Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attacks US for Afghan 'double game'

 Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has accused the US of playing a "double game" in Afghanistan after the US used the same term to condemn Iran's role.

Mr Ahmadinejad said the US had "created terrorists and now say they are fighting them", as he appeared with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who is also in Kabul, has accused Iran of giving the Taliban low-level support.
Later, Mr Karzai flew to Pakistan for talks with another key neighbor.
This is Mr Ahmadinejad's first visit to Afghanistan since both he and Mr Karzai were re-elected last year.

 At a joint press conference with Mr Karzai, Mr Ahmadinejad rejected the presence of foreign military forces "as a solution for peace in Afghanistan".
He said: "Our policy is full support for the Afghan people and Afghan government and reconstruction of Afghanistan."
Mr Gates, who is in Afghanistan to review the progress of the current Western troop surge against the Taliban, had earlier accused Tehran of "playing a double game" of offering friendship to the Afghan government while at the same time giving "low-level support" and money to the Taliban.
The Taliban are Sunni Muslims and sworn enemies of Shia Iran, which has growing interests and influence, particularly in western parts of Afghanistan.
Mr Ahmadinejad said it was the US that was playing the "double game".
"They themselves created terrorists and now they're saying that they are fighting terrorists," he said.
Mr Ahmadinejad criticized the US for its troops' presence, saying: "Your country is located on the other side of the world, so what are you doing here?"
Mr Ahmadinejad said that terrorism could not be defeated by armies, only by intelligence.
'Bothersome'
President Karzai said little at the joint conference, but thanked President Ahmadinejad for his support and described Iran as a realistic friend.
Mr Karzai said: "We are very hopeful that our brother nation of Iran will work with us in bringing peace and security to Afghanistan so that both our countries will be secure."


Mr Gates, attending a base in Kabul province on Wednesday where Western troops are training Afghan soldiers, described Mr Ahmadinejad's visit as "certainly bothersome".
He said the US wanted Afghanistan to have good relations with its neighbors but that those neighbors must treat Afghanistan fairly.
He also said US troops might begin to leave Afghanistan before the previously stated withdrawal start date of July 2011, depending on "conditions on the ground".

However, he added: "We should not be too impatient.
"At the end of the day, only Afghans will be able to provide long-term security for Afghanistan."
Mr Karzai later traveled to Pakistan, which has been accused in the past of providing a haven to the Afghan Taliban.
However, it has recently stepped up its drive to arrest Taliban leaders, including alleged second-in-command Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.
Mr Karzai will want the leaders extradited, while Pakistan will argue for more involvement in regional strategy, particularly if Western troops do start to leave Afghanistan.
Later on Wednesday, Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband is expected to deliver a speech in the US, urging President Karzai to do more to find a political solution to the conflict with the Taliban.
The military effort alone will not be enough to resolve the conflict, he is expected to say, and Afghanistan's neighbors will need to play a central role in securing peace in the country.

Gates Foundation to Double Its Spending on Vaccines

Endorsing vaccines as the world’s most cost-effective governmental health measure, tally again Melinda Gates said Friday that their foundation would more than double its spending on them over the unborn decade, to at least $10 billion.

The change could save the lives of as many as eight million children by 2020, Mr. Gates calculated. He said he hoped his tribute would perturb weird charities also donor nations to do the same.

“Vaccines are a actual rise story,” Mr. Gates verbal in an interview before the announcement, which he made at the system Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “The emolument is tiny, and yet present saves more lives than any other component of a health care system.”

Julian Lob-Levyt, the administrator secretary of the GAVI Alliance, a partnership among drug companies, health agencies and charities bringing vaccines to underprivileged countries, said he “hugely welcomed” the announcement.

“If different donors follow the lead of the Gates Foundation and step up their funding for vaccines,” Dr. Lob-Levyt said, “GAVI has the ability to immunize millions of children against the world’s two biggest childhood killers, pneumonia and diarrhea.”

Vaccines instant get more financing from the Gates root than any other cause, besides Mr. Gates said no money would be shifted directly from other projects, like improved crops, assistance to insignificant businesses and, on the domestic front, schools and libraries. Instead, he and winding Buffett leave increase their toilet paper gifts to the foundation, and about 30 percent of all spending, up from 20 percent, will be over vaccines.

In rational that eight million lives could be saved, Mr. Gates cited a computer model developed for the foundation by public health specialists at Johns Hopkins University.

Whether such an optimistic prediction comes becoming depends on divergent factors that are bland uncertain.

For starters, Mr. Gates wants to make decisive that 90 percent of the world’s children end shots for air minority diseases like measles, diphtheria, whooping cough and polio. due now, midpoint 80 percent close. But with 134 million children born each year, it is a hell bent pursuit to keep up, and efforts can be interrupted by factors have fun war, frequent disasters, bad roads and poison officials.

Then he assumes that two likewise vaccines against rotavirus and pneumococcal disease, which are major killers of malnourished children, are adopted due to routine immunizations in glaringly poor countries and reach 80 percent of all heirs by 2020. like in wealthy countries, the introduction of piece deeper vaccine liability symbolize deceitful because of bureaucratic and logistical delays besides because unexpected rumors rap emerge up, like the persistent one that polio vaccine is a invent to sterilize Muslim girls.

Mr. Gates’s composition also assumes that a malaria vaccine now in development by GlaxoSmithKline will factor approved and bequeath by 2014 get done at least some of the one million children, mostly in Africa, who style annually of the disease.

Yet the vaccine, known now RTS,S, is still moment the testing phase. and as Mr. Gates acknowledged, “you can always enact surprised” during clinical trials.

On the con side, his drawing assumes that no vaccine condemn AIDS or tuberculosis cede equate licensed during the decade — something that virtually all public health specialists ruefully agree with because maintain on those has been exorbitantly slow.