WORLD MEDIA WATCH

Summaries are excerpted from the source articles; the featured article follows the summary section.

1//The Telegraph, UK
BRITAIN IN SECRET TALKS WITH TALIBAN [1]

Agents from MI6 entered secret talks with Taliban leaders despite Gordon Brown's pledge that Britain would not negotiate with terrorists, The Daily Telegraph can disclose. Officers from the Secret Intelligence Service staged discussions, known as "jirgas", with senior insurgents on several occasions over the summer. An intelligence source said: "The SIS officers were understood to have sought peace directly with the Taliban with them coming across as some sort of armed militia. The British would also provide 'mentoring' for the Taliban." The disclosure comes only a fortnight after the Prime Minister told the House of Commons: "We will not enter into any negotiations with these people." Opposition leaders said that Mr Brown had "some explaining to do". The Government was apparently prepared to admit that the talks had taken place but Gordon Brown was thought to have "bottled out" just before Prime Minister's Questions on Dec 12, when he made his denial instead. It is thought that the Americans were extremely unhappy with the news becoming public that an ally was negotiating with terrorists who supported the September 11 attackers. The delicate balance in Afghanistan was underlined as it emerged that two diplomats had been ordered by the Kabul government to leave the country after allegations that they had met Taliban insurgents without the administration's knowledge. ... MI6's meetings with the Taliban took place up to half a dozen times at houses on the outskirts of Lashkah Gah and in villages in the Upper Gereshk valley, to the north-east of Helmand's main town.

AN EXPANDED EXCERPT OF THIS FEATURED ARTICLE FOLLOWS THE SUMMARIES

2//The Independent, UK
GOVERNMENT RULES OUT INQUIRY INTO IRAQ CONFLICT [2]

The Government has backtracked over demands for an independent inquiry into the mistakes made in the run-up to and aftermath of the invasion of Iraq. Ministers have hinted repeatedly that an investigation would be held after British forces leave the country. But they have now changed tack in the hope of "moving on" in Iraq rather than looking back at what went wrong. Asked if an inquiry would take place after British troops withdraw, David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, replied: "I am obsessed with the next five years in Iraq, not the last five years in Iraq. And I think that the best 'inquiry' is putting the best brains to think about how to make sure the next five years in Iraq get that combination of political reconstruction, economic reconstruction and security improvement that are so essential." His statement will bitterly disappoint anti-war campaigners, who hoped that Gordon Brown would draw a line under Iraq after succeeding Tony Blair by holding an investigation to ensure the lessons are learnt. After becoming Prime Minister, Gordon Brown rejected calls for an immediate inquiry but raised hopes that one might be held after British troops withdraw. He said in September: "There will be a time to discuss the question you raise but for the moment nothing has changed. The security and safety of our forces - and there are more than 5,000 people in Iraq - remain the first and foremost consideration." Campaigners say the case for an inquiry has grown after British forces moved from a combat to overwatch role after handing control of Basra to Iraqi security forces this month. Some 4,500 British troops remain in the country but the number is due to fall to 2,500 by the spring.

3//EUObserver.com, Belgium
EU PLANS TO BOOST GREEN ENERGY TAKE SHAPE [3]

New EU legislation aimed at having green energy account for 20 percent of the union's overall energy consumption by 2020 is taking concrete shape, with draft proposals indicating that each EU state should contribute at least 5.75 percent to an overall target. Rich member states will carry a heavier burden, however. EU energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs is expected to unveil the legislative piece on 12 January, with some governments scheduled to lobby for the best possible deal even as early as the beginning of next month. The directive lays out in detail how exactly to get from the current 8.5 percent to a 20 percent share of renewables in EU energy consumption by the end of next decade - something that 27 EU leaders agreed to do at their summit in March.

According to the proposal, seen by EUobserver, member states will be asked to gradually reach the final EU-wide target. Using 2005 as a baseline, the proposal says that member states should achieve over half (51 percent) of their remaining target by 2014, they should be at two-thirds (66 percent) of their remaining target by 2016 and at 83 percent by 2018, so that they reach the target in 2020 as planned. One commission official told EUobserver that EU capitals will not be required to contribute to the same extent, however. The executive body is set to take into account two criteria - a member state's geographical potential to produce energy from sources such as wind, solar, geothermal or hydropower as well as its economic power based on GDP per capita.

"We are not going to ask poor countries to achieve the same as the rich ones", an official said, referring to a Brussels' plan to introduce one "fixed" and one "individual" target.

4//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong
RUSSIA, IRAN TIGHTEN ENERGY NOOSE [4]

Foreign ministers are busy people - especially energetic, creative diplomats like Russia's Sergei Lavrov and Iran's Manouchehr Mottaki, representing capitals that by tradition place great store on international diplomacy. Therefore, the very fact that Lavrov and Mottaki have met no less than four times in as many months suggests a great deal about the high importance attached by the two capitals to their mutual understanding at the bilateral and regional level. Moscow and Tehran have worked hard in recent months to successfully put behind them their squabble over the construction schedule of the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran. ... At a minimum, the gateway opens for Russia's deeper involvement in Iran's ambitious program for civil nuclear energy. But nuclear energy is not the be-all and end-all of Russo-Iranian cooperation. Iran is a crucially important interlocutor for Russia in the field of energy. The Bushehr settlement is a necessary prerequisite if the trust and mutual confidence essential for fuller Russo-Iranian cooperation is to become reality. Evidently, Moscow is hastily positioning itself for the big event on the energy scene in 2008 - Iran's entry as a gas-exporting country. ... . In fact, how Moscow proceeds with the reconfiguration of Russo-Iranian relations could well form the centerpiece of the geopolitics of energy security in Eurasia during 2008. The dynamics on this front will doubtless play out on a vast theater stretching well beyond the Eurasian space, all the way to China and Japan in the east and to the very heart of Europe in the west where the Rhine River flows. .. during the months ahead Moscow can be expected to make robust efforts to coordinate with Iran over its oil and gas output and exports. The rationale for such a coordinated strategy involving Iran is very obvious. First, Moscow is intensely conscious of the Western awareness of Iran's enormous untapped hydrocarbon reserves as an alternative to Russian supplies. Russia will strive to stay ahead of the European, and eventually American, overtures to Iran. Second, the hydrocarbon sector in Iran is firmly under state control and Moscow and Tehran are in harmony in this regard. Third, the two countries will be coordinating their energy policies for wider geopolitical purposes within the broad framework of their strategic cooperation. Furthermore, market forces dictate the rationale of Russia-Iran cooperation. Moscow would simply like to avoid competing with Iran, and vice versa. Russia and Iran control roughly 20% of world's oil reserves and close to half of the world's gas reserves, and it makes good sense to accommodate each other.

5//RIA Novosti (Russian News & Information Agency), Russia
RUSSIA MAY BECOME WORLD'S FIFTH LARGEST ECONOMY BY 2020 - MINISTER [5]

Russia will become the world's fifth largest economy by 2020, if its GDP continues to grow 6-7% per year, the Russian economics minister said on Monday. "If we maintain GDP growth at 6-7% per year, we'll join the group of the world's five largest economies. We are setting ourselves this goal," Elvira Nabiullina said. Russia's Ministry of Economic Development and Trade drew up in November a forecast for national economic development until 2020. Under the forecast, GDP is expected to exceed $5 trillion in 2020, given an exchange rate of 30 rubles to the dollar. In 2007, Russia's GDP is predicted to top $1.3 trillion. "This figure will be clarified. We will evidently have to revise our oil price forecast upwards," said Andrei Klepach, director of the ministry's department for macroeconomic forecasts. According to the forecast, Russia will join the world's five largest economies measured by GDP by 2020, overtaking all other European countries. China is expected to top the list, to be followed by the United States, India, and Japan. According to the ministry's report, Russia's GDP will rise by more than 7% in 2007 compared with 6.7% in 2006, driven by growing household consumption and an increase in business activity.

FEATURED ARTICLE

1//The Telegraph, UK Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 26/12/2007 [6]

BRITAIN IN SECRET TALKS WITH TALIBAN

By Thomas Harding and Tom Coghlan

Agents from MI6 entered secret talks with Taliban leaders despite Gordon Brown's pledge that Britain would not negotiate with terrorists, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

Officers from the Secret Intelligence Service staged discussions, known as "jirgas", with senior insurgents on several occasions over the summer.

An intelligence source said: "The SIS officers were understood to have sought peace directly with the Taliban with them coming across as some sort of armed militia. The British would also provide 'mentoring' for the Taliban."

The disclosure comes only a fortnight after the Prime Minister told the House of Commons: "We will not enter into any negotiations with these people."

Opposition leaders said that Mr Brown had "some explaining to do".

The Government was apparently prepared to admit that the talks had taken place but Gordon Brown was thought to have "bottled out" just before Prime Minister's Questions on Dec 12, when he made his denial instead.

It is thought that the Americans were extremely unhappy with the news becoming public that an ally was negotiating with terrorists who supported the September 11 attackers.

The delicate balance in Afghanistan was underlined as it emerged that two diplomats had been ordered by the Kabul government to leave the country after allegations that they had met Taliban insurgents without the administration's knowledge.

The pair, a top European Union official and a United Nations staff member, were declared "persona non grata" and said to be "threatening national security".

They are both Afghan experts who have been working in the country since the 1980s. They are in their forties and cannot be named. One man works as a political adviser to the European Union while the other is employed as a political adviser to the UN mission in Kabul.

One of the men described the charges as "banal and preposterous" and said he hoped the Afghan government would quickly drop its threat to deport them.

MI6's meetings with the Taliban took place up to half a dozen times at houses on the outskirts of Lashkah Gah and in villages in the Upper Gereshk valley, to the north-east of Helmand's main town.

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Copyright 2007, Gloria R. Lalumia

WORLD MEDIA WATCH

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