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

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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.

PAF at Zhuhai Air show

Turkey-Pakistan Ties: India's Loss is China's Gain

In pursuit of Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu's concept of strategic depth, Turkey has been reaching out to rising powers in Asia while at the same time offering itself as a mediator in disputes in its near abroad. As part of this approach, Turkey is leveraging its longstanding ties with Pakistan and its stature as one of the few industrialized countries in the Muslim world to create a diplomatic role for itself in Afghanistan. But in a sign that Ankara's geopolitical outreach cannot transcend regional fault lines, Turkey kept India out of the January 2010 tripartite summit on Afghanistan at Pakistan's behest. In the face of India's diplomatic protest, Turkey subsequently sought to downplay the move, but it may nevertheless be indicative of a larger realignment in the region, with the Pakistan-Turkey relationship serving as an incubator.

Turkey was one of Pakistan's most-consistent allies throughout the Cold War, both ideologically and militarily. Military-to-military contacts remain as strong as ever, with the two countries now seriously exploring the coproduction of weapons ranging from armored vehicles to new-generation corvettes. Importantly, both sides also wish to boost defense exports to Islamic countries as an alternative to "expensive" Western weapons. However, given that Gulf Cooperation Council countries have recently placed substantial orders for American weapons, more likely candidates would be Egypt and Iran -- with the latter increasingly wooed by Ankara even at the cost of Turkey's long-standing ties with Israel.

A strong defense relationship with Pakistan gives Ankara the confidence to continue its troop presence in Afghanistan. While Turkey likes to describe its military contingent in Afghanistan as the only foreign force acceptable to the Afghan populace, it nevertheless understands that the well-being of its securitypresence may hinge on Pakistani support, given the latter's influence with the Taliban.

Pakistan is also attractively positioned as a facilitator for greater Sino-Turkish cooperation. Turkey's rising profile in Afghanistan comes at a time when China is beginning to seriously enter Afghanistan's resource-mining sector. China is also likely to seek Turkish help in dealing with the insurgency in Xinjiang on the basis of ethnic ties between Turks and Uighurs. China has added Turkey to the list of regional countries with which it is engaged in strategic missile cooperation -- the other chief recipients being Pakistan and Iran. In a move that shows that Turkey may be adopting an unconventional deterrence posture, the Turkish army obtained the technology for the short-range J-600T Yildrim ballistic missile from China. Moreover, the Chinese air force was a surprise participant in last year's annual Anatolian Eagle air exercise, in lieu of the Israelis or the Americans. This could well be a prelude to closer aerospace cooperation among China, Turkey and Pakistan, especially given China's development of various fourth- and fifth-generation fighter aircraft.

Pakistan may serve as a bridge between Turkey and China in a more-literal manner. In 2009, the 4,000-mile Islamabad-Tehran-Istanbul freight line opened for service, and 11 train loads of aid for Pakistan's flood-affected areas have already made their way from Turkey, with more to follow. During Turkish President Abdullah Gul's visit to Islamabad last December, the two sides agreed to work on a $20-billion plan to upgrade this rail link into a high-speed freight corridor. It is not inconceivable that China will at some point link up with this project by building a rail line through the Karakoram Pass connecting Kashgar in Xinjiang to Islamabad.

Turkey has also been involved in Pakistani rebuilding efforts following the 2005 Kashmir earthquake. As for the Kashmir dispute itself, Turkey has in the last decade tempered its firm support of the Pakistani position to adopt a more-balanced approach that frames the conflict as a bilateral dispute to be solved via dialogue, rather than on the basis of 60-year-old U.N. resolutions. But given the conservative lurch in Turkish society and the ruling AKP party's political orientation, Ankara is likely to increasingly take into account Islamic sensibilities in its approach to Kashmir, similar to its shift on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

That, coupled with the fact that India has now been kept out of a fifth successive round of the trilateral dialogue that took place in late-December, makes it unlikely that Turkey's plan to present itself as amediator in Afghanistan will inspire confidence in New Delhi. For its part, Turkey has sought to delink its concessions to Pakistan from its engagement with India, which it instead wants focused on trade and energy. Turkey is currently pushing for a free-trade agreement with India and has previously invited India to join the Baku-Ceyhan-Tbilisi pipeline.

But as with all of the other transnational gas pipelines to India's west that it has been invited to join, transit through Pakistan remains problematic. By contrast, the Chinese are in a better position to benefit as potential partners in regional energy infrastructure projects, given their all-weather friendship with Pakistan and the latter's control over the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Northern Kashmir bordering Xinjiang.

This possibility that Turkey might serve as the final node in China's ambition to gain overland access to the Mediterranean and the Middle East via Eurasian corridors should be far more worrisome to India than being kept out of the tripartite dialogue on Afghanistan. The very same constituencies that propelled the AKP to power in Turkey are also those that drive Turkey's turn to the east, and linking up with China seems like the biggest economic prize on offer. Better relations with Iran may also be understood in this context.

Running through all of these shifts is Pakistan's ability to exploit its geostrategic location to frustrate India's own ambitions to build bridges to Central and West Asia, while simultaneously proving an alluring partner for a Turkey looking to emerge as a genuine global middle power.