Word: nato
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...tone of the recent letter from the U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to the German government urging Germany to pony up more troops for the NATO campaign in southern Afghanistan was "stern," according to a German government spokesman. Unnamed Berlin officials were quoted in the German press calling it an "outrage" and even, in one case, an "impertinence." Nonsense, retorted a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity this week: "It was a request by one member of the alliance to another: It was not a demand." Maybe so, but the chilly reception to the missive augurs poorly...
...That effort tops the agenda at Thursday's meeting of NATO defense ministers in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, just as it will at a major summit of NATO heads of government in Bucharest in April. Some U.S. officials are billing that meeting as a make-or-break effort for the future not just of the Afghanistan operation but of the Atlantic Alliance...
...slinging. "We have made no secret about it that there are certain allies that are in much more dangerous parts of the country, " U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said this week. And we believe very strongly there ought to be a sharing of that burden throughout the Alliance." NATO currently has about 40,000 troops in the country, but its officials say it needs another 7,500, especially in the south...
...Brussels are apparent gains made by the Taliban in Afghanistan. In the last year, the Taliban launched 140 suicide bombings, the most since the group was thrown out of power in 2001. Attacks with mines and IEDs, or improvised explosive devices, increased 69% over the same period, according to NATO. Opium production is on the rise. An independent study co-chaired by retired U.S. Marine Corps Gen. James Jones and former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Thomas Pickering warned that a failure by the Administration of George W. Bush to obtain more international support - together with other shortfalls - could help...
...Greece by a Pope in 1,300 years. He urged young people to come "as you are, earrings and all," and dramatically upped church attendance. Despite criticism for his sometimes shrill nationalism and willingness to meddle in politics?as when he called the Turks "Eastern barbarians" or attacked NATO's bombers of Serbia as "pawns of Satan"?he remained one of his nation's most popular figures. He was 69 and had cancer...