Reuters-Israel wants to renew indirect talks with Syria

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s caretaker prime minister, Ehud Olmert, wants to renew indirect talks with Syria that were suspended some weeks ago when he resigned over a corruption scandal, Israeli officials said on Friday.

Olmert will remain in office as caretaker until a new government is formed after a mid-February election. He wants to avoid a diplomatic vacuum for this period, officials added.

“The prime minister believes in the importance of continuing the process of negotiations with Syria,” said Mark Regev, a spokesman for Olmert.

A source in Olmert’s office said the Israeli leader had told Syria via European officials that he wanted to resume Turkish-mediated talks that took place earlier this year, and had “received a positive indication” from the Syrians.

Direct Israeli negotiations with Syria broke down in 2000 in a dispute over the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau Israel captured in the 1967 war and later annexed, and whose return Syria demands as part of a peace deal.

Many analysts believe the forthcoming change in the U.S. administration may give new impetus to a change in relations with Syria on the part of both Washington and its Israeli ally.

(Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan, Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Tim Pearce)

Reuters- India suspects Islamists, separatists in Assam attack

By Biswajyoti Das

GUWAHATI, India (Reuters) – Indian authorities suspect that Islamist groups in collusion with separatist militants carried out coordinated bomb blasts in the Assam state that killed 77 people and wounded more than 320.

Separatist movements have riddled India’s remote northeast for decades, but the level of sophistication and precision of Thursday’s bombings also echo similar blasts across India over the past year which have been blamed on Islamist groups.

Bangladesh-based Harkat-ul-Jihad al Islami (HuJI) is one of the main suspects in Thursday’s attack. Police say the Islamist group could have sought to avenge attacks on Muslim settlers by indigenous tribes that killed at least 47 people last month.

“Our initial investigation points that these attacks were carried out by jihadi forces with the help of local militant groups,” Khagen Sharma, inspector general of police in Assam and chief Assam’s intelligence services, told Reuters.

The separatist United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) is also suspected, but some police and security experts say the group may have only played a supporting or logistical role. ULFA has denied any involvement.

“We had information about jihadi and Ulfa elements planning strikes in Assam,” Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said.

Seven people were injured in Guwahati on Friday after angry residents protesting against the blasts clashed with police near one blast site. Police fired into the air and a curfew was later imposed in the market area to thwart further protests.

Assam is one of seven states in the remote northeast racked by insurgency, connected to India by a thin strip of land and surrounded by Bangladesh, China, Myanmar and Bhutan.

Over the years Muslim settlers, mostly from Bangladesh, have moved to this Hindu and tribal-dominated region, leading to increased ethnic tensions that could have played into the hands of both separatists and Islamists.

Analysts say plastic explosives were used in the blast to cause maximum damage and were remotely detonated within five minutes of each other using timer devices — hallmarks of strikes by suspected Islamist groups in India.

“HuJI has actually been fingered by Assam police as being involved in the attack, an accusation substantiated by the discovery of RDX (plastic) explosives,” U.S. private intelligence firm Stratfor said in a report.

Indian home ministry officials said on Friday they had warned the Assam government of a possible militant strike after Indian authorities intercepted a telephone conversation between Pakistan and HUJI operatives in Bangladesh referring to Assam.

“The Islamic groups from Bangladesh were using the state as a transit route to move in the rest of the country,” Sharma said.

“Their activities in Assam were confined to supplying weapons and explosives, but they have become more active in Assam recently,” he said.

Moromi Sarmah, 5, is treated for her burn injuries after she was injured in one of Thursday’s bomb blasts in Guwahati, the main city of India’s troubled northeastern Assam state October 31, 2008.

Amy Winehouse on RC Edrington interview

Amy Winehouse -video interview

I am hooked on Amy Winehouse. The music, the personality, the “I don’t give a shit” tattoos. Stale cigars, and bluesy night clubs. Thin bird like solo guitar players belting out their sorrow for a bottle of bathtub gin in somewhere New Orleans…before it was destroyed by upper class college punks…before the flood. Darkness. A lone blue light floats down like dust from center stage. The ghost of Billie Holiday shimmers out the rear exit into a black sedan to chase the next fix. The band starts soft, slow. Jazz cut by Motown tinged in Blues. All eyes leave their drinks. Amy Winehouse takes the stage. Perhaps in a black velvet sequined dress…perhaps in torn blue jeans…

Find out more:
Amy Winehouse Home Page
Amy Winehouse MySpace
Amy Winehouse @ Wikipedia

IRI,Finland to boost parliamentary ties

09:49:04 �.� Head of Finnish parliament research center Kimou Kilyonen met with his Iranian counterpart Ahmad Tavakkoli Wednesday. In the meeting, Tavakkoli described bilateral relations as good and said the two countries have plenty of capacities for expansion of cooperation in the fields of politics, economics and culture. Referring to the recent visit of Majlis Speaker to Finland, he expressed hope that exchanging parliamentary delegations between the two countries create an appropriate ground for expansion of bilateral ties. The Finnish MP, for his part, said, “Iran with its old civilization and rich culture in the region has many capacities for developing ties in the fields of science and research and we intend to enjoy such opportunities.” In another part of his remarks, the Finnish official expressed his country’s intention to develop and strengthen cooperation in different fields with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

IRI tries to up ties among SCO members

03:37:05 �.� First Vice-President Parviz Davoudi, currently in Astana, Kazakhstan, offered major proposals on Thursday to boost cooperation among the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s member states. “Given their important political and geoeconomic position, the SCO member states can, by using massive existing opportunities for multilateral cooperation and convergence, promise a bright future for regional nations,” Davoudi said in his address to the ongoing meeting of SCO prime ministers. Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan are the SCO member countries while the Islamic Republic of Iran, India, Mongolia and Pakistan are its observer states. “Given its strategic and principled policy on expansion of cooperation with regional and Asian countries, Iran has made constant efforts to promote cooperation and interaction with the SCO states,” Davoudi said. He referred to Iran’s security, economic development, welfare, justice and energy (oil and gas) resources as main factors which can effectively help the SCO fulfill its objectives. Davoudi added that Iran’s geographical and historical closeness to the Central Asian states and the SCO’s members was another major factor for promotion of ties with the organization’s member states. According to Davoudi enjoying rich cultural bonds, easy transportation facilities thanks to Iran’s adjacent to the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf waters as well as the country’s ability to transit goods and energy to international markets, were among other major factors helping Tehran’s further cooperation with the SCO’s member states.

Gen. Petraeus faces even tougher job after Iraq

By Andrew Gray

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Hailed as an American hero for his role in pulling Iraq back from the brink of all-out civil war, U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus takes on an even more challenging job on Friday as the head of U.S. Central Command.

The warrior-scholar with a doctorate in international relations from Princeton University takes responsibility for U.S. military operations in a volatile swathe of the world that includes Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran and the Gulf.

As the top commander in Iraq, Petraeus presided over a surge of 30,000 extra U.S. troops into the country and implemented a strategy focused on protecting the Iraqi population, which contributed to a steep decline in violence.

The turnaround in Iraq was also due to other factors — including Sunni former insurgents turning against al Qaeda and a ceasefire by radical Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr — but Petraeus has received widespread credit for his leadership.

His work earned lavish praise from President George W. Bush and both candidates to take over in the White House, particularly Republican Sen. John McCain, and a promotion to the post at Central Command, based in Tampa, Florida.

But while Iraq was regarded by many as a lost cause when he took command there in February 2007, Petraeus could at least concentrate on one country and had as many as 170,000 U.S. troops under his direct command.

In his new post, he has responsibility for an area that includes 20 countries and less direct control.

Afghanistan will demand much of his attention. Insurgent violence has risen sharply there this year and both McCain and his Democratic rival Sen. Barack Obama, who leads in the polls, have pledged to send more U.S. troops.

“You have a leader who’s become, obviously, well known because of his role in Iraq and the public perception is driven by that,” said Peter Singer, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

“Yet I think, with his Centcom hat on, it’s going to be Afghanistan that defines it.”

But the fight against the Taliban is led by a 50,000-strong NATO force with troops from more than 40 nations that reports to U.S. Army Gen. John Craddock, the Atlantic alliance’s top commander, based in Belgium, rather than Petraeus.

Petraeus will only have a direct line to about 19,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan engaged in missions ranging from training Afghan forces to conducting counterterrorism operations.

PAKISTAN MILITANTS

However, analysts say the authority of his office — the head of Central Command is one of the top posts in the U.S. military — and his own personal reputation will give Petraeus substantial influence across the region and in Washington.

In Pakistan, no one is seriously suggesting a large influx of U.S. troops to fight militants there so Petraeus will have to focus largely on persuading and assisting the Pakistani military to carry out effective operations.