A brief world news roundup for 27 March 2008.

United States & the Americas

• John McCain speech – “We should start by ensuring that the G-8, the group of eight highly industrialized states, becomes again a club of leading market democracies: it should include Brazil and India but exclude Russia. Rather than tolerate Russia’s nuclear blackmail or cyber attacks, Western nations should make clear that the solidarity of NATO, from the Baltic to the Black Sea, is indivisible and that the organization’s doors remain open to all democracies committed to the defense of freedom.”
• Belmont Club – McCain’s war policy appeared to consist of two things. An attempt to rebuild international institutions and victory against the enemy wherever engaged…
• Gateway Pundit – Three antiwar Democrats traveled to Iraq during the runup of the war in Iraq all paid for by the Saddam Hussein regime. The antiwar Democrats insist that they had no idea Saddam was paying for their trip.
• Maclean’s – Canada reluctant to support Afghan Islamic schools.
• BBC – Colombia says suspected left-wing rebels based in Ecuador have carried out cross border attacks on farmers.
• Reuters – A bomb exploded at a bank in the Chilean capital on Wednesday, the second attack in 10 days, and authorities blamed anarchists, who hold protests at this time every year.
• IPS – Thousands of middle-class Argentines took to the streets late Tuesday in a “cacerolazo” or pot-banging protest, this time against the centre-left government of President Cristina Fernández, showing that the methods learned in the crisis that broke out in late 2001 are still alive.

Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia

• RIA Novosti – Between 400 and 500 militants are currently active in the North Caucasus, the commander of Russia’s interior troops said on Wednesday.
• Kavkaz Center – Near Bammatbek-Yurt village in Khasavyurt district of Wilayah Dagestan, 16 Rabi‘al-Awwal 1429 (24.03.2008) in the evening, Mujahideen from a special operational group (SOG) assigned to the Northern Front of Armed Forces of the Caucasus Emirate (commander Amir Daud) carried out a successful operation aimed at eliminating kafir police officers.
• Russia Today – Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and his U.S. counterpart, George W. Bush, are to meet in the Olympics 2014 capital, Russian resort city of Sochi, next week.
• France24 – Passenger flights between Russia and Georgia resumed Tuesday, more than a year after they were suspended amidst an espionage dispute between the two countries.
• UPI – A second Kosovo? Russia and the West could be headed for a showdown over independence claims of two breakaway regions in Georgia.
• Caucasian News – Tonight, on the 17th day of the protest action, the opposition of Georgia has made a decision to stop the hunger strike.
• BBC – A Kazakh court sentences the former son-in-law of President Nazarbayev to 20 years for plotting a coup.

Middle East

• Outside the Beltway – The cease-fire that has kept the main Shiite militia mostly quiet for the past seven months seems to have unraveled. The US blames Iran.
• AFP – Iraq’s premier on Wednesday gave militiamen battling his forces in Basra 72 hours to lay down their arms, as firefights in several Shiite strongholds across the country killed more than 50 people.
• IRIN – Life in Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city, has been paralysed by a large-scale government military operation against militiamen of the Mahdi Army led by radical Shia leader Moqtada al-Sadr. “The most pressing need is drinking water, as Basra residents depend on bottled mineral water because they do not drink tap water – first because of contamination and second because of its high salinity,” al-Tamimi told IRIN.
• Captain’s Journal – The Shi’ite militias are active, and not just in Basra.  Baghdad is under direct attack from the forces of Moqtada al Sadr.
• Foreign Policy Watch – And so, it begins anew. Although the 7-month ceasefire hasn’t come to an official end, Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army is again picking up their arms, this time to battle American and Iraqi forces in the Shiite-dominated southern port city of Basra. Local members of ISCI (led by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim) and Dawa (led by Nuri al-Maliki) have fled the area.
• Guardian – An SAS soldier was killed in Iraq in a gunfight early yesterday during a covert operation in the Baghdad area, sources said last night. The Ministry of Defence, which does not comment officially on the activities of the UK’s special forces, said only that a British soldier was shot and killed in Iraq.
• UPI – Iraqi security forces arrested an alleged senior al-Qaida leader and detained several others in raids in the northern city of Kirkuk. The arrest follows the March 20 capture of another suspect believed to be a senior member of al-Qaida operating in the province of Kirkuk, the U.S. military said in a statement.
• CNN – Israeli forces have arrested a wanted Hamas leader accused of planning one of the worst suicide attacks on Israel, the Israeli military announced Wednesday.
• INN – Gaza terrorists fired a Kassam rocket that blew up in an unpopulated area south of Ashkelon early Wednesday evening.
• RIA Novosti – A senior leader of a radical Islamic group was found dead in the south of Gaza city, on Wednesday, local officials said. The body of Mahmoud Basal, who was kidnapped by unknown gunmen on Monday, was found near the former Jewish settlement of Nitzarim.
• IPS – A World Bank official said this month it could take as long as “a generation” for the effects of Egypt’s recent economic growth to be felt by the poorest segments of the population. But as “neo-liberal” economists urge patience, retail prices for essential foodstuffs continue to skyrocket, stretching many household salaries to breaking point.
• Jerusalem Post – Egypt announced Wednesday that it would send a junior minister to the Arab summit in Damascus, which is expected to take place starting Saturday. Nearly half of Arab leaders are scheduled to stay away from the summit in what is regarded by Arab political analysts as a “severe blow” to Syrian President Bashar Assad. Many Arab leaders are enraged by Assad’s alliance with Iran and his meddling in Lebanon’s internal affairs.
• US Navy – The U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet has expressed regret for the death of an Egyptian citizen who died March 24, an apparent result from warning shots fired at a small boat approaching a ship chartered by the U.S. Navy.

Iran

• Press TV – India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corp hopes to sign deals with Iran to develop huge oil and gas fields in Iran at a meeting planned for next month.
• NY Times – Iran said the United States, Britain, France and Germany should apologize to the country’s leaders for damaging their reputations through sanctions resolutions against the country’s nuclear program.
• Jerusalem Post – Iran is a threat to the entire Middle East and the free world and all deterrence measures should be considered, IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi said Wednesday night. During a meeting with US Senator Daniel Inouye, Chairman of the US Subcommittee on Defense, Ashekenazi said that the continuing development of Iranian nuclear capabilities and its long-range missile technology is Israel and the region’s principal and most potent threats.
• Uskowi on Iran – Iran has asked for a full membership at Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The SCO is a security organization founded in 2001. Russia, Tajikistan, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan are full members. Iran, India, Pakistan and Mongolia have observer status.
• Payvand – Only those who knowingly or otherwise have their heads in the sand will deny the present self-defeating course of America. How can informed and educated people still call America a force of democracy when its commander in-chief is leading an over-crowded world stricken with ignorance, poverty, disease, to total death and destruction. Much worse, depriving its own people of education, health, infrastructure and killing and maiming its young and bankrupting America.
• Michael Rubin – Vice President Dick Cheney’s swing through the Middle East and Turkey has, among other missions, much to do with consolidating regional diplomatic support in the face of the Iranian challenge. No harm in that. But while the Administration focuses on the Islamic Republic’s regional challenge, Iranian policymakers have embarked on a strategy to catapult the Islamic Republic into a global power with well-coordinated outreach to pivotal states not only in Latin America but also in Africa. Here.

Southeast Asia

• Intellibriefs – India’s Strategic Thrust in S. E. Asia—Before & After 9/11; A keynote speech delivered by the writer on March 26, 2008, at an international seminar on INDIA-SOUTHEAST ASIA: STRATEGIC CONVERGENCE IN THE 21ST CENTURY.
• Times of India – Maoists blasted a railway station in Vizianagaram district of Andhra Pradesh late on Tuesday night, police said on Wednesday.
• iafrica – China’s crackdown on protests in Tibet left at least 135 dead, 1000 injured and 400 arrested, the head of the Tibetan parliament-in-exile said in Brussels on Wednesday.
• Reuters – Chinese authorities have launched mass arrests of Tibetans in Lhasa for interrogation about the fiercest anti-Chinese uprising for decades, a Beijing-based source told Reuters on Wednesday.
• BBC – French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said France will send more troops to bolster Nato’s mission in Afghanistan, subject to certain conditions. Mr Sarkozy, who is on a state visit to Britain, said he would make the offer at next week’s Nato summit in the Romanian capital, Bucharest.
• IHT – Taliban attacks on telecom towers have prompted cell phone companies to shut down service across southern Afghanistan at night, angering a quarter million customers who have no other telephones.
• BBC – A car bomb attack kills at least eight people in a farmers’ market in the south of Afghanistan, police say.
• Spiegel – Canada’s defense minister is ratcheting up pressure on his NATO allies in Europe, saying Germany’s Bundeswehr and other militaries must join the fight in hotly contested southern Afghanistan. In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, Peter MacKay argues that Germans should be doing more to stop the Taliban insurgency.
• The Economist – Mr Gilani’s election underscores Mr Musharraf’s worsening political isolation. The new prime minister won the poll by a huge margin, securing 264 votes in the 342-seat lower house. His only opponent was a pro-Musharraf candidate, Chaudhry Pervez Ilahi of the Pakistan Muslim League (Qaid-i-Azam), or PML (Q), who won just 42 votes. Mr Gilani is now set to form a coalition government centred on an alliance between the PPP and the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), or PML (N), which won the second-largest number of seats in last month’s elections.
• AFP – Pakistan’s new premier told US President George W. Bush that a broader approach to the “war on terror” is necessary, including political solutions and development programmes, a statement said.
• Washington Post – Extremists in Pakistan’s western tribal areas have killed dozens of people suspected of providing intelligence to the United States and its allies in recent months, according to local officials and tribal elders. The killings, some of them carried out in brutal fashion and videotaped as warnings to would-be spies.
• Xinhua – The Air Force in Sri Lanka launched two separate air attacks at Tamil Tiger targets Wednesday morning in the north, said the Air Force. Meanwhile, the military said two police officers were killed and five others including a civilian were injured when LTTE rebels detonated a claymore mine at the Thandiadi area in the eastern Batticaloa district Wednesday morning.

Far East & Pacific

• FT – North Korea has expelled most of the South Korean managers working in a joint factory park on its side of their heavily armed border, a government official said on Thursday. The decision, seen as one of the most aggressive moves by the North against its neighbour in years, comes as South Korea’s new President Lee Myung-bak has pledged to take a tougher line on North Korea over its widely condemned human rights abuses.
• Chosun – Four adopted Korean children were killed by their adoptive father in [Iowa City, Iowa] in the U.S. The children had been born to unwed mothers and were abandoned a week to three months after they were born. [I went to grad school in Iowa City -jk]
• Radio Australia – A 25-year-old Finnish tourist may face a jail sentence after allegedly vandalising an ancient statue on remote Easter Island, in the south pacific.
• Military.com – The 2006 agreement between the United States and Japan to shift 8,000 U.S. Marines from bases in Japan to the island of Guam by 2014 is likely to have more far-reaching implications than just a change of address for some units of the Marine Corps’ III Marine Expeditionary Force (III MEF). The move is accelerating the return to prominence of Guam in the U.S. defense posture and fostering a higher level of cooperation among the U.S. armed forces in the Pacific region.

Europe

• BalkanInsight – Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Wednesday his country’s support for Albania’s NATO membership bid at the alliance’s summit in Bucharest next week.
• BBC – French President Nicolas Sarkozy is to hold talks with Gordon Brown on nuclear energy, on the second and final day of his state visit to the UK. The two leaders are expected to seal an agreement on a new generation of power stations, during talks at Arsenal Football Club’s north London stadium.
• IPS – What looked like a foregone conclusion — Warsaw nodding to Washington’s request to build a U.S. missile base in Poland — is on thin ice after Poland’s new government decided to switch to what it calls a realistic approach to negotiations.
• Gates of Vienna – Our Danish correspondent TB reported in last night with this message: Baron, Today a campaign by an organization called “The Prophet of Mercy” has been launched in the Danish media.

Africa

• Douglas Farah – After the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) was driven from power in Somalia by Ethiopian troops 15 months ago, the region, and its ongoing turmoil, largely fell from public view and the the official policy agenda. That is a serious mistake.
• Garowe – Somalia’s Islamist guerrillas briefly took control of the town of Jowhar after battling government troops for half an hour, residents said.
• IRIN – Comoros took control of its rebel island of Anjouan on Tuesday in a military operation aimed at toppling renegade leader, Mohamed Bacar, a government official said. The military was still facing some resistance close to Bacar’s home early on Monday, and the whereabouts of the former gendarme colonel was unknown, the spokesman said.
• IRIN – Just two weeks after Chad and Sudan signed a landmark peace accord their two governments have accused each other of supporting fresh attacks into their respective territories by proxy armed groups. Both governments appear to be bristling for a fight.
• Sudan Tribune – Some 1300 Eritrean soldiers have crossed the borders to Ethiopia over the past 6 months in protest to the massive oppression and ill-military policies they are facing at home, Administration of refugees and returnee Affairs disclosed.
• United Nations – The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) today urged Ghana to cease with any further forcible removals after the West African nation deported 16 Liberians – 13 of whom had registered as refugees with the agency – last weekend. The Liberians were deported following a sit-in demonstration which started on 19 February at the Buduburam refugee settlement 35 kilometres west of the Ghanaian capital, Accra. They were demanding resettlement in third countries or, if they were to be returned to Liberia, a tenfold increase in their return grant to $1,000.
• Global Voices – The Malawian blogging community is gradually growing in terms of size and topics. In this roundup, I introduce four blogs dedicated to marriage and children issues, Tumbuka language, health and lifestyle issues.

The Global War

• Threats Watch – Steve Hayes at The Weekly Standard is not particularly stunned that part of the reason President Bush does not talk about known links between Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and international terrorism is because he apparently is not shown or consciously made aware of some important post-invasion evidence.
• Mark Eichenlaub – Links. Ties. Operational links. Sponsorship. These terms have vastly different meanings to different members of the media when they discuss relations between Saddam Hussein’s regime and the al-Qaeda network.
• CSM – Rice farmers here are staying awake in shifts at night to guard their fields from thieves. In Peru, shortages of wheat flour are prompting the military to make bread with potato flour, a native crop. In Egypt, Cameroon, and Burkina Faso food riots have broken out in the past week. Around the world, governments and aid groups are grappling with the escalating cost of basic grains. In December, 37 countries faced a food crisis, reports the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), and 20 nations had imposed some form of food-price controls.
• Jules Crittenden – It’s new, it’s so bad they named it after the hated American mercenaries, because it kills the innocent just like they do. Slamming Blackwater is always fun and really adds some zing to this story suggesting that an Iraqi malaria epidemic is being kept secret. (h/t Instapundit)
• Michael Totten – Freedom Fighter Called “Terrorist” by INS: Karen DeYoung published a story in the Washington Post that ought to embarrass anyone making decisions about who deserves permanent residence in the U.S.
• MESH – According to Philip Bennett, managing editor of the Washington Post, Americans lack a proper understanding of Islam. Contemporary media practice is to blame, and it is the job of the same media to fix it.
• MountainRunner – Jean-Marie Guéhenno, the U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, will be speaking Thursday, 27 March 2008, at 1:00p as part of CSIS’s Smart Power Speaker Series. I wonder if some critical truths of U.N. peacekeeping will be discussed, such as those I discuss in a forthcoming article in Serviam due out literally any day now.
• Westhawk – If an improvised nuclear weapon ever detonated inside the U.S., the U.S. public would likely demand swift and merciless retaliation against the attackers. For this scenario, the difficult questions have always been…

Sights & Sounds

Direct flights between Russia and neighbouring Georgia have resumed follwing the end of an embargo.

Stratfor’s Daily Podcast – Iraq: Al-Sadr’s Muted Return. Director Kamran Bokhari says the radical Shiite leader — who has been largely absent from the political scene of late — must strike a difficult balance as he attempts to retain his political influence.

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