Craters show Russia just missed Georgian pipeline

“By Mark Trevelyan

AKHALI-SAMGORI, Georgia, Aug 29 (Reuters) – Russian planes dropped bombs this month within 15 metres (50 feet) of a pipeline that British oil company BP was in the process of reopening through Georgia, according to witnesses.

Residents on Friday showed Reuters correspondents deep craters alongside the pipeline, which runs between Azerbaijan’s capital Baku, on the Caspian Sea, and Georgia’s Black Sea port of Supsa.Reuters reported on Aug. 12 that Georgia had accused Russia of bombing the pipeline, although without causing serious damage. Russia denied any such attacks.

“They started dropping the bombs at seven o’clock in the evening of the 11th,” said Adam Zaridze, 26, a herdsman.”In one day they dropped 42 bombs,” he said. “They were black planes … The cattle ran all over the place. Some of the cattle were killed.”

A woman suffered a fatal heart attack from fear, he said.Next to a marker post above the underground pipeline, in a parched, open landscape 25 km (15 miles) from the border with Azerbaijan, three craters were visible within 15 metres of it. The largest was about three metres deep and eight in diameter.A line of craters could be seen running perpendicular to the pipeline for a distance of more than one km. In one place, cattle were grazing beside a churned-up area larger than a soccer pitch, with two large craters in the middle.

STRATEGIC PIPELINES

Pipelines through Georgia, bringing oil and gas westwards from the Caspian Sea, are strategically important because they bypass Russia and help reduce Western energy dependence on Moscow. The European Union relies on Russia for about a quarter of its gas and much of its oil.This month’s short Russian-Georgian conflict rattled energy markets and Western governments, which saw it as an attempt by Russia to reassert control over a former Soviet republic seeking to escape Moscow’s orbit and move closer to the West.”

http://africa.reuters.com/energyandoil/news/usnLT548771.html?rpc=401&

“Russia’s propaganda warfare”

“Western leaders face two fronts in their stand-off with Russia over its use of force to re-draw borders in Europe: one is the Russian army on the ground. The other is a propaganda war.

Russia’s defence of its intervention has not always been convincing. So far, the West has failed to spell out a common response, to get Russia to end its occupation of large parts of Georgia and undo its recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Meanwhile, Russia has unleashed a propaganda barrage against an "aggressive" Nato alliance, drawing sharp ripostes from western leaders.

President Dmitry Medvedev, who came to office with overtures to the West, now warns of a "crushing response" to any other country that threatens the lives or dignity of Russian nationals. He is "not afraid of a new Cold War", he adds. This war of words is not just a diversionary tactic.

The statements of Russian leaders reveal an underlying strategy which suggests that the West is right to see dangers ahead from the actions of a belligerent Russia. But those same statements also show glaring inconsistencies which belie Russia’s apparently strong hand. The Russians’ strongest argument in defence of its armed intervention is that blame for the outbreak of a shooting war is shared. Most observers agree it is, and that Georgia’s President Mikheil Saakashvili acted rashly or wrongly in ordering his army to bombard and take the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali. He was wrong, too, to speak of Russia "exterminating" his nation. But in many other ways, Russia’s defence of its armed intervention has been found wanting or false. Russia’s official charges of "genocide" by Georgian forces against the South Ossetians were quickly discredited by Human Rights Watch. Moscow’s South Ossetian allies still claim that nearly 1,700 people died in the Georgian assault but evidence has yet to be produced. Moscow’s repeated promises to withdraw its forces as prescribed in the French-brokered ceasefire plan have been broken in many parts of Georgia.

That is what prompted the European Union and Nato to accuse Moscow of breaking international law, and breaking its word. Mr Medvedev argued that Russia had been forced to use force to protect its own nationals in South Ossetia. But Russia has deliberately engineered that situation by handing out Russian passports to large numbers of local inhabitants. Sweden’s normally soft-spoken Foreign Minister Carl Bildt retorted that Russia’s resort to that argument echoed that of Hitler in annexing pre-World War Two Czechoslovakia. Finally, Russia’s claim that its motive in Georgia was purely humanitarian was exploded by this week’s decision to recognise the independence of the two breakaway regions. This catalogue of feints and deceptions has hardened international opinion towards Russia to the point where the West is undertaking an overall review of ties with Moscow – something scarcely imaginable only a month ago. The acute international alarm regarding Russia stems from the offensive part of its concerted campaign to send messages of varying degrees of threat to other countries. “

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7586662.stm

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Lebanon helicopter crash ‘tragic’

 

Hezbollah describes the shooting down of an army helicopter in south Lebanon as "tragic and painful".

Lebanon helicopter crash ‘tragic’
Fri, 29 Aug 2008 13:48:05 GMT

Hezbollah shoots at Lebanese Army helicopter, kills officer

 

“South Lebanon – A Lebanese airman was killed Thursday when the military helicopter he was flying over Sojod hills in south Lebanon came under gunfire attack from Hezbollah gunmen. Hezbollah didn’t comment on the incident initially, but later attempted to justify taking the life of a true Lebanese patriot: a Hezbollah source said the helicopter was shot down “because it crossed red lines that Hezbollah had warned the Defense Ministry and army command” not to cross.
The helicopter was conducting a training mission over the southern village of Sojod when it came under fire and was forced to make an emergency landing. The Telal Sojod area lies some 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of the Israeli border.
Details about the incident were sketchy and the military sealed off the area, but an army statement said the helicopter was on a training mission when it came under fire from armed elements and was forced down in the highlands of the Iqlim al Tuffah province.The statement said 1st Lt. Samer Hanna, a navigator, was killed and that the aircraft was damaged. No one else in the crew was hurt and the army was investigating, it added. A subsequent report stated that several crew members were also wounded.
Deputy President of the Higher Islamic Shia Council Sheikh Abdul Amir Qabalan condemned the attack on a military helicopter on Thursday.Qabalan said he feared the attack, which killed a Lebanese army officer, was committed by “infiltrators” working on behalf of Israel.
He said that the army needed to investigate the incident and bring those responsible to justice, as soon as possible.Hezbollah sources stated that the militia fighters said they shot at the military helicopter after monitoring video cameras, and were aiming to warn the pilot, but claim they did not mean to kill anyone.
The sources also said that the Resistance considered the region very sensitive, and Hezbollah leaders have already stressed the importance of the location because it contained the Resistance’s telecommunications apparatus.This is not the first time Hezbollah has killed fellow Lebanese over their sacred telecommunication infrastructure.”

http://yalibnan.com/site/archives/20…llah_shoot.php

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Tensions remain high in Georgia, Security Council hears

“The overall situation in and around Georgia’s breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia remains tense, senior United Nations officials warned the Security Council today during a meeting on the latest developments in the Caucasus country. Amid growing concern over the worsening humanitarian crisis in Georgia, especially concerning those escaping violence in the buffer zone between South Ossetia and the town of Gori, the Council heard reports from the UN’s political and peacekeeping departments.Wolfgang Weisbrod-Weber, Director of the Europe and Latin America Division of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), said the UN Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG) has witnessed large-scale Russian troop and military hardware withdrawal from Georgia to the Abkhaz-controlled side of the ceasefire line.

However, “Abkhaz forces continue to exercise control over the Ganmukhuri and Kourcha pockets north of the Inguri River, on the Georgian side of the ceasefire line,” he said. Elizabeth Spehar, Director of the Americas and Europe division of the Department of Political Affairs (DPA), told the Council that Russian forces have set up 18 checkpoints between Gori and South Ossetia, which are an obstacle to the humanitarian relief effort and to people trying to return to their homes.”The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has expressed concern over reports of new forcible displacement caused by marauding militia north of Gori near the boundary line with South Ossetia,” she said. More than 1,200 people, from villages devastated by the fighting in the 26-kilometre-wide buffer zone between Gori and South Ossetia, had registered as internally displaced persons (IDPs) with authorities in Gori. The new UNHCR office in Gori has erected some 100 family tents on in a football field on the outskirts of the town in an attempt to shelter the growing number of IDPs. The IDPs included newly displaced people who have fled the violent militia in the buffer zone as well as people who escaped to Tbilisi after the conflict erupted on 8 August. Some IDPs have tried returning to their buffer zone villages but say they were blocked by Russian checkpoints, advising them to not to continue due to widespread lawlessness surrounding the area. Others found their homes damaged and returned to Gori through fear of further attacks. “Villagers from north of Gori and from South Ossetia can’t imagine returning any time soon, particularly where there are cluster munitions, unexploded ordinance, and landmines in their villages and homes,” the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) said in a press release. UNHCR reported that the new IDPs have arrived in Gori with tales of intimidation, beatings and looting by militia groups in the buffer zone villages. There have also been unconfirmed reports of civilian deaths resulting from the violence. “Most of the villagers now escaping south to Gori said they had stayed put when the conflict broke out earlier this month because they were old and weak. The appearance this week of militias had made them change their minds, but they said they had to leave the most vulnerable behind,” the agency said. ”

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/MUMA-7HY8XU?OpenDocument

del.icio.us Tags: ossetia, georgia, russia, abkhazia, crisis

"Russia and the New Axis of Evil"

By ARTHUR HERMAN
August 29, 2008; Page A17

With Russian tanks now presiding over the dismemberment of the Republic of Georgia, can a lame-duck Bush administration — weary from its long drubbing by critics over Iraq and eyeing the exit door — rise to the challenge Russia has chosen to pose to the Free World?.To understand the nature of this challenge, consider that the distance between Baghdad and Tbilisi is barely 578 miles, less than the distance between New York City and Chicago. Iraq and Georgia, both of which have democratic governments, are sandwiched between Iran and Russia, two of the most authoritarian governments in the world. Russia has been collaborating with Iran to strengthen the latter’s nuclear program and its military. It is also steadily arming Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez.Russia’s invasion of Georgia came exactly one month after Iran test-fired its Shahab III intermediate ballistic missile in order to intimidate neighbors like Israel and Iraq, and two weeks after Mr. Chávez traveled to Moscow to formalize a “Strategic Alliance” with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev. Meanwhile, Iran’s proxies remain the principal threat to peace in Iraq — while on the other side of the world, evidence mounts of Mr. Chávez’s links to the terrorist group FARC, which threatens neighboring Colombia.Coincidence? Iraq, Georgia and Colombia are battlegrounds in a new kind of international conflict that will define our geopolitical future. This conflict pits the U.S. and the West against an emerging axis of oil-rich dictatorships who are working together to push back against the liberalizing trends of globalization. One of their prime objectives is toppling or undermining neighboring, pro-Western democracies.The term “axis” has been overused in recent years, and in misleading contexts. But Russia, Iran and Venezuela are acting very much as Japan, Italy and Germany did in the 1930s, when each took advantage of each other’s aggressive moves to extend their own regional power at the expense of liberal democracy — and, as a result, propelling the world to the brink of war.The chessboard of traditional competitive geopolitics is back with a vengeance. Russia is the principal source for Iran’s nuclear weapons program as well as the principal obstacle to international sanctions. Between them, Mr. Putin and Tehran’s mullahs clearly aim to control access to every major source of fossil energy from the western end of the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea. The third player in this new axis, Venezuela’s President Chávez, hopes for an oil and natural gas monopoly over the natural resources of neighbors like pro-Chávez satellites Bolivia and Ecuador.All three dictatorships are flush with cash thanks to rising oil prices; all three are bent on regional domination. All three openly celebrate a model of government that is authoritarian and monolithic in opposition to Western pluralism, market-oriented economies and representative democracy. All three run economies built on mafia-style crony capitalism. All three denounce U.S. “imperialism,” and evidently hope that the 2008 election will help to bolster their geopolitical plans.And all three see themselves as natural allies. Since 2004, Mr. Chávez has steadily strengthened his strategic and economic ties to Tehran. Last year he joined with Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to push OPEC to cut production and boost oil prices. In addition to his Allianz Estrategica with Mr. Putin, Mr. Chávez was the one international leader who publicly praised Russia’s invasion of Georgia.Finally, all three members of this axis see the emergence of pro-American, Western-oriented governments on their borders as mortal threats and are determined to hit back. In Russia’s case, this means direct military force against Georgia. Iran has used its terrorist proxies to sow chaos in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. Mr. Chávez wages a proxy war against Colombia through the terrorists of FARC.”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121997069397081905.html?mod=rss_opinion_main

del.icio.us Tags: ossetia, abkhazia, iran, putin, chavez, georgia, russia, crisis

Walker’s World: The price of Putin

 

by Martin Walker
Paris (UPI) Aug 27, 2008
“The extraordinary European summit to be convened Monday by French President Nicolas Sarkozy is intended to agree on a common policy toward Russia in the wake of its short, sharp war with Georgia. Given the divisions of interest between those who depend on Russian oil and gas and those more concerned with a resurgence of Russian bullying, only optimists think it is likely to succeed.

But there are intriguing signs in Russia that those whose jobs and markets and investments are most integrated with Europe and the global economy are starting to count the cost of Vladimir Putin, the former Russian president who is now prime minister but who still seems to rule the Kremlin. The costs to Russian democracy and its chances of joining the World Trade Organization are already unpleasantly clear. The costs in cash and in Russia’s economic prospects are still being reckoned.

Russian officials have sought to explain away the $16.4 billion outflow in foreign reserves in the week of the invasion of Georgia and also the 32 percent drop in Moscow’s stock market since Putin began expressing his displeasure with the Mechel coal group in May. Mechel shares alone lost $8 billion after Putin’s first remarks. Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin claimed Friday that the outflows had stopped.

But Russian debt and equity markets also have gone into decline since the conflict with Georgia began Aug. 8, with yields on domestic ruble bonds increasing by up to 150 basis points over the last month. That is the equivalent of a 1.5-point jump in interest rates, the kind of panic measure that few central banks would risk taking except in extreme circumstances.”

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Walkers_World_The_price_of_Putin_999.html

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Military help for Georgia is a ‘declaration of war’, says Moscow in extraordinary warning to the West

 

“Moscow has issued an extraordinary warning to the West that military assistance to Georgia for use against South Ossetia or Abkhazia would be viewed as a “declaration of war” by Russia.The extreme rhetoric from the Kremlin’s envoy to NATO came as President Dmitry Medvedev stressed he will make a military response to US missile defence installations in eastern Europe, sending new shudders across countries whose people were once blighted by the Iron Curtain.And Moscow also emphasised it was closely monitoring what it claims is a build-up of NATO firepower in the Black Sea. The incendiary warning on Western military involvement in Georgia – where NATO nations have long played a role in training and equipping the small state – came in an interview with Dmitry Rogozin, a former nationalist politician who is now ambassador to the North Atlantic Alliance.”If NATO suddenly takes military actions against Abkhazia and South Ossetia, acting solely in support of Tbilisi, this will mean a declaration of war on Russia,” he stated.  Yesterday likened the current world crisis to the fevered atmosphere before the start of the First World War.Rogozin said he did not believe the crisis would descend to war between the West and Russia. But his use of such intemperate language will be seen as dowsing a fire with petrol.Top military figure Colonel General Leonid Ivashov, president of the Academy of Geopolitical Studies in Moscow, alleged that the US and NATO had been arming Georgia as a dress rehearsal for a future military operation in Iran.”We are close to a serious conflict – U.S. and NATO preparations on a strategic scale are ongoing. In the operation the West conducted on Georgian soil against Russia – South Ossetians were the victims or hostages of it – we can see a rehearsal for an attack on Iran.”  He claimed Washington was fine tuning a new type of warfare and that the threat of an attack on Iran was growing by the day bringing “chaos and instability” in its wake.

With the real architect of the worsening Georgian conflict – prime minister Vladimir Putin – remaining in the background, Medvedev followed up on Rogozin’s broadside with a threat to use the Russian military machine to respond to the deployment of the American anti-missile defence system in Poland and the Czech republic.   Poland agreed this month to place ten interceptor missiles on its territory, and Moscow has already hinted it would become a nuclear target for Russia in the event of conflict. 

President Mikhail Saakashvili said he was frightened to leave Georgia to attend the EU summit on the crisis. “If I leave Georgia, the Russians will close our airspace and prevent me from returning home,” he said.Russia sought Chinese backing for its action – but the Communist regime in Beijing appeared reluctant to offer support, instead issuing a statement saying it was “concerned” about recent developments. NATO called for Russia to reverse its decision on recognition for the two enclaves, both Georgian under international law.But the new ‘president’ of South Ossetia, Eduard Kokoyty, called for Russian military bases on his territory.French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner warned today that an marauding Russian bear could trample over other ex-Soviet states.”That is very dangerous,” he said, pointing at Ukraine and Moldova.”

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23545668-details/article.do?ito=newsnow&#readerComments

del.icio.us Tags: ossetia, abkhazia, russia, georgia

"Russia fails to secure regional backing"

By Stefan Wagstyl in London, Charles Clover in Moscow and Geoff Dyer in Beijing

Published: August 28 2008 10:06 | Last updated: August 28 2008 19:14

“Dmitry Medvedev, Russian president, failed on Thursday to win support from China or the former Soviet republics of central Asia in his deepening dispute with the west over military action in Georgia.

At a central Asian summit in Tajikistan, Mr Medvedev was unable to persuade Hu Jintao, the Chinese president, or other regional leaders to give explicit backing to Russia’s intervention or its decision to recognise the independence of the two breakaway regions, South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

While the leaders refrained from criticising Russia, their joint statement gave the Kremlin only modest comfort. “[We] express grave concern in connection with the recent tensions around the South Ossetian issue and urge the sides to solve existing problems peacefully, through dialogue, and to make efforts facilitating reconciliation and talks,” said a final statement from the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, which groups Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. The leaders welcomed the French-brokered ceasefire deal that ended the fighting between Russia and Georgia and acknowledged Russia’s role in the Caucasus, saying they supported “Russia’s active role in contributing to peace and co-operation in the region”.

Before the summit China had expressed its “concern” about “the latest changes in South Ossetia and Abkhazia”, an unusual move for Beijing which generally refrains from negative comment about Russia. Chinese officials declined to comment on Thursday but western diplomats in Beijing said the summit statement fitted closely with Chinese views. China had avoided any anti-western flourishes and – an absolute priority – any support for separatism.

China, with restless ethnic minorities in Tibet and Xinjiang province, is concerned about precedents that might be set in Georgia, as are the central Asian states.”

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/944f00c2-74d8-11dd-ab30-0000779fd18c.html

del.icio.us Tags: ossetia, abkhazia, russia, georgia

Ancient Urban Network Mapped in Amazon Forests

 

Vast swathes of "pristine" Amazon rain forest may actually have been sophisticated urban landscapes prior to the arrival of European colonists, anthropologists say.

Ancient Urban Network Mapped in Amazon Forests
Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT

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