DTN News: German Chancellor Angela Merkel Warns Iran Of Sanctions If No Progress On Nuclear Talks

DTN News: German Chancellor Angela Merkel Warns Iran Of Sanctions If No Progress On Nuclear Talks *Source: DTN News / Int'l Media (NSI News Source Info) BONN, Germany - August 22, 2009: German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday Iran would face further economic sanctions from Western powers if it did not enter into meaningful talks on its nuclear programme. Merkel said new sanctions would likely target the Iranian energy sector.Mohamed El Baradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, attends a question & answer session with the press during the second day of the Leaders in Dubai Business Forum in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. For nearly a year, say diplomats, restricted documents on Iran's alleged nuclear weapons experiments have been sitting in a drawer of a U.N. nuclear monitoring agency, with access limited to only a few top officials. The question is whether they will soon see the light of day. The International Atomic Energy Agency plans to publish its latest report on Iran within two weeks. As that date approaches IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei is faced with the tough choice of publishing all his agency knows about Iran's alleged arms programs - or leaving the decision to his successor later this year.

Western powers will have to respond with further sanctions against Iran if there is no progress on nuclear talks, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told a newspaper in remarks released on Thursday. She told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that the focus of any new sanctions would be on the energy sector. “If there is no progress, we have to react with further sanctions. It is clear that there cannot be an atomic bomb in the hands of Tehran which has a president who constantly questions the existence of Israel,” she was quoted as saying. U.S. President Barack Obama has given Iran until September to take up a six-power offer of talks on trade benefits if it shelves sensitive nuclear enrichment, or face harsher sanctions. The United States and its allies may target gasoline imports if Tehran refuses to enter talks over its nuclear programme. The West suspects Iran aims to make nuclear bombs but Tehran insists it needs atomic fuel only for power plants. In this photo released by an official website of the Iranian supreme leader's office, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, right, talks with Syrian President Bashar Assad, center, as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, listens, under a picture of the late Iranian revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini, during their official meeting in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2009. Iran, the world’s fifth-largest crude exporter, imports up to 40 percent of its gasoline. Asked what sort of sanctions the powers would consider, Merkel said: “Economic sanctions which hit the energy sector are up for debate but we will have to wait for the talks. We must talk with our partners Russia and China.” She added that Germany and its partners would have to decide in September on any further action, adding there was no noticeable progress on nuclear talks with Iran.

DTN News: Somalia ~ At Least Nine Killed In Clashes Between Militants, Government Forces

DTN News: Somalia ~ At Least Nine Killed In Clashes Between Militants, Government Forces

*Source: DTN News / Int'l Media

(NSI News Source Info) MOGADISHU, Somalia - August 22, 2009: At least nine civilians were killed and 20 wounded overnight Thursday in Mogadishu when Somali Islamist fighters and government forces exchanged mortar fire, witnesses and medical sources said.

Dead bodies lay near a street in southern Mogadishu's K4 junction Friday, Aug. 21, 2009. Scores of people were killed in fighting that pitted Islamist insurgents against government forces and African Union peacekeepers in Somalia's capital Friday, witnesses and medical staff said. Residents were hiding in their homes as mortars slammed into the city.

The mortar fire started after the rebels attacked government positions in the southern part of the capital, they said.

"Five people were killed in a restaurant in the Bakara market area and seven were wounded," a witness, Ali Mohamed Hassan, said.

Four other civilians were killed by mortars in other parts of the city. "Two people were killed in a house right next to mine in Hararyale district. Everyone is traumatised by the bombs because they're hitting heavily populated parts of town," Mogadishu resident Ibrahim Moalim said.

In all, according to the city's ambulance services, 22 wounded people were taken to the town's various hospitals and two of them died on the way.

Somalia has been in chaos since 1991. Hizb al-Islam and the hardline Shebab armed group are the two main factions in the insurgency bent on toppling President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and ousting African Union peacekeepers from the country.

DTN News: Russian Interior Minister Orders Total Review Of Ingush Police

DTN News: Russian Interior Minister Orders Total Review Of Ingush Police

*Source: DTN News / Int'l Media

(NSI News Source Info) KAZAN, Tatarstan (Russia) - August 22, 2009: Every police officer in Ingushetia will be reevaluated in the near future, Russia's interior minister said on Saturday. The southern Russian republic was rocked on Monday when at least 24 people were killed and 136 injured in a truck bombing that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said could have been prevented. "It is necessary to take a number of concrete steps to improve the situation in the region and to increase the level of security," Rashid Nurgaliyev said in Kazan during a video conference with the operations center on security in Russia's North Caucasus. "First and foremost, every employee of Ingushetia's Interior Ministry should be reevaluated in the immediate future," he said. Medevedev fired the republic's interior minister after the attack and ordered Nurgaliyev to find a way to improve security in the region, where violence has increased in recent months. Nurgaliyev told personnel managers at the Interior Ministry that their "approach to carrying out the reevaluation of staff must be the strictest." He also ordered an immediate review of security at all facilities of federal and regional interior ministries in the North Caucasus. "I am giving instructions for the inspection within the next two days of all Interior Ministry facilities on the territory of the North Caucasus regarding anti-terrorist security," the minister said. Since the Kremlin officially ended the decade-long anti-terrorist operation in Chechnya in April, several senior officials have been killed by militants in neighboring Ingushetia and Dagestan, while attacks on law-enforcement officers are an almost daily occurrence. Ingushetia's president, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, returned to the republic on Saturday after spending two months in Moscow recovering from serious injuries sustained in a car bomb attack on his motorcade.

DTN News: Pakistan Supports China's Stance On Xinjiang Says Asif Ali Zardari

DTN News: Pakistan Supports China's Stance On Xinjiang Says Asif Ali Zardari *Source: DTN News / Int'l Media (NSI News Source Info) BEIJING, China - August 22, 2009: Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has supported China's policies in its insurgency hit Xinjiang region. Zardari, who arrived here on Friday on a four day visit, said Islamabad endorses China's policies in the riot hit Xinjiang region, where nearly 200 people were killed in ethnic riots between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese residents. "We are glad that the situation in Urumqi has been brought under control. We believe that China's policy of social harmony and development is producing great results for all Chinese people," Zardari told media persons in Islamabad before leaving for Beijing. When asked about Pakistan's relationship with China, Zardari said Beijing is an all-weather and time-tested friend of Islamabad. "We greatly value our cherished friendship and have complete trust on all bilateral, regional and global issues," Xinhua news agency quoted Zardari, as saying. Zardari, who is on his fourth visit to China since assuming office in 2008, said he wanted to translate China's tremendous success in various fields in Pakistan to make it a better country. "The reason that I keep going to China is to learn and educate myself, then transfer what I can experience and see, and then translate that success to Pakistan and accordingly hope to do better for my nation," he said. Commenting on the Swat military offensive, Zardari claimed that extremists have been forced to retreat, but said operation against the militants would continue until the writ of the government is fully established in the region. "We expect the military operation to continue until the writ of the government has been fully restored. Democracy is always a format of dialogue. But nobody would be allowed to take the law into their hands and extremism would not be tolerated," he said. Zardari said peace and normalcy is slowly returning to Swat, Malakand and Buner with people starting to return to their home. "The process of development has been launched. Economic activity is picking up gradually," he said, adding: "The social and administrative infrastructure has been restored in troubled areas."

DTN News: Russia MAKS 2009 Air Show ~ MiG - The High Flying Family History Of 70 Years

DTN News: Russia MAKS 2009 Air Show ~ MiG - The High Flying Family History Of 70 Years *Source: DTN News / Int'l Media (NSI News Source Info) MOSCOW, Russia - August 22, 2009: One of Russia's oldest and most famous aircraft, the Mig, was the star of the MAKS air show on Friday. Despite being 70 years old, the Mig remains a world leader in military aviation. Since the first MIG took to the skies about 70 years ago, these Russian planes have become one of the world's most heralded fighters. Thousands of them were used by the Soviet Union in the Second World War. The MIG strikes a mean and moody figure when stationary on the ground but once airborne it cuts the figure of a bird of prey; graceful yet deadly. During a production run of more than seven decades, roughly 60,000 of these flying beasts have been produced in countless varying forms. Piloting these machines not only requires exceptional flying skill but also intensive physical training. Only the best are allowed to sit in the cockpit. Test-pilot Andrey Shishov is one of the chosen few. “Up in the sky a pilot cannot do without a special helmet and this antigravity equipment. At a height of several thousand kilometers, a nine-unit strong G-force means you feel like you weigh nine times more than you really do, so not 75 kilos for example but 600-700,” he explains. “Here compressed air comes into the suit and covers the legs and stomach. The point is to stop blood flowing to the extremities, otherwise the legs will go numb,” Andrey demonstrates a special costume. Andrey’s favorite is the Mig-29. Designed in the USSR to counter America's latest offerings, it still remains the company’s most popular plane around globe, where it's in use in 25 countries. The Mig-29 is able to destroy air targets up to 200 kilometers away at all altitudes and in any weather. It can fire at four air or ground targets simultaneously while tracking ten others at the same time. The latest addition to the family is the SMT model.“It is a new development, due to new modern requirements for war,” says test-pilot Stanislav Gorbunov. “There are new radars, modern avionics, navigation systems, which allow our weapons to be more exact, while also providing safety in difficult weather conditions and during the night.”But even this jet seems technologically outdated when compared to the corporation’s latest offering. The Mig-35 is faster, more effective, safer – and many say, greater than anything the company's put into the skies before. The main feature is it’s groundbreaking radar design based on space technology. It allows the aircraft to perform all-weather precision ground strikes and aerial reconnaissance and conduct independent multi-role missions.Pavel Vlasov is the senior test-pilot for the Mig corporation. As a hero of Russia – awarded for courage and heroism – he has spent thousands of hours roaring through the skies. Pavel says he took to the heavens before he even started driving a car. “Everything about this plane is top notch, the latest technologies have been applied, things unheard of five or seven years ago. It would have been impossible even to imagine the equipment and weapons that this aircraft has today. To fit so many modern war gadgets in such a small plane, is unbelievable,” he explains with enthusiasm. “And it is possible for one person to control all this effectively, and more importantly, to stay free for making decisions.” But this is not a revolution, just an evolution,” Pavel concludes. And as the evolution continues this latest Mig fighter will certainly not be its last.

DTN News: Saigon 2009 ~ Afghanistan Is Today's Vietnam. No Question Mark Needed.

DTN News: Saigon 2009 ~ Afghanistan Is Today's Vietnam. No Question Mark Needed.

*Source: DTN News / Foreign Policy By Thomas H. Johnson & M. Chris Mason (Click here for link)

(NSI News Source Info) WASHINGTON, USA - August 22, 2009: For those who say that comparing the current war in Afghanistan to the Vietnam War is taking things too far, here's a reality check: It's not taking things far enough. From the origins of these North-South conflicts to the role of insurgents and the pointlessness of this week's Afghan presidential elections, it's impossible to ignore the similarities between these wars. The places and faces may have changed but the enemy is old and familiar. The sooner the United States recognizes this, the sooner it can stop making the same mistakes in Afghanistan. Soldiers with the U.S. Army's 1st Platoon Apache Company, 2nd Battalion 87th Infantry Regiment, part of the 3rd Combat Brigade 10th Mountain Division based out of Fort Drum, N.Y. , search for insurgents after their convoy was hit with an improvised explosive device and gun fire in the Tangi Valley of Afghanistan's Wardak Province Wednesday Aug. 19, 2009. Even at first glance the structural parallels alone are sobering. Both Vietnam and Afghanistan (prior to the U.S. engagement there) had surprisingly defeated a European power in a guerrilla war that lasted a decade, followed by a largely north-south civil war which lasted another decade. Insurgents in both countries enjoyed the advantage of a long, trackless, and uncloseable border and sanctuary beyond it, where they maintained absolute political control. Both were land wars in Asia with logistics lines more than 9,000 miles long and extremely harsh terrain with few roads, which nullified U.S. advantages in ground mobility and artillery. Other key contributing factors bear a striking resemblance: Almost exactly 80 percent of the population of both countries was rural, and literacy hovered around 10 percent. In both countries, the United States sought to create an indigenous army modeled in its own image, based on U.S. army organization charts. With the ARVN in South Vietnam and the ANA in today's Afghanistan, assignment of personnel as combat advisors and mentors was the absolute lowest priority. And in both wars, the U.S. military grossly misled the American people about the size of the indigenous force over a protracted period. In Afghanistan, for example, the U.S. military touts 91,000 ANA soldiers as "trained and equipped," knowing full well that barely 39,000 are still in the ranks and present for duty. The United States consistently and profoundly misunderstood the nature of the enemy it was fighting in each circumstance. In Vietnam, the United States insisted on fighting a war against communism, while the enemy was fighting a war of national reunification. In Afghanistan, the United States still insists on fighting a secular counterinsurgency, while the enemy is fighting a jihad. The intersection of how insurgencies end and how jihads end is nil. It's hard to defeat an enemy you don't understand, and in Afghanistan, as in Vietnam, this fight is being played out in a different war. This is but the tip of the iceberg of a long list of remarkable parallels. What's really startling are the deeper strategic connections. The United States lost the war in Vietnam, historical revisionism notwithstanding, because of a fatal nexus of political and military failure, and the exact same thing is happening in Afghanistan. As Andrew Krepinevich noted many years ago, the army failed in Vietnam because it insisted on fighting a war of maneuver to "find, fix, and destroy" the enemy (with what became known as "search and destroy missions") instead of protecting the people in the villages. Today these tactics are called "sweep and clear missions," but they are in essence the same thing -- clearing tiny patches of ground for short periods in a big country in hopes of killing enough enemy to make him quit. But its manpower pool was not North Vietnam's Achilles heel and neither is it the Taliban's. Almost exactly the same percentage of personnel in Afghanistan has rural reconstruction as its primary mission (the Provincial Reconstruction Teams) as had "pacification" (today's "nation-building") as their primary mission in Vietnam, about 4 percent. The other 96 percent is engaged in chasing illiterate teenage boys with guns around the countryside, exactly what the enemy wants us to do. Meanwhile the political failure in Kabul is Saigon déjà vu. A government that is seen as legitimate by 85 or 90 percent of the population is considered the sine qua non of success by counterinsurgency experts. After the Diem coup, this was never possible in Vietnam, as one incompetent and utterly corrupt government succeeded another. None was legitimate in the eyes of the people. Contemporary descriptions of the various Saigon governments read almost exactly like descriptions of the Karzai government today. Notwithstanding all the fanfare over this week's presidential voting in Afghanistan, the Kabul government will never be legitimate either, because democracy is not a source of legitimacy of governance in Afghanistan and it never has been. Legitimacy in Afghanistan over the last thousand years has come exclusively from dynastic and religious sources. The fatal blunder of the United States in eliminating a ceremonial Afghan monarchy was Afghanistan's Diem Coup: afterwards, there was little possibility of establishing a legitimate, secular national government. It doesn't matter who wins the August elections for president in Afghanistan: he will be illegitimate because he is elected. We have apparently learned nothing from Vietnam.

(Thomas H. Johnson is a research professor of the Department of National Security Affairs and director of the Program for Culture and Conflict Studies at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. M. Chris Mason is a retired Foreign Service officer who served in 2005 as political officer for the PRT in Paktika and presently is a senior fellow at the Program for Culture and Conflict Studies and at the Center for Advanced Defense Studies in Washington, D.C.)

DTN News: Pakistan ~ Ex-ISI Chief Says Purpose Of New Afghan Intelligence Agency RAMA Is ‘To Destabilize Pakistan’

DTN News: Pakistan ~ Ex-ISI Chief Says Purpose Of New Afghan Intelligence Agency RAMA Is ‘To Destabilize Pakistan’

*In an exclusive interview with Foreign Policy Journal, retired Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul responds to charges that he supports terrorism, discusses 9/11 and ulterior motives for the war on Afghanistan, claims that the U.S., Israel, and India are behind efforts to destabilize Pakistan, and charges the U.S. and its allies with responsibility for the lucrative Afghan drug trade.

*Source: DTN News / Foreign Policy Journal by Jeremy R. Hammond & Shahid R. Siddiqi contributed to this report (Read complete story....click here)

(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - August 22, 2009: Retired Lieutenant General Hamid Gul was the Director General of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) from 1987 to 1989, during which time he worked closely with the CIA to provide support for the mujahedeen fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Though once deemed a close ally of the United States, in more recent years his name has been the subject of considerable controversy. Then Maj. Gen. Hamid Gul, Director General of the ISI (far left), with William Webster, Director of Central Intelligence, Clair George, Deputy Director for Operations, and Milt Bearden, CIA station chief, at a training camp for the mujahedeen in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province in 1987 (RAWA.org)

He has been outspoken with the claim that the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 were an “inside job”. He has been called “the most dangerous man in Pakistan”, and the U.S. government has accused him of supporting the Taliban, even recommending him to the United Nations Security Council for inclusion on the list of international terrorists. In an exclusive interview with Foreign Policy Journal, I asked the former ISI chief what his response was to these allegations. He replied, “Well, it’s laughable I would say, because I’ve worked with the CIA and I know they were never so bad as they are now.” He said this was “a pity for the American people” since the CIA is supposed to act “as the eyes and ears” of the country. As for the charge of him supporting the Taliban, “it is utterly baseless. I have no contact with the Taliban, nor with Osama bin Laden and his colleagues.” He added, “I have no means, I have no way that I could support them, that I could help them.” After the Clinton administration’s failed attempt to assassinate Osama bin Laden in 1998, some U.S. officials alleged that bin Laden had been tipped off by someone in Pakistan to the fact that the U.S. was able to track his movements through his satellite phone. Counter-terrorism advisor to the National Security Council Richard Clarke said, “I have reason to believe that a retired head of the ISI was able to pass information along to Al Qaeda that the attack was coming.” And some have speculated that this “retired head of the ISI” was none other than Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul. When I put this charge to him, General Gul pointed out to me that he had retired from the ISI on June 1, 1989, and from the army in January, 1992. “Did you share this information with the ISI?” he asked. “And why haven’t you taken the ISI to task for parting this information to its ex-head?” The U.S. had not informed the Pakistan army chief, Jehangir Karamat, of its intentions, he said. So how could he have learned of the plan to be able to warn bin Laden? “Do I have a mole in the CIA? If that is the case, then they should look into the CIA to carry out a probe, find out the mole, rather than trying to charge me. I think these are all baseless charges, and there’s no truth in it…. And if they feel that their failures are to be rubbed off on somebody else, then I think they’re the ones who are guilty, not me.” General Gul turned our conversation to the subject of 9/11 and the war on Afghanistan. “You know, my position is very clear,” he said. “It’s a moral position that I have taken. And I say that America has launched this aggression without sufficient reasons. They haven’t even proved the case that 9/11 was done by Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.” He argued that “There are many unanswered questions about 9/11,” citing examples such as the failure to intercept any of the four planes after it had become clear that they had been hijacked. He questioned how Mohammed Atta, “who had had training on a light aircraft in Miami for six months” could have maneuvered a jumbo jet “so accurately” to hit his target (Atta was reportedly the hijacker in control of American Airlines Flight 11, which was the first plane to hit its target, striking the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 am). And he made reference to the flight that hit the Pentagon and the maneuver its pilot had performed, dropping thousands of feet while doing a near 360 degree turn before plowing into its target. “And then, above all,” he added, “why have no heads been rolled? The FBI, the CIA, the air traffic control — why have they not been put to question, put to task?” Describing the 9/11 Commission as a “cover up”, the general added, “I think the American people have been made fools of. I have my sympathies with them. I like Americans. I like America. I appreciate them. I’ve gone there several times.” At this point in our discussion, General Gul explained how both the U.S. and United Kingdom stopped granting him an entry visa. He said after he was banned from the U.K., “I wrote a letter to the British government, through the High Commissioner here in Islamabad, asking ‘Why do you think that — if I’m a security risk, then it is paradoxical that you should exclude me from your jurisdiction. You should rather nab me, interrogate me, haul me up, take me to the court, whatever you like. I mean, why are you excluding me from the U.K., it’s not understandable.’ I did not receive a reply to that.” He says he sent a second letter inviting the U.K. to send someone to question him in Pakistan, if they had questions about him they wanted to know. If the U.S. wants to include him on the list of international terrorists, Gul reasons, “I am still prepared to let them grant me the visa. And I will go…. If they think that there is something very seriously wrong with me, why don’t you give me the visa and catch me then?”

(Read complete story....click here)

DTN News: Russia ~ MAKS 2009 Winds Down With Warning For Aircraft Manufacturers

DTN News: Russia ~ MAKS 2009 Winds Down With Warning For Aircraft Manufacturers

*Source: DTN News / Int'l Media

(NSI News Source Info) MOSCOW, Russia - August 22, 2009: The MAKS 2009 air show closes this weekend after an unusually quiet event, dominated by domestic military orders. The government promised more cash for the industry, but there are strings with it. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, center, shakes hands with national development bank VEB chairman Vladimir Dmitriyev, left, after a contract signing ceremony during MAKS (the International Aviation and Space Show) at Zhukovsky airfield, Russia, Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2009, with Sukhoi company chief Mikhail Pogosyan at right. Seeking new markets, Sukhoi has developed a regional passenger jet, the Superjet 100, which made its Russian public debut at the show. The company says orders for the plane, designed to compete with Brazil's Embraer and Canada's Bombardier midrange jets, have reached 122 aircraft. The Russian air force struck the biggest deal at the show, with a record $2.5 billion order for new Sukhoi fighter jets. 64 aircraft will be delivered by 2015 under the largest ever order for new combat aircraft for the Russian air force. The government also promised hundreds of millions of dollars in cash aid for combat aircraft makers Sukhoi and MiG, according to Director General, Mikhail Pogosyan. “Nearly $500 million will be supplied to MiG to finance its suppliers, to guarantee its orders worth $4 billion." But that funding came with a stern warning from the government for the new United Aircraft Corporation. Prime Minister Putin warned the industry it had to improve its performance, and stop signing loss making contracts. The United Aircraft Corporation blames a backlog of debts from its legacy companies, but Deputy Industry Minister, Yuri Borisov, says there are other issues as well. “The problem dates back to the 1990s. But its also due to inefficient management. So now state money goes to finance the companies liabilities, This debt should be restructured or it will be very difficult for the corporation to operate.” On the civil aircraft scene, emerging airline, Rosavia, invited Airbus, Boeing and Irkut to tender for up to 65 narrow-body airliners for its future fleet. That deal could be worth up to $2.5 billion. And Russian Helicopters signed a memorandum with France's Turbomeca on supply of engines for its Mi-34 Sapsan light helicopter.

DTN News: Indonesia Arrests Saudi Suspect Over Hotel Bombings

DTN News: Indonesia Arrests Saudi Suspect Over Hotel Bombings *Source: DTN News / Int'l Media (NSI News Source Info) JAKARTA, Indonesia - August 22, 2009: Indonesian police have arrested a man believed to be a Saudi national and a local man suspected of involvement in arranging funding for last month's deadly suicide attacks on Jakarta hotels, police said on Wednesday. In this photo released by Indonesian Presidential Office, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, second right, inspects soldiers of Special Forces Commandos (KOPASSUS) during his visit at KOPASSUS headquarters in Jakarta, Indonesia, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009. Authorities are trying to pin down whether the bombings at the JW Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels may have received overseas funding from al Qaeda, as has been the case in attacks in the past, a police source told Reuters. National police spokesman Nanan Soekarna told a news conference that the two men, who he identified only as Ali and Iwan, had been arrested recently in different areas of West Java. "The police are investigating Ali and Iwan's involvement, their links to another country in terms of funding," said Soekarna. Ali is believed to be a Saudi, but police were still cross-checking his identity, Soekarna said. "We suspect he is a Saudi Arabian citizen, but we still need to prove whether his citizenship is fake or not," he said. Soekarna declined to comment on whether al Qaeda could be involved. An Indonesian court in 2004 revealed that there have been a flow of cash funnelled from Al Qaeda's No. 2 at the time, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, via Indonesian students studying in Pakistan to fund an earlier attack on Jakarta's JW Marriot hotel in 2003. Media reports quoting police sources have said that authorities believed that funds for last month's hotel bombings may have been brought into Indonesia from the Middle East by couriers in June. The police source told Reuters that they were investigating whether nationals from Yemen could have been involved in planning the attacks. Police issued on Thursday photographs of four more men believed to be involved in the July 17 hotel attacks. They were named as Syaifudin Zuhri bin Djaelani Irsyad, Ario Sudarso, Mohamad Syahrir, and Bagus Budi Pranoto alias Urwah. The latter suspect was previously sentenced to 3- years in jail in 2004 for harbouring Malaysian-born militant Noordin Mohammad Top and his late accomplice Azhari Husin, Soekarna said. Top, who formed a violent wing of the Jemaah Islamiah militant network, is believed to be the mastermind behind last month's attacks that killed nine people and wounded 53. Since the bombings, police have arrested at least five people and three others died during raids, but hopes they had killed Top during a raid in Central Java proved misplaced.

DTN News: Sri Lanka To Train Pakistani Army To Fight Taliban

DTN News: Sri Lanka To Train Pakistani Army To Fight Taliban

*Sri Lanka is to train Pakistan army officers to fight the Taliban insurgency with lessons from its devastating defeat of the Tamil Tigers.

*Source: DTN News / Telegraph UK ~ By Dean Nelson

(NSI News Source Info) ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - August 22, 2009: Colombo has been inundated with training requests since it finally put down the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elaam's (LTTE) 26-year rebellion in a final onslaught which claimed the lives of more than 10,000 civilians and left 300,000 displaced by the fighting. Sri Lankan soldiers take cover under umbrellas during a heavy downpour in Mullaittivu, the former military headquarters of the Tamil Tiger rebels. The apparent accolade for the Sri Lankan forces will cause alarm among human rights groups which have accused the government in Colombo of war crimes over the shelling of civilians in a tiny "no-fire" zone in the last weeks of the war. The government denies the allegation. Many of their artillery assaults were launched using aerial film footage from remote-controlled drones, which the Pakistan government is also to deploy in its own war on militants in the tribal areas along the Afghan border. Now Sri Lanka is planning to set up new training centres in towns formerly held by the LTTE to train foreign forces in special operations. "We received a request from Pakistan to train their officers on our small team operations, so we have decided to open several new training schools in Mullaitivu, Kilinochchi and Vavuniya to train local and foreign military officers," said Lieutenant General Jagath Jayasuriya, Sri Lanka's new army chief. His army's operations manuals were being translated into English so other nationalities could learn their "innovative" strategies, he said.

DTN News: Ramadan Mubarak....Best Wishes From Staff & Management of DTN Defense-Technology News

DTN News: Ramadan Mubarak ~ August 22, 2008

Ramadan Mubarak Best Wishes From Staff & Management of DTN Defense-Technology News

DTN News: Philippine Seizes Ship Carrying Israeli Guns

DTN News: Philippine Seizes Ship Carrying Israeli Guns *Source: DTN News / Int'l Media (NSI News Source Info) MANILA, Philippines - August 22, 2009: Philippines coast guards have reportedly seized a cargo ship and its crew members after the vessel was found to contain crates of Israeli made assault rifles. Customs and coast guard seized a Panama-flagged cargo ship on Thursday near the Mariveles port, northwest of the capital Manila. Customs and Coast Guard officials inspect seized high-powered firearms while on board the MV Captain UFUK at the port of Mariveles, Bataan city, north of Manila August 21, 2009. At least 20 large crates of high-powered firearms, which were undocumented and not indicated on the manifest, were found on board the vessel. The Panamanian flag carrier originated from Turkey, stopped over at Indonesia and had a course plotted for Batangas city, south of Manila, a coast guard official said. "The ship just docked at the port of Mariveles without any prior notice, which made port and customs officials suspicious," Reuters news agency quoted coast guard spokesman Armand Balilo as saying. "These guns are the primary weapon of the Israeli army," Balilo said, adding that "This is dangerous if it falls into the wrong hands." Sources said South African captain and Georgian crew had been detained and would appear at an inquest in the capital. The regional police officials said the ship's 12 crewmen, mostly Georgians, were arrested and are undergoing questioning. The security forces are investigating whether the ship was transporting firearms to illegal syndicates or militant groups. The officials in Manila said they would take the matter to international maritime. About 160,000 people have been killed in Philippine over decades as result of separatist rebellions and conflicts Israelis are infamous of establishing contacts with illegal syndicates, local warlords or militant groups.

DTN News: EADS Signs Long Term Framework Agreement With Russian Scientific Partners

DTN News: EADS Signs Long Term Framework Agreement With Russian Scientific Partners *Source: DTN News / EADS (NSI News Source Info) MOSCOW, Russia - August 22, 2009: EADS has signed a long term partnership agreement with the Russian Academy of Sciences and the St. Petersburg State Polytechnic University (SPb SPU). The agreement expresses the common interests and basic principles of cooperation in Research and Technology (R&T). The document was signed by Dr. Jean Botti, EADS Chief Technical Officer (CTO) and member of the Executive Committee of EADS, Alexander Kuleshov, Director of the Institute for Information Transmission Problems (IITP), Professor Yury Boldyrev from SPb SPU, and Yury Emilianov, General Director of International Research Institute for Advanced Systems (IRIAS). The agreement is open for other scientific institutions. The signature took place on Tuesday at MAKS Airshow in Moscow. The parties will jointly identify specific R&T projects to be fulfilled for EADS in areas such as advanced simulation capabilities, virtual testing, flight physics, structure and noise reduction. Specific projects in line with these directions will be proposed by a new Research Council which will be created in the framework of this agreement. With this agreement, EADS is aiming at extending positive experience in R&T cooperation with its long term partner IRIAS to other Institutes. This enhanced network allows EADS to move to large scale multidisciplinary projects including the use of demonstrators. In 2003, EADS established the Russian Technology Office (RTO) to facilitate cooperation with the Russian research and development community. EADS currently uses RTO as the focal point for R&T projects with Russian partners. As a locally-based technology acquisition and project management unit, the Russian Technology Office acts in the interest of EADS and all its Divisions. Benefiting from years of experience and well-established relationships in Russia, EADS RTO has developed an effective management approach to project acquisition and management. “EADS is committed to on-going R&T partnership with Russia as a key player in research and technology. R&T initiatives are an important element of cooperation between EADS and Russia, along with titanium deliveries and joint production programs,” said CTO Jean Botti, “I’m looking forward to welcoming more scientific institutions from Russia joining our network. “ According to Alexander Kuleshov the agreement signed with EADS proves that the advanced engineering technologies created in Russia, and mainly in its aerospace industry, are still one of the biggest assets of the national science. “Up-to-date mathematical data handling methods or, to put it otherwise, cognitive technologies, largely improve the quality of design and engineering,” he emphasized. EADS is a global leader in aerospace, defence and related services. In 2008, EADS generated revenues of € 43.3 billion and employed a workforce of about 118,000. The Group includes Airbus as the leading manufacturer of commercial and also tanker, transport and mission aircraft, Eurocopter as the world's largest helicopter supplier and EADS Astrium, the European leader in space programmes from Ariane to Galileo. The Defence & Security Division is a provider of comprehensive systems solutions and makes EADS the major partner in the Eurofighter consortium as well as a stakeholder in the missile systems provider MBDA.

DTN News: Boeing Processes Large Payload For Launch On Shuttle Mission STS-128

DTN News: Boeing Processes Large Payload For Launch On Shuttle Mission STS-128 *Source: DTN News / Boeing (NSI News Source Info) CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., USA - August 22, 2009: When Space Shuttle Discovery takes off from the Kennedy Space Center for the International Space Station on Aug. 25, it will be carrying 31,694 pounds of life support and science equipment -- a complex payload that was prepared and processed by employees of The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA]. Boeing provides NASA with payload processing services for the shuttle and the space station under the Checkout, Assembly and Payload Processing Services (CAPPS) contract. For the upcoming STS-128 mission, Boeing employees prepared the Leonardo Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM), a pressurized "moving van" that will be temporarily installed to the station. "The CAPPS team takes great pride in the work we perform for our NASA customer," said Mark Jager, CAPPS program manager. "Preparing the module for launch and the safe delivery of the MPLM are critical steps toward completing assembly of the Space Station." Discovery will also carry the Lightweight Multi-Purpose Experiment Support Structure Carrier, which holds a new Ammonia Tank Assembly provided by Boeing. The 1,800-pound tank is part of the station's cooling system; it contains about 600 pounds of ammonia, which is circulated in closed loops to remove excess heat from inside the station to radiators located outside. The current tank will return to Earth on Discovery and be refurbished by Boeing. "At nearly 32,000 pounds, this is one of the heaviest payload missions flown to date," said Ken Koby, a Boeing systems engineer on the CAPPS program. "The size and number of MPLM racks we had to install required us to carefully choreograph this task. As always, we had to pay attention not only to how we would install them in Earth's gravity, but also to how the crew would unload them on orbit." The Boeing team also assisted with the preflight checkout of the racks. The two 1,600-pound research racks on the MPLM are the Fluid Integrated Rack and the Materials Science Research Rack. The four ISS system racks are the Crew Quarters (CQ), Minus Eighty-Degree Laboratory Freezer for ISS (MELFI), Node 3 Air Revitalization System (ARS) rack and Treadmill 2, which NASA recently renamed the Combined Operational Load-Bearing External Resistance Treadmill (COLBERT). Boeing built the 1,200-pound ARS in Huntsville, Ala. The rack provides a carbon dioxide removal assembly and a trace contaminant control subassembly that remove potentially hazardous particles from the cabin's atmosphere. The rack also includes a major constituent analyzer, which monitors cabin atmosphere for adequate levels of nitrogen, oxygen, water vapor, and other components. Discovery's crew will install the ARS in the station's Japanese Experiment Module, where it will remain temporarily until it can be transferred to Node 3, a connecting module that will arrive on a later shuttle mission. "The items being taken up to the space station are needed to continue to support the six-person crew on orbit and to ensure they have sufficient spare parts," said Joy Bryant, Boeing vice president and International Space Station program manager. "They also allow NASA and its international partners to expand the science experiments performed on station." The services and support that Boeing provides under the CAPPS contract include planning for and receiving payloads, maintaining associated ground support systems, integrating payloads with the space shuttle, launch support, and space shuttle post-landing payload activities. A unit of The Boeing Company, Boeing Integrated Defense Systems is one of the world's largest space and defense businesses specializing in innovative and capabilities-driven customer solutions, and the world’s largest and most versatile manufacturer of military aircraft. Headquartered in St. Louis, Boeing Integrated Defense Systems is a $32 billion business with 70,000 employees worldwide. Contact: Edmund G. Memi Boeing Space Exploration 281-226-4029 edmund.g.memi@boeing.com Susan Wells Boeing Space Exploration 321-446-4970 susan.h.wells@boeing.com

DTN News: Russia To Deliver Engines For Indian MiG Fighters

DTN News: Russia To Deliver Engines For Indian MiG Fighters *Source: DTN News / RIA Novosti (NSI News Source Info) ZHUKOVSKY, Russia - August 22, 2009: Rosoboronexport and Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) have signed a contract at the MAKS-2009 air show on the delivery of 26 RD-33 series 3 engines to India, Russia's state arms exporter said on Friday. The RD-33 series 3 is an upgraded version of the RD-33 powerful RD-33 turbofan engine with thrust vectoring for MiG family fighters. The engine provides superior maneuverability and enhances the fighter's performance in close air engagements. In 2005, Russia signed a $250 million deal with India to modernize engines for the MiG-29 fighters of the Indian Air Force. According to the terms of the deal, HAL will make 120 RD-33 series 3 jet engines at its Koraput plant for the upgrade of MiG-29 fighters. The current contract will help HAL master the assembly of the RD-33 jet engines and use the experience in the assembly of next generation jet engines. "These engines are installed on MiG aircraft, including the MiG-35 fighters, which are participating in the announced tender on the delivery of 126 fighters to the Indian air force," a Rosoboronexport official said. Six major aircraft makers - Lockheed and Boeing from the United States, Russia's MiG, which is part of the UAC, France's Dassault, Sweden's Saab and the EADS consortium of British, German, Spanish and Italian companies - are in contention to win the $10 billion contract. Russia has said that the first two MiG-35 aircraft will be delivered to India in August for test flights prior to the results of the tender. In late 2009, Russia will conduct a series of flight tests with live firing for an Indian air force delegation at a testing ground in Russia. Moscow has also said it is ready to transfer all key technology to India's Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. and provide assistance for the production of the aircraft in the country if MiG-35 wins the tender.

DTN News: Russian Warships Escort Another Convoy In The Gulf of Aden

DTN News: Russian Warships Escort Another Convoy In The Gulf of Aden

*Source: DTN News / RIA Novosti

(NSI News Source Info) VLADIVOSTOK, Russia - August 22, 2009: A Russian Pacific Fleet task force is escorting its third convoy of commercial ships in the Gulf of Aden since its arrival in the area in late July, a fleet spokesman said on Friday. The task force - comprising the Admiral Tributs destroyer with two helicopters, a salvage tug, a tanker, and a naval infantry unit - escorts commercial ships, conducts aerial reconnaissance, and searches suspected pirate vessels. "A third convoy of commercial ships was formed on Thursday and is moving along the Gulf of Aden under the escort of the Russian warships," the spokesman said. The Russian Navy joined international anti-piracy efforts off Somali coast in October 2008. Three Russian warships have so far participated in the mission - the Baltic Fleet's Neustrashimy (Fearless) frigate, and the Pacific Fleet's Admiral Vinogradov and Admiral Panteleyev destroyers. "The warships from the Pacific Fleet have successfully escorted over 100 Russian and foreign commercial ships since January 2009. They have thwarted several attacks by pirates," the official said. Around 35 warships from the navies of 16 countries are currently deployed off Somalia's coast to counter frequent pirate attacks on key trade routes. Pirate attacks on commercial vessels in the Gulf of Aden and off the east coast of Somalia have amounted to 130 since the beginning of the year, with 44 ships captured and at least 270 people held as hostages.