Today's security news and views from the global press and the blogosphere
Por www.madrid11.net
21 February, 2007
Escape from Guantanamo
Seven Saudi nationals held at Guantanamo were released by US authorities and have returned to Saudi Arabia. Around 50 of the 400 remaining detainees at the camp are thought to be Saudi. Two Saudi prisoners hanged themselves in protest last June. Public anger has grown in the desert kingdom over the treatment of its citizens in Guantanamo.
Escape from Iraq
British prime minister Tony Blair announced a time-table for the withdrawal of over 2,000 of its troops from southern Iraq. 1,600 soldiers will be taken out of the country in the following months, with a further 500 to be withdrawn by the end of the summer. Joining the northern European escape are the Danes, who will remove all their 450 troops in Iraq by the end of the summer. The Polimom blog sees America's perceived isolation in Iraq turning real. Entering Iraq? Leading Turkish officials maintain that they have the right to cross the border into Iraq if local authorities in Iraqi Kurdistan refuse to deal with suspected terrorists affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Turkey has long resented the Iraqi Kurds' reluctance and the US' inability to root out PKK terrorists who take refuge across the border in Iraq. Get a Kurdish perspective on Turkey's potential intervention at the Rasti blog.
Nuclear accord in New Delhi
Pakistani foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri met today with his Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee in New Delhi, where the two agreed to a "nuclear accord" between their countries that will "reduce the risk of accidents with nuclear weapons". The deal is thought to be another "confidence building measure" on the road to substantive negotiations between the erstwhile foes. Meanwhile, Zilla Huma Usman, the minister for social welfare in Pakistani Punjab was shot and killed by a man who had admitted to being a "fanatic" opposed to the participation of women in politics. Divided we stand? Residents in the city of Poso on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi are pondering dividing the city between its Christian and Muslim parts. Sulawesi and the neighbouring Moluccas have been rocked by warfare and terrorist attacks in recent decades. A resurgence of political and sectarian violence in and around the port city has convinced many that it may be safer to formalise geographical divisions between Christian and Muslim areas rather than live together. The Docuticker blog reports on rising jihadism in Indonesia. Indonesia plans to build its first nuclear power plant by 2010, officials announced today. "Home-grown jihadist" American prosecutors have accused Daniel J. Maldonado, a citizen born and bred in Boston, of receiving training in an al-Qaida camp. Maldonado, a Muslim convert, was fighting with Islamists in Somalia and was caught by Kenyan authorities in the wake of the Ethiopian-backed offensive in the country. US officials are concerned that their country may be capable of producing "homegrown jihadists".
Malaysia frets over its Thai investments
Malaysian leaders have pleaded with Thailand's military and political authorities to help safeguard Kuala Lumpur's investments in the restive south of Thailand, the site of an ongoing Muslim insurgency. Militants recently struck at a rubber factory, jointly owned by Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur is also concerned that the unrest in the south may leak across its border. Blue Helmets to Chad and CAR? UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon has suggested the dispatch of an 11,000 strong peacekeeping force to Chad and the Central African Republic. The two countries are currently plagued by violence and rebellion, thought to have been bred by the instability in neighbouring Sudan.
Military violence in the Philippines
Philip Alston, United Nations special rapporteur for extra-judicial killings, claims that the Philippine military under the current government of President Gloria Arroyo is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of political dissidents. The special rapporteur's visit comes after an independent Filipino legal commission exposed the excesses of the military. The Filipino Dungkal blog is impressed with Alston's diplomacy.
Escape from Iraq
British prime minister Tony Blair announced a time-table for the withdrawal of over 2,000 of its troops from southern Iraq. 1,600 soldiers will be taken out of the country in the following months, with a further 500 to be withdrawn by the end of the summer. Joining the northern European escape are the Danes, who will remove all their 450 troops in Iraq by the end of the summer. The Polimom blog sees America's perceived isolation in Iraq turning real. Entering Iraq? Leading Turkish officials maintain that they have the right to cross the border into Iraq if local authorities in Iraqi Kurdistan refuse to deal with suspected terrorists affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Turkey has long resented the Iraqi Kurds' reluctance and the US' inability to root out PKK terrorists who take refuge across the border in Iraq. Get a Kurdish perspective on Turkey's potential intervention at the Rasti blog.
Nuclear accord in New Delhi
Pakistani foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri met today with his Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee in New Delhi, where the two agreed to a "nuclear accord" between their countries that will "reduce the risk of accidents with nuclear weapons". The deal is thought to be another "confidence building measure" on the road to substantive negotiations between the erstwhile foes. Meanwhile, Zilla Huma Usman, the minister for social welfare in Pakistani Punjab was shot and killed by a man who had admitted to being a "fanatic" opposed to the participation of women in politics. Divided we stand? Residents in the city of Poso on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi are pondering dividing the city between its Christian and Muslim parts. Sulawesi and the neighbouring Moluccas have been rocked by warfare and terrorist attacks in recent decades. A resurgence of political and sectarian violence in and around the port city has convinced many that it may be safer to formalise geographical divisions between Christian and Muslim areas rather than live together. The Docuticker blog reports on rising jihadism in Indonesia. Indonesia plans to build its first nuclear power plant by 2010, officials announced today. "Home-grown jihadist" American prosecutors have accused Daniel J. Maldonado, a citizen born and bred in Boston, of receiving training in an al-Qaida camp. Maldonado, a Muslim convert, was fighting with Islamists in Somalia and was caught by Kenyan authorities in the wake of the Ethiopian-backed offensive in the country. US officials are concerned that their country may be capable of producing "homegrown jihadists".
Malaysia frets over its Thai investments
Malaysian leaders have pleaded with Thailand's military and political authorities to help safeguard Kuala Lumpur's investments in the restive south of Thailand, the site of an ongoing Muslim insurgency. Militants recently struck at a rubber factory, jointly owned by Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur is also concerned that the unrest in the south may leak across its border. Blue Helmets to Chad and CAR? UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon has suggested the dispatch of an 11,000 strong peacekeeping force to Chad and the Central African Republic. The two countries are currently plagued by violence and rebellion, thought to have been bred by the instability in neighbouring Sudan.
Military violence in the Philippines
Philip Alston, United Nations special rapporteur for extra-judicial killings, claims that the Philippine military under the current government of President Gloria Arroyo is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of political dissidents. The special rapporteur's visit comes after an independent Filipino legal commission exposed the excesses of the military. The Filipino Dungkal blog is impressed with Alston's diplomacy.
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