In cooperation with coastal guards, the Yemeni security apparatuses seized around 6,900 infiltrators since the beginning of 2005, 1,600 of whom are women and children. The Jordanian Dustoor Newspaper quoted Yemeni official sources as saying: "Nearly 2,700 infiltrators and illegal residents were caught in the Yemen lands late this month". The Website of September 26 run by the Ministry of Defense reported that security sources mentioned more than 95% of those caught in the Yemeni coasts, particularly Shabwa Coast to the south of Yemen, were transported by unidentified boats from the Horn of Africa into the Yemeni lands. It said around 2675 infiltrators, caught during last March, hold Somali citizenships, and 565 of whom are women and children, in addition to other seven people with different Arab citizenships and 18 Ethiopians. Infiltrators caught in last March and April numbered up to 4,200 including 1,100 women and children. This brought to over 6 thousand the number of infiltrators and illegal residents seized in the Yemeni lands over the first fourth of 2005. The sources pointed out that over 6060 of the total number of infiltrators caught in the Yemeni lands hold the Somali citizenship.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/29/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[8 views]
Top|| File under:
#3
Vladimir Putin defended Iran over its nuclear program and sparred with his Israeli counterpart over a Syrian missile deal on the first official visit by a Russian or Soviet leader to Israel.
I hope Putin's hosts weren't drinking anything at the time...
#6
Interesting ... an Arab News article that mentions the Holocaust and anti-Semetism without smirking openly.
Putin strongly condemned anti-Semitism amid concern among Israeli officials about a rise of the phenomenon in Russia. He toured a stark new museum commemorating the Holocaust and presented a sculpture recalling its victims as a gift from the Russian people. âIn the 21st century there can be no place for xenophobia, anti-Semitism or other forms of racial or religious intolerance,â Putin said after he was greeted by Katsav.
âThis is not only our debt to the millions who died in the gas chambers, it is our debt to future generations.,â Putin said.
In the afternoon, he visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, which recently dedicated a new museum complex.
Posted by: too true ||
04/29/2005 22:02 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Can we now agree that we need to spend some more money on BMD?
Apologies to anyone who lives there, but I think Seattle or Frisco are eyesores. And yet, I would not want anyone, even Rachel Corrie's parents, who lives there to be murdered by Kimmie.
#7
As was said on nightly news just last night, Bill CLinton, gosh darn it, had North Korea "contained" and "peaceful" until Dubya and America took away their Pyongyang Accord goodies.
How and Why can KIng Arthur and his Fascist Warmongering Jedi Knights take away the properly-stolen wine, women, and free apple pies of "Support-YOur-Local Warlord/General/Bandit-Slaver"!?
The greatest threat to the US emanates from Al Qaeda and its affiliated groups based in Europe, a prominent expert on terrorism told a congressional committee on Wednesday.
Peter Bergen of the New America Foundation, who is also CNN's terrorism expert, in testimony before the House Committee on International Relations rejected the common belief that there are terrorist "sleeper cells" in the Untied States. In fact, there were such cells in Europe that could be used to mount an attack on the US, a threat that was likely to increase with the rise in Europe's Muslim population. He said the European terrorist would tend to be educated, unlike his madrassa-trained counterpart from Pakistan. He pointed out that European citizens who adopt the Al Qaeda philosophy could move around easily and have the ability to enter countries easily. He quoted Gilles Kepel, the French scholar who said the war for Muslim minds around the world may turn on the outcome of how European Muslims deal with Islamist militancy in their midst, and the extent to which European Muslims can be truly integrated into their host societies. The 20 million Muslims who live in Europe are less well treated than their counterparts in America and in some countries even treated as second-class citizens.
Bergen concentrated on British Muslims who, he pointed out, are young and poorly integrated into society and, therefore, vulnerable to extremism. Seventy percent of them are under 30. Unemployment among them is high, which leads to anger. Eight out of 10 believe that the war on terrorism is a war on Islam. They not only represent a threat to their own homelands but also to the United States, he added.
Calude Moniquet, director general of the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Centre, told the Committee that it is quite difficult to draw a general view of Islamic extremism in Europe. It was only after 9/11 that Islamist street demonstrations had been seen in Europe. There were now Islamist parties everywhere on the Continent, but none of them has parliamentary representation. Hate-preaching is common in many mosques and since 9/11 anti-Semitism has increased, much of it emanating from young Muslims. Hundreds of young European Muslims had gone to Iraq to fight. However, the exact Muslim "threat" was difficult to determine. In a given Muslim population in France, only five percent can be classed as fundamentalist, out of which three percent could be considered "dangerous". Given the Muslim population of six million, there could be 0.3 million fundamentalists, 9,000 of them falling in the "dangerous" category.
Moniquet said there were many causes for Islamic extremism in Europe. In France, most Muslims were Algerian and until very recently "absolutely nothing was done to help them integrate." The witness added, "This is the European reality and the European shame. We must live with it and we are paying for it." Most Muslim clerics were trained in Saudi Arabia and have no real knowledge of the societies in which they find themselves. Radical clerics had taken advantage of this and begun advocating radical Islam and attacking Western values. The threat, the witness said, is "very real and is both political and terrorist." Politically, Islamists are trying to subvert Western society by contesting humanist values and calling for Sharia tribunals to judge civil and personal matters. Moniquet disclosed that since 9/11, 20 major Islamist terrorist attacks had been averted in Europe, but Islamism is asserting itself as a "mutant virus" and local groups made up of the very young are emerging. Thanks to al Qaeda, an "International Islamist Terror" now exists and the threat will not diminish in the foreseeable future, the witness added.
Lorenzo Vindino of the Investigative Project, Washington, informed the Committee that in the last 10 years, Europe has seen a "troubling escalation" of Islamist terrorist activities because of lax immigration policies, radicalisation of segments of a burgeoning Muslim population and the ineffective role of security agencies. Every single al Qaeda attack had a European link. Al Qaeda has become decentralised with cells operating out of Europe. He said it was not far-fetched to speak of Europe as "a new Afghanistan." He blamed political asylums granted to hundreds of Islamic fundamentalist in Europe during the 1980s. Some of the worst radicals facing prosecution in their own countries found a safe haven and new operational base in Europe. He said these people share the same Salafi ideology and the common dream of a global Islamic state. He quoted a French intelligence report that said radical Islam represents for some Muslims "a vehicle of protest against problems of access to employment and housing, discrimination of various sorts, the very negative image of Islam in public opinion."
Vindino said the European criminal underworld provides an excellent recruiting pool, crime also constitutes a major source of financing for terrorist organisations. Islamic terrorists have been actively involved in recent years in human smuggling, as well as in drug trafficking. Billions of dollars form Moroccan hashish trade are believed to have gone to these organisations. There are legal difficulties faced by European authorities in proving terrorism links. In many countries laws prevent intelligence agencies from sharing information with prosecutors or law enforcement officials without a long and complicated procedure. He warned that the spread of Islamic radicalism in Europe needs to be closely monitored by the US, because hundreds of terrorists with European passports can enter the US with ease.
Matthew A, Levitt of the Washington Institute of Terrorism Studies, said the rise of global jihadist movements in Europe was alarming because they were a network, tied together by individual relationships. Hezbollah, he pointed out, was active in Europe and had used it as a launching pad from which to infiltrate operatives into Israel. He stated that Hamas front organisations in Europe had come to attention in 2003 when two British South Asian Muslims carried out a suicide bombing mission in Tel Aviv. Various charities in Europe, such as the Aqsa International Foundation, were run to raise money for Hamas and its operations. He quoted form an interview conducted by Jessica Stern in Pakistan where the leader of a jehadi outfit told her that there were person-to-person contacts with other groups, and "sometimes fighters from Hamas and Hezbollah help us. He added that a good place to meet was Iran. "We don't involve other organisations, just individuals," he explained.
Levitt told the hearing, "Counterterrorism is not about defeating terrorism, it is about constricting the environment in which terrorists operate — making it harder for them to do what they want to do at every level: conducting operations, procuring and transferring false documents, ferrying fugitives from one place to another, financing, raising and laundering funds. It is about making it more difficult for terrorists to conduct their operational, logistical and financial activities."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/29/2005 12:44:23 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
No, no, no. The BBC ran a program explaining that "Global Terrorism" doesn't exist -- it's just a plot by the Neocons (whoever they are) to take over the world.
#2
Europe.
(1) Hothouse for terrorism.
(2) Facillitator of the acquisition of WDM capability by MM.
(3) Avid promoters of "environmentalism", "anti-capitalism", "anti-zionism" etc...
The suspected former ringleader of an Islamic extremist group from which the millennium bomber reportedly emerged says he is innocent of terrorism claims, according to an interview published Thursday. Fateh Kamel, who returned to Canada in January after serving a prison term in France for his involvement in terrorist plots, told the National Post he only helped Bosnian Muslims fight Serbs during the 1990s civil war. "We helped them and now we are the war criminals," Kamel told the newspaper. "That's what hurts."
One gets labeled a "war criminal" based on one's acts, not the side one was on.
The newspaper said that some authorities and national intelligence officials are dismayed that the Algerian-born Canadian is back in Montreal. Peter MacKay, the deputy Conservative leader in Parliament, said Ottawa should consider revoking his citizenship. "I don't think most Canadians have much comfort level knowing that this convicted terrorist is now back in our country," MacKay said.
Your cousins to the south aren't exactly pleased, either.
The newspaper found Kamel at a cathouse townhouse the French-speaking city, where he is now reportedly living with his wife and young son.
Authorities claim Ahmed Ressam belonged to the same Montreal extremist group as Kamel. Ressam was caught in December 1999 trying to enter the United States from British Columbia with a truckload of explosives; he was convicted in April 2001. His sentencing was postponed Wednesday, however, after U.S. authorities expressed hoped he would continue to divulge details about other alleged terrorist activities.
Keep singing, Ahmed, and we'll lower the voltage.
Kamel insisted he didn't know Ressam well. "I've seen him here like everybody," Kamel said. "It's somebody I know hardly at all."
"No, no! Certainly not!"
During Kamel's three-week French trial in 2001, however, Ressam was convicted in absentia. At that trial, authorities portrayed Kamel as the spiritual leader of the so-called Roubaix gang - named for the city in northern France where they were based in the mid-1990s. Other gang members fled or were killed during a 1996 police raid on the Roubaix headquarters.
Kamel apparently ran a small craft store in Montreal until his arrest in Jordan in 1999. He was sent to France and convicted in 2001 and sentenced to eight years for trafficking in forged documents and his association with terrorists implicated in subway bombings. Kamel was released early, reportedly for squealing like a pig good behavior.
Investigators believe his Groupe Fateh Kamel was tied to the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA) as well as the al-Qaida network. He maintained in the interview that he was never a part of an extremist group. "I was never with them. I can't stop something I never started."
"Lies! All lies!"
This article starring:
AHMED RESAM
al-Qaeda in Europe
FATEH KAMEL
al-Qaeda in Europe
Peter MacKay
Algerian Armed Islamic Group
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/29/2005 12:49:07 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
From the Wall Street Journal. Lightly edited for length. Reg. req'd.
A report published by the Defense Department this week recommends "immediate . . . engagement by public, private and government agencies to improve the nation's foreign language and cultural competency." In other words, Johnny can't speak anything but English. snip. Not exactly true, given how many Americans are immigrants or the children of immigrants, who speak the parental language at home, but let's not argue about that now.
In truth, many Americans aren't proficient in a second language because they don't need to be. The rest of the world is busier than ever learning English. While speaking French may serve Brits well when they want to buy a second home in Provence (and still get gouged by local contractors), why should we bother, when Parisians will pretend not to understand us anyway? Of course, lots of us don't speak French, but that's because the local French-speakers A) speak English, and B) the Cajun and Quebecois dialects aren't useful beyond their linguistic ranges, or even very intelligible to the more numerous speakers of Standard French.
After 9/11, though, the languages deficit isn't so funny. The Defense Department report, "A Call to Action for National Language Capabilities," comes out of a huge conference in 2004 where experts discussed the growing strategic importance of language facility, in areas from intelligence gathering to commerce. While the report often lapses into the obfuscating tongue of bureaucratese, it states clearly that more than 80 federal agencies "depend in part on proficiency in more than 100 foreign languages." Without tactlessly mentioning Arabic as one of the skills urgently needed, it also notes that after 9/11 Americans were "caught flat-footed, unprepared to confront Al Qaeda terrorists."snip
This would be a U.S. Civilian Linguist Reserve Corps, the subject of a Congress-commissioned feasibility study by the National Defense University. Put simply, Americans with language skills could join a registry indicating their willingness to be called into service as needed. Not for the military--unless perhaps some wanted to sign a special waiver. But if the FBI, for instance, suddenly needed a Farsi-speaker to help with translation or analysis, it would have a list of people, pre-vetted for reliability, ready to step in.
Like many promising ideas, this one has been languishing for months while Congress attends to business presumably more urgent than national security. That's too bad, because an important resource for a linguist reserve is already in place. Among nations of the world, America is uniquely rich with immigrants and their descendants. If Johnny can't speak Spanish, let alone Pashto, many of his classmates can. I do believe I said something about that above, just after the writer's obligatory swipe at American language skills.
#2
Like many promising ideas, this one has been languishing for months while Congress attends to business presumably more urgent than national security.
#3
Another alternative is to wait till the need arises and then advertise and pay the relevant individuals A LOT of money for their skill. I suspect it soule be cheaper than setting up a registry bureaucracy to run for ever and ever.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
04/29/2005 16:25 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Have they considered finding people via bloggers?
#5
I've been trying to volunteer for something like this for years. I was on my old PD's list for Russian speakers, and was called out for Spanish speaking details lots of times.
If there is anything that comes down, I'd love to do it (can't join the military....asthma, the same reason Dad was turned down in WW2).
I'm dead serious. If anyone here finds out about something like this, lemme know. Hell, I'd even be willing to try to learn another one.
(I'm just one of those lucky little twerps who pick up languages much more easily than the average. Went to Germany, didn't speak any German, within a week I was having basic conversations in the stores & restaurants in Stuttgart. Even handled the post office & rail station.)
#6
Might wanna think about this from a braoder perspective, too-an Arabic, Chinese or Pashtu class would be every bit as practical as a geometry class for some students. It depends largely on natural aptitude and an earlier opportunity to learn another in-demand language. When I was in high school, you did have to take a foreign language (Spanish, German, French or Latin). Obviously, the selection of languages offered in public schools needs some major tweaking. Any changes falling under the aegis of education, though, would likely take years and years of union haggling and major educational bigwig buttkissing. In one respect, I like the model that Germany used to have (I don't know if they still have it) where you choose earlier on in life the track you are best suited for-language study or physical fitness, engineering versus art, etc. If kids were taught the languages rather than adults, we'd see quicker and longer lasting language learning, and youthful graduates with lots of energy and new ideas to tap in to.
Once again, poor foresight and planning has us trying to catch up too late.
#7
Learning a foreign language might be fun (to those who enjoy it), but it is largely a waste of time. However, I think it might be useful to recruit first generation immigrants (born here, but parents of foreign origin), who speak a foreign language, but don't necessarily have much of a vocabulary or write it. They would probably pick it any additional bits of the language much faster than someone coming into a language program cold.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/29/2005 17:54 Comments ||
Top||
#10
The problem is MESA (Middle East Studies Association, which is semi-Islamist) is undercutting the effort to get more 'Mericans trained in Arabic and such. This is due to the belief that these newly trained folks will be used to better fight our enemy,
#11
I took French in High School but it was mostly wasted. I took Spanish in college and had more success (I'm conversant in Spanish). Teaching methods were a factor but the big difference is that I went to Mexico on a home stay for a few months.
Many American students, like me, never leave the U.S. Or if they do, they go with their families and stay in big international hotels where everyone speaks English. Until you first find (or put) yourself in a situation where your're surrounded by people talking in a foreign language, your motivation to work at it remains weak. In high school, repeating French dialog was mostly a joke and no one was going to humiliate themselves by trying to work on French-ifying their pronounciation.
But once you have success with one language, the whole concept of learning a foreign language opens up and starts making sense. It's much easier to pick up a 3rd language - providing that you're not too old. Japanese is supposedly much more difficult than Spanish but I found it to be easier. I started learning at age 22 which is much too old to ever become a full native speaker but I am pretty advanced and I can read the newspaper.
Posted by: John in Tokyo ||
04/29/2005 18:38 Comments ||
Top||
#12
I wonder if they will still have that 'NO JEWS NEED APPLY!!!' policy which the FBI has had for years (and may well still have...)
#13
The FBI is a borken organization when it comes to intel. Thats why every time I get a chance, I say its intel functions (as well as those of ATF and Border Patrol) should be transferred to a seperate domestic intel aganecy, maybe under DHS, and become a close cousin of the Coast Guard (like that Army/Navy/AF relationship to the CIA via DIA/NSA).
I dont know about languages being a waste of time ZF. I learned German growing up, Russian in my teens, Arabic in my 20's and picked up a smattering of Japanese, Greek, etc depending on where life took me. I got a lot of the culture with each of these languages, which made me better at intelligence work when I needed to get inside the other guys' heads. Arabic was the toughest - studying Islam, and several versions of the history of the region helped a lot. My wife, who learned Hungarian growing up (family language like my German was), and German at DLI (like my Arabic), plus the Russian every good intel analyst picked up in the Cold War (and a smattering of Arabic and Japanese from me), also things learning languages is valuable. Know your enemy. Right now the only thing Im still halfway decent is German, with some Arabic and Japanese (from helping son with homework).
My son learned German growing up (much the way I did), is completing 3 years of Japanese in High School, and is now looking to do 2 years of Chinese before enlisting in the Navy or Marine Corps (finish his degree in the service, then on his way to a 3 letter agency after that, like his old man and mom)
Oh, and that doesnt count the Spanish we all pick up in order to be able to order stuff at the fast-food drive through.
So langauges are valuable, in and of themselves - makes yoru brain work harder and establish analytical power in order to acquire and process a different language. Or at least thats my opinion.
#14
With all the difficulties in getting the locals to support the taxes that pay for school funding (at least in my area), there's absolutely no way we could get additional funding for additional language studies at the high school level. However, there is no reason motivated high school students couldn't take a class in one of the more exotic languages at a nearby college -- and even apply the earned college credits toward a college degree. As John says, the third language is easier, which would offset the challenges inherent in working at a post-secondary level. And it would be fairly simple to set up a system of Federal grants/loans for a student (high school or college) to take a college course in the target languages, say Arabic (including subsequent work in mutually unintelligible regional dialects), Pashto, Kurdish, Turkish, Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese to begin with), Farsi, and perhaps Malay.
John, from what I've heard, not all educated Japanese can read the newspapers, because of the two writing sets (the one that is like Chinese pictographs, and the one where the signs stand for sounds (Kenji?)). So I'm impressed!
DB, the problem with the German early tracking system is that the kids are generally herded onto the track that will have them end up like their parents, with little regard to individual ability. So, the kids of blue collar workers end up on the technical track, while the kids of managers go to college. Which is one reason German mechanics are so good, but unfortunately doesn't speak to the caliber to those that spend a decade or more in the university system.
#16
language-learning is a special skill and my hat's off to those of you, including Fred, who've excelled at it. I'm linguistically challenged unless immersed... couple weeks in Yucatan/Merida and I finally quit thinking in English
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/29/2005 19:38 Comments ||
Top||
#17
Some of the (computer) DVD-based language courses are pretty good. For $350, you can get the first two levels of a 4 level course in Arabic, Spanish, Mandarin, and a lot of other languages. These are a little light on formal grammar, good for conversational vignettes and include video of conversations that include native speakers with characteristic body language. The Rosetta Stone courses are some of the better ones.
Posted by: too true ||
04/29/2005 21:00 Comments ||
Top||
#18
TW, you would be hard put to FIND college courses in Pasto, Kurdish or Malay in any but a very few venues - if at all. Turkish at a few schools.
A lot depends on what you want to accomplish. Getting by as a tourist is one thing, translating texts is another and having cultural familiarity is a third thing yet.
Old Spook, I agree with you about the value of learning - AND USING - languages other than English. There are many concepts and ways of looking at the world embedded in other languages that do not lend themselves to easy translation ... it takes being in the culture or reading the literature a bit to really understand the impact of what is being said sometimes.
Posted by: too true ||
04/29/2005 21:04 Comments ||
Top||
The FBI is investigating claims by the radical Animal Liberation Front that some of its members had committed crimes against a pharmaceutical company - all aimed at pressuring the company to sever ties with a British firm it says mistreats animals during drug testing.
The probe, involving a series of possible federal crimes by the underground organization, was confirmed Thursday by FBI spokesman James Margolin.
Margolin said the investigation would examine a number of incidents over the past year that ALF claims its members committed against Forest Laboratories and some of its executives. The investigation was first reported in Thursday's editions of Newsday.
Forest Laboratories is a Manhattan-based company with facilities in several Long Island communities. Forest, which has 3,000 employees, specializes in medicines for depression, anxiety, Alzheimer's and hypertension.
ALF wants Forest to end ties with the British firm, Huntingdon Life Sciences, which it says kills animals in testing. A Huntingdon spokesman did not respond to a request for comment, but the company has said in the past it does not violate any laws in its experiments.
Jerry Vlasak, who operates a Web site in California that posts "communiques" from ALF, confirmed Thursday that the group has made claims in recent weeks that some of its members followed a Forest executive's wife to her job, entered her car, stole a credit card and bought $20,000 in traveler's checks that it then donated to four charities.
The woman, an employee at Stony Brook University, filed a report with campus police earlier this week saying that personal financial items were stolen from her car there.
Vlasak, who stated that he is not an ALF member - although he supports many animal welfare initiatives - said the group has also claimed responsibility for vandalizing a Forest plant in Inwood, on Long Island, last June.
It also claims it used a bullhorn at night for a week last October to harass a Forest Laboratories executive; glued the locks on the homes of other company executives in Nassau and Suffolk counties, and spray-painted their homes and cars with graffiti such as "puppy killer" and "murderer."
A recent internal Homeland Security document lists the Animal Liberation Front among groups that could potentially support al-Qaida as domestic terrorism threats.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/29/2005 12:51:34 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
The ALF work with al-Qaida? Well, maybe if Code Pink Coordinates....
Posted by: G Schumway ||
04/29/2005 17:55 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Vlasak needs some time away to learn to pick better friends. A cell with Bubba might loosen his tongue (or any other orifice). How long before these pukes kill someone with their idiocy? ELF already has come verrrry close with their arson attacks
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/29/2005 18:01 Comments ||
Top||
#4
I think that ALF members are starting to liberate their inner animal.
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan decided to take no action against his former chief of staff for shredding three years of files related to the oil-for-food inquiry, his spokesman said on Thursday. The Independent Inquiry Committee, led by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, said in its March report that Iqbal Riza, who retired in January, had shredded at least two documents that were not duplicated elsewhere.
But after reviewing the findings in the Volcker report in March, Annan found there was "no ground for disciplinary action" against Riza, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. Annan, in his own letter to Riza, dated April 19, said, "While those actions were careless, I do not believe they can be construed as deliberate attempts to impede the work of the Independent Inquiry Committee."
Atta boy, Kofi, keep digging. Your own grave, that is.
Riza, a 70-year-old Pakistani, had been close to Annan for more than a decade. He was his deputy when Annan headed peacekeeping operations, from 1993 to 1996. He became chief of staff in 1997, when Annan became secretary-general, and retired in January.
The inquiry committee, in an interim report in March, said Riza had agreed that his assistant could weed out three years of chronological files in April 2004, a day after the Security Council approved the oil-for-food investigation. Riza told the committee he believed the files were duplicates of those maintained elsewhere at the United Nations. But the inquiry found evidence that two documents were not duplicated and said Riza acted "imprudently."
The $67 billion oil-for-food program, which began in late 1996 and ended in 2003, was set up by the U.N. Security Council to ease the impact of sanctions imposed after Saddam Hussein's troops invaded Kuwait in 1990. Baghdad was allowed to sell oil to buy basic goods and could negotiate its own contracts.
After the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, Iraq disclosed a virtual who's who of groups and individuals around the world whom Saddam bribed or tried to bribe in an effort to get the sanctions lifted. Volcker, in an earlier interim report, said Benon Sevan, the head of the U.N. program, had steered Iraqi oil contracts to an Egyptian trader he knew. Dujarric said the United Nations would not pay Sevan's legal fees, which Annan had earlier agreed to pay. But Annan reversed the decision after the Volcker committee accused Sevan of a "grave conflict of interest."
"We did receive a letter from Mr. Sevan's lawyer earlier this month asking us to reconsider our position about the payment of his legal fees," Dujarric said. "The secretary-general's position on that is unchanged and his legal fees will not be paid for by the United Nations."
Posted by: Steve ||
04/29/2005 10:07:47 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Annan, in his own letter to Riza, dated April 19, said, "While those actions were careless, I do not believe they can be construed as deliberate attempts to impede the work of the Independent Inquiry Committee."
Evidence that hundreds of millions of dollars of U.N. Oil-for-Food (search) money ended up in the hands of mysterious Middle Eastern and Asian companies has raised concerns among congressional investigators that banks responsible for administering the programs shirked their efforts at due diligence.
For years, the United Nations' $64 billion Oil-For-Food program allowed the sanction-bound government of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to sell oil and use the proceeds to buy food and other humanitarian goods for Iraqi citizens. But an investigation into the program that began last year reveals that billions of dollars disappeared.
Much of the missing money has yet to be traced to its final destinations. Investigators say they fear some of the companies that received money transfers — despite banking rules meant to prevent cash from being diverted — may be fronts for Al Qaeda (search) or other terrorist groups.
On Thursday, members of the House International Relations Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations questioned executives of BNP-Paribas SA (search), the French-owned institution that handled all transactions for the Oil-For-Food program.
"They are the banker, who is handling the transactions, and it's easy to think of transactions between two people, you know, one may be corrupt, one may not, but there is a banker in the middle there," Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., chairman of the subcommittee, told FOX News.
During the hearing, BNP officials admitted that the bank allowed questionable transactions to take place and may have unwittingly been at the center of a vast money-laundering scheme. They also acknowledged that oversight was lacking, but expressed confidence the bank did not send money to illegitimate actors.
"Nothing in our investigation to date has led us to believe that any letter of credit proceeds that were assigned or paid to anyone other than a bank making loans directly to beneficiaries were causally related to any corruption which may have occurred in the Oil-for-Food program," said Everett Schenk, CEO of BNP-Paribas of North America.
"Further, let me say that we have found that in the course of processing assignments and payments, some mistakes were made. Although mistakes are perhaps inevitable in the context of a program that requires the processing of approximately 54,000 payments under approximately 20,000 letters of credit and 32,000 amendments involving an estimated 5 million pages of documents, they still should not have occurred," he added.
Among its errors, BNP was supposed to send payments to Saudi company Al Riyadh International Flowers for supplies sent to Iraq under the Oil-for-Food program. But on at least 40 occasions, Al Riyadh, which according to congressional investigators is owned by a member of the Saudi Royal family, asked instead that the cash, around $70 million, be sent to a company called East Star Trading. The bank did so even though it was not authorized to make such third-party transfers.
Congressional investigators say one of their chief worries is that this type of transaction appears to have happened hundreds of times with dozens of companies, and in the case of East Star Trading, that company seems to have vanished.
Investigators say they believe East Star may be affiliated with Malaysian-based Pacific Interlink. Pacific Interlink earned hundreds of millions from sales of relief supplies to Iraq. But the trail between East Star and Pacific Interlink is cold right now. The recipients of the millions of dollars transferred by PNB and the cash's final destination remain a mystery.
While congressional committees continue to probe the money transfers, the investigation of former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua (search) is gathering steam.
Last November, Pasqua sat down with FOX News in Paris and denied any wrongdoing despite his name appearing on an Iraqi government list of recipients of oil vouchers from Hussein. Pasqua's diplomatic adviser has been arrested and is now being questioned by a French judge investigating the Oil-for-Food program.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (search) responded to the widening scandal on Thursday, saying the United Nations is taking concrete and urgent steps to correct what he called "managerial lapses."
But even Annan is believed by some to have gotten off easy in a report by Paul Volcker, the man leading the U.N.-approved investigation into the disappearance of Oil-for-Food cash. Volcker is now being accused of a cover-up after he called the chairmen of at least three congressional committees investigating the allegations of mismanagement and corruption and told them they cannot subpoena former members of the investigating team because those individuals have diplomatic immunity.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/29/2005 12:08:47 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
you know, one may be corrupt, one may not, but there is a banker cheese eating surrender monkey in the middle
Please forgive my urgent diplomatic lapse, however I concretely deny any wrongdoing. It's inevitable in a world were one processes approximately 540,000 pieces of BS a day.
Posted by: Dar ||
04/29/2005 10:27 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Rita Cosby did a special on Tim McVeigh for FOX and he apparently made several phone calls to the Philippines to Glad Star Lumber, thought to be associated with Abu Sayaf. A previous post stated:"Subject averred that Janjalani has a direct contact to Osama bin Laden and (bin Ladenâs brother-in-law) Mohammed Jamal Khalifa. Janjalani is using a satellite phone in contacting both leaders. Subject further averred that bin Laden would ... talk to no one except Janjalani. They conversed in Arabic". There was another re: a satellite phone purchased in Columbia, MO for UBL's use and a record of calls mentioned.... Paul Volcker,as former head of the Federal Reserve, and considered one of the most powerful men in the world, is hiding behind immunity and would have us to believe he was oblivious to the money laundering going on? Les incompetente.
International Relations and Security Network (ISN)14 April 2005
THE wave of violence in southern Thailand that began in January last year has continued unabated. A cursory reading of news reports during the 1980s illustrates the insurgency as one that is caused by resistance of the Malays of the southern provinces against central government policies. The separatist rebels are hence seen as opposing the perceived 'Siamisation' of the people of southern Thailand.
On 3 April 2005, explosions at the Hat Yai airport as well as in front of the French-owned Carrefour supermarket in Songkhla province resulted in deaths of at least two people and injuring 75 others, including four foreigners. CNN said the incident "raised concerns that Muslim insurgents are expanding their field of operations". Reuters further highlighted that security officials had "blamed [the bombing] on Islamic militants [and this] had raised concern across the Buddhist country".
A much smaller but insightful incident took place late last year. On December 14, a teacher in a district school was shot on his way to work and died en route to the hospital. The Bangkok Post gave an account of the episode with the headline, "School teacher gunned down on way to work". Reuters began its report by saying that "Suspected Muslim militants killed a Buddhist teacher in Thailand's largely Muslim southâŠ". The Straits Times went on to say
that, "[the teacher] was among scores of Buddhists killed in apparent acts of revenge by Islamic militants after at least 85 Muslims died at the hands of Thai security forces, who dispersed a violent protest on Oct 25 in Narathiwat's Tak Bai district". Factually, none of the news reports were inaccurate. But they varied in the way the conflict was depicted. These differences beg the questions — is the insurgency in southern Thailand an ethnic or a religious conflict? And more importantly, does it matter?
The Changing Backdrop
In order to answer the above questions, the conflict in southern Thailand needs to be seen in identity terms. Social identity is multifaceted and involves attributes such as ethnicity, religion, gender, class and kinship in varying degrees. Which trait gains prominence varies from society to society. The identity of the southern Thailand population is, to some extent, imposed by the state after the Thai military overthrew the monarchy in 1932.
Military leaders like Phibul Songkhram (1938-44, 1948-57) and Sarit Thanarat (1958-63) tried to assimilate the people of southern Thailand into the larger Thai nation-state. They sought to create a Thai national identity that was ethnically united. In short, the people of southern Thailand were portrayed as Thai Muslims. To their credit, both leaders did not compel people to embrace Buddhism. But they did not fully comprehend the role of Islam among the Malays and thought that they could be forced to accept a new ethnic identity. For
instance, Songkhram disallowed Islamic law and made it mandatory for children to register in Thai language schools. Thanarat coerced pondoks in southern Thailand to teach the Thai language. Not surprisingly, these attempts to assimilate the Malays at the barrel of a gun failed.
In direct contrast, General Prem Tinsulanonda (1980-88) sought to accommodate the people of southern Thailand. He displayed a much clearer understanding of the separate social identity of the southern provinces. Instead of assimilating the Malays, his policies were aimed at integrating the local people irrespective of their religious or ethnic identity. This wider view of the conflict helped the Administrative Centre for Southern Border Provinces gain
legitimacy among the population in southern Thailand. In spite of this, the violence persisted during the 1980s and most observers continued to view the insurgency in ethnic terms.
After the arrest of the Jemaah Islamiyah operations chief, Hambali, the Krue Se mosque massacre and the Tak Bai fiasco, there is a growing tendency to associate the violence in the southern provinces with the call for global jihad by Al Qaeda. Media reports also have a propensity to represent the insurgency as Islamic in nature and portray attacks as revenge against the Thai Buddhists. Increasingly, the perpetrators of violence in southern Thailand are being depicted as suspected Islamic or Mus lim militants.
The point here is less about the accuracy in depicting the nature of the conflict but more about understanding how the context of the insurgency has changed. A conflict initially portrayed as predominantly ethnic in nature has acquired a more religious connotation in recent times. But why does all this matter? If there are both ethnic and religious roots for the insurgency, can we not just label the conflict as 'ethno-religious'?
What the Changing Backdrop Implies
How the conflict is portrayed has deep implications for the way it will be managed. Firstly, there is a fear of a diffusion of the conflict. The geographical reach of an ethnic conflict in southern Thailand is far less compared to a religious one. Since Malays are a majority only in
neighbouring Malaysia, an ethnic conflict could potentially only lead to support and sympathy from across the border. A religious conflict feeds the paranoia of the post-9/11 mindset. It conjures a picture of terrorists with religious motivations from the Middle East and Southeast Asia coming to the aid of their kin in southern Thailand.
Secondly, the nature of a protracted conflict plays a part in supporting the social identity of the local population. The identities of the people in southern Thailand are not primordial. The repeated depiction of the insurgency as ethnic in nature serves to deepen the Thai-Malay divide. In a similar manner, frequent portrayal of the conflict as religious nourishes the
Buddhist-Muslim cleavage. Minority elites, who include separatist leaders, play a significant role in sustaining these subaltern identities. Notably, these elites can demand loyalty to a particular identity during a conflict.
Thirdly, the character of the insurgency also provides insights into the main actors. In addition to the Thai state and the separatist groups in southern Thailand, an ethnic conflict would include for example, the role of Malaysia. A religious conflict might bring into the picture the role of Islamic NGOs as well as religious terrorist groups from outside Thailand.
The recent visit to southern Thailand by the chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia's largest Muslim organisation, reflects how the religious nature of the insurgency is gaining prominence. In addition, international Islamic organisations and separatist groups will not hesitate to overemphasise the religious makeup of the discord if it serves their interests. A case in point is the interest shown by the Organisation of Islamic Conferences (OIC) in the
conflict and the possibility of Wan Abdul Kadir Che Man, leader of the separatist group, Bersatu, of attending the next meeting of the OIC. Prime Minister Thaksin's policies have without doubt contributed to the rejection of his Thai Rak Thai party by the people of southern Tha iland in the recent national elections. The saving grace for PM Thaksin is that the majority still support the democratic system and prefer to show their displeasure by means of their vote. During his second term, PM Thaksin will need to engage community leaders in the south and identify the social context in which the separatist groups have been allowed to emerge. The arduous task that now lies before his
administration is to recommend policies that will integrate the people of southern Thailand while keeping in mind the manner in which they are being depicted in the conflict.
* S.P.Harish is an Associate Research Fellow with the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, Nanyang Technological University.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/29/2005 10:20:32 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
Syria's Muslim Brotherhood - banned for nearly 25 years - has been increasingly vocal recently in its criticism of the regime of President Bashar Assad. Earlier this month, for example, it demanded the organization of free elections, cancellation of the state of emergency and dismantlement of special courts, warning that the ruling Baath Party would bear "sole responsibility" for the damage the country suffered if it failed to heed this call.
The Brotherhood's increasingly aggressive stance, coupled with developments in Lebanon and reports that the U.S. has held talks with Syrian opposition figures, has fed speculation as to whether Assad will survive the current tumult. Although few in the West would mourn the regime's collapse, many are concerned that such a development would allow an Islamist group such as the Muslim Brotherhood to take control, which might be even less appealing to the United States in particular. This appears unlikely, however, though the information vacuum often makes predicting internal Syrian dynamics difficult.
Several factors have sparked concern about the prospect of Islamist groups taking power in Syria. Many jihadists are traveling from and through Syria on their way to Iraq, raising questions as to how active Islamist extremists are inside Syria and how much Damascus tolerates or encourages their activities.
Syria's basic demographics are a key factor as well. Much of the Syrian leadership, including Assad, hails from the Alawite sect. Alawites represent only 15 percent of the Syrian population, while Sunnis comprise more than 70 percent. Many Sunnis would likely prefer not to live under Alawite control.
In addition, some in the West have speculated about the growing influence of Islam in Syria - as a religion and, perhaps, as a political force. A recent Washington Post article titled "Religious surge alarms secular Syrians" described several new religious trends in the country: young women are more likely to wear headscarves, privately-funded mosques are being built in Aleppo, and Muslim clerics are demanding an increased role in politics. In fact, Syrian Vice-President Abdel-Halim Khaddam, a Sunni, recently issued a statement urging citizens to act more in accordance with Muslim laws and traditions.
The Brotherhood's increasingly vocal criticism has also helped foster the impression it is a powerful opposition force. Following the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, for example, the Brotherhood faxed a statement to the London-based Al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper calling for an investigation into the murder and lamenting the sharp deterioration of relations between Syria and the "Lebanese people," who could be heard "shouting in unison 'Syria, get out.'" The statement noted that "Hariri's death might be the straw that will break the camel's back as far as Syrian-Lebanese relations are concerned," and that "no one can absolve the Syrian leadership of guilt."
The Brotherhood's statements were noteworthy in that they appeared to represent a shift in their approach during the past years, where they focused on engagement with the regime. When Bashar Assad took office in 2000, for example, the Brotherhood took steps to reach out to the new president. In May 2001, the group prepared a "National Honor Pact," accepting the democratic process and, for the first time, recognizing the regime's legitimacy.
The move appeared to pay off: In 2004, senior Syrian officials, including Assad, met with leaders who had ties to the Brotherhood. As Muhammad Habash, a Syrian parliamentarian, put it: "The commonalities between the Islamic movements and [the] national movement are stronger than at any time before." The signs were so promising, in fact, that this newspaper ran an article in May 2004 titled "Damascus, Brotherhood set to reconcile?" In the end, however, the negotiations appeared to fizzle, bringing the two sides no closer together.
As background, the Brotherhood became an important player in Syrian domestic politics in the 1950s, eventually establishing itself as a strong opposition group against the regime. In response to the Brotherhood's growing power, the government banned it as a political party in 1958. Relations with the Syrian regime turned far worse in the late 1970s, when violent clashes became frequent. The last straw for the regime was when the Brotherhood attempted to assassinate President Hafez Assad in June 1980. The following month, the government passed a law, still in place today, making membership in the Brotherhood a capital offense. The confrontation came to a head in 1982 in Hama, where the regime, demonstrating the lengths to which it would go to eliminate the group, killed 5,000-10,000 people, including many Brotherhood members. After the massacre, many of the survivors left Syria and moved to Western Europe, particularly Spain and Germany.
The Brotherhood's recent actions appeared to illustrate not only its apparent strength but also the weakness of the Syrian regime. Indeed, there have been indications the regime is taking conciliatory measures toward the Brotherhood. For example, the authorities are said to be planning to return property they confiscated from Brotherhood members in the area of Hama in 1982.
Despite these developments, the Brotherhood, or any other Sunni Islamist group, would have great difficulty filling the vacuum if Assad's regime collapsed. The Brotherhood's strength appears to be overestimated, and it never fully recovered from its clashes with the regime. Indeed, after the regime crushed the group in 1982, it abandoned its strategy of direct confrontation. Although members continued to operate and meet in mosques - often under the auspices of moderate Sunni clerics - they did not resort to violence. In comparison to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, the Syrian Brotherhood has a far less educated membership, boasts a far less wealthy constituency (drawn primarily from the lower middle class), and poses a much less potent a political threat. Other Sunni Islamist groups in Syria are even less well equipped to assume control.
The Brotherhood's alleged connections to the global jihad, particularly to Al-Qaeda, are also most likely overblown. Although it is plausible that individual members have joined jihadist groups, this is not necessarily reflective of the views of the organization as a whole. By and large, members in Europe do not maintain close ties to the main organization in Syria. Moreover, the Brotherhood may realize that Western pressure on Assad will be helpful to their cause, making it unlikely to embrace anti-Western actions.
In addition, there are other forces in Syria working against a potential takeover by the Brotherhood or other Islamist groups. For example, Kamal Labwani, an opposition leader released from prison five months ago, emphasized that the opposition is fighting on two fronts, and that "the fight against the government has ... priority" over the fight "against the fundamentalists." Other obstacles include powerful Sunni merchants in Syria who have an interest in maintaining the status quo, a middle class which largely turned its back on the Brotherhood after the 1982 crackdown, and the lack of well-trained Sunnis in the military.
Any speculation on the prospects for a change of regime in Syria must, however, include the caveat that it is largely guesswork. Gauging the strength of Syrian Islamists is particularly difficult. The regime forbids research on the topic, and Brotherhood members are reluctant to speak with outsiders. That's why increased understanding of Islamist groups in Syria is vital before one can offer a definitive account of their strengths, weaknesses and ambitions. But that said, something has definitely changed in relations between the Brotherhood and the Syrian regime, and the months ahead will show how significant this is.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/29/2005 12:46:33 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
NEW DELHI - United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan on Thursday cautioned against military action to punish Iran and said the Islamic republic was "cooperating" with the West on talks about incentives to limit its nuclear program. "I don't think that a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities is on the cards," Annan said in a reply to questions on the possibility of action led by the United States.
And if you can't trust Kofi as a prognosticator, who can you trust?
"I also don't think there is any need also to take physical action against Iran. It would be unwise, very unwise," the UN chief said at the end of a four-day visit to India.
Still smarting from the loss of the Oil-for Food income, is he?
The US government earlier this month promised economic and technological incentives to Iran in a bid to help Britain, France and Germany persuade it to abandon a suspected bid to build nuclear weapons. Washington also agreed to drop its objection to Iran's application to join the World Trade Organization, and said it would consider on a case-by-case basis the licensing of spare parts for Iranian civilian aircraft, in particular from Europe.
Annan said Tehran, which rejects the US charges, was engaged in earnest negotiations with the three European countries. "Iran is cooperating with Germany, France and the United Kingdom fairly well and serious discussions are on which will produce results," the UN chief told a news conference.
That was on alternate days. The other days they were threatening to walk out and resume bomb-making. I think Kofi was at lunch those days.
Iranian President Mohammad Khatami has asserted that no incentives would be enough to convince his country to renounce its nuclear program, but has pledged Tehran would make "every effort" to convince the world it was not seeking atomic weapons.
Has he considered hanging himself?
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/29/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[7 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
SHUT UP, you worthless idiot.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/29/2005 0:50 Comments ||
Top||
#2
In other news, Annan is corrupt and complicit in multiple genocide.
#5
Iran is cooperating with Germany, France and the United Kingdom fairly well and serious discussions are on which will produce results,â the UN chief told a news conference.
You can trust them, right Kofi? They ain't like the others.
The day that Iran tests a nuke, Kofi ought to be hung from a Turtle Bay lampost like Mussolini.
#7
On the other hand, the turbans must be spinning trying to figure out why Kofi is saying this now.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
04/29/2005 9:57 Comments ||
Top||
#8
âI donât think that a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities is on the cards,â Annan said in a reply to questions on the possibility of action led by the United States.
This idjit can't even get our sayings right...it's "I don't think it's onin the cards", Koffee! Of course, I'm just an ignant Red Stater, not some hi fallutin' diploturd from Turtle Bay, so whada I know?
Posted by: BA ||
04/29/2005 10:20 Comments ||
Top||
#9
And, oh yeah, this makes me feel even more hopeful that Bolton gets the job!
Posted by: BA ||
04/29/2005 10:21 Comments ||
Top||
#10
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan on Thursday cautioned against military action to punish Iran and said the Islamic republic was âcooperatingâ with the West on talks about incentives to limit its nuclear program.
What would be interesting is hearing Goo-fi's definition of "cooperating".
THE new leader of Iraq has sent a letter to Tony Blair thanking him and the British people for freeing his country from Saddam Hussein.
President Jalal Talabani said people should no longer question why no weapons of mass destruction were found.
He added: "Saddam himself was, in the view of those who opposed him, Iraq's most dangerous WMD."
The president described the liberation of Iraq as one of the UK's "finest hours" and hailed the PM as a "champion against tyranny".
He paints a promising picture of a new Iraq without bombs, bullets or bloodshed.
But he warned it would take time and patience to create a fully united nation after 50 years of fighting.
Mr Talabani, a Kurd, shoots down the anti-war lobby, who still question the morality and legality of the allied invasion against Saddam.
He said Iraqis "wonder in amazement what the debate abroad is about."
The president also tells the families of every British soldier and civilian who lost their lives: "We are not reticent about expressing our great thanks to the British people and paying homage to the tragic British losses. We honour those who sacrificed their lives."
President Talabani's letter is published in full below.
Dear Mr Blair
I CANNOT begin to explain my emotions, after over five decades of personally fighting for and promoting democracy and human rights, to witness a nation take its first steps towards a dream.
Now the democratically-elected parliament has honoured me, a Kurd, with the post of Presidency. This is a symbol of the promise, integration and unity of the new Iraq.
Let nobody mislead you, the Iraq that we inherited in April 2003, following the British and American-led liberation, was a tragedy.
The Ba'athist criminals had starved the country of an infrastructure and the people of their freedom.
Apart from the Kurdish safe haven, Iraq was a playground for thugs and a prison for the innocent.
Saddam's war against the Iraqi people was on-going; we have evidence which demonstrates that the regime was executing its challengers until the last days of its rule.
It was that war, lasting almost forty years, which was the true war of Iraq.
We have all heard of the genocide, gassing, ethnic cleansing, mass murder and the environmental vandalism of the territory of Iraq's historic Marsh Arabs.
We understand that there is no turning the clock back. Instead, we press ahead with democratisation and justice.
Unfortunately, Saddam's former henchmen and religious extremist associates have chosen to fight their losing battle, which in turn has made post-liberation Iraq less stable than we would have wished.
Yet true Iraqis have largely shunned the terrorists, and their cowardly acts are increasingly becoming limited and confined to certain areas.
Millions of brave Iraqis defy terrorism and reject dictatorship every day, without fuss, and certainly without attention from the television cameras.
Building a democratic federal Iraq is a difficult, and slow, but rewarding process.
Those who doubt the swiftness of transition must keep in mind that a state such as Iraq is a cultural, ethnic and linguistic mosaic that was only ever held together by brute force, thus, political speed can kill.
Nevertheless, January saw Iraq's first free and open general election, leading to the first democratically-elected government of our desolate history.
Yet our struggle for a better, emancipated Iraq is only due to the consistent and unwavering support of Prime Minister Blair, the British people, and the coalition of the willing.
For many Iraqis, the positive role that Britain has played is a welcome change.
From our colonial master, Britain has become our democratic guardian.
In 1991 I saw at first hand how Prime Minister John Major, fresh from the liberation of Kuwait, bravely led the way in implementing a safe-haven for Iraqi Kurdistan.
For 12 years, heroic RAF pilots, with the support of neighbouring Turkey, flew in Kurdish skies to prevent Saddam from completing the anti-Kurdish genocide that he had started in 1987.
We were finally able to start rebuilding the 4,500 villages destroyed by Saddam's regime and to begin the process of nurturing civil society and democracy.
And now thanks to Prime Minister Blair's courageous and principled decisions, we can recreate this throughout Iraq.
Of course the liberation of Iraq has been controversial, as all wars should be.
Sadly in this case, war was not the "best" option, it was the only option.
Iraqis sometimes wonder in amazement what the debate abroad is about. Why do people continue to ask why no WMD was found?
The truth is that Saddam had, in the past, used chemical and biological weapons against his own people, and we believed he would do so again.
Of course Saddam himself was, in the view of those who opposed him, Iraq's most dangerous WMD.
Instead of continually focusing on the negative, the British, who will soon commemorate the 60th anniversary of VE day, should know that in the eyes of the majority of Iraqis, it was you who brought us our own victory day.
Britain should be proud that the liberation of Iraq has in our eyes been one of your finest hours.
History will judge Prime Minister Blair as a champion against tyranny. Of that I have no doubt.
We are not reticent about expressing our great thanks to the British people and paying homage to tragic British losses.
We honour those who sacrificed their lives for our liberation. We are determined out of respect to create a tolerant and democratic Iraq, an Iraq for all the Iraqi people.
It will take time and much patience, but I can assure you it will be worth while, not only for Iraq, but for the whole of the Middle East.
This is especially for Rantburg's own professor, Atomic Conspiracy, who has been so rightously angered by the whole thing. Fortunately for my confidence in the goodness of the generality of Mankind, he is not alone. From the Wall Street Journal, registration required, so given here uncut.
JERUSALEM -- The phones began ringing late last Friday afternoon. The BBC, AFP, co-authors, my mother: everyone wanted to know if I was worried about the vote by British academics to boycott my university. As a Jew and an Israeli, my automatic answer to any question that contains the word "worry" is yes. On the long list, the boycott comes close behind the dangers of Palestinian terror, the Iranian bomb, Hezbollah's missiles, Osama bin Laden, reality TV, Israeli taxi drivers, and the waves of locusts migrating from North Africa.
In truth, the direct impact of unspecified academic sanctions adopted by the Association of University Teachers (AUT), Britain's largest teachers' union, against the faculty at Bar Ilan and Haifa universities is likely to be minimal. The few viscerally anti-Israel academics are probably not participating in any joint research projects in any case, to their loss. Two years ago, my colleague Prof. Miriam Shlesinger, an internationally prominent linguist, was ousted from the board of a journal in translation studies by an Egyptian-born editor based at the University of Manchester. And the politically correct anti-Israel atmosphere has probably led a few anonymous reviewers to reject research reports submitted to other academic journals -- but this is hard to prove.
In any case, the quality of the Israeli academic research is generally very high, and good work still trumps bad politics, even in the nonsense of "post-colonial," post-modern and post-Chomsky/Said theory. In molecular biology, immunology, antiterror methodologies, strategic deterrence and other fields, a political ban on Israelis would be particularly costly for the banners -- not for the banned. Efforts to understand the factors that distinguish between failure and success in arms control and peace efforts (my research focus) will be stillborn without the active participation of serious Israeli researchers in this field.
At the same time, this effort to impose a political litmus test on academic research has created a serious backlash. Since the recent revival of the boycott campaign, we have been deluged by emails from colleagues pledging to defy the policy, and to increase their contact with Israelis. Many also reject the medieval nature of such censorship, which contradicts the core principle of the marketplace of ideas.
The real threat, as its authors realize, is not from the direct academic impact, but rather from its broader political objectives. Although the resolution refers to "occupation" and "settlements," and singles out two universities for their alleged complicity with that policy, the Israel-obsessed organizers of the AUT boycott -- Susan Blackwell and Steven Rose, like their counterparts elsewhere -- readily admit that this is simply a tactical decision. They have declared all Israelis who serve in the defense forces and support the government to be guilty. My university, Bar Ilan, was sanctioned for its alleged links to the College of Judea and Samaria, located in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank.
If examined closely, all the "charges" are inaccurate and transparently intended to serve a different goal -- in Mr. Blackwell's words, to condemn the "illegitimate state of Israel" and to send a "message of support" to Palestinians.
* * *
The boycott is only a small part of the broader political war against Israel's legitimacy as a sovereign Jewish state, and the effort to label Israel as the next "apartheid regime" is designed to put an end to Zionism. The use of the apartheid label does a gross injustice to those who suffered under the real thing, and is a form of modern anti-Semitism, this time turning the Jewish state into the devil.
The absurdly exaggerated condemnation of Israel, and the systematic removal of the environment of terror in the rhetoric of "war crimes" and "ethnic cleansing," is the political counterpart of the ongoing terrorism and military assaults. Major battles of this political war have taken place in the U.N. -- the 1975 "Zionism is racism" resolution, for example, or the 2001 Durban conference on racism where that claim was repeated -- on campuses such as Columbia University in New York, in the newsrooms of the BBC and CNN, and via the nongovernmental superpowers such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. After the death of Yasser Arafat and the relative calm on the ground, reflecting the exhaustion of both Israelis and Palestinians, this political war has heated up, particularly in Britain.
Perhaps I'm being too nonchalant about AUT's effort to launch a boycott of my university. For decades, the propaganda war has always accompanied and served to justify the shooting war. If the anti-Israel forces on campuses and in NGOs are gaining strength in Britain, Europe and the U.S., this will undermine the current efforts to expand the cease-fire and conflict management activities in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ramallah and Gaza. And this is the real tragedy of the AUT boycott decision -- while talking about peace, its backers are actually contributing to war and hatred.
Mr. Steinberg directs the Program on Conflict Management and Negotiation at Bar Ilan University and is the editor of www.ngo-monitor.org1.
April 29, 2005: The U.S. Department of Defense has a big problem with the U.S. Army. And the problem is mainly one of figuring out exactly what the problem is. At the moment, the United States is at war. But the army is the only service that is really involved. The air force has a few percent of its aircraft providing support for what is basically an infantry war. The U.S. Marine Corps (which is part of the Navy Department, not the U.S. Navy) is almost as involved as the army. But it's the army that's carrying most of the load. That, however, is not the major problem for the Department of Defense. For over a decade, the Department of Defense has been trying to get its arms around dealing with all the new military technology that is showing up. This is not a unique problem. Organizations of all types, and sizes, are being forced to deal with an unprecedented, in human history, avalanche of new technology. What to do?
The Department of Defense had planned on using a lot of this new stuff to reduce the number of American troops needed (and exposed to danger) to deal with any future wars. The U.S. Air Force was a big proponent of this approach. The Afghanistan campaign seemed to prove them right. Some 300 Special Forces troops, aided by a few dozen air force and navy bombers, took down the Taliban in a few months. Local opponents of the Taliban provided the ground troops. Then came Iraq. The local opponents of Saddam were not up to dealing with the remnants of Saddam's forces, who continued to fight as irregulars. Over 100,000 American troops were needed to deal with this situation. More would have been helpful, but that would have meant not enough troops would have been available to rotate everyone in and out of Iraq on one year tours. You had to do this to avoid combat fatigue problems. Suddenly the dreams of fewer troops, lighter tanks and technology taking over, seemed rather more distant. But not impossible.
Actually, Iraq quickly turned into a combat laboratory for testing all sorts of new technology. Few of the FCS (Future Combat Systems) stuff the army was planning for the future was ready, but the bits of new technology that were available were put to work. And they worked. The micro-UAVs, battlefield Internet and all manner of new computer software was tried, and the troops called for more.
The army was also relieved to see that their long, and costly, investment in training, and careful selection of recruits, was working. This angle never got much press, it never does. And despite ample historical evidence, generals are always tempted to shortchange training in favor of new gadgets. At least you can show off the hardware to Congress, when you go begging for more money. No one has yet found a way to show off training, short of an actual war. And even then it's difficult. But this time around, many more generals, and civilians in the Pentagon, became believers.
But the plan is still for machines to replace troops on future battlefields. Combat robots are showing up in Iraq, and the troops are increasingly equipped with personal radios, computers and satellite links. Not all the FCS money was going into vehicles (just most of it), a lot is planned to wire the troops and tie them into a network that includes armored vehicles, tanks, helicopters, warplanes overhead and ships at sea. So Iraq will speed up some parts of FCS, and cause some rethinking on others.
Iraq is also forcing the army, and the Department of Defense, to reconsider what the army of the future should be trained and equipped for. Obviously, peacekeeping is one task. There are limits to how much technology can replace troops on the ground for these missions. But in other types of wars, you need far fewer troops. While the air force and navy are not really at war right now, they could be if things blew up in Korea or in the Taiwan Straits. Another North Korean invasion of South Korea would demand a major effort from the U.S. Air Force. They are the only combat power that could get their fast enough to make a big difference. The South Koreans have a lot of troops on the ground, and they could be a lot more effective with American warplanes overhead.
Taiwan, on the other hand, would be more of a job for the U.S. Navy. The Chinese invasion force would be on the water, where the American navy is at its deadliest. The navy would also get to Korea in time to make some difference, and the U.S. Air Force would be available to help out in defending Taiwan. In neither of these places would the army be a major player initially. But if these conflicts went on for any length of time, the army could get involved.
What the Department of Defense cannot get away from is the fact that wars are ultimately won by boots on the ground. As the army likes to point out, the ultimate form of air superiority is your infantry occupying enemy air bases, and the surest way to defeat an enemy fleet is to have your tanks controlling their naval bases. Warplanes have to eventually land, and warships must eventually return to a port. But the infantry live on the land, and ultimately control it.
The fighting in Iraq has been a wake up call for those planning on "transforming" the army. There will be a transformation, but the current crop of ideas has to deal with reality along the way.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/29/2005 10:46:28 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
April 29, 2005: The trend among Iraq's neighbors seems to be toward supporting the interim government and opposing the Sunni Arab and al Qaeda terrorists. Most of the more or less are opposed to radical Islamist movements, so that is one thread linking them together. But there are also other issues affecting the stance taken by the various countries surrounding Iraq. Turkey seems in favor of a strong centralized Iraqi government so that the Iraqis can keep the Kurds under control. The Gulf Arabs want to see a strong Iraq as a counterbalance to Iran, though the Kuwaitis are somewhat concerned that a revived Iraqi military might threaten them. Jordan sees the potential need for a strong ally in the event of problems with Syria, while Syria seems inclined to support the new Iraqi regime if only as a way to improve ties with the U.S. Two countries are less committed to the new Iraqi government. Saudi Arabia is tentative about supporting Iraq, since it has to balance its brand of conservative Islam with the certainty that a successful democratic -- or at least representative -- government in Iraq will probably be strongly secular. The Iranians don't want Iraq to fall under the control of either the Sunni Arab dominated Baath Party, or the Sunni Islamists (represented now by al Qaeda), both their blood enemies, but has reservations about a secular, democratic Iraq and about American influence in the region. The Iranian situation is complicated by the fact that their country is a clandestine conduit for the movement of Islamist personnel and money among Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. Although the Shia government of Iran seems to be willing to act against the use of their country in this manner -- being anti-Sunni, and worried about American reaction to this activity -- corruption can combine with extreme anti-Americanism to convince some officials not to notice.
With the next parliamentary elections scheduled for October, there are indications there will be a summer "lull" in the terrorism. There are indications that many of the terrorist groups want to stage a major "offensive" to disrupt the elections, strike a blow at Iraqi morale, and grab headlines. A lull in attacks would permit the terrorists to concentrate their resources, build up manpower, and, perhaps most importantly, hammer together a unified front among the numerous mutually hostile opposition groups. If this front were to come about, the anti-government forces would benefit enormously, but the chances of accomplishing it seem dim. And a lull might backfire. A marked decline in the tempo of fighting would permit Iraq to expand and improve its security forces, while undertaking, in cooperation with American and Coalition troops, a more coordinated stance against the terrorists, possibly stopping any October surprise in its tracks, with disastrous consequences for the opposition groups. In addition, a lull could convince moderately disposed or neutral Iraqis -- especially the Sunni Arabs-- that the terrorists have lost, an impression that the defeat of a renewed offensive would only deepen.
Although Germany has been publicly hostile to the US led effort to oust Saddam Hussein and establish a more representative government in Iraq, it has quietly been providing some support. A German military detachment in one of the Gulf States has been training and equipping Iraq's first army engineer battalion, which is expected to begin operations shortly, and Iraqi officers have been attending German military schools.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/29/2005 10:38:08 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Ok. But they refused to train IN Iraq and it's not clear how sophisticated their training might be at a distance.
The U.S. Department of Justice is reviewing whether an Army reservist violated federal civil rights laws when he held seven undocumented immigrants at gunpoint earlier this month at an Arizona rest stop.
Arizona U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton said Wednesday that he asked federal civil rights lawyers to look into the case as a "cautionary step" following last week's decision by the Maricopa County Attorney's Office not to prosecute Sgt. Patrick Haab.
"Mr. Haab's actions risked the lives of the illegal aliens he detained," Charlton said. "He risked his own life, and had law enforcement officers come upon that scene not knowing what was happening, he could have risked everyone's life."
Haab, 24, now living in Mesa, said Wednesday that federal authorities would not be able to touch him.
"I know my actions were right," he said.
"I know I was completely in the right. I'm pretty sure it is going to stand. . . . I'm not sure how (the federal civil rights division) is going to pick it apart."
Haab has become a celebrity among anti-immigrant groups since his April 10 arrest, making several appearances on national conservative television and radio shows, saying that undocumented immigrants are turning the country into "Americo," a combination of the United States and Mexico.
Haab said Wednesday that his decision to draw a pistol on the immigrants had nothing to do with race or ethnicity.
He reiterated that he was afraid for his life when seven men rushed at him from the darkness of a desolate Interstate 8 rest area, where he had stopped to relieve his dog.
"Sheriff Joe Arpaio and others want to turn this into a racial thing," he said.
"I'm trying to get the word out that this has nothing to do with race."
Haab spent four nights in jail after being arrested by Maricopa County sheriff's deputies on seven counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
But Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas last week said he would not prosecute Haab based on a state law that allows a citizen to make an arrest when a felony has been committed.
According to Thomas, all seven of the immigrants were committing felonies: the smuggler in planning the operation and the six immigrants in "conspiring" to illegally cross the border.
Charlton's office, however, says federal law prohibits immigrants from conspiring in their own smuggling, meaning only the smuggler can be charged with a felony.
That has left Latino advocates, immigration lawyers and some state lawmakers questioning if Haab should still be facing six counts of assault.
"This is a serious problem that Andrew Thomas has created," state Rep. Ben Miranda said Wednesday.
"It is one thing to stretch the facts and the law. But most practicing attorneys strongly disagree with his decision not to prosecute."
Miranda accused Thomas of courting his conservative base. And he said the decision not to prosecute Haab could send a message that it is OK to take the law into your own hands.
Miranda and state Sen. Jorge Garcia sent a letter to Charlton this week for an immediate review of the case.
Charlton said Wednesday that an initial review of the case found no federal laws that apply, so he asked the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division to look for possible civil rights violations.
He added that this is not an issue of "second-guessing" the county attorney's decision.
Barnett Lotstein, special assistant to the Maricopa County attorney, said Wednesday that his office stands by the decision not to prosecute Haab.
He disputes the U.S. attorney's interpretation of federal law, saying the immigrants are guilty of conspiracy and that Charlton made a choice not to charge them.
Lotstein denied playing politics by not going after Haab.
"We analyzed the law," he said. "We're not going to prosecute anyone . . . merely to send a message." Unlike the U.S. Attorney who *is* willing to railroad someone merely to send a message.
Posted by: Anonymoose ||
04/29/2005 10:05:56 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
The U.S. Department of Justice is reviewing whether an Army reservist violated federal civil rights laws when he held seven undocumented immigrants at gunpoint earlier this month at an Arizona rest stop.
The abiding reality of Pakistan's politics is that the more it changes, the more it remains the same. Understandably so. The rules of 'power play' practiced by Pakistan's dominant power brokers, the Establishment, remain unchanged. After a coup d'etat they look for the 'best' and the most 'suitable' politicians to run the government in junior partnership with the Establishment. In 2002, through pre-poll political manipulation, the Musharraf government brought those people in power it then believed were the 'best.' Now some of those assessments have changed. For example the MMA is no longer the Establishment's favourite. Changes within the PML (Q) too cannot be ruled out. Currently, there is much political activity: the Establishment is engaging with the PPP leadership; on the ground PPP workers continue to be arrested; the PPP-PML(N) are uniting but with reservations; within the PML(N) there are those who believe there should be no engagement with the army or with the army supported PML(Q) while some believe otherwise; the Establishment seeks a 'political rollback' of the MMA it had helped to create and support in the 2002 elections; within the PML(Q) there are signs of an emerging power struggle with all eyes on the 2007 prime ministerial slot; the president himself has joined the political fray calling for a defeat of extremist political forces and hoping for a victory of the moderate forces; in Sindh the internal battle within the PML(Q) continues; the Establishment-favoured MQM and the MMA appear headed for a political showdown in the coming local bodies election.
Much of this activity is restricted to new steps being taken by the Establishment and the political parties. It does not necessarily reflect any new thinking within the Establishment, which would want to divide the ARD and also rule out any possibility of MMA-ARD unity. The president himself has talked about PPP as a mainstream moderate political force which can promote "enlightened moderation." While the Establishment-PPP dialogue continues, no basis for their continued cooperation has yet been worked out. Still sections within the Establishment's main party, the PML(Q), are already insecure about the engagement. After all, the PML(Q) as yet is merely a paper party put together by the Establishment and survives because of its support.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
04/29/2005 9:21:09 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Thwarted in his bid to be Iraq's leader, one-time Pentagon favorite Ahmad Chalabi has nevertheless captured a key position in the new government - a deputy prime minister's spot and temporary control of the lucrative oil ministry. With his nephew also installed as finance minister, Chalabi and his family appear to have a firm grip on the country's purse strings.
How many lives does this cat have?
Once Saddam Hussein's most visible opponent in exile, Chalabi, 60, is now tasked with overseeing the world's second-largest proven crude reserves until a permanent chief is found.
It was a spectacular comeback for the Shiite Arab lawmaker, who fell out of favor with Washington over accusations he leaked intelligence to Iran and supplied flawed evidence that Saddam was hoarding weapons of mass destruction. Whether Chalabi remains in charge of oil for months or a week - all eyes will be on him. "Having two close members of the same family in two key economic ministries may raise questions for the Iraqis and those who want to do business in Iraq," said Judith Kipper, director of the Middle East Forum at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations.
The incoming finance minister, Ali Abdel-Amir Allawi, 58, was a consultant to the World Bank and headed a London-based investment company called Pan-Arab. Like his mathematician uncle, he is an MIT graduate. But his supporters play down his ties to Chalabi, noting he is also related to outgoing Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. "The allegations against Chalabi will not affect him," Shiite alliance lawmaker Saad Jouwad Qandil said of Ali Abdel-Amir Allawi.
Chalabi's standing with Iraqis was tenuous when he returned home in 2003 under the patronage of the United States. Using a private militia, he took over an exclusive social club in an affluent Baghdad suburb and made it the headquarters for the Iraqi National Congress, the anti-Saddam movement he headed in exile. Since then, Iraqi security forces have raided his offices and militants shot at his convoy.
Chalabi's return from political exile began to take shape when he volunteered to mediate a truce with radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose militia battled U.S. troops in two separate rebellions last year. Left out of the interim government by then U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer, Chalabi decided to build his support base among other Shiites. Chalabi promised that if he became prime minister, he would drop murder charges against al-Sadr. He also spearheaded a drive against members of the former regime who had returned to positions in the interim government.
Yet another reason not to trust this guy.
Some members of the interim legislature said they were prepared to give Chalabi the benefit of the doubt. But "if there is evidence that all the accusations are right, our stand will change," Qandil said.
The outgoing government is bedeviled by allegations of corruption within its ranks. With fresh elections slated before the end of the year, analysts warn some incoming officials could be tempted to use their short time in office for maximum financial gain.
"The day that the new government takes over a new test begins for everyone," Kipper said. "This is an absolutely critical period for the future of Iraq, and we have to see who in the Cabinet is going to look forward for Iraq, and who is going to be concerned with their personal success."
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/29/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#2
Its a hit piece on Chalabi, the interim government, the new government and the entire effort to democratize Iraq. Chalabi got elected in fair elections. The whole article oozes with the resentment of the MSM that they are not in control of what is happening in Iraq.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/29/2005 00:00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
I know I'm a bad person for saying this but Israel should have evicted the Palestianians in the aftermath of the six-day war. Shoved them right into Jordan and Egypt while the world was stunned at the Arab duplicity.
Failing that they should have done so after the Yom Kupor war.
As far as I'm concerned the Palestians allowed to stay after those attacks do so at Israels forebearance and I could care less what Israel does about them when they act like murderers.
The United States has been examining how Algeria overcame a decade-long war with Islamic insurgents. U.S. officials and analysts agreed that Algeria has largely defeated the Islamic insurgency, which has drawn support from Al Qaida. They said Algeria has employed brute force, relentless military operations, psychological warfare as well as incentives to weaken, divide and demoralize the insurgency movement. "The U.S. is stepping-up its relationship with the Algerian government, largely through counter-terrorism cooperation," Rep. Ed Royce, chairman of the House Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation, said. "U.S. officials have said that there are lessons to be learned from Algeria's struggle with terrorism."
Yeah. Those lessons are to hunt them down and kill them, concentrating on the head cheeses. The GAI and GSPC went through supreme leaders pretty rapidly.
Royce discussed U.S. cooperation with Algerian officials during his visit to Algeria in January 2005. Congressional leaders have supported plans by the Bush administration to increase defense and security cooperation with Algeria to facilitate the war against Al Qaida. In 2004, the administration approved the export of several unidentified non-lethal military systems to Algeria.
Prior to that, the Algerians were largely using shoe leather express to chase the bastards down.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/29/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Excellent. The ClueBat pays us a visit.
To try to hold it at bay is to pretend they're rational and reasonable, like us only confused or misinformed. It is to count upon the perfect luck of underfunded and overworked security agencies, as does the UK. It is merely postponing the day when a cell succeeds, in spite of the average jihadi's low 2-digit IQ. It is close to suicidal, and definitely malfeasant on the part of Govt authority, given the lethality of weapons and the easy corruption of humans.
To defeat it, is to treat it as it actually is - a relentless implacable infestation of murderous fanatics capable of understanding only power and hate, yielding only to brutal and overwhelming force, and defeated only by eradication.
I believe Beslan was the pivot point, the perfect storm of Islamist insanity - and likely the turning point in the effort to open the eyes of the only moderately dense.
We are turning the corner if only because enough witnessed that event.
There will be other challenges, obviously more subtle, following in short order after the Islamists. But let's defeat them and, in the process, we'll expose the outline of coming battles in the process. People will begin to see the craven sellout Socialist / Fascist facilitators of these Islamists - and the ChiComs and the Chavez's - and the seeds of the next fight for survival will be sewn.
#6
They said Algeria has employed brute force, relentless military operations, psychological warfare as well as incentives to weaken, divide and demoralize the insurgency movement.
Two of those options won't get past the lefty radar, that's for sure.
Israel's military has deployed a U.S.-origin technology to check visitors and equipment coming from Egypt to the Gaza Strip. Israel has been operating the SafeView Millimeter Wave Radar for deployment at the border terminal in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah. The portal system employs millimeter wave holographic technology to screen passengers from Egypt for weapons and explosives. The system was developed by SafeView in cooperation with Endwave Corp, both of them U.S. companies. The companies said the portal system transmits ultra-high frequency, low powered radio frequency waves as people pass through the portal. The waves penetrate clothing and reflect off of the person's skin and any items being carried. A sensor array captures the reflected waves and uses a desktop computer to analyze the information and produce a high-resolution, three-dimensional image from the signals. The companies have not yet launched full production of the system.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/29/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
Thirteen years after Islamic mujahideen warriors ousted the Soviet-backed government in Kabul, Afghanistan celebrated the anniversary yesterday with a parade of troops from its fledgling national army and police. Soldiers from the newly formed force that now stands at over 24,000 troops wore green uniforms and sat atop tanks, showcasing a new era in the country which was torn apart by a quarter-century of war.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/29/2005 00:00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#2
AFP: They were ousted by US-led military and former mujahideen fighters in late 2001 for refusing to surrender Osama Bin Laden, the architect of the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
AFP states that bin Laden was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Meanwhile, Reuters is still saying that the US "claims" bin Laden staged the 9/11 attacks. You gotta love Reuters - the (other) al Jazeera of the UK.
A large number of Muslim Brotherhood lawyers staged a sit-in yesterday at the Bar Association headquarters, Egypt's most prestigious syndicate, calling for an investigation into the latest election results. Government sources said the syndicate will be placed under judicial sequestration and frozen by the government if the lawyers do not put an end to the ongoing strikes. The protracted, two-stage campaign of the elections ended with the triumph of the current Nasserist President Sameh Ashour, who was re-elected for another four years, while the Muslim Brotherhood won 15 of the association's 24-member council seats.
The results were a disappointment to the Muslim Brotherhood and their pro-government, presidential candidate Ragaai Attiya who won only 28,755 votes, while Ashour won 44,540 votes. The Brotherhood had unsuccessfully backed Attiya twice before in a bid to unseat Ashour, who is more popular with Egyptian lawyers. Despite the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood had tried to diversify their list by including five lawyers with different political affiliations like Al Gamaa Al Islamiya, Al Wafd and the National Democratic Party, many lawyers said that they preferred to have a candidate who was not subject to the domination of a single group. Over the past couple of weeks the Bar Association's headquarters witnessed several clashes between Ashour's supporters and the followers of the Brotherhood who staged round-the-clock sit-in strikes. "It is crystal clear that the government interfered in the elections as they are afraid of the powers of the Muslim brothers," said Mohammed Tosson, a Muslim Brotherhood lawyer and member of the Syndicate's council.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/29/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Egypt's pro-reform movement Kefaya (Enough) gained considerable ground when it staged simultaneous rallies across the country in protest at President Hosni Mubarak's unchallenged 24-year-old rule. Defying a ban against street demonstrations, the coalition group of Marxists, Nasserites, liberals and Islamic dissidents from the Muslim Brotherhood coordinated 14 marches Wednesday at the same time under the banner "no constitution without freedom."
Kefaya, which first surfaced in December, has been profiting from a growing wave of dissent recently joined by university students, judges and teachers — all urging overdue democratic changes. Demonstrators have been increasingly bold in their calls to lift the state of emergency imposed after the assassination of Mubarak's predecessor, Anwar Sadat, 24 years ago. Kefaya has even dared to publicly ask Mubarak to step down. "Enough", "No to a fifth mandate", "No to Mubarak, his party and his son", are slogans often heard at Kefaya's rallies.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/29/2005 00:00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
After nearly three months of political wrangling, Iraq's National Assembly approved a Cabinet lineup yesterday laying the groundwork for the first elected government since Saddam Hussein was ousted to take power. However, two key posts in the 37-member Cabinet — defense and oil — remained disputed and the list failed to incorporate in a meaningful way the Sunni minority due to a dispute over the suitability of Baathists who served in Saddam's regime.
The naming of a new government had been seen as a key step in ending Iraq's insurgency, which is believed to be largely driven by Sunnis, and there had been fears that the political bickering had emboldened militants who have staged a series of well-coordinated attacks in recent weeks. The new Cabinet also marked another surprising political comeback for former Pentagon favorite Ahmad Chalabi, a Shiite who will be one of four deputy prime ministers and acting oil minister. Prime Minister-designate Ibrahim Jaafari told reporters that decisions over two vacant deputy prime ministers' slots and five acting ministerial positions will be made in three to four days.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/29/2005 00:00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
Posted by: Fred ||
04/29/2005 00:00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Yewbetcha, we're on it like chickens on June bugs. Why, we're opening a Drapes 'R' Us in Amman tomorrow. A whole chain of 'em across the Middle East. Yessir, we'll have nothing but the best in window dressing in no time. In, lessee, 20 or 30 yrs, I'll even give up my throne. Sorta. Kinda.
So don't worry your little heads about it. It's all under control. Me & my buddy CP Abdullah, just call us the Freedom Twins, we'll see to it.
Nothing to see here, nosirree! Move along. Move along.
#3
The current Jordanian king is young, Western educated and so far as I can tell, pretty pro-western in both words and acts. I'm less than impressed with his mother's PR campaign in the west - I once clicked past Larry King interviewing her and my blood sugar shot up dangerously - but this king is a pretty strong ally of ours, overtly and covertly.
Posted by: too true ||
04/29/2005 11:05 Comments ||
Top||
Iraq's President Jalal Talabani is "playing a dangerous game" by planning to use Kurdish and Shiite militia forces to fight insurgents, a high-ranking Sunni political figure has warned. Eyad Samari, assistant general secretary of the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP), said the move would lead to an upsurge in inter-ethnic conflict. "If the Peshmerga were sent into Arab areas, it would be seen as an invasion and the level of violence would rise," he told Gulf News in a telephone interview from Bagdhad. "If Arabs see these troops coming into their areas, it will not be viewed as operations against terrorists, it will be seen as something different and unacceptable we must avoid that."
His comments come after President Talabani, a Kurd, proposed militia forces be used to "end the insurgency". Talabani said "popular forces", including the-80,000-strong Kurdish Peshmerga, should be allowed to assist government security services in their fight against a powerful insurgency. American officials have insisted militia groups are not the solution. But President Talabani said it was up to an independent Iraqi Government to make the decision.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/29/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
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.
In cooperation with coastal guards, the Yemeni security apparatuses seized around 6,900 infiltrators since the beginning of 2005, 1,600 of whom are women and children. The Jordanian Dustoor Newspaper quoted Yemeni official sources as saying: "Nearly 2,700 infiltrators and illegal residents were caught in the Yemen lands late this month". The Website of September 26 run by the Ministry of Defense reported that security sources mentioned more than 95% of those caught in the Yemeni coasts, particularly Shabwa Coast to the south of Yemen, were transported by unidentified boats from the Horn of Africa into the Yemeni lands. It said around 2675 infiltrators, caught during last March, hold Somali citizenships, and 565 of whom are women and children, in addition to other seven people with different Arab citizenships and 18 Ethiopians. Infiltrators caught in last March and April numbered up to 4,200 including 1,100 women and children. This brought to over 6 thousand the number of infiltrators and illegal residents seized in the Yemeni lands over the first fourth of 2005. The sources pointed out that over 6060 of the total number of infiltrators caught in the Yemeni lands hold the Somali citizenship.
Egypt's pro-reform movement Kefaya (Enough) gained considerable ground when it staged simultaneous rallies across the country in protest at President 
After nearly three months of political wrangling, Iraq's National Assembly approved a Cabinet lineup yesterday laying the groundwork for the first elected government since 
Iraq's President 
