Just one day after opposing Sudan forces signed a treaty that was supposed to open the door for peace talks, a Darfur rebel group said that government forces instigated new attacks. Sudanese government officials confirmed the attack to AFP, saying that an allied militia group—not national forces—were involved. But the situation is murky because the Darfur rebels claimed that the attacks came from warplanes, and the allied rebel group is not known to have any such aircraft. The fate of the recent goodwill agreement now seems on very shaky ground.
The deepening global economic crisis is leaving many migrant workers in Dubai without employment as the construction and service industries slow. The United Arab Emirates attracted hundreds of thousands of workers from South Asia over the last six years as the economy boomed. A member of the Abu Dhabi chamber of commerce predicts that 45 percent of construction workers could be laid off in 2009.
Foreign troops in stationed in Afghanistan need a regional approach to stability, said Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the head of NATO. Militants in the border areas with Pakistan are trying to destabilize the region and an intensifying Taliban insurgency is threatening the war-torn nation. Scheffer said what “we need in NATO is to stop seeing Afghanistan in isolation.” This comes on the heels of President Barack Obama’s commitment to send an additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan, with the possibility of more deployments in the future.
France agreed to raise wages after talking with the leaders of the Guadeloupe, one of the French Caribbean islands, as protests and demonstrations over increasing economic hardship have raged since January 20. Four French military police units will be sent to restore calm after violence escalated Wednesday night—leaving one dead and 33 arrested on the small island. President Nicholas Sarkozy will meet with island leadership in Paris today to discuss the situation. Tourism, the primary industry for the island, is down sharply.
The leader of Israel’s right-wing Likud party, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been recommended to fulfill the duties of Israel’s prime minister. Avigdor Lieberman, the leader of the “ultra-nationalist” Yisrael Beiteinu party and proclaimed “kingmaker” of Israel, suggested Netanyahu to President Shimon Peres today. If agreed upon, Israel may be lead by a hardline government that could present problems for President Obama’s administration. Progress on Gaza might also be stymied. Israel’s foreign minister and representative of the opposing (and top-vote getting) Kadima party, Tzipi Livni, proposed a rotating system where she and Netahyahu would share the duties of prime minister for two years each. Lieberman refused, instead calling for “a government of the three large parties, Likud, Kadima, Yisrael Beiteinu.” Livni has apparently told the caretaker prime minister, Ehud Olmert, that she will not serve under Netahyahu.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Seoul, South Korea, today in the latest leg of her Asia tour. The biggest issue on the table is that of North Korea, The Korean Herald explains. Pyongyang is expected to test a missile that could apparently reach Alaska, and the regime has been under fire by politicians in the United States and in South Korea. Before leaving for her trip, Clinton expressed concern over the North’s nuclear capabilities, saying that the program creates “the most acute challenge to stability in Northeast Asia.” And while the line the Obama administration takes on North Korea may not differ much from Bush’s, the aspect of engagement seems to be the main difference. Clinton has expressed interest in considering “bilateral contacts with Pyongyang” but while also working on nuclear disarmament talks.
The three men accused of murdering Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya in 2006 were acquitted today. Politkovskaya, an incredibly vocal critic of the Kremlin, was shot in her Moscow apartment building. The brutal killing highlighted the dangers of independent journalists in Russia. Those accused, two Chechen brothers, Ibragim and Dzhabrail Makhmudov, and Sergei Khadzhikurbanov (a former Moscow police officer), were thought to be the organizers and accomplices to the crime. It is suspected that a third Makhmudov brother, Rustam, is the trigger-man. An international warrant remains out for his arrest. Amid a web of accusations—as the person (or organization) ultimately responsible for ordering Politkovskaya’s death is still unknown—the trial is thought by both sides to be massively flawed, as it has been increasingly difficult to find jurors and those willing to testify in these high-profile Russian cases.