时事经纬
10-05-09
莫斯科阅兵式展示S-400
俄罗斯是在大约10年前远程精确制导武器出现后开始研发这套系统的。
S-400可在400公里处确认目标，并在125到150公里内击中目标。拦截飞行高度达三
十公里，可以打下飞机、巡航导弹和射程大约为3500公里的战术导弹。但俄罗斯无力大批生产S-400系统，因为前苏联生产武器所用的元件都是以前的加盟共和国提供的，但是现在这些共和国都成了独立国家。另一原因是，军工产业的低工资导致俄罗斯的劳动力和武器一起老化。
普京认为解决日俄领土问题尚不具备条件
“日本政府还没有确定自己的立场”。
美日印澳海军近期动作频频 目标针对中国
演习的重点是反潜和水面作战。中国军事专家分析认为，“马拉巴尔”演习演习正逐渐从印度洋向西太平洋延伸，凸显三国军事合作升温背后针对中国的企图。美国国防部5日表示，美国海军监测船“胜利”号1日傍晚在黄海海域遭两艘中国渔船逼近，探测船上的美军请求中国军舰解围。五角大楼官员声称，这是过去两个月内第5次同类事件。
调查人员说空袭造成阿平民丧生
一支由阿富汗和美国军人组成的联合巡逻队跟激进分子交战了几个小时，从而造成
100多平民丧生。调查报告称，塔利班武装分子故意把村民赶进房子里，然后从里面向阿富汗国家安全部队和联军部队开火。战斗结束后，塔利班武装分子把尸体装上两辆卡车，强迫长老们跟著这两辆卡车一起在各村示众，以激起村民的愤怒。
Parks Fortify Israel’s Claim to Jerusalem
Israel is quietly carrying out a $100 million, multiyear
development plan in some of the most significant religious
and national heritage sites just outside the walled Old City
here as part of an effort to strengthen the status of
Jerusalem as its capital. The plan, parts of which have been
outsourced to a private group that is simultaneously buying
up Palestinian property for Jewish settlement in East
Jerusalem, has drawn almost no public or international
scrutiny. However, certain elements related to it — the
threatened destruction of unauthorized Palestinian housing
in the redevelopment areas, for example — have brought
widespread condemnation.
Taliban-Style Justice Stirs Growing Anger
Pakistan is a vast country with many sects and varieties of
Islam, but experts here said most Pakistani Muslims agree
that their religion has two complementary aspects. One is a
set of unchangeable principles that guide their behavior,
values, faith and relationships. The other is a practical
application of these principles, which may adapt and evolve
according to changing times and conditions, including war,
weather, technology and taste.
The demand for sharia courts in Swat was not just a Taliban
fiction. It was the result of deep public dissatisfaction
with a secular state court system criticized across the
country as slow and corrupt, with cases dragging on for
decades and influential people often able to buy off police
and win cases over their poor adversaries. Islamic courts
are generally smaller, faster and cheaper.
Under Pakistan's constitution, both types of courts
function, but sharia courts have limited jurisdiction over
certain crimes such as extramarital sex and murder. Sharia
court judges have legal as well as religious training, and
their verdicts can be appealed to state superior courts;
nowhere do they have the kind of absolute powers the Taliban
sought in Swat.
In March, many Pakistanis were horrified when a videotape
surfaced that showed Taliban enforcers publicly whipping a
teenage girl in Swat accused of having an affair. But
experts here said this summary punishment without evidence
or trial was un-Islamic and had nothing to do with sharia.
They said that if the girl had been brought before a real
sharia court, the case would have been judged according to
extremely high standards of proof, including testimony by
four witnesses to the alleged illicit relations, and thus
she might have gone free.
"When people talk about sharia law and punishments like
cutting off a thief's hand, they don't realize there are 13
preconditions that have to be met before that punishment is
ordered. That's why nobody's hand is ever cut off here,"
said Raja Zafar ul-Haq, an Islamic scholar and political
activist.
In theory, he said, there is no contradiction between Islam
and democracy in Pakistan. The constitution says no law may
contradict the Koran or the teachings of the prophet
Muhammad. But in practice, the state justice system is so
slow and biased that people are fed up.
"Unless there are major reforms," he said, "the demand for
sharia may spread all over the country."
There is a growing movement in mosques and seminaries
throughout Pakistan today to abolish the modern justice
system and make sharia the supreme law of the land. Radical
Islamic clerics in major cities give emotional weekly
sermons, urging their followers to turn from decadent
Western ways and spread vigorous moral purity.
Yet Pakistan has had bitter experiences with the overzealous
application of sharia, especially when it has been combined
with force. During the military dictatorship of Mohammed Zia
ul-Haq from 1977 to 1988, a system of "Islamization" was
imposed that mandated extreme sharia punishments, including
stoning and flogging, for committing adultery and drinking
alcohol.
These laws, which were known as the Hudood Ordinance and
were finally amended and reformed in 2006, inflicted
particular suffering on women. For one thing, if a woman
tried to accuse a man of rape, she often ended up being
found guilty of adultery and punished severely, while the
man went free for lack of evidence.
Criticism of such draconian practices, which faded after
Zia's death in 1988, has suddenly revived as horror stories
of Taliban-style justice have filtered out of the Swat
Valley. Newspapers are filled with letters from readers
expressing outrage at the perversion of Islam being
perpetrated there and warning that the Taliban is trying to
force a modern country back to medieval times.
And yet some observers have noticed a subtler, more
insidious trend. It is not only the fire-breathing sermons
by radical mullahs calling for a "sharia nation" or the
rantings of Taliban leaders who accuse the entire Muslim
government of being "infidel."
These observers describe a creeping social and intellectual
chill that several have called "the Talibanization of the
mind."
It is a growing tendency for women to cover their faces, for
hosts to cancel musical events, for journalists to use
phrases that do not offend powerful Islamist groups, for
strangers to demand that shopkeepers turn off their radios.
"With each passing month a deeper silence prevails,"
columnist Kamila Hyat recently wrote in a widely circulated
article. The public is afraid, uncertain and retreating into
religion because the country's leaders are failing to
address its problems. "Just as we fight to regain territory"
from the Taliban, Hyat wrote, "we must struggle to regain
the liberties we are losing."
India to finally receive Phalcon AWACS
Five years after placing an order, the Indian Air Force will
finally receive the first of three Phalcon AWACS (airborne
warning and control systems) developed from Israel Aerospace
Industries (IAI) later this month.
In 2004, Israel signed a $1.1 billion deal with India for
the supply of three AWACS, built on Russian Ilyushin-76
airplanes.
The Phalcon will give India the ability to detect aerial
threats and serve as a platform to direct combat jets to
targets. It is an all-weather system capable of logging 60
targets simultaneously and can operate to a range of up to
400 km.
The Heron 1 has been in IDF use since 2007 and is capable of
remaining two days straight in the air without refueling.
The Heron can also fly at altitudes of 30,000 feet, making
it a difficult target for standard anti-aircraft weapons. It
has the ability to carry a 250 kg. payload and with a
wingspan of 16.6 meters, it can fly to targets hundreds of
kilometers away in all weather conditions.
40-fold drug surge in Afghanistan: report
Iranian police officials say drug production in Afghanistan
has had a 40-fold increase since the US led invasion of the
country in 2001. According to official statistics, two
thirds of the world's heroin supply reportedly comes from
the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar.
While Afghanistan produced only 185 tons of opium under the
Taliban, following the US invasion drug production,
according to UN statistics, surged to 3,400 tons and by
2007, opium trade reached all-time high of 8,200 tons.
Afghan and Western officials blame Washington and its NATO
allies for the sudden surge, saying they overlooked the drug
problem for more than seven years after invasion of the
country.
“The US and its allies didn't want anything to do with
either interdiction or eradication," said Thomas Schweich, a
former Bush administration ambassador for counternarcotics.
"We warned them over and over again: Look at Colombia."
The invasion of Afghanistan was also justified as part of
the West's "war on drugs."
"The al-Qaeda network and the Taliban regime are funded in
large part by the drugs trade," ex-British Prime Minister
Tony Blair said in 2001 when confirming London's
participation in the US attack on Afghanistan.
Iran lies on a transit corridor between opium producers in
Afghanistan and drug dealers in Europe.
As a lead donor nation to Afghanistan, Iran has annually
contributed more than $50 million to Afghan counternarcotics
efforts in the past five years.
The United Nations credited Iran for the seizure of 80 per
cent of the opium netted around the world in 2007.
Mashaal: Two states no solution for Palestine
Hamas rejects the two state solution but says it could still
be a part of a national unity government should a
Palestinian state be established based on 1967 borders.
Khalid Mashaal, said that Hamas does not view the two-state
solution as a viable means to end the conflict with Israel.
Bomb blast kills five in Turkey
The incident took place near the city of Sirnak on Saturday.
Three of the dead were civilians.
Turkish government established the village guard militia
groups in 1985 as local forces against the separatist rebels
of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). The village guards
are trained by army and use state-issued weapons. Turkish
military and government say the militias play a key role in
protecting local people against the Kurdish insurgents.
Russia's Putin warns against arms race over N.Korea
"It would be absolutely wrong if we increased the emotional
temperature around what is happening today and used this to
destabilize the region or to start some sort of arms race. I
think this would be a big mistake," Putin said.
"We need to take account of the positive things, of what has
been achieved as part of the negotiating process in the
six-party format," he said, "Everyone needs to return to the
six-country talks without emotion and without anything else
that could hinder the resumption of the process," said Putin,
who rarely comments on North Korea.
Georgia opposition seeks meeting with president
Georgia's opposition, backed by some 20,000 protesters,
pushed on Saturday for direct talks with President Mikheil
Saakashvili in an attempt to end a month-long political
crisis in the former Soviet republic.
The stand-off over Saakashvili's rule flared into violence
this week, casting a shadow over the start of NATO military
exercises in Georgia.
Under pressure from the Orthodox Church after clashes
between police and protesters injured 28 people, the
opposition met parliament speaker David Bakradze on Friday
in the first formal contact with the government since street
protests began on April 9.
On Saturday, several opposition leaders demanded talks with
Saakashvili so they could tell him to quit over his record
on democracy and last year's war.
"We are giving the president 24 hours to get in touch with
us by telephone or any other means, otherwise we'll let you
know our plans on the continuation of our activities and
their scope tomorrow evening," Salome Zurabishvili, one of
the protest leaders, told around 20,000 protesters in front
of parliament.
Another prominent opposition leader, Irakly Alasania, said
talks with Bakradze should continue.
Turnout at the protests on Saturday was far higher than
usual to mark the one-month anniversary of the protests.
Opposition leaders met the European Union's South Caucasus
envoy, Peter Semneby. Asked about possible mediation, he
said the EU had a "profound interest" in events in Georgia
and was ready to help, but did not see itself taking an
active role.
Analysts say the opposition most likely lacks the numbers to
force Saakashvili to step down. It has managed to maintain
roadblocks with tents and improvised 'cells' in the streets
to paralyze central Tbilisi and force the government to
negotiate.
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