Afghan prison transfer delayed
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on August 13th, 2011 4:34 am by HL
Afghan prison transfer delayed
BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan — The United States will remain in control of Afghanistan’s highest-profile prison well beyond January 2012, missing a key milestone in the plan to transfer judicial and detention operations to Afghans, U.S. military officials say.
The transfer of the prison and its burgeoning population of detainees had been regarded as a critical marker of the war’s endgame — a sign that Afghan officials are ready to inherit institutions essential to the nation’s future.
But U.S. officials decided that the Afghan legal system is still too weak to permit the handover of the Parwan Detention Center, even after the United States spent millions attempting to improve the country’s judiciary. The United States will now be unable to relinquish authority at Parwan until at least 2014, just as the last foreign troops are scheduled to leave Afghanistan.
Obama considers Republican for one of two seats on Fed
President Obama is considering nominating two economists with backgrounds in finance — one of them a Republican — as Federal Reserve governors, according to a source familiar with the decision making.
The White House is looking at Jeremy Stein, a Harvard economist, and Richard Clarida, of Columbia University and the bond investment firm Pimco, to fill two vacant slots on the seven-member Fed Board of Governors. Clarida served in George W. Bush’s Treasury Department as an assistant secretary. Stein did a brief stint at Treasury under Obama.
Obama to head to Iowa in wake of Republican debate
Not willing to let his Republican presidential rivals have all the fun in Iowa, President Obama is planning his own visits to a pair of towns there next week.
The stops are part of Obama’s three-day Midwest bus trip to talk with the public about the struggling economy, according to the White House, which released new details of the trip Friday.
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