NATO has
suffered another deadly day in Afghanistan with eight soldiers lost, five
killed in roadside bombs.The attacks in the west, east, and south of the
country bring the total to 589 foreign soldiers killed, the worst year so
far. While NATO intensifies
operations in the Taliban heartland of Kandahar, US Defence Secretary Robert
Gates was at a NATO meeting
in Brussels. Both theNATO Secretary
General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Gates gave the strongest hints yet that
talking with Taliban is on the agenda. “We have always acknowledged that
reconciliation has to be part of the solution ultimately in Afghanistan and we
will do whatever we can to support that process,” said Gates.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been pursuing
reconciliation for some time, overcoming American scepticism, and now has a
council of 68 tribal leaders and a former president, Burhanuddin Rabbani, as
mediator. It appears also NATO troops are granting safe passage to Taliban
leaders going for talks in Kabul, but the Taliban continues to deny talks are
underway.
However it has also emerged that for the first time all the
major insurgent groups, the Afghan Taliban led by Mullah Omar, the Haqqani
network and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hizb-ul-Islami Gulbuddin, are involved along
with Karzai’s government, Pakistan, and Washington.
Strike: French students protest over pension reform
French students marched against President Nicolas
Sarkozy’s pension reform as strikes shuttered oil refineries, prompting fears
of a fuel shortage.
Hundreds of high school pupils demonstrated on Thursday,
while eight of France’s 12 refineries shut down operations.
Striking refinery workers are blocking supply routes into
France but the government insists there is enough fuel to last one month.
“It’s annoying because people fear there will be a shortage
so they are buying all the fuel. There is no unleaded left. It’s a bit
excessive,” said one motorist.
The rush to fill up cars is causing gasoline prices to
rise amid tight supplies.
Unions are to set to vote on whether to continue their
industrial action but ministers say they will be no policy u-turn.
Sarkozy says the retirement age has to go up to 62 by 2018
to make up for an estimated 32 billion euro shortfall in France’s state pension
fund.
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