CLINTON-ASIA: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton continues her India visit in
New Delhi Sunday, where she will hold talks with Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh on issues including foreign policy, climate change and
energy.
While in New Delhi, Clinton will also attend an event highlighting clean-energy efforts. Climate change is one of the more contentious issues in the bilateral
relationship, since New Delhi is resisting the Obama administration's
push for a global treaty that would mandate cuts in carbon emissions. The top U.S. diplomat arrives in New Delhi from Mumbai, where she
called for a global fight against terrorism after paying tribute to
victims of last year's terror attacks there.
US-INTERROGATION: U.S. government officials say the Obama administration is considering
creating a special unit of professional interrogators to handle
high-value terror suspects.
Officials told two major U.S. newspapers(The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post)
about the creation of the unit on the condition of anonymity, saying
the government task force on interrogation methods has not yet reported
to the president. Officials say the unit's primary purpose would be intelligence
gathering, rather than building criminal cases for prosecution. The
team would also devise new interrogation methods.
BURMA: Witnesses say Burmese authorities detained at least 15 members of the
opposition party as they returned home from ceremonies to mark the
death of the father of jailed opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Despite tight police security, dozens of pro-democracy activists
marched to the Martyrs' Mausoleum Sunday morning to commemorate the
July 19, 1947 assassinations of Aung San and 10 other independence
heroes.
Burma's military rulers once held ceremonies all over the country to
mark Martyrs' Day, but Sunday, the only official commemoration was a
wreath-laying ceremony at a mausoleum in Rangoon.
INDONESIA BLASTS: Indonesian police say the bombings of two hotels in Jakarta on Friday was the work of Jemaah Islamiyah, a regional terrorist group with ties to al-Qaida. Indonesian national police spokesman Nan Soekarna told reporters Sunday that an unexploded bomb left in a guest room of the Marriott hotel, which was attacked along with the nearby Ritz-Carlton, resembled explosives used in Bali and one discovered in a recent raid on an Islamic boarding school. Sidney Jones, an analyst with the International Crisis Group, says Noordin Top, a Malaysian who leads the most militant faction of JI, is the likely organizer of the attacks.
ASEAN: Foreign ministers are gathering Sunday in the Thai resort island of
Phuket for for the region's biggest security dialogue, the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum. The 27-member ARF, which includes nations from Asia as well as the
European Union, Russia and the United States, is expected to discuss
security, climate change, human rights abuses in Burma, North Korea's
nuclear ambitions and other topics in meetings, which run until
Thursday.
The bombing last week in Jakarta is also expected to be high on the agenda.
ASEAN foreign ministers on Saturday strongly condemned the Friday
bombings. In a joint statement, the ministers decried injuries and the
loss of innocent lives. They also expressed support for the Indonesian
government's effort to bring the perpetrators to justice.
