Iran test-fires new missile as Strait of Hormuz posturing continues

Iran test-fired a new Qader missile today, in the latest bout of martial posturing over the country's nuclear program and the security of the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial shipping lane for oil.

Iran fires long-range missile during Gulf drill, IRNA reports

An Iranian warship launches a missile in an unknown location in this still image taken from footage released by Islamic Republic of Iran News Network on January 1, 2012

Iran said today it had successfully test-fired a long-range missile during its naval exercise in the Gulf, the official IRNA news agency reported.

“We have test fired a long-range shore-to-sea missile called Qader (capable), which managed to successfully destroy predetermined targets in the Gulf,” the agency quoted deputy navy Commander Mahmoud Mousavi as saying.

US will not offer new F-16s to Taiwan

Taiwan Air Force F-16 fighter jet takes off from the closed-off section of Sun Yat-sen freeway at Chang-hua county in central Taiwan, in this May 15, 2007 file photo

US President Barack Obama has decided against selling new F-16 jets to Taiwan but will give the island an arms package worth US$4.2 billion (RM12.6 billion), the Washington Times reported.

The newspaper quoted administration and congressional officials as saying the US Congress will be briefed later today on the proposals.



The White House declined comment, the newspaper said. Officials in Taiwan had no immediate comment.

The Obama administration had said it would decide by October 1 on Taiwan’s request to buy 66 late-model F-16 fighter planes built by Lockheed Martin Corp.

Since 2006, the United States has balked at providing Taiwan the F-16 C/D models, potentially valued at more than US$8 billion, apparently for fear of angering China, which regards the self-ruled island as its own.

China’s top official newspaper warned last week that “madmen” on Capitol Hill who want the United States to sell advanced weapons to Taiwan were playing with fire and could pay a “disastrous price”.

The package proposed by the administration will include weapons and equipment to upgrade Taiwan’s existing F-16 A/B model aircraft, the Washington times said.

HMS Invincible, pride of the Falklands, is broken up in knacker's yard

As senior Naval officers back First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope's criticisms of the ability of the Navy to fight in Libya, Commander John Muxworthy, who sailed to the Falklands with the Royal Navy Task Force, looks at the ignominious end of a symbol of the once-mighty British fleet.

The image is a poignant symbol of Britain’s rapid decline as a maritime power. With her metallic carcass exposed, the once mighty aircraft carrier HMS Invincible languishes in a Turkish port, being broken up for scrap.

The ship was once the pride of the Royal Navy, a hero of the Falklands War and a veteran of other conflicts from Iraq to Yugoslavia.

But now, as Britain’s naval heritage is obliterated by an irresponsible Coalition Government, she faces an utterly degrading end.

HMS Invincible sits in the Port of Aliaga, Turkey, earlier this year, waiting to be scrapped and recycled

Unseemly death of a courageous veteran: Like a tired but noble beast brought down by jackals, HMS Invincible's carcass is picked clean in a Turkish scrapyard

What makes the image all the more shaming is how it reflects the profound concerns of First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, who said this week that Britain’s defences will be at risk if the war in Libya drags on, because our naval fleet can operate there for only another 90 days before it has to make serious cuts in firepower elsewhere.

Once Invincible’s 22,000-ton hull has been stripped of all valuable material, she will be melted down by the Turkish firm of Leyal into thousands of one-metre long blocks of steel, which will be recycled and used for building reinforcement, bridge cables, and more mundane objects such as office furniture.

HMS Invincible, launched in 1977, may have been coming to the end of her life, though with a refit she could have stayed in service for years to come.

But her demise is part of a wider pattern of brutal defence cuts that have left Britain dangerously vulnerable.

When I joined the Navy in 1960, we had 12 aircraft carriers, along with 30 cruisers and 150 frigates and destroyers.

Today, we have just 19 frigates, no major warships, and a single aircraft carrier, Illustrious, which can carry only helicopters and has no deck for fixed wing-aircraft

Moreover, all 60 Harriers have been withdrawn from naval service, which means that Britain, once the greatest sea power in the world and a pioneer of naval aviation — and still an island nation needing a navy to keep its food and fuel coming in times of conflict — has little real capability in its Fleet Air Arm.

The Government boasts it has ordered two new aircraft carriers, but neither will come into service before 2020, and it is almost certain that one will immediately be mothballed to save money. So, for almost a decade, Britain will be without an effective carrier, just at a time when other powers such as China, Brazil and Russia are launching a new generation of such vessels.

David Cameron is fond of claiming that a government’s first duty is national self-defence but the Coalition has hardly lived up to that rhetoric. In the Navy alone, 5,000 jobs are to go — meaning that personnel will fall below 30,000 for the first time in centuries.

Never in our history has there been a British government with less understanding of our defence needs.

Part of the problem is none of today’s senior politicians has served in the forces — unlike, for example, the Labour government in the Seventies with Jim Callaghan, Denis Healey and Roy Jenkins, who served in World War II.

The result is the chasm between the lofty pretensions of Britain’s foreign policy and the reality of the disastrous impact of defence cuts, as exemplified by the overstretch in Libya and Afghanistan.

Given the ongoing destruction of the Navy, it is simply not credible that we could mount a Falklands campaign today, as pointed out by Task Force commander Admiral Sandy Woodward in the Mail yesterday.

Our operation in 1982 involved about 100 vessels, two-thirds of them naval craft, the rest support vessels like the liner Canberra, converted into a troopship, in which I served as a liaison officer. We have nothing like those resources today.

Aboard Canberra I remember feeling a tremendous sense of comfort from the knowledge that Invincible was at the head of the Task Force.

Weighing 22,000 tons, with a runway 560ft long, a top speed of 28 knots and carrying nine Hawker Harriers and 12 Sea King helicopters — one of them flown by Prince Andrew — the Invincible was a formidable asset.

Without her, the Task Force would have struggled to provide an effective response to the Argentine invasion, not least because our troops would have been deprived of air cover.

Built by the famous engineering giant of Vickers at its Barrow-on-Furness yards, she could cope with any conditions, no matter how wild the seas or how aggressive the Argentine attacks.

The great irony of Invincible’s triumph in the South Atlantic was that, shortly before the Argentine invasion, the government had been negotiating to sell her to Australia for about £175  million, regarding her as surplus to naval requirements.

But that idea was immediately put on hold once the plans for the Task Force were put together, and she went on to play her pivotal role in the recapture of the islands.

After the war, she gave another two decades of magnificent service — helping to enforce the no-fly zone in southern Iraq during the late Nineties and serving in Nato’s operations in the Balkans in 1999.

Based in the Adriatic, she enabled Harriers to carry out air strikes against Serbia, as well as rescuing Kosovan refugees. It was not until 2005 that she was decommissioned.

With her demise, we have lost another part of Britain’s glorious naval tradition. Our greatest naval hero, Lord Nelson, would be weeping at what has happened to his beloved Royal Navy, with centuries of excellence being ripped apart in a Turkish scrapyard.

 An ignominious end: Workers take a break amid debris from the broken-down HMS Invincible in the Port of Aliaga in Turkey

 Battle: Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, Chief of the Naval Staff and First Sea Lord, said cuts to naval forces has left British defences at risk

End of the journey: HMS Invincible enters the naval dockyard in Plymouth for the last time in 2005

Sailor in court over submarine shootings

HMS Astute, the first of the biggest ever hunter-killer submarines to be ordered by Britain’s Royal Navy, sails into the River Clyde and up the Gareloch to her new home at HM Naval Base Clyde in Faslane near Glasgow, Scotland in this file picture of November 20, 2009.

A Royal Navy sailor appeared in court today accused of shooting dead a colleague and of the attempted murders of three other crew on board a nuclear-powered submarine.

Ryan Donovan, 22, Dartford, Kent, spoke only to confirm his name, age and address during the short hearing at Southampton Magistrates' Court.

Donovan has been charged with killing Lieutenant Commander Ian Molyneux, 36, who was fatally shot on board HMS Astute while it was docked in Southampton on Friday.





He has also been charged with the attempted murders of Petty Officer Christopher Brown, 36, Chief Petty Officer David McCoy, 37, and Lieutenant Commander Christopher Hodge, 45.

Donovan was remanded in custody to appear at Winchester Crown Court on April 13, the Press Association reported.

The shootings took place as local dignitaries, including the city council's mayor, chief executive and leader, were being given a tour of the submarine while it was on a five-day official visit to the city.

Royston Smith, a local council leader on board and a former Royal Air Force engineer disarmed the shooter.

Police and the defence ministry have said the shooting was not terrorism-related and there was no risk to the public

Iran naval ships enter Suez Canal, says official

An Iranian naval ship travels through the Suez Canal near Ismailia, some 120km north of Cairo February 22, 2011. Two Iranian naval ships entered the Suez Canal today and were heading toward the Mediterranean, a canal official said, a move certain to anger Israel.


Two Iranian ships entered the Suez Canal today and were heading towards the Mediterranean, a canal official said.

“They entered the canal at 5.45am,” the official said. No other details were immediately available.

Israel had said it takes a “grave view” of the passage of the ships – the first Iranian naval vessels to go through the canal since Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution.




Egypt’s ruling military council, facing its first diplomatic headache since taking power on February 11, has approved the vessels’ passage through the canal, a vital global trading route and major source of revenues for the Egyptian authorities.

The vessels include a frigate and a supply ship.

The decision was a difficult one for Egypt’s interim government. Cairo is an ally of the United States, has a peace treaty with Israel, and its relations with Iran have been strained for more than three decades.

Last week, the prospect of the Suez crossing was described by Israel’s far-right foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, as a provocation by Iran.

US to boost naval forces as China develops carrier: Admiral

 US aircraft carrier USS George Washington anchored in Hong Kong waters upon its arrival in this file photo of October 29, 2009. The United States will continue to upgrade its naval forces in the Pacific to counter China’s growing military strength

The US navy will continue to upgrade its military capabilities in the Pacific given its steadfast commitment to the region, a US vice-admiral said today, while urging China’s growing navy to avoid provocation.

China’s swelling defence budgets, rapid development of advanced systems including aircraft carriers and anti-satellite missiles, and its growing naval aggression in bordering seas, have unnerved regional neighbours and the United States in recent years.






“It is our sincere hope that as China continues to develop a blue-water navy, one which may soon include an aircraft carrier, it will employ that navy in a way that is responsible and constructive,” said Vice-Admiral Scott Van Buskirk during a visit to Hong Kong.

The vice-admiral who commands the US Navy’s 7th Fleet – the largest forward deployed military force with up to 70 ships and 300 aircraft – also urged China not to utilise such military hardware in a “threatening or provocative manner.”

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said last month a US military presence in the Pacific is essential to restrain Chinese assertiveness.

Following on from Gate’s comments that China’s military advances in cyber and anti-satellite warfare technology could challenge the ability of US forces to operate in the Pacific, Van Buskirk said the United States would upgrade its hardware there.

A new Littoral combat ship (LCS) will be deployed to the area soon, carrier fighter squadrons upgraded, attack submarine attack capabilities increased, and surface destroyers rekitted to “boost their ability to detect and kill enemy submarines”, Van Buskirk said.

Faster P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft will replace P-3 Orion planes in the next two years.

“We remain committed. We remain engaged,” he said.

While Gates breakthrough visit to Beijing last month reestablished high-level strategic level ties, Van Buskirk said much more needed to be done at a tactical level to ensure encounters at sea wouldn’t escalate or lead to conflict.

“We’re just not as successful in receiving return communications,” said Van Buskirk of attempts by US ships to hail Chinese vessels on the high seas.

Somali piracy threat worsening by the week, say shippers

Pirates leave a merchant vessel (not shown) for the Somali shore, while under observation by a US Navy ship, in this picture taken on October 8, 2008

Somali piracy is worsening by the week and governments lack the political will to tackle the crisis, which is threatening world trade routes, shipping industry officials said today.

Shippers have warned that more than 40 per cent of the world’s seaborne oil supply passes through the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea and is at risk from seaborne gangs, who are able to operate ever further out to sea and for longer periods, using captured merchant vessels as motherships.






The hijacking of two oil tankers last week in the northern Indian Ocean has put the key oil transport route in the firing line.

“It is getting worse on a weekly basis,” Peter Hinchliffe, secretary general of the International Chamber of Shipping, told Reuters Insider TV.

“This has been going on now for about three years. During that period of time we have seen a lack of political will to deal with the problem and contain it,” said Hinchliffe, whose association represents about 80 per cent of the global industry.

Pirate gangs are making tens of millions of dollars in ransoms, and despite successful efforts to quell attacks in the Gulf of Aden, navies have been unable to contain piracy in the Indian Ocean because of the vast distances involved.

“We have very clearly got to the stage where ships which want to trade oil and energy up through the Arabian Gulf, there is no option now to avoid pirates in the region,” Howard Snaith, marine director with INTERTANKO, told Insider.

“They have the whole of the Indian Ocean pretty much pinned down,” said Snaith, whose members own the majority of the world’s tanker fleet.

The fight against piracy has been hampered by legal ambiguities over the appropriate venue to prosecute captured suspects. A UN envoy this month proposed special courts be set up rapidly in the Somali enclaves of Somaliland and Puntland, and in Tanzania, to try captured pirates.

Shipping industry officials said the human cost was also rising as around 800 seafarers are now held captive by Somali gangs. Pirates are using torture to force crew members to operate captured motherships.

“The industry is lobbying very hard together,” Hinchliffe said.

“There is a lot of inter-government discussion going on but there is a lack of determination to make sure that the warships are correctly able to arrest and prosecute in particular, but also to have some kind of interaction, to make sure that the mothership activity is limited.”

Iran says two warships to pass through Suez canal

-The Swiss franc jumped Thursday in New York trade on a report that Iran was planning to send two warships through the Suez Canal.



Iranian state TV said today two Iranian warships are due to pass through the strategic Suez Canal – an event that would mark the first such passage by the Islamic republic’s navy since Iran’s 1979 revolution.

A similar plan was announced yesterday but then cancelled.

However, English-language Press TV subsequently quoted an official as saying the deployment was back on.

“Two Iranian warships are to cross the Suez Canal. The vessels are on their way to the Suez Canal,” he said.

Egyptian authorities saw “nothing wrong” with the passage of the two warships through the canal, Press TV said.

“Iranian officials were in contact with officials in Cairo to secure the vessels passage,” it quoted an unnamed Iranian navy official as saying.

The passage could be a potential policy headache for Egypt’s new army rulers. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said after the first announcement that the move through the canal en route to Syria would be a “provocation”.

It would be the first time since Iran’s 1979 revolution that Iranian warships had passed through the canal. The revolution poisoned ties with Egypt, which signed a peace treaty with Israel that year.

The canal is a vital commercial and strategic waterway between Europe and the Middle East and Asia. It is also a major source of revenues for the Egyptian government.

Russia agrees to buy French helicopter carriers

The Mistral class is a class of three amphibious assault ships, also known as a helicopter carrier, of the French Navy.


Russia has agreed to buy two helicopter carriers from a French-led consortium, the French and Russian governments said yesterday, in Moscow’s first major foreign arms purchase since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Under the long-discussed deal, the Mistral-type amphibious assault ships will be built by French shipyard companies DCNS and STX along with Russia’s state-run United Shipbuilding Corporation, known as OSK.

Some of France’s NATO allies had voiced concern, urging Paris not to sell Moscow high-tech systems that could be used against Russia’s former communist neighbours, especially since Russia’s brief 2008 war with neighbouring Georgia.




Here is some background to the deal.

MISTRAL CAPABILITIES

The Mistral-class ships can carry up to 16 helicopters such as Russia’s Ka-50/52. They also carry landing barges and hovercraft, allowing vehicles, tanks and soldiers to be taken ashore — an important capability if Russia had to fight a war similar to the one it waged with Georgia in 2008.

The Mistral can carry 450 troops for up to six months, but that number can rise to 700 for shorter periods.

COASTAL CONTROL

Russia failed to gain control of Georgia’s Black Sea coast in its five-day conflict with Tbilisi. It currently depends largely on helicopters and unmanned planes to control its coastal regions on the Baltic and Black Seas. The Mistral will give Moscow much greater command of its coastlines.

FOREIGN PURCHASES

The Mistral purchase of is the first major defence import deal since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, showing Russia’s need for foreign technology in the sector. The deal was a surprise as Moscow’s defence procurement strategy to 2015 did not include construction or purchase of any large combat ships.

BOON FOR NAVAL DEFENCE INDUSTRY

One of the main sticking points in Russia’s negotiations over the Mistral is whether it will get access to the same technology used on French ships, giving Russia a glimpse of more advanced naval weapons and defence systems.

The reputation of the Russian naval defence industry had been tarnished by an Indian order of the Admiral Gorshkov heavy aircraft carrying cruiser. Moscow-based defence analysts Cast say Russia has nearly tripled the price and delayed delivery of the cruiser by four years since signing the contract in 2004.

UK, France to share aircraft carriers

Britain and France are getting ready to unveil plans to share aircraft carriers amid pressure on the British military to cut costs, the Times newspaper reported today.

British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicholas Sarkozy were expected to announce the proposal at a November summit, the Times said, quoting an unidentified British naval source for its information.

No immediate comment was available from British officials on the report.

Earlier this month, a Defence Ministry source told Reuters that Britain might cancel one or both of its planned new aircraft carriers to cut costs, though there were no plans to scale back the country’s nuclear deterrent.

The proposal involving France would make it easier for Britain to scrap or downgrade one of the two replacement carriers under construction, the Times said.

The newspaper said the proposal would ensure that one of three ships — one French and two British — would always patrol the seas.

“Using each other’s carriers would require decisions to be made at the strategic level so that national aims on any given operation would be the same,” the naval source was quoted as saying.

The Defence Ministry is conducting a sweeping review of Britain’s future military needs and ways to provide capability more cheaply.

Israel moves to expel Rachel Corrie activists-Footage of Gaza aid flotilla protests in France-Israel Seizes Another Ship-Israel boards another Gaza aid boat-Israel Seizes Another Ship Headed to Gaza

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates prods China on NKorea, military ties to US

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, center, Japan's Minister of Defense Toshimi Kitazawa, right, and South Korean Defense Minister Kim Tae Young, shake hands during the Shangri-La Dialogue's Asia Security Summit in Singapore, Saturday, June 5, 2010.


Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, left, shakes hands Japan's Minister of Defense, Toshimi Kitazawa, during the Shangri-La Dialogue's Asia Security Summit in Singapore, Saturday, June 5, 2010.


The Chinese military's deputy chief of staff, General Ma Xiaotian, listens as Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates delivers remarks during the first plenary session at the Shangri-La Dialogue's Asia Security Summit in Singapore, Saturday, June 5, 2010.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates challenged China to deal realistically with the short-term question of how to respond to an antagonistic North Korea and the longer-term issue of whether Beijing's expanding military can establish more durable ties with the U.S.

Asian nations cannot stand by in the face of North Korea's alleged sinking of a South Korean warship, Gates said during an international security summit Saturday that was dominated by questions about the North.

"To do nothing would set the wrong precedent," Gates said.


The Chinese military's deputy chief of staff, General Ma Xiaotian, listens to a translation with headphone as Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in introduced to deliver remarks during the first plenary session at the Shangri-La Dialogue's Asia Security Summit in Singapore, Saturday, June 5, 2010.

The latest crisis with North Korea points out the limited options to deter further attacks or dismantle its nascent nuclear weapons program. The United States and China were part of a diplomatic effort to buy out the North's nuclear program that fell apart two years ago.

In an interview Saturday, Gates mused that North Korea seems immune to many of the traditional levers of international pressure, such as ostracization.

"How do you gain purchase with a regime that doesn't seem to care what happens to it?" Gates said in the BBC interview.

"As long as the regime doesn't care what the outside world thinks of it, as long as it doesn't care about the well-being of its people, there's not a lot you can do about it, to be quite frank, unless you're willing at some point to use military force. And nobody wants to do that."

The U.S. and South Korea want China to back a new international condemnation or punishment of the North.

At the Shangri-La Dialogue conference in Singapore, Gates joined South Korea in trying to marshal world support for the conclusion that North Korea was to blame for the sinking and should be held to account. South Korean officials handed out glossy pamphlets containing the results of an international investigation that found North Korea blew the warship Cheonan apart with a torpedo.

China, the North's closest ally, has not assigned blame for the sinking in March that killed 46 South Korean sailors.

Gates met several times with South Korean officials over two days here, including a symbolic three-way discussion Saturday with officials from South Korea and Japan. Washington is pledged to defend both nations as a legacy of U.S. wars in the Pacific.

Gates made the point during that session that the three nations "have to have a united front to deter further provocation," Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said afterward.

South Korea referred the sinking to the U.N. Security Council on Friday. The council has the power to impose penalties. China is one of five veto-holding members of the council.

China is the communist North's largest patron, giving it economic and political pull over an otherwise reclusive government. The U.S. and South Korea want China to use that clout to rein in the North Koreans.

At the security summit, Gates did not mention China's financial and diplomatic support for North Korea but said "the nations of this region share the task of addressing these dangerous provocations."

In a tense exchange following his address to the conference, Gates dismissed suggestions by a Chinese general that Washington was being hypocritical in criticizing North Korea but not Israel for its commando raid on an aid flotilla in the Mediterranean Sea this past week.

"There is a wide gap in the U.S. attitude and policy to the two instances," said Maj. Gen. Zhu Chenghu of China's National Defense University.

Gates said the attack on the warship was a surprise operation conducted "without any warning." Israel had issued several warnings to the flotilla not to enter its territorial waters, he said.

"I won't make judgment on responsibility or fault" about that incident, Gates said, adding that he favors an international investigation to determine responsibility.

The general also took on Gates over the issue of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, a constant irritant to Beijing, and Gates' assertion that China's military is balking at forging more durable ties with the United States.

"The Chinese are taking the Americans as a partner, as friends, and Americans take the Chinese as enemies," Zhu said.

Gates challenged China to resume military cooperation suspended after the Obama administration went ahead with a planned weapons sale to Taiwan worth more than $6 billion. The two powers cannot afford to misunderstand one another, Gates said.

Zhu said some contacts have continued since January, and made no promises.

Turks pray for Gaza victims as activists fly home

Turks pray for Gaza victims as activists fly home.


Israel: the Zionist state and its Palestinian neighbours


Around three thousand demonstrators gathered in the Cape Town city centre to protest against Israel's attack


Tens of thousands of people take part in the funeral service in Istanbul

Tens of thousands of angry Turks chanted anti-Israeli slogans at funeral prayers for victims of the Gaza aid flotilla attack, after activists detained in the raid flew home to a heroes' welcome.

Meanwhile the Jewish state suffered a new diplomatic blow when South Africa recalled its ambassador in protest at Israel's commando assault Monday in which nine people were killed.

And a new boat carrying Malaysian and Irish activists was set to arrive off Gaza at the weekend.



But US Vice President Joe Biden said Israel had a right to act as it did and US Middle East envoy George Mitchell warned that the tragedy should not be allowed to undermine the peace process.

Israel, which says it will not allow any attempt to pierce its blockade of the Palestinian enclave, rejected moves to set up an international inquiry into the incident.

"Damn Israel! Israel is the angel of death!" chanted the crowd in Istanbul's Fatih Mosque, as the coffins of eight activists were laid on marble stands, covered with both Turkish and Palestinian flags.

Others in the crowd -- estimated by local television to number up to 20,000 -- shouted "We are all soldiers of Hamas," referring to the Palestinian Islamist movement, which controls the Gaza Strip.

During the night about 1,000 people, also shouting slogans against Isarel, packed Istanbul airport to greet planes that brought back 485 activists, 19 of them wounded, and nine bodies from Israel.

The dead were eight Turks and a US national of Turkish origin, officials said. All were shot, according to forensic experts quoted by Anatolia news agency.

Turkey's President Abdullah Gul said that ties with Israel "will never be the same" after the attack, adding: "Israel has made the biggest mistake in its history."

But Biden said Israel has the right to protect its security by boarding ships heading for Gaza, while adding that Washington would cajole its ally on the plight of the Palestinians.

The White House has so far refused to explicitly single out the Israeli government for blame.

"The truth of the matter is, Israel has a right to know -- they're at war with Hamas... whether or not arms are being smuggled in," Biden said in an interview on PBS television.

Bulent Yildirim, head of the Islamic charity Foundation of Humanitarian Relief which spearheaded the Gaza aid fleet, said Israeli soldiers fired indiscriminately when they stormed the Mavi Marmara ferry, one of six vessels trying to get through the blockade around the Palestinian enclave.

He said activists used iron bars against the Israeli forces "in self defence". They also seized the soldiers' weapons but threw them in the sea rather than using them, he added.

Israel has said the commandos only opened fire after they came under attack with clubs, knives, guns and other weapons. It said however that the only firearms found afterwards were two pistols taken from soldiers, whose magazines were empty.

Yildrim said the death toll was higher than announced. Separately a Spanish activist on the flotilla, Manuel Tapial, said between 16 and 20 were killed.

Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas will travel to Turkey on Monday to pay his condolences to the Turkish people and meet President Gul.

From Turkey, Abbas will fly to the United States to ask President Barack Obama to make "bold decisions" on Middle East peace when they meet on Wednesday.

Israel rejected a bid by the UN Human Rights Council to set up an investigation, but German Chancellor Angela Merkel proposed that the Middle East Quartet -- the European Union, the United Nations, Russia and the United States -- join the probe.

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini also said that "having international observers named by the Quartet part of the investigation would be an important gesture of detente on Israel's part."

The quartet is seeking a resolution to the decades-old conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

US Middle East envoy Mitchell said Monday's "tragedy (...) cannot be allowed to spiral out of control and undermine the limited but real progress that has been made" in the Middle East peace process.

"The United States deeply regrets the tragic loss of life and injuries suffered among those involved in the incident aboard the Gaza-bound ships," he said in the West Bank city of Bethlehem..

"What has happened makes your work here and moving forward even more critical," he added.

Organisers say another ship was heading for Gaza despite the risk of more violence and could arrive there on Saturday. The Rachel Corrie, carrying building supplies along with Irish and Malaysian activists, is in the Mediterranean.

Israel Holds Hundreds Seized During Raid on Flotilla

On Sunday, before an Israeli raid, activists held a news conference aboard the Mavi Marmara, part of a flotilla taking aid to Gaza.


After the Israeli raid, a speedboat escorted the ship, now with Israeli forces on board, to the port of Ashdod


A day after Israeli commandoes stormed an aid flotilla seeking to breach the blockade of Gaza, Israel held hundreds of activists seized aboard the convoy on Tuesday as news reports said activists may be planning a fresh attempt to ferry supplies to the embattled enclave.



At the same time, the Israeli military said troops clashed with two militants who infiltrated from Gaza, killing them both. While such occurrences are almost routine along the fraught border between Israel and Gaza, the incident underscored the tensions seizing the region after Monday’s confrontation at sea, which strained already fraught relations between Israel and the United States just as American-sponsored proximity talks involving Palestinians and Israelis were getting under way.

The developments in Israel and Gaza came hours after the United Nations Security Council condemned “acts” leading to the loss of life in Israel’s operation in international waters on Monday that claimed the lives of nine civilians, many of them Turks.

In response, Turkey, once seen as Israel’s most important friend in the Muslim world, recalled its ambassador and canceled planned military exercises with Israel as the countries’ already tense relations soured even further. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel was flying home after canceling a Tuesday meeting with President Obama.

Mr. Netanyahu defended the Israeli military’s actions, saying the commandos, enforcing what Israel says is a legal blockade, were set upon by passengers on the Turkish ship they boarded and fired only in self-defense. The military released a video of the early moments of the raid to support that claim.

Israel said the violence was instigated by pro-Palestinian activists who presented themselves as humanitarians but had come ready for a fight. Organizers of the flotilla accused the Israeli forces of opening fire as soon as they landed on the deck, and released videos to support their case. Israel released video taken from one of its vessels to supports its own account of events.

On Tuesday, activists promised more confrontation. Greta Berlin of the Free Gaza Movement that organized the flotilla said that another cargo boat was heading to Gaza from the coast of Italy while a second boat carrying some 35 passengers was expected to join it, The Associated Press reported.

“This initiative is not going to stop,” Ms. Berlin said from the group’s base in Cyprus. “We think eventually Israel will get some kind of common sense. They’re going to have to stop the blockade of Gaza, and one of the ways to do this is for us to continue to send the boats.”

Reuters reported that Israel was holding hundreds of activists incommunicado in and around the port city of Ashdod, refusing to permit journalists access to witnesses who might contradict Israel’s version of events. Around 50 of the passengers had volunteered to be deported but over 600 were refusing to be repatriated.

Given the dispute over who provoked the confrontation, the Israeli public seemed largely to support the navy. But policy experts questioned preparations for the military operation, whether there had been an intelligence failure and whether the Israeli insistence on stopping the flotilla had been counterproductive. Some commentators were calling for the resignation of Ehud Barak, the defense minister.

“The government failed the test of results; blaming the organizers of the flotilla for causing the deaths by ignoring Israel’s orders to turn back is inadequate,” wrote Aluf Benn, a columnist for Haaretz, on the newspaper’s Web site on Monday, calling for a national committee of inquiry. “Decisions taken by the responsible authorities must be probed.”

The flotilla of six cargo ships and passenger boats was carrying 10,000 tons of aid for Gaza, where the Islamic militant group Hamas holds sway. But the raid and its deadly consequences have thrown Israel’s policy of blockading Gaza into the international limelight; at the United Nations Security Council early on Tuesday, a statement urged the lifting of the restrictions and stressed “the need for sustained and regular flow of goods and people to Gaza.”

Israel had vowed not to let the flotilla reach the shores of Gaza, where Hamas, an organization sworn to Israel’s destruction, took over by force in 2007.

Named the Freedom Flotilla, and led by the pro-Palestinian Free Gaza Movement and a Turkish organization, Insani Yardim Vakfi, the convoy had converged at sea near Cyprus and set out on the final leg of its journey on Sunday afternoon. Israel warned the vessels to abort their mission, describing it as a provocation.

The confrontation began shortly before midnight on Sunday when Israeli warships intercepted the aid flotilla, according to a person on one boat. The Israeli military warned the vessels that they were entering a hostile area and that the Gaza shore was under blockade.

The vessels refused the military’s request to dock at the Israeli port of Ashdod, north of Gaza, and continued toward their destination.

Around 4 a.m. on Monday, naval commandos came aboard the Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara, having been lowered by ropes from helicopters onto the decks.

At that point, the operation seems to have gone badly wrong.

Israeli officials say that the soldiers were dropped into an ambush and were attacked with clubs, metal rods and knives.

An Israeli official said that the navy was planning to stop five of the six vessels of the flotilla with large nets that interfere with propellers, but that the sixth was too large for that. The official said there was clearly an intelligence failure in that the commandos were expecting to face passive resistance, and not an angry, violent reaction.





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Profile: Kim Jong-un -On the tracks of 'Kim's successor'

Kim Jong-il reportedly suffered a stroke last year


The only known image of Kim Jong-un shows him as a young boy,third son of Kim Jun-il.

Kim Jong-il's third son, Kim Jong-un, will become North Korea's next leader, according to unconfirmed South Korean media reports. The BBC News website and BBC Monitoring profile this elusive young man.

Kim Jong-un is youngest son of Kim Jong-il and his late third wife Ko Yong-hui.

Born in 1983 or early 1984, the young Kim was initially not thought to be in the frame to take up his father's mantle.

Analysts focused their attention on his half-brother Kim Jong-nam and older full brother Kim Jong-chol.

But speculation that he was in the frame to succeed his father picked up in January, after a report in South Korea's Yonhap news agency suggested that Kim Jong-il had picked him as heir.



North Korea watchers also took his reported appointment to the powerful National Defence Commission as a possible signal that he was being moved into a leadership position.

The defence commission is North Korea's most important government body, and Kim Jong-il rules the country in his capacity as the commission's chairman.

On 2 June, Seoul's intelligence agency reportedly briefed legislators that North Korean officials had been ordered to support the choice of Kim Jong-un as the next leader.

However there has also been much speculation that the man being lined up as the real "power behind the throne" is Chang Song-taek - the husband of Kim Jong-il's sister and director of the administrative department of the North Korean Workers Party.

Some analysts see him acting as a "regent" to Kim Jong-un until he is ready to rule on his own.

'Morning Star King'

Kim Jong-un's mother, Ko Yong-hui, was thought to be Kim Jong-il's favourite wife, and she clearly doted on her son, reportedly calling him the "Morning Star King".

In his 2003 book, "I was Kim Jong-il's Chef", a Japanese man writing under the pseudonym Kenji Fujimoto also claimed that Jong-un was his father's favourite.


But the mysterious death of Ko Yong-hui in 2004 appeared to put the younger Kim firmly behind his half-brother Jong-nam in the leadership stakes.

However Jong-nam's deportation from Japan in May 2001, and middle brother Jong-chol's apparent "unmanliness" subsequently improved his chances.

Swiss-educated like his brothers, Kim Jong-un avoided Western influences, returning home when not in school and dining out with the North Korean ambassador.

Since his return to Pyongyang, little has been made public about his character.

In 2006, badges bearing his image were said to be circulating among senior officials of the ruling Korean Workers' Party, arousing suspicions that he had been chosen as Kim Jong-il's successor.

In his father's image

Said by Kim Jong-il's chef, Mr Fujimoto, to be the "spitting image" of his father, the young Kim has never been photographed by the Western media.

The only photograph known to exist of him is one taken when he was 11 which Mr Fujimoto said he was given by Kim Jong-un before he left North Korea.

Kim Jong-un also shares some of his father's health problems, and is reported to already have diabetes and heart disease due to a lack of exercise.

Like his film-loving father, Jong-un is said to enjoy popular culture, and is apparently a fan of NBA basketball.

One South Korean newspaper, the Dong-a Ilbo, has reported that the North was teaching its people a song lauding Kim Jong-un to raise his profile.

But this detail, as with many others in secretive North Korea, is impossible to confirm.



So little is known about Kim Jong-un - the youngest son and reportedly the named successor of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il - that even his date of birth is uncertain: no-one is really sure whether he was born in 1983 or 1984.

But it is known that the third Kim, like his two elder brothers, was sent to school in Switzerland. The BBC's Imogen Foulkes reports on the young Kim's school days, and the unusually close relationship between Switzerland and North Korea.

Kim Jong-un attended Berne's international school, where, it is rumoured, he joined school skiing outings, and was something of a peacemaker in playground disputes.

He arrived every day in a chauffeur-driven car from the North Korean embassy, which is just around the corner from the school.

But, since Jong-un went under an assumed name, none of his classmates knew his true identity.

He is said to have been closely supervised by embassy officials - but he also apparently speaks Swiss German - and since the language of the international school is English, that indicates that the young Kim did spend some time socialising.

The choice of a Swiss education for North Korea's future leader may not be a coincidence.

North Korea's ambassador to Switzerland has been in his post for more than 20 years and North Korea watchers regard Ri Tcheul as extremely powerful, enjoying the confidence of Kim Jong-il.

Studying cheese

Switzerland has surprisingly close ties with North Korea.

During the famine of the 1990's the Swiss launched a substantial humanitarian relief operation, which, almost alone among foreign aid projects, was subsequently transformed into a long-term development programme.

In 2003 Switzerland's foreign minister was the first foreign government official to cross the demarcation line between North and South Korea.

At the time she offered Switzerland's services as a mediator between the two Koreas.

And every year North Korean officials come to Switzerland, ostensibly to study the Swiss federal system - the most recent visit was in February.

North Korean agricultural specialists regularly spend time here studying the Swiss art of making cheese and yoghurt, which Kim Jong-il is said to love.

But recently, there are signs that warm relationship may be cooling.

The two biggest Swiss banks, UBS and Credit Suisse, stung by allegations that Kim Jong-il was storing billions in Switzerland, announced in 2006 that they were cutting ties with North Korea.

Meanwhile, Switzerland's development programme is set to end in 2011, amid rumours Swiss financial aid was going not to North Korean farms, but into the coffers of the government in Pyongyang.

China's dilemma on eccentric North Korea

Mr Wen (right) wants to avoid Korean instability at all costs


A war would see a flood of refugees over the North Korea-China border 

At the end of the three-way conference between President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea, Yukio Hatoyama, the Japanese prime minister, and Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, a great many people here must have been hoping to hear Mr Wen criticise North Korea for allegedly torpedoing the South Korean naval ship Cheonan two months ago.

At the very least they would have wanted him to accept publicly that North Korea had been responsible for it, as an international inquiry has maintained. If so, it was one of the most dangerous acts of war in the Korean peninsula in recent years.

Mr Wen refused. He sent his condolences to the families of the 46 South Korean sailors who were killed. He called for restraint. He hinted at the dire consequences of war.



But even though North Korea is China's protege, he would not condemn it in public.
Not good company

Nowadays China is keen to show the world that it is serious and responsible - a great power which can be trusted to behave properly.

And yet it chooses to give its support to a country which is regularly accused of being an outlaw.

If you see things from the vantage point of Beijing, though, it all looks rather different.

It seems safe to assume that if the Chinese felt they could safely dump North Korea and its strange, eccentric leader Kim Jong-il (whom his people are expected to call The Dear Leader), they certainly would.

Each new group of leaders in China, as it comes to power, is a little less friendly and supportive towards him. The Dear Leader is nothing short of an embarrassment. His regime is regularly accused of planning crimes and assassinations.

It is hard to work out whatever reason one of his submarines would have had to attack a South Korean ship in South Korean waters. Yet most experts here and in the West assume that the orders must have come from the top - or very near it.

This is not good company for China to keep.

Suppose, though, that Wen Jiabao had emerged from his summit meeting and told the world's press that China condemned North Korea in strong terms. His government would have made several new friends; but Kim Jong-il would have gone off the deep end immediately.

War, which despite the rhetoric actually seems quite far away at present, would have become more likely right away. Without China to warn him of the consequences, he or his associates could easily order an attack on South Korea.

Even so, outright fighting, though it might cost a great many casualties, would almost certainly be won by the South, with American help.

Large numbers of refugees would flood across North Korea's border with China. Kim Jong-il's ramshackle regime would probably fall quickly. Korea would be reunited, as a capitalist, strongly pro-American ally abutting on to China.

Who knows what might happen then to China's own, often insecure political leadership?

Mr Wen and his colleagues could lose everything.

This is all highly speculative; but we can be sure that China believes instability on the Korean peninsula is something which has to be avoided at all costs - just in case.

And if that means angering the South Koreans and turning a blind eye to a shocking act of aggression, so be it.

The way China sees it, this will protect the safety of ordinary South Koreans better than any ritual condemnation.

All the same, many other countries will regard it as yet another example of the tail wagging the dog: the uncontrollable North Koreans forcing their immensely more powerful Chinese neighbours to support them - or else.

SKorea steps up campaign over ship sinking-China and Japan 'back North Korea financial sanctions'

Japan,China and South Korea PMs wants to avoid Korean instability at all costs


China and Japan has both agree to punish NKorea with financial sanctions.


South Korea PM has tough job to handle NKorea aggression and the death of 46 South Korea submarine crews.


South Korea's former Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook (front R), who is the main opposition Democratic Party's candidate for Seoul mayoral position in the upcoming local election, arrives for an election campaign 

South Korea says it has persuaded China and Japan to take part in financial sanctions against North Korea.

It comes in the wake of the sinking of a South Korean naval ship by a North Korean submarine.

In a BBC interview, South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan speculated that the sinking of the Cheonan might have been the result of internal Pyongyang politics.

North Korea has angrily denied any responsibility for the attack.

The North Korean military, Mr Yu said, might have decided to do it in order to distract attention from other problems.



Mr Yu had no criticisms to make of China for failing to condemn North Korea publicly for the sinking of the Cheonan.

On the contrary, he felt that China had been privately helpful and understanding during the three-way summit with South Korea and Japan, which ended on Sunday.

South Korea is hoping to make the regime in Pyongyang pay a heavy price for its actions.

It is invoking UN resolution 1695, passed in 2006, which makes it possible to introduce economic sanctions against North Korea for breaching its international obligations.

The government in Seoul wants all inflows of money to North Korea to be stopped.

If China, which has so far delayed announcing its own findings on the sinking of the Cheonan, does take part in the sanctions, it could make life even harder for President Kim Jong-il's regime.

Fragile economy

Things are already difficult enough for him. The famine of the past seems mostly to have been dealt with, at least for now, as a result of the government's decision to allow a quiet measure of free enterprise.

But this has helped to create a great deal of corruption among low-level officials, on a scale which the North Korean regime had never previously allowed.

Towards the end of last year North Korea introduced a currency reform which had the effect of raising some salaries by as much as 10,000%.

This made it possible for a lot of people to buy things they had only previously dreamt of.

The shops were suddenly filled with great quantities of cheap consumer goods, mostly brought or smuggled in from China. But it also introduced alarming rates of inflation.

The inflow of cash from outside has never been large, but it has helped to keep North Korea's immensely fragile economy going. If the Chinese join in a wider blockade, it could have serious political consequences as well as economic ones.

It comes at a time when Kim Jong-il, the so-called "Dear Leader", is becoming manifestly weaker. He was once surprisingly clever at wrong-footing both South Korea and the United States in the past, but ever since his stroke in 2008 his powers have waned.

Now his third and youngest son, Kim Jong-un, seems to have been selected to take over from him, just as Kim Jong-il himself was once chosen to succeed "the Great Leader", Kim Il-sung.

Scarcely anything is known about Kim Jong-un, who is either 27 or 28 - accounts vary. He is thought to have been educated in Switzerland, and he possibly speaks quite good English.

Only one authentic photograph of him exists in the public domain, and since that was taken when he was eleven it is not much of a guide to his appearance now.

Rumour in South Korea has it that he was involved in the disastrous decision to reform the currency last year.

Mr Yu admitted in his BBC interview that all these things made people feel nervous about the future of the peninsula at present.

"If things go wrong it could have very serious consequences far wider than just Korea," he said.

It sounds like a measured understatement.

Footage show IDF Isreal storm ship-Passengers respond by metal rods,stun grenade,fire boms,metal rod,and throw soldier overboard.

North Korea threatens to launch 'immediate physical strikes' as South Korea stages anti-submarine drills off coast

Tensions: A South Korean soldier hits an effigy of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il during a rally in Seoul

Drills: The South Korean navy has been carrying out anti-submarine exercises off the coast, despite warnings from the north

Anger: More than 10,000 protesters gather at a rally today after the sinking of a South Korean warship in March

North Korea annouced today that it will scrap an agreement aimed at preventing accidental naval clashes after Seoul blamed it for a torpedo attack which sank a South Korean warship.

Tensions between the two countries have risen dramatically since a team of international investigators said last week that a torpedo fired by a North Korean submarine sank the warship on March 26, killing 46 sailors.

North Korea has denied any involvement in the sinking and warned any retaliation would mean war.
The country's military said in a statement released by the official Korean Central News Agency: 'Immediate physical strikes will be launched against any South Korean ships that intrude into North Korean waters.'



Defiant: South Korean sailors manning the guns on a warship during 2nd Fleet training

It said it will also start a review to possibly ban South Korean personnel and vehicles from entering a joint industrial park in Kaesong - the last remaining major inter-Korean reconciliation project.

The military said the measures are its first-phase reaction to 'the reckless moves of the group of traitors and confrontation maniacs'.

A South Korean defence ministry official said the country would 'resolutely' deal with its neighbour's measures.
The announcement came hours after a fleet of South Korean warships staged a large-scale anti-submarine drill off the west coast, despite warnings that such exercises will drive the peninsula to the brink of war.

The two Koreas are still technically at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.

As a result of the Korean War, the U.S. stations 28,500 troops in South Korea. They are on their highest alert since the north made its second nuclear test in May last year.

The JoongAng Ilbo newspaper, citing a Seoul official, reported that the South Korean and U.S. combined forces raised its surveillance level - known as Watch Condition - up a level from three to two. Level one is the highest.

South Korea, backed by the U.S., Japan and other allies, has begun carrying out punitive measures including slashing trade, resuming propaganda warfare and barring the north's cargo ships.

But North Korea has responded by threatening to wage 'all-out counterattacks' and barring South Korean ships and airliners from its waters and airspace.
North Korean Major General Pak Chan Su said: 'We will never tolerate the slightest provocations of our enemies, and will answer to that with all-out war.

'This is the firm standpoint of our People's Army.'

Ten warships fired artillery and dropped depth charges during the South Korean anti-submarine drills off the coast of Taean, 95 miles south of Seoul.

It is the first anti-submarine drill since the Cheonan disaster, which occurred about 100 miles to the north.

South Korea is planning two major joint military drills with the U.S. off the west coast in July.