international

KANDAHAR AIR FIELD, Afghanistan -- If there is a gauge by which the toll of the Taliban can be measured, it is here at the military hospital tucked just off the runway at the Kandahar Air Field.

The Role 3 medical facility, a collection of tents and aging, low-lying buildings, treated more patients in July than any other unit of its kind in Afghanistan or Iraq.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Maryke Bruin and Jelle Groot, tourists from Holland, were taking a few holiday snaps of the Vancouver 2010 Countdown Clock on Thursday, and figuring the timepiece on one side of the Vancouver Art Gallery looked pretty good.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Canadian Forces follow rules designed to prevent the killing of innocent civilians such as the bombardment that took the lives of nearly a hundred Afghans last week, Defense Minister Peter MacKay has said.

VANCOUVER, British Col. -- The Canadian government is urging the Vancouver Winter Olympics organizing committee to put the Afghanistan war at the heart of the symbolically laden torch relay, saying that the first torch carriers could be veterans of the seven-year-old conflict.

BEIJING -- Even as they bade an emotional farewell to the Olympics, China's proud citizens were gearing up for bigger battles to come: environmental challenges, economic inequities and social reforms.

BEIJING -- In a tacit criticism of China's intolerance of dissent, the International Olympic Committee says the Chinese government should have allowed its official protest zones to be "genuinely used" by demonstrators, rather than letting them sit empty.

SAN FRANCISCO -- By day, Bruce Baikie works at Sun Microsystems as an engineer specializing in telecommunications.

On nights and weekends, however, he has a side job -- a small company that he started called Green Wi-Fi, where all the employees, including himself, are volunteers.

TBILISI, Georgia -- With his country trounced and still occupied by Russian troops, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili's own political future might soon be called into question, opposition figures say.

MONTREAL -- Jackie Kirk's latest humanitarian world tour was launched in late July, when she went to Aceh, Indonesia, to advise teachers working with boys and girls still displaced by the 2004 tsunami.

Her upcoming stops were supposed to be Syria and Jordan, where the Canadian education expert would help find the best methods to teach Iraqi children seeking refuge from war.

When it unleashed its troops in Georgia, Russian leader Vladimir Putin was doing more than delivering a beating to a cocky former dependency. He was delivering a message: Russia is back.