Harpoons: India to pay US almost three times more than Pak

The defence ministry is set to procure 21 AGM-84L Harpoon Block II missiles and its five training varieties of ATM 84L Harpoon Block II from the US government for a total of $ 200 million (approximately Rs 909 crore).

But this price is about 200 per cent more than what Pakistan paid four years ago for the same missiles, the Harpoon Block II. While the average unit cost of the missiles for India is a little less than $ 8 million (approximately Rs 36 crore), Islamabad paid only about $ 3 million (approximately Rs 13 crore) per unit. Pakistan's consignment of 130 units had cost $ 370 million (approximately Rs 1,682 crore).

While the defence ministry refused to comment on the deal in response to a written questionnaire, the US government's Defence Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) has notified the US Congress about the impending deal under the foreign military sales (FMS) programme.

The corporate beneficiary of the contract will be Boeing Inc, which was the original manufacturers of the missile.

The quoted price of $ 200 million for the missiles is not negotiable as, under the FMS, after notification and a clearance from the US Congress, Washington will be sending a ' letter of offer and agreement', which can only be accepted.

The navy spokesperson, Commander PVS Satish, who confirmed the details of the deal said: " I had handled a similar FMS contract some time ago. As far as I know, the offer price is the final price." The defence ministry can argue that the Indian contract has associated equipment, parts and logistical support. But the deal with Pakistan also had similar components.

The S-300P Surface To Air Missile

Pirates seized record 1,181 hostages in 2010 - report

Somali pirates are now operating further offshore, the IMB says

Pirates took a record 1,181 hostages in 2010, despite increased patrolling of the seas, a maritime watchdog has said.

The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) said 53 ships were hijacked worldwide - 49 of them off Somalia's coast - and eight sailors were killed.
The IMB described as "alarming" the continued increase in hostage-taking incidents - the highest number since the centre began monitoring in 1991.
Overall, there were 445 pirate attacks last year - a 10% rise from 2009.
Last week, a separate study found maritime piracy costs the global economy between $7bn (£4.4bn) and $12bn (£7.6bn) a year.
Measures 'undermined' "These figures for the number of hostages and vessels taken are the highest we have ever seen," said Pottengal Mukundan, the head of the IMB's Piracy Reporting Centre.
In the seas off Somalia, the IMB said, heavily-armed pirates were often overpowering fishing or merchant vessels and then using them as bases for further attacks.
The Somali attacks accounted for 1,016 hostages seized last year. Somali pirates are currently holding 31 ships with more than 700 crew on board.
Although naval patrols - launched in 2009 in the Gulf of Aden - have foiled a number of attacks, Somali pirates are now operating farther offshore.
"All measures taken at sea to limit the activities of the pirates are undermined because of a lack of responsible authority back in Somalia," the IMB said.
Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991.
However, the IMB noted that in the Gulf of Aden itself incidents more than halved to 53 due to the presence of foreign navies.
Elsewhere, violent attacks increased in the South China Sea and waters off Indonesia, Bangladesh and Nigeria.
Last week, a report by US think-tank One Earth Future said that piracy cost the international community up to $12bn each year.
The study calculated the amount from the costs of ransom, security equipment and the impact on trade.
It said the majority of costs came from piracy off Somalia.

Tunisia's Mohammed Ghannouchi defends new government

Tunisia's PM Mohammed Ghannouchi has defended the inclusion of members of the old regime in his new government.

The retained ministers have "clean hands", he insisted - while vowing those behind recent street "massacres" would face "justice".
President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali was forced into exile on Friday after a month of protests in which the government now admits 78 people died.
There were reports that fresh protests on Tuesday were broken up by police.
Police used tear gas to disperse the protesters in Tunis - though reports suggested that in other parts of the city many Tunisians were getting back to their daily business.
The BBC's Wyre Davies says the new government is now tasked with speedily implementing the constitutional reforms and preparation for free and fair elections which Tunisians have been promised.
He says another urgent challenge is to begin to return economic stability to the country - the crisis is estimated to have cost it some $2bn (£1.3bn).
Mr Ghannouchi's pledges to allow political and media freedoms do appear to have placated some protesters, but others have dismissed the new government.
"It does not really reflect what people have aspired to," the president of the Human Rights League in Tunisia, Masoud Ramadani, told the BBC.
"The demonstrations all around the country were about corruption, freedom and also were against the party of the president, which was considered as corrupt. But then we see now the ongoing presence of this political party, the presence of these people who represent the old regime."
'Era of freedom'

TUNISIAN CABINET

• Mohammed Ghannouchi stays on as prime minister. A Ben Ali ally, he has been in the job since 1999, keeping post throughout unrest
• Interior Minister Ahmed Friaa, appointed by Mr Ben Ali to mollify demonstrators, retains post
• Foreign Minister Kamal Morjane retains post
• Najib Chebbi, founder of opposition Progressive Democratic Party, named as development minister
• Ahmed Ibrahim, leader of opposition Ettajdid party, named minister of higher education
• Mustafa ben Jaafar, leader of opposition Union of Freedom and Labour, named health minister
• Slim Amamou, prominent blogger who was arrested during protests, is secretary of state for youth and sport

In the interview with French radio Europe 1 on Tuesday, Mr Ghannouchi described Tunisia as going through a "historic change".

He repeated pledges made on Monday of a new "era of freedom", which would see political parties free to operate and a free press.
He said free and fair elections would be held within six months, controlled by an independent election commission and monitored by international observers.
Mr Ghannouchi - himself an ally of the former president - described himself as a "transition" leader and said he did not claim to be "legitimate".
Despite vowing that those behind the deaths of protesters should face justice, when asked whether he thought Mr Ben Ali himself should face trial, he replied: "I cannot say that."
Mr Ghannouchi defended ministers who retained their jobs in his new unity government, saying that they were "needed" and had always acted "to preserve the international interest".
The foreign, interior and defence ministers all kept their jobs when Mr Ghannouchi unveiled the new administration on Monday - though three prominent opposition figures were named to key posts.

Fall from power

• 17 Dec: A graduate sets himself on fire in Sidi Bouzid over lack of jobs, sparking protests
• 24 Dec: Protester shot dead in central Tunisia
• 28 Dec: Protests spread to Tunis
• 8-10 Jan: Dozens of deaths reported in crackdown on protests
• 12 Jan: Interior minister sacked
• 13 Jan: President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali promises to step down in 2014
• 14 Jan: Mr Ben Ali dissolves government and parliament, then steps down
• 17 Jan: New unity cabinet announced

• 
  

Ahmed Ibrahim, leader of the opposition Ettajdid party, becomes minister of higher education, while Mustafa Ben Jaafar, of the Union of Freedom and Labour, is to serve as health minister.

Najib Chebbie, founder of the Progressive Democratic Party, was named as Tunisia's new development minister.
But Mr Ghannouchi told Europe 1 that the head of Tunisia's banned Islamist party Ennahdha, Rached Ghannouchi, would only be allowed to return to Tunisia if a life sentence imposed on him in 1991 was cancelled by an amnesty.
Responding to a question about claims that it was really Mr Ben Ali's wife, Leila Trabelsi, who held the reins of power towards the end of his rule, Mr Ghannouchi replied: "We have that impression".
Unrest in Tunisia grew over several weeks, with widespread protests over high unemployment and high food prices pitching demonstrators against Tunisia's police and military.
The British and other western governments earlier indicated they expected more reforms and political freedoms to be announced, our correspondent says.
But there has been little official reaction from other authoritarian governments in North Africa and the wider Arab world, he adds.

PAF and RSAF conducting joint exercise

ISLAMABAD  (January 17, 2011) : Pakistan Airforce (PAF) and Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) are conducting a joint air power employment exercise code name "Al Saqoor-II" in Saudi Arabia. The joint exercise commenced on January 6 and would be completed by 19th.

PAF contingent comprising F-16 and Mirage aircraft, while RSAF element consisting of F-15 aircraft are participating in the exercise in which air operations are being executed in near realistic environment.

Air Chief Marshal Rao Qamar Suleman, Chief of the Air Staff, PAF visited Saudi Arabia on December 15, 2010 to meet the participating personnel of the two air forces. He also flew in a PAF F-16 to participate in the air operations. The air chief was warmly welcomed by the Chief of the Royal Saudi Air Force, Gen Mohammad Abdullah Al-Aish. The two discussed matters of professional interest and means to further enhance co-operation between the two air forces. The exercise will benefit both participants and hone their professional skills and further enhance existing brotherly relations between the two nations and air forces. It will also enable personnel of the two forces become familiar and come closer to each other.-PR

In Afghanistan ‘human maps’ help fight Taliban

 

This file photo taken on December 28, 2010 shows a US soldier from Bravo Troop 1-75 Cavalry 2nd Brigade 101st Airborne Division taking a picture of Afghan villager Mohammad Ras in Loya Derah village during a clearance patrol in Zari district of Kandahar province. Troops across Afghanistan are gathering photographs, fingerprints and employment details as well as canvassing opinions from local residents to find out what they want for the war-racked province. The goal is to strengthen relations between pro-government forces and the local population. – AFP Photo

CHARKUSAH: “I’m 105 years old,” said Bismiullah, an old man stopped by a patrol in southern Afghanistan as part of military efforts to map the population in the battle against the Taliban.
Asked what he thinks of the US army, the Afghan army and the Taliban, Bismiullah responded: “I like myself and my family, that’s it.”
Questioned who is in charge in the area, he was similarly direct: “Allah is my chief.”
The elderly man was stopped by a US-Afghan patrol in the village of Charkusah in the Zahri district of Kandahar, the southern Afghan province seen as the heart of the Taliban insurgency.
Troops in the region and across Afghanistan are gathering photographs, fingerprints and employment details as well as canvassing opinions from local residents to find out what they want for the war-racked province.
The goal is to strengthen relations between pro-government forces and the local population.
But the information gathered can also help troops catch Taliban fighters, for example by matching fingerprints on home-made bombs or guns.
Formally known as human terrain mapping, the process is an key strand of the strategy to build better ties between pro-government forces and local people as the war enters arguably its most important year.
International troops in Afghanistan, around two-thirds of whom are from the United States, are due to start limited withdrawals in July ahead of a scheduled transition of responsibility for security to Afghan forces in 2014.
Human terrain mapping was first used in its current form in Iraq in 2007 but experts say it also draws on the lessons of previous counterinsurgency campaigns such as in Vietnam.
Counterinsurgency theory holds that the key to winning such wars is to destroy the insurgents’ political control over the population.
Identifying who is an innocent civilian and who is an insurgent is a vital element.
However, gathering reliable information is not always easy in a country where many desperately poor rural people do not know basic information about themselves, such as their age.
Afghanistan has not had a census since 1979, the year of the Soviet invasion, amid security concerns across the war-torn country.
“What we do here comes from previous experience in Iraq and other parts of Afghanistan,” explained Lieutenant Wes Pennington of Taskforce Strike, 101st Airborne.
“The Taliban try to make their own COIN (counterinsurgency) tactics,” he added. “But we have more to offer, we’re better at it.”
In Charkusah, the Taliban is also trying to build support among the population, handing out money and buying harvests of marijuana and opium which they then sell on to finance their fighting, Pennington said.
People in the village are notably reluctant to talk about the Islamist insurgents.
Mohammad Sahim, a 32-year-old farmer, stressed that he knows “nothing at all” about the Taliban. As for improvements he would like to see in the local area, he stresses “food, water and a hospital”.
Staff Sergeant Alan Cable, who is asking the questions, said that such reticence about the Taliban is typical. “People usually say that they don’t know anything,” he explained.
Captain Brett Matzenbacher, in charge of the nearby Pashmul South base, is realistic when it comes to the power of the Taliban.
“The population is Taliban-influenced,” he said. “But we provide an alternative to the Taliban, a district governor who is an official authority.”
The task at hand is immense and hard-won gains can be fragile.
The Taliban would once again return to the area after the traditional winter lull was over in a few months’ time, Cpt Matzenbacher added.

Assange given offshore bank secrets

Assange vowed to publish secret details of offshore accounts after a Swiss banking whistleblower handed over data Monday on 2,000 purportedly tax-dodging individuals and firms. Former Swiss banker Rudolf Elmer, who worked for eight years in the Cayman Islands, a renowned offshore tax haven in the Caribbean, personally gave Assange two CDs of data at a London press conference. Elmer said he wanted the world to know the truth about money concealed in offshore accounts and the systems in place to keep it secret. He handed over the data at the Frontline Club -- WikiLeaks' British HQ -- as Assange put in a rare appearance away from the remote country house of the club's founder, where he has been bailed to live while he awaits extradition proceedings. "I am here today to support him," Assange told reporters. "He is a whistleblower and he has important things to say." The Australian promised "full revelation" of the data but said it would be weeks before any of the information could be checked and published by the WikiLeaks website. Elmer declined to give the names of those on the CDs or say how many individuals were involved, though he mentioned the 2,000 figure in a British newspaper, which published an interview with him Sunday. He has said the information includes details on around 40 politicians, multinational companies and financial institutions from the United States, Europe and Asia all secretly avoiding paying tax. "The only hope I have is to get society to know what's going on," he said. "I have been there, I have done the job, I know what the day-to-day business is, I know how much is documented there and how much is not. "I am against the system. I know how the system works. I want to let society know how this system works because it's damaging our society. "We're going to talk about the system and that's why I'm here. "The money is hiding in offshore banking secret jurisdictions." He said he was offered money for his silence and that he offered the information to former German finance minister Peer Steinbrueck for free but had received no response. Assange said WikiLeaks has so far released 2.3 percent of the 250,000 US diplomatic cables and was struggling with the volume of data. The Australian is on bail in Britain awaiting Sweden's attempt to extradite him for questioning on sexual assault allegations. A full extradition hearing will be heard at a London court on February 7-8.