Russia to create joint air defense system with Armenia

RBC, 13.02.2009, Moscow 13:42:11.Russia is poised to create a joint air defense system with Armenia, Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Nikolai Bordyuzha told a press conference in Moscow today. He indicated that the possibility of building an air defense system for data exchange in Central Asia was also being considered at the moment. Bordyuzha pointed out that this would be the first stage in the creation of three air defense systems - in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia - that would be followed by the second stage, involving the coordination of all regional systems and the establishment of a system for data exchange. The official added that such work was part of military cooperation within the CSTO.

Greetings to Iranian President

Pyongyang, February 11 (KCNA) -- Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of the DPRK Supreme People's Assembly, on Wednesday sent a message of greetings to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the victory of the Islamic revolution in Iran.

Kim in the message said that since the victory of the revolution the Iranian people have made great successes in the efforts to foil the moves of hostile forces for pressure and interference in internal affairs, defend the sovereignty of the country and the dignity of the nation and achieve its welfare. And he wished the president greater success in his noble work for defending the gains of the Islamic revolution and building powerful Iran.

He expressed belief that the good relations of friendship and cooperation between the DPRK and Iran developing on good terms as the days go by would grow stronger.

Students hold Gaza protest

Around 30 students held a sit-in at George Square lecture theatre calling for Edinburgh University to end all links with Israel.

The students have demanded that the university ends its contract with Eden Springs, the firm which markets mineral water from the Golan Heights region, and divest its alleged business links with defense firms that supply arms to Israel.

In addition, the students have demanded at least five scholarships be offered to students in Gaza and that the university offer non-monetary donations to the besieged region.

Nine dead in Russia shootout

NAZRAN, Russia, (AFP) - Four police officers and five armed militants were killed Thursday in a shootout in a volatile southern Russian province near Chechnya that also left four people wounded, police told AFP.

A police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the militants were holed up in a residential building on the outskirts of Nazran, the main city of the north Caucasus republic of Ingushetia.

The police official provided no further details on the identities or number of the gunmen or on how the clash erupted.

Such skirmishes have become frequent in the region, among the poorest in Russia, following the conflict with separatist rebels in Chechnya that also destabilized other parts of the Russian North Caucasus.

Russian law enforcement and security personnel in the region have been targeted regularly in shooting and bomb attacks in recent years.

Troops throng Afghan capital as US envoy arrives

By HEIDI VOGT, Associated Press Writer

KABUL – The new U.S. regional envoy landed in Afghanistan on Thursday to help chart President Barack Obama's strategy for peace in this volatile country, a day after a bold Taliban assault demonstrated the insurgency's ability to wreak havoc even in the tightly guarded capital.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman confirmed Richard Holbrooke's arrival late in the day, but declined to give further details about his location or the schedule for his multi-day visit.

Holbrooke's first visit to the country comes amid an increasing sense that the security situation is disintegrating in and around Kabul. On Wednesday, Taliban fighters launched one their most audacious attacks on the capital, killing 20 people in a coordinated assault on three government buildings.

Government officials said the mastermind behind the attacks was based in Pakistan, a reminder of the cross-border violence and disputes that have made the battle against the Taliban so difficult. One of Holbrooke's roles as envoy to both countries is to help the Obama administration to design a strategy that will combat Taliban regionally. He is set to meet with President Hamid Karzai, and other high-level officials.

Under rain and snow, troops armed with heavy machine guns swarmed street intersections in Kabul on Thursday, checking drivers' papers and searching cars.

"Security measures have been increased 100 percent, particularly at the gates of Kabul," said Abdul Gafar Pacha, the head of the police criminal investigation unit.

In the east, meanwhile, a suicide bomber Thursday blew himself up outside a police station in Sharan, the capital of Paktika province, killing an officer and wounding 10 others, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

The Taliban regularly target Afghan and foreign troops with suicide and roadside attacks, and other violent incidents have already spiked this year.

In Wednesday's attack, Taliban fighters armed with guns, grenades and suicide vests, they stormed through barricades at the Justice Ministry in the heart of Kabul and a corrections department building to the north. One attacker was killed before he could force his way into a third building, the Education Ministry.

The Taliban claimed responsibility soon after the assault began.

The attack is a reminder of challenges facing Obama as he increases America's focus — and troop levels — in Afghanistan. The new administration has promised up to 30,000 new troops.

All eight attackers died in Wednesday's assaults, leaving the total death toll to 28. Another 57 people were wounded, according to the Interior Ministry.

Amrullah Saleh, the head of Afghanistan's intelligence service, said the attackers sent text messages to a militant leader in Pakistan before the attack.

Afghanistan has accused militants based in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas or Pakistan's spy service of being behind several major attacks in Kabul, including the bombing of the Indian Embassy last July, an assassination attempt against President Hamid Karzai in April and an assault on the luxury Serena Hotel in January 2008.

Crash of US, Russian satellites a threat in space

By SETH BORENSTEIN and DOUGLAS BIRCH, Associated Press Writers

MOSCOW – U.S. and Russian officials traded shots Thursday over who was to blame for a huge satellite collision this week that spewed speeding clouds of debris into space, threatening other unmanned spacecraft in nearby orbits.

The smashup 500 miles (800 kilometers) over Siberia on Tuesday involved a derelict Russian spacecraft designed for military communications and a working satellite owned by U.S.-based Iridium, which served commercial customers as well as the U.S. Department of Defense.

A prominent Russian space expert suggested NASA fell down on the job by not warning of the collision. But U.S. space experts said the Russian has the wrong agency.

The U.S. military tracks the 18,000 objects in orbit, monitoring only certain threats because it lacks the resources to do everything, said Maj. Regina Winchester, spokeswoman for U.S. Strategic Command, which oversees the military's Space Surveillance Network.

Iridium spokeswoman Elizabeth Mailander said the company can move any of its 65 satellites out of the way if it gets a precise warning ahead of a crash. Such a warning was not made Tuesday, Mailander said.

But the company has never redirected a satellite before because the warnings they get aren't precise enough and there are just too many satellites to be constantly rejiggering their orbit, she said.

"Ours was where it was supposed to be and it was functioning," Mailander said. She said Iridium hasn't talked with Russian space officials.

No one has any idea yet how many pieces of space junk were generated by the collision or how big they might be. But the crash scattered space junk in orbits 300 to 800 miles (500 to 1,300 kilometers) above Earth, according to Maj.-Gen. Alexander Yakushin, chief of staff for the Russian military's Space Forces.

Experts in space debris will meet next week in Vienna at a U.N. seminar to come up with better ways to prevent future crashes, said NASA orbital debris program manager Nicholas Johnson.

Igor Lisov, a prominent Russian space expert, said Thursday he did not understand why NASA's debris experts and Iridium had failed to prevent the collision, since the Iridium satellite was active and its orbit could be adjusted.

"It could have been a computer failure or a human error," he said. "It also could be that they only were paying attention to smaller debris and ignoring the defunct satellites."

But that job belongs to the U.S. Department of Defense's Space Surveillance Network, which was created with NASA's help.

The network's top priority is protecting astronauts — warning if there is a threat to the international space station or manned spacecraft. And it gives NASA precise warnings for about a dozen satellites that could be maneuvered out of the way, something that happens once in a while, Johnson said.

There are 800 to 1,000 active satellites in orbit and about 17,000 pieces of debris and dead satellites, like the Russian one, that can't be controlled, he said. The U.S. space tracking network doesn't have the resources to warn all satellite operators of every possible close call, Johnson and Winchester said.

"It's unfortunate that we cannot predict all of the collisions all of the time," said Winchester.

A private Web site, named Socrates, does give daily risk of crash warnings for satellites and Iridium, with 65 satellites, frequently is in the top 10 daily risks, Johnson said. However, the Iridium satellite wasn't on Tuesday's warning list, he said.

Lisov said the debris may threaten a large number of earth-tracking and weather satellites in similar orbits.

"There is a quite a lot of satellites in nearby orbits," he told The Associated Press. "The other 65 Iridium satellites in similar orbits will face the most serious risk, and there numerous earth-tracking and weather satellites in nearby orbits. Fragments may trigger a chain of collisions."

Both the U.S. surveillance network and Russian Space Forces are tracking the debris, believed to be traveling at speeds of around 200 meters — or about 660 feet — per second.

NASA said it would take weeks to know the full magnitude of the crash, but both NASA and Russia's Roscosmos agencies said there was little risk to the international space station and its three crew members.

Russian Mission Control spokesman Valery Lyndin noted the station's orbit has been adjusted in the past to dodge space debris.

The space junk also is unlikely to pose a threat to the space shuttle set to launch Feb. 22 with seven astronauts, U.S. officials said, although that issue will be reviewed.

The Iridium orbiter weighed 1,235 pounds (560 kilograms), and the decommissioned Kosmos-2251 military communications craft weighed nearly a ton. The Kosmos was launched in 1993 and went out of service two years later in 1995, Yakushin said.

Some Soviet-built, nuclear-powered satellites long out of action in higher orbits may also be vulnerable to collisions, Lisov said. If one of them collides with the debris, the radioactive fallout would pose no threat to Earth, he said, but its speeding wreckage could multiply the hazard to other satellites.

Iridium said the loss of the satellite was causing brief, occasional outages in its service and it expected to fix the problem by Friday. The Bethesda, Maryland-based company said it expected to replace the lost satellite with one of its eight in-orbit spares within 30 days.

The replacement cost for an Iridium satellite is between $50 million and $100 million, including the launch, said John Higginbotham, chief executive of Integral Systems Inc., which runs ground support systems for satellites.

Pakistan shows global links to Mumbai terror attacks

From Italy, Spain and an unnamed Middle Eastern country to US and Russia, the plotters of the Mumbai terror attack tapped local resources including dollar payment transfers and registering internet domain names in a sinister global plan to numb India's financial capital that left 183 persons dead.

As Pakistan gave the first readout on its probe into 26/11 which saw the cyber link coming to the fore, its Interior Minister Rehman Malik said leads also pointed to Europe and the United States for which he said Federal Bureau of Investigation's help and international cooperation will be sought to crack the case.

"It is not only Pakistan, but the system of the other countries has also been used," Malik said.

Malik named other countries, where he said the plotters had made payment transfers or where equipment used in the attacks was registered. For example, he said, 238 dollars was transferred from Spain to acquire a domain name -- used for communication over the Internet -- that was registered in Houston, Texas in the US.

A Pakistani man Javed Iqbal who was living in Barcelona was repatriated and arrested in connection with the payment, Malik said.

Another domain name used by the attackers was registered in Russia, and a satellite phone registered in a Middle
Eastern country, which he declined to name.

Malik said "money was paid in Italy," but it was not immediately clear how much he was referring to or what the
money was used for.

Giving details of internet domains used by the Mumbai plotters, Malik said they were traced to Houston in the US and Russia.

Suspects used a digital teleconferencing system whose service provider is based in Houston while a Thuraya phone was issued in a "Middle Eastern country" Malik said. He did not identify the Middle East nation.

It was also revealed that the money for the attackers was paid in Italy and the amount came from Islamabad.

Voice Over Internet Protocol was purchased from Barcelona by Javed Iqbal, who also operated three e-mail accounts from the Spanish city, Malik said. Payments for use of VOIP made in Spain and Italy, it was stated.

With cyber technology being tapped by the terror suspects to execute the plan, Malik also said that e-mail sent purportedly by Indian Mujahideen was traced to LeY operative Zahir Shah.

The Mumbai gunmen's handlers in Pakistan had kept in touch with them by phone during the three-day assault, according to Indian investigators, who also monitored the worldwide traffic of VOIP flow to find out that nearly 5,000 calls were made across the globe at the time of the Mumbai siege.

Turkish foreign minister warns against confronting Russia

Riga - Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan advised the United States, NATO and European Union not to adopt a confrontational attitude in their dealings with Russia on Thursday. Speaking after talks with his Latvian counterpart, Maris Riekstins, in Riga, Babacan said Turkey and Russia enjoyed "normal, friendly relations" and noted that Russia is Turkey's largest trading partner.

"The key term is co-operation. A strategy of confrontation with Russia is not going to give positive results and risks producing lose-lose outcomes," he warned when about Russian plans to station Iskander missiles in its Kaliningrad Baltic enclave in response to US plans for a "missile shield" in central and eastern Europe.

Riekstins said placing Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad "cannot be evaluated in a positive way because these missiles are of an offensive, not defensive nature," but voiced hope that the new US administration would be able to make a fresh start in negotiations with Moscow.

Though classed as short-range missiles, Iskanders would be capable of striking Latvian territory.

Riekstins also said Latvia, which joined the European Union in 2004, fully supported Turkey's attempts to gain entry to the 27- member bloc.

"We see this proceeding not as fast as Turkey or ourselves would desire," Riekstins said, adding that any EU applicant that satisfied all the necessary criteria should have the right to join.

Babacan said he expected that Turkey would have met all membership criteria by 2012 and could join the EU a year later.

"By the end of 2013 I would say we will be ready," Babacan said, though he admitted the EU would need to feel "more self-confidence" for enlargement to take place.

Australian government says five children killed in Afghan battle

February 13, 2009
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Canadian Press, 2009

KABUL, Afghanistan - A gunfight between Australian forces and Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan killed five children who were caught in the crossfire, the Australian Defense Ministry said Friday.

Afghan officials gave lower death tolls. Asadullah Hamdan, the provincial governor, said three children between 7 and 10 years old were killed.

The deaths Thursday come as the newly appointed U.S. envoy to the region tours Afghanistan, and highlights a major issue President Barack Obama's administration will have to address as it increases its focus on the country - the rising civilian death toll.

Afghan parliamentarians say they worry the planned jump in U.S. troops will further increase civilian casualties.

Envoy Richard Holbrooke arrived late Thursday for his first visit to the country since being appointed by Obama to define a new strategy to combat the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He is expected to meet with President Hamid Karzai and other top officials.

Karzai has repeatedly warned Western forces that they need to do more to prevent civilian deaths or they will lose the support of the Afghan people.

Holbrooke comes to a country still reeling from a bold Taliban assault on government buildings in the capital Wednesday. Eight assailants killed 20 people in coordinated attacks in the heart of Kabul.

Thursday's fighting in southern Uruzgan province started with a raid by international and Afghan troops on compounds in a village where insurgent leaders were believed to be holed up, NATO said in a statement.

The resulting gunbattle in Sar Morgharb village killed at least three children and wounded four other civilians, said Hamdan, the provincial governor.

The Australian Defense Ministry confirmed the fighting, saying it had reports of five children killed and four other people wounded - two of them children. Some of the wounded were taken to military medical facilities for treatment, it said in a statement.

Provincial police chief Gen. Juma Gul Himat said he had reports of four children killed. The conflicting death tolls could not be resolved.

One insurgent was also killed, the Australian statement said. No Australian troops were wounded.

A total of 1,162 civilians were killed in insurgency-related incidents in 2008, according to an AP casualty count - 368 by foreign and Afghan troops and 768 by the Taliban. Another 26 were caught in crossfire.

Meanwhile, an American service member died from wounds received when a patrol came under fire in the south Thursday, U.S. forces spokesman Col. Greg Julian said. He did not provide further details. A military statement said the service member was part of a "combat reconnaissance patrol."

Iraqi refugees in Syria reluctant to return

DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Iraqi musician Abdel Razaq al-Ghazawi, who sought refuge in neighboring Syria from his country's raging conflict, returned home last year after hearing about a fall in the violence.

Within weeks, disillusioned by Iraq's continued insecurity and what he saw as creeping intolerance, he crossed the border back to Syria where he scrapes a living as a refugee.

"I found out that security has not improved enough. The spread of religion has also made life intolerable," said Ghazawi, who trained as an orchestra conductor in Britain.

"Artists and intellectuals no longer have a place in the new Iraq," said Ghazawi as he waited for his turn to collect rice and flour rations at a United Nations center.

Ghazawi was one of millions who fled the upheaval ushered in by the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. The bulk of them went to Syria, which took in over a million Iraqi refugees, and Jordan, where up to 700,000 fled.

The U.S.-backed government in Baghdad has called on those refugees to return and says most of them have already done so.

But many are reluctant to go back and the numbers of returnees may not be as high as Iraq estimates.

Adan al-Sharifi, commercial attache at the Iraqi embassy in Damascus, said there were only 400,000 Iraqis left in Syria. Syrian government figures show 1.1 million Iraqis in Syria compared with 1.4 million before residency requirements were introduced in 2007.

"There is greater mobility and probably a large number has gone back, but people are keeping their options open and very sizable numbers of Iraqi refugees remain in Syria," said Laurens Jolles, the United Nations Higher Commissioner for Refugees representative in Syria .

"Many people have gone through very traumatic experiences. Not everybody can go back to their lives in terms of living in the same neighborhood or house," Jolles added.

He said more refugees could go back if the Iraqi government accelerated compensation for the returnees and access to their property. UNHCR has also advised the Iraqi government to establish one special agency to deal with the returnees, instead of the present myriad of departments.

Jolles said the number of Iraqis registered in Syrian schools fell sharply over the past year to 30,000, but refugees registered with UNHCR have grown steadily to over 224,000. Many others remained in Syria but were reluctant to sign up.

REGIONAL TENSIONS

The refugee issue has deepened regional tensions, with Damascus saying the Iraqi government has done little to help its own citizens abroad.

The incomers have raised pressure on Syria's infrastructure, but also contributed to a consumer and property market boom.

Sharifi played down tensions, saying the number of refugees returning to Iraq was easing the pressure on their hosts in Damascus. Some of those who have not returned were waiting for the end of the school year, he added.

"There was a big movement back last year and we are expecting another big push after this school season ends."

Diplomats and international aid officials say returnee volumes are difficult to pin down and point out that the numbers crossing into Iraq daily roughly equal those exiting the country through border points with Jordan and Syria .

"Talk of a massive return is a bit exaggerated. I would call it slow and steady, which is better and more sustainable than a rush," said Rafiq Tschannen, Iraq chief of mission for the International Organization for Migration in Amman.

Tschannen said a large proportion of Iraqis who have gone back did so because they ran out of money or had their hopes of re-settling in the West dashed, with Western nations still accepting only a limited number of refugees.

The United States has been especially criticized for not taking in enough refugees. But Washington, which has downgraded its diplomatic ties with Damascus, has kept a line of communication open with Syria about the refugees and a U.S. official visited Damascus to discuss the issue.

A European diplomat said it was unusual for whole families to return to Iraq, with sectarian tensions still running high, but the breadwinners are going back and forth more frequently.

Around 60 percent of the UNHCR registered refugees are Sunni Arab, a minority that controlled the political system before the U.S. invasion removed Saddam Hussein from power.

The Shi'ite ascendancy since has done little for Khadijah Khudeir, a Shi'ite women who fled Baghdad's Saidiya district.

"My house was taken over and I really don't know by which militia. My late husband was a Sunni but there is no longer religious harmony in society," she said.

Bashar Jaljees, a Christian merchant from Kirkuk , saw his shop being blown up by what he describes as Kurdish militia. Now he is trying to adjust to life in Syria, where Iraqis are officially banned from work.

Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen have been embroiled in a frequently violent dispute over control of Kirkuk, a center of oil output.

Jaljees does not think of returning and points to recent local elections in Iraq that were not held in Kirkuk as evidence of the level of danger in the city.

"The government had done nothing to stop Kirkuk from exploding," he said. "I don't want to be there when it does."

At a suburb of Damascus where Iraqis first fled, residents say there are noticeably fewer refugees. Some went back but others relocated to cheaper housing in slums of the capital.

"You used to hear Iraqi accents in the street and think you were in a Baghdad. It is less now," said Abou Tarek, a real estate agent.

Algeria's Bouteflika seeks third presidential term

ALGIERS (AFP) - Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced Thursday that he will run for a controversial third term in April 9 elections he is tipped as certain to win.

Bouteflika, 72 next month, will face limited opposition with two of the main potential challengers boycotting the poll after parliament passed a constitutional amendment three months ago to lift a two-term presidential limit.

The leader of one of those parties has described the vote as a "pathetic and dangerous circus."

Promising to spend 150 billion dollars (117 billion euros) on development and create three million jobs over the next five years, the president confirmed his candidacy at a rally attended by around 5,000 people amid strict security measures, including the jamming of mobile phones.

He said he would stand as an "independent," pursue his policy of national reconciliation and "fight against terrorism with all necessary means" while leaving the door open to those who "repent."

Oil-rich Algeria could "continue its intensive economic development, despite the world economic crisis," he said, adding that public and private investment under his stewardship had created 3.5 million jobs since 1999 and lowered the unemployment rate from 30 percent to 12 percent in the same period.

First elected in 1999 and returned five years later with 84.99 percent of vote, Bouteflika said at Thursday's meeting that he will again promote "the politics of national reconciliation."

Having defied harsh criticism to grant amnesty to thousands of rebels in a war that claimed some 150,000 lives going back to 1992, it is a strategy which has already twice secured heavy endorsement in referendums.

"The dice were rolled" with December's constitutional amendment, commented Said Sadi of the Rally for Culture and Democracy (RCD). The other principal opposition party, the Social Forces Front (FFS), has also refused to participate.

Of the 18 people to have taken out paperwork to run for office, only one, Algerian National Front leader Moussa Touati, had gathered the necessary signatures by Tuesday.

One Islamist is considered a possible candidate, while a Trotskyist who ran in 2004 is due to announce his decision this week also.

Former president Liamine Zeroual, who led the country from 1995 to 1998, has refused to stand and former prime minister Rheda Malek went so far as to quit politics entirely.

A leader of the country's Islamist movement, Abdallah Djaballah, has also announced he would not take part in the elections.

Born March 2, 1937, in Oujda, Morocco, of Algerian parents, Bouteflika joined the National Liberation Army in 1956 to help fight the war of independence against French forces, which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives prior to victory in 1962.

At just 26, he became foreign minister, a post he held for 13 years, but was sidelined from government after the death of President Houari Boumediene in December 1978. He left political life in 1981.

Solicited in 1994 to take over the presidency, he declined, and the job was given to Zeroual.

After nearly two decades in the wilderness, Bouteflika returned from self-imposed exile in Switzerland to run in 1999 with the backing of the army.

He initially faced six rivals, but wound up standing alone when they all pulled out, crying foul.

Since coming to power, Bouteflika has already spent more than 150 billion dollars to modernize the country's oil and gas-rich economy.

There is now no limit -- other than nature -- on the number of presidential terms he could serve.

U.S. Navy Captures 9 Suspected Pirates in Second Somali Action

By Caroline Alexander and Gregory Viscusi

Feb. 12 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. forces captured nine suspects in the Gulf of Aden today, the Navy’s second seizure of pirates off the Somali coast in 24 hours.

Today’s action followed a distress call at about 4 a.m. local time from the Indian-flagged vessel Premdivya, whose crew said they had been fired on from a skiff, the U.S. 5th Fleet said in a statement.

A helicopter from the U.S. guided missile cruiser Vella Gulf brought the skiff to a stop with two warning shots, the fleet said. A team from the Vella Gulf boarded the skiff and arrested the suspects, who were to be transferred to a temporary holding facility on the naval supply ship Lewis and Clark.

The Vella Gulf’s crew seized seven piracy suspects in an incident yesterday. That operation marked the first time the U.S. contingent in an anti-piracy force captured suspected pirates off Somalia, the 5th Fleet said. U.S. sailors and Marines in the region previously were restricted to operations to “disrupt and deter” pirates.

French, Danish and British warships have arrested pirates, generally turning them over to Somali officials. Kenya has reached agreement with the U.S. and British militaries to prosecute pirates.

At about 3 p.m. yesterday, the 420-foot (128-meter) vessel Polaris, a chemical and oil-products tanker sailing under a Marshall Islands flag, sent a distress call after seven pirates in a skiff tried to force their way aboard using a ladder. Crewmembers removed the ladder and stopped the hijacking, the U.S. Navy said. Sailors from the Vella Gulf intercepted the skiff, which carried “several weapons,” the fleet said.

Task Force

The Vella Gulf is part of a multinational task force that conducts counter-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden, Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean and the Red Sea.

About 20 warships now patrol the Gulf of Aden, an unavoidable transit point for the 50 ships a day that use the Suez Canal. The increased naval presence has cut piracy in the region, according to the U.S. Navy.

Last year, pirates attacked 165 ships and seized 43 off the coast of Somalia, up from 58 attacks and 12 seizures in 2007, the French military said.

Livni still ahead in final Israeli election results: report

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's ruling Kadima party retained a one seat lead over Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud in the final results of Israel's general election, Israel Radio reported on Thursday.

Livni's centrist Kadima won 28 seats and Netanyahu's opposition Likud took 27 in Tuesday's election for the 120-member parliament, the Israel Elections Committee said at a press conference in Jerusalem.

The final results for the leading parties mirrored initial numbers issued when polls closed on Tuesday.

Russia starts engine production for its Iskander missiles

By MARTIN SIEFF, UPI Senior News Analyst

WASHINGTON, Feb. 11 (UPI) -- Russia's Omsk engine design and production bureau has begun a large-scale production of engines for the Iskander-M short-range tactical missile system, RIA Novosti reported Friday.

"The company has received a large Defense Ministry order to manufacture engines for Iskander-M systems. The first batch must be supplied by the end of February," Valery Kovalchuk, Omsk bureau deputy general director, told the news agency.

According to the report, Kovalchuk stated that the Omsk bureau was fully prepared to manufacture the Iskander. He said it already had lined up all necessary design, testing and production personnel and equipment necessary to start full-cycle production of the engines. The Omsk bureau would work at full capacity on producing Iskander-M engines for the next five years, he said.

The RIA Novosti report noted that the Iskander-M short-range, mobile tactical missile (NATO designation SS-26 Stone) is propelled by two solid-propellant single-stage 9M723K1 guided missiles, giving it a "quasi-ballistic" capability. This ability to maneuver, combined with the Iskander-M's very low trajectory, relatively fast speed and rapid acceleration thanks to its solid fuel propellant, makes the missile very difficult to intercept after it is launched.

These factors, combined with its pinpoint accuracy, make it a formidable potential preemptive strike weapon against the anti-ballistic missile base and radar tracking facility that the Bush administration wanted to build in Poland and the Czech Republic. The Obama administration is currently reassessing those plans.

Last November Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in a nationally televised state of the union address to the Russian people threatened to deploy Iskander-Ms in Kaliningrad to target the planned U.S. BMD bases when they were built. However, since U.S. President Barack Obama was elected on Nov. 4, the Russians have not deployed a single Iskander-M yet in their Kaliningrad exclave on the Baltic Sea, where the missiles could put the proposed U.S. missile defense bases within range.

Russian critics of the Iskander program have claimed the Russian defense industrial sector is too short of skilled workers, industrial capacity and raw materials to manufacture as many Iskanders as it needs to carry out its threats. However, Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin continue to give development of the Iskander program top priority.

As we reported last week in these columns, the Russian armed forces are now developing a new unmanned aerial vehicle with the specific task of providing accurate targeting data in real time to the mobile Iskander missile units.

RIA Novosti noted the Iskander-M missile has a range of 250 miles and that it is capable of being armed with either conventional explosive or nuclear warheads.

The Russian armed forces expect to have a minimum of five missile brigades armed and equipped with Iskander-M systems operationally deployed by 2016, RIA Novosti said. Already, two missile battalions on combat duty in the North Caucasus military district are armed with them, the news agency said, citing unnamed "military sources."

As we have reported previously in these columns, Russian government and Defense Ministry officials have leaked reports that the Kremlin is willing to refrain from deploying the Iskanders and to enter into serious negotiations with the Obama administration to conclude a new strategic arms reduction treaty before the end of this year. However, the Russians insist they will negotiate a new START treaty only if the U.S. government agrees to scrap the two ballistic missile defense bases in Poland and the Czech Republic.

As we previously have noted in these columns, boosting Iskander production is a win-win scenario for the Kremlin. Because of its very short range, Iskander production and deployment would not be limited by any strategic arms reduction treaty. And if START negotiations collapsed, or even if the treaty was signed but U.S.-Russian relations deteriorated seriously at some later point, Moscow would still have the option and resources to rapidly deploy Iskander battalions into Kaliningrad at almost no notice.

Also, the Iskander is a formidable short-range tactical weapon that could be used against key military command centers and air bases in the event of any war, especially in a devastating preemptive attack.

Kurds change name of legislative branch

ERBIL, Iraq, Feb. 11 (UPI) -- Lawmakers with the legislative branch of the Kurdistan Regional Government Wednesday voted unanimously to change the official name of the body.

In an extraordinary session in the Kurdish regional capital of Erbil, lawmakers approved a measure to change the name of the legislative branch from the Kurdistan National Assembly to Iraq's Kurdistan Parliament, the Voices of Iraq news agency reported.

Kurdish lawmakers considered a variety of measures in the Wednesday session. Among those was a decision to increase the number of seats allocated to female lawmakers from 25 percent to 30 percent of the 111-member body.

Lawmakers last week had signaled they would consider a variety of amendments to their legal system and election laws, which were adopted in 1992.

Adnan Mufti, the leading parliamentarian, said, among other things, that Kurdish officials had decided on a preliminary date for elections in the region.

"There is a semi-agreement that the parliamentary elections will be held on May 19," he said. "This issue would be discussed with the Independent (High) Electoral Commission of Iraq."

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Emerging_Threats/2009/02/11/Kurds_change_name_of_legislative_branch/UPI-58331234382936/.

British frigate supports safe aid shipment

MOGADISHU, Somalia, Feb. 11 (UPI) -- The first large multi-ship escort protecting critical humanitarian aid to Somalia has been completed by a British Royal Navy frigate.

The first escort, as part of the European Union's Atalanta operation deployed to the Gulf of Aden, has been completed by the Royal Navy's HMS Northumberland frigate, the British Ministry of Defense reported.

HMS Northumberland and a detachment of Royal Marines escorted four merchant vessels carrying critical humanitarian aid for the World Food Program's distribution to the war-torn Somalia.

The deployment of the Royal Navy frigate is an initiative by the European Union to counter the escalating threats off the coast of Somalia where a growing number of multimillion-dollar cargo ships have been taken hostage by pirates.

"This has been the first large multi-ship escort task during Operation Atalanta, and I am pleased to say that, like our previous escort missions, this one was successful and without incident," Martin Simpson, HMS Northumberland commanding officer, said in a statement.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Emerging_Threats/2009/02/11/British_frigate_supports_safe_aid_shipment/UPI-53601234391159/.

Why the U.S. can't afford its military

By SHAUN WATERMAN, UPI Homeland and National Security Editor

WASHINGTON, Feb. 11 (UPI) -- With the combined cost of the economic stimulus package and the Wall Street bailout now projected by some estimates to top $2 trillion, and the federal deficit spiraling, U.S. officials are fretting that current levels of defense spending may be unsustainable.

Moreover, military leaders argue that they will need more money in future years to repair or replace equipment worn out or destroyed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; transform the force to fight modern wars; and invest in new generations of high-tech weaponry.

"The spigot of defense spending that opened on Sept. 11 is closing," Defense Secretary Robert Gates told a hearing last month of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, defense spending currently constitutes more than half of U.S. domestic discretionary spending -- that is, the part of the federal budget that is not spent on mandatory items like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. That is about 4.5 percent of U.S. gross domestic product -- more than double the proportion of national wealth most other industrialized countries spend on defense.

In absolute terms, the CBO says, Fiscal Year 2008 defense spending, adjusted for inflation, is now 20 percent more than it was in 1985 -- at the height of the Cold War military buildup -- and has risen 43 percent since its lowest post-Cold War level in 1998.

Yet although the military is much smaller than it was at that time, service chiefs projected last year that they will need continuing annual growth to maintain force readiness -- even accounting for the gradually falling cost of smaller U.S. deployments in Iraq.

"Quite bluntly," analyst Stephen Daggett of the non-partisan Congressional Research Service told a little-noticed hearing of the House Budget Committee last week, "the cost of everything we have been doing in defense has been accelerating upward too fast even for growing budgets to keep up."

Daggett in his prepared testimony listed several reasons for the explosive growth in the cost of the U.S. military.

First, personnel costs have spiraled. The "average military service member is about 45 percent more expensive, after adjusting for inflation, in Fiscal Year 2009 than in FY 1998," he said. Figures he presented showed that, although congressionally mandated increases in pay and benefits have grown by 30 percent more than inflation in that period, fully one-third of the total increase is down to the expanding costs of healthcare for military retirees under the "TRICARE for life" program.

And in the future, J. Michael Gilmore of the CBO told the same hearing his agency projected "needed funding for the military medical system (including care for both veterans and serving personnel) is growing seven, eight times more than rapidly than … costs as a whole" for the Defense Department -- and will more than double to $90 billion a year by 2026.

Daggett also identified two elements related to the ballooning costs of major weapons systems, like the Air Force's new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, or the Navy's controversial DDG-1000 multibillion-dollar destroyer: intergenerational cost growth and systematic underestimation of acquisition costs.

"The growing price of weapons does much to explain why the expense of maintaining even a smaller force structure than in the past has climbed so high," he said.

Intergenerational cost growth refers to the fact that military weapons systems, unlike almost every other category of high-tech equipment, are more expensive than they were 20 years ago.

As an example, Daggett cited the comparative costs of the F-35, which the Air Force considers its "low end" fighter, and the F-16 it will replace.

The F-35 is now projected to have a "flyaway cost" of $83 million each, compared with the inflation-adjusted cost in today's dollars of $30 million for the F-16 when it was developed in 1985.

"Look at any part of the civilian sector," he told lawmakers, according to a transcript of the hearing, "not just electronics, but automobiles or aircraft … the (cost) trends are not as good in (the Department of Defense) and sometimes they're going in the opposite direction … from what's going on in the civilian sector."

Daggett said the reasons for this were "a matter far beyond the scope of this brief survey" but did proffer some thoughts, including that developers often sought the highest possible performance -- what Gates has referred to as the 99 percent solution, vs. a much more affordable 75 percent solution.

"The bottom line on it is seeking performance," Daggett said. "What drives it here is when you're developing a weapons system, what are you looking for? You're looking for performance, and you're trying to push the envelope in a lot of cases."

Another driver of escalating weapons costs, he added, was a requirements development process that tended to produce systems with multiple capabilities, and he cited the DDG-1000 as an example.

The new destroyer will be half as large again as the DDG-51 it will replace, because it has state-of-the-art capabilities on so many different fronts, including air defense, anti-submarine warfare and communications -- not to mention the ability to carry helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles and a Marine Corps
or Special Forces detachment.

"In short, it is all things to all requirements writers," he said, adding the result was a ship "that is now projected to cost between $3.5 (billion) and $4 billion each, and that cannot, therefore, be afforded in substantial numbers."

The DDG-1000 also illustrated Daggett's second factor in the spiraling costs of weapons systems -- the systematic underestimation of acquisition costs.

Figures he presented showed that, between 2000 and 2007, the cost growth of major weapons systems between first estimate and delivery rose from 6 percent of total costs to 27 percent, while delays in delivery rose from an average of 16 months to 21 months in the same period. In other words, major systems are now, on average, costing more than a quarter more than they were budgeted for, despite being nearly two years overdue.

Gilmore said such overspending was in large part the result of unrealistic initial estimates.

He said the initial estimate of $1.5 billion in today's dollars for the DDG-1000, then called the SC-21, "would've made it the cheapest surface combatant (vessel) ever built. … There were a lot of people in the building -- I was in the building at that time -- who knew that initial estimate was unrealistic."

He said that when initial costs are lowballed in such a fashion, "no program manager in the world is going to be able to manage the program in such a way that the costs will not grow."

"It's not so much cost growth as cost realism setting in," he concluded.

Teen leads Malaysian Open at 10-under-par

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Feb. 12 (UPI) -- Noh Seung-yul, just 17, shot a 10-under-par 62 Thursday for one shot lead after one round of the Malaysian Open, an Asian stop for the European golf tour.

Noh had an eagle, nine birdies and a bogey in his round. That was just better than his playing partner, Alexander Noren, who was in second at 9-under. Jean-Francois Lucquin and Liang Wen-chong were tied for third at 7-under 65.

Noh started his round on the back nine, rolling in a 45-foot birdie putt on his first hole and also birdied No. 11. He added three birdies in a four hold span and made the turn in 5-under.

He had three birdies on the first four holes of the front side before slipping with a bogey at No. 5. Noh answered that with an eagle at the par 5 seventh hole and went to 10-under with a birdie at No. 8.

Noren started his round with four consecutive birdies and was 6-under after eight holes. Consecutive birdies at Nos. 2 and 3 put him at 8-under and he had a final birdie at No. 7 put couldn't keep pace with Noh.

Singapore to join anti-piracy efforts in Somali waters

The Singapore navy will join the international community in combating piracy in the Gulf of Aden, local media reported on Thursday.

According to the Straits Time's report, a Land Ship Tank and two Super Puma Helicopters along with 200 personnel will be deployed to waters off Somalia for a period of three months.

The ship will work with the multi-national Combined Task Force 151 to escort shipping in the troubled Somali waters.

"It is not possible for any country, including Singapore, to protect its own shipping in all the key sea lanes of the world. All countries therefore have to depend on international cooperation to secure the sea lanes for everyone's use," Singapore's Defense Minister Teo Chee Hean Thursday told the Parliament.

In recent months, several countries including China, the United States, Russia, France, India and Malaysia have sent warships to fight the buccaneering around the Somali coast and the Gulf of Aden on the north of Somalia.

Source: People's Daily.
Link: http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/90851/6591750.html.