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Al-Qaeda Draws New Recruits Via Internet Al-Qaeda is using the Internet to recruit vulnerable young people to its terrorist network, according to a programme aired on Saudi Arabian TV late on Tuesday. Umm Osama, the founder of al-Qaeda's first women-only website, al-Khansa, joined several others on the programme to discuss how they renounced jihadist ideology. Among those who sought a response to this question was an imam from the Medina mosque, Saleh Ibn Awad al-Mudamsi, and the father of a young al-Qaeda suspect held in an Iraqi prison. Read More Qaeda Targets U.S. Oil Interests in North Africa U.S....

Ideology matters again. The big development of recent years is the rise not only of great powers but also of the great-power autocracies of Russia and China. True realism about the international scene begins with understanding how this unanticipated shift will shape our world. Many believe that when Chinese and Russian leaders stopped believing in communism, they stopped believing in anything. They had become pragmatists, pursuing their own and their nation's interests. But Chinese and Russian rulers, like past rulers of autocracies, do have a set of beliefs that guide their domestic and foreign policies. They believe in the virtues...

MINSK (AFP) - Eleven US diplomats left Belarus Saturday after being expelled by the Minsk authorities, crossing the border into Lithuania just an hour before their deadline to leave expired, an embassy spokesman said. The diplomatic spat is the latest in a series of incidents between the US and a state Washington describes as the "last dictatorship in Europe." On Wednesday, Belarus gave the US embassy 72 hours to expel 10 of its staff who were no longer welcome in the former communist state, it said. The US had originally refused to reduce its diplomatic core in Minsk. It finally...

Workers rebuilding a sports stadium on the site of an 18th century Jewish cemetery in Belarus say they have no choice but to consign the bones to city dumps... Before the war, about 1 million Jews lived in Belarus and 800,000 of them died in the Holocaust. Today they number 27,000 in the country of 10 million.... Belarus' president, Alexander Lukashenko, has shown little respect for Jewish culture. In a radio broadcast in October ..."You know how Jews treat the place where they live. Look at Israel; I was there," he said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Thursday strongly condemned Belarus authorities for the latest crackdown on journalists and protesters, calling the government brutal and authoritarian. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack slammed tough action in Belarus against the media, in which he said about 30 independent journalists in 12 cities were detained "without legitimate cause." "The regime of Alexander Lukashenko has again shown itself as a brutal, authoritarian dictatorship that blatantly ignores human rights and fundamental freedoms," said McCormack. Security police raided Belarussian broadcasters' offices in the former Soviet republic on Thursday, just two days after police broke up a...

Belarus expels US ambassador By YURAS KARMANAU, Associated Press Writer The Belarusian Foreign Ministry on Friday demanded that the U.S. ambassador leave the country and recalled its ambassador to the U.S. over Washington's economic sanctions against the ex-Soviet nation. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said the United States was "deeply disappointed" by the move. "If they do not wish our ambassador to remain in country, our ambassador will leave," Casey said. "They have said they are recalling their ambassador, which is a very good thing, because their ambassador would certainly not be welcome here." It was not immediately clear whether...

WASHINGTON, Feb 5 - The United States is worried that Russia, China and OPEC oil-producing countries could use their growing financial clout to advance political goals, the top U.S. spy chief told Congress on Tuesday. Such economic matters joined terrorism, nuclear proliferation and computer-network vulnerabilities as top U.S. security threats described by National Director of Intelligence Michael McConnell in an annual assessment.

BELARUS - Belarus on Friday jailed for three years an editor of an independent newspaper who reproduced cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that first appeared in Denmark in 2005 and caused mass demonstrations across the Muslim world. The 12 cartoons portraying the founder of Islam, including one showing the prophet with a bomb in his turban, outraged Muslims who saw them as blasphemous. More than 50 people died in protests across the world the following year. Belarussian authorities shut down the "Zgoda" (Consensus) paper in March 2006, around the time when other European journals began reprinting the cartoons. The security...

MINSK, Belarus - Police on Thursday broke up a rally of 2,000 entrepreneurs protesting moves by the authoritarian government of Belarus to increase the burden on private business in the former Soviet republic. The demonstrators opposed new legislation that would force them to reregister their ventures and double the amount of taxes they have to pay. Businessmen who want to avoid the new terms will be restricted to hiring their relatives to keep their ventures within the family. Police pushed protesters out of the capital's main avenue and detained about a dozen. President Alexander Lukashenko has ruled Belarus with an...

MINSK, Belarus - The leaders of Russia and Belarus pledged closer cooperation on military, economic and foreign policy but gave no indication Friday that the ex-Soviet neighbors were moving closer to a long-discussed full merger. Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Belarus stoked speculation that he could press for the creation of a unified state and maintain power by taking a job that would place him above the two nations' presidents after he leaves Russia's presidency next year. A more obvious alternative is to become Russia's prime minister — a job proposed by Dmitry Medvedev, the official just anointed as...

President Hugo Chavez has promised to supply oil to meet the needs of the former Soviet republic for years for come, while his counterpart Aleksander Lukashenko has agreed to help strengthen Venezuela's military. Both leaders share similar hostile stances towards Washington and as Lukashenko concluded his first visit to the country, Chavez joked that both men were wrongly labeled as "the last dictators of Europe and Latin America" by their critics. The move is an important boost for Belarus, which is reliant on Russia for its oil and gas. Little is known about the military accord but Chavez has expressed...

MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin may be about to unveil a political bombshell: a full-scale union between Russia and its smaller Slavic neighbor Belarus. It's a plan that not only would expand Russia's territory and national prestige; it could also give Mr. Putin, required to step down when his second term ends in March, a new lease on power by producing a fresh Constitution.

WARSAW (AFP)--A new Polish government-funded television channel is to begin broadcasting to neighboring Belarus, where President Alexander Lukashenko brooks no criticism, the station's head of news said Tuesday. Belsat TV will go on air from next Monday, Alexei Dziekawicki told AFP. "It will be the only independent channel in Belarussian for Belarussians, who don't have access to stations other than those controlled by the regime," Dziekawicki said. "Initially it will broadcast for three hours a day via the Astra satellite. "Then, from January, it will be on air for 16 hours a day on the Sirius satellite," he said. Dziekawicki...

MOSCOW, October 23 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's defense minister said on Tuesday that NATO's eastward expansion and U.S. missile shield plans have encouraged Russia and Belarus to boost military-political cooperation. Since the fall of Communism, NATO has taken on board several former Eastern Bloc states, including the three ex-Soviet Baltic countries. U.S. plans to deploy missile elements in Poland and the Czech Republic, announced at the start of this year, sparked an ongoing dispute with Moscow, and have also angered Belarus, which borders on Poland. "NATO's enlargement, missile shield expansion plans and the worsening of the Middle East conflict prove...

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) -- Belarus' president pledged Thursday to begin construction of the country's first nuclear power plant next year, news agencies reported. Alexander Lukashenko said the plant would help guarantee the ex-Soviet republic's national security. The project "is dictated not by some political ambitions, but by the necessity to ensure the country's energy security in case of a decrease in gas and oil resources, supply problems or the increase in energy carriers' costs," Lukashenko was quoted by ITAR-Tass news agency as saying. No details were given, but officials earlier had said it would take four to eight years to...

Washington - The United States warned Belarus on Tuesday that more sanctions are possible if the government continues arresting and intimidating political dissidents. "As long as the Belarusian authorities are not ready to abide by democratic norms, the United States will continue to maintain and strengthen sanctions on those responsible," US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. The United States has already banned US firms from doing business with top Belarussian officials, including President Alexander Lukashenko, over crackdowns on political opponents for rigging elections in March 2006. He has been banned from travelling to the United States. The latest warning...

Moscow - A court in the Belarusian capital Minsk has sentenced an opposition leader to two years in a punishment camp for criticizing authoritarian President Aleksander Lukashenko, a Russian radio station reported Sunday. Andrei Klimow was accused of insulting the president in an internet article, Echo Moskwy radio reported colleagues of the opposition politician as saying. The legal process took place behind closed doors. There was no statement from the authorities as to why it was held in secret. Lukashenko, ruling since 1994, has been described by critics as the "last dictator in Europe." In recent times the former Soviet...

Four former Belarussian army officers have gone on trial in Minsk accused of military espionage for Poland. Security officials in Belarus say the accused gathered information about a joint Belarussian-Russian air defence system, called the S-300. The trial is being held behind closed doors as it involves state secrets. The head of the Belarussian KGB secret service, Dmitry Vegera, announced the arrests in July. A fifth officer, a Russian, gave himself up to Russia. In July, Belarus state TV showed two of the alleged spies apparently confessing. Russia's Itar-Tass news agency says the suspects face from seven to 15 years...

MOSCOW -- President Putin of Russia and his Chinese counterpart, President Hu, will attend an unprecedented show of joint military force Friday amid fears that the Russian leader is trying to turn an increasingly powerful central Asian alliance into a second Warsaw Pact. The American government will be watching the military maneuvers anxiously from afar after its request to send observers was rejected. The maneuvers will be held under the auspices of the six-member Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Founded in 2001, the SCO, which includes the four central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan as well as China and...

Russia and China today carried out joint war games after both had warned the US not to interfere in central Asia. Some 6,000 troops and hundred of armoured vehicles and fighter jets took part in military manoeuvres in the Ural mountains watched by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao. The two men, as well as the leaders of a clutch of former Soviet central Asian republics, had taken part in yesterday's regional summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. The meeting concluded with a thinly veiled warning to the US to keep away from the energy-rich...

Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Joint military exercises involving troops from China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan will continue till August 17. More than 6,000 troops and 36 aircraft from the six nations are currently engaged in China’s far northwest Xinjiang region for two days; tomorrow they will move to Chelyabinsk, Russia. The exercises are intended to improve cooperation against terrorism, drug and weapons trafficking and criminal gangs as required by an agreement of mutual assistance against armed attacks. But the real objective is political. Chinese Foreign Minister Li Hui noted that “this is the first time that all the leaders...

MOSCOW (AFP) - A row in which Russia's Gazprom threatened to cut gas supplies to Belarus was defused on Wednesday when Minsk completed payment of its 456-million-dollar (331-million-euro) debt to the company. A Gazprom spokeswoman told AFP that the company "received on Wednesday the last transfer of payment owed by Beltransgaz," the Belarussian gas pipeline operator, for the first half of this year. The row between Russia and its smaller ex-Soviet neighbour raised alarm bells in the European Union last week as Gazprom threatened to reduce supplies to Belarus by almost half if Minsk did not pay off its debt...

Russian and Chinese troops are joining forces this week in the first military exercises by an international organisation that is regarded in some quarters as a potential rival to Nato. Thousands of soldiers and 500 combat vehicles will take part in “Peace Mission 2007”, organised by the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in the Chelyabinsk region of Russia. Russian officials have also proposed an alliance between the SCO and a body representing most of the former Soviet republics. Scores of Russian and Chinese aircraft begin joint exercises tomorrow before a week of military manoeuvres from Thursday that will include Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan...

Gazprom on Wednesday threatened to start halving its gas exports to Belarus from Friday in an attempt to force the country into paying a $456m debt to the Russian state-owned gas monopoly. The move poses a threat to other countries supplied by Gazprom, as Belarus is an important transit route for Russian gas exports to Europe. Ilya Kochevrin, Gazprom's head of communications, said: "We will cut supplies to Belarus by 45 per cent if they don't find a way to pay for gas delivered in the past six months. However, we will make sure that all our [European] customers get...

Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and his Belarussian counterpart Sergei Martynov in Minsk on Saturday emphasized he need for expansion of bilateral relations. The two foreign ministers said that they would take practical steps to upgrade Tehran-Minsk relations. They explored the latest developments of Iran-Belarus bilateral and the regional issues.

In Tehran, the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, recently completed his tour of visits to three of his role models: Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Belarus's Alexander Lukashenko, and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Mr. Chavez used his tour to voice his well-known anti-American rancor. He also invited the state oil companies of Russia and Iran to take over the business of American corporations in Venezuela, which refuse to accept a 60% government take. In addition, he struck a deal with Mr. Ahmadinejad for Iran to buy Venezuelan gasoline. Most importantly, however, Mr. Chavez used his tour to shop for modern weapons. In Moscow...

Belarus says it has smashed a spy ring which was passing information to Poland about a joint Belarussian-Russian air defence system, called the S-300. The head of the Belarus KGB security service, Dmitry Vegera, said four former Belarussian army officers and a Russian officer had been arrested. Belarus state TV on Sunday showed two of them apparently confessing. The Russian is reported to have turned himself in to the Russian security service, the FSB. Russia's Itar-Tass news agency says the suspects face from seven to 15 years in prison if found guilty. Polish politicians have repeatedly condemned the authoritarian rule...

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) will close ranks to oppose Washington’s growing influence in the Central Asia, Russia’s Defense Minister Sergey Lavrov said in Kyrgyzstan earlier this week. The SCO is set to boost ties with Iran as controversy with the United States is growing. Sergey Lavrov warned that the deployment of the U.S. missile shield in Eastern Europe can adversely affect the Central Asia. ”We see that consequences of the unilateral action will affect Central Asia and we should take into account not only the interests of the member states, but also the interests of the observers in this...

A Roman Catholic church is being built in Minsk, the first such construction project in the Belarusian capital city since the Bolshevik coup in 1917. The church is being constructed in the Serabranka neighborhood by the John the Baptist community with funds raised from its members and foreign donations. The city executive committee permitted the community to start the construction this past spring. The works began on June 15. The initial construction work involving the laying of the foundations and the connection of utility supplies is expected to be completed this year. The walls are to be built next year....

uly 3, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has pledged to set aside economic disputes with Moscow and work more closely with Russia to counter U.S. plans to build a missile-defense system in Eastern Europe, RFE/RL's Belarus Service reported.

The Venezuelan president bonds with regimes that the rest of the world -- and his own compatriots -- shun. THE LATEST Global Attitudes survey by the Pew Foundation contains a lot of bad news for the United States, but there was one relative bright spot in Latin America: Venezuela. According to Pew, 56 percent of Venezuelans say they have a favorable view of the United States, a higher number than in Britain or Canada. Seventy-one percent say they like U.S. television and movies and a stratospheric 84 percent feel positively about Americans. Though only 23 percent say they have confidence...

MINSK (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Friday his country and Belarus, both vocal critics of Washington, were "brothers" against a "world empire" and vowed to pursue joint economic projects to consolidate their ties. Chavez was holding talks for the second time in less than a year with Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko, who is barred from entering the European Union and United States over allegations he flouts elementary human rights. The Venezuelan leader, who wants to forge an alliance of leftist states to counter U.S. policy, renewed pledges for the two countries to support each other in international...

Chavez Predicts Resistance War With U.S. Published: 6/24/07, 10:45 PM EDT By CHRISTOPHER TOOTHAKER CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - President Hugo Chavez urged soldiers on Sunday to prepare for a guerrilla-style war against the United States, saying that Washington is using psychological and economic warfare as part of an unconventional campaign aimed at derailing his government. Dressing in olive green fatigues and a red beret, Chavez spoke inside Tiuna Fort - Venezuela's military nerve-center - before hundreds of uniformed soldiers standing alongside armored vehicles and tanks decorated with banners reading: "Fatherland, Socialism, or Death! We will triumph!" "We must continue developing...

More from the Bowels of Liberal Democracy: Congressman John Shimkus (R-IL) and Belarus Matthew Raphael Johnson The increasing violence and arrogance of the Regime is directly correlated to its insecurity. For all its ranting about its successes and, of course, its “inevitability,” the regime is facing some very difficult times. Overwhelming debt, a lost war in Iraq, outsourcing of some of its more satisfying jobs, alienation of rural areas, increasing fuel prices, and substantial foreign competition from the developing India-China-Russia axis, the Regime, like a spoiled child, lashes out in hatred. The latest attack comes from a half-witted Congressman who...

Castro and Lukashenko to Celebrate Human Rights Council Reform Package Dictators Fidel Castro of Cuba and Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus will be celebrating the UN Human Rights Council's likely adoption tomorrow of a reform package that will see both regimes dropped from a blacklist, while Israel is placed under permanent indictment. Contrary to all the promises of reform issued last year, the proposal released today by Council President Luis Alfonso de Alba targets Israel for permanent indictment under a special agenda item: "Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories," which includes "Human rights violations and implications of...

In an interview with the Globe and Mail, Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened to target Europe with missiles, including potentially nuclear weapons, in a dramatic escalation of his Cold War-style showdown with the United States. Mr. Putin, in an interview at his country residence outside Moscow, said he considers U.S. plans to build an eastern European anti-missile site to shoot down Iranian missiles a provocation aimed at Russia. Asked what he might do to retaliate, he said he would return Russia to the Cold War status where missiles were aimed at European targets. "It is obvious that if part...

Kazakhstan and Belarus topped the list of the countries perceived to be the friendliest to Russia while Estonia was named the iciest country by an overwhelming number of Russian respondents, a recent poll held by the Levada agency in mid May revealed. The poll, which sampled 1,600 Russian citizens in 128 towns in 48 regions of Russia, showed that 39 percent of the respondents consider Kazakhstan to be the country friendliest to Russia. The number of positive answers slightly increased compared to 33 percent last year. Belarus took second place with 38 percent of those interviewed naming it an amicable...

‘Condoms only’ Belarusian border crossing? 30.05.2007 Polish customs officers on the border with Belarus have reported several cases of drivers crossing over from Poland being denied entry into Belarus unless they carried a condom in the emergency first-aid kit. Belarussian diplomats in Warsaw denied the existence of such regulations. Condoms are obligatory for drivers crossing from Poland to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.

Alyaksandr Milinkevich has been voted out of his post as the head of the opposition coalition in Belarus. At an opposition congress meeting in Minsk on May 27, Milinkevich was replaced as coalition head by a collective leadership of four coleaders. The congress also backed a call for "constructive dialogue with the authorities." Milinkevich said he would stay with the opposition, but plans to form a new "movement." Milinkevich challenged President Alyaksandr Lukashenka in last year's presidential election, and led opposition protests following the vote.

MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin of Russia obliquely compared the foreign policy of the United States to the Third Reich in a speech Wednesday commemorating the 62nd anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, in an apparent escalation of anti-American rhetoric within the Russian government. Putin did not specifically name the United States or NATO but used phrasing similar to that which he has used previously to criticize American foreign policy while making an analogy to Nazi Germany. The comments marked the latest in a series of sharply worded Russian criticisms of the foreign policy of the Untied States - on...

Vladimir Putin needs a history lesson. At a parade in Red Square yesterday commemorating the end of the Second World War, the Russian president accused the Estonian government of belittling that conflict, desecrating a monument to war heroes, insulting its own people and sowing distrust between nations. This absurd outburst was triggered by the transfer last month of the Soviet "Bronze Soldier" memorial from the centre of Tallinn to the main military cemetery. Its removal has led to two nights of rioting, the siege of the Estonian embassy in Moscow and the closure, allegedly for repairs, of railway lines to...

Less than fifteen years after the last Soviet troops pulled out of the Baltic States, a new survey has shown that young Swedes are still in the dark about the fate of its neighbours behind the Iron Curtain. A poll carried out by Demoskop on behalf of the Organization for Information on Communism (Föreningen för upplysning om kommunismen - UOK) found that 90 percent of Swedes between the ages of 15 and 20 had never heard of the Gulag. This can be contrasted with the 95 percent who knew of Auschwitz. "Unfortunately we were not at all surprised by the...

Geopolitics: A strategic shift on Europe's northern tier is shaping up fast. With Russia trying to halt a missile shield and intimidating Estonia, Sweden and Finland are starting to rethink neutrality. It shows seriousness. For about a decade, conventional wisdom held that the end of the Cold War made NATO irrelevant. But out on the frontier of Western civilization, in the farthest Nordic states of Sweden and Finland, a different picture is emerging as an old predator rises from the East. Russia's recent moves in the region have forced them to take a new look at defense alliances they once...

Russia and China: The Mechanics of an Anti-American Alliance Fall 2006 - Number 11 Alexandr Nemets Conventional wisdom has it that China’s expanding military capabilities, and Beijing’s growing regional ambitions, will one day soon pose a challenge to the United States in Asia. Likewise, Russia under Vladimir Putin has shed any ambiguity about its post-Cold War direction, become increasingly assertive, powerful and anti-American. Yet perhaps the greatest threat to U.S. interests and objectives in the years ahead will not come from Beijing or Moscow alone, but from the ominous alliance that is emerging between the two. It is a partnership...

The Chinese army will promote its friendly and cooperative ties with the armed forces of Belarus, Chinese Defense Minister Cao Gangchuan told his Belarussian counterpart Leonid Maltsev on Monday. "The Chinese side will make joint efforts with the Belarussian counterpart to promote the development of the friendly and cooperative relations between the two armed forces in various fields and at different levels," Cao said during his talks with Leonid Maltsev. Cao noted that the relationship between the two countries have developed smoothly, with frequent high-level visits and continuously expanded cooperation in various fields. Maltsev said the Belarussian side is ready...

Russia has renewed its pledge to build its strategic partnership with China, in a thinly veiled attempt to oppose what Moscow views as American unilateralism. President Vladimir Putin told visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao Monday that the positions of both countries on Iran and North Korea "either coincide or are similar." In response, Hu, whose three-day state visit to Russia ends Wednesday, hailed what he described as "strategic cooperation between China and Russia, permanent members of the U.N. Security Council." The neighbors, who share a 2,700-mile border, signed a joint statement pledging to cooperate on a variety of issues. In...

MOSCOW, March 29 (Itar-Tass) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has sent a letter to participants in the Arab summit in Al-Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the Kremlin press service said on Thursday. “The development of the situation in Iraq causes concern. In order to hold country from sliding to a full-scale civil war and disintegration, a speedy achievement of real national reconciliation and accord is necessary. A way to the realization of this priority task lies through the development of a broad dialogue with the participation of all leading Iraqi political forces and ethic-confessional groups with the clear determination of a timeline...

MINSK (AFP) - Hundreds of opposition activists staged a rally amid heavy security in the Belarus capital Sunday against President Alexander Lukashenko and to mark a year since unprecedented protests. Hundreds of police, special forces officers and paratroopers closed off access to Oktyabrskaya Square in central Minsk, where activists held a four-day rally after authoritarian Lukashenko's controversial re-election in 2006. Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus since 1994 and is dubbed "Europe's last dictator" in some Western capitals, allows no criticism in the state-controlled media and has imposed severe restrictions on opposition demonstrations. An AFP reporter saw around a dozen buses...

11 die as Belarus plane is shot down over Mogadishu Mogadishu: Belarus said yesterday a missile caused a plane crash in Mogadishu that killed 11 of its citizens, while the Somali government said the incident looked more like an accident than an attack by ever bolder insurgents. "The plane was shot down," Transport Ministry spokeswoman Kseniya Perestoronina said in Minsk, adding the large Ilyushin plane, in Somalia to assist struggling African peacekeepers, was hit at a height of 150 metres. If confirmed, it would be the most spectacular strike yet by rebels fighting the Somali government, their Ethiopian military allies...

Ukrainian border guards arrested Belarus's national rowing team on Tuesday for illegally entering the country on a flotilla of eight boats. The border guard service said a coast guard vessel was dispatched to intercept and detain 10 rowers who had crossed into Ukrainian waters on the border with Transdniestria, a region of ex-Soviet Moldova controlled by separatists. Team members told officials they were unaware they had crossed the border in the southern Ukrainian region. They now face charges in court. News reports said the Belarussians had been invited to train for the world championship in Transdniestria as reservoirs in their...