London, November 22
Children may be safer growing up in Kabul than in London, Glasgow or New York, a NATO official said on Monday, but his comments were labelled “wrong and misleading” by a leading children’s charity.

“Most children can go about their lives in safety,” said Mark Sedwill of life in the Afghan capital, adding that “it’s a very family-orientated society”. The senior civilian representative made the remarks in Growing Up In A War Zone: A Newsround Special for British children’s channel CBBC. “In Kabul and the other big cities actually there are very few of these bombs. The children are probably safer here than they would be in London, New York or Glasgow or many other cities,” Sedwill said.

But several Afghan youths interviewed for the programme felt otherwise: “Because of explosions happening in the city, it is frightening when we come to school. We are afraid of explosions in the school,” said 16-year-old student Sohrad.

The chief executive of kids’ charity Save the Children rejected Sedwill’s view, saying it was wrong to compare the lives of children in Kabul with those of children living in Western cities. “We should be listening to what children in Afghanistan are saying,” he said. “Afghanistan is the worst place on earth to be born a child — one in four children living there will die before they reach the age of five.”

Civilian casualties are at their highest this year since the start of the US-led invasion to oust the hardline Islamist Taliban from power in late 2001. The United Nations said in August that 1,271 Afghan civilians were killed in the first six months of the year, a rise of one third over the same period in 2009, mostly in insurgent attacks.

The UN report also noted a 55 per cent increase in casualties among children. The UN children’s agency said last year that deteriorating security was harming children in Afghanistan, with attacks targeting schools and preventing access to vital health care.

Attacks include mysterious apparent gas poisonings that have been blamed on Taliban militants opposed to girls’ education and acid attacks on young girls. A child was among three people killed on Saturday when a suicide bomber on a bicycle blew himself up in Mihtarlam in eastern Laghman province. — Reuters

Washington, November 22
Lauding India's commitment to global peace and development of the South Asian region, a resolution introduced in the US House of Representatives has appealed to the United Nations to take necessary steps to make New Delhi a permanent member of the Security Council.

The resolution by Congressman Gus Bilirakis gives the sense of the House of Representatives that the UN should forthwith take the procedural actions necessary to amend Article 23 of the Charter of the United Nations to establish India as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

The resolution, which has been sent to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs for necessary action, noted that India is the largest democratic country in the world in which all political views are freely expressed and respected.

India is the world's second most populous country, with over one billion citizens residing within its borders and is one of the largest contributors of troops to UN-mandated peacekeeping missions, it said.

The resolution also said that India has demonstrated a strong commitment to global peace and promotion of the peaceful development of the South Asian region.

"... it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the United Nations should forthwith take the procedural actions necessary to amend Article 23 of the Charter of the United Nations to establish India as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council," it said. — PTI

Sydney, November 22
Rescuers plan to send a robot into the coal mine in New Zealand, where 29 miners remain trapped, once gas levels have dropped, a local newspaper reported today.

The New Zealand Herald reported that gas samples being taken at the Pike river colliery's main ventilation shaft were still showing high levels of carbon dioxide and methane today, hampering the rescue effort.

The police commander, Gary Knowles, who is overlooking the rescue operation, said testing of gas levels in the mine was being carried out every half hour. "The rescue teams are still on standby, they are currently planning to go into the tunnel if the opportunity arises; they are currently looking at which sections they will enter first," he said.

There has been no contact with the miners since an explosion ripped through the underground mine on the country's west coast on Friday. — (Kyodo) DBP

Mexico City, November 22
Mayors from around the world have signed a voluntary pact in Mexico City to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at a meeting meant as a precursor to next week's s UN-sponsored talks in Cancun.

The gathering in one of the world's most polluted cities assembled some 3,000 local and regional leaders to discuss a wide range of economic and social issues, including climate change.

Participants from some 135 cities and urban areas yesterday signed a pact committing them to adopt a number of measures to stem climate change.

The pact will be presented at next week's UN climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, from November 29 to December 10. Top climate scientists from around the world hope in Cancun to break the deadlock on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and channelling aid to poor, vulnerable countries after the widely regarded failure of the last climate summit in Copenhagen.

Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard and Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe, the current president of the United Cities and Local Governments, opened the mayoral gathering, set to last four days.

Mexico City last week pledged to reduce its annual greenhouse gas emissions by around 14 per cent.

Meanwhile, a new study released found that fossil-fuel gases edged back less than hoped in 2009, as falls in advanced economies were largely outweighed by rises in China and India.

Annual emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of oil, gas and coal were 30.8 billion tonne, a retreat of only 1.3 per cent in 2009 compared with 2008, a record year, they said in a letter to the journal Nature Geoscience. — AFP