Leaders bury Iraq differences
The
Russian and US presidents have set aside their differences over
Iraq, saying the crisis strengthened their partnership.
Russian President Vladimir
Putin and US President George W Bush were speaking at a joint news
conference after talks in St Petersburg - their first meeting since
the war in Iraq.
Mr
Bush said the differences over the US-led war would only "make our
relationship stronger, not weaker". His words were echoed by Mr
Putin, who said his personal relationship with Mr Bush had
withstood the crisis, which had "strengthened" Russian-US
ties.
"The
fundamentals of US-Russian relations turned out to be stronger than
the forces and events that tested them," he said...
Mr
Bush said he and Mr Putin also had "mutual concerns about the
advanced Iranian nuclear programme". "We want to work together
as well as with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) to
insist that they not have a nuclear weapon," Mr Bush
said.
They
also pledged to bolster their co-operation in the fight against
international terrorism... Mr Bush arrived in St Petersburg from
Poland, where he made a speech urging Europe to present a united
front with the US against terrorism and weapons of mass destruction
and to forget the divisive issues of the past.
At
Saturday's dinner, the US president shook hands and spoke briefly
with another anti-war leader, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder -
their first post-war meeting.
Another staunch war critic,
President Jacques Chirac of France, left St Petersburg shortly
before Mr Bush arrived.
The
US and French leaders are due to meet face-to-face at the town of
Evian in France on Sunday when Mr Chirac hosts the G8 summit of
leading industrialised nations. In Poland, Mr Bush's first
stop-over in a week-long tour that will also take him to the Middle
East, the US president thanked the country for its support in the
Iraq war.
Mr
Bush visited the remnants of a gas chamber and crematorium at
Auschwitz-Birkenau, the notorious former Nazi death camp where 1.5
million Jews and many other victims were murdered. "This site is a
sobering reminder of the power of evil and the need for people to
resist evil," he said...
Comment: You said it George, except that we
have all the reminders we need in you and the rest of the
Armageddon gang.
U.S.-French chemistry
By Louis R. Golino
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The leaders of the world's eight biggest industrial democracies,
known as the Group of Eight begin a three-day summit today in
Evian-les-Bains, France.
As the G-8 leaders discuss the world economy, globalization and
other issues, many observers are expected to focus on the personal
chemistry between President Bush and France's President Jacques
Chirac, looking for signs of a thaw in the strained U.S.-French
relationship.
Mr. Bush has said France's position on the Iraq war appeared
anti-American to some people.
He and other senior U.S. government officials were particularly
disappointed by France's efforts to delay providing defensive NATO
aid to Turkey, prevent the United States from obtaining a second
U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force
against Iraq and develop a Franco-German-Russian axis to contain
U.S. power.
The
French government maintains that it opposed the war, not the United
States, and that it wants to help Washington win the peace in Iraq.
Paris also notes that it gave the U.S. overflight rights and
intelligence information.
Bush-Chirac relationship
On April 25, Mr. Bush and Mr. Chirac held their first conversation
in more than two months after Mr. Chirac telephoned in an effort to
begin patching up relations.
France is seeking to repair
the rift in its relations with the Bush administration while
continuing to pursue a fiercely independent, neo-Gaullist foreign
policy intended to create a stronger Europe that is a counterweight
to the United States.
Prior to the Iraq crisis,
Mr. Bush and Mr. Chirac were said to have a good personal
relationship, but those ties became severely strained after France
led opposition to the Iraq war.
According to Guillaume
Parmentier — director of the French Center on the United
States at the French Institute of International Relations and a
professor at the University of Paris II — Mr. Chirac "is
unquestionably the French president who most knows and admires U.S.
society, and is famous for not bearing grudges."
But,
Mr. Parmentier added, "I believe that he finds it particularly
difficult to communicate with the Bush administration, in sharp
contrast with his friendly and direct relationship with President
Clinton."
The
French government recently delivered a letter to the U.S.
government saying that there has been an "organized campaign" to
discredit France in the U.S. media.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has said that France will suffer
unspecified consequences for its opposition to the U.S.-led war in
Iraq. Some members of Congress have called for trade sanctions and
other punitive measures against France, although none of the
measures has become law. [...]
U.S. will hold a grudge against Canada:
Rice
By
TIMOTHY APPLEBY
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
The
Bush administration's disappointment with Canada for refusing to
join the war on Iraq will not disappear quickly, National Security
Adviser Condoleezza Rice said yesterday.
Briefing foreign reporters
in Washington ahead of this weekend's G8 summit meeting in France,
Ms. Rice said that notwithstanding "a relationship that's important
to us . . . a good relationship," healing U.S.-Canadian differences
"will take some time."
Ms.
Rice is regarded as one of President George W. Bush's closest
advisers and the most senior administration official who deals
regularly with Canada.
Mr.
Bush yesterday abandoned the Oval Office tradition of granting a
group interview before a summit to selected reporters from the
Group of Eight leading industrialized nations, leaving the task to
his National Security Adviser. The President chose instead to speak
to reporters from countries he will visit in the coming days as
part of a lightning trip to Russia, Europe and the Middle
East.
In
the interview, Ms. Rice spelled out the White House's displeasure
over the Chrétien government's unwillingness to join Britain
and Australia in the coalition that overthrew Saddam
Hussein.
"I
think there was disappointment in the United States that a friend
like Canada was unable to support the United States in what we
considered to be an extremely important issue for our security,"
she said.
The
U.S. position was taken "for the security of the international
community, and to try and spread freedom. Those are values that we
share with our long-time friends."
She
said differences with Canada had put bilateral relations through
"some difficult times."
"And
so, yes, there was some disappointment that there seemed to be some
questioning of American motives, and some lack of understanding
that we were simply trying to do this in support of our own
security, in support of everyone else's security.
"And
that disappointment will, of course, not go [away] easily. It will
take some time, because when friends are in a position where we say
our security's at stake, we would have thought, as we got from many
of our friends, that the answer would have been, 'Well, how can we
help?' "
Germany received a similar
mark of disapproval. "An important and good relationship" has been
tarnished by Germany's outspoken opposition to U.S. policy on Iraq,
Ms. Rice said.
As
for Mr. Bush's dealings with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder,
who will be at the G8 summit in Évian, France, "I can't answer
the question of whether personal relations between the President
and the Chancellor will ever be the same. We will have to
see."
Turning to France, which
was also critical of the decision to attack Iraq, "there were times
when it appeared that American power was seen to be more dangerous
than perhaps Saddam Hussein," Ms. Rice said. "I'll just put it very
bluntly. We simply didn't understand it."
"We
have been allies in great struggles in world wars," she said of the
French. "The United States gave its blood to liberate
France."
Italy, by contrast, got a
glowing assessment.
Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi, who vigorously supported the U.S. position on Iraq, has
"a close personal relationship" with Mr. Bush and was "extremely
helpful" during the war — a position, she hinted, that might
be rewarded. "Italy, I think, will be involved in its own way in
the reconstruction of Iraq."...
Ms.
Rice took particular aim at Iran, stating it supports "terrorism
around the world" and "is in violation of its international
agreements [by attempting] to . . . build a weapons of mass
destruction program, a nuclear-weapons program . . . and seems
intent on harbouring al-Qaeda leaders."
But
asked if the White House was planning "regime change" in Iran, her
response was vague, alluding to the deep split within that country
between the elected, reform-minded national assembly and the
country's more powerful conservative clerics.
"The
policy of the administration is that the Iranian regime should
start to act like the elected regime — like an elected regime
that is pursuing the aspirations of the Iranian people."
Comment: The US continues to write its own
rules. Bush said the differences with Russia made their
relationship stronger while Rice insists that Germany, France and
Canada will pay for their differences. We see Bush continuing his
Game Theory by refusing to meet the G-8 journalists, breaking a
long-standing tradition. He is empahsizing yet again that
international forums where the US is treated as a partner or equal
are to be discredited. Bush spends his time rewarding the
vassal-states that remain subserviant to the new Imperium. His next
snub will be this weekend at Evian where he is staying for only 24
hours of the planned three-day meeting.
Bush Urges an Alliance Against
Terror
President
Asks Europe to Move Beyond Bitterness Over Iraq War
By Mike Allen and Susan B. Glasser
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, June 1, 2003
ST.
PETERSBURG, May 31 -- President Bush implored the great powers of
continental Europe today to overcome their bitterness about the war
in Iraq and support the United States' approach to fighting
terrorism.
Hours
after strolling somberly along a rail spur at the Auschwitz
concentration camp in an effort to evoke the perils of evil in any
age, Bush told a crowd in Krakow, Poland, that the "enemies of
freedom" would win if the West's divisions over the war
persisted.
"This is
a time for all of us to unite in the defense of liberty and to step
up to the shared duties of free nations," he said in the sunny
courtyard of Wawel Royal Castle, where Polish kings ruled for 600
years. "This is no time to stir up divisions in a great
alliance."
In
addition, Bush announced that his administration was undertaking a
new initiative to foster international cooperation in seizing ships
and aircraft suspected of carrying illegal weapons or
technology.
The
address marked a striking shift in rhetoric for the Bush
administration, which is facing renewed criticism at home and
abroad for the military's failure to find the weapons of mass
destruction that Bush said was a chief reason for going to war in
Iraq. Bush and his aides made clear, however, that he envisions an
alliance dedicated to U.S. aims and that his stance today was more
a matter of practicality than forgiveness. [...]
Comment: A
striking shift in rhetoric? Bush has simply repeated once again
that he wants the nations of the world to bow to his will. By now,
it should be painfully obvious that the concept of cooperation is
entirely foreign to him.
Anti-War Polish Mayor Banned from Bush
Visit
WARSAW (Reuters) - The mayor of the Polish city of Krakow said
Thursday he had been excluded from President Bush's visit to the
city this weekend because of his opposition to the war on
Iraq.
"It
is customary that the mayor, as the host of this city, should take
part in the welcoming ceremony. But the Americans have said they
will not have it," Mayor Jacek Majchrowski told private radio
RMF.
"It
is strange that guests dictate where the host should or should not
be," he added.
Majchrowski wrote a
newspaper article entitled "Pax Americana" in March, harshly
criticizing the U.S.-led war to topple Iraqi president Saddam
Hussein, in which Poland also took part.
He
has welcomed anti-war marches in Krakow, lauding the demonstrators
as having "saved the honor of the city."
Bush visits
Auschwitz
French riot police clash with
protestors on eve of G8 summit
Sunday
June 1, 7:01 AM
French police used tear gas and batons to disperse
anti-globalisation demonstrators as protestors cranked up plans to
disrupt the G8 summit of the world's richest countries in
Evian.
About 400
protestors were pushed back by several hundred police officers when
they tried to block access to a meeting attended by a French
Socialist party delegation, local officials said. No-one was
arrested. [...]
Security
is so tight in Evian, the French spa town where the leaders of the
Group of Eight (G8) are due to open their annual summit on Sunday,
that protestors were forced to focus their campaign around
Annemasse and Geneva. [...]
Comment: These are the leaders of the "free world", this is
"democracy" that requires 12,000 armed troops, anti-missile
batteries, submarines in lake Geneva.
Chirac to Call for Shift From
Battling Terrorism to Helping Poorer Nations
By JOHN
TAGLIABUE
New York Times
ÉVIAN-LES-BAINS, France,
May 31 — When President Bush and the other Group of 8 leaders
gather to discuss the world's problems on Sunday and Monday, they
will no doubt be hoping that this trim spa on the shores of Lake
Geneva will be the source of something more than just cold bubbling
spring water.
Their
host, President Jacques Chirac of France, will press them to turn
their attention from terrorism, Iraq and the Middle East to
restarting a process of helping less developed regions of the
world, most notably Africa.
Mr.
Chirac is expected to say that the wealthiest nations must increase
their spending for education, health care, water and farming, and
that they must help restructure government institutions and
encourage free investment in the poorer regions of the
world.
To press
his case, Mr. Chirac has invited the leaders of 12 developing
countries, including nations in Africa, Latin America, the Middle
East and Asia. [...]
Comment: This is a farce. Does anyone really
believe that the wretched economic and political state of most
African countries is pure chance, coincidence or fate? Is it also
pure chance or luck that these G8 nations possess 80% of the
world's wealth? Is it also chance that the US has 5% of the world's
population yet consumes 30% of its food (and wastes 50% of that)?
This state of affairs does not occur by "chance", it must be
contrived and manipulated. The proposed discussion to help "less
developed nations of the world" (almost sounds like it is their
fault right?) is nothing more than a discussion on how to maintain
the status quo keeping the balance weighted heavily in favor of
western nations. "Just between you and me, shouldn't the World Bank be
encouraging more migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs
(lesser developed countries)? I think the economic logic behind
dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is
impeccable and we should face up to that.... I've always thought
that underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly under polluted;
their air quality is vastly inefficiently low compared to Los
Angeles or Mexico City."
-- Lawrence Summers World Bank
economist and Deputy Secretary of Treasury, in a 1991 internal
memorandum
Wake Up, America
Or Is It Already Too Late?
by ELAINE
CASSEL
May 31, 2003
I teach
law and psychology, and also do a good deal of public speaking,
mostly to lawyers, educators, and social workers. Since September
11, 2001, I have been watching closely what the Bush dictatorship
is doing at home and abroad. I continue to be disgusted and
dismayed by how little presumably well-education Americans know
about what is going on at home in Bush's "other war," the war
against you and me, and the American way of life.
For
instance, many people do not know what I mean by the Patriot Act.
They don't question the airports' resemblance to National Guard
training weekends. A mother this week told me that she had to pour
out or drink the breast milk she had pumped for her baby's
consumption on the trip (she drank it, to recycle it, so to speak).
I asked this mother if that did not outrage her. Not particularly,
she said. She figured "they" were doing it to protect her. From
what, I asked? Did it make sense that her breast milk could be a
weapon to be used to terrorize the passengers? [...]
Comment: "Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some
poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he
can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece?
Naturally, the common people don't want war: neither in Russia, nor
in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But
after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the
policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along,
whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a
parliament, or a communist dictatorship ... Voice or no voice, the
people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is
easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked,
and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the
country to danger."
-- Leading Nazi, Hermann Goering, at the Nuremberg
Trials before he was sentenced to death.
It Was the Lying, Right?
Clinton, Bush and Impeachment
By DAVE
LINDORFF
May 31, 2003
Everyone
agreed that it was not the sex. It was the lying, right? If having
extramarital sex in the White House were an impeachable offense,
the impeachment of presidents would long ago have become a routine
affair. We'd have seen Roosevelt, Ike, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and
Bush the Elder in the dock for sure, and maybe Ron, too.
But everyone agreed it wasn't
the sex that got President Clinton in trouble. It was the lying.
The audacious bending of the meaning of the word is and the word
sex. Right?
But has lying ever been
practiced so blatantly as it is being practiced today in the White
House?
UK intelligence chiefs
warned claim that Iraq could activate banned weapons in 45 minutes
came from unreliable defector
By
Raymond Whitaker, Paul Lashmar and Andy McSmith
The Independent
01 June 2003
Tony
Blair's sensational pre-war claim that Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction "could be activated within 45 minutes" was based on
information from a single Iraqi defector of dubious reliability,
The Independent on Sunday can reveal.
British intelligence
sources said the defector, recruited by Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi
National Congress, told his story to American officials. It was
passed on to London as part of regular information-sharing with
Washington, but British intelligence chiefs considered the "45
minutes" claim to be unreliable and uncorroborated by any other
evidence. How it came to be included as the most dramatic element
in the Government's "intelligence dossier" last September, making
the case for war, is now the subject of a furious row in Whitehall
and abroad.
The
armed forces minister, Adam Ingram, admitted last week that the
information had come from a single source. But Downing Street
denied a report that the claim made its way into the dossier only
after politicians rejected a more cautious draft prepared by the
intelligence services and demanded that it be "sexed
up".
Coming in the same week
that the United States Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said
Iraq might have destroyed its banned weapons before the war, the
row has called into question the entire Anglo-American case on WMD.
The failure to find such weapons has led to demands in the US and
Britain for inquiries into whether the public was
misled.
Comment: Whether the public was mislead??!! What is the problem
here?? Why can't people call a spade a spade?! It is staring
everyone in the face!!
Blair duped Britain over Iraq
says Short
Sunday
June 1, 9:39 AM
Prime Minister Tony Blair duped the public over the threat posed by
Saddam Hussein in order to ensure Britain invaded Iraq, Clare
Short, who resigned from his cabinet, told a British Sunday
newspaper.
"There
was political spin put on the intelligence information to create a
sense of urgency," Short, who stepped down as International
Development Secretary following the end of the conflict in Iraq,
told the Sunday Telegraph.
"It was a
political decision that came from the prime minister," Short told
the right-wing weekly newspaper.
"We were
misled. I think we were deceived in the way it was done," Short
said. [...]
Short's
comments came as a new poll, published in The Mail on Sunday,
showed that 63 percent of British voters felt they had been misled
by Blair over the issue. [...]
Invented weapons claim absurd, says
PM
IC
Network
Tony
Blair has hit back at critics who claim the Government forced the
intelligence services to fabricate evidence of Saddam Hussein's
weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
The Prime Minister called the idea "completely absurd" and said he
had "absolutely no doubt at all" that the evidence of Saddam's WMD
was completely true.[...]
Straw, Powell had serious doubts over their Iraqi
weapons claims
Secret transcript revealed
Dan Plesch and Richard Norton-Taylor
Saturday May 31, 2003
The Guardian
Jack Straw and his US counterpart, Colin Powell, privately
expressed serious doubts about the quality of intelligence on
Iraq's banned weapons programme at the very time they were publicly
trumpeting it to get UN support for a war on Iraq, the Guardian has
learned.
Their deep concerns about
the intelligence - and about claims being made by their political
bosses, Tony Blair and George Bush - emerged at a private meeting
between the two men shortly before a crucial UN security council
session on February 5.
The
meeting took place at the Waldorf hotel in New York, where they
discussed the growing diplomatic crisis. The exchange about the
validity of their respective governments' intelligence reports on
Iraq lasted less than 10 minutes, according to a diplomatic source
who has read a transcript of the conversation.
The
foreign secretary reportedly expressed concern that claims being
made by Mr Blair and President Bush could not be proved. The
problem, explained Mr Straw, was the lack of corroborative evidence
to back up the claims.
Much of the intelligence were assumptions and assessments not
supported by hard facts or other sources.
Mr Powell shared the concern about intelligence assessments,
especially those being presented by the Pentagon's office of
special plans set up by the US deputy defence secretary, Paul
Wolfowitz.
Mr
Powell said he had all but "moved in" with US intelligence to
prepare his briefings for the UN security council, according to the
transcripts.
But
he told Mr Straw he had come away from the meetings "apprehensive"
about what he called, at best, circumstantial evidence highly
tilted in favour of assessments drawn from them, rather than any
actual raw intelligence.
Mr
Powell told the foreign secretary he hoped the facts, when they
came out, would not "explode in their faces".
What are called the "Waldorf transcripts" are being circulated in
Nato diplomatic circles. It is not being revealed how the
transcripts came to be made; however, they appear to have been
leaked by diplomats who supported the war against Iraq even when
the evidence about Saddam Hussein's programme of weapons of mass
destruction was fuzzy, and who now believe they were lied to.
[...]
Bush, Blair face heat over Iraq weapons
claims
Associated Press
BAGHDAD, Iraq — The
CIA is reviewing its intelligence, British agents are reportedly
doubting their own assessments and Saddam Hussein's enemies are
being accused of manufacturing evidence. Now, senior politicians on
both sides of the Atlantic want answers to what is becoming the
most asked question since major combat ended in Iraq: Where are the
unconventional weapons the coalition said it went to war to
destroy? [...]
Blair: I have secret proof of
weapons
Gaby
Hinsliff, Nick Paton Walsh in St Petersburg and Peter Beaumont in
London
Sunday June 1, 2003
The Observer
Prime
Minister Tony Blair last night insisted he had secret proof that
weapons of mass destruction will be found in Iraq in his strongest
signal yet that coalition forces believe they may have begun to
uncover leads to Iraq's alleged deadly arms cache.
Stung by claims that the Government exaggerated the threat from
Saddam, Blair said he was waiting to publish a 'complete picture'
of both intelligence gained before the war and 'what we've actually
found'.
Asked if
he knew things he could not yet reveal, he said: 'I certainly do
know some of the stuff that has been already accumulated as a
result of interviews and others... which is not yet public, but
what we are going to do is assemble that evidence and present it
properly.' [...]
Blair
said in his interview that claims that the existence of WMD was 'a
great big fib got out by the security services' would be proved
wrong. He said he had 'absolutely no knowledge' of an alleged
meeting between the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw and his US
counterpart Colin Powell, in a New York hotel to discuss concerns
over whether the evidence on WMD would be strong enough. Leaked
transcripts suggested Straw had warned the issue could 'explode in
our faces'.
The
Foreign Office insisted the two men had not met on the date given
in February.
Downing
Street has been hampered in its argument by repeated suggestions
from the Bush administration that WMD may never be found. Paul
Wolfowitz, deputy to the US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld,
suggested last week that WMD were a bureaucratic pretext to start a
war.
Blair
told Sky that WMD were the basis in law for taking military action
- but 'that's not the same as saying it's a bureaucratic pretext'.
[...]
Comment: Notice Blair's presentation of the
accusation against him: "a great big fib got out by the security
services". Now we know that Blair is an educated and literate man,
so where is this "baby-talk" coming from? Try Neuro Lingusitic
Programming. He deliberately presents the accusation against him in
a child-like manner in an attempt to lessen the impact and
seriousness of the charge in the public mind. It is as if Blair
sees it as a game, deciding each morning which face he will present
or which role he will play.
Well Tony, we're here to tell you and anyone else
who thinks life is a game and we its game pieces, that it is not,
and your actions leading up to the Iraq invasion do not constitute
a "great big fib". You are accused of deliberating lying to the
British public, encouraging them to support an unjust and illegal
war in their name, leading to the unnecessary deaths of countless
thousands of Iraqi civilans and an unknown number of British army
personnel. At the very least you are unfit to lead the nation and
should be removed from office immediately, at most there is a
strong case to try you as a war criminal.
The lies that led us
into war ...
Glen
Rangwala
The Independent
01 June 2003
One
key tactic of the British and United States governments in their
campaign on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction was to talk
up suspicions and to portray possibility as fact. The clearest
example was the quotation and misquotation of the reports of United
Nations weapons inspectors.
Iraq
claimed it had destroyed all its prohibited weapons, either
unilaterally or in co-operation with the inspectors, between 1991
and 1994. Although the inspectors were able to verify that
unilateral destruction took place on a large scale, they were not
able to quantify the amounts destroyed.
For
example, they were able to detect that anthrax growth media had
been burnt and buried in bulk at a site next to the production
facility at al-Hakam. There was no way - and there never will be -
to tell from the soil samples the amount destroyed. As a result, UN
inspectors recorded this material as unaccounted for: neither
verified destroyed nor believed to still exist.
Translated into statements
by the British and US governments, it became part of "stockpiles"
that they claimed Iraq was hiding from the inspectors. Both
governments knew UN inspectors had not found any nuclear, chemical
or biological weapons in Iraq since at least 1994, aside from a
dozen abandoned mustard shells, and that the vast majority of any
weapons produced before 1991 would have degraded to the point of
uselessness within 10 years.
Even
the most high-profile defector from Iraq - Hussein Kamel, Saddam
Hussein's son-in-law and director of Iraq's weapons programmes -
told UN inspectors and British intelligence agencies in 1995 that
Iraq had no more prohibited weapons. And yet Britain's dossier last
September repeated the false claim that information "in the public
domain from UN reports ... points clearly to Iraq's continuing
possession, after 1991, of chemical and biological agents and
weapons produced before the Gulf War".
There is no UN report after
1994 that claims that Iraq continued to possess weapons of mass
destruction. This was well known in intelligence circles. That such
a claim could appear in a purported intelligence document is a
clear sign that the information was "pumped up" for political
purposes, to support the case for an invasion.
War on Iran has
sequel potential
The
Toronto Star
[...]
The next war is already getting heavy advance promotion.
CNN
has a graphic going "Inside Iran,'' and Wolf Blitzer has been
braying about how Iran may have weapons of mass destruction, could
be supporting Hezbollah terrorists and, of course, has connections
to ever-elusive Al Qaeda. Friday afternoon, he allowed one of the
usual suspects from the Heritage Foundation — don't you love
how these right-wing think tanks are named? — to call Iran
the "poster child for axis of evil.''
Then
political analyst William Schneider talked on CNN about Iran's
``dangerous nuclear ambitions'' and its "subjugation of women.''
But he uttered nary a word about how in Iraq, where women had far
more freedoms, they're now terrified of marauders whom the U.S.
occupation forces can't seem to control — as well as of how
the radical Muslim mullahs are curtailing their post-war
liberties.
Iraq
has become to the U.S. something like what Gaza is to Israel, a
dangerous and hostile occupied territory. Anarchy rules, basic
services are still in short supply, and while the coalition may
have won the war, it's far from winning the peace. One month after
Bush, in his Top Gun outfit, announced the hostilities were over,
American boys in uniform are still dying, at the rate of almost one
a day.
But
you wouldn't know it from following most U.S. TV news. The embedded
reporters are back stateside, dining out on their war stories,
while the networks are cutting back on their foreign coverage ...
again.
In the next war, we can expect another bunch of clueless
journalists to run amok not knowing any geography, history or
anything about where they are.
Here
we go again, kids.[...]
Afghan drugs trade funds terrorists
Prime Minister warns Russia that trade in narcotics is being used
to fund terror groups
By
Andy McSmith, Political Editor, in St Petersburg
The Independent
01 June 2003
Tony
Blair appealed to the Russians yesterday to help fight the
international drugs trade, which he fears has become a major source
of funds for terrorists.
The
Prime Minister admitted that large quantities of heroin are still
being produced in the poppy fields of Afghanistan, despite the war
that overthrew the Taliban regime. His comments in St Petersburg
also implied that criminal gangs from the former Soviet Union are
involved in the drugs trade.
Mr
Blair urged Russia's President, Vladimir Putin, to find a political
solution to Russia's long-running conflict with the Muslim republic
of Chechnya. Militant Chechens fought alongside the Taliban in
Afghanistan, and Chechen gangs are suspected of playing a big role
in organised crime...
"If
we are going to ensure that terrorism is reduced, then we have to
make political progress in Afghanistan and elsewhere and we have to
give people an opportunity to develop a different way of life and a
different way of increasing their living standards than reliance on
the drugs trade," [Blair] said.
He
also denied that his close alliance with President Bush had made
him an outcast among European leaders. Television shots of Mr Blair
talking privately to Jacques Chirac and Germany's Joschka Fischer
suggested that both conversations were fraught, with finger-wagging
and mutual rebukes.
But
in an interview with Sky television, to be broadcast today, Mr
Blair said: "People are seeing whether there is a concept of
partnership that doesn't end up as subservience to America. They
want to be partnering America, but they don't want to be America's
servant. That's a perfectly understandable position."
Comment: Blair's comment on Afghanstan is
nauseating. The man has the gall to indulge in anti-drugs talk when
it was he and his 'ol war partner Bush that re-established the
opium trade, first massacreing 5,000 civilians and staging a game
of hide and seek with "Osama". We see now why people like Blair are
at the top of the heap in this world. The are the ones with no
scruples, no morality, no conscience, incapable of feeling guilt or
shame, with an endless capacity to lie and deceive, craving only
the realisation of their narcissistic goals, stopping at nothing to
achieve them.
'Occupiers are failing
desperate city'
By
Jo Dillon, Deputy Political Editor
The Independent
01 June 2003
Aid agencies have accused the British and United States governments
of failing to meet their legal obligations to the people of
Iraq.
Cafod, Christian Aid and
Oxfam - three leading humanitarian organisations working in
post-conflict Iraq - claim levels of security are insufficient to
allow aid workers to do the job needed.
They
warn this puts Britain and America in breach of their international
obligations - and liable for censure by the United Nations. It puts
in jeopardy the health and welfare of ordinary Iraqis and presents
the risk that frustration among the people will turn to civil
unrest if steps to improve their lot are not taken
urgently.
Oxfam's policy adviser for
Iraq, Jo Nickolls, has just returned from a stint in Baghdad. "One
of the most striking things is the sense of complete uncertainty
and fear," she said.
"People don't know how
things are going to progress and at the same time are having to
live a very tough day-to-day existence without electricity and
clean water."
Hospitals in the capital
are still treating a majority of people for complaints related to a
polluted water supply - cholera, dysentery and diarrhoea - and the
breakdown of law and order is making it difficult to replace water
systems and the electricity supply.
"Security is definitely the
primary concern," Ms Nickolls said. "The occupying power has a duty
to restore as far as possible law and order and safety. They do
seem to be failing to meet their obligations."
Her
views were shared by fellow aid workers. Alistair Dutton,
emergencies officer at Cafod, who has just returned from Basra,
said: "I can't pretend that the regime that has been removed was in
any way good or easy to work under.... But five or six weeks after
the war ended, the situation in the country is not consistent with
the Coalition forces' responsibilities under international law.
Failure to secure the country or to make it safe is severely
hampering the humanitarian effort."
Aside from looting, the
ready availability of guns and general lawlessness, the aid
agencies complain that unex- ploded bombs and mines have not yet
been cleared.
People are afraid to leave
their homes, they claim, especially women and children - which
means food and medical aid is failing to reach those who are most
vulnerable.
Comment: And Bush and Blair care? Seriously,
does anyone really believe that they give a damn? It's time to
start living in the real world. It ain't a pretty picture, but to
open our eyes and see the painful reality is infinitely preferable
to acting as accessories to the crimes being pepetrated by our
leaders by wishing and pretending that it is not
happening.
Revealed: the cluster bombs that litter
Iraq
Kamal
Ahmed, political editor
Sunday June 1, 2003
The Observer
The
shocking extent of unexploded cluster bombs dropped by American and
British planes, which litter Iraq eight weeks after the conflict,
is revealed in detail for the first time today.
The first
map based on military intelligence to show the exact location of
unexploded anti-personnel mines, cluster bombs and anti-tank mines,
obtained by The Observer, shows the vast area of the country which
is at danger from live munitions.
Experts
in clearing conflict zones of unexploded bombs say that millions of
Iraqi adults and children are at risk, along with humanitarian aid
workers, United Nations personnel, civilian staff and military
officials.
Its
revelation raises fresh questions for Tony Blair and George Bush,
who insisted that post-conflict Iraq would be a safer place than it
was under Saddam Hussein. [...]
'Iraqis want Saddam tried and
executed'
By Andy
McSmith, Political Editor, and Rupert Cornwell in Washington
01 June 2003
The Independent
The men
who carried out mass killings and other atrocities on the
instructions of Saddam Hussein will be handed over to newly
constituted Iraqi courts for trial and probable execution, said
Britain's most senior official in Iraq.
If Saddam
himself is found alive, there will be a clamour from his former
victims for him to be killed quickly, if only to reassure the Iraqi
people that he can never return to power, John Sawers, head of the
British mission in Basra, told The Independent on Sunday. "The
Iraqis want him to be found. They will want his head on a stick,"
he added.
The
prospects of Iraqi officials being put through a rudimentary legal
process and led off to execution is certain to offend liberal
opinion in Britain - although it may cause fewer difficulties than
seeing them tried and executed by the Americans, an idea floated in
Washington.
But Mr
Sawers hinted that it is unlikely that either Saddam Hussein or any
other former Iraqi leaders will appear before the kind of
international tribunal that has dealt with war criminals from the
Balkans or Rwanda.
He said
there is "no precedent" for any international war crimes trial of
Iraqis, because their case is distinct from the Serbian and Rwandan
conflicts. It also unlikely an international tribunal would inflict
the death penalty. [...]
Comment: We have the distinct impression
that the opinion of the head of the British mission in Iraq is
severely biased. From reports we have read it seems more likely
that the average Iraqi is equally likely to want to see Bush and
Blair's heads on sticks.
Terrorism:
Continuing Threats
U.S.
intelligence agencies still believe the threat to U.S.
interests—including those in America—remains quite
high
June 9 issue — Washington may have reduced the domestic
terrorist-alert level to yellow from orange but that doesn’t
mean the threat of a terrorist attack has greatly receded
recently.
OFFICIALS TELL NEWSWEEK that U.S. intelligence agencies still
believe the threat to U.S. interests—including those in
America—remains quite high. Officials say
“chatter” among known terrorists monitored by
intelligence services has not dramatically fallen since the
terror-alert level was last raised.[...]
Pessimistic officials in Washington say even at “condition
yellow,” the fragmentary picture that intelligence
information paints of Qaeda activities still evokes uncanny echoes
of what analysts saw in the weeks before 9-11.
Global Eye -- Copycat Killers
By
Chris Floyd
The Moscow Times
"This is a blessing of Sept. 11!" exclaimed the president's top
adviser, as tanks rolled across the border and paratroopers
blackened the sky above the enemy's land -- an outlaw state
seething with "terrorists" and run by "international criminals."
With embedded media breathlessly narrating the action, the
president launched the greatest display of military might the
nation had seen in more than a generation, an earth-shaking
blitzkrieg that the generals like to call "Shock and
Awe."
That
was the scene in Indonesia last week, as the military force
responsible for two of the most horrendous campaigns of genocide in
the last 50 years stormed into the rebel province of Aceh, vowing
to crush a 27-year-old independence movement in just six months.
The Indonesian militarists -- who killed more than 500,000 people
(a conservative estimate) in a CIA-assisted coup in 1965, then
slaughtered more than 250,000 East Timorese in an American-backed
invasion in 1975 (not to mention the mere thousands they and their
paramilitary fronts killed in East Timor in the 1990s) -- were back
in the saddle and loaded for bear.
They
were ordered in by President Megawati Sukarnoputri, a rather
feckless leader who was elevated to power on the strength of her
famous father's name but struggled in office -- until she failed to
prevent a bloody attack by al-Qaida on her homeland and was
paradoxically rewarded with new powers and popularity. But as her
close ally George W. Bush could tell her, a terrorist hit -- like
any illicit high -- doesn't last long. You always need another fix.
Especially when your economy is sinking beneath the weight of
rampant cronyism, corruption, poverty and inequality...
It
was the latter theme that led senior Megawati advisor Rizal
Mallarangeng to echo Bush's American sycophants in declaring the
mass murder of Sept. 11 "a blessing," The New York Times reports.
We're blessed, it seems, because the honorable Mr. Bush has now
shown us how to deal with anyone we care to label a "terrorist" --
with blood and thunder, collateral damage be damned. So Megawati
broke a tenuous ceasefire by heaping purposely unacceptable demands
on the rebels, then brought down the Bush-style iron fist.
For despite the slick media makeover, the assault on Aceh is very
much in keeping with Indonesia's proud military traditions. The
army has already begun summary executions, including boys as young
as 12, The Independent reports. Dozens of innocent civilians --
including students and Red Cross personnel -- have been massacred
in indiscriminate "sweeps," The Guardian reports. Most ominously,
Jakarta announced last week that it will herd up to 200,000
Acehnese civilians into concentration camps, The Times reports.
Presumably this is "merely" to deny local support for the rebels,
and hold their families hostage -- although given the Indonesian
military's recent history, the sky's the limit. Or perhaps we
should say, the grave?
The
blitzkrieg is being carried out with hardware and expertise
supplied by the Christian Coalition of Bush and Blair. Bush renewed
military ties with the genocidist army last year, as a reward for
help in -- what else? -- the "war on terrorism." Meanwhile,
Indonesia's British-made warplanes -- supplied under Tony Blair's
self-proclaimed "ethical foreign policy" -- keep minatory watch in
God's blue heaven.
It's
not all bad news, of course. You'll be happy to know that Aceh's
biggest corporation is still raking in big bucks despite the
carnage, Reuters reports. That would be the Bush Regime's favorite
oil and gas giant, ExxonMobil. For, like Iraq, Aceh possesses an
abundance of energy resources; yet also like Iraq -- and most other
similarly blessed lands as well -- Aceh's energy-exploiters are
rich but the people themselves are unaccountably poor.
In
fact, there has been an interesting confluence between the
Bushists, ExxonMobil and war-ravaged Aceh. Last year, Bush
intervened in the U.S. courts to quash a lawsuit filed by Aceh
natives against the American oil company, which uses Indonesian
troops as hired muscle to protect its operations against the local
riff-raff. The Acehnese accused ExxonMobil of colluding with its
hired hands in the murder, rape and torture of civilians. But Bush
said the lawsuit would "harm American foreign policy interests."
This certainly seems a bit of a stretch -- unless, of course,
"American foreign policy interests" involve murder, rape and
torture by corporate mercenaries. Surely Mr. Bush is not saying
that -- is he?
By
mid-week, the rape of Aceh -- massacres, executions, concentration
camps and all -- had virtually disappeared from the media screen,
much like that other recipient of the "blessing of Sept. 11," the
ruined and abandoned land of Afghanistan. The restless addict Bush,
craving a fresh hit, patently ignored his Indonesian imitators and
instead turned his fevered eyes to Iran, where he hopes to bestow a
fresh "blessing" soon. Aceh is irrelevant. The dogs bark, the
caravan moves on.
Only
the corpses remain behind.
Comment: This is what Bush means when he
asks Europen nations to "support the
United States' approach to fighting terrorism". It is an approach
to fighting "terrorism" that the American people are already complicit in. This
is not a drill, there are those that choose to ignore objective
reality and bury their heads further in the sand "for those
individuals, the worlds will cease. They will become exactly what
they give to life. They will become merely a dream in the
'past'".
Israel to lift closures on
Palestinian territories
Saturday,
May 31, 2003 22:22 GMT
JERUSALEM
(CNN) -- The Israeli government approved the lifting of its closure
of the West Bank and Gaza on Saturday ahead of peace talks with the
Palestinians next week, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces
said.
The
closure will be lifted at midnight [5 p.m. EDT], the spokesman
said.
Israel
shut down the West Bank on May 18 in response to a series of
attacks by Palestinian militant groups against Israeli civilians
that weekend.
The
Israeli government imposed a similar measure on Gaza on May 12,
citing warnings from terrorist groups based there that suicide
attacks in Israel were planned.
The
closures sealed Palestinians into the territories, barring them
from entering Israel for any reason, including to work.
Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his Palestinian colleague, Mahmoud
Abbas, are set to meet President Bush in a three-way summit on
Wednesday in the Jordanian port city of Aqaba. The U.S.-backed
"road map" to peace envisions an end to Israeli-Palestinian
conflicts and the creation of a Palestinian state by
2005.
Halliburton agrees
to settle accounting suits
HOUSTON (AP) -- Halliburton
Co. said Friday it has agreed to pay $6 million to settle 20
shareholder lawsuits that accused it of using deceptive accounting
practices while Vice President Dick Cheney led the company.
[...]
Officials: Rumsfeld trying to make foreign
policy
By
JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - President Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell,
national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and other top officials
are spending hours coping with frequent, unsolicited attempts by
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to make foreign policy,
according to senior administration officials who are directly
involved.
The
officials said Bush himself had to quash a Rumsfeld proposal last
month to send Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to South
Korea to announce that the United States was pulling American
troops off the Demilitarized Zone that separates North and South
Korea. [...]
From
his first days in office, Rumsfeld has inundated Washington with a
blizzard of memos regarding foreign policy, not usually the
responsibility of a defense secretary.
"There are literally
thousands of them," said one frequent recipient of Rumsfeld's
foreign policy ideas and advice. "The theme is control. He wants
everyone to have to play on his field."
It's
been no secret in Washington that Rumsfeld and Powell have
disagreed frequently on foreign policy questions. But the leaking
of the existence of Rumsfeld's memos - remarkable in an
administration known for its discipline - is a sign that the
bitterness between the camps is intensifying.[...]
Wolfowitz Calls for Economic Pressure on
Impoverished North Korea to Back off Nuclear
Program
By
Kenji Hall
Associated Press Writer
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz arrived in South Korea on
Sunday for a two-day visit that is expected to include discussions
with officials over North Korea's suspected nuclear weapons
program.
Lt.
Col. Steven Boylan, a U.S. military spokesman, said Wolfowitz would
meet later in the day with U.S. troops stationed at Camp Greaves,
near the demilitarized zone that separates North and South
Korea.
In
the South Korean capital, Seoul, about 50 protesters opposed to
Wolfowitz's visit marched outside a U.S. military base, demanding
that Washington adopt a softer stance toward North
Korea.
Hundreds of riot police
stood by, but didn't intervene.
Also
Sunday, a delegation of U.S. lawmakers, led by Rep. Curt Weldon,
arrived in the South Korean capital following two days of talks
with senior North Korean officials over the communist regime's
nuclear programs, a U.S. Embassy official said.
In
Singapore on Saturday, the Pentagon's No. 2 said Washington hopes
to end the nuclear standoff with North Korea by putting economic
pressure on North Korea.
North Korea suffers chronic
food shortages and has depended on outside help since the mid-1990s
to feed its 22 million people.
North Korea "is teetering
on the edge of economic collapse," Wolfowitz said. "That, I
believe, is a major point of leverage." [...]
Bush Stymied in Efforts to Pressure N.
Korea
Asian Partners Reluctant to
Take Steps to Further Isolate Nuclear Power
By
Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, June 1, 2003; Page
A22 SEOUL -- President Bush's efforts to form a united front to put
economic pressure on North Korea are being undercut by misgivings
among his Asian partners, despite shows of solidarity at summit
meetings last month, according to government officials and
analysts. [...]
CIA Asset Gets Slap on
Wrist
by
Les Zaitz
The Oregonian
The CIA used Sheik Mohamed Abdirahman Kariye, a leader of a
Portland Mosque, the Islamic Center, and the Global Relief
Foundation, to recruit warriors for the CIA Afghan "jihad" against
Russia in the 1980's. The federal prosecution of Sheik Mohamed
Abdirahman Kariye, which began eight months ago with a high-profile
arrest at the Portland airport, ended quietly Thursday when a
federal judge sentenced the Islamic leader to five years' probation
on two minor charges.
Kariye, 41, said nothing as
U.S. District Judge Owen Panner imposed a $1,000 fine and ordered
$5,000 restitution on charges of lying to get public health
insurance. [...]
Olympics bombing suspect finally
captured
Saturday, May 31, 2003
By KRISTEN WYATT
ASSOCIATED PRESS
MURPHY, N.C. - Eric Robert
Rudolph, the Olympic Park bombing suspect who became almost a
mythic figure during his years on the run in the Appalachian
wilderness, was arrested early Saturday as he scavenged for food
behind a grocery store.
After a massive manhunt
that included infrared scopes on helicopters and logs rigged with
motion detectors, it was ultimately a rookie officer on patrol at
4:30 a.m. who spotted a man with a camouflage jacket, blue work
britches and a stubbly beard behind a Save-A-Lot food
store.
The
man who has been on the run for more than five years took off
running one more time and finally gave up behind a pile of milk
crates. At first, he gave the fake name Jerry Wilson, but officers
who recognized him as one of the most wanted men on U.S. soil
pressed him on his identity for 20 minutes. [...]
Rudolph is accused in the
July 27, 1996, bombing at Atlanta's downtown Olympic Park that
killed a woman, wounded 111 others and stunned a world focused on
the fanfare of the 25th modern Summer Olympics.
Rudolph is also a suspect in a bombing at an abortion clinic in
Birmingham, Ala., that killed a police officer, and bombings
outside a gay nightclub and an office building in Atlanta that
contained an abortion clinic.
Rudolph is thought to be a follower of the white supremacist
Christian Identity religion that is rabidly anti-abortion, anti-gay
and anti-Semitic.
[...] Swecker said more
agents would be arriving over the next couple of days to comb the
backwoods, and he warned the public and the media to stay out of
the way.
[...] Coming a year after
the Oklahoma City bombing, the infamous signature moment of the
Olympic Games became an exploding knapsack that sent nails and
screws ripping through a packed crowd that gathered to watch a rock
concert. Alice Hawthorne was killed. The last week of the games was
dominated by the explosion and the fast-moving investigation into
security guard Richard Jewell, who was later cleared.
The
nightclub and office building blasts occurred in 1997 in the
Atlanta area, followed by the abortion clinic explosion in
Birmingham in 1998 that killed police officer Robert Sanderson.
Some of the bombs were followed by messages from the shadowy "Army
of God."
"This sends a clear message
that we will never cease in our efforts to hunt down all
terrorists, foreign or domestic, and stop them from harming the
innocent," Attorney General John Ashcroft said in a
statement.[...]
"You don't have to go to the Middle East to find terrorists.
Rudolph is one of them. He terrorized and he murdered," Lyons
said.
Comment: A few
concerns regarding this article: one, Bush is telling us he can
round up a supposed world-wide terrorist oraganization and snuff
them all out, and some are buying it, and yet they couldn't find
one man in hiding in the woods for five years. Now that they have
him what are they going to do out there in the woods that needs
secrecy? And of course, Ashcroft has a convenient vehicle to start
getting people used to the idea that all disgruntled Americans are
terrorists.
Orgies of bloody murder have
left Congo traumatised
By Declan
Walsh, in Bunia, D R Congo
31 May 2003
The Independent
When they
came for Joseph Nzeloy, the Congolese gunmen had an argument.
Should they kill the farmer's family by slicing open their
stomachs, cutting their throats or chopping off their heads? After
a thought, they decided.
With a
gun to his temple, Mr Nzeloy, 62, watched as the killers grabbed
his wife, eight children and two brothers, and bound them. Then,
one by one, they sliced their throats. Mr Nzeloy survived after
being left for dead. "I heard everything but could do nothing. I
was powerless," he said from his hospital bed.
This is
the sort of killing the United Nations hopes to stop in Bunia, in
the Ituri region of north-eastern Congo, with an emergency force
sanctioned yesterday. A force of about 1,400 peace-keepers, led by
the French but including troops from Britain and Belgium, Germany,
Spain and Italy, will try to stop the massacres.
Between
three and four million people have died in Congo's war since 1998
but western intervention has been minimal. But this month's vicious
battle for Bunia has finally prompted a response from the West.
Fighting between the rival Hema and Lendu tribes left more than 400
people dead. By local standards the bloodshed was not exceptional -
villages were annihilated last year - but it happened metres from
700 UN troops, who did nothing to stop it.
Reports
of cannibalism helped attract the West's attention. Some fighters
believe that eating an enemy's heart, kidney or sexual organs
brings magical powers. Benoit Tshikala found a friend's body on 12
May. His throat had been slit, his stomach cut open and his heart
removed. "I had heard of that before but never seen it. I am still
traumatised," said Mr Tshikala.
At the
height of hostilities, one Lendu soldier paraded around the town
with a kidney strapped to his chest. For now the UN has only a
fingerhold on stability in Bunia. Armoured vehicles manned by
Uruguayan troops thunder along the road from the headquarters to
the airport. But true control lies with the Union of Congolese
Patriots (UPC), the ruthless Hema militia that seized control two
weeks ago.
Daniel
Litsha, secretary general of the UPC, described his group as
"Congolese nationalists" who only sought "peace, reconciliation and
the unity of our country". But on the streets of Bunia, the
evidence suggested otherwise.
Dozens of
child soldiers swaggered down Bunia's main street. Baraka Asiye, a
15-year-old with small, deadened eyes, sat on a motorcycle he was
barely big enough to ride. An AK-47 was slung casually across his
back. "I don't know how many Lendus I have killed," he said. "Some
of them I shot, others I killed by hand with a knife." He added:
"They are not good people. They are the enemy."
The troop
deployment announced yesterday has raised fears that the Lendu
militia will attempt to seize control of Bunia before the soldiers
arrive. The UPC has intensified intimidation against the few
remaining Lendu. Some have been killed; others found bullets in
front of their doors. In the past few days anonymous letters have
warned "enemies" to leave within 48 hours. Nearly all have
gone.
Yesterday
morning a UN vehicle was followed closely by a pick-up truck full
of gunmen. "It was clear intimidation," said Isabelle Abric, a UN
spokeswoman. UN troops also found six mines on the edge of the
airstrip, which is expected to be the flashpoint for any outbreak
of fighting.
In the
airport terminal, hundreds sat on their bags, hoping for a flight
out. Many had been waiting for two or three weeks but few had the
$60 (£36) fare to fly by cargo plane to Beni, 150km to the
south.
In front
of the town's Catholic church, a mound of freshly turned earth in a
beanfield marked a mass grave. Three Lendu militiamen burst into
the church hall where terrified civilians had been sheltering. They
singled out the Hema and opened fire. Twenty-two people died in the
attack.
Jean-Edouard Dhena Ndjango later
found his mother had been shot in the head and his four-year-old
son had had his stomach slit open. Why were the UN peace-keepers
cowering in their base at the time, he asked angrily. "This
observation mission is useless. You can't observe when people are
killing one another and then count the bodies
afterwards."
Fresh
atrocities are flaring elsewhere in Ituri. According to Amnesty
International, dozens of people are being imprisoned in metal
containers in Aru, on the Ugandan border, following an attempted
coup against the FAPC militia. Several have been tortured and at
least four have been executed. Rwanda and Uganda, who have covertly
supported the rival Hema and Lendu groups, are manipulating the
conflict.
The spate
of tribal killings has invited comparisons with Rwanda's 1994
genocide but analysts say an all-out slaughter is still unlikely in
Ituri.
"This is
not a state-led genocide," said François Grignon of the
International Crisis Group. "But you have two militia groups
committing acts of genocide. And for both the extermination of the
other is the only solution."
China jails web dissidents
BBC Online
Four
Chinese internet writers have been sentenced to long prison terms
for subversion.
The
Beijing Intermediate People's Court sentenced geologist Jin Haike,
27, and Xu Wei, a 28-year-old journalist for Beijing's Consumer
Daily, to 10 years each in prison.
Yang
Zili, a 31-year-old computer engineer, and Zhang Honghai, a
29-year-old freelance writer, were each given eight
years.
The
men, who have already been in custody for 20 months, had set up an
internet-based group, the New Youth Society, which was dedicated to
exploring democracy and social reform.
They
had posted articles on the internet critical of the Chinese
Government.
Their sentencing follows
that last week of Huang Qi, a Chinese web operator, who was the
first person China put on trial for internet crimes.
One
of the men sentenced on Wednesday, Xu Wei, told the court he had
been brutally beaten and tortured with electric shocks to his
genitals, according to campaign group Human Rights in
China...
The
Chinese authorities are keen to promote the commercial potential of
the internet, but are anxious to control its political
content.
Reporters Without Borders
estimates that China employs 30,000 people to watch what its people
are doing online.
The
group estimates that 36 people have been arrested and jailed for
putting controversial content on the internet.
US cigarettes 'higher
cancer risk'
BBC
Online
Cigarettes made by the US
company Marlboro contain a significantly higher level of a
cancer-causing chemical than most other foreign brands, US
scientists say.
The
Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia,
compared the level of the carcinogen nitrosamine in Marlboro
cigarettes - chosen for their availability across the globe - with
local brands in 13 other countries, including Japan and
Germany.
It
found that in 11 of the countries, the local brands had much lower
levels of the chemical than Marlboro cigarettes, in some cases less
than half the amount.
CDC
officials said that the higher levels were the result of the way
tobacco in US cigarettes is cured and blended.
'Reducing harm'
The
results, published in the Nicotine and Tobacco Research journal,
could indicate that it is possible for manufacturers to lower the
levels of the nitrosamine carcinogen in cigarettes, report author
David Ashley told the Associated Press news agency.
Skywatchers see 'ring of fire'
BBC
Skywatchers in the North
Atlantic region were treated on Saturday to an annular eclipse of
the Sun.
Just after dawn, people standing in a broad path from Scotland to
Greenland saw the Moon slip inside the Sun's disc to produce a
"ring of fire" around the lunar limb.
But
the low position on the horizon for the event meant many people had
their view obstructed by mist and cloud...
Because the Moon is
currently more than 400,000 kilometres from Earth in its orbit, its
apparent size in the sky is insufficient to completely cover the
Sun's disc - as happens in a total solar eclipse.
The
sky does not go completely black; a ring or annulus of sunlight is
still visible.
The
effect is to throw an "antumbra" or "negative shadow" on the
Earth's surface as the Moon moves across the face of the Sun. It is
the track of this antumbra that is referred to as the path of
annularity.
Question From Reader
As I
understand the process, even if Bush is impeached...Herr Cheney
becomes Prez. It does not seem like a solution to the problem. How
do we get rid of Cheney? Same process? If we can get rid of both,
who is then next in the line of succession? Speaker of the
House?
R
Comment:
Good Question. The signs team thinks the best
strategy may be to prove Bush's involvement in the 9/11 terrorist
attacks on America, indict him and the whole clan for treason and
murder rather than purely focusing on impeaching Bush. U.S.
citizens need to come to the realization that pure, malevolent evil
exists, (shock! horror! even in America!) in order to protect
themselves from it.
There may even be a real possibility that Bush is
being set up, as he dismantles America economically and terrorist
strikes increase, that the U.S. population will become so fed up
that they will begin to look for a saviour. We are wary of these
politicians such as WV Dem. Senator Byrd who is doing a bit of
trash talking regarding Bush. Bush could be run out on a rail, and
then serious clamps down on freedoms to "help rebuild America and
take back it's former glory," could be the talk. Nothing makes you
safer than giving up freedoms.
So what to do? Eternal vigilance and pursuit of
knowledge. These people use double, triple psychology and figure
that we all are herds of dumb sheep. Perhaps it is time to prove
them wrong.
Question From Reader
[T]oday around 7:45/ 8:00pm
[Thursday] there was an enormous falling, illuminating object that
was decsending straight towards our direction as if it was going to
hit "ventura", suddenly 3 small illuminating balls were surrounding
it ,then out of nowhere a small plane with no lights passed the
large lighted object and completely changed its course and veered
to the north east"Bakersfield" these illuminating tails from these
objects were as if they were as bright as the sun. Soon after it
disappeared into the east, we sighted an abundance of military
planes across the sky from Magu to Vandenburg. Did you happen to
witness this? What was it? What is your opinion or take on this
sighting or observation?
K
Comment:
So far, this is the first report of this
sighting the Signs team has heard. Any other California readers
spot this or see any media reports?
Europe goes to Mars
By Helen Briggs
BBC News Online science reporter
Sunday, 1 June, 2003, 01:01 GMT
The race
to find life on Mars is set to begin on Monday with the launch of
Europe's first voyage to another planet.
Ready to go: Mars Express and its Beagle lander sit atop the
launcher
Three probes are leaving Earth this summer, starting with the
European Space Agency's Mars Express mission.
It
carries the Beagle 2 lander, which, if all goes well, will become
the first British-built craft to touch down on another
world.
The
launch marks the start of a new golden age in Mars
exploration.
The US
space agency (Nasa) is sending two missions to the fourth planet.
The first of its Mars Exploration Rovers should leave Earth in a
week or so.
Another
Mars traveller is destined to arrive early next year. Japan's
Nozomi craft should reach the planet early in 2004 after a long
journey beset by mishaps. [...]
Clues
that Mars once had oceans, lakes and possibly microbes have sparked
a "gold rush" to send unmanned space craft to visit the planet.
[...]
S. Korea navy fires on
intruders
Sunday,
June 1, 2003 Posted: 04:45 GMT
SEOUL,
South Korea (Reuters) -- South Korea's navy fired warning shots on
Sunday after three North Korean fishing boats crossed their
disputed Yellow Sea border, a military spokesman for the South
said.
The
spokesman declined to provide details, but confirmed a local
television report that three North Korean boats retreated after the
warning shots in the latest of a series of incursions this week in
rich fishing grounds west of the divided peninsula.
On
Saturday the South's military reported four fishing boats intruded
into their territory but were chased back "after we broadcast
warnings," a military spokesman said earlier.
"We are
studying the reason for the intrusion."
On
Thursday, North Korea accused South Korea of sending warships
across the maritime boundary, warning Seoul that further moves
could lead to "irrevocable serious consequences," ratcheting up
tensions on the divided peninsula. [...]
Death Toll Nears 800 From India Heat
Wave
By OMER
FAROOQ, Associated Press Writer
HYDERABAD, India - Sunstroke and
dehydration claimed another 160 lives in a southern Indian state,
raising the death toll from a two-week heat wave to nearly 800, a
relief official said.
Temperatures rose as high as
118.2 degrees Fahrenheit and meteorologists promised no relief from
the heat wave for another two days in Andhra Pradesh state, the
state's chief relief official, D.C. Roshaiah, said Saturday.
[...]
Tales of orgies and murder
rock France
Politicians and police linked to
scandal
Paul
Webster in Paris
Sunday June 1, 2003
The Observer
The
claims involve white slavery, sado-masochism, rapes, sex with
minors, drug dealing and appalling brutality - all in the heart of
the government of one of France's most historic and most civilised
cities. The southern city of Toulouse, known as la ville rose
because of its sun-drenched Spanish-style buildings, has been
scandalised by allegations that public officials protected a
barbaric serial killer charged with murdering prostitutes recruited
for orgies in the city's courthouse. Though the accusations are
unproved, Justice Minister Dominique Perben sacked Toulouse's
prosecutor-general, Jean Volff, last week for covering up links
between senior officials and the exploitation of vulnerable girls.
Volff has denied any wrongdoing. [...]
ID card 'tricks' anger net users
By
Mark Ward
BBC News Online
Technology correspondent
Lobby groups fear public responses will be trashed.
Net
activists are pressing the UK Government to explain what has
happened to thousands of public responses that expressed doubts
about the merits of ID cards.
The
responses were passed on by groups such as Stand and Privacy
International when the government was seeking public comment on its
ID card proposals.
The
groups have been dismayed by bullish official announcements on ID
cards and fear that all dissenting views are being
ignored.
First suspected West Nile Virus human case in
Washington
Seattle Times
KENNEWICK — The state
Health Department said today it was investigating the first
suspected case of West Nile virus in a human in
Washington.
A
Franklin County man became ill in mid-May and is now recovering.
His identity was not released.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is running
tests that would confirm whether this is the first case of the
mosquito-borne disease in the state. Those results will take about
two weeks. Preliminary state tests indicate it is West
Nile.
When the chips
are down, bad luck is all in the mind
New
study claims that, with the right attitude, you can overcome life's
bum deals
By
Jenifer Johnston
The Sunday Herald
The age-old adage that 'you make your own luck' has been proved by
scientists from Stirling University.
A
two-year research project, led by Dr Duncan Pritchard, has
concluded that while everyone enjoys the same amount of luck or
misfortune in their lives, it is the way we deal with it that makes
the difference.
Pessimistic people will
ignore 'lucky' situations when presented with them, while upbeat
people are more likely to grab opportunities with both hands, reap
the benefits and appear 'lucky'.
Pritchard, a psychologist
at the university, studied gamblers and football managers'
superstitions and found that no amount of lucky horseshoes, lucky
white heather, four-leaf clovers or carrying out bizarre rituals
actually makes any difference.
Pritchard told the Sunday
Herald that people's attitudes towards luck affect how lucky they
feel.
'There is no evidence to suggest some people are more lucky than
others -- people who appreciate good luck when it comes their way
will prosper and will, in turn, be considered lucky people,' he
said. [...]
America's Schools Get the OK
to Serve Irradiated Meat to Students
Schools
to Be Allowed to Serve Irradiated Meat
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON, Oct. 26 - Schools
will be allowed to serve children meat that has been sterilized
through irradiation, the Agriculture Department has decided.
Irradiation sterilizes food by using low levels of gamma rays or
electrons to kill bacteria and parasites, like E. coli and
salmonella. In 1999, the government approved the sale of irradiated
meat to the public, but irradiated meat was prohibited in the
school lunch program. The farm bill approved in May changed that,
said Alisa Harrison, spokeswoman for the Agriculture Department.
[...]
Some
advocacy groups say irradiated food is unhealthy, though the World
Health Organization and the American Medical Association have said
it is safe. The consumer group Public Citizen has strongly opposed
irradiation, saying the process destroys vitamins and nutrients and
can cause chemicals linked to cancer and birth defects to develop.
[...]
Tornadoes Hit Central, Northern
Illinois
Sat May
31,12:59 PM ET
CLINTON, Ill. - Tornadoes cut across central Illinois for the
second time in a week, destroying about 15 homes and damaging
dozens of others, state and county emergency officials said.
[...]
Damage in
northern Illinois was less severe, but tornadoes were reported in
Lee, Kendall and Winnebago counties, said meteorologist Joel
Veeneman in the weather service's Chicago office. [...]
And
Finally...
Toronto to host World Stupidity
Awards
Canadian Press
Toronto — What do U.S. President George W. Bush, Tory MP
Elsie Wayne and Toronto Mayor Mel Lastman have in
common?
They're all nominees for
the first annual World Stupidity Awards, a dubious honour to be
bestowed on June 6 — whether they like it or not — on
some of Canada's, and the world's, most recognizable public
figures.
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