Pakistan pulls forces from Afghan border
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan today temporarily recalled some troops from border posts meant to coordinate activity with international forces in neighboring Afghanistan. Authorities want to discuss how to improve the process after NATO airstrikes last month killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, the military said.
The decision highlighted current problems with coordination because U.S. military officials seemed to think it was another retaliatory move by Pakistan for the NATO strikes. The officials feared it would hamper efforts to liaise with Pakistani forces and increase the risk something could go wrong again.
The troops were recalled for “consultation” and should be back at their posts within the next few days, said a senior Pakistani military official. The official did not specify how many troops would be recalled or how many would be left at the border centers.
Violence in Syrian protests escalates
BEIRUT (AP) — A surge in violence in the restive Syrian city of Homs has killed up to 50 people in the past 24 hours, leaving dozens of bodies in the streets, activists said today.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights cited witnesses as saying 34 bodies were dumped in the streets of Homs on Monday night. Homs- based activist Mohammed Saleh said there was a spate of kidnappings and killings in the city earlier Monday.
The activists’ reports could not be independently confirmed. Syria has banned most foreign journalists and prevents the work of independent media.
For nearly nine months, the Syrian government has been trying to crush an uprising against President Bashar Assad. But there are growing signs of an armed insurgency and mounting sectarian tensions that could push the country toward civil war.
Homs has emerged as the epicenter of the uprising, and the government has laid siege to the city for months.
GOP border pledge deemed ‘impossible’
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich have promised to complete a nearly 1,950- mile fence. Michele Bachmann wants a double fence. Ron Paul pledges to secure the nation’s southern border by any means necessary, and Rick Perry says he can secure it without a fence — and do so within a year of taking office as president.
But a border that is sealed off to all illegal immigrants and drugs flowing north is a promise none of them could keep.
“Securing the border is a wonderful slogan, but that’s pretty much all it is,” said Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute. “Even to come close would require measures that would make legal commerce with Mexico impossible. That’s an enormous price for what would still be a very leaky system.”
Perry, the longest-serving governor of a state that makes up roughly 65 percent of America’s border with Mexico, already knows that. What he’s actually pledging, clarifies spokeswoman Catherine Frazier, is achieving “operational control” of the border — defined by the U.S. Border Patrol as areas where it can detect, respond to and interdict illegal activity either at the border or after entry into the U.S.
The U.S. Border Patrol says 873 miles of the border, about 44 percent, have been brought under operational control. ”
Clinton raps Egypt, Russia on elections
VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Issuing new warnings to two U.S. partners today, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton criticized Russia for a parliamentary election she said was rigged and said election gains by Islamist parties must not set back Egypt’s push toward democracy after the fall of autocrat Hosni Mubarak this year.
She acknowledged the success of Islamist parties in Egyptian parliamentary voting that the U.S. has praised as fair. But many of the winners are not friendly to the United States or U. S. ally Israel, and some secular political activists in Egypt are worried that their revolution is being hijacked. Islamist parties are among the betterknown and better-organized in Egypt, and while they were expected to do well in last week’s first round voting, a hardline bloc scored surprisingly large gains.
“Transitions require fair and inclusive elections, but they also demand the embrace of democratic norms and rules,” she said. “We expect all democratic actors to uphold universal human rights, including women’s rights, to allow free religious practice.”
Speaking to the electionmonitoring Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Clinton repeated criticism of Russia’s weekend elections, in which Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s party won the largest share of parliament seats. Opposition politicians and election monitors say the result was inflated because of ballot-box stuffing and other vote fraud.
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