Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said March 26 that India intends to go ahead with a multi-billion-dollar gas pipeline from Iran via Pakistan despite objections from the US. "Talks on this pipeline are going on," Mukherjee said in an interview with the NDTV news network. "When I was in Iran, I had categorically mentioned that we are interested in having this pipeline." He added: "Now negotiations are going on about the prices." (AFP, March 26)

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.

The March English edition of Le Monde Diplomatique has an in-depth story on the state of the world's oil industry, "Hydrocarbon nationalism: States claim back their energy reserves," which sheds much light on the underlying imperatives for the Iraq adventure. The critical point: Outside of the US and northern Europe, oil production is now generally 60% or more state-owned. Russia was manipulated down to 30-odd percent under Yeltsin, but Putin (by rather draconian means) has boosted it back over 50%. This is one reason Iraq is so crucial: if the US still gets its way somehow, it will be the first significant reversal of this trend. Relevant passages:

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)

NATO warplanes carried out airstrikes in Helmand province March 25, killing 19 militants and bringing the toll from a four-day operation to 99, the Afghan defence ministry said. (AFP, March 26) Fighting in the region continues to claim the lives of civilians. The UN news agency IRIN interviewed residents of a small village in Helmand's Gherishk who said family members had been killed by cross-fire in recent clashes, and that they were considering fleeing to Kandahar, the nearest city. Officials denied the claims. "No civilian has been killed or injured in the Gherishk operation," said Gen. Zahir Azimi, a spokesman for Afghanistan's Ministry of Defense. More than 1,000 civilians were killed or injured in clashes between insurgents and ISAF in Helmand and neighboring provinces in 2006, according to Human Rights Watch, and some 5,000 families have reportedly been displaced in the province since September 2006. (IRIN, March 26)

Pakistani agents recovered three Iranian policemen who were kidnapped by Baluch militants and handed them back to authorities in Iran, while a fourth is believed to have been killed. The four police were abducted Feb. 27 by the Jundallah militant group after a deadly clash in Iran's southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan, and taken across the Pakistani border. (AFP, March 26)