• Security officials in India reportedly killed senior Maoist commander, Molajula Koteswar Rao on Thursday, the latest in a series of senior leaders of the movement to be killed.  More than 100,000 security personnel have been deployed to the remote areas of centre and eastern India to fight this leftist guerrilla insurgency.  The Indian Parliament is experiencing a political crisis as continued stalemating disruption tactics are reportedly preventing any progress from being made. On Wednesday, police arrested six men said to be members of a homegrown armed group in connection with a series of fatal bombings.
• On Thursday, President Karzai ordered an investigation into a NATO air attack in southern Afghanistan that allegedly killed six children and one adult; and at least seven Afghan guards working for a private security company were killed in the west after Taliban militants allegedly ambushed a NATO convoy. On Friday, a car bomb exploded near an ISAF convoy, with no reported casualties. On Saturday, Afghan and foreign troops killed 13 alleged insurgents during joint operations near Kabul; and gunmen killed two Afghan police officers in Helmand province. On Monday, France announced that it will pull out a further 200 soldiers from the country by the end of the year; insurgents killed two Afghan army soldiers in the west; and Afghan security forces and foreign troops killed one alleged insurgent and detained another seven in three provinces. The 49 nation international force in Afghanistan announced on Tuesday that the number of foreign troops would shrink by 40,000 by the end of 2012 as Afghan soldiers and police are seen as ready to secure the nation. On Wednesday, an ISAF service member was killed by a homemade bomb in Kabul; Afghan security forces and foreign troops killed three alleged insurgents, wounded three and detained 14 in Herat, Kandahar and Khost provinces; and Bulgaria announced its plans to reduce its military presence in the country by cutting 600 troops by three fourths by the end of 2014.
• On Friday, troops in the northwestern region of Pakistan reportedly killed some 35 militants while four soldiers died in an assault on militant strongholds. NATO aircraft allegedly killed as many as 28 soldiers in Pakistan on Saturday morning in a “friendly-fire” attack after a joint US-Afghan force operating near the border came “under attack”. Pakistani officials say they were attacked first and merely responded to deliberate aggression, vehemently denying reports that they opened fire first. Pakistan has since banned NATO’s supply trucks from crossing into Afghanistan from their border and issued an order demanding the US quit the Shamsi airbase, where it operates unmanned drone aircraft, within 15 days. NATO apologized for the incident and said it would investigate the attack, though the US announced that their war effort would continue despite the sealing of the Afghani border to NATO cargo. On Tuesday, Pakistani cable television operators began blocking the BBC’s international TV channel in response to a documentary entitled Secret Pakistan; while the government said it will boycott an international conference on the future of Afghanistan in Germany next week in protest of the recent NATO attack. On Wednesday, a cross-border heavy artillery fire incident between NATO and Pakistani forces was quickly defused, with no casualties; the International Press Institute expressed concern at increasing violence against journalists in the country, after a banned militant group threatened to target six journalists; and five people were killed and 17 wounded in a suicide bomber attack in the northwest city of Bannu.
• Australia launched a new Transparency Charter for its international aid program that is said will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the country’s aid program. The program will publish online detailed, up-to-date information on what the aid program is achieving through its country programs.  On Friday, the government loosened its highly charged policy of mandatory detention for asylum seekers who arrive by boat.
• The ruling National Party in New Zealand was called as the winner of the general elections on Saturday, with John Key to return as PM. The National Party had just over the 50% mark, with opposition Labour Party at 27% and the Green Party at 11%.
• Reporters Without Borders expressed concern this week over increasing acts of religious intolerance in the Maldivesafter a blog was shut down by the government. The blog was allegedly shut down because it subscribes to a Sufi Muslim and not Sunni Muslim perspective and is critical of religious fundamentalism.
• North Korea warned South Korea on Thursday

[continued at http://apeaceofconflict.com/2011/12/02/this-week-in-asian-conflict-...