A brief world news roundup for 16 October 2009.

United States & the Americas

• Treasury Dept – The U.S. Department of the Treasury today designated German national Bekkay Harrach, an al-Qa’ida member believed to be currently located in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area, for acting for or on behalf of al-Qa’ida.
• Yonhap – Japan’s chief nuclear envoy, Akitaka Saiki, will be visiting Washington for two days until Friday to discuss North Korea’s nuclear dismantlement, the State Department said Thursday.
• US Senate Cmte on Foreign Relations – NATO: A STRATEGIC CONCEPT FOR TRANSATLANTIC SECURITY
• VOA – Negotiators in Honduras are to continue talks Thursday in an effort to resolve the political crisis over the ouster of President Manuel Zelaya. It was unclear if the rival sides made progress in talks Wednesday on a deal aimed at ending the nearly four-month-old standoff.
• Miami Herald – Drug trafficking has increased in this Central American nation since the U.S. limited military cooperation to protest a June coup, Honduras’ top anti-narcotics officer said Wednesday.
• MercoPress – TeleCuba Communications Inc. said it had authorization from the US government to move ahead with the project and service would start in 2011. The US Treasury Department, however, has not confirmed that it granted the firm a license to build the cable, which will run from Key West, Florida, to Havana, Cuba.
• Columbia Reports – Venezuela reproached Colombia for not having formally requested a search for the escaped ‘Pablito’ who it calls a ‘paramilitary’, even though in Colombia he is a known leader of the ELN rebel organization. Venezuelan Minister for the Interior and Justice, Tarek El Aissami, said “the Colombian government has not formally notified us of the alleged escape of this paramilitary ‘Pablito’. Put purely and simply, he escaped and is in Venezuela. Look at how the Colombian government deals with these issues.”
• LAHT – Ten journalists have been killed in Mexico so far this year, according to the Foundation for Freedom of Expression, which demanded concrete steps from the government to protect news gatherers. The foundation, known by the acronym Fundalex, noted that the two latest murders took place last week.
• Prensa Latina – The Russian Gazprom Power Consortium and Bolivian Fiscal Oilfields (YPFB) will consolidate creation of a mixed company for prospecting and exploiting natural gas in the national territory.
• El Universal – President Hugo Chávez announced the existence of “large deposits” of coltan, a mineral used in the manufacturing of cutting edge electronics equipments and long-range missiles.

Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia

• Russia Today – The final stage of large-scale military exercises being held by Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) member countries is drawing to an end in Kazakhstan. The war games, called “Cooperation 2009,” started last Friday and involve over 7,000 troops from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan. Belarus, Armenia and Uzbekistan were involved in earlier stages of the exercises
• LtCol Andrew Wallace, ISCIP – Russia’s military industrial complex is struggling to meet the demands of modernizing the military. Although Russia’s defense industry apparently has begun to recover from a low point in the late 1990s, significant technological, financial, and managerial challenges continue, placing it at a disadvantage at home and abroad.
• RIA Novosti – The possibility of a Ukrainian radar facility being used as part of a U.S. missile defense system is being considered, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States said on Thursday.
• RIA Novosti – A counterterrorist operation started on Thursday in the Sunzha District of the Russian North Caucasus republic of Ingushetia, near the border with Chechnya, a Federal Security Service spokesman said. At least two Russian servicemen and six militants were killed during an operation in the area earlier in the week.
• Xinhua – Both sides agreed to build an international transportation road connecting China, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. China and Kyrgyzstan will take active measures to accelerate the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway project. A joint discussion will be carried out on the funding of the three-country railway construction in Kyrgyzstan.
• Caijing – China National Petroleum Corp., the parent of PetroChina, said it has signed a framework agreement with Kazakhstan’s state oil firm KazMunaiGaz on the joint development of the Urikhtau natural gas field.
• Petroleum News – Russia’s state-owned energy giant Gazprom has commissioned a bridge over the Yuribey River floodplain on the Yamal Peninsula, part of the Obskaya-Bovanenkovo railroad, the company said in a release Sept. 24. The 2.5-mile-long bridge is the longest north of the Arctic Circle and should have an operating life of 100 years, according to Gazprom
• Barents Observer – The 155,000 square kilometer disputed area in the Barents Sea contains an estimated six trillion cubic meters of gas and more than 400 million tons of oil, Rosneft CEO Sergei Bogdanchikov said in the Murmansk Economic Forum today. He signaled a strong desire for a Russian-Norwegian settlement of the unsolved issue
• Itar-Tass – The First Murmansk International Economic Forum discusses the strategy of the Arctic’s development. The forum attracted over one thousand people – business people and representatives of banks and research institutions from Russia and seven other countries. “The port of Murmansk, the gateway to the Arctic, has every reason to develop further with the development of huge oil and gas resources of the Arctic shelf to ensure Russia’s still greater energy security,” says the message of Russian Transportation Minister Igor Levitin to the forum. The foreign ministers of Norway, Russia, Finland and Sweden also attend the forum. They arrived in Murmansk in connection with the regular session of the Barents Euro-Arctic Council

Middle East

• WSJ – Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki asked Turkey on Thursday to stop crossing the border to launch military operations targeting Kurdish rebels, saying it violates Iraqi sovereignty. Mr. Maliki made his request during a visit to Baghdad by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who came to Iraq to sign agreements to boost economic ties in energy and other sectors, Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said
• Hurriyet – Turkey and Iraq have decided to increase the number of their border gates, Turkish news channels reported Thursday. About 50 agreements will be signed between the two countries during Erdo?an’s visit. Erdo?an was accompanied by nine of his ministers. Erdo?an was expected to sign an agreement to help deliver Iraqi gas to European markets, according to documents distributed to reporters accompanying the Turkish delegation.
• Voices of Iraq – Police forces arrested a senior al-Qaeda leader in Ninewa for his involvement in the Talafar bombings in 2007, where hundreds were killed or wounded, a security source said.
• Haaretz – Syria has supplied the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah with about a quarter of its arsenal of middle- and long-range missiles, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al Jarida on Thursday quoted Israeli security sources as saying.
• Al Manar – It’s, once again, the Israeli “creativity” in fabricating stories… Unfortunately, it’s also once again the Lebanese and Arab “creativity” in “adopting” the Israeli “imagination” and spreading it…
• Israel MFA – The Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the acting Turkish ambassador to Jerusalem to protest the screening of a Turkish television series which depicts Israeli soldiers as members of a master race, who rejoice in killing children
• Al Arabiya – Turkish police on Thursday rounded up some 50 people with suspected links to the al-Qaeda network who were allegedly planning attacks against NATO, U.S. and Israeli targets in the country, reports said. The suspects were taken into custody in early morning raids in nine provinces, among them Istanbul and the eastern cities of Van and Erzurum.
• MEMRI – Elements attending yesterday’s conference of interior ministers of countries neighboring Iraq said that Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abd Al-Aziz embarrassed his Syrian counterpart by hinting that Syria was not preventing the passage of terrorists from its territory into Iraq.
• IWPR – While Kurds in Iraq move towards more independence and those in Turkey are guaranteed greater political and cultural rights, their brethren in Syria have been subjected to more and more repression, activists and analysts say. In the past year and a half, the Syrian authorities have been arresting more and more Kurdish activists, including prominent personalities, and sentencing some to long prison terms, they say.

Iran

• Patrick Clawson – Iran’s nuclear program will be the topic of three important upcoming events: an October 19 meeting of nuclear experts from the P5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany), an October 25 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspection of the recently revealed Qom facility, and a follow-up meeting between Iran and the P5+1 shortly thereafter.
• Payvand – In what appears to be a step toward the normalization of relations between Iran and Egypt, the two sides hold high-level talks in the red sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. Iran’s Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar and his Egyptian counterpart Habib Ibrahim el-Adly discussed a wide range of regional issues on the sidelines of the sixth meeting of interior ministers of Iraq’s neighbor states
• Fars – Iranian First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi on Thursday underscored Iran’s distinguished role in regional and international equations and said that the country is ready to help meet the needs of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)’s member states
• Iran MFA – Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Thursday that the Caspian Sea states have over the past years reached major agreements on the land-locked sea. Speaking to the IRIB Channel 2 ON Thursday, Mottaki said the ban on transfer of energy via the Caspian Sea pipeline is among the agreements reached among the states.
• Al Jazeera – Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, has made it clear he does not agree with Western demands for sanctions over Tehran’s disputed nuclear programme, insisting he will maintain “close co-operation” with Iran. Oil exports account for nearly half of Iran’s revenues – being cut off from the West means most is exported to Asian countries – and a big percentage of that to China. In return China is investing billions in Iran’s gas and oil fields.
• Mehr – China’s Premier Wen Jiabao said on Thursday that Beijing will maintain high level contacts with Iran and seeks to foster “close coordination in international affairs” with Tehran, Xinhua news agency reported.
• IRIB – IRI Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki met with his Bangladeshi counterpart Mrs. Dipo Moni on Thursday on the sidelines of the 8th Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD) Ministerial Meeting in Colombo, Sri Lanka. In the meeting Mrs. Moni underlined that the friendly ties between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Bangladesh has deep and strong roots in the culture, religious and language of the two countries.
• Press TV – Three Iranian security forces have been killed in an ambush by armed bandits in Iran’s southern Hormozgan Province. Iran’s police website said that the incident took place late Tuesday near the city of Hajiabad.
• ynet – An Iranian website on Thursday denied recent rumors regarding Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s health. Tabnak, which is affiliated with the regime in Tehran, called a report saying Khamenei had fallen into a coma or died a “shameless lie.”

A view of Combat Outpost Herrera, Paktiya province, Afghanistan, as seen from a nearby hilltop. (photo by Staff Sgt. Andrew Smith)

South Asia

• Asia Times – Once one of the most stable provinces in Afghanistan, parts of Kunduz are falling under Taliban control, so much so that the insugents ride around with impunity in captured police vehicles. The governor of Kunduz blames Pakistan for the emergence of the insurgents, while others point fingers at the United States
• AFPS – A combined force was fired upon during a search today in the Bahar district of Zabul province in pursuit of a Taliban commander and his element believed to be responsible for attacks in the region. In another operation today, combined security forces killed several enemy militants who fired on them and posed hostile threats in the Chak district of Wardak province after searching compounds known to be used by a Taliban commander and his element.
• Guardian – Militants launched a series of co-ordinated strikes against police facilities in Lahore today, killing dozens of people and plunging the Pakistani city into chaos. Attackers armed with weapons and suicide jackets attacked the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) headquarters in the city centre and two police training centres on the outskirts just after 9am, as a suicide bomber struck in the North-West Frontier province
• Eli Lake – A key al Qaeda military planner thought dead by the United States and Pakistan gave an interview this week to a Pakistani reporter, illustrating the uncertainties of a military strategy based on air strikes by unmanned drones.
• Dawn – Three government-run FM radio stations in Fata are reportedly on the verge of closure due to sparse funding. This is disturbing, for it would leave an information vacuum to be filled by non-state, extremist elements. The three stations, in the Jamrud tehsil of the Khyber Agency and the Miramshah and Razmak areas of the North Waziristan Agency, were set up between 2004 and 2006 by the Fata Civil Secretariat.
• CFR – CTC Sentinel: Defining the Punjabi Taliban Network; Hassan Abbas outlines the main features–aspirations, financial needs, and worldview–of Pakistan’s Punjabi Taliban network.
• Geo – Pakistan and China on Thursday signed two agreements and Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) on Space concessional loan, space technology and alternative energy. Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani witnessed the signing ceremonies as the respective officials of the companies inked the documents. The concessional loan agreement for PAKSAT was signed between Pakistan”s Economic Affairs Division and Export Import Bank of China
• Times of India – India’s latest long-range nuclear-capable missile under development, can target China’s northernmost city of Harbin, a leading Chinese newspaper has claimed amid a slew of strident anti-India articles over the status of Arunachal Pradesh.
• China MFA – Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Ma Zhaoxu made a statement on Indian leader’s visit to the disputed east section area of China-India boundary. Ma Zhaoxu stated that China-India border has never been officially demarcated. The Chinese Government’s position on the disputed area has been consistent and clear. China expresses its strong dissatisfaction on the visit by the Indian leader to the disputed area in disregard of China’s grave concerns
• ISN – India has long been developing its ‘soft power’ strategy in Afghanistan, sticking to civilian rather than military matters, but attacks on its embassy and the loss of Indian lives may force a strategy change

Far East & Pacific

• The Australian – Top Chinese and Australian military commanders have acknowledged “a few difficulties” in the bilateral relationship during annual talks involving the visiting head of the three-million strong People’s Liberation Army. The Chief of General Staff of the world’s largest military force, General Chen Bingde, is in Canberra for high-level bilateral defence talks, part of the annual Australia-China Strategic Dialogue
• BBC – North Korea’s navy has accused South Korea of sending warships across their maritime border to stir tensions. The North warned that further incursions across the disputed border could spark retaliations. The communist state’s navy said that on Monday alone, ships had crossed the boundary 10 times.
• Jakarta Post – A Philippine military tribunal acquitted 11 officers Thursday of plotting a foiled 2006 coup against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The defendants are among a total of 28 military officers who were detained following the alleged plan to force Arroyo from power.
• Xinhua – Three suspected Al-Qaida affiliated militants were killed and five Filipino soldiers injured in a clash on Wednesday in the restive southern Philippine island of Sulu, the military said on Thursday
• Phnom Penh Post - Cambodia may raise the issue of its ongoing border dispute with Thailand during the upcoming ASEAN summit in the Thai resort town of Hua Hin, Foreign Minister Hor Namhong said Wednesday

Europe

• Times Online – When ten French soldiers were killed last year in an ambush by Afghan insurgents in what had seemed a relatively peaceful area, the French public were horrified. What the grieving nation did not know was that in the months before the French soldiers arrived in mid-2008, the Italian secret service had been paying tens of thousands of dollars to Taleban commanders and local warlords to keep the area quiet, The Times has learnt.
• RFI – In a statement released on Thursday, the office of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said it had “never authorised any kind of money payment to members of the Taliban insurrection in Afghanistan, and has no knowledge of initiatives of this type by the previous government.”
• RFERL – Moldovan officials say the explosion of a grenade at a concert in downtown Chisinau on October 14 that left some 40 people injured was an “act of terror,” RFE/RL’s Moldovan Service reports. Prosecutor-General Valeriu Zubko said police initially considered the explosion an attempted murder but later “came to the conclusion that in was an attempt to intimidate the population.”
• Kirsten Westphal -  Russian Gas, Ukrainian Pipelines, and European Supply Security: Lessons of the 2009 Controversies
• Independent – One of America’s most wanted terrorist suspects today overcame a major legal hurdle in his long-running battle against extradition. A decision by two judges in the High Court in London means that Khalid Al Fawwaz can apply for an appeal in his case to be heard by the Supreme Court. Earlier this year Lord Justice Scott Baker and Mr Justice David Clarke rejected his latest court action against extradition from Britain.
• NY Times – The European Union and South Korea took a major step Thursday toward a free trade deal aimed at generating billions of euros in new trade flows.
• France24 – President Traian Basescu has named Lucian Croitoru, Romania’s former representative to the International Monetary Fund, to the post of prime minister after the collapse of the country’s centre-right administration
• euobserver – The next European Commission is set to be filled with conservative and liberal commissioners, feature several familiar faces, and plenty of new job titles. However, when it will be set up remains the great unknown. With just over two weeks to go before the current commission officially ends its term, and with weighty portfolios the most desired, member states have begun jostling to get a substantial seat at the commission table for the next five years.
• euronews – Work to dismantle a nuclear plant in France has been suspended after unexpectedly high levels of plutonium were discovered. The incident has raised concerns about safety and security at the country’s nuclear sites

Africa

• Garowe – At least 12 people were killed in fighting between Islamist factions in central Somalia, Radio Garowe reports. The fighting erupted Wednesday afternoon in Mataban district of Hiran region, in central Somalia, after Al Shabaab guerrillas attacked Ahlu Sunnah Wal Jamee’ a militias.
• Shabelle – At least two civilians have been killed and 8 others have been wounded in Baraka market after shelling targeted to the market, witnesses and officials told Shabelle radio on Thursday
• Mareeg – 500 Somali security forces have had their training ended in neighboring Djibouti on Thursday. Forces from France and Djibouti trained the Somali government soldiers in Hassan Guled Academy in Djibouti
• BBC – Somali pirates have seized a Singapore-flagged container ship in the Indian Ocean, a maritime official says. The MV Kota Wajar was headed to the Kenyan port of Mombasa when it was commandeered 300 nautical miles north of Seychelles.
• Kenya Somali blog – Somalia’s U.N.-backed government has recruited more than 170 young Kenyans and former servicemen to help it fight rebels in the failed Horn of Africa state, local leaders in eastern Kenya said.
• AFP – Libya on Thursday freed 88 Islamists and announced it will demolish Abu Slim prison, notorious for what human rights groups say was a 1996 massacre in which more than 1,000 prisoners were killed. The Islamists with Al-Qaeda links walked out of the Tripoli prison, an AFP correspondent at the scene reported.
• New Times – Rwanda Defence Forces (RDF) finally landed in Pajema, Kitgum District in Northern Uganda bordering Sudan, to participate in the Joint Field Training exercise code-named Natural Fire 10. The joint field training exercise which will be officially opened tomorrow, has brought together armies of all the five member states of the East African Community  (EAC), together with members of the US Africa Command
• UPI – Nigerian insurgents vowed Thursday to renew their five-year war against Africa’s largest oil industry when a unilateral cease-fire expires, even though some of their leaders have surrendered under a government amnesty in recent weeks.
• This Day – Despite the relative peace in the troubled Niger Delta due to Federal Government’s amnesty granted to militants, Royal Dutch Shell, a major operator in Nigeria oil and gas sector, has continued to count loses from its operation owing to the years of unrest in the region.
• CSM – Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s police forces detained Roy Bennett, an aide to his chief rival, and coalition partner, Morgan Tsvangirai on Wednesday, roiling the unity government that has helped stabilize Zimbabwe

Sailors aboard the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan man the rails as the ship pulls into Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Ronald Reagan made a scheduled port visit in Honolulu, Oct. 13, the U.S. Navy's 234th birthday. The Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group is on a routine deployment to the U.S. 3rd Fleet area of responsibility (photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Joshua Scott)

The Global War

• Dexter Filkins – Stanley McChrystal’s Long War; Success takes time, but how much time does Stanley McChrystal have? The war in Afghanistan is now in its ninth year. The Taliban, measured by the number of their attacks, are stronger than at any time since the Americans toppled their government at the end of 2001.
• CSIS – Proponents of counterinsurgency, or COIN, argue that intelligence gathering in support of operations against al Qaeda and Taliban militants will be irreparably damaged if the Obama administration pursues a counterterrorism strategy instead of COIN in Afghanistan. Is this necessarily true?
• RIA Novosti – Russia and India are set to jointly develop helicopters, infantry fighting vehicles and a fifth-generation fighter, a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said on Thursday.
• John Noonan, SWJ – Sometimes the most effective COIN lessons are found in the strangest of places. Some time ago, while researching Zimbabwe’s staggering collapse under the Robert Mugabe regime, I stumbled upon When a Crocodile Eats the Sun – a deeply moving memoir of Zimbabwe’s corrosive rot, told by native Zimbabwean reporter, Mr. Peter Godwin.
• Asharq Al Awsat – He’s a heavyweight in al-Qaeda but little known outside jihadi and intelligence circles even though he runs the terrorist movement’s operations in a key front — Afghanistan — and may be linked to a plot in New York. Mustafa al-Yazid makes no secret of his contempt for the United States, once calling it “the evil empire leading crusades against the Muslims.”
• NEFA Foundation – The NEFA Foundation has obtained a transcript of a communiqué from Shaykh Mustafa Abu al-Yazid (a.k.a. “Shaykh Saeed”) mourning the death of Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud in a U.S. air strike
• AKI – Pakistan’s army has become a “Crusader” tool to save United States and NATO troops from certain defeat in Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda’s second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, claimed in a new video posted to Muslim extremist websites.
• Air Force – The commander of the 91st Missile Wing at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., was relieved of command Oct. 14 due to loss of confidence in his ability to command.
• UN – Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Gabon, Lebanon and Nigeria will serve two-year terms on the Security Council starting next January after they won elections to the 15-member body today.

Sights & Sounds

Evgeny Morozov and Andres Martinez – Will Obama’s amity toward Russia hurt democracy activists?… Evaluating the “reset”… Medvedev and Putin’s good cop-bad cop routine… Russia’s telecom diplomacy… Why doesn’t Russia have any friends?… Why Secretary Clinton chose to visit the obscure city of Kazan

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.

Cato Institute – The Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan

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.

BBC – The BBC’s World Affairs Editor John Simpson tells the story of 20 years of post-communist life. Through personal stories, he traces the different roads that East Germany, the Czech Republic and Romania have taken since 1989

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.