops headed to Afghanistan as part of President Barack Obama's surge can expect more fighting and casualties, hours after 15 Afghan police were killed.KABUL (Reuters) - The top U.S. military officer warned on Monday the first U.S. troops... more
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rickm8
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added this
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2 years ago
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