The Sandbox and Areas Reports Thread (May '08)
News only - commentary elsewhere, please.
Thanks for helping this "news only" thread system work!
Articles found May 1, 2008
Afghans relieved talks with Taliban may happen; Canada avoids direct role
Article Link
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — A strategy of talking to the Taliban - once ridiculed as "naive" by the Conservative government in Canada - is being test driven in the Kandahar countryside, much to the relief of some Afghans including one of the area's biggest power brokers.
Ahmed Wali Karzai, the half brother of Afghanistan's president, said something needs to be done to stop "the madness" of the deadly insurgency.
Canadian troops in Afghanistan are reported reaching out to low-and mid-level insurgents, encouraging them through local villagers to sit down with Afghan authorities and perhaps even NATO forces.
"I absolutely support the Canadian decision," Ahmed Wali Karzai, head of the Kandahar provincial council, told The Canadian Press in an interview Thursday.
"It's a very wise and proper decision. There are people (with whom) we can talk and reason."
"There would be so many Taliban willing to come home. Nobody supports this madness; this killing of innocent people; the killing of women and children. They are not happy with it, we know this."
More on link
B.C. protects civilian jobs of military reservists with labour law changes
Article Link
VICTORIA — B.C. is following through on a promise to protect the jobs of reserve soldiers who are serving in places like Afghanistan.
Labour Minister Olga Illich says the government is amending the Employment Standards Act to ensure reservists will have their jobs to come home to when their military duties are finished.
She says hundreds of reservists take time out from their civilian jobs to serve the country and they shouldn't have to worry about their jobs.
The legislation applies to reservists involved in overseas missions and domestic emergencies.
Reservists take unpaid leaves from their jobs and are paid by the Canadian Forces, and their civilian employers won't have to make benefit and pension contributions while the employee is on leave.
More on link
Ottawa artist portrays those who serve
Art Babych May 1, 2008 Art Babych
Article Link
In a recent exhibition, artist Karen Bailey documented older women who work in the kitchen of Ottawa’s St. Thomas the Apostle Church.Ottawa
The dwindling numbers of aging women who serve in parish kitchens across the country seldom receive public recognition for their work but an Ottawa professional artist is doing something about it.
Karen Bailey – an Anglican who once worked as a waitress – is creating a body of work entitled, “Blanche Dot Doris,” that celebrates “the patience and perseverance of servers, the people they serve and the environment in which they work.”
Although her plan to document elderly women working in the kitchen of St. Thomas the Apostle Church was sidetracked by a two-week trip to Afghanistan last June as an appointed military artist, Ms. Bailey has produced enough paintings for a recent solo exhibition at the Dale Smith Gallery in Ottawa.
More on link
Peacekeepers' wall expected to get boost
Calgary Herald Published: Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Article Link
City Hall - Council will put any leftover money from the Legacy Parks program into extending a wall recognizing fallen Canadian peacekeepers.
The wall, located in Peacekeepers' Park in Garrison Green, is running out of room for names due to the military mission in Afghanistan.
Ald. Ric McIver suggested the city dedicate some money to extending the wall. The rest of council agreed, deciding that any surplus in the Legacy Parks program should be used for the project.
More on link
Americans build elite Afghan commando force
The commando battalions, just a year old, are being trained and deployed nationally as a mobile, quick-reaction force.
By Gordon Lubold | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor from the May 1, 2008 edition
Article Link
Rish Khvor, Afghanistan - Pvt. Said Reza says he's ready to be a soldier in his country's fight against extremists, and as he stands in uniform in the middle of a training camp here with his semiautomatic rifle, kneepads, and American-style dark glasses, he looks the part.
Private Reza has already graduated from basic soldier training. He volunteered to become a member of an elite unit of the Army that is being groomed to become a model force of Afghan warriors.
"The only thing I know is that these [extremists] are a bunch of people who sell their country for a very small amount of money," says Reza of the extremists he expects to fight. When asked if he's ready to take them on, his answer is simple: "Bali ho" – of course.
Trained to be "the best of the best," who fight in riskier, more complex political and military environments – say, taking on a popular tribal leader aligned with the Taliban – the Commandos are distinct from the regular Army but are expected to help define the image and capabilities of Afghan security forces as a whole. The goal is an elite, quick-reaction force that can act independently. It's a crucial addition for an uneven US-NATO mission that many military and civilian leaders agree has evolved in a way that has let the Taliban resurface.
More on link
Tale of two cities: Canada's fortune in Kandahar depends on action in Kabul
Article Link
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — In Kandahar, a poverty-racked city of mud walls and thatch roofs, suicide bombers prowl and a charismatic young governor derided by critics as corrupt and immoral has lost the confidence of both his constituents and the Canadian military.
Five hundred kilometres away in the gridlocked metropolis of blaring horns and outstretched hands that is Kabul, Canada and Kandahar together wait for Afghan President Hamid Karzai to do something about his problematic political emissary, Asadullah Khalid.
"I don't want him to even be a politician in the next government of Afghanistan," Malalay Ishaqzai, a politician from Kandahar who sits as a member of the Afghan national assembly, said in an interview with The Canadian Press in Kabul.
"He should be removed from the government and not given any other province or any other job. He's a useless person for the people of Kandahar."
It's a prime example of how the story of Canada's mission in Afghanistan has become a tale of two cities.
More on link
News only - commentary elsewhere, please.
Thanks for helping this "news only" thread system work!
Articles found May 1, 2008
Afghans relieved talks with Taliban may happen; Canada avoids direct role
Article Link
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — A strategy of talking to the Taliban - once ridiculed as "naive" by the Conservative government in Canada - is being test driven in the Kandahar countryside, much to the relief of some Afghans including one of the area's biggest power brokers.
Ahmed Wali Karzai, the half brother of Afghanistan's president, said something needs to be done to stop "the madness" of the deadly insurgency.
Canadian troops in Afghanistan are reported reaching out to low-and mid-level insurgents, encouraging them through local villagers to sit down with Afghan authorities and perhaps even NATO forces.
"I absolutely support the Canadian decision," Ahmed Wali Karzai, head of the Kandahar provincial council, told The Canadian Press in an interview Thursday.
"It's a very wise and proper decision. There are people (with whom) we can talk and reason."
"There would be so many Taliban willing to come home. Nobody supports this madness; this killing of innocent people; the killing of women and children. They are not happy with it, we know this."
More on link
B.C. protects civilian jobs of military reservists with labour law changes
Article Link
VICTORIA — B.C. is following through on a promise to protect the jobs of reserve soldiers who are serving in places like Afghanistan.
Labour Minister Olga Illich says the government is amending the Employment Standards Act to ensure reservists will have their jobs to come home to when their military duties are finished.
She says hundreds of reservists take time out from their civilian jobs to serve the country and they shouldn't have to worry about their jobs.
The legislation applies to reservists involved in overseas missions and domestic emergencies.
Reservists take unpaid leaves from their jobs and are paid by the Canadian Forces, and their civilian employers won't have to make benefit and pension contributions while the employee is on leave.
More on link
Ottawa artist portrays those who serve
Art Babych May 1, 2008 Art Babych
Article Link
In a recent exhibition, artist Karen Bailey documented older women who work in the kitchen of Ottawa’s St. Thomas the Apostle Church.Ottawa
The dwindling numbers of aging women who serve in parish kitchens across the country seldom receive public recognition for their work but an Ottawa professional artist is doing something about it.
Karen Bailey – an Anglican who once worked as a waitress – is creating a body of work entitled, “Blanche Dot Doris,” that celebrates “the patience and perseverance of servers, the people they serve and the environment in which they work.”
Although her plan to document elderly women working in the kitchen of St. Thomas the Apostle Church was sidetracked by a two-week trip to Afghanistan last June as an appointed military artist, Ms. Bailey has produced enough paintings for a recent solo exhibition at the Dale Smith Gallery in Ottawa.
More on link
Peacekeepers' wall expected to get boost
Calgary Herald Published: Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Article Link
City Hall - Council will put any leftover money from the Legacy Parks program into extending a wall recognizing fallen Canadian peacekeepers.
The wall, located in Peacekeepers' Park in Garrison Green, is running out of room for names due to the military mission in Afghanistan.
Ald. Ric McIver suggested the city dedicate some money to extending the wall. The rest of council agreed, deciding that any surplus in the Legacy Parks program should be used for the project.
More on link
Americans build elite Afghan commando force
The commando battalions, just a year old, are being trained and deployed nationally as a mobile, quick-reaction force.
By Gordon Lubold | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor from the May 1, 2008 edition
Article Link
Rish Khvor, Afghanistan - Pvt. Said Reza says he's ready to be a soldier in his country's fight against extremists, and as he stands in uniform in the middle of a training camp here with his semiautomatic rifle, kneepads, and American-style dark glasses, he looks the part.
Private Reza has already graduated from basic soldier training. He volunteered to become a member of an elite unit of the Army that is being groomed to become a model force of Afghan warriors.
"The only thing I know is that these [extremists] are a bunch of people who sell their country for a very small amount of money," says Reza of the extremists he expects to fight. When asked if he's ready to take them on, his answer is simple: "Bali ho" – of course.
Trained to be "the best of the best," who fight in riskier, more complex political and military environments – say, taking on a popular tribal leader aligned with the Taliban – the Commandos are distinct from the regular Army but are expected to help define the image and capabilities of Afghan security forces as a whole. The goal is an elite, quick-reaction force that can act independently. It's a crucial addition for an uneven US-NATO mission that many military and civilian leaders agree has evolved in a way that has let the Taliban resurface.
More on link
Tale of two cities: Canada's fortune in Kandahar depends on action in Kabul
Article Link
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — In Kandahar, a poverty-racked city of mud walls and thatch roofs, suicide bombers prowl and a charismatic young governor derided by critics as corrupt and immoral has lost the confidence of both his constituents and the Canadian military.
Five hundred kilometres away in the gridlocked metropolis of blaring horns and outstretched hands that is Kabul, Canada and Kandahar together wait for Afghan President Hamid Karzai to do something about his problematic political emissary, Asadullah Khalid.
"I don't want him to even be a politician in the next government of Afghanistan," Malalay Ishaqzai, a politician from Kandahar who sits as a member of the Afghan national assembly, said in an interview with The Canadian Press in Kabul.
"He should be removed from the government and not given any other province or any other job. He's a useless person for the people of Kandahar."
It's a prime example of how the story of Canada's mission in Afghanistan has become a tale of two cities.
More on link