Pentagon Places Bets on Computer Models in Effort to Prevent, Win Wars
01 April 2011
[...] Comer [deputy director for intelligence at the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO)] and other officials are placing their bets on a new generation of computer models that try to predict how groups behave, and how that behaviour can be changed. This work goes under a variety of names, including 'human dynamics' and 'computational social science'. It represents a melding of research fields from social-network analysis...
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Military Drawdown Could Hit Aid Flows
01 April 2011
Military drawdown could hit aid flowsThe planned drawdown of US-NATO troops in Afghanistan later this year could adversely affect the flow of foreign aid to a country where the achievements since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001 are still fragile, aid workers warn. “We saw a drop in humanitarian assistance in Iraq and Kosovo after the international military forces withdrew,” Louise Hancock, a spokeswoman of Oxfam International in...
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Opium Poppies Creep Back in Eastern Afghan Province
01 April 2011
Farmers in an area of eastern Afghanistan that has been opium-free for years say they are growing poppies again. Residents of Tagab district accuse the government of reneging on promises to reward them if they switched to other crops. As in other parts of the country, farmers have also been tempted back into poppy cultivation because of the spiralling rising price of opium. Farmers who abandoned the crop three or four years ago, like Mohammad Ajan,...
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UN Staff Killed in North as Afghans Protest Quran Burning
01 April 2011
The United Nations mission in Afghanistan has been thrown into jeopardy after protesters enraged by the burning of the Qur'an by a Christian extremist in the US stormed a UN compound in the north of the country and killed a number of foreign staff members. Afghan officials in the usually peaceful city of Mazar-e-Sharif gave varying accounts of what happened, with some UN officials saying the death toll could reach 20. Other reports said two UN staff...
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Troops Killed in Helicopter Assault on Insurgent Havens near Pakistan Border
01 April 2011
A large-scale helicopter-borne assault into a remote, insurgent-held sanctuary near the border with Pakistan left six U.S. soldiers dead in heavy fighting with Afghan and Pakistani insurgents, U.S. officials said. The operation, which was continuing Thursday, was designed to drive back the enemy in the remote and mountainous border region. One Afghan soldier was also killed in the assault. The deaths show the difficulty U.S. troops have faced in...
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