NEW YORK: General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Chief of staff of the Pakistan Army, has been named in a list of 100 most influential people in the world by Time, a leading American magazine.The list also includes international figures like US President Barack Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Markel and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Among women leaders are: American First Lady Michelle Obama; US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; Saudi Arabia's first woman minister Nora al-Faiz; Republican Party's vice presidential candidate in 2008, Sarah Palin; and an Afghan woman activist Surraya Pakzad.The only military leader figuring in the list is Gen. David Mckiernan, commander of the US-led coalition troops in Afghanistan. The annual Time 100 list was published in the latest issue of Time magazine which hit the news-stands on Friday.Also on the list are number professionals in various fields, including the Indian musician, A. R. Rahman. Gen. Kayani, 57, who is placed at No. 19 on the list-- a step ahead of President Obama -- is Admiral Mike Mullen, the top military office' of the United State.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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