U.S. drone strikes up sharply in Afghanistan
Their use rose 72% last year compared with 2011, and the trend is likely to continue as troops withdraw. But while the aircraft reduce risks to U.S. forces, mistakes are deadly for civilians.
By Shashank Bengali and David S. Cloud, Los Angeles Times
KABUL, Afghanistan — One morning recently, a teenager named Bacha Zarina was collecting firewood on her family's small farm in eastern Afghanistan. About 30 yards away, as family members recall, two Taliban commanders stood outside a house.
A missile screamed down from the sky, killing the two men instantly. Two chunks of shrapnel flew at Bacha Zarina and lodged in her left side.
Her family raced her to the nearest hospital, a half-hour's drive away, but she died en route, an accidental victim of the rapidly escalating U.S.-led campaign of drone strikes in Afghanistan. She was 14 or 15 years old.
The U.S. military launched 506 strikes from unmanned aircraft in Afghanistan last year, according to Pentagon data, a 72% increase from 2011 and a sign that American commanders may begin to rely more heavily on remote-controlled air power to kill Taliban insurgents as they reduce the number of troops on the ground.
The Irish Times - Friday, February 22, 2013
Top minds running for exits as Italy flounders
LISA JUCCA, in Milan
For more than a century unskilled Italians have gone abroad to escape poverty, but these days the people running for the exits are among the country’s top brains.
A growing wave of technologists, researchers and entrepreneurs is fleeing the motherland. Few think the weekend’s elections will alleviate the gloom.
“I am Italian and I love Italy. But every time I come back to visit, I see the country is sliding a little further back,” said Andrea Ballarini, an economics graduate who left for the US nearly three years ago.
When Ballarini graduated from the elite Bocconi, Italy’s best-known university, he had no plans to leave home and dreamed of setting up his own company in his native land.
MIDDLE EAST
Mideast caught up in strategic reorientation
The EU's Middle East envoy Andreas Reinicke believes Egypt will continue to play a constructive role in the region in the future. He also urges Israel's new government to agree to a two-state peace solution.
DW: An estimated 70,000 people have died in the Syrian civil war so far. Following an alleged Israeli airstrike, Iran and Syria recently threatened retaliation. Egypt faces continued violent clashes between the Muslim Brotherhood and the opposition. Have you ever considered, over the past weeks, giving up your job as EU envoy for the Middle East peace process?
Andreas Reinicke: No, but I have considered doubling the job or the working hours. But of course, you are right. The situation in Syria above all is worrying and tragic. You've indicated the air strike on a site near Damascus. This is just another factor that shows just how difficult the security situation is in Syria, also relating to its neighbors. We have the additional problem of the Syrian poison gas potential that everyone is worried about and we have the problem of the Palestinian refugees. There are about one million Palestinian refugees in Syria who are trying to remain as neutral as possible because they have no alternative to turn to. Some have meanwhile fled to Jordan and Lebanon and you can only suspect the problems that will entail.
Test for NATO: US Plans Mini-Force in Post-2014 Afghanistan
By Matthias Gebauer and Christoph Schult
Officially, the West plans to continue helping Afghanistan beyond the conclusion of the NATO mission at the end of 2014. But the US is planning a massive withdrawal, leaving behind a skeletal force of only 10,000 troops. Washington's allies will have to fill the gaps that result.
The United States envisions only a minimal presence of American troops in Afghanistan once the NATO mission comes to an end in late 2014. SPIEGEL ONLINE has learned that fewer than 10,000 US soldiers are to remain stationed in the country beyond that date. Douglas Lute, special assistant to the US president on Pakistan and Afghanistan, informed NATO ambassadors of the plan at alliance headquarters in Brussels in the second week of February. He said that only half of the units stationed in Afghanistan beyond 2014 will be made available for training Afghan troops.
Zanu fears 2002 election report
Zanu-PF officials are anxious that a report by South African judges on Zimbabwe's 2002 election could soon be made public, party insiders say
The report was prepared for former president Thabo Mbeki by Justice Sisi Khampepe and Justice Dikgang Moseneke after they were sent by Mbeki to observe the elections.
Last week the North Gauteng High Court ordered the presidency to hand over the report to the Mail & Guardian. The newspaper has fought for the past four years for its release.
Zanu-PF officials said the report contained information supplied in confidence by people close to President Robert Mugabe and its release might prove politically awkward for party officials who supplied the information.
The information could relate to Zanu-PF's complicity in violence, election misconduct that bordered on manipulating the process in favour of Mugabe and confidential information about how Mugabe conducted party affairs, insiders said.
Brazil's 2013 Carnival may have rocked ... but it also stank.
The amount of trash collected during this year's carnival grew 30 percent from last year – and tourists noticed, with 1 out of 4 citing sanitation as a negative of their Rio Carnival experience.
City officials usually announce the number of revelers just after Ash Wednesday, but [there were no results announced until Feb. 19]. A mere 900,000 tourists (up from 850,000 in 2012) were expected, 70,000 of whom were to arrive on cruise ships.
One bloco alone, Cordão da Bola Preta, Rio’s oldest, on Saturday drew an estimated 1.8 million people downtown for a five-hour parade, which resulted in chaos at its completion.
There were more military police, traffic coordinators and municipal guards in the streets, more porta-potties, and more trash receptacles than ever before. The city also, for the first time, put up protective fencing around monuments and decorative plantings on median strips.
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