Obama Visits Afghanistan, says US Making Progress

Afghanistan: US President Barack Obama, in a surprise visit to Afghanistan on Friday, praised US troops for their sacrifice and ‘important progress’ in a nine-year war that is increasingly unpopular at home.

He spent four hours at an airbase outside the Afghan capital and canceled a planned helicopter trip to Kabul to meet Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai because of bad weather. Instead the two leaders spoke by telephone.

Obama’s second visit to Afghanistan as president came as the White House prepared to release a review of the war’s strategy in the week of December 13, and the day after leaked cables detailed U.S. concerns about Karzai’s abilities and widespread fraud.

Neither topic came up during their 15-minute phone conversation, Obama Afghan war adviser Douglas Lute told reporters aboard Air Force One as the president flew home.

The U.S. president is under pressure to show progress in a war that many are wearying of after nearly a decade, and told nearly 4,000 troops gathered in a hangar to hear him that they were gaining ground against insurgents.

“Today we can be proud that there are fewer areas under Taliban control,” Obama said, in a speech filled with tributes to serving troops and the burden carried by their families.

“We said we were going to break the Taliban’s momentum and that’s what you’re doing, you’re going on the offense, tired of playing defense,” he said to the crowd of mostly U.S. troops.

But the trip comes at a time of spiraling violence and record casualties. Over 1,400 U.S. troops have died in Afghanistan since the 2001 ouster of the Taliban, and a third of them lost their lives in the last year alone.

Obama decided in 2009 to ramp up force levels to widen the Afghan military campaign, and many of the extra troops have been thrown into tough fighting, including a major offensive in the southern Taliban heartland of Kandahar.

White House officials emphasized the main purpose of Obama’s journey was a visit with the troops around the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, rather than a fact-finding mission ahead of the upcoming strategic review.

“I know it’s not easy for all of you to be away from home especially during the holidays and I know it’s hard on your families, they have got an empty seat at the dinner table,” Obama told the crowd, after visiting wounded soldiers.

As usual with such trips, Obama’s visit was not announced previously for security reasons. He was spirited out of the White House secretly on Thursday night and flew overnight aboard Air Force One for the surprise trip to Afghanistan.

Gul Panag molested at Delhi Marathon 2010

Delhi has steadily maintained its image as one that is extremely unsafe for women. In between, thanks to the Common Wealth Games, the spotlight shifted to corruption but with the latest Delhi Marathon 2010, its back to its past stature. The victim this time was none other than the actress who is a sports enthusiast, Gul Panag, who has never missed an opportunity to put her fitness regime to test.

On Sunday, 21st November, when Gul Panag participated in Half Marathon held in Delhi, she was groped by the men standing at the starting point. They took advantage of the crowd to feel her up and the actress was obviously quite taken aback by the whole indecent act.

It was a typical women-in-crowded-places syndrome and Gul being the fighter, instead of letting this event disturb her more than required, went ahead with the marathon and completed the run.

Gul says that she has participated in several other marathons and has never experienced something like this before and blames it on the Delhi culture. She feels that compared to Mumbai, something like this is expected in Delhi which is typical of that city.

The offenders on the other hand took advantage of the melee and got away. Gul too realised the futility of filing a complaint as she really cannot recognise the offenders considering the crowd of people. Though she did feel that no matter what the security, certain decorum is expected from participants.

Flood victims” resentment hurting aid effort: ICRC

GENEVA: Growing resentment among Pakistan flood victims on the pace of aid delivery is hampering the relief effort, the international Red Cross warned Thursday, saying it had to halt two distributions recently due to unrest.

“What we are detecting is a very worrying trend of areas where … people are so in need, so resentful of not getting enough aid, that they turn understandably aggressive and this is bad because it doesn”t help in our efforts to reach more of them,” said Jacques de Maio, the head of operations for South Asia for the International Committee of the Red Cross.

He pointed out that in two instances in the past eight days, officials had to stop distribution of relief items “because of unrest.”

“We are worried because if this trend extends, propagates,” it could hinder the aid effort, he noted.

De Maio noted that the trend is particularly worrying because, unlike other disasters such as an earthquake, the floods are generating more and more victims as the high waters sweep into new regions.

“The thing is that due to the sheer magnitude of this and the fact that we are not in for a sprint, we”re here for a marathon, we need to make sure that (such unrest) does not become the rule rather than the exception,” he said.

De Maio also pointed out that certain elements were also not helping by agitating the crowd.

“If you organise a distribution for 30,000 and in the last 48 hours you have an additional 150,000, then you have a problem, particularly if you have people in the crowd, behind the crowd saying that ”anyway they”re useless, anyway they are politicised”,” he said.

“By doing so, the choice is the usual dilemma, are we ready to have our friends, our staff being killed and looted there? Because instead of helping 150,000 people we can only help 30,000?”

“Our angle is that we want first to help this 30,000 and see how we can extend what we do,” said de Maio.

The unprecedented floods have engulfed an area the size of England, affecting more than 18 million people, including eight million who are dependent on aid handouts to survive.

The scale of the disaster is so large that a month after the deluge, many are complaining of going without food or water for days.

The ICRC, which has already reached hundreds of thousands of flood victims, expects to reach around 1.4 million people within the next six weeks.

Kenya president holds emergency meeting over blasts

NAIROBI: Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki on Monday convened an emergency meeting of the country”s security chiefs following blasts that killed five people during a political rally.

The attacks, which also wounded more than 80 people, ripped through a rally in Nairobi campaigning against a proposed constitution due to be submitted to a referendum on August 4.

“The president has convened an early morning security meeting to discuss this matter, in order to get to the depth of this matter,” Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka told reporters.

“We want to get to the bottom of this matter…, we are appealing for calm from all Kenyans as police investigate the matter,” he added.

The blasts went off late Sunday during a rally opposing the proposed constitution in the capital”s main park.

It was the most serious incident in the east African nation since the violence that followed disputed elections in 2007 left 1,500 people dead and 300,000 displaced from their homes.

Panic gripped the crowd in Uhuru (Freedom) Park in the heart of the capital when the blasts went off during prayers at the end of the rally, called by evangelical Protestant churches, Nairobi police chief Anthony Kibuchi said.

“There were two explosions in the middle of the crowd,” he said.

Police sealed off the vast park as ambulances converged on the scene, then sped away to take the casualties to various hospitals.

Several thousand people were attending the rally, where organisers and speakers appealed for calm from the podium.

Inside one hospital, some of the bloodstained victims appeared unconscious, lying on stretchers on the floor of the emergency ward. Their injuries were mainly to their legs and lower torsos.

It appeared that an explosive device had been thrown at the crowd, police chief Kibuchi said, while survivors thought hand grenades had been used. The blasts were said to have gone off 15 minutes apart.

The emergency meeting was due to be attended by the president, Prime Minister Raila Odinga, the ministers of interior and defence, as well as the country”s army chief.

On August 4, a referendum is due to be held on a new constitution which had been one of the main reforms pledged by Kenya”s leaders in the aftermath of the deadly violence sparked by a disputed 2007 election.

Although Kenya”s once feuding principals openly support the new constitution, their respective parties appear divided, with some politicians concerned over land issues and a clause on abortion.

The referendum also comes against the backdrop of an intensifying race for the next presidential election, due in 2012.

koscheck daley

Koscheck accuses Daley of cheating; White discusses Kimbo Slice release
There was irony in Josh Koscheck’s UFC 113 win over Paul Daley on Saturday night at the Bell Centre, one that set up Koscheck for a title shot and cost Daley his job.

Koscheck was booed by the crowd of 17,647 fans, who wanted to see a grudge match end with wild punches and a knockout. Instead, they got what was almost a duplicate of the March 27 fight in Newark, N.J., where welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre won a decision over England’s Dan Hardy by using an effective but not particularly exciting style of ground control.

Like St. Pierre against Hardy, Koscheck (17-4) took Daley (23-9-2), perhaps the most explosive welterweight striker, down to the ground and controlled him for most of three straight rounds, winning a straight 30-27 decision. The win was by far the biggest of Koscheck’s career.

The fight was to not only determine who would coach against St. Pierre on the next season of “The Ultimate Fighter” reality show, which starts filming in a few weeks, but also who would get the next crack at St. Pierre’s title in December.

After Saturday’s fight was over, Koscheck, booed as much as any UFC fighter in recent years with the exception of heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar, told the crowd that the Pittsburgh Penguins would be beating the Montreal Canadiens in their NHL playoff series and that Montreal would lose twice since he was going to beat St. Pierre.

Koscheck, who grew up in Pennsylvania and was the 2001 NCAA Division I wrestling champion at Edinboro College, going 43-0-1, said the interview was done in response for the crowd’s reaction to him. He said he was not aware at the time that the Penguins had won the game that ended earlier that evening. He joked that he didn’t want the title fight in Montreal, but said he wanted it in Pittsburgh.

Israel closer to death if it attacks Gaza: Ahmadinejad

TEHRAN: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday warned Israel against launching a fresh assault on the Gaza Strip, saying such action would bring it “closer to certain death.”

Ahmadinejad”s comments come a day after Israel”s Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom warned of a new offensive by the Israeli military on the Hamas-ruled coastal territory unless militant rocket attacks are halted.

“They are looking for an excuse to attack Gaza. I want to tell the Zionists and their backers that enough crime has been committed already,” Ahmadinejad said in a speech broadcast live on state television.

“The new adventure will not save you, but will bring you closer to certain death,” said Ahmadinejad.

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