India/France/Defense: New Delhi and Paris are close to finalizing mirage upgrade deal
 
The Indian air force appears eager to conclude negotiations with Thales and Dassault Aviation on the offset package for the upgrade of India's 51 Mirage 2000s to the 2000-5 standard (M-2000H/TH upgrade), according to executives here. It is likely that the contract will be signed before India's general elections in early 2009. There is concern there could be a delay of at least two years and an escalation in costs. And as part of the upgradation deal, estimated to cost over 1.5 billion Euros, the new Mirages would come armed with longer range Air-to-Air Missiles to enhance the fighters capability in beyond-visual-range combat and an extended operating envelope that will allow a border-protection mission, for instance, with two upgraded Mirages instead of the current six.

The new MICA missiles have a range of taking on targets almost 40 kilometers away – almost double the range of present missiles on Indian fighters. "The time scale of upgraded fighter deliveries can be compressed and worked out according to IAFs needs," Francois Quentin, senior vice president of the European Aerospace, Electronics and services major, Thales said in Paris. Once the order is given, within 40 months Thales has committed to retrofitting two aircraft of the first phase in the initial operational configuration, which includes French equipment. Another two will be retrofitted in Bangalore along with HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.). The remaining 47 will be assembled in India.

France/Terrorism: police arrest Basque separatist suspects

Half a dozen suspected Basque militants were detained by French police on Tuesday as part of a inquiry into the financing of terrorism, police officials said. The arrests were connected to an investigation into bars linked with Batasuna, a party regarded as the political wing of the militant group ETA. According to Askatasuna, a group defending jailed ETA activists, “All the arrests were made in different locations in the French Basque region.” Batasuna is banned in Spain but legal in France, some of the detainees belonged to it.

Over the weekend, Police located an ETA camp in north-east of Bordeaux, seizing documents and a hard disk. ETA's campaign for Basque independence focuses on fighting the Spanish state, but the group has long had a part of its infrastructure based in France. ETA's most recent attack was a car bomb in Pamplona, northern Spain, last week that caused 17 injuries. ETA is listed by the European Union and the United States as a terrorist organisation that has killed more than 820 people since 1968.

France/Protest : Anti-immigration demonstration in the town of Vichy

At least 1 700 protesters against Europe's immigration policy went to the streets of Vichy on Monday. According to journalist, anarchists fired three cars in the town centre and smashed a shop window on the sidelines of the demonstration. Shortly before the march police detained at least 30 demonstrators includind 4 dressed as Nazi camp inmates. Riot police used tear gas after they were pelted with objects. 4 police officers were wounded.

"We denounce the worrying evolution of European migration policies, which recall the ideas that led to deportations at the end of the 1930s," declared the leader of a small anti-globalsation group, Xavier Renou. for his part Vichy's conservative mayor Claude Malhuret said "It's a scandal that there are 10 conferences per year in Berlin, Hitler's city, and in Moscow, Stalin's city, and no-one says a thing, while Vichy has been shunned".

Afghanistan/Terrorism: Gunmen abducts French aid worker

Dany Egreteau, 32, a French aid worker has been kidnapped and the driver for a provincial intelligence chief, who tried to intervene, was killed by gunmen in off the streets of Kabul on Monday. Dany Egreteau was on his first visit to the Afghan capital and on his way to a meeting at the education ministry. He was believed to be from the aid group AFRANE (Amitie franco-Afghane) – a French aid group focusing on education. According to colleagues, he was usually based in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and is an education specialist.

Etienne Gille, president of AFRANE, commented the kidnapping took place as a member of its staff and a man from another French aid group were being driven from a residence rented by ARFANE to its offices. "The car was blocked by another car that was driving on the wrong side from which an armed man emerged," Gille told in a telephone interview. Reports indicate an AFRANE employee managed to escape while Dany Egreteau was taken. “Three assailants in a red Corolla blocked the roadway, then tried to grab two French aid workers on their way to work. After a scuffle they got away with only one,” police commander Mohammad Daud Amin said. No group has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping yet.

7 French citizens kidnapped off Cameroonian coasts.

Local security sources said that the Sagitta, an oil services company Bourbon's vessel chartered by Total, has been kidnapped with 10 crew members on Friday off the coasts of Cameroon. The hostages are 7 French citizens, 2 Cameroonians and 1 Tunisian. The information has not been officially confirmed yet.

Cameroon/France/Piracy: Cameroonian rebels threaten to kill kidnapped sailors  

Ten crew members from an oil vessel belonging oil services' company Bourbon have been kidnapped by gunmen in the coast of Cameroon early on Friday. The captives included seven French, two Cameroonians and a Tunisian, security sources said.  A little known armed group, the Bakassi Freedom Fighters, claimed the responsibility for the kidnapping and threatened to kill all the hostages if Douala’s government refuses to negotiate.

According to a company spokesman, “Gunmen in three speedboats attacked the ship while it was helping an oil tanker loading crude oil at an offshore oilfield in the Gulf of Guinea.” “The company is working closely with the French Foreign Ministry for the quick release of the hostages,” she said. Five other crew members stayed aboard the vessel and are safe. None of the hostages or other crew members was injured in the attacks,” she added.

Over a year, armed gunmen have been exploiting the area, which has abundant resources and that contains the main African supplies of crude oil going to the West and China. During the last few years, there have been a number of attacks against oil installations in Gulf of Guinea states including Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea and Benin.

Cameroon/Insurgency: kidnappers threaten to kill hostages “one by one”

Ebi Dari, the self-styled “commander” of the Niger Delta Defense and Security Council (NDDSC), threatened to kill the 10 abducted oil workers if demands for autonomy talks with the government are not met. “We want to talk to the Cameroon government,” Dari said, adding that “If they think this is child's play, we are going to kill them in three days, one by one.” He said his outfit carried out the operation along side the Bakassi Freedom Fighters, who add earlier claimed the responsibility for the abduction of the 6 French, 2 Cameroonians, 1 Senegalese and 1 Tunisian sailors from a Bourbon’s boat off Cameroon's coast.

Both groups have operated since 2002 in Bakassi, a tongue of oil-rich land that has been disputed between Cameroon and Nigeria for years. In August, after an arduous peace agreement, Yaoundé took back full control of the peninsula, but militias including NDDSC have waged low-level attacks on Cameroon troops. They want more autonomy and possibly Bakassi’s full independence.

France/Colombia/Insurgency: Paris could grant asylum to surrendered FARC militant

France could grant asylum to the deserter from Columbian FARC guerrilla group, who had helped a hostage escape at the weekend, President Nicolas Sarkozy's office confirmed on Monday. According to official sources, the government may offer residence rights to the group members, once the group who pledge to lay down their arms and “as long as they are not the target of legal proceedings anywhere in the world”. The sources added that the authorities are checking the detained man's status.

Isaza, the former FARC member had helped Colombian lawmaker Oscar Lizcano escapes after eight years of captivity in the jungle. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has already announced monetary rewards for anyone and a safe refuge in France who surrendered with hostages. The FARC, which was a powerful group, has lost its former influences after the death of its three leaders this year. Hundred of rebels have already abandoned the group.

France/Terrorism: a Corsican autonomist killed in Bastia 

Nicolas Giannini, an ex member of the “Mouvement pour l’Emancipation”, a Corsican autonomist movement was killed Saturday night in Bastia. One or several unknown gunmen shot him while he was driving a motorcycle. He was pronounced death at the scene. 

France/Terrorism: Safe Bourada sentenced to 15 years in jail

The Algerian-born terrorist Safe Bourada has been sentenced on Thursday to 15 years in Jail by a criminal court in Paris for having set up a militant Islamic cell that had planned bomb attacks in the French capital. Bourada, who had been sentenced to 10-year in jail in 1998 for his role in the wave of bombings on the Paris metro in 1995, created the Ansar al-Fath (Upholders of Islam) group following his release from prison in 2003. The other defendants, Kais Melliti, Kaci Ouarab, Yassine Ferchichi, Djamel Badaoui, Samir Bouhalli, Achour Ouarab, Stephane Hadoux and Emmanuel Nieto, were found guilty and we’ll have to serve 1 to 9 years in jail.

Ansar al-Fath has been dismantled after the arrest of Safe Bourada’s successor, M’hamed Benyamina in Algeria in 2005. Married to a French, he had been arrested at Oran airport, while he was returning to France. He told Algerian security services that his group was plotting to bomb the Paris metro, Orly airport and the headquarters of the DST intelligence agency.

Somalia/Piracy: 9 pirates captured by the French Navy 

Nine Somali pirates were captured by the French Navy in the Gulf of Aden on Thursday. 

The French Navy intercepted the pirates about 185 kilometers off the coast of Somalia as they were in two small boats and handed them over to the Somali authorities. It was reported that weapons, including anti-tank missiles, were found onboard the two boats. 

Meanwhile, the pirates who hijacked the Ukrainian MV Faina cargo ship that carries battle tanks again warned that they would kill the 20-member crew if they were attacked. The number of military vessels from various nations has increased since the Ukrainian ship and the heavy weapons it carries were seized on September 25.

France/Italy/Terrorism: Marina Petrella will not be extradited

 

Marina Petrella, a former member of the Italian leftist terrorist group “Red Brigades” will not be deported to Rome announced today the French Presidency.

 

Marina Petrella lives in France since 1992. She was convicted in Italy for a murder, an attempted murder, a kidnapping and her participation in multiple terrorist attacks in the seventies and the eighties.  Petrella fled Italy at the beginning of the nineties to avoid the life sentence pronounced by the justice. She was a refugee in France under the terms of a non official decision of the late President François Mitterrand who granted the political asylum to the former “brigadists” under three conditions: they had to renounce to terrorism, they were forbidden to use France as a logistical base and this political asylum was not for terrorist involved in blood crimes. This was specifically the case of Petrella who was sentenced for a life term for the murder of a police commissioner and the attempted murder of his driver… 

Marina Petrella was arrested in France in August 2007 after the French government decided to denounce the immoral decision of François Mitterrand. She fiercely opposed her extradition but the justice confirmed it and the French Prime Minister François Fillon signed the extradition order in June 2008. The order was confirmed by the President Nicolas Sarkozy in July. However the President decided, at the end, that Petrella will not face extradition as she suffers a "deep nervous breakdown" which “could endanger” her life.

It seems that the possible depression of victim’s relatives of the Italian “years of the gun” was not taken into consideration. 

 

Between the mid seventies and the end of the eighties, the Red Brigades were the most dangerous terrorist group in Europe. They committed more than 15 000 attacks, killed 415 people and wounded hundreds of others. They were the authors of the abductions of the Prime Minister Aldo ,Moro - who was killed - and of the U.S. General James Lee Dozier who was freed by the police.

 

A few dozen former members of the organisation live now in France and could face a possible extradition

Georgia/Russia: Russian forces pullback incomplete

(Rossi Xavier/Gamma/Photo News)

French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner, after a tour of the buffer zone vacated this week by Russian forces, has declared that Russia has not completely abided with the terms of ceasefire with Georgia. This may impact on whether the frozen EU-Russia partnership talks will resume soon.

Earlier this year, Russian troops forced towards Abkhazia and South Ossetia and neighboring "buffer zones," as a counter-strike to Georgia’s attempt to retake South Ossetia.Moscow committed to and started, a troop withdrawal out of the buffer zone, before the deadline on October 10 set in the French-mediated ceasefire.  But Georgia still claims that Moscow has not fully complied as Russian troops remain  in the two separatist regions.  Asked to comment on the issue, Kouchner said, "This is not complete. This is not perfect. It's just the beginning. This is not the end."

Kouchner, visited the buffer zones vacated this week, and voiced criticism against the destruction in the region, where human rights group allege that hundreds of ethnic Georgian homes destroyed by the Russian troops. Kouchner and EU observers will present the findings of his trip at a meeting of foreign ministers next week which will determine a possible decision on whether to restart talks on a strategic partnership treaty with Russia. The 27-member bloc put it on hold until Russia has complied with the ceasefire deal.

Niger/Insurgency: Moussa Kaka released on bail

Journalist Moussa Kaka, a correspondent for Radio France Internationale (RFI) in Niger, was released today on bail after one year in detention for allegedly undermining state security. “The (appeals) court has ordered him to be sent back to a Niamey magistrate's court to be judged there. If he is not detained on other charges, the court orders he be freed provisionally,” said Fodi Boureima Mamadou, Moussa Kaka's lawyer.

He was arrested in September 2007 over telephone calls he made to Tuareg rebels based in the north.   Last month an appeals court in Niamey revised the original charge of “complicity to undermine the authority of the state” to “actions liable to harm national defence”. Tuareg rebels have been fighting government troops in northern Niger, saying they want more autonomy and a fairer share of wealth.  Journalists have been banned from travelling to the north.

France/Justice: 42 people go on trial over ‘Angolagate’

(Othoniel Patrick/Jdd/Gamma/Photo News)

About 42 people, including the son of late French president Francois Mitterrand (photo), businessmen, politicians and public figures will be tried over the “Angolagate”. The trial will be focused on an arms trafficking scandal of $790 million (590 million euros) to the southern African country between 1993 to 1998, when the civil war was at its peak and left a death toll of half a million people. The long-running affair has raised questions about the role of many senior government officials who were in office between 1981 and 1995 - Mitterrand's two-term Socialist presidency.

Two businessman, Pierre Falcone, 54, and Arcady Gaydamak, 56, are at forefront and are accused of acting as a middleman for illegal arms deliveries from Eastern Europe. They both face 10 years in jail for peddling illegal arms and sales. Former adviser of his father on African affairs, Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, 61, is accused of “complicity in illegal trade and embezzlement” and taking bribes worth 2.6 million dollars. He may face up to five years in jail, on the charges that he had a "determining role" in putting the Angolan regime in touch with Falcone.

Former François Mitterrand’s adviser Jacques Attali, former Interior Minister Charles Pasqua, former Prefect Jean-Charles Marchiani ad businessman and author Paul-Loup Sulitzer are also on the list. They risk sentences between 5 to 10 years in prison.Over the next half decade, 420 tanks, 150,000 shells, 170,000 landmines, 12 helicopters and six warships were bootlegged into the war-wracked country. The prosecutors suspect the payments were channeled via firms in Paris, Geneva or Tel Aviv, to shell companies in Jersey, the Virgin Islands or Monaco, with suitcases of cash used to pay off middlemen.

France/Terrorism: Carlos to be tried over 4 bombings 

Venezuelan terrorist Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, also known as Carlos, has been ordered to appear in front of a French special court over four bombings that killed 11 people in 1982 and 1983, judicial sources revealed on Monday. 

The two 1982 bombings targeted a Paris-Toulouse train and the Paris office of the Arabic newspaper al-Watan, killing 6. The two 1983 attacks were against a train station in Marseille and a train, killing 5. 

Carlos, who is serving a life sentence in a French prison for killing two French counterintelligence officers and an informer in 1975, is not expected to appear in court before 2009. 

The 58-year-old terrorist can appeal the decision.

France/Intelligence: French foreign intelligence agency chief to step down 

Pierre Brochand, the head of France’s foreign intelligence agency (DGSE), will step down “in the coming days,” official said on Monday. 

Brochand, who was appointed as director of the DGSE in July 2002 by President Jacques Chirac, has been notably involved to release French hostages in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

His replacement will be named at the next cabinet meeting and it has been reported that Erard Corbin de Mangoux, an outsider who currently serves as President Sarkozy’s advisor on domestic issues, could be appointed to be the next DGSE director. 

Brochand, 68, was expected to leave the French foreign intelligence agency in July 2009 because of age limit. 

This change of leadership is the latest change within the French intelligence community, whose mission has been elevated as a strategic function in France’s new defense and national security white paper.  

This move underscores President Sarkozy’s willingness to revamp the France’s intelligence apparatus.

European Union/Defence: EU to intensify military might

The informal meeting of the European Union (EU) leaders in Deauville, northern France, concluded yesterday after a general agreement on amplifying its military strength. According to a press release, the Union will be accelerating its military deployment in Somalia to halt the increasing cases of piracy.

It was agreed that there would be more sophisticated facilities and personnel to tackle the operations in hostile regions. France has allocated $ 6.95 million for the same, the release said.The Union will be setting up a multi-national air force and a rapid amphibious task force to facilitate military intervention.

The ministers also agreed on bolstering the roles of the European Defense Agency by encouraging EU’s research program on weapons and on further integration of European market. They gave the nod to the development of military survey satellite, safeguard of EU nationals abroad and the exchanges of military personnel. The press release commented EU’s peacekeeping force had successfully completed the mission in Africa and Montenegro.

Brazil/Defence: Brasilia issued a short-list for new fighter jets

The Brazilian Air Force has short-listed the Swedish Saab’s Gripen JAS 39 NG (Next Generation) multi-role fighter, the US Boeing  F-18 E/F Super Hornet  and the French Dassault Rafale (Squall) to modernize its military. Bengt Janer, marketing director Gripen International, Brazil,  explained a query to the Brazilian Air Force through the RFI (Request for Information) about the fighter, which perfectly fits their needs, as well as full support regarding spare parts, logistics and training.  the Gripen NG from Saab is believed to be offered by the Swedish government, whilst Saab’s response confirmed its willingness to include Brazilian industry – in sharing know how and transferring of technology. Lennart Sindahl, Executive Vice President, Saab said they are pleased to be chosen by the Brazilian Air Force in the ongoing selection process and are ready to submit a very attractive proposal.

Boeing also gave a proposal for the Brazilian Air Force for 36 F/A-18 and EA-18 Super Hornets. Bob Gower, Programs vice president, Boeing Integrated Defense Systems acknowledged "Boeing is honoured that Brazil has selected the Super Hornet as a finalist for the next phase of the F-X2 competition”. For his part, France proposed technology transfer to help Brazil to build the diesel attack submarine Scorpene in exchange of a Rafale’s purchase.

France/Terrorism: justice could revoke former leftist terrorist’s partial release

Paris general prosecutor department announced on Wednesday that it will require the revocation of the partial release granted to Jean-Marc Rouillan in December 2007. The former member of French ultra-left armed group Action Directe (AD), sentenced to life prison in 1989, gave indeed an interview to news magazine l’Express. He explained his involvement in the New anti-capitalist party (Nouveau parti anti-capitaliste – NPA) of former presidential candidate Olivier Besancenot and said that it should remain a “revolutionary” party and “carry the conflict until confrontation”. “Things should be clarified: the process of armed struggle such as it appeared in the after-68 period, in this formidable dash of emancipation, does not exist any more […] but, as a Communist, I remain convinced that the armed struggle is necessary at a time of the revolutionary process” he said.

As it is forbidden to him to evoke to talk about AD’s crimes, Jean-Marc Rouillan said he’s aware of the risk for his liberty. “I don’t have the right to express myself on this. But the fact that I do not express myself is an answer. Because it is obvious that if I was spitting on what we did, I could express myself. By this obligation of silence, one prevents also our experiment to draw its true critical assessment”, he said. He expressed therefore no regret for the assassination of René Audran, director of the General Delegation for Ordnance, in 1985, and of Georges Besse, former CEO of Renault, in 1986.The sentences application judge of Paris, which is relevant for terrorist issues, will now have to take a decision about the revocation of his partial release.