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News archives for the week ending 13th November 2009

Abdllah will not join unity government

Former Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah said he will not join a unity government headed by President Hamid Karzai. In an interview with the BBC’s HardTalk program, Abdullah said Afghanistan needed “real change,” pointing to differences over Karzai’s leadership and style of governance.

Asked if he was under pressure from the international community to reconsider his opposition, Abdullah said he would take decisions only in the interests of Afghanistan.

Bloomberg News, 11/11/09

US and Yemen sign military deal

Yemen's official news agency says the country has signed a military cooperation deal with the United States, as Yemen battles a growing Shi'ite rebellion in the north. Yemen has accused religious institutions in Iran of funding and backing Shi'ite rebels in northern Yemen who have been fighting since 2004 against what they say is oppression by the Yemeni government.

Saudi Arabia recently began an offensive against the Houthis along its border with Yemen and vowed Tuesday to continue attacking them.

Voice of America, 11/11/09

US has team to secure Pakistan's nuclear weapons

The US government has rejected a report that Washington has a team ready to secure Pakistan's nuclear arsenal due to fears that the country is unstable. Ian Kelly, a state department spokesman, dismissed the report by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker which said that the US has a special force in place that would move to secure Pakistan's nuclear weaponry in the event of a crisis.

Hersh, a Pulitzer prize-winning writer, said in his report that the US and Pakistan have agreed on a security protocol allowing a special US team to assist in the guarding of Pakistan's nuclear armaments. "There certainly is a rapid response force; I'll take it a step further – it is called a 'Tailored Fest'," he told Al Jazeera on Tuesday.

"I just wish they would not deny stuff that is actually publicly available if you know where to look for it. It is a force that [will act] in case of any nuclear incident or any other terrorism-related incident."

Al Jazeera, 11/11/09

Hunger strike in Afghan prison

Housed in a prison known for fierce beatings and electrocutions, Kandahar's most volatile prisoners have found inspiration in an unlikely source: Gandhi. More than 350 Taliban inmates in the city's notorious Sarpoza prison are staging a hunger strike, refusing to eat in a protest over their treatment within the prison's bleak walls.

The passive demonstration, which began Sunday, has left the prison's Canadian-trained guards – accustomed to suppressing far more aggressive insurrections – somewhat flummoxed.

The insurgents began fasting Sunday to protest poor prison food and abuse by guards, said a relative of a prisoner who spoke to The Globe and Mail on the condition of anonymity. He said one man had been severely beaten and others were suffering from malnourishment. “We have a problem with the director of the prison. … Unless he goes, the strike will continue.”

The inmates, all held in Sarpoza's political wing, are accusing the prison warden of lining his pockets with the stolen loot.

Globe and Mail, Canada, 9/11/09

Obama shifts emphasis towards Asia

U.S. President Barack Obama will embark on his first Asian trip next week, with analysts saying Asia is weighing increasingly heavily on U.S. foreign policy. The tour will start in Tokyo and conclude in Seoul, with stops in Beijing, Shanghai and Singapore.

While in Singapore, the U.S. president is scheduled to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, as well as his first ever meeting with leaders of the 10 Southeast Asian nations that make up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Kurt Tong, the senior U.S. APEC official, said at a briefing this week that a number of top U.S. officials would attend the APEC summit, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, U.S. Trade Representative RonKirk and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke.

Experts say that speaks volumes about the Obama administration's desire to play a greater role in Asia. In contrast, Condoleezza Rice was Bush's only cabinet official to attend last year's APEC meeting.

Jin Canrong, deputy dean of the International Studies School at China's Renmin University, said Asia had now overtaken Europe in its significance to the United States. U.S.-Europe trade accounted for only half of that with Asia and, with China's emergence, Asia was now increasingly indispensable to U.S. geopolitical interests.

Xinhua, China, 9/11/09

'Go upstairs and vote'

After weeks of political stalemate, Iraq approved a law on Sunday to administer a critical national election in January, a significant milestone for its fragile democracy and a step that will allow the rapid withdrawal of American combat forces early next year.

The United States had said that a delay of the election could set back the scheduled withdrawal of American combat troops. After the vote, the American ambassador to Iraq, Christopher R. Hill, said the withdrawal would proceed as planned. “What is important is that with the election law, we are very much on schedule for the drawdown,” he said.

As an indication of the election’s importance to the United States, Mr. Hill was seen shuttling back and forth between the offices of various political parties all day Sunday in an effort to pressure them to reach a deal.

“Go upstairs and vote!” he shouted at a pair of slow-moving lawmakers as they climbed a set of stairs to the chamber before the session.

New York Times, 8/11/09

Obama preparing to escalate war

Advisers to President Obama are preparing three options for escalating the war effort in Afghanistan, all of them calling for more American troops, as he moves closer to a decision on the way forward in the eight-year-old war, officials said Saturday.

The options include Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal’s request for roughly another 40,000 troops; a middle scenario sending about 30,000 more troops; and a lower alternative involving 20,000 to 25,000 reinforcements, according to the officials, who insisted on anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Officials hope to present the options to Mr. Obama this week before he leaves on a trip to Asia.

The three options define the contours of a debate that has played out in public for more than two months. General McChrystal, the top American and allied commander in Afghanistan, and his advocates argue the war cannot be won without a major infusion of forces to protect the population and ultimately turn it against the Taliban. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and others oppose a buildup in a war they believe cannot be won through conventional means and that diverts attention from Pakistan, where Al Qaeda is primarily located. There are currently 68,000 American troops in Afghanistan.

New York Times, 7/11/09

Iran, North Korea top Clinton's overseas agenda

Nuclear impasses with Iran and North Korea are the dominant issues for Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on her trip to Europe and Asia, which begins with a stopover in Germany to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall's fall.

Developments in both stalemates are expected in the coming days with international patience running out over Iran's refusal to come clean about its suspected nuclear program and North Korea's refusal to return to stalled disarmament talks.

U.S. officials said they anticipated that the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog soon would give up hope that Iran would accept a confidence-building deal under which it would ship uranium abroad for further enrichment. That would set the stage for consideration of new U.N. Security Council penalties against Tehran.

The administration is seeking support for fresh penalties against Iran. In particular, the U.S. is hoping for help from Russia, which along with China, has in the past resisted and is giving mixed signals about whether it will back them if the uranium transfer proposal is rejected.

Guardian, 8/11/09

Brown calls for end to corruption...

Afghanistan is rated by watchdog Transparency International as the world's fifth-most corrupt country, and Karzai's government is widely seen as riddled with graft that ensures the country remains mired in poverty.

Leaders of Western nations with over 100,000 troops fighting insurgents in Afghanistan have urged Karzai to ditch the warlords and drug-runners in his government and clean up corruption if he wants their continued support. On Friday, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Karzai's government had become a "by-word for corruption."

"Cronies and warlords should have no place in the future of a democratic Afghanistan," Brown said.

AFP, 7/11/09

...but Karzai isn't listening

The Afghan government has rejected foreign criticisms of Hamid Karzai, with the re-elected president saying that they "violated national sovereignty".

"Over the last few days some political and diplomatic circles and propaganda agencies of certain foreign countries have intervened in Afghanistan's internal affairs by issuing instructions concerning the composition of Afghan government organs and political policy of Afghanistan,'' the foreign ministry statement said on Saturday.

"Such instructions have violated respect for Afghanistan's national sovereignty."

Al Jazeera, 7/11/09

Canada prepares for 2011 withdrawal

The Defence Department says preparations have started for the withdrawal of Canadian soldiers from Afghanistan as the 2011 deadline for the pullout approaches. The department says Chief of Defence Staff General Walter Natynczyk has ordered preparations to get under way involving the return of thousands of troops and their equipment from Afghanistan.

Parliament has mandated the military component of Canada's Afghan mission must conclude in 2011, and the Conservative government has promised to honour that deadline.

The Canadian Press, 6/11/09

Mercenaries eyeing Afghanistan market

Watertight Security Services has been sending Ugandan security guards to Iraq since 2007. So far, more than 10,000 Ugandans have gone to work in the country.

Moses Matsiko worked in Iraq for more than three years before returning to Uganda to set up the company. Mr Masiko says that Iraq has proved to be a lucrative opportunity for security firms and their Ugandan recruits. But he says the company now needs to stay ahead of the increasing competition in the security sector and look for opportunities in new places.

"Originally Kenyans were not doing security work but today, there are more than 500 of them in Iraq and they work for as little as $400 per month. "So we are facing competition."

"But all eyes are now on Afghanistan. We hope that as it opens we are going to get more business there," he says.

BBC News, 6/11/09

Obama faces conflicting demands on war policy

As President Obama struggles over a new military strategy for Afghanistan, his advisors are trying to satisfy sharply divergent demands: assuring Americans that any military buildup will be limited while convincing Pakistan and other wary allies that the U.S. presence is substantial and not about to end.

The difficulty in determining a strategy that can mollify both these conflicting constituencies helps to explain why the administration's months-long search for a new approach to Afghanistan remains unresolved.

On the domestic front, Obama risks alienating a political base that has become increasingly impatient with the 8-year-old war. At the same time, the president faces potentially serious setbacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan if the heads of those governments -- not to mention the leaders of the Taliban insurgency -- see any indication of a wavering U.S. commitment.

Los Angeles Times, 6/11/09

Saudi planes bomb Yemeni rebels

Saudi Arabia has insisted its forces only attacked Yemeni rebel positions on Saudi territory, according to the state news agency. This directly contradicts a number of separate reports on Thursday that air strikes had taken place on on rebel strongholds in northern Yemen. A spokesman for the rebels, who are known as Houthis, alleged on Thursday that a Saudi air strike hit a market in Saada in north Yemen, killing a group of civilians.

The Houthis have been engaged in an intense wave of fighting with the Yemeni army since the government launched a major new offensive in August 2009. They have long alleged that Saudi Arabia has been giving support to the Yemeni regime, a claim both governments denied, but in recent weeks Saudi forces have been overtly drawn into the fighting.

The Houthis, named after the family of their leader, say they want greater autonomy and a greater role for their version of Shia Islam. They complain that their community is discriminated against. The insurgents first took up arms against the government in 2004, after which government forces killed or captured much of the Houthi leadership. Aid agencies say tens of thousands of people have been displaced in the latest round of fighting.

BBC News, 6/11/09

American motives in Pakistan

The US has a number of objectives for its involvement in the region.

First, to keep a close watch over Pakistan's nuclear arsenal -- the "Islamic bomb" must not be used against Israel. Washington has been spending millions of dollars to help Pakistan secure its nuclear warheads and laboratories from falling into "enemy hands" -- meaning the Taliban and Al Qaeda. There are reports that US forces are actually involved in guarding the nuclear sites of Pakistan.

Second, close relations with Pakistan help its policy of encircling China. India is now an important ally in that policy.

Third, the US has eyes on the rich resources of the region -- particularly Afghanistan's untapped oil and gas reserves.

Daily Star, Bangladesh, 6/11/09

Exxon wins Iraq oil deal

An Exxon Mobil-led consortium has beaten rival Russian, French and Chinese groups to secure initial rights to develop Iraq's West Qurna field, adding momentum to Iraq's bid to unlock its oil riches.

With reserves of 8.7 billion barrels, West Qurna is among the prized Iraqi fields eyed by Western oil majors as they face flat or lower output at home and stiff competition from Chinese and Indian oil companies in bidding for oilfields elsewhere.

The 20-year contract is part of a raft of deals Iraq is close to formalizing in a bid to catapult itself to the world's No. 3 oil producer after decades of war and economic decline.

Reuters, 5/11/09

Iraq election law stalled again

Iraqi lawmakers failed Thursday to agree on an election law for the country's January vote, raising concerns the balloting may be delayed and in turn push back a U.S. troop withdrawal.

Iraq's election law has been stalled for weeks as lawmakers argue over who should be allowed to vote in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, claimed by both Arabs and Kurds. Lawmakers said they would meet again Saturday. One said it would not be a big problem to delay the January election by a few days.

Associated Press, 5/11/09