A brief world news roundup for 16 April 2010.

United States & the Americas

• SouthCom – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates arrived in Bogota to offer congratulations and support for Colombia’s progress in the fight against its insurgency and the lessons it is sharing with its neighbors in the region. Gates, who traveled here from Peru, is slated to meet with President Alvaro Uribe and Defense Minister Gabriel Silva Luján to discuss progress in the offensive against the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia and other paramilitary groups
• Treasury Dept – The U.S.  Department of the Treasury today targeted the financial and support networks of al-Qai’da and the Taliban by designating two individuals for providing support to terrorists or acts of terrorism under Executive Order 13224.  Mohammed Mazhar, the director of al-Akhtar Trust, was designated for his fundraising activities and financial and other support for al-Qai’da and the Taliban, and Mufti Abdul Rahim, leader of al
• FBI – A federal grand jury in the District of Maryland has returned a 10-count indictment charging former National Security Agency (NSA) senior executive Thomas A. Drake with the willful retention of classified information, obstruction of justice, and making false statements, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division.
• Eli Lake – President Obama personally intervened last fall to dissuade Steve Kappes — a senior CIA operations director at the time the agency used black sites and harsh interrogations of terrorists — from retiring. The CIA announced on Wednesday that Mr. Kappes is leaving the agency next month from his post as deputy CIA director. He will be replaced by longtime analyst Michael Morell, the agency’s current director of intelligence.
• Globe and Mail – He talked of his satisfaction in building the long Keystone pipeline and its extensions, which will carry oil sands output from Alberta deep into the United States. And he spoke about the one that, so far, has eluded him – the Mackenzie Valley megaproject whose drawn-out regulatory process has cost TransCanada and its partners six years and billions of dollars, with no end in sight.
• Russia Today – The Russian president has visited Argentina and is attending the BRIC Summit in Brazil, further strengthening Russia’s presence in South America.
• Xinhua – Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva reaffirmed on Thursday Brazil’s position of maintaining dialogue with Tehran about the Iranian nuclear program and trying to avoid sanctions, in separate bilateral meetings with Chinese and Indian leaders on the sidelines of the BRIC summit.
• CFR – The so-called BRIC summit of emerging-market powerhouses raises new questions on whether Brazil, Russia, India, and China can overcome internal differences and pursue common goals.
• MercoPress – Venezuelan Energy and Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said some 120 billion USD will be invested over the next seven years in the Orinoco Belt, which the U.S. Geological Survey says is the largest petroleum accumulation it has ever evaluated
• MSNBC – Mexico’s drug violence has invaded the heart of one of its most famous beach resorts, with six people shot to death and five wounded during a raging gunbattle on the main boulevard in Acapulco’s tourist zone

Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia

• RIA Novosti – Six activists of Hizb ut Tahrir al-Islami, an Islamic organization considered terrorist in Russia, will go on trial on charges of extremist activities in Russia’s predominantly Muslim republic of Bashkortostan
• EurasiaNet – Kurmanbek Bakiyev, whose administration collapsed April 7 amid rioting in Bishkek, has fled Kyrgyzstan and is headed for Taraz, a city in neighboring Kazakhstan, a source at the Kazakh Foreign Ministry says
• Erica Marat – Who’s Who in Kyrgyzstan’s New Government?
• RFERL – Plans by Eduard Kokoity, the leader of Georgia’s breakaway republic of South Ossetia, to reduce the manpower of the region’s army might impel the military to side with the opposition to Kokoity
• OGJ – Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Romania signed a memorandum of understanding to transport Azeri LNG to the European Union through a project that could come online sooner than the Nabucco gas pipeline.

Middle East

• Khaleej Times – Talks on an alliance between Iraq’s two main Shia Muslim blocs to form the next government appear to be nearing a conclusion. However, the main sticking point how to nominate a prime minister remains to be solved, officials said.
• Haaretz – The Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip said on Thursday that two Palestinians convicted by a military court of collaborating with Israel have been executed by firing squad.
• BBC – Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has been named as a prime suspect in major corruption scandal
• Press TV – Lebanon’s foreign minister says Hezbollah has been granted the right to use power against the occupation of Lebanese territories. Ali al-Shami told Press TV on Wednesday that the movement has been given the right by the government to liberate the country’s occupied territories.
• NOW Lebanon – an unnamed source told An-Nahar newspaper that some of the national dialogue participants will ask for clarifications with regard to recent statements on Hezbollah’s arms made by President Michel Sleiman, Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt and Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun. Sleiman said he will not allow anyone to harm Hezbollah, and Jumblatt called for eliminating discussions over the party’s arms. As for Aoun, he threatened to withdraw from the national dialogue if the media maintains its discussions on the Resistance’s arms.
• SANA – Syria on Thursday denied Israeli allegations that it is supplying Hizbullah Party in Lebanon with SCUD missiles, considering these allegations as adding more fuel to the already tense atmospheres in the region.
• Jerusalem Post – Hizbullah sources confirmed Thursday that the terror group received a shipment of Scud missiles from Syria, the Kuwaiti paper Al-Rai reported. According to the report, the missiles were claimed to be old and unusable. Hizbullah also accused Israel of blowing the incident out of proportion in order to provoke a media ruckus.
• Saba – The US-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaqi is wanted by the Yemeni security authorities on the charge of ties with al-Qaeda, a security source said on Thursday.

Iran

• ISNA – Iran’s UN ambassador Mohammad Khazaee called for the Security Council and other UN related bodies to show serious opposition to the US President’s nuclear policies and his threat against an NPT signatory which does not hold nuclear weapon. The full text of the letter follows
• UPI – A senior Iranian military official warned that Tehran’s newly produced unmanned aerial vehicles were capable of both striking hostile targets and gathering intelligence.
• Michael Ledeen – Alzahra, by the way, is an all-female university, where Green Leader Mir Hossein Mousavi’s wife was chancellor from 1998 to 2006.  Why would the infamously misogynist regime decide to evacuate it?  Because they want to save young women from quakes caused by a nuclear test?  Or because they fear it’s a center of the revolution?  Or because they think there are too many women getting college degrees? I report, you decide.  But all that talk about earthquakes is sure interesting.  And if the mullahs are really going to “join the nuclear club in a month,” it’s not a long wait.
• WSJ – Malaysia’s state oil company said it stopped shipping gasoline to Iran last month, adding to a growing list of firms that have taken action as Western pressure builds for fresh sanctions against the Islamic state over its nuclear program
• Daimler – Let me now turn to another issue which is related to our identity as an international company that is very aware of its responsibilities: I’m referring here to our business dealings with Iran. It goes without saying that our business relationship with Iran has always been based on applicable laws. In view of the current political situation, we have, however, once again extensively reassessed this business relationship. As a result, we are restructuring our business activities with Iran. In concrete terms, this means that we will relinquish our 30 percent stake in the Iranian Diesel Engine Manufacturing company — a subsidiary of Iranian Khodro Diesel.

US Army Capt. Mark Moretti sits hand in hand with Shamshir Khan, one of the most senior Korengal valley elders, on the Korengal Outpost in Kunar province, Afghanistan, April 13, 2010. Moretti, who has led soldiers on the outpost since 2009, welcomed Khan and other elders to offer an orientation of all the buildings and equipment that would be left behind for the people of the valley. (photo by Spc. David Jackson)

South Asia

• Asia Times – After Operation Moshtarak, touted by coalition leaders as a decisive victory in Afghanistan and a future example of counter-insurgency warfare, the Taliban are unhurt, unbowed and poised to retaliate, says an insurgent leader. The Taliban, he says, have a ready supply of weapons, easily evade United States surveillance and plan to use improvised explosive devices to devastating effect
• Bing West – Korengal Valley Observations
• UK MoD – Soldiers from the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards’ Queen’s Company have recently helped the Afghan National Army hold a reintegration shura with members of the Taliban.
• France24 – Four German soldiers were killed Thursday after coming under fire near the northern city of Baghlan, a Taliban stronghold. Their deaths bring to 43 the number of German soldiers killed in Afghanistan since 2002
• Press TV – A blast in Afghanistan’s southern city of Kandahar has wounded at least six civilians and damaged vehicles and shops amid rising violence there.  The explosives were reportedly hidden in a car in the area.
• AFPS – An Afghan-international security force captured a Taliban bomb expert and two other militants during an operation conducted in the Khogyani district of Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province last night, military officials reported.
• RFERL – Worry and anger has been growing in Afghanistan over allegations that Iran sent the bodies of more than 40 executed Afghan prisoners back to Afghanistan. Iranian officials have not yet commented on the issue, while the Afghan government says it is investigating the reports.
• The Independent – Bajaur may be pacified, but at least a third of Pakistan’s half-million strong army is now deployed in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of which it is part. Urged on by the US, the Pakistani military have taken back areas once held by the Pakistani Taliban all along the border, but it is reluctant to enter those like North Waziristan which the Americans see as a crucial base of the Afghan Taliban.
• Dawn – Banned militant group Lashkar-e-Islam agreed on Thursday, to hold talks with government after a nine-month silence. The group’s spokesman, Zarr Khan appealed the government to stop the on-going military operation in the Bara tribal region and said the group is willing to hold talks.
• Geo – At least eight extremists were killed and various others injured in a security forces’ action in Lower Orakzai, Geo News reported Thursday. According to sources, the security forces are advancing in various Lower Orakzai areas including Goween, Shareen Darra and other adjoining areas. The hideouts of the extremists are being shelled from he gunship helicopters
• The News – Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Wednesday postponed the signing of the contract of the dubious multi-billion dollar LNG deal by linking its fate to the decision of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, which has taken a suo moto notice of the same. The prime minister’s decision came in the wake of fresh evidence of serious irregularities surfacing on Wednesday.
• Times of India – The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday called for “a united fight to defeat Maoists” but accused the Congress of forging an alliance with the Leftist guerrillas for electoral gains – an allegation that triggered ugly scenes and disruptions in the Lok Sabha.
• ISN – Though Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called the communist insurrection India’s ‘biggest internal security threat,’ the attack that massacred 76 security personnel in central India indicates it has become a much bigger issue
• Colombo Page – China today congratulated the Sri Lankan government for its victory at the first post-war parliamentary elections held last Thursday

Far East & Pacific

• AP – A company in Australia came under a cyberattack from China that was intense enough to slow traffic on part of the country’s second-largest broadband network, company officials said Thursday.
• Chosun Ilbo – Most of the upper metal structure of the sunken Navy corvette Cheonan was bent upward in an unexplained blast on March 26, military investigators say. The military on Thursday found that the metal upper deck and hallway near the ripped-off part along the welded seam in the stern had been bent upward
• Stars and Stripes – The U.S. and South Korean militaries on Thursday staged a large live-fire exercise 15 miles south of the Demilitarized Zone, but officials insisted the event was not meant as a warning to North Korea. The exercise came on the birthday of Kim Il Sung, North Korea’s founder and the father of current leader Kim Jong Il — and a day after the Korean Central News Agency reported the recent staging of a major military exercise in North Korea to mark the anniversary.
• Al Jazeera – At least nine people were killed and more than 60 injured in three explosions at a park in Yangon, Myanmar’s commercial hub.
• Manila Times – Philippine soldiers captured an encampment of communist rebels after a firefight Thursday in North Cotabato province in the troubled southern island of Mindanao, officials said.

Europe

• Nord Stream – Following the official start of construction of the Nord Stream Pipeline last Friday in Russia, construction activities have now also begun in Germany. The first construction phase in the 82 kilometre long German sector of the Nord Stream Pipeline is the landfall at the Lubminer Heide energy centre. The onshore installation of a cofferdam is being started in the approximately five hectare large area directly adjacent to the field where WINGAS‘ receiving terminal is to be built.
• Demos – The path into terrorism in the name of Islam is often described as a process of radicalisation.  But to be radical is not necessarily to be violent.  Violent radicals are clearly enemies of liberal democracies, but non-violent radicals might sometimes be powerful allies. This report is a summary of two years research examining the difference between violent and non-violent radicals in Europe and Canada.
• Balkan Insight – Tihomir Blaksic, who served a nine year prison sentence for his role in crimes committed during the Bosnian war, has reiterated his apology and expressed his support for Croatian President Ivo Josipovic’s decision to visit Ahmici, the site of crimes committed by Bosnian Croat forces in 1993.

Africa

• CSM – The Al Qaeda-linked militant group, Al Shabab, is recruiting new ‘holy warriors’ in Somalia with cash bonuses. One former fighter says its more about the money than Islamic militant ideology.
• NYT – The Shabab, Somalia’s most powerful Islamist insurgent group, outlawed school bells in a southern town on Thursday after deciding that they conflicted with Islam, residents said
• Khaleej Times – Sudan’s ruling party said on Thursday that the southern army had killed nine of its officials during the first open elections in 24 years. Lokudu said the killings were politically motivated by anger that many people in the area had voted for the NCP
• Oxfam – An extensive study of rape victims in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) commissioned by Oxfam and conducted by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, shows that 60 percent of rape victims surveyed were gang raped by armed men and more than half of assaults took place in the supposed safety of the family home at night, often in the presence of the victim’s husband and children.
• IPS – Fighting between “Enyélé” insurgents and regular armed forces in the northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo at the beginning of April left 18 people dead, including nine rebels, and triggered mass displacements from the region’s principal city, Mbandaka
• America.gov – The key to Nigeria’s economic progress is stability in the Niger River Delta, where the bulk of the country’s oil and natural gas is produced and where a smoldering militancy and sabotage of production facilities threaten progress for the region’s 30 million residents, energy experts say
• Press TV – Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has stressed that the Islamic Republic’s relations with African countries are not in opposition to any other country

The Virginia-class attack submarine USS Virginia returns to Naval Submarine Base New London after her maiden six-month deployment. Virginia visited Rota, Spain; Souda Bay, Greece; Fujahra, United Arab Emirates; and Aksaz, Turkey, traveling more than 37,000 miles. (photo byPetty Officer 1st Class Steven Myers)

The Global War

• Aviation Week – London could yet order at least a handful of Tranche 3B Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft, if a deal to sell the aircraft to Oman is in place by early 2011.
• McClatchy – The shadow war between the U.S. and Iran was briefly visible this week at an extradition hearing in a Paris courtroom, where an Iranian engineer was answering U.S. charges that he’d illegally shipped U.S. technology to Iran.
• US News – Buried inside hundreds of pages of heavily redacted court documents from the case of a man accused of being one of al Qaeda’s chief recruiters, is evidence that the terrorist group has launched successful cyberattacks, including one against government computers in Israel. This was the first public confirmation that the terrorist group has mounted an offensive cyberattack. The attacks were relatively unsophisticated and likely occurred before November 2001, when the prisoner who described them was arrested.
• US Navy – The Navy will christen the newest Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, William P. Lawrence, April 17 during a 10 a.m. CDT ceremony at Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Miss

Sights & Sounds

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A brief world news roundup for 10 April 2009.

United States & the Americas

• CNN – CIA Director Leon Panetta has carried through on his pledge to prohibit independent contractors from conducting interrogations of terror suspects. CIA Director Leon Panetta says secret prisons used to detain terror suspects have been closed. Besides discontinuing the use of contractors, the director outlined in the message other steps taken in response to executive orders issued by President Obama in January. The harsh interrogation techniques authorized by the Bush administration will no longer be used. Panetta said questioning of suspected terrorists will follow the approaches authorized in the Army Field Manual.
• Marine Corps Times – A military jury has acquitted a Marine infantry sergeant accused of murdering a suspected insurgent four years ago in Iraq.
• Xinhua – Bolivian President Evo Morales went on a hunger strike on Thursday to demand Bolivia’s Congress to pass a new electoral law which the opposition said would ensure Morales to win the December general election.
• El Universal – President Hugo Chávez on Thursday said it was “essential” to build a platform of alliances among China, Latin America and the Caribbean. “While I think the Forum could be a useful tool, we have to go farther. I believe it is essential to build a platform of alliances among China, Latin America and the Caribbean, similar to those being built with Arab and African countries,” Chávez told reporters.
• LAHT - Colombian police found and destroyed a giant cocaine lab Thursday in a rural area in the northwestern province of Antioquia, officials said. Officers found nearly 11 kilos of cocaine, more than 16 tons of chemical substances and some 7,000 liters (about 1,850 gallons) of liquids used in producing the illegal drug.
• SouthCom – Sailors, partner nations and Latin American representatives are working the final details on the exercise UNITAS Gold, the longest running, multi-national naval exercise in the world. For nearly 49 years, UNITAS has served as the primary naval security engagement exercise amongst the militaries of the Western Hemisphere and has become the U.S. Navy’s longest-running annual multilateral exercise.
• Prensa Latina – Mexico Navy Secretary denied rumors of its participation in the US UNITAS 50-09 Naval drills to be held in the Gulf of Mexico later this month. The communique says that if it is not a Senate release it is neither official nor issued from the Mexican government. President Felipe Calderon asked the Senate to allow 343 members of the Mexican Navy to participate in the largest US military drill involving nine Latin American countries.

Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia

• RIA Novosti – Russian air-defense systems deployed in the Far East are capable of shooting down missiles of the type recently launched by North Korea, the Air Force chief of staff said on Thursday.
• RIA Novosti – Russia continues to look for partners to help implement its fifth-generation fighter program, also known as PAK FA – Prospective (promising) Aircraft System of the Frontline Aviation. Apart from India, which has agreed to cooperate with Russia’s Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Company (SCAC), now working on the fifth-generation fighter program, Brazil could also join in.
• Gazprom – As part of the transaction, Gazprom affiliates, under long-term assignment from Shell, will take capacity in Sempra Energia Costa Azul LNG import terminal in Baja California, Mexico, and pipeline capacity to enable gas to be transported to Southern California. Alexey Miller said: “Gazprom has consistently implemented its strategy of reinforcing the Company’s standing on the LNG market and this deal will enable Gazprom to begin shipment of LNG supplies from Sakhalin II to the United States, the world’s largest gas market, and other markets of the Pacific Basin, starting from this year”.
• Kremlin – Dmitry Medvedev will meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on April 10.
• Russia Today – Uncertainty over Thursday’s Turkmen gas pipeline rupture is growing, as Turkmen officials accuse Gazprom’s partners of ‘creating conditions for an accident’. Gazprom’s representatives in the capital, Ashgabat, estimated it would take two to three days to restore the gas flow.
• EurasiaNet – As its economy sinks and social tensions portend a summer of discontent, several mass media outlets in Tajikistan are busy identifying culprits for the Central Asian nation’s problems. By all appearances, the chief scapegoat is shaping up to be Russia. Local newspapers recently have blamed the Kremlin for everything from stoking the 1992-97 civil war in Tajikistan to drug trafficking, economic woes and even a possible future coup d’etat.
• RFERL – More than 50,000 demonstrators have converged on a square outside the Georgian parliament to hear opposition leaders demand the resignation of Mikheil Saakashvili, with critics blaming the pugnacious president for a host of ills. Protesters were still converging on downtown Tbilisi this afternoon, but attendance appeared destined to fall far short of the 150,000 people organizers were hoping to attract.
• Civil Georgia – Few hundred protesters were outside the parliament after midnight keeping vigil to resume rally on Friday. Opposition said it would announce its action plan after ultimatum deadline given to President Saakashvili to resign expires at 4pm on April 10
• MEMRI – President Abdullah Gul on Monday and US President Barack Obama on Tuesday called their Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev, after he reacted negatively to unconfirmed reports that the Turkish-Armenian border would be opened
• APA – Viktor Yushchenko: “The main priority of my visit to Azerbaijan is to sign Road Map for Ukraine-Azerbaijan cooperation in 2009-2010”

Middle East

• Times Online – The activities of al-Qaeda in two of Iraq’s most troubled cities could keep US combat troops engaged beyond the June 30 deadline for their withdrawal, the top US commander in the country has warned
• Voices of Iraq – Security forces arrested seven gunmen believed to be members of the Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) network in an operation conducted west of the city of Samarra on Thursday, according a source from the Samarra Operations Command
• Al Sumaria – In Anbar, police spokesman Major Abdul Sattar Al Halbousi announced that Al Qaeda training camp was uncovered in the province. The camp is referred to as Afghanistan Iraq camp affirming that Al Zarqawi was responsible for this camp. Al Halbousi noted that caves near the camp were used to manufacture bombs and keep Al Qaeda blueprints and plans. He added that five people were arrested while mass graves were found including security forces members in an area around the camp.
• Naharnet – Heavy U.S. military assistance, including tanks, artillery and aircrafts, is expected to arrive in Lebanon ahead of the June 7 parliamentary elections, U.S. officials announced following talks with Defense Minister Elias Murr in Washington. The shipment includes 41 Howitzer artillery and 12 Zodiac boats.
• Haaretz – Iran was behind the planning of terror attacks against targets in Egypt by Hezbollah operatives, the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram quoted a senior official in Cairo as saying Thursday. Two employees of an Iranian satellite TV channel planned the attacks, the paper said, which were meant to be carried out simultaneously at a number of locations across the country. The pan-Arab newspaper Al-Hayat, meanwhile, reported Thursday that Egypt also suspects three of the men it arrested of attempting to smuggle arms from Sudan to Hamas in Gaza via its territory.
• Al Manar – Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah is scheduled to deliver a speech through a large screen on Friday evening. Sayyed Nasrallah would comment, during his speech set to be broadcasted by Al-Manar TV, on the latest Egyptian aggressive claims against Hezbollah.
• Middle East Times – Egypt’s state prosecutor has raised the heat on Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah organization and its chief Sayed Hassan Nasrallah by accusing them of plotting to “carry out attacks” inside the North African country, but the allegations have been met with disbelief and given rise to questions about the political motives of Cairo.
• IRIB – The Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement called for a third Palestinian Intifada against the Zionist regime’s crimes in the West Bank and Holy Qods. The Islamic Jihad Leader, Sheikh Khedr Habib made the call, IRIB reported from Gaza.
• Jerusalem Post – Gerry Adams’ decision to meet with Hamas during his visit to the region this week will come as little surprise to those familiar with the history of Irish Republicanism’s cozy relationship with Middle East terrorism.
• USIP – This report examines the relations between the Kurds and the Syrian state, traces the development of Kurdish political organization in Syria and the relationship between the Kurds and the Syrian prodemocracy movement, shows how the status of Syria’s Kurds has implications not only for stability within Syria but also for security throughout the region, and offers policy recommendations for the Syrian government and other international actors in the region.
• Saba – Security situations in Ja’ar district, Abyan have been restored after security forces succeeded in cracking down on outlaw elements who committed terrorist and sabotage acts, said Defense Minister Mohammad Ahmad. Initial investigations with the arrested elements revealed links to al-Qae’da to carry out terrorist acts, said the governor.

Iran

• Press TV – Some 7,000 centrifuges are now operating in Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment facility, a senior Iranian nuclear official has revealed. Gholam-Reza Aqazadeh, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, added that Iran plans to build more centrifuges to enrich uranium.
• Fars – Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said that Tehran’s nuclear issue is a closed case and that the country is now in the post-nuclear era.
• Iran Focus – The UK is not the only one contemplating the future of Iraq now that our troops have handed over formal responsibility for Basra last week. Next door, Shiite Iran is busy working out its next move. Tehran has long been chief trouble-maker in the country, making use of roadside bombs in the hope that more Coalition casualties inflicted will see a quicker departure of foreign troops. But Iran has suffered a major setback.
• Rooz – The media in Iran has noted the absence of half the Majlis representatives, including ?current senior leadership personalities such as Ali Larijani, Mohammad-Reza Bahonar, ?Ahmad Tavakoli, and Gholam-Ali Haddad Adel at a meeting with President ?Ahmadinejad on the occasion of the Iranian New Year.

U.S. Marines patrol the abandoned village of Now Zad in Helmand province, Afghanistan, April 6, 2009. The Marines are assigned to the Explosive Ordnance Disposal, 9th Engineer Support Battalion, which is attached to Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment. (photo by Gunnery Sgt. James Burks)

South Asia

• AKI -  A suicide bomber in Afghanistan’s opium-poppy-producing southern Helmand province attacked a counter-narcotics police patrol on Thursday, killing five people, four of them policemen as well as one child. At least 17 other people were wounded. The bomber – who was on foot when he attacked the six-vehicle convoy – detonated the explosives which were strapped to his body.
• Air Force – In Afghanistan, an Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II and an F-15E Strike Eagle destroyed multiple anti-Afghan heavy machine gun positions and a cave complex near Nangalam using guided bomb unit-38s and -31s. The F-15E followed up with a show of force after the engagement to deter enemy action as a coalition ground assault concluded the fight.
• DoD – Lance Cpl. Blaise A. Oleski, 22, of Holland Patent, N.Y., died April 8 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.  He was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force
• Dawn – The chief of outlawed Tehreek e Nifaz e Shariat Mohammedi has withdrawn from the peace deal with the government and has said all peace camps in the region will be abolished, DawnNews has reported. Mohammed, who brokered the peace deal between the Taliban and the government of Pakistan has claimed that the authorities have used delaying tactics in imposing the Nizam-i-Adal (Islamic courts)  in the Swat region.
• Washington Times – A 2-month-old alliance of Pakistani Taliban factions is beginning to fray and could undermine Baitullah Mehsud, a Taliban leader who has claimed responsibility for recent terrorist attacks far from Pakistan’s tribal regions and even threatened the United States. A militant commander in the Haji Nazeer group – one of three groups in the alliance – told The Washington Times that the main lieutenant in the group has expressed opposition to the accord
• Daily Times – The United States has assured Pakistan it will not carry out drone attacks in Balochistan, President Asif Ali Zardari said in an interview with Daily Times Editor Najam Sethi for Dunya TV on Wednesday.
• Geo – Several cities of Balochistan including Quetta hit by protest against kidnapping and killing of Baloch leaders. A shutter down strike is being observed in Turbat, Gwadar, Panjgur, Khuzdar, Mushkay, Awaran and other areas. Angry protestors hurled stones on cars and set a blaze four vehicles in Quetta whereas PPP office set on fire in Panjgur.
• Geo – The Frontier Corps has said that Anbar valley situated in Mohmand Agency has been cleared of militants. According to a statement issued here on Thursday, security forces launched a decisive operation in Anmbar valley and cleared the area of militants.
• Mathaba – India will launch an Israeli-made spy satellite from Sriharikota on April 20 in a bid to keep a 24-hours surveillance on its international borders, a senior Indian Defense Ministry official said Wednesday. The satellite will help India track infiltration or militant movements on its borders with Pakistan and inside the country.
• Times of India – Two persons were executed in Kashi (also called Kashgar), which is close to the Chinese borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan, on Thursday. The executions took place after the country’s Supreme Court approved the death penalty given by a lower court. The lower court in Kashi in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region had declared them to be terrorists involved in the attack on border police before giving them death penalty.
• Sri Lanka MoD – Sri Lanka Army 53 Division soldiers now advancing beyond the eastern limits of the Puthukkudiyiruppu yesterday (Apr 8) had daylong clashes with the LTTE. The soldiers withstood stiff resistance from the terrorists desperately trying to hold their positions on tactically vital northern bank of the Nanthikadal lagoon and inflicted heavy damages to the enemy.

Far East & Pacific

• Xinhua – The Japanese government on Friday formally decided to impose additional sanctions on Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in response to its rocket launch Sunday and to extend current sanctions due to expire Monday for one year.
• Chosun Ilbo – The rocket launched by North Korea last Sunday was made using the technology of the Long March-1 rocket China fired in the 1970s. After looking at video footage of the rocket launch released by AP on Tuesday, Chae Yeon-seok, a former president of the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, said, the external appearance of the rocket shows that the North must have used technology of the Chinese rocket to make it. The assembly method also seems to be Chinese.
• Channel News Asia – A Tibet court has sentenced two people to death for their part in riots last year, China’s state media said Wednesday, in the harshest sentences yet reported over the deadly unrest. Two others were given suspended death sentences while another was sentenced to life imprisonment.
• news.com.au – Fiji’s President has fired the judiciary and assumed all power in a deteriorating political crisis in the troubled South Pacific nation.
• Irrawaddy – The inclusion of the Karen National Union (KNU) in the 2010 national election appears to be a key motive behind the proposed cease-fire talks between the rebel group and the Burmese junta, according to analysts
• ISN – The Japanese navy moves to join the fight against pirates in the increasingly dangerous Gulf of Aden, amid much of the usual controversy about the country’s pacifist constitution, Dr Axel Berkofsky writes for ISN Security Watch.
• Japan Times – The commander of U.S. Naval Forces Japan, Rear Adm. James Kelly, was succeeded Thursday by Rear Adm. Richard Wren. During a replacement ceremony aboard the aircraft carrier USS George Washington at the U.S. naval base in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, Wren expressed his willingness to further develop close and amicable bilateral ties with Japan.
• US Navy – John C. Stennis Carrier Strike Group (JCSCSG) arrived in Laem Chabang, Thailand April 9 for a scheduled port visit during its western Pacific Ocean deployment.

Europe

• RTE – Britain’s top anti-terrorism police chief has tendered his resignation following a security blunder. Mr Quick has said he deeply regretted the disruption caused to colleagues when he inadvertently revealed details of a counter-terrorism operation. The blunder triggered premature anti-terror arrests yesterday evening.
• Spacewar – A German businessman accused of delivering materials to Iran that can be used to build missiles pleaded his innocence as he went on trial Wednesday, a court in the western city of Koblenz said. The defendant, identified by the court as 63-year-old Hans-Joseph H., is suspected of supplying Iran with 16 tonnes of high-grade graphite via Turkey between 2005 and 2007.
• RIA Novosti -  Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday he hoped the European Union and Romania would take measures to prevent the use of Romanian flags to undermine Moldova’s sovereignty. The Russian foreign minister said that Moscow had pointed out the use of Romania flags to the European Union.
• Romania MFA – The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has taken note with indignation about the latest decision of the authorities in Chisinau regarding the Romanian ambassador. MFA categorically rejects the accusations of the authorities of the Republic of Moldova regarding the alleged involvement of Romania in the domestic affairs of this country. The MFA stresses that this accusation towards Romania is a provocation. It is unacceptable that the communist regime in Chi?in?u transfers the responsibility for the domestic problems of the Republic of Moldova towards Romania and Romanian citizens.
• Czech News – Czech President Vaclav Klaus today appointed Jan Fischer, head of the Czech Statistical Office (CSU), prime minister and assigned him to form a new cabinet.
• Balkan Insight – The Kosovo Liberation Army maintained a network of prisons in their bases in Albania and Kosovo during and after the conflict of 1999, eyewitnesses allege. Only now are the details of what occurred there emerging.
• ECHR – The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing four Chamber judgments concerning Russia, none of which are final . The applicants in all four cases alleged that their relatives disappeared after being abducted by Russian servicemen and that the domestic authorities failed to carry out an effective investigation into their allegations.

Africa

• Garowe – Islamist hardliners in Somalia have shut down an independent radio station, with the station’s owners saying they were not told why the radio was targeted, Radio Garowe reports. The station, Maandeeq FM, is based in the town of Beled Hawo in Gedo region near the borders with Ethiopia and Kenya.
• IslamOnline – Algerians went to polling stations on Thursday, April 9, to elect a new president, with incumbent Abdelaziz Bouteflika largely expected to win a third a third five-year term in office.
• HRW – The Ugandan government should take prompt action to end unlawful arrest and torture by its anti-terrorism unit
• HRW – Rwandan rebel forces, government army soldiers, and their allies have raped at least 90 women and girls since late January 2009 in the volatile North and South Kivu provinces of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The Rwandan rebel forces have also been implicated in the deaths of most of the 180 civilians killed during this period
• Javno – Unidentified gunmen blasted their way into a prison in eastern Congo with heavy weapons on Thursday, freeing 222 prisoners in a raid that killed five people, witnesses and local officials said. The raid took place at 0300 GMT in the lakeside town of Uvira in Congo’s South Kivu province.
• TIME – Tainted by scandal and accusations of corruption, the ruling ANC is no longer the moral force it was under Nelson Mandela. It will win the nation’s fourth democratic general election, but angry voters have plenty to grumble about

Left to right: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton welcomes Australian Defense Minister Joel Fitzgibbon, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Stephen Smith to the U.S. State Department during the Australian Ministerial, April 9, 2009. (photo by U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Jerry Morrison)

The Global War

• Telegraph – Turkish anti-terrorist police have arrested 28 people on suspicion of links to al-Qaeda during a series of raids. Quoting local officials, the Anatolia news agency said that he suspects were rounded up in simultaneous operations in several districts in the western city of Eskisehir.
• FOX – Moscow Open to ‘More Severe’ Punishment for Iran Over Nuclear Program; Russian President Dmitry Medvedev admits to President Obama that American intelligence estimates about the pace of Iran’s nuclear progress have been more accurate than Russia’s.
• Asia Times – An American attorney is defending ex-Taliban commander Awal Gul against allegations that he aided and abetted Osama Bin Laden’s confounding, Svengali-like getaway during the battle of Tora Bora in 2001. But the case won’t hold up, says Philip Smucker, who was at the battle, knew Gul and is now revisting old haunts in the Afghan hills. What really happened is Bin Laden paved his own exit, plain and simple, with guns, wits and money.
• The State – A U.S. Navy warship, the guided missile destroyer Truxtun, will sail into Charleston Harbor later this month for a weeklong stay, during which it will be commissioned. Built in Pascagoula, Miss., the 510-foot, 9,200-ton Truxtun went through sea trials ahead of its scheduled mid-April arrival in Charleston Harbor.

Sights & Sounds

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A brief world news roundup for 16 February 2009.

United States & the Americas

• USA Today -  Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, likely made Pakistan squirm by indicating that the armed, unmanned U.S. drones operating in Pakistan are based there, the Los Angeles Times reports. For months, Pakistani leaders have criticized the use of Predator-launched CIA missiles against Islamic extremists along the northwest border. The California Democrat’s remarks came during a Congressional hearing in which she expressed surprise over Pakistani opposition to the use of the missiles. “As I understand it, these are flown out of a Pakistani base,” she said.
• McClatchy – The Obama administration has begun to indicate that it’s willing to reconsider the Bush administration’s push to deploy a ballistic missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland — if Russia helps curb Iran’s push to develop nuclear weapons.
• Edmonton Journal – Khan began working in this violent corner of Afghanistan three years ago. He is based out of a police substation in Pashmul, in eastern Zhari District. Despite the fact that he is an ethnic Hazara, a northern minority group that has fought periodic wars with the Pashtuns, the Canadians say he knows his turf like a seasoned beat cop
• Venezuela Analysis – On Sunday Venezuelans will go to the polls to vote for or against an amendment to the constitution to eliminate the two-term limit on all elected offices. As no campaigning is allowed on Saturday, both sides rallied, marched, attended concerts, and participated in motorcades on Thursday and Friday, to close off their campaigns.
• El Universal – Venezuela’s Ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS) Roy Chaderton rebutted on Sunday the remarks made by Spanish Deputy and member of the European Parliament Luis Herrero, who was evicted from the country. The diplomat underlined that the role of observers is precisely to observe and then submit their respective reports.
• MercoPress – Chilean President Michelle Bachelet said on Saturday she was annoyed at “meddling” comments by former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who wrote in an article that Chile snatched Bolivia’s only sea access in the 19th century. The issue, dating back to the War of the Pacific (1879), has long been a very sensitive issue between Chile and landlocked Bolivia that still do not have full diplomatic ties.
• Xinhua – Visiting Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping on Saturday broke ground for a China-funded convention center in Montego Bay, north of Jamaica. At the ceremony, Xi described the amity between China and Jamaica with a Chinese saying which says bosom friends stay close at heart though thousands of miles apart.
• LAHT – The Ecuadorian government hopes to receive nearly $2 billion from China to finance the construction of the country’s largest hydroelectrical plant, Coca-Codo-Sinclaire, in the Amazon region. President Rafael Correa said that on Friday he met in Quito with Chinese Vice Premier Hui Liangyu, who is on an official trip to Ecuador.
• IRIB – The Islamic Republic of Iran opened on Friday an embassy in the Ecuadorian capital of Quito. In the opening ceremony, IRI’s Ambassador to Quito Majid Salehi said IRI and Ecuador has inked over 25 cooperation documents in different fields including agriculture, technology, trade and energy.
• AP – Authorities in Mexico say gunmen killed a state police officer, 10 members of his family and a street vendor last night. The dead include five children, one as young as 2.

Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia

• Kremlin – DMITRY MEDVEDEV: Yes the rouble certainly has dropped and the rouble’s weakness is due to the fact that the economy has changed. Unfortunately our revenues are down and our debts payable in foreign currency have increased. This could not help but affect the real exchange rate. We had to carry out such changes, but it had to be done calmly and in good faith, and in my opinion this is what the Central Bank did. We are not saying that the rouble should be frozen. At the moment according to the Central Bank the rouble’s value corresponds to the actual state of our currency, its condition at the moment, and our current financial solvency. Naturally the Central Bank will monitor the course of these parameters in order to prevent any sudden shifts. In my view what is most important is that the weakening of the rouble was gradual, which was totally unlike the barbaric way that this was done in 1998 when people’s wallets, in fact everyone’s wallets, suddenly slimmed down by 300 percent, and this wave swept over everyone and it was very unpleasant. In this case, the drop in value that has occurred, something of the order of 30-35 percent, was handled with great care.
• Moscow Times – Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin offered assurances over the weekend that the plummeting ruble would stay around its current level for now and that no steep devaluation of the currency should be expected
• Russia Today – Evo Morales has become the first Bolivian President to visit Russia, after touching down in Moscow. The visit is being viewed as another sign of Russia’s increased interest in Latin America. New gas deals are the first matter on the diplomatic agenda. Russia’s energy giant, Gazprom, is set to invest $US 3 billion to develop new fields in Bolivia.
• David Trilling – Speculating over the future of the US air base in Kyrgyzstan is a popular pastime in Central Asian capitals these days. The general consensus is that Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev is taking a gamble, playing a waiting game in the expectation that Washington will come up with more money to retain Manas air base. But some experts believe that with the United States now actively pondering its options, the Kyrgyz leader faces the danger of overplaying his hand.
• Itar-Tass – Three militants were killed in the course of a police operation in Dagestan’s Sergokali district, a source at the Dagestani department of the Federal Security Service told Itar-Tass on Sunday. The operation began in six locations of the district at 9:00 a.m. Moscow time. The militants were blocked in a woodland dugout, two kilometers south of Myurego. They were killed in the gunfire exchange. Plenty of armaments and ammunition, including two bombs ready to go off, three submachine guns and cartridges, and Wahhabi books were bound on the incident scene.
• Zee News – Russia’s top security agency on Saturday claimed to have eliminated a ‘suicide squad’ which was planning terror attacks to assassinate the newly appointed leadership of country’s Caucasian Republic of Ingusethia.

Middle East

• Voices of Iraq – Over seven million visitors have converged on the holy Shiite city of Karbala throughout the past 10 days to commemorate al-Arbaeen pilgrimage, Karbala’s governor said, adding that an estimated 4 million pilgrims are expected to stay in the city on the pilgrimage day. “The number of visitor is expected to reach 9 million by Monday,” Governor Aqil al-Khazaali told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
• Khaleej Times – Influential Iraqi Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has reached out to foe Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki as political factions scramble to form coalitions in the aftermath of Iraq’s provincial elections last month
• Israel MFA – Since the end of the IDF operation in Gaza (18 Jan 2009), 91,214 tons of aid and 6,970,900 liters of fuel have been delivered to the Gaza Strip.
• ynet – Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni wrote in a private note captured by cameras on Sunday that her centrist Kadima party would not join any coalition government headed by right-wing Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu.
• Haaretz – Hamas will not release abducted Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit unless senior militants from the organization are released by Israel, a spokesman for the group announced Sunday
• CNN – Turkey’s Foreign Ministry summoned Israel’s ambassador to the Turkish capital of Ankara on Saturday to issue a formal complaint over a top Israeli commander’s reported remarks criticizing Turkey. The complaint is part of the escalating war of words between the two regional allies, stemming from Turkey’s outspoken criticism of the recent conflict in Gaza.
• Ya Libnan – A huge rally marking the fourth anniversary of the killing of Rafik al-Hariri turned into a show of support on Saturday for a U.N. court that will open in March to try suspects in the former Lebanese prime minister’s slaying.
• Al Arabiya – Egypt’s leading Christians have accused the governor of Cairo of trying to Islamize the streets by changing the names of some of the country’s oldest areas from Christian ones to Islamic ones

Iran

• IRNA - Defense Minister Brigadier General Mostafa Mohammad Najjar is to leave Tehran for Russia Monday at the head of a top-ranking Iranian delegation. Developing bilateral ties between the two countries and pursuing military agreements made earlier are among the objectives of the visit, which is to take place upon an invitation by Najjar’s Russian counterpart, Anatoly Serdyukov.
• MEMRI – Iranian Air Defense Commander Ahmad Miqani said that, since September 2008, the Iranian Air Defense branch has been operating as a separate unit (independent of the air force), alongside the ground, air and naval branches of the armed forces
• Tehran Times – Tehran and Ashgabat will take “firm steps” to increase ties, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday in a meeting with Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov. The statement came as Iranian Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari and Turkmen Deputy Prime Minister Tachberdy Tagiyev signed an agreement on gas cooperation.
• IRNA – Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani talked with his counterparts from Sudan and Niger by telephone on Saturday evening. They talked about importance of Palestine situation and an international conference which is to be held here in Tehran. Referring to the situation in the Middle East region, Larijani called Palestine a sensitive and important issue for Muslim countries and underlined the necessity of continuation of support for the Palestinian people.
• Fars – A draft bill introduced to the Iranian parliament has requested a two-fold increase in fuel prices for the next Iranian year (starting on March 21), an MP said on Sunday. Despite being OPEC’s second biggest oil producer, Iran imports gasoline due to its lack of adequate refining capacity. The Islamic Republic has implemented a gasoline rationing program to cut excessive fuel consumption in the country.
• Rooz – Yusef Azizi Bani Taraf is an Iranian journalist with a membership in the Association of Iranian Journalists and he is also a scholar on Iranian minority ethnic groups. In a recent conversation with Rooz, he expressed his belief that because of the violent events of the last five years in the Arab, Baluch, Kurdish, Turki, and Turkmen, regions of the country the forthcoming presidential elections will be different.

Tribal leaders walk to a wash point at Combat Outpost Wilderness to wash before afternoon prayers following a meeting there, Feb. 8, 2009, hosted by the Paktia provincial reconstruction team. About 40 tribal leaders from three districts turned out to meet the provincial governor. (photo by Fred W. Baker III)

South Asia

• Bakhtar – District chief of Nadar Shah Kot in Khost province was killed in a roadside blast. The NATO information center in Khost said that district chief of Nadar Shah Kot district, Badiuzzaman Sabri was seriously wounded in the blast. It added that he was rushed to the military hospital but succumbed to his wounds in the facility. Badiuzzaman Sabri was a resident of Majlis village of Sabri district.
• Deutsche Welle – Afghan President Hamid Karzai says he will send a delegation to the United States to join Washington’s strategic review of its war on terror. Speaking at a joint news conference in Kabul, the US special envoy to the region, Richard Holbrooke and Karzai said their countries would cooperate in reassessing the situation in Afghanistan
• e-Ariana – Iran is helping Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, said General David Petraeus, who is in charge of U.S. forces in the Central Asian nation and Iraq.
• AFPS – Afghan National Army commandos and coalition forces captured a suspected weapons facilitator in the Anar Dara district of Afghanistan’s Farah province yesterday, military officials reported. The suspect is believed to have been supplying insurgent forces with weapons, munitions, bomb-making materials, and financing insurgent activities throughout western Afghanistan.
• IRIN – At least 12 people, including six children, were killed and tens of houses were damaged by heavy snow in Herat and Ghor provinces over the past four days, according to Afghanistan’s National Disasters Management Authority (ANDMA). Dozens of livestock perished in the cold weather.
• Pentagon – Staff Sgt. Marc J. Small, 29, of Collegeville, Pa., died Feb. 12 at Faramuz, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit using a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and small arms fire. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne), Fort Bragg, N.C.
• UK MoD – It is with deep regret that the Ministry of Defence has confirmed the death of Marine Darren Smith of 45 Commando Royal Marines on operations in Helmand Province, Afghanistan on 14 February 2009. He was a member of X-ray Company, 45 Commando Royal Marines and was based in Forward Operating Base Nolay, in southern Sangin.
• LA Times – Suspected U.S. missiles slammed into a Pakistani compound near the Afghanistan border Saturday, killing about 30 people, local officials said. Most of those killed were thought to be militants linked to the Taliban or Al Qaeda. The compound targeted Saturday belonged to an associate of Baitullah Mahsud, the leader of Pakistan’s Taliban movement, and was not far from Mahsud’s headquarters. But he was not believed to have been at the compound, and it was unclear whether he was the intended target.
• The News – Syed Nabi, a close associate of Tehreek-i- Taliban Pakistan Chief Baitullah Mehsood was died on Sunday. According to details, Syed Nabi was seriously injured on February 9 in South Waziristan by land mines laid by his rival group. His driver and another man had died on the spot.
• Dawn -  Police have arrested arrested six alleged terrorists belonging to Waziristan’s Baitullah Mehsood group in Karachi. Addressing a press conference on Saturday, Capital City Police Officer Karachi Waseem Ahmed said that the arrested terrorists had allegedly been involved in subversive acts since 2001,including attacks on Nato supply lines and kidnapping of Pakistani security personnel.
• Telegraph – Taliban fighters in north-west Pakistan’s Swat valley called a 10-day ceasefire on Sunday after local officials agreed to enforce Islamic laws
• Geo – A five-point agreement for the enforcement of Shariat in Malakand Division has been finalized in the successful talks held between the NWFP government and Maulana Sufi Muhammad.
• Frontier Post – Taliban militants have released a Chinese engineer six months after he was abducted, security officials said Sunday. The man was released on late Saturday and shifted to Peshawar, a security official said.
• Pak Tribune – Taliban trying to take over Pak: President Zardari; The Taliban has established itself across a large part of Pakistan adding that Islamabad could have fallen if he had not enjoyed the full support of the army.
• IslamOnline – Local Taliban militants have issued stern threats to groups battling Indian forces in disputed Kashmir to either ally with them in fighting against Islamabad, leave their areas or face retaliation. “We have been asked to vacate Swat and Dir just because we are not ready to fight our own people,” a spokesman for Hizbul Mujahiddin, a group based in Pakistan and Pakistan-ruled Kashmir and active in India-controlled Kashmir, told IslamOnline.net.
• Press Trust – At least six suspects detained by Pakistan in connection with the Mumbai attacks, including LeT operations commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, have reportedly been remanded to the custody of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for interrogation for two weeks.
• Sri Lanka MoD – The LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran still in Vanni will continue to hold the innocent civilians until the military captures him the two LTTE Black Tiger suicide cadres, who have surrendered to Army revealed. In an exclusive interview with the Sunday Observer they said that Prabhakaran’s son Charles Anthony was commanding their forces with other prominent LTTE leaders like Banu and Lakshman. The two Black Tigers in their twenties had surrendered to the troops of the 57 Division at Therumurukandy on Jan. 28, after they failed in their attempts to bomb the bund of the Iranamadu Tank which if succeeded could have caused immense disaster.
• Colombo Page – The Sri Lankan troops continued their push to overrun the remaining LTTE stronghold in the Wanni region of Northern Sri Lanka as more and more Tamil civilians took flight from the rebel held areas to reach government controlled areas. Troops of 59 Division launched an attack against the Tigers Saturday (15) afternoon in Vaduwankal area of Mullaitivu inflicting heavy casualties, the military said.

Far East & Pacific

• JoongAng – North Korea has moved all materials needed to test-fire a long-range missile to a missile base in Musudan-ri, Hwadae County, North Hamgyong Province, adding to a possibility that a missile launch is imminent, a senior military official said yesterday. “We have closely observed North Korea’s Taepodong-2 missile launch process recently,” the official said.
• Yonhap – North Korea’s titular head of state Kim Yong-nam Sunday warned Pyongyang will take “decisive actions” against Seoul if the South continues to challenge the communist nation, becoming the highest North Korean official yet to directly make such a threat since inter-Korean relations turned sour early last year.
• Australia DoD – The Minister for Defence, the Hon. Joel Fitzgibbon MP, has today departed for a visit to Ethiopia and Poland, where he will discuss a range of issues regarding Australia’s involvement in Afghanistan and Africa. Mr Fitzgibbon will first travel to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, where he will meet with the Ethiopian Defence Minister senior African Union (AU) officials and ambassadors to the AU from Africans nations. The Krakow meeting is an important opportunity for those nations who have forces deployed to Afghanistan to exchange views on future plans and coordinate our efforts.
• The Australian – Senior federal ministers are now venturing deep into Africa in search of Kevin Rudd’s diplomatic holy grail – a seat for Australia on the UN Security Council. Joel Fitzgibbon today will become the second senior minister in less than three weeks to make the long trek to Addis Ababa in pursuit of one of the Prime Minister’s cardinal foreign policy goals.
• news.com.au – Australia’s nation’s top military brass is at war with the Federal Government over plans to cut perks including servants, limousines and first-class travel. The Courier-Mail can reveal many generals are furious about losing taxpayer-funded butlers, valets, batmen, housekeepers, cooks, drivers, first-class travel (reduced to business class), spouse travel and access to the RAAF’s luxury VIP aircraft fleet.
• Irrawaddy – Driven by strong demand from Africa and Bangladesh, Burma’s rice exports have increased rapidly since the beginning of this year, according to traders in Rangoon, who say that sales in January have already nearly quadrupled the total for the first half of the current fiscal year. Meanwhile, a joint report by the World Food Program and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, released on January 22, said that there are more than five million people below the food poverty line in Burma.
• Bangkok Post – The arrest of two Thai members of a drug gang that tricks Thai women into becoming drug couriers is just the first step in a clampdown on a West Africa-based drug trafficking network. The two women helped the gang in its recruitment of female drug mules, mainly from restaurants and nightspots in the Nana, Patpong and Sukhumvit areas. They deceived them into carrying drugs mainly from India to sell in China. India is a hub where drugs smuggled from Pakistan or Afghanistan are transported to other countries such as China and the United States, police said.
• IHT – More than a quarter-million Rohingya – an ethnic Muslim minority from western Myanmar – have come here to southern Bangladesh to escape the hunger, humiliation and official brutalities in their homeland. Many have landed in a place called the Kutupalong Makeshift Camp. It is an obscenity, this camp.
• My Sinchew – After being in a state of denial for weeks, Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has finally admitted to international media that Thai authorities pushed Rohingya boat people back out to sea and abandoned them. In an exclusive interview with CNN on Thursday (12 Feb), Abhisit said there was reason to believe some incidents had occurred.
• Japan Times – Japan’s five-year-long operation to aid in the reconstruction of Iraq came to a formal conclusion Sunday with a ceremony commemorating the return of personnel from Kuwait to the Air Self-Defense Force base in Aichi Prefecture. The personnel had been carrying out tasks related to Japan’s withdrawal since early December at a Kuwaiti base
• Washington Times – Japan, the world’s second-biggest economy, will likely report on Monday that its fourth-quarter output plunged at an annual rate of nearly 12 percent, according to a survey of economic forecasters.
• Xinhua – A U.S. military ship had a minor collision with a small boat Sunday near the U.S. naval base in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture of east Japan, local media reported. The military ship, believed to be the 9,217-ton Aegis destroyer Lassen, hit the 14-ton boat, which was at anchor carrying four men fishing. No one was injured in the accident which occurred at 12:25 p.m., Kyodo news quoted Coast Guard officials as saying.

Europe

• Radio France – France’s public deficit jumped over 60 per cent in the last year amid the global economic crisis and lower than expected government revenues. The announcement, made Friday, came on the backdrop of the European Union officially entering a recession.
• Jules Evans – One of the biggest risks for the global economy right now is Ukraine. The country’s currency is rapidly depreciating, which is causing serious trouble for the foreign banks who own a majority of the financial sector. The foreign banks, led by names like Raiffeisen, Unicredit and BNP Paribas, have piled into Ukraine ever since the Orange Revolution in 2006, on the bet that Ukraine would move ever closer to the EU, and eventually accede.
• NY Times – Many Romanians dreamed of escaping during decades of dictatorship. The exodus of poor, rural Romanians began after the fall of Communism in 1989 and intensified two years ago when Romania joined the European Union. Spain, Italy and a handful of other countries softened immigration rules to attract less expensive workers from the East. Diligent Romanians became the strawberry pickers, construction workers and housecleaners of choice, doing jobs that workers in richer neighboring countries no longer wanted. But while migration has brought economic gains — migrants sent home nearly $10.3 billion in remittances last year — it has also exacted a heavy toll on the country left behind.
• euronews – Serbia has told the EU it will not block Kosovo from trying to join international financial organisations. But recognise the territory’s self-declared independence? Never.
• SE Times – Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader said on Saturday (February 14th) that his country will become a member of NATO at the organisation’s next summit in early April. Sanader, who is on an official visit to Vienna, said to the Austrian press agency APA that “NATO cannot wait”, and added that he is sure there will be no referendum on his country’s membership in the Alliance.
• ECCHR – The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) in Berlin expresses its deep concern about the circumstances and the lack of political and legal consequences in the context of the murder of the Chechen torture victim Umar Israilov in Vienna on 13 January 2009. Israilov, who was as political refugee recognised in Austria, was the key witness in a trial of the ECCHR against the current President of the Russian constituent republic Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, for torture and murder.
• Iveta Kažoka and Dace Akule, European Policy Institutes Network – Latvia: Extreme Political Turbulence
• Nosint – The frigate F-314 “THOR HEYERDAHL” is the fifth and last of the series that Navantia has built for the Royal Norwegian Navy. Navantia has launched on 11st. February, at 17:12 p.m., in the Fene-Ferrol shipyard, the fifth frigate for the Royal Norwegian Navy, the F-314 frigate “Thor Heyerdahl”, named after this famous XX centuryNorwegian explorer.

Africa

• Garowe – Ethiopian troops have pulled out a strategic crossroad in central Somalia, after spending two weeks inside the international boundaries of Somalia, Radio Garowe reports. The troops backed by armed trucks withdrew from their position at Kala-Beyr crossroads in the central Hiran region. The crossroads connects Somalia’s central and northern regions to Ethiopia’s Somali-inhabited Ogaden region.
• Sudan Tribune – The Sudanese army claimed that it repulsed an attack by the Darfur Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) in West Darfur area of Jabal Marra. The army spokesperson Brigadier General Osman Al-Agbash said that they have inflicted heavy casualties on JEM forces and destroyed 14 armed vehicles while they lost 4 soldiers with 3 injured. He also described statements by JEM leader Khalil Ibrahim as “empty propaganda” that is aimed at strengthening his position at the negotiation underway in the Arab Gulf State of Qatar with the Sudanese government.
• Daily Star – Two bombs exploded in eastern Algeria hours after President Abdel-Aziz Bouteflika announced he would run for a new term, killing at least seven people, the state APS news agency said Friday. Two women, a baby and a man were killed late Thursday by one bomb which exploded as their van passed by in Foum al-Metlag.
• Reuters – Algerian security forces killed a senior member of Al Qaeda’s north African wing after a tip-off from a former militant led them to his hideout, an Algerian newspaper reported Sunday.
• MAP -  Customs officers of the northern port of Tangier seized on Saturday night a record drug catch of 3.26 tons concealed in a potato cargo bound for Spain. The hash, which was revealed thanks to the scanner, was contained in large bundles of 20kg each, and charged onto a Spain-registered TIR truck that was loaded in a farm in the Atlantic city of Agadir.
• AFP – The remnants of the Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army are trapped by opposing forces in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo and will have to surrender, a Congolese government spokesman said Saturday. “The hard core of the Lord’s Resistance Army is in a swampy forest in the Garamba national park,” spokesman Lambert Mende told AFP, putting their numbers at about 250. Mende said the rest of the LRA had surrendered or disbanded, adding that the aim of the joint operation against the rebels had almost been achieved.
• New Vision -  A regional offensive to finish off the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels, planned and equipped with US support, has seen over 146 of the rebels killed and six rebel commanders captured.
• BBC – The Ugandan army says it has been given permission by the Democratic Republic of Congo to continue operations there against the Lord’s Resistance Army. The mandate of the Ugandan army in the DRC had been due to expire this week, but a Ugandan army spokesman said this had now been extended.
• BBC – Zimbabwe authorities drop a treason charge against politician Roy Bennett, replacing it with lesser charges, his party says
• VOA – China has signed agreements to give Tanzania nearly $22 million in aid for agriculture and communications technology. President Hu Jintao witnessed the signing Sunday in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, the third stop on his four-nation tour of Africa.
• Javno – Visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao’s delegation has signed loan and aid deals worth $90 million with Senegal, state media in the West African country reported on Saturday. The deals included a 11.8 billion CFA ($23.25 million) loan to renovate Senegal’s public buses, financing for a 25 billion CFA ($49.26 million) secure government communications system and a 9 billion CFA francs $17.73 million gift, government daily Le Soleil reported after a signing ceremony late on Friday.

A B-52 Stratofortress leads a formation of Japanese Air Self Defense Force F-2s, U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcons, and a U.S. Navy EA-6B Prowler over Guam, Feb. 10, 2009. The event is Cope North 09-1, a bilateral exercise to enhance air operations in defense of Japan. (photo by Master Sgt. Kevin J. Gruenwald)

The Global War

• Dennis Blair, Director of National Intelligence – Annual Threat Assessment of the Intelligence Community for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
• Geoff Morrell, Pentagon spokesman – Well, I mean, this is fundamentally – this is the Obama administration’s review. I mean, we talk about other reviews. I mean, other – there have been other reviews which have preceded it, namely the Bush administration review at the end of its tenure, General Petraeus’s review. The joint staff has had something they’ve been working on as well. But ultimately, the only review that counts is the one that’s conducted at the behest of the president. And so earlier this week, I think on Tuesday, they named Bruce Riedel as the chairman of this administration review. I think it’s co-chaired by our new undersecretary of Defense for policy, Michele Flournoy, as well as Ambassador Holbrooke. And so they are on a tight timeline. I think they were given 60 days to work this.
• ABC (AU) – Afghanistan may be at the forefront of Australian military minds, with more than a thousand personnel based there, but this weekend in Russia, thousands of veterans will be remembering another campaign from another time in the central Asian country. Sunday is the 20th anniversary of the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan, marking the end of a decade-long war that some have referred to as Russia’s Vietnam. Our Moscow correspondent Scott Bevan reports that historians and veterans believe this part of Russian history could hold valuable lessons for those Western countries whose forces are now in Afghanistan.

Sights & Sounds

Read more »

A brief world news roundup for 4 February 2009.

United States & the Americas

• Marine Corps Times – A classified Pentagon report urges President Barack Obama to shift U.S. military strategy in Afghanistan, de-emphasizing democracy-building and concentrating more on targeting Taliban and al-Qaida sanctuaries inside Pakistan with the aid of Pakistani military forces. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has seen the report prepared by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but it has not yet been presented to the White House, officials said Tuesday.
• Geoff Morrell, Pentagon spokesman – The secretary for some time now has been talking about his belief that the commander needs additional forces in Afghanistan as well. There needs to be established a baseline of security in Afghanistan. We are – the mission fundamentally is a counterinsurgency operation. That has been the case. That likely will continue to be the case, albeit with more troops, if that’s what the president signs off on. But no matter what your overall strategy may be, we need to reverse the trends that we are seeing in some parts of the country in terms of a deteriorating security situation
• AFPS – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has selected a Navy four-star admiral to lead an assessment of operations at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a senior Defense Department official said.
• Jurist – Six detainees from the Guantanamo Bay military prison, including three Uighurs, are seeking refugee status in Canada with the support of Canadian sponsors. The Uighurs were last year deemed not to be unlawful enemy combatants. Lawyers for the men have said that US authorities have admitted the men were mistakenly picked up, and are ideal candidates for refugee status in Canada. They also have said that the men will face torture or even death if they are allowed to return to China.
• Toronto Star – The House of Commons has endorsed a big-ticket stimulus package in a vote that ensures the survival of the minority Conservatives
• DID – Colombia’s recent military modernization announcements coincide with the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ release of their Military Balance report for 2009. That report cites Venezuela’s continuing arms buildup in the region, which has triggered corresponding modernization drives in nearby countries, including Colombia and Brazil.
• CNNt – The Bank of Mexico auctioned off billions of dollars Tuesday in an attempt to support the faltering Mexican peso. The measure did not have the desired effect, however, with the dollar commanding 14.5 pesos at the end of the day, 45 percent more than in August.
• Javno – Guatemala is struggling to contain a surge in drug smugglers from Mexican cartels who are increasingly controlling chunks of the border area, President Alvaro Colom said on Tuesday. Mexico’s powerful drug gangs killed some 5,700 people in Mexico last year, as an army crackdown sparked fresh turf wars, and they are setting up camp in Guatemala where they use the porous border to move Colombian cocaine north by land.
• US Navy – Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command (NAVSO) and U.S. 4th Fleet hosted the seventh annual U.S. Military Group (MILGP) Navy Section Chief Conference Jan. 26-30. Navy section chiefs are U.S. Navy representatives working with the MILGP at U.S. embassies worldwide to coordinate a variety of maritime programs within their host country. This conference involved Navy section chiefs from the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) area of focus, which encompasses the Caribbean, Central and South America.

Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia

• RIA Novosti – Kyrgyzstan will demand the closure of a U.S. military base on its territory, used to support antiterrorism operations in neighboring Afghanistan, the Central Asian state’s president said on Tuesday. Kurmanbek Bakiyev is on a two-day visit in Moscow, where he also secured deals to write off Kyrgyzstan’s $180 million debt and to receive a $2 billion discounted loan and $150 million in financial aid from Russia.
• Russia Today – Russia and Belarus have signed a deal on a joint air defence system. Belarusian president, Aleksandr Lukashenko, travelled to Moscow to sign the agreement at a meeting of the Russia-Belarus Union State Supreme Council.
• Kremlin – On February 4, 2009, a special session of the Collective Security Council of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, as well as a special session of the Interstate Council of the Eurasian Economic Community, at the head of state level, will be held in Moscow. The Collective Security Treaty Organisation comprises Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The members of EurAsEC are Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
• abc.az – Poland’s Deputy Foreign Minister Andrzej Kremer arrived in Baku today with a two-day visit. The major issues of the forthcoming talks will be Poland-Azerbaijan ties as well as the EU Eastern Partnership Programme initiated by Poland and Sweden
• APA – The President of Azerbaijan denied reports on Russia’s pressure on Azerbaijan concerning the Nabucco Project. “There was no pressure from Russia. We have no energy problems with Russia”.
• Press TV – The Azeri security service says it has disbanded a group of ‘terrorists’ who was planning to bomb the Baku-Novorossiysk Pipeline. In a statement issued on Tuesday, Azerbaijan’s Security Ministry said the main objective of the group was to destabilize the country by exploding the pipeline and preventing the export of oil.
• RIA Novosti – Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil company GNKAR said on Tuesday in January it exported via the Baku-Novorossiisk pipeline some 167,200 metric tons of crude, which is a 34.7% decline against the same period last year.
• Interfax – Kazakh government gains control over BTA Bank and Alliance Bank; The Kazakh State Financial Supervision Agency (FSA) has made a recommendation and the government has accepted it to purchase 78.14% of common shares in BTA Bank.
• Robert Hamilton, CSIS – Georgian Military Reform – An Alternative View

Middle East

• Voices of Iraq – Iraqi security sources arrested a woman who confessed to being behind 28 suicide bombings that occurred in Baghdad and Diala, an official source from Baghdad’s Operation Command (BOC) said on Tuesday. “However, our information indicates that she has recruited 80 female suicide bombers,” he added.
• Al Sumaria – Major General Andy Salmon, commander of coalition forces in southeastern Iraq affirmed that British troops in Iraq have largely met the conditions required for their withdrawal and are in progress of pulling out from the country by May 31
• Poland MFA – The Polish authorities followed closely the course of the local elections which took place on 31st January in 14 provinces in Iraq. We noted with satisfaction the professional organisation of the elections and the generally peaceful way in which voting was carried out. The high frequency recorded among all social groups was particularly pleasing, including in particular in the provinces in which the Polish Military Contingent had until recently been overseeing security.
• Haaretz – Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on Thursday that the transfer of particular weapons systems from Syria to Hezbollah would obligate Israel to take action in Lebanon. During a tour of the northern border on Tuesday, Barak addressed concerns that Syria was looking to transfer anti-aircraft missiles to the Lebanon-based militants group, vowing that Israel would respond to such an illicit deal
• Naharnet – Hizbullah on Tuesday declared that Free Patriotic Movement leader Gen. Michel Aoun tops its priorities in the forthcoming parliamentary elections. “Our battle is that of Aoun,” announced Hizbullah MP Ali Ammar. He was apparently referring to the document of understanding between Aoun’s FPM and Hizbullah.
• Hizballah – The head of the Change and Reform parliamentary bloc MP Michel Aoun called for PM Fouad Saniora, the head of the Democratic Gathering MP Walid Jumblatt and the head of the Future movement MP Saad Hariri to be tried for harming relations with Syria
• NOW Lebanon – Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem said that Hezbollah would not create conflict between Lebanon’s factions as a means to influence the outcome of the coming elections
• Hurriyet -  A new (Turkish)government regulation that provides for the establishment of a special police unit to coordinate the fight against terrorism was published in the Official Gazette yesterday.  The Special Security Department unit will be under the authority of the Police Department and will be composed of five subdivisions, the regulation said. The decision to create this new unit was made upon the request of the Interior Ministry on Dec. 29, 2008.
• News Yemen – Yemeni security authorities have reportedly deployed hundreds of troops in areas bordering Saudi Arabia to prevent al-Qaeda operatives from entering the country to carry out terrorist attacks following threats by leaders in the so-called the al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula.
• Asharq Al Awsat – Yemeni juridical sources have revealed to Asharq Al-Awsat that five Syrian and eleven Yemeni suspects are set to be tried for carrying out terrorist attacks in a number of governorates in Sana’a, Hadramaut and Aden.

Iran

• AP -  Cyprus has given the United Nations a report on the cargo of a container ship suspected of carrying arms from Iran to Gaza, authorities said Tuesday. The Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a brief written statement that its report to the U.N. Security Council Sanctions Committee contains the findings of authorities who made two inspections of the ship. No details about the ship’s cargo were given. Cyprus’ foreign minister has said authorities were trying to determine whether the ship had contravened U.N. resolutions.
• Cyprus Foreign Ministry – The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announces the following concerning the ship MONCHEGORSK: A team of experts from the Republic of Cyprus has proceeded with two inspections of the cargo of the above ship on January 29 and February 2. The Republic of Cyprus today submitted a report on the findings of the inspections to the competent UN Security Council Sanctions Committee.
• Iran Focus – India’s Reliance Industries, widely believed to have stopped fuel sales to Iran, exported three cargoes to Tehran in January, trade sources said on Tuesday. “They sent one 36,000-tonne gasoline cargo, and two 27,000-30,000 tonne gasoil cargoes for Bandar Abbas port in January,” said one of the traders.
• Fars – Tehran and Islamabad share common interests in curbing extremists, Chairman of Iran’s Expediency Council Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said on Tuesday. “The Islamic Republic of Iran and Pakistan can create a better situation in the region and secure the common interests of their people by expanding their political and economic ties”, Rafsanjani added in a meeting with the new Pakistani Ambassador, Mohammad Bakhsh Abbasi.
• Payvand – Press TV has received confirmation that the first domestic Iranian satellite has been placed into orbit via two carrier rockets. Omid (meaning ‘Hope’ in Persian) was sent into space by the Iranian-produced satellite carrier Safir 2 early on Tuesday.
• Uskowi on Iran – Additional photos of Iran’s space launch
• IRNA -  Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Tuesday that the new era of convergence and reconstruction in the African continent has begun. Given the very good historical ties between Iran and African countries, he said that Iran has throughout history spared no efforts to back liberation struggles of African states and bilateral economic ties have improved significantly, Mottaki said.
• Mehr – Iran’s new stealth fighter will make its maiden test flight by the end of summer 2009, the commander of the Iranian Air Force stated on Tuesday. Hassan Shah-Safi told reporters on the sidelines of a conference on military industrial research in Tehran that military experts are now working on the project.
• NCRI – As such, without taking into account prisoners who have faced cruel punishments such as stoning or limb amputations, the number of prisoners hanged in the first month of 2009 has reached 59
• PanArmenian – Nabucco can’t be implemented without Iran’s participation, Iranian Ambassador to Georgia Mojtaba Damirchi said.
• Canberra Times – Stand on the roof terrace of the Ali Qapu palace overlooking the central square of Isfahan, Iran’s most beautiful city, and you begin to grasp the significance of Shah Abbas I (1587-1629), arguably the country’s most brilliant ruler. Before you lies the masterpiece of urban planning that integrated the political, economic, religious and social elements out of which he built a nation. Here is an architecture which perfectly expresses the political economy of its ruler and enabled him to claim his country was at the centre of the world.

U.S. Air Force Capt. Tom Shearer enters an AN-32B passenger aircraft prior to a flight in Afghanistan on Jan. 27. Shearer is deployed with the 438th AEAG to Afghanistan to mentor and assist pilots of the Afghanistan army air corps. (photo by Staff Sgt. James Harper)

South Asia

• VOA – NATO’s supreme commander, John Craddock, is in Afghanistan for talks with officials and troops trying to combat an increasingly violent insurgency. NATO did not release further details.
• CFR – This report provides a definition of Afghanistan reconstruction oversight and a summary of recent developments that have affected reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan. It also includes an overview of significant initiatives underway to improve the recontruction strategy.
• US Army – More than 100 Afghans and Panjshir Provincial Reconstruction Team members attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony of the new $180,000 Bakshi Khiel Bridge in the Rokha district of Afghanistan’s Panjshir province Jan. 26.
• Pak Tribune – Suspected Islamic militants blew up a bridge in northwest Pakistan on Tuesday, closing a crucial supply line for NATO troops in Afghanistan as officials said 50 extremists were killed in military operations. The 100-foot (30-metre) iron bridge in the Khyber district, built on a culvert under the British Raj, was destroyed early in the morning and all traffic on the road came to a standstill, official Tariq Hayat told AFP. Australian Wing Commander Mark Larter, a spokesman for the NATO force in Afghanistan, played down the temporary closure.
• Geo – Unknown militants have set on fire eight NATO containers in Landi Kotal area of Khyber Agency on early Wednesday, Geo News reported. Sources said, no loss of life was confirmed in the incident.
• Geo – An explosion ripped through a mosque in Imam Gate area of the city on Tuesday, killing one worshipper while 18 others were injured. According to Geo news correspondent, Saeedullah Marwat, the hand grenade blast took place in Madni mosque during Maghrib prayer
• The News – Unidentified militants blew up two boys schools in Salarzai Tehsil of the restive Bajaur Agency on Tuesday. The militants have so far destroyed 27 schools in the Bajaur Agency.
• Daily Times – Fifteen Taliban were killed on Tuesday as fighting continued in Swat, bringing to 50 the total number of Taliban killed overnight, officials said. In a bid to escape the pitched battles, around 20,000 civilians had fled their homes in districts of Swat in the past week, many taking refuge in camps set up by authorities, AFP quoted local officials as saying.
• Dawn – A bride and groom were among at least four people killed in a shootout at a wedding party in Pakistan’s Balochistan province, a local official said Tuesday.The incident took place in Dashtgoran village, 18 kilometres east of Dera Bugti town in the gas-rich province bordering Afghanistan and Iran.
• The Post – Some unidentified people blew up two gas pipelines with explosives in Dera Bugti that suspended the gas supply to Loi and Pir Koh gas plants.
• Times of India – As India awaits Pakistan’s response to its terror dossier, the Pakistan Interior Minister on Tuesday said the Mumbai attacks were planned outside Pakistan and that the Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) final report will be handed over to India in a week’s time.
• Rediff – Investigations have revealed that 26/11 Mumbai killers communicated with each other using coded language. Rediff.com has learnt that each terrorist, who was part of the 26/11 attack, was given a Thuraya satellite phone. Sabahuddin says none of the operatives was supposed to mention the number assigned to them during conversations. Even when a diary entry was to be made, they never stored the real satellite phones numbers handed over to them. The only way to decode the numbers was with the help of the code number 1212

Far East & Pacific

• Asia Times – The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has increased its participation in a broadening array of multilateral security arrangements in recent years. One of the most high-profile aspects of this trend is the dramatic expansion in Chinese peacekeeping deployments (of civilian police, military observers, engineering battalions, and medical units) to United Nations operations: since 2000, when China deployed fewer than 100 peacekeepers, there has been a remarkable 20-fold increase in its contributions.
• China Daily – China is poised to revise its energy development plans by nearly doubling its nuclear power capacity in the next decade, energy authorities have said. The revision is still awaiting approval from the State Council, the Chinese-language 21st Century Business Herald yesterday cited sources close to the National Energy Administration (NEA) as saying.
• Nosint – Chinese attack submarines sailed on more patrols in 2008 than ever before, according to information obtained by Federation of American Scientists from U.S. naval intelligence
• Yonhap – The United States Tuesday warned North Korea not to test fire a ballistic missile, saying any such launch would be in violation of a United Nations Security Council resolution. The spokesperson was responding to reports that North Korea is preparing to test launch a long-range missile capable of reaching the mainland U.S., in an apparent effort to attract the attention of the new U.S. administration.
• The Australian – Fanatical Muslim cleric Abdul Nacer Benbrika, who wanted to wage jihad by launching “terrible acts of violence”, has been sentenced to at least 12 years in jail after becoming the first person in Australia convicted of leading a terrorist organisation.
• Graeme Dobell, The Interpreter – Fiji’s military regime is a slow-motion folly that seems to roll inexorably towards further disaster. And the disaster dynamic is now confronting the Pacific Islands Forum. The Forum is edging towards the expulsion of Fiji, knowing that this would deeply damage the Forum itself.
• Japan Times – Fiscal constraints continued to push down Japan’s official development assistance, leaving the country in fifth place in 2007, according to the white paper on ODA submitted Tuesday to the Cabinet. Net bilateral ODA disbursements in 2007 marked an annual drop of 31 percent to approximately $76.79 billion. A top donor in the 1990s, Japan now ranks behind the United States, Britain, Germany and France, the report says. “Aid to Africa and assisting climate change issues will be the distinctive feature of Japan’s ODA,” a Foreign Ministry official told reporters.
• Bangkok Post- Negotiations between Thailand and Cambodia over Preah Vihear have stumbled over the spelling of the name of the famed ancient temple. A Thai official said yesterday officials of the Thai-Cambodian Joint Boundary Commission were trying to find a way around the problem so border negotiations could proceed.
• Straits Times – Indonesia and Singapore have agreed on the western segment of their maritime border after nearly four years of negotiations, officials here said. The new borderline was drawn between Indonesia’s Pulau Nipah and Singapore’s Sultan Shoal, and is the first agreed upon since the two countries last signed a border pact in 1973.
• Irrawaddy – A Burmese special drugs squad has arrested several associates of the influential businessman Aik Hawk, also known as Hsiao Haw, following the seizure of heroin in a series of raids in Rangoon, according to well-informed sources. Aik Hawk, who is in his 40s, is the son-in-law of Bao Youxiang, the chairman of one of the largest armed groups in Burma, the United Wa State Army (UWSA), which is heavily involved in the drugs trade.

Europe

• EurActiv – Lawmakers in the European Parliament are considering inviting Russia to join the Union’s Nabucco gas pipeline project, to avoid competition with rival projects sponsored by Moscow in the wake of the Russia-Ukraine gas dispute. The proposal is contained in a report on the EU’s strategic energy review, which is set be voted upon in the European Parliament.
• European Voice – The Russia-Ukraine gas crisis has bolstered political support for Nord Stream. There is one clear winner from the gas dispute between Russia and Ukraine: the proposed Nord Stream pipeline, which will bring Russian gas to Europe via the Baltic sea.
• Moscow Times – European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and a team of key commissioners will hold difficult talks in Moscow this week over old and new trade disputes and a new visa feud, diplomats said Tuesday. Many governments have thrown their weight behind the proposed Nabucco pipeline that would carry gas from Iran and the Caspian basin to Europe, bypassing Russia. But some see the $13 billion project threatened by Moscow’s plans to build the Nord Stream and South Stream pipelines, not least because Russia might be the only viable source for gas to fill Nabucco. Poland, the Baltic and some Scandinavian states heavily oppose Nord Stream, which would run under the Baltic Sea and is supported by Germany and Gazprom. The Czech presidency of the European Union will use a May 21-22 summit with Russia to discuss energy security.
• UN – The United Nation’s top court has ruled that Ukrainian ownership of Serpent Island – a rocky outcrop in the Black Sea – does not entitle the country to exclusive rights to an undersea area, thought to be rich in hydrocarbons, it had disputed for decades with Romania.
• AP – Spanish police arrested 13 people Tuesday on suspicion of links to organized crime and terrorism groups. A police statement said the detainees — 11 Pakistanis, a Nigerian and an Indian — are suspected of belonging to an international crime gang involved in passport forgery, drug trafficking and people-smuggling. Police said they were investigating whether the group may also have supplied forged documents to international terror groups.

Africa

• Shabelle – The Somali Islamist group al-Shabaab Tuesday urged its fighters and Somalis to intensify a holy war against African Union (AU) peacekeepers in Mogadishu. Major Bahuko Baridgye, the spokesman of the AU forces, denied the allegations and said that the roadside bomb explosion had killed three civilians and wounded one of their soldiers.
• Garowe – Islamist militants who spearheaded a bloody insurgency in Somalia have declared war on the Horn of Africa country’s new president, even as a global council of Islamic scholars issued a document supporting him, Radio Garowe reports.
• Sudan Tribune – Sudanese warplanes and aircraft conducted air assaults around Muhageria town in South Darfur this morning, reported the UN-African Union hybrid peacekeeping operation in Darfur (UNAMID). The bombing has gone on for weeks since the Darfur rebel Justice and Equality Movement seized the town on January 15.
• IWPR – The pending indictment of Omar al-Bashir by the International Criminal Court, ICC, appears to have eroded critical support for the embattled Sudanese president among his notorious janjaweed militia allies.
• AFP – Seven Rwandan Hutu rebels were killed Tuesday in clashes with a joint DR Congo-Rwanda operation in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the military said. “The joint forces took back the town of Fatua after intense fighting,” said a statement from the army chiefs of staff, adding that seven rebels from the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) had been killed.
• UNICEF – UNICEF welcomed today the release of 85 children by the Mayi Mayi armed group in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Of these children, 65 were released on 29 January, and another 20 on 1 February. The children are between the ages of 7 and 17, five of them being girls.
• IRIN – The joint military operation by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda to dislodge armed militias from North Kivu Province has prompted an increase in combatants willing to be repatriated, President Joseph Kabila said
• Jennifer Parenti, Joint Force Quarterly – China-Africa Relations in the 21st Century
• Henry Lee, Belfer Center – Pressured by skyrocketing demand, Chinese oil companies have branched out across the globe seeking new oil supplies to feed the country’s economic growth. By 2006, China had made oil investments in almost every part of the world, including Africa. These initiatives have not been without controversy
• Xinhua – Chinese President Hu Jintao will pay state visits to Saudi Arabia, Mali, Senegal, Tanzania and Mauritius from Feb. 10 to 17, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu announced Tuesday.

A CV-22 Osprey flies over Florida's Emerald Coast, Jan. 31. The crew and aircraft are assigned to the 8th Special Operations Squadron, Hurlburt Field, Fla. While over the water, the crew practiced using the hoist, a means to rescue stranded personnel. (photo by Senior Airman Julianne Showalter)

The Global War

• UPI – The Russian government of President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has made clear that its price for negotiating and signing a new strategic arms-reduction treaty with the United States will be the scrapping of U.S. plans, energetically pursued under the Bush administration, to build a base to house 10 Ground-based Mid-course Interceptors in Poland.
• RIA Novosti – The S-300P surface-to-air missile system
• US News – The Mystery of the Ex-FBI Agent Missing in Iran; Richard Levinson’s wife and Florida lawmakers appeal to the Obama administration for help on the case
• Chatham House – UN and EU Sanctions: Human Rights and the Fight Against Terrorism – The Kadi Case; This is a summary of the International Law Discussion Group meeting held on 22 January 2009 at Chatham House.
• DoD IG – Department of Defense Principal Deputy Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble testified before the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan on “Lessons From the Inspectors General: Improving Wartime Contracting.”
• Air Force Live – Anyone browsing the aisles at local shops this week may come across a surprising new find in the toy section, a new line of action figures for each of the military branches. What caught our eye? The Air Force Special Tactics Action Figure.

Sights & Sounds

Read more »

A brief world news roundup for 29 January 2009.

United States & the Americas

• Washington Post – The CIA’s top officer in Algeria has been returned to Washington amid allegations that he drugged and raped two women at his Algiers residence, an accusation that presents the Obama administration’s new intelligence team with an unexpected legal and diplomatic crisis even before it officially takes office. The 41-year-old Algiers station chief was ordered home by the State Department after a months-long investigation of alleged sexual assaults in September 2007 and February of last year, U.S. officials confirmed.
• Washington Times – The Army will withdraw from service more than 16,000 sets of ceramic body armor plates that the Pentagon’s inspector general believes were not properly tested and could jeopardize the lives of U.S. service personnel, The Washington Times has learned.
• AP – Canada’s main opposition party backed away from plans to topple the Conservative government, saying Wednesday the prime minister is “on probation” and must give periodic economic updates to Parliament.
• JTA – Israel ordered the Venezuelan ambassador and his staff to leave the country. The move, announced Wednesday by Israel’s Foreign Ministry, comes after Venezuela on Jan. 6 expelled Israeli diplomats over the Gaza military operation. One week later, Venezuela announced it was breaking off relations completely, though it left its ambassador in place.
• Venezuela Foreign Ministry – Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro has denied that his government maintains relations with the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. In response to an article in the Israeli daily Haaretz, which claimed Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s government gave aid to the groups, Maduro said late Tuesday that Venezuela had a “transparent relationship” with the Muslim world. “We have no official relations with (Hamas and Hezbollah) and if we did we would say so.”
• Granma – Raúl Castro Ruz traveled to the Russian Federation where he is to initiate an official visit at the invitation of President Dmitry Medvedev on January 30. Raúl’s program includes official talks with his Russian counterpart and other government leaders of that country. His visit will contribute to deepening the existing excellent relations of friendship and cooperation between Cuba and Russia.
• LAHT – Two people were killed when a bomb exploded at a Blockbuster video store in an upscale area of this Bogota, an attack the government blamed on FARC leftist rebels.
• Nosint – Colombia’s military will purchase roughly US$4 billion in military hardware including aircrafts, armored vehicles and small arms to upgrade and modernize its armed forces, El Tiempo reported Tuesday.

Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia

• RIA Novosti -  Russia has started deliveries of Mi-171 Hip transport helicopters to Iran under a $45 million contract, the Fars news agency reported on Wednesday.
• Russia Today – Most of the Russian officials jailed on corruption charges in 2008 were working for the police. Additionally, 1300 Russians were sentenced for accepting bribes in 2008.
• Moscow Times – Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who has overseen the creation of government-backed national industry champions, surprised participants at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday by warning against excessive state intervention in the economy. “The state’s role was brought to omnipotence in the Soviet Union in the last century,” Putin said in his opening address to the forum, which aims to debate a post-crisis world. “It finally led to our economy being totally noncompetitive.”
• Georgian Times – Russian Foreign Minister did not miss the chance to slam Georgia in his speech before the Russian Federation Council today. Lavrov believes Georgia and Ukraine will never join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which plans to revise relations with these two post-Soviet republics.
• Itar-Tass – Agents of Russia’s Federal Security Service together with police carried out an operation to detain gang leader I.Khadiyev in Chechnya. The criminal offered armed resistance and was killed in the gunfight, the FSB public relations centre told Itar-Tass on Tuesday. “At Zakayev’s order armed forces of Ichkeria were being created with A.Yavmerzayev as their leader. I.Khadiyev, one of the religious and military leaders of the criminal underworld, was smuggled into Russia in May 2008 to provide practical assistance to A.Yavmerzayev in setting up gangs.”
• Reuters – A new president in Russia’s mainly Muslim Ingushetia region has taken the heat out of a simmering rebellion by restoring some trust in the regional authorities. Although violence still scars Ingushetia, residents say it has decreased since Yunus-Bek Yevkurov replaced former secret police officer Murat Zyazikov in October.
• RFERL – Kazakh authorities are widely expected to follow Russia’s recent example and let their currency slide gradually. But a bigger tenge devaluation could be necessary,  of some 25-40 percent, though no official would say so, for fear of sowing panic.
• PanArmenian – Armenian, Azeri leaders confirm willingness to continue Karabakh talks; The Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan met in Zurich today, the RA leader’s press office said. The Sargsyan-Aliyev meeting began with participation of Armenian and Azerbaijani Foreign Ministers, Co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group and Special Representative of the OSCE CiO. Then the Presidents continued talks in private.
• Azer News – Armenian armed forces launched an offensive on Azerbaijani troops on Monday, in a bid to take over a frontline checkpoint and thus strengthen their positions. The Armenian troops attempted to advance toward Azerbaijan’s positions in a village of the northwestern Aghdam district at about 7 p.m., the Azerbaijan Defense Ministry said. During the shooting that lasted about an hour, the enemy had to retreat after losing three servicemen and sustaining injuries of several others.

Middle East

• Voices of Iraq – The head of the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) on Wednesday revealed a 90 percent turnout in the special voting process that took place earlier today across the country. “Voters from the ministries of interior and defense, hospital inmates, prisoners and detainees cast their votes today in 347 polling centers, which encompassed 1,699 stations,” he added.
• MNF Iraq – Jan. 25 marked the transfer of the 4,000th armored M1114 Humvee to the Government of Iraq.  This milestone is part of a program to produce Mission Capable Complete Humvees for issue to Iraqi Security Forces and to provide on-the-job training to Iraqi mechanics.
• AKI – A new video purportedly from Al-Qaeda in Iraq urges Muslims to become snipers in order to avenge the Palestinian deaths caused by Israel’s three-week offensive in the Gaza Strip.
• Haaretz – A massive terror attack against an Israeli target in Europe has been thwarted in recent weeks, Channel 2 quoted security officials as saying Wednesday. The attack, linked to the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, was foiled thanks to intelligence sharing between Israel and an undisclosed European country.
• Naharnet – Egypt’s Foreign Minister Ahmed Abulgheit on Wednesday accused Hizbullah and Hamas of trying to “hurl the region into collisions and conflicts to serve Iran’s interests.” Abulgheit also said in a television interview Iran tries to “use its cards to ease the western pressures over its nuclear program.”
• NOW Lebanon – Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah will hold a press conference on Thursday afternoon to reveal new details on the prisoner swap, dubbed by the group “Operation Radwan,” between Hezbollah and Israel.
• Ya Libnan – Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Murr held talks Wednesday in Damascus with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on ways of boosting security coordination between the two countries.
• Al Jazeera – Al-Qaeda groups in Yemen and Saudi Arabia have announced they are merging their operations, raising fears of new attacks in the region. The organisation said on Tuesday that the joint forces would carry out operations across the Arabian peninsula and beyond.

Iran

• Press TV – Iran rejects reports claiming the country is running out of raw uranium for its nuclear program, saying it has spare capacity for export. Veteran Iranian diplomat Mahmoud-Mehdi Soltani said Wednesday that Iran’s uranium deposits have not been kept confidential, adding that many of them were discovered prior to the 1979 Revolution, under the Shah’s regime, by Western countries.
• Fars – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on the new US administration to extend an apology to Tehran if it really intends to put Obama’s campaign slogan of “change” into practice.
• Rooz - While a number of former commanders and high-ranking officials of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) openly speak of IRGC and Basij’s support for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the upcoming presidential election, representatives of twenty ministries and government organizations met to set up an unofficial reelection committee in Ahmadinejad’s favor under the guise of “confronting enemy’s psychological warfare.”
• Mehr – Majlis speaker Ali Larijani warned on Wednesday that if the United Arab Emirates does not stop territorial claims over the Iranian islands in the Persian Gulf waters Tehran will be forced to adopt another policy. Larijani also said that UAE officials should know that Iran is “seriously” observing the rude behavior toward Iranian nationals visiting the emirates.
• IRNA – An informed source said Wednesday that certain senior Al-Qaeda terrorist group leaders are seriously and constantly at odds on conducting armed and sabotage operations against western and US interests in the UAE.
• Payvand – The commemoration of the 30th Anniversary of Islamic Revolution, which is scheduled to be held in Iran this February, will witness the active participation of many eminent foreign news agencies, confirms Ivan Sahar, a well-known foreign media service centre of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The main events of this 10-day long grand celebration, which is observed in the commemoration of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s return after 15 years of exile, have been scheduled to take place from 31st January to 10th February

South Asia

• The News – A roadside bomb in Kabul Wednesday struck a vehicle carrying civilians, killing four and wounding nine, police said. Police blamed the Taliban for planting the mine that caused Tuesday’s blast in the Zhari district of the southern Kandahar province, police said in a statement. Gunmen abducted 10 Afghan workers in a daring ambush in Herat while two local UN staff kidnapped allegedly by Taliban militants nearly a month ago were freed, government officials said Wednesday. The abductors raided a private construction company site here Tuesday, snatching an Afghan engineer and nine workers, the interior ministry said.
• Pentagon – The following Marines died Jan. 27 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan: Sgt. David Wallace III, 25, of Sharpsville, Pa. and Sgt. Trevor Johnson, 23, of Forsyth, Mont. The Marines were assigned to the 2nd Combat Engineer Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune,
• UK MoD – The life expectancy of the average Afghan woman is 44 years, the lowest in the world. British personnel from the UK’s Stabilisation Unit, which is part MOD-owned, have been working with the Afghan Government to help implement a National Action Plan for Women.
• Karin von Hippel and Rick Barton, CSIS – America may not be losing the war in Afghanistan, but it is also not winning. Neither is the U.S. approach in neighboring Pakistan making friends or preventing new recruits from crossing the border to kill U.S. and other NATO troops. What then is the best way to promote peace and security in the greater South Asia region, home to nearly half the world’s population and several nuclear-armed states?
• Asia Times – Life appears normal in Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province, Syed Saleem Shahzad observes as he speeds through its streets on the back of a motorcycle with an al-Qaeda contact. But under the surface of this strategic city at the crossroads with Afghanistan the mood is tense ahead of a widely expected showdown between militants and the Pakistan security forces. The United States is watching intently
• Daily Times – Pakistan Army has the ‘will and resolve’ to defeat terrorists, restore peace and establish the writ of the state in violence-hit areas, Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Ashfaq Kayani told troops during his visit to Swat on Wednesday. The visit comes a day after the third phase of Operation Rah-e-Haq against the Fazlullah-led Taliban began on Tuesday.
• Geo - At least 18 people, including seven militants were killed and 11 others were wounded as security forces continued to pound militants positions here on Wednesday. According to Swat Media Center, seven militants were killed and 11 others injured in fresh offence by security forces in Sangota and Mangor. Meanwhile, security forces took full control of these two areas. In another incident, five people were gunned down near boys school at Mangor in Mangora.
• MEMRI – In Pakistan’s tribal district of Bajaur Agency situated along the Afghan border, the Taliban militants have blown up a girls’ schools. The girls’ school was situated in Nangolai tehsil (revenue district) of Bajaur Agency. The attack was first of its kind in the district.
• Times of India – Security forces in Jammu and Kashmir notched up a major success on Wednesday by killing Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist Abu Hamza in an encounter in Sopore in north Kashmir’s Baramulla district. Hamza, a Pakistani national trained in PoK, was one of the key LeT commanders involved in planning and executing several attacks in J&K, according to intelligence sources. Hamza was also part of the Al-Badr terror outfit.
• Sri Lanka MoD – Troops of the 58 Division after hours of fierce fighting that ensued with LTTE have reached the Visuamdu junction, this afternoon (Jan 28).  According to latest reports received, troops have now gained total control over the Visuamadu town, following initial search and clearing operations conducted in the area, security sources said. LTTE resistances were rattled during the multi-frontal military assault, ground sources said adding that scores of terrorists were killed and many injured during the fighting.
• Colombo Page – Nearly 13,000 LTTE cadres have been killed during the past two years of conflict in Sri Lanka since the humanitarian operations to liberate the Northern region began in July 2006, the military said today. Over 3700 soldiers have died in the ongoing battles, during the same period, the Army spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said.

The Royal Australian Navy guided-missile frigate HMAS Melbourne arrives at Naval Station Pearl Harbor for a routine port visit. Melbourne is a long-range escort ship and is one of the Royal Australian Navy's four guided-missile frigates. (photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Robbie Stirrup)

Far East & Pacific

• Yonhap – North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s first son raised eyebrows with his first-ever public remarks on a power succession in Pyongyang, but his cryptic message kept the world guessing about who is next in line.
• Japan Times – A crab boat from Sakaiminato, Tottori Prefecture, was seized by Russian authorities in the Sea of Japan at around 7 p.m. Tuesday, according to officials of the prefectural government and the fishery firm that owns the ship. Ten crew members of the Yoshi Maru No. 38 have been detained, but none of them is injured, the officials said, adding the boat was on its way to Nakhodka port in Russia to undergo an inspection.
• Xinhua - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao arrived in the German capital Berlin late Wednesday for an official visit to the country. The premier is scheduled to meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Vice Chancellor Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Thursday to discuss bilateral relations and further cooperation between the two nations amid the global financial downturn.
• Straits Times – China’s police have launched a security sweep in Tibet’s capital Lhasa, ahead of the politically sensitive anniversary of a crushed uprising against Chinese rule 50 years ago.
• Bangkok Post – Four patrol soldiers were wounded, one being amputated, when insurgents detonated a roadside bomb in the southern province of Yala on Thursday morning. The blast occurred when the group of soldiers were patrolling in the Muang district to ensure safety for teachers, who were using that road to come to schools.
• BBC – The United Nations has warned of acute food shortages in parts of Burma, despite a better than expected rice harvest over the past year. Its World Food Programme has issued a report warning that six million people in Burma are now in need of food aid.
• BBC – The Maoist-led government of Nepal has stepped up the rhetoric in an ongoing war of words between itself and the country’s army. The Maoist defence minister has issued a fresh warning to the army chief to stop an ongoing process of recruiting people to the military.

Europe

• Austrian Times – Austrian police arrested seven Chechen men this morning (Weds) on suspicion of being involved in the killing of a fellow Chechen who had sought political asylum in Vienna. The suspects were picked up during early-morning raids in four Austrian provinces, spokesman for the Vienna public prosecutor’s office Gerhard Jarosch said. He added six of the arrested men were Chechen refugees and the seventh was a Chechen who had applied for political asylum.
• Xinhua – Presidents of Poland and Ukraine Lech Kaczynski and Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister of the Czech Republic Mirek Topolanek met in Wroclaw, southwest Poland, on Wednesday evening. The talks focused on the implementation of the gas agreement between Moscow and Kiev, including the transit of gas to EU countries, according to Polish news agency PAP.
• Javno – Croatia said on Wednesday it had moved closer to resolving an 18-year-old border dispute with Slovenia which has been blocking its European Union membership bid. Experts from both countries said they had agreed to confine their dispute to a 6-km (4-mile) stretch of land border but had made less progress on a sea border in the Northern Adriatic.
• FOX – France’s Foreign Ministry says Israeli soldiers fired two rounds of warning shots at a diplomatic convoy that included the French consul general in Jerusalem. The ministry said Wednesday at a news briefing that France protested the “unacceptable incident,” summoning Israel’s ambassador.
• Greece MFA – Deputy Foreign Minister Mr. Miltiadis Varvitsiotis met today with Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for European Affairs Mr. Mehdi Safari. The Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister also mentioned the possibilities for joint investment programmes in the region of the Caucasus and Asia.
• France24 - French Defence Minister Herve Morin has announced that the country’s overseas military presence will be trimmed in areas of less need, such as Bosnia and parts of Africa. The goal is to save €100-150 million annually.
• Jules Evans – Last week, I saw the leader of the Hungarian opposition, Viktor Orban, call for a new central European security alliance against Russia. Orban warned that the EU needed to take a tougher line with Russia.
• NATO – Good coordination was shown in the first-ever Kosovo Force (KFOR) – European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX) exercise, which took place at the KFOR base Novo Selo, in Camp De Lattre De Tassigny. Several hundred soldiers and police officers took part in the scenario, which involved EULEX calling for KFOR support during a violent demonstration.

Residents sing and dance during the dedication ceremony for a water project in Magu, Tanzania, Jan. 21, 2009. The project, which will bring clean drinking water to thousands of villagers, is a example of how the Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa mission develops and nurtures partnerships to promote regional cooperation. (photo by Staff Sgt. Joseph L. Swafford Jr.)

Africa

• Press TV – Somali lawmakers have voted to extend by two years the term of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) which was due to expire in August. The TFG was formed in Kenya in 2004 in a bid to restore stability in war-torn Somalia.
• Shabelle – The Ethiopian troops have halted the movement of the traffic and people in the border towns between Somalia and Somali regional state in Ethiopia, witnesses told Shabelle radio on Wednesday.
• Garowe – A delegation from the UN’s World Food Program visited a provincial capital in central Somalia for the first time Wednesday since Islamists returned to power, Radio Garowe reports. The delegation held a private conference with traditional elders and Islamic Courts administrators in Beletwein, the capital of Hiran region.
• MONUC – At least 100 bodies of people killed by Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels have been discovered in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the UN mission said Wednesday. The victims are believed to have been killed in an attack by LRA rebels on a village in the northeastern Orientale province on January 16.
• Xinhua – The Second-in-Command of Uganda’s rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has surrendered with 45 fighters and 10 abductees, sources here said on Wednesday. A military source who did not want to be named told Xinhua by telephone that Okot Odhiambo surrendered in the northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where the Ugandan military is hunting for the rebels.
• Gulf News – An attempt to integrate hundreds of rebel soldiers into Congo’s army failed Wednesday, casting doubt on whether a hasty recent change in alliances that spurred hopes for peace can hold.
• Lyla Andrews Bashan, Dipnote – Conflict in Eastern Congo: U.S. Tools for Reconstruction and Stabilization
• VOA – Zimbabwean leader Morgan Tsvangirai has agreed in principle to forming a unity government. Under the new government Mr. Tsvangirai will be prime minister and President Robert Mugabe will remain as head of state.
• IRIN – The cholera death toll in Zimbabwe climbed to 3,028, the World health Organisation said on 28 January. The outbreak is showing few signs of abating.
• AFRICOM -  The Africa Center for Strategic Studies, based on the campus of National Defense University at Fort Lesley J. McNair, welcomed 57 military officers representing 34 African nations to its 2009 Next Generation of African Military Leaders Course, January 27. The four-week program, which runs through February 20, will focus on enhancing professionalism, ethics and leadership in African militaries.

The amphibious transport dock ship USS Green Bay awaits commissioning in Long Beach. Green Bay is the first ship commissioned in the Los Angeles area since 1994. (photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Jose Lopez)

The Global War

• Reuters -  A reported Russian move to halt deployment of Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad would be a good step if confirmed, NATO said on Wednesday. “The earlier Russian announcement that they were going to deploy missiles into Kaliningrad and point them at NATO allies was unwelcome. If that decisIon has now been rescinded, it is a good step,” said NATO spokesman James Appathurai. Interfax news agency quoted a Russian military official as saying on Wednesday that Russia had suspended the deployment of its Iskander missiles in the Russian enclave between NATO members Poland and Lithuania due to a change in U.S. missile defence policy in Europe.
• JTA – The U.S. Navy allowed an Iranian-leased ship loaded with arms to continue to Syria. The relevant United Nations resolutions would not allow its seizure, the U.S. military chief said. Reporters at a news conference Tuesday asked Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, about the boarding last week of a ship in the Red Sea leased by Iran and reportedly carrying Katyusha rockets.
• US Navy – USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) became the fifth out of 10 aircraft carriers to add the Intelligence Department (INTEL) to her roster of departments Jan. 1.

Sights & Sounds

Read more »

A brief world news roundup for 26 January 2009.

United States & the Americas

• Washington Post – President Obama’s plans to expeditiously determine the fates of about 245 terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and quickly close the military prison there were set back last week when incoming legal and national security officials, barred until the inauguration from examining classified material on the detainees, discovered that there were no comprehensive case files on many of them. Instead, they found that information on individual prisoners is “scattered throughout the executive branch,” a senior administration official said.
• Malaysia Star – Malaysia welcomes US President Barack Obama’s move to close the Guantanomo Bay prison and hopes it will gain access to two Malaysian detainees being held there. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said he hoped Washington would give permission for Malaysian representatives to meet the detainees, Mohammed Farik Amin and Mohammed Nazir Lep. Malaysia could bring them back to be detained in the country, he said at a press conference on Friday.
• Jurist – The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Friday denied a petition for rehearing in the case of Wadih El-Hage who was convicted of the 1998 bombing of two US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. El-Hage’s petition for rehearing contended that the circuit court’s earlier decision on Fourth Amendment challenges omitted any consideration of whether challenged searches were supported by probable cause and that the court failed to consider whether the searches could be conducted at all.
• Treasury Dept – On July 29, 2008, the President signed into law the Tom Lantos Block Burmese JADE (Junta’s Anti-Democratic Efforts) Act of 2008. On January 15, 2009, the Director of OFAC identified as being described in Section 5(a)(1) of the JADE Act certain persons whose names have, as discussed above, been added to the list of Specially Designated Nationals and whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to IEEPA and the JADE Act
• Newsweek – The FBI says as many as 20 Somali-Americans between the ages of 17 and 27 have left their Minneapolis homes in the past 18 months under suspicious circumstances. Officials fear they may have joined Islamic militants fighting for control of Somalia.
• canada.com – There is a growing consensus that Canada would have little chance of successfully prosecuting Omar Khadr if the Harper government brings him home, with several legal experts betting that he would face rehabilitation and supervision but avoid a trial or jail. While criminal charges are possible under Canada’s anti-terrorism laws, cracks have emerged in recent months in the U.S. case against the young Canadian, casting doubt on whether he lobbed a grenade that killed a U.S. soldier in 2002.
• LA Times – A new constitution that voters are expected to approve Sunday would give more power to Bolivia’s indigenous communities, promote agrarian reform and allow President Evo Morales to seek reelection to another term. But analysts warn that passage of the new constitution also could worsen Bolivia’s polarization, throw its legal system into chaos, and discourage investment in the natural resources that are its main ticket to prosperity.
• Global Voices – As the polls close across Bolivia for the Constitutional Referendum vote, many of the country’s users of Twitter have been hard at work sending messages about their experiences from their cities. In order to centralize the information, they are using the #referendum tag.
• LC Sun – President Felipe Calderon’s war on drug trafficking has led to his own doorstep, with the arrest of a dozen high-ranking officials with alleged ties to Mexico’s most powerful drug gang, the Sinaloa Cartel. The U.S. praises Calderon for rooting out corruption at the top. But critics say the arrests reveal nothing more than a timeworn government tactic of protecting one cartel and cracking down on others.
• LAHT – At least 11 people have been murdered so far this weekend in Ciudad Juarez, which is across the border from El Paso, Texas, Mexican prosecutors said. A police officer was killed and another wounded Friday night when gunmen opened fire on their patrol car.
• AP – The presidents of Venezuela and Argentina signed a dozen agreements to cooperate in energy, industry and agriculture — including a joint venture to develop oil fields in eastern Venezuela.

Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia

• Kremlin – Dmitry Medvedev and President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov discussed cooperation between Russia and Uzbekistan on ensuring security in the Central Asian region and overcoming the world economic crisis. The talks concluded with the signing of a Joint Communique on the results of the Russian President’s state visit to Uzbekistan, an intergovernmental agreement on conditions for the location and servicing of the two countries’ diplomatic missions, and a programme for cooperation between the two countries’ foreign ministries in 2009.
• Russia MFA – Other thrust areas of Russia’s multivector foreign policy were also boosted. I shall note interaction within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the development of relations with the partners in the Middle East, Asia, Latin America and Africa. Multilateral diplomacy under G8 auspices and in the framework of BRIC, APEC and other forums also contributed to securing national interests.
• Russia Today – The vast Siberian lands have seen it all – from the great Mongol hordes of the Middle Ages to the Communists’ five-year plans of the 20th century. Scattered around the wildest regions are a few Tatar villages, trying to preserve their ancient culture.
• Civil Georgia – Gas supply to Tskhinvali, suspended as a result of pipeline damage during the August war, has been resumed, the breakaway region’s authorities said on January 25. The Russian Foreign Ministry welcomed resumption of gas supply and said in a statement posted on its website on January 25 it was “satisfied that a common sense has eventually prevailed in Tbilisi.”
• HRW – Georgian, Russian and South Ossetian forces committed numerous violations of the laws of war in the conflict in August 2008 over South Ossetia and its aftermath, causing many civilian deaths and injuries and widespread destruction of civilian property, Human Rights Watch said in a comprehensive report.
• Kyiv Post – Kuwaiti state news says an investment firm in the Persian Gulf oil producer is forming a pair of joint venture companies with Russia’s Gazprom. Kuwait News Agency says Noor Financial Investment will join with the Russian oil and gas giant’s Gazprom Geofizika subsidiary to form one venture in Russia and another in Kuwait. Gazprom will own 51 percent of the Russian company, and Noor will hold the rest.
• Guardian – The number of unemployed Russians rose to 6 million in December compared to 5 million in November as an economic downturn hit home, the head of the federal employment service Yuri Gertsiy said on Saturday.
• Kavkaz Center – According to source inside the HQ of the command of Eastern Front of Armed Forces of the Caucasus Emirate (Commander Amir Aslambek), last Friday on Muharram 26, 1430 in the vicinity of the village of Shirdi-Mokhk (Nozhai-Yurt district), a mobile squad of the Mujahideen attacked a gang of Russian invidels. The details of the fighting are unknown. The source reported at least 5 infidel soldiers were killed and wounded in the course of the battle.
• Azer News – Russia has told the Azerbaijani government that it did not transfer arms and military machinery valued at $800 million to Armenia following recent media reports of such a transfer that have raised tensions between the two countries.
• Bruce Pannier – With the Kazakh president signing an agreement on civilian nuclear cooperation with India, there are signs that uranium-rich Central Asia may be poised to take advantage of the globe’s anticipated move toward nuclear power. Under the agreement signed on January 24, Astana will supply nuclear fuel to Indian atomic plants.

Middle East

• RFERL – Iraq has no extradition agreement with Iran and any member of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) opposition group will be handed over only through the International Committee of the Red Cross, Iraq’s ambassador in Tehran told RFE/RL’s Radio Free Iraq.
• Al Jazeera – The Iraqi government will reopen the notorious Abu Ghraib prison next month under the name of Baghdad Central Prison, a senior justice official has said.
• Voices of Iraq – An Iranian on Sunday was arrested in Wassit province for not having official legal documents, according to a local police source.
• Al Sumaria – Gunmen killed a nine member family including a child in Diyala Province. A source from Baquba Operations room affirmed that unknown gunmen attacked a house in Al Maamel District near Baldroz and killed six women, two men and a child of the same family. The source added that martyrs are from Al Karawiya tribe.
• BBC – Thirteen people have been killed in a car bomb attack targeting a police patrol near the western Iraqi city of Falluja, police have said.
• ITIC – Hamas Invites Foreign Correspondents to the Egyptian Border to Prove Some Smuggling Tunnels Still Operating after Operation Cast Lead
• MEMRI – Ahmad Yousef, advisor to Hamas leader in Gaza Isma’il Haniya, discounted the efforts made by Israel, the U.S. and various Arab and European countries to prevent the smuggling of weapons into Gaza. He said that the resistance was legitimate and so were its weapons, and that it would obtain arms to continue its activities by any means.
• SANA – President Bashar al-Assad received on Saturday morning Chief of Hamas Movement Politburo Khaled Meshaal and the members of Bureau. President al-Assad, during the meeting, congratulated the Palestinian people for the victory achieved by the Palestinian resistance in Gaza, stressing that Israel’s failure in achieving the goals of its aggression on Gaza, in spite of allowing itself to attack all the Strip with the deadliest weapons, is an evidence of the Palestinian people’s commitment to their inalienable rights to their land and homes, and of their deep faith in their ultimate victory over occupation and aggression.
• NOW Lebanon – Hezbollah official Nawaf Mousawi said that the Resistance and its weapons were the only mechanism for defense of the nation. Discussing his party’s position on the national defense strategy, which is set to be discussed in Monday’s national dialogue session, Mousawi said: “Today, we are committed more than ever to preserving these weapons, and we are working on gradual integration of political forces into the Resistance framework.”
• Hassan Nafaa – Whenever the public objected to an aspect of unity, the democratic institutions of Europe adapted their tone and pace in order to accommodate public opinion. This cannot happen in the Arab world, because we’re yet to embrace democracy. We don’t have what it takes for unity. Domestically, we lack democracy. And externally, we don’t have the supporting conditions. With Israel lodged in the heart of the region, divisions keep emerging on a scale that can wreck any political or economic endeavour.

Iran

• Press TV – Iran will host an international meeting to review the legal aspects of the Gaza war in preparation for the prosecution of war criminals. Iran’s Attorney General Ghorbanali Dorri Najaf Abadi told Press TV on Sunday that the meeting would be held in March.
• Tehran Times – Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani announced on Sunday that the Iranian Parliament will rebuild the Palestinian Parliament destroyed in Israeli raids on the Gaza Strip.
• Fars – Ahmadinejad: Islamic Revolution Not Restricted to Iranian Borders; Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Sunday termed Islamic Revolution “a phenomenon belonging to all mankind”. “Iran’s Islamic Revolution is a global phenomenon belonging to all mankind,” Ahmadinejad noted in an address to a national gathering on the advent of the 30th victory anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. The victory of Iran’s revolution in 1979 is annually celebrated by all Iranians during January 31-February 10.
• Mehr – Iran has completed the design phase of its stealth aircraft, the commander of the Iranian Air Force announced here on Sunday. Iranian military researchers are now working on building small prototypes of the aircraft, Brigadier General Hassan Shah-Safi told reporters in Tehran.
• Payvand – Iran says it opposes the construction of any underwater pipeline in the Caspian Sea that will carry oil from Kazakhstan to Azerbaijan. In June 2008, Iran announced plans to build a cross-country pipeline to transfer oil from the Caspian region to the Persian Gulf and world markets. Noqrekar-Shirazi said earlier that Iran had held several rounds of talks with Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Russia on the construction of the Neka-Jask pipeline. An agreement, however, has yet to be reached on the issue.
• Fars – Iranian Commerce Minister Masoud Mir Kazemi and his Senegalese counterpart Mamadou Diop Dccroix stressed economic cooperation between the two countries. Referring to economic cooperation between two countries, the Iranian minister underlined that mutual cooperation would pave the way for delivering Iranian products to other African countries through Senegal.
• Mehr – First Vice President Parviz Davoudi said on Sunday that strengthening relations with Africa is atop Iran’s foreign policy agenda. In a meeting with Kenyan Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, Davoudi expressed hope that bilateral relations between the two countries will increase to the advantage of both nations.
• IRNA – Iranian and Georgian officials held talks at Iran’s Embassy in Georgia on Friday on fostering Tehran-Tbilisi ties in different spheres.
• Rooz – A news website close to Tehran’s mayor Morteza Qalibaf, who was also current President Ahmadinejad’s rival in the 2005 presidential bid, revealed that IRNA state news agency sells its news and presents a positive image of the performance of government agencies that provide it with money.

Lance Cpl. Donald Wright remains vigilant during a security halt, Jan. 9, in Farah province, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment (Reinforced) conducted Operation Gateway III to clear southern Afghanistan's Route 515, an important road for villagers who live and travel through the area. Wright is a rifleman with Company I, 3/8, the ground combat element of Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force Afghanistan (photo by Lance Cpl. Monty Burton)

South Asia

• AFPS – Coalition forces in Afghanistan killed 15 Taliban militants and detained one suspect during an operation in Laghman province Jan. 23, military officials reported. The operation targeted a wanted Taliban commander and took place in the province’s Mehtar Lam district, northeast of Kabul. As coalition forces approached the militant leader’s compound, several armed insurgents emerged, and a firefight ensued.
• NY Times – “They control everything through the radio,” said one Swat resident, who declined to give his name for fear the Taliban might kill him. “Everyone waits for the broadcast.” International attention remains fixed on the Taliban’s hold on Pakistan’s semiautonomous tribal areas, from where they launch attacks on American forces in Afghanistan. But for Pakistan, the loss of the Swat Valley could prove just as devastating. After more than a year of fighting, virtually all of it is now under Taliban control, marking the militants’ farthest advance eastward into Pakistan’s so-called settled areas, residents and government officials from the region say.
• Daily Times – Eight Taliban, including their commander, were killed in Swat on Saturday, as security forces took control of schools in the violence-hit district, a private TV channel reported. The clashes, in which Taliban commander Noor Bakhtiar was also killed, took place in Nangolai area of Kabal tehsil. The forces also recovered a large cache of arms from the Taliban’s hideout after the operation.
• AFP – Six more bodies were recovered from the rubble of an Al-Qaeda den hit by a suspected US missile, pushing the death toll in two separate strikes to 21, security officials said Saturday. “Six bodies of local tribesmen were found in the rubble of the house which was destroyed in a US missile strike on Friday just outside the town of Mir Ali in North Waziristan district,” the official said. On Friday officials said eight people including five foreigners (Pakistani officials use the term “foreigners” to describe Al-Qaeda militants) died in the missile strike at the house of a pro-Taliban tribesman near Mir Ali. Hours later another suspected US drone fired two missiles into a house in Wana, the main town in South Waziristan, killing seven people. The strikes were the first under new US President Barack Obama.
• Pakistan MFA – Pakistan has consistently lodged strong protest with the US Government against drone attacks, which constitute infringement of Pakistan’s sovereignty. Yesterday’s attack in the Waziristan area which caused civilian causalities is a matter of great concern.  These concerns have been conveyed to the US side.
• Pak Tribune – China has provided 500 million dollars to Pakistan to improve the level of its foreign exchange reserves while the U.S. has also released 105 million dollars in connection with meeting expenses of war on terror.
• Times of India – Pakistan government on Sunday took over the sprawling headquarters of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a front organisation of the LeT blamed for the Mumbai attacks, near Lahore amid tight security.
• Sri Lanka MoD – Sri Lanka Army announced that troops of 59 Division, lead by Brigadier Nandana Udawatta, entered into the LTTE’s main garrison town Mullaittivu, have gained total control over the Mullaittivu Township after completing the mop up operations conducted in the area by this evening, 25 January. Recapturing the Mullaittivu town which had been dominated by the LTTE terrorists for last 13 years marks the significant milestone of war against terrorism launched to free the entire country from LTTE.

Far East & Pacific

• AFP – North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il said on Friday he wanted a nuclear-free Korean peninsula, declaring his willingness to work with China to push forward the six-party process, Chinese state media reported. Kim made the remark while meeting in Pyongyang with Wang Jiarui, a senior official with China’s Communist Party, Xinhua reported on its website. It was Kim’s first known meeting with a senior foreign visitor since his reported stroke in August.
• Jakarta Post – North Korea criticized South Korea’s president Sunday for nominating a conservative security expert to handle relations between the two sides, warning the move will further heighten tensions on the divided peninsula.
• Yonhap -  North Korea on Saturday strongly rebuked as a “cock-and-bull story” a recent U.S. intelligence report that said the North’s combat ability is waning due to the malnutrition-related mental problems of its youth.
• New Zealand Herald – Prime Minister John Key will meet his Australian counterpart, Kevin Rudd, in Papua New Guinea this week to discuss each country’s response to the economic downturn and what to do about Fiji.
• Canberra Times – Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will fly to Papua New Guinea to attend the special Pacific Islands Forum meeting to discuss Fiji’s route back to democracy. The meeting will discuss the fate of Fiji’s membership under the leadership of self-appointed interim prime minister Commodore Frank Bainimarama.
• The Australian – The Rudd Government has foreshadowed a possible boost to troop numbers in Afghanistan – a decision Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon says will depend on changes in the strategic and tactical situation in the country.
• Times Online – But prosperity is increasingly hard to come by. The Shanghai Exchange has seen its index decline by two thirds. The Chinese export sector, responsible for 40 per cent of Chinese growth over the past decade, is tanking. Some estimate that 20 per cent of factories in the Pearl River delta area have already closed down and half will be gone by the end of the year.
• Caijing – Southern China’s Yunnan Province plans to boost local refined metals producers by stockpiling 1 million tons of aluminum, copper and other base metals. But some analysts have questioned the strategic commodities initiative and a similar effort launched by the central government in recent months.
• Guardian – But the riot late last year at the Kai Da factory in Dongguan, amid the grim industrial sprawl of the Pearl River Delta, was not an isolated incident. It was one of tens of thousands of protests, many erupting from the same mixture of economic grievances, resentment of police and swirling rumour. The numbers have been climbing steadily for years.
• news.com.au – Muslims in Indonesia have been banned from doing yoga if they engage in Hindu religious rituals during the exercise, the chairman of the country’s top Islamic body said.
• Bangkok Post – New Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya travelled to Cambodia on Sunday for his first official visit, with both neighbours hoping to make progress on resolving a sporadically violent territorial dispute.
• Irrawaddy – The black market value of Burma’s currency, the kyat, hit a three-year high of nearly 1,000 to the US dollar on Friday, putting a brake on the unofficial cash transfers from abroad known as hundi.

Europe

• RP Online – Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder will discuss the Iranian nuclear issue during a trip to Tehran scheduled in February. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Stein Meier has also extended support for the mission.
• NCRI – As the meeting of EU Council of Ministers and an announcement on the new EU list of terrorist organizations approaches, the ruling fascism in Iran resorts to various levers, especially blackmail through hostage-taking threats, in a bid to coerce European countries into violating the rulings of Europe’s highest judicial authorities by maintaining the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) on the blacklist. On January 22, the Iranian regime, through its commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, attempted to threaten the German government with a repeat of the U.S. embassy take-over in Tehran in 1979 in order to compel Germany to bow to its demands.
• Khaleej Times – Defence Secretary John Hutton on Sunday signalled he was considering boosting the number of British troops and equipment in Afghanistan.
• BBC – Steelmaker Corus is set to cut 3,500 jobs worldwide, including more than 2,500 in the UK, the BBC understands. Corus said it could not comment on rumour or speculation, but the company, like all steelmakers, is facing an unprecedented downturn in demand.

Africa

• Africa Press Agency – Ethiopia on Sunday declared the full withdrawal of its troops from Somalia after two years in that country. According to the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the troops are currently deployed at the Ethiopian border with Somalia, to closely follow the situation in that country.
• Garowe – At least 13 people were killed Saturday in Somalia’s war-wracked capital Mogadishu after a suspected suicide bombing triggered street fighting, Radio Garowe reports. A Somali police officer stopped a vehicle loaded with explosives at a checkpoint along Maka al Mukarrama Road, where the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) maintains a base, witnesses said.
• Sudan Tribune – Sudan military planes attacked a location in southern Darfur recently controlled by the rebel Justice and Equality Movement which took it from a group led by Minni Minawi. The aerial attack comes after statements by the governor of South Darfur earlier this week about military build-up by the Sudanese army around Muhageriya, 80 km from Nyala the capital of the state, in order to dislodge the rebel group.
• IHT – Rwandan and Congolese troops pushed deeper into zones held by Rwandan Hutu militiamen Sunday in a joint military operation designed to crush armed groups that have destabilized central Africa, a military spokesman said. Nine Rwandan militiamen were killed and one Congo army soldier was wounded in attacks a day earlier on militia positions in five villages in Lubero district, said Congolese military spokesman Capt. Olivier Hamuli.
• NY Times – Congo is now urging Rwanda to extradite him to stand trial for war crimes and treason charges. Many people here, in the green folds of eastern Congo where so much blood has been spilled, hope his capture could be the denouement of a conflict that has raged for years. But there is a growing fear that General Nkunda’s arrest may end in an unsatisfying way and that Rwanda may not hand him over, partly because he knows too much. On Sunday, the Rwandan military acknowledged for the first time that General Nkunda was not being kept in jail but at an undisclosed “safe” location in Rwanda.
• FT – The arrest of Laurent Nkunda, the Congolese rebel leader, by his erstwhile allies in Rwanda marks a dramatic turn in relations between Congo and its tiny but militarily powerful neighbour. Mr Nkunda was detained on Rwandan soil on Thursday night after putting up resistance to an unprecedented joint military operation by the Rwandan and Congolese armies designed to pacify eastern Congo, officials from both states said. The operation was the result of intense, secretive talks and appears to have taken United Nations peacekeepers by surprise. Talks in Nairobi between the Congolese government and Mr Nkunda’s rebels have been sidelined.
• Javno -  Security forces from Mali and Niger are scouring their shared border for four abducted Europeans but there is still no sign of the tourists, officials from both countries said. Mali initially blamed Tuareg rebels for Thursday’s kidnapping, but a Malian military officer said the attack bore none of the hallmarks of Ibrahima Bahanga, one of the most active Tuareg dissident leaders. “It’s not Bahanga’s style to kidnap tourists or to abandon vehicles,” he said. “The method resembles that of whoever kidnapped the Canadians in Niger,” he said.

(from the Poland Ministry of National Defence)

The Global War

• Asharq Al Awsat – The Egyptian Islamist movement Jamaat Islamiya has called for Al Qaeda to adopt a four-month truce and to cease any operations against the United States, the West and other countries, as they await “the fair, practical stances of the new American president.” Its request came shortly after Al Qaeda leader Abu Yahya al Libi urged for attacks to be launched on Western states, especially the US and Britain, to avenge Israel’s attacks on Gaza and for Britain’s role in supporting the establishment of a homeland for the Jews in 1948.
• Sunday Times – An American naval taskforce in the Gulf of Aden has been ordered to hunt for suspicious Iranian arms ships heading for the Red Sea as Tehran seeks to re-equip Hamas, its Islamist ally in Gaza. According to US diplomatic sources, Combined Task Force 151, which is countering pirates in the Gulf of Aden, has been instructed to track Iranian arms shipments.
• The National – Two Saudis released from the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay have joined a terrorist organisation in Yemen, and two others are under suspicion because they are missing from their homes, a spokesman for the Saudi interior ministry said.
• ICC – The trial of Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, which opens on Monday 26 January 2009 before Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court, will not only be the first in the history of the Court, but will also be the first one in the history of international law which will see victims participate fully in the proceedings.
• Stars and Stripes – Hundreds gathered Friday to honor three proud fathers and brave soldiers killed in the line of duty. It was standing room only at the Joint Multinational Training Command community activities center as Maj. Brian Michael Mescall, Sgt. Jason Ray Parsons and Cpl. Joseph Michael Hernandez were remembered. The men, members of 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment, were killed Jan. 9 when a roadside bomb struck their Humvee while on a mission in Zabul province, Afghanistan. At the time of their deaths, the three were attached to a unit of the Romanian Land Forces.

Sights & Sounds

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