Around the World
John Ibbitson
The Globe and Mail
Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:33 EST
© The Canadian Press
Preparations have begun for the withdrawal of Canadian troops from Afghanistan, as the 2011 deadline for that withdrawal draws closer.
A government official confirmed media reports that General Walter Natynczyk, the Chief of the Defence Staff, has ordered preparations to get under way that would involve the return of the thousands of troops and their equipment from the troubled country.
"A Chief of Defence Staff directive has been issued to begin planning preparations for the 2011 end of combat mission," the official told
The Globe and Mail Friday.
Faith Karimi
CNN
Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:39 EST
© Unknown
There are some 200,000 albinos in Tanzania - this photo shows an albino child in neighboring Burundi.
A court sentenced four people to death in northern Tanzania for the killing of an albino man who was targeted for body parts believed to have special powers, authorities said Friday.
The four were found guilty of killing the 50-year-old albino in the Shinyanga region and sentenced to die by hanging for removing his body parts, said Lucca Haule, assistant commissioner of police.
So far, seven people have been sentenced to death for the killing of more than 50 Tanzanian albinos, including children, in the past two years, Haule said. Dozens more are awaiting trial.
Albinism is a genetic condition that leads to little or no pigment in the eyes, skin and hair.
Body parts of albinos are sought in some regions of Tanzania and other African countries, where some believe they bring wealth and good luck. Attackers chop off limbs and pluck out organs, selling them to witch doctors.
PressTV
Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:22 EST
In a rare fatal incident, two American troops have drowned in Afghanistan, while trying to recover equipment from a northwestern river, security officials say.
The soldiers died on Wednesday, while trawling in the Badghis province's Bala-Murghab River for lost supply packages, the area's Deputy Police Chief Mohammed Jabbar told a Press TV correspondent.
The supplies were lost as a US aircraft was dropping caissons and food parcels on the troops' base.
The present US contingent in cooperation with local military and police force have set out on a rescue operation.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Taliban, Ghari Yousuf Ahmadi, said that the militants had attacked the soldiers as the aircraft was on the supply mission, killing one of the soldiers while four others drowned themselves in the river.
The Daily Telegraph/Agence France-Presse
Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:40 EST
A Japanese man collecting mushrooms in a mountain area today found the severed head of a young woman, believed to be a college student missing since last month, news reports said.
The man made the grisly find near the 1223-metre peak of Mount Garyu in the north of Hiroshima prefecture, where he was gathering wild mushrooms, Jiji Press reported, quoting police sources.
Police suspect the head may be that of a local 19-year-old college student who has been missing since October 26, Jiji said.
RIA Novosti
Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:00 EST
© RIA Novosti
A gunman in the Japanese city of Yokohama committed suicide after having shot and seriously injured three men in a money dispute on Friday, Japanese media said.
Kenji Hayashi opened fire at around 2:30 p.m. local time (5:30 a.m. GMT) in a street in Yokohama's residential area and then took refuge in a nearby building, media reports said.
The man was found dead inside the building at around 4:00 p.m. local time after police failed to convince him to surrender. A revolver was found at the site.
Media reports said one of the injured men was in a critical condition.
Joshua Mmali
BBC
Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:14 EST
© BBC
At the Watertight security training ground in Uganda, a group of men and women are doing target practice with their AK47s.
Nearby, another group are listening to a lecture under the shelter of a tree.
Watertight Security Services has been sending Ugandan security guards to Iraq since 2007.
So far, more than 10,000 Ugandans have gone to work in the country.
Moses Matsiko worked in Iraq for more than three years before returning to Uganda to set up the company.
"Since we do security, we start by screening the criminal background of people, hand in hand with Interpol," he told the BBC World Service.
Comment:
What a disgusting and irresponsible piece of propaganda from a media outlet that continues to cheer its government's participation in wars of imperial conquest over and above the call of duty. Enticing desperately poor people to become mercenaries and leave one
former colony and take part in the prosperous slaughter of another colony (and when the blood runs dry there, Afghanistan promises rewarding bloodletting). All by design of course: crash the economy, then liquidate the masses from the bottom up.
Dan Eden
Viewzone
Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:13 EST
Read the
original article on ViewZone
© Viewzone.com
How do I tell you about this?
Most of you have already heard about the Somali pirates. Just recently they captured an American cargo ship and held the captain hostage. They have done this to many other vessels from a variety of different countries. In fact, the American captain was lucky -- he escaped, with the help of some sharp-shooter Navy Seals -- but hundreds of international sailors and crew are still being held by Somali pirates who seek millions of dollars for their safe return, and the safe return of their ships.
You know all this already, though. And you probably think it's just one more evil group of people trying to get rich quick. You probably even think we should just kill them all or find their Somali-based camp and wipe it out and be done with it.
But there's another side of this story you haven't been told. And when you hear it, you might just change your opinion of what's been going on.
The Daily Telegraph
Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:24 EST
A Sydney woman who gave her two children rat poison before smothering them to death has been jailed for at least four years.
In sentencing the 31-year-old woman, NSW Supreme Court Justice Clifford Hoeben today accepted she had shown "remorse" for the two killings.
She pleaded not guilty to murder on the grounds of mental illness, but was found guilty of the manslaughter of her four-year-old son and two-year-old daughter.
Justice Hoeben concluded the Canley Vale woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had been suffering "substantial impairment by abnormality of the mind" at the time of the killings.
Agence France-Presse
Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:36 EST
President Hamid Karzai is "corrupt" but NATO has to accept that "he is our guy" in Afghanistan, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said, according to the
New York Times on Thursday.
Kouchner also complained that President Barack Obama's US administration was drawing up a new strategy for the war in Afghanistan without consulting its European allies within NATO, leaving them in the dark.
"What is the goal? What is the road? And in the name of what?" Kouchner asked, according to the
New York Times report. "Where are the Americans? It begins to be a problem ... We need to talk to each other as allies."
Comment: This remark makes a mockery out of the Afghanistan "election". It also shows the hypocrisy of the Western governments when they cried out over the alleged Iranian election fraud.
Ploy Ten Kate
Reuters
Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:31 EST
Thailand and Cambodia recalled their ambassadors from each others' countries on Thursday, deepening a diplomatic row after Cambodia made fugitive former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra an economic adviser.
The tit-for-tat spat threatens to worsen a political crisis in Thailand by giving Thaksin and his red-shirted anti-government supporters an ally just across the border, causing a diplomatic embarrassment for Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.
It also suggests deepening enmity between leaders of the two countries after Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen soured the start of an Asian summit hosted by Abhisit last month by turning up and offering Thaksin the job of adviser.
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What a disgusting and irresponsible piece of propaganda from a media outlet that continues to cheer its government's participation in wars of imperial conquest over and above the call of duty. Enticing desperately poor people to become mercenaries and leave one former colony and take part in the prosperous slaughter of another colony (and when the blood runs dry there, Afghanistan promises rewarding bloodletting). All by design of course: crash the economy, then liquidate the masses from the bottom up.