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The government of Afghanistan sent out mixed messages on Tuesday about its plans to restrict media coverage of insurgent attacks, at once denying that it was banning live coverage of attacks while defending the plans as being "to protect journalists."

Reuters reported on Monday that Afghanistan "announced a ban on news coverage of Taliban strikes ... saying such coverage only emboldened the Islamist militants."

Reporters would still be allowed to cover insurgent attacks, but only after the fact, and only with permission from the National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan's spy agency.

"No filming will be permitted while attacks are under way, and live broadcasts will be banned even from a distance," Reuters reported.

But on Tuesday, with journalists expressing concerns about the measure, Afghan officials took a softer stance. The Associated Press reported that government officials denied they are planning to ban live coverage, saying they are "developing guidelines, not restrictions, to prevent live footage from aiding fighters at the scene."

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According to Waheed Omar, a spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the "guidelines" would be designed to protect journalists during attacks. Omar also said insurgents have been using live broadcasts to give instructions to other fighters, though he did not elaborate how.

"I would not call it restrictions," he said, as quoted at AP.

"Omar's explanation was oblique," writes McClatchy correspondent Dion Nissenbaum. "At the end of the news conference, it was still unclear exactly how and when the new restrictions would go into effect."

Nissenbaum quoted the senior managing editor at the Associated Press, who said: "We believe broad, pre-emptive bans on coverage are inconsistent with a democratic society. ... Experience shows there are many ways to cover important breaking stories without interfering with police or security operations."

Nissenbaum's report suggests that a series of devastating, high-profile attacks in Kabul in recent weeks may be prompting the Afghan government to try to reduce the bad news in the press.

In January, Afghan stations aired live coverage of a three-hour Taliban attack in Kabul. And, last Friday, reporters were on-the-scene outside a Kabul hotel while Afghan security forces were involved in a prolonged gunfight with the last remaining insurgent holed up inside.

During the fighting, Afghan security officials warned journalists gathered in the street that they would have their cameras confiscated if they filmed the ongoing attack.

Stephen Colbert presented his late-night audience with an interesting metaphor for health care reform Monday.

Republicans and Democrats are like a husband and wife fighting over whether to have a health care baby. But "you're never going to get pregnant while both of you are in bed with the insurance companies," Colbert said.

After spending a week focusing on the Winter Olympics, Colbert turned his attention to last week's health care summit. "The only way it could have been more boring was if they were curling," he joked.

Comparing the summit to a "seven-hour marriage counseling session," Colbert said that one of the parties -- the GOP -- was "not being emotionally honest" and should fess up and admit it doesn't want a health care baby.

"Don't hide your true feelings, guys, repeat after me: fuck 'em!" Colbert said. "If those 30 million people want health care, let them get a better job or join the Army or go to Canada or eat Flintstones vitamins ... stop faking care-gasms."

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This video is from Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, broadcast March 1, 2010.

Even while appearing on daytime morning television, controversial radio host Howard Stern can't seem to refrain from using unsettling imagery.

Stern on Tuesday unleashed a slew of scathing criticisms at comedian Jay Leno, the morning after Leno's return to NBC's "Tonight Show."

"Just the mere mention of Jay Leno's name makes me want to vomit," Stern told Harry Smith on CBS' Early Show. "I don't like this guy. I don't disguise it."

"And probably what irritates me the most is people in show business are afraid to say how much they dislike Jay Leno, but I am not," he added.

An outspoken and forceful critic of the highly successful NBC comedian, Stern blasted Leno as a "lap dog" for seeking his old "Tonight Show" time-slot after exiting. He said Leno should have proven himself by defeating rival Conan O'Brien on another network.

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O'Brien hosted the "Tonight Show" for seven months after NBC last year experimented with putting Leno in prime-time, giving him his own show at 10:00 pm.

"Jay Leno seems to be the kind of show-biz animal who will not let go," Stern said. "I was fired by NBC many years ago... I didn't sit there like a lap dog and take it. I got up, I brushed myself off and I went on Terrestrial Radio on a competing station, and I buried NBC into the ground. That's what you do."

The host of Sirius XM's The Howard Stern Show also lamented that Leno allegedly "pushed Johnny Carson out of the Tonight Show" and "did it in a merciless way."

Echoing a charge he has leveled at Leno in the past, Stern called him a "thief," claiming one of his signature segments "JayWalking" was a ripoff of his own "man on the street" skit.

The self-described "King of All Media" said he would consider taking Simon Cowell's spot as a judge on American Idol "if they gave me a hundred million dollars."

This video is from CBS' The Early Show, broadcast March 2, 2010.

Download video via RawReplay.com

The conservative-leaning Drudge Report sported the following all-caps banner Tuesday morning: "OBAMA ADVISER: WINTER TO 'DISTORT' UNEMPLOYMENT FIGURES."

The Reuters article, that Drudge links to, reports "White House economic adviser Larry Summers said on Monday winter blizzards were likely to distort U.S. February jobless figures, which are due to be released on Friday."

"Look, jobs are priority number one for the President," Summers told CNBC. "Let me say a word about the statistics. Who knows what the next number is going to be. The blizzards that affected much of the country during the last month are likely to distort the statistics. And in past blizzards, those statistics have been distorted by 100 to 200,000 jobs."

Although the host didn't respond to Summers' potential forecast during the interview, a CNBC article notes,

After the interview Finerman added "I don't know how much a blizzard really should factor into the jobs number but (Summers) is definitely trying to lower expectations."

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"For the short-term I didn't get a warm and fuzzy," she added.

The Reuters article added, "Construction activity was hit particularly hard by the storms, but many restaurants and stores also had to close, putting the brakes on hiring plans and temporarily throwing some employees out of work."

However, Summers didn't mention restaurants, which doesn't seem to compute, since it's unlikely waitresses or cooks would lose their jobs due to weather.

(Last November, journalist Greg Beato reported that "while Reuters is charging its MSM brethren thousands of dollars a month to license its content, it’s paying [Andrew Breitbart], the anti-MSM upstart, for editorial links he places on his two news portals, Breitbart.com and Breitbart.TV, and even on the Drudge Report.")

A brief article on Huffington Post notes that "Summers isn't sure what the February jobless numbers will be when they're released on Friday, but he knows to take it with a grain of salt."

Conservative Don Surber, writing in his Daily Mail blog, titled his post "The Snow Ate My Recovery."

Wrong.

Unemployment rates are seasonally adjusted.

Second, that is not what the historical record says.

For example, terribly bad blizzards in January 1978 led to no change in unemployment. It was 6.4% in December 1977 and 6.4% in January 1978, falling to 6.3% in February 1978.

So basically what we have is an administration trying show to the public something — anything — good that might have come from that $787 billion the administration just squandered. Obama promised we would not get 9% unemployment if we trusted him with this much money.

We got 10% instead.

And a bunch of pathetic little excuses that a dumbass like me can see through.

However, a post at the liberal-leaning watchdog site Media Matters which aims to combat "conservative misinformation" begs to differ.

The post entitled "Memo to right-wing blogs: Snow storms can distort job numbers," argues that "economists reportedly say that snow storms can affect employment," pointing to three different articles which have been published this year on the topic.

A February 10 post on the Wall Street Journal's Real Time Economics Blog noted that "[t]he snowstorm that's keeping people from Washington D.C. to Gary, Ind. hemmed in at home could make a mess of the February employment report," and that "[t]he storm has hit during the week that the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics takes its monthly snapshot of employment among households and employers nationwide. Since the storm has kept a large number of people from work, it could push up the unemployment rate, and lower the count of how many people are working."

....

A February 11 MarketWatch article quoted Wells Fargo Securities economist Mark Vitner as saying, "The February numbers are going to be a mess," because of the snow storms. The article also quoted Harm Bandholz, an economist for UniCredit Bank saying the storms "will perceptibly weigh on major economic data releases for the month of February."

....

According to a February 12 article on MSN, "Economists estimate that between 90,000 and 150,000 jobs could be lost this month as a result of the storm." It quoted Stéfane Marion, National Bank Financial's chief economist as saying, "The storms will have a tangible impact on the hiring process, which is impeded when people can't get out and businesses are closed."

But Obama's economic adviser may be exaggerating when he claimed that "in past blizzards, those statistics have been distorted by 100 to 200,000 jobs."

"Looking at what large snowstorms in 1994, 1996 and 2007 did to the jobs count, Deutsche Bank economist Joe Lavorgna reckons that the payroll count could fall by 90,000 workers," the WSJ articled noted by Media Matters reported. "As a result, he estimates that there will be 35,000 jobs added in February, rather than the 125,000 he had penciled in."

The WSJ also noted last month, "When the jobs report comes out on March 5, a Labor Department spokesman says it will likely include a comment on the snow’s effect."

Obama administration officials might have some difficulties, though, if there isn't much snow nationwide in March and the April report doesn't show more jobs created. But it won't be snow that they will have to dig themselves out of.

This video is from CNBC, broadcast March 1, 2010.

Don't bogart that, Obama.

An upcoming Los Angeles "pot party" celebrating President Barack Obama's first year in office has chosen the leader of the free world as the star of an ad campaign for the event.

The ad features Obama Photoshopped smoking a fake joint above the words, "GET MEDICATED CALIFORNIA / 420."

Obama isn't known for toking, though his doctor did tell him he needed to permanently quit smoking when he went in for a check-up last week.

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The ad and the event's organizers plan to "celebrate Obama ending DEA raids" on medical marijuana dispensaries.

According to the popular blog TMZ, which posted the image of the ad above, a White House spokesman said they -- not surprisingly -- didn't sign off on the use of the president's image, and that they have a policy "disapproving of the use of the President's name and likeness for commercial purposes."

The White House apparently declined to say whether they'd take on the ad's creators. TMZ quipped: "Either way ... we're guessing the wave of paranoia that's about to engulf the tokers responsible for messing with the Most Powerful Man on the Planet will be punishment enough."

Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) has been a media target all week for his insistence on single-handedly blocking an extension of unemployment benefits for Americans across the country. So naturally, it was only a matter of time before Jon Stewart took aim.

Stewart introduced him as the "former Major league pitcher and long-time Kentucky crazy person, Sen. Jim Bunning." He said Bunning is "currently serving his final term before leaving the Senate to spend more time obstructing his family's progress."

Comparing Bunning to a father objecting to his son ordering pizza on his birthday, Stewart said, "You hear that unemployed people in the middle  of one of the worst recessions  in history? No 30 day extension until we balance the federal  budget to Jim Bunning's liking!"

Bunning was yesterday assailed by the DNC, who said after his outburst at a reporter that he should spend more time defending jobs rather than a senators-only elevator.

The following video is from Comedy Central's The Daily Show, Mon. March 1.

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A small number of House Democrats who opposed health overhaul legislation on the first go-round may be President Barack Obama's most important constituency when he unveils a revised proposal on Wednesday.

At least nine of the 39 Democrats who voted "nay" when the House passed sweeping overhaul legislation 220-215 in November are now undecided or withholding judgment until they see Obama's final product, according to an Associated Press survey.

It may seem improbable that any lawmaker would want to switch his or her vote on the measure, courting the flip-flopper label after a year of controversy over legislation that's slid ever downward in polls.

But it will almost certainly have to happen in order for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to round up the votes necessary to pass the Senate's version of the legislation, along with a package of changes that Obama will update on Wednesday. The changes — designed to make the Senate bill more palatable to House Democrats by rolling back a tax on high-value insurance plans, among other things — would get through the Senate under controversial rules allowing for a simple majority vote.

That's the only option for Democrats because they no longer control a filibuster-proof 60 votes in the Senate, and Republicans are unanimously opposed.

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Obama's announcement on Wednesday is expected to be a freshened blueprint of the changes he wants made to the Senate's health care bill, updated with ideas that at least have the fingerprints of Republicans, possibly in the areas of medical malpractice reform and rooting out waste and fraud from the medical system.

That's not likely to win him any votes from Republicans, who want Obama to tear up the existing bills and start over, but it could give wavering Democrats political cover by showing the party has been willing to compromise in the wake of last week's televised bipartisan health care summit.

With four vacancies in the House, Pelosi will need 216 votes. She would command exactly that many if all the remaining Democrats who voted "yes" in November did so again. But many lawmakers expect defections, especially of members who oppose federal funding for abortion and feel the Senate language is too permissive in that regard.

For every yes vote that switches to no, Pelosi and the White House must persuade one of the 39 Democrats who voted "nay" in November to switch to yes.

Some of the top targets may be the nine lawmakers who told The Associated Press directly or through spokesmen that they're undecided or undeclared. Three are retiring and don't have to worry about getting punished by voters, and five others are freshmen, mostly in competitive districts — lawmakers whom Pelosi will give a pass on tough votes when she can, but might call on when a major piece of legislation hangs in the balance.

The retiring lawmakers are Reps. Brian Baird of Washington and Bart Gordon and John Tanner of Tennessee. The freshmen are Suzanne Kosmas of Florida, Frank Kratovil of Maryland, Scott Murphy of New York, Glenn Nye of Virginia and Michael McMahon of New York. The ninth is Rick Boucher of Virginia. Several lawmakers' offices did not reply to the AP queries and a handful of others said they would definitely vote "no."

"It's still sort of up-in-the-air right now. If the bill that comes back to the House looks anything like the first bill, he'll vote against it," Kratovil spokesman Kevin Lawlor said Monday. "We don't really know what we'll see, though. Cost was the No. 1 issue as far as the first bill goes. In order for him to vote for anything, it would have to be a bill where the cost is sustainable."

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Tuesday he believes members of Congress who help pass legislation overhauling the system will be anxious to defend it to voters in the fall elections.

The Maryland Democrat said on CBS's "The Early Show" that thinks the public supports many key elements of a new medical care system, including "affordable health insurance for all Americans and families."

Hoyer said there still is a chance that a retooled bill the White House will outline later this week can win passage and said the legislation already circulating has strong provisions aimed at containing spiraling health care costs.

At its core the Democrats' legislation would extend coverage to 30 million uninsured Americans over 10 years with a first-time mandate for nearly everyone to buy insurance and a host of new requirements on insurers and employers. However, the package soon to reach the House will be less expensive than the one that passed in November and will contain no government-run insurance program to compete with private insurers, making it more appealing to some moderates.

Since Thursday's summit, Obama has been involved in a series of meetings in which the new White House proposal is being shaped. Press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama has worked to get votes in every round of the health care debate. "I don't doubt that he will ... do the same thing this time to get the votes necessary," Gibbs said.

One possible reason for the recent show of determination by Democratic leaders: They have received polling data showing that while the general idea of health care overhaul fares poorly with the public, the specific elements of the effort score high marks, including with crucial independent voters.

The information underscores the poor job of salesmanship Democrats have done, but it also raises the prospects that if it is enacted the measure could end up getting a strongly positive public reception, Democrats said.

"I see this as being a very salable issue," said Robert A. Crittenden, who leads of coalition of labor and other groups that have been helping Democrats frame their messaging on the issue. "You can break through and start showing what's in the bill that's helpful to them, because it really matches what they want."

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The second ranking Republican in the Senate told fellow senators on the floor of the Senate Monday that unemployment benefits are bad for America.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) declared that unemployment benefits are bad for the economy because they encourage people to stay jobless.

"People are being paid even though they're not working," Kyl said.

Unemployment insurance "doesn't create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work," Kyl posited. The Republican Senate Whip was effectively coming to the political defense of fellow Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY), who has blocked the extension of unemployment benefits and caused the furlough of more than 2,000 federal workers for two consecutive days.

"I'm sure most of them would like work and probably have tried to seek it, but you can't argue that it's a job enhancer," he said. "If anything, as I said, it's a disincentive. And the same thing with the COBRA extension and the other extensions here."

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"Jon Kyl Continues GOP War on Unemployment Benefits," reads a headline at The Village Voice.

"The other day Republican Senator Jim Bunning waged a one-man war on, among other things, extension of unemployment benefits," wrote the Voice's Roy Edroso. "Now Republican Senator Jon Kyl argues that unemployment benefits are a 'disincentive' to work."

Ryan Grim, at The Huffington Post, notes that "unemployment benefits are generally so small that much of it is often used to pay for COBRA health insurance, even when subsidized. The size of the benefits does not generally cover the cost of living and it would be hard to find a single person who would prefer unemployment to having a job so that they could get subsidized COBRA."

COBRA is a program whereby newly unemployed workers can pay the premium that their employer would have paid to keep their health insurance benefits.

Twitter user MarinaGipps, who describes herself as a "WRITER/Humorist/Actor Filmmaker/Artist" but presently unemployed, quipped, "If Jon Kyl believes unemployment benefits keep people from looking for jobs, then maybe he should be fired by voters who cannot find jobs."

This video is from C-SPAN 2, broadcast March 1, 2010.

Download video via RawReplay.com

Not far from Yosemite's waterfalls and in the middle of California's redwood forests, Mexican drug gangs are quietly commandeering U.S. public land to grow millions of marijuana plants and using smuggled immigrants to cultivate them.

Pot has been grown on public lands for decades, but Mexican traffickers have taken it to a whole new level: using armed guards and trip wires to safeguard sprawling plots that in some cases contain tens of thousands of plants offering a potential yield of more than 30 tons of pot a year.

"Just like the Mexicans took over the methamphetamine trade, they've gone to mega, monster gardens," said Brent Wood, a supervisor for the California Department of Justice's Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement. He said Mexican traffickers have "supersized" the marijuana trade.

Interviews conducted by The Associated Press with law enforcement officials across the country showed that Mexican gangs are largely responsible for a spike in large-scale marijuana farms over the last several years.

Local, state and federal agents found about a million more pot plants each year between 2004 and 2008, and authorities say an estimated 75 percent to 90 percent of the new marijuana farms can be linked to Mexican gangs.

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In 2008 alone, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration, police across the country confiscated or destroyed 7.6 million plants from about 20,000 outdoor plots.

Growing marijuana in the U.S. saves traffickers the risk and expense of smuggling their product across the border and allows gangs to produce their crops closer to local markets.

Distribution also becomes less risky. Once the marijuana is harvested and dried on the hidden farms, drug gangs can drive it to major cities, where it is distributed to street dealers and sold along with pot that was grown in Mexico.

About the only risk to the Mexican growers, experts say, is that a stray hiker or hunter could stumble onto a hidden field.

The remote plots are nestled under the cover of thick forest canopies in places such as Sequoia National Park, or hidden high in the rugged-yet-fertile Sierra Nevada Mountains. Others are secretly planted on remote stretches of Texas ranch land.

All of the sites are far from the eyes of law enforcement, where growers can take the time needed to grow far more potent marijuana. Farmers of these fields use illegal fertilizers to help the plants along, and use cloned female plants to reduce the amount of seed in the bud that is dried and eventually sold.

Mexican gang plots can often be distinguished from those of domestic-based growers, who usually cultivate much smaller fields with perhaps 100 plants and no security measures.

Some of the fields tied to the drug gangs have as many as 75,000 plants, each of which can yield at least a pound of pot annually, according to federal data reviewed by the AP.

The Sequoia National Forest in central California is covered in a patchwork of pot fields, most of which are hidden along mountain creeks and streams, far from hiking trails. It's the same situation in the nearby Yosemite, Sequoia and Redwood national parks.

Even if they had the manpower to police the vast wilderness, authorities say terrain and weather conditions often keep them from finding the farms, except accidentally.

Many of the plots are encircled with crude explosives and are patrolled by guards armed with AK-47s who survey the perimeter from the ground and from perches high in the trees.

The farms are growing in sophistication and are increasingly cultivated by illegal immigrants, many of whom have been brought to the U.S. from Michoacan.

Growers once slept among their plants, but many of them now have campsites up to a mile away equipped with separate living and cooking areas.

"It's amazing how they have changed the way they do business," Wood said. "It's their domain."

Drug gangs have also imported marijuana experts and unskilled labor to help find the best land or build irrigation systems, Wood said.

Moyses Mesa Barajas had just arrived in eastern Washington state from the Mexican state of Michoacan when he was approached to work in a pot field. He was taken almost immediately to a massive crop hidden in the Wenatchee National Forest, where he managed the watering of the plants.

He was arrested in 2008 in a raid and sentenced to more than six years in federal prison. Several other men wearing camouflage fled before police could stop them.

"I thought it would be easy," he told the AP in a jailhouse interview. "I didn't think it would be a big crime."

Scott Stewart, vice president for tactical intelligence at Stratfor, a global intelligence company in Austin, Texas, said recruiters look for people who still have family in Mexico, so they can use them as leverage to keep the farmers working — and to keep them quiet.

"If they send Jose from the hometown and Jose rips them off, they are going to go after Jose's family," Stewart said. "It's big money."

When the harvest is complete, investigators say, pot farm workers haul the product in garbage bags to dropoff points that are usually the same places where they get resupplied with food and fuel.

Agents routinely find the discarded remnants of camp life when they discover marijuana fields. It's not uncommon to discover pots and pans, playing cards and books, half-eaten bags of food, and empty beer cans and liquor bottles.

But the growers leave more than litter to worry about. They often use animal poisons that can pollute mountain streams and groundwater meant for legitimate farmers and ranchers.

Because of the tree cover, armed pot farmers can often take aim at law enforcement before agents ever see them.

"They know the terrain better than we do," said Lt. Rick Ko, a drug investigator with the sheriff's office in Fresno, Calif. "Before we even see them, they can shoot us."

In Wisconsin, the number of confiscated plants grew sixfold between 2003 and 2008, to more than 32,000 found in 2008.

Wisconsin agents used to find a few dozen marijuana plants on national forest land. Now they discover hundreds or even thousands.

"If we are getting 40 to 50 percent (of fields), I think we are doing well," said Michigan State Police 1st Lt. Dave Peltomaa. "I really don't think we are close to 50 percent. We don't have the resources."

Vast amounts of pot are still smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico. Federal officials report nearly daily hauls of several hundred to several thousand pounds seized along the border. But drug agents say the boom in domestic growing is a sign of diversification by traffickers.

Officials say arrests of farmers are rare, though the sheriff's office in Fresno did nab more than 100 suspects during two weeks of raids last summer. But when field hands are arrested, most only tell authorities about their specific job.

When asked who hired him, Mesa repeatedly told an AP reporter, "I can't tell you."

Washington State Patrol Lt. Richard Wiley said hired hands either do not know who the boss is or are too frightened to give details.

"They are fearful of what may happen to them if they were to snitch on these coyote people," Wiley said of the recruiters and smugglers who bring marijuana farmers into the U.S. "That's organized crime of a different fashion. There's nothing to gain from (talking), but there's a lot to lose."

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Japanese electronics giant Sony warned millions of users of older versions of the PlayStation 3 on Monday not to use the videogame console until it can fix a bug in the system.

"As you may be aware, some customers have been unable to connect to the PlayStation Network," Sony's online gaming hub and store, Patrick Seybold, a Sony spokesman, said in a post on the Sony PlayStation blog.

Seybold said the problem, which has left many PS3 owners unable to connect to the Internet for more than 24 hours and some unable to even play games offline, was only affecting models released before last year's "slim" PS3.

"We hope to resolve this problem within the next 24 hours," Seybold said.

"In the meantime, if you have a model other than the new slim PS3, we advise that you do not use your PS3 system," he said.

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"Doing so may result in errors in some functionality, such as recording obtained trophies, and not being able to restore certain data," said Seybold, Sony's senior director for corporate communications and social media.

Some PS3 users had complained on the PlayStation blog that "trophies" they earned for progressing through game levels had disappeared.

Seybold appeared to confirm speculation from PS3 users on the PlayStation blog that the problem was related to the transition from February 28 to March 1.

"We believe we have identified that this problem is being caused by a bug in the clock functionality incorporated in the system," he said.

PS3 owners have deluged the PlayStation blog since Sunday with hundreds of comments and complaints.

"Please fix it as soon as possible. I can't even play my games offline," said "MohammedMK."

"I'm so very worried here. I bought my PS3 real early so please fix it! I don't want a new system," wrote "Destiny89."

Seybold said the problem could result in the date on PS3 systems being reset to January 1, 2000.

When users try to re-set the time and date they receive a message that says "The current date and time could not be obtained."

Users are also unable to play back certain rental videos downloaded from the PlayStation Store.

"We are doing our best to resolve the issue and do apologize for any inconvenience caused," Seybold said.

Sony has been pushing the PS3 as more than just a videogaming console, partnering with Netflix, for example, to allow users to download movies to television sets or computers.

According to market tracking firm NPD Group, Sony has sold 11.4 million PS3s in the United States including 276,900 latest-generation consoles in January.

Since its launch with much fanfare in 2006, the PS3 has boasted power and rich graphics, but at premium prices when compared to Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's innovative Wii consoles.

Sony cut the prices on existing models to 299 dollars when the new PS3 went on sale in September.

Soon after Sony slashed the price of its PS3, Microsoft cut the price of its Xbox 360 console, followed by Nintendo, which reduced the price of its Wii for the first time since its 2006 launch.

The politics of John Yoo and Bob Dylan couldn't be any more different. After all, one wrote legal exceptions that sanctioned the use of torture, while the other inspired a generation. In a sense, it seems logical to blend the two, right?

And that's just what activists Margaret Flowers and David Swanson did, rewriting the lyrics to Dylan's "Tangled Up In Blue" into a lick protesting the former Bush administration attorney.

The title -- "Tangled Up In Yoo" -- is catchy, albeit obvious.

This video was published to YouTube by user davidcnswanson on Feb. 28, 2010.

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The song was apparently created to help promote a civil action against John Yoo, who plans to speak in Charlottesville, Virginia on March 19. Swanson, who oversees activist web site AfterDowningStreet.org and rewrote the song's lyrics, is also promoting the video under the address hoosagainstyoo.org.

The term "Hoo" (short for "Wahoo") is the unofficial nickname for University of Virginia students and alumni.

"Yoo has claimed that a president has the right to crush a child's testicles, massacre a village, or drop nuclear bombs on cities," the group says in a flier [PDF link] promoting their protest. "The Dept. of Justice found that Yoo 'committed intentional professional misconduct'. Spain is seeking to indict Yoo but is facing strong resistance from the White House.

Aggressive wars, torture, lawless imprisonment, and warrantless spying are continuing because Yoo and his
co‐conspirators have not yet been prosecuted. And they are not being prosecuted because the new president is continuing the crimes. We must raise our voices for the rule of law. Yoo does not deny his crimes,
but claims power on behalf of a president to commit them in a time of war. But war is the supreme crime, and Yoo has the blood of over a million Iraqis and Afghans on his hands. We should give Yoo what he has helped deny to thousands: a fair trial."

According to the results of a DoJ probe, Yoo and fellow Bush attorney Jay Bybee were both found guilty of "professional misconduct" in authorizing torture by the Bush administration, but will face no civil or criminal liability.

"These memos contained significant flaws," Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis wrote in a 69-page memo dated January 5. "But as all that glitters is not gold, all flaws do not constitute professional misconduct.... I conclude that Yoo and Bybee exercised poor judgment by overstating the certainty of their conclusions and underexposing countervailing arguments."

The long-awaited and repeatedly delayed release of the final report by the ethics unit, which capped a two-year review, was hundreds of pages long and included emails exchanged between the Justice Department, the White House and the Central Intelligence Agency. It was dated July 29.

It also cleared Steven Bradbury, who headed the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel where Yoo and Bybee worked.

The report criticized former attorney general John Ashcroft, then-chief of the Justice Department's Criminal Division Michael Chertoff and others for not critically examining the memos or recognizing the documents' shortcomings. But it did not cite the officials for misconduct.

One of the most common weed killers in the world, atrazine, causes chemical castration in frogs and could be contributing to a worldwide decline in amphibian populations, a study published Monday showed.

Researchers compared 40 male control frogs with 40 male frogs reared from hatchlings until full sexual maturity, in atrazine concentrations similar to those experienced year-round in areas where the chemical is found.

Ninety percent of the male frogs exposed to atrazine had low testosterone levels, decreased breeding gland size, feminized laryngeal development, suppressed mating behavior, reduced sperm production and decreased fertility.

And an alarming finding of the study was that the remaining 10 percent of atrazine-exposed male frogs developed into females that copulated with males and produced eggs.

The larvae that developed from those eggs were all male, according to the study by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

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Earlier studies have found that atrazine feminized zebra fish and leopard frogs and caused a significant decline in sperm production in male salmon and caiman lizards.

"Atrazine exposure is highly correlated with low sperm count, poor semen quality and impaired fertility in humans," the study said.

Atrazine is widely used by farmers around the world as a weed- and grass-killer, particularly in production of corn, sorghum and sugar cane.

According to the Washington-based Natural Resources Defense Council, the chemical herbicide has been banned in the European Union, although advocates for atrazine, who say the weed-killer increases crop yields, say only some European countries have banned it.

The US Environmental Protection Agency said four years ago that there was insufficient data to determine whether the chemical herbicide affects amphibian development and refused to ban the chemical.

Around 80 million pounds of atrazine are applied annually to crop fields in the United States alone, and half a million pounds of the herbicide fall to earth in rainfall in the United States, including in areas hundreds of miles from the farmland where it was originally applied, the study says.

"Atrazine can be transported more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the point of application via rainfall and, as a result, contaminates otherwise pristine habitats, even in remote areas where it is not used," the study says.

The United States must embrace a blend of tax increases and spending cuts to rein in its deficit or face a potentially crippling debt crisis like the one in Greece, a top US lawmaker warned Monday.

"It is enough to look across the Atlantic at Greece's extreme economic crisis and understand: It can happen here. If we don't change course, it will happen here," said Democratic House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.

Hoyer, a close White House ally, said Democrats and Republicans in the US Congress must take the politically tough decisions needed to deflate the ballooning US deficit and tackle record-high US debt.

"It seems to me that the only solution that can win the support of both parties is a balanced approach: one that cuts some spending and raises some revenue while avoiding extremes in either direction," he said.

Hoyer noted that President Barack Obama has created a special commission to help put Washington's fiscal house in order, a step some critics say amounts to admitting lawmakers cannot make tough decisions they were elected to make.

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"The real work of cutting deficits is so easy to demagogue that it rarely succeeds, and will not succeed this time, without support from both sides," he said in remarks prepared for delivery to the Brookings Institution think tank.

"That's one of the reasons why the fiscal commission must not take any option off of the table, from raising revenues to cutting entitlement spending," Hoyer said in the speech, which his office made public.

"This, then, is our turning point and our choice: the point at which we join the debt-ridden powers who saw the story of their greatness end in fiscal ruin, or the point at which we as a nation refuse that ending and write a new chapter."

Total US public debt outstanding was at 12.44 trillion dollars as of February 26, and the US budget deficit for fiscal year 2010, which ends September 30, was projected to hit an all time record 1.556 trillion dollars.

CNN host Rick Sanchez may have been trying to overdramatize this weekend's earthquake in Chile by placing Hawaii off the coast of Ecuador for his more geographically-challenged viewers.

Or maybe he just doesn't know where the Pacific island state is located.

Shortly after the 8.8-magnitude temblor, fears grew about a tsunami hitting Hawaii, and that's when Sanchez displayed a map of South America.

"And this is Hawaii," he said, pointing to the Galapagos Islands some 500 miles off the coast of Ecuador. The actual Hawaiian islands are another 4,000 miles northwest of where Sanchez indicated.

The Galapagos being much closer to Chile than Hawaii, it may have been an attempt to overestimate the danger and keep his viewers tuned in.

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But, in another segment of Saturday's coverage, the news host asked a tsunami expert to explain how much "nine meters" is.

"Nine meters in English is what?" Sanchez asked.

"We just ran the phrase through Google translator, and apparently 'nine meters' in English roughly translates to 'nine meters,'" quips Kyle Munzenrieder at Miami New Times.

Nine meters is roughly 27 feet.

The following video was broadcast on CNN Feb. 27, 2010, and uploaded to YouTube by user BiggyBigable.

The following video was broadcast on CNN Feb. 27, 2010, and uploaded to YouTube by user dryfhout14.

Ironic editor's correction: The original version of this article placed Hawaii in the South Pacific. It is, in fact, 20 degrees North of the equator.

Republican Sen. Jim Bunning's (R-KY) insistence on blocking the extension of unemployment benefits for Americans across the nation has drawn a sharp rebuke from the Democratic National Committee, which labeled it a prime example of harmful GOP obstructionism.

Bunning's adamant opposition kept up Monday, when he shouted at ABC reporter Jonathan Karl for inquiring about his stance, warning him to stay out of a Senators only elevator. Karl claimed Bunning flipped him the bird.

"Republicans would be better served if they were less interested in defending a senators-only elevator and more interested in defending American jobs," said DNC National Press Secretary Hari Sevugan in an e-mail to Raw Story.

Bunning on Friday repeatedly and single-handedly objected to an effort by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) to attain unanimous consent among senators for extending COBRA and other benefits to out-of-work individuals across America.

He reportedly made his point with an unusually harsh message for its backers: "Tough shit.

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"Perhaps today's outburst is because Republicans are frustrated that at a time when the American people want their leaders to get things done the most, their strategy is to repeatedly demonstrate that's what they are interested in the least," Sevugan said.

"Jim Bunning and Republicans have it backward. What Republicans don't understand is that they shouldn’t be angry with the American people for questioning their obstructionist tactics, it's the American people who are angry with them for employing those tactics," he added.

CNN reached out to Bunning’s office for comment. A spokesman for the senator said "I don't have any comment," when asked about the obscene gesture.

The Associated Press reported that as a result of Bunning's single-handed decision to block the extension, "[t]wo thousand federal transportation workers will be furloughed without pay on Monday."

Sevugan said the American people "are paying the price for Republican obstructionism."

"After saying 'no' to a Recovery Act that independent observers say created millions of jobs, just today Republican obstruction went a step further and actually forced thousands of Americans out of their jobs," he said.

Bunning claimed his decision was out of concern for the national debt, and insisted that the money for jobless benefit extensions come out of President Obama's stimulus package instead.

The DNC spokesman blasted Republicans for their opposition to initiatives by President Obama and Democrats on a variety of fronts, including health care.

"Adding insult to injury, Republican obstruction cut the safety net out from under Americans who lost their jobs, took away their health care and denied struggling small businesses who could create new jobs  the loans to do so," Sevugan e-mailed to Raw Story.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) doubled down, disputing Bunning's claim that he was merely being fiscally responsible and saying his actions were unacceptable.

"One fact remains clear: Senator Bunning’s actions blocked critical funding to millions of out-of-work Americans and caused thousands of workers to be furloughed this week," said Reid's spokesman Jim Manley. "There are no excuses for Senator Bunning to hold this funding hostage, and there is no explanation for the Republican leadership to remain silent on this issue."

A Washington, DC, hospital is being accused of unfairly firing 11 nurses after they claimed they couldn't make it to work during the two snowstorms that slammed the nation's capital earlier this month.

The dismissed nurses point to reports that hundreds of other nurses at Washington Hospital Center at some point missed work during the snow storms as proof that the firings were unjust.

The Washington Post reported Sunday that 11 nurses and five other hospital staffers were dismissed for missing work due to snow between Feb. 5 and Feb. 11. The nurses' union told the Post that "about 250" nurses at some point were unable to make it to work during the storm. The paper also notes that the hospital's policy "does not mention termination as a consequence for failing to get to work."

During Fox & Friends Monday, legal analyst Arthur Aidala said he believes the nurses have a good case to sue the hospital because of the selective nature of the firings.

And he suggested a different reason for the firings: "At least two of the nurses were senior nurses who were being paid the highest amount possible at the hospital," Aidala said.

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But Joseph Tocopina, a former prosecutor and trial attorney, said the nurses don't have a valid case because the hospital couldn't stop treating patients during inclement weather.

"What if the doctors and nurses didn't show up that day because it was a tough day, they coudn't make it because of all the snow?" Tocopina asked. "What would have happened to all those patients?"

Shirley Ricks, 57, one of the senior nurses mentioned by Aidala, told Fox & Friends host Gretchen Carlson that her firing was "puzzling."

The fact that hundreds of other nurses get to keep their jobs is "why I feel it's so unfair," she said. "If it's a policy, it should have been across the board. I don't know why people were singled out for being terminated."

This video is from Fox News' Fox & Friends, broadcast March 1, 2010.

Download video via RawReplay.com

ABC News producer Zach Wolf said he was given the middle finger by Republican Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY), when a fellow reporter asked why the senator had put a hold on a federal highway bill that has furloughed more than 2,000 federal workers.

Wolf didn't elaborate, but Tweeted, "Jim Bunning just flipped your trusty Senate producer the bird as we pursued him onto the Senators only elevator."

ABC posted video of the Bunning's exchange with ABC reporter Jonathan Karl online, but it doesn't show the finger. It does, however, display a visibly angry Bunning vexed at the reporter's questions as he gets into a Senators-only elevator in the Capitol building.

"Excuse me," Bunning exclaims.

Karl, the ABC reporter in the video, also alleged that Bunning pitched a middle finger off camera in a follow-up Tweet.

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"An Irate Jim Bunning kicks me off the elevator "This is a Senators-only elevator!" Off-camera: He flipped the bird," he wrote.

AP notes: "The furloughs and freeze on payments were the result of a decision last week by Republican Sen. Jim Bunning to block passage of legislation that would have extended federal highway and transit programs, the department said. Those programs expired at midnight Sunday."

"The extension of transportation programs was part of a larger package of government programs that also expired Sunday, including unemployment benefits for about 400,000 Americans."

Pressed to rescind his persistent objections Friday to extending the jobless benefits, Bunning reportedly responded by saying "tough shit."

This isn't the first time Bunning has been reported as behaving oddly.

Salon noted in 2004: "It's no secret in Kentucky that Sen. Jim Bunning, a Republican who was expected to coast to reelection on Nov. 2, has been acting strange. Over the past few months, Bunning has angrily pushed away reporters, exchanged testy words with a questioner at a Rotary Club and stuck to brief, heavily scripted remarks at campaign events, delivered in a halting monotone. The former major league baseball star now travels the Bluegrass State with a special police escort, at taxpayer expense. His explanation? Al-Qaida may be out to get him."

This video is from ABC News, broadcast March 1, 2010.

Download video via RawReplay.com

It's no secret in Kentucky that Sen. Jim Bunning, a Republican who was expected to coast to reelection on Nov. 2, has been acting strange. Over the past few months, Bunning has angrily pushed away reporters, exchanged testy words with a questioner at a Rotary Club and stuck to brief, heavily scripted remarks at campaign events, delivered in a halting monotone. The former major league baseball star now travels the Bluegrass State with a special police escort, at taxpayer expense. His explanation? Al-Qaida may be out to get him.

The filibuster — tool of obstruction in the U.S. Senate — is alternately blamed and praised for wilting President Barack Obama's ambitious agenda. Some even say it's made the nation ungovernable.

Maybe, maybe not. Obama's term still has three years to run.

More certain, however: Opposition Republicans are using the delaying tactic at a record-setting pace.

"The numbers are astonishing in this Congress," says Jim Riddlesperger, political science professor at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth.

The filibuster, using seemingly endless debate to block legislative action, has become entrenched like a dandelion tap root in the midst of the shrill partisanship gripping Washington.

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But the filibuster is nothing new. Its use dates to the mists of Senate history, but until the civil rights era, it was rarely used.

A tactic unique to the Senate, the filibuster means a simple majority guarantees nothing when it comes to passing laws.

"The rules of the Senate are designed to give muscle to the minority," said Senate historian Donald Ritchie.

With the Senate now made up of 100 members, two for each of the 50 states, an opposition filibuster can only be broken with 60 votes — a three-fifths majority.

As a matter of political philosophy, the concept of the filibuster arises from a deep-seated, historic concern among Americans that the minority not be steamrolled by the majority.

It is a brake and protective device rooted in the same U.S. political sensibility that gave each state two senators regardless of population.

The same impulse gave Americans the Electoral College in presidential contests — a structure from earliest U.S. history designed to give smaller population states greater influence in choosing the nation's leader.

Given recent use of the filibuster by minority Republicans and the party's success in snarling the legislative process in this Congress, Democrats say the minority has gone way beyond just protecting its interests.

The frequency of filibusters — plus threats to use them — are measured by the number of times the upper chamber votes on cloture. Such votes test the majority's ability to hold together 60 members to break a filibuster.

Last year, the first of the 111th Congress, there were a record 112 cloture votes. In the first two months of 2010, the number already exceeds 40.

That means, with 10 months left to run in the 111th Congress, Republicans have turned to the filibuster or threatened its use at a pace that will more than triple the old record. The 104th Congress in 1995-96 — when Republicans held a 53-47 majority — required 50 cloture votes.

During most of Obama's first year in office and for a few weeks this year, 58 Democratic senators and two Independents who normally vote with them held a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority in the Senate.

That vanished last month when Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown captured the seat of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, who died last summer.

Most notably, Brown's victory has stymied Obama's push to overhaul health care just as the bill was approaching the finish line. Before Brown's election, both the Senate and the House of Representatives had passed separate versions of the reform legislation.

Brown broke the Democratic 60-seat majority before the two chambers could meld differences in their bills for a final vote in both houses.

However, one of Brown's first votes after taking office saw him joining four other Republicans to help Democrats break a threatened filibuster by his party's leaders against a job bill.

The measure, $13 billion in tax incentives for businesses to hire unemployed workers, was quickly passed the next day with 12 Republicans joining Brown and 55 Democrats in favor of it.

Filibusters to make the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress look inept are one thing. Quite another is a vote against creating jobs in an economy with nearly 10 percent unemployment and midterm elections nine months away.

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The US Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday in a case that could affect the ability of states and cities to pass gun bans, and, more broadly, could shift the balance of power between the states and Washington.

If the Supreme Court rules in favor of a challenge to Chicago's ban on handguns, it could lead to a slew of challenges against state laws on everything, not just guns.

The Supreme Court will rule on McDonald v. City of Chicago, a case in which a Chicago resident has challenged that city's handgun ban as unconstitutional.

But the case goes much further than the typical bickering over the Second Amendment. That's because it has more to do with the 14th Amendment than it does with the Second.

In 2008, the Supreme Court struck down the District of Columbia's law restricting handgun possession, on the grounds it violated the Second Amendment. But that didn't settle the issue because, as Laura E. Davis reports at Yahoo News, Washington, DC, is federal territory. And the Supreme Court has long maintained that the Second Amendment doesn't apply the same way to state laws as it does to federal laws.

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But the challenge to Chicago's handgun ban isn't about the Second Amendment; it's about the 14th Amendment, which states that "no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States."

So if the Supreme Court rules Chicago's handgun ban unconstitutional -- which many observers say is likely, given the court's conservative leanings in recent years -- it would likely be on the grounds that the law "abridged the privileges or immunities" of a US citizen.

The result, Davis argues at Yahoo News, could be a slew of challenges to state laws -- any state law that a challenger believes "abridges" his or her "privileges or immunities."

The potential implications of this case are huge – and not just for gun rights. If the privileges-or-immunities argument prevails, it would bring back a constitutional argument that has been effectively dead since 1873, when a decision (known as the Slaughter-House cases) said that the clause only protects rights of national citizenship. But if the court reinterprets this clause, the wording is so broad that some think it could bring a flood of challenges to numerous other laws. Others fear a privileges-or-immunities revival will lead to too much judicial subjectivity.

Davis notes that, if the court does rule to strike down Chicago's handgun ban, "it will almost certainly have to contradict its rulings in earlier cases."

Given the court's recent leanings, such as its decision to overthrow decades of legal precedent to end restrictions on corporate campaign spending, that doesn't seem to be an unlikely scenario.

'Chosen as lead plaintiff because he is African-American'

The Chicago Tribune reports that the challenge to Chicago's handgun ban was crafted by the same lawyer who challenged the Washington, DC, ban before the Supreme Court two years ago. The paper notes that the lead plaintiff was chosen precisely because he doesn't fit the stereotype of a "gun nut" -- he's a black man who votes Democrat.

Alan Gura, the Virginia-based attorney who successfully argued the Heller case, had spread the word that he was looking for litigants in Chicago. ... His goal was to find a diverse group of individuals willing to represent the cause.

He eventually settled on four people: Adam Orlov, a white, 40-year-old libertarian ... David Lawson, a white, 44-year-old software engineer ... Lawson's wife, Colleen, a multiracial 51-year-old hypnotherapist ... and [Otis] McDonald.

Amid the clamor of the gun-rights debate, McDonald presents a strongly sympathetic figure: an elderly man who wants a gun to protect himself from the hoodlums preying upon his neighborhood. ... McDonald and three co-plaintiffs were carefully recruited by gun-rights groups attempting to shift the public perception of the Second Amendment as a white, rural Republican issue. McDonald, a Democrat and longtime hunter, jokes that he was chosen as lead plaintiff because he is African-American.

"Afghanistan announced a ban on news coverage of Taliban strikes on Monday, saying such coverage only emboldened the Islamist militants, whose latest strikes killed six in the southern city of Kandahar," Reuters reports.

Journalists will only be allowed to cover the aftermath of Taliban attacks with permission from the National Directorate of Security (NDS) spy agency, the agency said. It threatened to detain journalists who film attacks without permission and confiscate their equipment.

"Live coverage does not benefit the government, but benefits the enemies of Afghanistan," NDS spokesman Saeed Ansari said. The agency summoned a group of reporters to announce the ban.

No filming will be permitted while attacks are under way, and live broadcasts will be banned even from a distance, Ansari said.

The move was denounced by Afghan journalism and rights groups, which said it would deprive the public of vital information about the security situation in the country.

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The wire service adds that the "government imposed a similar ban for a single day last year as an extraordinary measure during a presidential election, but has never before issued a permanent, blanket ban."

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) – Twin car bombs and multiple other attacks killed four NATO soldiers and 10 Afghans Monday, taking foreign troop deaths this year well above the level for the first two months of 2009.

The NATO deaths in southern and western Afghanistan mean 105 foreign soldiers have been killed in the country this year -- twice the number in the same period last year.

A string of bomb blasts struck the south within 24 hours in an increase in Taliban-linked violence more than two weeks after thousands of US-led troops launched a major offensive in Helmand province.

The attacks highlighted the threat posed by the militia across much of the nation and emphasised the challenge faced by US and NATO troops taking part in a military "surge" aimed at ending the eight-year war.

On Monday morning, a suicide bomber rammed his car into a NATO convoy crossing a bridge in Kandahar province, which neighbours Helmand, sending an armoured vehicle plummeting into the river below, an AFP reporter said.

The Afghan interior ministry said the attack killed "four of our innocent civilian compatriots".

Sergeant Jeff Loftin, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), said one foreign soldier was killed and "a few" injured but did not disclose their nationalities.

Hours later, a station wagon packed with explosives blew up outside the provincial police headquarters in Kandahar city -- the spiritual capital of the Taliban -- killing one person and wounding 16 others, police said.

"In the remote-controlled car bomb explosion... one civilian working for the police headquarters was killed," said deputy provincial police chief Fazel Mohammad Shairzad.

Of the 16 wounded, nine were policemen, he added.

Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location that his organisation was responsible for both bombings.

ISAF later released a statement reporting three more deaths on Monday -- two in an attack in the west and one in a shooting in the south. The force gave no further details, and did not identify the nationalities of the dead.

The deaths bring to 105 the number of foreign soldiers who have died in Afghanistan so far this year, according to an AFP count based on a tally kept by the independent website icasualties.org.

Last year was the deadliest since the war began, with 519 foreign troop deaths.

Another five Afghan civilians were killed by roadside bombs in Helmand on Monday, the interior ministry said.

One mine exploded under a car near the provincial capital Lashkar Gah, killing three civilians, and two others died in a similar attack in Gereshk district, it said in a statement.

On Sunday, a bomb planted by the Taliban killed 11 civilians including women and children in Helmand, where 15,000 troops have been waging a massive anti-Taliban offensive. Overall, more than 120,000 foreign troops are currently in Afghanistan.

Since February 13, US, NATO and Afghan troops have been fighting to drive the Taliban from the Marjah and Nad Ali areas of Helmand. Afghan authorities say they are now in control, having hoisted the national flag last week.

Operation Mushtarak ("Together") is aimed at driving the Taliban from their strongholds and is part of Washington's strategy to end the war.

Although commanders say the fighting is now winding down and Kandahar is next on the list, authorities have been reluctant to return thousands of displaced villagers because of innumerable mines left by the Taliban.

The Taliban, their affiliated networks and loyalists have focused their fight to bring down the Western-backed Afghan government on the south but are said to have a significant presence across virtually the entire country.

Foreign troop numbers in Afghanistan are set to rise to 150,000 by August as part of the war strategy adopted by US President Barack Obama and key allies.

(with AFP report)