Former warlords in Afghanistans parliament hurled water bottles and rushed at a woman MP on Sunday after she accused them of being involved in the deaths of thousands of people. Malalai Joya said bearded and turbaned MPs who were once warlords in the countrys decades of conflict had to be restrained from physically attacking her after a heated session of the four-month-old parliament. The uproar, in which several MPs rose from their chairs shouting, was shown on television. A cameraman from a private television station said one of the MPs had slapped him across the face while he was filming the scuffle.
Joya, who has had death threats against her after a similar outburst during a meeting to draw up a post-Taliban constitution in 2003, alleged that she had heard a prominent former warlord telling his men to stab me with a knife. Several of them threw water bottles at me and many others rushed towards me to beat me up, she said in an interview with AFP afterwards. Joya, in her late 20s, said the MPs had reacted angrily to her statement that some of the men who led the resistance to the 10-year Soviet occupation were responsible for the deaths of thousands of civilians in a civil war that erupted after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989.
Her comments were made in a debate about the anniversary last month of the defeat of communism in Afghanistan in 1993 when the government that replaced the Soviet administration was toppled. I told them that we have two types of mujahideen one who were really mujahideen and the second, those who killed tens of thousands of innocent people and who are criminals. My words sparked their anger, she said..
Posted by: Fred ||
05/08/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Malalai Joya said bearded and turbaned MPs who were once warlords in the countrys decades of conflict had to be restrained from physically attacking her after a heated session of the four-month-old parliament. The uproar, in which several MPs rose from their chairs shouting, was shown on television. A cameraman from a private television station said one of the MPs had slapped him across the face while he was filming the scuffle.
Joya, who has had death threats against her after a similar outburst during a meeting to draw up a post-Taliban constitution in 2003, alleged that she had heard a prominent former warlord telling his men to stab me with a knife. Several of them threw water bottles at me and many others rushed towards me to beat me up,
Democrats, Send in Cynthia McKinney and let the jirga begin.
Some 10,000 women have been trained as entrepreneurs, some of whom are now economically self-sufficient.
Long article, hit the link for more.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/08/2006 00:00 ||
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Steve, thank you very much for linking to this. This is an amazing article, really it touches my heart.
Women are the key. Often they are forgotten but they are the group with the most to lose under fascist Islamism and the group with everything to gain.
Give them the skills, the chance and the choice and they can remake these societies into tolerant Western democracies in 5 to 10 years, easy.
Because when you transform the women, you transform the root society. You chance the balance of power and you change the culture.
We are in World War IV (the third world war was communism) and it's a cultural war.
If you get the women on board you change the culture as they are the trunk of the social tree. The mothers of the next generation. The ones who keep the social networks alive.
Get them involved, give them equal rights and they will stop raising martyrs.
Seriously, microlending works this way in most 3rd world countries. The men may be too proud to take the funds, or unable/unwilling to start a part-time business with little return at first.
#4
The men are perfectly willing to take the funds, lotp (I have a friend who was involved with this in Bangladesh), but they tend to spend it first on swagger. The women take the money and work, spending the profits on growing the business, then on their children. And they feel the obligation to repay the loan, which the men don't necessarily.
#5
If Islam is going to reform without being bombed into rubble, it will be the women who will reform it. The men seem to be worthless, for the most part.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/08/2006 16:24 Comments ||
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The men are perfectly willing to take the funds, lotp (I have a friend who was involved with this in Bangladesh), but they tend to spend it first on swagger.
Some B-school friends of mine were heavily involved in microlending in Africa and Asia. At least in their projects, men were less willing to take out the loans. But the ones who did, used them responsibly. I remember hearing about one Ghanian man who insisted on taking a loan first, to make sure the whole business was on the up and up before his wife took responsibility for repaying a loan of her own.
#7
Different cultures, perhaps, or just different people. And conceivably the stories I heard over dinner were told on a different level than when B-school buddies get together. ;-)
#8
Could be. These two were involved in microlending quite early on, actually before they came to B-school. One used his inheritance from his grandfather as the seed money.
Instapundit has the Egyptian embassy contact details.
CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's prosecutor general ordered eight activists held for 15 days on Monday, a day after police picked them up at a protest in support of other detained pro-reform activists, security officials said. "The detained people are charged with disrupting traffic, obstructing the state from carrying out its duties and insulting the president," one of the security officials said.
Police earlier said they had picked up 10 people at Sunday's demonstration of about 30 people outside a court in Cairo but had freed them all on the same day. Activists said police detained 11 people and released three. The activists said police encircled and beat them before dragging away specific activists, including Alaa Seif al-Islam, who maintains a pro-reform Web log. The activists staged the courthouse protest in support of about 40 people detained at demonstrations over the last two weeks, they said.
The authorities have not confirmed the number of people in custody after the previous demonstrations, organised to show support for two judges facing disciplinary procedures after criticising official abuses during last year's elections. Egypt, which last year came under U.S. pressure to carry out political reform, last month renewed its decades-old emergency laws which give the state wide powers of detention. The government says the legal provision is used to combat terrorism and drug trafficking. Activists say it is used to limit political life in the Arab world's most populous country.
KUWAIT CITY: Defense lawyers urged a Kuwaiti judge Sunday to acquit five former inmates of Guantanamo, arguing the trial was politically motivated to appease the emirate's major ally the United States. "I urge you to acquit the five defendants ... because they committed no crime and the public prosecution failed to provide solid material evidence," Mubarak al-Shimmari, one of the lawyers, told the court. "This is not a criminal lawsuit but a politically motivated case ... Why should we put these people on trial for the sake of appeasing our friend the U.S.?"
The men are accused of fighting against U.S. forces in Afghanistan under the former Taliban regime, a charge for which they could face a minimum of three years in jail.
Other defense lawyers also challenged the evidence provided by the public prosecution, saying it was entirely based on interrogations by U.S. officers in the prison. The lawyers also cross-examined a police officer who interrogated the men after their return to Kuwait and who acknowledged that he based his investigations and charges on the U.S. interrogations. One of the defense lawyers, Ayedh al-Azemi, said last month the transcripts of the U.S. interrogation were "not a proper investigation" but "simple reports that included neither questions nor answers." Judge Hmoud al-Mutawa set May 21 to issue the verdict.
The five men were repatriated to Kuwait last November 4 after spending almost four years at Guantanamo Bay, a camp set up after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 amid outrage from human rights groups. The former Kuwaiti prisoners are Abdel-Aziz al-Shimmari, who went on a two-month hunger strike before his release from Guantanamo, Adel al-Zamel, Mohammad al-Deehani, Saad al-Azemi and Abdullah al-Ajmi. Each was released on a 500-dinar ($1,700) bail at the start of the trial on March 5, but Zamel was kept in jail to serve a one-year term for another offense. A sixth Kuwaiti, Nasser al-Mutairi, was released in January last year while six more Kuwaitis are still detained in Guantanamo. Mutairi was acquitted by the criminal court but later handed a five-year term by the appeals court.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/08/2006 00:00 ||
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Britain's intelligence services will face a fresh barrage of criticism on Thursday when a parliamentary committee publishes a report into the London terror attacks that shows a direct link between the bombers' ringleader and a terrorist cell.
The Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) has been studying the lessons of the 7 July bombings and will make wide-ranging recommendations on how the security services should adapt to the changing face of terrorism.
Its report will be published alongside the government's official account into the bombings, which confirms that the four bombers - all from the north of England - carried out a cheap and simple plot to bomb London using techniques they had found on the internet.
The ISC has found there was a direct link between the bombers' ringleader, Sidique Khan, who killed six people when he blew himself up on a tube train at Edgware Road, and a terrorist cell that had been under surveillance by the security services.
The revelation will prove damaging. Previously it was believed Khan was linked to the cell only through a third party. That he had direct links to the group under surveillance raises questions over why he was not placed under closer supervision.
After the London bombings, it emerged that Khan travelled to Pakistan, where he met with radical Muslim groups. But the committee heard that, though the intelligence agencies had been monitoring Khan in the UK, they did not believe him to be a terrorist threat, instead thinking he was intent on committing fraud.
The ISC report also looks at how the Foreign Office deals with warnings from overseas of potential attacks. It raises questions over the paucity of intelligence-sharing between British and Pakistani intelligence services.
According to those familiar with its contents, the report will also say that intelligence failures surrounding the London bombings were chiefly down to a lack of resources.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/08/2006 03:33 ||
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That ol' manpower excuse is beginning to wear thin - so long as we don't upset the UK Pakistani community who gives a f*ck about a few commuters on the tube. Once again in the UK the Asshats are protected to the detriment of the law-abiding.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
05/08/2006 4:01 Comments ||
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According to those familiar with its contents, the report will also say that intelligence failures surrounding the London bombings were chiefly down to a lack of resources.
Best resourse any country has is the brains of its people.
#3
So long as the coppers believe they'll be punished if they so much as look at a suspect cross-eyed, let alone actually arrest one, this will continue. Unfortunately, Prime Minister Blair is much better about protecting Britain outside her borders than within.
We thank you for all you've done, Tony. It does appear, however, that your days are numbered.
LABOUR is on the brink of civil war today after rebel MPs were accused by ministers and Downing Street of a plot to force Tony Blair out now and return the party to the hands of the Left.
As the party descends into its most poisonous bout of infighting for a generation following its dismal performance in the local elections, Tony Blair will refuse mounting demands for him to name a day for his departure from No 10. He will say at a speedily arranged monthly press conference that he has no intention of allowing his hand to be forced by a group that wants to reverse Labours reforms and go back to an Old Labour agenda.
But his fightback, in which John Reid, the new Home Secretary, played a prominent part, was denounced by supporters of Gordon Brown. They said that it was madness to claim that the people who wanted the Prime Minister to set out a broad timetable for the transition to Mr Brown were loony leftwingers, and that that view was shared across the party.
A survey of backbench opinion conducted by The Times supports their argument. Three quarters of the MPs contacted wanted Mr Blair to set out a timetable which would see him leave before the end of next year.
Mr Brown, angry at what he regards as a factional reshuffle in which the Prime Minister moved against ministers who were seen as sympathetic to him, made an open call for Mr Blair to engage in talks about handing over the leadership. He should be allowed to organise the transition, Mr Brown said in a BBC interview.
Mr Blair is unwilling to give Mr Brown a date, saying that suich a move would play into the hands of the Conservatives, but associates say that he will give the Chancellor ample time to bed in as Prime Minister before the next election. However, in the feverish mood among MPs there was speculation of a move against Mr Blair, which would include some Brownites, if he did not produce a timetable before the summer parliamentary recess in July.
The claim of a move to unseat Mr Blair came first in a text message to journalists from David Hill, his communications chief, but it was rapidly picked up by other leading Blairites. Stephen Byers, the former Transport Secretary, said: If we want to have an orderly transition, what we cannot have is the forced removal of Tony Blair as our leader. Hilary Armstrong, the Social Exclusion Minister, said: Setting a timetable is exactly what the Tories want.
The most outspoken was Dr Reid, who said that one did not have to be Sherlock Holmes to know there was an Old Labour plot going on. He said of the plotters: They are not going to win.
A change of direction and abandoning the New Labour project would lead the party into the wilderness, he told BBC Ones The Politics Show. The whole thing has been generated by people who want to push Blair out. They want to stop the reform programme and they want to change direction back to old Labour. That would be complete catastrophe for the Labour Government and the Labour Party.
There is no going back for this party. If we go back we are walking into the wilderness. Setting a date for the handover was a total irrelevance and would hand David Camerons Tories a big advantage, Mr Reid said.
However, Andrew Smith, the Brownite former Work and Pensions Secretary, was outraged by the attacks. He said: I am furious and the party will be furious about attempts to stifle or stop the discussion which needs to be had about the timetable for the orderly transition of leadership, which is what we need and what party members want so that we can get the renewal of the Labour Party. Other Brownites said the strategy was bonkers. One of them said: They are talking about a plot. Theyve lost the plot all of them.
Mr Brown said that the local election results had been a wake-up call and, in a clear message to Mr Blair and his supporters, added that it could not be business as usual. He made clear that he wanted a unified transition and that a coup would be a recipe for disaster. He disclosed that the Prime Minister was talking about the transition and that he did not need outriders dictating the agenda. That was a sideswipe at Blairites who have repeatedly suggested that Mr Blair should serve for a full term.
The Chancellor added that, in the next stage of my political career, he would ensure that new Labour broadened its coalition. He did not know when Mr Blair would quit. It is a matter for Tony and the Labour Party themselves, and no doubt people will continue to discuss this with him.
But at the end of the day I get on with my job.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/08/2006 00:00 ||
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Night of the long knives? We are talkng about way far big ell Left if they want to back track to old Labor. Not Blair an BiilC little ell left. The UK would be good and truly screwed with the big ell Left in power.
Posted by: SPoD ||
05/08/2006 0:20 Comments ||
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In local elections last week, Labour got 26% and the Conservatives got 40%. The left wingers will manage to drive even more people to the Conservatives or other parties.
Posted by: ed ||
05/08/2006 0:33 Comments ||
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Labour is as dumb as donks. Tony is the politican who can overcome the party's stupidity, much as Clinton did for the donks. But now ambition and boredom overcome commonsense as is usually the case when someone has ruled this long.
Tony has been a great leader in the international arena, as was Thatcher. I don't think he did as much for Britain itself as did Thatcher. In fact, I suspect he's done it irreparable harm. But he has been a steadfast ally to two very different Presidents.
Too bad every politician's career ends with a defeat. Whether now or later, his successor is unlikely to be anywhere near as great.
#5
True, Mr. Blair's support of the US has been the one bright spot in an otherwise bleak relationship with the euros. But I'm not convinced his defeat and a conservative victory would be a bad thing for the US. He's supported the war on terror, but let's remember who we're dealing with. The Labour party is a particularly odious group of liberal nuts. I remember watching coverage of the House of Commons during all those years when Blair was the opposition leader, lambasting the US on a daily basis. Labour still hates the US, and Blair's support of the war has gone completely against the current of his own party. America's relationship with Britain will only improve with the conservatives in power. They won't abandon the US anymore than Blair would. And their support and philosophical similarities with the Bush administration will only help in alot of other areas.
GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AFP): A former member of the radical Jamaat-al-Muslimeen, who participated in the 1990 coup against the Trinidad-Tobago government and is wanted for attempted murder in the twin-island nation, has been nabbed in Guyana, officials said Friday.
Guyana Defence Force (GDF) spokesman, Lt. Col. Claude Fraser, said David Millard was arrested by police and soldiers and was fingerprinted and documented by a team from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Millard had a Guyanese passport bearing the name Edmond DeFreitas. "Both the GDF and FBI are showing an interest in him because he is involved with some known characters", Fraser told reporters.
Fraser said police and soldiers detained Millard, while searching for the weapons at a house at Nandy Park, an upscale suburban residential area south of Guyana's capital, Georgetown. He was allegedly involved in the Jamaat-al-Muslimeens violent coup against the Trinidad-Tobago government 16 years ago. The coup lasted six days and several police officers were killed.
Millard currently is wanted by Trinidadian authorities for his alleged involvement in a murder attempt on a former member of the Jamaat-al-Muslimeen three years ago.
According to Ernst & Young, the accounting firm, bad loans in the Chinese financial system have reached a staggering $US911 billion ($1.18 trillion), including $US225 billion in potential future NPLs in the four largest state-owned banks.
This equals 40 per cent of gross domestic product and China has already spent the equivalent of 25-30 per cent of GDP in previous bank bail-outs.
This sounds remarkably similar to Japan in the 80's when everyone assumed they would take over the world. It took over a decade of a deep and painful recession to recover from the resultant collapse. Japan didn't have nukes and a large, restive population. Could be real trouble brewing in the next few years.
#1
Iff the twin-fists or natural forces of capitalism + modernization doesn't cause the Chicoms and their Stalinist bureaucracies to implode, then China's only other recourse is State expansion by any means necessary, espec by military force. Thats what happens when power-centric pols and 'crats make too make promises knowing there isn't enough $$$ in the universe to cover their hyper-correct lying arses.
#2
Oil is $70 BBL now. China's problems will all come to head when we deal with the Iranian problem & fighting disrupts tanker trafic in the straits. Maybe even precipitates a Chinese civil war. No wonder China wants to stonewall the US in the UN.
We take out Iran, China falls en passant.
#3
See my comments in the other related article. China is about to undergo the Largest Medically Caused AIDS Epidemic, not to mention a rasher of other woes. Couldn't happen to a nicer buncha sh!ts.
It is vital to continue the embargo of advanced arms technology until China finally collapses. Giving them any leverage only spells expansionist disaster.
The pariah state of North Korea is trying to weaponize the bird flu virus, making it the ideal threat for al-Qaida, the British intelligence agency MI6 has learned.
The Bush administration has given briefings classified "Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information" to members of Congress and the Senate on the threat.
In aerosol form it would be undetectable at all border crossings and virologists at Porton Down Britain's research center responsible for developing antidotes against biological attacks fear that a genetically engineered version of the virus would be far more lethal than any current threat from the virus.
World ranking experts have said that it would be "the greatest threat al-Qaida could unleash."
In an exclusive interview, Dr. Ken Allibek, the former director of the Soviet Union's biowarfare program, Biopreperat, who is now a senior adviser to the Bush administration on bio-defense, said: "The threat of a weaponized bird flu virus cannot be over emphasised. It would be the most terrible weapon in the hands of a terrorist. The advantage for al-Qaida is that an aerosolized weapon would be impossible to detect from one spread naturally by birds. But a lab-produced virus would be far more lethal."
Professor Peter Openshaw, a leading virologist at Imperial College, London, called it: "more terrifying than engineered smallpox. That would be relatively easy to contain because there is a vaccine. But with improvements in laboratory technology, it's becoming much easier to engineer these viruses. It's becoming a terrible concern."
A CIA document presented by Goss showed that the World Health Organization has warned the virus would affect one-fifth of the world's population "with 30 million requiring hospitalisation and at least 2 million people could die."
The decision to keep the briefing secret has led to fierce criticism from public health officials in the United States.
Dr. Irwin Redlener, a director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness in Washington, said: "This is Cold War secrecy being applied to a public health issue. The truth is that the United States is seriously unprepared to cope with an avian flu outbreak the more so if it is terrorist inspired."
Professor Hugh Pennington, a leading microbiologist at Aberdeen University, Scotland, said: "A clever molecular biologist could also try to mix the virus with other viruses so that it could spread person to person, which would be the greatest threat."
Scientists in America have recently recreated the Spanish flu virus that killed 50 million people in 1918. The full genetic sequence was published in specialist magazines earlier this year and is available via the Internet.
Openshaw said: "The sequence of the 1918 strain has just been published and there are obvious security concerns. There are many labs around the world that would be capable of recreating the same virus."
North Korea's biological warfare program is now the largest in the world. Among its 300,000 scientists, technicians and laboratory assistants are some 800 scientists who worked on the Russian bio-warfare program, Biopreperat. Some of them had been trying to exploit the 1918 Spanish flu virus as a potential weapon.
When Biopreperat collapsed with the end of the Soviet Union, a number of its staff were recruited by North Korea. In return for huge salaries they were given a comfortable lifestyle and unlimited research facilities to continue their work.
A high-ranking defector from North Korea's Academy of Sciences has told intelligence officers that the research to weaponize the virus is now a priority. The project is under the control of the country's top geneticist and head of its biological warfare program.
Dr. Yi Yong Su, 54, is known to have a close relationship with Kim Jong II, the country's supreme leader. A CIA profile describes her as conducting terminal experiments with anthrax on prisoners.
She has assigned eight research centers to work on various aspects of successfully weaponizing the bird flu virus.
One center is concerned with researching cereal rust spores, a disease which attacks crops. The spores are dusted on to the feathers of homing pigeons. When they return to their coops, they are checked to see how long the spores remain on their feathers.
But the sophisticated research on bird flu is being conducted at Institute 398 at Singam-Ri, south of the capital Pyongyang.
U.S. satellite images show the area is ring-fenced by three battalions of soldiers. Only visible above ground are a cluster of concrete-block buildings and fuel storage tanks.
The defector has said the laboratories, including two dealing with the latest molecular biological technology, are hidden far below ground. It should be noted that the WHO's own experts gave avian flu casualty figures 100 times higher, but were overruled and the sums slashed to the average casualty rate for ordinary flus.
#1
Not that the rulers care, of course, but if they did send out Bird Flu, their own people likely would be completely killed off, given how many are already severely weakened by malnutrition.
#3
phil_b, I do believe that this would constitute an attack on the US with WMD and would be the one thing other than a nuclear attack that would provoke a nuclear response from the US. I think GWB would make an example of DPRK that the world would long remember.
#4
The Bush administration has given briefings classified "Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information" to members of Congress and the Senate on the threat.
Unless things have changed significantly since I held TS/SCI clearances, leaking it should earn you a trip to a federal prison.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/08/2006 19:26 Comments ||
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I find this to be a less-likely scenario. First of all, it took the most advanced labs in the world to reconstruct the H1N1 (Spanish) flu, and then, only when they had samples to work with. Manipulating flu to get a desired result would take multiple supercomputers and decades.
Conversely, nature creates new strains using something like distributed computing, which is how it can match or best our efforts.
"Weaponizing" flu is meaningless--it already has a superior H2H transmission if it has any at all. If the avian flu just became H2H spontaneously, it would be just as deadly as any "military" agent.
On top of everything else, America is one of the least-susceptible to disease nations on the planet. Even if China suffered half a billion dead, the US would probably peak out at less than a tenth of our population, around 30 million, with the absolutely most murderous disease.
North Korea has only a tiny capacity to vaccinate its own people. Such a disease might literally reduce the population of their country to the tens of thousands.
#8
I think you are wrong, Moose. A full explanation would require more time than I have right now, but with resonably secure borders, vaccines even if only partially effective (along with other more draconian containment measures) can be used to contain outbreaks and stop the diseases spread. Where the vaccine is not available and the government not able to take sufficiently draconian containment measures the disease will spread unchecked.
North Korea needs only a modest vaccine production capability to one of the best placed countries to ride out a global pandemic with minimum impact, while the disease devastates large areas of the world.
#9
Gotta feels sorry for the ordinary North Korean - iff his Party's Chicom masters don't kill him, his Party and Army will kill him as will his South Korean cousins andor the USA-West. Besides him and his family starving, he has to pretend to the world North Korea is an independent sovereign nation, free of historically Korean-hated Chinese domination or control; has to pretend that grass- or stone soup > tastes like beef, fish, and chicken; has to pretend he has personal, societal, and natural rights free of the Govt or the Party; and has to pretend that his Nation's costly military arsenals are protecting his natural right to starve for the greater good of everyone while Kimmie stays happy and fat. Iff a shooting war starts in Asia, his family and nations risks total destruction and violent death so that Communism and failed Socialism can govern over a Socialist world where everyone, except the Ruling Elites, is as hungry and enslaved as he is while pretending the're NOT, so that North Korea may end up as badly damaged or destroyed as Germany during the 30 Years War, or worse.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/08/2006 00:00 ||
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Dat's US$20.0Milyuhn lost by Kimmie every four weeks. Pragmatically, the Chicoms are being very unusually quiet lately vv TAIWAN - will say again that, for me, NORTH KOREA is just a PC, Potemkinist, albeit potentially bloody HOLDING FRONT against Japan-USA for the real threat down Taiwan ways.
Ahead of the French parliament's Tuesday vote on an immigration bill that will make it harder for foreigners to work in France, the Union of Islamic Organisations in France (UOIF) vice-president, Fouad Alaoui, has slammed the legislation, claiming it targets "Muslims in general," rather than extremists. "Right up until the 2007 presidential election, things are just going to get worse for Muslims," Alauoi said, quoted by French daily Le Monde. He was attending UOIF's annual meeting.
UOIF's leadership contends that after creating the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) - of which UOIF is one of the largest member organisations - as an official interlocutor for the government on Muslim issues, Sarkozy has turned his back on the body. "On the basis of studies it has carried out, the interior ministry is convinced there is no Muslim vote [for Sarkozy's ruling centre-right UMP party]... and so the stakes are non-existent," said Alaoui.
"This is why Sarkozy is asking us to accept the publication of cartoons satirising the Prophet Mohammed, to pose bare-headed for photos for our identity cards and for a husband to allow his wife to be examined by a male doctor," Alaoui continued, emphasising that UOIF rejects all three demands.
No French party currently represents French Muslims, the UOIF leadership said. "There have already been some important developments over the past ten years, " said UOIF president, Laj Thami Breze, who urged Muslims to "adapt their practices, to take more responsibility, and play the victim less, to avoid clashes with French society." UOIF, which groups some 300 organisations, is considered to present a progressive view of French Islam; some of its members are close to the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.
Sarkozy's controversial blueprint for what he has termed "selected immigration" aims to attract skilled newcomers while keeping poorer ones and their families out. The bill has drawn criticsm from left-wing parties and religious leaders. It has also prompted France's far right - whose leader, Jean Marie Le Pen, last week announced he will in 2007 run against Sarkozy for the French presidency - to step up its stridently anti-immigrant line.
MPs have filed more than 400 amendments to the bill, which also makes it harder for immigrants to bring their families to France and ends their automatic right to a long-term residence permit after ten years. Most of France's five million Muslims are immigrants from North Africa or their descendants.
#3
This is why Sarkozy is asking us to accept the publication of cartoons satirising the Prophet Mohammed, to pose bare-headed for photos for our identity cards and for a husband to allow his wife to be examined by a male doctor," Alaoui continued, emphasising that UOIF rejects all three demands.
And these are the "progressive" Muslims, right?
Ooookay...
#6
It has also prompted France's far right - whose leader, Jean Marie Le Pen, last week announced he will in 2007 run against Sarkozy for the French presidency - to step up its stridently anti-immigrant line.
And probably win! I wish our own nitwit politicians here in Washington would awaken to that reality.
Young student assaulted by group of women, apparently Muslim, after they overheard her speaking in Hebrew on the phone
BERLIN A serious anti-Semitic assault took place in Berlin last week, when an Israeli medical student was attacked at night by a group of young women after they heard her talking in Hebrew on her mobile phone. The Israeli woman was beaten and wounded.
The incident happened last week after the 26 year-old student attended a party at the house of friends in the Steglitz neighborhood in south-west Berlin, where a large Muslim community resides. At about 2 a.m., the woman, who holds a dual Israeli-German citizenship, decided to walk back to her apartment after she missed the last bus home, Israel's leading daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported.
While she was walking home and holding a conversation in Hebrew with a friend from Israel on her cellular phone, the student passed by a group of young women.
When they recognized the language the student was speaking as Hebrew, one of the girls suddenly walked up to the Israeli woman and slapped her in the face. The other women then joined in, pulled her hair, beat her up and kicked her. The abuse eventually stopped when the attackers thought they heard a police car approaching, and they fled the scene.
The student, who sustained injuries in the attack, received medical treatment and filed a complaint with the police.
The women's identity has not been established thus far, but they were apparently Muslim.
This recent incident is the first anti-Semitic crime to be registered in the German capital in over a year. Ever since the beginning of the second intifada, there have been many cases in which Jews and Israelis suffered attacks, usually at the hands of young Arabs or Turks. The German police have failed to apprehend any of the assailants until now.
#3
The Police never will aprehend anyone. They would not work to hard trying to do so. It's hopless. No muslim is going to turn another muslim in to the police. It will never happen. No one will say a thing.
Anyway the victim is to blame anyway. She is guilty of the crime of being from a state that will not take crap from the "Umma" or thier terrorist attacks laying down. On top of that she is a jewess. Any honest Eurponean will tell you the jew are not good. Europe going back to it's antisemtic roots.
Posted by: SPoD ||
05/08/2006 15:39 Comments ||
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#4
Reads like another case of European-encouraged multiculturalism gone amok.
The Turkish prime minister has made a rare visit to the troubled, Kurdish-dominated southeast of the country, urging Kurds to condemn violence committed by the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
Recep Tayyip Erdogan's visit was to show that the government is committed to solving the region's problems. He told a local party conference in the region's capital, Diyarbakir, on Sunday that "by uniting, we will close the door on terrorism and we will work as hard as we can to ensure that this country grows a little freer, more democratic, richer and happier every day".
His visit coincides with an upsurge in violence blamed on the outlawed PKK and troop reinforcements in the region to deal with a predicted increase in incursions by the thousands of rebels the government says are based over the border in Iraq. Only last week 17 people were injured in the bombing of a school bus carrying soldiers' children. In addition, the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), a group the authorities link to the PKK, has claimed responsibility for several bomb attacks on towns in the west of the country since the beginning of the year.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/08/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
This, from a government that has recalled its ambassadors from Canada and France over its inability to come to terms with the Armenian question.
Local Muslims stage rally, march defies traditional religious views
BY NICHOLAS KEUNG
IMMIGRATION/DIVERSITY REPORTER Interesting beat, Nicholas
Milad an-Nabi the birthday of the man Muslims regard as "God's final prophet" has been celebrated in Muslim countries for centuries, but at times under disapproval from the sternest of Islamic conservatives. Many Muslims here want to encourage the tradition of happily celebrating the Prophet Muhammad's birthday in Canada. But it is often in defiance of what they call "extremist" brothers and sisters who frown on celebrations that were not specifically designated by the prophet himself and who, they say, try to take the joy and fun out of the religion.
Yesterday, a coalition of two dozen Islamic organizations staged a parade and rally from Queen's Park to Nathan Philips Square, where the faithful celebrated the prophet's day with music, food and the indispensable halwa sweets, the highlight for kids. "We'd like to bring the celebratory festivities back to the religion, which is more than just dogmatic thinking," said Faheem Bukhari, a member of the Canadian Council of Ahl Sunna Wal Jamaah, in explaining why the rally was organized. The 41-year-old Ajax mortgage specialist said he was particularly disturbed when one of his three daughters was told by a Muslim friend in school one day that she should not greet others at Christmas time because it was against Islam. "That's an extremist view of Islam. It's not my Islam, which teaches tolerance and peace," says Bukhari, who came here from Pakistan in 1988.
Born in Mecca in the year 570, Muhammad (meaning "the praised one") was visited one day, according to Muslim belief, by the Angel Gabriel, who commanded him to memorize and recite the verses sent by God. These verses were later collected in the Qur'an. Muhammad died at age 62 in the Hejaz region of present-day Saudi Arabia. "He's the best of prophets," said Abdusamed Sheref, of Toronto's Association of Islamic Charitable Projects. "He couldn't read and write, but dictated such high-quality verses for the Qur'an. It just added to the mystery of his wisdom."
Truly.
In most predominantly Muslim countries, the prophet's birthday is a national holiday. Both Bukhari and Sheref feel modern Islam has been "hijacked" by traditionalist Muslim leaders, who adhere to the puritanical Wahabi form of Islam that in its most extreme form, underlies the beliefs of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. For them, celebrating Muhammad's birthday on a particular day is an unholy "innovation" in a strict path of adherence to religious rules set down at the start.
Australian authorities let down their normally draconian guard against suspected Muslim terrorists over the weekend to allow one man jailed for allegedly plotting a major bombing leave prison for a final visit with his dying brother, police said yesterday.
Police said Izzydeen Atik was released under guard from a high security prison in Melbourne on Friday and flown in a chartered plane to Sydney to say goodbye to his brother Merhy, who is dying from liver disease and organ failure.
Atik, 25, was back in his jail cell last night, the Australian Federal Police said in a statement.
A Melbourne magistrate, Paul Smith, ordered Atik released on bail on Friday in a humanitarian gesture.
Australias two major commercial airlines refused to let Atik fly on their aircraft accompanied by police guards, so the government used chartered flights at a total cost of A$8,000 ($6,000), the national news agency AAP reported.
Atik was one of 18 Muslims arrested in Sydney and Melbourne in November in the largest counter-terrorism operation ever carried out in Australia.
The men were charged with involvement in a terrorist organisation and plots to carry out major bomb attacks in the country.
The men, and three other Muslims arrested in late March, have been linked by police to a radical Muslim cleric, Abdul Nacer Benbrika, who allegedly preached violent jihad against Australia until his arrest in November.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/08/2006 03:15 ||
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#1
The $6000 should come out of the judge's pocket instead of the taxpayers. If you want the freedom to visit your family when they're dying, don't plan bombings. F*cking unbelievable.
#2
They put him on a damn private flight and at the hospital everyone had to wait before they could visit their sick & injured loved ones while they let this asshole walk right in.
Dusty Foggo, the executive director of the CIA linked to a bribery investigation, is expected to resign soon, according to CIA officials and his associates. Outgoing CIA Director Porter Goss had refused to remove Foggo from his powerful post after Foggo came under investigation by the FBI and the CIA Inspector General. A CIA official said Foggo's resignation would be "pretty normal" following the resignation of Goss as Director.
The choice of Foggo to run the agency's day-to-day activities has been cited as an example of Goss' mismanagement of the spy agency. Before being handpicked by Goss, Foggo had been written up for insubordination by his supervisor, the highest ranking African American woman in the CIA. A CIA official confirmed the incident but said the insubordination report was never formally filed. The supervisor, Jeanette Moore, resigned shortly after Foggo was promoted by Goss.
Foggo recently admitted that he attended Washington, D.C. poker parties that figure in a widening corruption scandal involving a defense contractor, Brent Wilkes, who is a longtime friend of Foggo. Federal officials are investigating whether Wilkes also provided prostitutes at the parties. Foggo has denied seeing any prostitutes at the parties he attended.
"Hookers? What hookers?"
The FBI and the CIA Inspector General are both investigating whether any of the CIA contracts awarded to Wilkes were handled improperly. Foggo has strongly denied any impropriety involving CIA contracts.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/08/2006 13:06 ||
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#1
Goss resigns for yet undisclosed reasons. Dusty Foggo resigns "normally" over .... whores, cigars and poker, Ms. Moore quits in anger over promotion. Looks like were off to the Klingon house cleaning races. Whats not to like?
#2
Is it just me or do we need a complete f*cking lunatic to run the CIA. A real bastard that can whip and kick and bust heads in that sewer to turn it around and make the world tremble at the very mention of CIA.
#8
Jim, that was a long time ago, when I was a kid growing up in the Commiedom. They were being called names left and left by Pravdas and I thought them CIAns must be truly wonderful guys.
#9
Personally, I want Fred to run the CIA. Dan Darling will work in a back office memorizing all the names of our enemies and providing position papers, Steve Y will provide security, Lotp does long-range projects (all on tight deadlines), Emily will dig out all sorts of obscure stuff, Al-aska Paul flies us wherever we want to go, and OldSpook does all sorts of, um, 'interesting' things.
Me? I make coffee.
And .com, if he's around, is our press spokesman.
All other jobs available, apply within.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/08/2006 16:37 Comments ||
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#10
I would like to apply for the job of beating treasonous bastard until they recieve enough spinal damage to crap themselves. Outside in some sort of self-washing washing pit of course. Mike no like cleaning up poop.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
05/08/2006 17:19 Comments ||
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#12
Damn! Can I thrash them anyway? Like spin them around by thier tails for a while and then toss them into a wall of acid covered spikes or something? Maybe we could turn it into a company function. Bounce some meat off the grill, a few dozen kegs and a treasonous bastard pissing on contest or something. I would think this would be great for morale.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
05/08/2006 17:34 Comments ||
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#13
I get to be the tea cart lady, I think. Coffee, too, and something a bit stronger if it's one of those days. The popcorn machine will be kept in the staff lounge, of course. ;-)
#15
I want "Q's" job, if there isn't a "Q" at CIA then invent the position.
(Got all kinds of sneaky ideas)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/08/2006 19:24 Comments ||
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#16
Sign me up. I will provide transportation and spiritual guidance. M'Lady will be available as a clinical psych consultant, as long as her name is not leaked to the press. Our son will be on board, posing as a 10 year old kid.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/08/2006 23:02 Comments ||
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#17
Oh, yes, I volunteered Frank G. He will be involved in civil engineering projects, like taking out 3 gorges.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/08/2006 23:05 Comments ||
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#18
Deck the Agency are start anew.
Posted by: Captain America ||
05/08/2006 23:30 Comments ||
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#19
Been there, done that, don't want to do it again. I'll stay here in Colorado Springs, in the "field office", and, uh, do whatever I do...
(I spent a decade one year in DC, working at the Navy Yard [213]. I'm sure Old Spook, and possibly Fred, will understand.)
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
05/08/2006 23:36 Comments ||
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OTTAWA -- Canadian soldiers have no business being in Afghanistan and their presence there merely enables the United States to carry on its "illegal and immoral" war in Iraq, prominent U.S. anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan said yesterday. "I believe my country shouldn't be in Afghanistan anyway," Ms. Sheehan said at a news conference on Parliament Hill. "It's never about spreading freedom or democracy or making the world safe, it's about lining the war profiteers' pockets."
While lambasting President George W. Bush and the U.S. government for the Iraq war, Ms. Sheehan also fired broadsides at the UN-backed international mission in Afghanistan. "My country supported Osama bin Laden in the fight against Russia," she said. "And now they go in and tear down that country. It's back in the hands of the drug lords, it's producing more opium than ever, and it's not safe. There's not any rebuilding going on, because it's being occupied by occupying forces." Pines for the good ole Taliban days does she?
Canada's deployment of 2,300 soldiers to Afghanistan simply "frees up more soldiers to be in Iraq," Ms. Sheehan said. Ms. Sheehan and Canadian activists from the Council of Canadians and the War Resisters Support Campaign also called on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to "open the border" to U.S. military deserters. "I believe our war resisters are legitimate refugees," Ms. Sheehan said.
Ms. Sheehan, whose son, Specialist Casey Sheehan, was killed in Iraq in April, 2004, gained prominence last year when she camped for days outside Mr. Bush's Crawford, Tex., ranch, demanding answers for the war. Not exactly, her intention was to throw a public tantrum over answers she was incapable of accepting. But anyhoo...
Yesterday, she added her fame to the so-far unsuccessful efforts of Canadian peace activists to persuade the federal government to grant refugee claims by U.S. military deserters who don't want to serve in Iraq. Last month, the Federal Court of Canada ruled against two U.S. Army deserters who had appealed for refugee status in Canada on the grounds that they might be jailed if they return to the United States. The court ruled that prosecution in U.S. courts does not amount to persecution. Immigration and Refugee Board decisions had earlier rejected requests for political asylum from Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey. Speaking alongside Ms. Sheehan at yesterday's media briefing, War Resisters organizer Michelle Robidoux said about 20 more soldiers have since fled to Canada. "We estimate there may be several hundred more who are living clandestinely in Canada," she said. "This is an echo of what happened during the Vietnam War."
The activists conceded that current war resisters are different from those in the Vietnam era because they volunteered to serve, rather than being drafted. Cindy, please tell us why that whole volunteer thingy doesnt apply.
However, Ms. Sheehan said, the soldiers are within their rights to desert because many are "lied to" by U.S. military recruiters who tell them they won't have to fight in Iraq. "My son was an honourable, honest person lied to by his recruiter," she said. Whats that? is there a chance you might actually see combat? No certainly not son you must be thinking about the old military. Things have really changed aroung here now. This is all about you getting that computer training you said you were interested in.
And technically, casey's death came *after* his re-enlistment, at a time in which he most certainly knew he might be going to Iraq. Cindy was so mad she threatened to hit him with her car.
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#6
Her ex-husband probably has a better claim to refugee status. He must thank God every night that he is free of her but wishes she would use her maiden name.
#8
DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK [paraphrased] > PREACHER NEAR THE END OF SUNDAY MASS/WORSHIP >"An announcement from the Captain of the Militia Company - the Company will be form and hold armed drills this weekend, for the defense and protection of the fort, town, and community against the British, Tories, and Indians. All Men and Boys of gun-carrying age are required to attend - those whom do not shall be properly and rightly hanged. That is all. Let us rise from prayer and go yea in the Arms and Grace of the Lord. Amen".
The pending appointment of General Michael Hayden as director of the Central Intelligence Agency will pave the way for the agency's emasculation and for the Pentagon to assume full authority over paramilitary operations.
A senior intelligence community official yesterday said the director of national intelligence, John Negroponte, has indicated "he is willing to give up covert operations to the Pentagon."
The source also pointed out that the Pentagon has requested increased budget authority to prepare for the acquisition of the CIA's targeted military operations. The intelligence overhaul of 2004 envisioned that they would remain under the purview of the CIA.
The authority to commission and plan these secret military operations has been a point of contention since 2004 when Congress and the White House began reorganizing the intelligence community.
The proposed change would give the Pentagon unfettered authority to plan and conduct these operations without consulting an intelligence bureaucracy its civilian leaders have deemed hostile to the president's war policy.
Already, General Hayden's appointment has provoked opposition from members of Congress from both parties, including some of the president's allies. In an interview yesterday with The New York Sun, the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Peter Hoekstra, a Republican from Michigan, said had he known Porter Goss was leaving his position as head of the CIA, he would have included language in the intelligence reauthorization bill prohibiting an active member of the military from becoming the CIA director.
"Putting a military person into this role is just a bad idea," Mr. Hoekstra said. "I think you will have the CIA folks in D.C. and the CIA folks around the world see this as the last straw. I am not sure you will see resignations. But people who have chosen the CIA as a career, I don't think ever envisioned it being run by a general."
Mr. Hoekstra also said he thought the fact that Mr. Goss was stepping down at this moment - after firing an analyst accused of leaking to the press, Mary McCarthy - sent the wrong signal to those in the CIA who oppose the president's policies.
"Two weeks after Porter takes one of the biggest steps to send a clear signal around the agency on leaks, he loses his job. I don't know how people will read this.
"Some people might say insubordination at the CIA is going to be tolerated. This is the last major decision which I thought was crucial to the agency. There had been a lot of people knifing Porter in the back. He was sent in as an agent of change. Some people over there might believe they won."
Mr. Hoekstra's predecessor at the House Intelligence Committee, Porter Goss, stepped down from his perch at Langley on Friday amid rumors that his aide and CIA no. 3, Kyle Foggo, was connected to a corruption scandal involving the former California Republican congressman, Randy Cunningham. Over the weekend, however, the CIA denied there was any connection between the Justice Department investigation and Mr. Goss's departure.
Mr. Goss's replacement, General Hayden, who currently serves as Mr. Negroponte's deputy for intelligence, is a four star Air Force general and the former chief of the National Security Agency, the government's center for the collection and analysis of signal and technical intelligence.
He was in charge of the NSA when the president authorized the tapping of overseas phone numbers found on cell phones captured on suspected Al Qaeda terrorists.
Yesterday some lawmakers said his role in overseeing those wiretaps may make his confirmation in the Senate less likely. On Fox News Sunday, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter, a Republican from Pennsylvania, said, "There is no doubt there's an enormous threat from terrorism, but the president does not have a blank check. Now, with General Hayden up for confirmation, this will give us an opportunity to try to find out."
Mr. Specter's counterpart at the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Pat Roberts, a Republican from Kansas would not say on CNN yesterday whether General Hayden had his vote for confirmation.
Meanwhile, Senator Chambliss, a Republican of Georgia and member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told ABC's "This Week" program, "I too have a little bit of concern, frankly, about military personnel running the CIA."
One factor driving that concern is that the Congressional authors of the 2004 intelligence reform fought the Pentagon to keep oversight and authority over covert military operations in the directorate of national intelligence and CIA.
But the senior intelligence community official yesterday said he expected almost everything except for the human intelligence collection role of the CIA to be removed from the agency. This source said that Mr. Negroponte "is going to strip analysis, strip out covert operation, science, and technology."
The founder of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, Duane Clarridge yesterday said he also predicted his old place of employment would be significantly diminished.
"The CIA as an institution will become the directorate of operations with some ancillary components," he said. "In the end, what you've got, where you're headed, even though these people may not understand it yet, is a directorate of operations writ large, a la M16."
In his one and a half year tenure as the director of the CIA, Mr. Goss attempted to reform an agency whose former members have aggressively attacked the president's decision to go to war in Iraq. One of his first acts as director was to remind gathered employees at headquarters that the information they trafficked was secret and that they worked for the president.
Under his tenure, one director, two deputy directors and 13 department heads and station chiefs left the agency's directorate of operations. Last month, a CIA analyst, Mary McCarthy, stepped down from her job allegedly for discussing classified information with Washington Post reporter Dana Priest.
Mr. Goss himself testified before Congress earlier this year that he looked forward to when the Justice Department began interviewing reporters about their sources on the NSA wire tapping story, broken by the New York Times in December.
The former chairman of the Defense Policy Board, Richard Perle, said he does not expect the next CIA director to have better luck with leakers. "The crackdown on leaking will make people more careful," he said, adding that leakers at the CIA will just get information out through former CIA officers who are cleared to get the information.
"Until they get serious about leaks, which is to put people on polygraphs after every major leak, it is going to go on. Remember, this is an institution that is steeped in covert operations and misinformation. We train people to lie and we are shocked when they lie."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/08/2006 03:16 ||
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Yesterday on Fox News Sunday Peter Hoekstra said this about Gen. Hayden, ""Bottom line, I do believe he's the wrong person, the wrong place, at the wrong time. We should not have a military person leading a civilian agency at this time."
Funny, bottom line, I believe something very similar about Hoekstra. He's the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time. We do not need a touchy-feely fool as the Chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
#4
CIA, FBI, etc. Let's face it, the military is the only serious one in the bunch.
Posted by: Captain America ||
05/08/2006 8:13 Comments ||
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#5
He needs to re-write the CIA as a paramilitary organization, not as an administrative bureaucracy.
From the time of Philby, the CIA physically did less and less and surveilled and observed more, and from further away. But being aware of something and influencing something are two very different things.
For almost three decades, the CIA probably had fewer than two dozen James Bond-style operatives, doing all the heavy lifting. With the advent of the WoT, we discover we need as many operatives as we can get, many of whom as skilled as Green Berets. And perhaps as numerous.
I suspect the culling of the deadwood headcount may have concluded, freeing up resources for the new blood that hopefully General Hayden will recruit.
#6
Funny, no one complained about Bush the Elder being head of the CIA. He was ex-military. Civilians seem to have the idea of the Militay as being a bunch of blood-thirsty shoot first and ask questions later types. Gathering intelligence in the Military is serious business. I think General Hayden will do a good job. I do believe the CIA is now incapable of doing quality covert operations and the military is well suited for the job. Where did all (or most) of the early CIA personnel come from? The military. It was only when they were replaced over the years that the Cia became a Political Beaurocracy.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
05/08/2006 9:38 Comments ||
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#7
I don't remember people complaining when ADMIRAL Stansfield Turner (Jimmy Carter's Annapolis roommate,IIRC)was head of the CIA (1977-1981).
Of course, I would expect that Lt. Gen. Hayden will be much more effective as head of CIA than Adm. Turner. Especially since Jimmeh was the one who appointed him. He also was head of the CIA when the Ayatollah took over the embassy.
#8
Amusingly, Michael Schuerer's complaint about Hayden was exactly that which you've attributed to the CIA (too much SIGINT/ELINT, not enough HUMINT).
#9
Hayden is the p[erfect guy for the job. Knows the business. Been there long enough to see the decline in operations and analysis at CIA. Drove out all the "politicians" from NSA making it pure intel agency with no spin. Modernized NSA and brought its ops into the post cold-war world. Reorganized and streamlined the agency to be more flexible and responsive to "customer" needs.
Everything that needs to be done at CIA.
Hoekstra is full of shit. If he had been in the IC for the past 25+ years (and military before that) he woudl know better. He just wants to score political points, like all the other grandstanders.
Hayden should eventually become DNI. DCI shoudl be his next position onthe way thre. And he can put this whole anti-military thing to rest by "retiring" into the reserves while heading CIA.
Aside from that, who do you think is the biggest consumer of CIA intel? Probably the DoD.
The war on terror requires restructuring and re-org of all the failed intelligence structure. Its setup for Cold War. Goss cleaned out the dead wood. Hayden can make the agency work like its supposed to.
Screw the political opposition - put the right man for the job in there.
And one other thing -why not just kick Arlen Specter out of the Republican party? He wants to grill Hayden over the NSA program as part of the hearings, he has allowed repeated obstruction of judges, he voted against ANWR, he votes for pork, against making tax cuts permanent. Throw him over the side of the boat - he's acting like a democrat, lets go ahead and make him be honest about it. I am sick of these RINOs.
#10
Good. The CIA needs gutted and rebuilt. Paramilitary is the basis of its founding along with forgien intel gathering. Make the damn thing work like it was supposed to.
#11
On top of it all, the confirmation hearings should make for great theater. And Hayden is apparently an accomplished performer.
If some of the donks or donk wannabes (SPECTRE) want to go after the domestic eavesdropping, I'm sure Bush's attitude is bring it on. The American people understand what it is all about and they support it. Great way to start the campaign season.
#12
"But the senior intelligence community official yesterday said he expected almost everything except for the human intelligence collection role of the CIA to be removed from the agency"
Actually this is exactly what needs to happen.
We have an overall "INT" cheif- the DNI. We have an agency for SIGINT. We have one for IMINT.
And we have "supporting" agencies that supply resources to those agencies (like satellites, etc)
We need one whose sole focus is HUMINT.
I say strip parts of the CIA to form other focused agencies:
A HUMINT agency - classic spy agency - develop human intelligence networks, interrogations of "resources" obtained by Ops, infiltrate our enemies, gather info from embassy postings, maintain experts of foreign language and culture to teach people in Ops and Analysis, etc. No "direct action" stuff (leave that for Ops). Just develop Kim Philbys for OUR side.
A Technology intelligence agency, tasked by the other agencies to "subcontract" tech innovation they need. For the James Bond fans its "Q" branch.
An Ops Agency - staffed with resources from DoD as needed, but taking current CIA Ops and making it into its own agency - and set on equal footing, cross connected with DoD's SOCOM, running join missions as needed. Capturing enemies clandestinely ("snatch" missions), eliminating enemies covertly (assasains), etc. This is where the real "James Bond" (Mike Spann) types live.
This leaves one area that needs to be pulled out of all the agencies (excepting inital very narrow focus technical analysis in each agency according to its mission): Analysis.
This is the biggest failure of CIA (and the US Intel sysems) - Analysis. They've apparently had data all along, but have not had all sources (DIA, NSA) available to put together the whole puzzle (nor have they shared vital data with those agencies), and they've been influenced by other parts of the CIA to bend their analysis to fit preconceptions and politics of the CIA.
So the last but most important pull from CIA's core (and some from DIA and NSA, etc): a top level independant intelligence agency that is concerned with one thing, and one thing alone: Analysis. From ALL the other agencies. All sources. No BS, No SPin, NO LEAKS. Provide solid analysis to all the other agencies.
Too many stakes in the ground for this to happen, too many congresscritters bought and paid for.
But it would be very nice to at least split HUMINT and analysis off.
#13
Negroponte, as acreer diplomat, worries me a lot more with the burgeoning bureaucrcy building at National Intelligence. Seems like General Hayden is more than capable of getting CIA into shape, with a broader knowledge and scope of experience, including a masters in recent American history, necessary to integrate everything but there is always the anti-military crowd leary leaking paranoia of a coup. I heard a Time reporter, Mike Allen, say on FOX that the CIA has some scandals involving limos, hookers, and poker...what's the DC scoop on this? I think many people are getting nervous with all the new intelligence being dug up in the investigations sweeping the world but the sunlight is just what we need to kill mildew.
#14
It looks like Mr. Gross was the nice guy, trying to more or less gently lead the CIA into its new path. Now that he has cleared out the worst of the deadwood (25% of the staff of 100,000!), and the CIA has demonstrated *conclusively* that it doesn't have a strong desire to change, General Hayden is going to pull a Rumsfeld on them. May his outcome be as successful as his current boss's. And may he find as much joy in the process as Secretary Rumsfeld is clearly finding in his own, despite the frequent slings and arrows. ;-)
Alarms were set off at the advisory board by a widening FBI sex and cronyism investigation that's targeted Kyle (Dusty) Foggo, the No.3 official at the CIA, and also touched on Goss himself.
The 16-member bipartisan board, now headed by former Goldman Sachs executive Stephen Friedman, has the mandate to conduct periodic assessments on "the quality, quantity and adequacy of intelligence collection." The board, which includes longtime Bush confidant and former Commerce Secretary Don Evans, joined in the growing chorus inside and outside the CIA calling for Goss' ouster, persuading Bush to act, sources said.
The result was the awkward Oval Office announcement Friday at which neither Goss nor Bush gave a specific reason for Goss' return to Florida. Goss told CNN yesterday his resignation was "just one of those mysteries." White House spokeswoman Dana Perrino said a "collective agreement" led to the decision to find a new CIA director, but "reports that the President had lost confidence in Porter Goss are categorically untrue."
Bush was expected to name a new spy chief, possibly as early as tomorrow, with Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, Negroponte's top deputy, and White House homeland security adviser Fran Townsend heading up a short list.
But the spillover from the continuing FBI investigation, coupled with a parallel probe by the CIA's inspector general, could impact on what were already expected to be difficult Senate confirmation hearings for the new director.
The investigations have focused on the Watergate poker parties thrown by defense contractor Brent Wilkes, a high-school buddy of Foggo's, that were attended by disgraced former Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham and other lawmakers.
Foggo has claimed he went to the parties "just for poker" amid allegations that Wilkes, a top GOP fund-raiser and a member of the $100,000 "Pioneers" of Bush's 2004 reelection campaign, provided prostitutes, limos and hotel suites to Cunningham.
Cunningham is serving an eight-year sentence after pleading to taking $2.4 million in bribes to steer defense contracts to cronies.
Wilkes hosted regular parties for 15 years at the Watergate and Westin Grand Hotels for lawmakers and lobbyists. Intelligence sources said Goss has denied attending the parties as CIA director, but that left open whether he may have attended as a Republican congressman from Florida who was head of the House Intelligence Committee.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/08/2006 14:36 Comments ||
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#16
I'd like to believe it is more of a win for those who can keep a secret over those who leak like a $4 canoe.
#17
Confirmation may be fun tho -- quoting the General, just waiting to see and hear Senators' responses to comments like this
GEN. HAYDEN: "I don't think domestic spying makes it. One end of any call targeted under this program is always outside the United States. I've flown a lot in this country, and I've taken literally hundreds of domestic flights. I have never boarded a domestic flight in the United States of America and landed in Waziristan. In the same way - and I'm speaking illustratively here now, this is just an example - if NSA had intercepted al Qaeda Ops Chief Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in Karachi talking to Mohamed Atta in Laurel, Maryland, in say, July of 2001 - if NSA had done that, and the results had been made public, I'm convinced that the crawler on all the 7 by 24 news networks would not have been 'NSA domestic spying.'" (General Michael Hayden, Remarks, Washington, DC, 1/23/06)
At Moussaoui's future home in Florence, Colo., inmates are reportedly not merely punished, but incapacitated and broken down.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. Halfway through the trial, prison expert James E. Aiken looked straight at jurors and told them what Zacarias Moussaoui could expect if they sent him away for the rest of his life. "I have seen them rot," he said. "They rot."
Aiken was describing what happens to the nation's highest-risk prisoners after they settle in at the federal government's maximum-security prison in Florence, Colo., known as Supermax. Moussaoui was formally sentenced Thursday to life in prison after a federal jury rejected a death sentence for the admitted Sept. 11 conspirator.
Officials at the Federal Bureau of Prisons said that Moussaoui was destined for the facility high in the Colorado Rockies. Already there is a veritable "bombers' row" Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center blast; Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski; Terry L. Nichols, an accomplice in the Oklahoma City bombing; Richard Reid, the so-called shoe bomber who Moussaoui testified was to join him in another Al Qaeda hijacking; and Eric Rudolph, who bombed abortion clinics and the Atlanta Olympics. All, like Moussaoui, are serving life without parole spending their days in prison wings that are partly underground. They exist alone in soundproof cells as small as 7 feet by 12 feet, with a concrete-poured desk, bed and stool, a small shower and sink, and a TV that offers religious and anger-management programs.
They are locked down 23 hours a day.
Larry Homenick, a former U.S. marshal who has taken prisoners to Supermax, said that there was a small triangular recreation area, known as "the dog run," where solitary Supermax prisoners could occasionally get a glimpse of sky. He said it was chilling to walk down the cellblocks and glance through the plexiglass "sally port" chambers into the cells and see the faces inside.
Life there is harsh. Food is delivered through a slit in the cell door. Prisoners don't leave their cells to see a lawyer, a doctor or a prison official; those visitors must go to the cell.
But prisoners can earn extra privileges, like a wider variety of television offerings, more exercise time and visitation rights, based on their behavior.
There are 1,400 remote-controlled steel doors. Motion detectors and hidden cameras monitor every move. The prison walls and razor-wired grounds are patrolled by laser beams and dogs.
The facility is filling up. Four hundred inmates are there now. There is room for 90 more.
Looking to restore order after a rash of prison violence at the federal maximum-security lockup in Marion, Ill. the facility that replaced the notorious Alcatraz prison in San Francisco Bay officials in 1983 put the prisoners on indefinite lockdown. The federal Supermax prison in Colorado was opened in November 1994. Nobody has escaped. "We just needed a more secure facility," said Tracy Billingsley, a spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons. "We needed to bring together the most dangerous, that required the most intense supervision, to one location."
In his trial testimony, Aiken said the whole point of Supermax was not just punishment, but "incapacitation." There is no pretense that the prison is preparing the inmate for a return to society. Like the cellmate of the count of Monte Cristo who died an old, tired convict, Aiken said, "Moussaoui will deteriorate."
The inmate "is constantly monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week," he said. "He will never get lost in a crowd because he would never be in a crowd."
Christopher Boyce, a convicted spy who was incarcerated at Supermax, left the prison about 100 miles south of Denver with no regret. "You're slowly hung," he once told The Times. "You're ground down. You can barely keep your sanity."
Bernard Kleinman, a New York lawyer who represented Yousef, called it "extraordinarily draconian punishment." Moussaoui might be a household name today, "but 20 years from now, people will forget him," Kleinman said. "He will sit there all alone, and all forgotten."
Ron Kuby, another New York defense lawyer, has handled several East Coast "revolutionaries" who went on a killing spree, and a radical fundamentalist who killed a rabbi in 1990. All were brought to Supermax. He thought Aiken's description that prisoners rot inside its walls was too kind."It's beyond rotting," he said. "Rotting at least implies a slow, gradual disintegration." He said there were a lot of prisons where inmates rot, where the staff "plants you in front of your TV in your cell and you just grow there like a mushroom.But Supermax is worse," he said. "It's not just the hothouse for the mushrooms. It's designed in the end to break you down."
#4
Does this mean that Christopher Boyce is walking around outside a prison? He is the "Falcon" from the Falcon and Snowman movie. Spoiled kid with idealic fanatasies that the Russians were better people than the Americans. Funny that the Soviet Union didn't outlast his prison term (friggin jerk). BTW I hope Zach goes crazy after a month and kills himself.
#11
Odd that there's no mention of the round-the-clock playing of "Shatner Sings."
Posted by: Matt ||
05/08/2006 17:14 Comments ||
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#12
I am surprised such a place can stay open - 'cruel and unusual punishment' and all that. Sounds seriously cruel to me; maybe the fact that it houses over 400 makes it not unusual enough to qualify? Mind you, I am not complaining, just observing.
#13
These are the scumbags of the earth and like the warden said they are here to be punished not rehabilitated. That makes it hard for the crying for criminal crowd to get a toehold.
#14
LOL - Matt! And "McArthur Park" where somebody left that freeking cake out in the rain?
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/08/2006 19:28 Comments ||
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#15
Oh, there are so many possibilities ....
Muskrat Love.
Leader of the Pack.
Johnny Angel.
ANYTHING disco.
Whitney Houston singing The Greatest Love of All while admiring herself in the mirror
Michael Jackson - too many to choose among
or, if you are willing to be REALLY cruel, It's a Small World After All. Repeatedly. Maybe interspersed with the Barney "I Love You, You Love Me" video.
#16
Some of you are enjoying this just a bit too much. Dr. White may stop by to pay a visit and dispense admonitions about frivolity and mirth if you don't watch it.
#17
I would show Pat Robertson's program.. 24 hours a day
Posted by: john ||
05/08/2006 19:37 Comments ||
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#18
Actually, the Dreidel Song on endless loop.....
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/08/2006 19:48 Comments ||
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#19
Play recorded sounds of babies crying, in about a 20-second loop. Backwards. Interrupt a few times an hour at random intervals, for a minute or two.
He'll be gnawing his own feet off within a couple weeks.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
05/08/2006 19:54 Comments ||
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#27
The kindler, gentler, but less spacier Fort Leavenworth - no making little rocks from big rocks and vice versa here, no Glaze-gate or Christina vids either.
US President says he cannot allow Islamic extremists to distort great religion of peaceful Islam.
BERLIN - US President George W. Bush said in an interview with a German newspaper on Monday that he unwittingly caused fears in the Muslim world. "We must understand words mean things to different people," Bush said in Bild, according to an English transcript released by the White House. "Sometimes my own messages send signals that I don't mean to send, but stirs up anxieties in the Muslim world.
"There needs to be more understanding between the Muslim world and the Western world. There needs to be a better understanding of the true beliefs of their respective religions."
Bush said however that he was convinced that most people in the world shared common, peaceful values. "I take great comfort in knowing that the true Muslim - Islam, itself, is a peaceful religion, and those who adhere to Islam are people that respect the rights of others.
"And there's common values in the great religions. And what we cannot allow to happen is for these totalitarians, these Islamic extremists to distort a great religion and define the nature of that religion."
#1
Sorry Mr. President, you're dead wrong. Read this 'great' religion's book. Killing infidels is a duty. The big politically-correct lie told by western leaders that it's a religion of 'peace' is only adding to the problem.
#3
I disagree. I think most Muslims want to live in peace. That's why they are helping us in Iraq to form a democratic government. Thinking they are all crazed killers is as wrong as it is to think that the Mexican losers rounded up by ANSWER represent most Mexican immigrants - most of whom really just want to come here for opportunity and be citizens like the rest of us. They'd fill out the paperwork and do it that way if it made sense to do so.
I don't think that Sharia is compatible with democracy. But whose fault is that that we tolerate ridiculous demands of traitors like CAIR etc? We need to set laws that Muslims need to accept if they want to live here. And don't give me that baby race crap. If we refused to allow traitorous rantings in the mosques - in three generations we'd all get along just fine.
#4
I think the President tactfully noted the solution. If Muslims honestly looked at what the Koran teaches, most would be horrified. They are only now publishing the Koran in Urdu, if they can even read. The commonality of the 3 Great Faiths is they are all descended from Abraham, and are to treat one another as brothers, created equally in the eyes of God. There is to be no partiality, neither to the rich nor the poor, but all are to be treated equally with respect. As simple as it is, those who consider themselves superior(Islamist males) to others have great difficulty accepting his premise, let alone the real solution to the world's ills. Galatians 3:26-29 You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abrahams seed, and (spiritual) heirs according to the promise.
#5
Danielle, you're right. They would be horrified, but they are not. Where's the outrage in the Muslim community about the countless atrocities committed in their name? 2b is also right; I agree that most Muslims want to live in peace. But that is not the crux of the matter. There is a fundamental problem between the written teachings of Islam, and a peaceful prosperous world; unless of course you happen to be Muslim. There will always be those who take those teachings literally. If I take the teachings of Christ literally, I learn to bless those who curse me, love my enemies, not to take vengeance, to live in peace with ALL men with as much that is in me, and do unto others as I would have them do unto me. If I take their teachings literally, I learn that it is the duty of all the faithful to kill the infidel. The true fundamentalist Christian is no threat to the world. In fact, he or she makes it a better place, because their central message is the love and forgiveness that can be found in Christ. The true fundamentalist Muslim, on the other hand, is indeed a threat to anyone who happens to disagree with him.
#6
Danielle, darling, Galatians refers to the equality of all those who have become followers of Jesus Christ. I know you mean well, but don't let's go there today.
I think the President is trying to reshape the view Muslims have of themselves, from Islam All-Conquering to Islam of Peace. Like our attempts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and like Mr. Goss's at the CIA, if change can't come from within, conquest will be forced from without, because we will not live with the world their extremists are working to make. Mr. Bush is not a stupid man, although he is not a good public speaker. I find it difficult to believe he actually believes that the faith of those who declared war against the West is the the Islam of Peace he speaks so highly of. But as a seduction tactic, to urge the mainstream of Islam to fight for control of its religion, yes.
The following are excerpts from bin Laden's speech, as posted by the reformist website Middle East Transparent on April 27, 2006. [2]
Freethinkers and Heretics who Defame Islam Should Be Killed
"To the entire Islamic nation...: This speech comes to further urge you and prompt you to [come to] the aid of the Prophet and punish those responsible for the vile crime being committed by some journalists from amongst the Crusaders and the apostate heretics, who have insulted the Prophet Muhammad
"Imam Ahmad [3] said: 'Whoever reviles the Prophet or belittles him, be he Muslim or infidel, should be killed.' The freethinkers and heretics who defame Islam, and mock and scorn our noble Prophet - their case and the law concerning them have been clearly expounded by Imam Ibn Qayyim [Al-Jawziyya]. [4] He made it clear that the crime committed by a freethinker is the worst of crimes, that the damage caused by his staying alive among the Muslims is of the worst kind of damage, that he is to be killed, and that his repentance is not to be accepted...
#8
Bush can say whatever apeases the liberal west. Just like telling a kid everything will be ok. But at the end of the day, the muzzies will attack us again and we will destroy them.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
05/08/2006 13:58 Comments ||
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#9
heh, 49 pan, I think you nailed it. But its important to remember that a good number of the Muslims will be our partners in peace. Not separating the normal good folks from the radicals is a mistake whether we are talking about Mexican immigrants, liberals, communists, or any other ill.
We need to solve it the same way we solved slavery, racism, anti-semitism, and every other ism or ill in the world....we need to encourage or shame thegoodpeople into speaking up against injustice and evil. More often than not it is cowardly silence by the majority to speak up against hateful radicals due to the fear of being ostracized or actual physical violence that prevents these battles from being won.
It's no longer vogue to talk about good or evil - but people (no matter what their religion or belief) can usually be separated by how they balance out when it comes to good v/s evil. It has little to do with their religion - though I will say that Christianity (and other religions not including Islam) help people to go towards the sunny side rather than the darkness.
It's all old talk about good v/s evil, light v/s dark etc. But it's old talk cause that's what it boils down to.
#10
Dubya's comments are better than Clinton's - Bill said iff he were himself he wouldn't believe himself either, i.e. Don't believe Bill when he himself says he's POTUS only by elex fraud, did "not commit perjury, did I', or that the US economy was already expanding long before he entered office.
* "...freethinkers and heretics...crime committed by a freethinker is the worst of crimes...": besides indicating, AGAIN, that free thought is a crime to the Radics, does also demonstrate that the Radics are fighting for centralist, theocratic, Governmentism-centric REPRESSION, SUPPRESSION, PEONAGE, and REGRESSIONISM, etc. under the guise of despotic, Totalitarian, God-based TRADITIONALISM, CONSERVATISM, andor ULTRA-CONSERVATISM, TYRANNY IS LAISSEZ FAIRE, DEMOCRACY, AND LIBERTARIANISM, at least for the Masses.
BERLIN (Reuters) - President George W. Bush said he would like to close the U.S.-run prison at Guantanamo Bay -- a step urged by several U.S. allies -- but was awaiting a Supreme Court ruling on how suspects held there might be tried. "Of course Guantanamo is a delicate issue for people. I would like to close the camp and put the prisoners on trial," Bush said in comments to German television to be broadcast on Sunday night. The interview was recorded last week.
Bush was asked by the German public television station ARD how the United States could restore its human-rights image following reports of prisoner abuse. "Our top court must still rule on whether they should go before a civil or military court," he said. "They will get their day in court. One can't say that of the people that they killed. They didn't give these people the opportunity for a fair trial."
He should have pointed out more explicitly that the innocent dead are still dead, but that's pretty good.
The quotes were translated by Reuters from a German transcript.
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule by the end of June on whether military tribunals of foreign terrorist suspects can proceed.
Question is, after you try them, what do you do with them? It's unlikely we're going to execute any, let alone more than one or two. Some might be set free, but the rest?
Bush's comments were a reiteration of long-standing U.S. policy, Frederick Jones, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said in Washington. "The United States has no intention of permanently detaining individuals, that is not our goal. We want to see all these individuals brought to justice," he said, whether in their home countries or in the United States.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, however, has dismissed calls for the prison to be closed. "Every once and a while someone pops up and gets some press for saying 'Oh let's close Guantanamo Bay.' Well, if someone has a better idea, I'd like to hear it," Rumsfeld said in a February speech to the Council on Foreign Relations.
The United States has 480 detainees at Guantanamo and has freed or handed over to their home governments a total of 272. The Pentagon has said it has no interest in holding anyone longer than necessary but that it has been unable to arrange for some to return to their home countries.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/08/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Did the Bolsheviks win on this?
Did we scede our union to those who do not follow geneva convention style politics? With the heart for the truth of a fight missing, it is hard to know where to file this.
I would like to close it too, considering there are no more contaminates or viri fighting ths asymetrical war against all that is good and wholesome. I liked the sound of the "Seseme Street Torture" and "Metallica tennis" in that place. The Harry potter tales and exchange of fecal matter for the food we provided but I guess it is better to send them back to the hell from which they came. Who knew?
#2
Not sure I buy this one, particularly out of Germany.
Posted by: Captain America ||
05/08/2006 8:01 Comments ||
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#3
It sounds to me like there was a mistranslation somewhere along the way.
Heck, I'd like to be able to close Gitmo too, because all the nations these unlawful combatants come from and get their funding from suddenly became civilized.
AN 11-year-old boy was strangled by relatives who killed him rather than obey a tribal elders' order for him to marry one of their womenfolk, police in Karachi said today.
The marriage had been ordered in compensation for the kidnapping of the boy's sister.
Mohammad Asif was killed yesterday, five months after his 15-year-old sister was abducted from their home in a poor part of the southern Pakistani city.
The children's widower father, Saeed Akbar, a rickshaw driver who comes from northern Pakistan, appealed to a tribal jirga, or council, for justice after his daughter was snatched.
But after the jirga ordered the kidnappers to betroth one of their daughters to the boy, they began making threats, prompting Saeed Akbar to seek protection from the jirga.
"But before that they killed my innocent son in revenge," he said, describing how he saw smoke rising from his house after leaving for work and raced back to find his son's charred body.
"I rushed back and found the house was on fire. I called for help and we took out Asif's dead body."
A post-mortem examination showed the boy was strangled and his body burned afterwards, according to police surgeon Liaquat Memon.
Three men, all brothers, and a woman are accused of murdering the child, said Sheikh Iqbal, an investigating police officer.
"We are still hunting for all four of them," he said.
Several demonstrators, a policeman and a television cameraman were injured on Monday during fresh protests over the sex scandal that allegedly involved bureaucrats, police officials and politicians. Hundreds of veiled women, children and men marched through central Srinagar calling for the government to punish those involved in the scandal that has sparked outrage in largely conservative, Muslim-majority Kashmir. Carrying placards and shouting slogans demanding "severest punishment to the guilty," protesters broke through police barricades, pelting stones and bricks. Security forces used water cannons and bamboo truncheons to disperse the demonstrators, said Hasib Mughal, a police officer. Protesters also forced the closure of shops in Srinagar's main business district. The scandal was unearthed after videos and multimedia messages on mobile phones showing nude girls and amateur porn films began circulating in Srinagar.
Henry Crumpton, the US State Department's co-ordinator for counter-terrorism, has called on Pakistan to intensify its hunt for ranking members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Mr Crumpton said in Kabul, the Afghan capital on Saturday: "Not only al-Qaeda, but Taliban leadership are primarily in Pakistan, and the Pakistanis know that. Has Pakistan done enough? I think the answer is 'no'."
Pakistani officials rejected such claims. "I find these remarks to be at odds with what he [Crumpton] told us. When he was in Islamabad, he said the US appreciates our efforts," said Aftab Sherpao, Pakistan's interior minister.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/08/2006 03:04 ||
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Lucknow, May 7: A section of Shias has suggested that most militants belong to Sunnis and it is unfair to hold the entire community responsible, prompting the Sunnis to protest the sectarian label.
At a conference organised by the All India Shia Hussaini Fund today, many clerics and scholars made the following observations:
Jihad and terrorism are not synonymous
The extremists are either Sunnis or Wahabis, the purists among the Sunnis
No Shia has yet been found to be a member of any known terrorist outfit
If anything, Shias have been the victims of terrorism for long.
Concern was also voiced at the perception that Islam was regressive because of its personal laws. Islam is identified with terrorism and talaaq (divorce) these days, said the conference convener, Maulana Mirza Mohammad Attar, who also chairs the All India Shia Personal Law Board, a breakaway group of the Muslim Personal Law Board.
His colleague, Hasan Mehdi, said: Theres not a single Shia in al Qaida, Lashkar-e-Toiba or Jaish-e-Mohammad. They have Wahabis or Sunnis. Jihad means service to humanity, service to ones parents, charity and love.
Mehdi said the greatest act of terrorism was committed when Imam Hussain, Prophet Mohammads grandson, was killed when he was offering prayers in Karbala. Imam Hussain and another grandson of the Prophet were killed in Karbala, following which the community split into Sunnis and Shias.
The conference said it had no problem with the western threat to impose sanctions on Iran or with Indias position on Tehran.
Anwar Hussain Rizvi, a delegate who teaches law in Lucknows Shia degree college, said: The governments policy and the Shia policy are one and the same. We are Indians and we will not allow Indias enlightened national interest to be compromised.
The stand on the US has surprised many since Iran is a Shia-majority country and also because of the intriguing fact that Attar had been deported from the JFK International Airport in New York in 2005. Attar had then felt that he was sent back because of a resolution passed by his board against the reported desecration of the Quran in the US-run prison at Guantanamo Bay.
However, Khalid Rashid, a Sunni cleric, felt that the conferences sweeping assertions would give a fillip to anti-Muslim perceptions.
The Arabs and Palestinians are Wahabis. Yet, when the Jews kill the Palestinians, the US does not call it Jewish terrorism. If the Palestinians retaliate, it is called Islamic terrorism. But when Muslims themselves give weight to such perceptions, it is most unfortunate, said Rashid, the Naib Imam of Firangi Mahal, a 400-year-old seminary in Lucknow.
Posted by: john ||
05/08/2006 00:00 ||
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The component parties of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) have expressed reservations about the decision by alliance president Qazi Hussain Ahmed and General Secretary Maulana Fazlur Rehman to launch an anti-government movement. They have accused the two leaders of taking a confused decision without consulting the components of the six-party alliance.
Sources said that that the Jamiat Ahle Hadith Pakistan (JAHP), the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Sami (JUI-S) and the Millat-e-Jafferia said that the MMA president and general secretary were negotiating with the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy to launch a joint struggle against the government, and had announced an anti-administration drive at the same time. Such a move would damage the oppositions objective of toppling the government by the end of 2006, they said.
Sources said that the Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan-Noorani (JUP-N) had also protested against the decision to launch an anti government drive in the hottest spell of summer and without proper planning. Party chief Anas Noorani was of the view that the Jamaat-e-Islami and the JUI-Fazl, the parent parties of the MMA president and general secretary, wanted to launch their membership campaigns under the guise of an anti-government movement, JUP-N leaders said.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/08/2006 00:00 ||
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The Inter-Parliamentary Union's (IPU) Arab group agreed to include an emergency article in the agenda of the 114th meeting of the union, due later Sunday, to issue legislations that would ban desecration of religions.
Have to admit I've not heard of this group, but I suppose it's just another excuse for extra cousins to fly first class and pat themselves on the back.
This came in a coordination meeting the group held Sunday on the sidelines of the conference, chaired by the head of the Arab Parliamentary Union, the Jordanian parliament speaker Abdulsalam Al-Majali, which was attended by speakers and members of Arab parliaments and members of the union. The Arab group decided to coordinate in this regard with Iran and Sweden for presenting similar proposals to be included with the Arab demand.
Iran, yes, but Sweden?
The participants also approved the group's memorandum on the Palestinian parliamentarians detained in Israeli prisons.
Of course they did.
The Arab group also agreed on re-electing the current IPU secretary general, Anders B. Johnsson for a new term. Meanwhile, the Arab group will be supporting the request of the Qatari Shura Council to win a full membership in the IPU.
'Cos an unelected council of holy men always need a seat set aside for them in otherwise elected Parliaments.
The conference, which will be concluded next Friday, is expected to discuss the role of parliaments in tightening watch on small weapons and ammunition trade and on the role of parliaments in management of environment affairs and environment preservation efforts, in addition to discussions on countering violence against women and impact of local and international policies on status and conditions of women.
Making sure their Green and Red fellow travellers have a say.
The IPU is the international organization of Parliaments of sovereign States. It was established in 1889. The union is the focal point for world-wide parliamentary dialogue and works for peace and co-operation among peoples and for the firm establishment of representative democracy.
May 8, 2006: Over the weekend, another half dozen bombs went off in central Iraq. For a country larger than Texas, with a population of some 24 million, that's not enough mayhem to change anything. It keeps the foreign journalists happy, but the local reporters are more concerned with the street crime and corrupt government officials. American soldiers are seen less frequently on the street, many having moved from camps in the cities, to ones outside. Most of the patrols and raids are now conducted by Iraqi troops, who are well aware of the fact that they are still fighting Saddam. Most of the violence over the last three years has been perpetuated by Sunni Arabs who refused to surrender. These men, who had used terror to keep Saddam in power for decades, were now using those same skills to prevent their victims from taking control of all of Iraq. But early on, it was clear that the north (where the Kurds were the the majority and in control) and the south (where the Shia Arabs ran things) were lost. But central Iraq, despite a large Shia Arab minority, had always been Sunni country. Around Baghdad, this formed what came to be known as the Sunni Triangle of suburbs and towns full of hard core Sunni Arab nationalists.
These Sunni Arabs trace their place and their power back over a thousand years, to when Baghdad was the center of the Moslem world. That was a power that was controlled by Sunni Moslems, but was then, as now, threatened by dissident and heretical Shia Moslems. Iranian had become all Shia, and south of Baghdad, most of the Arab tribes were Shia. Then the Mongols arrived in the 13th century, and the city was destroyed, with most of the population slaughtered. Then the Iranians took over, followed by the Turks. But through it all, the Sunni Arabs of Baghdad hung on. They served the Turks well, with most of the Arab officers in the Turkish army being Baghdad Sunni Arabs. When Iraq was founded in the 1920s, the British appointed king was a Sunni Arab (from Saudi Arabia), backed by the Iraqi Sunni Arabs. Although a minority, the Sunni Arabs dominated the more numerous Shia Arabs and Kurds. Until now.
The unthinkable, to Sunni Arabs, has happened. Democracy, which many Sunni Arabs are glad to believe is un-Islamic, has led to a government dominated by these lesser creatures. How can Sunni Arabs possibly do business with Kurds and Shia? It's humiliating. While many Sunni Arabs are willing to go along with this democracy thing, a well armed and ruthless minority is not. There aren't many of them. Using data from interrogations, electronic eavesdropping, and statistical modeling, there are perhaps 20,000 Iraqis willing to use, or actively support, violence against the government. Offer some cash, which the ringleaders of the violence do, and you can generate several dozen incidents a day. That includes bombings, political kidnappings (as opposed to the more numerous criminal ones), threats (trying, with not much success, to discourage other Sunni Arabs from working for the government) and beatings and murders of those who will not cooperate. Assassinations of Shia Arab or Kurd officials are rare, because they ware well guarded, and spend most of their time among their own. You can usually spot a Sunni Arab by his accent, or even his body language. There are many Kurdish and Shia Arab death squads, or just individuals seeking revenge, out there. So Sunni Arab killers have to be careful where they work. There are fewer and fewer places to work. But for many of these men, it's a fight to the death. The alternative is a humiliation that is too much to bear.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/08/2006 08:50 ||
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#1
Using data from interrogations, electronic eavesdropping, and statistical modeling, there are perhaps 20,000 Iraqis willing to use, or actively support, violence against the government.
I wonder if you took a similar population count of Southern California and how many you'd come up with who are or are willingly supporting the 'gangs' in their area. Think 20,000 is a little low? Concentrations found in select neighborhoods and prisons.
In April 2006, credible representatives of mujahideen fighting in Iraq released a 2-hour audiotape recorded by an individual identifying himself as Abu Mohammed al-Salmani. The purpose of the audiotape was to document the early history of Al-Qaidas movement in Iraq now headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Among the most interesting excerpts:
- "We thought that the American insult against Iraq was more tolerable than the Iraqi regime [of Saddam Hussein]. The Americans were obviously stronger and had much more sophisticated weapons, but they lacked the acceptance among the public and that made them less dangerous to us than the Iraqi regimewhich was able to infiltrate every household in Iraq... I returned to the city of Al-Qaim and I witnessed many men from almost every Arab and Muslim country. These young men from abroad said that they were ready to declare jihad by helping the Iraqi forces in their battles against the Americansbut we told them that those [Iraqi] forces were always renowned for their hatred of Muslims and Islam."
- "We decided to establish our training camp in the area of Rawa which was secluded and enabled us to train freely. We built several shelters around the camp that enabled us to hide during the day, in case we needed to, and to train at night. We had some experience in building those hiding places. In addition, the enemy did not have the requisite intelligence to locate these hiding places. Subsequently, the training commenced and the young men evinced high levels of excitement and enthusiasm and good Islamic morals. The training course at that camp lasted for approximately 30-45 days."
- "The city of Al-Qaim was the main city of jihad. Any jihad operations that took place in Iraqespecially in Fallujahwere initiated in Al-Qaim.
- "Abu Mohammed al-Lubnani... came to us from Denmark where he had lived for all his life. He knew Arabic because both his parents had taught him the language and raised him according to true Islamic values."
- Most of the brothers, including the commander, were from Saudi Arabia... brother Abu Usama went to Saudi Arabia to recruit more brothers and raise some moneyand when he came back, he had 5 brothers with him, including two who were among those who participated in the attack on the U.S.S. Cole warship in Yemen and later were arrested in Syria... In addition, Abu Usama had brought with him [from Saudi Arabia] a sum of $100,000."
Alongside the audiotape, the same sources also distributed copies of journalist Essam Dirazs noted work narrating the early days of Al-Qaida at the Al-Massada camp in Afghanistan during the 1980s. According to the mujahideen, the lessons contained in Dirazs book greatly helped the brothers in establishing their own first camp in Rawa, Iraq.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/08/2006 03:28 ||
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British troops and Iraqi police have managed to quell the rioting in Basra after violent clashes between troops and youths demonstrating around the remains of the British helicopter brought down at the weekend. But although the city was largely calm yesterday, other parts of Iraq were racked by violence. Car bombs killed about 30 people and wounded more than 70 across the country. Meanwhile, 42 bodies were found in the capital alone, victims of sectarian killings. The need for an effective government to forestall a slide toward civil war is increasingly urgent.
Basra remains one of the more stable parts of the country. But even here, competition for power is growing between militias. British soldiers have won a reputation for restraint, but are increasingly caught in the middle. No longer can they count on local co-operation or patrol with ease as they did two years ago. It was unclear yesterday whether the helicopter was shot down, but the violence of the crowd that surrounded the wreckage was clearly instigated by Moqtada al-Sadr, the ambitious Shia leader of the so-called Mehdi Army, who is still smarting at the role British troops played in quashing his bid for power last year.
To establish themselves, factions outbid each other in militancy, fomenting opposition to the coalition forces. And until provincial council elections, which have been repeatedly postponed, are held next year, this un- stable situation will continue. It gives Iran a chance to make mischief. Already wielding considerable moral authority among Shia religious leaders in Iraq, the hardline Government of Iran is also using the opportunity to arm and instigate the militias. This is Tehrans response to the international pressure over its nuclear activities, a cynical attempt to show the world the cost of isolating Iran.
Little wonder, therefore, that violence has flared up in the Shia south only days before the issue of sanctions comes up at the United Nations Security Council. Britain and France are authors of the resolution ordering Iran to end its nuclear programme, and are pushing for a vote this week.
Britains best course is to remain resolute in Iraq, while training and expanding the Iraqi army and police force. There can be no question of any rapid withdrawal of British forces while the militias are struggling for power. But Britain, and all coalition contributors, must keep up the pressure on Jawad al-Maliki, the new Prime Minister, to name his Cabinet and enforce his authority over the country as soon as possible.
The suicide bombs, murders and threats by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaedas figurehead in Iraq, are intended to derail attempts to forge a consensus government. He wants instead to provoke the Shia militias into all-out civil war. Neither the British Army, nor the Iraqi Government, should be deflected from their determination to establish effective civil authority by the violence perpetrated by brutal nihilists against Iraqs long-suffering people.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/08/2006 03:23 ||
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#1
OK - things are far from smooth in Basra but there are always exactly 200-250 protesters when something catastrophic happens to the Brits. I wonder what the size of the Mahdi Arny's rent-a-mob in Basra is? I bet around the 200-250 mark. Time to get stuck into em.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
05/08/2006 5:22 Comments ||
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#2
A reputation for restraint in the War on Terror is not a win.
Firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is working behind the scenes to maintain his armed militant wing and portray it as a social movement, a step that would make him one of Iraq's most powerful figures if it succeeds, U.S. officials and Iraqi politicians say.
American officials think that al-Sadr, who already controls the largest bloc of votes in the National Assembly, is modeling himself after Lebanon's Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim movement born during that country's civil war in the 1980s. Although it began largely as an armed group, it eventually became a powerful political force with a large social-service component.
Some U.S. and Iraq officials think that al-Sadr's shift is a symptom of a growing rift within the powerful Shiite United Iraqi Alliance, which has dominated Iraq's two parliamentary elections. That split pits al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia against members of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq to be the voice of all Iraqi Shiites.
"It's a struggle for power," said Adnan Pachachi, a secularist and member of parliament.
A successful move by al-Sadr would be a major transformation for the 30-something scion of a clan of revered Shiite religious figures. Once derided as ill-educated and undisciplined, al-Sadr has been on the verge of defeat twice at the hands of the American military and once was charged by an Iraqi court with murdering two prominent Shiite clerics.
But he's maintained his role in Iraq, joining the United Iraqi Alliance while maintaining his Mahdi Army, which controls Sadr City, Baghdad's largest Shiite neighborhood, named for al-Sadr's father.
Now al-Sadr is working to expand his influence, building regional offices in major Shiite communities to help widows, workers, children and the sick with services the Iraqi government can't yet provide, such as health care and potable water.
Al-Sadr also is insisting in talks to form a new government that his followers, who hold 32 of the assembly's 275 seats, lead key service ministries such as education and health.
Sheik Yousif al-Nasseri, an al-Sadr supporter and the head of al-Shaheedin, an al-Sadr-oriented research center, embraced the comparison between al-Sadr's movement and Lebanon's Hezbollah, particularly if it means that the populace sees al-Sadr as representing the people.
The State Department lists Hezbollah as among the Middle East's "active extremist and terrorist groups."
American officials also take a dim view of al-Sadr, whom they hold chiefly responsible for attacks on Sunni Muslim mosques after the Feb. 22 bombing of the Askariya shrine, a Shiite holy site, in the mostly Sunni city of Samarra. In the aftermath of those attacks, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said militias were a greater threat to Iraq than the country's Sunni insurgency.
Not everyone thinks al-Sadr will be successful. They note that in contrast to Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasralla, who's considered one of the most charismatic figures in the Middle East, al-Sadr often appears awkward and indecisive in his public appearances.
But they agree there's a vacuum for someone to fill, because the government is weak and residents are frustrated by the religious and ethnic discord and the lack of services.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/08/2006 03:12 ||
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The EU is preparing to go it alone and channel emergency funds to the Palestinians if talks with the US, Russia and United Nations on setting up an international mechanism for easing their financial plight fail this week, senior officials indicated at the weekend. Pressure for a swift agreement on supplying food and other aid directly to Palestinians as well as money to pay the salaries of health workers and teachers intensified when President Mahmoud Abbas and Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of the Hamas-led government, failed to resolve the crisis over the weekend.
On Saturday Mr Abbas's advisers said Hamas had again refused to change its policy towards Israel, renouncing violence, recognising the Jewish state and standing by past peace deals. The EU and US have reaffirmed that these are absolute conditions for dealing directly with the PA.
Benita Ferrero-Waldner, EU external affairs commissioner, who sanctioned the release of 120m in February, said a further 125m was blocked. "There might be some salaries paid for health and education but it's not yet clear and it might have to go through the World Bank." Saying the EU was "not abandoning the Palestinians", she insisted Israel should use the international mechanism if necessary to pay withheld tax and customs revenues worth 40m a month to the PA.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/08/2006 00:00 ||
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#2
Pay only the service workers, water, sewer, power street repair, and garbage workers.
If there's enough money pay the police, doctors, and teachers
Politicians, government workers, etc should be paid dead last
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/08/2006 8:53 Comments ||
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#3
The EU can pay the Palestinians after Israel deports them to Brussels.
Posted by: ed ||
05/08/2006 9:06 Comments ||
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#4
They can only let their allies hang out so ling.
#5
I don't think that Israel particularly cares what the EU thinks. This is an open choosing of sides and the EU is on the wrong side. Britain, if it is to have a future, should withdraw from the EU and draw closer to the US and Australia. The EU government is currently an inept, impotent cross between a death cult and a mutual suicide pact.
Israeli police stormed a Palestinian house in the West Bank city of Hebron on Sunday to evict Jewish settlers accused of squatting there, in an early test for the new government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Police persuaded three settler families including women and children to leave, but had to drag or carry out two dozen teenage supporters who were holed up inside the house, near a heavily fortified Jewish settlement in the biblical city.
Security forces had scuffled with scores of settlers outside after some threw Molotov cocktails from the roof of the three-storey building and others hurled rocks. Police arrested 19 settlers, while 17 policemen were lightly injured. Israel's new prime minister, Ehud Olmert, told his cabinet at its first meeting on Sunday that Israel would not allow illegal West Bank settlement outposts to remain, his office said.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/08/2006 00:00 ||
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An Arab League official said Sunday there were "tough obstacles" facing Arab banks to transfer money from Arab parties to the Palestinian Authority (PA). Mohammad Sabeeh, assistant secretary general for Palestine affairs, told KUNA the problem was not in collecting Arab money but how to transfer it to the Palestinian people. He said the Arab League and Arab government failed to remove the obstacles.
Sabeeh attributed the obstacles to fears of Arab banks from sanctions that might be unilaterally imposed by the US, or freezing money transfer process before reaching the PA. He said the Arab League secretary general Amr Moussa were exerting efforts to overcome the obstacles through regular meetings with banks' chiefs and officials from the Palestinian finance minister. Moussa, added Sabeeh, was also contacting PA president Mahmoud Abbas and top Arab officials to address the problem.
"Who is it on the phone? Amr calling again to ask me about the damn money? Tell him to call Khaled in Damascus and cry on his shoulder. Those f***ers tried to kill me. Let 'em eat sand."
He said members of the Quartet, who will meet in New York on Tuesday, should find a problem for the money transfer issue. The Arab League is concerned about the fact that 95 percent of the Palestinian people were poor and hungry, and in dire need of medical and social care, added Sabeeh. The Palestinian people should not be punished for its democratic selection by sanctions, said Sabeeh.
#1
Why are 95% of Palestinians poor and hungry after 50 years of handling their own affairs? They seem to be the worlds largest welfare state. How many billions have we and the EUniks poured down the toilet to keep their heads above water? And to thank us they elect HAMAS as their political majority. Let them think about it for a while longer.
#2
The Paleos are lucky that the Israelis use the alleged $55M a month to pay the companies that provide electricity and water to the Paleos. If Hamas had the money, they would stiff the Israeli companies and Gaza would become very dry and very dark.
INDONESIA said it supported Iran's right to pursue nuclear technology for peaceful means ahead of a visit to the country by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
During his six-day stay in the world's most populous Muslim nation, Mr Ahmadinejad is expected to seek support for Iran's nuclear program, and sign multimillion-dollar energy deals with the Government.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda said that Mr Ahmadinejad would discuss the nuclear issue with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono when the two leaders met on Wednesday.
"We want to hear for ourselves from Iran about their position on the resolution being discussed at the United Nations," he said. "Our position is that we support nuclear development for peaceful purposes, specially energy, but we consistently object to nuclear weapons proliferation."
MANILA, May 8 (Reuters) - Philippine police, firing warning shots in the air, broke up a fight between Muslim and Christian prisoners at a detention centre in Manila that injured 11 inmates, officials said on Monday.
Agrimero Cruz, a national police spokesman, said dozens of knives and improvised weapons were confiscated from hundreds of prisoners at a four-storey detention centre in Camp Bagong Diwa, site of a 24-hour bloody stand-off in March 2005.
"The riot started from a very minor misunderstanding over some petty things between a Muslim and a Christian inmate," Cruz said, denying the violence could be another attempt by prisoners to bolt out of the maximum security facility.
He said 11 prisoners -- seven Christians belonging to two criminal gangs and four alleged members of the Muslim militant group Abu Sayyaf -- were brought to a state hospital for the stab wounds they sustained during the riot.
"We're still getting to the root of the problem. We're also trying to determine how the improvised weapons were smuggled inside the jail," Cruz added.
Police and jail officials said they restored order after nearly two hours of bloody rioting by warning shots and water hoses.
Last year, police commandos shot dead 22 suspected members of the Abu Sayyaf after a 24-hour stand-off when the alleged Muslim militants attempted to escape from their prison cells.
Jail breaks are common in the impoverished mainly Roman Catholic country in Southeast Asia. Nearly 20 people escaped in three separate police jails outside Manila last week.
Since January this year, the police said about 44 people had escaped from detention centres outside the capital Manila. Last year, a total 51 jailbreaks were reported, with nearly 150 people escaping.
MANILA, May 8 (Reuters) - The Philippines' largest Muslim separatist rebel group said on Monday it was not keen on allowing mining firms in its territories and that the issue will be part of its peace negotiations with the government.
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) issued the statement after it ended informal talks with the Philippine government in Malaysia on Thursday without resolving the stubborn issue of territory and jurisdiction over Muslim land on Mindanao island.
"This mining issue has to be discussed bilaterally," MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu told Reuters by phone.
Kabalu said his group and Manila have yet to discuss when to resume peace talks aimed at ending nearly 40 years of conflict, which has killed more than 120,000 people stunted the growth of Mindanao and clouded investment prospects in the area.
The MILF website -- luwaran.com -- quoted Jun Mantawil, chairperson of the MILF peace panel, as saying that the group does not welcome mining firms in its territories because they bring more trouble than good to the people.
"He said mining also invites manmade catastrophes like massive displacement, mass poisoning, human rights violations including killings and militarisation," the website said.
"The mining industry rapes, extracts, denudes, divests, drains and brings forth deaths and destruction to our environment and marginalised population, especially the indigenous people," Mantawil was quoted as saying.
But Mantawil said MILF may agree to the operation of mining companies in its areas provided their operations were environment-friendly and their benefits go directly to the people.
The communist New People's Army rebels, which the government sees as the more potent security threat, has attacked mines to demand "revolutionary war taxes" to fund its nearly four decades of insurgency.
These rising threats to mining firms come at a time that the Philippine government is trying to lure between $6.5 and $8.5 billion in capital for 23 priority mining projects and 37 exploration deals to revive the sector after years of neglect.
Manila has said it needed foreign investors to tap an estimated $1 trillion worth of mineral wealth.
The poor Southeast Asian country is ranked among the world's top five for its deposits of copper, nickel, iron ore and is geographically closer to resource-hungry China than the region's other major mining centre Indonesia.
But the Philippines' plan to revive the sector at a time of high world metal prices is being opposed by Catholic bishops and environmentalists.
In March, the government bowed to pressure from the Catholic bishops to review a law allowing foreign mining firms to own up to 100 percent in local projects from the previous 40 percent.
Officials have said the review of the law in Congress was aimed to strengthen the environmental provisions and ensure sustainable mining.
#1
"The mining industry rapes, extracts, denudes, divests, drains and brings forth deaths and destruction to our environment and marginalised population, especially the indigenous people,"
#2
If you dont believe that look at West Virginia.
Posted by: bk ||
05/08/2006 11:40 Comments ||
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#3
The Catholic church is the New People's Army's biggest supporter. The MILF, the NPA and Catholic church do not want any influx of funds into that area. Once the people have money then they won't be dependant and these folks will lose power. The MILF and NPA could care less about the environment. All one has to do is look at the logging of the jungle to see the MILF & NPA raping of the land, and the springtime mudslides that kill thousands like in Leyte. What he wont say is that the mining industry wont pay bribes and revolutionary taxes.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
05/08/2006 13:48 Comments ||
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The leader of Indonesia's second-largest Muslim organization says he is worried that the Islamic extremism undermining Iraq could spread and destabilize moderate Muslim nations like his own.
Din Syamsuddin, president of Muhammadiyah, said in an interview that moderate groups such as his were not capable of staving off an extremist threat.
"This threat is real. It is a threat not only to the United States, but to Muslims and Muslim leaders, and we don't have the capability -- like the state -- to equip ourselves for our defense," Mr. Syamsuddin told The Washington Times.
Established Islam in Indonesia is represented by major organizations such as Muhammadiyah, which is supported by about 35 million Muslims. Extremist groups such as al Qaeda say the moderate communities have sold out to secular governments and are therefore fair targets.
"This group has its own agenda to create chaos and fear in society, and it could create an Iraq-like situation," Mr. Syamsuddin said.
Both Muhammadiyah and Indonesia's largest Muslim group, Nahdlatul Ulama -- which has an estimated 40 million followers -- run mosques, clinics, orphanages and schools while respecting the country's secular government.
But Indonesia is also home to Jemaah Islamiyah, thought to be behind the 2002 Bali bombings, and Laksar Jihad, an Islamic militia group. Counterterrorism experts suspect Jemaah Islamiyah is linked to al Qaeda.
Mr. Syamsuddin said Muhammadiyah is working to curb anti-Western tendencies within the communities through religious teachings and social outreach.
But only the government can take the legal, intelligence and operational steps necessary to undercut or eradicate extremist groups that use terrorism to achieve their goals, he said.
"We do not support any radicalism or terrorism, but we do not want to give room for internal conflict" by openly confronting extremist groups, he said.
In order to prevent internal conflicts among Islamic groups, between anti-Western and mainstream Muslims or between radical groups and secular governments, both civilian and religious leaders must work to protect the majority of moderate Muslims, Mr. Syamsuddin said.
To that end, he called on the United States and its Western allies to avoid blaming all Muslims for the terrorist threat and to include Muslim leaders in the war effort.
"This is terror -- we all condemn it. But when you combat terrorism without consulting Muslims and instead blame them, you create two things -- a 'none of my business' or 'we will fight it our own way' attitude," he said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/08/2006 03:20 ||
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The top leader of Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels is reported to have turned down a request to meet a Japanese envoy who arrived in the country to try to end spiralling violence that has pushed it back towards civil war. Officials with the envoy, Yasushi Akashi, had asked to meet with reclusive rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran on Tuesday, rebel spokesman Daya Master said by telephone from their stronghold of Kilinochchi. "But we told him it won't be feasible, but our political wing leader will be available," he said late on Saturday.
"He's waxing his moustache washing his hair that day."
Akashi arrived on Saturday and will meet in the capital, Colombo, with Mahinda Rajapakse, the president, during his four-day visit. The Japanese embassy said he was also "seeking the possibility of" meeting with rebel leadership in the north. "I would like to talk to as many people as possible to get a clear view of prospects of peace," Akashi said on his arrival. Japan is Sri Lanka's largest aid donor and has taken an interest in building peace on the island nation, where violence has left more than 150 people dead since April, threatening a 2002 cease-fire brokered by Norway.
150 deaders unanimously assert there's no ceasefire.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/08/2006 00:00 ||
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Iran s president wrote to President Bush on Monday proposing what the nations top nuclear negotiator called a new "diplomatic opening" between the two countries. The United States reacted coolly to the announcement, saying Iran must back down on its nuclear program.
Iran contends it has the right to process uranium as fuel in nuclear reactors to generate electricity. The United States, Britain and France are concerned the program is a cover for making nuclear weapons.
Iran has long sought what it terms relations on an equal footing with the West.
"I dont know what offer they would want to make, but it wouldnt be surprising. It would fit the paradigm of their activity before and then once the squeeze lets up a little bit, back they go to enrichment, back they go to perfecting their conversion technology, back they go to the pursuit of nuclear weapons," Bolton said.
In Washington, Bushs national security adviser, Stephen Hadley , said he was not aware of the Ahmadinejad letter but restated U.S. policy in the nuclear dispute.
The Iranian government spokesman who disclosed the communication did not mention the nuclear standoff and said the missive spoke to the larger U.S.-Iranian conflict, which dates to the 1979 hostage crisis.
According to government spokesman Gholam-Hossein Elham, the letter proposed "new solutions for getting out of international problems and the current fragile situation of the world."
In Turkey, Ali Larijani, Irans top nuclear negotiator, said the Iranians were looking for a positive response but would be patient.
The United States has publicly sought renewed contact with Iran through its ambassador in Iraq , Zalmay Khalilzad, who has been authorized to speak to Iranian officials about security in Iraq.
Before the Ahmadinejad letter was announced, Bush said he was paying close attention to threats made against Israel by Ahmadinejad, who has questioned Israels right to exist and said the country should be wiped off the map.
"I think that its very important for us to take his words very seriously," Bush told the German newspaper Bild on Friday, according to a transcript released Sunday. "When people speak, it is important that we listen carefully to what they say and take them seriously."
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki delivered the letter to the Swiss ambassador in Tehran on Monday, ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told The Associated Press. The Swiss Embassy acts as a U.S. interest section in the Iranian capital.
The Swiss Embassy did not return telephone calls seeking confirmation of the letter.
A U.N. diplomat in New York said such a letter was unlikely to be transmitted to Washington electronically, meaning the Swiss probably would have to send it by courier. That meant the letter would not reach Bush "before tomorrow (Tuesday) noon the earliest," the diplomat said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
No Iranian president has written to his U.S. counterpart since 1979, when the countries broke relations after Iranian militants stormed the U.S. Embassy and held the occupants hostage for 444 days.
Last week, Larijani went to the United Arab Emirates to reassure its government about Irans nuclear program, and last month former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani made a similar visit to Kuwait. On Tuesday, Ahmadinejad travels to Indonesia, where Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda said "we support nuclear development for peaceful purposes, especially energy, but we consistently object to nuclear weapons proliferation."
The United States is backing efforts by Britain and France to win Security Council approval for a U.N. resolution that would threaten possible further measures if Iran does not suspend uranium enrichment. If taken to sufficient levels, the process can produce fuel for nuclear warheads.
The Western nations want to invoke Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter that would allow economic sanctions or military action, if necessary, to force Iran to comply with the Security Councils demand that it cease enrichment.
Russia and China, the two other veto-holding members of the Security Council members, have said diplomacy still must be given a chance.
China expressed concern Monday that a proposed U.N. resolution to curb Irans nuclear program could lead to a new war and it urged Britain and France to eliminate any reference to possible future sanctions or military action against Tehran.
#1
Ahmadinejad has said enough already. There is nothing he can say in a letter that will change his record or the need to wipe out his nuclear ambitions.
#3
he can say "I will give up enrichment, in exchange for stopping the UNSC process" Of course wed take that in a new york sec, but he wont offer that.
He can say "i will give up enrichment in return for a US guarantee never to attack or subvert Iran"
He may well do that. We will reject it, cause if he attacks an ally, or uses more terrorism, we might need to attack him anyway.
If he says " i will give up enrichment, AND give up support for terror, and agree (in effect, if the wording is weaselly) not to attack Israel, in exchange for a guarantee of no US attack or subversion" then we have something to talk about.
#4
OJ at Bros. Judd thinks W should publically acknowledge the letter and visit Iran. Then give a speech like Ronnie gave at Moscow U in 1988.
I'll add on to that, if W decides to go, he should go during the G-8. Stiff ole' pooty-put, all the media attention will be there, plus the worry of what W's going to say.
#5
He can say, I will appear to be chastened and reasonable if that, together with a few bribes, will peel the French away from you so that you are left alone with the Brits at the UNSC again.
To do that hes got to be really subtle. Even the French know we wont give an absolute guarantee without dealing in some way with terror, Iranian meddling in Iraq, and Iranian subversion of the ME peace process. The difficult part is the "some way" Iran COULD try some weasel words that would give Chirac cover, but that they couldnt be held to when push comes to shove. OTOH this Ahmadinaged hasnt been the worlds most subtle guy - is he about to start now?
#7
N.S. Has a good point. France could be peeled off an effective UNSC resolution. Indeed we have all come to expect it as soon as it looks like something more than talk might happen. If Iran gets as much world wide press as Iraq did during the U.N. process I fully expect France to stand down.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
05/08/2006 16:54 Comments ||
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Vice Premier Shimon Peres said Monday in an interview to Reuters that "the president of Iran should remember that Iran can also be wiped off the map," Army Radio reported. Aaaahhh HAHAHAHA!! The man has some BALLS!
And he's usually so mush-headed. Wonder if someone slipped him a levitra?
According to Peres, "Teheran is making a mockery of the international community's efforts to solve the crisis surrounding Iran's nuclear program."
"Iran presents a danger to the entire world, not just to us," Peres added. Europe especially, but they don't care as long as they have socialism.
Peres' vehement expressions came the same day that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reportedly wrote to US President George W. Bush proposing "new solutions" to their differences in the first letter from an Iranian leader to an American president in 27 years, government spokesman Gholam-Hossein Elham said Monday. The letter was sent via the Swiss Embassy in Teheran, which has a US interests section, Elham told a press conference.
In the letter, Ahmadinejad proposes "new solutions for getting out of international problems and current fragile situation of the world," Elham said. Or "Leave us alone so we can nuke you later. You will thank us."
Iran's top nuclear negotiator said Monday that the Iranian president's letter to Bush could create a "new diplomatic appeasement opening," but also warned that the letter did not reflect a softening in Iran's position. Ali Larijani refused to give details of the letter's content, but said, "Perhaps it could lead to a new diplomatic opening. It needs to be given some time."
"There is a need to wait before disclosing the content of the letter, let it make its diplomatic way," Larijani said in an interview with Turkey's NTV television. "Give us more time"
Larijani added, however, that the "tone of the letter is not something like softening."
He also warned against any US attack against Iran. "If they have a little bit of a brain, they would not commit such a mistake," he said. "Iran is not Iraq. Iraq was a weak country, it did not have a legitimate government. Iran is a powerful country." We will see how powerful you are when you are bombed into oblivion and our tanks just blow the hell out of you and leave instead of staying.
It is the first time that an Iranian president has written to his US counterpart since 1979, when the two countries broke relations after Iranian militants stormed the US Embassy and held the occupants hostage for more than a year.
#2
Israeli Nuclear Program Pioneered by Shimon Peres
In 1953, at age 30, Shimon Peres was appointed by Israel's first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, to become Director-General of the Ministry of Defense. Within three years, Peres had laid the foundation for Israel's nuclear weapon program. He picked France as the major supplier, arranged the sale of a nuclear reactor, and spent the next decade overseeing the construction of the Dimona nuclear weapon production complex.
And he can be quite decisive when he wants
Entebbe...
The discussion at the cabinet meeting continued on and at one point Yitzhak Rabin, the Prime Minister of Israel passed a note to the Israeli Defense Minister, Shimon Peres telling him that they should begin the operation, that they could always call the operation off. Peres smiled and Rabin realized that the operation was already in process. Within an hour, the cabinet had voted unanimously to approve the operation.
Posted by: john ||
05/08/2006 19:32 Comments ||
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#3
Maybe he's seen the light, especially with the election of Hamas? Can't conduct peace with someone who'll kill you the minute you turn your back. Fatah always played the "miltary vs political wing" game very well...as AlanC(?) noted this weekend
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/08/2006 19:46 Comments ||
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DAMASCUS: If a Lebanese politician fails to appear before a Syrian military court over allegations that he urged the United States to invade Syria, he may be tried in absentia, a Syrian lawyer predicted. Lebanon's Prosecutor General Saeed Mirza has received the court summons for Walid Jumblatt, a Druse member of parliament, and two other men, but has yet to formally notify them, a procedure that can weeks or months.
The United States Friday condemned the issuing of the summons. "These actions are cynical attempts by the Syrian government to continue its interference in the Lebanese political process," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. "These actions must come to an end now."
Syrian attorney Hossam Al-Deen Habash, who launched the lawsuit against Jumblatt, said that once the three have been formally notified of the summons, they have a week to appear before the Syrian court. Otherwise, they face "arrest warrants and trials in absentia." "If Jumblatt fails to appear before the court, he will be tried in absentia," Habash said. "I personally filed the lawsuit against Jumblatt because he incited a foreign country (US) to occupy my country," Habash told The Associated Press in Damascus. In an interview with the Washington Post newspaper in January, Jumblatt responded to a question about what he wanted from the United States, saying, "You came to Iraq in the name of the majority. You can do the same thing in Syria."
Habash described Jumblatt's comment as a "a criminal provocation." "These provocation and incitement calls are punishable under (Syrian) law even though the (called for) action was not carried out," Habash said. The Syrian military court has also summoned for questioning Jumblatt's top aide, Lebanese Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamadeh, and anti-Syrian journalist Fares Kashan for allegedly "defaming" Syria by holding it responsible for last year's assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and a string of bombings that targeted anti-Syrian figures in Lebanon. Under binding judicial agreements signed by Syria and Lebanon, Habash said, Lebanese judicial authorities have to hand Jumblatt over to Syria.
"Hot potato! Catch!"
Jumblatt, who led the anti-Syrian campaign in Lebanon, has scoffed at the summons and was not expected to appear before the Syrian military court.
"I scoff at your summons and your mustache!"
Habash stressed that the Syrian government, which has not commented on the lawsuit against Jumblatt, had nothing to do with the issue.
Yeah, right
However, Habash said he was ready to drop the lawsuit "if he realised that the case would harm Syrian Lebanese relations." Relations between Lebanon and Syria sharply deteriorated following a massive truck bombing in Beirut that killed Hariri and 20 other people on February 14, 2005. Hariri's assassination triggered a major change in Lebanese politics. That, coupled with international pressure, led to the final Syrian troop withdrawal from Lebanon in April last year, ending nearly a three-decade domination of its smaller neighbour. Jumblatt is a member of Lebanon's anti-Syrian parliamentary majority that has accused Syria of responsibility for Hariri's assassination, a charge Damascus has repeatedly denied. A UN probe has implicated top Syrian and Lebanese security officials in Hariri's killing.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/08/2006 09:56 ||
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No angel is Wally but I hope he outlives the current epoch of Syrian-Nazis.
Tehran, 8 May (AKI) - A crusade for the moralisation of Iran's society will from now on target men, as well as women, police officials said on Monday. A government measure which came into effect last month imposes hefty fines on women for failing to abide by the regime's definition of good Islamic dress. A police spokesman said that 10,000 women have been fined in Tehran since the measure was enforced on 21 April. Some 200 extra police officers - half of them women - patrol the streets of Tehran to ensure the new norms are obeyed.
From now on, men with long hair or wearing Western-style T-shirts or short-sleeved shirts will also face fines, police said. The 'T-shirts war', as it is referred to by Iranian students, has reportedly kicked off mostly in universities, where youths often don't abide by the Islamic dress code. The deans of Tehran's ten universities have already sent out letters informing students they will banned from classes if they wear T-shirts or short sleeves.
"Offenders will be forbidden to access campuses and attend courses and will be reported to the disciplinary committee which will first warn them and then rule on their expulsion," the letter said.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/08/2006 08:20 ||
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"Wait a minute ... yes, I can see it now. You were right, Amir, there's still an infintesimal percentage of our population that is somehow managing to have fun. Please put an end to it immediately!"
Via JihadWatch
Irans radical President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday that the Islamic Republic could fast become an unrivalled world power by obtaining nuclear capabilities.
The Iranian nation has the potential to quickly become an unrivalled world power by obtaining modern technology, Ahmadinejad told commanders of Irans paramilitary Bassij force in Tehran. His comments were reported by the official news agency. With only a short time having passed since the announcement that Iran had obtained nuclear technology, regional and global order have quickly changed, he said, adding that the enemies feared a resurgence of Islamic identity in the Islamic world.
The Iranian president reiterated his previous comments that Iran would not heed demands by the United Nations Security Council to suspend its uranium enrichment activities. They must know that if they want to make unlawful decisions against Iran and issue statements or resolutions, the Iranian nation will thumb its nose at their unjust resolution, he said, adding that if any limitations were placed on Iran then the countries that had taken such action would suffer a hundred times worse.
Ahmadinejad accused international organisations of being pawns in the hands of several bullying big powers and hinted that Tehran might withdraw from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty if the treaty became discredited. He rejected the threat of sanctions on Iran as meaningless.
In threatening language, Ahmadinejad warned Irans enemies, Do not make yourselves so hated among nations and do not do things that would bellow up the fire of hatred that the nations of the world harbour against you.
Posted by: ed ||
05/08/2006 07:36 ||
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What amazes me is that there are still people in this country that are arguing that Iran is only interested in nuclear energy for power generation.
How is a nuclear power plant going to make them an "unrivalled power"?
#5
So much for their peaceful purposes claims. How will the Euros, Russians and China try to pooh pooh this as nothing?
Speech like this is "honey lets install a bomb shelter" invoking.
Posted by: SPoD ||
05/08/2006 17:42 Comments ||
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Mullahs and MadMoud > Iran gets Nukes and Empire or its death to everybody. Radical-controlled Iran wants to be the SOLE SOURCE/CENTRE of world Muslim thought, power, and governance, the Unipolar America of the Muslim universe. Mainstream America = defective Clintonian SOCIALIST Amerika only two choices is to submit to the Motherly Secular Socialists-Commies; or the our fellow Male Brutes, and future Commie anti-US cannon fodder to be destroyed later the God-based Socialists/Marxists/Bolsheviks/Commies.
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has written to George W Bush proposing "new solutions" to their differences.
The letter will be sent via the Swiss Embassy which represents US interests in Iran, a government spokesman said.
Mr Ahmadinejad proposes "new solutions for getting out of international problems and current fragile situation of the world", he said.
Reports say it is the first letter from an Iranian president to a US leader since the Iranian revolution in 1979.
The spokesman, Gholam-Hossein Elham, did not say whether the letter mentioned the nuclear dispute, currently one of the major issues between Iran and the US.
The US has accused Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons - a charge Iran strongly denies.
Last week, the US tabled a draft resolution at the United Nations Security Council calling on Iran to suspend uranium enrichment or face "further action".
Foreign ministers of the council members plus Germany are due to meet in New York on Monday night to discuss how to proceed with Iran.
Significant timing
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told Iran's Isna news agency that once Mr Bush had received the letter, the contents would be made public.
The BBC's Frances Harrison in Tehran says whatever is in the letter, it is significant because it is the first such high-level communication between Iran and America for almost three decades.
As such it is a bold step by Mr Ahmadinejad, and the timing is key - just as the West is trying to persuade Russia and China to back tough action against Iran, she says.
Mr Ahmadinejad is reinforcing the point that he is willing to negotiate with anyone, including the US president, to avoid conflict over the nuclear issue, our correspondent adds.
The US and Iran have not had diplomatic relations since Washington severed ties with Tehran after Iranian students occupied the US embassy there and took 52 Americans hostage in 1980.
#5
Dear infidel Bush, Iran only wants peace with the muslim world and to destroy the Joos. Our nuclear weapons program is for peacefull purposes only and for killing Joos. Please don't bomb us like you did Kadaffi and Saddam. We would like to nuke you infidels first and have structured talks for peace. Thank you very much you son of the great Satan.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
05/08/2006 13:31 Comments ||
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#9
18 pages of Mahmoud's rambling dream sequences where the hidden Immam speaks from the bottom of a well (It puts the lotion in the basket)and tells Mahmoud he's a nail in Mohammad's coffin. Or some kind of nail. Anyway, none of it makes any sense. Ask Condi.
Iran mocked Tony Blair yesterday, saying Labour's drubbing in last week's local elections was caused by his close alliance with President George W Bush.
On the eve of a meeting of the world's major powers to decide how to respond to Teheran's nuclear defiance, the regime took comfort in the humiliation of one of its major foes.
"The people's vote showed their opposition to Mr Blair's policies of following those of the United States," said the foreign ministry spokesman, Hamid Reza Asefi. "The outcome is the result of London blindly following the US policies, including in Iraq."
Margaret Beckett, appointed Foreign Secretary in Mr Blair's Cabinet reshuffle, will be thrown into the deep end of international diplomacy when she flies to New York for a dinner tonight with her - colleagues from America, Russia, China, France and Germany.
The six ministers will try to resolve a stalemate over how to compel Iran to halt its uranium enrichment programme, which the West fears is designed to make nuclear weapons.
Iran has defied a non-binding UN Security Council call for it to suspend its nuclear programme.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/08/2006 03:50 ||
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I bet Blair pissed himself at the Iranian elections... where only Allan can decide. FFS!
Posted by: Howard UK ||
05/08/2006 4:07 Comments ||
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Someone should tell the Iranians and their chicken-shiite president that the Tories, who won the largest share of the vote, support Blair's close alliance with the USA.
DAMASCUS - Syria has issued a final summons for former vice president Abdel Halim Khaddam, branded a traitor by Damascus and currently living in exile in France, to appear in court.
Khaddam and 24 other family members including his wife Najat Marqabi have been called to appear in court in his hometown of Banias in northwestern Syria in June after they failed to show up to a hearing last month. As you didnt attend the session on April 24, we ask you to come to the one on June 12, otherwise the judgment will be made, said a government announcement in the Tishrin daily.
"If you don't show, we'll execute you. If you show, we'll execute you. The choice is yours."
Syrian press reports said in January that Khaddam, 73, would be tried for high treason, investigated for corruption and his assets seized.
Khaddam, who oversaw Syrias domination of neighbouring Lebanon for 25 years, but quit as vice president last year and left for Paris, has denied any wrongdoing. He issued a statement denying he had acquired public land on the seafront or took out loans from Syrian banks that he has not repaid but without saying whether he would appear in court.
In addition to the civil court case, Khaddam has also been indicted on seven charges by a military court, including conspiracy and attempts to usurp power and to stir hostility against Damascus.
Khaddam, who resigned last June to become a Paris-based opposition leader, was charged with plotting conspiracies to push a foreign country to show its hostility toward Syria, according to the charge sheet. The offense is punishable with a life prison sentence and hard labour. Khaddam is also accused of having published articles and works and delivered speeches without the Syrian governments approval.
In January, Khaddam charged that Syrian agents implicated by a UN probe into the February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri could not have acted without Syrian President Bashar al-Assads approval. The Damascus regime in return accused Khaddam of treason, with parliament passing a motion calling for him to be brought to justice and tried for high treason.
Khaddam and other opposition figures have announced the formation of a group seeking regime change in Syria by peaceful means, but the domestic opposition has said it does not want to work with the new group.
Since he's a Ba'athist, after all, and just as ucky as Baby Doc Assad.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/08/2006 00:00 ||
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The defense attorney for former Lebanese security chief Jamil Sayyed, detained in the investigation into the assassination of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri, called the case a "charade" on Sunday and announced that he was "suspending" his work. In an interview with The Daily Star, Akram Azouri said "The case is like a tennis match, where the referee is holding the tennis ball, and the partner I am playing with is invisible. My job has so far been to hold a racket in that match, to give the illusion that everything is being carried out properly and legally. I am walking out of the match until the ball is thrown back in and a real enquiry resumes its place."
Azouri said that for the past eight months he has been "jobless" because "no one has come to question Sayyed since his arrest, which is highly irregular. "My job has turned political where I end up releasing statements in response to verbal attacks by politicians on my client, which is not really the job of a lawyer. I am not giving up on my client, but rather feel that this is the best way to defend him, by refusing to be part of a conspiracy," said Azouri.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/08/2006 00:00 ||
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I give it an 8.5 on the 'tortured analogy' meter...
Secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Lebanon Brigadier Sultan Abu al-Aynayn visited Fatah militia commander Mounir Maqdah Sunday, ending 13 years of hostility between the leaders. Maqdah, a leading figure in the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp, split from Fatah in 1994 in protest at the signing of the Oslo Accords but rejoined the movement in spring 1999.
Despite the official reconciliation, relations between Maqdah and Abu al-Aynayn have been strained until Abu al-Aynayn made a surprise visit to Ain al-Hilweh to join a popular gathering organized by Fatah and the PLO to denounce western countries' boycott of the new Hamas-led government. In a speech delivered on the occasion, Abu al-Aynayn said that the "Palestinian opposition will protect the government of Hamas and the Palestinian cause." He also expressed Palestinian refugees' rejection of "any form of settlement."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/08/2006 00:00 ||
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"PLO and Fatah leaders bury the hatchet"
And, since they're hopelessly incompetent and the ultimate cowards, neither one hit anything vital.
As Lebanese Speaker Nabih Berri visited Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus Sunday, Chouf MP Walid Jumblatt simultaneously met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo. According to Syria's official news agency, SANA, Berri's unexpected trip to Syria came in the context of "informing Assad of the results of Lebanon's (sixth round) of the national dialogue."
Berri, who heads the pro-Syrian Amal Movement, also met with Syrian Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa and "discussed the bilateral sisterly relations between Lebanon and Syria," reported SANA. Berri's media office issued a statement late Sunday which quoted Berri as saying: "The Syrians are holding the doors open to any Lebanese official, whether it is Premier Fouad Siniora or any other one." This comes as a clear reference to Siniora's long awaited visit to Damascus to discuss the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries, and demarcating the borders among other unresolved issues. Until Berri's declaration, Siniora hadn't received the green light to make his trip to Syria.
Berri's statement added that Assad "is not against the principle of having diplomatic ties with Lebanon ... and that both countries' duty is to maintain good relations with each other."
Berri's visit coincided with Jumblatt's, who slammed Lebanon's resistance from Cairo, insisting that the group disarm. Jumblatt informed Mubarak of the results of Lebanon's sixth round of national dialogue and informed him the seventh round, scheduled this May 16, would discuss "Hizbullah's weapons ... and that the resistance should join the army once the issue of the Shebaa Farms is resolved." He added the Lebanese government "must control all the weapons and all its territories."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/08/2006 00:00 ||
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Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora headed to the United Kingdom on Sunday to meet his British counterpart, Tony Blair, and ask that Britain pressure Israel to withdraw from Lebanese territory it still occupies.
You have a signed deed showing the transfer of the Shebaa from Syria to Lebanon?
The premier - who heads a delegation consisting of Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh, Finance Minister Jihad Azour and Economy and Trade Minister Sami Haddad - had urged the U.K. before he left to pressure Israel to withdraw from the Shebaa Farms, the same request he had put forward to U.S. President George W. Bush during his visit to the U.S. capital last month.
In a statement issued by his office on Saturday, Siniora said that he would also raise the issue of constant Israeli breaches of Lebanese sovereignty with British officials. Siniora is also expected to discuss ways in which the U.K. could help enhance technical and security measures in Lebanon, and cooperation between Lebanese security agencies and their British counterparts, the statement added. Before leaving, Siniora suggested that several groups of experts work on demarcating borders between Lebanon and Syria, which would save time.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/08/2006 00:00 ||
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Iran Sunday sought to reassure Gulf Arab states over its nuclear plant at Bushehr, saying the unfinished power station enjoys the highest degree of safety. "There is nothing to worry about, we have spent a lot of money on its [environmental] safety and the security of the plant," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.
"We don't expect any more Bam-style earthquakes before we have bombs."
The declaration came after United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan, in Riyadh Saturday for a Gulf Cooperation Council Summit, asked for Iranian guarantees over its nuclear program, calling it "worrisome not only for us, but for the entire world." Gulf Arab countries, wary of Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution, share U.S. concerns about Iran having a nuclear bomb but fear another military conflict in the region. "We are consulting on a balanced position that protects the safety, progress and stability of this region," Oman's Deputy Prime Minister Fahd bin Mahmoud al-Said told reporters upon arriving in Riyadh for the one-day summit.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/08/2006 00:00 ||
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Rest assured Radical Iran will not conquer you or destroy you - Iranian-controlled terror groups will, thus Iran cannot be blamed for yet another Male Brute American GOP/Rightist-Socialist mistake.
The Iranian Parliament threatened in a letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan Sunday to force the government to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty if the United States continued pressuring Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment. "There will be no option for the Parliament but to ask the government to withdraw its signature for the Additional Protocol [to the NPT] and review Article 10 of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty," according to the letter by the lawmakers that was read on state-run radio Sunday.
Meanwhile, U.S. President George W. Bush said Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's threats to the international community must be taken seriously. "When he says that he wants to destroy Israel, the world needs to take it seriously," Bush said in an interview with German weekly Bild am Sonntag. "What Ahmadinejad also means is that if he is ready to destroy one country, then he would also be ready to destroy others. This is a threat that needs to be dealt with." Ahmadinejad has said Israel should be "wiped off the map."
While reiterating that all options for stopping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons were on the table, Bush said he believed a diplomatic solution was possible if the international community worked hard and remained united.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/08/2006 00:00 ||
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EFL - pathetic spotlight on a loser and his medals protest
And now what? He had protested. He had become president of the San Diego chapter of Veterans For Peace. He had helped put up thousands of white crosses around San Diego County to mark the dead in a solemn display called Arlington West. And still . . . .
The war goes on. Three years, two months. With more than 2,300 U.S. soldiers and Marines dead. What more could David Patterson, an electronics technician from Ramona, do about it? get publicity and "fame" in the UT rag for basically doing a PR stunt?
There was this: He could give up his military medals. Send them directly to President Bush, care of the White House. Patterson, 53, got the idea from a friend, who e-mailed him about a Navy veteran in Orlando, Fla., who had done just that.
The action struck Patterson. What a powerful, personal statement. Here, take these back. I don't want them anymore.
So in March, the mild-mannered Air Force veteran with graying hair sat down and wrote to the President of the United States of America: I am saddened to give up my hard earned medals. But the hate, torture and death you have instrumented in this world tarnish the symbolism they carry.
Patterson doesn't know if his gesture will do any good. Nope...
He hasn't heard back from the White House. And his action has received little media attention. Til now
Still, he feels good about taking his anti-war crusade a step further. Patterson had to order the medals because he didn't have them at hand. The military doesn't award most medals when troops are discharged just ribbons, he said. It cost him $38 to get the actual ones. He didn't do anything John Wayne-like to earn the honors, he readily admits. Didn't take out an enemy machine-gun nest or rescue a wounded buddy.
He jokes that he got the Good Conduct Medal simply because he stayed out of jail for the four years in the early 1970s when he served as a weapons systems technician. He also got the National Defense Service Medal and the Philippine Republic Presidential Unit Citation. But the medals do mean something to him. He served. And proudly so, he adds.
But then came this war. A bunch of people are dying for no reason, Patterson said. Meaning he has no clue and shuts his eyes, ears to the facts
Returning medals is no easy thing to do emotionally. People earn them for defending their country an honor that has few equals. But Joe DuRocher, for one, figured it had to be done. DuRocher is the Orlando law professor who sent back his aviator wings and shoulder boards and inspired Patterson to do the same. They don't hand Navy wings out of Cracker Jack boxes, DuRocher said in a recent telephone interview.
Like Patterson, DuRocher is quick to say he did nothing particularly heroic in his military career. As a Navy helicopter pilot he took part in the blockade of Cuba. And he was part of the recovery team that retrieved John Glenn, the first American to orbit the globe, from the ocean. .....possibly one of the biggest pieces of crap story to be published in the SD UT. I let the Editors know the same. If you'd like to do the same: Letters@Uniontrib.com, include your name and complete address, tel phone number
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/08/2006 14:04 ||
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bad graphic choice PIMF
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/08/2006 14:23 Comments ||
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The National Defense Service Medal was awarded to EVERYONE who served during a given period. It used to be called the "alive in 65" medal, or in Navy terms, the "gedunk medal". The Good Conduct Medal is awarded to any enlisted person who doesn't screw up too badly (I think the Air Farce gives the Good Conduct Medal to officers, too. In the Navy, it was just assumed that an officer would be well behaved).
#3
Sounds like ol David spent his career at Clark Air Base drinkin too much Rum and sleepin with the smiley girls in Angeles. When he tears up his VA loan and pays back his GI bill money then I might take note. But a $38 dollar letter to Bush is just dumb!
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
05/08/2006 14:26 Comments ||
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#5
The Good Conduct medal reminds me of a guy I knew in Ft. Hood who spent his entire month's pay on heroin ( so he said ) and then next ten days shooting up, then spent the following 20 days trying to "keep up with the joneses."
#8
This reminds me of a still active duty MI LTC I met once. For some reason or other, his entire 201 file had been classified, and was only very slowly being declassified.
That day he was positively giddy, because after a long time of wearing almost nothing on his uniform, he had finally been authorized to wear his Airborne wings, that very afternoon.
The best comment came from a Major in his office, who just said, "His poor wife..."
#10
The guy's full of crap. He probably lost his issue medals. The Air Force ALWAYS gave me the award I was given - Commendation Medal, Achievement Medal, Good Conduct Medal, National Defense, Vietnam Service Medal, etc. The only awards I received that I only got a ribbon for (which I did have to buy for myself, but they usually cost under 30c) were AWARDS - Outstanding Unit, Honor Graduate, Foreign Service, etc.
Wonder if he pulled a Kerry - bought a second set to throw over the fence, while keeping the originals. Wouldn't surprise me - as someone said, loons of a feather.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
05/08/2006 17:04 Comments ||
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#11
Those are cheapo medals. And if he had a real service record, he'd have had the real medals.
I have mine, a few of which I cannot discuss the citations (but at least I get to display them), and medals I think I'll be able to display in another 11 years. Yep, MI.
I don't care how bad the President gets whoever is in there - I am proud of my citations & medals and I earned every f'ing one of them. Maybe thats why he sent his in - he didn't pay much of a price for them at all. I paid for mine. Hard.
What is it with these REMFS slamming our warriors today?
Somone needs to go down and toal some sense into his idiot ignorant baby-boomer ass.
#16
Yep, I got a "Geedunk" Medal when I enlisted in '66, since they gave them to anyone and everyone they were considered worthless.
They wern't earned, just handed out.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/08/2006 19:12 Comments ||
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#17
...Actually, I'm rather proud of my NDM - it's the one award my father and I share. Having said that, this clod seems to be relying on the MSM's total lack of knowledge of things military to pull this off. Ignore him.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
05/08/2006 21:34 Comments ||
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my letter to the editor:
what? Was it a day of good news from Iraq? How hard did you have to dig and humiliate yourselves to find an anti-Bush, anti-war story? A guy whose claim is that he served, but had to order his medals so he could send them back? Good conduct medal? Jeepers! You oughta be ashamed to have that spread over a page in your newspaper, and Mr. Patterson should (but won't) be ashamed at his desperate plea for 15 minutes of fame or relevancy. If you had an ombudsman with any ethics this would have someone fired for lack of balance and perspective
Frank G****
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/08/2006 21:47 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Former warlords in Afghanistans parliament hurled water bottles and rushed at a woman MP on Sunday after she accused them of being involved in the deaths of thousands of people. 
Joya, who has had death threats against her after a similar outburst during a meeting to draw up a post-Taliban constitution in 2003, alleged that she had heard a prominent former warlord telling his men to stab me with a knife. Several of them threw water bottles at me and many others rushed towards me to beat me up, she said in an interview with AFP afterwards. Joya, in her late 20s, said the MPs had reacted angrily to her statement that some of the men who led the resistance to the 10-year Soviet occupation were responsible for the deaths of thousands of civilians in a civil war that erupted after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989.
KUWAIT CITY: Defense lawyers urged a Kuwaiti judge Sunday to acquit five former inmates of Guantanamo, arguing the trial was politically motivated to appease the emirate's major ally the United States. "I urge you to acquit the five defendants ... because they committed no crime and the public prosecution failed to provide solid material evidence," 
The most outspoken was Dr Reid, who said that one did not have to be Sherlock Holmes to know there was an Old Labour plot going on. He said of the plotters: They are not going to win.
GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AFP): A former member of the radical Jamaat-al-Muslimeen, who participated in the 1990 coup against the Trinidad-Tobago government and is wanted for attempted murder in the twin-island nation, has been nabbed in Guyana, officials said Friday.
The Turkish prime minister has made a rare visit to the troubled, Kurdish-dominated southeast of the country, urging Kurds to condemn violence committed by the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
OTTAWA -- Canadian soldiers have no business being in Afghanistan and their presence there merely enables the United States to carry on its "illegal and immoral" war in Iraq, prominent U.S. anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan said yesterday. "I believe my country shouldn't be in Afghanistan anyway," Ms. Sheehan said at a news conference on Parliament Hill. "It's never about spreading freedom or democracy or making the world safe, it's about lining the war profiteers' pockets."
At Moussaoui's future home in Florence, Colo., inmates are reportedly not merely punished, but incapacitated and broken down.
Several demonstrators, a policeman and a television cameraman were injured on Monday during fresh protests over the sex scandal that allegedly involved bureaucrats, police officials and politicians. Hundreds of veiled women, children and men marched through central Srinagar calling for the government to punish those involved in the scandal that has sparked outrage in largely conservative, Muslim-majority Kashmir. Carrying placards and shouting slogans demanding "severest punishment to the guilty," protesters broke through police barricades, pelting stones and bricks. Security forces used water cannons and bamboo truncheons to disperse the demonstrators, said Hasib Mughal, a police officer. Protesters also forced the closure of shops in Srinagar's main business district. The scandal was unearthed after videos and multimedia messages on mobile phones showing nude girls and amateur porn films began circulating in Srinagar.
The component parties of the 
The 
The EU is preparing to go it alone and channel emergency funds to the Palestinians if talks with the US, Russia and United Nations on setting up an international mechanism for easing their financial plight fail this week, senior officials indicated at the weekend. Pressure for a swift agreement on supplying food and other aid directly to Palestinians as well as money to pay the salaries of health workers and teachers intensified when President Mahmoud Abbas and Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of the Hamas-led government, failed to resolve the crisis over the weekend.
An Arab League official said Sunday there were "tough obstacles" facing Arab banks to transfer money from Arab parties to the Palestinian Authority (PA). Mohammad Sabeeh, assistant secretary general for Palestine affairs, told KUNA the problem was not in collecting Arab money but how to transfer it to the Palestinian people. He said the Arab League and Arab government failed to remove the obstacles.
The top leader of Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels is reported to have turned down a request to meet a Japanese envoy who arrived in the country to try to end spiralling violence that has pushed it back towards civil war. Officials with the envoy, Yasushi Akashi, had asked to meet with reclusive rebel leader 
Vice Premier Shimon Peres said Monday in an interview to Reuters that "the president of Iran should remember that Iran can also be wiped off the map," Army Radio reported.
DAMASCUS: If a Lebanese politician fails to appear before a Syrian military court over allegations that he urged the United States to invade Syria, he may be tried in absentia, a Syrian lawyer predicted. Lebanon's Prosecutor General Saeed Mirza has received the court summons for Walid Jumblatt, a Druse member of parliament, and two other men, but has yet to formally notify them, a procedure that can weeks or months. 
The defense attorney for former Lebanese security chief Jamil Sayyed, detained in the investigation into the assassination of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri, called the case a "charade" on Sunday and announced that he was "suspending" his work. In an interview with The Daily Star, Akram Azouri said "The case is like a tennis match, where the referee is holding the tennis ball, and the partner I am playing with is invisible. My job has so far been to hold a racket in that match, to give the illusion that everything is being carried out properly and legally. I am walking out of the match until the ball is thrown back in and a real enquiry resumes its place."
Secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Lebanon Brigadier Sultan Abu al-Aynayn visited Fatah militia commander Mounir Maqdah Sunday, ending 13 years of hostility between the leaders. Maqdah, a leading figure in the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp, split from Fatah in 1994 in protest at the signing of the Oslo Accords but rejoined the movement in spring 1999.
As Lebanese Speaker 
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora headed to the United Kingdom on Sunday to meet his British counterpart, Tony Blair, and ask that Britain pressure Israel to withdraw from Lebanese territory it still occupies. 
Iran Sunday sought to reassure Gulf Arab states over its nuclear plant at Bushehr, saying the unfinished power station enjoys the highest degree of safety. "There is nothing to worry about, we have spent a lot of money on its [environmental] safety and the security of the plant," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.
The Iranian Parliament threatened in a letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan Sunday to force the government to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty if the United States continued pressuring Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment. "There will be no option for the Parliament but to ask the government to withdraw its signature for the Additional Protocol [to the NPT] and review Article 10 of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty," according to the letter by the lawmakers that was read on state-run radio Sunday.
