A Chinese politician from the predominantly Muslim and ethnic Uighur province of Xinkiang in China's far west has claimed that 18 people killed in a raid on alleged terrorist training camp had links with al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Shi Dagang said 17 other members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) were arrested during the operation in January. "Their terrorists were trained by the Taliban in Afghanistan and sent to China by them," Shi Dagang said during a news conference at China's annual legislative session in Beijing. He also claimed that more than 1,500 semi-assembled grenades were seized in the raid east of China's border with Kyrgyzstan.

Chinese president Hu Jintao has arrived in Moscow to meet with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, and oil and gas deals are expected to dominate the discussions. Hu's three-day visit "aims to strengthen political trust and push forward the economic and trade partnership," Assistant Foreign Minister Li Hui told reporters. "Energy is an extremely important constituent of relations and cooperation between China and Russia," Li emphasized. China has imported increasing volumes of Russian oil by rail in recent years, and hopes this will be an interim measure pending completion of a pipeline linking China to Russia's far east. Russia also plans to pipe 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually through a pipeline that runs to China's far western region of Xinkiang, said Russia's ambassador to China Sergei Razov. By 2011, Russian natural gas is slated flow through two pipelines in Xinkiang and a second route to northeastern China, he said.

Indonesia has collected DNA samples from relatives of major terrorism suspects, police officials said March 26 at the opening of a new DNA laboratory developed jointly with the Australian Federal Police. Indonesian national police chief General Sutanto told reporters that Jakarta had asked for samples of DNA from the families of "Malaysian terrorists." Police spokesman Sisno Adiwinoto told reporters those included Noordin Top, a Malaysian national considered a mastermind of Islamic militant bombing attacks in Indonesia. Top was once considered a leader of Jemaah Islamiah (JI), blamed for the 2002 Bali blasts that killed 200 people, as well as other attacks including one aimed at Australia's embassy in Jakarta. Authorities say JI has now fractured into splinter factions. (Reuters, March 26)

India's Maoists guerillas threatened more attacks March 26, 11 days after they killed 55 police and tribal militia in a raid on their camp in the central state of Chhattisgarh. The two-page statement signed by "Azad" called the attack a "heroic and tactical counter-offensive by the Peoples Liberation Guerrilla Army against state-sponsored reign of terror." The statement pledged "bigger" attacks if the Salwa Judum (Campaign for Peace) movement was not stopped. The government-sponsored movement is recruiting local tribespeople as informants. Tens of thousands have also been forcibly relocated from their villages into army-controlled camps in an effort to isolate the populace from the Maoists. "The guerrillas assisted by the Bhoomkal militia will take up attacks on bigger scale if the Salwa Judum campaign is not withdrawn," the statement said. Bhoomkal means "land army" in a local tribal language, and is the name of the Maoists' own armed network among the populace. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said last year the Maoist revolt was the biggest internal security challenge facing India since independence in 1947. (Reuters, March 26)

Venezuela has announced it is working on a number of new oil deals with China, as it aims to reduce its dependence upon crude exports to the US. The China National Petroleum Corporation is expected to sink new investments in Venezuela's oil facilities. The announcement comes as President Hugo Chavez is pushing a reorganization of Venezuela's oil industry which would strip major US companies such as Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips and Chevron of their majority stakes in Venezuelan oil projects. "The United States as a power is on the way down, China is on the way up," said Chavez after the announcement. "China is the market of the future." (BBC, March 25)

The Los Angeles Times reported March 25 on new CIA intelligence indicating that the Colombia's army chief, Gen. Mario Montoya, collaborated extensively with right-wing paramilitaries that Washington considers terrorist organizations. The report circulated within the CIA and obtained by the LAT claims Montoya and a paramilitary group jointly planned and carried out a 2002 "Operation Orion" to eliminate guerrillas from poor areas around Medellin. Operation Orion sent 3,000 Colombian army troops and police, supported by helicopter gunships, into the vast guerilla-controlled shantytowns ringing Medellin. At least 14 people were killed in the operation, and rights observers say dozens more disappeared in its aftermath. The UN and Organization of American Stateshave investigated the reports, and Colombian Sen. Gustavo Petro, an opponent of Uribe, publicly charged that 46 disappeared during the operation.

Early on March 20 in Tirua, in Chile's Region VIII, police arrested Jose Huenchunao Marinan, a Mapuche community leader (werken) and activist who had been in hiding for nearly three years. Huenchunao, a member of the Arauco-Malleco Mapuche Coordinating Committee, was sentenced in August 2004 to 10 years in prison for a December 2001 arson attack against the Poluco Pidenco estate, property of Forestal Mininco, a subsidiary of the Compania Manufacturera de Papeles y Cartones (CMPC), in Ercilla, Region IX. A number of other activists, including Patricia Troncoso Robles, Juan Carlos Huenulao and brothers Juan and Jaime Marileo Sarabia, were also sentenced to 10 years in the same case. (Argenpress, March 23 via Resumen Latinoamericano; La Tercera, Santiago, March 22; UPI, March 20 via Terra Noticias; Santiago Times, March 21 via UNPO)

On March 24 Salvador Garcia Ledesma, general operations director of the Mexican mining company Luismin, offered to pay the community of Nuevo Carrizalillo, Eduardo Neri municipality, in the southern state of Guerrero, an annual rent of 8,000 pesos (about $726) for each of the 900 hectares of land the company is mining for gold. Community residents, who along with some miners have blockaded the Los Filos-El Bermejal mines at various times since Jan. 8, rejected the offer, although it was more than eight times the payment the company originally committed to. The community is now holding out for 50,000 pesos ($4,538) a year for each hectare; in January they demanded 92,000 for each of 700 hectares. Garcia Ledesma says that Luismin, the Mexican mining division of the Vancouver-based Goldcorp Inc., has lost about $180,000 so far in the dispute. (La Jornada, March 25)