Articles found March 1,2010 On the front lines in Kandahar, the crowd went wild Article LinkFrom the beginning, Corporal Nicole Harcombe had a feeling.
Wearing a Team Canada T-shirt and waving a Canadian flag, Cpl. Harcombe took a second-row seat in a theatre at Kandahar Airfield's New Canada House just after midnight Monday morning.
The military clerk is the middle of a tour here in Afghanistan. Her husband, Peter, a soldier and Afghan veteran himself, was across the world in Edmonton, but she was sure they were both settling in for the same event, albeit at different times of the day - watching the men's hockey gold-medal game.
The married Cpl. Harcombe was, however, forthcoming about a wee crush, a player she felt sure would win it for Canada. A certain slumping star forward from Cole Harbour, a Nova Scotia town she once lived in. The player who'd win it all?
"Sidney Crosby," she says before the game, breaking a wide smile.
The gold-medal match was aired live throughout the Canadian buildings at Kandahar Airfield, the home of Canada's military efforts in Afghanistan. Most prominent, however, was the gathering at New Canada House, where about 200 people crowded in to watch the game. Whether sitting on chairs, stairs, the floor or standing in back, the late hour didn't discourage many people, though free Timbits and coffee were served as incentives.
More on link Pro-gov't party leads Tajik elections; fraud cited Article LinkBy PETER LEONARD (AP) – 1 hour ago
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan — Preliminary results show Tajikistan's pro-government party winning weekend parliamentary elections by a landslide, officials said Monday, as international monitors and the opposition cited widespread fraud.
The results — if confirmed by the final count in 10 days — would reinforce President Emomali Rakhmon's two-decade hold over the impoverished Central Asian country that serves as a supply route for international forces in neighboring Afghanistan.
The initial tally after all of Sunday's votes were counted showed the government-backed party with 71.7 percent and the main opposition Islamic Revival Party with just 7.7 percent, the Central Elections Commission said.
However, international monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said that while the vote peaceful, it was marred by ballot-box stuffing and proxy voting. Islamic Revival said it had evidence of forged ballot count reports.
"Such serious irregularities weaken genuine democratic progress," said Pia Christmas-Moeller, an OSCE delegation leader.
More on link Afghans Move to Protect Rare BirdBenjamin Joffe-Walt Monday, March 01, 2010
Article LinkThe world's 'least known bird' added to Afghanistan protection list.
Afghanistan's National Environment Protection Agency added one of the world's rarest birds recently rediscovered in the country's mountainous east to a new list of protected species on Sunday.
The large-billed reed warbler, a five-inch long olive-brown bird, is so rare it has only been documented twice in the last 100 years.
Robert Timmins, a researcher with the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society found a large-billed reed warbler in 2008 during a wildlife survey in the in the Wakhan Corridor of Afghanitan's Pamir Mountains. In the two years since researchers have found 20 of the tiny perching birds, the largest number ever recorded.
Afghanistan's National Environment Protection Agency added the bird to a list of protected species established last year.
"It is not true that our country is full of only bad stories," Mustafa Zahir, the agency's director-general, told reporters. "This bird, after so many years, has been discovered here. Everyone thought it was extinct."
Dubbed the world's 'least known bird', the large-billed reed warbler was first documented in November, 1867 in the Sutlej Valley near Rampoor, Himachal Pradesh, India.
More on link Two blasts hit Afghanistan's Kandahar, six dead Article LinkFour Afghan civilians and one foreign soldier were killed on Monday when a suicide car bomber hit a convoy of NATO-led troops near the southern city of Kandahar, officials and witnesses said.
Hours later, a car packed with explosives blew up outside the main police station in the city, the birthplace of the ousted Taliban in Afghanistan and the expected next target of NATO troops fighting to oust the militants.
The second Kandahar blast killed one police officer and wounded 16 people, including nine police, said Fazl Ahmad Sherzad, deputy police chief for Kandahar province.
A Reuters reporter at the scene saw at least six vehicles badly damaged. Shattered glass littered the area and several buildings nearby were destroyed.
In the earlier suicide attack, several soldiers from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) were wounded in the attack on a road several miles from Kandahar airport, a provincial official said.
The airport is a key base for a major offensive by ISAF and Afghan forces launched in neighboring Helmand province two weeks ago to retake the town of Marjah from the Taliban.
More on link Afghan: When shooting stops, some soldiers read Article LinkBy CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA (AP) – 9 hours ago
BADULA QULP, Afghanistan — When he was a child, and it was bedtime and lights out, Gene Hicks would hide under the blankets and read with a flashlight. Now he's Army 1st Sgt. Gene Hicks, fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, and sometimes lies in his sleeping bag reading with a flashlight.
"I'm still doing the same thing," said Hicks, whose mind travels far from the war zone to a world inhabited by a monk, a duke, an assassin and the merchant princes of medieval Europe.
Hicks, 39, of Tacoma, Washington, is reading "The Anger of God" by Paul Doherty, a mystery novel set in London in 1379. His girlfriend in the U.S. wrote to Doherty to tell him Hicks was a fan. The author mailed a prayer card, autographed copies of four books, and a note — "Be safe."
Hicks is part of a force from the 5th Stryker Brigade that has pushed into Taliban land near the southern town of Marjah, where U.S. Marines are fighting. He retreats to Doherty's book when he can.
"I like reading about the history of how things were; he doesn't sugarcoat things much," said Hicks. He likes the atmospherics — the gallows, the intrigue, the intensity of religious belief.
The first line:
"The man waiting in the corner of the derelict cemetery between Poor Jewry and Sybethe Lane jumped as an owl in the old yew tree above him hooted and spread ghostly wings to go soaring like a dark angel over the tumbled grass and briars."
The soldiers of Alpha Company of the 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment have fought insurgents in the fields and villages of Badula Qulp. Bombs and snipers are a daily threat. There is downtime. Some read in the quiet hours, when they are not shooting or patrolling or scanning, or cleaning their weapons or waiting or sleeping or eating or chatting or tending to Stryker infantry trucks.
More on link Coalition forces eye athletic facility for Kandahar Article LinkIndoor complex would be ‘very important,' city sports director says
Being a recreational athlete in Kandahar isn't easy.
Equipment is expensive, when even $20 shoes represent a double-digit percentage of a monthly wage. Fields are crowded, far away and often muddy. Furthermore, there is only one multisport complex, which is outdoors. There's no major indoor facility in the entire city, which has an estimated population of about 800,000.
“When it's raining, really cold or really hot, we can't play,” said Wali Mohammad, a 21-year-old soccer player from Kandahar.
The city and its 21,800 enrolled recreational athletes (said to be almost all men) are in line for a big boost, however. Coalition forces are considering a deal to build what would be Kandahar's only indoor athletic facility.
Canadian Brigadier-General Daniel Ménard, the head of the coalition's task force in Kandahar, said in an interview that coalition forces are “looking at” building the multi-use centre, with possible American funding, but that it's in the early stages and any ribbon-cutting is a ways off. He framed it as an investment in sport that is meant to draw young men away from the insurgency.
More on link Afghan soldiers show improvement in Marja assaultThe top Marine commander says Afghan troops, overall, exceeded his expectations. But there is still a need for more training.
Article LinkThe Afghan troops who supported the U.S. Marines in the battle to end Taliban control of this town in Helmand province showed marked improvement over last summer's performance in a similar fight but still need much more training, Marine commanders say.
Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, the top Marine here, said that overall the Afghan battalions exceeded his expectations. Nicholson said he would give some Afghan units an A-minus or B-plus but that others, particularly those with soldiers fresh from basic training, would get a C-minus or D.
The lead Afghan commander, Brig. Gen. Mahayoodin Ghoori, agreed with Nicholson's assessment. "We fought hard, we beat the terrorists, but we need more training, especially more training with heavy weapons," Ghoori said.
The fight to oust the Taliban has been billed as a major test of the Afghan army's state of readiness to assume the lead role in providing security for the nation.
Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has called for improving the Afghan army's training and increasing its size and capability. That priority has taken on added urgency since President Obama declared in December that he wants to begin withdrawing U.S. combat troops by mid-2011.
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