International child abductions up sharply: US official

A policewoman
© AFP/POOL/File Pascal Rossignol

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - International child abductions are "sharply on the rise," the US State Department's official in charge of children's issues said Wednesday as Americans marked Missing Children's Day.

Family members abduct more than 200,000 children every year in the United States, and last year nearly 2,000 children were kidnapped by one of their parents and illegally brought into or taken out of the United States, Susan Jacobs, the State Department special adviser on children's issues said.

In US fiscal year 2006, 642 children were abducted from the United States by one of their parents, a report released two years ago by the State Department found.

WikiLeaks: U.S. Military Contractors In Afghanistan Hired Child Prostitutes

Jason Linkins
Huffington Post

Anything interesting to be had at the intersection of the WikiLeaks cache of diplomatic cables and those military contractors that cart off many millions of taxpayer dollars to facilitate their profit-seeking misadventures in the world's zones of forever war? Glad you asked! Here on these pages is the latest news of one of my favorite private military contractors, courtesy of David Isenberg:

Now, courtesy of Wikileaks, DynCorp can look forward to a new round of ridicule and denunciations.

As first reported by the British Guardian newspaper, on June 24, 2009 the U.S. embassy in Afghanistan sent a cable to Washington, under the signature of Karl Eikenberry, U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, regarding a meeting between Assistant Chief of Mission Joseph Mussomeli and Afghan Minister of Interior Hanif Atmar. Among the issues discussed was what diplomats delicately called the "Kunduz DynCorp Problem." Kunduz is a northern province of Afghanistan.

The problem was this:

1. In a May 2009 meeting interior minister Hanif Atmar expresses deep concerns that if lives could be in danger if news leaked that foreign police trainers working for US commercial contractor DynCorp hired "dancing boys" to perform for them.

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