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NATO remains a serious threat to Russia’s security, the secretary of the country’s national security council said Tuesday.
   ‘We deeply doubt that we will be safer as a result of NATO enlargement. For us, the alliance represents a threat and a fairly serious one,’ Nikolai Patrushev said, according to Russian news agencies.
   His comments came after NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen voiced surprise Saturday that Russia had named the western alliance as its ‘chief external military threat’ in a key recent strategy document.
   Russia has long resented moves by former Soviet neighbours such as Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO and relations between the alliance and Moscow plunged to a post-Cold War low after the Russian-Georgia war in August 2008.
   Patrushev accused NATO members of fuelling the risk of a new conflict in the South Caucasus and rearming Georgia.
   ‘We are watchful of the fact that Georgia is continuing to be rearmed. What for? Why? Do they want there to be a new aggression? If not, then they should not arm them. We don’t plan to attack’ Georgia, Patrushev said.
   Meanwhile, the foreign ministry Tuesday sought to downplay Russia’s characterization of NATO as an enemy, stressing that Moscow’s new military doctrine saw NATO enlargement — not the alliance itself — as a security threat.
   ‘The security risk to our country is not posed by NATO itself, but its... ‘attempt to bring military infrastructure of NATO members closer to Russian borders, including by expanding the bloc’,’ a spokesman said in a statement posted on the ministry’s website.
   President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday approved Russia’s new military doctrine, which listed first among the chief external threats the fact that NATO was attempting to ‘globalise its functions in contravention of international law.’

Vietnam has decided to award Russia’s state atomic energy firm a contract to build the country’s first nuclear power plant, sources said on Tuesday.
    ‘There is a decision in principle... We have to see if it comes to fruition,’ an industry source told AFP. ‘It appears that the Russians pushed for it in the context of a broader strategic agreement.’
   The contract will go to Rosatom, which state-owned Vietnam Electricity has recommended conduct a feasibility study of the nuclear project’s first phase, Japanese newspaper The Nikkei said in a Tuesday report, citing multiple sources.
   A Japanese public-private partnership had been hoping to secure the order, it said.
   A source at Vietnam’s Ministry of Industry and Trade confirmed The Nikkei report for AFP but a Russian embassy official said there was no official comment.
   The first phase would involve 2,000 Megawatts, the sources said.
   Prime minister Nguyen Tan Dung is expected to approve the proposal soon, The Nikkei added.
   During a visit to Moscow in December, EVN and Rosatom signed a memorandum of cooperation. At the time, Dung said without elaborating that Vietnam had officially invited Russia ‘to cooperate in the building of the first atomic energy plant in Vietnam’.
   That memorandum came alongside Hanoi’s agreement to buy Russian-made submarines and aircraft, in a deal analysts said aimed to bolster Vietnam’s claims against China over potentially resource-rich islands in the South China Sea.
   China, France and to a lesser extent South Korea and the United States had also shown interest in Vietnam’s nuclear project.
   In November Vietnam’s communist-dominated parliament approved building the country’s first nuclear power stations.

Iran began work on Tuesday to produce higher-grade nuclear fuel for a Tehran research reactor, an official said, a move that may increase pressure for new UN sanctions due to Western fears it wants to develop atom bombs.
   Tehran announced on Sunday it would produce uranium enriched to a level of 20 percent for a reactor making medical isotopes. This followed a failure to agree terms for a proposed nuclear fuel swap with major powers, under which it would send most of its low-enriched uranium abroad.
   ‘We started preparatory work at 9:30am (0600 GMT) in the presence of (International Atomic Energy Agency) representatives,’ a spokesman for Iran’s nuclear energy agency, Ali Shirzadian, said on Tuesday.
   ‘And it (production) will be formally announced at 1:00pm by Salehi,’ he told Reuters, referring to the head of the Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, Ali Akbar Salehi.
   Iran’s Arabic-language state television, al Alam, said earlier that production of 20 per cent enriched uranium had started at the Natanz plant.
   Iran currently enriches uranium to a level of 3.5 per cent while 80 per cent or more is needed for a nuclear bomb.
   ‘Today we started to make 20 per cent enriched nuclear fuel ... in the presence of IAEA inspectors,’ an unnamed official told al Alam.

The US east coast braced for a new major winter storm Tuesday after record snowfall left thousands of people shivering in the dark without power, transportation paralyzed and the federal government shut down.
   The US capital remained Monday largely snow-locked, while many local governments, businesses and schools were also shuttered across the mid-Atlantic region.
   The National Weather Service issued a 30-hour winter storm warning beginning midday Tuesday for Washington, Maryland and parts of Virginia, saying it expects another 10 to 20 inches (25-50 cm) of snow to slam the area.
   ‘The combination of snow and strong winds will make travel very hazardous,’ said the NWS in its advisory.
   The extra squall would be on top of more than two feet (0.6m) of snow around metropolitan Washington and Baltimore, and also comes after the massive December storm that dumped some two feet (61 centimeters) of snow in the area: meaning the region is coming up on the other historic seasonal totals.
   With this season’s total so far at 45 inches (114 cm), according to NWS figures, more snowfall in the coming days could peak out the 1995-96 season’s 46 inches (116.8 cm) and the all-time deepest snow dump of 1898-99, at 54.4 inches (138 cm).
   Washington residents struggled Monday to get to work, slipping on icy sidewalks and spinning wheels on snow-trapped cars, as hundreds of emergency personnel battled to clear roads of snow.
   ‘This snow is so deep and so heavy that the traditional snow plows can’t shovel in some areas. So bulldozers are physically having to lift it up and away,’ Laura Southard from the Virginia Department of Emergency Management told AFP.
   Roofs collapsed under the weight of the white stuff, including at a firehouse in northern Virginia and a hangar for private aircraft at Dulles International Airport.
   Many of those without power gathered in restaurants and coffee shops on major avenues where power often was restored first. Some residents of suburban Washington spent two days huddled at businesses, unable to go home.
   Downtown Washington was not as hard hit by power outages but public transportation remained snarled.

Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko has told her party she will never accept the legitimacy of her rival’s victory in presidential elections and will challenge the results, a report said Tuesday.
   Tymoshenko lost by over three percent to Viktor Yanukovych in Sunday’s polls which were hailed by international observers as honest and an impressive display of democracy.
   But independent Internet newspaper Ukrainskaya Pravda said Tymoshenko had remained defiant at a meeting of her Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko late on Monday.
   ‘I will never acknowledge the legitimacy of the victory of Yanukovych with such elections,’ an unnamed source quoted her as saying.
   However it said a significant part of the party, including deputy parliament speaker Mikola Tomenko, was opposing her hard line and seeking to persuade her to acknowledge his victory and go into opposition.
   Other top officials also spoke out at the meeting in favour of challenging the results.
   Ukrainskaya Pravda is a highly respected Internet newspaper in Ukraine and keenly watched throughout the country.

Britain vowed to stand firm in Afghanistan after the death toll passed Monday the number killed in the 1982 Falklands war - amid warnings of a new surge in casualties as a new offensive is launched.
   The politically symbolic figure was passed as prime minister Gordon Brown battles to persuade a sceptical British public that the Afghan conflict is worthwhile, months ahead of an election he is tipped to lose.
   Deaths of three soldiers over two days took the British toll in Afghanistan since 2001 to 256, one more than the number killed in the Falklands.
   On Monday a bomb disposal expert was killed by a blast as he cleared a path in southern Helmand Province.
   'It is my sad duty to inform you that a soldier from 36 Engineer Regiment... was killed by an explosion this morning in Nad-e-Ali district,' said military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel David Wakefield.
   Two soldiers, from the Royal Scots Borderers, 1st Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, were killed by an explosion in Sangin in Helmand Province on Sunday.
   'They were on a foot patrol bringing security to local people... when the explosion caught them,' said a spokesman.
   The news is a new blow to Brown, who recently pledged 500 extra troops and hosted a London conference on Afghanistan, but is struggling to avoid defeat to the main opposition Conservatives in elections due by June.
   In contrast premier Margaret Thatcher's popularity surged when she sent an expeditionary force to oust invading Argentinian troops from the Falkland Islands, known in Spanish as the Malvinas, in a 74-day war that left 649 Argentines as well as 255 Britons dead.
   Commenting after the news of Sunday's deaths, Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth said every fatality was 'a tragedy' but insisted Britain must stand firm in Afghanistan.
   The country is braced for a surge in casualties as a major international assault against Taliban-led militants in the southern province of Helmand is expected to begin within days.
   'We have seen an intense, hard and bloody period in Afghanistan but, as we prepare to consolidate our progress with the launch of Operation Mushtarak, it is imperative that we hold our resolve,' Ainsworth said.
   Afghan defence minister Abdul Rahim Wardak added that he was 'deeply saddened' by the fatalities on Sunday, offering his 'sincere condolences' to their families and friends on behalf of the Afghan government.
   'I look forward to the day when the Afghan security forces are able to take full responsibility for Afghanistan's security.

The United Nations led an appeal Tuesday for millions of dollars to feed and assist more than one million people displaced by conflict in Pakistan's northwest and in border areas with Afghanistan.
   The appeal focuses on funds needed to implement the Pakistan Humanitarian Response Plan 2010, which the United Nations, international and local aid groups have drawn up with the cash-strapped Pakistan government.
   'The PHRP requires 537 million dollars for assistance over the next six months to cover the most immediate humanitarian needs,' UN humanitarian coordinator for Pakistan Martin Mogwanja said.
   Last year, a total of 3.1 million people were displaced from their homes in North West Frontier Province and the semi-autonomous Federally Administered Tribal Areas along the Afghan border, the official said.
   Nearly two million people have returned home, but more people are being uprooted in the districts Bajaur, Orakzai and Mohmand, which are part of Pakistan's tribal belt on the Afghan border, he added.
   'Considering that the number of Internally Displaced People from Orakzai agency has risen nearly tenfold in the last two months, the emergency in Pakistan seems far from over,' the official told a news conference.
   Money is needed for food distribution, rehabilitating and reconstructing damaged homes, schools and health facilities, and helping farmers who lost crops, Mogwanja said.
   Pakistan's junior finance minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, said the country had suffered enormously from being on the frontline of the US-led war on al-Qaeda and a key US ally in the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
   'No other country has suffered as much as Pakistan in the war against terror,' Khar said.
   'In addition to innumerable sacrifices of our people and the armed forces there are estimated economic losses of around 34.5 billion dollars as a consequence of the direct and indirect impact of this war,' she said.

North Korea's leader pledged again to remove nuclear weapons from the peninsula, a news report said on Tuesday, and also sent his top nuclear envoy to Beijing in a move that could bode well for stalled disarmament talks.
   While Kim Jong-il has made, and broken, similar pledges before, analysts said pressure has been mounting through UN sanctions imposed after its nuclear test last year, as well as a botched currency reform that the South said sparked inflation and rare civil unrest.
   China's Xinhua news agency said Kim reiterated his country's 'persistent stance to realise the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula' during a meeting on Monday with senior Chinese official Wang Jiarui.
   North Korea's top nuclear negotiator, Kim Kye-gwan, arrived in Beijing on Tuesday, suggesting a possible resumption of stalled discussions hosted by China and including Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States.
   'Dispatching Kim Kye-gwan indicates that some sort of understanding is being worked out between China and North Korea on restarting the nuclear talks,' said Cheong Seong-Chang, a senior fellow at the Sejong Institute think tank near Seoul.
   China, the North's biggest benefactor, is seen as having the most influence on the reclusive state.
   The destitute North can win aid to prop up its broken economy at the six-way talks if it reduces the security threat it poses to North Asia, which is responsible for one-sixth of the global economy.
   However, few analysts believe Kim will ever scrap nuclear arms, which are seen at home as the crowning achievement in his military-first rule and the justification for decades of sacrifice by his impoverished people.
   The North has said many times it could end its nuclear arms programme if the United States drops what it sees as a hostile policy toward it.
   In another high-profile visit to the country, UN under-secretary-general for political affairs, Lynn Pascoe, was expected to arrive in Pyongyang on Tuesday.

A verbal battle between Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan and radical Hindu group Shiv Sena has sparked worries the stature of Mumbai, India's financial hub, is being undermined by politics that are anti-migrant and polarising.
   The Shiv Sena, which runs the Mumbai municipality, triggered a debate that has resonated across India over the last week after it criticised Khan for calling for Pakistani players to be included in India's IPL cricket league.
   Shiv Sena members have torn up posters in Mumbai and warned theatres against screening Khan's new movie 'My Name Is Khan', touted as a blockbuster and due for release on Feb. 12.
   It was the latest in a series of incidents, as Shiv Sena promises to protect Mumbai's indigenous Marathi community in industries from construction to taxis from thousands of poor migrants who flock to the city each year.
   The uproar came at a time when Mumbai could lead India as a beacon for global investment, as Asia's third-largest economy pulls away from the financial crisis at a much quicker pace than its peers in Europe and the United States.
   'Mumbai's image may suffer from it,' wrote the Economic Times newspaper.
   'Sustained political disturbances in India's financial hub may not go well in the minds of international investors who are betting high on India, tha-nks to its high growth projection vis-a-vis flat returns from most developed countries.'

Taiwan on Tuesday dismissed a report saying the island has dropped a request for US submarines, saying the vessels and fighter jets remained on the island's arms procurement agenda.
   'It is absolutely untrue,' Taiwan's defence ministry spokesman Yu Sy-tue told AFP.
   'We hope the United States will provide submarines and F-16 C/Ds Taiwan has requested in accordance with the Taiwan Relations Act,' the spokesman said.
   Yu was reacting to a report which cited an unnamed military source as saying that the island was no longer asking for the submarines, because of rapidly improving ties between Taipei and Beijing.
   Jason Yuan, Taiwan's de facto ambassador to Washington, said late January the United States was still considering whether to sell the submarines and F-16 fighter jets to the island despite the latest Beijing-Washington row over a 6.4-billion-dollar arms package.
   Washington last month announced the package for Taiwan included Patriot missiles, Black Hawk helicopters, and communications equipment for Taiwan's F-16 fleet, but did not include the submarines and new fighter aircraft.
   Analysts have said they doubt Washington would risk angering Beijing by approving the more sensitive items, but Yuan said the United States had never ruled out selling the submarines and fighters to Taiwan.
   Beijing has reacted angrily to the arms deal, saying it would cut military and security contacts with the United States.
   Chinese defence ministry spokesman Huang Xueping said the reprisals reflected the 'severe harm' posed by the deal with Taiwan, which Beijing considers a breakaway territory.
   Washington, which is required by the Taiwan Relations Act to supply Taiwan with sufficient weapons to defend itself, argues that the deal 'contributes to maintaining security and stability across the Taiwan Strait'.

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal on Monday accused the United States of undermining Palestinian unity efforts and said he saw no chance for peace in the Middle East under Israel's current leadership.
   Shunned in the West because his Islamist group refuses to recognise Israel - a position he said stands - Meshaal used a hospitable Russia as a platform to blame Washington and Israel's hardline government for a lack of progress.
   His remarks underscored barriers on the road to Palestinian reconciliation and to renewing Middle East peace talks.
   Hamas wants a reconciliation deal with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' rival Fatah movement 'as fast as possible', Meshaal told a news conference after meeting Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, who invited him to Moscow.
   'Unfortunately, there are a whole series of hurdles to a swift reconciliation, first of all external influence and concerted pressure from the United States,' he said, which he said was using 'various means' to scuttle the efforts.
   Meshaal did not elaborate, but said portions of an Egyptian-drafted reconciliation deal had been changed without consultation with Hamas and that the group would not sign it unless they were restored.
   Hamas has sought an Egyptian guarantee that the outcome of a Palestinian election expected in June be respected. Hamas won a parliamentary election in 2006 but has not been recognised as the dominant party since its split with Fatah. It seized control of the Gaza Strip a year later in fighting with Fatah forces.
   Meshaal blamed Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for what Hamas has called a collapse of indirect talks to exchange captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit for some of the more than 7,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails.
   'The reason is the game Netanyahu is playing,' Meshaal said through an interpreter.
   Israel has demanded that dozens of Palestinians imprisoned after being convicted of involvement in lethal attacks be deported upon their release.

Major General Prasad Samarasinghe assumed office as Sri Lankan’s Military spokesman and director, Directorate of Media in the Army Tuesday morning during a brief ceremony, held at Media Centre for National Security in Colombo, says a press release of the ministry of defence of Sri Lanka.
   Samarasinghe was coincidentally promoted to the rank of Major General from a Brigadier itself just a couple of hours after he took office as military spokesman.
   He followed overseas career military courses in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, including the Senior Command Course in India, Staff Course in Staff College, Bangladesh and the Electronic Course in UK. In addition, he attended a number of military seminars and workshops including the one in the Philippines, Malaysia and four in Hawai, USA.
   His predecessor, Brigadier V Udaya B Nanayakkara, former military spokesman and director, directorate of Media took office as Chief Field Engineer, Chief Field Engineer Office a few days ago after serving the Military Spokesman appointment in the most turbulent times of the Eelam War for over two years when the Wanni Humanitarian Operations were at their peak.

Campaign posters went up and jingles blared at election rallies Tuesday as the Philippines' richest politician and the son of its democracy icon began a tight race to succeed scandal-tainted president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
   Senators Manny Villar and Benigno 'Noynoy' Aquino III - son of the late Corazon Aquino - are promising a clean government and fresh start for the Philippines after nine years of Arroyo's tumultuous rule dotted with coup attempts and corruption allegations.
   With at least a dozen people already gunned down in the run-up to the May 10 polls - and the country still reeling from an election-related massacre late last year that claimed 57 lives in southern Maguindanao province - political violence again emerged as a main concern. About 130 people were killed during the last elections in 2007.
   The police have set up checkpoints in a nationwide crackdown on unlicensed guns, and spokesman Leonardo Espina said operations were continuing to disarm nearly 100 private armies on the payroll of political warlords.

Gunmen opened fire on Monday at the election office of a former Pakistani government minister, killing four people and wounding two, officials said.
   The identity of the gunmen, who opened fire at Sheikh Rashid Ahmed's election office in the city of Rawalpindi, was not known but the violence is likely to raise political tension.
   Ahmed was hurt but not by a bullet, an aide, Javed Qureshi, told Reuters. Ahmed had apparently injured a foot when he fell over during the attack, he said.
   'Unidentified gunmen opened fire with Kalashnikovs. It was an assassination attempt,' Qureshi said.
   Two guards and two other people were killed, Interior Minister Rehman Malik told parliament. Two guards were wounded.
   Police had earlier said Ahmed had been wounded in the shooting. Television showed pictures of supporters carrying a conscious Ahmed into hospital.
   Ahmed had been getting out of his vehicle at his office when the gunmen struck, another aide said.
   Ahmed was information and railways minister in the previous government, led by former president Pervez Musharraf. He lost his seat in parliament in a February 2008 general election.

Israel’s supreme court president, Dorit Beinish, on Monday came out in favour of a commission of inquiry into the Gaza war as called for by the United Nations in its Goldstone report.
   'I believe Israel has nothing to fear from a commission of verification ... Israel is strong enough not to be afraid of such a verification,' Beinish said in a speech in Jerusalem.
   'I believe it will turn out that many things have been exaggerated, but to be certain we must verify.'
   About 1,400 Palestinians were killed during the 22-day onslaught launched by Israel on December 27, 2008, aimed at halting rocket attacks from the Islamist Hamas-ruled enclave. Thirteen Israelis were killed in the fighting.
   The UN General Assembly in November called on Israel and Palestinian armed groups to investigate alleged war crimes detailed in the UN report by the respected former international war crimes prosecutor Richard Goldstone.
   In an official response which was handed to UN chief Ban Ki-moon last Friday, Israel said a brigadier general and a colonel had been disciplined after an internal army inquiry.

An Indian soldier was killed and 13 others were rescued after a second avalanche in two days struck an army post in Kashmir along the de facto border with Pakistan, the military said Tuesday.
   The new casualties came a day after 17 Indian soldiers were killed Monday when the first avalanche slammed into a group of 70 combat troops at a high-altitude warfare training camp near Kashmir’s main ski resort of Gulmarg.
   Tuesday’s avalanche hit the army post early in the morning. ‘Fourteen soldiers were trapped. They were rescued by their colleagues but one of the soldiers died later of injuries,’ army spokesman JS Brar told AFP.