A brief world news roundup for 20 January 2009.

United States & the Americas

• Treasury Dept – The U.S. Department of the Treasury designated four al Qaida associates under Executive Order 13224, which targets terrorists and those providing support to terrorists or acts of terrorism. Mustafa Hamid is a senior al Qaida associate who served as a primary interlocutor between al Qaida and the Government of Iran. Before the fall of the Taliban, Hamid served as an instructor at a terrorist camp near Jalalabad that trained in the use of explosives. Hamid is the father-in-law of senior al Qaida military commander Sayf al-Adl…
• Douglas Farah - The designation, taken literally, has little meaning. None of those named have any assets in the United States than can be frozen, and likely do not do business under their own names abroad, nor are they likely to have bank accounts. But as a symbolic measure it is important because it highlights he history of the Iran-al Qaeda relationship, and how wrong the conventional wisdom in the intelligence community was in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. There still exists a strong resistance to seeing how thing work, rather than how we like to imagine they might work.
• NY Daily News – The President also bestowed the nation’s highest award for spywork on his security team, awarding the National Security Medal last week to Director of National intelligence Mike McConnell, CIA Director Michael Hayden and CIA Deputy Director Stephen Kappes. Hayden and Kappes, no doubt, were given the top honor for eliminating eight senior Al Qaeda leaders in missile strikes inside Pakistan in the last six months. Among the dead were operatives planning attacks against the West, sources said.
• Military.com – Military judges in a Guantanamo war crimes court were pressing forward today with hearings against five men accused of orchestrating the Sept. 11 attacks and a Canadian accused of killing a U.S. Soldier.
• FOX News – On his last full day in office, President Bush commuted the controversial sentences of two former Border Patrol agents convicted of shooting a Mexican drug runner in 2005.
• UN – The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, found today that the United States had breached its orders when Texas last year executed a Mexican national who had not been informed on arrest of his right to contact his consular representatives.
• LAHT – Five people were killed in a gunbattle that erupted at a birthday party in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, authorities said. The shooting took place Sunday in the municipality of San Marcos when an off-duty state police officer arrived with his family at the celebration.
• Miami Herald – Chile’s former top air force commander was arrested Monday on charges of taking graft in the 1994 sale of 25 Belgian military planes to the government. Air Force Gen. Ramon Vega and three other retired officers are charged with tax evasion, misappropriation of public funds and improper negotiation and are being held at an air force base, according to a Chilean court.
• Reuters – Assailants attacked Venezuela’s opposition with tear gas on Monday after President Hugo Chavez told police to use gas at anti-government public disturbances ahead of a referendum on allowing the leftist re-election.
• Radio Netherlands – The Supreme court in Nicaragua has revoked a prison term for the right-wing former president Arnoldo Aleman. Five years ago, Mr Aleman was sentenced to 20 years in prison for corruption. According to Nicaraguan media his sentence has been dropped in a deal to end the political unrest in the country.
• CNN – A former guerrilla group that laid down its arms in 1992 has won the most seats in El Salvador’s national Legislative Assembly, giving the FMLN a big boost toward winning the presidential election in March.

Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia

• Kremlin – The decree prohibits all Russian physical and legal entities from supplying, selling or transferring military goods to Georgia from Russian Federation territory or through Russian Federation citizens. The prohibition covers arms and military equipment, related material goods and also dual-use goods that can be used for military purposes, regardless of where they are produced. The prohibition takes effect from the day the decree comes into force and will remain in effect until December 1, 2011. The decree prohibits the use of rail, water and air transport for the supply of military or dual-use goods, holding consultations and providing assistance or services related to the production, servicing or use of arms and military equipment, and services to train specialists in the military field
• Georgia MFA – Russia threatens to undertake sanctions against the international community for cooperation in the field of security with the sovereign democratic country, whereas it is Russia itself that has been engaged for decades in and is still providing weapons and military equipment to all those odious regimes posing threat to international security and stability in the world’s various regions. There is no need to remind the international community which country is manufacturing the weapons used largely by terrorist organizations worldwide. Georgia in common with the international community is perfectly aware how Russia was supplying weapons and military equipment to the proxy regimes created by the occupation forces in Georgia’s conflict zones, followed, along with Russia’s military aggression, by ethnic cleansing, murder of thousands of peaceful citizens and expulsion of hundreds of thousands of peaceful people from the places of their residence.
• Georgian Times – Abkhazian puppet regime denies participation in shootings to Khurcha direction, Zugdidi region this morning, – agency Interfax informs. Georgian MIA informs that intense shootings were heard in the morning at 05:00 to the direction of police checkpoint for 15 minutes in Zugdidi region village Khrucha. One policeman was injured.
• Civil Georgia – Two Georgian policemen were wounded after their pick-up truck came under “intensive fire” at the village of Dvani, close to the South Ossetian administrative border, on January 19, the Georgian Interior Ministry said.
• Russia Today – Russia and Ukraine have signed a gas deal on Monday which will allow the two sides to resume transit of Russian fuel to European customers. Gas will soon start moving to Europe after it enters Ukraine’s pipelines.
• RIA Novosti – The Russian Defense Ministry has started the development of a new arms procurement program for 2011-2020, a Russian daily newspaper said on Monday, citing government sources. The draft program, which has to be submitted to the parliament for approval by March 2010, is aimed at completely rearming the Russian military with new advanced weaponry, Nezavisimaya Gazeta said.
• BBC – Russia’s defence ministry has confirmed a report saying the armed forces lost 471 service personnel to non-combat deaths in 2008, 30 more than in 2007. By far the largest single cause was suicide, accounting for 231 deaths.
• NY Times – The lawyer who fought against the early release from jail of a former Russian tank commander imprisoned for murdering a young Chechen woman was shot dead by a gunman in central Moscow on Monday, officials said. The lawyer, Stanislav Markelov, had attempted a last-minute appeal against the release of the former commander, Yuri D. Budanov, a decorated Russian Army colonel before he was stripped of his rank, who was freed last Thursday.
• RFERL – With the incoming Obama administration making no secret of its intention to increase military efforts in Afghanistan, reports persist that Kyrgyzstan plans to end the U.S. use of its Manas air base. The thinking is that the move would make Russia more amenable to providing cash-strapped Kyrgyzstan with loans and investment totaling $2 billion ahead of a visit by the Kyrgyz president to Moscow. But a top U.S. military official, in Bishkek as part of a Central Asia tour to rally support for the Afghan war effort, says no such changes are expected.
• AFP – A top US general said Monday that Washington wanted to boost aid to Kyrgyzstan, after reports that the central Asian nation would close a US military airbase used to support operations in Afghanistan. General David Petraeus, commander of US Central Command, told reporters that he had met with Kyrgyz officials and discussed the importance of the Manas airbase, as the United States moves to step up its military presence in Afghanistan.
• Turkish Weekly – Omurbek Tekebayev, Ata-Meken leader and former chairman of the parliament of Kyrgyzstan, was arrested for carrying a lethal weapon without license on January 17. Tekebayev was released from custody the following day. This Monday, a court in the Talas region will handle the administrative case opened against the opposition leader.
• Naharnet – Azerbaijani authorities have thwarted a plot by Hizbullah to bomb the Israeli embassy in Baku, the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Watan reported on Monday. It quoted well-informed Russian sources as saying Azerbaijan’s security apparatus thwarted Hizbullah’s alleged plot which aimed at avenging the killing of the Shiite group’s military commander Imad Mughniyeh in a car bombing in Damascus last February.
• ISN – Residents of a town in eastern Azerbaijan say they have condemned a fellow citizen to death for what they see as his support for Israel’s campaign in Gaza, raising fears that the conflict could radicalize society in the oil-rich republic. The Seher channel is broadcast from Iran, which has a large Azeri minority. It regularly shows religious programming and is markedly critical of the Azerbaijan government. Attempts to block its signal have failed and it is available right across the south of the country. Rustamkhanli denied ever having told Seher he approved of Israel’s actions, and blamed the Iranian government for trying to smear him because of he had opposed its policies in the past.

Middle East

• Al Sumaria – Head of Iraqi National Dialogue Front Saleh Mutlaq announced that a suicide bomber killed the deputy leader of the bloc on Sunday as he and other politicians met to discuss upcoming provincial elections. In a statement to Reuters, Mutlaq explained that Hassan Zaidan Al Lihebi, was killed by a suicide bomber who stormed his house, shot at guards and blew himself up in a crowded reception room.
• Voices of Iraq – “The Interior Ministry’s QRD force raided a house in al-Suwayra district, (135 km) north of al-Kut city, arresting a leader of a Special Groups cell,” Lt. Aysar al-Ekeidi told Aswat al-Iraq news agency. “The wanted man is a leader of a Special Groups that come from Iran. He is suspected of involvement in terrorist operations against Iraqi security forces and civilians,” he said, adding the raid was conducted based on intelligence tip-offs.
• Al Bawaba – Iraq’s most powerful Shiite cleric on Monday called on Iraqis to go to the polls in this month’s elections but noted he was not supporting any particular candidates. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani enjoys massive support among Iraq’s majority Shiite Muslims.
• Asharq Al Awsat – Followers of anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr hope to win back their position as a major force in this month’s regional elections after a string of military and political setbacks last year.
• Al Arabiya – The leaders of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria and Qatar met on Monday to try to mend a rift pitting Cairo and Riyadh against Qatar and Syria, a Saudi diplomatic source said. King Abdullah also announced the donation of $1 billion for the reconstruction of Gaza.
• Qatar MFA – Qatar Foreign Ministry summoned this morning the Head of the Israeli trade office in Doha and handed him an official memorandum containing Qatar”s decision closing the office and ordering its staff to leave within a maximum period of seven days.
• Haaretz – Senior Israel Defense Forces officials said Monday that Hamas officials had ordered the armed wing of the Islamist group to target Israeli soldiers who still remain inside the Gaza Strip, despite cease-fire declarations from both sides.
• Jerusalem Post – Hamas militiamen have rounded up hundreds of Fatah activists on suspicion of “collaboration” with Israel during Operation Cast Lead, Fatah members in the Gaza Strip told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.
• Shimon Shapira – The US, EU, and Israel have a collective interest in cutting off post-war Gaza from the Iranian-Syrian axis… Therefore, the main objective for Israel and the international community should be to deny Iran the attainment of this objective and, conversely, to transform the Palestinian Authority, headed by Mahmoud Abbas, into the principal factor, along with Egypt, entrusted with the rehabilitation work in Gaza. The World Bank can provide oversight of how the funds are being used.
• NOW Lebanon – Speaker Nabih Berri said that Lebanese Intelligence had information on who was behind the rockets fired from southern Lebanon into Israel last week, but declined to give details.

Iran

• Fars -  Iranian intelligence ministry announced on Monday that its forces had dismantled a US-backed spy network that was seeking to topple the country’s Islamic regime. Saying that the CIA had spent about $32 million on the plot, the official added, “The US, using its agents in United Arab Emirate, Baku (Azeri’s capital), Turkey, Kuwait and other countries, seeks to implement a velvet revolution and tries to infiltrate the Iranian elites and experts and other social layers.”
• Iran MFA – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday that a big victory for the Islamic countries is near and Islam’s enemies are on the way of collapse. President Ahmadinejad made the remarks in his separate telephone conversations with Qatari Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani as well as Sudanese and Syrian Presidents Umar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir and Bashar al-Assad respectively.
• Tehran Times – Expediency Council Chairman Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has criticized some high-ranking French officials for threatening Iran over its nuclear standoff with the West.
• Iran Daily – Bank Mellat will be privatized in the near future, its managing director said. Addressing a gathering of employees of Qazvin branches of Bank Mellat, Ali Divandari said the bank’s shares will be made available to the private sector in the coming months, turning it into the largest private bank in the country, IRNA wrote. (see more here)
• MEMRI – Iran’s Labor News Agency has quoted an official in the Iranian presidency as saying that his government has established a base price of $37.50 a barrel as the basis for preparing the next Iranian annual budget, for March 2009-March 2010. The Iranian budget is calculated on the basis of 50 percent revenues from oil exports.
• Mehr – Iran has agreed to help Tajikistan construct large industrial factories. The Tajik Aluminum Company will construct over 11 industrial plants in the country. Australia, Canada, China, and Kazakhstan – the company’s other foreign partners – have also agreed to cooperate, IRIB quoted an official from the Tajikistan presidential office on Monday. The Tajik Aluminum Company, Tajikistan’s chief industrial asset, runs the largest aluminum manufacturing plant in Central Asia.
• NCRI – On Friday afternoon, January 16, 2009, dozens of family members of Ashraf City residents traveling to Iraq in order to see their relatives were arrested at Tehran airport. The majority of those arrested are women between 60 to 80 years of age. They have been violently beaten by the mullahs’ Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) henchmen
• Payvand – Photos: Persian Gulf shores, Iran

South Asia

• AFP – Pakistan reopened a main NATO supply route to Afghanistan Monday after the road was briefly closed by a rebel rocket attack that killed one soldier and wounded 10 others, officials said. Taliban militants launched the pre-dawn attack on a Pakistani paramilitary force camp in Landi Kotal town, near the Torkham border crossing, a local administration official said. “The rebels fired eight rockets on the camp, killing one soldier and wounding 10 others,” the official said, requesting anonymity.
• Michael Yon – Our people in the fighting tell their stories better than anyone.  This photo-essay just came to me from Afghanistan.  Our soldiers are not professional writers, nor photographers, but they are very good at what they do.  The rawness and simplicity of this powerful essay rings truer than any of us writers/photographers seem to be able to capture.  It also reminds me of why I am so happy to be in the United States, away from the fighting, and how much I distress about not covering our people when they are in need.
• Pak Tribune – The Russian Federation President Dmitry Medvedev expressed his country`s readiness to help Afghanistan in the field of defense, in a letter to the Afghan president on Monday January 19, 2009.
• Bakhtar – In a cleaning operation by state forces in the Kunduz province, 14 terrorists were captured.  The Police Chief in Kunduz province told BIA.
• NY Times – The eastern town of Khost was hit by three explosions on Monday, including a double suicide bombing, leaving a teenager dead and at least 16 other civilians wounded, including a woman and five children, police and military officials said.
• Reuters – Pakistani Taliban insurgents blew up four schools in the northwestern Swat region on Monday hours after a cabinet minister vowed that the government would reopen schools in the violence-plagued valley.
• Dawn – Suspected separatist rebels blew up a gas pipeline in Dera Bugti district in Baluchistan on Monday, suspending supplies to several areas, officials told AFP. The pre-dawn blast damaged a main pipeline bringing gas from the Pirkoh field to the Sui purification plant in Dera Bugti, said security and company officials on condition of anonymity.
• The Post – Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani Monday expressed deep concerns over US drone attacks inside Pakistani territory, saying such incidents could assist terrorist elements and harm the war on terror. In a meeting with British Defence Minister John Hutton who called on him here, he said the drone attacks in Pakistani tribal areas must be halted.
• RAND – The Mumbai terrorist attacks in India suggest the possibility of an escalating terrorist campaign in South Asia and the rise of a strategic terrorist culture, according to a study issued today by the RAND Corporation. The RAND study identifies the operational and tactical features of the attack, evaluates the response of Indian security forces, and analyzes the implications for India, Pakistan and the United States.
• Times of India – Changing its tune, terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba on Monday offered truce in Kashmir, a TV report has said. According to Times Now, LeT spokesman Abdullah Ghaznavis has hinted at ending jihad in Kashmir.
• B. Raman, Intellibriefs – There has been considerable anger and indignation in India over the attempt of David Miliband, the British Foreign Secretary, who visited India last week, to rationalise the terrorist attack in Mumbai from November 26 to 29,2008, by the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LEt) of Pakistan by linking the attack to the Kashmir issue.
• R. Upadhayay, SAAG – THE JIHADI STATE OF HINDU KUSH – A challenge to India’s security
• India Defence – China handed over to Pakistan eight advanced jet trainers that will be used to train pilots for transition to fourth generation combat aircraft. The eight Karakoram K-8P jets were handed over at a ceremony at a PAF base that was attended by the Deputy Chief of Air Staff (Operations) and a Chinese delegation, said an official statement.
• Colombo Page – Sri Lankan troops consolidating in the recently captured area of Dharmapuram in Mullaitivu District found a large underground LTTE fuel storage facility today, the military said. The detection of the fuel storage follows the discovery of a heavily fortified concrete bunker believed to be recently constructed as a hideout for the LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. (see bunker photos here)

Brigadier Bill Sowry takes command of the International Stabilisation Force (ISF) in East Timor during a parade in Dili. Brigadier Sowry replaces Brigadier Mark Holmes, MVO who has led the Australian and New Zealand force since July 2008. (photo from Australia DoD)

Far East & Pacific

• IHT – The Australian economy, once seen as a relatively safe haven, is headed for a steep downturn in 2009, thanks to slower than expected growth in China, a leading forecaster said Monday. In a starkly worded quarterly outlook report, the Australian research firm Access Economics warned that the mining-led economy “will unwind scarily fast” in 2009, sending the Australian dollar and interest rates crashing. “This is not just a recession. This is the sharpest deceleration Australia’s economy has ever seen,” said the report, which was released Monday.
• Times of India – China plans to develop its own independent global satellite navigation system by 2015, which will make it the third world power to develop such a Global Positioning System (GPS). The Beidou navigation system which will have both military as well as civil applications will arm Chinese aircraft and satellite systems, the official Xinhua new agency reported today quoting a senior space official.
• China Law Blog – My firm has been involved in a number of cases where it has made sense to depose Chinese witnesses in China and in none of them did it ever occur. Instead, the following happened…
• France24 – Japanese industrial output plunged a record 8.5 percent in November from the previous month as companies retrenched to cope with the recession, the government said Monday. The slump was even bigger than an initial estimate for a drop of 8.1 percent, and was the biggest fall since comparable records began in 1953.
• Korea Times – President Lee Myung-bak replaced his finance and unification ministers and 12 other senior officials Monday in a Cabinet shakeup aimed at reviving the sagging economy and reestablishing stalled relations with North Korea.
• Irrawaddy – Karen refugees in Nu Po refugee camp are living in fear because of repeated clashes between the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) and units of the Burmese army and Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) over the weekend.
• VietNamNet – Vietnam is determined to do everything necessary to strengthen its cooperation and friendship with Cambodia, President Nguyen Minh Triet said on Jan. 19. He made this statement while receiving the Cambodian National Assembly Chairman Heng Samrin, who is on an official visit to Vietnam.
• Straits Times – Cambodia’s UN-backed genocide tribunal on Monday officially set February 17 as the start date for the long-awaited first trial of former Khmer Rouge leaders accused of atrocities in the 1970s.
• Bangkok Post – The Criminal Court on Monday sentenced an Australian writer to three years in jail after finding him guilty of insulting Thailand’s revered royal family in a novel, a judge said. Harry Nicolaides, 41, pled guilty to the charge earlier on Monday. He has been in custody for nearly five months.

Europe

• Iran Focus – France and Britain are spearheading an effort within the European Union to pass new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme but have so far had limited success, French daily Le Monde said on Monday.
• AFP – Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme has no civilian purpose and is dragging it into a dangerous confrontation with the international community, France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy said Friday.
• VOA – European Union officials say the 16 nations that use the euro face a recession this year, which will bring rising unemployment and growing government debts. Officials say the economies will shrink by 1.9% this year, while unemployment goes above 9%.
• LA Times – Britain today unveiled a new bailout plan to bolster its loss-wracked banking system, but the markets’ reaction wasn’t encouraging. Shares of the country’s major banks continued to plunge on fears the government is heading for nationalization of the industry, which conceivably would wipe out shareholders.
• European Commission – The European Commission has released its European Financial Integration Report (EFIR) – an annual analysis of the integration in the EU financial sector and its effects on competition, efficiency, financial stability and competitiveness. EFIR also includes a progress report on EU financial services policy achievements in 2008.
• Kyiv Post – The European Union says most member countries hit by the gas dispute between Ukraine and Russia have tapped into alternative supplies. Gas experts say Bulgaria remains the worst affected country and still needs to find other supplies. It wants deliveries from Greece. Norway, Libya and Algeria and other suppliers helped remedy problems in Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary.
• UK FCO – ‘Stopping the flow of arms and starting the flow of aid into Gaza’; Foreign Secretary David Miliband delivered a statement to the House of Commons, 19 January
• Gulf News – Three men went on trial on Monday accused of helping bombers prepare the deadly July 7, 2005 suicide bombings on the London transport system by carrying out a reconnaissance mission in the British capital.
• Balkan Insight – Croatian president Stjepan Mesic has apologised for his remark that “Slovenians would have been looking at the sea from a distance of 20 kilometres had it not been for Croatian Partizans.” “Maybe it was not the best choice of words, but I did not mean anything bad,” Mesic said of the statement that created a media storm at a time of tense bilateral relations over the Piran Bay border dispute.
• Latvia MFA – In a telephone conversation on the evening of 16 January, Foreign Minister Maris Riekstins and his Lithuanian counterpart Vygaudas Usackas discussed the recent protest actions in Riga and Vilnius. Both ministers acknowledged that it may be premature to draw any conclusions on whether there were direct links between the rioting in Latvia and in Lithuania, nevertheless Minister Riekstins and Minister Usackas agreed that any protest actions involving violence and serious violations of public order are to be condemned.

Africa

• Shabelle – Islamist Insurgents have recaptured Bardhere town in southwestern Somalia after Ethiopian troops and allied Somali militias withdrew from the town, witnesses told Radio Shabelle on Monday. The Ethiopian troops and their allied Somali militias led by Col. Barre Adan Shire (Hirale) left the town early on Monday.
• Garowe -  Fighting erupted Monday in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu between government security forces and Islamist insurgents, Radio Garowe reports. Islamist guerrilla group Jabhatul Islamiya (Islamic Front) attacked a police checkpoint in Dharkinley district, sparking a battle that killed at least two people, witnesses said.
• Daily Mail – Al Qaeda terrorists have been left fearing the Black Death plague after it wiped out at least 40 insurgents at an Algerian training camp, it was reported today. Terror group AQLIM (al Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb) was forced to turn its shelter in the Yakouren forests into mass graves and flee, it has been claimed.
• VOA – Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe is expected to meet the leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) Morgan Tsvangirai Monday, a move believed to be a last ditch effort to revive the full implementation of the stalled power- sharing agreement.
• eFluxMedia – Zimbabwe is faced by an unprecedented cholera outbreak that has claimed 2,225 people in the last four months. About 42,500 other people have been infected and 1,550 new cases are being reported every day. The cholera epidemic has spread all throughout the country and has even crossed the borders into the neighboring South Africa, Botswana and Mozambique.
• Bua (SA) – A total of 49 cases of cholera and 19 deaths have been confirmed in Mpumalanga. Speaking to BuaNews on Monday, provincial Department of Health spokesperson Mpho Gabashane said 49 cases were confirmed on Monday while 142 diarrhoea cases had been reported at clinics. A total of 139 have been hospitalised.
• IRIN – Guinea’s junta leader Moussa Dadis Camara on 15 January announced a new transition government. Military officials have been named for several significant posts, including the ministries of defense, justice, health, finance, telecommunications and commerce, but the majority of posts – the remaining 21 – are filled by civilians.
• This Day – One person was killed when assailants kidnapped the crew of an oil-industry vessel in Nigeria’s restive Niger Delta  region, a security official said Sunday. But militants claimed the Nigerian military botched a mission to rescue two British oil workers held hostage for months.
• New Liberian – An anti-war advocacy wing of the Progressive Action for Change(PAC) known as the Forum for the Establishment of a War Crimes Court in Liberia, is launching a massive campaign for the setting up of an Independent National Human Rights Commission as a statutory arm of Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission(TRC) responsible  to implement all recommendations coming from the TRC.

Jill Biden, Vice President-elect Joe Biden, President-elect Barack Obama, and Michelle Obama wave to the crowd gathered at the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., Jan. 18, during the inaugural opening ceremonies. More than 5,000 men and women in uniform are providing military ceremonial support to the presidential inauguration, a tradition dating back to George Washington's 1789 inauguration. (photo by U.S. Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class George Trian)

The Global War

• Seth Cropsey – On the last day of 2008, the Asahi Shimbun reported that China is planning to begin construction of two medium-sized aircraft carriers, a contemporary navy’s most flexible instrument of power projection, in its Shanghai yards this year. They are scheduled for launch in 2015… Allowing the current U.S. naval slippage to continue will result in a combat fleet of a size we haven’t seen since 1911. Combined with the parallel growth in the Chinese navy and the certainty that Beijing’s leadership will use it to fill the vacuums created by a diminishing U.S. naval presence, this would be more damaging and strategically far-reaching than any of the Bush administration’s mistakes.
• NATO – At the annual press reception on the occasion of the New Year, held at NATO Headquarters, NATO Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, outlined the priorities of the Alliance for 2009.
• RIA Novosti – Russia has sent two Black Sea Fleet vessels to take part in an anti-piracy operation in the Gulf of Aden, off northeast Africa, a Defense Ministry source said on Friday.  Meanwhile, spokesman for the Russian Navy Capt. 1st Rank Igor Dygalo, said that the Yamal and the Azov will also join up with Russian warships in the Indian Ocean, including the Pyotr Veliky nuclear-powered missile cruiser, for the INDRA-2009 exercise with the Indian Navy in late January.
• Nosint – An internet virus was blamed for disabling the IT systems of 75% of Royal Navy ships, before it apparently diverted defence staff’s emails to a server in Russia. News of the cyber attack only emerged thanks to an unnamed MoD official, reportedly worried that the department is failing to take IT security seriously, as implied last week.

Sights & Sounds

CBC Dispatches – How Taliban bombers taunt Canadian troops, and other stories you haven’t heard from Afghanistan. Roosters, replenishment and repentance, and the power of radio being used to improve farming in Africa. Heard about the new New World Order? Never mind East and West. In the future, it’ll be us against them, and them, and them. You’ll long for the simplicity of the Cold War. And the Mender of Lost Hearts, a man who helps child soldiers recover their humanity through their own music

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DW – Jan Palach set fire to himself forty years ago to protest against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. His death is still seen by young Czechs as a powerful symbol of resistance to totalitarianism.

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IIEA – a keynote address by Professor Norbert Walter, Chief Economist of Deutsche Bank Group and Head of Deutsche Bank Research, on “To Regulate or not to Regulate – the Lesson of the Financial Crisis”.

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Pundit Review Radio – It is always a pleasure to welcome back to Pundit Review Radio retired Lt. Col. Ralph Peters. Last night we talked about the myriad of foreign policy challenges facing soon-to-be President Obama. Some of the topics touched on in this 35 minute discussion include Israel-Hamas, the future of Iraq, Afghanistan and NATO, resurgent Russia and the one country that Obama will not be able to avoid a conflict with

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