In Baghdad, one of the five judges in the trial of
Saddam Hussein stepped down because one of the co-defendants may have been involved in the execution of his brother, a court official said Sunday. Another official said police had uncovered a plot to fire rockets at the courtroom when the trial convenes Monday for a third session.

The confrontation in Najaf began when about a dozen men, some armed with clubs, tried to block Allawi from entering the Imam Ali mosque, one of the holiest Shiite shrines in Iraq. Allawi's bodyguards fired shots in the air to disperse the crowd.

Once Allawi and his entourage were inside, the crowd grew to about 60 and as the group left, they were showered with stones and shoes — a sign of contempt in Iraqi culture. Allawi and his security force knocked over barricades as they scampered to their vehicles and sped away.

Allawi later said the group was armed with pistols, knives and swords and at least seven shots were fired from the crowd.

"They were planning to kill the whole delegation, or at least me," Allawi told reporters.

Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told CNN's "Late Edition" that it was unclear whether the incident was an assassination attempt "or just a disruption by the angry crowd who might not agree with Dr. Allawi's policy." [...]

The Monitoring Net for Human Rights in Iraq recently reported Iraqi police figures demonstrating that well over 1,000 Iraqi academics and scientists have been shot to death since the beginning of the U.S.-led invasion. The U.S. State Depart ment has confirmed that hundreds of university professors have been killed.

The shooting of peaceful academics clearly differentiates these killings from those attributable to the Iraqi resistance’s effort to defend its homeland. The popular insurgency has primarily targeted U.S. and British forces along with Iraqi military and police personnel who cooperate with the occupation.

Whoever is responsible for the assassination of academics must also have access to sophisticated intelligence techniques that allow for the widespread targeting of a particular grouping of civilians.

The attacks on Iraqi intellectuals first began when U.S. forces purged at least 15,500 researchers, scientists, teachers and professors for alleged ties to the Baath Party. The dismissal, and subsequent emigration, of so many leading professionals contributed to a destabilized Iraq and provided the occupiers with an excuse for staying in the country.

An article in the [London] Times Higher Education Supplement (Sept. 15, 2004) points out that “there is a widespread feeling among the Iraqi academics that they are witnessing a deliberate attempt to destroy intellectual life in Iraq.”

The cold-blooded nature of the assassinations leaves many wondering exactly who is responsible for this ongoing campaign. The Iraqi resistance denies it is responsible, and those interested in liberating Iraq from the occupation have no motive to carry out such wide-scale killings.

Osama Abed Al-Majeed, the president of the Department for Research and Development at the Iraqi Ministry for Higher Education, has accused the Israeli secret service, Mossad, of perpetuating the violence against Iraqi scientists. A June 2005 report by the Palestine Information Center claims that Mossad, in cooperation with U.S. military forces, was responsible for the assassination of 530 Iraqi scientists and professors in the seven months prior to the report’s publication.

Mossad unquestionably has the motive and means to assassinate leading Iraqi intellectuals. The Israeli intelligence agency contains a Special Operations Division called Metsada which is tasked with conducting assassinations, sabotage and paramilitary projects. Israel has a long history of interference in Iraq, going back to the 1981 bombing of a nuclear energy plant that stood 15 miles outside Baghdad that just before that attack had voluntarily undergone inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Regardless of who is responsible for the killing of Iraqi scientists and academics, it is clear that the U.S. and Britain, as the leading occupying powers, have the responsibility for the precarious situation in which these intellectuals are forced to live.

Dr. Saad Jawad is a university professor who was known to speak out against certain Baathist policies. But he recently said, “To tell the truth, in the time of Saddam Hussein, we used to speak to our students freely.… But now, a lot of people are not willing to say these kinds of things because of fear.”

The court resumes today after a week's adjournment. The chief judge, Rizgar Amin, had suspended the hearing for seven days to allow two of Saddam's seven co-defendants - former vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan and Barzan al-Tikriti, Saddam's half-brother - to appoint new lawyers after one was killed and another fled abroad. Another defence lawyer has also been shot dead.

"There is already a paralysis in the legitimacy of the defence," said Mr Case. "We believe that weakness in the system of administration of justice, in addition to the antecedents surrounding the establishment of this tribunal, will never be able to produce the kind of process that would be able to satisfy international standards."

The UN has no official role in the trial but has called for an independent probe into the deaths of the lawyers. Mr Case's comments add to a growing chorus of international human rights and justice groups who argue that a fair trial is impossible under current conditions in Iraq. There have been calls for the trial to be delayed, moved to safer venues such as the Kurdistan region or abroad to the international criminal court in The Hague.

Adding to the febrile atmosphere, Iraqi authorities said yesterday they had uncovered a plot by Sunni Arab insurgents to fire rockets at the court building during today's session. On the eve of last week's trial session, eight Sunni Arabs from Tikrit were arrested for planning to assassinate the chief investigative judge, Judge Raed al-Juhi. In another attack on the judiciary, a suicide car bomber targeted the house of a senior judge, Midhat al-Mahmoudi, in Baghdad yesterday but failed to breach security. It also emerged that one of the five-judge panel trying Saddam had removed himself from the case after learning that one of the defendants may have been involved in his brother's execution. Officials said a replacement had been found.

Tensions are also rising in the run-up to the national election on December 15. On an election tour in the Shia holy city of Najaf, the former prime minister Ayad Allawi said he was attacked at a shrine by armed loyalists of Muqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shia cleric.

In Saddam's trial today the first prosecution witnesses to testify in person are expected to give evidence about the deaths of 148 Shia villagers following an assassination attempt against Saddam. So far the court has heard only videotaped testimony from a former intelligence chief who has since died from cancer. Saddam and seven of his former colleagues face the death penalty if found guilty of crimes against humanity. It is unclear how long the trial will last. The fitful progress so far has seen Saddam spend only six hours in court since the trial began on October 19.

In addition to provisions for preventive detention, the bill broadens the little-used offence of sedition so it attracts a seven-year jail term for threatening the "peace, order and good government of the commonwealth".

The government defends the legislation as needed to combat the threat from Muslim militants who have singled out Australia, a close ally of the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan, as a key target for attack.

Australian police last month arrested 18 Muslim men in Melbourne and Sydney for allegedly plotting a major bombing and the country's top intelligence agency has said it believes other Islamic extremists are still active here.

But the Law Council of Australia, which groups lawyers' societies and bar associations from Australia's eight states and territories, warned Monday that the new legislation goes too far.

In full-page advertisements published in major newspapers, the council said the government was "using the threat of terrorism to introduce laws that put our most basic civil liberties under threat".

"The ramifications have the potential to be as terrifying as terrorism itself," read the ad, which included an open letter appealing to Howard to withdraw the legislation.

The president of the Law Council, John North, said Australia's legal profession felt the law's sedition provisions and mandatory detention and control powers were flawed.

"The problem with the control orders and the mandatory detention orders are that they allow Australians to be taken off the street and held without charge," North said on national radio.

"There's no amount of tinkering with those laws that can save the badness of that particular law."

Control orders, which allow the government to track and control the movements of terrorist suspects without charges being laid against them, could be misused by a government, he said.

"It could apply to anybody that the government thinks at a particular time might be an inconvenience to them, but they still have not got the evidence with which to charge them," he said.

North was particularly scathing about the sedition provision, which a Senate committee dominated by government members tried but failed to amend.

"This law, if you look at it very closely, not only has the ability to curb free speech on behalf of the media, but to actually stop legitimate protests and other things because of the breadth they've drawn the law," he said.

The circumstances of Gen Zia ul-Haq's death are as contentious as the 1963 assassination of John F Kennedy. The military dictator died on August 17 1988, after leaving the town of Bahawalpur, in Punjab province, where he had been watching a trial of American M1 tanks.

Moments after Gen Zia's C-130 plane took off it wobbled then plunged to the ground, killing all on board including the US ambassador to Pakistan and a US general. Conspiracy theorists have focused on a crate of mangos placed on board moments before take-off. Some believe it was sprayed with VX, a poison gas, which only a few countries had.

Gen Zia had a long list of enemies, all of whom have been blamed for his death over the years. But Israel has received little attention. Mr Dean told the World Policy Journal that it was plausible Mossad had orchestrated an assassination plot, believing Gen Zia's boast that he was only "a screwdriver's turn away from the bomb". But when he told his superiors he was removed from his position in Delhi and his career ended. Mr Dean, a Jew who fled Nazi Germany, said he had no proof of Israeli responsibility. General Muhammad Ali Durrani, a retired Zia-era commander, told the journal the Israeli thesis was "far-fetched" and blamed the crash on the C-130, which he said had a history of faults.

So two linked stories rise, then fade away. Maybe there was outrage last week when the LA Times reported that the department of defence had hired a Washington company called Lincoln Green to harvest phoney tales of triumph written by US army personnel in Iraq - then, duly translated, feed them back to the "free" Baghdad press Donald Rumsfeld loves so much. Maybe eyebrows flickered when it emerged that some Iraqi reporters and editors are on America's payroll. Maybe the Arab world was still fuming over alleged threats to its favourite 24-hour news channel.

But, war changes - and excuses - everything. Events move on. We slide swiftly back to a status quo where politicians seek to make the media the villains of every piece. Re-enter Alastair Campbell, singing his greatest hits (against the BBC). The director of al-Jazeera arrives in Whitehall demanding to see Tony Blair, who turns out to be somewhere else. Dirty, dud yarns don't seem to matter a jot.

Keep the outrage pot bubbling a moment longer, though. Do you remember Armstrong Williams, TV frontman and syndicated columnist? The Bush administration handed him $240,000 under cover of darkness to plug its education reforms. Do you remember how the American government thereupon funded a string of superficially independent news "reports" on its education and energy reforms in video packages that small stations just plonked on air as all their own work? What about the latest public broadcasting ruckus, with Karl Rove, Bush's fixer, discovered chatting secretly to PBS chiefs about starting a neo-con talk show and getting a few more Republicans on studio duty?

None of this has anything to do with "war" (unless it be some undeclared war on truth). But it is all part of an inescapable pattern, one so serious it can't be allowed to fade away.

Journalists protest too much about spin. There's no great British purity to a system that wallows weekly in tales about who briefed whom on pension reform and the like - one that makes Conrad Black a peer of the realm for services to Mrs T. There's scant purity, either, in an American way that brings packs of favoured journalists into the inner sanctums of the White House with every change of administration and allows the presidential elections to be fought against a background of promised liberalisations of media ownership worth billions to big guys in the back offices.

Nevertheless: some lines can't be crossed, some boundaries of conduct have to be defended. And pushing bundles of dollars under the counter towards journalists of any persuasion in order to buy complaisant coverage direct is one stark frontier too far.

Didn't the Bush team see that when the Armstrong Williams scam was exposed? Didn't it realise that grime sticks to the giver as well as the receiver? Apparently not. Apparently, its moral compass has gone on permanent blink.

Voters, in Iraq as well as Iowa, are grown-up, sentient human beings. You can tell them the truth - that democracy is a rough-and-tumble way of governance - but you cannot foist lies on them in the name of freedom.

Suppose, for the sake of hope and argument, that one fine day the insurgency does begin to fade, that Iraq's economy revives and the first fruits of transition begin to appear. Who'll bring that news and that understanding to the people but the journalists of Iraq, professionals enduring constant peril day by day? But no one, surely, will pay them heed when they begin to bring good news. They will be dismissed, with a shrug, as paid lackeys from an occupying power, hacks who would say that, wouldn't they?

And exactly the same problem infects the al-Jazeera debacle, this time for Blair as well as Bush. The BBC World Service is closing down in much of eastern Europe in order to spend £19m of Foreign Office cash a year on an Arab TV news channel to rival al-Jazeera and bring the western message to the streets of the Middle East. But what are those streets now asked to think? If you can't beat them, bomb them? If you can't woo them, sue them? This isn't just wrong, whether war or not. It is imbecility.

In an interview in his 28th floor office at IAEA headquarters overlooking the Danube in Vienna, Mr ElBaradei noted that Iran has not rejected the Russian proposal outright, and he said he expected "talks about talks" to be held before next month.

But he warned that if Iran carries out a threat to reopen its mothballed Natanz underground enrichment plant, a dangerous escalation will ensue, and raise fresh questions about Iran's insistence that its nuclear intentions are peaceful. "If they start enriching this is a major issue and a serious concern for the international community," he said.

Although IAEA officials have said it would take at least two years for Natanz to become fully operational, Mr ElBaradei believes that once the facility is up and running, the Iranians could be "a few months" away from a nuclear weapon. "That's why there is the concern of the international community about Iran," he said, "because lots of people feel it could be a dual purpose programme".

Did he believe the Iranians were building a nuclear weapon? "The jury's out," he said. "It's difficult to read their intention. We're still going through the programme to make sure it's all for peaceful purposes.

"I know they are trying to acquire the full fuel cycle. I know that acquiring the full fuel cycle means that a country is months away from nuclear weapons, and that applies to Iran and everybody else."

Mr ElBaradei said he could see no victors from an escalation. "Everybody would hurt," he said, referring to all parties in the dispute. "You would then open a Pandora's box. There would be efforts to isolate Iran; Iran would retaliate; and at the end of the day you have to go back to the negotiating table to find the solution."

Israel has warned that it will not tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran, and has hinted that it would take preemptive action as it did in Iraq when it bombed the Osiraq reactor in 1980. The Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, repeated yesterday that "it's clear we can't have a situation where Iran will become a nuclear power". Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has publicly called for Israel to be "wiped off the map".

President George Bush insists that all options remain on the table, but the reality is that the US already has its hands full in Iraq.

So for now, the Bush administration is prepared to let Britain, France and Germany continue to take the lead and seek a negotiated solution. The EU troika remains adamant that Iran should be barred from controlling its own nuclear fuel cycle - even under international supervision - and the threat of referral to the UN Security Council remains an option for the IAEA board of governors.

But it is generally believed that Iran holds all the cards at this point. If referred to the Security Council, the Iranians could use their oil-charged political influence to prevent any punitive action. And there remains the fear that the mullahs would pull out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, following the lead of North Korea which is believed to have enough weapons grade plutonium for at least six bombs.

While IAEA officials recognise that progress has been made in the EU negotiations, the talks so far have only bought time.

Despite the developments in Iran and North Korea, Mr ElBaradei said the most worrying nuclear threat came from the prospect of nuclear terrorism. "The deterrence concept does not apply in the case of terrorists. That is the most critical danger we are facing now because there is a lot of nuclear material and nuclear facilities that need to be adequately protected."

He was talking about the possibility of a "dirty bomb" which could spread radiation and create widespread panic, or the theft of a nuclear weapon. Although he said that such a scenario was "highly unlikely", the countries where the risk was greatest, he said without the slightest hint of irony, were those such as Iraq and Afghanistan where governments are not in control of their territory.

Mr ElBaradei, an Egyptian lawyer, has not always got on with the Bush administration which tried to block him from serving a second term as IAEA chief. He was after all the man who publicly demolished one of the central planks of the US argument for war on Iraq by revealing in the Security Council that documents purporting to show that the Iraqis had attempted to procure uranium from Niger were fakes. IAEA inspectors trying to unravel the biggest ever network of black market nuclear trafficking are still being refused access to the scientist at the centre of the scandal, A Q Khan, from Pakistan, an important US ally in the "war on terror".

Mr ElBaradei's credibility and authority have been reinforced by the award in October of the Nobel Peace Prize, an accolade which has added to his workload. Tomorrow, he will be in London to address the International Institute for Strategic Studies on his ideas for controlling the headlong rush for nuclear power, in particular the uranium enrichment process.

"If you have that capacity you are also buying yourself a smart insurance policy. You are sending a very powerful message to your neighbour - you don't even need to have the weapon," he said. He is calling for the IAEA to control a multilateral "fuel bank" a move intended to remove the justification for countries to develop indigenous fuel cycle capabilities - the issue at the heart of the dispute with Iran.

Mr ElBaradei and the IAEA will receive their Nobel award on Saturday at a ceremony in Oslo.

Lee Wing-tat, the head of Hong Kong's top opposition party, the Democratic Party, said Mr Tsang should tell Beijing to "rethink the package".

Mr Tsang said he had heard the people's demands and shared their goal but that an immediate timetable for democracy in Hong Kong was "not achievable."

He defended the reform package, which calls for doubling the size of the 800-member committee that picks Hong Kong's leader and expanding the 60-member legislature.

Merkel's offer to set up a joint working group to weigh options for Polish access to the pipeline was seen as a powerful conciliatory gesture, as was her frank discussion of plans to build a memorial center for Germans expelled from countries including Poland after World War II in reprisal for Nazi aggression.

"In a few hours in Warsaw, Angela Merkel may have accomplished more for German-Polish relations than her predecessor in several years," the daily Tagesspiegel wrote in an editorial Sunday.

"Beyond her mediation in the dispute over the gas pipeline, the chancellor has brought home a decisive concession by the Polish government: the Polish conservatives also recognize the right of Germans to remember their expulsion."

Mindful of the tensions that still linger close to the surface 60 years after the war's end, Merkel said the issue would be addressed by a "European Network for Memory and Solidarity" including Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.

Press reports said that Merkel also promised help in a bitter row over European Union spending plans for 2007-2013 to be agreed at an EU summit in less than two weeks.

Poland and the other nine new member states are wary of a proposal by current EU president Britain that newcomers to the bloc accept less in development funds from Brussels. The reports said Merkel had agreed to resist the British plan.

And she pledged to revive the "Weimar Triangle" meetings grouping France, Germany and Poland, which she has taken to referring to as "Germany's second major neighbor".

"It is clear that Merkel gained in stature in Poland," the Welt am Sonntag newspaper wrote.

Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Schroeder's former chief of staff, continued the diplomatic drive with a stop in Moscow Saturday paving the way for a visit by Merkel next month.

"The relations between our countries are at a very high level," Putin said. "We count on both the pace and quality of our mutual work being maintained."

Putin was a personal friend of Schroeder, but Merkel has indicated her left-right coalition government will take a tougher line towards Moscow.

Berlin, though critical of a crackdown on democratic freedoms in Russia, is nevertheless intrigued by the role Moscow could play in resolving hot-button issues such as Iran's nuclear program -- a point explicitly raised by Steinmeier.

Last month the UN nuclear watchdog put off taking Iran to the UN Security Council, which could impose sanctions, after EU partners Britain, France and Germany agreed to give more time for new Russian diplomacy to work.

With a harsh winter setting in, fears are growing that sickness could kill cold and poorly nourished survivors but the United Nations says there has been no spike in the mortality rate since the weather deteriorated last week.

"Nearly a dozen children have been admitted to a field hospital ... from a nearby camp," said a doctor who visited the clinic in Hattian Bala, 45 km (30 miles) southeast of Muzaffarabad, the hard-hit capital of Pakistani
Kashmir.

The doctor, who works for an international agency but declined to be identified as he was not authorized to speak on the issue, said a 10-month old boy had died of measles on Thursday.

Ministry of Health officials were not immediately available for comment.

The UN Children's Fund has vaccinated hundreds of thousands of people since the quake struck but agency pediatrician Sajjad Gillani, confirming the outbreak at the camp, said some children might have been missed in the drive.

"The disease has possibly broken out because that particular camp might not have been covered during the immunization campaign," Gillani said.

The October 8 earthquake killed more than 73,000 people and left about three million homeless.

Government authorities and aid agencies are racing to try to get adequate shelter and food to survivors, many of whom have chosen to stay and try to rebuild ruined mountain homes rather than head down to tent camps in valleys.

The United Nations has received, or been pledged, less than half the more than $500 million (288 million pounds) it is seeking for a six-month emergency operation and agencies say they will have to curtail their work unless they get more help.

The head of the UN food agency said at the weekend it had enough food to keep hundreds of thousands of survivors fed through the winter but it badly needs money to keep air operations running.

A World Health Organization official said his agency would run out of medical supplies in two months if did not get more funding.

"We'll be needing more and more medicines to prevent deaths from pneumonia and possible outbreaks," said Khalif Bile, director of the WHO mission in Pakistan.

"If we don't get the money the health care of the population will not be as comprehensive as we would like."

A special timer will be fitted to a patient's respirator which will sound an alarm 12 hours before turning it off.

Normally, carers would override the alarm and keep the respirator turned on but, if various stringent conditions are met, including the giving of consent by the patient or legal guardian, the alarm would not be overridden.

Similar timing devices, known as Sabbath clocks, are used in the homes of orthodox Jews so that light switches and electrical devices can be turned on during the Sabbath without offending religious strictures.

Parliamentarians reached a solution after discussions with a 58-member panel of medical, religious and philosophical experts.

"The point was that it is wrong, under Jewish law, for a person's life to be taken by a person but, for a machine, it is acceptable," a parliamentary spokesman said.

"A man would not be able to shorten human life but a machine can."

The bill, which was approved at the third and final reading in the Knesset by 22 votes to three with one abstention, will become law next year.

Danny Naveh, the health minister, described the passing of the law as a historic moment, saying: "This is one of the most important laws passed by the Knesset. It represents major moral value for the terminally ill and their families."

It is expected that elderly Israelis will begin to leave "living wills" in which they stipulate whether they would allow the new euthanasia procedure to apply to them if they were to end up in hospital, dependent on a respirator and suffering from a terminal disease.

Within half an hour after sundown, the streets are pitch-black in an area where there is no electricity, and where the only houses with lights are those with rattling and fume-belching generators in their front yards. In the old days, Baghdad's streets came alive at night, but nowadays the day literally comes to an end by early evening. No one dares set foot outside, since taking a walk means gambling with one's life. Shots can be heard every night and every morning more people are dead.

Handwritten black cloth mourning banners have been fluttering for days on Amal al-Shabi Street in Amiriya. The banners are there to commemorate Bakr Mohammed, who was shot in his grocery shop, Abu Ahmed, who was murdered while on his way to his auto repair shop, and goldsmith Sharif Abd al-Khalid, whose shop was blown up.

"In the name of God the All-Merciful," begins the obituary for "Dr. Amal al-Mansuri, Martyr," a pharmacist. According to the obituary, "she was murdered by the cowardly hands of filthy criminals. Condolence visits from November 25-28. We all come from God and we all return to God."

Only six months after the US-led invasion, the last shop in Amiriya that still sold beer was forced to close its doors. Selling alcohol is a mortal sin for the gangs of young Iraqis who now control the neighborhood. In the changed reality of life in Baghdad today, even male hairdressers who cut women's hair risk losing their lives unless they abandon their profession.

The killers who forced their way into Sadia Abd al-Hussein's hair salon weren't looking for Western customers. Instead, they had their sights set on Hussein himself and his regular Iraqi customers. Three people were dead by the time the terrorists left his shop.

Many hairdressers have switched to the mobile phone business, but that too has become a dangerous profession. Mobile phones play music, and music is "haram" — forbidden under the religious rules the fundamentalist militias seek to impose.

One in four houses in Amiriya is now for sale, as western Baghdad's once-mixed neighborhoods gradually become more segregated. Shiites are fleeing in droves from primarily Sunni neighborhoods like Jihad and Amiriya, while Sunnis are getting out of majority Shiite areas of the city as fast as they can. But none of Iraq's religious groups can feel safe as the violence in the once-peaceful neighborhoods spins out of control. "Sunni gangsters shoot faster," says English teacher Hussam Ali, a Shiite. "That's the only difference."

Three weeks ago, another section of the city saw angry protests against the Shiite-dominated government after US troops discovered a secret interrogation bunker run by the Iraqi interior ministry. The soldiers freed about 170 emaciated Sunni torture victims, terrorism suspects the Iraqis had arrested weeks and months ago.

Despite the fact that the torture victims were fellow Muslims, no one in Amiriya expressed outrage over the discovery. "I didn't hear a single complaint," says retiree Muhannith Kassim, a former employee in Saddam's oil ministry. Indeed, Kassim believes that the government does far too little against terrorists in his own neighborhood. "It's not enough to torture these people in some bunker," he says. "They should be strung up on the open street, the way Saddam used to do it. They should put the fear of death into these people."

Continuing violence

According to an American study just released, Iraq sees more than a hundred attacks a day — twice as many as last year. Forty-six major bomb attacks, each claiming several lives, were committed in September, making it the deadliest month since the beginning of the Iraq war. About 400 people died in November 2005, more than four times as many as in November 2004.

Criminal statistics in Iraq no longer distinguish between murder and homicide, between politically motivated attacks and killings resulting from the basest of motives — and no one even bothers to count the numbers of thefts, blackmailings, muggings and kidnappings. The abyss of violence seems bottomless, and the victims are almost always Iraqi citizens. "There are currently 48 Iraqi victims for each American death," says Kamran Karadaghi, the chief of staff of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

Despite the buzz of commerce in some parts of the country, like the northern Kurdish region, Iraq today is anything but the model democratic state the Americans promised and the Iraqis had hoped for after the fall of Saddam.

Instead, today's Iraq is the scene of daily horrors and sometimes little more than a deathtrap. Anyone who spends time standing in front of a police station or near a public institution, a hospital, for example, runs the constant risk of being killed by a suicide bomber. Most attacks are committed by Sunnis, and most acts of revenge by Shiites. The motive of revenge is a tremendous recruitment tool for all terrorist groups in the country — revenge for the destruction of a house, revenge for having to lie in the dust for hours in front of the occupiers, revenge for the death of a friend or relative.

The situation is so bad in the land between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers that some officials in Washington have found it necessary to pay for positive coverage by the Iraqi press. A Pentagon propaganda unit has reportedly made million-dollar contracts with American PR firms hired to place pro-American articles in Baghdad newspapers. The questionable approach towards press freedom even has many in the US Department of Defense concerned.

According to Ayad Allawi, a former Iraqi prime minister and considered a leading candidate for the office again in the upcoming Dec. 15 election, there has not even been any progress when it comes to human rights. "They are doing the same things we saw in the Saddam days and even worse," he complained about the new government authorities in a recent interview with Britain's The Observer.

Tradition of kidnapping

The kidnapping business is an especially dark facet of violence happening daily. Although abduction for ransom money began in Iraq in the first few days following the invasion, it was hardly noticed because the group most heavily affected was small and shrinking every day — wealthy Iraqis who had not managed to get out of the country in time.

One of them, textile merchant Yassin al-Rubai, 49, comes from the Jihad neighborhood. After much soul-searching, Rubai finally decided to sell his business and move with his family to Egypt. He had expected the drive to the Rafidain Bank in the Mansur neighborhood to be one of his last drives in Baghdad before selling his old BMW. But he was wrong.

A few hundred meters from his house, a red Toyota pulled in front of Rubai, blocking his way. Three men got out, calmly pulled him from his car and threw him into the trunk. "Empty your pockets," said one of the men, holding a pistol to his head as he lay in the trunk of his own car. "You won't be leaving here before you pay us a lot of money." Rubai gave the men the $11,000 he had just withdrawn from the bank, and then they shut the trunk and began driving away in the BMW.

Rubai knew that his car's trunk lock was broken and he was able to open the trunk and jump out. Despite breaking one of his legs and his shoulder, he barely noticed the pain and hobbled from the scene as quickly as he was able, likely saving his life in the process.

He now knows that the men had been spying on him for weeks. Ever since the attempted kidnapping, he has been living with relatives in Sadr City, a Shiite slum on the other side of Baghdad. His leg cast has been removed, but he has already had four surgeries to repair his shoulder. Rubai and his wife have taken their children out of school, fearful that they could be harmed en route. Rubai's wife spends most of her day sitting apathetically at the kitchen table, sometimes weeping. But the family can no longer afford to flee to Egypt.

As the wealthiest Iraqis have left the country, ransoms have come down but the number of kidnappings has not. "Ten to 15 kidnapping cases are reported to us each day in Baghdad alone," says police colonel and Interior Ministry official Adnan al-Hajali. On some days that number is twice at high and Hajali doesn't even venture to speculate over how many cases go unreported, adding that countrywide statistics are currently being compiled.

Doubts about the Interior Ministry

The Interior Ministry has established a department dedicated to the kidnapping epidemic, but few have faith in the ministry's ability to solve the problem, especially now that its agents' propensity for torture has been exposed. Even Iraqi police officers have little regard for the new department. "That would be the last place I would go if someone in my family had been kidnapped," says one police officer. His comment reflects the widespread suspicion that Interior Ministry officials have their own fingers in the pot when it comes to the flourishing trade in human lives.

About half of the abduction cases Hajali lists took place in the relatively affluent western section of the city, especially in the Jihad and Amiriya neighborhoods. The typical victims are Iraqi employees of Western firms — interpreters and employees of the US military, politicians, police officers and security officers. Even children have become targets, reflecting a general decline in moral thresholds.

Saad Jamil is ten years old and was a pupil at the Ibn al-Heitham elementary school in Adhamiya. In early November, a group of masked men abducted him while he was waiting for a school bus and took him to a warehouse in the Sheikh Omar neighborhood, where they were also holding other children. When the kidnappers called his father, an engineer, and demanded a $100,000 ransom, he barely managed to stammer a sentence, one for which he is ashamed today: "Then kill the boy. I don't have that much money." His son was released in mid-November — for a tenth of the original ransom demand.

Violence has always played a major role in the thousands-year-old history of what is now Iraq. But kidnapping is a new and increasingly popular weapon, next to more pedestrian crimes, in the growing conflict between Sunnis and Shiites. Nowadays, whenever a prominent Sunni or Shiite disappears, retaliation increasingly comes in the form of another kidnapping. The hostages in these retaliatory abductions are not always exchanged, nor do they always come away with their lives.

Iraq's booming abduction business only entered the global consciousness in April 2004, when a foreign hostage fell into the hands of terrorists for the first time. Whereas Iraqis are kidnapped almost exclusively for monetary gain, the kidnappings of foreigners are often tied to political demands, at least initially. But despite the hundreds of abductions of non-Iraqis to date, it remains difficult to discern any consistent patterns of behavior. Kidnappers are becoming as inscrutable as the terrorist milieu itself.

But almost all cases have one thing in common. Whether the kidnappers are gangs of thugs driven by money or supposedly politically motivated groups affiliated with Iraqi al-Qaida leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, none of them hesitate to kill, especially when their hostages are American or British.

As if to convey the message that they must be severely dealt with as punishment for their countries having invaded Iraq, American or British hostages are not only humiliated, but their deaths already seem to be a foregone conclusion from the moment they are abducted. Especially when they fall into the hands of terrorists like Zarqawi. This only heightens the sense of horror Americans feel when they see images of terrified US citizens captured by terrorists, citizens like 21-year-old US soldier Matthew Keith Maupin. He was abducted on April 9, 2004 in an attack on his convoy and then paraded before the world as a helpless hostage on a video taken by his captors. Since then the fate of Private Maupin is unknown, at least officially, although a poor-quality video released weeks after his abduction appears to show his execution.

The more professional video images of British hostage Kenneth Bigley, 62, are quite the opposite. They reveal a perfidious effort by the terrorists to dramatize the kidnapping and its aftermath. A group affiliated with Zarqawi kidnapped Bigley, an engineer, together with US citizens Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong, in September 2004. In an apparent allusion to the al-Qaida detainees in the US camp at Guantanamo Bay, the men, all involved in the Iraqi development effort, were forced to wear orange prisoners' jumpsuits. The murder of Bigley, whose throat was slit on live video after he had been held for three weeks, remains one of the most gruesome acts recorded during the Iraqi conflict to date.

Hope for Osthoff

The relatives of German hostage Susanne Osthoff hope that her close personal ties with Iraq could save her life, but they may not have reason to be too optimistic. Polish hostage Teresa Borcz Khalifa, abducted in October 2004 by a group calling itself the Abu Bakr al-Siddiq Fundamentalist Brigades, probably owes her life to the fact that she had been living in Iraq for 30 years and was married to an Iraqi. After all, the Polish government refused to comply with the terrorists' demands that it withdraw all Polish troops from Iraq. But the 59-year-old British citizen Margaret Hassan's relatively strong ties to Iraq did not help her. Her kidnappers were not even impressed by the fact that Hassan, head of Baghdad operations of British aid organization CARE International, was widely respected in the country for her work on behalf of Iraqis.

"Please help me. Please help me," stammered Hassan in a video released by her captors. Hassan, who like Susanne Osthoff, was widely seen as a person who would prove resilient under pressure, wept and appealed to the government in London to withdraw British troops, but her efforts were in vain. She was shot on live video. British Prime Minister Tony Blair called the murder of the first female hostage in Iraq "abhorrent," but he rejected the idea of giving in to the kidnappers' demands, just like almost every other government affected by kidnappings has.

So far only one head of state, Philippine President Gloria Arroyo, has capitulated to kidnappers. When a group called the Khalid Ibn al-Walid brigade kidnapped Filipino truck driver Angelo de la Cruz, Arroyo came under intense domestic political pressures to meet the terrorists' demands. She announced publicly in Manila that she would withdraw 51 Filipino soldiers and police officers from Iraq "a few days earlier" than planned. Her efforts paid off for de la Cruz, who was released.

But a government's unwillingness to yield to kidnapper demands isn't necessarily a death sentence for a hostage. For example, both France and Italy refused to give in to the terrorists and nevertheless managed to save the lives of hostages. After being held for 157 days, French reporter Florence Aubenas, 44, and her Iraqi driver Hussein Hanun were released unharmed, as was her Italian colleague Giuliana Sgrena, 57. In both cases, the respective governments used their intelligence connections and also did not hesitate to deal with shady middlemen.

The shocking death of Italian agent Nicola Calipari revealed the extent to which Italian intelligence pulled strings to gain the release of reporter Sgrena. The Italians had picked up the journalist from her kidnappers near Baghdad, but Calipari was accidentally shot by US soldiers at a road block on the road to the airport. The events surrounding the incident remain a source of tension between Rome and Washington.

Although Sgrena still believes that her kidnappers were "very political," they didn't seem to mind that Rome refused to meet their demands, which included the withdrawal of Italy's troops from Iraq. Sgrena's release was allegedly brought about primarily by the delivery of up to €8 million in ransom money to middlemen in Abu Dhabi. But if Susanne Osthoff has fallen into the clutches of an al-Qaida group, even Sgrena believes that the chances of her release are slim. The former hostage believes that "one murder more or less makes no difference" to people like Zarqawi.

Terrorism expert Mustafa Alani from the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center believes the Sunni fundamentalist Zarqawi usually doesn't kidnap for money. "For al-Qaida, as well as for the larger groups of Iraqi insurgents, it's the propaganda value of a hostage that's so important — both to the Western public and to their own supporters," says Alani, who is originally from the Iraqi city Falluja.

Alani explains that Osthoff is a hostage of "little political value" for religiously and politically motivated groups, because a German isn't a particularly attractive trophy for Al-Qaida or the Iraqi nationalists. "Germans have no impact on the market in this segment of the kidnapping business," he says.

Crime before politics

Although the overwhelming majority of kidnappings and murders in Iraq are committed for criminal reasons, those crimes by both local insurgents and the religious fundamentalist terrorists will ultimately determine whether Iraq ends up slipping into the chaos of civil war. This is why it is so unsettling to see how little Iraqi officials, as well as American and British intelligence agencies, truly know about an insurgency that has been raging for two years and is increasing in intensity.

Part of this lack of knowledge arises from the fact the guerilla movement in Iraq is not a homogeneous, national revolt. Comparisons between the Iraqi insurgency and other guerilla wars in history are of little use. It has no Ho Chi Minh, Castro or Mao at its helm and the specific political objectives for the daily attacks remain a mystery. The Washington-based SITE Institute, which monitors the activities of Iraqi insurgents on the basis of their publications on the Internet, counts more than 100 resistance and terrorist groups. This increasingly bewildering array of organizations has "no focal point, no leadership and no hierarchy," says Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert with the Rand Corporation in Washington. "It's more of a constellation than an organization and these groups have assumed a structure that guarantees them long-term survival."

The supporters of former dictator Saddam Hussein have grouped themselves under names like "Flag of Iraq" and "Islamic Army in Iraq." They liken their struggle to the anti-colonial rebellion against the British in 1920. Their goal is to secure the influence of the Sunni minority, and they fear dominance by the Shiites and the Iranian mullahs with whom some Iraqi Shiite leaders have aligned themselves.

The Jordanian terrorist Zarqawi has both latched on to this insurgency and propelled it forward, and is today considered al-Qaida's point man in Iraq. His role model Osama bin Laden has dubbed the Iraq conflict the "decisive battle" in a third world war. Zarqawi is able to commit his bombings and murders with the help of a small army of foreign volunteers, religious fanatics who have found their way to Baghdad — and not just from the Arab world but increasingly from Islamic circles in the West. Indeed, there were likely more al-Qaida supporters in Brooklyn than in Baghdad before the war. It is a bitter irony indeed that once very secular Iraq has become such a hotbed for the spread of jihadist fundamentalist ideology.

The remnants of that secular tradition are reflected in those Sunni groups who are just as attracted to Iraqi nationalism as to fighting non-Muslims. According to a study by the US Army War College, the many-faceted Iraqi resistance movement is "more explosive than in Vietnam, a many-headed snake, incapable of unifying but difficult to kill."

Insurgency diversity

Statistics on the size of the terrorist organizations in Iraq are just as confusing. According to US military estimates, their numbers range anywhere from 5,000 to 50,000 fighters, and they run the gamut from hotheads willing to fire a Kalashnikov or a grenade launcher for as little as $20 to highly specialized explosives experts with the skills to trigger Russian-made landmines with a mobile phone. Nowadays even children are apparently willing to die as suicide bombers. And in a recent suicide bombing near Baghdad, a Belgian woman who had converted to Islam before marrying a Moroccan became the first European woman to blow herself up for the insurgency.

To save their own skins, some Iraqis have even taken to selling the addresses of members of the new Iraqi security forces to terrorist death squads for a few dinars. The security situation has become so precarious that some Iraqi civil servants wear ski masks on their way to work.

The US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, is using generous political concessions to the Sunnis, thick bundles of cash for the Sunni clans, and offers of amnesty for Saddam's officers in an effort to thin the ranks of the insurgents. His tactics are a reflection of Washington's aim to divide the rebels. "My philosophy is that we must isolate Zarqawi and those who want to see Saddam back in power from the rest of the country," says Khalilzad. Officials are already considering issuing a wide-reaching amnesty for any insurgents that do not fall within either of these two categories.

But so far these efforts have not led to a return to normality. The one goal that unites the various insurgent groups is still too tempting: handing a devastating defeat to the American occupiers. Indeed, some Sunni nationalists claim that this is the only reason they have been willing to align themselves with Zarqawi. "Once the Americans are gone, we will fight the jihadists," promises Abu Kaka al-Tamimi, a former officer in Saddam's elite Republican Guard who now trains suicide bombers. The holy war against the infidels and the promise of a place of honor in paradise holds little allure for him and others who apparently would be perfectly happy with a decent life in this world.

The American strategy of isolating Zarqawi's core group of Islamists could still work, says terrorism expert Alani. The group of Iraqi nationalist fighters is increasingly distancing itself from Zarqawi's cohorts, because they disagree with the goals of the ally of bin Laden. According to Alani, "Zarqawi wants to start an Islamist global revolution on Iraqi soil. The fate of Iraq means nothing to him."

But the United States' divide-and-conquer strategy also has its risks. "The leaders of the nationalist groups are concerned that more and more angry young Iraqis are joining Zarqawi's group," says Alani. "They see the leaders of the nationalist resistance as too weak and too willing to compromise." According to Alani, these young recruits are attracted to Zarqawi out of a conviction that "no one can punish our enemies more effectively" than he does.

More Iraqis involved

Jordan's King Abdullah II has also commented on this fundamental shift in the Iraqi insurgency. Although Zarqawi ordered the series of attacks on three luxury hotels in the Jordanian capital Amman on November 9, they were carried out by four Iraqis — as was confirmed by a woman from Ramadi, the only surviving attacker.

King Abdullah said that he believes that the al-Qaida terrorist network in Iraq, which previously consisted almost exclusively of non-Iraqi Arabs, is increasingly attracting locals. More and more Iraqis are being discovered among the ranks of killed or arrested jihadists, says Abdullah, and at some point this will also apply to the al-Qaida leadership in Iraq. "If Zarqawi is eliminated one of these days, he won't be replaced by a foreigner," the king believes. "It will be an Iraqi."

Washington's attempts to reduce the number of attacks, control crime and ultimately make the country a safer place also have another significant defect: they have met with resistance within the Shiite-dominated government. Muafaq al-Rubai, national security advisor to the government of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, believes that US concessions will only encourage the insurgents to keep up their attacks, threatening to plunge Iraq into a decades-long conflict. Influential Shiite cleric Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, has even asked the US to give Iraqi troops free rein to stage tough counterattacks on the insurgency.

If the Shiites are in fact given carte blanche to fight the insurgents, it would likely remove one of the last remaining obstacles to civil war in Iraq. The country would then descend into years of the kind of carnage that once consumed Lebanon, bloodshed on a much greater scale than the attacks, kidnappings, and general increase in lawlessness seen today.

Mr Sarkozy regularly falls out with the prime minister, the former career diplomat Dominique de Villepin, on issues from immigration to labour law.

Now the two are battling it out to represent the ruling UMP if, as predicted, President Jacques Chirac fails to seek a third term in 2007.

The UMP's national leadership has backed Mr Sarkozy's proposal that the party's members should be allowed to declare their preferred candidate for the Elyseé.

Mr Sarkozy was overwhelmingly chosen as president last year and has doubled membership since.

This domination of the party machine makes his victory in such a "primary" a foregone conclusion.

Mr Chirac makes little attempt to conceal a strong preference for his prime minister, giving the clear impression that he favours a policy of tout sauf Sarko, anyone but Mr Sarkozy.

The president has come to regard his former protégé as an irksome rival.

With the opposition socialists in serious disarray, the centre-Right sees the 2007 election as winnable, assuming the deeply unpopular Mr Chirac stands down.

MAUP in recent months has become a major purveyor of anti-Semitism in Ukraine. But the silence until recently of Ukrainian authorities - many of whom have ties to the university - has led to criticism from the local Jewish community, international Jewish organizations and Israeli officials.

Critics say the issue could seriously compromise Ukraine's hard-earned reputation as a new democracy seeking full acceptance by the international community, including the European Union and NATO.

Stung by growing criticism, Ukrainian officials may finally be taking the issue seriously. President Viktor Yuschenko this week urged his country's elites to condemn anti-Semitism and xenophobia.

"There can be no ethnicity issue in a European country," Yuschenko was quoted as saying Monday by the Interfax-Ukraine news agency. In his remarks, directed toward artists, journalists and academics, Yuschenko specifically condemned MAUP for the first time.

The anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism of MAUP's leaders run against Ukraine's official policy line, but the school appears to have close ties to leading policymakers, including Foreign Minister Boris Tarasyuk, an expert on Arab countries who only recently gave up his job at MAUP, reportedly under pressure from Yuschenko.

Many of Ukraine's top politicians - including Yuschenko, Tarasyuk, former president Leonid Kravchuk and several members of Parliament - have received honorary degrees or titles from MAUP. Many lesser-known politicians and bureaucrats also call MAUP their alma mater.

These leaders find themselves in good company: The school has bestowed honorary titles and degrees on some internationally renowned hate-mongers, including U.S. white supremacist David Duke, who has a doctorate in history from MAUP and has participated in a number of MAUP-organized anti-Zionist conferences in Kiev.

Zoya Borisova, head of the school's Department of Russian and Ukrainian as Foreign Languages, dismissed accusations of anti-Semitism.

"This is a fight against Zionism, but not against Jews," she said.

MAUP is the country's largest private university. With a dozen branches throughout Ukraine, MAUP has about 35,000 students, including hundreds of foreigners, mostly from Arab and developing countries.

The university offers degrees in law, economics, business administration, accounting, political science, practical medicine and psychology and claims to have a network of alumni and supporters in 60 countries.

Formerly a state-owned college system that offered post-graduate education for the public sector, MAUP went private after the fall of communism in 1991.

"MAUP was created by prominent representatives of the Ukrainian ruling elite," said Josef Zissels, leader of the Ukrainian Va'ad, a leading Jewish group, and one of MAUP's most vocal critics.

Such influence over government disturbs Ukrainian Jews, especially when the school's name has become synonymous with Ukrainian anti-Semitism today.

The school has found itself in hot water in recent weeks, but its leaders appear unrepentant. Neighboring Poland said it may not recognize MAUP degrees because of the school's controversial stand on international issues. The Israeli Foreign Ministry and the Simon Wiesenthal Center have urged Ukraine to open a probe into the school's anti-Semitic activities.

Yet the criticism seems to have had little effect on the school and its president, Georgy Schokin. Schokin earlier this year founded a political party, the Conservative Party of Ukraine, that's preparing for parliamentary elections in the spring.

Besides his friendship with figures such as Duke, Schokin and his school are said to maintain close ties to a number of Muslim countries, particularly Saudi Arabia and Iran. According to some press reports, a substantial portion of the school's funding comes from these two countries, as well as a number of public groups in the Arab world.

University officials would not confirm these reports, but said the school did have good ties with the Arab world.

In fact, the school's reputation is precisely what appeals to some of MAUP's foreign students. In an interview with JTA, a first-year student from Iran acknowledged that it was the university's anti-Zionism that attracted her and many Arab students.

The student, who gave her name as Ilda, said she had wanted to study medicine in Ukraine but instead studied Russian at MAUP because the school "struggles against the evil of world Zionism."

Other students who don't agree seem afraid to speak openly about the situation.

Liana Musatova, who graduated from MAUP last year with a master's degree in political science, said the school is permeated with the political views of its leadership, which she said could be "dangerous for the students."

Like other current and former students, Musatova receives a free copy of MAUP's newspaper, Personal Plus. Almost every issue of the newspaper carries anti-Semitic and anti-Israel articles.

According to Zissels, 70 percent of all anti-Semitic publications today in Ukraine are published by MAUP, including "Mein Kampf" and "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion."

Ukraine's Education Ministry recently demanded that the school change its name to indicate that it is privately run. MAUP's rector responded to the request by accusing the ministry of political persecution.

The ministry "wants to close MAUP because of our political activities," rector Nikolay Golovaty told JTA.

But Ukraine's science and education minister, Stanislav Nikolayenko, told JTA that his agency was going to close several MAUP branches because they did not meet ministry criteria.

Justin Fitzpatrick, 19, said his small, home-based company hosted a website briefly in October that showed video content of al-Qaeda head Osama bin Laden and his right-hand man, Ayman al-Zawahri.

After it was reported by a Winnipeg newspaper, Fitzpatrick told CBC News on Wednesday that he was stunned to find the al-Qaeda material was on his company's site.

He said his website allows people from around the world to purchase space to host their own sites.

In turn, he rents server space to host those sites from a company in Dallas.

Someone who wants to post a site through Fitzpatrick fills out an online form, agrees to certain terms and conditions about the content, and agrees to pay a small monthly fee by credit card.

Once the credit card is approved by an external company – a process that generally takes only a few minutes – the person has the ability to start putting web content online.

When Fitzpatrick saw the Arabic-language text and videos on the website he was hosting, he consulted with the company in Dallas.

After reviewing the material, Fitzpatrick said the Dallas company's legal department recommended he remove the material.

Fitzpatrick said he promptly removed the site and refunded the $4.95 monthly fee to the credit card. All told, he said he hosted the material for about 10 days.

The teenager said he has no idea why the people behind the site targeted his company, which hosts a total of 15 to 20 websites – a small player in the world of website hosting.

He speculated he was chosen specifically because his company is small, with fewer eyes on the content.

Fitzpatrick said he has not been contacted by law enforcement officials about the content, and he considers the matter closed.

Will David frighten Goliath? The French International News Channel (CFII) now faces the challenge of imposing an alternative to the dominant Anglo-Saxon news. Yesterday, Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres officially launched the new channel. The Minister for Culture and Communication insisted on the necessity and importance of "ensuring a diversity and a pluralism of points of view in the world." On everyone’s mind is the treatment by American channels of the riots in the French suburbs and the regret of not having been able to offer another point of view through the international media.

But such media influence has a price. The CFII has a budget of $76 million, or 65 million euros, for 2006, after having a 15 million euro budget until the end of 2005. The channel needs to recruit 130 journalists and to thus have "its own editors" throughout the world. It will broadcast in French, English and Arabic. This is a tremendous undertaking, even if it is dwarfed by the existing major international channels.

In comparison, CNN has 4,000 employees, broadcasts in English, Spanish, Turkish and German, and in 2003 spent nearly $560 million. Its competitor, MSNBC, has 500 employees and spent $240.7 million in the same year.

Before the broadcast of the first images set for the second half of 2006, CFII will concentrate on its commercial launch on cable, satellite and the Internet. Its broadcast in France will put it in direct competition with channels like LCI, i télé, BFM TV and TV-5. But the channel, held in equal parts by France Televisions and TF-1 will also need to set up its own internal organization. The whole project depends on Alain de Pouzilhac, the channel's future director, since France Television and TF-1 have picked him unanimously. However, CFII's new boss would like to take over the role completely, controlling the organization and recruitment for his board of directors.

It's not known where the brothers, the children of Andy McDowell and Rose Marie McDowell, were going. Both brothers lived with their father on Garrett Hollow Road.

Rory D. McDowell, 23, died following an accident in the 1200 block of Plum Springs Road. The accident occurred at 1:23 a.m. today.

Rory McDowell had traveled around a curve heading north on Plum Springs Road when the pick-up truck he was driving went off the left shoulder of the road, according to a Warren County Sheriff's Department report.

After leaving the road, he overcorrected the vehicle, and it to went into a sideways skid. The vehicle then crossed the road and struck a tree, according to the report.

He was not wearing a seat belt, the report said. The sheriff's department is still investigating.

Cory McDowell, 21, was traveling west on Ky. 526 at 1:42 a.m. today when the 1984 Porsche he was driving veered off the left side of the road, causing it to go into a 180-degree spin, according to a report from Kentucky State Police Post 3 in Bowling Green.

The vehicle then struck a tree and caught fire, according to the state police report.

Rory McDowell was pronounced dead at the scene by the Warren County Coroner's Office at 2 a.m.

Cory McDowell was also pronounced dead at the accident location at 1:48 a.m. by Deputy Coroner Dwayne Lawrence.

Andy McDowell's co-workers talked today about the accident, which has devastated the family.

“Those boys were his life,” said Freddie Brown, a deputy and chaplain for the sheriff's department.

This type of situation is always very difficult for the family, he said.

“His situation is different than most because he had two sons get killed,” Brown said. “The accidents were so close, he actually drove by the second accident on his way home from the first and had no idea it was his other son.”

The circumstances surrounding the accidents make this tragedy much more difficult for the family, he said.

“I had gone fishing with those boys and their dad several times since I joined the department,” Brown said. “They had a great relationship with their father and loved the outdoors, hunting and fishing.”

“As a parent, your worst nightmare is to lose a child,” Lawrence said. “But losing both in one night this way, words can't explain it.”

Lawrence has known Andy McDowell, working with him at the Bowling Green city cemetery.

Lawrence helps run a support group for families who have had these types of experiences. There is nothing to be said to the family right now to make them feel better, he said.

“You just have to put your arms around them and hug them,” Lawrence said. “My son is 18 and I went in and checked on him when I got home last night.”

Rory McDowell worked for a local fence company. Both were graduates of Warren East High School.

J. C. Kirby & Son Funeral Home, Lovers Lane chapel, is handling the funeral arrangements, which are incomplete.

TEHRAN: A military cargo plane attempting an emergency landing Tuesday in Tehran clipped an apartment building and crashed short of the runway, killing at least 115 people, including 78 journalists who were en route to cover military maneuvers in southern Iran. The victims also included 21 people who were either in apartments that were engulfed in flames or cars near the base of the 10-storey building.

Authorities said all 84 passengers and 10 crew members died on the US-built C-130 aircraft.

"There were four apartments on each floor. Thirty-six apartments burned completely," Amir Rasouli, 24, said tearfully at Hazrat Rasoul Akram Hospital, where he learned his cousin was among the dead. "They managed to evacuate most of the residents, but my cousin was not lucky enough."

Iranian news agencies said the pilot reported engine trouble shortly after taking off from Mehrabad International Airport in southwestern Tehran. The aircraft was circling back for an emergency landing when its wing struck the building in the Towhid complex, one of many medium-rise concrete residential buildings adjacent to the airport.

The complex was reserved for military families, many of whom were home at the time.

"I was in my room when I heard a terrible explosion from the block next to us," said Mitra Aslani, 16, who like all students in Tehran stayed home from school on Tuesday because of an air pollution alert.

"Then there was fire on that block," she said.

State news agencies said police at the scene found several children among the dead. "Some people were throwing themselves out of windows to escape the flames. I saw two die like that," one policeman told the Reuters news agency.

Maysam Kamrava, whose leg was broken during the crush of people rushing out of the burning building, was among about 90 people injured in the incident.

"He is all right, but only God knows how shocked we are," said his mother, Manijeh Kamrava, 29, in the crowded emergency room at Hazrat Rasoul. "I heard a terrible explosion, and after a few seconds I heard people shouting, 'Fire!' We rushed to the stairs, which were packed with smoke. I lost my son, Maysam. A few minutes later the firemen came and helped us out of the building."

Rescue crews and bystanders carried away the wounded in blankets,. but riot police forced back distraught neighbors and relatives who tried to push past an iron gate to look for survivors.

Reporters who arrived to cover the disaster wept when they realized many of the dead were colleagues. State television played mournful music as it broadcast images of people killed in the crash.

"I was supposed to be on the plane as well, so I don't know whether to be happy or sad," a journalist from the ISNA student news agency told Reuters.

The plane was bound for the port city of Chabahar on the Gulf of Oman, where Iran's military was conducting military exercises. It took off at about 1:35 p.m. from the military section of the airport.

Mehrabad, an aging but convenient airport, has remained open despite the completion last year of the much larger Imam Khomeini International Airport, about 30 miles south of Tehran.

The cause of the crash was not reported, but state television said officials had ruled out sabotage. There have been three major fatal aircraft accidents in Iran since 2002.

News reports said the Lockheed C-130, a four-engine turbo-prop, may have been acquired from the United States when Iran was a U.S. ally and ruled by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The monarchy was overthrown by the 1979 revolution that established an Islamic state.

U.S. trade sanctions against Iran have led to chronic shortages of aircraft spare parts. The Bush administration this year held out the possibility of lifting the sanction on airline parts as a bargaining chip in negotiations over the future of Iran's nuclear program.

"We see lots of airplanes landing in the airport every day," said Sadegh Jalaliyan, who noticed the C-130 while smoking a cigarette in the yard of the dairy factory south of the airport where he works. "I immediately recognized something was wrong with it. It was unusually low.

"I shouted to my friends and showed them the plane. Then there was a terrible explosion and a huge column of thick smoke."

The new China pipeline runs 962 kilometers (598 miles) and will take China a third of the way to Kashagan in the Caspian Sea, one of the world's largest accessible oil reserves. Kashagan is the largest new oil discovery in decades and exceeds the size of the North Sea. This is a major reason Washington has such a strong interest in supporting democratic regime change in the Central Asia region of late.

In the next 10 years, Kazakhstan plans to almost triple oil production, prompting the landlocked nation to seek new export routes because the country wants to avoid pipelines through Russia and excessive Russian dependence. China is now among Kazakhstan's major target markets.

Best public estimates are that Kazakhstan has 35 billion barrels of discovered oil reserves, twice the amount in the North Sea, and may hold about three times more, according to a Kazakh government report released on November 18 in London. German oil engineers have privately reported that recent drilling by Italy's AGIP, the current oil consortium leader for Kashagan, a huge field offshore Kazakhstan southwest of Tengiz, has confirmed enormous oil deposits there.

The government of President Nursultan Nazarbayev plans to produce 3.6 million barrels a day of oil from all fields in Kazakhstan, onshore and off, by 2015. For 2005, they expect to average about 1.3 million barrels a day, making Kazakhstan far larger than Azerbaijan, and second in oil production of the former Soviet states only to Russia.

The December 15 opening of the new Kazakh-China pipeline was a major event for Beijing. Zhang Guobao, vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, China's top economic planning agency, attended the opening. CNPC has invested more than $2.6 billion in Kazakhstan since 1997.

Beijing takes the geopolitical prize
In October, Beijing scored a second major geopolitical coup when China completed a $4.18 billion takeover of PetroKazakhstan Inc. It was, in a sense, revenge on Washington for the blocking of the China acquisition of Unocal. US oil majors had made major efforts to lock up Kazakhstan oil after discovery of major oil offshore in the Kashagan field. They failed. ExxonMobil was charged with bribery of Kazakh officials to win a presence in the Kazakh oil business, and a senior Mobil executive was later jailed on US tax evasion in New York tied to the Kazakh bribery payments.

Nazarbayev enjoys good relations with Russia's President Vladimir Putin. He was general secretary of the Communist Party when Kazakhstan was part of the USSR, and is regarded as a sly fox in terms of dealing with Moscow, while also keeping a clear distance from Moscow.

In October, Russia's Lukoil failed in its bid to buy up the Kazakh state oil company, PetroKazakhstan, in a privatization. Nazarbayev indicated a major geopolitical shift in strategy, compared with a decade or more ago, when it appeared that Washington was to be the major foreign ally of Nazarbayev. At that time Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's company, Chevron, became the lead oil contractor and operator in the Kazakh Tengiz oil field. That was just after the breakup of the Soviet Union and the US oil presence in Kazakhstan was a major US political priority supported by the Bill Clinton administration.

The Chevron Tengizchevoil consortium formed the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) in 1993 amid great fanfare. After years of haggling with the Kazakh government, Chevron finally constructed a pipeline from Tengiz on the Caspian's northeastern shore to the Russian port of Novorossiysk on the Black Sea. Following years of pressure, most members of the CPC group, including Chevron and Oman Oil Co, decided to not pursue future expansions of the CPC line.

Now, a decade later and with the scope of Kazakh oil deposits dwarfing any in the region, with its recent confirmed drillings in the Kashagan field, Nazarbayev has scored a political balance of power coup by turning to Beijing.

In October, Nazarbayev announced that CNPC had won the bid to buy PetroKazakhstan. What will be important to watch, now that Nazarbayev won re-election on December 4, further extending his 14-year reign, is to what extent Washington begins to play up "human rights abuses" by Nazarbayev.

A fledgling "Orange" revolution a la Ukraine has sprung up behind opposition candidate Zharmakhan Tuyakbai and his party, For a Just Kazakhstan. He came in second with 6.6% of the vote and cried fraud, but Washington's and the US media response were muted this time. Rice, in a major trip to shore up sagging US influence in Central Asia on October 10-13, held a private meeting with Tuyakbai. He is clearly being groomed for a possible future role, but clearly not yet.

Washington suffers strategic setback

A major setback for Washington's Eurasian encirclement strategy vis-a-vis China and Russia came several months ago when Uzbekistan's autocratic president Islam Karimov told Washington it could no longer use the Karshi-Khanabad military air base in southeast Uzbekistan, a major piece in Washington's Eurasian chess board play, put into place after September 11, 2001.

Since strong US protest over the government's bloody suppression of protests against a state trial of alleged Islamic fundamentalists in Andijan last May, Karimov's relations with Washington have deteriorated. Karimov's decision to move so aggressively was no doubt influenced by the successful March "Tulip" revolution which toppled Askar Akayev in neighboring Kyrgystan and set the stage for the July election of opposition and US-backed candidate Kurmanbek Bakiev.

On July 29, Karimov announced he was evicting the US entirely from the airbase with a January 2006 exit date. In October, the US Senate, as retaliation, voted not to pay $23 million in base user fees to Uzbekistan for past use. Moscow and Beijing have both moved into the vacuum. A look at the map will indicate why. Uzbekistan is strategic for control or to prevent control by foreign powers such as Washington, of Central Asia and pipeline routes linking Russia, China and Kazakhstan. In October 2004, Moscow secured a long-term military base agreement to station troops in Dushanbe, the capital of nearby Tajikistan, a move by Russia to limit the spread of Washington-backed "color revolutions" in the region.

That appeared to redraw the Eurasian geostrategic map in Moscow's favor, with the recent US loss of Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan is now effectively Russia's main ally in Central Asia.

Washington's position in Eurasia and its future relations with Kazakhstan suddenly assumed high priority. Clearly, the Bush administration decided the time was not ripe to try a full-blown "Orange" revolution in Kazakhstan this month, at least not until Washington's position in the region was stronger. That was a clear purpose of the October Rice visit.

But now with the strong geopolitical turn of Nazarbayev toward playing Beijing to offset potential Washington domination in the region, the situation has begun to change dramatically. A year ago, China attempted to buy out a 16% share in the Kashagan consortium from British Gas, which was willing to sell. That sale was blocked by US consortium member ExxonMobil, the company subsequently charged with bribery and convicted. Now China has opened an oil flow out of Kazakhstan to the East, not the West.

This has major strategic implications for the future of the Washington-backed BTC oil pipeline. That pipeline was built by the Caspian Oil Consortium headed by British Petroleum, and was backed by both Clinton and George W Bush, despite the fact that it was the most costly and least viable oil route out of the Caspian.

Former US national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski had been the chief Washington lobbyist advocating the BTC route to circumvent Russia. Its construction was undertaken on the assumption that it would carry not only Baku oil, but also a major share of Kazakh oil from Tengiz and offshore Kashagan oil fields. Oops!

A larger China energy strategy

The December China-Kazakhstan pipeline opening is one part of a massive Chinese plan to secure as much Kazakh oil riches as possible.

The Chinese plan to connect several pieces of infrastructure - part Soviet-built, part Chinese-built - then reverse the flow of some of them and forge a new export corridor stretching from Kazakhstan's oil-rich Caspian basin, including Kashagan, through a series of western and central-Kazakh oil zones, and ultimately into China. With completion of this major project, China will for the first time have secured a source of imported energy not vulnerable to US aircraft carrier battle groups, as is the case with present oil deliveries from the Persian Gulf and Sudan.

Before opening the new pipeline, China imported only 25,000 bpd from Kazakhstan. Once the link between Kenkiyak and Kumkol is finished, connecting existing infrastructure near the Caspian with the portion inaugurated on December 15, the project will pump 1 million bpd. That would be about 15% of China's crude oil needs.

China then plans to tap into production from dozens of Kazakh sites it has acquired during the past several years. This is oil that currently goes west, or north through Russia.

Beijing still prefers the color 'red'
Beijing has also studied the Washington-backed series of regime changes across Central Asia and the "color revolutions" from Georgia to Ukraine and most recently Kyrgystan, and has evidently decided to "nip in the bud" any similar non-governmental organization efforts within China, or in areas strategic to long-term China energy security.

Kyrgystan's "Tulip" revolution last July sounded alarm bells in Beijing. Possible Chinese pipeline links to Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iran and or Russia would clearly be threatened by a ring of new pro-North Atlantic Treaty Organization neighbors and states between western China and its potential oil sources. Their alarm led to warmer ties between Uzbekistan's Karimov and Beijing in recent months, as well as an invitation from Moscow-tied Belarus President Yuri Lukashenko.

The Washington journal Foreign Policy ran a short item in its October edition by an apparent Chinese dissident. The article, titled, "China's Color-Coded Crackdown", is worth quoting:

In China's halls of power, the fall of post-Soviet authoritarian regimes has raised the uncomfortable specter of a Chinese popular uprising. According to the Hong Kong-based Open magazine, a report by Chinese President Hu Jintao, titled "Fighting the People's War Without Gunsmoke", is guiding the Chinese Communist Party's "counterrevolution" offensive. The report, disseminated inside the party, outlines a series of measures aimed at nipping a potential Chinese "color revolution" in the bud.

Some Chinese apparently call it the Battle of the Two Georges - George Bush and global financier George Soros. The Foreign Policy piece continues:

Perhaps the most telling sign of China's concern has been its crackdown on non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Beijing believes that international organizations, especially advocacy NGOs, have acted as Washington's "black hands" behind the recent regime changes in Central Asia. A recent issue of a biweekly journal run by the Communist Party Propaganda Department referred to Washington's "$1 billion annual budget for global democratization" and identified NGOs such as the International Republican Institute, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the US Institute of Peace and the Open Society Institute as organizations that "brainwash" local people and train political oppositions.

In late August, ahead of a visit by the UN high commissioner for human rights, Chinese police raided the office of the Empowerment and Rights Institute, a human rights group supported by the NED. A new regulation offering more freedom to NGOs was initially expected later this year. No longer. The Ministry of Civil Affairs has now stopped processing registration applications, effectively freezing many groups' operations. Instead, the only government offices taking an interest in NGOs are the national security agency [China's secret police] and public security forces.

Both have launched investigations into local NGOs. Some senior Chinese managers working for international NGOs have been called in for "private talks" with authorities, though no related arrests or detentions have been reported. Some NGO offices have had plainclothes security officers show up in an effort to clandestinely ferret out information on foreign staff and organizations. Environmental groups have been singled out for a massive government survey, most likely because they have angered powerful agencies by successfully initiating public debates on controversial issues, such as genetically modified foods and huge dam projects, and because only around 10% of green groups are currently registered with the state.

Meanwhile, Beijing has commissioned researchers from several provincial academies of social science to study the activities of NGOs in China. NGO publications such as directories experienced unexpectedly strong sales in recent months, as they no doubt became convenient study tools. Likewise, experts have been dispatched to Central Asia to study how those color revolutions first sprung roots. In a May 19 Politburo meeting, senior administrators from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, where foreign research funds are usually well received, were reminded of the "acute and complicated struggle in the ideological realm in the new millennium". In other words, be careful about the political implications of your research.

According to sources in Beijing, final decisions on the government's approach to NGOs will be made in a November meeting of the State Council, China's highest executive body. As long as the clouds of color revolution are hovering over Central Asia - some, for example, expect storms in Belarus - the Chinese government will stay on high alert ... Beijing's moves against the country's NGO community remain largely unnoticed outside China. If the international community wants an open and democratic China, it should pay more attention to the survival and growth of Chinese liberal institutions. Otherwise, the country will be destined to remain the same shade of red.

Beijing-Tehran-Moscow

At the end of 2004, Beijing signed a $70 billion energy agreement with Tehran, China's largest Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries energy deal to date. China's state Sinopec agreed to buy 250 million tons of LNG over 30 years from Iran, as well as to develop the giant Yadavaran field. That agreement covered the comprehensive development by Sinopec of the giant Yadavaran gas field, construction of a related petrochemical and gas industry including pipelines.

As part of the huge Iran-China economic cooperation agreement, China's state-run military construction company, NORINCO, will expand the Tehran Metro underground.

A second phase in the Iran-China strategic energy cooperation will involve constructing a pipeline in Iran to take oil some 386 kilometers to the Caspian Sea, there to link up with the planned pipeline from China into Kazakhstan.

On signing the deal, Iran's Petroleum Minister announced that Tehran would like to see China replace Japan as Iran's largest oil importer. As well, Iran has what are estimated to be the world's second largest reserves of natural gas after Russia. Iran is a place of enormous strategic importance to China, to Japan, to Russia, to the European Union, and for all these reasons, to Washington as well.

Iran supplies about 14% of China's oil. Along with Russia, China has been involved since the late 1990s in supplying nuclear technology to Tehran. In 1997, Beijing, under Washington pressure, nominally agreed to stop nuclear-related shipments to Iran, but the flows are believed continuing as the Iran relation is strategic and critical to China's energy security.

China, a veto member of the UN Security Council, has repeatedly called for the issue of Iranian nuclear development to be dealt with by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The IAEA's chief, Nobel Peace Prize awardee, Mohamed ElBaradei, has earned the enmity of Washington war hawks for his open declarations of lack of evidence in both Iraq and now of Iranian atomic bomb capability.

Given the nature of the Bush administration's rush to war in Iraq in 2003, where China had a major stake in oil development, and the subsequent US blocking of other Chinese attempts at securing energy independence, including Unocal, it is not surprising that Beijing is taking extraordinary measures to secure its long-term oil and gas supply.

Energy is the Achilles' heel of China's economic growth. Beijing knows that only too well. So does Washington. A decision by Washington to take military action against Iran now would pull a far larger cast of actors into the fray than Iraq.

F William Engdahl is author of the book, A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order from Pluto Press Ltd. He can be contacted via his website, www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net.

(Copyright 2005 F William Engdahl)

"We are lifting the lid on these explosive comments after Mr Ahern refused to go on the record to denounce claims by former Irish minister Justin Keating that Jews have mounted a 'self-serving and untruthful Zionist myth' to lay claim to Israel."

Gissin says further, "There is a culture of hatred that says the Jews have no right to live here as an entity. We are here as our birthright not as a conqueror."

And he states: "If you don't support Zionism ipso facto you are actually saying, in the logical progression, we don't support the right of the Jewish people to have a state of their own, in their own ancestral homeland.

"That is the problem with the Arabs, they recognise the entity of Israel, but don't recognise the fact that they have an inherent right to a homeland."

So, if one thinks that it is an outrage that the Palestinians, an amalgamation of all of the groups who have been through Palestine, of which the Jews weren't the first, were dispossessed, then one is part of a "culture of hatred."

I think that it is an outrage that raped Palestinians and those who don't let Zionists control their thought are accused of being part of a "culture of hate" for not acknowledging the rapist his "inherent right" to rape them.

Saying it does not make it so, Mr. Gissin. There are a few souls out here who think.

The Songhua becomes the Amur in Russia, and Natalya Zimina, a spokeswoman for the regional administration, said levels in the Amur were normal and water supplies to the city of 580,000 would be maintained.

The slick has been floating downstream and entered Russian territory last week. It could take four days or more to pass through Khabarovsk, but experts warn the ecological effects will last longer. Benzene and nitrobenzene are heavier than water and they are settling on the river bottom or sticking to the ice.

Come spring, melting ice will pollute not just the river water, but also the banks, according to Yevgeny Rozhkov, an engineer from the Far East Meteorological Agency.

Tonnes of carbon are being used to filter out contamination from water supplies taken from the Amur River, which normally provides the city with all its water.

"We have done everything we could to safeguard and filter the water and we do not plan to cut off water to Khabarovsk," said Governor Viktor Ishayev. He appealed to inhabitants of the city "to keep calm."

Officials have set up a telephone hotline to field calls from worried residents who have filled their apartments with bottles, pots and pans and even baths filled with water.

Irina Zakonnikova's family stopped using tap water on Thursday, even though callers to the hotline were assured that it was "absolutely safe" to wash and cook with running water.

"We are trying to keep ourselves from panicking but of course there is fear," she said.

"Residents have stocked up on water and this should be enough to last them for two to three days," said Vladimir Ott, the regional chief of the Federal Natural Resources Service.

The regional administration has already banned fishing on the Amur - possibly for up to two years - and residents such as Zakonnikova have filled their freezers with frozen fish.

But some people are flouting the ban despite the health risks. Galina Denisova, a 69-year-old retiree, was standing at a bus stop in subzero winter temperatures hawking fish.

She said her husband had caught the fish in the Amur that morning.

"I have a small pension, so I eat freshly caught fish myself and make money from selling it," she said.

Using a network of cameras that can automatically read every passing number plate, the plan is to build a huge database of vehicle movements so that the police and security services can analyse any journey a driver has made over several years.

The network will incorporate thousands of existing CCTV cameras which are being converted to read number plates automatically night and day to provide 24/7 coverage of all motorways and main roads, as well as towns, cities, ports and petrol-station forecourts.

By next March a central database installed alongside the Police National Computer in Hendon, north London, will store the details of 35 million number-plate "reads" per day. These will include time, date and precise location, with camera sites monitored by global positioning satellites.

Already there are plans to extend the database by increasing the storage period to five years and by linking thousands of additional cameras so that details of up to 100 million number plates can be fed each day into the central databank.

Senior police officers have described the surveillance network as possibly the biggest advance in the technology of crime detection and prevention since the introduction of DNA fingerprinting.

But others concerned about civil liberties will be worried that the movements of millions of law-abiding people will soon be routinely recorded and kept on a central computer database for years.

The new national data centre of vehicle movements will form the basis of a sophisticated surveillance tool that lies at the heart of an operation designed to drive criminals off the road.

In the process, the data centre will provide unrivalled opportunities to gather intelligence data on the movements and associations of organised gangs and terrorist suspects whenever they use cars, vans or motorcycles.

The scheme is being orchestrated by the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) and has the full backing of ministers who have sanctioned the spending of £24m this year on equipment.

More than 50 local authorities have signed agreements to allow the police to convert thousands of existing traffic cameras so they can read number plates automatically. The data will then be transmitted to Hendon via a secure police communications network.

Chief constables are also on the verge of brokering agreements with the Highways Agency, supermarkets and petrol station owners to incorporate their own CCTV cameras into the network. In addition to cross-checking each number plate against stolen and suspect vehicles held on the Police National Computer, the national data centre will also check whether each vehicle is lawfully licensed, insured and has a valid MoT test certificate.

"Every time you make a car journey already, you'll be on CCTV somewhere. The difference is that, in future, the car's index plates will be read as well," said Frank Whiteley, Chief Constable of Hertfordshire and chairman of the Acpo steering committee on automatic number plate recognition (ANPR).

"What the data centre should be able to tell you is where a vehicle was in the past and where it is now, whether it was or wasn't at a particular location, and the routes taken to and from those crime scenes. Particularly important are associated vehicles," Mr Whiteley said.

The term "associated vehicles" means analysing convoys of cars, vans or trucks to see who is driving alongside a vehicle that is already known to be of interest to the police. Criminals, for instance, will drive somewhere in a lawful vehicle, steal a car and then drive back in convoy to commit further crimes "You're not necessarily interested in the stolen vehicle. You're interested in what's moving with the stolen vehicle," Mr Whiteley explained.

According to a strategy document drawn up by Acpo, the national data centre in Hendon will be at the heart of a surveillance operation that should deny criminals the use of the roads.

"The intention is to create a comprehensive ANPR camera and reader infrastructure across the country to stop displacement of crime from area to area and to allow a comprehensive picture of vehicle movements to be captured," the Acpo strategy says.

"This development forms the basis of a 24/7 vehicle movement database that will revolutionise arrest, intelligence and crime investigation opportunities on a national basis," it says.

Comment: The system will certainly be revolutionary - at least in a fascist Big Brother sort of way...

Mr Whiteley said MI5 will also use the database. "Clearly there are values for this in counter-terrorism," he said.

"The security services will use it for purposes that I frankly don't have access to. It's part of public protection. If the security services did not have access to this, we'd be negligent." [...]

A major feature of the national surveillance centre for car numbers is the ability to trawl through records of previous sightings to build up an intelligence picture of a vehicle's precise whereabouts on the road network.

However, the Home Office and police believe that the Big Brother nature of the operation can be justified on the basis of the technology's proven ability to catch criminals. "In simple terms criminals use vehicles. If you want to commit a crime, you're going to use a vehicle," said Frank Whiteley, the Chief Constable of Hertfordshire, who leads the project. " There is nothing secretive about it and we don't want it to be secret, because we want people to feel safer, to see that they are protected."

A 13-month pilot scheme between 2003 and 2004 found the performance of the police improved dramatically when they had access automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras. Project Laser 2 involved 23 police forces using specially fitted vans with ANPR cameras linked to a police database. It led to a fivefold increase in the arrest rate for frontline officers.

But these mobile units will constitute only a tiny proportion of the many thousands of ANPR cameras that by next year will be feeding more than 35 million number plate "reads" every day into the new national data centre at Hendon, north London, the same site as the Police National Computer.

Mr Whiteley, chairman of the ANPR steering committee, said the intention eventually was to move from the "low thousands" of cameras to the " high thousands".

One camera can cover many motorway lanes. Just two ANPR devices, for instance, cover north and south movements through the 27 lanes of the Dartford crossing toll area on the Thames.

By March next year, most motorways, main roads, town centres and petrol station forecourts will be also covered. Some cameras may be disguised for covert operations but the majority will be ordinary CCTV traffic cameras converted to read number plates. "What we're trying to do as far as we can is to stitch together the existing camera network rather than install a huge number of new cameras," Mr Whiteley said.

More than 50 local authorities have already signed up to allow the police access to data gathered from their CCTV traffic cameras. Northampton, Bradford, Stoke and the City of London have had ANPR cameras in use for some time. Many smaller towns, such as St Albans, Stevenage and Watford are in the process of being wired up.

"We also talking to the commercial sector about their sites, particular garage forecourts. One of the biggest truisms about vehicles is that they have got to fill up with petrol," he explained.

Supermarkets are soon to agree a deal that will lead to all cars entering their garage forecourts having details of their number plates sent to Hendon. In return, the retailers will receive warning information about those drivers most likely to "bilk" - drive off without paying their bill.

The plan beyond March 2006 - when the national data centre goes live - is to expand the capacity of the system to log the time, date and whereabouts of up to 100 million number plates a day. "In crude terms we're interested in between two and three per cent of all vehicles on the roads," Mr Whiteley said.

"We can use ANPR on investigations or we can use it looking forward in a proactive, intelligence way. Things like building up the lifestyle of criminals - where they are going to be at certain times. We seek to link the criminal to the vehicle through intelligence. Vehicles moving on the roads are open to police scrutiny at any time. The Road Traffic Act gives us the right to stop vehicles at any time for any purpose. So criminals on public roads are vulnerable.

"What makes them doubly vulnerable is that most criminals not only burgle and steal, but they also don't bother to tax their vehicles, insure them and things like that," Mr Whiteley said.

Early in the new year the National ANPR Data Centre will be able to cross-check its database against all vehicles lawfully taxed and insured. All unlawful vehicles will be flagged and when they pass an ANPR camera their movements will register as "hits". The Home Office and the police believe that such a surveillance tool will have a dramatic impact on crime detection as well as the public's attitude to traffic policing.

"The first plus is that we can concentrate our resources on the vehicles we should be stopping. The other plus side is that the 97 per cent of law-abiding motorists should never be bothered by that," Mr Whiteley said.

The National ANPR Data Centre is being built alongside the Police National Computer because of the need to be constantly updated with lists of suspect drivers and vehicles. The design of the system will also take into account future changes to the way cars will be recognised, such as electronic vehicle identification - when a unique identity chip is built in to the bodywork.

Identity chips are being considered as part of a new road-pricing system based on a network of roadside radio receivers. Such electronic tags would, however, also allow a car's movements to be recorded without the need of number-plate cameras.

Asked whether ANPR will be as important as the forensic use of fingerprints and DNA profiling, Mr Whiteley replied: "It has the capability to be as revolutionary. I would describe it as an ubiquitous policing tool. You can use it in all sorts of different ways."

HOW THE INFORMATION IS GATHERED

Fixed cameras at strategic sites

Many thousands of traffic cameras on main roads, motorways, ports and petrol stations will read car numbers using Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR)

Mobile units

Every force will have a fleet of specially fitted police vans with ANPR cameras. These will work alongside high-speed intercept officers

CCTV in towns & cities

Many existing traffic cameras in towns and cities are being converted to read number plates automatically as part of the new national surveillance network

CONSTANT UPDATES

Police National Computer

The PNC will supply updates on vehicles and drivers of interest to the police

Insurance data

Uninsured drivers will be identified from data provided by the insurance industry

MoT data

Vehicles without a valid MoT test certificate will be flagged

Vehicle licence data

All vehicles without a valid tax disc or with unlawful number plates will be identified

WHERE THE INFORMATION GOES

The new National ANPR Data Centre is to be based at Hendon in north London, the site of the existing Police National Computer. It is being designed to store 35 million number plate 'reads' per day, to be expanded to 100 million reads within a couple of years. The time, date and place of each vehicle sighting will be stored for at least two years, with plans to extend this period to five years. Special 'data mining' software can trawl for movements and associations

WHO USES THE INFORMATION

Police

Every police force will have direct computer access to the National ANPR Data Centre. Intelligence officers will be able to access data on a car's movements over a number of years

MI5

The Security Services have special exemption under the Data Protection Act to use ANPR information for purposes of national security. Anti-terrorism will be their main interest

His successor, Neelie Kroes, is now investigating further complaints about the group's activities.

"I have given Microsoft every opportunity to comply with its obligations," Ms Kroes said in a statement. "However, I have been left with no alternative other than to proceed via the formal route to ensure Microsoft's compliance."

In the 2004 ruling, the commission found Microsoft guilty of abusing its power and ordered it to disclose information to rivals so they could manufacture computers and accessories such as printers that could operate smoothly with the Windows operating software.

Jonathan Todd told a news conference that Microsoft had until January 25 to reply to the commission's statement of objections and it had to comply fully with the commission's anti-trust decision "not with their own interpretation of that decision".

The EU said it was also investigating the royalties Microsoft would charge companies for using its software information and said another legal challenge might be issued if it was unhappy with the financial demands.

Microsoft has pointed to recent technology agreements between Microsoft and rivals such as Siemens and Symbian as evidence that "inter-operability is at the core" of what the company is doing.

In September, Microsoft launched a second appeal against the 2004 ruling in a move to avoid giving more information on its server programs.

Defence Ministry spokesman Jean-Francois Bureau said the ministry had handed over documents to a criminal investigation into the affair which mentionS a second man, called Nestor Mahe.

"The Minister (of Defence, Michele Alliot-Marie) wanted us to share all useful information that we might have because any doubts deserve numerous checks so that they can be cleared up," he told a news briefing.

Bureau said nothing in the investigation so far had indicated there was a case of mistaken identity or that the targeted man was not the highway bandit French troops believed he was. He said Mahe was a common surname in the region.

France acknowledged in November that its troops had suffocated Firmin Mahe in the back of a military vehicle in the French-patrolled security zone separating the government-held south and rebel-controlled north of Ivory Coast.

Two soldiers alleged to have suffocated the Ivorian have been placed under official investigation for voluntary manslaughter. Another soldier driving the vehicle is under investigation for complicity.

As we all likely remember, the CCTV footage of the driver in the Paris Ritz in the run up to the accident showed him walking perfectly normally and, at one point, even crouching down, something he wouldn't have been able to do had he really been as drunk as the blood tests showed.

If this is ever confirmed then the speculation as to what really happened on that fateful August night will once again erupt into a whirlwind of speculation and conspiracy theories.

Ever since the crash many people - some who purport to be experts, others simply conspiracy theorists - have claimed that the levels of carbon monoxide in Paul's blood were especially suspicious.

One has to wonder whether we will ever know what happened in the early hours of August 31st, 1997. Even if the forthcoming results of the official investigation, led by former British Police Chief John Stevens, prove that this was a simple road accident, will everyone accept that and let the issue rest?

Sadly for the Princess's family and friends, the answer to that is likely to be a unanimous 'No'.

Civil rights groups and left-wing opposition parties have expressed concern over the law, which they fear gives authorities too much power to invade citizens' privacy and encourages confusion between immigration and terrorism.

The opposition Socialist Party said it would challenge the law in the Constitutional Council, the court which determines whether legislation abides by France's 1958 constitution.

The law was championed by Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, a hard-line conservative politician with hopes of succeeding
President Jacques Chirac in 2007 elections.

He has said that it was drawn up partly with Britain's experience during and after the July attacks in mind and aims to improve France's legislative arsenal to prevent "a catastrophe".

British investigators' used video footage to identify the alleged suicide bombers who killed themselves and 52 people on three London subway trains and a double-decker bus on July 7. It was also used to track down a copycat group that failed in its attempt to create similar mayhem on July 21.

The law paves the way for increased use of surveillance cameras in public spaces such as train stations, churches and mosques, shops, factories or nuclear plants.

Internet and mobile phone operators will be required to keep records of client connections for one year under its provisions, and officials will have greater authority to conduct identity checks on cross-border trains and to automatically monitor vehicles.

Police will have wider access to previously confidential customer information from rail, maritime and air transport companies.

Local authorities will have the right to ban certain individuals from entering sporting stadiums.

Terrorist suspects can also be kept in custody for a maximum of six days without being put under formal, criminal investigation. The previous duration was four days. Longer prison terms for people convicted of terrorism crimes will also be introduced.

The law extended existing anti-terrorism legislation in France that was already considered among the toughest in the 25-nation European Union, particularly with its catch-all offense of "criminal association in relation with a terrorist enterprise".

The Mexican Senate urged Vicente Fox’s government to increase the pressure on the U.S. Senate to halt passage of anti-immigration legislation that plans to extend the wall along the border by at least 1,000 kilometers [621 miles] and designate undocumented workers as criminals.

Vice President of the Senate Board of Directors [Vice President of the Senate], Cesar Jauregui Robles, acknowledged that little can be done at the parliamentary level, which is why the Government should work on making improvements within Mexico by strengthening the national economy and creating more jobs while on the diplomatic front, the Foreign Secretary [Luis Ernesto Derbez] continues to work to halt [U.S. Congressmen] James Sensenbrenner’s initiative in the U.S. Senate.

In an interview, the National Action Party (PAN) Senator expressed regret over the position of the U.S. House of Representatives. “Not only have we failed to achieve understanding between our nations, but this bill assigns stigma and punishment to a sociological problem. This does not in the least help the relationship between neighbors. We must reexamine the ways in which Mexico has conducted this relationship (with the United States), because despite all of our efforts, we are in a more precarious situation now than we were six years ago.”

Considering the circumstances, Jauregui said that Mexico should seek to solve its problems internally because the alternative, continuing to support this relationship of dependence on the U.S. “will carry our nation to disaster. We should also look to the south, Asia, Europe, and other nations with whom we have better relations and who have not caused us to suffer daily affronts and insults, as our northern neighbor has.”

The PAN Party Senator said that the relationship between Mexico and the U.S. today is worse than it was five years ago, when the two countries spoke of joint investments, and bringing maquiladoras [export assembly plants] to the south of the country to help develop this region. “Today we see that nothing has come of this talk. These plans were merely pipe dreams. Instead we see the construction of walls that, as history suggests, are destined to collapse sooner or later.”

Meanwhile, the national head of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) claimed yesterday that the construction of a wall along the northern border is an act that defies the most basic principals and human rights, in addition to contradicting the free market philosophy that the U.S. promotes across the world.

“Just as the U.S. defends the free exchange of goods and money, a free economy should also be founded upon the uninhibited transit of human capital and the freedom to seek work opportunities. It is a contradiction to defend the free flow of goods and money, but at the same time deny people the right to work and the freedom to hire,” maintained PRI spokesman Eduardo Andrade.

Christmas is the holiday of the majority of Americans, it is true. And, as so, at it's best, it has become a symbol for the glory of the divine spark of life -- of the celebration of the warmth of friends and family.

As a nation, we are secular, although we are each entitled to our own faith, our own explanation of this great mystery called life.

Let us remember that there is no one religion -- and Christianity is a minority religion in the world.

Faith should make us better people, not more evil and hateful. It is a positive, affirming force for most Christians -- as the idea of God is for most people of other faiths. We just got the runt of the Christian litter running our country right now. They are the spokespeople for those who would battle the obligations of the divine in the name of God -- when they are doing the work of the devil.

So, to all our readers, we want to convey this. If our lives are manifestation of a divine force, than we bear responsibility for our lives and the good that we do, not God. It's our responsibility, not his or hers. And if we bear responsibility for our lives, then we are accountable for our behavior. And if we are accountable for our behavior, then we must live a life of good deeds, benevolence, love and peace.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Happy Kwanzaa -- and to all the other faiths of the world and your holiest days, we say remember this: the divine lives in those who walk amongst us.

Treat your neighbor, your friends, your families, and the strangers you meet as you would treat God, for God is in all who inhabit this planet. We -- the earth we live on and all of its creatures -- are the divine.

Remember this and you will truly celebrate this holiday season as it should be celebrated -- a celebration of a life and love that does not live in the shadow of fear and darkness.

Col. Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov, chief of the Strategic Missile Forces, took part in a ceremony that marked the commissioning of the latest set of Topol-M missiles at a missile base in Tatishchevo in the Volga River's Saratov region.

Solovtsov said Saturday that the new missile "is capable of penetrating any missile defense system," the RIA Novosti and Interfax news agencies reported.

Russian officials have called prospective U.S. missile defenses destabilizing and boasted repeatedly that Russia's new missiles could pierce any nation's missile shield.

The Topol-M missiles, capable of hitting targets more than 10,000 kilometers (6,000 miles) away, have so far been deployed in silos. The mobile version, mounted on a heavy off-road vehicle, is to enter combat service next year, Solovtsov said.

The deployed Topol-Ms have been fitted with single nuclear warheads, but officials have considered plans to equip each missile with three individually targeted warheads.

"Could it be that the government of the United States feels hurt that Cuba cooperates with a brother nation?" Castro said. "Does that offend the U.S. government ... is it antidemocratic, is it a crime?"

Morales, 46, said he would not allow himself to be pressured by Washington while in power. "I never had good relations with the United States, but rather with the American people," he said.

Morales, a coca farmer and left-wing activist, says he won't resume the U.S.-backed coca eradication campaign in Bolivia. But he has vowed to crack down on drug trafficking while promoting legal markets for coca leaf, which is used to make cocaine but has medicinal and other legal uses in Bolivia.

Castro and another close ally, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, have over the past year launched plans to share programs in social cooperation among countries in the region while rejecting a U.S.-backed plan for hemispheric free trade. Washington has expressed concern about their growing alliance.

Speaking to about 400 young Bolivians already studying in Cuba under full scholarships from Castro's government, the two leaders did not spell out details of the literacy plan.

But Cuba has launched similar programs in other countries, most recently Venezuela, sending Cuban advisers with educational materials to work with local instructors to teach reading and writing to disadvantaged people.

Cuba carried out its own literacy program in the first years after the 1959 revolution that brought Castro to power, sending young teachers into poor regions in the island's mountains and other remote areas.

Among the poorest and least developed countries in Latin America, Bolivia nonetheless has a literacy rate of more than 87 percent.

"We have agreed to the first measures of cooperation," Morales said, adding that his meetings with Castro Friday were "an encounter of two generations in the struggle for dignity."

Castro is the first head of state visited by Morales as he starts reaching out to other leaders before taking office.

"Our brother Evo possesses all the necessary qualities needed to lead his country," said Castro, who sported a miner's hard hat given to him by Bolivian mining union leaders who traveled with Morales to Cuba.

Although he won't be inaugurated until Jan. 22, Morales was welcomed by a red carpet, a military band and a smiling Castro when he stepped off the Cuban plane that brought him from Bolivia.

Castro, dressed in his typical olive green uniform, welcomed Morales' election as an important triumph over U.S. influence in the region.

"The map is changing," said the 79-year-old Cuban leader, who marks 47 years in power on New Year's Day.

Morales won the presidency Dec. 18 with nearly 54 percent of the vote _ the most support for any Bolivian president since democracy was restored there two decades ago.

He left Cuba on Saturday to be back in Bolivia in time for a New Year's Eve celebration in his hometown of Orinoca. On Jan. 3, he departs on a world tour that will include Spain, France, Brussels, the Netherlands, South Africa, China and Brazil.

"The Cuban regime does not represent the people, nor does it have any interest in bettering their lives," Parmly told a crowd of 100 gathered at his residence Dec. 10. "Rather, the regime is obsessed with self-preservation."

In the speech marking International Human Rights Day, Parmly compared the practice of Cuban government supporters surrounding the homes of dissidents and hurling insults to tactics used by Nazi "brown shirts" and Ku Klux Klan members.

Cuban officials reacted with indignation.

Comparison `hurtful'

"To compare Cuba to the worst fascism, and the worst racism of the United States ... it is very hurtful," said Randy Alonso, moderator of state television's nightly "Round Table" program, which reflects the view of the Cuban government.

Last week, Castro referred to Parmly as "that little gangster," and Cason as the "former gangster."

He later called U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice a "madwoman" after she reconvened a U.S. government commission whose stated goal is to assist Cuba's transition to democracy.

"I am going to tell you what I think about this famous commission," said Castro, who then used vulgar language to describe the group to the Cuban National Assembly.

The return of mutual enmity does not surprise diplomats and other observers who argue that officials in Cuba and the United States often appear more comfortable confronting each other than trying to resolve their differences.

While the two nations cooperate on everything from migration to anti-narcotics operations, experts say Castro goes out of his way to portray the U.S. as Cuba's mortal enemy to tap into Cuban nationalism and rally support around his government.

By the same token, President Bush's confrontational approach toward Castro garnered votes among some Cuban exiles in South Florida and may have helped secure his re-election in 2004.

Yet Bush also appears to hold a deep antipathy toward Castro, experts say.

"It goes beyond the benefit of the Florida vote," said Mark Falcoff, a Latin American scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank in Washington.

The relationship between Cuba and the United States has been in decline since 2002, when Bush appointed Cason as the top U.S. diplomat in Cuba.

Cason became the very public face of a toughened U.S. policy toward Cuba characterized by tightened sanctions and increased material support for the island's dissident movement.

"I was a big fan of Mr. Cason," said Alfredo Mesa, executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation, a powerful Miami-based exile group. "He was very effective. He had a very interesting way of delivering his message."

Cason's tactics were often unconventional.

Unconventional diplomacy

During his three-year tenure in Havana, Cason placed a mock prison cell at the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana to highlight the plight of jailed Cuban opposition activists.

In December 2004, he infuriated Cuban officials by adorning the front lawn of the U.S. mission with holiday decorations that included Santa Claus and Frosty the Snowman but also a sign with the number 75, a reference to the 75 Cuban dissidents jailed in 2003.

Cuban officials responded by placing a huge billboard outside the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana showing hooded and bloodied Iraqi prisoners being tortured by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Cason also was lampooned in a cartoon series that aired on Cuban national television.

In one episode, Cason -- in a wizard's hat -- tries to change Cuba's socialist system by waving a magic wand. Angry Cubans react by chasing Cason, who transforms into a rat as he sprints back to the U.S. diplomatic mission.

Falcoff argued Cason's in-your-face style of diplomacy raised the profile of Cuba's struggling dissident movement internationally. But others said Cason may have harmed the dissidents by provoking a backlash from Cuban officials.

"He made his support for the dissidents a bigger story than their own activities," said Philip Peters, a Cuba expert at the Lexington Institute, a Washington-area policy group.

A specialist in postconflict situations with stints in Afghanistan and Bosnia-Herzegovina, Parmly has pledged to bring a lower profile to the job than his predecessor. But he vowed to continue implementing Bush administration policy, whose stated goal is to speed the end of Cuba's one-party system of government.

"Cuba's future will be determined by Cubans," Parmly said in his Human Rights Day speech. "Our role is to support those working for democratic change."

In December 2004, the Bush administration canceled $330 million in economic and military aid to 10 South American countries. They were being penalized for turning down a US request for granting its soldiers immunity from prosecution for crimes they commit within the countries’ borders.

On May 5, however, the government of Paraguay took the bait. It signed an agreement authorizing an 18-month stay, automatically extended, for US soldiers and civilian employees. The previous limit had been set at six months. On May 26, in a secret session, Paraguay’s Congress passed legislation protecting US soldiers from prosecution for criminal activity, both within Paraguay and by the International Criminal Court.

Reportedly, 400 or 500 US troops – estimates vary – arrived in Paraguay on July 1, with planes, weapons, equipment and ammunition. They are billeted at a base near Mariscal Estigarribia, a small city located 200 kilometers from the Bolivian border in the arid, sparsely populated Chaco area of Paraguay. That facility, built by US contractors in the waning years of the Stroessner dictatorship (1954-1989), offers a runway long enough to accommodate large military transport planes and bombers. It provides barrack space for 16,000 troops.

Journalist and human rights activist Alfredo Boccia Paz, stated in Asuncion that immunity from prosecution for US soldiers, extension of their stay, and joint military exercises all provide the groundwork for the eventual installation of a US base in Paraguay. He quoted Argentine Nobel Peace laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel: “Once the United States arrives, it takes it a long time to leave. And that really frightens me.”

The US embassy in Paraguay declared that the United States has “absolutely no intention of establishing a military base anywhere in Paraguay” and “has no intention to station soldiers for a lengthy period in Paraguay.” The government of Paraguay seconded that notion. Brazil, however, responded. In late July, its army undertook military maneuvers along that country’s border with Paraguay. Paratroopers staged a mock occupation of the Furnas electrical substation, located on the Brazilian border with Paraguay.

Paraguay’s vice president, Luis Castiglioni, met with Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and former Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs Roger Noriega last July in Washington. Observers suggested that this welcoming committee was unusually high-powered for a visiting vice president of a small South American nation. According to Rumsfeld, experts would soon be going to Paraguay to develop a “planning seminar on systems for national security.” The secretary visited Paraguay in August. The FBI announced that it would be opening an office in Paraguay in 2006.

The official US version of the Paraguay initiative is that for the next 18 months, in addition to joint military exercises, 13 US military teams would be working on humanitarian aide projects, provide counterterrorism and police training and ameliorate the effects of poverty. It turns out that US military personnel have been providing medical care for poor peasants in a northern province since 2002. Boccia Paz commented: “These missions are always disguised as humanitarian aid.… What Paraguay does not and cannot control is the total number of agents that enter the country.”

There is of course no shortage of US bases in Latin America. They are located in Guantánamo, Cuba; Fort Buchanan and Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico; Soto Cano, Honduras; and Comalapa, El Salvador. New US air bases are situated in Reina Beatriz, Aruba; Hato Rey, Curacao; and Manta in Ecuador. The latter was officially described as a weather station on a dusty road, until it came out that a full-fledged air base had materialized on the site at a cost of $80 million. Washington also operates a network of 17 land-based radar stations (three in Peru, four in Colombia, plus 10 mobile radar stations in secret locations.) All of these installations come are under the control of the US Southern Command, based in Miami.

The US rationale for converting Paraguay into a military satellite is worth exploring. For one thing, Washington is responding in catch-up fashion to mounting popular resistance in the region to US bullying. In neighboring Bolivia, for example, two US-friendly presidents have been chased from office in the past two years. And mass opposition to the US-backed candidate in last December’s national election was no exception to the trend.

There’s more. Paraguay’s neighbor, Uruguay, put a social democrat into the presidency in 2004, and last February President Kirchner of Argentina violated world financial orthodoxy when his government negotiated a 60 percent cut in Argentina’s $82 billion debt obligations. Both Argentina and Brazil have quietly rejected the FTAA. Paraguay has joined them in the South American Common Market (Mercosur), which shelters its members from US and International Monetary Fund dictates. For Paraguay to defect would serve US ends.

Washington took major exception to declarations emanating from a gathering March 29, 2005 of Brazilian, Colombian, Venezuelan and Spanish heads of state at Ciudad Guayana, Venezuela. They had discussed the use of raw materials and regional trade patterns to combat poverty and secure peace in South America. A few weeks later Washington was miffed when its candidate for the secretary generalship of the Organization of American States was rejected. And right under the US nose, Latin American nations are coming together to form Telesur and Petrosur, continent-wide television and energy corporations, and developing banking services that serve people’s needs.



Natural resources may also figure into the US motivations for expanding its military presence in South America. One branch of the main opening for a huge Bolivian natural gas field apparently crosses the international border and is accessible in Paraguay at the Independencia I site, not far from Mariscal Estigarribia. If US troops occupied the base there, they would be in striking distance of the Bolivian provinces of Santa Cruz and Tarija, where US natural gas corporations are active. Bolivia will soon be voting on autonomy for the provinces. A “yes” vote is expected to result in privatization. In the event of civil unrest following that outcome, the corporations could call for military protection.

The military base overlies the Guarani aquifer, one of the world’s largest underground fresh water reserves. Already water wars have riled Bolivian politics. Oligarchic interests in both the United States and South America have great longings to advance the process of turning water into a commodity.

The Bush administration has an additional interest in Paraguay through its war on terrorism. The so-called triple border, where Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay meet along both sides of the Parana River, is the storied locus for smuggling, money laundering, commerce in child prostitutes, counterfeit operations, and fixing of illegal border crossings. Some 20,000 Middle Eastern, Muslim expatriates, most of them Lebanese in origin, live in Ciudad del Este on the Paraguayan side of the river and Foz do Iguacu in Brazil. The cities supposedly are centers for Islamic extremism and sources of funding for terrorist groups. Al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah operatives reportedly have passed through the area, and training camps, sleeper cells, and passport factories are said to be located there. After September 11, 40 FBI agents joined Paraguayan colleagues to investigate some of these networks. Dozens of suspects were arrested. US military authorities advertise their operatives moving into Paraguay as experts in counterterrorism.

US meddling in South America has great potential to add to existing tensions in the region as it adds its might to ongoing South American military expansion. According to Uruguayan Raúl Zibechi, an expert on the continent’s military landscape, South America is experiencing unprecedented military growth. Nations there have reacted to the excesses of US Plan Colombia and to new military modalities, particularly the privatization of military forces on display in Columbia. They are also attempting to emulate Brazil’s new posture of strategic military autonomy. And, as is their habit, ruling circles in many countries, following Washington’s lead, respond to social unrest through military expansion.

In December 2004, Venezuela agreed to buy 110,000 Kalashnikov rifles, 33 helicopters and 50 fighter-bombers from Russia. Spain supplied Venezuela with naval aeronautical material, 10 transport planes, and four coast-guard cutters. Venezuela will be buying 50 training and combat jets from Brazil. Venezuela earlier this year activated a two million-member reserve component of its national military force.

Yet according to the journal Military Power Review Venezuela comes in at sixth place among South American nations in terms of military strength. Brazil is far in the lead; Peru places second; Argentina, third; followed by Chile and Colombia.

Increased military power, operating in tandem with nationalist stirrings, may inhibit US military meddling. Brazil, for example, with its own strategic defense plan and brisk economic growth, is an unlikely US acolyte. The nation is the 10th largest industrial power in the world and has become the world’s fifth largest arms exporter. Brazilian industry builds warships, several types of fighter jets, and is constructing a nuclear submarine. And to facilitate its expanded trade with China, Brazil is paying 70 percent of the $1 billion cost of a 1,500 mile long highway that extends from Peruvian ports to Santos on Brazil’s Atlantic coast.

Brazil recently sent military planners to Vietnam to learn about guerrilla war. The head of Brazil’s Amazon military command, General Claudio Barbosa, has predicted that Brazil may in the future face wars similar to the war that convulsed Vietnam and the one transpiring in Iraq now. The priority would be guerrilla warfare, “an option the army will not hesitate to adopt facing a confrontation with another country or group of countries with greater economic and military power.” What nation could the general be thinking of?

Brazil opposes Plan Colombia. The nationalist orientation of its industrial leaders persuaded them to put off joining FTAA. Brazil has no US bases on its soil, nor does Brazil engage in joint military exercises with the United States. Military cooperation between Brazil and Argentina apparently is flourishing, and in February, Brazil signed strategic accords with Venezuela. The Brazilian example of independent pursuit of national interests has emboldened other South American nations.

The single-minded pursuit of national interests, however, may work against popular struggle and Latin American unity. Analysts agree that Brazil and Argentina’s preoccupation with internal interests has created a power vacuum that encouraged Washington to court Paraguay successfully. Relations between the two nations have long been plagued by trade clashes.

Ideally, Brazil might have utilized its economic power to further Latin American unity and ward off predatory US behavior. Instead it operates according to free market rules and, unlike Venezuela, looks for salvation through from the US-led world market economy, distancing itself from Latin America’s agenda. Worse, jostling for market advantage creates divisions that lay the region open to tactics of divide and rule.

The Herculean labors of unified democratic struggle elsewhere in Latin America point to strategies through which Bush scheming and US military probing in the region might be resisted.
The example of the FARC-EP, in its survival and apparent growth, has meaning for revolutionaries far beyond Colombia’s borders. The organization now maintains a presence in nearly 100 percent of the municipalities in Colombia, and, according to Monthly Review, “with the exception of Cuba, [the FARC-EP] has become the largest and most powerful revolutionary force – politically and militarily – within the Western Hemisphere.”

Chávez forces in Venezuela, under the aegis of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), have fused the twin causes of Latin American unity and social justice. Mass protests in Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, even Chile keep empire minders in Washington on edge. The point here is that growing solidarity on the part of US activists with struggles throughout Latin America may act as a brake on US meddling in Paraguay.

Opposition likely will materialize within Paraguay itself. In recent years peasants there have mounted protests against privatization, economic restrictions imposed by the International Monetary Fund, unfair land holding patterns, and antiterrorism legislation.

There is no lack of awareness. Orlando Castillo of the human rights group Servicio Páz y Justicia recalls that, “US soldiers taught torture and other forms of human rights violations in courses at the School of the Americas.” He warns that “the United States has strong aspirations to convert Paraguay into a second Panama for its troops and is not far removed from reaching its objective of controlling the Southern Cone.”

While attending the 2nd Jubilee South World Assembly in Havana, Sixto Pereira of the Paraguayan Initiative for People’s Integration told Cuban-based Prensa Latina:

We demand the abolition of regulations that harbor and give impunity to Pentagon troops. It is a demand in favor of Paraguay and Latin American integration.

Pereira indicated that mobilization against the presence of US troops is gaining momentum in Paraguay.

Marcos has promised the movement won't be violent, saying he will no longer be a military "sub commander" but a civilian known as "Delegate Zero." But he said the Zapatistas won't run for elected office or join Mexico's mainstream political process, which he describes as corrupt and out of touch with the people.

The rebels say the national tour, which they have dubbed the ``Other Campaign" in reference to Mexico's July presidential election, is a third phase in the Zapatista revolution.

On Saturday in the Zapatista village of La Garrucha, pickup trucks and buses formed a line along the dirt road leading out of town in preparation for Sunday's journey to San Cristobal.

Inside wooden huts painted with red stars and murals of ski-mask wearing rebel Indians, the Zapatistas pored over final details of their tour. Meanwhile, in the village square, men in sombreros and baseball caps drank soda while listening to Mexican folk ballads on the local Zapatista Radio Insurgente as smiling children ran about and played.

"We want to show people that we really have something to offer," said 45-year-old Zapatista Pedro Bautista.

Zapatista sympathizer Bertha Navarro, 60, a Mexico City film producer who flew to San Cristobal on Friday, said she sees a Zapatista-inspired movement as a way for ordinary Mexican people to get involved in politics.

"There are a lot of people in Mexico like me who are fed up with the corrupt parties and are looking for a new way of doing politics," Navarro said.

In 2003, Montzarov spent two months in hospital after a gang of young Russians attacked him on a Moscow subway platform, calling him a "dirty foreigner" as they punched and kicked him.

He was beaten for a second time last summer, he says, after refusing to hand over his mobile phone to a group of youths.

"Of course, it makes me angry sometimes, the way they treat us," he says. "But what am I going to do? I have to just accept it and try to survive."

Millions of people like Montzarov have flocked to Russia from former Soviet territories since the 1991 collapse of the U.S.S.R. and more migrant workers arrive every year, seeking wages that far outstrip anything available at home.

Keeping track of them is difficult, with estimates of their numbers ranging from at least 5 million to as many as 10 million now working in Russia.

Though disdained and often abused, migrants are the foot soldiers of Russia's booming economy, building the skyscrapers, manning the markets and sweeping the streets.

Over the years, certain ethnic groups have come to dominate certain jobs: Azerbaijanis run the fruit and vegetable markets; Ukrainians, Belarussians and Moldovans work as builders, renovators and house cleaners; Tajiks and Uzbeks do the toughest and dirtiest jobs that no one else will do.

With Russia's population dwindling due to declining birth rates and a decrease in life expectancy, economists say the extra muscle of migrant workers will be needed to prevent a sharp drop in economic growth and living standards.

A recent World Bank report estimated that Russia's population would drop by 17 per cent by 2050, from 144 million to 119 million.

Said the report: "To compensate for this, Russia would need an annual inflow of 1 million immigrants, which is ... five times the official flow in recent years."

But Russia still has no coherent immigration policy and 90 per cent of current migrants work illegally, under constant threat of being deported and with no protection from ruthless employers.

"They are nothing. They are not people; they're like slaves," says Gavkhar Dzhuraeva, head of Migration and Rights, a Moscow-based legal support group.

Residents of most former Soviet republics do not need visas to visit Russia but are required to obtain residency and work permits if they want to live and work in the country.

Most employers prefer to hire workers without permits, says Said Mirzomudinov, head of a local of the Russian Union of Construction Workers that represents 3,000 migrants.

"That way, the employers can do whatever they want with the workers. They take their passports so they can't leave. They make them work for more than 12 hours a day and often don't pay them for months.

"If the workers complain, they just call the police and have them deported."

Said Haitov, a 25-year-old Tajik who works with Montzarov, says he went six months without being paid at his last job on a construction site.

"About 15 of us went on strike and told them we weren't going to work any more unless they paid us. They just told us to leave or the police would come and deport us."

A recent International Labour Office survey of 442 migrant workers in Russia found that nearly one-quarter had not been paid by their employers and that 39 per cent had been paid less than promised.

More than 20 per cent complained of employer violence, debt bondage and threats of deportation.

"About 10 to 20 per cent of illegal workers are literally enslaved by their employers," says Elena Tyuryukanova, author of the ILO study.

Migrants can rarely afford Moscow's sky-high rents and most sleep in premises temporarily provided by their employers. For the lucky ones, that means a shared apartment or makeshift barracks on a construction site. Many of those less fortunate are packed in dank basements like cattle.

"The worst place is the Cherkizovsky market in Moscow, where 700 people live in the cellars without any amenities," says Dzhuraeva of the Migration and Rights support group.

Migrants say police harassment is common and officers routinely demand bribes

Haitov tells of being taken to a police station and severely beaten last year after he was unable to pay a bribe.

"They smashed my face so badly that my friends couldn't recognize me," he says.

Abusupyan Gaitaev, a lawyer who represents illegal workers, says police feel they can target migrants with impunity.

"Migrants are not seen as human beings, so the police know they can take any illegal actions against them and they won't face any punishment."

Only the most egregious incidents of police violence are ever prosecuted, says Gaitaev, who represented 20-year-old Tajik worker Rustam Baibekov in one of the few cases that yielded a conviction.

Baibekov was detained by officer Boris Kostruba at a Moscow subway station in July 2004 and ordered to pay a bribe. When he refused, Kostruba put a gun in his mouth and shot him. Baibekov survived and Kostruba was sentenced to nine years in prison.

Gangs of street thugs that routinely attack migrant workers are another threat. The Moscow Bureau of Human Rights counts 44 racially motivated murders in Russia in 2004, more than double the number of the previous year, and hundreds of racist attacks.

"You are taking the risk of being attacked every time you walk the streets," says Montzarov.

Dzhuraeva, whose support group sends doctors to treat victims and document their injuries, says the attacks are fuelled by the media and nationalist political parties that "portray migrants as the enemy — here to take jobs away from Russians or commit crimes."

In a recent poll of 1,600 Russians, 63 per cent of respondents blamed migrants for rising crime and 60 per cent said migrants were stealing jobs from Russian citizens.

Support for nationalist groups is on the rise and the Rodina (Motherland) party — which recently ran a controversial ad campaign calling for migrants to be cleared from Moscow's streets like garbage — is Russia's fastest-growing political force.

Dzhuraeva says some positive steps are being taken, including an experimental amnesty program that will give up to 1 million illegal migrants the right to work next year.

Still, she worries that mistreatment of migrants could eventually provoke a backlash similar to the rioting that shook France in November.

"If we don't change things for the better, we will have problems like they did," she says.

The head of the department overseeing labour issues at Russia's Federal Migration Service, Vyacheslav Postavnin, raised similar fears of civil unrest when he announced the amnesty program last month.

"If we don't legalize migrants, we push them toward marginalization and crime; we strip them of their rights," he told reporters.

"With such a large number of illegal migrants who are deprived of basic rights and who experience pressure from the police, all kinds of unrest can be provoked. We must offer them protection and the opportunity to work in peace."

Austria must aim to make the 25-nation union "more comprehensive, timely and sensible for its citizens," she said Sunday.

Meanwhile, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso challenged Austria to resolve the EU constitution problem and lead the Union towards growth.

"The constitution must not be buried," he said in an interview published Sunday with weekly title Profil, in which he also criticised growing scepticism in Austria toward the EU.

"If there is a country which has without a doubt profited from the European Union, it is Austria," he said, adding "maybe the Austrian presidency is a good opportunity to demonstrate the advantages of membership" in the union.

"To ensure that we have adequate interventions on the ground, I am declaring the famine a national disaster," Kibaki said in a New Year's Day speech to the country.

Some 2.5 million people in the country's northeastern, eastern and coastal regions are in need of food aid which the government estimates will cost some 11 billion shillings (150 million dollars, 130 million euros).

"I renew my appeal to both our local and international friends and partners to join the government in extending a helping hand to our brothers and sisters who are experiencing this difficult situation," Kibaki said Sunday.

Declaring a national disaster "is a wise move by the government as it gives it the power to utilise all the available resources," said Farid Abdulkadir, chief of disaster operations of the Kenyan Red Cross Society (KCRS) which is coordinating the relief distribution.

Relief efforts have intensified in the drought-affected areas with the government dispatching the army last month to help distribute supplies.

"So far the distribution is going on well," Abdulkadir said, adding that more people were responding to appeals with cash and kind donations.

He said food had been distributed in 17 districts in Wajir, Mandera and Marsabit in the north and that these areas had received some 100 metric tonnes of food as well as 373,000 dollars (315,000 euros) from local and international donors.

Meanwhile, some 2,000 inmates in Naivasha Maximum Prison, Kenya's largest detention facility, made good their promise to skip lunch to save money as part of a nationwide agreement by the country's prisoners to help those facing hunger.

"The inmates have agreed as a block to assist those suffering by skipping their meals on selected days until they hit their target," said Ambrose Ngare, the officer in charge of the prison.

"Though our efforts are like a drop in the sea, we are sure our small donations will save a life if not two," said Bonaventure Mutali, another official at the prison.

At least 20 people and hundreds of livestock have died as a result of the drought and severe food shortage.

In neighbouring Tanzania, President Jakaya Kikwete warned that his country may be faced with food shortages in the coming months owing to dismal rains.

"Many parts of the country have received inadequate rainfall and food shortage is now looming," Kikwete said in his New Year's message.

"Because of the drought we expect poor harvest in the short rains season which accounts for 30 percent of annual food stock," he said, urging citizens to use available stocks carefully.

The helicopter went down in a sparsely populated area 12 km (7.5 miles) east of the town of Tal Afar shortly before midnight on Saturday. It had been flying between bases in northern Iraq when communications were lost with the aircraft, the statement said.

An immediate search and rescue operation was launched from nearby military bases and the helicopter was located at midday on Sunday.

It was the worst helicopter crash since January 2005, when a U.S. transport helicopter crashed close to the Jordanian border in Anbar province, western Iraq, killing 30 Marines and one sailor.

Eleven people, including six U.S. civilians, were killed last April when their commercial helicopter was shot down.

Dozens of U.S.-led forces have been killed in helicopter crashes since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, some in accidents and some after being fired on by insurgents with shoulder-fired missiles or small arms.

Faced with dangerous roads and vast tracts of desert, the military uses helicopters as its main means of transport to move troops and supplies between bases dotted around the country.

In some of the worst incidents, two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters collided under fire in Mosul in November 2003, killing 17 soldiers, a week after another Black Hawk was shot down killing six.

A Black Hawk was shot down near Falluja in January 2004, killing all nine on board.

The newspaper said the fax, which was signed by Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, was the firmest evidence yet of the alleged secret CIA detention centers in Eastern Europe that were first reported on Nov. 2 in The Washington Post.

"For the first time a state confirms that it knows of the existence of secret CIA prisons in Europe," the newspaper said.

Amid protests from European countries that their airports are being used by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to transport suspects, the United States has not denied the existence of alleged prisons in eastern and central Europe and elsewhere, but has refuted allegations that it uses torture to obtain information.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said the United States acts within the law.

During a stopover in Bucharest, Rice signed an agreement with Romania to establish permanent U.S. military bases in the country.The new U.S. military presence will have its headquarters at Mikhail Kogalniceanu.

SonntagsBlick said the Swiss secret services obtained a copy of the fax which said that the Egyptian embassy in London "learned from its own sources that 23 Iraqi and Afghan citizens had been questioned at the Mikhail Kogalniceanu base in the town of Constanza on the Black Sea coast".

The newspaper quoted a report written by the Swiss defence ministry which said Egypt believed there were "similar centres in Ukraine, Kosovo, Macedonia and Bulgaria".

The Swiss ministry reacted to the report with a statement saying it would open an investigation into how the information was leaked.

However, because the report is supposed to be secret, the ministry refused to comment on its contents.

A senior officer at the Mikhail Kogalniceanu base told AFP on Sunday that he categorically denied the report.

"I have been working at this base since 1995 and I have never been aware of such an operation," the officer, Dan Buciuman, said.

He added that the base was open to "anyone who wants to carry out an investigation".

Amid protests from European governments that their airports are being used by the Central Intelligence Agency to transport suspects, the United States has not denied the existence of alleged prisons in eastern and central Europe and elsewhere, but has refuted allegations that it uses torture to obtain information.

US television network ABC reported in December that the US had held 11 senior members of the Al-Qaeda network in Poland but that they were evacuated to north Africa shortly before US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice toured Europe that month.

During a stop in Bucharest, Rice signed an agreement with Romania to establish permanent US military bases in the country, the first ever in a former Warsaw Pact nation.

The new US military presence will have its headquarters at Mikhail Kogalniceanu.

My cousin is a resident physician at the local hospital. The Americans had notified them that they were bringing in a dead body and to come and receive it. Upon going to receive the body from the Americans outside of the hospital he was shocked to find that this is his uncle. At home his wife was very worried as he was extraordinarily late for dinner. She called other family members who called the hospital (which is something people typically due since so many people are dying since the U.S. invation) to see if he had an accident at which point my cousin answered informing them that his body was just dumped at the hospital.

Our family was contacted and they came to receive his body. He was shot in the head, abdomen, and in one of his kidneys and it is believed that he died immediately, though the details of whether they robbed him before or after they killed him and when decided to dump his body are unknown. He left behind a wife and two daughters age 4 and 5. They are still not sure how to break the news to his daughters.

My uncle had spent 16 years as a prisoner of war in Iran. He was freed on April 9th, 1998 (even though the Iran/Iraq war ended in the late 80's). Upon starting his life again in 1998 he married and had two beautiful daughters. Although it was always hard for him to talk about the torture in the Iranian prisons, his daughters Shayma (5 yrs old) and Yamama (4 years old) always had a way of transcending words such they seeped into his heart in the most natural and miraculous way and when he played with them he was free from his tortured thoughts and pains.

My uncle Abdulrazak is not the only one, there are thousands that have died in this way. This is the face of American terrorism. Our family is so numb. Our hearts are swollen with grief, resentment, and sorrow.

American soldiers sign up to risk life and death and when one of them dies it is though the earth stops its rotation, but when an Iraqi civilian who is working hard to support his family and is forced to live his life in the midst of an American occupation is murdered and robbed by sweet American boys, he is dumped like road kill.

What makes their lives more worth living?? Is it the blue eyes and blond hair? or is it the cross that hangs on their necks?? I wonder what defense they have for this one. Did he part his hair on the wrong side? Did he wear the wrong color? Was he driving "suspiciously"? What would they say he did to deserve being murdered? How about robbing him? It must not have been a robbery. Maybe they were afraid that a doctor would steal his money so they kept if for safe keeping.

Maybe they wanted to take the money and buy a gift for his daughters. Whatever it is it must be good because they are Americans! In fact as they provide this hypothetical justification (assuming they would be prompted to do so- which wouldn't happen because Americans answer to no one) I can just hear the national anthem playing in the background.

My uncle's murderers will come home to their families one day to tell of the heroic stories but humbly refuse to be called heroes and instead insist that they were merely doing their duty, but in their soiled hearts they will carry the ugliness of what they have done and who they became and it will eat at them until it destroys their lives and the lives around them.

This email will not have an end-just as these killings do not.......

Victory, as defined by the administration and its supporters -- i.e., a stable and secular democracy in a unified Iraqi state, with the insurgency crushed by the American military assisted by a disciplined, U.S.-trained Iraqi national army -- is unlikely. The U.S. force required to achieve it would have to be significantly larger than the present one, and the Iraqi support for a U.S.-led counterinsurgency would have to be more motivated. The current U.S. forces (soon to be reduced) are not large enough to crush the anti-American insurgency or stop the sectarian Sunni-Shiite strife. Both problems continue to percolate under an inconclusive but increasingly hated foreign occupation.

Moreover, neither the Shiites nor the Kurds are likely to subordinate their specific interests to a unified Iraq with a genuine, single national army. As the haggling over the new government has already shown, the two dominant forces in Iraq -- the religious Shiite alliance and the separatist Kurds -- share a common interest in preventing a restoration of Sunni domination, with each determined to retain a separate military capacity for asserting its own specific interests, largely at the cost of the Sunnis. A truly national army in that context is a delusion. Continuing doggedly to seek "a victory" in that fashion dooms America to rising costs in blood and money, not to mention the intensifying Muslim hostility and massive erosion of America's international legitimacy, credibility and moral reputation.

The administration's definition of "defeat" is similarly misleading. Official and unofficial spokesmen often speak in terms that recall the apocalyptic predictions made earlier regarding the consequences of American failure to win in Vietnam: dominoes falling, the region exploding and U.S. power discredited. An added touch is the notion that the Iraqi insurgents will then navigate the Atlantic and wage terrorism on the American homeland.

The real choice that needs to be faced is between:

An acceptance of the complex post-Hussein Iraqi realities through a relatively prompt military disengagement -- which would include a period of transitional and initially even intensified political strife as the dust settled and as authentic Iraqi majorities fashioned their own political arrangements.

An inconclusive but prolonged military occupation lasting for years while an elusive goal is pursued.

It is doubtful, to say the least, that America's domestic political support for such a futile effort could long be sustained by slogans about Iraq's being "the central front in the global war on terrorism."

In contrast, a military disengagement by the end of 2006, derived from a more realistic definition of an adequate outcome, could ensure that desisting is not tantamount to losing. In an Iraq dominated by the Shiites and the Kurds -- who together account for close to 75 percent of the population -- the two peoples would share a common interest in Iraq's independence as a state. The Kurds, with their autonomy already amounting in effect to quasi-sovereignty, would otherwise be threatened by the Turks. And the Iraqi Shiites are first of all Arabs; they have no desire to be Iran's satellites. Some Sunnis, once they were aware that the U.S. occupation was drawing to a close and that soon they would be facing an overwhelming Shiite-Kurdish coalition, would be more inclined to accommodate the new political realities, especially when deprived of the rallying cry of resistance to a foreign occupier.

In addition, it is likely that both Kuwait and the Kurdish regions of Iraq would be amenable to some residual U.S. military presence as a guarantee against a sudden upheaval. Once the United States terminated its military occupation, some form of participation by Muslim states in peacekeeping in Iraq would be easier to contrive, and their involvement could also help to cool anti-American passions in the region.

In any case, as Iraqi politics gradually become more competitive, it is almost certain that the more authentic Iraqi leaders (not handpicked by the United States) -- to legitimate their claim to power -- will begin to demand publicly a firm date for U.S. withdrawal. That is all to the good. In fact, they should be quietly encouraged to do so, because that would increase their popular support while allowing the United States to claim a soberly redefined "Mission Accomplished."

The requisite first step to that end is for the president to break out of his political cocoon. His policymaking and his speeches are the products of the true believers around him who are largely responsible for the mess in Iraq. They have a special stake in their definition of victory, and they reinforce his convictions instead of refining his judgments. The president badly needs to widen his circle of advisers. Why not consult some esteemed Republicans and Democrats not seeking public office -- say, Warren Rudman or Colin Powell or Lee Hamilton or George Mitchell -- regarding the definition of an attainable yet tolerable outcome in Iraq?

Finally, Democratic leaders should stop equivocating while carping. Those who want to lead in 2008 are particularly unwilling to state clearly that ending the war soon is both desirable and feasible. They fear being labeled as unpatriotic. Yet defining a practical alternative would provide a politically effective rebuttal to those who mindlessly seek an unattainable "victory." America needs a real choice regarding its tragic misadventure in Iraq.

Speaking to the gathered masses, Saudi Arabia's leading cleric, Sheikh Abdul-Aziz al-Sheik, said the west was conducting a "war against our creed".

Pilgrims at Mount Arafat stood in the open under the burning sun and begged Allah for forgiveness. The heat of Arabia at midday is seen as emblematic of the day of judgment.

Later, pilgrims will collect stones from the desert to be hurled at the pillars of Jamarat, which represent the devil, tomorrow.

The gruelling six-day hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam. Every able-bodied Muslim who can afford the trip must make it at least once in their lifetime. The pilgrimage ends with a four-day feast called the Eid al-Adha.

Amid heightened safety fears, Saudi Arabian authorities deployed 60,000 security staff in an effort to avoid deadly stampedes or attacks by Islamist militants fighting the Saudi royals.

The hajj has been marred by tragedies in recent years. Around 250 pilgrims died in a stampede during the stoning of Jamarat in 2004, and 1,426 pilgrims were killed in a tunnel leading to holy sites in 1990.

Many of the pilgrims prayed for Muslims in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and in Iraq, and also remembered the 76 people who died when a hostel in Mecca collapsed on Thursday.

Muslims believe God will hear their prayers if they are made within the sacred zone of Mount Arafat, the site of the Prophet Mohammad's last sermon in AD632.

Speaking at a mosque on the plain of Mount Arafat, Sheikh al-Sheik, the kingdom's grand mufti, said Muslims were facing critical challenges, among them accusations of terrorism and human rights abuses. "Oh Muslim nation, there is a war against of our creed, against our culture under the pretext of fighting terrorism," he said.

"We should stand firm and united in protecting our religion. Islam's enemies want to empty our religion from its contents and its meaning. But the soldiers of God will be victorious." The faithful responded: "Amen."

Last night, pilgrims chanted: "Labaik Alluhumma Labaik" - which translates as we are coming answering your call, God - as they walked through the valley from Mena.

"I feel healthy, I feel strong, I feel young," Zakariya Chadawri, a Pakistani pilgrim who was helped along the dusty road by friends, said.

"Allah is everywhere, but here I feel he is much closer to me," Soumai Trabulsi, a Syrian pilgrim said.

The number of foreign pilgrims rose 1.2% to 1,557,447, from 177 nations this year, the Saudi news agency SPA quoted the deputy interior minister, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, as saying.

Under a quota system worked out with the Jeddah-based Organisation of Islamic Conference, each Muslim country is allowed to send 1,000 pilgrims for every million of its population.

Tomorrow, pilgrims will walk down to nearby Muzdalafah, which has become a notorious bottleneck, for the stoning.

Saudi television repeatedly broadcast instructions to the pilgrims to avoid forming into crowds and not to camp along the pathway. Authorities have widened the walkways to nearly 80 metres in an attempt to reduce congestion this year.

The most dramatic move to improve access has seen the three pillars representing the devil rebuilt.

In previous years, they were tall obelisks but are now stone walls 26 metres long, allowing a much larger number of people to pelt them with pebbles at one time. A religious fatwa has also extended the hours permitted for the ritual.

The rituals began with the circling of the Kaaba, the huge black cube in the centre of Mecca's grand mosque, towards which Muslims around the world face when they offer prayers in their home countries five times daily.

At the conclusion of the required rituals, some pilgrims stay on in Saudi Arabia to visit other holy sites in Mecca and in Medina, around 280 miles to the north.

"We respect you, admire you, and we are expressing our full solidarity with the Venezuelan people and your revolution," he added.

The 78-year-old Belafonte, famous for his calypso-inspired music, including the Day-O song, was a close collaborator of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and is now a UNICEF goodwill ambassador. He also has been outspoken in criticizing the U.S. embargo of communist Cuba.

Attending the live Hello President program under a canopy at a farming co-operative southwest of Caracas, Belafonte said he had come to learn about Chavez's Bolivarian Revolution, which includes a wide range of social programs for the poor and is named after South American independence hero Simon Bolivar.

He accused U.S. news media of falsely painting Chavez as a "dictator," when in fact, he said, there is democracy and citizens are "optimistic about their future."

The Americans toured a prison, spoke with people in the street and heard praise as well as criticism, Belafonte said. To be able to criticize, he said, "is the greatest truth of a democracy."

Huerta, a pioneer of the United Farm Workers labour union, called the visit a "very deep experience." Glover and West, who both expressed admiration for Chavez's ideals, ended their visit Saturday, officials said.

Chavez called Belafonte "my brother" and noted he championed civil rights for black Americans alongside King.

The president said he believes deeply in the struggle for justice by blacks, both in the United States and Venezuela.

"Although we may not believe it, there continues to be great discrimination here against black people," Chavez said, urging his government to redouble its efforts to prevent it.

Belafonte suggested setting up a youth exchange for Venezuelans and Americans to learn from each other. He finished by shouting in Spanish: "Viva la revolucion!"

He and Chavez embraced as Belafonte's song Matilda blared over the speakers.

Chavez accuses Bush of trying to overthrow him, pointing to intelligence documents released by the U.S. indicating that the CIA knew beforehand that dissident officers planned a short-lived 2002 coup. The U.S. denies involvement, but Chavez says Venezuela must be on guard.

"We have to defeat imperialism to save ourselves - and not only ourselves, to save the world," said Chavez, calling Bush "Mr. Danger."

Chavez said if the U.S. were to imprison Venezuela's ambassador for some reason, friends like Belafonte "would take care of freeing him with our support."

As usual, Chavez's show was eclectic, as he took calls, hugged children and laughed heartily over an astrologist's prediction that the divorced leader would find an "intense romance" this year.

Elham also said that general outlines of a Russian proposal over Iran's uranium enrichment have been announced but announcement of details will be revealed after further negotiations.

A Russian delegation, headed by Security Council Deputy Secretary Valentin Sobolev, arrived in Tehran Thursday evening and held discussions from Friday to Sunday with Iranian officials on a recent compromise proposal made by Moscow that the two sides establish a joint venture in Russia to enrich uranium for Iran.

Iran said on Tuesday that it had informed the IAEA of a decision to resume nuclear fuel research, which had been suspended for nearly two and a half years, on Jan. 9, a move that the European Union warns will jeopardize bilateral nuclear talks.

IAEA Director General Mohamed Elbaradei on Tuesday reiterated the agency's position that it was important for Tehran to keep all work related to uranium enrichment suspended in order to disperse suspicions of the international community over its nuclear program.

A group of IAEA inspectors arrived here on Friday to supervise Tehran's resumption of nuclear research activities after the agency's dissuasion failed.

Tehran's nuclear fuel research was suspended in Oct. 2003, so was its uranium enrichment, a key step to build nuclear fuel cycle.Iran has ruled out the suggestion to move its uranium enrichment to Russia.

The United States accuses Iran of developing nuclear weapons secretly, a charge rejected by Tehran as politically motivated.

Meanwhile 53 percent of those questioned by an IFOP poll in Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper said that she has the "stature to be a president of the republic", ahead of former finance minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn on 39 percent and Lang on 36 percent.

Hollande, who is nominally the senior PS member, had only 12 percent support in the first poll and 21 percent in the second.

Royal's growing popularity was confirmed by a third poll earlier in the week which for the first time placed her as the most popular political figure in the country, on both left and right.

Royal scored 49 percent in the Le Figaro magazine survey, surpassing the two most likely presidential candidates from the ruling UMP party, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin on 46 percent and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy on 45 percent.

France's Socialists were badly divided over the referendum on an EU constitution last May, but papered over their differences at a party congress in November. They will designate their candidate for the elections at the end of this year.

Hollande said last week that he did not mind being eclipsed by his partner, who is the mother of their four children.

"I am not going to hold it against Ségolène because she is popular. She has assets which all the French can recognise: courage, sincerity and the capacity to govern," he said.

The daughter of a soldier, Royal was elected to the National Assembly in 1988. She was environment minister for less than a year in 1992, and later in the government of Lionel Jospin held only junior posts, in charge of teaching and then family affairs.

Royal does even better in an IFOP poll for the Journal du Dimanche: 53% of all voters judge she has the stature of a president, as opposed to only 39% for her nearest rival, Dominique Strauss Kahn. Among Socialist sympathrizers in the electorate, Royal's "presidential stature" figure rises to 67%, with Jack Lang her nearest rival at 45%, with Strauss-Kahn getting 41%. Given the continuing media barrage pushing her candidacy, the rise in her popularity over just 4 weeks isn't surprising.

But the popularity of the centrist, "family values" moralizer Segolene Royal -- who's loudly proclaimed she's against gay marriage and gay adoptions-- is a sad reflection of the Socialists' political and programmatic bankruptcy (to understand why, see my previous post, "A Woman for France's Socialists? The Rapid Rise of Segolene Royal".) Previous polls showed that over two-thirds of Socialist voters don't think their party's candidate can win in '07 anyway because the party is seen as not much different from the conservatives on key issues. Meanwhile, the decision by party boss Francois Hollande -- Royal's domestic partner and the father of her children -- not to have a primary for the presidential nomination open to all Socialist voters, but instead to have the nomination decided only by the party's 127,000 dues-paying members -- who are part of the apparatus over which Hollande reasserted his firm control at the November Socialist Party congress -- is another way to try insure that at least one of the couple will be annointed as the party's '07 standard-bearer (for the uncharismatic Hollande's presidential ambitions burn just as bright as his lady's -- although his popularity is infinitely less.)

The tape was placed on the site normally used by his group, the Organization of Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, which had claimed responsibility for the rockets in an on-line statement on December 29.

"This commendable feat came in application by the mujahedeen of the oath by fighter sheikh Osama bin Laden, emir of the Al-Qaeda network, may God preserve him," added the recording referring to repeated statements by Bin Laden that the Israelis should not enjoy security as long as Muslims were not safe.

Israel the previous day had carried out an air strike against a base of a Syrian-backed Palestinian group on the southern outskirts of Beirut in retaliation for cross-border Katyusha rocket attacks on northern Israel.

Zarqawi also said the guerrillas had carried out nearly 800 operations against "the crusader forces" since the occupation of Iraq, putting "crusader" casualties at around 40,000 soldiers.

"Since the start of mujahedeen operations after the fall of the Baathist regime and until today, nearly 800 martyr operations aimed at crusader targets and military convoys have been carried out (...). We estimate casualties among the adorers of the Cross in Iraq at no less than 40,000 soldiers," he declared.

"That's why they (the Americans) asked for help from the Arab League, represented by its secretary-general Amr Mussa, and called for the Cairo meeting," said Zarqawi, hitting out at member countries that took part in the November meeting dedicated to Iraq under Arab League auspices.

The Iraqi leaders who participated in the Cairo meeting agreed on a "road map" for national conciliation, calling for a calendar for withdrawal of foreign forces and the release of detainees who had not been charged.

Zarqawi hit out at the Sunni Muslim Iraqi Islamic Party for having taken part in the December 15 general elections, and called on it to renounce such actions.

"We call on the Islamic Party to abandon the road to perdition on which it has embarked and which threatened to cause the loss of the Sunni community," Zarqawi said, adding that the party "should have called the people to jihad (holy war)."

The Iraqi Al-Qaeda leader then laid down two conditions for giving up the jihad.

"First, chase out the invaders from our territory in Palestine, in Iraq and everywhere in Islamic land.

"Second, instal sharia (Islamic law) on the entire Earth and spread Islamic justice there (...). The attacks will not cease until after the victory of Islam and the setting up of sharia," he swore.

Comment: Isn't it funny how it is the Bush gang that wishes to impose its will on the rest of the world, and yet the "evildoer terrorists" are accused of having the same goal? Recall that one of the psychopath's favorite tactics is to accuse others of those crimes for which he himself is guilty.

Zarqawi concluded: "O young Muslims everywhere in the world, and in particular in the neighbouring countries (of Iraq) and in Yemen, I recommend jihad to you (...). O nation of Islam, America is today drawing its last breath."

He makes the call for Mr Blair's impeachment in a documentary by the former BBC correspondent and former independent MP Martin Bell.

Gen Rose told Bell he would have resigned his commission rather than take troops to war on the flimsy basis offered by Mr Blair.

And he said: "The politicians should be held to account, and my own view is that Blair should be impeached.

"That would prevent politicians treating quite so carelessly the subject of taking a country into war."

He added to that criticism on the Today programme, saying: "Certainly from a soldier's perspective there can't be any more serious decision taken by a prime minister than declaring war.

"And then to go to war on what turns out to be false grounds is something that no one should be allowed to walk away from."

The general described Mr Blair's actions in the run-up to war as "somewhere in between" getting the politics wrong and actually acting illegally.

"The politics was wrong, that he rarely declared what his ultimate aims were, as far as we can see, in terms of harping continually on weapons of mass destruction when actually he probably had some other strategy in mind," he said.

"And secondly, the consequences of that war have been quite disastrous both for the people of Iraq and also for the west in terms of our wider interests in the war against global terror."

Gen Rose is one of a number of retired soldiers taking part in a documentary by the former war correspondent Bell, entitled Iraq: The Failure Of War.

In his documentary, Bell denounces the war as an "ill-considered adventure" and suggests it may prove more damaging to those who launched it even than America's involvement in Vietnam.

Bell wrote yesterday: "In March it will be three years since the invasion, yet Iraq remains in the unshakeable grip of sectarian violence and may be on the brink of civil war.

"In just two bloody days last week, more than 170 people were butchered by insurgents.

"We have entered a tunnel with no light at the end of it. The mission has not been accomplished.

"Instead we face the prospect of war without end. Even Vietnam offered a less disastrous outcome."

There has already been an attempt by MPs, led by Plaid Cymru's Adam Price, to impeach Mr Blair for "high crimes and misdemeanours" in taking Britain to war against Iraq. The campaign had backing from Tory MPs such as Boris Johnson, as well as Lib Dem, Plaid and SNP members.

Gen Rose accepted parliament had endorsed the decision to commit British troops to military action, but he said that was because the PM had stressed the argument that dictator Saddam Hussein must be stripped of the power to deploy weapons of mass destruction.

The weapons of mass destruction (WMD) argument used to persuade MPs that war was justified had turned out to be wholly wrong, he told Today.

The intelligence relied upon by Mr Blair should have been tested properly by giving UN weapons inspectors more time to see if Saddam did have WMD.

Gen Rose said he would not have been prepared to lead the army into a war that he believed was wrong and on such weak grounds.

"You cannot put people in harm's way if you don't believe the cause is right or sufficient," he said. Senior soldiers should point out strategic failures, he went on.

He said most people thought the continuing presence of troops in Iraq was achieving little, but he said it would be wrong to just walk away.

Responding to Gen Rose's accusation at this morning's lobby briefing, Mr Blair's official spokesman said: "General Rose is entitled to his view. Equally, the government is entitled to point out that we have had free democratic elections in Iraq for the first time in well over a generation.

"In the last of these elections, 69% of the population of Iraq expressed their view.

"In terms of the reasons why we went to war, that has been investigated by four inquiries, including two select committees of the Houses of Parliament.

"The matter has been gone well over and in terms of the outcome - which is what matters - of course there have been difficulties, but we have in process the creation of a democratically elected government in Iraq and that speaks for itself."

The biggest criminals in Mexico are engaged in an arms race, with an armor-piercing machine gun as the new must-have weapon for the cartels fighting one another for control of the lucrative trade in narcotics, U.S. and Mexican officials say.

In 2005, Nuevo Laredo residents endured the specter of more than 100 suspected drug-cartel executions in their city, and the release of a horrific videotape in which a suspected drug-cartel gunman executes a "prisoner." The city has become a tragic symbol of the gun violence sweeping through the entire country.

"It's obvious where all the arms are coming from," said Higenio Ibarra Murillo, a Nuevo Laredo business owner in the city's historic downtown district. "We don't make any guns or rifles here" in Mexico.

Buying a weapon legally is extremely difficult in Mexico. The country's defense secretary issues all gun licenses — the wait is a year or more, and the cost about $1,900. Licenses must be renewed every two years.

There are fewer than 2,500 registered gun owners in the entire country. Yet Mexican police confiscate an average of 256 weapons every day from suspects, officials from the attorney general's office said recently.

Javier Ortiz Campos of Mexico's Federal Preventive Police says traces by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on weapons confiscated in Mexico often lead to the gun shops, gun shows and flea markets of Texas. The U.S. state has some of the most liberal gun laws in the country and a porous, 1,240-mile-long border with Mexico.

"Over there they even sell guns at Wal-Mart," Ortiz Campos said. The weapons confiscated in Mexico come mostly from U.S. border cities such as Laredo, El Paso and Brownsville, he said. But many come also from Houston and San Antonio.

"We're finding a lot of weapons from Houston, because the buyers get a better price there than at the border," Ortiz Campos said.

Organized-crime groups in Mexico often buy their weapons in bulk via "straw purchasers" in Texas, where there is no limit on the number of firearms a resident can purchase, said a U.S. official who asked not to be named.

Typically, the Mexican buyer will pay a Texas resident $50 to $100 to acquire the weapons, the official said.

In one case, Mexican and U.S. authorities working together traced 80 confiscated firearms to a Mexican national who paid Texas residents to buy weapons on his behalf, the official said.

Police recovered one 9-millimeter handgun last year at the scene of a shootout between officers and suspected drug-cartel hit men outside the Mexican border town of Reynosa. A trace of the weapon by ATF agents led to another Texas man who had bought 160 weapons. That man is facing gun-trafficking charges in the U.S.

Last year, ATF officials in Arizona arrested a man trying to buy 30 U.S. military hand grenades. The man told undercover agents the grenades were intended for drug traffickers in the northern Mexican state of Sonora. In August, a Tucson man was charged with smuggling AK-47s and AK-47 parts into Mexico.

Large caches of weapons routinely turn up here and in other border communities. Twenty assault rifles were seized in Tijuana on Dec. 20; that same day, Mexican army troops in the state of Sinaloa detained a group of men who were armed with five AK-47 rifles and one AR-15 rifle.

In Nuevo Laredo last month, Mexican police stumbled upon an arsenal in the hands of suspected organized crime members that included grenades, semiautomatic handguns and seven AR-15 assault rifles.

No store in Nuevo Laredo sells handguns or rifles over the counter. But if you take a 15-minute walk over the border to Laredo, you'll find the Bushmaster AR-15 rifle on sale at one gun store for $1,199.

The salespeople at the store speak Spanish, but the sign over a display case of semiautomatic handguns is in English: "If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns."

The slogan, popular with U.S. gun-rights activists, certainly seems to apply on the other side of the border. Only one person has a private gun permit in the entire Mexican state of Tamaulipas, which includes Nuevo Laredo. Yet guns seem to be everywhere.

On the impoverished edges of the city, small-time drug dealers protect their investments with semiautomatics. And many law-abiding citizens can tell of an encounter with armed bandits.

Businessman Jose Luis Ortiz Cardenas witnessed an attempted carjacking by armed robbers last year outside a grocery store he owns. And he'll never forget the notorious 2003 shootout a few blocks from the cantina he operates downtown — the shooting spread to the bridge leading to the United States.

"It was a hail of bullets, federal agents firing at other federal agents, hit men firing at other hit men, with bazookas and everything," the cantina owner said.

Mexican police have, in recent years, confiscated a handful of bazookas from organized-crime groups. Mexican and U.S. officials say a very small amount of military surplus from recent wars in Central America has found its way into Mexico. But U.S. officials say a bazooka recovered recently from suspected drug cartel hit men in Mexico was traced to an Army depot in Arkansas — the weapon had been deposited there and last accounted for in 1967.

Assault rifles such as the AR-15 and the AK-47 are by far the most popular weapons imported into Mexico by the drug cartels, police official Ortiz Campos said.

The AR-15 is the civilian, semiautomatic equivalent of the M-16 used by U.S. troops since the Vietnam War. The AK-47 was designed by Mikhail Kalashnikov for the Soviet army in 1947. In Mexican street slang both are known as "el cuerno de chivo" — "the goat's horn" — for the distinctive shape of their bullet clips.

"For the narco-traffickers, it's like their good-luck charm," Ortiz Campos said. The drug cartels favor the AK-47 for the same reason the Soviet army did: its ruggedness and versatility.

"With that weapon, you can do incredible things," Ortiz Campos said. The AK-47 is not only powerful, it's also idiot-proof, he added. "It will fire underwater. It will fire when it's covered with mud."

The AK-47 appears in several narcocorrido songs about bad men and their adventures. The song "The Terrifying Cuerno de Chivo" by the group Los Incomparables de Tijuana was made into a movie of the same name.

"Its barrel is decorated, the butt and the trigger too," the lyrics say. "Inlaid with silver all around, it's a weapon fit for a man of courage…. It's an instrument of death."

Assault rifles that are sold legally in the U.S. are not fully automated. But officials say that there are gunsmiths in Mexico who are adapting the weapons to make them fully automatic.

"We have found a few in Mexico that have been converted by a machinist," the U.S. official said. "This tells us someone with vast experience in weaponry is working here."

U.S. and Mexican officials say they are also concerned by the presence of .50-caliber machine guns in Mexico. Originally designed as antiaircraft weapons, the guns are used by cartels because they can penetrate armor.

"We think these weapons are used by the cartels to attack each other" rather than the police, Ortiz Campos said.

"Ten or 15 years ago, you rarely saw a .50-caliber weapon" in Mexico, the U.S. official said. "Now they're popping up everywhere."

U.S. officials say their Mexican counterparts are working harder than ever to fight the weapons trafficking. Mexican federal officials cooperate extensively with the ATF in tracing illicit weapons.

"The Mexicans are eager to see prosecutions for gun trafficking go forward in the U.S.," the American official said. "It's a different attitude than in the past."

Still, the gun violence continues to take on new, disturbing dimensions. Television viewers across Mexico were horrified last month by the airing of a video in which members of the one cartel competing for control of the drug trade in Nuevo Laredo torture hit men from another cartel. The video, obtained by the Dallas Morning News, ends with one of the hit men being executed with a shot to the head from a 9-millimeter pistol.

As Nuevo Laredo becomes a war zone, its streets are increasingly empty. For the most part, tourists are avoiding the city, frightened by the kidnapping and disappearance of several Americans here.

"The one consolation we have is that we know it can't get any worse than it is right now," business owner Ortiz Cardenas said. "We've hit rock bottom."

Mr Qurei has gone to see Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to hand in his formal resignation.

Hamas says it will ask Fatah to join a coalition, but Fatah officials say they will not sit in government with Hamas.

Hours before official results were due to be released, Fatah officials privately admitted that Hamas had won.

Hamas claimed it had won at least 70 seats in the 132-member parliament, while EU election observer Richard Howitt told the BBC he had been informed that Hamas could have won up to 80 seats.

The BBC's Jon Leyne in Jerusalem says there is no doubt that the Hamas showing has transformed the Palestinian political arena.

For decades, Fatah - the party founded by the late Yasser Arafat - has totally dominated electoral politics, but that time is over, he says.

Hamas is also now a major power and it will enter parliament still committed to its armed confrontation with Israel, our correspondent adds.

No talks

With victory looming, senior Hamas official Ismail Haniya said the group would discuss political partnership with Fatah.

"This issue is going to be one of our priorities in the near future," the Associated Press news agency quoted him as saying.

But senior Fatah official Jibril Rajoub told Reuters: "Fatah rejects participating in a government formed by Hamas.

"Hamas has to take up its responsibilities. Fatah will act as a responsible opposition."

Another Hamas official, Mushir al-Masri, warned that Hamas would not hold peace talks with Israel.

"Negotiations with Israel is not on our agenda," he said.

"Recognising Israel is not on the agenda either now."

The likelihood of a resounding victory for Hamas - which is committed to the destruction of Israel - sent shockwaves though the Jewish state.

Speaking on election night, acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel could not deal with a Palestinian Authority which included Hamas.

"Israel can't accept a situation in which Hamas, in its present form as a terror group calling for the destruction of Israel, will be part of the Palestinian Authority without disarming," Mr Olmert's office reported him as saying.

"I won't hold negotiations with a government that does not stick to its most basic obligation of fighting terror."

The outcome of the Palestinian election is the biggest challenge facing Mr Olmert since he took over from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who remains in a coma following a massive stroke on 4 January.

Call to disarm

Mr Haniya called for the US to "respect ... the will of the Palestinian people and the result of the ballot," AFP news agency reported.

Washington has not yet commented on the emerging results, but US President George W Bush warned on Wednesday he could not sanction a government led by Hamas in its present form.

"A political party, in order to be viable, is one that professes peace, in my judgment, in order that it will keep the peace," Mr Bush told the Wall Street Journal.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said the Palestinian elections were "an important step toward the achievement of a Palestinian state," UN spokeswoman Marie Okabe said.

But the UN chief warned that "any group that wishes to participate in the democratic process should ultimately disarm because to carry weapons and participate in a democratic process and sit in parliament - there is a fundamental contradiction".

The European Union - the biggest provider of aid to the Palestinian Authority - said it would work with any Palestinian government which renounced violence.

"We are happy to work with any government if that government is prepared to work by peaceful means," said European External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner.

Roughly half of the 600km (370 mile) network of fences and concrete barricades has been built, some on occupied land where Palestinians seek statehood. Several parts of the project have been held up by Palestinian appeals to Israel's Supreme Court.

Israel calls the barrier a bulwark against Palestinian bombers. A senior official said that Olmert, who assumed power after Ariel Sharon, the prime minister, suffered a stroke on 4 January, reiterated the incumbent's orders to step up construction.

An official said: "He made it very clear that the fence has to be completed as quickly as possible."

The prime minister's office said in a statement that Olmert recommended rerouting the barrier northeast of Jerusalem so as to enclose a Jewish settlement, Ramot, within the city limits while excluding the nearby Palestinian village of Bait Iksa.

Land grab

Such moves have stoked Palestinian suspicions that Israel wants the barrier to cement a permanent hold on areas of the West Bank, which it occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.

Also captured in the conflict was Arab East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed as its capital in a move not recognised abroad.

In July 2004 the International Criminal Court of Justice ruled that the wall was illegal and Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, said Israel should abide by the ruling.

Palestinians want East Jerusalem as capital of a future state.

Palestinians angry

Saeb Erikat, the Palestinian negotiator, said Olmert, whom opinion polls predict will easily win election at the head of the centrist Kadima party, was jeopardising hopes of reviving efforts to end more than five years of fighting.

"This is very worrying," Erikat said. "We had hoped that Mr Olmert would pursue the path of negotiation rather than dictation."

Olmert backed Israel's unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip last year, a move Sharon said aimed to break a diplomatic deadlock and restart talks on a US-led road map to a peaceful Palestinian state in the coastal territory and the West Bank.

On Wednesday, in his first policy speech as interim prime minister, Olmert reaffirmed Israel's commitment to the road map but hinted that he could order more unilateral steps should the Palestinians fail to disarm militants as mandated by the plan.

"The most dramatic and important step we face is shaping the permanent borders of the state of Israel," Olmert said.

"We would prefer an agreement. If our expected partners in the negotiations in the framework of the road map do not uphold their commitments, we will preserve the Israeli interest at all costs."

Israel has not met its requirement under the road map to stop expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Sharon said Israel would keep settlement blocs under a peace accord with the Palestinians, a plan endorsed by George Bush, the US president.

"When I was in Iraq, if a stranger walked up to me, he was either going to blow up himself or throw a bomb at me," he says. That, he believes, explains his hyper-alertness and why he prefers to be at home in his "bunker," his cocoon.

In the combat zone, his mind and heart raced. Back home, people seem more preoccupied with washing their cars than some war half a world away.

The Department of Veterans Affairs deemed Bocanegra completely disabled upon diagnosing his post-traumatic stress disorder.

He fears life will never be the same. Not all soldiers end up on the front lines, but for those who do, the ones who witness the horrific reality of war, how can life ever be the same? Especially those from Iraq, where there is no real safe zone and the constant threat is from bombers who think nothing of taking their own lives.

Americans return with bodies intact but scarred minds and hearts.

Across the country, VA hospitals and clinics -- already facing budget crunches and backlogs -- report increases in veterans suffering PTSD. Ironically, many are Vietnam vets only now seeking help, but the VA is hardly prepared for the aftermath of Iraq and Afghanistan.

A recent New England Journal of Medicine study found that 17 percent of soldiers who returned from Iraq suffered PTSD, a 2 percent increase from that reported by Vietnam veterans.

The tangled web of bureaucracy and overstretched staffs at home only delays the help they need. For some, it comes too late. Capt. Michael Pelkey, an Iraq veteran from Spring, Texas, was diagnosed with PTSD in 2004. A week later, he killed himself with a shot to the chest.

Long after the war is but a memory, Pelkey's widow will still be describing him to the son he barely met, and Bocanegra and thousands of other former soldiers will still be struggling with the consequences of war. That goes for the ones who are back home, trying to piece their lives back together, and the ones still at the front, numb to the realities of war.

Today, Bocanegra feels abandoned. He sees a psychiatrist for about 10 minutes every three months. He takes one pill for anxiety and another for depression.

The doctor, he says, "just tells me, 'Take your medication.'"

After nearly five years in the military, he feels like someone else's problem now. If he needs an eye exam or a dental visit, he must drive four hours to San Antonio to the nearest VA hospital.

Supporting our troops means more than sticking a yellow-ribbon decal on our cars, a standing ovation at the airport or an American flag flying on Veterans Day. We can talk of patriotism, but until we demand that our soldiers get the treatment they need, our words are empty. Thousands of them and their families have been torn apart by war, while the rest of us sacrificed nothing.

"Stay the course" or "Pull out now," few of our leaders are concerned about making sure these soldiers have the health care they need once they return.

Congress must calculate the total cost of this war, which includes caring for Bocanegra and other vets long after the last gunshot or explosion. If not, they will continue to feel as if they're begging for handouts, and our leaders will have failed them.

Today, Bocanegra can still hear children's screams and see the fear in the faces of the women he sighted down the barrel of his weapon.

"You see these horrible things in war. You just killed people," he says. "A lot of my friends that came back say they would have preferred to die out there."

US forces, who have faced - and continue to face - greater violence than British troops, report a higher level of trauma. More than one-fifth of US troops returning from Iraq may suffer from PTSD, according to a recent report. One of its authors, Carl Castro of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, said: "There are a significant number of soldiers who require help."

US forces in the field in Iraq now regularly have members from the mental health unit, "mindsweepers", in forward base. In the US, ecstasy tablets (MDMA) are being used to help treat flashbacks and recurring nightmares. The US Food and Drug Administration authorised the drug for Iraq veterans after successful initial research at a facility in South Carolina.

Stress caused by the conflict has also been used in legal defence. In Britain, Andrew Wragg, a former SAS trooper who killed his 10-year-old terminally ill son, was cleared last month of murder and convicted of manslaughter. Lewes Crown Court in Sussex heard he was suffering from temporary abnormality of mind caused by his experience in Iraq.

The Territorial Army has 60 members receiving psychological help. Half of those who requested help are reservists and not entitled to army facilities.

I told my nieces and nephews that war is evil, and I explained to them that war does not bring any good thing, but brings destruction to not only property, and lives, but also most crucially destroys our humanity.

I told them during the war I watched TV and listened to radio news focusing on "our loss, our destruction" by the enemy. This nurtured my hatred, and the news that focused on our "enemy’s loss and destruction" not only soothed my anger, it also filled my collective pride and vented my aggression. I kept this "process" within myself in silence with satisfaction at first. People around me seemed to be like me, we exchanged our agreement with a sparking glance and a smile. Over time, I started to laugh out with joy at the positive news with images of enemy corpses; and I banged the door or kicked any thing around me with anger when I listened to our casualties. Then I went around the neighborhood to relay the story with full mixed agitation of joy and hatred. I asked my relatives how stupid I was?

They listened with respect, but did not understand. They said that was alright, it was war, and it should be so. I was angry, frustrated with myself. I am incompetent.

How can I now explain to them that what I swallowed through official news as "reality" was a process of dehumanization?

This process was to dehumanize the "enemy." It demonized the enemy to a lowest, ugliest figure of devil that must be destroyed at all cost. Because they were no longer human, they could not and should not be treated as equal to us. Thus we, the good ones, had an exceptional right to use any way to make them suffer before we destroy them.

How can I explain to my next generation that I myself was dehumanized in the first place by that very process in order not only to see other human beings as demons, but also to hate and be ready to murder other human beings (not only combatants but also women and children) with joy, and with pride? Worst of all, which we thought we did as a favor to our human kind?

Please help me my friends, who lived through war, who experienced war around the world. Please tell me the way in which I can pass on this horrible experience to others. Please also tell me, explain to me why many of us still, as my friend observes, keep "quiet and cower."

Please tell me, explain to me why many of you, who experienced war, still even support and participate in war.

I ask for your help because I have now recovered from dehumanization, and I refuse to be re-dehumanized again. That is not good enough. I want to pass this experience to people, to my nieces and my nephews. I tried, but I have failed. Please help me.

"We aim for these deployments to be fully operational by July this year," Secretary of Defense John Reid told parliament.

The new troops include a "Provincial Reconstruction Team" for Helmand province in the south.

They are in addition to about 1,000 extra troops that Britain has promised for the headquarters in Kabul when it takes over NATO's Afghan peacekeeping mission, and about 1,000 in place already in the north.

Engineers will also be sent to help build a base, and Reid said the total British force in Afghanistan would peak at about 5,700 and then stabilize at about 4,700.

Chertoff was speaking after an interim report to
the Council of Europe, a rights body, said European governments must have been aware that the United States was using their territory to transport or detain terrorist suspects as part of its policy of "rendition".

He refused to comment directly on the report's allegations, reaffirming only that the United States acted in accordance with the law and with respect for the sovereignty of host countries.

Asked whether he feared that European efforts to investigate the allegations could damage US-European anti-terrorism collaboration, Chertoff replied: "I certainly hope it doesn't affect cooperation."

Chertoff also sought to play down divergences between the United States and Europe over the methods used to pursue the "war on terror".

"I think there is less of a difference than you would think," he said.

"There are obviously some historical and cultural differences in the way individual countries approach the challenge of dealing with terror -- but our fundamental values are remarkably aligned."

"All the countries I have dealt with have the same goals: security, freedom and civil rights," Chertoff told reporters.

The US official -- who described the working relationship between French and US security services as "excellent" -- met on Tuesday with members of France's DST domestic intelligence service, and with the head of the National Defence General Secretariat, Francis Delon.

On Wednesday, Chertoff was due to hold talks with Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who sponsored a tough new anti-terrorism law adopted by the French parliament last month.

"I would not be over-optimistic, but I don't think it's completely off the planet to think that they might come to see us," she said.

The parliament committee held its first meeting Thursday, electing Portuguese Conservative Carlos Coelho as its president and three vice-chairs, including Ludford.

"I hope that we will be inviting very senior people from governments, from non-governmental organizations and people who have knowledge of the intelligence community," said Ludford. "If they are seen not to co-operate, then I think we can draw conclusions."

Coelho refused to be drawn on specific names he would favour, but said the committee as a whole would decide who to ask to attend the meetings, after which a report will be drafted and presented to EU governments. Some of these governments, it is claimed, are complicit in allowing the U.S. secret agency to set up detention camps on their territory.

The committee's work is to last for four months, Coelho said.

The Amman-based legal team had said Sunday that the ousted president intended to start legal action against the two leaders of the Iraq war in the International Criminal Court in the Hague, but the text of the suit was made available Wednesday.

The suit also accuses the U.S. president and British prime minister of torturing Iraqi prisoners, destroying Iraq's cultural heritage with the aim of eliminating an ancient civilization, and inciting internal strife.

Bush and Blair were also accused of polluting Iraq's air, waters and environment.

The lawsuit demanded that Bush and Blair appear before court to answer the charges filed against them and requested the harshest punishment in line with Dutch legislation and the rules of international and humanitarian laws.

It also requested compensation for all material and moral damage inflicted on the Iraqi people.

The president accepted advice from a parliamentary committee to resort to a rarely used constitutional procedure in order to remove the offending article — which appears in a government bill passed a year ago providing financial compensation to repatriated colonials.

The clause is to be referred to the country's constitutional council — a nine-member body that decides on the constitutionality of laws — on the grounds that it is outside the competence of the legislature.

Article Four of law 2005-158 states that "scholastic programmes recognise in particular the positive role of the French overseas presence, especially in north Africa, and accord to history and to the sacrifices of army soldiers from these territories the eminent place that they deserve."

At Chirac's request, the constitutional council is expected to rule that school texts are fixed by government regulation not by law, and that the clause is therefore unsustainable.

The device provides the government with a get-out from a highly embarrassing episode, which further damaged relations with the country's black and Arab populations just as the country was reeling from last November's rioting in high-immigration suburbs.

The clause was introduced as a private amendment to the wider law by a right-wing member of Chirac's Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), and it went unnoticed for several months until a petition circulating on the Internet began to draw the media's attention.

Academics said the article was a flagrant intrusion by politicians into the realm of historical debate, while left-wingers accused the government of trying to lay down an official version of the colonial past that ignored its huge human cost.

Opposition drew to a head shortly after last year's riots when Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy was forced to cancel a trip to France's territories in the Caribbean because of a threat of anti-government demonstrations — even though he made clear he personally had little truck with the law.

Virtually the whole political class expressed satisfaction Thursday with the apparent resolution of the impasse. Veteran Affairs Minister Hamlaoui Mekachera, who drafted the overall law, said Chirac's intervention was a "solution of wisdom and conciliation."

For Christiane Taubira, a black legislator from French Guyana, the decision was one of "lucidity, wisdom and courage which will finally bring an element of reconciliation and allow us to cool down the debate."

The Algerian government, which vehemently opposed the law, also expressed satisfaction, with a spokesman for the ruling coalition partner the National Democratic Rally (RND) saying its abandonment could open the way to a long-awaited treaty of friendship between the countries.

But some historians remain concerned about the on-going temptation among French politicians to make legislative pronouncements on historical events, and are campaigning for three other laws to be repealed.

These are a 2001 law recognising the Turkish massacres of Armenians in 1915 as genocide; a law from the same year recognising slavery as a crime against humanity; and a 1990 law which makes it a criminal offence to deny certain defined crimes against humanity.

"We have to abrogate all these so-called laws of memory. Even if they are well-intentioned, they end up trying to impose a particular vision of history," said Paris-based historian Jean-Jacques Becker, a specialist in World War I.

In the first ever address to the French parliament by a commission president, Barroso said he believed public opinion would come round to the EU constitution which was rejected in a French referendum last May.

"I am convinced that public support for the modernisation of institutions which is laid out in the constitutional treaty will come in time, when the conditions are right and confidence is restored," he said in flawless French.

Addressing the situation in France, he said he had read in newspapers that the country was afflicted by "a certain melancholy, even a malaise."

"I wonder if the land of Moliere is not giving way to the temptation of the 'Malade Imaginaire (Imaginary Invalid)'," he said in reference to one of the French playwrights's most celebrated works.

"It seems to me on the contrary that France has every reason to be confident," he said citing "amazing global success stories like Airbus and Ariane."

"The choice of opening up to the world is a winning choice for France and Europe. In the face of globalisation only the European dimension can make the difference and allow us to control the process," he said to applause from centre-right supporters of the government.

But Jean-Marc Ayrault, president of the socialist group in the Assembly, said that "The union has broken down. There are no projects, no dynamic, no perspective" and he called on Barroso to "rediscover the inspiration and vision of Jacques Delors," a French socialist predecessor in the job.

And for the centrist Union for French Democracy (UDF) Francois Sauvadet said that the commission president had "his share of responsibility" in the EU's current impasse.

What’s all this about the Bolkestein directive on services? Why the big hoo-ha about a piece of Euro-legislation?

The directive on services, as boring as it may sound, could have a profound impact on public services and on working conditions across the EU. The European TUC has said it ‘could speed up deregulation, seriously erode workers’ rights and protection, and damage the supply of essential services to European citizens’. Derek Simpson, general secretary of Amicus, said: ‘UK health and safety standards are hard won, and this directive threatens to dilute those high standards and compromise British workers and public safety without any redress to UK law or regulatory bodies.’

Frits Bolkestein was the Dutch free-marketeer, who, as Europe’s internal market commissioner, launched the directive. He’s off the scene since the appointment of a new European Commission late last year, but his replacement, Charlie McCreevy, is just as much of a neo-liberal. One Irish Labour MEP said his appointment as the republic’s commissioner was ‘a kick in the arse for the working class’.

Ouch. Okay, so the directive’s important. But what does it do exactly?

Well, it’s supposed to ensure a single market in services. The commission wants to sweep away in one go systems of national and industry regulation. It argues that different regulations are a barrier for service providers moving from one country to another. To make that easier it wants to implement several changes.

So under the directive service providers can move around. What’s the problem with that?

The directive sets up what it calls ‘freedom of establishment’. This means that if a company or individual is able to provide a service in one EU country, they should be able to provide it easily in any other country in the union. So, after filling in one form, it should be possible for a dentist, vet, or any individual or company that provides a service, to set up anywhere in the EU. The danger here is that there is no uniformity of standards in Europe, so standards in public services could decline. Then there’s the country of origin principle…

The country of origin principle?

Yeah. This is an EU rule that means if a product is OK to produce in one member country, it’s OK to sell anywhere around the EU. The European Commission wants to apply this idea to services.

That would mean that if a company were established in one country in the union it could provide a service in a second EU country according to the laws of the first country. So any company in any services industry (be it health, building, advertising or whatever) that was set up in one of the EU’s less regulated economies – perhaps in one of the new eastern European member states – could also set up in the UK; and the laws that would govern wages, standards, contracts, etc, for that business in Britain would be those of the eastern European country, for example, not the UK.

You’re kidding me. Someone’s got to see sense, haven’t they?

Well, there’s a change in the air, but it’s more to do with political machinations than seeing sense. The directive is very unpopular in France, where the left and even parts of the right see it as a danger to their social welfare. A big part of France’s left also wants to campaign for a ‘no’ vote in the EU constitution referendum. The commission is, of course, desperate to ensure a ‘yes’ vote. So, all of a sudden, it is bending over backwards to say it’ll change the directive. McCreevy said: ‘As drafted, it simply was not going to fly.’

So everything’s OK, then?

Not quite. First off, the commission can’t amend the directive at the moment, and the right in the European Parliament, the largest group, says it wants the directive to go through un-amended. The commission could withdraw the directive, but has so far refused to do so. And as the French referendum will be on 29 May and the directive won’t be considered in the European Parliament until June, the original incentive to back down won’t exist by then.

Some of the most important governments, in particular Germany, have said that they would be happy with exceptions from the country of origin principle for a few areas such as health. But that would still leave freedom of establishment, and the country of origin principle would probably still apply to most industries.

Graham Copp is head of research at the think-tank the Centre for a Social Europe.

The deal, seen as a cornerstone of the emerging alliance between India and the United States, "will die in the Congress," he said.

The U.S. Embassy confirmed that Mulford was accurately quoted, and spokesman David Kennedy said: "The Ambassador just wanted to give his honest opinion on how he thought the U.S. congress would react to such a scenario."

Mulford's frank comments were the first time a senior U.S. official has made a direct link between India's stance on the Iran issue and the nuclear deal.

After Mulford's comments, India reiterated that the two issues should remain separate.

"We categorically reject any attempt to link (Iran) to the proposed Indo-U.S. agreement on civil nuclear energy cooperation, which stands on its own merits," Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said in a statement.

"The position that India will take on this issue at the IAEA will be based on India's own independent judgment."

Under the deal, Washington is to share civilian nuclear technology and supply nuclear fuel to India in return for New Delhi separating its civilian and military nuclear programs and allowing international inspections of its atomic facilities.

The separation is necessary because the United States has only agreed to recognize India as having a civilian nuclear program - not as a legitimate nuclear weapons state.

The deal was signed in July when Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Washington, and marked a major policy shift for the United States, which imposed sanctions on India in 1998 after it conducted nuclear tests. The restrictions have been lifted.

IAEA referral of Iran to the Security Council could lead to economic and political sanctions against Tehran, which the United States and European powers fear could use its nuclear program to develop weapons. Tehran insists its program is for generating electricity.

European countries believe they have enough votes at the IAEA, which will hold an emergency board session on Feb. 2, to haul Iran before the Security Council. But they are seeking support from Russia, China and key developing nations, such as India.

New Delhi voted in September with the U.S. and European powers on an earlier IAEA resolution that could have led to Iran's referral to the council.

But the Indian government faced fierce domestic criticism over the move from its left-wing political allies, who accused it of selling out a longtime ally to curry favor with Washington. New Delhi has, in recent weeks, appeared hesitant to repeat the vote, instead urging negotiations with Tehran.

India, which has few domestic sources of fuel, also plans to build a 1,750-mile gas pipeline from Iran through Pakistan, a project that has raised concerns in Washington.

"We have made it known to (India) that we would very much like India's support because India has arrived on the world stage and is a very important player in the world," Mulford said.

After three years and unimaginable expense, the superpower American military has proved that it cannot disarm the recently formed Iraqi militias. Yet, the idiot Bolton thinks puny Syria can disarm the Lebanese militias that defeated the brutal Israeli army!

Syria was never in Lebanon as a conqueror or invader, as the US is in Iraq and Israel is in the West Bank and Golan Heights. Syria was invited into Lebanon by the Lebanese government for peace-keeping purposes, adding the weight of its military to indigenous militias in order to create stability where US, Palestinian and Israeli bungling had brought disorder and massive bloodshed.

Until they were withdrawn, the Syrian troops were a counterweight to the Shia militias. Now that the Shia crescent is spreading from Iran through Iraq to Lebanon, the stupid neoconservatives are confronted with the error of their ways. The Bush administration was trying to set Syria up for US attack by demanding that they withdraw from Lebanon. The neocons thought Syria would refuse and thereby become a target for demonization and invasion.

Alas, the Syrians departed. And now the problem is how to turn back the Shia advance, which is increasing in power inside Lebanon as well through the Hizbullah and Amal movements. Bolton’s solution is a ridiculous attempt to turn Syria into a neocon proxy and to set it at war with the militias. Otherwise, Bolton intends to damn Syria for "noncompliance" and again threaten Syria with US invasion.

It will be interesting to see who Syria fears most, the militias that triumphed over Israeli military might or the US forces that have been defeated in Iraq.


Dr. Roberts [send him mail] is Chairman of the Institute for Political Economy and Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. He is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, former contributing editor for National Review, and a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.

ATPDEA allows Andean countries to sell their products to the United States with a zero tariff. Under the deal, Peru managed to have scored an export volume of 17 billion U.S. dollars to the United States.

The governments of the United States and Peru have asked their respective congresses to ratify the agreement so that the deal can be signed in April -- after the general elections in the Andean country and before election campaigns begin in the United States.

The U.S. decision to deliver the free trade agreement to Congress shows the will of the current government in "pushing this agreement forward and achieving its approval in the shortest possible period of time," he said.

Peru, Colombia and Ecuador began free trade talks with the United States in May 2004. Peru is the only country that has signed a provisional agreement with Washington so far.

Curtis added that Chávez "feels resentment against all the countries that want to make their own decisions regarding their future, particularly political choices," Efe reported.

"While South America has an interest in improving its ties, most leaders have chosen an integration different from Chávez' proposal," he asserted.

"Venezuela is a concern for the United States because it is a member of the community of the Americas, where all have signed the Democratic Charter, except for Cuba."

"We want to strengthen democracies, rather than witness the return of authoritarianism to this continent."

Meanwhile, Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo stated: "Verbal conflicts with Chávez are over."

With Caracas hosting the annual World Social Forum and Washington pondering the pronounced regional tilt to the left, it may be time for a clear-eyed look at the most radical protagonist of that leftward tilt, Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez. There is no easy characterization of Chávez, but it is clear that he has become one of Latin America’s most astute, self-confident and, for now, influential political leaders, intent on changing the Hemispheric balance of power, significantly improving the lot of the region’s poor majority, and happily—at times with a twinkle in his eye —engendering hopes and fears from South America to Washington and beyond.

Chávez’s recent trip to Brazil demonstrates his political savvy. This past Jan. 19, at his initiative, he and his Argentine and Brazilian counterparts, Néstor Kirchner and Lula da Silva, met in Brasilia to discuss the construction of a 4,500-mile South American pipeline that would carry Venezuela’s natural gas to the region’s Southern Cone.

The project is emblematic of Chávez’s recent initiatives in two ways: It represents a drive toward greater Latin American economic integration and independence, and a faith in public investment as a means to stimulate regional growth and development. Both these elements of Chavista policy—regional integration and public investment—if successful, will redistribute global income to poorer countries and poorer people, reversing more than two decades of widening income inequality throughout the Americas.

Chávez has called for a “socialism for the 21st century.” Loosely speaking, this “socialism” includes projects like the regional pipeline, plus domestic initiatives like land reform; state takeovers of closed production sites; and a set of new institutions called “missions”—organizations that work alongside, or bypass, established state institutions to foster greater security, inclusion and access to services among low-income Venezuelans. There is a mission that provides food security via the establishment of bimonthly discounted open-air markets; another promotes social and economic inclusion through a variety of educational programs, including basic literacy classes and high- school education for adults; another promotes economic inclusion through the creation of jobs and job training; and another provides health services via the establishment of primary-care clinics and ambulatory services in poor, previously underserved areas. This last, called Mission Barrio Adentro, employs more than 12,000 Cuban doctors, who have come to Venezuela as a part of a barter deal in which 50,000 barrels of oil per day are shipped to Cuba.

Yet in many respects, Chávez’s governance has been problematic. There are complaints from all sides that public administration in Venezuela remains pretty uneven. A widespread current complaint centers on a belated effort to bypass a key highway bridge linking Caracas with its metropolitan airport and the Caribbean coast. The 50-year-old bridge, which traverses a deep canyon, has been deemed unsafe by government engineers because of the soil erosion under and around its pillars. The problem was first diagnosed some two decades ago, but it has now become critical and the bridge has been closed to traffic with no immediate alternative in place.

Efficiency and routine infrastructural maintenance are not among the strong points of the Chávez government. Some observers blame this on the rapid change in the composition of the “political class,” people who take an active role in the affairs of state, which has meant that people with little or no experience have entered government, creating a certain degree of confusion and inefficiency. Others blame it on the undeniable presence in Chávez’s government of Venezuela’s pervasive culture of corruption, linked by some to the disproportionate presence in government of former military officers—people with no social commitments, but whose support is necessary to Chávez’s continuation in power.

While Chávez has vowed to fight government corruption, the recomposition of the political class is the basis of his governance. Since he took office in 1999, his government has actively encouraged the formation grassroots social movements, many of which now play important roles in local politics and provide personnel for national campaigns like the missions. Most of these groups are fiercely loyal to Chávez, rather than to any particular political party or program.

As president, Chávez has developed a remarkably strong rapport with poor and marginalized Venezuelans. In his long weekly televised chats with Venezuelans, he carefully explains current events in ways that include people who have previously been left out of political debates. He urges his viewers to involve themselves in their communities, to pressure his own government to fulfill its promises and achieve its “revolutionary” goals. The talks, frequently folksy and personal, often angry and inflammatory, create an apparent dialogue between the president and the people, and many of the historically excluded feel included in citizenship for the first time in their lives.

There is a danger, of course, that this dialogue can become one between a caudillo (strongman) and his followers. Since his first election in 1998, Chávez has played by the democratic rulebook, but there are some genuine concerns about caudillo -type rule. The Chávez-promoted 1999 Constitution, which was approved overwhelmingly by popular vote, extends the presidential term from five to six years, and also allows for re-election, meaning that Chávez will very likely remain in office (counting his two pre-Constitutional years) for a minimum of 14 years. There is now talk among his followers of a constitutional amendment that would allow for subsequent re-election. Length of service does not constitute authoritarian rule, but Chávez’s critics have complained about the potential such a long term in office has for abuse.

In addition, while freedom of information is protected under the new Constitution, a clause saying that the press must publish "truthful information" has led to fears of government censorship and intimidation. Over the seven years of Chávez’s governance, there has been no overt censorship, but Chávez has harshly criticized opposition journalists, and some have charged him with pressuring their employers to silence them. In December 2004, the National Assembly passed legislation increasing penalties for the defamation and “contempt” of public officials. The press and electronic media remain free and, for the most part, vigorously anti-Chávez. Nonetheless these “contempt” provisions are vague enough to be worrisome.

But in the foreground of all this, Chávez has redefined citizenship in Venezuela. The wealthy and middle classes have long excluded the poor majority from any genuine sense of participation in civic life. The poor, who have been the maids, gardeners and delivery boys, but never the fellow-citizens of the privileged, now feel the country belongs to them. That’s why the opposition is so fierce. There is no gainsaying this accomplishment.