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BBC – The governor of Nigeria’s Plateau state has accused military commanders of ignoring warnings of an attack on Sunday near the city of Jos. Hundreds died during attacks on three villages in the area between the mainly Christian south and Muslim north. The massacre is seen as revenge for a previous bout of killings in January. Read article
BBC – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has accused the US of playing a “double game” in Afghanistan after the US used the same term to condemn Iran’s role. Mr Ahmadinejad said the US had “created terrorists and now say they are fighting them”, as he appeared with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul. Read article
Reuters – Pakistani security agents denied on Monday that an American al Qaeda spokesman wanted in the United States for treason had been arrested, saying there had been confusion over the identity of a detained suspect. Some Pakistani officials had said on Sunday that Adam Gadahn, a California-born convert to Islam with a $1 million U.S. bounty on his head, had been arrested on the outskirts of the city of Karachi. But a senior government official and two security agents said on Monday the suspected al Qaeda operative picked up in Karachi was not Gadahn. Read article
Telegraph – The Ministry of Defence has been accused of ordering a “truth blackout” over the war in Afghanistan amid warnings it is attempting to “bury bad news” during the election campaign. British journalists and TV crews are to be banned from the Afghan front line once a date for the election has been set, while senior officers will be prohibited from making public speeches and talking to reporters. MoD websites will also be “cleansed” of any “non-factual” material including anything containing troops’ opinions of the war, according to a memo leaked to The Daily Telegraph. Read article
CBS News – Doctors and parents in the Iraqi city of Fallujah are blaming a sharp increase in the number of birth defects on the highly sophisticated weapons U.S. troops have used in the city during the war. The BBC reported Thursday the staggering statistic from doctors in the city that the number of heart defects found in newborn babies is 13 times the number of similar birth defects in Europe. U.S. troops carried out a major offensive in the city in 2004. Military spokesman Michael Kilpatrick told the news organization it takes public health concerns “very seriously.” Read article
BBC – Hundreds of people, including many women and children, were killed in ethnic violence near the city of Jos in Nigeria at the weekend, officials say. They said villages had been attacked by men with machetes who came from nearby hills. Troops have now been deployed in the area and dozens of arrests are said to have been made. Acting President Goodluck Jonathan has ordered security forces to prevent more weapons being brought into the area. Read article
Reuters – Bomb blasts and rocket and mortar fire killed 38 people as Iraqis voted on Sunday in an election they hoped would distance their nascent democracy from years of sectarian slaughter as U.S. troops pack up to leave. The explosions rumbled across Baghdad and other cities after Sunni Islamist insurgents vowed to wreck voting for Iraq’s second full-term parliament since the 2003 U.S. invasion, a vote watched closely by global oil companies planning to invest billions to develop the country’s dilapidated oilfields. Read Article
BBC – At least 100 people have been reported killed in suspected religious clashes near the central Nigerian city of Jos. Witnesses said several villages just outside of the city were attacked simultaneously overnight. Acting President Goodluck Jonathan has put security forces in central Nigeria on full alert. Read Article
Bloomberg – Missile attacks by U.S. drone aircraft in northwest Pakistan since 2004 have killed as many as 1,216 people, one third of them civilians, according to a report by a Washington-based think tank. The unmanned aircraft based in neighboring Afghanistan have carried out 114 raids in the past six years, killing up to 849 militants, the report by the New American Foundation said. Since Jan. 1, drones have attacked Taliban based in the South Asian country’s tribal areas 18 times, it said. The minimum number of people who likely died in the total attacks is 834, of whom 549 were thought to have been militants. The data was collated from media reports. Read article
Fox News – Drones are aircraft, but the technology that powers them has been advancing more like a rocket. Here’s a look at tomorrow’s drones, which are key to a modern military. Drones are aircraft, but the technology that powers them has been advancing more like a rocket. Here’s a look at tomorrow’s drones, which are key to a modern military. Read article
Sunday Mirror – Children in Afghanistan are more likely to die before the age of five than children anywhere else in the world, according to Save the Children. At the current appalling rate, one child dies every two minutes in the violence-wracked nation. The study shows that last year was also the deadliest for Afghan children since the fall of the Taliban. More than 1,050 were killed in suicide attacks, air strikes, explosions and crossfire, according to latest figures. Read article
Bloomberg — BP Plc and Exxon Mobil Corp. took the best deal they could get in Iraq last year when they won the largest oil contracts since addam Hussein was toppled in 2003. Oil companies may wait a long time to get a better one. Parliamentary elections may produce a weak or unstable government incapable of tendering new oil contracts, said Samuel Ciszuk, a London-based analyst at IHS Global Insight. He said he does expect the 10 technical-services contracts won by Exxon, BP and 20 other companies to be honored. Read Article
Al JAzeera – US special operations forces could help the Somali government with an offensive to dislodge al-Shabab fighters from the capital, Mogadishu, a US newspaper report says. Citing an unnamed US official on Saturday, the New York Times website said the offensive could begin in a few weeks. Washington believes al-Shabab has links to al-Qaeda, which has expanded its influence in Yemen across the Red Sea. Read article
“Nothing to fear in God; Nothing to feel in death; Good can be attained; Evil can be endured”
- Epicurus, 3rd century BCE
BBC – US Defence Secretary Robert Gates is to review allegations of misconduct in Afghanistan by the security company formerly known as Blackwater. The review comes a day after a leading Democrat said the Pentagon should consider barring it from applying for a contract to train Afghan police. The Pentagon said it could not bar the company from applying for the billion-dollar police training contract. A spokesman for company, now called Xe, said it welcomed the review. Read article
CNet – Homeland Security and the National Security Agency may be taking a closer look at Internet communications in the future. The Department of Homeland Security’s top cybersecurity official told CNET on Wednesday that the department may eventually extend its Einstein technology, which is designed to detect and prevent electronic attacks, to networks operated by the private sector. The technology was created for federal networks. Greg Schaffer, assistant secretary for cybersecurity and communications, said in an interview that the department is evaluating whether Einstein “makes sense for expansion to critical infrastructure spaces” over time. Read Article
The Independent – A car bomb exploded in Iraq’s holy city of Najaf on today, killing four Iranian pilgrims a day before a parliamentary election that Islamist insurgents have vowed to wreck with violence, officials said. The blast gutted two tour buses parked near the Imam Ali shrine, which draws millions of Shi’ite faithful from Iraq and Iran each year. Salim Nema, a Najaf health official, said the attack wounded 54 people, including 17 Iraqis and 37 Iranians. Read article
Reuters – The Obama administration on Friday sought to limit fallout from a resolution branding the World War One-era massacre of Armenians by Turkish forces as “genocide,” and vowed to stop it from going further in Congress. Turkey was infuriated and recalled its ambassador after a House of Representatives committee on Thursday approved the nonbinding measure condemning killings that took place nearly 100 years ago, in the last days of the Ottoman Empire. Read article
The Independent – Gordon Brown today expressed his sorrow for the loss of life in the conflict in Iraq while insisting it had been the “right decision” to overthrow Saddam Hussein. In his long-awaited appearance before the Chilcot Inquiry, the Prime Minister said the Iraqi dictator had to be confronted as a “serial violator” of international law. Read article
US President Barack Obama has pledged to cut the number and role of nuclear weapons in America’s national security strategy. Mr Obama, marking the 40th anniversary of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, said a policy review would go BBC – “beyond outdated Cold War thinking”. Read article
Twelve people were killed in Baghdad on Thursday, including seven soldiers and police blown up by suicide bombers, days before a poll that will test Iraq’s prospects for stability as U.S. troops prepare to leave. Thirty-five soldiers and police were also wounded when two attackers with explosive belts struck at centers where security forces were voting early, an Interior Ministry source said. Read article
Guardian – The US is facing a surge in anti-government extremist groups and armed militias, driven by deepening hostility on the right to Barack Obama, anger over the economy, and the increasing propagation of conspiracy theories by parts of the mass media such as Fox News. The Southern Poverty Law Centre, the US’s most prominent civil rights group focused on hate organisations, said in a report that extremist “patriot” groups “came roaring back to life” last year as their number jumped nearly 250% to more than 500 with deepening ties to conservative mainstream politics. Read article
Reuters – The Pentagon should consider blocking a potential $1 billion contract with the company formerly known as Blackwater to train Afghan police because of questions about its conduct in Afghanistan, a top U.S. senator said. In letters to Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Attorney General Eric Holder, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin said there was evidence of misconduct in a previous subcontract awarded to a Blackwater affiliate to conduct weapons training for the Afghan National Army. Read article
BBC – The UN has begun talks with Democratic Republic of Congo on withdrawing its peacekeeping mission – the biggest UN operation in the world. UN peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy said his officials would take a month to assess how the pullout of 20,500 personnel could be carried out. Read article
BBC – Doctors in the Iraqi city of Fallujah are reporting a high level of birth defects, with some blaming weapons used by the US after the Iraq invasion.The city witnessed fierce fighting in 2004 as US forces carried out a major offensive against insurgents. Now, the level of heart defects among newborn babies is said to be 13 times higher than in Europe. The US military says it is not aware of any official reports showing an increase in birth defects in the area. Read Article
Ed – To read more about the most commonly used weapon of mass detruction, depleted uranium, CLICK HERE
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