A brief world news roundup for 2 December 2009.

United States & the Americas

• VOA – In a few hours, President Barack Obama unveils a new U.S. plan for winning the eight-year war in Afghanistan.  The president is expected to announce a substantial troop increase, while also mapping out a path to bring America’s military involvement in Afghanistan to an end
• Washington Post – President Obama has offered Pakistan an expanded strategic partnership, including additional military and economic cooperation, while warning with unusual bluntness that its use of insurgent groups to pursue policy goals “cannot continue.”
• Washington Times – The United States is about to lose a key arms-control tool from the closing days of the Cold War — the right to station American observers in Russia to count the long-range missiles leaving its assembly line. The end of full-time, on-site access will likely ignite complaints in Congress
• CSM – The Supreme Court Monday threw out a federal appeals court ruling requiring the release of photos that allegedly show abuse of US-held detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan. The court cited a new law that allows the Defense Secretary to withhold such photos
• National Post – NATO confirmed Tuesday that Canada’s area of operations in south Afghanistan will expand slightly to include a northern suburb of Kandahar City known as Arghandab.
• RFERL – Russia is building arms plants in Venezuela to produce AK-103 automatic rifles and cartridges and is finalizing contracts to send 53 military helicopters to the Andean nation, Moscow’s envoy to Venezuela said.
• NPR – The discovery of several massive oil fields in Brazil has put a spotlight on a company little known outside petroleum circles: state-owned Petrobras, which is now gearing up to pump as much oil as it can. Brazil hopes to be a major oil player once these fields are in full production

Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia

• Russia Today – The Russian lower house of parliament is discussing a draft law that may bring about considerable structural changes to the country’s court system. Defendants charged with terrorist offences may be tried by the Russian military criminal justice system due to the ineffectiveness of regional courts
• RIA Novosti – Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has terminated counterintelligence operations in Ukraine’s Crimea and is sending all ‘special service’ officers to other posts, a Russian intelligence source said on Tuesday.
• RIA Novosti – The Russian Armed Forces will conduct large-scale Vostok military exercises in Siberia and the country’s Far East in 2010, the Defense Ministry said on Tuesday
• Itar Tass – The Neustrashimy patrol ship of the Russian Baltic Fleet has started to practice in the Atlantic Ocean, a source at the fleet headquarters told Itar-Tass on Tuesday. “Warships of the Baltic Fleet, among them the Neustrashimy, will be on oceanic missions until the end of this year and in 2010,” he said.
• Kremlin – Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh will make an official visit to Russia on December 6-8, 2009
• Caucasian Knot – Sunday. in Makhachkala, in the Shamil Avenue, unidentified persons shelled the car with Abrek Gadzhiev, head of the Magaramkent District of Dagestan. Mr Gadzhiev later died from his wounds in hospital
• EurasiaNet – For more than a decade Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have had a rocky relationship. But now, following an announcement by Tashkent that it is withdrawing from the Central Asian electricity grid, bilateral ties may take a dangerous nosedive
• Stephen Blank – Although they do not get a lot of attention abroad, water issues are truly vital in Central Asia.  Since those states who have water do not have oil and gas and vice versa, a fundamental economic-political asymmetry exists between them.  This has led to many continuing instances of disputes, rivalries, and clashes among them.  However, as the quality of China’s water becomes an issue and given the geography of rivers in Central Asia (including Russia and China), China’s waste policies, which have hitherto been for the most part unilateral ones committed to development and heedless of other parties’ interests, have become an increasingly important issue in interstate relations

Middle East

• Air Force – Iraqi and coalition efforts had combined to sustain the stability in Iraq set new records in November with zero airstrikes, zero weapons releases and zero shows of force. The last time aircrews had a clean streak was in June; however, June also had 16 reports of troops in contact, but in November there were only five.
• AFPS – Iraqi police arrested 11 suspected members of the al-Qaida in Iraq terrorist group during two joint security operations in northern Iraq.
• Voices of Iraq – Security forces seized a weapons cache in a farm south of Kut city, Wassit province, and arrested a suicide bomber north of Hilla city, Babel province. “The cache embraced light and medium arms,” the Iraqi Interior Ministry said in a release on Tuesday received by Aswat al-Iraq news agency. It said that the cache was found relying on an intelligence tip-off
  Daily Star – Britain is willing to step-up contact with Hizbullah as they begin to play a bigger role in Lebanon’s government, Foreign Secretary David Miliband told The Daily Star in an exclusive interview.Miliband told the paper this week he believed “carefully considered contact with Hizbullah’s politicians, including its MPs, will best advance our objective of the group rejecting violence to play a constructive role in Lebanese politics.”
• Al Manar – Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah announced on Monday the Resistance party’s new political document that was approved during the party’s General Conference that lasted for months.
• NOW Lebanon – March 14 General Secretariat Coordinator Fares Soueid told LBCI television on Tuesday that the existence  of Hezbollah’s arsenal in an independent Lebanese state, as discussed in Hezbollah’s political platform, is “impossible.”
• David Schenker – Syria and Turkey: Walking Arm in Arm Down the Same Road?
• Hurriyet – An Iranian woman, the leader of an atheist sect who has been held in custody in Turkey for the past month, is seeking asylum. Iran would execute her if she returned, she says
• Press TV – Houthi fighters in Yemen say Saudi warplanes have pounded residential areas north of the country, killing several women and children
• Saba – A source at the Interior ministry has said that al-Qaeda was behind kidnapping and murdering a detective in Mareb province, 130 km from Sana’a. Al-Qaeda members brought around Major Bassam Suleiman Torboush, head of Investigation at the Criminal Investigative Department in the province and seized him on Monday. They took him to an unidentified location, tortured him and then slew him in a terrible way

Iran

• Payvand – “A 250 bar (atmospheric) pressure test has been successfully carried out at the Bushehr nuclear plant,” Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Director Mohammad Ali Salehi said at a press conference with visiting Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko in Tehran
• Fars – Iran is due to boost the quality of centrifuge machines at its first enrichment facility in the central city of Natanz, Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Undersecretary for Foreign Policy Affairs Ali Baqeri announced on Tuesday.
• Mehr – Iran has “serious grievances” with Russia and China for voting in favor of the IAEA Board of Governors’ resolution against Iran; however, Iran said its strategic relationship with China and Russia will not change.
• Press TV – Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has confirmed that it has detained several British nationals in the Persian Gulf waters
• Xinhua – Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Tuesday that the presence of Iran in Latin America means a serious defeat for Israel’s foreign diplomacy, the state-run IRNA news agency reported
• IRIB – Iranian and Ecuadorian industry ministers reviewed ways to develop industrial cooperation. Minister of Industries and Mines Ali-Akbar Mehrabian held talks with his visiting Ecuadorian counterpart Cavier Abad on late Sunday, accoridng to IRNA
• BBC – The doctor who died at an Iranian detention centre holding opposition supporters was poisoned, the Iranian authorities have said. But it was still not known if Dr Ramin Pourandarjani committed suicide or was murdered, an Iranian prosecutor said.

An Afghan woman and a young boy cross an open wash near the village of Bahrabad, Afghanistan, Dec. 1. The Provincial Reconstruction Team-Kunar medical staff surveyed the local clinic to see if any assistance was needed (photo by Tech. Sgt. Brian Boisvert)

South Asia

• AFP – France will not deploy extra combat troops to Afghanistan but may send more military trainers for Afghan forces, President Nicolas Sarkozy’s special envoy to the region said Tuesday.
• Al Jazeera – A suicide bomber has killed a provincial politician as he received guests at his home in Pakistan’s northwest Swat valley. A man with explosives strapped to his body walked unchallenged into the grounds of the house of Shamsher Ali Khan, a provincial assembly member, and blew himself up
• Dawn – At least four suspected militants have been killed and six others injured during clashes with security forces in different parts of Khyber Agency on Tuesday. According to official sources, security forces destroyed four houses belonging to militant commanders.
• Geo – As many as 15,577 Cash Cards have been issued to displaced families of Wazirsitan, said an ISPR statement here on Tuesday. The operation Rah-e-Nijat in South Waziristan Agency continued today. On Jandola Sector, during last 24 hours, security forces cleared Dunai Killi, remaining portion of Janata and recovered huge cache of arms and ammunition. Security forces conducted patrolling in areas around Bxu, Bakka Khel, Rucha, Bapsa, Sagai and Talib Khel. On Shakai Sector, security forces carried out consolidation of their positions at Asman Manza, Mola Khan Sarai and Kundi Ghar Sar. On Razmak Sector, terrorists fired seven rockets at Lakki Ghund, five rockets at Mana Camp and four rockets at Ladha Bridge near Makeen which was responded effectively. Security forces cleared 30 compounds at Kam Narakai and 72 compounds at Mir Khoni and recovered cache of arms. About operation Rah-e-Rast in Swat and Malakand, security forces carried out search operation in area Gulibagh, Tiligram and apprehended 5 suspects. A destroyed bridge by the terrorists constructed by Army Engineers has been opened for all kinds of traffic. On a tip off, security forces raided at Sarga Moray near Batkhela, and apprehended 5 terrorists.
• The News – Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) denied that the two men arrested in Chicago on terrorism charges were among its members
• Times of India – With reports suggesting China was building over two dozen new airstrips along the Line of Actual Control, Pallam Raju said there was no need to be worried as India was adequately strengthening itself

Far East & Pacific

• CBS – Philippine prosecutors charged the heir of a powerful clan with murder Tuesday in the massacre of 57 people, more than half of them journalists or their staff who were accompanying the family and supporters of an election candidate.
• Stars and Stripes – SASEBO NAVAL BASE, Japan — A visit here Monday by a Chinese defense ministry delegation put the communist country’s top military officials unusually close to the U.S. Navy and its advanced Aegis weapons system technology.
• Kyodo News – North Korea has redenominated its currency, the won, for the first time in 17 years, with the exchange rate between the old and new bills at 100 to 1, diplomatic sources and news reports said Tuesday.
• Washington Post – Chaos reportedly erupted in North Korea on Tuesday after the government of Kim Jong Il revalued the country’s currency, sharply restricting the amount of old bills that could be traded for new and wiping out personal savings
• Chosun Ilbo – It looks as though North Korea’s hereditary dynasty is firmly in place after all. Kim Jong-un (26), the third son of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and heir apparent to the throne, is said to be working at the powerful National Defense Commission and deeply involved in major policy decisions.
• news.com.au – Australia’s most notorious terrorist Willie Brigitte will be free from jail next year, having served less than half his sentence for conspiring to blow up the nation’s only nuclear reactor and the power grid. Caribbean-born Muslim convert Brigitte made headlines in 2007 when he was sentenced in France, following his arrest in Sydney, to a maximum nine years in jail for joining an al-Qaeda-backed Pakistani terror cell out to bomb Lucas Heights nuclear plant, the national electricity grid and/or a military base

Europe

• Prague Monitor – The government approved a medium-term concept of the Czech military missions abroad until 2013, submitted by the defence and foreign ministers, Martin Barták and Jan Kohout.
• euobserver – The European Union is celebrating the entry into force of a new set of rules today (1 December), hoping to put a full-stop behind the years of wrangling, set-backs and lowered ambitions that have marked this lengthy phase of institution building. The Lisbon Treaty, named after the Portuguese capital where it was signed in 2007, is coming into place a full eight years after member states decided that the European Union needed both to address its democratic legitimacy – sometimes described as its democratic deficit – and allow for more flexible decision-making.
• AP – Italy is considering taking in other prisoners from Guantanamo to help President Barack Obama close down the prison, the country’s foreign minister said Tuesday, a day after Italy accepted two former detainees
• BBC – Libya has sentenced two Swiss businessmen to 16 months in jail amid a row over the arrest last year of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s son in Geneva.
• UPI – The United Kingdom contracted gas purchases from the Russian-backed Nord Stream pipeline to meet more than 4 percent of its demand by 2012, officials said.

Africa

• Shabelle – the two warring sides of the Islamists and TFG have claimed victory over heavy fighting that started early on Tuesday morning at parts of Warshadaha Street in the Somali capital Mogadishu, officials told Shabelle radio.
• The Australian – Somalian kidnappers fired shots at Australian photographer Nigel Brennan and his Canadian companion, Amanda Lindhout, during the night-time exchange which secured their freedom. John Chase, a British-based hostage negotiator for AKE group, employed by the families to secure the release last week of the two journalists, said the pair were initially treated well until a failed escape attempt in January.
• Al Arabiya – Kidnapping has become a lucrative business for al-Qaeda’s north African branch, experts said Tuesday after a French national and three Spaniards were abducted in the Sahel within days of each other
• Sudan Tribune – The Halayeb triangle region on Sudan’s borders with Egypt will be included in the upcoming elections despite its status as a disputed area, the Sudanese electoral commission said.
• Global Dashboard – The UN is pessimistic about the situation in Guinea. In Tambacounda last night, in the south-eastern wastes of Senegal, I met a World Food Programme employee from Dakar. Like everyone else in this one-horse town, he was on his way somewhere else, in this case to Kedougou, near the border with Guinea. He is going to investigate whether there are sufficient telecoms and internet facilities there, in case war breaks out in Guinea and a flood of refugees pours into Senegal. Similar preparations are taking place in Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Sierra Leone and Liberia
• BBC – Rwanda is to be declared free of landmines – the first country to achieve this status. The announcement is to be made at the Cartagena Summit on a Mine-Free World in Columbia.
• AFRICOM – The multinational Eastern Africa Standby Force (EASF) Field Training Exercise began November 29, 2009 with an opening ceremony in Djibouti. The historical exercise brought approximately 1,500 troops, police and civilian staff together from 10 Eastern African countries working side-by-side for the first time.

Defense Secretary Gates escorts Serbian Defense Minister Dragan Sutanovac through an honor cordon into the Pentagon, Dec. 1, 2009. The two defense leaders will hold bilateral security discussions on a broad range of issues. (photo by R. D. Ward)

The Global War

• Daily Pioneer – A year after the fidayeen attacks on multiple targets in Mumbai, we are still trying to put faces to the names of those who masterminded the diabolical plot. That’s a difficult task: Terrorists morph into various persona and switch identities, all the while spinning a web to mislead police
• Bloomberg – Yukiya Amano, a disarmament negotiator for the only nation attacked with nuclear weapons, faces immediate tests from a defiant Iran and provocative North Korea as he takes over the International Atomic Energy Agency today from Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei.
• TIME – While it is impossible, given their diversity, to paint one picture of women living under Islam today, it is clear that the religion has been used in most Muslim countries not to liberate but to entrench inequality. The Taliban, with its fanatical subjugation of the female sex, occupies an extreme, but it nevertheless belongs on a continuum that includes, not so far down the line, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Pakistan and the relatively moderate states of Egypt and Jordan.

Sights & Sounds

DW – Russian police have appealed to witnesses to come forward after a home-made bomb exploded, causing an express train between Moscow and St. Petersburg to derail, killing 25 people and injuring more than 100.

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Lowy Institute – The Mekong River basins are one of the most important and dynamic areas in the world for the battle between economic development’s demands for energy and environmental and social sustainability. As world attention shifts to the pending global climate change negotiations in far-off Copenhagen, the ongoing damming of the Mekong River and plans by the riparian states to build new dams threaten the livelihoods of millions or people in Southeast Asia who rely on the river. Milton Osborne’s latest publication for the Lowy Institute on the Mekong River focuses on these plans by the Lao PDR and Cambodia to build dams on the Mekong and evaluates their potential social and environmental ramifications especially for Cambodia’s Great Lake and for the Mekong Delta in Vietnam

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