Geopolitics Weekly

The Caesium-137 may be buried in a scrap yard under tonnes of metal, and local officials believe it could have been melted down. The lead ball was lost when workers at a cement plant tore down an old factory in the north-western Shaanxi Province.

Eight trucks worth of scrap were sold to local steel mills. Tongchuan city officials believe the radioactive material - and its protective container - are likely to have been melted down.

After agreeing to bury their differences and unite forces, Taliban leaders based in Pakistan have closed ranks with their Afghan comrades to ready a new offensive in Afghanistan as the United States prepares to send 17,000 more troops there this year.

A number of new, younger commanders have been preparing to step up a campaign of roadside bombings and suicide attacks to greet the Americans, the fighters said.

The refortified alliance was forged after the reclusive Afghan Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, sent emissaries to persuade Pakistani Taliban leaders to join forces and turn their attention to Afghanistan, Pakistani officials and Taliban members said.The overture by Mullah Omar is an indication that with the prospect of an American buildup, the Taliban feel the need to strengthen their own forces in Afghanistan and to redirect their Pakistani allies toward blunting the new American push.

Israeli warplanes bombed a convoy of trucks in Sudan in January that was believed to be carrying arms to be smuggled into Gaza, according to American officials.

Israeli officials refused to confirm or deny the attack, but intelligence analysts noted that the strike was consistent with other measures Israel had taken to secure its borders.

Two American officials who are privy to classified intelligence assessments said that Iran had been involved in the effort to smuggle weapons to Gaza. They also noted that there had been intelligence reports that an operative with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps had gone to Sudan to coordinate the effort. But one former official said that the exact provenance of the arms that were being smuggled via Sudan was unclear.

The European Union’s crisis of leadership during the economic downturn was thrown into sharp relief on Wednesday, as the current president of the 27-nation bloc labeled President Obama’s emergency stimulus package “a way to hell” that will “undermine the stability of the global financial market.”

What made the situation even more trying for those who hope that the European Union might find a common voice in this crisis was that Mr. Topolanek’s own governing coalition collapsed on Tuesday. The Czech opposition party, which favors bigger increases in domestic spending during the slump, won a no-confidence vote on his leadership.

Despite widespread fears that European nations could prolong the current recession unless they act in concert with one another and the United States, the slump has highlighted differences over deficit spending, interest rates and possible bailouts for new union members in the East. There are few signs that the alliance is developing the political leadership to match its economic weight.Britain, like the United States, has undertaken an aggressive fiscal stimulus and slashed interest rates. But Germany and France have opposed calls for further large stimulus packages and even greater deficit spending, while the European Central Bank has kept interest rates higher than they are in the United States and Britain. Germany and even some Central European countries opposed calls by Hungary for the creation of a single rescue fund for heavily indebted countries in Eastern Europe.

North Korea has placed what is thought to be a long-range missile on a launch pad, Japanese and US officials say. North Korea had already said it would send a satellite into orbit in early April, using a long-range missile. The US, Japan and South Korea are concerned Pyongyang will test its Taepodong-2 long-range missile instead of launching a satellite.

Japanese PM Taro Aso said plans were being made to shoot down any rocket that threatened to hit the country. North Korea has said it plans to carry out the controversial launch between 4 and 8 April. The Taepodong-2 missile is capable of reaching Alaska from the Musudan-ri base in Hwadae on North Korea's north-east coast. It first tested the missile in July 2006, but it failed less than a minute after launch.

A satellite launch and a long-rang missile test would both use the Taepodong 2, analysts say. Pyongyang has already said the rocket taking its satellite into orbit will cross over Japan, dropping booster stages to its east and west.

Speaking before the European Parliament on Wednesday, Mirek Topolanek described the stimulus measures and financial bailouts passed by US President Barack Obama as the "way to hell." He warned that the massive costs of the stimulus plans and financial bailouts would "undermine the stability of the global financial market" and that Obama was merely repeating the errors of the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The comments also threatened to unravel the tenuous unity reached by EU member states for a joint response to the economic crisis. Last week, EU leaders reached a carefully constructed political truce designed to bury their differences and agree on a common policy ahead of the London meeting. At last Friday's summit, they pledged an additional €75 billion to finance loans by the International Monetary Fund and to double a credit line for struggling economies of Eastern European member states.

Topolanek may have felt unburdened by diplomatic niceties after his government lost a no-confidence vote in the Czech parliament on Tuesday. The Czech prime minister submitted his resignation the same day, but will continue on as a caretaker of the EU's rotating presidency through June.

God will not intervene to prevent humanity from wreaking disastrous damage to the environment, the Archbishop of Canterbury has warned.

"I think that to suggest that God might intervene to protect us from the corporate folly of our practices is as unchristian and unbiblical as to suggest that he protects us from the results of our individual folly or sin," he said.

Without a change of heart, Dr Williams warned, the world faced a number of "doomsday scenarios" including the "ultimate tragedy" of humanity gradually "choked, drowned, or starved by its own stupidity."

Beijing has reacted angrily to a Pentagon report on China's military power, which claimed it was altering the military balance in Asia. A foreign ministry spokesman called it a "gross distortion of the facts", urged an end to "Cold War thinking". In its annual report to Congress, the Pentagon said China was developing "disruptive" technologies for nuclear, space and cyber warfare. It could be used to enforce claims over disputed territories, the report said.

The Pentagon reported that China was successfully managing to expand its arsenal of sophisticated weaponry, even though Beijing's ability to sustain military power at a distance remains limited. Chinese "armed forces continue to develop and field disruptive military technologies", including "nuclear, space, and cyber warfare".

The Pentagon analysis said China was developing weapons that would disable its enemies' space technology such as satellites, boosting its electromagnetic warfare and cyber-warfare capabilities and continuing to modernise its nuclear arsenal. It also noted a build-up of short-range missiles opposite Taiwan, despite a significant reduction in tension between the two in recent months.

When President Barack Obama comes to London next week, he will find one great power missing at the world's summit table: Europe. Five of the 20 leaders at the G20 meeting will be Europeans, representing France, Germany, Britain, Italy and the EU, but the whole will be less than the sum of its parts. There will be plenty of Europeans but no Europe.

Obama's European trip, which continues to the Nato summit and then an EU-US meeting in Prague, will also be about foreign and security policy. Here, Europe is even less of a single player. To be fair, Europeans have got their act together on diplomacy with Iran, though it remains to be seen whether that European unity would survive an American request for more economic sanctions on Tehran. On most of the other big issues on Obama's agenda - Afghanistan, Pakistan, relations with Russia and China, nuclear proliferation - there is no Europe. There are individual European countries.

Unlike George W Bush at the beginning of his first term, President Obama is both ideologically and pragmatically predisposed to work with a stronger, more united Europe. But even he can't work with something that doesn't exist.

Israel's military fired white phosphorus over crowded areas of Gaza repeatedly and indiscriminately in its three-week war, killing and injuring civilians and committing war crimes, Human Rights Watch said today.In a 71-page report, the rights group said the repeated use of air-burst white phosphorus artillery shells in populated areas of Gaza was not incidental or accidental, but revealed "a pattern or policy of conduct".

"In Gaza, the Israeli military didn't just use white phosphorus in open areas as a screen for its troops," said Fred Abrahams, a senior Human Rights Watch researcher. "It fired white phosphorus repeatedly over densely populated areas, even when its troops weren't in the area and safe smoke shells were available. As a result, civilians needlessly suffered and died."

Human Rights Watch found 24 spent white phosphorus shells in Gaza, all from the same batch made in a US ammunition factory in 1989 by Thiokol Aerospace. Other shells were photographed during the war with markings showing they were made in the Pine Bluff Arsenal, also in America, in 1991.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday issued an order against demolishing Israeli homes built on Palestinian land in the West Bank settlement of Ofra, saying that the matter must be investigated before such action is taken.

Barak's order was made in response to a petition submitted last June by five residents of the nearby Palestinian village of Ein Yabrud and the Israeli rights group Yesh Din and B'Tselem, demanding that the High Court of Justice instruct the state to evacuate the settlement.

The petition referred to nine settlement structures built in an area apparently been constructed on private Palestinian land. The houses were built without permits and in violation of the settlement's master plan. Work continued despite injunctions to halt it that were issued almost two years ago, and demolition orders that were issued subsequently were also ignored. Advertisement In a response submitted to the court on Sunday, Barak said he recently decided to refrain from demolishing the houses "at this time," for three reasons. First, the issues raised by these houses are also relevant to other houses in Ofra aside from the nine in question. Second, people have been living in these houses for many months. Third, the houses are located deep inside the settlement, not on its outskirts. Therefore, a comprehensive policy relating to the entire settlement is needed, and it would be wrong to set a special policy that applies to these houses only, said Barak.

Israel's next Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said his government will be a "partner for peace" with the Palestinians.

The Likud leader pledged to work for peace, security and "rapid development of the Palestinian economy".

"I think that the Palestinians should understand that they have in our government a partner for peace, for security and for rapid economic development of the Palestinian economy," he said. "Peace: It's not the last goal. It's a common and enduring goal for all Israelis and all Israeli governments - mine included," he added. But there was no word about a possible two-state solution, which Palestinian negotiators have been urging him to adopt.

Israel's Labour leader Ehud Barak has reached a provisional deal with PM-designate Benjamin Netanyahu on forming a coalition, Israeli army radio says. The centre-left Labour party is divided over whether to join a government with Mr Netanyahu's Likud and will vote on the agreement shortly. The right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu and Orthodox Jewish Shas parties have already agreed to join a coalition.

Mr Barak is defence minister in the current government and would retain the post in the next government, Israeli army radio reported. Under the draft agreement, Labour would also get five cabinet posts and the government would commit to continuing negotiations with the Palestinians and to respecting previous deals made with them.

A Likud member of the Knesset, Yuli-Yoel Edelstein, said there was general agreement between Likud and Labour on the main international challenges facing the incoming government. "In terms of other issues like the peace process with the Palestinians, and probably other day-to-day issues, there will be an argument, but this is not what's going to bring the government down," he told the BBC. "Because in practical terms, I don't think that either side really believes that it's possible to reach an agreement with the present Palestinian leadership in the near future."

The Czech Republic's centre-right minority government has lost a vote of no-confidence midway through the country's six-month EU presidency. Four rebel MPs voted with the opposition Social Democrats and Communists against PM Mirek Topolanek.

Social Democrat leader Jiri Paroubek said ahead of the vote that the government could "complete the Czech EU presidency or its substantial part". However, Mr Topolanek has ruled out the idea of a caretaker government until June, when the EU presidency passes to Sweden. According to the constitution, Czech President Vaclav Klaus must decide who to choose to form a new administration. If three attempts to do so fail, early elections will be called.

The BBC's Rob Cameron in Prague says this surprise result, which threw observers completely off guard, could have far-reaching consequences beyond the country's borders. In addition to chairing the European Council, the Czech Republic is also in the middle of ratifying the Lisbon Treaty and is in talks with the United States on placing a radar base on Czech soil. All these important foreign policy initiatives are now thrown into doubt, our correspondent adds.

The US government is to increase security at the country's border with Mexico in an attempt to combat drug cartels, the White House has announced. Immigration, customs and anti-drug agents and gun law enforcement officers will be reinforced as part of a $700m (£475m) undertaking.

Some 8,000 have died in Mexico in the past two years in drug gang turf wars. The south-west US has also seen rising violence and kidnappings.

The money will come out of funds already allocated by the US Congress to assist Mexico in its fight against the drug cartels.