political nonsense

A suicide bomber killed at least 50 people, including five MPs and several children, in northern Afghanistan.
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In Afghanistan, at least 60 people have been killed and 50 injured in a suicide bombing targeting Afghan lawmakers. The dead include six parliamentarians, as well as schoolchildren and senior citizens. It was the worst suicide bombing in Afghanistan since the U.S. invasion in 2001.
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A British think tank concluded that the War on Terror has been a disaster.
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In Afghanistan, more than one thousand people gathered for a protest Wednesday against a foreign troop raid in Kandahar. Residents say two Islamic clerics were killed overnight.
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Opium production in Afghanistan is at record levels for the second consecutive year.
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Former anti-war leader Cindy Sheehan announced on Thursday that in 2008 she will run as an independent candidate against Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). “I dedicate my candidacy to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan,” Sheehan said, weeping.

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US air strikes reportedly killed as many as 200 civilians. According to the US military the strike hit people who had gathered to watch the Taliban hang two men accused of spying for the government; according to locals the strike killed civilians preparing for a picnic.

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A new British parliamentary study says the U.S.-led NATO force is failing to achieve its goals in Afghanistan.
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The U.S. should shift troops from Iraq to pursue al-Qaida along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Saturday.
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A new U.S. government analysis concluded that Al Qaeda is the strongest it has been since the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. President Bush said it was “simply not the case” that al-Qaeda had successfully rebuilt itself despite a massive six-year campaign to dismantle it.
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The US army confirmed that Canadian soldier Robert Costall was shot in the back in Afghanistan last year by American troops, who opened machine-gun fire on him and then another friendly position during an insurgent attack.
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The military was concerned about a marked drop in the number of African-American recruits since the start of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars; “We just want to make sure,” said Marine Commandant General James Conway, “that we continue to look like America.”
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Nato and US-led troops are failing to co-ordinate with their Afghan allies and thereby causing civilian deaths, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan said. He criticised his Western allies’ “extreme” use of force and said they should act as his government asked.
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Iraq was rated the world’s second most unstable country, behind Sudan.
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The American-led coalition forces in Afghanistan killed seven children during an air strike on what they say was an Al Qaeda base in the east of the country, the military said in a statement today.
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A suicide bomber walked onto a bus carrying officers to a police academy and detonated himself in Kabul on Sunday, killing at least 35 police officers.
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The Taliban fired rockets at Afghan President Hamid Karzai as he gave a speech to some elders. Karzai paused to quiet the audience after the rockets landed a few hundred yards away, then finished his speech.
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The U.S. war crimes tribunals at Guantanamo came to a halt Monday when a military judge dropped all the charges against a young Canadian. Army Col. Peter Brownback, the judge, said the military tribunal lacked jurisdiction over Canadian Omar Khadr because he did not meet the definition of those subject to trial under a law the U.S. Congress drafted last year.
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Up to 380 Afghan civilians have been killed in fighting between Taliban insurgents and Afghan and international forces this year, the
United Nations said Monday.
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YouTube’s co-founders on Thursday challenged the Pentagon’s assertion that soldiers overseas were sapping too much bandwidth by watching online videos, the military’s principal rationale for blocking popular Web sites from Defense Department computers.

“They said it might be a bandwidth issue, but they created the Internet, so I don’t know what the problem is,”

Chief Executive Chad Hurley said.
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