Word: afghanistan
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...State Department is already working to enhance digital communications capabilities in some 40 countries, but not all of those efforts are aimed at subverting dictatorships. Some further development ends, such as mobile banking systems the U.S. has helped deploy in Afghanistan, and for demobilized militia members in the Congo. Others address urgent social problems. In Mexico, local mobile phone carriers are working with a U.S.-sponsored technical team to enable citizens to text information about crimes to police - the anonymity of the source would help protect informants from retribution. And in Pakistan, the U.S. helped establish the nation's first...
...course, kidnapping foreigners has long been a staple of militant activities in war zones like Iraq or Afghanistan and, at times, even in supposedly more secure settings like Pakistan and Yemen. But apart from a one-off abduction of 32 Europeans trekking in the Algerian desert in 2003, North African militants never showed much of an interest in kidnapping until they linked up with al-Qaeda in 2007. Since then, it's become a veritable habit. (See pictures of heartbreak in the Middle East...
...AQIM wanted $7 million and the release of several other militants in exchange for freeing the three Spanish hostages, but Madrid has ruled out paying a ransom. According to an audiotape released by the group, the Italians were nabbed in retaliation for "crimes committed by the Italian government in Afghanistan and Iraq," but no ransom demand has yet been made...
...Anti-American sentiment was further stoked Wednesday just hours after news broke of the three U.S. personnel killed in Koto, when a New York City court convicted Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani scientist, of the attempted killing of U.S. personnel after she had been captured in Afghanistan. The verdict triggered an outpouring of rage across the Pakistani media and political class, which has long championed Siddiqui as a victim of alleged American brutality...
...setbacks come as Washington struggles to persuade Pakistan to turn up the heat on Taliban and related militants who use its territory to mount operations against NATO troops in Afghanistan. Last month, as Defense Secretary Robert Gates was visiting, the Pakistan military's chief spokesman said there were no plans to launch fresh offensives for at least six months, if not a year. That was a pretty blunt "No" to the Americans. Now, with suspicions deepening over the nature and extent of the U.S. presence in Pakistan, winning its cooperation and shifting public attitudes has become an even more trying...