The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
A former Nepali Gurkha has been forced to abandon his attempt to become the oldest man to climb Everest. Min Bahadur Sherchan, 81, had been planning to beat the record set only last Thursday by his longtime rival, the Japanese climber Yuichiro Miura, 80. But he had to be airlifted from the mountain's base to a hospital in Kathmandu after suffering from chest problems. His departure brought an end to an epic octogenarian battle -- and sounded a note of disappointment for Nepalese officials who had hoped he would regain the record Wednesday to mark the 60th anniversary of the first ascent by Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing. The pair's rivalry began in 2008 when the Japanese man set out to extend his then-world record, set in 2003 at age 70. He reached the summit again in May 2008 only to find Mr. Sherchan, then 71, had been there the day before.The Daily Telegraph
Pakistani authorities suspended a four-day polio vaccination program Tuesday after gunmen killed a female polio worker and wounded another in a blow to the UN-backed campaign aimed at eradicating the crippling disease in this violence-torn country. Such attacks have made it harder for Pakistan to join the vast majority of nations declared polio-free. The two women were attacked Tuesday in Kaggawala, a village near Peshawar. Senior police official Shafiullah Khan said two attackers on foot fired a pistol at the workers. The vaccine campaign was launched Tuesday morning, but it was halted "for security reasons and to express solidarity with the slain and injured female polio workers", said Habibullah Arif, a government official. No group has claimed responsibility for the latest killing, but some Pakistani insurgents have claimed in the past the polio workers are U.S. spies and the vaccine makes people sterile.
The Associated Press
Two recently rehired Afghan police opened fire on their commander at a checkpoint in a remote district in the country's south, killing him and six of his men, officials said Tuesday. It was the latest in a string of "insider attacks", in which Afghan forces gun down their comrades or international forces. The police chief of volatile Kandahar said the two attackers were former policemen who had rejoined the force only two days before. Gen. Abdul Razaq said they fled in a police vehicle with their dead comrades' weapons after the attack Monday. "We found the weapons and the vehicle today, and now we are searching for the two policemen", Gen. Razaq said. Taliban insurgents warned they would infiltrate security forces to carry out insider attacks.
The Associated Press
Kenyan members of parliament voted Tuesday to overturn a directive that had reduced their pay, hoping it would force the government to pay the higher salaries earned by legislators in the previous parliament. Their pay was slashed to $78,000 from $126,000 this year by a government commission which indicated the country's wage bill was too high. The Salaries & Remuneration Commission had also argued that although Kenya was among the world's poorer economies, its legislators earned more than French lawmakers. Kenya adopted a new constitution in 2010 which intended to remove the parliamentarians' powers to establish their own level of pay. The minimum wage in Nairobi is about $1,500 a year, but many here live on even less.
The Associated Press
Sudanese government troops clashed with rebels in Southern Kordofan state, near the border with South Sudan, and each side claimed Monday to have inflicted heavy losses on the other. The clashes erupted Sunday in Dandor, 500 kilometres west of Khartoum. Southern Kordofan has been hit by violence for nearly two years, displacing hundreds of thousands of people and killing scores. South Sudan broke away from Sudan in 2011 under a 2005 peace treaty that ended decades of war, but disputes remain over their common border, demilitarization and sharing oil revenues. A spokesman for the Sudanese army, Col. Sawarmy Khaled, said government forces clashed with rebels who attacked Dandor, killing more than 70 and seizing two of their tanks. He did not mention government casualties. From the other side, a rebel statement said Sudan People's Liberation Army-North and Sudan Liberation Army rebels carried out a joint attack Sunday on a Sudan government garrison, east of Southern Kordofan's state capital, Kadugli.
The Associated Press.
Bombings and gunfire in central and northern Iraq killed at last 19 people and wounded dozens on Tuesday, in the latest bloody chapter of a wave of violence that has edged the country closer to all-out internal warfare. A day earlier, 70 people were killed, and more than 450 have died this month. Most of the attacks are sectarian in nature, with Sunni and Shiite areas targeted frequently. No one has claimed responsibility for the recent wave of attacks, but such systematic bombings bear the hallmarks of Sunni insurgents under the leadership of the al-Qaida branch in Iraq, known as the Islamic State of Iraq. They appear aimed at drawing the country's majority Shiites into an exchange of attacks like that which brought the country to the brink of civil war in 2006-07.
National Post
Labels: Adventure, Conflict, Health, Islamism, Societal Failures
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, May 29, 2013
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