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14:2429/06/2009

MOSCOW, June 29 (RIA Novosti) - Israel has intensified its efforts to prevent deliveries of Russian S-300 air defense systems to Iran under a 2007 contract, an Israeli newspaper said on Monday.

According to the Haaretz daily, “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and asked him to prevent the arms deal from going through.”

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak met a week ago at the Paris Airshow with Gen. Nikolai Makarov, chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, and reportedly “asked that he also intervene to prevent the arms sale.”

Israel and the U.S. insist that the delivery of advanced air defense systems to Iran would undermine the military balance in the region, and Russia has until recently delayed the implementation of the deal.

Although Russian sources said in March that Iran had not yet received any S-300 air defense systems and the deal relied on the leadership in Moscow, Russia had reiterated its commitment to fulfill the contract, which is worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Haaretz said that during the visit of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman to Moscow several weeks ago, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told the Israeli official that some payments under the contract had already been made.

Arms deliveries to Iran are also important to Russia because Moscow is quickly losing its positions on key Asian arms markets in China and India.

In light of the recent developments and ahead of a meeting between U.S. President Barack Obama with his Russian counterpart next week, Israel has launched “intensive diplomatic efforts…in order to restore the earlier Russian commitment not to complete the deal,” the newspaper said.

The latest version of the S-300 family is the S-300PMU2 Favorit, which has a range of up to 195 kilometers (about 120 miles) and can intercept aircraft and ballistic missiles at altitudes from 10 meters to 27 kilometers.

It is considered one of the world’s most effective all-altitude regional air defense systems, comparable in performance to the U.S. MIM-104 Patriot system.

SEOUL (AP) — North Korea threatened Saturday to shoot down any Japanese planes that enter its airspace, accusing Tokyo of spying near one of its missile launch sites.
The North has designated a no-sail zone off its eastern coast from June 25 to July 10 for military drills, raising concerns that it might test-fire short- or mid-range missiles in the coming days, in violation of a U.N. resolution.

North Korea’s air force said Japan’s E-767 surveillance aircraft conducted aerial espionage near the Musudan-ri missile site on its northeast coast Wednesday and Thursday.

The country’s official Korean Central News Agency said the air force “will not tolerate even a bit the aerial espionage by the warmongers of the Japanese aggression forces but mercilessly shoot down any plane intruding into the territorial air of the (North) even 0.001 mm.”

An official from Japan’s defense ministry said the country’s planes regularly gather information on North Korea but declined to comment on the types of planes used or the locations monitored. He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing government policy.

FIND MORE STORIES IN: North Korea
The threat against alleged Japanese aerial espionage is rare, though the North has regularly complained of U.S. spy missions in its airspace.

Japan is very sensitive to North Korea’s missile programs, as its islands lie within easy range. In 1998, a North Korean missile flew over Japan’s main island. Tokyo has since spent billions of dollars on developing a missile shield with the United States and has launched a series of spy satellites primarily to watch developments in North Korea.

But in April, another rocket flew over Japan’s main island, drawing a strong protest from Tokyo. Pyongyang claims it put a satellite into orbit, while the U.S. and its allies say it was really a test of the country’s long-range missile technology.

The launch was one of a series of missile tests in recent months, and the communist regime further raised tensions by conducting a second underground nuclear test in May. Its actions have drawn harsh international condemnation and new U.N. sanctions.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: USA Today

by Staff Writers
Kuala Lumpur (AFP) June 4, 2009

Malaysia’s deputy prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin called for calm Thursday amid reports that Malaysian warships had entered oil-rich waters off northeastern Borneo also claimed by Indonesia.

Indonesia says Malaysian warships entered the disputed Ambalat area in the Sulawesi sea last week and that an Indonesian navy ship came within moments of firing at a Malaysian vessel.

“We want to avoid any form of provocation that can cause unpleasantness. We must handle the matter with caution,” Muhyiddin was quoted as saying by Bernama, the Malaysian news agency.

Muhyiddin was also quoted as saying that Malaysia had good relations with Indonesia and that it did not want to cause any problem that could hurt ties.

In Jakarta, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said Indonesia would never back down from a fight but that dialogue was the best way to resolve the dispute.

“The government has never been lenient on the border violations committed by Malaysian warships in Ambalat waters,” Yudhoyono said during a talk show on Anteve TV station.

“Although we have to drive intruders away, we don’t need to open fire on them unless absolutely necessary,” he added.

International borders in the area off Borneo island have yet to be determined, with each country claiming the area as its own.

Malaysia claims the area based on a 1979 maritime chart, while Indonesia bases its claims on the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which states the area belongs to Indonesia.

Muhyiddin said the Malaysian security forces patrolling the Ambalat waters had performed their duties responsibly and in accordance with regulations.

“Both parties must avoid any action that can raise controversy,” he said.

Meanwhile, Malaysia’s military chief Abdul Aziz Zainal denied that Malaysian warships had entered the waters around Ambalat, adding that he would visit Jakarta Tuesday to discuss the issue.

Source: Space War

by Jailan Zayan Jailan Zayan – Wed Jun 3, 3:58 pm ET

CAIRO (AFP) – “Obama is just a prettier face. I’m sure his intentions are in the right place but I don’t expect much from the man,” a Cairo electrician said on Wednesday as US President Barack Obama began his much-anticipated Middle East trip.

Newspapers, analysts and ordinary Arabs warned Obama — whose election was hailed across the region — against emulating the policies of Bush by lecturing Muslims on democracy, and also urged him to be tough with Israel.

Obama began his tour in Saudi Arabia and will deliver a speech in Cairo on Thursday to the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims, after eight years of fraught ties under his predecessor George W. Bush.

“Don’t be biased towards Israel, don’t interfere in countries’ internal affairs and don’t give lessons in democracy,” said an editorial in Egypt’s state-owned Rose El-Youssef newspaper.

The chief editor of Egypt’s state-owned Al-Ahram, Ossama Saraya, said Obama faced demands from his team to “put pressure on the Muslim world under the pretext of democratisation and respect for human rights.

“There’s nothing more absurd than putting more pressure on the Arab-Muslim world,” Saraya said.

Washington’s key Arab allies Egypt and Saudi Arabia have repeatedly come under criticism from international rights organisations for their poor human rights records.

“He can’t help the Palestinians because of the closeness of ties between Israel and America. He can’t improve the situation here (Egypt) because he’ll never convince the regime to change,” said taxi driver Mohammed Abdullah.

Hamas, the Islamist rulers of the Gaza Strip boycotted by the West as a terrorist group, urged Obama to put “real pressure” on Israel.

“We will judge this visit on the basis of what he will say and concrete measures that he will take,” spokesman Fawzi Barhum said.

In Amman, the Jordan Times hoped that Obama — whose electoral promise of change has grabbed hearts in the troubled Middle East — should deliver on his pledge.

“If Obama fails in his mission of peace, the parties, and the world, might just as well prepare for more suffering and turmoil.”

In Lebanon, where Sunday’s parliamentary election will be monitored closely by Washington as it pits a Western-backed majority against a Hezbollah-led alliance backed by Syria and Iran, reactions were divided.

“The Americans are testing the waters,” said travel agent Moufeed Shbeir. “Obama is trying to take a different route than Bush, but we’ll have to wait and see the results: are they going to bomb Iran?”

In non-Arab Iran, the head of North American Studies at Tehran University said Obama should have gone to the largest Muslim nation in the world — Indonesia — to address Muslims.

“I personally think Obama has made a mistake by choosing Saudi Arabia and Egypt. I don’t think this is going to go down well in the Muslim and Arab world,” Sayed Mohammad Marandi told AFP.

“Symbolically speaking, he could have gone somewhere like Indonesia,” he said.

Saudi Arabia’s Al-Riyadh newspaper warned Muslims against having high expectations. “The Islamic world should not think that Obama is coming to be an ally or a supporter,” an editorial said.

United Arab Emirates Vice President Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum warned Obama that the worsening economic situation would strengthen extremism in the Islamic world.

“Those young men, who are increasingly bored (due to growing unemployment), will be easy prey for those promoting extremism and hostility, mainly against the United States,” he wrote in Al-Khaleej.

Beirut-based analyst Paul Salem, who heads the Carnegie Middle East Centre, said he expected Arabs to be disappointed by Obama’s speech.

“What they want him to say is more than what he’s going to say,” he said.

“They want him to say that he’s going to come down hard on the Israelis, that he’s going to confront the settlement policy and that he’s going to push the Israelis to withdraw from the West Bank.

“Of course that is what every Arab would like to hear.”

On the streets of Cairo, which were getting a facelift ahead of Obama’s speech, citizens were more concerned about traffic jams than regional diplomacy on Wednesday.

“What’s he going to do for us? Lower the price of bread? If he does, then he’s welcome here,” said 38-year-old cafe worker Ahmed Abdel Salam.

Source: Yahoo News

Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Associated Press

SEOUL, South Korea — Senior U.S. diplomats pressed North Korea to halt its belligerent behavior and return to nuclear disarmament talks even as the isolated communist nation pushed ahead with preparations to launch a long-range ballistic missile.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg and a team of top envoys visited Seoul during an Asian tour to seek a unified response to Pyongyang’s May 25 underground nuclear test and subsequent missile launches. The U.N. Security Council meanwhile continued to discuss how to punish the North.

The latest missile, believed capable of reaching the U.S., was being assembled under cover at a newly completed facility in Dongchang-ni near China, according to South Korea’s JoongAng Ilbo newspaper. Earlier reports said it could be ready for launch in a week or two.

The missile appears to be longer than the rocket that North Korea fired over Japan and into the Pacific on April 5, a South Korean government official told the newspaper.

North Korea said the April launch put a satellite into orbit. The U.S. and Japan disputed that, saying they believed the impoverished communist nation had test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile. North Korea followed up with an underground nuclear test on May 25.

Washington has strongly criticized the North for its actions, and envoys visiting Seoul underscored that concern Wednesday.

“I think we have a common view that we need to take steps to make clear to the North that the path it’s on is the wrong one,” Steinberg told reporters Wednesday after talks with South Korea’s vice foreign minister, Kwon Jong-rak.

But he added that if the North were prepared to change its course, Washington was ready to “enter an effective dialogue that will really lead to a complete and verifiable denuclearization of the peninsula.”

Steinberg was in Seoul with a team of high-ranking envoys, including President Barack Obama’s special envoy on North Korea, Stephen Bosworth.

Bosworth said he had “some confidence” that dialogue with the North could resume, but he did not elaborate on the basis for his optimism. He said the Obama administration had supported dialogue from the beginning, and that the North would ultimately understand it was the best route to take.

The U.S. envoys’ tour took them to Japan, South Korea and China — all participants in earlier dialogue toward the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, and considered key for any coordinated response to the North’s latest actions.

The likelihood of unified Asian support remained uncertain. Japan has already come out in favor of tough sanctions, but South Korea has been more restrained because of fears of chaos on its northern border. China has also expressed hesitancy about strong sanctions.

China — Pyongyang’s closest ally and main aid provider — is a key player in any action on the North, and Obama discussed the nuclear crisis with Chinese President Hu Jintao in a phone call early Wednesday, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

New sanctions being considered against North Korea include curtailing its financial dealings with the outside world, freezing company assets and enforcing an arms embargo, U.N. diplomats said Wednesday.

But China and Russia, key allies of Pyongyang, have raised questions about some of the proposals, diplomats said on condition of anonymity because the consultations are private.

South Korea meanwhile moved to further coordinate its response with the U.S., its prime ally.

Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan left for Washington to consult with his counterpart and prepare for a June 16 summit between Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.

Reports have suggested that North Korea may try to time its next missile launch to coincide with the summit.

Tensions on the peninsula have been ramped up in recent days.

North Korea’s military reportedly strengthened its defenses and conducted amphibious assault exercises along its western shore. South Korea, which has put its troops on high alert, sent a high-speed ship equipped with guided missiles to the area and bolstered its artillery batteries.

At the border village of Panmunjom inside the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas, a military guide warned that tensions were running high.

“The possibility of armed provocation is higher than ever in the Joint Security Area,” the South Korean military guide said. He did not provide his full name, saying he did not have permission to do so.

Complicating the matter, two American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee from former Vice President Al Gore’s Current TV media venture, were to go on trial in Pyongyang on Thursday. The reporters are accused of entering the country illegally and engaging in “hostile acts.”

Some experts believe the North is using the trial and its nuclear and missile tests to strengthen its position in possible talks with the United States, and that it hopes to win concessions or much-needed economic aid.

“Since North Korea is faced with the benign neglect of the U.S., the best way to attract attention is to be hawkish,” said analyst Lee Sang-hyun of the Sejong Institute think tank.

Source: Fox News

From The Times
June 1, 2009

Jeremy Page, South Asia Correspondent India was accused yesterday of complicity in the killing of an estimated 20,000 civilians in the last stages of Sri Lanka’s 26-year war against the Tamil Tigers.

Major-General Ashok Mehta, a former commander of Indian peacekeeping forces in Sri Lanka, said that India’s role was “distressing and disturbing”. Two international human rights groups said that India had failed to do enough to protect civilian lives.

“We were complicit in this last phase of the offensive when a great number of civilians were killed,” General Mehta, who is now retired, told The Times. “Having taken a decision to go along with the campaign, we went along with it all the way and ignored what was happening on the ground.”

Despite being home to 60 million Tamils, India has provided Sri Lanka with military equipment, training and intelligence over the past three years, diplomatic sources told The Times. More controversially, it provided unwavering diplomatic support and failed to use its influence to negotiate a ceasefire for civilians to escape the front line, they said.

India joined a bloc led by China and Russia at a special session of the UN Human Rights Council last week to thwart a proposal for a war crimes inquiry, and instead supported a resolution praising Sri Lanka. In January India voted in favour of a war crimes inquiry into Israel’s operation in the Gaza Strip, which killed an estimated 926 civilians.

General Mehta said that the Indian Government, led by the Congress Party, wanted to counterbalance China and Pakistan, its main regional rivals, which had each increased arms sales to Sri Lanka in the past few years. It also wanted to avenge the Tigers’ assassination in 1991 of Rajiv Gandhi, the Prime Minister and late husband of Sonia Gandhi, the current Congress leader, he said.

Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said that neither reason justified failing to act when the Red Cross warned of an “unimaginable humanitarian catastrophe”. India “could have saved many lives if it had taken a proactive position — and it would not have affected the outcome of the war,” he said.

Sam Zarifi, Asia Pacific director of Amnesty International, said: “India . . . simply chose to support the [Sri Lankan] Government’s notion that it could kill as many civilians as it would take to defeat the Tigers.”

India says that it provided Sri Lanka with non-lethal military equipment and sent officials repeatedly to persuade the Government to protect civilians. “We’ve consistently taken the line that the Sri Lankan Government should prevent civilian casualties,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

However, President Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka told NDTV: “I don’t think I got any pressure from them. They knew that I’m fighting their war.”

Mr Rajapaksa told The Week magazine that he planned to visit Delhi next month to thank Indian leaders. “India’s moral support during the war was most important,” he said.

Diplomats, human rights activists and analysts say that Delhi either did not use its full diplomatic force or, more likely, gave Colombo carte blanche to finish the war. India’s only real concerns, they said, were that the conflict should not create a flood of refugees to India. Some raised questions about Vijay Nambiar, a former Indian diplomat, who is chief of staff to Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General. The Times revealed last week that Mr Nambiar knew about but chose not to make public the UN’s estimate that 20,000 civilians had been killed, mostly by army shelling.

Source: Times Online

11:49 30/05/2009

MOSCOW, May 30 (RIA Novosti) - North Korea is preparing to launch a long-range missile in the middle of June despite international condemnation and threats of further sanctions, Yonhap cited on Saturday an intelligence source as saying.

The source told the news agency that an object, which resembled an intercontinental ballistic missile, had been observed at an “artillery research center” near the North Korean capital of Pyongyang.

Yonhap quoted the official as saying “We believe that the object is certainly an ICBM,” adding that North Korea is thought to be moving the missile to its Musudan-ri launch site on the east coast.

The reclusive communist state threatened it would respond if the UN Security Council issued a new resolution and sanctions following an underground nuclear test and the launch of at least six short-range missiles earlier this week.

“If the UN Security Council continues provocations, we will inevitably respond with further self-defense measures,” the North Korean foreign ministry on Friday said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.

The South Korea official told Yonhap, “It usually takes about two months to set up a launch pad, but the process could be done in as little as two weeks, which means the North could launch a long-range missile as early as mid-June,”

Pyongyang is already under a number of UN sanctions over its first nuclear test, carried out in 2006.

Possible new sanctions may include a ban on importing and exporting all arms and not just heavy weapons, additional asset freezes and travel bans for North Korean officials, and placing more firms on a UN blacklist, according to UN sources.

By LARA JAKES, Associated Press Writer Lara Jakes, Associated Press Writer – 28 mins ago

SINGAPORE – U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned North Korea on Saturday that the United States would respond quickly if moves by the communist government threaten America or its Asian allies. “We will not stand idly by as North Korea builds the capability to wreak destruction on any target in Asia — or on us,” Gates said in prepared remarks to an annual international meeting of defense and security officials from Asia and the Pacific Rim.

Gates offered no specifics on how the U.S. might respond to North Korea, militarily or otherwise, and has said there are no current plans to deploy more U.S. forces to the region. An advance copy of Gates’ speech, was provided to The Associated Press.

Gen. George Casey, the Army chief of staff, said this week that the U.S. would need about 90 days to get more troops to the region if called up.

An estimated 28,000 U.S. troops already are stationed in South Korea, part of about 250,000 soldiers in the U.S. Pacific Command.

Gates’ speech delivered his harshest words to date to North Korea since Pyongyang detonated an underground nuclear device Monday, followed by several short-range missile launches over the last few days.

“The choice to continue as a destitute, international pariah, or chart a new course, is North Korea’s alone to make,” Gates said. “The world is waiting.”

The Pentagon chief focused most of his comments on U.S. priorities like high-seas piracy and the war in Afghanistan. Despite his warning, he appeared to take care in the half-hour speech to avoid ratcheting up the rhetoric in the weeklong war of words between North Korea and nations alarmed by its show of weaponry.

The U.N. Security Council is considering tough sanctions to punish North Korea for its nuclear test. In turn, North Korean leaders said they would respond in “self-defense” to the as-of-yet unspecified sanctions but did not say how.

Western security experts suggest that Washington’s best strategy may be to resist getting egged into action by North Korea’s talk.

“North Korea is talking war but planning how to best avoid it while maintaining the maximum international turmoil,” David Fulghum, senior military editor of Aviation Week, said in a statement. “The rationale, believe U.S. analysts and military officials, is that constant provocation of the West is the only road to relevance.”

Gates’ also spoke broadly about bolstering diplomatic relations with China and cited common challenges the two sometimes-adversaries face: counterterrorism, piracy, energy security and disaster relief. “It is essential for the United States and China to find opportunities to cooperate wherever possible,” he said.

He praised South Korea and Japan for becoming “economic powerhouses” that need little U.S. military assistance. Gates was to meet later Saturday with the two nations’ top defense officials in talks likely to focus on North Korea.

And Gates urged nations to remain involved in the war in Afghanistan, saying that extremists nestled in the rocky Afghanistan-Pakistan border are probably to blame for much of the terror threats throughout the rest of Asia.

“I know some in Asia have concluded that Afghanistan does not represent a strategic threat for their countries,” he said. “But the threat from failed or failing states is international in scope. … Failure in a place like Afghanistan would have international reverberations — and, undoubtedly, many of them would be felt in this part of the world.”

In talking about the Obama administration’s commitment to the region, Gates appeared to voice a veiled general apology for previous U.S. military decisions, but he avoided detailing them.

“In our efforts to protect our own freedom — and that of others — we have from time to time made mistakes, including at times being arrogant in dealing with others,” he said. “But we always correct course. Our willingness to do so is one of our enduring strengths.”

Source: Yahoo News

May 14, 2009
From The Times

James Bone in New York

The scramble for mineral riches under the oceans was exposed yesterday when a UN deadline passed for countries to claim the seabed up to 350 miles from their coasts.

Forty-eight nations, including Britain, submitted claims to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, and dozens more made preliminary filings. Countries that missed the deadline risk losing any future claim.

The deadline sets in process what the UN calls the last major redrawing of the world map. “It’s going to change the face of the world. There is no question about that,” said Lindsay Parson, of the National Oceanography Centre at Southampton University. “People won’t own these areas. They will own the right to the non-living resources.”

The submissions filed with the UN exposed overlapping claims in contested areas such as the Arctic, the South China Sea and around the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic.

The stakes are enormous as the melting of Arctic Sea ice and new technology which allows drilling and mining deep under the sea will enable states to exploit oil, gas and other minerals far offshore.

The 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea set yesterday’s deadline for states to stake their claims to vast areas of the continental shelf that lie beyond their existing 200-mile “exclusive economic zones”.

The continental shelf at issue varies in depth from just a few hundred metres in the Grand Banks off Canada’s Atlantic coast to as much as 4,000 metres (13,000ft). “There is an untold amount of money at stake because what is at stake is millions of square kilometres of seabed and everything that lies underneath. Nobody really knows what the full value is,” said Robert Volterra, an expert in public international law at the law firm of Latham & Watkins in London. “In the Arctic continental shelf alone people estimated there may be billions of barrels of oil.” Russia, the first to file with the UN in 2001, has already been rebuffed in its attempt to claim a huge section of the Arctic. Russia’s submission was contested by Canada, Denmark, Norway and even the United States, which has not ratified the Law of the Sea Treaty. Washington told the UN that the Russian claim contained “major flaws”. The UN commission recommended that Russia should submit a “revised submission” on the Arctic — something Moscow has yet to do.

Moscow has continued to press its claim to the Arctic, most spectacularly when a mini-sub planted a flag on the seabed beneath the North Pole in 2007 in an area that Denmark also says it will claim because of its sovereignty over Greenland.

Talks have reportedly been held on a possible joint submission by Russia, Canada and Denmark to the UN commission, determining the outer limit of the continental shelf but not necessarily dividing it up. Neither Canada, which ratified the treaty in 2003, nor Denmark, which joined in 2004, was bound by yesterday’s deadline because they have ten years to file their claims.

The tussle over the Arctic is not repeated at the other pole, where the 1959 Antarctic Treaty bans all mineral exploitation and puts rival sovereignty claims on hold.

Britain, which claims sovereignty over a portion of the frozen continent, also claimed by Chile and Argentina, has notified the UN that it is not making a submission with respect to the British Antarctic Territory but reserves the right to do so in the future.

Argentina has predictably howled about Britain’s claim, filed on Monday, to the continental shelf around the Falkland Islands, over which the two countries fought in 1982. Argentina had already filed its own claim to the shelf around the islands.

The 21-member UN commission can determine the size of the continental shelf, but has no power to resolve disputes between nations. Conflicting claims must be settled by arbitration, or before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, or the International Court of Justice.

Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6283114.ece

Fri Apr 24, 2009 8:09am IST

By S. Murari

CHENNAI (Reuters) - India asked Sri Lanka on Thursday to stop its military campaign against the Tamil Tigers, while the issue forced a regional party to shut down a key electoral swing state in the middle of India’s election.

India said it would send two special emissaries to Sri Lanka, to convey the government’s concern about more trapped civilians in the war zone and demand an end to the war.

“We are very unhappy at the continued killing in Sri Lanka. All killing must stop. There must be an immediate cessation of all hostilities,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Indian politicians face pressure to protect Sri Lankan Tamils, who are closely linked to about 60 million Tamils in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu across a narrow strait from Sri Lanka.

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), which rules Tamil Nadu state and is an ally of India’s ruling coalition, called a 12-hour strike in the state, but experts said it was an attempt to garner votes with a show of sympathy for Sri Lankan Tamils.

DMK has upped the rhetoric against the Sri Lankan military ahead of voting in Tamil Nadu next month. India is now voting to form a government in a staggered month-long general election.

On Thursday, shops and business remained closed in Tamil Nadu and traffic stayed off the road, a shutdown experts said had more to do with the polls than concern for Tamil refugees.

“The strike call is a feeble attempt by (DMK chief) Karunanidhi to show the people that he is concerned about the happenings in Sri Lanka,” Cho S. Ramaswamy, a political commentator, said in Chennai.

The Sri Lankan war has caught India’s ruling Congress party in a bind. It needs to please ally DMK and win voters, without being seen as going soft on the Tamil Tigers who are blamed for the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

With 39 parliamentary seats, Tamil Nadu is a big prize in the general election, and the DMK swept the state in 2004, a performance the Congress hopes Karunanidhi’s party will repeat.

Sri Lanka’s military said troops now control all but 13 sq km of the island, where the LTTE and founder-leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran are fighting a last stand in their war to create a separate state for the Tamil minority.

More than 100,000 refugees have emerged from the war zone this week, overloading the relief efforts.

© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved

Sat Mar 21, 2009 2:54am GMT

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea reopened a military hotline with the South on Saturday, a day after Washington and Seoul ended annual defence drills that Pyongyang had called preparations for an invasion.

North Korea cut the hotline, the only telephone link between the two Koreas, at the start of the drills on March 9. The move signals the North may be ready to tone down its harsh rhetoric ahead of a widely condemned missile launch expected early next month.

“The military communication line reopened this morning followed by a test run and everything is working fine,” said a spokesman for Seoul’s unification ministry.

The North said on Friday it would restore the hotline on Saturday “based on the position and intent of militarily guaranteeing the historic joint North-South declaration.”

The declaration refers to a June 2000 statement signed by the South’s then President Kim Dae-jung, a liberal, and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to improve ties and begin commercial exchanges after decades of animosity following the 1950-53 Korean War.

North Korea has directed much of its recent fury at conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who last year ended a decade of no-questions-asked aid and made it conditional on the North moving on pledges to stop trying to build nuclear weapons.

Tension on the peninsula escalated further with the North’s announcement it would launch a satellite between April 4 and 8.

Officials in Seoul and Washington say the launch is really a disguised test of its long-range Taepodong-2 missile and warned of punishment under a 2006 U.N. Security Council resolution that forbids Pyongyang from pursuing missile development.

(Reporting by Miyoung Kim, Editing by Dean Yates)

© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved

IANS
First Published : 19 Mar 2009 11:20:00 PM IST
Express Buzz

NEW DELHI: The US Thursday denied putting pressure on India to pull back its troops from the Pakistan border in the wake of the 26/11 Mumbai terror strikes.

“There is no pressure at all on India,” a US embassy official told IANS late Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Media reports Thursday spoke of Indian Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon being told by unnamed US officials that New Delhi should take the initiative in reducing tensions on the Pakistan border by lowering troop levels.

Indian officials have pointed out that New Delhi has consistently taken the stand that it was Pakistan - and not India - that had escalated tensions along the border post-26/11 by moving up large numbers of troops.

India, which has said the Mumbai attacks were planned by elements in Pakistan, a charge that Islamabad has partially accepted, says the neighbouring country should shut down the terror network operating from its soil.

External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee repeated the charge Thursday.

“Terrorists who attack in different places are receiving resources from Pakistan and its infrastructure is being used by them,” he told reporters during election campaign in West Bengal’s Murshidabad district.

India in January submitted a detailed dossier pointing to the involvement of Pakistani elements in the Mumbai attacks.

While admitting that part of the Mumbai conspiracy was planned on its territory, Pakistan submitted a list of 30 questions in response to the Indian dossier. To this India has already responded, even while it has repeatedly asked Islamabad to take “credible action” against the perpetrators of the Nov 26-29, 2008, Mumbai mayhem that killed over 170 people, including 26 foreign nationals.

USA Today

BAGHDAD (AP) — U.S. jets shot down an Iranian unmanned surveillance aircraft last month over Iraqi territory about 60 miles northeast of Baghdad, the U.S. military said Monday.

A U.S. statement said the Ababil 3 was tracked for about 70 minutes before U.S. jets shot it down “well-inside Iraqi airspace” and that the aircraft’s presence over Iraq “was not an accident.”

An Iraqi official said the Iranian aircraft went down near the Iraqi border town of Mandali. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

The Ababil is believed to have a maximum range of about 90 miles and can fly up to 14,000 feet. It is primarily designed for surveillance and intelligence-gathering.

U.S. officials have frequently accused the Iranians of supplying weapons, training and money to Shiite extremist groups opposed to the U.S. military presence and to the U.S.-backed Iraqi government.

FIND MORE STORIES IN: United States | Iraq | Baghdad | al-Qaeda | Shiite | Iran | Tehran | Sunni | Kurdish | Mosul | U.S.-led | Tikrit | Saddam | Halabja | U.S.-backed Iraqi | Mouwaffak al-Rubaie | Mujahedeen | Mandali | Camp Ashraf | Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi
Iran has denied links to militant groups inside Iraq and says the instability in this country is a result of the U.S. “occupation.” The Iranians consider the presence of about 140,000 U.S. troops in a neighboring country as a threat to their national security.

In Baghdad, a U.S. soldier was fatally injured during combat operations Monday, the U.S. said in a statement. No further details were released.

It was the first combat death reported by the U.S. military in Baghdad this month and the first among U.S. forces nationwide since March 7, when a soldier was killed in the Tikrit area.

U.S. casualties have dropped sharply since Iraqi soldiers and police have taken a greater role in security. President Barack Obama has pledged to withdraw all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by September 2010.

American combat troops are due to leave bases in Baghdad and other cities by June 30 under an agreement that provides for all U.S. forces to leave the country by the end of 2011.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told The Associated Press on Sunday that U.S. troops may stay in some areas that are not completely secure even after the June 30 date.

He did not identify those areas, but U.S. and Iraqi troops are still trying to secure Mosul, the country’s third-largest city where al-Qaeda and other Sunni militant groups remain active.

Also Monday, a 12-year-old girl was killed when American soldiers fired at a vehicle speeding toward them and Iraqi police near Mosul, said the U.S. military. The military said the girl was standing about 100 yards (meters) behind the vehicle and was struck by a round.

But Iraqi police said the girl was shot while in a car with her father. The discrepancy could not be immediately explained.

Meanwhile, an Iranian opposition group said Monday that Iraqi troops tightened their siege of a camp north of Baghdad where about 3,500 of their members have been based for about 20 years.

The People’s Mujahedeen said Iraqi troops have prevented food and fuel from reaching Camp Ashraf for the past six days — despite written guarantees by the Iraqi government that it would guarantee human rights of the residents.

But Iraqi national security adviser Mouwaffak al-Rubaie branded the allegations “totally baseless.” He said People’s Mujahedeen members had taken over a building belonging to the Iraqi army and were preventing soldiers from entering it.

“They have a huge propaganda machine all over the world and are known to exaggerate things,” added al-Rubaie, whom the People’s Mujahedeen said was behind the alleged crackdown.

Iran and the United States consider the People’s Mujahedeen a terrorist group and Tehran has stepped up pressure on the Iraqis to close the camp. Iraq took over security for the camp from the U.S. on Jan. 1.

But the Iraqi government promised the U.S. that it would not force the group’s members to leave against their will.

The People’s Mujahedeen opposed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi during the 1979 revolution but fell out with the clerical regime that replaced him. Saddam Hussein allowed the group to set up a camp during the Iran-Iraq war for staging raids across the border inside Iran.

U.S. troops disarmed the fighters and confined them to Camp Ashraf after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam.

Also Monday, residents of the Kurdish town of Halabja marked the 21st anniversary of the March 16-17 poison gas attack by Saddam’s forces against Kurdish separatists.

The 1988 attack killed thousands of people and was the biggest use of chemical weapons against a civilian populated area in history.

Local officials and victims’ relatives placed wreaths on a monument to the dead.

“The anniversary has become etched in the memory of many people,” said Aras Abbadi, who lost 21 relatives in the attack. “Every year, we wait for the anniversary and condemn that deplorable attack committed by a dictatorial regime against its own people.”

Another participant, Mariam Saleh, 59, pointed to a photograph on display that shows a truck full of victims.

“My family was in that truck,” she wept.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service
Defense Link

WASHINGTON, March 13, 2009 – U.S. officials are keeping a close watch on the current unrest in Pakistan, a country that is key to NATO’s efforts in Afghanistan, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said yesterday.

Pakistani lawyers and activists are marching on Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, calling for an independent judicial branch. Navy Adm. Mike Mullen said on PBS’s “Charlie Rose Show” that American officials are watching the events and the Pakistani government’s response closely.

“I’ve been engaged from the standpoint of understanding what’s going on there, and I know that their people are concerned that this could degenerate into a situation that could very possibly generate a crisis, which may cause actions to be taken on the part of the military,” Mullen said.

The possibility that the Pakistani military will move is remote right now, but it has taken a hand in politics before, Mullen noted. Former President Pervez Musharraf was a Pakistani army chief who took control of the country.

Mullen has met with his Pakistani counterpart, Army Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani, 10 times since the chairman took office in October 2007.

“He is committed to a civilian government; he is committed to the democracy that’s there,” Mullen told Rose. “And in my view, the last thing in the world he wants to do … is takeover as President Musharraf did.”

The Pakistani military wants to stay out of politics, and Kiyani wants to do what is right, but is in a tough spot, Mullen said. “I’m just hopeful that doesn’t turn into another crisis in Pakistan,” he said.

At the heart of the security uncertainty in Pakistan is the Taliban, which is using the country’s western border to rest and refit for combat against NATO forces in Afghanistan. The Taliban also are exerting control in the Swat Valley — formerly a tourist spot some 70 miles from Islamabad.

Kiyani “recognizes that he has an extremist threat in Pakistan,” Mullen said. “They’ve lost many, many citizens. He recognizes there’s a serious extremist, terrorist threat inside his country and, in fact, his forces have fought very hard this year up in Bajaur, and Mohman, up on the western border.”

The terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, in November further complicated the situation, Mullen said. Terrorists are believed to have planned the attack in India’s financial capital from Pakistan, and the small-group attack chilled relations between the two nuclear-armed countries. Following the attack, Kiyani had to turn his attention to his country’s border with India.

“He’s a chief that’s got threats coming from both directions,” Mullen said. In the U.S. perspective, diplomacy is needed for relations with India, and more troops are needed for the actions against the Taliban.

Mullen said that many people around the world are worried about ties between Pakistan’s intelligence agency and the extremists.

“They have been very attached to many of these extremist organizations, and it’s my belief that in the long run, they have got to completely cut ties with those in order to really move in the right direction,” the chairman said.

Kiyani has appointed a new intelligence chief with the mission to bring the agency under control. Mullen said he is encouraged, but change will take time.

The Taliban and al-Qaida safe havens in Pakistan are the most difficult problems facing the region, Mullen said.

“We have this safe haven in a sovereign country that is threatening, plotting against Americans and other Western countries, and it must be eliminated,” Mullen said. “Ideally, that would come through the pressure that the Pakistanis bring to eliminate that threat.”

But if the terrorists manage to launch an attack on the United States or its allies, that would change the equation. America and its allies would be forced to respond.

“What we’re working hard on is trying to make sure that doesn’t happen,” the chairman said.

3 Westerners were kidnapped from volatile Darfur region this week

Associated Press
updated 6:43 p.m. PT, Fri., March. 13, 2009
MSNBC

KHARTOUM, Sudan - The Italian foreign ministry said Friday that three foreign aid workers being held hostage in Darfur had been released but representatives for their aid organization could not confirm that.

Representatives for Doctors Without Borders where the hostages worked said they have not been in touch with them since reports surfaced of their release late Friday.

Conflicting reports about the fate of the hostages added to the mystery of the kidnapping, which has raised fears about a backlash against foreigners in Darfur following an arrest warrant issued against the country’s president for war crimes there.

There were also reports that a Sudanese guard initially abducted with the group and then thought to have been released was instead still with the three foreign aid workers.

The group — a Canadian nurse, Italian doctor and French coordinator — was kidnapped from the volatile Darfur region Wednesday when armed gunmen broke into their compound. Negotiations for their release have been ongoing.

Then the Italian foreign ministry Friday said the three foreign workers had been freed. In a statement later, both the Italian foreign minister and the Italian president expressed their satisfaction over the hostages’ release.

In Sudan, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, Ali Youssef, said the details for the release of the aid workers was being finalized, but could provide no further details.

A Sudanese government official, who was closely following the case, also said Friday that the group was heading to the governor’s house in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, and that no ransom had been paid for their release. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. He later said an official announcement would be made when they are finally free and refused to discuss any details.

No independent confirmation
But officials from Doctors Without Borders, also known as Medicins Sans Frontieres or MSF, said they could not confirm the hostages’ release.

An official from the Brussels branch of the organization Erwin Van’t Land said the group had been told by the kidnappers and by the Sudanese authorities they had been released.

“But we have not been able to talk to them ourselves. We need our own independent confirmation,” he said. The aid workers were affiliated with the Brussels branch of the organization.

Officials from both MSF in France and Italy also could not confirm the hostages’ release, nor could Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs.

Reports Wednesday said gunmen had initially taken five hostages — the three foreign aid workers and two Sudanese guards — and then released the two Sudanese guards. However, MSF spokeswoman Susan Sandars, speaking from Nairobi, said Sudanese authorities Friday said only one Sudanese guard had been released.

The Italian foreign ministry said it did not immediately have details on where the hostages were at the moment they gained their freedom.

Earlier Friday, the Italian ministry asked for a news blackout on the kidnapping while officials worked for the hostages’ freedom.

The abduction came a week after the Sudanese government expelled 13 foreign aid groups from Darfur.

The expulsion order came in response to an international arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir by the Netherlands-based International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the 6-year-old war in the region.

War crimes
The court has accused al-Bashir of orchestrating atrocities against civilians in Darfur, where his Arab-led government has been battling ethnic African rebels since 2003. Up to 300,000 people have been killed and 2.7 million have been driven from their homes. Sudan denies the charges and says the figures are exaggerated.

It is not known whether the kidnapping was related to the ICC warrant. Sudanese officials have said the tribunal’s decision has encouraged lawlessness. The area where the kidnapping occurred is government controlled, and pro-government Arab militias live and are based nearby.

The expulsion order included some MSF branches but the Belgium, Spain and Switzerland branches were allowed to stay. Following the kidnapping, those three groups pulled 35 of their international staff out of Darfur, temporarily halting the groups’ operations.

Only two staff remained to negotiate the hostages’ release.

The kidnappings took place in a rural area known as Saraf Umra about 125 miles west of the city of El Fasher, according to a spokesman for U.N. peacekeepers in Darfur.

© 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

USA Today

SEOUL (AP) — South Korea on Friday urged North Korea to retract its threat against South Korean passenger planes flying near its airspace, condemning it as unjustifiable and “inhumane.”

South Korea also said it is taking measures to secure the safety of its airlines. South Korea’s two major airlines — Korean Air and Asiana Airlines — have already rerouted their flights to stay clear of North Korean airspace.

“The military threat against civil airplanes’ normal flights is a violation of international norms and an inhumane act that cannot be justified under any circumstances,” Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyeon told reporters.

The reaction came a day after the North warned it cannot guarantee security for South Korean civil airplanes flying near its airspace and accused the U.S. and South Korea of attempting to provoke a nuclear war with the upcoming joint military drills.

The North is “compelled to declare that security cannot be guaranteed for South Korean civil airplanes flying through the territorial air of our side and its vicinity … while the military exercises are underway,” the North’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland said Thursday in statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

It did not say what kind of danger South Korean planes would face or whether the threat means the North would shoot down planes.

Kim indicated the North’s latest warning may be an advance notice to clear the airspace before a possible missile launch but he declined to elaborate.

North Korea announced last week that it is preparing to send a communications satellite into space but regional powers suspect the claim is a cover for the launch of a long-range missile capable of reaching Alaska.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid said North Korea’s statement was “distinctly unhelpful.” He said North Korea should be working on ways to fulfill its disarmament commitments in international nuclear talks “rather than making statements that are threatening to peaceful aviation.”

Also Friday, senior military officials from North Korea and the U.S.-led U.N. Command in South Korea met at the border but the talks ended in less than an hour, U.N. command spokesman Kim Yong-kyu said without elaborating.

The talks — the second such talks between the two sides this week — came ahead of U.S.-South Korean military drills and amid concerns the North is preparing to test-fire a long-range ballistic missile.

The North, which condemns the drills as preparations for an invasion, reportedly demanded that Washington call off the exercises at previous talks earlier this week.

But the U.S. military said it would go ahead with the drills involving 26,000 U.S. troops, an unspecified number of South Korean soldiers and a U.S. aircraft carrier. Both Washington and Seoul insist the annual exercises are purely defensive.

Generals from the North summoned U.S. military officers representing the U.N. Command to the Demilitarized Zone on Monday — their first talks in nearly seven years — but the talks ended without progress. The U.N. Command oversees the cease-fire that ended the 1950-1953 Korean War.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Death toll stands at 76, with hundreds arrested, after border guard revolt

Associated Press
updated 10:43 a.m. PT, Sat., Feb. 28, 2009
MSNBC

DHAKA, Bangladesh - The military said 72 officers were still missing Saturday after a two-day mutiny by Bangladesh’s border guards, as the death toll rose to 76 with the discovery of 10 more bodies in mass graves at the force’s headquarters.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina met with political allies at her home Saturday to discuss the uprising, with the group issuing a call for national unity.

Hasina, who took office in January, persuaded the guards to surrender Thursday with promises of an amnesty coupled with threats of military force.

But she said Friday there would be no amnesty for the killers, and her government gave border guards across the country 24 hours on Saturday to return to their posts or report to a local police station.

‘Barbaric incident’
Army spokesman Brig. Gen. Mahmud Hossain said at least 33 officers survived the carnage but 72 were still unaccounted for.

“This barbaric incident has caused much anger among the soldiers, which can only be quelled with a fair investigation and trial of the killers,” Hossain told reporters.

The mutineers had hurriedly dumped the bodies of dozens of senior officers into shallow graves and sewers at the headquarters compound in the capital, Dhaka. Among the dead was Maj. Gen. Shakil Ahmed, the commander of the Bangladesh Rifles border force. Dozens more officers were missing, and workers scoured the compound and nearby areas, including a pond, in an intense search for more victims.

“We think there are more bodies,” said firefighter Sheikh Mohammad Shahjalal, adding that 10 bodies were dug up Saturday in two mass graves. They found at least one woman’s body, which they believed was the commander’s wife, he said.

The military postponed funerals for 33 officials until all bodies were found.

“To bury all the deceased with state honors, funeral prayers and burials scheduled for today have been postponed,” the military said in a statement, adding that a new date would be announced later.

Dangerous ground
The bloodshed has raised new questions about stability in the poor South Asian nation and underlined the fragile relationship between Bangladesh’s civilian leaders and the military, which has stepped in previously to quell what it considered dangerous political instability.

The country only returned to democracy after elections in late December 2008, nearly two years after an army-backed interim administration took over amid street protests demanding electoral reforms.

Hasina has a bitter history with the military. Her father was Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the country’s independence leader and its first head of state, who was killed in a 1975 military coup along with his wife and three sons.

“It’s a setback for Sheikh Hasina’s new government. It’s now a test for her how she handles the military,” said Ataur Rahman, who teaches political science at Dhaka University.

“This tragic event will force her to divert her attention from consolidating democracy and boosting the economy to tackling the challenges of national security,” he said.

The army chief, Gen. Moeen U. Ahmed, met Hasina late Friday and pledged his support.

“The military will stand by the government,” Ahmed told reporters.

‘Where is my father?’
Following the border guards’ surrender Thursday, search teams moved into the sprawling Bangladesh Rifles compound that houses the guards and many of their families and found the gruesome evidence of the killings.

One corner of the compound, nestled under the shade of coconut palms, held two mass graves where slain officers had been put into shallow holes and covered with dirt. Firefighters used crowbars to pry off manhole covers and recover more corpses from sewers.

Dozens of families — particularly those related to senior border guard officers — still did not know what had happened to their relatives.

“Let me talk to my father. Where is my father?” cried 10-year-old Mohammad Rakib, standing outside the devastated headquarters of the border agency on Friday. Rakib was with his mother looking for his father, Capt. Mohammad Shamim.

Bitter over conditions
The insurrection erupted from the guards’ longtime frustrations that their pay hasn’t kept pace with soldiers in the army — anger aggravated by the rise in food prices that has accompanied the global economic crisis. The guards earn about $100 a month. They also demanded better living conditions and allowances for their families.

Their resentment was heightened by the practice of appointing army officers to head the border guards. The border guards also do not participate in U.N. peacekeeping missions, which bring additional pay.

The army plays a pivotal role in Bangladesh, and only recently allowed the country of 150 million return to civilian rule.

There have been 19 failed coup attempts since the country gained independence from Pakistan in 1971, and two presidents have been killed in military takeovers.

© 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Associated Press
Fox News

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea accused the U.S. military of making provocative moves along the tense border on the divided Korean peninsula, warning Saturday of “unpredictable military conflicts.”

The rare threat came as North Korea was apparently gearing up to test-fire a long-range missile believed capable of reaching U.S. territory. Pyongyang has also stepped up its war of rhetoric against the South over Seoul’s tough stance toward its communist neighbor.

North Korea’s military said U.S. troops advanced as close as 100 feet from the Military Demarcation Line in the western border and took pictures of a North Korean military post last month. It also said more than 60 U.S. patrols approached to within 330 feet of the boundary this year.

The U.S. provocations “at a time when the North-South relations are inching close to the brink of a war may touch off unpredictable military conflicts,” the North’s military said in a message sent to the South, according to the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.

“If the U.S. forces keep behaving arrogantly … the (North’s military) will take a resolute counteraction.” It did not elaborate.

South Korea’s Defense Ministry dismissed the North’s accusation as groundless, calling the U.S. military moves “legitimate activities” because the U.S.-led U.N. Command oversees the Demilitarized Zone that separates the two Koreas.

The U.S. stations 28,500 troops in South Korea to help deter the North’s possible aggression.

A spokesman of the U.S. military was not immediately available for comment.

The U.N. Command oversees the cease-fire that ended the 1950-1953 Korean War. North Korea has long maintained that the U.N. Command is irrelevant and a thinly veiled U.S. effort to claim international legitimacy for its forces here.

Although other nations contributed forces during the Korean War, U.S. troops are the only fighting elements facing North Korea left on the peninsula in addition to the South Korean military.

<---End of Quote--->

Related Article:
U.S. Prepared to Shoot Down N. Korean Missile

Friday, February 27, 2009
Fox News

The U.S. military is prepared to shoot down a North Korean missile or rocket if President Obama should give the order, the head of the U.S. Pacific Command said Thursday.

“If a missile leaves the launch pad we’ll be prepared to respond upon direction of the president,” Adm. Timothy Keating told ABC News.

North Korea announced earlier this week that it was preparing to shoot a communication satellite into orbit as part of it space program. The U.S., South Korea and other neighboring countries believe the launch may be a cover for a missile test-fire, saying the action would trigger international sanctions.

“There’s equipment moving up there that would indicate the preliminary stages of preparation for a launch,” Keating said. “So I’d say it’s more than less likely.”

North Korea lashed out at critics warning it not to test a long-range missile on Thursday, saying that it would punish those trying to disrupt its plan to send what it calls a satellite into orbit.

Keating said the U.S. military is ready to respond to the missile launch with at least five different systems: a naval destroyer, Aegis cruiser, radar system, space-based system and ground-based interceptor, ABC News reported.

“Should it look like it’s not a satellite launch — that it’s something other than a satellite launch — we’ll be ready to respond.”

The latest harsh words from Pyongyang came as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced plans to send her new envoy on North Korea to meet with negotiators in Asia trying to revive stalled nuclear disarmament talks.

Clinton later spoke by telephone with her South Korean counterpart, Yu Myung-hwan, to discuss the North’s missile issue and informed him of her envoy’s trip to Seoul, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said without elaborating.

On Thursday, the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of (North) Korea accused South Korea of “trumpeting about ’sanctions”‘ against its satellite launch, saying outsiders will know “what will soar in the air in the days ahead.”

“If the puppet warmongers infringe upon our inviolable dignity even a bit … we will not only punish the provokers but reduce their stronghold to debris,” the committee said in a statement carried by the country’s official Korean Central News Agency.

Kim Myong Gil, minister to the North’s U.N. mission in New York, said in Atlanta where he was attending an academic forum that his country would implement the satellite launch “as scheduled.” Asked about the timing, he told reporters Thursday they’ll have to wait and see, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.

Kim said North Korea bears the right to launch a satellite into space, and that the North’s space program is not up for any negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang. He also said the country is facing dire energy shortages and must develop nuclear power as a source of energy, the report said.

Analysts say the North’s planned launch is seen as a bid for President Barack Obama’s attention as international talks on its nuclear programs remained stalled for months and tensions with South Korea are at their highest level in a decade.

The launch of the Taepodong-2 will most likely take place around the first week in March, around the time of elections for the North’s rubber-stamp parliament, said Rodger Baker, director of East Asia analysis at the global intelligence company STRATFOR.

The long-range Taepodong-2 missile is believed capable of reaching Alaska. Some experts think the North is preparing to test an advanced version that could reach the western continental U.S.

Baker said North Korea’s missile capability is “fairly sophisticated” given the country’s isolation and lack of access to technology.

“They are really good with short-range and anti-ship missiles, mostly those they’ve modified from Soviet and Chinese missiles,” Baker told The Associated Press.

Clinton announced Thursday that envoy Stephen Bosworth would soon travel to the capitals of the four countries that have been working with Washington to get North Korea to give up its nuclear program — Russia, Japan, China and South Korea.

Bosworth, a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea, was named last week as the Obama administration’s special representative for North Korea.

Asian and U.S. officials are looking at the best way “to deter this launch,” said Christopher Hill, the top U.S diplomat for Asia. He dismissed North Korea’s claims that it was preparing to conduct a satellite launch.

“It looks an awful lot like a missile launch, and the reason it looks a lot like a missile launch is because it essentially is a missile launch, whatever the payload,” Hill told reporters in Washington. Considering the North’s “opaqueness,” coupled with its claims that it has weaponized plutonium, he said, “you can see why we have some very deep concerns about the missile launch.”

South Korea’s Dong-a Ilbo newspaper reported Thursday that North Korea has built an underground fueling facility near its launch pad, making it harder for spy satellites to detect signs that a missile is being prepared for launch.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Thu Feb 26, 2009 6:32am IST

By Anis Ahmed and Nizam Ahmed

DHAKA (Reuters) - Nearly 50 people were killed when Bangladeshi paramilitary troops mutinied over a pay dispute at their headquarters in Dhaka, a government minister said on Thursday.

The mutinous soldiers began laying down their arms after accepting an offer of amnesty from the government, but the uprising in the capital on Wednesday underscored the challenges facing new Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Hasina won elections in December that returned the impoverished country to democracy after nearly two years of army-backed emergency rule, and the incident is a blow to her efforts to attract foreign investment.

“Nearly 50 people have been killed in sporadic fighting in the headquarters of the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR),” Mohammad Quamrul Islam, state minister for law and parliamentary affairs, told reporters.

Quamrul said all weapons would likely be surrendered in the coming hours.

Television channels showed troops handing over Chinese-made automatic rifles, bullets and grenades to Home Minister Sahara Khatun, who visited the headquarters after talks with the rebels.

No gunfire had been heard in the early hours of Thursday.

The mutiny erupted on Wednesday when at least five people were killed in shooting that broke out after enlisted men met officers to discuss a row over pay and the BDR command structure.

The government responded by sending troops to the BDR complex, and Home Minister Sahara Khatun held talks with the mutineers’ leaders to defuse the situation, after which the rebels agreed to lay down their weapons.

Officials said 50 women and children were later evacuated from the BDR headquarters.

The shooting on Wednesday spilled onto the streets in Dhaka, killing three civilians and wounding several others, witnesses said earlier. Flames rose from the BDR complex and loud explosions were heard.

It was not immediately clear how many civilians were among those killed.

HASINA MEETS MUTINEERS

Bangladesh, home to more than 140 million people, has had several military coups since independence in 1971, but Wednesday’s fighting did not appear to be politically motivated.

Hasina met some of the BDR mutineers on Wednesday in a bid to end the stand-off.

Government minister Jahangir Kabir Nanak said Hasina offered an amnesty to those involved during an hour-long meeting at her residence. One BDR officer said the rebels agreed to surrender their weapons after Hasina promised to meet the group’s demands.

Around 2,000 BDR soldiers are usually stationed in the headquarters but it was not known how many joined the fighting. About 500 army troops and hundreds of police and other security forces were deployed to confront the mutineers.

The BDR, whose main duty is guarding the country’s borders, is often called in to back up the army and police in meeting other defence and security requirements.

The mutiny broke out only a day after Hasina met senior BDR officers at an annual parade and told them her government would do its best to modernise the paramilitary forces.

© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved

The Times of India

WASHINGTON: Concerned over the “hostilities” towards civilians in the conflict-hit northern part of Sri Lanka, the United States has asked the island government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to hold negotiations to end the fighting.

“We want the government and the LTTE discuss ways to end the hostilities,” said Robert Wood, acting spokesman of the State Department.

He said one of their primary concerns is the humanitarian situation. “We’re worried about IDPs (internally displaced persons), what happens to them, we are worried about civilians that are caught up in the hostilities that are going on,” Wood said.

When asked if the US would like to have a negotiated solution and it does not think that this should end militarily, Wood said: “Eventually you need to have a political framework that deals with some of the questions that are being put forth by various parties in the country.”

“We just want to see, again, an end to hostilities. We want to see civilians protected as best they can be protected in this conflict. We want to be able to deal effectively with the humanitarian situation that we’re very concerned about,” he said.

Asked if the US is calling for a ceasefire, he reiterated the US wants an end to the hostilities.

“Well, look, again, we’re getting ahead of the game here. What we’re trying to do with this, as I said first off, is to deal with the concerns we have about IDPs and the humanitarian situation. That’s our foremost objective, to deal with those issues.”

He said, “We obviously want to see an end to that conflict and for that to happen, there has to be a discussion of the issues that are - you know, that are coming between the two sides.”

Both the US Ambassador to Sri Lanka and the South Asia Bureau in the State Department are communicating with the government of Sri Lanka in this regard. “There are other parties in the international community that are engaged in trying to do this,” he added.

When asked if the US would like to end negotiate between Sri Lanka and LTTE, Wood said: “As far as I know, we have not been asked to do that. This is something - there is a process that has been put forward to try to help end this conflict.

We will do what we can to support efforts to end the conflict. But in the end, the two sides have got to, as I said, discuss ways of ending this conflict and bring a cessation to hostilities.”