Israel Revisited: 'Gaza Is A Jail. Nobody Is Allowed To Leave. We Are All Starving Now'

On his trip to the Middle East, Tony Blair has paid tribute to the Israeli Prime Minister for his "exceptional courage" in leading his country through a "traumatic and difficult time". He was speaking in a press conference following talks with Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem.

Mr Olmert said he is ready to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, to advance progress on a stalled Middle East peace "road map".

Mr Olmert hailed Mr Blair as a "true and proven friend of the state of Israel and a dedicated friend of the Middle East" and described Britain as "Israel's staunch ally".

Today, Tony Blair met up with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. He said the world should restore contacts with the Palestinians if the ruling Hamas group agrees to form a unity government that renounces violence and recognizes Israel.

A Hamas spokesman, however, swiftly rejected those conditions. Why? See article below…

This article has been extracted from the Independent, UK
By Patrick Cockburn in Gaza, Published: 08 September 2006

Gaza is dying. The Israeli siege of the Palestinian enclave is so tight that its people are on the edge of starvation. Here on the shores of the Mediterranean a great tragedy is taking place that is being ignored because the world's attention has been diverted by wars in Lebanon and Iraq.

A whole society is being destroyed. There are 1.5 million Palestinians imprisoned in the most heavily populated area in the world. Israel has stopped all trade. It has even forbidden fishermen to go far from the shore so they wade into the surf to try vainly to catch fish with hand-thrown nets.

Many people are being killed by Israeli incursions that occur every day by land and air. A total of 262 people have been killed and 1,200 wounded, of whom 60 had arms or legs amputated, since 25 June, says Dr Juma al-Saqa, the director of the al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City which is fast running out of medicine. Of these, 64 were children and 26 women. This bloody conflict in Gaza has so far received only a fraction of the attention given by the international media to the war in Lebanon.

It was on 25 June that the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was taken captive and two other soldiers were killed by Palestinian militants who used a tunnel to get out of the Gaza Strip. In the aftermath of this, writes Gideon Levy in the daily Haaretz, the Israeli army "has been rampaging through Gaza - there's no other word to describe it - killing and demolishing, bombing and shelling, indiscriminately". Gaza has essentially been reoccupied since Israeli troops and tanks come and go at will. In the northern district of Shajhayeh they took over several houses last week and stayed five days. By the time they withdrew, 22 Palestinians had been killed, three houses were destroyed and groves of olive, citrus and almond trees had been bulldozed.

Fuad al-Tuba, the 61-year-old farmer who owned a farm here, said: "They even destroyed 22 of my bee-hives and killed four sheep." He pointed sadly to a field, its brown sandy earth churned up by tracks of bulldozers, where the stumps of trees and broken branches with wilting leaves lay in heaps. Near by a yellow car was standing on its nose in the middle of a heap of concrete blocks that had once been a small house.

His son Baher al-Tuba described how for five days Israeli soldiers confined him and his relatives to one room in his house where they survived by drinking water from a fish pond. "Snipers took up positions in the windows and shot at anybody who came near," he said. "They killed one of my neighbours called Fathi Abu Gumbuz who was 56 years old and just went out to get water." Sometimes the Israeli army gives a warning before a house is destroyed. The sound that Palestinians most dread is an unknown voice on their cell phone saying they have half an hour to leave their home before it is hit by bombs or missiles. There is no appeal.

But it is not the Israeli incursions alone that are destroying Gaza and its people. In the understated prose of a World Bank report published last month, the West Bank and Gaza face "a year of unprecedented economic recession. Real incomes may contract by at least a third in 2006 and poverty to affect close to two thirds of the population." Poverty in this case means a per capita income of under $2 (£1.06) a day.

There are signs of desperation everywhere. Crime is increasing. People do anything to feed their families. Israeli troops entered the Gaza industrial zone to search for tunnels and kicked out the Palestinian police. When the Israelis withdrew they were replaced not by the police but by looters. On one day this week there were three donkey carts removing twisted scrap metal from the remains of factories that once employed thousands.

"It is the worst year for us since 1948 [when Palestinian refugees first poured into Gaza]," says Dr Maged Abu-Ramadan, a former ophthalmologist who is mayor of Gaza City. "Gaza is a jail. Neither people nor goods are allowed to leave it. People are already starving. They try to live on bread and falafel and a few tomatoes and cucumbers they grow themselves."

The few ways that Gazans had of making money have disappeared. Dr Abu-Ramadan says the Israelis "have destroyed 70 per cent of our orange groves in order to create security zones." Carnations and strawberries, two of Gaza's main exports, were thrown away or left to rot. An Israeli air strike destroyed the electric power station so 55 per cent of power was lost. Electricity supply is now becoming almost as intermittent as in Baghdad.

The Israeli assault over the past two months struck a society already hit by the withdrawal of EU subsidies after the election of Hamas as the Palestinian government in March. Israel is withholding taxes owed on goods entering Gaza. Under US pressure, Arab banks abroad will not transfer funds to the government.

Two thirds of people are unemployed and the remaining third who mostly work for the state are not being paid. Gaza is now by far the poorest region on the Mediterranean. Per capita annual income is $700, compared with $20,000 in Israel. Conditions are much worse than in Lebanon where Hizbollah liberally compensates war victims for loss of their houses. If Gaza did not have enough troubles this week there were protest strikes and marches by unpaid soldiers, police and security men.

These were organised by Fatah, the movement of the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, which lost the election to Hamas in January. His supporters marched through the streets waving their Kalashnikovs in the air. "Abu Mazen you are brave," they shouted. "Save us from this disaster." Sour-looking Hamas gunmen kept a low profile during the demonstration but the two sides are not far from fighting it out in the streets. The Israeli siege and the European boycott are a collective punishment of everybody in Gaza.

The gunmen are unlikely to be deterred. In a bed in Shifa Hospital was a sturdy young man called Ala Hejairi with wounds to his neck, legs, chest and stomach. "I was laying an anti-tank mine last week in Shajhayeh when I was hit by fire from an Israeli drone," he said. "I will return to the resistance when I am better. Why should I worry? If I die I will die a martyr and go to paradise."

His father, Adel, said he was proud of what his son had done adding that three of his nephews were already martyrs. He supported the Hamas government: "Arab and Western countries want to destroy this government because it is the government of the resistance."

As the economy collapses there will be many more young men in Gaza willing to take Ala Hejairi's place. Untrained and ill-armed most will be killed. But the destruction of Gaza, now under way, will ensure that no peace is possible in the Middle East for generations to come.

The deadly toll
* After the kidnap of Cpl Gilad Shalit by Palestinians on 25 June, Israel launched a massive offensive and blockade of Gaza under the operation name Summer Rains.
* The Gaza Strip's 1.3 million inhabitants, 33 per cent of whom live in refugee camps, have been under attack for 74 days.
* More than 260 Palestinians, including 64 children and 26 women, have been killed since 25 June. One in five is a child. One Israeli soldier has been killed and 26 have been wounded.
* 1,200 Palestinians have been injured, including up to 60 amputations. A third of victims brought to hospital are children.
* Israeli warplanes have launched more than 250 raids on Gaza, hitting the two power stations and the foreign and Information ministries.
* At least 120 Palestinian structures including houses, workshops and greenhouses have been destroyed and 160 damaged by the Israelis.
* The UN has criticised Israel's bombing, which has caused an estimated $1.8bn in damage to the electricity grid and leaving more than a million people without regular access to drinking water.
* The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem says 76 Palestinians, including 19 children, were killed by Israeli forces in August alone. Evidence shows at least 53 per cent were not participating in hostilities.
* In the latest outbreak of violence, three Palestinians were killed yesterday when Israeli troops raided a West Bank town in search of a wanted militant. Two of those killed were unarmed, according to witnesses.

Weekly Round Up: Goodbye Blair, Death of President Bush & Expensive Salsa Lessons

It’s been another crazy week in world politics mostly dominated by the announcement of Prime Minister Tony Blair expecting to stand down next year and also of President Bush announcing that CIA prisons does exist in countries outside of the US. It has now been revealed by the US senate that there is no link between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaida (check my blog article), prior to this they claimed that there was no WMD in Iraq. Here are the other news this week….

Iran
Iran snubs U.N. chief over nuke program
Iran's leader rejected international demands to stop enriching uranium and ignored Kofi Annan's warnings not to incite hatred by questioning the Holocaust including an exhibition in Tehran of cartoons mocking the Holocaust that was opened as a response to Western caricatures of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).
- I can understand why Iran is allowing the carton exhibitions to go ahead, but two wrongs don’t make a right and this should stop. For the record it must be noted that the cartoon exhibition was (like the Danish cartoons) commissioned by a newspaper and not by the government. Anyone publishing/ broadcasting under “Freedom of speech” should bear responsibilities and if guilty of causing hatred should be punished.

Iranian Fighter Planes in action
Iran unveiled its first locally manufactured fighter plane Wednesday during large-scale military exercises, state-run television reported. The report said the bomber Saegheh is similar to the American F-18 fighter plane, but "more powerful." The Saegheh is capable of launching both rockets and bomb.

The Islamic republic is concerned about the U.S. military presence in neighbouring Iraq and Afghanistan at a time when the international community has threatened to impose sanctions against Tehran because of its disputed nuclear program. After decades of relying on foreign weapons purchases, Iran now says it is increasingly self-sufficient, claiming it annually exports more than $100 million worth of military equipment to more than 50 countries.

Since 1992, Iran has produced its own tanks, armored personnel carriers and missiles, the government said. It announced in early 2005 that it had begun producing torpedoes. The government has not said how many warplanes it will build.


USA
Khatumi visits the US
It has been confirmed that former President of Iran Mohammad Khatami will be addressing the Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government on the eve of the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

The faculty proposed the invitation after they learnt that Khatami would be speaking at the United Nations. Sept. 10 was the only date available. Several months ago Harvard came under attack when a professor helped write an article criticizing a so-called "Israel Lobby" for driving foreign policy in Washington to the detriment of U.S. interests. In 2004,

Various newspapers and community groups have already denounced the timing of Khatami’s visit to Harvard.
- So much for freedom of speech!

Death of a President
Channel 4 is courting controversy with what it calls a "shockingly real" drama about the fictional assassination of President George W. Bush.

In the film "Death of a President,", Bush is killed by a sniper, and the investigation quickly focuses on a Syrian-born man. It will air in October on Channel 4's More4 digital channel, as well as at the Toronto Film Festival in September.
- When the drama was revealed to the press earlier this week, there were mixed views between European and American public. The European public was all for it as it was a fictional drama and freedom of speech allowed such scripts. In America, the land of the free, the public were very angry at the drama, citing that it might inspire some nutcase to do something in real life. I tend to agree with the American public. I think the American have had so many high profile assassination that drama like this is very hurtful to the American public.

Here is a list of some high profile assignations in the US:
Abraham Lincoln, (1865), President of the United States
James Garfield, (1881), President of the United States
William McKinley, (1901), President of the United States
John F. Kennedy, (1963), President of the United States
Medgar Evers, (1963), U.S. civil rights activist
Malcolm X, (1965), black leader,
Martin Luther King Jr., (1968), U.S. civil rights activist
Robert F. Kennedy, (1968), Presidential candidate

UK
Blair jeered by college students
Tony Blair was booed and faced chants of "out, out, out" by pupils at at Quintin Kynaston school at which he made a statement about his future

Students at the school used their afternoon off lessons to join anti-war demonstrators at the school gates. A small group of teachers cheered and applauded Mr Blair as his cavalcade approached the school gates but they were drowned out by about 60 protesters who gathered in the street outside the school.

They held placards with the words "time to go" and a 4ft model of a dog biscuit which they were offering as a "reward" to "Tony the Poodle" for his obedience to US President George Bush. One 13-year-old girl said: "They [the protesters] are not exploiting us. "We understand some stupid people in politics are trying to kill the Lebanese and Iraqis and everybody else."
- Looks like the future is bright!


Mr Brown for PM?
The Labour leadership battle flared again today as the former Home Secretary Charles Clarke criticised Gordon Brown's behaviour as "absolutely stupid ".

He said that people in the Labour Party had been angered by a photo of Mr Brown grinning as he left Downing Street after talks with Mr Blair. Mr Brown should have distanced himself the rebels who wrote to the Prime Minister demanding his resignation.
- Quite right!

Palestinians tell Blair: you are not welcome here
Tony Blair has already been told that he not welcome in the Lebanon, now Palestinians have also told him not to come. Hundreds of Palestinians signed a newspaper advertisement yesterday criticising Tony Blair and telling him he would not be welcome when he arrives on a Middle East visit expected this weekend.

Mr Blair is expected in Jerusalem this weekend where he is likely to meet the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, as well as the foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, and the defence minister, Amir Peretz. Mr Blair will travel to Ramallah in the occupied West Bank to meet Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority. He is not expected to meet members of the Hamas government.

Palestinian politics are in crisis at the moment because Israel and the international community have blocked funding to the elected Hamas government. There have been strikes among teachers, doctors and security forces who have not been paid since March.
- An article about this issue will be published soon!

Africa
South Africa deaths rise sharply
South Africa's death rate rose sharply over a seven-year period and the increase is partly due to the country's staggering AIDS epidemic, the government said.

Overall, the government has estimated more than 5.5 million South Africans are infected with HIV, a number second only to India and one that amounts to about an eighth of estimated cases worldwide. On average, more than 900 people die of the disease in South Africa each day.

South Africa's government has come under mounting international criticism because of its handling of its AIDS epidemic. President Thabo Mbeki once questioned the link between HIV and AIDS and both he and Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang have doubted the effectiveness of anti-retroviral drugs used to treat AIDS.

Her office has been controversial, mainly because of her reluctance to adopt a plan for treating AIDS in the public sector with anti-retroviral medicines. She has been called 'Dr Beetroot' for promoting the benefits of beetroot, garlic, lemons, and African potatoes as well as good general nutrition, while referring to possible toxicities of AIDS medicines.
- so much for using alternative medicines!


Asia & Australasia
Philippines: Mayoral Election
It is assumed that Imelda Marcos may run for mayor of Manila in 2007. The widow of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, was a one-term member of the Lower House of Congress from 1995 to 1998.
- Lets hope, if elected, the petty cash till at the mayoral office can cope with her shoe fetishes.

Australia: "Crocodile Hunter" Irwin dies
It was also sad to hear of the death of Steve Irwin, the quirky Australian naturalist who won world-wide acclaim. A stingray barb went through his chest, instantly killing him. A state funeral was proposed but the Irwin family declined it.

And finally….

Hong Kong: Banker wins salsa case
A prominent Hong Kong banker has won back millions of dollars paid to famous salsa dancers for private lessons. Monica Wong agreed to pay Italian Mirko Saccani and world champion wife Gaynor Fairweather HK$120m ($15.4m, £8.2m) for eight years of unlimited lessons from 2004 till 2012.

But the relationship quickly broke down after Mr Saccani called her a "lazy cow" at a public practice session. The dance instructors claimed it was a tool to motive her, but Monica felt hurt by the comments and never went back to the lessons. A judge ordered the pair to return HK$62m Ms Wong had already paid, plus interest.
- Having too much money means there is a chance of wastage of money, this is one such case.

Senate finds no al-Qaida-Saddam link

This has been extracted from Yahoo News
By JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Saddam Hussein rejected overtures from al-Qaida and believed Islamic extremists were a threat to his regime, a reverse portrait of an Iraq allied with Osama bin Laden painted by the Bush White House, a Senate panel has found.

The administration's version was based in part on intelligence that White House officials knew was flawed, according to Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, citing newly declassified documents released by the panel.

The report, released Friday, discloses for the first time an October 2005 CIA assessment that prior to the war Saddam's government "did not have a relationship, harbor or turn a blind eye toward" al-Qaida operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or his associates.

As recently as an Aug. 21 news conference, President Bush said people should "imagine a world in which you had Saddam Hussein" with the capacity to make weapons of mass destruction and "who had relations with Zarqawi."

Democrats singled out CIA Director George Tenet, saying that during a private meeting in July Tenet told the panel that the White House pressured him and that he agreed to back up the administration's case for war despite his own agents' doubts about the intelligence it was based on.

"Tenet admitted to the Intelligence Committee that the policymakers wanted him to 'say something about not being inconsistent with what the president had said,'" Intelligence Committee member Carl Levin, D-Mich., told reporters Friday.

Tenet also told the committee that complying had been "the wrong thing to do," according to Levin.

"Well, it was much more than that," Levin said. "It was a shocking abdication of a CIA director's duty not to act as a shill for any administration or its policy."

Leaders of both parties accused each other of seeking political gain on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Republicans said the document contained little new information about prewar intelligence or postwar findings on Iraq's weapons and connection to terrorist groups.

Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., accused Democrats of trying to "use the committee ... insisting that they were deliberately duped into supporting the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime."

"That is simply not true," Roberts added, "and I believe the American people are smart enough to recognize election-year politicking when they see it."

The report speaks for itself, Democrats said. The administration "exploited the deep sense of insecurity among Americans in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, leading a large majority of Americans to believe — contrary to the intelligence assessments at the time — that Iraq had a role in the 9/11 attacks," said Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee.

Still, Democrats were reluctant to say how the administration officials involved should be called to account.

Asked whether the wrongdoing amounted to criminal conduct, Levin and Rockefeller declined to answer. Rockefeller said later he did not believe Bush should be impeached over the matter.

According to the report, postwar findings indicate that Saddam "was distrustful of al-Qaida and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime." It quotes an FBI report from June 2004 in which former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz said in an interview that "Saddam only expressed negative sentiments about bin Laden."

Saddam himself is quoted in an FBI summary as acknowledging that the Iraqi government had met with bin Laden but denying that he had colluded with the al-Qaida leader. Claiming that Iraq opposed only U.S. policies, Saddam said that "if he wanted to cooperate with the enemies of the U.S., he would have allied with North Korea or China," the report quotes the FBI document.

The Democrats said that on Oct. 7, 2002, the day Bush gave a speech speaking of that link, the CIA had sent a declassified letter to the committee saying it would be an "extreme step" for Saddam to assist Islamist terrorists in attacking the United States.

Levin and Rockefeller said Tenet in July acknowledged to the committee that subsequently issuing a statement that there was no inconsistency between the president's speech and the CIA viewpoint had been a mistake.

They also charged Bush with continuing to cite faulty intelligence in his argument for war as recently as last month.

The report said that al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaida leader killed by a U.S. airstrike last June, was in Baghdad from May 2002 until late November 2002. But "postwar information indicates that Saddam Hussein attempted, unsuccessfully, to locate and capture al-Zarqawi and that the regime did not have a relationship with, harbor or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi."

In June 2004, Bush also defended Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion that Saddam had "long-established ties" with al-Qaida. "Zarqawi is the best evidence of connection to al-Qaida affiliates and al-Qaida," the president said.

The report concludes that postwar findings do not support a 2002 intelligence community report that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program, possessed biological weapons or ever developed mobile facilities for producing biological warfare agents.

A second part of the report finds that false information from the Iraqi National Congress, an anti-Saddam group led by then-exile Ahmed Chalabi, was used to support key intelligence community assessments on Iraq.

Death Penalty Recommended for US Soldiers

This was reported earlier this week (extracted from Yahoo News)
By ALICIA A. CALDWELL, Associated Press Writer

An Army investigator has recommended that four soldiers accused of murder in a raid in Iraq should face the death penalty if convicted, according to a report obtained Saturday by The Associated Press.

Lt. Col. James P. Daniel Jr. concluded that the slayings were premeditated and warranted the death sentence based on evidence he heard at an August hearing. The case will now be forwarded to Army officials, who will decide whether Daniel's recommendation should be followed.

The soldiers, all from the Fort Campbell, Ky.-based 101st Airborne Division's 187th Infantry Regiment, are accused of killing three Iraqi men taken from a house May 9 on a marshy island outside Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad.

Staff Sgt. Raymond L. Girouard, Spc. William B. Hunsaker, Pfc. Corey R. Clagett and Spc. Juston R. Graber have claimed they were ordered to "kill all military age males" during the raid on the island. According to statements from some of the soldiers, they were told the target was an al-Qaida training camp.

Hunsaker told investigators that he and Clagett were attacked by the three men, who were being handcuffed, and shot them in self-defense. Clagett said he was hit in the face, and Hunsaker claimed he was stabbed during the attack.

Prosecutors argue the soldiers conspired to kill the men and then altered the scene to fit their story. They contend Girouard stabbed Hunsaker as part of the killing plot.

Clagett, Girouard and Hunsaker also are accused of threatening to kill another soldier who witnessed the slayings. Girouard, the most senior soldier charged, faces several additional charges, including sexual harassment and carrying a personal weapon on duty.

Paul Bergrin, Clagett's civilian attorney, said he was surprised that Daniel recommended the case be taken to trial at all.

"I'm extremely disappointed and disheartened," Bergrin said Saturday. "They are being used as pawns in the war on terror. They followed the rules of engagement. They were confronted with violence by a known al-Qaida training camp member."

Other lawyers in the case, several of whom are deployed to Iraq, did not immediately respond to e-mail requests for comment.

The soldiers are expected to be tried at Fort Campbell. They have been jailed in Kuwait since their arrests this year.

The U.S. military has not executed a soldier since the 1960 hanging of a soldier convicted rape and attempted murder.

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This is not the first case of alleged abuse by US soldiers:

Taken from Green Left Weekly, April 6, 2005.
US Army documents released in early May have revealed that a US military “investigation” into the alleged rape of two Iraqi women by US soldiers was shut down for lack of evidence — without contacting the alleged victims. It is alleged that the women were attacked by four soldiers guarding a mall. One of the soldiers interviewed by “investigators” said, “I know the women were Iraqi. I however don’t know if they were raped, or were prostitutes, or were just looking for sex.” Suzanne Goldberg, the journalist who broke the story for the British Guardian, explained that the investigation record consisted entirely of “not very rigorous” interviews with soldiers.

Taken from Daily Telegraph, “Body of 'US soldiers' rape victim' made medic” -August 7 2006
An Iraqi army medic told a United States military hearing yesterday that he was sick for days after finding the naked and burned body of a 14-year-old girl, allegedly raped and murdered by US soldiers.

The doctor was testifying on the first day of a hearing to determine whether five soldiers will face court martial for the rape and murder on March 12 of Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi and the killing of her parents and sister.

The medic, whose name was withheld for security reasons, had been called to a house in the hardline Sunni town of Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad. He said he found the girl naked, her torso and head burned. She had a bullet wound under one eye.

"I was feeling very bad," he said. "I was sick for almost two weeks."
He found Abeer's five-year-old sister, Hadeel, in another room. A bullet had blown the back of her head out. Their parents had also been shot.

Prosecutors say a squad from the 502nd Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, drank alcohol heavily before abandoning a checkpoint, changing clothes and entering the victim's house nearby.

Four soldiers - Sgt Paul Cortez, Specialist James Barker, Pte Jesse Spielman and Pte Bryan Howard - are charged with conspiracy to rape and murder. A fifth, Sgt Anthony Yribe, is charged with failing to report the attack. A sixth man, former Pte Steven Green, faces rape and murder charges in a civilian court. He was discharged from the military in May after a psychiatric evaluation.

Taken from the Guardian “The other prisoners“ Thursday May 20, 2004
Most of the coverage of abuse at Abu Ghraib has focused on male detainees. But what of the five women held in the jail, and the scores elsewhere in Iraq? Luke Harding reports

The scandal at Abu Ghraib prison was first exposed not by a digital photograph but by a letter. In December 2003, a woman prisoner inside the jail west of Baghdad managed to smuggle out a note. Its contents were so shocking that, at first, Amal Kadham Swadi and the other Iraqi women lawyers who had been trying to gain access to the US jail found them hard to believe.
The note claimed that US guards had been raping women detainees, who were, and are, in a small minority at Abu Ghraib. Several of the women were now pregnant, it added. The women had been forced to strip naked in front of men, it said. The note urged the Iraqi resistance to bomb the jail to spare the women further shame.

Astonishingly, the secret inquiry launched by the US military in January, headed by Major General Antonio Taguba, has confirmed that the letter smuggled out of Abu Ghraib by a woman known only as "Noor" was entirely and devastatingly accurate.

In Iraq, the existence of photographs of women detainees being abused has provoked revulsion and outrage, but little surprise. Some of the women involved may since have disappeared, according to human rights activists. Honour killings are not unusual in Islamic society, where rape is often equated with shame and where the stigma of being raped by an American soldier would, according to one Islamic cleric, be "unbearable". The prospects for rape victims in Iraq are grave; it is hardly surprising that no women have so far come forward to talk about their experiences in US-run jails where abuse was rife until early January.

President Bush Admits Secret CIA Prisons Whilst The EU Investigates Member Countries

President George W. Bush acknowledged on Wednesday that the CIA had interrogated dozens of terrorism suspects at secret overseas locations and said 14 of those held had been sent to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay. U.S. officials have said that the CIA held no more suspects.

Bush was forced to come up with a new method to try foreign terrorist suspects after the U.S. Supreme Court in June rejected the military tribunal system his administration set up to tryGuantanamo prisoners, most captured in Afghanistan.

Bush strongly defended the secret detention and questioning of terrorism suspects and said the CIA treated them humanely and did not torture. Human rights activists greeted his announcement with some scepticism. The detention program, disclosed last year by The Washington Post newspaper, provoked an international outcry. The newspaper did not publish the names of the Eastern European countries involved in the covert program, at the request of senior U.S. officials. They argued that the disclosure might disrupt counter terrorism efforts in those countries andelsewhere and could make them targets of possible terrorist retaliation.

The Bush administration previously declined to admit the existence of the secret CIA prisons. The U.N. committee against torture in May called on the United States to close any such facilities, but senior administration officials said the program was essential and would remain open.

European lawmakers demanded on Thursday that their governments reveal the location of secret CIA prisons. EU member Poland and candidate country Romania, accused of hosting secret CIAdetention centers by an investigator for Europe's chief human rights watchdog, the Council of Europe, issued fresh denials, but EU lawmakers were not satisfied."The location of these prison camps must be made public," said German lawmaker Wolfgang Kreissl-Doerfler, a member of a European Parliament committee investigating the allegations. "We need to know if there has been any complicity in illegal acts," he added.

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It’s been long time coming but President Bush has finally come out with the truth. His statement has surprised many people including myself but the arrogant treatment of it allies by the US and has prompted the president to admit the facts.

Here is some fascinating information:
Former CIA agent Michael Scheuer told CBS' "60 Minutes" in march that the program began under the Clinton administration -- and he said everyone knew that terror suspects were being sent to countries that "don't have the same legal system we have." …"It's convenient in the sense that it allows American policymakers and American politicians to avoid making hard decisions," he said. "It's very convenient. It's finding someone else to do your dirty work." Asked whether that makes the United States complicit in torture, Scheuer said, "You'll have to ask the lawyers."

The Telegraph reported that in 2003, the United States cut off military aid to almost 50 countries that have refused to sign immunity deals exempting American citizens from prosecution by the International Criminal Court. Why was the US afraid of the ICC?It was also the year the UK and US agrred on the Extradition Act, well, the UK did anyway. Britain allows US officials to extradite suspected criminals on the basis merely of "information providing a reasonable basis to believe" that a person has committed an offence. It has been said that the US has similar agreements with some of the Eastern European Countries that have now joined or are in the process of joining the EU.

Poland and Romania are two “Eastern European” countries being accused of having secret CIA prisons. The Polish & Romanian governments have flatly denied any activity. Poland's leading Gazeta Wyborcza daily as well as U.S.-based lobby group Human Rights Watch reported in 2003 of CIA activity at the abandoned Szymany military airfield in northern Poland.

Dick Marty, a Swiss lawyer working on behalf of the Council of Europe, the continent's official human rights organization, said at least seven other European nations colluded with the CIA to capture and secretly detain terrorism suspects, including several who were ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing.

Sweden, Italy, Britain, Turkey, Germany, Bosnia and Macedonia "could be held responsible for violations of the rights of specific individuals" who were handed over to the CIA or captured by U.S. operatives in those countries, Marty said in a report released in Paris.He also said Spain, Cyprus, Ireland, Greece and Portugal turned a blind eye to CIA-chartered flights that landed on their soil to transfer terrorism suspects within Europe and beyond.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack characterized the report as "sort of rehash" and lacking in "solid facts." Marty acknowledged that he lacked proof that would firmly establish the existence of the secret prisons. But he cited flight data and satellite photos acquired from European agencies as evidence that the CIA transported high-level terrorism suspects from Afghanistan to airports in Szymany, Poland, in October 2003 and Timisoara, Romania, in January 2004. Marty said a close examination of the flights indicated that the suspects were dropped off in those countries for detention.

According to his analysis of the flight data, Marty found a pattern of "flight circuits" involving CIA-chartered aircraft that often began at Washington Dulles International Airport and made several common stops around the world before returning to the United States or to the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Based on the same flight analysis, Marty reported that there was "prima facie" evidence that the CIA regularly delivered al-Qaeda suspects to detention centers outside Europe, including facilities in Algiers; Amman, Jordan; Baghdad; Cairo; Islamabad, Pakistan; Kabul, Afghanistan; Rabat, Morocco; and Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

Useful Reading:
Washington Post, June 2006: European Probe Finds Signs Of CIA-Run Secret Prisons
CNN , March 2005: CIA sends terror suspects abroad for interrogation
BBC, November 2005: US Probes Secret CIA jail claim
Washington Post, November 2005: CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons
Daily Telegraph, July 2003: US military aid stopped in court immunity rift
EU Report: Alleged secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers involving Council of Europemember states

Dear Tony, It’s Time To Go….

The time is almost up for Prime Minister Tony Blair. The one time saviour of the Labour Party has become so unpopular that members of his administration are calling for a quick exit. He will step down as prime minister within a year, some of his closest allies are saying.

The UK rejoiced at the sight of the young Prime Minister who led the Labour Party to Government in 1997. With eighteen years of Conservative rule “Things can only get better” was sung by everyone. He was admired by many people all round the world (even the US citizens were complaining why its President was not like him), times have changed, D:Ream became a nightmare as the behaviour of the Prime Minister became questionable following the decision to invade Iraq.

History will not judge kindly. He will always be remembered for being addressed as “Yo Blair!” and by the way he addressed the President of the United States at the G8 meeting.

As George Galloway said: “His special relationship is similar to the one Miss Lewinsky had with President Clinton: its one-sided, it’s grotesquely unequal, and with the weaker partner always on their knees”.

Tom Watson (now ex-junior minister) and seven parliamentary private secretaries (PPSs) were among a number of normally loyal Labour MPs who signed a letter calling on Mr Blair to quit. The seven were: Khalid Mahmood, Wayne David, Ian Lucas, Mark Tami, Chris Mole, David Wright and Iain Wright. Copies of the letters have been pasted below. At local level, many supporters are leaving the party at an alarming rate in protest of the Prime Ministers policies.

It is understood that Labour experts are already planning Tony Blair's exit from No10. The retirement blueprint aims to promote the "triumph of Blairism" and allow the PM to quit on a wave of euphoria after 10 years in office. The secret strategy - drawn up by a small group of loyalists - is well under way. Mr Blair's "farewell tour" includes plans to appear on Blue Peter, Songs of Praise and Chris Evans' radio show.

A reader in the metro newspaper wrote angrily “the only tour Mr Blair should contemplate is one to the various homes of those British soldiers who have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan as part of the Blair/ Bush wars. Maybe the tour could end at the UN’s international court of Justice in The Hague, where Mr Blair could answer the charges for taking Britain into the illegal war in Iraq. What an epitaph that would be."

From being one of the most popular Prime Ministers in Britain to one of the most hated, I hope people give him the respect he deserves. It is a shame that Tony Blair is being dragged out of office through the back door, he deserves better from his comrades but his failure to listen to them and also to the public will mean that he will have to pay the ultimate price - goodbye and thankyou.

Resignation Letters (taken from BBC website)
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TOM WATSON'S RESIGNATION

Dear Tony

The Labour Party has been my life since I was 15 years old.

I have served the party at every conceivable level and your own leadership since 1994 in a dozen different capacities, latterly as MP for West Bromwich East, a government whip, and as parliamentary under-secretary of state at the Ministry of Defence.

My loyalty to you personally, as well as to the party and the values we stand for, has been absolute and unswerving.

The struggle to fashion the kind of credible, convincing, effective Labour Party you now lead has been the preoccupation of my adult years.

My pride in what our government has achieved under your leadership is beyond expression.

We have revolutionised the lives and expectations of millions of our citizens, combining social justice with prosperity in a way which is unprecedented in the history of our country.

Your leadership has been visionary and remarkable.

The party and the nation owes you an incalculable debt.

So it is with the greatest sadness that I have to say that I no longer believe that your remaining in office is in the interest of either the party or the country.

How and why this situation has arisen no longer matters.

I share the view of the overwhelming majority of the party and the country that the only way the party and the government can renew itself in office is urgently to renew its leadership.

For the sake of the legacy you have long said is the only one that matters - a renewed Labour party re-elected at the next general election - I urge you to reconsider your determination to remain in office.

As you know, I had a conversation with the chief whip last night, in which she asked me to withdraw my support from the 2001 intake's letter calling on you to stand down, or my position would be untenable as a government minister.

I have reflected on this overnight.

I cannot withdraw my name, and therefore I accept her judgement.

I do not believe that statements so far give us the clarity necessary to progress over the next year.

Nor do I believe that newspaper reports of potential dates which may have appeared since I signed the 2001 intake's letter can provide the clarity the party and the country so desperately need.

It is with the greatest regret, therefore, that I must leave the government.

Yours ever

Tom Watson MP
West Bromwich East
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BLAIR'S RESPONSE

Dear Tom

Thank you for your letter.

I am sorry it has come to this.

You did a good job as a minister and I thank you for it.

I know you have worked hard for the Labour Party throughout your life.

I also accept entirely that you are entitled to your view about the best way for the Labour Party to renew in office.

But as you will know from the long years of Opposition we have endured, Labour only came to power after putting behind it the divisive behaviour of the past and uniting around a modern vision for both country and party.

The way to renew and win again now is not to engage in a divisive - and since I have already made it clear I will be leaving before the election - totally unnecessary attempt to unseat the party leader, less than 15 months after our historic third term victory; but through setting out the policy agenda for the future combined with a stable and orderly transition that leaves ample time for the next leader to bed in.

We are three years from the next election.

We have a strong policy platform.

There is no fundamental ideological divide in the Labour Party for the first time in 100 years of history.

For the first time ever, we have the prospect not just of two but three successive full terms.

To put all this at risk in this way is simply not a sensible, mature or intelligent way of conducting ourselves if we want to remain a governing party.

So I am sorry we are in disagreement.

Yours ever

Tony
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KHALID MAHMOOD'S RESIGNATION

Dear Tony

It is with great regret that I am writing to you to offer my resignation from my position as parliamentary private secretary to Tony McNulty MP at the Home Office.

Our Labour government has achieved a huge amount for this country, investing in and reforming our public services and lifting millions of our most vulnerable citizens out of poverty. Your leadership since 1994 has been inspirational.

The party and the nation owe you a tremendous debt.

It is imperative that we continue this work for the good of our party and our country.

This has always been my primary concern.

It was what drew me into Labour politics as a very young man, and what has underpinned the unswerving loyalty I have always demonstrated to you personally and the party as a whole.

The party and the Labour government's work is more important than any individual.

Sadly, I feel that your remaining in office no longer serves the best interests of the party or the country.

Given which views, it is with the greatest regret that I must leave the government.

Yours sincerely

Khalid Mahmood MP
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LETTER FROM FOUR PPS'

Dear Tony

We have been honoured to serve as members under your leadership since entering the Commons in 2001.

The process of renewal and reinvigoration that your premiership has inspired is without precedent. In each of our constituencies remarkable achievements have resulted directly from the policies of Labour governments since 1997.

All of us rightly regard ourselves as loyal to the Labour Party and yourself over many years. We believe however that you have not ended the uncertainty over when you intend to leave office, which is damaging the government and the party.

The letter signed by other parliamentary colleagues organised by Karen Buck fails to address this issue and we are unable to put our names to it.

We have vitally important Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and English Local Authority elections next year and we must resolve this matter well in advance of these.

It is with great sadness that we feel under the circumstances we have no alternative but to resign as parliamentary private secretaries.

Yours ever

Wayne David MP, Caerphilly; Ian Lucas MP, Wrexham; Mark Tami MP, Alyn & Deeside; David Wright MP, Telford

60 Seconds Interview: John Pilger

This interview has been extracted from the Metro Newspaper
Graeme Greene - Published Tuesday, September 5, 2006

War correspondent, author and filmmaker John Pilger has spent five decades reporting on injustices around the world. He has been made International Reporter Of The Year and awarded the United Nations Association Peace Prize and has won an Emmy for his films. A week-long festival of his films is showing at the Barbican in London from September 14 to 21.

How do you feel looking back at the films you’ve made? Exhausted?
I suppose so [laughs]. Exhausted? Yes. I’ve enjoyed making them all, though.

What’s the main danger you face making these films?
I never really worry about personal danger much, except when I’m flying on dodgy airlines. I’ve done a number of undercover projects, though, where the danger has been getting the film out. In Czechoslovakia in the 1970s, for example, when there was a Stalinist dictatorship, I went in with a film crew disguised as Austrian campers. On the way out, the border guards decided to give our camper van a thorough going over. They didn’t find our equipment under the floor because we’d made the van such an appalling mess that it scared them off. We also scattered copies of Playboy and Penthouse all over. They made off with the magazines and we got away.

What are your views on what’s happening in Lebanon?
Israel’s attack on Lebanon was clearly a precursor to an attack on Iran or Syria or both. That’s been stopped for now. I think Israel will try again to subdue Lebanon and Hezbollah. But, of course, nothing will ever be resolved in the region until Palestinians are given their homeland and have the same freedoms as the Israelis.

You’ve made two films, 28 years apart, with the same title: Palestine Is Still The Issue. What changes did you see in Palestine?
No change - that’s why I used the same title. Palestinians are still denied basic justice and Israelis still suffer the insecurity that comes from running an illegal occupation. The Palestinians want only 25 per cent - if that - of historic Palestine. That should have been theirs a long time ago and the result would have been peace for them and peace for Israel.

Is there any connection between what’s happening in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq?
Iraq presents a different situation in that it has the world’s second-biggest oil reserves, so there were other incentives for invasion. But as far as the Arab people are concerned, Palestine is an open sore in the Middle East and, until that’s sorted, there’s always going to be uncertainty, insecurity and almost certainly violence.

There’s been worldwide criticism of Israel’s actions in the Middle East for many years. Why hasn’t it had more of an effect?
The criticism is many years late. It should have begun a long time ago. What was done in another age to the Jewish people is the reason why this has only arisen now. Europe has a bad conscience over Israel, and the Palestinians have been designated to suffer. It’s arisen now because what Israel is doing in Lebanon is so blatant. You can say there are two types of terrorism. There’s the small, rather dislocated terrorism that is always associated with al-Qaeda. That has undoubtedly been strengthened by the invasion of Iraq and everything Bush has done. Then there’s state terrorism, which is almost never talked about. We’ve just seen it in Lebanon. That was a terror war where they deliberately bombed civilians. That’s the terrorism that should be worrying us.

Do you think people’s belief in the War On Terror is dwindling?
It’s a pity people believed in it from the start. There isn’t a war on terror. It’s impossible for the world’s greatest terrorist organisation - the United States - to conduct a war on terror. It’s absurd. Since 1946, they’ve overthrown some 50 governments, many of them by terrorist means - that’s terrorism. One of the biggest issues today is understanding the complicity of Ôour side’ in all these events around the world. Looking at the polls, I think British people understand that. In a poll the other day, they found that about 70 per cent of Britons are highly sceptical of this alleged terror plot at Heathrow. I don’t know how much of this current alleged plot is true or not, and neither do most of the people in this country. An overwhelming majority also regard the Prime Minister as deceiving them and are opposed to the war on Iraq. Popular awareness and understanding of the lies people are being fed and the implications of them are pretty widespread.

What do you think the War On Terror is really about?
It’s presented as something new but it isn’t. The only way I can make sense of what’s happening in the world is in terms of empire and imperial ambitions. This situation in Lebanon is a classic example. The United States was complicit with Israel in trying to get to a point where it could attack a country it sees as its main enemy: Iran. It’s not just about the oil but about control of strategic resources and keeping other great powers away from these areas. What troubles the United States is China - it has a booming economy that needs oil.

How much is the Project For The New American Century that you’ve written about part of this?
The blueprints for the project were laid down in the 1990s by Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Colin Powell and William Kristol. It was based on paranoia that the United States was losing its world domination. They had to be, they said: ÔThe cavalry on the new American frontier.’ War was essential to this project. And 9/11 really gave these so-called neoconservatives the excuse they’d been looking for.

What’s your latest film about?
It’s called The War On Democracy and it’s set in Venezuela, Bolivia and Chile. It’s about how some of the poorest countries have been able to construct their own independence and democracies.

What’s your latest film about?
It’s called The War On Democracy and it’s set in Venezuela, Bolivia and Chile. It’s about how some of the poorest countries have been able to construct their own independence and democracies.

You met Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. What’s he like?
Very interesting. I’d never spoken to a politician before who actually answers your questions - that was quite a new experience.

What has caused the rise in terrorist attacks in Britain?
It’s happening because Britain has sided with Bush and enthusiastically taken part in the invasion of Iraq.

What could be done to make Britain safer?
Withdraw from Iraq tomorrow - that’s number one. And for this government to support international law in Palestine and international law generally - that’s all. But, in the short term, withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan. I think that would have a huge effect. It would send a message to the rest of humanity that Britain has joined it again.

US Domestic Policy: Illegal Immigration

If you thought that immigration was a big issue only in the UK you would be wrong. If you thought that Israel was the only country in the world illegally occupying another country you would also be wrong.

Here are some facts published by the CIA world fact book 2006:
US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay is leased from Cuba and only mutual agreement or US abandonment of the area can terminate the lease – Hence Cuba’s has no chance of taking back their land from its tenants!

The US has made no territorial claim in Antarctica (but has reserved the right to do so) and does not recognize the claims of any other state – I suppose they also claim ownership of the moon, stars and everything in the Universe?

Anyway what’s this got to do will Immigration?
Unlike most other countries, the population of the United States consists largely of the descendants of immigrants.

The US senate in May has passed a bill that would allow millions of illegal immigrants to become American citizens. But the Immigration bills have stalled in Congress, where members are still divided over whether to crack down on illegal immigrants or give many of them the opportunity to become citizens

US “Labor Day” rallies had been organised by many pro immigration groups. Anti-immigration groups had also been present; they had been patrolling US borders and confronting illegal workers in cities around the US.

"These people are violating our laws, and they are taking away what belongs to Americans," said Michelle Dallacroce, founder and president of Mothers Against Illegal Aliens. "They come down here on our Labor Day and march on our Capitol. It makes me want to vomit."







It’s a shame that people like Michelle Dallacroce, Michelle Malkin & Samuel Huntington fail to understand that they themselves are sons/ daughters of immigrants. Shouldn’t these people be entitled to the same opportunities that Dallacroce’s forefathers benefited from? Didn’t the country belong to the natives before Spanish, French and UK took over?

Didn’t Texas, New Mexico and California belong to the Mexicans before the settlers annexed them? Yep, thats right!



Maybe the US could be more lenient towards illegal immigrants that cross the border particulary Mexicans living and working in California? Why not give those who successfully crossed the border automatic citizenship? Considering that the US has a declining, ageing population, how can it sustain its economy without these young residents who will, effectively, later help to support the ageing native population? Give them a chance.

Uranium Enrichment: Aussie Rules as Iran Drools!

Kofi Annan urged the world today, to avoid confrontation with Iran over its nuclear goals, after Tehran told him it wanted a negotiated solution but would not halt uranium enrichment before any talks.

On many occasions Iran has stated that it’s nuclear goal is to create Nuclear Power as an energy source. Every country should have the right to produce Nuclear power. A country should also have the right to Nuclear Technology to defend itself. If we look from a historical perspective the threat of Nuclear Technology in the cold war acted as a deterant to start a war, it sustained peace and brought the two nations together - I believe it will do so in today’s environment.

On 29 January 2002 President George W. Bush in his State of the Union address said: "Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom... States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil... these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists... the price of indifference would be catastrophic".

He seemed to forget that it was not so long ago in the 1970’s, the US and its allies encouraged the Shah of Iran (a brutal dictator) to start Iran's nuclear energy program at a time when it had no economic justification. Nuclear capabilities did not materialise for Iran but India, South Africa, North Korea, Israel and Pakistan to did join the UK and the US in the nuclear club.

Whilst the US, UK, Israel & Germany are waiting to pounce on the chance to put sanctions against Iran and possibly invade it, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has warned the US that any attack on Iran will have devastating consequences and send oil prices soaring. "If the United States attacks Iran... oil could reach $100 (£52) a barrel or more," he said. "Moreover, Iran has said it would attack Israel, and I know they have the wherewithal to do so".

Yesterday, Australia made a statement assuring its neighbouring countries that it was not promoting an arms race by considering whether to enrich uranium that can be used in nuclear weapons.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer pledged that if Australia produced enriched uranium in the future, it would never be used in a nuclear arsenal.

"I would have thought that international security would be better served by enriched uranium coming from a country as secure, as stable, as democratic and as responsible as Australia," Downer said.

His message sounds similar to statements made in the past by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but Ahmadinejad cannot be trusted by the US.

Weekly Round Up: Cluster Bombs, CIA "Micro-Nuclear" Bombs & Bulgarian Nurses!

It’s been another chaotic week in global politics.

Palestine & Israel
The week started really with the release of the two Fox News journalists on Sunday. The two men claimed that they were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint. If this is the case then the their captures did the worst thing possible, not only scaring journalists to go into Palestine and report the suffering of the Palestinians but also bring negative impression on Islam. It was a moronic thing to do.

An item barely reported in the media in the last few weeks was the incidents where US charity workers, were being attacked and beaten up by US Jewish settlers and IDF officers for helping the Palestinians. So much for returning the returning the land back to the Palestinians!

Lebanon & Israel
1. With the fragile cease-fire taking place in the Lebanon, the UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland had warned that thousands of civilians were at risk in south Lebanon from at least 100,000 unexploded cluster bombs dropped by the IDF.

"What's shocking and I would say completely immoral is that 90 percent of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict when we knew there would be a resolution, when we knew there would be an end," he said.

2. On his visit to the war region Kofi Annan had asked the Israeli government to immediately lift its sea and air blockade of Lebanon and withdraw its forces once 5,000 international troops are deployed, but Israel sidestepped the demands.

The Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora said in Beirut that Lebanon "will be the last Arab country that could sign a peace agreement with Israel."

3. A Hezbollah minister in the Lebanese Cabinet said that the guerrilla group will not unconditionally release two Israeli soldiers whose capture set off the conflict, saying they would only be freed in a prisoner exchange.

Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah the leader of Hezbullah, said that Lebanon and the Lebanese people paid a heavy price for its actions. "If I had known that the operation to capture the soldiers would lead to this result," he said, "we would not have carried it out."

It’s time for everyone to kiss and make up. Peace in the Middle East - bring it on!

Iran, USA & The EU
1. As Iran ignored the UN deadline to stop its Nuclear Programme, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad challenged President Bush to a televised debate. Ahmadinejad condemned the U.S. and British roles in the world since World War Two. "I suggest holding a live TV debate with Mr. George W. Bush to talk about world affairs and the ways to solve those issues," he said.
"We think the special privileges that America and Britain are taking advantage of today are the origin of all disturbances in the world," Ahmadinejad said, adding the two countries abused their roles as permanent members of the Security Council. "Isn't it time that international relations are founded on democracy and equal rights of the nations?"

2. Before the deadline date, the US, particularly its ambassador to the UN, John Bolton has been threatening Iran with sanctions. He was thought to be in negotiation with US allies such as Britain and Japan to form its own coalition to freeze Iranian assets abroad and restrict trade.

"You don't need Security Council authority to impose sanctions, just as we have," he told the Los Angeles Times. Washington has not refused to rule out military action.

Fellow UN Security Council members Russia and China are opposed to economic sanctions.

3. After the deadline, The EU said that sanctions should not be immediately imposed against Iran over its refusal to suspend its nuclear programme.

Any action should wait until the outcome of a meeting between the EU's foreign affairs chief, Javier Solana, and Iran's leading nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, next week.

Other News

Turkey
Kurdish rebel group (Kurdistan Liberation Hawks (TAK)) has claimed responsibility for a bomb blast that killed three people and injured dozens in a Turkish tourist resort. Tourism is worth an annual $18 billion to Turkey.

It is understood that TAK was set up by former PKK guerrillas dissatisfied with the group's tactics. PKK guerrillas carry out attacks mainly against soldiers in the mountains of southeast Turkey from their bases in northern Iraq.

The Turkish government has remained silent on the attacks. The United States, the EU and Turkey consider it a terrorist organisation. The government has remained silent on the attacks.

Indonesia
Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir claims America's top spy agency was involved in the devastating 2002 Bali bombings. Bashir, who was convicted and imprisoned for having prior knowledge of the attacks that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians, is also appealing for the lives of three convicted bombers to be spared.

In an interview tonight on ABC television's Foreign Correspondent, Bashir claims the device that killed most people in the Bali attack was a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) "micro-nuclear" bomb. "The Bali bombing was actually masterminded by America. Well, not masterminded, but hijacked. They planned it (convicted bombers), but their plan was hijacked by America."

Libya
A Libyan prosecutor demanded the death penalty on Tuesday for five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor on trial for the second time on charges that they infected hundreds of children with the HIV virus.

A previous trial of the six, who have been detained since 1999, ended with their conviction on charges they intentionally infected 426 children with HIV when they worked in a hospital in Benghazi in the late 1990s.

In December 2005, the supreme court overturned the convictions, which had resulted in sentences of death by firing squad, and sent the case back to a lower court. The retrial began in May 2006.

Tripoli has suggested the nurses could go free if Bulgaria pays compensation to the children and their families, who have demanded 4.4 billion euros ($5.5 billion). Bulgaria has refused to pay, but has joined the United States, the EU and Libya in agreeing to back the creation of an aid fund The retrial was adjourned to Sept 5.

Can't wait for Next Week!

Nicaragua: The Fight For Democracy - The Return Of The Sandinista

This article has been extracted from the Independent, UK
By Andrew Buncombe
Published: 31 August 2006

More than 20 years after the US ousted Daniel Ortega's democratically elected Government, the left-wing Nicaraguan has emerged as a front-runner for the Presidency despite Bush's attempts to undermine his party.

For the people of Nicaragua there must be a sense of déjà vu, coupled with a deep feeling of foreboding that they are again under the harsh spotlight of a Republican US administration.

More than 20 years after the US illegally intervened to brutally oust a democratically elected government, the US is again being accused of interfering in the Central American nation's domestic politics to ensure the victory of its preferred candidate. And again the US is controversially acting against the left-wing Sandinista party and its candidate, Daniel Ortega.

US intervention circa 2006 does not involve spending $300m (£157m) to support anti-government "Contra" forces, an intervention that led to a vicious war and the death of perhaps 30,000 people. This time, the US involvement entails making clear its preferences by having its ambassador denounce Mr Ortega as "anti-democratic", a "candidate from the past" and a "tiger who hasn't changed his stripes". There is also the veiled threat that the US may not wish to cooperate with a government headed by the Sandinistas, with one senior US official writing in a Nicaraguan newspaper last year that should Mr Ortega be elected, " Nicaragua would sink like a stone".

Some experts say the behaviour of the US in Nicaragua is just the latest episode in a region where the US has, for decades, sought to undermine governments it opposes ­ through peaceful means or otherwise ­ to secure one it believes it can do business with. They say a pattern can be ascertained linking Guatemala to Cuba through to Grenada, Nicaragua, and El Salvador and more recently to Haiti and Venezuela, where the US has used whatever means necessary to try to place right-wing, Washington-friendly governments in power. If anything, under the Bush administration the policy has gathered pace.

"US policy in Latin America under the Bush administration has been uniquely ideologically driven, far more than it was even under the Reagan administration," said Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a Washington-based think tank. "The latest thing is that US ambassadors in places such as Bolivia, El Salvador and Costa Rica all walk in and say, 'The US has made it clear is supports free and fair elections but if a non-US-friendly candidate wins we will cut off US aid'. They are quite open about it."

He added: "That is why [the Cuban leader, Fidel] Castro is so popular in Latin America, because he is defiant. That is why [Venezuela's elected President, Hugo] Chavez is so popular in Latin America, because he gives the finger to Washington. He makes obscene gestures both literally and metaphorically."

US policy in Nicaragua is being most clearly delivered by its ambassador in Managua, Paul Trivelli, who has spoken of his disapproval of Mr Ortega and his Sandinista party (FSLN) and instead indicated his support for Eduardo Montealegre, the candidate for the National Liberal Alliance (ALN). His outspokenness ­ in contrast to the more considered language used by diplomats ­ has stirred heated controversy in Nicaragua.

Mr Ortega, a former president who is heading the polls for November's election since the death of another candidate this summer , has told the Houston Chronicle: "Even in the worst of times during the Reagan administration, the US envoy was careful with his words. But the current ambassador acts like he is the governor of Nicaragua."

Mr Trivelli was confronted about his comments by Carlos Chamorro, a leading Nicaraguan television journalist and son of the former Nicaraguan president, Violeta Chamorro, the woman who beat the Sandinistas in the 1990 election. Mr Chamorro said no foreign diplomat had ever acted with such " belligerence" in the nation's domestic affairs.

"Why," Mr Chamorro asked the ambassador, "do you mention the names of the presidential candidates the US thinks well or badly of, making it appear that the US vetoes certain candidates?" Mr Trivelli replied: " Since [last] October we have been trying to speak in a more direct way so that people understand what our decision is. I think it is important that people have no doubts about what we think." When Mr Chamorro pointed to polls showing most Nicaraguans believed Mr Trivelli had overstepped the line, he replied: "I am not going to stop defending democracy. That is part of our policy and it will continue to be part of our policy... I believe that speaking is not intervening."

But Mr Trivelli's comments are such that several former US diplomats with experience in Central America have said he has stepped well beyond the usually understood diplomatic boundaries. In addition, this year the former US president Jimmy Carter, whose Carter Center will act as observers during the upcoming election, issued a statement saying: "The Carter Center vigorously opposes any intervention in the Nicaraguan electoral process."

Almost all the Nicaraguans we spoke to expressed concern about foreign governments endorsing, vetoing or financing specific candidates." Experts also say Mr Trivelli's comments carry a weight beyond the mere words used, given the US history in Nicaragua and its military intervention that the International Court of Justice found to be unlawful. Professor Karen Kampwirth, a Latin America expert at Knox College in Illinois who sits on an independent panel commissioned by a US-based Nicaragua support group which investigated US interference in Nicaragua, said the US carried much historical baggage.

"It's not like the [ambassador] of Zimbabwe expressing their preferred candidate. Zimbabwe does not have the history of interfering in Nicaragua," she said. "One of the Ortega billboards in Nicaragua was spray-painted and said 'We don't want another war'. What it was saying was if you vote for Ortega you are voting for a possible war with the US."

The US intervention in Central and Latin American often involves the use of funds to support favoured parties, directly or indirectly. Two years ago, The Independent reported how hundreds of thousands of dollars of US money was being dispatched to opposition groups seeking a no-confidence vote against Venezuela's leader, Hugo Chavez. Some of the money was channelled to figures and groups who were involved in the short-lived 2002 coup against Mr Chavez.

This week, documents obtained by the Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), revealed that US money is being dispatched to " pro-democracy" groups, apparently opposed to Mr Chavez and seeking to remove him in Venezuela's presidential contest in December.

Much of this US money is directed through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an organisation funded by the US Congress by $80m a year which disperses this to groups around the world purportedly "to strengthen democracy". Critics say the organisation routinely meddles in other countries' affairs, supporting groups that believe in free enterprise, minimal government intervention in the economy and opposition to any form of socialism.

The NED issues grants either directly or else through funding one of four core "grantees". One of these four, the International Republican Institute (IRI) was involved in helping organise opponents of Haiti's former president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the nation's democratically elected leader, who was forced from office in 2004. At one point, the IRI organised meetings for Mr Aristide's opponents in the neighbouring Dominican Republic. The NED also played a significant role in assisting the opponents of Ukraine's President, Viktor Yanukovych, in 2004's so-called "Orange Revolution".

Author Bill Berkowitz recently wrote on the online journal of the group Working for Change: "The NED... provides money, technical support, supplies, training programs, media know-how, public relations assistance and state-of-the-art equipment to select political groups, civic organisations, labour unions, dissident movements, student groups, book publishers, newspapers, and other media. Its aim is to destabilise progressive movements, particularly those with a socialist or democratic socialist bent."

The study in which Professor Kampwirth participated, which was commissioned by Nicaragua Network, found the US had spent $10m in Nicaragua to fund political education and civil society groups. Ivania Vega Rueda, a programme officer for the IRI in Nicaragua, told the report's authors that the IRI had been active in helping organise marches against the FSLN and another political party, the Constitutional Liberal Party (PLC). She said the IRI had "created" the Movement for Nicaragua, which she said had organised marches against the two parties.

The US embassy failed to return calls seeking a comment. But Thomas Shannon, the US assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, in an interview with the Houston Chronicle, defended US actions. Mr Shannon said: " We see ourselves as pushing the democratic process. It's about creating political systems that are open, transparent and inclusive."

For the people of Nicaragua there must be a sense of déjà vu, coupled with a deep feeling of foreboding that they are again under the harsh spotlight of a Republican US administration.
More than 20 years after the US illegally intervened to brutally oust a democratically elected government, the US is again being accused of interfering in the Central American nation's domestic politics to ensure the victory of its preferred candidate. And again the US is controversially acting against the left-wing Sandinista party and its candidate, Daniel Ortega.

US intervention circa 2006 does not involve spending $300m (£157m) to support anti-government "Contra" forces, an intervention that led to a vicious war and the death of perhaps 30,000 people. This time, the US involvement entails making clear its preferences by having its ambassador denounce Mr Ortega as "anti-democratic", a "candidate from the past" and a "tiger who hasn't changed his stripes". There is also the veiled threat that the US may not wish to cooperate with a government headed by the Sandinistas, with one senior US official writing in a Nicaraguan newspaper last year that should Mr Ortega be elected, " Nicaragua would sink like a stone".

Some experts say the behaviour of the US in Nicaragua is just the latest episode in a region where the US has, for decades, sought to undermine governments it opposes ­ through peaceful means or otherwise ­ to secure one it believes it can do business with. They say a pattern can be ascertained linking Guatemala to Cuba through to Grenada, Nicaragua, and El Salvador and more recently to Haiti and Venezuela, where the US has used whatever means necessary to try to place right-wing, Washington-friendly governments in power. If anything, under the Bush administration the policy has gathered pace.

"US policy in Latin America under the Bush administration has been uniquely ideologically driven, far more than it was even under the Reagan administration," said Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a Washington-based think tank. "The latest thing is that US ambassadors in places such as Bolivia, El Salvador and Costa Rica all walk in and say, 'The US has made it clear is supports free and fair elections but if a non-US-friendly candidate wins we will cut off US aid'. They are quite open about it."

He added: "That is why [the Cuban leader, Fidel] Castro is so popular in Latin America, because he is defiant. That is why [Venezuela's elected President, Hugo] Chavez is so popular in Latin America, because he gives the finger to Washington. He makes obscene gestures both literally and metaphorically."

US policy in Nicaragua is being most clearly delivered by its ambassador in Managua, Paul Trivelli, who has spoken of his disapproval of Mr Ortega and his Sandinista party (FSLN) and instead indicated his support for Eduardo Montealegre, the candidate for the National Liberal Alliance (ALN). His outspokenness ­ in contrast to the more considered language used by diplomats ­ has stirred heated controversy in Nicaragua.

Mr Ortega, a former president who is heading the polls for November's election since the death of another candidate this summer , has told the Houston Chronicle: "Even in the worst of times during the Reagan administration, the US envoy was careful with his words. But the current ambassador acts like he is the governor of Nicaragua."

Mr Trivelli was confronted about his comments by Carlos Chamorro, a leading Nicaraguan television journalist and son of the former Nicaraguan president, Violeta Chamorro, the woman who beat the Sandinistas in the 1990 election. Mr Chamorro said no foreign diplomat had ever acted with such " belligerence" in the nation's domestic affairs.

"Why," Mr Chamorro asked the ambassador, "do you mention the names of the presidential candidates the US thinks well or badly of, making it appear that the US vetoes certain candidates?" Mr Trivelli replied: " Since [last] October we have been trying to speak in a more direct way so that people understand what our decision is. I think it is important that people have no doubts about what we think." When Mr Chamorro pointed to polls showing most Nicaraguans believed Mr Trivelli had overstepped the line, he replied: "I am not going to stop defending democracy. That is part of our policy and it will continue to be part of our policy... I believe that speaking is not intervening."

But Mr Trivelli's comments are such that several former US diplomats with experience in Central America have said he has stepped well beyond the usually understood diplomatic boundaries. In addition, this year the former US president Jimmy Carter, whose Carter Center will act as observers during the upcoming election, issued a statement saying: "The Carter Center vigorously opposes any intervention in the Nicaraguan electoral process."Almost all the Nicaraguans we spoke to expressed concern about foreign governments endorsing, vetoing or financing specific candidates." Experts also say Mr Trivelli's comments carry a weight beyond the mere words used, given the US history in Nicaragua and its military intervention that the International Court of Justice found to be unlawful. Professor Karen Kampwirth, a Latin America expert at Knox College in Illinois who sits on an independent panel commissioned by a US-based Nicaragua support group which investigated US interference in Nicaragua, said the US carried much historical baggage.

"It's not like the [ambassador] of Zimbabwe expressing their preferred candidate. Zimbabwe does not have the history of interfering in Nicaragua," she said. "One of the Ortega billboards in Nicaragua was spray-painted and said 'We don't want another war'. What it was saying was if you vote for Ortega you are voting for a possible war with the US."

The US intervention in Central and Latin American often involves the use of funds to support favoured parties, directly or indirectly. Two years ago, The Independent reported how hundreds of thousands of dollars of US money was being dispatched to opposition groups seeking a no-confidence vote against Venezuela's leader, Hugo Chavez. Some of the money was channelled to figures and groups who were involved in the short-lived 2002 coup against Mr Chavez.

This week, documents obtained by the Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), revealed that US money is being dispatched to " pro-democracy" groups, apparently opposed to Mr Chavez and seeking to remove him in Venezuela's presidential contest in December.

Much of this US money is directed through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an organisation funded by the US Congress by $80m a year which disperses this to groups around the world purportedly "to strengthen democracy". Critics say the organisation routinely meddles in other countries' affairs, supporting groups that believe in free enterprise, minimal government intervention in the economy and opposition to any form of socialism.

The NED issues grants either directly or else through funding one of four core "grantees". One of these four, the International Republican Institute (IRI) was involved in helping organise opponents of Haiti's former president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the nation's democratically elected leader, who was forced from office in 2004. At one point, the IRI organised meetings for Mr Aristide's opponents in the neighbouring Dominican Republic. The NED also played a significant role in assisting the opponents of Ukraine's President, Viktor Yanukovych, in 2004's so-called "Orange Revolution".

Author Bill Berkowitz recently wrote on the online journal of the group Working for Change: "The NED... provides money, technical support, supplies, training programs, media know-how, public relations assistance and state-of-the-art equipment to select political groups, civic organisations, labour unions, dissident movements, student groups, book publishers, newspapers, and other media. Its aim is to destabilise progressive movements, particularly those with a socialist or democratic socialist bent."

The study in which Professor Kampwirth participated, which was commissioned by Nicaragua Network, found the US had spent $10m in Nicaragua to fund political education and civil society groups. Ivania Vega Rueda, a programme officer for the IRI in Nicaragua, told the report's authors that the IRI had been active in helping organise marches against the FSLN and another political party, the Constitutional Liberal Party (PLC). She said the IRI had "created" the Movement for Nicaragua, which she said had organised marches against the two parties.

The US embassy failed to return calls seeking a comment. But Thomas Shannon, the US assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, in an interview with the Houston Chronicle, defended US actions. Mr Shannon said: " We see ourselves as pushing the democratic process. It's about creating political systems that are open, transparent and inclusive."

Bangladesh Hit By Violent Protests Over British Firm's Coal Mine Plan

The article has been extracted from the Independent, UK.
By Justin Huggler, Asia Correspondent
Published: 31 August 2006

Bangladesh has been brought to a standstill by a general strike and violent protests against a British company's plans to develop a huge open coal mine.

Protesters accused the company, Asia Energy, of stripping Bangladesh of its resources and forcing tens of thousands of people from their homes.

One policeman was killed when he was hit by a stone, and several demonstrators were injured in police baton charges in the capital, Dhaka. At the weekend, six people were shot dead by security forces in a protest at the site of the proposed mine.

Asia Energy plc is planning a $1.1bn (£578m) investment in mining 570 million tons of coal at Phulbari, in northern Bangladesh. The company says the mine will earn Bangladesh billions of dollars in profit and provide much-needed fuel for power generation. It is negotiating for backing from the Asian Development Bank and the US Ex-Im Bank.

But the mine's opponents say it will displace more than 100,000 people, destroy hundreds of thousands of trees and damage the environment.

Over the weekend huge numbers of people, many of them armed with rocks and machetes, converged at the site of the proposed mine in Phulbari. Witnesses put the number as high as 30,000. The police called on the paramilitary Bangladesh Rifles for backup, and they opened fire into the crowd, killing six and wounding more than 300.

"The reason this is so explosive is that relocating people is a much bigger issue here than in the West," said Sharyar Khan of Bangladesh's Daily Star newspaper. "Bangladesh is already so crowded people feel there is nowhere else to go. They have very little and they feel if you take away their land you are taking away what little they have. That is why they react so desperately."

Asia Energy says 40,000 people will be displaced, and has promised to build them new homes in purpose-built towns away from the site.

But the issue is complicated by the fact that many of those who will be displaced - the exact figure is disputed - are members of the Santal indigenous tribal people. Like most tribal groups in South Asia, they do not have any land deeds or other documents proving ownership of their land, but their families have lived on it for centuries. Many of the Santals fear they will miss out on being rehoused because they do not have the paperwork.

For them, the deforestation issue is important, too. Most still live traditional lives, cooking on firewood. The mine's opponents say it will destroy 2.5 million trees; Asia Energy says it will destroy 800,000.

But Asia Energy says the protests have been politically motivated. "What you had was a lot of rent-a-crowd," said David Lenigas, a director of the company. "They were busing them in from Dhaka.

"The protests are being organised by a group that has connections to far-left political groups, and the opposition has seen an opportunity in them ahead of the elections. We've done surveys in the area and 95 per cent of the local people support the project."

The Bangladeshi government has been scrabbling to contain the discontent, insisting the project will go ahead as planned. Bangladesh suffers from drastic power shortages: there are daily six-hour power cuts in the business districts of Dhaka.

Until recently, the country generated all its electricity from gas, but its gas reserves are running out, and the government is desperate to tap its massive reserves of coal.
Bangladesh has been brought to a standstill by a general strike and violent protests against a British company's plans to develop a huge open coal mine.

Protesters accused the company, Asia Energy, of stripping Bangladesh of its resources and forcing tens of thousands of people from their homes.

One policeman was killed when he was hit by a stone, and several demonstrators were injured in police baton charges in the capital, Dhaka. At the weekend, six people were shot dead by security forces in a protest at the site of the proposed mine.

Asia Energy plc is planning a $1.1bn (£578m) investment in mining 570 million tons of coal at Phulbari, in northern Bangladesh. The company says the mine will earn Bangladesh billions of dollars in profit and provide much-needed fuel for power generation. It is negotiating for backing from the Asian Development Bank and the US Ex-Im Bank.

But the mine's opponents say it will displace more than 100,000 people, destroy hundreds of thousands of trees and damage the environment.

Over the weekend huge numbers of people, many of them armed with rocks and machetes, converged at the site of the proposed mine in Phulbari. Witnesses put the number as high as 30,000. The police called on the paramilitary Bangladesh Rifles for backup, and they opened fire into the crowd, killing six and wounding more than 300.

"The reason this is so explosive is that relocating people is a much bigger issue here than in the West," said Sharyar Khan of Bangladesh's Daily Star newspaper. "Bangladesh is already so crowded people feel there is nowhere else to go. They have very little and they feel if you take away their land you are taking away what little they have. That is why they react so desperately."Asia Energy says 40,000 people will be displaced, and has promised to build them new homes in purpose-built towns away from the site.

But the issue is complicated by the fact that many of those who will be displaced - the exact figure is disputed - are members of the Santal indigenous tribal people. Like most tribal groups in South Asia, they do not have any land deeds or other documents proving ownership of their land, but their families have lived on it for centuries. Many of the Santals fear they will miss out on being rehoused because they do not have the paperwork.

For them, the deforestation issue is important, too. Most still live traditional lives, cooking on firewood. The mine's opponents say it will destroy 2.5 million trees; Asia Energy says it will destroy 800,000.

But Asia Energy says the protests have been politically motivated. "What you had was a lot of rent-a-crowd," said David Lenigas, a director of the company. "They were busing them in from Dhaka.

"The protests are being organised by a group that has connections to far-left political groups, and the opposition has seen an opportunity in them ahead of the elections. We've done surveys in the area and 95 per cent of the local people support the project."

The Bangladeshi government has been scrabbling to contain the discontent, insisting the project will go ahead as planned. Bangladesh suffers from drastic power shortages: there are daily six-hour power cuts in the business districts of Dhaka.

Until recently, the country generated all its electricity from gas, but its gas reserves are running out, and the government is desperate to tap its massive reserves of coal.