Times Online | Afghans say President Karzai’s five-year handover is not soon enough.

Press TV | According to the latest opinion poll, an increasing majority of Britons want the country’s 9,000 troops out of Afghanistan within a year.

Dahr Jamail | A single mother is being threatened with a military court-martial if she does not agree to deploy to Afghanistan, despite having been told she would be granted extra time to find someone to care for son.

Radio Free Europe | When Taliban fighters hijacked two NATO fuel tankers along the new northern supply route into Afghanistan earlier this month, they generated international headlines.

CNN | More than one-third of all weapons the United States has procured for Afghanistan’s government are missing, according to a government report.

BBC | The White House has warned Pyongyang against any escalation of hostilities after a North Korean vessel clashed with a warship from the South.

Bloomberg | Obama will discuss four options for a buildup of U.S. forces in Afghanistan when he meets tomorrow with his national security team.

Edward H. Crane | Today, it is difficult to find noninterventionists in either party.

Bloomberg | Chavez told the military and civil militias today to prepare for war as a deterrent to a U.S.-led attack after American troops gained access to military bases in neighboring Colombia.

Henry Makow Ph.D. | Look for this war to expand and go on forever.

Independent | Britain planned to build a Taliban training camp for 2,000 fighters in southern Afghanistan.

Reuters | The top five loan providers were Bank of America, Citigroup , JP Morgan, Barclays and Goldman Sachs.

Xinhua | The Chief of Pakistani-Pashtun Movement in Pakistan says Blackwater and Pakistani agencies are involved in attacks in public places.

New York Times | On Wednesday, gunmen associated with the Taliban entered the compound of the U.N. guesthouse and killed eight people

CNN | Obama is scheduled to meet with the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Friday as part of his reassessment of the military strategy in Afghanistan.

Los Angeles Times | Eleven U.S. troops and three American law-enforcement officials were killed in two separate helicopter crashes

Press TV | Secretary of Russia’s National Security Council Nikolai Patrushev says the country should be ready for “large-scale conflicts”.

AFP | Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has instructed his government to draw up proposals to amend the international laws of war after a damning UN report on its war in Gaza.

National Expositor | The number of drone strikes has risen dramatically since Obama became President.

Military.com | A recent U.S. intelligence assessment has raised the estimated number of full-time Taliban-led insurgents fighting in Afghanistan to at least 25,000, underscoring how the crisis has worsened even as the U.S.

Telegraph | Obama’s administration is understood to have told the British government that it could announce, as early as next week, the substantial increase to its 65,000 troops already serving there.

John Pilger | Like Bush’s America, Obama’s America is run by some very dangerous people.

Belfast Telegraph | The British Security Services plotted to blow up Sinn Fein’s Dublin headquarters during the height of the Troubles, a former undercover police officer has claimed.

Political Theatrics | Tis the season to be jolly… and mass murder innocents.

CQPolitics | Majorities of American adults think the war in Afghanistan cannot be won and that its most likely conclusion would be no conclusion at all.

Xinhua | ElBaradei brought Israel under spotlight and said that the Tel Aviv regime has refused to allow inspections into its nuclear installations for 30 years.

Times Online | Ten American troops were killed at the weekend in two surprise attacks that caused alarm in Nato’s US-led coalition.

McClatchy Newspapers | Often the Taliban fill large yellow water jugs with explosives — packing some underneath road culverts and burying others in the sandy desert soil.

Reuters | The findings of a long-awaited EU report on last year’s Georgia-Russia war are likely to hurt Tbilisi more than Moscow.

The Hill | If the U.S. doesn’t get the answers it wants, “we will work with our partners to work toward sanctions,” Clinton said.

Daily Express | John Bolton, America’s former UN ambassador, told a meeting of intelligence analysts that “Riyadh certainly approves” of Israel’s use of Saudi airspace.

Iran test-fired a new round of missiles on Monday, flexing its muscle before a rare meeting in Geneva on Thursday.

Clarksville Online | Soldiers will be flown to Troy via helicopters from Fort Campbell and dropped onto multiple locations within the city, such as they would in a real-world, combat scenario.

Jerusalem Post | Called Juniper Cobra, the exercise will include the Arrow missile defense system as well as three American systems.

CNN | “The vehicles had U.N. logos on them and they entered inside the headquarters and then exploded,” said Gaffel Nkolokosa, spokesman for the African Union mission in Somalia.

Bloomberg | “If biting sanctions do not persuade the Islamic Republic to demonstrate sincerity in negotiations and give up its enrichment activities, the White House will have to begin serious consideration of the option of a U.S.-led military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities.”

Press TV | The Bolivian president has accused the United States of planning coups in Latin America after Washington reached an agreement with Colombia over military bases.

IPS | Obama is coming under growing pressure from what appears to be a concerted lobbying and media campaign urging him to act more aggressively to stop Iran’s nuclear program.

Press TV | A policy research group says the Taliban have a significant presence in almost every corner of Afghanistan.

Elizabeth Woodworth | In 1961, upon leaving office, President Eisenhower warned of the danger of a military-industrial takeover of information, power, and resources in a democracy.

Rick Rozoff | The U.S. Defense Department’s training and arming of the Georgian military started long before the deployment to Iraq and that underway for Afghanistan.

Little Alex in Wonderland | Despite the ‘hestitation to openly criticize’ Mr. Obama, antiwar groups are prepared to bomb the public eye with increased demonstrations this fall.

Los Angeles Times | U.S. officials are planning to add as many as 14,000 combat troops to the American force in Afghanistan by sending home support units and replacing them with “trigger-pullers,” Defense officials say.

Talha Mujaddidi | The U.S. slaughter and destruction in Iraq and neighboring Afghanistan for the last 8 years warn them of what may lie in store for them, their families, their land.

Stephen Sniegoski | The liberal Obama would seem to better able to expand the wars than the conservative Bush.

James Cogan | Washington is quietly pushing a plan to strip the president of many of his powers by installing an unelected “chief executive officer” to take over the day-to-day operations of the Afghan government.

Press TV | Obama says there will be no quick or easy victory over the Taliban, noting that the war in Afghanistan is crucial in protecting Americans from terrorism.

Washington Times | Obama urged more than 5,000 veterans gathered here to brace for a daunting and perhaps bloody period ahead in Afghanistan, but told them he believes this war is “fundamental to the defense of our people.”

Russia Today | Venezuelan-American attorney from New York says based placed in Colombia will be used to attack the South American country.

New York Times | The training effort is intended to prepare Georgian troops to fight at NATO standards alongside American and allied forces in Afghanistan, the Pentagon officials said.