Times Online: Gordon Brown arrived in Kabul on an unannounced visit this morning for talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in which he stressed the UK’s commitment to defeat the Taleban. Mr Brown, whose troops have this year faced Britain's deadliest fighting in a generation, said the next few months would be critical in Afghanistan as the United States and its allies ramp up their forces to try to turn the tide against Taliban insurgents. "What we need to show is that there's a determination to take on the Taliban and to weaken them, but also a determination on the part of the Afghan government to play a bigger part in the future in what is to be done," Mr Brown told reporters at Kandahar air field, where he spent the night bedding down ibnn forces accommodation before meeting Mr Karzai.It was the first time a British premier had stayed overnight in either Afghanistan or Iraq, and came at the start of a surprise pre-Christmas visit to the troops.

Danish police arrested at least 200 climate activists today as they attempted to march on Copenhagen docks. About 1,000 protesters from across Europe had joined the march on the fringes of the UN climate summit but police quickly moved to disrupt it as it targeted the Danish shipping giant Moller-Maersk. A couple of hundred protesters, many of them British, were corralled at a junction near the American embassy about a mile from their target in an echo of the controversial "kettling" tactics deployed at G20 protests in London earlier this year. Outnumbered at least 2-1 by police in full riot gear, the protesters were told that they would be searched individually and then released. But when some of the activists refused to co-operate the entire group - including a Times reporter - were told that they were under arrest and taken to a requisitioned warehouse in Valby, on the outskirts of town, where they were processed and put into cells... click here for the rest of this article from, The Times.

Iranian state radio is reporting that authorities have arrested several people accused of involvement in destroying photos of the country's supreme leader and the revered founder of the Islamic Republic. In student demonstrations last week, supporters of Iran's pro-reform opposition movement burned and trampled on pictures of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. They oppose him for backing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed June re-election. But the opposition denies tearing up a photo of the leader of Iran's 1979 revolution, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who remains a widely respected figure in Iran. They accuse the government of staging video of someone destroying Khomeini's picture to discredit their protest movement... click here for  this article from, The Washington Post.

Taiwan said on Monday it would investigate reports that local firms had sold nuclear technology to Iran, which the West suspects aims to build bombs. The Economic Ministry's Import and Export Administration pledged the investigation due in part to a report in the London Daily Telegraph that said Iran had set up a nuclear-equipment smuggling network using Taiwan companies, administration director Chen Ching-chih said. Other intelligence also pointed to a Taiwan-Iran link, he said. Iran obtained 100 transducers, tools that convert pressure into electrical signals, that were made in Europe and sold to a company in Taiwan, the Telegraph said, citing Western intelligence officials. It said Taiwan sold them onward to Iran. "This is going to take some time. It's a thorough investigation and very detailed," Chen said. "We need to know after all which if any domestic firms are involved." Taiwan firms are not known globally for their nuclear technology, Chen said, and none had a permit to sell to Iran. The Taiwan Defence Ministry, which can authorise military-related trade deals, said last week it had heard of no such transactions. A government probe in March following intelligence from overseas cleared a Taiwan company said to be working with a foreign partner to offer nuclear technology to Iran, Chen said... click here for the rest of this article from, Reuters.

Philippine security forces on Monday shot dead an escaped prisoner and captured another as the hunt continues for dozens of gunmen and inmates who escaped from a detention facility in Basilan province. Basilan Vice Governor Al Rasheed Sakalahul said 31 prisoners, many of them Abu Sayyaf bandits and two senior rebel leaders of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, escaped December 13 after more than a hundred gunmen raided the jail in the capital city of Isabela. "One prisoner was killed in a clash and another was captured...the hunt continues until all those who escaped are recaptured," Sakalahul said, adding that the clash occurred in the village called Maligui in Isabela City. Sakalahul said Abu Sayyaf bandits and Moro rebels staged the daring raid, breaking a hole in the prison walls and killing a jail guard before overpowering the three other guards and springing the prisoners. One of the attackers was also killed in an ensuing firefight that wounded another jail guard, he said. At Camp Aguinaldo in Manila, military information chief Lt. Col. Romeo Brawner said ground and naval operations against the Abu Sayyaf and MILF rebels believed to have perpetrated the attack are underway. "Our Philippine Marines are now conducting manhunt against the escapees who are members of the [Abu Sayyaf] and MILF and of course we are also going after those who rescued them, who brought them out of jail," Brawner told reporters... click here for the rest of this article from, GMA News.tv.

Taliban militants blew up a girls' school in Pakistan's Khyber district Monday, officials said, as two soldiers and seven insurgents were killed in clashes in the northwest tribal belt. The pre-dawn school attack took place in Saddokhel town in northwest Khyber tribal district, where militants detonated explosives planted around the building, destroying all five school rooms but causing no injuries. "They are Taliban. They are the same people who do not want children to get an education," senior administration official Rahim Gul Khattak told AFP. Islamist militants opposed to co-education have destroyed hundreds of schools, mostly for girls, in the northwest of the country in recent years as they wage a fierce insurgency to enforce Sharia law. Pakistani troops launched an offensive in Khyber district in September to try and flush out both the Taliban and homegrown militant group Lashkar-e-Islam (Army of Islam), led by feared warlord Mangal Bagh. The fabled Khyber tribal region is the main land bridge to neighbouring Afghanistan and is also close to the northwest provincial capital Peshawar, which has been hit by a series of suicide bombings in recent months. Pakistan's military is engaged in offensives against Islamist fighters across much of the northwest including the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, a region branded by Washington as the most dangerous place on earth... click here for the rest of this article from, AFP.

The BBC: A series of three car bombs in central Baghdad has killed at least four people and wounded about 14, Iraqi police say. The blasts occurred outside the heavily fortified Green Zone near the Iranian embassy, the foreign ministry, and a popular restaurant, reports say. There has been a recent upsurge of violence in the city. A week ago, at least 127 people were killed in multiple car bombings. Analysts say al-Qaeda is trying to destabilise Iraq ahead of March polls. The blasts happened within minutes of each other shortly after 0730 local time (0430 GMT).  Iraqi government figures have shown that violence generally has fallen over the past 18 months. In October, however, co-ordinated bomb attacks killed at least 155 people and wounded hundreds in Baghdad. There have been a number of attacks since then - including last week's co-ordinated car bombings. Correspondents say that besides occasional massive bombings, insurgents also stage frequent smaller-scale attacks against targets such as marketplaces, mosques or schools. Security has been heightened ahead of March's parliamentary elections.

The Guardian: Tension between the US and Iran rose sharply today after Tehran said it would put on trial three Americans who apparently entered the country illegally during a hiking trip. Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, described accusations against the three as "totally unfounded" and called for their immediate release. The three had been on a hiking trip in the mountains on the border between Iran and Iraqi Kurdistan in July when they were arrested by the Iranians. A high-profile trial in Iran of the Americans would be an emotive issue in the US and would threaten to become a cause célèbre at a time when relations between Washington and Tehran are already strained over the nuclear stand-off. The Iranian foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, said the three had "entered Iran illegally with suspicious aims". An Iranian prosecutor last month accused them of spying. Mottaki said: "They will be tried by the Iranian judiciary system and verdicts will be issued." He did not say what they had been charged with.

Times Online: The weapons laden plane seized in Bangkok en route from North Korea at the weekend has been linked to two renowned East European arms traffickers by a respected Swedish think tank in the latest twist in the mysterious saga. The Ilyushin-76 aircraft, which was found to be carrying 35 tons of weapons including rockets and grenades, was most recently registered under a company called Beibars, linked to Serbian arms dealer Tomislav Dmanjanovic. It had previously been registered with three companies identified by the US Department of the Treasury as firms controlled by the notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, according to a researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Hugh Griffiths, who monitors air cargo companies involved in arms trafficking for SIPRI, said other past owners of the aircraft had also been documented by the UN as trafficking arms to Liberia, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Sudan and Chad

New York Times: The Japanese prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, said Tuesday that he will postpone a decision on relocating an American military base on Okinawa until next year, leaving unresolved an issue that has strained Washington’s ties with its closest Asian ally. Mr. Hatoyama said members of his governing coalition will continue to discuss whether to change a 2006 agreement between Washington and Tokyo to relocate the base, known as Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, to a less populated part of Okinawa. The Obama administration has asked Mr. Hatoyama to implement the original agreement, but he is under pressure from two small leftist parties in his coalition to honor campaign promises to move the base off Okinawa or out of Japan. On Tuesday, Mr. Hatoyama did not say when he would make a final decision but suggested he wanted to do so as quickly as possible. “I will inform the United States quickly” about Tuesday’s decision, Mr. Hatoyama told reporters. “I want to begin negotiations immediately.”

AFP: Sri Lanka's recovery from its decades-long civil war has been marred by graft, violence and a culture of lawlessness, a global watchdog said Tuesday. Transparency International rapped the government -- which crushed the Tamil Tiger separatist rebels in May -- for a lack of democracy, accountability and transparency. "The latter half of 2009 marks a period of hope and potential for Sri Lanka. Yet, winning the war seems to have been easier than winning the peace," said the report by the body's local branch. "Nowhere is this more clear than in the case of the government's record on human rights and media freedom." It said the authorities had cracked down on dissent in the final stages of the war, with journalists, diplomats and aid workers reprimanded or deported for making critical comments. Transparency International said 34 journalists had been killed between 2004 and 2009, including Lasantha Wickrematunga, a prominent anti-establishment newspaper editor.