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Bangladesh registers protest
- Border personnel lodged a strong protest with the Indian authorities condemning the killing of the Bangladeshi nationals.
- The BSF allegedly fired shots targeting a group of Bangladeshi villagers when they tried to cross the border
India strikes deal with Russia on Glonass
- These signals will allow missiles, including those fired from nuclear submarine Chakra, to strike within half a metre of distant targets.
- Glonass is an alternative to the U.S.-controlled Global Positioning System (GPS).
- The Indian security establishment had set its sights on Glonass after it conducted a post-mortem of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. It found that the U.S. had blocked GPS signals to Iraq and then inserted erroneous signals that left Saddam's generals virtually blind as far as beyond visual range and sighting and targeting was concerned.
- The General foresaw a situation, which has also been a subject of drawing board war games, in which the U.S. attacked India over Kashmir.
- India to be prepared to meet “aggression by any developed country, including the U.S.A.
Agni-V shows India's ambitions, says CPC paper
- A commentary in the Chinese Communist Party's official newspaper this weekend called on India to cooperate more with its neighbours “instead of being hostile to them,” suggesting that India's rising military expenditure reflected its growing regional “strategic ambitions.”
- pointed to the development of the 5,000 km-range Agni-V, expected to be unveiled in February 2012, as showing India's “intention of seeking regional balance of power.
- scientists suggested that the development of the missile was aimed at China, whose cities would fall within its range.
- The paper pointed to India's rising military spending — which is, however, only a little more than one-third that of China's, according to estimates — as evidence of Indian strategic ambitions.
Dow “agrees” to remove branding from London Olympic stadium
- Dow Chemical was on Sunday reported to have agreed to remove all its branding from the London Olympic stadium following protests from campaigners here and in India over its links to 1984 Union Carbide Bhopal gas tragedy.
- Under a £7 million deal, Dow was to sponsor a fabric wrap that would surround the Olympic stadium in East London.
U.S. troops out of Iraq
- The United States has concluded, unheralded, its military withdrawal from Iraq after nearly nine years of occupation, with the vestiges of its military vehicles and personnel rolling into Kuwait across the southern border under the cover of darkness.
- The occupation killed anywhere between a 100,000 and a million Iraqis. Nearly 4,500 U.S. troops also died — victims mainly of a hardy resistance mounted across most of the country.
- In terms of treasure, the war cost Washington around $1 trillion.
- After the overnight withdrawal, only 157 troops will stay behind, mainly to train Iraqi forces. A handful would also remain to guard the monstrous U.S. embassy, the largest American diplomatic facility in the world.
- U.S. military occupation in Iraq has been only partially lifted. “The U.S. has ended aspects of its military occupation of Iraq. However, aspects of its control over politics, diplomacy and state institutions remain in full,”
In NATO's Libya strikes, an unspoken civilian toll
- Libya NATO's seven-month air campaign in Libya, hailed by the alliance and many Libyans for blunting a lethal crackdown by Muammar Qadhafi and helping to push him from power, came with an unrecognized toll: scores of civilian casualties the alliance has long refused to acknowledge or investigate.
- on-the-ground examination by The New York Times of airstrike sites across Libya including interviews with survivors, doctors and witnesses, and the collection of munitions remnants, medical reports, death certificates and photographs found credible accounts of dozens of civilians killed by NATO in many distinct attacks.
- NATO, however, deferred the responsibility of initiating any inquiry to Libya's interim authorities
- The alliance's fixed-wing aircraft dropped only laser-or satellite-guided weapons, said Colonel Gregory Julian, a NATO spokesman; no so-called dumb bombs were used.
- The investigation also found significant damage to civilian infrastructure from certain attacks for which a rationale was not evident or risks to civilians were clear. These included strikes on warehouses that current anti-Qadhafi guards said contained only food, or near businesses or homes that were destroyed, including an attack on a munitions bunker beside a neighbourhood that caused a large secondary explosion, scattering warheads and toxic rocket fuel.
- Organisations researching civilian deaths in Libya said that the alliance's resistance to making itself accountable and acknowledging mistakes amounted to poor public policy.
Death toll in Philippines flash floods crosses 650
- Philippine rescuers struggled against mud, fatigue and the stench of death on Sunday to help the survivors of devastating flash floods that killed more than 650 people.
- Entire villages were swept away by floodwaters as residents, normally spared from typhoons that devastate other parts of the Philippines every year, slept in the early hours of Saturday despite storm warnings.
- The United States offered assistance to its former colony as the Philippine government and the Red Cross appealed for help to feed, clothe and house more than 35,000 people huddled in evacuation centres.
- A 20,000-strong military force normally involved in fighting Muslim insurgents in Mindanao was leading rescue and relief operations.
