AMPHI TV

U.S. officials announced on Friday that the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on the United states, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, will be tried at a Civil court in New York. This represents a major shift on the issue by the Obama administration. The announcement was made at a news conference in Washington by Attorney General Eric Holder. The court is just a few blocks away from the site where the twin towers once stood. The Bush administration had planned to try them in Military tribunals. This is major change in the legal strategy of the administration. The attorney General added that he will ask for the death penalty for all the five accused. He called them extraordinary crimes. The move was welcomed by groups like the American Civil Liberties Union but some Republicans felt it was not the correct thing to do. The Republicans feel by giving them a civilian trial they are giving them legal rights that they otherwise would not have had. Critics say that the rules of evidence in military tribunals favor the prosecution, and would have been a better alternative to assure conviction.  The defense is expected to bring up the issue of the treatment of the accused in prison.

U.S Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the elections that the Burmese junta plans to hold next year will not have any legitimacy unless they engage in dialogue with the opposition and ethnic minorities. Later this week she will be joining President Obama at the APEC summit where Burmese leaders will also be present. It is not expected that this meeting will have any breakthrough for US- Burmese relations. Relations have been strained for many years since the junta jailed Nobel Prize winner Aung Sang Suu Kyi after her landslide win of the 1990 elections. However there are hopes that there could be some progress since the junta has recently made a few moves that favor engagement. They were very accommodating during the recent visit of US diplomats. They allowed an unmonitored meeting with the jailed Suu kyi. This was the first time that the junta allowed such a meeting. In a goodwill gesture they also recently freed a US citizen who was jailed for violating the terms of Suu Kyi’s house arrest. The secretary said that there were no immediate plans to lift the wide ranging sanctions against Burma.  However she said that the U.S. was willing to reciprocate on the basis of Burmese co operations. Watch this space for how this develops.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Monday Afghan President Hamid Karzai must “root out corruption.”. She was speaking from Germany where she is on a visit to participate in the 20^th anniversary celebrations of the Berlin Wall. There has been enormous dispute about the recent Afghani Presidential elections. There were charges of large scale vote rigging and fraud mostly in favour of the incumbent Hamid Karzai. Though not directly charged with orchestrating the fraud the incumbent did not do enough to prevent the fraud. After a long investigation by the Election Commision it was decided that a run off should be held. This was cancelled at the last moment when his challenger Abdullah Abdullah , the former foreign minister pulled out saying not enough was done to prevent fraud. This has led to questions about the credibility of the government. There are large scale allegations of corruption against the government. The presidents brother is said to be a major figure in the drug trade. They have denied all allegations of this. Clinton added that the allies would provide the government with a “clear set of expectations” and “accountability measures.”.Recently British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in one of his strongest warnings to Mr. Karzai, said British military support was dependent on the Afghan leader’s ability to combat corruption.

U.S. President Barack Obama has called for a thorough review of the events that finally led to the shooting at Fort Hood. In his weekly internet address, Obama said investigators must look for every piece of evidence in the run up to the shootings. He said that there should be more accountability for failures to prevent the shootings. There is widespread outrage that despite being on the FBI radar for sending mails to a Radical imam Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan was never investigated fully. He was a loner who stuck to himself. This is making it all the more difficult for authorities to piece together what happened. He was the child of Palestinians who settled in the U.S. He increasingly turned to religion after the death of his father and mother. Others who knew him casually said that they could not come to terms with the fact that he carried out these shootings. However there were quite a few warning signs. He was to be deployed in Afghanistan and had requested that he be excluded on the grounds that he was an objector. However all these requests were turned down. All these things seem to have frustrated him and caused him to act in the way that he did.

President Obama this week will leave on his first Asian visit after taking office. He will first be visiting Japan. There he will meet the new prime minister Yukio Hatoyama  who was elected on a agenda for change, very similar to Obama’s agenda. After that he will attend the APEC meet in Singapore. He will be interacting personally with all the heads of states of the APEC countries. He will then head to China. This will probably be the most visible part of his trip. He will first visit the economic capital of the country Shanghai. He is scheduled to attend a few public meetings there. After that he will head to the capital Beijing for meeting the Chinese administration. Relations with China have been strained over U.S. Support to the Dalai Lama’s call for more autonomy for Tibet. The U.S. Has also questioned many human rights violations by the Chinese government. He will also be discussing climate change with the Chinese ahead of the Copenhagen summit. He will then visit South Korea before returning. Obama has close ties with Indonesia where he spent a part of this childhood. He will be making another trip to Asia next year and is expected to visit Indonesia then.