In a Wikileaks-leaked cable from the US embassy in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s office, Ambassador James C. Oberwetter reported in December 2006 that an unnamed Saudi official told the embassy that Saudi Arabia fears an Iranian missile strike more than terrorism.

“xxxxxxxxxxxx told Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Frances Fragos Townsend that he was speaking for the King when he urged action to counter Iranian threats. xxxxxxxxxxxx said he worries more about an Iranian missile launch against Saudi oil facilities than a terrorist attack against them, because he can take preventative measures against terrorism but not against Iranian missiles.”

The cable shows the Saudis urging the US to attack Iran.

“The more dangerous threat, in his view, is a SCUD missile launch from Iran, which could happen with short or no notice. The Iranians would target Saudi facilities at Ras Tanura and Jubail, also perhaps the US bases in Qatar and Bahrain, which would cause the Saudis to be involved as well, he said. His concern was that tightening sanctions on Iran will cause Iran to up the ante, triggering an escalation leading to a missile launch. Given the possibility of this scenario, he speculated on the option of a pre-emptive strike.”

“I would rather be on the offensivesince we are the target,” the Saudi said, later clarifying that he meant “military readiness,” not necessarily a military strike.

The Saudi official said he was speaking on behalf of King Abdallah several times it he cable.

The same cable also implicated the United Arab Emirates, an American ally, accusing 8-12 Dubai banks of having “extensive links wit Iran, holding up to $12 billion in Iranian assets.”

“We need to send someone quickly to the UAE to freeze these assets before the Iranians begin to unload them. In addition, he continued, the Saudi Monetary Authority should issue a caution to Saudi banks to refrain from Iranian transactions or else jeopardize their international dealings,” the cable reads.

Veteran advocate Tammy Duckworth served in Iraq as an Army helicopter pilot and received combat injuries that cost her both legs. She ran for an Illinois congressional seat in 2006, spoke at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, and was appointed last year as Assistant Secretary for Public and Intergovernmental Affairs in the Department of Veterans Affairs.

She answered questions Tuesday about Veterans Affairs via podcast from the White House.

Blast asked: “How will the VA handle the mental health needs of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan?”

She responded:

“Mental health needs of veterans is a really important issue and one of the things that I mentioned earlier that we’re doing at VA is we’re screening 100% of our Iraq and Afghanistan veterans when they come through the doors of VA. Even if you come in for a sprained ankle, your first time through a VA facility you will get screened for traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress. That’s really critical because many people don’t even know that they’re suffering from post traumatic stress.

We’re also expanding services across the country. I talked about the mental health hotline. We also have a chat room. We developed the chat room because we realized that a lot of our vets are still in the service. They’re still deployed. They need to be able to talk to a counselor even while they’re down range in Iraq or Afghanistan. So we have the chatroom. It’s “suicide prevention.lifeline.org.” And they can actually access that. We made both available to family members because a lot of times the vets themselves are in denial, and they’re not asking for help, but it’s mom or dad or wife or husband or child that actually sees the symptoms and needs help, so they can call in as well.”

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), over 100,000 combat veterans sought help for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and other mental health problems between 2001 and 2007. They also say that the youngest veterans–those aged 18 to 24 years–have the greatest risk of mental health diagnoses.

According to a study this year in the American Journal of Public Health, nearly 40 percent of Afghanistan and Iraq veterans receiving health care from VA hospitals suffer from mental illness.

1. Earlier this week, when asked how ordinary people can participate in Veterans Day, Tammy Duckworth of the Department of Veterans Affairs said “Number one, you can thank a vet for their service.”
2. Officially, it’s “Veterans Day,” no apostrophe. The government — not retail stores — has the last word in this matter.
3. Veterans Day was created by Dwight Eisenhower in 1954 due in part to the efforts of Alfred King, a shoe salesman from Emporia, Kansas.
4. Veterans Day replaced “Armistice Day,” a commemoration proclaimed by Woodrow Wilson in 1919 and made an annual holiday by Calvin Coolidge in 1938.
5. Armistice Day was “dedicated to the cause of world peace” but was more popularly about commemorating the heroes of World War One.
6. Veterans Day is November 11 because the armistice between the Allies and Germany took effect at eleven o’clock in the morning on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918.
7. The “Uniform Monday Holiday Act” of 1971 moved Veterans Day to the fourth Monday of October everywhere but Mississippi and South Dakota.
8. In response to popular sentiment, Veterans Day was moved back to November 11 in 1978.
9. Veterans Day honors all who have served in the armed services, living and dead, in wartime and in peace. It’s distinct from Memorial Day which was specifically created to commemorate Americans who have died in military service.
10. Veterans Day especially shouldn’t be confused with Patriots’ Day (note the apostrophe) as the latter celebrates just those involved with the Battles of Lexington and Concord. It’s only recognized in Massachusetts (where it is becoming better know as “Marathon Monday”), Maine (once part of Massachusetts), and, for some reason, Wisconsin.

Now that U.S. troops have transferred security responsibilities in Iraq over to local forces, Americans can assess the damage from a less involved perspective.

A BBC World News America/Harris Poll asked Americans if they believe that Iraq is better off now than before the U.S. invasion, and whether the U.S. is safer because of the war.

Sixty-two per cent of men said Iraq is now safer, while 51 per cent of women believe the same. Interestingly, 49 per cent of those polled say the war was worth fighting for. The Iraq war. Worth it. Pretty astonishing.

Only 39 per cent say the war made America safer though, 10 per cent less than the number of those who think it was worth it.

So if we are to draw anything from this poll, it is that the majority of those polled don’t think the war was worth it and don’t think it made the country safer. The numbers are close on whether it was worth it, so the the people polled are obviously divided.

A lot of this division likely has to do with confusion. If you ask people what the war was for, what it was about, why we fought it, you’d likely get different answers from different people. In past wars, like Vietnam, the answer was definitive (even if those asked thought the war was ill-advised), and people likely had variations of the same answer.

The Iraq war, is more abstract, there is no definition to it. To keep America safe, yes, to control the spread of Islamic extremists, yes. But how? Iraq did not attack the U.S. and the war of haste there, after the dust settled post-9/11, has further alienated the U.S. from the very people it needed to have on its side in order to protect itself.

Dropping bombs on civilian neighbourhoods and shooting down civilians from helicopters will not make the U.S. safer. And according to the majority of those polled, it hasn’t.

I wrote an article a little while back for my school paper covering a talk I attended featuring Dr. Mads Gilbert, one of the only Western doctors allowed into Gaza during the war there in 08/09.  It was a riveting talk, and I meant to share the article with you sooner, but hey, better late than never.

Here it is:

One night, during Israel’s offensive in Gaza in late 2008 and early 2009, Dr. Mads Gilbert turned to his colleague, Dr. Hameed, at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. For hours they’d been working non-stop to care for the countless war-wounded, performing surgeries and amputations on predominantly young Palestinians.

"How can this go on?" asked an exhausted Dr. Gilbert. There had been no news of foreign aid, and countless civilians continued to rush into the hospital with life-threatening injuries. The doctor had been deeply affected by the plight of the wounded Palestinians.

Dr. Hameed replied immediately. "We have no human rights."

In a 90-minute lecture at the end of January at Ryerson University, Dr. Gilbert, one of just two foreign doctors allowed into Gaza during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, transports a crowd of eager attendees into Al-Shifa hospital, right into the middle of the war.

The doctor presents dozens of photos of the war-wounded Palestinians who sought aid at the health care centre. The photos are horribly gruesome. Legs are blown apart, bones pop out from underneath broken flesh, young faces are bloodied and miserable.

Members of the audience can barely look. A man in the first row turns away every time a photo is shown. He wears an expression of pain. A woman in the third row is weeping. She is of Palestinian descent, but she never looks away.

Dr. Gilbert describes how hard it was to help those Gazans in dire need. "There was no electricity," he explains. "The hospital ran on two unreliable generators because Israel shut the area’s power off. Sometimes doctors operated with the lights from their mobile phones."

Dr. Gilbert describes one particular patient’s case in detail. "This is Joumana Samoni, a four-month-old baby," says the doctor, as he presents a photo of a beautiful young girl with only two fingers on one hand. "Her hand was injured and three of her fingers were amputated."

Samoni was forcefully ejected, along with her family, from her home by Israeli forces in Gaza. Her father, grandmother and grandfather were all killed. Her mother went missing. Samoni came to the hospital alone, but was eventually reunited with her mother.

Dr. Gilbert also presents many statistics and graphs. He tells the audience, now queasy from the photos, that for every dead Israeli, 100 Palestinians were killed. Of the approximately 1400 dead Palestinians, 431 were children. "And 85 to 90 per cent of those killed were civilians. More than 5000 were injured…more than 20,000 were left homeless," he says.

The doctor paints a grim picture of life in Gaza. He takes no credit for the work he and his colleague, Dr. Erik Fosse, did as physicians there during the war. "We are no heroes. The heroes are still in Gaza."

This article appeared in the Ryerson Free Press’s February issue.

This review originally appeared on Reviewcenter.com in 1999.

Force 21 is far from your normal real-time gtrategy game. You don’t have a base where you begin — mining resources, building buildings, which in turn allow you to build certain units. No, it’s nothing like that. Force 21 doesn’t try to be that. It’s something much better.

Force 21, set 15 years in the future, has you in the middle of a war. I know that you may be thinking, “Oh, no. Not another futuristic WWIII scenario” but this actually seems to be possible. China, thriving off of its economic boom in the 1990s, has become short on natural resources and raw materials. On the other hand, Russia, economy falling from the breakup of the USSR in the 1990′s, is almost on the brink of collapsing. China, taking advantage of this, invades the Republic of Kazakhstan, for much needed materials.

“NUKE “ËœEM” is what you’re probably thinking, but that won’t happen. Apparently, missile defenses have been researched so much, that nuclear weapons have become obsolete. The only practical way to fight is by conventional warfare. China, obviously having the advantage over the tumbling Russia, was predicted to barge their way through the Russian army no problem. But the United States of America, trying to get in the middle of it, sends some forces into the area, hoping that they may dissuade China from invading. China decides to attack anyway. That’s where the game begins.

You can either choose to be the invading Chinese army, or the defending US army. Either way you decide to go, you have complete control over 16 different platoons from each army. These platoons are made up of tanks, surveillance, recon, helicopters, artillery, APC’s and electronic warfare units. In some missions, calling for air support is also permitted.

Each side has 15 missions in the campaign, with a briefing before each one, showing you the objectives. Next, you look at what units you are going to bring into the fight. You are also given approximate locations of where the enemy is. As nice as this can be, don’t set up an entire attack based on it. Always scout ahead. The enemy is prone to move around the area.

After all that is done, you are now in the game. You will find your units sitting nice in pretty in front of you. If you have ever played a RTS before, then you already know the basic commands. The only frustrating part of the setup of the game is that you can’t just click on a tank, or any other unit, and order it to do something. If you want to move just one unit around, you must separate it into it’s own platoon. While this is not a big thing to do, just a drag and drop, it gets quite annoying when, in the heat of the battle, you need to move just one unit around. Unlike most RTS games, you just can’t see anything on the map by clicking there. Your point of view is what the commander of the platoon would see. An interesting twist in the game is that requires that you do more recon than in other games.

Now, the grits of the game. The sound is quite good, but the voices of the units get repetitive real fast. The sound detail and quality make you feel like your there, but to take advantage of it, you’ll need a good set of speakers. The graphics in this game are absolutely superb. The detail of each unit is incredibly realistic, which add to the total realism of the game. Explosions are well done, not cheesy looking like a lot of games do. One of my only complaints with the graphics of this game is the distance that you can view off into the horizon. There always seems to be a layer of fog, limiting your visibility range. Sloppy work there takes away from the playing experience. I mean, if you were sitting in a tank, on relatively flat land, I would think that you would be able to see a little further than a couple of hundred of feet. Other than that, kudos to Red Storm on the realism.

The replay value of the missions is not the best, as the missions are mostly the same time after time, the only difference is the exact location of the enemy units.

The single player experience may be the best part of the game. Due to the unpopularity of this game (caused by a bad release date) there is a very small multiplayer base to play against. This is too bad, because this is the kind of game that’s really fun to play with a group of friends. The fact that there is hardly anyone to play with is very odd, seeing as how both Mplayer and Microsoft Gaming Zone support play for the game.

Overall, Force 21 has enough to satisfy both the people who like to sit down and play a realistic war game and those who just want to blow shit up. The ease of play is what really makes this game work. Also, I found absolutely bugs in this game, which is becoming more and more rare these days with companies over hyping games, then throwing crap programming in a box just to get it out.

Turn to page 2 if you want to see how the game ends. We also have a cool game demo available for download.

When you’re writing a book about the military, this critic thinks, you’ve got to be a great writer. You have got to know what you’re doing, and you have got to understand the shark-infested waters you’re swimming in.

A bad book about the military will do one or several of the following things: 1) reduce the troops to tropes; 2) wave a flag; 3) become an excuse for an author to enter into a partisan argument between himself and the reader’s sensibilities; and 4) read like a Michael Bay (or, if in the 90s, Jerry Bruckheimer) movie.

I just finished reading an earnest attempt at macho beachside literature, “Horse Soldiers,” pitched to me by the PR company slinging the book as something for Dad on Father’s Day (which was Sunday?). My dad’s a retired Commander in the US Navy, so I couldn’t really think of the book without wondering how he would feel about it, and the military has kind of seeped into the back of my mind and informed, I’m finding increasingly as I get older, how I look at most things.

As such I feel compelled to discuss further the risks of writing a sensationalized take on military strategy, to elaborate on my negative review of the book, which should appear on Blast sometime this week.

The thing is this, at bottom: Nobody’s going to go to a book about military strategy, especially the War On Terror, without a political position of their own. I, myself, think the entire affair was ruined the moment the Commander in Chief decided not to pursue Bin Laden, so, within those confines, the Horse Soldiers’ mission (to fight Al Qaeda) wasn’t really the issue. The issue I had with the book was more that it didn’t do what it could to treat the soldiers as people, and instead gave us a Tony Scott movie with a pair of protagonists, a faceless enemy and a host of extras.

It’s about, I suppose, “supporting the troops.” The author, Doug Stanton, did a monumental amount of research to put “Horse Soldiers” together, and it shows. But Stanton’s encyclopedic amount of interviews and legwork produced not a book full of humanity, but a book full of pop and action. I didn’t care about the people whose lives were at stake in the war, and I didn’t get a sense of how their campaign fit in with the rest of the war, and these two things made the book into an excercise in sugar-spinning.

The more I think about it, the more frustrated I get, in fact. The book’s got staying power; I’ll give Stanton that.

So it continues. North Korea prolonged its apparent mission to alienate itself from the entire world by testing another short-range missile off its east coast Friday, the sixth launch in just a few days. Also, vehicular activity was seen at a long-range ballistic missile site north of Pyongyang, which could suggest an impending test, CNN reports.

On Thursday, the U.S. and South Korea elevated surveillance levels to their second-highest, just as they did when North Korea conducted their first underground nuclear test in 2006. The U.S. says it currently has no plans to bolster its forces in South Korea from the present tally of 28,000.

South Korean officials say the alert system, known as “Defcon” was not elevated after Friday’s firing. They did however say they would strengthen certain task forces that monitor the North’s activity.

“Additional intelligence assets, including personnel, will be deployed while reconnaissance operations over North Korea will increase,” said South Korean defense spokesman Won Tae-jae, according to the Yonhap News Agency.

Activity was also seen at the Yongbyon nuclear facility, according to South Korean officials. Troubling since in 2008, North Korea stated it had enough weapons-grade plutonium for seven atomic bombs, CNN reports.

As military along the South-North Korean border continue to sweat, North Korea has warned the world of “self-defense” measures if the UN Security Council decides to impose sanctions on the impoverished country.

“If the UN Security Council provokes us, our additional self-defense measures will be inevitable,” the foreign ministry said in a statement, the BBC reports.

In a response to increased tensions between the South and North, their bordering peninsula in the Yellow sea has seen the withdrawal of Chinese fishing boats. The boats normally operate near the Northern Limit Line (NLL), a UN-declared border line in the sea that the North refuses to recognize as the limit of their land ownership, and were seen leaving the area this week. Nearly 280 boats fish near the NLL for crab each year, and this year, that number has dropped to about 140, reports the BBC.

There promises to be more developments in the near future, so stick with Blast for ongoing coverage and check out the Terra blog for some analysis.

According to the Sri Lankan government and photos of a pale-faced Velupillai Prabhakaran, the LTTE has been defeated and all peace will be restored to Sri Lanka’s embattled civilian population. That’s obviously an exaggeration of the truth.

Perhaps the LTTE has been defeated once and for all. They have suffered major hits over the past 25 years but never have they completely collapsed. A high-ranking Tamil and former member of the LTTE (a long while ago, when they were non-violent and a group of just about 20, she said) said this morning on CBC radio (a major radio station in Canada run by our public broadcasting corporation) that she believes the majority of Tamils are sick of the Tigers and will not take part in a resurgence of the group, at least not any time soon. She believes the conduct of the LTTE has been particularly destructive to the well-being of the Tamil Diaspora over the years, especially now, when so many civilians have died and so many have been displaced.

We don’t know for sure if Prabhakaran is dead or if the Tigers have been defeated. Yes, the army showed photos of Prabhakaran’s corpse, eyes wide open, however, this is the same government that has been complicit in the killing of civilians. And because journalists and media have been banned from the region, we only have government accounts. Since when do we trust politicians to be truthful and not doctor images? Maybe Prabhakaran is dead and I’m being overly suspicious or cautious, but there is that possibility that it isn’t him.

One thing we know for certain is that neither peace nor humanitarian aid will be handed willingly to the displaced, injured and horrified citizens of the war-torn region. International bodies are hesitant to step foot in Sri Lanka. This lack of civilian aid and international apathy is the new topic for Tamil protesters.

The UN secretary general had condemned the army and the LTTE for ignoring the safety of civilians, the group the two bodies are supposedly trying to protect from each other. However, the government in Sri Lanka is not seeking a political victory. An all-out, definitive military triumph is the only thing that will please them, and it is the wrong thing for them to be pursuing.

The LTTE is trying to secede with the Tamils, but it’s causing so many civilian deaths, which can be blamed on both the LTTE and the government. Both blame each other and without reporters in the region we can only speculate.

Before their defeat, the LTTE were backed and cornered into a spot chock-full of civilians. By leaving the area they would die. By staying the civilians would die too.

So instead of sparing civilian lives, they stayed and civilians died as the LTTE and the government tread over the carcasses of their own people to kill each other. Neither cared much for their surroundings.

Now that it is over, there are scores of political options behind which the international community can voice their support. But the UN wants to allow reporters in to the region and chase a phantom political solution that, at this time, has no hope of being achieved.

Since 1977 have the Tamils been officially asking for a separate Tamil Eelam. They won’t throw that away now just because the LTTE has been stripped to the bone.

They may not back the reincarnation of the Tigers for some time, but they will rise again to fight for their independence from an oppressive government. Violence hasn’t worked, peaceful protest and requests haven’t worked and elections haven’t worked. But the downfall of the LTTE could spark a new generation of Tamils to demand their freedom.

The way they go about it is up to them.

According to this blog, nothing has happened in world news for three weeks. That’s my bad. First off, I just want to say sorry for not posting in almost a month. I was swamped with school work, finals and assignments to end off the year. But now I’m in the clear so I can again devote some time every day to writing for Blast.

Again, my bad.

Instead of reviewing what has happened in the past few weeks, let’s just skip ahead to now. There is one particular story that I want to tell you about. I saw it this afternoon and it sort of stood out from the rest.

According to the Wall Street Journal, after a meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah today, President Obama told reporters he has left open the possibility of pursuing legal action against those in the CIA who created the policies that, in large part, led to torture and extreme methods of interrogation during the war.

He does stand by his promise to not pursue any course of legal action against those who actually executed the torture (the Jack Bauers). Obama did however make a clear distinction between the contractors and those who formulated the policy behind which the contractors operated.

The president told reporters that the Department of Justice is looking into memos from Bush’s term that green lit extreme interrogation. He also added that he doesn’t want to “prejudge” what is in the memos based solely on the character (or lack thereof) of our previous president.

He also spoke of a bipartisan committee that may be established to examine the use of torture and other extreme interrogation since 9/11. He said that talks during open congressional hearings (which is the way that these issues are currently addressed) tend to break down over partisan banter, and that it would be more “sensible” to start a committee of ““independent participants who are above reproach” to examine these issues.

However, he made it clear that he does no fully endorse the idea.

The president released the interrogation memos last week, in a decision he says was one of his hardest as president to date. Former VP Dick Cheney and other republicans have called this release a “breach of national security.”

I like the idea of a bipartisan tribunal. Its members would of course need to be carefully chosen however talks would never be interrupted or broken down over political differences. This issue is a moral one, an ethical one, not a political one. The ethics and morals of U.S. Army tactics overseas must be examined and open congressional hearings just aren’t the way to do that effectively. The committee’s creation would ensure ethics are at the forefront of the debate, and whether you’re red or blue would never be an issue.

Electronic Arts and Mythic Entertainment today announced the beginning of “Beyond The Sands” -the most recent event held in the virtual reality of Warhammer Online.

As part of the “Call to Arms” live expansion, an endeavor Mythic embarked upon to bring continually fresh content to players, “Beyond The Sands” offers players of both the Order and Destruction factions the ability to migrate south towards the Land of the Dead.

For this week only players must recover the artifacts of Nehekharan Kings and put down the problematic Liche Priests.‚  Should you succeed, not only glory is your recompense, rather you’ll earn the elusive “Grave Robber” title, unique “Tomb King” trophies, and for online masters, the stunning “Aviator Goggles” pictured at right.

“The next big event in the Call to Arms live expansion has arrived, and we couldn’t be more excited,” said Mark Jacobs, vice president and general manager of Mythic Entertainment. “‘Beyond the Sands’ introduces the ancient and eternal Tomb Kings to WAR, a game already packed with amazing content. This live event is just a small taste of the Tomb Kings-themed, undead mayhem still to come!”

Head on over to the official event page for more info and his-res screens.

It took more than 1200 lives, but it finally came. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared a unilateral ceasefire late Saturday night, and is now working to try and stifle the “resupply of Hamas through smuggling from Egypt,” the New York Times reports.

Olmert said all of Israel’s objectives had been reached, and there was no reason for them to continue the fight. Hamas however has vowed to fight on, and will not honor the ceasefire declaration.

The announcement came on the same day an Israeli tank fired at a UN school, killing two young brothers.

The ceasefire could mean an end to the deadly three-week old war, however no guarantee of lasting peace can be made at this time.

For now, the world will be bitterly satisfied that Israel has stopped murdering innocent Gazans. However, as a term in the ceasefire outlines, if Hamas keeps firing at Israel, Israel can fire back.

I’m happy, but a little skeptical and cautious.

Israeli troops and tanks began their descent on Gaza Saturday night, officially launching a predicted ground assault against Hamas militants, the New York Times reports.

“This will not be easy and it will not be short” said Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, reinforcing what many other officials have said; preparing the public for a lengthy campaign.

Last night Gazans witnessed the calm before the storm, a halt in air assaults just before dozens were fired along the border to make a path clear of mines and bombs for incoming forces. Troops marched single file into Gaza overnight, backed by tanks and helicopters.

Israel’s military said their reason for launching the assault is “to destroy the terrorist infrastructure of Hamas.” Hamas however has vowed not to fall without a fight, they answered with several strong words of their own.

“Be prepared for a unique surprise, you will be either killed or kidnapped and will suffer mental illness from the horrors we will show you,” said a message broadcast by a Hamas official on radio frequency.

“Gaza will not be paved with flowers for you, it will be paved with fire and hell,” another Hamas official warned Israel, AP reports.

Hamas has also threatened to resume suicide attacks in Israel.

Israel has repeatedly stated their goal is not to reoccupy Gaza, only to ensure an end to Hamas airstrikes that have plagued Southern Israel for several years.

The ground assault brings risk not only to Hamas and Gazans, but Israeli forces as well. New York Times reports that Hamas has had 18 months since Israel last withdrew to smuggle in high-grade weapons to be used in combat.

The ground assault will most likely increase the number of Israeli deaths; so far four Israelis have been killed, compared to more than 460 Palestinians.

Israel has said it is committed to limiting the number of civilian deaths, however during the surge of air assaults before the ground assault was launched, a mosque was hit during evening prayer killing at least 11 and injuring more than 30.

The UN predicts nearly 25 per cent of those killed in Gaza so far were civilians.

Pakistan has canceled all military leave and increased troop numbers in regions bordering Jammu and Punjab in northwest India, the Times of India reports.

A little further south, in the area bordering Ganganagar, India, Pakistan has reportedly begun renovating old bunkers, as well as constructing new ones. ‚ 

Pakistan’s troops are, in some places, as close as six miles from the border. ‚ According to the Geneva Convention, no country can deploy troops within 1.8 miles of the border unless war is‚ officially‚ declared.

In response, India has moved some of its troops closer to the border. ‚ India’s Border Security Forces (BSF) have provided the government with intelligence, specifically the number of troops being deployed by Pakistan and the types of weapons they are carrying. ‚ This way, they would be prepared if, let’s hope not, anything goes down.

India has also begun telling its citizens that it is unsafe for them to be in Pakistan, the Times of India reports. ‚ They’ve also asked the U.S., China and Iran to put some pressure on Pakistan to act against those involved in the Mumbai terror attacks.

It seems that it’s getting worse there by the minute. ‚ Moving troops within miles of war is bad enough, but India actually telling its citizens they are unsafe in another country is an official sign that something will go down soon if Pakistan doesn’t buckle down and cooperate. ‚ 

Other countries may not officially say it, but they are all thinking it. ‚ Pakistan needs to actually help the‚ investigation, not just say they will. ‚ If they don’t things could get worse, and no one wants to see these two countries go at it. ‚ Trust me.

This is a Blast Magazine special report with senior editor, Daniel Peleschuk, in Eastern Europe.

KYIV, Ukraine — Russian forces have advanced further into Georgian territory in the country’s northwest separatist enclave of Abkhazia, where reports say their forces have crossed the breakaway republic’s border and are occupying a town in Georgia proper.

Now pressuring the small country from two sides, Russian forces are raising the question of whether or not they will push further into Georgian territory.

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said on August 11 that his country has been cut in half by Russian forces, citing the Russian occupation of the central Georgian town of Gori, through which passes the only major roadway connecting the eastern and western parts of the country.

Saakashvili also appealed to the international community’s attention in what he called an “ethnic cleansing and annihilation of the ethnic Georgian population in Abkhazia.”

Video courtesy of The Boston Globe

This is a Blast Magazine special report with senior editor, Daniel Peleschuk, in Eastern Europe. We will have further reports as they are dispatched.

KYIV, Ukraine — In a brazen maneuver that has ignited an international military conflict, Russia late last week sent 150 tanks over its border into neighboring Georgia’s separatist territory of South Ossetia, prompting Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili to declare a 15-day state of war with Russia.

The assault was a response to Georgia’s surprise capture of the pro-Russian territory, which for years has struggled for independence from Georgia with Moscow backing. Internationally recognized as part of Georgia but a self-proclaimed, de-facto independent republic, the north-central enclave has battled on and off since 1992 to grasp official independence. Observers and political officials have called it a “frozen conflict.”

Here in the capital of Ukraine, the pro-Georgian government announced yesterday that it may not let Russian naval ships, based in the Crimean, Black Sea port city of Sevastopol, back to their bases. The Russian Black Sea Fleet has for long been a thorn in Ukraine’s side with regards to their relations with the larger country.

Russia argues that it is simply protecting the interest and well being of its citizens in the breakaway region. The Russian government has issued most of South Ossetia’s citizens Russian passports, thereby legitimizing Russia’s claims of “protecting their own.” Although there are virtually no ethnic Russians in the territory, they have do have a cultural and lingual connection to North Ossetia-Alania, a federal republic of Russia, which it borders to the north.

Throughout the weekend, Georgian troops exchanged artillery and small arms fire with Ossetian separatists and Russian soldiers, officially sent in by Russia as peacekeepers. Russian planes bombed Georgian towns in and around South Ossetia, completely leveling the breakaway capital of Tskhinvali. Some planes reached as far as the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, bombing military bases on the city’s outskirts.

Russia has claimed that over 2,000 civilians — most of which were ethnic Georgians with Russian citizenship — were killed in the territory as a result of Georgia’s invasion, but more accurate, independent estimates have yet to be released.

Two journalists have also been killed covering the conflict. Alexander Klimchuk and Giga Chikhladze were photographers with Caucasus Images (CPI), a Georgia-based photo agency that supplies photos to various news organizations. They were embedded with Georgian forces fighting in South Ossetia, according to the Ukrainian newswire, UNIAN.

Envoys from the U.S. and the European Union traveled to Tbilisi over the weekend in an attempt to negotiate a ceasefire between the countries, but have not yet reached a peaceful agreement, according to various reports.

White House Deputy National Security Adviser Jim Jeffery warned that a prolonging of the violence could strain important political relations between the U.S. and Russia.

“We have made it clear to the Russians that if the disproportionate and dangerous escalation on the Russian side continues, this will have a significant long-term impact on U.S.-Russian relations,” he said, speaking to reporters on Sunday in Beijing.