‘Maoist rebels' target goods train in India
Maoist rebels in eastern India have blown up railway tracks and partially destroyed a goods train in Jharkhand, kidnapping the driver and guard. The attack is said to be in protest at the government's economic policies.
160 Muslims detained in Thailand
One hundred and sixty Muslims have been detained by the Thai army without charge in the south of the country. The prisoners can be detained for 28 days without charge under an emergency law, when those found to have supported or sympathised with the insurgency will be sent to a ‘re-education camp'.
Hamas "ready to talk" to Fatah
Former Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya of Hamas has said that his party are prepared to talk to rivals Fatah, after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak called for the resumption of dialogue between the feuding factions. The statement came as Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas met with Mubarak, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and King Abdullah of Jordan in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.
Olmert also announced at the meeting the planned release of some 250 Palestinian prisoners, all members of Abbas' Fatah party. No prisoners directly implicated in murdering Israelis are to be released, however.
Meanwhile, Hamas' military wing has released footage of Israeli Defence Forces soldier Gilad Shalit, kidnapped a year ago. A Hamas spokesperson has said that negotiations may continue for the release of Shalit.
Al-Qaida's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has called upon Muslims across the globe to support Hamas with money and weapons.
UN to remain in south Lebanon
United Nations (UN) peacekeepers will continue their mission in south Lebanon, despite the death of six members of a Spanish battalion of the Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) on Sunday, when their patrol was hit by a car bomb.
Afghan opium sales up on last year
Afghan opium production increased from around 4,500 tons in 2005 to 6,700 tons in 2006, the UN 2007 World Drug Report announced on Tuesday. Last year, Afghanistan accounted for 92 percent of global illicit opium production, as compared to 70 percent in 2000.
The feared "runaway train of drug addiction" appears to have slowed down, however, with production, trafficking and consumption stabilising for almost all drugs.
NATO is to investigate allegations that a United States soldier and an unspecified number of Afghan servicemen tied a detainee to a military vehicle and threatened to drag him along the road, in an incident in Ghazni province on 10 June. The men have been suspended.
A 6-year-old Afghan boy has alleged that the Taliban tried to recruit him to be a suicide bomber, after the militants cornered the child in a Taliban-controlled district in southern Afghanistan's Ghazni province sometime last month.
A British soldier has been killed near Lashkar Gah in Helmand province.
Iraqi forces not yet self-reliant
Brigadier General Dana J.H. Pittard, commander of the Iraq Assistance Group, has expressed scepticism at plans to reduce the 157,000-strong US force in Iraq so readily, suggesting that it will take two years before the Iraqi forces, totalling 348,000, can "fully take control" of internal and external security effectively.
A suicide attack at the Mansour Hotel in Baghdad on Monday killed 12 people. The hotel is typically frequented by Iraqi parliamentary members and Chinese diplomats. The attack is said to have been aimed at Sunni tribal leaders from Anbar province meeting as part of the Anbar Salvation Council, a group cooperating with US forces, several of whom died in the blast.
US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty have said that Web-based propaganda from Iraq is far more complex and sophisticated than Western media give insurgents credit for. Very "fast-paced and clearly aimed at the video game generation", there is a vast myriad - primarily Sunni - of perspectives from the other side of the Iraq War available on the Web, catering to a wide variety of media consumption habits.
Former Soviet states muzzling free press
Freedom House has reported that the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) comprises the most dangerous place on earth, aside from active war zones, for journalists to work in. Amid a "reconsolidated authoritarian model", CIS states have been re-imposing control over mass media, and are increasingly opposed to any ‘watchdog' capacity for the media in their societies.
Macao hindrance resolved, says N. Korea
North Korea has said that its dispute over $25 million of funds frozen in a bank in Macao has been resolved, and that it will begin to shut down its main nuclear plant. A timetable for denuclearisation will be discussed when Pyongyang and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) officials meet for five days of negotiations.
South Korea has said that it is to resume the delivery of food aid to North Korea as of 30 June, after Pyongyang's announcement.
Iran has invited a team of IAEA inspectors to Tehran in the coming weeks to "develop an action plan for resolving outstanding issues" over Iran's nuclear program, the world nuclear watchdog announced on Monday.
US hub in Africa stalled amid opposition
Senior defence and foreign ministry officials in Algeria, Djibouti, Egypt, Libya, Morocco and the African Union (AU) have opposed Pentagon plans to construct a regional command base in Africa - Africom, amid concerns at being associated publicly with the ‘global war on terror'.
A suspected bomb blast killed five Somali women near a busy market in Mogadishu on Tuesday, witnesses report.
BAE probed by US justice department
UK defence firm BAE Systems is under investigation by the US Department of Justice vis-à-vis anti-corruption laws, after it emerged that the company sought to influence a military trade deal with a Saudi prince through cash payments.
Venezuela prepares against US invasion
President Hugo Chávez has instructed Venezuela's armed forces to prepare to conduct guerrilla warfare against the US, in case the superpower were to invade. Venezuela must seek to strengthen its "anti-imperialist weapon", says Chávez.
Police demotions amid crackdown on graft
President Felipe Calderón has demoted the heads of federal police agencies in all 32 Mexican states and 250 other high-ranking officers in a broad measure to combat graft in the country. The demoted personnel are to undergo ethics training in order to bring them up to "international standards" of professionalism.
