Senate votes to stop production of F-22 jet

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate voted on Tuesday to stop production of the F-22 fighter plane, handing President Barack Obama a victory as he tries to rein in defense spending.

The Senate voted 58 to 40 to strip $1.75 billion for the Lockheed Martin Corp-built planes from a $680 billion defense bill, overriding the objections of lawmakers seeking to protect manufacturing jobs in the midst of a deep recession.

The Senate's vote does not necessarily kill the program, as the House of Representatives included funding for the state-of-the-art fighter in its bill, which sets military spending priorities.

The two chambers must resolve their differences before sending a final bill to the president to sign into law.

Obama has threatened a veto if Congress continues to fund the F-22 beyond the 187 planes already built or in the production pipeline. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has proposed capping production as part of an overhaul of the Pentagon's weapons programs.

The radar-evading fighter jet is designed for air-to-air combat but has not seen action in the Iraq or Afghanistan conflicts. Critics point out that each hour of flight time requires 30 hours of maintenance and say the plane is a relic of Cold War military strategy.

The Pentagon wants instead to ramp up production of the cheaper, more versatile F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, and Gates said last week that funding for that program could be jeopardized if Congress continues to fund the F-22.

Lockheed Martin is the primary contractor for both planes. The company's stock was down 6 percent to $77.36.

Military: 56 dead in clashes in northwest Pakistan

By RIAZ KHAN, Associated Press Writer

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – Three days of clashes between security forces and militants in northwest Pakistan near the Afghan border left more than 56 militants and six soldiers dead, the military said Tuesday.

There was no way to independently confirm the casualty figures because access to the affected regions was restricted for journalists.

The vast majority of the deaths occurred during a two-day operation Sunday and Monday in the Maidan area of Lower Dir, a region bordering the Swat Valley where the army has been wrapping up an offensive against Taliban militants.

More than 50 militants died in the clashes, said Maj. Fazlur Rahman, spokesman for the paramilitary Frontier Corps. The army also confirmed the toll.

Rahman said the operation was aimed at clearing pockets of resistance in Maidan, and those killed included militants who fled the Swat area during the army's offensive.

In a statement, the army also said it arrested five militants disguised in burqas who tried to flee a search operation conducted in the previous 24 hours in Swat. Five other militants and three soldiers were killed in the latest clashes in the valley.

Another military search operation found the bodies of 10 suspected militants in a cave in Swat, the army said in Tuesday's statement.

The violence shows security remains fragile in the northwest, even as thousands of refugees head back to Swat as part of a government repatriation program for the roughly 2 million people uprooted by the military campaign that started in late April.

The military has said it killed more than 1,700 suspected militants in Swat and surrounding districts, but the toll has been impossible to verify independently. Pakistani authorities have not given any figures for civilian casualties.

Pakistan's military is also preparing a similar campaign in the South Waziristan tribal region targeting the Pakistani Taliban chief, Baitullah Mehsud.

The U.S. supports the operations, saying Islamabad must eliminate militant safe havens for its own stability's sake as well as to lessen the threat those fighters pose to the U.S.-led war in neighboring Afghanistan.

The Swat campaign drove some 2 million people from their homes, according to the United Nations. The military recently declared the region largely cleared of militants, and thousands have been returning home.

On Monday, the government officially closed two camps near the city of Mardan that had housed about 20,000 people, said Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the information minister for North West Frontier Province.

Elsewhere in the northwest Tuesday, security forces seized a pickup truck rigged with a 1,500-pound (700 kilogram) bomb and arrested two men, averting a potentially devastating attack, local government official Fazal Mahmood said.

The men and the vehicle were ensnared at a security checkpoint in the Khyber tribal region, Mahmood said, adding the truck appeared primed for an attack. Officials were questioning the suspects to determine their target and who had sent them.

"A possible tragedy has been avoided with these arrests," Mahmood said.

Pakistan has suffered a series of bombings in recent years, many targeting markets, hotels and police checkpoints. Some recent attacks have been retaliation for the Swat offensive.

In September 2008, a massive suicide truck bomb killed 54 people and wounded more than 250 at Islamabad's Marriott hotel.

Arnold Schwarzenegger Shrinks California In Order to Save It

By KEVIN O'LEARY / LOS ANGELES Kevin O'leary / Los Angeles – Tue Jul 21

Is this the deal to save California - or shrivel it? Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders today announced a budget deal that closes the state's staggering $26.3 billion budget shortfall with just as staggering cuts that will profoundly reduce state government and a broad array of programs. "We have come to a basic agreement that, of course, has to be ratified by the legislature," said Schwarzenegger, a Republican, who volunteered that Monday's five-hour negitiations were "like a suspense movie." But Democratic Senate leader Darrell Steinberg was mournful: "This is a sober time. We have cut, and we have cut in many areas that matter to real people."

Indeed, the cuts will be severe and the Golden State that Governors Earl Warren and Pat Brown built in the middle of the past century will be further damaged. Local community governments, already hard pressed by the recession and lower revenues, will now lose at least $2 billion to the state with the promise to repay when the fiscal situation improves. The higher education system, including the University of California, is being hit by $2 billion in cuts. The public schools, already struggling with large class sizes and less technical and support services, must cut an additional $9.5 billion and will lose thousands of teachers and staff. Tens of thousands of seniors and children will lose access to health care at a time when the national government is debating universal health coverage. The entire state workforce, except forest fire crews and the California Highway Patrol, are on mandatory three-day furloughs each month. (Read a story about how the crisis has affected California's prized universities.)

"There is great concern about the magnitude of these reductions," says Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project, a liberal think tank. "This budget does not reflect the priorities of a vast majority of California voters and these cuts threaten California's most vulnerable children and families during the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression." (Read a story about the other states in budget peril besides California.)

But Schwarzenegger had to act. He knows all about the political risks involved in budget crises: he rode to victory in a recall election when his predecessor, Gov. Gray Davis, was hamstrung a similar budget crisis in 2003. And this one was a bad one: since July 2, as the talks stalemated, California had issuing IOUs to its creditors.
Whether it was his intention or not, Schwarzenegger has used the fiscal crisis to give California a new social contract. While many of the details of the agreement have yet to be released, he and his fellow Republicans, who form a minority in the legislature, achieved their goal of standing firm against using tax increases to close the towering deficit, forcing Democrats to accept more stringent requirements for a number of social programs, including welfare-to-work and in-home health care. Schwarzenegger and his Republican allies successfully resisted calls to raise taxes by Democrats saying they had agreed to a $12 billion tax increase in February as part of the state's first budget crisis of 2009 and that in a severe economic downturn businesses and individuals could not afford any more taxes.

Democrats were able to block Schwarzenegger from using the budget crisis to eliminate California's safety net for its poorest and most vulnerable citizens. The governor had originally proposed eliminating the state's welfare to work program, the CalGrant program that helps thousands of low-income students attend college, and health insurance program covering poor children.

That is small comfort. The raid on local government finances has enraged many city and county leaders. Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said, "For the state to balance its books on the backs of local government is bad public policy, morally bankrupt and does not solve the state's problem. What happens next year? Will they come after local government again?"

Indonesia president guarantees security after blasts

By Sara Webb and Andreas Ismar

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said on Tuesday his country could guarantee security following deadly suicide bomb attacks on two luxury hotels in Jakarta last week.

The attacks at the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels killed nine people and wounded 53, including foreigners and Indonesians. The bombings were the first such attacks in the country in four years.

"My message to the world is that Indonesia can overcome this problem and will continue to guarantee even greater security in the future," Yudhoyono said in a speech to inaugurate a new museum in the capital.

"In terms of the investigation, the police are being assisted by the military and the intelligence agency and I am monitoring their efforts," he added. "I am certain that we will be able to immediately resolve last Friday's incident."

The hotel bombings bear the hallmarks of Jemaah Islamiah (JI), the Southeast Asian militant Muslim group, in that they targeted Western hotels and foreign nationals. The group was responsible for several previous attacks in Indonesia, including the 2002 bomb blasts in Bali which killed 202 people.

Police said they have taken DNA samples from the families of two Indonesian men who may be the suicide bombers. One of them, Nurhasbi, had school links to members of JI. The other, Ibrahim, worked at the florist in the Ritz-Carlton hotel, police said. The bombers checked in to the Marriott as paying guests on Wednesday and assembled the bombs in their room, 1808 on the 18th floor, according to the police. A third bomb was found and defused in a laptop computer bag in room 1808.

A police source told Reuters on Monday that one theory the police are working on is that the bombers planned to detonate the bomb on the 18th floor first, sending panicking guests rushing down to the lobby where one of the suicide bombers would detonate a second bomb, potentially killing and wounding many more guests.

Security has been raised in Indonesia since Friday's attacks. Experts from the bomb squad searched an office block near the Australian embassy on Tuesday after a caller telephoned to say a bomb had been planted in the building.

Several bomb threats have been reported since Friday. State oil and gas firm Pertamina said it had stepped up security at its refineries and oil depots.

Banks including Royal Bank of Scotland and Singapore's DBS have temporarily banned staff from visiting Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, while Citigroup Inc and other banks have imposed restrictions on staff travel.

"If you are the regional director of a big firm, will you send your staff today or tell them to wait a few weeks? I think the latter," said Hans Vriens, a Singapore-based consultant, adding that this was likely to be a temporary setback.

But such measures are unlikely to have much impact on Indonesia's economy provided Friday's attacks are not the start of a new wave of bombings, analysts said.

SOLID ECONOMIC OUTLOOK

Investor interest in emerging market Indonesia has picked up in recent months, thanks to this month's re-election of reform-minded Yudhoyono and the prospect of economic growth.

The central bank has forecast growth of between 3-4 percent this year, making Indonesia one of the few bright spots in Asia thanks to strong consumer demand in a country of 226 million people with a growing middle class.

"There's not much GDP impact from this. Improving global fundamentals outweigh this country-specific impact, the world is repositioning for a stronger growth outlook and that's very bullish for Indonesia," said Tim Condon, economist at ING in Singapore.

"Indonesia was a darling, everyone was doing business there."

Volkswagen AG, Europe's largest carmaker, and British American Tobacco Plc, the world's No. 2 cigarette maker, have invested in Indonesia, and firms ranging from toothpaste makers to oil and gas giants are lining up.

"The rest of the neighborhood looks bad and that has helped Indonesia," said consultant Vriens. "Indonesia has an emerging middle class, it's a serious country, you have to be there."

But Yudhoyono must still restore confidence, analysts said.

"As a security challenge, the threat of Islamist terrorism is likely to linger and the government will need to invest substantial resources to keep the threat under control," David Kiu, of political risk group Eurasia, wrote in a report.

"The bombings will shore up domestic public and international support for Yudhoyono to take a harsher stance toward radical Islamism and terrorist-linked activities."

14 die as Taliban bombers attack 2 Afghan cities

By AMIR SHAH and JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writer

GARDEZ, Afghanistan – Eight Taliban militants attacked three government buildings and a U.S. base in two eastern cities Tuesday in near-simultaneous attacks — a signature of major Taliban assaults. Eight insurgents and six Afghan security forces died.

Using suicide bombings, gunfire and rockets, the militants attacked the governor's compound, the intelligence department and the police department in the eastern city of Gardez just before 11 a.m. (0630GMT; 2:30 a.m. EDT), officials said.

Tribal elders and government officials had just finished a meeting at the governor's compound about security for the country's Aug. 20 presidential election when gunfire broke out at the nearby intelligence department, said deputy Gov. Abdul Rahman Mangal.

A rocket fired into the intelligence department killed three officers, said Ghulam Dastagir, the province's deputy police chief, while a suicide bombing in front of a police station killed two police. A rocket was also fired at the governor's house, he said.

A total of four attackers were shot and killed at the police station and the governor's compound, Dastagir said, including at least two bombers clothed in women's burqas, said Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary.

"When I jumped up on the roof I saw two attackers. One was hiding under a burqa and was carrying a rocket propelled grenade," said Wahidullah Bakshi, an Afghan soldier who responded to the attack.

Three militants, meanwhile, tried to attack a U.S. base in a second eastern city at nearly the same time.

U.S. and Afghan forces killed two of the assailants at the base near the city of Jalalabad, said Mohammad Ayub Salangi, the provincial police chief. U.S. military spokesman Lt. Robert Carr said a third attacker was captured.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, claimed 15 militants — all in suicide vests — attacked government centers in Gardez. He said they were carrying AK-47 assault rifles and rockets.

Taliban militants over the last year have launched several complex attacks, which usually involve multiple suicide bombers and additional gunmen. They have been launched in Kabul, the capital, and Kandahar, the Taliban's spiritual birthplace. Analysts say al-Qaida fighters provide the training that help militants here to carry out such attacks.

The most recent complex attack took place in May in the eastern city of Khost, when 11 Taliban suicide bombers struck government buildings, sparking gunbattles with U.S. and Afghan forces. Twenty people died in the attacks and three American troops were wounded.

Khost, which is 40 miles (70 kilometers) east of Gardez, is a key area of operation for militants associated with the insurgent network run by Sirajuddin Haqqani. Mangal, the deputy governor, said it was possible Haqqani's forces had launched Tuesday's attack in Gardez.

Taliban militants have stepped up attacks the last three years and now control wide swaths of countryside in the south and east. A record 68,000 U.S. troops will be in the country by fall as the Pentagon increases its focus on Afghanistan while drawing forces out of Iraq.

An explosion in the south killed a British soldier in Helmand province on Monday, Britain's Ministry of Defense said. The soldier was the 18th from Britain to die this month, an unusually high death toll that has sparked controversy in the United Kingdom over Britain's role in Afghanistan.

The U.S. military on Tuesday said one of its forces died in a vehicle accident, raising the U.S. death toll in July to 31 — the deadliest month for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion.

In other violence, 10 Taliban were killed and three other militants wounded while making bombs Monday in a house in Ghazni province, said Gen. Khail Buz Sherzai, the provincial police chief. A bomb detonated prematurely and killed them, he said.

Clinton worried about North Korean ties to Myanmar

By ROBERT BURNS, AP National Security Writer

BANGKOK – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday that the Obama administration is concerned by the possibility that North Korea, with a history of illicit sales of missiles and nuclear technology, may have military ties to Myanmar.

She did not refer explicitly to a nuclear connection but made clear that the matter is worrying.

"We know there are also growing concerns about military cooperation between North Korea and Burma which we take very seriously," she said when asked about the matter at a news conference in the Thai capital. Myanmar, also known as Burma, is run by a military regime.

"It would be destabilizing for the region, it would pose a direct threat to Burma's neighbors," she said, adding that as a treaty ally of Thailand, the United States takes the matter seriously.

Clinton held talks with Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.

On Wednesday she is scheduled to fly to the Thai resort city of Phuket to attend an international meeting on regional security. Myanmar and North Korea are expected to be major topics of discussion at the meeting.

Clinton said she has no plans to meet with any North Korean representative at the Phuket meeting of the Association of South East Asian Nations.

Israel eyes on Jordanian land

Monday, 20 July 2009

Jordan, July 20, (Pal Telegraph) - Despite international calls for a freeze on settlement buildings in the occupied territory, Israel refuses to halt its construction projects.

With a dispute over Israeli occupation of acres of Palestinian land still unsettled, Tel Aviv takes a step to purchase dozens of properties in Jordan to further expand its territory.

The Israel Land Fund, which promotes Jewish construction and has bought land and dozens of houses in occupied Palestinian territory in the West Bank, is planning to bring Jews from European countries to purchase dozens of properties once owned by Jews in neighboring Jordan.

"There are thousands of Jewish properties in Jordan which were purchased during the Ottoman era and under the British mandate. We have records of the ownership", chairman of the extreme-right Jewish organization Arieh King told AFP.

"We are trying to bring Jews from European countries to purchase property which we locate in Jordan," King said,

Up until 1995, selling land in Jordan to Israelis or anyone acting on their behalf was illegal and punishable by death. The new ruling which replaced the previous statute still bars Israelis from buying, or leasing, Jordanian land.

"[I]t is impermissible for foreign persons or corporate entities that do not hold an Arab nationality to purchase, lease, or own directly or indirectly any immovable property in the kingdom" according to the Law on Economic Boycott and Banning Dealing with the Enemy (Article 6) without an exception approved by high level political authorization.

King, however, said the organization would coordinate attempts to buy historically "Jewish-owned" land.

The move is expected to cause tensions between Tel Aviv and Amman, which is one of the only two Arab states having diplomatic ties with Israel. Egypt is the other Arab country recognizing Israel.

Earlier in 1967, the Israel Land Fund purchased the occupied territory in the West Bank which had been earlier seized from Jordan.

The disputed territory has been the cause of a long-running conflict between Palestinians and Israelis.

While Palestinians have long been fighting to win back their territory for "a future state", far-right Jews are determined to keep the land in hopes of achieving what they describe as a "Greater Israel."

Historically, the concept of a "Greater Israel" also included occupation of Jordanian land.