Europe on The Huffington Post

Amanda Knox upset, tired as she spends first day in prison

2009-12-05T12:16:20Z

PERUGIA, Italy (AP) — Amanda Knox sought comfort from visiting family members Saturday on her first day in prison since being convicted of murdering her British roommate.

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Victim's brother: we're pleased with conviction of Knox but no cause for celebration

2009-12-05T10:16:33Z

PERUGIA, Italy (AP) — The murder conviction of American student Amanda Knox brings a measure of justice for her slain roommate Meredith Kercher but is no cause for celebration, Kercher's family said Saturday.

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US citizen sentenced in Italy trial

2009-12-05T02:01:27Z

American given 26 years for murder in case that has fascinated international media.

American student Amanda Knox convicted in Italy murder trial; gets 26-year sentence

2009-12-04T23:16:36Z

PERUGIA, Italy (AP) — American college student Amanda Knox was found guilty of murdering her British roommate and sentenced to 26 years in prison early Saturday after a year-long trial that gripped Italy and drew intense media attention.

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American student convicted in Italian murder case

2009-12-04T19:31:42Z

PERUGIA, Italy - A jury in Italy convicted American college student Amanda Knox of murdering her British roommate and sentenced her to 26 years in prison shortly after midnight Saturday.

Her Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito was also convicted and sentenced to 25 years.

As soon as the judge read the verdict

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Italian Jury: U.S. Student Amanda Knox Guilty On All Charges

2009-12-04T18:31:35Z

PERUGIA, Italy (AP) — A jury has convicted American college student Amanda Knox of murdering her British roommate and sentenced her to 26 years in prison while her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito was sentenced to 25 years.

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Anne Frank Tree Dying, Saplings Planted

2009-12-04T16:04:38Z

AMSTERDAM — The ancient chestnut tree that cheered up Jewish teenager Anne Frank as she hid from the Nazis is dying, but thanks to a planting campaign now under way its descendants will live on around the globe.

Amsterdam city councilwoman Marijke Vos on Friday planted the first of 150 saplings from the tree that will go into the Amsterdamse Bos park.

Britain's Ministry Of Defense Closes UFO Department

2009-12-04T12:24:38Z

LONDON — The truth – and the UFOs – may be out there, but nobody in the British military is listening anymore.

The Defense Ministry has quietly shut down its UFO hot line as a cost-cutting measure and will no longer investigate any sightings. Veterans of such investigations more worthy of "The X-Files" say it will end work on one of the biggest mysteries of all time.

Amanda Knox Verdict Expected Friday Night

2009-12-04T11:39:59Z

PERUGIA, Italy — American college student Amanda Knox was found guilty of murdering her British roommate and sentenced to 26 years in prison early Saturday after a year-long trial that gripped Italy and drew intense media attention.

Her co-defendant, former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, was convicted and sentenced to 25 years. The two also were found guilty of sexual assault in the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher, a 21-year-old student from England.

William Bradley: Barack Obama's War: 10 Key Things To Know

2009-12-04T10:38:17Z

It's Barack Obama's war now. Here are some key things to know about this curious, complex war -- in which the newest Nobel Peace Prize-winner has placed himself at the helm of the largest military force ever sent to Afghanistan, the historic graveyard of empire -- along with the likely road ahead.

** Along with NATO, we already have as many troops in Afghanistan as the Soviets did in the 1980s. With Obama's newest escalation, we will have more troops than the Soviets had in Afghanistan.

President Barack Obama outlined his new strategy on Afghanistan and Pakistan in this speech from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

** The Soviets were winning their war in Afghanistan. Before we intervened with massive covert funding and weapons. Of course, they were pursuing brutal scorched earth tactics, like those they used so notoriously to put down the persistent revolt in Chechnya. Even if Obama, who receives the Nobel Peace Prize next week, weren't horrified by such tactics, and I have no doubt he would be, they would ruin his big effort for a rapprochement with the Islamic world, launched successfully with his address six months ago in Cairo.

** The Soviet Afghan War was won with only a handful of Americans in Afghanistan. Defeating the Soviets in Afghanistan -- in effect, making Afghanistan the Soviet Vietnam -- was key to ending the Cold War and bringing down the Soviet Union. There were virtually no Americans on the ground in Afghanistan. Instead, we worked through cutouts, principally the Pakistanis. The goal wasn't to control Afghanistan, a country with no intrinsic strategic significance for America. The goal was to deliver a stinging defeat to America's enemy, the Soviet Union.

Of course, totally ignoring Afghanistan after the defeat of the Soviets and the end of the Cold War created a vacuum which, after years of infighting, was finally filled by a new and even more radical group, the Taliban (fundamentalist religious students). A case of penny-wise, pound-foolish, typical of America's lack of historical perspective.

"The Forgotten War" no more.

** The post-9/11 Afghan War was won with only a few hundred Americans in Afghanistan. A relative handful of Intelligence agents and special forces operators utilized air power and worked with Afghan forces opposed to the ruling Taliban to chase Al Qaeda out of Afghanistan and to bring down the Taliban government when it would not serve up Osama bin Laden, who had finally established his base there after being chased out elsewhere. (Bin Laden, incidentally, was not created by the CIA and was completely tangential in the Afghan war against the Soviets, barely setting foot in the country.) The goal was to defeat the enemy which attacked America on 9/11, the cadre of Al Qaeda. The Bush/Cheney Administration didn't want to risk the potential backlash from having large numbers of American troops on foreign soil. Certainly not something they worried much about any time after that.

** The epic fail of Tora Bora echoes very loudly today. We might not be talking much about Al Qaeda, a diminished force, were it not for the incredible failure to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. After 9/11, President Bush vowed to get him, dead or alive. But when it came time to take him, almost exactly eight years ago, in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan where he was trying to make his way to a new safe haven in Pakistan, it didn't happen. Read the new Senate report on this, and weep. The Bush/Cheney Administration turned down repeated reqests, saying it didn't want a heavy foreign presence on the ground, so he was allowed to slip away.

** Bill Clinton was criticized for failing to destroy the Al Qaeda training and operational bases in Afghanistan with cruise missiles in the late 1990s. Instead, it was said that he should have used special operations forces to wreck the Al Qaeda operation. Notice that no one seriously suggested that he launch a full-scale invasion to accomplish this. It wasn't necessary for the mission. Why we have to control Afghanistan now to stop Al Qaeda from using it as its base of operations is a bit of a mystery, as we can readily smash any such bases in Afghanistan.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says President Obama's new surge-and-endgame strategy in Afghanistan will help military forces find a better focus for their mission.

** Barack Obama ran for president on a program of escalating the war in Afghanistan. He was very clear about this. The fact that he is now doing what he said he would do when he ran for president should be no surprise to people who supported him. Or to those who did not.

** The Pakistan quandary looms very large. Of course, being president is more complicated than being candidate for president. Perhaps the biggest complication with regard to Afghanistan is Pakistan. It's the only Islamic nuclear power, knock on wood with regard to Iran. So allowing it to fall into the hands of jihadists would be, as the saying goes, bad. Fortunately, Pakistan has pushed back successfully this year against what had been major Taliban gains around the country, gains which happened as a result of inaction during the Bush/Cheney Administration. But its more remote provinces still provide a safe haven for Afghan Taliban -- in some ways invented by Pakistani intelligence -- and for Al Qaeda.

American escalation in Afghanistan may push more jihadists into Pakistan, risking destabilization, as Pakistan's leaders have pointed out. They are noncommittal so far about the new Obama strategy in Afghanistan. And, though they've pushed back hard against local Taliban threatening their own rule, they haven't been so supportive of efforts against other jihadists. With at least some sort of American exit strategy now in place for Afghanistan, it may occur to the Pakistanis that the Taliban will outlast America in Afghanistan, and end up controlling much if not most of the country. Yet Pakistan can be very helpful with intelligence about the Afghan Taliban, who are likely to infiltrate the Afghan army and police we say we are trying to build up while the present surge lasts.

** Is defeat in Afghanistan inevitable? No. Remember that the Soviets were winning before America lanched its massive covert intervention in Afghanistan. Not that we could pursue the same sort of ruthless tactics.

Here's one early window on the reaction of the Afghan people to Obama's new strategy.

The answer really depends on how you define success. Is it likely that Afghanistan is going to be built into a truly functioning nation-state any time soon? No. Are we going to stick around for decades to make that happen? No. Is it likely we can train large numbers of illiterate recruits (Afghanistan's literacy rate is 10%) into professional security forces? It's very difficult. Can we deny Afghanistan as a base for "The Base," Al Qaeda? Yes. But we've been able to do that for the past eight years, with no escalation necessary. What seems most likely is that friendly forces can continue to control northern Afghanistan, providing basing to chase down Al Qaeda concentrations in Taliban-friendly southern Afghanistan and along the Pakistan border if need be.

** So what happens next in what may well be an extended exercise on the politico/military equivalent of a stairmaster?

Obama gave his big speech at West Point. Which was not one of his best, as he seemed rather nervous and didn't establish a rhetorical rapport with the crowd of cadets and the long military tradition with which he was there to resonate. Still, he got the message across. He will send 30,000 new troops to Afghanistan. When it's all said and done, there will be about 100,000 American troops in Afghanistan. There are over 40,000 troops there from American allies, principally NATO nations. Nearly 10,000 of those troops are British.

He's ordered the generals to have most of the new troops in place in six months, much faster than previously assumed possible.

He wants NATO to provide another 5000 troops. NATO leadership says it will provide 7000 new troops. But that decision won't be taken in terms of actual commitments from NATO nations till an international conference on Afghanistan at the end of next month in London.

Obama plans to protect big population areas while heavily degrading Taliban forces and spinning up the training of Afghan forces.

And Obama wants to withdraw most American troops in three years, reiterating that he'll start withdrawing troops in the middle of 2011. But how quickly those troops are withdrawn is up in the air.

The plan is predicated on pushing back the Taliban, which the military says presently control a third of the provinces, to provide a space for a rapid build-up of Afghan security forces.

A lot of things have to go right for this very ambitious plan, which sounds a great deal like Vietnamization, which worked wonders for Richard Nixon, to work. But you can bet that Obama wants most American troops out of Afghanistan by the time of his re-election.

You can check things during the day on my site, New West Notes ... www.newwestnotes.com.

UN to investigate climate email row

2009-12-04T08:01:10Z

Panel on climate change to probe claims UK scientists manipulated global warming data.

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Methodist preacher who attended Morris County grad school pleads guilty to sexual abuse in U.K.

2009-12-04T06:46:07Z

A former Methodist lay preacher who attended graduate school in Madison pleaded guilty in a United Kingdom court for a series of child sex offenses, a report in the Daily Record said. Keith Morton, 43, told the court he committed...

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U.K. chief rabbi declares 'green' Sabbath ahead of climate talks

2009-12-04T06:16:01Z

Britain's chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks has called for this week's Sabbath to be devoted to the environment, ahead of the climate talks due to be held next week in Copenhagen.
...

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ABSL Space Products growing Longmont site

2009-12-03T21:34:51Z

In 2007, the United Kingdom-based ABSL Space Products opened its U.S. headquarters in Longmont with the intention of becoming a bigger player in the nation's space and defense arenas. Two years later, the maker of lithium-ion batteries for aerospace applications has much to tout about.

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Target's MePa Pop-Up Will Be a Drive-Thru Starring Rachel Bilson

2009-12-03T16:30:59Z

Click the image above to view the full photogallery. Target is on fire today, people. First, they confirmed their upcoming collaboration with flower powerhouse Liberty of London. Then, they finally released the much-desired, long-embargoed images of their full Rodarte line. Meanwhile, WWD featured the upcoming Target To-Go pop-up shop in...

British MPs To Go "Clubbing" To Investigate Cocaine

2009-12-03T16:02:06Z

British MPs are to enjoy a night out "clubbing" in order to learn more about the cocaine trade.

The BBC reports that the House of Commons home affairs committee, led by Labour's Keith Vaz, will be investigating drugs and drug prevention at "Student nights" in nightclubs.

The BBC writes:

The student nights are of interest because technology, such as scanners to detect cocaine and "knife arches", is in use.

Mr Vaz said: "This [cocaine dealing] is a very, very serious crime and what we want to do is make sure is that the police get as much help as possible."

However, The Telegraph spoke to an anonymous police source, who suspected the MPs may be in for a bit of a shock when they head to the clubs.

"Some of these clubs are real rave ups with people doing all sorts.

"I imagine some of these MPs haven't been to a club since the 70s - and it's a long way from the Bee Gees and Abba these days."

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Giant Penis Sparks Bizarre Media War Between Berlin's Bild And 'Taz' Papers

2009-12-03T15:03:31Z

Four decades ago, the mass-circulation tabloid Bild did its best to squelch the 1968 student movement in Berlin. This year, the German capital has seen the conflict swell once again. And it has resulted in some rather stiff competition.

Amanda Knox: I'm Not An "Assassin"

2009-12-03T14:15:42Z

PERUGIA, Italy — American student Amanda Knox tried one last time Thursday to convince the Italian court trying her for murder that she is not a killer, urging jurors not to brand her with "the mask of an assassin."

Knox spoke at the end of a trial that has exposed some of the most intimate details of her life, with prosecutors depicting her as a promiscuous and manipulative she-devil who brutally murdered her British roommate in Perugia, Meredith Kercher.

French Museum Strike Closes Louvre, Versailles

2009-12-03T11:23:49Z

PARIS — The Louvre Museum and the royal palace at Versailles were closed Thursday because of a French museum workers' strike that appears to be gathering steam.

Frustrated tourists gathered outside the landmark pyramid in the courtyard of the Louvre, blocked off by workers. They are protesting government plans not to replace half of retiring public servants, which will affect the country's national museums.

Paul McCartney Takes Meatless Monday To EU

2009-12-03T10:56:49Z

BRUSSELS — Paul McCartney took his "Meat-Free Mondays" campaign to the European Parliament on Thursday, saying the power to halt global warming lies as much with individuals as with their governments.

McCartney met in Brussels with Rajendra K. Pachauri, head of the U.N.'s global climate change panel, and praised the virtue of skipping meat one day a week for the sake of the environment.

Sarkozy Plans To Force Gender Equality On French Boardrooms

2009-12-03T09:24:00Z

Nicolas Sarkozy's centre-right party has put forward legislation that would see women make up half the figures in France's leading boardrooms by 2015, under a bold plan to impose gender equality on the male-dominated business world.

Meanwhile, in the U.K. ...: Lily Allen told a British radio...

2009-12-03T09:00:53Z

Lily Allen told a British radio show this morning that she was planning on quitting music for two years to start a fashion boutique. The singer already designed a collection for New Look and did a jewelry line, and her new plan is to work with her sister and open...

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