Here's the article ... ironies abounding, winds of change a'blowin across the desert sands ...
A U.S.-backed Mideast democracy and development summit ended in rancor Saturday despite adoption of two initiatives that are part of President Bush's push to expand political freedom in a region dominated by monarchies and effective single-party rule.
A draft declaration on democratic and economic principles was scuttled after Egypt insisted on language that would have given Arab governments greater control over charitable and good-government organizations.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice did not speak at the close of the conference, which was hosted by the Group of Eight economic giants and Arab nations but which was largely a U.S. initiative.
Rice used the start of the conference earlier Saturday to criticize political repression in Syria and call for the release of political prisoners there. "We continue to support the Syrian people's aspirations for liberty, democracy, and justice under the rule of law," Rice said.
Participants in the Forum for the Future session announced a $100 million fund to promote economic enterprise in a region where populations are growing and unemployment is often high for young men.
It's not just in France that there are millions of unemployed young Arab/muslim men.
The fund includes $50 million from the United States, with contributions from Egypt, Morocco and Denmark.
"For democracy to achieve lasting and sustainable success, it must also be nurtured by a vibrant economy and an ever growing middle class," Rice said at the outset, noting that some 50 million to 100 million young people will enter the job market across the Middle East and neighboring countries in North Africa over the next five to 10 years.
And no indigenous industries to employ them. It's one reason jihad is so popular right now: countries with excess young males export war.
The conference also launched a $50 million foundation aimed at promoting democracy and political reform in the Middle East. Both initiatives were shepherded by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Liz Cheney, the vice president's daughter, who accompanied Rice on a Mideast trip that also includes stops in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Israel and the West Bank.
Okay, so that's a black female SecState and her lesbian assistant doing the summit thing with Arab male leaders. Forget about the resolutions that didn't pass and think about the meeting itself and what it symbolizes ....
Many Middle East nations are wary of Bush's second-term democracy agenda in the region, and some organizations the administration has tried to engage are reluctant to take State Department funding.
Egyptian delegates left the gathering early, after discussions on the final statement broke off. U.S. officials said the sticking point was a passage that pledged "to expand democratic practices, to enlarge participation in political and public life and to foster the roles of civil society, including NGOs," and to widen women's political and economic participation.
Egypt wanted the statement to stipulate that non-governmental organizations, or NGOs, be "legally registered," under each country's laws, a requirement that U.S. officials said would defeat the purpose of the statement.
but which is understandable given the strength of the Muslim Brotherhood there
Non-governmental organizations is a term used by the State Department and others to describe both humanitarian aid organizations such as the Red Cross and lesser-known groups that promote social and political agendas.
Bahrain's Foreign Minister, Sheik Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, told reporters the declaration will come up again, perhaps at another Forum for the Future gathering next year. "We decided we will come back to it one day," he said.
If we must and if the Caliphate isn't in place before then or after we all die or .... OTOH, the Iraqis are stumbling towards a representative government so who knows? Tell 'em we'll send Liz Cheney's father if this thing doesn't get passed soon. Should be motivating ...
Groups covered in the disputed language are increasingly active in Egypt, which held its fist multiparty elections this year but remains under the firm control of President Hosni Mubarak.
Egypt's ruling party secured the most seats in the first stage of parliamentary balloting last week that was seen as a test of Mubarak's pledges of electoral reform. According to official but incomplete results announced Thursday by the election committee, the ruling National Democratic Party won 24 seats and the Muslim Brotherhood took three.
The opposition said there were widespread irregularities at the polls, which were hailed by official state media as Egypt's freest balloting in decades. "Thugs are in control, low turnout and outrageous forging incidents," complained a headline in al-Wafd newspaper, mouthpiece of the liberal party of the same name.
Rice chose Egypt as the site for a widely noted June speech promoting democracy. Her visit there was postponed in a dispute over the jailing of a democracy activist, who was later released.
Posted by: ed ||
11/12/2005 13:55 ||
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#1
Imagine how shocked the attendees must have been when they found out that they were actually expected to talk seriously about instituting democratic reforms.
North Korea said Friday it would not start dismantling its nuclear weapons programme until the United States lifts sanctions on eight Pyongyang companies, bringing six-way nuclear talks back to stalemate. The unexpected demand came on the last day of a three-day session meant to kick-start negotiations on how to implement a September 19 agreement in which the North committed to disarm in return for energy aid and other benefits. "We have seriously proposed the US should lift financial sanctions on us," Kim Gye-Gwan, North Korea's chief delegate to the six-nation talks, told reporters after negotiations in Beijing ended.
"The financial sanctions violate the (September) joint statement and make it impossible to carry out the commitments to implement the joint statement. We came out for negotiations because the US said it would stop its hostile policy and co-exist with us."
Posted by: Fred ||
11/12/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
Didn't see that one coming. Nope, not for a minute.
Time to place responsibility for all further progress squarely in the lap of China. Make continued trade, tourism and participation in the WTO contingent upon their obtaining measurable results. The communist Mandarins bred up this devil, now it's time for them to waltz with their favorite partner.
#2
Dubya has called the Norkies and Chicoms bluff - iff the Norks truly wish to display alleged NK-sepcific State- and NKCP "sovereignty" and "independence" from Beijing, China will NOT interfere in NK's nuke proliferation, i.e. NK's dedication to the production of enough nukes to de facto threaten China and China's plans for Asian hegemony, espec iff CHINA is going to continue PC supporting NK's claims of sovereignty and independ vv itself and the USA-Japan. NK's dev of nukes also justifies Japan's remilitarization and nuclearization for mil purposes. THE COMMIES-LEFTIES HAVE GOTTEN THEMSELVES INTO A BIG BIG DIPLOMATIC, IDEO AND MEDIA TRAP - no matter what happens now, nor what the Norkies or Commies say to the contrary, the world will realize the truth. I'M LOVING IT TO NO END.
#3
"The financial sanctions violate the (September) joint statement...
Well. These assholes are ones to be complaining about violations....
Any further attempts at talks are absolutely useless. Forget them, and formulate plans accordingly. Missile defense? Check. Nuclear weapons and delivery systems for Japan? Check. Anything else?
1) A progressive blockade and military interdiction of all maritime and aviation traffic in or out of North Korea.
2) Intensive monitoring with publication of any and all land-based aid delivered by China.
3) Immediate designation of all North Korean airspace as a testing range for kinetic and laser based anti-missile weapons.
4) Covert poisoning of all dual-use foreign based food or medical aid, including any shipments of Hennessy Cognac.
5) The phased reciprocal equipping of South Korea, Taiwan and Japan with nuclear weapons in a fashion commensurate with China's continued support for North Korea.
6) Covert efforts to maximize the flood of desperately famished North Korean refugees into China with detailed coverage of any repatriating deportations involving malnutrined women and children.
Did I leave anything out? Please call in all suggestions to 1.800.FUK.NORK
#5
Any attempt to publicly pressure the Chinese over land-based aid will backfire greatly, for several reasons.
First, it will be a PR disaster if the result is even greater malnutrition and starvation in North Korea, handing more power to those in South Korea who dislike the US.
Second, you would be shutting down the main channel for news of the outside world. Even visiting Chinese officials give a glimpse of how things are Outside. Even moreso do the Christians - mostly ethnic Chinese and Korean - who are risking their lives to smuggle food, but also radios etc. to North Koreans.
Sometimes being a hardass doesn't really get the job done.
#6
Zen, your plan takes us to an immediate war which we don't want. The devestation would be enormous. Seoul alone would take a million civilian casualties in the first three days.
Nope, nope, we don't want that.
And frankly, poisoning food aid is beyond the pale. If you seriously believe in doing that, you're a nutter.
We want the NKors to implode quietly. We want an ambitious NKor general to start a new dynasty. We want the Chinese to step up and curb their dog. We don't want a war.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/12/2005 11:15 Comments ||
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#7
lotp and Steve White, I concede that both of your are quite right on this. My above post is a reflection of how frustrated I am with China's duplicity vis North Korea. They have actively bred up this cesspit of tyranny and then farcically stand by wringing their hands as if they can do nothing about it. The mention of poisoning food aid is a half-jesting wish to see all the corrupt officials who routinely misappropriate such direly needed relief die at the hands of their own corruption.
China has yet to pay the piper for so many of its intentional missteps on the world's economic and political dance floor. The West cheerfully continues to fatten this elephant in the henhouse despite being confronted with billions of dollars being spent on containing North Korea.
This sort of self-inflicted crisis is simply unacceptable. When are any of our politicians finally going to summon enough courage to rip the mask off of this vile charade and lay North Korea squarely at the foot of communist China?
Dealing with North Korea is an exercise in patience. We do NOT want a war there. What we want is for China to curb the NKor's behavior. The only way to do that is to make clear to the Chinese that 1) we will NOT concede and negotiate with the NKors, and 2) if forced to accept that the NKors can keep nuclear weapons, that then means that our allies (Japan and Taiwan) will find the need for the same. Just as the Chinese refused to curb the NKors, we won't curb the Japanese and Taiwanese.
None of that is in China's best interests. But the Chinese play a patient game, looking to wear us down and slip something past a compliant (e.g., Clinton) administration. Bush refuses to blink, and I suspect the Chinese strategy right now is to do nothing until 2009. So now Bush has to find a way to make this particular shoe pinch the Chinese. But we absolutely cannot start a war.
Patience.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/12/2005 16:42 Comments ||
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#9
this particular shoe = Japan taking military steps to rearm, nukes and all. Chinese leaders will look back on today as "the good old days"
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/12/2005 17:12 Comments ||
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#10
Dealing with North Korea is an exercise in patience.
It is increasingly difficult to summon any patience while North Korea proliferates nuclear technology to countries whose primary target will be America and the West. I fear that such patience may well prove our undoing.
This, more than any other reason, is why I seek some sort of substantive action with respect to China and North Korea. Unfettered, North Korea's cash flow crisis could easily result in the sale of weapons grade nuclear material or even a packaged device to hostile nations or terrorist organizations. It is only the absence of a successful atomic weapon test by North Korea that permits any breathing room in this situation.
That China isn't being spanked more resoundingly for their complicity in this ghastly freakshow merely indicates how thoroughly they have bought off both sides of the aisle in America and elsewhere.
Original in French. Here is a rough translation - I don't have my French-English dictionary with me and I haven't done much French reading lately so if anyone would like to correct this you're more than welcome to do so.
Seen from Africa, north and south of the Sahara, the revolt of the suburbs looks like a failure: that of the integration of the second and third generations of immigrants. In the French-speaking press of the ex-colonies, one does not mince words.
For the New Expression of Cameroun, France lost its republican heart by closing the door on people from abroad, those who immigrated from without as well as those born within the country.
"(Given) the fact that two major incidents occurred in an almost simultaneous way, the repatriation in Morocco of those who wished to migrate to Europe and a similar destiny threatened for those youths in France who revolted, resulting (it is said moderately) from 'immigration', we see these are two sides of the same coin", writes a leader-writer of the newspaper in his editorial article: "France: Cracks in the Republic!"
Moreover, he continues, "there is a connection between the difficulty of integration of the immigrant populations in these Republics who found their grandfathers and fathers useful, either as cannon fodder or as workmen taking part in the development of the car industry, and the other form of neglect which consists in condemning to clandestine immigration those who also dream of being welcomed in Ailleurs. The theory of zero tolerance of Nicolas Sarkozy (...) led France at the edge of the explosion."
The Algerian daily newspaper El-Watan is just as indignant. In its pages "Discussions", a lawyer, author of Memories of immigrants, openly attacks Nicolas Sarkozy, heir according to him to a line of thinking that is colonialist and xenophobe. "As lately as yesterday, one called their parents wogs; today, one describes them as "rabble" of suburbs ... one cleaned with napalm in certain colonies; today, one wants to clean them in KÀrcher. When it comes down to it, is France really a State of rights, fatherland of the human rights and of the democracy in which the young people of the suburbs believed so much?"
no, that's actually the US ...
The author also attacks the Right, including the ideas of the LePenists, and speaks against the attitudes of the Right about the poor.
"Should one then speak about discrimination by the State? Because finally, that is what this is, when they speak of people as "rabble", many of whom live in the French suburbs? Citizens of this country, they were born there, studied there, there pay their taxes and regulate their contributions; they are citizens of this country since now several generations. Their parents in exile spent their more beautiful years to defend and help to build France of today; they are stripped of even the elementary voting rights in local elections promised so much by a Left which was disavowed since, allowing a certain group to raise once again demagogery."
more at the link - this is all I had time to translate. h/t No Pasaran!
The Belgian government's preventative approach has ensured that the riots in France have not blown across to Belgium, Interior Minister Patrick Dewael said on Thursday.
"At the moment, there are isolated incidents and no city guerrillas or organised uprisings," the Liberal VLD minister told MPs.
Ahhh ... someone willing to call it what it is, so long as it occurs in another country
During a mini-debate in the Belgian Parliament in Brussels, Dewael said the situation in Belgium â which has witnessed four successive nights of unrest and arson attacks â cannot be compared with France.
However, Dewael said it is not impossible for French-style rioting to occur in Belgium, but that the Belgian focus on prevention â via a close-knit network of street and neighbourhood workers â was bearing fruit. He said the careful approach of police â dubbed community policing â was also giving good results, newspaper 'De Standaard' reported.
Dewael said he was open to discussions with all levels of government to create more chances for youths, but stressed at the same time that politicians cannot do everything. He said parents also needed to take responsibility.
that's un... um, un- ... well I was going to say un-democratic and un-socialist, but words fail ...
The minister's comments come after dozens of cars and trucks have been torched in Brussels, Antwerp and Ghent in recent days. It sparked fears that French violence would jump the border.
Despite the tension though, the national crisis centre has said no large gatherings of youths have been witnessed and the situation was in general calmer on Wednesday evening than on previous nights.
Meanwhile, you can read the details of the 4th night of arsons here.
#1
The minister's comments come after dozens of cars and trucks have been torched in Brussels, Antwerp and Ghent in recent days. It sparked fears that French violence would jump the border.
Let me get this straight - dozens of vehicles torched in a particular night is not rioting?
Blazing cars, street battles and a powderkeg mix of racism and chronic immigrant unemployment: the image of France as shown around the world by two weeks of riots has hardly been the stuff of tourist dreams.
Beamed live from Hong Kong to Washington via London, the unrest has put an unforgiving spotlight on a side of society rarely seen outside a nation that, like any other, seeks to cast a cultural, social and political aura.
In the United States, comparisons have been drawn between the unrest in the poor, high-immigrant neighbourhoods with race riots of the 1960s and 1980s.
Other commentators have spoken of scenes akin to Chechnya, still others of the possibility of Islamic extremists stoking the fires.
It has not chimed with the reality on the ground, but still, nightly scenes of violence played on television have shocked and surprised.
"It's quite scary, quite frightening to think that that's happening on our doorstep," said Jo Lawrence, an accountant in London.
She said it reminded her of the troubles in Northern Ireland. "Perhaps I'm ignorant, but I had no idea that was going on," she told AFP.
In Paris, some expatriates have reported getting calls from their relatives back home asking if they were safe.
But for many analysts, the violence has above all exposed an underclass of angry, immigrant youths with little hope and even fewer job prospects, locked in a vaunted system of social integration that has failed them.
"France is sending a lot of negative signals right at this moment," Aurore Wanlin, at the Centre for European Reform in London, told AFP.
The riots showed "the French model doesn't protect those who aren't already part of the system."
In USA Today, an opinion piece said the "civil disobedience should serve as lessons to neighboring countries on how not to treat a minority population."
The violence, the worst France has seen since the 1968 student revolt, has seen more than 6,600 vehicles torched and dozens of buses, schools, gymnasiums, nurseries, libraries, shops and businesses destroyed in arson attacks.
Laurence Parisot, leader of the French employers' organisation Medef, said the country's image was being "deeply damaged."
She warned of "very serious" effects for the economy, notably sectors such as restaurant and hotel businesses and tourism, which rely heavily on foreign visitors.
In the United States, outspoken commentator Bill O'Reilly, whose show runs on the conservative Fox television network, said the violence "makes Hurricane Katrina look like a comic book."
For nearly two weeks, he said, French president Jacques Chirac "has allowed the insurrection to build in ferocity, refusing to use his military, allowing anarchy in the streets."
He was not the only one to refer to the hurricane that pounded the US Gulf coast at the end of August, and which exposed what many critics charged was a lingering racial divide in Washington's response to the devastation.
"The French had a field day with Hurricane Katrina ... when that confirmed their prejudices about Americans," said Jean-Benoit Nadeau, a Canadian who has co-authored a book on French society.
"Today, the Anglo-Saxon press is having a field day with what is happening in France because it also confirms prejudices about French society."
"It's as if the people in power are saying, a little like Marie-Antoinette, 'not got a job? Take a holiday then'."
In the Arab world, where satellite stations like Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya have given the riots wide coverage, commentators have focused on longstanding social malaise, unemployment and alienation among immigrants.
"The image of France in the Arab world, which is very positive with regard to its positions on the conflicts in the Middle East and Irak, is not going to emerge unscathed," said Hasni Abidi, who is director of a centre for Arab and Mediterranean studies in Geneva.
"We are seeing the failure of France's integration policy," he said.
And in Sweden, Prime Minister Goeran Persson ignored diplomacy to criticise the French government's decision to permit curfews in riot-hit regions. "Very dramatic," he said, "something I haven't seen in Europe for the past 30 or 40 years."
#5
"Image" is one of those bogus concepts touted by those for whom "image is everything". They cannot imagine anything worse than having a down arrow associated with your name in the 'Trends' section of the newspaper.
#8
damn...and we all had such positive thoughts before. Admit it. I say "French waiter" and politeness and a toothy smile come to mind, right?
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/12/2005 11:55 Comments ||
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#9
Like it or not, France is family to America, just go look in NY harbor. It angers me more when family screws up, and the French govt is screwing this up. Just like Clinton letting UBL get out of control, this has been let go for too long. This clash will spread to other nations and now France will have a generation of struggle to get this under control. It's OK to bitch about them, I love to rant, but the issue of Muslim insurgency in France needs a committed approach and one in concert with her neighbors and friends.
Posted by: 49 pan ||
11/12/2005 12:00 Comments ||
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#10
If the French are like family, they're like the distant relative who did something helpful 50 years ago for purely selfish reasons but must still be invited to Thanksgiving because the senile grandmother wants every one to be there even though no one else does. I'm not sure whether we would be worse off with a France run by Mohammedans, especially if the Franks aren't willing to fight for it.
#12
It's OK to bitch about them, I love to rant, but the issue of Muslim insurgency in France needs a committed approach and one in concert with her neighbors and friends.
I disagree. IIRC, it was Dominique de Villepin, who is a man, who told Colin Powell in the run up to Iraq that if we break it, we bought it; i.e. the US can expect no help from France if it invades Iraq. It seems to me that the same applies on this occasion. Turn about being fair play and all that.
Posted by: Scott R ||
11/12/2005 14:54 Comments ||
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Damage done: riots have tarnished France's image
I'm shocked, shocked I say, that no one here caught this glaring bit of puffery. Perhaps France has been exposed to the Muslim mindset for so long that they, too, now encounter similar difficulty with that most enigmatic of scientific principles. Once again, it's that troublesome old Cause & Effect thingummy.
While the riots have done nothing to help France's prestige, they are not the central factor in tarnishing its image. The riots are the EFFECT, not the cause. Chirac and his nancy-boy toadies have proven incapable of stiffening their wrists sufficiently to slap down a blatant threat to the public weal. Therein lies the true CAUSE.
A consistent hallmark of most socialist governments is how they usually mask either a flagrant kleptocracy (communist China, Soviet Russia), or serve the ends of a more subtle yet entrenched power structure (Cuba, Vietnam). All of which, in reality, boils down to ensconcing an elite class in wealth and luxury whilst the toiling masses do exactly that.
France's insufferable cultural chauvinism has let them breathe their own exhaust long enough to where they thought they could do no wrong. Its elitist government, saw in their arrogated privilege and erstwhile success, clear proof that (for them) there could be no better policy.
Mirroring this eliteism, a troublesome underclass has reared its head to spoil the feast. We are now treated to the sordid spectacle of politicians whose reflexes have long adapted to picking Beluga caviar off of their truffled foie gras being confronted with the nasty heavy lifting involved with actual leadership.
It is this profound leadership vacuum that has truly "tarnished France's image". France's Muslim rioters are merely the reciprocal manifestation of rudderless helmsmanship steering according to a long demagnetized moral compass.
1. France is a nuclear power with nuclear weapons.
2. France is still a major economic power, if declining; one of the Group of 7.
#. In France, control of economic, political, military and nuclear power is highly centralized. Whoever is in power controls it all with very few checks and balances.
Therefore, it is not in our interests to have France collapse and be taken over by Islamacists any sooner than is inevitable, if it is inevitable.
#15
the thing is, lopt, that there really isn't anything we can do to help France at this point. Helping France would do no more good at this point than giving an alcoholic a drink to help rid them of the shakes. It doesn't solve the underlying illness. They have to save themselves. Sometimes the change has to come from within.
Besides, what would you propose we do? There is nothing we can do at this point to help them.
First they have to acknowlege that they have a problem and they haven't come close to hitting rock bottom yet.
#16
All fine points, lotp. I have great difficulty seeing where outside help can be of any avail when it comes to resolving the issues confronting France.
French eliteism is largely responsible for creating the underclass that now besets them. As Old Patriot mentioned in the "The next revolt on French estates will use military weapons" thread;
"The Muslim immigrants CANNOT make such adaptations because their culture claims that's "apostacy". They also don't WANT to make that adaptation, and the idiot French refuse to accept those who do try."
Perhaps it is here where we get to the crux of the matter. France and Islam represent two of the most ingrown chauvinistic cultural motifs on the face of this earth, possibly exceeded only by the Chinese.
Muslims obdurately refuse to assimilate at the cost of even one iota of their calcified throwback religion's tenets and France has shown itself to be entirely incapable of embracing anything not French. These two monopoles are on a catastrophic collision course and the recent riots are merely separated rails that foretell the horrendous trainwreck to come.
1. France is a nuclear power with nuclear weapons.
This one single point may serve to indicate where America's best interests lie.
Possession of nuclear weapons aside. Should Islamists somehow manage to gain ascendancy and impose sharia law in France it would serve the ends of jihadist terrorism like nothing else imaginable. The occupation of Iraq pales in comparison with respect to being a putative recruiting tool. Such encouragement would redouble Islamist terrorism against the West.
Add into this equation accession to nuclear weapons and it becomes obvious that external military intervention would most likely be the outcome if France succumbed to Islamist control. If Chirac cannot put his house in order his days are numbered.
#17
Chirac's already toast...I hope De Villepin also goes up in flames (is he a man?), so to speak. The question I have is whether a rightist (not Le Pen) will take over and put down the urban guerrillas, or will the same weak shit be continued. We will have to let them twist in teh wind - it'll be a cold day in hell before the French welcome or ask for our intervention in their "internal affairs"......perhaps there's an American Lafayette?
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/12/2005 16:57 Comments ||
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#18
Frank, the intervention I was alluding to wasn't of the "invited" sort. If push comes to shove, better that we forcibly wrest control of France from the hands of Islamists than permit them such a catastrophic victory over Western interests.
#19
There is already a plan in place in the Pentagon's Special Planning Division for dealing with a France that has been overthrown and whose nuclear weapons have been taken by hostile forces : cleansing by "bottled sunshine". In other words, we get to nuke a European state.
#20
lol. If When France goes Mohammedan, we'll grin and bear it, just like Pakistan. Though I doubt it will be for at least 30 years. Germany will fall shortly thereafter. Poland, always Poland, is where the rubber will meet the road.
#21
hmmm...don't really disagree, but I just don't see us wresting military control of France. I think Germany and all of the other European countries have to be put into play here too as they have a far greater stake in what happens in France than we do. While Belgium will just roll, I'm not so sure about Germany and the others. Depending on how violent current events play out in France, we are going to see changes in the way the other European countries respond to their own immigration/terrorist problems. It will change the way we address our own. Like after 911, these riots have already changed the course of future events in ways we can not yet predict.
The bottom line is this: Terrorist states are going to get access to nukes. Take your pick of North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, SA ..etc. It's just a matter of time. By the time France falls to Islam, if it ever does, there will be plenty of rogue states with nukes - so we will have to find other ways to fight the threat than to just relying on MAD...which simply won't work with Jihadis.
Other than providing arms and assistance to ordinary French citizens should they ever choose to revolt - I don't ever see us doing anything different than our current menu choice for countries like Iran and Korea.
I find myself wondering if this is a re-election stunt on behalf of Berlusconi, who is running on an anti-American platform. He is also facing possible corruption and kickback charges.
Italian prosecutors requested the extradition of 22 CIA agents, the newspaper Corriere della Sera reported Friday, in connection with an abduction case that has caused embarrassment in both Rome and Washington. The agents are accused of secretly kidnapping a suspect Islamic terrorist in the northern city of Milan in 2003, and moving him to a third country for interrogation in a U.S. practice known as "extraordinary rendition".
Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, an Egyptian national and former imam at a mosque in Milan, was being investigated by Italian police at the time of his disappearance. Local prosecutors suspect he was abducted by a commando unit of CIA agents and then flown to Egypt via Germany. The cleric, also known as Abu Omar, later told his wife he had been tortured and beaten while being questioned in Egypt. The Italian government has denied any knowledge of the operation.
The extradition request has been sent to Italy's Justice Ministry, which must now forward it to the U.S. government. According to Corriere, it may be blocked by Italian Justice Minister Roberto Castelli, who has just returned from a meeting in Washington with U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. So the headline should read "Italian prosecutors seek CIA agents", because the Italian government has not yet made that request to the US.
ROME (Reuters) - Prosecutors have requested Italy seek the extradition of 22 suspected CIA agents over the kidnapping of a terrorism suspect, grabbed off a street in 2003 and taken abroad, a judicial source in Italy said on Friday.
The request was delivered to Justice Minister Roberto Castelli. The minister just returned from Washington, where he discussed the issue with U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, a U.S. justice department official in Washington D.C. said.
Castelli's office declined comment. He must now decide whether to make a formal request to the United States to pursue the case, said the Italian source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "The general prosecutor's office has requested the extradition," the well-placed source said.
Prosecutors in the northern city of Milan believe that the CIA was behind the disappearance of Egyptian-born imam Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar. They say he was grabbed off a Milan street and flown from a U.S. air base in northern Italy to Egypt, where they suspect he may have been tortured under interrogation by Egyptian security officials.
You don't say.
A Milan judge has issued an arrest order for Nasr, who is believed to be still in Egyptian custody.
To do what -- let him go?
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/12/2005 00:32 ||
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#1
Can't wait to see the Italian response to an extradition request by the Consitutional government of Iraq for their agents involved in paying money to the terrorist for their little marxist journalist. Wonder if they'll be concerned with principle then?
#2
Is this all just some prosecutor trying to get elected? In DOD we are protected by US laws from this kind of trash. Are our CIA agents protected by a like law?
Posted by: 49 pan ||
11/12/2005 12:07 Comments ||
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It has been made known to Asharq al-Awsat that American lawyers from the organization Amnesty International have volunteered to defend a number of Saudi detainees of Guantanamo Bay in American courts. Ahmad Mazhar, the head of the Saudi team of lawyers responsible for the cases of the Saudi detainees of Guantanamo Bay told Asharq al-Awsat that his team were ready to defend the Saudi citizens in front of American courts in case negotiations between Riyadh and Washington fell through.
He also noted that negotiations between Riyadh and Saudi Arabia [sic] are still taking place and that the problem may be solved without having to resort to American courts. Mazhar further elaborated that his team would take all the necessary measures to defend the detained Saudis in American courts, and that they are already fully prepared for such action. The team had also cooperated with American law firms so that if they had to, the Americans would appeal in American courts, as such action is confined to American lawyers only. He added that such action would only be sought if official negotiations reached a deadlock.
In another context, Mazhar commented on press reports concerning the release of 40 Saudi prisoners in Guantanamo. He said, "(Unnamed) Official sources had promised the release of the Saudi prisoners from Guantanamo." He added that the release was expected to take place during the holy month of Ramadan but never occurred. He further added, "We are still waiting for their release especially considering the recent promises that have been made." Mazhar affirmed that an international law conference would be launched on the 19 and 20 November in London, sponsored by Amnesty International to discuss the cases of the Saudi detainees. The conference will be attended by a number of human rights organizations.
Mazhar further stated that there have been great efforts exerted by Saudi authorities for the release of the detainees. Twenty-one Saudi prisoners were transferred to Guantanamo by American authorities after the American war in Afghanistan. Mazhar stated that a Saudi security delegation had visited the Guantanamo camp to discuss the status of each detainee there. Mazhar added that American authorities had refused to allow Saudi lawyers to visit their defendants yet it had welcomed representatives of the Saudi military forces to visit Guantanamo.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/12/2005 00:00 ||
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NEW YORK (AP) - U.S. troops could begin leaving Iraq in significant numbers sometime next year, so long as Iraqi forces are properly armed and trained by then, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi told a U.S. audience on Friday.
Chalabi, the controversial former exile who came to New York after meetings with top U.S. officials in Washington, said the Iraqi army should be equipped with American weaponry and properly trained to protect itself against the armies of its neighbors, which include Syria and Iran. They must also be given "more latitude" in recruitment, he told a gathering at the Council on Foreign Relations.
"If we do the right thing together, I think significant American troops can be withdrawn from Iraq without causing a serious security threat during 2006, next year," he said.
Chalabi's prediction contradicts the message from the Bush administration, which has refused to set a timetable for withdrawal for the estimated 150,000 U.S. troops now in Iraq.
Not contradictory at all. We're not setting a timetable, and neither is Chalabi: he's speculating.
Chalabi, who plans to run in Iraq's Dec. 15 parliamentary election, received a warm reception from the council and moderator Fouad Ajami, a professor at Johns Hopkins University.
He got one question about claims that his exile group, the Iraqi National Congress, may have fed information to the U.S. that Saddam Hussein had amassed hidden arsenals of weapons of mass destruction. His critics say that helped fuel President Bush's case for war. "I want to tell you that the fact that I perpetuated a case for war based on weapons of mass destruction is an urban myth which is not rooted in reality," he said, echoing remarks he made in Washington earlier this week.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/12/2005 00:37 ||
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#3
Chalabi was at the CFR to deal for weapons for that new Army, but he has been less than trustworthy in his previous business dealings. Ariana Huffington asked about him about his being alleged source of pre-war intelligence, and the urban myth comment was his answer. He then shut her up and changed subjects. John Cusack was with her. I used to like him as an actor a lot, but his associations are too lefty. Arianna also was going to write a book with Judith Miller, but that was before her "entanglement" with Scooter Libby was made public. Before his previous Democratic clients were named. This is getting novelesque.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/12/2005 00:00 ||
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There are so many considerations for Japan. First of all is their rather odd "we leave Iraq" groupthink, which is hard to explain in western terms. The troops stay there until the groupthink says otherwise.
The second is that their military forces face a bizarre return, their country not quite knowing how to greet them: heroes, ignored, or what? And that figures into their military restructuring right now.
The third is the civilian apparatus to leave behind. This could be anything from a trade centered diplomatic mission to a large Japanese enclave.
What matters only peripherally is the insurgency. The Japanese forces return with huge amounts of military-useful information, though theirs was not a combat mission. They also have lots of insider information for economic cooperation and investment. Many will see Iraq reconstruction as an investment, and will want to know if it was a good one.
The new leader of Israel's Labour party, Amir Peretz, yesterday said that he intended to force a general election next spring after pulling his party out of Ariel Sharon's government.
Mr Peretz will meet Mr Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, on Thursday to formalise Labour's withdrawal as the junior partner in the Likud-led coalition administration. The Labour leader originally said the meeting would be tomorrow but the prime minister's aides pushed it back.
An election must be held by November 2006 but Mr Peretz said he wished to bring it forward to March or shortly afterwards. "I'll tell him we want to part ways in a dignified manner," Mr Peretz told the Israeli press. "We want to be independent, and want the Labour party to renew its ability to serve as an alternative."
Opinion polls in yesterday's Israeli press showed Mr Peretz's dramatic political upset in toppling Shimon Peres as Labour leader has significantly improved the party's election prospects, but not by enough to unseat Mr Sharon. One prominent leftwing former cabinet minister, Yossi Sarid, described Mr Peretz's victory as a "revolution" because of his rejection of Mr Sharon's policies towards the Palestinians and his pledge to take his party back to its socialist roots.
Oh, there's a sure-fire plan.
Mr Peretz could complicate Mr Sharon's rejection of negotiations with the Palestinians and his plan to unilaterally impose Israel's permanent borders. The new Labour leader does not subscribe to Mr Sharon's view that there is no Palestinian "partner for peace" to talk with.
"What about old-what's-his-name?"
Mr Peretz said Mr Sharon's bitter feud with those angry at his removal of Jewish settlers from Gaza provided an opportunity for Labour. "I'm counting on the war within Likud," he said. "If we succeed, I'm sure we can do something exceptional."
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/12/2005 00:28 ||
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Among the first to condemn the suicide bombings in Jordan were Palestinian militants anxious to show they have no sympathy with Al Qaedaâs choice of targets, even if the group was emulating their own bomb-belt tactics. There was no suggestion the Palestinian factions were renouncing the validity of blowing up Israeli civilians, but their swift rejection of the Amman attacks demonstrated their desire to put daylight between themselves and Qaeda jihadists.
âWe condemn the style, the random killings,â said Nafez Azzam of the Islamic Jihad group, which killed six Israeli market traders and shoppers in a suicide bombing last month. âWe condemn the killing of innocents anywhere regardless of belief and religion,â said Azzam. But he said âinnocentsâ did not cover Israeli civilians, all seen by Islamic Jihad as enemies in a state it wants to destroy. Israel is not alone in viewing this distinction as repugnant. The Palestinian Authority does not accept it, still less the international community or human rights groups. âThe double standard that exists in certain quarters that suicide bombing Jews is legitimate and suicide bombing others is not is simply that - a double standard - which should be condemned by everyone,â said Mark Regev of Israelâs Foreign Ministry. The Amman bombings were claimed by Al Qaeda in Iraq, led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, which said they were to punish Jordan for supporting âthe Jews and Crusadersâ.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/12/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
We condemn the style, the random killings
Big deal. He's just pissed that they weren't targeted attacks, say against joooos...
#3
Can't we sell the Israelis a couple of JDAMS? Seems like that would end a lot of suffering on both sides of the fence; follow up w/the IDF "pacifying". Oh yeah, one in Plains wouldn't disturb this Jawjah boy (well, ex) at all
Posted by: Jim ||
11/12/2005 20:48 Comments ||
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Hamas will not negotiate with Israel or repeat the mistakes of the past, according to its leader in the Occupied Territories. In an interview with Asharq al Awsat, Mahmud al Zahar, said his earlier statements in English to Radio Israel went as follows: âNegotiation is not our intention. It is a means to an end for us. If the goal is to liberate our territory and free our prisoners from Israeli jails and if the aim is to rebuild what the Israeli occupation has destroyed over many years, then we support negotiations.â
The Islamic resistance movement, he said, lacked a negotiation program and added, âUnder what capacity will we negotiate? Hamas is not a government.â Commenting on âthe [failed] experiment of the Palestinian Authority which adopted talks as a strategic choice over the past twelve yearsâ, al Zahar said, âWe do not wish to repeat that.â In his opinion, Israel did not intend to respond âto the Palestinian peopleâs demands as it proved when it cancelled the last two meetings between [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon and [Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas] Abu Mazen.â
Posted by: Fred ||
11/12/2005 00:00 ||
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"The Islamic resistance movement, he said, lacked a negotiation program..."
LOL - well he got that right. It's not the only thing they lack, either.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has pledged to continue Yasser Arafat's struggle to gain a foothold in Jerusalem, while thousands of Palestinians have marked the first anniversary of his death. "I renew the pledge to continue on the path that he started and exert whatever efforts are needed to raise the flag of Palestine on the walls, the minarets and the churches of Jerusalem," Abbas said at a rally in Arafat's old Ram Allah compound on Friday.
Abbas, Arafat's successor, led a rally attended by top officials from major factions and a handful of foreign diplomats in honour of Arafat, who died aged 75 having failed to realise his dream of a Palestinian state. The focus of the official commemoration was Arafat's old West Bank headquarters where he spent his final years isolated and encircled by the Israeli army. Abbas, like many in the crowd, wore the traditional Palestinian keffiyeh scarf that became Arafat's trademark. Pictures of Arafat were held by many in the crowd. Abbas earlier laid the foundation stone for a new mausoleum complex while Quranic verses were broadcast over loudspeakers.
Many shops in West Bank cities stayed closed, with portraits of Arafat adorning their shutters. Smaller ceremonies were held in Bethlehem and Hebron. In the Gaza Strip, a low-key memorial gathering was held on Thursday night. Officials laid the cornerstone of a museum that will be dedicated to Arafat in his compound, and will display some of his personal effects.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/12/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
"I renew the pledge to continue on the path that he started and exert whatever efforts are needed to raise the flag of Palestine on the walls, the minarets and the churches of Jerusalem," Abbas said at a rally in Arafat's old Ram Allah compound on Friday.
Kill him now. A missile into his office while he's in it would be the easiest method. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever for an Arafart redux. None. Too many innocents have already died.
#2
Abbas, Arafat's successor, led a rally attended by top officials from major factions and a handful of foreign diplomats in honour of Arafat, who died aged 75 having failed to realise his dream of a Palestinian state as his exclusive personal harem.
I once had reasonably high hopes for Abbas. Now I do not. His flagrant pandering to the absolute worst that the Palestinian legacy engenders cements my loss of whatever tenuous confidence I might once have had.
Abu Mudhen Mazen dons Arafat's sacred keffiyeh and putatively assumes the mantle of authority over a motley crew of psychotic murdering anti-semites. Oh, joy.
One can only conclude that this is a febrile attempt to, once again, co-opt those disparate factions who more recently had taken up arms against the Palestinian Authority. In the almost complete and total absence of any significant support by the road map's Quartet, Abbas is doing one thing above all.
Buying a bullet.
Be it an IDF or terrorist slug, his sorely mixed message is going to find few takers amongst those who matter most to his long term survival. I no longer wish him well.
Via JihadWatch About 30 home-made explosive devices found in the hideout used by the group linked to Jemaah Islamiyah. Azahariâs death is confirmed.
Azahari bin Husin and his terrorist group were preparing a series of bomb attacks against churches in Malang to coincide with the Christmas festivities, this according to police sources. Police are still trying to determine why Azahari had rented a villa in Batu, a mountainous tourist resort near the city of Malang (East Java), but intelligence sources believe that his âtarget was a very big church in Malangâ.
Yesterday (Nov. 9) Azahari allegedly blew himself up to avoid capture by a special police anti-terrorist squad after a two-hour operation in Batu. And today police sources confirmed that the human remains that were tested were those of the wanted terrorist.
Malang is a tourist resort area 80 km south of Surabaya, capital of East Java province. It is home to many Catholic religious orders like the Verbites and Carmelites as well as a major seminary that received hundreds of seminarians from different orders to study philosophy and theology.
The St Joseph College Senior High School is another well known local Catholic institution and is run by Carmelite sisters. The Bishopâs residence is close to the school. In addition to Catholic institutions, there are several Protestant ones.
Investigators believe that Azahari was planning a series of bomb attacks on Christmas night and during the festive season. Something similar had already occurred on Christmas day 2000 when bombs exploded in five churches in Jakarta and other Indonesian cities.
Protestant churches in Sulawesi were targets of attacks in recent years, Christians in East Java were equally victims of extremist violence. Rest at link.
Posted by: ed ||
11/12/2005 13:36 ||
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The head of Iran's nuclear agency ruled out a compromise proposal to enrich uranium for his country's nuclear program in Russia, insisting Saturday that the process must be done domestically. Asked if Tehran would agree to enriching uranium abroad, Gholamreza Aghazadeh told reporters, "Iran's nuclear fuel will be produced inside Iran." He spoke after talks with Russian envoy Igor Ivanov.
His comments came a day after reports emerged that the United States and European negotiators were willing to accept the arrangement to allow Iran to move ahead with its nuclear program while ensuring it does not produce atomic bombs.
Aghazadeh, who also is vice president, said Iran was open to other proposals, pointing to an earlier Iranian idea that other countries participate in the enrichment process on Iranian soil as a guarantee the program is used only for peaceful purposes. "What is important for us is that we be entrusted to carry out enrichment in Iran. As for participation by other countries in Iran's uranium enrichment program, we will consider it if there is any proposals," he said.
Washington says Iran is aiming to produce nuclear warheads. Tehran says its program is solely to produce electricity and insists it has the right to develop the entire nuclear fuel cycle on its own.
Iranian state run television quoted Ivanov as saying his visit reflected Russia's desire to help ease tensions between Iran and Europe over the nuclear program. He did not confirm the existence of the proposed compromise or whether he presented it to Iranian officials. Earlier, Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, also refused to confirm reports that Ivanov presented the plan.
In Vienna, Austria, on Friday, a diplomat accredited to the
International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that a position paper entitled "Elements of a Long-Term Solution" had been passed on to the Russians about a week ago. Rest at link.
Posted by: ed ||
11/12/2005 13:59 ||
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openDemocracy (Nov 3) focused on a âclash of perceptionsâ between the U.S. and Iran with Ahmadinejadâs comments seen as exacerbating an already tense context. The crux of it is that the U.S. has long regarded Iran as the âserious problemâ in the Middle East and had hoped to contain Iranian ambitions with success in Iraq. Failing in Iraq and failing the prospect of establishing actual âregime changeâ in Iran, the U.S. views it as unacceptable that Iran should develop a nuclear capability. Hence the ongoing efforts to bring Iran before the U.N. security council. This clashes with Iranâs perception that it has every right to develop its nuclear capability viewing itself as one of the âgreat statesâ with over 4,000 years of civilization. As the author notes: âThis view [of their right to develop nuclear energy] is reinforced by more recent developments: Iran has seen regimes to its east (Afghanistan) and west (Iraq) destroyed by a superpower that describes it as âevilâ, permanent US bases being constructed in these neighbouring states, and its entire coastline effectively dominated by the US fifth fleet.â
That might indeed explain their actions -- the Mad Mullahs⢠are not stupid. They do indeed see the U.S. as a threat to them -- because we are. Too bad you didn't quote the rest of the article, because there is a clear and succient description of why we're giving Iran the gimlet eye. It's encompassed in the phrase, "axis of evil."
The Mad Mullahs⢠are evil. They debase their religion, they oppress their people, and they threaten the entire region. They want to do even more than that, and they will if they get nuclear weapons. The writer offers up some of the Iranian responses should a war occur between the U.S. and Teheran: getting Hezbollah to act up in Iraq (yeah, that'll scare us) or closing the Straits of Hormuz (yeah, they'll get sympathy on the world stage for choking off the oil). But this assumes we're going to go to war against an entire country.
We won't. The problem isn't the people of Iran -- they're as decent and likable folk as you'll find anywhere. The problem is the Mad Mullahsâ¢. That's a solvable problem. Think about it.
In the meantime, the writer offers the usual pablum about how everything the U.S. does only makes things worse, so we should just slink away and mind our betters. Pheh.
#1
Iran has seen regimes to its east (Afghanistan) and west (Iraq) destroyed by a superpower that describes it as âevilâ, permanent US bases being constructed in these neighbouring states, and its entire coastline effectively dominated by the US fifth fleet.â
Uh...I seem to remember a little incident in 1979 "the prez" participated in. I also remember a little incident in Beirut in 1983 sponsored by Iran. I don't think it's a clash of perceptions.
#2
What part of Death to America don't we understand?
Posted by: ed ||
11/12/2005 10:36 Comments ||
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#3
a series of misbehavior by a puny "state" will ineveitably bring repercussions: financially, politically, and militarily. How's that Iranian stock market, putzhead?
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/12/2005 11:39 Comments ||
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#8
Oh puh-lease 'willtotruth', that Lancet 'study' has been thoroughly debunked.
It totally cracks me up when people say America is doing most of the killing. What about the suicide bombers (imported drones from Saudi, Syria and elsewhere), the beheadings and all the killing of people waiting to get a job.
Dolt.
If you want to know what sort of killing America is capable of, Google "Trident D5 Ohio", and then figure that launching all those missiles (from one boat) would cost less than a weeks worth of the day-to-day cost of being in Iraq.
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
11/12/2005 16:23 Comments ||
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#9
willto"truth" WANTS that study to be true. It wants us to be the bogeyman/badman due to hate for America. That study has been debunked so many times, and puhleaze! Citing Juan "I hate Amerikkka" Cole as an expert? You're, like, 2002. Bet you fell behind in school too, huh?
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/12/2005 16:43 Comments ||
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Save the conversion from Farsi, what other "interpretation" is needed? The meaning is more than clear. Iran is a genocidal regime hell bent on dominating the entire Middle East with their corrupt vision of theocratic dictatorship. Its Arabic neighbors are so obsessively anti-American that none of them can redirect their microscopic attention spans over to considering just what Iran's military ascension holds in store for them.
#11
Have you ever noticed how guys with nics like "willtotruth" and "king of tolerance," are usually humorless ideologues who are all convinced that the US is the _worst_country_ever_? If I wasn't in such a good mood, I'd mess with him a little.
Posted by: Jim ||
11/12/2005 20:51 Comments ||
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#13
Amusing bunch indeed. Killing in the name of peace and democracy - the American motto. Threaten the entire region .... . No that would be the U.S., Israel and their respective nuclear arsenals and their insistence on destroying entire cultures. If the clerics are solvable it isn't something Iran needs done the good ol U.S.A. way. Its own democratic roots can do fine without that kind of help. You know, like how they helped "solve" the problem of Iranian democracy in the 50s. The Lancet study had no problems - just wide margins of error typical of such a methodology. Even on the outside, it still leaves tens of thousands pointlessly dead for a big fat collection of lies. Iraq is Iran's neighbour. The U.S. has been wanting a piece of it for years. But, of course, you knew this well before Ahmadinejad came along right? Dolt? Wrong. Debunked? Wrong. Yes, let's brag about just how much more killing America could commit. While we're at it lets talk about its violations of the same NPT Iran has honoured. I want the Lancet study to be true? Wrong. It just points to numbers others don't want to be true. Debunked, so many times? By you and your buddies I presume. (i.e., you said nothing). Who exactly is dominating the Middle East? Iran you say? Hell bent on doing what America is actually doing. Get your facts and your rhetoric straight gents. America is a wonderful place full of truly wonderful people. Most of whom continue to maintain a willtoignornance unprecedented when it comes to knowing or caring about its actual foreign actions. Great people. Hideous foreign actions. But that much must be obvious even to you folk.
Lebanese newspapers on Friday reacted strongly to Thursday?fs speech by Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, which harshly criticised Lebanon?fs government and parliament.
Almost all the Lebanese newspapers reprinted the speech in full and published lengthy commentaries. The liberal anti-Syrian newspaper An-Nahar wrote that Mr Assad?fs address was ?"a declaration of war against Lebanon?" but that the Lebanese people would continue their battle for independence. L?'Orient-Le Jour, the French-language paper, wrote that Mr Assad was seeking to provoke strife.
During the speech at Damascus University on Thursday, Mr Assad claimed that Lebanon had become a ?"passageway, a factory and a financier?" of conspiracies against Syria, in effect accusing Beirut of siding with the west against it. He accused Lebanese politicians of being ?"merchants?" exploiting the blood of the assassinated politicians to make political gains.
He had harsh words for Fouad Siniora, the prime minister, calling him a "slave of slaves?". This was a reference to Mr Siniora?fs ties to Saad Hariri, the son of the assassinated politician Rafiq Hariri, and to the Hariri family?'s relations with leaders such as Jacques Chirac, the French president, and the Saudi royal family.
Five pro-Syrian ministers, including a representative of the Hizbollah guerrilla movement, walked out of a cabinet session on Thursday after Lebanon?'s reaction to the speech was added to the agenda.
In spite of the walk-out, Ghazi Aridi, the information minister, said after the weekly cabinet session: ?"The Lebanese cabinet expresses its rejection and astonishment of the Syrian president?fs speech and attack on the Lebanese government and parliament. We renew our confidence in Prime Minister Siniora.?" Trad Hamadeh, one of the five ministers who walked of the session, said they were not leaving the government but needed more time before reacting to the speech.
During a speech on Friday, Naim Qassem, second-in-command of the Hizbollah faction, sought to reassure the Syrian leader that Lebanon would never be a plotting ground against Syria.
And why should they be? We're on the other side of Syria.
United Nations investigators met Lebanese President Emile Lahoud on Friday as part of the inquiry into the ?hideous? Hariri assassination, the presidential palace said, Reuters reports. It had been reported that one of the suspects telephoned Mr Lahoud shortly before the killing.
#1
Detlev Mehlis, the chief UN investigator, is seeking to interview several Syrian officials including Assef Shawkat, Mr Assad's brother-in-law and head of military intelligence.
Assad, that chinless and spineless wonder, has apparently managed to get his brother off Mehlis' list of those he wants to question as suspects in Hariri's killing.
I wonder what deals were made behind the scenes to achieve that.
#4
The chinless Assad seems cowardly to me, and not ruthless enough to order Hariri's murder. He's not about to take the rap for a brother-in-law who probably is involved, as well as a rival uncle, so he has to divert attention or he'll suddenly fall ill. I don't hear much about Hariri's business dealings but I'd bet he's not an innocent victim. With ties to the Saudi Royals, Chirac, and the UN, as well as being one of the wealthiest men in the world, must have financed most of the Muslim "merchants" and their "conspiracies", but deemed an apostate infidel by Wahabi's. Sending Mehlis to investigate was like sending a fox to look in on the henhouse, so maybe there is some truth to Assad's contentions. No one is right, no one can be trusted, so sorting out the truth is confusing!
#5
And add to all that the curious fact of Mehlis' report being given to the media with the 'track changes' function enabled - which revealed the names of the Syrian and Lebanese security officials suspected of involvement in Hariri's murder.
Mehlis claimed that he removed the names, but a careful look at how the document was edited reveals that he's almost certainly being economical with the truth. The beginning of the editing coincided with the start of his meeting with Annan and the names were removed around the time that he left the meeting.
That meeting lasted about 45 minutes and the editing continued for about another three hours, mostly mundane stuff, like corrections to grammar which reads like it was written by someone whose mother tongue is not English. But there is also politically correct editing - the smoothing over of phrases which were evidently a little rough for bland UN tastes - and also the removal of the name of a bank, officials of which Mehlis suspects of involvement in the assassination.
Senior Shiite cleric Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah said unity between Syria and Lebanon is still strong, despite a sharp increase in tensions between the two countries following a fiery speech by Syrian President Bashar Assad. During his Friday sermon, Fadlallah addressed a crowd of religious, political and social figures at the Imam Hasanein mosque in Beirut's southern suburbs. He said: "The unity of the two countries is a reality; this reality comes at the security, economic and political level." Fadlallah criticized Lebanese officials for neglecting the economic situation in the country, saying "everyone is concerned with everything but the economic crisis."
He also said they had failed to recognize the true intentions of Western governments who are "planning to control the region." Fadlallah said Lebanon is being used by Western governments as a tool to pressure Syria for their own interests. He questioned why UN officials passed resolutions on Lebanon's internal affairs and threatened Lebanon and Syria with sanctions or force, but failed to issue a resolution demanding that Israel "stop the gradual genocide that is being committed against the Palestinian people." Fadlallah also said recent international resolutions "suggest the U.S. is controlling the UN like a card to serve its policies in the region, pressure Syria, support its occupation of Iraq, and provide complete support to Israel's security."
Posted by: Fred ||
11/12/2005 00:00 ||
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"stop the gradual genocide that is being committed against the Palestinian people."
Simply unable to make any statement without mentioning that.
#2
historical precedent was that ex-presidents STFU in public. Carter and Clinton don't have the class or clue necessary ....Every time Jimmy speaks, he should have to answer as to his failed policies and utter weakness and how he helped spawn the rise of Islamofacism
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/12/2005 13:01 Comments ||
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#3
Bush won both his runs for president, Carter won only the first of his. Who does that make more in line with American values?
Posted by: 49 pan ||
11/12/2005 13:26 Comments ||
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#7
Was Napoleon Bonaparte responsible for getting so many Frenchmen killed, fighting spirit genetically removed from the population?
Given that the Franco-Prussian War was about fifty years later, and WWI about forty after that, no. The blame for the emasculation of the French is usually laid on two things: WWI and socialism.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
11/12/2005 13:48 Comments ||
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#8
The precedent was that Republican ex-Presidents stay silent. LBJ didn't live long after retirement, but Truman was an asshole at times. Though, of course, Carter has set new lows on behavior. Even Cliton hasn't been quite as bad as Carter.
Why can't he get Alzheimer's? It would be an improvement.
It's too bad GHWB is such a gentleman. It would be good to hear him say "Shut up; we've all been trying to clean up the mess you left us."
#10
Was Napoleon Bonaparte responsible for getting so many Frenchmen killed, fighting spirit genetically removed from the population?
Brilliant Pebbles, methinks that France, much like England, lost most of it's manhood in the Great War and WWII; can you imagine a France that produced Napoleon retreating into Vichy? I doubt that he could.
Posted by: Jim ||
11/12/2005 20:43 Comments ||
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#11
Not to mention the brain drain of Europe -> US.
#12
It's the culture, not the deaths. Russia, Germany, Poland all lost many times the men, but they are not considered (most of the time) passive-aggressive back stabbers.
Posted by: ed ||
11/12/2005 22:02 Comments ||
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Israel is planning to protest a western Indian state's move to include references in school books that glorify Adolf Hitler, a news report said Friday.
The Israeli Embassy is planning to communicate its displeasure to Gujarat state, appalled that the school textbooks "sing praises" of Hitler, the Indian Express reported. The state is ruled by the Hindu rightist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Israel's Consul general in Bombay, Daniel Zonshine said the representation of Hitler in Gujarat's textbooks was "misleading".
"Personally, I feel offended, and publicly, the representation has caused anger and unhappiness at the twisting of facts," Zonshine was quoted by the paper as saying.
Zonshine said the protest could include writing to the state government. "We are exploring options, coordinating and exchanging views on this."
He added Israel plans to get the support of Germany. "It could also be a joint effort with the German embassy," he said.
The controversy concerns a Class X text book of the Gujarat Education Board that is silent on the Holocaust and glorifies Hitler. In a section on "Internal achievements of Nazism", the school book states; "Hitler adopted a new economic policy and brought prosperity to Germany. He made untiring efforts to make Germany self reliant within one decade".
The Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI) has also demanded the textbooks be withdrawn, stating the books are full of prejudices and hatred towards religious minorities.
#2
The key words here are 'BJP' and 'self sufficient'.
The BJP party includes some who come pretty close to openly advocating cleansing India of all who aren't Hindu. Attacks on Sikhs as well as Muslims suggests this isn't simply empty rhetoric.
In this case I understand the concern over the textbooks in question. Note that Catholic bishops share that concern.
#3
Most of this stuff is exaggeration by the Indian communist left. In the past they filled Indian textbooks with outright lies, whitewashing various muslim rulers who killed hundreds of thousands. They now attack rewritten textbooks, looking for any point of attack.
The BJP rule in Gujarat state has brought economic development, making it India's most industrialized. Apart from the Godra anti-muslim riots, set off by an attack on hindus, it has been relatively peaceful.
Posted by: john ||
11/12/2005 12:10 Comments ||
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#4
And now in Gujarat, all the muslim representatives have joined the BJP to form a coalition, keeping out the Congress.
An alliance of the BJP and muslims. The left is enraged.
Posted by: john ||
11/12/2005 12:12 Comments ||
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#5
Seems these aren't even BJP textbooks.
September 30, 2004 21:54 IST
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday blamed the Congress for glorifying Hitler and Nazism in schoolbooks in Gujarat, saying these were brought out in 1986 when the Congress was in power.
The Narendra Modi government plans to withdraw these books, party spokesman Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said in New Delhi.
Naqvi said he had a telephonic talk with Modi in the wake of reports that "in Gujarat, Hitler is a textbook hero".
He said the CM told him that the books were published when the Congress was at the helm of affairs.
Naqvi also dismissed Congress criticism over certain schoolbooks in Gujarat in which Kashmir has been depicted as part of Pakistan. He said what had been shown was a physical map and not a political one.
Posted by: john ||
11/12/2005 12:38 Comments ||
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#6
Self sufficent by invading other countries, and enslaving groups of his own population.
An education department official said the chapter "ceases to be part of the syllabus". A letter dated October 29, 2005 written by Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Board secretary BV Nanavati has been sent to all district educational officers in this regard.
The withdrawal was declared a day after Israel's consulgeneral Daniel Zohar Zonshire, who was on a visit to the state, indicated in Vadodara that he would write to the Gujarat government protesting against the glorification of Hitler.
Posted by: john ||
11/12/2005 13:28 Comments ||
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#8
"Damn! We got caught. Let's wait a while and see if we can sneak it in again."
Bose helped organize the Free Indian Legion of the Wermacht (later transferred to the Waffen SS)
Posted by: john ||
11/12/2005 17:02 Comments ||
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#11
early on people all over the world were cheering hitler,JFM, they saw germany as throwing off the humilations of WWI, which germany was.. of course it didn't take long for the cheers turn into gasps of horror...(though not everyone made that transition)
I couldn't find the telegram, buh I found a public comment which seems to cover the issue--
here is ghandi's 'praise'
"I do not consider Hitler to be as bad as he is depicted. He is showing an ability that is amazing and seems to be gaining his victories without much bloodshed."
it's not the victories which ghandi found impressive, gandhi hated all war.
what ghandi was praising was the efficency and relative low loss of life that came from the blitzkrieg.. nothing more
Israel Chooses Indian PSLV To Launch New Spy Satellite
By BARBARA OPALL-ROME and K. S. JAYARAMAN
Space News Correspondents
TEL AVIV, Israel and NEW DELHI â In a controversial break from a longstanding military space policy of strategic self-reliance, Israel has decided to launch its next spy satellite aboard Indiaâs Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rather than its own indigenous Shavit rocket.
Officials here say Israelâs Ministry of Defense and state-owned satellite producer Israel Aircraft Industries Ltd. (IAI) are nearing conclusion with their Indian counterparts of all political and contractual agreements required for the planned October 2006 launch of the TechSAR, Israelâs first synthetic aperture radar imaging satellite. On the government-to-government level, officials said, a pre-existing bilateral accord on strategic cooperation already covers most aspects of the mission.
In a Nov. 10 interview, a Ministry of Defense source estimated the PSLV launch cost at no more than $15 million, whereas the Shavit price tag ranges from $15 million to $20 million. The estimated 260-kilogram TechSAR is slated as the exclusive payload aboard the PSLV, which will be launched from the Indian Space Research Organisationâs Satish Dhawan Space Center on the nationâs southeastern coast. If all agreements are finalized in the coming months, as expected, IAI will ship the satellite to the Indian launch site by summer.
Contacted by phone, officials in the Indian Space Research Organisation in Bangalore told PTI they cannot comment anything at this stage for 'confidentiality' reasons.
India and Israel had signed an umbrella agreement for space collaboration a few months after the visit of Shimon Peres, the then deputy prime minister and minister for foreign affairs of Israel to ISRO on January 9, 2002.
Under a separate agreement signed on December 25, 2003, ISRO is expected to launch Israel's TAUVEX telescope that will image the sky in the Ultra-Violet spectrum. The date for this launch is not fixed yet.
Posted by: john ||
11/12/2005 06:59 ||
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#1
Guess TechSAR will be passing over Kashmir soon.
Posted by: john ||
11/12/2005 8:40 Comments ||
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#2
Interesting.. 1 m resolution for this bird...
Israel Building New Radar Satellite
BY BARBARA OPALL-ROME
March 04, 2005
Israelâs Ministry of Defense and Elta Systems Ltd., a subsidiary of government-owned Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI), unveiled details of the TecSAR satellite, a low-earth orbiting synthetic aperture radar technology demonstrator planned for launch by the first half of 2006.
According to specifications displayed along with a mockup of the satellite during a Feb. 22 seminar at Eltaâs headquarters in Ashdod, the satellite will weigh 300 kilograms, including the 100-kilogram SAR payload. The multimode payload employs electronic beam steering, which can be operated in strip-imaging mode, whereby synthetic apertures are targeted on wide geographical swaths; in spot-imaging mode which focuses on a specific, pre-assigned target; or in so-called mosaic mode, where the radar imager slews its focus on a number of spots in the same general target area.
The TecSAR â like Israelâs Ofeq series of spy satellites â will pass over specific target areas once every 90 minutes or so. But because the satelliteâs SAR payload is capable of providing high-resolution imagery during the day, at night and in all weather conditions, it will provide double the amount of usable intelligence within a 24-hour, since the Ofeqâs electro-optical camera cannot capture imagery at night or through clouds and other climatic obstacles.
In a Feb. 22 announcement, Elta noted that a powerful ground station is already deployed to task new missions via a high speed data link, which also downloads images for further exploitation and interpretation. The data link is capable of storing 240 giga-bytes of memory.
Technology incorporated in TechSAR is based on more than two decades of development work at Elta, Israelâs radar development house. Operational SAR systems developed by Elta include the EL/M-2060P reconnaissance pod for fighters, which captures 50,000 kilometers of territory per hour at standoff ranges of up to 150 kilometers, and the EL/M-2055 for unmanned aerial vehicles and light aircraft, both of which are capable of detecting and tracking moving ground targets.
IAI President and Chief Executive Moshe Keret said Elta, through its development and production of TechSAR, joins IAIâs other business units that contribute to Israelâs space-related capabilities. IAIâs MBT Division is prime contractor for four Israeli satellites currently in orbit: the military Ofeq-5, the commercial Earth Remote Observation Satellite (Eros-A), the Amos-1 and Amos-2 telecommunications satellites.
Additionally, IAIâs MLM Division is prime contractor for the Shavit, three-stage rocket, which is expected to loft TechSAR into orbit. Although the Shavit failed to launch Israelâs Ofeq-6 into orbit last August due to a faulty electronic component, defense and industry sources here said Israelâs MoD is sticking with the indigenous system for upcoming launches of the Ofeq-7 as well as TechSAR.
âOur ability to integrate SAR systems and similar technologies will enable our company to advance future business opportunities also in the sector of civilian space,â Keret told government and industry executives at the Elta seminar in late February.
While security classifications prevented IAI and MoD officials from discussing the intended resolution for the planned TechSAR, sources here said the spacecraft should be capable of detecting objects as small as one-meter across. An expert at Israelâs Asher Space Research Institute, part of the Technion technical university of Haifa, noted that resolution of SAR satellites is usually determined by the size of the radarâs antennae when measured in the direction of movement, meaning that a SAR satellite with a two-meter antennae should generate imagery of about one meter, depending on orbiting altitude and other technical variables.
Posted by: john ||
11/12/2005 12:32 Comments ||
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ISLAMABAD: President Pervez Musharraf has said that Pakistan will not recognise Israel and establish trade links with it until an independent state of Palestine does not come into existence. "⊠does not [sic] come into existence." So, in other words, your stance is indistinguishable from that of every other Middle Eastern sh!thole that demands Israel abandon its self-defense as a pre-condition to any installation of progressive policy in innumerable terrorist regimes. Shuckey darn! I owe Rantburg such a debt of gratitude for teaching me how to observe this exact sort of philosophic prestidigitation!
He said this while talking to American Jewish Congress (AJC) Chairman Jack Rosen who called on him on Friday. Jack Rosen told the president he had visited quake stricken areas and was saddened by the massive devastation caused by the quake. He informed the president that the AJC was raising funds to help quake victims. The president thanked Mr Rosen and said Pakistan needed billions of dollars for reconstruction and rehabilitation of quake victims. And this is the naked face of evil. Itâs quite all right to send Pakistan untold âbillions of dollarsâ in quake relief, but Musharraf refuses to recognize Israel until their most dire enemy is ensconced without the least challenge to their psychotic anti-Semitic stance.
Pakistan was not opposed to Israel, he said adding âwe want lasting peace and stability in the Middle East. Israel should evacuate other occupied territories and help establish an independent Palestine.â To paraphrase; Israel must surrender all defensively captured territory without the least reciprocity from those who demand complete and total destruction of the Jewish State.
The president condemned terrorist activities in Palestine saying that an end to terrorism violence could lead to a solution to the problem. He urged the American Jewish Congress to exert pressure on Israel to move towards the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. Without the least mention of how Palestine must abandon all âterrorist activitiesâ in turn.
Musharraf really needs infinite intimate contact with a clue bat. I fully realize that he is spewing for public consumption. Yet, the incredible hypocrisy of him strutting forth with hat in hand to demand BILLIONS WORTH OF international relief for his infestation of terrorist academies is simply ridiculous.
Let us not revel in the fact that Pakistanâs utterly corrupt enforcement of civil engineering codes directly contributed to this massive and avoidable slaughter. Yet, how can any of us not exult in the self-ordained predestination that so many of Pakistanâs madrasahs met with in natureâs most recent cataclysm?
#2
This is just pak disappointment that their overtures to Israel would not result in a stream of weapons for themselves or denial of same to India.
Posted by: john ||
11/12/2005 6:57 Comments ||
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#3
Zenster: I left the title alone (gotta keep it to one line).
Please ensure that you put your comments in HILITE, not italics. That way readers can see immediately what comments are yours, and what is the original source. Thx. AoS
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/12/2005 11:12 Comments ||
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#4
So, the question is: would the Pakistani myth (Indian subcontinent's Mussies are a nation, and are capable of self-determination) disappear before the Palestinian myth (which we all know and cherish), or not?
Pakistan is not the Palestinians and India is not Israel. When the Zionists returned after centuries to restart a Jewish state, they did not encounter organized Arab states ... they encountered the thin remnants of an old Muslim empire that had long since withered away or grown so feeble (Ottomans) as no longer to rule effectively - and which fell to the Brits well before Israel was established as a modern state. Moreover, a Zionist state would still not have been formed without the Balfour Declaration, of which many repented quickly but not before Israel was a fact on the ground.
The Moghuls, on the other hand, ruled the Indian subcontinent effectively for several centuries after they conquered most of it and they were still in power in many areas when the Brits moved in. Moreover, there was an agreement signed that would indeed have put most of Kashmir under Pakistan and not India .... the Indians had second thoughts and reneged on that deal (for better or for worse - I'm not judging the wisdom, just noting the history).
Your dig about Pakistan not really being a country would more usefully be applied to Afghanistan prior to the recent elections. We are in the process of changing that as well.
#6
Your dig about Pakistan not really being a country
It's not. It's a pack of religious fanatics with delusions of grandeur.
Fer crissake, its name means "Land of the Pure".
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
11/12/2005 14:01 Comments ||
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#7
So????
If having delusions of grandeur were a bar against being a country, the UN would have a lot fewer members and our State Department would be a lot smaller.
Not saying that wouldn't have its benefits, but it isn't a likely scenario ... and in any case our military would have to increase proportionally - or more.
Pakistan is a country. It's not a 1st world, industrialized, wealthy, Western democracy. But it's a country.
#8
Please ensure that you put your comments in HILITE, not italics. That way readers can see immediately what comments are yours, and what is the original source. Thx. AoS
Steve White, if you examine my posting history, you'll see that I have scrupulously followed the posting guidelines here. For some reason, the Mac computers at my job and my decrepit back-up computer at home do not implement the hilite function, even when I enter the HTML code manually.
All this should change once I repair my main home computer. I thank you for editing the above article. I would also like to take this opportunity to remind other posters to please, please condense the text of articles submitted. Many are still being posted with text bodies consisting almost entirely of single sentence paragraphs.
#9
Zen, I also post from a Mac. I've created a series of text tears in a folder that give me all the codes I normally use (strike text, hilite, my comments, etc) and drop into into the box as necessary.
Here is the text for hilite:
text goes here
I just drag this into the box where I want it and type in-between the brackets as shown.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/12/2005 16:24 Comments ||
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#10
Arrgh, that hilited that text. Here is the text in a way you can use it:
[SPAN CLASS=HILITE>text goes here[/SPAN>
Change the square bracket to an angle bracket and you're all set to hilite.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/12/2005 16:25 Comments ||
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#11
Steve, thank you for your assistance. I'll give it another shot here and see what happens. It's nice to know that others use my own trick of creating an "alpha file" of ready-to-wear HTML tags. I'm goint to try using your code tag.
#13
No Zen, the tag 'span' and the attrbute 'hilite' should be case-insensitive.
span in lower and hilite in lower case
span in upper and HILITE in upper case
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
11/12/2005 17:01 Comments ||
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#14
To quote the immortal Alice, "Curiouser and curiouser." Thanks, all. I'll have to rely upon my habitual and painstaking bolding of screen names and the like to preserve my reputation for reasonably competent coding.
#15
Moreover, there was an agreement signed that would indeed have put most of Kashmir under Pakistan and not India .... the Indians had second thoughts and reneged on that deal (for better or for worse - I'm not judging the wisdom, just noting the history).
Incorrect.
The Act of Independence passed by the UK parliament gave the rulers of all princely states the option to join either India or Pakistan provided their territories were contiguous with either state. No independence was allowed.
There was no agreement between Jinnah and Nehru on Kashmir. Jinnah tried to persuade the maharaja of Jammu-Kashmir to join Pakistan but he vacillated. Only after Pakistan sent irregulars to capture J+K did the Maharaja accede to India.
The accession document was co-signed by Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India.
Posted by: john ||
11/12/2005 17:24 Comments ||
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#16
And Pakistan isn't much of a country. It is founded on a principle that muslims cannot live in peace in a country in which they are not a majority.
In any event, Pakistan as envisaged by Jinnah died in 1971 when the Pak army committed genocide against the Bengalis (most of whom were muslims).
Roughly 200 US Marines stationed on the southern Japan island of Okinawa have been deployed to Pakistan to help with recovery following the devastating earthquake that struck northern Pakistan a month ago, a spokesman said on Friday. The Marines flew out of Kadena Air Base on Okinawa aboard a commercial airliner late on Thursday, said 2nd Lt Clinton Gebke, a spokesman for the 3rd Marines Expeditionary Unit. The length of their humanitarian mission had not yet been determined. Gebke said the troops would be primarily tasked with medical assistance, and would take a surgical group and mobile laboratory with them. They would have beds for up to 90 patients, he said.
Be careful, guys!
Posted by: Fred ||
11/12/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
Lets pray for expanding the mission! AQ just might lose their last sanctuary thanks to a earthquake from Allah.
Posted by: 49 pan ||
11/12/2005 8:50 Comments ||
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#2
I don't know about this story. The Marines get their medical assistance from the Navy, and a Marine spokesman would never refer to Marines as "troops".
President Hosni Mubarak's strongest challenger in the presidential race two months ago lost his parliamentary seat in an upset in the first round of Egypt's legislative elections. Ayman Nour, an opposition figure and the leader of al Ghad party, was defeated by a candidate of the ruling National Democratic Party for the Bab al Shariyah constituency in southern Cairo. In an exclusive interview with Asharq al Awsat, Nour indicated that his defeat was the result of unprecedented rigging by the government. He refused to blame his rival but said, "I expected this result. The government used all its powers to ensure a victory."
"What happened cannot be called elections," he said, charging that his party followers were harassed by the government. Nour promised to appeal to the courts to challenge the results. Commenting on the campaign to distance him from politics using legitimate means, Nour said, "All this is because I said no to the government. My opposition will continue and they will pay the price dearly" but he did not elaborate.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/12/2005 00:00 ||
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Police arrested seven Egyptians taking part in a Muslim Brotherhood protest on Friday against what the Islamist opposition group says were rigged legislative elections, a police source said. The banned but tolerated Brotherhood fielded 52 candidates as independents in the first round of the elections on Wednesday. Full official results were yet to be announced, but the Brotherhood says it won four seats. Another 42 of its candidates will go forward to a second round of voting on Tuesday because there was no clear winner in the seats they contested.
The Muslim Brotherhood supreme guide Mohammad Mahdi Akef was surprised that the groupâs candidate in Al-Manufiyah entered the second round as he had obtained an estimated 22 thousand votes while the ruling National Democratic Party's candidate only received 8 thousand votes. He denied that the results will dishearten the Brotherhood, âWe await our fate from God. What is happening confirms and shows that the government did not wish at any time to embark on reforms or change as it has alleged.â Commenting on his predictions for the next round of elections, Akef said, âI do not know and it is impossible to predict any good fortune. What the government has done has exceeded what we imagined. We knew they were going to rig the elections and would not allow the will of the people to triumph but we did not imagine they would act on this scale with the world watching and listening.â
Posted by: Fred ||
11/12/2005 00:00 ||
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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.
North Korea said Friday it would not start dismantling its nuclear weapons programme until the United States lifts sanctions on eight Pyongyang companies, bringing six-way nuclear talks back to stalemate. The unexpected demand came on the last day of a three-day session meant to kick-start negotiations on how to implement a September 19 agreement in which the North committed to disarm in return for energy aid and other benefits. "We have seriously proposed the US should lift financial sanctions on us," Kim Gye-Gwan, North Korea's chief delegate to the six-nation talks, told reporters after negotiations in Beijing ended.
It has been made known to Asharq al-Awsat that American lawyers from the organization Amnesty International have volunteered to defend a number of Saudi detainees of Guantanamo Bay in American courts. Ahmad Mazhar, the head of the Saudi team of lawyers responsible for the cases of the Saudi detainees of Guantanamo Bay told Asharq al-Awsat that his team were ready to defend the Saudi citizens in front of American courts in case negotiations between Riyadh and Washington fell through.
Among the first to condemn the suicide bombings in Jordan were Palestinian militants anxious to show they have no sympathy with Al Qaedaâs choice of targets, even if the group was emulating their own bomb-belt tactics. There was no suggestion the Palestinian factions were renouncing the validity of blowing up Israeli civilians, but their swift rejection of the Amman attacks demonstrated their desire to put daylight between themselves and Qaeda jihadists. 
Hamas will not negotiate with Israel or repeat the mistakes of the past, according to its leader in the Occupied Territories. In an interview with Asharq al Awsat, Mahmud al Zahar, said his earlier statements in English to Radio Israel went as follows: âNegotiation is not our intention. It is a means to an end for us. If the goal is to liberate our territory and free our prisoners from Israeli jails and if the aim is to rebuild what the Israeli occupation has destroyed over many years, then we support negotiations.â
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has pledged to continue Yasser Arafat's struggle to gain a foothold in Jerusalem, while thousands of Palestinians have marked the first anniversary of his death. "I renew the pledge to continue on the path that he started and exert whatever efforts are needed to raise the flag of Palestine on the walls, the minarets and the churches of Jerusalem," Abbas said at a rally in Arafat's old Ram Allah compound on Friday. 
Senior Shiite cleric Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah said unity between Syria and Lebanon is still strong, despite a sharp increase in tensions between the two countries following a fiery speech by Syrian President Bashar Assad. During his Friday sermon, Fadlallah addressed a crowd of religious, political and social figures at the Imam Hasanein mosque in Beirut's southern suburbs. He said: "The unity of the two countries is a reality; this reality comes at the security, economic and political level." Fadlallah criticized Lebanese officials for neglecting the economic situation in the country, saying "everyone is concerned with everything but the economic crisis." 
Roughly 200 US Marines stationed on the southern Japan island of Okinawa have been deployed to Pakistan to help with recovery following the devastating earthquake that struck northern Pakistan a month ago, a spokesman said on Friday. The Marines flew out of Kadena Air Base on Okinawa aboard a commercial airliner late on Thursday, said 2nd Lt Clinton Gebke, a spokesman for the 3rd Marines Expeditionary Unit. The length of their humanitarian mission had not yet been determined. Gebke said the troops would be primarily tasked with medical assistance, and would take a surgical group and mobile laboratory with them. They would have beds for up to 90 patients, he said. 
President Hosni Mubarak's strongest challenger in the presidential race two months ago lost his parliamentary seat in an upset in the first round of Egypt's legislative elections. Ayman Nour, an opposition figure and the leader of al Ghad party, was defeated by a candidate of the ruling National Democratic Party for the Bab al Shariyah constituency in southern Cairo. In an exclusive interview with Asharq al Awsat, Nour indicated that his defeat was the result of unprecedented rigging by the government. He refused to blame his rival but said, "I expected this result. The government used all its powers to ensure a victory."
Police arrested seven Egyptians taking part in a Muslim Brotherhood protest on Friday against what the Islamist opposition group says were rigged legislative elections, a police source said. The banned but tolerated Brotherhood fielded 52 candidates as independents in the first round of the elections on Wednesday. Full official results were yet to be announced, but the Brotherhood says it won four seats. Another 42 of its candidates will go forward to a second round of voting on Tuesday because there was no clear winner in the seats they contested.
