The United Nations is to hold its first debate on road safety amid warnings that the problem is a ”public health crisis” on the scale of Aids, malaria and tuberculosis. Next week’s meeting will follow research by the World Health Organisation forecasting that between 2000 and 2015, road accidents will cause 20-million deaths.
Leaders of Cyprus’s Greek and Turkish communities agreed on Friday to relaunch reunification talks and to open a barricaded street in Nicosia that symbolises the island’s division. It was the first meeting between Greek Cypriot leader Demetris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat since Christofias was elected to the Cypriot presidency last month.
United States-led coalition troops killed three men, two children and a woman, in a raid in south-eastern Afghanistan, the district chief and village residents said on Wednesday. The issue of civilian casualties is a sensitive one as it undermines public support for the presence of foreign troops.
Nato troops secured a hostile strip of north Kosovo on Tuesday after Serb riots in Mitrovica killed one Ukrainian United Nations police officer and forced the pull-out of UN personnel from the Serb stronghold. The violence was the worst since Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian majority declared independence from Serbia on February 17.
Hundreds of Serbs in north Kosovo clashed with United Nations police and Nato peacekeepers on Monday in the worst violence since the Albanian majority declared independence last month. Riots erupted in the town of Mitrovica after several hundred UN special police backed by French Nato peacekeepers stormed a UN court in the town and arrested dozens of Serbs.
The highest and oldest wall is that which separates ”us” from ”them”. This is described today as a great divide of religions or ”a clash of civilisations”, which are false concepts, propagated to provide ”the other” — a target for fear and hatred that justifies invasion and plunder, writes John Pilger.
A suicide car bomber killed eight Afghan civilians in an attack on United States troops near the airport in Afghanistan’s capital on Thursday, a Nato spokesperson said. Thirty-five civilians were wounded in the attack, but the four US soldiers inside the two vehicles targeted suffered only minor cuts and bruises.
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/ 29 February 2008
All Turkish troops involved in a major ground offensive against Kurdish rebels inside northern Iraq have withdrawn to Turkey, Iraq’s foreign minister said on Friday. Turkey sent thousands of troops into remote, mountainous northern Iraq on February 21 to crush rebels of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
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/ 28 February 2008
United States President George Bush urged Nato ally Turkey on Thursday to end its offensive against Kurdish PKK rebels in northern Iraq quickly, but Washington said it would not threaten to withdraw intelligence help. The United States fears prolonging the Turkish operation, which began on February 21, will undermine stability in the region.
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/ 24 February 2008
Turkish forces used jets and heavy artillery to pound the bases of Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq on Saturday, as a prelude to a major assault in the coming days. Turkish news agencies reported more troops moving towards the remote border area. Turkey is thought to have deployed 1 000 to 3 000 soldiers.
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/ 22 February 2008
Turkish troops have crossed into northern Iraq in their hunt for Kurdish PKK guerrillas, the military said on Friday, but the United States and the European Union urged Ankara to keep the campaign limited. The White House said the US had been informed in advance of the incursion and urged Turkey to limit the operation to ”precise targeting” of the PKK rebels.
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/ 20 February 2008
Nato peacekeepers closed off roads between Serbia and northern Kosovo and armed United Nations police officers guarded smouldering border checkpoints on Wednesday as thousands of Serbs protested against Kosovo’s independence. For three days, Kosovo’s Serbs have shown their anger over Sunday’s declaration of independence.
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/ 19 February 2008
United States President George Bush on Tuesday recognised the independence of Kosovo from Serbia and said it would bring peace to the Balkans. Bush said during an African tour in Dar es Salaam that the United States would soon establish full diplomatic relations with the majority Albanian country.
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/ 18 February 2008
Europe’s biggest states recognised the independence of Kosovo on Monday, ending hours of suspense after Prime Minister Hashim Thaci assured his new republic that Western recognition would come ”any minute”. France was first to announce its move after a European Union foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels.
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/ 18 February 2008
A suicide bomber targeting a military convoy in Afghanistan killed 35 people in an attack near the Pakistan border on Monday. The attack, a day after more than 100 people were killed in the deadliest suicide raid since 2001, comes as some Western politicians call for a stronger resolve to stop Afghanistan sliding back into anarchy.
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/ 18 February 2008
The South African government is still deciding whether to recognise Kosovo as an independent country, Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said on Monday. It is expected that the decision would have to be taken soon as it would again be discussed by the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday afternoon.
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/ 18 February 2008
Kosovo looked forward on Monday to recognition by the Western powers who went to war to save its Albanian majority, but Russia served notice the new state will never be forced on its Serb allies in the territory. Fireworks brought to a close a day of celebration in the Kosovo capital Pristina, where Parliament adopted a declaration of independence from Serbia.
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/ 17 February 2008
Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on Sunday, ending a long chapter in the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia. Serbia responded immediately by calling its mainly Albanian breakaway province a false state and condemning the United States for supporting it.
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/ 17 February 2008
A suicide bomber killed more than 80 people at a picnic spot in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar on Sunday in the most deadly attack since the Taliban were ousted in 2001, the government said. The attack will add urgency to a debate about how the United States and Afghanistan’s other allies can help stem militant violence and promote stability.
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/ 16 February 2008
Just before dawn on one of Kosovo’s last mornings as a Serbian province, young military cadets are being put through their paces on a concrete drill field. The 38 young men and women in matching tracksuits represent Kosovo’s hopes for the future, at least for its Albanian majority. As dense clouds of jackdaws swoop and wheel above them, they run in perfect formation, chanting their determination to defend the new nation.
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/ 8 February 2008
German arms group Rheinmetall on Friday signed an agreement with state-owned Denel, indicating its intention to take a majority equity stake in Denel Munitions. The agreement, signed in Pretoria, would see the German firm take a 51% stake in the South African munitions entity.
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/ 8 February 2008
German authorities have learnt that al-Qaeda is preparing to carry out attacks in Germany, a senior official said in an interview with Die Welt newspaper on Friday. The Secretary of State in the Interior Ministry, August Hanning, said al-Qaeda leaders based in the border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan have ”decided to carry out attacks in Germany”.
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/ 2 February 2008
A former cemeteries manager known as the ”Undertaker” stands his best chance of becoming head of state when Serbia votes on Sunday in a fateful presidential election. To his many critics, the extreme nationalist Tomislav Nikolic will be digging Serbia’s grave if he repeats his first-round victory.
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/ 22 January 2008
The West must be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the ”imminent” spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, according to a radical manifesto for a new Nato by five of the West’s most senior military officers and strategists.
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/ 21 January 2008
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf pledged on Monday to hold free elections as he began a four-country European trip aimed at winning international support. Musharraf’s popularity has slumped over recent months in Pakistan, which has been racked by militant attacks, and faces a parliamentary election on February 18.
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/ 17 January 2008
Deepening divisions within Nato over its military operations in Afghanistan emerged on Wednesday after Robert Gates, the United States Defence Secretary, said America’s allies did not know how to fight insurgencies. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Nato’s Secretary General, rejected the criticism.
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/ 15 January 2008
Taliban militants stormed Kabul’s leading luxury hotel on Monday night, killing seven people in a significant escalation of insurgent tactics against foreign civilians in Afghanistan. The Norwegian Foreign Minister, Jonas Gahr Stoere, and other guests fled into the basement of the five-star Serena hotel.
Georgian leader Mikhail Saakashvili was on Monday celebrating Orthodox Christmas and victory in a presidential election his opponents called rigged. The central election commission said late on Sunday Saakaashvili had won 52,8% of votes cast on Saturday, almost twice as many as his nearest challenger
Georgia’s opposition called for its supporters to take to the streets on Sunday after a disputed exit poll showed incumbent Mikheil Saakashvili winning in the first round of a snap presidential vote. Saakashvili predicted victory, saying in a statement that independent exit polls "show that we are winning in the first round".
Georgians began voting on Saturday in a snap presidential election called by fiery pro-Western reformer Mikheil Saakashvili to face down unrest and restore his democratic credentials. The election, where Saakashvili faces six challengers, opened under thick snow in the strategic ex-Soviet republic’s ancient capital, Tbilisi.
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/ 27 December 2007
United Nations officials were on Wednesday night working to prevent the expulsion from Afghanistan of two senior Western diplomats who have been accused of holding illegal talks with Taliban leaders in the British theatre of operations in the southern province of Helmand.
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/ 25 December 2007
Christians around the world celebrated Christmas on Tuesday as the Catholic leader in the Holy Land pleaded for peace in the Middle East and Pope Benedict XVI spoke against selfishness. Iraqi Christians meanwhile celebrated a fearful Christmas in the shadow of suicide bombings and sectarian violence.