Peace Like A River » Cables, dispatches and memoranda

Cables, dispatches and memoranda

September 12, 2008 (12:57 am) | Daily Roundup | By: Jeff Kouba

Cables, Dispatches and Memoranda
A brief world news roundup for 12 September 2008.

United States & the Americas

USA Today – The Bush administration has expelled the Bolivian ambassador, a day after President Evo Morales threw the U.S. ambassador out of the South American country. “In response to the unwarranted action and in accordance with the Vienna Convention, we have officially informed the government of Bolivia of our decision to declare Ambassador Gustavo Guzman persona non grata,” a State Department spokesperson said.
CNN – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Thursday he is recalling his own ambassador from Washington and expelling the U.S. ambassador from Venezuela. President Hugo Chavez said he was making the moves “in solidarity with Bolivia and the people of Bolivia.” “He has 72 hours, from this moment, the Yankee ambassador in Caracas, to leave Venezuela,” Chavez told a crowd of supporters.
RIA Novosti – Venezuela has annulled antidumping duties on two types of Russian steel, as the countries seek to build political and economic ties, Russia’s Economics Ministry said on Thursday. Next week the head of Russia’s largest independent oil company, LUKoil, will arrive in Caracas to discuss investment in Venezuela’s oil industry. The Russian delegation will also include top managers from energy giant Gazprom.
Asia Times – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is bringing his controversial brand of petroleum diplomacy to Vietnam, a geopolitical move in line with South American fuel exporter’s bid to ship less oil to the US and more to Asia.
France24 – At least people were killed and a dozen injured in violent clashes between pro- and anti-government protesters in northeastern Bolivia, raising fears that a civil war could break out.
Times Online – Mr Gomez — handsome, unmarried and in his early forties — is a member of one of the most feared and powerful organisations in Mexico, a group whose members are so far beyond the law that they allegedly kidnapped the 14-year-old son of one of the country’s wealthiest businessmen, collected a ransom, then tortured and killed the boy anyway, leaving his decomposing body in the boot of a stolen car. As any Mexican will tell you, this gang of outlaws is not a drug cartel or a mafia outfit. It is the police.

Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia

Xinhua – Russia will make the modernization of its armed forces a priority, in view of the recent conflict with Georgia, President Dmitry Medvedev said Thursday. “We must now focus on rearming the armed forces with modern weaponry and do it thoroughly and consistently, taking into account the recent problems,” Medvedev said at a conference on the development of Russia’s armed forces.
Intellibriefs – Russian Army’s weaknesses exposed during war in Georgia
EurasiaNet – The Georgia-Russia war has placed Armenia in a bind. Officials in Yerevan are feeling pressure to take sides, either supporting its strategic partner, Russia, or its neighbor, Georgia, through which 70 percent of Armenian exports flow. For now, Yerevan is trying to postpone its decision.
IWPR – The conflict in Georgia and Russia’s recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states have fundamentally shaken up the unresolved Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorny Karabakh.
Steve LeVine – Kazakh Oil: A War of Nerves; Russian brinkmanship could imperil the flow of oil and money across the Caspian to Europe
Bill Powell – How the KGB (and friends) took over Russia’s economy; Vladimir Putin put his pals in charge to bring order out of chaos. But will their heavy hand be the ruin of Russia’s boom?

Soldiers from 4th Infantry Division and Multi-National Division – Baghdad, along with Airmen, Sailors, firemen and civilians, gathered in front of MND-B headquarters, Sept. 11, 2008, during a Patriot Day Observance to honor and remember the individuals who lost their lives on the horrific day seven years ago and the heroes who came forth to serve in a time of need. (photo by Pfc. Lyndsey Dransfield)

Middle East

Al Alam – Iraq’s President Jalal Talabani has dismissed US accusations against Iran and Syria, saying that the two “friendly neighbors pose “no problem” for his war-torn country. As he met with George W. Bush at the White House, Talabani said: “I’m glad to tell you Mr President that our relations with our neighbors is improved very well with Turkey, with Syria, with Iran with the Arab countries.”
McClatchy – The Iraqi government will not turn its back on the men who paid in blood for the country’s fragile peace, said the officials on stage in the ballroom at Baghdad’s al-Rasheed Hotel, referring to U.S.-paid Sunni militias. But the Awakening leaders listened warily. “I don’t trust a word they said,” said one, afterward.
Asharq Al Awsat – The unprecedented speech that Adnan al-Mufti, the speaker of the Kurdistan National Assembly (Parliament), delivered 8 September during the inaugural meeting of the Parliament’s second session on arms deals that Baghdad wishes to conclude has implicitly shown that a crisis of confidence exists between the Kurdistan region and the central government. Al-Mufti called on the United States in particular and the arms-producing major powers in general not to sell arms to Iraq unless conditions and specific restrictions are attached to such deals prohibiting the use of these arms against the Kurds in the future.
Stars and Stripes – Less than a week after his son was nearly killed by a suicide bomber, council chairman Sa’ed Jassim al-Mashadani opened the weekly qada government meeting with an emphatic speech to his fellow elected officials. “There is no chance for retreat, there is no chance for surrender to those terrorists,” he said. “We have to cooperate between ourselves and the [Iraqi security forces], or else they will finish us.”
Japan Times – The Air Self-Defense Force unit flying transport operations between Kuwait and Iraq may be withdrawn by the end of the year, the Japanese government said Thursday.
Haaretz – Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah said in a recent interview that as long as Israel exists, there will be no peace in the Middle East. “The region will not see the light of peace or any stability because of Israel’s aggressiveness and militant nature,” Nasrallah said.
NOW Lebanon – The Lebanese Forces condemned the Wednesday night assassination of Sheikh Saleh al-Aridi. In a statement released on Thursday, the party said that those who killed Aridi were trying to disrupt the situation in Mount Lebanon, and hinder reconciliation efforts between Democratic Gathering leader MP Walid Jumblatt and Lebanese Democratic Party leader Minister Talal Arslan.
Global Voices – The blast was covered by local and international media and more details on the incident are pending investigation. While the shock of this returning phenomenon of assassinations and the new targeted figures kept bloggers from analyzing much of its background and intentions, they reported the incident by whatever material they could find.
LA Times – Comments by a leading Lebanese politician published Thursday have stirred speculation that he is considering a break with the country’s U.S.-backed political alliance, which is locked in a power struggle with the camp led by the pro-Iranian movement Hezbollah. Walid Jumblatt, the colorful and outspoken leader of Lebanon’s Druze community, accused his coalition’s leader, Saad Hariri, of trying to build a militia and allying with Islamic extremists. In comments to a newspaper, he lampooned Hariri’s leadership skills, likening his U.S.-backed Future Movement to a “troop of camels all walking together.”
Al Ahram – interview with Egypt’s Grand Mufti Sheikh Ali Gomaa

Iran

AKI – Iran’s hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday announced he will address address the United Nations General Assembly in New York on 23 September. Meetings have been arranged between Ahmadinejad and several Latin American and African presidents. So far no western prime ministers or presidents have agreed to meet him.
Press TV – Iran has expressed readiness for transit of Turkmenistan gas through its soil, Turkmen state television quoted the head of Iran’s NIGC.
AKI – Sixteen intellectuals from Azerbaijan were arrested in the Iranian capital, Tehran, on Wednesday night as they met to celebrate Ramadan at the end of the day. After their arrest, all members of the group were transferred to Evin prison. In Brussels on Wednesday, 100 Iranian Azerbaijanis protested outside the European Commission against the arrest, detention and heavy sentences given to members of ethnic minorities in Iran and calling for intervention by public institutions.
Washington Times – A native of the Iranian province of Azerbaijan, Mr. Tajadod remembers the period after World War II when a Soviet-backed communist party declared Iranian Azerbaijan an autonomous state. Intervention by Britain and the United States helped local forces make the Russians withdraw. “We do not trust the Russians,” he said. At a time when the United States is trying to rally world opinion against Russia, Iran is a plausible if unanticipated ally.

Southeast Asia

CJTF-A – Coalition forces killed several militants and detained three suspected militants during operations in Ghazni and Khowst provinces, Wednesday. Coalition forces targeted a regional terrorist leader in Andar District, Ghazni province, who is suspected of facilitating the movement of foreign fighters into Afghanistan. He is also suspected to have close ties to senior Taliban commanders in the region. When forces arrived, several men attempted to engage the force. Coalition forces responded with small-arms fire, killing the militants. Coalition forces detained two suspected militants during the operation.
ABC – Insurgents killed two U.S. troops in Afghanistan on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks Thursday, making 2008 the deadliest year for American forces since U.S. troops invaded the country in 2001 for sheltering Osama bin Laden.
NPR – A lingering drought in Afghanistan has led to the smallest wheat harvest in the country in years. The diminished crop has thrown farmers and residents into a food crisis. Many point to the government for not coming to the farmers’ aid fast enough.
IWPR – The Helmand authorities and international officials appear to be struggling to keep a lid on mounting local panic over a recent Taleban offensive which is said to have taken them to the very outskirts of the provincial capital. Afghans fleeing fighting last month in a district abutting Lashkar Gah say the Taleban noose is tightening around the regional centre. Many have sought refuge in the town, one of the few secure areas in the province, straining its limited resources.
Al Jazeera – Pakistani security forces have killed up to 100 fighters linked to the Taliban and al-Qaeda during clashes near the Afghan border, a security official has said. “Eighty to 100 militants were killed in Bajaur today. Most of them are foreigners,” the official said on condition of anonymity, referring to the tribal region.
The News – Security forces on Thursday killed 14 militants and injured 15 others in aerial attacks on different areas of the volatile Swat Valley while the militants gunned down a cop in Koza Bamakhela. The security forces targeted the house of a local Taliban commander, Khurshid, from a gunship helicopter in Ningolai area of the militant-infested Kabal Tehsil, killing six insurgents.
BBC – India is negotiating pacts with France, Russia and other countries for the import of civilian nuclear power plants, foreign ministry officials say.
Reuters – Deep inside the thickly forested hills of eastern India, where ancient tribes live in huts of grass-and-mud cut off from modernity, a stealth electoral weapon is at work for India’s Hindu nationalists.
CFR – Howard B. Schaffer, a former top State Department official on South Asia, says Washington should seek to prevent tensions in Kashmir from complicating U.S. security interests in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Colombo Page – At least 16 Tiger rebels including an LTTE area leader have been killed in the latest rounds of fighting in the embattled northern region of Sri Lanka, the military said.
TamilNet – Referring to the news that two Indian radar operators were wounded Tuesday when the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) attacked the Vanni Headquarters of the Sri Lankan military, Vaiko, the General Secretary of the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK), in a letter sent Thursday to the Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, said that the Indian Government was “caught red handed in its unpardonable betrayal” of involving Indian military personnel in Sri Lanka’s “genocidal war” against the Tamils. He blamed the top level bureaucrats in India, particularly the national security adviser, for “clandestinely conspiring” with the Sri Lankan government.

Far East & Pacific

Bangkok Post – Two days after being kicked out of office by the Constitution Court, Samak Sundaravej is on the verge of becoming prime minister again. Mr Samak on Thursday accepted a formal invitation by the People Power party to have his name put up for nomination as premier when parliament meets on Friday.
IHT – New Zealand’s prime minister called elections for Nov. 8, setting a relatively long campaign period to give her Labor Party a chance to win back the many voters who have switched their loyalties to the conservative opposition. A change of government would not signal any major turnover in foreign policy, including the country’s long-standing anti-nuclear stance and opposition to the Iraq war, but would indicate strong dissatisfaction with Labor after nearly 10 years in power.
The Interpreter – I’ve never found a way to make the machinations of Japanese politics interesting to an Australian audience. Other journalistic failures of the same order: how to convey the underlying importance of the slow motion complexity that is the Doha Round, or the paint-drying progress of the ASEAN Regional Forum. On Japanese politics, though, I’ve had an epiphany. At last, the Costa is clear. The way to explain the Liberal Democratic Party is to write it up as a version of the NSW Labor Party. Both groups are creatures and creations of their own machines. (Voters, you say? Parliament, you muse? Come now!) Both groups make deals as effortlessly as they wield chopsticks. As Robert McLelland quipped last year when comparing himself to Kevin Rudd: ‘I may not speak Mandarin, but I’ve eaten quite a few.’

Europe

NY Times – Making his first visit to a European Union country since the war with Georgia last month, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, told Polish leaders Thursday that their decision to place an American missile defense base on Polish territory posed a threat to Russia’s security. “We cannot fail to see the risks emerging as a result of U.S. strategic forces coming close to our borders,” Mr. Lavrov said at a joint news conference with his Polish counterpart, Radek Sikorski. He also dismissed the American insistence that the missile shield was meant to counter threats from countries like Iran. “We are certain this system in Europe can have no other target for a long time to come but Russia’s strategic forces,” he said.
Javno – France has arrested 55 militant Islamists this year and the country’s prisons have become a favourite recruiting ground for such groups, Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said in an interview published on Thursday. While some Islamists are still travelling to Iraq, Pakistani and Afghan networks have strengthened, and “training and indoctrination sites” are now concentrated in that area, Alliot-Marie said in an interview with French daily Le Figaro.
Telegraph – Two German spies are to testify over allegations that they delivered targeting information for US air strikes on Baghdad, despite Germany opposing the war in Iraq. The covert activities could derail the Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier’s attempts to defeat Angela Merkel at the next general election.
Daily Express – The Channel Tunnel has been closed – and will remain shut until at least tomorrow – after a huge fire broke out on a freight train. Fourteen people were injured after the blaze, which raged for hours, started on board a lorry being carried from Folkestone in Kent to Calais just before 3pm.

Africa

Guardian – The only leader the country has known in its 28 years of independence said he would rather go back to the bush and fight another liberation war than hand over Zimbabwe to Tsvangirai. But yesterday, Mugabe was apparently persuaded to face reality under the unrelenting pressure of economic collapse and a desperate and hungry population, agreeing to cede most of his powers to Tsvangirai.
The Monitor – About 3,000 jobs are set for grabs when the construction of the East Africa oil pipeline begins in early November. The much-talked about pipeline expected to run from Eldoret in western Kenya to Kampala in Uganda is also expected to stabilize petroleum oil products supply to Uganda, DR Congo and Rwanda.
Washington Times – Spanish tuna boat escaped an attempted hijacking Thursday by pirates in international waters off the coast of Somalia, powering out into the open sea until the attackers gave up.
Information Dissemination – 5th Fleet Focus: September in Somalia
BBC – Diplomats based in the Democratic Republic of Congo have made a rare joint appeal for the army and rebels to stop fighting in the east. A statement signed by representatives of the UN, African Union, EU and the US demanded that all forces withdraw to the positions they held last month. UN peacekeepers have mobilised to block the advance of troops loyal to renegade General Laurent Nkunda.
IRIN – Many thousands of civilians in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s North Kivu province, many of them repeatedly displaced, have been forced to flee again amid heavy clashes between government forces and troops loyal to renegade Gen Laurent Nkunda.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Kevin Leonard, aviation structural mechanic, checks the T56A-14 turboprop engine on a P-3C Orion aircraft to ensure that it is clear of debris, Sept. 9, 2008, at an undisclosed air base in Southwest Asia. The P-3 aircraft provides surveillance of the battlespace, either at sea or over land. Its long range and long loiter time have proved invaluable assets during Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom as it can view the battlespace and instantaneously provide that information to ground troops, especially U.S. Marines. (photo by Staff Sgt. Darnell Cannady)

The Global War

Asia Times – Moscow has welcomed Ankara’s proposal for a stability and cooperation pact in the Caucasus – the core of Russian thinking lies in the preference for a regional approach that excludes outside powers, that is, the United States. Effectively, the Black Sea is now a Russo-Turkish playpen. Moscow has also thrown a curve ball by seeking to link Iraq and Iran to this emerging pact.
NATO – The Standing NATO Maritime Group One (SNMG 1) successfully completed its planned visit and is leaving the Black Sea in accordance with the Montreux Convention which limits Black Sea naval deployments to twenty-one days for non-Black Sea navies. SNMG 1 will operate in the Mediterranean following its departure from the Black Sea.
Danger Room – Could the Pentagon’s newest regional command be dead before it ever really got started? Maybe, if steep Congressional cuts to Africa Command, aka AFRICOM, hold, and if the command can’t make its purpose clearer to skeptical Congresscritters. According to Inside Defense (subscription required), House Appropriations wants to cut AFRICOM’s budget from the request $390 million to just $80 million.
House Armed Services Committee Testimony (Gates, Mullen) - Security and Stability in Afghanistan and Iraq: Developments in U.S. Strategy and Operations and the Way Ahead
US Navy – The Navy awarded a $5.1 billion contract to Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding Newport News Sept. 10 for the detail design and construction of the future USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78), the lead ship in the Navy’s newest class of aircraft carrier.
Long War Journal – Al Qaeda’s senior leadership has lost confidence in its commander in Iraq and views the situation in the country as dire, according to a series of letters intercepted by Multinational Forces Iraq earlier this year. The letters, which have been sent exclusively to The Long War Journal by Multinational Forces Iraq, are a series of communications between Ayman al Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s second in command, Abu Ayyub al Masri, al Qaeda in Iraq’s leader, and Abu Omar al Baghdadi, the leader of al Qaeda’s Islamic State of Iraq.

Sights & Sounds

Hudson Institute – recently held a book discussion of The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq By Bing West