Middle East Madness
By HAMZA HENDAWI
Associated Press
Sun Dec 4, 6:28 PM ET
By HAMZA HENDAWI
Associated Press
Sun Dec 4, 6:28 PM ET
Mon, 05 Dec 2005 12:00 EST
BAGHDAD, Iraq - An angry crowd confronted Iraq's former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi at a Shiite shrine south of Baghdad on Sunday, forcing him to flee in a hail of stones and shoes. Allawi called the attack an assassination attempt.
4 Dec 2005
AFP
4 Dec 2005
AFP
Mon, 05 Dec 2005 12:00 EST
New German Chancellor Angela Merkel's debut in Poland and her chief diplomat's first mission to Russia marked a shift in the delicate balancing act between Berlin and its wartime foes, observers have said.
Merkel took office last month with a pledge to break with the Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis that took shape in opposition to the US-led Iraq war and was strongly favored by her predecessor Gerhard Schroeder.
She has vowed to rejuvenate ties with Poland, which has traditionally been deeply wary of its giant neighbors Russia and Germany forming alliances that could undermine its interests.
Merkel, Germany's first chancellor to grow up in the former communist east, addressed those concerns head-on in talks with Polish president-elect Lech Kaczynski and Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz late Friday.
Warsaw was outraged by the agreement between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Schroeder in September to build a pipeline across the Baltic Sea, bypassing Poland and depriving it of lucrative usage fees.
December 5, 2005
AFP
December 5, 2005
AFP
Mon, 05 Dec 2005 12:00 EST
The Australian parliament is poised to adopt new counter-terrorism laws, despite a last-minute warning from the country's leading jurists group that the legislation is "as terrifying as terrorism itself".
The bill, which allows for the secret preventive detention of terrorist suspects for up to two weeks and permits authorities to impose controls on suspects, including electronic shackles, for up to 12 months, went before the Senate Monday.
It was expected to pass quickly as the conservative government of Prime Minister John Howard controls the chamber.
The lower House of Representatives adopted the legislation last week after government deputies gagged debate and prevented opposition attempts to amend the bill.
By Helen Luk in Hong Kong
05 December 2005
UK Independent
By Helen Luk in Hong Kong
05 December 2005
UK Independent
Mon, 05 Dec 2005 12:00 EST
A quarter of a million protesters marched through Hong Kong yesterday to demand full democracy from their rulers in Beijing.
Pro-democracy politicians and some protesters gathered outside the Chinese government's headquarters after the march to call on Hong Kong's leader, Donald Tsang, to specify when the territory will get universal suffrage, promised as an eventual goal under its mini-constitution.
The governments faltering hopes of pushing a political reform package through the legislature are expeceted to be damaged by the high turnout.
By Anne Penketh in Vienna
05 December 2005
UK Independent
By Anne Penketh in Vienna
05 December 2005
UK Independent
Mon, 05 Dec 2005 12:00 EST
The head of the UN nuclear watchdog, Mohamed ElBaradei, has appealed to both Iran and the West to refrain from escalating their dangerous game of brinkmanship, which has entered an unpredictable phase after the election of a hardline Iranian president.
Talks between Iran and the European Union, which has been leading negotiations aimed at preventing the Iranians from building a nuclear bomb, broke down in August, when the Iranians resumed nuclear-related activities at their Isfahan plant.
The main hope of resuming the dialogue now resides in compromise proposals from Russia, which is offering to enrich uranium for Iran outside its territory. Uranium enrichment is the critical stage in nuclear power which can produce weapons grade fuel.
Peter Preston
Monday December 5, 2005
The Guardian
Peter Preston
Monday December 5, 2005
The Guardian
Mon, 05 Dec 2005 12:00 EST
The Bush administration will pay both at home and in Iraq for buying puff pieces in the media
It seems such a tiny, insignificant thing. Why worry about planting a little propaganda and bribing a few journalists when your men in the field are dying day after day? "This is war," says the Pentagon. Yes indeed, adds the sonorous senator who chairs the armed services committee, "this is war". And in war, of course, anything goes (even including bombing al-Jazeera) because ... well, it's war, isn't it? [...]
Keep the outrage pot bubbling a moment longer, though. Do you remember Armstrong Williams, TV frontman and syndicated columnist? The Bush administration handed him $240,000 under cover of darkness to plug its education reforms. Do you remember how the American government thereupon funded a string of superficially independent news "reports" on its education and energy reforms in video packages that small stations just plonked on air as all their own work? What about the latest public broadcasting ruckus, with Karl Rove, Bush's fixer, discovered chatting secretly to PBS chiefs about starting a neo-con talk show and getting a few more Republicans on studio duty?
None of this has anything to do with "war" (unless it be some undeclared war on truth). But it is all part of an inescapable pattern, one so serious it can't be allowed to fade away....
Declan Walsh
Monday December 5, 2005
The Guardian
Declan Walsh
Monday December 5, 2005
The Guardian
Mon, 05 Dec 2005 12:00 EST
A retired US ambassador has reignited the debate about one of south Asia's greatest whodunits, the death in 1988 of Pakistan's president General Zia ul-Haq, by saying that Israel was responsible.
John Gunther Dean, then US ambassador to India, said he suspected Israel's secret service Mossad of downing Gen Zia's aircraft in an effort to stop Pakistan developing the nuclear bomb. But when he reported these suspicions to Washington, he was accused of being mentally unbalanced and subsequently forced into retirement. Almost 20 years later, Mr Dean, 80, was speaking out in an attempt to tell his side of the story.
Michael Howard in Irbil
Monday December 5, 2005
The Guardian
Michael Howard in Irbil
Monday December 5, 2005
The Guardian
Mon, 05 Dec 2005 12:00 EST
The UN said yesterday said that Saddam Hussein's trial would never satisfy international standards because of ongoing violence and flaws in Iraq's legal system
John Case, the UN's human rights chief in Iraq, said the murder of two defence lawyers, continued threats against judges, lawyers and witnesses and weaknesses in the Iraqi justice system had caused grave doubts about the trial's legitimacy.
"We're very anxious about the tribunal [trying Saddam]," he told Reuters in an interview. "The legitimacy of the tribunal needs to be examined. It has been seriously challenged in many quarters."
4 Dec 2005
Reuters
4 Dec 2005
Reuters
Mon, 05 Dec 2005 12:00 EST
MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan: Health authorities in northern Pakistan were racing to control an outbreak of measles at a camp for earthquake survivors on Sunday after a 10-month old baby died of the disease, a doctor said.
Agence France-Presse
Sat, 03 Dec 2005 12:00 EST
Rome - Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas welcomed the "radical change" wrought on Israel's political landscape by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's decision to set up a new party, saying it could bring peace to the Middle East if he is re-elected.
"There has been a radical change on the political map of Israel. We now have a really new situation," Abbas told a joint news conference after talks in Rome with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
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