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By Erik de Castro Ten years ago I was part of the three-member Reuters multimedia team that went to Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. We covered the pursuit for Osama Bin Laden and his Taliban followers, who were believed to be holed up in the caves of the Tora Bora mountains, by US military special forces fighting alongside the Afghan Mujaheedin. Nobody from the press saw Osama. Instead about a dozen Taliban captured from the caves were presented to the media in Tora Bora. As we passed the Afghan border on the road to Jalalabad following a long journey from Islamabad, Pakistan, I remember the precautions our security adviser told us: If ever we are stopped by armed men along the way, stay calm and just hand over our U.S. dollars. Weeks earlier, two Reuters colleagues (a TV cameraman and a photographer) and two other European journalists traveling with a convoy of media vehicles were killed by bandits on the same road. Ten years after 9/11, I was back in Jalalabad as an embedded photojournalist with the U.S. military forces. I was attached to Task Force Bronco covering eastern Afghanistan. During the first week of my embed with different units, I joined the soldiers as they met with Afghan police officers and local government leaders, patrolling for hours, day and night searches for arms caches, and looking for members of the Taliban. During patrols, local residents would smile at and greet the soldiers. Children swarmed them asking for pens, candies and one dollar bills. On one patrol, young Afghan teenage boys crowded around a female soldier until the men in her platoon shooed them away. The second week of my embed, with a unit from “The Wolfhounds” in Bari Alai, was an entirely different picture. While the soldiers from Task force Bronco were warmly received by the locals, the soldiers in Bari Alai could not get near the villages. Their camp was situated on a mountain ridge in Kunar province overlooking at least five villages and the eastern road to Pakistan. In 2009, the camp was overran by about 100 members of the Taliban, who killed eight coalition troops, including three U.S. soldiers, and captured 11 Afghan soldiers. For five days, I experienced spartan living with the soldiers in Bari Alai, where the only things you would consider luxuries were the Internet connection and a flat screen television. While I was there, the base was attacked by Taliban every other day. I witnessed how the U.S. soldiers engaged their enemy. On my first day with the unit, U.S. forces from the nearby Forward Operating Base (FOB) Bostic fired 155mm howitzers at the Taliban position. As I heard the loud explosions, I saw a big column of smoke across the mountain from our bunker. Moments later, loud staccato machine gun fire emanated from the mountains and an exchange of gunfire followed. I took various positions near the American soldiers to take pictures amid the deafening machine gun fire, grenade and mortar explosions. It went on for about half an hour. A more intense gun battle ensued on the third day. I was awakened by early morning gunfire, and again grabbing my cameras I followed the soldiers as they ran to to their battle positions. This time, they used more force; Tow missile launchers, mortars, jet fighters and assault helicopters. I saw bullets fired by the Taliban barely miss the head of a U.S. Army sniper. The battle lasted almost two hours and then things were back to normal at the camp. On the days that were quiet, I photographed soldiers going about their daily life at the camp. “It’s normal for my unit to get contact with the enemy on an almost daily basis. The Taliban don’t get tired of firing their PK (machinegun) and RPGs at us,” said Lieutenant Steve Rizley, the commanding officer. He pointed out a white flag in one of the villages, indicating the presence of Taliban in the area, as he and three other soldiers side by side scanned the villages with their binoculars. When I looked at the villages through my long lens, I couldn’t help but recall the same mud houses in similar looking villages in the Tora Bora mountains 10 years ago. Nothing has changed and it is hard to imagine progress and peace taking place even in another 10 years from now.

The two leaders have agreed to swap jobs after a presidential election next year under a deal which involves Medvedev stepping aside as president at the end of his four-year term and taking Putin’s place as premier.But Putin signaled in an interview on Monday, almost in passing, that Medvedev’s legitimacy to lead the government could be affected by how well the United Russia party fares in a parliamentary election on December 4.Medvedev is top of the party’s list of election candidates so its performance will reflect on him personally. It is sure to win the election, but opinion polls suggest it may struggle to retain its two-thirds majority in parliament’s lower house.”United Russia is losing some ground due to it being paralyzed. Medvedev’s position is tied closely to United Russia and he needs to inject some energy into it,” said Nikolai Petrov of the Carnegie Moscow Center think tank.”Putin feels obliged to Medvedev who, if he has not exactly performed well as president, has performed loyally. That’s why he does him no direct harm but it is now up to Medvedev whether he survives.”Both men have both used television interviews in the past two weeks to justify their decision to carve up power between them and reassure investors and the public that Putin’s return — for 12 years if he wins the maximum two successive terms — will not mean political and economic stagnation. [nL5E7LF0KD]They have also sought to convince Russian voters that democracy is not at stake and that their votes count. The parliamentary and presidential elections, they say, will be fully free and the outcome is not pre-ordained. [nL5E7KU0RL]DOUBTS OVER MEDVEDEV’S SURVIVALIt may be in this light that Putin, 59, suggested on Monday that Medvedev’s political future could depend on the election to the lower house, the State Duma.”If the voters vote for this (United Russia election) list and we manage to form an effective parliament in which United Russia retains its leading position, then — building on this parliament, relying on this victory — Dmitry Anatolyevich (Medvedev) will be able to form an effective government,” Putin said.Most political analysts and commentators say it seems unlikely at this stage that Medvedev will not become prime minister, but it cannot be ruled out.They say there are greater doubts over how long he will be able to hold on to the post, even though his popularity ratings are strong and not far behind Putin’s.Opinion polls show support for United Russia is much higher than for any other party and its potentially strongest liberal opponents are barred from running in the election. The other parties in parliament do little to challenge Putin’s authority and most media are in thrall to the Kremlin.But opinion polls and recent regional election results have indicated United Russia could have trouble keeping the two-thirds majority needed if it wants to change the constitution.Asked what would happen if United Russia did less well than expected in December, political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin said: “Medvedev will be guilty as he is responsible for United Russia. And as he’ll be guilty, how can be trusted as premier?”SNIPING FROM THE WINGSUnited Russia seems to have been caught off guard by the job swap announcement at a party congress that contained a broad discussion of policy and speeches by Medvedev and Putin but did not agree on a detailed election campaign program.The program the party has since worked out is short on detail and based entirely on Putin’s speech at the congress. A poster appeared by the roadside last month showing Putin’s face, not Medvedev’s.United Russia officials dismissed any suggestion they had been taken by surprise.But Yevgeny Minchenko, director of the International Institute of Political Analysis think-tank, said: “The main problem is not that Medvedev’s image corresponds badly with United Russia’s. It’s just that everything was prepared for Putin as the head of the list of election candidates.”“Now they have to redo the campaign material. The mockups were ready, and the scripts for the campaign ads, and suddenly it turned out Medvedev and not Putin was leading the list.”Another potential problem for Medvedev, 46, is the threat posed by former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, who covets the premiership.Kudrin was forced out of office last month after receiving a public dressing-down by Medvedev for openly criticizing the president’s plan to spend 20 trillion roubles ($647 billion) in the next 10 years on modernizing the army.Kudrin, 51, underlined his differences with Medvedev over spending on Tuesday in a speech to investors, and in an article for the Kommersant business newspaper which set out an action plan for fending off any future global financial crisis.”Analyzing our fiscal plans, investors see perfectly the crossroads we are at — we will either have to cut spending or raise taxes,” Kudrin wrote.Although Kudrin has been stripped of his role, he is — like Medvedev — a long-time Putin ally and the prime minister has said he will remain a member of his broader team. Such comments by Putin, and Kudrin’s sniping, can hardly boost Medvedev’s confidence.

Your headline on the Rihanna story…. You mean HALTS, not ” haults ” ! This opens you up to ridicule…….for shame Reuters ! Roger E. Yes, we fixed it, but not before people noticed the mistake: GBU Editor Singer Rihanna performs at the Rock in Rio Music Festival in Rio de Janeiro September 23, 2011. Join the Good, Bad, Ugly Facebook Blog Network

Quadra expects 2011 consolidated copper production to be at the lower end of its previously forecast range of 240 million pounds plus or minus 10 percent.The company said third-quarter copper production rose to 60 million pounds, while nickel production rose slightly to 3 million pounds.Quadra also signed a term sheet with Xstrata Plc’s nickel business to use the diversified miner’s Craig mine shaft in Ontario to develop its Levack mine.Under the terms of the deal, Quadra will pay $10 million during the first year of operation and only operate the Craig shaft and underground infrastructure. Quadra will not undertake mining from the property, the company said in a statement.