Cooper Republic

Police in Slovakia and Hungary arrested three people and seized 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) of an unspecified but “dangerous” radioactive material the suspects were trying to sell for US$1 million (€680,000), Slovak authorities said Wednesday.

The Czech news agency CTK, citing unconfirmed reports, said the material seized by authorities was enriched uranium. Slovak police spokesman Martin Korch declined to comment on the report, saying specialists were examining what he described only as “dangerous radioactive material.”

Two of the suspects were arrested in eastern Slovakia, and the third was arrested in Hungary, Korch said. The suspects were not identified.

Eastern Slovakia’s border with Ukraine is the European Union’s easternmost frontier, and authorities have spent millions tightening security in the past few years, fearing terrorists or organized crime syndicates could smuggle weapons, explosives and other contraband into the EU.

Slovak and Hungarian police worked together on the case for several months, Korch said. He would not say how long the suspects were under surveillance, or detail how they were arrested and to whom they were trying to sell the material.

A British schoolteacher is reportedly facing a possible flogging in Sudan for allegedly insulting the Prophet Mohammed. Fifty-four-year-old Gillian Gibbons has been arrested for letting her pupils name a teddy bear Mohammed during a school project. She could face six months in prison, but the offence is also punishable by 40 lashes under Sudan’s Sharia Law. The school where she was employed has closed its doors amid fears of reprisals by Islamic extremists.

Well this may change your thinking on the issue.

The Taliban control 54 Percent of Afghanistan. Wow! Here is an excerpt from the UK Telegraph:

The Taliban has a permanent presence in most of Afghanistan and the country is in serious danger of falling into the group’s hands, according to a report from an international think tank.

The Senlis Council claimed that the insurgents controlled “vast swathes of unchallenged territory” and were gaining “more and more political legitimacy in the minds of the Afghan people”. It said that the Nato force in the country needed to be doubled to 80,000 front-line soldiers who should be allowed to pursue militants into Pakistan.

The 110-page report said that its “exclusive” research found the Taliban controlled 54 per cent of Afghanistan. It calculated that Nato countries should contribute 2.3 soldiers per £500 million of their GDP to provide 71,000 soldiers, with 9,000 additional troops coming from Muslim nations. If the plan were adopted, Britain would need to send 4,500 troops, significantly fewer than are deployed now.

According to corroborating sources, anti-terrorist security services in Tizi Ouzou (100 km east of Algiers) have uncovered the existence of about 80 potential suicide-bombers ready to act in various parts of the region.

The same sources said that the Al-Qaeda- linked suicide-bombers exposed, were poised to perpetrate a series of deadly attacks on police stations in different parts of Tizi Ouzou province.

The security services unveiled the gruesome terrorists’ schemings in the wake of the arrest in the Oued Issa area of a notorious terrorist leader named Saidaoui Abdelhamid, alias Yahia Abou Haithem, charged by his chief Droukel with raising funds and logistical means for the terrorist cells operating in the regions of Tizi Ouzou and Boumerdes.

The arrest also led to the discovery of a sizable quantity of weaponry as well as propaganda documents and leaflets in addition to a laptop computer and 16 cellular phones.

The terrorists were planning, according to the same sources, to carry out a suicide-bombing against the premises of the Tizi Ouzou Governorship in an attempt to wreak maximum havoc.

Taliban militants shot dead a teenage boy in south-eastern Afghanistan for teaching English to his classmates, police said on Thursday.

Taliban militants have killed a number of teachers and students in recent years for attending government-run schools, taking part in classes for girls or what the hard-line Islamist militants consider un-Islamic subjects.

Armed men arrived at the school in the Sayed Karam district of Paktia province and grabbed a 16-year-old student and dragged him outside.

“Taliban militants took the boy out and killed him outside the school just because he was teaching English to his classmates,” said General Esmatullah Alizai, the police chief of Paktia province.

Police arrived on the scene and in the ensuing gun battle, two policemen and two militants were killed, he said.

A Taliban spokesman denied the group was involved in the killing. The militants often deny carrying out unpopular actions. The Taliban are divided into a number of factions with no unified command and individual units act with a high degree of autonomy.

Afghanistan has suffered from two years of steadily rising violence as the Taliban have reignited their campaign to overthrow the pro-Western Afghan government and eject foreign troops.