26 March, 2010 (01:06) | Daily Roundup | By: Jeff Kouba
A brief world news roundup for 26 March 2010.
United States & the Americas
- Haaretz – As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington this week absorbing the full wrath of the Obama administration, the Pentagon and Israel’s defense establishment were in the process of sealing a large arms deal. According to the deal, Israel will purchase three new Hercules C-130J airplanes. The deal for the three aircrafts, designed by Lockheed Martin, are worth roughly a quarter billion dollars.
- HS Today – Managing competing claims for intelligence support is one of the biggest challenges facing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Intelligence Enterprise (IE), according to a report issued March 19 by the Congressional Research Service (CRS).
- Navy Times – Seven F/A-18 Hornets have been grounded due to cracks found in the wing fasteners, but many of the aging fighter jets inspected during the past two weeks have returned to full flight status, a Navy official said. Naval Air Systems Command grounded 104 Navy and Marine F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets March 12 after inspectors discovered that parts of the airframes were developing cracks much earlier than engineers had thought.
- SFGate – Mexican authorities say they have arrested a major drug trafficker known as the “King of Heroin” for the massive amounts of drugs he moved into the U.S. each year. Police say that Jose Antonio Medina, nicknamed “Don Pepe,” was arrested in the western Mexican state of Michoacan on Wednesday. Medina worked for the La Familia cartel running a complex smuggling operation that hauled 440 pounds (200 kilograms) of heroin each month across the border and into Southern California.
- BusinessWeek – Venezuela’s electricity grid will remain “vulnerable” into 2011 as strained government finances delay the installation of generators and the maintenance of existing transmission lines, Eurasia Group said. A severe drought coupled with delayed projects forced President Hugo Chavez to declare a national electricity crisis last month. He ordered rolling blackouts in regions of the South American country and 20 percent power reductions by businesses in the capital city of Caracas.
- China Daily – East China Mineral Exploration and Development Bureau (ECE) is expected to acquire an iron ore mine in Brazil, the 21st Century Business Herald reported Thursday. The ECE signed an intent agreement with Bernardo de Mello on March 25, offering $1.2 billion to buy the entire property rights of the Jupiter project in Minas Gerais of northeastern Brazil, where most of Vale’s iron ore mines are located.
Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia
- Sky – Two Russian bombers, capable of carrying nuclear weapons, have been caught flying over British airspace. The unwelcome guests spent four hours flying over the Isle of Lewis despite being intercepted by two RAF jets. A pair of 111 squadron Tornado F3 fighters took of from RAF Leuchars in Fife to locate the supersonic Tu160 bombers in the Outer Hebrides.
- RIA Novosti – Two Russian Tu-95MS Bear strategic bombers have carried out a 15-hour routine patrol mission over the Pacific, including near the U.S. Aleutian Islands, an Air Force spokesman said on Wednesday. “The Tu-95MS bombers left the Ukrainka air base [in the Amur region in Russia's Far East] on March 24 and successfully completed the air patrol mission,” Lt. Col. Vladimir Drik said.
- Barents Observer – Western oil giants are selling out and downscaling involvement in Russia as state influence over the sector is growing. Both the American company ConocoPhillips and British BP are cutting their exposure to Russia’s oil and gas sector.
- RIA Novosti – The average size of a bribe in Russia nearly tripled between 2008 and 2009, despite a weakened global economic climate, a Russian Interior Ministry report published on Thursday said.
- CSM – The once-vaunted Russia science powerhouse is following the same downhill path of Soviet-era athletic prowess. Lack of funds and plummeting social recognition mean that few young people pursue science careers
- Russia Today – Two Russian military officers and a Georgian citizen have been given lengthy prison sentences after being found guilty of spying for Georgia
- Georgia MFA – On 24 March 2010, servicemen of the Russian occupation troops demolished school N3 reportedly as part of their plan to construct a dwelling house for occupants. 150 Georgian and Ossetian pupils were forced to continue their studies in another school. This fact represents a continuation of Russian occupants’ policy of ethnic cleansing and discrimination and indicates clearly that Russia neglects the universally recognized norms of international law, including one of the fundamental human rights, that is to receive education in the native language.
- Memorial – The Memorial Human Rights Center continues its work in the North Caucasus. We offer a new issue of our regular bulletin containing a brief description of the key events featured in our news section over the three autumn months of 2009 and a few examples of our analysis of the development of the situation in the region. This bulletin contains materials collected by the Memorial Human Rights Center staff working in the North Caucasus and published on the Memorial website as well as media and news agencies reports. (PDF)
- Itar Tass – The organiser of an attack on Nalchik in the autumn of 2005, Anzor Astemirov, has been killed in Nalchik, a source from Kabardino-Balkaria’s law enforcement agencies told Tass on Thursday.
- Kavkaz Center – In a statement published Thursday morning, the Command of Kabarda, Balkaria and Karachai Province of the Caucasus Emirate reported the Martyrdom of Amir Saifullah (Anzor Astemirov) Wednesday night, March 24, 2010. The statement of the command of United Province of Kabarda, Balkaria and Karachai states that Emir Saifullah has never stayed behind the Mujahideen and always fought infidels on the frontline. The statement has also indicates that Emir Saifullah has been killed during a battle in the Kabardino-Balkarian capital of Nalchik
- Xinhua – Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping arrived here Wednesday for an official visit at the invitation of Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko. In a written statement upon his arrival, Xi said China and Belarus have achieved significant cooperation results in all fields including politics, economy, trade and humanities since forging diplomatic ties 18 years ago.
- SRI – Kazakhstan plans to increase uranium exports to Japan and boost its share on the Japanese uranium market to 40 percent from current 4 percent, Kazakh Foreign Minister Kanat Saudabayev told Japan’s Nikkei news agency on Wednesday.
Middle East
- AP – Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari walked out Thursday of an Arab League ministerial meeting held in Libya to protest against Moammar Gadhafi’s declared support for Saddam Hussein loyalists, delegates said
- Aswat al-Iraq – Iraqi special forces (SWAT) killed a senior leader of al-Qaeda group in western Mosul on Thursday, commander of the SWAT said.
- UNHCR – In a resolution (A/HRC/13/L.30) on follow-up to the report of the United Nations Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, adopted with twenty-nine in favour, six against, and eleven abstentions, as orally amended, the Council reiterates the call by the General Assembly upon the Government of Israel to conduct investigations that are independent, credible and in conformity with international standards into the serious violations of international humanitarian and international human rights law reported by the Fact-Finding Mission (Bolivia, El Salvador*, Morocco*, Pakistan (on behalf of the Organization of the Islamic Conference), Palestine*, Sudan* (on behalf of the Group of Arab States), Venezuela*: draft resolution)
- Israel MFA – The resolution adopted today in Geneva by the United Nations Human Rights Council has no connection to the safeguarding of human rights. As a democratic country, Israel will continue its internal inquiry procedures, out of its commitment to the rule of law and moral values.
- ISN – The subject of Hizbollah’s arms is again being approached, tangentially, in pan-factional Lebanese National Dialogue talks, through efforts to promote a joint national defense strategy
- NOW Lebanon – The National News Agency (NNA) reported on Thursday that an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) team installed an advanced wire-tapping device in front of the Fatima Gate at the northern entrance of the Kfar Kila village in South Lebanon.
- Al Manar – Hezbollah praised on Thursday Syrian President Bachar Assad’s wise vision as well as his firm and frank statements. In a statement it released to comment Assad’s interview with Al-Manar Television, Hezbollah said that the Syrian President emerged in this interview as a prominent Arab leader.
- IRIN – Poor planning and management, wasteful irrigation systems, intensive wheat and cotton farming and a rapidly growing population are straining water resources in Syria in a year which has seen unprecedented internal displacement as a result of drought in eastern and northeastern parts of the country.
- Asharq Al Awsat – Foreign nationals currently occupy leadership positions in Al Qaeda as well as financing, training, and recruitment in Saudi Arabia. This comes following the news that Saudi authorities have dismantled a 101 Al Qaeda elements operating in Saudi Arabia, the majority of which are foreign nationals. The Al Qaeda cell was planning on attacking the kingdom’s oil facilities.
- Naharnet – Internal Security Forces have seized 16 grams of cocaine from a Saudi Prince at Rafik Hariri International Airport, As Safir daily reported Thursday. The newspaper said that 51-year-old Y.B.A.A. was arrested on Tuesday before boarding an Air France flight to Paris.
- ynet – Turkey has taken delivery of six Heron drone aircraft from Israel and expects the remaining four to arrive by the end of April, Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul said on Thursday.
- The National – For the second day in a row, the former minister of state Mansoor bin Rajab appeared before the public prosecutor yesterday to answer questions about his alleged links to a money-laundering ring, which authorities say has ties to international drug-trafficking and illegal arm sales networks. On Tuesday, Mr bin Rajab was called into the attorney general’s office for questioning, a day after Bahrain’s king, Sheikh Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, issued a decree removing him from office.
Iran
- Press TV – Commander of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Air Force (IRIAF) hails the expansion of the defensive military capabilities of the country’s armed forces. Speaking Thursday while touring some of the operational regions of the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran war Pilot Brigadier General Hassan Shahsafi emphasized the importance of conveying the realities of the imposed war to the post-war generation of Iran.
- IHS – Through the use of commercial satellite imagery from DigitalGlobe and GeoEye, IHS Jane’s has revealed that a new launch pad is being constructed at Iran’s Semnan space centre that could ultimately launch Tehran’s next-generation Simorgh rocket.
- Michael Ledeen – Monday night in the city of Karaj, a car blew up. It was carrying several members of the Revolutionary Guards’ “foreign legion,” non-Iranian Arabs being trained for operations against Americans and our friends and allies in the region. The explosion was enormous. “They used too much explosives,” an Iranian friend commented. Neither he nor I knows who carried out the attack, but it is only one of many. I haven’t seen a report about it in the press, but then there is no press these days in Iran; the papers — those that hadn’t already been shut down by the censors — have been silenced during the Norooz holiday.
- Fars – China’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Li Baodong underlined his country’s support for continued talks to reach a negotiated solution to Iran-West nuclear standoff.
- IRIB – Carun Four Dam, largest arch dam in Iran, was commissioned by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Thursday. The dam would offer an additional 1 megawatt of electricity to the national grid
A KC-10 Extender from the 908th Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron refuels F-16 Fighting Falcons over Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom air refueling operations in February 2010. The 908th EARS is part of the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing which supports operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom and the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa
South Asia
- AFPS – Afghan and international security forces captured several suspected militants in various recent operations in Afghanistan, military officials reported.
- McClatchy – If the U.S. Marines at Combat Outpost Turbett have any problems with their Afghan colleagues, they’re with the Afghan soldiers who followed them into battle against Taliban fighters, not with the elite police officers who’ve stepped in to help fill the security vacuum
- UK MoD – The Head of the Army met a delegation of senior religious leaders from Helmand province last week to discuss the importance of religion and culture in military operations in Afghanistan. In the first meeting of its kind in the UK.
- AP – Curbing the Taliban’s multimillion dollar opium poppy business was a major goal of a military operation to seize this former insurgent stronghold. With the town in NATO hands, the Marines face a conundrum: If they destroy the crops and curb the trade, they lose the support of the population — a problem for which they have no easy solution
- Geo – Pakistani military air strikes killed dozens suspected militants in an area near the Afghan border Thursday, including dozens at a seminary where Taliban commanders were believed to be meeting, officials said. The jet fire rained in two spells during the day in the Mamuzai area of Orakzai, a tribal region where many Taliban leaders are believed to have fled to avoid an army ground offensive further south
- MEMRI – Taliban militants blew up a girls’ primary school in the Risalpur town of Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and slaughtered a tribesman in the tribal district of Orakzai Agency, according to an Urdu-language daily.
- AKI – A close aide of Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and former governor of Afghanistan’s province Oruzgan, Abdul Hai Salik, has been arrested in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, Pakistan’s Aaj News reported on Thursday.
- Press TV – Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik says he can not confirm the death of Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud who has outlived numerous claims of his assassination
- Times of India – A jawan of the elite CoBRA battalion was injured in a fierce gunbattle with Maoists at Hatipota village in West Midnapore district, while armed encounters took place at Dharampur, Silda and Kalsibhanga
- Daily Star (Bangladesh) – Panicked by the government move to hold trial of war criminals, top Jamaat-e-Islami leaders with alleged links to 1971 war crimes are desperately searching ways to evade prosecution and protect their political future.
Far East & Pacific
- Asia Times – The Chinese government is probably unhappy about a new report by a Virginia-based, non-partisan think-tank called Project 2049 that reveals significant and previously little known details about Base 22 in the Qinling mountains in Shaanxi province, China’s primary storage facility for nuclear weapons. Publicity about this new report – “China’s Nuclear Warhead Storage and Handling System” – first appeared in Defense News in early March.
- Caijing – China Railway Group Limited (China Railway, 601390.SH) announced Thursday that the company has earned an Indonesia coal transportation contract worth 4.799 billion U.S. dollars, equivalent to 13.96 percent of the company’s operating income in 2008. China Railway will be responsible for the design, construction and maintenance of the South Sumatra project run by Indonesia’s Bhakta Hill Pan Pacific Railway Corporation.
- The Australian – Australia’s biggest gas export deal ($60 billion) was announced on Wednesday between Britain’s BG Group and China National Offshore Oil Corp, involving the sale of 3.6 million tonnes of liquid natural gas each year for the next 20 years. While this is the largest such deal involving LNG, there are four major projects currently proposed for Queensland, and all are expected to involve major exports of LNG. But one possible implication for domestic consumers is that LNG exporters can get a higher price for their product overseas than in Australia.
- news.com.au – Israel expects Australia will expel one of its diplomat over the use of fake Australian passports in the assassination of a Hamas chief. Israeli government sources told The Australian that of the countries whose passports were stolen, Australia was the most likely to follow Britain’s lead.
- Straits Times – Authorities in Thailand stepped up security on Thursday after a series of small bomb blasts raised tensions in the capital as anti-government protests continued for a twelfth day. The ‘Red Shirt’ protest movement, which wants Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to dissolve Parliament and call new elections, staged its latest attention-getting action, having hundreds of supporters shave their heads.
- Japan Times – A series of recent incidents, including an alleged hit-and-run by a U.S. sailor, has prompted top military brass in Okinawa to discuss measures to prevent misconduct by their personnel. Okinawa Area Coordinator Lt. Gen. Terry Robling has directed the army, navy, air force and marine corps to hold an educational review and a comprehensive internal examination of policies and procedures that govern conduct and discipline on and off duty, according to the U.S. military in Okinawa.
- Scott Snyder – South Korea’s Emerging Global Security Role
- Chosun Ilbo – North Korean leader Kim Jong-il suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure and receives kidney dialysis once every two weeks, the head of a think tank affiliated with the National Intelligence Service claimed Wednesday.
Europe
- France24 – The euro slumped to a 10-month low as Euro zone members failed to agree on the best way to help debt-ridden Greece out of crisis. Members are at odds whether the IMF should be involved, ahead of a key summit in Brussels this week
- EurActiv – Germany will urge European Union leaders to agree that International Monetary Fund (IMF) and bilateral European aid could be used as a “last resort” for Greece if it reached the brink of insolvency, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on 25 March
- euronews – Portugal is on the brink of approving an austerity plan aimed at reducing its overweight budget deficit. Investors have been spooked by Portugal’s deficit and by yesterday’s decision by the credit agency Fitch to downgrade Portugal’s rating, making it more expensive to borrow.
- UPI – There is no intention to alter the scheduled 2011 launch of construction for the Nabucco natural gas pipeline for Europe, directors said Thursday in Vienna.
- Daily Mail – Prince Charles today became the most senior royal to visit British troops on the frontline as he made a secret trip to Afghanistan.The heir-to-the-throne’s tour was shrouded in secrecy and details were only released after he had left Afghan airspace. It is the first time he has been to the country.
- Defense News – The French Navy is sending 10 warships and 30 aircraft as part of France’s contribution to the forthcoming NATO exercise Brilliant Mariner, intended to certify the maritime component in the NATO Response Force (NRF), Adm. Jean-Louis Kérignard said March 25
- Baltic Times – Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite has officially nominated a new head for the country’s national intelligence service. Gediminas Grina, a military intelligence officer, has gained the approval of the president but will still have to survive a parliamentary vote before he can begin his duties. He is expected to gain the support of parliament as well. The former head of the VSD, Povilas Malakauskas, stepped down on 14 December 2009 amid the CIA prisons scandal.
Africa
- BBC – Somali security agents have demolished some 500 houses near the airport in the capital, Mogadishu, amid concerns they could be used as cover for an attack
- Garowe – The besieged Transitional Federal Government (TFG) of Somalia is planning to launch full scale its much-awaited offensive against the powerful insurgence in the coming week, sources told Radio Garowe
- Shabelle – The Islamist fighters of Harakat Al-shabab Mujahideen have destroyed the grave of another famous Somali cleric Mo’alin Mohamed better known as (Biyo Mallow) in in Mogadishu, official said on Thursday
- Sudan Tribune – Chadian military officers, who are part of the joint Sudan-Chad command formed recently to monitor the border, arrived to the capital of West Darfur state, El Geneina, where they are based, the Sudanese army announced today.
- Al Arabiya – Algeria launched the largest population evacuation campaign since its independence as the government began to move thousands of people living in the capital’s slum areas to new apartments. Repeated riots in several shanty towns across the country and security fears that slum areas could transform into breeding grounds for terrorist cells prompted an official decision to transfer…
- New Vision – Security agencies yesterday dismissed reports that Hashi Hussein Farah, a terror suspect who disappeared from police custody in the Kenyan border town of Busia, is in Uganda, reports Steven Candia. Farah, who holds an Australian passport, is alleged to have links with the al Shabaab in Somalia and al-Qaeda. Army spokesman Lt. Col. Felix Kulayigye yesterday said security intelligence indicates that the man is not in Uganda.
- State Dept – U.S. Policy in sub-Saharan Africa
High Speed Vessel Swift arrives at Souda Bay for a routine port visit. Swift is one of the primary platforms for Africa Partnership Station, an international initiative to improve maritime safety and security in west and central Africa (photo by Paul Farley)
The Global War
- RFERL – An new audio message purportedly of the voice of Osama bin Laden has been released, threatening that Al-Qaeda will kill Americans if Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged planner of the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, is executed.
- Air Force – March 23 airpower summary; Sorties flown to support ISAF and Afghan security forces: 83, Sorties flown to support Operation Iraqi Freedom: 20
- Spiegel – Did monks in the Middle Ages know more about medicine than we thought? A German medical historian is combing medieval manuscripts looking for recipes that could be helpful today. Pharmaceutical companies have taken a keen interest in his research
Sights & Sounds
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17 March, 2010 (01:15) | Daily Roundup | By: Jeff Kouba
A brief world news roundup for 17 March 2010.
United States & the Americas
- Politico – President George W. Bush and his senior aides considered — and rejected — a military response to Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia, according to a new history of the conflict and interviews with former officials in the Bush administration.
- Sunday Herald – Hundreds of powerful US “bunker-buster” bombs are being shipped from California to the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in preparation for a possible attack on Iran. The Sunday Herald can reveal that the US government signed a contract in January to transport 10 ammunition containers to the island. According to a cargo manifest from the US navy, this included 387 “Blu” bombs used for blasting hardened or underground structures. Experts say that they are being put in place for an assault on Iran’s controversial nuclear facilities. There has long been speculation that the US military is preparing for such an attack, should diplomacy fail to persuade Iran not to make nuclear weapons.
- HS Today – Years before the explosion of homegrown jihadists that erupted very publicly with the November 5 jihadist-inspired killing spree by Muslim Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan at Ft. Hood, the US Intelligence Community had been warning that Islamist terrorists were being breed on American soil, and that it was just a matter of time before they began murdering in the name of Allah
- CNN – Abu Zubaydah, considered one of al Qaeda’s senior lieutenants, lay in a pool of blood on a street in Faisalabad, Pakistan, having been shot three times during a U.S.-coordinated raid on a house where a group of suspected terrorists was building a bomb. CIA operative John Kiriakou, who helped plan the raid, rushed to the scene. But when he gazed down at the critically wounded man, it didn’t quite look like the person he had seen in a 4-year-old passport. In his new book, “The Reluctant Spy,” Kiriakou gives an insider’s view of his secret life as a spy and his role in fighting the war on terror.
- Miami Herald – A new party accused of ties to far-right criminal bands has emerged as a surprising force in Colombian politics, adding to worries that President Alvaro Uribe has failed to weaken drug-funded paramilitaries in the provinces
- Columbia Reports – The operation to free FARC hostages Pablo Emilio Moncayo and Josue Daniel Calvo will begin in the next 72 hours, according to Colombian media. Both men are Colombian soldiers. Moncayo has been held by the FARC since 1997, while Calvo has been held since April 2009
- El Universal – Colombian exports increased by 6.4 percent in February 2010 over the same period last year, despite a 73 percent fall in shipments to Venezuela, according to estimates made by the National Tax and Customs Agency (Dian), local media reported on Tuesday. As a result of the decline in sales to Venezuela, Chile became the third largest importer of Colombian goods, after the United States and the Netherland.
- Russia Today – The first days talks between Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has seen the two nations reach agreement on oil shipments to Belarus.
- Miami Herald – Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko offered to help Venezuela strengthen its military, saying Tuesday that President Hugo Chavez’s government should not have to worry about foreign threats.
- UPI – A consortium of Indian energy companies announced said it would purchase 45 percent of the crude oil produced by its partners in Venezuela.
- France24 – American FBI agents have flown to Mexico to join investigations into the weekend killings of three US consulate staff in Mexico’s Ciudad Juarez, as relentless drug-related violence claimed more than 100 lives in three days
The Military Sealift Command oceanographic survey ship USNS Henson is anchored in the Port of Cartagena during Oceanographic Southern Partnership Station 10. O-SPS 10 is a joint project to improve interoperability between the U.S. Navy and its Colombian and Brazilian counterparts
Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia
- NDU – The Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation – 2010 (PDF)
- Xinhua – Russia and India could set up a joint venture to prospect and mine uranium, the head of Russia’s state nuclear giant Rosatom said on Monday. Kiriyenko said the two countries might jointly build nuclear fuel manufacturing facilities in Russia and India.
- Kremlin – Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Yakunin discussed the development of high-speed rail in Russia and preparations for this summer’s rail traffic. Mr Yakunin briefed the President on the operation of high-speed Sapsan train on Moscow-St Petersburg line and on a joint project with Finland to launch high-speed train en route from St Petersburg to Helsinki.
- Chatham House – The Modernization of Russia: Possibilities and Limits
- Valery Dzutsev – Heavily dependent on Moscow’s benevolence, Kremlin-selected leaders of the North Caucasus republics normally approve of all proposals from Moscow with alacrity. This time, however, only the president of Ingushetia, Yunus-bek Yevkurov, succumbed to Bastrykin’s menacing proposal about fingerprinting (RIA Novosti, March 4). This may be another indicator of Yevkurov’s low political savvy and complete dependence on Moscow.
- Kavkaz Center – A correspondent of the Kavkaz Center news agency reported from Chechnya about a battle that took place in the area of the village Bamut in Achkhoi-Martan district, Province Chechnya of the Caucasus Emirate, between the Mujahideen and Russian invaders from the Russian terrorist group of GRU (military intelligence) special troops on Sunday and Monday, March 13 and March 14. The KC correspondent reported with reference to interception of Russian troops radio communications that at least 4 to 5 Russian soldiers had been eliminated and 2 others wounded by the Mujahideen.
- Caucasian Knot – On March 13 and 14, in Kabardino-Balkaria, two attacks on law enforcers were committed; fortunately, without victims.
- APA – The OSCE’s monitoring on the line of contact of Azerbaijani and Armenian troops failed today. Today the vehicles carrying OSCE representatives stuck in the swamp in that area. The vehicles were removed from the swamp with the help of the local residents and equipment
- Steve LeVine – BP and the Coming New Struggle in Baku Oil
Middle East
- Al Sumaria – Eight people were killed and 12 others were wounded when a suicide bomber blew a car bomb next to a workers gathering in central Fallujah. The suicide bomber blew himself up inside the car bomb killing and wounding a number of people, police said
- Voices of Iraq – Quick Response forces arrested on Tuesday eight al-Qaeda wanted men in northern Wassit, commander of the QRD said.
- Khaleej Times – Kurdish guerrillas fighting Turkish forces no longer believe they can achieve their aims through violence and would disarm if their leader were freed from prison, a former commander says.
- Al Manar – Violent clashes broke out early Tuesday in occupied Jerusalem between hundreds of Palestinians and Israeli occupation police amid heightened anger at the opening of a synagogue a few meters away from the holy Aqsa mosque
- Jerusalem Post – Hamas on Tuesday called on Palestinians to launch an intifada to prevent the “Zionist plot” to take over Jerusalem. In an interview with Al Jazeera, Musa Abu Marzouk, deputy chairman of the Hamas political bureau, urged the Palestinians to join forces against Israel’s “intentions” to drive out Muslims and Christians from Jerusalem.
- ynet - Fatah’s military wing, the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, announced Tuesday that they are demanding the Palestinian Authority leadership to allow them to resume the armed struggle against Israel and release the terrorists arrested by Palestinian security forces. A statement issued by the organization, whose vast majority has disarmed, noted “We intend on preventing any attempts to judaize Jerusalem” and “the ongoing violation of the al-Aqsa Mosque opened the gates to a campaign against the enemy without limitations.”
- Naharnet – Lebanese Citizen Arrested for Allegedly Spying for Israel
- SANA – Italian President Giorgio Napolitano and his wife will pay a three-day state visit to Syria this week upon an invitation extended by President Bashar al-Assad
- SANA – Syrian Minister of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform Adel Safar has warned that food deficit in the Arab world is likely to reach USD 27 billion in 2010 and USD 40 to 50 billion in 2020.
- Al Arabiya – Yemen accused northern rebels on Tuesday of violating a ceasefire deal with Sanaa aimed at a war that drew in neighboring top oil exporter Saudi Arabia. “The (rebels) returned again to some sites after leaving, established new checkpoints, and committed numerous violations and attacks
- BBC – Two al-Qaeda militants killed in Yemen have been identified, government officials have said. A third suspected senior militant has also reportedly been killed in two days of air raids by the Yemeni airforce.
- Saba – The Chinese military ship “Shan LOG” left on Tuesday the port of Aden after a goodwill visit to the port lasted several days
Iran
- Radio Zamaneh – Tehran Security authorities announced that police forces have been deployed all across Tehran to ensure the security of the city adding that the number of deployed forces will increase in the coming hours. The heavy security measures are “a preventive act in anticipation of disturbers of public peace and order in the events of the last Wednesday Eve of the year,” according to the authorities.
- Payvand – Photos: Assailants attack Iranian opposition leader’s home
- Intellibriefs – A senior Iranian aerospace official announced here in Tehran that President Ahmadinejad’s declaration about sending heavier homemade satellites into the higher orbits will come into effect in two years
- Press TV – Iran’s Guardian Council has approved the budget for the next Iranian calendar year which allows the Iranian president to go ahead with his plan to cut costly state subsidies.
- ITIC – Following the publication of the preliminary results of the general elections for the Iraqi parliament held this week, Iran’s conservative media has expressed satisfaction over what appears to be a success for the main Shi’ite factions which took part in the elections.
- Rosatom – The strength and tightness testing of the leak-tight enclosure system (LES) was successfully carried out at Bushehr NPP (the Islamic Republic of Iran) being built by JSC Atomstroyexport.
- Iran MFA – Bushehr power plant is not Iran’s last big project, he said, adding that the country is in need of 20 more power plants similar to that of Bushehr. Iran may consider inking agreements with other countries capable of constructing large power plants upon schedule in the future, he said.
- MEMRI – In an interview in Pakistan with the Iranian news agency IRNA, Pakistani nuclear scientist Abd Al-Qadr Khan denied a report in the Washington Post newspaper yesterday about Tehran’s contacts with Pakistan two decades ago vis-à-vis purchasing an atom bomb.
- Mehr – Tehran and Islamabad will sign the operating contract of gas export from Iran to Pakistan by Friday, the Iranian deputy oil minister said here on Tuesday. The Mehr News Agency quoted Hojjatollah Ghanimifard as saying that the contract will be inked in Turkey, adding, Pakistan has declared its readiness to transit gas to India.
- IRNA – An informed source told IRNA late Monday night President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has approved of appointing Mahdi Safari as Iran’s new ambassador to China
- Asharq Al Awsat – Khalid Bin Laden, son of Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden, has called on Iran to release the members of his family who have been “imprisoned” by Tehran, stressing that the Iranians have rejected several requests by “scholars and dignitaries to mediate their release.”
South Asia
- IRIN – With the exception of small pockets of resistance, Taliban fighters have been driven out of Marjah town in Helmand Province, southern Afghanistan, but many local people are struggling to return to some kind of normality and are fearful of the future
- Star and Stripes – Marines endure fleas, flies, filth in Marjah
- AFPS – In the Nad-e Ali district of Helmand province today, Afghan and international forces captured several men, including a senior Nad-e Ali Taliban commander suspected of providing insurgents with weapons and illegal explosive material.
- Pentagon – The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Cpl. Jonathan D. Porto, 26, of Largo, Fla., died March 14 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan
- Defense Tech – I was on a conference call last week with JIEDDO commander Lt. Gen. Michael Oates, who discussed IED networks in Afghanistan, where IED attacks have doubled over the past year. While Oates was careful not to reveal much in the way of breaking news, he provided some interesting detail on the bomb networks in Afghanistan.
- Telegraph – The Taliban’s chief military commander was in secret talks with Hamid Karzai’s family just weeks before his arrest by Pakistan intelligence officers, it has been claimed.
- AKI - Top Afghan Taliban commanders arrested in Pakistan last month are living in comfortable safe houses run by the country’s top intelligence service, or ISI, as they are considered the main avenue for reconciliation with Taliban leaders. Sources in the Pakistani security agencies believe they are the key to the Taliban leaders and since they are Pakistani hands, the process has to be conducted through Pakistan and secure the country’s strategic interests after international forces leave Afghanistan
- RFERL – The chief minister of Pakistan’s Punjab Province, Shahbaz Sharif, is under fire for asking the Taliban not to attack his home province in retribution for counterinsurgent operations. Sharif’s Pakistani Muslim League Nawaz Group (PML-N) is considered a conservative party that wants to woo the Islamist vote.
- Dawn – A US missile strike and clashes between extremist gunmen and tribesmen killed at least 20 militants on Tuesday in northwest Pakistan near the Afghan border, officials said.
- Geo – A blast occurred near Chandni Chowk in Garden area of Karachi on Tuesday, killing one woman and injuring three others, including children. According to SP Umar Farooq, the blast left four people injured, including women. The police sources said that unidentified men hurled explosives in trash bump
- The News – Police have seized 4.5 tonnes of explosives, rifles and suicide vests during raids in Lahore, officials said on Tuesday.
- Times of India – Three persons, including a policeman, were killed and eight others with three securitymen among them, injured as militants struck at two crowded places in Srinagar and Sopore township of Baramulla district within a space of nearly seven hours
- UPI – Mumbai police have arrested two men suspected of planning terrorist attacks on the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, a fuel storage depot and a shopping center.
- Colombo Page – Sri Lanka’s former military chief and defeated presidential candidate General (retired) Sarath Fonseka appeared before the first of the two scheduled court martial proceedings held today at the Navy headquarters in Colombo
Far East & Pacific
- Bangkok Post – Red-shirt protesters splashed blood in front of the entrance to Government House late Tuesday afternoon, in a brahman-like ritual aimed at toppling the government
- RSIS – The Abhisit government continues to hold sway despite the haunting by Thaksin’s Red Shirts. Both camps are wrestling for power although Abhisit appears to hold the upper hand. Will the masses be able to tilt this delicate balance of power (PDF)
- Chong Wook Chung, RSIS – The Korean Peninsula in China’s Grand Strategy: China’s Role in Dealing with North Korea’s Nuclear Quandary
- Xinhua – China on Tuesday reaffirmed its commitment to developing a good-neighbor relationship with India and urged joint efforts to solve the border issue. Qin made the comments amid Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao’s ongoing visit to the United States.
- Yonhap – South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan left for China on Wednesday for talks expected to focus on resuming six-nation talks on ending North Korea’s nuclear programs and other bilateral issues.
- UK FCO – Continuing his visit to China, David Miliband met with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, Premier Wen Jiabao and State Counsellor Dai Bingguo to discuss major international foreign policy issues
- Khaleej Times – Three grenades exploded in a Thai military base in central Bangkok on Monday, wounding two soldiers, the military said, as anti-government protesters massed at another barracks on the outskirts of the city
- AP – From the safety of a forest camp, a commander of a new Indonesian militant group looks into a camera and ridicules the notorious extremist group Jemaah Islamiyah: They are not violent enough, come and join us, he shouts, an automatic rifle in one hand. The emergence of the previously unknown group calling itself al-Qaida in Aceh shows how Southeast Asian militants are adapting even amid a Western-funded crackdown that began following the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings and has taken out scores of top leaders.
- Brisbane Times – Yesterday Father Dave was among church and community leaders who gathered to protest at the impending deportation of Dr Leghaei, the moderate Iranian Shi’ite preacher who is not allowed to know why he has been ordered to leave Australia or why ASIO considers him a risk. After 11 years of failed appeals, all the way to the High Court, Dr Leghaei had been given a deadline of Friday to leave.
- SMH – The Chinese-born benefactor of the former defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon says she fears arrest and ”prolonged criminal investigation under incarceration” by Chinese authorities if a document she claims is forged is published. Other documents and information obtained by The Age from several sources indicate Ms Liu has developed close ties to Bank of China executives and other Chinese officials in the course of expanding her $60 million Australia property portfolio.
- OGJ – PetroVietnam Gas Corp. (PV Gas) has formed a partnership with a Chevron Corp.-led consortium to construct a $1 billion pipeline that would transport natural gas from Chevron’s fields in southern Vietnam to the Mekhong Delta region
Europe
- Russia Today – The Nord Stream pipeline project is close to securing $5.5 billion worth of finance, with nearly 30 foreign banks expected to approve loans later on Tuesday. Things may run less smoothly for another Russian-backed project South stream, as gas consumption plummeted in Europe last year.
- RIA Novosti – Ukraine is seeking to modernize its gas transportation system to make it more competitive, Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said on Tuesday. Azarov said Ukraine would negotiate with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the World Bank on cooperation in the implementation of infrastructure and investment projects.
- euobserver – The Danish minister of justice has called on the European Commission to put a stop to a lawsuit by a Saudi lawyer who is using the UK’s famously libel-happy courts to go after Danish newspapers for their publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
- EurActiv – Finance ministers from the 16-country euro zone agreed on Monday (15 March) to mobilise financial aid for Greece rapidly if needed, but revealed little of how their standby plan for the debt-stricken nation would work
- Javno – Croatian Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor said on Tuesday she believed that an upcoming EU-Balkans summit would take place despite uncertainty over participation of Serbian and Kosovo leaders.
- Prague Monitor – The Chamber of Deputies Friday approved the proposal that British experts should assist with training at the Czech Military Academy in Vyškov, south Moravia, until October 2015
- Information Dissemination – The German Navy’s Lack of Power Projection
Africa
- Garowe – Somalia’s embattled government has signed a power-sharing agreement with an Islamist militia, Ahlu-Sunnah Wal-Jamaa that is backing its much-awaited military offensives against powerful Islamist insurgency. The agreement gives Ahlu-Sunnah militia, which holds several towns and districts in central Somalia, five ministerial posts, diplomatic posts as well as senior positions in the police and intelligence services.
- CSM – Inside Al Shabab: How the Somalia militant group rules through fear; As the Somalia government fends off militant group Al Shabab, the Al Qaeda-linked insurgency shows its power through intimidation of a whistle-blower.
- Ennahar – The Mauritanian national “Abou Mohamed the Mauritanian”, accused of belonging to terrorist groups was presented yesterday before the criminal court of Algiers. “Abu Mohamed the Mauritanian” joined the terrorist groups in 2007 helped by Abu Zahra, who had made him an appointment in Timbuktu in Mali to put him in contact with terrorists in the Algerian Sahara. Abu Mohamed had left Mauritania in 2007 to Mali where he found the two terrorists Abu Zahra and Khattab, who were responsible for receiving new recruits.
- Russian Railways – During a working visit to Libya on 14 March, Russian Railways President Vladimir Yakunin travelled to construction zones involved in a project to lay a modern high-speed rail track more than 550 km in length on the Sirt – Benghazi route, to run along the Mediterranean coast and link major Libyan cities
- Daily Champion – There was pandemonium yesterday in the oil city of Warri, Delta State, as four governors escaped death when two bombs planted by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) exploded at the government house annex, venue of the Vanguard Newspapers post-amnesty dialogue
- Nosint – Although the Asia–Paci?c region remained the main destination for Russian arms exports for 2005–2009, accounting for 69 per cent of Russian arms exports, Russia has significantly increased its volume and share of deliveries to North Africa in recent years.
- State Dept – The United States welcomes the decision of the governments of Algeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger to meet on March 16 in Algiers to collectively confront the threat of terrorism
- Magharebia – Algerian security forces dismantled a terror-support group in Bordj Menaïel, L’Expression reported on Tuesday (March 16th). Six suspects, aged between 20 and 30, are accused of providing logistical support to al-Qaeda’s El Ansar brigade and informing terrorists about the movements of security services in the region
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, right, escorts Singapore Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Teo Chee Hean into the Pentagon, March 16, 2010. The two defense leaders will hold security discussions on a broad range of global and regional issues. (photo by R. D. Ward)
The Global War
- Asia Times – The diplomatic quarrel between the United States and Israel has reached crisis levels because when Vice President Joseph Biden said provocative steps by Tel Aviv endangered the safety of US troops, he was echoing the collective view of top US military commanders throughout the Middle East
- US Embassy Israel – Remarks by VP Biden; “The Enduring Partnership Between the United States and Israel” Tel Aviv University
- NOW Lebanon – US Special Envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell delayed on Tuesday a visit to region, Israeli President Shimon Peres’ press office said, amid heightened tensions between the two close allies.
- AP – The announcement of the approval of 1,600 new Jewish homes in east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want to be the capital of a future state, while Biden was in Israel deeply embarrassed the U.S. administration, and Clinton has called it an insult. The uproar has led many to believe that U.S-Israeli ties may be at their lowest point in history.
- State Dept – Well, we – Israel is a strategic ally of the United States and will continue to be so. The Vice President, during his trip to Israel last week, restated that commitment.
- UPI – Most of the U.S. Special Operations forces in Afghanistan now are under direct control of Gen. Stanley McCrystal, the top U.S. commander in that country said.
- US Navy – The Navy’s Fleet Survey Team (FST) is completing the final report of a survey it conducted earlier in March of the Karnaphuli River at Chittagong, Bangladesh, strengthening the relationship between the Bangladesh and U.S. navies
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5 November, 2009 (01:01) | Daily Roundup | By: Jeff Kouba
A brief world news roundup for 5 November 2009.
United States & the Americas
- Yonhap – The United States said Wednesday it is ready to talk to North Korea bilaterally but has not decided whether to send its point man on North Korea to Pyongyang to press for a resumption of the stalled multilateral nuclear negotiations.
- Miami Herald – Prosecutors say a gang of gunmen has killed six men in a bar in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez. Prosecutors in northern Chihuahua state say another man was wounded in the attack. There was no immediate information on the motive for the attack, but the methods are similar to those used by drug cartels.
- Telegraph – The foreign ministry in Caracas condemned what it called “aggression against its people” after comments by Danny Ayalon, the Israeli deputy foreign minister, about Tehran’s influence in the region. He described Venezuela as Iran’s leading ally in South America. The remarks were a “sign of the vile, meddling and aggressive attitude” of Israel, the Venezuelan statement said.
- Columbai Reports – The Venezuelan Civil Guard is not allowing Colombians to cross the border at Cucutá. The Guard is only people allowing people with Venezuelan identification to cross between the two countries. As the situation stands at the moment, Colombians wanting to cross the border must do so via unoffical crossings, according to Vanguarida.com.
- Prensa Latina – Brazilian Senate President Jose Sarney informed today the postponement of a decision on Venezuel joining MERCOSUR (Southern Common Market).
Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia
- RIA Novosti – Russia is ready to provide NATO with helicopters for its war in Afghanistan – on commercial terms. Dmitry Shugayev, general director of the state-owned corporation Russian Technology, made this announcement last week at a meeting in Brussels with officials in charge of logistics for NATO forces.
- RFERL – A recent exchange of barbs between Russia and Ukraine is raising worries in Kyiv over a possible new natural-gas crisis this winter. Moscow’s shutoff last winter left millions of Europeans without heat in the bitter cold, but observers say they doubt there will be a repeat this year
- NY Times – Two people have been arrested in the killings of a human rights lawyer and a reporter who were shot and killed in central Moscow in January, Interfax and other Russian news services reported late on Wednesday, citing unidentified law enforcement officials.
- Georgian Times – Grigol Vashadze, Georgia’s foreign minister, who holds double Georgia-Russian citizenship, said he had appealed to President Medvedev to renounce his Russian citizenship.
- Itar Tass – Naftogaz Ukrainy admitted problems with payment for Russian natural gas supplies in October. “A dire economic situation in Ukraine and the growing indebtedness of domestic consumers exacerbate the accumulation of Naftogaz Ukrainy of funds for timely and full payments for the natural gas imported form Russia in October,” the company said in a statement on Wednesday.
- Caucasian Knot – The Coordination Centre of Moslems of Northern Caucasus has called to scale up the struggle against crime in Dagestan in the context of the murder of Tinamagomed Ramazanov, Imam of the mosque of Bavtugai village.
- Upstream Online – Tethys Petroleum hopes to establish an ‘energy Silk Road’ to deliver oil and gas from central Asian fields to energy-hungry China in the next few years, company Chairman David Robson said. In an interview with Dow Jones, Robson said the first phase of the Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan-Kazakhstan-China gas pipeline is expected to be operational early next year while an additional pipeline from Kazakhstan to China–next to Tethys’ Kyzyloi field–is being planned.
- APA – The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) plans to take a “substantial” stake in an Italian oil refinery next year and aims to raise the proportion of term exports of Azeri Light crude to Asia, its chief executive said on Wednesday
Middle East
- MNF Iraq – Iraqi Security Forces arrested 21 individuals during two joint security operations today targeting vehicle-borne improvised explosive device network members in Baghdad and Bayji.
- Al Sumaria – Police and US Army sources said that 5 mortars fell on the biggest US base near Baghdad International Airport. However, no further details were delivered. A police source said that the 5 mortars were launched from Al Jihad neighborhood towards the US base at 7:30 Tuesday night
- IRIB – IRI parliament speaker Ali Larijani left Tehran for Baghdad on Wednesday. Before his departure, he said his visit to Iraq is aimed at holding talks with Iraqi officials over important regional and international issues as well as expansion of bilateral parliamentary cooperation
- IDF – A special Navy force intercepted and boarded a ship 100 miles off the coast of Israel. The ship, carrying the flag of Antigua, was carrying 500 tons of weapons in civilian disguise. On Tuesday (Nov. 3) an exceptionally large quantity of weapons, rockets, and missiles was uncovered onboard a cargo vessel intercepted by the Israel Navy Special Forces and brought to the Ashdod port.
- ynet – The ship left Damietta Port in Egypt for Limassol, Cyprus. The ship was slated to anchor Thursday in Beirut Port and continue on to Latakia Port in Syria, where it would dock over the weekend. UFS, the owners of the ship, is a Cypriot freight delivery company that operates in dozens of ports in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Speaking on behalf of UFS, Paniatois Emirs said to Ynet: “We rented the chip, but it is not under our ownership. We are only carriers. We did not know there were weapons on the ship. We knew that we were delivering containers, but we are not legally permitted to check what is inside them.”
- MEMRI – Hamas political bureau member Mahmoud Al-Zahhar told the Kuwaiti daily Al-Rai that the alliance between Hamas and Iran is aimed only at uniting the enemies of the U.S.
- NOW Lebanon – The Lebanese Army Command-Directorate of Orientation issued a statement on Wednesday reporting that an Israeli surveillance plane violated Lebanese airspace at 7:10 a.m. on Wednesday over the town of Naqoura, circled over various southern regions and the Beirut suburbs, and then returned to Israel at 3:15 p.m
- Al Manar – Syrian lawyer Houssameddine al-Habash told AFP on Wednesday that the Interpol office in Damascus received on Tuesday an arrest warrant against Mohammad Zuheir as-Siddiq, a former Syrian intelligence officer and a key witness in the investigation of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri’s assassination, issued by Syrian Military Investigative Judge Abdel Razzaq al-Homsi.
- SANA – President Bashar al-Assad sent a verbal message to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran on the bilateral relations and the developments in the region. The message was conveyed by Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem during a meeting with President Ahmadinejad on Wednesday
- QNA – H.H. the Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani will head to Tehran, tomorrow, Thursday, for a one – day working visit to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
- Tactical Report – Chief of Staff of the Qatari Armed Forces Major-General Hamad Bin Ali Al-Atiyya visited Belarus (late October) for talks on cooperation issues between both countries
- Saba – The Director of Defence and Strategic Threats at the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) Simon Manley left Sana’a on Wednesday after a few-day official visit to the country.
- NEFA Foundation – The NEFA Foundation has obtained an English transcript of a recent audio recording by Shaykh Ibrahim al-Rubeish titled, “Why Mohammed Bin Nayif?”. During the audio, produced by Al-Qaida’s network in the Arabian Peninsula (Yemen), al-Rubeish lays out the justification for Al-Qaida’s attempted August 2009 assassination of Saudi Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayif via a suicide bomber dispatched from neighboring Yemen.
- UPI – Saudi authorities on Wednesday said al-Houthi rebels from Yemen ambushed and killed several security officers during gun battles along the border. Conflict erupted between al-Houthi fighters and Saudi security forces as Yemeni insurgents stormed the border from their strongholds in the northern provinces of Yemen, the Yemeni Post reports.
Iran
- Al Arabiya – Iranian police fired teargas and made several arrests during clashes with opposition supporters who staged demonstrations in central Tehran on Wednesday, witnesses said. The clashes took place in central Tehran’s Haft-e-Tir square where groups of opposition supporters had gathered for a protest, even as thousands of Iranians were staging an anti-American rally outside the closed U.S. embassy to mark the 30th anniversary of the storming of the compound by Islamist students.
- Payvand – During today’s November 4th ceremonies in Tehran, Mehdi Karroubi, disputing candidate of Iran’s presidential elections was target of a direct attack by government forces which injured two of his bodyguards.
- Michael Ledeen – Big demonstrations still going on all over the country: Tehran, Shiraz, Isfahan, Kermanshah, Zahedan, Arak, Mazandaran, Tabriz, Rasht confirmed so far, and no doubt we will hear of others in the next hours and days. Lots of videos available online, showing an unprecedented level of violence, which is saying a lot. Have a look
- Press TV – Tehran has dismissed claims that a container intercepted by Israel was carrying ‘hundreds of kilograms of Iranian-made arms’ to Lebanon. Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, in a joint press conference with his Syrian counterpart Walid Muallem on Wednesday, dismissed the allegations out of hand.
- IDF – During recent years, the Iranian smuggling network has grown. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards have been running the operations through air, sea and land with the use of civilian flights, ships and trains.
- Haaretz – Relations have been tense between Iran and Syria in recent weeks, according to the German weekly Der Spiegel, which quotes Western intelligence sources. Iran has demanded that Syria return the uranium delivered to it prior to the Israeli bombing of the Syrian reactor two years ago, says the weekly
- Rooz – Two weeks after Ayatollah Khamenei approved sweeping changes to the structure of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) and remarks by Mohammad Ali Jafari about the necessity of the IRGC’s engagement in intelligence and security affairs, the website “Basirat,” run by the IRGC’s political affairs division, announced the imminent appointment of Gholamhossein Ramezani as the IRGC’s counter-intelligence and security director.
- MESH – The real linkage: Afghanistan and Iran
- MEMRI – Saudi Daily: Iran is Expanding its Activity in the Red Sea
- CSM – Iran’s steady production of low-enriched uranium is a clock that is ticking away as Tehran develops its nuclear program. Every day, the whirling centrifuges at the Natanz Fuel Enrichment plant produce about 2.75 kilograms of the stuff, according to International Atomic Energy Agency data.
- ITIC – A report published by the Majles Research Center last week warns that within the next eight years Iran could go from being an oil exporter to being an oil importer. The authors of the report note the continuing decrease in Iran’s oil production (an average of about 8 percent a year) coupled with the increase in Iran’s consumption of oil and petroleum products (an average of 5 percent a year), saying that if current trends continue and no foreign investments flow into Iran’s oil fields, Iran, which is now the fourth largest oil exporter in the world, will become an oil importer in as little as eight years.
- Fars – Tehran is due to establish its second bank in Belarus in a bid to facilitate financial and banking services and help development of Tehran-Minsk trade ties, an Iranian commerce ministry spokesman announced on Wednesday.
A boy living at the Jalalabad Women's Prison salutes while Soldiers and Airmen from the Nangarhar Provincial Reconstruction Team visit, Afghanistan, Nov. 1. There are 18 children currently living at the prison with their mothers. (photo by Sgt. Jennifer Cohen)
South Asia
- AFPS – Combined Afghan and international security forces killed or detained several militants and recovered multiple weapons and explosives in operations in Afghanistan yesterday, military officials reported.
- UK MoD – It is with great sadness that the Ministry of Defence must confirm the deaths of five soldiers in southern Afghanistan. Three of the soldiers were from the Grenadier Guards and two from the Royal Military Police
- Ghosts of Alexander – According to sources, Mullah Omar and the Taliban leadership directed “a large sum of money” to Jalaluddin Haqqani to recruit 3,000 fighters for the Kabul front. However, within two months the combined affect of death and desertion left Haqqani with only 300 men.
- McClatchy – Between pilfering, mountain passes closed by snow, overturned trucks and attacks by hostile tribes, getting equipment and supplies to troops in Afghanistan is a challenge. For a year, Army Lt. Col. Greg Younger, command transportation integration officer for the Surface Deployment and Distribution Command at Scott Air Force Base, lived in Pakistan and helped orchestrate and simplify the movement of military goods from Port Karachi in southern Pakistan through that country into Afghanistan through a mountain pass in the northwestern part of the country.
- Dawn – Troops were Wednesday locked in deadly street battles with Taliban fighters, pushing a ground offensive deeper into militant-held territory, the military said. A senior military official told AFP the army had ‘taken’ the strategic town of Sararogha in the third week of fighting, while 30 insurgents were reported killed in the last 24 hours.
- Geo – The security forces have apprehended commander Saifullah, a close aide of Fazlullah during search operation in Koza Bandia area of Tehsil Kabal, Swat. Saifullah, who had been involved in several militant attacks on the security men, is said to be a close aide of Fazlullah, the chief of banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, sources said
- Views from the Occident – The New Face of Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan, Hakimullah Mehsud
- Xinhua – After details of Pakistan-based banned militant outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) plot to target India’s National Defense College emerged, India Wednesday said that it has taken adequate precautions to protect the prestigious military institution in the national capital.
- Colombo Page – A six-member Iranian parliamentary delegation is visiting Sri Lanka on an invitation extended by the Speaker to further strengthen the bilateral relations, the government announced
Far East & Pacific
- Washington Post – North Korea’s military, whose nuclear program vexes the Obama administration, has grabbed nearly complete command of the nation’s state-run economy and staked out a lucrative new trade in mineral sales to China to make money for its supreme commander, Kim Jong Il.
- Japan Times – The civilian aid package that Japan is crafting to replace the Maritime Self-Defense Force’s antiterrorism refueling mission in the Indian Ocean could see Afghanistan receive roughly $4 billion over five years. According to an outline of the program obtained Tuesday, much of the aid would fund vocational training for former Taliban fighters, development of farmland in the war-ravaged country and a project to construct a new city north of Kabul.
- Graeme Dobell – At the East Asia Summit, Japan’s leader expressed support for Australia’s Asia Pacific community approach — then hit it with a substantial backhander. Yukio Hatoyama said the broad principles of the Rudd community could be supported. Then he immediately kicked away one of the central Rudd principles by saying that Asia did not have to make an immediate decision about letting in the US.
- Xinhua – The design and first-phase construction of three inland nuclear power stations in China has begun, Wang Binghua, chairman of State Nuclear Power Technology Corp., said Wednesday at 2009 China Power Forum. China’s existing nuclear power stations are sited along the eastern coast.
- CBS – The Malaysian government has refused to release 10,000 Bibles confiscated for using the word “Allah” to refer to God, a banned translation in Christian texts in this Muslim-majority country, an official said Wednesday.
- Phnom Penh Post – Ousted former Thai leader Thaksin Shinawatra won’t accept an offer of sanctuary in Cambodia because he does not want to spark problems between the neighbouring countries, according to a media report published even as another protest reportedly flared outside the Cambodian embassy in Bangkok this week.
- Manila Times – The military has activated a special unit trained in counter-terrorism operation to curb the surge of bomb attacks in the Mindanao region using improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Authorities said the lawless armed groups in the area have resorted to using improvised explosive devices because they are running out of firepower
Europe
- VOA – An Italian judge has sentenced 23 former U.S. intelligence operatives to up to eight years in prison for the 2003 kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric from Milan. Citing diplomatic immunity, Milan Judge Oscar Magi on Wednesday acquitted three other former CIA agents and the former head of Italy’s military intelligence service.
- AKI – A former Bosnian Muslim army deputy commander, Nihad Bojadzic, was arrested in Sarajevo on Wednesday on suspicion of having killed over 20 Croat civilians and prisoners of war during the 1993 Muslim-Croat war, the state prosecutor’s office said. Bojadzic was due to be handed over to Bosnia’s state war crimes court.
- Balkan Insight – The prime ministers of Croatia and Slovenia on Wednesday signed a long awaited arbitration agreement, unblocking Zagreb’s bid to join the European Union. Jadranka Kosor and her Slovenian counterpart Borut Pahor signed the agreement in Stockholm. The deal must now be ratified by parliamentarians in both countries.
- Copenhagen Post – National Police have arrested and sent 12 failed Iraqi asylum seekers back to Iraq as part of the forcible repatriation agreement the nation’s government signed with Denmark.
- Russia Today – A scandal is gathering steam in Poland after it was revealed security services illegally wiretap journalists and politicians. Critics say the extent of bugging in the country is an attack on human rights
- Press TV – Iran’s Foreign Ministry has summoned the Belgian Ambassador to Tehran over the mysterious death of an Iranian national in a Belgian prison.
- Hurriyet – Turkish police detained around 20 students on Wednesday after they pelted Israel’s ambassador with eggs to protest the Jewish state’s treatment of Palestinians, forcing him to cancel a university visit
Africa
- Garowe – At least seven people have been killed while eleven others sustained injuries on Wednesday in a fresh fighting between Somali government forces and Hizbul Islam rebel fighters in Beledweyn town, the capital of Hiiran Region
- Daily Star – Rival pirates and militia groups have fought for control of a British couple held hostage for more than a week, an Islamic militia commander and a local elder said. The couple were not injured in the fighting.
- Sudan Tribune – Qatar has urged the Chadian government to convince Darfur rebels to participate in the upcoming of peace talks that the mediation plans to hold this month in Doha.
- Ennahar – According to concurring local sources in Bejaia, the terrorist eliminated in night from Monday to Tuesday in an ambush in “Sidi Aïch,” in the province of Bejaia, has been identified. It would be the named “Toufik Ghazi,” aka “Tahar,” Emir of “Katibet Tarik Ibn Ziad,” which activates directly under the command of Abdelmalek Droukdal, alias Abu Mosaab Abdelouadoud, the national emir of the terrorist organisation. The terrorist in question, who is also the chief bodyguard of the national emir, was killed in his own fiefdom.
- Magharebia – Touareg leaders from the Mali regions that border Algeria, Mauritania and Niger gathered in Kidal on Tuesday (November 3rd) to discuss the threat from al-Qaeda-linked armed groups, El Khabar reported. The meeting, reportedly arranged by the Mali government a fortnight ago, seeks to involve tribal notables from Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu in the fight against arms trafficking.
- New Vision – A senior commander of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has surrendered to the joint military forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the Ugandan army. UPDF spokesman Lt. Col. Felix Kulayigye said the LRA’s director of operations ‘Lt. Col.’ Charles Arop had reported to UPDF intelligence operatives who are operating alongside the Congolese army in eastern Congo.
- Vanguard – The Federal Government, yesterday, commenced the post-amnesty programme in the Niger Delta region as it directed 3,000 former militants who had accepted the amnesty offer to report to camp between now and November 11 towards rehabilitating them just as the government approved N2 billion for immediate construction of physical development projects in the region
The Los Angeles-class attack submarine USS San Juan pulled into Simon's Town, South Africa, Nov. 4, setting the stage for a series of first-ever, at-sea engagements with the South African Navy submarine force. (photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class David Holmes)
The Global War
- Australia DoD – The Chief of the Defence Force, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, congratulated General David Petraeus after he was appointed as an Honorary Officer of the Order of Australia in an investiture ceremony in Washington DC today.
- Asia Times – Despite its best efforts, Russia failed at a recent trilateral summit to get India and China to agree to a common regional initiative regarding Afghanistan. This failure ensures that the United States can now press ahead with its own strategy of striking grand bargains individually with these key players.
Sights & Sounds
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4 August, 2009 (01:13) | Daily Roundup | By: Jeff Kouba
A brief world news roundup for 4 August 2009.
United States & the Americas
- AFPS – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, received an update on the situation in Afghanistan during a meeting in Belgium. The trip was unannounced, and the secretary and chairman flew home yesterday.
- CNN – Mexican federal police say they arrested 34 men suspected of belonging to a ruthless drug cartel blamed for a rash of violence that left at least 18 federal agents and two soldiers dead since July 11.
- Miami Herald – Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa says “many” radio and TV frequencies will revert to state control due to what he’s calling irregularities.
- Columbia Reports – Colombia’s air force killed fourteen guerrillas in a bombing of a rebel camp in the central Meta department, authorities say. According to a Defense Ministry spokesman, airplanes bombed the camp between the municipalities of Vistahermosa and Puerto Rico where some 200 guerrillas were hiding.
- MercoPress – The Brazilian army purchased 250 German leopard 1 A5 tanks which will be displayed mainly along the country’s 16.000 kilometres of land and fluvial borders thus reinforcing its dissuasive capacity in the event of foreign attacks
Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia
- RIA Novosti – Col. Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov, commander of the Strategic Missile Forces, has been replaced by his deputy, Lt. Gen. Andrei Shvaichenko, amid media speculation over failed missile launches.
- Russia Today – The South Ossetian Ministry of Defense says the village of Otrev, near the South Ossetian capital Tskhinval, was shelled on Monday evening.
- Kavkaz Center – Our sources report from Vilayat Ichkeria of Caucasus Emirate, that on Sunday afternoon, Mujahideen have ambushed and destroyed a column of vehicles in which armed kafir and murtad policemen were traveling. Occupiers were forced to admit, that at least 5 occupiers and their puppets were killed in the ensuing battle, and 6 others were wounded while 3 of their vehicles were destroyed.
- VOA – Rebels have mounted a series of deadly attacks in Russia’s North Caucasus, killing at least nine policemen and officials. Russian officials say several policemen were killed Sunday when militants ambushed their three-vehicle convoy in the mountains of southern Chechnya. Also Sunday, authorities said a policeman was killed in an ambush in Dagestan’s capital, Makhachkala
- Steve LeVine – On one hand, Turkmenistan is in the catbird seat. Exxon, Chevron, BP and ConocoPhillips are salivating over the country’s onshore natural gas fields, in particular South Yolotan-Osman, the fifth-largest natural gas field in the world. It’s fawned over by the U.S., in particular Richard Morningstar, the special U.S. czar for Eurasian energy. Yet all is not well in Ashgabad.
- RIA Novosti – Uzbekistan is against the deployment of a new Russian military base in southern Kyrgyzstan, the Uzbek Foreign Ministry said Monday.
Middle East
- Al Sumaria – A car explosion in Haditha in Anbar province killed more than 8 people and wounded dozens among them 4 women and 3 children, Security source said. 2 civilian cars took fire and many shops were damaged, the source added
- Voices of Iraq – “Unidentified gunmen on Monday afternoon assassinated Riad Zannoun, the director at the Oil Products Department, in front of his house in al-Siddiq neighborhood, northern Mosul,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
- Al Arabiya – In a move that looked to turn Lebanese politics on its head, the Druze leader of the country’s Progressive Socialist Party said Sunday his alliance with March 14, Lebanon’s anti-Syrian Party, was driven by political circumstances and hinted at the possibility of splitting off.
- Daily Star – Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) leader MP Walid Jumblatt announced on Monday that his party would align itself with President Michel Sleiman in cabinet, a day after the PSP leader said he was reconsidering his membership in the March 14 Forces. In an interview with MTV Monday evening, Jumblatt defended his decision to distance himself from March 14.
- SANA – Israeli warplanes yesterday evening renewed violating Lebanese airspace in a provocative flight over some regions of the South. Lebanese Army Command said in a statement that two Israeli warplanes flew over the South and ejected 5 thermal balloons at a distance of two hundred meters offshore Ras al-Naqoura.
- Nosint – A delegation of three Israeli Air Force (IAF) officers will leave for South Korea this week to examine the T-50 Golden Eagle, a candidate to replace the IAF’s veteran Skyhawk jets, local daily Ha’aretz reported Sunday.
- MEMRI – In a July 31, 2009 communiqué, ‘Abd Al-Malik Badr Al-Din Al-Houthi, leader of a Houthi Shi’ite rebel organization in the Sa’dah province in North Yemen, threatens to move his organization’s operations to Saudi territory, if Saudi Arabia continues to assist Yemini government forces in fighting the rebels
Iran
- Press TV – Hours after the Leader of the Islamic Revolution formally approved the second-term presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, clashes erupt between security forces and protestors in Tehran.
- CBS – Hoping to lift the curtain on a new political chapter, Iran’s supreme leader today endorsed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s second presidential term – but cracks in the leadership are showing, reports CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer. Several prominent clergy boycotted the ceremony and the supreme leader avoided Ahmadinejad’s move to kiss his hand, as is customary – leading to an awkward peck on the shoulder instead.
- Fars – Omani Ambassador to Tehran Sheikh Yahiya al-Oraimi said on Monday that the upcoming visit to Iran by his country’s King, Sultan Qaboos bin Saeed, will cause a major stride in the expansion of the two states’ bilateral relations.
- Mehr – Iranian Offshore Oil Company Managing Director Mahmoud Zirakchianzadeh has announced that the IOOC is negotiating with a European company that is interested in investing over $4 billion to produce liquefied natural gas at the Lavan gas field
- Payvand – Photos: Journalists criticize crude restoration of historical Khaju Bridge in Isfahan
A sunset view of the tactical operation center at Forward Operating Base Connolly, Afghanistan (photo by Staff Sgt. Christopher Allison)
South Asia
- IslamOnline – Turning to powerful tribal leaders and warlords for votes, Afghan President Hamid Karzai is playing his own strategy to win this month’s elections. “He knows that finally the Afghan individual votes will not count, they will listen to their leaders,” Haroun Mir, an analyst from the Afghanistan Centre for Research and Policy Studies, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) Monday.
- Al Jazeera – At least five rockets have been fired into the heart of the Afghan capital Kabul in a rare attack that comes less than three weeks before presidential elections. Police say at least one child was injured on Tuesday in what is usually one of the safest parts of the country when the rockets landed in the city centre, with at least one striking about 100m from the US embassy.
- The News – Three militants were killed and several others injured when security forces pounded suspected hideouts of the militants in different areas of Salarzai Tehsil of Bajaur Agency, official sources said here on Monday. The sources said security forces targeted the militant hideouts in Darra, Ghundai and Sor Dagay areas with artillery guns. They said three militants were killed and several others sustained injuries. They added that a number of sanctuaries of the militants were destroyed in the action.
- Daily Times – Former president Pervez Musharraf can be tried on charges of high treason if parliament passes a resolution by simple majority, said Attorney General Sardar Latif Khosa on Monday.
- Daily Times – The Baloch Republican Army (BRA) killed five abducted officials including a station house officer (SHO) on Monday, and threatened to kill the remaining abducted persons if their demands were not met within 24 hours. The BRA threw the bodies on Jathhar Kelji Road.
- Times of India – Pakistan’s widespread jihadi network of anti-India groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed could be readying for renewed activity after a period of relative quiet as new camps and routes are used to launch strikes at Indian targets. Sources tracking terrorist movements in Pakistan point out that apart from arrests of a few persons linked with 26/11, there was no real action against LeT or Jaish. Some camps had been relocated and new routes were being used for dispersal of armed jihadis.
- Xinhua – India will soon build four more 700-MW capacity nuclear reactors, the country’s Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) announced Monday
- Daily Star (Bangladesh) – A high-powered national committee headed by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been formed recently to coordinate the activities of the country’s intelligence agencies. The committee members include the cabinet secretary, principal secretary to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), and heads of the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), National Security Intelligence (NSI), Special Security Force (SSF) and the police department.
Far East & Pacific
- The Australian – A plot by Islamic extremists in Melbourne to launch a suicide attack on an Australian Army base has been uncovered by national security agencies. Four men – all Australian citizens – were arrested this morning as federal and state police, armed with search warrants, swooped on members of the suspected terror cell this morning in the second-largest counter-terrorism operation in the nation’s history. The cell has been inspired by the Somalia-based terrorist movement al-Shabaab.
- Xinhua – Police forces and state security agencies had prevented five organized terrorist attacks on civilians in China’s far west Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China’s anti-terrorism sources said Monday.
- Bangkok Post – Thailand is trying to verify reports the Burmese military regime is building a nuclear reactor with a plan to make a nuclear bomb in five years. National Security Council chief Thawil Pliensri has ordered intelligence officials to check on the reports and said yesterday that so far no evidence has been found that points to a Burmese nuclear programme. Mr Thawil said regional security could be jeopardised if the plan to build a nuclear weapon was verified.
- Irrawaddy – Junta troops and members of a private militia have joined forces in preparation for an attack against the United Wa State Army (UWSA) in Shan State in northern Burma, according to UWSA sources. The militia, called the Wanpang group, number about 500 soldiers in Tang Yan Township in eastern Shan State. Led by Bo Mon, it is a remnant of group formed by late drug lord Khun Sa.
- Chosun Ilbo – North Korea has press-ganged people into a “150-day struggle” of farm or factory work since April to produce results for leader Kim Jong-il’s heir apparent Jong-un, but the project has backfired and brought North Korea’s fragile economy to the brink of collapse, experts said Monday
- Manila Times – Government forces have arrested a top leader of the New People’s Army (NPA) in North Central Mindanao at an apartelle in Cagayan de Oro City, the military reported on Monday.
Europe
- UK MoD – Addressing an audience at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) the Minister for the Armed Forces Bill Rammell has used his first major speech on defence to argue that the work of the Armed Forces in combating the insurgency in Afghanistan is directly combating terrorism in the UK
- Times Online – Nato’s new chief has called on its European members to find more troops for Afghanistan to stop the country becoming “a Grand Central Station of international terrorism”. Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that he wanted a proper balance between Nato forces from North America and those from Europe to avoid the perception that the mission in Afghanistan was predominantly an American operation.
- AKI – Italian energy giant Enel and French electricity firm EDF have announced the creation of a joint venture expected to pave the way for the construction of four nuclear reactors designed to revive Italy’s nuclear programme. The decision, announced on Monday, follows an agreement between the two energy providers in February 2009 during a summit in Rome.
- BBC – A German-flagged cargo ship captured by Somali pirates and held for nearly four months has been released after a ransom was paid, officials say.
Africa
- Garowe – At least 7 people were killed and 20 others wounded Monday in armed clashes between pro-government forces and Islamist insurgents in the Somali capital Mogadishu, on a day President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed flew to Kenya, Radio Garowe reports. Three combatants were killed when Hizbul Islam rebels attacked the Villa Somalia presidential compound, drawing Somali government troops and African Union peacekeepers (AMISOM) into battle.
- Sudan Tribune – An unknown number of armed tribesmen from the Murle ethnic group raided a Lou Nuer village near Okobo country in Jonglei state over the weekend killing over 180 people and injuring some 31 others. The dawn raid on Lou territory comes months after bloody fighting broke out last February between the two tribes when some 753 people (300 Lou Nuer and 453 Murle) were killed in a revenge assault carried by the Lou Nuer against the Murle. Again in April, Murle attacked Akobo killing over 300 people.
- AFRICOM – A ribbon-cutting ceremony July 30, 2009 celebrated the establishment of a U.S. military harbor security force at Camp Lemonier, Djibouti.
- IRIN – At least 2,500 Congolese refugees are to be moved from Burundi’s central province of Mwaro to the eastern Ruyigi province in a move aimed at consolidating camps across the country.
- Javno – The head of Angola’s border police accused the Democratic Republic of the Congo on Monday of allowing an unchecked flood of illegal immigrants into Angola, threatening its recovering diamond sector. Authorities have rounded up and deported 10,000 illegal immigrants from the DRC in the last month alone.
The Marines of Company F, 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 3, force their way through shin-high mud, patrolling to their objective during a cordon and knock operation in Helmand province July 28. RCT-3's mission is to conduct counter insurgency operation in partnership with the Afghan national security forces in southern Afghanistan (photo by Lance Cpl. Daniel Flynn)
The Global War
- Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Joshua D. Goodman, and Laura Grossman, FDD – Terrorism in the West 2008: A Guide to Terrorism Events and Landmark Cases
- David Schenker – In June 2009, an Israeli Dolphin-class submarine sailed from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea via Egypt’s Suez Canal. Given the 30-year peace between the states, Israeli vessels in the canal — even submarines — wouldn’t ordinarily make headlines. But the submarines and the Israeli SAAR V-Class warships that passed through Egypt a few weeks later were big news in the region, a stark reminder that as Iranian centrifuges continue to spin, the deadline for Israeli military action is fast approaching. The movement of the sub — a ship believed to carry nuclear-tipped cruise missiles — was an unmistakable Israeli warning to Tehran. These latest naval deployments also suggest that the warning to Iran extends beyond the Israelis. By granting canal access to the warships now, Cairo too is signaling its concern.
- Haaretz – Al-Qaida’s second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri said Israel should be wiped off the map and described the Jewish state as a crime against Muslims.
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6 July, 2009 (00:28) | Daily Roundup | By: Jeff Kouba
A brief world news roundup for 6 July 2009.
United States & the Americas
- AFPS – Additional American troops in Afghanistan are making it possible to institute the new strategy in the country, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said today. Speaking on CNN’s State of the Union program, Navy Adm. Mike Mullen said Operation Khanjar, which means Strike of the Sword, will challenge the Taliban and al-Qaida in the Helmand River valley in southern Afghanistan. The area has been a terrorist safe haven and which has most of the opium poppy cultivation in the country.
- NY Times – Plunging squarely into one of the most sensitive issues in the Middle East, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. suggested on Sunday that the United States would not stand in the way of Israeli military action aimed at the Iranian nuclear program.
- Al Jazeera – A small passenger jet carrying Manuel Zelaya, the ousted president of Honduras, has taken off from Washington, bound for the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa. Zelaya, who was forced from power on June 28, has vowed to return to Honduras on Sunday despite the interim government saying it would refuse to let his aircraft land.
- Independent – In Washington, the Organization of American States suspended Honduras as a member late Saturday. Micheletti preemptively pulled out of the OAS hours earlier rather than comply with an ultimatum that Zelaya be restored
Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia
- RIA Novosti – Russia’s president has said ties with the U.S. are showing signs of improvement, and that President Barack Obama’s upcoming visit could provide an important impetus to relations.
- Kazkaz Center – Apostates announced another “blocking” of Mujahideen group. As expected, after a successful special operation of Mujahideen in the village of Artshty, apostates hastened to declare that the group of Mujahideen, participated in the operation, is “blocked up and its being pursued”. Ths time the Bamut village is declared a place of “blockade”. Apostates claim that a group of up to 20 Mujahideen has been “overtaken” near Bamut village last night and has been “blocked up by joint forces of Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ingushetia and Chechnya”…. Sources convey that more than 20 corpses of Kadyrovites have been brought to only one village of Khambi-Irze (Achkhoi-Martan District). The total number of eliminated puppet police is 48 people. Only 14 people are left from the squad of apostates and all of them are injured
- Russia Today – Nine Chechen policemen have been killed in the Russian Republic of Ingushetia, after militants launched a grenade and opened gunfire at their car. At least ten others were wounded in the attack.
- Itar-Tass – A one-and-a-half-hour meeting with Azerbaijan’s President Ilkham Aliyev was the last event of a tour of Nagorno-Karabakh, Yerevan and Baku by Armenian, Azerbaijani and Russian public figures.
- ECHR – The European Court of Human Rights has declared admissible the application lodged in the case of Georgia v. Russia (I) (application no. 13255/07). The Court’s admissibility decision in no way prejudges the merits of the Georgian Government’s complaints. The Court will deliver its judgment at a later date.
Middle East
- Voices of Iraq – Policemen captured a leader of a Special Group in the city of al-Kut on Saturday, a security source in Wassit said. “The man was captured on intelligence tip-offs while returning home in al-Kut coming from Iran by virtue of an arrest warrant,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency
- MNF Iraq – The Iraqi Emergency Response Brigade, with Coalition advisors, arrested a suspected terrorist during an intelligence-driven operation in Tikrit, a town northwest of the Iraqi capital, July 2. The constables arrested the suspected terrorist who is allegedly a key leader of an insurgent cell responsible for criminal activities
- Sunday Times – The head of Mossad, Israel’s overseas intelligence service, has assured Benjamin Netanyahu, its prime minister, that Saudi Arabia would turn a blind eye to Israeli jets flying over the kingdom during any future raid on Iran’s nuclear sites.
- Haaretz – The Prime Minister’s office issued a statement in response Sunday morning, saying that “the Sunday Times report is fundamentally false and completely baseless.”
- Israel MFA – In a joint Israel Security Agency-Israel Police operation, Abd El-Rahman Talalkeh was arrested in the Negev, in the early morning hours of June 1, after having left the Gaza Strip and infiltrated into Israel via the Sinai Peninsula. He admitted to having undergone extensive military training in the Gaza Strip, on behalf of the Popular Resistance Committees, in order to establish a terrorism infrastructure inside Israel
- Jerusalem Post – An IDF Navy Dolphin-class submarine that participated in maneuvers off the Eilat coast last week returned to Israel via the Suez Canal on Sunday according to witnesses’ reports. The submarine was spotted returning through the waterway along with an Israeli missile boat. However, an Israeli defense official told Reuters there would be no permanent deployment in Eilat of the German-made submarines, of which the Navy has three, with two more on order.
- Asharq Al Awsat – Hamas and the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine have always tried to appear to be staunch allies. Both groups are Islamic movements committed to the [Palestinian] resistance; both groups exist outside the framework of the Palestinian Liberation Organization; both groups also until recently existed outside the framework of the Palestinian Authority, until Hamas decided to join [in 2006]. However there have always been cracks in the foundation of this “alliance” with regards to pivotal issues.
- Al Arabiya – Egypt has expelled about 20 suspected French Islamists over the past month, an Egyptian security official told AFP Saturday. He said that no charges were filed against the French nationals but they were considered religious extremists and undesirable in Egypt.
- NOW Lebanon – It is unlikely that a Saudi-Syrian summit in Damascus will be convened within the next two days because both sides need more time to discuss political matters extending beyond the issues of Lebanese cabinet formation and a trip to Syria by Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri, a sold told Al-Hayat newspaper on Sunday. According to the newspaper, Syria will consult with Iran about its talks with Saudi Arabia, while Saudi Arabia will consult with Egypt about the continuing Arab reconciliation discussions that Saudi King Abdullah began to support in the Kuwait summit held last January.
- Naharnet – Syrian forces have expended their deployment in the area of Dawrat Manqaa al-Touffaha in Rashaya after military units moved into the area near the town of Kfarqouq, al-Mustaqbal daily reported Saturday. The newspaper added that Syrian troops which are based on the border also deployed in the areas of Daydiyyeh, Mrah al-Heet and Khirbet Meshemshe that fall in the territory of Kfarqouq.
- Daily Star – Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has allegedly visited Damascus to be informed about the latest Saudi-Syrian talks on the situation in Lebanon, Al-Liwaa newspaper reported Saturday. Hizbullah did not issue an official statement about Nasrallah’s alleged visit.
- Saba – Days after an oil pipeline was blown up in the southern Shabwa province, police in the Khawlan district east of Yemen’s capital have foiled an attempted attack on an oil pipeline in the area
- Hurriyet – Turkish Military officials object to new legislation that sets the rules governing the functioning of the military judiciary, saying it runs counter to the Constitution. In a statement sent to the president’s office, officials argue civilian prosecutors pursuing military cases will lead to interference by civilian forces and pave the way for politics to enter the barracks
Iran
- Iran MFA – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the western countries did their utmost to aggrandize problems in Iran’s presidential election in a worldwide scale to deviate world public opinions from devastating financial crisis crippling their economies. Speaking in a special ceremony on Saturday marking the National Day of Industries and Mines, he said to overcome their own economic crisis, the western countries injected huge sums of money into the market and tried to deviate world public opinion from the issue by making stirring speeches and creating widespread diseases such as swine flu in an attempt to find a way out of the current turmoil.
- Khaleej Times – Iran’s ex-president Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani said on Saturday that there was no power struggle in Iran following the crisis triggered by alleged fraud in the June 12 presidential election, ISNA news agency reported
- VOA – Top clerics from Iran’s seat of religious learning, Qom, are accusing the country’s top election watchdog, the Guardian Council, of not adequately investigating charges of election fraud during the disputed June 12 presidential election
- Payvand – A top Iranian newspaper is calling for reformist challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi to be tried for treason. An editorial Saturday in the conservative daily Kayhan accuses Mr. Mousavi of working with foreign governments after he was defeated in last month’s presidential vote. It accuses the former prime minister of acting on orders from the United States to incite the post-election riots
- Press TV – Iranian parliament speaker Ali Larijani has met with President Ahmadinejad on Saturday to congratulate his re-election as the country’s president
- MEMRI – IRGC official Abdollah Eraghi said that the Iranian regime used only 30% of the Tehran Basij forces in suppressing the recent protests. He added that 200,000 additional Basij would be trained this summer, in a program budgeted at $5 million
- MEMRI – The anti-regime Iranian Sunni-Balochi opposition group Jundallah said that it has killed 17 Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) troops in a battle in Iranshahr, in Sistan-Baluchestan province in southeast Iran.
- ISNA – Qatar’s Armed Forces Chief of Staff Hamad Bin-Ali al-Atiyyah is to arrive in Iran on Monday for an official three-day visit. Al-Atiyyah invited by Iran’s Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar will head a high-ranking defense delegation
- Mehr – Before heading for the Arab state, Larijani described Qatar as an important country with great “political dynamism” in the region which has developed good relationship with Tehran. He said he had intended to visit the country earlier but it was delayed due to the presidential election in Iran. The top lawmaker said he will discuss Palestine, Lebanon, and the security of regional states with Qatari rulers.
- APA – Armenian defense minister Seyran Ohanyan has been invited to Iran. APA reports quoting “Armtoday” that Iran’s ambassador to Armenia handed over the invitation to Ohanyan on behalf of Iranian defense minister Mustafa Muhammad Najjar
U.S. Marines with 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 3, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, along with approximately 650 Afghan soldiers and police officers from the Afghan national security force, prepare to board CH-53D Sea Stallion and CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters at Forward Operating Base Dwyer, Afghanistan, July 2. The Marines and ANSF are partnered for a major operation in the Helmand province to transition security responsibilities to the Afghan forces (photo by Philippe E. Chasse)
South Asia
- Dvids – At least 10 militants were killed and one detained as Afghan national army soldiers and International Security Assistance Force service members responded to an attack on a combat outpost in Paktika province
- Quqnoos – US warplanes hunted down 22 militants after a suicide bomber struck a US base in Afghan east, killing 2 soldiers
- UK MoD – It is with great sadness that the Ministry of Defence must confirm that a soldier from 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment and a soldier from The Light Dragoons were killed in separate incidents in Afghanistan yesterday, Saturday 4 July
- Dawn – Air strikes killed nine suspected militants on Sunday, police and security officials said, in an ongoing bombardment aimed at weakening Taliban strongholds in the tribal northwest. At least six alleged rebels linked to Taliban were killed in North Waziristan, while three more died in the Orakzai tribal district near the site of a military helicopter crash on Friday which killed 26 security personnel.
- Geo – A close aide of militant commander Fazlullah has been killed during Swat operation, Geo News reported Sunday. The security sources said Ehsan alias Abu Jandal who was the close aide of Fazlullah has been killed as the security forces spread the action to Qambar area of Swat
- The News – Fifteen men of an armed tribal Lashkar and three militants were killed when fierce clashes erupted in Fam Pokha and Kharai Darra areas of Ambar Tehsil in Mohmand Agency in the wee hours of Saturday.
- The Daily Star – Bangladesh Rifles’ (BDR) jawans at Teknaf arrested 28 Rohingyas of Myanmar and pushed them back to their country yesterday
- Caijing – Just weeks after his government’s defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) after thirty years of civil war, Sri Lanka’s minister of foreign affairs, Rohitha Bogollagama, visited Beijing on July 2. He delivered a talk on post-conflict Sri Lanka at the China Institute of International Studies, and there, discussed his hopes for China’s role in the future of his country. Bogollagama said this victory was aided by the material support Sri Lanka received from China, including the sale of weapons and Chinese investment in infrastructure development projects.
Far East & Pacific
- Chosun Ilbo – North Korea on Saturday fired several ballistic missiles, bringing the total medium and short-range missiles and long-range rockets fired since early this year to 18. They are a long-range rocket launched in April, nine ground-to-ship missiles, seven medium-range surface-to-surface ballistic missiles, and one surface-to-air missile
- Jakarta Post – The ballistic missiles that North Korea test-fired this weekend were likely capable of striking key government and military facilities in South Korea, a defense official said Sunday, amid growing concerns over Pyongyang’s firepower.
- Irrawaddy – North Korea sought payment through a bank in Malaysia for a suspected shipment of weapons to Burma being carried on a freighter tracked by the US Navy, according to a source quoted by South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.
- Yonhap – A North Korean freighter suspected of carrying weapons banned under a U.N. resolution has yet to enter North Korean waters, a South Korean official said Monday. “It has not yet entered North Korea. (The journey) will likely end within the day,” South Korean defense ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae said in a briefing.
- Xinhua – Senior military officials of China and Mongolia pledged Sunday to enhance military cooperation. Bilateral relations were sound with frequent high-level visits and fast-developing economic and trade cooperation, said Chinese Defense Minister Liang Guanglie in a meeting with visiting State Secretary of the Mongolian Defense Ministry M. Borbaatar
- Times of India – Police rushed on Sunday to restore order in the northwestern Chinese city of Urumqi where an unknown number of people attacked passers-by and torched vehicles, state media reported. The state news agency Xinhua said the violence erupted on Sunday afternoon in the capital of the restive Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region.
- Bangkok Post – Puea Thai Party spokesman Prompong Nopparit on Sunday called for Kasit Piromya to resign as foreign minister after he has been sommoned by police to be charged with several criminal offences in connection with the People’s Alliance for Democracy’s seizure of Suvarnabhumi airport late last year.
- Manila Times – At least five people were killed and about three dozens wounded in a bomb attack Sunday near a Catholic church in Cotabato City in the southern Philippines.
Europe
- Daily Times – British police have foiled a plan to attack mosques in different parts of Britain and arrested 32 Caucasian men in raids in London, a private TV channel reported.
- AFP – EU nations and Turkey said Friday they will sign a key intergovernmental agreement in Ankara on July 13 on Europe’s flagship Nabucco gas pipeline project, but key issues still need to be resolved. Turkish officials said that invitations had been sent to the relevant parties and one official in Ankara told AFP on condition of anonymity that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan would host the signing ceremony.
- National Post – The wife of the new head of Britain’s spy agency posted pictures of her husband, family and friends on Internet networking site Facebook, prompting astonishment among security experts and calls for an enquiry.
- AKI – A special Belgrade court on Friday sentenced 11 members of a radical Islamic Wahabi movement to more than 60 years in prison after they were found guilty of planning terrorist activities and illegal weapons possession.
- BBC – Exit polls in Bulgaria indicate the centre-right party led by ex-body guard and Mayor of Sofia Boiko Borisov is heading for a significant victory. His Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) looks set to take 40% of the vote – more than half that of the ruling Socialist Party.
- AP – The spiritual leaders of the Orthodox Christian churches in Istanbul and Russia led Sunday prayers together in a show of unity after years of jostling for influence
Africa
- Garowe – Military maneuvers in Hiran region of central Somalia is leading to rising tensions, as Ethiopian troops move closer to the provincial capital Beletwein and Somali rebels are reportedly gearing up for war, Radio Garowe reports.
- Shabelle – The Islamic organization of Ahlu Sunna Waljama’a officials have said on Sunday that they took over the control of southern Galka’yo town in central Somalia.
- Mareeg – At least 12 civilians have been killed and 3 others have been injured in Karan district in Mogadishu after rebels and government soldiers exchanged heavy shelling in the capital, witnesses said on Sunday. Government soldiers and Islamist forces are fighting in Mogadishu for the fifth day and civilians are still fleeing from their houses in Mogadishu.
- Sudan Tribune – The African Union (AU) leaders agreed today to shield Sudanese president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir from any possibility of arrest within the continent members of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
- This Day – There were fears at the weekend that the multi-billion dollar Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline project being midwifed by Nigeria, Algeria and Niger is now a target for sabotage by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND). The militant group, which has launched a string of onslaughts against operators in the oil industry, in its latest threat to attack Federal Government’s facilities, said yesterday it would hit the gas project and oil facilities in the next 72 hours.
- Sunday Mail – The Kimberley Process (KP) review team which is visiting the country to assess the state of Zimbabwe’s diamond industry yesterday recommended the demilitarisation of the Marange fields after failing to prove allegations of gross human rights abuses in the area. Presenting its interim report on diamond mining activities in the country, the KP team acknowledged the move by the Government to grant it complete access to all areas of interest that include the Chiadzwa diamond fields, River Ranch and Murowa mines.
A convoy from 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, Marine Expeditionary Brigade-Afghanistan, travels across Camp Leatherneck, June 28. The battalion left the brigade's base of operations to join other Marine forces in the Helmand River Valley. (photo by Cpl. Aaron Rooks)
The Global War
- Guardian – Hopes of a new nuclear arms reduction deal between Moscow and Washington appeared to be in doubt today, after Russia said there could be no agreement unless the US was prepared to heed its concerns on missile defence. Barack Obama flies into Moscow tomorrow for his first trip to Russia as US president. The summit’s centrepiece is supposed to be a groundbreaking agreement on nuclear arms reduction.
- The National – According to a report last October from Swiss Re, the world’s second-largest reinsurer, the takaful sector grew at an annual average of 25 per cent between 2004 and 2007, adjusted for inflation. The rest of the insurance industry grew at slightly more than 10 per cent a year in that period. But takaful’s fast expansion has not come without growing pains. It still makes up a mere sliver of the global insurance pie, and only in the past five years has it begun to gain ground in the GCC, riding on the development of Islamic finance as a whole.
- Taipei Times – South Korea’s state-run power company has bought a 17-percent stake in a Canadian uranium producer, securing a stable source of fuel for its nuclear power plants, a report said yesterday.
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4 May, 2009 (09:58) | Daily Roundup | By: Jeff Kouba
A brief world news roundup for 4 May 2009.
United States & the Americas
- Star Tribune – The death of a Somali man from Minneapolis in an apparent suicide bombing in Somalia six months ago is at the center of a widespread counterterrorism investigation and may hold clues into the disappearance of up to 20 young Somali men from the Twin Cities in the past two years. Sunday’s Star Tribune newspaper profiles Ahmed’s life through the memories of those who new him best.
- Al Arabiya – United States Defense Secretary Robert Gates departed Sunday for talks in Egypt and Saudi Arabia focused on “regional security” and Middle East peace efforts, a Pentagon official said. Gates and officials in both countries “are likely to discuss the regional security situation, Iraq and Afghanistan, the Middle East peace process,” as well as Iran’s role in the region.
- NY Times – The U.S. government has officially asked Germany to accept up to 10 Guantánamo Bay inmates, handing over a list to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office and the Foreign Ministry.
- Globe and Mail – Canadian agents secretly interrogated Canadian Abousfian Abdelrazik in a Sudanese jail as early as October of 2003, while keeping the rest of the government and his family in the dark about his whereabouts. Newly obtained government documents, now in the possession of The Globe and Mail, also show that in a secret briefing to then foreign affairs minister Maxime Bernier, officials admitted as recently as last year that Mr. Abdelrazik had been originally imprisoned in Khartoum at the request of mysterious “Canadian” authorities.
- COHA – Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Could Be a Lose-Lose Deal
- El Universal – President Hugo Chávez announced that at least 18 people died today in an accident at a military helicopter patrolling the border with Colombia.
- IRNA – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will pay official visits to three Latin American countries at the end of this week. Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki in an interview with TV channel 2 said the president is scheduled to visit Brazil, Venezuela, and Ecuador.
Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia
- Grigory Pasko – Last week, three sensitive blows were inflicted on the international positions of Gazprom. The first and most substantial of them was inflicted by the Europarliament, which on 22 April adopted the third energy package of the plan for liberalization of Europe’s energy market. Right behind, on 24 April, the leadership of Turkmenistan in the presence of a representative Russian delegation openly declared about support of the project for the construction of the Nabucco gas pipeline to Europe. And on 25 April at an international energy summit in Sofia in spite of all efforts Gazprom was not able to attain the inclusion by the Eurounion of South stream into the number of priority projects
- Trend – Russian border guards begin to serve in Abkhazia and South Ossetia
- IWPR – Abkhazia’s frustrated farmers and market gardeners are victims of a muddle over whether Abkhaz citizens can take produce into Russia without documents they did not formerly need – and without paying customs duties. Ironically, this difficulty has sprung up as a consequence of Russia’s decision to help Abkhazia by recognising it as an independent state. Although moves are being taken to sort out the situation, Abkhaz exports to Russia have all but ground to a halt in the meantime because of the new rules, introduced by the latter in mid-March
- Lt Col Erik Rundquist, ISCIP – Russian military reform: Officer cuts, Serdyukov’s albatross? The current economic crisis is revealing some cracks in Defense Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov’s reforms for the Russian military.
- Russia Today – A Russian journalist and human rights activist remains in a coma after being assaulted on the staircase of his apartment block.
- RIA Novosti – A policeman was killed in a blast that occurred in the southeast of Chechnya, in Russia’s North Caucasus, a local police source said on Saturday. A planted land mine went off on Friday night on a highway in the Nozhai-Yurt district, about 60 km (40 miles) southeast of the republic’s capital of Grozny.
U.S. Army soldiers patrol the village of Jambur, Kirkuk, Iraq, April 28, 2009. The soldiers are assigned to the 1st Cavalry Division's 4th Squadron, 9th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Heavy Brigade Combat Team. (photo by Sgt. Gustavo Olgiati)
Middle East
- Al Sumaria – Turkish President Abdullah Gul received Sayyed Moqtada Al Sadr and discussed with him Iraq security. Al Sadr had talks with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan about the political process in Iraq, security and means to promote bilateral relations.
- Asharq Al Awsat – Iraqi President Jalal Talabani reiterated his intention to retire from his post as president of the Republic of Iraq when his term in office ends late this year, write his memoirs, and take some rest.
- Daily Star – Two American soldiers were shot dead and three more were wounded on Saturday when an Iraqi wearing army uniform opened fire on them south of the northern town of Mosul, the US military said. “According to initial reports, an individual dressed in an Iraqi army uniform fired on the Coalition forces.”
- BBC – The head of a leading US-allied Sunni militia group in Iraq has been arrested in a joint Iraqi-US operation. Nadhim al-Jubouri and his two brothers were arrested at their home in the town of Dhuliuya “under the charge of terrorism”, the US military says. Nadhim al-Jubouri is a leader in the Awakening Councils, US-sponsored groups that helped cut violence in Iraq after turning against al-Qaeda.
- Voices of Iraq - Iranian artillery and war planes on Saturday shelled mountainous areas near Sulaimaniya city, but no casualties were reported, according to an official security source from the northern Kurdistan region.
- Payvand – Kurdistan’s Zagros TV announced the raids by Iranian helicopters in the border region and quoted Kurdish officials as saying that it was the first time that combat helicopters have been used during months of sporadic border clashes
- Press TV – The semi-autonomous Kurdish government of Iraq has called on separatist Kurdish militants to cease cross border attacks on Iranian territories.
- Asia Times – Fireworks and celebratory gunfire crackled through Beirut’s streets after the release this week of four Lebanese generals arrested in 2005 over former prime minister Rafik al -Hariri’s assassination, with Hezbollah expected to benefit from the dramatic turn of events at June’s elections
- Salama Salama, Al Ahram – Once again, the undertow of mistrust in Arab politics has pulled us into the depths. Egypt now says that Hizbullah is involved in illicit activities that wreck its sovereignty and undermine its peace, while Hassan Nasrallah says that his group was merely giving much-needed logistical support to Palestinian resistance. In this atmosphere of mistrust, one gets used to a stream of claims and counterclaims from all sides. Egypt and Iran have been at each other’s throats for years now, and Egypt doesn’t seem in a mind to trust anyone who befriends the Iranians, be it Hizbullah or Hamas, or even Syria. If you side with Tehran, you’re viewed with suspicion in Cairo. And you may have the Egyptians boycott Arab summits held in your capital too, or worse.
- NOW Lebanon – A source told NOW Lebanon on Sunday that one week ago an army patrol in West Bekaa suspected a truck loaded with hay and searched it only to discover it was transporting mid-range rockets. The army confiscated the truck and took it to the army’s military base, the source said
- NOW Lebanon – Lebanese authorities have arrested three more people on suspicion of spying for Israel, taking to ten the number of alleged spies arrested since January, a security official said on Sunday.
- Haaretz – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is likely to announce this week that Israel is interested in withdrawing from the northern part of the village of Ghajar on the border with Lebanon
- Jerusalem Post – Presumed incoming Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren said Sunday that Israel would not allow a nuclear Iran and that the Jewish state was committed to peace.
- Haaretz – The Israel Air Force recently staged military exercises between Israel and the British colony of Gibraltar near southern Spain, the French magazine L’Express reported on Saturday. The fact that the drills were held 3,800 kilometers away from Israel “confirms that the Israel Defense Forces is making concrete preparations” to attack Iran over its refusal to cooperate with the international community over its contentious nuclear program, according to L’Express.
- Al Manar – Former Israeli Chief of Staff Dan Halutz reveled to Israeli Channel 2 that Israel had failed to assassinate Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah during the Israeli war on Lebanon in 2006
- ynet – IDF airstrikes in Gaza over the weekend “send a clear message to terror organizations in the Gaza Strip that Israel will respond to everything and will not remain apathetic,” a military source told Ynet on Saturday night.
- News Yemen – A civilian was killed and five others including two police officers were injured in new clashes between anti-government protesters and security forces in southern Yemen on Saturday, local sources said.
Iran
- Press TV – Iran says that detained members of an ‘Israeli-backed’ terrorist group have had a hand in the bombing attack on a mosque in the city of Shiraz.
- MEMRI – In an April 29, 2009 speech in Shiraz about his Durban II address, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that he had asked the Hidden Imam (the Shi’ite messiah) for his help in overcoming and humiliating Iran’s enemies.
- ISNA – NATO and Afghan businessmen are willing to use Iran’s ports for transport of goods to Afghanistan. Iran’s consulate in Afghanistan’s Jalalabad, Mehran Khorasani, told ISNA on Sunday that the city has great commercial and trading capacities and passes over 1800 shipments daily thus is considered Asia’s most active ground port.
- Spiegel – In a SPIEGEL Interview, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s challenger in the Iranian election, Mir Hossein Mousavi, discusses his chances of beating the president in June and the West’s illusions regarding Tehran’s nuclear policy.
- Babylon and Beyond – The crack between hard-liners in Iran’s upcoming elections widened when Moshen Rezai, the former head of the Revolutionary Guards, criticized President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for inflammatory rhetoric and bungling the economy.
- EurasiaNet – Just when you thought it was impossible for Iranian politics to get any murkier, controversy has erupted over whether President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made a gesture during a recent visit to Switzerland to signal his interest in normalizing relations with the United States.
- Fars – A woman trying to plant a bomb in Tajrish square in northern Tehran was arrested by Iranian security forces on Sunday.
- Amnesty International – Iranian authorities executed Delara Darabi in Rasht Central Prison on Friday morning. She is the second person to be executed this year after being convicted of a crime she was alleged to have commited while still under 18, Amnesty International has revealed.
South Asia
- Bakhtar – Fifty Taliban fighters were eliminated as foreign and national security forces clashed with the insurgents for the 4th consecutive day as the major ground and air offensive were carried in the troubled southern Helmand province.
- UK MoD – Soldiers from The Black Watch, 3rd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland (3 SCOTS), have completed their first major operation since taking over in Afghanistan as the Regional Battle Group (South).
- Islamic Emirate of Aghanistan – Today morning at approximately 10am local time, Mujahideen of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan blew up a tank of Poland invaders army in Roba area of Qarabagh district of Ghazni province
- Dawn – Pakistan’s army announced Sunday that 80 militants have so far been killed as the military offensive against Taliban fighters in northwest Buner district enters its fifth day
- Geo – Bodies of two security personnel have been found in Tehsil Khwazakhela while unknown men have set on fire three trucks in Babu Klay. Night curfew has been imposed in Swat from 9 pm Sunday to 6 am Monday, sources said. Beheaded bodies of two security men have been found in Alam Ganj area of Tehsil Khwazakhela, sources added. Shops remained closed in Mingora markets as Taliban patrolled the area
- RFERL – Pakistani Taliban have beheaded two government officials in the northwestern Swat Valley in revenge for the killing of two insurgent commanders by security forces, a militant spokesman has said
- The News – In another development, chief of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Jamrud chapter Iftikhar Khan surrendered himself before the political administration, officials said. The banned outfit had declared Iftikhar as its new chief for Jamrud sub-division of Khyber Agency after the arrest of Hijrat Khan a few months back.
- Khaleej Times – Pakistan has announced the creation of an Islamic appellate court for a segment of its northwest as part of a peace deal aimed at ending fighting between security forces and Taliban militants.
- McClatchy – Pakistan’s government is completing two new nuclear reactors to produce plutonium for weapons that would be smaller, lighter and more efficient than the 60-odd highly enriched uranium-fueled warheads that Pakistan is now thought to possess, the officials and experts said.
- Press TV – India is set to construct a number of nuclear reactors for Kazakhstan under a memorandum of understanding reached between the two countries. The reactors would be of medium size and have a capacity to generate 200 to 300 megawatt of power each, India’s Mail Today reported on Sunday.
- Sri Lanka MoD – Sri Lanka is about to conclude her war against terror. The ordeal that about 19 million people have been living with for more than quarter of a century is about to be over. It would never be too early to express our gratitude to all the great nations who genuinely helped us to come this far in this historic battle. Because, the value of a sincere friend would never be so felt, as when one is beset by a group of hypocrites.
Far East & Pacific
- Yonhap – North Korea possesses “a small nuclear arsenal” but may have yet to develop the capability to deploy weapons, according to a recent U.S. report.
- Chosun Ilbo – North Korea says it is intensifying its investigation of a South Korean worker detained by the regime at a joint industrial complex just north of the border. A statement issued Friday by the North Korean office overseeing the complex at Kaesong says the worker, identified as Yu Song-jin, “malignantly slandered” the regime’s “dignified system.”
- Times of India – Nepal’s army chief Gen Rukmanga Katawal, who was sacked by the ruling Maoist Party on Sunday, has refused to accept the decision, Students affiliated to Nepali Congress protest against the Nepal Maoist Party’s decision to sack the army chief. Times Now says that an emergency meeting is being held by the top brass of Nepal’s army at the residence of Katawal over the issue.
- Al Jazeera – A crucial ally of Nepal’s ruling Maoists has withdrawn its support, leaving the governing coalition without a majority after differences over a move to dismiss the head of the military
- NZ Herald – Fiji’s military government is blaming New Zealand and Australia for its suspension from the Pacific Islands Forum. Fiji was suspended at midnight on Friday because it ignored a forum deadline to set a date for elections this year
- Bangkok Post – The People’s Alliance for Democracy will meet at the end of the month to decide whether to renew its street protests after its leaders voiced opposition to proposed constitutional amendments and the granting of an amnesty to banned politicians. The PAD leaders said the alliance would hold a meeting on May 24 and 25 to map out their strategy. The meeting will draw supporters from across the country.
- CSM – Responding to the expansion of China’s military, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd sparked a storm of controversy on Saturday when he released a report calling for a $72 billion expansion of the military over the next 20 years. Among other upgrades, Australia would purchase 100 F-35 fighter jets, 12 hunter-killer submarines, 46 Tiger helicopters, and 100 armored vehicles, while also investing in cyber and electronic warfare technologies, according to the 140-page report titled “Defending Australia in the Asia-Pacific Century: Force 2030.” The report cited the threats of North Korea and Iran’s nuclear programs, cyber attacks, and piracy, but it points to the rise of China and India as the most imminent concern in the coming years. It also adds that US military dominance is now uncertain and therefore its assistance to Australia is no longer guaranteed.
- The Australian – Australia will struggle to lead military operations in the South Pacific, according to analysts who argue the defence white paper has overlooked the crucial role of the army in stabilisation and peacekeeping missions. Defence experts claim the white paper, which asserts an Australian “leadership role within the South Pacific”, underrates the value of “boots on the ground” and focuses too heavily on the navy and airforce.
Europe
- Islam in Europe – For over a year PET (the Danish Security Service) has been trying to deport 42-year old North-Iraqi Amer Saeed from Denmark since according to PET he’s a danger to the national security. PET refuses to explain why they see him as dangerous. But according to court documents from several German terrorism cases it appears that PET thinks that Amer Saeed was the main figure in North Europe responsible for recruiting terrorists to Iraq.
- Ioannis Michaletos – The current global financial crisis coupled with the perennial instability of the Balkans raises suspicions around the creation of much stronger organized crime groups that will be able to dictate their rules of the game to both local governments and international institutions. Already a trend emerges which has not be fully measured nor examined by the media that illustrates a significant rise in illegal activities and a sure rise in the criminal rates.
- Expatica – Police in Germany and Turkey fought pitched battles with May Day demonstrators on Friday as the traditional labour rallies around the world were dominated by the international economic crisis.
- EUCOM – Phoenix Express 2009 (PE 09) wrapped up the in-port portion of the exercise May 2 and will begin the underway portion of the two-week exercise on May 4 with 12 naval ships getting underway from Naval Support Activity, Souda Bay, Crete.
Africa
- Garowe - A leading opposition figure in Somalia has rejected calls to meet with Somali President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, Radio Garowe reports. Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, who was the Somali President’s ally in 2006, told reporters Sunday in the capital Mogadishu that the new government in Somalia is intended to defeat the Islamists.
- Shabelle – Somali government has accused Sunday Eritrea that it brought illegal weapons to Somalia and that the government would take an appropriate step against the illegal weapons.
- Sudan Tribune – The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, was concerned at reports about the recent build-up and movement of armed elements on both sides of the Chad-Sudan border, said his spokesperson. The statement on the military build-up comes as Sudan and Chad signed a commitment in Qatar to work toward ending hostilities, and it follows a similar remark from the US State Department spokesman last week.
- BBC – A Greek-owned ship with a Ukrainian crew has been hijacked by Somali pirates south-west of the Seychelles, a seafarers’ group says. It came hours after a Portuguese warship thwarted an attack on a Norwegian vessel in the Gulf of Aden.
- France24 – Crew members on board the French naval frigate Nivose captured 11 suspected Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Kenya on Sunday
- afrol – Algerian security forces have killed a leading Al Qaeda member, Abu Harith Al Libya, during a clash with the forces in the southern part of the country in Tanan, near the Algerian border with Mali, local media has reported
- Fars – Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade in a meeting with Iranian Defense Minster Brigadier General Mostafa Mohammad Najjar Saturday, lauded Islamic Republic’s cooperation in the African country’s development projects.
- IRIN – Thousands of people have fled their homes in the northern Central African Republic (CAR) areas of Kabo and Moyen Sido following recent fighting between the army and a rebel group, medical NGO Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said.
- IPS – Religion, cultural norms and tradition promote discrimination and unequal power relations between men and women in Africa. Akina Mama wa Afrika’s Christine Butegwa doesn’t hesitate when asked what explains the horrific levels of sexual violence against women in conflict-affected areas on the continent.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, right, escorts visiting Japanese Minister of Defense Yasukazu Hamada through a cordon of honor guards into the Pentagon, May 1, 2009. The defense leaders will hold bilateral security talks on a range of regional and global issues. (photo by R. D. Ward)
The Global War
- US Navy – The U.S. Navy transferred command of the Combined Maritime Forces’ (CMF) counterpiracy task force to the Turkish Navy May 3 in a ceremony held aboard Naval Support Activity Bahrain.
- Military.com – In the days following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, alleged al-Qaida operations mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed intended to use his free Hotmail account to direct a U.S.-based operative to carry out an attack, according to a guilty plea agreement filed by Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri in federal court.
- JFCOM – U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) launched its new official blog site – USJFCOMLive, http://usjfcom.dodlive.mil/. Gregg Your, USJFCOM’s command information officer, said USJFCOMLive provides an open forum and heightened level of awareness of USJFCOM support to the warfighter.
- Guardian – Torture-tape Gulf prince accused of 25 other attacks; US lawyers claim they have videos implicating Abu Dhabi royal in more cases of torture, a week after outcry over his assaults on Afghan businessman.
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8 April, 2009 (00:06) | Daily Roundup | By: Jeff Kouba
A brief world news roundup for 8 April 2009.
United States & the Americas
- Treasury – The U.S. Department of the Treasury today designated one Chinese individual and six Iranian entities under Executive Order 13382 for their connection to Iran’s missile proliferation network. Additionally, Treasury identified eight aliases used by E.O. 13382 designee LIMMT Economic and Trade Company, Ltd. (“LIMMT”) to circumvent sanctions.
- Bloomberg - A Chinese company that supplies banned weapons to Iran and its manager were charged with concealing the company’s identity from U.S. banks, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said. Morgenthau announced a 118-count indictment today against LIMMT Economic and Trade Company Ltd., and Li Fang Wei, commercial manager at the Dalian, China-based company.
- LA Times – Obama makes surprise visit to Iraq
- Al Jazeera – Peru’s former president has been jailed for 25 years after being found guilty of crimes against humanity and other charges. Alberto Fujimori, 70, said he would appeal against the verdict after he was found to have ordered massacres and kidnappings during the 1990s “dirty war” against the Shining Path rebel group following a 15-month trial.
- Caijing – Ecuador is on the verge of an agreement with China Development Bank for a US $1 billion loan to finance energy and infrastructure projects, said Ecuador’s president.
- COHA – Netherlands Antilles’ Break Up Continues as Its Geopolitical Importance Mounts
Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia
- NY Times – The Italian energy company Eni sold a 20 percent stake in the Russian oil giant Gazprom Neft for $4.1 billion Tuesday in the largest of a dozen or so deals announced during a Russian-Italian business forum.
- Russia Today – Gazprom has tightened its grip on Europe’s gas supply after Rome agreed to extend the vast Blue Stream pipeline to Italy, as Italian Economy Minister Claudio Scajola flagged likely routes.
- Itar-Tass – Georgia will lose the last opportunity to put pressure on South Ossetia with the commissioning of a gas pipeline from Russia, South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity said before a Tuesday meeting with Gazprom representatives
- RAND – Russian Foreign Policy: Sources and Implications
- RIA Novosti – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will start a two-day visit to Russia’s North Caucasus Republic of Daghestan later on Tuesday, a spokesman for the republic’s president said.
- EurasiaNet – The only Russian-language broadcaster operating in Tajikistan has officially faded to black. The disappearance of the Russian television channel, RTR Planeta, from the airwaves was related purely to a financial dispute, according to Tajik officials. But Russia observers are convinced that something more than money was involved in Dushanbe’s decision.
- RFERL – Uzbekistan has reduced its deliveries of natural gas to Tajikistan by one-quarter, reportedly over unpaid debts, RFE/RL’s Tajik Service reports
Middle East
- IRNA – Britain’s Business Secretary Lord Mandelson is urging UK companies to ‘seize the opportunity’ of investing in Iraq after leading the first British trade delegation to the war-torn country since the arms-for-Iraq scandal over two decades ago.
- MNF Iraq – The Iraqi Emergency Response Brigade, with Coalition forces advisors, arrested 11 suspected terrorists in an Iraqi-planned and led operation March 31 in Baghdad. The suspects were allegedly involved in the kidnapping and killing of civilians, emplacement of roadside bombs and conducting attacks against Iraqi Security and Coalition forces.
- Khaleej Times – Israel on Tuesday successfuly tested its Arrow ballistic missile interception system, a costly project launched two decades ago aimed at countering strikes mainly from archfoe Iran.
- Haaretz – The first complete short-range missile interception “Iron Dome” system is expected to become operational as early as summer 2010, the armaments development authority Rafael said Tuesday.
- Jerusalem Post – Moscow has promised to supply the Palestinian Authority security forces in the West Bank with new weapons, including two helicopters. The Russians have also agreed to supply the PA with more than 5,000 AK-47 assault rifles, 300 armored vehicles, 100 pistols and large quantities of ammunition, a senior PA official in Ramallah told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.
- Xinhua - An official source at Saudi Arabia’s Interior Ministry said Tuesday that a group of 11 al-Qaida-linked militants were arrested in the kingdom’s southern border, the SPA news agency reported.
- BBC – French defence firm Thales and construction giant Saudi Binladin Group are to sign a $533m contract to build Saudi Arabia’s North-South Railway.
Iran
- Guardian – Iran has dramatically stepped up covert attempts to buy nuclear equipment over the last six months, often by using Chinese companies as fronts, according to a senior German industrialist. Ralf Wirtz, whose company, Oerlikon Leybold Vacuum, makes pumps that can be used in uranium enrichment centrifuges, said that more than five years after the AQ Khan nuclear smuggling network was exposed by US and British intelligence the black market trade was on the rise again.
- Fars – Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Mualem is due to visit Tehran on Wednesday to discuss bilateral ties and exchange views over regional developments.
- Press TV – Iran has discovered seven new oil fields with ‘considerable’ reserves, the head of the National Iranian Oil Company has announced.
- CBS – Just as ipod and mobile phones are part of American daily life; for the past 30 years ever since 1979 when Ayatollah ceased power in Iran – Living in fear, Daily Arrests, Daily Torture in Islamic regime?s dungeons and Daily Executions; is all part of a daily Iranian life under the Islamic regime
- Al Arabiya – An Iranian appeal court has upheld jail terms against two renowned doctors accused of involvement in an alleged U.S.-backed plot to topple the Islamic regime on Tuesday, a day after the parents of jailed Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi expressed hope she will be released soon.
- Payvand – In anticipation of Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian’s visit to Tehran later this month, government officials have agreed to build a $1.2 billion railway linking Armenia and Iran.
U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Raymond Robinson signals his radio operator during a local security patrol in the abandoned village of Now Zad in Helmand province, Afghanistan, April 4, 2009. The Marines are assigned to Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment. Residents have left their homes in fear for their lives from the strong presence of enemies. (photo by Cpl. Pete Thibodeau)
South Asia
- Gulf News – Two US envoys trying to reassure Afghan leaders about the Obama administration’s new war strategy heard a former Taliban mullah offer stark warnings on prospects for defeating the Taliban on the battlefield.
- Expatica – A first ever successful rocket attack on a Dutch military base in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan left one soldier killed and five injured.
- UK MoD – Soldiers from 29 Commando Regiment Royal Artillery arrived back in the UK yesterday morning after a six month deployment which saw the Regiment’s troops operating at almost every location that British troops are stationed in Helmand province.
- The News – Expressing satisfaction over the truce in the Malakand Division, NWFP Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain on Tuesday said the government’s writ had been restored in about 70 per cent of Swat area after the February 16 deal. The minister, however, admitted that situation in parts of Swat was not ideal, but there was no reason to call it disappointing.
- Daily Times - A volunteer of Buner Qaumi Lashkar was killed and another sustained critical injuries when Taliban opened fire in Gokand area of the district on Monday, sources said. Residents from various villages and tehsils formed the lashkar to confront around 100 Taliban who had entered Buner from Swat on Sunday.
Far East & Pacific
- China Daily – Top US navy commanders and a major destroyer will visit China for celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) navy. Seven ships from three countries have so far confirmed they will join the international fleet review in Qingdao, Shandong province, headquarters to the North China Sea Fleet, one of three naval fleets in China.
- France24 – Tens of thousands of protesters have rallied in Bangkok in a bid to force Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva from office. The government was bracing for violence as the supporters of former premier Thaksin Shinawatra gathered near government buildings.
- Yonhap – North Korean leader Kim Jong-il on Wednesday appeared ready to reaffirm his control over the country, with state television airing roaring images of the country’s recent rocket launch in what analysts said was fanfare for an important political event.
- JoongAng – For the second straight day, the United Nations Security Council yesterday failed to agree on a response to the North Korean rocket launch, but Mexican and Costa Rican ambassadors said China, which has urged restraint in response, may support a resolution affirming previous sanctions as a compromise.
- RSIS – Aircraft Carriers:China’s Emerging Maritime Ambitions
- HRW – The Philippine government should investigate alleged “death squads” responsible for hundreds of targeted killings in Davao City and other cities on the southeastern island of Mindanao, Human Rights Watch said in a report.
- Phnom Penh Post – Cambodia’s top border negotiator says before the talks that last week’s violence occurred because ‘Thais did not respect international law’
- Irrawaddy – A joint force of Burmese and pro-junta Karen troops attacked the base camp of a Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) battalion early Monday morning, according to Karen rebel sources.
- Canberra Times – The most senior woman in the Defence hierarchy has been sacked for failing to do her job. The Defence Materiel Organisation employed Jane Wolfe less than two years ago to head the agency’s corporate area.
Europe
- euobserver – EU member states remained divided on Monday (6 April) over whether to take in Guantanamo inmates, just a day after US president Barack Obama called for the bloc’s assistance on the issue.
- Russia Today – According to various reports, on Tuesday between 2,500-20,000 people took to the streets of Moldova’s capital, Chisinau, to protest the results of Sunday’s parliamentary elections.
- Robert Amsterdam – As the reports roll in of the bullets and bloodshed on the streets of Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, increasing scrutiny will begin to be applied to Russia’s interventionist position in the country’s politics, which some say could force their bluff on the Transnistrian conflict.
- Islam in Europe – Starting Thursday, the Dutch army is employing two imams. A spokesperson for the defense ministry confirmed the report Tuesday the the Vrij Nederland weekly. The imams are Ali Eddaoudi and Souad Aydin. They are respectively of Moroccan and Turkish origins.
- euronews – Death and destruction stalk the Italian city of L’Aquila as the number killed in Monday’s earthquake continues to rise. The latest figures stand at 207 dead and more than 1,500 injured. The Italian government has revised the number of people made homeless to 17,000.
Africa
- Garowe – Security forces in Somalia’s separatist republic of Somaliland fired on demonstrators in the regional capital Hargeisa, Radio Garowe reports.
- CBS – Somali pirates have hijacked at least five vessels since Saturday. Using a new strategy, they are operating further away from warships patrolling the Gulf of Aden. And they no longer have to contend with the choppy waters that always plague the seas off Somalia in the early part of the year.
- ISN – The confluence of recent events provides the best opportunity in two decades for an international coalition to effectively address chaos in Somalia in the next 12 months, Diane Chido writes for ISN
- Sudan Tribune – Two unknown gunmen carjacked a vehicle last night from the hybrid African Union-United Nations peacekeeping operation in Darfur (UNAMID), according to the daily briefing of the mission today.
- Strategy Page – Africa is becoming a major outlet for Chinese military aircraft. Nigeria and Zimbabwe have already made purchases. The Chinese aircraft are cheap, easy to maintain and suit African needs.
- IRNA – Majilis lawmakers on Tuesday ratified an agreement to encourage investment among Iran, Eritrea and Algeria. As per the agreement the three countries are obliged to prepare the ground for bolstering economic ties. [me: remember this?]
- UNHCR – Renewed fighting between two rival militia groups in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo has driven more than 30,000 Congolese from their homes.
- New Times – Tears surged as Rwandans yesterday mourned, for the fifteenth year, remembering April 1994 with just a few exceptionally strong-willed people able to hold them back. This was because memories were refreshed during the national commemorative event at Nyanza Memorial Site in Kicukiro where thousands had gathered.
- BBC – A manhunt has been launched for a French foreign legionnaire who, reports say, killed two comrades and a Togolese UN peacekeeper in eastern Chad.
- Air Force – Officials from Air University, U.S. Africa Command and the 17th Air Force kicked off a symposium March 31 to foster recommendations for the Air Force’s involvement for Africa Command.
U.S. Marines participate in an amphibious landing exercise on Camp Lemonier, Djibouti, April 1, 2009. The Marines are assigned to the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit. The unit established a beachhead after coming ashore on landing craft launched from the USS Boxer. (photo by Petty Officer 1st Class John Johnson)
The Global War
- Pakistan MFA – FM Qureshi: I am grateful to the Obama Administration for being sensitive towards the red lines that I have mentioned in Washington during my first interaction. I said no foreign boots on Pakistani soil, we cannot accept that. They have announced it very categorically and clearly that they respect Pakistan’s point of view. There are other areas of concern as I mentioned and we will talk about them in Washington.
- UPI – Singapore Ministry of Defense is hosting a forum that has gathered security, government and business authorities together to discuss global security trends. Called the Island Forum, the fourth annual event has brought top officials from India, the United Kingdom and the United States to Singapore to collaborate and exchange ideas on countering evolving threats to security around the world, the Singapore Defense Ministry reported.
- The Australian – A British nuclear-powered submarine with 130 crew crashed into Australia’s continental shelf off the coast of Perth in a potentially deadly accident that was covered up at the time. The accident was one of 13 collisions involving Royal Navy nuclear-powered submarines since 1988 and was released last week by Armed Forces Minister Bob Ainsworth.
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23 March, 2009 (00:52) | Daily Roundup | By: Jeff Kouba
A brief world news roundup for 23 March 2009.
United States & the Americas
- HS Today – Cyber hackers believed to be based in China have tapped three times into the computer network in US Sen. Bill Nelson’s office, the Florida Democrat said Friday. Two attacks on the same day this month and another one last month targeted work stations used by three Nelson staffers — a key foreign-policy aide, the deputy legislative director and a former Nelson NASA advisor, according to Nelson’s staff.
- canada.com – Canada is to nearly double the number of police mentors it sends to Afghanistan and intends to base a senior Mountie in Kabul to advise on policing issues, RCMP commissioner Bill Elliott said Sunday.
- Khaleej Times – President Hugo Chavez said Saturday he will visit the Middle East, including Iran, and possibly Japan after he attends the summit of Arab and South American countries in Doha on March 31.
- Al Jazeera – Venezuela’s military has taken control of all the country’s major airports and sea ports, a move that critics say is meant to limit the powers of mayors, governors and other potential rivals to Hugo Chavez, the president.
- AP – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday called President Barack Obama “ignorant,” saying he has a lot to learn about Latin America.
- LA Times – China’s copper mine project in Peru reflects its economic power; The Asian giant lacks the natural resources at home it needs to keep its economy expanding, but it has a lot of cash to acquire them.
Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia
- RIA Novosti – Russia and Japan could sign an agreement on civilian nuclear power in May, a Russian deputy prime minister said Saturday.
- Fars - Russian prime minister’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that Iran, Russia and Turkey could jointly develop nuclear energy projects in different countries to help them reduce dependency on oil and gas imports.
- Daily Star – Russian Ambassador to Bangladesh Gennady P Trotsenko submitted a formal proposal to State Minister for Science and ICT Yafez Osman for setting up a nuclear power plant to meet Bangladesh’s growing demand for energy.
- afrol – Nigeria’s Federal government has signed an energy accord with a Russian company, Rosatom Corp, to work on mining uranium, building and testing atomic power plants and sharing knowledge. The memorandum of understanding signed in Moscow would pave the way for a bilateral cooperation on the development of nuclear energy infrastructure, including on nuclear power plants and research reactors in Nigeria.
- Moscow Times – Prime Minister Vladimir Putin held a tense meeting with Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov on Friday, trading thinly veiled barbs about whose responsibility it was to rebuild the impoverished republic.
- NPR – When Serge Schmemann arrived in Moscow in 1980 as the bureau chief for The New York Times, the Russian Orthodox Church was in dismal shape. Since then, he says, the path of the church has followed the fate of the country.
- Itar-Tass – During a special operation, which is going on to the south of the village of Kakashura in Dagestan’s Karabudakhkensky region for the third day already. Five law enforcers died in the operation. As ITAR-TASS learnt at the press service of the Interior Ministry for Dagestan, “as a result of an exchange of fire, a rifleman-radio operator and another four servicemen died. According to preliminary data, there are losses among the militants – - eight or ten people.”
- Civil Georgia – The Kremlin aims at regime change in Georgia “through internal disorders and destabilization”, Gela Bezhuashvili, the chief of Georgian intelligence service, told lawmakers on March 20. Speaking at a hearing of the parliamentary committee for defense and security Bezhuashvili suggested that in a short-term period Russia would likely try to mount pressure on Georgia through inciting internal destabilization rather than through use of direct military force.
Middle East
- Al Arabiya – Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul will arrive in Baghdad Monday on the first visit by a Turkish head of state in 33 years for talks on the thorny issue of Kurdish rebels, feared to step up action after U.S. pullout, officials said.
- Asharq Al Awsat – Almost 90 percent of the tens of thousands of U.S.-backed fighters who helped purge much of Iraq of al Qaeda have been transferred to Iraqi control, the U.S. commander in charge of their programme said on Saturday.
- Voices of Iraq – Security forces in Diala captured 10 members of Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) network in different areas of Baaquba city on Saturday, the Diala police chief said.
- Haaretz – A senior source in the Palestinian Authority told Haaretz Sunday that he suspects Hezbollah or another organization with links to Iran was behind the attempted bombing of the Lev Hamifratz shopping mall in Haifa on Saturday night.
- Jerusalem Post – Shas became the second party to join Prime Minister-designate Binyamin Netanyahu’s government Sunday night, signing a deal just after midnight. Shas chairman Eli Yishai will take the Interior Ministry portfolio as part of the agreement.
- Al Bawaba – Israeli premier-designate Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking to reassure Cairo over choosing a disputed politician who once told the Egyptian president to “go to hell” as his foreign minister, his office said on Sunday. In the past he also said Israel should destroy Aswan Dam.
- JCPA – The Role of Radical Islamic Groups in Israel: Implications for Israeli-Arab Coexistence
- Naharnet – Phalange Party Central Coordinator Sami Gemayel on Sunday slammed Hizbullah without naming it, saying: “There is a party in Lebanon that owns an army dissimilar to the Lebanese army, and enjoys foreign connections that contradict with the state.” “This takes the country to a different course,” Gemayel said in an interview with the Voice of Lebanon radio station.
- SANA – The Syrian delegation, headed by Minister of Irrigation Nader al-Bunni, and the Iranian delegation, headed by Minister of Energy Parviz Fattah discussed Saturday means of joint cooperation between the two countries regarding water. During a meeting on the sidelines of the Fifth International Water Forum currently held in Istanbul, both sides called for enhancing relations through reciprocal visits of concerned delegations and exchanging information, as well as making use of each other’s technologies.
Iran
- Rooz – Just a day after Majlis Speaker Larijani’s harsh reply to President Ahmadinejad, which had heightened the conflict between the two branches of government in the final days of the Iranian calendar year, pro-Ahmadinejad media launched an intense media campaign against the Speaker.
- Khamenei – Ayatollah Khamenei touched on the issue of Iran and America and termed the quality of interaction with the American government as a big test for the Iranian nation and the Islamic Republic. The IR Leader pointed to the enmity of the American administration towards the Iranian nation and the Islamic Republic and said,” America provoked and helped the terror and separatist moves against the Islamic Republic and based on reliable information America cooperates with terrorists along the IRI-Pakistan borders.”
- The News – Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mehmud Qureshi, commenting on the reported attack by Jundullah on an Iranian post, said on Sunday that some miscreants were involved in such activities which were creating misunderstandings. But, these miscreants were not from Pakistan as according to his information, after the attack on the Iranian post, the miscreants did not return towards Pakistan
- IRNA – Thailand’s Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya stressed the importance of boosting ties with Iran.
- Payvand – Photos: Imam Khomeini’s wife, Khadije Saghafi, laid to rest
About 100 government, tribal, and religious leaders, mostly from Alasai district meet at a shura council meeting on Forward Operating Base Morales Frasier, Nijrab district, in southern Kapisa, Afghanistan, March 17, 2009. The shura was held to address operations in the Alasai district and the recent appointment of a new sub-governor there. (photo by Chief Master Sgt. John Zincone)
South Asia
- AFPS – Afghan and coalition forces killed 36 enemy fighters and detained eight suspects in operations in Afghanistan, military officials reported Friday.
- Maj. Gen. Mart de Kruif, DoD briefing – It’s clear to say that two years ago, the insurgents changed their overall strategy from attacking our strength, being ISAF, towards focusing on terrorizing the local nationals, the Afghan people. And one of the elements of that is the use of IEDs. For ISAF, that means that we have to deliver a 24/7 security in the focus areas where we are placed.
- Frontier Post – Afghan Governor Gul Agha Shirzai, who is a semi-literate former warlord and a handful of other former warlords are again being seen as useful partners as US President Barack Obama undertakes a massive overhaul of the war in Afghanistan.
- Geo – FC sources told that security forces today in their second day of operation against the extremists at Tehsil Bara of Khayber Agency destroyed two main centers of the extremists. Tanks and helicopter gun ships were used in the operation, but no loss of life thus far reported during the operation. While yesterday 31 extremists were taken into custody during operation, six extremists were wounded and two centers were destroyed.
- Statesman – Swat Taliban, who recently made a peace deal with the government, has issued warning to NGOs in the valley. “They come and tell us how to make latrines. I’m sure we can do it ourselves. There is no need for foreigners to tell us this,” Muslim Khan, a spokesman for Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), told IRIN on Sunday.
- Gulf News – Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and Pakistan Muslim League-N chief and former premier Nawaz Sharif agreed on reconciliation and cooperation between PML-N and the Pakistan Peoples Party during a crucial meeting on Sunday, their first after the historic restoration of the deposed judges.
- Times of India – Investigations have been launched to trace the origin of an e-mail threat in the name of al-Qaida to a city hotel a couple of days ago, police said. The sources said a hotel near the railway station received an e-mail threatening that it would face ‘the similar fate of Taj Hotel in Mumbai and another hotel in Islamabad, if it did not act as per our desire, since we know your activities.’
- The Age – Five Indian soldiers and six Muslim rebels were killed in separate gunbattles in Kashmir yesterday, police said, a day after Pakistani and Indian troops traded fire across the de facto border.
- Sri Lanka MoD – Sri Lankan Army infantrymen of the 53 Division advancing eastwardly in Puthukkudiyirippu towards the remaining LTTE resistance positions at the Mullaittivu battlefront have reportedly gained total control over a 1.5km stretch of the Paranthan- Mullaittivu (A-35 ) main road this morning (March 21). According to military sources, troops are now consolidating defences in the area after neutralizing LTTE resistances. Terrorists put-on stiff resistances with heavy artillery shelling and mortar attacks launched from the declared No Fire Zone in the Eastern Mullaittivu coast, the sources further said.
- Hindu – The Sri Lankan government on Sunday said China had opposed a motion in the United Nations Security Council for a discussion on the humanitarian crisis triggered by the war in the north. A report on the Information Ministry website said Beijing had opposed the proposal on the ground that it was an internal matter of the island nation and the military operations had no effect on international peace and security.
Far East & Pacific
- VOA – China’s official Xinhua news agency says police have detained almost 100 ethnic Tibetan monks who attacked a police station in northwestern China. Xinhua says the monks were among hundreds of rioters who assaulted police and government workers at the police building Saturday.
- China Daily – A Jian-10 (Fighter-10), China’s most advanced military jet, had made a successful forced landing during a training flight after an engine failure, China Central Television (CCTV) reported Sunday.
- Times Online – A French arms company is at the centre of a deepening scandal involving the sale of three submarines, the murder of a beautiful Mongolian interpreter and the man most likely to become prime minister of Malaysia next month.
- JoongAng – Two American warships, initially deployed for the U.S.?South Korea joint military exercise, will remain in the waters near the Korean Peninsula in preparation for the suspected long-range rocket launch by North Korea next month, a military source said yesterday.
- ABC – Japanese Military Assumes More Global Role; From Sapporo to Somalia: Japan moving to redefine its military as a global force
- Bangkok Post – A car bomb went off at a fresh market in the troubled southern province of Narathiwat on Monday morning, injuring seven people.
- Irrawaddy – Three alleged members of the network operated by late drug kingpin Khun Sa have been arrested in Thailand and assets worth more than 117 million baht (US $3.3 million) seized.
- Manila Times – THE joint RP-US military exercises scheduled in the Bicol region will start 15 days earlier than the original plan to make sure that projects will be completed before the closing of the annual undertaking a military officials disclosed Sunday. At the same time American troops are expected to arrive in the region by next week.
- Air Force – Airmen aboard a B-2 Spirit tested their endurance in a 24-hour, 8,000-mile mission to Alaska and back to Guam March 12 in an exercise showcasing U.S. commitment to peace and stability throughout the Pacific region. Four B-2s and 270 Airmen from the 13th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron are deployed to Andersen Air Force Base from Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo., and this was the first bomber to complete the Polar Lightning Exercise since their arrival in late February.
Europe
- Javno – Poland said on Sunday it hoped the new U.S. administration would not abandon plans to station a missile defence system on its territory. Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said Poland had taken “something of a political risk” in signing an agreement with the Bush adminstration to host the system.
- Czech News – The congress of the opposition Czech Social Democrats (CSSD) today agreed that the party should strive for the cancellation of the Czech-U.S. treaties based on which a U.S. radar be is to be stationed on Czech soil.
- Interpol – Pakistan has been praised by INTERPOL for its benchmark move in sharing with the world police body and its 187 member countries the DNA profiles of suspected terrorists linked to last November’s Mumbai terrorist attacks. On 21 March, INTERPOL’s Command and Co-ordination Centre at its General Secretariat headquarters in Lyon received DNA profiles from Pakistan relating to the Mumbai terrorist attacks which were immediately checked against the organization’s global database by experts from INTERPOL’s DNA unit.
- MSNBC – Hungary’s prime minister stunned the country Saturday by announcing his resignation because he had become an “obstacle” to the reforms needed to pull the country out of its worst financial crisis since the end of communism nearly 20 years ago.
- euobserver – The Eastern Partnership is an EU attempt to expand its “sphere of influence” in the quest for hydrocarbons, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has said, in Moscow’s first major broadside against the new policy.
- Expatica – Spain’s government said Saturday it had cleared up a misunderstanding with Washington over the withdrawal of Spanish troops from Kosovo.
- BBC – Macedonians have voted in presidential and local polls seen as critical to the country’s EU and Nato membership bids, amid stringent security.
- euronews – Slovakia’s presidential election is to go to a second round. Amid a low turnout, no one candidate managed to win more than half the votes cast in Saturday’s ballot, as is required for outright victory. So a head to head battle between the two frontrunners will now take place next month.
Africa
- Shabelle – The government officials in Elbarde town in Bakol region have disproved that some of their soldiers surrendered to the Islamic administration of al-Shabab in Bay and Bakol regions, official told Shabelle radio on Sunday. Mohamed Mo’allin, a district commissioner of Hudur town of the Somali government who is in parts of Bakol region disproved that some of their soldiers left and surrendered to the Islamic administration of al-Shabab who controls most of Bay and Bakol regions in southern Somalia.
- Garowe – Somalia’s Contending Islamic Ideologies; Report Drafted By Dr. Michael A. Weinstein
- Kavkaz Center – Struggle for Somalia: ”Al-Shabaab” movement welcomes bin Laden’s statement
- Monitor – The Military Police Commander, Lt. Col. Tumusiime Katsigazi, has been appointed the Commanding Officer of the UPDF battalion set to reinforce the African Union mission in Somalia (Amisom).
- Sudan Tribune – Some 34 people were killing as result of fighting tribal in between Fallata and Habaniya tribes in South Darfur State, tribal leader said. Jafar Ali Al-Gali, a representative of Al-Habaniya tribe told Al-Ray Amm daily newspaper that joint force from Al-Fallata and their ally Salamat attacked them at Afonna location killing 28 Habaniya and wounding 6 other. He further said they killed 6 members from the assailant force which was heavily armed.
- New Vision – Mutinying Sudanese soldiers in Nimule have opened the Ugandan border after their leaders were addressed by President Salva Kiir of Southern Sudan. The Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) soldiers opened the border at 8:00am yesterday, allowing over 300 trucks trapped in Sudan since Thursday to cross into Uganda. But traders aboard 200 vehicles inside Uganda were still too scared to cross into Sudan.
- CSM – Hutu rebels in Congo strike back against joint offensive; FDLR militia targets civilians, aid workers, and officials who supported the Congo-Rwanda effort.
- The Standard – Major donors have voiced concern over the spate of farm invasions amid concerns some Zanu PF elements are stepping up their efforts to sabotage the inclusive government’s push for an emergency financial rescue package. The fresh farm invasions spearheaded by the Joseph Chinotimba-led Zimbabwe Federation of Trade Unions (ZFTU) and senior Zanu PF officials are reportedly causing headaches for MDC-T ministers charged with leading Zimbabwe’s desperate search for aid.
- Magharebia – Algeria will sell liquid natural gas (LNG) directly to Portugal, following an agreement signed between Sonatrach subsidiary SGC and the Portuguese government, APS reported on Saturday (March 21st). Algeria already supplies 2.5b cubic metres of LNG per year to Portugal.
Two U.S. Marine Corps MV-22 B Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft take off from Camp Liberty Command Pad, Iraq, March 19, 2009. When it comes to how it flies, the Osprey combines the best of both worlds with the ability to take off and land like a helicopter and the added feature of flying through the air like a plane. (photo by Staff Sgt. Jon Cupp)
The Global War
- LA Times – An intense, six-month campaign of Predator strikes in Pakistan has taken such a toll on Al Qaeda that militants have begun turning violently on one another out of confusion and distrust, U.S. intelligence and counter-terrorism officials say. The pace of the Predator attacks has accelerated dramatically since August, when the Bush administration made a previously undisclosed decision to abandon the practice of obtaining permission from the Pakistani government before launching missiles from the unmanned aircraft.
- US Navy – The U.S. Navy submarine and U.S. amphibious ship that collided in the Strait of Hormuz March 20, arrived in port Bahrain March 21.
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9 March, 2009 (00:17) | Daily Roundup | By: Jeff Kouba
A brief world news roundup for 9 March 2009.
United States & the Americas
- Secretary Clinton – Bob, we are in the final stages of our policy review on Afghanistan and Pakistan and I don’t want to preview that or try to summarize where we are in the process until we are ready to unveil it. But Iran borders Afghanistan. In the early days of the military efforts by the United States and our allies to go after the Taliban and al-Qaida, Iran was consulting with our ambassador on a daily basis. Where it is appropriate and useful for the United States and others to see whether Iran can be constructive, that will be considered. I’ve said it and many of you have heard me say it over and over again: there is a great deal of concern about Iran from the entire region. I heard it over and over and over again in Sharm el-Sheikh, in Israel, in Ramallah. It is clear that Iran intends to interfere with the internal affairs of all of these people and try to continue their efforts to fund terrorism, whether it’s Hezbollah or Hamas or other proxies. So we have said consistently that we are ready to engage, but we want to make sure it’s constructive, and that goes for Afghanistan and it goes for all the rest of the region.
- Khaleej Times – US President Barack Obama will visit Turkey in about a month’s time, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced Saturday, as she visited strategic ally Ankara to repair ties damaged over the Iraq war
- Washington Post – The U.S. military announced Sunday that 12,000 American soldiers would withdraw from Iraq by September, marking the first step in the Obama administration’s plan to pull U.S. combat forces out of the country by August 2010.
- FBI – A former inmate in a California state prison who formed a domestic terrorist group that planned to attack United States military operations, “infidels,” and Israeli and Jewish facilities in the Los Angeles area was sentenced to 16 years in federal prison
- Javno – An Armenian convicted of conspiring to smuggle Russian military arms into the United States including rocket-propelled grenade launchers and other weapons was sentenced to 22 years in prison on Friday. The other four conspirators included three Georgians and one Ukrainian
- National Post – Canadian soldiers soared into western Zhari District Saturday to disrupt suspected Taliban compounds, the first air-assault mission done with Canadian helicopters in the country’s military history.
- LA Times – A U.S. citizen was one of the three men who were found decapitated this week in Tijuana, Mexican authorities said Friday. Authorities said they suspected that it was an organized crime hit.
- ABC – Bodies stacked in the morgues of Mexico’s border cities tell the story of an escalating drug war. Drug violence claimed 6,290 people last year, double the previous year, and more than 1,000 in the first eight weeks of 2009. Workers toil up to 12 hours a day, sometimes seven days a week, to examine the remains. When Tijuana coffin makers fell behind during the December holidays, the morgue there crammed 200 bodies into two refrigerators made to hold 80.
- IRIB – The Islamic Republic of Iran and Venezuela stressed acceleration in implementation of joint economic projects. IRI’s economic delegation in a meeting with Venezuelan Finance Minister Ali Rodriguez on Saturday studying bilateral agreements in banking and economic fields, called for expansion of mutual cooperation. They also called for rapid implementation of industrial, economic and banking projects.
- Javno – The Columbian police reported on Friday that they confiscated four tonnes of cocaine and 1.7 tonnes of cocaine paste in a laboratory on the south of the country, that belongs to the paramilitary group “Black Eagles”. The drugs were found in a secret laboratory for which the police claim can produce up to five tonnes of cocaine per week, and is located 950 km south-west of Bogota, on the border with Equador, said the police in their report.
Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia
- Georgian Times – Russia and Abkhazian separatist regime have signed an agreement, which says that the Russian military bases will remain in Abkhazia for 49 years, Abkhazian separatist leader has told a Russian newspaper The Nezavisimaya Gazeta. According to Baghapsh, in Gudauta aerodrome Russians will construct military air base and naval base in Ochamchire. Several military boats of the Russian fleet will emerge in Ochamchire to control the Abkhazian waters.
- Russia MFA – Question: How would you comment upon the recent statement of the head of the MFA of EU President Czech Republic, Karel Schwarzenberg, who actually linked the questions of recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia by Belarus and the Euro-integration of Minsk under the Eastern Partnership program of the EU? Grigory Karasin: The statement of Schwarzenberg has to be deemed an act of gross public pressure by the EU presidency on Belarus. In an impermissible ultimatum form, Minsk is being asked, for the sake of a possibility for rapprochement with Europe, to waive its right of sovereign decision making on major foreign policy issues.
- NY Times – Reconstruction is moving slowly in the Georgian enclave of South Ossetia, and most of Russia’s promised aid has not arrived.
- Itar-Tass – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said he has had a detailed discussion with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on preparations for the first meeting of the two countries’ presidents, which is to take place in London at the beginning of April. “We discussed in detail the so-called ‘sore spots’ in our relations. We took a look at how to organize the work to clear away the piles of problems inherited from the past, and how to ensure the constructive vector and targeted partner-style cooperation dominate in our relations,” Lavrov told a news conference following his first working meeting with the chief of the US diplomacy.
- Kavkaz Center – Jamaat Shariat web-site has posted a statement confirming recent casualties of Mujahideen. Russian forces killed five and detained four other people (three men and a woman) in three separate, but apparently linked raids on February 21, 2009, in Makhachkala. Mujahideen belonging to several special operational groups, who entered the city in order to carry out a major operation, fought stubborn battles against outnumbering forces of disbelievers in Shamilkala (formerly Makhachkala) for two days and nights.
- Russia Today – The planned Nord Stream gas pipeline, which will link Russia and the EU via the Baltic Sea, will improve energy security in Europe, says Russia’s First Deputy PM Viktor Zubkov, who has paid a working visit to Sweden.
- Kremlin – Dmitry Medvedev will meet with Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany on March 10
- Siemens – Siemens and the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the creation of a joint venture in the field of nuclear energy. The joint venture plans to push ahead with further development of Russian pressurized water reactor (VVER) technology.
- Spiegel – Siemens is pressuring Russian atomic energy agency Rosatom over its involvement in building Iran’s first power plant in the southern port of Bushehr. Siemens CEO Peter Loescher initially hailed the joint venture as a great opportunity “to enlarge our footprint in nuclear business with a very strong and experienced partner.” He later became critical of Russia’s political and financial contributions to the Bushehr reactor and demanded that the Kremlin address international concerns over Tehran’s uranium enrichment activities.
- Trend – On March 6, the Armenian Armed Forces opened fire at Azerbaijani troops at 07:10-07:20. The shots were fired from the Mosesgah village Berd region at the nameless heights in Tovuz region, as well as from Kuropatkino and nameless heights in Khojavand region. The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry reported that the Armenian soldiers fired at Azerbaijani troops from an area outside the Ashagi Abdulrahmanli village nameless heights in Fuzuli region.
Middle East
- Al Jazeera – At least 28 people have been killed and dozens more wounded after a suicide bomber on a bicycle attacked a police recruitment centre in Iraq, police said. Eight police were among those killed in the attack on Sunday at Baghdad’s main police academy and the rest were would-be recruits.
- MNF Iraq – Program managers from the United States and Iraq, along with representatives from the General Dynamics Contract Logistics Support (CLS) group, met to discuss the fielding of M1A1SA Abrams tanks for the Iraqi Army, March 4.
- Voices of Iraq – Diala security forces arrested six members of Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) network in central Baaquba on Sunday, a senior police official said.
- Asharq Al Awsat – The Western-backed Palestinian prime minister submitted his resignation Saturday, improving the odds of a possible unity government of Fatah moderates and Hamas militants, followed by new Palestinian elections. Salam Fayyad announced that he will step down once a new government is formed, but no later than the end of March.
- Hizballah – Hizbullah Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem reiterated on Saturday that his party would not place its bets on international changes. “We won’t bet on US President Barack Obama against former US president George Bush…we don’t expect political changes in how the new US administration would deal with us.” Speaking during a cultural event in Beirut’s southern suburb, Sheikh Qassem called to keep in mind “the fact that when we are strong no one could impose their conditions on us from overseas.” His eminence emphasized that “the resistance shall remain strong and so shall Lebanon.”
- Naharnet – MP Saad Hariri has been conducting “behind the scenes” talks with Hizbullah to discuss the party’s reservations to a memorandum of understanding between the government and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, the pan-Arab al-Hayat daily said Sunday.
- NOW Lebanon – The vice president of the Higher Shia Islamic Council, Sheikh Abdel Amir Qablan, on Sunday met with US envoys Jeffrey Feltman and Daniel Shapiro and US Ambassador to Lebanon Michele Sison at the council’s headquarters. Qabalan also requested the US administration extend “bridges of dialogue” to Hezbollah and Hamas and deal with the Lebanese with a “spirit of fairness and justice.”
- Hurriyet – Two Turkish children were fired on by Iranian soldiers while attempting to cross the border from Turkey into Iran, killing one, Dogan News Agency (DHA) reported on Sunday. One Turkish child was killed and another was injured after being fired upon by Iranian military as they attempted an illegal crossing from the Saray township in the eastern Turkish province of Van into Iran.
- Al Sumaria – The Turkish military reported that around 375 rebels from Kurdistan Workers Party were killed and wounded since October 2008 due to Turkish shelling on their positions in northern Iraq.
Iran
- Press TV - Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has questioned the motive behind a Moroccan decision to cut diplomatic ties with Tehran. The Moroccan Foreign Ministry on Friday accused Iran’s Embassy in Rabat of trying to “alter the religious fundamentals of the kingdom” and threaten the religious unity of the Sunni Arab kingdom.
- Vos Iz Neias – Shoe Thrown at Iranian President Ahmadinejad in Urmia; An Iranian website, Urmia News, reported that a shoe was hurled at the president as his convoy drove through a central square. Security guards waded into the crowds but failed to find the culprit. A hat was also thrown in Ahmadinejad’s direction before his car sped away. The event went unreported on mainstream Iranian news outlets but has been hotly discussed on the country’s highly active blogosphere
- Fars – Iran has decided to open its first nuclear power plant in Bushehr for Tourist in an effort to highlight Tehran’s peaceful nuclear drive.
- Jerusalem Post – Iranian news agencies were divided over the range and purpose of a missile fired by the Islamic republic on Sunday. According to Reuters, while state-run television reported that a long-range missile was fired, the Fars News Agency said an anti-ship air-to-surface missile, with a range of 110 km. had in fact been tested. The latter report cited a missile having far less range than the Shihab-3 missile which Iran says can reach as far as Israel.
- Mehr – Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hassan Qashqavi said on Saturday that Iran is “deeply concerned” about the suppression of human rights by French police.
- Payvand – The 10th Summit Meeting of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) is to be held in Tehran on Wednesday, it was announced here on Saturday. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi added that the 18th ECO foreign ministerial session will also be held in the Iranian capital on Monday. Talking to reporters, he added that Azeri President Ilham Aliyev is to hand over the ECO presidency to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during the ECO summit. Presidents of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai, of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari, of Tajikistan Imomali Rakhmon, of Turkey Abdullah Gul, of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, and President Aliyev are to attend the ECO summit as main guests, Qashqavi further announced.
- Press TV – A railway to ease trade between members of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) will extend to as far as China, says the ECO chief. ECO Secretary General Khurshid Anwar said on Sunday that the organization aims to ultimately extend a railway to transport cargo between ECO members to the city of Urumchi in northwestern China.
- IRNA – An informed source in the province said in an armed conflict on Saturday afternoon in eastern borders of the country six bandits were killed.
- Payvand - Photos: Azerbaijan Grabs First Title in World Wrestling Championship
Two U.S. Army soldiers walk their vehicle through the muddy paths of Forward Operating Base Airborne south of Kabul, Afghanistan, March 6, 2009. The soldiers, assigned to the 10th Mountain Division's 3rd Brigade Combat Team and part of Task Force Spartan, took control of the base last month. (photo by Fred W. Baker III)
South Asia
- Iran VNC – The US commander of international forces in Afghanistan accused Iran of supporting the Taliban insurgency in that war-torn country, and urged Tehran to join international efforts to bring stability to its eastern neighbor. “We believe there is a certain training support, funding support and there is a certain complicity in the narcotics trade,” General David McKiernan said in an interview with Reuters.
- AFPS – U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan killed 16 enemy fighters in several operations, military officials reported. In addition, forces captured two weapons smugglers March 6.
- canada.com – A Canadian soldier died Sunday and four others were seriously injured when a roadside bomb exploded near their vehicle in Shah Wali Kot District, north of Kandahar City.
- Air Force – In Afghanistan, Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs targeted enemy snipers during a battle between anti-Afghan forces and coalition soldiers in a valley outside Bagram. After marking the snipers’ positions with smoke, the A-10s rolled in, using 30mm Avenger cannons to hit each enemy fighting position. After eliminating the sniper threat, the A-10s reengaged and strafed an enemy command position. Following the engagement, the aircraft flew a show of force over a base in order to deter enemy small-arms fire from outside the base perimeter
- CSM – A pair of recent cease-fires in Pakistan has drawn many of the same critiques as past deals: They give militants legitimacy as well as an opportunity to regroup or relocate. But this time may be different. In the tribal agency of Bajaur, the military for the first time made significant headway before observing a truce.
- Daily Times – US Central Command (CENTCOM) has denied reports that a drone was shot down in South Waziristan by the Taliban on Saturday. “As far as CENTCOM goes, all of our drones have been accounted for. So it’s not ours, if there is one that was shot down,” Major Marie Boughen, a spokeswoman for CENTCOM, said.
- Geo – Security forces in an action in Mohmand Agency killed 15 militants, sources said on Sunday. Security forces backed by gunship helicopters pounded militants hideouts in Gorgaray, Sapri and Mula Ghani areas of Tehsil Yaka Ghand, killing 15 militants. Meanwhile, curfew remains imposed in Machnai area of Tehsil Shabqadar during which search operation is underway. Security forces destroyed houses of 2 local commanders of the militants identified as Ahteshamul Haq and Raheel while 3 suspects have been arrested in Tehsil Haleemzai
- The News – Eight people, including seven security personnel, were killed in a remote-controlled car-bomb blast in Mashogagar village on the outskirts of Peshawar after terrorists trapped the cops by placing a body in the vehicle early on Saturday morning.
- VOA – Pakistani authorities have released 12 Taliban militants as part of a peace agreement with Islamist in the northwestern Swat Valley. Pakistani media report that no prominent Taliban members were among those freed.
- Times of India – The Lashkar-e-Toiba has opened a new wing to create unrest in the Northeast and districts of West Bengal bordering Bangladesh. This was known after interrogation of the LeT operative, Abu Taher, arrested from the crowded Sealdah station on Saturday evening, by the Special Task Force, a senior STF officer said.
- Straits Times – Indian activists marked International Women’s Day on Sunday by protesting over a spate of violent attacks launched on women by religious extremists in the name of ‘moral policing.’ A collective formed by residents in Bangalore, in India’s south, met in parks and open areas where young Hindu extremists have targeted women for wearing jeans, or being seen in public with men.
- Sri Lanka MoD – As Mullaittivu battles reached its last phase LTTE terrorists made several desperate attempts in vain, to infiltrate the military forward defences which left over 100 terrorists killed and as many injured since Friday dawn (March 6). LTTE terrorists were preparing for a large scale offensive towards the existing military defences at Palamathalan and North of Puthkkudiyirippu, inducting over 200 cadres including suicide bombers and sea tigers. Following the initial thrust terrorists had planned to send waves of 100 odd cadres to provide reinforcements. Bahnu, Lowrence, Soosai and few other high profile LTTE terrorists were directly involved in master minding the preemptive assault, security sources said.
- Colombo Page – Hundreds more Tamil civilians have crossed the front lines in the Mullaitivu District’s war zone and reached Army controlled areas, the military said today. A group of 45 civilians from uncleared areas of Mullaitivu reached the troops at the Puthukkudyiruppu East defence line Sunday (08) morning, Defence Ministry reported. The rebels have fired upon the fleeing group and a 17-year old girl was injured.
- Daily Star – A two-member team of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrived in Dhaka yesterday afternoon from New Delhi to assist Bangladesh probe the carnage at the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) headquarters. Confirming their arrival, US Ambassador James Moriarty hinted that a full FBI team would replace this advanced team after their departure.
Far East & Pacific
- Yonhap – Tension on the divided Korean Peninsula is expected to escalate further this week, as South Korea and the United States plan to kick off their joint military exercise as scheduled, despite a series of North Korean threats.
- BBC – People in North Korea are voting in parliamentary elections that observers say could give a clue to the country’s eventual succession. The elections to the Supreme People’s Assembly are always a formality, with each candidate elected unopposed. But for the first time, one of leader Kim Jong-il’s sons – Kim Jong-un – is rumoured to be on the ballot.
- China Daily – China’s port container handling volume recorded a year-on-year decline in February, expanding the drop in January as the financial crisis continues to hurt the country’s exports. The volume of containers handled by ports nationwide totaled 6.97 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in February, down 17 percent compared with the same month of 2008.
- Times of India – China, which has a long standing dispute with Japan over an island, has now entered in a tiff with Malaysia and the Philippines over another island in the South China Sea.
- Asia Times – The hopes of Japan’s opposition leader, Ichiro Ozawa, tipped to be the next prime minister, appear dashed due to a political donation scandal that has led to the arrest of his state-funded secretary. It is an issue with implications far beyond the domestic arena, as Ozawa apparently supports an almost complete US withdrawal from Japanese territory.
- PACOM – The semi-annual five-day Multi-Sail exercise brought 7th Fleet ships together to improve warfare mission readiness March 1-5, off the coast of Okinawa, Japan
- Stars and Stripes – Leadership comes with the territory for U.S. Army NCOs, and their Japanese counterparts are looking to move in that direction within the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force. With that in mind, NCOs of the JGSDF Noncommissioned Officer Association traveled to Camp Zama last week and exchanged leadership ideas with some of their U.S. Army counterparts.
- Military.com – The US Navy on Friday said the critical weapons system of a warship was not damaged when it grounded a half-mile (kilometer) off Honolulu, contradicting an earlier news report. Propeller blades, the sonar dome and underwater hull were among the damaged parts of the guided-missile cruiser USS Port Royal, the U.S. Pacific Fleet said.
- The Australian – The Defence Department will conduct a thorough review of the rules of engagement governing covert operations against suspected Taliban fighters following the deaths of five Afghan children in a firefight last month.
Europe
- Irish Times – The Real IRA has allegedly claimed responsibility for the attack on a British army barracks in Co Antrim in which two soldiers were shot dead and four others injured. PSNI investigating officer Detective Superintendent Derek Williamson said at least two gunmen opened fire indiscriminately on a group of soldiers and the two delivery men as they arrived at Massereene Barracks last night.
- Stockholm News – Around five thousand people demonstrated against the tennis game between Sweden and Israel. A couple of hundred of them tried to attack the police outside the Baltic Hall and force the police´s barrages.
- SANA – A confidential EU report said that the Israeli occupation forces are attempting to hinder the establishing on an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital through settlement expansion, house demolitions, discriminatory housing policies and the West Bank barrier as a way of “actively pursuing the illegal annexation” of East Jerusalem. The report, which was prepared by EU diplomats on December 15th and published on Saturday in The Guardian, states that “many of Israel’s current illegal actions in and around the city have limited security justifications.”
- Expatica – Is France’s imminent return to NATO command a small step to tidy up decision-making in the alliance, or the death knell for Paris’ ability to act independently on the world stage? President Nicolas Sarkozy and supporters of the decision argue that it will boost France’s influence among the Western allies. Opponents, however, fear the move will be seen in world capitals as France falling into line behind the US superpower and will undercut the long-standing tradition of Paris forging its own policy.
- euronews – Three European nations that practice secret banking, two of whom are also tax havens, are meeting to decide on a joint strategy ahead of April’s G20 meeting in London. Switzerland is behind the mini-summit.
- US Navy – Sailors aboard the amphibious transport dock ship USS San Antonio (LPD 17) and embarked Marines from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (26 MEU) helped strenthen ties with Greece during a reception on board the ship while in port Santorini, Greece, March 4. San Antonio is the first U.S. Navy ship to visit Santorini in 10 years
Africa
- Shabelle – The leader of Hizbul Islam Islamist group, Sheik Omar Iman Abu Bakar said Sunday that Somalia’s government could not anything about the situation of the country and was not different from the previous government led by former president Abdulahi Yusuf. He said AMISOM troops did not come to Somalia for peace keeping but to prevent the Islamists and their influence in the country.
- Garowe – A bloody clan battle in Somalia’s self-governing State of Puntland last Monday was triggered by aspirations to find oil, Radio Garowe reports. At least five militiamen were killed and 15 others were wounded in the hours-long battle in Ufayn district, located 90km east of the port city of Bossaso in Bari region.
- Mareeg – The Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) claimed it killed Ethiopian soldiers in the Ogaden’s eastern region of Ethiopia and added that the fighting was ongoing. Hussein Nur, the information secretary of ONLF said that the Ethiopian soldiers who withdrew from Somalia and his ONLF fighters fought fierce battle in the border between Somalia and Ethiopia claiming they have inflicted heavy casualties to the Ethiopian army.
- Press TV – Madagascar’s opposition leader says he has gone into hiding as police has been trying to disperse anti-government protesters in the capital.
- France24 – A day after opposition leader Andry Rajoelina said he had gone into hiding, soldiers at a major military base on the outskirts of the Madagascan capital reportedly mutinied on Sunday against the government’s repression of the opposition.
- VOA – Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir has threatened to expel diplomats, peacekeepers and more aid agencies in a continued show of defiance against critics and the International Criminal Court. Mr. Bashir spoke Sunday during his first visit to Darfur since the court said it was seeking his arrest for alleged war crimes in the region.
- Rwanda MFA – The government of Rwanda welcomes the move of the United Nations Sanctions Committee in adding to its list of individuals and entities for targeted sanctions, four members of FDLR submitted to the Security Council; Callixte MBARUSHIMANA, Stanslas NZEYIMANA, Pacifique NTAWUNGUKA, and Leopold MUJYAMBERE. Rwanda welcomes the travel ban and freezing of their assets in line with UN resolution 1857 of 2008.
- Zimbabwe Standard – Morgan Tsvangirai was yesterday in a “stable condition” but was flown to Botswana for “further examinations and treatment.” He was injured during a serious accident on Friday afternoon that killed his wife of 31 years, Susan Nyaradzo.She was 50. His party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) said the accident, which left the country in shock, could have been avoided had the state provided the head of the unity government police escort.
- Telegraph – ABC News in the United States cited unnamed US officials as saying the truck belonged to a contractor working for the US and British governments. The truck, which had a USAID insignia on it, was purchased by US government funds and its driver was hired by a British development agency, the report said. USAID stands for the US Agency for International Development.
- This Day – Fresh facts are now emerging on the killing of the Guinea-Bissau Army Chief, Brig. Gen. Batiste Tagme na Waie, which later triggered the assassination of President Joao Bernardo “Nino” Vieira. Waie was killed last Sunday when a bomb planted by unknown persons exploded in his office. A reprisal attack less than 24 hours later by elements within the army led to the tragic killing of Vieira. But the bomb that terminated the life of Waie has been linked to the Southeast Asian country of Thailand.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff U.S. Navy Adm. Mike Mullen salutes Mexican army soldiers at Chapultepec Park in Mexico City, Mexico, March 6, 2009. The chairman laid a wreath at the 201st Fighter Squadron memorial and talked with former squadron members, who deployed with U.S. forces to the Philippines during World War II. (photo by Air Force Master Sgt. Adam M. Stump)
The Global War
- Interpol – For the first time in the three months since those deadly attacks [in Mumbai] occurred, INTERPOL has received police information of paramount importance that will allow us to help Pakistan’s FIA thoroughly and comprehensively determine the full international dimension of these attacks. For the first time, we have police information on those who planned, facilitated and funded those attacks. For the first time, we have detailed information about telephone numbers, bank accounts used in terrorist financing, Internet addresses, and the equipment and materials used to perpetrate these attacks. Already Pakistan’s FIA has established links to seven countries including India and countries in the heart of Europe and the Middle East.
- Haaretz – In a rare breach of official American adherence to Israel’s policy of nuclear ambiguity, the U.S. military is terming Israel “a nuclear power” on a par with Russia, China, India, Pakistan and North Korea, all of which have declared their nuclear weapon status, and ahead of “nuclear threshold powers” Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, and the “emerging” Iran.
- McClatchy – In this Taliban stronghold in the mountains south of Kabul, the U.S. Army is providing the security that will enable China to exploit one of the world’s largest unexploited deposits of copper, earn tens of billions of dollars and feed its voracious appetite for raw materials.
- Mark Katz – The Role of Iran and Afghanistan in US-Russian Relations
Sights & Sounds
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19 January, 2009 (00:05) | Daily Roundup | By: Jeff Kouba
A brief world news roundup for 19 January 2009.
United States & the Americas
- Sudan Tribune – A senior US official lashed out at the Chinese special envoy to Sudan Liu Guijin calling him “difficult” during his engagement in political efforts to resolve the five years Darfur conflict. The outgoing US special envoy to Sudan Richard Williamson speaking at the Heritage Foundation last Friday disclosed that he attempted to launch a joint dialogue with US, UK, France and China for discussions on Sudan. “Beijing showed no interest in such a mechanism” the US official said but did not say what reasons were given by the Chinese.
- Xinhua – Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner arrived in Cuba Sunday on a visit to enhance bilateral ties and cooperation between the two nations, local media reported. Kirchner made the trip at the invitation of his [sic] Cuban counterpart, Raul Castro.
- Xinhua – Iran’s Islamic Students Society invited Bolivian President Juan Evo Morales and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to Tehran to attend the feast of victory of the Palestinian resistance, the official IRNA news agency reported Sunday.
- Reporters Without Borders – Orel Zambrano, a 62-year-old newspaper editor and columnist who recently covered drug trafficking cases in the north-central state of Carabobo, was gunned down by two hit-men on a motorcycle yesterday in Valencia. It was the second shooting attack on a journalist in three days.
- LAHT – Two bombs exploded nearly simultaneously around midnight in front of public buildings in Santiago, but no injuries were reported, Chilean police said Monday. A spokesman for the Carabineros militarized police force told Efe that a previously unknown anarchist group took responsibility for the bombings, which caused some damage.
- COHA – (CNN) — El Salvador will elect more than 340 local and congressional officials Sunday, two months before the nation’s presidential election. But Sunday’s results could go a long way toward determining who that next president will be.
- IMF – The IMF’s Executive Board has approved an $800 million precautionary Stand-By Arrangement for El Salvador to help the country respond to temporary shocks to confidence, including election-related uncertainty and fallout from the global financial crisis. In an interview, the IMF’s mission chief for El Salvador, Alfred Schipke, talks about the impact of the global financial crisis on El Salvador, the precautionary nature of the economic program, and the challenges surrounding the future of the country’s economic policies.
Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia
- CNN – The prime ministers of Russia and Ukraine reached an agreement early Sunday morning to resume gas supplies to Europe by early next week. The two leaders have asked the gas providers of their respective countries to prepare by Monday all pertinent documents that need to be signed, said Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko on Russian state television.
- Russia Today – Prime Ministers Putin and Timoshenko have finally reached an agreement in the gas dispute. Ukraine will enjoy a 20% discount to the market price in 2009 while Russia’s transit fees will stay unchanged. And by 2010 both countries will switch to full market price.
- Kyiv Post – In the confrontation between Russia and Ukraine over natural gas shipments to Europe, the grand prize may yet be control of Ukraine’s sprawling pipeline network, Moscow’s main conduit for pumping the fuel to its most lucrative markets. Although the dispute appeared close to an end after Sunday’s announcement of a deal, the terms of the accord could increase pressure on Ukraine to cede control of the labyrinthine network.
- President Medvedev – The current crisis serves to prove that the current international controls governing this sort of situation are not effective, including international law in this regard. I can say frankly that in my view even the Energy Charter, which has been ratified by some but not all of the countries involved, is not adequate for resolving such issues, and we must think about a new sort of international agreement to prevent such problems in the future.
- Moscow Times – Oleg Deripaska has been appointed chief executive of United Company RusAl to help with “crisis management,” the company said Sunday. Deripaska, who owns 57 percent of the aluminum giant through his Basic Element holding, was also CEO from 2000 to 2003. The company has faced tough challenges over the past half year as metals prices halved and RusAl had to refinance its huge debt.
- Telegraph – Oleg Deripaska: profile of a major foreign borrower; Like many foreign investors to Britain, Oleg Deripaska’s fortunes have fluctuated hugely over the past year
- Georgian Times – Separatist administration keeps on issuing Russian passports to the local Georgian population in Gali district. Russian law enforcers have been instructed to personally control the passportisation process in the region.
- Kavkaz Center – Human Rights Watch’s annual report states in its section on the North Caucasus that while the armed conflict in Chechnya has subsided and “significant reconstruction is ongoing” in the capital Grozny, “security forces loyal to Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov continued to use torture and illegal detention, especially against those with suspected rebel ties,” and “growing atmosphere of intimidation fostered by the government in Chechnya inhibits human rights monitoring and accountability for human rights abuses.”
Middle East
- Stars and Stripes – A recently installed command team faces many military, civil and economic challenges in trying to further stabilize and provide security for upcoming elections in the ethnically mixed northern half of Iraq. On Dec. 9, Maj. Gen. Robert Caslen took over command of Multi-National Division — North, which covers almost all of Iraq north of Baghdad, an area the size of Ohio that includes seven provinces, three international borders, even more contentious ethnic borders, and where Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds struggle for control.
- Al Sumaria – Iraqi Foreign Minister Hosheyar Zebari announced that Iran’s interference in Iraqi affairs is less than it used to be, days after the Pentagon released a report stressing that Iran still represents a threat to Iraq stability.
- Israel MFA – The Israeli Cabinet decided on January 17 that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) will hold their against the terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip as of 2:00 a.m. on Sunday, January 18, while IDF forces remain deployed in the Gaza Strip and its environs… An additional goal of the operation was to put a stop to Iranian attempts to use Hamas to create a terror base in the region, as it has done with Hizbullah. These aims have been fully achieved, and more so.
- NOW Lebanon – Mussa Abu Marzuq, the exiled number two of the Islamist Hamas movement which controls Gaza, announced a one-week truce to allow Israeli troops to withdraw, in a speech on Syrian state television.
- Al Jazeera – A shaky calm appears to be holding in the Gaza Strip after Israel and Palestinian factions separately declared that they would hold fire. Israeli troops and tanks were on the move, heading away from some key points in Gaza towards the border, but it remained unclear whether they were leaving the Palestinian territory or merely repositioning.
- Xinhua – Iran’s first deputy head of Majlis (Parliament) National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Ismaeil Kowsari said on Sunday that Hamas should reject ceasefire and target “Zionist” positions, the official IRNA news agency reported.
- ITIC – Iranian Support of Hamas
- MEMRI – Iranian Supreme Leader ‘Ali Khamenei wrote in a letter to Hamas leader Isma’il Haniya: “The Arab traitors must realize that their fate will be no better than that of the Jews in the [626 AD] Battle of Al-Ahzab, [who were killed by the Prophet Muhammad for allegedly conspiring against him].
- Haaretz – Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin on Sunday told the cabinet that Hamas would resume smuggling arms into Gaza within a few months, despite Israel’s recent destruction of many tunnels used for this purpose. Diskin said that the Palestinian Islamist group would soon rebuild the tunnels, which were destroyed during Israel’s 22-day offensive against Hamas in Gaza.
- Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld – Where HAMAS Gets Its Money
- Hurriyet – The envelope containing the only bid Turkey received for the construction and management of its first nuclear power plant will be opened today. A consortium, led by Russia’s state-run Atomstroyexport together with Inter RAO and Turkish Park Teknik, was the sole bidder in the tender to build and operate the country’s first nuclear power plant in Mersin’s Akkuyu district last Sept. 24. The Turkish Atomic Energy Agency, or TAEK, finalized the technical assessment process in the nuclear tender process and approved the sole bidder’s proposal as meeting the required criteria in late December.
Iran
- Iran MFA – Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki here on Sunday underscored the need for urgent withdrawal of Zionist forces from the occupied Gaza. On the unilateral ceasefire, he said making such a decision by the political and military leaders of the Zionist regime is an indication of the failure of the regime in attaining its pre-announced objectives and the victory of the resistance movement of the brave people of Gaza against the Tel Aviv Army in the past 22 days.
- Asharq Al Awsat – A high-level Iranian cleric called for the shooting of the Israeli foreign minister in a speech before worshippers. Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati said during Friday prayers that he wanted someone to shoot Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and denounced President-elect Barack Obama’s search for a family pet.
- NCRI – In less than a week, three shipments from the mullahs’ regime have been held by Turkey. The most important one was bound for Venezuela. A report by theTrumpet.com (January 8) talked about some of the motives of the Iranian regime from sending lab equipment to Venezuela, saying, “Iran’s proxy Hezbollah is already heavily involved in Venezuela. … For Iran, Venezuela is an important base of operations. … Hezbollah also has links with Mexican drug-smuggling cartels. Hezbollah is in the drug business, but the even greater danger is that it could smuggle something much more catastrophically explosive into the U.S.”
- Fars – “Twenty-one Asian and European companies have been told that there will be a cut in part of their oil intake level proportionate to their contracts,” Iran’s representative to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Mohammad Ali Khatibi said in comments published by Iranian newspapers on Sunday. Khatibi also said that Iran would curb spot crude sales. The move is seen as part of efforts to comply with OPEC’s decision to cut output to halt sliding prices.
- Mianeh – As the demonstrations gradually fade away, the only visible sign that they ever happened is the burnt-out ruins of the Benetton store in Dolat Street in northern Tehran, and three other branches that have closed in other parts of the city. There has been no official news about the fire. According to eyewitnesses quoted by the Baztab website, police said the reason why these other shops were closed was that “the Italian owners of the Benetton company are Zionists”.
- Mehr – Iranian government has allocated $445 million to renovate and reconstruct the country’s rail and air fleet, First Vice President Parviz Davoudi said here on Sunday. The amount is drawn out of the Forex Reserve Fund.
- Afrique en ligne – South African and Iranian delegations have been meeting in Pretoria this week to review the implementation of the decisions taken during the 10th meeting of the South Africa-Iran Joint Bilateral Commission (JBC) held in Tehran, Iran in July 2008.
Members of the Nuristan Provincial Reconstruction Team inspect the condition of a canal built for the Zirat villagers enabling them to irrigate their fields to grow wheat and corn (photo from International Security Assistance Force HQ Public Affairs)
South Asia
- Air Force – In Afghanistan, one service member was killed when a coalition CH-47 Chinook helicopter made a hard landing. The cause is under investigation, though enemy small arms fire was present at the time of the incident. During ensuing recovery operations, an Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle destroyed an Anti-Afghan firing position with a guided bomb unit-31 after enemy personnel opened fire on coalition troops. A number of additional coalition aircraft also provided aerial overwatch. Near Sangin, a Navy F/A-18A Hornet strafed an enemy firing position, relieving a coalition patrol under heavy fire.
- Khaleej Times – A suicide car bomb attack killed five people including one American soldier on a heavily guarded road between a U.S. military base and the German Embassy in the Afghan capital.
- UK MoD – It is with great regret that the Ministry of Defence must announce that a soldier from 1st Battalion The Rifles was killed in Afghanistan on Saturday, 17 January. The soldier died from his wounds, as a result of enemy fire, during a joint UK and Afghan National Army foot patrol to dominate ground, close to the District Centre of Sangin, Helmand Province.
- Australia MoD – AUSTRALIAN ARMY, TO BE AWARDED THE VICTORIA CROSS FOR AUSTRALIA, TROOPER MARK GREGOR DONALDSON; For most conspicuous acts of gallantry in action in a circumstance of great peril in Afghanistan as part of the Special Operations Task Group during Operation SLIPPER, Oruzgan Province, Afghanistan. On 2 September 2008, during the conduct of a fighting patrol, Trooper Donaldson was travelling in a combined Afghan, US and Australian vehicle convoy that was engaged by a numerically superior, entrenched and coordinated enemy ambush…
- The News – Raging clashes between the security forces and the militants at Lakro Sandokhel area of Mohamand Agency left 13 militants dead, while 2 FC personnel also sacrificed their valuable lives.
- Geo – All public and private educational institutes will be re-open in District Hangu from Monday, DCO Majib-ur-Rehman announced on Sunday. Majib-ur-Rehman told Geo News told that security forces had taken control of most parts of the district.
- Daily Times - The federal and NWFP government will use their powers to ensure that the girls’ schools affected by the Taliban in Swat are reopened by March 1, Information Minister Sherry Rehman said on Sunday.
- The News – Taliban militants on Sunday released a rare video of statements from purported suicide bombers and footage of deadly attacks they claimed to have perpetrated in Pakistan. The 40-minute tape shows men and youths, some apparently in their teens, addressing the camera about their intention to carry out suicide attacks to background music of Urdu-language militant anthems.
- Times of India – First, India woke up to China’s massive buildup of military infrastructure all along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) rather late in the day. And now, it’s floundering to execute its own relatively modest plans to strategically counter the Chinese moves. Progress of the road construction and telecommunication links has been tardy, to say the least, since then. Only nine of the 73 roads earmarked for construction along the Sino-Indian border have been built till now, top-level sources said.
- Sri Lanka MoD – Heavy fighting that erupted between troops and LTTE in several locations at the Mullaittivu battle frontier has left over 40 terrorists killed and 35 wounded Saturday (Jan 17). Troops have also seized weapons, mines, mortar bombs, T-56 assault riffles and many warlike items, military sources said.
Far East & Pacific
- NY Times – The North Korean military declared an “all-out confrontational posture” against South Korea on Saturday as an American scholar said North Korean officials told him they had “weaponized” enough plutonium for roughly four or five nuclear bombs. But what made the threat on Saturday unusual, and more worrisome to some South Korean analysts, was the way it was delivered: in a statement read on North Korean television by a uniformed spokesman for the North’s joint chiefs of staff. Usually the North Korean government issues written statements that are delivered by the state-controlled media; sometimes the statements are read by press officers, not by a uniformed member of the military.
- Yonhap - South Korea takes seriously the latest North Korean threats to militarily “shatter” it and is stepping up surveillance and other monitoring activities along the tense border, officials said Sunday. In an unusually strong statement on Saturday, North Korea’s military declared an “all-out confrontational posture” against South Korea. South Korea put its entire military on increased alert.
- Japan Times – The Japanese government plans to send senior officials to Moscow for final-stage negotiations on concluding a bilateral civil nuclear cooperation agreement with Russia, government sources said Saturday. The move, which could happen later this month, is part of efforts to settle the matter before Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin visits Japan, taking into consideration that Putin is placing importance on energy.
- Jakarta Post – Australian immigration authorities have granted asylum to a group of 28 people from Iran and Afghanistan, saying they faced persecution or death if they returned home. The decision marks the first time Australia has granted asylum since Prime Minister Kevin Rudd relaxed the country’s formerly strict refugee policy in July.
- Manila Times – Abu Sayyaf militants holding three Red Cross members are planning to demand $5 million in exchange for the freedom of the hostages, reports said Sunday.
- Hurriyet – India said yesterday that hundreds of people were missing at sea, believed to be part of a wave of boat people allegedly dragged out to the middle of the ocean by Thailand and left to die. Thailand has denied the accusations, but accounts of survivors and the latest reports from the Indian coast guard have piled the pressure on Bangkok.
Europe
- AKI – Anti-Mafia police on Friday seized 100 million euros worth of assets belonging to the Casalesi crime family outside the southern Italian city of Naples. The family is part of a Mafia clan allegedly linked to murders in the province of Caserta, north of the city. The assets included real estate, companies and shares, and a luxury vehicle.
- Itar-Tass – The delivery of Russian gas to Slovakia via the Czech Republic began at 10:30 a.m. Moscow time on Sunday, the Transgas spokesman told Itar-Tass. The Czech Republic daily supplies 3.75 million cubic meters of gas from its own reserves and imports to neighbors. In addition, it daily transits 1.25 million cubic meters of gas to Western Europe. Most of the transit is Russian gas carried by the Yamal pipeline across Belarus.
- euronews – The first step towards Germany’s general election in September started today. Roland Koch, a close ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel faced the ballot box in Hessen and won, by almost 40 per cent of the vote, according to exit polls.
- Jerusalem Post – A rudimentary explosive device was found at the entrance of the Chabad House in Florence. The Chabad House is located half a block from the city’s main synagogue. Media reports said a paper fuse apparently had been lit, but had burned out, and no damage occurred. Tensions are high in Italy over Israel’s operation in Gaza. Last week, red paint was thrown at the façade of the synagogue in Pisa.
- BBC – Divers searching for the crew of a French military helicopter that crashed into the sea off the African state of Gabon have found five more bodies. Seven soldiers are now known to have died in the crash. Two survived the crash, and one is still missing.
Africa
- Garowe – Islamist insurgents attacked African Union peacekeepers serving in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu, making good on a promise to target the peacekeepers following the Ethiopian army pullout, Radio Garowe reports. At least two people were killed Sunday when Al Shabaab fighters targeted AU soldiers with mortars, witness said.
- Shabelle – More Ethiopian troops have reached Baidoa, the seat of the transitional parliament 250 kilometers south of the Somali capital Mogadishu, witnesses told Shabelle radio on Saturday. The Ethiopian troops have withdrawn completely from the Somali capital Mogadishu on Thursday. Reports from the town say that the Ethiopian troops have imposed curfew and closed all the streets and business centers in Baidoa town halting the movement of the people and traffic in the town, to tighten the security of the town and prevent further insurgent attacks.
- BBC – Senior officers of the main Tutsi rebel group in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo have announced a ceasefire with government forces. The breakaway faction of the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) said its fighters would join the Congolese army.
- New Vision – Hundreds of civilians were on Saturday burnt to death in a church by the Lord’s Resistance Army rebels. The rebels set ablaze a church called Bima in the Democratic Republic of Congo at midnight as the faithful prayed.
- US Navy – Combined Task Force (CTF) 151 is working closely with international navies in the Gulf of Aden to conduct counterpiracy operations and ensure a lawful maritime order in the region. The mission of CTF 151 is to prevent and deter piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden. The task force, which has assembled on board the amphibious transport dock ship USS San Antonio (LPD 17), has many capabilities which are enhanced by the ship’s crew. The personnel currently embarked aboard San Antonio in support of CTF 151 counterpiracy operations include a helicopter squadron, fleet surgical team, boarding teams and several elements from the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Coast Guard.
- Vanguard – The Nigerian Navy confirmed that it was making more deployments to the Niger Delta area in its bid to consolidate on the gains to curtailing to a large extent, the fight against illegal bunkering, kidnapping and hostage taking as well as piracy.
- Javno – Nigeria’s main militant group said on Sunday it had moved two British hostages to new hideouts in the oil-rich Niger Delta after a military raid on one of their camps. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) has held the Britons for four months and said it will hold them until its suspected leader, Henry Okah, who is on trial for gun-running and treason, is released.
- Magharebia – Two terrorists were killed and two injured in an Algerian army ambush on Friday (January 16th) in the Meziraa municipality in Biskra. An investigation was opened to identify the killed terrorists, one of whom is believed to be Mauritanian. Five soldiers were injured leaving the attack site when a bomb exploded.
President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden observe a moment of silence while laying a wreath with the assistance of Sergeant of the Guard Alfred Lanier at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery, Va., Jan. 18, 2009. Obama is taking part in inaugural events leading up to his swearing-in ceremony on Jan. 20, 2009. (photo by U.S. Army Sgt. Jeremy Kern)
The Global War
- Reuters – Al Qaeda issued an Internet threat against German soldiers at the weekend, which the government in Berlin said showed the risk of a Islamist attack on German soil had increased. Citing Germany’s involvement in fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, the video message posted on the Internet was titled “The rescue package for Germany” and bore the logo of As-Sahab, which is al Qaeda’s specialist media arm.
- CBS News – Iran has quietly released Osama bin Laden’s elder son and is likely to have “pushed him across Western Afghanistan’s bordering Heart region” towards the end of 2008, a senior Arab diplomat said on Saturday, responding to reports of the younger bin Laden having eventually arrived in Pakistan.
- HRW – The 19th annual World Report summarizes human rights conditions in more than 90 countries and territories worldwide. It reflects extensive investigative work undertaken in 2008 by Human Rights Watch staff, usually in close partnership with human rights activists in the country in question.
- Pentagon – The Department of Defense announced today the transfer of six detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Four detainees were transferred to Iraq, one to Algeria and one to Afghanistan. These detainees were determined to be eligible for departure following a comprehensive series of review processes.
Sights & Sounds
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