The American News Project has produced a new investigative report on the bailout legislation (TARP) asking the question where did the money go.

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European governement officials have begun discussions on possible relocation of Guantánamo Bay detainees — a potential gesture of goodwill towards incoming U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, since resettlement requests from the Bush administration have been denied.

Sarah Mendelson, the director of the Human Rights and Security Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, speaks with Daljit Dhaliwal about the likelihood that Europe will resettle the detainees, the role of the Obama administration in the talks and the possibility that some detainees will be sent to the mainland US.

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The U.S. plans to increase its troop presence in Afghanistan, while India’s heated rhetoric put the Pakistani air force on high alert this week.

Counter-terrorism expert Roger Carstens, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, speaks to Daljit Daliwal about the potential for translating military tactics from Iraq to Afghanistan and considers whether or not India is on the verge of a strike against Pakistan.

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“The time of cheap energy resources, and cheap gas is surely coming to an end.” Vladimir V. Putin

Today in Moscow and largely at the behest of the Russian Prime Minister, fourteen large natural gas-producing countries met to establish an organization that will study ways to set global natural gas prices, much as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries does for crude oil. For now, the organization is to be called the Forum of Gas Exporting Countries (FGEC). The forum members include: Algeria, Bolivia, Brunei, Venezuela, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Qatar, Libya, Malaysia, Nigeria, the United Arab Emirates, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago and, as observers, Equatorial Guinea and Norway. Russia, the world’s largest producer, accounts for 21.6% of global natural gas production. Other top ten global producers attending the meeting include Iran, Norway (as an observer) and Algeria. Only eight of the 14 countries are world top 20 producers. As an aside, it’s noteworthy that none of the large coming on stream Central Asian producers attended the meeting.

Top 20 Global Natural Gas Producers

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There is confusion in Conakry, the capital of the small West African country of Guinea, where the death of President Lansana Conté has led to an attempted military coup supplanting the Constitutional order. Just hours after the death of the Guinea’s long term authoritarian President a group led by the military announced the Constitution had been suspended and the government dissolved.

An army officer, Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, announced on Radio Conakry “the dissolution” of the government and its institutions, and the suspension of Guinea’s constitution, just hours after Conté died. He has been in power since 1984.

The officer declared that “the institutions of the Republic have illustrated their incapacity to resolve the crisis” across the country. Citing reasons for the action, he pointed to the “profound disappointment of the population,” the necessity for “economic redress” and the “fight against corruption.”

“The [performance of the] government and the institutions of the Republic are disappointing,” he added, while announcing that a “consultative council” would soon be created “comprising civilians and military officials.”

The coup claim, has however, been disputed. The country’s prime minister has issued a statement, saying the government has not been dissolved.

Al Jazeera’s Yvonne Ndege reports with the latest.

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