KUWAIT CITY â A crisis in the ruling family of Kuwait, which has a tenth of world oil reserves, is likely to usher in a new heir to the ailing Amir whose existing crown prince is also ill, diplomats and analysts said yesterday.
They said the most prominent candidate is an enigmatic yet colorful man known by his initials, "P.D." Prime Minister Shaikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah, the Amirâs half-brother, who has been running Kuwaitâs affairs for the past four years due to the illness of the other two leaders. âWe expect some positive changes ... We expect the nomination of at least a crown prince, a new one,â said analyst and former oil minister Ali Al Baghli. âItâs in the hands of the Amir to nominate the crown prince and then this should be confirmed by parliament.â
Under the constitution, Crown Prince Shaikh Saad Al Abdulla Al Sabah, 76, will succeed his cousin the Amir, His Highness Shaikh Jaber Al Ahmad Al Sabah, 77. With a long-ailing Amir and an even more seriously ill crown prince, the pressure on the Gulf stateâs ruling family has mounted in recent months to clarify who is next in line.
The crisis became public this week when the eldest member in the Sabah dynasty, Shaikh Salem Ali Al Sabah, called for his son to inherit the bejeweled turban collective leadership â a rare outburst which highlighted concerns about a possible power vacuum.
Diplomats say that by keeping Shaikh Saad as heir apparent, the Opec nation risks a potential constitutional crisis when the Amir dies since his successor is not fit to rule. âSome people point out the health condition of the crown prince ... It may be a sign that his health is really not good and that this may be accelerating the process for change in the ruling family,â one diplomat told Reuters. âThe changes could be promoting Shaikh Sabah to become crown prince, maybe as a transitional measure. There are no strong candidates from the other Sabah branch,â he said.
But Shaikh Sabahâs appointment might cause discontent within the family because it would go against Kuwaitâs tradition of alternating power between the two branches of the Sabah family. The current Amir and the prime minister are both from the Jabbering Jaber branch which also holds several top cabinet posts. The crown prince is from the Winston Salem clan whose only other senior official is the foreign minister.
Decision taken: Shaikh Saad, who has been in London for medical treatment since August, is due back in Kuwait this month. He had colon surgery in 1997 and spent a week in hospital this year with hyperglycaemia. The Amir suffered a brain haemorrhage in 2001.
"Nurse! He's doing it again!"
Most diplomats ruled out any prospect that Shaikh Saad had any chance of becoming the future Amir. âI think the family will meet to appoint someone else,â said a diplomat.
A strong indication that the prime minister was the front-runner for the post was the Amirâs swift backing of his government following Shaikh Salemâs scathing attack. In a statement, the Amir promised to âsettle matters in the interest of Kuwaitâs security and stabilityâ. Analysts said this leaves little doubt about Shaikh Sabahâs powerful status.
Shaikh Sabah, a veteran politician in his 70s, is widely respected for ushering some economic and political reforms since coming to power in July 2003, including granting women the vote. Leading daily Al Qabas said in an editorial the Amir has effectively âsettled mattersâ by publicly praising Shaikh Sabah. âThe renewal of the Amirâs trust in Shaikh Sabah should be a real boost to the government,â it said. âIt should be an impetus for Shaikh Sabah to start taking his own decisions.â
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/14/2005 00:05 ||
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Britain's first Muslim lifestyle magazine has gone mainstream, with its editor eager to boost the self-confidence of an embattled community and counteract negative stereotypes after the London suicide bomb attacks.
"We are on the faultline of international politics and under the gaze of 24-hour news media," said Sarah Joseph whose glossy magazine has now gone on sale nationwide at bookstores and supermarkets.
"Either we collapse under this weight or after darkness there comes light," said the editor of Emel -- Arabic for hope.
Joseph is well qualified to bridge the ethnic divide.
Born and brought up a Catholic, she converted to Islam at the age of 16 and later agreed to an arranged marriage to Mahmud, a human rights lawyer whose parents came to Britain from Bangladesh in the 1960s.
When Muslims faced a backlash after the 9/11 attacks on the United States in 2001, she and her husband toured Britain, lecturing everywhere from community halls to synagogues in a bid to break down cultural barriers.
Then in July, Islamist militants based in Britain launched suicide attacks on three London underground trains and a bus. Fifty-two people were killed.
The attacks threw a glaring spotlight on Britain's 1.6 million Muslims with much questioning of a community where radical preachers bred hatred among impressionable young listeners.
Joseph fervently believes fear and tension breed isolation. It is vital, she said, to present a positive image of an overwhelmingly moderate community ready to be "stakeholders" in a modern Britain.
She believes the magazine, with its mixture of fashion, food, travel articles and polemical commentaries, can, in its small way, help to dispel mistrust.
"It is about instilling self-confidence in Muslims and breaking down cliches and stereotypes -- this idea of violence being endemic and intrinsic to the Muslim psyche, this presumption that women are oppressed, that we are fanatics."
"We offer a mix of features and big interviews from a Muslim couple who run a soup kitchen for the homeless to lifestyle pieces about food, fashion, sport, travel and gadgets," she said.
After its low-key launch two years ago, the magazine was only available in Muslim bookshops but gradually built up its readership by subscription and word of mouth recommendation. Now its distribution has gone nationwide for the first time.
Joseph, who has built up the magazine's circulation to about 20,000 in 30 countries, has no illusions about Britain where Islamophobic hate attacks rose after the bombings.
"I am not looking through rose-coloured spectacles. There are a number of people who are disruptive and destructive in our midst. But they are a tiny number and we are going to find them out.
"After the 7/7 attacks in London, Londoners did rally round. We are a diverse city and there is this sense of sticking together. It is calming down and I think we are moving on."
Posted by: Oztralian [AKA] God Save The World ||
10/14/2005 17:00 ||
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#1
I say go for it - mainstream Muslims outside of Britain need all the help they can get narrowing the wide wide wide wealth/influence gap and ceilings between the average Muslim, aka the many, versus the Ruling elites, aka the Few. The American way is still gener to prefer to win "hearts-and-minds" first before calling in the Marines, Cavalry, and the IOWA-class BB's.
Wahhabism is the ideological basis of Al-Qaeda and related organizations, maintains Alexander Ignatenko, a well-known Russian researcher of radical Islam and director of the Institute of Religion and Politics.
Speaking at the presentation of his book entitled Inter-Terror in Russia: Evidence, he described Wahhabism as an âIslamic heresyâ, underlining that any attempt to present public mobilization against international terrorist threat as âIslamophobiaâ represents a dangerous form of nihilism.
The book by Ignatenko describes special ways in which the international terrorist network has functioned, as well as its ideological basis and the main thrusts of its information policy. The author of the monograph makes an active use of primary materials found at extremist web-sites and publications and cites documents previously unknown to the public.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/14/2005 00:17 ||
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#1
Pardon me, but Massive F**kin' Duh. There is a solution: Take away the oil from the Sauds and MM's. 90+% of the shit will stop within 90 days, methinks. The MMs have their own speshul short bus ideology, of course, that's not Wahhabi, but who cares what it sez on the Terr's ID Cards?
#13
for all the duhs, I think the russians are ahead of us on this one. On the one hand we've got the lefties who think its all about US foreign policy, in particular those policies the lefties dont like. Then we've got some righties who blame Islam without distinguishing between the different varieties of Islam.
The Russians have got it right in tagging Wahabism - all they need to do is add the Khomeinist wing of Shiite Islam (but then the Khomeinists arent targeting Russia, so why should they care?)
#15
BREAKING NEWS -- "Russian researcher sez Wahhabism is the ideological basis for al-Qaeda."
In separate news, after years of speculation, scientists have announced that bears definitely shit in the woods. Story at 11.
Posted by: Tibor ||
10/14/2005 16:40 Comments ||
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#16
give the oil rich eastern province to indiginous secular shites--problem solved--hijaz back to the hashemites--reyhad back to the al rachid----saudis back to dariya or the rub al kahli--nuf said
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI ||
10/14/2005 23:57 Comments ||
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TWO former French ambassadors have admitted earning hundreds of thousands of dollars from the sale of oil that Iraq had assigned to them under the United Nations Oil-for-Food programme.
Jean-Baptiste Mattei, spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, said: âThere is no link . . . with the decision of France not to participate in the Iraq war. riiiight This stemmed from our concept of international law.â
Word that the two men had acknowledged payoffs from Baghdad has embarrassed the ministry, which fears that the actions of two retired diplomats will be used to discredit President Chiracâs opposition towards the invasion of Iraq.
Judge Courroye is investigating 11 French-based officials, business figures, politicians and a journalist who are alleged to have benefited from Baghdadâs largesse during the seven-year programme, which ended in 2003. Six have been told that they face charges. M Boidevaix told the judge that he believed that Senator Charles Pasqua, a former Gaullist Interior Minister, and others had enjoyed favours from Baghdad âbecause they lobbied hard for it with the Iraqisâ.
The French media deplored the apparent involvement of senior state officials in corrupt dealings with the regime of Saddam Hussein. Le Monde said the image of France was at stake. Le Figaro said that âFrench diplomacy has been stained by âOil for Foodâ.â
#2
There is no link . . . with the decision of France not to participate in the Iraq war. This stemmed from our concept of international law.
Understand that the French concept of international law makes taking bribes the normal course of operation.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
10/14/2005 12:41 Comments ||
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#3
From what I've read in specialized blogs, Serge Boidevaix IS a supremo of France's Arab Policy (tm), he's been made the highest honorific position in the quay D'Orsay (french State Dept), he's retained all of his networks after retiring to an arab-related international business org, and he has molded whole generations of french diplomats to the ME in his image.
He's not just a patsy.
Posted by: Curt Simon ||
10/14/2005 14:21 Comments ||
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Not too be defending the Figaro, which is owned by Shirak's pal arms dealer/media mogul Serge Dassault and is not known for its un-PCness (except for the great Ivan Rioufol's op-ed), but I did remember seing a piece on it, as I did in Le Monde yesterday (though the writer there basically said it was an US plot, in true Le Monde fashion, and didn't dwell on the central idea that french diplomacy is for sell).
Articles in Le Figaro :
http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/
20051013.FIG0124.html?172522
#6
French perfidy is nothing new, one should expect it. A knife in the back is very French you must understand. France is so above everyone else that she need not pay attention to the saftey and needs of the rest of the world. Any debt we owe the French for helping drive the Redcoats out has long since been repaid.
My wife is selling her classes in French lnaguage to some students at her High School as a way to help our counrty speak and understand the language of our foes. This is from a woman who used to love the French and who studied in France for sometime.
Our blue little town sends many young men and women into the Armed Forces of the United States of America, Her High School District is very proud of that fact. She is proud of her students that choose to serve their counrty.
Charles Clarke today issued an ultimatum to the European Parliament to fall into line over new EU laws to help track terrorists through e-mail and telecoms information.
The exasperated Home Secretary gave MEPs until the end of the year to agree to legislation which has been the subject of internal EU wrangling since last year's Madrid bombings. His patience ran out at talks between European home affairs ministers in Luxembourg, after months of fruitless debate with MEPs, who fear that keeping records of calls and e-mails will endanger civil liberties.
Virtually all EU governments and police forces across Europe are in agreement on the plans, which would force internet and telecoms companies to store phone data for at least one year and e-mail traffic records for at least six months. Mr Clarke wanted to use Britainâs EU presidency to push for even longer retention of electronic communications information, but has been thwarted by resistance from Strasbourg.
Today, in a final concession to MEPsâ fears, he steered todayâs talks towards a compromise, promising that electronic telecoms data would be stored for no longer than two years. He warned afterwards that although he wanted a deal with MEPsâ agreement if possible, EU ministers would adopt the new anti-terror laws anyway in December, as planned.
Posted by: Captain America ||
10/14/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
With records kept, it will be easy for investigators to track mistresses and lovers, bribery and illicit deal making, which will cause problems within the family. Or at least that was how it was explained to me when I asked for an acconunting of my telephone bill, instead of German style, "This is how much money we've taken from your bank account this month."
The Homeland Security Department is investigating whether department officials privately tipped off relatives or friends about last week's subway terrorism threat before the public was given the news, officials said Thursday.
The probe was announced as Gov. George Pataki and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly raised concerns about the possible leak, first reported in the Daily News.
"Obviously it's disturbing; it's just not right," Pataki said after an official appearance in midtown Manhattan also attended by Kelly. "The public should know at the same time. ... There should not be limited public notification to a handful of people, or people who might be otherwise politically connected."
The Daily News reported Thursday that police had obtained copies of personal e-mails that alluded to an alleged al-Qaeda plot, and had forwarded them to federal officials.
A Homeland Security spokesman in Washington, Russ Knocke, said an internal investigation was underway. "We take any potential leak of sensitive or classified information very seriously," he said.
When FBI and police officials went public with the threat Oct. 6, Homeland Security downplayed it, saying it was "of doubtful credibility." After four days of high alert, local officials announced Monday there was no clear evidence an attack would be carried out and scaled back the protection.
"It's ironic that on the one hand the department is saying this is not a credible threat and then, if these e-mails are true, people within the department with access to classified information felt it was worth contacting their own families," said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.
The e-mails began circulating Oct. 3 â three days before Kelly and Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced they were putting thousands of extra police officers on patrol in the subways in response to the possible plot to bomb the subway using briefcases or baby strollers packed with explosives.
The Daily News quoted one e-mail â purportedly penned by the unnamed son of a high-ranking Homeland Security official â in which he warns recipients: "The only information I can pass on to you is that everyone should at all costs not ride the subway for the next two weeks in major areas of NYC."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/14/2005 00:10 ||
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(Hawlati) According to sources from the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, in Iraqi Kurdistan 2,262,089 people are registered to vote on Saturday's constitutional referendum. The three provinces of Duhok, Erbil, and Sulaymaniyah form Iraqi Kurdistan...
(Kurdistani New) A survey conducted in the Erbil province found 87 per cent of those polled want to participate in the referendum and vote in favour of the constitution... Regarding satisfaction with the constitution, 81 per cent said they were satisfied with the document, 12 per cent were unsatisfied and 7 per cent did not answer the question...
(Azzaman) The Missan bureau of the independent electoral commission announced that 3,000 representatives from 23 political factions will monitor the Saturday's referendum on Iraqi draft constitution, along with 211 monitors from civil society organisations. Na'im Kadhim, who heads Missan's electoral commission, told Azzaman that the commission has distributed 130,000 posters and 450,000 leaflets, and has organized 22 seminars to educate people about the constitutional and referendum process. Missain province, a majority Shiite population, is located in southern Iraq and borders Iran.
(Al-Mada) Laith Kuba, spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minster Ibrahim al-Jafari, announced that military operations by US and Iraqi forces against insurgents in the western sector of the country were successful. "There are no military clashes now, and the situation is relatively calm," Kuba told to reporters at a press conference. He also said special funding was allotted to rehabilitate Haditha, the site of one of the major operations, but he said the town did not suffer significant damage. Cities and towns in Anbar, a province in western Iraq, were the sites of military operations over the past two weeks. With regard to the referendum, Kuba said that 200,000 employees in Iraq are working as supervisors or monitors throughout the country and only 1,000 were deployed to the Anbar governorate due to the security situation.
(Al-Sabah) A survey conducted in three governorates found 93 per cent of those polled want to participate in the referendum. The survey, organised by the National Institute for Research and Studies, polled potential voters in Baghdad, Dhiqar and Karbala. Surveys were distributed randomly, and 93 per cent of those who received the questionnaires responded. Ninety percent of participants in the three provinces said they will vote in favour of the constitution on Saturday, (October 15, 2005) while 0.7 per cent said they will vote against the document. Of the participants, 0.2 per cent of participants were unwilling to vote. In Baghdad, 77 per cent said they will vote for the constitution; in Karbala, 99 per cent said they will vote in favour; and in Dhiqar 95 per cent said they will endorse the draft. Four days of holiday for eating, drinking, reading the constitution, arguing and voting.
#1
Best wishes to the people of the sovereign state of Iraq. The Coalition and people of free will throughout your country have labored for two and a half long bloody years to bring you this opportunity. The Marines and your new Iraqi Army are preparing for the worst so that we can hope for the best. Good luck, and wear your purple fingers with pride.
#3
But, but it's a quagmire! I heard it on the news! How can the people of Iraq vote on a constitution without prior approval from the un? It's a farce and I bet France won't recognize them so they can't be legit. OTH God bless and God speed the Iraqi people in their quest for democracy and freedom.
A day after Iraq's parliament approved the final version of the country's draft constitution, and two days before Iraqis were to vote on it in a nationwide referendum, members of the Sunni Arab minority were as divided as their leaders Thursday over what to do: vote yes, vote no, or not vote at all.
Since changes were still being made to the document as late as Tuesday night and no revised copies had been distributed, "I have no idea what the main benefits of the new constitution are," said Waad Shakir Mahmoud, 45, owner of a supermarket in Adhamiyah, Baghdad's largest Sunni Muslim neighborhood. "How am I going to vote on something I don't have any idea about?"
But others in his neighborhood -- where a banner on the local mosque declared "No to the constitution, no to the occupation, and no to deceiving the people" -- said they would vote in favor of the constitution. They said it offered the best hope for curbing rampant violence, ending foreign occupation and preserving Iraq's unity.
"This country is wounded, and we have to heal the wounds, despite what is being said about the constitution," said Aqil Naji, 30, the owner of a nut shop.
In the northern city of Mosul, a Sunni laborer, Ali Ubaidi, 37, said compromises announced Wednesday crafted to win Sunni support for the constitution made for "a good agreement" and had "changed people's attitude."
"I decided to vote yes in the referendum a long time ago, but that was a secret -- I couldn't tell people," he said. "But now, I will shout it in the street."
The last-minute changes to the draft constitution were made without a formal vote by Iraq's parliament on Wednesday, almost two months after the document was legally supposed to be finalized. Two Sunni political organizations, the Iraqi Islamic Party and the government-administered Sunni Endowment, have publicly endorsed the changes and urged followers to vote yes. Other influential Sunni groups were telling followers to vote no or skip voting altogether.
The referendum will fail if two-thirds of the voters in three of Iraq's 18 provinces vote against the constitution, a threshold that numerically would be almost impossible to reach if the Sunnis split their votes.
The first ballots were cast Thursday by thousands of Iraqi prisoners being held at detention centers around the country. Election officials said they did not know whether former president Saddam Hussein voted. His trial on war-crimes charges is scheduled to begin next week.
Until Wednesday, Sunni Arab leaders stood united against the constitution, arguing, among other things, that it would permit the creation of an autonomous Kurdish region in the north and possibly a Shiite Muslim ministate in the south, which would relegate Sunnis to the resource-poor, landlocked central and western regions. Such a situation could lead to continuing warfare and potentially the breakup of the country, they said.
The key compromise reached late Tuesday -- with the help of U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad -- was to allow the next National Assembly, which is to be elected in December, to make amendments to the constitution, which would then be submitted to a national referendum.
But the most influential Sunni organization in Iraq, the Association of Muslim Scholars, said the Iraqi Islamic Party had been "deceived" by changes that were included solely to win passage of the constitution on Saturday.
A radical insurgent group, the Army of the Victorious Sect, termed the leaders of the Iraqi Islamic Party "apostates" for supporting the changes and threatened to kill them, Arab satellite television stations reported.
Rasheed Muhammed, 29, a taxi driver in Ramadi, an insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad, said although he hated Abu Musab Zarqawi, the head of al Qaeda in Iraq, "I agree with him that we should reject the constitution. If we say yes, it means we approve of the political process under occupation."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/14/2005 00:02 ||
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Saddam Hussein's defence lawyers will argue that he has immunity from prosecution at his trial in Iraq later this month, according to a London-based member of his legal team. Lawyer Abdel Haq Alani told the BBC the former president will challenge the legality of the special tribunal, due to open inside Baghdad's fortified Green Zone on 20 October. "He had full immunity under the prevailing Iraqi constitution and you cannot have a retroactive legislation that removes that immunity," Alani said in an interview late on Thursday.
Iraqi officials say the only charge against Saddam so far is the killing of more than 140 men in the mostly Shia village of Dujail after a failed 1982 assassination attempt against him. Alani said the defence will argue that those killed had been found guilty under Iraq's laws and Saddam's only role was to sign their death warrants.
If that doesn't work, he's gonna claim he was drunk at the time and doesn't remember it.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/14/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
No wonder there's been hundreds of millions of dollars spent on Saddam's deefense. Brilliance like this doesn't just grow on trees, ya know. It grows in garbage cans, chat rooms, sewing circles, and Govt Ministries.
#2
Unless the Iraqi's plan to kill him with spoons, Saddam is out of luck on the "immune" angle.
Posted by: Charles ||
10/14/2005 6:44 Comments ||
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#3
Ah, just set a date and time so that the entire population knows and can properly assemble, and push the old fart out the building door in just the underwear he was captured in. Let the true will of the 'demos' decide his fate. Wonder if the MSM would actually show a human body being rendered in lots of little pieces?
#4
Look at it this way, .com, all the money they spend on 'defending' Saddam (the best food and drink, the best hotels, etc), is money not being spent in IEDs.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/14/2005 7:54 Comments ||
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#5
Damn. Give that man a cup of coffee and a bagel! He's a regular muzz Matlock solving cases on a speedboat racing along the Thames. I imagine phukwit counsel in London is well paid for his extreme mental gymnastics. Who says infantile nihilistic utterances have no value for an attorney billing by the hour.
Two party hacks of the United States' key Middle East officials have criticized the Bush administration's lack of involvement in Palestinian-Israeli peacemaking. In remarks made last week at a new conference in Paris, former U.S. envoys to the Middle East Dennis Ross and Robert Malley commented on whether the Middle East peace process can be re-launched. "In the past four and a half years we've been the least prominent. Rather than engaging, we disengaged. Instead of building the Golden Gate Bridge, we built a footbridge," said Ross, Special Middle East Coordinator under the Bill Clinton administration. Ross was responsible for shaping U.S. policy in the region. His new book, "The Missing Peace-the Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace," recounts his 12-year involvement in the area. He is currently a fellow at the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy, as well as chairman of an Israeli think tank, the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute.
Malley was Special Assistant to President Clinton for Arab-Israeli affairs from 1998-2000, and is now the Middle East and North Africa program director at the International Crisis Group, which works to prevent conflict worldwide.
Doesn't seem like either's been paying much attention.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/14/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
Ever wonder why in general other countries are anti-American?
Because we have assholes like Ross, Carter, Gore, Kerry, Andrew Sullivan, and several others who are whining abroad because the US is not doing what each of them want.
BTW - you will likely not find agreement amongst them either, other than Bush is evil.
Posted by: Captain America ||
10/14/2005 0:25 Comments ||
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#2
Bush is on the verge of putting a 'W' in the win column for the US military, and these folks know it.
#3
Gotta give a man a few milliseconds or nanoseconds to take his foot off one pedal and put it in another, instead of the Left's gigaseconds - is there anyone faster at responding to waffles of the Lefties than THE FLASH, or NAGIN-BLANCO???
#5
Ross is just pitching his new book. His agent said he needed to be more outrageous and, especially at a Paris venue, anti-Bush if he wanted to drum up sales.
This means he'll be making the Talking Head Tour of all the PseudoNews shows. Oh. Goody. More Camelot II Toxic Waste.
DAMASCUS - Syrian Foreign Minister Faruq Al Shara on Thursday accused the media of having had a hand in the suicide of interior minister Ghazi Kanaan. âCertain media as well as unjust leaks from the commission of inquiry into the killing of Rafiq Hariri concerning events that didnât take place contributed to killing General Ghazi Kanaan,â Shara told journalists.
Hours before his death on Wednesday, Kanaan telephoned a Lebanese radio station to make a âfinal declarationâ, denying unsubstantiated corruption allegations and Syriaâs involvement in former Lebanese premier Haririâs murder.
"Lies! All lies! And I'm despressed as hell about them!"
âThere are media that donât want to learn any lessons. Some of them contributed to the killing of Ghazi Kanaan,â Shara reiterated, asking âhow can these media continue to accuse Syriaâ over Haririâs killing.
It's easy. And wait til you see what we have on you ...
âKanaan complained about accusations made by certain media. This was clear before his suicide,â he said, comparing allegations in the media to âbulletsâ.
The German magistrate heading a UN probe into Haririâs murder, Detlev Mehlis, âhas promised us that he will deny the (inaccurate) information concerning his meetings with Syrian officialsâ, Shara said.
And he's been pretty quiet so far ...
Kanaanâs final phone call was in response to a report by Lebanonâs NTV that he had told Mehlis that he received tens of millions of dollars to push through an electoral law that allowed Hariri to win parliamentary elections in 2000.
Kanaan said media reports since Haririâs February murder had wronged both himself and the former Lebanese premier, whose killing was widely blamed on Syria despite its repeated denials. âAs for my testimony, light was shed on the period when I served in Lebanon and I spoke about everything that I was asked,â he said, adding that the commission had the minutes of the interview that backed his own account. âIf we had benefited so much from Rafiq Hariri, I donât understand how we could have killed him,â he said.
Sorta answers itself, doesn't it ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/14/2005 00:00 ||
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Chief of Staff of the Army and the Armed Forces warned on Wednesday against the Zionist imperialist attack on the region. Celebrating the graduation of a new batch of students at the military college for women, Major General Ali Habib notified, " the Zionist imperialist attack on the region that aims through programs and schemes to turn the region into a tool in the hand of enemies as well melt the national identity of our people as well torpedo his civilized existence components."
The Major General pointed out at events in Palestine and Iraq asserting "standing by the Palestinian and the Iraqi peoples and their right in sovereignty, independence and salvation from the foreign occupation forces over their land." Major General Habib was speaking on behalf of President Bashar al-Assad.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/14/2005 00:00 ||
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#2
Not mine. Somebody left it here and I stole it.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/14/2005 11:46 Comments ||
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#3
" the Zionist imperialist attack on the region that aims through programs and schemes to turn the region into a tool in the hand of enemies as well melt the national identity of our people as well torpedo his civilized existence components."
Now, that's what I call stuffing 10 lbs. of sh*t into a 5-lb. bag.
Syria is ready to resume military and intelligence cooperation with the United States on Iraq provided it goes through a third party, but Washington has yet to respond, President Bashar al-Assad said on Wednesday. Syria, under increased U.S. pressure over Iraq, ended military and intelligence cooperation with Washington in May due to "unfair" U.S. accusations that Damascus was doing too little to stop foreign fighters from entering neighbouring Iraq. "There has been an attempt to resume cooperation, basically, through mediation by some Arab and European states," Assad told CNN in an interview. "We said we have no objection, as long as it goes through a third party. Now, those Arab and non-Arab parties went to say that to the U.S. side, to say: 'What do you want from Syria'. So far, no response," he added, speaking through an interpreter.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/14/2005 00:00 ||
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'What do you want from Syria'. So far, no response," he added, speaking through an interpreter.
President Bashar al-Assad vowed Wednesday that Syria would punish as a traitor any national implicated in the murder of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri. Speaking in an interview with CNN, Assad denied suspicions that Syria was involved in the death of Hariri, saying his death was against Syria's interests.
Asked if any Syrians had played a role, Assad said: 'I don't think so. If that happened then this is treason.' He added that Syria would be prepared to see any eventual suspects hauled before a world court: 'They should be punished internationally or in Syria ... if they are not punished internationally they will be punished in Syria.'
Speaking in English to CNN's Christiane Amanpur in Damascus, ...
... so that he could say something entirely different in Arabic ...
... Assad strongly denied that he had played any personal role in the assassination. 'This is against our principles and my principle. I am a quiet person and i would never do such a thing,' Assad replied. He stressed that 'we do not have a system of assassinations in Syria.'
CNN's interview was done a few hours before Damascus announced that Syria's interior minister Ghazi Kenaan, Syria's intelligence chief in Lebanon from 1982 to 2003, had committed suicide. Kenaan's death comes just two weeks before a U.N. commission of inquiry into the Hariri assassination is due to release a report on its findings. Syria and its allies in Lebanon have been widely blamed as being behind the Hariri murder, something Damascus has strongly denied. Hariri's assassination last February caused an uproar in Lebanon which led to massive demonstrations which along with international pressure forced Syria to withdraw all its troops from its neighbour, thus ending a 30-year military presence in the country.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/14/2005 00:00 ||
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Assad vows to punish any Syrian found involved in Hariri's murder
#6
Sad to say but I don't think Assad did have anything to do with Hariri's murder. He's a weak puppet but knows too well what happens in very slooowwww deaths, I mean suicides. He's carefully wording his response to "any national" but foreign terrorists that can tear him apart one limb at a time should be "hauled before the world court". He should have taken the deal. A very deep probe by the USMC could help him root out the traitors, with assistance from a third party, say Britain...and he could vacation in France until the housecleaning is over.
Ah, sir, it's the American ambassador inquiring about your interest in the Dictators-r-Us estates in American Samoa for you and your family. He said the offer was ending soon and the recently available Saddam model was about to be offered to some oil pumper from South America.
Detlev Mehlis, the head of the international team investigating the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, "has promised Syria to refute the media's allegations," against Damascus, said Syria's Foreign Minister Farouk Sharaa yesterday.
Sharaa, who was speaking at the funeral of Syrian Interior Minister Ghazi Kenaan in El-Bhamra, said Damascus "expects Mehlis to deny... the false information spread by a Lebanese media outlet [New TV]," about what took place in Mehlis' meetings with the Syrian officials last month. "The wrongful accusations of some media outlets and what was leaked from the investigation team about things that never happened contributed to killing Kanaan," he said.
Mehlis had questioned several Syrian officials "as witnesses" in the Hariri investigation this September, including Kenaan, who was the chief of Syria's intelligence in Lebanon between 1982 and 2002. Kenaan, who was constantly accused in the Lebanese media of being linked to Hariri's assassination, was found dead in his office on Wednesday. Syrian investigators confirmed yesterday he had committed suicide, nine days before Mehlis is due to present his final report on the investigations.
Sharaa added: "We are still waiting for Mehlis' reply to these allegations [against Syrian officials]." However, Syrian opposition figure Aktham Naise said in Geneva: "Even if Kenaan was not implicated in the murder of Hariri... I am convinced others will be implicated in the Mehlis report and they should be punished for their crimes."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/14/2005 00:00 ||
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The body of Syrian Interior Minister Ghazi Kenaan was laid to rest in his northern home town in a low-key funeral, and a state investigation confirmed that the former strongman in Lebanon committed suicide by shooting himself in the mouth. About 1,000 relatives and villagers walked behind the coffin, draped in a Syrian flag, in the village of Bhamra where black banners hung from some buildings, witnesses said. Kenaan was buried in a family cemetery.
Kenaan killed himself on Wednesday, officials said. Damascus Attorney General Mohammad al-Louji said forensic examination and an examination of his office concluded that Kenaan shot himself in the mouth twice with his own revolver, a .38 caliber Smith and Wesson. Loji said he found Kenaan's blood-soaked body minutes after the minister shot himself. Loji, who rushed to Kenaan's office after the incident, said a day of exhaustive work proved beyond doubt the minister had killed himself.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/14/2005 00:00 ||
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do the muslims have any customs about not giving normal burial rites to suicides(other than the martyr kind) , I wonder?
WOT background/politix because a fair amount of this deficit is related to the WOT.
The federal deficit hit $319 billion for the budget year that just ended, down significantly from last year's record red ink, although a surge in Katrina-driven spending threatens to drive the shortfall up again.
The improvement from the record $412 billion recorded in the 2004 budget year, which the Treasury Department reported on Friday, is largely due to a surge in federal revenues from an improving economy.
The figures were released three days before Congress returns from a recess and commences a struggle to cut $35 billion from federal benefit programs over the next five years to help defray hurricane recovery costs. Friday's deficit figures underscored that even if lawmakers agree to such savings, they would have a barely visible effect on the overall red ink figure.
Despite the improvement from last year's budget gap, the 2005 shortfall was still the third-highest ever recorded. The government's 2005 budget year ended on Sept. 30.
Because hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit in August and September, only about $4 billion of the $62 billion in emergency aid provided for the storms was actually spent in fiscal 2005, according to a senior Treasury official. Congressional analysts figure another $30 billion of those funds will be spent in the budget year that began Oct. 1, though more spending is likely to be approved in coming weeks.
Republicans emphasized that the figure was an improvement from earlier deficit projections.
At the beginning of this year, the White House projected a $427 billion shortfall for 2005, which would have set another record in sheer dollar terms. The Congressional Budget Office forecast a gap of $365 billion, although both lowered their forecasts as the year progressed.
"Lower taxes and pro-growth economic policies have created millions of jobs and a growing economy that has swelled tax revenues over the past year," said Treasury Secretary John Snow. "While deficits are never welcome, the fact that we finished FY 2005 with a much lower-than- expected deficit is encouraging news."
The White House and most economists say the truest measure of the deficit is relative to the size of the economy. In those terms, the deficit measured 2.6 percent of gross domestic product. The 2004 deficit, by contrast, equaled 3.6 percent of GDP. That is well below the post-World War II worst-ever record, a 6 percent figure set in 1983 under President Reagan.
Democrats say that despite the improvement over 2004, the administration's record on the deficit isn't anything to be proud of.
Indeed, the deficit picture remains far worse than when President Bush took office in 2001, when both White House and congressional forecasters projected cumulative surpluses of $5.6 trillion over the subsequent decade. Then, the White House forecast a surplus for 2005 of $269 billion.
Those earlier estimates assumed the revenue boom fueled by the surging stock market and worker productivity gains would continue. But that bubble burst and a recession and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist assaults adversely affected the books.
Several rounds of tax cuts, including Bush's signature $1.35 trillion, 10-year 2001 tax cut also contributed to the return to deficits three years ago after four years of surpluses.
The White House has set a goal of cutting the deficit in half from the $521 billion prediction for 2004 that it issued at the beginning of that year.
The administration claims it is still on track to reach that $260 billion goal by the time Bush leaves office. But administration budget projections leave out the long-term costs of occupying Iraq and Afghanistan and have yet to be updated with cost estimates of hurricane relief.
Malawi has cancelled a $30m fertiliser deal with a Saudi Arabian company with alleged links to al-Qaeda, a newspaper reported on Thursday. Finance Minister Goodall Gondwe told parliament that the United States-based Citibank had refused to deal with the unnamed Saudi Arabian fertiliser firm because "they had al-Qaeda connections." "We are in the process of withdrawing, we have not paid the money," he told parliament on Wednesday in the administrative capital Lilongwe, The Nation daily reported.
Malawi, faced with a food crisis that threatens up to five million people this year, wants to import over 100 000 tonnes of fertiliser to give to poor farmers to shore up food production.
Gondwe said Saudi Arabia was identified as stocking the cheapest fertiliser after a team of Malawian government officials travelled the globe looking for the best deal. Gondwe did not name the Saudi Arabian company despite repeated calls from opposition members.
Malawi two years ago deported five suspected members of al-Qaeda from the southern African nation.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/14/2005 00:04 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
KUWAIT CITY â A crisis in the ruling family of Kuwait, which has a tenth of world oil reserves, is likely to usher in a new heir to the ailing Amir whose existing crown prince is also ill, diplomats and analysts said yesterday.
Wahhabism is the ideological basis of Al-Qaeda and related organizations, maintains Alexander Ignatenko, a well-known Russian researcher of radical Islam and director of the Institute of Religion and Politics.
Charles Clarke today issued an ultimatum to the European Parliament to fall into line over new EU laws to help track terrorists through e-mail and telecoms information.
Saddam Hussein's defence lawyers will argue that he has immunity from prosecution at his trial in Iraq later this month, according to a London-based member of his legal team. Lawyer Abdel Haq Alani told the BBC the former president will challenge the legality of the special tribunal, due to open inside Baghdad's fortified Green Zone on 20 October. "He had full immunity under the prevailing Iraqi constitution and you cannot have a retroactive legislation that removes that immunity," Alani said in an interview late on Thursday. 
DAMASCUS - Syrian Foreign Minister Faruq Al Shara on Thursday accused the media of having had a hand in the suicide of interior minister Ghazi Kanaan. âCertain media as well as unjust leaks from the commission of inquiry into the killing of Rafiq Hariri concerning events that didnât take place contributed to killing General Ghazi Kanaan,â Shara told journalists.
Chief of Staff of the Army and the Armed Forces warned on Wednesday against the Zionist imperialist attack on the region. Celebrating the graduation of a new batch of students at the military college for women, Major General Ali Habib notified, " the Zionist imperialist attack on the region that aims through programs and schemes to turn the region into a tool in the hand of enemies as well melt the national identity of our people as well torpedo his civilized existence components."
Syria is ready to resume military and intelligence cooperation with the United States on Iraq provided it goes through a third party, but Washington has yet to respond, President Bashar al-Assad said on Wednesday. Syria, under increased U.S. pressure over Iraq, ended military and intelligence cooperation with Washington in May due to "unfair" U.S. accusations that Damascus was doing too little to stop foreign fighters from entering neighbouring Iraq. "There has been an attempt to resume cooperation, basically, through mediation by some Arab and European states," Assad told CNN in an interview. "We said we have no objection, as long as it goes through a third party. Now, those Arab and non-Arab parties went to say that to the U.S. side, to say: 'What do you want from Syria'. So far, no response," he added, speaking through an interpreter.
President Bashar al-Assad vowed Wednesday that Syria would punish as a traitor any national implicated in the murder of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri. Speaking in an interview with CNN, Assad denied suspicions that Syria was involved in the death of Hariri, saying his death was against Syria's interests. 
Detlev Mehlis, the head of the international team investigating the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, "has promised Syria to refute the media's allegations," against Damascus, said Syria's Foreign Minister Farouk Sharaa yesterday.
The body of Syrian Interior Minister Ghazi Kenaan was laid to rest in his northern home town in a low-key funeral, and a state investigation confirmed that the former strongman in Lebanon committed suicide by shooting himself in the mouth. About 1,000 relatives and villagers walked behind the coffin, draped in a Syrian flag, in the village of Bhamra where black banners hung from some buildings, witnesses said. Kenaan was buried in a family cemetery.
