Dear Kitty backup UK

From the BBC:

Afghan clash 'kills police chief'

The provincial police chief and at least eight other police have been killed in a clash with US-trained Afghan guards in Kandahar, reports say.

The clash is said to have erupted after the guards, who are employed by US special forces, tried to remove an Afghan prisoner from a civic building.

The situation remains confused, with Kandahar city closed off.

Kandahar province is a Taliban stronghold, but there is no suggestion the Taliban were involved. ...

Gun battle

The guards are said to have tried to free one of their colleagues who was being kept prisoner at the prosecutor's office in Kandahar City. ...

The BBC in Afghanistan has been told that what began as a fist fight with police turned into a gun battle.

Ahmad Wali Karzai, head of Kandahar's provincial council and a brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, confirmed the incident.

"The police chief for Kandahar, the head of the city's criminal department and seven other police were killed in the clash," he told Reuters news agency.

A BBC update, later today, says:

Afghan guards held after shootout

Forty-one US-trained Afghan guards have been arrested after a shootout in which Kandahar's provincial police chief was killed, the regional governor says.

Thoryalai Wesa says the guards will be sent from the southern province to the capital Kabul for trial.

Up to eight other policemen were killed after the guards, who are employed by US security forces, entered the prosecutor's office in Kandahar city.

They were trying to free colleagues held in the building, the BBC was told.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he "seriously condemns this action", describing it as a "serious blow to governance-building".

Gun battle

In a statement, Mr Karzai's office described what had happened.

"Armed men from one of the private security firms based in Kandahar tried to free two criminals - they attacked the local prosecutor's office," it said.

"The police chief of Kandahar and the head of the criminal investigation department resisted them - these guards opened fire" and killed them, it went on.

The statement said three others were also killed, although other reports put the total at nine.

The police chief has been named as Matiullah Qatay and the head of the criminal investigation department as Abdul Khaliq Hamdam.

The US military spokesman in Kabul, Col Greg Julian, confirmed to the AFP news agency that there had been "an incident" but did not have details.

Some witnesses had said US forces were at the scene of the incident, but this is unconfirmed.

...

The BBC's Martin Patience in Kabul says that Afghan guards are often employed at coalition military bases across the country.

They are paid and trained by the US. While the guards are recognised by the Afghan government, they do not come under their command.

Locals often refer to these guards as Afghan special forces as they are well-trained and well-armed, our correspondent says.

From Associated Press:

Paleontologists don't dig closing Wyo. dino museum

By Mead Gruver

Associated Press Writer / June 12, 2009

CHEYENNE, Wyo. -- Paleontologists are in an uproar over a decision by the University of Wyoming to save money by closing its Geological Museum, home to dinosaur specimens including a rare skeleton display.

Closing the museum -- and laying off its director and a part-time employee -- is expected to save about $80,000 a year. It's part of $18 million in cuts the university in Laramie announced last week amid predictions of declining state revenue.

But paleontoligsts, including ReBecca Hunt-Foster of Grand Junction, Colo., say closing the museum would be a mistake. "I really don't think they've thought this through," she said. "They've got world-class specimens."

Hunt-Foster ... writes a paleontology blog and calls herself "Dinochick" online. She has been circulating an online petition that as of Friday had more than 800 signatures.

She said schoolchildren from all over Wyoming and Colorado visit the museum, which includes an apatosaurus skeleton that is one of only about a half-dozen such displays in the country.

"You can go to a lot of little museums and see the same thing over and over and over again. But at the museum in Laramie, they really do a good job of interpreting their local paleontology and geology," she said.

...

Blaire Van Valkenburgh, president of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, said other natural history museums have had to reduce staffing and hours of operation due to decreased funding, but this is the first natural history museum she knows of that is closing.

"Of course we're very horrified and these are very tragic decisions if they do follow through with it," said Van Valkenburgh, who is a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. "It's very unfortunate."

Dewey Blanton, a spokesman for the American Association of Museums in Washington, D.C., said other natural history museums facing budget trouble recently include the University of Kansas Natural History Museum, which cut back its hours of operation; the San Diego Natural History Museum, which cut staff pay 10 percent; and the University of Connecticut's Connecticut State Museum of Natural History, which has cut both its hours and staff.

"It's certainly not confined to natural history museums but all museums -- all nonprofits are suffering in the economy," Blanton said.

The University of Wyoming's budget cuts are in response to low natural gas prices. Taxes and royalties on natural gas production provide a significant chunk of Wyoming's state government revenue.

Then, why not tax Big Oil and Gas a bit more, so that the museum dinosaurs will stay?

From British daily The Morning Star:

Apartheid struggle remembered

Thursday 11 June 2009

A new exhibition documenting the South Africa's vicious apartheid system will open tomorrow at the Museum of London.

Forward to Freedom highlights the struggle of the Anti-Apartheid Movement in Britain and is timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the movement's foundation.

The display will include campaign posters and materials spanning 40 years.

The Anti-Apartheid Movement was the largest and most potent international solidarity movement in British history, one which bridged political divides and involved ordinary people from many backgrounds.

The display explores the versatility and creativity of its most significant campaigns, including the decades-long consumer boycott, the high-profile demonstrations against touring South African rugby and cricket teams, the call for an end to arms trade with South Africa and the many campaigns in support of political prisoners and against apartheid executions.

The display also underlines the central importance of London as the city where the Anti-Apartheid Movement was founded and based many of its campaigns and the capital of a country which was inextricably linked with apartheid South Africa, especially during the Thatcher-led Tory years in the 1980s.

Commenting on the exhibition, Lord Bob Hughes of Woodside, who is a former Labour MP and previous chairman of the Anti-Apartheid Movement, said: "This display and partnership with Museum of London and the Bodleian Library reflects the ethos of collaboration demonstrated by the Anti-Apartheid Movement throughout its history."

Forward to Freedom runs from June 12 to September 6 and is free for all.

See also here.

The exhibition is in the Museum of London, London Wall, London EC2Y 5HN.