A brief world news roundup for 18 March 2008.

United States & the Americas

• CSM – House Democrats are hunkering down for a long siege with President Bush over his administration’s terrorist surveillance program. Democrats are aiming to rein in the White House’s power to wiretap without a warrant and assert “state secrecy” in key court battles.
• CFR – Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton gave this speech on Iraq at GWU on March 17.
• Haft of the Spear – There was a time, when news like this would have been on the front page (or home page) of any newspaper of note. There was a time when events like this were not private affairs. Sadly, not only do too few feel compelled to serve, but those that do can get neither the time of day nor fundamental recognition from those who send them downrange. (A California-based SEAL who threw his body on a grenade to save his comrades in Iraq will posthumously receive the Medal of Honor…)
• CNN – More than 5,000 soldiers and police have fanned out across Honduras to fight a wave of violent crime that also has swept across El Salvador and Guatemala. The Honduran government launched “Operation Hunter” in response to public anger over rising violent crime. The goal is to stem a tide of violence that results in about 10 slayings a day in the Central American nation of 7.5 million.

Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia

• EurasiaNet – It appears one of the globe’s great energy mysteries will soon be solved: Turkmenistan has selected a British firm to conduct an independent audit of its natural gas reserves.
• Kommersant – The three-day working visit of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili to Washington began yesterday, March 17. For Saakashvili, the purpose to attain is to win the U.S. support for inviting Georgia to join the NATO Membership Action Plan at the Bucharest summit.
• Russia Today – The breakaway Georgian Republic of Abkhazia claims to have shot down an unmanned Georgian air-reconnaissance vehicle.
• Prague Watchdog – Six alleged guerrillas and two Interior Ministry officers have been killed in a clash in Buynaksky district of Dagestan.
• Telegraph – Russian secret services have foiled an attack on President Vladimir Putin close to Red Square, it has been claimed. A man with a sniper rifle and Kalashnikov assault gun was found and detained in a rented apartment overlooking Moscow’s St Basil’s Cathedral, on March 2, the day of the Presidential election in Russia. The gunman was named by the newspaper as Shakhvelad Osmanov, a 24-year-old Tajik national.

Middle East

• AFP – A schoolgirl and a policeman were killed in a bomb attack against a girls’ school near the US embassy in the Yemeni capital on Tuesday, police said. About 15 children and four policemen were also wounded, a police official told AFP.
• Jules Crittenden – Five Years On, roundup on five years in Iraq
• Reuters – Bearing Witness: 5 Years of Reporting War in Iraq, A unique multimedia essay from Reuters.
• NY Times – A bombing on Monday evening killed 43 people near the Imam Hussein shrine in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, penetrating one of the most secure perimeters in Iraq.
• Kuna – Five persons were killed and 12 others injured when mortar shells hit a football play ground in eastern Baghdad on Monday, Iraqi security sources said.
• Asharq Alawsat – Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov urged Middle Eastern states not to recognise Kosovan independence on Tuesday, warning that this could encourage other breakaway regions.
• Haaretz – Instead of a Britney Spears ring tone, Shehadeh Shehadeh’s cell phone emits a recording of a speech by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. “Our entire family has turned Shi’ite,” he boasts. Last week, Israeli security forces operating in the West Bank town of Bethlehem killed his father, Mohammed Shehadeh, who was a senior commander in Islamic Jihad.
• Reuters – A Palestinian stabbed an Israeli rabbi in Arab East Jerusalem on Tuesday, emergency services said, in an attack likely to further increase already high tensions in the city.
• Jerusalem Post – Egypt is looking for rapid solutions to a bread crisis that has generated riots in which at least two people have been killed. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak appealed to the army on Sunday, asking for help in manufacturing and distributing bread to keep up with the demand.
• Daily Star – Israel has placed its security forces on higher alert, beefed up security at diplomatic missions abroad and advised Israeli travelers to put off trips to Muslim states for fear Hizbullah will carry out a revenge attack at the upcoming end of the mourning period for Imad Mughniyeh, security officials say.
• Badgers Forward – Coming up on the fifth anniversary of the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom. What have we accomplished in that time?…I did however receive an email from the Army Office of Public Affairs asking me to share the following information.

Iran

• Asia Times – The outspoken views of Zahra Eshraghi, granddaughter of Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic revolution in Iran, have put her at odds with Tehran’s conservative hardliners and have drawn a gag order from her own prestigious family.
• NY Times – Conservative politicians close to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appeared to tighten their grip on power in Iran as the government on Monday announced final results of the first round of parliamentary elections.
• AFP – The United States said a deal signed on Monday between Switzerland and Iran’s state gas firm sends “precisely the wrong message” amid the continued crisis over Tehran’s nuclear programme. “We have conveyed to the Swiss that major new oil and gas deals with Iran send precisely the wrong message at a time when Iran continues to defy UN Security Council resolutions,” the US embassy in Bern said in a statement.
• MEMRI – On the eve of the new year in Iran, the daily Kayhan, which is close to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, stated in an editorial that there had been no strategic change in Iran’s nuclear dossier in the past year.
• ME Times – Hezbollah chief terror master Imad Mugnieh created havoc, terror and a trail of blood during his life. His death is likely to bring more of the same. And this might not be “limited” to potential retaliation terror attacks. Indeed, Kuwait is already paying the nefarious consequences of Mugnieh’s death.

Southeast Asia

• Colombo Page – The United States Department of State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, Office of Antiterrorism Assistance is to donate approximately $220,000 worth of equipment to the Sri Lanka National Police (SLNP) in a brief ceremony Tuesday, March 18 at the American Embassy.
• Times of India – The Dalai Lama said on Tuesday that he would resign as Tibetan leader if the situation veers out of control in Tibet and denied accusations from China that he was inciting riots.
• NPR – Recent demonstrations in Tibet prompted Chinese authorities to crack down on journalists. They have blocked access to the region and sent “minders” to follow reporters who were trying to cover the unrest.
• Dawn – Shah, head of Intelligence Bureau (IB), one of Pakistan’s three security services, regarded as a dangerous enemy by assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, will quit his job before her party comes to power at the head of a new coalition.
• RIA Novosti – Mass protests against the alleged “deployment of Russian troops” in Afghanistan have been held in the Afghan city of Gardez, some 95 kms (60 miles) south of Kabul, national media reported on Tuesday.
• BBC – Afghan security forces have sealed off the country’s main high-security prison after days of unrest there.
• BBC – Police in the north-eastern Indian state of Manipur say unidentified rebels have killed 11 Hindi-speaking migrant workers.
• UPI – British troops say the success they’ve achieved recently against the Taliban in Afghanistan has come from partnering with local citizens.
• Hot Air – He controls significant territory in Pakistan. He runs training camps for European jihadi wannabes. He may have masterminded the assassination of Benazir Bhutto — and he wants to “eradicate the White House, New York, and London”…

Far East & Pacific

• news.com.au – Thailand’s Interior minister has said he has “no idea” how to curb unrest in the nation’s Muslim-majority south, as the government announced an emergency meeting following a deadly hotel attack.
• Reuters – Hong Kong police on Tuesday arrested a 24-year-old man in connection with the killings of four prostitutes over the past few days that had spread fear among sex workers and the public. The man, a Hong Kong resident of Pakistani descent, was arrested at a ferry terminal in the early hours with the help of police in neighboring Macau.
• CNN – North Korea said Tuesday it has agreed to continue working with the United States to resolve a stalemate in international nuclear negotiations over the North’s promise to fully declare its weapons programs.
• DID – The Australian Debate: Abandon F-35, Buy F-22s?

Europe

• Reuters – NATO placed the Kosovo town of Mitrovica under de facto military law on Tuesday after riots by a hostile Serb population killed one U.N. policeman and forced the pullout of U.N. personnel.
• France24 – A Ukrainian member of Kosovo’s UN police force has died of his injuries following clashes with Serbian demonstrators in the town of Kosovska Mitrovica, Kosovo police said Tuesday.
• Belmont Club – The UN attempted a “show of force” and a “look who’s boss” operation at the courthouse. Just who showed the force and who proved the boss was amply demonstrated in one phrase.
• Balkan Insight – Three people have been arrested amid an investigation into a series of blasts at a munitions depot near the Albanian capital on Saturday, which left 17 people dead and injured more than 250.

Africa

• IPS – Interview with OECD Development Assistance Committee Chairman Eckhard Deutscher: Instead of indulging in China bashing, major western industrial nations should listen to China and its partners in Africa and elsewhere, says Eckhard Deutscher, the new head of the influential Development Assistance Committee.
• United Nations – The United Nations refugee agency has begun moving some of the estimated 14,000 refugees who recently fled violence in the Central African Republic (CAR) away from the border in southern Chad to more accessible areas.
• IRIN – Sexual violence against women is rampant in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) but the majority of perpetrators, especially in “no-law” zones, go unpunished, according to a UN independent human rights expert.
• The Nation – Tanzania has rebuffed attempts by South Africa to halt military action to depose President Mohamed Bacar of tiny Comoros island of Anjouan.
• BBC – A Danish-owned boat has been freed after a ransom of $700,000 (£350,000) was paid to Somali pirates, according to a local government official.
• BBC – A group of Liberian women refugees who have held naked protests by the roadside are to be deported from Ghana, a minister has told the BBC.
• BBC – Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony has moved to the Central African Republic from his Democratic Republic of Congo base.

The Global War

• AFP – US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Russian counterpart hailed a new upbeat mood Tuesday in efforts to overcome differences over missile defence, while giving little away in terms of detail. Rice and Defence Secretary Robert Gates met their opposite numbers, Sergei Lavrov and Anatoly Serdyukov, for a second day of talks on Washington’s plans to set up missile defence facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic.
• State Dept – Remarks by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in Moscow.
• OPFOR – Colonel Michael Shupp is a VMI graduate. Currently, he is the legislative assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But, in November of 2004, Colonel Shupp was the commander of Regimental Combat Team-1. I recently interviewed Colonel Shupp about his participation in the fight to free Fallujah. We spoke for over four hours.
• MEMRI – The website www.eastrenturkistan.net (hosted by Yahoo! in California, USA) recently posted a short report on the jihad in “East Turkistan” (i.e. Xinjiang province in northwest China, which has a large Muslim population).
• contentions – What’s the connection between a small, stable democracy in Europe and a big, unstable proto-democracy in the Middle East? It may not be obvious at first glance.
• Jihad Watch – Algeria: Al-Qaeda raids mosque, kills two, saying “We kill you with Allah’s consent”.
• Pajamas Media – The recent Pentagon study was far from the final word on the Iraq-Al-Qaeda connection. Richard Miniter sheds light on what the report — and the media — overlooked.
• zenpundit – Blogfriend Charles Cameron alerted me to a very interesting and important post by Dr. Tim Furnish, a professor of Islamic Studies and an expert in Mahdism in particular, who managed to contact and interview a spokesman of Ansar al-Mahdi, the shadowy, Shiite-based Mahdist movement in Iraq ( Jamestown Foundation report here).

Sights & Sounds

RADM Gregory Smith, Director of the Multi-National Force-Iraq’s Communication Division, speaking with reporters in Iraq and providing an operational update.

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