The Bush administration won rare praise for its diplomacy on Iraq yesterday as plans for an international conference on stabilising the country gathered pace, with Syria and Iran indicating they would participate.
"Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, even the US and Britain have informed us they will participate," the Iraqi deputy foreign minister, Labi Abawi, told reporters in Baghdad.
Publicly, Iranian officials said only that Tehran was weighing up its participation in the meeting, which will take place on March 10 in Baghdad.We support solving problems of Iraq by all means and we will attend the conference if it is expedient," Ali Larijani, the head of Iran’s supreme national security council, told state television. "We believe Iraq’s security is related to all its neighbouring countries, and they have to help settle the situation.
Officials in Damascus confirmed Syria’s participation and said it would be represented by Ahmed Arnous, an aide to the foreign minister .
The administration’s abrupt decision to end its isolation of Iran and Syria and give its support to a conference hosted by Baghdad on stabilising Iraq was welcomed.
"It’s a very important and a very positive first step to take a diplomatic offensive," Lee Hamilton, one of the chairs of the Iraq Study Group, told National Public Radio. [more]
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki invited neighbouring countries and world powers on Wednesday to a March 10 meeting in Baghdad, saying he hoped it would help bring reconciliation and support for his government.
The conference could open the way for the United States to talk to Syria and Iran, which Washington says are fuelling violence in Iraq. Both countries deny the accusations. [more]
SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan - Steeling for a spring offensive, the Taleban said today they had sent 1,000 suicide bombers to relatively quiet northern Afghanistan, a day after a suicide blast targeted Vice President Dick Cheney.
The United States and some NATO nations, led by Britain, are pouring troops in to battle the offensive and to try to crush the insurgents in what analysts say is the crunch year for both sides after the bloodiest 12 months since the Taleban fell in 2001. [more]
Nicolas Sarkozy, a self-declared "friend of America", yesterday promised France he would not be the US president’s poodle and would oppose any repeat of the Iraq war.
The right-wing interior minister and presidential hopeful has been blasted by his critics as a kowtowing Atlantist and US-style neoconservative since his visit to George Bush last year when he declared his passion for the American way of life and criticised French "arrogance" in the run-up to the Iraq war in 2003. [more]
This week, the David Horowitz Freedom Center (DHFC) launched the second flash video of its Terrorism Awareness Project. What Every American Needs to Know About Jihad reviews the history of recent terrorist attacks against America and the West and reveals the objectives of radical jihadists. The video is a dramatic four-minute warning that the agenda of jihad is global domination and that a world war has already begun. TAP will be emailing this video to more than one million Americans and tens of thousands of university students and professors. To view it, please follow this link.
The DHFC created the Terrorism Awareness Project on January 31st to combat complacency on college campuses about the intentions of the radical Islamists who declared a holy war on the United States and the West as long ago as 1979, and also to reveal the active support the jihad receives from radical professors and student groups who regard America as the Great Satan and the terrorists as freedom fighters. "If one thing was clear in the aftermath of the attack (of 9/11), it was this: the terrorists would be back," said Stephen Miller, a senior at Duke University and the Project’s national coordinator. "But because of the campaign by the ‘anti-war’ movement, our populace as a whole is ignorant of the threat, doesn’t know the enemy, and is unaware of its true intent, capabilities and resolve. This is especially true of college students who face a daily barrage of anti-war and anti-American propaganda. The Terrorism Awareness P roject is designed to make them aware of the threat of jihad and the struggle that lies ahead if this nation is to survive."
Although TAP is less than a month old, it has also produced three acclaimed pamphlets The Nazi Roots of Palestinian Nationalism, The Islamic Mein Kampf, and What Americans need to know About Jihad to inform Americans and students in particular of the dangers they face. All pamphlets can be downloaded at no charge on our website, www.terrorismawareness.org.
What Americans Need to Know About Jihad, is also the message of a print ad the TAP project has placed in college newspapers around the country. So far, student publications at Duke, the University of North Carolina, Brandeis, Texas, Wisconsin, DePaul, Emory, University of California-Irvine, University of California-Davis, San Francisco State University and Pace College have run the ad, which means that it has been seen by over half a million members of these academic communities. On the other hand, campus newspapers at Georgia Tech, Purdue, University of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Columbia, University of California-Berkeley and New York University have rejected the ad on the grounds that it was ‘offensive.’ Apparently, college leftists think that it is offensive to point out that a holy war has been declared on women, gays, Jews, Christians and other ‘infidels.’ That is the blunt message of the ad TAP has produced.
In the furor created by these rejections, TAP National Coordinator Miller appeared on Fox News, CNN, and other media venues to criticize the assault on free speech and point out that it indicates the extent of covert support for jihad on campus today.
In addition to mobilizing opinion on campus, the Terrorism Awareness Project has also acted as a catalyst for student activism. Since January 31, 170,000 individuals have visited the TAP website, www.terrorismawareness.org, an average of more than 50,000 per week. Chapters of TAP are already in formation on sixty-five campuses across the country.
TAP chapters are now functioning at Columbia University, Duke, Georgia Tech, the University of Colorado, University of California at Davis, University of Wisconsin, among others and coordinators are distributing pamphlets, setting up panel discussions with experts on terrorism, and planning showings of the anti-jihad video "Obsession," as they work toward holding campus-wide Terrorism Awareness Days and Months. The first Terrorism Awareness Days featuring a showing of the film "Obsession" have been scheduled at Duke University and at Columbia, where it will be jointly hosted by the campus TAP chapter and the College Republicans and College Democrats. In other words, TAP has already begun to forge the bi-partisan anti-terrorist coalition that has been so difficult to achieve at the national level.
[Editor’s Note: this open letter is being circulated on various listservs. I have decided to sign on in the hopes that unity in the anti-war movement is an achievable goal. Panama Vicente Alba, one of the signatories, is an MDS board nominee and a long time freedom fighter and friend of SDS]
Please sign on to the following letter by directly replying to this email, and circulate the letter widely to other progressive list serves and individuals. Below are only initial signers:
It is with deep concern, sincerity and hope that we the undersigned appeal to you to cancel the protest that you have only recently announced for March 18 in New York City, well after plans had been announced for a D.C. mobilization, thus setting up misconceptions and promoting confusion.
We urge you to support and work for a united mobilization in Washington and use the power of your outreach to endorse and support the march on the Pentagon on March 17 to mark the fourth anniversary of the war.
Surely you must know that the activists in the antiwar movement view your late announcement of a March 18 event as little more than a deliberate attempt to undermine the long scheduled mobilization to Washington and the Pentagon on Saturday, March 17; the talk already going around is: “Why isn’t UFPJ supporting the March on the Pentagon?” People do not see it as uniting.
The hard working rank and file activists of the anti-war movement, as well as the millions of people who have come out to antiwar demonstrations don’t care which coalition calls the march, or what the political differences are between the various coalitions, or about the history of problems that the coalitions have had working together; what they want is for us to march together, especially now.
Indeed, hardworking anti-war activists have attended all rallies called by UFPJ as well as the other coalitions; therefore, demonstrating a consistent expression of unity. We should then expect nothing less from those who have taken leadership responsibility within the U.S. anti-war movement.
The broad array of forces that comprise the resistance to the Iraq war, and new looming wars i.e. Iran expect the people in decision making positions to take the high road, focus the peoples’ energy on common, united actions and pave the road together to strengthen our unity for peace with justice.
Would it not be an enormous step forward, indeed a step towards revitalizing the anti-war movement, if all concerned abandoned the cynical infighting and divisiveness that only serves to make the movement more fragmented, and weak? UFPJ can make that possible, by calling on its supporters to JOIN ONE LARGE AND STRONG ACTION IN WASHINGTON ON MARCH 17. Anything short of that spreads more negativity than positive unity.
Dear friends, please take this appeal to heart and help unite us all on March 17, 2007.
Banks before airbrushing and after in recent Sports Illustrated cover.
While there’s nothing wrong with Banks having some meat on her bones; there is something wrong with Banks allowing herself to be airbrushed into something she is not. That goes for everyone…cept me.
SANTA MONICA, Calif. — "America’s Next Top Model" can’t strut her stuff on local buses. Ads for the TV show were removed from the sides of Santa Monica’s Big Blue Buses after complaints.
The ads showed host Tyra Banks and the new season’s swimsuited contestants posing in front of a waterfall.
Most of the complaints were from people concerned that the city might be endorsing a show they believed was disrespectful to women, said Stephanie Negriff, director of transit services in the beach city.
"It’s a matter of public taste," she said. "We try to be sensitive to the community."
The ads were up for about two weeks. The bus line is refunding money the CW network paid for the promotion.
"It’s a jungle out there in bus marketing. Even America’s next top models aren’t safe anymore," CW spokesman Paul McGuire said.
"We are very proud of Tyra banks and this wonderful program," he added Tuesday. "And for any citizens of Santa Monica who may not have seen our message, new episodes premiere tomorrow night."
In recent years, the city has nixed bus ads for the TV show "Nip/Tuck" and the movie "Ten Things I Hate About You."
Apaches, and other helicopters, have become somewhat of a ubiquitous nuisance to Baghdad’s residents. Their constant presence can be disconcerting, or even banale. Although helicopters have been called some of the world’s most fearsome weapons, and in particular are often mentioned in explanations of the awesome power of the American military, in Baghdad their constant presence has led to an attitude better described as resigned acceptance.
This week Omar Abdullah describes his impressions and feelings about the American helicopters, and in particular Apaches often seen in Baghdad’s skies. Video
To the Iraqi people "terrorized" by the noise of low flying US helicopters: Tough Shit! You’re terrorized by the noise from low flying helicopters but have no damn problem with the noise of continual market, car, and roadside bombs you detonate on each other daily; never mind the deaths caused by said bombs. Shut the hell up, you ingrate sand monkies.
Why did a majority of Democratic senators vote to authorize a war with Iraq on Oct. 11, 2002? And why is this war now supposedly President Bush’s misfortune and not theirs?
The original fear of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, of course, played a role in their votes —but only a role. In the 23 writs that authorized force to remove Saddam Hussein, senators at the time also cited Iraq’s sanctuary and subsidies for terrorists. Then there were Saddam’s attempts to assassinate a former United States president; his repression of, and use of weapons of mass destruction against, his own people; and his serial violations of both United Nations and 1991 Persian Gulf War agreements. If paranoia over weapons of mass destruction later proved just that, these other reasons to remove Saddam remain unassailable.
Nevada’s Sen. Harry Reid summed up best the feeling of Democrats that there were plenty of reasons to remove Saddam in a post-9/11 climate. He reminded his colleagues that Saddam’s refusal to honor past agreements "constitutes a breach of the armistice which renders it void and justifies resumption of the armed conflict."
But it was not just fear of Saddam alone that prompted Democrats to authorize the use of force to remove him. There was the more-general, liberal notion of using American arms to stop violent dictators. While the Democratic Party has a strong pacifist wing, its mainstream has always advocated a global promotion of American liberal values — sometimes through the use of pre-emptory force. [more]
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan on Wednesday rejected a claim by the U.S. intelligence chief that Osama bin Laden and his deputy were hiding in northwestern Pakistan, and that al-Qaida was setting up camps near the Afghan border.
Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao, told The Associated Press there were no al-Qaida training camps in his country and U.S. officials had not provided any intelligence suggesting there were.
"We will act on any such intelligence, but so far they have not" provided any, he said.
Sherpao’s comments came a day after Mike McConnell, the new U.S. intelligence chief, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that al-Qaida was trying to set up operations in largely ungoverned parts of Pakistan’s northwest, along Afghanistan’s eastern border. [more]
GENEVA - Switzerland’s top criminal court on Wednesday cleared seven men who were accused of providing logistical support for the Al Qaeda terror network.
Swiss federal prosecutors had alleged that the five Yemenis, a Somali and an Iraqi had sought to provide false passports for a terror suspect and had set up a network to smuggle East African and Arab nationals into Switzerland between 1998 and 2004.
The charge sheet included participation in or providing support for a criminal organisation, corruption and forgery.The Federal Criminal Court acquitted them on the charges relating to terrorist activities at the end of a five-week trial, the Swiss news agency ATS said.The court only found them guilty on a lesser charge of breaking immigration laws, and handed down fines and suspended sentences, it added.Swiss prosecutor Claude Nicati had accused the oldest defendant, a 59-year-old Yemeni who sought asylum in Switzerland in 2001, of trying to supply false identity documents to Abdullah Al Rimi.
Rimi was identified as taking part in the October 2000 suicide attack on a US warship in the Yemeni port of Aden, which killed seven US sailors, and in attacks in the Saudi city of Riyadh in 2003. [more]
A senior U.S. legal official says the United States will refuse any Italian extradition request for CIA agents indicted on charges of a role in the abduction of an Egyptian cleric and terrorist suspect.
John Bellinger, legal advisor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, spoke Wednesday in Brussels, after meeting with European Union legal officials.
A Milan judge earlier this month ordered 26 U.S. intelligence agents and six Italians to stand trial in June in the kidnapping of cleric Abu Omar (also known as Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr). Omar said he was grabbed from a Milan street and flown to Egypt, where he was tortured.
A European Parliament report earlier this month concluded that similar abductions had gone on with the collusion of several European governments.
Bellinger rejected those findings today, calling the report "unbalanced, inaccurate and unfair." [more]
Geneva - Hollywood star and UNHCR goodwill ambassador Angelina Jolie has spent two days visiting refugees from the strife-torn Sudanese region of Darfur at a camp in neighbouring Chad, the UN refugee agency said on Wednesday.
Jolie, who last visited the region three years ago, said she was struck by the deteriorating security situations but also encouraged by the sense of hope she encountered in the Oure-Cassoni camp, which is home to over 26 000 refugees.
"It’s always hard to see decent people, families, living in such difficult conditions," she said.
"What is most upsetting is how long it is taking the international community to answer this crisis," she added, according to a statement released by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
The actress visited children at a camp school, mentally-ill refugees and women seeking to raise income to sustain their families.
She said the refugees had taken comfort from the recent decision by the International Criminal Court in The Hague to name a Sudanese minister and a militia member suspected of war crimes.
"In order to feel safe enough to return home, these people said they would need to know that the men who attacked them had been stripped of their weapons," Jolie said. [more]
CAIRO — The ejection of a Canadian Muslim girl from a soccer game for wearing hijab has triggered a heated debate in Quebec with the provincial government defending the red card and Muslims and teammates backing the girl, The Gazette daily reported on Tuesday, February 27.
"What it does, tragically, is it allows for a lot of anti-Muslim sentiment to rise again," said Alia Hogben, head of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women.
A referee ordered 11-year-old Asmahan Mansour off the pitch during a National tournament game on Sunday, February 25, for wearing the hijab on the grounds of posting a threat to the players’ safety.
"If the official was worried about the hijab floating or restricting the girl’s vision or something like that, they could have worked out a compromise," Hogben said.
imam Salam Elmenyawi, head of the Muslim Council of Montreal, warned that such incidents could push Muslims into isolation.
"Here is the point: when this girl was given the choice between her religion and being in the game, she decided on her religion - and this will happen every time," he told the Canadian daily. [more]
Mansour was told to remove her hijab or be barred from playing. (Courtesy: the Sun Media)
Quebec should respect Islamic traditions and take care of the matter in the typical Muslim way…
JERUSALEM (CNN) — Israeli forces killed three members of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad during a raid in the West Bank town of Jenin Wednesday morning, Israeli and Palestinian sources said.
According to an Israeli military spokeswoman, Israeli soldiers entered Jenin and tried to arrest Ashraf Saadi, a senior member of Islamic Jihad, as he was walking with two other members of the group. The spokeswoman said Saadi saw the soldiers and fired on them.
In returning fire, the soldiers killed Saadi and the other two militants, the spokeswoman said. An Israeli soldier was lightly wounded in the exchange.
Israeli security sources said the militants were involved in terror activities.
Palestinian security sources’ accounts said Israeli undercover soldiers in a car, and backed by jeeps, opened fire on the militants as they were walking along a street, killing them.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A Sports Illustrated bash for its annual swimsuit issue has turned into a health scare for stars in Hollywood after a caterer working for celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck may have exposed them to acute Hepatitis A.
The Los Angeles County health department recommended on Tuesday that anyone who ate uncooked food at the U.S. sports magazine’s party on February 14 get treatment by Wednesday to avoid developing the serious liver disease.
Health officials said the risk was "quite low" and that no Wolfgang Puck pre-packaged foods or restaurants were affected.
Hepatitis A is caused by a virus spread by ingesting something contaminated with the feces of an infected person. Symptoms can include fever, fatigue, loss of appetite, nausea, abdominal pain and jaundice. [more]
Soldiers leaving for Iraq on a reconstruction mission pay silent tribute to the late Sgt. Yoon Jang-ho, who was killed in a homicide bomb attack in Afghanistan on Tuesday, during a farewell ceremony at an Army post in Kyonggi Province, Wednesday. /Korea Times
A group of 569 South Korean troops left for Iraq Wednesday to replace about 1,200 returning soldiers amid concerns over safety following a soldier’s death in Afghanistan.
The 2,300-strong Zaytun Division is now conducting a humanitarian and rehabilitation operation in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil.
The troop size is to be cut to 1,200 in rotation by April under a motion passed by the National Assembly last year. The motion calls for the troops’ withdrawal from Iraq by the end of this year.
Following the death of Sgt. Yoon Jang-ho in a suicide bomb attack on Tuesday, public calls are mounting over the division’s earlier pullout from the Middle Eastern nation.
The incident is expected to affect Seoul’s plan to deploy 350 forces to Lebanon on a peacekeeping mission in July.
The Defense Ministry, however, has made announcements to the contrary.
“Korean troops’ humanitarian and peacekeeping missions abroad will remain unchanged and not give in to any acts of terror,’’ said Col. Kang Yong-hee, the spokesman for the Defense Ministry. “But we will tighten security measures to counter terrorism and other military attacks.’’
South Korea first sent about 3,300 soldiers to Iraq to help the U.S.-led coalition forces in 2002, but the troops have been downsized over the past two years.
The division, which mostly consists of engineers and medics, has performed a variety of reconstruction projects to better the lives of residents of the Kurdish-controlled city.
While US air superiority has always be the mainstay of American military tactics, preferring to carpet bomb so-called “strategic targets” that in fact including civilian targets, rather than face the Mujahideen on the ground, the myth of its air infallibility is rapidly collapsing as the Islamic State of Iraq reports another Super Cobra downed in Ramadi.
It is not surprising that there is literally no mention of this latest downing in mainstream press, as it was getting rather embarrassing for the Americans as news of dozens of aircraft, not just helicopters, but large aircraft like the Hercules C130, made its way to mainstream press in recent weeks. It appears now that the Americans are tight lipped, preferring to keep up appearances particularly as their “new security plan” in Iraq unravels.
That has not stopped the Mujahideen from employing new weaponry and tactics to penetrate US air operations, that is now clearly being exploited just as the Humvee was in the early days of the war.
The Amir of the Islamic State of Iraq, in a recent statement, made clear that it was employing new technology with impressive results as we have seen in recent weeks, with this latest downing just one more example of America’s declining power.
Here is their claim of responsibility, published here uncut and uncensored, as translated by JUS.
We remind our viewers that the opinions and points of view expressed in this statement are those of the author and shall not be deemed to mean that they are necessarily those of JUS, the publisher, editor, writers, contributors or staff
Islamic State Of Iraq Shoots Down Cross Worshippers Super Cobra Aircraft In Ramadi
In The Name Of Allah The Most Gracious The Most Merciful
All praise be to Allah, The Cherisher and Sustainer of the worlds. Peace and prayer be upon our prophet, Muhammad, his family, and his companions.
On Friday afternoon, February 23, 2007, the Mujahideen of the Islamic State of Iraq, may Allah honor it, by the grace of Allah downed a cross worshipper’s Super Cobra aircraft in Ramadi in al-Anbar province, completely destroying it and killing all the crew on board.
These operations are part of the Al-Karama (Honor) Expedition, declared by Sheikh Abu Omar Al-Baghdadi, Amir of the Islamic State of Iraq, may Allah protect him.
Allahu Akbar!
“Honor, power and glory belong to Allah, to his messenger, and to the believers, but the hypocrites know not.”
Information Ministry The Islamic State of Iraq 10 Safar 1428 February 27, 2007
Noon: Hearing before Vermont State Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs, chaired by Senator Vincent Illuzzi. The hearing will be held in the Senate Chamber in the Statehouse, Montpelier. The hearing is open to the public and everyone is invited to come hear Cindy Sheehan and three Iraq War veterans, former Army Sgt. Drew Cameron, former Marine Cpl. Matt Howard, and former Army Sgt. Adrienne Kinne, testify and answer questions from the Senators.
The Marxist Veterans For Peace will be targeting troops and their families at rallies near bases on March 17th.
It’s important to remember that veterans can and do turn on their brothers and sisters in harms way; John Kerry is a good example. The few Iraq veterans speaking out against this war are the Neo John Kerrys (neojohns). Equally important to remember is that these same veterans are being supported by the Marxist movement. Marxists are not anti-war; they are anti-US military engaging in any war, any place, at any time. Their goal is the destruction of the “United States Military Industrial Complex”. How do they do that? Destroy the soldier.
Via VFP :
On behalf of Veterans For Peace, I am emailing and requesting help with an action planned for this March.
It will be a two fold event.
The first leg of it will come through several SE US military towns (i.e. tentative itinerary includes Jacksonville, NC, Columbia or Charleston, SC, Savannah, GA, Jacksonville, FL, Columbus, GA, and Montgomery, AL) and we are looking for local people to help plan for these stops.
What we are aiming for is that when we arrive in each town, things are pretty much set up.
We would like to have a program in each town where we can invite the local military to join us for something (i.e. pizza, beer, and discussion, or movie and discussion, or whatever) in the evening.
In addition, my experience and the itinerary tells me we should have some time in the afternoon once we arrive in the cities; this would be a great time for us to head to the mall, or the base, or somewhere military personnel congregate, and "infiltrate them".
We want to get to these people on this trip!
Our goal is outreach to soldiers as they have an important voice.
70% according to polls want the US out of Iraq. [bogus poll–Malcontent]
Thus we want to get them to sign the Appeal, see what soldiers did during Vietnam from the video "Sir, No Sir!" so they know they are not helpless and have them listen to VFP, GSFP, MFSO, and IVAW, so they know vets and soldiers who oppose the war are with them.
We want the 70% to become active and to grow.
HOWEVER, and this is very important, we realize the nature of each stop will be different and that support in each town will be different. In your area, the stop might end up being more of the informal sort, i.e. the "infiltration" part of the previous paragraph.
And that works.
The biggest thing is getting to the men and women of our armed forces.
In this case, what we would then need from you and your team, would be specific advice as to where and when they meet (i.e. maybe at a mall or a strip of bars).
In addition, we will need help with accommodations. Most of these people are veterans and pretty easy going; church floors and/or campgrounds would certainly suffice. And of course we would love to congregate with the hosts as much as possible for pot lucks or breakfasts or whatever.
Related: The Different Drummer Cafe opens near Ft. Drum. Their mission; to end US military involvement in wars:
They say theirs is the country’s first G.I. coffeehouse for the war in Iraq. It is a project of the peace movement that is focused on changing opinions within the military, with an ultimate goal of ending the war.
During the Vietnam War, about 20 G.I. coffeehouses, as they were known, operated around the country. Each was close to a large military base and was intended to support the efforts of soldiers who were against the war. The coffeehouses were incubators for war resistance and part of the counterculture. Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix were on the jukebox. A decent cup of coffee was on the menu.
"It was extremely important," said David Zeiger, the writer and director of "Sir! No Sir!" a 2005 documentary about the G.I. movement to end the Vietnam War. "One thing coffeehouses will do is link civilians and soldiers."
Vietnam Veterans For Peace, Veterans For Peace, Veterans Against The War, Cindy Sheehan’s Gold Star Families For Peace et al, are the same organization with different branch names. As the tree grows, so do the new branches. Sheehan alone has 6 different branches, though 3 have become somewhat defunct. When the money and support for one branch stops, they just start up a new one.
BAGHDAD: Iraq’s new draft oil law has been hailed as a victory for Iraqi unity but, in the short term at least, the autonomous region of Kurdestan is likely to benefit the most, experts say.
While the bill is the fruit of a hard-fought compromise and will centralise oil revenues in Baghdad, it gives legal sanction to the Kurds’ ambitious programme to develop their own energy resources.
Meanwhile, the violence raging in Arab communities will continue to scare off international oil firms thinking of investing in southern Iraq.
"The Kurds have largely achieved what they had set out to achieve," said Alex Munton, a research analyst at the Edinburgh-based energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie who has been following the negotiations.
Under the terms of the oil law, which is expected to go before parliament in the next two months, Iraq’s oil industry will be overseen by a Federal Oil Council and an independent national oil firm. [more]
SAN FRANCISCO - An editor of a weekly newspaper calling itself "The Voice of Asian America" apologized after Asian-American leaders condemned a column titled "Why I Hate Blacks." In the piece, which appeared in the Feb. 23 edition of San Francisco-based AsianWeek, contributor Kenneth Eng lists reasons why he supports discrimination against blacks — including because "they are the only race that has been enslaved for 300 years." [more]
WASHINGTON - House Democratic leaders are developing an anti-war proposal that wouldn’t cut off money for U.S. troops in Iraq, but, would send a strong message to troops that they don’t support their efforts in Iraq. [more]
SAN DIEGO - The Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego filed for bankruptcy protection late Tuesday to put off going to trial in more than 140 civil lawsuits alleging sexual abuse by priests.
The petition was lodged with the federal bankruptcy court in San Diego at 11:55 p.m., just hours before the first trial was scheduled to go forward in a San Diego courtroom. A Chapter 11 filing automatically halts court proceedings.
San Diego is the fifth U.S. diocese to file for bankruptcy protection under the shadow of sex abuse claims. With nearly 1 million parishioners, it is also the largest. [more]
LONDON (AP) - Prince Charles suggested Tuesday on a visit to the United Arab Emirates that banning McDonald’s fast food is crucial for improving people’s diets, a British news agency reported.
Charles’s comments came while visiting the Imperial College London Diabetes Centre in Abu Dhabi for the launch of a public health campaign, Britain’s Press Association news agency reported. "Have you got anywhere with McDonald’s?" Charles asked one of the centre’s nutritionists, the news agency reported.
"Have you tried getting it banned? That’s the key."
McDonald’s spokesman Nick Hindle called the remark disappointing. He said other members of the Royal Family "have probably got a more up-to-date picture of us," alluding to reports Charles’ son Prince Harry was spotted eating a chicken burger at McDonald’s in 2005. [more]
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - State television reported Tuesday that 18 boys were killed when a car bomb exploded in a park in Ramadi, and Iraqi and international officials were quick to deplore the slaughter. But questions about key details of the report emerged just as quickly.
Iraqi police and state TV said the attack occurred Tuesday. Later, police said it happened Monday.
The confusion grew deeper following an announcement by U.S. forces that 30 civilians and one Iraqi soldier were injured by flying debris Tuesday when troops intentionally detonated 15 bags of explosives found in Ramadi. Some of the wounded were treated at a U.S. aid station, and others were flown to a military hospital for treatment, the statement said. None of the injuries was life-threatening, it added. [more]
MIAMI - A college professor who pleaded guilty in a federal case involving allegations that he and his wife spied for Cuba should receive the maximum five years in prison because he did "classic intelligence work" for Fidel Castro’s communist government, prosecutors said Monday.
Carlos Alvarez, 61, and his wife Elsa, 56, were set to be sentenced today. Both pleaded guilty Dec. 19 to reduced charges in the case involving accusations of exchanging coded messages with Cuban intelligence services about Cuban-American exile groups and prominent figures in Miami. [more]
WASHINGTON - Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt said on Monday he was in Washington to ask for US aid to fight Syrian influence in his country.
“It is not a secret. Yes I am seeking assistance,” said Jumblatt, a prominent lawmaker from the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority.“I need more assistance politically, militarily against indirect Syrian occupation because the direct Syrian occupation is no more.”Jumblatt, who is scheduled to meet Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday, said in an American Enterprise Institute conference that Syria still holds sway in an “indirect” occupation, working through the militant Hezbollah group and other allies.
“I will do everything to liberate my country from indirect Syrian occupation,” said Jumblatt, the leader of the Progressive Socialist Party of Lebanon.
Lebanon has been in turmoil since the 2005 murder of popular former prime minister Rafiq Hariri, which has been widely blamed on Syria.Afterward Damascus was forced to end 29 years of military domination in its small neighbor.
But ever since, Lebanon has been shaken by further attacks, which many also blame on Syria, a war between Israel and Hezbollah that left 1,200 mostly civilian Lebanese dead, and a Hezbollah-led opposition campaign to oust the Western-backed government.
The president of Iraqi Kurdistan called on Turkey for face-to-face talks to end high-running tensions over Turkish Kurd rebels based in his autonomous region in northern Iraq, in a television interview broadcast here yesterday.
His appeal coincides with remarks by Turkish officials that they are ready to meet Iraqi Kurdish leaders to discuss the problem, contrary to earlier threats by Ankara of a cross-border military operation to crack down on the rebels. [more]
A Palestinian youth throws stones at an Israeli tank in the West Bank. Similar scenes have been incorporated into computer games by programmers on both sides of the Middle East conflict. Photograph: David Silverman/Getty Images
In a former school turned art gallery in Israel two images are projected onto the wall. Both show scenes from the Palestinian intifada, the uprisings against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Both are from computer games: not the profit-driven, entertainment that fill the homes of teenagers across the world, but a little-noticed, alternative breed of game more concerned with politics, ideology and overturning notions of right and wrong.
On the left is a game called The Stone Throwers, written by a Syrian programmer. A player takes the part of a young Palestinian man standing before the al-Aqsa mosque in the old city of Jerusalem. The Palestinian is armed with stones; to win the game he must throw them at the Israeli soldiers advancing towards him on the screen.
Once the game ends, a message appears on the screen in English: "Well maybe you have killed some of the Israelisoldiers in the computer world, but this is the real world." A screen appears showing a photograph of a crowd carrying the open coffin of a boy draped in what appears to be the Palestinian flag. "Stop the killing of the innocents in Palestine before the game is really over," it says. [more]
A photograph of Yemenite Jews published in the Saudi newspaper Al-Watan last month.
Forty-five Jews in Yemen were transported on Sunday to the state capital of Sanaa after they were harassed by neighbors in their native town of Saada. The families traveled on a special flight arranged by the President of Yemen, Ali Abudullah Saleh.
The families were resettled in government apartments within walking distance from one other. The security situation in Sanaa is calmer than in Saada, where the Jews were under constant threat from radical elements. [more]
A German brother and sister are challenging the law against incest so that they can continue their relationship free from the threat of imprisonment.
Patrick Stübing, an unemployed locksmith, and his sister Susan have had four children together since starting a sexual relationship in 2000. Three of the children are in foster care, and two have unspecified disabilities.
The couple, who live near Leipzig, grew up separately and only met many years later. Their supporters say they will fight until incest is no longer regarded as a criminal offence, arguing that the law is out of date. They say it harks back to the racial hygiene laws of the Third Reich and should be overturned in favour of freedom of choice and sexual determination. Detractors insist that incest should remain a social taboo, largely because of the risks linked to inbreeding and the imbalance in social relations it inevitably causes. [more]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A narrow majority of Americans now favor setting a deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. forces in Iraq and a record number say they disapprove of the war, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll released on Monday.
Fifty-six percent say U.S. forces should be withdrawn eventually even if civil order has not been restored in Iraq, reflecting a continued and gradual departure from the "you break it, you’ve bought it" sentiment, ABC said.
Fifty-three percent support setting a date for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq, up from 47 percent last summer and 39 percent in late 2005. A large majority of those who support setting a deadline want the 139,000 U.S. troops in Iraq brought home within a year — half of that group would like them home in six months.
The poll found that 64 percent of Americans now say the war in Iraq was not worth fighting — up 6 points from last month to a new high.
According to the poll, two-thirds of Americans oppose President George W. Bush’s plan to send an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq. An equal number favor reducing U.S. military and financial support if the Iraqis fail to make progress restoring order.
Seventy percent of those polled believe the main blame for failing to control the violence in Iraq rests with its own government, not the United States.
ABC said the Democrat-led Congress continues to hold the upper hand on Iraq but slightly less so than last month. Then 60 percent of Americans trusted the Democrats over Bush to handle the war. Democrats lost ground in the new poll, dropping 6 points to 54 percent.
Democrats generally favor starting to bring the troops home but differ on how quickly and under what circumstances this should happen.
The ABC News/Washington Post telephone poll of 1,082 adults was conducted Feb. 22- 25. The results have a 3-point error margin.
“…a record number say they disapprove of the war”. Unless the writer is talking about the “64 percent of Americans now say the war in Iraq was not worth fighting” as record numbers, that particular question isn’t even asked. Nevertheless, 64% out of 1,082 people is 692. While 692 may be considered a record number out of 1,082; this isn’t what the poll is implying. The headline says "majority in US". They’re implying the US population, which to them consists of 1,082 people.
And…
1,082 Americans out of over 300 million Americans, does not a majority make.
Al Gore’s Personal Energy Use Is His Own “Inconvenient Truth”
Gore’s home uses more than 20 times the national average
Last night, Al Gore’s global-warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, collected an Oscar for best documentary feature, but the Tennessee Center for Policy Research has found that Gore deserves a gold statue for hypocrisy.
Gore’s mansion, located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES).
In his documentary, the former Vice President calls on Americans to conserve energy by reducing electricity consumption at home.
The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh—more than 20 times the national average.
Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh—guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359.
Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Gore’s energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400 kWh per month in 2006.
Gore’s extravagant energy use does not stop at his electric bill. Natural gas bills for Gore’s mansion and guest house averaged $1,080 per month last year.
“As the spokesman of choice for the global warming movement, Al Gore has to be willing to walk the walk, not just talk the talk, when it comes to home energy use,” said Tennessee Center for Policy Research President Drew Johnson.
In total, Gore paid nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills for his Nashville estate in 2006.
The US Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal by a high school teacher from Arizona sentenced to 200 years in jail for possessing child pornography.
Morton Berger had claimed the sentence was so disproportionate to his crime it breached the constitution.
If the 52-year-old had been tried in a federal court or lived elsewhere he would have received a lighter sentence.
But he was living in Arizona when he was caught with thousands of images of child abuse on his computer. [more]
Looking for any opportunity to embolden our enemies, the MSM is circulating this misleading headline: Gen. Pace: Military capability eroding. However, upon further reading, one finds this:
The latest review by Pace covers the military’s status during 2006, but the readiness level has seesawed back and forth during the Iraq war. Officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the risk levels are classified, said the risk for 2005 was moderate, but it was assessed as significant in 2004.His assessment was submitted to Defense Secretary Robert Gates at the beginning of this year, and therefore does not reflect the latest move to pour 21,500 more troops into Iraq over the next few months.That report concluded that "world events and regional trends add up to increased challenges to our nation’s security." And it said the decline in readiness is also affected by whether other federal agencies and other nations are fulfilling their commitments. [full article]
An astounding video uncovered from the archives today shows the BBC reporting on the collapse of WTC Building 7 over twenty minutes before it fell at 5:20pm on the afternoon of 9/11. The incredible footage shows BBC reporter Jane Standley talking about the collapse of the Salomon Brothers Building while it remains standing in the live shot behind her head.
Minutes before the actual collapse of the building is due, the feed to the reporter mysteriously dies. [more nonsense]
Bosnian Muslim and Croat leaders have voiced disappointment at the International Court of Justice’s decision to clear Serbia of genocide in Bosnia, while Serbs have expressed relief at the verdict.
The highest UN court said Serbia had not planned or carried out in the 1995 Bosnian Serb massacre of 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica.
But it said Serbia had violated its obligation to prevent and punish genocide.
Haris Silajdzic, a Bosnian Muslim leader, said: "It turns out there was genocide in Bosnia but it is not known who committed it."
A guilty verdict may have meant compensation claims in the billions. [more]
A baby is born. A child develops a high fever. A spouse breaks a leg. A parent suffers a stroke. These are the events that throw a working woman’s delicate balance between work and family into chaos.
Although we read endless stories and reports about the problems faced by working women, we possess inadequate language for what most people view as a private rather than a political problem. "That’s life," we tell each other, instead of trying to forge common solutions to these dilemmas.
That’s exactly what housewives used to say when they felt unhappy and unfulfilled in the 1950s: "That’s life." Although magazines often referred to housewives’ unexplained depressions, it took Betty Friedan’s 1963 bestseller to turn "the problem that has no name" into a household phrase, "the feminine mystique" — the belief that a woman should find identity and fulfillment exclusively through her family and home. [more]
Cabinet OKs Pact On Production, Sharing BAGHDAD, Iraq — After months of negotiations over the post-war spoils of Iraq’s most valuable natural resource, the Cabinet announced Monday night that it had approved a draft plan to ramp up oil production and share the proceeds.
The agreement was touted as a major breakthrough in U.S. efforts to press the country’s Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish groups to reach agreements to achieve stability. [more]
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Egypt has stopped its satellite transmission of a private Iraqi channel whose pro-Sunni programming came under criticism from the U.S. and Iraqi governments, an Information Ministry official said Monday.
The chairman of the board of NileSat, the country’s government-owned satellite, said the Al-Zawraa feed was cut for technical reasons and not as an act of censorship. The channel’s owner said the move as politically motivated and said he would sue Egypt.
“The transmission frequency of the channel interferes with the other channels broadcast by NileSat,'’ Amin Basyouni, NileSat’s chairman, told The Associated Press. “We have no authority over what these channels show. We believe in freedom of expression.'’
Al-Zawraa’s owner, Mishan al-Jabouri, was skeptical and said he would sue. [more]
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A suicide bomber killed 19 people and wounded 11 outside the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan on Tuesday during a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney, officials said. The Taliban claimed responsibility and said Cheney was the target.
The blast happened near the first security gate outside the base at Bagram, said Khoja Mohammad Qasim Sayedi, chief of the province’s public health department. Gov. Abdul Jabar Taqwa said "18 to 20 dead bodies" lay on the ground after the blast.
Maj. William Mitchell said it did not appear the explosion was intended as a threat to the vice president.
"He wasn’t near the site of the explosion," Mitchell said. "He was safely within the base at the time of the explosion."
However, a purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said Cheney was the target of the attack.
"We knew that Dick Cheney would be staying inside the base," Ahmadi told The Associated Press by telephone. "The attacker was trying to reach Cheney." [more]
