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.

McCain’s master of mirth, Lindsey Graham

By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In a campaign that needs all the laughs it can get, much of the mirth among Republican presidential nominee John McCain’s band of travelers is generated by his close friend, Sen. Lindsey Graham.

As often as not recently, Graham has been the warm-up act for McCain at campaign rallies in battleground states, and the South Carolina Republican comes out with laughers, like this one in talking about McCain’s wife, Cindy:

“She is classy, she is beautiful, she is smart, she owns a beer distributorship. For a Navy guy, John McCain has hit the mother lode.”

In Durango, Colorado, in an event on a high school football field, Graham pointed to his own lack of athletic prowess when he was growing up.

“You know, I played high school football for four years — first time I’ve ever been on the field,” he said.

And when the crowd cheered him on in Zanesville, Ohio, he said: “I didn’t realize how big I was in Ohio. Yeah, I’ve gained 20 pounds on this campaign. I’m getting bigger every day.”

Graham is able to hang around McCain so much in the days leading up to Election Day November 4 because he is coasting along in his bid for a new six-year term against a weak Democratic opponent, Bob Conley.

So instead of campaigning for himself in South Carolina, Graham over the past week has been at McCain’s side at rallies in Colorado, New Mexico, Iowa and North Carolina.

Cindy McCain describes Graham as McCain’s best friend and McCain himself in the past has affectionately introduced him as “that little jerk” and teased him about his Southern drawl.

“He’s goofy,” said McCain senior adviser Nicolle Wallace. “He just lights up McCain’s spirit with his performance on the trail and his mood.”

In a campaign that is basically a family feud among three members of the clubby 100-member U.S. Senate — McCain of Arizona versus Democrats Barack Obama of Illinois and Joe Biden of Delaware — Graham is enjoying taking shots at his opponents on the other side of the aisle.

He takes special pleasure in skewering “Joe the Biden” for the loquacious Biden’s tendency to talk himself into trouble, such as his recent comment that Obama would be bound to face an international crisis early in his presidency, which gave McCain a new line of attack.

“He’s the sound-bite machine that keeps on giving,” Graham says. “Keep it up, Joe!”

And on Obama himself: “You’ve seen his book, ‘The Audacity of Hope?’ He’s got a sequel coming out: ‘The Times I Stood Up To The Left.’ It’s a short read.”

Graham and McCain — along with the third member of their Senate buddy group, independent Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman — have strengthened their bonds not just in legislative battles but during the course of foreign travel, including a joint trip to Iraq earlier this year.

Guantanamo man’s video moved al Qaeda to tears

By Jane Sutton

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) – Al Qaeda recruits in Afghanistan wept and shouted praise as they watched a propaganda video made by a Guantanamo defendant, a training camp dropout told the U.S. war crimes court on Thursday.

Three imprisoned men from Lackawanna, New York, were brought to the courtroom at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to testify in the trial of accused al Qaeda media director Ali Hamza al Bahlul.

The witnesses are part of the “Lackawanna Six,” a group of young American men of Yemeni descent who pleaded guilty to providing material support for terrorism by attending al Qaeda’s al Farouk training camp in Afghanistan in early 2001.

The curriculum included multiple viewings of a two-hour video that FBI agents said Bahlul has proudly admitted making.

The video is a melange of bloody images of Muslims under attack in Bosnia, Chechnya, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.

It is spliced with speeches by al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden portraying America as the No. 1 enemy of Islam and praising the suicide bombers who attacked U.S. embassies in Africa and the warship USS Cole in Yemen.

Lackawanna witness Yassein Taher said he saw the video at al Farouk with the entire camp population of 60 or 70 men.

“There were shouts of Allahu Akbar, God is Great, and there was some crying,” Taher testified.

The shouts of praise came as the men viewed footage of the damaged USS Cole and the tears came as they saw images of Muslim women being beaten with batons, he said.

Prosecutors charged that Bahlul’s media services were war crimes — conspiracy to attack civilians, soliciting to commit murder and providing material support for terrorism.

Bahlul, a Yemeni, faces life in prison if convicted.

Two other Lackawanna witnesses, Yahya Goba and Sahim Alwan, said they were shown Bahlul’s video at guesthouses in Pakistan and Afghanistan during the trip.

Alwan said he realized when he saw it that al Qaeda was behind the embassy bombings, something bin Laden had denied.

“I realized myself that I was in way over my head,” Alwan said. “I wanted to get out of there.”

Rice to visit Middle East next week

By Arshad Mohammed

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visits the Middle East next week to try to advance Israeli-Palestinian peace despite the recognition that there is little chance of a deal this year, diplomats said on Thursday.

The State Department said Rice would leave on Wednesday, the day after the U.S. presidential election, and travel to Egypt, Jordan, the West Bank and Israel, whose parliamentary election has effectively put the peace process on hold.

State Department spokesman Robert Wood said Rice would “discuss efforts to achieve positive and lasting peace in the region” but he made no mention of U.S. President George W. Bush’s goal, announced at last year’s Annapolis, Maryland, peace conference, of securing a peace deal by the end of the year.

Wood acknowledged that an Israeli parliamentary election, which is expected to be held on February 10, had “complicated” the peace effort. A senior Bush administration official said the Israeli election meant that a deal was all but impossible this year.

“The reality is Israel is going to have an election and that makes the search for an agreement on the calendar that we had hoped for probably not realistic,” said the official, who asked not to be named.

“That does not mean you can make no progress … We believe it’s possible to continue to advance this,” he added. “The principle here has to be to protect, sustain and try to advance the negotiations — but not at any price.”

The official said the United States would not outline its own ideas for how to solve the six-decade conflict, saying that the Bush administration did not wish to do anything that might harm the peace talks.

The State Department said Rice was expected to meet the Quartet of Middle East mediators that includes the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States.

“FINAL NAIL IN THE COFFIN”?

Israeli, Palestinian and Western officials said the Quartet meeting was scheduled to take place in Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheikh and that Israeli and Palestinian officials would brief the group on their peace negotiations, sketching out where gaps have been narrowed and where they remain.

A diplomat who follows the issue said the administration had pivoted from trying to strike a deal this year to trying to ensure the next U.S. president — Republican John McCain or Democrat Barack Obama — inherits a functioning peace process.

“They have sort of shifted gears from seeking an agreement to a bridging mode — how to bridge where we are now to where we will be with the next administration,” said the diplomat, who spoke on condition that he not be identified.

“The flux in Israel was probably the final nail in the coffin” for Bush’s goal of reaching a deal this year, he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas resumed peace talks under a year ago under Bush’s sponsorship but there have been no tangible signs of progress.

Beyond the intrinsic difficulty of resolving such controversial issues as the delineation of borders, the fate of Palestinian refugees and the status of Jerusalem, the effort has been hindered by the political divisions on both sides.

Serial bombs kill at least 68 in India’s Assam state

By Biswajyoti Das

GUWAHATI, India (Reuters) – Eleven bomb blasts in quick succession ripped through the main city of India’s troubled northeastern Assam state and three other towns on Thursday, killing at least 68 people and wounding 335, police said.

No one has so far claimed responsibility for the bomb blasts, which security analysts said appeared to be coordinated.

Assam has been a focus of a separatist insurgency for decades, but it has also recently suffered bomb attacks blamed on Islamist militants from neighboring Bangladesh.

Many of Thursday’s blasts were in crowded markets in the state and many bombs were hidden in motorcycles or scooters.

Firefighters doused the smoldering remains of cars and motorcycles at one of the blast sites in Guwahati. One of the blasts targeted a high-security zone with a court as well as offices and the homes of senior police officials.

Television channels showed some people lying on the streets, their clothes soaked in blood. Some of the walking wounded were helped into ambulances by bystanders and police.

“Immediately after the blast there was complete darkness for a while and I later saw several bodies and severed limbs all around,” said Bikash Goyal, a witness in Guwahati.

A spokesman at Assam’s chief minister’s office said 36 people were killed in four blasts in Guwahati. The other 32 people were killed in three other towns in the state.

A wave of bomb attacks has hit India in recent months, killing more than 125 people. Police have blamed most of those attacks on Muslim militants, although some Hindu militants have also been suspected of carrying out several attacks.

Security analysts and military intelligence officials said the Assam blasts, the worst attack in the troubled northeast, bore the hallmarks of strikes by Islamist militants.

“These blasts look like the handiwork of terrorist groups from Bangladesh, as you need sophisticated militant groups to carry out such coordinated attacks,” Major General Ashok Mehta, a security analyst, told Reuters in New Delhi.

“It is quite possible that separatist groups are not involved at all.”

The United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), Assam’s major separatist group often blamed for attacks, denied involvement.

The blasts were condemned across South Asia.

“I am confident that the people of India will rise unitedly against these attempts to disturb peace and harmony and to destroy our social fabric,” Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in a statement

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