By Robert Tait (World news
and comment from the
Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

Tehran blames US and Britain after at least 29 people die in suicide bomb attack in Sistan- Baluchistan province

Iran's military suffered a heavy blow today when a suicide bomber killed at least 29 people in the country's volatile south-east, including several Revolutionary Guard commanders.

The victims included the guards' deputy commander, General Noor Ali Shooshtari, thought to be the most senior member killed in recent years.

Local media said at least 28 had been wounded in the bombing at a conference hall in Sarbaz in Sistan-Baluchistan, Iran's poorest province, as Revolutionary Guard commanders met local tribal elders.

Conflicting reports said an undetermined number of commanders had died. Initial accounts put the number at six, but Hosein Ali Shahriari, MP for Zahedan, the provincial capital, told the semi-official news agency ILNA, that at least 20 commanders had died.

Baluchistan province, was also killed.It was Iran's highest military death toll since the end of the 1980-1988 Iraq war, the conservative website Tabnak said.

Officials immediately blamed Britain and the US as rescue workers sifted through wreckage searching for survivors. "Surely foreign elements, particularly those linked to the global arrogance [regime code for America and Britain], were involved in this attack," a guards statement read out on state TV said.

Suspicion also centred on Jundullah, a militant Sunni group that has claimed responsibility for previous bombings.

Official reports were confused. The official news agency, IRNA, reported that an attacker with explosives blew himself up. The English-language state satellite channel, Press TV, said there were two simultaneous explosions: one at the meeting and another targeting an additional convoy of guards en route to the gathering.

The blast appeared to be a direct challenge to the Revolutionary Guards.

The elite force \u2013 seen as the guardian of Iran's Islamic revolution \u2013 took over direct responsibility for Sistan-

The province has been a centre of recent unrest after Jundallah took up arms on behalf of the local Baluchi Sunni population, which it claims suffers discrimination at the hands of Iran's Shia rulers.

In May, the group, led by Abdulmalek Rigi, claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on a Shia mosque in Zahedan, the provincial capital, that killed 25. Iran later executed 13 members that it claimed were involved in the bombing. Iran has previously linked Jundallah to al-Qaida and claimed it was receiving American backing, something the US denies. Other sources have linked the organisation to the Taliban in Pakistan.

The speaker of Iran's parliament, Ali Larijani, condemned today's attack, claiming it was aimed at disrupting security in south-east Iran.

"The intention of the terrorists was definitely to disrupt security in Sistan-Baluchistan province," Larijani told an open session of parliament broadcast live on state radio.

Jundullah has carried out bombings, kidnappings and other attacks against Iranian soldiers

and other forces in recent years, including a car bombing in February 2007 that killed 11 members of the Revolutionary Guard near Zahedan.

Jundullah also claimed responsibility for the December 2006 kidnapping of seven Iranian soldiers in the Zahedan area. It threatened to kill them unless members of the group in Iranian prisons were released. The soldiers were released a month later, apparently after talks through tribal mediators.

In March 2006, 22 provincial officials were shot in cold blood on an isolated road between Zabol and Zahedan after being ambushed by alleged Jundullah gunmen.

Sistan-Baluchistan, which is Iran's most notoriously lawless province, lies on a major drug transit run from Afghanistan. Nearly 4,000 Iranian security officers are believed to have been killed in clashes with smugglers since 1979.

Explainer: why are the Iranians blaming the US and Britain for the attacks?

Whenever a militant attack takes place inside Iran, government officials frequently identify Britain or the US as the instigators.

become a standard Iranian position that the Anglo-US alliance is a source of unrest in Sistan-Baluchistan and other provinces.

Officials point to the presence of Nato forces in neighbouring Afghanistan as a launch-pad for Anglo-US interference.

They also claim "counter- revolutionary" forces \u2013 by which they mean Jundullah, the Sunni militant group - have been aided by "elements" in the Pakistani government, which is backed by the US against the Taliban.

Iran's theocratic regime believes the US has tried to destabilise it by backing Jundullah, despite Washington's denials.

The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has also accused the US of exploiting its presence in Iraq to support "terrorists" in Iran's Kurdish areas. Beforehand, the UK was blamed for attacks in oil-rich Khuzestan province at a time when British troops were stationed in neighbouring southern Iraq.

guardian.co.uk\u00a9 Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

(World news and comment
from the Guardian |
guardian.co.uk)

When the wall came down, improvised clubs and bars sprang up in the East. Two veterans, who are still on the club scene, go on an urban road trip to see how things have changed

'If you're faced by the wall every mo rning, it's dark all day," says Steve Morell, DJ, musician and one of Berlin's legendary night- owls. "Even though we were just in the West, it felt apocalyptic; I thought it would never end."

It's a blue-sky morning outside the Rauchhaus, one of the oldest squats in Berlin, right up by the former death strip. I've come to see how the city has changed in the 20 years since the wall fell, with the help of Steve and my old friend Nackt, from cult Berlin band Warren Suicide. The idea is a personal road trip across the spaces that have transformed their cultural landscape.

Before 1989, Kreuzberg was the centre of alternative youth culture in West Berlin, and the Rauchhaus, a neo-Romanesque hospital, was on the eastern tip of this once-desolate neighbourhood, enclosed by the Landwehr canal and the wall. Named after left- wing radical Georg von Rauch, it now welcomes visitors, but check the website first. If you don't mind sharing with strangers, a bed in the "international guest room" costs from \u20ac3 a night. If that sounds a little scary, its Smoke House parties offer lashings of authentic Berlin spirit on the second weekend of each month (see the link on the opposite page).

"This area was incredible," says Steve (born Stephan Kraus), who arrived from Frankfurt in 1984, aged 17, to squat with 40 other left-wing activists. We are standing in bright sun by discarded doors, tyres and filing cabinets. Dilapidated 1940s trucks line the pavement.

"There were squats everywhere and some amazing bands, very influential in Germany, used to record at the Rauchhaus. But it was the best and the worst of times. There were constant police raids. I'd hear shootings through the night behind the wall and read in the paper the next day what had happened outside our door."

After the wall fell, a third of the buildings in the eastern half of the city were lying empty, and techno activists from areas such as Kreuzberg began to search for new spaces to party. In early 1990, the first improvised clubs opened, as basements became bars, and unused municipal buildings \u2013 from warehouses to power stations \u2013 formed a spider's web of a DIY scene. We jump into Steve's Opel Vectra to drive east along the former no man's land of Bethaniendamm. At Schilling Bridge, we reach Maria, a seminal music venue opened in 1992. Nackt and Steve agree that this former storage unit on the river Spree is "one of Berlin's top five".

"It's as famous for indie/rock bands as for techno," says Nackt, who left the small town of Burghausen for Berlin just after the wall came down. "Warren Suicide have played amazing shows here, and so have Peaches, CSS, Simian."

Berlin in the second world war, with more than half its buildings destroyed as the allies targeted its industrial areas. The area still feels bleak, dominated by Soviet- era housing blocks and a wide sea of railway tracks, as well as one of the longest surviving sections of wall, now the 1.3km Eastside Gallery, its 100 or so post- revolution images \u2013 including the famous kiss between Brezhnev and Honecker \u2013 repainted this year.

With its low rents (compared with West Berlin) the area is now being ploughed (or plagued) by corporate monsters \u2013 the 02, MTV Europe, Universal Music \u2013 as part of an ongoing construction project along the Spree, dubbed Mediaspree. The boys, along with Berlin's youth, are worried the clubs will close to make way for riverside apartments.

"Already Bar 25, an institution, has shut," says Nackt, "but it's been having closing parties for 10 years."

Talk turns to Ostalgie, a rising wave of nostalgia for the old East Germany, from the resurrection of brands of foods to the interactive GDR museum in Mitte, where you can try out a Trabant car, or pretend to be a Stasi officer. "Look," says Steve, wagging a finger from the wheel at a Soviet block, "the whole Ostalgie thing is so big tourists can even stay in a 'typical GDR apartment' with 50s furniture." We laugh.

"Anything goes in there." We are bumping along a sandy track \u2013 the city was built on sand \u2013 towards an imposing power station in Friederichshain, where wide-eyed kids drift outside in colourful T- shirts, and a row of yellow cabs wait for business. It's a hot

Sunday afternoon, but punters will have been going since Saturday night; some clubs keep going until Monday evening.

"This is the Berghain," says Steve, "one of the most famous clubs in Berlin." The boys are hoping to show me its Panorama bar with Wolfgang Tillmans artwork. The thud of minimal techno bangs like a headache.

Can we take a photo inside, we ask nicely. "No," is the growled reply. "And no journalists." We turn to leave. "I've seen things in there I couldn't repeat," says Steve, with a devilish smile.

So it's off to somewhere more cultural. Haus Schwarzenberg is an old factory in Mitte that is now a bar, gallery and cinema; it's where Steve loves to DJ, and Nackt's fellow band member Cherie has shown her art. As we enter a dark alley lined with picnic benches, Steve explains that it's run by artist duo the Dead Chickens, who moved here in 1995 after being based in Kreuzberg in the 80s. We sip cappuccinos in the peeling courtyard, and Steve shows me the bar spooked with the artists' famous "monster" artworks.

"It's the last oasis of real alternative art in the city," he says, as we climb graffitied stairwells to explore the white spaces of the Neurotitan gallery upstairs, which specialises in comics and graphic art.

There are few cities whose mythology is so closely tied to its nightlife, and back down in the courtyard, conversation bounces round other seminal eastside clubs \u2013 Bang Bang ("GDR decor again"), Tresor ("in Berlin's main central-heating power station"), ZMF ("in the basement of the

biggest furniture factory for the east, kind of rotten but in a nice way," says Steve) and Lovelite ("a typical warehouse, like so many clubs in Friederichshain, in the middle of nowhere," says Nackt.) Nightlife has long been commercialised even here, but the boys agree that an underground creativity still pervades \u2013 if you avoid the weekend "clubbing tourists". And the unification of East and West Germany at the first techno parties as the wall fell is celebrated in an annual festival, the Love Parade.

But there are more places to tick off today, so we speed off again towards Kaffee Burger, a classic East German boozer dating from the mid-30s, complete with 50s GDR lettering on the windows. A faded poster advertises its fortnightly Russian discos and, inside, the aged decor under bright lighting, it's easy to imagine secret meetings of political dissidents over wheat beer and schnapps in the mid-70s, as they plotted an escape to the West.

"It's been around forever," says Nackt, "but it's still a cool after- hours place."

The Volksb\u00fchne, in Mitte, was rebuilt in 1954 after devastation in the war, hence its Soviet appearance. "Its name means 'Free People's Theatre'," says Steve. "Before the wall came down, it would have shown plays by Bertolt Brecht." Now it has the reputation of being one of the most experimental theatres in Germany, "where art meets rock".

"Warren Suicide sold this place out with a full string ensemble," says Nackt, and Steve has thrown

By Declan Walsh (World news
and comment from the
Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

Fierce militant resistance reported as 30,000 army troops backed by warplanes and artillery advance into South Waziristan

Pakistan said it killed 60 militants and lost 11 soldiers as a 30,000-strong attack force pushed into Taliban's tribal stronghold on the second day of a major operation.

Taliban fighters offered fierce resistance as ground troops, backed by warplanes and artillery, pushed into South Waziristan, the mountain headquarters of the notorious Tehrik I Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

Militants detonated roadside bombs and opened fire on helicopter gunships. Villagers, some of them women, waved white flags and troops searching houses discovered large weapons caches, the military said.

In a statement it said tactical heights near Razmak, a mountain village at the northern edge of South Waziristan, had been captured following fighting that killed 10 militants and two soldiers.

The Taliban denied the army claims, and a spokesman insisted the guerrillas had inflicted "heavy casualties" and forced the invading soldiers back into their bases. "We know how to fight this war and defeat the enemy with the

minimum loss of our men," Azam Tariq told the Associated Press from an undisclosed location.

The conflicting versions were impossible to reconcile. Inaccessible at the best of times, much of South Waziristan has been sealed off since the operation started on Saturday morning. Phone connections to Waziristan and nearby areas have been disconnected.

The fight, pitting 30,000 soldiers against 10,000 Taliban and al-Qaida miltants, according to the army, followed two weeks of audacious assaults in cities that left over 175 people dead and underlined the militant threat to national stability.

In the most shocking incident, a team of 10 gunmen laid siege to the army headquarters in Rawalpindi for 22 hours. All but one were killed. The army said the attack was orchestrated from South Waziristan.

The army has surrounded a mountainous swath of South Waziristan that is controlled by the Mehsud tribe, whose most notorious member, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed by a US drone last August. Mehsud's successor as leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, vowed to take revenge, apparently triggering the recent wave of militant attacks.

The military operation, which has been in the offing since June, has caused more than 110,000 people to flee their homes. Authorities expect another

Soldiers are attacking the Mehsud territory from Razmak in the north, Jandola in the east and Wana in the south. Officials estimate the drive will take a minimum of six weeks and could stretch through the winter. The non-Mehsud parts of South Waziristan, which are controlled by the rival Wazir tribe and border with Afghanistan, have not been affected.

The army hopes to repeat the success of its campaign against the Taliban in Swat this summer. But few doubt this operation will be harder, longer and with a great risk of failure.

Riffat Hussain, a defence analyst, said the army's goal was to "degrade" the capability of the Taliban to launch attacks from Waziristan, and to kill an estimated 800 to 1,500 foreign fighters \u2013 mainly from Uzbekistan \u2013 sheltering in the area.

The al-Qaida-allied Uzbeks fled to Waziristan after 2001 and have become "naturalised citizens" through marriages with local women and the provision of training and finance to local militants.

"The core objective is to kill as many of the foreign militants who are also sympathisers of al-Qaida as possible," said Hussain. "They have no place to go, they know the area well and are highly motivated. That's a lethal combination."

as the graveyard of empires and Pakistan's army has had little more success in recent years. Three peace deals with Taliban militants in Waziristan between 2004 and 2006 failed badly, emboldening the militants to extend their violent campaign across North-West Frontier province.

This time, the army says, it is no longer prepared to talk. But the generals have made tactical compromises that leave western allies uncomfortable. In order to encircle the Mehsud area, the army has struck fragile agreements with rival militant groups controlled by Maulvi Nazir, in South Waziristan, and Hafiz Gul Bahadur, in North Waziristan. Although less famous than the Mehsud-led TTP, both warlords dispatch significant numbers of Taliban fighters to attack Nato forces across the border in Afghanistan.

The Mehsud territory of South Waziristan, in contrast, does not share a border with Afghanistan, and the Taliban based there have concentrated their firepower inwards on Pakistan.

\u2022 Pakistan
\u2022 Taliban
\u2022 Afghanistan

guardian.co.uk\u00a9 Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

(World news and comment
from the Guardian |
guardian.co.uk)

City braces itself for further violence after a police helicopter was shot down in a favela, killing two officers

Halliburton
earnings plunge
61%

You can tell the oil market's in rough shape when companies are drilling more to pull in smaller profits. This is the situation in which Halliburton(NYSE: HAL) finds itself, with lower energy prices pushing down the cash that comes through the door.

So, its revenue was up for the most recent quarter, but earnings were down. The $262 million that came to the bottom line is 61% lower than the profit for the same quarter the year before.

Halliburton earnings plunge 61% originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 18 Oct 2009 10:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

followup to Verizon's most buzzed-about phone of last year, but Verizon didn't help with the