Booze, drugs and hookers: Hundreds of offenses by Afghan contractors uncovered

Contractors behaving badly mean headaches for US
WASHINGTON—At two in the morning on Sept. 9, 2005, five DynCorp International Security Guards assigned to Afghan President Hamid Karzai's protective detail returned to their compound drunk, with a Prostitute in tow. Less than a week later, three of these same guards got drunk again, this time in the VIP lounge of the Kabul airport while awaiting a flight to Thailand. "They had been intoxicated, loud and obnoxious," according to an internal company repor...

A Bitter Pill for Aid Reform
Mon Dec. 20, 2010 3:00 AM PST In Washington, interdepartmental turf wars start not with a bang but a paper. For Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, there's a pivotal skirmish brewing over development and Diplomacy policy. In Clinton's corner are the State Department and the US Agency for International Development. But across the ring lurks Bob Gates' Defense Department, the undisputed heavyweight champ of intragovernmental cage fights. The Controversial paper in question? The sort-of-heralded i...

Foreign troop toll in Afghanistan in 2010 nears 700
Kabul (Reuters) - The number of foreign Troops killed in Afghanistan in 2010 neared 700 with two more confirmed on Saturday, by far the deadliest year of the war underscoring the renewed focus on when international forces will leave. The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said one of its Troops was killed by a Roadside Bomb in southern Afghanistan, the heartland of the Taliban, and another in an attack by Insurgents in the volatile east. It gave no other details, including their n...

Karzai to open Afghan parliament by January 20: lawmaker
By Jonathon Burch Kabul | Mon Dec 20, 2010 3:31am EST Kabul (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai has promised to inaugurate parliament by January 20, a prominent lawmaker said on Monday, more than four months after a legislative election marked by widespread Fraud. The election had degenerated into a debacle even before the voting on September 18. Losing Candidates staged street Protests and tension rose over reports the Attorney General's office had asked for the vote to be annulled. Al...

Afghan parliament to convene Jan. 20
Afghan President Hamid Karzai's spokesman says parliament will convene on Jan. 20, more than four months after Fraud-tainted Elections. Waheed Omar said Monday the 249-seat parliament will be inaugurated after a winter break. The vote was on Sept. 18 and results were ratified by the Independent Election Commission on Nov. 24. The elections were plagued by irregularities and Voter Intimidation. Election officials discarded 1.3 million ballots — nearly a quarter of the total — for frau...

Afghan parliament to convene Jan. 20
KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan President Hamid Karzai's spokesman says parliament will convene on Jan. 20, more than four months after Fraud-tainted Elections. Waheed Omar said Monday the 249-seat parliament will be inaugurated after a winter break. The vote was on Sept. 18 and results were ratified by the Independent Election Commission on Nov. 24. The elections were plagued by irregularities and Voter Intimidation. Election officials discarded 1.3 million ballots — nearly a quarter of...

News bites: Fears of Gulf seafood remain, Rohrabacher promoted biofuels company on foreign trip, and much more
Despite assurances by both state and local officials, some in the Gulf are still unsure about the safety of Seafood. "In the five months since BP's gusher spilled as much as 200 million gallons of crude off the Louisiana coast, federal and state agencies have repeatedly proclaimed Gulf seafood safe. The state says of more than 800 seafood samples tested, 503 showed no contamination at all, and the others only tiny amounts that pose no threat. Their message: The oysters, shrimp, crabs and fish ...

'Blackwater' Founder Exits Security Firm With Sale To Private Investors
What is this? The private security company formerly known as "Blackwater" is being purchased by USTC Holdings, investment group led by two Private Equity firms. The purchase includes the company's training facility in North Carolina. Owner and founder Erik Prince, a former Navy Seal, will no longer have an equity stake or management role in the company, now called "Xe." Blackwater gained notoriety for its work in Iraq and Afghanistan, including a 2007 shooting in Baghdad that led to federal...

Manufactured Exodus
Did you know Iraq has a sizable Christian population? Well, not for much longer. There were over a million of them before the fall of Saddam Hussein, with some estimates ranging as high as 1.4 million. Now, according to a State Department report quoted by the Associated Press, only four to six hundred thousand remain… and their final exodus is well under way. On October 31st, an affiliate of Al-Qaeda stormed the Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad, using guns, bombs and gr...

Report: Gov't has huge intelligence force
Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano speaks in Washington Dec. 8, 2010, UPI/Kevin Dietsh WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 (UPI) -- The U.S. government, since 2001, has assembled a huge, secretive intelligence Task Force to prevent future Terrorist Attacks, The Washington Post reported. The operation has grown so large and secretive since the Terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that no one knows how much it costs, how many people it employs or how many programs it has, the Post said in a report Monday it...

Govt 'creating vast domestic snooping machine'
A security official wears a listening device. The government is creating a ... The government is creating a vast domestic spying network to collect information about Americans in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks and subsequent terror plots, The Washington Post reported Monday. The government is using for this purpose the FBI, local police, state Homeland Security offices and Military criminal investigators, the daily added. The system collects, stores and analyzes information about t...

Is China's Mosuo tribe the world's last matriarchy?
"The water is clear and clean and the surroundings are peaceful and beautiful - it's perfect": Mosuo women row across Lugu Lake in a traditional canoe made of driftwood. Photograph: Luca Locatelli Two women row a canoe made of driftwood across a lake, their eyes fixed on a destination in the distance. The woman in the foreground bites her bottom lip with determination. There's a steeliness in her expression that says she's done this many times before. In a series of exceptional ph...

Concern grows over Myanmar nuclear program
Published: Dec. 20, 2010 at 10:38 AM WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 (UPI) -- The United Nations is pressing Myanmar over a possible Nuclear Program, though former U.S. Diplomats said they doubt any activity is malicious. Myanmar is a signatory to the U.N. Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, though the International Atomic Energy Agency in at least two letters called on the Military Junta to clarify its nuclear intent. In a letter to the Myanmar government, the IAEA is asking to visit some suspected nuclear s...

Jakarta denies that pressure was applied over Kopassus
JAKARTA: The Indonesian government has denied that it threatened to derail President Barack Obama's visit to Jakarta to pressure Washington into lifting its ban on training Kopassus, Indonesia's Controversial special army forces. The US announcement in July that it would remove its 12-year Moratorium on training Kopassus, which has a long history of Human Rights abuses, was based on mutual interest, the Indonesian Defence Minister, Purnomo Yusgiantoro, said. ''In the agreement that we signed, In...

WikiLeaks CableGate: December 20, Day 23
Check and update this page often for the latest news and views on the Wikileaks saga, as well as our special report. DECEMBER 20, DAY 23 [CBS/AP] A storage facility housing Yemen's radioactive material was unsecured for up to a week after its lone guard was removed and its Surveillance camera was broken, a secret U.S. State Department cable released by Wikileaks revealed Monday. The message, dated Jan. 9, relates the worries of a Yemeni official, whose name was removed, about the unguarded s...

Tensions high as S. Korea conducts drill
Published: Dec. 20, 2010 at 1:35 AM Seoul, Dec. 20 (UPI) -- South Korea fired artillery near North Korea Monday from an island the North shelled -- a move Pyongyang warned could produce sudden and widespread disaster. The live-munitions drills, which South Korea has insisted it has a right to conduct in disputed waters around Yeonpyeong Island, "won't last long," a Joint Chiefs of Staff official told South Korea's Yonhap News Agency. The exercises, about 7 miles from South Korea's western sea bo...

Patricia DeGennaro: A Missed Opportunity at the State Department
Last week's unveiling of the State Department's first-ever comprehensive strategic review -- titled the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR) -- has been a long time coming. After a full year of delay, the department has officially admitted what government officials, academics, civilian workers and others have been saying for decades: the U.S. Foreign Policy apparatus is failing. More specifically, its civil service is diminished so extensively that the U.S. has had to scramble t...

Afghanistan guardedly backs U.S. review
By Sayed Salahuddin Kabul | Mon Dec 20, 2010 9:48am EST Kabul (Reuters) - Washington has failed to address many of Afghanistan's concerns, including Civilian Casualties and the need for Reconciliation talks with the Taliban, in its war strategy review, the Afghan president's office said on Monday. A five-page summary of the non-classified sections of the two-month review was released last Thursday, but Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who was not mentioned at all in the public documents, has ye...

Backing grows from TAPI pipeline
Published: Dec. 20, 2010 at 8:55 AM TAPI Pipeline new silk road? New Delhi, Dec. 20 (UPI) -- Moscow is in talks with officials in India about joining a multilateral Gas Pipeline from Turkmenistan, sources from Russia said. Turkmenistan aims to deliver Natural Gas through Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. The project is seen as a rival to similar plans from Iran through its so-called Peace Pipeline. "Russia had recently expressed its keenness to India to participate in the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan...

The Long Wait for Sarah Palin's Emails
You've seen Sarah Palin's tweets. Imagine reading thousands of her emails. A group of Journalists, including myself, have been trying for two years to win access, under Alaska's open records law, to emails Palin sent and received during her partial stint as Governor of Alaska. But the state has postponed releasing the emails, with The Office in charge of the request repeatedly asking for and receiving extensions from a series of State Attorneys general (including Palin appointees). But the delay...

Iraqi Christians get set for a grim Christmas
A Christian woman grieves during a mass at Our Lady of Salvation church in Baghdad, Iraq, on Dec. 10. Iraqi Christians have gathered for mass in the same church that more than a month ago was the scene of a horrific bloodbath that left scores dead and wounded. IRBIL, Iraq — They saw their brethren murdered during Mass and then were bombed in their homes as they mourned. Al-Qaida vowed to hunt them down. Now the Christian community of Iraq, almost as old as the religion itself, is sen...

Overlooked in Afghanistan
Get alerts when there is a new article that might interest you. The main point of last week's presidential report on America's progress in Afghanistan was no surprise: We're making "fragile" progress in our nine-year war there, but not enough. Yet it's what President Obama and his advisers aren't saying about Afghanistan that's vital to making up our minds on whether this war is worth it. First, the brutal Afghan winter leaves us stuck in a dynamic where every fall our generals and Strategists m...

What Bam Left Out
The main point of last week's presidential report on America's progress in Afghanistan was no surprise: We're making "fragile" progress in our nine-year war there, but not enough. Yet it's what President Obama and his advisers aren't saying about Afghanistan that's vital to making up our minds on whether this war is worth it. First, the brutal Afghan winter leaves us stuck in a dynamic where every fall our generals and Strategists make an adjustment, then must wait for ...

Force Protection gets $1B in 2010 orders
Published: Dec. 20, 2010 at 7:56 AM Force Protection Inc. to upgrade Cougars LADSON, S.C., Dec. 20 (UPI) -- Force Protection Industries, Inc. of South Carolina says it has received a milestone of more than $1billion in new orders in 2010. A modification to a contract last week for approximately $13.4 million from the U.S. Marine Corps Systems Command to provide additional field service support, propelled total orders received during 2010 to more than $1 billion. Of the orders received, about 53 ...

What Bam left out
The main point of last week's presidential report on America's progress in Afghanistan was no surprise: We're making "fragile" progress in our nine-year war there, but not enough. Yet it's what President Obama and his advisers aren't saying about Afghanistan that's vital to making up our minds on whether this war is worth it. First, the brutal Afghan winter leaves us stuck in a dynamic where every fall our generals and Strategists make an adjustment, then must wait for spring and summer to see ...