Saturday, May 29, 2010

North Korea Ends Naval Safeguards Deal With South -- News from Antiwar.com

North Korea Ends Naval Safeguards Deal With South -- News from Antiwar.com

Tensions Rise as South Koreans Hold Naval Drill
by Jason Ditz, May 27, 2010

Tensions continue to rise on the Korean Peninsula, with the growing possibility that a clash in the disputed maritime border in the Yellow Sea could lead to a renewal of open warfare between the two nations.

South Korea is holding a naval drill in the sea today, with warships firing guns and dropping anti-submarine bombs not far from the region where the Cheonan warship sank in March, which South Korea has blamed on a North Korean attack.

North Korea responded to the exercise by announcing they were ending one of the last links with the south, a safeguards deal in which their ships remained in radio communication to avoid accidental clashes.

North Korea has denied any involvement in the Cheonan’s sinking, and its state media has been warning regularly over the past week that the accusation could lead to war. Thousands of South Koreans also took to the streets today demanding “revenge” against their neighbor to the north.

Though such rhetorical battles have happened with alarming regularity in recent months, the danger that the Korean War, still technically going on but in a nearly 60 year cease-fire, could be about to go hot again, with nearly 30,000 US troops smack in the middle of the prospective conflict.

Monday, May 24, 2010

Thailand extends curfew for two more nights - Times Online

Thailand extends curfew for two more nights - Times Online

, May 23, 2010

Thailand on Sunday extended a curfew in Bangkok and 23 provinces for two more nights for “security reasons”, emergency authorities said.

“The CRES has extended the curfew for two more nights from tonight in Bangkok and 23 provinces from 11pm to 4am for security reasons,” an official from the Center for Resolution of Emergency Situation said.

Four nights of curfew have been enforced after a rampage of arson and looting broke out in the capital in the wake of a crackdown on anti-government protests.

The new curfew hours were shorter than previously. The measures had been in force between 9:00 pm and 5:00 am for the past three days.

Friday, May 7, 2010

Sunni-backed party in Iraq warns of sectarianism

Sunni-backed party that got most votes in Iraq elections warns against sectarian politics

SAMEER N. YACOUB, AP News

May 06, 2010 15:18 EDT

The Sunni-backed alliance that got the most votes in Iraq's election warned Thursday against the rise of sectarian politics after two religious Shiite blocs joined together to try to form a government.

The Iraqiya party led by secular Shiite Ayad Allawi won the most seats in parliament with strong backing from the nation's disaffected Sunnis in the March 7 elections, but it cannot form a majority government alone. Now looks as though Iraqiya will be squeezed out of first place by the new Shiite alliance, effectively losing the first chance to form a governing coalition.

"We hope that the motive and the reason behind this new alliance is purely politics and not to take sides according to the sect," Iraqiya said. "The time of sectarian and ethnical polarization has gone after it proved to be a threat to the unity of Iraqi people."

Iraq's long simmering ethnic and sectarian tensions erupted in 2006 following the destruction of a Shiite shrine and the country was brought to the brink of a civil war that resulted in hundreds of deaths per day.

The new Shiite alliance puts the two blocs just four seats short of a ruling majority in the 325-member parliament and will likely lead to another Iraqi government dominated by Shiite religious parties, much like the current one.

The Iraqiya statement pointed out that as the largest vote-getter in the election — with two more seats than Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's bloc — it still should be given the first opportunity to form a government.

Shortly before results were announced, al-Maliki obtained a supreme court decision saying the largest bloc formed after the election could also get the first chance to form a government — raising accusations that Allawi was being cheated out of his win.

The alliance between al-Maliki's bloc and the Shiite religious group that came in third place in the vote made top Shiite clerics the final arbiters of any dispute. The deal has raised fears that the minority Sunnis — already wary of the leadership — will be largely left out of government and sectarian tensions will boil over into more violence.

The agreement that sets down conditions for their unity gave revered Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and other top Shiite clerics the power to decide disagreements between the two partners.

But an associate of al-Sistani said Thursday the cleric had no prior knowledge of the agreement or the particular clause empowering the clerics.

"We were not consulted," the official said. "The agreement was done among the two blocs and we had no knowledge about it before it was announced." He declined to comment on whether al-Sistani had accepted the role. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Al-Sistani frequently offers his counsel to senior politicians who privately seek his guidance and support but has shunned a more public or defined role.

Sporadic violence has continued during the negotiations to form a new government and on Thursday a roadside bomb exploded in western Baghdad apparently targeting a police patrol but instead killing two bystanders, according to police and hospital officials.

Police in Irbil also reported the discovery of the handcuffed and bullet-ridden body of a Kurdish journalist in the nearby city of Mosul.

Sardasht Othman, 23, wrote for a number of Kurdish publications and was kidnapped Monday, Irbil police chief Abdul-Khaliq Talaat said.

The Paris-based Reporters Without Borders condemned the killing and voiced concern about the decline of press freedom in Iraq's Kurdish ruled areas.

Source: AP News

Mahdi Army On the March -- News from Antiwar.com

Mahdi Army On the March -- News from Antiwar.com

Years After Disbanding, Sadr's Militia Is Back
by Jason Ditz, May 06, 2010

In the midst of the sectarian civil war in Iraq, the Mahdi Army was the major player on the Shi’ite side of things, openly defying the Shi’ite dominated government and fighting US and Iraqi troops. With the sectarian division at its worst level in years, they are reforming.

Commanders say that cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who disbanded the militia in 2007, has ordered it reconstituted, but now, with Sadr a political player and his Iraqi National Alliance a key part of the presumptive coalition government, what are we to make of this militia, back from the dead?

One the one hand some of the commanders say they’re only to provide assistance to security forces, certainly plausible with Sadr’s political faction in the catbird seat in the next government. At the same time, one Sadr spokesman suggested the real reason was to “ensure” that US forces leave the nation in a timely fashion.

Whatever its initial designs, the Mahdi Army, like all fighting forces, runs the risk of finding all sorts of new missions along the way, and with attacks on Shi’ites continuing, the militia seems destined to play a role in tensions in the weeks and months ahead.