Afghan President Hamid Karzai appealed yesterday for NATO to speed up a planned expansion of its peacekeeping force in his country to protect against terrorists, private armies and narcotics gangs before September's key elections.
"Please hurry," Karzai urged a NATO summit.
"Come sooner than September and provide the Afghan men and women with a chance to vote freely without fear, without coercion," he said.
On Monday, the alliance decided to expand its peacekeeping forces in Afghanistan from 6,500 to 10,000 over the election period, although officials clarified yesterday that about 1,300 of those troops will be held in reserve outside the country for emergency use.
The expanded NATO forces should allow the separate, 20,000-strong US-led force to intensify its focus on pursuing insurgents from the old Taliban regime and its al-Qaeda allies in the troubled south and east, but it has been criticized as insufficient.
Karzai thanked the 26 NATO leaders for expanding the force, then made a forceful plea for an accelerated deployment, reminding the summit of recent deadly attacks on officials carrying out voter registration and on registered voters.
"The Afghan people have trust in the security that you are going to provide for us, but the Afghan people need that security today and not tomorrow," he said.
"The reason we need this is that we have three challenges still in our country. First the challenge of terrorism, as you are all aware, second is the challenge of private militias ... third is the challenge of narcotics," he said.
tear gas
Outside the summit, police fired tear gas into a group of 1,000 anti-NATO protesters after some of the demonstrators threw rocks at officers.
About 23,000 police and soldiers guarded the summit, closing several streets around the summit site and leaders' hotels.
Monday's summit agreement on Afghanistan allows the alliance forces to set up permanent peacekeeping teams in four more northern cities besides the temporary increase for the elections.
But the agreement was described as inadequate by human-rights campaigners.
"It's a disgrace," said Jon Sifton, a researcher at Human Rights Watch. "NATO officials should be ashamed ... If these elections fail to occur, or occur but are not free and fair, Afghans can blame NATO."
He said Afghanistan had been neglected while Western leaders were focused on Iraq. NATO leaders on Monday agreed to help train the armed forces of Iraq after the US surprised allies by handing over sovereignty to the Iraqi government two days ahead of schedule.
Under current NATO plans, British troops supported by contingents from Norway, Romania, Denmark, Sweden and Finland will set up a regional hub in the city of Mazar-e-Sharif.
Germany will run a team in Faizabad, the Netherlands in Baghlan and more British and Nordic troops will be based in Maimana. Officials said the teams should be up and running under NATO command within the next few weeks.
Besides those permanent bases, NATO will temporarily increase its presence by about 1,500 troops for up to eight weeks around the elections, with another 1,300 in reserve. The alliance is also seeking to muster more troops to expand into a western sector centered on the city of Herat.
EXPLOSION
Police were investigating a small explosion that injured three cleaners on a plane on the ground at Istanbul airport.
The booby-trapped package exploded yesterday aboard a Turkish Airlines plane after passengers had disembarked, an airline spokeswoman said.
She said the fingers of the cleaner who opened the package were torn off, while two other cleaners suffered minor injuries.
The airplane had arrived in Istanbul from the western Turkish city of Izmir, she said.
Police said the blast was caused by 2g of plastic explosive hidden inside a wallet.
The airport appeared to be operating normally after the blast.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
‘COMING MENACINGLY’: The CDC advised wearing a mask when visiting hospitals or long-term care centers, on public transportation and in crowded indoor venues Hospital visits for COVID-19 last week increased by 113 percent to 41,402, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, as it encouraged people to wear a mask in three public settings to prevent infection. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said weekly hospital visits for COVID-19 have been increasing for seven consecutive weeks, and 102 severe COVID-19 cases and 19 deaths were confirmed last week, both the highest weekly numbers this year. CDC physician Lee Tsung-han (李宗翰) said the youngest person hospitalized due to the disease this year was reported last week, a one-month-old baby, who does not
RSS