You can get a PDF file viewer anywhere, but we all know that Adobe does it the best, and it just released an official Adobe Reader app [Market link] for Android. First impression is its pure simplicity, and I mean that in a good way. Now, before you get excited – make sure you’re running Éclair, and have at least 550MHz CPU with 256MB of RAM, or else it’s just not going to be a smooth experience.
This is a post by Android Central. It is sponsored by the Android Central Accessories Store
Filed under: Ford, Design/Style
While Volvo’s fate isn’t perfectly clear yet, it appears that everyone might have been best served by Ford severing ties with the foreign branches of its Premier Automotive Group: Aston Martin, Volvo, Land Rover and Jaguar. True, Ford didn’t get to fully benefit from the labor it put into the cars those brands are unveiling to accolades right now, but it spared itself the continued financial and brain drain on its core brands.
It was a drain that was also felt by the company’s design arm, headed by J Mays. Referring to how thin The Blue Oval’s design resources were stretched, Mays called the efforts “an inch deep and a mile wide.” Part of it was that there were simply so many new models to keep track of, the other part being that so many of those cars had such vastly different requirements – an Aston couldn’t look like a Lincoln, and even though an Aston could use Volvo’s switchgear it shouldn’t look anything like S80 or an XF.
Now the team can focus on wrapping the company’s products and concept cars (like the Ford Start shown above) in the “Post-Kinetic” design language developed a few years ago. That, Mays says, is also easier because of Ford’s rationalization of its platforms – something that also could not have been as completely without selling the company’s PAG brands.
Gallery: Ford Start Concept
[Source: Ward’s Auto]
Life much easier for Ford designers in a post-PAG world originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 25 May 2010 16:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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So the iPhone 3G has been discontinued, and now Wal-Mart has gone and lowered the price of the iPhone 3GS down from $197 to $97—a full $100 drop. The change gives credence to the rumor that Apple will be dropping the price of the iPhone 3GS to $99 with two-year contract, and that the 3GS will take the place of the 3G as the entry-level iPhone device. As we stated previously, we thought it would behoove Apple to keep the 3G around as the free with contract phone, then use the 3GS as the $99 device, and finally use the iPhone Pro as the flagship model. We think that would be a good price structure to take on Android, but hey, we aren’t Apple—let’s see where this all ends up.
In the meantime though, as enticing as a $97 iPhone 3GS might sound, just wait to see what gets announced at the WWDC 2010 keynote first, m’kay?
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Cuando aún estamos procesando la información que ha llegado desde el Salón de Madrid, y entre las marcas participantes tenemos a la propia BYD que llegará a nuestro país a través del conocido Grupo Bergé, una noticia curiosa nos llega desde oriente.
Según publican en Autoblog, BYD lanzó al mercado el F3DM a finales de abril, modelo que pudimos ver en Madrid, y sólo ha conseguido vender 13 unidades de este híbrido que según la firma china es el modelo híbrido más barato actualmente en el mercado.
Pero precisamente de ahí viene el problema en China, puesto que no se han definido aún las ayudas del gobierno asiático a este modelo, que podrían rebajar el precio del coche en 7.000 euros, por lo tanto hasta los 11.800 euros al cambio (100.000 yuanes). En nuestro país pese a aparecer en el catálogo MOVELE no tiene ayuda definida este modelo, ni tampoco el E6 y aún queda por saber con que precios llegará a los mercado europeos BYD con sus dos modelos híbridos.
Vía | Autoblog en español
by David Hanson
The second dispatch from the Breaking Through Concrete team, who’re driving across America in a biodiesel-fueled bus to document the urban-farm movement.
The Santa Cruz Homeless Garden Project grows more than 4,000 strawberry plants.(Michael Hanson photos)The day began in the parking lot of a real estate office off Hwy 17 south of San Jose. We parked Lewis Lewis there after the long drive from Medford, OR. Sleeping at a gentle downslope angle, we hoped not to hear the window tap and see the bright white light of a California Highway Patrol officer’s mag light telling us we can’t overnight park here. But there were no rude awakenings or spicy dreams about Officer Poncherella, and we rolled out early, arriving at 7am to the Santa Cruz Homeless Garden Project‘s Natural Bridges Farm on the north side of Santa Cruz, Calif.
Paul Glowaski, farm director(Michael Hanson)Within a few minutes, we were eating breakfast strawberries and drinking coffee with David, one of the farm’s trainees. By nightfall, we would be back in the same spot sipping bourbon and eating dessert strawberrries with the farm director. As usual, it’s what happens between the coffee and the toddy that makes up a day.
The Homeless Garden Project is a 20-year-old success story that began as a small plot and a thousand donated herb plants tended by a few homeless men and women. It now employs 14 homeless trainees and provides weekly CSA shares to over 80 members of the Santa Cruz community.
People might wonder if the name isn’t demeaning. Yeah, we get that sometimes,” says Paul Glowaski, 31, farm director. “But at some point you’ve got to stand up and say, ‘This is who we are, we’re people.’”
The Homeless Garden Project is not a charity case. It grows beautiful organic produce to rival any small farm’s in the country—deep shades of purple and maroon and green and yellow in the rainbow chard rows, artichoke stalks as tall as a man, strawberries the size of crabapples, kale, broccoli, squash, lettuce, spinach, bok choi, lavender, wheat (they make pancake mix), and rows of cut flowers. It just so happens that homeless people, given a chance at gainful employment for up to three years, are the ones moving the plow, lining the irrigation tubes, harvesting the goods, learning job skills, and enjoying the satisfaction of responsibility and community.
“We hit both sides,” says Glowaski, a passionate man whose turquoise eyes almost tear up when he talks about the farm. “The progressives love us because we grow organic food and offer a social service and conservatives love us because we provide job training.”
The farm is about to go crazy. Already the strawberries are lying fat and drunk in their sugary juices. The trainees—the term for employees—crouch between the rows and pluck them off, chatting and laughing.
Robert, a Santa Cruz Homeless Garden trainee, in the shelter where he now lives.Robert arrived two months ago when he took a bus away from San Francisco and the bad scene he’d fallen into there. He’s lean and he smiles a lot. His voice is deep as a blues singer, but still all young and caramel smooth. He walks or takes the bus here from the homeless shelter, and he saves his money from the hourly farm wage he gets for working 20 hours a week. His training program began in early spring. He tells us about how amazing it feels to plant something, watch it grow, then pull it and share it with someone.
Darrie Gaznhorn has been the executive director of the Homeless Garden Project for almost the entire 20 years. She works in the project’s gift shop in downtown Santa Cruz, for which trainees make wreaths and candles and other value-added farm wares during the winter. Gaznhorn’s worked with hundreds of trainees, and she’s seen some move on to success and others slide back down the wrong side of life. Although HGP doesn’t call itself a horticultural therapy project, therapy and recovery—in addition to concrete job skills—are intrinsic in a farm.
“Food has incredible meaning for survival. It’s so needed and tangible and there’s such satisfaction in planting a seed and seeing it grow. You see results,” she says. “People say that when they’re weeding, they’re throwing away the bad thoughts. They see the clean row in front of them and this pile of bad stuff off to the side. Farming and providing food for people is an honorable thing, and it’s very healing.”
We stand at the edge of the Sonora wheat, a 16th-century heirloom seed brought up the coast by the Spanish missionaries and cultivated at HGP. Glowaski talks about his generation—our generation—and how it has a different approach to the nonprofit world than the one established by our parents’. He doesn’t like asking for money, preferring instead to aim for the new buzz in business planning: the Triple Bottom Line, the triangle formed by ecological, social, and economic values. It’s easy to see businesses that miss the ecological and social part; just watch the news. But many nonprofits, especially production urban farms, no longer want to settle for fundraisers and grants; they want and need to hit the economic corner of the triangle.
The sun takes its time setting and the wind is cold. The trainees have left but Glowaski’s still here. This is his time to chill. He says at this crepuscular hour the farm reveals itself in a brief moment of soft colors when everything alive is moving, either coming or going.
Here’s Glowaski talking about HGP:
Related Links:
Breaking Through Concrete: Day 1 – Seattle to Talent, Ore.
Boost your support for urban agriculture with a rice-growing bra
Rooftop farming and beekeeping boom in New York
Gaga’s ready for her closeup — on CNN’s Larry King Live!
According to King’s Twitter feed, the bespectacled interviewer will sit down for a chat with the new Princess of Pop during his top-rated primetime talk show next week.
King Tweeted on Monday evening: “Are you ready for this? Coming next week to Larry King Live…. @LADYGAGA!”
Seagate has revealed a hybrid solid state/hard drive which is claimed to be “the world’s fastest 2.5 inch laptop PC hard drive.” The Momentus XT offers users the price and capacity benefits of a hard disk drive and the speed advantages of solid state memory in one laptop-sized drive…
Continue Reading Seagate Momentus XT hybrid claimed as world’s fastest laptop drive
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Between the EVO 4G, DROID Incredible, Ally, and more, it’s a great time to be an Android fan. With numerous form factors, customizations (Sense, MOTOBLUR, and the like), and Android builds, there’s a device out there for almost anyone. To that end, I have to ask – What current or future Android device has you psyched?
Be sure to vote for your favorite device, and defend it in the comments!
{Widget type=”poll” id=”3254687″ name=””What current or future Android device has you psyched?”}
Via Romenesko we learn that a judge in Wyoming has issued a temporary restraining order against two local newspapers, barring them from reporting about a trip by the local community college’s president to Costa Rica, saying that the report was stolen… and that publishing the info could cause the college to lose federal funding. At issue is the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which prevents colleges from revealing private info about students (a good thing). But here it’s clearly being misused. Yes, the report may include some student info, but that should not, in any way, bar publishing a story about what happened. Furthermore, that the document was leaked shouldn’t bar publication either. If that were the case, there would never be any whistleblower stories out there, or stories like the one about the Pentagon Papers.
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Here. The paper is Coordinated Punishment of Defectors Sustains Cooperation and Can Proliferate When Rare. The blog post highlighted is Punishing Cheaters Promotes the Evolution of Cooperation.
It is probably obvious that I’m not on the internet as much right now. But I’ve been thinking on the topic of this paper for a few days, and plan on putting together a post when I have something interesting to say, and nothing interesting to do off-net.
P.S. We decided to bring Kevin Zelnio back on.
The financial world is coming unglued again. Greece has pushed the E.U. to the brink. Global stock markets are tumbling.
And yet, at the same time at least one economic indicator is soaring. The Baltic Dry Index.
Today, the BDI jumped nearly 9%. The largest daily jump in at least the last six months.
In fact, the index is up 40% since the end of April. A jump that has roughly coincided with the recent decline in global stock markets.
The BDI tracks global shipping rates. A rising index generally means more trade, as goods are sailed around the world.
So what’s going on? Are nations buying and selling more, even as the economy tailspins?
Digging a little deeper, the recent rise in the BDI is attributable mostly to a jump in rates for one particular ship type. Capesize.
Capesize vessels are amongst the largest in the world. Typically with capacity over 150,000 long tons of deadweight. (Back in the day, such ships were too large to sail through the Panama Canal. Therefore, they had to transit the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn. Thus the name.)
Interestingly, capesize vessels are the “weapon of choice” when it comes to transporting metal ores. This category also includes oil tankers.
Could the jump in Capesize rates be signaling more metals and oil floating globally? And if so, is this due to buyers hungry for product, or sellers desperate to unload?
This is a guest post by Dave Forest at oilprice.com
Join the conversation about this story »
Fox Business has made something of a splash claiming that Senator Casey has introduced a bill to bail out union pensions that will cost $165 billion. Media Matters lashes back, arguing that the bill will only cost $8-10 billion and isn’t a bailout. Who’s right?
As so often with these things, the truth is somewhere in between.
The bill in question will essentially let multi-employer union pension plans, like the Teamster’s plan that is currently causing UPS so much trouble, segregate out the workers of defunct companies and get the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp to pony up for their benefits. Media Matters says that the bailout won’t cost $165 billion, and they’re right; that’s the total liabilities of the plan. Theoretically, it could cost $165 billion if every single employer went bankrupt, but that’s not a very likely scenario.
However, Media Matters also says it’s not a bailout, which is silly. When you give someone money because they’ve gotten their finances into an untenable state, that’s a bailout. $8-10 billion is double the current level of underfunding in the PBGC, and that’s just the undoubtedly rosy number cited by Senator Casey. If the funding levels of the MEPs get worse (as is possible, even likely) it will cost more.
More to the point, the multi-employer plans have not paid any premiums for the benefits Senator Casey now wants to give them. The PBGC provides insurance (for which it does not charge adequate premiums, but that is another rant.) It is not a charitable institution.
The whole point of a multi-employer plan is to pool the risk, and ensure that workers do not lose benefits merely because they have transferred around. It is true that there are now big shortfalls in these plans, and the bankrupt employers are (definitionally) not around to help the going concerns make up their losses. That makes it difficult to convince firms that they should, say, employ teamsters.
But while there’s a certain amount of unfairness to this, I don’t see why it’s more fair to get the taxpayers to suck up the bill. The employers knew what they were getting into. So did the unions. The PBGC exists to shelter workers from total destitution in the event that their pension fund does not have resources to meet its obligations, and there is no going concern behind the fund able to make up the shortfall. It does not exist to make UPS more profitable, or more competitive with UPS.
Pension – Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation – Insurance – PBGC – Business
Twice this month, Senate Democrats have tried to pass their proposal hiking the oil spill liability cap from $75 million to $10 billion. And twice Republicans have objected, calling the $10 billion figure “arbitrary” (which is precisely what the Obama administration has called it).
Today, the bill’s sponsors tried a different tack, offering a version of the bill that removed the liability cap altogether.
It went exactly nowhere.
Objecting for the Republicans, Sen. Jim Inhofe (Okla.) said that putting oil companies on the line for unlimited liability would push all but the largest companies out of the offshore drilling business — the same argument he made last week in rejecting the $10 billion cap. In fact, Inhofe said, removing the liability cap could push even the giants of the industry — BP, Shell, Chevron, Exxon-Mobil and ConocoPhillips — out of contention for contracts, leaving only the big nationalized firms (like those in China and Venezuela) to do the drilling.
“If you take the 10 billion [dollar cap] off and make it unlimited,” Inhofe said Tuesday on the Senate floor, “that could very well shut out even the five [oil giants], and leave nothing but national oil companies in a position to be doing [offshore drilling].”
Back to the drawing board for Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) et al.
Starting Memorial Day, May 31, and lasting until Labor Day, September 6, more than 600 museums around the country are waiving admission fees for active members of the military and members of their immediate family. The Blue Star Museum program is a joint effort that’s being launched by the National Endowment for the Arts and a nonprofit group called Blue Star Families. The NEA has a map showing which museums are participating around the country.
“Blue Star Museums” [NEA] (Thanks to Mylinda!)
It’s hard out here at Disrupt for gadget geeks, but we just got lucky. Merel Technologies is showing off a very cool multi-touch web table that uses gesture recognition, object recognition, and multi-user multi-touch to create a new way to interact with media and kiosk apps.
The best thing? It costs $3,200 for the 32-inch model and $4,200 for the 42-incher.
The table is made by Merel Technologies in New York and it uses a stacked multi-touch layer (looks like IR) along with an LCD TV to display the interface. A built-in PC runs the whole thing and you can tear it down to create a coffee-table sized device. You can also customize colors.
Interestingly, the gear is assembled in New York.
The goal here, it seems, is to allow customers access to multi-touch displays for not much money. It’s no Surface, but the company is working on an App Store which allows you to browse devices via Bluetooth, browse photos and classifieds, or even access video and restaurant menus right from your table. We saw something similar in iTable, which was a little more PC and a little less Surface — but also going for the lower price point.
Maybe it’s because I ate too many peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as a kid, but this Peanut Butter & Jelly Pouch is just too cute to resist. The soft fabric is stamped with a photo-print of a freshly made peanut butter and jelly sandwich that looks just as tempting as the real thing – […]
ExoPC has developed a Windows-based tablet PC which is larger and more powerful than an iPad, is WiFi-enabled and supports Flash. The Slate will be available with 32GB and 64GB SSD storage, benefit from 2GB of memory and has a built-in webcam… but will this be enough to make it a serious contender in the emerging tablet computer market?..
Continue Reading ExoPC Slate – the new Windows multi-touch tablet
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Every year, the Center for Science In the Public Interest releases their Xtreme Eating Awards list, where they single out the most carb-heavy, fat-saturated, salt-laden calorie bombs available on the market. This year’s round-up of gut-busters covers everything from breakfast through dessert and contains some items that may surprise you.
In no particular order…
1. Five Guys’ Bacon Cheeseburger
Before you put a single topping on it, the bacon cheeseburger from this rapidly growing chain will set you back 920 calories and 30g of fat. Throw in anywhere from 620 to 1,460 calories for Five Guys’ generous portions of fries and you’ve got yourself a calorie, fat and salt bonanza.
2. The Cheesecake Factory’s Chocolate Tower Truffle Cake
Weighing in at 3/4 lb, this chocolate lover’s dream will cost you 1,670 calories and 48g of saturated fat. Yikes… and yum.
3. California Pizza Kitchen’s Tostada Pizza
The picture basically looks like a salad on a pizza crust. But even without any meat, this pie packs 1,440 calories and 2,630mg of sodium. Add grilled steak to the mix and ratchet up the calories to 1,680 and throw on almost another 700mg of sodium.
4. The Cheesecake Factory’s Pasta Carbonara
The Factory’s second entry on the list is another item where appearances could be deceiving to the undiscerning diner. It’s just spaghettini with chicken, peas and bacon in a garlic cream sauce; how bad could that be? Try 2,500 calories (blam!) and a whopping 85g of saturated fat. Finish that off with the Truffle Cake listed above and you’re in 4,000 calorie country.
5. P.F. Chang’s Double Pan-Fried Noodles Combo
1,820 calories is a lot to consume. But where this dish really excels is in the salt department — 7,690mg of sodium! According to the CSPI, that’s 3 whole teaspoons of salt… for one dish.
6. Outback’s New Zealand Lamb
Equal to eating about 8 individual lamb chops, this entree from the not-Australian steakhouse packs a pretty hefty calorie punch. Including the garlic mashed potatoes and veggies (which have so much butter they alone bring 7g of saturated fat to the plate), you’re looking at 1,820 calories, 80g of saturated fat and 2,600mg of sodium. As the CSPI points out, you’d be better served ordering the 16 oz. prime rib at Outback which, even with the same sides, betters the rack of lamb in all three categories.
7. Chevys’ Crab & Shrimp Quesadilla
Again, a slightly stealthy calorie bomb here, as the cheese, flour, sour cream and guacamole greatly outnumber the titular seafood filling. At 1,790 calories, 63g of saturated fat and 3,440mg of sodium, the Crab & Shrimp Quesadilla even beats the restaurant chain’s Carnitas & 3-Cheese Quesadilla.
8. California Pizza Kitchen’s Pesto Cream Penne
Another entry from CPK. The menu says “Basil pine nut pesto cream sauce, sun-dried tomatoes and Parmesan cheese,” but the nutritional info says “1,350 calories, 49g of saturated fat, and 1,920mg of sodium.” And that’s before you add any chicken or shrimp to the mix.
9. Bob Evans’ Cinnamon Cream Stacked & Stuffed Hotcakes
Forget the IHOP wannabe. This here’s the real deal. This is how CSPI described it: “So he takes two pancakes and stuffs them with either good stuff (like blueberries or bananas) or garbage (like cinnamon chips made of sugar and oil). Then comes a layer of vanilla cream cheese (it’s more like cream than cheese) and a sugary topping (like cinnamon cream), with whipped topping as the coup de grease.” And all that will set you back around 1,380 calories, 27 g of saturated plus 7g of trans fat, and 27 teaspoons of sugar.
Can you think of a better way to start your day?
Xtreme Eating 2010 [CSPI]
By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews
When a massive Microsoft corporate reorganization on September 20, 2005 vaulted Robbie Bach into the role of President of the Entertainment & Devices division, the explanation at the time was to enable the company to focus on devices where the goal was to promote devices, and on platforms where the goal was to promote devices. Xbox was a device, whatever MP3 player the company would decide to produce was a device, and obviously cell phones are devices should Microsoft ever choose to enter that business in earnest.
Obviousness is highly susceptible to changes in perspective, especially over five years’ time. Today, with the launch of one of the company’s most important gaming initiatives, still called “Project Natal,” just months away, Bach has decided to leave the company, Microsoft confirmed this afternoon. Following in his wake will be Microsoft’s other high-profile gaming executive, J Allard, who leaves behind a real personal triumph in the form of XNA, the gaming platform that may yet unite development for Xbox 360, Windows, Windows Phone, and to some extent Zune.
Ironically, it was the consolidation of the Entertainment & Devices division that has led to the development in recent years of the most innovative and head turning (if not yet entirely game changing) platforms Microsoft has produced in a good many years. XNA is one. Windows Phone 7 may very well be the first mobile platform ever to come out of Microsoft that deserves, at the very least, the attention it’s received. And despite the fact that the Project Natal device looks like it could be a rejected candidate for the design of Marvin the Paranoid Android from the last Hitchhiker’s Guide movie, the fact that it’s injecting a new concept of user input into gaming development makes Xbox 360 once again a competitive platform.
So the mystery today is that Microsoft is bringing in a platform leader — Corporate Vice President David Treadwell, formerly the head of Live Platform Services — to report to Senior Vice President Don Mattrick, while Mattrick, who spearheaded Project Natal, will report directly to CEO Steve Ballmer. Andrew Lees, the Senior Vice President in charge of “mobile devices” but who led the development of Windows Phone 7, will retain his position but report directly to Ballmer as well.
It’s a development that indicates that Microsoft realizes the importance of these assets as platforms, rather than as mere devices — a realization made feasible by the work of Bach and Allard. And yet off they go to parts unknown.
Is there a message to be found in Microsoft’s relocation of its gaming and mobile development units back to the platform side of the business? Matt Rosoff, who researches the consumer and online side of the company for the analysis firm Directions on Microsoft, thinks…not.
“I don’t think it matters so much which division of the company Microsoft’s mobile platform group is in,” Rosoff told Betanews this afternoon. “After all, Windows Phone 7 is a very good step, and it was created when the mobile division was under Bach in E&D, and I tend to think smartphones are a consumer-driven purchase — especially since the release of the iPhone. But maybe it’s time to think of mobile OSs in the context of small form-factor computers, in which case it might make sense to move that group back to Windows. That’s a hard call for Ballmer to make, which is probably why he’s taking the reins for a while.
“The mobile space certainly has changed a lot in the last five years, hasn’t it?” said Rosoff. “I don’t think anybody at Microsoft (or many other places) would have predicted the iPhone and mainstreaming of smartphones and ‘apps,’ Google’s successful entry into the space, or Palm’s resurgence and acquisition by HP. Strategically, I think mobile is becoming far more important to Microsoft than it’s ever been — not only is there the opportunity of selling higher-margin software in tens of millions of devices per year, but there’s also the threat to desktop Windows from inexpensive dedicated hardware running competing mobile OSs, such as Apple’s iPad, HP’s planned slates, and possible Android or Chrome devices.”
Could the exit of two executives closely associated with Project Natal, and who are partly responsible for its creation — an exit announced prior to the project’s final unveiling — indicate that perhaps it’s not as big a deal as the entertainment device press made it out to be?
Rosoff sees a scenario where Natal infuses Xbox 360 with some of the “next generation” status that a full-scale successor to that console would have had, if Microsoft could afford to build one. So it’s a stepping stone in one respect, and a paperweight in another: “Project Natal could keep the Xbox 360 an active platform for another few years. That’s good because it helps Microsoft sell more games over the lifetime of each console so they can recover the initial costs of the hardware, and it delays the next generation of consoles, at which point they’ll have to subsidize the hardware again (at least that’s how it has worked with Sony, less so with Nintendo). So I don’t think it was ever viewed as a major business in itself.”
Should we read anything into the fact that Bach’s and Allard’s exit is aligned so closely with HP’s acquisition of Palm, and the likelihood of a webOS-based HP tablet device as a result? Rosoff thinks not, pointing out that Allard was a principal designer of Windows Phone 7. In maintaining an advisory role, as Microsoft said today he would, Allard may prefer to retain ties to his own creation rather than let a competitor use him to help sink it.
On the other hand, Allard’s “advisory role” could end up looking like the “advisory role” a TV show creator is bestowed by its executive producer after he’s been fired. “There are lots of companies who would value Bach’s and Allard’s experience in this space,” Matt Rosoff told Betanews. “Or, they might retire from the tech industry for good.”
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010
Microsoft – Apple – Google – iPhone – Sony
Washington D.C. — As many as 10 soldiers from the Army’s Stryker brigade in southern Afghanistan are under investigation for the murder of three Afghan civilians and illicit drug use.
The soldiers, based out of the 5th Stryker Brigade in Fort Lewis, Washington, were accused of the crimes by at least one member of their own unit who witnessed the drug use and learned of the murders from another soldier.
According to defense officials familiar with the case, the soldier who informed his superiors of the drug use was later beaten badly by the men he accused. While recovering from his injuries, another member of his unit approached him to say that the abuse went far beyond drugs, and that these men were responsible for murdering innocent Afghan civilians.
Defense officials refused to name any of the soldiers involved because the investigation is ongoing.
The injured soldier reported the alleged crimes to his senior officers and subsequently the Army Criminal Investigation Command began its investigation. A statement from the U.S. military released last week said one of the accused soldiers is being held in pretrial confinement in Afghanistan. The Army would not give the location of the other 9 soldiers.
Along with the murders, the soldiers are being investigated on allegations of “illegal drug use, assault and conspiracy,” according to statement.
The Stryker brigade has had one of the bloodiest tours in Afghanistan, suffering a high rate of casualties in some of the country’s most violent regions. The unit has been assigned most recently to help to secure the southern city of Kandahar, considered to be one of the most critical operations of President Obama’s Afghanistan troop surge.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited the unit’s headquarters at forward operating base Frontenac on March 9th. He made a point to applaud them for their sacrifices in person.
“You came into an area that was totally controlled by the Taliban,” Gates said to about 200 soldiers at Frontenac. “You fought for critical battle space, you bled for it, and now you own it. And you demonstrated extraordinary courage and determination in making that happen.”
The Army Criminal Investigation Command said the investigation began after it received “credible information from the Soldiers’ unit earlier this month.” Official charges are expected to come within the next week.
