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Archive for April, 2010


Summary: More than 200,000 gallons of oil a day are spewing from the blown-out well at the site of BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig, which exploded April 20, 2010 and sank two days later. Gulf Coast experts have always talked about the potential for a bad one, and now believe the big one finally happened. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 30, 2009, Aubrey Immelman, in the public interest, featured information about the H1N1 novel virus (swine flu) pandemic, including links to news reports and resources.


Apr 29th, 2010

Summary: U.S. troops raided the home of a female member of the Afghan parliament and killed a neighbor who was one of her relatives, sparking angry protests. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 29, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that Iraq was falling fall far behind schedule in creating a system to maintain its own military equipment, costing American taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars to fill in the gaps, according to a U.S. audit by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. Meanwhile, the death toll from twin car bomb blasts in a crowded Baghdad market rose to 51. The car bombs, which also wounded 76 people in the capital’s sprawling Sadr City slum, followed a series of other attacks in the previous two weeks, stirring fears of a return to broader sectarian bloodshed in Iraq.


Apr 28th, 2010

Summary: An increase in terrorist attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan triggered a sharp rise in the number of civilians killed or wounded there last year, pushing South Asia past the Middle East as the top terror region in the world, according to figures compiled by National Counterterrorism Center. The terror threat to the United States is partly a function of the level of violence worldwide, according to Bernard Finel, senior fellow with the American Security Project. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 28, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that Staff Sgt. Aaron Larson, who as an 11-year-old boy in St. Joseph was with his best friend Jacob Wetterling when Jacob was kidnapped by a masked gunman on Sunday, Oct. 22, 1989, had returned home to Minnesota after a year-long deployment in Iraq.


Apr 27th, 2010

Summary: Weekly report of U.S. military deaths in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan), compiled from U.S. Department of Defense News Releases. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 27, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that Iraq’s prime minister denounced a deadly U.S. raid as a “crime” that violated its security pact with Washington and demanded American commanders hand over those responsible to face possible trial in Iraqi courts.


Apr 26th, 2010

Summary: A review panel has invalidated votes cast for 52 candidates in Iraq’s election, throwing into doubt the slim lead of former prime minister Iyad Allawi’s cross-sectarian, Sunni-backed Iraqiya alliance over Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s State of Law coalition and setting the stage for a possible spike in sectarian violence. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 26, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced a public health emergency in connection with the H1N1 (swine flu) outbreak that had already killed dozens in Mexico and sickened 20 in the U.S.


Apr 25th, 2010

Summary: Scores of Afghan schoolgirls in Kunduz were “knocked unconscious” or made ill this weekend by “suspected poison gas attacks” on their schools and authorities are blaming insurgents who oppose educating girls. However, according to clinical political psychologist Aubrey Immelman, Ph.D., “authorities would be well advised to investigate the alleged poison gas attacks as a possible case of mass hysteria, or mass psychogenic illness.” … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 25, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee created a Web site devoted to U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann’s false and controversial statements, intended as a virtual “truth squad” to expose Bachmann’s “fantastic claims and lies … that can quickly be disproven.”


Apr 24th, 2010

Summary: An explosion that killed an American and an Afghan soldier on a military base in Kabul on April 19, 2010 was carried out by a suicide bomber, the second time in five months an insurgent has managed to infiltrate a base. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 24, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that back-to-back suicide bombings killed 60 people outside the most important Shiite shrine in Baghdad, a day after the country was rocked by its most deadly violence in more than a year. The bombings, in which nearly 80 people were killed, were the latest in a series of high-profile attacks blamed on Sunni insurgents. Meanwhile, a new review of available evidence compiled by The Associated Press indicated that more than 110,600 Iraqis had died in violence since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.


Apr 23rd, 2010

Summary: Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer ignored criticism from President Barack Obama and signed into law a bill supporters said would take handcuffs off police in dealing with illegal immigration in Arizona, the nation’s busiest gateway for human and drug smuggling from Mexico. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 23, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that suicide bombers struck a humanitarian aid distribution point and a crowded restaurant in separate attacks in Iraq, killing at least 78 people.


Apr 22nd, 2010

Summary: Months after Pakistani troops chased them from South Waziristan, Taliban and al-Qaida fighters have regrouped, establishing a new base of operations in North Waziristan near the Afghan border under the protection of insurgent leader Gul Bahadur, who in the past has cut deals with the Pakistani army. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 22, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that Taliban militants had extended their grip in northwestern Pakistan, pushing out from the Swat Valley where the government had agreed to impose Islamic law and patrolling villages as close as 60 miles from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.


Apr 21st, 2010

Summary: The two top-ranking leaders of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayyub al-Masri, were killed in a joint U.S.-Iraqi operation on Sunday, April 18, 2010, in what Vice President Joe Biden called a “potentially devastating blow” to the terrorist operation. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 21, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that the U.S. Senate confirmed President Barack Obama’s pick for U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Christopher Hill, after debate over whether he mismanaged international disarmament talks with North Korea. Meanwhile, suspected militants shelled Baghdad’s protected Green Zone in the first such bombardment in more than three months.