NEWSPost India

At least 15 terrorists, including a Pakistani Taliban commander and two foreign fighters, were killed in two separate US drone strikes in the restive North Waziristan tribal region, sources said today. A US drone targeted a vehicle and a motorcycle in North Waziristan today, killing six suspected Taliban fighters.

The unmanned Predator drone fired two missiles at the vehicle and the motorcycle in Khaisor area, five kilometres north of Mirali, the main town in North Waziristan Agency. The area is considered a hub of Taliban fighters linked to the Hafiz Gul Bahadur and Haqqani networks. The drone attack was the second strike in this area since yesterday.

Nine militants, including a Pakistani Taliban commander and two foreign fighters, were killed when a drone targeted a house yesterday. The slain commander, identified as Mustafa, was associated with Sadiq Noor’s group, and was said to be a key Taliban figure in North Waziristan. The identity of the foreign militants could not immediately be ascertained though Arabs, Chechens and Uzbeks operate in the region.

North Waziristan is a magnet for jihadis seeking to fight NATO forces in Afghanistan. The area has witnessed the largest concentration of drone strikes this year with 100 missile strikes reported so far, almost double the figure of last year US is putting pressure on Pakistan to launch a large scale military operation in the area, but Pakistan government has not acceded to the request, saying that the hands of its forces were already full with campaigns in neighbouring South Waziristan and Swat.

Washington has recently sought to expand the areas of drone strikes to target Taliban and al-Qaeda leadership, but Islamabad refuses to request.

A number of suspicious women in the Gulf state of Qatar are spying on their husbands by using readily available hi-tech devices. The women are trapping their husbands by handing spy devices, like miniature cameras fitted in pens and cigarette lighters, as gifts, The Peninsula newspaper reported.

Some wives who are not able to make their husbands accept such gifts slyly place the devices in their cars, the report said. The paper said that it interviewed “a number of women who said their friends or colleagues admitted to spying or having spied on their husbands as they suspected they were cheating on them.”

At least one female used such a device on her father and she was shocked to discover that he had an affair with another woman. “I was psychologically ill and lost love and respect for my father,” she was quoted as saying in the paper. Miniature cameras fitted in pens and cigarette lighters for spying purposes are easily available in the local market and they are also not very expensive.

But the women, who unravelled the spying activities of their friends and colleagues against their husbands, said they did not approve of the act and added that they would like the authorities to ban the sale of such devices. Another woman said in a sting operation one of her colleagues placed a pen-camera that could take photographs in her husband”s breast pocket.

She discovered that her husband was indeed cheating on her.

Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama has said he was contemplating retirement within months and a final decision on it will be taken after consultations with the political leadership and Parliament-in-exile. The 76-year-old leader, who has been living in India in exile since 1959, expressed hope that he could return to his homeland before his death.

“I think within next six months,” the Tibetan leader in a television interview, when asked whether he was retiring as was being speculated. He, however, promptly added that “I do not know. May be next few months. I think may be.”

The Dalai Lama said he will firm up his decision on retirement after discussions with the Tibetan Parliament-in-exile. “I want to inform them about my intention although I briefly mentioned (about it) already,” he said.

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea has secretly and quickly built a new facility to enrich uranium, according to an American nuclear scientist, raising fears that the North is ramping up its nuclear program despite international pressure. The scientist, Siegfried Hecker, said in a report posted Saturday that he was taken during a recent trip to the North’s main Yongbyon atomic complex to a facility with a small industrial-scale uranium enrichment facility. The facility had 2,000 recently completed centrifuges, he said, and the North told him it was producing low-enriched uranium meant for a new reactor.

Hecker wrote that his first glimpse of the centrifuges was “stunning.” “Instead of seeing a few small cascades of centrifuges, which I believed to exist in North Korea, we saw a modern, clean centrifuge plant of more than a thousand centrifuges all neatly aligned and plumbed below us,” Hecker wrote. He described the control room as “astonishingly modern,” writing that, unlike other North Korean facilities, it “would fit into any modern American processing facility.”

The facilities appeared to be primarily for civilian nuclear power, not for North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, said Hecker, former director of the U.S. Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory and a regular visitor to the North. He said he saw no evidence of plutonium production. But, he said, the facilities “could be readily converted to produce highly enriched uranium bomb fuel.” Uranium enrichment would give the North a second way to make atomic bombs, in addition to its known plutonium-based program. Hecker’s findings were first reported in The New York Times.

On Sunday, the U.S. State Department announced that the Obama administration’s special envoy on North Korea planned to visit South Korea, Japan and China, starting Sunday. Stephen Bosworth’s trip comes as new satellite images show construction under way at North Korea’s main atomic complex. That, combined with reports from Hecker and another American expert who recently traveled to Yongbyon, appear to show that Pyongyang is keeping its pledge to build a nuclear power reactor.

North Korea vowed in March to build a light-water reactor using its own nuclear fuel. Hecker, and Jack Pritchard, a former U.S. envoy for negotiations with North Korea, have said that construction has begun.
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said that Bosworth was to arrive in Seoul on Sunday for a two-day trip aimed at discussing the North’s nuclear weapons program. The U.S. State Department said in a statement that Bosworth will then travel to Tokyo and Beijing.

Light-water reactors are ostensibly for civilian energy purposes, but the power plant would give the North a reason to enrich uranium. At low levels, uranium can be used in power reactors, but at higher levels it can be used in nuclear bombs. While light-water reactors are considered less prone to misuse than heavy-water reactors, once the process of uranium enrichment is mastered, it is relatively easy to enrich further to weapons-grade levels.

North Korea said last year it was in the final stage of enriching uranium, sparking worries that the country may add uranium-based weapons to enlarge its stockpile of atomic bombs made from plutonium. Experts say the North has yielded enough weaponized plutonium for at least a half dozen atomic bombs. Enriched uranium would provide the North with an easier way to build nuclear bombs compared to reprocessing plutonium. Uranium also can be enriched in relatively inconspicuous factories that are better able to evade spy satellite detection, according to U.S. and South Korean experts.

Uranium-based bombs may also work without requiring test explosions like the two carried out by North Korea in 2006 and 2009 for plutonium-based weapons.

The United States Air Force is warning its troops to be careful when using Facebook and other popular networking sites because some new features could show the enemy exactly where US forces are located in war zones.

In a warning issued on its internal website earlier this month, the Air Force said that “careless use of these services by airmen can have devastating operations security and privacy implications.” The message was also sent to senior commanders, who were asked to get the word out to their forces. The applications, which are offered by a variety of services including Facebook, Foursquare, Gowalla and Loopt, can identify a person’s location, even pinpoint it on a map.

Download the Facebook Marketing GuideA key concern is that enemy forces could use such features to track troops in the war zone who have a Blackberry or other smart phone and use those networking services. Location services have grown in popularity as more people get smart phones that have GPS and other means of determining the user’s location. In most cases, however, users have to go into the program manually and check in or list a location in order for that location to show up.

According to Facebook’s practices, for example, users must either download the Facebook application and then check in to a location, or go to the mobile Facebook page to check in. The default setting for Facebook then allows a user’s friends to see the location, but that setting can be manually changed to allow friends of friends or “everyone” to see the location.

President of Mauritius Anerood Jugnauth today offered prayers at various temples, but did not visit shrine of Lord Ram at the Janmasthan site, apparently to avoid controversy. As per schedule, Jugnauth was supposed to visit the shrine, sources said.

After offering prayers at Asharfi Bhawan temple, where he spent over half an hour, President Jugnauth said he was thrilled by “the spirituality” in India and would take the “sweet memories” of his visit to the his country. He also met Hindu saints during his second and the last day of visit.

The President, however, refused to comment on skipping the famous shrine. Jugnauth also inaugurated a flying club and training academy, set up by an Mauritius citizen of Indian origin R P N Singh, at Faizabad airport. In his inaugural speech at Faizabad airport, the President said Ayodhya is a place which is prominent on world map, but there is no air-connectivity to the twin city. He hoped soon air-services would be started for Faizabad.

Treated as the state guest, President Jugnauth arrived in Faizabad from Lucknow last evening and was given
warm welcome at the circuit house with the guard of honour. He was received by the District Magistrate M P Agrawal and Senior Superintendent of Police R K S Rathore.

ISLAMABAD - The United States has renewed pressure on Pakistan to expand the areas where CIA drones can operate inside the country, reflecting concern that the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan is being undermined by insurgents’ continued ability to take sanctuary across the border, U.S. and Pakistani officials said. The U.S. appeal has focused on the area surrounding the Pakistani city of Quetta, where the Afghan Taliban leadership is thought to be based. But the request also seeks to expand the boundaries for drone strikes in the tribal areas, which have been targeted in 101 attacks this year, the officials said.

Pakistan has rejected the request, officials said. Instead, the country has agreed to more modest measures, including an expanded CIA presence in Quetta, where the agency and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate have established teams seeking to locate and capture senior members of the Taliban. The disagreement over the scope of the drone program underscores broader tensions between the United States and Pakistan, wary allies that are increasingly pointing fingers at one another over the rising levels of insurgent violence on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border.

Senior Pakistani officials expressed resentment over what they described as misplaced U.S. pressure to do more, saying the United States has not controlled the Afghan side of the border, is preoccupied by arbitrary military deadlines and has little regard for Pakistan’s internal security problems. ”You expect us to open the skies for anything that you can fly,” said a high-ranking Pakistani intelligence official, who described the Quetta request as an affront to Pakistani sovereignty. “In which country can you do that?”

U.S. officials confirmed the request for expanded drone flights. They cited concern that Quetta functions not only as a sanctuary for Taliban leaders but also as a base for sending money, recruits and explosives to Taliban forces inside Afghanistan.

“If they understand our side, they know the patience is running out,” a senior NATO military official said.

- Washington Post

It seems all but over for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller. The Republican candidate is quickly looking to every possible option as the number of ballots favoring Republican U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski grow.

The Miller campaign has shifted gears to look to the courts, rather than the ballots, as a means of gaining ground on Ms. Murkowski. The move comes as an Alaska federal judge ruled Friday that Mr. Miller’s challenge to the counting of write-in ballots raises “serious” legal issues but is a matter for a state, not federal, court to decide.

Guide to Winning Any ElectionThe same court ruled that a temporary injunction of an official certification of the state’s election will provide the Miller campaign with much needed time. The ruling comes as Mr. Miller trails Ms. Murkowski by an estimates 10,000 votes, nearly 20 percent of which remain uncontested. Ms. Murkowski declared victory on Wednesday, all but sealing Mr. Miller’s political fate.

The Miller campaign continues to argue that the state Elections Division should not count ballots in which Ms. Murkowski’s name is misspelled. A federal judge ruled last week that voter intent will determine whether a vote is counted, leaving it in the hands of Elections Director Craig Campbell.

The Murkowski campaign continues to air confidence. On Friday, Ms. Murkowski’s campaign manager noted, “It doesn’t make sense to me that he [Miller] continues to delay the inevitable.”

Hollywood actors Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have teamed up to back a charity campaign to help provide food to poverty-struck Americans. The ”Good Will Hunting” stars have filmed public service announcements (PSAs) for Feeding America, a non-profit organisation that aims to help impoverished citizens, Contactmusic reported.

In Damon”s PSA, he introduces himself as Steve and admits he”s “lost a lot of sleep worrying” about feeding his family, before turning to another man and asking, “How”d I do, Steve?” The ”real” Steve admits the actor was “a little stiff”, prompting Damon to reply, “What? C”mon… You know I have an Academy Award!”

In a more hard-hitting clip, Affleck is quoted saying, “Do you realise that 49 million Americans struggle with hunger? That”s one out of every six Americans. These people are around us every day; they”re our friends, our co-workers, their kids go to school with our kids. Sometimes we”re not even aware that they”re struggling. This problem is closer than you think - so is the solution.”

Renowned singers like Tim McGraw, Beyonce and Rihanna have also volunteered for Feeding America.

Border areas of Pakistan alongside neighbouring Afghanistan is the “epicentre of terrorism” in the world and the Pakistan army continues to be “India-centric”, a top US military official has said. “Resident in that border area, mostly in Pakistan, although not entirely, I call it the epicentre of terrorism in the world,” Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in response to a question at the John F Kennedy Jr Forum at the Harvard University in Boston.

“It isn’t just al-Qaeda or the Pakistan Taliban, it’s the Afghan Taliban, it’s LeT, which has migrated from an India-focused organisation in the east to the west, and in fact has broader aspirations than that right now. “So it has become very synergistic in that part of the world, and that”s why we”re so focused on it,” Mullen said. Noting that Pakistan has taken some strong steps in combating terrorism in the region in recent years, Mullen said the Pak Army continues to be “India-centric”.

“You’ve had a military that has had to convert from a conventional force to a counterinsurgency force. Yet there’s also the focus on your eastern border, certainly on India. That hasn’t gone away. “Certainly one of the things I”ve learned, that”s not going away in the near future. I think that’s also something, from a policy standpoint, that has to be addressed as a part of all of this,” Mullen said. He said the US constantly engages with the Pakistan government, not just the military.

“Because part of this is certainly security, but Pakistan’s a country whose economy is struggling. Some of that is recent, some of that is long term. And not unlike the answer over here, security”s certainly a critical part of it. “But in the long run Pakistan has to have a healthier economy. They there has to be a government that responds in ways that makes a difference for the Pakistani people, Mullen said. Mullen said there are a number of factors that make the Afghan-Pakistan border region especially dangerous to the source of terrorism and instability and that explains why the President Barack Obama has made such a steadfast commitment to “disrupting, dismantling and defeating al-Qaeda” and its related networks and to denying them sanctuary in these countries.

“While we’ve made genuine progress against these networks, disrupting their operations and eliminating key leaders, they continue to actively plot new attacks against us and our allies, and they remain capable of striking the American homeland,” he said. Mullen said the presence of nuclear weapons in Pakistan only heightens the importance of denying al-Qaeda and related networks any lasting foothold in the region.

“We know that these networks actively seek nuclear weapons, and we have every reason to believe that they would actually use them if they obtained them,” he said.