A brief world news roundup for 23 June 2009.

United States & the Americas

• IPS – U.S. intelligence then intercepted communications from the highest levels of the Saudi government, including interior minister Prince Nayef, to the governor and other officials of Eastern Province instructing them to go through the motions of cooperating with U.S. officials on their investigation but to obstruct it at every turn. That was the beginning of what interviews with more than a dozen sources familiar with the investigation and other information now available reveal was a systematic effort by the Saudis to obstruct any U.S. investigation of the bombing and to deceive the United States about who was responsible for the bombing.
• Prensa Latina – Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, who is to start a visit to the United States Monday, will analyze with US statesman Barack Obama bilateral and regional ties. This is the second Latin American president visiting the White House, after Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in March, reported Chilean media
• RIA Novosti – Venezuela is set to finalize the details of setting up a joint bank with Russia, Latin America’s Telesur TV said on Monday citing the Venezuelan president.
• CNN – Uruguay has paid $42 million (973 million pesos) in compensation during the past three years to more than 3,000 former political prisoners, the state-run news agency said Monday
• LAHT – The Mexican army conducted an anti-piracy operation in Monterrey, the capital of Nuevo Leon state, arresting 14 people allegedly linked to “Los Zetas,” the armed wing of the Gulf drug cartel, a military commander said.
• MercoPress – Speaking during his weekly program “Hello President” Chavez said “we send our support and respect for President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, the great leader of Iran, and to Ayatollah Alí Jamenei and the Iranian people. We call on the world to respect Iran because protests are trying to undermine the strength of the Iranian revolution”.

Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia

• RIA Novosti – Russia’s prime minister said Monday that Moscow could not help Ukraine pay for Russian gas deliveries as Kiev signaled it was having difficulties raising funds. “The next payment is due on July 7. We are continuously receiving signals that there is nothing to pay with. This puts us, as well as consumers in Europe, in a very difficult situation,” Vladimir Putin told the government presidium.
• English Russia – nice photo essay of the far east Sakhalin region (h/t The Interpreter)
• Kavkaz Center – A puppet police official says a Shaheed drove a car into the convoy that Ingushetia’s puppet president was traveling in and blew it up, critically wounding him. Federal investigators said a car that was parked on the side of the road detonated just as Yevkurov’s armored car passed. However, Russian media, citing unnamed police officials, said a person maneuvered around a police escort car and drove his car directly into the convoy and then detonated it.
• Itar-Tass – The Emergencies Ministry’s plane has brought Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov wounded in a terrorist act on Monday from Vladikavkaz to Moscow.
• Russia Today – South Ossetian officials are accusing Georgia of preventing refugees from returning home to the remote Ossetian town of Leningor
• UPI – While Russia and the West have dominated the development of Caspian energy reserves, China and India are also making significant deals in the region. Kazinform news agency reported June 19 that a high-level business delegation from India under the auspices of the Confederation of Indian Industry will arrive in Kazakhstan for a four-day visit beginning on June 21
• Intellibriefs – The escalating conflict along the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border after a checkpoint and a building of the Security Service in the city of Khanabad were attacked on May 2, had an unexpected sequel.
• Asia Times – The Trans-Asian Railway Network, a decades-old vision to link the vast expanses of Asia by rail to accelerate trade and integration, has been boosted with the passing of a key inter-governmental agreement. The proposed 114,000-kilometer link, delayed for years by geopolitics and war, is a step closer.

Staff Sgt. Jason L. Rodriguez, assigned to the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, observes from the signal bridge as the multi-purpose amphibious assault ship USS Bataan transits through the Suez Canal. Bataan is the flagship for the Bataan Amphibious Ready Group and is supporting maritime security operations in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility. (photo by Canadian Forces PO 1 Christina Shaw)

Middle East

• Daily Star – Twenty-seven people were killed on Monday as a spate of attacks hit Iraq just days before US troops are due to pull out of Iraq’s cities, security officials said.
• Voices of Iraq – Iraqi security forces on Monday arrested an al-Qaeda leader in northern Wassit, a security source said
• Al Sumaria – Syria reiterated its support to Iraq’s rebuild and development and its willingness to increase Euphrates water flow to Iraq
• SANA – The Israeli warplanes on Monday violated the Lebanese airspaces circling over a number of areas at southern Lebanon, Lebanese Armey Command said in a statement. The statement added that an Israeli drone flew over Rayaq, Baalbek and Beirut and left
• Al Manar – Another Israeli spy was uncovered on Monday in Lebanon… The spy, named Mohamad Q.G., was arrested by Lebanese security forces in the southern town of Ghazieh. Earlier, the General Security chief General Wafiq Jezzini told Al-Manar that the few coming days would witness the collapse of another set of Israeli Mossad-linked cells in Lebanon.
• Naharnet – Lebanese authorities stopped a truck in Dahr al-Baidar suspected of smuggling weapons across the Lebanese-Syrian border, the Lebanese National News Agency reported Monday. Military experts were examining the contents of the truck which carried a Jordanian license plate
• Saba – Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki is to arrive in Yemen Wednesday for a visit to take part in the 9th meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the Countries Overlooking the Indian Ocean
• Hurriyet – Allied countries need to unite and develop a common front in order to succeed in the fight against terrorism says Chief of Staff Gen. ?lker Ba?bu?. He also says the military is determined to wipe out the PKK

Iran

• Press TV – The Iranian air-force plans to stage an aerial exercise that will see fighter jets fly over a distance of around 3,600 km (2,240 miles), and bomb targets.
• Uskowi on Iran – The man pulling out a pistol is identified as Hassan Mir Kazemi, the commander of Basij Force at Elhadi Mosque at Tehran’s Shams Abad district. He is also the director of Donya Felez plant situated on Tehran-Karaj Road. Neda was shot to death on 20 June by a Basiji member riding on a motorcycle.
• Dr Gal Luft – While the world’s eyes are focused on Iran and Pakistan, little attention has been paid to the two countries’ recent decision to move ahead with their plans to connect their economies via a 1,300-mile natural gas pipeline  to export some 150 million cubic meters of Iran’s South Pars field gas to Pakistan per day. The 25-year deal which was signed in the sidelines of a regional summit that brought together Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari in Tehran on May 24 may seem like a standard energy project. It isn’t.
• Mehr – Huge natural gas deposits have been discovered in Hormozgan province, off the Persian Gulf coast, with a probable output tantamount to ten phases of the South Pars gas field, the National Iranian Offshore Oil Company managing director said here on Monday.
• ISNA – Iran’s Copper Industries Company Deputy for Planning and Development Ahmad Faridi said Iran is in talks with Armenia for investment in copper mines in the country

South Asia

• The National – Three Afghan soldiers were killed when a suicide bomber rode a motorcycle packed with explosives into a military convoy in Kandahar province on Monday, officials said.
• Daily Times – Jet planes bombed Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud’s positions on Monday and killed 21 Taliban after Taliban launched attacks on three military bases in North and South Waziristan with mortars, rockets and gunfire, military sources said.
• The Nation – Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has said the first, second and third tier leadership of militants has been killed, while all is quiet from the top leadership.
• Dawn – Maj-Gen Abbas said the Swat operation had entered a final phase. The last stronghold of terrorists in Biha valley had been secured and Shamozai area was being cleared, the ISPR chief said. He said that 1,592 terrorists had been killed and over 60, including foreigners, captured since the operation began last month.
• Daily Times – Three Hazaras, including a union council nazim, were killed late on Monday by unidentified men, leading to massive protests by relatives of the victims. According to details, unidentified armed men opened fire on Talib Agha, Union Council 47 nazim in Quetta, when he was on his way home along with his driver and security guard.
• Daily Star – Rab arrested the chief of information technology (IT) wing of banned Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) from his residence in the city’s Pallabi area on Sunday.

Far East & Pacific

• China Daily – Senior Chinese and US military officials will look for common ground when they meet for the 10th Defense Consultative Talks (DCT) in Beijing starting today.
• Yonhap – North Korea has notified Japan of a 16-day ban on ships in a portion of its eastern waters starting Thursday, citing a military exercise, a South Korean official said.
• AKI – At least 14 Muslim rebels were killed and 22 people injured in separate clashes with government forces in the southern Philippines, officials said Monday, quoted by GMANews TV.
• Irrawaddy – A joint force of Burmese army troops and soldiers of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) seized the headquarters of the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) Brigade 7 on Sunday, its most important victory in a weeks-long offensive in the Burmese-Thai border area. As fighting raged, Karen sources said the Thai authorities are forcibly repatriating refugees who had fled to Thailand.

Europe

• Times of India – Greece foreign minister said Monday that Athens was concerned about increasing tension in its relations with neighboring Turkey over military flights in the Aegean Sea. NATO allies Greece and Turkey have been at odds for years over airspace boundaries and flight procedures in the Aegean Sea that forms the border between them, and mock dogfights between fighter jets from each side are common.
• BBC – The president of Belarus tells a top EU official that he “sincerely wants to build good relations” with the bloc, shrugging off Russian disapproval
• Guardian – Nicolas Sarkozy today took a hard line in France’s latest row over Islamic dress, saying full veils and face coverings were a sign of women’s debasement and “not welcome” on French soil.
• Balkan Insight – One year after the adoption of Kosovo’s Constitution, Kosovo’s Intelligence Agency is still nonoperational. Officials from Kosovo’s government declared that the process is going well, while the President and Prime Minister are in consultations to appoint agency staff
• EurActiv – Eight Baltic Sea states last week (17 June) launched an action plan to connect Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia to EU energy networks, providing a signpost for the Swedish Presidency’s agenda for the Baltic Sea region.

Africa

• Garowe – Somalia’s interim president declared a state of emergency as at least 12 people were killed in armed clashes in the Somali capital Mogadishu between pro-government forces and insurgents fighting to overthrow the interim government, Radio Garowe reports.
• Shabelle – Ethiopian troops in Kala-beyrka intersection in Hiran region have started to search the traffic traveling between the Somali region in Ethiopia and central Somalia, witnesses told Shabelle radio on Monday
• Ethiopia MFA – Indian entrepreneurs have received licenses to 439 investment projects in different parts of Ethiopia with an aggregate capital of 4.2 billion US dollars, Indian Ambassador to Ethiopia disclosed. While visiting Dire Dawa town recently, Ambassador Gurjit Singh said trade and investment ties between Ethiopia and India have been flourishing since the two sisterly countries are in the same track development.
• Enough Project – Crucial deadlines are nearing in the interim period of Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA, which ended a 22-year civil war between the North and the South. And as the deadlines grow closer the international community is at risk of sleepwalking toward the coming 2010 elections and the following southern referendum without mustering the necessary energy to stop the looming threat of war
• Sudan Tribune – Sudan blasted the Ugandan president Yoweri Musievini as someone who is trying to “please the west” a day after he made remarks accusing the Arabs of displacing the African population in Darfur.
• Magharebia – The Swiss hostage held by al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb is still alive, AFP quoted a Malian negotiator as saying on Thursday (June 18th) on condition of anonymity
• Global Witness – Ahead of a key meeting of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) in Namibia, a coalition of civil society groups said that despite having all the tools in place, the scheme was failing effectively to address issues of non-compliance, smuggling, money laundering and human rights abuses in the world’s alluvial diamond fields. The groups highlighted a number of countries where there were issues of concern
• New Times – The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) has sentenced former Cabinet Director in the Rwandan Interior Ministry, Callixte Kalimanzira to 30 years imprisonment for Genocide crimes.

Staff Sgt. Manser Patis, a Soldier assigned to the 1st Battalion, 294th infantry Regiment, Guam National Guard and an instructor and advisor for Guarda Shield 09, looks on as the Tongan Royal Marines attempt to assure the hostile crowd played by role players from the Royal Thai Army, they are there as United National peace keepers. The two week training is at the Tentara Nasional Indonesia -Angkatan Darat, or Indonesian army, infantry training center in Bandung, Indonesia. The two week exercise brings together soldiers and Marines from nine Nations to train on UN mandated ground-level tasks. (photo by Spc. Jesse Toves)

The Global War

• The Namibian – A global shift toward nuclear power is prompting countries to rush to lock in long-term access to tight supplies of uranium, and China and India look to be the next players to get in on the action. A tie-up between Rosatom, the Russian state-owned producer, and Canada-based miner Uranium One announced last week is just the latest in a series of moves on the part of Asian and European countries to lock in uranium supply to fuel construction of dozens of new reactors over the next decade.
• IAEA – The growing emphasis that countries are placing on energy security and cleaner forms of energy has brought a renewed interest in nuclear power, which has served to increase pressure to explore and mine uranium – the raw material that powers the nuclear fuel cycle.
• RIA Novosti – Russia has bought 12 unmanned aerial vehicles from Israel in a recent deal worth $53 million, a Russian government official said on Monday.

Sights & Sounds

DW – Sweden prepares to take over the helm of the 27-nation European Union from the Czech Republic, with Iran topping a challenging foreign policy agenda.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

NPR – The Pakistani army says it is wrapping up a major two-month offensive against the Taliban in the Swat Valley and adjoining districts. It says most of the militants have been eliminated from the area. But in the embattled district of Buner, a sense of insecurity still prevails.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

CSM – More violent protests in Iran over the weekend and on Monday, after the government warns people to stop.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.