Karzai in India to woo investment in Afghanistan

 

ரசிய சமூக ஏகாதிபத்திய வீழ்ச்சிக்குப் பிந்திய அமெரிக்க  தலைமையிலான ஒற்றைத்துருவ உலக ஒழுங்கமைப்பில், பிராந்திய விரிவாதிக்க இந்திய அரசு அமெரிக்காவின் யுத்ததந்திரக் கூட்டாளியாகியுள்ளது.இந்நிலையில் இருந்து அமெரிக்க உலக மறு பங்கீட்டு ஆக்கிரமிப்பு யுத்தங்களுக்கும், இராணுவ ஆட்சிக் கவிழ்ப்புகளுக்கும் ஆதரவளித்து வருகின்றது.மறு பங்கீடு செய்யப்பட்ட சந்தைகளில் முதலீட்டுப் பங்காளியாகிவருகின்றது.ஆப்கானிஸ்தான் இதற்கு ஒரு உதாரணமாகும்.

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Karzai in India to woo investment in Afghanistan

NIRMALA GEORGE, Associated Press

Updated 9:24 a.m., Monday, November 12, 2012

 

NEW DELHI (AP) — Afghan President Hamid Karzai urged Indian companies on Monday to

invest in his country, and India's leader said economic development in the war-torn nation would

contribute to stability in the region.

"Investment opportunities are better today in Afghanistan, a country that is more confident of its

future," Karzai told reporters after meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Karzai's five-day visit is viewed as a bid to shore up security in the faction-ridden region before

the planned departure of most NATO troops from Afghanistan in 2014.

India has invested more than $2 billion in Afghan infrastructure, including highways and

hospitals and rural electricity projects. New Delhi is hoping to gain some influence in the

country after 2014, when Afghan forces become responsible for the entire country's security.

"India has been a generous front-line partner in Afghanistan's rebuilding and reconstruction

efforts," Karzai said.

Singh said his talks with Karzai covered bilateral relations and regional security.

"I reiterated to President Karzai our belief that Afghanistan's regional economic integration will

contribute to the overall prosperity and stability in the region," Singh told reporters.

The two countries signed four agreements, including ones on mining and development of small

enterprises.

Karzai, who arrived in India over the weekend, said one of his priorities during the visit is to

urge Indian companies to invest in his country.

"Indian businessmen need not shy away. The Chinese came five to six years before you and they

have already got two or three major contracts," Karzai told business leaders in Mumbai on

Sunday.

He said Afghanistan would lay out a "red carpet" welcome for Indian businesses. "You should

come in large numbers," Karzai said.

The two leaders also reviewed a strategic partnership agreement that the countries signed last

year, Indian officials said.

India is helping the Afghan government rebuild its police forces, judiciary and diplomatic

services. Small batches of Afghan soldiers are undergoing training at military schools in India.

"India is involved in capacity building in various fields including the security sector," said Yash

Sinha, a top official in the Ministry of External Affairs. He refused to say how many Afghan

soldiers had been trained in India.

India and Afghanistan are careful that their cooperation is not viewed as a threat by Pakistan,

which lies sandwiched between them.

The governments of India and Afghanistan share a distrust of Pakistan. Afghanistan says Pakistan

contributes to Afghan instability by offering a safe haven to Taliban insurgents. India accuses

Pakistan of harboring and nurturing terrorists who have carried out attacks in India.

Karzai, who earned his college degree in India, has visited New Delhi more than a half dozen

times in the past few years, most recently in October 2011.

சிரியாவில் அமெரிக்க நவீன காலனியாதிக்க பொம்மை அரசு/அரசாங்கம்

 

 

சிரியாவில் உருவாகும் அமெரிக்க நவீன காலனியாதிக்க பொம்மை அரசு/அரசாங்கம்

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Syria's opposition groups strike unity deal against Assad
By Rania El Gamal and Regan Doherty | Reuters – 4 hrs ago.. .

DOHA (Reuters) - Syria's fractious opposition finally put aside fierce arguments to rally behind a new leader within a new coalition that its Western and Arab backers hope can topple Bashar al-Assad and take over the country.

After days of wrangling in Qatar under constant cajoling by exasperated Arab, U.S. and other officials, representatives of groups including rebel fighters, veteran dissidents and ethnic and religious minorities agreed on Sunday to join a new assembly that can form a government-in-exile. They unanimously elected reformist Damascus cleric Mouaz al-Khatib as its president.

Khatib, a soft-spoken preacher who was once imam of the ancient Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, immediately called on soldiers to quit the Syrian army and on all sects to unite.

"We demand freedom for every Sunni, Alawi, Ismaili (Shi'ite), Christian, Druze, Assyrian ... and rights for all parts of the harmonious Syrian people," he told reporters.

It remains to be seen whether the Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces can overcome the mutual suspicions and in-fighting that have weakened the 20-month-old drive to end four decades of rule by President Assad's family.

But for allies who see it emulating Libya's Transitional National Council, the deal was welcome on a day when Israel fired a missile after a Syrian mortar bomb hit the Golan Heights and Assad's air force strafed along Turkey's border.

"We will strive from now on to have this new body recognised completely by all parties ... as the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people," said Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim of Qatar, an important supporter of the rebels.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmed Davutoglu said there was "no excuse any more" for foreign governments not to support an opposition whose internal divisions had given many pause.

The United States had also strongly promoted the plan for the Doha meeting to unite the various factions and, notably, subsume the previously ineffectual Syrian National Council into a wider body that would be more inclusive of minorities from a country of great ethnic and religious diversity.

France, a vocal backer of the rebels and which once ruled Syria, hailed the deal. "France will work with its partners to secure international recognition of this new entity as the representative of the aspirations of the Syrian people," Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said in a statement in which he called the Assad government "the criminal regime in Damascus".

STALEMATE

Twenty months after street demonstrations inspired by the Arab Spring drew a military response from Assad, his enemies hope a more cohesive opposition can break a stalemate in the civil war and win more military and diplomatic support from allies who have been wary of the influence of anti-Western militants, some of them linked to al Qaeda.

While there has been renewed talk in Turkey and elsewhere of providing some sort of no-fly zones or other protection for refugees and the lightly armed rebels facing Assad's air force, Western governments have shown little appetite for new military ventures in such a complex Arab state.

And Russia and China, which have blocked previous moves against Assad in the United Nations Security Council, are unlikely swiftly to alter positions which call for dialogue with Assad and view opposition groups as being in thrall to the West.

Regional power Iran, in whose Shi'ite brand of Islam Assad's Alawite minority has its religious roots, remains firmly behind the president in a conflict which pits him against majority Sunni Muslims supported by Iran's Sunni Arab adversaries.

OPPOSITION

After long arguments over whether and how to form the new opposition assembly, the speed with which a consensus emerged within hours to ensure that Khatib stood unopposed for the post of president was notable and may encourage its supporters.

His deputies will be Riad Seif, a veteran dissident who had proposed the U.S.-backed initiative to set up an umbrella group uniting groups inside and outside Syria, and Suhair al-Atassi, one of the relatively few women with a leading role. Delegates said a third deputy may yet be named from among ethnic Kurds.

Businessman Mustafa Sabbagh was elected general secretary.

Khatib, 50, was jailed several times for criticising Assad. He finally fled into exile this year.

"This is a serious step against the regime and a serious step towards freedom," Syrian National Council leader George Sabra said of Khatib, who has long promoted a liberal Islam tolerant of Syria's Christian, Alawite and other minorities.

Critics of the SNC had said it was too much influenced by the Sunni Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and too little open to minorities, including Alawites, some 10 percent of the population who fear a backlash if Assad is overthrown after a war that has taken on increasingly sectarian characteristics.

SNC member Wael Merza said all Assad's opponents were now welcome. "We are open to all the real opposition powers that have weight, influence and the same aims as the Coalition to bring down the regime and establish a democratic Syria."

In a sign of the wider sectarian confrontation across the Middle East, three people were killed on Sunday in the Lebanese coastal city of Sidon in fighting between Sunni Islamists and the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shi'ite movement Hezbollah.

In the Golan Heights, Israeli troops fired a guided missile into Syria on Sunday in a potent "warning shot" after mortar fire from fighting between Syrian troops and rebels hit the Israeli-occupied territory for the second time in four days.

Israel Radio said it was the first direct engagement of the Syrian military on the Golan since the war of 1973. There was no immediate comment from the 1,000-strong United Nations force which patrols the area, and no reaction from Syria.

In other violence, Assad's troops bombarded the Ras al-Ain area on the border with Turkey, days after the town fell to rebels during an advance that has sent thousands of refugees fleeing for safety.

Increasingly critical of the failure of world powers to halt the war, Turkey is in discussions with its NATO allies over the possible deployment of Patriot surface-to-air missiles to defend against any spillover of violence. The move could also be a step towards enforcing a no-fly zone within Syria.

More than 38,000 people have been killed and many tens of thousands more displaced in the violence since March last year.

(Additional reporting by Andrew Hammond in Doha, Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman and Brian Love in Paris; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Stephen Powell)

Suspect implies Sri Lankan involvement in Parithi murder - le Parisien

Suspect implies Sri Lankan involvement in Parithi murder - le Parisien 

Tamil Guardian 13 November 2012  
   
 Two men, both aged 33, were held in custody on Monday night in connection with the murder of French TCC leader Nadarajah Mathinthiran.

The two suspects, both described as of ‘Sri Lankan’ nationality, were arrested on Sunday morning in Villeneuve-Saint-Georges and La Chapelle.

A source close to the case is reported to have said that searches of the suspects’ homes did not provide evidence for their involvement in the killing.

Both suspects deny their involvement in the murder of Mathinthiran alias Parithi who was shot in the back with three 9mm bullets as he left TCC’s Paris office.

Accord to French newspaper le Parisien, one of the two suspects has made some confessions to the homicide investigators in charge of the issue, who said:

“This man claimed to have been contacted by a relative of the Sri Lankan Ambassador in France who offered him a reward of 50,000 Euros (49000 GBP) and a Sri Lankan passport in exchange for the execution. All these factors are being verified.”

Mathinthiran’s daughter Saarrah also implied the Sri Lankan government’s responsibility in the murder, saying:

“There are chances that it was the Sri Lankan government... [because] the two hooded men knew full well how to shoot.”

Saarrah also said that her father had not recently mentioned any threats, adding “he was very secretive about his community life.”

An altar draped in red and orange has been put up, with Mathinthiran’s picture and candles, in a small square in the twentieth arrondissement near the site of the murder.

Hamas military chief killed in Israeli attack

Hamas military chief killed in Israeli attack

Ahmad Jabari, the head of Hamas's military wing, has been assassinated in an Israeli air strike on Gaza.

 

Last Modified: 14 Nov 2012 15:0

Senior Hamas military commander Ahmed al-Jabari was killed in an Israeli air strike on a car in Gaza City, medics have said.

"The martyr is Ahmed al-Jabari and his bodyguard was injured," Ayman Sahabani, a doctor at Shifa hospital in Gaza City, said.

A Hamas security source also confirmed Jabari's death, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Israel's Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency and the military also confirmed the operation.

"During a joint operation of the General Security Service (Shin Bet) and the IDF (army) today, Ahmed Jabari, the senior commander of the military wing of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, was targeted," a statement from the Shin Bet said.

"In the past hour, the IDF targeted Ahmed Jabari, the head of Hamas's military wing, in the Gaza Strip," the military added in a statement, saying Jabari "was a senior Hamas operative... directly responsible for executing terror attacks."

"The purpose of this operation was to severely impair the command and control chain of the Hamas leadership, as well as its terrorist infrastructure."

Military spokeswoman Avital Leibovich said the strike was the start of an operation targeting armed groups in Gaza following multiple rocket attacks on southern Israel.

"The IDF started an operation against terror organisations in Gaza due to the ongoing attacks against Israeli civilians," she said on her Twitter account.

Head of military wing

Jabari is said to have been the head of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas. He coordinated much of Hamas' military capability, its military strategy, and the transformation of the military wing.

He also led the final negotiations in Cairo that concluded the prisoner swap between Hamas and Israel in 2011.

The killing of Jabari sparked furious protests in Gaza City, with hundreds of members of Hamas and its armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, chanting for revenge inside Shifa hospital.

Outside, armed men fired weapons into the air, and mosques throughout the city called prayers to mourn the commander's death.

Airstrikes

Palestinian security sources and medics confirmed a total of four air strikes across Gaza during the late afternoon, two in Gaza City, one of which killed Jabari, one in northern Gaza, and a fourth in the southern city of Khan Yunis.

Wednesday's attack comes after several days worth of Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip, leaving at least seven Palestinians dead and several more wounded.

Al Jazeera's Nadim Baba, reporting from the attack site, said, “This is a residential area, and people have rushed to the site as soon as they heard the news.”

Al Jazeera’s Rula Amin, reporting from Beirut, Lebanon, said Jabari had been a target for Israel for a long time.

"This is a big loss for Hamas, and a success for Israel, who have been after him for a while." she said.

“We will see an escalation for sure within the immediate future.”

“People in Gaza know him. He was considered very smart, very shrewd, considered to be a hero because he had managed until now to escape numerous assassination attempts by Israel.”

“People will be bracing for more violence, not just against Hamas but against the civilians too.”

Israel defiant

Defence Minister Ehud Barak warned on Tuesday that a flare-up in violence with Gaza was "not over," after Palestinian fighters fired two more rockets and Israel carried out air strikes throughout the previous night.

Barak, meeting Israeli military chiefs, said the current round of confrontations was ongoing, adding that Israel would decide how and when to respond to the rocket fire.

"It is certainly not over and we will decide how and when to act if necessary," he said in remarks communicated by his office.

"We intend to reinforce the deterrence, and strengthen it, so that we are able to operate along the length of the border fence in a way that will ensure the security of all our soldiers who are serving around the Gaza Strip," he said.

"At this time... it is preferable to act [in a timely fashion] rather than just talk."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told community leaders in southern Israel that he would decide when to retaliate.

"Anyone who thinks that he can harm the daily lives of southern residents and not pay a heavy price for it is mistaken," a statement from his office quoted him as saying during a meeting in the city of Beersheba.

"I am responsible for choosing the right time for exacting the most heavy price and that's how it will be."

On Monday night, Israeli planes struck three sites in Gaza, which the military identified as a weapons facility and two rocket launch sites.

And the following morning, the army said fighters fired two rockets into Israel, causing no injuries, with local media reporting one of them was a longer-range Grad rocket, which landed near the coastal town of Ashdod.

In Gaza, medics said 20-year-old Mohammed Ziad, a member of Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, died Tuesday of wounds he sustained on Saturday, after the flare-up began when fighters fired at an Israeli army jeep.

That attack injured four soldiers and prompted a quick escalation in violence, with Israel carrying out air strikes and shelling that killed six other Palestinians and injured more than 30.

Gaza fighters fired 123 rockets into southern Israel, lightly injuring four people.

Despite Barak's comments, and a series of bellicose statements from Israeli politicians on Monday, other officials sounded a more cautious tone on Tuesday.

"I don't think it will be necessary to enter the Gaza Strip," former military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin told Israel's army  radio.

"The army has at its disposal a series of measures that it has not yet used, it can raise the level of its response without resorting to a ground operation."

Source: Al Jazeera