Author: Sunfire

Mail.com

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Taliban suicide bombers struck two buses carrying Afghan soldiers in Kabul early Wednesday, killing seven people and wounding 21, just a day after the signing of a key U.S.-Afghan security pact.

The long-awaited deal allows U.S. forces to remain in the country past the end of 2014, ending the uncertainty over the fate of foreign troops supporting Afghans as they take over the fight against the Taliban insurgency.   Continue reading “Taliban suicide bombers kill 7 in Kabul, wound 21”

Mail.com

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Mohamed Mohamud, the young Somali American convicted of trying to bomb Portland’s downtown square while it was filled with holiday cheer, will learn Wednesday if he gets to leave prison before he’s an old man.

Mohamud, 23, could get life in prison at Wednesday’s hearing in U.S. District Court, but federal prosecutors recommend a 40-year sentence. The Somali American was arrested Nov. 26, 2010, after pressing a keypad button on a cellphone that he believed would trigger a bomb where thousands of people gathered for the annual lighting of a Christmas tree.   Continue reading “Judge to sentence man in tree-lighting terror case”

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NORTH AUGUSTA, S.C. (AP) — Ernest Satterwhite was a laid-back former mechanic with a habit of ignoring police officers who tried to pull him over — an act of defiance that ultimately got him killed.

The 68-year-old black great-grandfather was shot to death after a slow-speed chase as he parked in his own driveway, by a 25-year-old police officer who repeatedly fired through the driver’s side door.   Continue reading “Officer kills man through car door in his driveway”

RT

The head of a company that sells a spyware application for smartphones has been indicted and arrested for conspiracy and other charges related to surreptitious interception. It is the first time the US Department of Justice has targeted spyware apps.

Undetectable and untraceable by most phone users – that is how a spyware application dubbed StealthGenie was allegedly being advertised by Hammad Akbar, the chief executive of the Pakistani-owned, UK-based company InvoCode.   Continue reading “Spyware phone app CEO indicted for conspiracy”

RT

Once the fourth-biggest lake in the world, the eastern basin of the Aral Sea in central Asia is now completely dry. It is the result of a Soviet-era project to divert rivers for agriculture and a lack of rainfall at its source.

“This is the first time the eastern basin has completely dried in modern times,” Philip Micklin, an Aral Sea expert from Western Michigan University told NASA’s Earth Observatory, which captured fresh satellite images of the lake. “And it is likely the first time it has completely dried in 600 years, since Medieval desiccation [drying out] associated with diversion of Amu Darya to the Caspian Sea.”   Continue reading “NASA pics show Aral Sea basin now completely dry”

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HONG KONG (AP) — Pro-democracy protesters demanded that Hong Kong’s top leader meet with them on Tuesday and threatened wider actions if he did not, after he said China would not budge in its decision to limit voting reforms in the Asian financial hub.

Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying’s rejection of the student demands dashed hopes for a quick resolution of the five-day standoff that has blocked city streets, forcing some schools and offices to close.   Continue reading “HK leader says China adamant; students seek talks”

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RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — They both were walking alone, separated from their friends late at night on or near the University of Virginia campus. One was found dead nearly five years ago. The other is still missing.

And now police believe they have found a link between the 2009 slaying of Morgan Harrington and the Sept. 13 disappearance of Hannah Graham: Forensic evidence found in the arrest of a hospital worker and former taxi driver who fled the state when he learned police wanted to question him about the Graham case.   Continue reading “Virginia police: Forensic evidence links 2 cases”

RT

Publicly announcing that US intelligence agencies “underestimated” the presence and activity of Islamic State militants in Syria, US President Barack Obama in an interview with CBS called the country a “ground zero” for international jihadists.

“Over the past couple of years, during the chaos of the Syrian civil war, where essentially you have huge swaths of the country that are completely ungoverned, they were able to reconstitute themselves and take advantage of that chaos,” Obama said in an interview made on Friday but aired on Sunday.   Continue reading “US ‘underestimated’ Islamic State militants in Syria – Obama”

RT

Ron Paul, America’s most outspoken libertarian and anti-mainstream politician, has slammed US military strikes in Syria and Iraq.

Not known for mincing his words or flip-flopping, Paul told RT’s Abby Martin that President Obama’s decision to use military force in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State [IS], without approval from the UN or the US Congress, was “immoral and illegal” under US and international law.   Continue reading “Ron Paul: Obama’s bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria ‘immoral and illegal’”

RT

Two asylum seekers have been severely beaten and abused by security guards in a German town. The police compared the brutal actions to those committed by US guards in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, against the prisoners.

The seekers were abused in shelter home in a small community of Burbach, North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany, reported the country’s press. The scandal has prompted the German government to publicly condemn pictures showing the abuse.   Continue reading “Gitmo in Germany? Security guards abuse asylum seekers”

Mail.com

SAN DIEGO (AP) — President Barack Obama has assured Americans he opposes sending U.S. ground troops to crush Islamic extremists in Iraq and Syria — well aware the country is not ready to return to the battlefield with its war wounded still recovering from a decade of conflict.

But airmen have been sent back into combat in the region with the focus on airstrikes, divided between fighter pilots and drone operators. While drone operators are not physically in harm’s way — they do their work at computer terminals in darkened rooms far from the actual battlefield — growing research is finding they too can suffer some of the emotional strains of war that ground forces face.   Continue reading “Emotional toll taxes military drone operators too”

RT

UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative party has accepted the resignation of Brooks Newmark, Minister for Civil Society, who was caught sending explicit photos of himself over social media networks.

Newmark, a married father of five, was the victim of a sting operation in which he was duped by a male freelance reporter into believing he was communicating with a female Tory party activist. The journalist, who sold the story to the Sunday Mirror, was investigating allegations that some MPs were using social media sites to meet women.    Continue reading “Full Monty: UK minister resigns after falling for journalist sexting sting op”

RT

The US-led air campaign against terrorists in Syria amounts to a war against Islam, Al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front group has claimed, promising retaliation against those states involved in the bombing of the ‘caliphate’ instead of targeting Assad forces.

“We are in a long war. This war will not end in months nor years,”group spokesman Abu Firas al-Suri said as cited by Reuters. “It’s not a war against Nusra Front, it’s a war against Islam.”   Continue reading “Retaliation for US-led airstrikes in Syria will follow, Al-Qaeda offshoot vows”

RT

Russia’s investment in its military is not a sign of a looming new arms race but rather a long-overdue modernization, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with RT and the VGTRK media corporation.

“I don’t think we are on the verge of a new arms race. At least, Russia definitely won’t be part of it,” the minister said. “In our case, it’s just that the time has come for us to modernize our nuclear and conventional arsenals.”   Continue reading “Lavrov: High time to rearm, Moscow’s military upgrade long overdue”

Mail.com

TOKYO (AP) — Rescue workers have found 30 or more people unconscious and believed to be dead near the peak of an erupting volcano in central Japan, local government and police said Sunday.

Nagano prefecture posted on its website that about 30 people had heart and lung failure, the customary way for Japanese authorities to describe a body until police doctors can examine it. At least four of the victims were being brought down from Mount Ontake on Sunday afternoon, one day after the volcano erupted.   Continue reading “More than 30 believed dead at Japanese volcano”

Mail.com

SPRINGVILLE, Utah (AP) — Two parents and three of their children were found dead in a home near Provo, and authorities said early Sunday they were trying to determine the cause of the deaths.

The bodies were reported to officers in Springville about 8 p.m. MDT Saturday, police spokesman Lt. Dave Caron said. “Police secured the scene and checked to make sure it was safe to continue the investigation inside,” he said.   Continue reading “Bodies of 2 parents, 3 children found in Utah home”

Mail.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — The widespread mistrust of law enforcement that was exposed by the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black man in Missouri exists in too many other communities and is having a corrosive effect on the nation, particularly on its children, President Barack Obama says. He blames the feeling of wariness on persistent racial disparities in the administration of justice.

Obama said these misgivings only serve to harm communities that are most in need of effective law enforcement. “It makes folks who are victimized by crime and need strong policing reluctant to go to the police because they may not trust them,” he said Saturday night in an address at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s annual awards dinner.   Continue reading “Obama says mistrust of police corroding America”