Qatar could witness new terror attacks, but this would not affect the country's reform process, though it imposes a revision of its security policies, the country's foreign minister said. Shaikh Hamad Bin Jasem Bin Jabr Al Thani, who is also the Deputy Prime Minister, also said he didn't believe Al Qaida was behind the attack that killed one Briton and injured several others earlier this month, but declined to speculate on who might have carried out the attack. "Such terror attacks could happen anywhere, it could happen here again," said
"Coulda been the IRA, maybe the ETA. Coulda been Viet Cong. Who knows? I'm sure they weren't Islamists, of course. Moose limbs don't do that sorta thing..."
Shaikh Hamad was speaking at a question-and-answer session following a speech he delivered on Qatar's internal reforms in Doha late Monday. "There could be another ten, a hundred bombings, but Qatar would still continue on the path of democratic reforms. If this is the price we have to pay for choosing democracy, then we are ready to pay it," he added in the session attended by dignitaries, diplomats and journalists who took part in the session.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/31/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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The commander of the Ulster Defence Association has been ousted after his own men turned against him. Jim Gray was toppled, along with his lieutenants, in a ruthless move by the paramilitary organisation. Loyalists were last night waiting to see if it would be a bloodless coup or would provoke a new shooting war on the streets of Belfast. One source said: "If the UDA want to be taken seriously and move on they had to get rid of Jim. But if they wanted violence they would have just shot him."
Gray, 43, was one of six so-called brigadiers running Northern Ireland's largest loyalist terror grouping. With his bleach-blond hair, heavy gold jewellery and all-year-round tan, he rivalled Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair as the most striking UDA chief. His looks earned him the nickname Doris Day. But he was removed from control of the East Belfast unit, where his men were known as the Spice Boys, after complaints reached leadership level. A statement issued yesterday confirmed: "As from 12.30pm March 30, 2005, the Ulster Defence Association has stood down the current leadership of the East Belfast UDA until further notice. To dispel any confusion, the East Belfast UDA are now under the direct command of the Inner Council."
Gray, who has been questioned several times by detectives in Belfast, survived an assassination attempt 2œ years ago. A gunman shot him in the face as he went to the home of a murdered rival at the height of a loyalist feud that claimed several lives. The attack in September 2002 came soon after Adair and Gray fell out during the power struggle. Now both men have been expelled as the organisation, which says it is on ceasefire, attempts to restore its tattered image. One former drinking partner said that those who served under Gray became fed up with his leadership style. "The rank and file complained about him and there was an intense investigation over the last few days," he said. "Homework was done to make sure the complaints were legitimate and then the position was clear. Jim's position was basically untenable."
Gray bought the Avenue One bar that acted as unofficial UDA HQ from finances which former associates suspect are now under scrutiny from the anti-racketeering Assets Recovery Agency. His apparently crumbling business empire will not hurt as much as the blow to the loyalist credentials of a notoriously vain man. Gray never tried to blend in with his fiercely working-class surroundings. While husbands and fathers trudged through east Belfast's backstreets to clock in for long hours at the shipyards, he acquired a taste for the jet-set lifestyle. His appearance set him aside from the typical loyalist hardman. Even Adair, whose own fashion statements often provoked ridicule, took offence at some of Gray's outfits. "Jim would arrive at meetings in his pink jumpers and Johnny would go mad," one source said. "He'd be ranting 'That's some image for our organisation'."
Posted by: Bulldog ||
03/31/2005 2:48:12 AM ||
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#1
As long as they only shoot each other, this could work out to NI's advantage.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
03/31/2005 3:32 Comments ||
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For some reason the protestant paramilitaries attracted homosexuals. While googling this I was astonished to find the street in Belfast I lived on in 72/73 is now the premier night-time gay haunt.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/31/2005 8:17 Comments ||
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When I was in Belfast I spent some time in the Loyalist neighborhoods, didn't notice anything particularly gay about them. Except for the red, white, & blue painted curbs. At the time I thought it was just patriotic fervor. Maybe I was mistaken.
Michael Howard accused Tony Blair yesterday of stabbing the men and women of the Armed Forces in the back by announcing cuts in manpower across all three Services. The Conservative leader said that he failed to understand how the cuts could be justified at a time of "growing threats, global instability and new dangers". Promising, if elected to power, to reinstate the four battalions scheduled to be cut under the Government's restructuring of the infantry that was announced in December, Mr Howard also denounced the moves to change the names of famous regiments as part of the decision to amalgamate smaller regiments into larger formations. Under the plans, agreed by the executive committee of the Army Board, the six regiments of the Scottish Division are being reduced to five and converted into one super- regiment, and similar amalgamations are taking place in the King's Division, with two super-regiments, and the Prince of Wales's Division, also with two large regiments.
"What a stab in the back for the men and women Mr Blair sent into the line of fire," Mr Howard said. "Regiments which are the focus of loyalty, the nurseries of military excellence and potent symbols of pride, are to have their identities casually erased." Speaking after a visit to BAE Systems at Warton, Lancashire, Mr Howard added: "It's probably only a question of time before the crossed swords of the Army's emblem are replaced by Tony Blair's crossed fingers."
Although Mr Howard said that a Conservative Government would "save the regiments being cut by Labour", he did not spell out whether he would reverse the decision of the Army Board to forge a new structure for the infantry. However, he gave a pledge that a Conservative government would save three of the Royal Navy's Type-23 frigates scheduled to be scrapped under Labour's defence programme.
In response, Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, said that the Conservatives' plan to cut spending would affect defence. "The Tories have no credibility on defence when they are committed to cut £35 billion from public spending," he said. "Labour has delivered the largest sustained increases in defence spending for 20 years. When the Tories were last in office, they cut planned defence spending by 15 per cent during 1994-97."
Posted by: Bulldog ||
03/31/2005 2:44:48 AM ||
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#1
Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.
Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy how's yer soul?"
But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.
#2
You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country," when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
But Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool - you bet that Tommy sees!
Posted by: Steve ||
03/31/2005 10:38 Comments ||
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Bravo!
Posted by: Howard UK ||
03/31/2005 10:39 Comments ||
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The problem is not merely the cuts in the military, it is tha those "dividends of peace" will be used not in cutting taxes but in welfare and in public employemnt. And since those are difficult to reduce in a hurry, it means if a time comes where it is necessary to increase the Defence spending then only solution will be to raise taxes to an unsustainable level, one who will destroy economy.
MOSCOW: The leaders of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, both former Soviet states with autocratic regimes, are "worried" after the revolution in Kyrgyzstan which toppled the 15-year-old regime there, the interim leader of the Central Asian state said in an interview published on Wednesday. Uzbek President Islam Karimov and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazabayev expressed their concern in telephone conversations, Kyrgyzstan's provisional president and prime minister, Kurmanbek Bakiyev told Russia's Kommersant newspaper. "I can't deny it, what happened in our country doesn't make them happy," Bakiyev said.
The question is, what're they going to do to avoid the same thing happening to them? Akayev was a pussycat compared to either of them, and they're both pretty nice fellows compared to Turkmenbashi...
He also told the daily that the revolt had no outside help and was entirely sparked by domestic matters, rejecting claims by ousted leader Askar Akayev that meddling by unnamed foreign organisations led to the overthrow. "I didn't go to Ukraine nor Georgia to copy their methods," he said, referring to two other ex-Soviet states that had their regimes toppled by street protests.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/31/2005 00:00:00 ||
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Kyrgyz security forces coordinator Felix Kulov has promised that he would guarantee the security of overthrown Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev, if he returns.
Don't do it, Askar! That's what they told Louis XVI!
After talks with the new Prime Minister Kurmanbek Bakiyev, Kulov announced to the press that if Akayev returns, "He will have bodyguards, even more than usual, the property where he lives will be guarded, as will his movements and his meetings." Akayev told the press on Tuesday that he was prepared to resign if he was given the "relevant guarantees", but has said that he does not trust the assurances of Kulov. Kulov and Bakiyev are keen for Akayev to return to Kyrgyzstan to resign officially to remove doubts as to the legitimacy of their government.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/31/2005 00:00:00 ||
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ROME: A Moroccan woman is trying to become the first female to lead Islamic prayers in Italy and facing fierce opposition by members of her community, news reports said on Wednesday. Naima Gouhai, a 30-year-old nurse from the Tuscan town of Colle Val d'Elsa, put in a request to lead a mixed congregation of men and women in prayer at a local mosque two days after a female professor led a similar service in New York City, the Corriere della Sera newspaper reported. "It seems right to me that when a woman is more capable than a man of handling the collective prayer, she should be the imam," Gouhai was quoted as saying by Corriere. Officials at the Islamic Center in Colle Val d'Elsa, some 25 kilometres of Siena, could not be reached immediately for comment.
They were down with the vapors...
Among the 1,500 members of the area's Muslim community, a vocal minority opposes Gouhai's request and is asking for the resignation of an imam who supported her, Corriere reported.
Really? Oh, I'm sooooo surprised!
The imam, Feras Jabareen, is known in Italy for his moderate views and for frequently joining in prayer with Catholic priests, particularly to appeal for the release of Italian hostages held in Iraq. Jabareen, who led the Colle Val d'Elsa community for ten years, refused to resign, saying he has "always acted for the good of the community and with respect toward the Quran," Corriere reported.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/31/2005 00:00:00 ||
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Former national security adviser Sandy Berger (search) will plead guilty to taking classified documents from the National Archives, the Justice Department said Thursday.
Berger, who served in the Clinton administration, will enter the plea Friday in U.S. District Court in Washington, said Justice spokesman Bryan Sierra.
The plea agreement, if accepted by a judge, ends a bizarre episode in which the man who once had access to the government's most sensitive intelligence was accused of sneaking documents out of the Archives in his clothing.
The Bush administration disclosed the investigation days before the Sept. 11 commission (search) issued its final report. Democrats claimed the White House was using Berger to deflect attention from the harsh report, with its potential for damaging Bush's re-election prospects.
Berger previously acknowledged he removed from the National Archives (search) copies of documents about the government's anti-terror efforts and notes that he took on those documents.
He said he was reviewing the materials to help determine which Clinton administration documents to provide to the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. He called the episode "an honest mistake," and denied criminal wrongdoing.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
03/31/2005 9:36:04 PM ||
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#1
You have to wonder what penalties the average researcher would suffer if they were to stuff classified documents in their underwear from the National Archives and then take them off premisis.
Sandy should have been forced to wear underwear on his head while he rotted in prison.
One more example of the Clinton Admin....a pox on American history.
#2
You have to wonder what penalties the average researcher would suffer if they were to stuff classified documents in their underwear from the National Archives and then take them off premisis.
I can tell you what would happen to an officer in the US military: they'd be facing hard time at Leavenworth.
#3
A simple mistake any 12 year old could make. But wait, Berger was not a child, but ....
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/31/2005 22:56 Comments ||
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UH:
I work with stuff of way lower level classification and if did what he did, even without intent, I would have room & board supplied by the government. Three years? I would never be allowed a clearance ever again.
Still, he does have a conviction on the record, and does suffer a nominal penalty. He didn't actually walk, which, frankly, I predicted would happen.
A final analysis of the intelligence fiasco over Iraq's non-existent weapons of mass destruction will today focus blame on the CIA and other spy agencies, largely clearing the White House and the Pentagon of allegations that they shaped the intelligence to justify the invasion, according to early accounts of the report.
The assessment by a presidential commission on WMD intelligence follows 14 months of mostly secret inquiries in an undisclosed location in Virginia. It reportedly concentrates on mistakes in a multi-agency assessment in October 2002, the national intelligence estimate, which portrayed Saddam Hussein's weapons programmes as a serious threat to the US.
A year-long search by the US Iraq survey group later concluded that those programmes had collapsed more than a decade before the invasion.
The commission is expected to release a 400-page unclassified version of its report after delivering a complete version to George Bush this morning. According to leaks, the commission found that many of the intelligence shortcomings on Iraq are being repeated on Iran and North Korea.
In all three cases, the commission is said to have found that human intelligence - actual spies - are in short supply, and intelligence has relied on satellite pictures, electronic intercepts, the testimony of exiles and guesswork.
The Los Angeles Times yesterday quoted officials who had read some of the unclassified report as saying it pointed to "glaring gaps in core US intelligence" about nuclear programmes pursued by Tehran and Pyongyang.
According to the Washington Post the report will recommend that, in the light of "group think" over Iraq, dissent and debate should be encouraged among the nation's 15 intelligence agencies.
However, there will be relatively little scrutiny of alleged political pressure by senior administration officials to exaggerate the WMD claims. "There's nothing really about shaping the intelligence," said an intelligence source in Washington familiar with the report.
A Senate inquiry into political manipulation of intelligence, postponed until after the November elections, now appears to have been quietly dropped by its Republican chairman, Pat Roberts.
Ray McGovern, a former CIA official and persistent government critic, said the report was diverting the blame. "I see it as part of the continuing attempt to blame the CIA and other intelligence agencies and divert attention away from the White House and the Pentagon. It's worse than Butler [the inquiry into British intelligence shortcomings], or anything you've had over there."
Dick Cheney made several trips to the CIA's Langley headquarters in the months before the war to discuss findings on Iraq's alleged WMD, and the agency's ombudsman told the Senate that analysts had undergone constant "hammering" to come up with a connection between al-Qaida and Saddam.
However, none of the CIA employees who testified before the Senate intelligence committee on the issue last year admitted changing their analysis to suit the administration's wishes.
Today's report is expected to find that political pressure was not a significant factor, although it will advocate the creation of an ombudsman to hear from analysts who fear their work is being compromised, according to the Washington Post.
It will reportedly include criticism of the Defence Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, both under the Pentagon's control. But the burden of blame will fall once more on the CIA.
"I'm told it is going to make the CIA look even worse than before," said Melvin Goodman, a former CIA official. As for top administration officials, Mr Goodman said: "It looks like they're going to escape again."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/31/2005 12:49:37 AM ||
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#1
Looking at who published this piece, who is unhappy about the pending report, and the summary - especially that last sentence - makes perfect sense. Lamers from the era of a gutless and ineffective CIA bitching and moaning to a Moonbat Symp news outlet because they're about to be given credit for their failures. Yeah. So?
#2
The report sounds like it is actually close to the truth. The CIA dating back from the 70s has moved futher away from Human based intel and has become dependent on high tech solutions. A cell intercept or a satalite is not going to catch a group of men in a bazaar talking about blowing up an embassy, but a informant might. Thus, the complete failure of the CIA. The guardian, of course, can't resist lobbing shots at Bush and saying he is to blame. The whole system is to blame and has been since the 70s.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
03/31/2005 10:13 ||
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I suspect there are some travesties in any war. I hope our military catches all their "bad guys". I just hope there are not many, and that all are innocent until PROVEN guilty .... My kid fired a 50 cal at muzzle flashes in a night ambush. Was he a war criminal?
NOT!
Glad I missed Viet Nam.
God bless out troops.
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/31/2005 22:54 Comments ||
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The United States made errors in presenting its case for war against Iraq, but Saddam Hussein had to be removed, former Secretary of State Colin Powell told a German magazine.
"We were sometimes too loud, too direct, perhaps we made too much noise," Powell told Stern magazine in an interview released on Wednesday. "That certainly shocked the Europeans sometimes."
He said terms like "Old Europe," the expression coined by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to describe countries such as France and Germany which opposed the war, had not helped ease European concerns about Washington's policies.
But he said that despite the problems facing U.S. troops in Iraq, it was better that Saddam Hussein was no longer in power.
"Yes, the insurgency is much bigger than we anticipated. But I'm glad that Saddam is in jail," he said in the German article.
Powell said he had argued for a diplomatic solution against cabinet colleagues such as Vice President Dick Cheney, who did not believe that diplomacy would work.
"The situation with Saddam Hussein had to be resolved, either by taming him or by removing him by military means," he said. "I'm sure that the Vice President's view from the very beginning was: we'll never solve this through diplomatic means."
Powell said he was "furious and angry" that he had been misinformed about Iraq's stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction when he laid out the case for war before the United Nations Security Council in February, 2003.
"It was information from our security services and from some Europeans, including Germans. Some of this information was wrong. I did not know this at the time," he told the magazine.
"Hundreds of millions followed it on television. I will always be the one who presented it. I have to live with that."
But he said he had never considered resigning and rejected suggestions that his relationship with President Bush was a cool one.
"Anyone who says that has no idea. We are friends," he said.
Posted by: tipper ||
03/31/2005 10:09:52 AM ||
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The last time I checked, you are the one who made the presentation. So blame yourself, take the moron survey then go and hide in your retirement hole.
#2
Colin's wife, Alma, didn't want him to pursue a poliitical career. I think she need no longer worry. Start working on those memoirs, Colin.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
03/31/2005 10:26 Comments ||
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Powell is in a no-win situation. Everything he says will be viewed through a prism by the MSM and the worst points about Bush will be highlighted. He was offering an honest opinion about the policy in with clear hindsight. He is a good soldier and statesman but he likes to play the referee more than the participant. For that reason I thought he would have done well at State. Unfortuantely he didn't realize the extent that the 'old guard' were entrenched and he go little support for the aggressive Bush policy. They would rather a tyrant stay in power for decades (or die of old age, see Arafat) than help remove him from office. I really thinbk that Powell should run for the Senate in New York. He would clobber Hillary and he would probably be a better fit in the Senate.
Good points. While I'm not a Powell fan (always thought he was too much an insider), I'm constantly amazed at the flak he took on sites such as this one for pushing for a diplomatic solution when he was (after all) the nation's top diplomat. As you said, where he really failed was in either not realizing the inmates were running the asylum at State or not being able to stop them.
#5
"We were sometimes too loud, too direct, perhaps we made too much noise," Powell told Stern magazine in an interview released on Wednesday. "That certainly shocked the Europeans sometimes."
Tough. Shit.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/31/2005 12:12 Comments ||
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Once again, we are supposed to apologize for who we are and how people respond to us? We don't do that, Mr. Powell, you ought to know better and not shame your country in this way. You were there during the real duress and didn't flinch; now you want to apologize for our nature? You are no better than those Americans who were quick to send email apologies to Europeans about the results of our elections. Sickening.
Too f'ing bad if the Europeans thought we spoke too loud. They are no people to judge.
An Internet posting obtained by NBC News — written mostly in Arabic — details how to fire a shoulder-fired missile and how to overcome security measures.
NBC terrorism analyst Evan Kohlmann says it was posted five days ago on an Internet location used by Iraq's top terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
"We've seen plenty of material on radical Islamic Web sites dealing with shooting down military aircraft in combat zones," says Kohlmann. "However, this is the first time I've ever seen the deliberate targeting of civilian aircraft leaving U.S. airports."
NBC News will not reveal many of the details. There's a sketch of a terrorist on a rooftop shooting a missile at a plane, and information on possible evasive tactics. Much of the information appears to have been taken from the Web site of a U.S. magazine. There are also maps showing flight paths and new security perimeters from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport.
New York officials say they take this seriously and have alerted security at the airport. The FBI is still analyzing the information, but terrorism experts tell us there's no suggestion this poses any immediate threat.
Transit, security officials react
"What concerns me is the acknowledgement by Zarqawi's people that we have vulnerability in our airports, of the launching of missiles against commercial airliners," says Charles Slepian, a risk analysis expert.
Al-Qaida has tried to shoot down a plane. In 2002, terrorists fired missiles at an Israeli airliner in Kenya. And a launcher tube was found near a U.S. airbase in Saudi Arabia.
How tough would it be to pull off an attack in the United States?
"The hardest thing for al-Qaida to do in order to carry out one of these attacks is to smuggle both the shooters and smuggle the weapons into place," says James Chow, an analyst with the Rand Corp. who has authored a study on shoulder-fired missiles.
The Internet posting ends with a provocative message: "This is what I have FOR now. I hope it is useful for my dear brothers."
Posted by: tipper ||
03/31/2005 10:00:18 AM ||
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Simple solution: Quietly hack the site and insert a few small but vital mistakes. Result: jihadi idjits blow their own asses off.
Among the few details made public about the Iraqi is that he is 39 and has been held at Guantanamo Bay since October 2002, three months after he was reported captured in Pakistan.
The assertion that the Iraqi was involved in a plot against embassies in Pakistan is not further substantiated in the document. It states only that he traveled to Pakistan in August 1998 with a member of Iraqi intelligence "for the purpose of" striking at embassies with chemical mortars.
The CIA-led Iraq Survey Group that spent months in Iraq investigating its weapons programs wrote in its final report last September that an insurgent group in Iraq had managed to build nine chemical mortars in 2003 using malathion pesticide, although they apparently were not used. Malathion is in a highly toxic class of pesticides that affect the central nervous, cardiovascular and respiratory systems.
The Pentagon document on the Iraqi detainee says that from 1997 to 1998 he "acted as a trusted agent for Osama bin Laden, executing three separate reconnaissance missions for the al-Qaida leader in Oman, Iraq and Afghanistan."
The document makes no mention of the Iraqi's alleged activities after August 1998, except to say that in November 2000 the Taliban issued him a Kalishnikov rifle, and he was arrested by Pakistani authorities in Khudzar, Pakistan in July 2002.
According to the summary of evidence, a Taliban recruiter in Baghdad persuaded the Iraqi to travel to Afghanistan to join the Taliban in 1994. It says he served in the Iraqi infantry from 1987-89.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/31/2005 12:46:14 AM ||
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U.S. officials say one terror suspect imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay is a former Iraqi soldier and al-Qaida member who plotted with an Iraqi intelligence agent in August 1998 to attack the U.S. and other foreign embassies in Pakistan with chemical weapons.
There is no public record of such an attempt being made, although the Islamabad embassy staff was reduced that month amid heightened security concerns after the Aug. 7 truck bomb attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. On Aug. 20 the United States responded with cruise missile attacks on al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan and a target in Sudan.
The Iraqi, whose identity is being concealed by the Pentagon on privacy grounds, is further described as a "trusted agent" of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and a member of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan. He was arrested in Pakistan in July 2002.
These accusations are contained in a two-page "summary of evidence" presented to the Iraqi for his appearance before a Combatant Status Review Board at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba late last year. The evidence was meant to convince the three-member review board - which has heard all 558 detainee cases at Guantanamo Bay - that the government properly classified him as an "enemy combatant."
The summary was released to The Associated Press in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.
As a matter of policy, the government will not disclose which of the 558 detainees were among the 38 the review boards determined were not enemy combatants.
Navy Lt. Cmdr. Daryl Borgquist, a spokesman for the Combatant Status Review Board, said yesterday he could not elaborate on the document pertaining to the Iraqi's case nor the source of the information in it because the summary of evidence was derived from classified information.
In a July 29 memo spelling out procedures for conducting review board hearings, the Navy wrote that the government's evidence against detainees should be presumed to be "genuine and accurate."
Navy Secretary Gordon England, who is Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's designated overseer of the review process, was asked at a Pentagon news conference yesterday about the reliability of the government's evidence against detainees generally but not specifically about the Iraqi's case.
"They're the facts as certainly as we know them," he said. "They're fact."
Among the few details made public about the Iraqi is that he is 39 and has been held at Guantanamo Bay since October 2002, three months after he was reported captured in Pakistan.
The assertion that the Iraqi was involved in a plot against embassies in Pakistan is not further substantiated in the document.
It states only that he traveled to Pakistan in August 1998 with a member of Iraqi intelligence "for the purpose of" striking at embassies with chemical mortars.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/31/2005 12:40:01 AM ||
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WASHINGTON, March 31 (Reuters) - Paul Wolfowitz, known worldwide as an architect of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, was approved as the World Bank's new president on Thursday. His nomination by U.S. President George W. Bush was sealed in a unanimous vote by the World Bank's 24 executive directors, the bank confirmed. Wolfowitz said in a statement the next six months were crucial for international development policy decisions, before a U.N. summit in September on goals to reduce global poverty.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
03/31/2005 2:18:25 PM ||
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26.03.2005 at 1830 UTC Balikpapan coal terminal, Indonesia. Four persons in a fast craft approached a bulk carrier at berth. Two persons tried to board by climbing a mooring rope. Alert crew raised alarm and boarding was averted. Authorities informed.
22.03.2005 at 0330 LT in position 05:58.3S - 105:59.4E, Pertamina jetty - 1, Tg. Gerem, Indonesia . Two robbers armed with long knives boarded a tanker. Alert duty a/b raised alarm and crew mustered. Robbers jumped overboard and escaped empty handed in a high speedboat.
20.03.2005 at 2300 LT at Chittagong Alfa anchorage, Bangladesh. Two boats with 10 robbers in each approached a chemical tanker preparing to anchor. Two robbers boarded at stern and stole ship's stores. Alert crew raised alarm and robbers escaped. After 45 mins 10 robbers in one boat approached and boarded again at stern. They stole ship's stores and escaped.
Note: Malaysia has refused to allow Japanese Coast Guard patrols to operate in Malaysian waters (in response to the attack on the Japanese tug Idaten).
France said it expects the U.N. Security Council to vote Thursday on a resolution that would authorize the prosecution of Sudanese war crimes suspects by the International Criminal Court, and U.S. officials said Washington had dropped its objections to using the court in this conflict.
But France and the United States were struggling over the language in the resolution, with Washington demanding ironclad guarantees that Americans working in Sudan would not be handed over to the court and still holding out the possibility of a veto if it doesn't get them.
The Security Council scheduled a meeting on Sudan at 5 p.m. Thursday.
"U.S. officials have given a plethora of ideas to the French that would guarantee that Americans wouldn't be vulnerable to prosecution by the ICC and are awaiting their reply," a U.S. official said, using the initials of the court.
France and the eight other council nations that are parties to the ICC met Thursday to discuss the proposed U.S. amendments, council diplomats said.
The Bush administration wanted an African court to try those accused of war crimes, but the U.S. proposal had little support among the 14 other Security Council nations.
The United States wants the perpetrators of atrocities in Sudan's western Darfur region brought to justice, but it vehemently opposes the International Criminal Court on grounds that Americans could face politically motivated or frivolous prosecutions.
The U.S. decision to allow the court to prosecute war crimes perpetrators could raise hackles among conservatives for whom the court is an unaccountable body that cannot be trusted. The 97 countries that have ratified the 1998 Rome Treaty establishing the court _ including all European Union nations _ maintain that there are sufficient safeguards built into the process to prevent unwarranted prosecutions.
France agreed to postpone a vote until Thursday after the United States said it wanted to amend the draft resolution to ensure that no Americans could be handed over to the court, the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal, U.N. diplomats said.
The 15 Security Council nations have been deadlocked for weeks on the issue of holding people accountable in Sudan, and the court's supporters have demanded a vote on the French resolution.
The French draft introduced last week would refer Darfur cases since July 1, 2002, to the International Criminal Court. That was the recommendation of a U.N. panel that had found crimes against humanity _ but not genocide _ occurred in the vast western region.
In a clear concession to the United States, the resolution said citizens of countries that have not ratified the treaty establishing the court will not be subject to prosecution there if they take part in activities in Sudan.
Negotiations on the resolution's final draft have been going on in key capitals, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier, and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw trying to agree on wording that would allow the United States to abstain rather than veto the resolution, the diplomats said.
Details of the final text were not disclosed in Washington or New York.
A veto could be politically damaging because it could give the appearance that the United States opposed the punishment of those responsible for atrocities in Darfur, where the number of dead from a conflict between government-backed militias and rebels is now estimated at 180,000. The United States itself has declared genocide has occurred in Darfur and demanded swift action.
On Tuesday, the Security Council passed a resolution strengthening the arms embargo in Darfur to include the Sudanese government and imposing an asset freeze and travel ban on those who defy peace efforts.
Last week, the council voted to deploy 10,000 U.N. peacekeepers to monitor a peace deal between the government and southern rebels that ended a 21-year civil war. The council hopes the resolution will also help Darfur move toward peace as well.
Yeah. Right. And at my last physical, the doc told me I've got the physique of a man half my age. And that my hair was gonna grow back.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/31/2005 00:00:00 ||
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Cotecna said in a statement that the interim report showed that it had won the oil-for-food contract âon meritâ and that there was no link between Kofi Annan and the awarding of the contract.
Goo-fi Jr's presence on the Cotecna payroll at the time the contract was won seems just a little too convenient to me.
#2
Well there we have it. I feel a whole lot better now. Wonder if they have more of those pay not to play with the competition consultant jobs like my man Kojo earned. Maybe a noncompetition clause would be cheaper.
Ullah told The Times in an exclusive interview that he discovered many conspiracies between the three groups while he was a hostage of the Abu Sayyaf for three years. He said the three organizations tap their fighters as mercenaries and even combine forces occasionally to attack government troops. They cooperate getting their fighters trained under a suspected Jemaah Islamiyah militant, Abu Saki, alias "Jackie." Ullah saw and heard the Abu Sayyaf leader, Radulan Sahiron, talk with MILF chair Al Haj Murad through a satellite phone provided by Murad.
Ullah, who is now under the Witness Protection Program of the Department of Justice, said the Abu Sayyaf hires MILF and MNLF fighters for P50,000. He believed that MILF and MNLF officers get paid higher when they act as mercenaries for the Abu Sayyaf. "Naghihiraman din ng mga tao ang mga Abu Sayyaf, MNLF at MILF. Minsan nga ang MILF ang magtatanim ng bomba sa kalye laban sa mga sundalo at ang Abu Sayyaf ang raratrat at papatay sa mga tinamaan ng bomba [The Abu Sayyaf, MNLF and MILF share fighters. Sometimes the MILF would plant a roadside bomb against soldiers and the Abu Sayyaf would shoot the soldiers wounded in the blast]," Ullah told The Times.
Pael told The Times that he took part in the kidnapping on April 23, 2000, on Sipadan Island in Semporna, Malaysia. Nineteen foreigners and two Filipinos were abducted there, he said. Pael was also involved in kidnapping several people at the Dos Palmas resort in Palawan. He was a soldier of Murad. But an MILF official, Pael said, asked him to go to Basilan and serve Abu Sayyaf leader Khadaffy Janjalani. He said the Abu Sayyaf's ties with the MILF and the MNLF were so strong, the Abu Sayyaf can ask either group for assistance when the Abu Sayyaf is being pressed by the military. The MILF and the MNLF, he added, also provide sanctuary for Abu Sayyaf members when the need arises.
Pael said he became disgusted with the Abu Sayyaf after he was assigned to serve under Abu Sabaya, whom he described as barat [a cheapskate] for limiting his allowance to P1,000 a week and rations to mainly noodles. "I surrendered because I cannot take the training anymore. The training was very hard," he added. The MNLF is based in Jolo, Sulu; the MILF is based in Cotabato and Basilan. The Abu Sayyaf operates today in Jolo, Zamboanga and Tawi-Tawi.
This article starring:
ABU SABAIA
Abu Sayyaf
ABU SAKI
Jemaah Islamiyah
AL HAJ MURAD
Moro Islamic Liberation Front
KHADAFY JANJALANI
Abu Sayyaf
OMAR PAEL
Abu Sayyaf
RADULAN SAHIRON
Abu Sayyaf
Abu Sayyaf
Jemaah Islamiyah
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/31/2005 4:16:35 AM ||
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The Philippines has asked Washington not to include a Muslim separatist group, which has been linked to Jemaah Islamiyah and other radical groups, on a U.S. terrorism blacklist, saying the move could derail peace talks, an official said Wednesday.
There has been speculation that Washington has been considering whether to add the Moro Islamic Liberation Front to its list of terrorist organizations due to widespread reports, mostly from Philippine police and military officials, about the rebel group's alleged terrorism links.
Asked at a news conference about such prospects, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said the government has asked Washington to hold off on any listing to foster Malaysian-brokered talks between Manila and the MILF that are scheduled to resume in Kuala Lumpur next month.
"The national government has made it known to the U.S. that maybe we should give the peace process a chance to move forward," Ermita said. "We have somehow expressed to them that the MILF should not be included in the list of foreign terrorist organizations. That is for the moment."
Teresita Deles, a presidential adviser on the peace talks, said placing the MILF on the U.S. terror list could derail the talks.
Communist guerrillas suspended peace negotiations after Philippine officials declined their demand for the government to push for their removal from U.S. and European Union terror lists.
While many military and police officials point to strong links between MILF guerrillas and Jemaah Islamiyah, including joint training in MILF strongholds and involvement in terrorist plots, the president's top aides have said some rebels appear to have linked up with the foreign militants without the knowledge of their leaders.
The MILF has renounced terrorism and repeatedly denied any links with Jemaah Islamiyah and other foreign militant groups. It also has forged a cease-fire with the government that has halted major clashes for months.
Some security officials have said guerrillas from groups like the extremist Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah have sought refuge in MILF camps, believing troops would not launch offensives there to safeguard the cease-fire and peace talks.
U.S. officials have expressed concern about the presence of Jemaah Islamiyah training camps in the southern Philippines, saying militants acquire bombing and other deadly skills there that they could use anywhere. The Jemaah Islamiyah camps are located in MILF lairs, Philippine security officials say.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on Wednesday visited the MILF's main stronghold, Camp Abubakar, which was captured by troops a few years ago, and inspected U.S.-funded projects with American officials.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/31/2005 12:52:03 AM ||
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STOCKHOLM, Sweden, March 31 (UPI) -- An Iranian doctor, who has lived in Sweden, says Canadian journalist Zahra Kazemi was savagely beaten and raped before she died in Iranian custody in 2003.Shahram Azam, an emergency-room doctor who examined Kazemi before she died, said the woman was also tortured, the Globe and Mail reported in a dispatch from Stockholm. The doctor, who recently received political asylum in Canada, had been a physician on the staff of the Iranian Defense Ministry.
He said he examined Kazemi, a 54-year-old Iranian-born dual citizen, at a Tehran hospital on June 27, 2003, four days after she was arrested while photographing a demonstration outside Tehran's Evin prison. His account of Kazemi's condition in the days before her death, the first by a medical eye witness, confirms she was tortured far more brutally than even critics of Iran's hard-line theocratic regime had believed, the newspaper said. "Her entire body carried strange marks of violence," Azam said.
Azam was scheduled Thursday to give an account of his examination at a news conference in Ottawa. Canada has tried to pressure the Iranian regime, without much success, into reopening the case.
So, Canada, what ya gonna do now?
Posted by: Steve ||
03/31/2005 2:24:16 PM ||
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Uh, that would be NOTHING.
Why do you ask?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/31/2005 15:04 Comments ||
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eh?
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
03/31/2005 15:29 Comments ||
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How about a sternly worded letter? Works for me.
Posted by: Kofi Annan ||
03/31/2005 15:30 Comments ||
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What will Canada do now? Blame it on America.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats ||
03/31/2005 16:39 Comments ||
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Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/31/2005 17:33 Comments ||
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Canada's not going to recall their ambassador. Seems he's been instructed to go to the front door of Khatemi's office every morning, and stamp his feet really hard on the doormat...
#9
Barbara, Mrs. Davis, all...well, we could send our B-52s. But wait we don't have any. And I don't think any western power other than the US would have any ability to do anything militarily. I don't want to start a debate on our pathetic defense spending because I will just agree with you. I just want to point out that as a small to middle power are options are limited.
BUT, (because you good folks are slagging Canada here) I seem to recall the US having a little hostage situation some years back that took some time to resolve...
Something to think about though: Iran obviously would not like us to support any sanctions or military strike (by the US) given our past (dumb-ass) record. So guess on who's side we might just support this time....
SYRIA'S troops are going home. Before Lebanon's spring elections. Damascus made the promise in writing. To the United Nations.
The question now is: How much damage does Syria intend to do on the way out?
While a commitment from Damascus to the U.N. has a whiff of a pimp's promise to a hooker, international pressure will force the Syrians to honor their word. The problem lies in what the agreement omits. Getting the 12,000 or so remaining Syrian troops out of Lebanon certainly matters. But ridding the country of Bashar Assad's 5,000-plus intelligence operatives is what really counts. And Damascus has been coy about their removal.
Syria's troops are bums with guns — largely undertrained draftees with unreliable equipment. They can't act without being seen by all. They'd be hard to use effectively.
The intel and security boys are another matter. Some function overtly, an acknowledged presence. But many work in the shadows. And there's no place on earth where the shadows grow longer and darker than in the Middle East.
If the intelligence personnel — overt, covert and clandestine — aren't removed, the Syrian menace remains as grave as ever. Their agents don't merely spy and report. They bribe, bully, blackmail — and kill.
Syrian intel operatives were behind the assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister, Rafik Hariri. Even if they worked through Hezbollah or contract killers, Syrian agents doubtless sponsored the recent terror bombings in Christian enclaves, as well.
What does Syria want? Enduring control of Lebanon, its people, its foreign policy, its wealth and its strategic location. Assad and his cronies regard Syria as Saddam Hussein regarded Kuwait: an integral part of the homeland, hewn off by outside powers.
How will Syria try to get what it wants? Subversion. Terror. Resurrecting yesteryear's fears and hatreds. By bribing, blackmailing and murdering. By igniting a new civil war, if Damascus can get away with it.
Who will do it? Those intelligence operatives, if they stay behind. Along with Hezbollah dead-enders who want nothing to do with true democracy, civil liberties or a just peace with Israel.
Like the 21st-century IRA and Saddam's Baathists, Hezbollah has become a deadly mafia whose immediate goals are self-perpetuation and power.
Even if there's a formal withdrawal of Syrian intel agents, it's extremely unlikely that the undercover operatives would go home. And Syria will continue pulling the strings in Lebanon's own penetrated and compromised security services — which need to be purged.
What will happen if Lebanon's democracy appears on the verge of triumphing, despite Syrian mischief? If the Assad regime can't possess Lebanon, it will do its best to wreck it — to reignite the violence of 25 years ago to "prove" that Syria's presence was essential for peace.
What Assad the Lesser can't have, he'll try to destroy.
Given the remarkable strides the Middle East has made since Iraq's elections — with suggestions of more progress to come — we can't afford to let Damascus get away with a partial withdrawal or any other form of delay or compromise.
The Lebanese want all of the Syrians out. They want freedom and independence. That's the deciding factor. Every Syrian soldier, agent and scheming official must go.
If Assad and his henchmen try to destabilize Lebanon, the Syrian government must pay a painful price. Even if that requires military action.
Thus far, Assad has literally gotten away with murder in Iraq by feigning innocence and intermittent cooperation. Our reluctance to call him to account may have led him to believe that he can pull a sleight-of-hand trick in Lebanon, withdrawing troops publicly while attacking the country in the netherworld of terror.
There's an impressive international consensus for getting the Syrians out — lock, stock and hookah. Terrified of being deprived of influence in the changing Middle East, even the French have aligned themselves with America on this issue. Assad will try to divide us, to cut backroom deals. We must hold the French to an Anglophone standard of reliable behavior — no secret handshakes between Paris and Damascus.
Our successes in the Middle East have changed the region's political direction. Freedom and democracy are gathering momentum. But the course of reform could still be reversed among the failure-haunted Arabs. Lebanon is the next potential crisis and a critical test of our will. President Bush must continue to make our resolve explicitly clear, if we hope to prevent the ruin of Lebanon's convalescent society and economy.
If the Syrian government attempts to destroy Lebanon, the Damascus regime itself must be destroyed.
Syria is working covertly through a network of Lebanese operatives to ensure Damascus can still dominate its smaller neighbor even after it withdraws the last of 15,000 troops, in defiance of a U.N. resolution demanding an end to Syria's 29-year control over Lebanon, according to U.S., European and U.N. officials, and Lebanon's opposition. Although Syria shut down its notorious intelligence headquarters in downtown Beirut, Damascus is establishing a new hidden presence in the capital's southern suburbs, bringing in officials who will not be recognized, say Lebanese opposition and Western sources. The move would contradict a pledge by President Bashar Assad to withdraw Syria's large intelligence operation from the Lebanese capital as of today.
U.S., European and U.N. officials also charge that Syria is using allies in Lebanon's government and agents in Lebanon's security services to stall Lebanon's spring elections for a new parliament, the key to political change. In the current government, the president, the acting prime minister and at least 70 of the 128 members of parliament are pro-Syrian. "Despite the presence of Syrian troops in Lebanon, Damascus has controlled Lebanon primarily through Lebanese institutions that it fills with pro-Syrian loyalists," wrote Robert G. Rabil in an analysis this week for the Washington Institute of Near East Policy.
In a last major diplomatic push, U.S. and European envoys have all issued tough and repeated demarches -- or formal warnings -- over the past two weeks to Assad's government about the urgent need to abandon all efforts to influence Lebanese political life, as well as ending the long-standing Syrian military presence, the sources said. "What we're trying to do is put as much pressure on Damascus to make clear that any use of the assets it has in Lebanon, residually or otherwise, will not be tolerated -- and to the degree anything bad happens, Syria will be held responsible," said a senior U.S. official involved in Lebanon policy.
A senior State Department official added: "The message we're sending is: The people who should be running Lebanon are not Syrian or agents of Syria, but the Lebanese. . . . The only presence Syria should have in Lebanon is an embassy, like every other foreign country." Syria, which has long considered Lebanon to be an extension of its own sovereignty, does not have an embassy in Beirut.
U.N. envoy Terje Roed-Larsen is expected to stress the importance of removing all vestiges of Syrian influence during his third and final round of talks with Assad on Sunday, before submitting his formal report to the U.N. Security Council about whether Damascus has complied, U.S. and European officials said. In preparation for the meeting, Roed-Larsen flew to Washington for talks yesterday with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley. Afterward, State Department spokesman J. Adam Ereli said the international community now has achieved "a clear and straightforward consensus . . . that this is an issue that needs to be resolved urgently so that the Lebanese can have real elections untainted by foreign interference."
In their demarches, the United States and the European Union, which have crafted a joint policy on Lebanon, also made clear that they hold Syria at least partially responsible for a recent spate of bombings, U.S. officials said. "We believe they are behind those attacks," the first senior U.S. official said. "We're concerned that they want to foment the kind of bombings and dislocation that the Lebanese fear could happen -- and that will allow the Syrians to say this is what happens when we remove our forces from your country." Syria first deployed troops to Lebanon in 1976 as part of a failed attempt to end a civil war, which raged on for another 14 years.
Syria has other means of influencing events in Lebanon, note U.S. and Middle East analysts. The two countries have a joint defense agreement that could allow Syria to return on virtually any grounds. And economically, more than 600,000 Syrian workers are pivotal to a country smaller than Connecticut with fewer than 4 million people. Untangling the economic relations between the two countries will be difficult, and may be left for a separate set of negotiations to arrange new treaties governing trade, immigration and employment. Many Syrian workers are in menial jobs in the eastern Bekaa Valley, providing cheap labor that many Lebanese farmers have come to rely on.
"Syrian influence has permeated most facets of economic, political and social life here with even senior civil positions having to be cleared from Damascus. Of course topping them all is their intimate relationships with all Lebanese security agencies. Now that the Syrians are withdrawing, to expect that intimate relationship to wither away would be plain naivete," said Timur Goksel, a long-serving former U.N. adviser in Lebanon now teaching at American University of Beirut.
The U.N. and U.S. strategy in Lebanon is based on the Syrian military withdrawal's creating a new space for free elections and political change. And some Lebanese analysts are optimistic. Syria is bound to "keep exploring ways to sustain its influence," said Rami Khouri, editor of Beirut's Daily Star newspaper. "But I don't see how Syria can keep a significant residual influence, given the strong domestic pressures for an overhaul of the political and security systems in Lebanon."
But others argue that almost three decades of control is hard to undo. And the most crucial element of Syrian control may be psychological, Goksel added. "Many Lebanese opportunists, former warlords, nouveau riche types who made their fortunes by linking their fates to Syrian presence and thus contributed more than anyone else to turn Lebanon into a Syrian protectorate have truly created an atmosphere of total Syrian dependence here."
Posted by: Steve ||
03/31/2005 10:53:15 AM ||
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#1
more interesting is how (or even )whether Assad will be able to control Syria a few months from now
From Washington, the rhetoric calls for diplomatic solutions to the nuclear standoff with Iran. But Tehran also hears a growing drumbeat for war that echoes the build-up to US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
In preparation for any strike on its budding nuclear facilities, Iran is making clear that the price will be high - burnishing its military forces, boosting its missile program, and warning of a painful response against US and Israeli targets in the region.
"They see a fight coming, regardless of what they do, so they are getting ready for it," says a European diplomat in Tehran, referring to ideologues who think a US invasion is a "very real prospect." Even moderate conservatives fear the "Iraqization of the Iran dossier," says the diplomat. The result is that Iran is "constantly trying to project strength" and is developing a new doctrine of asymmetric warfare.
President Bush, who included Iran in his "axis of evil," has called speculation about a strike "ridiculous," but says all options are open. Earlier this month, the US added modest incentives of WTO membership and spare aircraft parts to bolster Britain, France, and Germany as they negotiate with Iran over its nuclear program. But the US last week refused to consider a security guarantee, as proposed by the head of the UN's nuclear watchdog agency.
Experts say Iran has many assets to draw upon in case of attack:
⢠Iran has been upgrading its Shahab-3 missile, which can reach Israel and US forces in the region. Iran's armed forces have conducted high-profile military exercises since last fall.
⢠Iran is reported to have set up sophisticated air defenses around its nuclear facilities. US officials in February said pilotless US drones had been sent from Iraq since last year to sample the air for traces of uranium enrichment. Iran has confirmed that it is excavating deep underground tunnels to protect some nuclear facilities.
⢠Ukraine's new pro-West lawmakers are investigating "smuggled" shipments of a dozen Soviet-era Kh-55 cruise missiles - designed to carry a 200-kiloton nuclear warhead 1,860 miles, virtually undetectable by radar - to Iran in 2001. A Russia-Iran satellite launch deal is to provide digital maps for more accurate targeting, according to Moscow analyst Pavel Felgenhauer.
⢠Western diplomats are raising concerns that Iran is "quietly building a stockpile" of sophisticated military equipment, such as 2,000 armor-piercing sniper rifles and night-vision goggles, acquired through legal purchases as well as under a UN anti-drug program, the Associated Press reported last Friday.
Beyond this, civilian hard-liners have been recruiting suicide bombers to kill US troops in Iraq, or Israelis. Though derided by some officials as not serious, by last June 15,000 had signed up, according to Knight-Ridder.
"It is code to America: 'If you hit us, we will play dirty, using Hizbullah and volunteers to hit the US across the region," says the European diplomat, echoing analysts who note that Iran can swiftly destabilize Iraq, activate militant cells, and close the Strait of Hormuz to oil traffic. "There is an enormous danger of miscalculation."
That possibility, and the examples of US-engineered regime change in Afghanistan and Iraq, are causing Iran to hedge its bets.
"If I was a student of [Prussian military strategist Karl von] Clausewitz, I would do as the US does: I would talk incentives, and [at the same time] design a theater of war against the enemy," says Abbas Maleki, a former deputy foreign minister who heads the Institute for Caspian Studies in Tehran.
In response, says Mr. Maleki, Iranians are focusing on three possibilities: a surgical strike on nuclear facilities; a three-month rolling air attack; and a six-month "troops on the ground" option.
"Iran must be very, very cautious to avoid any attack," says Maleki, who maintains ties to Iran's leadership. "We have conventional weapons designed for neighboring threats like Saddam Hussein and the Taliban - not to fight a superpower. But we must defend ourselves."
Talking up that defense is almost daily news in Iran, where supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says Iranians are "accustomed to the harsh and threatening language of the enemy," and told Iranian nuclear officials last week to ignore US threats and continue their work. The Revolutionary Guards "must be ready all the time," he said, "to stand up to ... acts of bullying."
Analysts say any military action by the US could boost unpopular conservatives.
"Iranians are very patriotic, and though there is a lot of dissatisfaction with the regime, they oppose an attack," says Nasser Hadian-Jazy, a political scientist at Tehran University with close ties to the Khatami government. "It would be like Sept. 11 in the US, which brought the neocons into power. A US attack could bring our neocons into power."
Many experts agree that a military attack aimed at nuclear sites could propel Iran's leadership to kick out UN inspectors and withdraw from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
As a signatory of the NPT, Iran has been relatively cooperative so far. Despite numerous Iranian reporting violations, and delays visiting certain sites, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says its inspectors have found no evidence of a weapons program.
Adding to concern in the West, the Asian Wall Street Journal reported last week that US intelligence has received tens of thousands of pages of Farsi-language designs and test data, dated from 2001 to 2003, to modify the Shahab-3 missile to carry a "black box" that, the report says, US experts "believe is almost certainly a nuclear warhead."
Similar leaks about Iraq's alleged weapons activities prior to the invasion proved crucial to making the case for war, but were later disproved. The Journal reports that US officials first thought "the find might be disinformation, perhaps by Israel," but "are now persuaded ... the documents are real."
A complete 14-month reassessment of US intelligence on WMD threats ordered by the White House, and using pre-war errors about Iraq as a case study - is to be presented to President Bush Thursday. A lengthy classified section is reported to have found serious gaps in US knowledge of Iran's programs.
"Nobody knows exactly how they are doing it, where they're doing it, and how far along they are - all the stuff which is critical to know if you were to launch a strike," says Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA analyst now at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
"Rather than setting back the nuclear program, [a strike] could accelerate it," says Mr. Pollack, author of "The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and America." "That's actually sinking in with the [Bush] administration."
Diplomats in Tehran say the US and Europe last month hammered out a two-page agreement on how to "march together" in dealing with Iran - a big change for an administration that has long dismissed the European initiative.
But such moves come amid a host of reports from the US and Israel of US special forces operating clandestinely in Iran already, searching for evidence of a nuclear weapons program; the use of unmanned drones; and even Israeli commandos training for their own strike dressed in Revolutionary Guard uniform and using dogs strapped with explosives.
Showing improved abilities is part of Iran's deterrent strategy, though most equipment is "aging or second rate and much of it is worn," Anthony Cordesman, a veteran Mideast military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, wrote in December. Even the Soviet KH-55 missiles delivered to Iran may have been substandard, Ukrainian defense attorneys now say, though Iran could reverse-engineer them.
Still, Iran has the largest military in the region, with 540,000 active troops and 350,000 more in reserves. In addition to more than 1,600 battle tanks and 1,500 other armored vehicles, Mr. Cordesman writes, "there is considerable evidence that [Iran] is developing both a long-range missile force and a range of weapons of mass destruction."
Ironically, any strike could bury Iran's already weakened moderates. "This action will really work against democracy and reformers in Iran, and I believe the Americans know that," says Mostafa Tajzadeh, a former deputy interior minister and adviser to Khatami. "If we are pessimists, we would say they want hard-liners to [solidify] control."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/31/2005 4:30:52 AM ||
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I recall the same arguments about Serbia over Kosovo and if it comes to a shooting war it will be waged in the same way - destroy infrastructure until the population is hungry in the dark without telephones or TV wondering what the hell is going on.
#2
Sigh. It would take hours to fisk this CSM piece of doom & gloom shit - but it screams out for it. Looking at who's quoted where the point is we should not attack and merely wring our hands tells the tale. Oh, and Pollack's flogging his book. Play-dirty asymmetrical war requires money - lots of money - all of the manpower is mercenary. When the MM's have been decapped or hung by their own, will the money already delivered be used by Hezbollah, et al, to fight? Or will they pocket it since they have suddenly run out of sponsors and cover - and no more money will be forthcoming? Shit. Stupid CSM moron.
The story is yet another point in the MM dataset of obfuscation and misdirection. The CSM are willing toadies. Fuck 'em - both.
The MM's created this little scene. They insist upon playing it out to the bitter bloody end. They already know the ending - if we don't flinch or lose heart - unless they buy their own bullshit. The Iranian people will get it regards why it had to happen, if they can't get it together themselves in time. Even if they don't, nukes should not be in the hands of this sort of insanity. So it's simple: this will not stand. Period.
We all know that the majority of the ruling assholes will bail before the fireworks start. It's the typical asshat move, no matter what flavor. All bullies are cowards - these cretinous blowhards are no different. They should find no shelter - none - anywhere. Anyone who takes them in should be severely punished by every means available.
Senior Shiite cleric Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah has repeated his assertion that he holds the United States responsible for the current level of tension and instability in the country. "The United States is provoking tension everywhere, and is working to generate political instability as part of its strategy to control the region," the senior cleric said during his weekly seminar held on Wednesday. Fadlallah warned the Lebanese against the trappings of American hegemony and said officials in the country should not allow international and regional forces to interfere in Lebanese affairs. Fadlallah said: "We urge all Lebanese, particularly the loyalists and the opposition, to work for the stability of the country and hold productive dialogue" in order to preserve the citizens' interests and save the country from the repercussions of instability.
Piss off, Beardo. We didn't blow anybody up. In Lebanon, anyway...
Posted by: Fred ||
03/31/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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A Lebanese Christian opposition figure said on Wednesday that moves to disarm the Shiite Muslim group Hizbullah should start straight after a parliamentary election, sooner than others in the opposition have proposed. The timing of any disarmament, called for by Washington and the United Nations, is a delicate issue within the anti-Syrian opposition as it tries to improve ties with the pro-Syrian Hizbullah, the only Lebanese political group still to bear arms. "After the elections, one of the first issues would be dialogue with Hizbullah about the deployment of the Lebanese Army in the South and it should be disarmed when the army itself is in charge," according to former President Amin Gemayel, a Maronite Christian.
The opposition - a collection of Sunni Muslim, Christian and Druze groups united by the February 14 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri - has remained broadly united over calls for Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon. But analysts say differences may emerge over issues such as how to deal with Hizbullah, which proved its popularity by leading big pro-Syrian demonstrations. Hizbullah fighters, who helped force Israeli troops out of South Lebanon in 2000, still control some border areas that the United Nations says the Lebanese Army should now take over. Leading opposition member and Chouf MP Walid Jumblatt said after talks with Hizbullah on Sunday that any disarmament discussion was off the agenda until Israel withdrew from a disputed border area, known as Shebaa Farms. But Gemayel said disarmament should happen before a withdrawal takes place. "There is a legal dispute about the Shebaa Farms and we have to deploy the Lebanese Army regardless of the problem," he said from his office in Christian east Beirut.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/31/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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Around 3,000 people demonstrated Wednesday against alleged U.S. meddling in Lebanon's political crisis since the assassination of former Premier Rafik Hariri. "Satterfield out, the government is our business," shouted the demonstrators, referring to U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield, who left Lebanon earlier in the day after a week-long stay that evoked criticism by pro-government factions. The rally, which is the third of its kind this month, was organized by the resistance group Hizbullah and was held outside the heavily guarded U.S. Embassy in Awkar, on the coast north of the capital. A cordon of police and soldiers as well as Civil Defense members equipped with water cannons kept the demonstrators some 800 meters away on the road leading up to the mission. "Zionists govern the U.S., not the U.S.," read a banner amid a sea of red-and-white Lebanese flags, as Abdullah Qassir, a Hizbullah MP, condemned American interference in Lebanon.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/31/2005 00:00:00 ||
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Lebanon's opposition is set to nominate a candidate for prime minister, a step that could finally break the deadlock which has paralyzed Lebanese politics and move the country toward May's scheduled elections. But despite the opposition's apparent softening in its stance, the group insisted that nominating a candidate did not mean it will serve in an interim cabinet ahead the elections. The opposition Bristol Gathering is set to meet at the home of slain former Premier Rafik Hariri today and leading opposition MP Bassem Sabaa said the meeting is likely to name a candidate for the premiership. He said: "Our top priority now is to arrive at a solution that will allow the country to have elections next month." He added: "This time there will be no boycott."
Until now, the opposition has refused to put forward a candidate to replace former Premier Omar Karami who resigned in February, but re-emerged as premier designate in the absence of opposition alternatives. But the continuation of the political stalemate has led to fears within the opposition that President Emile Lahoud will postpone the upcoming polls.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/31/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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Syrian President Bashar Assad has slammed the UN's fact-finding mission into the assassination of former Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri and denied its central accusation that he threatened Hariri with physical harm.
"Nope. Nope. Never happened. Nope."
Assad said: "It is a report of political character when I was expecting rather a report of a technical-criminal nature."
"Really. I was looking forward to finding out who dunnit!"
"Right until the end Syria had excellent relations with Mr. Hariri. We had worked with him since the 1990s," Assad told Austrian weekly News. The UN report said Syria bore "primary responsibility" for the political tension that preceded the assassination and accused Assad of warning Hariri that he "would rather break Lebanon over the heads of Hariri and the Druze leader Walid Jumblatt than see his word in Lebanon broken." In a letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Sharaa demanded the deletion of Assad's alleged threat to Hariri from the report. Sharaa said that the claim of an "alleged improper dialogue" between Assad and Hariri was "very strange" and should be removed. Sharaa added: "This reference will never be accepted because it is untrue and lacks any material evidence. It should be removed to help preserve the credibility of the United Nations."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/31/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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San Diego's General Atomics is being awarded a $68.2 million contract to develop the next generation of the Predator robotic spy plane, the Defense Department said yesterday.
The contract calls for General Atomics to build and demonstrate the MQ-9 Hunter-Killer drone, also known as the Predator B, for the U.S. Air Force. Compared with the original Predator, which has been widely used in Iraq and Afghanistan, the MQ-9 aircraft can fly twice as high and carry a bigger payload of weapons.
Executives at GA Aeronautical Systems could not be reached for comment yesterday. The company employs about 1,200 and has about 800,000 square feet of manufacturing and office space throughout Southern California.
The deal highlights the Air Force's growing reliance on remotely piloted aircraft, including Northrop Grumman Corp.'s high-flying Global Hawk reconnaissance plane, which was developed in San Diego.
Contract options for the MQ-9 include retrofitting four aircraft to the new configuration, as well as communications and ground-and flight-test facility upgrades.
The first-generation Predator can fly as high as 25,000 feet and stay aloft for up to 40 hours. It can provide real-time video feeds to U.S. troops on the ground and fire two Hellfire anti-tank missiles.
The new version of the aircraft is designed to fly as high as 50,000 feet. It can carry a total of 16 Hellfires — as many as the Army's Apache helicopter. Yeehaw!
General Atomics said last month it has manufactured 126 Predators since it began making the unmanned aircraft in San Diego more than a decade ago. Six of those were the MQ-9 second-generation plane.
Earlier this month, the Air Force said it planned to spend $5.7 billion to buy enough Predators to equip 15 squadrons over the next five years, compared with the current three squadrons.
The Predator's main mission so far has been surveillance and reconnaissance. But in November 2002, a Predator fired a missile at a civilian vehicle carrying suspected guerrillas in Yemen, the first such reported offensive use of the drone
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/31/2005 11:14:58 AM ||
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I wonder Boeing is ever going to move into this action. Not having to carry humans, drones of the future may look totally un-airplane-like. I suspect that the most effective combat drone will be much like the WWII Jeep--inexpensive and mass-producible, as ubiquitous as personal computers. Each operator might fly a dozen or more as a team, the airplanes communicating with each other like Strykers, for navigation, threat avoidance, targetting and attack. The hardware already exists, all that must be done is the AI software, then tens of thousands of these things could rule the sky.
ASMARA, Eritrea (Reuters) - An increasingly belligerent border stalemate between Ethiopia and Eritrea could lead to renewed war, the top U.N. peacekeeper in the conflict said on Thursday. The two Horn of Africa countries fought a 1998-2000 border war that killed an estimated 70,000 people. Under a deal to end the conflict, both agreed to accept an independent commission's decision on where the border should be. But Ethiopia was unhappy with the April 2002 ruling that gave a disputed border town to Eritrea. Eritrea has demanded the commission decision be accepted in full. In recent months more Ethiopian troops have moved closer to the frontier, raising the temperature in the volatile region.
"The stalemate is firmly wedged between these two irreconcilable positions. The danger of the continued stalemate is war," said Legwaila Joseph Legwaila, head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission that patrols a security zone between Eritrea and Ethiopia. "The longer there is no solution to the stalemate, the more it becomes very difficult to monitor a temporary security zone, while violent rhetoric is emanating from both capitals," he told a news conference. Legwaila said a March 14 U.N. Security Council resolution extending the peacekeeping mission in Eritrea and Ethiopia was too weak. "This resolution should have been more forceful to indicate to the parties that the U.N. Security Council is running out of patience," Legwaila said. "As a peacekeeper, I was disappointed because I did not think there was enough meat in it."
They'll get to you right after they deal with Sudan.
It followed a stronger report from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan that criticized Ethiopia for moving as many as 48,000 troops close to the border in December. It also criticized Eritrea's refusal to hold talks with the border commission and Ethiopia in London. In November, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said he had accepted the border ruling "in principle," but wanted talks with Asmara first. Eritrea refused categorically, and rejected the commission's invitation to talks in London in February and also a visit from U.N. Special Envoy Lloyd Axworthy.
I really don't care anymore. They want to fight over this worthless patch of dirt, let them. Just throw a fence around the whole area and let them have at it.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/31/2005 10:07:25 AM ||
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SOS and Kofi, thank you ever so much for the input.
A court in Afghanistan has cut by at least half the sentences of three US citizens jailed for torturing Afghans and running a private jail in Kabul. But the court rejected their appeal for the convictions to be overturned. Jonathan Idema, Brent Bennett and Edward Caraballo were sentenced last September after a chaotic trial. Branded by the US as a bounty hunter, Idema has said his work was approved by Afghan and US authorities, a claim that US officials have denied. Idema and Bennett's sentences were reduced from 10 years to five and three respectively, reports quoted one of the four judges hearing the case as saying. It is not yet clear why the sentences have been reduced.
Cash, check or money order would be my guess
Idema was known in Afghanistan as a mysterious figure, often seen clad in combat gear and dark glasses and heavily armed.
Kind of like how he dressed back home, in front of a mirror.
He was one of many former special forces soldiers working privately in Afghanistan - some to provide security, others acting as bounty hunters attracted by the millions of dollars in rewards offered for Osama Bin Laden and other top al-Qaeda men.
Don't forget the book deals
The three men were arrested in July 2004 after Afghan forces raided a house in a Kabul neighbourhood and discovered eight Afghan men being held captive. Idema said his group was tracking down terror suspects with the co-operation of Afghan and US authorities. The US said it had received one prisoner from Idema but the Pentagon denied any ties to him. Nato forces also said they had been duped into helping the group on three occasions. Correspondents say their trial was often chaotic and marred by poor translation. Defence lawyers said the Afghan legal system was not fit to try the men. The Americans are serving their sentences in Kabul's Pul-e Charkhi prison. They have a heated and carpeted cell with satellite television.
Sounds like somebody slipped the warden a few bucks.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/31/2005 9:00:49 AM ||
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JENAN AL-UBAEDEY peers over her half-moon glasses, waving her black-gloved hands between repeated tugs on her long, flowing abaya to pull it closer around her face. "If you say to a man he cannot use force against a woman, you are asking the impossible," she explains. "So we say a husband can beat his wife, but he cannot leave a mark. If he does that, he will be punished." On the subject of polygamy, the former paediatrician turned politician says: "If you don't allow your husband to take another wife, he'd have an affair anyway . . . I'd rather know my husband has another wife that I know about." In fact, Dr Ubaedey's husband is back home in the Shia holy city of Najaf, looking after the couple's four children while she stays in Baghdad to take up her duties as one of Iraq's new parliamentarians.
As a devout Shia Muslim and one of eighty-nine women sitting in the new parliament, she knows what her first priority there is: to implement Islamic law. When Dr Ubaedey took her seat at last week's assembly opening, she found herself among an increasingly powerful group of religious women politicians who are seeking to repeal old laws giving women some of the same rights as men and replace them with Sharia, Islam's divine law. Among the new laws that they are pushing for is one allowing men to marry up to four wives, one awarding women half the inheritance given to men and another denying women custody of children over the age of 2 in the event of divorce. This is not what the American administrators imagined when they pushed for a quota of nearly one third of women in parliament in the hope of protecting their rights.
More than 50 per cent of female parliamentarians belong to the cleric-backed United Iraqi Alliance, which won the election in a landslide with just over half the seats. It has called the implementation of Sharia "non-negotiable". Secular women fighting the conservative religious agenda say that women such as Dr Udaedey make their job harder. "It's weakening our position," Nada al-Bayiati, of the Women's Organisation for Freedom in Iraq, said. "How can you argue for women's rights when the women are undermining you?" Other critics also contend that the quota has worked against women's rights because the male leaders of the Shia parties stacked the list with women who had few qualifications or political ambitions of their own but who would blindly support their agenda.
Dr Ubaedey cannot be counted among them. Her views are her own and her ambitions cannot be doubted. But she admits that the same cannot be said of all her female colleagues. "It's true that many of them — maybe a third — have just been put there by the men. They are not aware and don't come to meetings, so they don't know what's going on," she said. "About 10 per cent of them are learning, but the others don't really care." Under Saddam Hussein, Iraqi women were among the most free in the Middle East, with many rights equal to those of men. Conservative Shias say that the code that ensured those rights is an alien secular one that belongs to the old regime and should be dropped.
Early last year, women's groups were treated to a taste of their vision of women's rights in the new Iraq, when the Shia-led governing council issued a resolution cancelling the old civil code on family law and referred all cases instead to the religious courts — a de facto imposition of Sharia. That resolution was cancelled by Paul Bremer, the former US administrator. With such external regulation gone, secular women say that they fear for the future. Dr Udaebey is not for turning. "Look," she says, as she explains why she would be obliged to give up her job in parliament if her husband wanted her to, "I didn't make the law, God did, so it can't be changed. This is the way things are." Inshallah, moron.
Posted by: Bulldog ||
03/31/2005 2:39:52 AM ||
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Yep, Bulldog, she is a moron. If this is the future the women of Iraq want, they will get it. By making this choice, they must understand that all future cries for help against honor killings, domestic violence, religious persecution of women and the ensuing demands for Western investment to clean up the aftermath of those issues will be disregarded as a result. Unfortunately, it looks like the women of Iraq need to learn the lesson of cause and effect. It will probably take decades, centuries, for them to figure out what they have done to themselves.
#2
Let's face it - Iraqis really do have different values - from both Europeans and Americans. I really don't see a problem if the majority of the people actually favor this course of action. Muslims have had these practices for over a thousand years (and throughout all 200+ years of Uncle Sam's existence, without staging mass casualty attacks against civilians like 9/11, prior to the 1990's). As long as they stay away from doing things like 9/11, I really don't care what they do to their own people. It's their country, after all.
An interesting look at American global ambitions from a surprising source...The Guardian.
Posted by: seafarious ||
03/31/2005 1:30:19 AM ||
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No nation can simply go it alone, certainly not one that seeks to dominate the world.
A slight misunderstanding. The period following 9/11 persuaded the Americans that they now had an opportunity to remake the world in their own image,...
That's closer.
It seems to me that the rest of the world sounds jealous of us. We respond by trying to share that which we treasure most.
#2
Article: No nation can simply go it alone, certainly not one that seeks to dominate the world.
Asinine assumptions like this are why I avoid the Guardian like the plague. Uncle Sam doesn't seek to dominate the world - it merely seeks to avoid getting hit by things like 9/11. If Holland had been hit by something like 9/11, it would have carried out a small country response, which consists mainly of mourning. The US had been doing the small country response for a while before 9/11. Post-9/11, Uncle Sam showed its enemies what a big country response looks like. With any luck, they haven't seen the last of it. The question isn't whether the US can "go it alone". It is whether the Guardian's loony anti-American assumptions are beneath contempt. I think they are.
A Department of Homeland Security internal report that assesses terrorist organizations, their anticipated targets and preferred weapons concludes that the threat to the United States presented by North Korea and several other countries long described as "state sponsors of terrorism" is declining.
"In the post-9/11 environment, countries do not appear to be facilitating or supporting terrorist groups intent on striking the U.S. homeland," says the draft report, which is intended to help the Homeland Security agency define its spending priorities through 2011.
Of the six nations identified by the State Department as terrorist sponsors, five of them - North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Libya and Cuba - are described by Homeland Security as a "diminishing concern." Iran, the final country on the list, alone is described as a potential threat over the next five years.
"Only Iran appears to have the possible future motivation to use terrorist groups, in addition to its own state agents, to plot against the U.S. homeland," the report says, adding that "ideologically driven nonstate actors" are the biggest threat.
Terrorism experts said Wednesday that while the assessment seemed accurate, it was an unusual statement for the Bush administration, which has often called North Korea and several other nations serious threats.
"The administration has been very reluctant to accept that state sponsorship is a waning phenomenon," said Daniel Benjamin, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a co-author of "The Age of Sacred Terror."
This is the first time the two-year-old department has prepared what will now be an annual Integrated Planning Guidance Report, a document that is listed as "sensitive" but not classified, meaning it was not intended to be released publicly.
The goal, said Brian Roehrkasse, a department spokesman, is to better focus the department's $40 billion in annual spending toward the most serious threats.
Al Qaeda, not unexpectedly, tops a list of adversaries in the report, although the authors question if the group can still pull off attacks similar in scale to those of Sept. 11, 2001.
Other predicted possible sponsors of attacks include Jamaat ul-Fuqra, a Pakistani-based group that has been linked to Muslims of America; Jamaat al Tabligh, an Islamic missionary organization that has a presence in the United States; and the American Dar Al Islam Movement. Representatives for the organizations could not be reached Wednesday for comment or did not respond to telephone or e-mail messages.
The report, which was first disclosed last week on the Congressional Quarterly Web site, identifies animal rights activists and radical environmentalists as possible backers of plots. But it does not mention any domestic extremist groups, like World Church of the Creator, Aryan Nations or anti-abortion activists, which have previously been identified by federal officials as domestic terrorist threats.
In assessing the most likely targets, the report says that "visual symbols" - like the White House, the Capitol, the Pentagon and the C.I.A. headquarters - as well as "American popular culture icons" - including the Golden Gate Bridge, George Washington Bridge and the Statue of Liberty - top the list.
The report says increasing security may simply force a change in the weapons terrorists would try to use, for example mortars or rockets to attack from a distance. Truck bombs and small boats packed with explosives are identified as other extremely likely weapons of choice.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/31/2005 12:34:30 AM ||
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US officials say a terror suspect imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay is a former Iraqi soldier and al-Qaeda member who plotted with an Iraqi intelligence agent in August 1998 to attack the American and other foreign embassies in Pakistan with chemical weapons, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
There is no public record of such an attempt being made, although the Islamabad embassy staff was reduced that month amid heightened security concerns, following the Aug 7 truck bomb attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
The Iraqi, whose identity is being concealed, is described as a "trusted agent" of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. He was arrested in Pakistan in July 2002. There is no indication the Iraqi's alleged terror-related activities were on behalf of Saddam government.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/31/2005 12:31:23 AM ||
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The Algerian government is preparing the ground for a general amnesty that would clear security forces of atrocities charges and, it is hoped, persuade remaining armed Islamists to end a 13-year campaign of violence.
The mechanics of the amnesty, first mooted by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika last year, remain uncertain. There is strong opposition from victims of Islamist atrocities and the families of some 7,000 people alleged to have disappeared at the hands of the security forces during the civil war.
Human rights activists fear the amnesty may largely be designed to allow war crimes committed by the security forces to be swept under the carpet.
Mr Bouteflika acknowledged recently that the war claimed 150,000 lives. It was sparked when the military cut short 1991 elections that the opposition Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) looked certain to win.
Violence has been steadily declining since the late 1990s. Meanwhile soaring world energy prices have allowed the government, which depends on oil and gas for 97 per cent of its export earnings, to begin addressing some of the social problems at the root of the violence. Nevertheless, the stubborn remnants of the insurrection keep bombs and clashes sporadically in the news.
Malek Serrai, a member of a national committee working on the details, said the amnesty aimed to halt the violence and set the country on a path towards reconciliation. He and other members of the committee have begun setting up regional centres to sensitise the population before a referendum on the issue later this year.
They have also initiated contacts with some of an estimated 200-600 armed militants still at large. Most are from the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), linked in the past by western and Algerian officials to al-Qaeda. The group has now split, with one part seeking to disarm, according to the Algerian press.
"Their main demand is that they are not treated as individuals, that the amnesty must be global, their files wiped clean and their rights as normal citizens restored," Mr Serrai said.
Some 6,700 former FIS militants who benefited from an earlier truce - many of whom have been unable to regain their status in society - would be rehabilitated. It is hoped many other Algerians will be persuaded to return from exile.
Mr Serrai said there would be procedures for compensating some of the victims - both those directly affected by violence and businesses that lost property as a result of it.
Mostefa Bouchachi, a human rights lawyers in Algiers, said that for many Algerians this might seem to draw a line under the traumatic events of the 1990s.
"When it comes to human rights activists, to mothers whose sons disappeared, and wives who lost husbands and who still don't know whether they are alive or if they are dead how they died, it is more complicated," Mr Bouchachi said.
"The amnesty will let a lot of people responsible for crimes off the hook."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/31/2005 12:35:27 AM ||
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Algeria plans general amnesty! I think that means amnesty for generals.
Iraqi politicians are confident they can draft a new constitution before a mid-August deadline despite the fact they have not formed a government more than two months after the election.
Despite those obstacles, lawmakers insist they have time to draw up a constitution before Aug. 15, the deadline laid down in the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL). "We are not going to be late," Adnan al-Janabi, a minister of state who is close to interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, told Reuters
Iraq's ethnic and religious groups were huddled in meetings as they attempted to resuscitate a political process that has become deadlocked two months after the country's first free elections in 50 years. "There is concern about whether we have enough time to complete the constitution. We'll have to work harder on this," said Saad Jawad, a Shia member of the 275-seat parliament.
With parliament mired by infighting and turf wars over cabinet posts, questions abounded whether the country's volatile communal mix could strike a balance on a permanent legal charter by mid-August, the deadline set in the interim constitution.
Despite MPs being eager to present a positive face to the public, Tuesday's parliament session ended instead in catcalls and bitter divisions over the failure to choose a parliament speaker. As prominent figures including Allawi bolted from the proceedings and the media was ejected, parliament adjourned the session — only the second since the January 30 election — until Sunday. .
The circus-like debacle brought to the surface the power struggle among the Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis that has dragged on in closed-door negotiations since the watershed election that saw millions vote despite security fears.
The failure of politicians to put aside their differences in the face of a deadly insurgency and a war-shattered economy has stirred anger on the streets and elicited warnings that parliament risks losing its legitimacy.
For weeks, the election-winning Shia United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), with 146 of the 275 parliament seats, and the second-place Kurdistan Alliance have haggled over posts. Iraq's long-oppressed Kurdish minority, benefiting from the need for a two-thirds majority to approve a presidency council and prime minister, has shut down the proceeding as it seeks the maximum concessions from the UIA.
The Kurds, fearful Iraq's Arab majority will one day try to steal away their autonomy in the north, have battled fiercely over issues like federalism, their peshmerga militia and the future of the ethnically-divided city of Kirkuk. The battle for power between Shia and Kurds has left the vastly under-represented Sunnis, with only 16 seats, feeling shunted to the side.
Insurgents opened fire on a US military patrol in Mosul on Wednesday and six people were killed in a subsequent exchange of gunfire, including a woman and child, Iraqi police said.
The attack occurred in the northeast of the city, where there has been a surge of violence over the past four months. Five people were wounded in the fighting. US forces had no immediate information on the incident.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/31/2005 12:36:44 AM ||
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An Internet posting obtained by NBC News — written mostly in Arabic — details how to fire a shoulder-fired missile and how to overcome security measures.
NBC terrorism analyst Evan Kohlmann says it was posted five days ago on an Internet location used by Iraq's top terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
"We've seen plenty of material on radical Islamic Web sites dealing with shooting down military aircraft in combat zones," says Kohlmann. "However, this is the first time I've ever seen the deliberate targeting of civilian aircraft leaving U.S. airports."
NBC News will not reveal many of the details. There's a sketch of a terrorist on a rooftop shooting a missile at a plane, and information on possible evasive tactics. Much of the information appears to have been taken from the Web site of a U.S. magazine. There are also maps showing flight paths and new security perimeters from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport.
New York officials say they take this seriously and have alerted security at the airport. The FBI is still analyzing the information, but terrorism experts tell us there's no suggestion this poses any immediate threat.
"What concerns me is the acknowledgement by Zarqawi's people that we have vulnerability in our airports, of the launching of missiles against commercial airliners," says Charles Slepian, a risk analysis expert.
Al-Qaida has tried to shoot down a plane. In 2002, terrorists fired missiles at an Israeli airliner in Kenya. And a launcher tube was found near a U.S. airbase in Saudi Arabia.
How tough would it be to pull off an attack in the United States?
"The hardest thing for al-Qaida to do in order to carry out one of these attacks is to smuggle both the shooters and smuggle the weapons into place," says James Chow, an analyst with the Rand Corp. who has authored a study on shoulder-fired missiles.
The Internet posting ends with a provocative message: "This is what I have FOR now. I hope it is useful for my dear brothers."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/31/2005 12:41:20 AM ||
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U.S. forces in Iraq could begin coming home in significant numbers if insurgent violence is low through the general elections scheduled for the end of the year, a top general said Wednesday.
A larger and more capable insurgency, setbacks in the efforts to develop Iraq security forces, or missed deadlines by the transitional government could delay any significant drawdown, said Air Force Lt. Gen. Lance Smith.
Smith, the deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, which has military authority over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, commented in an interview with reporters at the Pentagon.
"(If) the elections go O.K., violence stays down, then we ought to be able to make some recommendations ... for us to be able to bring our forces home," Smith said.
Smith is the latest senior general to express conditional optimism about improvements in Iraq since the Jan. 30 elections. Previously, officials had spoken very little about prospects for withdrawal of the tens of thousands of U.S. troops in Iraq.
In the last month, the rate of insurgent attacks on U.S., coalition and Iraqi personnel and civilians has dropped from an average of between 50 and 60 per day to between 40 and 45, defense officials say. U.S. forces are also suffering casualties at a lower rate.
Smith said that if that trend continues, Iraqi security forces should be able to handle the load, with American forces pulling back to function primarily as a rapid-response force in the event the Iraqis get in trouble.
"I think the answer to that is, yes, every indication is that they (Iraqis) will be able to handle this level of threat in the not to distant future," Smith said.
He said Gen. George Casey, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, will be coming up with plans early this summer for a possible drawdown.
Smith credited the security improvements primarily to the U.S. and Iraqi efforts in capturing and killing insurgents. But he also acknowledged that the Iraqi government has reached out to some Sunni Muslim groups that have been involved with the insurgency or worked against U.S. interests.
He mentioned in particular the Muslim Ulema Council, a group of leading Sunni religious leaders that is also known as the Association of Muslim Scholars.
"The Sunni have recognized boycotting the elections was a mistake," Smith said. "They clearly would like to figure out how they can get back in and participate."
But vast problems remain. Insurgents under Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and former leaders of Saddam Hussein's government remain active. Smith said there are some signs the groups, despite their different ideologies, are coordinating activities. Also, Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, only averages 12 hours of power a day, according to the State Department.
The insurgency has forced the United States to keep at least 138,000 troops in Iraq since the invasion two years ago. About 145,500 U.S. troops are in Iraq now, with about several thousand who were sent to assist in security for the Jan. 30 elections expected to go home in the coming weeks.
The semi-permanent force numbers 138,000 troops, or 17 brigades. More than 22,000 allied, non-Iraqi troops are also in the country.
Iraqi security forces have grown to more than 151,000 soldiers and police who have received training and equipment, Smith said. The quality and capabilities of these forces vary widely, and absenteeism among the police is a significant problem.
Early postwar plans for Iraq anticipated far fewer U.S. troops to be in the country by now, but the strength of the insurgency caught the U.S. military off guard.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/31/2005 12:54:28 AM ||
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Islamic militants who want the world to witness their attacks and beheadings in Iraq have engineered new ways to ensure their videos appear on the Internet, defying efforts to banish them from cyberspace.
Leading insurgent groups such as Iraq's al Qaeda wing may struggle to find permanent hosts for their Web sites but can still point surfers to their gory videos and photographs from well-established and less sensational Islamist sites.
In one such Internet clip, a blast and a fireball shake the camera as militants repeat "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greatest) on a video purporting to show this month's truck bombing of a Baghdad hotel. Stray dogs are seen running away from the scene.
Analysts say the fixed sites, which deny having ties to militants and allow postings by ordinary users, have become a reliable platform for militant groups.
"Gone are the times when Islamist sites had to constantly move around. They are more stable now and easier to find, providing a reliable meeting place," said a European defense analyst who declined to be named.
The sites are a powerful propaganda and recruiting tool for militant groups. Despite being a target of the U.S.-led war on terrorism, they can quickly switch Web-hosting companies and authorities have found it difficult to close them.
"It becomes an endless 'whack-a-mole' game, where a site is shut on one server but pops up on another," said Roger Cressey, a former White House official who heads a security consultancy.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al Qaeda Organization for Holy War in Iraq says it will soon launch its permanent site with news of its operations against "crusader" U.S. forces.
That may sound like bad news for Western intelligence agencies, but one analyst said those seeking to limit the impact of the violent postings might prefer the Web sites to be stable.
"There are definite advantages from a security agency's point of view ... sites that are forced to move frequently are harder to keep track of."
For the first time, analysts said, the sites' continuity has provided militant groups with their own media. They have become as essential to news coverage as satellite televisions and news agencies, often breaking news of attacks and beheadings in Iraq.
Even Osama bin Laden's network appears to favor posting his messages online to ensure they are not edited by Arab television under U.S. pressure to deny al Qaeda a propaganda platform.
"They don't need to go to TV stations or the Arab press. They don't need to invite a CNN journalist for an interview, like Osama bin Laden did in the 1990s. They can put messages online," the defense analyst said.
"It's probably just a question of time before we get a live transmission of a decapitation."
Amir Golestan, head of U.S. Web hosting firm Micfo, said the FBI had probed his company's hosting of a top Islamist Web site, Al Ansar, which often carries major militant messages first.
"They (FBI) said if they find any legal issues they will contact us but we have not heard from them,"Golestan said, adding that Al Ansar has since moved to another host.
Robert Corn-Revere, a Washington lawyer and expert in free-speech law, said that under U.S. law companies cannot be held liable for hosting Web sites with anti-U.S. content.
"The question is whether (a site) provides material support to a terrorist organization," he said, adding authorities could then build a case using laws passed since the September 11 attacks.
London-based analyst Paul Eedle, who closely follows pro-al Qaeda sites, said: "Washington proclaims to stand for freedom of speech, so to campaign publicly for closing sites could rebound on it politically."
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London-based analyst Paul Eedle, who closely follows pro-al Qaeda sites, said: "Washington proclaims to stand for freedom of speech, so to campaign publicly for closing sites could rebound on it politically."
Yeah, there's always that danger of the Islamic jihad lobby not voting republican.
"Nothin' ever happens in the Maldives. What do we need democracy for?"
Maldivian President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom on Wednesday ruled out allowing a multiparty democracy in the tropical Indian Ocean archipelago until proposed constitutional reforms are implemented. Gayoom, who has ruled the Maldives since 1978, said there was "no scope for political parties" under the existing constitution.
"Not until I die of old age..."
He told a rare news conference in New Delhi that a special parliamentary assembly, or Majlis, has been given a year to draft new laws, but did not say when the reforms would be introduced. Political parties are banned in the Maldives, a nation of 278,000 people on 1,192 coral islands about 500 kilometres off the coast of India. Mohamed Nasheed, chairman of the Maldives Democratic Party, the main opposition group, said last week in Sri Lanka that he planned to return from exile and formally establish his party in the Maldives. But Gayoom, who is on six-day visit to India, said: "We do not recognise any political parties. We cannot do so under the present constitution."
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03/31/2005 00:00:00 ||
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President Pervez Musharraf on Wednesday said he would support changes in the Hudood Ordinance in order to delete the provisions which were contradictory to Islam. "But a mere change in the law is not sufficient. We need to change the mindset," the president said while addressing an international conference titled Gender Mainstreaming and Millennium Development Goals.
So change the laws, enforce the changes, and eventually the mindset will change...
The president said the government was working to improve laws, which had been misused. "The situation of Pakistani women isn't as bad as projected by some non-governmental organisations and the media. The record of women's rights and development in Pakistan is much better than other developing countries."
Like... ummm... which ones?
President Musharraf said changes in laws to stop honour killing would not bring about positive results if the mindset was not changed. "I am disappointed to see our own people painting a gloomy picture of Pakistan," he said, referring to an article by a Pakistani on Mukhtar Mai in the foreign press. He said Pakistan was pursuing far-reaching steps for socio-economic development and women's empowerment. He urged the developed world to assist the developing world in realising the "millennium development goals".
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Cairo's security director said yesterday that police will no longer tolerate the pro-reform rallies that have been taking place in the past months, in a stern warning a day before democratic activists and a banned Islamic group plan a joint demonstration in front of Parliament. Despite the police warnings, the "Kifaya" movement, which has carried several rallies against President Hosni Mubarak since December, said it is going ahead with its protest today.
"Mustafa? Is the cannon fodder ready?"
"Yeah, boss."
"Hokay. Lemme know how it goes. I'll be at the Hilton, in the dining room."
Also participating will be some members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the powerful Islamic group which held a demonstration on Sunday that was suppressed by police. With Egypt under increasing pressure at home and abroad for greater democracy, Egypt has witnessed more daring pro-reform protests in recent months. But the relative tolerance by police seems to be coming to an end. Cairo Security Director Major General Nabeel Al Ezabi said in an interview in his office that police would strictly enforce laws requiring groups to get permission for protests.
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"Oh, yasss! We're hoping it'll all blow over in a week or so. If it doesn't, we'll pretend it has, and eventually it will."
Pakistan yesterday said it hopes the controversy regarding centrifuges will end after inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri said Pakistan is likely to send old parts of centrifuges to Vienna for inspection following a request by Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency. "Pakistan wants to be transparent in this controversy," Kasuri told a news conference in Karachi. "They may be dispatched only for the purpose of matching the contamination level with Iran's centrifuges in the custody of the IAEA. "At no point will those currently useless centrifuge components be out of our custody. The analysis will be carried out in the presence of our experts and the results will be fully shared."
Kasuri's remarks came against the backdrop of bitter criticism from the Pakistani opposition regarding the handling of the issue. The opposition has expressed fears that it would compromise Pakistan's own nuclear programme and could lead to the possibility of international inspections.
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It is reported that secular and liberal groups in Iraq have formed a secret alliance against Ibrahim Jaafari, who announced his candidacy for the prime ministry. The British newspaper, The Guardian wrote that prominent secular and liberal groups have declared Jaafari as "persona non grata" due to his "drawbacks on secularism and his links with Iran". The news report indicated that these groups gather "behind closed doors" and have initiated a campaign of an "embargo against Jaafari".
The newspaper also drew attention to the possibility of an opposition also appearing against Jaafari within the Shiite alliance, if the political situation in the country worsens. Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, leader of the secular Shiites, also pointed out the drawbacks of efforts to involve religious rulers into political life and verbally attacked the Shiite leader Ali Sistani last weekend. The article wrote that Jaafari has guaranteed to the separation of state and religious affairs, and The Guardian noted that despite this, the government, with the majority of which will consist of Shiites, would also deepen the divisions in the country.
The British newspaper also revealed that an opposition group within the Shiite alliance has also appeared within the framework of the anti-Jaafari campaign. It was emphasized in the report that this group is anxious, based on the assumption that the two important parties of the Shiite alliance, the Dawa Party and the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution of Iraq (SCIRI), has "strong" connections with Iran. It was also reported that the group consists of Sunni candidates, who are not pleased with Jaafari within the Shiite alliance.
Meanwhile, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) leader Mesud Barzani announced that Peshmarga forces will no be dissolved. Speaking at a military ceremony in Erbil (Arbil) the other day, Barzani said that Peshmargas are morally important for Kurds and will never be dependent on the Iraqi army. The Kurdish leader explained that they would cooperate with national guardsmen and promised that Peshmargas would never turn into a force pressuring Arabs.
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This is known as "not getting with the program." It's further proof that nations aren't always ruled by the smartest people available...
Egypt's ruling National Democratic Party wants President Hosni Mubarak to be its candidate for the country's first presidential elections later this year, the party's secretary-general said on Wednesday. Safwat el-Sherif said 76-year-old Mubarak, who has ruled Egypt since 1981, would put off announcing his candidacy until after a referendum in May on a constitutional amendment allowing multi-candidate presidential elections. "The National Democratic Party insists on adhering to the nomination of President Hosni Mubarak as a sincere, national leader... and president for the Egyptian nation," Egypt's official Middle East News Agency quoted Sherif as saying.
Mubarak surprised Egypt last month when he proposed introducing direct elections for the leadership of the Arab world's most populous country. Under the existing system, parliament approves the sole candidate for a presidential referendum. "By delaying announcing the nomination for the president of the republic... (Mubarak) is strengthening respect for the constitutional rules," Sherif said. Mubarak has strongly hinted that he will stand for a fifth six-year term. It has long been speculated that Gamal, the president's son, might succeed his father as leader.
I think Hosni wants to do the Francisco Franco thing and die of old age in office. The question is whether the era of the President for Life is over yet...
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Egyptâs ruling National Democratic Party wants President Hosni Mubarak to be its candidate for the countryâs first presidential elections later this year, the partyâs secretary-general said on Wednesday.
The ruling party wants this? Hmmmm...I wonder why......
Pakistan yesterday rejected a US criticism of its human rights record, asserting that the rights situation in the country has improved.
"You've got to admit it's getting better,
It's getting better all the time..."
It pointed out that no country world has a "perfect" record.
... though some are more imperfect than others...
"The important thing is to see the kind of efforts being made by Pakistan to improve the human rights situation," Foreign Office spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani said, commenting on a US State Department annual report released on Monday. The report said the human rights record of Pakistan, which is a pivotal US ally in the war on terror, remained "poor".
Could it have something to do with all the corpses?
"Improving the human rights situation is certainly a matter of high priority for the government," Jilani said. "The improvement graph is certainly getting better," the spokesman said.
"The cadaver stacks aren't nearly as high as they used to be..."
The State Department report said: "The United States believes that the success of Pakistan's democratisation efforts is critical to the strength of our long-term relationship and will positively contribute to its effective participation in the global war on terrorism."
... or it could degenerate again to the point of being even more of a stench and a pestilence...
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her visit to Islamabad earlier this month said she had asked President Pervez Musharraf to keep on the path to democracy and hold free and fair elections in 2007. She however avoided comment on Musharraf's decision to remain in uniform after the parliamentary majority authorised him to do so in the national interest. On her return the United States announced its move to sell F16 fighter jets to Pakistan, while offering to provide F18 jets to India. Human rights groups in Pakistan and the opposition political parties have criticised the United States for being soft on the military's continued hold on power through a president in uniform to the detriment of the democratic process in the country. The government insists democracy is functioning with parliament and provincial assemblies in place and the opposition alliance of six religious parties ruling one of the four provinces and sharing power in another.
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Sudan faced heightened pressure Wednesday over atrocities in Darfur after the UN imposed new sanctions, which Khartoum rejected as "unbalanced' and "inappropriate."
"Nope. Nope. Simply won't do. Bring us another set of sanctions..."
But Darfur rebels said the action was insufficient to bring peace to the region, where a newly released British report says 300,000 people have died in two years.
"Maybe something stronger than warm milk?"
Khartoum reacted angrily to the UN resolution adopted Tuesday, which allows for the seizure of assets and a travel ban against individuals who commit atrocities, impede the peace process in Darfur or "constitute a threat to stability."
Don't you have to find the stability first, before you can threaten it?
The U.S.-sponsored resolution was "unbalanced and inappropriate" and "ignored the government's efforts in addressing the political, security and humanitarian aspects of the Darfur conflict," a Foreign Ministry statement said. But Khartoum said despite its objections, the government will deal with the resolution in accordance to its moral and legal responsibility toward its people." It will also "do everything possible to secure an immediate and comprehensive settlement to the conflict in Darfur." The main rebel group in Darfur, however, the Sudan Liberation Movement, said it was disappointed by the scope of the sanctions, arguing they would do little to encourage the government to resolve the conflict.
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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.
Michael Howard accused Tony Blair yesterday of stabbing the men and women of the Armed Forces in the back by announcing cuts in manpower across all three Services. The Conservative leader said that he failed to understand how the cuts could be justified at a time of "growing threats, global instability and new dangers". Promising, if elected to power, to reinstate the four battalions scheduled to be cut under the Government's restructuring of the infantry that was announced in December, Mr Howard also denounced the moves to change the names of famous regiments as part of the decision to amalgamate smaller regiments into larger formations. Under the plans, agreed by the executive committee of the Army Board, the six regiments of the Scottish Division are being reduced to five and converted into one super- regiment, and similar amalgamations are taking place in the King's Division, with two super-regiments, and the Prince of Wales's Division, also with two large regiments.
MOSCOW: The leaders of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, both former Soviet states with autocratic regimes, are "worried" after the revolution in Kyrgyzstan which toppled the 15-year-old regime there, the interim leader of the Central Asian state said in an interview published on Wednesday. Uzbek President 
Kyrgyz security forces coordinator 
ROME: A Moroccan woman is trying to become the first female to lead Islamic prayers in Italy and facing fierce opposition by members of her community, news reports said on Wednesday. Naima Gouhai, a 30-year-old nurse from the Tuscan town of Colle Val d'Elsa, put in a request to lead a mixed congregation of men and women in prayer at a local mosque two days after a female professor led a similar service in New York City, the Corriere della Sera newspaper reported. "It seems right to me that when a woman is more capable than a man of handling the collective prayer, she should be the imam," Gouhai was quoted as saying by Corriere. Officials at the Islamic Center in Colle Val d'Elsa, some 25 kilometres of Siena, could not be reached immediately for comment. 
WASHINGTON, March 31 (Reuters) - Paul Wolfowitz, known worldwide as an architect of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, was approved as the World Bank's new president on Thursday. His nomination by U.S. President George W. Bush was sealed in a unanimous vote by the World Bank's 24 executive directors, the bank confirmed. Wolfowitz said in a statement the next six months were crucial for international development policy decisions, before a U.N. summit in September on goals to reduce global poverty.
26.03.2005 at 1830 UTC Balikpapan coal terminal, Indonesia. Four persons in a fast craft approached a bulk carrier at berth. Two persons tried to board by climbing a mooring rope. Alert crew raised alarm and boarding was averted. Authorities informed.
Senior Shiite cleric Sayyed 
A Lebanese Christian opposition figure said on Wednesday that moves to disarm the Shiite Muslim group Hizbullah should start straight after a parliamentary election, sooner than others in the opposition have proposed. The timing of any disarmament, called for by Washington and the United Nations, is a delicate issue within the anti-Syrian opposition as it tries to improve ties with the pro-Syrian Hizbullah, the only Lebanese political group still to bear arms. "After the elections, one of the first issues would be dialogue with Hizbullah about the deployment of the Lebanese Army in the South and it should be disarmed when the army itself is in charge," according to former President Amin Gemayel, a Maronite Christian.
Around 3,000 people demonstrated Wednesday against alleged U.S. meddling in Lebanon's political crisis since the assassination of former Premier 
Lebanon's opposition is set to nominate a candidate for prime minister, a step that could finally break the deadlock which has paralyzed Lebanese politics and move the country toward May's scheduled elections. But despite the opposition's apparent softening in its stance, the group insisted that nominating a candidate did not mean it will serve in an interim cabinet ahead the elections. The opposition Bristol Gathering is set to meet at the home of slain former Premier Rafik Hariri today and leading opposition MP 
Syrian President Bashar Assad has slammed the UN's fact-finding mission into the assassination of former Lebanese Premier 
A court in Afghanistan has cut by at least half the sentences of three US citizens jailed for torturing Afghans and running a private jail in Kabul. But the court rejected their appeal for the convictions to be overturned. Jonathan Idema, Brent Bennett and Edward Caraballo were sentenced last September after a chaotic trial. Branded by the US as a bounty hunter, Idema has said his work was approved by Afghan and US authorities, a claim that US officials have denied. Idema and Bennett's sentences were reduced from 10 years to five and three respectively, reports quoted one of the four judges hearing the case as saying. It is not yet clear why the sentences have been reduced. 
President Pervez Musharraf on Wednesday said he would support changes in the Hudood Ordinance in order to delete the provisions which were contradictory to Islam. "But a mere change in the law is not sufficient. We need to change the mindset," the president said while addressing an international conference titled Gender Mainstreaming and Millennium Development Goals. 
Cairo's security director said yesterday that police will no longer tolerate the pro-reform rallies that have been taking place in the past months, in a stern warning a day before democratic activists and a banned Islamic group plan a joint demonstration in front of Parliament. Despite the police warnings, the "
Egypt's ruling National Democratic Party wants President Hosni Mubarak to be its candidate for the country's first presidential elections later this year, the party's secretary-general said on Wednesday. Safwat el-Sherif said 76-year-old Mubarak, who has ruled Egypt since 1981, would put off announcing his candidacy until after a referendum in May on a constitutional amendment allowing multi-candidate presidential elections. "The National Democratic Party insists on adhering to the nomination of President Hosni Mubarak as a sincere, national leader... and president for the Egyptian nation," Egypt's official Middle East News Agency quoted Sherif as saying. 
Pakistan yesterday rejected a US criticism of its human rights record, asserting that the rights situation in the country has improved.
Sudan faced heightened pressure Wednesday over atrocities in Darfur after the UN imposed new sanctions, which Khartoum rejected as "unbalanced' and "inappropriate." 
