30 April, 2008 (05:35) | Daily Roundup | By: Jeff Kouba
A brief world news roundup for 30 April 2008.
United States & the Americas
- NY Sun – Paul Wolfowitz, in his first public remarks on the Iraq war in years, said the American government was “pretty much clueless on counterinsurgency” in the first year of the war.
- McClatchy – A U.S. crackdown on domestic methamphetamine labs has created opportunities for Mexican drug cartels and their “superlabs” to fill the void.
- CNN – Colombian police killed a top drug lord on Tuesday for whose capture the U.S. government offered a $5 million reward, Colombia’s defense minister said.
- Javno – A major power outage hit Venezuela’s capital and eight states on Tuesday, and emergency officials called for calm as the blackout caused traffic chaos. Caracas’ metro train system ground to a halt, traffic lights went out and mobile phone services collapsed across the country.
- Global Voices – Rising food prices are a hot topic with bloggers the world over – and the Caribbean is no different. The “music” coming out of the regional blogosphere is anything but lovely – in fact, it’s downright discordant – as the Caribbean struggles to find solutions to a crisis that is hitting regional territories hard.
Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia
- EurasiaNet – Azerbaijan’s refusal to release Russian nuclear power plant equipment headed to Iran has put the country at the center of a diplomatic firestorm. Analysts are divided over the source of the trouble. A former Azerbaijani presidential aide believes that the United States asked Baku to halt the shipment, while another expert contends that Russia, ambivalent about Iran’s nuclear program, is deliberately delaying handing over the necessary documentation to release the shipment.
- Javno – Russia could soon finish its 15-year-old bid to join the World Trade Organization and, “at the appropriate time,” the White House will ask Congress to approve permanent normal trade relations, a senior U.S. diplomat said on Tuesday.
- Freedom House – Global press freedom underwent a clear decline in 2007, with journalists struggling to work in increasingly hostile environments in almost every region in the world, according to a new survey released by Freedom House. Central and Eastern Europe/ Former Soviet Union: This region showed the largest region-wide setback, with Russia, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan, and several Central European countries, among others, showing declines. Only 18 percent of the region’s citizens live in environments with Free media.
- RIA Novosti – Russia will reduce the risks from the proposed deployment of a U.S. missile shield in Central Europe, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday after a meeting with his counterpart from Luxembourg.
- NY Times – There are 57 known but unopened mass graves in the republic of Chechnya, where construction has taken over in what used to be a war zone.
- Georgian Times – Georgian top officials have denied deploying extra troops in the Abkhaz conflict zone and condemned Russia’s decision to increase level of their peacekeeping forces there.
- Moscow Times – Residents of Tajikistan, Central Asia’s poorest nation, were asked Tuesday to give up a month’s salary to help build a desperately needed hydroelectric dam.
Middle East
- Asharq Al Awsat – Shiite militants ambushed a U.S. patrol in Baghdad’s embattled Sadr City district on Tuesday and more than two dozen people were killed in the fighting, a U.S. military spokesman and Iraqi officials said. Six American soldiers were wounded.
- Voices of Iraq – Head of Basra operations room revealed on Monday that 324 wanted and suspects were arrested in Basra during the last three weeks. He also mentioned that hundreds of roadside bombs, in addition to a large quantity of guns and ammunitions were seized throughout different places in the province.
- MEMRI – Sadrist sources in Iraq have confirmed that senior Mahdi Army official in Baghdad Abu Dar’ returned to Baghdad from Iran when the battles between Iraqi security forces and the Mahdi Army began in Sadr City. According to the sources, Abu Dar’, commander of the “Death Squads,” is known for killing his enemies with a drill, is now head of the Mahdi Army fighters and is organizing the operations to stop the attack on the city.
- Press TV – A roadside bomb has claimed the life of a senior governmental official in north of Baghdad, an Iraqi spokesman says. According to the spokesman, the roadside bomb hit the 64-year-old Dhia Jodi Jaber who was the director general at the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs as he left his home in his car on Tuesday.
- Al Arabiya – Israel expressed regret on Tuesday over the killing of four Palestinian children and their mother during military operations in the Gaza Strip, as Palestinian militant groups were in Cairo for Egyptian-mediated talks on a possible truce with Israel.
- Haaretz – Nine Qassam rockets and six mortar shells fired from Gaza slammed into the western Negev Tuesday morning causing damage at three different locations, but no injuries.
- IHT – Turkish troops fought with Kurdish rebels Tuesday in clashes in the country’s southeast that killed two guerillas and one soldier, a local official said.
- Ya Libnan – In the following interview which was conducted by Manuela Paraipan, Pierre A. Maroun, Secretary-General of the American-Lebanese Coordination Council spoke openly about things that some dare not say publicly. He was very critical of Hezbollah. Hezbollah must be confronted before it completes its coup d’tat against the Lebanese state.
- BBC – Reports from Yemen say at least eight people have been killed in overnight clashes between Shia rebels and pro-government forces.
Iran
- Press TV – Head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization (AEOI) says Russia has promised to launch the Bushehr Power Plant on schedule.
- Jamestown Foundation – Nearly four months after a pricing dispute shut down Turkmen natural gas deliveries to Iran, the pipelines are again open. The bad news for Tehran is that the new price per thousand cubic meters (tcm) is nearly twice what it paid Ashgabat in 2007.
- Christoph Bertram. Center for European Reform – For almost six years now the West has tried – and failed – to stop the Iranian nuclear programme. Instead, nuclear enrichment has become a matter of Iranian national pride and sovereignty. The programme has been intensified, rather than slowed, in response to international pressure. In the end, Iran may become both a nuclear weapons state and an avowedly anti-Western one, in a region of immense importance to the West’s security and prosperity. To get out of this dangerous strategic cul-de-sac, western leaders must stand back and rethink. Here are five steps, from the modest to the most ambitious, that they should consider urgently.
Southeast Asia
- Bloomberg – At least 18 Afghans were killed in a suicide attack in eastern Afghanistan near the border with Pakistan. In the south of the country, U.S. Marines entered the center of the illicit opium trade. Seven civilians and 11 police officers were killed in the attack in Khogyani district of Nangarhar province, Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said. Thirty-six others, including seven police, were injured.
- Telegraph – US Marines supported by British forces have launched a major operation in southern Helmand aimed at clearing hundreds of Taliban fighters from entrenched positions near the town of Garmser.
- IRIN – Hundreds of people have abandoned their homes and moved to urban areas in different parts of Afghanistan, and some have reportedly migrated to neighbouring Pakistan, due to worsening food insecurity, largely resulting from soaring food prices and low cereal supplies, provincial officials said.
- Bakhtar – The Taliban have beheaded a man charged with spying for the government in the province of Paktia. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the Taliban arrested the man four days ago in the district of Zurmat, tried him in an Islamic court and then beheaded him yesterday Monday.
- CSM – In Afghanistan’s troubled south, one mission shows how far the Afghan Army has come -and what remains to be done.
- UK MoD – From providing Harrier air support for ground troops to receiving freight from the UK, RAF personnel deployed to Kandahar Airfield have been undertaking all manner of jobs supporting operations in Afghanistan. In four instalments this week we bring you some of their stories.
- Reuters – About 1,600 Afghan women die in childbirth out of every 100,000 live births. In some of the most remote areas, the death rate is as high as 6,500. In comparison, the average rate in developing countries is 450 and in developed countries it is 9.
- Dawn – After a series of talks, the Pakistan People’s Party and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement finally struck a power-sharing deal and agreed to form a coalition government in Sindh. Apparently because of the fragile political situation, the parties were reluctant on Monday to divulge details of the power-sharing formula.
- Daily Times – Dera Ismail Khan Police said on Tuesday that they had arrested a would-be suicide bomber carrying a vest strapped with 15 kilogrammes of explosives. The 23-year-old suspect, identified as Adnash Gul from Abbotabad, was travelling in a passenger van from North Waziristan to Dera Ismail Khan, a police official said.
- The News – Three policemen were killed and one was injured on Tuesday night in an exchange of fire with outlaws in Sumari Bala area of Kohat.
- RFERL – A contract has been signed for a $100 million highway project in Afghanistan intended to dramatically reduce travel time from Kabul to border areas near Pakistan’s volatile tribal region of North Waziristan. The 100-kilometer stretch of road will link the provinces of Khost and Paktia to Afghanistan’s “ring road,” which will circle the country. The contract was signed on April 26 by the Afghan and U.S. governments.
- Dawn – A massive explosive device placed in a bus station was diffused on Monday minutes before it exploded, authorities confirmed three days after a bus bomb left 26 dead and scores injured. Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nannayakkara said a ball-bearing packed time-bomb capable of causing mass scale destruction was defused in northwestern Galgamuwa100 kilometres north of Colombo.
- BBC – Four rebels of an Islamic radical group from India’s troubled north-eastern state of Manipur have been arrested, a defence spokesman said.
- UPI – India said an estimated 1,200 militants, including foreigners, are active in disputed Jammu & Kashmir state.
Far East & Pacific
- Kyodo News – A group representing foreign journalists in China said Wednesday that overseas reporters are operating in an increasingly hostile environment ahead of the Beijing Olympics, including death threats and intimidation of staff. A statement from the Foreign Correspondents Club of China, timed to coincide with the 100-day countdown to the start of the Beijing Games, said at least 10 foreign journalists have received death threats in recent weeks after state-run media launched a campaign against alleged Western media bias in reporting of riots and antigovernment protests in Tibet.
- New Zealand Herald – Prime Minister Helen Clark has condemned this morning’s attack on the ‘spy base’ at Waihopai as “senseless”. Three protesters have been arrested after invading the base and puncturing one of the large white domes that house two satellite dishes. Opponents of the Waihopai base argue that it is primarily feeding information to the United States in support of wars New Zealanders do not support.
- news.com.au – A group of rebels wanted over attempts to assassinate East Timor’s leaders have surrendered to authorities in Dili. The rebels, including leader Gastao Salsinha, travelled from the country’s mountainous interior under heavy guard.
- The Interpreter – The chorus of criticism against speedy elections as a way out of the impasse generated by Fiji’s December 2006 coup is revealing.
- The Australian – Griffith University’s Muslim scholar Mohamad Abdalla has vowed not to “chase” any more Saudi government funds and admitted that accepting money from Riyadh was not a good look for his Queensland institution. Dr Abdalla, who helped Griffith University obtain a $100,000 Saudi embassy grant for his Islamic Research Unit, yesterday also praised a controversial Islamic group, which has a Brisbane arm, but said he was not its leader.
- IPS – Recent overseas trips by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd are said to have projected a more robust image of Australia onto the world and revealed a nascent desire to be regarded as a serious global player.
- AFP – Heavily armed pirates attacked a Thai oil tanker carrying jet fuel in Malaysian waters and a South Korean vessel in the pirate infested Gulf of Aden, a maritime watchdog said Tuesday.
Europe
- Russia Today – Greek Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis and President Vladimir Putin have been stepping on the gas. They’ve signed a deal for the South Stream pipeline in Moscow.
- Canadian Press – British police have arrested three men accused of terrorism offences for allegedly supporting Sri Lanka’s separatist Tamil Tigers guerrillas. A spokeswoman for London Metropolitan Police says the men are accused of procuring equipment and raising funds for the Tamil Tigers.
- BBC – A battalion of 600 British troops will be sent to Kosovo, Defence Secretary Des Browne has announced.
- France24 – Tunisian human rights activists heaped criticism on French president Nicolas Sarkozy after he praised Tunisia’s ‘improving sphere of liberties’.
Africa
- AP – An explosion in southwestern Somalia killed four Ethiopian troops and the subsequent gunfire killed two civilians, witnesses said Tuesday.
- Garowe – Somali insurgents shot and killed two soldiers in a central section of the Horn of Africa country’ s capital Mogadishu, witnesses reported Tuesday.
- AINA – The Washington-DC based human rights group, International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that Islamic extremists shot and killed a Muslim convert to Christianity on April 22 in Baidawa, a town 149 miles away from Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia.
- CBS – Police on Tuesday released nearly 200 people who were arrested last week in a raid on the opposition Movement for Democratic Change headquarters, a lawyer said.
- Amnesty Intl - In a report published Tuesday, Amnesty International revealed the extent of police violence in Mozambique, saying that police are killing and torturing people with near total impunity.
- AFP – A summit of nine west African states convenes Wednesday to consider a proposed 20-year, 5.5 billion euro (8.6 billion dollar) programme to rescue the Niger River from extinction and guarantee the future of 110 million people.
- IAEA – A new variety of wheat, one that is high yielding and resistant to drought, is helping small farming families in Kenya harvest on farmlands once considered too poor to cultivate, to the country’s social and economic benefit.
- CFR – Although the war in Congo officially ended in 2003, two million people have died since. One of the reasons is that the international community’s peacekeeping efforts there have not focused on the local grievances in eastern Congo, especially those over land, that are fueling much of the broader tensions. Until they do, the nation’s security and that of the wider Great Lakes region will remain uncertain.
The Global War
- RIA Novosti – A new Tu-160 Blackjack strategic bomber officially entered service with Russia’ Air Force during a ceremony at an aircraft manufacturing plant in Kazan on the Volga, a RIA Novosti correspondent reported on Tuesday.
- Asia Times – In terms of its energy needs, India has woken to the simple fact that nearly all roads lead to Tehran, both as a source of energy as well as an outlet for other countries’ energy exports to India. This could be the first step in a whole gamut of economic, trade, cultural, political and even security cooperation.
- AFP – Palestinian Hamas militants are serving as the “proxy warriors” for an Iran bent on acquiring an atomic bomb and destroying Israel, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday.
- AKI – Pakistan’s tribal areas are the “command and control centre” for al-Qaeda, according to a report by the European Police Office. Europol says the region is the headquarters of the organisation’s “remaining core leadership” who are planning attacks in the European Union. The annual Terrorism Situation and Trend Report-2008 by Europol is an important awareness tool for decision-makers at the European level.
- Spiegel – Two short films have appeared on the Internet featuring the German Islamist Eric B. in which he calls his “brothers” to join the jihad. The authorities have been hunting him for weeks, fearful that he could be preparing a terrorist attack in Kabul.
- Mudville Gazette – You probably haven’t heard much about the efforts of the Global Islamic Media Front – al Qaeda’s “public relations” team. The group is well known to those who monitor terrorist web sites, but rarely reported on by the mainstream media. But another recent effort from the group won’t likely be reported anywhere in the western media – at least not directly.
Sights & Sounds
Read more »
Sphere: Related Content
Comments: -
29 April, 2008 (00:01) | Daily Roundup | By: Jeff Kouba
A brief world news roundup for 29 April 2008.
United States & the Americas
- CBS – Millions in lucrative Iraq reconstruction contracts were never finished because of excessive delays, poor performance or other factors, including failed projects that are being falsely described by the U.S. government, investigators say.
- SouthCom – Located in Mayport, Fla., and dual-hatted with Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command (COMUSNAVSO), U.S. 4th Fleet re-establishment addresses the increased role of maritime forces in the SOUTHCOM area of focus, and demonstrates U.S. commitment to regional partners. “Reconstituting the Fourth Fleet recognizes the immense importance of maritime security in the southern part of the Western Hemisphere, and sends a strong signal to all the civil and military maritime services in Central and Latin America,” said Roughead.
- Canada.com – The number of people arrested in connection with the riots that took over parts of downtown Montreal on April 21 has now risen to 45.
- Washington Post – When Colombian drug traffickers need to move cocaine out of the country, their first stop is often Venezuela. Short flights connecting remote jungle air strips in northern Colombia with Venezuelan destinations just miles across the border tripled between 2003 and 2006, according to the International Crisis Group.
- Reuters – Deep in Venezuela’s sweltering heartland, a gleaming dairy plant sits idle, a testament to missteps that slow President Hugo Chavez’s drive to make his oil nation self-sufficient in food.
- NY Times – The latest crime craze in Mexico relies on a variety of tricks to make people believe their loved ones are being held for ransom, when, in fact, they are not.
Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia
- Jamestown Foundation – Given such problems, experts both inside and outside Russia are skeptical that the goal of halting Russia’s population decline by 2011 is achievable.
- Javno – Georgia, angry about Moscow’s ties with its breakaway regions, moved on Monday to block talks on Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organisation (WTO), but a Russian official said the obstruction had failed.
- RIA Novosti – The Georgian breakaway republic of Abkhazia is prepared to sign a military agreement with Russia, the Abkhaz foreign minister said Monday.
- RFERL – Just over one year after President Vladimir Putin handed him the Chechen leadership, Ramzan Kadyrov has taken innumerable steps to tighten his grip over the war-battered republic. But the recent standoff between his forces and a rival pro-Kremlin clan underscores the volatile situation in Chechnya as it rebuilds from more than a decade of war against separatist rebels.
- EurasiaNet – After enduring extreme cold this past winter, Central Asia is bracing for what some officials say will be a dry summer. Those predictions, in turn, are stirring fears of prolonged power shortages that seriously impair economic functions.
Middle East
- ABC – In Sadr City, the stronghold of the Mahdi Army militia, U.S. soldiers battled deeper into the district a day after fierce clashes that killed at least 38 suspected militants, the military said. U.S. soldiers killed seven more extremists Monday after coming under small-arms fire in Sadr City, the military said. Four of the suspects were killed in an airstrike and three others by an Abrams tank crew, according to a statement.
- MNF Iraq – Local citizens in the Diyala Province fended off an attack from al Qaeda in Iraq terrorists April 28. Coalition forces received information from local leaders that citizens and local Sons of Iraq fought against an enemy attack and killed 12 AQI terrorists.
- BBC – Iraq’s former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz is due on trial over the deaths of a group of merchants in 1992. Judge Rauf Rasheed Abdel Rahman, an Iraqi Kurd, will preside at the trial. He is the same judge who sentenced Saddam Hussein to death.
- CNN – We’re escorted through Camp Bucca, the United States’ biggest detention facility in Iraq, by Marine Gen. Douglas Stone, who runs the camp. “They’re hard to break,” he says of the suspected al Qaeda inmates. As Stone speaks, some inmates begin pointing up and we’re told to keep moving. We wear protective glasses to cover our eyes. Inmates here throw rocks from the dusty, gravel floor at visitors, sometimes using makeshift slingshots to hurl the pebbles at 100 mph. Several guards have been blinded by the projectiles.
- LA Times – Baghdad says it agrees that Iran has supplied militants with weapons, but the Iraqi government seems to want the U.S. to back off threats of military action and let it pursue diplomatic solutions. In echoing the Pentagon’s latest accusations of Iranian meddling, the Iraqi government has placed itself firmly where it has long said it does not want to be: caught in the middle between Washington and its neighbor to the east.
- Monitor – The killing of an Iraqi civilian by a Ugandan guard two weeks ago may have caused the abduction of two of his colleagues, sources in Iraq informed Daily Monitor on Monday.
- AKI – Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip on Monday launched at least seven home-made Qassam rockets and nine mortar shells at the Western Negev, after Israeli forces attacked a house in the northern town of Beit Hanoun.
- Jerusalem Post – Ten North Koreans were killed in an IAF air strike on a Syria installation September, Bloomberg reported Monday, quoting an NHK report that cited unidentified South Korean intelligence officials. According to the report, the Koreans’ remains were returned to North Korea after being cremated.
- Ya Libnan – Hezbollah fighters are under extremely strict instructions not to talk , but one unidentified fighter did reveal that the group is preparing for a major assault on Israel in coordination with Iran and Syria.
- AINA – The Lebanese political crisis has plunged the powerful Maronite Christian community into a crisis of its own, raising fears that the longer the presidential seat remains vacant, the greater the threat on the community’s political role.
Iran
- McClatchy – One of the most powerful men in Iraq isn’t an Iraqi government official, a militia leader, a senior cleric or a top U.S. military commander or diplomat. He’s an Iranian general, and at times he’s more influential than all of them. Brig. Gen. Qassem Suleimani commands the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force.
- NPR – The government of Iran is closely watching the fate of the Iranian opposition group living at Camp Ashraf in Iraq. Although the government views the group as a threat, some Iranians see the situation differently. An Iranian NGO is trying to help them return to Iran.
- AP – A top Iranian judiciary official warned Monday against the “destructive” cultural and social consequences of importing Barbie dolls and other Western toys.
- AFP – An Iran-led radical front in the Middle East is becoming more powerful and weaknesses in it need to be found, Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz said Monday. “The radical group headed by Iran, including Syria, Hezbollah and the Hamas (are) gaining more and more power each year,” Mofaz told reporters following a meeting in Washington with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
- NCRI – On Saturday, clashes between the State Security Forces (SSF) -mullahs’ suppressive police- and local residents left 10 dead in the western city of Ivan north of the provincial capital of Elam, according to the Iranian Resistance’s sources in Iran.
- MEMRI - On April 16, rioting broke out in Ilam province, southeastern Iran, over fraud in the second round of Majlis elections and the preference for the conservative candidate over the reformist candidate. At least four were killed in the riots.
- Moscow Times – Iran dismissed objections from big Western consumer nations to setting up an OPEC-style gas body when officials from producer countries met in Tehran on Monday to discuss increased cooperation.
Southeast Asia
- Asharq Al-Awsat – U.S. and Afghan troops fought off coordinated insurgent attacks in eastern Afghanistan, leaving a dozen militants dead and a dozen more wounded, the U.S. military said Monday.
- MSNBC – U.S. Marines in helicopters and Humvees flooded into a Taliban-held town in southern Afghanistan’s most violent province early Tuesday in the first major American operation in the region in years.
- CSM – The attempted assassination of President Hamid Karzai Sunday came as the latest sign of a trend worrying Western officials: that the insurgency is spreading from the Taliban stronghold of the south to the central and northern regions of the country.
- CJTFA – Afghan National Army Commandos and Afghan National Police, assisted by Coalition forces, killed insurgents in Galuch Village, Laghman province April 27. Commandos from the 201st Commando Kandak were searching Galuch when, air-support elements identified insurgents on a nearby ridge with a rocket propelled grenade.
- Independent – The heroin flooding Britain’s streets is threatening the lives of UK troops in Afghanistan, an Independent investigation can reveal.
- Telegraph – The Nato mission in Afghanistan is “critically” short of key troops and equipment, Gordon Brown has told allies.
- Bakhtar – A spokesman for Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud’s political group, Tehreek-e-Taliban, told a news agency today (Monday) that Mehsud would no longer negotiate with the new government because it refuses to pull troops out of Pakistan’s tribal areas.
- AKI – Jailed cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz, one of two brothers who ran Islamabad’s radical Red Mosque, will soon be released, sources in Pakistan’s interior ministry have told AKI.
- ABC – Sri Lanka hailed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit Monday as an important step in cementing closer ties between the two nations. But the trip also highlights Sri Lanka’s slow turn from the West, which has expressed increasing concerns about Colombo’s human rights record and its embrace of donors less critical of its escalating war against ethnic Tamil rebels.
- CSM – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stops in India Tuesday after visiting Pakistan and Sri Lanka on a trip aimed at inking energy deals and curbing the West’s influence.
- UPI – India’s security agencies say they are worried over the emergence of a new armed insurgent outfit in militancy-hit Assam state. They said the Bodoland Royal Tiger Force has been procuring arms and ammunition in western Assam.
Far East & Pacific
- National Geographic – China’s Journey; The great nation is on the move. (China aerials video.)
- NY Times – A North Korean military officer defected to South Korea across its heavily armed border, the first Communist officer to do so in a decade, a South Korean military spokesman said on Monday.
- Turkish Daily News – Australia will withdraw 200 troops from East Timor, sent after the February assassination attempt on the country’s president and prime minister, as both countries now regard the security situation to be stable.
- The Australian – The revelations over the past week that Griffith University aggressively pursued funds from the Saudi Arabian embassy to finance its Islamic studies unit illustrates a major problem facing all liberal democracies confronted with the vast reservoir of petro-dollars controlled by the Saudi Government.
Europe
- Scotsman – The founder of Ineos was jeered by striking workers today as he visited the Grangemouth oil refinery on the second day of a bitter dispute over pensions. Workers will return to the plant at 6am tomorrow although it could take some time for normal operations to resume.
- BalkanInsight – The United States is increasingly concerned by corruption in Bulgaria’s law enforcement agencies, according to a report by the US Justice Department.
- BBC – A court in Spain has rejected a request from Buenos Aires to extradite former Argentine President Isabel Peron who is wanted for alleged human rights abuses.
- IHT – Italian news reports say police have arrested 16 suspects in a sweep against an organized crime syndicate. The arrests early Monday were made in Crotone, in the southern Calabria region where the powerful ‘ndrangheta mob group is based.
- The Strategist – Ed Moloney’s A Secret History of the IRA (2007) is less the story of one of the world’s most enduring guerrilla organizations. It is more an account of Gerry Adams, his rise to power in the Provisional IRA and Sinn Fein (the political wing of Irish republicanism), and his secret negotiations with the British and Irish governments, which led to the Northern Ireland peace process and the Good Friday agreement of 1998.
- Javno – A Ukrainian helicopter crashed in the Black Sea on Monday killing 19 people, the state energy company Naftogaz said. One person on board survived the crash, which occurred when the helicopter hit part of an offshore platform operated by Naftogaz, a company spokesman said.
- Spiegel – An exhibition in Paris of color photographs of life under the German occupation has caused such a furore that it was nearly cancelled. The photographs, which were taken by an employee of a Nazi propaganda magazine, are now to be shown with new captions explaining their historical context.
- TIME – Rutka Laskier lived in Bedzin, Poland, with her parents, grandmother and brother. Her journal, covering four months in 1943, provides a rare glimpse of the daily life of Jews under Nazi rule. The diary was found after World War II by a friend–who kept it to herself for 60 years before allowing it to be published, initially in Polish, in 2006. A selection of entries…
Africa
- The Nation – Islamists led by the Union of Islamic Courts and its more radical youth wing, Al-Shabaab, have gained substantial territorial control in south and central Somalia in the past 24 hours. Districts in Middle Shabelle, Bay and Middle Juba regions have fallen to the religious men after pro-government officials abandoned their stations.
- NY Sun – Somalia’s transitional federal government is looking to emulate the counterinsurgency model employed by General David Petraeus in Iraq in its fight against Islamic supremacists who have made a base in southern Somalia. In an interview with The New York Sun, the Somali foreign minister, Ali Ahmed Jama, said he was hoping to emulate “the Anbar model.”
- Shabelle – A remotely-controlled land mine blast was targeted on marching Ethiopian troop in Baidoa town the provincial capital of Bay region southwestern Somalia later on Monday-eyewitnesses said. Some eyewitnesses told Shabelle that four Ethiopian soldiers died at the scene the blast happened while others say that the death is too much than that. After the explosion the Ethiopian soldiers have uninterruptedly opened a fire and killed one civilian nearby while four others were wounded.
- Garowe – Police forces in the capital of Somalia’s separatist state of Somaliland clashed with hundreds of angry rioters on Sunday, prompting opposition parties to condemn the government for using “excessive force” against civilians.
- East Standard – Two top Mungiki leaders were killed on the Naivasha-Nairobi highway. Acting Mungiki chairman, Charles Ndung’u Wagacha, and treasurer, Naftali Irungu, were reportedly driving to Naivasha Prison yesterday to meet their chairman when they were killed.
- Sudan Tribune – The Sudanese government signed a contract with two Chinese firms worth 396 million U.S. dollars for the project to elevate Roseires Dam in eastern Sudan, funded by a number of Arab funds
The Global War
- Magharebia – Algerian terrorist leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar is said to be negotiating the terms of his surrender, a move expected to deal a major blow to al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb. The surrender confirms reports of deep internal divisions within the organisation following the decision to carry out suicide attacks against civilians.
- Pak Tribune – Pakistan and Iran on Monday resolved all issues regarding the US 7.5 billion dollars gas pipeline project and an agreement to this effect would be inked in Tehran by President Pervez Musharraf and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
- The Economist – India is vying for raw materials and more in Africa Like China, India is looking for raw materials and new markets for its goods. New Delhi hopes that a nuanced, south-south relationship will give it the edge.
- Air Force – May 2 marks 20 years since the last B-1B Lancer was delivered to the Air Force, and today commanders consider it one of the most valuable aircraft in Iraq. Since 2003, the once-nuclear-weapon-carrying bomber has maintained a continuous presence in Southwest Asia after the Air Force modified it to carry numerous conventional bombs.
- Chatham House – This month marks the centenary of a truly pivotal moment in the history of the Middle East, and indeed of the wider world. For in the early hours of May 26 1908, at a remote spot in the Persian mountains, a drilling team led by an intrepid British geologist, George Reynolds, suddenly felt the ground rumbling and then watched a stinking black torrent burst through.
- ubiwar – Bryan Finoki at Subtopia gives us his usual brilliant take on architecture and control in “Block D” Enters the Pantheon of GWOT Space…
Sights & Sounds
Read more »
Sphere: Related Content
Comments: -
28 April, 2008 (00:13) | Daily Roundup | By: Jeff Kouba
A brief world news roundup for 28 April 2008.
United States & the Americas
- Reuters – The Bush administration has made a strong case that Syria built a nuclear reactor with North Korean help but should not have waited until months after Israel destroyed the suspected facility to share its intelligence with Congress, two U.S. lawmakers said on Sunday.
- WSJ – When military prosecutors enter Guantanamo’s heavily guarded courtroom Monday, they can expect to face a spectacle: their former boss, in uniform, testifying against them. Col. Morris Davis, for two years the chief Guantanamo prosecutor, is expected to testify that the operation he once led has been infected with political agendas and corrupted by the Achilles’ heel of military justice – unlawful command influence.
- Washington Times editorial – But the Petraeus nomination, in particular, has put the Democratic Party leadership in a difficult situation, as they try to find a way to sound respectful about the general’s work while signalling to MoveOn.org and the rest of the kook fringe their disdain for the war effort.
- France24 – Columbia’s FARC rebels say they won’t discuss hostage releases with anyone except Venezuelan presidnet Hugo Chavez. This as the French foreign minister flies to the region to drum up support for Ingrid Betancourt’s release.
- LA Times – In one of the most violent eruptions in the ongoing border drug war, suspected traffickers clashed on the streets of Tijuana early Saturday morning in a wild and bloody shootout that left 13 people dead and eight others injured in a series of moving gun battles.
Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia
- FT – Russia’s president will hand over real power to his successor Dmitry Medvedev but will take his time, the head of a new Kremlin-backed think-tank has told the FT.
- IPS – New efforts have been launched to curb human trafficking across Russia and the ex-Soviet republics. The Moscow office of the International Organisation of Migration (IOM) is implementing a programme ‘Prevention of Human Trafficking’ jointly financed by the European Commission, the U.S. State Department and the Swiss government.
- Moscow Times – Tensions between Moscow and Tbilisi escalated over the weekend amid reports that Russian military reinforcements were being deployed in Georgia’s breakaway republic of Abkhazia and local residents were being forced to swap their ID cards for Russian passports.
Middle East
- AFP – Sporadic overnight clashes between Shiite militiamen and US and Iraqi forces in Baghdad’s Sadr City killed at least 10 people, including a woman, Iraqi and US officials said on Sunday.
- AP – Suspected Shiite extremists hammered the U.S.-protected Green Zone Sunday in the fiercest salvo in weeks, apparently taking advantage of a sandstorm that blanketed the capital and grounded the American aircraft that normally prowl for launching teams.
- CNN – A female suicide car bomber attacked an Iraqi security forces’ checkpoint in eastern Baghdad on Sunday, killing three people, military offiIraq’s National Museum on Sunday recovered 701 artifacts stolen in the wake of Saddam Hussein’s ouster, raising hopes of restoring the nation’s rich cultural heritage after five years of war. Syrian authorities, who seized the looted treasures smuggled across the border, turned them over to the Iraqis.cials said.
- AFP – Iraqi and US military commanders on Sunday claimed a clear Iranian role in violence engulfing Baghdad’s Sadr City, where Shiite militiamen have been battling security forces for the past month.
- AFPS - Coalition forces killed at least 20 suspected terrorists, captured scores of others, and seized weapons caches in Iraq.
- Taipei Times – Friday’s sermon appeared to be an attempt to ease the Mehdi Army’s showdown with the government by urging Iraqis to adhere to the ceasefire Radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called for an end to Iraqi bloodshed and said his threat of an “open war” applies only to US-led foreign troops.
- MSNBC – Iraq’s National Museum on Sunday recovered 701 artifacts stolen in the wake of Saddam Hussein’s ouster, raising hopes of restoring the nation’s rich cultural heritage after five years of war. Syrian authorities, who seized the looted treasures smuggled across the border, turned them over to the Iraqis.
- Haaretz – The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) is intentionally concealing information about Hezbollah activities south of the Litani River in Lebanon to avoid conflict with the group, senior sources in Jerusalem have said. In the last six months there have been at least four cases in which UNIFIL soldiers identified armed Hezbollah operatives, but did nothing and did not submit full reports on the incidents to the UN Security Council.
- Haaretz – Two years after the Second Lebanon War, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah organization has bolstered its recruitment efforts at an unprecedented rate in preparation for a fresh war with Israel, The Guardian reported Sunday.
- Tony Badran – Hezbollah does not need to pay much cash to disseminate propaganda and disinformation. For that it relies on the Western media – for free. Western outlets are sure to quote Hezbollah card-carrying propagandist in chief, Amal Saad-Ghorayeb. You could even try hapless dilettantes. But now they’ve found someone else to carry their water for them.
Iran
- Asharq Al-Awsat – Iran said on Sunday a “disastrous situation” facing the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan coupled with Washington’s domestic issues made any U.S. attack on the Islamic Republic unlikely. The Foreign Ministry comments came two days after the U.S. Navy said a cargo ship hired by the U.S. military fired warning shots at approaching boats in the Gulf, underscoring tension in an area vital to world oil shipments, and driving up crude prices.
- Times Online – Five British hostages who were kidnapped in Iraq almost a year ago are being held inside Iran by Revolutionary Guards, according to two separate sources in the Middle East and London.
- CBS – Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Pakistani leaders are expected to discuss security issues in the region, including worsening conditions in Afghanistan, and a pipeline project that could send gas flowing to South Asia and, perhaps, China. Ahmedinejad arrives in Islamabad on Monday for his first visit to the south Asian country.
- Uskowi on Iran – The conservative coalition of the extremist United Front of Principlists (UFP) and more traditional Inclusive Coalition of Principlists (ICP) swept the second round of Iran’s parliamentary elections. The results announced today show the conservatives captured 10 out of 11 contested seats in Tehran and will have nearly 80% of the seats in the new Majlis.
- RIA Novosti – Iran has urged Azerbaijan to release a Russian shipment of nuclear equipment for Iran’s first nuclear power plant, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said on Sunday.
Southeast Asia
- ABC – Militants firing rockets and automatic rifles attacked the Afghan president at a ceremony in Kabul on Sunday, missing their target but killing three and wounding eight others.
- SMH – An Australian soldier has been killed in clashes with the Taliban that also left four other Australian soldiers wounded. Australian commando Lance Corporal Jason Marks, 27, died in the attack, which occurred in the open, Air Marshal Houston said.
- NewKerala – As many as 24 Taliban militants, including a so-called group commander, have surrendered to the authorities in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, an official said Sunday.
- TIME – Pakistan’s Cease-fire: Who Wins? One of Pakistan’s most notorious militant leaders, Baitullah Mehsud, has declared a cease-fire in the troubled Waziristan region bordering Afghanistan.
- Telegraph – A family who once ruled a princely state of the Raj want a neglected British monument to be moved 200 miles to their mountain kingdom for safekeeping. The memorial, standing on a hillock beside the Kabul River outside Nowshera in Pakistan, commemorates one of Britain’s most famous military feats – the race to lift the siege of Chitral in 1895.
- Khaleej Times – Indian security forces shot dead four senior rebels from the main Islamic militant group fighting to merge Indian Kashmir with Pakistan, police said on Friday.
- Xinhua – The Sri Lankan military said Sunday 25 Tamil Tigers rebels and eight soldiers were killed in Saturday’s clashes between government troops and the rebels in the north.
- Reuters – Tamil Tiger light aircraft bombed a Sri Lankan military position in the north of the island on Sunday in the rebels’ first air raid in nearly six months, the military said. A suspected rebel bomb blast on a bus near the capital Colombo in the evening rush hour killed 26 people on Friday.
Far East & Pacific
- BBC – Malaysian Muslim groups have called for protests when Chelsea football club visits in July because the coach, Avram Grant, and a player are Israeli.
- CSM – Uighurs struggle in a world reshaped by Chinese influx; In China’s far west, the Muslim ethnic group finds itself relegated to menial jobs. Chinese officials also restrict religious practice and use of their language in schools.
- Maclean’s – State media says a pre-dawn passenger train collision in eastern China killed at least 43 people and injured 247.
- NY Times – Poor Filipinos who are reeling from high food prices not seen since the 1970s will get some relief this week when the Philippine government starts to distribute “rice passes” to the most impoverished families across the country, officials said Sunday.
- Reuters – The leader of a group of East Timor rebels accused of trying to assassinate President Jose Ramos-Horta in February is preparing to surrender and may give himself up early this week, a U.N. spokeswoman said on Sunday.
Europe
- Spiegel – Germany’s foreign intelligence agency was already under pressure for spying on an Afghan minister and a SPIEGEL journalist. Now SPIEGEL has learned that BND agents had an entire Afghan ministry under surveillance.
- Tiraspol Times – With poverty and prices on the rise in Moldova, nearby Transdniester is increasingly convinced that independence is the best way forward.
Africa
- CISA – The Holy See embassy was on Tuesday night hit by a mortar explosion that came from rebel positions in the hills surrounding the Burundian capital.
- BBC – The UN has covered up claims that its troops in Democratic Republic of Congo gave arms to militias and smuggled gold and ivory, the BBC has learned.
- Magharebia – Algerian soldiers killed ten suspected terrorists planning a “spectacular operation with a media effect”, the international press reported Saturday, quoting security sources. The suspects, affiliated with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, were killed in three separate operations last week in the wilaya of Boumerdès.
- China Daily – The owner and manager of a mattress factory in Casablanca were detained for questioning Sunday after at least 55 people were killed in a fire which broke out in the factory. Poor safety measures and locked doors which trapped workers were blamed for the tragedy, during which at least 55 people have been confirmed dead and six others were hospitalized.
- NY Times – Evidence of widespread retribution against people who supported Zimbabwe’s opposition party in last month’s election has begun to stream out.
- Washington Times - Fighting in Somalias capital killed at least 10 people early Sunday in a barrage of heavy weapons fire.
- TIME – Uganda’s Unfinished Peace; Fearsome guerrillas mysteriously withdraw from a drawn-out and controversial reconciliation pact, raising the specter of more horrific violence.
- VOA - Gunmen in Nigeria have killed at least five police officers in an attack on a police station in the restive southern oil region early this morning Sunday.
The Global War
- AFP – World oil prices pushed higher on Monday, closing in on 120 dollars after the shutdown in Britain of a major North Sea pipeline added to supply worries, analysts said.
- IPoT – Commentary: The Universal War on Terror; The most effective, attainable and inexpensive way to pop the Jihadist balloon that is the predominant form of Global Terrorism may not be the obvious solution utilizing military and security means.
- Reuters – Thai authorities have seized more than a thousand fake Asian and Western passports and arrested a man in one of the biggest anti-counterfeiting operations in recent years, police said on Sunday. The passports were sold to a group of Thai and Burmese middlemen who then sold them to gangs engaged in prostitution, terrorism and smuggling, he said.
Sights & Sounds
Read more »
Sphere: Related Content
Comments: -
25 April, 2008 (05:38) | Daily Roundup | By: Jeff Kouba
A brief world news roundup for 25 April 2008.
United States & the Americas
- Fred Kaplan, Slate – Revolving Doors; What the shifting of generals bodes for Afghanistan and Iraq.
- NY Sun – Federal agencies, including the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and the National Counter Terrorism Center, are telling their people not to describe Islamic extremists as “jihadists” or “mujahedeen,” according to documents obtained by the Associated Press. Lingo such “Islamo-fascism” is out, too.
- Hugh Hewitt – The transcript of my long-but-still-far-too-short interview with former Undersecretary of War for Policy Douglas Feith about his new book is here.
- Cato Institute – The Cato Institute has announced that Yon Goicoechea, leader of the pro-democracy student movement in Venezuela that successfully prevented President Hugo Chávez’s regime from seizing broad dictatorial powers in December 2007, has been awarded the 2008 Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty. A 23-year-old law student, Mr. Goicoechea plays a pivotal role in organizing and voicing opposition to the erosion of human and civil rights in his country. In his commitment to a modern Venezuela, Goicoechea emphasizes tolerance and the human right to seek prosperity.
- Jamestown Foundation – Until a decade ago, Turkey’s interest in the Western hemisphere was focused almost exclusively on its relationship with the United States. Over the past 10 years, however, Ankara has grown increasingly interested in Central and Latin America, even though its trade with the region is currently less than 1 percent of its total foreign trade volume.
- DoD – Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead announced the re-establishment of the U.S. Fourth Fleet and assigned Rear Adm. Joseph D. Kernan, currently serving as commander, Naval Special Warfare Command, as its new commander. Fourth Fleet will be responsible for U.S. Navy ships, aircraft and submarines operating in the Caribbean, and Central and South America.
- Hindustan Times – Eleven insurgents of Colombia’s two largest leftist rebel groups have surrendered to the government troops in different parts of the country, Spain’s EFE news agency reported Thursday.
- COHA – Contentious CAFTA – A Turning Point for Costa Rica?
Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia
- EurasiaNet – Georgian officials are scoring points in the court of public opinion, as the spat between Georgia and Russia over the downing of a drone reconnaissance plane escalates into a broader, more philosophical discussion over the sovereignty of nations.
- RIA Novosti – Gazprom is willing to buy a controlling stake in the Russian-British joint oil venture TNK-BP by the end of the year for $20 billion, business daily Vedomosti said on Thursday.
- Oxford Analytica – Gazprom has a new investment plan – a ray of hope for its customers, who are worried that the gas monopoly has neglected its core business in favour of lavish and irrelevant acquisitions.
- AINA – Armenia’s new president vowed Thursday to redouble efforts to have mass killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire recognised as genocide, a label staunchly rejected by Turkey.
- ISCIP – Georgia: Adjara, tourism, and foreign investment.
- Stephen Blank, Parameters – The Strategic Importance of Central Asia: An American View.
- State Dept – South and Central Asia: The Year Ahead in South and Central Asia.
Middle East
- AKI – Three bomb blasts shook Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least three and injuring 20 others, as British foreign secretary David Miliband arrived in the capital on a surprise visit.
- AP – Muqtada al-Sadr is considering setting aside his political ambitions and restarting a full-scale fight against U.S.-led forces – a worrisome shift that may reflect Iranian influence on the young cleric and could open the way for a shadow state protected by his powerful Mahdi Army.
- RFERL – Shi’ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr issued an ultimatum to the Iraqi government on April 19, warning that unless it ended its crackdown on his militia he would launch an “open war” on it. But al-Sadr’s official spokesman, Salih al-Ubaydi, told RFE/RL analyst Kathleen Ridolfo on April 22 that he does not expect al-Sadr to order the Imam Al-Mahdi Army to fight government forces. Al-Ubaydi also said the current standoff with the government is politically motivated, and accused fighters affiliated with a rival Shi’ite party of carrying out Iran’s work in Iraq.
- LA Times – Iraq’s main Sunni Arab political bloc announced Thursday that it was ready to rejoin the Cabinet, a step that could boost reconciliation efforts and help shore up Prime Minister Nouri Maliki’s government.
- AP – It was the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine here that pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war, bloodshed that has left tens of thousands dead and this ancient city in ruins. But reconstruction of the famed mosque amid the rubble filling this city is under way, once bitter Shiite and Sunni enemies jointly man checkpoints and locals hope tourists will return again to see the shrine and help save the economy.
- MNF Iraq – Coalition Forces killed three al-Qaeda in Iraq terrorists and detained 14 suspects during operations targeting terrorist networks in the central and northern parts of the country Wednesday.
- VOA – The U.S. military said coalition forces in Iraq killed four suspected Iranian-trained militants, and captured five others, during operations north of Baghdad. The military says soldiers battled militants Thursday in Rashidiyah after apprehending a person suspected of receiving weapons and financing from Iran to lead attacks against coalition forces.
- CSM – Iraq’s simmering ethnic war over Kirkuk; Tensions are rising between Kurdish, Arab, and Turkmen factions over power and populations in the province, the heart of northern Iraq’s oil industry.
- BBC – Palestinian militant group Hamas has proposed a six-month truce in the Gaza Strip, which it says could then be extended to the West Bank. Former Palestinian foreign minister Mahmoud Zahar said the truce must be mutual and include the lifting of an Israeli blockade of Gaza.
- AP – Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations on Thursday called former President Jimmy Carter “a bigot” for meeting with the leader of the militant Hamas movement in Syria.
- NY Times – Turkish warplanes fired on a group of Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq as they tried to cross into Turkey, the army said Thursday.
- RSIS – The threat of a terrorist attack inside Saudi Arabia has diminished since the government began taking measures to make the environment more hostile to terrorist networks. Instead Saudi militants are travelling to other conflict zones to fight.
Iran
- ABC – Iran has been kicked out of an international defense show in Malaysia for exhibiting missile equipment in violation of U.N. rules, an official said Thursday.
- Admiral Michael Mullen, Atlantic Council – Recent operations in Southern Iraq, recent combat operations in Southern Iraq in Basra highlighted yet again Iran’s activities in ways that very specifically pointed to activities which, in fact, resulted in the deaths of coalition soldiers. And I think for the ability to create stability in that part of the world that not just this alliance, but those who are allied, will have to deal with Iran in the very near future. (Video)
- TIME – By landing his plane in New Delhi on what was to have been a routine refueling stop, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has provoked a diplomatic contretemps between India and the U.S. that reveals the fragility of their emerging alliance. New Delhi remains deeply wary over being seen to be doing Washington’s bidding when it comes to dealing with other countries.
- Turkish Daily News – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday replaced Interior Minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi with staunch supporter Mohammad Reza Rahimi, as acting minister, the official IRNA news agency reported. Iranian media in recent days has speculated that Ahmadinejad decided to replace Pourmohammadi because he reported on government election violations to Iran’s top leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, without the president’s knowledge.
- Press TV – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says capitalist systems are on the verge of collapse and can no longer bring economic development.
- NCRI – An increase in the number of arbitrary executions in Iran reflects the extent of brutality by the regime on one hand and the regime’s fear of spreading popular protests especially by workers, students, women and the youth on the other.
- Belfer Center – Belfer Center Director Graham Allison testified before a subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs on April 24, 2008. He discussed Iran’s nuclear ambitions, current U.S. strategy, and future policy options for blocking Iran’s nuclear bomb.
- Washington Institute – In this Senate testimony, Ambassador Dennis Ross addresses America’s stakes in preventing Iran from going nuclear, its leverage in relation to Iran’s vulnerabilities, and the range of different options it might employ to alter Iran’s behavior before it is too late.
- Con Coughlin, Telegraph – Real reason Syrian base was wiped off the map.
Southeast Asia
- CSM – The Pentagon is considering whether it should push to change the NATO mission in volatile southern Afghanistan to give the US greater control in the fight against a growing Taliban threat.
- UK MoD – The number of British troops in Iraq will remain at around 4,000 when the next Force Package deploys in June 2008, Defence Secretary Des Browne announced to Parliament today, Thursday 24 April.
- The News – Insurgent violence in Afghanistan could reach record levels this year as militants increasingly target police and development projects, a top US general said on Thursday. Maj-Gen Jeffrey J Schloesser, who commands US forces in the country, said a large number of insurgents are still pouring into Afghanistan from Pakistan.
- Kings of War – The Afghan Taliban, notorious for their religious conservatism, are actually cultural realists. That is, they develop and change their strategy by remaking their culture. Culture emerges not so much as a clear script for action, but as a potent weapon that they instrumentalise for strategic purposes.
- NPR – Engineers in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province are trying to rehabilitate a half-century-old, American-built dam and power plant in what is the heart of Taliban country. Amid attacks and other security issues, progress is slow.
- Air Force – An Air Force B-1B Lancer dropped a guided bomb unit-31 and 38s in order to destroy an enemy compound and enemy combatants in Kajaki Dam. A JTAC declared that the missions were successful.
- Telegraph – Opium production in Afghanistan is expected to fall significantly this year, with British and Afghan anti-drug efforts finally taking hold following record harvests.
- BBC – Pakistan’s foreign ministry has said it has lodged a “strong protest” with Nato and the Afghan military after a border skirmish left a Pakistani soldier dead. At least eight Taleban militants were also killed during the clashes which began when an Afghan border post was attacked before dawn on Wednesday.
- Daily Times – Militants shot dead a man near Miranshah for “spying for the United States”, an official said on Thursday. Locals found the bullet-riddled body of Birmal village resident Gul Zali Khan along with a note that read, “This man has met his fate because he was spying for the American and Afghan forces and giving them help”.
- Maclean’s – Police say a bomb has killed two people in the northwestern Pakistan city of Mardan. Senior police official Akhbar Ali Shah says 20 people were injured in the attack, some of them now in serious condition at local hospitals.
- McClatchy – The Pakistani government is considering freeing another radical cleric in another controversial “peace” move. Pakistan might release Red Mosque cleric.
- Times of India – Kashmir cable operators’ association on Thursday decided to black out national and international channels, a day after Jammu and Kashmir government banned airing of Pakistani and local “unauthorised” news channels in the state.
- MEMRI – India’s Ministry of Home Affairs has said that a number of Pakistan-based militant groups have strengthened their roots in the country. According to the report, ‘‘Terrorist activities in the country [India] point to the fact that these groups have strong roots here. And these organizations are using the soil of the neighboring countries of Nepal and Bangladesh to conduct terror operations [in India].’’
- UPI – India’s northeastern region has surpassed strife-torn Jammu & Kashmir in insurgent-related violence, the government said Thursday. An Interior Ministry status paper placed before Parliament said northeastern states were seeing the worst phase of insurgent-related violence, surpassing separatist violence in Jammu & Kashmir, which is claimed by both India and Pakistan.
- UPI – An Indian parliamentary standing committee has asked the government to monitor the country’s eastern border, saying large-scale illegal migration from Bangladesh and a flourishing counterfeit currency racket are threatening the country’s security and economy.
- Gulf News - India signed up yesterday to join a multi-billion dollar Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan gas pipeline project, to secure another source of energy for its fast growing economy.
- AP – Sri Lanka’s government said Thursday it will push ahead with efforts to destroy the Tamil Tiger rebel movement this year despite a ferocious battle a day earlier that left at least 76 soldiers dead or missing. Even as the government expressed confidence in its fight, the rebels said they killed 20 more soldiers Thursday in new fighting in another area of the war zone.
Far East & Pacific
- AKI – Five construction workers were shot and killed by Muslim insurgents on Thursday while they were entering a school in southern Thailand. The victims “had to construct a fence for a school and were killed as they were getting off a truck,” said Acra Tiproch, a Thai army spokesperson.
- BBC – Toyota has stolen a march on its bitter US rival General Motors (GM), the latest sales figures show. Toyota sold 2.41 million vehicles during the first three months of the year, an increase of 2.7%. GM meanwhile sold 2.25 million cars and small trucks over the period, 1% less than a year earlier, hit by falling demand in the US.
- CNN – U.S. forces in Japan have charged a Marine with raping a 14-year-old girl in Okinawa, the Marines said Friday, pressing ahead with a case that spurred protests against the U.S. presence on the island.
- FT – Japan’s prime minister flies to Russia on Friday for talks aimed at strengthening the two countries’ growing commercial relationship.
- France24 – Nepal’s former Maoists rebels took a clear victory in the country’s landmark elections, with final results of the April 10 vote giving the ultra-leftists twice the number of seats than their nearest rivals.
- CTB – Malaysia’s Former Prime Minister Again Stokes the Islamists’ Fire.
- The Australian – In less than a decade we will mark the centenary of the conflict at Gallipoli. The last survivors have gone to their rest. Yet each year in Turkey, Australia and New Zealand, ceremonies are still held to mark the anniversary and mourn the suffering and cruelty of war. Even though the witnesses have gone, we see these events as sharply as if we had experienced them ourselves.
Europe
- Javno – The Netherlands is ready to allow the European Union to make a gesture to Serbia ahead of a May 11 election but is insistent Belgrade must deliver war criminals to The Hague, a Dutch minister said on Thursday.
- BalkanInsight – If a peace agreement had not stopped Bosnia’s War, al-Qaeda would have probably planned the 9/11 attacks from there, a former U.S. diplomat claims.
- Spiegel – Two months after Kosovo declared independence, thousands of foreign experts have descended on its capital to shape Europe’s youngest republic into a constitutional state — although its status is still disputed. Soon the EU will take over, and its team can expect a country ruled by corruption and organized crime.
- BBC – A greetings card signed by the Jewish diarist Anne Frank has been found in an antiques shop near Amsterdam. The card was sent in 1937, when Frank was eight, and was addressed to one of her best friends, Sanne Ledermann.
- Scotsman – The number of adoptions in Scotland has dropped dramatically over the last four decades, especially of babies, it emerged yesterday.
- AP – Spain’s Defense Ministry has ordered its staff to stop browsing sports and entertainment Web sites while on duty, an official said Thursday.
- Khaleej Times – Britain was hit on Thursday by what trade unions have called the biggest wave of work stoppages since the Labour government came to power 10 years ago, with up to 400,000 public sector employees going on strike.
Africa
- The Monitor – The UN mission in Congo, Monuc has said its troops are ready to strike the Lord’s Resistance Army rebels in Garamba National Park should the rebel leader, Joseph Kony snub the South Sudan mediated peace process in the capital Juba.
- AllAfrica – The top Africa envoy for the United States told reporters in South Africa Thursday that Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was the “clear” victor in last month’s presidential election.
- IPS – April is the beginning of the rainy season for the DRC’s eastern provinces, a time when perpetually more water gets dumped on an already drenched region. But despite an abundant rain supply and churning rivers, access to clean water has been a persistent problem for this Central African nation.
- AKI – Algerian police have arrested two suspected members of al-Qaeda, according to a report on the Algerian newspaper Ech-Chourouk. The men were found in a restaurant in the Shashar district. In order to move around the region undetected by the police, the two men ensured that they were accompanied by prostitutes.
- Reuters – A U.N. World Food Programme driver was killed in Darfur, the second fatal attack in two months on vital aid deliveries feeding millions in Sudan’s violent west, a statement said on Thursday.
- Tiraspol Times – Two influential international think tanks are recommending independence and diplomatic recognition of Somaliland “sooner rather than later”. In its latest report, the Senlis Council underlines the need for quick and official recognition of Somaliland. This is echoed by the International Crisis Group, which also supports international recognition of Somaliland’s right to statehood.
- TIME – Even by the standards of Somalia, a country gripped by chaos for 17 years, it has been a horrible couple of weeks. What’s going on? No doubt some of the violence can be blamed on the general chaos that has gripped Somalia in the 17 years since it last had a functioning government, the dictatorship of Mohamed Siad Barre. But there are also fears that recent fighting, and especially the latest in Mogadishu, are signs that Somalia is entering its bleakest chapter yet.
- The Acorn – It is, no doubt, a convenient shorthand to refer to “Africa policy”. But it is really about developing relations with over 50 countries that make up the African continent. There are signs that India is recognising this relatively better than other countries.
The Global War
- William Tucker, Weekly Standard – In order to understand the steep rise in world food prices that set off food riots in Haiti last week and toppled the government, you need to travel to Iowa. Right now, we’re trying to run our cars on corn ethanol instead of gasoline. As a result, we suddenly find ourselves taking food out of the mouths of children in developing nations… So let’s assess the damage. First, although biofuels have been anointed as clean, renewable, and sustainable, there has never been much evidence that they are producing any new energy.
- Deroy Murdock, NRO – To draw a phrase from the late, great William F. Buckley Jr.’s words as he founded National Review, someone must stand athwart the federal ethanol program yelling, “Stop!” The emergency brake should be pulled — NOW — before ethanol wreaks further havoc.
- Toronto Star – Rice prices in Thailand, the world’s top exporter, surged to $1,000 a tonne on Thursday as concerns about food security first triggered by a handful of Asian export bans spread as far as the United States. This week’s five per cent jump takes prices to nearly three times their level at the start of the year, intensifying fears of social unrest in Asia as millions of the region’s poor find themselves strugglig to pay for staple goods.
- NY Sun – Several Western ambassadors walked out of a Security Council meeting yesterday after a Libyan representative compared Israel’s actions in Gaza to those of the Nazis in the concentration camps.
- AFP – The United States accused North Korea on Thursday of helping Syria build a nuclear reactor, charging that the secret facility had a military purpose until Israel destroyed it in a September raid. Damascus immediately rejected what its ambassador to Washington called “a ridiculous story,” while US officials suggested the next step should be for UN inspectors to go to Syria to investigate.
- CNN – Their first salvo is hardly revolutionary, but those launching the Quilliam Foundation say it will be much more than just a talk shop. Quilliam is the first of its kind, a think-tank run by former extremists, ‘defectors’ from Islamist thinking who insist they will stand up to terrorists by blowing apart their ideology.
- Soob – Ubiwar has a fascinating post on an Al Qaeda that resembles an anonymous trickster-bandit collective. It comes across to me as a synthesis of Hobsbawm’s thoughts on Bandits as evil to the majority and heroes to minority subcultures and Hyde’s thoughts on trickster archetypes as dastardly world changers who don’t fit any particular social category.
- LA Times – Al Qaeda increasingly faces sharp criticism from once-loyal sympathizers who openly question its ideology and tactics, including attacks that kill innocent Muslims, according to U.S. intelligence officials, counter-terrorism experts and the group’s own communications.
- GAO – The Department of Defense (DOD) manages and operates about 577,000 structures worldwide, valued at about $712 billion.
Sights & Sounds
Read more »
Sphere: Related Content
Comments: -
24 April, 2008 (00:30) | Daily Roundup | By: Jeff Kouba
A brief world news roundup for 24 April 2008.
United States & the Americas
- Washington Post – Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq and the public face of the war effort there, became President Bush’s nominee yesterday to supervise U.S. military operations in the Middle East and Central Asia as head of Central Command, putting him in position to oversee American strategy in Iraq for years to come. Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, who worked closely with Petraeus as the No. 2 commander in Iraq until two months ago, was nominated to receive a fourth star and to take Petraeus’s current job as the leader of Multi-National Force-Iraq.
- CSM – Proponents of the government taking action to ease the crunch say that storing oil at a time of soaring prices, in what is called the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), does not makes sense. Some want some oil released in the hope that it will drive down prices.
- France24 – Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa said he was willing to recognise Colombia’s FARC as a legitimate fighting force if the Marxist rebels cease their “acts of terrorism” and “free unconditionally all the hostages they are holding”.
- McClatchy – The price of oil is reaching record levels worldwide, but Mexico, long considered an oil power, is failing to reap the rewards because its state-owned oil company hasn’t developed many of the areas known to be rich in petroleum.
Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia
- Taipei Times – Georgia’s foreign minister said he wants the US to make clear to Russia that steps toward recognition of two breakaway Georgian regions will have a price. David Bakradze said that he would also seek to isolate Russia at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council yesterday.
- Russia Today – Two Russian Federal Security Service, FSB, employees have been severely wounded in an attack in the southern Russian republic of Ingushetia. Their car was shot at by unknown gunmen near the village of Surkhahi in Nazran region.
- RIA Novosti – Gunmen opened fire on an Mi-8 helicopter of the Federal Security Service (FSB) on Wednesday morning in Russia’s North Caucasus republic of Chechnya, a law enforcement source said.
- EurasiaNet – Military cooperation between the United States and Azerbaijan appears to be developing at a strong pace. A recent US delegation, though, expressed concerns about the country’s sluggish realization of agreements with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, as well as on Baku’s relatively high level of military spending.
Middle East
- Reuters – U.S. troops said on Wednesday they killed 15 gunmen overnight in Shi’ite areas of Baghdad where fighting has raged for weeks between militiamen loyal to Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and security forces.
- MNF Iraq – A suicide bomber detonated near a local market killing two Iraqi citizens and wounding six, including a three-year old child and an Iraqi Policeman, in the Al Dawasa neighborhood of Mosul, April 23.
- Press TV – Nearly three-quarters of the attacks that kill or wound US soldiers in Baghdad are carried out by Iranian-backed Shiite groups, the military claims.
- Reuters – Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has told Turkey that Israel was willing to give back Syria’s Golan Heights in return for peace with the Arab state, a Syrian cabinet minister said on Wednesday.
- Ya Libnan – Hizbullah’s continued armed strength poses a key challenge to Lebanese sovereignty, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon says in a report released here this week. “Hizbullah’s maintenance of a para-military capacity poses a key challenge to the government’s monopoly on the legitimate use of force,” he said in his seventh report on implementation of Security Council resolution 1559 adopted in 2004.
- Press TV – Turkish warplanes have attacked a number of bases used by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party insurgents in northern Iraq, PKK spokesman says.
Iran
- Uskowi on Iran – Iran has agreed to answer allegations that it studied how to design nuclear bombs, IAEA Chief Mohammad ElBaradei announced in Vienna today. IAEA called the agreement a “milestone.”
- Rooz Online – Just one day after President Ahmadinejad’s harsh letter to Majlis Speaker Haddad Adel, ?the latter responded by criticizing the “tone” and “blatant transgression” of the President ?and censured the assertions of the chief executive.
- FP Passport – Not so Danesh Jaafari, the ousted Iranian economy and finance minister. In stepping down from his post on Tuesday, he slammed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s administration in terms that had “until now been almost unknown in Iranian politics.”
- MEMRI – An Iranian court has handed down prison sentences ranging from 22 to 30 months to students from Amir Kabir University students, who have been detained for about a year, for desecrating the sanctity of Islam.
- IRNA – Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei said here Wednesday that the Iranian people will elect the most competent lawmakers in the second round of Majlis election on April 25.
Southeast Asia
- Dawn – The leader of Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, has ordered his fighters to “immediately cease their activities” in the tribal region as well as the NWFP.
- Pak Tribune – Pakistan’s new government has drafted a peace agreement with Taliban militants in its troubled tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, officials and a rebel spokesman said Wednesday.
- Bakhtar – A suicide bomber has blown himself up in a crowded market place in Kandahar, killing three and wounding 13. Meanwhile, another suicide bomber killed two policemen when he blew himself up outside a district police station in Helmand today. Also today, police arrested two suicide bombers accused of attempting to blow up their explosives-packed car in Kabuls 9th district.
- Stars and Stripes – NURISTAN PROVINCE, Afghanistan — Building a combat outpost from scratch on the side of a mountain in Afghanistan means flying everything in by helicopter.
- BBC – The Danish and Dutch embassies in the Afghan capital Kabul are evacuated because of terrorist threats.
- Daily Times – A Frontier Constabulary (FC) soldier died and another sustained injuries on Wednesday in an exchange of fire between Pakistani security forces and the Afghan army “due to a misunderstanding” at the Pak-Afghan border at Nawa Pass in the Bajaur Agency. Up to 10 militants of a group which attacked the Afghan checkpost and caused the “misunderstanding” were also killed in the clash.
- Asia Times – Neither the poor security situation in Afghanistan nor specific Taliban attacks on Indian project personnel is likely to persuade Delhi to downsize its commitment to the country. On the contrary, it could result in India taking up an offer to train Afghan soldiers in counter-insurgency, which will bring it a step closer to military engagement of the Taliban.
- Daily News – The Security Forces advanced 500 metres ahead of the Muhamalai Forward Defence Line yesterday killing 52 LTTE cadres and injuring many others in a pre-emptive attack in the Muhamalai and Kilaly frontier, Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said. Brigadier Nanayakkara said that the LTTE were pushed back 500 m from their initial position breaching the Tigers’ first FDL in Muhamalai. The Security Forces are consolidating their positions from the captured LTTE first defence line.
- Times of India – Indian security forces shot dead three top commanders of the main Islamic militant group fighting to merge Indian Kashmir with Pakistan, police said on Wednesday.
- MEMRI – The Chairman of the Pakistan-based network of militant groups Muttahida Jihad Council Syed Salahuddin has said that jihad in Indian-administered Kashmir cannot be postponed even for a second.
Far East & Pacific
- BBC – The weakening US economy takes its toll on Japanese exports, which fall 11% in the first quarter of the year.
- FT – Australia, Malaysia and Singapore have reported sustained inflation due to rising food and fuel prices, with Australia’s underlying annual rate surging to its highest level in nearly 17 years and Singapore posting a 26-year high.
- Asia Foundation – Widespread hunger now threatens the developing world, especially in Asia. The knee-jerk reactions of individual countries are worsening the situation. Unilateral actions by certain countries have exacerbated the problem of food price increases. Countries and economies are inextricably and unavoidably ever more linked; actions in one nation impact all.
Europe
- Press TV – Swedish State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Frank Belfrage has praised Iran’s commitment to restore Iraq’s stability and security.
- AKI – Police on Wednesday raided homes across Germany as part of a probe into an alleged radical Islamist group believed to be recruiting militants for ‘Jihad’ abroad, prosecutors said.
- BBC – Four men jailed for the failed 21 July suicide bombings in London lose a bid to challenge their convictions.
- Tiraspol Times – Two of the world’s leading human rights groups have pinpointed Moldova as a country where torture is commonplace, ongoing and “normal”. Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch condemn Moldova’s regime for its excessive and persistent human rights abuses. The former Soviet state has also been found guilty of torture by the European Court of Human Rights.
- NY Sun editorial – The Austrian Model; Modern Austria is home for 350,000 Muslims. Most are Turks and immigrants from ex-Yugoslavia, though many now come from the Middle East. Nationalist politicians and some reactionary Catholic clergymen have sounded some alarm bells about tension between Muslims and the traditional Catholic Austria.
- Islam in Europe – A total 900,000 Muslims live in Italy and there are 70,000 companies set up by citizens coming from Arab countries. However, an ‘Islamic bank’, unlike in almost the entire Europe and the USA where the total sector’s assets stand at $500 billion, is far from appearing, despite the fact that investors are saying they are ready for it.
- Brussels Journal – I have lost track of the number of times I have said here that Sarkozy’s only purpose in opening the debate on religion was to prepare the French population for the institutionalization of Islam. Because without the issue of Islam, there was absolutely no reason to talk about, let alone modify, the 1905 law. For better or worse, the French people had long ago adjusted to the law. But he had to force them to re-adjust to a modified law that allowed State funding for mosques. And in order to do this he created a phony debate on the need for all men to recognize the importance of religion (i.e. Islam).
Africa
- State Dept – An Overview of AFRICOM: A Unified Combatant Command.
- AP – Zimbabwe’s ruling party floated a proposal Wednesday for forming a government of national unity led by President Robert Mugabe as a way out of a political crisis that has dragged on for weeks. The Herald also reported that the first results from a recount of 23 parliamentary races from March 29 elections confirmed a victory for Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party in a district east of the capital.
- AllAfrica – A visiting Chinese delegation headed by the Chief Executive Officer of China-Africa Development Fund says about 5 billion United States dollars have been earmarked for the production of food and cash crops in Liberia and other African countries over a 50-year period.
- Japan Times – Japan pledged Wednesday to provide aid to finance construction of 1,000 new schools in Africa with a total of 5,500 classrooms over the next five years, setting a key numerical target ahead of planned major international conferences later this year.
- HRW – The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the armed groups, and international parties to the Goma peace agreement should urgently implement the accord and end the horrific suffering of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children facing brutal violence and deadly diseases in eastern Congo, 63 international and Congolese human rights and aid groups said in a joint statement today.
- Magharebia – Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb’s leader in the Sahara Mokhtar Belmokhtar and 15 of his followers are ready to surrender to the authorities, Ech Chourouk reports the terrorist’s lawyer as saying on Tuesday.
- IRIN – The victims of human trafficking in Southern Africa are often invisible because many countries in the region have failed to implement laws to combat it, Hans Petter Boe, Regional Representative for the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), said in his opening remarks at a conference in the South African port city of Durban.
The Global War
- Anne Bayefsky – Redefining Anti-Semitism, At Durban II, only anti-Muslim racism counts; Tuesday was Day 2 of the United Nations hatefest known as the “first substantive session of the Durban Review Preparatory Committee,” now taking place in Geneva .
- AKI – Iraq’s national security advisor Muwafaq al-Rubei has claimed Iran is hosting 100 al-Qaeda leaders and members, some of whom are under house arrest. “In Iran, there are many members of the terrorist organisation, that come from Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, North Africa or Yemen,” said al-Rubei in an interview with pan-Arab daily al-Sharq al-Awsat on Wednesday.
- AKI – The current US-led war on terror has boosted insurgencies in Somalia and Afghanistan, according to a prominent global think-tank. The Senlis Council says the US has helped to create a political situation in which extremists such as the Somali insurgent group, Al-Shabab, and the Taliban in Afghanistan have become legitimate political players.
- Washington Post – A video taken inside a secret Syrian facility last summer convinced the Israeli government and the Bush administration that North Korea was helping to construct a reactor similar to one that produces plutonium for North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, according to senior U.S. officials who said it would be shared with lawmakers today.
Sights & Sounds
Read more »
Sphere: Related Content
Comments: -
23 April, 2008 (00:09) | Daily Roundup | By: Jeff Kouba
A brief world news roundup for 23 April 2008.
United States & the Americas
- VOA – U.S. Democratic Party presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has won the primary in the eastern state of Pennsylvania, keeping her campaign for the White House alive.
- NY Times – Canada and Mexico lent their weight to President Bush’s campaign to expand free trade within the framework of NAFTA.
- Treasury Dept – The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) today designated two entities and four individuals for acting on behalf of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or FARC, a narco-terrorist group.
- AP – A close political ally of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe wanted for allegedly backing illegal militias surrendered to police Tuesday night after Costa Rica denied him political asylum.
- Reuters – Bolivia’s President Evo Morales accused opposition leaders on Tuesday of pushing for regional autonomy to undermine his policies of helping the poor indigenous majority.
- Reuters – Argentine President Cristina Fernandez on Tuesday called for calm as talks with farm leaders grew more tense, raising expectations in financial markets that farmers might go back on strike.
- McClatchy – Kidnappings soar in Mexico as drug gangs seek new income.
- National Post – Individual Canadians remain the third-highest per capita polluters in the world, according to new figures released by Statistics Canada.
Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia
- Press TV – Russia’s state-run Atomstroyexport corporation says Azerbaijan has deliberately halted a shipment of nuclear equipment to Iran. In a Tuesday statement, Atomstroyexport spokeswoman Irina Yesipova said the company is confused and infuriated over the unexpected hold-up, which occurred at the town of Astara, on the Iran-Azerbaijan border.
- RIA Novosti – Azerbaijani border guards shot dead early on Tuesday two Iranians who illegally entered the country with the aim of smuggling alcohol back into Iran, Azerbaijan’s Interior Ministry said.
- Moscow Times – Kadyrov Is the Better of Two Chechen Evils; Modern Chechnya, like France under Louis XIV, is going through the final stage of its centralization. The latest victim in that process is the Vostok battalion commanded by Sulim Yamadayev.
- Kavkaz Center – According to occupation sources, a checkpoint of murtadin was attacked by using grenade launchers, machine guns and rifles in the city of Nazran.
- Kavkaz Center – According to sources in Wilayah Nokhchicho (Ichkeria) of the Caucasus Emirate, 15 Rabi’ Al-Akhar 1429 (21 April 2008) evening on Petropavlovsk highway, outskirts of capital Jokhar, a sabotage team of Mujahideen blew up military convoy of Russian kuffar. Invaders claimed that only one kafir was injured by explosion.
- Robert Amsterdam – Gazprom, Libya, and the Gas OPEC.
Middle East
- Press TV – The Iraqi military command in Basra has issued a one-day ultimatum for Moqtada al-Sadr’s senior Mahdi Army leaders to surrender.
- Maclean’s – A bomb-rigged truck exploded at a checkpoint Tuesday near the western city of Ramadi, killing two U.S. marines and wounding three others in an apparent strike by “al-Qaida in Iraq” in one of its former strongholds. At least one civilian also died and two dozen were injured in the blast, the latest in a string of recent strikes in areas where local Sunnis have joined U.S. forces to battle al-Qaida.
- Belmont Club – This is a campaign for the mastery of the Shi’ite communities in Iraq. And there are two aspects to it. The first is to destroy the power of Iran over the militias and extend the power of the Government of Iraq over them; and second, to reflect both the results of the Surge against the Sunnis and the campaign against the Shi’ite militias in the coming elections.
- Kings of War – Peter Feaver writes an intriguing exposé on his time within the NSC and his part in crafting the American strategy on Iraq in this month’s issue of Commentary magazine. In it he raises several points worthy of further discussion.
- This Could Get Interesting – I wanted to get away from Iraq in this week’s column, but someone sent me a great link (thanks Alan) that’s worth sharing. It’s a short video clip, showing a Marine corporal at a nameless checkpoint, most likely in Anbar province. It’s had me laughing for days.
- Haaretz – Armed Hezbollah militants warded off members of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) last month when the peacekeepers discovered a truck carrying weapons and ammunition belonging to the Lebanon-based guerilla group.
- Ya Libnan – The call by Al-Qaida’s deputy chief for Sunni militants in Lebanon to attack U.N. peacekeepers is a bad omen for the country and a dangerous threat to its future, a Lebanese Cabinet minister said Tuesday.
- UPI – The United Nations says despite a peace agreement between the Yemen government and rebel forces, the security situation remains volatile in the country’s north.
Iran
- Fred Kaplan, Slate – Which is it: Are the Iranians extraordinarily clever, or are we extraordinarily dim? Certainly, when it comes to pursuing our respective interests in Iraq, they seem to be thinking and acting strategically, while we seem not to be.
- EurasiaNet – Iran and Turkmenistan engaged in one of the nastiest natural gas pricing disputes in recent memory over this past winter. It seems that the spring has brought resolution, with Tehran appearing to grudgingly bow to Ashgabat’s efforts to jack up export prices.
- Times of India editorial – A clear message has been sent out by India to the world with the seizure of 1,150 kg of nuclear grade graphite in Mumbai on the eve of its export by air to Iran. The material originated from a third country and India was being used as a transit station. India has demonstrated beyond all doubt where it stands in respect of Iran’s efforts to acquire nuclear weapon capability. However, India is unable to go along with the US, UK, France and Germany in applying coercion on Iran, without demonstrating that they have done all that is possible to stop proliferation of materials and technologies from their own countries to Iran.
- AKI – Seventy-five young people accused of ‘immoral acts’ have been arrested by police at a birthday party in the city of Shiraz in southwestern Iran. The young men and women were accused of “immoral acts” and of holding a “non-authorised promiscuous gathering” said the chief commander of the police forces, Ali Moayyedi.
- MEMRI – The Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) weekly Sobh-e Sadeq has reported that classified intelligence information is being posted by Israeli soldiers on Facebook.
- Washington Institute – On April 25, a second round of voting will determine the remaining eighty-eight seats of the Iranian Majlis. The first round, held on March 14, decided 202 seats and was considered a defeat for both the reformists and President Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad.
Southeast Asia
- Press TV – Germany has rejected calls for sending more troops to Afghanistan, saying Berlin should not dispatch its soldiers into a hopeless battle.
- LA Times - Taliban fighters are blowing up telecom towers, hoping to foil NATO-led forces who from hunt them down via cellphone signals.
- Independent – Faltering British efforts to tackle Afghanistan’s poppy crop have found an unlikely ally – in the weather.
- Times of India – An Indian national, Sarang Mohammed Naeem, has been abducted by a group of armed men in western Afghanistan.
- AKI – A NATO soldier was killed and three others injured a series of attacks in southern Afghanistan, while six Afghan policemen were killed when Taliban militants attacked a checkpoint the southern province of Kandahar late on Tuesday.
- AKI – Gunmen aboard a motorbike on Tuesday shot dead the pro-vice Chancellor of Baluchistan University, Safdar Hussain Kiyani, in southwestern Pakistan.
- The News – Two persons including a union council Nazim were killed and two others injured when unidentified assailants ambushed two vehicles here on Tuesday.
- Dawn – The government is close to an agreement with warring Mehsuds that seeks an end to militant activity, exchange of prisoners and gradual withdrawal of the military to restore peace to the volatile South Waziristan tribal region.
- Kavkaz Center – A relative of a Pakistani Taliban leader just released from custody, has vowed to continue armed struggle for Islamic law in the country’s northwest, despite the signing of a peace accord. Maulana Fazlullah, son-in-law of Sufi Muhammad, said on Tuesday that his group will not lay down their arms until the government enforces the Sharia. The Pakistani government released Muhammad on Monday after a deal reached with the government of the NWFP.
- Telegraph – The mountainous region of Pakistan where al-Qa’eda’s core leaders are believed to have regrouped is so riven by tribal conflict that it cannot be an effective base for waging global terrorism, according to a new study.
- IPS – Sri Lanka’s government, under pressure over human rights violations, is abandoning support from traditional but rights-sensitive partners like the United States and Europe and turning to countries like China and Iran to finance its infrastructure projects.
- Colombo Page – At least seventeen LTTE Tigers were killed in the latest encounters in the northern battle front, while a soldier was killed and nine others were injured, Sri Lanka military said.
- AFP – Tamil separatists destroyed an army tank after Sri Lankan war planes bombed a Roman Catholic church compound killing a man and wounding two children, the rebels said Tuesday.
Far East & Pacific
- Press TV – Japan’s Foreign Ministry says it has frozen the assets of Iranian individuals and bodies allegedly involved in Iran’s nuclear program.
- Japan Times – Ayman al-Zawahri, second in command of al-Qaida, vowed Tuesday to punish Western countries that participated in the Iraq war, hinting that Japan could be a target and advising it to end its alliance with “Americans who had occupied, looted, humiliated and bombed them with nukes.”
- Moscow Times – China said Tuesday that a shipment of weapons bound for Zimbabwe may return home after the vessel was unable to unload in South Africa, but it defended the cargo as “perfectly normal trade.”
- Janes – China is constructing a major underground nuclear submarine base near Sanya, on Hainan Island off its southern coast, Jane’s can confirm. Although Asian military sources have disclosed this fact to Jane’s since 2002, high-resolution commercially available satellite imagery from DigitalGlobe allows independent verification of the previous suggestions.
- Radio Australia – A number of Tongan’s have expressed doubts about moving towards a more democratic style of government.
Europe
- Islam in Europe – The government report picked out terrorism and certain forms of organised crime as the main threat to Switzerland’s internal security. Islamic extremist groups that are based in Switzerland are focused on building up propaganda, logistics and financing of activities from their countries of origin, but are a growing potential for violence, it said.
- Daily Mail – In Britain, police have foiled 15 terror plots since the turn of the century, with suspects continuing to emerge from unexpected quarters, senior officers said yesterday.
- ISN – In the days after Italy’s right-of-center voters emerged victorious from the latest round of national voting it became clear that the next battle for control of Italy will not be between the country’s left and right, but rather its north and south.
- IPS – An internationally condemned Chinese cargo ship attempting to transport arms to Zimbabwe is partially insured by a Norwegian company. This may be illegal, according to Norwegian law.
- Spiegel – Leading Muslim scholars are laying the theological foundations for a “Euro-Islam” which would reconcile their religion with the challenges of modernity. But just how compatible is Islam with secular Western values?
- IHT – Turkey is playing hardball in the geopolitical struggle over an $8 billion pipeline at the center of Europe’s efforts to cut dependence on Russian natural gas. Turkey is trying to profit from its strategic location bridging Europe and Central Asia and to become a key part of Europe’s energy plan.
Africa
- Javno – Militias allied to the Somali government recaptured a southern port from Islamists on Tuesday, as the death toll from an upsurge of fighting in recent days rose to nearly 100, witnesses said. The militias recaptured Guda, which had been taken by the Islamists’ militant al Shabaab wing on Monday, after overnight fighting that brought fatalities on both sides.
- AllAfrica – The U.S. Government says it had cancelled all of Liberia’s US$430 million in debt.
- SudanTribune – Sudan on Tuesday began its first counting in 15 years, a milestone step towards the first free elections since 1989 and the distribution of power and wealth in the country after a peace deal signed in 2005.
- Enough Project – It’s bad enough that the international community has failed, five years in, to end the genocide in Darfur, and worse still that it reacted with no urgency when the Darfur crisis bled into neighboring Chad. With the root causes of conflict in each country still untended, this regional crisis is poised to deepen.
- Reuters – Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men’s penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.
- Magharebia – Three Algerians jailed in France for links with Djamel Baghal, the main defendant in a thwarted 2001 attack targeting the US Embassy in Paris, were extradited to Algeria on Sunday.
- NY Sun – Secretary-General Ban’s envoy to the Western Sahara region is attempting to introduce “political reality” to one of the most intractable disputes on the United Nations’ agenda by suggesting that the territory’s breakaway rebels drop their dream of becoming independent from Morocco
The Global War
- AP – Al-Qaida’s No. 2 leader issued a new audiotape Tuesday accusing Shiite Iran of spreading a conspiracy theory about who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks to discredit the power of the Sunni terrorist network.
- WSJ – North Korea was helping Syria build a nuclear reactor before Israel bombed the site in September, the White House is set to tell Congress.
- United Nations – The head of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today called for urgent action to tackle the “silent tsunami” of rising food prices which threatens to push more than 100 million people worldwide into hunger.
- Belfer Center – How much are the Arabs responsible for their own political dysfunction, national fragmentation and rampant violence, and how much of their troubles can be blamed on foreign interference and military interventions in the region? Two recent articles in quality American journals highlight how low-class Arab politics that are widely dissatisfying to their own citizens can reflect both indigenous autocracy and foreign mischief-making.
- UNS – A 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) Soldier will be awarded the Distinguished Service Cross during a valorous award presentation ceremony April 30 at Fort Bragg, N.C. The recipient, Master Sgt. Brendan O’Connor, is being awarded the DSC for valorous actions during an engagement with a numerically superior enemy force in Afghanistan in 2006.
- Javno – Oil surged more than $2 to record highs near $120 a barrel on Tuesday on supply concerns from Nigeria and the North Sea. Oil’s fresh highs have extended a rally that has seen prices climb more than five-fold since 2002, driven by booming demand from emerging markets, such as China, that has coincided with long-term supply constraints.
- Nosint - Two highly sophisticated U.S. Navy warships with guns and missiles that can’t be fired have been rated unfit for combat, a U.S. newspaper reported Monday. The Navy Times, owned by the Gannett newspaper chain, said it obtained Board of Inspection and Survey reports showing the warships’ Aegis radar systems didn’t work property, flight decks were inoperable, and most of their missiles or big guns couldn’t be fired.
- Anne Applebaum, Slate – Radio Free Europe still exists—and it’s more important than ever.
- SWJ Blog – 23 April SWJ News, Op-Ed & Blog Roundup.
Sights & Sounds
Read more »
Sphere: Related Content
Comments: 1
