Obama to address Mexico drug war

US President Barack Obama should address human rights violations related to Mexico's Washington-backed war on drugs when he visits the country this week, Human Rights Watch (HRW) says.

Obama is slated to meet Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, who took office in December and inherited a drug war that had killed some 70,000 people in six years under his predecessor Felipe Calderon.

Pena Nieto has shown a willingness to modify Calderon's strategy of deploying 50,000 troops to crack down on powerful cartels, which are themselves engaged in vicious turf wars.

In a letter to Obama, HRW said the country's public security strategy pursued by Calderon during the so-called war on drugs failed to address the corruption of police forces and "virtually zero accountability" for those who commit crimes.

It also alleged that Mexican security forces, in addition to carrying out "wide-ranging arbitrary arrests," also committed torture, noting that complaints to Mexico's National Human Rights Commission had totalled more than 6500 during Calderon's reign.

In the letter, Human Rights Watch accused the US administration of consistently offering "uncritical support for Calderon's policies," urging it to publicly back a new approach.

"Unfortunately, while the Pena Nieto government has taken the first step of recognising the crisis at hand and the need to change strategies, your administration has been noticeably silent," said the letter signed by Jose Miguel Vivanco, executive director of the group's Americas division.

"This visit provides an ideal opportunity to break that silence by demonstrating the US government's concern for Mexico's human rights problems and its commitment to supporting a new approach."

In Mexico on Monday, Amnesty International and other organisations, meanwhile, delivered a petition with 20,000 signatures to the US embassy calling for stricter control of weapons entering the country along the common border with its neighbour to the north.

Obama heads to Mexico and Costa Rica on Thursday. He is due back in Washington at the weekend.

Millions in CIA "ghost money" paid to Afghan president's office

Tens of millions of U.S. dollars in cash were delivered by the CIA in suitcases, backpacks and plastic shopping bags to the office of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai for more than a decade, according to the New York Times, citing current and former advisers to the Afghan leader.

The so-called "ghost money" was meant to buy influence for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) but instead fuelled corruption and empowered warlords, undermining Washington's exit strategy from Afghanistan, the newspaper quoted U.S. officials as saying.

"The biggest source of corruption in Afghanistan", one American official said, "was the United States."

The CIA declined to comment on the report and the U.S. State Department did not immediately comment. The New York Times did not publish any comment from Karzai or his office.

"We called it ‘ghost money'," Khalil Roman, who served as Karzai's chief of staff from 2002 until 2005, told the New York Times. "It came in secret and it left in secret."

For more than a decade the cash was dropped off every month or so at the Afghan president's office, the newspaper said.

Handing out cash has been standard procedure for the CIA in Afghanistan since the start of the war.

The cash payments to the president's office do not appear to be subject to oversight and restrictions placed on official American aid to the country or the CIA's formal assistance programs, like financing Afghan intelligence agencies, and do not appear to violate U.S. laws, said the New York Times.

There was no evidence that Karzai personally received any of the money, Afghan officials told the newspaper. The cash was handled by his National Security Council, it added.

U.S. and Afghan officials familiar with the payments were quoted as saying that the main goal in providing the cash was to maintain access to Karzai and his inner circle and to guarantee the CIA's influence at the presidential palace, which wields tremendous power in Afghanistan's highly centralized government.

Much of the money went to warlords and politicians, many with ties to the drug trade and in some cases the Taliban, the New York Times said. U.S. and Afghan officials were quoted as saying the CIA supported the same patronage networks that U.S. diplomats and law enforcement agents struggled to dismantle, leaving the government in the grip of organized crime.

In 2010, Karzai said his office received cash in bags from Iran, but that it was a transparent form of aid that helped cover expenses at the presidential palace. He said at the time that the United States made similar payments.

The latest New York Times report said much of the Iranian cash, like the CIA money, went to pay warlords and politicians.

For most of Karzai's 11-year reign, there has been little interest in anti-corruption in the army or police. The country's two most powerful institutions receive billions of dollars from donors annually but struggle just to recruit and maintain a force bled by high rates of desertion.

China asks North Korea to ensure safety of its nationals

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 China deplored rising tension on theKorean peninsula on Sunday but said its embassy was operating normally in the North Korean capital and it asked authorities there to ensure its diplomats and other citizens were kept safe.

North Korea, angry about new U.N. sanctions imposed for its thirdnuclear weapon test in February, has made increasingly strident warnings of an imminent war with South Korea and the United States.

The United States, keen to avoid action that could provoke the North, on Saturday postponed a long-scheduled missile test in California.

The North told diplomats on Friday to consider leaving Pyongyang because of the tension, but diplomatic missions appeared to view the appeal as more rhetoric and staff have stayed put.

South Korea said it was ready to counter any move, including a missile launch, that the North's unpredictable leaders might make.

China is reclusive North Korea's sole major diplomatic and financial backer, but its official statements have reflected an increasing impatience with the action of North Korean authorities under 30-year-old leader Kim Jong-un.

"At present, tensions on the Korean peninsula are rising unceasingly, and China expresses grave concern about this," China's Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its website (www.mfa.gov.cn).

China, it said, had asked North Korea "to earnestly ensure the safety of Chinese diplomats in North Korea, in accordance with the Vienna Convention and international laws and norms".

The ministry said China's embassy was "understood" to be operating normally in Pyongyang. China would "protect the legal rights and safety of Chinese citizens and Chinese-invested organizations in North Korea". It did not elaborate.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, addressing a forum on the southern island of Hainan, appeared to refer to the tension when he said no country "should be allowed to throw a region and even the whole world into chaos for selfish gain".

Stability in Asia, he said, "now faces new challenges, as hot spot issues keep emerging and both traditional and non-traditional security threats exist".

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard told the same forum that avoiding conflict on the Korean peninsula was vital.

"There, any aggression is a threat to the interests of every country in the region," she said.

"I do welcome the growing co-operation of all regional governments to prevent conflict on the Korean peninsula and to counter North Korean aggression ... Asia must be a region of sustainable security in which habits of co-operation are the norm."

In Washington, a defense official said a test of the Minuteman III intercontinental missile, scheduled to take place at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, would be postponed.

"This is the logical, prudent and responsible course of action to take," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

He said the test had been unconnected to "anything related to North Korea" and added that another test launch could be expected next month. The United States remained fully prepared to respond to any North Korean threat, the official said.

MISSILE LAUNCH "COULD OCCUR"

The South Korean president's office said the country had a "firm military readiness" for any eventuality. It described as "planned behavior" the North's call for South Korean workers to leave the Kaesong joint industrial park, just inside North Korea, and for diplomats to evacuate Pyongyang by April 10.

"Ahead of that time, a situation like a North Korean missile launch could occur," Kim Haing, a spokeswoman for the presidential Blue House, quoted the chief of the National Security office as saying.

"As of now, there are no signs of all-out war, but if a local conflict breaks out, North Korea should be aware that it will pay the price."

Kim Jong-un is the third member of his dynasty to rule North Korea. He took over in December 2011 after the death of his father, Kim Jong-il, who staged confrontations with South Korea and the United States throughout his 17-year rule.

North Korean anger over the sanctions following its nuclear weapon test has been compounded by joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises that began on March 1.

The North has always condemned the exercises but it has been especially vitriolic this year as the United States dispatched B-2 bombers from their home bases to stage mock runs.

North Korean television provided little evidence of tension on Sunday, with newscasts showing old footage of Kim visiting military units. Nor was there any tension in Seoul, with residents strolling in the city centre on a chilly spring day.

South Korean media said on Friday the North had moved two medium-range missiles to the country's east coast, but there has been no confirmation of such a move. That prompted the White House to say that Washington would "not be surprised" if the North staged another missile test.

North Korea has not shut down a symbol of cooperation with the South, the Kaesong industrial zone. But last week, it prevented South Koreans from entering the complex and 94 returned home on Saturday, the Unification Ministry said, leaving a further 518 there.