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Editorial: A Planet On The Edge Of Anarchy?
Joe Quinn
Signs of the Times
28/07/2006
In a recent article, Michael Chossudovsky asks an interesting question:
Is there a relationship between the bombing of Lebanon and the inauguration of the World's largest strategic pipeline, which will channel more than a million barrels of oil a day to Western markets?
He continues:
Virtually unnoticed, the inauguration of the Ceyhan-Tblisi-Baku (BTC) oil pipeline, which links the Caspian sea to the Eastern Mediterranean, took place on the 13th of July, at the very outset of the Israeli sponsored bombings of Lebanon.
One day before the Israeli air strikes, the main partners and shareholders of the BTC pipeline project, including several heads of State and oil company executives were in attendance at the port of Ceyhan. They were then rushed off for an inauguration reception in Istanbul, hosted by Turkey's President Ahmet Necdet Sezer in the plush surroundings of the Çırağan Palace.
He then quotes a Jerusalem Post article:
"Turkey and Israel are negotiating the construction of a multi-million-dollar energy and water project that will transport water, electricity, natural gas and oil by pipelines to Israel, with the oil to be sent onward from Israel to the Far East,
The new Turkish-Israeli proposal under discussion would see the transfer of water, electricity, natural gas and oil to Israel via four underwater pipelines.
"Baku oil can be transported to Ashkelon via this new pipeline and to India and the Far East.[via the Red sea]"
"Ceyhan and the Mediterranean port of Ashkelon are situated only 400 km apart. Oil can be transported to the city in tankers or via specially constructed under-water pipeline. From Ashkelon the oil can be pumped through already existing pipeline to the port of Eilat at the Red Sea; and from there it can be transported to India and other Asian countries in tankers.
So Israel appears to be securing its own personal supply of oil and water, with the water also being transported undersea. What has changed that Israel now needs its own private oil and water supply? A few years ago everyone was saying that the US invasion of Iraq was "for the oil", which allows us to suggest that 9/11, which provided the justification for the Iraq invasion, was also "for the oil". But with the US government's claims that the Iraq invasion was about WMDs, and when that fell flat, it was about spreading democracy, and when that became somewhat laughable we were brought back to the "war on terror", there picture has been sufficiently muddied that talk of exactly why the US invaded Iraq has been silenced.
We can say with some confidence that in the world of international politics and warmongering, nothing is ever as it seems. And while Israel adn the US might claim that they are just planning for the future and securing their energy and water needs, the nature of these two governments as evidenced by thier current and track records, tends to make us skeptical that their intentions are as wholesome as they claim.
Along with "securing water and oil resources", Israel is currently creating a "buffer zone" in southern Lebanon. Israel claims this is to protect against Hizb'allah's rockets, yet, as the entire world is saying, Israel's actions are massively disproportionate to the threat. So what might be the real agenda here?
It seems to me that these events and the events of the past 5 years are best viewed in light of the infamous Pentagon Report on Climate Change from 2004, where it was stated:
A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.
The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.
'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life.'
Maybe the "war on terror" was never really about terrorism. Maybe that that was just the excuse. Maybe the global elite have known for a long time about natural earth-shattering (literally?) events in the very near future, and they simply created a "war on terror" behind which they could forcibly re-shape the political and demographic landscape of the Middle East in order to ensure their own survival during the upcoming "global anarchy", as the Pentagon report puts it.
Food for thought, if nothing else.
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Editorial: Israel's New Middle East: Kill All Arabs
Kurt Nimmo
ANother Day in the Empire
Friday July 28th 2006
As expected, Israel plans to completely flatten southern Lebanon and murder anybody who remains there, no matter there are thousands of people unable to leave-the sick, elderly, and those without resources.
"Everyone remaining in southern Lebanon will be regarded as a terrorist, Israel's justice minister said yesterday as the military prepared to employ 'huge firepower' from the air in its campaign to crush Hizbollah," reports the Telegraph.
"What we should do in southern Lebanon is employ huge firepower before a ground force goes in," insisted Haim Ramon, member of the "moderate" Kadima party and "Minister of Justice," that is to say justice for Israelis, not for Arabs, who are considered untermenschen worthy of slaughter. "Everyone in southern Lebanon is a terrorist and is connected to Hizbollah. Our great advantage vis-à-vis Hizbollah is our firepower, not in face-to-face combat." Obviously, this includes babies, grade school kids, and old people-all who will soon be blasted with white phosphorus and depleted uranium munitions.
"The government's unrelenting line has the backing of the Israeli media, which are demanding a harsh response to an ambush in the Hizbollah stronghold of Bint Jbeil, in which eight soldiers died."
In other words, the entire population must suffer for the fact Hezbollah successful repelled the invading Israelis at Bint Jbeil. This is collective punishment, a war crime-but then Israel and its patron, the United States, don't do the Geneva Conventions or humanitarian law.
"According to Elias Hanna, a researcher of military affairs, the decision to limit the ground campaigns was made because 'Israelis are traumatized by their negative experience during the invasion of Lebanon in 1982,'" reports the Daily Star, a Lebanese newspaper.
Translation: the Israelis are now keen to limit their casualties, as dead IOF soldiers eventually resulted in Israel pulling out of Lebanon in 2000 under public pressure. Instead, the Israeli government will carpet bomb southern Lebanon and kill everything that moves. This will be far more acceptable to the Israeli population at large, as few-beyond a handful of Israeli antiwar and peace activists-sincerely care what happens to their neighbors to the north.
Nearly 90 percent of all Lebanese now support Hezbollah, as similar numbers would support resistance groups in America if it was invaded. Thus, according to Israeli logic, millions of people are terrorists who must be eradicated, sort of like cockroaches.
"In Lebanon, the entire political spectrum is becoming more radicalized as a consequence of this," Wayne White, former head of the Middle East desk at the US State Department's Intelligence and Research, tells the Christian Science Monitor. "I think [Israel] can substantially destroy the existing Hizbullah infrastructure, but how long will it take? And in the end, they'll reconstitute themselves and they'll be turning recruits away by the thousands."
Contrary to Israel's Grapes of Wrath invasion in 1996, the current "offensive is very different," according to BBC correspondent Jim Muir. "This time, neither Israel nor the US wants to accept Hezbollah as a party to anything, nor do they want its patrons Syria or Iran to be involved, except apparently in a capitulation. For them, any settlement must be based on the defeat of Hezbollah and the humiliation of its Syrian and Iranian sponsors."
Of course, this absolutist, Manichean demand-at the root of the Zionist and neocon agenda to "reshape" (through DU and bunker-busters) the Middle East-will translate into hundreds of thousands of dead people, earmarked as terrorists, making it easier to slaughter them in large numbers, possibly with nukes.
"Already, there are signs of a rapprochement between radical Sunni and Shia factions which could rebound massively on the US if it gains wider ground," Muir continues. Any such reconciliation between the two sects of Islam would spell big trouble for both Israel and the United States. But then the neocons have long attempted to create a larger, wider conflict, thus pushing the United States to commit itself to "World War Three," as Newt Gingrich recently characterized the simmering "clash of civilizations" project. Drawing Syria and Iran into the conflict will all but ensure Gingrich and the Machiavellian neocons realize their wildest, if not demented and psychopathic, dreams.
Meanwhile, the Moonie owned newspaper, the Washington Times, claims "the leader of Hezbollah is hiding in a foreign mission in Beirut, possibly the Iranian Embassy," thus providing a pretext to widen the invasion.
"If confirmed, the reports could lead to an Israeli air strike on the embassy, possibly leading to a widening of the conflict, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Foreign embassies are sovereign territory and an attack on an embassy could be considered an act of war."
However, in order to cover all bases, the Washington Times posits "Sheik Nasrallah may be in Damascus. A Kuwaiti newspaper, Al-Seyassah, reported from the Syrian capital yesterday that Sheik Nasrallah was seen moving through the city with Syrian guards in an intelligence agency car, Associated Press reported. He was dressed in civilian clothes, not his normal clerical robe."
Now that most foreign nationals have skedaddled from Lebanon, Israel is free to carpet bomb and kill everything that moves-not that the Israelis have any special commitment to protect foreign nationals (not killing them, several Canadians not withstanding, is a public relations move).
In this genocidal process, as virtually all Lebanese are now considered terrorists, we can expect the Iranian embassy to be flattened, and possibly an attack on Damascus under the pretext of going after Nasrallah, thus drawing both of these countries into the conflict.
Of course, this will suck in the United States, as planned by the neocons, thus realizing Gingrich's "World War Three," or as some neocons call it, World War Four.
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Editorial: Gaza: "Israel wants to drive us out our lands"
A Palestinian reports from Gaza.
Silvia Cattori, 27 July 2006
Khaled lives precariously in a refugee camp in Gaza. His poignant reports have been translated into many languages. Today, his voice, usually cheerful, was filled with revolt and a great lassitude.
Sivlia Cattori: The Israeli bombings have already killed over 500 people and have wounded thousands in a few weeks in Gaza and Lebanon. Don't the Israeli authorities have any human consideration?
Khaled: Now the soldiers are in the process of bombing us from all sides, from the sky, from their tanks posted on the frontier north of Gaza. It is very worrisome. Every day we are plunged in an boundless pain because of our dead and wounded. Yesterday, Israeli shooting claimed 25 new victims and more than 75 wounded among the inhabitants of Al Shijaeeya in Al Sha'af, east of the city of Gaza, and in the neighbourhood of Jabalyia, they bombed a house only 100 metres from my own.
S.C.: Will you have to leave?
Khaled: The Israeli army advised one of our neighbours that he should leave. Between his house and mine there is only one house.
S.C.: But what is Israel trying to achieve with this repeated carnage and destruction? What is their final goal? Terrorize you until you leave for good, as they have already done at Rafah?
Khaled: It didn't start yesterday. Since 1948 the Israelis are following the same plan to get rid of us: they call this plan "transfer". At one moment, it is at a certain place that they terrorize and massacre us, at another moment, it is somewhere else. The crime is called "ethnic cleansing". Their goal: to make us leave so they can take our land under the pretext of creating "security zones". As there are no protests worthy of this name, the Israeli soldiers are free to continue this indefinitely.
S.C.: Is the goal, then, to terrorize you by ever more horrifying massacres, and once panic has entered your hearts, to see you flee en mass as in 1948? But where can you go this time? To Egypt?
Khaled: The important thing for them is to completely clean us out of Gaza. It doesn't matter if they have to drive us into the sea. It is their plan. That's how they got ¾'s of the Palestinians to flee in 1948. But I think the Israelis will never again manage to get us to leave this refuge.
S.C.: You must be disappointed with the results of the Rome Conference where the cry of the Lebanese prime minister for a cease-fire was not heard. Was that taken in Gaza as a green light for Israel to continue to massacre you?
Khaled: The west has always allowed Israeli governments to massacre and destroy as they wished. It is only the degree of brutality that changes. The rights of man are violated by the state of Israel with the full awareness of the entire world, with the support of the United States, and organizations like Amnesty International say nothing, and the Europeans say nothing, and they ask us, the victims, to make an effort. Every time the Security Council votes on a resolution critical of Israel's actions, the United States immediately vetoes it and prevents Israel from being condemned. For us, things are like they always are. The West condemns our resistance. Hamas and Hezbollah, whatever one thinks of them, are the honour of the Arab peoples. Israel wants to kill the only force that defies them and that have any honour. For us, what is happening in Gaza, and now in Lebanon, is terrible. But, even if what we are enduring is more horrible than ever, Europe must know that we will never abandon the authorities of the Hamas government.
S.C.: Do you think the battalions of tanks would dare penetrate into the interior of the Gaza Strip?
Khaled: It's done. They have entered the north of Gaza. They are close to Jabalyia. Only two kilometres separate them from us. It could be that, if they enter Jabalyia, we will undergo a massacre like that at Sabra and Chatila.
S.C.: Which means you feel completely powerless in the face of this seasoned army?
Khaled: The militants try to protect us, to prevent the Israeli soldiers from entering our neighbourhoods, but they don't have the means. In Lebanon, Hezbollah militants can fight against them because there are mountains and zones with few people. But here we are piled up one on another. It isn't possible. Under their shelling, there are no safe places. We have no other choice but to stay in our homes and hope that God will protect us.
S.C.: The fact that you can't escape must create an oppressive sense of being closed in.
Khlaed: Yes, we feel imprisoned. The Gaza Strip is the biggest prison in the world.
S.C.: Have your authorities called on the humanitarian organizations?
Khaled: All those representatives of the NGOs, of the UN or of governments have never done anything concrete for us. We suffer more and more and their peace or aid projects only serve to reinforce Israel's position. The last example is the conference in Rome. Every day you can see the blood of our children being spilt. Who has the cure? Maybe they are obliged to act for the Lebanese people because of the large-scale destruction inflicted by Israel. But have you heard the Red Cross or any of the other human rights organizations protest against what is being done to us? Have you heard them accuse Israel of war crimes? Amnesty labelled the suicide bombings as crimes against humanity in 2003. Amnesty shuts up when it comes to Israel.
S.C.: Are your militants completely powerless to stop the battalions of Israeli tanks?
Khaled: Yes. They have nothing other to do but to stay standing.
S.C.: But, when the bombing stops, what we see are above all women and children who have been massacred. The population must feel in a state of complete abandonment and indescribable panic, the children above all.
Khaled: These acts demand that the entire world denounces the odious crimes against innocent people. However, the Arab states stay silent and, when they say something, it is to support the position of the United States. The children have been traumatized for a long time. They have worrisome behaviour. The Israeli army is waging a war against militants who take seriously their responsibility to protect us. The government leaders are very threatened and live clandestinely. They aren't apt to take up a rifle against a tank.
S.C.: Are you hopeful that this reign of bombing will soon end?
Khaled: Israel is not going to stop. They would only stop if one of these massacres provoked large protests. Then, the Israeli army might pull back a bit, waiting for the protests to calm down, and then the masscres will start again.
Copyright: silviacattori@yahoo.it
Translated by Signs of the Times
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Mid East Murder - Is It Really About Terrorism?
Blair to meet Bush to talk about Mideast crisis
Last Updated Fri, 28 Jul 2006 06:12:14 EDT
CBC News
British Prime Minister Tony Blair is expected to talk with U.S. President George W. Bush about seeking ways to end the fighting in the Middle East during a meeting in Washington on Friday.
Blair is expected to discuss the possibility of seeking a United Nations Security Council resolution in an attempt to bring an end to the violence between Israel and the Lebanese-based militant group Hezbollah, which entered its 17th day on Friday.
A spokesperson for Blair said he would like the resolution to be in place by early next week.
Blair and Bush are expected to talk about what would be needed to bring about a ceasefire. Blair is on record as saying he thinks a ceasefire should be lasting.
The spokesperson for Blair told reporters on his plane as it flew to Washington that Blair is expected to "increase the urgency" of the need to resolve the crisis through a ceasefire and to talk to Bush about the "practical steps" necessary to end the violence, including setting up an international stabilization force in the region.
"We want to accelerate discussions that are going on among the international community, identifying those who would serve in a stabilization force, and increase the tempo of putting that stabilization force together," said the spokesperson, who customarily speaks from a position of anonymity.
Looking for lasting peace
Blair has said the violence is a crisis but certain conditions are needed to make a lasting peace.
"It will not stop on both sides unless there is a plan to make it stop and that's what we are working on urgently," Blair said at a news conference on Monday with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Blair and Bush are also expected to talk about Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and the fighting in the Darfur region in Sudan, although fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is likely to dominate discussion.
In other developments Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she will fly back to Israel to discuss the crisis with the Israeli government, but she did not say when. Rice was in Malaysia attending a conference on Asian issues.
"I do think it is important that groundwork be laid so I can make the most of whatever time I can spend there," Rice told reporters in Kuala Lumpur.
Israeli media reported Friday that Rice will return to Israel on Saturday night and plans to meet with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday, but the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv and Israel's foreign ministry declined to confirm the reports.
Battling for control of border towns
The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has left at least 438 people dead in Lebanon and 52 in Israel. Lebanon's health minister said Thursday he thinks as many as 600 Lebanese civilians have been killed by the violence so far.
Fighting started on July 12, when Hezbollah guerrillas captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid.
Since then, Israel has launched an offensive against Hezbollah, pounding its positions in Beirut and south Lebanon daily to destroy its infrastructure. Hezbollah has responded with rocket attacks on northern Israel.
Israeli troops and Hezbollah guerrillas have been battling for control of border towns and villages in south Lebanon.
Thousands of civilians, including foreign nationals in Lebanon, have been caught in the crossfire. The UN estimates about 800,000 people have been affected by the conflict.
with files from the Associated Press
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Israeli DM vows no return to status quo of Hezbollah
www.chinaview.cn 2006-07-28 05:35:54
JERUSALEM, July 27 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz vowed on Thursday that Lebanon's Hezbollah would "not return to what it was" as Israel pressed ahead a massive assault against the group.
Peretz made the statements at a joint news conference with Israel Defenses Forces Chief of Staff Dan Halutz in Tel Aviv,which was broadcast live by local TV channels.
"Our goal is to achieve a reality in which Hezbollah does not threaten Israel and its citizens," Peretz said.
Insisting on Israel's right of self-defense, Peretz said that "everything" would be done against those who attacked Israel, adding that Israel would not allow the presence of Hezbollah guerillas in the border area.
He said that Israel would "exert all the power required" in order to defend itself, adding that the recruitment of reserve soldiers was aimed at "preparing for any possible development" in Lebanon.
Meanwhile, Halutz announced that the Israeli army had inflicted "enormous" strategic damage to Hezbollah during the 16-day-old onslaught in Lebanon.
Hundreds of Hezbollah fighters have been hit during the Israeli assault, according to Halutz, who also said that Hezbollah's weapons capabilities had also been "damaged significantly."
In addition, the Israeli military chief said that the Israeli army would draft up to three divisions, following the cabinet's approval. Three divisions are made up of between about 18,000 to 30,000 soldiers.
Both Peretz and Halutz said that the Israeli military offensive in Lebanon would "continue as long as it takes", but added that Israel had no intention to "open a front" with Syria, which supports Hezbollah.
The top Israeli military brass' statements came after the Israeli cabinet decided against a massive ground invasion of Lebanon earlier in the day.
But the cabinet agreed to call up more reserve soldiers if need be.
Israel launched a big assault against the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah on July 12 when Hezbollah guerillas kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and killed eight others during cross-border attacks.
The Israeli army has launched intense airstrikes on targets across Lebanon and small units of ground forces are operating on the Lebanese side of the border to carry out "pinpoint" attacks against Hezbollah strongholds.
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Israeli intelligence agency says Hezbollah remains ability of attack: report
www.chinaview.cn 2006-07-28 18:56:49
JERUSALEM, July 28 (Xinhua) -- Israeli intelligence agency Mossad's head Meir Dagan said Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas were still capable of fighting with Israel at the current level for a long time, local newspaper Ha'aretz reported on Friday.
However, Israeli Military Intelligence chief Amos Yadlin disagreed with the Mossad judgment, saying that the Lebanese Shiite group had been seriously damaged, the report said.
But both Dagan and Yadlin agreed during a security cabinet meeting on Thursday that Hezbollah still maintained the ability to command and control and still held long-range missiles, according to the report.
A military source said on Friday that at least 200 Hezbollah operatives had been killed during the over-two-week conflict, said Ha'aretz.
Lebanese security sources said that Israel Air Force (IDF) warplanes renewed attacks on suspected Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon Friday morning, killing at least on person and wounding three others.
Israeli jets attacked targets at Lebanon's southern market town of Nabatiyeh at about 8:30 a.m. (0530 GMT), the sources said, adding that a Jordanian was killed by missile shrapnel and three others were wounded in the strike.
The Israeli massive offensive against Lebanese Hezbollah entered its 17th day Friday, which started on July 12 after two Israeli soldiers were kidnapped by the Shiite group Hezbollah in across-border attack.
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Israel says UN can't be part of probe of deadly attack on post
Haaretz
28/07/2006
Israel rules out United Nations role in peacekeeping force
Israel's ambassador to the UN ruled out Thursday major UN involvement in any potential international force in Lebanon, saying more professional and better-trained troops were needed for such a volatile situation.
Dan Gillerman also said Israel would not allow the United Nations to join in an investigation of an Israeli air strike that demolished a post belonging to the current UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon. Four UN observers were killed in the Tuesday strike.
"Israel has never agreed to a joint investigation, and I don't think that if anything happened in this country, or in Britain or in Italy or in France, the government of that country would agree to a joint investigation," Gillerman said.
He apologized for the strike that killed the four UN observers, but said the conflict was a war and that accidents happen.
"This is a war which is going on," he told reporters. "War is an ugly thing and during war, mistakes and tragedies do happen."
Gillerman, who spoke at an event hosted by The Israel Project advocacy group and later inside the United Nations, gave a heated defense of Israel's two-week campaign against Hezbollah militants. He said some diplomats from the Middle East had told him that Israel was doing the right thing in going after Hezbollah.
His refusal to conduct a joint investigation will be a slap to UN officials, who have specifically sought to partner with Israel to investigate the bombing.
Comment: You see, it was all an accident, simply because Israel's ambassador to the UN says so. The FACT that the UN post repeatedly notified the Israeli military of its position before the bombing and that the Israeli military were already undoubtedly aware of the exact location of the UN base, is not relevant apparently.
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Israeli strike on UN post not accident: Finnish officer in Lebanon
www.chinaview.cn 2006-07-28 16:37:36
HELSINKI, July 28 (Xinhua) -- A Finnish officer commanding the Observer Group Lebanon, part of the UN Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO), said on Thursday he did not believe that the Israeli airstrike on a UN observation post in Lebanon on Tuesday had been an accident.
Colonel Rolf Kullberg told Finnish commercial broadcaster Nelonen that prior to the incident, the peacekeepers had repeatedly asked the Israel Defense Forces not to bomb the post.
Nelonen quoted witnesses as saying that four Israeli warplanes had bombed the post.
The direct hit on the post killed four UN observers, who were from Austria, Canada, China and Finland.
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Three killed as Israeli warplanes pound Lebanon
28/07/2006
Reuters
Israeli warplanes struck three buildings in a village near the market town of Nabatiyeh in southern Lebanon as they renewed attacks on suspected Hezbollah targets today, killing three people and wounding nine, including four children, Lebanese security officials said.
Israeli jets fired missiles at a four-storey building that housed a construction company believed owned by a Hezbollah activist, reducing it to rubble, at about 8.30am (6.30am Irish time) in the village of Kfar Jouz, the officials said.
Hussam Abu Shamet, a Jordanian in a nearby house, was killed by missile shrapnel, and four children of Lebanese journalist Ali Dawoud, who also lives nearby, were wounded by flying glass and taken to the hospital, the officials said.
Security officials said a Lebanese couple in a shelter also were killed when a missile struck another building in the area, with the impact from the blast collapsing their hideout on top of them.
The bodies of Hussein Basma and his wife, Anissa Atawi, were retrieved by civil defence personnel from under the rubble of the destroyed three-storey building hours after the missile attack.
It was not known if they had any children kept elsewhere.
Five other people, including three Syrians, were wounded in the series of strikes on the village.
The warplanes have pounded 130 targets in Lebanon, including a Hezbollah base in the Bekaa Valley where long-range rockets were stored, the military said today.
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PM backs Israel bomb flights
13:08pm 28th July 2006
Tony Blair faces a public backlash after it emerged that he has given the go-ahead for Britain to be used as a staging post for the supply of bunkerbusting bombs to Israel.
Whitehall sources confirmed that two more U.S. cargo planes carrying laserguided weapons will be given permission to land on British soil over the next couple of weeks.
The embarrassing U-turn comes only hours after Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett savaged the U.S. on learning that two A310 cargo planes loaded with GBU28 bombs landed at Prestwick airport in Glasgow last weekend.
But in a humiliating slap-down to the Foreign Secretary, sources said it would be 'safe to assume' that the stop-overs will continue to be allowed.
The U.S. yesterday confirmed it had lodged requests to bring two more planes through the UK carrying bombs and missiles for Israel, which claimed yesterday it had the world's approval to continue its bombardment of Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon as the death toll there passed the 600 mark.
In an extraordinary and controversial outburst, justice minister Haim Ramon declared the decision of the Rome conference of foreign ministers on Wednesday not to call for a ceasefire was in effect the green light to continue the offensive.
Mr Ramon said the Israeli air force must bomb villages before ground forces enter, suggesting that this would help prevent Israeli casualties in the future.
As he spoke, the Israeli cabinet approved the call-up of 30,000 more reserve soldiers. And Al Qaeda intervened in the crisis for the first time, urging Muslims to strike the 'crusaders' backing Israel - a tacit threat to the U.S. and Britain, whose leaders are holding crisis talks in Washington today.
- A top Iranian envoy was in Syria yesterday for talks on the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, according to Iranian news reports. They said the meeting was designed to discuss ways to maintain supplies to Hezbollah fighters with 'Iranian arms flowing through Syrian territories'.
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Blair to tell Bush: we need a ceasefire
Ewen MacAskill, Simon Tisdall and Michael White
Friday July 28, 2006
The Guardian
Tony Blair will press George Bush today to support "as a matter of urgency" a ceasefire in Lebanon as part of a UN security council resolution next week, according to Downing Street sources.
At a White House meeting, the prime minister will express his concern that pro-western Arab governments are "getting squeezed" by the crisis and the longer it continues, the more squeezed they will be, giving militants a boost. The private view from No 10 is that the US is "prevaricating" over the resolution and allowing the conflict to run on too long.
But diplomatic sources in Washington suggest the US and Israel believe serious damage has been inflicted on Hizbullah, so the White House is ready to back a ceasefire resolution at the UN next week. Today Mr Bush and Mr Blair will discuss a version of the resolution that has been circulating in Washington and London.
The draft peace deal involves two phases. In the first, Israel and Lebanon would agree a ceasefire and a small multinational force would be deployed on the border, allowing Israeli troops to withdraw. Then a much larger force of between 10,000 and 20,000 troops would be assigned to implement UN security council resolution 1559, agreed two years ago, under which militias such as Hizbullah would be disarmed and the authority of the Lebanese government forces extended to the country's southern border.
European officials are sceptical about disarming Hizbullah. But they believe that, if other countries in the region can be persuaded to contribute to the buffer force, it would give them a vested interest in addressing Hizbullah's threat to Israel.
A British official said the two-phase idea was raised by Britain at Wednesday's international conference in Rome and "the US are almost certainly going to push something through next week".
France, which holds the presidency of the security council, has drafted its own resolution which it wants to push to a vote early next week. The French plan calls for an "immediate halt to the violence", "a handover of prisoners to a third party enjoying the trust of the two belligerents", UN shuttle diplomacy in pursuit of a "general settlement framework", and the deployment of an international force in support of the Lebanese army. Controversially, it says a buffer zone should straddle the Israel-Lebanon border.
It is unclear whether Mr Blair will urge Mr Bush to do something the administration has decided to do anyway. The prime minister is intent on demonstrating that he has influence in the White House and Britain has its own policy. Polls this week showed public disquiet over his closeness to Mr Bush and the failure to act more decisively to end the bloodshed.
The US and Britain have stood against most of the rest of the world in refusing to call for an immediate ceasefire. Mr Blair has not changed his position on that, but a Downing Street source said he would urge the US to move faster in backing the resolution. "Collectively we have to step up the urgency of the search for a ceasefire."
With an eye on the Arab world, Mr Blair wants to ensure that Hizbullah and other militant groups such as Hamas do not emerge stronger from the crisis. He will reiterate to Mr Bush that the key to resolving the violence is resolution of the Palestinian issue.
No 10 dismissed the row over US military flights using Prestwick airport, Scotland, to send weapons to Israel without telling Britain as an issue of process, not principle.
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Israel's long-standing practice of unlawful collective punishment
Shane Darcy, The Electronic Intifada, 26 July 2006
The extensive military operations that have been conducted by the Israeli army in and around the Gaza Strip over the past weeks have displayed a marked disregard for international humanitarian law and have involved the imposition of grave and unlawful measures of collective punishment on the Palestinian population. The principle of proportionality has been completely abandoned. As part of its attempt to secure the release of a single captured Israeli soldier, the army has destroyed bridges, government offices and civilian property, and cut off the electricity to over half the population of Gaza. One Israeli journalist has described the operation simply as an "act of vengeance".
Israel has long taken the view that it is justified in inflicting collective punishment because the Palestinian population is collectively responsible for any acts committed within its midst. Politicians frequently speak of the "heavy price" that must be paid for attacks on Israeli citizens or the army.
There is considerable historical precedent for such conduct. Reliance on collective responsibility was hitherto viewed as a lawful means of deterring the commission of hostile acts by a population in occupied territory. During the United States-Mexico War of 1847-48, US General Winfield Scott ordered that if individuals responsible for attacks on troops and army property were not handed over by the Mexican authorities then "the punishment shall fall upon entire cities, towns, or neighborhoods". The tactic of punishing on the basis of a notion of collective responsibility was also a common feature in colonial era conflicts - in the Boer War the British would respond to hostility by imposing fines, burning farms and destroying private property. The Black and Tans relied on similar means in pre-independence Ireland, as exemplified by notorious incidents such as 'The Sack of Balbriggan'.
It was during the Second World War, however, that this concept of collective responsibility was relied on in the bloodiest of ways. The treatment of the Russian population by the Nazis, for example, was described as a "punitive expedition in continuous operation", in which widespread collective penalties were inflicted in the form of mass executions and extensive destruction of property. On the Allied side, Winston Churchill proposed in the aftermath of several massacres in Czechoslovakia that three German villages should be razed for every one which had been destroyed by German troops. In the aftermath of the war several Nazi war criminals were convicted of the crime of collective punishment by Allied military tribunals.
Universal repugnance to the conduct of the Second World War led to the adoption in 1949 of the Geneva Conventions, marking a turning point in the way in which States would conduct themselves during warfare. More States have signed up to these important treaties than the United Nations Charter, demonstrating a universal commitment to be bound by the rules of international humanitarian law. The Fourth Geneva Convention protects civilians in occupied territories and states clearly that "[n]o protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited." While reliance on collective responsibility was not relegated to the past - Saddam Hussein is currently being tried for the murder of 143 people in Dujail as a collective punishment for an attack on his life there in 1982 - the unlawful character of such conduct is now established beyond doubt and can no longer be justified on the basis of some perceived deterrent effect.
Despite being a signatory to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, Israel has frequently resorted to collective punishment since the beginning of the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967. It has illegally demolished thousands of houses in response to hostile acts committed by one or more of the inhabitants. The Supreme Court has regularly upheld the lawfulness of this practice, regardless of the clear conflict with the rules of international law, and Justice Ben-Dror once commented that an individual who engages in terrorism "should know that his criminal acts will not only hurt him but also are apt to cause great suffering to his family". Although the practice of house demolition was temporarily suspended in 2004, the Israeli army has indicated a willingness to resurrect the practice if circumstances require it.
The imposition of collective punishment is a war crime under customary international law. Numerous individuals being tried before the Special Court of Sierra Leone have been charged with just such a crime. But in the most comprehensive codification of international crimes, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, collective punishment does not feature among the dozens of listed war crimes over which the Court has jurisdiction. Although Israel is not a party to the Rome Statute, its representatives did attend the 1998 diplomatic conference which led to the adoption of the instrument. It was at their behest that the war crime of collective punishment was excluded from the Court's jurisdiction.
The Israeli armed forces' actions in Gaza continue its long-standing tradition of taking harsh collective punitive measures against the Palestinian population. History has shown that such repressive measures rarely achieve their stated objectives. Rather than deter hostile conduct, such actions have tended to antagonize and embitter the local population, and provoke even further violent acts of resistance. In the context of this particular conflict, and especially in light of the political compromise that had been achieved between Hamas and Fatah days before the commencement of the Gaza offensive, it seems that a revival of hostilities may very well have been what the Israeli authorities had intended when they allowed the armed forces to take such extreme and disproportionate measures.
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If Not, Then What?
Tide of Arab Opinion Turns to Support for Hezbollah
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
07/28/06 "New York Times"
DAMASCUS, Syria, July 27 - At the onset of the Lebanese crisis, Arab governments, starting with Saudi Arabia, slammed Hezbollah for recklessly provoking a war, providing what the United States and Israel took as a wink and a nod to continue the fight.
Now, with hundreds of Lebanese dead and Hezbollah holding out against the vaunted Israeli military for 15 days, the tide of public opinion across the Arab world is surging behind the organization, transforming the Shiite group's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, into a folk hero and forcing a change in official statements.
The Saudi royal family and King Abdullah II of Jordan, who were initially more worried about the rising power of Shiite Iran, Hezbollah's main sponsor, are scrambling to distance themselves from Washington.
An outpouring of newspaper columns, cartoons, blogs and public poetry readings have showered praise on Hezbollah while attacking the United States and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for trumpeting American plans for a "new Middle East" that they say has led only to violence and repression.
Even Al Qaeda, run by violent Sunni Muslim extremists normally hostile to all Shiites, has gotten into the act, with its deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, releasing a taped message saying that through its fighting in Iraq, his organization was also trying to liberate Palestine.
Mouin Rabbani, a senior Middle East analyst in Amman, Jordan, with the International Crisis Group, said, "The Arab-Israeli conflict remains the most potent issue in this part of the world."
Distinctive changes in tone are audible throughout the Sunni world. This week, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt emphasized his attempts to arrange a cease-fire to protect all sects in Lebanon, while the Jordanian king announced that his country was dispatching medical teams "for the victims of Israeli aggression." Both countries have peace treaties with Israel.
The Saudi royal court has issued a dire warning that its 2002 peace plan - offering Israel full recognition by all Arab states in exchange for returning to the borders that predated the 1967 Arab-Israeli war - could well perish.
"If the peace option is rejected due to the Israeli arrogance," it said, "then only the war option remains, and no one knows the repercussions befalling the region, including wars and conflict that will spare no one, including those whose military power is now tempting them to play with fire."
The Saudis were putting the West on notice that they would not exert pressure on anyone in the Arab world until Washington did something to halt the destruction of Lebanon, Saudi commentators said.
American officials say that while the Arab leaders need to take a harder line publicly for domestic political reasons, what matters more is what they tell the United States in private, which the Americans still see as a wink and a nod.
There are evident concerns among Arab governments that a victory for Hezbollah - and it has already achieved something of a victory by holding out this long - would further nourish the Islamist tide engulfing the region and challenge their authority. Hence their first priority is to cool simmering public opinion.
But perhaps not since President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt made his emotional outpourings about Arab unity in the 1960's, before the Arab defeat in the 1967 war, has the public been so electrified by a confrontation with Israel, played out repeatedly on satellite television stations with horrific images from Lebanon of wounded children and distraught women fleeing their homes.
Egypt's opposition press has had a field day comparing Sheik Nasrallah to Nasser, while demonstrators waved pictures of both.
An editorial in the weekly Al Dustur by Ibrahim Issa, who faces a lengthy jail sentence for his previous criticism of President Mubarak, compared current Arab leaders to the medieval princes who let the Crusaders chip away at Muslim lands until they controlled them all.
After attending an intellectual rally in Cairo for Lebanon, the Egyptian poet Ahmed Fouad Negm wrote a column describing how he had watched a companion buy 20 posters of Sheik Nasrallah.
"People are praying for him as they walk in the street, because we were made to feel oppressed, weak and handicapped," Mr. Negm said in an interview. "I asked the man who sweeps the street under my building what he thought, and he said: 'Uncle Ahmed, he has awakened the dead man inside me! May God make him triumphant!' "
In Lebanon, Rasha Salti, a freelance writer, summarized the sense that Sheik Nasrallah differed from other Arab leaders.
"Since the war broke out, Hassan Nasrallah has displayed a persona, and public behavior also, to the exact opposite of Arab heads of states," she wrote in an e-mail message posted on many blogs.
In comparison, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's brief visit to the region sparked widespread criticism of her cold demeanor and her choice of words, particularly a statement that the bloodshed represented the birth pangs of a "new Middle East." That catchphrase was much used by Shimon Peres, the veteran Israeli leader who was a principal negotiator of the 1993 Oslo Accords, which ultimately failed to lead to the Palestinian state they envisaged.
A cartoon by Emad Hajjaj in Jordan labeled "The New Middle East" showed an Israeli tank sitting on a broken apartment house in the shape of the Arab world.
Fawaz al-Trabalsi, a columnist in the Lebanese daily As Safir, suggested that the real new thing in the Middle East was the ability of one group to challenge Israeli militarily.
Perhaps nothing underscored Hezbollah's rising stock more than the sudden appearance of a tape from the Qaeda leadership attempting to grab some of the limelight.
Al Jazeera satellite television broadcast a tape from Mr. Zawahri (za-WAH-ri). Large panels behind him showed a picture of the exploding World Trade Center as well as portraits of two Egyptian Qaeda members, Muhammad Atef, a Qaeda commander who was killed by an American airstrike in Afghanistan, and Mohamed Atta, the lead hijacker on Sept. 11, 2001. He described the two as fighters for the Palestinians.
Mr. Zawahri tried to argue that the fight against American forces in Iraq paralleled what Hezbollah was doing, though he did not mention the organization by name.
"It is an advantage that Iraq is near Palestine," he said. "Muslims should support its holy warriors until an Islamic emirate dedicated to jihad is established there, which could then transfer the jihad to the borders of Palestine."
Mr. Zawahri also adopted some of the language of Hezbollah and Shiite Muslims in general. That was rather ironic, since previously in Iraq, Al Qaeda has labeled Shiites Muslim as infidels and claimed responsibility for some of the bloodier assaults on Shiite neighborhoods there.
But by taking on Israel, Hezbollah had instantly eclipsed Al Qaeda, analysts said. "Everyone will be asking, 'Where is Al Qaeda now?' " said Adel al-Toraifi, a Saudi columnist and expert on Sunni extremists.
Mr. Rabbani of the International Crisis Group said Hezbollah's ability to withstand the Israeli assault and to continue to lob missiles well into Israel exposed the weaknesses of Arab governments with far greater resources than Hezbollah.
"Public opinion says that if they are getting more on the battlefield than you are at the negotiating table, and you have so many more means at your disposal, then what the hell are you doing?" Mr. Rabbani said. "In comparison with the small embattled guerrilla movement, the Arab states seem to be standing idly by twiddling their thumbs."
Mona el-Naggar contributed reporting from Cairo for this article, and Suha Maayeh from Amman, Jordan.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
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Israeli strikes may boost Hizbullah base
By Nicholas Blanford
TYRE, LEBANON
from the July 28, 2006 edition
The ferocity of Israel's onslaught in southern Lebanon and Hizbullah's stubborn battles against Israeli ground forces may be working in the militant group's favor.
"They want to shatter the myth of Israeli invincibility," says Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a leading Lebanese expert on Hizbullah. "Being victorious means not allowing Israel to achieve their aims, and so far that is the case."
Still, the intensity of the Israeli bombing campaign appears to have taken Hizbullah aback. Mahmoud Komati, the deputy head of Hizbullah's politburo told the Associated Press, "the truth is - let me say this clearly - we didn't even expect [this] response ... that [Israel] would exploit this operation for this big war against us."
When Hizbullah guerrillas snatched two Israeli soldiers from across the border, it appeared to be a serious miscalculation. In the days that followed the July 12 capture, Israel unleashed its biggest offensive against Lebanon since its 1982 invasion, smashing the country's infrastructure, creating 500,000 refugees, and so far killing more than 400 civilians.
Thursday, Israeli air and artillery strikes continued in southern Lebanon and the International Committee of the Red Cross said bodies were laying in the streets of some Lebanese border villages where fighting has trapped civilians. Also Thursday Al Qaeda's second in command, Ayman Zawahiri, called in a televised video for Muslims to join fighting in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon in a holy war against Israel. While al-Qaeda is a Sunni Muslim group which in general views Shiites, who make up Hizbullah's ranks, with disgust and not even as Muslims, they share a common hatred of Israel and the US.
In a televised address Tuesday, Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbullah's secretary general, said the Israeli onslaught was an attempt by the US and Israel to "impose a new Middle East" in which Lebanon would be under US hegemony.
"Our fate is to confront this plan ... we are waging a war for the liberation of the remaining occupied lands and the liberation of our detainees," Mr. Nasrallah said.
Ms. Saad-Ghorayeb says that Hizbullah's goals have changed, "assuming a wider strategic importance" in which the party is at the forefront of opposition to the Bush administration's agenda of transforming the Middle East into a series of pro-Western democracies.
"Hizbullah is in a unique position to confront the US agenda which if successful will be, by extension, a victory for Syria, Iran and Hamas," she says.
Hizbullah's top guerrilla fighters are mounting a stubborn campaign against the region's most powerful army in and around Bint Jbail, the largest Shiite town in the border district where support for the party runs high.
Hizbullah has had six years - ever since Israel withdrew from south Lebanon - to prepare for this climactic showdown. Instead of storing weapons and ammunition in vulnerable stockpiles, they are scattered throughout the south in natural caves, tunnels, and homes. Hizbullah officials say they have sufficient ammunition and high morale tofight for months.
Hizbullah's frontline fighters are battle-hardened veterans after fighting Israeli forces in the 1990s. They are armed with advanced Russian antitank missiles, which have proved deadly against Israel's vaunted Merkava tanks and use classic hit-and-run guerrilla tactics.
"Hizbullah is doing what it does best, harassing the enemy," says Timur Goksel, who served 24 years with the UN peacekeeping force in south Lebanon.
Indeed, Nasrallah has announced the launch of the "second phase of our struggle" in which his long-range rockets would "go beyond Haifa," Israel's third-largest city. Israeli officials have been bracing for possible rocket attacks on Tel Aviv, which would mark a major escalation in the conflict.
"If Hizbullah hits Tel Aviv, I think that Israel will totally wipe off the map Bint Jbail, Khiam, Tyre and Nabatieh," says Nizar Abdel-Kader, a columnist for Ad-Diyar newspaper and a retired Lebanese army general.
The stakes are high for Hizbullah, but it seems it can count on an unprecedented swell of public support that cuts across sectarian lines.According to a poll released by the Beirut Center for Research and Information, 87 percent of Lebanese support Hizbullah's fight with Israel, a rise of 29 percent on a similar poll conducted in February. More striking, however, is the level of support for Hizbullah's resistance from non-Shiite communities. Eighty percent of Christians polled supported Hizbullah along with 80 percent of Druze and 89 percent of Sunnis.
Lebanese no longer blame Hizbullah for sparking the war by kidnapping the Israeli soldiers, but Israel and the US instead.
The latest poll by the Beirut Center found that 8 percent of Lebanese feel the US supports Lebanon, down from 38 percent in January.
"This support for Hizbullah is by default. It's due to US and Israeli actions," says Saad-Ghorayeb, whose father, Abdo, conducted the poll.
The most favorable outcome for Hizbullah, analysts say, is to keep harassing Israel until there is a cease-fire agreement that essentially leaves Hizbullah intact. If Israel establishes an occupation zone along the border to police the area, Hizbullah will likely continue fighting, unhindered by a weakened Lebanese government and backed by a radicalized Shiite community. That growing radicalization is palpable in this laid-back coastal town where support for Hizbullah traditionally has been arbitrary.
Ghassan Farran, a doctor and head of a local cultural organization, gazes in disbelief at the pile of smoking ruins which was once his home. Minutes earlier, an Israeli jet dropped two guided missiles into the six-story apartment block in the centre of Tyre.
"Look what America gives us, bombs and missiles," says this educated, middle-class professional. "I was never a political person and never with Hizbullah but now after this I am with Hizbullah."
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You're all targets, Israel tells Lebanese in South
By Harry de Quetteville in Jerusalem
(Filed: 28/07/2006)
Everyone remaining in southern Lebanon will be regarded as a terrorist, Israel's justice minister said yesterday as the military prepared to employ "huge firepower" from the air in its campaign to crush Hizbollah.
Haim Ramon issued the warning as the Israeli government decided against expanding ground operations after the death of nine soldiers in fighting on Wednesday.
"What we should do in southern Lebanon is employ huge firepower before a ground force goes in," Mr Ramon said at a security cabinet meeting headed by Ehud Olmert, the prime minister. "Everyone in southern Lebanon is a terrorist and is connected to Hizbollah. Our great advantage vis-a-vis Hizbollah is our firepower, not in face-to-face combat."
Mr Olmert promised that the army would "continue toward the established goals".
Mr Ramon's comments suggested that civilian casualties in Lebanon, which stand at about 600 after 16 days of bombardment, could rise yet higher.
The government's unrelenting line has the backing of the Israeli media, which are demanding a harsh response to an ambush in the Hizbollah stronghold of Bint Jbeil, in which eight soldiers died.
The country's biggest-selling paper, Yedioth Ahronoth, said the army had raised the threshold of response to Katyusha rockets.
"In other words: a village from which rockets are fired at Israel will simply be destroyed by fire," it said.
"This decision should have been made and executed after the first Katyusha. But better late than never."
Three divisions of reserve soldiers, up to 15,000 men, are to be called up.
Almost 50 Hizbollah missiles landed in northern Israel yesterday, wounding four people and bringing the total number of rockets fired into the country to about 1,400.
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Bombs bound for Israel came via British airports
UK Independent
27 July 2006
Ministers are embroiled in a row over whether British military equipment and airports are being used to assist Israeli attacks on Lebanon.
MPs called on Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, to ensure that arms made in Britain were not being used in the violence in the Middle East, amid warnings that Israeli F-16 warplanes flying sorties across the border may contain British parts.
Last night Mrs Beckett said she had protested to the American government after it emerged that two cargo planes loaded with 5,000lb " bunker-buster" bombs bound for Israel had stopped over at Prestwick airport near Glasgow.
She told Channel Four News: "I am not happy about it. Not least because it appears that in so far as there are procedures for handling of that kind of cargo hazardous cargoes irrespective of what they are it does appear that they were not followed.
But she faced criticism over officials' monitoring of British military components exported to Israel. Under strict British rules governing arms exports, military equipment should not be used for internal oppression or external aggression. According to BBC2's Newsnight, the United States has lodged requests for two planes carrying missiles to make stop-overs in the UK in the coming fortnight.
The Foreign Office insisted it had "no reports that UK-supplied equipment is being deployed by Israel in Gaza" in a way inconsistent with controls on international arms sales.
Tony Blair was also criticised by his former adviser, Sir Stephen Wall, for having a "bunker" mentality in his support of George Bush over Israel.
Ministers are embroiled in a row over whether British military equipment and airports are being used to assist Israeli attacks on Lebanon.
MPs called on Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, to ensure that arms made in Britain were not being used in the violence in the Middle East, amid warnings that Israeli F-16 warplanes flying sorties across the border may contain British parts.
Last night Mrs Beckett said she had protested to the American government after it emerged that two cargo planes loaded with 5,000lb " bunker-buster" bombs bound for Israel had stopped over at Prestwick airport near Glasgow.
She told Channel Four News: "I am not happy about it. Not least because it appears that in so far as there are procedures for handling of that kind of cargo hazardous cargoes irrespective of what they are it does appear that they were not followed. I have already let the United States know that this is an issue that appears to be seriously at fault: that we will be making a formal protest if it appears that that is what has happened."
Comment: Did you get that? The reason Beckett is a little irked is that the procedures were not followed. The fact that the bombs were on their way to dismember Lebanese children is of no consequence apparently.
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Dump Condi: Bush allies in revolt over Mideast policy
insightmag.com
7/25/2006
Conservative national security allies of President Bush are in revolt against Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, saying that she is incompetent and has reversed the administration's national security and foreign policy agenda.
The conservatives, who include Newt Gingrich, Richard Perle and leading current and former members of the Pentagon and National Security Council, have urged the president to transfer Miss Rice out of the State Department and to an advisory role. They said Miss Rice, stemming from her lack of understanding of the Middle East, has misled the president on Iran and the Arab-Israeli conflict.
"The president has yet to understand that people make policy and not the other way around," a senior national security policy analyst said. "Unlike [former Secretary of State Colin] Powell, Condi is loyal to the president. She is just incompetent on most foreign policy issues."
The criticism of Miss Rice has been intense and comes from a range of Republican loyalists, including current and former aides in the Defense Department and the office of Vice President Dick Cheney. They have warned that Iran has been exploiting Miss Rice's inexperience and incompetence to accelerate its nuclear weapons program. They expect a collapse of her policy over the next few months.
"We are sending signals today that no matter how much you provoke us, no matter how viciously you describe things in public, no matter how many things you're doing with missiles and nuclear weapons, the most you'll get out of us is talk," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said.
Miss Rice served as Mr. Bush's national security adviser in his first term. During his second term, Miss Rice replaced Mr. Powell in the wake of a conclusion by the White House that Mr. Bush required a loyalist to head the State Department and ensure that U.S. foreign policy reflected the president's agenda.
"Condi was sent to rein in the State Department," a senior Republican congressional staffer said. "Instead, she was reined in."
Mr. Gingrich agrees and said Miss Rice's inexperience and lack of resolve were demonstrated in the aftermath of the North Korean launch of seven short-, medium-, and intermediate-range missiles in July. He suggested that Miss Rice was a key factor in the lack of a firm U.S. response.
"North Korea firing missiles," Mr. Gingrich said. "You say there will be consequences. There are none. We are in the early stages of World War III. Our bureaucracies are not responding fast enough. We don't have the right attitude."
Several of the critics have urged that Mr. Bush provide a high-profile post to James Baker, who was secretary of state under the administration of Mr. Bush's father. They cited Mr. Baker's determination to confront Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein in 1990.
A leading public critic of Miss Rice has been Richard Perle, a former chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board and regarded as close to Mr. Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Mr. Perle, pointing to the effort by the State Department to undermine the Reagan administration's policy toward the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, has accused Miss Rice of succumbing to a long-time State Department agenda of meaningless agreements meant to appease enemies of the United States.
"Condoleezza Rice has moved from the White House to Foggy Bottom, a mere mile or so away," Mr. Perle wrote in a June 25 Op-Ed article in the Washington Post that has been distributed throughout conservative and national security circles. "What matters is not that she is further removed from the Oval Office; Rice's influence on the president is undiminished. It is, rather, that she is now in the midst of - and increasingly represents - a diplomatic establishment that is driven to accommodate its allies even when (or, it seems, especially when) such allies counsel the appeasement of our adversaries."
Mr. Perle's article was said to have reflected the views of many of Mr. Bush's appointees in the White House, Defense Department and State Department. Mr. Perle maintains close contacts to U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control Robert Joseph, Deputy National Security Advisor Elliot Abrams and Mr. Cheney's national security adviser, John Hannah.
A major problem, critics said, is Miss Rice's ignorance of the Middle East. They said the secretary relies completely on Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, who is largely regarded as the architect of U.S. foreign policy. Miss Rice also consults regularly with her supporters on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Chairman Richard Lugar and the No. 2 Republican, Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.
The critics said Miss Rice has adopted the approach of Mr. Burns and the State Department bureaucracy that most - if not all - problems in the Middle East can be eased by applying pressure on Israel. They said even as Hezbollah was raining rockets on Israeli cities and communities, Miss Rice was on the phone nearly every day demanding that the Israeli government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert exercise restraint.
"Rice attempted to increase pressure on Israel to stand down and to demonstrate restraint," said Stephen Clemons, director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation. "The rumor is that she was told flatly by the prime minister's office to back off."
The critics within the administration expect a backlash against Miss Rice that could lead to her transfer in wake of the congressional elections in 2006. They said by that time even Mr. Bush will recognize the failure of relying solely on diplomacy in the face of Iran's nuclear weapons program.
"At that point, Rice will be openly blamed and Bush will have a very hard time defending her," said a GOP source with close ties to the administration.
Comment: The critics said Miss Rice has adopted the approach of Mr. Burns and the State Department bureaucracy that most - if not all - problems in the Middle East can be eased by applying pressure on Israel.
If the above statement is true, then Condi's career in the State Department will indeed come to a screeching halt rather quickly.
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Iran: The Next War
Rolling Stone Magazine
28/07/2006
Even before the bombs fell on Baghdad, a group of senior Pentagon officials were plotting to invade another country. Their covert campaign once again relied on false intelligence and shady allies. But this time, the target was Iran.
How did the Bush administration sell the Iraq war? Check out our award-winning story on the PR machine for regime change in Iraq -- and join a reader debate: Is war with Iran unavoidable?
I. The Israeli Connection
A few blocks off Pennsylvania Avenue, the FBI's eight-story Washington field office exudes all the charm of a maximum-security prison. Its curved roof is made of thick stainless steel, the bottom three floors are wrapped in granite and limestone, hydraulic bollards protect the ramp to the four-floor garage, and bulletproof security booths guard the entrance to the narrow lobby. On the fourth floor, like a tomb within a tomb, lies the most secret room in the $100 million concrete fortress-out-of-bounds even for special agents without an escort. Here, in the Language Services Section, hundreds of linguists in padded earphones sit elbow-to-elbow in long rows, tapping computer keyboards as they eavesdrop on the phone lines of foreign embassies and other high-priority targets in the nation's capital.
At the far end of that room, on the morning of February 12th, 2003, a small group of eavesdroppers were listening intently for evidence of a treacherous crime. At the very moment that American forces were massing for an invasion of Iraq, there were indications that a rogue group of senior Pentagon officials were already conspiring to push the United States into another war-this time with Iran.
A few miles away, FBI agents watched as Larry Franklin, an Iran expert and career employee of the Defense Intelligence Agency, drove up to the Ritz-Carlton hotel across the Potomac from Washington. A trim man of fifty-six, with a tangle of blond hair speckled gray, Franklin had left his modest home in Kearneysville, West Virginia, shortly before dawn that morning to make the eighty-mile commute to his job at the Pentagon. Since 2002, he had been working in the Office of Special Plans, a crowded warren of blue cubicles on the building's fifth floor. A secretive unit responsible for long-term planning and propaganda for the invasion of Iraq, the office's staffers referred to themselves as "the cabal." They reported to Douglas Feith, the third-most-powerful official in the Defense Department, helping to concoct the fraudulent intelligence reports that were driving America to war in Iraq.
Just two weeks before, in his State of the Union address, President Bush had begun laying the groundwork for the invasion, falsely claiming that Saddam Hussein had the means to produce tens of thousands of biological and chemical weapons, including anthrax, botulinum toxin, sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent. But an attack on Iraq would require something that alarmed Franklin and other neoconservatives almost as much as weapons of mass destruction: detente with Iran. As political columnist David Broder reported in The Washington Post, moderates in the Bush administration were "covertly negotiating for Iran to stay quiet and offer help to refugees when we go into Iraq."
Franklin-a devout neoconservative who had been brought into Feith's office because of his political beliefs-was hoping to undermine those talks. As FBI agents looked on, Franklin entered the restaurant at the Ritz and joined two other Americans who were also looking for ways to push the U.S. into a war with Iran. One was Steven Rosen, one of the most influential lobbyists in Washington. Sixty years old and nearly bald, with dark eyebrows and a seemingly permanent frown, Rosen was director of foreign-policy issues at Israel's powerful lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Seated next to Rosen was AIPAC's Iran expert, Keith Weissman. He and Rosen had been working together closely for a decade to pressure U.S. officials and members of Congress to turn up the heat on Tehran.
Over breakfast at the Ritz-Carlton, Franklin told the two lobbyists about a draft of a top-secret National Security Presidential Directive that dealt with U.S. policy on Iran. Crafted by Michael Rubin, the desk officer for Iraq and Iran in Feith's office, the document called, in essence, for regime change in Iran. In the Pentagon's view, according to one senior official there at the time, Iran was nothing but "a house of cards ready to be pushed over the precipice." So far, though, the White House had rejected the Pentagon's plan, favoring the State Department's more moderate position of diplomacy. Now, unwilling to play by the rules any longer, Franklin was taking the extraordinary-and illegal-step of passing on highly classified information to lobbyists for a foreign state. Unable to win the internal battle over Iran being waged within the administration, a member of Feith's secret unit in the Pentagon was effectively resorting to treason, recruiting AIPAC to use its enormous influence to pressure the president into adopting the draft directive and wage war against Iran.
It was a role that AIPAC was eager to play. Rosen, recognizing that Franklin could serve as a useful spy, immediately began plotting ways to plant him in the White House-specifically in the National Security Council, the epicenter of intelligence and national-security policy. By working there, Rosen told Franklin a few days later, he would be "by the elbow of the president."
Knowing that such a maneuver was well within AIPAC's capabilities, Franklin asked Rosen to "put in a good word" for him. Rosen agreed. "I'll do what I can," he said, adding that the breakfast meeting had been a real "eye-opener."
Working together, the two men hoped to sell the United States on yet another bloody war. A few miles away, digital recorders at the FBI's Language Services Section captured every word.
Continue reading here
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The War on Lebanon and the Battle for Oil
07/26/06
GlobalResearch
Is there a relationship
between the bombing of Lebanon and the inauguration of the World's
largest strategic pipeline, which will channel more a million
barrels of oil a day to Western markets?
Virtually
unnoticed, the inauguration of the Ceyhan-Tblisi-Baku (BTC) oil
pipeline, which links the Caspian sea to the Eastern
Mediterranean, took place on the 13th of July, at the very
outset of the Israeli sponsored bombings of Lebanon.
One day before
the Israeli air strikes, the main partners and shareholders of
the BTC pipeline project, including several heads of State and
oil company executives were in attendance at the port of Ceyhan.
They were then rushed off for an inauguration reception in
Istanbul, hosted by Turkey's President Ahmet Necdet Sezer in
the plush surroundings of the Çırağan Palace.
Also in
attendance was
British Petroleum's (BP) CEO, Lord Browne together with
senior government officials from Britain, the US and Israel. BP
leads the BTC pipeline consortium. Other major Western
shareholders include Chevron, Conoco-Phillips, France's Total
and Italy's ENI. (see Annex)
Israel's
Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Binyamin Ben-Eliezer was
present at the venue together with a delegation of top Israeli
oil officials.
The BTC pipeline
totally bypasses the territory of the Russian Federation. It
transits through the former Soviet republics of Azerbaijan and
Georgia, both of which have become US "protectorates", firmly
integrated into a military alliance with the US and NATO.
They were then rushed off for an inauguration reception in
Istanbul, hosted by Turkey's President Ahmet Necdet Sezer in
the plush surroundings of the Çırağan Palace.
Also in
attendance was
British Petroleum's (BP) CEO, Lord Browne together with
senior government officials from Britain, the US and Israel. BP
leads the BTC pipeline consortium. Other major Western
shareholders include Chevron, Conoco-Phillips, France's Total
and Italy's ENI. (see Annex)
Israel's
Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Binyamin Ben-Eliezer was
present at the venue together with a delegation of top Israeli
oil officials.
The BTC pipeline
totally bypasses the territory of the Russian Federation. It
transits through the former Soviet republics of Azerbaijan and
Georgia, both of which have become US "protectorates", firmly
integrated into a military alliance with the US and NATO.
Moreover, both Azerbaijan and Georgia have longstanding military
cooperation agreements with Israel. In 2005, Georgian companies
received some $24 million in military contracts funded out of
U.S. military assistance to Israel under the so-called "Foreign
Military Financing (FMF) program".
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/states/GA.html
Israel has a stake in the
Azeri oil fields, from which it imports some twenty percent of
its oil. The opening of the pipeline will substantially enhance
Israeli oil imports from the Caspian sea basin.
But there is another dimension which directly relates to the war
on Lebanon. Whereas Russia has been weakened, Israel is slated
to play a major strategic role in "protecting" the Eastern
Mediterranean transport and pipeline corridors out of Ceyhan.
Militarization of the Eastern Mediterranean
The bombing of
Lebanon is part of a carefully planned and coordinated military
road map. The extension of the war into Syria and Iran has
already been contemplated by US and Israeli military planners.
This broader military agenda is intimately related to strategic
oil and oil pipelines. It is supported by the Western oil giants
which control the pipeline corridors. In the context of the war
on Lebanon, it seeks Israeli territorial control over the East
Mediterranean coastline.
In this context,
the BTC pipeline dominated by British Petroleum, has
dramatically changed the geopolitics of the Eastern
Mediterranean, which is now linked , through an energy corridor,
to the Caspian sea basin:
"[The BTC
pipeline] considerably changes the status of the region's
countries and cements a new pro-West alliance. Having taken
the pipeline to the Mediterranean, Washington has
practically set up a new bloc with Azerbaijan, Georgia,
Turkey and Israel, " (Komerzant, Moscow, 14 July 2006)
Israel is now
part of the Anglo-American military axis, which serves the
interests of the Western oil giants in the Middle East and
Central Asia.
While the
official reports state that the BTC pipeline will "channel oil
to Western markets", what is rarely acknowledged is that part of
the oil from the Caspian sea would be directly channeled towards
Israel. In this regard, an underwater Israeli-Turkish pipeline
project has been envisaged which would link Ceyhan to the
Israeli port of Ashkelon and from there through Israel's main
pipeline system, to the Red Sea.
The objective of
Israel is not only to acquire Caspian sea oil for its own
consumption needs but also to play a key role in re-exporting
Caspian sea oil back to the Asian markets through the Red Sea
port of Eilat. The strategic implications of this re-routing of
Caspian sea oil are farreaching.
In April 2006,
Israel and Turkey announced plans for four underwater pipelines,
which would bypass Syrian and Lebanese territory.
"Turkey
and Israel are negotiating the construction of a
multi-million-dollar energy and water project that will
transport water, electricity, natural gas and oil by
pipelines to Israel, with the oil to be sent onward from
Israel to the Far East,
The new
Turkish-Israeli proposal under discussion would see the
transfer of water, electricity, natural gas and oil to
Israel via four underwater pipelines.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1145961328841&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
"Baku oil
can be transported to Ashkelon via this new pipeline and to
India and the Far East.[via the Red sea]"
"Ceyhan
and the Mediterranean port of Ashkelon are situated only 400
km apart. Oil can be transported to the city in tankers or
via specially constructed under-water pipeline. From
Ashkelon the oil can be pumped through already existing
pipeline to the port of Eilat at the Red Sea; and from there
it can be transported to India and other Asian countries in
tankers. (REGNUM
)
Water for
Israel
Also involved in
this project is a pipeline to bring water to Israel, pumping
water from upstream resources of the Tigris and Euphrates river
system in Anatolia. This has been a long-run strategic objective
of Israel to the detriment of Syria and Iraq. Israel's agenda
with regard to water is supported by the military cooperation
agreement between Tel Aviv and Ankara.
The
Re-routing of Central Asian Oil
Diverting
Central Asian oil and gas to the Eastern Mediterranean (under
Israeli military protection), for re-export to Asia, serves to
undermine the inter-Asian energy market, which is based on the
development of direct pipeline corridors linking Central Asia
and Russia to South Asia, China and the Far East.
Ultimately, this
design is intended to weaken Russia's role in Central Asia and
cut off China from Central Asian oil resources. It is also
intended to isolate Iran.
Meanwhile,
Israel has emerged as a new powerful player in the global energy
market.
War and Oil
Pipelines
Prior to the
bombing of Lebanon, Israel and Turkey had announced the
underwater pipeline routes, which bypassed Syria and Lebanon.
These underwater pipeline routes did not overtly encroach on the
territorial sovereignty of Lebanon and Syria.
On the other
hand, the development of alternative land based corridors (for
oil and water) through Lebanon and Syria would require
Israeli-Turkish territorial control over the Eastern
Mediterranean coastline through Lebanon and Syria.
The
implementation of this project requires the militarisation of
the East Mediterranean coastline, sea ways and land routes,
extending from the port of Ceyhan across Syria and Lebanon to
the Lebanese-Israeli border.
Is this not one of the hidden objectives of the war on Lebanon?
Open up a space which enables Israel to control a vast territory
extending from the Lebanese border through Syria to Turkey.
"The Long
War"
Israeli Prime
minister Ehud Olmert has stated that the Israeli offensive
against Lebanon would "last a very long time". Meanwhile, the US
has speeded up weapons shipments to Israel.
There are
strategic objectives underlying the "Long War" which are tied to
oil and oil pipelines.
The air campaign
against Lebanon is inextricably related to US-Israeli strategic
objectives in the broader Middle East including Syria and Iran.
In recent developments, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice
stated that the main purpose of her mission to the Middle East
was not to push for a ceasefire in Lebanon, but rather to
isolate Syria and Iran. (Daily Telegraph, 22 July 2006)
At this
particular juncture, the replenishing of Israeli stockpiles of
US produced WMDs points to an escalation of the war both within
and beyond the borders of Lebanon.
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The silent minority
Ian Black from Jerusalem
Friday July 28, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Condoleezza Rice hardly noticed the small demonstration outside the Jerusalem hotel, when she arrived from Beirut for her meeting with Ehud Olmert.
The US secretary of state probably didn't even hear the slogans as her cavalcade swept up to a side entrance under heavy security. "Go home Condi," they chanted. "War is terrorism with a bigger budget," read one neatly written placard. The handful of Israeli anti-war activists were almost outnumbered by policemen but their voices are in any case being drowned out by overwhelming public support for the fight against Hizbullah in Lebanon.
There is plenty of voluble criticism in this ever fractious country about the way the war is being conducted, but heavy losses in one fierce battle on Wednesday - nine soldiers killed - have hardened the national mood.
Last weekend, 2,500 demonstrators turned out in Tel Aviv, but many were Israeli Arabs and radical left-wingers far from the political mainstream. A smaller demonstration in Haifa on Tuesday had to be postponed because air raid sirens wailed to warn of incoming missiles and protesters scattered to the shelters. Overall there is no traction to the anti-war movement.
"The left has been completely marginalised," said the veteran leftist and peace activist Chaim Baram. "It's never been as bad. It is true that no sovereign state could stand rocket attacks like these. But they are only a nuisance and the response is disproportionate, destroying infrastructure and killing children. The difference of quantity is a difference of quality."
Plenty of doves and liberals worry too about the proportionality of Israel's offensive agsinst Lebanon, while acknowledging that Hizbullah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and his Iranian ally are dangerous and fanatical enemies. But there has been fierce condemnation of those who have spoken out forcefully against Ehud Olmert's government. Support from the US, happy to see Israel take on Tehran's militant protégé, as well as hurting Syria, has given the prime minister unusual freedom of manoeuvre.
"Screw them all," snarled one young Israeli who was watching the demonstrators as Ms Rice disappeared into the hotel. "Let's kill Nasrallah and then we can all go home." The contrast with the last war in Lebanon could hardly be greater. Back in 1982 Israel saw the biggest peace rallies in its history, with many thousands opposing Menachem Begin's "war of choice" and turning out in even larger numbers when Christian militiamen massacred Palestinians in Beirut, while Israeli troops stood by.
Protests have been muted because the Hizbullah raid that began this latest round on July 12 is seen as a deliberately provocative act of aggression by an extremist Islamist organisation that ignores Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon six years ago, as certified by the UN.
Israel does still occupy a small area called the Shebaa Farms, on the disputed border between Lebanon and Syria. But it has signalled it will evacuate the area as part of an overall settlement with Lebanon.
It is correct too, that Hizbullah's rockets are not an existential threat. But foreign observers would be wrong to underestimate the pressure on Olmert's untried coalition government because of worries about maintaining deterrence, difficulties with civilian morale in the north and the damage to the economy, at what should be the height of the tourist season.
Criticism of the scale and ferocity of Israel's response has been limited too because much of the left was already demoralised by the stagnation in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process since Ariel Sharon's unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the victory of the Islamist movement Hamas in the Palestinian elections.
Gaza has now been under siege for months, with violence reaching new heights since the abduction of a young soldier and heavy-handed Israeli attempts to stop the firing of Qassam rockets across the border. With attention now focused on Lebanon, over 100 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli raids in the last few days alone. But even those Israelis with clear-cut views about the Palestinian issues find themselves confused by the current conflict.
"I am a man of the left and I want peace, but this is a very strange war," said the Jerusalem academic Eli Shaltiel. "Hizbullah and (Iran's president) Ahmedinejad want to kill me just because I am a Jew. I despise them. On the other we are destroying half of Lebanon. Did we really have to turn 750,000 people into refugees? Maybe it could have been done otherwise?"
Zohara Antebi, the founder of a women's organisation that demanded Israel's pullout from Lebanon in 2000, is concerned about proportionality but not about the principle of hitting back.
"War is a tragedy," Ms Antebi said on one of the many TV chat shows where this crisis is being endlessly discussed. "I can only hope that this ends quickly. People on the right say I am unpatriotic because I want to pull back from the West Bank into our own borders. But we do have to be strong inside those borders." Israeli public opinion can be volatile in wartime, and a change of mood cannot be ruled out if the fighting goes on for much longer and there are more losses without a clear blow to Hizbullah.
"People know this is not going well," said the historian and Ha'aretz commentator Tom Segev. "Israelis like wars that we win." But Condi Rice is unlikely to find many more demonstrators waiting for her when she returns to Jerusalem over the weekend. US secretaries of state are used to encountering protests in Jerusalem. After the 1973 war Henry Kissinger was booed by Jewish settlers carrying black umbrellas - the reference was to Neville Chamberlain and Munich- to signal contempt for "appeasing" Israel's Arab enemies by pressure for withdrawals from conquered territory.
This time is different because - for the moment at least - America is cheering Israel on.
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How Much Longer?
By Eduardo Galeano
07/28/06 "IPS"
One country bombed two countries. Such impunity might astound were it not business as usual. In response to the few timid protests from the international community, Israel said mistakes were made.
How much longer will horrors be called mistakes?
This slaughter of civilians began with the kidnapping of a soldier.
How much longer will the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier be allowed to justify the kidnapping of Palestinian sovereignty?
How much longer will the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers be allowed to justify the kidnapping of the entire nation of Lebanon?
For centuries the slaughter of Jews was the favorite sport of Europeans. Auschwitz was the natural culmination of an ancient river of terror, which had flowed across all of Europe.
How much longer will Palestinians and other Arabs be made to pay for crimes they didn't commit?
Hezbollah didn't exist when Israel razed Lebanon in earlier invasions.
How much longer will we continue to believe the story of this attacked attacker, which practices terrorism because it has the right to defend itself from terrorism?
Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon: How much longer will Israel and the United States be allowed to exterminate countries with impunity?
The tortures of Abu Ghraib, which triggered a certain universal sickness, are nothing new to us in Latin America. Our militaries learned their interrogation techniques from the School of the Americas, which may no longer exist in name but lives on in effect.
How much longer will we continue to accept that torture can be legitimized?
Israel has ignored forty-six resolutions of the General Assembly and other U.N. bodies.
How much longer will Israel enjoy the privilege of selective deafness?
The United Nations makes recommendations but never decisions. When it does decide, the United States makes sure the decision is blocked. In the U.N. Security Council, the U.S. has vetoed forty resolutions condemning actions of Israel.
How much longer will the United Nations act as if it were just another name for the United States?
Since the Palestinians had their homes confiscated and their land taken from them, much blood has flowed.
How much longer will blood flow so that force can justify what law denies?
History is repeated day after day, year after year, and ten Arabs die for every one Israeli. How much longer will an Israeli life be measured as worth ten Arab lives?
In proportion to the overall population, the 50,000 civilians killed in Iraq-the majority of them women and children-are the equivalent of 800,000 Americans.
How much longer will we continue to accept, as if customary, the killing of Iraqis in a blind war that has forgotten all of its justifications?
Iran is developing nuclear energy, but the so-called international community is not concerned in the least by the fact that Israel already has 250 atomic bombs, despite the fact that the country lives permanently on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Who calibrates the universal dangerometer? Was Iran the country that dropped atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima?
In the age of globalization, the right to express is less powerful than the right to apply pressure. To justify the illegal occupation of Palestinian territory, war is called peace. The Israelis are patriots, and the Palestinians are terrorists, and terrorists sow universal alarm.
How much longer will the media broadcast fear instead of news?
The slaughter happening today, which is not the first and I fear will not be the last, is happening in silence. Has the world gone deaf?
How much longer will the outcry of the outraged be sounded on a bell of straw?
The bombing is killing children, more than a third of the victims.
Those who dare denounce this murder are called anti-Semites.
How much longer will the critics of state terrorism be considered anti-Semites?
How much longer will we accept this grotesque form of extortion?
Are the Jews who are horrified by what is being done in their name anti-Semites? Are there not Arab voices that defend a Palestinian homeland but condemn fundamentalist insanity?
Terrorists resemble one another: state terrorists, respectable members of government, and private terrorists, madmen acting alone or in those organized in groups hard at work since the Cold War battling communist totalitarianism. All act in the name of various gods, whether God, Allah, or Jehovah.
How much longer will we ignore that fact that all terrorists scorn human life and feed off of one another?
Isn't it clear that in the war between Israel and Hezbollah, it is the civilians, Lebanese, Palestinian, and Israeli, who are dying?
And isn't it clear that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the invasion of Gaza and Lebanon are the incubators of hatred, producing fanatic after fanatic after fanatic?
We are the only species of animal that specializes in mutual extermination.
We devote $2.5 billion per day to military spending. Misery and war are children of the same father.
How much longer will we accept that this world so in love with death is the only world possible? U
Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan writer and journalist, is author of "Open Veins of Latin America" and "Memory of Fire." This article is published with permission of IPS Columnist Service.
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Is It A Global Power Struggle?
Russia Outlaws 17 Terror Groups; Hamas, Hezbollah Not Included
Created: 28.07.2006 11:59 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 11:59 MSK
MosNews
The Russian government has issued a list of 17 terrorist groups whose activities it has banned. The list was published by the Rossiiskaya Gazeta daily Friday. Although al-Qaeda and several other influential groups are included, neither Hamas nor Hezbollah are on the list.
Among the groups outlawed by the decree signed by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov earlier this week are Chechen-linked Shura of the United Forces of the Mujahadeen of the Caucasus, the Congress of the Peoples of Ichkeria and Daghestan, international networks such as al-Qaeda, "The holy war" ("Al-Jihad" or the "Egyptian Islamic Jihad"), "The Islamic group" ("Al-Jamaa al-Islami"), "The Muslim Brotherhood" ("Al-Ikhvan al-Muslimun"), the Taliban, "The Islamic Jihad" and several others.
Alexander Novokshenov, a senior prosecutor official at the General Prosecutor's Office, has explained to the RIA-Novosti news agency that the majority of these names have been known since 2003, only two have been added recently.
Remarkably, the Russian government's official list of the 17 international terrorist organizations signed by Fradkov this week does not include Hezbollah and Hamas, blacklisted by the United States and other western nations.
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Russia signs deal with Venezuela to sell military planes
www.chinaview.cn 2006-07-27 20:15:16
MOSCOW, July 27 (Xinhua) -- Russia has signed a deal with Venezuela to sell 24 warplanes and 53 helicopters to the Latin American country, the Interfax news agency reported on Thursday.
Russia and Venezuela have signed arms contracts for more than 3 billion U.S. dollars in the past 18 months, including supplying 24 warplanes and 53 combat helicopters to Venezuela, Sergei Chemezov, head of Russia's state arms-trading agency, Rosoboron export, was quoted as saying.
Chemezov, who made the remarks on the sidelines of the meeting between President Vladimir Putin and visiting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, did not elaborate on what types of planes Russia will provide to Venezuela.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said last week that Russia had struck a deal of 1 billion U.S. dollars with Venezuela to sell 30 Sukhoi-30 fighters and as many helicopters to the country.
The United States has expressed concern over Russia's plan to sell fighter jets to the South American nation, but Russia defended its military cooperation with Venezuela on Wednesday, saying the cooperation is "in full accordance with international and Russian legal norms."
Chavez, who is in town for a three-day visit, thanked Russia for the arms deal after talks with Putin in the Kremlin.
"Russia has stretched out its hand to us in the face of international pressure, even an embargo on us in this field," Chavez said.
The U.S. government has forbidden U.S. manufacturers to sell arms to Venezuela, accusing the country of not being "a reliable partner in the war on terror."
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South America: Hugo Chávez to the fore
Álvaro Vargas Llosa
Published: July 27, 2006
While the world was focused on the tragic events taking place in Lebanon and northern Israel, something very disturbing happened in South America last week.
The trading bloc known as Mercosur (the South American common market), at its summit meeting in the Argentine city of Cordoba, formally supported Venezuela's bid for one of the two Latin American seats on the United Nations Security Council.
President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela had worked the summit to make sure he could defeat Guatemala, Washington's preferred candidate, and gain the coveted seat when Argentina's two-year term expires in October.
Chávez wants to become a world power broker as a member of the Security Council that will deal with highly sensitive issues such as Iran and North Korea. The seat would also make him the voice of Latin America at the UN.
Mercosur comprises Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and, as of last week, Venezuela - with Chile, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia as associate members. The formal declaration of support means that most of South America is now behind Chávez's bid.
Until the summit, there was a chance that Chile, whose moderate left-wing government follows a very different path than the one chosen by Chávez, would promote a third candidacy, perhaps with the support of Peru's new president, Alan Garcia.
But President Michelle Bachelet of Chile is strenuously attempting to bring her country into the South American political fold after many years of what was perceived as Chile's aloofness and even arrogance due to its economic success.
It is hard to see how she would stand up to the Mercosur trading bloc, especially after the announcement was made in her presence and she did not express any reservations.
Adding insult to the injury, Mercosur invited Fidel Castro to the summit and signed a "trade" deal with him that was more political than commercial, while the host nation, Argentina, provided him with a platform for a three-hour speech at the University of Cordoba in which he defended everything that Mercosur is supposedly against: one- party rule, jailing political opponents, ideological confrontation with the United States and a socialist economy.
So, have the Mercosur countries all gone bananas? Yes. Forget the fact that Chávez is offering to supply natural gas to the Southern Cone countries through a 5,000-mile pipeline. What's really driving these countries are an inferiority complex, ideological adultery and an economic misconception.
The inferiority complex is a case of reverse nordomania. The term - a mania for all things northern - was coined by Uruguayan writer José Enrique Rodó a century ago to signify what he thought was a Latin American tendency to copy U.S. materialism.
Today, the moderate left-wing governments of Latin America have shaken off many of their old left vices, but still cling to the superstition that dignity means backing anything that happens to displease the United States even at the cost of Latin America's development.
Ideological adultery comes from the fact that moderate left-wing governments are married to democracy and private enterprise at home - the boring spouse - but unleash their carnal instincts on Chávez - the voluptuous lover - in matters of foreign policy.
They would not dream of destroying their own democratic systems, sending mobs to beat up opponents, expropriating agricultural and industrial businesses, protecting Colombian terrorists and making crude comments about the U.S. secretary of state.
But they love to make up for their moderate behavior at home by throwing at their barking constituents the crumbs of (occasional) foreign policy radicalism. Start by drinking holy water and you will end up believing, said French philosopher Blaise Pascal. Mercosur countries would do well to heed these words.
And, finally, the economic misconception resides in the belief that economic power comes from regional protectionism. Since its creation in 1991, Mercosur has failed to generate wealth because it reproduced at the regional level the national barriers to the free flow of goods, services, ideas and people.
The result has been constant dispute - from the one between Brazil and Argentina over car exports to the current brawl between Argentina and neighboring Uruguay over the latter country's green light to the construction of two pulp mills near the border.
Chile, the best economy in the region, has not joined Mercosur because the rules forbid member countries from pursuing open trade with nations outside the bloc. The protectionism of Mercosur will be reinforced by Venezuela's incorporation.
These - and not Chavez's pipeline - are the main reasons why Mercosur is backing his bid for a seat at the UN Security Council.
His e-mail address is AVLlosa(at symbol)independent.org.
Álvaro Vargas Llosa, author of "Liberty for Latin America," is the director of the Center on Global Prosperity at the Independent Institute.
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Russia Warns Georgia Against Using Force in Breakaway Abkhazia
Created: 28.07.2006 12:25 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 12:25 MSK
MosNews
The Georgian authorities "have no chance" of solving the problems of South Ossetia and Abkhazia by using force, the ITAR-TASS news agency quoted Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying on Friday.
Georgian forces launched raids in the Kodori Gorge on July 26, chasing local militia leader Emzar Kvitsiani from the area. Part of the gorge lies within Abkhazia.
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili on July 27 announced that a government-in-exile for the separatist region Abkhazia will be based in the Kodori Gorge.
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Yushchenko Holds Round-Table Talks to End Political Stalemate in Ukraine
Created: 28.07.2006 09:43 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 11:18 MSK
MosNews
President Viktor Yushchenko held crisis-talks to find a way out of Ukraine's political stalemate, but his appeal for compromise was shattered when lawmaker and former ally Yulia Tymoshenko lashed out against what she termed calls for artificial unity, AP reports.
"In not a single democratic country in the world is it possible to unite all political forces," said Tymoshenko, one of the leaders of the 2004 Orange Revolution, in an angry speech during the round-table discussions. "As a rule, there are those in power and the opposition."
The ex-Soviet republic has been locked in turmoil since Viktor Yanukovych's pro-Russian Party of Regions won the most seats in a March parliamentary election, besting the pro-Western reformers who backed Yushchenko, but falling short of a majority.
Yushchenko's allies teamed up with Tymoshenko's bloc and the Socialist Party to create a majority coalition in June, but the Socialists defected before it had time to form a new government. The Socialists united with the Party of Regions and the Communists in a new coalition that proposed Yanukovych as prime minister.
Fraud allegations during Yanukovych's run for the presidency against Yushchenko in 2004 triggered the massive protests known as the Orange Revolution; the Supreme Court declared the vote invalid, and Yushchenko defeated Yanukovych in a rerun.
Yushchenko so far has not forwarded Yanukovych's nomination as premier to the parliament. But because the parliament convened more than 60 days ago without forming a government, Yushchenko technically has the right to dissolve the legislature and call new elections.
Faced with the equally unattractive prospects of calling new elections or allowing his foe to become prime minister, Yushchenko has been casting desperately for a solution as the Aug. 2 deadline to decide on Yanukovych's candidacy approaches.
"The moment of truth has come, we need to make a decision," Yushchenko said at the start of the round-table, which was televised live.
Yushchenko proposed that all the parties sign a memorandum of national unity which would safeguard freedom of speech, Ukraine's territorial integrity, liberal economic reforms, European integration efforts and support for a single national language, Ukrainian.
But when the leaders began discussing the memorandum, discussion over whether Ukraine should join NATO sparked heated debate. The Socialists and Communists oppose NATO membership, while Yushchenko countered that cooperation with the alliance was the only way to provide security to Ukraine.
After Yushchenko and Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko exchanged barbs over NATO and the issue of creating a single Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Tymoshenko said the sharp disagreements were an example of why a broad coalition would not work.
"Why should we have two centers of power that rule the country with different courses ... it is only a matter of time before they clash," she said.
But Yanukovych, who is seeking Yushchenko's support, appeared eager to find a compromise. He said that "cooperation with NATO is natural."
However, after six hours of talks, the party-leaders failed to reach an agreement on the text of the memorandum. Yushchenko ordered a working group to hash out differences and prepare a final document by Friday morning.
The tension in the room was obvious, even without the main issue - Yanukovych's premiership - being addressed. When Yanukovych went into a long-winded speech, Yushchenko pointedly interrupted to tell him he had been speaking too long.
Yushchenko ally Roman Bezsmertny said that the president's bloc was willing to work with the Party of Regions, but only if a new coalition of national unity was formed. "Today all of us must think first of all about unity," he said.
Ukraine remains deeply divided between the Russian-speaking east, which supports Yanukovych, and the Ukrainian-speaking west, which considers a Yanukovych premiership a betrayal of the Orange Revolution.
Tymoshenko pressed the president to reject any union with Yanukovych, urging him to dissolve parliament and call new elections. Yushchenko has appeared reluctant to take such a drastic step.
The Party of Regions suggested earlier Thursday that it was ready for some compromises, but would refuse to discuss dropping Yanukovych.
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Somali minister shot dead
Friday 28 July 2006, 16:17 Makka Time, 13:17 GMT
A minister in Somalia's transitional national government has been shot dead in a new blow to the country's internationally recognised but virtually powerless administration.
Abdallah Deerow Isaq, the Constitution and Federalism Minister, was killed as he left Friday prayers in the town of Baidoa - seat of the fragile interim Somali government.
"It looks like an organised assassination," Mohamed Abdi Hayr, the Somali information minister said.
"So far we do not know who did it. They shot him as he was leaving the mosque then ran off. Police are chasing the gunmen."
The government was formed in 2004 as the 14th attempt to restore central rule to Somalia since the 1991 overthrow of military ruler Mohammed Siad Barre.
It has been unable to halt the rise to power of the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia - an Islamist militia that took control of the capital Mogadishu and other towns in June.
Deerow was not among the 18 ministers who resigned from the administration on Thursday, complaining about the government's inability to stabilise the African nation.
Also on Friday, fighters loyal to the Islamist group closed roads around the capital's airport and chased away onlookers while a large cargo plane was unloaded of unidentified cargo.
A similar aircraft landed on Wednesday, and officials from the transitional government accused Eritrea of sending arms to the militants.
Local people said several trucks came to collect the delivery from the airport.
"The Islamists are arming themselves and now we have to wait for fighting," said Abdullahi Ali, a local man.
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Aussie peacekeepers 'may go to Lebanon'
The Age
July 28, 2006
Australia may send a small number of peacekeepers to southern Lebanon once a ceasefire is declared, but only in a specialist or command roles, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said on Friday.
Mr Downer had closed-door talks with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and EU foreign policy tsar Javier Solana on the sidelines of an ASEAN security summit in Malaysia, telling both that Canberra would not rule out a peacekeeping role for Lebanon.
But it would not involve large numbers of troops as Australian Defence Force (ADF) are already stretched by security operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and East Timor.
"I suspect that the only role you could conceive for the ADF in this situation, and it's possible there could be some role, would be a niche role of some kind or other, or else some kind of leadership role," Mr Downer said.
"But sending battalions of infantry, that's not going to happen."
Mr Downer made his comments as a demonstration raged outside the venue of the Kuala Lumpur ASEAN Regional Forum meeting.
Riot police held back as demonstrators burned flags near the conference centre in protest at the hands-off approach by the US to Israel's bombing in south Lebanon.
This week, a high-level Middle East conference in Rome ended in disagreement, with most European leaders urging an immediate ceasefire, but the US was willing to give Israel more time to punish the guerilla group.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has reportedly interpreted this as a green light to continue Israel's offensive.
Dr Rice has made clear the ultimate deal to end the crisis will be between Israel and Lebanon, and not the Hizbollah militants who the US says have formed "state within a state".
Mr Downer said there was a strong case for an international intervention force in southern Lebanon and discussions were underway on what shape it would take.
"But that international intervention force will have to go in in an environment where there is a ceasefire, and to provide security in the southern part of Lebanon, and to facilitate the Lebanese army taking back control of that part of the country," he said.
"There will be a ceasefire very quickly when Hizbollah make it clear they are going to withdraw from southern Lebanon," Mr Downer said.
Mr Downer and Dr Rice also discussed the nuclear standoff with North Korea and the recent test-firing of seven missiles by the reclusive Stalinist nation, including several that possibly could reach Australia.
He said new talks involving Indonesia, Malaysia, Canada, Australia and New Zealand along with so-called Six-Party negotiation participants like the US, South Korea, Japan and the China would help broaden the focus of crisis diplomacy with Pyongyang.
"It makes for a more significant regional input," Mr Downer said.
"Their isolation is substantial, if not complete, and they have to understand that minister after minister in the ASEAN Regional Forum has called for them to resume negotiations in the six-party talks and to introduce a moratorium on missile testing."
Mr Downer said even China was exasperated with North Korea's intransigence, saying that Pyongyang was facing a "cold and lonely" international shutout.
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Or Preparing For Disaster?
Moderate earthquake shakes small islands in southwestern Japan
Friday July 28, 2006
TOKYO (AP): A moderate earthquake of preliminary magnitude 5.9 shook a group of small islands in southwestern Japan on Friday, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries, officials said.
There was no fear of tsunami, huge waves caused by undersea disturbances or volcanic activities, from the 4:40 p.m. (0740 GMT) temblor, the Meteorological Agency said in a statement.
The quake struck near Yonaguni island, about 2,120 kilometers (1,310 miles) southwest of Tokyo, and was centered about 40 kilometers (25 miles) under the ocean floor, the agency said.
Tatsuki Yara, spokesman of the Okinawa prefectural (state) police, said there were no reports of damage or injuries from the tremor.
Japan sits atop four tectonic plates and is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world.
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Strong Earthquake Hits Off Taiwan
The Associated Press
Friday, July 28, 2006; 5:49 AM
TAIPEI, Taiwan -- A 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Taiwan on Friday, rocking buildings in the capital but causing no damage or casualties, the Central Weather Bureau said.
The quake's epicenter was located about 90 miles southeast of Taipei, the bureau said. Japan's Meteorological Agency said there was no threat of a tsunami.
The quake was also felt in the Yonaguni islands in southwestern Japan, but there were no reports of damage or injuries there either, officials said.
Taiwan's weather bureau warned against aftershocks, but said they were not expected to cause any damage because of the epicenter's distance from the island.
Quakes frequently rattle Taiwan, but most are minor and cause little or no damage. However, a 7.6-magnitude earthquake in central Taiwan in September 1999 killed more than 2,300 people.
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Rumbling volcano forces thousands to leave homes in Indonesia
Last Updated Fri, 28 Jul 2006 05:11:13 EDT
The Associated Press
Thousands of villagers were evacuated after a volcano on an island in eastern Indonesia started spewing lava and hot clouds, officials said Friday. There were no reports of casualties.
Mount Karangetang, one of the country's most active mountains, has been rumbling for weeks.
Lava and hot ash avalanched 685 metres down the volcano's slopes on Thursday, its second eruption since July 17, said Saut Simatupang, chief researcher at the government's volcanology agency.
Nearly 4,000 people were evacuated from five villages, said Iskandar Gobel, a North Sulawesi provincial official, and police in the area said more would likely leave in coming days.
Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago, is prone to seismic upheaval because of its location on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.
Karangetan is on Siau, part of the Sulawesi island chain, which has not been affected by a recent string of natural disasters in the country.
A massive earthquake off Java triggered a tsunami earlier this month that left 600 dead and a temblor on the same island in May killed 5,800. Mount Merapi, also on Java, has seen heightened activity in recent months.
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Three-week heatwave claims 64 lives in France
PARIS, July 27, 2006 (AFP)
France and Italy on Thursday reported new victims of a lethal heatwave that has engulfed Europe for the last two weeks, bringing the total death toll to more than 80 people.
High temperatures persisted in northern Italy, Germany and southeast Europe, but forecasters predicted that spreading storms and rain would bring respite to many areas of the baking continent.
Rain would come as welcome relief to farmers, who in many countries have reported withering crops, and would also help boost perilously low water levels.
The French health-monitoring authority InVS updated the death toll in France to 64, from a previous estimate of 40, and the heat was also blamed for a further three deaths in the north of Italy.
This year, there has been no repetition of the massive loss of life caused by the last major heatwave in 2003 when in France alone 15,000 people died.
Factors such as greater awareness, slightly lower temperatures and preventative action by governments to protect the elderly are thought to have helped limit the number of deaths.
The director of the French InVS health monitoring body, Gilles Brucker, warned that the number of deaths could rise in France, even though wet weather lowered temperatures across most of France on Thursday.
Separately on Thursday, French weather office Meteo-France announced that July had been the hottest month on record, on average three to four degrees Celsius above the norm.
In Italy, a victim was found dead in his apartment in Padua and two elderly people also died, one in his garden near Padua and the other in north Lombardy during a walk to cool down.
Italian Agriculture Minister Paolo de Castra called the heatwave "dramatic" in an interview with newspaper La Repubblica and authorities have estimated the damage to the country's agricultural sector at about 500 million euros (637 million dollars).
Figures showing the fall in water levels in Italy were also cause for concern.
The level of the River Po, which runs across the north of Italy, fell by seven centimetres (2.8 inches) on Wednesday at one measuring station.
On Wednesday, French Environment Minister Nelly Olin had warned that groundwater levels in the Paris region were at their lowest level in 20 years and said that water restrictions were in place for nearly half of the country.
"It needs to rain without storms. That would be the ideal situation but I don't think we're there yet today," she told French television channel France 2.
In Germany, temperatures were back above 30 degrees Celsius on Thursday, after storms the night before, and a motorway was closed after concrete sections cracked and lifted in the heat.
The A5 highway near the western city of Frankfurt was set to undergo emergency repairs overnight Friday after pieces of the surface lifted 20 to 30 centimetres.
Temperatures in Germany were expected to reach 38 degrees Celsius in some parts on Thursday before cooling over the weekend when more storms were forecast.
On Wednesday night, storms above Paris led to the diversion of three Air France planes to Lille airport in the north of the country and caused 152 emergency incidents attended by the Paris fire service.
Farmers in France, the Netherlands, Poland, and Latvia have all warned about the impact of the heat on their harvests this summer.
On Thursday, a leading mushroom expert in the Czech Republic raised the alarm, saying that one of the nation's favourite hobbies, picking mushrooms, was being endangered by the drought.
"The situation is really very bad," expert Miroslav Smotlacha told the news agency CTK.
About two thirds of Czech people are thought to pick wild mushrooms on a fairly regular basis, but this year a lack of rain has stunted growth of the edible fungi.
In France, there was also a warning that the heat had hit lavender plantations, the fragrant crop that forms part of the identity of the Provence region in southeast France.
Maryse Milesi, head of the National Federation of Lavender Producers, said that crops would be 10-30 percent lower than normal in the southeast.
In Spain, where nine people have died so far from the heat, temperatures fell by two to five degrees Celsius on Thursday, particularly in the north where storms and rain were expected.
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Heat-Related Deaths Climb in California
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
The New York Times
July 27, 2006
FRESNO, Calif. - A searing heat wave in its second week has been responsible for more than 100 deaths across California, the authorities said, with the coroner's office here forced to double-stack bodies.
Thousands of livestock are also dying from the intense heat. Dairy farmers are using sprinkler systems and shaded barns to try to keep the cows cool.
Most of the deaths were reported in the land-locked Central Valley, the agricultural spine of the state where triple-digit temperatures have been the norm. At least 22 deaths in Fresno County, where funeral homes have offered to help with the backlog at the coroner's office, have been linked to the heat.
"We're just trying to catch up," said Joseph Tiger, a deputy coroner in Fresno. "I have been here 10 years and I have never seen it this bad. Our boss has been here over 20 and he hasn't seen it this bad either. For the last two weeks it has just been unbearable hot."
The governor's Office of Emergency Services said that statewide 53 of the people were confirmed dead by coroners as a result of the heat; the others were presumed to have died from heat-related causes pending autopsies, said Roni Java, a spokeswoman for the office.
Among the dead here was a 38-year-old worker found in a field, an unidentified man around 40 who made it to a hospital emergency room where his body temperature was recorded at 109.9 degrees and a 58-year-old man who was found drunk, officials said. Statewide, Ms. Java said, the youngest heat-related death was a 20-year-old man from San Diego and the eldest a 95-year-old man in Imperial County, near the Mexican border.
A doctor and his assistant toiled here on Thursday in the cornor's office, a building that was fashioned from a converted eye glass factory several years ago with no air conditioning in the key areas. Decomposition has been a problem, said Loralee Cervantes, the Fresno coroner, and bodies have piled up because of the lack of space.
"This has been our biggest challenge," Ms. Cervantes said in an inteview. "It's frustrating."
Many of the suspected heat deaths were among the elderly, who often live as shut ins and will not open windows, she said. The morgue went from 25 to 50 beds recently after getting a bioterrorism grant and rarely has had 25 bodies. On Thursday morning there were 58.
While the Central Valley is used to temperatures crackling in the triple digits this time of year, the evenings tend to be cooler. But with temperatures lingering in the 80s after sunset, mixed with humidity far higher than this region is accustomed to, misery, power shortages and death have followed.
Midday Thursday the mercury had hit 112 in Fresno, though temperatures elsewhere had dropped and weather forecasters were predicting a break in the heat most everywhere in the state by Friday.
In a statement, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger promised that state workers were doing everything possible to prevent additional deaths.
"The summer heat wave continues to be dangerous as California has seen record-breaking, consecutive days of triple-digit temperatures," Mr. Schwarzenegger said. "A mobilized force of local workers will continue to knock on doors and make phone calls to protect our vulnerable residents who may be exposed to the relentless heat."
The record temperatures have also hit the state's farmers hard, with roughly one percent, or 16,500 cows, of the state's dairy herd dying from the heat, according to California Dairies, the state's largest milk cooperative. Further, panting, miserable cows have lowered their milk production between 10 and 20 percent, said trade groups and dairy farmers in the region. California is the largest milk producing state in the country, producing about 12 percent of the country's milk supply, according to trade groups.
Because of the large number of dead cows, the California Department of Food and Agriculture waived a regulation requiring dead animal haulers to transport animals to rendering plants in eight counties in the Central Valley - freeing them to put animals in landfills.
Six counties have declared states of emergencies because of the backlog of dead livestock.
"It is just a bad, bad situation," said Larry Collar, the quality assurance manager for California Dairies. "In 25 years in southern California, this is the most extreme temperatures we have ever seen and the most extreme length of time we have seen."
The high temperatures have also caused problems with field crops around the state.
"We have been having trouble mainly in the Central Valley with the walnuts," said Ann Schmidt-Fogarty, a spokeswoman for the California Farm Bureau. "The intensity of the sun and heat actually burns them inside the shell."
She said that delicate fruits like peaches, nectarines and plums are also ripening unevenly, causing further crop damage.
"Our biggest concern is our people," Ms. Schmidt-Fogarty said. "We make sure they are very hydrated and some are working half days."
At the Te Velde dairy farm in Bakersfield, about 100 miles south of here, 16 cows have perished over the last 11 days, when temperatures hovered well over 100 degrees daily, and 12 more were sent to slaughter because they could not handle the heat, said Ralph Te Velde, 59, who has run his family farm for three decades.
The remainder of his 1,600 cows sought relief under a patch of water misters Thursday morning, and by 9:30 a.m. some were already showing the telltale signs of distress, their fat pink tongues hanging dangling to their chin.
One cow, her five-minute-old baby being licked by a neighboring sow a few feet away, was being hosed down by Mr. Te Velde's son. At the end of the lot was a pile of dead cows, their bodies in a twisted black and white mass.
Mr. Te Velde and other dairy farmers have struggled to get rendering companies to come and get dead livestock. "The main challenge is a disposal challenge in the Central Valley," said Steve Lyle, a spokesman for the California Department of Food and Agriculture.
Mr. Te Velde said his farm usually generates 72 pounds of milk daily per cow, but is now to about 60 pounds this week. He estimates the state may be losing 1.5 million pounds of milk a day.
"The question is, how many farmers can survive this," he said. "You never want to lose animals. We are trying to mist them and mitigate this, keep them happy and what not."
While cows are better accustomed than humans to manage cold temperatures, the heat is not their friend.
"The double whammy for cows," Mr. Collar said, "is that lose heat through their mouth when they breathe, but don't have sweat glands so are unable to dissipate heat. The other thing is that they are ruminant which means they have multi compartment stomach and have bacteria that breaks down food, and that bacteria generates heat."
Dino Giacomazzi, a dairy farmer in Hanford - which sits between Fresno and Bakersfield - said he has been watching Yahoo weather for days, hoping to see the last of the heat.
"We spend a lot of time and money making sure these cows are comfortable all the time," he said. "Because uncomfortable cows don't make milk."
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Flooding in Ohio prompts evacuations
By M.R. KROPKO
Associated Press Writer
July 28, 2006
EASTLAKE, Ohio - Flood water surged into homes and businesses, forcing people to rooftops to await rescue Friday morning after 10 inches of rain filled the rivers and streets of northeast Ohio.
Lake County, east of Cleveland, declared a state of emergency. County Administrator Kenneth R. Gauntner Jr. estimated at least 100 people had been evacuated and all available rescue boats had been pressed into service.
As much as 10 inches of rain fell Thursday and Friday in Lake County, the National Weather Service said.
Firefighters and Coast Guard crews were busy plucking stranded people from flooding homes and searching for a man who disappeared early Friday while moving marina equipment out of high water near the swollen Chagrin River, an outlet to Lake Erie.
Marge Cox, who was rescued from her ranch-style home by firefighters, noticed water trickling into her house early Friday.
"I looked out the window and, 'Oh, my!' Everything was water, everything was flooded. And then it started coming in my house so fast. It went up so fast," she said.
By the time firefighters reached her, the water was up to her mattress. "They got me out of there, but all my furniture is ruined," she said.
The flood water was halfway up the wheels of one fire truck as it inched its way toward a waterfront neighborhood, where several homes were flooded to their first floors. At another location, an inflated raft rescued people from a rooftop.
"I thought we were going to drown," said Jeanette Fattori, 57, who fled her Eastlake home with her husband, grabbing only their prescription medication. "It was just filling up our basement and the only way we got out of there was in a small boat with people from the fire department."
The Grand River was already 4 feet above flood stage in the flooded city of Painesville early Friday and expected to rise another foot, according to the weather service. In Willoughby, the Chagrin River was 2 1/2 feet above flood stage and also rising.
Several storms have pounded the state over the past month, wreaking havoc on riverside homes and low-lying neighborhoods.
"It's just been a very active weather pattern for this part of the country," said Dan Leins, a weather service meteorologist in Cleveland. "When you have weather patterns like this, it's not uncommon to see showers and thunderstorms several nights in a row."
In Eastlake, officials opened City Hall as a temporary shelter.
In nearby Mentor, police helped remove more than 100 children from Ridge Pointe Child Care Center on Thursday as waist-deep water flooding the parking lot began seeping into the building.
Children were pulled through windows and bused to a nearby fire station, where their parents picked them up.
"It was the most organized chaos I have ever seen," said Tonja Schleicher, owner of the day care. "Some of the kids were a little upset, so we just hugged them a little tighter."
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Subaru Telescope Spots Largest Structure In The Universe
SPX
July 28, 2006
Hilo, HI - A team of astronomers using the Subaru and Keck telescopes on Mauna Kea has discovered a giant, three-dimensional filament of galaxies extending across 200 million light-years of space.
The filament, which apparently formed only 2-billion years after the Big Bang, is the largest structure ever discovered. It is studded with more than 30 large concentrations of gas, each up to 10 times as massive as the Milky Way galaxy.
Astronomers think the gas clouds are the progenitors of the most massive galaxies that exist in the present universe.
The finding is considered important, because it gives researchers new insight into the large-scale structure of the cosmos. Previously, astronomers expected the universe to look relatively smooth 2-billion years after the Big Bang.
"Something this large and this dense would have been rare in the early universe," said astronomer Ryosuke Yamauchi of Tohoku University in Japan. "The structure we discovered and others like it are probably the precursors of the largest structures we see today, which contain multiple clusters of galaxies."
The research group used the Subaru telescope to make a detailed study of a region of sky 12-billion light-years away known to have a large concentration of galaxies.
They used the Subaru Suprime-cam camera outfitted with special filters designed to be sensitive to the red-shifted light from galaxies at that distance. The results showed this concentration of galaxies is just a small portion of a much larger structure.
The newly found giant structure contains up to four times more galaxies than the universe's average for a space that large. The other known structures with such a high density are much smaller, measuring about 50-million light-years across.
Using Subaru's Faint Object Camera and Spectrograph to study the 3D distribution of galaxies in the filament, the team also discovered at least three overlapping filaments that make up the giant structure.
Astronomers knew this region contained at least two large concentrations of gas, one of them extending across 400,000 light-years, or more than four times the diameter of the Milky Way.
The researchers found these large concentrations of gas are located near the overlap regions of the filaments.
The Subaru observations also found much fainter objects than previously discovered in the region. For example, they found 33 new large concentrations of gas along the filamentary structure extending across 100,000 light-years.
This is the first time so many large concentrations of gas, known to astronomers as Lyman alpha blobs, have been discovered in the distant universe.
Astronomers think such Lyman alpha blobs - named because since they are seen in the Lyman alpha emission line of hydrogen - are probably related to the births of the largest galaxies.
In the gravitational-heating model of astrophysics, the blobs are regions where gas is collapsing under its own gravity to form a galaxy. In the photo-ionization model, emissions from the gas result from the ionization by ultraviolet light from newborn stars or a massive black hole.
The shock-heating and galactic-superwind models hypothesize that the glow of the gas is caused by the death of many massive stars born early in the history of the universe. They lived out their short lives, then died in supernova explosions that blew out surrounding gas.
Team members Yoshiaki Taniguchi and Yasuhiro Shioya of Ehime University in Japan have been advocating the galactic-superwind model.
Observations with the DEIMOS spectrograph at the Keck II telescope revealed the gas inside the blobs moves with speeds greater than 500 kilometers (300 miles) per second, or more than 1-million miles per hour.
The extent of the gas concentrations and the speed of the material within them suggest these regions must be up to 10 times more massive than the Milky Way.
The blobs show a great variety in shape and brightness. For example, some show bubble-like features that match computer simulations of galactic winds. There also are diffuse blobs and those consisting of several galaxies.
"Galaxies of various sizes surround us," said Yuichi Matsuda of Kyoto University in Japan. "The large gas concentrations we found may tell us a lot about how the largest of these came to be."
The research was published in a series of research papers in the Astronomical Journal and the Astrophysical Journal.
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Russian Buddhists Join International 72-Hour Meditation Marathon
Created: 28.07.2006 14:13 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 14:16 MSK
MosNews
Russian Buddhists on Sunday night are to join the world Buddhist meditation marathon which is aimed at increasing compassion in the world, the Moscow Buddhist Center told Interfax news agency Friday.
"We would like to create a positive energy field beneficial to all people," Oksana Misiura, a representative of the Center, said to the agency.
She also said some people would even take a leave of absence from their jobs to join the global marathon.
"It is simply that a very good feeling arises when you do something meaningful together. Besides, this event will foster the community of idealists throughout the world," she said.
The meditation marathon will start on July 30 at the German city of Kassel, when the participants of a European Buddhist gathering to be held there will begin reading the compassion mantra "Om Mani Peme Hung."
The participants in the marathon will read this mantra for three days and nights in a row, relieving one another and counting the total number of the mantra repetitions. In total, over 100 million mantras are expected to be read throughout the world.
The marathon will be held in 45 countries and will involve 470 Buddhist centers. In Russia, 55 cities and settlements will participate.
The Buddha of Boundless Compassion meditation was started by the Karma Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism and has been observed invariably since the 11th century.
Comment: Come on, folks. That's what we need, is a "good feeling together". It isn't going to change anything, but, hey, at least they'll be feeling better.
If this kind of thing did any good, would the world be in the state it is in? Haven't people been trying these sorts of panaceas for centuries? Wake up! You are being duped. It isn't about "good feelings". It is about learning as much as you can about this reality, about this world, about psychopaths and pathocracy so that you can defend yourselves.
It ain't about "Ommm Sweet Ommm".
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Trouble At Home?
US urged to close all secret detention centers
www.chinaview.cn 2006-07-28 17:58:15
GENEVA, July 28 (Xinhua) -- A UN human rights panel on Friday urged the United States to close all secret detention centers and allow access to those detained in connection with the "anti-terrorism war."
The U.S. "should immediately abolish all secret detention and secret detention facilities," said the UN Human Rights Committee.
The U.S. "should also grant prompt access by the International Committee of the Red Cross to any person detained in connection with an armed conflict," it said.
The committee also urged the U.S. to conduct prompt investigations into all allegations of suspicious deaths and torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment by its agents in detention facilities in Guantanamo, Afghanistan, Iraq and other overseas locations.
The committee, which supervises implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, reviewed periodic reports of the U.S. on how it is implementing provisions of the covenant on July 17-18.
It issued conclusions on Friday on the U.S. review.
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UN body criticises US on rights
Friday, 28 July 2006, 11:39 GMT 12:39 UK
The US should immediately shut all secret detention facilities used in its campaign against terror groups, the UN Human Rights Committee has said.
The committee called on the US to give the International Red Cross prompt access to those held in such jails.
The UN report also covered the domestic human rights situation in the US.
It urged the government to ensure the rights of poor people and blacks are respected in relief efforts.
Both groups were "disadvantaged" in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the UN committee noted.
Treaty's scope
The UN panel said the US should increase its efforts "to ensure the rights of poor people and in particular African-Americans are fully taken into consideration in the reconstruction plans with regard to access to housing, education and health care".
There should also be a moratorium on the death penalty, which appears to be imposed disproportionately on minority groups and poor people, the report concluded.
The committee's findings came after it held a two-day hearing in Geneva last week into US compliance with the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
The US government was expected to respond to the findings later on Friday, the Associated Press news agency reported.
However, in its hearing before the panel, the American delegation said that issues relating to terrorism were largely beyond the treaty's scope.
But the committee on Friday said the US should review that approach and interpret the treaty in good faith.
Closure calls
The committee said it was concerned by "credible and uncontested" information that the US had detained people "secretly and in secret places for months and years".
The US "should only detain persons in places in which they can enjoy the full protection of the law," the report said.
The US authorities should also allow members of the International Committee of the Red Cross to those it is holding in such facilities.
The committee's call comes two months after a separate UN body, the UN Committee against Torture, urged Washington to close its detention camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
Earlier this month, the Bush administration announced that all detainees held by the US military, including those at Guantanamo, were to be treated in line with the minimum standards of the Geneva Conventions.
The shift in policy came after the US Supreme Court ruled that the conventions applied to detainees.
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9 killed in Seattle in as many days
By GENE JOHNSON
Associated Press
Thu Jul 27, 2006
SEATTLE - A 3-year-old boy, his throat slit, dies along with his brother, mother and aunt while his father is serving in
Iraq. Hikers find a librarian and her daughter shot to death along a trail. A group of young men are fired on when they pull their car into a driveway.
The crimes left nine people dead in as many days, stunning this generally peaceful region. Law enforcement officials said they couldn't recall a similar string of multiple homicides in the Seattle area.
"What's really strange about them, besides the quantity, is that every one of these cases is very bizarre," King County Sheriff's Sgt. John Urquhart said. "We just don't have that."
The Seattle area is no stranger to horrific crimes - serial killers Gary Ridgway and Ted Bundy, for example, and the unsolved assassination of federal prosecutor Tom Wales in 2001.
But Seattle's murder rate is low for a city of nearly 600,000. There were 24 killings in 2004 and 25 last year. Boston, of comparable size, had 61 in 2004 and 73 last year.
Seattle police spokesman Rich Pruitt noted that none of the three mass killings this month took place within city limits, though all were near. Still, Seattle itself has had 17 killings already this year - more than a third of them from one attack in March, when a man shot and killed six people at a rave after-party in the worst mass killing the city had seen in decades.
The string of recent crimes in the surrounding area began July 11, when hikers found Seattle librarian Mary Cooper, 56, and her daughter, Susanna Stodden, 27, shot to death about three miles up a popular Mount Pilchuck trail 50 miles northeast of the city. No arrests have been made, and detectives have revealed little about their investigation.
Then, on July 17, fire investigators in the eastern suburb of Kirkland found the family of National Guard Sgt. Leonid Milkin dead in a burned-out home. Investigators determined gasoline had been used to start the fire.
Witness accounts led them to a next-door neighbor, who was charged Monday with four counts of aggravated first-degree murder. Charging papers said the neighbor, Conner Michael Schierman, 24, admitted that he woke up in the victims' home covered in blood following an alcoholic blackout and didn't remember what had happened.
Last Thursday, just south of the city limits, five young people were asked to leave a bowling alley and casino because two were underage. As they left, they argued with people who had been smoking outside a nearby home, police said. They pulled their car into the driveway to continue the argument, and two men at the home - Dimitri Sidorchuk, 23, and William Shane Belk - fired dozens of shots into the vehicle, court documents said. Of the five unarmed people in the car, two were killed and three injured.
One of Sidorchuk's stray bullets struck Belk, who also died. Sheriff's deputies said they later found a marijuana-growing operation at the home. Sidorchuk was charged Tuesday with two counts of second-degree murder, one of first-degree manslaughter and three counts of first-degree assault.
"These crimes are just gruesome," said Doug Canfield of Mountaineers Books in Seattle, who helped arrange a $6,000 reward for information in the trail killings. "We're just hoping this crime will be solved so people can head out to the trails again with a feeling of safety."
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Threats against judges are on the rise
By MARK SHERMAN
Associated Press
Thu Jul 27, 2006
WASHINGTON - Threats against federal judges are on a record-setting pace this year, nearly 18 months after the family of a federal judge was killed in Chicago.
U.S. Marshals, who protect the nation's 2,200 federal judges, believe they averted another potential tragedy in the Midwest last year when they helped block the release of a prison inmate who told a judge in a series of sexually charged letters that he was going to take her away.
Threats and inappropriate communications have quadrupled over 10 years ago. There were 201 reported such incidents in the 1996 government spending year and 943 in the year that ended Sept. 30, the Marshals Service said.
This year alone, the Marshals Service has had 822 reports of inappropriate communications and threats, a pace that would top 1,000 for the year.
A threat typically includes a direct reference to harm, a weapon, or a violent act. Inappropriate communications range from rambling letters to accusations of bias to envelopes that contain feces.
Marshals say a portion of the increase can be attributed to a heightened focus by judges and their staffs since the February 2005 incident in which unemployed electrician Bart Ross broke into the home of U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow and shot to death her husband and mother.
One judge targeted by an inmate who had appeared before her received, but had not opened, a dozen letters from the inmate over more than six months, said Michael Prout, chief inspector of the Marshal Service's protective security division until last August.
Spurred by the Lefkow killings, the judge sent the unopened letters to the Marshals last year.
"The inmate had fixated on this judge and claimed her as his bride and described bizarre sex acts he was going to perform on her when he came to take her away," said Prout, now the chief deputy marshal in Chicago. "He was going to take her away very shortly because he was getting out of jail."
The inmate's release date was three to four months away when the letters came to the attention of marshals, Prout said. He would not identify the judge or the city in which she serves.
But Marshals say there was a steady upward trend of angry, inappropriate comments long before the shootings.
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg revealed in February that she and former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor were threatened a year ago by someone who called on the Internet for the immediate "patriotic" killing of the justices.
The rise in civil lawsuits, especially those filed by people who do not have lawyers, and a change in criminal cases in federal courts helps explain the rise, Marshals say.
Donald Donovan, chief deputy marshal in Baltimore, said people who file and lose multiple lawsuits account for the largest percentage of threats. "They don't agree with the outcome of cases. They are repeat filers. Many of them are a bit unstable," Donovan said.
Dealing with inappropriate comments sometimes means "assisting someone with getting back on their medication," said Donald Horton, chief inspector in the protective security division.
Federal courts now handle many more violent crime prosecutions, the sorts of cases that were the province of state and local courts as recently as 10 years ago.
"There is rarely a trial now that does not have defendants eligible for the death penalty," Donovan said.
Marshals say that even before the Chicago killings, they responded to every inappropriate communication, reasoning that they would be able to resolve a situation more quickly the earlier they interceded.
But in the aftermath of the Lefkow deaths, judges criticized the Marshals under former director Benigno Reyna as insufficiently responsive to their security. A Justice Department Inspector General's report in 2004 also pointed out shortcomings in Marshals' assessments of threats. Reyna resigned last year.
John Clark, a career marshal named by President Bush to head the Marshals Service, has expanded the number of marshals trained to investigate threats and expects to open a 24-hour assessment and analysis center later this year.
In Chicago, Prout said he is in regular contact with state and local counterparts to identify people who may be moving between courts at all levels, their frustration with the legal system rising.
The most notable change that grew out of last year's killings was the decision by Congress to set aside $12 million to install security systems in judges' homes.
About 1,700 judges have asked for the home alarms. Fewer than a third of those, about 500, have received them, Horton said.
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Cindy Sheehan Buys Property in Crawford
AP
July 27, 2006
CRAWFORD, Texas - War protester Cindy Sheehan has purchased a 5-acre plot in Crawford with some of the insurance money she received after her son was killed in Iraq.
The group she helps lead, Gold Star Families for Peace, says on its Web site that it will return next month to protest the war in Iraq in the small town near Waco where President Bush has a ranch. Like last year, Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in Iraq in 2004, will again demand to meet with the president.
"We decided to buy property in Crawford to use until George's resignation or impeachment, which we all hope is soon for the sake of the world," Sheehan said in a newsletter set to be sent to supporters Thursday. "I can't think of a better way to use Casey's insurance money than for peace, and I am sure that Casey approves."
Her anti-war gathering in Crawford is scheduled for Aug. 16 through Sept. 2. But Bush is scheduled to be at his ranch mainly during the first two weeks of August.
Sheehan, from California, reinvigorated the anti-war movement last summer with her peace vigil, which started in ditches off the road to Bush's ranch. As it grew, the group also set up its protests on a private, 1-acre lot closer to the ranch.
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Pay raises struggle to outpace inflation
By MADLEN READ
AP Business Writer
Thu Jul 27, 2006
NEW YORK - The bad news: this year will be another year of modest pay increases. The worse news: inflation might eat up those gains.
The only good news may be that workplace standouts might eke out bonuses and other cash incentives from employers.
Companies are relying less on salary increases and more on incentives like year-end bonuses to retain employees without boosting fixed costs, a new survey said Thursday.
U.S. employers are planning to increase base salaries by 3.7 percent this year, just a bit higher than the average 3.6 percent rise they granted in 2005, according to a survey by Mercer Human Resource Consulting.
If the projections play out, workers' wages could fall behind creeping inflation. The Labor Department's overall
Consumer Price Index picked up in the second quarter, pushed higher by record energy prices, and is on pace for a 4.7 percent rise for 2006, a little more than a percentage point higher than 2005's 3.4 percent.
For 2007, pay raises are expected to stay at 3.7 percent.
Of the 950 employers surveyed by Mercer, representing nearly 12 million workers, about 85 percent said they plan to offer short-term incentives in 2006. A quarter said they increased the number of employees eligible for cash awards, and a quarter said they're giving bigger awards. Only about 5 percent decreased the number of employees eligible and the amount of cash given.
"Once I give you a salary increase, it sticks. But with incentives, you have to re-earn it every year. Companies are very reticent about fixed costs these days," said Steven Gross, a senior consultant at Mercer and employee compensation specialist.
Mercer's data fell mostly in line with the projections released last month by the Conference Board. The nonprofit research group said pay raises would rise by 3.5 percent this year and next, while inflation would grow by 3.1 percentage points this year and 3.3 percentage points in 2007.
Charles Peck, compensation specialist at the Conference Board, said in an interview Thursday inflation last outpaced salary increases in the early 1980s, which saw double-digit inflation.
The modest pay increases have been the trend for the past several years - hovering between 3.3 and 3.8 percent since 2002, according to Mercer's data. Mercer's survey was conducted between April 1 and May 1.
Companies are wary about raising pay because of rising costs, Gross said. Several companies' recent quarterly earnings reports have cited high costs, especially for energy, as hurting performance.
"Companies are still struggling with the ability to raise prices. To raise salaries, they have to be more productive or pass the cost onto the consumer," Gross said.
Companies have met price pressures almost exclusively by squeezing base salaries, said Jared Bernstein, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a labor union-funded think tank.
"Employers know that a bonus is for now, whereas a base pay change is forever," Bernstein said.
Another increasingly popular way employers deal with labor costs is by differentiating pay increases, Gross said. They gave high performers on average a 5 percent pay increase, twice the average raise for low performers.
Rising benefit costs have also crimped employers' ability to commit to big pay raises.
"Benefits are a very important ingredient. Healthcare, also retirement benefits - they're very expensive. Companies are limiting salary increases to offset some of the increases in these benefits," Peck said
Health benefit costs rose 6.1 percent in 2005 to more than $7,000 per employee, Mercer said in a survey released in November, and they are projected to rise 6.7 percent this year.
Salary increases in the coming years will rely mostly on the economy's performance - whether hiring will heat up, which will lead employers to raise base pay to stay competitive, and whether growth can keep up with inflation, Gross said.
The industries planning the biggest pay raises are energy companies, which will be granting 4.8 percent raises on average, and the legal, consulting and accounting sectors, which are planning a 4.5 percent average raise, Mercer's survey said.
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Glut of unsold new homes across US hits record high
AFP
July 27, 2006
The glut of brand new unsold homes for sale across the United States hit a record high in June, a government report showed, as some economists warned of a worsening market in coming months.
The latest data appeared to confirm a cooling trend in the housing market, following a boom and sky-rocketing prices of recent years that have priced many hopeful new home owners out of the market. In recent months, a steady rise in interest rates hikes has prompted a downturn in home buying.
Sales of new US homes declined three percent in June to a weaker-than-anticipated annualized rate of 1.131 million units, the Commerce Department said Thursday.
The drop in new home sales was steeper that most market-watchers had expected. Wall Street economists had only predicted sales to decline to 1.164 million units.
Analysts also zeroed in on the inventory of unsold new homes which leapt to a record high last month.
The government said the inventory of unsold new homes on the market rose 0.7 percent in June to a record 566,000, representing a 6.1-month supply of brand new homes at the June sales pace.
Most of the unsold new homes are located in the south of the country, the report showed.
Apart from a slight one month drop in the inventory in May, the stock of unsold new homes on the market has risen steady over the last 12 months.
"Many individuals, who signed a (purchase) contract in what they had believed was a booming housing market, may now be backing out of those contracts," said Phillip Neuhart, an analyst at Wachovia Securities.
"Thus, the new home market is likely weaker than new home sales reflects. We expect both existing and new home sales to continue their slide throughout this year and the next," Neuhart said.
Some analysts are calling for a bursting of what they see as a property bubble and the report could exert fresh pressure on the Federal Reserve to pause its cycle of rate hikes.
The home sales market has been one of the key pillars propping up the world's largest economy, and while inflation is rising, the Fed will not want to jack up interest rates too much and risk a property market crash.
New homes sales across the United States have now fallen 11.1 percent compared to June 2005, and as the federal funds interest rate has risen to 5.25 percent.
"This was a weak report," observed Patrick Newport, an economist at Global Insight.
"Our view remains that sales will continue to slow over the course of this year and into next, because higher interest rates and rising home prices have reduced demand by raising the price of housing," he said.
Aside from rising interest rates, American homeowners have also been buffetted by rising energy prices as the economy shows signs of cooling.
The government also issued a sharp downward revision for its May figures, to show new home sales of 1.166 million rather than 1.234 million initially estimated.
The median price of a new US home meanwhile dropped 1.6 percent in June to 231,300 dollars from the prior month.
On Wednesday, a separate report from the National Association of Realtors showed existing home sales fell 1.3 percent.
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Economy slows sharply, inflation heats up
By JEANNINE AVERSA
AP Economics Writer
July 28, 2006
WASHINGTON - The economy's growth in the second quarter was less than half that of the prior three months as consumers tightened their belts and spending on home building nose-dived. Inflation, however, shot up.
The latest snapshot released by the Commerce Department on Friday showed that that gross domestic product grew at an annual rate of just 2.5 percent in the April-to-June period. That marked a big slowdown from the January-to-March quarter, when the economy zipped along at a 5.6 percent annual rate, the fastest in 2 1/2 years.
Gross domestic product measures the value of all goods and services produced within the United States and is considered the best barometer of the country's economic standing.
"The economy has significantly throttled back but inflation pressures are developing more fully," observed Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com.
On Wall Street, though, stocks rallied on the hope that slowing growth would convince the Federal Reserve to take a break from raising interest rates. The Dow Jones industrials were up 84 points and the Nasdaq gained 25 points in morning trading.
The second-quarter's performance - which reflected the bite of high energy prices and rising interest rates on people and businesses as well as a cooling in the once red-hot housing market - was weaker than the 3 percent pace analysts were forecasting.
The 2.5 percent pace was the slowest since a 1.8 percent growth rate in final quarter of 2005, when the economy was suffering fallout from the devastating Gulf Coast hurricanes.
Even though the economy cooled in the second quarter, inflation heated up.
An inflation gauge closely watched by the Federal Reserve showed that core prices - excluding food and energy - jumped at a 2.9 percent annual rate in the second quarter - far outside the Fed's comfort zone. That was up from a 2.1 percent growth rate in the first quarter and marked the highest inflation reading since the third quarter of 1994, when core inflation rose at a 3.2 percent pace.
The inflation reading was taken before the latest run-up in energy prices. Oil prices hit a record closing high of $77.03 a barrel on July 14. Gasoline prices also have marched higher, topping $3 a gallon in many areas.
In a separate report from the Labor Department, employers' costs to hire and retain workers picked up in the second quarter, a development that also could raise some inflation concerns.
Compensation costs - including wages and benefits - rose by 0.9 percent in the April-to-June period, up from a 0.6 percent increase in the first quarter. Economists were calling for a 0.8 percent rise.
Although Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said he is concerned about rising inflation, he told Congress last week that the Fed believes moderating economic activity will eventually lessen inflation pressures.
That assessment raised hopes on Wall Street that the Fed might take a breather in its two-year-old rate-raising campaign at its next meeting, on Aug. 8. Some economists, however, continue to predict that rates will be bumped up again at the August meeting to ward off inflation; after that, they think the Fed may move to the sidelines.
The report comes as President Bush is getting low marks from the public for his handling of the economy, according to a recent AP-Ipsos poll.
With energy prices and borrowing costs rising, consumers turned cautious in the second quarter. They boosted their spending at just a 2.5 percent pace, down from a 4.8 percent growth rate in the first quarter. Much of the weakness was in consumers' appetite for big-ticket goods, such as cars and appliances.
Businesses also tightened the belt.
Spending on home building was cut by 6.3 percent in the second quarter, the deepest dip in nearly six years - since the third quarter of 2000. Rising mortgage rates are clipping demand.
Businesses sliced spending on equipment and software at a 1 percent pace, the first cut in just over three years.
Government spending also was more subdued, growing at a pace of just 0.6 percent in the second quarter, compared with a 4.9 percent growth rate in the first quarter. The federal government cut spending in the second quarter, while state and local governments boosted spending.
As the economy has moderated, so has job creation.
For the April-to-June quarter, employers added an average of 108,000 jobs a month, the government reported earlier this month. That's down from the average of 176,000 a month for the January-to-March period.
Along with the latest
GDP report, the government issued annual revisions that showed economic growth was slightly less than previously estimated for 2003, 2004 and 2005. The main reason for the downgrade: business investment in computer equipment and software wasn't as strong as previously thought.
As a result, the economy last year grew by 3.2 percent, rather than 3.5 percent. In 2004, economic activity expanded by 3.9 percent, instead of 4.2 percent. And in 2003, the economy's growth was 2.5 percent, versus 2.7 percent.
The revisions also showed that core inflation rose by 2.1 percent for all of 2005, a tad higher than the 2 percent reading previously estimated. Core inflation for 2004 was unchanged at 2 percent but was pushed up a notch to 1.4 percent for 2003.
Comment: On Wall Street, though, stocks rallied on the hope that slowing growth would convince the Federal Reserve to take a break from raising interest rates.
Bad news is good news, war is peace, and so on...
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Distract Them With Fear And War
Fox News Says Hezbollah 'Certain' To Nuke Major City
Paul Joseph Watson
July 27 2006
Channel is terror group's biggest cheerleader as Americans hit with the sum of all fearmongering
Following the ceaseless bombing of Lebanon, Fox News has gone thermonuclear in its mission to drive fear into the hearts of Americans by insisting that Hezbollah's use of a nuclear device in a major US or Israeli city is inevitable and that only increased surveillance of Americans can stop it.
Couched in a bizarre Hannity and Colmes demonstration, where a Geiger counter (soon to be a common household object apparently) was used to measure radiation of packets placed in the two presenter's pockets, guest Cham Dallas, director for the Center for Mass Destruction Defense, was determined to get his message across.
Dallas: Sometime in the future there's going to be a nuclear weapon used in the United States - certainly a radiological device is going to be used and a lot of radioactivity is going to fall on American citizens.
Colmes: You say that like it's a certainty, like there's no question it's going to happen.
Dallas: There's no doubt in my mind that at some point in the future we will have a radiological device probably soon and a nuclear device at some point five or ten years after.
Dallas fingered Pakistan and North Korea as the likely suppliers of nuclear weapons without informing the viewers that the receipts for this technology are in the hands of the US government - Rumsfeld fast-tracking nuclear capability to North Korea and the Bush family protecting A.Q. Khan's network.
Not content with saying it twice, Dallas snapped up the chance provided by Hannity to repeat his doomsday creed a third time.
Hannity (referring to Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda): Do you doubt that these terror groups could get a weapon - if they did there's no doubt they would use it against Israel is there?
Dallas: There's no doubt in mind that if I should say when one of these terror groups gets a weapon like Hezbollah - within the next decade - they will use it within a time of their choosing, but they would use it.
And a fourth time!
Hannity: So the likelihood is that within ten years it would not be shocking to you in any way for people to turn on this news channel and find out that a nuclear device has gone off in a major city around the world?
Dallas: I'm certain of it.
And a fifth time!
Hannity: You're certain of it - you have no doubt?
Dallas: There's no doubt in my mind about it.
Five times in the space of two minutes - nuke - major city - inevitable - rinse, wash, repeat.
Nuke - major city - inevitable - sell your rights down the river for a geiger counter.
As if this overdose of 'duck and cover' type fearmongering wasn't enough to stomach, the next day Fox's 'Big Story' show hosted by John Gibson picked up the 'you're all gonna die' baton and ran with it with glee.
Gibson's guest was CEO of Investigative Management Group Robert Strang, who makes a mint from building up security companies and selling them on for tidy profits - hyping imaginary terror threats puts bread on his table.
Set to accompanying booms and explosions on one side of the screen, Gibson and Strang eulogized about Hezbollah's ties to Al-Qaeda and how their deadly cells were ready for activation within the US.
Saying a massive terror attack on US or Israeli soil was all but certain, Strang pleaded with fellow guest Judge Andrew Napolitano to increase surveillance of phone calls and e mails - intoning that only Big Brother could save us from the inevitability of mushroom clouds over America.
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Anti-terrorism center set up in California
www.chinaview.cn 2006-07-28 14:34:54
LOS ANGELES, July 27 (Xinhua) -- California, the most populous state in the United States, set up an anti-terrorism center on Thursday to investigate terrorist threats and improve communication among law enforcement agencies.
The Joint Regional Intelligence Center will enable law enforcement to use a regional approach to combating terrorism in the region, particularly in Southern California, officials said.
The center will be staffed by some 200 federal, state and local law enforcement officers, including from the Los Angeles police and sheriff's departments, FBI and state Office of Homeland Security.
Officers assigned to the center are supposed to share intelligence information while investigating terrorist threats in Los Angeles and other cities in the region, according to law enforcement officials.
Authorities will gather information on potential threats coming from within the United States, Los Angeles police Chief William Bratton said.
"Increasingly, the threat is home-grown, and we have to look internally," Bratton said. "No place in America is going to be better prepared to combat terror, external or internal, than the Los Angeles region."
With the new center, there are altogether 39 joint intelligence centers across the country.
The new center cost 6 million U.S. dollars in city, county, state and federal funds and is expected to operate on a 1-million-dollar budget during the next fiscal year, FBI Supervisory Agent Steve Ota said.
Three more joint intelligence-gathering centers are planned for San Francisco, Sacramento and San Diego in California, according to Matthew Bettenhausen, director of the state Office of Homeland Security.
"
We have ways to go with information sharing," Bettenhausen conceded. "By bringing federal law enforcement and local law enforcement together, we're going to make the Southland significantly safer," he said.
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Rumsfeld extends tours of 3,500 US troops in Iraq
by Jim Mannion
AFP
July 27, 2006
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon extended the tours of about 3,500 US troops in Iraq for 120 days, dashing hopes of US force cuts this year in the face of surging sectarian violence.
The Pentagon also identified army and marine units totalling about 25,000 troops that have been scheduled to deploy to Iraq late this year and early next, enough to maintain the US force at about 130,000 troops for a year.
"Additionally, the secretary of defense approved a request by the commander of Multi-National Forces-Iraq (MNF-I) to extend the deployment of the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team operating in Iraq for up to 120 additional days," it said.
The move indicated that US commanders have effectively given up hopes for even a gradual reduction in the US force this year on account of a bitter insurgency and spiralling sectarian violence.
It boosted the size of the US force from 14 brigades to 15 brigades, and from 127,000 troops to at least 130,000.
Army officials said that by the end of August the US force should increase to about 134,000 troops with the arrival of another brigade from the 82nd Airborne Infantry Division.
President George W. Bush, meeting this week with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, said more US and Iraqi troops will be sent into Baghdad to quell waves of violence by Shiite and Sunni death squads.
The plan to beef up security in the capital reportedly will add an extra 4,000 US troops and an equal number of Iraqi troops to those already there.
Pentagon officials said the troops being extended will not necessarily be used in Baghdad, but they will free up other troops for duty in the capital.
The Alaska-based 172nd Stryker Brigade already had begun rotating out of Iraq when the order came to stay put.
About 200 of its troops had arrived at Fort Wainwright, Alaska, and another 200 were in Kuwait.
Army officials said the status of those troops would be decided on a case-by-case basis, but that soldiers could be sent back from Kuwait or even Alaska if they are considered essential to the mission.
"They're still trying to get as many soldiers as possible," said an army official. "It looks like it will be 3,500."
The Pentagon's policy is to keep troops in Iraq for no more than 365 days at a time, but in the past commanders have kept some troops longer during crucial junctures such as a Shiite uprising in 2004.
The army arranged a video teleconference between family members and the troops in Iraq so that commanders could address their questions and concerns.
"If you extend somebody, is there some disappointment that they won't be home when they thought they would be home? Sure," US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters. "But, as I say, this is a professional military, and they are doing a superb job."
He said when an army unit was extended for several months two years ago, "they handled it in a professional way, and got on with life."
In announcing the units that have been added to the rotation schedule, the Pentagon left open the possibility of changes in the lineup if conditions improve.
"Force levels in Iraq continue to be conditions-based and will be determined in consultation with the Iraqi government," it said.
"Based on ongoing assessments of the conditions on the ground, changes may be made that could affect units now being identified and advised to prepare to deploy -- as has occurred in the past," it said.
General George Casey, the US commander in Iraq, said on June 22 he was still confident that US force levels could gradually come down over the course of this year as Iraqi forces assumed greater responsibility for security.
But a six-week-old security crackdown in Baghdad that relied heavily on Iraqi security forces showed they are still no match for the rising violence.
The units put on the deployment schedule Thursday included two army brigades from the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood and Fort Bliss, Texas, and two marine regimental combat teams from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.
A third army brigade from the 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, Georgia also has been ordered to prepare for possible deployment later this year to Iraq, the Pentagon said.
Army officials said that brigade might also deploy to Kuwait to serve as a theater reserve that could be called forward into Iraq on short notice.
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Senate committee debates Bolton renomination
Posted on Thu, Jul. 27, 2006
By Margaret Talev
McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON - John Bolton, the controversial U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, seemed destined for another partisan showdown on the Senate floor as hearings began Thursday on a new bid for his confirmation.
Democratic leaders aren't sure they have enough votes to block a second vote on the sharp-tongued, longtime U.N. critic, one year after President Bush evaded the first standoff by giving Bolton a temporary appointment to the job while Congress was in recess. Bolton's term expires at year's end unless he's confirmed.
With the United Nations potentially pivotal to easing the world's many trouble spots, Bolton's renomination could become a surrogate battleground for Democrats and Republicans to show voters how they differ over foreign policy as congressional elections approach this fall.
It started at Thursday's Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, as Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., bemoaned the Iraq war and vented frustration that American troops are dying to defend Iraqi leaders who don't support Israel. She told Bolton, "I'm not putting this on you. I can't pin any of what I said on you, and I don't intend to."
Republicans said Bolton speaks well for the Bush administration, has proved more capable than critics predicted and has made headway in complex situations. "The nature of the U.N. is, not everyone's with us," said Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn.
Committee chairman Richard Lugar, R-Ind., said, "The president has made clear that this is not a casual appointment. He wants a specific person to do a specific job."
Democrats said they remain concerned that Bolton and the Bush administration are paying lip service to diplomacy while alienating U.S. allies and reinforcing tensions with other nations. They cited published reports that other ambassadors dislike working with Bolton. They worried about U.S. effectiveness with Iraq, Iran, Israel and Hezbollah. And they spoke of only limited success at persuading China, Russia and South Korea to rein in North Korea's nuclear ambitions.
"My concern is that at the moment of the greatest need of diplomacy in our recent history, we are not particularly effective at it," said Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, the panel's ranking Democrat.
Added Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn.: "My concern is not that he's a bully, but that he's an ineffective bully."
Bolton, polite even as Democrats baited him, told senators, "I have done my best to work with others to advance our national interest. I do believe important advances have been made."
But three hours into the hearing, he found himself in hot water, and not just politically: Water suddenly began streaming from the ceiling, at first several feet to Bolton's left, then to his immediate right, apparently springing from pipes in a gym shower directly above the hearing room.
As staffers grabbed trash pails to catch the downpour, the leak brought levity to an otherwise tense give-and-take.
But when Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., began digging at Bolton for what he saw as U.S. failures with North Korea, the laughs were over.
"We're not going to resolve this right now, I understand that," Kerry said as the two argued. "Yes, that's right," Bolton shot back.
Outside the hearing, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said of Bolton: "I never did like him very much."
But Reid and Democratic Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said they don't know if their 45-member caucus will put up the 41 votes they need under Senate rules to block a confirmation vote. They said they won't count votes until Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Democrats weigh in.
The committee didn't vote Thursday, and the Senate takes a monthlong recess after next week, so the issue may not come to a head until September.
Last week, Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, a foreign relations committee member who opposed Bolton last year, said he'd changed his mind and thought it would send a bad message to the world to fight Bolton's nomination a second time. Lawmakers said Voinovich's argument may prove decisive since Bolton's already on the job.
On Thursday, White House spokesman Tony Snow said: "We think Ambassador Bolton has done a terrific job. He's won over a lot of critics while building alliances on a range of issues, including Iran and North Korea, and working tirelessly to achieve meaningful results and reforms at the United Nations."
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U.S. May Send 5,000 More Troops to Baghdad
By PAULINE JELINEK and RYAN LENZ
WASHINGTON Jul 28, 2006 (AP)
Military commanders in Iraq are developing a plan to move as many as 5,000 U.S. troops with armored vehicles and tanks into Baghdad in an effort to quell escalating violence, defense officials said Thursday.
As part of the plan, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Thursday extended the tours of some 3,500 members of the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team. The unit, which has been serving in northern Iraq, was scheduled to be leaving now, but instead, most of its 3,900 troops will serve for up to four more months. It was unclear whether the unit would go to Baghdad.
Under the plan to bolster security in Baghdad, U.S. troops would be teamed with Iraqi police and army units and make virtually every operation in the city a joint effort, one military official said. Another said movement of some troops into Baghdad had already begun.
At the same time, the Pentagon signaled plans to maintain or possibly increase the current level of about 130,000 troops in Iraq, by announcing that roughly 21,000 Army soldiers and Marines have been told they are scheduled to go to Iraq during the current 2006-2008 rotation.
Combined with two previous announcements of about 113,000 U.S. service members scheduled for the rotation period, this could bring the number of U.S. troops there to 134,000, if all are deployed.
Military commanders have said deployments depend on conditions in Iraq. But the latest announcement calls into question whether the Pentagon could significantly reduce troop levels in Iraq by year's end as commanders had hoped.
As part of the Baghdad security plan, all flights out for soldiers currently at the end of their deployment were canceled as of Tuesday, as commanders wrestled how to supply troops for the effort, a third official said.
All spoke on condition of anonymity because the plan had not been finalized.
Rumsfeld, meanwhile, met privately with lawmakers on Capitol Hill throughout the day Thursday to discuss funding needed for troops and the replacement or repair of equipment damaged in combat. House and Senate Republicans are weighing next year's defense spending bills amid reports that Army units are woefully ill-equipped and need billions of dollars to recover from the war.
"There is no question that resetting the force after the heavy usage that's occurred costs money and will have to be funded in supplementals for a period of time," said Rumsfeld, who predicted that funds may be needed for up to three years after the war ends.
President Bush broadly outlined a plan to increase U.S. and Iraqi forces in Baghdad during Tuesday's visit to Washington by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. But little detail was provided.
Officials said it would involve shifting some U.S. forces to the capital from other locations in the country. There were about 30,000 U.S. troops in Baghdad prior to the new plan.
Assembling more troops and armor in Baghdad is aimed at calming violence that has only increased in the capital since mid-June, when al-Maliki launched a broad security crackdown.
The plan includes moving about four companies of military police, or about 400 soldiers, to Baghdad, along with the remainder of a reserve force that had been in Kuwait equaling about another 400 troops.
Defense experts inside and outside the Pentagon have said that that diverting U.S. troops to Baghdad could weaken their ability in other parts of the country. And they say the plan reverses an earlier effort to make Americans less visible and put Iraqi forces out front in the fight.
Others argued that Baghdad is the central problem at the moment and that Iraqis in the capital will feel safer with the heavier armored presence.
"There is definitely a fine line between overwhelming amounts of combat power versus enough to make you feel safe," said one of the military officials. "I don't think we're talking a tank on every street corner."
While about 3,500 members of the Stryker brigade were still in Iraq Thursday, about 200 had returned to Alaska and some 200 others were in Kuwait awaiting transportation home.
The Army said officials will determine on a case-by-case basis whether any of those in Alaska or Kuwait need to return to Iraq. It is likely the majority of those in Alaska will be able to stay there, but those who are determined to be essential personnel may have to return to the battlefront.
Rumsfeld has extended tours of duty before in the war, including several times last fall when U.S. forces were increased to deal with violence at the time of the Iraqi elections.
The units now scheduled to deploy to Iraq, according to Thursday's announcement, are the 1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division based at Fort Hood in Texas; the 4th Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division based at Fort Bliss in Texas; and Marine Regimental Combat Teams 2 and 6, both based at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. Also, the 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division based at Fort Stewart in Georgia has been told it should be prepared to deploy later this year.
Associated Press writer Ryan Lenz contributed to this story from Baghdad and AP writer Lolita C. Baldor from Washington.
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Equipment shortfalls hurt Army readiness
By LOLITA C. BALDOR
Associated Press
Wed Jul 26, 2006
WASHINGTON - Up to two-thirds of the Army's combat brigades are not ready for wartime missions, largely because they are hampered by equipment shortfalls, Democratic lawmakers said Wednesday, citing unclassified documents.
In a letter to President Bush, Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said that "nearly every non-deployed combat brigade in the active Army is reporting that they are not ready" for combat. The figures, he said, represent an unacceptable risk to the nation.
At a news conference, other leading Democrats said that those strategic reserve forces are critically short of personnel and equipment.
"They're the units that could be called upon or would be called upon to go to war in North Korea, Iran, or any other country or region," said Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., a decorated Marine who has called for a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.
In a statement released late Wednesday, the Army chief of staff, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, said much has been asked of the Army during the nearly five years the U.S. has been at war.
"I have testified to the facts about our readiness and I remain concerned about the serious demands we face," said Schoomaker, adding that the Army needs more than $17 billion in 2007 and up to $13 billion a year until two or three years after the war ends.
He said the president, defense secretary and Congress have worked closely in the past on these problems, and "I am confident we will have a way to meet the many challenges that lie ahead during these dangerous times."
Murtha and Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., said they would like to see an emergency appropriation of $17 billion, but they will at least be asking for an increase of $10 billion in the $50 billion supplemental funding for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars that the administration requested for the first few months of the 2007 fiscal year.
Schoomaker and other Army officials have been very vocal about their funding shortfall in recent weeks.
In recent testimony, Schoomaker said that in 2004 it cost $4 billion to repair or replace war equipment, but now it has reached $12 billion to $13 billion. "And in my view, we will continue to see this escalate," he said, adding that the Army is using up equipment at four times the rate for which it was designed.
Schoomaker traced the problem's origin to entering the Iraq war in 2003 with a $56 billion shortfall in equipment. The Army managed the situation by rotating in fresh units while keeping the same equipment in Iraq. Over time, he said, the equipment has worn out without sufficient investment in replacements.
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FBI raids office of Bristol-Myers CEO: paper
Reuters
Fri Jul 28, 2006
NEW YORK - Agents for the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided the office of Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. Chief Executive Peter Dolan as part of a criminal antitrust probe, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing a person familiar with the matter.
Federal officials are probing a settlement that would allow Bristol-Myers to stave off generic competition for best-selling anti-clotting drug Plavix, which Bristol-Meyers sells in the United States for Sanofi-Aventis.
On Thursday, Bristol-Myers said the investigation by the U.S. Justice Department was related to a settlement between Sanofi and generic drugmaker Apotex.
FBI agents, working on behalf of the Justice Department, showed up on Wednesday at the Manhattan headquarters of Bristol-Meyers and left with documents, the paper reported, citing a person familiar with the matter.
The agents searched Dolan's office, among others, the report said.
A spokesman for Bristol-Myers was not immediately available for comment.
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Doctors test anti-smoking vaccine
By MARILYNN MARCHIONE
AP Medical Writer
Fri July 28, 2006
MADISON, Wis. - Doctors are testing a radical new way to help smokers quit: a shot that "immunizes" them against the nicotine rush that fuels their addiction.
That pleasurable buzz has seduced Mario Musachia into burning through nearly half a million cigarettes in half a century.
Now the Madison man is among 300 people around the country who are testing an experimental vaccine that makes the immune system attack nicotine in much the same way it would fight a life-threatening germ.
The treatment keeps nicotine from reaching the brain, making smoking less pleasurable and theoretically, easier to give up. The small amount that still manages to get in helps to ease withdrawal, the main reason most quitters relapse.
If it works - and this has not yet been proved - the vaccine could become part of a new generation of smoking cessation treatments. They attack dependency in the brain instead of just replacing the nicotine from cigarettes in a less harmful way, like the gum, lozenges, patches and nasal sprays sold today.
One such drug, Pfizer Inc.'s Chantix, is due on the market any day now. Another, Sanofi-Aventis SA's Acomplia, recently won approval in Europe as a weight-loss drug. If U.S. regulators follow suit, some doctors say they also will use it to help smokers quit, especially those concerned about gaining weight.
"The typical patient is a 30-year-old woman who says, 'If I gain 5 pounds, I'm going back,'" said Dr. J. Taylor Hays, a smoking cessation expert at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., who helped test Chantix and other treatments.
Other novel drugs are in development, but NicVax, by Nabi Biopharmaceuticals, a Boca Raton, Fla., biotech company with labs in Rockville, Md., is most advanced among the vaccines.
After four smaller studies suggested it might be safe and effective, the new, larger study was started in Madison, Minneapolis, Omaha, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston and New York City. (People interested in participating must contact the company, but few volunteer openings are left.)
The Food and Drug Administration has granted the vaccine fast-track status, meaning it will get prompt review, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse just gave Nabi a second $4 million grant to finance the study and NicVax's development.
"It's going to be a very good way to keep people from relapsing," predicts Dr. Frank Vocci, director of medications development at the federal institute.
Relapse is the biggest problem quitters face.
Of the more than 48 million smokers in the United States, 40 percent each year make a serious attempt to quit, but fewer than 5 percent succeed long-term. Nicotine replacement products combined with counseling can double that rate, but most quitters don't try them. Two-thirds go back to smoking within a month.
"When they have that first cigarette, if they really enjoy it, they're at high risk of relapse. If you can make that cigarette not so good, you've really got something," Vocci said.
The possibility that a simple shot could do this is what lured Musachia to the Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention on the fringes of the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus earlier this month. He has tried many ways to quit but still smokes.
"I'm sick of it. I'm surprised I've lived this long," said the 75-year-old man. "My kids - they carry on like 2-year-olds when I smoke around them. My animals run and hide."
He and other participants will get four or five shots, either four or six weeks apart, and will be studied for a year. Two-thirds will get the vaccine; the others, dummy shots. Neither they nor the doctors will know who got what until the study ends.
They also will get counseling and must set a quit date, usually around the second shot, because the first shot is just meant to "prime" the immune system. Subsequent doses make it produce antibodies, which latch onto nicotine in the bloodstream and keep it from crossing the blood-brain barrier and getting into the brain where it maintains the addiction.
"They won't get the rush, the reward," but the small amount still getting in "we think is an advantage," because it should lessen withdrawal symptoms, said Dr. Henrik Rasmussen, Nabi's chief medical officer.
The antibodies should remain in the system for up to a year; booster shots may be needed after that, but this needs more study, Rasmussen said.
The new drugs come at a time of heightened attention to helping smokers quit. Last month, the National Institutes of Health held a conference to review the scientific evidence for what smoking cessation techniques work.
Earlier this month, two large scientific conferences were held in Washington, D.C., on the topic.
Research money has increased because of tobacco lawsuit settlements, and insurers increasingly see the health burden of smoking and will pay for cessation treatments that work, said Douglas Jorenby, the psychologist who heads the NicVax study in Madison.
Smokers also are demanding better results than those afforded by traditional nicotine replacement tools. Their desperation sometimes makes them prey to quacks.
The FDA recently moved to block some companies promoting low-power laser therapy, or laser acupuncture, as a way to quit, and a consumer's group is seeking action against a bottled water product that contains nicotine.
"We've got 20 million Americans trying to quit. Among those trying, less than 20 percent are using evidence-based treatments," said Dr. Michael Fiore, director of the tobacco research center in Madison.
The vast majority of these visit a doctor for routine care, yet "few of them, less than a third, leave that encounter with evidence-based advice on how to quit smoking," he lamented.
Regardless of whether the experimental vaccine or other novel approaches ultimately prove successful, they already have had a positive effect - giving some smokers fresh motivation, Jorenby said.
"Every time there's a new treatment for smoking cessation, there are people who have never tried to quit, or haven't tried for a long time, who are going to give it a shot," he said. "People benefit from practice. It usually takes several tries."
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De Menezes officers to return to duty
Mark Oliver and agencies
Friday July 28, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
The two police firearms officers involved in the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes are to resume "full operational duties", Scotland Yard said today.
The decision prompted immediate outrage from the family of the innocent Brazilian who police confused with a suspected suicide bomber. The announcement comes six days after the first anniversary of the 27-year-old's killing at a London underground station.
The Metropolitan police's deputy commissioner, Paul Stephenson, took the decision to lift the restrictions on the two officers. The move follows the Crown Prosecution Service's (CPS) announcement last Monday that no individual officers would face charges over the shooting.
The Met has still to decide whether either of the officers should face disciplinary proceedings over the shooting on July 22 last year.
Asad Rehman, a spokesman from the Justice4Jean campaign, said the de Menezes family were "shocked" that the firearms officers involved had returned to active duty so soon. He told the Press Association the family was "very, very upset" and "in pieces" and described the decision as premature.
"Every day it seems that the Metropolitan police just rubs more salt in the wounds," Mr Rehman said. "They could not have been more hurtful."
Last week's CPS announcement that there would be no charges was described as shameful by the electrician's family, who vowed to continue campaigning for officers to face charges. They may also sue the force.
In a statement today Scotland Yard said: "Following the decision by the Crown Prosecution Service that no individual officers should face any criminal proceedings regarding the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, and due consideration of all available information, the Metropolitan police has lifted the current restrictions placed upon the two firearms officers.
"Both officers will now resume full operational duties. This case has been considered in line with every case of this nature and decisions are made on a case-by-case basis."
Both officers involved are members of the Met's specialist CO19 firearms unit.
Mr de Menezes was shot seven times in the head by anti-terror officers at Stockwell tube station in south London. The shooting came one day after four attackers failed in efforts to set off explosions on a bus and subway trains, and 15 days after four suicide bombers killed 52 bus and underground passengers in London.
While no individuals will face criminal charges, the CPS is prosecuting the Met as an organisation for violating health and safety laws in "failing to provide for the health, safety and welfare" of Mr de Menezes.
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