Geopolitics Weekly

There is the increase focus on training the Afghan army and policy, but then we are also hearing talks of sending more U.S. soldiers. This shows that we are not meeting the goal of training Afghans.

"My decision to support military action in respect of Iraq was the most difficult decision I have ever faced in my life," he wrote. "I was also fully aware that my support for military action was critical. If I had refused that, the UK's participation in the military action would not, in practice, have been possible. There almost certainly would have been no majority either in cabinet or in the Commons."He went on to say he had made a choice to support Blair, adding: "I have never backed away from it, and I do not intend to do so, and fully accept the responsibilities which flow from that. I believed at the time, and I still believe, that we made the best judgments we could have done in the circumstances."

During his oral evidence to the inquiry, Straw said the "psyche" of decision-makers had been influenced by past conflicts. "The lesson of Suez was to stay close to the Americans, and the lesson of the Falklands was to take note of the intelligence," he said

Straw said one of his aims before the invasion was to get the George Bush administration to "go down the UN route. A key part of our approach was to ... try to get to a point where the US objective was not regime change but the disarmament of Iraq," he added.

Israel-based UK citizens whose names were on passports an alleged hit squad used insist they had nothing to do with killing a Hamas commander in Dubai.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Army Radio: "There is no reason to think that it was the Israeli Mossad, and not some other intelligence service or country up to some mischief." Israel had a "policy of ambiguity" on intelligence matters, he added.

UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office said it believed the passports used were fraudulent and had begun an investigation.

Talks on how Iceland will repay more than 3.8bn euros (£3.3bn) of debt it owes to the UK and the Netherlands have broken down without agreement.

The collapse of the Iceland-based Icesave online bank in October 2008 hit savers in both countries. The UK and Dutch governments are seeking repayments from Iceland after they compensated savers themselves.

Iceland plans to hold a referendum on the Icesave repayment on 6 March, but the government is hopeful it can reach a different deal ahead of that. Opinion polls suggest that a majority of Icelandic voters would reject the repayment plan. The dispute has delayed International Monetary Fund help for Iceland, which Reykjavik needs to shore up its stricken economy.

the resolution that will likely be passed this week is better than nothing. There should be no illusion, however, that it will stop Iran's drive toward nuclear weapons. U.N. sanctions will need to be a lot tougher to have an impact on the Islamic Republic, if it is not already too late for them to have any impact at all.

"The inquiry found that on the one hand there were no wrongdoings and no negligences in any fundamental areas during a complicated and complex operation," Giora Eiland, a retired Israeli general who headed the military inquiry said on Monday."But on the other hand there were mistakes that were made in decisions, including some taken at relatively high levels, which meant that the result was not as had been initially anticipated," Eiland told reporters at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, where he released his report into the incident.

"An Israeli attack on Iran would be the start of a protracted conflict that would be unlikely to prevent the eventual acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran and might even encourage it,"

"Long-range strike aircraft acquired from the United States, combined with an improved fleet of tanker aircraft, the deployment of long-range drones and the probable availability of support facilities in northeast Iraq and Azerbaijan, all increase Israel's potential for action against Iran,"

Any Israeli strike would be focused not only on destroying nuclear and missile targets but would also hit factories and research centers and even university laboratories to damage Iranian expertise, the report said.This would cause many civilian casualties, it added.

with major technical and forensic input from various countries, the Saudis have emerged as one of the most effective counter-terrorism agencies in the world. Their critics say this has come at the expense of human rights and that suspects are often rounded up and incarcerated on the flimsiest of pretexts.

Long-standing rivalries, divided communities and plentiful weapons are convulsing Libya as the interim government struggles to impose its authority and secure peace among the country's ethnic groups.Violence in the Saharan south and in western Libya have shown how volatile the country remains six months after the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi, who had long played off one tribe or clan against the other to weaken their power.

Gaddafi was always quick to end any ethnic clashes in the desert region and in 2009 he put down a tribal rebellion with helicopter gunships. But Libya's new rulers are weak and often out-gunned by the militias they are trying to control.