Battered U.S East Coast Strives to Get More Snow Coming

WASHINGTON : Hundreds of emergency crews battled on Sunday to clear snow-clogged roads and restore power to thousands of homes across the US east coast before a new storm hits.

An early morning freeze, which had turned partially cleared highways into icy skating rinks, gave way to warmer temperatures helping the big melt to get under way, but officials warned travel was still hazardous.

“This is really challenging for us, and will continue to be a challenge for most of the week,” said Laura Southard from the Virginia emergency management center, noting that another storm is due to hit the mid-Atlantic region late Tuesday.

With record snowfall of more than three feet (a meter) in many places after a monster blizzard swept across Virginia, Maryland and the US federal capital city, bulldozers were having to move in.

“This snow is so deep and so heavy that the traditional snow plows can’t shovel in some areas. So bulldozers are physically having to lift it up and away,” Southard told AFP.

The record snowfall for a storm dubbed “Snowmageddon” was registered in a small town of Colesville, central Maryland, which was blanketed by 40 inches (101 centimeters), the National Weather Center said.

Virginia police had turned out to more than 4,370 calls, with most being traffic crashes or stranded cars. It is believed only three people died though as a result of the storm.

“Progress is being made, but it’s going to take a couple more days at least, but even then we can’t make any promises,” Southard added.

Hundreds of thousands of people spent a chilly night with candles and hunkered under blankets without power, although crews working round-the-clock did manage to restore electricity to many homes.

But by early Sunday more than 200,000 power outages in Virginia and Maryland had yet to be repaired amid fears it could take several days to reach all affected homes and businesses.

Many residents across the region were beginning to try to dig out cars, and clear paths, while officials warned not to let children play in the huge piles left by snow plows in case drivers failed to spot them.

In another sign that life was beginning to get back to normal after the nation’s capital was crippled by the monster storm, some stores and coffee shops were beginning to gradually reopen after a rare shutdown.

Transportation systems from the capital’s outlying suburbs remained snapped, with no overground metro trains running and no buses.

Reagan domestic airport was still closed Sunday, and there was little likelihood of flights out of the international airports at Baltimore, or Dulles, bogged down by a record 32.4 inches (82 centimeters) of snow.

Schools were to remain closed on Monday and Tuesday across most of the region as were local government offices across a swath of northern Virginia, at least on Monday.

In a further blow, officials urged sports fans against going to Super Bowl parties later Sunday — an annual highlight of the social calendar when friends gather to cheer on teams for the finale of the American Football season.

“Traditionally it’s a really big day, Super Bowl Sunday, but I would encourage people to stay home,” said Ed McDonough, spokesman for the Maryland emergency management center.

“It is still well below freezing. A little sun and some sand will help, but we are not going to get a lot of melt. There’s another storm going and we’re not going to be out of the woods for a while.”

It was the second massive storm to hit the region after a December storm dumped some two feet of snow in the area.

And forecasters warned yet another front was moving across from the west coast, prompting the National Weather Service to issue a winter storm watch around the capital from Tuesday afternoon until Wednesday afternoon.

“We are getting a lot of winter fatigue around here now,” McDonough told AFP ruefully, as he pulled up outside his snow-bound driveway after a 24-hour shift.

U.S Plan to Win Afghan Tribe by Tribe is Risky

US: U.S. officials put a lot of hope last year in Haji Rashid, an up-and-coming community leader in the Zormat district of Afghanistan’s Paktia province. They considered Rashid a unifying figure who was capable of bringing together about a dozen tribes in the area to work in support of the American-backed Afghan government.

Their hopes collapsed, however, when Rashid was kidnapped, tortured, mutilated and murdered and his groundwork to broker the support of the tribes in Zormat quickly foundered.

Military officials aren’t sure who killed Rashid, but their suspicions point to the Taliban. “It’s to their benefit to have instability,” said Lt. Col. Matthew Smith, a Georgia Army National Guard officer and the commander of about 1,000 U.S. troops in Paktia province.

Rashid’s murder illustrates one of the obstacles that American officials and military commanders face as they try to persuade tribal leaders to cooperate with U.S. troops and with one another against the Taliban. Afghanistan’s historically weak central governments have shared power with the country’s five so-called “super-tribes” and the tribes that compose them, with 350 or so sub-tribes and with local clans, and most of the country’s would-be conquerors — including the British and the Soviets — have employed their own tribal strategies.

Now American officials are attending tribal meetings, staying in close touch with tribal leaders and trying to determine which leaders are friendly and which aren’t.

In Zormat, U.S. and Afghan officials have turned to tribal leaders as a channel of communication with several small Taliban networks in the region, networks they think could be persuaded to join a peaceful political process. American commanders declined to identify the Taliban commanders with whom they’ve been communicating.

Those efforts, however, risk feeding traditional tribal rivalries, to the detriment of any plan to undercut the Taliban.

“If you are seen as favoring one tribe over another, you are seen as an enemy to them,” said 1st Sgt. Troy Arrowsmith of Odgen, Utah , the top enlisted soldier on the Paktia Provisional Reconstruction Team, a cooperative of about 100 troops and civilians from multiple U.S. agencies.

Unhappy tribes don’t have to look far to find outside support.

“In Zormat, the tribes are fractured, and the Taliban are a part of those tribes,” Arrowsmith said. “They live with them. They have families there.”

American commanders in Paktia keep maps of the province, closely demarcating the tribal areas.

Rivalries  among tribes, sub-tribes and families aren’t confined to Zormat.

In Paktia’s northeast, there’s a long-standing animus between the Turi, a Shiite Muslim tribe that extends into Pakistan, and the Bushara, a Sunni Muslim tribe. U.S. officials think the tribes have been at odds over territorial boundaries for about 60 years.

The Bushara “claim that they won’t allow them to move freely; the Turi claim that they get threatened when go to Gardez,” said Genevieve Libonati, a State Department official who’s assigned to Paktia.

The chaotic nature of tribal relations was on display on a recent Sunday, when a panoply of American military, diplomatic and Department of Agriculture officials joined about 100 government and tribal leaders from the region for a “shura,” or meeting, near the Pakistani border.

After introductions, no U.S. officials spoke during the shura. They only listened.

What they heard was a cacophony of complaints. As emotions rose, any formalities guiding the shura were quickly abandoned. The only common issue among the tribal leaders involved the failings of the American occupiers.

“I’m glad the PRT commander is here,” one Afghan participant told the other tribal leaders, referring to Lt. Col. Carlos Halcomb. “They were going to build a hospital in our district, and it hasn’t been provided yet.”

The comment brought an uproar of support and dissent.

“If we don’t have good security in the area, we’re not going to be able to finish the projects,” retorted Abdul Rahman Mangal, the deputy governor of Paktia.

For several hours, tribal leaders shouted their concerns, with no one attempting to regulate who had the floor. One continued a harangue even after he’d left the lectern, directly in front of the provincial deputy governor and the U.S. officials seated in the back of the room.

Finally, the local director of the Afghan Intelligence Service approached the lectern and calmly delivered a clear message to the tribal chiefs: “Don’t assist (the Taliban). Don’t let them stay in your home overnight. Don’t give them food. Just tell them to leave.”

Turning away the Taliban isn’t easy, though, particularly in areas that Taliban fighters call home. American officials think the Taliban even have infiltrated some local political meetings — denouncing the U.S. occupation — and threatened other tribal leaders who attend these shuras.

“Have I been to a shura where there was Taliban infiltration? I’m pretty sure I have,” said 1st Lt. Luis Alberto Moreno, a U.S. civil affairs officer who specializes in tribal relations in the border region.

U.S Anti-Missile Shield in Europe Against Iran

WASHINGTON: A planned US anti-missile shield in Europe is intended to protect against the ‘emergent threat’ from Iran, the US State Department said on Thursday.

‘Our revised approach is tailored to address the emergent threat coming to the region from Iran,’ said department spokesman Philip Crowley.

‘We’re going to protect our interests and those of our allies,’ he added, confirming that Romania would host medium-range ballistic missile interceptors as part of the shield system.

Romania’s President Traian Basescu earlier announced that his country had agreed to participate in the system, which is expected to be operational by 2015.

The United States in September shelved a plan to place missile defence facilities in the Czech Republic and Poland, after strong protests from Russia.

President Barack Obama’s administration announced the new programme in September, saying it would reconfigure the system after reevaluating the threat from Iranian long-range ballistic missiles, and deciding to focus on protecting against short- and medium-range missiles.

U.S Envoy Visit Nine Zero, Meets MQM Leaders

KARACHI, Pakistan News: US ambassador Anne W Patterson visited Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) center Nine Zero and met the party leaders.

She lauded the efforts of the MQM for the political and democratic stability in the country.

Several MQM leaders including Rabta Committee members Kanwar Khalid Younus, Senator Babar Ghauri, Haq Parast MPAs Faisal Sabzwari, Nazim Karachi Mustafa Kamal and MNA Hyder Abbas Rizvi were present on the occasion.

The US ambassador was accompanied by the officials from US embassy situated in Karachi.

She expressed deep grief and sorrow over the loss of precious lives in Yaum-e-Ashur blast and ensuing incidents regarding torching the markets.

Earlier today, she paid a visit to the mausoleum of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali and laid floral wreath on grave.

Sources said that she was accompanied by her spouse David Peterson and US Consulate General Stephen G. Fakan.

later, she registered her comments in guest book at mausoleum. She also visited graves of Madr-e-Millat Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah, Quaid-e-Millat Liaquat Ali Khan and other leaders of Pakistan movement.

In the end, she visited museum situated in Quaid’s mausoleum.

President Zardari Timeline Resists U.S. to Fight Insurgents

WASHINGTON News updates: President Asif Ali Zardari has resisted a direct appeal from President Obama for a rapid expansion of Pakistani military operations in tribal areas and has called on the United States to speed up military assistance to Pakistani forces and to intervene more forcefully with India, its traditional adversary, Washington Post reported on Wednesday morning.
In a written response to a letter from Obama late last month, Zardari said his government was determined to take action against al-Qaeda, the Taliban and allied insurgent groups attacking U.S. forces in Afghanistan from the border area inside Pakistan. But, he said, Pakistan’s efforts would be based on its own timeline and operational needs.

The message was reinforced Monday by Pakistan’s military chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani, who told Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of the U.S. Central Command, that the United States should not expect “a major operation in North Waziristan” in the coming months, according to a senior U.S. defense official.

North Waziristan, one of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas on the Afghan border, is a sanctuary for the Afghan Taliban.

The letters between the two leaders, while couched in diplomatic niceties and pledging mutual respect and increased cooperation against insurgents, reflect ongoing strains in a relationship that is crucial to both.

Pakistani counterinsurgency operations this year have primarily targeted separate but allied groups — the Pakistani Taliban based in South Waziristan and operating in the Swat Valley region — whose attacks are directed toward Pakistani government targets.

“We’re committed to this war, but we’ll fight it on our terms. . . . We will prioritize targets based on our interests. We don’t want them to be dictated to us,” a Pakistani intelligence official said. He added, “The Pakistani Taliban is the clear and present danger. They are what matters most. Once we are done with them, we will go after the Haqqani network.”

U.S. Air Force Confirms the ‘Beast of Kandahar’ Drone

WASHINGTON news updates: The US Air Force confirmed for the first time that it is flying a stealth unmanned aircraft known as the “Beast of Kandahar,” a drone spotted in photos and shrouded in secrecy.

The RQ-170 Sentinel is being developed by Lockheed Martin and is designed “to provide reconnaissance and surveillance support to forward deployed combat forces,” the air force said in a brief statement.

The “RQ” prefix for the aircraft indicates an unarmed drone, unlike the “MQ” designation used for Predator and Reaper aircraft equipped with missiles and precision-guided bombs.

Aviation experts dubbed the drone the “Beast of Kandahar” after photographs emerged earlier this year showing the mysterious aircraft in southern Afghanistan in 2007.

The image suggested a drone with a radar-evading stealth-like design, resembling a smaller version of a B-2 bomber.

A blog in the French newspaper Liberation published another photo this week, feeding speculation among aviation watchers about the classified drone.

The air force said the aircraft came out of Lockheed Martin’s “Skunk Works,” also known as Advanced Development Programs, in California – the home of sophisticated and often secret defense projects including the U-2 spy plane, the F-22 fighter jet and the F-117 Nighthawk.

The photo of the drone in Afghanistan has raised questions about why the United States would be operating a stealth unmanned aircraft in a country where insurgents have no radar systems, prompting speculation Washington was using the drones for possible spying missions in neighboring Iran or Pakistan.

The Sentinel was believed to have a flying wing design with no tail and with sensors built into the top side of each wing, according to published photos.

The RQ-170 is in line with Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ request for more intelligence and surveillance resources and with the Air Force chief of staff’s plans to expand the fleet of unmanned aircraft, the air force said.

The new drone is flown by the 30th Reconnaissance Squadron out of Tonopah Test Range in Nevada, which is under Air Combat Command’s 432nd Wing at Creech Air Base, also in Nevada.

The United States has carried out an extensive bombing campaign against Al-Qaeda figures in Pakistan using the Predator and larger Reaper drones.

Robots or “unmanned systems” in the air and on the ground are now deployed by the thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan, spying from the sky for hours on end, searching for booby-traps and firing lethal missiles without putting US soldiers at risk.

U.S. Said that Carbon Offset is to Drive to Copenhagen

COPENHAGEN news updates: The United States said it had seized the climate initiative with a regulatory shift that labels greenhouse gases a dangerous pollutant, as a landmark conference entered a second day Tuesday.

The shift by the Environmental Protection Agency was announced on the opening day of a 192-nation meeting in Copenhagen aimed at drawing up a global pact to tackle climate change amid warnings of environmental catastrophe.

The US move “means that we arrive at the climate talks in Copenhagen with a clear demonstration of our commitment to facing this global challenge”, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said.

Jackson signed orders declaring six greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, including carbon dioxide, to be pollutants that are subject to government regulation.

The decision sidestepped a divided Congress and was greeted with outrage by Republicans and some US business leaders. But delegates to the talks in Copenhagen said it would lend momentum to the 12-day conference.

“It will only help to persuade delegates and observers from other countries that the US is seriously using all the tools it has,” said David Doniger, policy director of the National Resources Defense Council’s climate centre.

“The administration has the task of persuading other countries that it is seriously tackling this issue at a time when the legislation is still working its way through Congress,” he said in the Danish capital.

France’s climate ambassador Brice Lalonde said: “This gives additional credibility to the US commitment.”

The impact on humanity of man-made drought, flood, storms and rising seas was spelt out Monday at the start of the meeting, which will climax with a summit attended by more than 110 leaders including US President Barack Obama.

“For the next two weeks, Copenhagen will be Hopenhagen,” Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen said.

“By the end, we must be able to deliver back to the world what was granted us here today: hope for a better future,” he said.

The Copenhagen marathon gathers members of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Delegates must craft a blueprint for tackling man-made greenhouse gases blamed for trapping solar heat and disrupting the climate.

They must also put together a funding mechanism able to channel hundreds of billions of dollars to poor nations most exposed to climate change.

If all goes well, the leaders on December 18 will agree a political deal that sets down the course of action, including a roster of national pledges.

Further negotiations are expected to take place in 2010 to fill in the details. A legally binding treaty would take effect from the end of 2012.

Analysts, though, point to the huge gap between demands from developing countries and the willingness of rich countries to dig both into their pockets and into their carbon emissions.

Connie Hedegaard, a Danish minister elected to chair the talks, said political will would “never be stronger”.

“This is our chance. If we miss it, it could take years before we get a new and better one — if ever,” she said.

Obama is hoping to push through a new deal after the United States — the world’s biggest economy — rejected the Kyoto Protocol under his predecessor, George W. Bush.

Leading US negotiator Jonathan Pershing was cautious, saying Copenhagen was only a stepping stone.

“We see it beginning with a political arrangement that would be operational, that would move elements and activities forward immediately, and that would then be followed by a negotiation of a legal arrangement,” he told reporters.

Still, the EPA ruling gives Obama powerful new leverage to meet US pledges on emissions even if his critics in Congress derail legislation. European nations meanwhile are divided over hardening their own emissions targets.

The 27 EU nations have already agreed to cut emissions 20 percent by 2020. The dispute is over a linked proposal to boost the cuts to 30 percent if the rest of the world makes ambitious pledges in Copenhagen.

Poland, which like other eastern European members relies on heavily polluting coal-fired power stations, said other countries outside Europe had failed to come up with the goods.

But France, Britain and others argue there have already been sufficient pledges to warrant the switch to a 30 percent target.

“We’ve got to make (European) countries recognise that they have to be as ambitious as they say they want to be,” British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told Tuesday’s Guardian.

U.S. Strike Drone 3 Killed in Miranshsh

MIRANSHAH news updates: At least three persons were killed and another three were injured in suspected US drone strike in Miranshah on early Tuesday morning, news reporter quoted security and intelligence sources as saying.

The strike took place in Aspalga village, some 12 kilometres (seven miles) southeast of Miranshah, the main town of the restive North Waziristan tribal district, officials said.

“A car was hit by two missiles, killing three people and injuring three others,” security officials in the area told media.

One security and one intelligence official at Peshawar, the troubled capital of Northwest Frontier Province also confirmed the incident, saying, “The missiles were fired from a US drone.”

Clinton Plays Down U.S. Troops by 2011 Objective of the Withdrawal

WASHINGTON news about: The Obama administration is striving to soften a contentious July 2011 target to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, describing the timeline as a signal of urgency and the beginning of a lengthy transition rather than a “drop-dead deadline”.

A decision by the US president to name a date for the start of a military pull-out has been criticised by Republicans who view the schedule as arbitrary and as a signal of weakness to Taliban extremists. The timeline is part of a strategy for a 30,000-strong “surge” in US troops aimed at stabilising the conflict.

The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, and defence secretary, Robert Gates, both offered heavy qualifications to the date yesterday, although they provided assurances on other issues – including a note of confidence that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are safe, aided by US security measures.

Doing the rounds of Sunday morning news programmes, Clinton played down the withdrawal date, “We’re not talking about an exit strategy or a drop-dead deadline.”

She described the timeframe as part of an “assessment” that “we can begin a transition, a transition to hand off responsibility the Afghan forces”.

Warning that the surge would cause short-term increase in casualties, Gates said the pullout date was selected because it would be two years after the advance of US troops into the insurgent stronghold of southern Helmand, giving generals time to rate the success of operations.

“We will begin to thin our forces and begin to bring them home,” said Gates. “But how quickly it goes will very much depend on the conditions on the ground. We will have a significant number of forces there for some considerable time beyond that.”

The White House’s national security adviser, James Jones, struck a similar note, describing 2011 as a “guide slope” and “a cliff, not a ramp” for withdrawal.

Ending Haven Pakistan Vital to the Effort in Afghanistan: U.S

WASHINGTON news about: The United States said Sunday it was pressing Pakistan to move against Taliban and Al-Qaeda sanctuaries in its territory, saying success in Afghanistan depended on disrupting the cross-border safe havens.

Senior administration officials turned the focus on Pakistan in a series of television talk shows, after pouring pressure on Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai to clean up corruption in his country as part of a US strategy shift.

“I have to say that corruption is critical to our success, but it’s not the governing issue in this war,” special US envoy Richard Holbrooke said in an interview with screen media.

“To me the most important issue for our success is dealing with the sanctuary in Pakistan.”

Although Pakistan is central to US strategy for the region, Washington has had a tough time dealing with a skittish military and political establishment in Islamabad that is wary of Washington’s goals in neighboring Afghanistan.

In their separate comments, administration officials mixed praise for Pakistan’s crackdown on the Pakistani Taliban with an acknowledgement that the level of trust between the two countries is not what it should be.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates told media that the United States would not pursue Taliban leaders inside Pakistan despite a report that the CIA has been authorized to expand its drone attacks on Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders.

“Pakistan is a sovereign government. We are in a partnership with them. I think at this point it’s up to the Pakistani military to deal with this problem,” he told the “Face the Nation” program.

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