Obama: Countries pledge troops to peacekeeping
Obama: Countries pledge troops to peacekeeping
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — President Barack Obama on Monday announced notable steps to upgrade U.N peacekeeping, saying more than 50 countries have pledged to contribute more than 30,000 new troops and police to serve in some of the world’s most volatile areas.
But there was no sign the U.S., which pays a quarter of the peacekeeping budget, would put more of its own troops into the field.
The United States chaired a high-level meeting to strengthen and modernize peacekeeping, whose nearly 125,000 personnel increasingly face threats from extremist groups while being severely stretched in personnel and equipment. Deployments to crises can take several months.
And a series of sexual abuse allegations against peacekeepers has brought new concerns about a long-standing problem that Obama called “an affront to human decency.”
Obama’s presence at Monday’s meeting, shortly before his first face-to-face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of an annual U.N. gathering of world leaders, was the latest sign of high-level U.S. interest in the issue.
Taliban capture strategic Afghan city
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban captured the strategic northern Afghan city of Kunduz on Monday in a multi-pronged attack involving hundreds of fighters, the first time the insurgents have seized a major urban area since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.
The fast-moving assault took military and intelligence agencies by surprise as the insurgents descended on the city, one of Afghanistan’s richest and the target of repeated Taliban offensives as the militants spread their fight across the country following the withdrawal last year of U.S. and NATO combat troops.
Within 12 hours of launching the offensive around 3 a.m., the militants had reached the main square, tearing down photographs of President Ashraf Ghani and other leaders and raising the white flag of the Taliban movement, residents reported.
More than 600 prisoners, including 140 Taliban fighters, were released from the city’s jail, and many people were trying to reach the airport to flee the city.
“Kunduz city has collapsed into the hands of the Taliban,” Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi told the Associated Press. “Security forces in Kunduz were prepared for an attack, but not one of this size, and not one that was coordinated in 10 different locations at the same time.”
Shell decision to abandon Alaskan Arctic darkens US oil prospects, delights environmentalists
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Royal Dutch Shell has abandoned its long quest to become the first company to produce oil in Alaska’s Arctic waters, darkening the nation’s long-term oil prospects and delighting environmental groups that tried to block the project.
After years of effort, Shell is leaving the region “for the foreseeable future” because it failed to find enough oil to make further drilling worthwhile.
The company has spent more than $7 billion on the effort, slogged through a regulatory gauntlet and fought environmental groups that feared a spill in the harsh climate would be difficult to clean up and devastating to polar bears, walruses, seals and other wildlife.
Shell persisted in hopes of finding a big new source of oil revenue and establishing expertise and a presence in the Arctic, which geologists estimate holds a quarter of the world’s undiscovered conventional oil and gas.
The drilling project also held the hopes of Alaska, which has seen oil production and revenues decline sharply in recent years, and the U.S. oil industry, which looked to Alaska’s offshore Arctic as the next source of oil big enough to keep the country among the top three oil producers in the world along with Saudi Arabia and Russia.
New York prison worker who helped 2 murderers escape gets up to 7 years behind bars
PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. (AP) — A sobbing former prison worker who helped two murderers escape from a maximum-security lockup said she regretted her “horrible mistake” as she was sentenced Monday to up to seven years behind bars as part of a plea deal.
Joyce Mitchell apologized profusely as she was sentenced to 2 1/3 to seven years in prison, saying she acted in part out of fear. She also might have to contribute to the $120,000 in restitution the state is seeking for damages to Clinton Correctional Facility from the brazen June 6 escape. The judge showed little sympathy as he handed down the sentence and set a Nov. 6 restitution hearing.
“If I could take it all back, I would,” she told the judge. “I never intended for any of this to happen.”
Mitchell entered the courtroom in tears and cried throughout most of the 35-minute sentencing. She apologized to the community, her former co-workers and law enforcement officers for the weeks of fear and disruption the search for the killers caused.
Mitchell, 51, had pleaded guilty to charges related to providing hacksaw blades and other tools to inmates Richard Matt and David Sweat.