The North African State of Libya has been in the news recently for reasons other than the controversial antics of its President, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. The capture of the Al Qaeda operative, Abu Firaj al Libby, a Libyan citizen, in early May this year in Mardan (Pakistan) calls for a deeper study of the Al Qaeda-Libya connection. Almost exactly a month later, on June 3, 2005, Libya was in the news again when it was reported that an Al Qaeda cell in Libya had threatened an attack on the northeast coastal city of Darna if one of its cell leaders was not released from prison.

Of late, Sambalpur district of Orissa becomes a hot bed for Naxal activities. After a period of silence the rebels have again managed to strike terror and this time they have struck hard killing civilians. Late last month, on May 27, the Maoists went on rampage and killed three villagers and injured several others in the Burda village under Jujumura police station. Prior to this the Maoist activities were only confined to abductions followed by ransom. The incident came as a shock as the Maoists generally target the police, forest officials, contractors and other businessmen.

During mid-1990s the Naxal Movement (Left Wing Extremism) spilled over to Orissa from neighboring Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand region. Now, the Naxal activities have enlarged to nine predominantly tribal districts i.e. Koraput, Malkangiri, Nabarangapur, Rayagada, Gajapati and Ganjam abutting the Andhra Pradesh and Sundargarh, Mayurbhanj and Keonjhar districts adjacent to Jharkhand. While the above nine districts remains the Naxal stronghold, the movement have also grown stronger in different parts of Sambalpur, Kalahandi, Bolangir, Phulbani, Deogarh, Jharsuguda and Anugul.

The East Asian Community has been propagated as the new harbinger of comprehensive security processes. The idea of an East Asian Community got an impetus with the December 2003 Tokyo Declaration between Japan and ASEAN. Although East Asia has witnessed sufficient degrees of ‘regionalization’, ‘regionalism’ still has a long way to go. The former refers to those processes, which come from markets and private investment flows while the latter emerges as a result of intergovernmental dialogues and treaties.

The US Congress has approved a $ 300 million military aid package for Pakistan in November last year, the biggest military aid package to Pakistan since the events of 9/11. President Bush has thus begun his second term by deciding to dole out ‘arms bonanza’ to Pakistan. The $300 million is a part of the foreign military financing programme (H R 4818 Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2005) totaling more than $4.7 billion, a major chunk of which goes to Israel ($2.2 billion) and Egypt (1.3billion).

The growing influence of the newly formed Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-M), the Naxal outfit, along the Uttar Pradesh's (UP) eastern borders and the rapidity with which they are expanding their organisation in the State is undoubtedly alarming. Naxals are looking to the State for fresh bases where they can build a formidable organization. The inaccessible hilly terrain and dense forests of the state provide perfect cover for the Naxalites, who use their own maps to move around.

Terrorism and nuclear weapons proliferation have by and large dominated the security debate in South Asia. However, the overarching influence of these two issues has led to the neglect of other issues that are equally if not more important for security in the region. One of such issue is of refugees and migration. The presence of more than 110,000 Bhutanese refugees in Nepal and the condition in which they live in different refugee camps is threatening to develop into a major humanitarian crisis in the absence of concrete effort by the parties involved.

The US President George W. Bush’s re-election poses at least one major question with regard to his foreign policy initiatives in his second term—whether the administration will see an overhaul in foreign policy-making or not. The President’s involvement with India-Pakistan has not been a major foreign policy priority for the administration during his first term. The issue, nevertheless, is an important strategic concern for the US. Both Bush and his Democratic rival John Kerry, sidelined the two South Asian countries in their election debates except over the issue of outsourcing.

Even as the nine-day long ceasefire called by Maoist extremists during the ‘Dashain’ festival has ended on October 28, civil society groups urged the Maoists to continue the truce till December this year when an international Buddhist convention to be held in Lumbini in southern Nepal. Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has refused to extend the ceasefire unilaterally. The government started the offensive immediately where it has stopped just before the truce. At least ten extremists were gunned down in separate encounters in Taplejung and Siraha districts within 48 hours of truce elapsed.