FORECAST
Israel has opened up yet another war-front via a covert-ops attack against targets on Sudanese soil, potentially furthering an escalating rift between it and its Arab neighbours.
On Friday, Sudanese government officials announced that Israeli warplanes attacked at least two convoys on Sudanese soil in late January and February, killing dozens of African migrants. As is usual, Israel neither confirmed nor denied the attack, although comments by an Israeli government spokesman appear to have verified the Sudanese claim, particularly after American officials in direct contact with Sudan’s government denied U.S. involvement in the airstrikes.
Israel claims that the convoys of African migrants moving along the Sudanese-Egyptian border smuggle Iranian-supplied weapons to Hamas in the Gaza Strip through or under the Egyptian-Gaza border. Yet Israel has been arming Darfurian rebels against the Sudanese government and has contravened its own official ban on non-Jewish immigration by allowing Darfurian asylum seekers refugee status.
By attacking targets in Arab northeast Sudan, Israel threatens to further a growing divide between it and its Arab neighbours, a divide that was exacerbated by Israel’s war against the Palestinian Gaza Strip at the end of last year that killed close to 1,500 Palestinian civilians and injured thousands more.
The increasing revelation of Israeli war crimes during the Gaza War, including reports recently confirmed by Israeli soldiers and reported by Israeli media, only complicates matters further. Despite a growing global chorus demanding war crimes investigations against Israel, Western-controlled international institutions (such as the ICC and UN) have resisted such calls, though they have forged ahead with arrest warrants against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on war crimes charges stemming from the conflict in Darfur.
There is little doubt that the differential treatment afforded to Israel, in contrast to its Arab neighbours, under international law as exercised by Western-controlled international institutions controlled, is viewed by many in the non-Western world as hypocritical. This will seriously damage Israel’s global reputation while simultaneously casting its Arab neighbours, including armed groups such as Hamas, in a sympathetic light.
In the end, Israel’s attacks may further erode its own security and regional stability.
SUMMARY OF EVENTS: March 23 – 30, 2009
WORLD
A UN panel of expert economists pressed Thursday for a new global currency reserve scheme to replace the volatile, dollar-based system and for coordinated steps by rich countries to stimulate their economies.
NORTH AMERICA
Canada
Canada “will not be bullied” by Russia on Arctic sovereignty, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said Friday amid reports the superpower is planning to create a new military force to protect its interests in the area.
United States
The recent outcry over $165 million in post-bailout bonus payments has put AIG on the hot seat, but the bonus disbursement is perhaps the least serious in a string of actions by the insurance giant that span six years and involve several cases of alleged fraud.
The Obama administration is considering asking Congress to give the Treasury secretary unprecedented powers to initiate the seizure of non-bank financial companies, such as large insurers, investment firms and hedge funds, whose collapse would damage the broader economy, according to an administration document.
A top CIA cybersecurity expert told the US Election Assistance Commission last month that most electronic voting systems are insecure, according to transcripts obtained by McClatchy Newspapers.
China is increasing its military power more rapidly and developing new “disruptive technologies” that are shifting the military balance in its region and possibly beyond, a new Pentagon report said.
Two U.S. journalists detained by North Korea since last week appear to have been charged with espionage, the State Department said on Tuesday.
North Korea has positioned what is believed to be a long-range ballistic missile on a launch pad in what could be a preparation for launch, a U.S. counterproliferation official said on Wednesday.
Concerned about the faltering war in Afghanistan, President Barack Obama plans to dispatch thousands more military and civilian trainers on top of the 17,000 fresh combat troops he’s already ordered, people familiar with the forthcoming plan said Thursday.
WESTERN EUROPE
Britain
Britain has launched a clandestine alliance that recruits citizens and trains them to act as undercover agents against terror suspects.
Police have readied a heavy-duty — and high-tech — security plan aimed at controlling protests expected to flood the streets over the weekend and through Thursday’s conclusion of the summit of Group of 20 nations.
Ireland
An Irish trading company and three of its officers have been charged with sending helicopter engines and other aircraft parts to Iran, according to an indictment unsealed in federal court Tuesday
EASTERN EUROPE
Russia
Russia’s Gazprom warned on Wednesday that any changes made to Ukraine’s natural gas transport network without Russia’s approval will affect European supply contracts.
Serbia
The late President Milosevic’s secret police chief and organiser of Serb death squads during the genocidal ethnic cleansing of disintegrating Yugoslavia was the United States’ top CIA agent in Belgrade, according to the independent Belgrade Radio B92.
MIDDLE EAST
Israel
Israel is preparing for all-out war on multiple fronts that include Iran, Syria and Lebanon, a senior military commander claims.
United Nations investigators said on Monday Israel violated a range of human rights during its invasion of Gaza, including targeting civilians and using a child as a human shield.
A new UN report exposes a bit of misinformation peddled by the US and Israel and shatters the Zionist illusion that the Gaza war was legal.
Israel carried out air strikes in January on a convoy moving through Sudan which it believed to be carrying weapons destined for Hamas in Gaza, according to a report by the US television network CBS.
Lebanon
Ties between Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah organization and Mexican drug cartels have been strengthening over the past few years, the Washington Times reported Friday.
EAST ASIA
China
China called for the creation of a new currency to eventually replace the dollar as the world’s standard, proposing a sweeping overhaul of global finance that reflects developing nations’ growing unhappiness with the U.S. role in the world economy.
Japan
Japan gave its military the green light on Friday to shoot down any incoming North Korean rocket, with tensions high ahead of a planned launch that the US and allies say will be an illegal missile test.
South Korea
South Korea warned Wednesday that it would respond with decisive action if Pyongyang again blocked access to a joint factory park in North Korea, but said it was too early to consider shutting the project down.
SOUTH ASIA
The Taliban’s military campaign in southern Afghanistan is aided partly by support from operatives in Pakistan’s military intelligence agency, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.
Philippines
At least 27 people, including seven soldiers, have been killed in fighting between Philippine security forces and members of the largest Muslim anti-government group in the south of the country, according to an army spokesman.
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka’s military on Thursday said it has one kilometer left to go before trapping the Tamil Tigers separatists in a no-fire zone, along with thousands of civilians at grave risk in the 25-year war’s final act.
AFRICA
Madagascar
Thousands of supporters of Madagascar’s ex-president Marc Ravalomanana protested Friday in the capital, demanding the return of their leader forced out last week by the army-backed opposition chief.
Manjit Singh is a contributor to Geopoliticalmonitor.com
