How Manchester United became the biggest soccer team in the world

@TIMETIME.com

How Manchester United became the biggest soccer team in the world

On Saturday, May 14, as the final whistle ended a 1-1 draw in the English Premier League between Blackburn Rovers and Manchester United, a man looking perhaps a shade younger than his 69 years began dancing around and hugging everyone in sight. If Sir Alex Ferguson, United's manager, looked like a bit of a dork — as he usually does when celebrating — nobody cared. United had just won its 19th English League title, beating the record of its archrival Liverpool, the team that Ferguson had long ago promised to "knock off their perch." Of those 19 championships, 12, together with five FA Cup victories, have been won since Ferguson arrived in 1986. On May 28 he will go for another title, when United meets Barcelona in the final of the European Champions League in London. If his team wins, Ferguson will have his third European championship and United its fourth. Only Real Madrid, AC Milan and Liverpool have won more.

But the bare bones of United's record — and Ferguson's — tell barely half the story. Analyses of sports clubs' commercial operations vary, depending on who's doing them, but in 2010, Forbes magazine ranked United the most valuable franchise in world sports, with an estimated worth of $1.8 billion — more than that of the New York Yankees or Dallas Cowboys — and that was before it signed a record $130 million shirt-sponsorship deal with insurance company Aon. United's international fan base, measured in the tens of millions (with much of it in Asia), is greater than that of any other team in any other sport. Sponsors include Nike, a Turkish airline, a Thai beer, the capital of South Korea, a Chilean winemaker and a bevy of telecommunications companies spanning the globe. But the global reach of the brand has not come at the expense of local loyalty. United's stadium at Old Trafford averages attendance of some 75,000 a game, in a season 10 months long.

It's an astonishing record, but it's also a bit of a mystery. Manchester is an O.K. sort of a place, the cradle of the Industrial Revolution, with a famous club scene and a concert hall uniquely named after an economic theory, but it's not a capital city or a megalopolis. So how did this town in the northwest of England manage to produce one of the age's true global brands? And — even more mysterious — how has a single man, over 24 years, been able to sustain such excellence in his teams at a time when the social, economic, technological and competitive environment of his sport has been transformed, turning it into perhaps the only spectacle that the world truly holds in common?

The story starts with a tragedy.

Making the Legend Live

On the evening of Feb. 6, 1958, a chartered plane carrying United's young team — England's champions, known as the Busby Babes, after their manager, Matt Busby — stopped off in Munich on its way back from Belgrade, where United had drawn with Red Star, securing a place in the semifinals of the European Cup (the precursor to the Champions League). Conditions were dire, with slush on the runway and snow in the air, but after two failed attempts to take off, the pilots tried again. The plane never made it, clipping a house at the end of the runway and crashing. Seven of United's players were among those who died in the crash. An eighth, Duncan Edwards, just 21, who men of a certain age will tell you with iron conviction was the greatest footballer England ever produced, died two weeks later. Busby was terribly injured and was administered last rites but survived.

The horror shocked Britain. Even those who didn't follow football or weren't from Manchester had loved the Babes, who had brought a sense of glamour to a nation that was still struggling to lift itself from the drabness of the postwar years. I was just 6 at the time, and the Munich disaster was the first time I realized that really bad things could happen. We lived in the suburbs of Liverpool — both my parents had been born in the streets next to Liverpool's stadium — so United wasn't our team. But our next-door neighbors, a retired railroad worker and his wife, were big United fans, and I can remember, when I got home from school the day the news broke, feeling a child's surprise at seeing adults so visibly distressed. A few weeks later, we all crowded into the only house on our street with a TV to watch United's second string try to win the FA Cup, only to cruelly lose to Bolton Wanderers.

Yet out of the ashes, Busby rebuilt the club. By the mid-1960s, he had formed a thrilling new team around three players known in United legend as "the Holy Trinity": George Best, Denis Law and Bobby Charlton, who was just 20 when he was hauled from the wreckage of Munich. Even I, a die-hard Liverpool fan (which is why this article is written through gritted teeth) loved seeing them play. In 1968, 10 years after Munich, they positively murdered Portuguese champions Benfica to become the first English side to win the European Cup. As the game ended, Busby marched across the field to embrace Charlton, two survivors united in a moment of shared joy and grief.

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Diabetes research center: San Diego man is the first American to live 85 years with diabete

@APThe Associated Press

Diabetes research center: San Diego man is the first American to live 85 years with diabete

Man celebrates 85 years of living with diabetes

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- When Bob Krause turned 90 last week, it was by virtue of an unflagging determination and a mentality of precision that kept his body humming after being diagnosed with diabetes as a boy.

A leading diabetes research center named the San Diego resident the first American known to live 85 years with the disease, a life that has paralleled - and benefited from - the evolution in treatment.

Krause's wife of 56 years, his family and friends celebrated his longevity Sunday with a party and a medal from the Joslin Diabetes Center to commemorate his 85-year milestone.

"Bob has outlived the life expectation of a normal healthy person born in 1921," said his physician, Dr. Patricia Wu, attributing Krause's success to his strong character. "He knows that he has to deal with this and he sees this as a part of his life, he doesn't let this get him down."

The trim, white-haired Krause puts it more succinctly: "I'm a stubborn old man. I refuse to give up."

That trait certainly plays into how closely he has tracked his body's chemistry and become expert in the life-saving math that has kept his diabetes under control.

About 18.8 million Americans have been diagnosed with diabetes and an estimated 7 million more live with the disease unwittingly. Krause's form of diabetes, type 1, was once known more commonly as juvenile diabetes, and the more common form of diabetes often tied to obesity is type 2.

About 3 million Americans live with type 1 diabetes, a chronic illness in which their bodies don't make enough insulin, which is needed to convert blood sugar into energy. The exact cause is unknown, though genetics and autoimmune problems are thought to play a role.

Life expectancy is diminished for many diabetics because they face a higher risk of serious health complications, including heart disease, stroke, blindness, kidney damage and limb amputations. Many struggle to manage blood pressure.

The former University of Washington mechanical engineering professor says he's succeeded because he treats his body like a car and he only eats enough food to fuel the machine.

"To keep your diabetes under control you only eat the food you need to before you have activities to perform," Krause said. "I eat to keep me alive instead of eating all the time, or for pleasure."

He says he's not as active as he once was, so he doesn't need a lot of fuel - or variation in diet. For breakfast every day, he eats a bowl of nuts and five pitted prunes. He usually skips lunch and eats a salad with some lean meat for dinner.

"I was surprised when they told me I was the oldest, because I knew there were others out there. I certainly didn't think I was a loner," Krause said after being presented the medal.

The first time Krause met Dr. Wu at Kaiser Permanente San Diego, he came into the endocrinologist's office with a briefcase full of meticulous hand-drawn graphs charting months of his blood sugar levels, caloric intake and insulin doses.

He tests his blood up to a dozen times a day and he brings in updated charts every visit, Wu said.

"I think that's a testament of why he is successful in living with this very difficult to live with condition," she said. "Because of his persistence, his consistency, his hard work."

Krause's careful attention is not unlike many others who have been awarded by Joslin for successfully living with the illness for decades, according to researcher Stephanie Hastings.

The Boston-based center has honored long-time diabetes survivors since 1948, and 34 have earned 75-year medals.

Hastings said Krause is like many longtime successful diabetics, who "always have more information than we need."

If anything, Wu has worked with Krause over the past three years to be a little less rigid so that he doesn't overdose himself with insulin and push his blood sugar too low.

It can be tough to change the patterns of a patient who has dealt with an illness for so long.

Krause was lucky to be diagnosed with diabetes not long after the commercial production of insulin made it widely available. It was 1926, and he was 5 years old and living in Detroit where his father worked for the U.S. Rubber Co.

Krause's younger brother Jackie died of diabetes after being diagnosed a year earlier because insulin wasn't yet available.

Before the discovery of insulin, a diabetes diagnosis was a death sentence, with an expected survival of a couple years at most if patients undertook starvation diets to buy more time.

"I watched Jackie die by starving to death," Krause said. "Before insulin, diabetics would just die because eating doesn't make any difference: anything that you ate couldn't be converted and you literally starved to death because your body couldn't absorb anything."

Canadian scientists Frederick Banting and John Macleod made the discovery in 1921 through experiments with a mixture of ground cow pancreas water and salts that eventually became insulin.

When experimenting with the mixture in humans began in 1922, scientists found they were literally injecting life into people who were wasting away. The discovery led to a Nobel Prize in 1923.

When Krause began taking insulin, diabetics had to boil glass syringes with long needles, sharpening the point when it would go blunt with wear.

Krause remembers how his mother, having lost one child to diabetes, weighed every piece of food Krause ate and kept him on a strict diet. By the time he was 6, he was giving himself injections in the arms or legs at every meal.

Back then, blood sugar testing was imprecise, messy and inconvenient. Krause would boil his urine in a test tube and drop a tablet into it that would turn different colors based on how much blood sugar was in the sample.

Since 1978, Krause has relied on his insulin pump to administer his dosages into his stomach, though he enters the amount of the dose himself rather than relying on automated doses of insulin that pumps can give throughout the day.

Krause's son, Tom Krause, said his engineer father has always been precise, measured and calculated - down to the box of sugar cubes he always kept next to his bed in case he felt faint.

"Having a sugar cube is a precise measurement - that's how much he kept track, down to the cube of sugar," said Tom Krause, 50.

And though Tom Krause inherited his father's diabetes, he doesn't share his father's regimented control of the illness.

"My dad, he is just a machine in how well he cares and manages his diabetes, with his willpower and how long he's been doing it," Tom Krause said.

Krause praises the advent of blood testing as one of the most life-changing moments in diabetes medicine, since it allows him to get a more precise reading of his blood sugar levels by pricking his finger for a test strip that is read by a machine.

"It's easier to control things today than it was back then. Back then you just ate a meal and that's all you ate all day long, you didn't eat anything in between and if your blood sugar got low, you would feel faint and drink orange juice and wait," Krause said.

Though they've worked together to make sure his treatment keeps up with the times, Krause reminds Wu of the same thing each time he leaves her office.

"He'll say, `I've been doing this for 80-number of years and it has gotten me this far and I'm still here, so who are you to tell me how to do this? I've been doing this since before you were born,'" Wu recalls with a laugh.

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Shaya Tayefe Mohajer can be reached at http://twitter.com/APShaya .

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Online:

Joslin Diabetes Center: http://www.joslin.org

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Penari Striptis Masuk Daftar DPO Polda Lampung

@antaranewsANTARANEWS.COM

Penari Striptis Masuk Daftar DPO Polda Lampung

Bandarlampung (ANTARA News) - Seorang penari yang menjadi tersangka dalam kasus skandal tarian striptis di salah satu tempat karaoke di Bandarlampung, Lilis, masuk dalam Daftar Pencarian Orang (DPO) Polda Lampung, karena menghilang saat kasusnya hendak dilimpahkan ke kejaksaan.

"Berkas kasus skandal tarian striptis tersebut sudah dinyatakan lengkap (P21) oleh pihak kejaksaan, namun polisi belum dapat melimpahkan kasus tersebut karena masih mencari keberadaan Lilis," kata Kabid Humas Polda Lampung, AKBP Sulistyaningsih, di Bandarlampung, Senin.

Menurut dia, informasi terakhir yang didapat kepolisian, Lilis berada di Kalimantan Timur.

Saat ini, Polda Lampung berkoordinasi dengan Polda Kaltim untuk mencari keberadaan Lilis.

Berkas perkara tarian striptis yang dilakukan oleh Lilis saat beraksi di sebuah ruangan Karaoke di Bandarlampung telah dinyatakan lengkap (P-21) oleh Kejaksaan Tinggi Lampung, namun hingga kini, Polda Lampung belum bisa melaksanakan pelimpahan tahap dua.

Berkas perkara tersebut sudah P-21 sejak bulan Februari lalu, dan pelimpahan seharusnya dilakukan paling lambat dalam dua pekan

Meski demikian, hingga dua pekan, penyidik Polda Lampung belum juga menyerahkan Lilis ke Kejati Lampung untuk proses hukum selanjutnya.

Sebelumnya Polda Lampung menangkap seorang penari striptis, Lilis Anya alias Sarah (18), di sebuah ruangan karaoke Star City, Telukbetung Selatan, Minggu (14/11/2010), sekitar pukul 02.00 dini hari.

Kasus itu terungkap setelah masyarakat melaporkan ada salah satu ruangan di Star City yang menggelar tarian tanpa busana.

Informasi tersebut ditindaklanjuti Ditreskrim Polda Lampung dengan cara melakukan penyelidikan ke lokasi.

Berdasarkan hasil penyelidikan kepolisian, tempat karaoke itu sering menyajikan striptis dengan modus menawarkan kepada pengunjung karaoke untuk satu kali tarian dengan tarif Rp1 juta.
(*)
Editor: AA Ariwibowo

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VIDEO: Dan Wheldon wins stunning Indy 500 auto race when leader JR Hildebrand crashes:

@APThe Associated Press

AP VIDEO: Dan Wheldon wins stunning Indy 500 auto race when leader JR Hildebrand crashes:

via YouTube

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Saudi prince calls for lower oil prices.

@CNNCNN

Saudi prince calls for lower oil prices.

(CNN) -- Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal said Sunday that he wants oil prices to drop so that the United States and Europe don't accelerate efforts to wean themselves off his country's supply.
In an interview broadcast Sunday on "CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS," the grandson of the founding king of modern Saudi Arabia said the oil price should be somewhere between $70 and $80 a barrel, rather than the current level of over $100 a barrel.
"We don't want the West to go and find alternatives, because, clearly, the higher the price of oil goes, the more they have incentives to go and find alternatives," said Talal, who is listed by Forbes as the 26th richest man in the world.
Follow Fareed Zakaria on GPS
He blamed continuing uncertainty over political stability in the region as well as disruptions in supply tied to unrest in Libya and Bahrain for the current high oil price.
"You're not 100% sure what is going to happen, because you hear once in a while Iran coming and jumping and antagonizing and intimidating the Gulf region," the prince said. "So, there's a worry."

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For French, Arrest Forces Some Questions of Identity

For French, Arrest Forces Some Questions of Identity

Anne Cottavoz is of two minds about the Dominique Strauss-Kahn affair, her American mind and her French mind, though she concedes that after living in the United States for 27 years, there may be some blurring of the two.

Ms. Cottavoz, a Frenchwoman who owns a health food store on the Upper West Side, said Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s arrest exposed a “slippery slope” in France between what she called “chauvinist behavior” and something more aggressive, like the sexual assault of a hotel housekeeper that Mr. Strauss-Kahn, the former managing director of the International Monetary Fund, has been accused of.

In New York, she has felt respected as a woman in a way she might not have been in France, where, she said, “Frenchmen get away with too many sexual advances.”

“We know in France that the general culture makes it comfortable for men to take liberties with women, and in America it’s not like that,” Ms. Cottavoz, 49, said.

“In America, if they take liberties, there will be consequences.”

The Strauss-Kahn case has gripped the city’s French-American community of roughly 70,000 as few other recent events have. It is the talk of restaurant workers, academics, wine importers and the Frenchmen in Bryant Park who daily play the horseshoes-like game of pétanque.

The episode has forced many native French people to tease out what part of them has evolved into an American and what part has never left France, which coined the word “chauvinism” in the patriotic sense. (Nicolas Chauvin was a soldier fanatically loyal to Napoleon.)

French-Americans, said Thomas Bishop, director of the Center for French Civilization and Culture at New York University, do not integrate into the American mainstream as easily as other ethnic groups, retaining stronger feelings for their homeland.

The devotion extends to their passion for French politics. Rather than dismiss Mr. Strauss-Kahn with tabloid descriptions of him as a “frisky Frenchman,” they may view his fall from power as that of a man with “a tragic flaw” who thought he could “get away with anything,” Mr. Bishop said.

And Ms. Cottavoz, who was raised in the Gascony region, said her French blood boiled at some of the ways the police and the news media treated Mr. Strauss-Kahn, particularly how he had been paraded in handcuffs before a crush of photographers. Americans, she said, may see a “perp walk” as a deterrent, but in France it is illegal and considered an unfair humiliation for someone who has not been convicted. Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s defense team has suggested that he and his accuser had a consensual sexual encounter.

Still, French-Americans believe the case has “tarnished our image,” said Marie-Monique Steckel, president of the French Institute Alliance Française, which promotes French culture and language. When she heard news of Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s arrest, she said, she found herself “extremely emotional,” adding, “My Frenchness came to the fore with more force than I would have thought.”

And although some French-Americans may think Americans react too prudishly to the sex scandals of their leaders, Ms. Steckel said, “There is a difference between a womanizer and rape.”

“A womanizer is more acceptable in France,” she said. “It’s kind of considered good health and vigor, which is different from Americans, who are more puritanical. But violence against women is very different.”

Seeing conspiracy is another matter that divides Americans and French — and that raises issues of identity for French-Americans. Ms. Steckel, who said she had lived in the United States for 40 years and decided to become a citizen only after President Obama’s election, a testimony to what she characterized as this country’s openness, said many French-Americans found it difficult to talk to friends in France who suspect the arrest was a plot by Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s political opponents.

Mr. Strauss-Kahn was widely expected to be the Socialist candidate for president. French people who have lived in New York for a long time, she said, have moved beyond seeing the world in such a conspiratorial fashion. “The French adore the idea of plots,” she said. “They see plots everywhere. French-Americans become more factual.”

Nevertheless, some French-Americans evidently still see such schemes. Michael Touchard, 36, manager of Tout Va Bien, a Hell’s Kitchen bistro, said it was hard to believe that “a man with as much power and so much to gain would try something like this.”

Mr. Touchard, who came to New York as a child from Brittany with his restaurateur parents, does not consider it out of the question that Mr. Strauss-Kahn was framed by opponents aware of his history with women. Mr. Strauss-Kahn was rebuked by the I.M.F. in 2008 for an affair with a married Hungarian subordinate.

“If you want to take down your enemy, you have to know his weakness,” Mr. Touchard said.

There is no single French neighborhood here in the way that Astoria is known to be heavily Greek, but many French-Americans are scattered on the Upper East Side — close to the Lycée Français de New York — and in suburbs like Montclair, N.J., and Larchmont, N.Y., home to the lower division of the French-American School of New York.

The 2005-9 American Community Survey estimated that New York City had 15,164 people born in France and a total of 70,600 who claimed French ancestry. In the New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania metropolitan area, it found a total of 20,385 French-born residents and 160,439 of French ancestry.

Many of them work for French restaurants, French banks and enterprises specializing in perfume, high fashion and luxury goods. They often prefer French newspapers, where the idea that Mr. Strauss-Kahn was the victim of a setup has been frequently discussed.

Still, Mr. Bishop of N.Y.U. said, French-Americans are aware that in France, similar charges embroiling a powerful politician might have been “swept under the rug” by a justice system he said was more susceptible to political intrigue. The more scrupulous American justice system is something the French here grow to appreciate, he said.

“The system doesn’t always work perfectly,” Mr. Bishop said, “but people cannot just walk away from something.”

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Storms knock out power to 100,000 in Michigan - Detroit Free-Press

@BreakingNewsBreaking News

Storms knock out power to 100,000 in Michigan - Detroit Free-Press

100,000 in Michigan without power

A series of fast moving storms knocked out the lights for over 100,000 residents throughout Michigan tonight.

A tornado watch was issued earlier today for 34 counties, including Wayne, Oakland, Monroe, Macomb and St. Clair counties as the storms rolled through the region.

The weather service is investigating a possible tornado touchdown in Shiawasssee County.

Consumers Power reported nearly 96,000 customers without power with Calhoun County being hardest hit with nearly 28,000 affected.

Jay Jacobs, a spokesman for Consumers Power said the southern portion of the state was hit the hardest as Ingham, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Livingston and Monroe counties all were affected by power outages.

“We’ve got lots of wires down all over the place,” said Jabobs. He said crews would be working all night and through the day Monday using full staffs to restore power.

Nearly 22,000 DTE customers throughout southeast Michigan were without power tonight.

The numbers included 8,000 residents in Livingston County, 5900 in Oakland County 4500 in Ingham County, 2600 in Monroe County and the rest scattered throughout various counties.

John Austerberry, a spokesman for DTE Energy said crews had been dispatched throughout the problem areas and would continue working through the night to help restore power.

Contact Joe Rossiter: 313-222-6594 or jrossiter@freepress.com

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Stabilizing reactors at Fukushima by year's end may be impossible, TEPCO says - Kyodo

@BreakingNewsBreaking News

Stabilizing reactors at Fukushima by year's end may be impossible, TEPCO says - Kyodo

Stabilizing reactors by year's end may be impossible: Tepco

Kyodo, Stabilizing the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant by the end of the year may be impossible, senior officials at Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Sunday, throwing a monkey wrench into plans to let evacuees return to their homes near the plant.

The confirmation of core meltdowns hitting reactors 1 through 3, accompanied by breaches to the critical pressure vessels that hold the nuclear fuel, has led officials to believe that "there will be a major delay to work" to contain the situation, one official said.

Tepco, the plant's operator, announced on April 17 its road map for bringing the troubled reactors into a cold shutdown within six to nine months.

Even though the fuel in the No. 1 reactor was later found to have melted through the pressure vessel, the utility said as recently as May 17 that it did not see a need to revise its projections.

But "the nine months is just a target deadline for which we are making efforts," a senior Tepco official said, indicating that the likely delay will affect the plan to review the evacuation of local residents. The government is hoping to review the order once the reactors are brought under control.

Tepco was taking steps until early May to completely fill the containment vessels housing the pressure vessels with water so the fuel could be cooled.

But on May 12, it was confirmed that a meltdown had occurred at the No. 1 reactor, forcing the utility to abandon the water entombment idea and try to install a new cooling system that decontaminates and recycles the radioactive water flooding the reactor's turbine building instead.

Given that the contaminated water has leaked from the No. 1 reactor's containment vessel, a Tepco official said, "We must first determine where it is leaking and seal it."

The official added, "Unless we understand the extent of the damage, we don't even know how long that work alone would take," noting the need for one or two months more than previously thought to establish an entirely new cooling system.

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Blast at barracks kills 12 in Nigeria

Blast at barracks kills 12 in Nigeria

BAUCHI, Nigeria — A bomb blast rocked a popular drinking spot inside an army barracks in northern Nigeria on Sunday, killing a dozen people hours after President Goodluck Jonathan was sworn in for his first full term.

A rescue worker who asked not to be identified told Reuters his colleagues had counted 12 dead bodies and that around 25 people had been wounded by the blast. A hospital spokesman said 10 corpses had been brought in, four of them women.
The explosion hit the Mamy market in the barracks on the edge of the city of Bauchi at around 8 p.m. (3 p.m. ET), police commissioner Muhammed Indabawa said. He said it was not clear who was responsible and that no arrests had yet been made.
"It was a very strong and powerful explosion," said Yushua Shuaib, spokesman for the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), adding members of the agency were evacuating the wounded. He declined to comment on the death toll.
Military barracks in Nigeria sometimes contain small market areas where traders are allowed to sell food, drink and other goods to both soldiers and members of the public. Mamy market is a popular evening drinking spot for Bauchi residents.
A second, smaller explosion hit a beer parlour in Zuba on the outskirts of the capital Abuja, although the cause was unknown and there were only three minor injuries, Shuaib said.
The blasts underline the challenges Jonathan faces uniting Africa's most populous nation after elections last month which, while deemed the most credible in decades, also exposed the country's religious and ethnic fault lines.

Hundreds of people were killed in northern towns last month in riots and reprisal killings after Jonathan, a Christian from the south, was declared winner of the election, beating northern Muslim and former army ruler Muhammadu Buhari.
"We will not allow anyone to exploit differences in creed or tongue to set us one against another," Jonathan said in a speech at his inauguration ceremony.
RADICAL GROUPS
Bauchi neighbors Plateau state in Nigeria's "Middle Belt" where the mostly Muslim north meets the predominantly Christian south, a region beset by years of sectarian violence.
The worst of the post-election unrest was in the southern part of Kaduna state, which shares the ethnic and religious diversity of the rest of the Middle Belt, with Christian and Muslim towns and villages set side by side.
Security sources have said they fear radical groups such as Boko Haram, an Islamist sect based in the remote northeast, could increasingly try to strike beyond their home turf.
Boko Haram has carried out frequent fire bombings of police stations and government buildings around the northeastern city of Maiduguri and also claimed responsibility for Christmas Eve bombings in the Middle Belt city of Jos.
Security in Abuja was tight for Jonathan's inauguration earlier on Sunday with joint police and army checkpoints on all roads into the city, bomb squad officers on the streets and helicopters buzzing overhead.
There were several bomb blasts at campaign rallies in the run-up to the April elections, most of them using home-made improvised devices and carried out by unknown assailants.
Militants from the southern Niger Delta oil region claimed car bombs which killed 10 people near a parade in Abuja last October but the movement responsible, MEND, has since been largely inactive.
The perpetrators of a second car bombing in Abuja on New Year's Eve, also at a popular market close to an army barracks, have still not been identified.

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

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At I.M.F., a Strict Ethics Code Doesn’t Apply to Top Officials

At I.M.F., a Strict Ethics Code Doesn’t Apply to Top Officials

At the International Monetary Fund, there is one set of ethics guidelines for the rank-and-file staff and another for the 24 elite executive directors who oversee the powerful organization.

Over the last four years, the fund has tightened internal systems for catching ethical misconduct among its 2,400 staff members, establishing a telephone hot line for complaints like harassment; publishing details of complaints in an annual report; and empowering an ethics adviser to pursue allegations, which last year led to at least one dismissal.

But the fund’s board members remain largely above these controls. The ethics adviser, for example, is not able to investigate any of them.

The board is responsible for policing its own directors as well as the managing director. It has a five-person ethics committee, whose work is confidential. And the only way the board can discipline its members is to write a warning letter to them or to their home countries, or the group of countries that appointed them.

“There are a lot of controls in place when it comes to the staff, but not for the leadership,” said Katrina Campbell, a compliance and ethics expert at Global Compliance.

The I.M.F.’s ethics policy has come under intense scrutiny in recent weeks since the arrest of its managing director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, on charges of sexually assaulting a hotel housekeeper in New York. Mr. Strauss-Kahn, who denies the charges, has resigned his position at the fund.

In 2007, Ms. Campbell carried out a study of the fund’s ethics policies for the fund’s Independent Evaluation Office. It found that the board lacked satisfactory procedures for disciplining its own members or the managing director for ethical lapses. The report criticized the board’s code of conduct as vague, saying that it “reads, for the most part, as a set of recommendations, rather than rules” and that the board lacked effective enforcement procedures.

In contrast, it praised the staff code of conduct as detailed and offering “a plethora of policies and procedures.”

Until several years ago, the managing director’s position was ambiguous in terms of ethics policy. The person holding that post is both chairman of the executive board and head of the staff, and it was not clear which code of conduct applied, Ms. Campbell said.

But when Mr. Strauss-Kahn was selected for the top spot in November of 2007, the staff code of conduct was written into his contract, she said, although ultimately he remains answerable only to the board.

In 2008, not long after Mr. Strauss-Kahn assumed the top post, the fund was compelled to investigate him for having an affair with a staff subordinate. In that case, the fund hired an outside law firm to handle the inquiry because the ethics officer was not authorized to investigate at that high level. Although Mr. Strauss-Kahn was found not to have abused his position, he was publicly reprimanded by the board for showing poor judgment, and he apologized.

In January 2009, the executive board formally adopted procedures for ethics investigations: they would be conducted by an outside consultant who reported to the ethics committee.

Since then, the law firm, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, has been brought in to investigate several other matters, according to a person familiar with the situation who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. None of the matters concerned Mr. Strauss-Kahn, this person said, and the cases were not related to allegations of sexual misconduct or affairs.

A spokesman for the fund, William Murray, declined to comment except to say ethics investigations might potentially cover complaints of abuse like intimidation or aggressive behavior.

The fund’s ethics adviser, currently Virginia R. Canter, a former White House associate counsel, publishes an annual report detailing staff complaints. Last year, for example, the ethics adviser pursued 30 allegations of misconduct, resulting in 10 disciplinary actions, including at least one firing.

In 2009, a complaint made to the fund’s ethics hot line involved the conduct of a member of the executive board, according to the ethics adviser’s 2009 published report.

That complaint was referred to the board’s ethics committee. It would have been up to the committee to decide whether to bring in an outside investigator to look into the allegation; it is unclear whether it did so in this case.

As an international organization, the fund’s legal status is complicated. Though it is based in Washington, not all the laws of the United States apply to it. Unlike the staff, the directors are appointed by their home governments rather than the fund and so do not have an exclusive duty of loyalty to the fund. This places great importance on its internal codes of ethical conduct.

The fund insists its codes are strong and that in matters of workplace conduct the executive directors are held to the same high standards as the staff. The code for the board for instance says that directors are expected “to maintain the highest standards of integrity.” They should also “treat their colleagues and the staff with courtesy and respect, without harassment, physical or verbal abuse.”

This month, the ethics rules for lower-level staff members were tightened, making a close personal relationship with a subordinate a potential conflict of interest that had to be reported. Other updates included protections for staff members against retaliation when they allege misconduct.

But the executive board’s code has not been modified since 2003. It does not state specifically whether a close personal relationship with a staff member poses a potential conflict of interest that must be reported.

The board’s ethics committee was established in 1998. But the internal report found that by 2007 the committee had “never met to consider any issues other than its own procedures.” The fund said it could not disclose whether the committee had met since then, because its work is confidential.

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Imparsial Nilai Reformasi Polri Gagal

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Imparsial Nilai Reformasi Polri Gagal

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Lembaga Swadaya Masyarakat (LSM) Imparsial The Indonesian Human Rights Monitor menilai selama 13 tahun masa reformasi, Polri belum berhasil melakukan reformasi karena ada berbagai kasus penyimpangan yang dilakukan oleh aparat kepolisian.

Direktur Program Imparsial, Al Araf, Minggu, mengatakan berbagai contoh kegagalan dari reformasi Polri di antaranya dengan masih tingginya laporan masyarakat terhadap penyalahgunaan wewenang, tindakan kekerasan hingga kasus salah tangkap yang dilakukan Polri.

"Kegagalan tersebut tidak lepas dari kewenangan yang diberikan kepada Komisi Kepolisian Nasional (Komponas) selaku pengawas internal di kepolisian," ujarnya.

Untuk kasus terorisme, sejak tahun 2005 tercatat setidaknya ada 70 kasus salah tangkap. Sementara, untuk berbagai tindakan kriminal telah terjadi 135 kasus sejak 2005 sampai 2010, di antaranya, penyerangan terhadap warga, pembunuhan, pemerasan dan kekerasan berlebih dalam penanganan unjuk rasa.

"Untuk kasus salah tangkap dalam kasus terorisme, indeksnya setiap tahun terus meningkat," kata Al Araf.

Ia mengatakan, kegagalan kepolisian juga terdapat dalam data Transparansi Internasional, menyebut pada tahun 2008 Polri merupakan Institusi terkorup di Indonesia.

"Sedang data Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) mengatakan terdapat 145 tunggakan kasus korupsi yang harus diselesaikan pada tahun 2010," paparnya.

Imparsial menilai jalannya reformasi polisi belum cukup apalagi memadai di dalam mewujudkan polisi yang profesional, tidak militeristik dan tidak korup.

Menurut dia, dinamika reformasi yang berjalan tidak memberi kontribusi yang maksimal bagi pembentukan polisi yang akuntabel, namun reformasi polisi yang berjalan hanya bersifat kosmetik belaka dan belum dilakukan secara lebih substansial dan lebih utuh.

Sebagai solusi memperbaiki Institusi kepolisian, Al Araf mengimbau pemerintah harus memberikan kewenangan lebih kepada Kompolnas untuk mengawasi kinerja Polri.

Oleh karena itu, diperlukan perbaikan pada sistem rekruitmen dan promosi yang selama ini dinilai masih sangat serba suap-menyuap.

Memberikan sanksi secara tegas dan berat kepada aparat kepolisian yang melakukan penyimpangan. Upaya penghukuman ini tidak bisa dan tidak boleh dilakukan secara diskriminatif, katanya. (S037/A041/K004) Editor: B Kunto Wibisono

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Suami Tusuk Istri Gara-gara "Rebounding"

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Suami Tusuk Istri Gara-gara "Rebounding"

Tulungagung (ANTARA News) - Seorang suami di Dusun Kedungdowo, Desa Gesikan, Kecamatan Pakel, Kabupaten Tulungagung, Jawa Timur, tega menusuk perut istrinya menggunakan gunting gara-gara cemburu melihat rambut pasangan hidupnya tiba-tiba diluruskan ("rebounding").

Beruntung sang istri yang diidentifikasi bernama Kalis Ekowati (36) berhasil menangkis serangan membabi buta suaminya sehingga tidak sampai berakibat fatal.

"Korban bisa menangkis, tapi telapak tangannya terluka cukup parah terkena ujung gunting yang ditusukkan Suyitno (39), suaminya," kata Kasubbag Humas Polres Tulungagung AKP Suratman, Minggu.

Ia memastikan, kasus kekerasan dalam rumah tangga tersebut kini telah ditangani Unit Perlindungan Perempuan dan Anak (UPPA) Polres Tulungagung untuk ditindaklanjuti secara hukum pidana.

Suyitno yang dikenal temperamental sejauh ini masih bebas berkeliaran di sekitar rumahnya. Polisi belum melakukan penangkapan dan masih berencana melakukan pemanggilan untuk dimintai keterangan sebagai saksi.

Ketidakcekatan polisi dalam menangani kasus tersebut tak pelak membuat korban mengaku ketakutan. Kalis khawatir, suaminya kembali mengamuk dan melakukan hal-hal yang bisa mengancam keselamatan jiwanya.

"Kami memang masih melakukan pengejaran. Mengenai korban yang masih trauma, kami juga akan memberikan perlindungan dengan cara melakukan pengawalan hingga pelaku berhasil ditangkap," kata Suratman mengklarifikasi.

Peristiwa penusukan itu sendiri terjadi pada hari Sabtu (28/5) sekitar pukul 20.00 WIB. Saat itu, Suyitno yang barusan pulang dari bepergian meminta Kalis, istrinya, untuk mengambilkan makan.

Usai menyiapkan makan untuk pelaku, Suyitno yang malam itu mukanya terlihat dingin meminta kepada Kalis untuk mengasah sabit.

Sadar sang suami sedang menahan marah, Kalis hanya diam. Ia sempat menanyakan keperluan Suyitno menyuruhnya mengasah sabit. Namun jawaban yang diberikan membuat ibu satu anak ini merasa bergidik.

"Dia bilang untuk menyembelih leher orang. Saya takut dan kemudian memilih diam sambil menyapu lantai rumah," tutur Kalis dengan wajah masih cemas.

Ia menyebut, suaminya marah karena dirinya barusan meluruskan (me-"rebonding") rambutnya tanpa izin. Indikasi itu muncul karena sebelum melakukan pemukulan ke arah ulu hati dan penusukan ke arah perut, Suyitno sempat menanyakan alasan Kalis me-"rebonding" rambut tanpa izin.

"Saya jawab bukan untuk siapa-siapa, tapi dia justru mengamuk dan menjambak rambut saya dan mengguntingnya dengan kasar. Tidak berhenti sampai di situ, dia juga sempat memukuli saya beberapa kali dan terakhir berusaha menusuk perutku dengan gunting dapur," lanjut Kalis menceritakan kronologi kejadian.

Suratman juga menambahkan jika pada saat korban melaporkan ke polisi, kondisi tangan Kalis masih berlumuran darah sehinga dia langsung dibawa ke RS Bhayangkara untuk mendapatkan perawatan sekaligus melakukan "visum et repertum". (SAS*M038/M026/K004)
Editor: B Kunto Wibisono

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Empat Ribu Ekor Ayam di Kalteng Mati Mendadak

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Empat Ribu Ekor Ayam di Kalteng Mati Mendadak

Palangka Raya (ANTARA News) - Kepala Dinas Pertanian dan Perternakan Pemerintah Provinsi Kalimantan Tengah, Tute Lelo, mengatakan, selama sebulan terakhir, hampir empat ribu ekor ayam mati secara mendadak di daerah setempat dengan penyebab yang masih diteliti.

"Meskipun demikian kami belum bisa menyimpulkan penyebab kematian ayam karena terindikasi flu burung dan ayam yang mati merupakan ayam kampung atau bukan ras (buras)," katanya di Palangka Raya, Minggu.

Ia menjelaskan, penyebab ayam mati mendadak bukan hanya karena terindikasi flu burung tetapi bisa saja karena faktor lain seperti perubahan cuaca atau pancaroba.

Tim dinas setempat dibantu Balai Penelitian Penyakit Hewan Banjarbaru, Kalimantan Selatan sudah turun ke lapangan guna penelitian kejadian itu.

Mereka turun antara lain ke Kabupaten Gunung Mas, Barito Timur, Murung Raya, dan Barito Utara, tempat temuan ayam mati mendadak itu.

Ia mengatakan, sejumlah tenaga ahli berasal dari pemerintah provinsi dan kabupaten serta kota setempat yang sudah mendapatkan pelatihan penanganan masalah itu dari Badan PBB untuk Pangan dan Pertanian (FAO) juga telah siap diturunkan guna penanganan flu burung.

Ia meminta masyarakat tidak resah dan segera melaporkan kepada petugas jika menemukan ayam mati mendadak agar segera mendapatkan penanganan oleh petugas sesuai dengan prosedur penanggulangan flu burung.

Pihaknya selama ini sudah mengantisipasi kemungkinan penyebaran flu burung antara lain melalui penyuluhan dan pembagian disinfektan untuk menjaga kebersihan kandang unggas.

Ia mengakui, pos pemantauan lalu lintas angkutan ternak di daerah perbatasan seperti Kabupaten Kapus dan Barito Timur belum berfungsi secara optimal.

Terbukti, katanya, masih dijumpai angkutan ayam tanpa dilengkapi surat kesehatan ternak dari instansi berwenang di daerah asal yang lolos masuk Kalteng.

Ia mengatakan, para petugas pos pemantauan lalu lintas angkutan ternak harus secara optimal memeriksa dan mengawasi ayam yang masuk ke daerah itu baik menyangkut kesehatan, asal-usul, maupun surat kesehatan ternak.

"Kalau memang tidak ada surat kesehatan, maka petugas berhak menolaknya," katanya.

Ia mengatakan, seharusnya di setiap perbatasan daerah dibangun pos untuk mengecek kesehatan ternak sehingga unggas yang diduga terkena flu burung tidak mudah lolos.

(GR/M029/K004) Editor: B Kunto Wibisono

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Peres: Israel Pilih Negara Palestina Lewat Perundingan, Bukan Sepihak

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Peres: Israel Pilih Negara Palestina Lewat Perundingan, Bukan Sepihak

Jerusalem (ANTARA News) - Presiden Israel Shimon Peres, Ahad (29/5), mengatakan kepada Wakil Sekretaris Jenderal PBB Asha-Rose Migiro bahwa Israel mendukung berdirinya negara Palestina merdeka melalui perundingan dan bukan proklamasi sepihak di Sidang Majelis Umum, September.

Tindakan itu, menurut Peres, "takkan menghasilkan berdirinya satu negara secara sesungguhnya".

Satu-satunya cara bagi berdirinya negara Palestina ialah melalui pembicaraan "langsung dan terpisah" antara kedua pihak, tambah Peres, sebagaimana dilaporkan Xinhua, yang dipantau ANTARA di Jakarta, Senin.

"Jurang pemisah antara kedua pihak "tidak terlalu lebar" dan tak ada diragukan pada akhir perundingan `akan ada perbedaan besar antara posisi pembukaan dan penutupan`, seperti yang terjadi dalam perundingan apa pun," kata Peres kepada Migiro, menurut siaran pers yang dikeluarkan kantornya di Jerusalem.

Mengenai rencana kelompok pro-Palestina untuk meluncurkan flotila lain ke Jalur Gaza, dengan tujuan "melanggar" blokade laut Israel, Peres mengatakan "hukum internasional mengizinkan satu negara mencegah masuknya kapal" yang belum diperiksa dan "jika ada kecurigaan kapal itu membawa senjata".

Ia mengatakan ia telah berbicara mengenai masalah tersebut dengan Sekretaris Jenderal PBB Ban Ki-moon dan meminta dia "berbicara dengan keras dan jelas" dalam menentang armada kapal lain pada depan ke daerah kantung Palestina itu.

Peres mengatakan kalau para pemimpin HAMAS mau mensahkan prinsip yang diletakkan oleh Kuartet Timur Tengah, Kota Gaza dapat berubah jadi "kota terbuka yang makmur, kota perdamaian".

Angkatan Laut Israel membunuh sembilan pegiat pada Mei lalu, setelah agresi untuk mencegah satu flotila sampai ke Jalur Gaza.

Migiro, yang sedang mengunjungi wilayah tersebut, mengatakan kunjungannya ke Jerusalem dimaksudkan untuk membina hubungan antara Israel dan PBB. Ia mengatakan organisasi dunia itu menghargai bantuan Israel buat negara yang dilanda bencana alam, seperti Haiti, dan kegiatan untuk memerangi kemiskinan internasional.

PBB terikat komitmen untuk bekerja sama dengan masyarakat internasional guna mencapai penyelesaian konflik Palestina-Israel dengan dasar dua negara yang hidup berdampingan dalam kedamaian dan aman, tambah wanita pejabat PBB tersebut. (C003/A011/K004)
Editor: B Kunto Wibisono

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KLH Ancam Cabut Izin Perusahaan Pencemar Laut

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KLH Ancam Cabut Izin Perusahaan Pencemar Laut

Dumai (ANTARA News) - PT Pasific Indo Palm yang terdaftar sebagai perusahaan modal asing (PMA) di Kota Dumai, Riau, bisa dicabut izin kelayakan operasinya bila terbukti sengaja melakukan pencemaran perairan," kata Kepala Kantor Lingkungan Hidup setempat, H Basri.

"Namun semuanya tetap dengan cara dan aturan yang benar serta berlandaskan Undang-undang Rebuplik Indonesia," kata Basri kepada ANTARA di Dumai, Minggu.

Dugaan pencemaran di wilayah perairan sekitar laut Dumai, tepatnya di lokasi industri PT Pasific Indo Palm yang berada di Kelurahan Lubuk Gaung, Kecamatan Sungai Sembilan, kata Basri, merupakan kasus kejahatan lingkungan.

"Karena pada kasus pencemaran ini, biota laut terancam rusak dan punah. Sudah selayaknya mereka para perusahaan terutama PMA yang berada di Dumai diberikan sanksi tegas apabila terbukti melakukan pencemaran baik sengaja atau pun karena kelalaian," ujarnya.

Pertama-tama, kata Basri, Kantor Lingkungan Hidup (KLH) akan memberikan surat teguran resmi.

Apabila tidak ada balasan, sambunya, maka akan dilayangkan surat kedua berbentuk "somatie".

"Jika tidak juga `digubris`, maka kita akan melanjutkan kasus pencemaran ini lebih jauh. Tidak menutup kemungkinan kita juga akan mencabut izin perusahaan asing tersebut," tuturnya.

Menurut Basri, tindakan PT Pasific Indo Palm merupakan suatu tindakan melanggar hukum yang dapat dijerat dengan Undang-undang 32 Tahun 2009 tentang perlindungan dan pengelolaan lingkungan.

Pada Undang-undang ini, pelaku pencememaran yakni pihak pimpinan perusahaan selaku penanggungjawab, terancam hukuman kurungan penjara maksimal satu tahun penjara atau denda maksimal Rp500 juta.

"Nanti, apabila hasil pengujian sample perusahaan terbukti telah melakukan pencemaran berat, maka kita akan melanjutkannya.

Dan apabila perusahaan juga tidak dapat menunjukkan dokumen kelengkapan analisis dampak lingkungan (Amdal), kita akan mengajukan kasus ini ke Kementrian Lingkungan Hidup di Jakarta," katanya.

Wali Kota Dumai, H Khairul Anwar disela kesempatan menghadiri peresmian gedung salah satu media cetak harian lokal di Dumai "Yube Sejati", mengatakan, pihaknya akan berjalan sesuai dengan aturan dan perundang-undangan yang berlaku.

"Jika PT Pasific Indo Palm terbukti dengan sengaja melakukan pencemaran, maka akan kita proses. Bentuk sanksi yang akan kita berikan terhadap perusahaan dilihat dari kesalahannya," jelasnya.

Secara terpisah, Ketua Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Daerah (DPRD) Kota Dumai, Zainal Efendi, menegaskan, pihaknya akan segera memanggil pihak PMA untuk memverifikasi masalah dugaan pencemaran perairan laut Dumai.

"Secepatnya kita akan panggil pihak perusahaan. Tinggal hanya menunggu kejelasan dari KLH, apakah perusahaan terbukti atau tidak melakukan pencemaran. Kasus ini akan kita koordinasikan ke Komisi III," katanya.

Mendampingi Zainal Efendi, Anggota Komisi III DPRD Dumai, yang membidangi masalah pencemaran, Hasrizal, menerangkan, PT Pasific Indo Palm dan beberapa perusahaan asing lainnya, sebelumnya juga sempat di panggil oleh anggota dewan guna verifikasi kelengkapan dokumen Amdal.

Dari sejumlah PMA yang kita verifikasi, katanya, PT Pasific Indo Palm satu-satunya perusahaan yang tidak memiliki kelengkapal dokumen Amdal.

"Pada kasus ini, kita sudah berulang kali meminta agar PT Pasific Indo Palm segera menyusun dokumen Amdalnya. Namun hingga kini, belum ada kabar," imbuhnya.

Sebelumnya, Kepala Bagian Hubungan Masyarakat (Humas) PT Pasific Indo Palm, Eric, melalui selular pada Sabtu (28/5) mengakui telah terjadi tumpahan minyak kelapa sawit mentah di area perairan lingkungan perusahaannya.

"Tumpahan minyak ini disebabkan adanya kebocoran pada pipa "loading" yang terhubung dari tanki timbun menuju kapal tanker. Tapi semuanya sudah kita atasi, dan dijamin peristiwa ini tidak sampai mengganggu biota laut," ungkapnya. (FZR/S006/K004)
Editor: B Kunto Wibisono

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Gadhafi forces try to break rebel line near Misrata

Gadhafi forces try to break rebel line near Misrata

Dafniya, Libya (CNN) -- Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's forces fired mortars and guns at rebel forces in an apparent effort to break through a stalemated line west of the rebel-held city of Misrata on Sunday, CNN's Ben Wedeman reported from the scene.

Rebels returned fire, and while some pulled back to seek cover from the incoming artillery shells, others moved forward toward the front line near the town of Dafniya, about 35 kilometers west of Misrata.
Libya has been in the throes of a civil war for months, since Gadhafi dug in his heels against popular efforts to force him out of power as anti-government protests sweep the Arab world this year.

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Gadhafi forces try to break rebel line near Misrata

Gadhafi forces try to break rebel line near Misrata

Dafniya, Libya (CNN) -- Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's forces fired mortars and guns at rebel forces in an apparent effort to break through a stalemated line west of the rebel-held city of Misrata on Sunday, CNN's Ben Wedeman reported from the scene.

Rebels returned fire, and while some pulled back to seek cover from the incoming artillery shells, others moved forward toward the front line near the town of Dafniya, about 35 kilometers west of Misrata.
Libya has been in the throes of a civil war for months, since Gadhafi dug in his heels against popular efforts to force him out of power as anti-government protests sweep the Arab world this year.

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Afghans, NATO investigate airstrike that reportedly killed 12 children, 2 women.

@cnnbrkCNN Breaking News

Afghans, NATO investigate airstrike that reportedly killed 12 children, 2 women.

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- An investigation was underway Sunday into allegations that a coalition airstrike in southern Afghanistan killed a dozen children and two women, Afghan and NATO officials said.

The civilians were reportedly killed Saturday during an airstrike against insurgents who were attacking NATO-led International Security Assistance Force troops in the Nawzad district of the Helmand province, according to a spokesman for the provincial governor.
The death toll, if confirmed, would make it the largest loss of civilian life this year as a result of an ISAF airstrike.
ISAF confirmed there was an attack against its troops, though it did not know whether civilians were killed.
"We do know about the allegations," Navy Lt. Cmdr. Ronald Flesvig, an ISAF spokesman, told CNN. There was no mention of possible civilian casualties on ISAF's daily operational update posted daily on its website.
Both ISAF and Afghan investigators were looking into the claims, which came from residents as well as the district governor, said Daud Ahamadi, the ISAF spokesman.
Residents, according to Ahamadi, said an ISAF helicopter conducted the airstrike, which hit two houses where women and children were staying.
Helmand province, a Taliban-stronghold that borders Pakistan, has been the scene of intense fighting this month since insurgents lauched their so-called spring offensive.
Anger in Afghanistan and Pakistan over civilian casualties has mounted in recent months following NATO airstrikes that have killed dozens along their shared border.
In March, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates offered a personal apology to Afghan President Hamid Karzai for the killings of nine boys in a helicopter attack targeting insurgents.
The top coalition commander in Afghanistan has warned of a likely increase in high-profile attacks by insurgents looking to demonstrate their ability to strike. In a letter this month to ISAF forces, U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus said the attacks may increase the risk of civilian casualties and put Afghan and ISAF forces in difficult situations.
Meanwhile, a bombing in northern Afghanistan that killed a top Afghan official and wounded a German general Saturday came as tribal leaders warned that insurgent attacks were discouraging some civilians from cooperating with security efforts, officials said.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing at a high-level meeting of Afghan and ISAF officials, the latest in a series of attacks that have rocked Afghanistan following the killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
During meetings last week with senior Afghan ministers and ISAF officials in the volatile Zabul province, civilians "cautioned that insurgent intimidation has discouraged cooperation from some citizens," according to an ISAF statement released Saturday.
Provincial Gov. Mohammed Neseri warned residents to do their part to protect themselves.
"Insurgents cannot intimidate citizens if everyone is united in defending their homes and their villages," Neseri said, according to the statement.
The attack Saturday in the northern Takhar province town of Taloqan occurred at a high-level meeting of Afghan and coalition officials in a governor's office, a provincial spokesman said.
The officials were gathered to talk about security following a May 18 protest in front of a NATO compound where German soldiers opened fire on demonstrators, who they claimed had become violent, German Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere told reporters.
The blast Saturday killed seven people, including Gen. Dawood Dawood -- a well-known Afghan regional police chief who was one of the country's lead point-persons in eradicating opium poppy fields, said Faiz Mohammad Tawhidi, a spokesman for Takhar provincial Gov. Abdul Jabar Taqwa.
Dawood was a veteran anti-Soviet and anti-Taliban resistance commander, he said.
Also killed were two German soldiers, a provincial police chief, the governor's secretary and two guards, according to Tawhidi and Qari Sadiqullah, secretary of the provincial council.
Among the eight wounded was Maj. Gen. Markus Kneip, a veteran German officer and the regional head of the ISAF across nine provinces of northern Afghanistan, de Maiziere said.
The provincial governor was also wounded, Taqwa said.
In a phone call to CNN, Taliban spokesman Zabulliah Mojahed claimed responsibility for the attack.
Mojahed said Taliban fighters targeted the officials because they were making plans in the meeting to "launch an operation against the Taliban in the north."
"After our mujahedeen found (out) about this meeting, then it was targeted by our suicide bomber," he told CNN from an unknown location.
ISAF spokesman Rear Adm. Vic Beck condemned what he called "the senseless murder of these Afghans and coalition members who have fought so hard for the people of Afghanistan.
"ISAF will remain relentless in our support to our Afghan partners to find those responsible and bring them to justice," he said.

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