KABUL, Nov 5, (AFP) - A US general in Afghanistan has been sacked after accusing leaders including President Hamid Karzai of being out of touch and ungrateful for American support, officials said.
Major General Peter Fuller, who was deputy commander of NATO's mission to train and equip Afghan forces, had been dismissed after making “inappropriate public comments”, the NATO-led international force said late Friday.
In an interview published by news website Politico Thursday, Fuller said Afghan leaders did not fully recognise the human and financial cost borne by the United States in Afghanistan and were “isolated from reality”.
He also directly criticised Karzai after the president said last month that Afghanistan would support Pakistan if Islamabad ever went to war with the United States. “Why don't you just poke me in the eye with a needle?” Fuller said of Karzai's comments.
“You've got to be kidding me... I'm sorry, we just gave you $11.6 billion and now you're telling me, 'I don't really care?'”He added: “When they are going to have a presidential election, you hope they get a guy that's more articulate in public.”Fuller's comments made public some of the frustrations expressed privately by US and other foreign military officers and diplomats about working with Karzai and his corruption-plagued government.
But US General John Allen, commander of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, said they did not reflect the state of the international force's relationship with Karzai's administration.
45 saved in major Chinese mine rescue: state media
BEIJING, Nov 5, (AFP) - Forty-five miners trapped underground after a rock blast in a Chinese coal mine were brought to the surface today in a rare successful rescue, CCTV state television reported. Eight people had been confirmed killed by Thursday's accident at the Qianqiu colliery in the central province of Henan, it said. Another 21 had earlier been brought out.
Emergency personnel had to dig a tunnel at a depth of several hundred metres to reach the trapped men, and CCTV -- which covered the rescue live -- showed miners emerging from the colliery's main lift more than 36 hours after the blast.
While mining accidents are common in China, it is unusual for so many people to be successfully brought to the surface alive, and the operation is the most successful such effort in the country since April 2010.
The miners were trapped by a rock burst -- a violent explosion caused by huge pressure -- moments after a minor 2.9 magnitude earthquake, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
It was not immediately clear whether the earthquake directly caused the accident. |
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