Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Il nuovo cartone della Disney sbanca il botteghino

                     *Associated Press/AP Online
KABUL, Afghanistan - Hamid Karzai was sworn in Tuesday as
Afghanistan's first popularly elected president, calling for
sustained help from the international community to bolster a young
democracy that still faces the twin threats of terrorism and drugs.
The U.S.-backed leader, wearing a traditional green robe and
a black lambskin hat, took the oath of office in a solemn ceremony
in a restored hall of the war-damaged former royal palace.
Vice President Dick Cheney, the highest-ranking American
official to visit Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001,
and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld were among those who gave
Karzai a standing ovation when he arrived.
Karzai repeated the oath of allegiance read to him by
Afghanistan's white-bearded chief justice, Fazl Hadi Shinwari. He
then swore in his two vice presidents, Ahmad Zia Massood and Karim
Khalili, members of the country's two largest ethnic minorities.
Kabul was calm amid massive security for the ceremony, but
overnight attacks near the Pakistani frontier that left 12 dead
provided a strong reminder of threats to the nation's stability.
In his inaugural address, Karzai said the hopes of ordinary
Afghans would drive him during what is likely to be a tough
five-year term. He reiterated his main pledges - cracking down on
the booming opium trade, disarming militias and lifting living
standards.
"We have now left a hard and dark past behind us and
today we are opening a new chapter in our history in a spirit of
friendship with the international community," Karzai said,
speaking in Pashto and Dari, Afghanistan's two main languages.
He said the fight against terrorism was "not yet
over" and urged continued international aid and cooperation to
defeat increasing links between extremists and drug-trafficking.
"The same cooperation has led to the rebuilding of the
Afghan state and significant progress in restoring peace, stability
and security to our country."
Wary of attacks by Taliban or al-Qaida militants, Afghan and
international forces launched their biggest security operation since
the Oct. 9 election that gave Karzai, who had been interim leader, a
landslide victory.
Hours before the ceremony, dozens of insurgents armed with
assault rifles and rockets attacked an Afghan military base in Khost
province, sparking a firefight that left four Afghan soldiers and at
least six militants dead, an Afghan commander said.
Also in Khost, insurgents opened fire on a U.S. patrol,
which returned fire and killed two of the assailants, U.S. spokesman
Maj. Mark McCann said. No Americans were reported hurt.
Militants also tried to launch a rocket toward Kabul on
Monday evening, but it landed harmlessly on a cattle farm outside
the city limits, a NATO spokesman said.
Cheney, arriving at the main U.S. base north of Kabul
earlier Tuesday, congratulated some of the 18,000 U.S. troops here
for helping give democracy a chance to take root.
"For the first time the people of this country are
looking confident about the future of freedom and peace,"
Cheney said. "Freedom still has enemies here in Afghanistan,
and you are here to make those enemies miserable."
The establishment of a democracy in Kabul was necessary to
Afghanistan's "basic, fundamental transformation," Cheney
said later, speaking on NBC's "Today" show.
"It has to happen, if you will, if we're going to win
the war on terrorism," Cheney added. Democracies give rise to
people who "are focused on their own lives and focused on
building a free society," he said.
Before the ceremony, Karzai thanked the United States, his
main sponsor, for its help.
"Without that help, Afghanistan would be in the hands
of terrorists," he said. "Terrorism as a force is gone. As
individuals they are all around and we will continue to look for
them."
The list of 150 foreign dignitaries included Iranian Foreign
Minister Kamal Kharrazi and Pakistan's Interior Minister, Aftab Khan
Sherpao. Lakhdar Brahimi, special adviser to U.N. Secretary-General
Kofi Annan, represented the world body.
Rumsfeld cautioned that the military mission here is not
over.
"There are still groups, extremists, that would like to
take this country back - the Taliban, the al-Qaida - and use it for
a base for terrorist activities around the world as they did on
9/11," Rumsfeld told a group of special forces soldiers at
Bagram. "But it's not going to happen."
Annan has warned in a report to the U.N. Security Council
that unless Karzai tackles Afghanistan's surge in opium production
and its arms proliferation, much of its recent progress could be
seriously undermined and "the economy may well be subsumed by
the illicit drugs industry."
The inauguration was the culmination of a three-year drive
to transform Afghanistan from a training ground for al-Qaida
extremists into a moderate Islamic republic.
Afghans have adopted a new constitution labeled by the
United States as the most progressive in the region and held their
first Western-style vote, despite militant attacks that killed at
least 15 election workers.
Some 3 million Afghan refugees displaced by more than two
decades of warfare have returned home, and women and girls are back
in jobs and schools from which they were barred under the previous
regime. The economy is growing strongly.
But insurgents continue to harass U.S. and Afghan forces
across a broad swath of the south and east. American officials
expect to keep their force strength at about 18,000 at least until
after parliamentary elections slated for the spring.
Karzai has said the drug economy, which now accounts for an
estimated one-third of national income, is a bigger threat than the
insurgents and will be the top priority for the coming years.
U.N. surveys show cultivation of opium poppy in Afghanistan,
from which most of the world's heroin is refined, jumped more than
60 percent this year, and warn that drug smuggling mafias are taking
an iron grip on the country.

                      *Associated Press/AP Online
?? Ma che centra il topic con l'articolo?
Raffaele
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 ?? Ma che centra il topic con l'articolo?
Perché hai ucciso il tuo sense of humor? Che ti aveva fatto di male?
Namib

 ?? Ma che centra il topic con l'articolo?
Prima Karzai era un Quisling, o un Petain. Adesso è diventato un cartone
Disney. E' già meglio, almeno è divertente. IMHO sempre parecchio miope
e sbagliato. Ma almeno si sono levati i nazisti di mezzo.
Brutta cosa, comunque, questo "first elected president of Afghanistan".
Non si riesce a mandare giù il fatto che si sia votato in pace e in
mezzo a dopo una bellissima e regolarissima campagna elettorale, con
centinaia di giornali in attività. Chissà quando avremo pure un
presidente eletto irakeno, e uno palestinese, e il prode non-allawesco
Assad si dovesse un po' gheddafizzare... Un incubo.
Tb
-- 
Alcuni di noi hanno storie di merda che fanno male. 
(il primo kiwi con tastiera incorporata)

 ?? Ma che centra il topic con l'articolo?
Doveva pur vomitare il suo anti-americanismo in qualche modo :)
Se non riesce con l'articolo lo fa con il titolo :)
-Stefano

 Brutta cosa, comunque, questo "first elected president of Afghanistan".
Non so: quando ne vedrò uno, te lo farò sapere.
Namib

 l'articolo
Ecco. Cominciamo da qui. Quali sono gli articoli (determinativi e
indeterminativi), in inglese? Non sbirciare sul libro!
Namib

 wrote:

Voilà. Eccone uno, a colloquio col dimissionando segretario ONU.
http://tinyurl.com/3uk3m
(eppure l'avevi postato tu... "the first elected president of
Afghanistan")
