DTN News: In Pakistan, Echoes of American Betrayal

DTN News: In Pakistan, Echoes of American Betrayal

* Opinion ~ Afghan War - War Logs

Source: The New York Times By Mohanned Hanif

(NSI News Source Info) KARACHI, Pakistan - August 1, 2010: PAKISTAN’S premier intelligence agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, has been accused of many bad things in its own country. It has been held responsible for rigging elections, sponsoring violent sectarian groups and running torture chambers for political dissidents. More recently, it has been accused of abducting Pakistanis and handing them over to the United States for cash. But last week — after thousands of classified United States Army documents were released by WikiLeaks, and American and British officials and pundits accused the ISI of double-dealing in Afghanistan — the Pakistani news media were very vocal in their defense of their spies. On talk show after talk show, the ISI’s accusers in the West were criticized for short-sightedness and shifting the blame to Pakistan for their doomed campaign in Afghanistan. Suddenly, the distinction between the state and the state within the state was blurred. It is our ISI that is being accused, we felt. How, we wondered, can the Americans have fallen for raw intelligence provided by paid informants and, in many cases, Afghan intelligence? And why shouldn’t Pakistan, asked the pundits, keep its options open for a post-American Afghanistan? More generally, the WikiLeaks fallout brought back ugly memories, reminding Pakistanis what happens whenever we get involved with the Americans. In fact, one person at the center of the document dump is our primary object lesson for staying away from America’s foreign adventures. Hamid Gul, now a retired general, led the ISI during the end years of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and together with his C.I.A. friends unwittingly in the 1990s spurred the mujahedeen to turn Kabul — the city they had set out to liberate — into rubble. According to the newly released documents, Mr. Gul met with Qaeda operatives in Pakistan in 2006 and told them to “make the snow warm in Kabul ... set Kabul aflame.” This would seem highly sinister except that, today, Hamid Gul is nothing more than a glorified television evangelist and, as the columnist Nadir Hassan noted, “known only for being on half a dozen talk shows simultaneously.” He is also, for Pakistanis, a throwback to the lost years of our American-backed military dictatorships, a stark reminder of why we distrust the United States. The ISI and the C.I.A. have colluded twice in the destruction of Afghanistan. Their complicity has brought war to Pakistan’s cities. After every round of cloak-and-dagger games, they behave like a squabbling couple who keep getting back together and telling the world that they are doing it for the children’s sake. But whenever these two reunite, a lot of children’s lives are wrecked. In the West, the ISI is often described as ideologically allied to the Taliban. But Pakistan’s military-security establishment has only one ideology, and it’s not Islamism. It’s spelled I-N-D-I-A. It will do anybody’s bidding if it’s occasionally allowed to show India a bit of muscle. Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the Pakistani Army chief, has just been given an unexpected three-year extension in his office, due in large part, it is said, to American pressure on Islamabad. Yet General Kayani headed the ISI during the period that the WikiLeaks documents cover. Since he became the head of the Pakistan Army — and a frequent host to Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — the number of drone attacks on Pakistani territory have increased substantially. It seems he has found a way to overcome his ISI past. While he generally keeps a low profile, General Kayani in February gave an off-the-record presentation to Pakistani journalists. His point was clear: Pakistan’s military remains India-centric. His explanation was simple: we go by the enemy’s capacity, not its immediate intentions. This came in a year when Pakistan lost more civilians and soldiers than it has in any war with India. Yet it has become very clear that an overwhelming majority of Pakistani people do not share the army’s India obsession or its yearning for “strategic depth” — that is, a continuing deadly muddle — in Afghanistan. They want a peaceful settlement with India over the disputed territory of Kashmir and a safer neighborhood. None of the leading parties in Parliament made a big deal about India, Afghanistan or jihad in their election campaigns. They were elected on promises of justice, transparency and reasonably priced electricity. Lately, Americans seem to have woken up to the fact that there is something called a Parliament and a civil society in Pakistan. But even so, it seems that Americans are courting the same ruling class — the military elite’s civilian cousins — that has thrived on American aid and obviously wants an even closer relationship with Washington. A popular TV presenter who interviewed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her visit later jibed, “What kind of close relationship is this? I don’t even get invited to Chelsea’s wedding?” Pakistan’s military and civil elite should take a good look around before they pitch another marquee and invite their American friends over for tea and war talk. There are a lot of hungry people looking in, and the strung lights are sucking up electricity that could run a small factory, or illuminate a village. Besides, they’re not likely to know what WikiLeaks is — they’ve been too busy cleaning up after their masters’ guests. *Mohammed Hanif, a correspondent for the BBC Urdu Service, is the author of the novel “A Case of Exploding Mangoes.”

*This article "In Pakistan, Echoes of American Betrayal - The New York Times By Mohammed Hanif" & link to read in originality form....click here.

*This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News, contact: dtnnews@ymail.com Disclaimer statement

Whilst every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information supplied herein, DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News cannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions. Unless otherwise indicated, opinions expressed herein are those of the author of the page and do not necessarily represent the corporate views of DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News.

Related Learning From WikiLeaks (August 1, 2010) Times Topic: WikiLeaks

DTN News: Kiss This War Goodbye

DTN News: Kiss This War Goodbye

* Opinion ~ Afghan War - War Logs

Source: The New York Times By Frank Rich

(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada- August 1, 2010: IT was on a Sunday morning, June 13, 1971, that The Times published its first installment of the Pentagon Papers. Few readers may have been more excited than a circle of aspiring undergraduate journalists who’d worked at The Harvard Crimson. Though the identity of The Times’s source wouldn’t eke out for several days, we knew the whistle-blower had to be Daniel Ellsberg, an intense research fellow at M.I.T. and former Robert McNamara acolyte who’d become an antiwar activist around Boston. We recognized the papers’ contents, as reported in The Times, because we’d heard the war stories from the loquacious Ellsberg himself.

But if we were titillated that Sunday, it wasn’t immediately clear that this internal government history of the war had mass appeal. Tricia Nixon’s wedding in the White House Rose Garden on Saturday received equal play with the Pentagon Papers on The Times’s front page. On “Face the Nation” the guest was the secretary of defense, Melvin Laird, yet the subject of the papers didn’t even come up. That false calm vanished overnight once Richard Nixon, erupting in characteristic rage and paranoia, directed his attorney general, John Mitchell, to enjoin The Times from publishing any sequels. The high-stakes legal drama riveted the nation for two weeks, culminating in a landmark 6-to-3 Supreme Court decision in favor of The Times and the First Amendment. Ellsberg and The Times were canonized. I sold my first magazine article, an Ellsberg profile, to Esquire, and, for better or worse, cast my lot with journalism. That my various phone conversations with Ellsberg prompted ham-fisted F.B.I. agents to visit me and my parents only added to the allure. I mention my personal history to try to inject a little reality into the garbling of Vietnam-era history that has accompanied the WikiLeaks release of the Afghanistan war logs. Last week the left and right reached a rare consensus. The war logs are no Pentagon Papers. They are historic documents describing events largely predating the current administration. They contain no news. They will not change the course of the war. About the only prominent figures who found serious parallels between then and now were Ellsberg and the WikiLeaks impresario, Julian Assange. They are hardly disinterested observers, but they’re on the mark — in large part because the impact of the Pentagon Papers on the Vietnam War (as opposed to their impact on the press) was far less momentous than last week’s chatter would suggest. No, the logs won’t change the course of our very long war in Afghanistan, but neither did the Pentagon Papers alter the course of Vietnam. What Ellsberg’s leak did do was ratify the downward trend-line of the war’s narrative. The WikiLeaks legacy may echo that. We may look back at the war logs as a herald of the end of America’s engagement in Afghanistan just as the Pentagon Papers are now a milestone in our slo-mo exit from Vietnam. What was often forgotten last week is that the Pentagon Papers had no game-changing news about that war either and also described events predating the then-current president. By June 1971, the Tet offensive and Walter Cronkite’s famous on-air editorial were more than three years in the past. The David Halberstam article that inspired “The Best and the Brightest” had already appeared in Harper’s. Lt. William Calley had been found guilty in the My Lai massacre exposed by Seymour Hersh in 1969. Just weeks before the Pentagon Papers surfaced, the Vietnam veteran John Kerry electrified the country by asking a Senate committee, “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?” Most Americans had long been telling pollsters the war was a mistake. By the time the Pentagon Papers surfaced, a plurality also disapproved of how Vietnam was handled by Nixon, who had arrived in office promising to end the war. The papers’ punch was in the many inside details they added to the war’s chronicle over four previous administrations and, especially, in their shocking and irrefutable evidence that Nixon’s immediate predecessor, Lyndon Johnson, had systematically lied to the country about his intentions and the war’s progress. Though Nixon was another liar, none of this incriminated him. His anger about the leak would nonetheless drive him to create a clandestine “plumbers” unit whose criminality (including a break-in at the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist) would lead to Watergate. Had Nixon not so violently overreacted that June — egged on by Henry Kissinger and fueled by his loathing of The Times and the antiwar movement — the story might have ebbed. Yes, the Pentagon Papers were labeled “top secret” — as opposed to the Afghanistan war logs’ “secret” status — but, as Richard Reeves writes in his book “President Nixon,” some 700,000 people in and out of government had clearance to read “top secret” documents. Compelling as the papers were, they were hardly nuclear code. The public’s reaction to the Afghanistan war logs has largely been a shrug — and not just because they shared their Times front page with an article about Chelsea Clinton’s wedding. President Obama is, to put it mildly, no Nixon, and his no-drama reaction to the leaks robbed their publication of the constitutional cliffhanger of their historical antecedent. Another factor in the logs’ shortfall as public spectacle is the fractionalization of the news media, to the point where even a stunt packaged as “news” can trump journalistic enterprise. (Witness how the bogus Shirley Sherrod video upstaged The Washington Post’s blockbuster investigation of the American intelligence bureaucracy two weeks ago.) The logs also suffer stylistically: they’re often impenetrable dispatches from the ground, in contrast to the Pentagon Papers’ anonymously and lucidly team-written epic of policy-making on high. Yet the national yawn that largely greeted the war logs is most of all an indicator of the country’s verdict on the Afghan war itself, now that it’s nine years on and has reached its highest monthly casualty rate for American troops. Many Americans at home have lost faith and checked out. The war places way down the list of pressing issues in every poll. Nearly two-thirds of those asked recently by CBS News think it’s going badly; the latest Post-ABC News survey finds support of Obama’s handling of Afghanistan at a low (45 percent), with only 43 percent deeming the war worth fighting. Perhaps more telling than either these polls or the defection of liberal House Democrats from last week’s war appropriations bill are the signs of wobbling conservative support. The gung-ho neocon axis was predictably belligerent in denouncing WikiLeaks. But the G.O.P. chairman Michael Steele’s recent “gaffe” — his since-retracted observation that “a land war in Afghanistan” is doomed — is no anomaly in a fractured party where the antiwar Ron Paul may have as much currency as the knee-jerk hawk John McCain. On the night of the logs’ release, Fox News even refrained from its patented shtick of shouting “Treason!” at the “mainstream media.” Instead, the go-to Times-basher Bernie Goldberg could be found on “The O’Reilly Factor” telling Laura Ingraham, a guest host, that the war “has not been going well” and is a dubious exercise in “nation-building.” Obama was right to say that the leaked documents “don’t reveal any issues that haven’t already informed our public debate in Afghanistan,” but that doesn’t mean the debate was resolved in favor of his policy. Americans know that our counterinsurgency partner, Hamid Karzai, is untrustworthy. They know that the terrorists out to attack us are more likely to be found in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia than Afghanistan. And they are starting to focus on the morbid reality, highlighted in the logs, of the de facto money-laundering scheme that siphons American taxpayers’ money through the Pakistan government to the Taliban, who then disperse it to kill Americans. Most Americans knew or guessed the crux of the Pentagon Papers, too. A full year earlier the Senate had repealed the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin resolution; no one needed a “top secret” smoking gun by 1971 to know that L.B.J. had lied about the Tonkin incident. The papers didn’t change administration war policy because we were already pulling out of Vietnam, however truculently and lethally (the Christmas 1972 bombing campaign, most notoriously). In 1971, the American troop level was some 213,000, down from a peak of 537,000 in 1968. By 1973 we were essentially done. Unlike Nixon, Obama is still adding troops to his unpopular war. But history is not on his side either in Afghanistan or at home. The latest Gallup poll found that 58 percent of the country favors his announced timeline, with its promise to start withdrawing troops in mid-2011. It’s hard to imagine what could change that equation now. Certainly not Pakistan. As the president conducts his scheduled reappraisal of his war policy this December, a re-examination of 1971 might lead him to question his own certitude of what he is fond of calling “the long view.” The Times won a Pulitzer Prize for its 1971 Pentagon Papers coup. But another of the Pulitzers that year went to the columnist Jack Anderson, who also earned Nixon’s ire by mining other leaks to expose the White House’s tilt to Pakistan in the Indo-Pakistani War. The one thing no one imagined back then was that four decades later it would be South Asia, not Southeast Asia, that would still be beckoning America into a quagmire.

*This article "Kiss This War Goodbye - The New York Times By Frank Rich" & link to read in originality form....click here. *This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News, contact: dtnnews@ymail.com

Disclaimer statement Whilst every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information supplied herein, DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News cannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions. Unless otherwise indicated, opinions expressed herein are those of the author of the page and do not necessarily represent the corporate views of DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News.

Related Times Topic: Afghanistan

DTN News: U.S. Army Outlines Ground Combat Vehicles Priorities

DTN News: U.S. Army Outlines Ground Combat Vehicles Priorities

Source: DTN News / Defense-Update.com

(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - July 31, 2010: General Peter W. Chiarelli, Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army describes the new Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV) "the most important combat development and acquisition decisions we will make over the next seven years". Indeed, the Army is taking this program seriously, and is doing its best to safely conduct it to successful completion. Top Army officials gathered in October and November 2009 have outlined the program to hundreds of experts from industry, research and development community to introduce the program set to dominate the market through this new decade.

Following the briefings the industry responded to the Army's request for information, delivering over 150 'white papers' that discuss the manufacturer's views of the feasible approaches that could meet the Army's requirements. The Army is expected to publish the Request for Proposal (RFP) in February and, based on industry responses, award two or three contracts for prototype development by late 2010.

This program is not going to be short, or cheap. After the demise of the Future Combat System's (FCS) Manned Ground Vehicle (MGV shown in the drawing above), the Army is embarking on a program less ambitious, but also more connected to the new realities of modern military requirements. According to General Chiarelli, the focus is on improving warfighter survivability while maintaining decisive advantage over the adversaries, through the 'superiority of the network'. To sustain this advantage over many years, the new vehicle should be based on 'open architecture', primarily in the use of electronic systems, enabling 'plug and play' enhancements and future growth.

Can GCV Benefit from MGV Legacy?

The Ground Combat Vehicle will differ from the MGV in many aspects. According to Col. Brian McVeigh, Product Manager for manned systems integration, the Army is still seeking a 'balanced' design but with an emphasis on system survivability for vehicle and crew (defined as 'force protection'), mobility and versatility over its entire service life. McVeigh was the program manager of the MGV and, since the establishment of GCV program as a Major Defense Acquisition Program (MDAP) is heading the new vehicle program. McVeigh confirmed the new design could leverage part of over US$3 billion invested in the development of the FCS family of vehicles. In fact, over 40+ specific technologies were identified as mature enough for integration in the GCV and will become available to the industry.

Such derivatives could be address broader system architecture and design perspective, as well as software and hardware elements matured through testing and development. While the design and development is expected to be more linear and straightforward than the MGV, McVeigh expects some side tracks for evaluating specific technologies in parallel to the vehicle's development. Some technologies could also be integrated as they mature, in future incremental updates, through the service life of the vehicle. These could include advanced propulsion technology, future networking solutions, situational awareness appliqué, turret and weapon systems and selection and integration of the future hit avoidance systems (HAS). Such active and passive protection measures will be integrated with the vehicle when they are ready.

Other important elements are transportability, safety and mobility – lessons learned from the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle program. To avoid the pitfalls experienced with the MRAP, the GCV should be designed with manageable gross vehicle weight, and provide for adequate payload capacity in the near term and growth potential, and have automotive characteristics for on road and off-road mobility, stability, handling and safety. Cross-country mobility is expected to equal the Bradleys' and is considered primarily to preclude being restricted to existing road networks, rather than sustaining maneuver warfare in open terrain.

Army evaluation teams experience software applications simulating part of the crew station of the MGV. This computer-rich vehicle was designed around the core network-integrated system, in contrast, the GCV will be designed as a conventional armored vehicle. Photo: US Army

The Army is assessing the capability gap with its current and future vehicles to provide the baseline for revising its requirements for the future vehicles. The Army is expected to maintain enhanced versions of the M1A2 main battle tanks, the Stryker Infantry Combat Vehicles, and some of the Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles (IFV). The Army is considering different approaches to phase out the M-113 Armored Personnel Carriers, which could involve utilization of MRAPs as well as the introduction of utility versions of the new Joint tactical Light Vehicles (JLTV).

According to Col McVeigh, the army is seeking the replacement of the Bradley with the GCV, at a later phase; its capabilities could be expanded further, to other mission packages. This approach is less radical than the MGV 'family of vehicle', developed from the baseline as a 'networked combat vehicle' which could be operated by a crew of two. The GCV takes a step back into reality - being less complex it will be manned 'traditionally' by a crew of three, with space for additional nine infantrymen. It will be equipped with advanced vehicle electronics, but integrate the current generation of command, control and networking systems. These could be upgraded incrementally in the future to take advantage of next generation networking solutions as they become available.

*This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News, contact: dtnnews@ymail.com

DTN News: Venezuela Deploys Military Units In Colombia Row

DTN News: Venezuela Deploys Military Units In Colombia Row

Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources including Reuters

(NSI News Source Info) CARACAS, Venezuela- July 31, 2010: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Friday said he deployed military units to repel a possible attack after Colombia claimed last week his country harbored leftist rebels, but said he hoped to mend ties soon. Chavez severed relations with U.S. ally Colombia last week over Bogota's charges his oil exporting country allowed Colombian guerrillas to stay in camps. He has since said Colombia was preparing a military attack. Colombia denies the charge, and most analysts say a war between the countries is very unlikely. "I should tell you we have deployed units to defend our sovereignty in case of an aggression, air defense units, air units, infantry, special operations," Chavez said in a phone call to a state TV station, adding that a Colombian aircraft had violated Venezuela airspace for five minutes this week. "We don't want to hurt anybody. We don't want to cause alarm in the population," said Chavez, who has seized on the dispute with Colombia to rally supporters ahead of parliamentary elections on September 26. This week Venezuelan soldiers visited sites Colombia says are established military bases, but they found only derelict buildings, Chavez said. In one case, the coordinate given by Colombia led soldiers to a rock in a river, he said. "Last night I said to the guys, "lift the rock," sure it's not a big stone, but you never know, there might be a tunnel," he said. "Maybe under the stone there is a tunnel and a camp, Vietnam-style." On Sunday he threatened to cut oil supplies to the United States, who he says is behind the alleged plan to invade, in case of military aggression from Colombia. The threat is a common one for Chavez, but he has never followed through and oil and debt markets shrugged off the news. The socialist leader said he believed the outgoing conservative government of President Alvaro Uribe, who he described as "obsessed," might still attack Venezuela, but said his Foreign Minister will meet with Colombia's new government, which takes office on August 7. Close Uribe ally Juan Manuel Santos, a former defense minister who will become president next week, wants to improve relations with Venezuela because the festering dispute has cost Colombia billions of dollars in lost trade. Chavez did not say where he had sent the forces, or how many were deployed. Colombian Foreign Minister Jaime Bermudez on Thursday promised no attack was planned. Two years ago, Chavez ordered tanks to the border in protest at a Colombian bombing raid on a guerrilla base in Ecuador. It was never clear if the tanks were mobilized. A former soldier, Chavez says he would not launch an offensive against another country, but has spent billions retooling his armed forces because he says the OPEC nation is vulnerable to a U.S.-backed invasion. Venezuela has proposed a wide-reaching peace plan to end Colombia's four-decade civil war, saying it is a victim of violent groups that spill over the border. Uribe has wanted Chavez to take action against guerrillas he say launch dozens of attacks from Venezuela. Chavez denies his government supports the rebels, but says he cannot take sides in the Colombia's war. He also recognizes that much of Venezuela's 1,375-mile (2,200-km) border with Colombia is porous and vulnerable.

DTN News: US Chopper Down In Afghanistan

DTN News: US Chopper Down In Afghanistan Source: DTN News / Press TV

(NSI News Source Info) KABUL, Afghanistan - July 31, 2010: A US helicopter has crashed in northeastern Afghanistan as the death toll of foreign forces in the volatile country continues to set new records.

The US Air Force chopper went down in the Afghan province of Kunar on Saturday, a Press TV correspondent reported. The US military's press office in Kunar said the helicopter made an emergency landing in the area due to technical failures.

It added that a number of soldiers have been injured in the incident.

The US-led alliance did not provide further details about the crash and it still remains unclear how many people were aboard the chopper.

Meanwhile, the Taliban claimed they shot the helicopter down by an RPG rocket. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said all forces onboard have been killed.

The Taliban have reportedly shot down several NATO helicopters over the past months in different parts of Afghanistan.

The latest incident comes as July has become the deadliest month for American forces stationed in war-torn Afghanistan since the start of the war in 2001.

*This article "US Chopper Down In Afghanistan - Press TV" & link to read in originality form....click here.

*This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News, contact: dtnnews@ymail.com

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DTN News: Iran To Unveil New Defense Projects

DTN News: Iran To Unveil New Defense Projects

Source: DTN News / Press TV

(NSI News Source Info) TEHRAN, Iran - July 31, 2010: Iran's defense minister says by inaugurating dozens of defense projects, Tehran will respond to the sanctions imposed against the country.

Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi vowed to give a practical response to enemy-imposed sanctions on August 22, which has been dubbed as the “Defense Industry Day.”

The Iranian general went on to highlight the “strategic and unique role of the defense ministry in developing Iran's defense industry.” The West alleges that Iran is pursuing a military nuclear program -- an allegation denied by Tehran.

On June 9, the UN Security Council (UNSC) adopted a resolution imposing a fourth round of sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. Shortly afterwards the US and EU imposed unilateral sanctions against Iran.

Tehran rejects the sanctions, saying that as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency it has the right to the civilian application of nuclear technology.

*This article "Iran To Unveil New Defense Projects - Press TV" & link to read in originality form....click here. *This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News, contact: dtnnews@ymail.com

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DTN News: China Invests $40 Billion In Iran oil, Gas; According Deputy Oil Minister Hossein Noqrehkar Shirazi

DTN News: China Invests $40 Billion In Iran oil, Gas; According Deputy Oil Minister Hossein Noqrehkar Shirazi

Source: DTN News / AFP

(NSI News Source Info) TEHRAN, Iran - July 31, 2010: Iran's main economic partner China has invested around 40 billion dollars in the Islamic republic's oil and gas sector, a senior Iranian official said on Saturday. Deputy Oil Minister Hossein Noqrehkar Shirazi also said that Tehran's oil exports to China fell by 30 percent in the first six months of 2010 compared with the corresponding period last year. "The volume (of Chinese investment) in upstream projects is 29 billion dollars," Noqrehkar Shirazi told Mehr news agency, adding that Beijing had signed contracts worth another 10 billion dollars in petrochemicals, refineries and oil and gas pipeline projects. He said China has also put forward proposals to participate in building seven new refineries in Iran. Iran, OPEC's second largest oil exporter, has a dilapidated refining sector, forcing it to import petroleum products such as gasoline to meet domestic needs. Noqrehkar Shirazi said that Chinese imports of Iranian oil fell in the first half of the year. "Although Iran is still among top 10 oil exporters to China, it is the only country which in the first six months of 2010 has seen its exports to China falling," he said. "The volume of oil exports to China in the first six months of this year decreased to less than 9.02 million tonnes or 66.12 million barrels. This shows a 30 percent decrease" over the first half of 2009, he added. In recent years, China has filled the gaps in Iran's energy sector left by Western firms forced out by international sanctions. In 2009, China became Iran's premier trading partner, with bilateral trade worth 21.2 billion dollars against 14.4 billion dollars three years earlier. Commercial ties between the two countries were almost non-existent 15 years ago, amounting to just 400 million dollars. According to official data, Western sanctions opened the way for Chinese companies, which last year directly supplied Iran with 13 percent (7.9 billion dollars) of its imports. Iranian estimates also suggest that an equivalent amount was imported indirectly through the United Arab Emirates in 2009. China backed the fourth set of UN sanctions against Iran over its contested nuclear programme, but Beijing has consistently urged the world powers to resolve the crisis diplomatically. On Friday, it also opposed the latest unilateral sanctions on Iran imposed by the European Union.

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DTN News: Pakistan Spy Scraps UK Talks After PM's Comments

DTN News: Pakistan Spy Scraps UK Talks After PM's Comments

Source: DTN News / AP By Jill Lawless

(NSI News Source Info) LONDON, England - July 31, 2010: A diplomatic spat with implications for international counterterrorism escalated Saturday, when Pakistan's spy chief canceled a visit to London after the British leader suggested that Pakistan exports terrorism. A senior Pakistani intelligence official confirmed that Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shujaa Pasha had called off a trip planned for next week, when he had been due to discuss security cooperation with British intelligence bosses. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with his agency's policy. Prime Minister David Cameron outraged officials in Islamabad when he said during a visit to India that Pakistan must not be allowed to "promote the export of terror whether to India, whether to Afghanistan or to anywhere else in the world." Pakistan insists that it has done more than any other country to combat terrorism, sending the army to fight Taliban and al-Qaida-linked militants within its borders and cooperating closely with Western intelligence agencies. But its Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency has long been accused of secretly aiding Afghanistan's Taliban and other Islamic militants. Pakistan reacted angrily to Cameron's remarks. Wajid Shamsul Hasan, Pakistan's ambassador to Britain, called the comments "an immature reaction from an immature politician." Cameron later conceded that Pakistan had made moves against terror organizations, but said "it still needs to take further steps." Pakistan's military-run spy agency operates largely beyond civilian control. But the official said the decision to scrap the spy delegation's visit was backed by the Pakistani government. Britain's Foreign Office said a visit to Britain by Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari is still scheduled to go ahead next week. Zardari is due to stay with Cameron at his country retreat, Chequers. The Foreign Office declined to comment on Pasha's canceled trip, saying it did not discuss intelligence matters. Britain and the United States regard Pakistan as a key nation in the fight against terrorism. Britain's former prime minister, Gordon Brown, said that 75 percent of terror plots under investigation in Britain were linked to Pakistan. Britain is home to about 1 million people of Pakistani origin. Pakistani officials say their spies have worked closely with British counterparts to investigate the 2005 London suicide bombings and to thwart several planned attacks, including a 2006 plot to blow up trans-Atlantic airliners.

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DTN News: Israeli Airstrike Kills Senior Hamas Rocket Maker

DTN News: Israeli Airstrike Kills Senior Hamas Rocket Maker

Source: DTN News / By Ibrahim Barzak

(NSI News Source Info) GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - July 31, 2010: Israeli warplanes fired missiles, killing a senior commander of the Hamas military wing and wounding 11 people in five targets hit across Gaza overnight, the group and the military said Saturday. The Israeli military said the strikes were in response to a powerful rocket fired from Gaza that hit the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon on Friday, causing damage but no injuries. Gaza's Islamic militant Hamas rulers said their slain member was Issa Batran, 42, a commander of the groups' military wing in central Gaza and a senior rocket maker. Batran had survived several previous Israeli attempts to kill him, but his wife and five of his children were killed during Israel's three-week war in Gaza that ended in January 2009. The cross-border violence came after weeks of relative calm and raised concerns of further escalation. A Hamas spokesman said the militant group would avenge Batran's killing. "Hamas will not be quiet over the blood of its martyrs," said Hamad al-Rakabi. "Israel is opening all the gates of fire. This blood will cascade into rage and fire," al-Rakabi said. Hamas said eight of its supporters and three civilians were also wounded in the overnight airstrikes. The strikes hit a smuggling tunnel that runs under the Gaza-Egypt border used for smuggling weapons, the military said, as well as Batran's shack in central Gaza, which was likely used to make rockets, and a Hamas military training camp in Gaza City. Israel's military says more than 400 rockets and mortars have been fired from Gaza since Israel ended its punishing assault in the Hamas-run coastal area 19 months ago. The Islamic militants have been building crude rockets for the past decade, and have fired hundreds of them at Israeli border towns. However, Hamas has largely held its fire since Israel's military offensive against Gaza, and most of the 400 rockets were pelted by smaller militant groups. They were mostly crude, short-range rockets. However in Friday's attack, Ashkelon was hit by a military-grade Grad rocket that can travel longer distances and cause far more damage. There was no claim of responsibility for the strike on Ashkelon, a city of 120,000 located 11 miles (18 kilometers) to the north of Gaza and a short drive from Israel's main population center in Tel Aviv. Hamas has ruled Gaza since seizing power in 2007, wresting control from their Fatah rivals of the internationally backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Also Saturday, Israeli forces wounded a Gaza man who strayed near to the large concrete wall separating the two territories. An Israeli military spokeswoman said the man was part of a group that ignored warning shots by soldiers. She said soldiers then fired toward the men's lower bodies to keep them away from the border area. The spokeswoman spoke on condition of anonymity in line with military regulations. Israel maintains a system of warning shots, then a shoot-to-kill policy for Palestinians who approach the Gaza-Israel border. The policy was initially created to scare off militants firing rockets close to the sensitive area, but it also endangers impoverished Gazans who frequently haul donkey carts close to the border to gather pebbles, which they later sell to builders to make cement, and to collect scrap metal to recycle.

Related News;

*Hamas rocket maker killed in raid Aljazeera.net *Hamas leader killed in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza CNN Ynetnews - Reuters - Ha'aretz - Jerusalem Post

DTN News: Wiki Wiki Leaks - Media Conduct Questionable In WikiLeaks Affair

DTN News: Wiki Wiki Leaks - Media Conduct Questionable In WikiLeaks Affair

Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources & report / story by Bogdan Kipling is a Canadian journalist in Washington - The Chronicle Herald.ca ( bkipling@herald.ca)

(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - July 31, 2010: If the world were saner, we would know better than to get excited over any orchestrated leak of dark secrets. We would discount Washington’s cathouse promiscuity with the "Top Secret" stamp and mutter something about patients running the insane asylum on reading the Afghanistan papers story the New York Times, the Guardian in London, or Der Spiegel in Germany published last Sunday. The troika disclosed nothing new about the war in Afghanistan, the Taliban insurgents and Pakistan’s alleged double-dealing. In that sense, the hot papers are like the CIA microfiche I bought at a National Press Club documents sale some yeas ago. It was an "eyes only" report informing President Eisenhower that George Diefenbaker had won the 1958 election, including the source of the information: "Canadian Press and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation." Nothing quite so funny and so revealing has come over my transom since then — and that is a pity. Whipping up such froth is fun, and readers love it. The Afghanistan papers story may be hollow but it is not funny. It raises questions about journalism and concerted political action and which is which. If it is the latter, why not declare it? But if newspapering is still the game, what happened to the abhorrence of being sued? What I see here is a joke on the news side and severe damage to confidence on the part of America’s allies. Why should Canada’s secret service trust American services to keep shared secrets? And what’s true for Canada is true for all America’s allies in the world. Why have three serious news organizations decided to lend their simultaneous media power to Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks blog? Mr. Assange is a self-described "madman of hacking." If this is a certificate of maturity, then there is no such thing as recklessness with access where life-and-death decisions are made. Disapproving or approving of a war is everybody’s right in a free society. But it gives pause that these eminent news organizations agreed to sit on the information — such as it is — until a chap much given to self-promotion was ready to set off his big bang. Mr. Assange says Americans and all their foreign allies must get out of Afghanistan. Many Americans agree with him — and so do Canadians, Britons, Germans, Poles and others in the vast military alliance fighting al Qaida and the Taliban. That people in Afghanistan and Pakistan want to see the end of the war is so obvious it is embarrassing to mention it. They are at the receiving end of missiles, bombs, grenades and bullets. They want the shooting to be somewhere else even when they see the war as their own liberation. Mr. Assange would talk to the Taliban to end the war. He sees the Americans as aggressors and condemns their killing of civilians. He is less outspoken about the murders of innocent people that the Taliban al Qaida commit, but then, the activist crowd regularly hates only one villain. Seeing as I am talking about a mad world where anything can happen, maybe Mr. Assange is promoting peace with the Taliban for Big Gas and its pipelines. Ahmed Rashid’s definitive book "Taliban — Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia," put the seed of this idea in my head. The author says his book "has been 21 years in the writing — about as long as I have covered Afghanistan as a reporter." Washington, he writes, has "strongly backed" Unocal, an American energy company, "to build a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan across Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. He says when the Taliban captured Kabul in September 1996, Unocal executive Chris Taggert "told wire agencies that the pipeline project would be easier to implement" now that the Taliban are in the saddle. Mr. Rashid reminds us that the State Department announced "within hours" of Kabul’s capture by the Taliban, that the United States would establish diplomatic relations with the new rulers. Their crimes against Afghan women caused some delays, but diplomacy had to move on — and it did. The Taliban foreign minister talked pipelines in the State Department while President Clinton pounded Osama bin Laden’s camps in his country. In a mad world, it is easy to imagine that Mr. Assange works for Big Gas and its pipelines and coddles the Taliban as the chaps you can do business with.

*This article "Media Conduct Questionable In WikiLeaks Affair - The Chronicle Herald.ca " & link to read in originality form....click here.

*This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News, contact: dtnnews@ymail.com