The 4 September bombing of two oil tankers in the northern Afghan town of Kunduz caused carnage, and was the deadliest incident involving German troops since the Second World War. At first the German Nato forces, which had ordered the attack, claimed that all those killed in the incident were insurgents, although later the government in Berlin expressed regrets if innocent people had been among the victims.

Yesterday General Schneiderhan, the highest ranking official in the Germany armed ( Read more... )
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Taken together, these signals of intent by the world's two biggest producers give a powerful boost to the prospects for the talks. China said it will cut emissions of carbon relative to economic growth by 40 to 45 per cent by 2020 compared with 2005 levels.

Because its economy is still growing fast, this means that in absolute terms China's emissions will continue to rise fast for at least a decade. But for the first time China has agreed to slow the pace of growth of emissions.

"This ( Read more... )
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And then, milling inconspicuously around the South Lawn, sipping cocktails, nibbling canapés and by all accounts getting gently sozzled, were Tareq and Michaele Salahi.

The couple had travelled up from Virginia, dressed to the nines, for a big night out. At precisely 9.08pm, they used the website Facebook to tell friends they were "honoured to be at the White House for the state dinner in honour of India with President Obama and our First Lady!" Shortly afterwards, the Salahis posted a ( Read more... )
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But why? Garlic, surely, is nothing but a smelly, unromantic little vegetable which nobody eats in any great quantity unless they want to lose all their friends. So why should the garlic traders of Jinxiang province, the garlic-producing heartland of China, be stinking rich this year?

One reason is a belief that it can keep you safe from swine flu. In north China, chewing garlic to ward off flu and other ailments is an old practice and it is suspected that traders have been encouraging people ( Read more... )
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The report revealed that four consecutive Archbishops of Dublin had effectively colluded for more than a quarter of a century in ensuring that the activities of paedophile priests did not reach the public gaze.

It is the latest in a series of hugely damaging reports on the church and children, all of which have concluded that it routinely placed its own image before the protection of the vulnerable. The conclusion of this report, produced by a Commission of Investigation after years of ( Read more... )
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The Northern Territory government announced its plan for Docker River, a town of 350 residents, where thirsty camels have been arriving daily for weeks because of drought conditions in the region.

"The community of Docker River is under siege by 6,000 marauding, wild camels," local government minister Rob Knight said in Alice Springs, 310 miles (500 kilometres) north-east of Docker.

"This is a very critical situation out there, it's very unusual and it needs ( Read more... )
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Michele Catalano, 48, is said to be an important sidekick of Salvatore Lo Piccolo, the man who took over the running of Cosa Nostra after the arrest of Bernardo Provenzano in April 2006. Provenzano became "boss of bosses" after the arrest of Riina in 1993.

Operating from the San Filippo Neri quarter of Palermo, Catalano's alleged speciality was running illegal gambling dens.

Capo di Capi, screened by Mediaset's Channel 5, owned by the Berlusconi family, has been a huge success but ( Read more... )
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The Burmese regime ? apparently caught off guard by the scale of the demonstrations that have spread through the country over the past week ? held a crisis meeting at its headquarters at its new capital, Naypidaw, located deep in the jungle. With discussions apparently led by the Defence Ministry, the regime emerged to issue new, blunt warnings to the demonstrators to end their protests or face the government's response.

The protesters showed no sign yesterday of backing down. For the eighth ( Read more... )
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The picture, widely described as the world's worst photo-fit, was drawn by a woman who witnessed the violent murder of Rafael Vargas, a taxi driver from the city of Santa Cruz who was stabbed to death before being set on fire in the street last March. After Bolivian TV showed the image, accompanied by dramatic music, the case became a cause célèbre.

Clips of news reports describing crime were uploaded to YouTube, and went viral, sparking comparisons between the suspect and, among other ( Read more... )
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Michaele and Tareq Salahi were not on the guest list for Tuesday's dinner, agency spokesman Ed Donovan said.

President Barack Obama was never in any danger because the party crashers went through the same security screening for weapons as the 300-plus people actually invited to the dinner honouring Indian premier Manmohan Singh, Mr Donovan said.

The Washington Post, which first reported on the Salahis' evening out, said the couple were well-known ( Read more... )
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Why are we asking this now?

In an international calendar full to bursting with uncomfortable acronyms it's time for one of the worst of them: CHOGM. The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting convenes in Trinidad and Tobago tomorrow for its bi-annual get together, which can ordinarily be counted upon to be in one of the warmer member states. Last time it was Uganda.

The agenda this year is dominated by the expected acceptance of Rwanda into the fold, ( Read more... )
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But if the state's top legal officer is to be believed, the charity is nothing but a scam, whose sole beneficiaries are the two people that run it and their workers. In a lawsuit filed this week, Attorney-General Andrew Cuomo claimed their programmes to help the homeless simply do not exist.

Instead, the UHO "exploits the good intentions of people who thought they were helping fund the homeless" to channel money to its principals and workers, who then use the group's non-profit, tax-exempt ( Read more... )
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"I have not entered that room ? it's not something I have done. Even in the aftermath I did not go in. I did not see the bodies. I refused to do this," says Mr Kang. "To me, the last memories I want to remember are of them still alive."

Twelve months after 10 Islamist militants swept ashore and laid deadly siege to the Indian city of Mumbai leaving more than 165 people dead and a nation stunned, the historic Taj Mahal Palace hotel ? the hotel of which Mr Kang remains general manager ? is ( Read more... )
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The search engine apologised for providing an "upsetting experience" to users of Google Images after searches for America's First Lady brought up a shot in which Mrs Obama's face had been crudely altered to look like that of a monkey.

The offensive picture had initially been posted last October on an obscure blog called Hot Girls. For months, it went largely ignored. But after a handful of angry rival bloggers linked their site to the image, it began slowly creeping up Google's rankings. ( Read more... )
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The White House statement, that President Barack Obama was prepared to offer a US emissions reduction target "in the range of 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020", means a multilateral treaty to fight global warming is now a possibility.

The US ? the world's biggest carbon emitter until it was overtaken by China ? was the last developed country without a formal climate target, and it had become clear in recent weeks that without a "US number" for the negotiations, the developing countries, ( Read more... )
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An archive containing the contents of more than half a million pager messages sent on 11 September 2001 was published yesterday by the internet site Wikileaks. It provided an uncensored and sometimes deeply moving first-hand account of the attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

The messages were sent by a mixture of frantic emergency personnel, security officials, and people trapped inside the Twin Towers, many of whom used now-obsolete pagers to contact loved ones after the local mobile ( Read more... )
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Burden sharing by the rest of the coalition is the last of the conditions placed on the UK's boost by the Prime Minister which remains to be fulfilled.

But in a letter to Nato Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Mr Brown said he was confident UK efforts to persuade partners other than the US to contribute had been successful.

The PM despatched his senior foreign policy adviser Simon McDonald and Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth to 10 countries ( Read more... )
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Yves Rossy, the so-called Jet Man, was aiming to cross from Africa to Europe with the jet-propelled wing strapped to his back.

But about 15 minutes after he took off from above Tangier in Morocco, organisers wrote on the micro-blogging website Twitter: "He may be in the sea. We have search and rescue team in place."

TV and internet viewers saw Rossy alive in the sea after his landing.

Clothed in a flame-retardant ( Read more... )
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In a television news report last week, bailiffs in Udmurtia boasted of a new scheme. They had set up a fake online account of a young blonde woman, and sent flirty messages offering meetings to men who had defaulted on debt repayments.

When the men arrived at the meeting, they were met not by the saucy blonde they thought they had a date with, but by bailiffs demanding repayment. According to the bailiffs, the scheme had worked a treat, and three debtors had been forced to return sums totalling ( Read more... )
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President Robert Mugabe pulled the nation out of the Commonwealth, which he denounced as an "evil organisation", in 2003.

But Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai supports a return, and Britain believes the troubled nation can be brought back into the mainstream world community.

The meeting of the Commonwealth Heads of Government, which opens in Trinidad on Friday, will send a message to Zimbabwe's leaders that a place at the table could be possible at the next gathering in late 2011. ( Read more... )
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