US, Pakistan relationship under pressure
26.09.11
BRENDAN TREMBATH: The military coalition between the United States and Pakistan to fight Islamic terrorism is showing serious signs of extraction.
Tension has been building momentum since the US joint chiefs chairman, Admiral Mike Mullen, said Pakistan was exporting vehement extremism to Afghanistan.
The US believes Pakistan's spy agency is a elongated standing and covert supporter of the Haqqani group - a network of contentious Islamic extremists blamed for a series of spectacular fright attacks, including the assault on the American embassy in Kabul.
Peter Lloyd reports.
PETER LLOYD: The Americans have hinted, nudged and winked at the deposition for years but last week Admiral Mike Mullen dropped the perspicacious niceties adopted after 9/11 and gave the Pakistanis a general slapping at a US Senate hearing.
The chairman of the joint chiefs said the Haqqani network is "a virtual arm" of Pakistan's spy agency, the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence).
He accused the Pakistanis of supporting proxies in Afghanistan as a master plan for maintaining Pakistani influence over the shape of a post-conflict clearing.
Source: ABC Online
Kenya PM says under pressure to close Somali border
24.09.11
Of like mind NATIONS — Kenya's prime minister said Saturday he was under mounting urge to close the border with Somalia as he joined other African leaders pleading for remedy to counter a spreading famine.
With tens of thousands already dead and a coterie in Kenya now housing 500,000 famine refugees, Prime Woman of the cloth Raila Odinga said the United Nations should set up camps fundamentally Somalia.
Odinga and leaders from Somalia, Djibouti and Ethiopia pushed for greater ecumenical action at a UN summit on the crisis as the World Bank at hand quadrupled aid to the Horn of Africa countries to $1.9 billion from $500 million.
The Combined Nations estimates that 750,000 people are at risk of cessation from starvation and that 13 million need urgent pinch.
The Dadaab camp in Kenya has become the world's biggest DP complex because of the famine crisis with thousands arriving each week.
Kenya has "a intractable" with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) over the location and tariff of camps, Odinga said at the launch of a charter to keep hunger before summit. "We don't share their argument," he said.
Source: AFP