Geopolitics Weekly

Barak continued. "I'm happy these as the results [of the investigation], and that once again our claim that the IDF is the most moral army in the world ? top commanders and low-ranking soldiers alike ? has proved truthful."

Police investigation into the testimonies revealed that they "were based on hearsay and not first-hand experience.

The probe was launched earlier this month after IDF soldiers were quoted as telling a military cadet academy that combat troops in Gaza fired at unarmed Palestinian civilians and vandalized property during Operation Cast Lead. The army has barred those soldiers from speaking to the press. The allegations first surfaced in the media on March 19.

The testimonies include a description by an infantry squad leader of an incident where an IDF sharpshooter mistakenly shot a Palestinian mother and her two children.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky opened his defence at the start of a new trial in Moscow for money-laundering by condemning the Russian government and legal system. He labelled the charges against him as “senseless”. The trial could see Mr Khodorkovsky, formerly the richest man in Russia, sentenced to another two decades in prison. On the first day, his defence team presented a list of 478 people they wanted to call to the witness stand during the trial, including Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and other top Russian officials.

The former head of the Yukos oil empire has been in jail since his arrest in 2003, and was sentenced in 2005 to eight years in prison after a trial that was widely believed to have been punishment for breaking an unofficial deal not to go into politics.

Then, he was found guilty of tax evasion and fraud. Now, he is back on trial, together with his former business partner Platon Lebedev, facing a new set of charges involving theft and money-laundering.

Israeli military investigators said on Monday that Israeli soldiers were passing on unsubstantiated rumours when they said Israeli troops shot unarmed Palestinian women and children in the Gaza offensive. Judge Advocate-General Avichai Mendelblit said a military police investigation "found crucial components of (the soldiers' descriptions of events) were based on hearsay and were not supported by specific personal knowledge".

One would be hard-pressed not to express astonishment at the speed and efficiency demonstrated by the Military Advocate General, Brigadier-General Avichai Mendelblit, and the Military Police investigation unit in probing the "combat soldiers' testimonials affair" that took place at the Rabin pre-military training academy.

the military advocate general needed just 11 days (including two Saturdays) to probe the accounts of combat soldiers in order to completely dispel the allegations.

The military advocate general picks apart the testimonials brick by brick. Not only does he present alternative versions to the two most damning claims - the alleged shooting of a Palestinian mother and her children as well as the killing of an elderly Palestinian woman - but he also expends great effort in concealing a series of other allegations of improper behavior, from spitting on home photographs of Palestinian families to uprooting orchards to the use of white phosphorus bombs. Apparently, soldiers informed military police investigators of two more incidents in which civilians were mistakenly shot to death. Mendelblit retroactively provides a rationale for the soldiers' predicament in these cases as well.

Mirek Topolanek, from the far east of the Czech Republic, likes to say that he's a "guy with balls" -- and he acts accordingly. He once shouted "I'll kill you" at a journalist and he's raised his middle finger at political opponents. He has referred to the EU's Lisbon Treaty as "a pile of crap."

But since becoming prime minister two years ago, the tough guy seemed to have gotten himself under control. He deftly hammered out a coalition and steered his Civic Democratic Party (ODS) -- middle class and traditionally critical of the EU -- on a Brussels-friendly course. And since January, Topolanek has even proved to be a passable statesman as his country holds the European Union's rotating presidency.

Then last week, he relapsed. Topolanek declared in front of the European Parliament that United States President Barack Obama's multi-billion-dollar stimulus package was "a road to hell" -- and this just as Prague is set to host Obama at the US-EU summit later this week.

The Israeli military has concluded that no war crimes were committed during its recent offensive in the Gaza Strip, dismissing as "hearsay" the testimonies of soldiers who allegedly admitted intentionally killing Palestinian civilians.Closing an investigation into wrongful shootings, the Israeli army declared soldiers' confessions relating to two incidents were "purposely exaggerated" and not supported by facts.

One case involved the killing of an elderly woman by a rooftop sniper, and another involved a sniper fatally shooting a mother and two children who had entered a no-go zone.

After talking to soldiers who made the claims, Israeli military investigators concluded that the two incidents never took place and that the young men who made the allegations had embellished the stories during a seminar at a military preparatory school.The military police found that "crucial components of their descriptions were based on hearsay and not supported by specific personal knowledge", the army said in a statement.

Obama on Friday announced his decision to send an additional 4,000 troops to Afghanistan to increase training for the Afghan army and police force. They will be joined by hundreds of civilian specialists, such as agricultural experts, educators and engineers. The increase comes on top of an earlier announcement to send 17,000 additional troops to battle a re-energized Taliban insurgency.

The U.S. strategy also emphasizes the need to combat extremism in western Pakistan. On Friday, Obama called for legislation authorizing "$1.5 billion in direct support to the Pakistani people every year over the next five years -- resources that will build schools, roads and hospitals and strengthen" the Pakistani government.

"It is absolutely essential that we look at Afghanistan in conjunction with Pakistan," Clinton said.

Four countries designated by the U.S. as terrorism sponsors, including Iran and Syria, received $55 million from a U.S.-supported program promoting the peaceful use of nuclear energy, according to a report by Congress's investigative arm.

ran received more than $15 million from 1997 to 2007 under the International Atomic Energy Agency's Technical Cooperation program, according to the Government Accountability Office report set to be released Tuesday. An additional $14 million went to Syria, while Sudan and Cuba received more than $11 million each, it said.

The Technical Cooperation program funds some projects with a direct connection to nuclear energy, but many other projects it funds have no such link. Recent examples include projects to improve livestock productivity and eradicate the tsetse fly in Africa.

it's plain to see that Obama's team has yet to become accustomed to dealing with Europe. And a worry voiced during the campaign has returned: that Obama -- who spent his childhood years in Indonesia and who has shown a lot of interest in Africa -- knows little about Europe.

Millions of Russian workers have been laid off or sacked recently amid the global economic downturn, and the government in Moscow is already facing angry protests by ordinary people.

in Pikalevo, something unusual for modern Russia is happening: the people are taking a stand against the government and its economic policies, blaming them as much as the factory-owners for their plight. The opening salvo was fired in mid-February, when thousands took to the streets holding black balloons as a sign of mourning for the jobs they have lost. Some carried placards accusing the government of being "impotent".

The local trade union, under the dynamic leadership of Svetlana Antropova, has been effective in channelling this public anger. In a particularly troubling sign for the government, she is also a member of the ruling United Russia party, led by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. "Most people don't have enough to eat. Some are starving," she said. "People here don't understand why the government is supporting the oligarchs and banks instead of supporting individual workers directly."

British forces are due to begin their official withdrawal from Iraq as the UK's commander in the south of the country hands over to a US general.

Most of Britain's 4,000 troops will leave by 31 May, the official end-of-combat date. About 400 will stay after that, either in HQ roles or to train the Iraq Navy.

The Americans are also reducing their numbers, with two brigades due to leave the province of Al-Anbar, once the heartland of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. However, the bulk of US troops are not due to leave until the end of 2011.

The chief of the Pakistani Taleban, Baitullah Mehsud, has told the BBC his group was behind Monday's deadly attack on a police academy in Lahore. He said the attack was "in retaliation for the continued drone strikes by the US in collaboration with Pakistan on our people".

Baitullah Mehsud said the attacks would continue "until the Pakistan government stops supporting the Americans".

Baitullah Mehsud is the supreme commander of the Tehrik-e-Taleban Pakistan group (Movement of Taleban in Pakistan). He operates out of a stronghold in the Pakistani tribal region of South Waziristan and the US state department recently issued a $5m (£3.5m) reward for his capture.

The US and Japan yesterday deployed anti-missile batteries on land and sea to shoot down possible debris from an intercontinental ballistic missile North Korea is expected to test in the next few days.

South Korea also planned to dispatch its Aegis-equipped destroyer, according to a Seoul military official who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing department policy.

The US defence secretary, Robert Gates, said America had no intention of shooting down the missile itself, which satellite photographs show is sitting on a launch-pad in Musudan-ri. Pyongyang says the launch is intended to put a satellite into orbit, but any such ballistic missile testing or development is banned by a 2006 United Nations resolution. Two US warships armed with Aegis anti-ballistic missiles left ports in South Korea yesterday to monitor the launch, which experts say could take place as soon as Saturday.

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has stormed out of the Arab League summit in Qatar having denounced the Saudi king for his ties with the West. He disrupted the opening session by criticising King Abdullah, calling him a British product and an American ally.

Col Gaddafi's grudge against King Abdullah goes back to an Arab meeting shortly before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, when they exchanged harsh words. "Now after six years, it has [been] proved that you were the liar," said the Libyan leader. He added that he now considered their "problem" over and was ready to reconcile.

Splits among the Arab League nations have become glaring, says the BBC's Katya Adler who is in Doha, over Arab nations' differing attitudes to internal Palestinian divisions between the Fatah movement of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and the Islamist militant group Hamas. Our correspondent says Western-backed Sunni nations fear the spread of Iranian influence - in Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq and among marginalised Shia communities in the Gulf States - and are suspicious of those they regard as Iran's Arab friends, such as Syria and Qatar.

In December 2007, the smattering of bearded, black-turbaned, AK-47-toting gangs in FATA and NWFP announced that they would now answer to a single name, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Pakistani Taliban Movement. For decades, Pakistani jihadists have used such fancy names to declare splinter groups (many of which go unnoticed), but some analysts latched onto the TTP as gospel and postulated that, overnight, the Talibs had become disciplined and united. In the process, such analysts have overlooked important distinctions and divisions within the pro-Taliban groups operating in Pakistan.

n 1996, Mullah Mohammed Omar and his band of “Taliban” -- defined in Urdu, Pashto, and Arabic as “students” or “seekers” -- conquered Afghanistan.

Pashtuns ignore the border separating Afghanistan and Pakistan, named the Durand Line after the Englishman who drew it in 1893; the Pashtun “nation” encompasses wherever Pashtuns may live. Fighting the Americans, therefore, was seen as self-defense, even for the residents of FATA.

the Federally Administered Tribal Areas are not part of the North-West Frontier Province. The two are separate entities in almost every sense of the word. While the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) is, well, a province with an elected assembly, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) are geographically separate areas governed through “political agents” who are appointed by the president and supported by the governor of NWFP (who is also a presidential appointee). Residents of NWFP technically live according to the laws drafted by the Parliament in Islamabad, while the only nontribal law applicable to residents of FATA is the Frontier Crimes Regulations, a colonial-era dictate sanctioning collective punishment for tribes and subtribes guilty of disrupting the peace. Within FATA, there are seven “agencies” and six “frontier regions.” The agencies are Bajaur, Mohmand, Khyber, Orakzai, Kurram, North Waziristan and South Waziristan; the somewhat more governed frontier regions (FRs) cling like barnacles to the eastern edge of FATA and include FR Peshawar, FR Kohat, FR Bannu, FR Lakki, FR Tank, and FR Dera Ismail Khan, each of them named after the “settled” districts they border.

All residents of FATA and the vast majority of those in NWFP are ethnically Pashtuns. Pashtuns also make up the majority in Baluchistan, the vast province bordering Iran and Afghanistan, which is named after the minority Baluch. Besides NWFP and Baluchistan, there are two other provinces in Pakistan; Punjab is populated mostly by ethnic Punjabis, and Sindh was historically dominated by Sindhis until millions of Muslims migrated from India at the time of Partition and settled in Sindhi cities such as Karachi and Hyderabad. Now, Sindh is composed of ethnic Sindhis and the descendents of these migrants, known as mohajirs.

Foreigners are prohibited from entering FATA without government permission. If you see a newspaper dateline from a town inside FATA, chances are that the Pakistani Army organized a field trip for reporters. Those traveling unaccompanied into, say, South Waziristan have either a death wish or a really good rapport with the Taliban, who effectively run North and South Waziristan and large portions of the other agencies and frontier regions.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's party has won local elections by a wide majority - but nevertheless suffered a significant fall in support. The Justice and Development Party (AKP) won about 39% of the vote, according to unconfirmed results - down from the 47% general election landslide of 2007.

In Sunday's elections, the governing AKP lost ground to both secularist and Kurdish rivals, who had focused on growing economic difficulties and corruption allegations.

Secularist parties made inroads into AKP support in both Istanbul, Turkey's largest city, and the capital, Ankara.

China has denied involvement in the electronic spy network which researchers say infiltrated computers in government offices around the world. The spokesman of the Chinese embassy in London said that there was no evidence to show Beijing was involved. He suggested the findings were part of a "propaganda campaign" by the Tibetan government in exile.

They said ministries of foreign affairs of Iran, Bangladesh, Latvia, Indonesia, Philippines, Brunei, Barbados and Bhutan appeared to have been targeted.

Polish anti-communist leader Lech Walesa has threatened to leave Poland after a second book accused him of being a communist spy as a young man.

The former president and Solidarity leader said he was tired of defending himself against claims he collaborated with the secret police in the 1970s.

Mr Walesa was cleared of earlier spying allegations by a special court in 2000. Judges concluded that former SB security service agents had forged documents in his file in a bid to prevent him receiving the Nobel Peace prize in 1983.