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International Events: November 2010

Terrorism: Yemen not for foreign forces role

• Faced with mounting international pressure to do more, the leadership in Yemen is

sending out a message that it will not allow the West to run its counter-terror drive against
Al-Qaeda.

• Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh stressed that Sana'a would not permit foreign
forces to undertake counter-terrorism operations on Yemeni soil.

• The press conference was held after two parcel bombs apparently originating from
Yemen and bound for religious centres in Chicago were recovered on separate flights in
Dubai and East Midlands airport in Britain.

Medvedev's Kuril islands visit angers Japan

• Russian President Dmitry Medvedev becoming the first Russian leader to visit the Kuril
archipelago in the Pacific Ocean and reassert Russia's sovereignty over the islands
claimed by Japan.

• Mr. Medvedev flew to Kunashir, one of four islands that Japan calls its Northern
Territories, on the way back from Vietnam. He toured the island, telling its residents that
Russia would invest heavily to develop the islands.

• Japan demands the return of four sparsely populated islands in the Kuril archipelago,
which Russia took under its control during World War II. In 1956 Russia agreed to hand
back two of the islands but Japan rejected the compromise. Russia's new leadership has
ruled out the return of any Kuril islands to Japan.

Brazil fetes woman President-elect

• Brazilians celebrated the election of their first-ever woman President, Dilma Rousseff,
who pledged to extend policies implemented by popular outgoing leader Luiz Inacio Lula
da Silva, her mentor.

• Mr. Lula's tireless backing of Ms. Rousseff delivered her 56 per cent of the ballots in a
runoff against opposition challenger Jose Serra, the former Governor of Sao Paulo state
who scored 44 per cent.

• While Mr. Lula (65) is required to hand over power in two months' time, after completing
the two consecutive terms.

• Ms. Rousseff (62), an economist who served as Mr. Lula's Cabinet chief before he
handpicked her as his successor, swore she would make eradication of poverty her
priority in government as she sought to “honour the trust” voters had shown her.

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• Her biggest challenge will be preparing the country to host the 2014 football World Cup
and the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, both awarded under Mr. Lula's deft lobbying.

U.K., France sign historic nuclear deal

• Setting aside their historic rivalry, Britain and France signed an unprecedented 50-year
nuclear deal that would see them share nuclear facilities and jointly develop technology,
marking what British Prime Minister David Cameron described as a “new chapter” in the
now-on-now-off Anglo-French relations.

• They also agreed to create a joint rapid reaction force of up to 5,000 troops deployable at
short notice and to cooperate in a range of other defence-related areas.

Swraj Paul quits as Deputy Speaker of Lords

• Labour peer Swraj Paul resigned as Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords following his
suspension from the House over his expenses claims.

• Lord Paul and two others — Baroness Manzila Pola Uddin and Lord Amir Bhatia —
were suspended last month on the recommendations of the House of Lords Committee
for Privileges and Conduct which inquired into allegations that they wrongly claimed
parliamentary expenses.

• Lord Paul was suspended for four months, Baroness Uddin until Easter 2012 and Lord
Bhatia for eight months.

• The claims relate to the peers' entitlement to a “second home” allowance if their main
residence is outside London.

Vietnam gets aid for nuclear power plants

• The civil nuclear energy option has come into sharp focus in Southeast Asia, with
Vietnam firming up foreign aid and Singapore evincing interest.

• Meanwhile, Russia and Japan agreed, independently, to help Vietnam in the civil nuclear
sector.

• The dual breakthrough was announced by the Vietnamese leaders after they held different
meetings with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Japanese Prime Minister Naoto
Kan in Hanoi.

Blasts in Greece
• A parcel bomb burst into flames at the Swiss embassy in Athens and controlled explosions were
carried out on packages at the Russian and Bulgarian embassies, Greek police said, a day after
intercepting several similar packages.

• Police said a total of five parcel bombs had been discovered in the capital, just days before local
elections, following similar packages addressed to three other embassies and President Nicolas
Sarkozy .

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Obama suffers setback as Republicans wrest House

• Republicans captured the House of Representatives and expanded their voice in the
Senate, riding a powerful wave of voter discontent as they dealt a setback to President
Barack Obama two years after his triumphal victory.

• When last results came in Democrats had won 185 seats and Republicans 239 in the
election to the Lower House. For the Senate, Democrats won 51 and Republicans 46.

Nikki Haley elected Governor

• Having gone from state legislature to Governor of South Carolina in a span of just six
years, Nikki Randhawa Haley is being hailed as a rising star on the American political
horizon.

• Daughter of Punjabi Sikh immigrants from Amritsar, Nimrata Nikki Randhawa Haley
(38) has become the first Indian-origin woman, and second Indian-American after
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, to become the Governor of a U.S. state. Another
Indian-American Kamala Harris won the election for Attorney-General of California.
Five other Indian-Americans, all Democrats, bit the dust in the face of an anti-
establishment vote.

Kamala Harris wins California poll

• Indian-American Kamala Harris won the election for Attorney-General of California. Ms.
Harris will be the first woman to hold the office.

• Daughter of an Indian mother and African-American father, Ms. Harris is the District
Attorney for San Francisco.

Huge volcanic blast in Indonesia

• A deadly Indonesian volcano spewing lava and smoke for more than a week erupted with its
biggest blast yet, shooting searing ash kilometres into the air as soldiers hastily evacuated villages
and emergency shelters.

Warm welcome for Hu Jintao in France

• French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla themselves went to the airport to
receive Chinese President Hu Jintao — a rare honour — as Paris rolled out the red carpet
for a three-day visit that is expected to culminate in several lucrative contracts for French
companies including the sale of EPR nuclear reactors by nuclear giant Areva.

• The chapter of its strained relations with Beijing caused by the demonstrations in Paris
when the Olympic flame passed through the French capital enroute to the Beijing games
and the 2008 handshake between Mr. Sarkozy and the Dalai Lama albeit on Polish soil.

• The China Southern airline has announced its intention of buying 36 Airbus planes
valued at €2.6 billions. China will also be purchasing two more EPR nuclear reactors in

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addition to the two it has already bought (estimated cost €10 billions). And Areva is likely
to sell another €3 billions worth of uranium to the Chinese utility CGNPC. The Franco-
American telecom company Alcatel-Lucent will sign three contracts with China Mobile,
China Telecom and China Unicom worth €2 billions.

Volcano death toll climbs to 136

• The tiny hospital at the foot of Mount Merapi struggled to cope with victims brought in
after the fiery volcano unleashed its most powerful eruption in a century — some with
burns covering 95 per cent of their body.

• Indonesia's most volatile mountain unleashed a surge of searing gas, rocks and debris that
raced down its slopes at highway speeds, torching houses and trees and incinerating
villagers caught in its path.

Power-sharing deal in Iraq

• Amid a fraying security situation eight months after parliamentary elections, Iraq appears
set to acquire a national unity government.

• The incumbent Prime Minster, Nouri al-Maliki, who belongs to the main Shia bloc, is
expected to continue for a second term. There has been a power sharing agreement in
principle with the rival Iraqiya formation, led by the former interim Prime Minister, Iyad
Allawi, over the composition of the new government, Iraqi officials said.

Protests over nuclear waste train in Germany

• Protesters delayed a train hauling nuclear waste to a storage site in northern

Germany,rappelling off a 75-metre-high bridge to dangle over it and blocking the tracks,
police said.

• Near Dannenberg, riot police tried to stop some 3,000 protesters making their way onto
the tracks. Activists maintain that neither the waste containers nor the Gorleben site, a
temporary storage facility, are safe.

• Though protests have been muted in recent years, Chancellor Angela Merkel's decision to
extend the life of Germany's 17 atomic power plants by an average of 12 years has
breathed new life into the anti-nuclear movement.

Israel gave settlers land deals in east Jerusalem'

• The Israeli government sold or leased property in Arab neighbourhoods of Jerusalem to Israeli
settlers at exceptionally low prices, helping them cement a Jewish presence there, court
documents published show.

• The Arab neighbourhoods are part of east Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast War
and claimed by the Palestinians as a future capital. Expanding Israeli enclaves in these
neighbourhoods would make a partition of Jerusalem along ethnic lines as part of any peace deal
exceedingly difficult.

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• The documents were released to anti-settlement activists who sought a comprehensive accounting
of the government's deals with two settler groups, Elad and Ateret Cohanim

Violence rocks Myanmar

• Deadly clashes erupted between Myanmar troops and ethnic minority rebels, prompting
an exodus across the border in the wake of an election that the junta's proxies looked sure
to win.

• At least three civilians were killed when heavy weapons fire hit the town of Myawaddy
in Karen State,

• Zipporah Sein, Thailand-based general secretary of the Karen National Union (KNU),
said there had been fighting between government forces and Democratic Karen Buddhist
Army (DKBA) troops in the two areas.

Tory office stormed over fee hike

• Thousands of angry university students stormed the Conservative Party headquarters in

Central London smashing windows and hurling burning objects into the building as a
protest against planned cuts to higher education funding and increase in tuition fee turned
violent. Several people, including one policeman, have been taken to hospital with minor
injuries.

• The Millbank Tower, where the Conservative Party offices are located, was virtually
taken over by slogan-shouting demonstrators some of whom climbed on to the roof of the
building amid fears that violence could spread.

• In the Commons, Liberal Democrat leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg was
involved in angry exchanges with the opposition Labour Party over the proposed fee
increase. Mr Clegg who opposed tuition fee in opposition was accused of opportunistic u-
turn for supporting the increase.

China's rare feat in space

• China has pulled off a tricky and uncommon feat in space flight, manoeuvring one of its
satellites to within about 300 metres of another while they were orbiting Earth, space
analysts say.

• China is not saying why it conducted the August manoeuvre, but it comes as the nation is
ambitiously expanding its space programme, including building a space station and
conducting lunar missions. It is expected to launch the first module of its space station
next year, followed by a manned spacecraft to dock with it.

• Using unclassified tracking data from the U.S. military, space-watchers calculated that
China manoeuvred its SJ-12 satellite close to its SJ-06F satellite on about August 19.

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• Manoeuvring an unmanned orbiting vehicle from a control room on Earth is extremely

difficult because of the distance and because data on the location of the vehicle can be off
by hundreds of metres.

Support for U.S. Fed policy draws criticism in China

• Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's apparent support for the U.S. Federal Reserve's
controversial policy to pump $600 billion into the economy has not gone down well in
China, days ahead of a crucial G20 meeting in South Korea.

• The Fed's bond-buying move, which will likely devalue the dollar, has been strongly
criticised by China, Germany and Brazil in recent days. China has argued that the policy
will reduce the competitiveness of emerging nations' exports, as well as exacerbate
economic imbalances.

• China's currency valuation is bone of contention, with Washington threatening trade

action if China did not further appreciate its yuan, which, many countries say, has been
devalued to support exports.

G20 meet in Seoul agrees to curb trade imbalances

• Leaders of the world's biggest economies agreed to curb “persistently large imbalances”
in saving and spending but deferred until next year tough decisions on how to identify
and fix them.

• The agreement, the culmination of a two-day summit meeting of leaders of the Group of
20 industrialised and emerging powers, fell short of initial U.S. demands for numerical
targets on trade surpluses and deficits. But it reflected a consensus that longstanding
economic patterns in particular, the United States consuming too much, and China too
little were no longer sustainable.

G20: norms to identify imbalances by mid-2011

• Leaders of the Group of 20 industrialised and emerging powers largely endorsed an

approach to imbalances that Finance Ministers, including U.S. Treasury Secretary
Timothy F. Geithner, hammered out last month at a meeting in Gyeongju, South Korea,
but added a timetable.

• The Ministers, along with the heads of central banks like the Federal Reserve, are to
agree by mid-2011 on “indicative guidelines” for identifying big, persistent imbalances,
and Chinese President Hu Jintao said China would host meetings to establish those
guidelines.

• The International Monetary Fund will then conduct an analysis of the “root causes” of the
imbalances and the damage that they cause, by the next G-20 leaders' meeting, to be
hosted by France late next year.

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Aung San Suu Kyi walks free
• Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's celebrated pro-democracy leader and a political prisoner
of global stature, was set free from house arrest in Yangon.

• Hundreds supporters waited for her at the Yangon headquarters of the recently-
derecognised National League for Democracy (NLD), which she still leads.

• World leaders hailed her in comments on the release, which was ordered before the junta
could transfer power to an ostensibly “civilian” government following the November 7
general election.

• Myanmar's military establishments have subjected Ms. Suu Kyi to four terms of house
arrest and at least two spells in prison, for about 15 years in all, since 1989. She led the
NLD to a landslide victory in the country's free elections in 1990 but was not allowed to
lead a civilian government.

U.S.-China row rumbles on at Apec summit

• U.S. President Barack Obama used a Pacific Rim summit to press China on its flood of
exports aided by a cheap yuan, but President Hu Jintao said Beijing would make reforms
at its own pace.

• The competing visions of the two economic giants were laid out a day after the Group of
20 knocked back U.S. proposals for binding targets to address global trade imbalances
and curbs on currency manipulation — proposals effectively aimed at China.

• Mr. Obama also made an appeal to tear down trade barriers as the 21 members of the Asia
Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum kicked off a summit in Japan, clouded by
tensions between its biggest economies.

• Washington has urged Beijing to allow its yuan to rise, claiming it is undervalued to
create an unfair trade advantage —— although the United States has been accused of
doing the same by diluting the value of the greenback with a $600-billion cash injection
announced this month.

U.S. likely to end Afghan mission by 2014

• The United States government is set to announce a plan to end its combat mission in
Afghanistan by 2014, a goal that will require the gradual transfer of responsibility for
security operations to Afghan forces over the next 18 to 24 months.

• A similar announcement by the Obama administration, to begin a troop drawdown in

Afghanistan by July 2011, came in for a barrage of criticism on the grounds that it could
strengthen the hands of militants who might regroup.

Kickbacks paid in France-Pakistan deal'

• A former French Defence Minister has told a judge in Paris that reverse kickbacks or what the
French term “retro-commissions” were in fact paid in the 1995 deal to sell six Agosta Class
submarines to Pakistan.
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• The judge is enquiring into the causes of the 2002 blast that killed 11 French naval engineers sent
to Karachi to oversee the assembling of the Agosta submarines. The former Minister's
declarations corroborate a 2002 French secret service report which was kept under tight wraps by
the authorities and which became public only in 2008 when it was leaked by the media.

• Until then it had been alleged that the engineers were killed by the Taliban or by Islamist
extremists. Sources close to the enquiry in France say the Pakistan Army and the ISI engineered
the blast in reprisal against the non-payment of commissions in the Agosta deal.

Singapore to host oil and gas expo

• OSEA2010, an oil and gas exhibition, will be held in Singapore from November 30 to December
3. The expo will feature 1,500 international exhibitors over 24,000 sq. metres. The expo is
expected to see the participation of over 22,000 business and thought leaders, industry
professionals and government officials from 60 countries and regions.

China's assurance to neighbours over Brahmaputra, Mekong dams

• The Chinese government mounted a defence of its dams on the Brahmaputra and Mekong
rivers, assuring its seven neighbours, including India, who have voiced concerns about
the projects that downstream flows will remain unaffected.

• Besides India, which raised the construction of a 510 MW dam on the Brahmaputra in
talks with the Chinese leadership,Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia had expressed
similar concerns over eight dams being built on the Mekong River.

• China has stressed that its eight dams would help, and not hinder, flood management, the
Mekong River Commission (MRC) — represented by Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and
Cambodia — has called on China to share more data and be more transparent about its
plans. China has been reluctant to join the MRC.

• In talks in Beijing this week, India voiced similar concerns, calling on China to continue
sharing data regarding its plans for the Brahmaputra, or the Yarlung Tsangpo as it is
known in Tibet. While India and China have set up a joint expert-level group to exchange
hydrological data, the absence of a water-sharing treaty means the exchange of
information is limited.

Hambantota port opened

• Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa said the island nation would like to be a part of
the radically progressing Asia led by China and India

• Speaking at a function to mark the berthing of the first vessel at the Magama Ruhunupura
Mahinda Rajapaksa Port in Hambantota built with Chinese assistance.

• Phase One of the new Hambantota port was constructed by the China Harbour
Engineering Company at a cost of $360 million and includes provision for a high-quality
passenger terminal, cargo handling, warehousing, bunkering, provisioning, maintenance
and repair, medical supplies and customs clearing facilities.

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• The $1.5-billion port is being marketed by Sri Lanka as a mega infrastructure project
which would transform the economy of the country. The port is located just 10 nautical
miles from one of the world's busiest shipping lanes, used by up to 200 cargo vessels
every day and can handle vessels of up to 100,000 DWT.
.

Russia, Iran discuss nuclear programme

• Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev met his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
on the sidelines of a Caspian forum in Baku, Azerbaijan, to discuss the Iranian nuclear
programme and bilateral relations.

• “We are interested in pursuing trade, economic and other contacts that are not covered by
the Security Council sanctions,” Mr. Medvedev's aide added.

• It was the third meeting between Mr. Medvedev and Mr. Ahmadinejad.

• The first two were on the sideline

1,500 tourists rescued near Mt. Everest

• The Nepalese authorities rescued 1,500 tourists with the help of helicopters and airplanes after
they were stranded at Lukla, the gateway to Mt. Everest, for more than a week.

NATO pact on missile defence

• U.S. President Barack Obama and his NATO allies agreed to shield Europe's peoples
from rogue rocket attacks with a screen of interceptor missiles, and to invite Russia to
take part.

• The deal commits NATO members to deploy a phalanx of anti-missile batteries to shoot
down incoming missiles and urges Moscow to link its own defensive systems to the grid.

• Winning agreement on the shield also gave the NATO leaders a boost as they prepared
for the second day of their Lisbon summit .

• But the 28 NATO powers hope President Dmitry Medvedev can be won over at the first
such meeting between NATO and the Kremlin chief since Moscow waged a war in
Georgia in 2008.

• NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he expected Russia and the Allies to begin a
joint study of how Russia could be included in the missile defence system, which would
be a significant softening of Moscow's position.

Russia, Iran to step up civil nuclear cooperation

• Russia and Iran have agreed to step up civil nuclear cooperation despite the international
sanctions imposed on Tehran over its nuclear programme.

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• The agreement was reached at a meeting between President Dmitry Medvedev and his
Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the sidelines of a Caspian summit in
Baku, capital of Azerbaijan.

• Iran's first nuclear power plant in Bushehr built with Russian assistance would be started
soon. Mr. Medvedev used the meeting to try and re-engage Tehran, which had angrily
reacted to Moscow's support for U.N. Security Council sanctions earlier this year and the
cancellation of a deal to sell Russian air-defence systems.

Unesco dissociates itself from World Philosophy Day events

• The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) has decided to
dissociate itself from the World Philosophy Day events scheduled to be held in Iran.

• The Day has been celebrated by the UN body every year since 2002, on the third Thursday of
November, both at the Unesco headquarters in Paris and in other cities around the world. The
General Conference of Unesco established the World Philosophy Day in 2005.

2014 deadline for NATO in Afghanistan

• NATO and Afghanistan agreed to the goal of a phased transfer of security responsibility
to the Afghan government by the end of 2014, but acknowledged that allied forces would
remain in Afghanistan at least in a support role well beyond that date.

• NATO and U.S. officials also warned that if Afghanistan had not made sufficient progress
in managing its own security, 2014 was not a hard-and-fast deadline for the end of
combat operations.

• “We will stay after transition in a supporting role,” Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the
Secretary-General of NATO, said at a news conference after meeting with President
Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan.

North Korea has new nuclear plant: U.S. scientist

• In secret and with remarkable speed, North Korea has built a new, highly sophisticated
facility to enrich uranium, according to an American nuclear scientist, raising fears that
the North is ramping up its atomic programme despite international pressure.

• The revelation could be designed to strengthen the North Korean government as it looks
to transfer power from leader Kim Jong Il to a young, unproven son. As Washington and
others tighten sanctions, unveiling the centrifuges could also be an attempt by Pyongyang
to force a resumption of stalled international nuclear disarmament-for-aid talks.

Bailout sinks Ireland into crisis

• Ireland, already teetering on the brink of an economic collapse, was plunged into a
political crisis after the government's decision to accept a European Union financial
bailout triggered calls for a snap election and Prime Minister Brian Cowen's resignation.

• The Green Party, a partner in Mr. Cowen's Fianna Fail-led coalition, said the people of
Ireland felt “betrayed” and the situation demanded political certainty. With six MPs, the
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party holds the balance of power in Mr. Cowen's fragile coalition and were it to pull out
the government could fall.

• Mr. Cowen, who had previously insisted that the country could manage the crisis on its
own, confirmed he had agreed to a joint EU/IMF package and a formal process of
negotiations would commence.

China plans S-E Asia rail links

• China will, in coming months, accelerate plans for high-speed rail links with Myanmar,
Cambodia, Thailand and Laos, as part of a wider effort to deepen engagement with its
Southeast Asian neighbours.

• In two months, work will begin on a 1,920-km high-speed rail line connecting south-
western Yunnan province with Yangon in Myanmar, with trains running at over 200 km/h,
studies were also under way to link Yunnan's capital Kunming with Cambodia, Laos and
Vietnam. In August, the Ministry of Railways also sent a team to Thailand to explore
investing in a $ 25.6-billion, 240-km high-speed railway and rail network.

• Beijing's increased infrastructure investment in Southeast Asia, analysts say, is part of a

larger effort to expand economic and strategic influence in the region. Beijing hopes the
investment will also ease anxieties among its ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian
Nations) neighbours over the impact of China's rising economic influence.

• While China became the first country to ratify an ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (FTA),
a fast-widening trade imbalance in China's favour, in part fuelled by the flooding of the
ASEAN market with Chinese goods, has led to strains in commercial relationships with
many ASEAN countries. The trade deficit grew to $21.6 billion last year. A number of
countries have also voiced concern over the pattern of Chinese investments, which have
generally targeted resources such as oil and minerals.

• China has also recently proposed a $15-billion fund for infrastructure-building in ASEAN
countries.

• In recent years, China has increasingly begun to explore expanding its domestic high-
speed rail network, which is already the world's biggest, beyond its western and southern
borders. In the west, China has, so far, reached agreements to build railway lines from its
Xinjiang region to Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

• The national network will reach 120,000 km by 2020, and 60 per cent of the railway lines
will be located in China's western regions, which have historically lagged the coastal east
on most development indicators.

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North Korea shells South Korean island
• North Korea and South Korea exchanged several rounds of artillery fire across the
disputed Yellow Sea, leaving at least two South Korean marines killed and 16 others
injured in shelling by the North on a populated island.

• The South Korean government blamed the North for starting the exchange, saying dozens
of rounds of artillery shells were fired at its Yeonpyeong Island, which lies along the
disputed maritime border off the western coast of the Korean Peninsula. It is inhabited by
around 1,600 people.

• The South accused the North of violating the 1953 Armistice Agreement and responded
by putting its military on the highest level of non-wartime alert, even readying F-16
fighter jets.

• The North Korean government, however, disputed this version, saying its firing was in
response to live-ammunition military drills that the South has been conducting in recent
days

• The exchange has further heightened tensions in the region and reduced the likelihood of
resumption of the stalled Six Party Talks, which the North quit two years ago after
conducting several missile tests.

• Recent revelation that the North had opened a new uranium enrichment facility that had
already strained ties between the neighbours in recent days. And, in March, the North was
widely condemned for the torpedoing of a South Korean warship, the Cheonan, which
left 46 sailors dead. The North has denied responsibility for the attack.

• The recent resurgence in tensions takes place amid political uncertainties in Pyongyang,
with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il preparing for the succession of his 26-year-old son
Kim Jong-un.

• Tensions are unlikely to subside in coming days, with the South's military drills in the
Yellow Sea, involving around 70,000 troops, scheduled to continue till November 30.

Cambodian festival stampede leaves 380 dead

• Frantic relatives scoured makeshift morgues in Cambodian capital Phnom Penh after over 380
revellers perished in a stampede on an overcrowded bridge, turning a water festival into a tragedy.

• Prime Minister Hun Sen described the disaster as the country's worst tragedy since the Khmer
Rouge's 1975–1979 reign of terror, which left up to a quarter of the population dead. He declared
a national day of mourning.

Israel's new law draws fire

• The Palestinians and Iran have slammed Israel's new law which will make it harder for
Tel Aviv to withdraw from the annexed territories of East Jerusalem and the Golan
Heights.

• The Israeli Parliament passed a law under which withdrawal from East Jerusalem or
Golan Heights would be possible only on the basis of a two-thirds approval from
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Parliament. In case a super-majority in Parliament fails to approve the withdrawal, a
referendum will be held on the proposal.

• Palestinians who want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state have rejected the
Israeli move.

Cap on non-EU migration

• The UKGovernment announced plans to sharply reduce the number of skilled migrants
from India and other non-European Union countries who would be allowed to enter
Britain from next April when a new cap on annual migration would kick in.

• The cap would not apply to intra-company transfers following protests from
multinational corporations, some of whom threatened to close their British plants if such
transfers were included in the cap. But the exemption would apply only to those earning
more than £40,000 a year.

Putin offers Russia's tigers to revive species

• Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has offered to share his country's growing tiger
population with other countries to help save the big wild cat from extinction.

• “Tiger families from Russia could start the process of reviving tiger populations where
they have completely disappeared, in such countries as Kazakhstan and Iran,” said Mr.
Putin, addressing the “Tiger Summit” in St. Petersburg.

Enrichment plan not affected, says Iran

• Iran has rejected western media claims that it temporarily halted uranium enrichment due
to technical problems and asserted it had successfully fought off a serious cyber attack on
its industrial and personal computers.

• Head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation Ali Akbar Salehi described as “lies” media
reports that said technical difficulties temporarily paralysed thousands of centrifuges used
for the enrichment of uranium.

• Mr. Salehi said Iran's “enemies” had during the last year-and-a-half failed to infect
industrial and personal computers with malicious malware. Iran had earlier
acknowledged that its industrial computers had been targeted by the Stuxnet virus, which
attacks Siemens supervisory control software used for managing water supplies, oil rigs,
and power plants.

Wave of student protests in U.K.

• For the second time in two weeks, Britain was hit by a wave of angry student protests
marred by clashes with police and sporadic incidents of violence resulting in injuries to at
least 11 people.

• The protests were against the proposed cuts in higher education funding and increase in
university tuition fees.

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Putin for joint projects in SCO

• Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has called for creating a 10-year economic road map for
the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) focused on launching large-scale joint projects.

• “We propose creation of a road map of joint actions for the coming decade where we would
define concrete steps on implementation of trade and economic cooperation,” said Mr. Putin,
addressing a meeting of the Prime Ministers of the SCO in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.

• The SCO has six full members — Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and
Uzbekistan —, as well as four observer-states — India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan.

Region on brink of war, warns North Korea

• Tensions have risen in the Korean Peninsula ahead of planned joint military exercises by
South Korea and the United States, with the North warning that the region was “inching
closer to the brink of war”.

• Sounds of artillery fire were heard on South Korea's Yeongpyeong Island on the Yellow
Sea, the site of shelling by the North which left four people dead and at least 18 injured.
The South Korean military said two explosions were heard, triggering fresh panic among
residents, and it was verifying the source of the sounds.

• The U.S., which has 28,000 troops in South Korea, has dispatched the aircraft carrier,
USS George Washington, to the region.

• The latest round of tensions comes as the North Korean leader Kim Jong-il prepares for
the succession of his 26 year-old son Kim Jong-un, about whom little is known. The two
Kims are on an “inspection tour” of the North along with the country's top military
officials.

Bushehr nuclear plant fuelled: Iran

• Head of Iran's atomic energy organisation, Ali Akbar Salehi said that the fuelling of the
country's first nuclear power plant has been completed.

• “All fuel assemblies have been loaded into the core of the reactor,” Iran's Student News
Agency (ISNA) quoted him as saying. “All we have to do now is to wait for the water
inside the reactor's core to warm gradually, and carry out another series of tests.” Mr.
Salehi observed that it would now take around two months for the plant to join Iran's
national power grid.

• Mr. Salehi said Iran was set to import from Russia, radio-medicine required for the
treatment of cancer. Iran had in October commenced loading nuclear fuel rods into the
core of its Russia built power reactor in Bushehr, clearing the last major hurdle in the way
of the completion of the long delayed project.

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WikiLeaks takes cloak off U.S. diplomacy

• The United States was catapulted into a worldwide diplomatic crisis with the leaking to
the Guardian and other international media outlets of more than 250,000 classified cables
from its embassies, many sent as recently as February this year.

• At the start of a series of daily extracts from the U.S. embassy cables — many of which
are designated “secret” — the Guardian can disclose that Arab leaders are privately
urging an air strike on Iran and that U.S. officials have been instructed to spy on the
U.N.'s leadership.

• These two revelations alone would be likely to reverberate around the world. But the
secret dispatches which were obtained by WikiLeaks, the whistleblowers' website, also
reveal Washington's evaluation of many other highly sensitive international issues.

Low turnout in Egypt

• Egyptians in modest numbers headed for polling stations amid tensions following a government
crackdown on the main opposition party ahead of the parliamentary polls.

• A total of 41 million registered voters were eligible to elect candidates for 508 seats. However the
turnout, as polling progressed during the day, was low. In the 2005 elections, only 22 per cent
voters cast their ballot, according to official records.

Pakistan's offer to Sri Lanka

• Sri Lanka and Pakistan agreed to expand their relations from “defence cooperation to an
overall comprehensive engagement” involving trade, communications and culture.

• Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari had a one-on-one meeting with his Sri Lankan
counterpart Mahinda Rajapaksa.

• He is on a four-day visit to Sri lanka.

Iran's scientist killed in blast

• Assailants on motorcycles attached magnetised bombs to the cars of two nuclear scientists as they
were driving to work in Tehran, killing one and wounding the other, said Iranian officials.

• The President accused Israel and the West of being behind the attacks.

• Iran's nuclear chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, said the man killed was involved in a major project with the
nuclear agency, though he did not give specifics. Some Iranian media reported that the wounded
scientist was a laser expert at Iran's Defence Ministry and one of the few top specialists in nuclear
isotope separation.

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