An occupation that never ends - U.S. to keep troops in Afghanistan through 2015

© Reuters/Mohammad Ismail

Obama will keep 9,800 U.S. troops In Afghanistan through 2015, after Afghan President Ghani requested flexibility in drawdown plan.

"We are bound by common interests and will act together to ensure both the safety of United States and the safety of Afghanistan. That is the important consideration. Numbers are a means; they are not an end in themselves," Ghani said.

President Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, in office since September last year, is currently visiting the US.The Afghan delegation spent all day Monday in meetings with senior US officials, including Defense Secretary Ash Carter and Secretary of State John Kerry.

Washington has pledged to fund Afghan security forces to the tune of $4 billion a year through 2017. The US is eager to show that the new government in Kabul is reliable and competent enough to solve its own problems, while being appreciative of American help.

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Egypt signs natural gas deal with Gazprom

© Reuters / Desmond Boylan

Russia's Gazprom Global LNG has signed a deal with Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS) to supply 35 shipments of liquefied natural gas (LNG) by 2020, according to the company and Egypt's Ministry of Petroleum.

Gazprom Global LNG and EGAS have agreed on LNG sales, the company confirmed on its website Tuesday, adding that both parties were in the final stages of a long term commercial arrangement.

35 LNG shipments will be supplied to Egypt over 5 years, according to Egypt's Ministry of Petroleum. Gazprom will start shipping to EGAS in the second half of 2015, with 7 cargoes arriving each year. EGAS has already signed contracts with Noble Group who will deliver a seven LNG cargoes and Vitol for nine shipments of LNG over two years.

As the West escalates its sanctions rhetoric against Russia, Egypt has shown it wants to align closer with Moscow. Last month Russian President Vladimir Putin paid a two-day visit to Cairo, where he agreed to bring the two economies closer and start working towards using domestic currencies in trade settlements. Both sides then said that they wanted to open up new prospects for trade and investment cooperation and reduce dependence on the trends in the world markets.

Last month Egypt agreed to establish a free trade zone with the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union, which includes Russia, Armenia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. Bilateral trade between the two countries has increased significantly over the past years, in 2014 it increased by almost 50 percent compared to the previous year, valued at more than $4.5 billion. They also agreed to create a Russian industrial zone near the Suez Canal as Russian businesses have stakes in more than 400 Egyptian companies.

Russia and Egypt have also increased cooperation in agriculture, following Moscow's one-year ban on EU, US, Australian, Canadian, and Norwegian food exports in August.

The two countries agreed to work jointly on new investment projects, especially in transport, manufacturing and energy -both oil and nuclear.

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Will Democrats back Obama's UN push for a two-state Israel-Palestine solution?

© jewishexponent.com

J Street was founded to promote meaningful American leadership to end the Arab-Israeli and Palestinian-Israel conflicts peacefully and diplomatically.

The Obama Administration has broadcast that since Benjamin Netanyahu announced that there will never be a Palestinian state so long as Netanyahu remains Prime Minister of Israel, the US may end its policy of blocking consideration of the Israel-Palestine conflict at the United Nations Security Council. In particular, the US may support a Security Council resolution that lays out parameters for a diplomatic resolution of the conflict, and the US may support a resolution against Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

If the Obama Administration makes such a move, will Democrats support it? Here is some preliminary evidence that Democrats will be ready to support the Administration.

The reports that J Street will support such a push at the UN by the Obama Administration:

In terms of policy, taking on the fight means stating J Street's open support to moving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the United Nations Security Council...

This position puts J Street at odds with most other pro-Israel organizations, led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which have been preparing to lobby against the administration's move.

In addition, the notes, J Street is urging the Administration to challenge the flow of US tax dollars to Israeli settlements in the West Bank:

The group is also calling on the U.S. government, Ben-Ami said, to "examine how it can eliminate funding" to Jewish settlements in the West Bank by taking a closer look at how government agencies provide funding to Israel and the way the IRS views donations going to settlements. J Street called on its members and supporters to make sure the Jewish charitable organizations they donate to do not support settlers beyond the Green Line.

Americans for Peace Now is calling on its supporters to "Stand Up for Peace, Stand Up to Bibi":

The recent Israeli elections definitively unmasked the real Benjamin Netanyahu.

• Netanyahu cynically campaigned as an adversary of President Obama


• Netanyahu brazenly ruled out a two-state peace agreement with the Palestinians


• Netanyahu flagrantly incited racism and intolerance in the Israeli body politic [...]

President Obama needs to hear from you today! Tell him that you will support him as he stands up to Bibi - including at the UN, with respect to a potential nuclear agreement with Iran, with respect to international pressure on settlements, and with respect to the Palestinians.

More than 20,000 Americans have signed a petition to President Obama at MoveOn, urging him to lift the "diplomatic shield" that has protected Netanyahu's policies towards the Palestinians from censure at the United Nations Security Council.

We are on uncharted political terrain. Not so long ago, it would have been hard to imagine that 60 Democrats would ostentatiously skip a speech by Netanyahu to a joint session of Congress. Not so long ago, AIPAC - which backed Netanyahu's speech - was perceived as invincible in Washington. But so far, AIPAC has failed in its efforts to get Congressional Democrats to join with Republicans to try to blow up diplomacy with Iran.

Public engagement with Congressional Democrats has helped change the balance of forces on Iran diplomacy. Public engagement with Congressional Democrats can help change the balance of forces on Israel-Palestine diplomacy.

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Massive sinkhole appears on N3 highway in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa

© Jonathan Burton

A massive sinkhole over two metres deep and three metres wide appeared on the N3 highway in Pietermaritzburg on Thursday, leading to the closure of one of the busy freeway's lanes.

The Durban-bound portion of the road near the Peter Brown offramp has been repaired numerous times, but it collapsed when a bus travelling over the sunken area collided with a truck in the early hours of Thursday.

Easter weekend

WBHO engineer Jacques Grobler, who has been contracted to repair the sinkhole, said he was hoping to fix the portion of road before the Easter weekend.

"We had a machine on site this morning to start excavating the bottom of the sinkhole and to investigate the problem."

He said once they identified the cause of the collapse, they would build up the hole layer by layer and "try to repair it before the Easter weekend".

Road Traffic Inspectorate spokesperson Zinhle Mngomezulu said the hole was 2.4 metres deep and would easily swallow the nose end of a car.

Photos of the sinkhole were plastered all over social media as local residents and travellers shared concerns over the collapsed portion of road.

Danger

Comments poured in on The Witness's Facebook page from locals who said they had hit the sunken patch of road days before it collapsed.

Local Andries Keyser said he hit the sunken patch of road on Monday whilst towing an empty bulk fuel trailer behind his bakkie.

"There was a few split seconds where my vehicle was less of a bakkie and more of a light cargo aircraft," he said.

Another local, Yolanda Jacobs Ogilvie, said whilst driving over the sunken portion of road, she could feel the road was not stable.

"I drove over that patch one million times going home and you could feel something was up as it really knocked your car when you hit it."

To add to the congestion caused by the sinkhole on Thursday, a truck overturned a few metres behind the sinkhole, causing a two-kilometre traffic jam.

Mngomezulu said the truck lane was closed for almost two hours as a tow truck worked to remove the damaged vehicle.

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U.S. takeover of Ukraine wipes out 25% of country's economy

© RIA Novosti / Vitaliy Ankov

Ukraine's economy has contracted by a quarter due to the conflict in the south east of the country as hundreds of facilities are closed, said Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk.

"We've lost a quarter of the Ukrainian economy. Hundreds of facilities were closed because of war..."Yatsenyuk said on Tuesday in a conference call to regional governors over budget fulfillment.

At the same time the government managed to collect more in taxes than in the previous year, he added.

Talking about Ukraine's fiscal position, Yatsenyuk said the government had managed to accumulate almost $670 million in its single treasury account.

"I had a look at the latest statistics. A year ago, the single treasury account held 108,000 hryvnia ($4,600), this morning there were 15.5 billion hryvnia ($670 million)," he said.

The funding from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will help Ukraine service external debt, while tax revenues will be used to finance defense and social benefits, he added.

On March 13 the Ukrainian Ministry of Finance confirmed it had received the first tranche of $5 billion as part of the IMF's four-year bailout program. The total amount of money to be granted to Ukraine from all other foreign creditors will be about $40 billion.

Earlier in March Ukrainian Finance Minister Natalia Jaresko said the IMF's $17.5 billion would not be enough to revive the country's ailing economy, and that the government would seek more financial assistance from international lenders.

Although the Ukrainian government expects the international aid to help the country overcome the crisis in the short-term, experts suggest the terms of imposing austerity measures would only make the situation worse, as many Ukrainians already live below the poverty line and further cuts in social spending would bring no good. Ukraine's GDP has shrunk 6.5 percent since the crisis started and the currency has lost around 80 percent of its value. Inflation is expected to hit 27 percent by the end of 2015.

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Fire Rescue officials pull man out of sinkhole in Dania Beach, Florida

© NBC

Fire Rescue officials have pulled a man out of a sinkhole at a boat yard in Dania Beach.

Sky 10 was above the scene about 4:30 p.m. as firefighters could be seen helping a man, as his legs appeared to still be stuck in the sinkhole in the area of Northeast 7th Avenue off S. Federal Highway.

Firefighters were eventually able to pull the man onto a stretcher just before 4:45 p.m.

He was then rushed to a nearby hospital by ambulance.

No other details were immediately released.

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No tornadoes reported anywhere in the U.S. in March

© Justin Hobson

An F5 tornado.

With only about two-dozen twisters recorded so far this year during a period when 100 or more are typical, the U.S. appears to be in a tornado drought as cool, stable air prevents the ingredients of the violent storms from coming together, meteorologists said Friday.

No tornadoes have been reported so far in March, when tornado season often begins ramping up for parts of the country. The last time the U.S. had no twisters in March was nearly 50 years ago, according to figures from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Storm Prediction Center in Norman.

Forecasters at the prediction center reported earlier this week that since the beginning of the year, it has issued only four tornado watches and no severe thunderstorm watches — less than 10 percent of the average 52 tornado watches issued by mid-March. The center hasn't issued a watch in March, something that's never happened in its record of watches dating to 1970, said Greg Carbin, warning coordination meteorologist for NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.

"Every day that goes by is quite remarkable (because) we're normally seeing very active day-to-day weather somewhere in the country," Carbin said. "Four watches is also unprecedented.

Even in tornado-prone Oklahoma, the dominant weather pattern of cold, stable air that prevents a tornado's ingredients from coming together means the state is again starting storm season in sluggish fashion, a repeat of the year before, said state climatologist Gary McManus.

"We haven't had the prime conditions here in Tornado Alley because the predominant weather pattern doesn't lend itself to severe weather," McManus said. "Not only are we not seeing the tornadoes, we're not seeing the supercell storm systems that spawn these tornadoes."

Adam Houston, associate professor of atmospheric science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, cautioned that with spring just starting, so too is the peak time for tornadoes, and conditions are likely to change. For example, it was May when twisters raked the Oklahoma City suburbs of Moore and El Reno during a two-week period in 2013, killing dozens of people and injuring hundreds more.

"January and February are not active months, so (the tornado drought) hasn't been particularly surprising," he said. "If we're having this conversation in June, then there would be something substantial here."

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