Multi-lateral military exercises canvassed
The special forces of the United States, India, Russia and the United Kingdom will hold multilateral land and air exercises on the Russian soil for the first time next year.
“Russia hopes to organise and host the exercises,” Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov told reporters during his visit to India.
Though most of these countries have held bilateral exercises between the special forces, this would be for the first time that such a large scale war games would be held, the Minister said.
He was speaking after the defence forces of India and Russia held their first-ever joint airborne military exercise Sunday. The objective of the exercise was to strengthen cooperation between the countries to counter terrorism, press reports said.
Russian-Indian-Chinese military exercises also could be held in the future as part of the cooperation between the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), he said, although he tossed aside any possibility that a military bloc was forming.
"The time of military blocs and alliances of this kind is fading away," Ivanov told journalists. Ivanov also said that India was a SCO observer at the Peace Mission-2005 Russian-Chinese military exercises.
India and China are Russia's strategic partners, and "cooperation with those countries covers the entire spectrum of military and military-technical partnership and cooperation in the energy sector, culture and other spheres. This suits everyone," he said.
Israel restricts Palestinian travel
Israel suspended contacts with the Palestinian Authority and slapped tough travel restrictions on the West Bank Monday after Palestinian gunmen killed three young Israelis and wounded five in two drive-by shooting near Jewish settlements.
The Palestinian attack near the Gush Etzion block of settlements on Sunday was the deadliest since July. It followed Israeli intelligence warnings that Palestinian militants, who claim they drove Israel out of Gaza by force, would now shift their focus to the West Bank.
The shootings, the restrictions and Israel's suspension of talks with the Palestinian Authority deflated hopes that Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip and months of relative calm would create a new atmosphere of trust and revive peace efforts after five years of bloodshed.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas condemned the shootings. "These events harm the cease-fire and the calm that we have respected," he said.
The effects of the new restrictions were immediately felt across the West Bank, where dozens of new checkpoints appeared on major roads overnight and Palestinian drivers were forced onto smaller back roads.
The Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a militant group with ties to Abbas' Fatah party, claimed responsibility. However, Kamel Ghanam, an Al-Aqsa leader in Ramallah, said his group was not behind the attack, and Israeli security officials said they believed the Islamic militant group Hamas was involved.
The attacks renew international pressure on Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to
crack down on militants.
Chechen claims responsibility for Nalchik attack
Chechnya's top warlord said Monday he was behind last week's deadly assault in southern Russia, but added it was carried out by regional fighters - indicating an increasingly organized effort to set up militant cells in the area.
Shamil Basayev, who is the author of Russia's worst terrorist attacks, claimed responsibility for the assault in the city of Nalchik that officials say left at least 137 dead.
"I carried out the general operative management," Basayev said, according to the statement on the Web site of Kavkaz Center, seen as a mouthpiece for the Chechnya's Islamic separatist rebels.
Basayev said the attacks on police and government buildings in Nalchik, the capital of the Kabardino-Balkariya republic, were done by militants affiliated with the Chechen rebels, but that Chechen fighters were not involved. He said they were launched by the republic's section of the so-called Caucasus Front, believed to include militant cells throughout the region.
The leader of Kabardino-Balkariya front is "busy preparing other work that I have assigned him," Basayev was quoted as saying, apparently referring to new terrorist actions he has often threatened.
Basayev has claimed responsibility for organizing last year's hostage-taking at a school in Beslan, which ended in the deaths of more than 330 people. He also said he planned the 2002 seizure of some 800 hostages in a Moscow theater. (Associated Press)
Turkey's losing patience over Iraqi haven for Kurds
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan renewed a call for the United States and the Iraqi authorities to curb Turkish Kurd rebels based in northern Iraq, warning that his government's patience was running out.
"Turkey has been patient and prudent so far. But no one has the right to ask for more patience from Turkey when martyred soldiers are buried every day in another town, when mothers cry and babies become orphans," Erdogan said in a speech to his parliamentary group, Anatolia news agency reported.
"Everyone, and particularly those who are responsible for the region (northern Iraq), should know that our people are expecting them to take efficient steps to purge the region of terrorists," he said.
Ankara has several times warned of a possible Turkish military incursion into northern Iraq to hit back at armed militants from the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), who have found refuge in the region since 1999.
The PKK is blacklisted as a terrorist group by Turkey as well as both the United States and the European Union. PKK militants began sneaking back into Turkey after calling off a five-year unilateral ceasefire in June 2004, and have significantly stepped up violence in the country's mainly Kurdish southeast, which borders Iraq, since early this year.
The Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed some 37,000 lives since 1984 when the PKK took up arms to fight for Kurdish self-rule in the southeast. (AFP)
Clashes in Sudan claim civilian lives
Rebels and Sudanese forces have clashed in North Darfur with artillery fire killing a number of civilians, the Sudanese government said Monday.
The African Union, which is monitoring a shaky cease-fire deal between rebels and the government in the crisis-wracked Darfur region, said rebels attack attacked an army outpost early Sunday, which was followed by "heavy bombardment" apparently from Sudanese soldiers.
The fighting took place southeast of the town of Kutum before Sudanese soldiers chased the rebel fighters from the Sudan Liberation Army into the nearby villages of Kenin and Nadi, the AU said in a statement.
But the Sudanese government accused "a group of armed movements in Darfur (of launching) waves of indiscriminate shelling" on Kutum, which resulted in "human and material damage" on Sunday and Saturday.
"The outcome was the death and injury of a group of children, women and elderly citizens," said a statement issued by a Sudanese government delegation at Darfur peace talks in the Nigerian capital, Abuja. No casualty figures were provided.
The delegation said the rebel attack breached all peace agreements aimed at curbing the Darfur conflict, which began in February 2003.
The AU also condemned the violence and urged restraint and cooperation from the warring sides to help it investigate the incident.
The United Nations estimates the fighting has resulted in the deaths of more than 180,000 people through violence, disease or malnutrition. (Associated Press)
Kurds mourn dead from Saddam era
The bodies of more than 500 Iraqi Kurds killed by Saddam Hussein's regime in the 1980s have been returned to the north of the country for burial. A ceremony was held to mark their return on Monday.
One by one, more than 500 coffins draped in the Kurdish flag were carried solemnly passed a guard of honour on the tarmac at Irbil airport. It is believed the remains belong to members of the Barzani clan.
Eight thousand of them were rounded up by Saddam Hussein's forces in 1983 in reprisal for a Kurdish guerrilla attack near the Iranian border. They were trucked away to the south. Their bodies were discovered in a mass grave in the desert near the Saudi border.
This was the first time that some of the thousands of Kurds who disappeared under Saddam Hussein's rule have been brought home for burial.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, according to Mohammed Issan, minister for human rights in the Kurdistan regional government. "The minimum picture, without any exaggeration, is 350,000 missing Kurds," he said.
"I think all these numbers we are going to find in mass graves because we've managed now to identify 284 sites of all the Kurdish mass graves inside the country now." (BBC)
"Complete success" of Chinese space flight hailed
People's Daily, China's leading newspaper, carried an editorial Monday celebrating the "complete success" of China's second manned space flight.
The editorial, titled "Great milestone of Scientific Exploration - Congratulations on Complete Success of China's Shenzhou-6 Space Mission", said that the successful flight of Shenzhou-6, following the first manned flight of Shenzhou-5 in 2003, once again demonstrates that the Chinese people have the resolve, confidence and ability to climb up scientific heights one after another.
Shenzhou-6 spacecraft landed safely in north China's Inner Mongolian grasslands early Monday morning after a five-day flight with two astronauts on board.
According to the editorial, the successful mission of Shenzhou-6 mission represents a significant progress in China's space exploration and a great milestone in hi-tech development.
Under generations of the Chinese government and Communist Party leadership, china's manned space program has made great breakthrough in "greatly promoting China's economic, scientific, national defense strength and national cohesiveness".
It stressed that China carries out space-based scientific and technological experiments out of purely peaceful purposes and such experiments are contributions to human science and peace cause.
"China is ready to work together with the world to make peaceful use of space resources and will as always stick to the right direction of peaceful tapping of the outer space," the editorial said. (Xinhua)
The special forces of the United States, India, Russia and the United Kingdom will hold multilateral land and air exercises on the Russian soil for the first time next year.
“Russia hopes to organise and host the exercises,” Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov told reporters during his visit to India.
Though most of these countries have held bilateral exercises between the special forces, this would be for the first time that such a large scale war games would be held, the Minister said.
He was speaking after the defence forces of India and Russia held their first-ever joint airborne military exercise Sunday. The objective of the exercise was to strengthen cooperation between the countries to counter terrorism, press reports said.
Russian-Indian-Chinese military exercises also could be held in the future as part of the cooperation between the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), he said, although he tossed aside any possibility that a military bloc was forming.
"The time of military blocs and alliances of this kind is fading away," Ivanov told journalists. Ivanov also said that India was a SCO observer at the Peace Mission-2005 Russian-Chinese military exercises.
India and China are Russia's strategic partners, and "cooperation with those countries covers the entire spectrum of military and military-technical partnership and cooperation in the energy sector, culture and other spheres. This suits everyone," he said.
Israel restricts Palestinian travel
Israel suspended contacts with the Palestinian Authority and slapped tough travel restrictions on the West Bank Monday after Palestinian gunmen killed three young Israelis and wounded five in two drive-by shooting near Jewish settlements.
The Palestinian attack near the Gush Etzion block of settlements on Sunday was the deadliest since July. It followed Israeli intelligence warnings that Palestinian militants, who claim they drove Israel out of Gaza by force, would now shift their focus to the West Bank.
The shootings, the restrictions and Israel's suspension of talks with the Palestinian Authority deflated hopes that Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip and months of relative calm would create a new atmosphere of trust and revive peace efforts after five years of bloodshed.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas condemned the shootings. "These events harm the cease-fire and the calm that we have respected," he said.
The effects of the new restrictions were immediately felt across the West Bank, where dozens of new checkpoints appeared on major roads overnight and Palestinian drivers were forced onto smaller back roads.
The Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a militant group with ties to Abbas' Fatah party, claimed responsibility. However, Kamel Ghanam, an Al-Aqsa leader in Ramallah, said his group was not behind the attack, and Israeli security officials said they believed the Islamic militant group Hamas was involved.
The attacks renew international pressure on Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to
crack down on militants.
Chechen claims responsibility for Nalchik attack
Chechnya's top warlord said Monday he was behind last week's deadly assault in southern Russia, but added it was carried out by regional fighters - indicating an increasingly organized effort to set up militant cells in the area.
Shamil Basayev, who is the author of Russia's worst terrorist attacks, claimed responsibility for the assault in the city of Nalchik that officials say left at least 137 dead.
"I carried out the general operative management," Basayev said, according to the statement on the Web site of Kavkaz Center, seen as a mouthpiece for the Chechnya's Islamic separatist rebels.
Basayev said the attacks on police and government buildings in Nalchik, the capital of the Kabardino-Balkariya republic, were done by militants affiliated with the Chechen rebels, but that Chechen fighters were not involved. He said they were launched by the republic's section of the so-called Caucasus Front, believed to include militant cells throughout the region.
The leader of Kabardino-Balkariya front is "busy preparing other work that I have assigned him," Basayev was quoted as saying, apparently referring to new terrorist actions he has often threatened.
Basayev has claimed responsibility for organizing last year's hostage-taking at a school in Beslan, which ended in the deaths of more than 330 people. He also said he planned the 2002 seizure of some 800 hostages in a Moscow theater. (Associated Press)
Turkey's losing patience over Iraqi haven for Kurds
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan renewed a call for the United States and the Iraqi authorities to curb Turkish Kurd rebels based in northern Iraq, warning that his government's patience was running out.
"Turkey has been patient and prudent so far. But no one has the right to ask for more patience from Turkey when martyred soldiers are buried every day in another town, when mothers cry and babies become orphans," Erdogan said in a speech to his parliamentary group, Anatolia news agency reported.
"Everyone, and particularly those who are responsible for the region (northern Iraq), should know that our people are expecting them to take efficient steps to purge the region of terrorists," he said.
Ankara has several times warned of a possible Turkish military incursion into northern Iraq to hit back at armed militants from the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), who have found refuge in the region since 1999.
The PKK is blacklisted as a terrorist group by Turkey as well as both the United States and the European Union. PKK militants began sneaking back into Turkey after calling off a five-year unilateral ceasefire in June 2004, and have significantly stepped up violence in the country's mainly Kurdish southeast, which borders Iraq, since early this year.
The Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed some 37,000 lives since 1984 when the PKK took up arms to fight for Kurdish self-rule in the southeast. (AFP)
Clashes in Sudan claim civilian lives
Rebels and Sudanese forces have clashed in North Darfur with artillery fire killing a number of civilians, the Sudanese government said Monday.
The African Union, which is monitoring a shaky cease-fire deal between rebels and the government in the crisis-wracked Darfur region, said rebels attack attacked an army outpost early Sunday, which was followed by "heavy bombardment" apparently from Sudanese soldiers.
The fighting took place southeast of the town of Kutum before Sudanese soldiers chased the rebel fighters from the Sudan Liberation Army into the nearby villages of Kenin and Nadi, the AU said in a statement.
But the Sudanese government accused "a group of armed movements in Darfur (of launching) waves of indiscriminate shelling" on Kutum, which resulted in "human and material damage" on Sunday and Saturday.
"The outcome was the death and injury of a group of children, women and elderly citizens," said a statement issued by a Sudanese government delegation at Darfur peace talks in the Nigerian capital, Abuja. No casualty figures were provided.
The delegation said the rebel attack breached all peace agreements aimed at curbing the Darfur conflict, which began in February 2003.
The AU also condemned the violence and urged restraint and cooperation from the warring sides to help it investigate the incident.
The United Nations estimates the fighting has resulted in the deaths of more than 180,000 people through violence, disease or malnutrition. (Associated Press)
Kurds mourn dead from Saddam era
The bodies of more than 500 Iraqi Kurds killed by Saddam Hussein's regime in the 1980s have been returned to the north of the country for burial. A ceremony was held to mark their return on Monday.
One by one, more than 500 coffins draped in the Kurdish flag were carried solemnly passed a guard of honour on the tarmac at Irbil airport. It is believed the remains belong to members of the Barzani clan.
Eight thousand of them were rounded up by Saddam Hussein's forces in 1983 in reprisal for a Kurdish guerrilla attack near the Iranian border. They were trucked away to the south. Their bodies were discovered in a mass grave in the desert near the Saudi border.
This was the first time that some of the thousands of Kurds who disappeared under Saddam Hussein's rule have been brought home for burial.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, according to Mohammed Issan, minister for human rights in the Kurdistan regional government. "The minimum picture, without any exaggeration, is 350,000 missing Kurds," he said.
"I think all these numbers we are going to find in mass graves because we've managed now to identify 284 sites of all the Kurdish mass graves inside the country now." (BBC)
"Complete success" of Chinese space flight hailed
People's Daily, China's leading newspaper, carried an editorial Monday celebrating the "complete success" of China's second manned space flight.
The editorial, titled "Great milestone of Scientific Exploration - Congratulations on Complete Success of China's Shenzhou-6 Space Mission", said that the successful flight of Shenzhou-6, following the first manned flight of Shenzhou-5 in 2003, once again demonstrates that the Chinese people have the resolve, confidence and ability to climb up scientific heights one after another.
Shenzhou-6 spacecraft landed safely in north China's Inner Mongolian grasslands early Monday morning after a five-day flight with two astronauts on board.
According to the editorial, the successful mission of Shenzhou-6 mission represents a significant progress in China's space exploration and a great milestone in hi-tech development.
Under generations of the Chinese government and Communist Party leadership, china's manned space program has made great breakthrough in "greatly promoting China's economic, scientific, national defense strength and national cohesiveness".
It stressed that China carries out space-based scientific and technological experiments out of purely peaceful purposes and such experiments are contributions to human science and peace cause.
"China is ready to work together with the world to make peaceful use of space resources and will as always stick to the right direction of peaceful tapping of the outer space," the editorial said. (Xinhua)
