Officials say violence in Afghanistan has left 18 dead, including two NATO soldiers and 14 insurgents. A NATO statement says a soldier and civilian interpreter were killed when an explosion hit them during a patrol in eastern Ghazni province on Tuesday. It says two NATO soldiers were wounded, one of whom later died at a military hospital. The statement does not give any details about the victims' nationalities or the nature of the explosion. In neighboring Zabul province, deputy governor Gulab Shah Alikhel says airstrikes and a three-hour gun battle killed an Afghan army soldier and 14 insurgents. He says six of the dead insurgents appear to be Arabs. Afghan security forces seized insurgents' ammunition and night vision goggles. (Source: AP)

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Thieves, feuding tribesmen and Taliban militants are creating chaos along the main Pakistan-Afghanistan highway, threatening a vital supply line for U.S. and NATO forces. Abductions and arson attacks on the hundreds of cargo trucks plying the switchback road through the Khyber Pass have become commonplace this year. Many of the trucks carry fuel and other material for foreign troops based in Afghanistan. U.S. and NATO officials play down their losses in these arid mountains of northwestern Pakistan, even though the local arms bazaar offers U.S.-made assault rifles and Beretta pistols, and the alliance is negotiating to open routes through other countries. The most high-profile victim of the lawlessness has been Tariq Azizuddin, Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan. The 56-year-old was snatched from his Mercedes limousine three months ago while driving toward the border. He wasn't freed until Saturday. Pakistan's government denied it was part of a prisoner swap last week with militants. A senior government official said Azizuddin's kidnapping was carried out by one of dozens of criminal gangs operating in the region, who then sold the ambassador to the Taliban. (Source: AP)

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A Moroccan prosecutor on Tuesday urged a court to impose prison sentences ranging from 10 to 20 years for alleged members of a militant cell accused of supporting insurgents in Iraq and plotting terrorist bombings. The prosecutor said the 27 suspects plotted to disrupt law and order in Morocco and recruit men willing to fight in the name of radical Islam. The defendants, many of them from the town of Tetouan in northern Morocco, have all denied any ties to Al Qaeda or any other terrorist group. The case is being heard by the criminal court in Sale, near the capital, Rabat, that specializes in handling terrorism cases. The trial is scheduled to resume May 27. (Source: AP)

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Moroccan security officials Wednesday said they captured the first suspects of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. The official Moroccan news agency, Maghreb Arab Press, said 11 suspects were trained in suspected Al Qaeda camps in Iraq and North Africa. "The network, including a Moroccan living in Belgium, is believed to have links with groups sending volunteers to Iraq and to camps of Al Qaeda's branch in North Africa," the Moroccan news agency reported. Moroccan officials said the cell was plotting attacks in the European Union and specifically a hotel in Belgium, though officials in Brussels couldn't confirm the allegations. This was the second Al Qaeda affiliation uncovered by Moroccan officials in May. A Moroccan court earlier this month accused 27 citizens of "forming a criminal gang with the goal of preparing and committing terrorist acts," Med Basin Newsline said Wednesday. (Source: UPI)

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Gunmen kidnapped three aid workers, two Italians and a Somali, in Somalia's Lower Shabelle region on Wednesday, the latest in a string of attacks against humanitarian groups. A local security official confirmed the kidnapping and said the security forces were trying to locate the hostages. The kidnapping took place at around 6:30 a.m. (0330 GMT) in the village of Awdhegle, 70 kilometres (45 miles) south of the capital Mogadishu. The three who were abducted all worked for an Italian non-governmental organisation called Cooperazione Italiana Nord Sud (CINS), or North-South Italian Cooperation. The elder said the non-Italian hostage was Abderahman Yusuf Arale, the local head of the Italian aid group. In Rome, a foreign ministry spokesman confirmed the kidnapping of the two Italians. Somali security officials in the region where the kidnapping took place said that CINS staff had already come under attack at a checkopint on May 2. Speaking on condition of anonymity, they said that three people had died in the exchange of fire, one attacker, one member of the CINS escort and one member of the Somali security services, although they could not certify that the Italians were targeted. Aid workers, including foreigners, have been repeatedly targeted by armed groups in Somalia in recent months. The spate of kidnappings and killings has complicated the delivery of aid to the most affected populations in the Horn of Africa country, where the U.N. says one of the world's worst humanitarian catastrophes is unfolding.

On May 13, gunmen abducted a Kenyan teaching at Mogadishu University. Kidnappers are also holding two aid workers: a Kenyan and a Briton, seized in April in southern Somalia whose whereabouts remain unknown. In early May, gunmen killed a truck driver working for the World Food Programme in central Somalia. The U.N. and aid groups have scaled down operations in Somalia owing to increased insecurity, largely blamed on Islamist militants who have waged a deadly guerrilla war since they were ousted by joint Somali-Ethiopian forces in early 2007. Amnesty International has pleaded with the militants to end the kidnapping and killing of foreign workers in Somalia a nation where 2.6 million Somalis, including a million displaced people, require help to feed themselves. Earlier this month, Islamist rebels pledged to kill foreigners and pro-government supporters after U.S. airstrikes killed their leader Aden Hashi Ayro, who was accused of being the Al Qaeda leader in the country. The U.N. is currently trying to build trust between the government and moderate Islamists at talks that were launched on May 12 in Djibouti.

(Source: AP)

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Authorities sealed off a nuclear plant in southeastern Sweden after a welder arrived for work with a plastic bag containing traces of an explosive substance. Investigators were questioning the man, a welder who was scheduled to do work at the Oskarshamn plant on Wednesday. Plant operator OKG downplayed the incident, saying there was no threat to the safety of the plant, located about 150 miles (250 kilometers) south of Stockholm. Police said the man was carrying a plastic bag with an unknown amount of triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, an explosive used in the London bombings in 2007. (Source: AP)

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Iraq

Iraqi troops tightened their grip on the Baghdad militia bastion of Sadr City on Wednesday, a day after moving into the Shiite district for the first time in eight weeks. More Iraqi soldiers were seen deploying in the district and dozens of blasts were heard as they carried out controlled explosions of roadside bombs planted by militiamen during deadly clashes with U.S. troops. The Shiite radical movement of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr had agreed that its Mahdi Army militia would offer no resistance to the Iraqi troops' deployment under a truce deal it reached with the government on May 10. (Source: AFP)

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At least 11 people were killed Wednesday when gunfire broke out after a roadside bombing in a Shiite militia stronghold in eastern Baghdad near Sadr City, scene of a major military clampdown. Two Iraqi officials said the shooting occurred about 5:30 a.m. in the Obeidi neighborhood after three roadside bombs targeted joint U.S.-Iraqi troops. But the U.S. military said its forces were not involved in any events in the area. It was not clear who opened fire after the explosions. Eleven bystanders were killed and one person wounded, one of the police officials said. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to release the information. (Source: AP)

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United States

In 2002, as evidence of prisoner mistreatment at Guantánamo Bay began to mount, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents at the base created a “war crimes file” to document accusations against American military personnel, but were eventually ordered to close down the file, a Justice Department report revealed Tuesday. The report, an exhaustive, 437-page review prepared by the Justice Department inspector general, provides the fullest account to date of internal dissent and confusion within the Bush administration over the use of harsh interrogation tactics by the military and the Central Intelligence Agency. In one of several previously undisclosed episodes, the report found that American military interrogators appeared to have collaborated with visiting Chinese officials at Guantánamo Bay to disrupt the sleep of Chinese Muslims held there, waking them every 15 minutes the night before their interviews by the Chinese. In another incident, it said, a female interrogator reportedly bent back an inmate’s thumbs and squeezed his genitals as he grimaced in pain. (Source: New York Times)

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Oil prices rose above $130 a barrel Wednesday for the first time, as supply concerns mounted and the dollar weakened. Light, sweet crude for July delivery hit a record $130.47 a barrel in electronic trade on the New York Mercantile Exchange after closing at $128.98 in the floor session. By afternoon in Europe, it had retreated to $129.77 a barrel, up 79 cents. (Source: AP)

The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation on Tuesday allowing the Justice Department to sue OPEC members for limiting oil supplies and working together to set crude prices, but the White House threatened to veto the measure.

The bill would subject OPEC oil producers, including Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela, to the same antitrust laws that U.S. companies must follow. (Source: Reuters)

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Africa

It was a military parade but there were no fighter jets, tanks or missiles. Neither was there much public or press. But Polisario Front rebels based in the desolate lands on the edge of the disputed Western Sahara territory are used to that. On Tuesday, some 8,000 rebels, armed with AK-47 assault rifles, staged a marching procession in this dusty outpost to mark the 35th anniversary of the organization, which was founded to fight for the independence of the Western Sahara. Watching were a dozen or so journalists, most from Spain, and some 300 local people, support group representatives and delegates from a handful of countries, such as Cuba and Algeria, who back the Polisario cause. (Source: AP)

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Police patrolled opposition areas of Guinea's capital on Wednesday after overnight protests against President Lansana Conte's sacking of a consensus prime minister appointed last year to end a bloody general strike. Prime Minister Lansana Kouyate, a former diplomat, had repeatedly clashed with Conte and his close associates in the latest power struggle at the top of the world's leading exporter of bauxite, the raw ore used to make aluminum. Conte, a chainsmoking diabetic in his mid-70s who seized power in a 1984 army coup, sacked Kouyate without warning in a decree broadcast on Tuesday evening, replacing him with a former mines minister from his own party, Ahmed Tidiane Souare. (Source: Reuters)

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Twenty-one Sudanese army soldiers have been killed in fierce fighting with southern forces in the contested oil-rich town of Abyei, army sources said on Wednesday. The army accused the Sudan People's Liberation Army, from semi-autonomous South Sudan, of attacking its positions in the town on Tuesday. The assault has raised fears for a 2005 north-south peace deal that ended two decades of civil war. "Twenty-one Sudan Armed Forces soldiers were killed and 54 were injured," said armed forces spokesman Brigadier Uthman al-Agbash. He gave no estimate for numbers of dead on the other side and the SPLA was not immediately available for comment. He said the clashes in the central region, sparked by a local dispute last week, appeared to have stopped. But aid workers said the area remained tense. The U.N. says at least 50,000 people have fled a week of fighting in Abyei, at the centre of a region claimed by both the northern Sudanese government and South Sudan. (Source: Reuters)

Xenophobic violence that has killed at least 24 people in South Africa spilled over to the volatile Zulu heartland on Wednesday and security officials discussed whether to use troops to quell the wave of unrest. The attacks on African immigrants, accused by many poor South Africans of taking scarce jobs and fuelling crime, have forced thousands of people from their homes, unnerved investors and hit the rand currency. Local media in the eastern KwaZulu-Natal province said at least six immigrants were wounded in an overnight attack on a Nigerian-owned tavern in the port city of Durban. The Zulu-based Inkatha Freedom Party, the ruling ANC's main rival in KwaZulu-Natal, said the Durban attacks showed the anti-foreigner violence had spread to the province, home to South Africa's biggest ethnic group, the Zulus. (Source: Reuters)

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Uganda's rebel army has stepped up a campaign of child abductions in the three countries where it operates, according to foreign investigators, humanitarian groups and Ugandan military authorities in the capital, Kampala. The Lord's Resistance Army, a messianic armed movement that has waged a 21-year insurrection against the Ugandan government, has recently scooped up more than 100 boys and girls. The children are then forced into the rebel army ranks or made to serve as sexual hostages. The abductions are being carried out in southern Sudan, Congo and the Central African Republic, three nations where the rebels maintain bases. Last month, the group kidnapped 100 children in the Central African Republic and 30 others along the Sudan-Congo border. (Source: Washington Post)

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Americas

Canadian sources said that last week, the Defence Department ran into problems with its $2.9-billion plan to buy three new supply ships, announced with fanfare by the Conservative government in 2006. The ships are intended to replace the Preserver and the Protecteur, oil tankers and supply ships that were built in the 1960s. The navy’s wish list for the vessels includes more capabilities than are typical for such ships, with a shipboard hospital, some weapons and the ability to offload soldiers and equipment at dockside. But sources in Ottawa say the proposals that have come back from the two companies qualified to bid are so steep that even without some of the capabilities requested, the planned budget may not be enough for three ships.

(Source: Chronicle Herald-CAN)

There are no police anymore in Villa Ahumada. Even the mayor has fled. Drug gangs have virtually seized this town of 1,500 not far from Texas, as Mexico's cartels grow increasingly audacious. The Mexican military took over the police department this week because all 20 officers on the force have either been killed, run out of town or quit, officials said Tuesday. Mayor Fidel Urrutia took refuge in the state capital of Chihuahua City, 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) away, where he's waiting for the soldiers to recover his town. (Source: AP)

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Washington's top diplomat in Venezuela said Tuesday the United States is taking steps to make sure its counter-drug planes don't stray into Venezuelan airspace again, but President Hugo Chavez's government isn't satisfied. U.S. Ambassador Patrick Duddy acknowledged an S-3 Navy plane flew into Venezuelan airspace during an anti-drug mission over the Caribbean Sea, saying it was an accident due to a navigational error. But Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro presented Duddy with a protest letter and said after their meeting that he was not satisfied. (Source: AP)

Asia

Japan's parliament voted to allow the country's space programs to be used for defense for the first time Wednesday as part of Tokyo's push to give its military a greater international role. The upper house of parliament approved the legislation with an overwhelming 221-14 vote. The vote followed earlier approval by the lower house, thereby lifting a 1969 ban on military use of outer space. The law, one of several moves in recent years by Japan to give greater freedom to its armed forces, allows the military to develop more advanced spy satellites for intelligence gathering and missile defense. However, the law says that the space programs will have to be limited to defense only as defined in the nation's pacifist constitution. The U.S.-drafted 1947 constitution prohibits Japan from offensive warfare. The law came with a supplementary resolution to ensure transparency and review within two years of enactment, said ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Hiroshi Okada, who chairs the upper house Cabinet affairs committee. (Source: AP)

Myanmar shunned a U.S. proposal for naval ships to deliver aid to cyclone victims on Wednesday, according to state-run media, dimming hopes that the vessels could provide a major boost to relief efforts. The New Light of Myanmar, a mouthpiece for Myanmar's ruling junta, said that such assistance "comes with strings attached," citing fears that Washington wants to overthrow the country's government and seize its oil. The U.S., as well as France and Great Britain, have naval vessels loaded with humanitarian supplies off the Myanmar coast, and had been waiting for a green light to deliver them. The article did not say whether the French and British supplies would be allowed. The state media report said that other U.S. aid airlifted into the country was welcome, an apparent reference to ongoing relief flights, which land in the country about five times a day. American officials are required to hand the aid to Myanmar authorities upon landing in Yangon, from which it is a difficult journey to the Irrawaddy delta. (Source: AP)

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Police lobbed tear gas shells to break up an anti-Maoist rally during a day-long strike in the Nepali capital on Wednesday in a protest over the killing of a businessman by Maoist former rebels. Ram Hari Shrestha, a restaurant owner, was abducted and killed in southern Nepal earlier this month. Maoists said some of their members killed him, but they were not acting on the party's orders. They have vowed to bring the culprits to justice. Schools and businesses were shut in Kathmandu on Wednesday, as protesters set up road blocks and burned tires at some intersections to stop vehicles. (Source: Reuters)

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Sri Lanka's air force launched a strike on Tamil Tiger rebels near the front lines in the war-ravaged northern region, while infantry clashes killed 25 rebels, the military said Wednesday. Air force helicopter gunships attacked a rebel mortar launching point near the front lines in northern Jaffna peninsula early Wednesday. He said the air attack was carried out in support of army troops fighting the rebels. He did not have details of damage or casualties. Meanwhile, ground battles Tuesday in the Welioya, Vavuniya and Mannar areas bordering the rebels' de facto state in the north killed 25 rebels. In the worst fighting, soldiers killed 19 rebels in three separate battles in Vavuniya, the statement said. It said nine soldiers were wounded in the same clashes. Scattered battles in Welioya and Mannar killed six rebels and wounded eight soldiers. Rebel spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan was not immediately available for comment. (Source: AP)

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Europe

Doubts over the British Government's plan to order two 65,000-tonne aircraft carriers were lifted yesterday when the Ministry of Defence (MoD) announced that it was ready to sign the £3.9 billion contract. A full audit of the carrier program, including an assessment of whether there will be enough crew and pilots to man the huge vessels, has been ordered by one of the MoD's senior military commanders. The breakthrough in the long-awaited contract came yesterday when Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, gave approval for building the two super-carriers, the first of which, HMS Queen Elizabeth, is supposed to be ready for operations in 2014. (Source: The Times-UK)

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Spanish and French police arrested the reputed leader of the armed Basque separatist group ETA and five other people, hitting back amid a sustained campaign of bombings by the militant organization, officials said Wednesday. Francisco Javier Lopez Pena and three other alleged ETA members were detained in the southwestern French city of Bordeaux on Tuesday night. Two more people were arrested Wednesday, one in Spain and a French citizen in France who was linked to the Bordeaux apartment, he said. French police said handguns and materials that could be used for making bombs were found in the apartment. (Source: AP)

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Georgians voted Wednesday in parliamentary elections seen testing the ex-Soviet republic's democratic credentials as the pro-Western president accused neighbouring Russia of encouraging "turmoil." The election, which polls forecast will be won by President Mikheil Saakashvili's United National Movement, opened under sunny skies in the strategic ex-Soviet republic. (Source: AFP)

Middle East

Egypt's government is seeking emergency funding for security forces in anticipation of riots over rising food prices.

"Since December 2007, food prices have risen by 50 per cent, a matter that should prompt the increase of allocations," Deputy Interior Minister Maj. Gen. Jihad Yusuf said. Officials cited labor unrest and the bread shortage, which has resulted in several deaths over the past two months. In a briefing to parliament, Yusuf said the ministry was spending more money on advanced security equipment meant to quell riots. The official cited communications systems, plastic shields, tear gas and other non-lethal weapons. (Source: World Tribune)

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Israeli intelligence officials believe Hamas currently has, in Gaza, several hundred factory-made BM-21 rockets, each with a range of 20 kilometers. They also have 6-kilometer.-range B-12 rockets. The locally-made Kassam II has about the same range, but the B-12 is more reliable. In 2002, Hamas began firing Kassam I rockets at Jewish settlements in Gaza and into southern Israel. By 2003, there was the Kassam II, with a range of 8 kilometer. The Kassam III has a range of 10 kilometer. By June 2004, about 200 Kassams had been fired into southern Israel. By the end of 2005, over 400 Kassams had been fired at Israeli targets. In the next six months, another 600 rockets were fired. About a thousand Kassams were fired into Israel during 2006. This doubled, to two thousand in 2007, and during the first four months of 2008, another 2,000 were fired. For every 30-40 Kassams fired, an Israeli is killed or wounded. Hamas has hopes that someday soon they will attack in conjunction with Hizbullah firing rockets into northern Israel, and Iran firing rockets into Tel Aviv. (Source: Strategy Page)

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Israeli aircraft flying over Gaza on Tuesday fired at Palestinians launching rockets and planting explosives along the security fence. Israel frequently launches airstrikes and brief land raids in Gaza in an effort to stop rocket fire that has killed two Israelis in the past two weeks. (Source: Ha'aretz)

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Palestinian Authority (PA) forces recently deployed in Jenin are highly motivated to reduce the political and military capabilities of Hamas and of Islamic Jihad. "The enemy is whoever threatens the PA," Palestinian soldier Fa'id Yusuf explained. "And that mainly means Hamas. We are acting to enforce the law and against anyone who endangers us. We fought Israel in the past, I even stole cars from there, but now we've had enough. Now, give me peace with my cousins." Armed gunman have disappeared from the streets of Jenin and even of Kabatiya to the south, considered an Islamic Jihad stronghold. The green flags of Hamas have disappeared from the streets and Hamas welfare institutions have closed down. The commander of the Palestinian forces in the Jenin district, Major-General Suliman Umran, says that Palestinian and Israeli officers are working together in an unprecedented manner in some Area B villages. "The young people who watch them are learning it's possible to cooperate. The Palestinian forces are different now," Umran said. (Source: Ha'aretz)

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Israel is expected to air complaints on UNIFIL's performance in Lebanon with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner in Jerusalem this week, diplomatic officials said Tuesday. France has 2,000 troops in the UNIFIL mission. Despite the UNIFIL peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, thousands of rockets have been smuggled south of the Litani River, according to the officials. Hizbullah is no longer operating in the open areas, but rather inside the villages, and UNIFIL cannot go into the villages without first getting the approval of the Lebanese army, something that drastically reduces its effectiveness. The anti-Hizbullah Shi'ite mufti of Tyre, Ali al-Amin, told the Italian daily Corriere della Sera on Saturday: "Peace mission? You must be kidding. I will tell you what UNIFIL troops in southern Lebanon are. They are tourists, simple, faint-hearted and ignorant tourists....UNIFIL forces pretend not to see anything." (Source: Jerusalem Post)

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Israel and Syria have launched indirect peace negotiations, with Turkey acting as a go-between, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced on Wednesday. Peace talks between Syria and Israel broke down in 2000 over the fate of the strategic Golan Heights plateau occupied by Israel for four decades. (Source: AFP)

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Lebanon's feuding factions ended an 18-month political crisis Wednesday after reaching a breakthrough deal that gives the militant Hizbullah and their allies veto power on any government decision. The agreement is a major triumph for Hizbullah, handing the armed Shiite guerrilla group increased political power and further eroding the government's frail command of the religiously and politically divided country. The deal brokered after five days of talks in Qatar, were a dramatic cap to Lebanon's worst internal fighting since the Civil War (1975-90). At least 67 people were killed when clashes broke between pro-government groups and the opposition in the streets Beirut and elsewhere earlier this month. As Lebanon came close to a new all-out war, Arab League mediators intervened and got the sides to agree to hold last-ditch negotiations in the Qatari capital, Doha, to resolve the crisis. (Source: AP)

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Iran has stymied the latest U.N. attempt to investigate allegations that it tried to make nuclear weapons, diplomats said Tuesday.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. nuclear watchdog, will acknowledge it was unable to follow up on the allegations in a report to be presented as early as Friday to its 35-nation board. IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei expressed optimism a month ago when he announced that Iran agreed to review intelligence collected by the U.N. agency, just a few weeks after Tehran had declared the books closed on any attempt to look into its alleged nuclear arms programs. But the diplomats said Iran had again rejected the evidence presented by agency officials as bogus and refused to hold further discussions or allow U.N. experts to check into the charges. In February, IAEA Deputy Director General Olli Heinonen detailed the intelligence, and the results of the agency's own investigations, to the board at a closed door presentation. Those present at the meeting said the material included an Iranian video depicting mock-ups of a missile re-entry vehicle. They said Heinonen suggested the component was configured in a way that strongly suggested it was meant to carry a nuclear warhead. (Source: AP)

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Joe Varner is Assistant Professor and Program Manager for Homeland Security at American Military University