A brief world news roundup for 13 March 2008.

United States & the Americas

• Miami Herald – The Bush administration said Wednesday it will force a congressional vote on a Colombia free trade agreement this year, in effect launching a do-or-die effort to help the closest U.S. ally in Latin America and setting up a contentious debate smack in the middle of a presidential race.
• NY Times – Ms. Rice will visit Brazil and Chile, but notably absent from her itinerary is Argentina, where Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in October became the first woman elected to be the country’s president. The omission underscores Washington’s disappointment with the new Kirchner government.
• Jules Crittenden – Kuhn at Politico thinks last month’s Pew poll showing growing confidence in the Iraq war effort will remake the presidential debate. With Dems still pushing unconditional withdrawal, independents will swing McCainward.  What Kuhn fails to note, however, is…
• Weekly Standard – Just posted on THE WEEKLY STANDARD Online is an article by Mackubin Thomas Owens about Admiral William “Fox” Fallon and his recent resignation. Owens explains that Fallon’s resignation was largely due to a recent Esquire article about Fallon’s very public disagreements with the Bush administration over foreign policy.

Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia

• RIA Novosti – Russian and Ukrainian energy companies signed a deal on Thursday ending their complex system of natural gas supplies via intermediaries, and fixed a scheme for 2008 deliveries.
• Russia Blog – Five Hypotheses About the Future of Power in Russia.
• Siberian Light – Is the US replacing Russia as Asia’s arms supplier?

Middle East

• Reuters – Once a lovers’ getaway, Habaniya Tourist Village in western Iraq became a refugee camp during some of the fiercest fighting since the fall of Baghdad. Now Amr al-Dulaimi hopes to turn it into a romantic haven again.
• AFP – Chaldean Catholic archbishop kidnapped last month in northern Iraq was found dead on Thursday, an Iraqi official said.
• CSM – After several strikes on Ashkelon last month, Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza on Feb. 29, in which more than 120 Palestinians and three Israelis died. But realizing that a new dynamic has emerged in the conflict, Ashkelon is taking serious precautions.
• contentions – Despite initial denials from officials of both sides, sources are now indicating that an Israel-Hamas ceasefire in Gaza is imminent.
• MEMRI – A knowledgeable Iraqi source living in Qom, Iran has told the London daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat that Muqtada Al-Sadr is in Qom and is studying at the city’s religious seminaries.

Iran

• Washington Post – The abrupt resignation of the Pentagon’s top Middle East commander has silenced one of the Bush administration’s fiercest opponents of a unilateral military strike against Iran, yet top administration officials themselves do not see real prospects for military action before the end of President Bush’s term, current and former U.S. officials say.
• NRO – Iran News Roundup from Michael Rubin
• Press TV – Tehran says it takes on the mantle of resistance of the Muslim world and awaits a massive turnout in the upcoming parliamentary elections. “Iran is the axis of resistance of both the region and the Muslim world,” said Ali-Akbar Velayati, a top advisor to the Leader of the Islamic Revolution.
• Daily Telegraph – Campaigning ends today in Iran for a general election in which the victory of the conservatives is assured. The inevitability of the result follows the disqualification by the clerically dominated Council of Guardians of more than 800 of the 909 reformist candidates.
• IRNA – Deputy Permanent Ambassador of Iran to the UN Mehdi Danesh-Yazdi said here Wednesday that Iran would spare no efforts to improve security and economic situation in Afghanistan.
• Gateway Pundit – The burqa Is a “wardrobe of choice”? Tell that to the 113,454 women who were arrested in Iran last year after the regime cracked down on their modesty laws!
• Hot Air – It will come as no surprise that the Iranian mullahcracy uses its educational system to indoctrinate their children into a hate-filled, paranoid view of the world. America, they learn, is the ‘Great Satan’ (still), and also the ‘World-Devourer’, as well as the ‘Arrogant One’.

Southeast Asia

• AKI – At least six people were killed and another 18 injured when a suicide car bomb exploded in the Afghan capital Kabul on Thursday during the morning rush-hour.
• RFE/RL – An Internet-fueled squabble between Taliban leaders and influential Al-Qaeda sympathizers over nonviolent tactics and foreign influence in Afghanistan hints at deep disagreements that could alter counterinsurgency efforts in that country.
• UPI – British and Afghan National Army troops operating in Afghanistan’s Upper Gereshk Valley say they uncovered a Taliban torture chamber. Officials believe the 8ft by 4ft underground facility uncovered north of Forward Operating Base Keenan, was used to torture local Afghan citizens.
• Afgha.com – Afghan mobile phone companies have begun switching off their signals at night in parts of the restive south after several attacks by the Taleban. Ten mobile phone masts were attacked in recent weeks, the latest on Tuesday night, the Afghan government says.
• Ghosts of Alexander – In mid-September of last year the US Department of Defense released it’s strategic communication plan for Afghanistan. As with most Department of Defense plans, this one has numerous problems.
• BBC – Pakistan’s military has criticised US-led forces in Afghanistan for firing artillery shells across the border, killing two women and two children.
• BBC – Police have opened fire on protesters in India’s north-eastern state of Assam, killing at least three people.
• Colombo Page – Sri Lanka military today said at least 28 Tamil Tigers were killed and scores were injured in clashes across the battlefronts in the north.

Far East & Pacific

• BBC – China has accused the US of double standards over human rights in response to an official US report which labelled Beijing an authoritarian regime.
• SMH – Curries and rice are being ditched in favour of beef jerky and energy bars under a plan to update army rations to suit increasing deployments to the Middle East.
• news.com.au – Japan would step away from its official pacifist position and put its military on alert if there was a serious incident in the Taiwan Strait, a senior official said today.
• Asia Foundation – From the Philippines: Furthering Education Opportunities in the South

Europe

• IPS – In his first week as president-elect, Dmitry Medvedev has sought to build new bridges with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The reinforced relations rest on the pillar of a major energy deal.
• Jamestown Foundation – With only three weeks remaining for necessary damage repair prior to the NATO summit, the German government has perhaps irreparably damaged the Membership Action Plan (MAP) goals of Ukraine and Georgia.
• SE Times - The trial against three former top Croatian generals, accused of war crimes committed against Krajina Serbs towards the end of the 1991-1995 war in Croatia, opened at the International Criminal Tribunal.
• Spiegel – A new poll finds that the majority of people of Turkish descent living in the country feel unwelcomed by Germans. A full 78 percent say that Angela Merkel is not their chancellor.

Africa

• BBC – A Somali soldier has been beheaded by fighters loyal to al-Shabaab, the armed wing of the ousted Islamic courts.
• IOL – Heavily armed rebels crossed into eastern Chad from Sudan on Wednesday, the government said on Thursday, a month after a failed rebel attempt to overthrow President Idriss Deby Itno’s regime.
• FAO – Singer and activist Miriam Makeba says women survivors of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo face a “triple tragedy” of physical, psychological and social damage, undermining the country’s attempts to improve living conditions.
• France24 – Seven villagers were killed and six wounded in a night raid at Kibaki in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s eastern Nord-Kivu province, the UN Mission in DRC (MONUC) announced Thursday.

The Global War

• IRIN – Member states of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) are set to agree on ways to reduce poverty and revise their charter to addresses the huge imbalance in wealth between rich and poor countries in the Islamic world at a summit meeting this week in the Senegalese capital Dakar.
• NY Sun – China’s foreign minister urged America to replace its “Cold-War mentality” with “win-win” solutions to global issues, as he outlined China’s diplomatic objectives for the next five years.
• Thunder Run – From the Front (3/13/2008)
• Daniel Drezner – A few jet-lagged final thoughts about the conference on rogue states I attended yesterday…
• DID – DID has covered India’s updated MiG-21 ‘Bisons’ before, and noted the trouble they have caused American opponents at COPE India 2004 & 2005. Deliveries on that $600+ million program continue; meanwhile the delivery date for the winning aircraft in India’s forthcoming light-medium fighter tender remains up in the air.
• SWJ Blog – BPC and the Indirect vs. Direct Approach in The Long War.

Sights & Sounds

On Monday, the American Enterprise Institute held an event entitled What Now for Russia? The Regime and Opposition after the Presidential “Election”. Here is audio of the event.

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