~ firefly-dreaming a virtual home to learn (or teach!) alternative methods of solving problems we find facing us each day. By sharing ideas & knowledge on living with less stress, more joy & embracing tolerance & compassion we are working towards building a sustainable future for all living beings.
U.S. doubles anti-Taliban special forces Secretive buildup of elite teams reflects view that time is short to degrade Afghanistan opposition By Julian E. Barnes
April 15, 2010 Reporting from Washington
The Pentagon has increased its use of the military's most elite special operations teams in Afghanistan, more than doubling the number of the highly trained teams assigned to hunt down Taliban leaders, according to senior officials.
The secretive buildup reflects the view of the Obama administration and senior military leaders that the U.S. has only a limited amount of time to degrade the capabilities of the Taliban. U.S. forces are in the midst of an overall increase that will add 30,000 troops this year and plan to begin reducing the force in mid-2011.
City in Oregon Considers Beacon for 'the Big One' By WILLIAM YARDLEY
Published: April 14, 2010 CANNON BEACH, Ore. - Well before recent earthquakes shook Haiti, Chile and the California border with Mexico, this corner of the West Coast was trying harder than many places to prepare for the Big One. It has upgraded its warning signs and sirens, refined evacuation routes and reassessed bridges and buildings.
Now, as anxiety has increased, Cannon Beach, a tourist-friendly curve on the rocky Oregon coast, wants to be the first community in the United States to build a seismically sound evacuation tower, a $4 million escape from earthquakes' deadly ocean offspring, tsunamis.
USA
Attorney General Eric Holder stands his ground at Senate hearing By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 15, 2010 Senators challenged Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Wednesday over the Obama administration's long-delayed pledge to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay and its plans to try alleged Sept. 11 co-conspirators. But Holder conceded little and emerged from the session mostly unscathed.Holder has been assailed for months over his handling of terrorism cases. Four weeks ago, he snapped to House Republicans that Osama bin Laden would never appear in a U.S. courtroom and that authorities "will be reading Miranda rights to a corpse." That heightened the expectation that Holder would face a grilling from the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.
For many, being jobless can seem never-ending A record 44% of the nation's unemployed have been out of work at least six months. Many of those 6.5 million people may never completely rebuild their working lives. By Don Lee
April 15, 2010 Reporting from Washington
Despite optimism over recent job gains, one grim statistic casts a long shadow over the recovering economy -- a record 44% of the nation's 15 million unemployed have been out of work for more than six months.
And the evidence suggests that many of them may never completely rebuild the working lives they lost.
Never since the Great Depression has the U.S. labor market seen anything like it.
Europe
Volcanic ash clouds from Iceland ground UK flights By Karl Mansfield and Liam Creedon, Press Association Thursday, 15 April 2010 Airline passengers faced massive disruption today after ash from Iceland's volcanic eruption moved towards UK airspace causing a number of airports to close.
Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow airports were shut and five easyJet flights due to depart from Stansted Airport this morning were cancelled as a result of the huge plume of ash.
Airports have urged travellers to contact their airlines to check whether flights were affected.
Widower forced to relive pain of Sarajevo From Times Online
April 15, 2010 David Charter A key witness in the trial of Radovan Karadzic was subjected to harrowing questioning yesterday from the former Bosnian Serb leader about his wife's violent death in the siege of Sarajevo.
Sulejman Crncalo told Dr Karadzic, who is conducting his own defence, that his wife had gone to a city market to buy milk powder for their children when she was hit by shellfire. She was one of at least 37 victims of the August 1995 attack that triggered Nato's intervention in the conflict.
Middle East
Iran sanctions talks 'constructive' THURSDAY, APRIL 15, 2010 China and Russia have labelled a second round of talks with the three other permanent UN Security Council members and Germany on possible new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme as "very constructive".
Envoys from the five veto-wielding nations - the US, Russia, China, Britain and France - along with Germany, met at the UN headquarters in New York on Wednesday to discuss a fourth sanctions resolution.Ambassadors from the six countries held their first closed meeting on the draft last Thursday.
The US and its allies are pressing for quick adoption of an array of tough sanctions, but Russia and China are still hoping that diplomacy will lead Iran to the negotiating table and have indicated they will only agree to weaker measures if Tehran refuses.
Asia
Report into Benazir Bhutto death published today From Times Online
April 15, 2010 Times Online An independent panel's report into the death of Pakistan's former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto will be released later today.
The report was initially scheduled to be released on March 30, but it was delayed so that input from Afghanistan, the United States and Saudi Arabia could be included
Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said he had asked the UN-appointed, three-member panel to include input from former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Saudi Arabia in its report.
He did not elaborate further on what information he wanted to be included.
Chinese rescuers impeded by earthquake damage By the CNN Wire Staff
April 15, 2010 Unstable bridges and collapsed roadways kept rescuers and their heavy equipment away Thursday from Jiegu, China -- the town nearest the epicenter of a 6.9 magnitude earthquake that killed nearly 600 people and injured thousands more.
Twenty-four hours after the Wednesday quake, most of Jiegu's dead were in the dusty rubble of a hotel that crumbled under the strain of the initial quake and a series of strong aftershocks. Residents painstakingly picked through the debris with shovels and ropes, ever mindful that time is a formidable obstacle to finding survivors.
"We have to mainly rely on our hands to clear away the debris as we have no large excavating machines," police officer Shi Huajie told the state-run news agency Xinhua.
Africa
Lagos: Inside the ultimate mega-city Chaotic, sprawling, dynamic - Lagos inspires and terrifies visitors in equal measure. How do its citizens survive the world's most extreme urban environment? By Daniel Howden Thursday, 15 April 2010 Beneath the swirl of noise, a droning army of generators provides a bass-line for the soundtrack of Lagos. The constant car engines fill out the lower register, while gangs of motorcycles, minibus taxis and trucks add texture to the sound above and below.
The horns from this sea of vehicles stuck in the morning traffic, or "go slow", are the punctuation in this heated urban conversation. A melody is offered by a thousand straining loudspeakers in a medley of Yoruba song, imported hip-hop and political Afrobeat.
DR Congo gang rape crisis 'spreading', new study says More than half of the victims of rape in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo were gang raped by armed men, a report says. By Will Ross
BBC News, Nairobi Thursday, 15 April 2010 For years rape has been used against women in the region but the report reveals the scale of the problem.
More than 4,000 rape victims were interviewed over a four-year period.
The authors of the report, commissioned by Oxfam, say there is also evidence suggesting a dramatic rise in the number of rapes by civilians.
It comes at a time when there is debate over how long the United Nations peacekeeping force should remain in DR Congo.
Latin America
Leaked police film shows Mexico drug war CCTV catches hitmen on mountain town massacre, but authorities criticised for failure to act Jo Tuckman, Mexico City
The Guardian, Thursday 15 April 2010 It is the gateway to one of Mexico's most famous tourist destinations. But the sleepy mountain town of Creel was shown in a very different light this week, when a leaked CCTV film showing a group of heavily armed hitmen gathering on a street corner before a massacre was broadcast on national television.
The footage, apparently filmed by a police surveillance camera, gives a rare - and terrifying - glimpse of the impunity with which the footsoldiers of Mexico's warring drug cartels are able to operate.
