WASHINGTON: US funds for private security contractors in Afghanistan have flowed to warlords and Taliban insurgents, undermining the war effort and fueling corruption, according to a Senate report issued Thursday. The investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee found that the government had failed to vet or manage those hired to provide security under contracts [...]
October 8, 2010 | Posted in
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WASHINGTON: Pakistan yesterday came under increased pressure over its nuclear arsenal when a Harvard study warned of “a very real possibility” that its warheads could be stolen by terrorists. The rising concern about poorly-guarded nuclear weapons and material was the subject of an extraordinary two-day summit which began in Washington yesterday. Last night, Ukraine became [...]
NEW YORK: Stressing on the need of establishing peace and a secure environment in Pakistan and Afghanistan, US President Barack Obama has said that dismantling the terror network flourishing in the region is the “singular focus” of his administration. In an extensive interview with the ABC, Obama said rooting out the militant base in the [...]
RIO DE JANEIRO: Rescuers pulled more bodies from a collapsed hillside slum near Rio de Janeiro on Friday, abandoning hope of finding survivors from a mudslide that buried more than 100 people after the heaviest rains in four decades, reported Reuters. The rains that started on Monday have killed at least 205 people, most in [...]
April 10, 2010 | Posted in
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WASHINGTON: US air marshals subdued a Qatari diplomat on a flight to Denver Wednesday in a bomb scare triggered after he reportedly smoked a cigarette and joked he was trying to light his shoes, officials said. There were no reports of an explosion on the plane, which landed safely at Denver International Airport from Washington’s [...]
April 8, 2010 | Posted in
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WASHINGTON: At the heart of President Obama’s new nuclear strategy lies a central gamble: that an aging, oversize, increasingly outmoded nuclear arsenal can be turned to the new purpose of adding leverage to the faltering effort to force Iran and North Korea to rethink the value of their nuclear programs. The 50-page “Nuclear Posture Review” [...]
April 7, 2010 | Posted in
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LOS ANGELES: A powerful 7.2-magnitude earthquake near the Mexico-US border Sunday rocked buildings as far away as Los Angeles and was felt in a wide area in the two countries
April 5, 2010 | Posted in
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WASHINGTON: The United States has discarded a list of 14 nations, including Pakistan, whose citizens required additional screening at American airports in its new security policy. The new criteria selects passengers for additional security based on possible matches to intelligence information, including physical descriptions, age or a particular travel pattern. An official announcement in Washington [...]
April 3, 2010 | Posted in
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WASHINGTON: The Pentagon has said that Pakistan also needs to be enlisted in any effort to seek reconciliation with the Afghan militants, although the process has to be led and managed by Kabul. A senior US defence official, while briefing journalists in Washington, recalled that Pakistan had offered assistance to Afghanistan in the reconciliation process [...]
April 2, 2010 | Posted in
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VILLAVICENCIO (Colombia): Colombia’s main leftist rebel group, the Farc, has freed a soldier it kidnapped just under a year ago. Private Josue Daniel Calvo, 22, was handed over to a humanitarian mission at a set of co-ordinates in the jungle provided by the rebels. He was flown to Vanguardia airport in Villavicencio where he stepped [...]
March 29, 2010 | Posted in
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SEARCHLIGHT: Sarah Palin told thousands of tea party activists assembled in the dusty Nevada desert Saturday that Sen. Harry Reid will have to explain his votes when he comes back to his hometown to campaign. The wind whipped U.S. flags behind the former Alaska governor as she stood on a makeshift stage, holding a microphone [...]
March 29, 2010 | Posted in
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WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed on Friday to sharp cuts in the nuclear arsenals of both nations in the most comprehensive arms control treaty in two decades. “We have turned words into action,” Obama declared. Obama said the pact, to be signed on April 8 in Prague, was part [...]
In a new audio recording, Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has threatened to kill captured Americans if 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is executed. Al Jazeera broadcast the purported message from Bin Laden today. “The day America will take such decision [to execute Mohammed and any others] it would have taken a decision to execute [...]
March 25, 2010 | Posted in
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WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met on Tuesday in a bid to ease strained ties but with dim hopes for any breakthrough in the
March 24, 2010 | Posted in
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WASHINGTON: US Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Monday said he had potential concerns about an alleged spying network of contractors in Afghanistan and Pakistan run by a Pentagon official, but that he still lacked information about the reported operation. The New York Times has reported that the Defense Department official, Michael Furlong, had set [...]
PARIS: Nearly a year after President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered negotiators to work on a new treaty to reduce their nuclear arsenals, the two countries say they are finally close to completing a deal. A deal – a small but important step toward Obama’s goal of a nuclear arms-free world – [...]
March 22, 2010 | Posted in
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WASHINGTON: The Democratic-controlled Congress handed President Barack Obama a huge victory Sunday night extending health care to tens of millions of uninsured Americans and cracking down on insurance company abuses, a climactic chapter in the century-long quest for near universal coverage, reports AP. Widely viewed as dead two months ago, the Senate-passed bill cleared the [...]
March 22, 2010 | Posted in
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WASHINGTON: Thousands of anti-war protesters took to the streets of the US capital Saturday, on the seventh anniversary of the US-led war in Iraq in a show of frustration widely ignored by the media and public. As the National Marathon wound down in the city, protesters after midday gathered outside the White House bearing signs [...]
WASHINGTON: Another terrorist attack in India could reignite India-Pakistan tensions in 2010, increasing the risk of miscalculation between two nuclear states, warns commander
WASHINGTON: General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani will be the first army chief to participate in the US-Pakistan strategic dialogue to be held here on March 24. Also for the first time, the Americans are expected to include their defence secretary Robert Gates and national security adviser General James Jones. ISI chief General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, who [...]
March 15, 2010 | Posted in
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