Rose Parade in California

The Tournament of Roses queen and court wave from their float in 125th Rose Parade. Clockwise from lower left are Princess Jamie Kwong, Princess Sarah Hansen, Princess Katie Lipp, Rose Queen Ana Acosta, Princess Elyssia Widjaja, Princess Elizabeth Woolf, and Princess Kayla Johnson-Granberry. – Photo by AP

Rose Parade

2nd January' 2014

Originally started on January 1, 1890, the Rose Parade, traditionally the Tournament of Roses Parade, is part of "America’s New Year Celebration" held in Pasadena, California each year.
The 2014 Rose Parade, themed "Dreams Come True", features florally decorated floats, marching bands, and equestrian units on a five and a half mile parade route through Pasadena.

Taliban deny sending girl to attack Afghan police

 
08/01/2014

Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahamdi denied any involvement in the alleged plot, which he dismissed as government propaganda. — File Photo

KABUL: The Taliban denied Tuesday that they dispatched a 10-year-old girl to carry out a suicide attack against Afghan police, a day after the girl said her brother wrapped her in an explosives-packed vest but that she refused to blow herself up at a checkpoint in Helmand province.
Border police in the southern Afghan province arrested the girl's father, Abdul Ghfar, and were searching for the brother, a police commander said.
The girl, who was detained Monday and identified herself only as Spozhmai, said her brother is a Taliban commander.
Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahamdi denied any involvement in the alleged plot, which he dismissed as government propaganda.
''We never do this, especially with girls,'' he said.
Spozhmai spoke to journalists Monday after Afghanistan's Interior Ministry announced her detention and said she was just 10 years old.
Addressing television cameras, she said her brother, named Zahir, told her to approach a checkpoint and ask the deputy commander for a ride with him to neighboring Kunar province.
''I agreed, then he attached the vest on my body and told me to spend the night here and leave in the morning,'' she said.
But after she and her brother spent the night somewhere, she said she had second thoughts. ''I said I won't go, then he took off the vest and tried to convince me that they (police) will die and I will remain alive,'' Spozhmai said.
She said her brother then fled with the vest.
Police said they believed her account.
''The guy named Zahir had the suicide vest and escaped, but she was still there and when our commander of the battalion heard her voice, they surrounded the area and brought this girl to their base, and we all heard her story on how she was forced into this action,'' Col Hamidullah Sediqi said.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the Taliban, saying that ''using a child as a suicide bomber is un-Islamic and goes against Afghan culture and beliefs.''
Although the Taliban deny it, human rights groups say the insurgent group has occasionally dispatched children for suicide bombings. But girls have been used only rarely, according to Heather Barr, Afghanistan senior researcher at Human Rights Watch.
''There have been very few documented cases of girls being involved in suicide bomb attacks,'' Barr said.
According to Human Rights Watch, an 8-year-old girl was killed in central Uruzgan province in 2011 when a bag of explosives the Taliban instructed her to carry to a police checkpoint detonated.

Afghan police hunt brother of 'suicide girl' aged 10

07/01/2014

Sphozmai, 10, who was about to be used by the Taliban as a suicide bomber, sits at a police office in Helmand province

KANDAHAR: Afghan police on Tuesday searched for a Taliban commander who allegedly forced his 10-year-old sister to wear an explosives-packed vest on an aborted suicide attack in the southern province of Helmand.

The interior ministry said the girl, named as Spozhmai, was detained before she detonated the vest near a police checkpoint in the district of Khanashin.

Speaking on Monday at a press conference, the girl said she had been ordered by her brother to undertake the suicide mission but had decided not to carry it through.

“We have appointed a team to investigate this,” Omar Zwak, the Helmand governor's spokesman, told AFP. “They will try to find the brother and father of the girl, and they will visit the police post and talk to the police who found and detained the girl.

We are trying to find out what exactly has happened.”

Amid several conflicting accounts of the incident, some officials said she had been wearing the vest when she was arrested, while others said no vest had been recovered.

The Tolo TV news channel said the girl was unable to operate the button to detonate the explosives.

She told reporters in Lashkar Gah, capital of Helmand, that her brother had coerced her to put on the vest and walk to the police post after an argument with her stepmother.

The girl said she had dumped the vest in a river before being arrested. She was in police custody on Tuesday.