BUSSINESS INFORMATION

DUBAI: India and Kuwait have reached an agreement on resolving a dispute on air traffic rights, over which the gulf state had threatened to stop Indian national carriers flying there from today. Just before the expiry of the deadline, an MoU was signed last night by the civil aviation authorities of the two countries in Kuwait city after a marathon negotiations lasting three days, Indian ambassador to Kuwait M Ganapthi said.

Ganapthi said after the MoU was signed that the flight services between the two countries will continue freely and unhindered, much to the benefit of the thousands of passengers who were fearing a disruptions in services between the two countries. He said the talks were held in a friendly and cordial atmosphere and the final result shows the depth of the relations between the two countries. "From the passenger and public view point, the MoU has been a big success," he added.

The points in agreement include additional 4,000 seat taking the total to 12,000 seats in each directions, but the fifth freedom destinations will apply to the earlier 8,000 seats. India has agreed to allow Kuwait carriers to operate flights to Hyderabad, Kolkata (both with immediate effect) and Bangalore (from the winter 2008 schedule).

The spat began when Kuwait decided to stop Indian carriers from flying into the country from July 1. In a bid to break the deadlock, a high-level Indian delegation comprising civil aviation ministry joint secretary R K Singh and representatives of A-I and IA arrived in Kuwait on Thursday and since then talks continued.

The agreement, reached between the Kuwait and Indian governments, would be a relief to thousands of passengers, booked on both Indian and Kuwait airlines, ending the uncertainty over their travel plans. The Indian delegation left for the country early today. Meanwhile, Air India regional director Freddie Vaz and Indian regional director Abhay Pathak have both said they would operate the flights from Kuwait as scheduled.

China last week successfully used a missile to destroy an orbiting satellite, U.S. government officials told CNN on Thursday, in a test that could undermine relations with the West and pose a threat to satellites important to the U.S. military.

According to a spokesman for the National Security Council, the ground-based, medium-range ballistic missile knocked an old Chinese weather satellite from its orbit about 537 miles above Earth. The missile carried a "kill vehicle" and destroyed the satellite by ramming it.

The test took place on January 11. (Watch why the U.S. has protested the missile strike )

Aviation Week and Space Technology first reported the test: "Details emerging from space sources indicate that the Chinese Feng Yun 1C (FY-1C) polar orbit weather satellite launched in 1999 was attacked by an asat (anti-satellite) system launched from or near the Xichang Space Center."

A U.S. official, who would not agree to be identified, said the event was the first successful test of the missile after three failures.

The official said that U.S. "space tracking sensors" confirmed that the satellite is no longer in orbit and that the collision produced "hundreds of pieces of debris," that also are being tracked.

The United States logged a formal diplomatic protest.

"We are aware of it and we are concerned, and we made it known," White House spokesman Tony Snow said.

Several U.S. allies, including Canada and Australia, have also registered protests, and the Japanese government said it was worrisome.

"Naturally, we are concerned about it from the viewpoint of security as well as peaceful use of space," said Yashuhisa Shiozaki, chief cabinet secretary. He said Japan has asked the Chinese government for an explanation.

Britain has complained about lack of consultation before the test and potential damage from the debris it left behind, The Associated Press reported.

The United States has been able to bring down satellites with missiles since the mid-1980s, according to a history of ASAT programs posted on the Union of Concerned Scientists Web site. In its own test, the U.S. military knocked a satellite out of orbit in 1985.

Under a space policy authorized by President Bush in August, the United States asserts a right to "freedom of action in space" and says it will "deter others from either impeding those rights or developing capabilities intended to do so."

The policy includes the right to "deny, if necessary, adversaries the use of space capabilities hostile to U.S. national interests."

Low Earth-orbit satellites have become indispensable for U.S. military communications, GPS navigation for smart bombs and troops, and for real-time surveillance. The Chinese test highlights the satellites' vulnerability.

"If we, for instance, got into a conflict over Taiwan, one of the first things they'd probably do would be to shoot down all of our lower Earth-orbit spy satellites, putting out our eyes," said John Pike of globalsecurity.org, a Web site that compiles information on worldwide security issues.

"The thing that is surprising and disturbing is that [the Chinese] have chosen this moment to demonstrate a military capability that can only be aimed at the United States," he said.WASHINGTON (CNN)

BAGHDAD: The Baghdad morgue took in about 16,000 unidentified bodies last year, the bulk of them victims of death squads and other sectarian violence, a source at the morgue told Reuters yesterday. About 1,350 bodies were received in December, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the Iraqi government has banned officials from releasing data on casualty rates. As throughout the year, between 80 and 85 per cent of these were victims of violence.
The morgue data-for Baghdad only-suggest that a figure of 12,320 civilian deaths in "terrorist violence" in 2006, given two weeks ago by Interior Ministry sources, does not include all the victims of the bloodletting in Iraq. The Interior Ministry statistics exclude violent deaths classed as "criminal".
Since the morgue statistics also do not take account of the many deaths outside Baghdad, nor indeed of all violent deaths in the capital, the total death toll is certainly higher. A Health Ministry official told the Washington Post last week that nearly 23,000 civilians and police were killed in the year, according to Health Ministry data. A deputy minister said he could not confirm the figures.
The Interior Ministry said 1,231 policemen were killed. The United Nations has added Health Ministry data for the country as a whole to Baghdad morgue figures to come up with figures showing 3,700 civilians were killed in October alone- or about 120 people a day.
The Iraqi government has called that an exaggeration but given no comparable official figures of its own. No UN data are yet available for the period since October.
While the total death toll remains disputed, no officials challenge the indications given by various sets of data that killings have increased markedly in the past year, notably since the destruction of a major Shiite shrine in February. The Interior Ministry figures showed three and a half times more civilian deaths in December than in January.
No data were available for November, but in October the morgue took in about 1,600 bodies, down from a peak of 1,815 in July. - Reuters

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) -- Helicopter gunships attacked suspected al Qaeda fighters in the south Tuesday after U.S. forces staged airstrikes in the first offensive in the African country since 18 American soldiers were killed there in 1993, witnesses said.
Witnesses said 31 civilians, including two newlyweds, died in the assault by two helicopters near Afmadow, a town in an area of forested hills close to the Kenyan border 220 miles southwest of Somalia's capital, Mogadishu. The report could not be independently verified.
A Somali Defense Ministry official described the helicopters as American, but the local witnesses told The Associated Press they could not make out identification markings on the craft. Washington officials had no comment.

On Monday, at least one U.S. AC-130 gunship attacked Islamic extremists in Hayi, 30 miles from Afmadow, and on a remote island 155 miles away believed to be an al Qaeda training camp at the southern tip of Somalia next to Kenya. Somali officials said they had reports of many deaths.
A U.S. intelligence official said the U.S. killed five to 10 individuals in this week's attack in southern Somalia. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the operation's sensitivity, said a small number of others present, perhaps four or five, at the targeted area were also wounded.
The U.S. was still trying to figure out who they were -- a process that may require a mix of intelligence and getting personnel to the scene.

The U.S. is targeting Islamic extremists, said the Somali defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters. Earlier, Somalia's president said the U.S. was hunting suspects in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa, and had his support. Read More

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A new clandestine video posted on the Internet showed the body of Saddam Hussein lying on a hospital trolley with a vivid red wound in his throat after being hanged.
The 27-second clip, seen on Tuesday, showed a sheet being removed to reveal Saddam's neck severely twisted and with a smear of blood on his left cheek.
It was the third illicit film -- and fourth video altogether -- to emerge since he was hanged on December 30 in an execution that inflamed sectarian passions in Iraq.

Iraq's Shi'ite-led government, which says it is struggling to avert an all-out sectarian civil war, is investigating another illicit film showing Shi'ite officials taunting Saddam on the gallows that has sparked anger among Saddam's fellow minority Sunni Arabs.
The Internet release of new grainy film, which appeared to have been taken by a mobile phone, came as U.S. President George W. Bush told U.S. lawmakers he has decided to send about 20,000 more troops to Iraq in a plan to be announced on Wednesday.
The White House said Bush, who is reshuffling his commanders and diplomats in Iraq, would address Americans on his new Iraq plan on Wednesday at 9 p.m. (2 p.m. British time Thursday).
Gordon Smith, one of Bush's fellow Republicans who a month ago said he could no longer support the war, was among senators who attended a White House meeting to discuss the president's emerging strategy for Iraq, which Democrats have called an escalation of the war.
It was clear to me that a decision has been made for a surge of, I suppose, 20,000 additional troops," Smith told reporters.

Smith said Bush told him and several other senators that the plan for the additional troops had originated with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Maliki had made commitments that the Iraqi government and military would take steps to strengthen security in exchange for more U.S. troops, Smith said.
Seeking to salvage the U.S. mission in an unpopular war nearly four years after the invasion, Bush's new plan is also expected to include setting "benchmarks" for Maliki to meet, aimed at easing sectarian violence and stabilising the country.

It is also expected to contain a job creation program for Iraqis likely to cost more than $1 billion (514 million pounds).
Bush could be setting a collision course with the new Democratic leadership in Congress, which says sending more troops to Iraq is an escalation and that it is time to start bringing 135,000 forces home.
Soon after Bush's speech, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is expected to go to the Middle East to try to promote stability in Iraq and Israeli-Palestinian peace -- an area critics believe the administration has neglected.
Maliki, a Shi'ite Islamist, has announced a major security plan for Baghdad, vowing to crush illegal armed groups "regardless of sect or politics" -- suggesting he may be ready to tackle militias loyal to his fellow Shi'ites, as demanded by Washington and the once dominant Sunni minority.

No clear action on the plan has yet been taken.

U.S. officials say the "benchmarks" to be outlined by Bush on Wednesday are aimed at prompting Maliki's government to act to bring the warring groups into a political reconciliation.

A U.S. gunship has conducted a strike against two suspected al Qaeda operatives in southern Somalia, but it was not known whether the mission was successful, U.S. news networks reported on Monday.

The U.S. Air Force plane, operated by the Special Operations Command, flew from its base in Djibouti to the southern tip of Somalia, where the al Qaeda suspects were believed to have fled from the capital Mogadishu, U.S. networks reported.

A Pentagon spokesman said he had no information on the reports.
The two suspected al Qaeda operatives were not named but CBS News said one was a suspect in the car bomb attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and the other was the Islamist group's senior leader in East Africa.
The al Qaeda suspects fled Mogadishu after Ethiopian troops invaded on December 28 and were tracked with unmanned aerial drones as they moved south, CBS said.
NBC News reported that U.S. officials said Ethiopian forces, which had conducted raids in Somalia, had gathered intelligence on three potential al Qaeda leaders believed responsible for the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Tanzania.
NBC reported that the airstrikes were part of an ongoing operation and that the U.S. aircraft carrier Eisenhower was moving from the North Arabian Sea toward Somalia to support the operation

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- As President Bush's new Iraq plan nears completion, sources familiar with the deliberations say White House speechwriters worked "around the clock" over the weekend to prepare the address for the plan's critical midweek unveiling.
Over the next few days, the president is to review and rework the speech for its Wednesday prime-time delivery.
As of Friday, the plan was being dubbed "A New Way Forward."
While the plan is not final, three sources familiar with the deliberations said there are aspects of it that have been widely agreed upon.


U.S. troops
Sources said the plan will call for sending at least 20,000 U.S. troops to Baghdad and perhaps other areas in the region.
They said the debate within the administration has been whether to send them all in as a "big bang" force right away or phase them in from month-to-month, contingent on whether the Iraqis meet certain political and military goals.
As one put it: "The whole struggle -- has been for weeks and even months -- is: what is (Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki) going to do about (radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr)?"
Sources said the phased-in approach "seems to be winning the day."
"It also allows the Pentagon to get its people ready to go," one said.
Sources said the White House is working on putting in some elements favored by the Democrats and the Iraq Study Group. The elements include expanded training of Iraqi forces, redeployment of some U.S. troops outside of Iraq -- in places like Kuwait -- and beefing up reconstruction projects.
"The last thing they want is to present this and have the Iraq Study Group go the cameras slamming it," one source said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, cautioned Bush Sunday that if he calls for additional U.S. troops to be sent to Iraq, he will have to show the Democratic-controlled Congress why even more money should be poured into the war.

POSTED: 4:03 a.m. EST, January 8, 2007