A Philippine opposition senator formally agreed yesterday to be the running mate of the son of late leader Corazon Aquino in next year's presidential election.
Senator Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III declared his candidacy two weeks ago, saying he will run for president to continue the legacy of his mother, a democracy icon for standing up to dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
At a gathering yesterday of Liberal Party members and allies, Mr Aquino thanked Manuel "Mar" Roxas II, the party president, for foregoing his own presidential bid to be his running mate.
Both men come from wealthy clans with a long history in Philippine politics.
Mr Roxas is a former trade secretary,a US-trained economist and grandson of late Philippines president Manuel Roxas.
"I wholeheartedly accept the responsibility of being Noynoy's partner in his fight for change," Mr Roxas told a cheering crowd."Thank you for the privilege of joining you and all our countrymen in the fight for decency and integrity in public service."
President Gloria Arroyo, who lost the support of the Aquinos and former cabinet officials like Mr Roxas over charges of corruption and election fraud, is scheduled to step down after serving more than nine years in June 2010. She is not allowed to run for re-election.
The massive outpouring of sympathy for Corazon Aquino after her death from colon cancer last month prompted supporters of her son to urge Noynoy to run for president in the May 2010 election.
Despite a patchy record during her six years in office, Corazon Aquino remains a well-loved figure and is credited with restoring democratic institutions after Marcos'20 years of dictatorship.She became a focal point for opposition to Marcos after her husband, Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr, was assassinated after returning from exile in 1983.Military kills Abu Sayyaf rebels
The Philippine military killed up to 17 Islamist extremists as it over-ran one of their main strongholds in the south of the country, a general said yesterday.
Following ground and air assaults,the soldiers took control of the Abu Sayyaf group's biggest camp on the island of Jolo on Sunday, said Major General Benjamin Dolorfino, head of military forces in the south.
The military recovered the bodies of two Abu Sayyaf fighters, according to Gen Dolorfino. But intelligence reports suggest 17 rebel deaths, he added.
"This is very significant, because this is their main sanctuary. This is the main stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf [on Jolo],"Gen Dolorfino said."We will build a detachment there so that their world will get even smaller."
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
US fears "war will fail" in Afghanistan
The war against Afghanistan's Taliban is likely to fail without additional forces and a new strategy,the top US and Nato commander said as President Barack Obama faces resistance at home to sending more troops.
Army General Stanley McChrystal, in a confidential assessment, said failure to gain the initiative and reverse "insurgent momentum" in the near term risked an outcome where "defeating the insurgency is no longer possible".
A copy of his 66-page assessment was obtained by the Washington Post and published on its website with some parts removed at the request of the government for security reasons.
Gen McChrystal is expected to ask for a troop increase in the coming weeks to stem gains by a resurgent Taliban.
The assessment stresses the need to engage with the Afghan people using a "new strategy" that requires a "dramatically" different approach to the war.
"Inadequate resources will likely result in failure. However, without a new strategy, the mission should not be resourced," Gen McChrystal is quoted as saying in the report.
Gen McChrystal has already drawn up his request for more troops, which some officials expect will include roughly 30,000 new combat troops and trainers,but he has yet to submit it to Washington for consideration. The Pentagon says it is discussing how he will submit it.
A request for more troops faces resistance from the Democratic Party,which controls Congress, and opinion polls show Americans are turning against the nearly eight-year-old war.
Mr Obama has said that he wanted to wait to determine the proper strategy for US forces in Afghanistan before considering whether more troops should be sent there.
"I just want to make sure that everybody understands that you don't make decisions about resources before you have the strategy ready," he said.
In his assessment, Gen McChrystal painted a grim picture of the war, saying "the overall situation is deteriorating".
He called for a "revolutionary" shift in strategy which puts as much emphasis on gaining the support of Afghans as it does on killing insurgents.
"The objective is the will of the people,our conventional warfare culture is part of the problem, the Afghans must ultimately defeat the insurgency," he wrote.
The war in Afghanistan is now at its deadliest. Gen McChrystal's assessment said militants had control over entire sections of the country, although it was difficult to say how much because of the limited presence of Nato troops.
He also strongly criticised the Afghan government as having lost the faith of the country's people.
"The weakness of state institutions,malign actions of power-brokers, widespread corruption and abuse of power by various officials, and Isaf's own errors,have given Afghans little reason to support their government," Gen McChrystal said, referring to the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf).
Spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Tadd Sholtis said that while the assessment made clear that Gen McChrystal does not believe he can defeat Afghanistan's insurgency without additional troops,he could carry out a mission with different goals if ordered to by Mr Obama.
"The assessment is based on his understanding of the mission ... If there's a change in strategy, then the resources piece changes."
The number of US troops in Afghanistan has almost doubled this year from 32,000 to 62,000 and is expected to grow by another 6,000 by the year's end. There are also 40,000 troops from other nations,mainly Nato allies.
Fifty-eight percent of Americans now oppose the Afghan war while 39% support it, according to a recent CNN/Opinion Research poll.
Mr Obama's critics in Congress,including his 2008 Republican presidential opponent Senator John McCain, have urged the administration to approve the deployment of more troops immediately,saying any delay puts the lives of troops already in Afghanistan at greater risk.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on Sunday his party would support a troop increase if needed,adding he was troubled by the delay in the decision-making.
"We think the time for decision is now," Mr McConnell said.
Army General Stanley McChrystal, in a confidential assessment, said failure to gain the initiative and reverse "insurgent momentum" in the near term risked an outcome where "defeating the insurgency is no longer possible".
A copy of his 66-page assessment was obtained by the Washington Post and published on its website with some parts removed at the request of the government for security reasons.
Gen McChrystal is expected to ask for a troop increase in the coming weeks to stem gains by a resurgent Taliban.
The assessment stresses the need to engage with the Afghan people using a "new strategy" that requires a "dramatically" different approach to the war.
"Inadequate resources will likely result in failure. However, without a new strategy, the mission should not be resourced," Gen McChrystal is quoted as saying in the report.
Gen McChrystal has already drawn up his request for more troops, which some officials expect will include roughly 30,000 new combat troops and trainers,but he has yet to submit it to Washington for consideration. The Pentagon says it is discussing how he will submit it.
A request for more troops faces resistance from the Democratic Party,which controls Congress, and opinion polls show Americans are turning against the nearly eight-year-old war.
Mr Obama has said that he wanted to wait to determine the proper strategy for US forces in Afghanistan before considering whether more troops should be sent there.
"I just want to make sure that everybody understands that you don't make decisions about resources before you have the strategy ready," he said.
In his assessment, Gen McChrystal painted a grim picture of the war, saying "the overall situation is deteriorating".
He called for a "revolutionary" shift in strategy which puts as much emphasis on gaining the support of Afghans as it does on killing insurgents.
"The objective is the will of the people,our conventional warfare culture is part of the problem, the Afghans must ultimately defeat the insurgency," he wrote.
The war in Afghanistan is now at its deadliest. Gen McChrystal's assessment said militants had control over entire sections of the country, although it was difficult to say how much because of the limited presence of Nato troops.
He also strongly criticised the Afghan government as having lost the faith of the country's people.
"The weakness of state institutions,malign actions of power-brokers, widespread corruption and abuse of power by various officials, and Isaf's own errors,have given Afghans little reason to support their government," Gen McChrystal said, referring to the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf).
Spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Tadd Sholtis said that while the assessment made clear that Gen McChrystal does not believe he can defeat Afghanistan's insurgency without additional troops,he could carry out a mission with different goals if ordered to by Mr Obama.
"The assessment is based on his understanding of the mission ... If there's a change in strategy, then the resources piece changes."
The number of US troops in Afghanistan has almost doubled this year from 32,000 to 62,000 and is expected to grow by another 6,000 by the year's end. There are also 40,000 troops from other nations,mainly Nato allies.
Fifty-eight percent of Americans now oppose the Afghan war while 39% support it, according to a recent CNN/Opinion Research poll.
Mr Obama's critics in Congress,including his 2008 Republican presidential opponent Senator John McCain, have urged the administration to approve the deployment of more troops immediately,saying any delay puts the lives of troops already in Afghanistan at greater risk.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on Sunday his party would support a troop increase if needed,adding he was troubled by the delay in the decision-making.
"We think the time for decision is now," Mr McConnell said.
ACCOUNTING FOR WAR CRIMES IN THE MIDDLE EAST CONFLICT
WILL Israel's decades-long impunity from international law finational law finally community in the aftemath of the justreleased Goldstone report.
Richard Goldstone, formerly a Supreme Court justice in South Africa and chief prosecutor in the international tribunals for Rwanda and Yugoslavia, headed a four-person United Nations mission investigatigating both Israel Hamas for possible war crimes during Israel's attack on the Gaza Strip last winter.
The mission conducted 188 interviews and reviewed more than 300 reports, 10,000 pages of documents, 30 videos and 1,200 photographs. The Israeli government barred the group from entering Israel or the Gaza Strip (it reached Gaza, ultimately, through Egypt).
By contrast, Palestinian authrities, both in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, cooperated with the mission. The 575-page report concluded that both sides committed war crimes before, during and after the intense fighting in December and January.
In its findings on Israel's conduct, the report noted that the ruinous siege on Gaza, imposed long before the invasion, collectively punished its residents in violation of international law. During the attack, Israeli troops killed civilians without justification, wantonly destroyed civilian infrastructure and private homes, and used weapons illegally. Israeli troops targetted and destroyed Gaza's last functioning flour mill. Israeli armoured bulldozers razed the chicken farm that provided 10 per cent of Gaza's eggs, burying 31,000 chickens in rubble. Israeli gunners bombed a raw sewage lagoon, releasing 200,000 cubic metres of filth into neighbouring farmland. Repeated pinpoint strikes on a water-well complex destroyed all of its essential machinery.
These are just some of the facts that led the mission to conclude that Israel's objective in the attack work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever-increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability".
Since a January cease-fire, Israel has maintained its illegal blockade, keeping relief supplies and construction materials from Gaza, and thus guaranteeing continued Palestinian civilian suffering.
The Goldstone mission found that Hamas, in its indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israeli civilians, also committed was crimes, calling the rockets "a deliberate attack against the civilian population".
The report recommends that all parties to the fighting conduct credible internal investigations of the abuses it documented. If they fail to do so within six months, the report recommends that the UN Security Council refer the matter to the International Criminal Court for investigation.
Israel clearly anticipated a critical report and has been planning for months to discredit it. Its spokespeople are making preposterous accusations, such as that Goldstone is "anti-Israel" (in fact, he is Jewish and has strong ties to Israel), and its diplomats are working the phones in an attempt to sway Western governments and members of the Security Council
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised the report in discussions with US special envoy George Mitchell, and Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon is trying to orchestrate condemnation of the report by senior Obama administration officials and members of Congress.
This urging must be resisted, and Israle's serial violations of international law - whether in pulverising Lebanon in 2006, illegally detaining, torturing or assassinating Palestinians under its dominion in the occupied Palestinian territories; or building settlements on Palestinian lands for exclusive Jewish occupancy - must come to an end. Israel may not be the worst human rights violator in the world, but it is among those that most consistently evade account-ability.
Israeli abuses are deeply resented around the globe. For too long, we in the United States have abetted Israel, bestowing on it roughly US$3 billion annually in aid since 1973 and vetoing scores of resolutions in the Security Council that attempted to hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law.
To his credit, President Barack Obama has called for a halt to new Israeli settlements, although he has failed to enunciate consepuences for Israeli definance. He should now embrace the Goldstone recommendations strongly, and must also demand an immediate end to Israel's illegal siege of Gaza.
Israel's friends, rather than reflexively dismissing Goldstone's findings, should reflect instead: Are the interests of Israeli citizens genuinely served by continued indulgence of their military's excesses? Impunity for one state undermines the very legitimacy of international law. Yet international law protects weak and strong alike, and we ignore its continuing abuse at our peril.
Richard Goldstone, formerly a Supreme Court justice in South Africa and chief prosecutor in the international tribunals for Rwanda and Yugoslavia, headed a four-person United Nations mission investigatigating both Israel Hamas for possible war crimes during Israel's attack on the Gaza Strip last winter.
The mission conducted 188 interviews and reviewed more than 300 reports, 10,000 pages of documents, 30 videos and 1,200 photographs. The Israeli government barred the group from entering Israel or the Gaza Strip (it reached Gaza, ultimately, through Egypt).
By contrast, Palestinian authrities, both in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, cooperated with the mission. The 575-page report concluded that both sides committed war crimes before, during and after the intense fighting in December and January.
In its findings on Israel's conduct, the report noted that the ruinous siege on Gaza, imposed long before the invasion, collectively punished its residents in violation of international law. During the attack, Israeli troops killed civilians without justification, wantonly destroyed civilian infrastructure and private homes, and used weapons illegally. Israeli troops targetted and destroyed Gaza's last functioning flour mill. Israeli armoured bulldozers razed the chicken farm that provided 10 per cent of Gaza's eggs, burying 31,000 chickens in rubble. Israeli gunners bombed a raw sewage lagoon, releasing 200,000 cubic metres of filth into neighbouring farmland. Repeated pinpoint strikes on a water-well complex destroyed all of its essential machinery.
These are just some of the facts that led the mission to conclude that Israel's objective in the attack work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever-increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability".
Since a January cease-fire, Israel has maintained its illegal blockade, keeping relief supplies and construction materials from Gaza, and thus guaranteeing continued Palestinian civilian suffering.
The Goldstone mission found that Hamas, in its indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israeli civilians, also committed was crimes, calling the rockets "a deliberate attack against the civilian population".
The report recommends that all parties to the fighting conduct credible internal investigations of the abuses it documented. If they fail to do so within six months, the report recommends that the UN Security Council refer the matter to the International Criminal Court for investigation.
Israel clearly anticipated a critical report and has been planning for months to discredit it. Its spokespeople are making preposterous accusations, such as that Goldstone is "anti-Israel" (in fact, he is Jewish and has strong ties to Israel), and its diplomats are working the phones in an attempt to sway Western governments and members of the Security Council
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised the report in discussions with US special envoy George Mitchell, and Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon is trying to orchestrate condemnation of the report by senior Obama administration officials and members of Congress.
This urging must be resisted, and Israle's serial violations of international law - whether in pulverising Lebanon in 2006, illegally detaining, torturing or assassinating Palestinians under its dominion in the occupied Palestinian territories; or building settlements on Palestinian lands for exclusive Jewish occupancy - must come to an end. Israel may not be the worst human rights violator in the world, but it is among those that most consistently evade account-ability.
Israeli abuses are deeply resented around the globe. For too long, we in the United States have abetted Israel, bestowing on it roughly US$3 billion annually in aid since 1973 and vetoing scores of resolutions in the Security Council that attempted to hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law.
To his credit, President Barack Obama has called for a halt to new Israeli settlements, although he has failed to enunciate consepuences for Israeli definance. He should now embrace the Goldstone recommendations strongly, and must also demand an immediate end to Israel's illegal siege of Gaza.
Israel's friends, rather than reflexively dismissing Goldstone's findings, should reflect instead: Are the interests of Israeli citizens genuinely served by continued indulgence of their military's excesses? Impunity for one state undermines the very legitimacy of international law. Yet international law protects weak and strong alike, and we ignore its continuing abuse at our peril.
Over 140 rebels die in raid
The army killed more than 140 Shi'ite rebels after the insurgents launched an assault on the government's mansion in the mountain city of Sa'ada in northern Yemen on Sunday, a military official said.
"The army killed more than 140 rebels after thwarting an attempted attack on Sa'ada," the official said, describing the fighting as "the fiercest" since the start of the military offensive on Aug 11.
The rebels started their attack on the city before dawn from three directions in an attempt to take the government's regional headquarters, but the army was able to foil the advance, the official said.
"So far more than 140 bodies have been found," he added.
Meanwhile, sporadic clashes erupted in the Harf Sufyan area in Amran province which borders Sa'ada, witnesses said.
The government on Friday announced a unilateral suspension of fighting, saying it would become a permanent ceasefire if the rebels, whom it accuses of being backed by Iran, abided by certain conditions.
A rebel spokesman said they would "examine" the conditions, but hostilities resumed on Saturday.
The main government demand is that the rebels "respect the cease-fire and the opening of roads, evacuate their positions and free captured civilians and soldiers".
Meanwhile, the top commander of the rebels, Abdul Malek al-Huthi, was quoted by Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper on Sunday as saying the state was "not serious" in its truce offer and rebuffing government claims his group is backed by Iran."The government meant to use it [the truce] for military purposes," Mr Huthi said, adding the accusations that Iran backs the rebels morally and financially are groundless.
"The army killed more than 140 rebels after thwarting an attempted attack on Sa'ada," the official said, describing the fighting as "the fiercest" since the start of the military offensive on Aug 11.
The rebels started their attack on the city before dawn from three directions in an attempt to take the government's regional headquarters, but the army was able to foil the advance, the official said.
"So far more than 140 bodies have been found," he added.
Meanwhile, sporadic clashes erupted in the Harf Sufyan area in Amran province which borders Sa'ada, witnesses said.
The government on Friday announced a unilateral suspension of fighting, saying it would become a permanent ceasefire if the rebels, whom it accuses of being backed by Iran, abided by certain conditions.
A rebel spokesman said they would "examine" the conditions, but hostilities resumed on Saturday.
The main government demand is that the rebels "respect the cease-fire and the opening of roads, evacuate their positions and free captured civilians and soldiers".
Meanwhile, the top commander of the rebels, Abdul Malek al-Huthi, was quoted by Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper on Sunday as saying the state was "not serious" in its truce offer and rebuffing government claims his group is backed by Iran."The government meant to use it [the truce] for military purposes," Mr Huthi said, adding the accusations that Iran backs the rebels morally and financially are groundless.
State funeral for 6 soldiers slain in Kabul
Italy mourned six soldiers killed in Afghanistan as teary-eyed relatives,officials and thousands of citizens saluted their flag-draped coffins at a state funeral yesterday.
The government called a national day of mourning, with flags at half-staff and a minute of silence at public offices.
The attack on Thursday in Kabul marked Italy's deadliest day yet in the Afghan conflict. At home, it rekindled a debate over Italian participation in the mission and the prospects for an end to the eight-year war.
In a traditional sign of respect, the crowd applauded as the six coffins were carried inside the Basilica of St Paul's Outside the Walls by fellow soldiers. An honour guard saluted the coffins and many standing in the rain outside the basilica waved the red-white-and-green Italian flag. The bodies of the Italians were returned home on Sunday.
In one of the most poignant moments of the ceremony, the seven-year-old son of one of the victims approached his father's coffin and gently touched it. A photo portrait of each man, along with his beret, was placed on each coffin.
Pope Benedict XVI sent a telegram of condolences that was read during the ceremony, saying he was praying that God would "support those who are engaged daily in building solidarity,reconciliation and peace in the world".
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi shook hands with relatives of the dead as he sought to comfort them, and President Giorgio Napolitano bowed his head before the coffins.
Some private businesses shut down their doors for a few minutes during the ceremony, reports said. The funeral was broadcast live on state-run TV and other national broadcasters.
The government called a national day of mourning, with flags at half-staff and a minute of silence at public offices.
The attack on Thursday in Kabul marked Italy's deadliest day yet in the Afghan conflict. At home, it rekindled a debate over Italian participation in the mission and the prospects for an end to the eight-year war.
In a traditional sign of respect, the crowd applauded as the six coffins were carried inside the Basilica of St Paul's Outside the Walls by fellow soldiers. An honour guard saluted the coffins and many standing in the rain outside the basilica waved the red-white-and-green Italian flag. The bodies of the Italians were returned home on Sunday.
In one of the most poignant moments of the ceremony, the seven-year-old son of one of the victims approached his father's coffin and gently touched it. A photo portrait of each man, along with his beret, was placed on each coffin.
Pope Benedict XVI sent a telegram of condolences that was read during the ceremony, saying he was praying that God would "support those who are engaged daily in building solidarity,reconciliation and peace in the world".
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi shook hands with relatives of the dead as he sought to comfort them, and President Giorgio Napolitano bowed his head before the coffins.
Some private businesses shut down their doors for a few minutes during the ceremony, reports said. The funeral was broadcast live on state-run TV and other national broadcasters.
"BRAIN" BEHIND MUMBAI TERROR ATTACK HELD
The leader of a banned Islamist group that India has accused of carrying out attacks on Mumbai late last year was placed under house arrest again yesterday.
Pakistani police prevented Haikz Muhammad Saeed from leaving his home for Eid-ul-Fitr celebrations marking the end of Ramadan. Saeed is a founder of lashkar-e-Taiba - the militant group New Delhi claims masterminded the commando-style assault that killed 166 people in November.
"We have orders from the government to restrict his movement," police official Sohail Sukhera said. "We have asked him not to leave his house."
Sukhera would not specify why Saeed was being confined to his home in Lahore, or say for how long.
India blames Lashkar-e-Taiba for the Mumbai assault staged by 10 gunment, nine of whom were killed. Under tremendous international pressure, Pakistan acknowledged much of the plot originated on its soil.
Interior Minister Rehaman Malik said on Saturday that Saeed was under investigation.
"We arrest the accused only if we have evidence. I assure you, and I assure my Indian counterpart, that if there is evidence against [Saeed] during our investigation... he will not get out of the clutches of law," Malik said.
At least seven other suspects in the Mumbai attacks have been in closed-door pre-trial hearings at a maximum-security prison in Rawalpindi. So far no changes have been filed.
Pakistani police prevented Haikz Muhammad Saeed from leaving his home for Eid-ul-Fitr celebrations marking the end of Ramadan. Saeed is a founder of lashkar-e-Taiba - the militant group New Delhi claims masterminded the commando-style assault that killed 166 people in November.
"We have orders from the government to restrict his movement," police official Sohail Sukhera said. "We have asked him not to leave his house."
Sukhera would not specify why Saeed was being confined to his home in Lahore, or say for how long.
India blames Lashkar-e-Taiba for the Mumbai assault staged by 10 gunment, nine of whom were killed. Under tremendous international pressure, Pakistan acknowledged much of the plot originated on its soil.
Interior Minister Rehaman Malik said on Saturday that Saeed was under investigation.
"We arrest the accused only if we have evidence. I assure you, and I assure my Indian counterpart, that if there is evidence against [Saeed] during our investigation... he will not get out of the clutches of law," Malik said.
At least seven other suspects in the Mumbai attacks have been in closed-door pre-trial hearings at a maximum-security prison in Rawalpindi. So far no changes have been filed.
MORE TROOPS NEEDED: US GENERAL
The top US military commander in Afghanistan has warned that more forces are needed within the next year or the war against the Taleban will be lost, the Washington Post reported yesterday.
General Stanley McChrystal wrote in a classified report: "Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term [next 12 months] - while Afghan security capacity matures - risks and outcome where defeating the insurgency is no logner possible."
The grim assessment of the eight-year conclict, obtained by the Post, was presented to US Defence Secretary Robert Gates on August 30 and is being reviewed by the White House.
McChrystal, who is widely expected to make a formal request to increase the 62,000-strong US force, noted the campaign in Afghanistan "has been historically under-resourced and remains so today."
As such, he wrote "inadequate resources will likely result in failure."
The weak resources "also risks a longer conflict, greater causalties, higher overall costs, and ultimately, a critical loss of political support. Any of these risks, in turn, are likely to result in mission failure."
The 66-page document - a declassified version of which is published at www.washingtonpost.com - describes a strengthening, intelligent Taleban insurgency.
McChrystal lalso slams the corruption-riddled Afghan government and a strategy by international forces that has failed to win over ordinary Afghans.
"The weakness of state institutions, malign actions of power-brokers, widespread corruption and abuse of power by various officials, and [the International Security Assistance Force's] own errors, have given Afghans little reason to support their government," wrote McCharystal.
International forces, he said, "have operated in a manner that distances us - physically and psychologically - from the people we seek to protect... The insurgents cannot defeat us militarily; but we can defeat ourselves.
The general, who Gates nominated to take over operations because "new thinking" was needed as President Barack Obama attempts a new strategy for the war-torn country, also warns that hardline insurgents reach systematically into Afghanistan's bloated prison system for recruits.
The prisons have become "a sanctuary and base to conduct lethal operations" against the Aghan government and coalition forces, he said.
McChrystal however does maintain a cuatious optimism for long-term outcomes in the conflict, insisting: "While the situation is serious, success is still achievable."
Obama weighed in Sunday on the debate over more troops in Afghanistan. "We're going to test whatever resource we have against our strategy, which is if by sending young men and women into harm's way, we are defeating al-Qaeda," the president said in an interview with ABC.
"[If] that can be shown to a sceptical audience - namely me, somebody who is always asking hard questions about deploying troops - then we will do what's required to keep the American people safe," Obama said.
Gates said this week that the president needed time to assess US strategy and should not be rushed over such an important decision.
Earlier, Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services committee that more soldiers would likely be needed to subdue the Taleban.
"A properly resourced counterin-surgency probably means more forces and, without question, more time and more commitment to the protection of the Afghan people and to the development of good governance," Mullen said.
By coincidence, McChrystal's report was revealed on the UN's International Peace Day, when Kabul's defence ministry said foreign and Afghan troops will pause offensive operations.
Qari Yusuf Ahmadi, purpostedly a Taleban spokesman, was quoted on the ReliefWeb website as suggesting the insurgency may do the same, saying: "Our forces will remain in defensive position, as usual."
Foreign forces in Afghanistan, experiencing their deadliest year since the war began eight years ago with more than 350 deaths so far in 2009, are sceptical the rebels will keep their word.
General Stanley McChrystal wrote in a classified report: "Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term [next 12 months] - while Afghan security capacity matures - risks and outcome where defeating the insurgency is no logner possible."
The grim assessment of the eight-year conclict, obtained by the Post, was presented to US Defence Secretary Robert Gates on August 30 and is being reviewed by the White House.
McChrystal, who is widely expected to make a formal request to increase the 62,000-strong US force, noted the campaign in Afghanistan "has been historically under-resourced and remains so today."
As such, he wrote "inadequate resources will likely result in failure."
The weak resources "also risks a longer conflict, greater causalties, higher overall costs, and ultimately, a critical loss of political support. Any of these risks, in turn, are likely to result in mission failure."
The 66-page document - a declassified version of which is published at www.washingtonpost.com - describes a strengthening, intelligent Taleban insurgency.
McChrystal lalso slams the corruption-riddled Afghan government and a strategy by international forces that has failed to win over ordinary Afghans.
"The weakness of state institutions, malign actions of power-brokers, widespread corruption and abuse of power by various officials, and [the International Security Assistance Force's] own errors, have given Afghans little reason to support their government," wrote McCharystal.
International forces, he said, "have operated in a manner that distances us - physically and psychologically - from the people we seek to protect... The insurgents cannot defeat us militarily; but we can defeat ourselves.
The general, who Gates nominated to take over operations because "new thinking" was needed as President Barack Obama attempts a new strategy for the war-torn country, also warns that hardline insurgents reach systematically into Afghanistan's bloated prison system for recruits.
The prisons have become "a sanctuary and base to conduct lethal operations" against the Aghan government and coalition forces, he said.
McChrystal however does maintain a cuatious optimism for long-term outcomes in the conflict, insisting: "While the situation is serious, success is still achievable."
Obama weighed in Sunday on the debate over more troops in Afghanistan. "We're going to test whatever resource we have against our strategy, which is if by sending young men and women into harm's way, we are defeating al-Qaeda," the president said in an interview with ABC.
"[If] that can be shown to a sceptical audience - namely me, somebody who is always asking hard questions about deploying troops - then we will do what's required to keep the American people safe," Obama said.
Gates said this week that the president needed time to assess US strategy and should not be rushed over such an important decision.
Earlier, Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services committee that more soldiers would likely be needed to subdue the Taleban.
"A properly resourced counterin-surgency probably means more forces and, without question, more time and more commitment to the protection of the Afghan people and to the development of good governance," Mullen said.
By coincidence, McChrystal's report was revealed on the UN's International Peace Day, when Kabul's defence ministry said foreign and Afghan troops will pause offensive operations.
Qari Yusuf Ahmadi, purpostedly a Taleban spokesman, was quoted on the ReliefWeb website as suggesting the insurgency may do the same, saying: "Our forces will remain in defensive position, as usual."
Foreign forces in Afghanistan, experiencing their deadliest year since the war began eight years ago with more than 350 deaths so far in 2009, are sceptical the rebels will keep their word.
Monday, September 21, 2009
UN urges Sri Lanka to investigate war crimes
A top UN official issued a strong call for "truth-seeking" into alleged excesses by security forces when they wiped out Tamil rebels earlier this year.
"We feel that ideally the Sri Lankans should carry out a national process of truth-seeking and accountability," the UN's political chief Lynn Pascoe said in a statement issued after his departure from Colombo on Friday.
Mr Pascoe, undersecretary-general for political affairs, asked Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse to set up a "serious, independent and impartial"process to investigate alleged war crimes.
Sri Lanka has consistently resisted US- and European-led calls for war crimes investigations, saying that no civilians were killed by its security forces.
Before leaving the island, Mr Pascoe expressed "strong concerns" over Tamil war refugees, and said the government had been slow to resettle tens of thousands of displaced civilians.
"We feel that ideally the Sri Lankans should carry out a national process of truth-seeking and accountability," the UN's political chief Lynn Pascoe said in a statement issued after his departure from Colombo on Friday.
Mr Pascoe, undersecretary-general for political affairs, asked Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse to set up a "serious, independent and impartial"process to investigate alleged war crimes.
Sri Lanka has consistently resisted US- and European-led calls for war crimes investigations, saying that no civilians were killed by its security forces.
Before leaving the island, Mr Pascoe expressed "strong concerns" over Tamil war refugees, and said the government had been slow to resettle tens of thousands of displaced civilians.
Friday, September 18, 2009
ISRAEL REJECTS INEPENDENT GAZA WAR INQUIRY
Israel yesterday rejected UN calls to open an independent inquiry into its conduct in last winter's Gaza Strip war and said it would launch a diplomatic offensive to block any attempt to bring its soldiers before an international war crimes tribunal.
An independent investigation into the war was a key recommendation of an explosive UN report that accused the Jewish state of war rimes and possible crimes against humanity.
The report, released on Tuesday by UN-appointed investigatiors, said Israel used disproportionate firepower and sisregarded the likelihood of civilian deaths in the offensive, which killed hundrds of non-comatants and caused widespread damage to Gaza.
It said that if Israel doesn't allow an independent investigation, the case should be refereed to international war crimes prosecutors.
The report provoked a furore in Israel, whose Foreign Ministry said it was "appalled and disappointed". Radio stations deveoted heavy chaunks of airtime to interviews with outraged officials and critical legal experts. "Clasic Anti-Semitism," blared the headline of an opinion piece in the Israel Hayom daily.
Israeli officials refused to cooperate with the five-month investigation, saying it was ordered by a UN body with a clear anti-Israeli bias.
Government spokesman Mark REgev said Israel would not heed the call for an independent investigation and noted that army probes can be a ppealed in court.
The UN team, headed by veteran war crimes prosecutor Richard Goldstone, concluded that both Israel and Gaza's Islamic Hamas rulers committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.
Israel launched the three-week war in late December to quash Palestinian militants in Gaza who has bombarded southern Israel for years with rocket and mortar fire.
Israeli President Shimon Peres, a Nobel peace prize laureate, said the Goldstone report "makes a mockery of history".
Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said Israel would take action to protect its soldiers and commanders from prosecution abroad and denounced the suggestion of an ICC jurisdiction.
But even without legal action, the UN report could damage Israel's public image, with people linking the state of Israel and war crimes.
Israel says the UN Human Rights Council that ordered the probe is biased by its 47-nation membership, dominated by Arab and developing nations.
An independent investigation into the war was a key recommendation of an explosive UN report that accused the Jewish state of war rimes and possible crimes against humanity.
The report, released on Tuesday by UN-appointed investigatiors, said Israel used disproportionate firepower and sisregarded the likelihood of civilian deaths in the offensive, which killed hundrds of non-comatants and caused widespread damage to Gaza.
It said that if Israel doesn't allow an independent investigation, the case should be refereed to international war crimes prosecutors.
The report provoked a furore in Israel, whose Foreign Ministry said it was "appalled and disappointed". Radio stations deveoted heavy chaunks of airtime to interviews with outraged officials and critical legal experts. "Clasic Anti-Semitism," blared the headline of an opinion piece in the Israel Hayom daily.
Israeli officials refused to cooperate with the five-month investigation, saying it was ordered by a UN body with a clear anti-Israeli bias.
Government spokesman Mark REgev said Israel would not heed the call for an independent investigation and noted that army probes can be a ppealed in court.
The UN team, headed by veteran war crimes prosecutor Richard Goldstone, concluded that both Israel and Gaza's Islamic Hamas rulers committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.
Israel launched the three-week war in late December to quash Palestinian militants in Gaza who has bombarded southern Israel for years with rocket and mortar fire.
Israeli President Shimon Peres, a Nobel peace prize laureate, said the Goldstone report "makes a mockery of history".
Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said Israel would take action to protect its soldiers and commanders from prosecution abroad and denounced the suggestion of an ICC jurisdiction.
But even without legal action, the UN report could damage Israel's public image, with people linking the state of Israel and war crimes.
Israel says the UN Human Rights Council that ordered the probe is biased by its 47-nation membership, dominated by Arab and developing nations.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Bosnian war criminal granted early release
The Yugoslav war crimes tribunal announced yesterday it has approved the early release from prison of former Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic after she served two-thirds of her 11-year sentence for persecution.
The decision means that one of the most senior political leaders ever convicted by the UN court will likely walk free next month from the prison in Sweden where she has been jailed.
Plavsic, 79, was sentenced in 2003 after pleading guilty to a single count of persecution, a crime against humanity,as part of an ethnic cleansing campaign to drive Muslims and Croats out of Serbcontrolled areas of Bosnia. As part of her plea bargain other charges, including genocide, were dropped.
The campaign destroyed 850 Muslim and Croat villages and included 1,100 documented mass murders, according to prosecutors.
Tribunal President Patrick Robinson said in a decision released yesterday that Plavsic should be released "notwithstanding the gravity of her crimes".
Plavsic is one of the few suspects to admit their crimes at the tribunal.
The decision means that one of the most senior political leaders ever convicted by the UN court will likely walk free next month from the prison in Sweden where she has been jailed.
Plavsic, 79, was sentenced in 2003 after pleading guilty to a single count of persecution, a crime against humanity,as part of an ethnic cleansing campaign to drive Muslims and Croats out of Serbcontrolled areas of Bosnia. As part of her plea bargain other charges, including genocide, were dropped.
The campaign destroyed 850 Muslim and Croat villages and included 1,100 documented mass murders, according to prosecutors.
Tribunal President Patrick Robinson said in a decision released yesterday that Plavsic should be released "notwithstanding the gravity of her crimes".
Plavsic is one of the few suspects to admit their crimes at the tribunal.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Five military rangers shot dead in ambush
Suspected insurgents have shot dead five military rangers and made off with three HK assault rifles in an ambush in Yala's Muang district.
The shooting took place last night at 7.30 when the rangers were travelling in a pickup truck from the Ban Taseh mosque after attending evening prayers to break the Ramadan fast.
The officers from the Pattana Santi 47-3 military ranger unit spotted a sus-picious object on a roadside as they arrived at Ban Taseh health station, close to the mosque. The rangers stopped to inspect it.
As they approached, a group of men hiding behind bushes sprayed the rangers with bullets, killing the five. They took three assault rifles but left two rifles at the scene.
The insurgents also placed metal spikes on the road to hamper the efforts of officers following them.
The slain military rangers are Muhamad Moro, Jittakorn Sirisawadi,Pradit Muenyotha, Besamad Langtoh and Prajak Kamhaeng.
Earlier, a motorcyclist in Yala's Than To district was injured when he was shot by a pillion rider of another motorcycle in his village. Arong Khiewmee,30, was shot once in his right hip while riding his motorcycle to a market in tambon Mae Wad about 10.30am. Two men sped towards him on another motorcycle and the pillion rider fired at him. He was taken to hospital.
The shooting took place last night at 7.30 when the rangers were travelling in a pickup truck from the Ban Taseh mosque after attending evening prayers to break the Ramadan fast.
The officers from the Pattana Santi 47-3 military ranger unit spotted a sus-picious object on a roadside as they arrived at Ban Taseh health station, close to the mosque. The rangers stopped to inspect it.
As they approached, a group of men hiding behind bushes sprayed the rangers with bullets, killing the five. They took three assault rifles but left two rifles at the scene.
The insurgents also placed metal spikes on the road to hamper the efforts of officers following them.
The slain military rangers are Muhamad Moro, Jittakorn Sirisawadi,Pradit Muenyotha, Besamad Langtoh and Prajak Kamhaeng.
Earlier, a motorcyclist in Yala's Than To district was injured when he was shot by a pillion rider of another motorcycle in his village. Arong Khiewmee,30, was shot once in his right hip while riding his motorcycle to a market in tambon Mae Wad about 10.30am. Two men sped towards him on another motorcycle and the pillion rider fired at him. He was taken to hospital.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
THE WORLD'S WORST RADIATION HOTSPOT
At the start of the Cold War, Stalin chose one of the furthest outposts of his empire to test the Soviet Union's first nuclear bombs. Sixty years
on, their cancerous legacy is still being felt By Jerome Taylor
Walking through the flat and endless Kazakh steppe, Nemytov Oleg suddenly stops, fumbles in his desert camouflage trousers and pulls out a Geiger counter. The device bleeps into life.He peers pensively at the reading. When we stepped out of the car it read three. Now,within a couple of hundred metres, it has jumped to 10. He unwraps breathing masks and two pairs of disposable shoe coverings."If we want to go any further we will have to wear these," he says.
Further along the dusty road he checks his device once more."You see, the meter is now reading 21," he says."If we were in a city far away from here it would read about 0.1. The radiation increases very quickly."
The reason Mr Oleg is keeping such a close eye on background radiation is because we are standing on the very spot where,60 years ago, the Soviet Union launched the Cold War, with the detonation of its first nuclear bomb. Watched from a lead-lined bunker by Stalin's feared secret police chief Lavrenti Beria, First Lightning exploded at exactly 7am on Aug 29,1949, throwing up an enormous mushroom cloud that billowed over the steppe and, unbeknown to people nearby, dumping huge quantities of radioactive material on them, their houses and their fields.
It is the names of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Chernobyl that stand for the horrors of the new technology. The name of Semipalatinsk has no such resonance, and is all but forgotten. Yet nowhere else in the world was there such a large concentration of nuclear explosions in one place over such a long period. When Beria earmarked this far eastern corner of Kazakhstan to be the Soviet Union's top secret nuclear test facility, he described the place as "uninhabited"- conveniently forgetting the 700,000 people who lived in the surrounding villages, towns and cities.Overnight the region was deleted from the map and for the next 40 years Soviet scientists detonated 615 nuclear devices at their secret Semipalatinsk Polygon.
For the first 13 years, tests inside the 80,000 square kilometre Polygon site were conducted above ground, throwing huge amounts of nuclear waste into the atmosphere. The underground tests that followed polluted vast tracts of land with a toxic combination of radioactive chemicals which will continue to contaminate the soil for thousands of years. Kazakhstan shut down the test site almost as soon as the Central Asian republic gained its independence in 1991(and also became the first country in the world to voluntarily give up nuclear weapons). But the deadly legacy of those tests lives on.
In a new hospital on the outskirts of Semei - the new Kazakh name for the otherwise unremarkable provincial capital which lies 150km east of the Polygon - Galina Bityukova,aged 54 and painfully thin, is midway through a second course of chemotherapy for ovarian cancer."Sometimes I feel that my cancer is linked to the nuclear tests - you can't help but think so," she says."It could just be cancer like anyone else gets, but when you remember what happened here and how many people have cancer, it makes you wonder."
On the bed opposite, Svetlana, a woman in her late fifties who is recovering from a mastectomy, firmly agrees."In my mind I know the nuclear tests had something to do with me getting ill," she says, flashing a strained smile which reveals a full set of gold teeth. Dr Baipeisov Muhametkalievich is the head of oncology at Semei's cancer ward,which treats up to 40,000 people every year."It's difficult to know whether their cancer comes from the testing or not," he says."But you only have to look at the data to know that this area of Kazakhstan has the highest rates of cancer of anywhere in the country."It is roughly one-third higher than the national average, he says, a clear indication that the Polygon continues to make people sick.
When Kazakhstan gained its independence following the Soviet Union's collapse, the country was left bankrupt and the damage caused by the nuclear tests was only one of the problems that Moscow consigned to the new government, dominated by the local Communist chief Nursultan Nazerbayev who is still Kazakhstan's President. As the Russian military convoys rolled back over the border they not only took away all the scientific data regarding the Polygon, but also most of the modern medical equipment from Semei's hospital.
For many years the victims of Semipalatinsk, unlike those of Chernobyl, were left to fend for themselves. But flush with new revenue from its enormous gas fields and mineral deposits, money is finally heading their way. The oncology department in Semei has just received state-of-the-art equipment from Japanese doctors in Nagasaki while a ฃ40 million radiology department is under construction."When I first got here I was absolutely astonished at the level of poverty and neglect among the victims of nuclear testing," says Fiona Corcoran, an Irish charity worker who had seen the effects of nuclear fallout in Chernobyl and who now runs two orphanages in Semei."Children with horrendous birth defects were just left to rot in institutions. But recently there have been some major improvements."
Ms Corcoran's charity, the Greater Chernobyl Cause, was one of many working in Chernobyl, but when she arrived in Kazakhstan a decade ago, outside aid was almost non-existent."The Kazakhs would always say to me:'People come here, they go and they forget.' There was none of the same sense of urgency that there was with Chernobyl. But what happened at Chernobyl was a single tragic accident. What happened here was the systematic and deliberate exposure of thousands of people to nuclear material."
Most of those who worked on the test site have long since died, but the radiation levels continue to poison new generations of Kazakhs. In an anonymous-looking block of Sovietera flats is Semei's only facility for disabled children. According to the centre's director Tylysova Toleakarovna, of the 346 children they regularly treat,45 have illnesses which result directly from radiological contamination. Baurzhanaly Kuanysh is one of them.Now 16-years-old, he was born in Abay district,one of the areas closest to the Polygon. He suffers from microcephaly, a common illness among radiation victims where the victim's head is abnormally small."We can provide for some of the victims who live near the city but we need to get out to the villages," explains Mrs Toleakarovna."That is my dream."
Some 160km west of Semei lies Kurchatov,a meticulously planned settlement that was once the most secretive town in the Soviet Union. Here scientists work to map and contain the nuclear contamination inside the Polygon.
What is already clear is that the three sites where the explosions were regularly conducted will be uninhabitable for thousands of years, and a river that flows through the site into the Irtysh is contaminated. Yet that has not deterred new arrivals - government and private investors are keen to open up some areas of the test site because it is littered with deposits of coal, copper and silver. There are already 400 miners digging for coal close to where some of the later and most powerful tests were carried out in the 1960s and 1970s.
But the rush to extract minerals from this poisoned land has set alarm bells ringing among medical experts. Boris Gallich, a specialist in the effects of radiation, said:"My biggest fear is that these people could become contaminated and pass it on to their children and families. That may be a matter of indifference for the company directors, but not for the people on the ground."
on, their cancerous legacy is still being felt By Jerome Taylor
Walking through the flat and endless Kazakh steppe, Nemytov Oleg suddenly stops, fumbles in his desert camouflage trousers and pulls out a Geiger counter. The device bleeps into life.He peers pensively at the reading. When we stepped out of the car it read three. Now,within a couple of hundred metres, it has jumped to 10. He unwraps breathing masks and two pairs of disposable shoe coverings."If we want to go any further we will have to wear these," he says.
Further along the dusty road he checks his device once more."You see, the meter is now reading 21," he says."If we were in a city far away from here it would read about 0.1. The radiation increases very quickly."
The reason Mr Oleg is keeping such a close eye on background radiation is because we are standing on the very spot where,60 years ago, the Soviet Union launched the Cold War, with the detonation of its first nuclear bomb. Watched from a lead-lined bunker by Stalin's feared secret police chief Lavrenti Beria, First Lightning exploded at exactly 7am on Aug 29,1949, throwing up an enormous mushroom cloud that billowed over the steppe and, unbeknown to people nearby, dumping huge quantities of radioactive material on them, their houses and their fields.
It is the names of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Chernobyl that stand for the horrors of the new technology. The name of Semipalatinsk has no such resonance, and is all but forgotten. Yet nowhere else in the world was there such a large concentration of nuclear explosions in one place over such a long period. When Beria earmarked this far eastern corner of Kazakhstan to be the Soviet Union's top secret nuclear test facility, he described the place as "uninhabited"- conveniently forgetting the 700,000 people who lived in the surrounding villages, towns and cities.Overnight the region was deleted from the map and for the next 40 years Soviet scientists detonated 615 nuclear devices at their secret Semipalatinsk Polygon.
For the first 13 years, tests inside the 80,000 square kilometre Polygon site were conducted above ground, throwing huge amounts of nuclear waste into the atmosphere. The underground tests that followed polluted vast tracts of land with a toxic combination of radioactive chemicals which will continue to contaminate the soil for thousands of years. Kazakhstan shut down the test site almost as soon as the Central Asian republic gained its independence in 1991(and also became the first country in the world to voluntarily give up nuclear weapons). But the deadly legacy of those tests lives on.
In a new hospital on the outskirts of Semei - the new Kazakh name for the otherwise unremarkable provincial capital which lies 150km east of the Polygon - Galina Bityukova,aged 54 and painfully thin, is midway through a second course of chemotherapy for ovarian cancer."Sometimes I feel that my cancer is linked to the nuclear tests - you can't help but think so," she says."It could just be cancer like anyone else gets, but when you remember what happened here and how many people have cancer, it makes you wonder."
On the bed opposite, Svetlana, a woman in her late fifties who is recovering from a mastectomy, firmly agrees."In my mind I know the nuclear tests had something to do with me getting ill," she says, flashing a strained smile which reveals a full set of gold teeth. Dr Baipeisov Muhametkalievich is the head of oncology at Semei's cancer ward,which treats up to 40,000 people every year."It's difficult to know whether their cancer comes from the testing or not," he says."But you only have to look at the data to know that this area of Kazakhstan has the highest rates of cancer of anywhere in the country."It is roughly one-third higher than the national average, he says, a clear indication that the Polygon continues to make people sick.
When Kazakhstan gained its independence following the Soviet Union's collapse, the country was left bankrupt and the damage caused by the nuclear tests was only one of the problems that Moscow consigned to the new government, dominated by the local Communist chief Nursultan Nazerbayev who is still Kazakhstan's President. As the Russian military convoys rolled back over the border they not only took away all the scientific data regarding the Polygon, but also most of the modern medical equipment from Semei's hospital.
For many years the victims of Semipalatinsk, unlike those of Chernobyl, were left to fend for themselves. But flush with new revenue from its enormous gas fields and mineral deposits, money is finally heading their way. The oncology department in Semei has just received state-of-the-art equipment from Japanese doctors in Nagasaki while a ฃ40 million radiology department is under construction."When I first got here I was absolutely astonished at the level of poverty and neglect among the victims of nuclear testing," says Fiona Corcoran, an Irish charity worker who had seen the effects of nuclear fallout in Chernobyl and who now runs two orphanages in Semei."Children with horrendous birth defects were just left to rot in institutions. But recently there have been some major improvements."
Ms Corcoran's charity, the Greater Chernobyl Cause, was one of many working in Chernobyl, but when she arrived in Kazakhstan a decade ago, outside aid was almost non-existent."The Kazakhs would always say to me:'People come here, they go and they forget.' There was none of the same sense of urgency that there was with Chernobyl. But what happened at Chernobyl was a single tragic accident. What happened here was the systematic and deliberate exposure of thousands of people to nuclear material."
Most of those who worked on the test site have long since died, but the radiation levels continue to poison new generations of Kazakhs. In an anonymous-looking block of Sovietera flats is Semei's only facility for disabled children. According to the centre's director Tylysova Toleakarovna, of the 346 children they regularly treat,45 have illnesses which result directly from radiological contamination. Baurzhanaly Kuanysh is one of them.Now 16-years-old, he was born in Abay district,one of the areas closest to the Polygon. He suffers from microcephaly, a common illness among radiation victims where the victim's head is abnormally small."We can provide for some of the victims who live near the city but we need to get out to the villages," explains Mrs Toleakarovna."That is my dream."
Some 160km west of Semei lies Kurchatov,a meticulously planned settlement that was once the most secretive town in the Soviet Union. Here scientists work to map and contain the nuclear contamination inside the Polygon.
What is already clear is that the three sites where the explosions were regularly conducted will be uninhabitable for thousands of years, and a river that flows through the site into the Irtysh is contaminated. Yet that has not deterred new arrivals - government and private investors are keen to open up some areas of the test site because it is littered with deposits of coal, copper and silver. There are already 400 miners digging for coal close to where some of the later and most powerful tests were carried out in the 1960s and 1970s.
But the rush to extract minerals from this poisoned land has set alarm bells ringing among medical experts. Boris Gallich, a specialist in the effects of radiation, said:"My biggest fear is that these people could become contaminated and pass it on to their children and families. That may be a matter of indifference for the company directors, but not for the people on the ground."
Friday, September 11, 2009
Top Taliban caught in Swat operation
Pakistani security forces have arrested the spokesman for the Taliban in the Swat Valley, the military said, the first major arrest in the region since the army went on the offensive there more than four months ago.
The arrest of Muslim Khan is the latest blow for the Pakistan Taliban whose leader, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed in the South Waziristan region last month.
Taliban advances early this year and a series of attacks in cities raised fears for Pakistan's future and alarmed its ally the United States, which even suggested the civilian government was "abdicating" to the militants.
But the Swat offensive, launched in late April, and attacks on the Taliban in their Afghan border strongholds including South Waziristan have done much to reassure the US of Pakistan's commitment to the fight against militancy.
Military spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas said Mr Khan and four other Taliban leaders from Swat were arrested.
Confirming Mr Khan's detention,Interior Minister Rehman Malik said militants had no option but surrender.
"They will either be killed or arrested,"he said in the capital, Islamabad.
Military officials say more than 2,000 insurgents and more than 300 soldiers have been killed in the Swat offensive.There has been no independent verification of militant casualties.
Meanwhile, nearly 600 policemen recruited from ethnic Pashtun tribes in the Bara district have quit after an Islamist commander warned them over his illegal FM radio to give up their jobs.
The arrest of Muslim Khan is the latest blow for the Pakistan Taliban whose leader, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed in the South Waziristan region last month.
Taliban advances early this year and a series of attacks in cities raised fears for Pakistan's future and alarmed its ally the United States, which even suggested the civilian government was "abdicating" to the militants.
But the Swat offensive, launched in late April, and attacks on the Taliban in their Afghan border strongholds including South Waziristan have done much to reassure the US of Pakistan's commitment to the fight against militancy.
Military spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas said Mr Khan and four other Taliban leaders from Swat were arrested.
Confirming Mr Khan's detention,Interior Minister Rehman Malik said militants had no option but surrender.
"They will either be killed or arrested,"he said in the capital, Islamabad.
Military officials say more than 2,000 insurgents and more than 300 soldiers have been killed in the Swat offensive.There has been no independent verification of militant casualties.
Meanwhile, nearly 600 policemen recruited from ethnic Pashtun tribes in the Bara district have quit after an Islamist commander warned them over his illegal FM radio to give up their jobs.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
US urges Arab allies to beef up military
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates urged US allies in the Arab world to strengthen their military capabilities and defence cooperation with Washington as a means of pressuring Iran to back off its nuclear programme.
In an interview with Al Jazeera aired on Monday, Mr Gates said the United States still favoured diplomatic and economic approaches to the challenges posed by Iran and its nuclear programme.
But, according to a transcript of the interview, Mr Gates said "one of the pathways to get the Iranians to change their approach on the nuclear issue is to persuade them that moving down that path will actually jeopardise their security,not enhance it.
"So the more that our Arab friends and allies can strengthen their security capabilities, the more they can strengthen their cooperation, both with each other and with us, I think it sends the signal to the Iranians that this path they're on is not going to advance Iranian security but in fact could weaken it," he said.
Mr Gates said he did not know how much US arms sales to the region now totalled, but disputed a $100 billion figure cited by Al Jazeera as sounding "very high to me".
The defence secretary also questioned whether Iran had gained lasting clout in Iraq, and by extension in the region, as a result of the 2003 US invasion that toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and brought the country's Shi'ite majority to power.
"I think that a strong and democratic Iraq, particularly one with a multisectarian government, becomes a barrier to Iranian influence and not a bridge for it," he said.
"So I think, in the short term, perhaps Iran's position was strengthened somewhat but I think if you look to the longer term, and the role that Iraq can play in the region going forward, I think that Iran's position may well be diminished,"he said.
He said Iraq's leaders were "first and foremost Iraqis".
"After all none of them have forgotten the eight years of war that they fought with Saddam Hussein and they haven't forgotten that Saddam Hussein started that war," he said.
His comments appeared the same day the outgoing chief of International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, complained of an "impasse"with Iran over its nuclear plan.
In an interview with Al Jazeera aired on Monday, Mr Gates said the United States still favoured diplomatic and economic approaches to the challenges posed by Iran and its nuclear programme.
But, according to a transcript of the interview, Mr Gates said "one of the pathways to get the Iranians to change their approach on the nuclear issue is to persuade them that moving down that path will actually jeopardise their security,not enhance it.
"So the more that our Arab friends and allies can strengthen their security capabilities, the more they can strengthen their cooperation, both with each other and with us, I think it sends the signal to the Iranians that this path they're on is not going to advance Iranian security but in fact could weaken it," he said.
Mr Gates said he did not know how much US arms sales to the region now totalled, but disputed a $100 billion figure cited by Al Jazeera as sounding "very high to me".
The defence secretary also questioned whether Iran had gained lasting clout in Iraq, and by extension in the region, as a result of the 2003 US invasion that toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and brought the country's Shi'ite majority to power.
"I think that a strong and democratic Iraq, particularly one with a multisectarian government, becomes a barrier to Iranian influence and not a bridge for it," he said.
"So I think, in the short term, perhaps Iran's position was strengthened somewhat but I think if you look to the longer term, and the role that Iraq can play in the region going forward, I think that Iran's position may well be diminished,"he said.
He said Iraq's leaders were "first and foremost Iraqis".
"After all none of them have forgotten the eight years of war that they fought with Saddam Hussein and they haven't forgotten that Saddam Hussein started that war," he said.
His comments appeared the same day the outgoing chief of International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, complained of an "impasse"with Iran over its nuclear plan.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
US leads the world in selling weapons
The US accounted for more than two-thirds of foreign weapons sales in 2008, a year in which global sales were at a three-year low, the New York Times reported on Sunday.Citing a recent congressional study,the Times said the US was involved in 68.4% of the global arms trade.
US weapons sales jumped nearly 50%in 2008 to $37.8 billion from $25.4 billion the year before.
Worldwide, global arms sales fell 7.6%to $55.2 billion in 2008, the report said.
The rise in US sales was attributed to "major new orders from clients in the Near East and in Asia". The United Arab Emirates was the top buyer of arms in the developing world with $9.7 billion in arms purchases in 2008.
US weapons sales jumped nearly 50%in 2008 to $37.8 billion from $25.4 billion the year before.
Worldwide, global arms sales fell 7.6%to $55.2 billion in 2008, the report said.
The rise in US sales was attributed to "major new orders from clients in the Near East and in Asia". The United Arab Emirates was the top buyer of arms in the developing world with $9.7 billion in arms purchases in 2008.
Monday, September 7, 2009
US rejects idea of one-on-one N. Korea talks
The US said yesterday that disarming North Korea of its nuclear weapons required a multilateral solution, rejecting calls for it to drop sixparty talks for one-on-one dialogue with Pyongyang.
US special representative on North Korea Stephen Bosworth held a third day of talks with South Korean officials to discuss ways to press Pyongyang to return to the negotiating table, after arriving on Friday.
His trip came as the North announced experimental uranium enrichment was entering the completion phase, in a defiant response to tougher UN sanctions imposed after its May 25 nuclear test and separate missile launches.
Mr Bosworth said that following "very useful" conversations with Seoul officials, the two sides had agreed to continue to push for the North's nuclear disarmament within the existing framework of six-party talks.
The North has been seeking bilateral talks with the United States since it quit the six-way process grouping the two Koreas, the US, Japan, Russia and China in April in protest at the UN censure of a rocket launch.
"Because of the nature of this issue,its regional implications and its global implications, this is a problem that requires a multilateral solution," Mr Bosworth said, wrapping up his Seoul visit."As we have indicated in the past we are prepared to engage bilaterally as well with the North Koreans, but only in the context of the six-party process in order to facilitate the sixparty exercise."
The US envoy was in Seoul as part of a three-nation Asian tour that had already taken him to Beijing. He was due to fly to Tokyo later yesterday.
Mr Bosworth met with Seoul's chief nuclear envoy Wi Sung-lac and Unification Minister Hyun In-taek on Saturday, and Foreign Minister Yu Myunghwan yesterday.
As well as its announcement on uranium, North Korea said reprocessing of spent reactor fuel rods was also in the final phase and extracted plutonium was being weaponised. Pyongyang had for years denied US allegations of a secret highly enriched uranium (HEU)programme, in addition to its admitted plutonium-based operation.
"Any indication of a nuclear programme on the part of North Korea,whether it is HEU or anything else, is a subject of concern, and one which would have to be addressed if we are going to deal comprehensively with the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula," Mr Bosworth said.
But he said the North's claims of progress in its uranium programme brought no real change to regional security.
The US and Russia will discuss the North Korean nuclear issue in Seoul this week, with Moscow's deputy nuclear envoy Grigory Logvinov to visit South Korea today.
US special representative on North Korea Stephen Bosworth held a third day of talks with South Korean officials to discuss ways to press Pyongyang to return to the negotiating table, after arriving on Friday.
His trip came as the North announced experimental uranium enrichment was entering the completion phase, in a defiant response to tougher UN sanctions imposed after its May 25 nuclear test and separate missile launches.
Mr Bosworth said that following "very useful" conversations with Seoul officials, the two sides had agreed to continue to push for the North's nuclear disarmament within the existing framework of six-party talks.
The North has been seeking bilateral talks with the United States since it quit the six-way process grouping the two Koreas, the US, Japan, Russia and China in April in protest at the UN censure of a rocket launch.
"Because of the nature of this issue,its regional implications and its global implications, this is a problem that requires a multilateral solution," Mr Bosworth said, wrapping up his Seoul visit."As we have indicated in the past we are prepared to engage bilaterally as well with the North Koreans, but only in the context of the six-party process in order to facilitate the sixparty exercise."
The US envoy was in Seoul as part of a three-nation Asian tour that had already taken him to Beijing. He was due to fly to Tokyo later yesterday.
Mr Bosworth met with Seoul's chief nuclear envoy Wi Sung-lac and Unification Minister Hyun In-taek on Saturday, and Foreign Minister Yu Myunghwan yesterday.
As well as its announcement on uranium, North Korea said reprocessing of spent reactor fuel rods was also in the final phase and extracted plutonium was being weaponised. Pyongyang had for years denied US allegations of a secret highly enriched uranium (HEU)programme, in addition to its admitted plutonium-based operation.
"Any indication of a nuclear programme on the part of North Korea,whether it is HEU or anything else, is a subject of concern, and one which would have to be addressed if we are going to deal comprehensively with the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula," Mr Bosworth said.
But he said the North's claims of progress in its uranium programme brought no real change to regional security.
The US and Russia will discuss the North Korean nuclear issue in Seoul this week, with Moscow's deputy nuclear envoy Grigory Logvinov to visit South Korea today.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Outcry builds over Afghan attack
Afghans yesterday mourned the dead from a Nato bombing that killed scores of people and renewed an outcry over civilian casualties at the hands of Western troops in an eight-year war.
The air strike destroyed two fuel tankers hijacked by the Taliban at a time when witnesses said villagers had rushed towards the vehicles, carrying any container they could to collect free fuel at the insurgents' invitation.
Officials said the dead were mostly insurgents, but Afghan President Hamid Karzai - leading the count in fraudtainted elections - said any targeting of civilians was unacceptable. His office said 90 people were killed and hurt.
Memorial prayers were heard yesterday in nearly a dozen villages for those killed in northern Kunduz province,where the atmosphere was highly charged, witnesses said.
A delegation from the defence and interior ministries travelled to Kunduz early yesterday to begin investigations ordered by Mr Karzai, an official said.
Zamari Bashari, Interior Ministry spokesman, said it was not yet known how many people were killed, nor how many were civilians.
Kunduz provincial police chief Abdul Razaq Yaqobi said 56 people were killed and 12 wounded, adding that "all of them were Taliban".
In the Kunduz hospital, where many of the injured were taken, Asmatullah was with his 10-year-old son Shafiullah,who he said had been with other children getting free fuel and whose legs were burned when the tankers were ignited.
Mr Asmatullah, who like many Afghans uses one name, said he was awoken by the noise of the exploding tankers "and when I went there I saw the world was covered by dead and wounded people".
"All the dead were Taliban," he said.The Taliban released a statement saying none of its militiamen were among the casualties.
"When the planes came our men knew that they would bomb the area, so all our people left," said the statement.
The air strike has underscored the increasing Taliban presence in parts of the north straddling a new supply route for foreign troops coming through Tajikistan in order to minimise dependence on the volatile route from Pakistan.
The White House expressed "great concern" over the loss of civilian lives while European governments warned the raid risked undermining the Nato mission of 64,500 troops from more than 40 countries trying to defeat the Taliban.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said yesterday that the bombing was a major mistake.
"This was a big mistake," Mr Kouchner said as he arrived for a second day of talks with his EU counterparts in Stockholm.
"We have to enquire and to denounce those responsible."
Germany's Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung told the Bild newspaper yesterday:"When just 6km away from us,the Taliban take two fuel tankers, that represents a serious danger for us."
Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn also denounced the Nato bombing.
"I cannot understand that bombs can be dropped so easily and swiftly," Mr Asselborn said."Even if there was only one civilian there, this operation should not have taken place."
Police and the Interior Ministry said up to 56 Taliban were killed and 10 more wounded, including a 12-year-old child, when a Nato air raid targeted the tankers after they were hijacked en route from Tajikistan to Kabul.
Mahbubullah Sayedi, a government spokesman in Kunduz gave the highest death toll, saying 90 people were killed,but said most were Taliban.
The insurgent militia, which frequently exaggerates its claims as part of its propaganda effort, earlier said 150 villagers,most of them young boys, were killed.
The incident came four days after the US and Nato commander in Afghanistan submitted a review into the war, calling for a revised strategy and reverse the country's "serious" situation.
The White House also said the incident would be investigated and Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen pledged to conduct a thorough investigation.
The air strike destroyed two fuel tankers hijacked by the Taliban at a time when witnesses said villagers had rushed towards the vehicles, carrying any container they could to collect free fuel at the insurgents' invitation.
Officials said the dead were mostly insurgents, but Afghan President Hamid Karzai - leading the count in fraudtainted elections - said any targeting of civilians was unacceptable. His office said 90 people were killed and hurt.
Memorial prayers were heard yesterday in nearly a dozen villages for those killed in northern Kunduz province,where the atmosphere was highly charged, witnesses said.
A delegation from the defence and interior ministries travelled to Kunduz early yesterday to begin investigations ordered by Mr Karzai, an official said.
Zamari Bashari, Interior Ministry spokesman, said it was not yet known how many people were killed, nor how many were civilians.
Kunduz provincial police chief Abdul Razaq Yaqobi said 56 people were killed and 12 wounded, adding that "all of them were Taliban".
In the Kunduz hospital, where many of the injured were taken, Asmatullah was with his 10-year-old son Shafiullah,who he said had been with other children getting free fuel and whose legs were burned when the tankers were ignited.
Mr Asmatullah, who like many Afghans uses one name, said he was awoken by the noise of the exploding tankers "and when I went there I saw the world was covered by dead and wounded people".
"All the dead were Taliban," he said.The Taliban released a statement saying none of its militiamen were among the casualties.
"When the planes came our men knew that they would bomb the area, so all our people left," said the statement.
The air strike has underscored the increasing Taliban presence in parts of the north straddling a new supply route for foreign troops coming through Tajikistan in order to minimise dependence on the volatile route from Pakistan.
The White House expressed "great concern" over the loss of civilian lives while European governments warned the raid risked undermining the Nato mission of 64,500 troops from more than 40 countries trying to defeat the Taliban.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said yesterday that the bombing was a major mistake.
"This was a big mistake," Mr Kouchner said as he arrived for a second day of talks with his EU counterparts in Stockholm.
"We have to enquire and to denounce those responsible."
Germany's Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung told the Bild newspaper yesterday:"When just 6km away from us,the Taliban take two fuel tankers, that represents a serious danger for us."
Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn also denounced the Nato bombing.
"I cannot understand that bombs can be dropped so easily and swiftly," Mr Asselborn said."Even if there was only one civilian there, this operation should not have taken place."
Police and the Interior Ministry said up to 56 Taliban were killed and 10 more wounded, including a 12-year-old child, when a Nato air raid targeted the tankers after they were hijacked en route from Tajikistan to Kabul.
Mahbubullah Sayedi, a government spokesman in Kunduz gave the highest death toll, saying 90 people were killed,but said most were Taliban.
The insurgent militia, which frequently exaggerates its claims as part of its propaganda effort, earlier said 150 villagers,most of them young boys, were killed.
The incident came four days after the US and Nato commander in Afghanistan submitted a review into the war, calling for a revised strategy and reverse the country's "serious" situation.
The White House also said the incident would be investigated and Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen pledged to conduct a thorough investigation.
Friday, September 4, 2009
China and Russian cooperate to secure Central Asia
THE Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) held a five-day counter-terrorist exercise from July 22 to July 26 in Jilin, northeastern China, using primarily Chinese and Russian troops. The Peace Mission 2009 exercise also involved the participation of the four SCO member states - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan - with the SCO Secretariat sending military observers.
The joint military training underscores China's and Russia's growing partnership in fighting what they see as their three threats of separatism, extremism and terrorism, as well as a common desire to improve stability in Central Asia and Xinjiang. The ethnic clashes between the Uighurs and Han Chinese in Urumqi in early July have added to the tension in the region. The stability in Xinjiang is not only a domestic issue for China. It has also a regional dimension. China's overall Central Asian strategy is clearly tied to the security of Xinjiang.
Under the SCO framework, Peace Mission military exercises were successfully held in 2005 and 2007, with 2005 representing the first-ever such joint exercises between Russia and China. For Peace Mission 2007, more than 10,000 troops from all SCO member states (except Uzbekistan, which sent observers) were involved. Although fewer troops participated in 2009, that exercise nonetheless represented China's - and to a lesser degree Russia's - interests in securing the Central Asian region. There is also the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) of the SCO established in 2004. Together, these have not only strengthened China's security ties with Russia, but also increased Beijing's role in the security of Central Asia.
In 2002, the Comprehensive Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) was founded by the presidents of Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, with Uzbekistan joining in 2006. The Russian leadership aimed to establish a Central Asian security alliance with military-political components that are similar in structure to Nato. The pivotal goal of CSTO is the maintenance of regional stability. Recently, CSTO leaders, except for Belarus and Uzbekistan, signed an agreement to establish the Collective Rapid Reaction Forces (CRRF). The CRRF is comparable to Nato forces. It is an idea that has been long promoted by the Russian leadership.
This notwithstanding, the SCO leaders have been stressing - the latest being at their summit on June 15 in Yekaterinburg - that they are not out to establish a military alliance in competition with Nato. The Peace Mission exercises are mainly focusing on counter-terrorism drills and are not seen as a basis for a military bloc. They emphasise that the SCO has given them the ability to deal with non-traditional security threats in the region. Even though SCO and CSTO share common interests, cooperation between these two regional organisations is still limited.
In 2007, Russia suggested that the Peace Missions should be held under the joint framework of SCO and CSTO, but the Chinese leadership denied the Russian request. In the same year, both organisations nevertheless signed a Memorandum of Understanding between the secretariats of the CSTO and CSO. This has since facilitated CSTO-SCO interaction and information exchanges, especially between the anti-terrorist structures of SCO and CSTO.
China is mainly concerned about the spread of terrorism from its Western Xinjiang province. A stable Xinjiang is vital for regional stability in Central Asia. Without stability in Xinjiang, China cannot pursue its energy and trade interests in the Central Asian region. Hence, the Chinese leadership has used the SCO framework successfully to promote its fight against terrorism, extremism and separatism. Beijing also benefits from the fact that Russia faces similar problems in Chechnya, with Moscow viewing militant groups such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) as a threat to Russian interests in the Central Asian states.
Since the late 1990s China has viewed with concern the revival of terrorism in Central Asia, which Beijing sees as a source of inspiration for terrorism in Xinjiang. The Uighur minority in Xinjiang are Turkic-speaking people, who are ethnically and culturally similar to the Central Asian peoples rather than the Han Chinese, who form the majority of China's population. From a Chinese perspective, the separatist movement in Xinjiang is closely related to the pan-Turkic and pan-Islamic ideology spreading in this region following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) is fighting for the independence of Xinjiang and has been associated with the Central Asian militant groups such as IMU and IJU. The latter is a faction of IMU and is currently active in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
There have been a number of attacks targeting Chinese interests in Central Asia. In June 2002, a Chinese diplomat and his driver were gunned down in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. In March 2003, 19 Chinese traders were killed when an armed group attacked a bus en route from Bishkek to Xinjiang. Radical groups in this region have shown support to terrorist organisations and the Uighur separatist movement.
The Peace Mission military exercises are, therefore, one of China's comprehensive responses to the growing instability in Xinjiang and Central Asia. Given the sporadic ethnic clashes in Xinjiang, China is expected to continue seeking cooperation with the SCO members in its struggle to secure Xinjiang.
Nadine Godehardt is a recent Young Visiting Scholar for the China Programme of the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. She is a research fellow at GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies in Hamburg. Wang Pengxin is a research analyst at the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at RSIS.
The joint military training underscores China's and Russia's growing partnership in fighting what they see as their three threats of separatism, extremism and terrorism, as well as a common desire to improve stability in Central Asia and Xinjiang. The ethnic clashes between the Uighurs and Han Chinese in Urumqi in early July have added to the tension in the region. The stability in Xinjiang is not only a domestic issue for China. It has also a regional dimension. China's overall Central Asian strategy is clearly tied to the security of Xinjiang.
Under the SCO framework, Peace Mission military exercises were successfully held in 2005 and 2007, with 2005 representing the first-ever such joint exercises between Russia and China. For Peace Mission 2007, more than 10,000 troops from all SCO member states (except Uzbekistan, which sent observers) were involved. Although fewer troops participated in 2009, that exercise nonetheless represented China's - and to a lesser degree Russia's - interests in securing the Central Asian region. There is also the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) of the SCO established in 2004. Together, these have not only strengthened China's security ties with Russia, but also increased Beijing's role in the security of Central Asia.
In 2002, the Comprehensive Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) was founded by the presidents of Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, with Uzbekistan joining in 2006. The Russian leadership aimed to establish a Central Asian security alliance with military-political components that are similar in structure to Nato. The pivotal goal of CSTO is the maintenance of regional stability. Recently, CSTO leaders, except for Belarus and Uzbekistan, signed an agreement to establish the Collective Rapid Reaction Forces (CRRF). The CRRF is comparable to Nato forces. It is an idea that has been long promoted by the Russian leadership.
This notwithstanding, the SCO leaders have been stressing - the latest being at their summit on June 15 in Yekaterinburg - that they are not out to establish a military alliance in competition with Nato. The Peace Mission exercises are mainly focusing on counter-terrorism drills and are not seen as a basis for a military bloc. They emphasise that the SCO has given them the ability to deal with non-traditional security threats in the region. Even though SCO and CSTO share common interests, cooperation between these two regional organisations is still limited.
In 2007, Russia suggested that the Peace Missions should be held under the joint framework of SCO and CSTO, but the Chinese leadership denied the Russian request. In the same year, both organisations nevertheless signed a Memorandum of Understanding between the secretariats of the CSTO and CSO. This has since facilitated CSTO-SCO interaction and information exchanges, especially between the anti-terrorist structures of SCO and CSTO.
China is mainly concerned about the spread of terrorism from its Western Xinjiang province. A stable Xinjiang is vital for regional stability in Central Asia. Without stability in Xinjiang, China cannot pursue its energy and trade interests in the Central Asian region. Hence, the Chinese leadership has used the SCO framework successfully to promote its fight against terrorism, extremism and separatism. Beijing also benefits from the fact that Russia faces similar problems in Chechnya, with Moscow viewing militant groups such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) as a threat to Russian interests in the Central Asian states.
Since the late 1990s China has viewed with concern the revival of terrorism in Central Asia, which Beijing sees as a source of inspiration for terrorism in Xinjiang. The Uighur minority in Xinjiang are Turkic-speaking people, who are ethnically and culturally similar to the Central Asian peoples rather than the Han Chinese, who form the majority of China's population. From a Chinese perspective, the separatist movement in Xinjiang is closely related to the pan-Turkic and pan-Islamic ideology spreading in this region following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) is fighting for the independence of Xinjiang and has been associated with the Central Asian militant groups such as IMU and IJU. The latter is a faction of IMU and is currently active in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
There have been a number of attacks targeting Chinese interests in Central Asia. In June 2002, a Chinese diplomat and his driver were gunned down in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. In March 2003, 19 Chinese traders were killed when an armed group attacked a bus en route from Bishkek to Xinjiang. Radical groups in this region have shown support to terrorist organisations and the Uighur separatist movement.
The Peace Mission military exercises are, therefore, one of China's comprehensive responses to the growing instability in Xinjiang and Central Asia. Given the sporadic ethnic clashes in Xinjiang, China is expected to continue seeking cooperation with the SCO members in its struggle to secure Xinjiang.
Nadine Godehardt is a recent Young Visiting Scholar for the China Programme of the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. She is a research fellow at GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies in Hamburg. Wang Pengxin is a research analyst at the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at RSIS.
US expresses "concern" over S. Lanka video
The United States voiced grave concern on Wednesday about video footage that a Sri Lankan group says shows government soldiers summarily executing Tamil rebels in violation of international law.
"These reports are very disturbing,they are of grave concern," US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said."We'd like more information as we formulate our own national response."
Ms Rice was reacting to video footage aired last week on British television which, according to a Sri Lankan advocacy group, shows government forces executing unarmed, naked, bound and blindfolded Tamils during the army's final assault to smash Tamil Tiger rebels earlier this year.
Colombo dismissed the video as fake.Ms Rice said it was not yet clear whether the council would take up the issue.
"These reports are very disturbing,they are of grave concern," US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said."We'd like more information as we formulate our own national response."
Ms Rice was reacting to video footage aired last week on British television which, according to a Sri Lankan advocacy group, shows government forces executing unarmed, naked, bound and blindfolded Tamils during the army's final assault to smash Tamil Tiger rebels earlier this year.
Colombo dismissed the video as fake.Ms Rice said it was not yet clear whether the council would take up the issue.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Airports need best security
It is difficult to follow the reasoning of Democrat MP Pichet Panwichartkul and supporters who want to relax security screening at Suvarnabhumi airport. Mr Pichet considers airport security an inconvenience. His proposal to reduce the amount of pre-flight security checking is not just a one-off trial balloon. He seems quite serious about pressing ahead.Thank goodness for security and airport officials who have politely acknowledged the member of parliament's pressure without trying to appease him.
Mr Pichet is neither a lightweight politician nor given to fantasy. A former finance minister, he is intimately familiar with the day-to-day running of the country.More to the point, he is also a former transport minister,known during his time in office to take a particular interest in the nation's airports. It is surprising he has come up with such a zany idea on airport security, even more so because it casts the country in a bad light.
Airport security is not an airport issue or even a national one. Countries around the globe constantly discuss, update and agree on what measures will be used to screen passengers. This cross-border cooperation ensures that officials at Suvarnabhumi, say, know that arriving passengers from all over the world have undergone the same security checks. Obviously, foreign security personnel have to know the same about travellers arriving from Thailand.
This is not a glib subject. Airline hijackings are real,airport terrorism exists. Intelligence work and international cooperation are key elements in the prevention of terrorism in the air. But airport security - worldwide measures applied to all flights - are the key preventative measure to deter would-be terrorists.
Mr Pichet, of all people, should know that if an airport becomes a weak link, it will be a target for terrorists. If Suvarnabhumi Airport relaxes its security standards it will become a magnet for cross-border criminals, traffickers and terrorists. In 1988, terrorists detected just such a weak link at Don Mueang Airport. They hijacked a Kuwait Airways 747 in a murderous flight that lasted 16 days. The terrorists managed to smuggle guns aboard the plane while it was being refuelled. It is because of just such local failings that countries have joined together to close security holes.
The member of parliament has focussed on the nowfamiliar demand of security staff for passengers to remove their belts and pass them through X-ray machines.Security should know the difference between suspicious and non-suspicious belts, he claims. And he is apparently outraged that the travellers have to "clumsily" put their belts back on after passing the security check. The former minister must know that belts are a possible hiding place of weapons that cannot easily be found with a metal detector. In a phrase, all belts are suspicious to security personnel. So are outer jackets, which also must go through the X-ray process for screening.
Mr Pichet has a point that flying has become less glamorous, more demanding and sometimes stressful.Security checks are inconvenient. They are not, however,nearly so inconvenient as a hijacking, a bomber or a madman in a sealed aircraft cabin running amok with weapons he has smuggled aboard. The alternative to stiff airport security checks is insecurity. Nor is there any plausible case to be made for excepting important people such as government MPs from these checks.Flights can be certified as reasonably safe only if every passenger and crew member is carefully inspected. Mr Pichet is a people's representative in a country with many problems, one of which is definitely not too much security at the main international airport.
Mr Pichet is neither a lightweight politician nor given to fantasy. A former finance minister, he is intimately familiar with the day-to-day running of the country.More to the point, he is also a former transport minister,known during his time in office to take a particular interest in the nation's airports. It is surprising he has come up with such a zany idea on airport security, even more so because it casts the country in a bad light.
Airport security is not an airport issue or even a national one. Countries around the globe constantly discuss, update and agree on what measures will be used to screen passengers. This cross-border cooperation ensures that officials at Suvarnabhumi, say, know that arriving passengers from all over the world have undergone the same security checks. Obviously, foreign security personnel have to know the same about travellers arriving from Thailand.
This is not a glib subject. Airline hijackings are real,airport terrorism exists. Intelligence work and international cooperation are key elements in the prevention of terrorism in the air. But airport security - worldwide measures applied to all flights - are the key preventative measure to deter would-be terrorists.
Mr Pichet, of all people, should know that if an airport becomes a weak link, it will be a target for terrorists. If Suvarnabhumi Airport relaxes its security standards it will become a magnet for cross-border criminals, traffickers and terrorists. In 1988, terrorists detected just such a weak link at Don Mueang Airport. They hijacked a Kuwait Airways 747 in a murderous flight that lasted 16 days. The terrorists managed to smuggle guns aboard the plane while it was being refuelled. It is because of just such local failings that countries have joined together to close security holes.
The member of parliament has focussed on the nowfamiliar demand of security staff for passengers to remove their belts and pass them through X-ray machines.Security should know the difference between suspicious and non-suspicious belts, he claims. And he is apparently outraged that the travellers have to "clumsily" put their belts back on after passing the security check. The former minister must know that belts are a possible hiding place of weapons that cannot easily be found with a metal detector. In a phrase, all belts are suspicious to security personnel. So are outer jackets, which also must go through the X-ray process for screening.
Mr Pichet has a point that flying has become less glamorous, more demanding and sometimes stressful.Security checks are inconvenient. They are not, however,nearly so inconvenient as a hijacking, a bomber or a madman in a sealed aircraft cabin running amok with weapons he has smuggled aboard. The alternative to stiff airport security checks is insecurity. Nor is there any plausible case to be made for excepting important people such as government MPs from these checks.Flights can be certified as reasonably safe only if every passenger and crew member is carefully inspected. Mr Pichet is a people's representative in a country with many problems, one of which is definitely not too much security at the main international airport.
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