War on Taliban can’t be won: UK commander

BY OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

LONDON

Oct. 5: Britain’s senior military commander in Afghanistan has admitted that the Nato forces will not be able to win decisively against the Taliban.

Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, the commander of 16 Air Assault Brigade, which has just completed its second tour of Afghanistan, told the Sunday Times in an interview that the aim of the international community should not be victory over the Taliban, but to reduce the insurgency to a level that can be contained by the new Afghan Army.

"If we reduce our expectations then I think realistically in the next three to five years we will be handing over tactical military responsibility to the Afghan Army and in the next 10 years the bulk of responsibility for combating insurgency will be with them," he said.

"We’re not going to win this war. It’s about reducing it to a manageable level of insurgency that’s not a strategic threat and can be managed by the Afghan Army. We may well leave with there still being a low but steady ebb of rural insurgency."

This pessimistic outlook comes right after a leaked memo published last week revealed that British ambassador to Afghanistan, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, believes that the US-led Nato coalition in the war-torn nation was destined to fail.

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New test shows milk free from melamine

Beijing, Oct. 5: China’s food safety watchdog says no traces of the industrial chemical melamine were found in new tests of liquid milk sold domestically, as officials seek to restore public trust in milk supplies.

The tests were carried out on 609 batches of milk products from 75 brands collected from more than two dozen cities around the country, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said on its website. It was the second time in less than a week that China’s food safety regulator said tests of liquid milk products showed no melamine contamination, although on Wednesday it said milk powder products for adults were found to be tainted. Milk powder containing melamine has been blamed for killing four babies and sickening more than 54,000 infants with kidney stones and other illnesses in China.

The scandal has sparked global concern about Chinese food imports and recalls in several countries of Chinese-made products including milk powders, biscuits and candies such as the widely sold White Rabbit sweets, which have been pulled from shelves in the US, Europe and Asia.

The watchdog said in a notice dated Saturday it will soon start testing baby formula produced after the scandal broke in mid-September. Quality supervisors have been stationed in baby milk powder production facilities to oversee the process. Chinese authorities believe suppliers trying to boost output diluted their milk, adding melamine because its nitrogen content can fool tests.

—AP