Watching the Warmakers is based in Brighton, England.
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which confront those struggling for peace and justice.

News archives for the week ending 23rd April 2010

Afghanistan: unwinnable but not an election issue

A new British opinion poll says the Afghanistan war won't be a major factor in the country's national election. Before a televised debate on foreign policy Thursday between party leaders, ComRes found 65 percent of voters say the war isn't a key issue.

But the telephone poll of 1,012 people found 72 percent of respondents believed the conflict in Afghanistan is unwinnable, up from 60 percent in March.

Taiwan News, 21/4/10

Iran makes case against sanctions

Facing increasing momentum behind a U.S.-backed bid for new sanctions against it, Iran is launching a broad diplomatic offensive aimed at persuading as many U.N. Security Council members as possible to oppose tougher punishment for its nuclear program.

Iran wants to focus on reviving stalled talks about a nuclear fuel swap to build trust on all sides, according to politicians and diplomats in Tehran. But leaders of Western nations say that unless Iran alters its conditions for the deal, they will refuse to discuss it again.

Under the arrangement, aimed at breaking an impasse over Iran's uranium-enrichment efforts, Tehran would exchange the bulk of its low-enriched uranium for more highly enriched fuel for a research reactor that produces medical isotopes.

As Iranian diplomats fly around the world to discuss the swap, they are lobbying some of the Security Council's rotating members to vote against a fourth round of sanctions proposed by the United States, officials said.

Washington Post, 21/4/10

China and Saudi Arabia form stronger trade links

China, one of the world’s largest oil consumers, and Saudi Arabia, holder of about a fifth of global crude reserves, are forging closer ties as the Gulf kingdom responds to a Chinese drive to supply its rising energy needs.

In November, China overtook the United States as the main buyer of Saudi oil, and Saudi Arabian Oil and Saudi Basic Industries are investing in refinery and petrochemicals projects in China.

The partnership between Saudi Arabia and China is part of a broader strategy by the Saudis to supply Asian markets and extend their global influence. It also helps Saudi Arabia reduce reliance on the United States.

Compared with the United States, whose support for Israel has created friction with Saudi Arabia, “with China, there is less baggage, there are easier routes to mutual benefit,” said Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former Saudi ambassador to the United States and brother of the foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal.

New York Times, 20/4/10

Azerbaijan puts off joint exercise with US

Officials in Azerbaijan have postponed a military exercise with the United States and expressed displeasure with Washington's mediation of an ethnic separatist dispute in the oil-rich Caspian Sea nation.

In an apparent show of unprecedented strain in relations with the U.S., Azerbaijan also made statements welcoming a mediation offer by neighboring Iran. Azerbaijan is the starting point for pipelines that transport oil and gas to Europe and bypass Russia.

The U.S. has been courting the country because of its Caspian Sea oil riches and strategic location between Russia and Iran, but has repeatedly expressed concern over media rights and the treatment of the opposition.

Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry did not specify a reason why it was putting off the exercise but officials and lawmakers on Tuesday expressed their dismay with U.S. policy on the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh, a region that has been under the control of Armenian and ethnic Armenian forces since a 1994 cease-fire ended six years of a separatist war.

Associated Press, 20/4/10

Israel increasingly unpopular worldwide and in US

The annual BBC World Service poll came out yesterday, a survey of attitudes in 28 countries from every continent based on telephone or face-to-face interviews. It attempts to measure how people in these countries feel about other countries.

Across all 28 countries, to no one’s surprise, the country with the least positive reputation was Iran. It was closely followed in unpopularity by Pakistan, North Korea and Israel.

Just 19 per cent of respondents in the 28 countries held a positive view of Israel, compared to 50 per cent with a negative one.

In the United States, attitudes toward Israel were 40 per cent positive, and 31 per cent negative. But Israel’s popularity rating fell 7 percentage points in the last year, according to the BBC poll.

Globe and Mail, Canada, 20/4/10

Pakistan: Islamists blame US alliance for violence

An Islamist politician whose party lost several members in a suicide attack blamed Pakistan's alliance with the U.S. for the violence and urged Islamabad on Tuesday to break ranks in the war on terror.

The comments showed the depth of anti-Americanism in Pakistan, whose support Washington considers key to stabilizing neighboring Afghanistan. In the past three days, attacks in Pakistan have killed some 74 people in a new wave of violence.

"It is because we have brought America's war to our own country," Sirajul Haq, a provincial party leader, said Tuesday in Peshawar after attending funerals for some of the victims. "Still, there is time to end this alliance with America" to avoid more bloodshed.

Associated Press, 20/4/10

Maliki gains partial recount

An Iraqi court on Monday ordered a partial recount of votes in last month’s national election, deepening the political turmoil that many here feared could turn violent when the United States begins to withdraw most of its combat troops this summer.

The ruling was a victory for Iraq’s beleaguered prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who is struggling to make the case for remaining in office for a second term, even though the electoral bloc he led came in second place.

Mr. Allawi, a Shiite whose alliance won a majority of Sunni votes, has warned that violence could erupt if his victory was overturned. And his supporters responded angrily on Monday, saying the court’s ruling was evidence of intense pressure from an autocratic leader unwilling to accept defeat and step aside.

New York Times, 19/4/10

Britain handed prisoners over to be tortured

Allegations that Afghan detainees were routinely handed over to Afghan authorities for torture – up to now a largely Canadian scandal – are poised to envelop fellow NATO countries with a London court case that claims Britain exposed hundreds of prisoners to abuse in similar circumstances.

A team of human-rights lawyers presented judges in a London court Monday with thousands of pages of documents it says provide detailed proof that Britain knowingly handed detainees to special prisons run by Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security, the intelligence agency that is widely believed to use torture as a routine part of its interrogations.

Afghanistan’s NDS is also at the centre of the Canadian scandal. Last week Richard Colvin, the diplomat whose efforts to inform the government of torture launched the scandal into the public eye, told Ottawa’s Military Police Complaints Commission that he had warned officials that “the NDS tortures people. That's what they do, so if we don't want detainees tortured we shouldn't give them to the NDS.”

Globe and Mail, Canada, 19/4/10

Israel rebuffs US on Jerusalem settlements

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he will not accept demands that Israel stop building in occupied East Jerusalem. Demands to halt building in the part of the city that Palestinians want as the capital of their future capital "prevented peace", he told ABC news.

The comments by Israel's prime minister come just days after the US pressed Israel to do more to pursue peace. Relations have been strained between the two allies recently, reports say.

Israel has occupied East Jerusalem since 1967. It annexed the area in 1981 and sees it as its exclusive domain. Under international law the area is occupied territory. Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state.

BBC News, 19/4/10

US withdrawal from Iraq 'on track'

The commander of U.S. forces in Iraq says the planned withdrawal of American troops is on schedule despite ongoing political uncertainty in Baghdad, and an increase in attacks by militants.

General Odierno says progress has been made in Iraq, but acknowledges much more must be done. He says political parties must sort out the results of recent elections and form a government, and Iraqi forces still require U.S. military training and support. But he says he remains confident that the timetable for a U.S. military withdrawal can and will be met.

"Our plans are intact. I feel very comfortable with our plan," he said. "And unless something unforeseen and disastrous happens, I fully expect us to be at 50,000 by the first of September."

The remaining troops will support the Iraqi military, and take part in counter-terrorism efforts, with a complete withdrawal planned by the end of 2011.

Voice of America, 18/4/10

Maliki makes case for holding on to post

Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, in his first interview with a Western media outlet since last month's bitterly fought elections, vowed Saturday that Iraq's Sunni Arabs would be major players in the next government, as he cast himself both as peacemaker and front-runner to lead the country.

The Shiite prime minister, who appeared confident and jovial during an hourlong interview at his palace office, also invited a secular bloc led by rival Iyad Allawi to join him in governing, despite an acrimonious postelection period that saw Maliki's supporters label the Iraqiya slate a front for the late Saddam Hussein's Baath Party.

Maliki, whose enemies have called him an avowedly sectarian leader, insisted that he would bring all major religious and ethnic components into the next government.

Los Angeles Times, 18/4/10

Syria guards its role as US influence wanes

Syria has set up a new Iraq policy group to ensure its interests are safeguarded and that Iraq remains stable as US troops withdraw, according to officials and analysts in Damascus.

They said the move is part of an organised effort by the Syrian authorities to take a positive and active role in Iraqi politics, at a time when intense negotiations to form a new government in Baghdad are under way and with US influence there on the wane.

Saudi Arabia and Iran, two major regional powers bordering Iraq, have been a focal point for talks between competing Iraqi factions since the March 7 elections. Damascus, a crucial player in regional politics, is keen not to be overshadowed by Tehran and Riyadh.

The Nation, UAE, 18/4/10

Taliban rebuilding explosive capabilities

Taliban militants operating in Pakistan's border region along Afghanistan "have significantly rebuilt their capacity to use large amounts of explosives" in carrying out terrorist attacks, a senior Pakistani security official warned on Sunday after the latest suicide attack in the region killed at least seven people.

A senior Pakistani security official speaking on the condition of anonymity to CBS News from Peshawar, the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa said, "The evidence pieced together between attacks on Saturday and Sunday suggests that these militants have re-assembled a good part of their arsenal. They now have the capacity to launch further attacks."

"If you would have asked me three months ago I would have said the stockpiles of the militants were probably depleted," said a second official. "But now I have to admit they have rebuilt a good part of their arsenal."

CBS, 18/4/10

Taliban targets US contractors

The Taliban has begun regularly targeting U.S. government contractors in southern Afghanistan, stepping up use of a tactic that is rattling participating firms and could undermine development projects intended to stem the insurgency, according to U.S. officials.

Within the past month, there have been at least five attacks in Helmand and Kandahar provinces against employees of U.S. Agency for International Development contractors who are running agricultural projects, building roads, maintaining power plants and working with local officials.

The USAID "implementing partners," as they are known, employ mainly Afghans, who are overseen by foreigners.

Washington Post, 17/4/10

Top US commander criticises overuse of contractors

The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan said Friday that the coalition depends too much on private-sector contractors, and insisted his forces are keeping close watch on the flow of Taliban fighters who are training in Iran.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, during a four-day visit to France, said the coalition in Afghanistan has become too dependent on private contractors in the effort to stabilize the country.

"I think we've gone too far," McChrystal said at France's IHEDN military institute. "I actually think we would be better to reduce the number of contractors involved."

A Congressional Research Service report in January about the Pentagon's use of contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan said that as of September, more than 11,400 private security contractors were in Afghanistan.

Associated Press, 16/4/10

US doubles number of special forces in Afghanistan

The Pentagon has more than doubled the number of highly trained special forces in Afghanistan to hunt down Taliban leaders, a newspaper report said on Thursday.

"The secretive buildup reflects the view of the Obama administration and senior military leaders that the U.S. has only a limited amount of time to degrade the capabilities of the Taliban," the Los Angeles Times noted.

With the new buildup, there will be more of the special operations forces in Afghanistan than there were in Iraq at the height of the U.S. troop buildup there in 2007, the paper quoted a defense official as saying.

"By hunting Taliban leaders, the specialized units hope to increase pressure on foot soldiers to switch sides," the paper said.

But the buildup carries risks. Special operations forces have been involved in some botched strikes that ended up killing civilians, the paper said. For years, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and other officials have complained bitterly about civilian deaths in military actions by the United States and its allies.

Xinhua, China, 16/4/10