- Signs of the Times for Thu, 13 Jul 2006 -


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Editorial: Entry denied: Deporting witnesses of Israeli occupation and unilateralism

Maureen Clare Murphy
The Electronic Intifada
11 July 2006

Two passports, no entry: Both of my passports marked by the dreaded red stamp (Maureen Clare Murphy)
In another Israeli move designed to further isolate Palestinians from the rest of the world community, it is being reported that the Israeli army will be declaring the West Bank closed to foreign nationals. The Gaza Strip has already been made virtually inaccessible to foreign nationals; those who wish to enter must apply to the Israeli authorities, weeks in advance, to receive elusive permits. The effect is that the plight of the Palestinian civilian population living under Israeli occupation becomes all the more invisible to the international community.

The recent trend of deportation of foreign nationals (including foreign passport-holding Palestinians) working in Palestinian civil society, studying at Palestinian universities, and those living with Palestinian family gives further cause for concern that West Bank Palestinians will no longer be allowed visitors to their open-air prison. Of course, this policy of isolation is being justified under the guise of "security." The rightist Israeli daily Maariv reports, "According to the plan, the IDF will declare the Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] closed to foreign nationals. Denying entry to ... activists has been defined as prevention of political subversion and involvement of members of the movement in acts of terrorism, and limitation of friction with Jewish settlers."

However, Israel has long been denying entry to scores of internationals whether they are activists or not -- a policy that has been intensified in recent months. During April, after having lived in Ramallah for a year and a half and staying on a tourist visa that I would renew every three months, I was denied entry to the West Bank from Jordan via the Israeli-controlled Allenby Bridge land crossing, and given no documentation to indicate why I was being turned away. On the Jordanian side of the bridge, security officials there told me that scores of international passport-holders -- Palestinian-Americans in particular -- were being denied entry into the West Bank.

I eventually managed to get back in with a one-month visa after having been issued a new passport by the US Embassy in Jordan, but was deported from the airport in Tel Aviv a month and a half later. There, I was informed that I was declared "persona non grata" as it was believed that I was trying to "illegally settle in Israel," despite that I informed them that I was living in the West Bank city of Ramallah. In any other country, staying too long on a tourist visa would be an understandable reason for deportation. However, the Palestinians have no control over their borders, and the former system that allowed foreign passport-holders working and living in the West Bank and Gaza to obtain a work permit or other special visa so they would be able to stay a prolonged time has been terminated by Israel. Denied a hearing and any further legal recourse, I was merely given a very unofficial-looking piece of paper from the Israeli authorities as they shoved me on a plane back to Toronto. However, the document was in Hebrew, a language neither I -- nor the Canadian immigration officer I had to explain myself to once I landed -- could read.

"I was deported from Israel and all I received was this lousy piece of paper"
The only documentation I received upon my expensive deportation from Israel. Unlike what I was told verbally, it says here that the reason I was denied entry was because of "illegal activity in the 'territories'" (Maureen Clare Murphy)

Control of all movement

The threat of Israeli deportation is the great existential fear that hangs over all expatriates' heads in the occupied Palestinian territories. Conversations with other expats would always lead to the recounting of recent "visa run" experiences, when we would dash to nearby Jordan or another country for a visit and then return to obtain a new three-month B-2 tourist visa. Those working with UN agencies or major international organizations often held work permits; but for those of us recently working in Palestinian civil society, there was no known mechanism for acquiring such a permit without the backing of a major organization. And for those few brave souls who did try to forge new ground and apply for a permit as individuals, not even hiring the best of lawyers would guarantee that this would occur.

In the post-Oslo Accords era, it used to be that internationals working in Palestinian civil society would be able to apply for a work permit from the Israeli civil administration in the West Bank via the Palestinian Authority as a matter of course. But this has not been the case for some time. A European friend working for a Palestinian civil society organization recently rang the Beit El/DCO checkpoint, which houses an Israeli West Bank civil administration office. She was told that to cross the checkpoint, she would need a work permit from Israel and that she should apply for one from the Israeli Ministry of Social Affairs. However, the Israeli official added, "I will tell you now that it will be impossible because they will refuse you once they know you are working for an organization that is working in the territories."
Holding his West Bank ID up for inspection, a Palestinian man attempts to pass Al-Ram checkpoint to Jerusalem shortly before the Friday noon-time call to prayer during the holy month of Ramadan (Maureen Clare Murphy)

Internationals working with Palestinian organizations are left with little options for entering the Israeli-controlled borders in a "legitimate" manner. Some choose to lie about what they do when asked their purpose of visit, knowing that mere mention of the word "Palestinian" would cause them to be red-flagged in the Israeli system. Optimists like myself think that when in doubt, err on the side of truth. Also, not skilled in the art of lying, I thought it a moral point to not be made to feel as though working for a respected Palestinian human rights organization was anything less than legitimate. But we all knew that our fates would be arbitrarily determined, for there is no established and transparent process for ensuring entry.

Amongst expatriates living in Ramallah, there were stories of spouses of West Bank ID-carrying Palestinians who have been continuously getting the three-month B-2 tourist visa for as many as twenty years, by coming and going to Jordan several times a year. These individuals had acquired the status of legends amongst the expat community, though the precarious situation of international passport-holders (including Palestinians living in the diaspora) who marry and have families with Palestinians holding West Bank or Gaza ID cards is all too real. Thousands of Palestinian families perpetually live in fear of a family member being deported -- a worry shared by my corner shopkeeper with an American passport-holding wife who goes to Jordan and back every three months, and a friend whose American sister-in-law simply overstayed her visa for five years, knowing this would mean she could never return once she left.

Recently, this fear has been confirmed; countless families in which one or more members hold a foreign passport have found themselves fractured by the denial of entry of one of their members. Many of these are middle class families headed by diaspora Palestinians who returned to help develop their country during the post-Oslo years. As a Palestinian official who holds a European passport pointed out to me, "this is particularly symbolic since, by choosing to return to Palestine, these people represented the optimism of the Oslo years and personified the state-building project." If this trend continues, a whole segment of the Palestinian middle class may be dispersed, taking with them their business investments and entrepreneurship, leaving the Palestinian economy that much more unstable.

On top of this, there are the countless numbers of Palestinians who at one point left (or were forced out from) their country and are not allowed to re-enter with the passport of their adopted country. This was the case with a colleague's European passport-holding brother, who was denied entry to the West Bank via Allenby Bridge around the same time as myself. And while he was taking me to the American embassy in Amman where I would pick up my new US passport, a taxi driver from the West Bank city of Nablus recounted how he left to work in Jordan some years ago, leaving behind his wife so she would not be separated from her family. Having lived outside the West Bank for too long, the Israeli authorities did not let him return, and so he and his wife continue to live apart.

Access is restricted even internally within the West Bank, making it difficult or impossible for many individuals from Jenin or Nablus to travel to Ramallah or Hebron and vice versa. The Israeli military controls all Palestinian movement with its hundreds of forms of movement restrictions in the West Bank and its restrictive permit system. Most Palestinians holding a green or orange West Bank or Gaza ID have not been able to access East Jerusalem, considered part of the West Bank under international law, in over ten years as they are not allowed to do so without a rarely issued Israeli permit. And these days, not even members of the Palestinian government (save President Mahmoud Abbas) are able to travel from the West Bank to Gaza, and vice versa.

Palestinians are left unable to reach places of worship, education and health services, and even family members - breaking social, economic, and cultural structures. Israel imposes such policies for "security" reasons, but the terms that more accurately reflect reality are collective punishment and oppression. These movement restrictions are becoming increasingly formalized by million dollar checkpoints-cum-terminals, suggesting that the intention is actually to strengthen Israel's grip on the occupied territories and establish "facts on the ground" to preempt a negotiated resolution to the conflict.

When Israel began building its new "Atarot Crossing" terminal between Ramallah and Jerusalem where the former Qalandiya checkpoint lay, rumors began to fly that the thousands of Palestinian Jerusalemites holding Israeli permanent residency cards would have to obtain permits to cross to Ramallah and the northern West Bank. Since the new terminal has been in use, this hasn't been the case (though since the beginning of this month, they not able to pass through a similar terminal at the entrance to Bethlehem), but many believe that there is no telling when such a policy could be put into place. The permanency of the technologically sophisticated structure gives weight to such speculation. Why would so much money be invested in a temporary security measure? The same question must asked of Israel's barrier in the West Bank, the current route of which effectively annexes ten percent of the West Bank to Israel, and isolates Palestinian communities from one another.

Replacing the eminently more temporary-looking former Qalandiya checkpoint, the new "Atarot" crossing terminal is complete with LCD monitors misspelling greetings in English (Maureen Clare Murphy)

Dangerous silence

Earlier this year, then-Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the Israeli daily Ha'aretz of the new scope of impunity that Israel enjoys following last year's unilateral disengagement from Gaza. Regarding the state's illegal assassination operations in Gaza, he bragged, "there is not a single word of criticism anywhere in the world. And do you know why? Because the disengagement gave us degrees of freedom in carrying out everyday security activities, which we never had before ... The day before yesterday we carried out a targeted interception [sic] in Gaza. The day before that we did another targeted interception [sic]. Not a critical remark, not a hint of critical remark, has come from anywhere in the world.'"

The international community's silence has been deafening as Israel routinely drops missiles onto Gaza -- one of the most densely populated areas of the world -- in its illegal extrajudicial assassinations, and is currently embarking on its indefinite deployment there. Of course, the civilian casualty count has been predictably high. When asked to, Israel justifies such operations as necessary to deter the launching of crude, homemade Qassam rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel. But such measures are not in compliance with the legal principle of proportionality, and the daily shelling of the Gaza Strip amounts to another form of collective punishment of the Palestinian civilian population. Meanwhile, Olmert has been meeting with world leaders to secure international support of his "convergence plan," the latest Israeli euphemism for unilaterally determining final-status negotiations issues. But the foundation of these unilateral plans has already been laid. With much of the Wall and the new permanent checkpoints in place or under construction, the architecture for new, Israeli-determined borders is already there.

The numbers speak for themselves: Israel's disproportionate response to Qassam rockets amounts to collective punishment

Though not accepting the scheme hook, line and sinker, the international community is greeting this latest unilateral plan as the "only one in town," despite past affirmations that a bilateral negotiated resolution to the conflict is the only way to move forward. With the international community's boycott of the democratically elected Palestinian government, half of them currently in Israeli detention, the Palestinians are as powerless to claim their rights as ever. Worsening the situation, now that it is becoming increasingly difficult for international observers to access the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinian civil society institutions will be losing invaluable conduits of advocacy to the outside world. The international community will become all the more blind and deaf to human rights abuses and rights violations committed in the occupied Palestinian territories. While Olmert will continue to enjoy the warm company of fellow statesmen, Palestinian civilians will become increasingly isolated under Israeli occupation.

What will be the effect on Palestinian society if internationals working in Palestinian civil society are not allowed to conduct their work, and Palestinians who returned to develop their country are forced to leave? With Palestinian voices largely absent from mainstream corporate media coverage of the conflict, who will be there to communicate the everyday devastation of Israeli occupation and unilateralism to the rest of the world? With a toothless international community, including consulates in Jerusalem who privilege Israel's policies over the rights and interests of their own citizens that they are meant to protect, the outlook is indeed grim.

When I sought advice from the US Embassy in Jordan after being turned away at Allenby bridge, I was told that while Israel has the right to control its borders, at a certain point the turning away of American citizens (while Israeli citizens are not kept from entering the US) becomes "a bilateral issue." Despite this, after I was deported from the airport, the response from the US consulate in Jerusalem was that tighter restrictions on foreigners entering the West Bank was understandable given the growing tensions between Hamas and Fatah. Other Americans who have contacted the consulate have been told a similar story. However, one has a hard time believing that any sweeping policy denying international passport-holders entry is actually in the interest of safety, rather than to remove some of the most credible and able -- as far as international news audiences are concerned -- persons likely to witnesses and protest Israel's designs on the West Bank. >Arts, Music & Culture Editor of The Electronic Intifada, Maureen Clare Murphy had spent the last year and a half living in the West Bank city of Ramallah and working for the Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq before being deported late May.
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Editorial: Israel's latest bureaucratic obscenity

Jonathan Cook
The Electronic Intifada
12 July 2006


A Palestinian passes by towards Al-Ram checkpoint in northern Jerusalem, July 9, 2006. (MaanImages/ Moamar Awad)

The same malign intent by Israel towards the Palestinians is stamped through its history like the lettering in a children's stick of seaside rock. But despite the consistent aim of Israeli policy, generation after generation of Western politicians, diplomats and journalists has shown a repeated inability to grasp what is happening before its very eyes.

The Palestinian historian Rashid Khalidi once noted that the first goal of Israel's founders as they prepared to establish their Jewish state on a large swath of the Palestinian homeland in 1948 was to empty Palestine's urban heartlands of their educated elites.

Even before Israel's Declaration of Independence on 15 May 1948, most Palestinians had been terrified away from the two wealthiest cities in coastal Palestine, Jaffa and Haifa. Other Palestinian cities soon fell during the war of 1948: Israeli forces mostly cleansed Lydda, Ramle, Acre, Safad, Tiberias, Baysan and Bir Saba of their native populations. Today all these cities have been repopulated with Jews -- as well as renamed.

Khalidi has written: "These refugees from the urban areas of the country generally tended to be those Palestinians with the highest levels of literacy, skills, wealth, and education". Or, in other words, the small number of Palestinians allowed to remain in their homeland by Israel were peasant families living in isolated rural communities.

These Palestinians posed little threat to the new Jewish state: they lacked the education and tools to resist both the wholesale dispossession of their people and their own personal loss as their farm lands were expropriated by the state to establish the Jewish farming communes of the kibbutz and moshav movements.

And so history repeats itself. As Israel's violent siege of Gaza continues, the Associated Press reported this week that dozens of Palestinians with American passports have left Gaza, escorted out of the Strip in a convoy of United Nations vehicles. One Palestinian American mother said she and her children could no longer stand the terrifying sonic booms produced by Israeli aircraft flying overhead during the night.

These fleeing Palestinians have two things that most of their kin in Gaza lack: they have lots of money that they might have invested in rebuilding Gaza's economy were Israel not intent on destroying it; and they are familiar with a language and ideas that might have conveyed very effectively to Western audiences the horror currently being endured by Gaza's civilian population.

They are also among the least radicalised elements of Gaza's population and might have been the ones most willing to start a dialogue with Israel -- had Israel shown any interest in negotiating.

But of course their absence from Gaza, and flight to America, will not be mourned by Israel.

How much Israel fears the presence in the occupied territories of Palestinians who have lived in the West -- those who have money and influence, and speak in a language the non-Arab world can understand -- was highlighted in another piece of news this week that went mostly unnoticed.

According to the Haaretz newspaper, Israel's interior ministry has been quietly implementing a new rule since April that allows it to refuse entry to Palestinians holding foreign passports to Israel and the occupied territories. Most of those affected are Palestinians who today have citizenship in America or Europe.

Israel has this power over these Palestinians' lives because, since its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, it has usurped control of the borders of the Palestinian territories. In another sign of how mistaken Western observers are in believing that the occupation of Gaza somehow ended with the withdrawal of Jewish settlers last year, Israel is still able to prevent Palestinians with a foreign passport (as well as those from the West Bank) from entering Gaza.

This new policy of exclusion affects thousands of the wealthiest and most educated Palestinians, some of whom have been living in the occupied territories for a decade or more investing in the economy as entrepreneurs, teaching in the universities or establishing desperately needed civil society organisations.

In another irony, many of these Palestinians have a foreign passport only because Israel stripped them of their rights to residency in the occupied territories in violation of international law. Using its control of the area's borders since 1967, Israel revoked the residency of these Palestinians while they were studying or working abroad.

As the Israeli journalist Amira Hass has documented, some of these Palestinians eventually came back to the occupied territories after marrying a local Palestinian resident but were refused rights of residency they should be entitled to according to the normal principles of family unification.

Instead most Palestinians with foreign passports have remained in the occupied territories at Israel's discretion: as long as they renewed their tourist visa every three months by crossing the border into Jordan or Egypt, they were left in relative peace.

But Israel is now unilaterally changing the rules (as it always does), even if it has been too embarrassed to declare the fact openly. Apparently the US embassy has been aware of the change for some time but does not think it should intervene in the "sovereign decisions" of another country -- or, more accurately, in the decisions of a sovereign country, Israel, in violating the rights of an occupied people, the Palestinians.

Palestinians with US passports have been told by Israel that, when their three-month visas expire, they will no longer be entitled to enter the occupied territories to visit their families -- except in rare "humanitarian cases" such as a close relative dying. Some will be separated from their spouse and children, while others will lose their businesses and everything they have invested in them.

With these foreign passport holders forced to leave the occupied territories, the pressure is sure to grow on their families left behind in Gaza or the West Bank to seek ways to emigrate abroad to be with them again.

The purpose of Israel's current bureaucratic obscenity is the same as it was in 1948 when its highest priority was the clearing of the Palestinian cities of their elites to make way for the establishment of the Jewish state.

This time Israel needs to empty the ghettoes it is crafting for the Palestinians of the most educated and well-connected of their number so that it can more credibly claim that there is no one "moderate" to talk to. Any Palestinian with a stake in an Israeli-imposed peace, even one that damages Palestinian national interests, will have been forced out by Israel's policies long before.

Those who remain behind, trapped by walls of concrete and steel, will be powerless to resist the unilateral and illegal expansion of Israel's borders explicit in Ehud Olmert's convergence plan.

When the only noise heard from the Palestinians in their cages is the occasional whine of a home-made Qassam rocket flying out of the ghetto into the Jewish state, we will be told by Israel and its US ally that terror is the only language the Palestinians know.

But, in truth, it will be the only language we have left the Palestinians to speak.


Jonathan Cook, based in Nazareth, is the author of Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State, published by Pluto Press and available in the US from University of Michigan Press. His website is www.jkcook.net.
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Editorial: Atrocities...

Riverbend
Baghdad Burning

It promises to be a long summer. We're almost at the mid-way point, but it feels like the days are just crawling by. It's a combination of the heat, the flies, the hours upon hours of no electricity and the corpses which keep appearing everywhere.

The day before yesterday was catastrophic. The day began with news of the killings in Jihad Quarter. According to people who live there, black-clad militiamen drove in mid-morning and opened fire on people in the streets and even in houses. They began pulling people off the street and checking their ID cards to see if they had Sunni names or Shia names and then the Sunnis were driven away and killed. Some were executed right there in the area. The media is playing it down and claiming 37 dead but the people in the area say the number is nearer 60.

The horrific thing about the killings is that the area had been cut off for nearly two weeks by Ministry of Interior security forces and Americans. Last week, a car bomb was set off in front of a 'Sunni' mosque people in the area visit. The night before the massacre, a car bomb exploded in front of a Shia husseiniya in the same area. The next day was full of screaming and shooting and death for the people in the area. No one is quite sure why the Americans and the Ministry of Interior didn't respond immediately. They just sat by, on the outskirts of the area, and let the massacre happen.

At nearly 2 pm, we received some terrible news. We lost a good friend in the killings. T. was a 26-year-old civil engineer who worked with a group of friends in a consultancy bureau in Jadriya. The last time I saw him was a week ago. He had stopped by the house to tell us his sister was engaged and he'd brought along with him pictures of latest project he was working on- a half-collapsed school building outside of Baghdad.

He usually left the house at 7 am to avoid the morning traffic jams and the heat. Yesterday, he decided to stay at home because he'd promised his mother he would bring Abu Kamal by the house to fix the generator which had suddenly died on them the night before. His parents say that T. was making his way out of the area on foot when the attack occurred and he got two bullets to the head. His brother could only identify him by the blood-stained t-shirt he was wearing.

People are staying in their homes in the area and no one dares enter it so the wakes for the people who were massacred haven't begun yet. I haven't seen his family yet and I'm not sure I have the courage or the energy to give condolences. I feel like I've given the traditional words of condolences a thousand times these last few months, "Baqiya ib hayatkum... Akhir il ahzan..." or "May this be the last of your sorrows." Except they are empty words because even as we say them, we know that in today's Iraq any sorrow- no matter how great- will not be the last.

There was also an attack yesterday on Ghazaliya though we haven't heard what the casualties are. People are saying it's Sadr's militia, the Mahdi army, behind the killings. The news the world hears about Iraq and the situation in the country itself are wholly different. People are being driven out of their homes and areas by force and killed in the streets, and the Americans, Iranians and the Puppets talk of national conferences and progress.

It's like Baghdad is no longer one city, it's a dozen different smaller cities each infected with its own form of violence. It's gotten so that I dread sleeping because the morning always brings so much bad news. The television shows the images and the radio stations broadcast it. The newspapers show images of corpses and angry words jump out at you from their pages, "civil war... death... killing... bombing... rape..."

Rape. The latest of American atrocities. Though it's not really the latest- it's just the one that's being publicized the most. The poor girl Abeer was neither the first to be raped by American troops, nor will she be the last. The only reason this rape was brought to light and publicized is that her whole immediate family were killed along with her. Rape is a taboo subject in Iraq. Families don't report rapes here, they avenge them. We've been hearing whisperings about rapes in American-controlled prisons and during sieges of towns like Haditha and Samarra for the last three years. The naiveté of Americans who can't believe their 'heroes' are committing such atrocities is ridiculous. Who ever heard of an occupying army committing rape??? You raped the country, why not the people?

In the news they're estimating her age to be around 24, but Iraqis from the area say she was only 14. Fourteen. Imagine your 14-year-old sister or your 14-year-old daughter. Imagine her being gang-raped by a group of psychopaths and then the girl was killed and her body burned to cover up the rape. Finally, her parents and her five-year-old sister were also killed. Hail the American heroes... Raise your heads high supporters of the 'liberation' - your troops have made you proud today. I don't believe the troops should be tried in American courts. I believe they should be handed over to the people in the area and only then will justice be properly served. And our ass of a PM, Nouri Al-Maliki, is requesting an 'independent investigation', ensconced safely in his American guarded compound because it wasn't his daughter or sister who was raped, probably tortured and killed. His family is abroad safe from the hands of furious Iraqis and psychotic American troops.

It fills me with rage to hear about it and read about it. The pity I once had for foreign troops in Iraq is gone. It's been eradicated by the atrocities in Abu Ghraib, the deaths in Haditha and the latest news of rapes and killings. I look at them in their armored vehicles and to be honest- I can't bring myself to care whether they are 19 or 39. I can't bring myself to care if they make it back home alive. I can't bring myself to care anymore about the wife or parents or children they left behind. I can't bring myself to care because it's difficult to see beyond the horrors. I look at them and wonder just how many innocents they killed and how many more they'll kill before they go home. How many more young Iraqi girls will they rape?

Why don't the Americans just go home? They've done enough damage and we hear talk of how things will fall apart in Iraq if they 'cut and run', but the fact is that they aren't doing anything right now. How much worse can it get? People are being killed in the streets and in their own homes- what's being done about it? Nothing. It's convenient for them- Iraqis can kill each other and they can sit by and watch the bloodshed- unless they want to join in with murder and rape.

Buses, planes and taxis leaving the country for Syria and Jordan are booked solid until the end of the summer. People are picking up and leaving en masse and most of them are planning to remain outside of the country. Life here has become unbearable because it's no longer a 'life' like people live abroad. It's simply a matter of survival, making it from one day to the next in one piece and coping with the loss of loved ones and friends- friends like T.

It's difficult to believe T. is really gone... I was checking my email today and I saw three unopened emails from him in my inbox. For one wild, heart-stopping moment I thought he was alive. T. was alive and it was all some horrific mistake! I let myself ride the wave of giddy disbelief for a few precious seconds before I came crashing down as my eyes caught the date on the emails- he had sent them the night before he was killed. One email was a collection of jokes, the other was an assortment of cat pictures, and the third was a poem in Arabic about Iraq under American occupation. He had highlighted a few lines describing the beauty of Baghdad in spite of the war... And while I always thought Baghdad was one of the more marvelous cities in the world, I'm finding it very difficult this moment to see any beauty in a city stained with the blood of T. and so many other innocents...
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Yahweh's Stormtroopers in Lebanon


ANALYSIS: Israel prepares for widespread military escalation

Last update - 21:50 12/07/2006 By Amos HarelBy Amos Harel

On the 18th day since the abduction of Corporal Gilad Shalit, the picture has become all the more complex. From limited fighting on a single front (the Gaza Strip), the Israel Defense Forces is now approaching what might evolve into a near outright war on two fronts.

This is the most complex crisis Israel has faced since Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, when Israel successfully curbed Hezbollah's bid to spark a confrontation on the northern border in response to the IDF occupation of West Bank cities.

The winning formula for resolving the crisis consisted of military actions combined with diplomatic pressure.
In some respects, however, the situation now is even more complicated than in 2002, because terror groups are holding three soldiers captive: Gilad Shalit in the Gaza Strip, and two other soldiers who were captured Wednesday morning on the northern border.

The attack on Israel's northern border was an impressive military achievement for Hezbollah and a ringing failure for the IDF. Despite Israel's intelligence analyses and despite wide operational deployment, Hezbollah has succeeded in carrying out what it has been threatening to do for more than two years - and it couldn't have happened at a more sensitive time.

Israel has until now responded with restraint by bombarding bridges in central Lebanon and attacking Hezbollah positions along the border. But considering the nature of the military high command's current evaluation of the situation, it is clear that the IDF is interested in inflicting a much sharper blow on Lebanon.

Senior officers in the IDF say that the Lebanese government is responsible for the soldiers' abduction. According to the officers, if the kidnapped soldiers are not returned alive and well, the Lebanese civilian infrastructures will regress 20, or even 50 years.

Lebanon has invested considerable resources in the rehabilitation of its civilian infrastructures from the damage sustained during its civil war in the 1970s and the years of war with Israel throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

If Israel is having difficulty in deterring Hamas in Gaza, and certainly if it is unable to bring the crisis to a conclusion, indeed Hezbollah is a much more sophisticated and experienced rival than its Palestinian counterpart.

It is safe to assume that Hezbollah planned the abduction months in advance, and that the Shi'ite organization has made every effort to conceal the location where the kidnapped soldiers are being held.

From another perspective, however, the opening of a new front somewhat eases Israel's dilemma. It now seems that the government may be able to stop acting like it is walking on eggshells, as it has thus far.

There is every indication that Israel is on its way to a wide escalation of its military operations, both in the north and in the Gaza Strip.



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Israel bombs Beirut airport, 27 killed in raids

by Nayla Razzouk
AFP
July 13, 2006

BEIRUT - Israeli warplanes bombed Beirut's international airport before dawn and killed at least 27 Lebanese civilians in a series of raids after Israel vowed a harsh response to the killing and capture of its soldiers by Hezbollah guerrillas.

An Israeli woman was also killed when Hezbollah fired off a barrage of rockets across the volatile border, sending panicked residents of communities in northern Israel into bomb shelters.

Israeli fighter jets slammed missiles into two runways, forcing the closure of the brand new airport and the diversion of flights to Cyprus, the day after Israeli troops went back into Lebanon for the first time in six years.
Lebanese police said 27 civilians, including 10 children, were killed in a wave of attacks Thursday, including a strike on Hezbollah TV, after what Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert branded an "act of war".

The killing of eight soldiers and the capture of another two by Hezbollah militants in fighting on the volatile Israel-Lebanon border Wednesday opened up a dangerous new front in the Middle East conflict.

Israeli warplanes also bombed the Palestinian foreign ministry in the Gaza Strip overnight in the latest offensive over the seizure of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian militants three weeks ago.

A total of 70 Palestinians have been killed in the military onslaught against Gaza, which the United Nations has warned is causing a humanitarian crisis in one of the most densely populated areas on earth.

World leaders have issued urgent appeals for restraint, although Israel's top ally, the United States, held
Syria and Iran responsible for the fighting on the Lebanese-Israeli border, the deadliest since Israel ended its 22-year occupation of south Lebanon in May 2000.

The Israeli army said it attacked the airport because it "is used as a central hub for the transfer of weapons and supplies to the Hezbollah terror organization."

Hezbollah, or the Party of God, whose militia was instrumental in forcing Israeli troops out of Lebanon, said it was demanding the release of Arab prisoners in return for the soldiers.

"They will only return home through indirect negotiations and an exchange of prisoners," Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said.

But Olmert, facing the most serious test of his leadership since being sworn in as premier in May, insisted there would be no negotiations.

"This was an act of war without any provocation on the sovereign territory... of the state of Israel," he said.

On Wednesday, Israeli fighter jets, gunboats and artillery had pounded Lebanon, hitting Hezbollah targets and about 10 bridges, cutting off the highway linking Beirut to the south.

Lebanon said a total of 31 people had been killed in the past 24 hours, including an off-duty soldier, while Hezbollah said one of its militants was also killed.

The Israeli cabinet, meeting in emergency session late Wednesday, gave the green light to "harsh and aggressive" action against Lebanon, which has been mired in its own political crisis since the murder of ex-premier Rafiq Hariri in 2005 and is still rebuilding after the devastating 1975-1990 civil war.

Israel has already called up a rapid-reaction force of 6,000 troops.

"The Lebanese government, which allowed Hezbollah to commit an act of war against Israel, will pay a heavy price. The rules of the game have changed," Justice Minister Haim Ramon said.

The Lebanese government -- which includes a Hezbollah minister -- denied any involvement in the Hezbollah action and demanded an urgent UN Security Council meeting.

Prime Minister Fuad Siniora also called up a host of world leaders "to ask them to help Lebanon in the face of the aggression and in order to contain the situation."

Yemen also called for an emergency meeting of the 22-member Arab League.

The White House, which considers Hezbollah a terrorist outfit, condemned the capture of the soldiers and pointed the finger at Israel's two main foes, Iran and Syria, which both bankroll the fundamentalist Shiite movement.

Washington also defended Israel's ground incursion into Lebanon, saying its chief Middle East ally was entitled to defend itself against "terrorist" attacks.

UN chief Kofi Annan urged all sides to show restraint and to protect civilians.

News of the captured soldiers was greeted with celebratory gunfire across the southern suburbs of Beirut -- a Hezbollah stronghold -- while some residents handed out candy to passing motorists .

"Long live Hezbollah, death to Israel," chanted youths.

The governing Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, whose military wing is one of three groups holding another soldier captive in Gaza, said the latest abductions showed the "weakness of the Israeli army."

Israel has been on high alert for possible retaliation following its threats to kill Hamas leaders in Damascus and since it sent warplanes over a Syrian presidential palace in a show of force last month.

The return of Israeli troops to Gaza 10 months after the army ended a 38-year-occupation has already evoked painful memories of its disastrous full-scale invasion of Lebanon in 1982 where soldiers became bogged down in a deadly quagmire before finally leaving.

The flare-up on the northern border came as Israel pressed on with its offensive in Gaza, striking the Palestinian foreign ministry overnight and killing 23 people, including nine members of the same family in an air strike on the home of a Hamas leader.

Israel has launched wave after wave of air strikes in Gaza in a bid to stop militant rocket attacks and secure the release of an Israeli corporal capture on June 25 by three groups including the armed wing of Hamas -- which is branded a terrorist movement by Israel and the West.

The groups have demanded the release of 1,000 Palestinian, Arab, Muslim and other prisoners but Israel has refused.

The latest abductions and killings of Israeli soldiers are likely to raise embarrassing questions about the Jewish state's military, which considers itself one of the strongest in the world.

In January 2004, Israel and Hezbollah carried out a swap through German mediation that saw hundreds of Arab detainees released, the return of the bodies of three soldiers, and the freeing of an Israeli businessman.



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Israel imposes Lebanon blockade

BBC
13/07/2006

Israel is imposing an air and sea blockade on Lebanon as part of a major offensive after two soldiers were seized by the militant group Hezbollah.

Israeli warships have blocked Lebanese ports, and its international airport was closed after Israeli bombing.

A Lebanese cabinet minister said the Israeli response was disproportionate, and called for a ceasefire.

Raids on targets across south Lebanon have killed at least 35. Two have died in Hezbollah attacks on Israel.

The operation comes as Israel continues a separate offensive in the Gaza Strip. An Israeli soldier was captured there last month.

Haifa threat

The offensive in Lebanon follows a day of heavy fighting in which the Israelis suffered their worst losses on the border for several years.

Eight soldiers were killed and two were injured, in addition to the two captured in a Hezbollah ambush. The captured men have now been named as Ehud Goldwasser, 31, and Eldad Regev, 26.

Hezbollah guerrillas also fired volleys of rockets at the northern Israeli coastal town of Nahariya, killing one Israeli and injuring 14 others.

They also fired seven rockets at the town of Safed, 15km (9 miles) inside the Israeli border, injuring 11 people. One woman later died of her wounds.

Hezbollah has threatened to attack the Israeli port city of Haifa if Israel bombs Beirut. Israel has warned people in the Lebanese capital's southern suburbs to evacuate.

But it is not clear whether Haifa, which is 30km (19 miles) from the Israeli border, is within range of Hezbollah's rockets.

The Israeli army says several rockets have landed more than 20km (12 miles) south of the border, suggesting that Hezbollah has managed to extend their range.

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev told the BBC that Israel was responding to "an unprovoked act of aggression" by Lebanon.

But Lebanese minister Naila Mouawad said Israel had responded disproportionately. The Lebanese government wanted a ceasefire, she said, calling for the two captured soldiers to be returned to Israel.

US President George Bush described Hezbollah as a "group of terrorists who want to stop the advance of peace".
Speaking in Germany, he said Israel had the right to defend itself, but its action should not weaken the Lebanese government.

France and Russia condemned Israel's "disproportionate use of force".

Blockade

An Israeli military spokesman said Israeli naval ships had entered Lebanese waters to block the transfer of "terrorists and weapons to the terror organisations operating in Lebanon".

Earlier, three missiles hit runways at Beirut airport, the country's only international airport, forcing its closure. Flights have been diverted to Cyprus.

An Israeli army spokesman said the airport was used to supply weapons to Hezbollah.

The blockade follows wide-ranging Israeli air raids on southern Lebanon, which killed at least 35 civilians.

Among the dead were two whole families - one of 10 people and one of seven - killed in the homes near the town of Nabatiyeh, officials said.

The Hezbollah television station al-Manar in southern Beirut was also hit, injuring three.

Responsibility

Israel said its jets hit 40 Hezbollah targets.

Israel has said it holds Lebanon responsible for the soldiers' capture and views it as an "act of war".

Hezbollah has said the captured soldiers will not be returned without a release deal for Palestinian, Lebanese and other Arab prisoners held in Israeli jails.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora denied any knowledge of the Hezbollah operation and refused to take responsibility for the soldiers' capture.

Hezbollah's political wing is a significant force in Lebanese politics and has one government minister, while its powerful military wing has controlled the border zone since Israeli forces pulled out in 2000.

Volatile mix

Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz said Israel would "not allow Hezbollah forces to remain on the borders of the state of Israel".

In Gaza, Israeli jets attacked the Palestinian foreign ministry building in Gaza City, injuring at least 10 people.

Israel has kept up air strikes and other military action against Gaza since the capture of Israeli soldier Cpl Gilad Shalit by Palestinian militants two weeks ago.

The BBC's World Affair's correspondent Nick Childs says the confrontations in Gaza and Lebanon are ringing alarm bells among world leaders.

He says the combination of an untried and apparently uncertain Israeli government, plus tensions that could easily extend to Syria and Iran, are creating a volatile mixture.

Comment: Just so you know, Lebanon is a soverign nation, larger than Israel. Israel attacked Hizballah targets in Lebanon 2 days ago, in order to provoke a response. 2 Israels soldiers were captured by Hizballah, and in response Israel has blocked Lebanese ports and bombed its airport and is ordering citizens in Beirut, a city of 2 million people, to evacuate, because Israel is going to bomb it.

And Israel wants us to believe this is all about ONE Israeli soldier?? Or three??

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Israel bombs Lebanese air base, Beirut airport

Last Updated Thu, 13 Jul 2006 11:05:32 EDT
CBC News

Israel attacked Lebanon's main military air base on Thursday after bombing Beirut's international airport, imposing a sea and air blockade and killing at least 25 people in air strikes.

Israeli jets bombed the Rayak air base, near the Syrian border, damaging the runway.
There were no immediate reports of casualties. However, the attack raised the possibility that the Lebanese army could be drawn into the conflict between Israeli forces and Hezbollah guerrillas, who are holding two Israeli soldiers and have fired rockets into northern Israel.

Earlier, the Israeli air force attacked Rafik Hariri International Airport. Warplanes struck three runways, leaving a large crater and seven smaller holes, airport officials said.

The Israeli military said the airport strike and the blockade were intended to cut off supplies to Hezbollah, and that the Lebanese government must move to clamp down on the Beirut-based militants.

"We are taking the Lebanese government as the one who is carrying all the responsibility on its shoulders regarding this area and regarding the future of Lebanon," said Brig.-Gen. Dan Halutz.

The Israeli air force may attack Beirut or any other place in Lebanon, he added.

"Nothing is safe [in Lebanon], as simple as that," Halutz said.

The offensive follows the capture of the two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid by Hezbollah militants. Eight Israeli soldiers were killed in border clashes.

Hezbollah leaders offered to exchange the captured soldiers for Arab prisoners currently held in Israeli jails.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called the Hezbollah raid an "act of war."

After sending ground troops across the Lebanese border Wednesday for the first time in six years, Israel launched air strikes overnight, targeting roads and bridges.

Hezbollah responded by firing rockets into northern Israel, killing a woman who was on her balcony and injuring five more, according to officials.



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Scores killed as Israel strikes Lebanon

Thursday 13 July 2006, 19:35 Makka Time, 16:35 GMT

Israeli air strikes in Lebanon have killed 53 civilians as Hezbollah fighters fired rockets at towns across northern Israel.

Israel struck Beirut airport early on Thursday and began enforcing a naval blockade of Lebanon, expanding reprisals since Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers a day earlier.
Police said 52 Lebanese civilians, including 15 children, were killed in attacks on Hezbollah targets in Beirut's southern suburbs and across southern Lebanon.

Security sources said the air strikes in south Lebanon also wounded 100 people. Ten members of a family were killed in Dweir village and seven family members died in Baflay.

Israeli warplanes later blasted runways at the main army air base in eastern Lebanon near Syria's border.

Lebanese police said that Israeli jets had dropped two bombs on the runway at the Rayak air base in the eastern Bekaa Valley, damaging it.

There were no reports of casualties.

Lebanon said on Thursday its only international airport will remain shut for at least 48 hours.

Mohammed Safadi, the transport minister, told reporters that "The airport will be partly operational within 48 hours, but reopening the airport is a political decision that will be decided by the cabinet,"

"The runways have all been hit, although some less than others," he said.

Retaliation

The air strikes triggered Hizbollah fighters to retaliate by firing rockets at northern Israel.

Israel media said at least 70 rockets had slammed into towns and villages in northern Israel.

Worst affected was the coastal city of Nahariya, nearly 10km south of the Lebanese border.

The Magen David Adom ambulance service said a 40-year-old woman was killed when a Katyusha rocket hit her apartment in Nahariya. Medics said 27 people, including children, had been wounded in the city.

They said seven rockets hit Safed, wounding many.

Safed is some 15km inside the Israeli border with Lebanon and among the furthest struck.

Hizbollah said it had fired 60 rockets at Nahariya.

Hizbollah also said on Thursday that it would bombard Israel's third-largest city of Haifa if it targets Beirut. Haifa is 35km south of the Lebanon border.



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Russia, France Condemn Israeli Strikes in Lebanon

Created: 13.07.2006 15:06 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 15:06 MSK
MosNews

Paris and Moscow on Thursday sharply condemned Israeli strikes in Lebanon as a dangerous escalation of the Middle East conflict but Washington, while urging restraint, said Israel had the right to self defense, Reuters reports.

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy called Israel's bombardment of Beirut's international airport "a disproportionate act of war," adding the risk of a regional war "absolutely" existed.
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Mikhail Kamynin denounced both Israel's attack on Lebanon and its on-going operations against the Palestinian territories. "The continuing destruction by Israel of civilian infrastructure in Lebanon and in Palestinian territory (and) the disproportionate use of force from which civilian populations suffer cannot be understood and justified," he said.

"The attack on Beirut international airport is a dangerous step on the way to military escalation," he added, calling on all sides to stop a slip towards war.

Israel struck Beirut airport and began enforcing a naval blockade of Lebanon on Thursday, intensifying reprisals after Hezbollah seized two Israeli soldiers and killed eight in cross-border attacks a day earlier.

Douste-Blazy said: "For several hours, there has been a bombardment of an airport of an entirely sovereign country, a friend of France ... this is a disproportionate act of war." Douste-Blazy also condemned Hizbollah's firing of rockets into northern Israel and the kidnapping of the soldiers, telling Europe 1 radio these were "irresponsible acts."

"The only solution is a return to reason by both sides," he said. "We are calling for a lowering of tensions," he said.

The Israeli attacks have killed 36 Lebanese civilians. Hezbollah fired barrages of rockets into towns across northern Israel on Thursday, killing one civilian and wounding 29 others in their heaviest bombardment in a decade.

The violence was the worst between Israel and Lebanon since 1996 when Israeli troops still occupied part of the south. It coincided with a major Israeli offensive into the Gaza Strip to retrieve a captured soldier and halt Palestinian rocket fire.

The United States held back from criticizing Israel but called for a lowering of tensions. "We are urging restraint on both sides, recognizing Israel's right to defend itself," a U.S. administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The U.S. official reiterated the White House's blame of Syria and Iran for the Hezbollah attacks on Israeli soldiers.

"The Syrians and the Iranians bear some responsibility by virtue of their harboring Hezbollah," the official said.

President George W. Bush, who is traveling in Germany for meetings with Chancellor Angela Merkel, was expected to discuss the Lebanon situation at a news conference later on Thursday.

Spain demanded a release of the kidnapped soldiers and "an end to armed aggression against Israel."

"We also ask Israel to act with moderation, in proportion to what has happened, keeping in mind how important it is not to allow the violence to spread, which would endanger the stability of the region with civilians, once again, the main victim," the Spanish foreign ministry said in a statement.



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EU condemns kidnapping of Israeli soldiers, but not killing of Lebanese civilians

Brussels, July 13, IRNA

In a position which can only be described as absurd and one-sided, the European Union Thursday condemned the kidnapping of two Zionist soldiers by Hizbollah fighters and expressed "shock" at the escalation of violence between Lebanon and Israel.
The EU Commissioner for external relations Benita Ferrero- Waldner is "very alarmed" at the escalation of violence between Israel and Lebanon, her spokesperson Emma Udwin told the daily news conference at the Commission in Brussels.

"We condemn unreservedly the kidnapping and in particular the kidnapping of the two Israeli soldiers yesterday by Hizbollah. The soldiers must be released and returned safely immediately," Udwin said.

Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner, who visited Lebanon only last week, "is shocked at the scale of violence that this incident has unleashed on both sides, that is the loss of life of a large number of innocent people, including many children as well as extensive damage to Lebanese infrastructure," said the spokesperson.

"All parties must respect their obligations under international law to protect civilians from the effects of the conflict," said Udwin adding that it is necessary that the Lebanese government extend it control all over Lebanese territory.

She evaded replying to repeated questions by reporters as to why the EU is condemning the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers and not condemning the killing of over 46 Lebanese civilians, including many children, and the violation of international law by Israeli attacks on civilian targets in Lebanon.

Moreover, the EU has not condemned the kidnapping of Palestinian ministers and legislators in Gaza by the Zionist army.



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Bush defends Israel actions, Russia condemns attacks

By Kerstin Gehmlich
Reuters
July 13, 2006

PARIS - Russia and France condemned Israel's strikes in Lebanon on Thursday as a dangerous escalation of the Middle East conflict but the United States said Israel had the right to defend itself.

President Bush defended Israel's attack on Beirut airport, but warned the Israelis they should be careful not to weaken the fragile Lebanese government.
"Israel has the right to defend herself," Bush told a news conference after talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "Secondly, whatever Israel does should not weaken the ... government in Lebanon."

Bush and Merkel made clear at a joint news conference they felt Israel's actions in seeking kidnapped soldiers and responding to Hizbollah rocket attacks were justified.

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov denounced both Israel's attack on Lebanon and its operations against the Palestinian territories.

"This is a disproportionate response to what has happened and if both sides are going to drive each other into a tight corner then I think that all this will develop in a very dramatic and tragic way," he told reporters on a flight from Paris to Moscow, Interfax news agency reported.

Israel struck Beirut airport and began enforcing a naval blockade of Lebanon on Thursday, intensifying reprisals after Hizbollah seized two Israeli soldiers and killed eight in cross-border attacks on Wednesday.

The Israeli attacks have killed 52 Lebanese civilians.

"DISPROPORTIONATE"

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy called Israel's bombardment of Beirut airport "a disproportionate act of war," saying there was a real risk of a regional war.

Douste-Blazy also condemned Hizbollah's firing of rockets into northern Israel and the seizure of the soldiers, telling Europe 1 radio these were "irresponsible acts."

"The only solution is a return to reason by both sides," he said. "We are calling for a lowering of tensions."

Hizbollah fired barrages of rockets into towns across northern Israel on Thursday, killing one civilian and wounding 29 others in their heaviest bombardment in a decade.

The violence is the worst between Israel and Lebanon since 1996 when Israeli troops still occupied part of the south.

Bush said there was concern that any activities by Israel to protect herself would weaken the Lebanese government.

"Having said all that, people need to protect themselves. There are terrorists who will blow up innocent people in order to achieve tactical objectives. In this case, the objective is to stop the advance of peace," he added.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair called on all sides in the Middle East crisis to exercise restraint, act proportionately and get back to the negotiating table as soon as possible.

"Overall, let us remember how these problems have arisen which is first and foremost the kidnappings. We condemn these kidnappings and call for the soldiers involved to be released," Blair's official spokesman said.



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U.S. blames Syria, Iran for kidnappings

By TERENCE HUNT
AP White House Correspondent
Wed Jul 12, 2006

ROSTOCK, Germany - The United States blamed Syria and Iran on Wednesday for the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah militants and an eruption of violence along the southern border of Lebanon.

The White House called for the immediate and unconditional release of the two soldiers.

"We condemn in the strongest terms Hezbollah's unprovoked attack on Israel and the kidnapping of the two Israeli soldiers," National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones said as President Bush flew here for a visit. He said Hezbollah had also launched unprovoked rocket attacks on civilian targets in Israel as part of its offensive.

Israel sent troops, warplanes, tanks and gunboats in a military offensive into southern Lebanon after Hezbollah militants crossed into Israel and captured two Israeli soldiers. Israel said seven of its soldiers had been killed in the violence.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed determination to achieve the release of the kidnapped soldiers and urged all sides to "act with restraint to resolve this incident peacefully."

"Syria has a special responsibility to use its influence to support a positive outcome," she said in a statement.

Southern Lebanon became the second front in the fight against Islamic militants by Israel, which already is waging an operation to free a soldier captured by the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

"This is a terrorist attack and it is clearly timed to exacerbate already high tensions in the region and sow further violence," Jones said.

He said Rice, on a diplomatic trip to Paris, had been in direct contact with the parties in the region "with the purpose of holding Hezbollah accountable for its action."

"We also hold Syria and Iran - which directly support Hezbollah - responsible for this attack and for the ensuing violence," Jones said. "Hezbollah's terrorism is not in Lebanon's interest.

"This attack demonstrates that Hezbollah's continued impunity to arm itself and carry out operations from Lebanese territory is a direct threat to the security of the Lebanese people and the sovereignty of the Lebanese government," Jones said.

Syria's vice president, Farouk al-Sharaa, blamed Israel for the violence both in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories and denied that his country had a role in the abductions of the soldiers.

"For sure, the occupation (of the Palestinian territories) is the cause provoking both Lebanese and Palestinian people, and that's why there is Lebanese and Palestinian resistance," he said.

Some of Hamas' top leaders live in Syria, putting Damascus at the center of blame by Israel and the United States.

Comment: Israel seems to be starting a conflagration that will consume the entire Middle East all because of three missing soldiers.

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Yahweh's Stormtroopers in Palestine


How I've come to know Gilad Shalit

Simon Black
Jul. 9, 2006. 01:00 AM

I know Gilad Shalit. Not personally, but I could tell you what he looks like, his age, where he went to school, his hometown, his father's name, what his father looks like, and how he weeps for his son.

I know that this is not the first time that the Shalit family has felt the emotional impact of armed conflict. I know that during the Arab-Israeli war, Gilad's uncle, Yoel, was killed.

I know that Gilad's brother is named after Yoel. I know that his brother attends university in Haifa and is worried about him. I know that Gilad is being held by Palestinians after his army outpost was raided and Gilad was captured.

I know that Gilad is the first Israeli soldier captured by Palestinians since 1994. I know Gilad's friends describe him as a peaceful and quiet young man.


I know that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has spoken with Gilad's father. I know that Olmert has assured Galid's father that everything in his power is being done to secure the release of his son.

I also know that the "everything" Prime Minister Olmert speaks of includes the collective punishment of the Palestinian people by further military incursions into their territory, destroying Palestinian infrastructure and cutting their power supply, leaving families in the dark.

I know these things because I watch the nightly news and read the daily paper. Since his capture, I have been unable to avoid the image of Gilad Shalit and the life and history behind this image.

What I do not know is the names and faces of the hundreds of Palestinian children held in Israeli jails.

I could not tell you about their brother or sister, whether they would like to go to university, or whether they have a dead relative for whom they were named after.

Nor could I tell you about the thousands of Palestinian men and women who are held by the Israeli state without charge or trial. I could not tell you whether their friends and family describe them as peaceful or quiet.

These people are nameless, faceless, reduced to bare life - human beings not entitled to rights, dignity and respect.

Nor do they merit the attention of the BBC, The Globe and Mail, Ha'aretz, or The New York Times.

Unless of course they engage in an act of violence so horrific, so apparently unexplainable and incomprehensible that they must be subject to biography, psychological profiling, a where-did-it-all-go-wrong-for-the-aspiring-fun-loving-university-student-type docudrama.

Apparently their suffering does not deserve the attention of the media.

Their incarceration is not the stuff of headlines in the national media. Their detainment is without explanation and justification in the op-ed section of the dailies or subject to the analysis of talking heads on the evening news.

No ink will be spilled over their life stories.

And here lies the tragedy of the Palestinian people. Here lies the tragedy for many of us.

We only know Gilad Shalit.



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Yesha rabbis call for 'extermination of the enemy'

THE JERUSALEM POST
July 12, 2006

The Yesha Rabbinical Council blamed the attack on the north on Wednesday morning on a "weakening of our grip on the land of Israel."

The rabbis saw the attack as a "direct continuation of relinquishing [territory] and weakness."

The Council called on the IDF to ignore Christian morals and "exterminate the enemy in the north and the south." They advised that an emergency government be established to "fight the true enemy as is appropriate, and to rescind orders to destroy and evict Jews."
Comment: Israeli Rabbis are calling for the extermination of "the enemy". Think about that one for a minute...



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Israeli Textbooks and Children's Literature Promote Racism and Hatred Toward Palestinians and Arabs

By Maureen MeehanSEPTEMBER 1999, pages 19-20
Special Report

Israeli school textbooks as well as children's storybooks, according to recent academic studies and surveys, portray Palestinians and Arabs as "murderers," "rioters," "suspicious," and generally backward and unproductive. Direct delegitimization and negative stereotyping of Palestinians and Arabs are the rule rather than the exception in Israeli schoolbooks.
Professor Daniel Bar-Tal of Tel Aviv University studied 124 elementary, middle- and high school textbooks on grammar and Hebrew literature, history, geography and citizenship. Bar-Tal concluded that Israeli textbooks present the view that Jews are involved in a justified, even humanitarian, war against an Arab enemy that refuses to accept and acknowledge the existence and rights of Jews in Israel.

"The early textbooks tended to describe acts of Arabs as hostile, deviant, cruel, immoral, unfair, with the intention to hurt Jews and to annihilate the State of Israel. Within this frame of reference, Arabs were delegitimized by the use of such labels as 'robbers,' 'bloodthirsty,' and 'killers,'" said Professor Bar-Tal, adding that there has been little positive revision in the curriculum over the years.

Bar-Tal pointed out that Israeli textbooks continue to present Jews as industrious, brave and determined to cope with the difficulties of "improving the country in ways they believe the Arabs are incapable of."

Hebrew-language geography books from the 1950s through 1970s focused on the glory of Israel's ancient past and how the land was "neglected and destroyed" by the Arabs until the Jews returned from their forced exile and revived it "with the help of the Zionist movement."

"This attitude served to justify the return of the Jews, implying that they care enough about the country to turn the swamps and deserts into blossoming farmland; this effectively delegitimizes the Arab claim to the same land," Bar-Tal told the Washington Report. "The message was that the Palestinians were primitive and neglected the country and did not cultivate the land."

This message, continued Bar-Tal, was further emphasized in textbooks by the use of blatant negative stereotyping which featured Arabs as: "unenlightened, inferior, fatalistic, unproductive and apathetic." Further, according to the textbooks, the Arabs were "tribal, vengeful, exotic, poor, sick, dirty, noisy, colored" and "they burn, murder, destroy, and are easily inflamed."

Textbooks currently being used in the Israeli school system, says Bar-Tal, contain less direct denigration of Arabs but continue to stereotype them negatively when referring to them. He pointed out that Hebrew- as well as Arabic-language textbooks used in elementary and junior high schools contain very few references either to Arabs or to Arab-Jewish relations. The coordinator of a Palestinian NGO in Israel said that major historical events hardly get a mention either.

"When I was in high school 12 years ago, the date '1948' barely appeared in any textbooks except for a mention that there was a conflict, Palestinians refused to accept a U.N. solution and ran away instead," said Jamal Atamneh, coordinator of the Arab Education Committee in Support of Local Councils, a Haifa-based NGO. "Today the idea communicated to schoolchildren is basically the same: there are winners and losers in every conflict. When they teach about 'peace and co-existence,' it is to teach us how to get along with Jews."

Atamneh explained that textbooks used by the nearly one million Arab Israelis (one-fifth of Israel's population) are in Arabic but are written by and issued from the Israeli Ministry of Education, where Palestinians have no influence or input.

"Fewer than 1 percent of the jobs in the Education Ministry, not counting teachers, are held by Palestinians," Atamneh said. "For the past 15 years, not one new Palestinian academic has been placed in a high position in the ministry. There are no Palestinians involved in preparing the Arabic-language curriculum [and] obviously, there is no such thing as affirmative action in Israel."

In addition, there are no Arabic-language universities in Israel. Haifa University, Atamneh points out, has had a steady 20 percent Arab student population for the past 20 years. "How can that figure have remained the same after all these years when the population in the north [of Israel] has grown to over 50 percent Arab?"

Answering his own question, Atamneh rattles off statistics that reflect excellent high school scores among Arab students which he contrasts to their subsequent lower-than-average performance in Hebrew-language college entrance exams given by the state.

"No major scholarships have ever been awarded to an Arab; there are no dorms for Arabs and no college-related jobs or financial aid programs. They justify this legal discrimination by the fact that we do not serve in the army. There are numerous blatant and official methods used to keep Palestinian Arabs out of the universities."

Absence of Palestinian Identity in Schoolbooks

Dr. Eli Podeh, lecturer in the Department of Islamic Studies and Middle East History at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, says that while certain changes in Israeli textbooks are slowly being implemented, the discussion of Palestinian national and civil identity is never touched upon.

"Passages from 'experts' about the existence of a Palestinian identity were introduced, but in general it appeared that the textbook authors were not eager to adopt it," said Dr. Podeh, adding that "the connection between Palestinians in Israel and Arabs in Arab countries is not discussed. Especially evident is the lack of a discussion on the orientation of Palestinians to the [occupied] territories.

"While new textbooks attempt to correct some of the earlier distortions, these books as well contain overt and covert fabrications," said Dr. Podeh. "The establishment has preferred-or felt itself forced-to encourage the cover-up and condemn the perplexity."

One Israeli public high school student told the Washington Report that the contents of the schoolbooks and the viewpoints expressed by some teachers indeed have a lasting negative effect on youngsters' attitudes toward Palestinians.

"Our books basically tell us that everything the Jews do is fine and legitimate and Arabs are wrong and violent and are trying to exterminate us," said Daniel Banvolegyi, a 17-year-old high school student in Jerusalem.

"We are accustomed to hearing the same thing, only one side of the story. They teach us that Israel became a state in 1948 and that the Arabs started a war. They don't mention what happened to the Arabs-they never mention anything about refugees or Arabs having to leave their towns and homes," said Banvolegyi.

Banvolegyi, who will be a high school senior this fall, and then will be drafted into the Israeli army next summer, said he argues with his friends about what he regards as racism in the textbooks and on the part of the teachers. He pointed out a worrisome example of how damaging the textbooks and prevailing attitudes can be.

"One kid told me he was angry because of something he read or discussed in school and that he felt like punching the first Arab he saw," said Banvolegyi. "Instead of teaching tolerance and reconciliation, the books and some teachers' attitudes are increasing hatred for Arabs."

Banvolegyi spoke about his schoolmates who, he says, "are dying to go into combat and kill Arabs. I try to talk to them but they say I don't care about this country. But I do care and that's why I tell them peace and justice are the only ways to work things out."

Racist Israeli Upbringing

Considering what the schools have to offer, both Banvolegyi and Atamneh agree that the oral tradition is one of the few ways to get the story straight.

"Unfortunately Israeli children's books are not an option for promoting equality in this society," said Atamneh, citing a book written by Israeli writer/researcher Adir Cohen called An Ugly Face in the Mirror.

Cohen's book is a study of the nature of children's upbringing in Israel, concentrating on how the historical establishment sees and portrays Arab Palestinians as well as how Jewish Israeli children perceive Palestinians. One section of the book was based on the results of a survey taken of a group of 4th to 6th grade Jewish students at a school in Haifa. The pupils were asked five questions about their attitude toward Arabs, how they recognize them and how they relate to them. The results were as shocking as they were disturbing:

Seventy five percent of the children described the "Arab" as a murderer, one who kidnaps children, a criminal and a terrorist. Eighty percent said they saw the Arab as someone dirty with a terrifying face. Ninety percent of the students stated they believe that Palestinians have no rights whatsoever to the land in Israel or Palestine

Cohen also researched 1,700 Israeli children's books published after 1967. He found that 520 of the books contained humiliating, negative descriptions of Palestinians. He also took pains to break down the descriptions:

Sixty six percent of the 520 books refer to Arabs as violent; 52 percent as evil; 37 percent as liars; 31 percent as greedy; 28 percent as two-faced; 27 percent as traitors, etc.

Cohen points out that the authors of these children's books effectively instill hatred toward Arabs by means of stripping them of their human nature and classifying them in another category. In a sampling of 86 books, Cohen counted the following descriptions used to dehumanize Arabs: Murderer was used 21 times; snake, 6 times; dirty, 9 times; vicious animal, 17 times; bloodthirsty, 21 times; warmonger, 17 times; killer, 13 times; believer in myths, 9 times; and a camel's hump, 2 times.

Cohen's study concludes that such descriptions of Arabs are part and parcel of convictions and a culture rampant in Hebrew literature and history books. He writes that Israeli authors and writers confess to deliberately portraying the Arab character in this way, particularly to their younger audience, in order to influence their outlook early on so as to prepare them to deal with Arabs.

"So you can see that if you grew up reading or studying from these books, you'd never know anything else," said Atamneh.

"But in the case of Palestinians, we grow up 500 meters away from what used to be a town or village and is now a Jewish settlement. Our parents and grandparents tell us all about it; endlessly they talk about it. It's the only way."

Maureen Meehan is a free-lance journalist who covers the West Bank and Jerusalem.



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WHAT ARE THEY FIGHTING FOR

Tanya Reinhart

A shorter version of this article was scheduled to appear Thursday, July 13 in Yediot Aharonot, but postponed to next week because of the developments in Southern Lebanon. (*)

Whatever may be the fate of the captive soldier Gilad Shalit, the Israeli army's war in Gaza is not about him. As senior security analyst Alex Fishman widely reported, the army was preparing for an attack months earlier and was constantly pushing for it, with the goal of destroying the Hamas infrastructure and its government. The army initiated an escalation on 8 June when it assassinated Abu Samhadana, a senior appointee of the Hamas government, and intensified its shelling of civilians in the Gaza Strip. Governmental authorization for action on a larger scale was already given by 12 June, but it was postponed in the wake of the global reverberation caused by the killing of civilians in the air force bombing the next day. The abduction of the soldier released the safety-catch, and the operation began on 28 June with the destruction of infrastructure in Gaza and the mass detention of the Hamas leadership in the West Bank, which was also planned weeks in advance. (1)
In Israeli discourse, Israel ended the occupation in Gaza when it evacuated its settlers from the Strip, and the Palestinians' behavior therefore constitutes ingratitude. But there is nothing further from reality than this description. In fact, as was already stipulated in the Disengagement Plan, Gaza remained under complete Israeli military control, operating from outside. Israel prevented any possibility of economic independence for the Strip and from the very beginning, Israel did not implement a single one of the clauses of the agreement on border-crossings of November 2005. Israel simply substituted the expensive occupation of Gaza with a cheap occupation, one which in Israel's view exempts it from the occupier's responsibility to maintain the Strip, and from concern for the welfare and the lives of its million and a half residents, as determined in the fourth Geneva convention.

Israel does not need this piece of land, one of the most densely populated in the world, and lacking any natural resources. The problem is that one cannot let Gaza free, if one wants to keep the West Bank. A third of the occupied Palestinians live in the Gaza strip. If they are given freedom, they would become the center of Palestinian struggle for liberation, with free access to the Western and Arab world. To control the West Bank, Israel needs full control Gaza. The new form of control Israel has developed is turning the whole of the Strip into a prison camp completely sealed from the world.

Besieged occupied people with nothing to hope for, and no alternative means of political struggle, will always seek ways to fight their oppressor. The imprisoned Gaza Palestinians found a way to disturb the life of the Israelis in the vicinity of the Strip, by launching home-made Qassam rockets across the Gaza wall against Israeli towns bordering the Strip. These primitive rockets lack the precision to focus on a target, and have rarely caused Israeli casualties; they do however cause physical and psychological damage and seriously disturb life in the targeted Israeli neighborhoods. In the eyes of many Palestinians, the Qassams are a response to the war Israel has declared on them. As a student from Gaza said to the New York Times, "Why should we be the only ones who live in fear? With these rockets, the Israelis feel fear, too. We will have to live in peace together, or live in fear together." (2)

The mightiest army in the Middle East has no military answer to these home-made rockets. One answer that presents itself is what Hamas has been proposing all along, and Haniyeh repeated this week - a comprehensive cease-fire. Hamas has proven already that it can keep its word. In the 17 months since it announced its decision to abandon armed struggle in favor of political struggle, and declared a unilateral cease-fire ("tahdiya" - calm), it did not participate in the launching of Qassams, except under severe Israeli provocation, as happened in the June escalation. However, Hamas remains committed to political struggle against the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. In Israel's view, the Palestinians elections results is a disaster, because for the first time they have a leadership that insists on representing Palestinian interests rather than just collaborating with Israel's demands.

Since ending the occupation is the one thing Israel is not willing to consider, the option promoted by the army is breaking the Palestinians by devastating brutal force. They should be starved, bombarded, terrorized with sonic booms for months, until they understand that rebelling is futile, and accepting prison life is their only hope for staying alive. Their elected political system, institutions and police should be destroyed. In Israel's vision, Gaza should be ruled by gangs collaborating with the prison wards.

The Israeli army is hungry for war. It would not let concerns for captive soldiers stand in its way. Since 2002 the army has argued that an "operation" along the lines of "Defensive Shield" in Jenin was also necessary in Gaza. Exactly a year ago, on 15 July (before the Disengagement), the army concentrated forces on the border of the Strip for an offensive of this scale on Gaza. But then the USA imposed a veto. Rice arrived for an emergency visit that was described as acrimonious and stormy, and the army was forced to back down (3). Now, the time has finally came. With the Islamophobia of the American Administration at a high point, it appears that the USA is prepared to authorize such an operation, on condition that it not provoke a global outcry with excessively-reported attacks on civilians.(4)

With the green light for the offensive given, the army's only concern is public image. Fishman reported this Tuesday that the army is worried that "what threatens to burry this huge military and diplomatic effort" is reports of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Hence, the army would take care to let some food into Gaza. (5) From this perspective, it is necessary to feed the Palestinians in Gaza so that it would be possible to continue to kill them undisturbed.



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*Parts of this article were translated from Hebrew by Mark Marshall.

(1) Alex Fishman, Who is for the elimination of Hamas, Yediot Aharonot Saturday Supplement, June 30, 2006. See also Alex Fishman, The safety-catch released, Yediot Aharonot June 21, 2006 (Hebrew), Aluf Benn, An operation with two goals, Ha'aretz, June 29 2006.

(2) Greg Myre, Rockets Create a 'Balance of Fear' With Israel, Gaza Residents Say. The New York Times, July 9, 2006.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/world/middleeast/09rockets.html?ex=1310097

(3) Steven Erlanger, "U.S. Presses Israel to Smooth the Path to a Palestinian Gaza", New York Times, August 7 2005. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/07/international/middleeast/07israel.html?ex=1281067200&en=82f12ac7eed5ee24&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss The planned July 2005 offensive is documented in detail in my The Road Map to Nowhere - Israel Palestine since 2003, Verso, September 2006.

(4) For a detailed survey of the U.S. administration's present stands, see Ori Nir, U.S. Seen Backing Israeli Moves To Topple Hamas, The Forward, July 7, 2006. http://www.forward.com/articles/8063

(5) Alex Fishman, Their food is finished, Yediot Aharonot, July 11, 2006.



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Girl survivor of Gaza beach tragedy arrives in UAE

Wed Jul 12,2006


ABU DHABI (AFP) - A 10-year-old Palestinian girl who lost nearly her entire family in a rocket attack on a Gaza beach by the Israeli military, arrived in Abu Dhabi after a member of the oil-rich emirate's ruling family said he wanted to adopt her.

Huda Ghalya and four companions were taken to hospital for treatment in the UAE capital, the official WAM news agency reported.

According to Palestinian sources, Huda's father, stepmother and three of her siblings were killed while picnicking on a Gaza beachfront last month by what is widely believed to have been Israeli shelling.

Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed al-Nahayan, deputy prime minister of the UAE, proposed in a telephone conversation with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas after the attack to adopt Huda, who became an icon for many Arabs when footage of her wailing by her dead father was beamed around the world.

"Life is smiling at me again thanks to the care of father Sheikh Hamdan," WAM quoted Huda as saying.


Comment: While we don't want to be pessimistic, the Saudi and Dubai Royals do not have the best track record in maintaing a healthy respect for minors. Out of the frying pan into the fire? We fervently hope that Huda will find some peace and even a little hapiness in her new life.

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Japan's Koizumi unveils fresh aid for Palestinians

by Shingo Ito
AFP
July 13, 2006

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has unveiled nearly 30 million dollars in fresh aid to the Palestinians, urging calm in the full glare of an escalating Middle East crisis.

Koizumi announced the new package in humanitarian assistance, to be distributed mainly through UN bodies, when he met Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah amid widening regional chaos on Thursday.

Tokyo, the third largest donor for the Palestinians after the United States and the European Union, insists the aid will not be used to finance the Hamas-led administration, which is politically and financially boycotted by the West.
Of the money, 25 million dollars will be spent on water supply, garbage disposal, sanitation and vaccination projects, with the rest to be used for reconstruction of the presidential office and other projects.

"I am extremely worried about the current situation," Koizumi told a joint news conference with Abbas at the presidential office.

"In the short-term, Israel and the Palestinians are angry and have the thought of an eye for an eye, but that is no way. But the peace process and Japan will continue support by consulting with both parties," he added.

Koizumi's talks with Abbas came one day after he met Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem and urged the Jewish state to take "rational action" to the crisis, in which Israeli forces are now fighting in Lebanon and Gaza.

In Jerusalem, the Japanese premier stressed that Japan's assistance to the Palestinians would be made in the form of support for the moderate Abbas.

Japanese officials said Koizumi had no plan to meet any leaders of the Islamist movement Hamas which took the helm of the Palestinian government in March but which continues formally to advocate the destruction of Israel.

"Japanese assistance to the Middle East is different from that of the United States or EU," Koizumi said. "We are going to support the basis of livelihood of both Israeli and Palestinian people."

On Wednesday, Koizumi announced a Japanese initiative to create a four-party framework between Japan, Israel, the Palestinians and Jordan jointly to develop Jordan Valley areas.

Koizumi also said Tokyo would offer two million dollars to the World Bank for a feasibility study on the possible construction of a canal between the Dead Sea and the Red Sea.

The Middle East has been flung deeper into chaos after Israel launched an assault in Lebanon following the capture by Hezbollah of two soldiers along the Jewish state's northern border and killed eight others in clashes.

Israeli fighter jets bombed Lebanon's only international airport and killed 40 civilians in a wave of retaliatory strikes.

At least 75 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier have also been killed since Israeli tanks and troops poured into the
Gaza Strip on July 5 in a bid to stop Palestinian rocket attacks and secure Corporal Gilad Shalit's release.

The Japanese premier was travelling to Jordan to visit King Abdullah II later on Thursday before flying to Russia on Saturday to attend the Group of Eight summit.

He is the longest serving Japanese premier in three decades and has tried to increase Tokyo's role on the world stage and the Middle East, sending 600 troops to Iraq on an historic mission for the pacifist nation.



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Weather or Not


Trees could grow in Antarctica within century: scientist

AFP
Wed Jul 12, 2006

SYDNEY - Trees could be growing in the Antarctic within a century because of global warming, an international scientific conference heard.

With carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere set to double in the next 100 years, the icy continent could revert to how it looked about 40 million years ago, said Professor Robert Dunbar of Stanford University.
"It was warm and there were bushes and there were trees," he told some 850 delegates in the Tasmanian capital Hobart, the national AAP news agency reported.

The delegates are attending the combined meetings of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research and the Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs.

Dunbar said climate experts were predicting a doubling of the levels of carbon dioxide by 2100, "but it actually looks like it's going to come sooner unfortunately."

Scientists blame greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, produced mainly by the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil, for causing rising temperatures worldwide.



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Scores flee as volcano erupts in Colombia

July 13 2006 at 01:41AM

Bogota - Authorities were evacuating about 8 000 people in south-western Colombia on Wednesday following a volcanic eruption.
A minor eruption of the 4 275m Galeras volcano at 6pm prompted authorities to declare a state of maximum alert as they waited to see if further explosions would occur, said Eduardo Gonzalez, head of the government's disaster prevention office.

About 2 000 of the people affected in three nearby alpine hamlets were already evacuated, and the rest were expected to be taken to disaster shelters in the coming hours, Gonzalez said.

The volcano, 520km south-west of Bogota, near the border with Ecuador, has a long history of activity.



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Taiwan battens down as tropical storm approaches

Reuters
Wed Jul 12, 2006

TAIPEI - Taiwan was braced on Thursday for the arrival of tropical storm Bilis, with heavy rains and strong winds already battering eastern parts of the island and forcing schools and offices to close in central areas.

By 0100 GMT, the eye of the storm, which killed four people in the Philippines, was about 300 km (180 miles) east of Taiwan and traveling northwest at 17 kph, with sustained winds of up to 90 kph and maximum gusts of 119 kph, Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau said.

County and city governments in the central parts of the island shut schools and offices but the capital Taipei was unaffected.

Taiwan's two key ports, Keelung in the north and Kaohsiung in the south, were operating as normal.




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Rains, flooding in Chile leave 11 dead

AP
Wed Jul 12, 2006

SANTIAGO, Chile - Flooding and landslides triggered by heavy rain in central Chile left at least 11 people dead and forced 30,000 to flee their inundated homes Wednesday, the government said.
President Michelle Bachelet declared a state of emergency in the area, about 300 miles south of Santiago, because of massive flooding triggered by rain-swollen rivers, the Interior Ministry's National Emergency Office said.

Seven of the deaths occurred in a landslide in Chiguayante, where a family of four was buried along with three firefighters, the emergency office said.

A police officer remained missing after he and another officer were swept away by the Teno River on Tuesday night. The second officer was found clinging to branches 18 miles down river Wednesday.

Chilean power generators opened floodgates at major reservoirs because of the heavy rain that also washed out roads and cut electricity in isolated rural areas.



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Tornadoes touch down north of New York City

Reuters
Wed Jul 12, 2006

NEW YORK - Tornadoes were reported to have touched down during a severe storm in Westchester County on Wednesday, just north of New York City, and in Connecticut, the National Weather Service said.

The agency issued a tornado warning for southern Westchester County just ahead of the evening rush hour. Other severe weather watches and warnings were also in effect throughout the metropolitan area.
Michael Wyllie, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service, said tornadoes were reported to have touched down in Westchester County and possibly Fairfield County in southern Connecticut. But confirmation of them would not come until the weather service could assess the damage, he added.

The National Weather Service reported winds of nearly 60 mph (96.5 kmh). Airports in the New York metropolitan area reported delays of up to 90 minutes as heavy rain and winds buffeted the area.

Amid the heavy winds, one building collapsed in Hawthorne, New York, about 30 miles north of New York City, but no serious injuries were reported.



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Hundreds evacuated as Calif. fire rages

By CHRISTINA ALMEIDA
Associated Press
Thu Jul 13, 2006

YUCCA VALLEY, Calif. - Desert winds and blistering heat Wednesday challenged firefighters battling a 37,000-acre wildfire that destroyed 42 homes, chased up to 1,000 people from small communities but spared historic buildings in a town developed decades ago as a movie set for Westerns.

Temperatures hit 108 degrees as 2,500 firefighters attacked flames devouring greasewood, Joshua trees, pinon pines and brush in hills and canyons of the high desert about 100 miles east of Los Angeles.
"It's burning vigorously in specific areas," said Capt. Marc DeRosier of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Eight air tankers and 13 helicopters attacked from above. Containment was just 16 percent.

The fire, ignited during the weekend by lightning, destroyed 42 houses, 55 other buildings and 91 vehicles, authorities told reporters Wednesday night. They had previously pegged the number of structures destroyed at about 30 but revised that after conducting a detailed count Wednesday.

The fire was moving southwest as winds gusted to 40 mph, DeRosier said, and 800 to 1,000 people remained evacuated from Pioneertown, Burns Canyon, Rimrock, Gamma Gulch, Flamingo Heights and Little Morongo Canyon.

Officials worried that if the blaze continued to move toward the San Bernardino National Forest, it could grow rapidly, threatening the resort community of Big Bear Lake.

A bark beetle infestation has killed many trees in the area in recent years, which could provide the wildfire with substantial fuel.

"If it starts in there, it will be almost impossible to stop," said forestry department spokeswoman Karen Guillemin.

Smoke darkened the sky over the Mojave Desert north of the town of Yucca Valley.

Firefighters used picks and shovels against hotspots in the Pioneertown area, where the fire raged Tuesday. There was no damage to the historic area, which dates to the 1940s when Hollywood cowboys such as Roy Rogers and Russ "Lucky" Haden began establishing it as a filming site.

In Morongo Valley - where large ranch homes are surrounded by highly combustible greasewood, Joshua trees, pinion pines and fine brush - residents watched nervously.

"I want to see how bad it is and see if I need to pack up my pictures," said Tammy Taylor, who drove the family Jeep to the top of the canyon from their nearby home.

An evacuation center was set up at Yucca Valley High School, and horses and other livestock were taken to the town of Landers.

Elsewhere in the West, several new wildfires in southern Montana spread quickly - one to an estimated 10,000 acres - because of windy weather.

At least one house on the Crow Indian Reservation was reported destroyed by a blaze estimated at 4,500 acres, said Jon Kohn, an information officer for the Crow Agency Bureau of Indian Affairs' Forestry division.

There also was a 3,150-acre wildfire west of Columbus, and another burning north of Pompeys Pillar that was estimated at 10,000 acres, said Mary Apple, a spokeswoman with the
Bureau of Land Management.



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Heavy rains cause flooding in Ind., Ohio

The Associated Press
Thu Jul 13, 2006

Up to 9 inches of rain brought flooding to Indiana and Ohio on Wednesday, killing a woman, while a tornado in a county north of New York City partly collapsed a commercial building and ripped the roof off a hotel.

Firefighters recovered the body of an Ohio woman who had been trying to pull her daughter from a drainage ditch as a third straight day of rain fell. The National Weather Service issued a flood warning Wednesday for several counties in Indiana.
Pam Soule, emergency management director for LaGrange County in Indiana, said a weather observer in Olive Lake reported 9 inches of rain. Floodwaters damaged at least seven homes in Topeka and two homes in Clearspring Township. Topeka firefighters were filling sandbags to protect other homes, but she said conditions were improving.

"Most of the water that was up over the roads has receded to the point they've taken down the high water signs," she said.

Dianna Snyder, 40, was visiting a public garden in Mansfield, Ohio with her 9-year-old daughter when the girl slipped and was swept through 460 feet of drainage pipe, police Lt. Dave Nirode said. The girl was able to pull herself out on the other side.

Snyder jumped in to rescue her daughter, Nirode said. Her body was found downstream.

Nearby, flooded-out campers had to flee to emergency shelters.

In Ohio's Ashtabula County, firefighters, sheriff's divers and a Coast Guard helicopter crew searched for a 21-year-old man reported missing from a group swimming in a creek, said Petty Officer Matt Schofield with the Coast Guard in Cleveland.

Meanwhile, a tornado in Mount Pleasant, N.Y., threw a truck onto gasoline pumps, partly collapsed a commercial building and ripped off a hotel's roof, said Susan Tolchin, chief adviser to Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano.

There were no reported injuries, officials said, but power was knocked out to more than 4,000 residents.

In North Dakota, parts of which reported temperatures in the 100s on Wednesday, a storm damaged more than two dozen buildings in the McLean County town of Coleharbor, blew grain bins through town and destroyed an old brick schoolhouse, authorities said.

Two minor injuries were reported. Authorities were unsure Wednesday whether a tornado was responsible.



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Hurricane, Tropical Storm near Mexico

AP
Wed Jul 12, 2006

MEXICO CITY - The first hurricane of the season has formed in the eastern Pacific but forecasters said Wednesday that it posed no threat to land.

Hurricane Bud with winds of 98 mph was centered about 600 miles southwest of Baja California and was headed northwest toward open ocean, the National Weather Service said.

Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Carlotta was located in the Pacific about 320 miles southwest of Manzanillo, and was also moving northwest, the Hurricane Center said.

The storm, which was expected to grow to hurricane strength by Friday, also posed no threat to land, the Hurricane Center said.




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Santiago's killer smog is getting worse again

By Fiona Ortiz
Reuters
Tue Jul 11, 2006

SANTIAGO, Chile - Chile's capital, home to some of Latin America's foulest air, is losing ground in its battle against pollution after hard-won gains in the 1990s.

From 1990-2000 air pollution levels fell in Santiago as factories switched to cleaner fuels and belching old buses hit the scrap heap, helping improve a blight on what is otherwise one of the region's most livable urban areas.
Officials crowed that the metropolitan area, home to roughly 6 million people, had seen the end of pollution emergencies and so-called pre-emergencies that force cars off the street and shut down industrial plants.

"The government promised way too much, they never should have said that," said Rainer Schmitz, a chemical engineer at the University of Chile who advises the city on air quality and says it needs stricter standards.

Chile's economy is booming due to robust exports of copper, salmon and forestry products. But economic good times have aggravated pollution. Brand new superhighways crisscross Santiago and sales of cars -- the main pollution source in the capital -- have surged.

A recent international audit strongly criticized government cuts in financing for Santiago's clean-air program, saying government complacency was to blame for rising concentrations of harmful ozone and carbon monoxide since 2002.

Official numbers also show that in the last two years, levels of fine particles known as PM2.5 -- dangerous because they travel deep into the lungs -- have risen in several districts of Santiago and are well above international safe air standards.

"The smog is worse all the time and kids with allergies have a really bad reaction. You have to take them to the hospital every two weeks with pneumonia, bronchitis, laryngitis," said 39-year-old Jenny Lamey, a mother of three, carrying her coughing baby in the emergency room at San Borja hospital in Santiago.

DEADLY AIR

Santiago's geography does not help matters. The city sits in a dusty, arid bowl up against the Andes, a wall of mountains that inhibit air circulation.

Low rainfall this year has aggravated air quality and since January Santiago officials have declared 14 alerts, when air pollution reaches the lower end of a potentially dangerous range, making 2006 the most polluted year since 2003.

The alerts force some older cars off the road to improve air quality, but even when the government's index shows air quality is good, concentrations of microparticles are high enough to cause premature deaths, said Andres Tchernitchin, a pathologist at the University of Chile.

Tchernitchin said studies show that mortality rates rise 10 percent even when the official air quality index is between 100-150, which is not high enough to set off an alert.

A 2001 study published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives estimated Santiago could prevent some 4,000 premature deaths between 2000 and 2020 by reducing levels of fine particles by 10 percent.

Even though pollution levels are still better than they were 10 years ago, Santiago is firmly stuck among Latin America's most polluted cities, along with Mexico City and Sao Paulo.

Experts say it will be expensive and painful for Santiago to further clean its air, since it already took the obvious, easy and economical measures.

NO PAIN, NO GAIN

"The easy fruit has been plucked. If we want to reproduce the improvements in bringing down emissions that we had at the beginning of the '90s the measures are a lot more painful, a lot more costly and would radically change how we live," said Ricardo Katz, manager of an environmental consulting firm.

Katz said poor people would bear the brunt of new measures such as prohibiting wood fires, which would eliminate the cheapest cooking and heating fuel, and stricter emissions standards for buses, which could lead to higher bus fares.

Public pressure for tougher anti-smog measures has mounted this year as local media have reported the deterioration in air quality and as Santiago heads into another winter of hospital emergency rooms filled with coughing children.

On a recent Saturday, Luis Mariano Rendon, a lawyer and ecologist, led a group of 20 to 40 bicyclists wearing surgical masks in a 12-hour bike ride in circles around the government palace in the heart of Santiago, to push for cleaner air.

"We need a cultural change. Santiago is not going to get rid of pollution just changing the type of filter or gas in the car, we have to de-pollute our culture," Rendon said.

Rendon -- who got a traffic ticket for using car lanes during the bicycle protest -- said the government has stimulated car use with new highways.

PRAY FOR RAIN, TEAR DOWN MOUNTAINS

"The pollution level is unacceptable ... It's clear very little has been done ... it's clear that the (government's) only concrete measure is to pray for rain, and lots of it," said Gonzalo Uriarte, an opposition lawmaker.

Health officials and opposition politicians say the government is not spending enough to control pollution and center-left President Michelle Bachelet said she would earmark some of Chile's extraordinary income from high copper prices to finance the pollution battle.

At the hospital with her coughing child, Lamey recognized Santiago's geography is a major obstacle.

"I'm waiting for the country to do something, it seems like the only answer is to knock down the mountains," she said.



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Brother, Can You Spare a Gallon?


Citgo to stop selling gas to U.S. stations

AP
Wed Jul 12, 2006

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuela-owned Citgo Petroleum Corp. has decided to stop distributing gasoline to some 1,800 U.S. stations, shedding a lackluster segment of its business while forcing the owners of those stations to find other suppliers.

While it may create some logistical headaches for gasoline retailers in the short term, the move should not have any impact on the nation's overall fuel supply.

Citgo, which is wholly owned by Venezuela's state oil company, currently has to purchase 130,000 barrels a day from third parties in order to meet its service contracts at 13,100 stations across the U.S. This is less profitable than selling gasoline directly from its refineries.
Instead, the Houston-based company has decided to sell to retailers only the 750,000 barrels a day that it produces at three U.S. refineries in Lake Charles, La., Corpus Christi, Texas and Lemont, Ill., according to a statement late Tuesday.

That will mean that over the next year Citgo will cease distributing gasoline in 10 states and stop supplying some stations in four additional states, Citgo spokesman Fernando Garay said Wednesday.

Chavez has long claimed that parts of Citgo's business produce losses for Venezuela and constitute a subsidy for the U.S. economy.

Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez has also charged that Citgo isn't profitable enough and that its parent, state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, could at some point sell off some of the company's refineries.

However, in a sign of the apparently lucrative relationship between the two companies, PDVSA announced Wednesday that it has so far earned $400 million in dividends this year from Citgo.

The states where Citgo will stop selling gasoline are: Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma and South Dakota. A limited number of stations in Illinois, Texas, Arkansas and Iowa will also be affected.

Venezuela is the world's fifth-largest oil exporter and the U.S. is its top buyer. The United States relied on Venezuela for about 11 percent of its oil supply in 2005.



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Oil hits records on Mideast, Nigeria supply worries

By Neil Chatterjee
Reuters
July 13, 2006

SINGAPORE - Oil surged to record highs near $76 on Thursday as worries over lower U.S. crude stocks were underlined by increased tension in the oil-rich Middle East and suspected explosions at a pipeline in OPEC exporter Nigeria.

The world's fourth-biggest oil exporter Iran said it would not abandon the right to nuclear technology and Israel moved naval vessels into Lebanon's waters to impose a blockade.

U.S. crude futures traded 70 cents higher at $75.65 a barrel by 0825 GMT, after hitting a record of $75.89 as gains came on top of Wednesday's 79-cent rally. London Brent traded up $1.02 at $75.41 a barrel after a record $75.60.

"Geopolitical risk is out of control," said Tony Nunan, a manager of risk management at Mitsubishi Corp.
"There's a pipeline attack in Nigeria, Israel is taking a strong stance and that's adding fuel to the fire, but more than anything it's U.S. gasoline demand holding up and the Iran situation."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday the world's fourth-largest oil exporter would not abandon its right to nuclear technology after Tehran's case was referred back to the U.N. Security Council over its nuclear dispute with the West.

In the world's eight-largest exporter Nigeria, two suspected explosions at a crude oil pipeline operated by Italy's Agip and feeding the Brass oil terminal caused massive oil spills in Nigeria's southern state of Bayelsa, state government officials said on Thursday. Output has already been cut by militant attacks.

Compounding tensions in the Middle East, Israel said on Thursday its naval vessels were in Lebanon's territorial waters and blocking access to ports as part of an offensive launched after Lebanese Hizbollah guerrillas captured two soldiers in a border clash.

And in Asia, North Korea blamed the South for the collapse of their first high-level talks since Pyongyang's missile tests sparked a regional crisis, saying Seoul would "pay a price" for the failure.

The series of real or potential supply threats have helped drive oil's 24 percent rally this year against a background of growing world demand.

FUEL DEMAND GROWTH

U.S. crude oil inventories slid 6 million barrels last week as imports fell nearly a million barrels per day (bpd), a government report said on Wednesday. The drop was five times larger than the 1.2 million barrels forecast among analysts polled by Reuters.

"The dramatic decrease in U.S. inventories is propping up the market and we're seeing an extension of the bullish sentiment which followed the numbers on Wednesday," said Dariusz Kowalczyk, senior investment strategist at CFC Securities in Hong Kong.

A shipping artery in Louisiana was closed for 10 days last month after an oil spill. Though it opened back up before the end of last week, the disruption may have continued to slow cargo deliveries to the region.

Gasoline stocks slipped 400,000 barrels, against a forecast decline of 100,000 barrels, on lower refinery production and as demand from the world's largest oil consumer remained strong.

U.S. motorists, who consume over 40 percent of the world's gasoline, bought 1.7 percent more fuel in the past four weeks compared with a year ago. The data covered the U.S. Independence Day holiday weekend when annual gasoline demand peaks.

Despite near record-high prices, growth in oil demand will rise more quickly through to 2011 than it did in the past decade, the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Wednesday.

The IEA, adviser to 26 industrialized nations, predicted the world would need an extra 1.57 million bpd of oil to fuel economic growth in 2007, up from growth of 1.21 million bpd this year.



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Angry Motorists Threaten Road Crew

NBC4.TV
July 12, 2006

LOS ANGELES -- CalTrans said a construction project on the 138 Freeway will be stopped if motorists continue to endanger workers.

California Highway Patrol officers responded to threats from impatient drivers in the construction zone. Crews said the drivers moved and vandalized barriers and tried to run over flagmen.

One motorist waved a gun at workers, according to the CHP.

Workers are adding shoulders to the 138 Freeway north of San Bernardino. CalTrans officials said the project requires time and patience.

CHP officers are providing protection at the site.

"The California Highway Patrol has been asked to come in here on a 24-hour-a-day basis to provide security to the contractor and the CalTrans employees, and to maintain the integrity of the project," said Capt. Doug Rich.




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Oil prices soar amid Middle East tensions

Staff and agencies
Thursday July 13, 2006
Guardian Unlimited

Oil prices today climbed to new highs amid heightened political tensions in the Middle East and renewed disruptions in Nigeria.

Geopolitical concerns pushed the price of crude oil to nearly $76 a barrel. US crude traded 82 cents higher at $75.77 a barrel by lunchtime, after hitting a record $75.89. London Brent was up $1.12 at $75.51, after reaching a record $75.60.

The latest surge in oil prices came as Israel imposed a land, sea and air blockade of Lebanon after bombing dozens of targets including Beirut airport, a television station and villages in the south of the country.
The attacks followed a raid by the Hizbullah guerrilla group yesterday, in which eight Israeli soldiers were killed and two captured.

"Geopolitical tensions have stepped up - we are moving on to a new phase in Iran and Israel," Mike Wittner, of the investment bank Calyon, told Reuters.

"In the end, geopolitical risk is about a current supply disruption getting worse or a new one happening."

In other geopolitical concerns weighing on the markets, the Iran nuclear row appeared to be heading to the UN security council, while North Korea walked out of talks with South Korea. A drop in oil inventories in the US also added to worries.

In Nigeria, two suspected explosions at a crude pipeline operated by Agip, a unit of Italy's Eni, caused oil spills, compounding nervousness among oil traders.

Eni denied reports of sabotage and extensive oil spills and said damage would be repaired soon. Royal Dutch Shell has already had to cut Nigerian production by 473,000 barrels a day, almost a quarter of output in Africa's leading oil supplier, because of attacks by rebels.

The Qatari oil minister, Abdullah al-Attiyah, blamed speculators for the rise in oil prices, pointing out that there was no shortage of crude oil in world markets.

"The main thing we see is that there is no shortage in the market at all," he told reporters. "Speculators are using the geopolitical situation to their benefit and we are seeing how the oil prices are reacting."

Qatar is the smallest producer in Opec. The 11-member group has been powerless to stem oil's rally as rising world demand has used up much of the group's reserve production capacity.

Rising US demand is also increasing oil prices. US crude inventories dropped by 6m barrels last week as imports fell, a government report said yesterday.

The drop was five times larger than the 1.2m barrels forecast among analysts. US motorists, who use more than 40% of the world's petrol, bought 1.7% more fuel in the past four weeks compared with a year ago.

The data covered the Independence Day holiday weekend when annual oil demand peaks.

Most analysts thought the spurt in oil prices was likely to be short-lived. Share movements driven by geopolitical events have tended to reverse quickly over the past few years.

"Usually these things tend to calm down again," said Andreas Utermann, the global chief investment officer of Allianz Global Investors, adding that the danger for investors was if some unexpected crisis hit and then deteriorated."

Stock markets around the world fell sharply in May and June as it became clear that US central banks were gearing themselves up for higher interest rates.

The US Federal Reserve is poised for its 18th consecutive rise while the European Central Bank and Bank of Japan have also embarked on monetary tightening campaigns.



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Accidents Will Happen


N.M. power outage blamed on snake, bird

AP
Wed Jul 12, 2006

LAS CRUCES, N.M. - A power outage that blacked out about 2,000 customers in Las Cruces is being blamed on the combination of a snake and a bird.

The customers lost their electricity Tuesday after a bird dropped a bull snake on a power line, shorting out the line, El Paso Electric Co. spokeswoman Teresa Souza said.

"I know that's weird. ... I've never heard anything like that and I've been working here for 10 years," Souza said.

She said she did not know how large the snake was, and she would not speculate on what type of bird dropped it.

Power was restored in less than an hour.




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5 killed in fiery van crash in NYC

AP
Thu Jul 13, 2006

NEW YORK - A van from a home for the mentally retarded spun out of control, smashed into a tree and erupted into a fireball, killing five people inside and injuring several others, police said.

The force of the collision Wednesday knocked the van's engine into the passenger compartment and sent flames as high as the top of a nearby telephone pole into the air, authorities said.
Those killed in Wednesday's crash were all men, ages 55 to 79.

"They were being burned alive," said Michael Hickey, who was driving by and stopped to help rescue those inside. "I could tell they were conscious because they were moving around."

Five other people in the van, including the driver, Guy Thelemaque, were injured. All were in serious condition.

None of the passengers were wearing seat belts, according to authorities.

The crash happened at about 3 p.m. in New York City's Queens borough.

Callers to 911 reported that some of the victims were trapped in the van as it burned. The vehicle was from the Brooklyn Manor Home for Adults, police said.

A woman who answered the telephone at the home Wednesday said she had been instructed not to give out any information. A telephone number listed for the driver in Brooklyn was disconnected.

Thelemaque's license had been suspended for failing to appear in court to answer a summons, according to state Department of Motor Vehicles records.

"We are still investigating whether this is just a tragic accident or something that involves some criminality," said Queens District Attorney Richard Brown. He said the van was traveling at "a high rate of speed."

The fire occurred just months after the state Department of Health criticized the home for violations it said included unsanitary conditions, shoddy record-keeping and poor supervision of residents.



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Fire on liquid-gas ship injures 19 in Jordan

AFP
July 13, 2006

AMMAN - Fire swept through a ship loaded with liquid gas anchored in Jordan's Red Sea port of Aqaba, injuring 19 people, including four seriously, officials have said.

"Thirteen Filipinos, one Russian, one citizen of Montenegro and four Jordanians have been taken to hospital because of the fire," Lieutenant General Farid al-Shara said on Thursday.

Earlier, a port official said 12 people had been injured including eight Filipinos, four of whom were in a serious condition, and four Jordanians who were members of the maritime forces.

The Panamanian-flagged vessel, chartered by a Jordanian company, was carrying 4,200 tonnes of gas, of which 2,144 tonnes had been transhipped, the official said.

The cause of the blaze, which firemen had brought under control, was not immediately known.




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Terror: Yesterday and Today


Six nations to refer Iran to UN security council

12/07/2006

World powers agreed today to send Iran back to the UN Security Council for possible punishment, saying the country has given no sign it means to negotiate seriously over its disputed nuclear programme.

The United States and other permanent members of the powerful UN body said Iran has had long enough to say whether it will meet the world's terms to open bargaining that would give Tehran economic and energy incentives in exchange for giving up suspicious activities.

"We have no choice but to return to the Security Council and continue the process suspended two months ago," French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said after talks in Paris with counterparts from the United States, Britain, Russia, China and Germany.

The meeting came on the day of an informal deadline for Iran to respond to an international package of incentives in exchange for suspending nuclear enrichment.
Iran's chief negotiator indicated yesterday that his country was in no hurry to respond.

"The Iranians have given no indication at all that they are prepared to engage seriously on the substance of our proposals," said a statement read by Douste-Blazy.

Any real punishment or coercion at the Security Council is a long way off, but the group said it will seek an initial resolution requiring Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment.

If Iran does not comply, the group said it would then seek harsher action.

The group's short statement did not give any specifics, but it cited a section of the world body's charter - Chapter 7, Article 41 - that could open the door to economic or other sanctions and set the stage for possible military force.



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Mandela the terrorist

Gwynne Dyer

Friday, July 7th 2006

The oddest bit of news this week has been the tale of the hunt for Nelson Mandela's pistol, buried on a farm near Johannesburg 43 years ago.

It was a Soviet-made Makarov automatic pistol, given to Mandela when he was undergoing military training in Ethiopia. (He also went to Algeria, to learn from the revolutionaries who had just fought a savage eight-year war of independence to drive out their French colonial rulers.) A week after he buried the gun, he was arrested by the apartheid regime's police as a terrorist and jailed for life.

It's very hard now to imagine Nelson Mandela as a terrorist. He is the most universally admired living human being, almost a secular saint, and the idea that he had a gun and was prepared to shoot people with it just doesn't fit our picture of him. But that just shows how naive and conflicted our attitudes towards terrorism are.
Nelson Mandela never did kill anybody personally. He spent the next 27 years in jail, and only emerged as an old man to negotiate South Africa's transition to democracy with the very regime that had jailed him.

But he was a founder and commander of Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), the military wing of the African National Congress, and MK, as it was known, was a terrorist outfit. Well, a revolutionary movement that was willing to use terrorist tactics, to be precise, but that kind of fine distinction is not permissible in polite company today.

As terrorist outfits go, MK was at the more responsible end of the spectrum. For a long time, it only attacked symbols and servants of the apartheid state, shunning random attacks on white civilians even though they were the main beneficiaries of that regime. By the time it did start bombing bars and the like in the 1980s, Mandela had been in prison for 20 years and bore no direct responsibility for the MK's acts -but neither he nor the ANC ever disowned the organisation.

Terrorism is a tool, not an ideology. Its great attraction is that it offers small or weak groups a means of imposing great changes on their societies. Some of those changes you might support, even if you don't like the chosen means; others you would detest. But the technique itself is just one more way of effecting political change by violence - a nasty but relatively cheap way to force a society to change course, and not intrinsically a more wicked technique than dropping bombs on civilians from warplanes to make them change their behaviour.

Neither terrorism nor military force has a very high success rate these days: most people will not let themselves be bullied into changing their fundamental views by a few bombs. Even in South Africa's case, MK's bombs had far less influence on the outcome than the economic and moral pressures that were brought to bear on the apartheid regime. But that is not to say that all right-thinking people everywhere reject terrorist methods. They don't.

What determines most people's views about the legitimacy of terrorist violence is how they feel about the specific political context in which force is being used. Most Irish Catholics felt at least a sneaking sympathy for the IRA's attacks in Northern Ireland. Most non-white South Africans approved of MK's attacks, even if they ran some slight risk of being hurt in them themselves. Most Tamils both in Sri Lanka and elsewhere support the cause of the Tamil Tigers, and many accept its methods as necessary. Americans understandably see all terrorist attacks on the United States and its forces overseas as irredeemably wicked, but most Arabs and many other Muslims are ambivalent about them, or even approve of them.

We may deplore these brutal truths, but we would be foolish to deny them. Yet in much of the world at the moment it is regarded as heretical or even obscene to say these things out loud, mainly because the United States, having been suffered a major attack by Arab terrorists in 2001, has declared a "global war on terror.'' Rational discussion of why so many Arabs are willing to die in order to hurt the United States is suppressed by treating it as support for terrorism, and so the whole phenomenon comes to be seen by most people as irrational and inexplicable.

And meanwhile, on a former farm near Johannesburg that was long ago subdivided for suburban housing, they have torn down all the new houses and are systematically digging up the ground with a back-hoe in search of the pistol that Saint Nelson Mandela, would-be terrorist leader, buried there in 1963. If they find it, it will be treated with as much reverence as the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch. The passage of time changes many things.

- Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.



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Berlusconi slams Italy arrests over CIA case

By Phil Stewart
Reuters
Wed Jul 12, 2006

ROME - Ex-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who lost power in April elections, attacked Italian magistrates on Wednesday for chasing after CIA agents and Italian spies over the alleged kidnap of a terrorism suspect.

Berlusconi also said that Rome risked increasing the chances of a terrorist attack on Italian soil if the government loses its close ties with the CIA over the case.
"The world is upside-down: Those who defend the security of the country go to jail," said Berlusconi, leader of the centre-right opposition and Italy's richest man.

"But whoever attacks the secret services who have this mission (to protect us) is the real terrorist," he was quoted as saying by Italian media.

Italian prosecutors say a CIA-led team abducted radical Muslim cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr off a Milan street in 2003, bundled him into a van and flew him to Egypt. There, Nasr says he was tortured.

Twenty-six Americans, most believed to be CIA agents, face arrest warrants in Italy over the abduction.

HOUSE ARREST

Two officials with Italy's military intelligence agency Sismi, including its second-highest ranking member, were arrested last week and are under house arrest over their suspected roles.

"If they (leaders of the centre-left government) break it off with the CIA we are vulnerable to attacks -- we are facing an incredible lack of responsibility," Berlusconi said, according to Italy's ANSA news agency.

The centre-left government has defended Sismi and Defense Minister Arturo Parisi said on Wednesday that Italians should distinguish between the agency and possible wrongdoing by some of its spies.

Berlusconi reiterated his long-standing position that he did not know about a plot to abduct Nasr.

Any proof of Italian involvement would confirm one of the chief accusations made by Council of Europe investigator Dick Marty in a report last month -- that European governments colluded with the United States in secret prisoner transfers.

Nasr, being held in Egyptian prison, had political refugee status in Italy at the time of the alleged kidnap. But he faces an arrest warrant in Italy over suspicion of terrorist activity including recruiting militants for Iraq.

Comment: Italy risks terrorist attacks at home if they cut close ties with the CIA? Really? And here we thought Italy had its own intelligence organizations that were more than capable of preventing such attacks. Berlusconi's statement almost reads like a threat...

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Poland wins name change for Auschwitz death camp

By Matt Reynolds
Reuters
Wed Jul 12, 2006

WARSAW - The United Nations has agreed to rename Auschwitz concentration camp to stress that Nazi Germans, not Poles, were responsible for the world's most notorious death camp, Poland's Culture Ministry said on Wednesday.

"Auschwitz Concentration Camp," a U.N. heritage site, will be renamed "the Former Nazi German Concentration Camp of Auschwitz," the ministry said.

"This decision marks a victory for both Poland and historical truth," Culture Minister Kazimierz Ujazdowski told a news conference.
Poland asked the U.N. to rename Auschwitz in April. Some 1.5 million people, mostly Jews, died at the camp during World War Two.

Ujazdowski said Israel and German officials had agreed to the new name.

Warsaw objects to references to "Polish gas chambers" at the "Polish concentration camp" in foreign media. Nearly 3 million non-Jewish Poles died at Nazi hands, and Poles see themselves as victims of the war.

"We hope this will help correct the misconception that Auschwitz is a Polish death camp," Ujazdowski said.

The role of Poles in the deaths of millions of Polish Jews, and at Auschwitz, is a sore topic. Some accounts say Poles assisted the Nazis at Auschwitz, where 6,000 died every day during 1944.

This month, Jewish and Polish officials marked anniversaries of two massacres of Jews carried out by Poles before and after World War Two.

But Poles say their fellow nationals risked their lives to hide Jews. Poles are the largest group awarded Israel's Righteous Among the Nations title for helping to save Jews.

Some Jews were angered that Poland's communist government portrayed Auschwitz in the 1940s and 1950s as a place of martyrdom of Poles, too. Poles, Gypsies, homosexuals and Russians also died at the camp.



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The Security State


The united states of total paranoia

Jeremy Clarkson
July 02, 2006

I know Britain is full of incompetent water board officials and stabbed Glaswegians but even so I fell on my knees this morning and kissed the ground, because I've just spent three weeks trying to work in America.

It's known as the land of the free and I'm sure it is if you get up in the morning, go to work in a petrol station, eat nothing but double-egg burgers - with cheese - and take your children to little league. But if you step outside the loop, if you try to do something a bit zany, you will find that you're in a police state.

We begin at Los Angeles airport in front of an immigration official who, like all his colleagues, was selected for having no grace, no manners, no humour, no humanity and the sort of IQ normally found in farmyard animals. He scanned my form and noted there was no street number for the hotel at which I was staying.

"I'm going to need a number," he said. "Ooh, I'm sorry," I said, "I'm afraid I don't have one."
This didn't seem to have any effect. "I'm going to need a number," he said again, and then again, and then again. Each time I shrugged and stammered, terrified that I might be sent to the back of the queue or worse, into the little room with the men in Marigolds. But I simply didn't have an answer.

"I'm going to need a number," he said again, giving the distinct impression that he was an autobank, and that this was a conversation he was prepared to endure until one of us died. So with a great deal of bravery I decided to give him one. And the number I chose was 2,649,347.

This, it turned out, was fine. He'd been told by his superiors to get a number. I'd given him a number. His job was done and so, just an hour or so later, I was on the streets of Los Angeles doing a piece to camera.

Except, of course, I wasn't. Technically you need a permit to film on every street in pretty well every corner of the world. But the only countries where this rule is enforced are Vietnam, Cuba, North Korea and the United States of America.

So, seconds after breaking out the tripod, a policeman pulled up and demanded that we show him our permit. We had one that covered the city of Los Angeles . . . except the bit where we were. So we were moved on.

The next day I was moved on in Las Vegas too because the permit I had didn't cover the part of the pavement I was standing on. Eight inches away was fine.

You need a permit to do everything in America. You even need a passport to buy a drink. But interestingly you don't need one if you wish to rent some guns and some bullets. I needed a 50 cal (very big) machinegun. "No problem," said the man at the shop. "But could you just sign this assuring us that the movie you're making is not anti-Bush or anti-war."

Also, you do not need a permit if you want - as I did - to transport a dead cow on the roof of your car through the Florida panhandle. That's because this is banned by a state law.

Think about that. Someone has gone to all the bother and expense of drawing up a law that means that at some point lots of people were moving dead cows about on their cars. It must have been popular. Fashionable even.

Anyway, back to the guns. I needed them because I wished to shoot a car in the Mojave desert. But you can't do that without the say-so of the local fire chief who turned up, with his haircut, to say that for reasons he couldn't explain, he had a red flag in his head.

You find this a lot in America. People way down the food chain are given the power to say yes or no to elaborately prepared plans, just so their bosses can't be sued. One expression that simply doesn't translate from English in these days of power without responsibility is "Ooh, I'm sure it'll be fine".

And, unfortunately, these people at the bottom of the food chain have no intellect at all. Reasoning with them is like reasoning with a tree. I think this is because people in the sticks have stopped marrying their cousins and are now mating with vegetables.

They certainly aren't eating them. You see them growing in fields, but all you ever find on a menu is cheese, cheese, cheese, or cheese with cheese. Except for a steak and cheese sandwich I bought in Mississippi. This was made, according to the label, from "imitation cheese".

Nope, I don't know what that is either but I do know that out of the main population centres, the potato people are getting fatter and dimmer by the minute.

Today the average petrol pump attendant is capable, just, of turning on a pump when you prepay. But if you pay for two pumps to be turned on to fill two cars, you can, if you stare carefully, see wisps of smoke coming from her fat, useless, war losing, acne-scarred, gormless turnip face.

And the awful thing is that you don't want the petrol anyway, because it'll simply get you to somewhere else, which will be worse. A point I shall prove next week when we have a look at what happened in Alabama. And why the poor of New Orleans will sue if the donation you make isn't as big as they'd hoped for.



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The Politics of American Greed

By Molly Ivins
AlterNet
07/12/06

I don't get it. What's the percentage in keeping the minimum wage at $5.15 an hour? After nine years? This is such an unnecessary and nasty Republican move. Congress has voted seven times to raise its own wages since last the minimum wage budged. Of course, Congress always raises its own salary in the dark of night, hoping no one will notice. But now it does the same with the minimum wage, quietly killing it.

Anyone who doesn't think this is a country where the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer needs to check the numbers -- this is Bush country, where a rising tide lifts all yachts.

According to the current issue of Mother Jones:

Meanwhile, for those who have been following the collapse of the pension system, please note a series in The Wall Street Journal by Ellen Schultz taking a hard look at executive pension obligations:

It seems to me that we've seen enough evidence over the years that the capitalist system is not going to be destroyed by an outside challenger like communism -- it will be destroyed by its own internal greed. Greed is the greatest danger as we develop an increasingly winner-take-all system. And voices like The Wall Street Journal's editorial page encourage this mentality by insisting that any form of regulation is bad. But for whom?

It is so discouraging to watch this country become less and less fair -- "justice for all" seems like an embarrassingly archaic tag. Republicans have rigged the "lottery of life" in this country in ways we don't even know about yet. The new bankruptcy law is unfair, and the new college loan rules are worse. The system has been stacked so that large corporations have an inside track over small businesses in getting government contracts. We won't see the full consequences of this mean and careless legislation for years, but it is starting to affect us already.

Molly Ivins writes about politics, Texas and other bizarre happenings.





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Senate votes to overhaul US emergency agency

AFP
Wed Jul 12, 2006

WASHINGTON - About 11 months after deadly Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the US Senate decided to overhaul the
Federal Emergency Management Agency that was strongly criticized in two congressional reports.

Under an amendment to a bill funding the Homeland Security Department that was adopted 87-11, the discredited FEMA will disappear as such.

It will be replaced by a different body called the US Emergency Management Authority that will be granted expended powers to manage preparations as well rescue and recovery work after natural disasters.
The authority will still remain part of the Department of Homeland Security, but will enjoy enhanced autonomy.

The reform follows a recommendation issued in April by a Senate commission on handling the Katrina disaster that was headed by Senators Susan Collins, a Republican, and Joseph Lieberman, a Democrat.

Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf of Mexico coast of the United States on August 29, 2005, and left more than 1,500 people dead.

Former FEMA director Michael Brown was forced to resign in the wake of the disaster.

"We cannot legislate leadership," Lieberman said after the adoption of the amendment. "But we can legislate changes in government structures to make them more sensible and better suited to protecting people in times of disaster."



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US unveils emergency alert system for mobile phones, computers

AFP
July 12, 2006

Summary: The US government unveiled a communications system that in case of emergency should soon allow it to send SMS alerts to Americans' mobile phones and computers.

Internet-linked computers will automatically switch on to a video message from the US Department of Homeland Security while downloading instructions prepared specifically from natural disasters, chemical and nuclear attacks, and other calamities.
The US government unveiled a communications system that in case of emergency should soon allow it to send SMS alerts to Americans' mobile phones and computers.

"We have the ability to do this. It's a major step," Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Director David Paulson told reporters outside the US capital as he unveiled the program's design.

The Digital Emergency Alert System (DEAS) will include the participation of television networks and public radio stations and be based on an existing alert system built in the Cold War era for use in the event of a nuclear attack.

The new system will initially allow the government to quickly alert public organizations and first-aid groups in case of an emergency.

It is planned to become operational in southern and eastern states by the end of the year, and nationally at the end of 2007.

At the same time, the government said it will build a system that can also send alerts to mobile phone users and computers linked to the Internet.

The SMS messages will be sent out in case "something unfortunate has happened," said John Lawson, president and chief executive officer of the Association of Public Television Stations.

Internet-linked computers will automatically switch on to a video message from the US Department of Homeland Security while downloading instructions prepared specifically from natural disasters, chemical and nuclear attacks, and other calamities.



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San Diego bans smoking at beaches, parks

By THOMAS WATKINS
Associated Press
July 13, 2006

SAN DIEGO - Worried about the health effects of secondhand smoke and sick of cleaning up discarded cigarettes, San Diego has banned smoking at its beaches and parks. The city joins nearly 2,300 other municipalities across the nation that have barred smoking in a variety of public places.

In California, smoking bans have caught fire in beach communities. At least 35 cities, including Malibu, Santa Monica and Long Beach, now have ordinances to keep smokers from lighting up on the sand.
Several smokers at San Diego's Ocean Beach welcomed the ban, which was pased late Tuesday.

"I think it's a good idea, as long as they don't make us stop drinking," said beach resident Libby Brignon, a smoker who is fed up with finding butts in the sand.

Solana Beach, about 20 miles north of San Diego, became the first beach town in California to enact a smoking ban two years ago. Officials have been pleased with the results.

"You have to look really hard to find a cigarette butt," City Manager David Ott said.

According to the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation, 17 states now have laws in effect to regulate smoking in public places. That means 44.5 percent of the U.S. population is restricted from puffing at bars, restaurants and other locations.

Many employers have voluntarily barred smoking in enclosed spaces. Even countries long seen as bastions for smoking, such as Japan and Spain, are seeing local bans.

"Nonsmokers are fed up and fighting for their rights to clean air," said Robert Berger, president of Healthier Solutions Inc., a nonsmokers rights group.

Berger believes a statewide ban on smoking at beaches and parks is inevitable in California, despite the narrow defeat of an attempt by the Legislature to do it in 2004.

Phone calls to two smokers rights advocacy groups - The Smokers Club Inc., and Forces International - were not immediately returned.

San Diego City Council President Scott Peters said parks were included in the council vote to reduce fire risks. The measure will take effect by mid-August.

Volunteers for beach cleanups often find thousands of cigarette butts, especially after big holidays like July 4, Peters said.

Some environmentalists said they fear that smokers will now congregate on streets near the beach and that butts flicked on sidewalks could get washed into the ocean.

Stefanie Sekich, of the local chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, said the organization is spending thousands of dollars to install theft-proof ashtrays in those locations.



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Hmmmm


Reports: British banker found dead

AP
Wed July 12, 2006

LONDON - A British banker who was questioned by U.S. authorities in connection with the Enron scandal has been found dead, British media said Wednesday. The man's body was found Tuesday in a park in east London, but police declined to identify him.

The Royal Bank of Scotland, however, sent condolences to the family of Neil Coulbeck, one of the bank's senior employees who had been questioned by the FBI in the case of three British bankers facing Enron-related fraud charges. The British Broadcasting Corp. and other media outlets also identified the man as Coulbeck, 53.

Police would not immediately say how he died, but homicide officers were investigating - standard procedure on all suspicious deaths.
The FBI said it would not comment on any aspect of the case. A formal identification was expected Thursday, police said.

David Bermingham, Gary Mulgrew and Giles Darby - all former bankers with National Westminster Bank, which is owned by Royal Bank of Scotland - are expected to be extradited Thursday to the United States to face charges of defrauding their ex-employer of $7.3 million.

The three men have denied charges that they attempted to sell a part of the U.S.-based energy company Enron Corp. for less than it was worth. Enron filed for bankruptcy protection in December 2001.

Bermingham - one of the "NatWest Three" - said Coulbeck was among several bank executives who had given statements to U.S. authorities in connection with their case.

He said Coulbeck had been "a thoroughly decent, honest, professional guy and a very experienced banker."

"He was one of a number of NatWest people who made short witness statements. They were not statements as to matters of evidence, they were merely identifying themselves and their roles in the company."

The Royal Bank of Scotland said there was "no evidence" that Coulbeck had been involved in the transaction under investigation.

"There is no evidence that Neil was involved in the approval of the transaction under investigation," bank spokeswoman Linda Harper said. "Neil was highly regarded by his colleagues here in RBS and was a respected, capable and hardworking member of our senior management team. Our thoughts are with the Coulbeck family at this very difficult time."



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350 detained in Bombay train bombings

By NIRMALA GEORGE
Associated Press
July 13, 2006

BOMBAY, India - Indian police on Thursday detained about 350 people for questioning in the Bombay train bombings amid suspicion that Kashmiri militants could be linked to the attacks that killed at least 200 people.

The detentions came as a man claiming to represent al-Qaida said the terror network had set up a wing in Kashmir and praised Tuesday's bombings.

A senior intelligence official said the government was taking the claim seriously and authorities were trying to trace a call the man made to a Kashmiri news service.
"Our immediate effort is to locate the caller and ascertain the authenticity of the claim," the official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. "The government is taking it very seriously."

There have been allegations that Islamic militants fighting to wrest predominantly Muslim Kashmir from India have ties to al-Qaida, but Thursday's statement would be the first time Osama bin Laden's network claimed to have spread to Indian territory.

Police Inspector S. Goshal said most of the 350 detentions were made overnight in Malwani, a northeastern suburb of Bombay. They were rounded up only for questioning to help with the investigations, and none have been charged or formally arrested, he said.

Bombay police Commissioner A.N. Roy said those rounded up included known thugs, gangsters and troublemakers who might have information about the culprits.

Investigators were looking into a possible link with Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, an Islamic militant group based in Kashmir, said P.S. Pasricha, police chief of Maharashtra state. Lashkar has in the past employed near-simultaneous explosions to attack Indian cities.

A spokesman for Lashkar, Abdullah Ghaznavi, denied the group was involved.

The purported al-Qaida member, who identified himself as Abu al-Hadeed, appealed to Indian Muslims to take up jihad and said "whosoever has carried out the attacks in Bombay we express our gratitude and happiness." It was impossible to verify his identity or his claims independently.

The train bombings "are a reaction to what is happening to the minorities, especially Muslims in India," the man said in a statement read over the phone to Kashmir's Current News Service.

"We appeal to Muslims in India to fight for freedom and Islam and choose jihad as their way to achieve freedom and establishing Islamic ways," he was quoted as saying.

The Current News Service said the man spoke in Urdu, the language of most Muslims in the Indian subcontinent, though he identified himself with an Arabic name.

"Today a unit of al-Qaida has been established in Jammu and Kashmir which shall henceforth be called al-Qaida Jammu and Kashmir," the man said. "We shall be giving out statements regularly and will soon announce our aims and objectives."

The government, meanwhile, reiterated its commitment to fight terrorism.

"Nothing will deter us from our firm policy to fight this menace till it is wiped out. We are determined to apprehend and bring to justice all those responsible for the evil acts in Mumbai," said a Cabinet statement. Bombay is also known as Mumbai.

The Indian Foreign Ministry demanded Wednesday that neighboring rival Pakistan dismantle all terrorist networks on land it controls - but fell short of directly accusing it for the attacks.

Kashmir is divided between the two countries but claimed by both. The region is largely Muslim, and the militants want a Kashmir independent of Hindu-majority India or joined to Pakistan.

In an interview with The Associated Press in Washington, Pakistan's foreign minister bristled at suggestions that his country bore responsibility for the attacks.

"You can't really blame everything on Pakistan; it's very unfair," Khurshid Kasuri said. "India is a vast country. There are lots of people who have their own agendas, not just in Kashmir."

Bombay, a city of 16 million people, was back on track Thursday with tens of thousands of people jamming the commuter train service that was hit by eight bombs, killing at least 200 people and wounding 700.

"The city has faced attacks in the past. It has always bounced back quickly ... people have to go to work. What else are we going to do," said Ashwini Lolo, an office worker in his 20s, at the Bandra station waiting to board a train.



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Disney to cut production in move to raise profits, magazine says

Last Updated Wed, 12 Jul 2006 18:36:20 EDT
CBC News

Walt Disney Co. plans to slash its annual output of films to eight from 18 as the Hollywood movie icon tries to boost profits and cut costs by concentrating on Disney-branded films.
Daily Variety, a well-connected industry magazine, also said Wednesday that Disney plans to cut its workforce by an unspecified amount in about 10 days.

Disney declined to comment on the speculation. "We are constantly evaluating our business to make it better and more efficient," Disney spokeswoman Heidi Trotta told the Associated Press in a prepared statement.

Daily Variety said the move by Disney continues a Hollywood trend as film studios cut their costs where they can amid rising overheads, production budgets and marketing bills.

Chief executive officer Robert Iger has said repeatedly over the past year that cutbacks were on their way. He has also said he wants to raise profits by cutting back the less profitable Touchstone and Miramax-branded films and concentrate production and marketing efforts on the Disney brand.

"It becomes a much better investment for us when we make a Disney-branded film," Iger told the Associated Press last September. "We're not going to go out of the non-Disney-branded live-action business, but there has been a dramatic shift."

David Miller, managing director of the brokerage firm Sanders Morris Harris Group, agrees. "Most of the street was onto the fact that Disney-branded film returns were greater," he said.

Disney has done well recently with its record-setting movie Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and it's Pixar-animated movie Cars.

But it has also endured disappointments, including Stick It, Annapolis and The Wild.

Disney shares closed down 34 cents to $29.91 US on the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday on a volume of 8.4 million shares.

Comment: To paraphrase the title, Disney wants more for less.

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Italy's Prodi govt wins confidence vote in Lower House

www.chinaview.cn 2006-07-13 21:51:28

ROME, May 23 (Xinhua) -- Italian Premier Romano Prodi and his government on Thursday won a vote of confidence tied to a decree to restructure the country's ministries and their duties.

The center-left coalition government won the vote 334-251 in the Chamber of Deputies, where it enjoys a comfortable majority.
Prodi's government took office in May after winning the country's April 9-10 elections by a narrow margin. At the time, it reassigned duties among some ministries and created new ones, including the Ministry for Sport and Policies for the Young.

The government last week won a vote of confidence in the Senate, where it has a slight majority, tied to the same decree.

Italian governments resort to confidence votes in the hope of speeding the passage of legislation and closing ranks among coalition lawmakers. If the government loses the vote, it must resign.

To pass, the vote needs a simple majority.

Prodi was sworn in as Italian premier after narrowly beating former premier Silvio Berlusconi in the April general election.



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Le Pen has 'easy' defence on Nazi apologist charges

PARIS, July 12, 2006 (AFP)

The French far-right party leader Jean-Marie Le Pen can expect an "easy" defence to charges that he morally defended the World War II German occupation of his country, his lawyer said on Wednesday.

A judge earlier this week ordered that Le Pen, leader of the National Front party, be charged at a Paris court with "complicity in apologising for war crime" and in disputing the facts of crimes against humanity by the Nazis.

The charge relates to comments attributed to Le Pen in a far-right publication in January 2005.
Le Pen was quoted making the mistaken claim that the German Gestapo secret police had prevented a massacre of civilians in France during the war.

In the same article, Le Pen claimed that the German occupation of France "was not particularly inhumane."

His lawyer Wallerand de Saint-Just told AFP it would "very easy" to defend Le Pen on the charges, since the remarks were made informally after an interview with a journalist from the publication had officially ended, and were not meant for publication.

The lawyer added that the comments were not strong enough to constitute an offence.



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Chirac to pay homage to disgraced Jewish officer

PARIS, July 12, 2006 (AFP)

President Jacques Chirac of France on Wednesday leads a ceremony in honour of Alfred Dreyfus, the Jewish army captain whose dismissal more than a century ago on trumped-up charges of spying triggered a protracted national crisis.

To mark the hundred years since Dreyfus' final rehabilitation, Chirac will conduct a service of homage at the "École Militaire" or Military Academy in Paris - the very place where in 1895 the artillery officer was publicly disgraced before a crowd of 20,000.
"The president will pay homage to the man, to the soldier, to the patriot who fell victim to an appalling judicial error. He will also explain how via the Dreyfus affair the republic and its values became rooted in French society," an aide said.

Dreyfus - a Jew from the Alsace region of eastern France which was at the time occupied by Germany - was found guilty in 1894 of passing secret information to the German military attache in Paris and sentenced to life imprisonment at the Devil's Island penal colony.

But it emerged that the evidence against him was false, and for years a bitter row over the "affair" pitted liberal and left-wing supporters of Dreyfus against opponents on the Catholic right - many of whom made no secret of their anti-Semitism.

In 1898 the writer Émile Zola published his famous 'J'accuse' letter attacking the president of the day for siding against Dreyfus, and the next year he was brought back for a second trial and then officially pardoned - though not cleared of the charges.

Dreyfus was not fully rehabilitated and restored to his rank in the army until July 12 1906, when the high court of appeal overturned the original verdict.

Chirac has decided not to heed calls for the remains of the officer to be brought to the Panthéon, the former church in central Paris where the nation's heroes - including Zola - are interred.

At the 1895 ceremony - known as a "parade of execution" - Dreyfus' epaulettes were ripped off and his sword was broken in two to the words: "Dreyfus - you are not worthy of bearing arms. In the name of the president, we degrade you."

The ritual was witnessed by Theodor Herzl, a young journalist who was later father of the Zionist movement that led to the creation of Israel.



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The Despicable Arab Elite

MER.org
13/07/2006

While 'Rome Burns' They Party, Buy Prostitutes of all types,
and Squander Their History as well as their National Wealth

From the oil, energy, and petrodollar centers of Arabia they are probably the most despicable class of people in modern history.

Few will or can say this out loud; for those who try find their publications either undermined or bought-out and their personal situations endangered.

From Saudi Arabia to Dubai and Qatar and Kuwait they spend untold fortunes on prostitutes of all kinds -- from sex to business to government -- building unbelieveably tasteless snow mountains in the desert, ridiculously outlandish palaces in the sands, and lavish extravagansas that sometimes seem to compare with the worst Roman days of Caligula.

Now departed from the U.S. and 'back home' manuevering one way or another to line himself up for the throne of 'The Kingdom' of 'Saudi Arabia', Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz continually threw his multi-millions at takers far and wide during his 20+ year rein as U.S. Ambassador.

More than any other individual Bandar infiltrated, bribed, used, and undermined, nearly all of the Arab and Muslim civic and public organizations in Washington, terribly corrupting and compromising nearly all of them. What he did during his American rein is more responsible than anything else for how weak and discredited nearly all of these organizations are today when they are so deperately needed but instead are MIA (Missing in Action).


Here in Washington Bandar bought up many connected exclusive estates along the Potomac to built a gigantic 'residence', one with more bathrooms than many office buildings.

And now in Aspen the 'home' he built there is on sale as the most expensive ever in the U.S...and maybe anywhere!

Meanwhile the majority of the Arab and Muslim peoples from Iraq to Palestine to Chechnya to Egypt are literally starving and under vicious attack, in many cases from the very governments and multinational arms dealers/makers that Bandar and his kinfolk continually courted and financed.

This amazingly twisted and corrupted world of Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz and his despicable class of super-rich super-spoiled Arabs is also the world from which the Osama Bin Ladens and Aimen Zawahiris have arisen.

It is the world from which Hezbollah and Hamas and the suicide bombers have come forth. And it is the world in which this despicable class has left its civilization and heritage practically defenseless against the combined forces of the Christian Evangelicas and the Jewish/Zionist Neocons. Many now feel, and understandably so, that there is a U.S./Israeli/European onslaught now at their ramparts.

Comment: Thing is, the Saudi royals were originally Ashkenazi Jews... put that in your pipe and smoke it.

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Odds 'n Ends


Vanuatu is world's happiest country: study

AFP
Wed Jul 12, 2006

LONDON - The tiny South Pacific Ocean archipelago of Vanuatu is the happiest country on Earth, according to a study published measuring people's wellbeing and their impact on the environment.

Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominica and Panama complete the top five in the Happy Planet Index, compiled by the British think-tank New Economics Foundation (NEF).

The index combines life satisfaction, life expectancy and environmental footprint -- the amount of land required to sustain the population and absorb its energy consumption.
Zimbabwe came bottom of the 178 countries ranked, below second-worst performer Swaziland, Burundi, the
Democratic Republic of Congo and Ukraine.

The Group of Eight industrial powers meet in Saint Petersburg this weekend but have not much to smile about, according to the index.

Italy came out best in 66th place, ahead of Germany (81), Japan (95), Britain (108), Canada (111), France (129), the United States (150) and Russia, in lowly 172nd place.

Andrew Simms, NEF's policy director, said the index "addresses the relative success or failure of countries in giving their citizens a good life while respecting the environmental resource limits on which all our lives depend."

Nic Marks, the head of NEF's centre for wellbeing, added: "It is clear that no single nation listed in the Happy Planet Index has got everything right.

"But the index does reveal patterns that show how we might better achieve long and happy lives for all, whilst living within our environmental means," he said, according to British daily The Guardian.

"The challenge is: can we learn the lessons and apply them?"

Island nations performed particularly well in the rankings. But Vanuatu, with a population of around 200,000, topped them all.

"Don't tell too many people, please," said Marke Lowen of Vanuatu Online, the republic's online newspaper.

"People are generally happy here because they are very satisfied with very little," he told The Guardian.

"This is not a consumer-driven society. Life here is about community and family and goodwill to other people. It's a place where you don't worry too much."

"The only things we fear are cyclones or earthquakes."

Selected others: 17. Philippines; 23. Indonesia; 31. China; 32. Thailand; 44. Malaysia; 62. India; 64. Iceland; 70. Netherlands; 87. Spain; 88. Hong Kong; 89. Saudi Arabia; 99. Denmark; 112. Pakistan; 115. Norway; 119. Sweden; 123. Finland; 139. Australia; 154. UAE; 156. South Africa; 159. Kuwait; 166. Qatar.



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Killer salinity rings Australia's desert heart

By Michael Byrnes
Reuters
Thu Jul 13, 2006

DICKS CREEK, Australia - Farmer John Ive squints through the barbed wire fence separating the roadside from an ulcerous patch of ground where salt has risen from the earth to collapse the land into crumbling, barren ravines.

Black stumps from an earlier fence, decayed from the bottom up by salt, dance from wire strands in the biting wind.

"These sites are pockmarked across the southern tablelands," says Ive, shaking his head in despair at desertification of Australia's farmlands as underground salt rises to the surface.
Only the Sahara has more desert than Australia, whose red center has long been thought uninhabitable by modern man.

But while Australia's central deserts are now seen as benign and are starting to yield fruit, salination is turning once productive farmland into lifeless dirt tracts and threatening the country's A$30 billion ($22 billion) agriculture export industry, one of the biggest in the world.

Around 2 million hectares (5 million acres) of land is now officially salt-affected, half of that in southwest Western Australia.

The amount of saline land could rise to 6 million hectares (15 million acres) in 50 years, but that would be the upper limit, says Kevin Goss, chief executive officer for the Cooperative Research Center for Plant-based Management of Dryland Salinity.

Farmers are terrified of the salt, which cuts land values by one-third and reduces output.

Prime Minister John Howard has rated salinity as one of the biggest environmental challenges facing the country and has backed a A$1.4 billion national action plan.

The most celebrated win so far is the reversal of salinity in Australia's biggest river, the Murray, through a combination of engineering works and management of water flows. A national tree-planting campaign is being accompanied by the use of salt-tolerant plants to combat growth of desertification.

FIGHTING BACK

The salt-ravaged land adjacent to Ive's Dicks Creek farm is a mere 35 km (22 miles) from the national capital, Canberra.

Ive bought his 250-hectare (620-acre) property in 1980 to run sheep and cattle. His land was then badly degraded, with active saline seeps on 23 percent of the property.

When it rained, water raced down from rocky bare ridges into the more fertile gully below, further eroding soil and raising the subterranean water table, bringing salt to the surface.

But Ive fought the creeping death that salt brought to his land. He put in contoured and graded banks of land on the hillsides and into the valley to control water rushing down from the ridges. He improved the soil on the gully pastures then put stock up on the rocky ridges when drought threatened.

"The sheep can turn the hills into a moonscape, but they are not prone to erosion because they are so rocky," says Ive, as he proudly looked down on a green valley as a winter wind buffeted a row of planted trees behind him.

When it rained, Ive took sheep off the hills to allow native trees to germinate without competition. Now he has 200,000 hilltop trees. Elsewhere he planted 25,000 furniture-grade trees.

Today, green pastures slope up a ridge thickly wooded with trees on Ive's side of a boundary fence.

On the other side, the hilltop is bare, a scratchy pasture is dotted with skeletons of dead trees and salt patches have eaten to the edge of the fence. Desertification is at the doorstep.

Ive points to a nearby metal drum. It contains a piezometer, a piece of plastic tubing sunk into the earth to measure the depth of the water table beneath.

Over the last 25 years, the water table on Ive's farm has dropped from earth-surface level in places to seven metres depth.

Now only two percent of his property is affected by saline seeps. Water salinity has fallen from up to 20,000 electrical conductivity units to about 60 -- better than Canberra drinking water which has 120.

But not all farmers have been able to perform Ive's "balancing act" between farm production and farm protection.

Most of Australia's 400,000 farmers and family members are still coming to grips with the fight against salinity, which is most widespread in agricultural areas between the vast outback deserts and the coast.

OUTBACK DESERTS GROWING

The outback deserts are also growing, due to climate change. Officially, lowland arid regions cover 3.6 million square km (1.4 million sq miles) of Australia's heart.

"Central Australia will get drier. And the periods of drought are likely to get more ferocious," says Professor Mike Archer, a longtime desert enthusiast and dean of science at the University of New South Wales.

Feral predators, tourists, grazing animals and big fires are all adding to pressures on Australia's deserts, after already making 20 or more mammal species extinct. But it is not all bad.

"Our deserts are in pretty good nick (shape)," says Mark Stafford-Smith, research scientist with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO).

"We've got these remarkable areas which are 70 percent of the continent and have some extraordinary biodiversity."

A growing love affair with Australia's deserts is pushing the CSIRO and others to develop a potentially lucrative bush tucker (native food) industry, new medicines from desert plants, salt-tolerant wheat and genetically engineered tomatoes, as well as sustainable harvesting of kangaroos and native plants.

One Western Australian farmer is growing ocean perch in salty ponds on his saline land.



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Multiple mutations in Indonesian bird flu strain

Reuters
July 13, 2006

LONDON - Multiple mutations have been found in the H5N1 bird flu virus that killed seven family members in Indonesia although scientists are unsure of their significance, a leading science journal said on Thursday.

But researchers believe the findings reinforce the need for bird flu data to be more widely available to improve understanding of the deadly virus.

"The functional significance of the mutations isn't clear -- most of them seem unimportant," the journal Nature said in a report in the latest issue on Thursday.
An analysis of virus samples from six of the eight members of the family showed 32 mutations accumulated as it spread, according to the confidential research obtained by Nature.

The analysis had been presented by virologist Malik Pereis of the University of Hong Kong at a closed meeting of animal and human health experts in Jakarta last month.

The first infected member of the family was a 37-year-old woman who probably caught the disease from poultry and then transmitted it to relatives before she died.

The World Health Organization (WHO), which has admitted that the cluster of cases was probably caused by human-to-human transmission, had said in May that there had been no significant mutations in the strain found the in family.

Nature said although the WHO statement was not incorrect, more could have been said about the changes that were found.

"One of the mutations confers resistance to the antiviral drug amantadine, a fact not mentioned in the WHO statement," the journal said.

Scientists fear the H5N1 virus that has killed more than 100 people and millions of bird since 2003 as it spread from Asia to Europe and Africa could mutate into a strain that could spark a human pandemic.

The mutations found in the virus from the Indonesian cluster were not significant enough for the virus to spread beyond the family.

Virologists contacted by Nature said part of the reason the significance of the mutations is unclear is because withholding the information has hampered the study of the virus.



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Russian Cameraman Records Flight of UFO

Created: 13.07.2006 18:31 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 18:31 MSK
MosNews

An unidentified flying object has appeared over the Yeysk Spit (Krasnodar region of Russia). According to the Russian Center TV station, inexplicable phenomena have occurred in Krasnodar Territory before, for instance, circles in fields that were allegedly not made by humans. But now the channel claims it has irrefutable evidence of non-human activity as a professional cameraman has recorded the appearance of a UFO over Yeysk.
Local cameraman Aleksey Khoroshaylo visits the shore of the Taganrogskiy Bay regularly. The Yeysk Spit is a traditional location for weddings. On that day Aleksey arrived to film the visit of a newlywed couple.

"We came here to film the newlyweds as they drove in. Our driver then says to me: Look, there is a hovercraft. I took my camera, looked at it in a close-up and saw that this could not be a hovercraft because it was too high above the horizon," Aleksey said.

The video recording made by Center TV lasts for 53 seconds. The tape shows a disc-shaped object moving above the sea at a distance of about four kilometers from the shore. Then a flash appears in the centre and a point of light separates and moves into the skies along a bow-shaped trajectory.

Experts have viewed the tape dozens of times trying to compare the object with a ship or a plane. They have even called the military with inquiries and have recieved the definite reply that no tests had been held in the bay on that day.

Yuriy Stroganov, head of a local TV company, and a member of the international organization MUFON (the Mutual UFO Network) carefully examined the video and concluded that "the object itself, its movements, especially those mimicking a falling leaf - the shaking from side to side - are internationally known UFO characteristics".

Stroganov plans to send this footage the U.S. He expressed his hope that an American specialist would try to determine the origin of the object.



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Da Vinci Code in the dock with medievalists

Alexandra Smith
Thursday July 13, 2006

It may have been a blockbuster in print and on screen, but medieval academics from around the world are today debating the historical damage the Da Vinci Code has caused.

Leading the 2006 International Medieval Congress (IMC) in Leeds is a discussion on how Dan Brown's tale has affected public perception and undermined the authority of historical proof.
Looking behind some of the claims made in the novel, the aim of the debate will be to provide an academic response to a work of fiction and "above all explore how enthusiasm has changed attitudes to academic history by replacing it with an alternative version, which the public cannot distinguish from the real thing", reads an abstract to the session.

The IMC is one of the UK's largest academic conferences, with nearly 1,000 research papers presented by medieval specialists from 40 countries.

Subjects from every aspect of medieval life and culture have been covered at this year's three-day conference, which began on Tuesday, from reluctant virgins to female undertakers, courtly knights to grumpy old men, from attitudes to disability and mental health to symbolism and codes in art and manuscripts.

St George - with his reputation as a protector of crusaders - has also been a central figure in discussions, with Scottish academics presenting research that proved that there was a cult of St George in late medieval Scotland.

"We know that George was a popular name in Scottish aristocratic families in the 14th century," said Stephen Boardman, a lecturer in Scottish history at the University of Edinburgh, who presented the paper to the IMC.

"Towards the end of the 15th century the George cult was still going strong, despite the fact that England had been at war with Scotland for much of this time. In fact, James IV was parading around with a St George badge when he was visited by English ambassadors in 1503," he explained.

Alan V Murray, from the University of Leeds' Institute for Medieval Studies, added that St George played a part in some Scottish folk traditions up until the start of the second world war.

Dr Murray said: "Around New Year, Scottish villages often used to put on traditional plays performed by players known as guisers. Many of the plays centred around a combat between St George and a Turkish knight, just as they did in English mummers' plays. In some places guisers' plays continued well into the 20th century."

Axel Müller, director of the IMC, said medieval studies were thriving around the globe.

He said: "Many of the successes and problems we encounter in modern society have their counterparts in the medieval world, and we believe that studying that world can cast a light on many present-day dilemmas: how to treat prisoners of war, how to prevent crime and anti-social behaviour, coping with pain and suffering, surviving in dysfunctional families [and] living harmoniously with people of different cultural and religious viewpoints."



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