Protests erupted on the streets of Tehran following the disputed presidential poll, which saw Mahmoud Ahmadinejad returned to power.
With many foreign media correspondents facing restrictions on their reporting, the people of Iran have been using mobile phones to tell the world what is going on.
Scroll around the map to see images and videos sent to the BBC and plotted on this map.
// // Mapping the Tehran protestsMost recent 250 comments
Most recent 500 comments (May slow your computer down)
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global news agenda will be reposted next week
Our embassys in Italy :http://roma.mae.ro/
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really!i will be then here! to comment with you!
so?are you back?i ams till for the debate with you!:)can;t wait!
better the profile so somebody will learn also geopolitics!
you too have a nice weekend!
first week profile:
Country profile: Georgia
Situated at the strategically important crossroads where Europe meets Asia, Georgia has a unique and ancient cultural heritage, famous traditions of hospitality and cuisine and an alphabet which is entirely its own.
Over the centuries, Georgia was the object of rivalry between Persia, Turkey and Russia, before being eventually annexed by Russia in the 19th century.
Since emerging from the collapsing Soviet Union as an independent state in 1991, Georgia has again become the arena of conflicting interests, this time between a the US and a revived Russia. It has also faced a tough challenge from two separatist regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Georgia’s previous, and rather brief, interlude of independence after the 1917 Bolshevik revolution in Russia ended when it was invaded by the Soviet Red Army in 1921 and incorporated into the Soviet Union a year later.
In recent years Moscow’s key rival, the US has a major interest in security and stability in the country, having invested heavily in an oil pipeline from Azerbaijan via Georgia to Turkey. The Georgian armed forces have been receiving US training and support.
Increasing US economic and political influence in the country is being watched closely by the Kremlin, as are Georgia’s aspirations to join NATO and the EU. Tensions between Moscow and Tbilisi are never far from the surface and have flared sporadically since Mikhail Saakashvili became Georgian president.
Following the collapse of communism in the USSR in 1991, Georgians voted overwhelmingly for the restoration of independence and elected nationalist leader Zviad Gamsakhurdia as president. However, Gamsakhurdia was soon overthrown by opposition militias which in 1992 installed former Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze as the country’s new leader.
During his 11 years in office, the Georgian people felt increasingly at the mercy of poverty, corruption and crime. He was ousted in November 2003 following mass demonstrations over the conduct of parliamentary elections.
Since independence, the people of Georgia have endured periods of civil war and unrest as well as violence related to the independence aspirations of the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Both regions have close ties with Moscow.
Russian peacekeepers have operated there since the early 1990s. They are regularly accused by Tbilisi of siding with the separatists. The Georgian parliament has demanded that the Russian peacekeepers in both regions be replaced by an international force. The UN operates a military observer mission alongside Russian peacekeepers in Abkhazia.
thanks again for commenting
Israel profile:
the State of Israel was proclaimed on May 14, 1948, one day before the expiry of the British Mandate for Palestine.[54] Not long after, five Arab countries – Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq – attacked Israel, launching the 1948 Arab-Israeli War,[54]although conflict between the Jews and Arabs of Palestine started earlier. After a year of fighting, a ceasefire was declared and temporary borders, known as the Green Line, were established. Jordan annexed what became known as the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and Egypt took control of the Gaza Strip. Israel was admitted as a member of the United Nations on May 11, 1949.[55]. During the war 711,000 Arabs, according to UN estimates, or about 80% of the previous Arab population, fled the country.[56] The fate of the Palestinian refugees today is a major point of contention in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.[57][58]
In the early years of the state, the Labor Zionist movement led by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion dominated Israeli politics.[59][60] These years were marked by mass immigration of Holocaust survivors and an influx of Jews persecuted in Arab lands. The population of Israel rose from 800,000 to two million between 1948 and 1958.[61] Most arrived as refugees with no possessions and were housed in temporary camps known as ma’abarot. By 1952, over 200,000 immigrants were living in these tent cities. The need to solve the crisis led Ben-Gurion to sign a reparations agreement with West Germany that triggered mass protests by Jews angered at the idea of Israel “doing business” with Germany.[62]
During the 1950s, Israel was frequently attacked by Palestinian fedayeen, mainly from the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip.[63] In 1956, Israel joined a secret alliance with The United Kingdom and France aimed at recapturing the Suez Canal, which the Egyptians had nationalized (see the Suez Crisis). Despite capturing the Sinai Peninsula, Israel was forced to retreat due to pressure from the United States and the Soviet Union in return for guarantees of Israeli shipping rights in the Red Sea and the Canal.[64]
At the start of the following decade, Israel captured Adolf Eichmann, an architect of the Final Solution hiding in Argentina, and brought him to trial.[65] The trial had a major impact on public awareness of the Holocaust,[66] and to date Eichmann remains the only person sentenced to death by Israeli courts.[67]
The Israel Defense Forces consists of the Israeli Army, Israeli Air Force and Israeli Sea Corps. It was founded during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War out of paramilitary organizations – chiefly the Haganah – that preceded the establishment of the state.[154] The IDF also draws upon the resources of the Military Intelligence Directorate (Aman), which works with the Mossad and Shabak.[155] The involvement of the Israel Defense Forces in major wars and border conflicts has made it one of the most battle-trained armed forces in the world.[156][157]
The majority of Israelis are drafted into the military at the age of eighteen. Men serve three years and women serve two years.[158] Following compulsory service, Israeli men join the reserve forces and do several weeks of reserve duty every year until their forties. Most women are exempt from reserve duty. Israeli Arabs (except the Druze) and those engaged in full-time religious studies are exempt from military service, although the exemption of yeshiva students has been a source of contention in Israeli society for many years.[
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel#History
Iran and the nuclear issue
Iran is defying a demand from the Security Council that it stop the enrichment of uranium.
As a result, the Council approved a third round of sanctions against Iran on 3 March 2008.
On 14 June 2008, a renewed offer was made to Iran to try to encourage the opening of negotiations.
What is the new offer?
Made by the US, Russia, China, the UK, France and Germany, it builds on a previous offer of 2006 and says that if Iran suspends uranium enrichment, then talks can start about a long-term agreement.
On offer is recognition of Iran’s right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and the treatment of Iran in “the same manner” as other states under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Iran would get help with developing nuclear power stations and be guaranteed fuel for them. It would also be offered trade concessions, including the possible lifting of US sanctions preventing it from buying new civilian aircraft and parts.
What new sanctions have been imposed on Iran?
Resolution 1803 extends asset restrictions and travel bans on more Iranian individuals said to be involved in nuclear work and on more Iranian companies. It bans the sale to Iran of so-called dual-use items – items which can have either a military or civilian purpose – as well as calling on governments to withdraw financial backing from companies trading with Iran, to inspect cargo going into and out of the country, and to monitor the activities of two Iranian banks.
What sanctions were imposed earlier?
Resolution 1737 was passed in December 2006. It mandates all UN member states “to prevent the supply, sale or transfer… of all items, materials, equipment, goods and technology which could contribute to Iran’s enrichment-related, reprocessing or heavy water-related activities or to the development of nuclear weapon delivery systems”.
In March 2007, the Council passed resolution 1747. This seeks to tighten the squeeze on Iran’s nuclear and missile programmes by preventing dealings with the state Bank Sepah and 28 named people and organisations, many connected to the elite Revolutionary Guard. Member states have been told to exercise restraint in and to report the travel of individuals connected to these programmes.
Imports of arms from Iran are banned and member states are told to exercise restraint in selling major arms systems to Iran. Loans are supposed to be limited to humanitarian and development purposes.
What about further sanctions?
On 10 June 2008, the US and the EU announced at a summit in Slovenia that they were ready “to supplement (UN) sanctions with additional measures.”
On 23 June, the EU agreed to freeze assets of Iran’s largest bank, Bank Melli, and to extend visa bans to more Iranians involved in nuclear and missile development.
What does the US intelligence assessment say about Iran?
The National Intelligence Estimate plays down any early threat of an Iranian nuclear weapon. It assesses “with high confidence” that Iran did have a nuclear weapons programme until 2003, but this was discovered and Iran stopped it.
The NIE adds: “We do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.” The assessment admits that Iran appears “less determined” to develop nuclear weapons than US intelligence had previously thought.
It says that the earliest date by which Iran could make a nuclear weapon would be late 2009 but that this is “very unlikely”.
Does the report lessen the chances of an attack on Iran?
Yes. It does not provide much evidence to support those who want to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities. It indicates that pressure from sanctions has been effective. However, President Bush still refuses to rule out any “option”.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4031603.stm
Hi webmaster!
Violence in South Ossetia
Russian and Georgian troops have been fighting over the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia.
The separatist administration in South Ossetia has been trying to gain formal independence since breaking away in a civil war in the 1990s.
Russia already had troops in the region, on a peacekeeping mandate, before the outbreak of fighting. But Moscow also supports the separatists.
What is the status of South Ossetia?
South Ossetia has run its own affairs since fighting for independence from Georgia in 1991-92, in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
It has declared independence, though this has not been recognised by any other country.
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has vowed to bring South Ossetia and another breakaway region, Abkhazia, back under full Georgian control.
Why do Ossetians want to break away?
The Ossetians are a distinct ethnic group originally from the Russian plains just south of the Don river. In the 13th Century, they were pushed southwards by Mongol invasions into the Caucasus mountains, settling along the border with Georgia.
Georgia map
South Ossetians want to join up with their ethnic brethren in North Ossetia, which is an autonomous republic within the Russian Federation.
Ethnic Georgians are a minority in South Ossetia, accounting for less than one-third of the population.
But Georgia rejects even the name South Ossetia, preferring to call it by the ancient name of Samachablo, or Tskhinvali, after its main city.
What triggered the latest crisis?
Tension has risen since the election of President Saakashvili in 2004. He offered South Ossetia dialogue and autonomy within a single Georgian state – but in 2006 South Ossetians voted in an unofficial referendum to press their demands for complete independence.
In April 2008 Nato said Georgia would be allowed to join the alliance at some point – angering Russia, which opposes the eastward expansion of Nato. Weeks later, Russia stepped up ties with the separatists in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
In July Russia admitted its fighter jets entered Georgian airspace over South Ossetia to “cool hot heads in Tbilisi”. Occasional clashes escalated, until six people were reportedly killed by Georgian shelling. Attempts to reach a ceasefire stuttered.
How did it escalate?
After further exchanges of fire, Georgia launched an aerial bombardment and ground attack on South Ossetia on Thursday 7 August, only hours after the sides agreed a ceasefire. By Friday, Georgian forces were reportedly in control of Tskhinvali.
Russia responded by pouring thousands of troops into South Ossetia, and launching bombing raids both over the province and on targets in the rest of Georgia. Within days, Russia had seized control of Tskhinvali.
Why is Russia involved?
Russia insists it was acting as a peacekeeper in South Ossetia, rejecting Georgian accusations that it has been supplying arms to the separatists.
But it has vowed to defend its citizens in South Ossetia – of which there are many. More than half of South Ossetia’s 70,000 citizens are said to have taken up Moscow’s offer of a Russian passport.
Until recently Russia said it respected Georgia’s territorial integrity, and only wanted to look out for Russian citizens. But, following Georgia’s military action, Russian PM Vladimir Putin said it was now unlikely that South Ossetia would reintegrate with the rest of Georgia.
Could the conflict spread?
Tensions have risen in Georgia’s other breakaway region, Abkhazia to the west. Breakaway leader Sergei Bagapsh has vowed to expel all remaining Georgian forces; Russia has sent thousands of reinforcements, saying it will not allow Georgia to carry out a similar operation on a second front.
What about Georgia’s links to Nato?
President Saakashvili has made membership of Nato one of his main goals. Georgia has had a close relationship with the United States – sending troops to join the US-led coalition in Iraq – and has been cultivating ties with Western Europe.
There are those who believe that Mr Saakashvili may have been hoping to draw Nato into a conflict with Moscow, making their alliance a formal one.
But analysts say it is difficult to imagine Nato allowing itself to be drawn into a direct conflict with its Cold War rival after managing to avoid that for so long.
In fact, some say Nato will now be wary about getting closer to Georgia when it has so many outstanding territorial issues.
By Emmanuel Braun
KIBATI, Congo, Nov 7 (Reuters) – Fighting between rebels and government troops flared in east Congo on Friday, and African leaders called for an immediate ceasefire to end a conflict the U.N. said could engulf the Great Lakes region.
The renewed combat near Kibati in Democratic Republic of Congo’s North Kivu province sent thousands of civilians fleeing in panic from a nearby refugee camp, adding urgency to a regional peace summit held in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.
“There should be an immediate ceasefire by all the armed men and militia in North Kivu,” said Kenyan Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula, reading a communique agreed by seven African leaders who met U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in Nairobi.
The leaders from the Great Lakes region, including the presidents of Congo and Rwanda, said they would be willing to send peacekeeping troops to east Congo if required.
Addressing the summit earlier, Ban said they must use their influence to make Congolese rebel chief Laurent Nkunda end his attacks and curb any support allowing him to carry on fighting.
Fighting between Nkunda’s Tutsi rebels and Congo’s army has spread along the hilly border with Rwanda, uprooting hundreds of thousands of people and creating a humanitarian crisis.
The African leaders called for a humanitarian corridor to be set up to channel aid to help refugees.
“This crisis could engulf the broader sub-region,” Ban told the Nairobi summit, adding that only a lasting political settlement, rather than military moves alone, could solve it.
As the U.N. and African leaders were meeting, Nkunda’s battle-hardened fighters and government troops exchanged machine-gun, mortar and rocket-propelled grenade fire from green hills in sight of North Kivu’s Nyiragongo volcano.
As the sound of combat echoed around the slopes, civilians carrying infants, bundles, pots and even domestic animals streamed south away from the camp at Kibati on the road towards North Kivu provincial capital Goma, 7 km (4 miles) to the south.
The U.N. has its largest peacekeeping force in the world, 17,000-strong, deployed in the vast, mineral-rich but racially divided Congo, whose eastern conflict is fuelled by ethnic tensions stemming from the 1994 genocide in neighbouring Rwanda.
But U.N. troops are thinly stretched across a state the size of Western Europe where marauding armed groups have roamed for years, killing, looting and raping and recruiting child soldiers in some of the worst levels of violence seen in the world.
“WORLD CANNOT LOOK AWAY”
Humanitarian agencies in east Congo are clamouring for more protection for civilians and a group of them appealed to the U.N., Africa and Europe to reinforce the U.N. Congo mission.
“The world cannot look away again as thousands suffer in eastern Congo,” said Juliette Prodhan, head of Oxfam in Congo. “We have had fine words and important meetings but these must now be put into action by providing additional troops to safeguard the people”.
“We need more urgency, action and commitment,” she said.
The recent upsurge in fighting between Nkunda’s rebels and army troops backed by militia allies has raised fears of a rerun of a wider 1998-2003 war in the former Belgian colony.
A key issue African leaders need to resolve for a lasting solution is the presence in east Congo of Rwandan Hutu rebels, known as the FDLR, who took part in the 1994 Rwanda genocide.
Previous agreements to halt the fighting have failed to produce results on the ground.
Nkunda justifies his revolt as a legitimate one to protect ethnic Tutsis in Congo from the Hutu rebels. He told Reuters on Friday the summit would have no influence on him unless the leaders convinced Congo’s President Joseph Kabila to have talks.
“It’s only a regional summit. It doesn’t have any impact on our demands,” Nkunda said by telephone from east Congo.
The region is rich in minerals, such as coltan, which is used in mobile phones, making control of the remote terrain, far from Congo’s capital Kinshasa, lucrative.
United Nations relief agencies, which run the Kibati refugee camp, said the fighting had interrupted the distribution of aid and caused panic among the camp population.
“All our programmes in Kibati have been suspended as a result of the shooting, the whole camp is emptying,” Jaya Murthy of U.N. childrens’ agency UNICEF in Goma told Reuters.
Ban held bilateral meetings in Nairobi with Kabila and Rwandan President Paul Kagame to encourage them “to find a path to peace”. Ban said later he was encouraged by the in-depth, frank exchange of views and engagement of the leaders.
Rwanda denies supporting Nkunda and accuses Congo’s army of backing the Hutu rebels in the east.
U.S.-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Nkunda’s rebels and government-backed Mai-Mai militias of deliberately killing civilians in fighting this week at Kiwanja, north of Goma.
The number of people displaced by fighting in North Kivu since September is now estimated at 250,000, the U.N. said. This was in addition to 800,000 who had fled previous hostilities.
“The humanitarian situation is deteriorating,” Elisabeth Byrs of U.N. humanitarian agency OCHA said. (For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: africa.reuters.com/) (Additional reporting by Hereward Holland in Kibati; David Clarke in Nairobi and Joe Bavier in Kinshasa; Writing by Pascal Fletcher; Editing by Charles Dick)
Andrew North’s report from the British war cemetery in Baghdad
As Britain prepares to pull its troops out of Iraq, former BBC Baghdad correspondent Andrew North looks back to a previous military campaign and considers whether history is destined to repeat itself?
As the insurgency spread, the letters from the British diplomat in Baghdad grew bleaker.
“We are in the thick of violent agitation and we feel anxious… the underlying thought is out with the infidel.”
And then: “The country between Diwaniyah and Samawah is abandoned to disorder. We haven’t troops enough to tackle it at present.”
A month later: “There’s no getting out of the conclusion that we have made an immense failure here.”
In fact, this insurgency was in 1920, the uprising against the British occupation of what was then still Mesopotamia.
The diplomat was Gertrude Bell, an energetic and passionate Arab expert who literally drew Iraq’s borders. “I had a well spent morning at the office making out the southern desert frontier of the Iraq,” she wrote in late 1921.
‘Mass of roses’
But read her letters and diaries and you can easily imagine she’s describing events since 2003, as American and British forces lost control of the country they had invaded.
The latest unhappy chapter in Britain’s involvement in Iraq is approaching its end, with the government likely to announce soon a plan to withdraw most of its forces over the course of next year.
There are plenty of parallels with 90 years ago, says Toby Dodge, the widely-respected Iraq expert at London University’s Queen Mary College, but “in the run-up to the invasion, both in Downing Street and the Foreign Office, there was no sense of history whatsoever”.
The hundreds of letters Bell wrote to her parents during her time in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East, complete with requests for supplies of “crinkly hairpins”, are available to anyone via the internet.
Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators
Lt Gen Sir Stanley Maude in Baghdad, 1917
Iraq pull-out ‘may start in March’
Born in County Durham, her papers are now held by Newcastle University’s Robinson library, which has been putting them online, together with her many photos.
It is a record of a unique person, who also managed to find time to be an enthusiastic Alpine mountaineer and accomplished archaeologist, her first passion.
But it was the creation of Iraq that would consume her most.
There was a sense of elation when Britain took Baghdad from the Ottoman Turks in the spring of 1917 and a belief in the inherent rightness of the cause – much like the mood in the White House and Downing Street in April 2003 after the toppling of Saddam Hussein.
“Baghdad is a mass of roses and congratulations,” Bell wrote, shortly after taking up her post as Oriental Secretary in the occupation administration. “They are genuinely delighted at being free of the Turks.”
‘Full-blown jihad’
A few weeks before, the British commander Lt Gen Sir Stanley Maude had promised the people of Baghdad that: “Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators.”
Fluent in Arabic, Bell threw herself into her task of setting up a pro-British Arab government and was soon the main link to the country’s new politicians.
Her instinct was to give the Arabs more independence than London wanted. For several years things proceeded peacefully. The slower communications of that time meant any dissension took longer to spread. Iraqi insurgents today have mobile phones. But dissension there was.
She had misjudged the power of the leaders of the Shia majority, particularly their clerics.
“There they sit in an atmosphere which reeks of antiquity,” she wrote dismissively to her mother in early 1920, “and is so thick with the dust of ages that you can’t see through it – nor can they.”
By that summer, they were leading an uprising against the British, who found themselves insufficiently equipped to handle it.
“We are now in the middle of a full-blown jihad,” she confessed to her mother a few weeks later.
Burning villages
As things fell apart, anger and opposition to the Iraq venture grew in London. But Bell didn’t shirk the blame. “The underlying truth of all criticism is… that we had promised self-governing institutions and not only made no step towards them but were busily setting up something entirely different.”
Her letters capture too the contradictions of being an occupying power, however good it believes its intentions to be. “It’s difficult to be burning villages at one end of the country by means of a British army and assuring people at the other end that we really have handed over responsibility to native ministers,” she said in November 1920.
Oil is the trouble, of course. Detestable stuff!
Gertrude Bell, 1921
The British ‘queen’ of Iraq
A new government was created though, in spite of the insurgency – as in Iraq today. It did meet one of London’s goals – it was pro-British and in 1921, Iraq officially became a nation state.
But nearly 10,000 Iraqis had died in the process. And that government – with the imported King Feisal I at its head – was inherently unstable, led by the minority Sunnis, with the Shia majority excluded – the model by which Iraq would subsequently be governed by Saddam Hussein.
The Shias have today reversed that perceived injustice – as they dominate the current government – although through an arguably more open process than in the 1920s.
But their experience under the British is etched into their collective soul in a way that will condition Iraqi politics for many years yet. The other day in Baghdad, I was talking to a senior Shia figure who referred simply to “1920″ as he explained his political outlook. And now it is the Sunnis who feel disenfranchised.
Sleeping tablets
Gertrude Bell died in the Iraqi capital in 1926 after taking an overdose of sleeping tablets. The last few years of her life she had returned to her original love of archaeology – setting up a museum that still stands – after falling out of favour in the colonial administration.
Many older Iraqis still talk affectionately of the woman they called “Miss Bell”, despite her controversial record.
She’s buried in a small date-palm fringed Christian cemetery in central Baghdad.
The sprightly caretaker started working there in 1955, in the time of the last British-backed king, Feisal II, surviving the coups, dictatorships and chaos that have followed.
Gertrude Bell’s tomb in Baghdad
Christian cemetery caretaker Ali Mansour with Gertrude Bell’s tomb
Fighting has often engulfed the area around the graveyard in recent years. The British and Americans should have learnt “from the experience of others, like Miss Bell, and the lessons from history,” says caretaker Ali Mansour. “Iraq has always been a difficult country.”
With the reduced levels of violence, there is a view in the outside world that Iraq is now somehow fixed.
But attacks still claim 10-20 lives every day. And Toby Dodge sees many similarities between the “unstable, unrepresentative” state the British left behind in the early 20th century and what has emerged today.
“The Americans as far as we know will leave Iraq in 2011 with an unstable state and an unpopular ruling elite using a great deal of violence to stay in power,” he says.
What would Gertrude Bell have made of all of this? She did foresee the outline of things to come. In late 1921, the increasingly powerful Americans were manoeuvring to sign their own treaty with the new Iraqi state: “Oil is the trouble, of course,” she spat. “Detestable stuff!
http://www.bbc.uk
war is a crime against humanity like you said!
Map: Gaza and Israel conflict
Israeli forces are conducting an offensive against Hamas in Gaza by land, sea and air, while Palestinian rockets continue to hit Israel. This map details the latest major developments.
Map of attacks in and around Gaza
Numbers refer to locations in and around Gaza City
SATURDAY 2 JANUARY
Gaza Strip: Israeli troops enter northern Gaza, initiating a much-anticipated ground offensive. Hours earlier, Israel fired artillery shells across the border for first time since the offensive began.
Gaza City: One of the leaders of Hamas’s military wing, Abu Zakaria al-Jamal, was killed in an overnight raid.
South Israel: At least 20 Palestinian rockets landed, including in Ashkelon, Ashdod and Sderot. No casualties were reported but a house in Ashkelon was hit.
Beit Lahiya: At least 10 Palestinians were killed by an Israeli strike on a mosque, local medical sources said. Earlier, a caretaker was killed in a raid which destroyed large parts of the town’s American school.
FRIDAY 2 JANUARY
Khan Younis: Three Palestinian children killed in Israeli air strike.
Jebaliya [5]: A mosque described by Israeli security officials as a “terror hub” used to stockpile weapons, was destroyed.
Ashkelon: Hamas fired more than 20 rockets into Israel, with some landing in the port town of Ashkelon. No casualties were reported.
THURSDAY 1 JANUARY
Gaza City: The Justice Ministry, Legislative Assembly, Civil Defense Building, Education ministry were hit, as well as at least two money changers’ offices and a workshop.
Jebaliya [5]: A senior Hamas leader, Nizar Rayyan, was killed in an air strike along with at least nine people, including several members of his family.
South Israel: More than 30 rockets fired, including at least one landing in Ashdod and two in Beersheba.
WEDNESDAY 31 DECEMBER
Gaza City: Office of former Prime Minister Ismail Haniya and other Hamas buildings attacked.
Israeli aircraft continue to strike tunnels near the border with Egypt.
Beersheba: Hit by Hamas rockets for a second day, but no casualties reported.
TUESDAY 30 DECEMBER
Beit Hanoun: Two girls killed in an air strike.
Gaza City: At least three buildings in ministry compound hit.
Ashdod: Woman killed in rocket attack
Beersheba: Attacked by rockets fired from Gaza, the furthest into Israel a Palestinian missile has ever reached.
MONDAY 29 DECEMBER
Nahal Oz: Israeli soldier killed and five others wounded at unspecified military base near a border crossing.
Gaza City: Interior Ministry and Islamic University at Tel al-Hawa [1] badly damaged in air strike.
Home of Hamas leader Ismail Haniya at Shati refugee camp [3] targeted.
Ashkelon: One man killed and several other people injured in rocket attack.
SUNDAY 28 DECEMBER
Jebaliya [5]: Several people killed at a mosque – including five sisters – in air attack at the refugee camp.
Yabna refugee camp: Civilian family reported killed
Rafah: Three brothers reported killed.
Khan Younis: Four members of Islamic Jihad and a child reported killed.
Ashdod: Palestinian rockets hit the city, the first attack so far north.
Deir al-Balah: Palestinians injured, houses and buildings destroyed.
Israeli planes strike tunnels running between Egypt and Gaza.
Naval vessels targeted at Gaza City port [2] and intelligence building [4] attacked.
SATURDAY 27 DECEMBER
Gaza City, Rafah, Khan Younis: Israel launches a wave of air and missile attacks on targets across Gaza. Some 225 people are killed, according to local medics. Most are policemen within the Hamas militant movement; police chief Tawfik Jaber is among the dead. Women and children also died, according to officials in Gaza.
Netivot: One man killed, several injured in Palestinian rocket attack.
bbc.co.uk
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Q&A: Madagascar in crisis
Riot policehold back opposition supporters
Madagascar’s opposition leader, Andry Rajoelina, has set about making himself head of state with the backing of the country’s highest court and its new military leaders, following the resignation of President Marc Ravalomanana.
His struggle with the president triggered turmoil that sparked several months of violent protests, looting and a mutiny, leaving at least 100 people dead on this Indian Ocean island.
While the final days of the crisis were relatively bloodless, Mr Rajoelina and his allies have been effectively accused of taking power through a coup, forcing out a president democratically re-elected in 2006.
So what was the dispute all about?
After Mr Rajoelina was elected in December 2007 as mayor of the capital, Antananarivo, he tried to use this power base to propel himself to the country’s top job.
It was the same career trajectory as Mr Ravalomanana’s, except that Mr Rajoelina has never stood for election to national office.
The former government sacked Mr Rajoelina from his job at city hall in February.
Mr Rajoelina accused the president of being a tyrant who misspent public money.
Mr Ravalomanana accused the opposition of using “terror and repression” to dislodge him.
Why the army mutiny?
There had been increasingly impatient calls in recent weeks from leaders within Madagascar’s military for the political rivals to resolve the crisis.
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The army’s support for President Ravalomanana had begun to waver in February after security forces opened fire and killed about 28 pro-Rajoelina demonstrators in the capital.
In March, a faction of the army mutinied and its leader named himself chief-of-staff, ousting the country’s top general.
Then the military police – the gendarmes – said they would no longer take orders from the government.
Was it a coup?
After pro-opposition troops seized the president’s office in the centre of Antananarivo and the central bank, Mr Ravalomanana seemed to have little option but to step down.
With the army taking direct action against the elected head of state, it certainly looks like a coup.
As the soldiers stormed the presidential office, the African Union condemned the “attempted coup d’etat”.
Mr Rajoelina declared himself head of state.
Why the popular discontent with President Ravalomanana?
Under President Ravalomanana, the country took its first tentative steps into the global market after decades of socialism.
Wounded man being carried after unrest
Madagascar is not used to such outbreaks of violence
Multinational corporations including Rio Tinto and Exxon Mobil arrived, pouring millions of dollars into government coffers.
The president himself saw his own business interests – which range from dairy products to cooking oil – rise and rise.
But food and fuel became more expensive, while the foreign funds did not improve the quality of life for most people.
Some 70% of Madagascar’s 20 million population live on less than $1 a day, and the opposition tapped into growing resentment.
The final straw for many was a plan to lease one million acres in the south of the country to the Korean firm Daewoo for intensive farming.
Malagasy people have deep ties to their land and this was seen by many as a betrayal by their president.
Who is Andry Rajoelina?
Mr Rajoelina is a baby-faced 34-year-old former DJ and businessman with media interests, including ownership of a TV and radio station.
Under the existing constitution, he is six years too young to stand in a presidential election.
Nonetheless, he aims to be sworn in as president.
He has not gone into much detail about what he would do differently to Mr Ravalomanana.
Some say Mr Rajoelina is being supported by political heavyweights from the country’s past – allies of long-time leader Didier Ratsiraka, who lost an equally bitter and divisive power struggle with Mr Ravalomanana in 2002, following disputed elections.
What happens next?
For the moment, it seems as though Mr Rajoelina holds all the cards.
He has said he will hold elections within 24 months – and change the constitution.
The African Union may well suspend Madagascar’s membership until elections are held.
It remains to be seen whether Western donors will cut off aid.
bbc.co.uk and defencedebates.com
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Q+A: What next in the North Korean crisis?
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WHAT HAPPENS TO THE NUCLEAR TALKS?
The sputtering six-party talks are likely headed for more delay. The missile launch changed the dynamics by increasing the North’s leverage in the discussions, experts said, which could lead Pyongyang to try to water down some existing obligations and resist calls from the five dialogue partners to agree to a nuclear inspection system, if it shows up at all.
North Korea may also try to set up separate, bilateral missile talks with the United States, as it did after sending a Taepodong-1 missile over Japan in 1998, in an attempt to win concessions from new U.S. President Barack Obama and isolate Washington from allies South Korea and Japan.
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WHAT ABOUT UNILATERAL MEASURES?
Japan is looking to extend and perhaps broaden its existing sanctions but that will not cause much pain for Pyongyang because the economic influence is so small.
South Korea’s conservative government halted unconditional aid last year when it took office. This aid had a value equal to about 5 percent of the North’s annual economy. The South could shut a joint factory park located just north of their heavily armed border that supplies Pyongyang’s leaders with cash, but Seoul so far has rejected that idea.
The United States may consider placing North Korea back on its terrorism blacklist. This could hurt its international trade and limit its ability to tap into global finance.
WILL NORTH KOREA TEST MORE MISSILES?
Impoverished North Korea is unlikely to fire another Taepodong-2 long-range missile soon due to the high cost.
Pyongyang will likely refrain from testing its mid-range ballistic missiles because that would undermine its argument that Sunday’s launch was for the peaceful purpose of putting a satellite into orbit.
It may, however, test-fire short-range missiles to raise tension with South Korea. The North has said it would see Seoul’s plan to join a U.S. initiative to halt the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction as an act of war and may feel it needs to raise tension with its rich neighbor in response.
(Editing by Dean Yates)
reuters.com
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