U.S. sends attack Drones on the Libya as fighting enters day 67

April 22, 2011, 4: 13 am EDT by Benjamin Harvey, Patrick Donahue and Maher Chmaytelli

(Updates with McCain visit to the second paragraph)

April 22 (Bloomberg)--The U.S. sent armed Predator drones on missions in the course of the Libya and European allies sent military advisors to redouble its efforts to help the rebel fighters oust Mu'ammar al-Gaddafi regime without sending soldiers in combat.Senator John McCain, a Vietnam war veteran and the former candidate in the presidential election which has supported the military intervention in Libya, arrived in the rebel-held city of Benghazi to meet veterans, he called the hero, the Associated Press reported today."During this time, France, Italy and the United Kingdom sent military to help with communications and training advisors.""We need to intensify the pressure on all fronts" to run from the sending of ground troops, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron said yesterday on the BBC Scotland radio. "The troops are prohibited by the resolution of the Security Council of the United Nations authorizing the no-fly zone"."We are not allowed, quite rightly, an invading army or an army of occupation," said Cameron. "This is what the Libyans want not, which is not what we want, is not the world wants."President Barack Obama has approved the use of drones armed with Hellfire missiles, against the forces of the Libyan Government, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told reporters in a Pentagon in briefing yesterday. The plane without a pilot, previously used for recognition, providing better visibility of targets. This is important, when Muammar Gaddafi forces are fighting in and around cities, said Marine General James Cartwright, vice President of the pilotless aircraft Joint Chiefs of Staff.Bad WeatherThe were unable to complete missions on their first release yesterday because of bad conditions météorologiquesCartwright said. The predator is closed General Atomics Aeronautical Systems of San Diego.The use of predators is a "very limited additional role" in the US, Gates said. "I believe that none of us see as mission creep."There was "no room for maneuver" the rejection of the President to place "boots on the ground" in Libya, he said.The European military advisors, who will total less than 50, be the first armed forces Western official in Libya since the Western intervention began a month ago. The NATO mission, role is a zone of non-overview of the police, to protect civilians and implement an arms embargo on the regime Qathafi. uplift HaltThe of oil to end rule of Qathafi 42 years, which started in mid-February, a of the soil in a military stalemate near the central town of Brega oil port. Fighting halted most of the oil exports of Libya, which has the largest reserves of oil in Africa, as regional instability has sent more than 30 per cent of the price of oil a year. Crude oil for June delivery rose 84 cents to settle at $112.29 US per barrel on the Exchange.Residents New York of the Western City of Misrata rebels held Mercantile, besieged for more than six weeks, suffer daily bombardment by the Qaddafi.Pilotes forces in NATO aircraft have had difficulty identifying Qathafi forces once that they will move to the cities and had to be extra careful to avoid civilian casualties. The predator allows NATO closer to possible targets, to examine the scene and strike with precision.Earlier this week, the United States said to provide $ 25 million in non-lethal aid such as radios and body armor, the rebels of the Libye.Aucun rapid ResolutionU.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday called for "a certain patience" on the outcome of the conflict. She mentioned the fact that the United States and their NATO allies bombed the Serbia for 78 days in 1999, during the Presidency of her husband, Bill Clinton, to cease its attacks on Kosovo. "The air campaign on the Libya begins a little more than a month ago".It is always a temptation in conflict expect to y resolution quickly, "she told journalists after the meeting with the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Uri Rosenthal in Washington.Cameron said he discussed"new steps and assets we can take advantage of"against the regime Qathafi talks April 20 with ObamaPremier phone Italian Minister Silvio" Berlusconi and Minister of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem Al Thani.Those actions, Cameron said, include increasing airstrikes, providing "advice and mentoring" to Libyan opposition and application of sanctions to block further "Qathafi oil money is always get".A ship chartered by the International Organization for migration to evacuate more than 1,000 nationals Misrata foreign for the Eastern port of Benghazi and also transported the body of a Ukrainian physician and two Western photojournalists killed in the city, the group said yesterday.Two photojournalists - Tim Hetherington, an Oscar - appointed producer who produced the film "restrepo", and Chris Hondros, photographer based in New York for Getty Images - were killed by a rocket grenade explosion April 20. Hetherington, 40 and Hondros, 41, had accompanied by rebels to a position on the streets of Tripoli central Misrata when they were captured in an attack.

-With the help of Helene Fouquet in Paris and David Lerman in Washington. Editors: Leslie Hoffecker, Anne Swardson

To contact the reporters on this story: Benjamin Harvey in Istanbul to bharvey11@bloomberg.net; To contact the reporters on this story: Patrick Donahue in Berlin at pdonahue1@bloomberg.net; Maher Chmaytelli of Benghazi at mchmaytelli@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew j. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net

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Clock of Congress fighting to avoid the closure

06 April 2011, 12: 04 am EDT by Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Julianna Goldman

April 6 (Bloomberg)--Democrats and Republicans yesterday tried to reach a spending compromise would keep the Government after President Barack Obama said that it would be "inexcusable" for the Conference to failure avoid closure imminent end of the week running.

House Chairman John Boehner, a Republican from Ohio said Democrats at a private White House meeting that he wanted $ 40 billion dollars in current spending, according to an administration official who sought anonymity. It is higher than that $ 7 billion $ 33 billion plan legislators worked to assemble.We are still negotiating in good faith, we are not that far apart, and I hope that we will work something, "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said on the Senate floor late yesterday." "The Government does step will close again.".A Boehner spokesman, Michael Steel, refused to comment on the proposal of the President.Reid and Boehner also held a private one a meeting which produces no immediate agreement but was characterized as "productive" by the two parties. Steel and Jon Summers, a spokesman for Reid, issued almost identical statements said later the two would "continue to work on a budget solution."Time is short short do with game to spend current expire on April 8. ' No Excuse'Obama, wading in the talks after weeks on the sidelines, does say that Democrats have offered reductions for the draft budget 2011 who should respond to the request of Republicans, and that the nation cannot afford a judgment of Government if an agreement is not reached by the end of the week. "We are now at a point where there is no excuse to extend this further," the President told journalists at the White House, where he hosted the meeting with the leaders of the Congress. "" " We have no time for games. We have time to try to score political points or manoeuvres or positioning. "The President said that it will continue at these meetings a day, if necessary, until an agreement is found.The confrontation this year expenditure persisted as House Republicans unveiled a draft budget for the fiscal year 2012, which would reduce the deficit in the coming years to three-quarters, with a reduction in spending $ 6 billion and a ceiling of 25% on tax rates. The proposal of the President of the Commission Budget Paul Ryan of Wisconsin would trim the deficit for the year next to 995 billion in approximately 1.4 trillion dollars now. "Scope of the Optimistic plan step ' The Real dwarf that lawmakers are arguing over now, a measure of spending to fund the Government through the 2011 fiscal year, which ends September 30, before the meeting with Boehner yesterday, Reid warned that the talks were stalling. "I'm not real optimistic - not, I am not" he told journalists at the application on the prospects for an agreement before the end of the week. "It was kept on the possibility of a further extension of funding for palliative to provide more time for talks."The Tea Party is the engine of what is happening in the House of representatives, and we cannot do what they want to do, "said Reid, referring to the anti-spending Group supported numerous Republican candidates in the elections of last year."Republican leaders also provides that little chance for an agreement. "I do not think that it is even a risk," said House Leader Eric Cantor, a Virginia Republican majority. "It appears that the Senate wants to close the Government," Boehner said after a morning meeting of Republicans.White House MeetingBoehner insisted the meeting of the White House that any agreement contain "significant reductions and limits of policy" on the administration of the Obama "According to an account of the session out of his Office. He called $ 33 billion reduction that Democrats have offered inadequate.Republicans say that they were ready for impasse continues to pass a new palliative that sink 12 billion dollars in current spending, financing the Pentagon through September 30 fiscal year and the rest of the Government to operate until April 15. complicating the debate spending y the dispute about dozens of riders of the Republican House Policy plated on their 2011 spending plan aimed at limiting the prerogatives of the administration of the Obama of environmental rules, health care and abortion, among other issues. Republicans have said they will agree only to deprive some of the directives of an agreement of budget in exchange for larger spending cuts.Obama said then that officials can haggle over the make-up of the reductions, spending policy issues have no place in the measure.Abortion, the EPA "we can not do uses budget process of the year last for arguments on abortion, to have arguments about the Environmental Protection Agency, to try to use this budget negotiation as a vehicle for ideological or political difference between the two parties" Obama said.New palliative of Republicans would provide 515.8 billion for the Pentagon and contains reductions larger than the previous short-term measures that Congress passed this year, trimmed at a rate of approximately $ 2 billion a week. It slashes $ 2.5 billion of programmes of work and health, transportation and housing programs of $ 2 billion, $ 1.4 billion each of the accounts of agriculture and homeland security and about 1.3 billion of expenditures of the Ministry of the Interior.

-With the help of Laura Litvan, Nicholas Johnston, James Rowley, Catherine Dodge, Brian Faler, Laurie Asseo Washington. Editors: Leslie Hoffecker, Stephen West

To contact the reporters on this story: Julie Hirschfeld Davis in Washington at jdavis159@bloomberg.net. Julianna Goldman in Washington to jgoldman6@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva in msilva34@bloomberg.net

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Fighting in Ivory Coast worsens. France, A Gbagbo Forces bomb

April 05, 2011, 7: 34 pm EDT by Pauline Bax, Olivier Monnier and Baudelaire Mieu

(Updates with South African response of air strikes at paragraph 14).

April 5 (Bloomberg) - Forces loyal to the elected President of C?te d'Ivoire Alassane Ouattara intensified their battle for the control of Abidjan, as the troops of the United Nations and the French attacked areas still controlled by the former leader of the helicopters Laurent Gbagbo.French and the United Nations fired on two bases of the armythe Presidential Palace and residence of Gbagbo after French President Nicolas Sarkozy has authorized its forces to help the soldiers of the United Nations to prevent heavy weapons used against civilians. Gbagbo is in discussions with the administration of the Ouattara to find a safe exit, said Ally Coulibaly, Ambassador of Ouattara either side France.Ivory has been locked in a political stalemate since an election on November 28 that Gbagbo, 65 and Ouattara69, claimed to have won. While the United Nations, the United States, the African Union and the European Union will recognize Ouattara as winner, Gbagbo has alleged electoral fraud and refused to relinquish power. The militia of the Ouattara, called the Republican Forces, today renewed attacks on the bastions of Gbagbo. "" I heard machine-gun fire and serious explosions since around 6 o'clock in the morning, ", said Alain Yapi, a resident of the Cocody district, which houses the residence of the Gbagbo.Les strikes of French and UN taken hours after the Republican forces of Ouattara said that they were from a new offensive to support the rest of the greater City of the country.Our first objective is to ensure that all of the city, and after that we want to break all the bastions of resistance, said Meite Sindou, spokesman for the fighters, by phone, yesterday.Presidential PalaceGbagbo negotiates to give, "because he realizes that it is the end of the road", Coulibaly said today in an interview on the radio based in Paris France Info. "He can continue is no longer in his obstinacy criminal to stay in power.". The end is near. "The comments were denied by Ahoua Don Mello, Gbagbo's spokesman, according to the press agency France. Gbagbo does not surrender "for the moment", AFP cited Mello said.The crisis has pushed the price of cocoa, of which Ivory Coast is the largest producer in the world, 33 per cent in the four months and caused the default country on Eurobonds.Cocoa and BondsThe denominated Eurobonds earned 7 percent $ 2.3 billionat 52.04 cents on the dollar, 10 h 36 in Abidjan, after falling yesterday for the first day in five years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Cocoa matched two days of gains, falling $51 or 1.7% to $2,969 per metric ton at 11: 38 pm in London. "The market price is probably for the French military involvement and the United Nations in C?te d'Ivoire, which, in practical terms, could contribute to the end the crisis in Abidjan earlier than later,"Samir Gadio, an emerging markets strategist based in London at the Standard Bank Group Ltd."said in a response by e-mail questions.Attacks of the mission of the United Nations were not in agreement with the forces of Ouattara, A spokesman Hamadoun Toure said in an interview broadcast on basis of Qatar Al Jazeera. "" We did not coordinate with forces Ouattara at all, "said Toure. "We have a mandate to prevent the use of heavy weapons against civilians."The South Africa criticized the air strikes. "I don't remember never give us a mandate to any force to aerial bombardments in C?te d'Ivoire,"Minister for Foreign Affairs Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, told a televised press conference today." "South Africa in both would not necessarily support that we have not voted for".KillingsPro-Gbagbo militias operating from the base of the Republican Guard in the Treichville neighbourhood killed "many people, including women who are are launched to get food and water," said Corinne Dufka, a researcher based at Dakar for Watch.Parts of the human rights of the Akouedo in Eastern Abidjan district were damaged After the explosion of a depot of ammunition yesterday, residents said.Gbagbo has retained control of the Presidential Palace, his personal residence and Agban military base West of the city centre after airstrikes by the United Nations and the France, said AFP, citing Mello. Attack of the dead "much", including members of the family of Gbagbo soldiers, said the report.Some companies have suspended operations in the embattled country. OAO Lukoil, second oil producer of the Russia, suspended operations and said it will resume when the subsidies post-election violence. GMG Global Ltd. of Singapore has stopped working on its rubber plantations and the plant after the closure of the borders of the country by Ouattara.Two French nationals were among five people taken from the Novotel hotel in Abidjan late yesterday after the security forces loyal to Gbagbo installation "research of foreigners" said Frederic Akessean employee. "They took five people with them and fled," he said.

-With the help of Franz Wild in Johannesburg, Jason McLure in Accra and Gregory Viscusi in Paris. Editors: Emily Bowers, Philip Sanders, John Crilly

To contact the reporters on this story: Pauline Bax and Olivier Monnier in Abidjan via ebowers1@bloomberg.net Accra; Franz Wild in Johannesburg at fwild@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin to asguazzin@bloomberg.net.

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April 1 is coming... Give life a little entertainment spirit... ...

April 1 is coming... Give life a little entertainment spirit... ...

A, office applicable

1. Modulation smell coke

Buy a bottle of coke, drank half later, adding vinegar, soy sauce, salt, mustard seasoning and so on, and carefully modulated a colour and lustre is normal smell coke. Meet acquaintances act like it is drinking, then naturally "coke" give up, the other side, the side of unsuspecting thanks big mouthful down, and then, to open the mouth will vomit. Eyebrows You can also make by old formula, such as to mineral water into wine, and to the spirit erguotou beer soap water etc. Against PM

2, toothpaste GaXinBing 

The GaXinBing unpacking and carefully through two cracker, remove the original sandwich, take out toothpaste (best is black teeth 

Cream, tastes good! ) Squeeze appropriate amount to bread, component follow individual "diet" habit, finally to Bob close, try to do too lifelike presentable. You generally no specially use, just put it to obvious place, best to prepare for the GaXinBing patches of the original watching TV and eating, would automatically someone patronage taste. This is called JiangTaiGong fishing, let person the bait. You can also the initiative, everywhere please people, although the risk bigger taste, but there must be many people trap. 

3, the song 

Prepare for a water or enamel washbasin (other can send out loud after by the blow of high decibels objects all but) and telephone. Try to use a very formal tone phone call for the other party, after connect according to below words: here is the music station, a X (can say don't say real surname), sir/miss for Y sir/miss point one song, if you wanted to hear, please dial "#" key listen to (average person can click). Thank you, the song is engine 

"When", please listen carefully. Then tap the prepared blow things out, knock only once, 1 of "when" in each other, not the reaction come over, say: thank you for listening before, happy April fool's day, goodbye! 

This method is applicable to between quarters, or available telephone contact friends, who is a close final. In addition on the phone process must not laugh, lest affect effect and atmosphere. 

 4, double postage 

Estimation good time, ahead of time to send a letter of your friends, but don't put stamps, also don't make your mail address write (or it will give you back). This April fool's day one day, your friend will receive a notification issued by the post office, was told that wins he have a postage due mail, please to so-and-so post office and pay for place on get double postage. When he arrived in so-and-so post office, dusty, humbly after sending the postage on double, opened the envelope, but found savoir inside a small note, top write "happy April fool's day." But the joke may time could achieve error, the effect that there may not be an imagination of so good. 

5, gifts 

If someone's birthday on April fool's day, they gave him a write "happy birthday" big box, the box, and filled with scraps of this fluffed up. When he picked up the box, this fall, scraps of fly all over the house, is going to be up for the was a fool. Half an hour 

6, measuring 

With a cut the rope pranksters, stopped a pedestrian, to him for help measure size. Then take the other side of the rope, turned the corner, and stopped another pedestrian, likewise. Then you can hide in the side to complainers. Two people may wait ten minutes, seeing no action to put down the rope head, to find each other ask clear, then just can discover fooled. This is the good way to fool strangers. 

Second, network application: 

1 the most primary methods: simple, suitable for all use computers 

The toilet while others in their computer screen saver, set on and adding * * * *; Fake website administrator speech: "system will restart, please keep hands quit after the work"; E-mail to a friend, first Winzip, packaging, packaging... again Finally make self-extracting files, so circulates several times, finally open letter other only six Word: today is April fool's day! 

2. Easy to let art: appropriate use MSN instant messaging software friends 

Use emergency will are using instant messaging software was a fool ZhiKai, open the instant messaging software revision personal data options, use a keyboard, mouse, will be a fool looks to a comprehensive network of modifications. As for how to change, then take your interest and ability. Finally, don't forget the destruction of all the evidence may expose evidences. This method will not be discovered, not only let be a fool 1:30 was friends don't know who he was, even be a fool myself also 1:30 was confused. 

3, another method is seeking to be fools MSN number 

Himself to apply for a MSN number, according to the details of fools provide your personal information. Will be a fool to join you apply new number contact list, and then began to grab the weakness of "big bombing". This method is mainly to don't let them know of who you are, so in use must note hidden, try not to let the other side to you have suspicion. 

Remind be fools: whenever and wherever there are ten million should remember will leave the computer system lock, again. Once the suspect in Plan, can only be careful, carefully to observe cracked. 

4, bait-and-switch: change is a fool some of computer Settings 

Using the microphone and Windows bringing "recorder" program to record some terrorist or extraordinary voice, and then the Settings for Windows open (closed) machine voice. So when be fools open (closed) machine, suddenly must be jump. Will be a fool in the computer "my documents" of the corresponding target folder change and let its mistake written document all disappear hard. Will be a fool commonly used some application shortcuts target change and let its click shortcut open procedure, but found start-up not and shortcut corresponding program. Note must will shortcut icon to maintain and original procedures. 

These methods a fool's effect is the first-class, enough to be a fool a racing heartbeat, increased blood pressure, emit cold sweat. But when use must careful, because but they made a great mistake. 

Remind: don't give anyone is April fool's day can be as close as your computer's chance. 

5, move hardware 

Computer broke down, average person can see program or whether Internet wrong, seldom consider that slight little hardware you can be a fool also did not go to work, and it will display before the power plug or mouse plug fluffed up so that when be fools work opened his computer will find display screen or hints the mouse can't find, as he did not know what to do, you will easily appears, brace again, then each other not only questions resolved never think be fooled, but also greatly appreciate you? 

Of course there are also "vicious" one court, that is will display contrast to adjust the minimum to screen for dark principle. So, unless the other very talk, or extremely difficult to find the real cause. If he feels is hardware that right, and likely will own computer "big discharging, in order to check eight" reasons. 

Remind: should pay attention to observe carefully monitor power indicator. Whether you can find the problem, see you Not deep spiritual deep. 

Signs of Strain as Taliban Gird for More Fighting

 

The killings, coming just as the insurgents are mobilizing for the new fighting season in Afghanistan, have unnerved many in the Taliban and have spread a climate of paranoia and distrust within the insurgent movement, the Afghans said.

Three powerful Taliban commanders were killed in February in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta, well known to be the command center of the Taliban leadership, according to an Afghan businessman and a mujahedeen commander from the region with links to the Taliban. A fourth commander, a former Taliban minister, was wounded in the border town of Chaman in March, in a widely reported shooting.

There have also been several arrests in Pakistan of senior Taliban commanders, including those from Zabul and Kabul Provinces, and the shadow governor of Herat, Afghan officials said. Mullah Agha Muhammad, a brother of Mullah Baradar, the former second in command of the Taliban who was arrested by Pakistan security forces over a year ago to stop him negotiating with the Afghan government, was also detained briefly to send out the same warning, said the chief of the Afghan border police in Kandahar, Col. Abdul Razziq.

While the arrests have been conducted by Pakistan security forces, no one seems to know for sure who is behind the killings. Members of the Taliban attribute them to American spies, running Pakistani and Afghan agents, in an extension of the American campaigns that have used night raids to track down and kill scores of midlevel Taliban commanders in Afghanistan and drone strikes to kill militants with links to Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

Others, including Pakistani and Afghan Parliament members from the region, say that the Pakistani intelligence agencies have long used threats, arrests and killings to control the Taliban and that they could be doing so again to maintain their influence over the insurgents.

Afghan officials in Kabul denied any involvement in attacks on the Taliban inside Pakistan, as did American and NATO military officials. “We’ve heard of infighting that reportedly has led to internal violence at several points in recent months,” one senior American military official said of the Taliban, asking not to be named because of the sensitivity of discussing events in Pakistan. Military forces were not involved, he added.

Whatever the case, Taliban commanders and fighters, who used to be a common sight in parts of Quetta, have now gone underground and are not moving around openly as before. Two members of the Taliban, including a senior official, declined to talk about the issue of killings on the telephone, saying it was too dangerous. Many will not answer their phones at all.

The Taliban have been under stress since American forces doubled their presence in southern Afghanistan last year and greatly increased the number of special forces raids targeting Taliban commanders. Yet they still control a number of remote districts and in those areas the insurgents can still muster forces to storm government positions, as demonstrated by their capture of a district in Afghanistan’s eastern Nuristan Province this week.

While there is still some debate over the insurgents’ overall strength, Pakistanis with deep knowledge of the Afghan Taliban say that they have suffered heavy losses in the last year and that they are struggling in some areas to continue the fight.

“The Afghan Taliban have, I think, run into problems,” said Rustam Shah Mohmand, a former Pakistani interior minister who served as ambassador in Afghanistan after 2001 and as a peace negotiator with the Taliban.

“So many of them have been killed in the last one to one and a half years as a consequence of targeted assassinations,” he said in an interview. “That has depleted the strength, capacity and ability of the Taliban.” Commanders were without communications and resources and were struggling to find recruits to replace those killed, he said.

One Taliban commander from Kunar Province said losses had been so high that he was considering going over to the side of the Afghan government in order to get assistance for his beleaguered community. “This does not mean the Taliban will stop fighting, but maybe it will be at a reduced level,” Mr. Mohmand said.

Carlotta Gall reported from Kabul, and Islamabad, Pakistan. Employees of The New York Times contributed reporting from Kabul, and from southern Afghanistan.

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