Aggregated News

Corruption Suspected in Airlift of Billions in Cash From Kabul More than $3 billion in cash has been openly flown out of Kabul International Airport in the past three years, a sum so large that U.S. investigators believe top Afghan officials and their associates are sending billions of diverted U.S. aid and logistics dollars and drug money to financial safe havens abroad.

The cash—packed into suitcases, piled onto pallets and loaded into airplanes—is declared and legal to move. But U.S. and Afghan officials say they are targeting the flows in major anticorruption and drug trafficking investigations because of their size relative to Afghanistan's small economy and the murkiness of their origins.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704638504575318850772872776.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsTop

Oil spill hits Mississippi shore

Alex, the first named storm of the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season, had sustained winds of 45 mph and was about 60 miles west-southwest of Campeche, Mexico. The system was moving west-northwest at 7 mph. Forecasters from the U.S. National Hurricane Center say Alex could become a hurricane in the next 48 hours.

World Cup squabble ends in fatal shootings

DALLAS (AP) - Two men are dead and one is hospitalized with a leg wound after what Dallas police say was an argument over an upcoming World Cup soccer game ended in gunfire.

Police Cpl. Gerardo Monreal tells The Dallas Morning News that four men were at a party in southern Dallas when the argument erupted around 3 a.m. Sunday.

Monreal says one man went to his car, got a handgun and opened fire, killing two men, aged 17 and 28. That triggered a struggle in which several more shots were fired, one wounding the suspect in the leg. He was taken to Methodist Dallas Medical Center for treatment.

No names have been released, and Monreal says charges will be filed after the suspect is discharged from the hospital and booked into jail.

http://www.kwes.com/global/story.asp?s=12717215

Medvedev: CIA warning on Iranian nukes 'troubling'

TORONTO — Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Sunday that a CIA warning that Iran has enough uranium to build two atomic bombs was "worrying," and criticized Tehran's secrecy over its nuclear program.

"This information has to be checked but such information is always worrying and all the more so because the international community does not recognize the Iranian nuclear program as transparent," he told reporters.

Earlier, US spy chief Leon Panetta had said the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) believes Iran now has enough low-enriched uranium to produce two nuclear weapons if it finds a way to further enrich it.

"If this is proved, it would make the situation even more tense," Medvedev said, adding that Russia might need to re-examine its position on the matter.

Russia has traditionally been an ally of Iran, but Medvedev has expressed increasing public concern over its nuclear program, which Washington and other Western capitals fear is on course to build a nuclear weapon.

Despite complaints from the West, Russia is helping build Iran's first nuclear power plant in the southern city of Bushehr. In 2008 Russian energy giant Gazprom signed an agreement with Iran to develop its oil and gas fields.

Russia, which unlike the United States has diplomatic ties with Iran, has in the past been reluctant to impose tough sanctions but backed the latest UN move following Tehran's repeated defiance of orders to halt uranium enrichment.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ixq_CF6zFxFXwc3jnX8RuggL69Gw