Archive for November, 2009

GERMAN Labour Minister Franz Josef Jung has resigned over a deadly air strike in Afghanistan in September, when he was defence minister.
“After consideration … I told Chancellor Angela Merkel this morning that I was handing in my position as Federal Labour Minister,” Jung told reporters in Berlin today. “I am therefore taking responsibility for the information policy of the defence ministry,” he added. He said he would “add nothing” to a statement he made in parliament late yesterday, where he said he had correctly informed the public and deputies about the strike.

Jung’s resignation came amid press revelations that a military report about the September 4 strike, in which dozens of civilians are believed to have died, was suppressed. The ministerial casualty came just weeks after Merkel formed her new cabinet after a crushing election victory on September 27. Nevertheless, Jung is not seen as a major ally of the chancellor. Yesterday, the affair also claimed the scalp of Germany’s top soldier, Chief of staff General Wolfgang Schneiderhan, and a senior defence ministry official, who also stepped down as a consequence of the scandal. Germany’s mission in Afghanistan, where it is the third-largest supplier of troops, is unpopular in the country, with polls showing a majority are opposed to Berlin’s involvement. Source

MARK COLVIN: It’s been a year now since the Mumbai terror attack which killed 166 people and wounded more than 300 others. But as Mumbai still repairs the damage, there are fears that India remains acutely vulnerable to another attack. Security agencies have been widely criticised for not detecting the threat as well as for responding slowly when the attack began. India’s government says it’s upgrading security and intelligence services. But leading security analysts say bureaucratic red-tape and the continued lack of a co-ordinated approach make India a too easy target. Michael Edwards reports from Mumbai.

MICHAEL EDWARDS: Bharat Gujar has a permanent reminder of the Mumbai terror attack. He was working as a waiter at Cafe Leopold on the 26th of November last year. The cafe, a popular tourist spot in south Mumbai, was a target for the attackers. They sprayed it with bullets and set off grenades. Some of the shrapnel is still lodged in his arm. BHARAT GUJAR: I saw here and there. Here and there…. like they’re shooting bullets. They’re throwing second grenade, that grenade nearly 15 or ten feet, they’re throwing. They blasted that grenade in the stomach and hands, legs. MICHAEL EDWARDS: Bharat Gujar was lucky. Two of his colleagues were among the 166 killed in the attack.

The attackers, ten men trained in Pakistan came to shore by boat. Armed with grenades and guns, they targeted some of Mumbai’s best known landmarks, including the Taj Mahal and Oberoi Hotels as well as Cafe Leopold. It took security forces three days to stop them. Another of the victims was Thakur Vhagela, hit by bullets outside his pharmacy near Cafe Leopold. And a year on his brother, Bharat Vhagela, is concerned the government has done nothing to prevent another attack. Read the rest of this entry »

TEHRAN, Nov 24 (Reuters) – Iran is not opposed to sending its low-enriched uranium (LEU) abroad but wants 100 percent guarantees of receiving higher-enriched fuel in return for a medical research reactor, the Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday. “Nobody in Iran ever said that we are against sending 3.5 percent-enriched uranium abroad,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said. “If we say we are looking for 100 percent guaranteees, it means that we want 3.5 percent enriched uranium to be sent out under such circumstances that we make sure that we will receive the 20 percent fuel,” he told a news conference. Source

After five weeks of fierce fighting, the Pakistan military says it has made significant progress in an ongoing air and ground offensive against the Taliban and other insurgents in South Waziristan, along the border with Afghanistan.  Analysts say top militant leaders appear to have melted away, but at the same time have unleashed a wave of suicide bombers to attack government and civilian targets in Pakistan.  Pakistani military commanders say they have captured most major Taliban bases and towns in their offensive, called Operation Path to Deliverance in South Waziristan. Army soldiers have advanced more quickly than expected, killing hundreds of militants and capturing the high ground that encircles towns in this remote and sparsely populated region.

Pakistani Army Brigadier Farrukh Jamal:

“They had occupied all these surrounding high peaks,” said Brigadier Jamal. “From these peaks they gave us a very tough resistance.  There was very fierce fighting here.  But thank God we managed to capture all these peaks, and we killed them here.” Jamal says his men have cut the Taliban’s supply lines and are now going after those hiding in forests and caves in this mountainous area. The soldiers displayed a large number of captured weapons, ammunition and vests used by suicide bombers. They also found militant propaganda, training materials, bomb making instructions, Pakistani passports, as well as DVD’s and tapes with messages from al-Qaida terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. Analysts say the military learned from previous campaigns against the militants in a region where it has lost hundreds of soldiers in previous fighting. The Pakistani air force spent weeks bombing the area before an estimated 30,000 ground troops entered South Waziristan from three directions. Read the rest of this entry »

This documentary is the result of my trips to Afghanistan in 2005 and 2006, exposing the fraud “democracy” and the pain the uranium munitions have brought to Afghan people