Six In The Morning

In vast jungle, US troops aid in search for Kony

　Elite Special Operations troops join in the hunt for the fugitive rebel leader

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
OBO, Central African Republic — It has got to be one of the oddest matchups in United States military history. One hundred of America’s elite Special Operations troops, aided by night vision scopes and satellite imagery, are helping African forces find a wig-wearing, gibberish-speaking fugitive rebel commander named Joseph Kony who has been hiding out in the jungle for years with a band of child soldiers and a harem of dozens of child brides. No one knows exactly where Mr. Kony is, but here in Obo, at a remote forward operating post in the Central African Republic, Green Berets pore over maps and interview villagers, hopeful for a clue.

Social unrest on the rise in Europe, says ILO report
Welfare cuts and unemployment fuelling protests and anxiety across the continent

Phillip Inman, economics correspondent The Guardian, Monday 30 April 2012
Social unrest is expected to grow in Europe as governments impose steep welfare cuts and fail to implement policies to reduce unemployment, according to a report by the International Labour Organisation. As German engineers embarked on a wave of strikes in pursuit of a 6.5% pay increase and Spanish workers took to the streets of 50 towns to protest at welfare cuts and a jump in unemployment, the ILO said the situation in the 27 EU countries was becoming more unstable.

Taliban link to brutal murder of aid worker


Andrew Buncombe Author Biography , Monday 30 April 2012
The mutilated body of a British aid worker who was kidnapped earlier this year in Pakistan has been found in the south-western city of Quetta. A note reportedly pinned to the corpse by the Pakistani Taliban said he was killed because no ransom had been paid. A spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) confirmed that police had recovered the body of Khalil Rasjed Dale, 60, who was managing a healthcare programme in the city. Mr Dale, who received an MBE for his humanitarian service, had previously worked in Afghanistan, Somalia and Iraq.

Sudan: South softens, as Khartoum declares emergency


YARA BAYOUMY
South Sudan has told the United Nations it will pull all police out of a disputed region bordering Sudan and is committed to halting all fighting with its northern neighbour, but Khartoum declared a state of emergency in some border areas. The conflicting developments on Sunday raised questions whether United Nations appeals for an end to more than three weeks of border clashes between Sudan and South Sudan would bear fruit and avert full-blown war in an oil-producing region.

Early Israeli elections? What it would mean for US, Iran
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signaled on Sunday for the first time that he is liable to move up Israel’s elections from next year to this year.

By Joshua Mitnick, Correspondent
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signaled on Sunday for the first time that he is liable to move up Israel’s elections from next year to this year to take advantage of his lead in opinion polls over the country’s fractured opposition. Though Mr. Netanyahu’s record of sounding the alarm about a nuclear Iran is likely to figure prominently in his campaign because it plays to his strength as a security hawk, early elections would make it less likely that the prime minister would order a preemptive attack on Iran because it risks igniting regional war that could endanger his popularity, analysts said.

India reforms under threat from powerful regions
Is India's economic growth being undermined by politics?

By Sanjoy Majumder BBC News, Delhi
A number of key economic and social reforms are being opposed by powerful regional politicians who are growing in stature and influence. Their stand often comes at the cost of the Congress-led federal government, which lacks a majority in parliament and depends on local heavyweights for support. Mamata Banerjee - one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people this year - is one such regional player. It has been almost a year since she won West Bengal's landmark elections, defeating the incumbent communists after 30 years.