KABUL (AFP) –
On walls around Afghanistan’s scrappy capital, where million-dollar mansions line rutted roads, anonymous graffiti artists are daubing their disapproving take on the devastating cost of war.

Styled after the anonymous British vandal-artist Banksy, Kabul’s streetwise stealth stencillers go by the moniker “Talibanksy”, a reference to the Islamist Taliban who have been waging war in Afghanistan for almost nine years.

The street art forms a commentary on the cost in blood and treasure of the war, which has brought 126,000 US and NATO troops to Afghanistan and kills about 2,000 Afghan civilians a year, according to the UN.

Black, spray-painted silhouettes of soldiers and dollar signs, poppies, helicopters and tanks, and children running hand-in-hand began appearing in downtown Kabul a few months ago.

Some show the shadow of a helmeted soldier holding an assault rifle, inside a red circle with a line through it. Others have a silhouetted gun-toting trooper and a dollar sign joined by an equals symbol.

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HONOLULU – Federal prosecutors on Tuesday accused a former B-2 stealth bomber engineer of betraying the U.S. by selling military secrets to China for greed and money, but his defense countered that the information he passed on was “obvious” and “well-known.”

Noshir Gowadia, 66, disclosed “vulnerabilities of our nation’s most important strategic assets” and helped design a stealth cruise missile for China that would evade infrared sensors and defeat U.S. heat-seeking missiles, assistant U.S. Attorney Ken Sorenson told jurors during opening statements.

The India-born naturalized U.S. citizen did so — and also marketed his services to Switzerland, Israel and Germany — in part because he desperately needed more money to pay the mortgage on his mansion-like home overlooking the Maui’s North Shore, Sorenson said.

Gowadia has pleaded not guilty to 17 counts, including conspiracy, violating the arms export control act and money laundering. He has been held in federal detention since his October 2005 arrest because a judge decided he was a flight risk.

Gowadia’s trial date has been repeatedly delayed over the past 4 1/2 years in part because lawyers on both sides needed time to review large volumes of classified evidence.

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HONOLULU – A former B-2 stealth bomber engineer from Maui who is accused of selling military secrets to China is due to face trial in federal court this week.

Noshir Gowadia has been indicted on 21 counts including conspiracy, violating the arms export control act and money laundering. The indictment accuses Gowadia of helping China design a cruise missile with stealth capabilities.

The trial comes some 4 1/2 years after Gowadia’s arrest and more than three years after his trial was originally scheduled to be held. The 66-year-old Haiku resident has been in federal detention since his October 2005 arrest because a judge ruled he was a flight risk.

Jury selection is scheduled to begin Tuesday at U.S. District Court in Honolulu, and opening statements are expected the following day. The trial is expected to last at least two months.

Ashton Gowadia said his father is looking forward to defending himself.

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TOKYO – The U.S.-made RQ-4 Global Hawk spy plane looks like an upside-down double-decker bus with wings, flies slowly, offers zero leg room — and is one of the most coveted pieces of military technology in the world.

Impressed by its successes in combat for the U.S. Air Force in Iraq and Afghanistan, countries around the globe are lining up to buy the unmanned “drone” aircraft to bolster their own intelligence abilities, despite concerns that exports might send sensitive technology into the wrong hands.

Some experts said the export of the planes could also heighten tensions with countries like China, Iran and Russia — who could be the subject of closer observation and perceive the drones’ operations as offensive threats.

Undaunted by such concerns, Northrop Grumman, the producer of the Global Hawk, just wrapped up an Asian tour in Tokyo with a full-sized mock-up and says that along with Japan other countries considering adding the plane to their air forces are South Korea, Australia, Singapore, Britain, Spain, New Zealand and Canada.

Germany has already contracted for a variant called the EuroHawk to be delivered this year.

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