The Lost Decade... SPIEGEL ,Dec. 28. 

What the World Can Learn from 10 Years of Excesses. The first decade of the 21st century was marked by crises. Militant Islamists attacked New York, the financial system crashed, the climate is threatened by catastrophe and democracy lost some of its standing. All this put together has spelled a debacle for the West, although the Internet represents a ray of hope.

YEMEN

Britain, U.S. to jointly fight Yemeni-based terrorists... Ria Novosti, Jan 3.
U.S., Yemen study targets for possible retaliation strike.
Obama pledges aggressive response to terror attacks. U.S. Congress to hold hearings on A-330 attempted terror act

U.S. plane terror suspect was on intelligence 'watch-list' — senator.

Britain and the U.S. have agreed to join forces in a fight against Islamist groups in Yemen, BBC said.

The TV channel quoted Downing Street officials as saying the two countries would jointly fund a counter-terrorism police unit in the Asian state. The decision was taken following an alleged Christmas Day bomb airline attack over Detroit.

Yemen’s Chaos Aids the Evolution of a Qaeda Cell... New York Hearld Tribune. January 3. By STEVEN ERLANGER.
SANA, Yemen — Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has rapidly evolved into an expanding and ambitious regional terrorist network thanks in part to a weakened, impoverished and distracted Yemeni government.
While Yemen has chased two homegrown rebellions, over the last year the Qaeda cell here has begun sharing resources across borders and has been spurred on to more ambitious attacks by a leadership strengthened by released Qaeda detainees and returning fighters from Iraq.

The priorities of the Yemeni government have been fighting a war in the north and combating secessionists across the south. In the interim, Al Qaeda has flourished in the large, lawless and rugged tribal territories of Yemen, creating training camps, attacking Western targets and receiving increasing popular sympathy, Yemeni and American officials say.

Al Qaeda’s growing profile in Yemen became clear after a Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, was able to overstay his visa here by several months, connect with Qaeda militants and leave this country with a bomb sewn into his underwear.

In his weekly address on Saturday, President Obama for the first time directly blamed Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula for the bombing attempt and said that fighting the group would be a high priority. “In recent years, they have bombed Yemeni government facilities and Western hotels,” he said, adding, “So as president, I’ve made it a priority to strengthen our partnership with the Yemeni government.”

The core of the group here is still thought to be small, perhaps no more than 200 people. But the group has the important advantage of being part of a larger, regional structure, having merged a year ago with the Saudi branch of Al Qaeda to form Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. And it has been able to originate fairly sophisticated operations here, in Saudi Arabia and now on an airliner headed for Detroit.

Though Yemen played an early role in Al Qaeda’s history — it is Osama bin Laden’s ancestral homeland, and it was the staging ground for the 2000 attack on the American destroyer Cole — the key chapters in the story of Al Qaeda’s rise here have been written recently by leaders who were released from detention at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, escaped from Yemeni prisons or were drawn to shelter here by common cause and ideology.

Those men have transformed and reoriented a weak local Qaeda cell that had made a kind of peace with the government after 2003. In the year since the Saudi and Yemeni branches merged, Al Qaeda has taken full advantage of the government’s preoccupation with the rebellions, building support from the tribal structures and traditions in Yemen’s poor and lawless territories.

One big moment came in February 2006, when 23 imprisoned men suspected of being members of Al Qaeda escaped from a high-security prison, reportedly with the aid of some Yemeni security forces. All but three or four of the men were eventually recaptured or killed by Yemeni security forces.

But one prisoner, Nasser al-Wuhayshi, became leader of the Qaeda cell in Yemen and moved to reorganize it, focusing it on attacks against nearby Western targets. Another prisoner, Qassim al-Raimi, became the military commander.

The next year, Mr. Wuhayshi found a deputy and, perhaps, a rival for leadership, Said Ali al-Shihri, 36, a Saudi citizen….

Another Guantánamo detainee, also captured in Pakistan in 2001 and released to a Saudi rehabilitation program, is Ibrahim Suleiman al-Rubaysh, 30, a Saudi who also disappeared and is now described as the mufti, or theological guide, to Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula.

Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born, English-speaking Internet imam of Al Qaeda here, returned to Yemen, his family’s home, in 2004. He was arrested in 2006 on security charges and was released in December 2007 after 18 months in prison. He then went to Britain and is believed to have returned to Yemen last spring...

There has also been an influx to Yemen of at least 200,000 refugees from Somalia, according to official figures, and probably many more than that. Al Qaeda has also been very active in Somalia, seeking refuge and recruits among the Islamist groups there. And now that Yemen has proved to be a safe training ground for Al Qaeda, a link between the Yemeni and Somali contingents has strengthened….

But Al Qaeda here also has problems, including a possible leadership struggle. ……
In that regard, American officials are finding an uncomfortable resemblance to their fight in Pakistan, where Al Qaeda’s leadership is believed to have sanctuary in rugged tribal areas while the government is preoccupied with its archrival India and the disputed territory of Kashmir. And as in Pakistan, the American military and intelligence involvement in Yemen must be cautious and seen as advisory, without putting troops on the ground.

In addition to sending money, the United States has sent Special Forces troops to help train and equip Yemeni forces and has provided sophisticated satellite and communications intelligence.
Yemen is also the Arab world’s poorest country, with a major water shortage and 70 percent of the gross domestic product coming from oil that is expected to run out in seven years, and it is also deeply corrupt….

Still, Al Qaeda is also becoming more of a threat to Yemen. In November, Al Qaeda attacked government forces in the Kushum Al Ain area of Hadramawt Province. Three officials were killed. Later that month, near Marib, Al Qaeda executed a senior intelligence officer after holding him for months and then trying him, as if it were the real government of the area.

Al Qaeda has also declared support for the secessionist protests in the south and is thought to be strong in southern Abyan Province, which gives it access to the sea…

“There is, as in Pakistan, some intertwining of politics, society and the security forces with Al Qaeda,” he said. Al Qaeda has been skillful in making alliances of its own with important tribes in provinces like Hadramawt, Shabwah, Marib, where much of the oil is, and Abyan….
Charlie Savage contributed reporting from Washington.

U.S., U.K. shut Yemen embassies... Washington Post, Jan 3.
Officials cite "active" threats from al-Qaeda in wake of failed attack on U.S. airliner on Dec. 25.

WORLD

- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev pledged support to Pakistan, which has seen a series of deadly suicide bombings in recent months, in its efforts to fight terrorism.
- The death toll the suicide bombing during a volleyball game in northwestern Pakistan has risen to 95 people, the local GEO TV channel said.
- Ukraine's Foreign Ministry confirmed that a British-flagged ship seized by pirates in the Indian Ocean has 10 Ukrainians among its 25 crewmembers.
- Somali pirates captured a Singaporean-owned chemical tanker with 24 crew members in the Gulf of Aden on the first day of 2010.

PAKISTAN

Pakistan Sports-Field Blast... Wall Street  Journal, Jan.2

A suicide bomber drove an explosive-laden truck into a crowd of people gathered to watch a volleyball game in a village in northwest Pakistan, killing at least 75 in an attack seen as a retaliation against locals who had formed a progovernment militia.

The attack -- in an area near South Waziristan, a center of Taliban and al Qaeda activities where Pakistan's government began a military offensive last fall -- marked a bloody start to 2010 for the country. Pakistan has seen a surge in attacks by Taliban militants in recent months as Islamist fighters avenge military operations in their strongholds along the border with Afghanistan.

It may be a new year but it seems it's business as usual for militants in Pakistan. The target this time - a volley ball game near the northwest town of Lakki Marwat . A large crowd including children and elderly people were watching the match when a suicide bomber drove his vehicle onto the pitch and detonated it.

Friday's blast, among the deadliest in the area since October, underscores the hurdles Pakistan and the U.S. face in efforts against the Taliban and al Qaeda.

In many parts of northwestern Pakistan, the government has helped arm and fund local militias to counter the Taliban, as part of the effort that has sent more than 30,000 troops into South Waziristan along the border with Afghanistan. But the strategy has met with limited success, largely because the military has been unable to provide adequate protection against Taliban reprisals....

More than 500 people have been killed in militant violence in Pakistan in the past three months, including an explosion near Peshawar that left more than 124 dead. This week, more than 45 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack on a Shiite Muslim religious gathering in the city of Karachi.

IRAN  CRISIS

Growing desperation...  The Economist, Dec. 29.
Increasingly fierce repression in Iran suggests that the regime has begun to fear for its future.

WHAT more can Iran’s ruthless rulers do to squash their opponents? Since nationwide protests broke out last June over the disputed results of presidential elections, the official winner, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has pulled few punches. His security apparatus has beaten and arrested thousands, tried scores of dissidents in kangaroo courts, hounded others into exile, throttled the press and jammed the airwaves. But the massive and violent demonstrations that engulfed the capital, Tehran, and other cities on December 26th and 27th suggested that repression only deepens and broadens the opposition.

Footage of the protests, shot by phones and spread via the internet, revealed scenes of mayhem unprecedented since the 1979 revolution that toppled the shah. Mobs of youths, including many women, attacked and in some cases overcame squads of riot police. The rioters, mostly unmasked in contrast to previous protests, apparently chanted as many slogans against Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as against Mr Ahmadinejad. They set police vehicles on fire and torched at least one police station. Plainclothes government thugs fought back, bludgeoning isolated protesters and apparently shooting several at close range.

At least eight people died in Tehran alone, including a nephew of Mir Hosein Mousavi, a former prime minister who is widely thought to have truly won the June election and who has become an opposition figurehead. Some opposition sources say the nephew was “executed” as a warning to Mr Mousavi. Kayhan, a newspaper that is a mouthpiece for regime hardliners, countered with the charge that Mr Mousavi had himself orchestrated his nephew’s shooting.

The violence was particularly shocking because the protests coincided with Ashura, a solemn day in the Shia calendar that commemorates the martyrdom of Hosein, a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. Reflecting Iran’s stark polarisation, government supporters and opponents accused each other of desecrating Hosein’s memory. Reflecting a fear of generating new “martyrs” to fuel further protests, security forces took over Tehran’s cemeteries and nabbed the bodies of those killed, preventing their immediate burial in accordance with Muslim rites.

State news agencies say police arrested more than 1,000 protesters during the riots. Dozens more campaigners have been jailed in a dramatic widening of the purge against reformists that began in June. They include such luminaries as the 78-year-old Ebrahim Yazdi, the Islamic Republic’s first foreign minister and now head of a banned liberal party, as well as numerous close relations of prominent dissidents, including a sister of Shirin Ebadi, a Nobel laureate and human-rights lawyer.

This tactic has often been used in Iran to frighten prominent people, without stoking more public anger by detaining them directly. So far the authorities have refrained from arresting such figures as Mr Mousavi himself, but a new wave of arrests has swept up many of their close associates.
As in the past, conservatives have blamed foreign powers for stirring up the protests..

Signs of the regime’s fading legitimacy are numerous...

More embarrassing still for a regime that describes itself as Islamic is the government’s treatment of dissident clerics, including some prominent ayatollahs. The most senior was Grand Ayatollah Hosein Ali Montazeri, a confidant of the Islamic Republic’s founding father, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, with whom he fell out of favour shortly before the old man’s death in 1989. Placed under house arrest for a decade, Mr Montazeri continued to criticise the government, siding openly with the reformists after the tainted June elections…

Perhaps worse yet for Iran’s government, its troubles at home have crippled its foreign policy, at a time when it faces rising pressure to curb its controversial nuclear programme. Western countries that had shied from too strong a condemnation of Iran’s human-rights record, for fear of empowering the more extreme nationalists and threatening nuclear diplomacy, are losing patience.

Even the pragmatists among Iran’s friends, such as Russia and China, now fear their longer-term and potentially lucrative interests in Iran may be hurt by too close an embrace of the regime. If they refuse to vote against tougher sanctions expected to be proposed soon against Iran at the UN Security Council, even Messrs Ahmadinejad and Khamenei may start to fear that their days in power may be numbered.

CHINA

Don't mess with us...The Economist, Dec 30.
No forgiveness; no quarter. Happy Christmas from China.
A SEASON of good cheer in much of the world, late December saw a typically harsh apportionment of justice by China’s legal system, and a typically rigid display of governmental indifference to foreign opinion. On Christmas Day a Beijing court sentenced Liu Xiaobo, a veteran human-rights activist, to 11 years in prison for “inciting subversion of state power”. China swatted away all criticism about this as groundless meddling in its internal affairs.

In a separate case that was not entirely an internal affair, China’s reaction was not much different. On December 21st Akmal Shaikh, a 53-year-old Briton charged with smuggling drugs, had his death sentence upheld by China’s Supreme People’s Court. Rejecting pleas for clemency from Mr Shaikh’s family, international human-rights groups, and the British government, Chinese authorities executed him by lethal injection on December 29th in the north-western region of Xinjiang, where he was first arrested in late 2007 after carrying roughly 4kg of heroin into the country.

ISRAEL

17 % increase in immigration from around the world to Israel in 2009...

JERUSALEM (EJP)- 30 Dec-- 3,767 new immigrants from North America will have moved to Israel in 2009, an increase of 17 percent compared with 2008, which saw 3,210 newcomers from the US and Canada, the Jewish Agency for Israel announced.

Globally, there was also an increase of 17% in the number of new immigrants to Israel from around the world to over 16,200, excluding immigrants from Ethiopia.

The largest growth in percentage of immigrants by geographic area was from Eastern Europe (27%) and from the former Soviet Union (22%), followed by North America (17%). 

Countries with the largest rise in the number of new immigrants included the UK, with an increase of 34%, to 835 new immigrants, Argentina (51% to 325), Spain (52%, to 38) and Scandinavian countries (104%, to 57 new immigrants).

Aliyah or immigration from Ethiopia dropped this year to under 300, but is expected to rise to 2008 levels of approximately 1,500 immigrants in 2010.

“Every new immigrant strengthens the country and is a strategic asset to Israel,” Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky said at a press conference as he announced the immigration data.
Sharansky thanked Jewish Agency partners Nefesh B’Nefesh in North America and Ami in France for their work.

In 2009, special arrangements were made to bring Jews to Israel from sensitive regions: 47 Jews were brought to Israel from Yemen, 25 from Morocco, 13 from Tunisia, 3 from Lebanon and 90 others from several additional countries.

Of the 3,767 new immigrants this year from North America, 3,324 were from the US (representing a 19% increase compared number of US immigrants in 2008) and 443 were from Canada (a 6% increase compared number of Canadian immigrants in 2008).

New immigrants from North America took advantage of the Jewish Agency absorption opportunities.
“We are proud of the attractive and innovative absorption options which we provide olim – from Hebrew classes to job options,” said Liran Avisar, head of the Jewish Agency’s Aliyah delegation in North America.

“These difficult economic times have prompted people who were considering aliyah to decide that now is the time.”

In the last week of 2009 (and included in the annual figures), 400 new immigrants will arrive in Israel – 200 from North America on a flight arriving Wednesday December 30 in partnership with Nefesh B’Nefesh and 210 from South Africa, France and the UK on Jewish Agency-arranged flights.
 Xinhua, Jan.3rd

Israel reopens Gaza crossing for flower, strawberry export...

GAZA, Jan, 3 (Xinhua) -- Israel has on Sunday opened one of the border crossing points in southern Gaza Strip to export flowers and strawberries to Europe and allow humanitarian aids and fuels into the impoverished enclave, officials said. 

Raed Fatouh, chief of coordinating goods entrance into Gaza told Xinhua that "the Israeli occupation authorities reopened Kerem Shalom crossing point to allow around 74 trucks loaded with humanitarian aids and fuels into Gaza."

He added that "Israel has also allowed Gaza farmers for the first time to export trucks loaded with strawberries from the Gaza Strip to the outside world, in addition to one truck loaded with flowers." 

Israel had decided to let Gaza farmers to export all their produces of flowers and strawberries for this season that ends in May 2010. It is the first time that Israel allows export from Gaza since Hamas seized control of the enclave in 2007. Last week, 30,000 flowers were exported from Gaza to Europe.

Meanwhile, Fatouh added that Israel would pump limited amounts of cooking gas and industrial diesel to operate Gaza power station through Kerem Shalom Crossing point, adding that Israel kept two other crossing points closed.

Egypt has also decided to reopen Rafah border crossing point between Gaza Strip and Egypt for three days to allow hundreds of stranded Palestinians on the two sides of the crossing to cross into both Gaza and Egypt. 

Palestinian sources at Rafah crossing said that Egypt would let Palestinians who ended their medical treatment at Egyptian hospitals to cross into Gaza and would let students and patients from Gaza to cross into Egypt.

Egypt opens Rafah crossing for 3 days...
RAFAH, Egypt, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- The Egyptian authorities decided to open the Rafah crossing borders with the Gaza Strip for three days starting from Sunday, allowing Palestinians and citizens from various countries stranded on both sides to cross, security source told Xinhua. 

Scores of Palestinians started flocking to enter the Gaza Strip, said an official source, adding that a total of 120 persons, including students and patients, have arrived from the enclave and their papers are under processing.

EUROPE

News of the world, EU president to earn more than Barack Obama... Jan.3, By Jamie Lyons,
EUROPE'S new president is to cost taxpayers almost £300 million - and amazingly he will be paid MORE than U.S. chief Barack Obama.

Total cost for Herman Van Rompuy and all his hangers-on will be a massive £22.5 million, leaked documents show.

But the EU is spending another £252 million building a new palace.
Van Rompuy, who started work on Friday, will earn £273,814 a year - the U.S. president gets £250,000. The Belgian became Europe's new figurehead after beating front-runner Tony Blair in November. The cost of his salary, travel and entitlements will be £1.3 million.

But that is just the tip of the iceberg, leaked European Council papers show. Costs include £2.1 million for security, £2.3 million for equipment, £6.2 million for summits and £5.2 million for 22 staff. There will be a £4.5 million reserve fund and £252 million to convert the Brussels palace.
Stephen Booth of campaign group Open Europe said: "It's outrageous."

Spain marks 2010 as it takes up the EU presidenc. New Year celebrations...Euronews, Jan.1st
The clock in Madrid’s famous Puerta del Sol formed the focal point as Spain welcomed in 2010.
Thousands turned out for the the traditional eating of the Twelve Grapes in time with the chimes of the clock which every December 31 ushers in the New Year.

This time there was greater significance as an elaborate light show reflected.
Spain is taking over the rotating European Union Presidency for the next six months – the first country to do so under the new Lisbon treaty……
There is a heightened presence by police on the streets of Madrid and across Spain.