Tag Archives: military

Battle rages over Pakistan militant stronghold

Heavily armed militants put up a fierce fight on Tuesday to protect a Taliban stronghold in South Waziristan, Pakistan’s military said. Taliban fighters attacked incoming troops in the village of Kotkai, using rocket launchers and heavy anti-aircraft machine guns, said a senior military official

Analysts weigh Obama’s global human rights policies

While President Obama takes plenty of heat over his plans to overhaul domestic policies, critics have also taken aim at his foreign policy approach, particularly as it relates to human rights around the globe. Human Rights Watch advocacy director Tom Malinowski said Wednesday that while the administration appeared to have “gotten the balance right” on Myanmar, the military junta-ruled Asian nation formerly known as Burma, by starting a dialogue while maintaining sanctions, “China is a different matter.” “And that’s where we’ve seen the tension play out in the most acute way, with several signals that have been sent suggesting that the administration is putting human rights issues to one side,” Malinowski said on CNN’s “Amanpour.” “And most recently, the, I think, symbolic mistake of the president declining to meet the Dalai Lama before his own visit to China later next month.” The Tibetan spiritual leader, who fled to India in 1959 and established a government in exile there, visited the United States earlier this month.

UK to send 500 more troops to Afghanistan

Prime Minister Gordon Brown is increasing British troop levels in Afghanistan to 9,500 — an increase of 500, he announced Wednesday. “We will now move further and faster with our strategy” of training Afghan forces to take responsibility for the country’s security, he said.