'Veronica Mars' film online fundraiser mee
LOS ANGELES (AP) "Veronica Mars" fans just bought themselves a big-screen version of the cult favorite TV series.
A crowd-sourcing campaign to raise $2 million for the project on the Kickstarter website hit its goal in less than a day.
"Veronica Mars" creator Rob Thomas started the effort Wednesday with help from series star Kristen Bell.
More than 33,000 contributors had pledged $2.1 million and counting as of Wednesday evening.
In his online pitch, Thomas promised that, as he put it,nike blazer vintage prezzo, "The more money we raise, the cooler movie we can make."
Related Articles：'Fifty Shades' dominates publishing in 201
NEW YORK (AP) The story of 2012 in publishing was the story of "Fifty Shades of Grey," in more ways than one.
E L James' erotic trilogy was easily the year's biggest hit, selling more than 35 million copies in the U.S. alone and topping bestseller lists for months. Rival publishers hurried to sign up similar books and debates started over who should star in the planned film version. Through James' books and how she wrote them, the general public was educated in the worlds of romance/erotica, start-up publishing and "fan fiction."
But the success of James' novels also captured the dual state of the book market the advance of e-books and the resilience of paper. In a year when print was labeled as endangered and established publishers referred to as "legacy" companies, defined and beholden to the past, the allure remained for buying and reading bound books.
James already was an underground hit before signing in early 2012 with Vintage Books, a paperback imprint of Random House Inc., the house of Norman Mailer and Toni Morrison, a house where legacy is inseparable from the brand. She could have self-published her work through Amazon.com, or released her books from her own website, and received a far higher percentage of royalties.
"We had a very clear conversation back in January about the need for a very specific publishing strategy," says Vintage publisher Anne Messitte. "We talked about distribution, a physical format, publicity. And she was basically clear that she needed what we did as publishers to make that happen."
"Fifty Shades" began as an e-phenomenon,nike air force ones, understandable since digital erotica means you can read it in public without fear of discovery. But according to Messitte, sales for the paperbacks quickly caught up to those for e-books and have surpassed them comfortably for the last several months. Everyone was in on the secret,nike sb blazer low. The series sold big at Amazon.com, but also at Barnes & Noble and independents, at drugstores and airports.
Publishers from several major houses agreed that e-books comprise 25-30 percent of overall sales, exponentially higher than a few years ago, but not nearly enough to erase the power of paper. And the rate of growth is leveling off, inevitable as a new format matures. Simon & Schuster CEO Carolyn Reidy said e-sales were up around 30 percent this year, less than half what she had expected.
"We saw all these huge sales for tablets and huge sales for other machines coming out and assumed there would be a lot of new e-book readers," Reidy says. "But in retrospect there were a lot of current e-book readers who were upgrading their machines. And tablet owners do not use e-books as much as those with dedicated e-book readers" such as Amazon's Kindle.
"There are some people who think that print will go away, but 'Fifty Shades' is an indication of why that's not going to happen," says Messitte, who added that the books attracted many non-readers who don't own e-devices. "You're going to need a mix of ways to read."
The rise of e-books has shaken, but not broken the way books are published and sold. Membership in the independent stores' trade group, the American Booksellers Association,nike blazer mid, has increased three years in a row after decades of decline. Amazon is a draw for many self-published authors, but its efforts at acquiring and editing books "legacy" publishing have been mixed.
An in-house imprint, headed by former Time Warner Book Group chief Laurence J. Kirshbaum, has so far landed few works of note beyond a memoir by Penny Marshall and an advice book on cooking by lifestyle guru Timothy Ferriss. Rival sellers have refused to stock Amazon's books, limiting their sales potential. And if publishers suffer from their reputation often earned of being slow to adapt to technology, they benefit from a reputation often earned for being nice to their writers.
"There certainly is the comfort factor, and part of that comfort factor is the culture of old publishing, which is very collegial and warm and friendly," says Richard Curtis, a literary agent who represents several writers publishing with Amazon. "Authors contemplating Amazon are concerned about a loss of that warmth."
Amazon, the acknowledged leader in e-book commerce, remains the dominant player in what could still become the dominant format, and two of the year's major stories would never have happened without industry concern over the Internet retailer and publisher.
In April, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Apple and five publishers for alleged price fixing of electronic books, a lawsuit originating from Apple's 2010 launch of the iPad and iBookstore, which publishers hoped would weaken Amazon's ability to discount works so deeply that no other seller could compete. In October, the corporate parents of Random House Inc. and Penguin Group (USA) announced a planned merger, widely believed as a way to counter Amazon.
One of the publishers sued, HarperCollins, settled in the fall and prices for such new works as Michael Chabon's "Telegraph Avenue" dropped from $12.99-$14.99, common under the Apple model, to Amazon's preferred $9.99. But Chantal Restivo-Alessi, HarperCollins' chief digital officer, said there was no noticeable difference in sales, adding that bargain hunters tend to seek out older books.
"With new books, if you want to read that book, you're going to read that book," she said. "You're not going to replace it with a cheaper book."
Related Articles：Abducted mother of Nigeria finance minister freed_
LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) The mother of Nigeria's finance minister has been released five days after her abduction, an official said Friday, bringing an end to a family crisis which showed few people are out of reach of kidnapping rings in the oil-rich southern delta.
Paul Nwabuikwu, a spokesman for Nigeria's finance ministry,nike blazer rosse, said in a statement that the mother of Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was released Friday morning. He offered no other details and could not immediately be reached for comment.
It was not immediately clear if arrests had been made or what terms had led to Okonjo's release,nike blazer high. Federal police officials could not be immediately reached Friday.
Kamene Okonjo, 83, was kidnapped Sunday afternoon in her hometown of Ogwashi-Uku in Delta State,cheap nike blazer. Her daughter, Okonjo-Iweala, is a respected economist who became a finance minister with extensive powers last year. She was also a possible candidate to head the World Bank before losing the position to U.S. nominee Jim Yong Kim.
Ransom kidnappings are frequent in Nigeria's oil-rich delta. Experts say kidnappers whoonce targeted mainly expatriate oil workers have shifted their focus to wealthy Nigerian families in recent years.
The finance minister had received threats prior to the kidnapping, Nwabuikwu has said, though it was not clear if the authors of those threats were behind the kidnapping.
Okonjo-Iweala was instrumental in pushing through a government policy to end subsidies for gasoline in January, a decision that sparked a nationwide strike and widespread protests in Africa's most populous nation. President Goodluck Jonathan later reinstated a partial subsidy Okonjo-Iweala has since said the subsidy must be entirely removed because the country cannot afford it.
Related Articles：Bangladesh Islamist's death sentence sparks de
DHAKA (Reuters) - A Bangladeshi Islamist party leader was sentenced to death on Thursday over abuses carried out during the country's independence war, triggering riots that killed at least 30 people.
Delwar Hossain Sayedee, 73, vice-president of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, was found guilty by Bangladesh's war crimes tribunal of mass killing, rape, arson, looting and forcing minority Hindus to convert to Islam during the 1971 war of separation from Pakistan, lawyers and tribunal officials said.
After he was convicted and sentenced, police clashed with activists from Sayedee's party and violence raged in more than a dozen areas around the country, police, witnesses and media reports said.
At least three policemen were among the dead and around 300 were wounded, they added.
Protesters, who said the verdict was politically motivated, set fire to a Hindu temple and several houses in southern Noakhali region, reporters said. In the southeastern region of Cox's Bazar, they attacked a police camp, killing one.
Two policemen were killed when Islamists stormed a police station at Sundarganj in northern Gaibandha district, police said. "We have been virtually besieged. It's a horrible situation," station officer Manzur Rahman told Reuters.
Members of the religious party - known simply as Jamaat - called for a national strike on Sunday and Monday, raising fears of more violence. Sayedee was the third senior party member convicted by the tribunal.
In the capital, authorities deployed extra police and paramilitary soldiers, a Home Ministry official told reporters.
Thousands of people in the capital's Shahbag square, who support the tribunal and have been protesting for weeks to demand the highest penalty for war criminals, burst into cheers as the sentence was announced.
Sayedee looked defiant but remained calm in the dock as judges read out the verdict,nike blazer low, witnesses said.
"I didn't commit any crime and the judges are not giving the verdict from the core of their heart," Sayedee told the tribunal, said reporters at the hearing.
State prosecutor Haider Ali told reporters he was happy with the verdict which he said "appropriately demonstrated justice".
Defense attorney Abdur Razzak said the sentence was politically motivated. "He is a victim of sheer injustice. We will appeal," he said.
RIVAL PROTESTS
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina set up the tribunal in 2010 to investigate abuses during the war that claimed about 3 million lives. Thousands of women were raped during the conflict.
The tribunal has been criticized by rights groups for failing to adhere to international standards. Human Rights Watch said lawyers, witnesses and investigators reported they had been threatened.
Critics say the tribunal is being used by the prime minister as an instrument against her opponents in the two biggest opposition parties, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the Jamaat-e-Islami. Begum Khaleda Zia, Hasina's arch rival and leader of the BNP, has called the tribunal a farce.
Hasina's party has denied allegations of bias.
On January 21, the tribunal sentenced Abul Kalam Azad, a former Jamaat member, to death in absentia after he was found guilty of torture, rape and genocide during the independence war.
In its second verdict, on February 5, the tribunal sentenced another senior Jamaat member, Abdul Quader Mollah, 64, to life in prison after he was found guilty of murder, rape, torture and arson.
Both verdicts triggered protests by Jamaat supporters, in which at least 15 people were killed.
Nine more people, mostly Jamaat members, are facing trial for war crimes, tribunal officials said.
The overwhelmingly Muslim south Asian country of 160 million people would likely see more violence in the run-up to parliamentary elections in January, in which both Hasina and Khaleda will run for power, analysts said,nike blazer vintage prezzo.
Bangladesh became part of Pakistan at the end of British colonial rule in 1947. But the country, then known as East Pakistan, won independence with India's help in December 1971 following a nine-month war against the then West Pakistan,nike blazers women.
Some factions in Bangladesh opposed the break with Pakistan, including the Jamaat. Jamaat leaders have denied involvement in abuses.
(Additional reporting by Ruma Paul and Serajul Quadir; Editing by Nick Macfie and Andrew Heavens)
Related Articles：Bankrupt Alabama county eyes debt cuts topping $1
By Michael Connor and Melinda Dickinson
(Reuters) - Alabama's Jefferson County will within two or three months file a workout plan that calls for reducing the bankrupt local government's $4.23 billion of debts by more than $1 billion,nike blazers women, according to the county's top elected official.
Filing a plan of adjustment, which is being readied as the county negotiates privately on terms with some creditors and battles in court with others, is a key step toward ending Jefferson County's landmark 2011 bankruptcy but it must be approved by a federal judge.
"Our final plan will include a reduction of more than a billion dollars," Jefferson County Commission President David Carrington said in an interview, declining to discuss details. "But there are other elements, too, that are just as important, like lower interest rates and extended payoff times."
Bankruptcy lawyers say there are too few precedents involving big local governments in bankruptcy to say what a plan might entail, though debt concessions such as extending the terms of bonds or reducing interest payments are frequently included.
The county, whose finances were ravaged by run-away sewer-system debt costs, political corruption and a legal case that killed a local tax, expects to file the adjustment plan within 75 days, Carrington said.
The county's target for filing may be a counter to creditor lawyers trying to scuttle the bankruptcy. They have repeatedly complained in court filings that Jefferson County was moving too slowly on developing an adjustment plan and that the bankruptcy case should be voided.
But U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Thomas Bennett has refused to set a deadline, noting the case was highly complex financially and legally.
Home to Birmingham, Alabama's biggest city, Jefferson County has sole authority to draft the plan under U.S. law. Creditors consent is not required to win a judge's approval but cuts in loan amounts or other changes must be deemed reasonable and equitable by Bennett.
Unlike corporate bankruptcies,nike blazer vintage prezzo, in which creditors can seek asset sales or liquidation, so-called Chapter 9 bankruptcies named for a section of U.S. bankruptcy law leave large creditors such as JPMorgan Chase and Bank of New York Mellon open to possible non-negotiated reductions.
"County leaders hope to propose a plan with the consent of sewer creditors, but are prepared to 'cram-down' the plan on dissenting creditors," reported The Birmingham News newspaper, citing unnamed county officials.
Municipal bankruptcies are rare, and Jefferson County's plan may hold clues to how other troubled U.S. local governments may end crises caused by overwhelming debts and shrinking revenue. Detroit, which is widely seen as near bankruptcy, was taken over on Thursday by a state-appointed emergency financial manager.
Jefferson County's November 2011 bankruptcy filing remains the biggest ever by a U.S,nike blazers women. municipality and was primarily driven by the sewer-system debt now estimated at $3.2 billion. The fiscal crisis forced large staff cuts and major reductions in county services.
Carrington said in the interview on Wednesday that negotiations with holders of some of Jefferson County's defaulted debt, including owners of education warrants, were progressing favorably. In addition, the county has so far reached negotiated deals with two creditors.
Bond insurer Ambac Assurance Corp agreed last year to reduce the county's $83 million a year payments on lease revenue warrants. European lender Depfa Bank Plcin February signed off on cutting interest rates on variable-rate school warrants in exchange for accerated payments by the county.
But the county's biggest creditors mostly holding sewer debt, such as JPMorgan, have shown little willingness to compromise, Carrington said, and are pressing ahead with appeals and other court actions.
A hearing on a dispute over hikes in sewer-system rates, which provide payments to sewer creditors, were scheduled to resume on Thursday in U.S. bankruptcy court in Birmingham. The court battles cost the cash-short county $1 million a month.
One possible template for the adjustment plan may be a 2011 terms sheet, which was developed by some creditors and the county before the Chapter 9 filing. It envisioned a $1 billion reduction in county debt but was never implemented.
The pre-bankruptcy terms included three years of sewer rate hikes of as much as 8.2 percent annually and a refinancing of about $2.05 billion of county sewer warrants into a 40-year debt backed by a pledge from Alabama's state government.
A regional business hub with substantial banking and medical sectors, Jefferson County has slashed its annual spending in its current fiscal year by $107 million from a year ago to $205 million. Officials have closed jails, ended in-patient care at a Birmingham hospital, and reduced the county payroll by 1,300.
County finances are too thin to fund any capital spending but were feeling some lift in early 2013 from an improving economy, according to County Manager Tony Petelos.
(Additional reporting by Verna Gates in Birmingham; Writing by Michael Connor in Miami; Editing by Tiziana Barghini and Andrew Hay)
Related Articles：China's own primary school attack prompts soul
BEIJING (Reuters) - As the United States debates its gun laws after the Newtown school massacre, China is doing its own political soul-searching after a shocking knife attack on a Chinese elementary school.
On the same day as the Newtown shooting, a crazed man broke into a school building in central China, stabbing and slashing 23 pupils in an attack that, although not fatal, lit up the Internet - but barely registered with official state media.
Instead, media gave top coverage to the U.S. shooting and barely mentioned the Henan school attack, a decision that has drawn sharp criticism of the ruling Communist Party's readiness to reflect on the ills of U.S. society but not on China's own,nike blazer mid.
"On the same day as the U.S,scarpe nike blazer. shooting, 22 children were slashed at the school in Henan, but mainstream media were virtually mute on this. Are the lives of Chinese children worthless to them?" a microblog user wrote in one of many such posts.
According to China Digital Times, a website following social and political developments in China and run by the University of California, the government's central propaganda department ordered all official media to downplay the Henan attack.
The Internet criticism of official media coverage follows the installation last month of a new Communist Party chief, Xi Jinping, who has signaled a more open style of leadership and told the media not to shy away from focusing on genuine news.
However, last week's Henan attack has been largely missing from Chinese newspaper and TV reports. The Xinyang Daily, whose circulation area includes the school, devoted its page-one story on Monday to lauding the local education system without mentioning the attack, according to the Global Times newspaper.
The Xinyang paper later apologized for the story.
(Reporting by Terril Yue Jones and Sally Huang; Editing by Ron Popeski)
Related Articles：Autonomous Cars Patrol Israeli Border_9
BEERSHEBA, Israel Along Israel's borders, a small number of automobiles patrol the area for signs of intruders. But unlike most vehicles,nike blazers women, these cars have no drivers, and for the most part drive themselves.
Introduced in 2008, about eight to 10 autonomous cars have been patrolling Israeli borders, said Hugo Guterman, a researcher at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Guterman helped develop the computer system that controls the cars, although the research was funded by Israel's Ministry of Defense, and a company named G-NIUS produces the cars.
Guterman recently showed off a prototype called the Tomcar to reporters that he says works much like the cars that are currently patrolling the borders. The Tomcar uses several cameras to view its surroundings, as well as lasers and radar to avoid hitting obstacles, and is controlled by a three-tiered computer program, Guterman said. The lowest level actually controls the car, turning the steering wheel, braking or accelerating. The medium level uses GPS to navigate the terrain, and gathers information from its cameras and sensors. The highest level takes this information and "decides" what to do, especially when surprises arise, Guterman explained.
These cars have taken the place of some soldiers on the front lines, preventing them from possibly facing gunfire or confrontations. "By removing the people from the front line, actually you are saving lives," Guterman said.
When asked if the vehicles are outfitted with weapons, Guterman said, "No comment."
The computer system used by the autonomous cars is designed to act like two people. "One is the driver and the other is looking around,nike blazers women, and they're connected to one another," Guterman said. The midlevel processing systems that gather data from surveillance cameras works with the upper-level systems to decide whether or not to stop and check out something suspicious, he added.
The cars are usually fully autonomous, running on their own after being programmed to patrol in a certain area, said Gabi Davidson, vice president of marketing at G-NIUS. Occasionally, however, they require further input from remote operators, such as when they run into an unforeseen obstacles or scenario, he added.
For the most part, Israel’s self-driving cars patrol border areas where nobody lives, so there is little risk of unexpected encounters with peaceful civilians, said Dan Blumberg, Guterman's colleague and a researcher at Ben-Gurion University. The car isn't licensed to drive on heavily trafficked roads, however, "even if it drives better than Israeli drivers," Guterman joked.
Guterman said his group is working to test the computer system on autonomous vehicles to help clear snow from urban streets in other countries. That project hit a roadblock, however, when the labor union in one of the cities where it was to be tested balked at the idea.
The car works similarly to Google’s driverless car prototype, except it's better, Guterman said, since it doesn't require a passenger to sit in it at all times, as is the case for the tech company's vehicle.
Guterman isn't involved in the production of the cars that patrol the border, and hasn't worked on the models that are currently deployed since 2008, he said.
This story was generated during a trip paid for by American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
This story was provided by TechNewsDaily,nike blazer mid, a sister site to LiveScience. Email Douglas Main or follow him @Douglas_Main. Follow us @livescience, Facebookor Google+.
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Amazon cuts price of largest Kindle Fire tablet
By Alistair Barr
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc said on Wednesday it cut the price of its largest Kindle Fire tablet, part of an effort by the world's biggest Internet retailer to get the device into the hands of as many consumers as possible.
The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 inch Wi-Fi tablet will now be priced at $269 in the United States, down from $299. The 4G wireless version now starts at $399, compared with $499 before, Amazon said.
Amazon is launching its larger tablet in the UK,nike blazers, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Japan. Dave Limp, president of Amazon's Kindle business, said the company has increased production of the devices in conjunction with the overseas launch. The cost of making the tablets has fallen with greater economies of scale,scarpe nike blazer, letting Amazon cut prices, he said.
"Whenever we are able to create cost efficiencies like this, we want to pass the savings along to our customers," Limp said in a statement.
Amazon launched its first Kindle Fire tablet in 2011 to compete with Apple Inc's dominant iPad and other tablets from companies such as Samsung that run on Google Inc's Android operating system.
Amazon sells its devices at cost, undercutting Apple prices. Amazon aims to make money when customers use its tablets to buy physical and digital products from the company, such as movies, music, games and apps.
However, Amazon's strategy rests on selling a lot of tablets. This may not be working well yet for its larger 8.9 inch Kindle Fires, according to recent research by Chad Bartley, an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities.
Amazon does not disclose device sales numbers. But Bartley said in a research report last month that demand for the larger Kindle Fire tablet was weak, citing checks with contacts in the device supply chain.
Amazon's price reductions on Wednesday may be designed to try to maintain sales during the early part of the year, which is typically a slow period for retail sales, said Colin Gillis, an analyst at BGC Partners.
Amazon may also be cutting prices before it comes out with new versions of its tablets later this year, when sales normally increase during the back-to-school shopping season and the holidays, Gillis added.
An Amazon spokeswoman said the price cuts were not driven by weak demand, but rather the cost benefits of increasing production for overseas sales,nike sb blazer low.
(Editing by Andrea Ricci)
Related Articles：14th-Century Black Death Graveyard Found in London
A railway construction project in central London has turned up the skeletons of 13 victims of the Black Death.
The find is a reminder of how much history sits beneath urbanized areas in the United Kingdom. In February,nike blazer rosse, archaeologists in Leicester announced that they'd discovered the bones of the lost monarch Richard III underneath a city council parking lot. And this week, archaeologists in Edinburgh uncovered the grave of a medieval knight on the construction site of a new building.
The commuter railway at the center of the current discovery, called Crossrail, is under construction in southeast England. Archaeologists are consulting on the project to ensure that no historical artifacts or remains are destroyed. In a shaft near Charterhouse Square in the historic district of Farringdon, the researchers found two neat rows of 13 skeletons buried about 8 feet (2.5 meters) below the road.
Black Death cemetery
The depth of the burials combined with pottery dating to 1350 found in the graves suggest that the skeletons belonged to plague victims who died around 1349. There are historical records referring to a Black Death burial ground that opened in 1348 in the area, where as many as 50,000 people may have been hastily interred in less than three years. The burial ground saw continued use until the 1500s, according to CrossRail. [See Photos of the 'Black Death' Gravesites]
The Black Death, or bubonic plague, was caused by a bacterium (Yersinia pestis) spread by fleas on rats. It peaked in Europe in the mid-1300s, but killed an estimated 75 million people over the course of the 14th century. Victims sported blackened, swollen lymph nodes called buboes, contracted intense fevers and vomited blood, usually dying within days of contracting the disease.
No Man's Land
In the 16th century, historian John Snow wrote of a Black Death burial ground in Farringdon dubbed "No Man's Land." Despite the development of the area, no trace of this graveyard had been found until the Crossrail project began. Charterhouse Square, where the skeletons were found, was a prime location for where the cemetery might be, as it hadn't been developed in the past 700 years,nike blazer high.
In 1998, archaeologists searching for a historic chapel found a single skeleton in the square. And two years ago, Crossrail archaeologists found previously-disturbed human bones. Both of those discoveries were tantalizing clues that a larger graveyard might be nearby.
Archaeologists have taken the excavated bones to the Museum of London Archaeology for testing, including DNA tests to identify any remaining Plague bacteria and radiocarbon testing on the bones to establish firm burial dates. The scientists say there is no health risk from the Plague bacteria, as it can't survive in the soil for long (rather they are looking for the dead bacteria's DNA).
The site will be used as a shaft to support tunneling works once the skeletons are removed and analyzed. Crossrail has also turned up skeletons near Bethlem Royal Hospital, better known as Bedlam for its appalling conditions in the Middle Ages. Those skeletons (300 of them) dated back to the 1500s through 1700s.
Follow Stephanie Pappas @sipappas. Follow LiveScience on Twitter @livescience, Facebookor Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.
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Copyright 2013 LiveScience,nike blazer vintage prezzo, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Related Articles：
AP Interview- Top US general confident in Afghans_
KABUL (AP) The top commander of U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan believes government security forces have improved faster than expected and will be ready to take the lead in the 11-year-old war against the Taliban when foreign combat forces take a back seat this spring.
Marine Gen. John Allen told The Associated Press that the main job over the next two years for the International Assistance Force as the NATO-led troops in Afghanistan are called will be to advise, train and build the capabilities needed for Afghan forces to go it completely alone.
They will face their first test when the fighting season gets under way in the late spring and summer. During the harsh Afghan winter, snow often blocks roads and fighting dies down.
The Afghan security forces, which have nearly reached their full strength of 352,000, still need much work to become an effective and self-sufficient fighting machine, but a vast improvement in their abilities was behind a decision to accelerate the timetable for putting them in the lead nationwide, Allen said.
President Barack Obama announced earlier this month that the Afghans would take over this spring instead of late summer a decision that could allow the speedier withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan.
The Afghan troops "are further along in their capabilities than we had anticipated, and I'm very comfortable frankly with their being in the lead in 2013," Allen said in a recent interview ahead of his departure. "This is an acknowledgment of their capabilities."
The general, who has led the military coalition for 19 months, is leaving Afghanistan on Feb. 10. The White House said it would nominate him to become the head of NATO forces in Europe after he was exonerated in a Pentagon investigation of questionable email exchanges with a Florida woman linked to the sex scandal that led his predecessor, David Petraeus, to resign as CIA director.
Allen, 59, of Warrenton, Virginia, said the investigation was troublesome, but he was confident that the process would clear him.
"I'll make no secret that it was on my mind, but my number one goals were the interests of the troops, the coherence of the campaign and doing all I could obviously to further our combined interests here," he said. "But it does weigh on you, and while it weighed on me it really weighed on my family, it really weighed on my family, and the findings ultimately were announced and I continue to move on."
If confirmed by the Senate, Allen would succeed Navy Adm. James Stavridis in the NATO post.
He would not comment on how quickly the remaining 66,000 U.S. troops would return home, or how many American soldiers will remain after the end of 2014, when all foreign combat troops are to leave Afghanistan saying Obama will make that decision.
"We are advising now, and for the foreseeable future and until the latter part of the spring we will be advising at the battalion level," Allen said, adding that the advising would progressively move up to larger formations until the work was completed. "This is in conjunction with the drawdown of our own forces and in a very measured way, in a way that the Afghans are familiar with and we are able to predict we will eventually move up to the corps level."
Afghan troops already have taken the lead for security on territory holding 85 percent of the country's population of around 30 million.
"In many respects they are already leading operations, 80 percent of operations across the country are being led by the Afghans right now. So I am confident that in this coming fighting season, where technically they will be in the lead across the country operationally, that they are ready and we will be in support of them," Allen said. "I think they are going to do fine this year and we will stay with them. There is much work still to be done."
The Afghan lead in fighting has already become apparent in the casualty figures.
U.S. troop deaths declined overall from 404 in 2011 to 295 in 2012. More than 2,000 U.S. troops and nearly 1,100 coalition troops have died here since the U.S. invasion in late 2001. Last year many of those deaths were at the hands of the Afghan forces they were partnered with or training,nike sb blazer. Deaths from so-called insider attacks Afghan police and troops killing foreign allies surged to 61 in 45 attacks last year compared with 2011, when 35 coalition troops were killed in 21 attacks
By comparison, more than 1,200 Afghan soldiers died in 2012 compared to more than 550 in 2011, according to data compiled by the Washington-based Brookings Institution.
Many are concerned that the Afghan forces will not be up to the task of securing the country after 2014. The size of the force will also have to be reduced after coalition forces leave because much of the funding for it will have dried up. At its summit in Chicago last May,nike blazer mid, NATO agreed on a fundraising goal to underwrite a force of about 230,000 that would cost about $4.1 billion annually.
When Allen took over from Petraeus in July 2011, the war was in full force. But the tide was turning, and public opinion in the United States and in coalition countries was tiring of a lengthy conflict that was widely seen as propping up a corrupt and thankless Afghan government.
In mid-2010, the United States had more than 100,000 troops and coalition forces totaled close to 150,000. The U.S. was spending billions of dollars on a costly counterinsurgency strategy that had all the hallmarks of nation-building. The Afghan army and police were rapidly growing thanks to a mostly U.S.-funded program that cost more than $20 billion, but their combat abilities did not match their numbers.
"When I got here we had virtually no battalion level operations under way, and the brigade level operation was only an ambition. Today, every day, there are brigade and corps level operations going on across Afghanistan," Allen said. He said those operations were being planned, carried out and often supplied by the Afghans, with foreign troops there in a mostly advisory role.
The improvements allowed Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai to announce the spring handover date earlier this month.
Allen said the decision was made after the withdrawal last September of the 33,000 U.S. troops who were part of a surge announced by Obama in December 2009. In early 2012, Allen said he was grappling with the question of how many combat brigades he could carve out of the 68,000 troops that would remain in Afghanistan after the withdrawal, but the drawdown actually provided an opportunity to thrust Afghan forces in the lead,nike air force ones.
"The term that I used was they were better than we thought, more importantly they were better than they thought," he said.
But the Afghan forces still need work and to build up key capabilities, including their ability to sustain themselves on the battlefield from medical evacuations to fuel and ammunition and to carry out combined arms operations.
"The building of their capabilities will take time," Allen said, adding that he was "comfortable that our plan to do both these things is on track over time."
The Afghan military will have to make do without requested weapons such as heavy tanks and F-16 fighter jets, but Allen said the equipment that they will receive should give them considerable firepower. They include converting MI-17 transport helicopters to gunships and providing Afghan combat units at all levels with mortars.
He said the Afghans had to get used to the idea that they will not have the same air support in the future as they have today. Currently the coalition can provide air support to troops on the ground anywhere in Afghanistan within 12 minutes of a request.
"They have to get used to their own resources being the firepower necessary," he said.
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