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Daily News
by Gail Helmer
Jane's News Briefs
Friday, June 15, 2001Jane's Defence Weekly
Bush administration seeks additional DoD funding for 2001The Bush administration earlier this month requested $5.6 billion in supplemental funding for the Department of Defense (DoD) for fiscal year 2001 (FY01), less than the $8-10 billion that some senior military officers had been calling for. The supplemental funding comes in addition to the $296 billion already allocated to the DoD in FY01.
Canada includes C-130J as transport option
The Canadian Air Force has expanded its list of options for a strategic air transport to include the Lockheed Martin C-130J medium tactical transport aircraft.
More Leopards for Chile
Chile has awarded RDM Technology of the Netherlands a contract for the supply of 11 specialised variants of the German-built Leopard 1 series main battle tank from Royal Netherlands Army stocks.
India and Russia agree protocol on defence co-operation
India and Russia have signed a protocol on defence co-operation that could, with the addition of existing procurement agreements, be worth $10 billion to Russia over the next 10 years.
Funding shortfall halts Russia's plan for professional forces
Russian Deputy Defence Minister Col Gen Igor Puzanov announced last week that shortfalls in funding for training were undermining the Russian armed forces, particularly in Chechnya, and that the replacement of conscription-based forces with a professional army would consequently be ruled out for the immediate future.
South Korean frigate joins Bangladesh Navy
The first South Korean-built frigate for the Bangladesh Navy is en route to Bangladesh following its formal transfer from Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering.
India's Agni II to counter 'asymmetry' with China
India has begun limited series production of its locally designed Agni II nuclear-armed intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), which it will introduce into service in 2001-02 as a key component of its nuclear deterrent, according to Defence and Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh.
Israel's air force declines upgrade offer
The Israel Air Force has informed a consortium of Israeli companies that it does not intend to upgrade its fleet of F-16 fighter aircraft for at least another two years.
Jane's Foreign Report
Heard in Washington
Grumbling about the Bush administration is growing. ALTHOUGH the recent defection of Vermont's Senator James Jeffords from the Republican party has captured the headlines and tipped the balance of power in the Senate to the Democrats, many Republican party loyalists are more concerned about the administration's fumbling of foreign policy. "It's 1981 all over again", complained one official who served in both the Reagan and Bush I administrations.
Cook and Blair
Robin Cook, Britain's foreign secretary since 1997, was surprised when, a few hours after Tony Blair won a second term as prime minister last week, he was fired. True, his first two years as Britain's chief diplomat had been accident-prone. Nevertheless, he remained a first-rate intellect, and he handled himself well during the Kosovo war. Furthermore, he is an enthusiast on Britain joining the European single currency, just when Tony Blair has to make a crucial decision on joining the Euro. So, why was he pushed? Here are the reasons, and they are as complicated as Blair's inner court usually likes them to be.
Kofi continues
ALONE among the permanent members of the Security Council, Britain has yet to endorse Kofi Annan's bid for re-election as secretary-general of the United Nations. Officials in New York offer these reasons for the delay: he already has the blessing of the European Union and Tony Blair wanted to be sure of his own second term as prime minister before coming out formally for another five years for Annan. Annan's victory is a certainty. Before he announced - having apparently overcome the personal reservations of his Swedish wife, Nane - some Asian members murmured that it was time for an Asian to lead the UN, but there was no serious follow-up attempt to find a viable candidate. (The only secretary-general from Asia, Burma's U Thant, was appointed after Dag Hammarskjoeld's death - and that was 40 years ago.)
A change in Colombia
THE Colombian army is on a roll. Flush with over a billion dollars of American military aid, it has made helicopter-borne operations the central strategy in its counterinsurgency and anti-drug war. However, this strategy could be stopped if the Marxist rebels used anti-aircraft missiles. Do they have a stock of these weapons? We believe that they do, although there is no confirmation. Our sources in Bogota, the capital, reckon that the rebels are deliberately not using them - yet.
Worse still
The Middle East is slowly sliding towards war. If there is a war, it will be another unmitigated disaster for the region. War should not be inevitable - the Middle East is full of talented people, Arabs, Jews and others capable of preventing it happening. Last week, FOREIGN REPORT revealed some of the contingency planning of Israel's expansionist prime minister, Ariel Sharon, to smash the Palestinian Intifada (uprising) against Israel. We now consider how the Arab side might react if Sharon puts his plans into practice.
Too independent in Syria
The Syrian government's determination to keep liberalisation in check has been underlined by the dismissal of Mahmoud Salameh, editor-in-chief of the state-owned daily Ath Thawra ('The Revolution'). Salameh is an old-school Arab nationalist and loyal to the Ba'athist regime. Under his editorship, Ath Thawra (in contrast to other Syrian publications) began carrying opinion and articles about Syria's 'civil society' movement. In consequence, sales increased. He has since been transferred to the cabinet office as head of research. The reason? He was 'too independent', said a seasoned observer of politics in Damascus.
Jane's Intelligence Digest
Middle East peace?
The announcement this week that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has agreed to a US proposal which aims to establish a ceasefire in the eight-month conflict with Israel has been received with understandable caution. As Jane's Intelligence Digest has warned for months, Arafat will not be able to deliver because he does not control the situation on the ground.
Jane's Terrorism and Security Monitor
ASIA
China's Uighurs find kindred spirits in Afghanistan
Panjshir, Afghanistan: The two young Uighur militants are far from home and seem out of place in a prison in the Panjshir Valley. Noor Mohammed Abdullah is the oldest of the two at 28. His formal education consisted of five years of school before he joined his father, a farmer, in his fields. Dissatisfied, he joined the Islamic Party of Xinjiang, who helped him get to Pakistan to further his religious education, where he ended up at the Jamaat Uloom Abu Hanifa madrassa in Rawalpindi, where he began memorising the Quran.
Wahhabism unites Central Asian and Caucasian militants The announcement from Afghanistan on 24 May by Juma Namangani and Tahir Yoldashev of the formation of the Hizb al-Islami Turkestan ( 'Islamic Movement of Turkestan') has rung alarm bells from Moscow to Washington, from Beijing to Tashkent. The new group's aim is the Islamisation of territory from Xinjiang to the Caucasus, building on the insurgency begun by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU).
THE AMERICAS
Bombs and drugs litter Colombia's road to peace
Colombian President Andrés Pastrana's crusade to broker a peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia - FARC), Colombia's largest guerrilla insurgency group, has brought few tangible results and much public cynicism. Indeed, it is difficult to record even one concession by the FARC since it was granted a Switzerland-size liberated zone (or despeje) almost three years ago. Instead, the Pastrana administration has had to endure the embarrassing accounts of how the FARC has used the demilitarised zone to recruit and train soldiers, cultivate coca and traffic cocaine, and extort local residents.
EUROPE
Wahhabism creates rifts in Chechnya's rebel government
One of the most vexing questions posed by observers of the Chechen wars concerns the role of radical Islamist elements in the conflicts. Indeed, the influence of such groups has grown to the point where the fundamentalist Wahhabi Islamic sect is currently the main destabilising force in the Caucusus and the largest threat to Russian troops there.
Turkey's PKK: Defeated or hibernating?
Less than a decade ago, the Kurdish Workers' Party, better known as the PKK, constituted a formidable challenge to the Turkish state. It was able to mount a powerful insurgency in the mainly Kurdish southeast of the country, carrying out terrorist attacks that caused severe damage to Turkey's crucial tourist industry and forcing Turkey to deploy hundreds of thousands of soldiers to the mountainous region.
The PKK never threatened the collapse of the Turkish state, but it certainly defied its sovereignty. For extended periods in the early 1990s, the PKK was able to deny Ankara control over significant tracts of territory - at least after dark. As such, it posed a threat to Turkey's continued existence in its present borders, and became internationally the public face of the Kurdish struggle for autonomy.
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