This Week in War. A Friday round-up of what happened and what’s been written in the world of war and military/security affairs this week. It’s a mix of news reports, policy briefs, blog posts and longform journalism. Blogger’s Note: The This Week in War round-up won’t appear next week because I shall be a-travelling. It will return the week following.
- News today: South Korea has announced, unexpectedly, plans to sign a military treaty with Japan today, overcoming former animosities to increase sharing of military data regarding the North Korean nuclear threat and the expansion of Chinese power.
- Algerian blogger Tarek Mameri was given a suspended sentence and a 1,000 euro fine after being found guilty of destroying property, setting fire to administrative documents and inciting public gatherings. He called for a boycott of the legislative elections in May.
- The deadline for drafting the Libyan constitution has been extended.
- Egypt has a new president: the election results were announced in favor of Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi.
- It has been announced that Field Marshal Tantawi, who has been in power since Mubarak’s ouster, will continue on in the Morsi government maintaining his position as defense minister. He was previously defense minister under Mubarak for two decades.
- A British student journalist Natasha Smith bravely spoke out on her blog, telling openly the horror story of her assault in Tahrir Square.
- Sudan deported Egyptian journalist Salma El-Wardany for her coverage of the ongoing anti-austerity uprisings and continues to detain Twitter activist Usamah Mohammed Ali.
- Uganda’s abuse and persecution of its LGBT population threatens its relationship with the US in the ongoing shadow war against militants in Somalia.
- RFE/RL explains the significance of the Port of Tartus in Russia’s relationship with Syria.
- Russia is, despite international attempts and pressures to cease, continuing to push through helicopter shipments to Syria.
- Turkey has deployed anti-aircraft guns and other weapons to the Syrian border following Syrian forces’ downing of a Turkish military jet.
- The UN has doubled its forecast for the number of Syrian refugees this year: the number is now 185,000.
- 73 Yemenis were killed earlier this week by land mines laid by Al Qaed
- a before they fled key strongholds in the south.
- After a long period of downturn, the number of insurgent attacks in Afghanistan rose again in April and in May. (There were 21% more attacks this May than in May of 2011.)
- Tehrik i-Taliban Pakistan has claimed responsibility for, and released a video of, the beheading of 17 Pakistani soldiers.
- Stuxnet, the famous computer virus co-designed by Israel and the US to attack computers in connection to the Iranian nuclear program, ceased operation as programmed one second past midnight this past Sunday.
- Former Bosnian Serb commander Radovan Karadzic was acquitted of one of the two of his genocide charges by the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal because the prosecution failed to offer enough evidence. He is at the halfway point in his trial.
- Prosecutors in the retrial of Kosovo Liberation Army commander and former Kosovo PM Ramush Haradinaj are seeking a twenty year sentence on war crimes charges.
- Quite a historic moment in Belfast when the Queen shook hands with former IRA commander and current Sinn Fein party Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness.
- It has been three years since a military coup in Honduras. Where are they now?
- What impact will the Mexican election have on the drug war?
- William D. Newell, former head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Phoenix, speaks out about Fast and Furious, an operation he initiated and oversaw.
- One soldier is dead in a shooting at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.
- A federal court convicted 23-year-old Saudi Khalid Aldawsari in a bomb attempt.
- The ACLU has announced the launch of a torture database containing 100,000 plus documents from the Bush era, related to practices of rendition, detention and interrogation.
- Commentary: Why have the victims of alleged federal misconduct in relation to counterterrorism and national security policies had so much difficulty in finding redress within the legal system?
- The Affordable Care Act wasn’t the only ruling passed down by the Supreme Court yesterday. The court also overturned Congress’s 2006 Stolen Valor Act, which had previously criminalized the act of making a false claim to a military medal, saying that however “contemptible” the false claim might be, it remains protected under the First Amendment.
- The White House is threatening a veto of the defense appropriations bill because the current version is in violation of the spending caps put in place by the Budget Control Act.
- Meanwhile, HASC chairman Buck McKeon has moved to strike a measure from the appropriations legislation that would end the military’s expensive NASCAR sponsorships.
- Chairmen of House Intelligence, Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committee have joined forces to introduce a bill that calls on the White House to designate the Haqqani Network a terrorist organization.
- Citing both victimization of female service-members and negative impact on operational readiness, the Navy is attempting a large-scale culture shift regarding sexual violence in the ranks.
Photo: Moscow. WWII Veteran Lev Yatsevich visits the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier outside the Kremlin last Friday, marking the seventieth anniversary of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP.
