Pakistan test-fires nuclear capable missile

Pakistan conducted its fourth test this year on Oct. 12 of a nuclear-capable missile, test-firing the intermediate Ghauri missile which can hit targets deep inside rival neighbor India.

The Hatf V (Ghauri), with a range of 932 miles, was test-fired as “part of a series of tests planned for the Ghauri missile system,” according to a military statement. The Hatf V was tested twice this year, on May 29 and June 4, and the long-range Shaheen missile was tested on March 9.

The tests this year have been seen less as saber-rattling against India, with whom Pakistan is in the middle of a step-by-step peace process, and more for domestic consumption. Analysts say they are aimed at placating domestic fears that the nuclear proliferation scandal surrounding top nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who confessed in February to selling nuclear secrets and technology to Iran, Libya, and North Korea, would force Pakistan to wind back its nuclear program.

Ex-premier Benazir Bhutto admitted in a Japanese newspaper interview in July that her government had obtained long-range missile technology from North Korea through her December 1993 visit. (AFP)

28 US troops implicated in deaths of Afghan detainees

An Army criminal investigation has implicated 28 US soldiers in the beating deaths of two Afghan prisoners found dangling from chains in their cells in December 2002, Pentagon officials said Oct. 14.

The soldiers — some of whom were with the military intelligence unit that later transferred to Iraq and was involved in the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal there — face possible charges ranging from dereliction of duty to involuntary manslaughter, Pentagon officials said. An involuntary-manslaughter conviction could result in a 10-year prison term and dishonorable discharge.

Investigators from the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command recommended that the soldiers be charged in the deaths of Mullah Habibullah and a taxi driver named Dilawar at the US military’s Bagram air base. Although the deaths of Habibullah and Dilawar occurred several days apart, both men were found to have blood clots caused largely by blunt-force injuries to their legs, autopsies found.

Both cases were complicated by the position in which the men were forced to stand and by dehydration, apparently caused by refusal to eat or drink, said the Pentagon officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. (LA Times)

Group posts surveillance camera locations

The surveillance cameras that keep watch over our daily activities are being watched. An advocacy group has teamed up with a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researcher to give pedestrians an online map of camera locations in Manhattan.

Tad Hirsch, a research assistant at MIT’s Media Lab, has adapted a desktop version of the iSee Project for use in handheld devices using Java programming language. Walkers can roam Manhattan armed with information that will allow them to steer clear of cameras if they wish — though escaping the cameras’ unblinking gaze may not be easy.

Privacy advocates have added hundreds of cameras to the Manhattan map using a Web-based interface, www.appliedautonomy.com/isee, developed by the Institute of Applied Autonomy, an activist organization concerned about surveillance. The group hopes to spur debate, particularly about networked cameras that stream video to monitoring companies in centralized locations, said one institute member, who goes by the pseudonym John Henry.

The institute also has created surveillance camera maps for Amsterdam, Netherlands and Ljubljana, Slovenia, with eventual plans to add Boston, Chicago and San Francisco, Henry said. (AP)

Rebel leader threatens Nigerian oil installations

At the beginning of October, Alhaji Mujahid Dokubu-Asari, leader of the rebel Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force, reached a tentative agreement with Nigeria to disarm.

However, the situation in the delta remains volatile, and could easily descend into renewed violence. In this instance, says the rebel leader, the numerous mangrove swamps and creeks of the region will serve the rebels’ interests more than those of government: “If they are looking for us somewhere, we will be blowing up one pipeline in another place.”

Dokubu-Asari has threatened oil installations in the southern Niger delta in an alleged bid to get residents of the poverty-stricken area a bigger share of its oil revenues. In the process, he has also helped push the price of oil over the $50-a-barrel mark, causing alarm on world markets.

In exchange for disarmament on the part of the volunteer force, government agreed to pay more attention to the causes of unrest in the delta. Those living in the area accuse multinational oil companies of polluting their environment – and of having supported corrupt politicians who profited shamelessly from Nigeria’s oil wealth. (IPS)

UN counts 70,000 dead in Darfur

At least 70,000 refugees have died since March because of poor conditions in camps in Sudan’s Darfur region, and more will die at the same rate unless countries contribute the $300 million in aid they promised, the UN health agency said Oct. 15.

The estimate of deaths in and around the camps only covers the period since aid agencies have had access to the western Sudan region, said Dr. David Nabarro, World Health Organization’s (WHO) head of crisis operations. WHO is unable to estimate how many people have died from violence, including militia and government attacks on villages or fleeing refugees, he said.

So far, the United Nations has only received half of the $300 million it needs for Darfur, he said.

The United Nations and aid groups have called Darfur the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The Darfur conflict, originally a clash between black farmers and Arab nomads, has grown into a counterinsurgency in which pro-government Arab militia have raped and killed blacks and burned their villages. Sudan’s government is accused of using the militias to put down the 19-month rebellion in the region the size of France. (AP)

US to double military in Colombia

The number of US military personnel in Colombia will double to 800 in the coming months, based on a weekend vote in the US Congress.

The action was welcomed by President Alvaro Uribe’s government for its fight against Marxist rebels but condemned by human rights groups, who warned of a sharp escalation in the conflict.

The 2005 US Defense Department authorization act, approved Oct. 16 by Congress, also permits the Bush administration to increase the number of US citizens working for private contractors in Colombia to 600 from 400.

The soldiers and many of the contractors will, among other things, develop and analyze intelligence on rebel movements and train Colombian troops in counterguerrilla operations.

Lifting the congressionally mandated limits on troops and contractors, a little-noticed measure in the 5,000-page Pentagon authorization bill, is seen by some analysts and rights advocates as a step toward larger US troop commitments. (New York Times)

Pill plan sparks tensions in Peru

Peru’s health minister has vowed to push ahead with a plan to make the so-called morning-after pill available at clinics, despite legal threats. Pilar Mazzetti said the scheme would start as scheduled in January, amid attempts by conservative legislators to prosecute her for promoting abortion.

Health experts agreed the emergency contraceptive stopped pregnancy rather than caused an abortion, she said.

Abortion is illegal in Peru, except when the mother’s life is in danger. Three legislators in the predominantly Catholic country have asked Congress to lift Mazzetti’s immunity from prosecution so that she can face charges. They argue that life begins upon fertilization.

“This is not based on personal beliefs, but in technical and scientific studies that show the pill is not abortive,” Mazzetti said.

Peru’s medical board has backed the minister. The morning-after pill is a higher dose of regular hormonal contraception. Taken within 72 hours of intercourse, the pill prevents a fertilized egg from attaching to the lining of the womb. It has no effect if a woman is already pregnant, which is why it has not been as controversial as the abortion pill RU-486. (BBC)

AIDS: the new killer in the fields

A nation still recovering from years of political bloodletting, Cambodia is being weakened by a new scourge. HIV infection rates in the country of 12 million people are just under 3 percent, the highest in Asia.

Only one in five of the 25,000 AIDS sufferers in Cambodia who are likely to die within 12 months receives palliative care. “Most just rot to death,” one HIV worker said. With regulation weak, pharmacies sell the drugs over the counter. Traditional medicine, according to one western Phnom Penh-based specialist, is “organized theft.”

In the main Norodom Sihanouk hospital in Phnom Penh the sheer volume of HIV sufferers means that many are selected for treatment by lottery. “There were three people in this bed,” said Isa Wang, 35. “I won the draw, so kept it. I don’t know what happened to the others.”

Mother-to-child transmission is one of the primary ways in which HIV is spreading. The women are usually infected by husbands who have had sex with prostitutes — something that is relatively socially acceptable. By 2005 the United Nations estimates that more than 100,000 children are likely to have been orphaned by AIDS. (Observer (UK))

11 ‘disappeared’ in US War on Terror -- report

Eleven prisoners captured by the Bush administration in its “war on terrorism’’ have disappeared, opening a “gateway’’ to torture and other abuses prohibited by global law, says a new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW).

US officials have confirmed they have six of the detainees in custody, according to the document, “Disappeared: The CIA’s Long-Term ‘Ghost’ Detainees,” by the New York-based group. “In each case, however, the United States has not only failed to register the detainees, but has also refused to disclose their fate or their whereabouts and thus removed them from the protection of the law for a prolonged period of time,’’ adds the 46-page document. That could open the door to torture, says HRW.

The report follows a June release by the US organization Human Rights First, which described a series of secret jails worldwide where US intelligence agencies have hidden terror suspects from scrutiny.

It predicted more strongly than the HRW report that the move would lead to abuse. (IPS)