Peace Like A River » Cables, dispatches and memoranda

Cables, dispatches and memoranda

November 3, 2008 (1:01 am) | Daily Roundup | By: Jeff Kouba

Cables, Dispatches and Memoranda A brief world news roundup for 3 November 2008.

United States & the Americas

Pentagon – Army Gen. David H. Petraeus assumed leadership of the U.S. military command charged with helping to build peace in a tough and war-torn part of the world. Petraeus took the reins of U.S. Central Command from acting commander Army Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey in a ceremony here. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates presided over the change of command held at the base’s Memorial Park.
BBC – US Gen David Petraeus is due to meet Pakistan’s army chief on his first visit to the country since becoming head of US Central command.
Miami Herald – A controversial general at the war court has submitted paperwork to retire from the Air Force just months after he was removed from the top legal job and reassigned to logistics, The Miami Herald has learned.
canada.com – They are novices when it comes to technology, but they’re passionate and they’re getting smarter about where to place their bombs. That’s the theory being put forward by a pipeline security consultant after a third explosion in less than a month targeted EnCana Corp.’s natural gas operations in Tomslake near the Alberta-British Columbia border.
La Plaza – Bolivian President Evo Morales suspended operations by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration on Saturday after accusing the agency of aiding “criminal groups” that oppose his rule.
Reuters – Bolivia said on Sunday it hopes to normalize relations with the next U.S. government, a day after accusing American anti-drug agents of spying and barring them from fighting cocaine traffickers until further notice.
RIA Novosti – A Russian floating platform will start to drill deep test wells on November 7 to prospect natural gas fields in the Gulf of Venezuela, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday.
NY Times – Among the greatest challenges in Mexico’s drug war is the fact that the traffickers fit no type. Their ranks include men and women, the young and the old. And they can work anywhere: in remote drug labs, as part of roving assassination squads, even within the upper reaches of the government. It has long been known that drug gangs have infiltrated local police forces. Now it is becoming ever more clear that the problem does not stop there. The alarming reality is that many public servants in Mexico are serving both the taxpayers and the traffickers
Washington Times – Eleven policemen have been shot to death near Mexico City in a three-day string of drug-gang attacks, prosecutors said Sunday.

Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia

Melbourne Herald Sun – The Russian navy will hold war games in the Indian Ocean in a bid to boost its global presence, a navy spokesman says, announcing Moscow’s latest move to flex its military muscle. Ships from the Pacific Ocean Fleet and forces from the Northern Fleet will meet and carry out joint military exercises in the Indian Ocean basin,” navy spokesman Igor Dygalo said in a statement.
Russia Today – Russia and Libya are set to strengthen ties in arms and energy. At a meeting with President Medvedev at the Kremlin, the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi identified the oil and gas industries as the top priorities for cooperation between the two countries.
Jerusalem Post – Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin during Gadhafi’s first visit to Russia since 1985 over the weekend. Tripoli announced that it had signed a deal with Moscow to cooperate on nuclear civilian projects, but Russia has not confirmed the nuclear accord. Russian news reports said the leaders were also discussing building a Russian naval base in the Mediterranean port of Benghazi.
Brian Whitmore – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev proudly says he keeps his personal savings in rubles. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin calls buying dollars a “dubious business.” And the mass-circulation daily “Izvestiya” warns readers, inaccurately, that the United States is planning to remove $50 and $100 banknotes from circulation, making the greenback’s future unstable. In the wake of the global financial crisis, Russians have been storming currency exchange booths in recent weeks, rushing to sell their rubles and retreat to the relative safety of the U.S. dollar. And the authorities have been frantically trying, mostly in vain, to convince them to stop.
Mark Franchetti – At 34, Svetlana Bakhmina had it all: the mother of two young boys enjoyed a highflying career as a leading corporate lawyer in Russia’s largest oil company, Yukos. Five years on, and heavily pregnant with her third child, Bakhmina is now languishing in a remote women’s prison colony after being sentenced to 6½ years on embezzlement charges that most believe were trumped up when Yukos was forced into bankruptcy by the Kremlin. Her case has become the litmus test for pledges made by Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s new president, to put an end to the country’s “legal nihilism” and reform the justice system.
RIA Novosti – The leaders of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed on Sunday to work together for improving the situation in the Caucasus and instructed their foreign ministers to intensify efforts to settle the Nagorny Karabakh conflict.
IHT – Police say a homemade, radio-controlled bomb has exploded and injured seven officers in the southern Russian republic of Ingushetia. The policemen had been responding to a smaller blast in the courtyard of a private home early Sunday.
Prof.Dr. Ruben Safrastyan – “Today Russia and Turkey are struggling for the South Caucasus, and the Karabakh conflict is one of the most important fields of this struggle,” Director of the Oriental Studies Institute of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, Turkologist Ruben Safrastyan told a press conference. He considers that following the Russian-Georgian conflict the geopolitical situation in the Caucasus has sharply changed in favor of Russia. “Here Turkey is trying to resist Russia with diplomatic activeness, e.g. with its proposal of establishing a Cooperation and Security Platform. In this situation the two countries are struggling for the South Caucasus,” Safrastyan said.

Water pours from the damaged water main in the Adhamiyah District of Baghdad, Oct 31, 2008. Terrorists had placed an improvised explosive device on the pipe blasting an 18-inch hole in it. One million residents in the Adhamiyah, Rusafa and Karada Districts of Baghdad were affected. The Water Authority had to stop the flow of water into the area in order to affect repairs. The residents still had a supply of water; the authority had water pumped in from Taji and other areas. The water authority expects to have service fully restored by Nov. 2 (photo by Sgt. Jerry Saslav)

Middle East

Press TV – Iraq’s Kurdistan region says it will provide the US with military bases if Baghdad refuses to sign a security deal with Washington. According to the report by the Khabat, Barzani has said that the US military could set up bases in northern Iraq even without signing the controversial Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with Baghdad.
MNF Iraq – The Iranian-sponsored Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq network was further degraded today with the capture of six network criminals by Coalition forces early Sunday in Nasiriyah, in the Dhi Qar province. Asaib al Haq is assessed to receive funding, training, weapons and even direction from the Iranian Quds Force, who have shown a desire to destabilize the legitimate government of Iraq. Iraqi and Coalition forces are working together to prevent Iranian lethal aid from endangering the Iraqi people.
AFP – An Iraqi Sunni tribal chief who led a US-financed militia battling Al-Qaeda militants was killed by a roadside bomb on Sunday along with his wife and their four children, police said. The blast that killed Sheikh Abbas al-Tami and his family near Buhriz, in the southern part of the city of Baquba.
Hizballah – Hizbullah international relations official, Nawwaf Moussawi, said on Sunday that the world would witness a new international era in 2009. Speaking during a political lecture given in the southern village of al-Abassiye on Sunday, Moussawi said that “we are heading towards a victory over the American invasion by the end of 2008 and we will witness a new international era in 2009.”
Ya Libnan – Syria has reportedly deployed more troops along its border with Lebanon, allegedly to ‘combat smuggling. Lebanese security sources told al-Hayat newspaper on Saturday that “the deployment covers the border region in eastern Lebanon that stretches from Hermel to Rashaya.” The sources added that the deployment stretches for 335 Km or the entire Lebanese-Syrian border from the north to the Bekka, or 90 Km facing Akkar and 245Km facing the Bekka.
Daily Star – Two men arrested for running an Israeli spy ring in the Bekaa Valley are relatives of a suicide hijacker who piloted a plane in the September 11, 2001, attacks, a security source told The Daily Star on Sunday. The Lebanese Army announced on Saturday that it had arrested two people suspected of involvement with a spy network that gathered information for Israel’s intelligence services.
Xinhua – Palestinian security forces arrested 17 members of Islamic Hamas movement in West Bank this morning and last night, Hamas said on Sunday. The security forces, loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas’ of Fatah movement, have been cracking down on Hamas after the Islamic movement drove out pro-Abbas forces and took over control of Gaza Strip in deadly fighting last year.
James Hackett – The effort to defend against Iran’s missiles took a new turn in late September when Washington delivered an X-band radar manned by 120 U.S. personnel to the first permanent U.S. military base in Israel. Iran’s missiles are a real and growing threat to U.S. forces and allies in the Middle East. Add the nuclear weapons Tehran is determined to acquire and Iran’s longer-range missiles will be a threat to Europe and even the United States. The radar sent to Israel is the same as the high-powered transportable model now operating in northern Japan.

Iran

IRNA – Visiting Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee conferred on Sunday with Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on expansion of mutual relations as well as regional developments
IRNA – Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said here Sunday that peaceful use of nuclear energy and uranium enrichment are among the rights of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Fars News – Russia is interested in gas swaps with Iran, Iranian Oil Ministry said on Saturday, in a fresh sign of efforts to deepen ties between two states who together account for 40 percent of world reserves. Iran, Russia and Qatar – which are respectively ranked first, second and third in the world in terms of gas reserves – agreed to boost cooperation at a meeting in Tehran last month.
NCRI – The mullahs’ Chastity Patrols are roaming the streets of the northern provincial capital of Rasht picking up men and women deemed not observing the strict dress code set by the regime. Some young women happened to be shop-owners of women boutiques were arrested in line with the so-called “boosting public security,” in Rasht on Friday.
Mehr News – The director of the Labor Ministry’s Department for the Employment of Foreigners has said the Interior Ministry and the police have been unable to deport the two million undocumented Afghan workers living in Iran. Asked about the government’s plans, he said the expulsion of illegal workers from the country is the duty of the police and the Interior Ministry.
Rooz – The acting representative of Iran’s supreme leader in the Passdaran Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) announced on Sunday the creation of 4,000 “Passdaran Political Guide”(s) in the country. The representative had also IRNA that “the purpose of creating these political guides in the Passdaran was to perform an effective role in increasing the participation of the public in the elections”. During this very seminar, Ali Saeedi, the representative of Iran’s supreme leader in the Passdaran told the political guides, “The most important goal of the Passdaran and Basij is to maintain the rule of the ideologues.”
Payvand – Photos: Picking Pomegranates in Paveh, Iran

South Asia

AFPS – Coalition forces killed 19 armed militants and detained three suspects Oct. 31 during multiple operations to disrupt the Haqqani, Taliban, and al-Qaida homemade-bomb and foreign-fighter networks in eastern Afghanistan.
Washington Post – Canadian Troops in Afghanistan Measure Success Inch by Inch; Breaking Taliban’s Hold on Kandahar Has Proved Elusive
AP – Gunmen in Pakistan kidnapped the brother of Afghanistan’s finance minister as he was returning to his mother’s home from prayers, Afghan officials said Sunday. He was at least the third person with ties to the Afghan government to be abducted in Pakistan’s lawless border region, used by al-Qaida and Taliban militants as a base to attacks U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. Zia ul-Haq Ahadi was visiting his sick mother in the Pakistani city of Peshawar and was abducted on Friday as he returned to her home from a neighborhood mosque, said Abdul Razaq, an assistant to the finance minister.
Xinhua – Two gunmen Saturday shot dead a teacher with the municipal police academy school in Kandahar city, the capital of southern Afghan province of Kandahar, said an official on Sunday. Nasrullah Zarifi, schoolmaster of the police academy, told Xinhua that the attack occurred in 2nd district of Kandahar city when two armed men in motorbike opened fire at Abdul Razek Nawabi,a teacher in the academy, on his way home from work, killing him on the spot.
AKI – An Al-Qaeda leader, Abu Akash, was killed in an airstrike on Friday by a suspected CIA Predator drone in Pakistan’s lawless North Waziristan tribal area bordering Afghanistan, according to Pakistani intelligence officials. While officials spoke to the media on condition of anonymity, there was no official confirmation of whether Akash was alive or dead. If Abu Akash was killed in the suspected US drone attack, it would be another major blow for Al-Qaeda after the killing of its chief in Pakistan, Moroccan-born Khalid Habib. Abu Akash, said to be Iraqi by origin, was one of the leading Al-Qaeda commanders who was in charge of a group of Uzbek and Tajik militants. He was believed to be an expert in the military training and indoctrination of recruits.
Taipei Times – A suicide car bomber killed at least eight Pakistani paramilitary troops in a region near the Afghan border. The bombing occurred at a checkpoint near the main gate of the Zalai Fort where Frontier Corps troops were gathered, said Major General Athar Abbas, the Pakistan army’s top spokesman. The fort is 20km outside Wana, the main town in South Waziristan.
Pakistan Daily Mail – Eleven people were killed when a mortal shell fell near a checkpost of Security Forces in Tehsil Matta while local Taliban commander Maulvi Nazeer Ahmed was narrowly escaped in Friday’s attack of US drone in Wana. The incident was occurred when a mortal shell fell on a group of people who wanted to go to Matta was stopped near Wanai Checkpost in Tehsil Matta of Swat as curfew was imposed there. Six persons were also injured in the incident
The News – Seven persons, including four militants, were killed and two others injured during the ongoing military operation and incidents of violence in Swat Valley on Sunday.
NewsBlaze – The booking of key Kashmiri separatist leaders under the infamous Public Safety Act evoked protests in restive Kashmir on Sunday. The pro-independence JKLF chairman, Mohammad Yasin Malik and pro-Pakistani leader, Ghulam Nabi Sumji were booked under PSA on Sunday. Under the infamous law, the leaders will be detained for the period of two years without trial.
Dawn – Sri Lanka’s military stepped up air attacks against Tamil Tiger rebels in the island’s north after a sea battle left heavy casualties on both sides, officials said Sunday. War planes hit a suspected training base for Tamil Tiger guerrillas at Iranamadu, just south of the guerrillas’ political capital of Kilinochchi, on Sunday morning.
Colombo Page – Responding to the request made to the international community, Russia and Czech Republic have come forward to help the government of Sri Lanka to destroy the small aircraft of the Tamil Tiger air wing.
Reporters Without Borders – The International Press Freedom Mission to Sri Lanka, on its visit between October 25 and 29, found a deterioration in the press freedom situation since its last visit in June 2007, marked by a continuation in murders, attacks, abductions, intimidation and harassment of the media. In the recent World Press Freedom Index published by RSF, Sri Lanka has fallen to the lowest press freedom rating of any democratic country worldwide.

Far East & Pacific

AFP – The leaders of South Korea, China and Japan will hold a summit in the Japanese city of Fukuoka in December to discuss closer cooperation amid the global financial crisis, a news report said on Sunday.
Channel News Asia – The three Bali bombers facing execution over an attack which killed 202 people are frustrated at delays to their executions, a family member was quoted as saying in media reports on Monday. The condemned men – Amrozi, 47, Mukhlas, 48, and Imam Samudra, 38 – have been placed in isolation and the order for their death by firing squad has been delivered, according to a source at the high security Nusakambangan prison in southern Java, where they are being held.
IHT – Chinese regulators said over the weekend that they had confiscated and destroyed more than 3,600 tons of animal feed tainted with melamine, an industrial chemical that has been blamed for contaminating food supplies in China and for leading to global recalls of Chinese dairy products. In what appears to be the biggest food safety crackdown in years, the government also said Saturday that it had closed 238 illegal feed makers in a series of nationwide sweeps that involved more than 369,000 government inspectors.
Marc Miller – The interplay between China’s armed forces and its complex foreign policy and international security environment was examined in order to understand the requirements of several newly emerging PLA missions, and to consider how these specific interactions affect policy towards Taiwan and the wider Asia-Pacific region.
James Chen – The topic of cross-Strait relations has been a hot topic in the Chinese-language media this past week, especially in anticipation of Chen Yunlin’s Monday visit to Taiwan. Chen is the chairman of the Association for Relations across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), the body in charge of conducting relations with Taiwan. The visit will be of particular historical significance because he will be the highest-level Chinese official to set foot on the island. An agreement is expected to be signed that would clear the way for direct air, shipping, and postal links between the two sides as well as the creation of a food safety mechanism.
BBC – A row has erupted between Australia’s PM Kevin Rudd and his Labor predecessor Paul Keating over the importance of Gallipoli, a WWI battle site in Turkey.

Europe

IHT – A U.S. official said Friday that a refusal by the Czech Parliament to approve a U.S. missile defense installation on Czech territory would be a serious setback. But Lt. Gen. Henry A. Obering III, the head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, said the U.S. would still build its global missile shield — and has a plan B in hand.
Telegraph – The commander of Britain’s SAS troops in Afghanistan has resigned in disgust, accusing the Government of “gross negligence” over the deaths of four of his soldiers.
Telegraph – The Defence Equipment minister Quentin Davies angrily rejected the claims, suggesting commanders had a choice of vehicles for their troops besides Snatch – a claim that has been widely denied. Des Feely, the father of Corporal Sarah Bryant – the first female soldier to die in Afghanistan – who died in the notoriously vulnerable Snatch Land Rover, launched a stinging criticism on Mr Davies. Mr Feely said the MoD were “damned by the results of their failures” in failing to equip troops properly. “Quentin Davies comments border on an insult to their memory and all others lost in this conflict,” Mr Feely told The Daily Telegraph.
Sylwia Presley – Like any other country, Poland has a strong tradition of markets. Last century brought a slight shift in the value delivered by those markets, though. We can still find traditional markets selling food and antiques in any larger city. But the most popular ones are markets famous for availability of illegal games, films and music. Simply because it’s cheaper. Now, a Polish news site Gazeta.pl is posting an article (POL) about the challenges facing the authorities in that matter.
Kyle Smith – Here in Spain, the hot topic of conversation is a diplomatic slap in the chops coolly administered by President Bush to the Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.
Balkan Insight – The Serbian government wants to delay the sale of its Naftna Industrija Srbije, NIS, oil industry to Russian gas giant OAO Gazprom until the end of 2009, amid uncertainties over how the buyer plans to provide the €500 million in the overhaul of the company, Belgrade-based Politika daily reported.

Africa

Financial Times – Rebels led by renegade commander Laurent Nkunda on Sunday tightened their grip over a swathe of territory in eastern Congo captured after they routed government forces in fighting. However, the rebels have stalled their advance on the border city of Goma amid international efforts to prevent the United Nations’ 17,000-strong peacekeeping mission from unravelling and to stop a wider war in Congo from re-igniting.
Telegraph – Refugees caught between the army and rebel forces are heading back after receiving no food aid in six days. More than 45,000 people camped at Kibati, eight miles north of the regional capital Goma, have seen just one handout of high energy biscuits since the fighting started last Sunday. At least another 200,000 people scattered across the Nord Kivu Province are in a similar position.
TIME – Once the plight of the refugees is addressed, a far more daunting challenge will face all the diplomats who are now speaking earnestly of a solution at last in eastern Congo, whose people have suffered through two wars and numerous clashes since the mid-1990s. Do all those parties with a stake in the Congo conflict — from the government, to the rebels, to the U.N. and a host of peripheral western powers — have the will to settle on a deal?
TIME – Congolese Rebel Leader Laurent Nkunda; With Congo once again on the brink, TIME takes a look at the man arguably most responsible for bringing it there
Anne Penketh – The unprecedented joint visit to Rwanda by David Miliband and Bernard Kouchner, the foreign ministers of Britain and France, was a diplomatic recognition of President Paul Kagame’s crucial role in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo from the two countries which have supported rival sides in the region’s long proxy war.
ABC – But the conflict will be tough to end without resolving an issue at its heart — the presence of Hutu militias who participated in Rwanda’s genocide. The Hutu fighters fled to Congo in 1994 after helping massacre more than a half-million Tutsis. They remain there untouched, heavily armed, and in control of lucrative mines in remote hills and forests.
Amnesty International – A girl stoned to death in Somalia this week was 13 years old, not 23, contrary to earlier news reports. She had been accused of adultery in breach of Islamic law. Inside the stadium, militia members opened fire when some of the witnesses to the killing attempted to save her life, and shot dead a boy who was a bystander. Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow was accused of adultery, but sources told Amnesty International that she had in fact been raped by three men, and had attempted to report this rape to the al-Shabab militia who control Kismayo.
VOA – In Zambia, Rupiah Banda has been sworn in as president after being declared the winner in Thursday’s presidential election. Officials say Mr. Banda defeated opposition leader Michael Sata by a margin of two percentage points of the vote, but Sata’s party is contesting.

USS Boxer partially obscured by a fog bank

The amphibious assault ship USS Boxer is partially obscured by a fog bank off the coast of Naval Amphibious Base Coronado. (photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Dominique Lasco)

The Global War

Haaretz – Hezbollah has appointed a replacement for Imad Mughniyah, the Lebanese militant group’s operations chief who was assassinated in February, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al Rai Al Aam reported on Friday. The paper identified the replacement as Mustafa Shahada, a member of the group’s military apparatus since its founding. It should be noted that the report has not been corroborated by any other source. According to the report, the decision was apparently reached ahead of Hezbollah’s general convention a few weeks ago.
Jerusalem Post – Saudi Arabia foiled a terror attack against the United States five years ago, a Saudi official said Sunday. The official said the 2003 plot, which was first reported Sunday in al-Watan newspaper, was one of 160 foiled terror plots the kingdom announced last month that it had foiled. At the time, authorities provided no details about the alleged plots. It was unclear why Saudi authorities never publicly revealed the alleged 2003 plot previously and why it first surfaced in al-Watan, which is government guided, on Sunday. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the 2003 plot involved terrorists who planned to hijack a plane and blow it up over a densely populated city in the United States.
Arizona Daily Star – Interview with Riki Ellison of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance; Q: What is the biggest missile threat facing America? A: I think right now Iran is the number one threat to everybody, Europe; that’s why the requirement and need for the third (proposed missile-defense) site.
Air Force Link – U.S. Africa Command’s headquarters will remain in its current location in Stuttgart, Germany, for the foreseeable future, a Pentagon spokesman said Oct. 30. “We certainly looked at a number of alternatives,” Mr. Whitman said. “But at the end of the day, it was determined that for now, and into the foreseeable future, the best location was for it to remain in its current headquarters.”
Robert Kaplan – The first challenge, though, might not be a direct and obvious one, such as a Russian troop advance into Ukraine or an Iranian suicide-boat attack on a U.S. warship in the Persian Gulf. No, I fear the challenge would be oblique, even though it is already staring us in the face. I refer to Iraq.
PBS Frontline – Interview with Robert Kaplan; “What do the Pashtuns think of the border?”
Hal Colebatch – What Gallipoli did was prove, for the first time, the courage and fighting abilities of the Australian soldier in extraordinarily difficult conditions of both attack and defence over several months. It laid the foundations of Australia’s military tradition: had the Australian forces performed less bravely, Australia’s subsequent history, including its contribution to the fight against Nazism and Japanese aggression, may well have been different and less admirable and fortunate

Sights & Sounds

CFR – Conflict in eastern Congo has escalated, with hundreds of thousand displaced in recent weeks. Anthony Gambino, former USAID mission director for the Democratic Republic of Congo and author of a new Council Special Report on the country, discusses the rampant lawlessness in the eastern provinces of North and South Kivu.