Geopolitics Weekly

The Lebanese chief investigator and true hero of the story didn't live to witness many of the recent successes in the investigation. Captain Eid, 31, was killed in a terrorist attack in the Beirut suburb of Hasmiyah on Jan. 25, 2008. The attack, in which three other people were also killed, was apparently intended to slow down the investigation. And, once again, there was evidence of involvement by the Hezbollah commando unit, just as there has been in each of more than a dozen attacks against prominent Lebanese in the last four years.

Hariri's growing popularity could have been a thorn in the side of Lebanese Shiite leader Nasrallah. In 2005, the billionaire began to outstrip the revolutionary leader in terms of popularity. Besides, he stood for everything the fanatical and spartan Hezbollah leader hated: close ties to the West and a prominent position among moderate Arab heads of state, an opulent lifestyle, and membership in the competing Sunni faith. Hariri was, in a sense, the alternative to Nasrallah.

The revelations about the alleged orchestrators of the Hariri murder will likely harm Hezbollah. Large segments of the population are weary of internal conflicts and are anxious for reconciliation. The leader of the movement, which, despite its formal recognition of the democratic rules of the game, remains on the US's list of terrorist organizations, probably anticipates forthcoming problems with the UN tribunal. In a speech in Beirut, Nasrallah spoke of the tribunal's "conspiratorial intentions."

The UN tribunal's order to release the generals who were arrested at his specific request is, at any rate, a serious blow to the German prosecutor. One of the four, Jamal al-Sayyid, the former Lebanese general security director, has even filed a suit against Mehlis in France for "manipulated investigations." In media interviews, such as an interview with the Al-Jazeera Arab television network last week, Sayyid has even taken his allegations a step further, accusing German police commissioner Gerhard Lehmann, Mehlis's assistant in the Beirut investigations, of blackmail.

Sayyid claims that Lehmann, a member of Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) proposed a deal with the Syrian president to the Lebanese man. Under the alleged arrangement, Assad would identify the person responsible for the Hariri killing and convince him to commit suicide, and then the case would be closed. According to Sayyid, the authorities in Beirut made "unethical proposals, as well as threats," and he claims that he has recordings of the incriminating conversations.

the spotlight-loving Jamil al-Sayyid could soon be embarking on a new career. He is under consideration for the post of Lebanon's next justice minister.

At the time of the attack, it was known that Hariri, a billionaire construction magnate who was responsible for the reconstruction of the Lebanese capital after decades of civil war, wanted to reenter politics. It was also known that he had had a falling out with Syrian President Bashar Assad after demanding the withdrawal of Syrian occupation forces from his native Lebanon. As a result, the prime suspects in the murder were the powerful Syrian military and intelligence agency, as well as their Lebanese henchmen. The pressure on Damascus came at an opportune time for the US government. Then-President George W. Bush had placed Syria on his list of rogue states and wanted to isolate the regime internationally.

The establishment of a UN special tribunal was intended to provide certainty. It began its work on March 1, 2009. The tribunal, headquartered in the town of Leidschendam in the Netherlands, has a budget of more than €40 million ($56 million) for the first year alone, with the UN paying 51 percent and Beirut 49 percent of the cost. It has an initial mandate for three years, and the most severe sentence it can impose is life in prison. Canadian Daniel Bellemare, 57, was appointed to head the tribunal. Four of the 11 judges are Lebanese, whose identities have been kept secret, for security reasons.

As its first official act, the tribunal ordered the release, in early April, of the four men Mehlis had had arrested. By then, they had already spent more than three years sitting in a Lebanese prison.

Intensive investigations in Lebanon are all pointing to a new conclusion: that it was not the Syrians, but instead special forces of the Lebanese Shiite organization Hezbollah ("Party of God") that planned and executed the diabolical attack. Tribunal chief prosecutor Bellemare and his judges apparently want to hold back this information, of which they been aware for about a month.

a secretly operating special unit of the Lebanese security forces, headed by intelligence expert Captain Wissam Eid, filtered out the numbers of mobile phones that could be pinpointed to the area surrounding Hariri on the days leading up to the attack and on the date of the murder itself. The investigators referred to these mobile phones as the "first circle of hell."

They were apparently tools of the hit team that carried out the terrorist attack.

there was also a "second circle of hell," a network of about 20 mobile phones that were identified as being in proximity to the first eight phones noticeably often. According to the Lebanese security forces, all of the numbers involved apparently belong to the "operational arm" of Hezbollah, which maintains a militia in Lebanon that is more powerful than the regular Lebanese army.

The romantic attachment of one of the terrorists led the cyber-detectives directly to one of the main suspects. He committed the unbelievable indiscretion of calling his girlfriend from one of the "hot" phones. It only happened once, but it was enough to identify the man. He is believed to be Abd al-Majid Ghamlush, from the town of Rumin, a Hezbollah member who had completed training course in Iran. Ghamlush was also identified as the buyer of the mobile phones. He has since disappeared, and perhaps is no longer alive.

Nearly 1.5 million people have been displaced by this month's fighting in the north-western region, and about two million since last August, the United Nations refugee agency says.

In Swat, the army says that about 15,000 members of the security forces are fighting between 4,000 and 5,000 militants. It says more than 1,000 militants and more than 50 soldiers have been killed since the offensive began.

The Americans' closest ally, Britain, is already allowing its diplomats to hold official contacts with Hezbollah's "political wing", although the movement is still shunned by Washington as a "terrorist" group.

Mousavi draws support primarily from Iran's disgruntled urban class, though traditionally it has a low turnout rate in elections. Karroubi is well known in some rural areas and also appeals to students and urban professionals who want more personal freedoms, including less interference in how Iranians dress, associate in public and court members of the opposite sex.

Both Mousavi's and Karroubi's election platforms, however, are vague compared with Ahmadinejad's strong rhetoric and financial handouts. They call for more personal freedoms, vow to reinstall key officials ousted by Ahmadinejad's government and want to end intrusive patrols by the morality police. Their main selling point, though, is that they are not Ahmadinejad.

All the candidates, including Ahmadinejad, have pledged to continue Iran's efforts to enrich uranium, despite U.N. sanctions. All of them share hostility toward Israel. But the challengers say Iran should reach out to other nations and soften the tone of its foreign policy, which is largely set by the country's supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. During a visit to Iran's Kurdish region this month, Khamenei urged voters not to support "pro-Western" candidates.

Those accused of being spies are said to have used sophisticated surveillance equipment and satellite phones, sometimes ingeniously disguised in crutches or knapsacks. One of them, a car dealer in southern Lebanon, placed Israeli tracking devices in cars he sold to Hezbollah members, security officials say. Most seem to have been motivated by the promise of money. Some were caught by Hezbollah before being handed over to the Lebanese authorities.

The arrests have even become an issue in Lebanon’s coming parliamentary elections, with some analysts saying that, intentionally or not, they might benefit the political alliance led by Hezbollah, Israel’s primary nemesis here. Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, delivered an angry speech on Friday in which he called for all the captured spies to be executed and urged the Lebanese to help in capturing any remaining agents.

One of the important ones, the general said, was Ziyad Homsi. Mr. Homsi, 61, was the deputy mayor of Saadnayel, a town in the Bekaa Valley. According to a report in the Lebanese newspaper Al Safir, which has links to Hezbollah, Mr. Homsi had told interrogators he was assigned to meet Mr. Nasrallah, which he apparently failed to do. Israeli monitors planned to track his movements as he went to meet the Hezbollah leader.

This week, though, Kaczynski has found his old form again -- with the unexpected help of SPIEGEL. "The Germans are attempting to shake off the guilt for a giant crime," he said, commenting on the latest SPIEGEL cover story, " The Dark Continent: Hitler's European Holocaust Helpers."

In an apparent reflection of Chinese anxiety over its reputation in Africa, both embassies and companies have been urged by Beijing to forge closer links to local communities.China has also entered into a partnership with Britain's department for international development, (Dfid)intended to monitor and control the social and environmental impact of Chinese investment.

Obama today said that indefinite detention at Guantánamo Bay and the prison's harsh interrogation methods had undermined the rule of law, alienated America from the rest of the world, served as a rallying cry and recruiting symbol for terrorists, risked the lives of American troops by making it less likely enemy combatants would surrender, and increased the likelihood American prisoners of war would be mistreated. The camp's existence discouraged US allies from cooperating in the fight against international terrorism, he said."There is also no question that Guantánamo set back the moral authority that is America's strongest currency in the world," he said. "Instead of building a durable framework for the struggle against al-Qaida that drew upon our deeply held values and traditions, our government was defending positions that undermined the rule of law."

Obama said his administration would try in US courts those who had violated US criminal laws; try in military commissions those who violated the laws of war; free those ordered released by US courts; and transfer at least 50 people to foreign countries for detention and rehabilitation.

He noted that an estimated 14% of suspects freed from Guantánamo returned to the battlefield, but blamed that on the Bush administration's slipshod process of selecting which to let loose.

Meanwhile only three people had been tried by the Bush military commissions in seven years, but Bush had released 525 detainees from the prison.

He acknowledged that a number of Guantánamo prisoners could not be prosecuted yet posed a clear threat to the US: those who had trained at al-Qaida camps, commanded Taliban troops, pledged loyalty to Osama bin Laden and sworn to kill Americans."These are people who, in effect, remain at war with the United States," he said.

Obama defended his decision to release justice department memos detailing the Bush administration's legal rationale for waterboarding, sleep deprivation and other harsh interrogation techniques. He said those techniques had already been publicised and he had already banned them."In short, I released these memos because there was no overriding reason to protect them," he said. "And the ensuing debate has helped the American people better understand how these interrogation methods came to be authorised and used."He defended his decision not to release photographs of US-held prisoners similar to those taken at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. He said he feared they would inflame world opinion against the US and endanger US troops.

Today Medvedev joked with a group of students that the remote summit venue, 3,800 miles from Moscow or 5,300 miles via the epic Trans-Siberian Express, had been chosen to remind the Europeans of Russia's vast size. Several EU delegates moaned when Russia held last year's summit with the EU in western Siberia, Medvedev said."They complained: 'Oh, it's a long way.' We said: 'If you don't like it you can fly somewhere else.' They thought for a bit and said: 'OK, we're ready,'" Medvedev said. He added: "They [the Europeans] should understand how big Russia is and should feel its greatness. On the other hand, we also want a partnership with the EU. It's important for us to get together."

"Russia and EU relations are in stalemate. There is a serious lack of mutual understanding, a lack of willingness to understand each other, and a lack of strategic common values," Fyodor Lukyanov, editor-in-chief of Russia in Global Affairs, told the Guardian.He went on: "Relations with Obama and the US are now better. At the same time relations with the EU are getting worse. Since the 1990s Russian-EU relations have been governed by the assumption that Russia would go the European way without applying for membership. This model is now exhausted. They need a new model."

According to Lukyanov, the Kremlin was furious after the EU pressured Belarus this month not to recognise South Ossetia and Abkhazia. "The message was: choose Russia or not Russia. It was absolutely unnecessary from the European side. Alexander Lukashenko [Belarus's president] wasn't going to recognise them anyway for his own reasons," Lukyanov said.

On the divisive issue of energy supplies, President Medvedev raised questions about whether Ukraine can afford billions of dollars to top up its gas stocks. "We have doubts about Ukraine's ability to pay," he said. He also proposed that Moscow and the EU should help Ukraine get a loan for gas payments.

"I would simply not want this partnership to consolidate certain individual states, which are of an anti-Russian bent, with other European states," he said.