Hydrablog

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/24/us/politics/obama-lifts-moratorium-on-transfer-of-some-detainees.html
May 23, 2013
Obama Lifts Moratorium on Transfer of Detainees
By CHARLIE SAVAGE [Obama White House] [113th congress, 1st session] [U.S counterterrorism strategy that was published in June 2011] [both NSC principals (special subgroup for covert action) and bureaucracy] [GSAVE] [LWOT] [some changes in the policy—in effect since Bush and 2006—with respect to POWs from GSAVE] [use psci 355-455, 463] [followup] [this “shift” was presaged in Scott Wilson’s piece yesterday on an ongoing debate inside the administration] [*]
WASHINGTON — President Obama on Thursday lifted a moratorium on repatriating low-level inmates from the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to Yemen and, in a surprise move, announced the creation of a new Pentagon position to spearhead the transfer of detainees.
While it was far from clear that Mr. Obama’s aim to shutter the prison — which he tried but failed to close in his first term — would be achieved anytime soon, he also began a renewed push to winnow down the 166-inmate population.
Transfers of low-level detainees dried up after Congress imposed steep restrictions in January 2011, and the administration has to date not used its ability to issue case-by-case waivers to those restrictions. That has stranded 86 detainees who have been approved for transfer if security conditions could be met.
Of those, 56 are from Yemen, where Mr. Obama had forbidden transfers after a branch of Al Qaeda based in Yemen tried to bomb a Detroit-bound airliner on Dec. 25, 2009. In his national security address, Mr. Obama said it was now time to allow transfers to Yemen on a case-by-case basis.

Continue reading "Obama Lifts Moratorium on Transfer of Detainees" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 07:47 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/24/us/politics/plan-would-orient-cia-back-toward-spying.html
May 23, 2013
C.I.A. to Focus More on Spying, a Difficult Shift
By MARK MAZZETTI [Obama White House] [113th congress, 1st session] [U.S counterterrorism strategy that was published in June 2011] [both NSC principals (special subgroup for covert action) and bureaucracy] [GSAVE] [LWOT] [considerable continuity between W. Bush and Obama] [followup] [first in Obama’s State of the Union Speech (or 2nd Inaugural) and in National Defense University (tomorrow but already widely reported)speech the administration has signaled that they are rethinking the UAVs, which have escalated considerably and caused some grumbling from various corners of American politics] [use psci 355-455, 463] [followup] [more on the new policy] [*]
WASHINGTON — For more than seven years, Mike — a lean, chain-smoking officer at the Central Intelligence Agency’s headquarters in Virginia — has managed the agency’s deadly campaign of armed drone strikes. As the head of the C.I.A.’s Counterterrorism Center, Mike wielded tremendous power in hundreds of decisions over who lived and died in far-off lands.
But under a new plan outlined by the Obama administration on Thursday, the Counterterrorism Center over time would cease to be the hub of America’s targeted killing operations in Pakistan, Yemen and other places where presidents might choose to wage war in the future. Already, the C.I.A.’s director, John O. Brennan, has passed over Mike, an undercover officer whose full name is being withheld, for a promotion to run the agency’s

Continue reading "C.I.A. to Focus More on Spying, a Difficult Shift" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 07:46 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/24/world/europe/london-attack.html
May 23, 2013
Britain Knew of 2 Suspects in the Killing of a Soldier
By JOHN F. BURNS and ALAN COWELL [UK] [London] [EU3] [it’s back?] [more 3rd-generation jihadis possibly] [I only caught 1 minute of this last night on CNN and it looked off to me—that is, it look more like mental illness than true jihadism but it’s hard to tell] [just before Olympics in 2012 some arrests made] [the peak years were 2004-2008] [in past few years quieted down somewhat, at least seemingly] [if this proves to have any connection with the Tribal areas back in Pakistan, than I’d consider reclassifying?] [England has large South Asia émigré populations] [followup, yesterday] [use psci 355-455, 463] [the plot thickens?] [*]
LONDON — British security officials confirmed Thursday that both suspects in the hacking death of an off-duty British soldier were known to MI5, the domestic security agency, in the years before the attack, in which men drove their car into the soldier on a busy London street and then chopped at him with cleavers as he lay prone on the sidewalk.
Twenty-four hours after the attack, with Britain still reeling with shock at its sheer brutality, the victim was identified as a 25-year-old army bandsman and machine-gunner, Lee Rigby, who had served in Afghanistan and was the father of a 2-year-old boy. He had left his barracks in plainclothes to visit his mother, the authorities said.
Security officials said the suspects were radicalized British Muslim men with family origins in Nigeria. One was named by the BBC as Michael Adebolajo, 28, who it said had been raised in a Christian family in Romford, east of London. He converted to Islam in about 2001, and joined a radical Muslim group, Al Muhajiroun, that was banned in Britain in 2010

Continue reading "Britain Knew of 2 Suspects in the Killing of a Soldier" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 07:45 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/24/world/middleeast/kerry-holds-talks-in-bid-to-revive-mideast-peace-process.html
May 23, 2013
Kerry Meets With Israelis and Palestinians to Revive Peace Process
By ISABEL KERSHNER and MICHAEL R. GORDON [Israel] [domestic politics which has the potential to affect foreign policy down the road] [Israeli-Arab conflicts, from the past wars (especially, 1967 and 1973) to today’s Arab Revolutions and repercussions to Israeli-Palestinian conflict] [Israel-Syria civil war] [Syria and Iran because Iran is understandably an obsession in Israel] [Israeli leaders and Israelis are becoming increasingly worried that Israel is being pulled into Syria’s malestrom] [amid all this tumult SecState Kerry is expected (if the PA can be believed) to make another attempt at kick starting the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process (such as anything remains of of it)] [followup, May 22] [cross in govt] [*]
JERUSALEM — Injecting a sense of urgency into his mission to revive the moribund peace process, Secretary of State John Kerry held a round of meetings Thursday with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
“I am convinced, with great humility, that this moment is a critical one for the region and particularly for Israel, for Palestine and for Jordan,” Mr. Kerry said before meeting with President Shimon Peres of Israel.
Mr. Kerry has said that the next 18 to 24 months is a crucial period for achieving a breakthrough in the Middle East peace process and the creation of an independent Palestinian state. And there may not even be that much time.
Palestinian officials say they have, at Mr. Kerry’s request, held off on seeking membership

Continue reading "Kerry Meets With Israelis and Palestinians to Revive Peace Process" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 07:44 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/24/world/asia/envoy-says-north-korea-open-to-dialogue.html
May 23, 2013
North Korea Envoy Agrees to Dialogue, China Says, in Possible Sign for Nuclear Talks
By JANE PERLEZ [China] [PRC] [NEAsia] [DPRK] [North Korea] [Sino-DPRK relationship dating back well into the Cold War] [months of tensions recently appeared to have run their course] [and China seemed to side against DPRK, something quite rare] [now this?] [use psci 350, 355-455] [followup] [having returned a fishing boat and crew seized by DPRK earlier this month, a high-level delgation from Pyongyang has now arrived in China] [as is often the case, China’s seemingly infinite patience has paid off again] [apparently DPRK has told China it’s ready to talk] [followup, May 22] [DPRK has done this numerous times so nobody ought to be euphoric over this] [*]
BEIJING — A North Korean envoy visiting China said his country would “accept the proposal” by Chinese officials to open up dialogue, the state-run China News Service reported Thursday, a possible signal that the North would agree to talks on its nuclear program.
The comments were reported after the envoy, Vice Marshal Choe Ryong-hae, met Liu Yunshan, who is a member of the Communist Party Standing Committee in China and the politician who heads ideological affairs for the party. Mr. Liu was quoted as repeating a frequent appeal by China for a resumption of talks that would result in the removal of nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula “as soon as possible.”

Continue reading "North Korea Envoy Agrees to Dialogue, China Says, in Possible Sign for Nuclear Talks " »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 07:43 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/25/world/middleeast/syria.html
May 24, 2013
Russia Says Syria Will Attend Geneva Peace Talks
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN [Russia] [Syria] [Syria’s civil war acting like magnate to foreign fighters from neighboring states and abroad] [no greater example of the Sunni-Shi’a sectarian faultline!] [the figure being bandied about now is 80,000 KIA] [use psci 350, 355-455, 463] [Hasan Nasrallah threatens Israel over the latter’s recent sorties into Syria] [followup, May 21] [after a couple days of SecState Kerry’s activities in Jordan, Israel, Oman, and wherever, Russia says al Assad regime is ready to attend Geneva talks] [we shall see?] [*]
MOSCOW — The Syrian government has agreed to participate in an international peace conference coordinated by Russia and the United States, a spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday.
“We note with satisfaction that Damascus has confirmed its readiness in principle to participate in an international conference in the interest of the Syrians themselves finding a political path to a settlement of the conflict that has been devastating for the country and the region,” the spokesman, Aleksandr Lukashevich, said in a statement.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov and Secretary of State John Kerry had agreed during a meeting in Moscow earlier this month to pull together the peace conference, with Russia responsible for bringing the government of Bashar al-Assad to the table and the Americans focused on securing the participation of the Syrian opposition.

Continue reading "Russia Says Syria Will Attend Geneva Peace Talks" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 07:42 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/24/world/africa/niger-hit-by-two-suicide-attacks.html
May 23, 2013
Suicide Bombings in Niger Kill Dozens in Dual Strikes
By ADAM NOSSITER [Nigeria] [Saharan, Western Africa] [MENA and beyond] [sectarian violence in Nigeria with its population of roughly half Christian and half Muslim] [most of this is tit-for-tat reactions so it’s difficult to trace the precise cause] [it seems to have begun to spread from the old Salafi groups in Algeria south and out in various directions] [followup, May 15, 17] [use psci 350, 355-455, 463] [since Niger began attacking this fairly aggressively, we now see the return salvo, perhaps?] [jihadis and insurgectionists attack back] [*]
DAKAR, Senegal — Two groups of suicide bombers rammed vehicles full of explosives into a military base and a French-owned uranium mine 150 miles away in the West African desert nation of Niger early Thursday, killing at least 26 people, including 21 soldiers and five bombers, Nigerien officials said. They said a sixth bomber appeared to be holding several Nigerien soldiers hostage inside the base.
They were the first terrorist attacks in Niger, a landlocked, impoverished nation of 17 million that has positioned itself in the front lines against jihadist penetration in West Africa. They were also the deadliest in the region since the French military, with the help of troops from Niger, pushed back an Islamist takeover in neighboring Mali this year. A regional offshoot of Al Qaeda, the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, or Mujao, claimed responsibility.

Continue reading "Suicide Bombings in Niger Kill Dozens in Dual Strikes" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 07:42 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/us/one-drone-victims-trail-from-raleigh-to-pakistan.html
May 22, 2013
One Drone Victim’s Trail From Raleigh to Pakistan
By SCOTT SHANE and ERIC SCHMITT [Obama White House] [113th congress, 1st session] [U.S counterterrorism strategy that was published in June 2011] [both NSC principals (special subgroup for covert action) and bureaucracy] [GSAVE] [LWOT] [considerable continuity between W. Bush and Obama] [followup] [these are the kinds of concerns critics and even people inside government have raised: that the UAVs are making more enemies that solving] [use psci 355-455, 463] [cross in external] [*]
WASHINGTON — When Jude Kenan Mohammad was about 18 and living in Raleigh, N.C., according to people who knew him, he came under the influence of an older man, Daniel Patrick Boyd, who taught him a violent, radical version of Islam.
Mr. Boyd would be charged in 2009 and eventually imprisoned as the ringleader of a group of North Carolina residents who had vowed to carry out a violent jihad both in the United States and overseas. Mr. Mohammad was also charged, but by then, partly at the direction of Mr. Boyd, he had traveled to Pakistan, where he had joined a group of militants in that country’s tribal area.
On Wednesday, the United States government officially acknowledged for the first time what had long been rumored among his friends in Raleigh: that Mr. Mohammad was killed in a C.I.A. drone strike on a compound in South Waziristan, Pakistan, on Nov. 16, 2011. He was 23.

Continue reading "One Drone Victim’s Trail From Raleigh to Pakistan" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:34 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/us/us-acknowledges-killing-4-americans-in-drone-strikes.html
May 22, 2013
Obama, in a Shift, to Limit Targets of Drone Strikes
By CHARLIE SAVAGE and PETER BAKER [Obama White House] [113th congress, 1st session] [U.S counterterrorism strategy that was published in June 2011] [both NSC principals (special subgroup for covert action) and bureaucracy] [GSAVE] [LWOT] [considerable continuity between W. Bush and Obama] [followup] [first in Obama’s State of the Union Speech (or 2nd Inaugural) and in National Defense University (tomorrow but already widely reported)speech the administration has signaled that they are rethinking the UAVs, which have escalated considerably and caused some grumbling from various corners of American politics] [use psci 355-455, 463] [followup] [this “shift” was presaged in Scott Wilson’s piece yesterday on an ongoing debate inside the administration] [*]
WASHINGTON — President Obama plans to open a new phase in the nation’s long struggle with terrorism on Thursday by restricting the use of unmanned drone strikes that have been at the heart of his national security strategy and shifting control of them away from the C.I.A. to the military. [that’s a great idea] [I’m a little surprised given the gusto with which Brennan—now at CIA—has increased these kinds of attacks] [but I think it’s overdue] [*]
In his first major speech on counterterrorism of his second term, Mr. Obama hopes to refocus the epic conflict that has defined American priorities since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and even foresees an unspecified day when the so-called war on terror might all but end, according to people briefed on White House plans.
As part of the shift in approach, the administration on Wednesday formally acknowledged for the first time that it had killed four American citizens in drone strikes outside the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, arguing that its actions were justified by the danger to the United States. Mr. Obama approved providing new information to Congress and the public about the rules governing his attacks on Al Qaeda and its allies. [*]

Continue reading "Obama, in a Shift, to Limit Targets of Drone Strikes" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:33 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/world/europe/sweden-riots-continue-in-immigrant-neighborhoods.html
May 22, 2013
Sweden: Riots Continue in Immigrant Neighborhoods
By REUTERS [Sweden] [Stockholm] [Europe] [anti Islam or anti Muslim sentiment, past few years here] [most jihadis stuff has been in England, France, some in Germany] [last couple years some smaller things in Nordic nations] [use psci 350, 463] [followup, Feb 26, 2011] [the only thing I’ll say about it is this: while I haven’t spent any great time in Sweeden, I have visited it and travelled through it and this sort of frustration morphing into violence strikes me as wholly out of character with most Swedes] [*]
Hundreds of young people burned cars and attacked police officers this week in three nights of riots in immigrant neighborhoods of Stockholm, Sweden’s capital. On Tuesday night, a police station in the Jakobsberg area in northwest Stockholm was attacked, two schools were damaged and an arts center was set ablaze, despite a call for calm from Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt. The riots appear to have been started by the police killing of a 69-year-old man wielding a machete in Husby this month, which prompted accusations of police brutality. The riots spread from Husby to other poor parts of Stockholm suburbs.

Continue reading "Sweden: Riots Continue in Immigrant Neighborhoods" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:32 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/24/world/europe/london-attack.html
May 23, 2013
Cameron Says Britain ‘Resolute’ After Attack
By JOHN F. BURNS and ALAN COWELL [UK] [London] [EU3] [it’s back?] [more 3rd-generation jihadis possibly] [I only caught 1 minute of this last night on CNN and it looked off to me—that is, it look more like mental illness than true jihadism but it’s hard to tell] [just before Olympics in 2012 some arrests made] [the peak years were 2004-2008] [in past few years quieted down somewhat, at least seemingly] [if this proves to have any connection with the Tribal areas back in Pakistan, than I’d consider reclassifying?] [England has large South Asia émigré populations] [followup] [use psci 355-455, 463] [followup, Mar 15, 2013] [whatever it was-is, the Brtish PM is maintaining his stiff upper lip!] [*]
LONDON — A day after an attack on an off-duty British soldier by two knife-wielding assailants, Prime Minister David Cameron said on Thursday that Britain would be “absolutely resolute” in confronting terrorism and that extremist assaults would “only bring us together.”
Mr. Cameron was speaking after leading the emergency Cobra committee, a group of cabinet ministers and high-level security officials that oversees the operations of police and security agencies during high security alerts.
The attack raised new fears of terrorism when the soldier, walking near a military barracks in south London, was rammed by a car and then hacked to death. One of the men shouted “Allahu akbar,” or “God is great,” during the attack, government officials said.

Continue reading "Cameron Says Britain ‘Resolute’ After Attack" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:31 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/world/europe/london-attacks.html
May 22, 2013
‘Barbaric Attack’ in London Prompts Meeting on Terror
By JOHN F. BURNS [UK] [London] [EU3] [it’s back?] [more 3rd-generation jihadis possibly] [I only caught 1 minute of this last night on CNN and it looked off to me—that is, it look more like mental illness than true jihadism but it’s hard to tell] [just before Olympics in 2012 some arrests made] [the peak years were 2004-2008] [in past few years quieted down somewhat, at least seemingly] [if this proves to have any connection with the Tribal areas back in Pakistan, than I’d consider reclassifying?] [England has large South Asia émigré populations] [followup] [use psci 355-455, 463] [followup, Mar 15, 2013] [*]
LONDON — In an attack that raised new fears of terrorism in Britain, a man walking near a military barracks in south London on Wednesday was rammed by a car and then hacked to death by two knife-wielding assailants, according to witness accounts carried by British news media. [this sounds more like Fort Hood?] [*]
British officials did not identify the victim, but the French president, François Hollande, referred to him as “a soldier” in expressing France’s sympathy to the visiting British prime minister, David Cameron. Mr. Cameron had been en route to Paris from Brussels when the attack took place.
Two suspects were shot and wounded by the police, officials said, and were in separate hospitals under police guard, one in serious condition. One of the men shouted “Allahu

Continue reading "‘Barbaric Attack’ in London Prompts Meeting on Terror" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:30 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/world/asia/north-korean-leader-sends-envoy-to-china.html
May 22, 2013
North Korean Envoy Visits Beijing Amid Concerns About U.S.-Chinese Relations
By JANE PERLEZ and CHOE SANG-HUN [China] [PRC] [NEAsia] [DPRK] [North Korea] [Sino-DPRK relationship dating back well into the Cold War] [months of tensions recently appeared to have run their course] [and China seemed to side against DPRK, something quite rare] [now this?] [use psci 350, 355-455] [followup] [having returned a fishing boat and crew seized by DPRK earlier this month, a high-level delgation from Pyongyang has now arrived in China] [as is often the case, China’s seemingly infinite patience has paid off again] [China willing lets DPRK huff and puff for it knows the pariah regime must sooner or later return to its benefactor asking for help] [*]
BEIJING — A senior North Korean military official’s visit here Wednesday appears to have been organized on short notice, and was probably prompted by North Korea’s concerns about a planned meeting between President Xi Jinping of China and President Obama, analysts said. [it looks as if the new leadership has played it well—President Xi demonstrated just enough pique to worry DPRK] [*]
Vice Marshal Choe Ryong-hae, a member of the inner circle of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, arrived in Beijing two days after the United States and China announced that Mr. Obama and Mr. Xi would meet in California early next month.
Vice Marshal Choe, 63, who is the political overseer of the North Korean military, met with

Continue reading "North Korean Envoy Visits Beijing Amid Concerns About U.S.-Chinese Relations" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:30 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/world/middleeast/kerry-may-make-bid-to-restart-mideast-peace-talks.html
May 22, 2013
Support for Kerry’s Mideast Peace Efforts on Eve of Visit
By ISABEL KERSHNER [Israeli media] [Israel] [domestic politics which has the potential to affect foreign policy down the road] [Israeli-Arab conflicts, from the past wars (especially, 1967 and 1973) to today’s Arab Revolutions and repercussions to Israeli-Palestinian conflict] [Israel-Syria civil war] [Syria and Iran because Iran is understandably an obsession in Israel] [Israeli leaders and Israelis are becoming increasingly worried that Israel is being pulled into Syria’s malestrom] [amid all this tumult SecState Kerry is expected (if the PA can be believed) to make another attempt at kick starting the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process (such as anything remains of of it)] [followup] [cross in govt] [*]
JERUSALEM — While Palestinian officials say they expect Secretary of State John Kerry to present a proposal for restarting Israeli-Palestinian peace talks by early June, they add that there appear to be few tangible signs of progress.
Still, with Mr. Kerry set to arrive here on Thursday — his fourth visit to Israel and the West Bank in eight weeks — Israeli and Palestinian officials were at least quick to express their mutual support for his efforts while maintaining discretion about the details of his talks. A senior Israeli official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the continuing diplomacy, said Mr. Kerry had gone beyond listening and was discussing specific ideas about how to get back to negotiations.

Continue reading "Support for Kerry’s Mideast Peace Efforts on Eve of Visit" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:29 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/world/middleeast/israel-is-drawn-into-syrias-turmoil.html
May 22, 2013
Israel Finding Itself Drawn Into Syria’s Turmoil
By JODI RUDOREN [Israeli media] [Israel] [domestic politics which has the potential to affect foreign policy down the road] [Israeli-Arab conflicts, from the past wars (especially, 1967 and 1973) to today’s Arab Revolutions and repercussions to Israeli-Palestinian conflict] [Israel-Syria civil war] [Syria and Iran because Iran is understandably an obsession in Israel] [Israeli leaders and Israelis are becoming increasingly worried that Israel is being pulled into Syria’s malestrom] [I shouldn’t be surprised: Israel has bombed arms shipments moving inside of Syria—all reported to be headed to Hezbollah (Lebanon) at least three major times] [for Israel to do and not think it is being pulled in seems sort of naïve] [followup] [*]
JERUSALEM — For more than two years, Israeli leaders have insisted they had no intention of intervening in the civil war raging in neighboring Syria, but they vowed to stop sophisticated weapons from being transferred to Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia group, and to respond to intentional fire into their territory.
Now, having followed through with a pair of airstrikes on weapons shipments this month and, on Tuesday, the destruction of a Syrian Army position, Israelis are asking what their options are, as if they feel it has become impossible to avoid deeper involvement. [I think you are supposed to ask that before you send the sorties into Syria!?] [*]

Continue reading "Israel Finding Itself Drawn Into Syria’s Turmoil" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:28 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/world/middleeast/egypt-kidnapped-security-officers.html
May 22, 2013
Egypt’s President Announces Release of 7 Officers Abducted in Sinai
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK [Egypt] [MENA] [Middle East] [MENA] [charges that Egypt under President Morsi is rather like Egypt under Mubarak?] [Egypt continues to struggle with what its future holds?] [protests against Morsi’s govt have occurred regularly since the anniversary of the revolution (Feb 2011)] [followup, May 20] [President Morsi’s gambit to send a show of force into Sinai may hav paid off?] [use psci 355-455, 463] [yesterday’s piece regarding the release of the kidnapped officers appears to have been accurate] [President Morsi takes the credit—imagine my surprise!] [*]
CAIRO — President Mohamed Morsi on Wednesday announced the release of seven Egyptian security officers who had been kidnapped nearly a week ago in the lawless Sinai Desert, ending days of mounting anxiety over the government’s apparent inability to secure even its own soldiers and the police in the area. [*]
The persistent lawlessness of Sinai since the Egyptian revolution has become an international concern because the region borders Israel and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, and this week a strike by police officers angry about the kidnapping had closed police stations and border crossings around the area. The crisis recalled an attack on a Sinai

Continue reading "Egypt’s President Announces Release of 7 Officers Abducted in Sinai" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:27 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/world/middleeast/us-fears-syria-fighting-might-spill-into-lebanon.html
May 22, 2013
U.S. Fears the Fighting in Syria Might Spill Over Into Lebanon, Kerry Says
By MICHAEL R. GORDON and MARK LANDLER [Jordan] [Amman] [MENA] [SecState Kerry has been in region trying to create support for another stab at a Syria peace conference] [shortly after becoming Obama’s second-term secstate, Kerry arm twisted his counterpart in Russia, which got this movement under way] [since, Kerry has been to region multiple times] [most recently, he dropped in on Gulf Cooperation Council then hastened to Jordan to meet King Abdullah] [I don’t see much reason to hope this attempt will be any different than past unsuccessful attempgs but the idea is it doesn’t hurt to test interest and commitments for same] [cross in govt] [use psci 355-455, 463] [the past few days have seen a number of indications (and articles detailing them) of serious spillover and its consequences in Lebanon] [that appears to be the theme in similarly vulnerable Jordan] [*]
AMMAN, Jordan — Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday that the United States was increasingly concerned that the escalating fighting in Syria might slip across the border with Lebanon and destabilize that country.
“We’re deeply concerned about this spilling over into Lebanon,” said Mr. Kerry, who came to Jordan to attend an 11-country meeting on the deteriorating situation in Syria.
Lebanon, Mr. Kerry added pointedly, is “at risk.” [*]

Continue reading "U.S. Fears the Fighting in Syria Might Spill Over Into Lebanon, Kerry Says" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:26 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/world/middleeast/irans-nuclear-program-is-seen-making-progress-in-iaea-report.html
May 22, 2013
Iran Is Seen Advancing Nuclear Bid
By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD [Iran] [Iran’s illicit nuclear activities] [UN, IAEA] [in November 2011 the IAEA reported Iran’s illicit activities as enriching uranium above the 20% purity necessary for medical isotopes as well as IAEA’s suspicions that Iran had research warhead for nuclear weapon] [the IAEA report that was scooped in an Israeli newspaper a couple days ago is now available] [unsurprisingly, itfinds Iran has increased its capacity to enrich, despite sanctions and the various rounds of talks that have led nowhere (at least seemingly)] [followup] [*]
International nuclear inspectors reported on Wednesday that Iran had increased its nuclear production while negotiations with the West dragged on [*]this spring, but the new information suggested that Tehran had not gone past the “red line” that Israel’s leaders have declared could incite military action. [tends to suggest the conventional wisdom about Iran planning to get close to the redline the stop, leaving Iran in position of being able to achieve a bomb in a matter of months if necessary] [*]
In its last report before Iranian elections next month, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran had made progress across the board in its nuclear program, enriching more uranium and installing hundreds of next-generation centrifuges that could speed enrichment.
Obama administration officials acknowledged in interviews and public testimony last week that such equipment could significantly reduce the “break out” time required for Iran to

Continue reading "Iran Is Seen Advancing Nuclear Bid" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:25 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/world/asia/afghanistan-karzai.html
May 22, 2013
Afghanistan’s Karzai Says ‘No Circumstances’ Allow Him to Seek Another Term
By GARDINER HARRIS and MATTHEW ROSENBERG [Afghanistan] [AfPak] [use psci 350, 355-455, 463] [in late Nov-early Dec Pakistan released some Taliban who are needed for reconciliation inside Afghanistan (improving relations with Karzai govt)] [two important deadlines now loom large in Afghanistan’s future: end of 2013 when all the Obama increases since taking office are to redeploy out of Afghanistan, leaving almost exactly the number of troops as when Obama took office] [second deadline is the end of 2014 when foreign combat troops are to withdraw] [followup] [while I don’t trust Karzai any father than the U.S. may bribe him, he apparently is saying explicity he shall not run for a third term, something not allowed under Afghan’s constitution] [*]
NEW DELHI — Seeking to dispel widespread rumors that he will find a way to cling to power beyond the end of his second term next year, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan said Wednesday that there was “no circumstance that will allow me to stay as president.”[*]
“And there are two reasons for that,” he said. “One is I’m exhausted. Really, totally exhausted, and I would like to be retired. And second, why would I ruin my legacy by staying on and taking an opportunity away from Afghanistan to become an institutionalized democracy?”
Elections are scheduled for April, and American and European officials say privately that

Continue reading "Afghanistan’s Karzai Says ‘No Circumstances’ Allow Him to Seek Another Term" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:24 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/24/world/asia/pakistan-blast.html
May 23, 2013
13 Pakistani Police Officers Killed in Blast in Restive Region
By SALMAN MASOOD [Pakistan] [AfPak] [hub of the al Qaeda and Taliban activity in AfPak] [and of al Qaeda globally] [use psci 350, 355-455, 463] [under Obama administration, Bush’s policy of drones (sticks) and carrots( $) has increased to Zardari] [Pakistan is really where U.S. interests converge: nukes, India-Pakistan, and GSAVE] [followup] [the violence in Pakistan—including TTP attacks and various ethnic attacks—have increased all spring, almost in parallel to spring offensive in Afghanistan] [here another government (police stations) target appears to be the object of an attack, this one in Quetta] [Quetta is major city in Baluchistan that borders on southern edge of former NWFPs, the tribal belt] [*]
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — At least 13 police officers were killed on Thursday morning when a powerful remote-controlled bomb ripped through a police truck in southwestern Pakistan, officials said. At least 17 others were injured.
The attack, which took place shortly after 8 a.m. on the outer edges of Quetta, the provincial capital of southwestern Baluchistan Province, killed members of the rapid-response force of the Baluchistan Constabulary, a reserve police unit. Their truck was headed to a government building when a roadside bomb, believed to contain at least 200 pounds of explosives, went off, according to police officials. [*]
The police and law enforcement authorities cordoned off the site after the attack as the

Continue reading "13 Pakistani Police Officers Killed in Blast in Restive Region" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:23 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Columnist/2013/May-22/217921-a-hezbollah-turning-point-in-qusair.ashx#axzz2U0v1If8I
The Daily Star
[Accessed 5/22/13 9:01:42 AM] [*]
A Hezbollah turning point in Qusair?
By Rami G. Khouri [Lebanese media] [on Syria’s civil war and recent Hezbollah overtures regarding same] [interesting perspective, from Lebanon on how Hezbollah’s recent statements and disclosures are affecting things in Lebanon] [Hezbollah’s Nasralla said that Hezbollah would not allow al Assad to go down to Sunni Salafi jihadis] [also, U.S. intelligence has leaked that a couple hundred Quds from Iran have moved into the fray] [so lots of information the past few days] [use psci 350, 355-455, 463] [*]
The most fascinating aspect of the war in Syria this month – and perhaps also the most significant in terms of long-term regional geopolitics – is the direct involvement of Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese Shiite party and resistance group that is closely allied to Iran and Syria.[*] The significance of Hezbollah’s participation in the battle for the Syrian town of Qusair comprises several distinct elements – its reputation as a fighting force, its political wisdom, its perception among Lebanese, its independence from Iran, and its standing in the region and globally as it identifies more closely with the Syrian regime that has been increasingly isolated and sanctioned.[*]
Together, these factors make this a potential turning point for the organization whose history since its establishment in the early 1980s has been one of the most remarkable achievements in modern Arab political life. It can be credibly argued that Hezbollah is the single most successful political party or organization in modern Arab history, given its many accomplishments: It has

Continue reading "A Hezbollah turning point in Qusair? " »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:08 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/petraeuss-role-in-drafting-benghazi-talking-points-raises-questions/2013/05/21/db19f352-c165-11e2-ab60-67bba7be7813_story.html
Petraeus’s role in drafting Benghazi talking points raises questions
By Scott Wilson and Karen DeYoung, Published: May 21 [Obama White House] [113th congress, 1st session] [bureaucracy: America’s intelligence community (IC) but specifically the CIA] [the recent “scandal” over Benghazi] [I haven’t seen anything particularly scandalous but it’s made political hay] [but this is interesting: what appeared little more than a turf battle between state and CIA traces back to former CIA director Petraeus] [cross in individual (though might be role?)] [use psci 355-455] [Wilson and DeYoung (two national security reporters) provide an interesting tick tock of events] [*]
The controversy over the Obama administration’s response to the Benghazi attack last year began at a meeting over coffee on Capitol Hill three days after the assault.
It was at this informal session with the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that the ranking Democrat asked David H. Petraeus, who was CIA director at the time, to ensure that committee members did not inadvertently disclose classified information when talking to the news media about the attack. [*]
“We had some new members on the committee, and we knew the press would be very aggressive on this, so we didn’t want any of them to make mistakes,” Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (Md.) said last week of his request in an account supported by Republican participants. “We didn’t want to jeopardize sources and methods, and we didn’t want to tip off the bad guys. That’s all.” [*]
What Petraeus decided to do with that request is the pivotal moment in the controversy

Continue reading "Petraeus’s role in drafting Benghazi talking points raises questions" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:50 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/22/us/us-tracked-foreigners-leaving-for-canada.html
May 21, 2013
U.S. Quietly Monitors Foreigners’ Departures at the Canadian Border
By ERIC LIPTON Obama White House] [113th congress, 1st session] [bureaucracy: DHS under which ICE and Customs now both operate (since the Bush reorganization that created the massive DHS)] [an interesting bureaucratic experiment has apparently been conducted at the U.S.-Canada border over the past couple months] [use psci 355-455] [checking and documenting visa violations who are now leaving the country] [*]
WASHINGTON — Hundreds of thousands of foreigners passing into Canada from the United States have unwittingly been a part of a grand experiment by the Department of Homeland Security to crack down on visitors who violate laws governing the length of their stay.
Long demanded by lawmakers in Congress, it is considered a critical step to developing a coherent program to curb illegal immigration, as historically about 30 percent to 40 percent of illegal immigrants in the United States arrived on tourist visas or other legal means and then never left, according to estimates by Homeland Security officials.
The pilot project with Canada, conducted from September to January, involved about a third of the traffic across the northern American border, tracking the departure of 413,222 foreigners from the United States. Starting this year, according to Congressional officials who have been briefed on the plan, the information collected at the Canadian border will be used

Continue reading "U.S. Quietly Monitors Foreigners’ Departures at the Canadian Border" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:49 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/22/world/asia/as-chinese-leaders-visit-nears-us-urged-to-allow-retaliation-for-cyberattacks.html
May 21, 2013
As Chinese Leader’s Visit Nears, U.S. Is Urged to Allow Counterattacks on Hackers
By DAVID E. SANGER [Obama White House] [113th congress, 1st session] [from NSC principals to bureaucracy: DHS and Pentagon’s cybersecurity unit] [see recently archived “Chinese Hackers Resume Attacks on U.S. Targets” (archived May 20, dated May 19)] [use psci 355-455] [while I understand not desiring to unleash all kinds of unintentional consequences, I have been somewhat puzzled (unless it’s protecting sources and methods) why the U.S. has not given China’s PLA cyber battalions a little taste of what the U.S. can do?] [apparently, that debate is raging inside the administration] [*]
WASHINGTON — With President Obama preparing for a first meeting with China’s new president, a commission led by two former senior officials in his administration will recommend a series of steps that could significantly raise the cost to China of the theft of American industrial secrets. [*]If milder measures failed, the commission said, the United States should consider giving companies the right to retaliate against cyberattackers with counterstrikes of their own.
The recommendations are from the private Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property, which is led by two figures who parted company with the White House on strained terms: Dennis C. Blair, Mr. Obama’s first director of national intelligence,

Continue reading "As Chinese Leader’s Visit Nears, U.S. Is Urged to Allow Counterattacks on Hackers" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:48 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/22/us/debate-aside-drone-strikes-drop-sharply.html
May 21, 2013
Debate Aside, Number of Drone Strikes Drops Sharply
By SCOTT SHANE [Obama White House] [113th congress, 1st session] [U.S counterterrorism strategy that was published in June 2011] [both NSC principals (special subgroup for covert action) and bureaucracy] [GSAVE] [LWOT] [considerable continuity between W. Bush and Obama] [followup] [first in Obama’s State of the Union Speech (or 2nd Inaugural) and in National Defense University (tomorrow but already widely reported)speech the administration has signaled that they are rethinking the UAVs, which have escalated considerably and caused some grumbling from various corners of American politics] [use psci 355-455, 463] [followup] [apparently, more than just wordsmithing as the number of strikes has decreased, if this is accurate, “sharply”] [*]
WASHINGTON — President Obama embraced drone strikes in his first term, and the targeted killing of suspected terrorists has come to define his presidency.
But lost in the contentious debate over the legality, morality and effectiveness of a novel weapon is the fact that the number of strikes has actually been in decline. Strikes in Pakistan peaked in 2010 and have fallen sharply since then; their pace in Yemen has slowed to half of last year’s rate; and no strike has been reported in Somalia for more than a year.
In a long-awaited address on Thursday at the National Defense University, Mr. Obama will make his most ambitious attempt to date to lay out his justification for the strikes and what they have achieved. He may follow up on public promises, including one he made in his

Continue reading "Debate Aside, Number of Drone Strikes Drops Sharply" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:47 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/22/world/asia/7-muslims-sentenced-to-prison-for-myanmar-violence.html
May 21, 2013
Muslims Linked to Riots Given Prison Terms in Myanmar
By THOMAS FULLER [Myanmar] [formerly Burma] [recent political liberalization not without costs] [in addition to ethnic and religious tensions, some of Burma’s least capable seem to be left behind?] [followup, May 14, 18] [Myanmar is one of the many places China has cultivated for its industrialization resources] [as the military juanta morphs into something else (at least in the direction of multi-party democracy) the Chinese have a problem: they must contend with the people rather than just the government] [some information with respect to the Muslim discontent that has been fueling violent clashes] [to be clear, many of the clashes have been insitagated by non-Muslims against Muslims] [use psci 350, 355-455] [*]
BANGKOK — A court in Myanmar sentenced seven Muslim men to prison on Tuesday on charges related to the spasms of religious violence two months ago that left more than 40 people dead and chased thousands of people from their homes in central Myanmar.
A prominent Muslim questioned why Muslims had been the first to be prosecuted when witnesses and human rights groups agree that most of the violence had been carried out by Buddhist mobs attacking Muslims. [*]

Continue reading "Muslims Linked to Riots Given Prison Terms in Myanmar" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:47 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/22/world/asia/in-new-delhi-chinese-leader-promotes-trade-ties.html
May 21, 2013
In New Delhi, Chinese Prime Minister Promotes Trade Ties
By GARDINER HARRIS [India] [SAsia] [China] [NEAsia] [Sino-India relations, which had been in the deep freeze since the border war in 1962 (when Pakistan forfeited some of Kashmir to China)] [use psci 350] [China’s new leadership (selected at last November’s Party Congress, 18th) led by Xi Jinping takes charge!] [interestingly, it would appear that China’s new leaders rather wisely are seeking far-better relations with India?] [followup, May 19] [we shall have to see where this goes but the development could be terribly important] [it appears that China’s recent (the new leadership from last fall seems to be behind it) “charm offensive” is paying dividends!] [*]
NEW DELHI — Continuing his charm offensive in the Indian capital, Prime Minister Li Keqiang of China spoke before a gathering of nearly 500 business leaders here Tuesday and emphasized the importance of trade ties.
“A few clouds in the sky cannot shut out the brilliant sun rays of our friendship,” Mr. Li said.
In a veiled reference to efforts by the United States to strengthen ties with India, in part to serve as a check on China, Mr. Li said that a country can “choose its friends but not its neighbors.” [*]
“There is a proverb in Chinese that a distant relative may not be as useful as a near

Continue reading "In New Delhi, Chinese Prime Minister Promotes Trade Ties" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:46 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/world/middleeast/egypt-kidnapped-security-officers.html
May 22, 2013
Egyptian President Announces Release of Officers Kidnapped in Sinai
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK [Egypt] [MENA] [Middle East] [MENA] [charges that Egypt under President Morsi is rather like Egypt under Mubarak?] [Egypt continues to struggle with what its future holds?] [protests against Morsi’s govt have occurred regularly since the anniversary of the revolution (Feb 2011)] [followup, May 20] [President Morsi’s gambit to send a show of force into Sinai may hav paid off?] [use psci 355-455, 463] [it may be the the police-security people kidnapped were released; if it proves correct, that was fast] [*]
CAIRO — President Mohamed Morsi on Wednesday announced the release of seven Egyptian security officers who had been kidnapped nearly a week ago in the lawless Sinai Desert, ending days of mounting anxiety over the government’s apparent inability to secure even its own soldiers and police in the area.
The persistent lawlessness of Sinai since the Egyptian revolution has become an international concern because the region borders Israel and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, and this week a strike by police officers angry at the kidnapping had closed police stations and border crossings around the area. The crisis recalled an attack on a Sinai military checkpoint last August that resulted in the deaths of 16 soldiers, humiliated the Egyptian military, and helped compel the generals who had ruled Egypt to hand full power to the first civilian president, Mr. Morsi.

Continue reading "Egyptian President Announces Release of Officers Kidnapped in Sinai" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:45 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/22/world/middleeast/syria-developments.html
May 21, 2013
Syrian Forces and Hezbollah Fighters Press Assault on Key City
By HANIA MOURTADA and ANNE BARNARD [Syria] [Syria’s civil war acting like magnate to foreign fighters from neighboring states and abroad] [no greater example of the Sunni-Shi’a sectarian faultline!] [the figure being bandied about now is 80,000 KIA] [use psci 350, 355-455, 463] [Hasan Nasrallah threatens Israel over the latter’s recent sorties into Syria] [followup, May 20] [but also see yesterday’s “Hezbollah Suffers Losses in Fierce Battle for Syrian City” and “Hezbollah’s Role in Syria . . . “ in recent external] [Hezbollah’s role in Syria civil war beginning to create some serious consternation in Lebanese politics!] [*]
BEIRUT, Lebanon — In another day of fierce fighting in the strategic Syrian city of Qusayr, government forces backed by fighters from the militant Lebanese group Hezbollah continued their offensive on Tuesday against rebels who have long held the town. There were conflicting reports about the progress of the fighting.
Warplanes mounted airstrikes on the town in the morning, and government forces fired mortar shells as clashes intensified on the outskirts of the city, opposition activists said. The Local Coordinating Committees, a network of activists tracking the fighting, said at least 18 rebel fighters and civilians had been killed. [I think the recent stuff datelined Lebanon said 19 Hezbollah recently died] [*]
Official Syrian and Hezbollah news outlets said the government offensive was making rapid

Continue reading "Syrian Forces and Hezbollah Fighters Press Assault on Key City" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:44 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/22/world/middleeast/iran-and-hezbollahs-support-for-syria-complicates-us-strategy-on-peace-talks.html
May 21, 2013
Iran and Hezbollah Support for Syria Complicates Peace-Talk Strategy
By MICHAEL R. GORDON and STEVEN LEE MYERS [Oman] [Persian (aka Arabian) Gulf] [rarely does Oman make the news] [now, Arab Awakening has apparently spread all the way to Oman] [next to Yemen, one might think a natural for spillover, so on] [but Oman has been quite a stable regime for decades] [Oman is an interesting mix of Persian Gulf-style emirates and Arab states] [the old British emprie outpost Oman is the one place the Arab Revolutions have hardly stirred] [SecState Kerry has pushed recently (apparently with some Russian interest) for another attempt at a political deal between the disputants in Syria’s civil war] [it’s terribly complex as it has become littered with proxies: Iran’s proxies (including Iran’s own Rev Guard and others and Iran’s Hezbollah, a Shi’a Arab group from Lebanon) and Saudi’s proxies (various Sunni groups including foreign fighters)] [the Gulf Cooperation Council has been holding meeting there and it appears that SecState Kerry took advantage of the meeting to canvass important leaders?] [cross in govt] [use psci 355-455] [*]
MUSCAT, Oman — As evidence grows of increased Iranian support for the Syrian government, the Obama administration’s strategy to bring the bitter fighting there to a close faces more challenges than ever.
With White House support, Secretary of State John Kerry has pushed for an international conference in Geneva in June that would bring representatives of the Syria government together with the opposition.

Continue reading "Iran and Hezbollah Support for Syria Complicates Peace-Talk Strategy " »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:43 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/22/world/middleeast/iranians-await-list-of-approved-candidates.html
May 21, 2013
A Founder of the Revolution Is Barred From Office, Shocking Iranians
By THOMAS ERDBRINK [Iran] [Iran’s witchs’ brew of factions] [Iran’s illicit nuclear program and Israel’s understandable fear of same] [UN, IAEA report just released 11-09-2011] [besides which Iran is major support of al Assad regime in Syria] [meanwhile, Iran’s theocracy prepares for this summer’s (June I think) presidential election to replace Ahmadinejad (and other offices)] [recall, the 2009 version resulted in massive protests over whether Ahmadinejad’s victory was as big as “results” had it] [in the past week or so we’ve learned of the two most recent candidates Ahmadinejad’s ally Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei and long-time aspirant Ali Rafsanjani] [followup, May 17] [Rafsanjani is barred from running—shocking almost nobody in the west but apparently shocking Iranians?] [*]
TEHRAN — The decision on Tuesday to bar the presidential candidacy of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a founding father of the revolution and a former president, shocked Iranians, particularly among the 70 percent of the population that is under 35 and grew up when he served in many leading positions.
“They say a revolution eats its children,” said Mehdi, 27, a teacher. “But in the case of Rafsanjani the revolution has eaten its father.” [he’s 78; it was an easy basis for barring him without getting into the factionalism] [it seemed like a no brainer] [the only question is why did he throw his hat in when he apparently got no word from the supreme leader it

Continue reading "A Founder of the Revolution Is Barred From Office, Shocking Iranians" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:42 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/world/asia/north-korean-leader-sends-envoy-to-china.html
May 22, 2013
North Korean Leader Sends Envoy to China
By CHOE SANG-HUN [DPRK] [North Korea] [DPRK-ROK relationship dating back well into the Cold War] [a series of actions and vitriolic back and forths over the past several weeks between the two Koreas resulting in extraordinary levels of alert for war and, ultimately, the joint-business adventure between the two at Kaesong being closed] [the peninsula had become so quiet some were beginning to think the period of tensions had past] [it’s not entirely clear why—what is in DPRK?—but North Korea has fired short-range missiles (least likely to start a war) for consecutive days?] [use psci 350, 355-455] [followup, May 20] [after firing missiles several consecutive days (3 or 4) DPRK sends envoy to China] [it would appear to signal their latest fit of apoplexy is over?] [*]
SEOUL, South Korea — The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, sent his first special envoy to China on Wednesday, amid signs that Mr. Kim’s government was trying to mend strained ties with Beijing and was also seeking breaches in the tightening ring of economic and diplomatic pressure over its nuclear weapons development. [*]
The envoy, Vice Marshal Choe Ryong-hae, who serves as director of the General Political Bureau of the North Korean People’s Army, met in Beijing with Wang Jiarui, the head of the International Department of the Chinese Communist Party, said Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency, in a report that gave no details of the talks.

Continue reading "North Korean Leader Sends Envoy to China" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:41 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/22/world/asia/torture-victims-body-is-found-near-us-base-afghans-say.html
May 21, 2013
Torture Victim’s Body Is Found Near U.S. Base, Afghans Say
By ROD NORDLAND [Afghanistan] [AfPak] [use psci 350, 355-455, 463] [in late Nov-early Dec Pakistan released some Taliban who are needed for reconciliation inside Afghanistan (improving relations with Karzai govt)] [two important deadlines now loom large in Afghanistan’s future: end of 2013 when all the Obama increases since taking office are to redeploy out of Afghanistan, leaving almost exactly the number of troops as when Obama took office] [second deadline is the end of 2014 when foreign combat troops are to withdraw] [followup] [a man missing since last November turns up as corpse near U.S. military base (mutilated)] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — The footless corpse of an Afghan man missing since November was found on Tuesday near the former American Special Forces base to which he was last seen being taken, according to Afghan officials and victims’ representatives.
Afghan investigators said that after his disappearance, the man, Sayid Mohammad, was seen in a video being tortured by an Afghan-American named Zakaria Kandahari, whom the officials identified as the chief interpreter for an American Army Special Forces A Team stationed at the base. [*]The American military denies that Mr. Kandahari is an American citizen and said he was no longer working for the A Team when the video was made.
Mr. Mohammad’s body was found about 200 yards outside the perimeter of the base, in

Continue reading "Torture Victim’s Body Is Found Near U.S. Base, Afghans Say" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:40 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/22/world/asia/in-afghanistan-hezb-i-islami-takes-its-extremism-into-politics.html
May 21, 2013
A Group Taking Politics and Military Strategy to the Same Extremes
By MATTHEW ROSENBERG [Afghanistan] [AfPak] [use psci 350, 355-455, 463] [in late Nov-early Dec Pakistan released some Taliban who are needed for reconciliation inside Afghanistan (improving relations with Karzai govt)] [two important deadlines now loom large in Afghanistan’s future: end of 2013 when all the Obama increases since taking office are to redeploy out of Afghanistan, leaving almost exactly the number of troops as when Obama took office] [second deadline is the end of 2014 when foreign combat troops are to withdraw] [followup] [Hezb-i-Islami, political group and former insurgent group from Soviet era, now pressures Karzai toward more anti western positions; occasionally still uses violence as well] [blowback from the secret war in Afghanistan during 1980s] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — When a militant attack devastated a busy street in Kabul last week, it was like a headline from the early days of the war: the insurgent movement Hezb-i-Islami had killed six American military advisers in a suicide bombing so powerful that it knocked a heavily armored Chevrolet Suburban yards down a crowded street.
Yet it is a measure of how much has changed here that the attack was almost as noteworthy for its unexpectedness as for its deadliness. Hezb-i-Islami, a powerful and feared player in the fight against the Soviets and later in the country’s civil war, is now widely seen as a spent insurgent force that poses little military threat to the Afghan government, the Western

Continue reading "A Group Taking Politics and Military Strategy to the Same Extremes" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:40 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/iaea-report-iran-taking-steps-to-expand-sensitive-nuclear-capacity-1.525197
Harretz
[Accessed 5/21/13 8:58:08 AM] [*]
IAEA report: Iran taking steps to expand sensitive nuclear capacity
Next quarterly report on Iran's nuclear program by the IAEA is likely to show continued installation of the centrifuges used for enriching uranium, diplomats say.
By Reuters | May.21, 2013 | 5:20 PM | [Israeli media] [Israel] [Israel’s foreign policy and its preoccupation with Iran] [Iran’s illicit nuclear activities] {UN, IAEA] [in November 2011 the IAEA reported Iran’s illicit activities as enriching uranium above the 20% purity necessary for medical isotopes as well as IAEA’s suspicions that Iran had research warhead for nuclear weapon] [another IAEA report is due this week and the leaks have begun] [here we find it supposedly finds Iran has increased its capacity to enrich, despite sanctions and the various rounds of talks that have led nowhere (at least seemingly)] [followup] [*]
A UN nuclear agency report due this week is expected to show Iran further increasing its capacity to produce material that its adversaries fear could eventually be put to developing atomic bombs, Western diplomats said on Tuesday.
But they said it is also likely to indicate that growth in Iran's most sensitive nuclear stockpile has been held back because some of it has been used for reactor fuel, potentially providing more time for diplomacy between Iran and major powers.
Tehran's holding of medium-enriched uranium gas is closely watched in the West as Israel - which has threatened air strikes if diplomacy and sanctions do not stop Iran's atomic drive

Continue reading "IAEA report: Iran taking steps to expand sensitive nuclear capacity" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:12 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/05/21/iran_presidential_election_candidates
Foreign Policy
[Accessed 5/21/13 8:56:31 AM] [*]
Texas Hold 'Em in Tehran
Can the Supreme Leader bluff and bully his way to getting what he wants in Iran’s crucial upcoming presidential election?
BY YASMIN ALEM | MAY 21, 2013 [commentary] [on Iran’s upcoming elections and what is happening in the runup to same] [note: author is Iranian with expertise and is also reporting news] [cross in external] [use psci 355-455] [*]
Iran's presidential elections can sometimes feel like bad theater, a sort of lackluster process of going through the motions -- until, of course, they're not. An 11th hour twist has transformed this year's contest, seen until now largely as an exclusive race within Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's entourage, into a tripartite contest between whomever he anoints and two other lesser powers: the former-two term president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has placed his hopes on his son's father-in-law. The presidential vote, slated for June 14, has suddenly morphed into a high-stakes game of political poker. [*]
The first presidential poll since the still-disputed 2009 election and its tumultuous aftermath, the 2013 election will test the Ayatollah's supremacy over the office of the presidency. It may also be a harbinger for Tehran's domestic, and to a lesser extent, foreign policy in the near future. If Khamenei wants to restore his regime's domestic legitimacy amid the nuclear standoff with the West, he needs to countenance a free and fair -- by Iranian

Continue reading "Texas Hold 'Em in Tehran" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:11 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/world/report-cites-countries-use-of-laws-to-repress-faith.html
May 20, 2013
State Dept. Report Says Countries Have Repressed Religious Freedom With Laws
By STEVEN LEE MYERS [Obama White House] [113th congress, 1st session] [principally the state department bureaucracy] [very interesting juxtaposition: state’s annual report on freedoms and Myanmars first visit to WH] [use psci 355-455] [on balance, it’s a good thing that state does by publishing this each year] [it cannot be the only basis for the U.S. having relationships as the U.S. is often forced to prioritize contrary interests but it creates some pressure against certain regimes who deserve pressure] [*]
WASHINGTON — Countries around the world, including allies of the United States, have used laws on blasphemy and apostasy to suppress political opponents, the State Department said on Monday in an annual report chronicling a grim decline in religious freedom that has resulted in rising bigotry and sectarian violence.
The report singled out eight countries for particularly egregious and systemic repression of religious rights: China, Eritrea, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Uzbekistan. [yet the U.S. leasing a base in Stans] [*]In China, the report said, religious freedoms declined in the last year, highlighted by punitive actions against Christians, Muslims and Buddhists in Tibet, where 82 monks, nuns or laypeople killed themselves in acts of self-immolation last year.
Proliferating laws against blasphemy or apostasy, including in several countries undergoing political transitions after the Arab spring, are not protecting religions, as

Continue reading "State Dept. Report Says Countries Have Repressed Religious Freedom With Laws" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:53 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/us/politics/after-benghazi-us-pressing-ahead-on-security-upgrades.html
May 20, 2013
U.S. Takes Steps to Add Security at Embassies
By ERIC SCHMITT [Obama White House] [113th congress, 1st session] [principally the state department bureaucracy] [an overdue security upgrade at certain U.S. embassies] [use psci 355-455] [if nothing else, Libya (Sept 11, 2012) demonstrates that the bureaucracy had been slow to respond to urgently needed upgrades (though it looks like the “consulate” attacked was a CIA facility first and foremost)] [state tends to be the poor stepchild at the public dole fighting for crumbs after defense and IC] [so it hoardes its meager monies making it sometimes pennywise but pound foollish] [it’s a real shame some good people lost their lives with such idiocy occurring] [*]
WASHINGTON — By late this summer, the State Department plans to send dozens of additional diplomatic security agents to high-threat embassies, install millions of dollars of advanced fire-survival gear and surveillance cameras in those diplomatic posts, and improve training for employees headed to the riskiest missions. [cannot be a small number?] [I think the U.S. has over 240 embassies and consulates] [*]
The price tag for the security improvements proposed after the attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, last Sept. 11 has reached $1.4 billion to meet the most urgent needs, including additional personnel. But diplomats and lawmakers say it will take years

Continue reading "U.S. Takes Steps to Add Security at Embassies" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:52 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/world/asia/obama-couples-praise-for-burmese-leader-with-warning-against-violence.html
May 20, 2013
Obama Couples Praise for Burmese Leader With Warning Against Violence
By PETER BAKER and STEVEN LEE MYERS [Obama White House] [113th Congress, 1st Session] [the president, the White House, possibly the NSC] [Obama’s Asia pivot (announced late 2011)?] [the administration is trying to thread the needle of encouraging liberalization (democratization of sorts) that has begun in Myanmar yet discourage any knee-jerk reflex to Burma’s multi-decades past (authoritarian regime)] [while many indicators in Myanmar have been positive, there’s still a bit of paternalism from the government as well as a low-grade civil war against some of SEAsia’s Muslim populations] [use psci 355-455] [*]
WASHINGTON — President Obama encouraged the wave of reform that has transformed the onetime pariah state of Myanmar into an emerging touchstone of change in Asia, but pointedly warned the country’s visiting leader on Monday that violence against minority Muslims “needs to stop.”
In welcoming President Thein Sein of Myanmar to the White House, the first leader of his country invited to the seat of American power in nearly a half-century, Mr. Obama hoped to nurse the impoverished nation’s fragile political opening while forestalling any backsliding.

Continue reading "Obama Couples Praise for Burmese Leader With Warning Against Violence" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:51 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/world/americas/guatemalas-highest-court-overturns-genocide-conviction-of-former-dictator.html
May 20, 2013
Guatemalan Court Overturns Genocide Conviction of Ex-Dictator
By ELISABETH MALKIN [Guatemala] [Central America] [LAmerica] [this has only indirect connections to contemporary world politics] [it dates back to the late 1970s and through 1980s in Guatemala was wracked by a civil war of sorts] [it was within the broader context of the Cold War conflict where both superpowers were employing proxies in LAmerica to thwart the other] [during said time former Gen. Rios Montt led Guatemala, at least part of the time, and human rights abominations were related with his rule] [followup, May 16] [use psci 350, 355-455] [somewhat surprisingly Guatemala’s high court tossed out the genocide convinction against former President Montt (former dictator)] [it may be a sort of whitewash as other charges remain—that is, a maneuver to cover up Guatemala’s pretty sordid history and America’s involvement therein during 1980s?] [*]
MEXICO CITY — Guatemala’s highest court on Monday threw out the genocide conviction and prison sentence of the former dictator Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt.
The decision by Guatemala’s Constitutional Court was a dramatic legal victory for General Ríos Montt, 86, and a blow to human rights advocates who had called his conviction a sign that Guatemala’s courts would no longer allow impunity for the country’s powerful.
General Ríos Montt was sent to prison immediately after the verdict on May 10 when a three-panel tribunal found him guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity. He was sentenced to 80 years in prison but was soon transferred to a military hospital for medical

Continue reading "Guatemalan Court Overturns Genocide Conviction of Ex-Dictator" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:31 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/world/asia/india-china-border-issues.html?
May 20, 2013
India and China Vow to Cooperate on Border
By GARDINER HARRIS [China] [NEAsia] [India] [SAsia] [Sino-India relations, which had been in the deep freeze since the border war in 1962 (when Pakistan forfeited some of Kashmir to China)] [use psci 350] [China’s new leadership (selected at last November’s Party Congress, 18th) led by Xi Jinping takes charge!] [interestingly, it would appear that China’s new leaders rather wisely are seeking far-better relations with India?] [followup, May 19] [we shall have to see where this goes but the development could be terribly important] [it’s probably the thing the U.S. ought to be doing and, in fairness, has begun doing starting with George Bush and mostly continued by Obama] [*]
NEW DELHI — The leaders of India and China papered over their recent border spat on Monday with a friendly joint statement and an array of promises for economic and military cooperation, but they resolved none of their most vexing problems.
The Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, emphasized in his remarks that cordial relations between the countries depended on “peace and tranquillity on our borders,” and said he and his Chinese counterpart, Li Keqiang, had “agreed that this must continue to be preserved.”
Mr. Li, who arrived in India on Sunday, offered some reassurances about the border difficulties, but he made no apology for Chinese troops’ recent incursion into a district of Kashmir claimed by India.
“Both sides believe we need to improve various border-related mechanisms that we have put into place and make them more efficient, and we need to appropriately manage and resolve our differences,” Mr. Li said.

Continue reading "India and China Vow to Cooperate on Border" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:30 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/world/europe/twin-bombings-in-dagestan.html
May 20, 2013
Twin Bombings Kill 3 in Dagestan
By ANDREW ROTH [Russia] [former USSR] [Dagestan] [Trans Caucasus] [democratization and rule of law in Russia] [Vlad and his proclivities represent a lot of Russians who don’t care for the way the world has changed since 1991] [Russia’s long and expensive war with jihadis in northern Caucasus] [use psci350] [use ir text] [use psci 463] [it has actually been a while since one of these stories popped up with Russia] [followup, May 19] [with both the recent stuff (just 5 weeks ago) in Boston and now news out of former USSR trans Caucasus region, the war against Russia appears to be heating up again?] [has the southern Russia jihadis momentum shifted to Dagestan?] [it’s beginning to look that way] [*]
MOSCOW — Twin car bombings in the capital of Russia’s volatile Dagestan republic on Monday killed three people and injured at least 44 more, most of them police officers, officials said.
The attack came the same day that Russian security officials announced that they had prevented a terrorist attack in Moscow, planned by Russians who had trained on the Afghan-Pakistani border. But they offered few details, and did not say what the target was.
The explosions in the Dagestani capital, Makhachkala, went off 15 minutes apart, outside the headquarters of the court bailiffs’ service. Police officers were investigating the first bomb when the second and more powerful bomb exploded, killing two police officers and one court bailiff, a police spokeswoman said.
A 3-year-old child was among the injured, she added.

Continue reading "Twin Bombings Kill 3 in Dagestan" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:29 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/world/europe/russian-polling-group-says-it-may-close.html
May 20, 2013
Polling Group in Russia Says It May Close
By ELLEN BARRY [Russia] [former USSR] [Russia-U.S. relations, which have been dicey for years] [democratization and rule of law in Russia] [Vlad and his proclivities represent a lot of Russians who don’t care for the way the world has changed since 1991] [use psci 350, 355-455] [followup, May 19] [apparently, the Kremlin is forcing Russia’s single legitimate polling company to close, claiming that polling affects public opinion rather than measures it] [if I were a bit more cynical I would suspect that Putin was systematically undoing every important democratic reform that has set Russia onto a democratic course over the past several years] [wait, I do think that] [*]
MOSCOW — In recent years, when public opinion turned against the Kremlin, there was one main way to find out about it — the Levada Center, a respected group of sociologists who broke off their relationship with Vladimir V. Putin’s administration and set up the country’s only independent polling agency.
The Levada Center may have to shut down, its director announced on Monday, after prosecutors ruled that it “influences public opinion and therefore does not constitute research but political activity.” In a letter, prosecutors said Levada could not continue to release its work without identifying itself as “a foreign agent,” as required under a new law.
The leaders of many nonprofit organizations have vowed to defy the law. It requires groups to assume the foreign agent label — which evokes treachery and cold war espionage — if they receive financing from outside Russia and are deemed political in nature.
But Lev D. Gudkov, Levada’s director, was far darker in his assessment Monday, saying just the distraction of fighting the requirement would effectively shut down the center, which

Continue reading "Polling Group in Russia Says It May Close" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:29 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2013/05/21/world/middleeast/ap-ml-saudi-gcc.html
May 21, 2013
Oman Proposes Ban on Niqab Veils for Women Drivers
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS [Oman] [Persian (aka Arabian) Gulf] [rarely does Oman make the news] [now, Arab Awakening has apparently spread all the way to Oman] [next to Yemen, one might think a natural for spillover, so on] [but Oman has been quite a stable regime for decades] [Oman is an interesting mix of Persian Gulf-style emirates and Arab states] [followup, May 6, 2011!] [the old British emprie outpost Oman is the one place the Arab Revolutions have hardly stirred] [a proposal to ban the full niqab for women drivers proffered by Oman at Gulf Cooperation Council meeting] [*]
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — A Saudi online newspaper says Oman is proposing that women be banned from wearing face veils when driving.
Al-Watan said Tuesday Oman made the proposal at a meeting of Gulf Cooperation Council police traffic department heads. It singled out the niqab, a mask that covers a woman's face, leaving only a slit for her eyes.
The Oman delegate said that wearing a niqab while driving should be a traffic violation, indicating that the garment restricts vision and represents a hazard.
The traffic police chiefs met in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia to discuss unification of traffic laws. They are referring proposals back to their governments.
In Saudi Arabia itself, such a regulation would have no immediate effect. Though almost all Saudi women wear a niqab — women are forbidden to drive there.

Continue reading "Oman Proposes Ban on Niqab Veils for Women Drivers" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:28 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/world/middleeast/syria-developments.html
May 20, 2013
Hezbollah’s Role in Syria War Shakes the Lebanese
By ANNE BARNARD [Lebanon] [Beirut] [Syria] [Syria’s civil war acting like magnate to foreign fighters from neighboring states and abroad] [no greater example of the Sunni-Shi’a sectarian faultline!] [the figure being bandied about now is 80,000 KIA] [use psci 350, 355-455, 463] [Hasan Nasrallah threatens Israel over the latter’s recent sorties into Syria] [followup, May 9] [but also see yesterday’s “Hezbollah Suffers Losses in Fierce Battle for Syrian City” in external] [Hezbollah’s role in Syria civil war beginning to make many Lebanese nervous!] [*]
NABI CHIT, Lebanon — At the entrance to this village in Hezbollah’s Bekaa Valley heartland, under a sign welcoming visitors to “The Citadel of Resistance,” workers on Monday hoisted a freshly printed banner honoring a young man described as one of Hezbollah’s latest martyrs — killed in battle not with Israel, the foe the group’s guerrillas train to fight, but with Syrian rebels. [*]
Down the road, another dead fighter’s uncle, Fayez Shukor, welcomed mourners under a tent overlooking the valley as the sun set on a day that had seen Hezbollah’s death toll rise to unexpected heights as the group joined Syrian forces trying to storm the rebel-held Syrian city of Qusayr. [*]His nephew, he had said earlier, died on Sunday alongside 11 other Hezbollah fighters killed in a single rebel attack.
Lebanon reeled Monday from the twin realizations that Hezbollah, the nation’s most powerful

Continue reading "Hezbollah’s Role in Syria War Shakes the Lebanese" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:27 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/world/middleeast/egypt-sends-show-of-force-to-sinai-after-kidnappings.html
May 20, 2013
Egypt Sends Show of Force to Sinai After Kidnappings
By BEN HUBBARD [Egypt] [MENA] [Middle East] [MENA] [charges that Egypt under President Morsi is rather like Egypt under Mubarak?] [Egypt continues to struggle with what its future holds?] [protests against Morsi’s govt have occurred regularly since the anniversary of the revolution (Feb 2011)] [followup, May 17] [as President Morsi seems to be losing control, the military finally sends a show of force to Sinai (where Camp David Accord prohibit certain kinds of Egyptian deployments)] [use psci 355-455, 463] [Sinai has been increasingly under not government’s writ with all kinds of chaos threatening both Egypt and Israel (and others)] [*]
CAIRO — President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt sent dozens of tanks and hundreds of soldiers to Sinai on Monday as a show of force in the largely lawless area after unknown gunmen kidnapped seven Egyptian security officers there last week. [*]
The kidnappings have highlighted the vast security vacuum that has spread across Sinai, the strategically important peninsula that borders both Israel and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, since the revolution that ousted President Hosni Mubarak in February 2011.
Sinai residents have long complained of neglect by the Egyptian state, and the past two years have seen the impoverished desert peninsula, which is about the size of West Virginia, become a free zone for tribal militias, armed smugglers and bands of Islamist extremists who have attacked police stations and blown up natural gas pipelines. [*]
Security officials say the kidnappers seek the release of their comrades who have been

Continue reading "Egypt Sends Show of Force to Sinai After Kidnappings" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:26 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/world/asia/north-korea.html
May 20, 2013
North Korea Launches Missiles for 3rd Straight Day
By CHOE SANG-HUN [DPRK] [North Korea] [DPRK-ROK relationship dating back well into the Cold War] [a series of actions and vitriolic back and forths over the past several weeks between the two Koreas resulting in extraordinary levels of alert for war and, ultimately, the joint-business adventure between the two at Kaesong being closed] [the peninsula had become so quiet some were beginning to think the period of tensions had past] [it’s not entirely clear why—what is in DPRK?—but North Korea has fired short-range missiles (least likely to start a war) for consecutive days?] [use psci 350, 355-455] [followup, May 19] [also, I didn’t archive it but another piece today informed that DPRK released the Chinese fishing boat in another of yesterday’s external pieces] [*]
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea launched two short-range projectiles into waters off its east coast for a third straight day on Monday, officials here said, despite warnings from the United States and South Korea against increasing tensions.
The North has conducted six such launchings since Saturday, in what are believed to be tests of short-range guided missiles or rockets from multiple launchers, officials said.
“We remain vigilant for the possibility that the North may launch more,” a spokesman for the South Korean Defense Ministry said, insisting upon anonymity until his government made a formal announcement.
He said a projectile was launched in a northeasterly direction on Monday morning, followed by another in the afternoon.
North Korea said the launchings were part of normal military drills. In a statement carried by

Continue reading "North Korea Launches Missiles for 3rd Straight Day" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:25 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/world/middleeast/baghdad-basra-iraq-bombings.html
May 20, 2013
Attacks in Iraqi Cities Raise Fears of Renewed Sectarian Conflict
By DURAID ADNAN [-ir] [Baghdad] [maliki is in power struggle with fellow Shi’a groups and Iraq’s Sunni minority] [Syria] [Syria’s civil war acting like magnate to foreign fighters from neighboring states and abroad] [no greater example of the Sunni-Shi’a sectarian faultline!] [use psci 350, 355-455, 463] [more sectarian violence rending the nation] [followup, yesterday] [more of the same: concerns about the renewed and dramatically expanded sectarian violence sparking another civil war] [when will these people learn that violence begets violence?] [sects must craft and cut a political deal else this is perpetuity for Iraq] [*]
BAGHDAD — A wave of car bombings and shootings hit cities in Iraq late Sunday and on Monday, killing at least 76 people and wounding more than 250, medical and security officials said. Some news agency reports put the overall toll even higher, at 86 or more dead.
The attacks sharpened concerns that sectarian violence was pushing the country toward a conflagration similar to the widespread fighting of 2006 and 2007, before the withdrawal of American forces.
In Baghdad, at least seven car bombs went off on Monday in Shiite neighborhoods, killing at least 25 people and wounding at least 150; some news reports cited as many as 10 car

Continue reading "Attacks in Iraqi Cities Raise Fears of Renewed Sectarian Conflict" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:24 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/world/asia/applying-early-lessons-to-build-afghan-security.html
May 20, 2013
Applying Early Lessons to Build Afghan Security
By THOM SHANKER [Afghanistan] [AfPak] [use psci 350, 355-455, 463] [in late Nov-early Dec Pakistan released some Taliban who are needed for reconciliation inside Afghanistan (improving relations with Karzai govt)] [two important deadlines now loom large in Afghanistan’s future: end of 2013 when all the Obama increases since taking office are to redeploy out of Afghanistan, leaving almost exactly the number of troops as when Obama took office] [second deadline is the end of 2014 when foreign combat troops are to withdraw] [followup] [in a sort of poetic symmetry, the special operations that began and guided the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan back in Oct 2001, is back applying lessons to the withdrawal and aftermath of same after Dec 2014] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — As a young Army Green Beret major in December 2001, Don Bolduc fought shoulder to shoulder in an offensive against Kandahar, the Taliban’s spiritual capital, with a little-known Pashtun resistance commander named Hamid Karzai.
The offensive was nearly aborted when a 2,000-pound bomb dropped from a high-altitude American B-52 fell on their position, a friendly fire catastrophe that killed three Green Berets and five Afghan militiamen — and could have ended the life of the future Afghan president.
His hip damaged in the blast, Major Bolduc declined medical evacuation. He tended to the grim task of gathering the remains of the fallen soldiers, and, resuming their advance, Mr. Karzai’s militia and the Army Special Forces advisers swept into Kandahar, routing the

Continue reading "Applying Early Lessons to Build Afghan Security" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:23 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/world/asia/gunmen-attack-polio-workers-in-pakistani-tribal-belt.html
May 20, 2013
Musharraf Granted Bail in the Killing of Bhutto
By SALMAN MASOOD and ISMAIL KHAN [Pakistan] [AfPak] [hub of the al Qaeda and Taliban activity in AfPak] [and of al Qaeda globally] [use psci 350, 355-455, 463] [under Obama administration, Bush’s policy of drones (sticks) and carrots( $) has increased to Zardari] [Pakistan is really where U.S. interests converge: nukes, India-Pakistan, and GSAVE] [followup, yesterday] [when Musharraf finally returned to Pakistan, after years abroad in England and Gulf, one of his motivations was to “save” Pakistan (see Mar 24)] [Musharraf is arrested again and may be charged with something related to Bhutto’s assasination (December 2007)] [followup, Ap 26] [Musharraf finally gets out of jail on bond] [*]
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — After weeks of legal setbacks, Pakistan’s former military ruler, Pervez Musharraf, won a small victory on Monday amid media speculation that the military is seeking to free the former army chief from a tangle of court cases.
An antiterrorism court in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, granted Mr. Musharraf bail on charges relating to the death of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in 2007 while Mr. Musharraf was in power.
His lawyer, Salman Safdar, said bail, which was set close to $20,000, represented Mr. Musharraf’s “first legal relief” since his dramatic return from exile in March and subsequent arrest. [*]
The decision will not, however, set the former military leader free. He remains under house arrest at his luxury villa outside Islamabad in connection with two other cases: the killing of a Baloch nationalist leader in 2006 and the firing of senior judges in 2007.

Continue reading "Musharraf Granted Bail in the Killing of Bhutto" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:22 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2013/05/20/along_the_turkey-syria_border_erdogans_own_are_turning_against_him_105173.html
Real Clear Politics
Republished from Le Monde
[Accessed 5/20/13 8:05:31 AM] [*]
May 20, 2013
Along the Turkey-Syria Border, Erdogan's Own Are Turning Against Him
By Benjamin Barthe [French media] [reprinted in Real Clear Politics, cross in societal] [Turkey] [former Asia Minor] [the last Caliphate] [Turkey’s sizable border with Syria] [Syria] [something approaching full civil war in neighboring Syria] [over the course of the civil war in Syria, multiple times Syria has spilled over into Turkey] [Syria’s civil war acting like magnate to foreign fighters from neighboring states and abroad] [no greater example of the Sunni-Shi’a sectarian faultline!] [the figure being bandied about now is 70,000 KIA] [the effects the Syria spillover is having along the border in Turkey] [use psci 355-455, 463] [followup, May 15] [Erdogan’s popularity is decreasing?] [*]
This article first appeared in Le Monde.
REYHANLI - Nearly a week after the two car-bomb attacks rocked this sleepy town, the people of Reyhanli, in southern Turkey, are still burying their dead.
In this Hatay Province town, near the border with Syria, three more bodies have just been found under the rubble, bringing the death toll from the May 11 attack to 51. Little by little, grief and despondency are being replaced by anger.
This exclusively Sunni town is definitely no bastion of resistance to the Justice and Development Party (AKP), the ruling conservative Islamic party. But now, the people of Reyhanli are holding Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accountable for their situation -- accusing him of dragging their country into civil war by being assertive towards Bashar El-

Continue reading "Along the Turkey-Syria Border, Erdogan's Own Are Turning Against Him" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:11 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/20/world/asia/chinese-hackers-resume-attacks-on-us-targets.html
May 19, 2013
Chinese Hackers Resume Attacks on U.S. Targets
By DAVID E. SANGER and NICOLE PERLROTH [Obama White House] [113th congress, 1st session] [bureaucracy: DHS and Pentagon’s cybersecurity unit] [return of the brouhaha over China’s military hacking into U.S. computers (both public and private)] [use psci 355-455] [they’re back!] [*]
WASHINGTON — Three months after hackers working for a cyberunit of China’s People’s Liberation Army went silent amid evidence that they had stolen data from scores of American companies and government agencies, they appear to have resumed their attacks using different techniques, according to computer industry security experts and American officials.
The Obama administration had bet that “naming and shaming” the groups, first in industry reports and then in the Pentagon’s own detailed survey of Chinese military capabilities, might prompt China’s new leadership to crack down on the military’s highly organized team of hackers — or at least urge them to become more subtle.
But Unit 61398, whose well-guarded 12-story white headquarters on the edges of Shanghai became the symbol of Chinese cyberpower, is back in business, according to American

Continue reading "Chinese Hackers Resume Attacks on U.S. Targets" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:02 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/a-rare-peek-into-a-justice-department-leak-probe/2013/05/19/0bc473de-be5e-11e2-97d4-a479289a31f9_story.html
A rare peek into a Justice Department leak probe
By Ann E. Marimow, Published: May 19 [Obama White House] [113th congress, 1st session] [bureaucracy: Justice and apparently IC] [don’t yet know what happened exactly but apparently the Justice Dept collected AP (perhaps other journalists) phone records?] [Justice says it was part of ongoing terrorism investigations] [use psci 355-455, 463] [but in the U.S., this is sacred ground (free press, freedom to discuss ideas, even controversial ones, so forth)] [this has the potential to be a scandle] [followup, May 14] [finally, we are seeing some details of why Justice would be investigating journalists of AP] [*]
When the Justice Department began investigating possible leaks of classified information about North Korea in 2009, investigators did more than obtain telephone records of a working journalist suspected of receiving the secret material.
They used security badge access records to track the reporter’s comings and goings from the State Department, according to a newly obtained court affidavit. They traced the timing of his calls with a State Department security adviser suspected of sharing the classified report. They obtained a search warrant for the reporter’s personal e-mails. [*]
The case of Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, the government adviser, and James Rosen, the chief Washington correspondent for Fox News, bears striking similarities to a sweeping leaks investigation disclosed last week in which federal investigators obtained records over two months of more than 20 telephone lines assigned to the Associated Press.

Continue reading "A rare peek into a Justice Department leak probe" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:01 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/20/world/europe/many-of-spains-sephardic-jews-still-waiting-for-citizenship.html
May 19, 2013
Many of Spain’s Sephardic Jews Still Waiting for Citizenship
By RAPHAEL MINDER [Spain] [largely domestic politics with foreign policy implications] [Sephardic Jews in Spain] [who were killed and exiled during Spanish Inquisition] [followup] [*]
MADRID — Six months after announcing a significant easing of the naturalization process for Sephardic Jews, the Spanish government has yet to put the rules into practice, leaving many applicants for citizenship frustrated.
The change, announced in November by the foreign and justice ministers, was presented at the time as a conciliatory gesture toward Sephardic Jews, whose ancestors were expelled more than five centuries ago during the Spanish Inquisition, one of the darkest chapters in Spanish history.
Foreign Minister José Manuel García-Margallo said the time had come “to recover Spain’s silenced memory.”
But the naturalization process is unchanged, with no specific date set for the promised overhaul to go into effect. A spokeswoman for the nation’s Justice Ministry said last week

Continue reading "Many of Spain’s Sephardic Jews Still Waiting for Citizenship" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:00 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/20/world/europe/bomb-suspects-trip-sheds-light-on-caucasus-war.html
May 19, 2013
Dagestan’s Bitter Shadow War, Fought by ‘Many Tsarnaevs’
By ELLEN BARRY [Russia] [former USSR] [Dagestan] [Trans Caucasus] [democratization and rule of law in Russia] [Vlad and his proclivities represent a lot of Russians who don’t care for the way the world has changed since 1991] [Russia’s long and expensive war with jihadis in northern Caucasus] [use psci350] [use ir text] [use psci 463] [it has actually been a while since one of these stories popped up with Russia] [followup, Aug 25, 28 2012] [with both the recent stuff (just 5 weeks ago) in Boston and now news out of former USSR trans Caucasus region, the war against Russia appears to be heating up again?] [*]
KHASAVYURT, Russia — The slender man of 22, a former guerrilla fighter, was making another hangdog, penitent appearance at the behest of city officials here. It was brainwashing that led him to take up arms against the state and “go to the forest,” he said, and his sincere desire was to forget that it had ever happened. [*]
Most of the time, people like this young man, Dzhabrail Altysultanov, do not come back alive, the deputy mayor of Khasavyurt, a city near the Chechen border, acknowledged matter-of-factly, as a waitress brought a steaming platter of roasted meat. If Mr. Altysultanov had not surrendered, the official said, “they would have had to gather him up in pieces.” The younger man looked down at his plate.

Continue reading "Dagestan’s Bitter Shadow War, Fought by ‘Many Tsarnaevs’" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 07:59 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/20/world/asia/prime-minister-li-keqiang-of-china-arrives-in-india-for-talks.html
May 19, 2013
Chinese Official Arrives in India, Hoping to Focus on Trade
By GARDINER HARRIS and JANE PERLEZ [China] [PRC] [NEAsia] [China’s growing role for its military in China’s foreign policy] [China’s CCP has been watching the Arab Awakening with serious trepidation] [use psci 350] [China’s new leadership (selected at last November’s Party Congress, 18th) led by Xi Jinping takes charge!] [interestingly, under last fall’s new leadership China has begun to work on its old Cold War vintage (and very poor) relationship with India (the other Asia economy growing rapidly)] [followup] [part of the reason India became so pro Soviets during Cold War was the border war with China in 1962 (having to do with Kashmir)] [which is partly to explain why Pakistan became pro U.S. and later pro China] [*]
NEW DELHI — Still bruised and somewhat bewildered by a recent border dispute with China, Indian government officials welcomed the Chinese prime minister, Li Keqiang, on Sunday for his first trip abroad since assuming office in March.
Mr. Li and his counterpart here, Manmohan Singh, held private talks followed by a dinner at Mr. Singh’s official residence. Many of India’s top political leaders, including opposition figures, were on the guest list.
An account of Mr. Li’s meeting with Mr. Singh published by China’s state-run news agency,

Continue reading "Chinese Official Arrives in India, Hoping to Focus on Trade" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 07:59 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/20/world/asia/north-korea-seized-chinese-fishing-boat.html
May 19, 2013
North Korea Seized Chinese Boat
By CHRIS BUCKLEY [China] [PRC] [NEAsia] [DPRK] [North Korea] [Sino-DPRK relationship dating back well into the Cold War] [months of tensions recently appeared to have run their course] [and China seemed to side against DPRK, something quite rare] [now this?] [use psci 350, 355-455] [followup] [DPRK publicized the fact that it took and held a Chinese fishing boat earlier this month!] [it’s hard to see how this can but make Sino-DPRK relations worsen?] [at some point one must wonder what DPRK’s plan is?] [alienate the west including most of the UN] [then alienate its single benfactor, China?] [*]
HONG KONG — China revealed on Sunday that North Korea seized a Chinese fishing boat this month and detained its crewmen, who remain in custody, an episode likely to worsen recent discord between the two.
The vessel’s owner, Yu Xuejun, called the Chinese Embassy in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, on May 10 to seek help, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a brief statement issued through Sina Weibo, the country’s Twitter-like microblog service. Mr. Yu was not on the boat when it was seized.
“The embassy immediately made representations to the consular affairs bureau of the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, asking that North Korea release the vessel and the crew as soon as possible, and ensure the safety of the lives and property of the detained

Continue reading "North Korea Seized Chinese Boat" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 07:58 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/20/world/europe/russia-expels-former-american-embassy-official.html
May 19, 2013
Russia Expels Former American Embassy Official
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and MARK MAZZETTI [Russia] [former USSR] [Russia-U.S. relations, which have been dicey for years] [democratization and rule of law in Russia] [Vlad and his proclivities represent a lot of Russians who don’t care for the way the world has changed since 1991] [use psci 350, 355-455] [followup, May 15] [when the headline ran “Despite Focus on Spectacle, Russia Hints Spy Case Won’t Disrupt U.S. Ties”] [now State’s Thomas Firestone has been declared persona non grata] [thus, it continues to carom about some?] [*]
MOSCOW — A former senior Justice Department official at the American Embassy here was declared “persona non grata” and barred from Russia this month, according to people familiar with the case, possibly because he had rebuffed an effort by the Russian Federal Security Service to recruit him as a spy.
The former official, Thomas Firestone, had been living and working in Moscow as a lawyer for an American law firm, and had extensive contacts in the Russian government. He was detained at Sheremetyevo airport outside Moscow on May 5 while trying to return to Russia from a trip abroad; the authorities held him for 16 hours and then put him on a flight to the United States.
Mr. Firestone was contacted in March by Russian intelligence operatives who sought to enlist him to spy for the Russians, according to one person who is familiar with the case.

Continue reading "Russia Expels Former American Embassy Official" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 07:57 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/20/world/middleeast/fresh-israeli-face-plays-down-political-decline.html
May 19, 2013
Fresh Israeli Face Plays Down Dimming of Political Star
By JODI RUDOREN [Israeli media] [Israel] [domestic politics which has the potential to affect foreign policy down the road] [Israeli-Palestinian conflict] [Israel-Syria civil war] [Syria and Iran because Iran is understandably an obsession in Israel] [recall Netanyahu’s formation of a government back in mid March and the election held just before same] [recall also Yair Lapid, with his Yesh Atid Party that came in second in balloting] [this is about his meteoric beginning and, apparently, rapid burn out?] [he rallied middle class causes, largely domestic issues] [it’s interesting to watch Israeli public opinion whiplash around just as others do at time] [followup] [*]
TEL AVIV — To say Yair Lapid has been on a roller coaster would be an understatement. One recent headline blared about his “meteoric rise and fall,” another said he had gone from “political darling to national whipping boy.”
Mr. Lapid, a popular television host with no political experience, stunned Israel in January by galvanizing the secular middle class around kitchen-table concerns to make his new Yesh Atid Party the second largest in Parliament. He was immediately crowned a kingmaker, and talked openly about quickly replacing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
But he ended up with the fraught job of finance minister, and facing a huge deficit. As he presented an austerity budget this month with tax increases and subsidy cuts that hit hard

Continue reading "Fresh Israeli Face Plays Down Dimming of Political Star" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 07:56 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/20/world/asia/north-korea-again-fires-short-range-missiles.html
May 19, 2013
Launchings by North Korea Raise Tensions
By CHOE SANG-HUN [DPRK] [North Korea] [DPRK-ROK relationship dating back well into the Cold War] [a series of actions and vitriolic back and forths over the past several weeks between the two Koreas resulting in extraordinary levels of alert for war and, ultimately, the joint-business adventure between the two at Kaesong being closed] [the peninsula had become so quiet some were beginning to think the period of tensions had past] [not quite: it seems DPRK might have launched 3 short-range missiles off its east coast (causing Japan some uncertaintly?)] [use psci 350, 355-455] [followup, Mat 18] [the tensions return?] [*]
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea launched a short-range projectile into waters off its east coast on Sunday, as South Korea condemned the North’s provocations and urged it to accept a proposal for dialogue.
North Korea conducted three similar launchings in the same area on Saturday, rattling the region after governments had hoped for an easing of tensions after months of bellicose pronouncements from the North.
South Korean officials had called the weapons tested on Saturday “short-range guided missiles.” On Sunday, they began referring to the “projectiles” that had been launched over the weekend, saying that they may have included not only the modified KN-02 short-range

Continue reading "Launchings by North Korea Raise Tensions" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 07:55 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/world/middleeast/syria-developments.html
May 20, 2013
Hezbollah Suffers Losses in Fierce Battle for Syrian City
By ANNE BARNARD [dateline Lebanon] [Syria] [Syria’s civil war acting like magnate to foreign fighters from neighboring states and abroad] [no greater example of the Sunni-Shi’a sectarian faultline!] [the figure being bandied about now 80,000 KIA or more—as of recently] [over the past few months, in particular, growing unease about the symbiotic relationship between Syria’s civil war and Iraq] [-ir] [spillover both ways] [Nursa and others in Syria have joined with AQI in Iraq] [use psci 350, 355-455, 463] [followup, May 18] [not only are we hearing of foreign fighters, then AQI (a special case of foreign fighters) and Hezbollah (another special case) but increasingly of Hezbollah leading fire fights] [the single, inescapable conclusion is that Syria’s civil war is spreading or metasticizing through region?] [*]
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Fighting raged on Monday in the strategic Syrian city of Qusayr, as the government unleashed new airstrikes and rebels resisted fiercely in parts of the city even as their makeshift hospitals overflowed with the wounded, Syrian opposition activists said.
The toll of dead and wounded also continued to rise for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which is fighting its biggest battle yet on the side of President Bashar al-Assad. Both sides have depicted the fighting in Qusayr as a turning point in the war that is raising regional tensions as Hezbollah plunges more deeply into the conflict. [in a sense, it couldn’t happen to a more worthy group] [or course, the same can be said about al Assad’s forces or even the Nursa-AQI groups] [I called this the Realpolitik logic recently: that is, that on some fairly base level it’s in the west’s interests to encourage or just watch them bleed each other dry!] [the counter case is it only encourages the blood feud between Shi’a and Sunni] [*]

Continue reading "Hezbollah Suffers Losses in Fierce Battle for Syrian City" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 07:54 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2013/05/20/world/middleeast/20reuters-iraq-violence-market.html
May 20, 2013
Car Bomb Blast Kills at Least 12 in Iraqi Capital
By REUTERS [-ir] [Baghdad] [maliki is in power struggle with fellow Shi’a groups and Iraq’s Sunni minority] [Syria] [Syria’s civil war acting like magnate to foreign fighters from neighboring states and abroad] [no greater example of the Sunni-Shi’a sectarian faultline!] [use psci 350, 355-455, 463] [more sectarian violence rending the nation] [followup, May 17] [Reuters with the latest, early Monday violence in Shi’a neighborhood in Baghdad] [*]
BAGHDAD — A car bomb exploded in a Shi'ite neighborhood of the Iraqi capital Baghdad killing at least 12 people on Monday, police and hospital sources said.
The blast, near a crowded market in the northern Shaab district of Baghdad, wounded 26.
Earlier on Monday, at least 43 people were killed in a wave of car bomb explosions targeting Shi'ite Muslims in Baghdad and the southern oil hub of Basra, police and medics said.
(Reporting by Kareem Raheem; Writing by Ahmed rasheed; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Continue reading "Car Bomb Blast Kills at Least 12 in Iraqi Capital" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 07:54 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/world/middleeast/baghdad-basra-iraq-bombings.html
May 20, 2013
Wave of Bombings Kills Dozens in Iraq
By DURAID ADNAN [-ir] [Baghdad] [maliki is in power struggle with fellow Shi’a groups and Iraq’s Sunni minority] [Syria] [Syria’s civil war acting like magnate to foreign fighters from neighboring states and abroad] [no greater example of the Sunni-Shi’a sectarian faultline!] [use psci 350, 355-455, 463] [more sectarian violence rending the nation] [followup, May 17] [among other reasons, the Shi’a majority government the U.S. helped establish has not reached out to its political opponents (enemies in Shi’a perceptions), resulting in Sunni miscreants returning to the mats (civil war, if necessary) to get their demands] [it’s beginning to feel like this regional violence—in Iraq to Syria to Pakistan and Afghanistan—is coordinated by some group or entity!?] [*]
BAGHDAD — A wave of car bombs hit Baghdad and oil-rich Basra in southern Iraq on Monday, killing at least 48 people and injuring 170, security and medical officials said, deepening concerns that sectarian violence is pushing the country toward a conflagration recalling the widespread fighting of 2006-2007 before the withdrawal of American forces.
Some reports put the toll higher from the series of blasts, which began in Basra when two car bombs went off at a restaurant and a bus stop, the officials said.
Soon after, at least seven car bombs went off in Baghdad, the capital, targeting Shiite neighborhoods following a string of attacks against Sunni areas two days ago that left almost 70 dead.

Continue reading "Wave of Bombings Kills Dozens in Iraq" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 07:53 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/world/asia/bombing-kills-key-figure-in-northern-afghanistan.html
May 20, 2013
Bombing Kills Key Figure in Northern Afghan Province
By ROD NORDLAND [Afghanistan] [AfPak] [use psci 350, 355-455, 463] [in late Nov-early Dec Pakistan released some Taliban who are needed for reconciliation inside Afghanistan (improving relations with Karzai govt)] [two important deadlines now loom large in Afghanistan’s future: end of 2013 when all the Obama increases since taking office are to redeploy out of Afghanistan, leaving almost exactly the number of troops as when Obama took office] [second deadline is the end of 2014 when foreign combat troops are to withdraw] [followup, Ap 18] [the recent “Wave of Violence”—begun with the as each winter thaw brings a new spring offensive—that was the subject of yesterday’s coverage continues and claims a relatively important provincial council head (almost like a govenor) in northern Baghlan Province] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — A suicide bomber disguised as a police officer killed 14 people on Monday, including the head of a provincial council in northern Afghanistan, officials said.
The head of the council, Rasul Mohseni, commonly known as Rasul Khan, was widely regarded as the most powerful man in Baghlan Province and was a veteran commander who had led northerners in revolt against the Taliban regime. He was killed along with four of his bodyguards and three police officers, as well as six civilians, according to Zubair Akbari, the province’s director of public health. Nine other people were wounded. [*]
Sadiq Muradi, the deputy police chief of Baghlan Province, said that Mr. Mohseni had

Continue reading "Bombing Kills Key Figure in Northern Afghan Province" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 07:52 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/20/world/asia/assassination-shakes-new-round-of-voting-in-pakistan.html
May 19, 2013
Killing of Pakistani Politician Shakes New Voting Round
By SALMAN MASOOD [Pakistan] [AfPak] [hub of the al Qaeda and Taliban activity in AfPak] [and of al Qaeda globally] [use psci 350, 355-455, 463] [under Obama administration, Bush’s policy of drones (sticks) and carrots( $) has increased to Zardari] [Pakistan is really where U.S. interests converge: nukes, India-Pakistan, and GSAVE] [Zarari successfully—though it’s relative—finished out his term, no mean feat] [followup, May 18] [the violence and tumolt of the past several days—the post-election violence—continues in Pakistan and has now, apparently, made some voters skittish about followup-round of voting?] [*]
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Voters in an upscale district of Karachi turned out in low numbers on Sunday for a repeat of the parliamentary election there, a day after a prominent official in a major political party was gunned down in the area, officials said. [*]
The district was a focus for accusations of election fraud during national voting on May 11, and voting there was suspended early that day after reports of violent intimidation. In particular, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf — the party led by the former cricket star Imran Khan, which has made inroads among affluent Karachi voters — blamed the dominant party in the city, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, of trying to prevent his supporters from reaching the polls. [*]
Then, late Saturday, a co-founder of Mr. Khan’s party, Zahra Shahid Hussain, 60, was shot to death outside her home in the same Karachi district, known as NA-250. Police officials

Continue reading "Killing of Pakistani Politician Shakes New Voting Round" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 07:51 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-speech-to-address-counterterrorism-measures/2013/05/18/32ddac80-bff1-11e2-9b09-1638acc3942e_story.html
Obama speech to address counterterrorism measures
By Scott Wilson, Published: May 18 [Obama White House] [113th congress, 1st session] [U.S counterterrorism strategy that was published in June 2011] [GSAVE] [LWOT] [considerable continuity between W. Bush and Obama] [followup] [because of all the mini “scandals” the media have been preoccupied with this was scarcely covered last week] [use psci 355-455, 463] [followup] [President Obama gave an important counterterrorism speech at the National Defense University] [*]
President Obama will deliver a speech Thursday at the National Defense University in which he will address how he intends to bring his counterterrorism policies, including the drone program and the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in line with the legal framework he promised after taking office. [frankly, it’s beyond time] [*]
A White House official, speaking Saturday on the condition of anonymity to describe the speech in advance, said Obama will “discuss our broad counterterrorism policy, including our military, diplomatic, intelligence and legal efforts.”
“He will review the state of the threats we face, particularly as the al-Qaeda core has weakened but new dangers have emerged,” the official said. “He will discuss the policy and legal framework under which we take action against terrorist threats, including the use of

Continue reading "Obama speech to address counterterrorism measures" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:15 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/world/asia/under-pressure-china-measures-its-impact-in-myanmar.html
May 18, 2013
China Tries to Improve Image in a Changing Myanmar
By JANE PERLEZ and BREE FENG [Myanmar] [formerly Burma] [recent political liberalization not without costs] [in addition to ethnic and religious tensions, some of Burma’s least capable seem to be left behind?] [followup, May 14] [Myanmar is one of the many places China has cultivated for its industrialization resources] [as the military juanta morphs into something else (at least in the direction of multi-party democracy) the Chinese have a problem: they must contend with the people rather than just the government] [as in parts of Africa, China is on a PR offensive] [use psci 350, 355-455] [*]
MADAY ISLAND, Myanmar — The pipelines are finished. The oil storage tanks gleam in the tropical sun. The deep-sea port set in jade-colored waters awaits the first ships bearing crude from the Middle East.
China’s ambition of transporting energy through the Indian Ocean and across the mountains of Myanmar seems close to fulfillment. Natural gas is scheduled to start flowing in July from wells deep in the Bay of Bengal through a 500-mile pipeline. Oil will run in a parallel pipe at the end of the year.
But for China, the cost of the pipelines has been far greater than the several billion dollars that the China National Petroleum Corporation, China’s energy giant, has spent on

Continue reading "China Tries to Improve Image in a Changing Myanmar" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:12 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/world/asia/anwar-malaysias-opposition-leader-takes-to-the-streets.html
May 18, 2013
Disputed Election Sends Malaysian Politician Back to Fight on the Streets
By THOMAS FULLER [Malaysia] [SEA] [Islam in SEA is normally pretty moderate version of Islam] [the National Front has run Malaysia since the late 1950s] [it’s been a virtual one-party system with ethnicity pitted against ethnicity (Malay, Chinese, others)] [it should all be known soon] [National Front pulls it out, suggesting very little has change to date (though it may indicate change is looming)] [the Front agreed to have some kind of audit but the opposition has begun to get ancy (perhaps with some reason)] [followup, May 5] [*]
KUANTAN, Malaysia — Not long ago he was flirting with the idea of semiretirement, maybe a teaching job at an American university. But now Anwar Ibrahim, the leader of the Malaysian opposition, former political prisoner and longtime bugbear of the establishment, says those plans are firmly on the shelf.
After a disputed election this month, in which he and his allies won a majority of votes but failed to capture control of Parliament, Mr. Anwar has returned to his roots as a political street fighter, drawing large crowds across the country to protest what he calls mass vote rigging.
“Rise up!” he beseeched a crowd of thousands crammed last week into a field in this seaside

Continue reading "Disputed Election Sends Malaysian Politician Back to Fight on the Streets" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:11 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/world/middleeast/syria-developments.html
May 18, 2013
Assad Suggests Peace Talks Would Fail Because West Wants to Prolong War
By ANNE BARNARD [Syria] [Syria’s civil war acting like magnate to foreign fighters from neighboring states and abroad] [no greater example of the Sunni-Shi’a sectarian faultline!] [the figure being bandied about now 80,000 KIA or more—as of recently] [over the past few months, in particular, growing unease about the symbiotic relationship between Syria’s civil war and Iraq] [-ir] [spillover both ways] [Nursa and others in Syria have joined with AQI in Iraq] [use psci 350, 355-455, 463] [followup, May 17] [in an interview with a foreign newspaper al Assad laments the possibility of peace talks (currently, being pushed by U.S. and Russia jointly in new effort) because, al Assad says, the West desires to see the fighting bleed Syria dry] [while there’s a certain Realpolitik logic, a more accurate reason to think the talks doomed is al Assad’s determination never to lose his grip—the irony is he’s ensuring over time he will lose it] [the only questions are how much time and who will fill the void?] [*]
BEIRUT, Lebanon — President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, in a rare interview with a foreign newspaper, appeared to dismiss the possibility of serious progress arising from any peace talks, and to back away from earlier statements by Syrian officials that the government was willing to negotiate with its armed opponents.
“We do not believe that many Western countries really want a solution in Syria,” Mr. Assad

Continue reading "Assad Suggests Peace Talks Would Fail Because West Wants to Prolong War " »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:10 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2013/05/19/world/middleeast/ap-ml-syria.html
May 19, 2013
Syrian Troops Said to Strike Town Near Lebanon
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS [Syria] [Syria’s civil war acting like magnate to foreign fighters from neighboring states and abroad] [no greater example of the Sunni-Shi’a sectarian faultline!] [the figure being bandied about now 80,000 KIA or more—as of recently] [over the past few months, in particular, growing unease about the symbiotic relationship between Syria’s civil war and Iraq] [-ir] [spillover both ways] [Nursa and others in Syria have joined with AQI in Iraq] [use psci 350, 355-455, 463] [followup, May 17] [al Assad’s military apparently launced a counter offensive near Lebanese border where Hezbollah forces are said to be heavily invovled] [if not for the collateral damage invariably and inevitably done, the U.S. would probably quietly welcome diminution of Hezbollah inside Syria?] [*]
AMMAN, Jordan — Syrian troops backed by tanks and warplanes launched an assault Sunday on a strategic rebel-held town near the Lebanese border, pounding the area with airstrikes and artillery salvos that killed at least 30 people and forced residents to scramble for cover in basements and makeshift bunkers, activists said.
The town of Qusair has been besieged for weeks by regime troops and pro-government gunmen backed by the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group. The siege is part of a withering offensives forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad have been pushing in recent weeks to regain control of the towns and villages along the Lebanese frontier.

Continue reading "Syrian Troops Said to Strike Town Near Lebanon" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:09 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/world/asia/north-korea-missiles.html
May 18, 2013
North Korea Reportedly Launches Short-Range Missiles
By CHOE SANG-HUN [DPRK] [North Korea] [DPRK-ROK relationship dating back well into the Cold War] [a series of actions and vitriolic back and forths over the past several weeks between the two Koreas resulting in extraordinary levels of alert for war and, ultimately, the joint-business adventure between the two at Kaesong being closed] [the peninsula had become so quiet some were beginning to think the period of tensions had past] [not quite: it seems DPRK might have launched 3 short-range missiles off its east coast (causing Japan some uncertaintly?)] [use psci 350, 355-455] [followup, yesterday] [a little more info and what DPRK launched] [*]
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea launched three short-range missiles into the sea off its east coast on Saturday, the South Korean Defense Ministry said. The tests broke the recent relative silence from the North, but the move was much less provocative than what had been feared in the tense weeks after the country’s nuclear test in February.
Short-range tests from North Korea are fairly routine, and as it often has, the North fired the missiles away from South Korea and toward the northeast.
South Korean and American officials have worried that North Korea would cap weeks of bluster after the nuclear blast with the test of a longer-range missile that might show

Continue reading "North Korea Reportedly Launches Short-Range Missiles" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:09 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/world/asia/efforts-to-strengthen-afghan-law-on-women-may-backfire.html
May 18, 2013
Effort to Strengthen an Afghan Law on Women May Backfire
By ALISSA J. RUBIN [Afghanistan] [AfPak] [use psci 350, 355-455, 463] [in late Nov-early Dec Pakistan released some Taliban who are needed for reconciliation inside Afghanistan (improving relations with Karzai govt)] [two important deadlines now loom large in Afghanistan’s future: end of 2013 when all the Obama increases since taking office are to redeploy out of Afghanistan, leaving almost exactly the number of troops as when Obama took office] [second deadline is the end of 2014 when foreign combat troops are to withdraw] [followup] [the tragic saga of women in Afghani tribal and religious cultures where they are chattle and little else, despite the 2004-05 constitution] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — Even with some legal protections in place, Afghan women, and sometimes even little girls, can be sold to pay family debts. In the country’s vast rural areas, just talking to a man who is not a close relative can be punishable by death. And in some places, girls are routinely married at puberty.
And now, preserving any protections long-term appears to be in question, as the country’s tiny women’s rights movement faces an unenviable decision: leave intact the only law that

Continue reading "Effort to Strengthen an Afghan Law on Women May Backfire" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:07 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/world/asia/police-officers-are-targets-in-wave-of-afghan-violence.html
May 18, 2013
Afghanistan Hit by Wave of Violence
By AZAM AHMED [Afghanistan] [AfPak] [use psci 350, 355-455, 463] [in late Nov-early Dec Pakistan released some Taliban who are needed for reconciliation inside Afghanistan (improving relations with Karzai govt)] [two important deadlines now loom large in Afghanistan’s future: end of 2013 when all the Obama increases since taking office are to redeploy out of Afghanistan, leaving almost exactly the number of troops as when Obama took office] [second deadline is the end of 2014 when foreign combat troops are to withdraw] [followup, Ap 17] [the recent wave of violence—begun with the as each winter thaw brings a new spring offensive—that began a month or more ago continues to rack the country] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — A spate of violence across Afghanistan has claimed the lives of nearly two dozen Afghan police officers and civilians in the past few days, including a district police official assassinated over a recent anti-Taliban campaign.
Two gunmen on motorcycles in the Khaki Safed district of Farah Province, in western Afghanistan, killed the police official, Abdul Ghani, in front of his home on Friday night, apparently as retribution for a crackdown on the Taliban that killed several insurgents, a

Continue reading "Afghanistan Hit by Wave of Violence" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:07 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/world/asia/pakistans-railroads-sum-up-nations-1woes.html
May 18, 2013
Pakistan, Rusting in Its Tracks
By DECLAN WALSH [Pakistan] [AfPak] [hub of the al Qaeda and Taliban activity in AfPak] [and of al Qaeda globally] [use psci 350, 355-455, 463] [under Obama administration, Bush’s policy of drones (sticks) and carrots( $) has increased to Zardari] [Pakistan is really where U.S. interests converge: nukes, India-Pakistan, and GSAVE] [Zarari successfully—though it’s relative—finished out his term, no mean feat] [followup] [a long, Sunday expose that the Times published from time to time on an important world spot that holds interest for the U.S. and American foreign policy] [only given Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal—bigger that England’s and approaching France’s combined with Pakistan’s volatility—said arsenal is as worrisome as anywhere] [we worry about Iran perhaps building one? Pakistan has upwards of hundred or more and missiles to deliver them on India starting global conflagration!] [this piece by Declan Walsh, whom the Pakistanis recently made persona non grata, demonstrated the cost of the mililtary’s control of most insitutions] [*]
RUK, Pakistan — Resplendent in his gleaming white uniform and peaked cap, jacket buttons tugging his plump girth, the stationmaster stood at the platform, waiting for a train that would never come. “Cutbacks,” Nisar Ahmed Abro said with a resigned shrug.
Ruk Station, in the center of Pakistan, is a dollhouse-pretty building, ringed by palm trees and rice paddies. Once, it stood at the junction of two great Pakistani rail lines: the Kandahar State Railway, which raced north through the desert to the Afghan border; and another that swept east to west, chaining cities from the Hindu Kush mountains to the Arabian Sea.
Now it was a ghost station. No train had stopped at Ruk in six months, because of cost

Continue reading "Pakistan, Rusting in Its Tracks" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:06 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/world/asia/gunmen-kill-pakistan-party-official.html
May 18, 2013
Gunmen Kill Pakistan Party Official
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS [Pakistan] [AfPak] [hub of the al Qaeda and Taliban activity in AfPak] [and of al Qaeda globally] [use psci 350, 355-455, 463] [under Obama administration, Bush’s policy of drones (sticks) and carrots( $) has increased to Zardari] [Pakistan is really where U.S. interests converge: nukes, India-Pakistan, and GSAVE] [Zarari successfully—though it’s relative—finished out his term, no mean feat] [followup, May 17] [the violence and tumolt of the past several days—the post-election violence—continues in Pakistan!] [*]
KARACHI, Pakistan — The police said gunmen on a motorcycle shot and killed a senior member of a leading Pakistani political party on Saturday. [Karachi is, historically, a very violent city] [it’s multi-ethnic and it includes a special designation for émigré from India all thrown into a witches’ brew of violent politics and religious-qua-politics] [*]
Officer Sarfaraz Nawaz said the victim, Zohra Shahid, was gunned down outside her home in Karachi in southern Sindh Province. Ms. Shahid was the vice president of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, the party led by the former Pakistani cricket star Imran Khan. [*]
No one had claimed responsibility for the killing by Saturday night.
Mr. Khan’s party has claimed it was the victim of vote-rigging in several areas of Pakistan, including Karachi, in national elections held on May 11. Pakistan’s election commission plans to hold a new vote for several National Assembly seats, including in Karachi.
Jamal Siddiqui, a spokesman for Mr. Khan’s party, said Ms. Shahid had been killed to sabotage a new election scheduled to be take place in Karachi on Sunday.

Continue reading "Gunmen Kill Pakistan Party Official" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:05 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/18/world/europe/kerry-lavrov-ties-grow-despite-us-russia-spats.html
May 17, 2013
U.S.-Russian Diplomacy, With a Personal Touch
By STEVEN LEE MYERS and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN [Obama White House] [113th congress, 1st session] [NSC principals committee to the bureaucracy (state and others)] [U.S.-Russia relations] [followup] [the changes in the relationship since Secretary of State Kerry replaced former Secretary Clinton] [use psci 355-455, 463] [followup] [it will be interesting to see how long this improved atmosphere—assuming that’s what it is--lasts] [while it makes a certain sense to lower the atmospherics the relationship is fraught with dangers for reasons, which have not changed substantially] [cross in individual] [*]
WASHINGTON — When Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, clashed over Syria last year with Hillary Rodham Clinton, then the secretary of state, he called her hysterical, the sort of impolitic remark that showed just how sour their relationship had become.
The hardened positions of Russia and the United States over Syria and other issues have not changed significantly since then, but with John Kerry replacing Mrs. Clinton, the tone at least has.
Despite fight after fight in recent months over everything from new sanctions targeting Russian officials for rights abuses to the detention of an American Embassy official this week on charges of espionage, the two diplomats seem to have found common purpose on one of the most intractable disputes between the United States and Russia: Syria’s civil war.
They have revived the prospect of a negotiated settlement in Syria that was first proposed

Continue reading "U.S.-Russian Diplomacy, With a Personal Touch" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:45 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/18/business/energy-environment/mountain-of-petroleum-coke-from-oil-sands-rises-in-detroit.html
May 17, 2013
A Black Mound of Canadian Oil Waste Is Rising Over Detroit
By IAN AUSTEN [Canada] [Ontario] [not particularly about world politics though it certainly is about U.S.-Canada relations] [also, a global commons issue potentially] [in extracting the oil out of the tar sands, a negative externality is coke] [
WINDSOR, Ontario — Assumption Park gives residents of this city lovely views of the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit skyline. Lately they’ve been treated to another sight: a three-story pile of petroleum coke covering an entire city block on the other side of the Detroit River.
Detroit’s ever-growing black mountain is the unloved, unwanted and long overlooked byproduct of Canada’s oil sands boom.
And no one knows quite what to do about it, except Koch Carbon, which owns it.
The company is controlled by Charles and David Koch, wealthy industrialists who back a number of conservative and libertarian causes including activist groups that challenge the science behind climate change. The company sells the high-sulfur, high-carbon waste, usually overseas, where it is burned as fuel. [no wonder the commercial in America in behalf of its job-creating potential] [the Kock brothers are notorious for same] [*]
The coke comes from a refinery alongside the river owned by Marathon Petroleum, which has been there since 1930. But it began refining exports from the Canadian oil sands — and

Continue reading "A Black Mound of Canadian Oil Waste Is Rising Over Detroit" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:44 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/18/world/europe/british-poisoning-inquest-constrained.html
May 17, 2013
Britain: Poisoning Inquest Constrained
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS UK] [London] [the old case from 2005-2006 of former KGB man in England telling tales about Russia] [Mr. Litvinenko who died of what appeard to be acute radiation poisoning] [the ongoing saga involving Alexander Litvinenko] [former KGB fellow who move to England] [was murdered there by what appeared to be old KGB hit squad] [the inquest is releasing details] [curiouser and curiouser] [use psci 350] [followup, Feb 27 and Mar 23] [the case has become more complex with evidence Litvinenko worked for UK’s MI-6 and/or others] [*]
A coroner overseeing a British inquest into the 2006 poisoning death of Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian security agent, ruled Friday that he had to exclude evidence on whether the Russian state was involved in the killing. The coroner, Robert Owen, said he accepted an application made by Foreign Secretary William Hague to keep some evidence surrounding the case secret on national security grounds. The decision means that Mr. Owen cannot consider documents relating to allegations about Russia’s role in the agent’s death, as well as material about whether British security officials could have done anything to prevent it. [*]Mr. Litvinenko, who became a critic of the Kremlin, died after drinking tea laced with a radioactive isotope at a London hotel. His family says he was working for Britain’s intelligence services at the time of his death. Britain accuses two Russians of the killing, but Moscow has refused to extradite the men, who both denied the charges. Mr. Owen conceded that trying to continue the inquest without addressing possible Russian state culpability and the actions of British security officials would lead to an “incomplete, inadequate and potentially misleading” inquiry.

Continue reading "Britain: Poisoning Inquest Constrained" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:43 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/18/world/middleeast/angry-egyptian-police-close-gaza-crossing.html
May 17, 2013
Egypt: Angry Police Close Gaza Crossing
By REUTERS [Egypt] [MENA] [Middle East] [MENA] [charges that Egypt under President Morsi is rather like Egypt under Mubarak?] [Egypt continues to struggle with what its future holds?] [protests against Morsi’s govt have occurred regularly since the anniversary of the revolution (Feb 2011)] [followup, May 15] [President Morsi seems to be losing control, presuming he once had control] [use psci 355-455, 463] [Egyptian police closed Rafah crossing (Egypt-Gaza) in response to recent kidnapping of Egyptians by “Islamists” in Gaza and Sinai] [*]
Egyptian police officers blocked the Rafah crossing into the Gaza Strip on Friday to protest the kidnapping of seven of their colleagues by Islamist gunmen, witnesses said. Officers strung barbed wire across the border post and chained up the gates, leaving hundreds of Palestinians stranded on both sides of the fence, residents said. Gunmen abducted the seven security officers — policemen and a military border guard — on a road between the Sinai towns of El Arish and Rafah on Thursday and demanded the release of imprisoned militants in exchange for the seven men. A police officer was released shortly after the abduction as a sign of good will, but there was no information on the other six men, security officials said.

Continue reading "Egypt: Angry Police Close Gaza Crossing" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:42 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/18/world/middleeast/rights-group-says-it-finds-proof-of-torture-in-syria.html
May 17, 2013
Rights Group Says It Finds Proof of Torture in Syria
By BEN HUBBARD [Syria] [NGO, HRW] [Syria’s civil war acting like magnate to foreign fighters from neighboring states and abroad] [no greater example of the Sunni-Shi’a sectarian faultline!] [the figure being bandied about now 80,000 KIA or more—as of recently] [over the past few months, in particular, growing unease about the symbiotic relationship between Syria’s civil war and Iraq] [-ir] [spillover both ways] [Nursa and others in Syria have joined with AQI in Iraq] [use psci 350, 355-455, 463] [followup, May 16] [HRW documents torture in Syria, about which no one should be suprised] [the charge includes the al Assad regime detaining thousands of political prisoners where they are beaten] [*]
CAIRO — An international human rights group said Friday that visits to two Syrian security centers recently captured by rebel fighters contained proof of widespread, arbitrary detentions and torture by the government of President Bashar al-Assad. [*]
The group, Human Rights Watch, said the centers provided a rare glimpse into the extensive security and intelligence apparatus that the Assad government has mobilized to try to quash the uprising against his rule.
Among its findings were the use of solitary confinement cells and a cross-shaped device

Continue reading "Rights Group Says It Finds Proof of Torture in Syria" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:41 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/18/world/middleeast/ex-iran-president-seeks-comeback-against-odds.html
May 17, 2013
Trying Unlikely Comeback, Ex-Iran President Strikes Chord With Public
By THOMAS ERDBRINK [Iran] [Iran’s witchs’ brew of factions] [Iran’s illicit nuclear program and Israel’s understandable fear of same] [UN, IAEA report just released 11-09-2011] [besides which Iran is major support of al Assad regime in Syria] [meanwhile, Iran’s theocracy prepares for this summer’s (June I think) presidential election to replace Ahmadinejad (and other offices)] [recall, the 2009 version resulted in massive protests over whether Ahmadinejad’s victory was as big as “results” had it] [in the past week or so we’ve learned of the two most recent candidates Ahmadinejad’s ally Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei and long-time aspirant Ali Rafsanjani] [followup, May 14] [Ragsanjani is building some momentum?] [*]
TEHRAN — There was a time when Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani seemed to have it all. A founder of the Islamic Revolution, he headed a family empire that owned the second biggest Iranian airline, Mahan, had a near monopoly on the lucrative pistachio trade and controlled the country’s largest private university, Azad.
But then things started to go wrong. Iranians, angered by his wealth, back-room dealings and supposed involvement in the killing of dissidents, nicknamed him “Akbar Shah,” after the old Persian rulers who sat on velvet cushions in lush courtyards. Political rivals, jealous of his grip on the economy, seized on his support for reformists and labeled him an “aristocrat,” a

Continue reading "Trying Unlikely Comeback, Ex-Iran President Strikes Chord With Public" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:40 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/world/asia/north-korea-missiles.html
May 18, 2013
S. Korea Says North Launches 3 Short-Range Missiles
By CHOE SANG-HUN [ROK] [South Korea] [DPRK] [North Korea] [DPRK-ROK relationship dating back well into the Cold War] [a series of actions and vitriolic back and forths over the past several weeks between the two Koreas resulting in extraordinary levels of alert for war and, ultimately, the joint-business adventure between the two at Kaesong being closed] [the peninsula had become so quiet some were beginning to think the period of tensions had past] [not quite: it seems DPRK might have launched 3 short-range missiles off its east coast (causing Japan some uncertaintly?)] [use psci 350, 355-455] [followup, mostly April and earlier] [*]
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea launched three short-range guided missiles into the sea off its east coast on Saturday, the South Korean Defense Ministry said.
Two missiles were launched in the morning, followed by another in the afternoon, said Kim Min-seok, a ministry spokesman.
“We remain vigilant and prepared in case the launching of these missiles might be followed by a military provocation by the North,” Mr. Kim said.
Tests of short-range missiles by North Korea are fairly routine. The last such tests were

Continue reading "S. Korea Says North Launches 3 Short-Range Missiles" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:39 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/18/world/africa/nigeria-steps-up-assaults-on-militants-in-northeast.html
May 17, 2013
In Nigeria, More Attacks on Militants
By ADAM NOSSITER [Nigeria] [Saharan, Western Africa] [MENA and beyond] [sectarian violence in Nigeria with its population of roughly half Christian and half Muslim] [most of this is tit-for-tat reactions so it’s difficult to trace the precise cause] [it seems to have begun to spread from the old Salafi groups in Algeria south and out in various directions] [followup, May 15] [use psci 350, 355-455, 463] [in a week’s time we’ve seen a precipitous decline in the security situation in Nigeria with the president declaring martial law and regaling the military with new powers!] [they will, of course, his Boko Haram and others brutally which will work in the shorterm] [however, over the medium term is will likely create a bigger insurgency] [*]
DAKAR, Senegal — The Nigerian military stepped up its assault on Islamist militants in northeastern Nigeria, officials said Friday, only days after the president announced a heightened campaign against insurgents who he said had declared war on the state.
Military officials said air and ground assaults were launched against suspected bases of the Boko Haram Islamist group at Nigeria’s northeastern edge and in a forest south of the city of Maiduguri, the group’s birthplace.
Officials said a number of insurgents had been killed in the raids but could not say how many. The military operation follows President Goodluck Jonathan’s declaration of a state of emergency in the country’s northeast on Tuesday night, which followed heightened

Continue reading "In Nigeria, More Attacks on Militants" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:38 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/18/world/middleeast/bomb-blasts-in-iraq.html
May 17, 2013
Blasts Kill Dozens of Iraqis as Sectarian Tensions Boil
By DURAID ADNAN [-ir] [Baghdad] [maliki is in power struggle with fellow Shi’a groups and Iraq’s Sunni minority] [Syria] [Syria’s civil war acting like magnate to foreign fighters from neighboring states and abroad] [no greater example of the Sunni-Shi’a sectarian faultline!] [use psci 350, 355-455, 463] [more sectarian violence rending the nation] [followup, May 16] [among other reasons, the Shi’a majority government the U.S. helped establish has not reached out to its political opponents (enemies in Shi’a perceptions), resulting in Sunni miscreants returning to the mats (civil war, if necessary) to get their demands] [in short, Iraq is what Iraq has long been: a mess] [*]
BAGHDAD — At least 66 people were killed in bomb blasts in Iraq on Friday, officials said, making it one of the bloodiest days this year as the country struggles to contain spiraling sectarian violence.
Two bombs exploded in Baquba, the capital of Diyala Province, a turbulent region whose population is a mix of Sunni and Shiite Muslims. One of the bombs exploded at the edge of a bridge near a Sunni mosque where worshipers had gathered for Friday Prayer. Within minutes, after a crowd of people ran to help the wounded, another bomb exploded in their midst. Officials said 40 people were killed and 46 were wounded in the two blasts.
The Saraya mosque, where the blasts took place, is one of the main mosques where Sunnis in Baquba pray and hear speeches to support protests in Anbar and other Sunni provinces

Continue reading "Blasts Kill Dozens of Iraqis as Sectarian Tensions Boil" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:37 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/18/world/asia/bombs-kill-at-least-9-at-gated-community-near-kandahar.html
May 17, 2013
Afghanistan: Bombs Kill at Least 9 at Gated Community Near Kandahar
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS [Afghanistan] [AfPak] [use psci 350, 355-455, 463] [in late Nov-early Dec Pakistan released some Taliban who are needed for reconciliation inside Afghanistan (improving relations with Karzai govt)] [two important deadlines now loom large in Afghanistan’s future: end of 2013 when all the Obama increases since taking office are to redeploy out of Afghanistan, leaving almost exactly the number of troops as when Obama took office] [second deadline is the end of 2014 when foreign combat troops are to withdraw] [followup, yesterday] [the spring offensive for 2013 has been underway for a month or so and the insurgents (Taliban and others) seem to have shock and awe in mind?] [attacks inside gated community where some members of President Karzai’s family live] [*]
Two bombs hidden in a motorcycle and a car exploded inside a gated community linked to the family of President Hamid Karzai on Friday evening, killing at least 9 people and wounding more than 70 near the southern city of Kandahar, an official said. The blasts happened inside Aino Mina, a housing complex on the northern outskirts of the city that was developed in part by Mahmood Karzai, the president’s younger brother. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. A Kandahar government spokesman said that an investigation was under way into how the explosives-laden vehicles slipped past the heavy security.

Continue reading "Afghanistan: Bombs Kill at Least 9 at Gated Community Near Kandahar" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:36 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/18/world/asia/mosque-bombings-in-pakistan.html
May 17, 2013
Two Bombings at Mosques in Pakistan Kill at Least 13
By ISMAIL KHAN and SALMAN MASOOD [Pakistan] [AfPak] [hub of the al Qaeda and Taliban activity in AfPak] [and of al Qaeda globally] [use psci 350, 355-455, 463] [under Obama administration, Bush’s policy of drones (sticks) and carrots( $) has increased to Zardari] [Pakistan is really where U.S. interests converge: nukes, India-Pakistan, and GSAVE] [Zarari successfully—though it’s relative—finished out his term, no mean feat] [followup, May 16] [Times authors write followup to yesterday’s AP piece] [the same two bombs as briefly detailed yesterday near or at Sunni mosques in or around Peshewar] [*]
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — In what officials called the first major terrorist attack since last week’s general elections, at least 13 people were killed and 30 injured when two bombs ripped through two separate mosques on Friday in a remote mountainous village in northwestern Pakistan.
The bombings, set off by remote-controlled devices, targeted two mosques in Baz Darra, a village in the Malakand region of the restive Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, said Abdullah Mashal, a senior government official. “Both explosions took place in two mosques, barely 100 feet apart.” [*]
The bombings come at a time when a coalition of political parties, led by Imran Khan, a

Continue reading "Two Bombings at Mosques in Pakistan Kill at Least 13" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:36 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/us/uzbek-man-in-boise-is-charged-in-bomb-plot.html
May 16, 2013
Uzbek Man in Idaho Is Held in Bomb Plot
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT [Obama White House] [113th congress, 1st session] [case in Idaho (again!) of Uzbek associated with homegrown transnational jihadism?] [GSAVE] [LWOT] [considerable continuity between W. Bush and Obama] [followup] [Justice and FBI (but other IC assets in all likelihood) and the fight against jihadis among us, which has been a sort of cottage industry since 9/11] [use psci 355-455, 463] [followup] [*]
WASHINGTON — Federal authorities arrested an Uzbek man on Thursday in Boise, Idaho, on charges that he provided a foreign terrorist group with help in building an explosive device.
The man, Fazliddin Kurbanov, was also charged in connection with possessing parts to create a bomb, federal officials said.
The authorities said in a statement that Mr. Kurbanov’s “activities were closely monitored by federal agents” and “any potential threat posed by Kurbanov was contained.”
Mr. Kurbanov is scheduled to appear Friday in Federal District Court in Boise.
“Today’s arrest and these indictments underscore our commitment to aggressively and thoroughly investigate those who conspire to engage in unlawful terrorist activities,” said Wendy J. Olson, the United States attorney for Idaho. [*]

Continue reading "Uzbek Man in Idaho Is Held in Bomb Plot" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:24 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/us/boston-bombing-developments.html
May 16, 2013
Chechen Refugee Questioned in F.B.I.’s Inquiry of Bombing
By SCOTT SHANE and ELLEN BARRY [Obama White House] [113th congress, 1st session] [Boston Marathon bombing, just over a month ago] [GSAVE] [LWOT] [considerable continuity between W. Bush and Obama] [followup] [Justice and FBI (but other IC assets in all likelihood) and the fight against jihadis among us, which has been a sort of cottage industry since 9/11] [use psci 355-455, 463] [followup] [*]
MANCHESTER, N.H. — F.B.I. agents investigating the Boston Marathon bombing have repeatedly questioned Musa Khadzhimuratov, a Chechen refugee and former separatist fighter who says he had a passing social relationship with one of the two bombing suspects. They searched his family’s small apartment here on Tuesday, scouring his computers, subjecting him to a polygraph, and taking a DNA sample. [*]
The hours of F.B.I. questioning in more than a dozen meetings — described by Mr. Khadzhimuratov and his wife, Madina, in an interview — illustrate the bureau’s intensive effort to identify possible accomplices and test its theory that the suspects, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, were radicalized and trained on the Web and acted on their own.
But some members and supporters of the small Chechen community in the United States fear that the bureau’s approach may be unduly influenced by Russian authorities who have an interest in using the Boston attack to smear their Chechen adversaries.
Fatima Tlisova, a reporter for the Voice of America who grew up in the Caucasus and

Continue reading "Chechen Refugee Questioned in F.B.I.’s Inquiry of Bombing" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:23 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/world/middleeast/russia-provides-syria-with-advanced-missiles.html
May 16, 2013
Russia Sends More Advanced Missiles to Aid Assad in Syria
By MICHAEL R. GORDON and ERIC SCHMITT [Obama White House] [113th congress, 1st session] [bureaucracy: IC and Pentagon] [Russia and Syria and U.S.-Russia relations] [followup] [apparently America’s IC has discovered new shipments of advanced SAMs and other equipment on their way to Syria (potentially to Hezbollah too)] [use psci 355-455, 463] [followup] [the results are somewhat preditable: insofar as Israel fears said armaments falling into Hezbollah’s hands, it will continued to destroy if it can] [this will create an esclation dynamic] [Russia doesn’t mind too much because it means Syria has to buy more and more] [meanwhile, Syria burns] [the recently improved cooperation between U.S. and Russia may well be jeopardized] [*]
WASHINGTON — Russia has sent advanced antiship cruise missiles to Syria, a move that illustrates the depth of its support for the Syrian government led by President Bashar al-Assad, American officials said Thursday.
Russia has previously provided a version of the missiles, called Yakhonts, to Syria. But those delivered recently are outfitted with an advanced radar that makes them more effective, according to American officials who are familiar with classified intelligence reports and would only discuss the shipment on the basis of anonymity.
Unlike Scud and other longer-range surface-to-surface missiles that the Assad government has used against opposition forces, the Yakhont antiship missile system provides the Syrian

Continue reading "Russia Sends More Advanced Missiles to Aid Assad in Syria" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:22 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/us/politics/pentagon-official-urges-congress-to-keep-statute-allowing-war-on-terror-intact.html
May 16, 2013
Debating the Legal Basis for the War on Terror
By CHARLIE SAVAGE [Obama White House] [113th congress, 1st session] [GSAVE] [LWOT] [considerable continuity between W. Bush and Obama] [bureaucracy, Pentagon, Congress, others] [followup] [the continuing saga extraordinary presidential power into the future as America will likely be engaged with transnational jihadis for another 15-20-30 years?] [use psci 355-455, 463] [followup] [it would appear that the Pentagon is requesting that Congress not change the authorization bill voted on shortly after 9/11] [clearly, I can understand why Pentagon likes status quo: Congress (while managing to avoid a declaration of war vote) effectively gave carte blanche to president] [everyone needs to take a deep breath and contemplate what it might mean to have president with few constraints on war making power over next 20-plus years] [note: there’s bound to be a president half of America doesn’t like during that period if not several] [*]
WASHINGTON — A top Pentagon official said Thursday that the evolving war against Al Qaeda was likely to continue “at least 10 to 20 years” and urged Congress not to modify the statute that provides its legal basis.
“As of right now, it suits us very well,” Michael A. Sheehan, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations, said, referring to the “authorization to use military force,” often referred to as the A.U.M.F., enacted by Congress in 2001.
The statute authorized war against the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and those who harbored them — that is, Al Qaeda and the Taliban. [*]
Lawmakers are considering enacting a new authorization, because the original Qaeda network has been largely decimated, while the current threat is increasingly seen as arising from terrorist groups in places like Yemen that share Al Qaeda’s ideology but have no connection to the 2001 attacks. [they ought to debate and craft a far less broad authorization—that they can still control through pursestrings and oversight, to some

Continue reading "Debating the Legal Basis for the War on Terror" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:21 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/world/americas/trial-on-guatemalan-civil-war-carnage-leaves-out-us-role.html
May 16, 2013
Trial on Guatemalan Civil War Carnage Leaves Out U.S. Role
By ELISABETH MALKIN [Guatemala] [Central America] [LAmerica] [this has only indirect connections to contemporary world politics] [it dates back to the late 1970s and through 1980s in Guatemala was wracked by a civil war of sorts] [it was within the broader context of the Cold War conflict where both superpowers were employing proxies in LAmerica to thwart the other] [during said time former Gen. Rios Montt led Guatemala, at least part of the time, and human rights abominations were related with his rule] [followup, May 10] [use psci 350, 355-455] [though the U.S. played a considerable role, at least at times, apparently that role will not be explored during trial on civil war in Guatemala] [*]
MEXICO CITY — In 1999, President Bill Clinton went to Guatemala and apologized. Just two weeks earlier, a United Nations truth commission found Guatemalan security forces responsible for more than 90 percent of the human rights violations committed during the country’s long civil war.
Mr. Clinton’s apology was an admission that the Guatemalan military had not acted alone. American support for Guatemalan security forces that had engaged in “violent and widespread repression,” the president said, “was wrong.”
But that long history of United States support for Guatemala’s military, which began with a coup engineered by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1954, went unacknowledged during the genocide trial and conviction of the man most closely identified with the war’s brutality, the former dictator Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt. [nicely coincides with Arbenz overthrow] [*]
During a month of testimony before the three-judge panel that found General Ríos Montt guilty

Continue reading "Trial on Guatemalan Civil War Carnage Leaves Out U.S. Role" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:19 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/world/asia/china-refinery-proposal-draws-protests.html
May 16, 2013
China: Refinery Proposal Draws Protests
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS [China] [PRC] [NEAsia] [China’s growing role for its military in China’s foreign policy] [China’s CCP has been watching the Arab Awakening with serious trepidation] [use psci 350] [China’s new leadership (selected at last November’s Party Congress, 18th) led by Xi Jinping takes charge!] [as CCP plans rapid industrialization of the entirety of China, increasing numbers of these collisions between the people who are affected by the negative externalities and the planners (CCP)] [followup] [*]
More than 2,000 people in the southwestern city of Kunming unfurled banners and shouted, “Protest! Protest!” in a demonstration on Thursday against plans for a petroleum refinery. The demonstration — the second in the city this month — was largely peaceful, though there were minor scuffles with the police. Witnesses said at least two people were briefly detained. Kunming officials said this week that the refinery planned by the powerful state company PetroChina would meet environmental standards and that it was crucial for the local economy, but residents are worried about the air and water pollution it would produce. The police allowed the protest to proceed, but censors scrubbed posts in China’s social media that were critical of the project, and employees of state companies were asked to promise not to participate in any rally or talk about the project in public or online.

Continue reading "China: Refinery Proposal Draws Protests" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:18 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/world/middleeast/peacekeepers-in-golan-abducted-but-released.html
May 16, 2013
Peacekeepers in Golan Abducted but Released
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS [Israel] [Golan Heights, formerly Syria] [Israeli-Syria relations, which of course were bad when there still was a Syria] [for decades UN peacekeepers have been stationed on Golan, separating Israeli and Syria disputants from 1967 war] [though fewer, as with other occupied territories in Israel, settlers settled!] [as Syria’s civil war has begun to turn Syria into failed state, tensions have increased] [in recent weeks Israel’s IDF have flown multiple sorties into Syria destroying sophisticated SAMs] [this abduction of peacekeepers and subsequent release simply demonstrates how jumbled things are in Golan] [use psci 350, 355-455, 463] [*]
UNITED NATIONS — Armed men broke into a United Nations outpost in a buffer zone separating Israel and Syria in the disputed Golan Heights region and abducted three military observers, the peacekeeping chief said on Thursday.
Hervé Ladsous, the head of United Nations peacekeeping operations, told reporters that Syrian men held the unarmed observers for about five hours and released them unharmed Wednesday morning.
It was the third abduction of peacekeepers in the tense region since March and underlined their vulnerability in the spillover of the conflict in Syria, which is now in its third year.

Continue reading "Peacekeepers in Golan Abducted but Released" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:18 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/world/africa/rebuilding-of-mali-is-daunting-task-despite-aid.html
May 16, 2013
Rebuilding of Mali Faces Daunting Obstacles, Despite Outside Aid
By ADAM NOSSITER [Mali] [Northwest Africa: Algeria, Mauritania, others in region] [Jan hostage standoff at BP gas plant in Algeria] [surrounding states: Mauritania, Ethiopia, Algeria, Nigeria…] [MENA] [two distinct insurgencies have existed in different parts of Mali the last couple years] [in North (Timbuktu) an Islamic movement working with military coup had been what has animating actions] [sounds like Islamists-Jihadis may have slipped through French-Malian lines to reinfiltrate Timbuktu] [use psci 355-455, 463] [followup, Ap 26] [when UN voted for peacekeeping force; now comes donor’s conference and new concerns!] [*]
DAKAR, Senegal — The outpouring of support may be more a sign of nervousness than altruism. [**]
At an international conference in Brussels this week, donors pledged $4.2 billion for Mali on a range of fronts, including roads, energy and business development, hoping to help rebuild a nation that alarmed governments around the world when much of it collapsed and fell to Islamist militants last year. [*]
Beyond the money, the United Nations plans to deploy 12,600 peacekeepers this summer to make sure the militants do not return, while a host of outside powers, with France and the United States in the lead, [*]are keeping a watchful eye on preparations for elections the Malians have promised for July.
What is unclear is whether these efforts will be enough to remake the nation, about the size

Continue reading "Rebuilding of Mali Faces Daunting Obstacles, Despite Outside Aid" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:17 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/world/middleeast/pressure-of-war-is-causing-syria-to-break-apart.html
May 16, 2013
Syria Begins to Break Apart Under Pressure From War
By BEN HUBBARD [Syria] [Syria’s civil war acting like magnate to foreign fighters from neighboring states and abroad] [no greater example of the Sunni-Shi’a sectarian faultline!] [the figure being bandied about now 80,000 KIA or more—as of recently] [over the past few months, in particular, growing unease about the symbiotic relationship between Syria’s civil war and Iraq] [-ir] [Baghdad] [maliki is in power struggle with fellow Shi’a groups and Iraq’s Sunni minority] [spillover both ways] [Nursa and others in Syria have joined with AQI in Iraq] [use psci 350, 355-455, 463] [followup, May 14] [the symbiosis may well be hastening the collapse of Syria] [stay tuned] [*]
CAIRO — The black flag of jihad flies over much of northern Syria. In the center of the country, pro-government militias and Hezbollah fighters battle those who threaten their communities. In the northeast, the Kurds have effectively carved out an autonomous zone. [*]
After more than two years of conflict, Syria is breaking up. A constellation of armed groups battling to advance their own agendas are effectively creating the outlines of separate armed fiefs. As the war expands in scope and brutality, its biggest casualty appears to be the integrity of the Syrian state. [certainly appears the case] [*]
On Thursday, President Obama met in Washington with the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and once again pressed the idea of a top-down diplomatic solution. That approach depends on the rebels and the government agreeing to meet at a peace conference that was announced last week by the United States and Russia. [*]

Continue reading "Syria Begins to Break Apart Under Pressure From War" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:16 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/sectarianism-in-iraq-stoked-by-syrian-war/2013/05/16/b74161da-bc98-11e2-9b09-1638acc3942e_story.html
Sectarianism in Iraq stoked by Syrian war
By Abigail Hauslohner, Published: May 16 [Syria] [Syria’s civil war acting like magnate to foreign fighters from neighboring states and abroad] [no greater example of the Sunni-Shi’a sectarian faultline!] [the figure being bandied about now 80,000 KIA or more—as of recently] [over the past few months, in particular, growing unease about the symbiotic relationship between Syria’s civil war and Iraq] [-ir] [Baghdad] [maliki is in power struggle with fellow Shi’a groups and Iraq’s Sunni minority] [spillover both ways] [Nursa and others in Syria have joined with AQI in Iraq] [use psci 350, 355-455, 463] [followup, May 14] [the symbiosis may well be hastening the collapse of Syria] [stay tuned] [*]
BAGHDAD — A recent tide of sectarian tensions that erupted into the worst violence seen in Iraq in five years is testing the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose ability to contain the crisis could hinge on a conflict raging beyond his control in Syria.
The prospect of a regional power shift driven by the bloody civil war next door, where a mostly Sunni rebel movement is struggling to topple the Shiite-dominated regime, has emboldened Iraq’s Sunni minority to challenge its own Shiite government and amplified fears within Maliki’s administration that Iraq may soon be swept up in a spillover war. [I’ve tried to use the metaphor of a geopolitical faultine that runs almost north-south in Iraq up through Syria] [for a few hundred miles on the west of faultine lay Sunni regimes while on a few hundred miles to east lay Shi’a regime] [*]
Sectarian bombings and assassinations targeting both Sunnis and Shiites increased last

Continue reading "Sectarianism in Iraq stoked by Syrian war" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:15 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/world/middleeast/iraq-attacks-kill-at-least-21-people.html
May 16, 2013
Iraq: Attacks Kill at Least 21 People
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS [-ir] [Baghdad] [maliki is in power struggle with fellow Shi’a groups and Iraq’s Sunni minority] [Syria] [Syria’s civil war acting like magnate to foreign fighters from neighboring states and abroad] [no greater example of the Sunni-Shi’a sectarian faultline!] [use psci 350, 355-455, 463] [more sectarian violence rending the nation] [followup, yesterday] [among other reasons, the Shi’a majority government the U.S. helped establish has not reached out to its political opponents (enemies in Shi’a perceptions), resulting in Sunni miscreants returning to the mats (civil war, if necessary) to get their demands] [in short, Iraq is what Iraq has long been: a mess] [*]
Car bombs exploded in Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad for the second day in a row on Thursday, part of a series of attacks in the capital and elsewhere that left at least 21 people dead, officials said. One of the blasts hit a bus and taxi stop in the Sadr City neighborhood of eastern Baghdad, right, killing at least 9 people and wounding 16, the police said. Beyond the capital, suicide bombers struck in Mosul and Kirkuk, officials said. No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but car bombs and suicide attacks are a hallmark of Al Qaeda’s Iraq branch. Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki blamed sectarian tensions for the latest attacks. “We have to know that today’s bloodshed is the result of sectarian hatred and also the result of a stirring up of these sectarian tensions,” he said.

Continue reading "Iraq: Attacks Kill at Least 21 People" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:14 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/world/asia/kabul-car-bomb-attack.html
May 16, 2013
Attack on U.S. Military Vehicles Kills at Least 16 in Kabul
By MATTHEW ROSENBERG and SANGAR RAHIMI [Afghanistan] [AfPak] [use psci 350, 355-455, 463] [in late Nov-early Dec Pakistan released some Taliban who are needed for reconciliation inside Afghanistan (improving relations with Karzai govt)] [two important deadlines now loom large in Afghanistan’s future: end of 2013 when all the Obama increases since taking office are to redeploy out of Afghanistan, leaving almost exactly the number of troops as when Obama took office] [second deadline is the end of 2014 when foreign combat troops are to withdraw] [followup, yesterday] [the spring offensive for 2013 has been underway for a month or so and the insurgents (Taliban and others) seem to have shock and awe in mind?] [this is the Times followup to yesterday’s initial AP report on same attack] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — A Toyota Corolla packed with explosives rammed a pair of American military vehicles in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Thursday, setting off a blast that killed at least 16 people, including 6 American military advisers, and shook the relative calm that has prevailed for months in the city, Afghan officials said. [*]
The explosion was powerful enough to rattle windows across Kabul. It left bodies strewed along the street and one of the American vehicles — an armored Chevrolet Suburban that weighed nearly five tons — lying in ruins more than 30 feet from the blast site.
Hezb-i-Islami, a relatively small insurgent faction that often competes with the Taliban for influence, claimed responsibility for the attack, which also wounded more than three dozen Afghans. Haroon Zarghon, the group’s spokesman, reached by telephone in Pakistan, said the bombing was carried out by a 24-year-old man who had grown up south of Kabul.
More attacks against Americans will come soon, Mr. Zarghon added, saying that Hezb-i-Islami was dismayed by the current talks between Afghanistan and the United States about a long-term security deal under which thousands of American soldiers could be based in Afghanistan for years to come.
“When Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan realized that American invaders have the devil intention of staying in Afghanistan, we decided to step up our attack on Americans in Afghanistan,” he said. [*]
Whether Hezb-i-Islami — or the Taliban, for that matter — can regularly strike Americans in Kabul remains to be seen. Thursday’s bombing was the first significant attack in months on a Western target in Kabul, despite repeated efforts by insurgents to carry out a major strike in the city. [*]

Continue reading "Attack on U.S. Military Vehicles Kills at Least 16 in Kabul" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:13 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2013/05/17/world/asia/ap-as-pakistan.html
May 17, 2013
Bombs at Mosques in Northwest Pakistan Kill 13
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS [Pakistan] [AfPak] [hub of the al Qaeda and Taliban activity in AfPak] [and of al Qaeda globally] [use psci 350, 355-455, 463] [under Obama administration, Bush’s policy of drones (sticks) and carrots( $) has increased to Zardari] [Pakistan is really where U.S. interests converge: nukes, India-Pakistan, and GSAVE] [Zarari successfully—though it’s relative—finished out his term, no mean feat] [followup, May 15] [the violence, held by conventional wisdom to be to keep people from voting, reappears though the voting is over!] [that the bombs were at 2 Sunni mosques suggests either internecine warfare (between various jihadis camps) or Shi’a hitting back for all the Sunni on Shi’a violence of late] [time will tell] [*]
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Bombs that exploded outside two mosques in a village in northwestern Pakistan killed at least 13 people Friday, underlining the challenge of militant violence facing a new government set to take power under the leadership of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
The blasts at the two Sunni Muslim mosques also wounded 45 people, said tribal police officer Badshah Rehman. Both of the mosques were badly damaged, and the roof of one of them collapsed. The mosques were located in Baz Darrah village in the Malakand district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Rehman said. [*]
Shahid Ali, who was in the first mosque that was attacked, said the explosion came just as worshippers were starting Friday prayers.

Continue reading "Bombs at Mosques in Northwest Pakistan Kill 13" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:12 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)