Another day, another disaster: So what now for Afghanistan?
Kim Sengupta reports on a chaotic 24 hours that saw the Allies in disarray, the exit strategy seemingly in tatters and a dozen killed by a suicide bomb
The decision announced yesterday to cut back on joint operations undertaken by international and Afghan forces raises crucial questions about the key plank of the exit strategy from the 11-year war which has proved costly in lives and money.
The move is also a significant propaganda coup for the insurgents, coming just after their assault on Camp Bastion which resulted in the destruction of warplanes worth $200m. For the British and coalition troops, the announcement in Washington will only highlight the mistrust which has been the inevitable consequence of 51 deaths inflicted by their supposed Afghan brothers-in-arms.
irishtimes.com - Last Updated: Wednesday, September 19, 2012, 09:56
Muhammad cartoons published in France
French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo today published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in a move that was criticised by the French authorities and sent riot police to protect the magazine's offices.
Issues of the magazine hit newsstands with a front cover showing an Orthodox Jew pushing a turbaned figure in a wheelchair with several caricatures of the Prophet on its inside pages, including some of him naked.
The front page cartoon had the wheelchair-bound figure saying "You mustn't mock" under the headline "Untouchable 2", a reference to a hugely popular French movie about a paralysed rich white man and his black assistant.
Pakistan 'forced' scientist to trade secrets
September 19, 2012
Rob Crilly
Abdul Qadeer Khan, Pakistan's renegade nuclear scientist, claims he was ordered to sell nuclear secrets by Benazir Bhutto, the country's former prime minister.
Mrs Bhutto's allies have rubbished the claim but, if true, his revelations raise fresh questions about Pakistan's role in the spread of nuclear weapons and brings the threat of sanctions.
Dr Khan is known as the father of Pakistan's atom bomb but was also at the centre of a proliferation network that sold secret technology to rogue states around the world, including Libya and Iran.
WHO: Ebola claims up to 32 lives in DR Congo
An outbreak of Ebola fever in the Democratic Republic of Congo may have claimed up to 32 lives since May, says the World Health Organisation.
By September 15, "a cumulative total of 72 cases was recorded, including 14 cases that were confirmed positive after laboratory analysis, 32 probable cases and 26 suspected cases, while 32 deaths were registered", the WHO announced in Kinshasa.
A baby born prematurely "in the isolation centre in Isiro [the epicentre of the epidemic in north-east DRC] to a mother infected by the Ebola virus was still alive while his mother died on Saturday," the statement said.
In DRC, which has known eight outbreaks of the often fatal haemorrhagic fever, it was the first time an Ebola infected pregnant woman had a child, because "Ebola and pregnancy are almost incompatible", Health Minister Felix Kabange Numbi said.
Chavez vs. Capriles: Corruption takes center stage in Venezuela's election
Opposition candidate Capriles expelled his top aide after a film showed him accepting cash from an unknown source. Are corruption accusations enough to push his campaign off track?
By Andrew Rosati, Contributor / September 18, 2012
Venezuelan presidential candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski expelled a top aide last Thursday amid corruption charges that could prove damaging to his campaign less than a month before
Deputy Juan Carlos Caldera was filmed receiving a cash payment from a blurred-out figure, which Mr. Caldera claimed was a donation for his own mayoral campaign. Government officials are alleging the money was a bribe for political favors related to Mr. Capriles’ campaign, however.
President Hugo Chavez's challenger quickly distanced himself from the episode and denounced the act: "I’m never going to permit anyone [to] use my name for their own personal benefit,” Capriles said.
After Libya, renewed questions about al Qaeda
The consulate attack sets off debate on the strength of the terror group
By ERIC SCHMITT and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
The attack on the United States mission in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens has set off a new debate here and across the Middle East about whether Al Qaeda has been reinvigorated amid the chaos of the Arab Spring or instead merely lives on as a kind of useful boogeyman, scapegoat or foil.
In the week since the attack, the president of Libya’s newly elected national Congress blamed foreign fighters from Algeria or Mali with links to Al Qaeda who he said entered the country months earlier to plan the assault. The Al Qaeda affiliate in North Africa praised the attack on Tuesday and urged more like it across the region. And in Washington, some Republicans have embraced that narrative, implicitly faulting the administration for prematurely declaring the demise of Al Qaeda with the killing of Osama bin Laden last year.
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