Peace Like A River » Cables, dispatches and memoranda

Cables, dispatches and memoranda

May 14, 2008 (5:38 am) | Daily Roundup | By: Jeff Kouba

Cables, Dispatches and Memoranda
A brief world news roundup for 14 May 2008.

United States & the Americas

VOA – Two former U.S. State Department officials say the Bush administration has done little to fight corruption in Iraq. In testimony to a congressional panel Monday, they said administration policy has allowed corruption to fester – an accusation the State Dept vehemently denies.
CNN – A military judge approved charges against five accused September 11 plotters, including the alleged mastermind, but rejected charges against a man suspected of planning to be the “20th hijacker.”
Canada.com – The Immigration and Refugee Board has ordered an alleged Basque terrorist deported. Ivan Apaolaza Sancho is alleged to have taken part in weapons and explosives training in France in 1999 before returning to Spain in 2000.
1913 Intel – Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Monday a 30-billion-dollar plan to re-equip Canada’s military, to boost its recruiting and to bolster Canada’s defense industry over the next 20 years.
ABC – Children are big business in Guatemala, where international adoption is estimated to be a $100 million industry, making orphans the country’s second-most lucrative export after bananas. With tens of thousands of dollars to be made on the sale of each child, and with little government regulation, a fertile black market has developed to sell children all over the world, especially the United States. Children are routinely kidnapped and parents regularly coerced to sell their children, say government officials and human rights activists.
BBC – Colombia has extradited 14 former paramilitary leaders to the US to face charges of drug trafficking. Officials said the men had failed to abide by a peace deal under which their groups were demobilised.
Washington Times – Colombian rebels have set up undercover cells abroad with a support network in 17 countries, a Spanish newspaper reported, quoting from documents found on the computer of a slain rebel leader.
Living in Peru – Some 48 snipers will keep guard of the more than 60 Heads of State of the V European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean (EU-LAC) Summit being held in Lima this week as part of strict security measures being taken for the international event, reports “El Comercio”.
LA Times – In a rare instance of political accord, President Evo Morales and his critics have agreed to support a recall election for Morales and all eight sitting state governors. The referendum, scheduled for Aug. 10, will mark the third national vote in less than three years in this deeply divided Andean nation of 9 million.

Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia

BBC – There are many familiar faces in the new cabinet of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, yet his appointment of two former Kremlin aides suggests he wants to strengthen his powers at the expense of the new presidency.
IPS – A new plan has been set up to promote nationalism among Russian youth. The programme seeks to promote nationalism in the face of tensions arising from several sources, including migration. Russia is seeing an influx of impoverished immigrants mostly from the ex-Soviet republics, especially Ukraine, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan where the economy is becoming unstable. Religious and political extremism also threaten stability in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

Middle East

BBC – At least 11 people have been killed and 20 injured in clashes between US troops and militiamen in Baghdad’s Sadr City. The fighting took place just hours after the signing of a ceasefire deal, agreed between the Iraqi government and Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr.
MEI – Iraqi militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr remains a force to be reckoned with, regardless of his recent reverses. Unlike other militia leaders, he is more charismatic and has a large popular street following in locations extending from Baghdad through Iraq’s heavily populated Shi’a south. Ever since the surge, Sadr has been waiting out Washington, biding his time until the balance of political and street power is more to his liking.
France24 – Sunni politician and media businessman Saad Hariri said on Tuesday that he would not “surrender to the Iranian and Syrian regimes”, after Hezbollah-led Shi’ite militias defeated his supporters in guerrilla battles over the past six days.
Spiegel – Hezbollah is trying to seize power in Lebanon and turn the country into Iran’s toehold on the Mediterranean, Lebanon’s Social Minister Nayla Moawad warns. In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, she speaks of the threat to Europe and slams the West’s failure to act.
Lee Smith – Tony Badran, drawing on various Lebanese accounts and his own reporting, offers this account: “After taking over West Beirut, Hezbollah tried to move to the Shouf, where there are two Shiite towns, Kayfoun and Qmatiyye. Hezbollah is trying to link them up to the Dahieh through the Karameh road, which links Dahieh to Choueifat-Aramoun-Doha-Deir Qoubel-Aytat-Kayfoun and Qmatiye, so that it can make encroachments, maintain access routes and not allow the Druze to surround the two Shiite towns. That was the plan, but Hezbollah got a severe beating in the Shouf. They were not able to penetrate anything, relying instead – for the first time in the current fighting – on artillery/mortar fire. To no avail. Yesterday alone we heard that seven Hezbollah fighters who tried to infiltrate got killed.”
contentions – It’s hard not to notice one interesting way in which Islamic supremacists have been tying themselves in rhetorical knots as they try to explain their recent behavior in Gaza and Lebanon. Hezbollah has created a conundrum for itself, as the group has turned its military might against the same people it has always said its resistance existed to protect, and so the resistance feels a lot like the occupier these days.
Israel Matzav – Israel Radio reported this morning in the name of the Lebanese newspaper An-Nahar that Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt canceled a trip to Egypt last month because he learned that Hezbullah planned to assassinate him as he departed from Beirut Airport.
Intellibriefs – Lebanon: Hezbollah’s Communication Network; The Lebanese government has decided to dismantle Shiite militant group Hezbollah’s communications network — the very thing that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah called the group’s most important weapon.
Turkish Daily News – In order to stop terrorists from infiltrating into Turkey’s territory, the Turkish military intensified its air offensive against outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) hideouts in northern Iraq over the weekend. There were continuous air attacks on the PKK’s camps over the weekend following some terrorist attacks in the province of Hakkari, where six troops were killed in clashes.

Iran

Haaretz – In Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s latest verbal outburst against Israel, the Iranian President said Tuesday that it would “be soon swept away” by the Palestinians. “This terrorist and criminal state is backed by foreign powers, but this regime would soon be swept away by the Palestinians,” Ahmadinejad said in a press conference in Tehran.
Javno – Iran’s ambassador to Brussels presented proposals on global issues including its disputed nuclear programme to European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana on Tuesday, the Iranian embassy said.
The Economist – The indications that Shell and, most likely, Total will not meet Iran’s mid-June deadline for them to commit themselves to going ahead with their long-standing liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects reflect both the difficulties of doing business in sanctions-hit Iran and the broader problem of escalating global costs of energy schemes of this sort. Major oil and gas projects are indeed stalled in Iran, but progress is also painfully slow elsewhere.
RIA Novosti – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday he thought relations with Moscow would continue to develop following the inauguration of Dmitry Medvedev as Russian president May 7. “Fortunately, relations between our countries are positive and we can see no obstacles to their development,” he told a news conference.
Belfer Center – PDP Co-Director Ashton B. Carter explores military elements in the U.S. strategy for addressing Iran’s nuclear program.
MEMRI – The president of Iran’s chamber of commerce, Muhammad Nahavendian, told the assistant to the Mayor of Shanghai that the long-term of energy supply to China by Iran would be conditional on China maintaining long-term strategic cooperation with Iran. He said that the geographic location of Iran could facilitate the sale of Chinese products to Iran’s neighbors, including Asia Minor, Iraq and Afghanistan.
USIP – However, the results revealed a growing divide between conservatives allied with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and a “third way” movement led by pragmatic conservatives who, though loyal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei, are critical of Ahmadinejad’s economic policies and confrontational rhetoric with the West. The surprising electoral success of these pragmatic conservatives may pose a significant challenge to Ahmadinejad in Iran’s 2009 presidential elections.
CTB – Further to my last week’s article in the Middle East Times regarding Iran’s internal rebellion, the newsletter The Croissant (available for a small fee) reported that Khameini’s representative in Eastern Iran was murdered. Indeed after the trouble in Baluchistan, the following story seems to confirm a trend of minorities rebelling against Tehran.
Uskowi on Iran – The Basij (Baseej-e Mostaz’afin or “The Mobilized Oppressed”), is a volunteer based Iranian National Guard force founded by order of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on November 1979. There is a local Basij organization in nearly every city in Iran. They serve as an auxiliary paramilitary force engaged in activities such as law enforcement, emergency management, social service provider and religious ceremonial organization. The Basij are subordinate to, and obey the orders of, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Foremost, they consitute the homeguard for Iran against foreign invasion, and number in the millions. Pictured above are student volunteers in training.

Southeast Asia

Naharnet – U.S.-led troops and war planes killed around a dozen Taliban during fighting in a southern Afghan district where major anti-insurgent operations were underway, the U.S. military said Tuesday.
State Dept – During a ceremony at the Department of State, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan Rangin Dadfar Spanta signed a bilateral declaration reaffirming shared objectives in Afghanistan.
AFP – International and Afghan troops forged ahead with an offensive against the Taliban near the Pakistan border on Tuesday, with a governor insisting 150 rebels had been killed in the past week.
IRIN – A provincial emergency response commission in insurgency-torn Helmand Province, southern Afghanistan, has asked UN agencies and international aid organisations to provide food and non-food humanitarian relief to 4,200 families displaced by military operations in Garmsir District since the end of April.
Al Arabiya – Taliban insurgents have ordered residents of a province near the capital Kabul to stop watching television, saying the networks were showing un-Islamic programs, officials and local media said on Tuesday. The order is the last in a wave of curbs that the resurgent militants have announced in areas they are active.
MEMRI – Police in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province have arrested two Pakistani nationals with a vehicle loaded with explosives.
IHT – Suspected Islamic militants attacked a military post in a tribal region of Pakistan’s northwest early Tuesday, killing one soldier and wounding another. The army, meanwhile, said troops would reopen roads to allow movement of civilians displaced by military operations against fighters in another volatile tribal area bordering Afghanistan.
Times of India – Terrorists struck for the first time in Jaipur triggering eight serial blasts in a span of 12 minutes in crowded market areas in the walled city leaving at least 80 dead.
UPI – Police in India’s Chhattisgarh state said a government-backed offensive against Maoist rebels would continue despite strong opposition.
FSI Stanford – The study explores the role of energy in India’s foreign policy strategy and examines the wide gap between India’s need for a strategic energy policy and the government of India’s inability to put such a policy into practice. As a stark departure from the idealized vision, India’s energy supply chains that have grown increasingly creaky and unreliable. Only halting progress has been made towards reform and, without fundamental reform, it is likely that India’s global energy strategy will continue to be a failure.
Hindu – At least 17 Tamil Tigers, a police officer and a civilian were killed in fresh violence in the restive northern Sri Lanka, officials said here on Tuesday. Five LTTE cadres were killed in Periyamadu in Vavuniya district during intense clashes with the security forces yesterday, the government’s Media Centre for National Security (MCNS) said. On the same day, troops gunned down five Tiger rebels in Periyamadu in the region, it said.
Xinhua – Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayake said here Tuesday the government would never enter into any more cease-fire agreements with the Tamil Tiger rebels.

Far East & Pacific

BBC – Burma’s military rulers still oppose foreign aid workers helping the many thousands left destitute and in danger of disease by Cyclone Nargis. Vice-Admiral Soe Thein said Burma was grateful for an aid shipment from the US, which arrived on Monday, but said there was no need for aid workers.
SMH – More than 50,000 troops joined rescue workers as they slogged through roads convulsed by China’s worst earthquake in three decades, hampered by aftershocks, rain, mud and rock slides, in a desperate bid to reach survivors in the cut-off epicentre of Wenchuan. The official death toll has so far reached 12,000 but experts say the number of dead is certain to be much higher.
AKI – The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the Philippines’ largest Islamic separatist group, welcomed Libya’s offer to replace Malaysia and lead the international peace monitoring mission in war-torn Mindanao.
CSM – The coalition government led by supporters of ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is attempting to push through changes to the Constitution drafted by the Army after the 2006 coup, sparking a renewed political fight in this polarized Southeast Asian nation.
DoD – The Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that a small team of Japanese and U.S. specialists is visiting Attu Island, Alaska, in search of burial locations of the Japanese soldiers who are still missing from a 1943 World War II battle there.
Dawn - Insurgents shot dead seven people in southern Thailand, police said Tuesday. A 52-year-old man and his 46-year-old wife were killed in an ambush in Pattani province early Tuesday, police said. On Monday, two soldiers with a government-backed militia were killed in nearby Narathiwat. Three men were killed the same day in two separate attacks in Pattani province, police said.
StrategyPage – In the south, the Islamic terrorists have increasingly found themselves in the midst of a religious war of their own creation. Buddhist irregulars, and moonlighting soldiers and police, are attacking mosques and suspected Islamic militants. Vigilantes and death squads are a staple of Thai culture, at least when there is a lot of civil disorder.
VOA – A senior South Korean envoy is travelling to China to prepare for the imminent resumption of multinational talks aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs. South Korea’s President also says he will make his own visit to Beijing.

Europe

CNN – Spain’s worst drought in decades forced the city of Barcelona to begin shipping in drinking water Tuesday in an unprecedented effort to avoid water restrictions before the start of vacation season. A ship carrying 19,000 cubic meters (5 million gallons) of water from nearby Tarragona docked in Barcelona’s port Tuesday morning.
Javno – Poland said on Tuesday recent U.S. proposals to strengthen Polish defences in return for hosting a controversial American missile shield fell short of its demands.
Reuters – An Italian judge could decide on Wednesday to make Silvio Berlusconi the first head of a government to testify in criminal proceedings over secret CIA transfers of terrorism suspects. Prosecutors say a CIA-led team kidnapped a Muslim cleric off the streets of Milan and secretly flew him to Egypt.
BalkanInsight – The EU has expressed concern at the spate of election-related violent incidents in Macedonia. On Monday, the leader of Macedonia’s main Albanian opposition party, the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, said he escaped an apparent assassination bid. Macedonian police have arrested a man.
BBC – A Spanish court has thrown out murder charges against three US soldiers accused of killing a Spanish cameraman during the war in Iraq.
Reuters – Hungary’s minority Socialist government survived its first parliamentary vote on Tuesday with the support of its former coalition partner, which quit the government at the end of April.
Hurriyet – Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II has begun her first visit to Turkey in 37 years, praising the host country’s role as a bridge between West and the Islamic world. Queen Elizabeth and her husband Prince Philip arrived Ankara Tuesday for a four-day state visit, their first to Turkey since 1971.

Africa

ABC – The Sudanese government has doubled its bounty for the country’s most wanted Darfur rebel leader to nearly $250,000, a government official said Tuesday.
Taipei Times – Darfur’s most-wanted rebel leader vowed on Monday to keep up his offensive, saying he can exhaust Sudan’s military by fighting it across Africa’s largest nation.
BBC – Human rights groups say they are worried about the possible torture of those detained since the Darfur rebel weekend attack near Sudan’s capital.
AllAfrica – Police in Malawi arrested four opposition officials on Tuesday, accusing them of plotting to remove President Bingu Wa Mutharika from power.
AKI – Gangs of armed men have set up roadblocks in and around Somalia’s coastal city of Kismayo, 500km south of Mogadishu, causing serious insecurity.
Javno – Three gunmen abducted a Kenyan teaching at the Mogadishu University campus in the latest seizure of a foreigner in the lawless Horn of Africa country, witnesses said on Tuesday.
Reporters Without Borders – Reporters Without Borders calls on the Burundian authorities to thoroughly investigate yesterday’s murder of Cécile Ndikumana, an employee of the sales department of state-owned Radio Télévision Nationale du Burundi (RTNB), and the attempted murder of RTNB cameraman Hilaire Minani in a separate incident the same day.
AKI – A group of six Algerian soldiers were killed in an ambush by rebels linked to al-Qaeda’s north African wing, according to a report on Tuesday in the Kuwaiti news agency, Kuna.
New Zealand Herald – Billions of dollars raised for African famine relief by celebrities Bono and Bob Geldof have instead funded civil war across the continent, says terrorism expert Dr Loretta Napoleoni.
ICG – Congo’s reconstruction hinges on the Ituri district, where a new integrated peace-building strategy is required, involving national and provincial institutions, with the active support of the UN Mission in Congo (MONUC) and donors. Land-related tensions that were at the origin of the conflict have not been eased and constantly threaten to lead to new inter-ethnic confrontations. With the return of refugees to their homes, a resurgence of those tensions seems inevitable without preventive measures. It is also critical to the peace process to establish a framework for transparent treatment of Ituri’s resources. Absent an integrated approach, the return of chaos is likely.

The Global War

AP – Saudi Arabia accused Iran of backing what it called a coup by Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon – the clearest sign yet of rising regional tensions over the conflict.
IPS – The growing phenomenon of child soldiers, long prevalent in African countries such as Uganda, Somalia, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, is also taking root in Asia, specifically in Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Burma (Myanmar) and the Philippines.
Washington Post – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates implored the U.S. military to focus more on wars against insurgents and militias such as the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan, rather than focusing time and money on potential conflicts.
Military.com – The Marine Corps far surpassed its recruiting goal last month and could eventually be more than a year ahead of schedule in its plan to grow the force to 202,000 members.
MEMRI – Against the backdrop of the marking of five years since the May 12, 2003 attack in Saudi Arabia, Al-Qaeda has sent a message over the Internet to its operatives in Saudi Arabia calling on them “to leave the country for Yemen, lest [you] be killed or arrested by Saudi security forces.”
Westhawk – According to a story in the Washington Post, at least 40 countries now have an interest in starting their own nuclear power programs. On the list of those countries suddenly finding themselves growing short of energy resources are Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, Libya, and Algeria. Add to this list Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, and even Yemen, whose governments now crave nuclear expertise. In an ironic twist, Mr. Joseph Cirincione, who more than anyone in the West has counseled a soft approach to Iran’s nuclear transgressions, finally spoke with some wisdom when he said, “This is not primarily about nuclear energy. It’s a hedge against Iran … They’re starting their engines. It takes decades to build a nuclear infrastructure, and they’re beginning to do it now. They’re saying, ‘If there’s going to be an arms race, we’re going to be in it.’”

Sights & Sounds

Cato Institute: Following the Rose Revolution of 2003, the former Soviet Republic of Georgia began far-reaching reforms in governance and economic policy that are turning the country into a post-socialist success story. Georgia now ranks 44th out of 141 countries on the Economic Freedom of the World index, is cited by the World Bank as one of the world’s leading reformers, and is sustaining economic growth of more than 9 percent per year. Kakha Bendukidze, one of Georgia’s key reformers, will explain how his country is rapidly modernizing and will share his vision for continued high growth in a sometimes hostile neighborhood. Andrei Illarionov will assess Georgia’s progress and highlight its remaining challenges in consolidating democratic capitalism