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P
I C T U R E O F T H E D
A Y
Nuage
©2005 Pierre-Paul
Feyte
CAIRO (Reuters) -
A bomber and two veiled women attacked tourists in separate
incidents in Cairo on Saturday, targeting people near
a popular museum and a bus in the south of the city,
official sources said.
An Egyptian man, probably the bomber, and the two women
were killed, they said. Seven people were injured near
the Egyptian museum, a key tourist attraction for its
pharaonic treasures, in what Cairo's security chief
said was a suicide attack.
Those injured in the bombing were three Egyptians,
an Israeli couple aged 60 and 55, an Italian man aged
26, and a Swedish man aged 28, the Interior Ministry
said.
In the bus attack -- the first in living memory by
women in Egypt -- the two veiled women opened fire at
the back window of a tourist coach, the Interior Ministry
said. No one in the bus was hit but shattered glass
from a windshield lay on the road.
Two bombings in the last seven months have had little
effect on Egypt's tourism industry, which brought in
$6.6 billion in 2004, a record year with more than eight
million tourists, but economists say a string of attacks
could hit Egypt hard.
Health Minister Mohamed Awad Tag el-Din said the injured
had superficial wounds caused by nails which witnesses
said were in the bomb. He said most of the wounded were
in good condition, except for the Swede, whose wounds
were "moderate."
"They are in stable condition in hospital,"
added Tourism Minister Ahmed el-Maghrabi.
The two veiled woman, identified by the Interior Ministry
as the bomber's sister Negat Yousri and his girlfriend
Iman Ibrahim Khamees, attacked on the Salah Salem highway,
one of the main arteries through the south of the city.
The ministry said Negat committed suicide. Khamees
died in hospital of her wounds but it was not clear
who shot her.
It said the man who blew himself up was Ihab Yousri
Yassin, a fugitive member of the group which planned
an April 7 bombing which killed three tourists in a
Cairo bazaar.
It said he had jumped from the bridge into the square
below, where he detonated the bomb. "They found
his papers, and the identity card of the perpetrator
of the Azhar (bazaar) incident," the ministry said
in a statement.
Police have arrested in the last few hours the two
other fugitive members of the group, named as Ashraf
Said Youssef and Gamal Ahmed Abdel-Aal, the ministry
added.
Other security sources said someone had thrown a bomb
from a bridge which passes behind the museum.
Two groups -- the Mujahideen of Egypt and the Martyr
Abdullah Azzam Brigades -- said on an Islamist Web site
that their people carried out the attacks. It
was not possible to verify their authenticity and some
of the details of their claims did not appear to match
witness accounts.
Behind the museum, the body of the dead man lay on
its back in a pool of blood under the bridge. His head
was blown apart but the rest of his body was apparently
intact. He was wearing a light blue shirt and dark trousers,
a Reuters journalist said.
Police gathered together pieces of his head and laid
a newspaper on the street to soak up the blood.
At the scene of the shooting attack in south Cairo,
witnesses saw shattered glass, blood on the street,
newspaper to soak it up, a pistol and what appeared
to be a pair of black gloves of the type worn by veiled
women.
The April 7 bombing was the most serious
in the Nile Valley since 1997. But in October last year,
a group led by a Palestinian attacked Red Sea resorts
frequented by Israelis, killing 34 people.
Diaa Rashwan, an analyst of violent Islamist groups,
said: "It seems like we are talking about a small
group of family and friends carrying out these attacks
... These people have no real organization. They are
motivated by anger. It's difficult
for the security people to find out much about them."
|
TABA, Egypt -- An
Israeli defense official and terrorism analysts said
Friday that the three blasts at Egyptian vacation spots
frequented by Israelis bear al Qaeda hallmarks.
Israel's Deputy Defense Minister Zeev Boim made his comments
the day after the bombings killed at least 29 people and
wounded dozens more in Taba.
Egyptian and Israeli officials have
been combing through wreckage at the Hilton Hotel searching
for victims of the attack.
At least 30 people are missing and officials fear the
death toll will rise.
Only 10 bodies had been identified -- six Egyptians,
four Israelis.
Egyptian officials said authorities
were still working to determine the exact source of the
explosions, although they are calling it an attack on
the hotel.
Boim said the attacks are similar to
those of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network,
although he said he's not ruling out the possibility that
a Palestinian militant group could be responsible.
Two terrorism analysts told CNN they
suspect Egyptian Jihad, a group that merged with al Qaeda
in the late 1990s.
But Israeli officials said it is not
yet clear who's responsible, and U.S. officials warned
against jumping to any conclusions.
Three different, little-known or previously
unknown groups have claimed responsibility for the bombings.
All three claims appeared on Islamist Web sites. The
third came from a group that said it is associated with
al Qaeda.
CNN cannot authenticate any of
the claims. [...]
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met with his Cabinet
in emergency session and spoke with Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak to coordinate efforts. The two men agreed
to concentrate efforts and forces in the war on terrorism,
a statement from Sharon's office said.
The two nations' foreign ministers have been in direct
contact as well.
Gillerman said Israel does not suspect the involvement
of Egyptians.
"Egypt is a victim of this attack and we have great
sympathy," he said. "Egypt is just another moderate
Arab government just like Morocco, just like Tunisia,
who is suffering because of its moderation at the hands
of these extremists and fundamentalists who must be eradicated." |
TABA, Egypt
- Israeli officials said Friday
they believe al-Qaida was probably behind three suicide
car bomb attacks targeting Red Sea resorts filled with
Israeli tourists, as investigators searched for
evidence and rescuers pulled bodies from the twisted wreckage
of a five-star hotel and casino.
Thursday night's bombings in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula
killed 29 people, according to Israeli authorities, who
were leading the rescue effort.
Egyptian officials could confirm only 24 dead. More than
100 people were injured, with reports as high as 160.
[...]
Participants in an emergency meeting of the Israeli Cabinet
said the military intelligence chief told them al-Qaida
was probably behind the attacks. Deputy Defense Minister
Zeev Boim called Osama bin Laden's terrorist network the
most likely suspect.
Egyptian authorities were more cautious. "We have
to wait until the investigation is over to make sure if
the attack was related to al-Qaida, or any other organization,
or not," said Maged Abdel Fattah, spokesman for Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak.
In Washington, a U.S. counterterrorism official, discussing
intelligence on the condition of anonymity, said American
officials suspect — but aren't certain — that
al-Qaida had a role in the bombings. [...]
There were several claims of responsibility
— including one from an al-Qaida-linked group —
but none appeared credible.
"This is a terrorist attack,
but who did it?" asked Egypt's foreign minister,
Ahmed Aboul Gheit. "We can't tell, as the investigation
has just begun." [...]
Israeli security sources said all three bombs were suicide
attacks.
Officials initially reported at least 30 dead, but scaled
back. The Israeli army said Friday night that 29 people
were confirmed dead. Egypt's interior minister reported
24.
An official at Taba hospital,
speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated
Press that 24 people were killed, including five Israelis,
seven Egyptians and the rest foreigners whose nationalities
were not immediately determined. The Israeli fire
chief said a female tourist from Russia was among those
killed. [...]
Egypt's tourism minister, Ahmed El Maghraby,
indicated the attacks were political: "Look at the
timing. Look at the choice of place."
He didn't say what he was referring to, but other officials
drew links to the Israeli military operation against the
Palestinians in the neighboring Gaza Strip, where more
than 80 Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli offensive
that began Sept. 29. [...] |
Previously
unknown group says attack is in revenge for Israel's
assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.
The previously unknown group said
the attack, which killed at least 19 people and
left another 38 missing, was in revenge for Israel's assassination
last March of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, founder of the Palestinian
Islamist movement Hamas, and was
"the first direct shot in the face of Jews." |
"The Israeli government, under the leadership
of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, intends to withdraw
Israeli settlers and troops from Gaza. But deadly rocket
fire from Gaza into Israel caused the redeployment of
Israeli troops into Gaza. Wouldn't all Palestinians,
even the most militant, be better off without Israeli
forces in their midst and without retaliatory attacks
by Israeli aircraft? Who benefits from the fighting?"
|
CAIRO, October
8 – A cohort of Egyptian
security, political and diplomatic experts have concluded
that Israel is the only party to benefit from the blasts
that rocked tourist resorts in the Egyptian Sinai peninsula
on Thursday, October7 , ruling out any possible Egyptian
involvement.
Former Egyptian Assistant Interior Minister
Mohammad Omar Abdel-Fattah said that while analyzing any
such operation security experts should always seek an
answer to the basic question of who stands to benefit.
"Israel is the only party to gain
from this operation," the international security
expert told IslamOnline.net.
He pointed out that the Israelis and
their agents are the only people who have free access
to the targeted area.
Abdel-Fattah said the booby-trapped
vehicles used in the bombings do not carry the trademark
of terrorist groups who usually resort to suicide bombers
instead.
He stressed that the Israeli right has been cornered
due to mounting pressures from the US on Israeli Premier
Ariel Sharon after Washington had to wield its veto power
to kill a resolution condemning Israel for the onslaught
on the Gaza Strip.
Israel needed something to dodge such
American pressures and throw the ball at the American
court till the end of the elections, said the expert.
Targeting Egypt
Former Egyptian Assistant Foreign Minister
Abdullah Al-Ashaal also agreed that several indications
suggest an Israeli foul play.
"Israel’s ultimate goal to undermine Egypt’s
regional role and force it on its knees," he told
IOL.
"All indicators suggest an Israeli
involvement, especially that the area is very close to
the Israeli borders."
He also recalled the recent Israeli travel warning against
visiting the Sinai peninsula.
Al-Ashaal said that by jumbling to heap the blame on
Al-Qeada, Israel wanted to embroil Egypt in Washington’s
so-called war on terror.
The Egyptian tourism sector, a main foreign currency
earner, would bear the brunt of the bombings, he added.
Diaa Rashwan, an expect in the Islamic movements affairs
in Al-Ahram Center for Strategic Studies, an Egyptian
think-tank, also agreed that Al-Qaeda was not a likely
culprit.
According to American intelligence 70 percent of Al-Qeada
leaders have been either killed or kidnapped while the
rest are taking shelter on Afghanistan’s borders
with Pakistan, he said.
"Sinai bombings carry the trademark
of careful planning which means those involved had a hand-on
experience on the area, which is already under tight security."
The expert suggested that "foreign
intelligence" are directly or indirectly involved
in such "dirty attacks."
Rashwan agreed with the other experts that Israel would
be the only part to make gains from the attacks, especially
that Israel would exploit them to associate itself with
Washington in its so-called war on terror.
He also expected the Sharon’s Likud party to use
the blasts to undermine the Egyptian role in the Palestinian
cause.
Palestinians Suspected
Another group of expects did not rule out a possible
involvement by Palestinian factions in the bombings and
that they refrained from claiming responsibility to avoid
a face-off with Egypt.
Political analyst Al-Sayed Yassin said the operation
came in retaliation for the unparalleled state terrorism
practiced by Israel against unarmed citizens in Gaza Strip.
He ruled out the involvement of Al-Qaeda
in such bombings, as the network has no experience in
working in the region.
The expert also undermined suggestions
that the operation would be exploited to attack Egypt
over security lapses.
"Egypt can not be accused of security
lapses because those groups penetrate Israeli security
on daily basis through operations committed not far from
Sharon's residence," he said.
He also recalled that similar attacks
have been mounted against targets inside New York and
Washington. |
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Insurgents
set off at least 17 bombs in Iraq on Friday, killing
at least 50 people, including three U.S. soldiers, in
a series of attacks aimed at shaking Iraq's newly formed
government. An audio tape by one of America's most-wanted
insurgents, Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi, warned President Bush
there was more bloodshed to come.
The well-coordinated attacks,
which also wounded 114 Iraqis and seven Americans,
came as political leaders are trying to curb the insurgency
by including all of Iraq's main religious and ethnic
groups into an uncertain new Shiite-dominated government
that takes office Tuesday. Most of the bombing targets
were Iraqi security forces and police, whom insurgents
accuse of collaborating with the Americans.
An association of Sunni Muslim clerics believed to
have links with the insurgency, saw little prospect
for peace as long as U.S. forces remain in Iraq.
"We don't believe that
the government will solve the problems of an occupied
Iraq. We don't trust the government," Harith
al-Dhari, head of the Association of Muslim Scholars,
told Turkey's Anatolia news agency.
"We don't see hope because the occupation is continuing."
U.S. officials had hoped the new Cabinet approved
Thursday would help dent support for the militants within
the Sunni Arab minority that dominated under ousted
leader Saddam Hussein and is now believed to be driving
the insurgency. However, the
lineup excludes Sunnis from meaningful positions
and leaves the key defense ministry in temporary hands.
"You, Bush, we will not rest until we avenge
our dignity," al-Zarqawi said in the audiotape
that was posted on the Internet. "We will not rest
while your army is here as long as there is a pulse
in our veins." He threatened more attacks against
U.S. forces and warned against collaborating with Americans.
In Washington, an intelligence official said the tape
appeared to be genuine.
The deadliest of Friday's attacks were multiple bombings
in the small Baghdad neighborhood of Azamiyah and in
the town of Madain, 12 miles southeast of the capital.
Despite the day's bloody toll, the
U.S. military maintained that attacks are diminishing
overall in Iraq.
"We see these attacks as another desperate attempt
by the terrorists to discredit the newly formed Iraqi
government" and "drive a wedge between the
Iraqi people and their right to choose their own destiny,"
the military said in a statement.
Gen. Wafiq al-Samarie, Iraq's presidential adviser
for security affairs, urged Iraqis to stand up to insurgents.
"Today too many car bomb attacks took place,
but this is not the end," he said in an interview
with al-Jazeera television. "Our people should
stand up against these criminals. ... Security is everybody's
responsibility."
At least 13 car bombs exploded in and around the capital
Friday, killing at least 23 Iraqi security force members
and wounding 31, the U.S. military said. Iraqi police
said they included six suicide attacks.
In the worst attack, four suicide
car bombings took place within minutes in Azamiyah,
said police chief Brig. Gen. Khalid al-Hassan. The first
hit an Iraqi army patrol, the second a police patrol,
and the third and fourth exploded at separate barricades
near the headquarters of the police special forces unit.
The Azamiyah blasts killed at least 20 Iraqis, including
15 soldiers and five civilians, Col. Hussein Mutlak
said At least 65 were injured, including 30 troops and
35 civilians, he said.
Policemen crouched in fear after the explosions, which
set fire to the special forces headquarters. One residential
building was severely damaged, its white faEcade blackened
and its first-floor shops completely destroyed.
An Iraqi soldier who had rushed to the scene vented
his anger against the insurgents, saying: "These
people aren't soldiers."
A nearby hospital was filled with seriously wounded
Iraqis lying in beds with blood-soaked sheets.
As Louay Mohammed Saleh writhed in pain, covered with
bandages, his uncle said the police officer was in a
patrol rushing to one of the bomb sites when another
bomb exploded near his car.
"I'm dying," Saleh screamed.
In another highly coordinated
attack, insurgents detonated a roadside bomb
in Madain, then sent two suicide car bombers from two
different directions into police special forces as they
arrived to investigate, said police Lt. Jassim al-Maliky.
At least two more car bombs detonated in the area, one
near the city hospital and another targeting a police
patrol, police said.
The Madain attacks, which killed 13 people and wounded
20, came less than two weeks after Iraqi forces raided
the region to clear it of insurgents. The U.S. military
had praised the operation as evidence of the progress
made by Iraq in assuring its own security.
In Baqouba, 35 miles north of Baghdad, a suicide attacker
blew up an ambulance packed with explosives near a police
special forces patrol, killing four Iraqis, including
two policemen, said police Brig. Gen. Adel Molan. Twenty
Iraqis were injured, including four police, he said.
Also in Baqouba, an Iraqi man armed with grenade walked
out of the city's al-Aqsa mosque and threatened to throw
it at Iraqi and U.S. forces surrounding the building,
the U.S. military said. They opened fire and killed
the man, the military said.
Ali Fadhil, of the city's U.S.-Iraqi joint operations
center, identified the man as a Sunni cleric believed
to be a senior member of al-Zarqawi's Al-Qaida in Iraq
terrorist group.
"Imam Abdul Razaq Rashid Hamid ... came out from
the mosque with two hand grenades as our forces were
surrounding the mosque," Fadhil said. "He
threw one of the grenades at the forces while blowing
himself up with the second one."
The two accounts could not immediately
be reconciled.
West of Basra, about 340 miles southeast of Baghdad,
a roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi border guard patrol
killed one soldier and wounded two, said Iraqi Lt. Col.
Abdul Hadi al-Najar.
At least nine more Iraqis were killed and nine wounded
in other scattered violence, including bombings, shootings
and mortar fire, officials said.
One American soldier was killed and two others wounded
in a car bombing about 18 miles north of the capital,
the military said. Two more U.S. soldiers were killed
in another car bombing near Diyarah, about 30 miles
south of Baghdad.
At least seven American soldiers were wounded in the
attacks in and around the capital, said military spokesman
Greg Kaufman.
At least 1,575 members of the U.S. military have died
since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according
to an Associated Press count. |
An American Muslim
army sergeant has been sentenced to death by a military
court for killing two fellow soldiers and wounding 14
others in the first days of the Iraq invasion.
Sergeant Hasan Akbar, of the 101st Airborne Division,
expressed regret for throwing grenades into officers'
tents in the Kuwait desert and opening fire on the survivors
on 23 March 2003.
"I want to apologise for the attack," the
34-year-old soldier told the 15-member jury on Wednesday,
in a hushed voice and speaking for the first time at
his trial. "I felt that my life was in jeopardy,
and I had no other options. I also want to ask you for
forgiveness."
His father, John Akbar, had claimed Hasan was the target
of racial and religious taunts from other soldiers,
who he said had worn Nazi and Ku Klux Klan tattoos.
His defence lawyers also argued that he was mentally
ill at the time of the attack.
The prosecution denied he had been victimised and presented
the murder as the premeditated act of a religious zealot.
"He is a hate-filled, ideologically-driven murderer,"
said the chief prosecutor, Lieutenant Colonel Michael
Mulligan. He pointed to a diary entry in 1997, in which
Akbar wrote: "My life will not be complete unless
America is destroyed."
"I suppose they want to punk me or just humiliate
me," Akbar wrote in another diary entry a month
before the attack. "I am not going to do anything
about it as long as I stay here. But as soon as I am
in Iraq, I am going to try and kill as many of them
as possible."
Akbar becomes the eighth man awaiting execution on
the US military death row. Six are black and one Asian,
a fact that has drawn criticism from civil rights activists.
|
NEW YORK -- In a federal
court brief filed late last night, the American Civil
Liberties Union challenged the government's claim that
turning over photographic evidence of detainee abuse
in Iraq would violate the Geneva Conventions.
"Until now, this administration has shown only
contempt for the Geneva Conventions, and it has built
its policies dismissing the application of international
humanitarian law," said Anthony D. Romero, Executive
Director of the ACLU. "It's simply astounding that
the Defense Department has now invoked the Geneva Conventions
to suppress evidence that prisoners have been abused.
The government cannot cloak its attempts to protect
itself from public embarrassment in a newfound concern
for the Geneva Conventions."
Through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the ACLU
and the New York Civil Liberties Union have sought the
release of photographs and videotapes, in addition to
documents, that would shed light on the systemic abuse
of detainees held by the United States overseas. The
Defense Department has refused to turn over photographic
evidence, stating that to do so would violate the government's
obligations under the Geneva Conventions.
In its reply brief, the ACLU argued that the release
of photographs would not infringe the personal privacy
of the detainees depicted if all identifying details
were redacted. The ACLU also submitted declarations
from leading international law experts stating that
releasing the photographs would be consistent with the
Geneva Conventions. One expert noted that photography
exposing inhumane conditions at German and Japanese
concentration camps played a powerful role in the historical
development of the Geneva Conventions themselves.
The ACLU also questioned the sincerity of the government's
commitment to the Geneva Conventions, pointing to previous
declarations from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
that the Conventions do not apply to detainees held
at Guantánamo Bay or in Afghanistan. Recently,
the ACLU obtained a memo signed by Lieutenant General
Ricardo A. Sanchez authorizing 29 interrogation techniques
for use in Iraq, including several techniques that the
group says clearly violate the Geneva Conventions. Among
other things, the Sanchez memo allowed interrogators
to use military dogs "to exploit Arab fears"
and to subject detainees to painful stress positions
and extended isolation.
"The Geneva Conventions were intended to protect
prisoners, not to provide governments with a basis for
withholding evidence that prisoners have been maltreated,"
said ACLU attorney Jameel Jaffer. "It's disgraceful
that the Defense Department is attempting to contort
the Conventions in this way."
The ACLU also charged in its brief that:
* The CIA has improperly refused to confirm or deny
the existence of documents that have been reported on
by the press. The CIA has invoked a legal argument known
as the "Glomar" response to avoid acknowledging
even the existence of two Justice Department memos regarding
the legality of certain interrogation techniques. It
has also invoked Glomar with respect to an order from
President Bush authorizing the CIA to set up detention
facilities outside the United States.
* The Defense Department has improperly withheld documents
pertaining to the International Committee of the Red
Cross. The ACLU is seeking Defense Department documents
that were generated in response to concerns raised by
the ICRC over the treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib
and Guantánamo Bay. Although the ICRC reports
themselves are confidential, the ACLU has argued that
memos produced by the Defense Department in response
to the ICRC findings cannot be withheld from the public.
* The CIA has failed to justify the withholding of
documents on "Ghost Detainees." The ACLU is
seeking the release of documents relating to CIA Director
George Tenet's request that Secretary Rumsfeld hold
an Iraqi prisoner but not list him on the prison rolls,
as well as Secretary Rumsfeld's order implementing that
request. Neither the Defense Department nor the CIA
has provided an adequate response to this request, and
the ACLU is asking the court to order the immediate
release of these documents. [...] |
The
U.S. military staged the interrogations of terrorism
suspects for members of Congress and other officials
visiting the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
to make it appear the government was obtaining valuable
intelligence, a former Army translator who worked
there claims in a new book scheduled for release Monday.
Former Army Sgt. Erik Saar said the military chose
detainees for the mock interrogations who previously
had been cooperative and instructed them to repeat what
they had told interrogators in earlier sessions, according
to an interview with the CBS television program "60
Minutes," which is slated to air Sunday night.
"They would find a detainee that they knew to
have been cooperative," Saar told CBS. "They
would ask the interrogator to go back over the same
information," he said, calling it "a
fictitious world" created for the visitors.
Saar worked as a translator at Guantanamo from December
2002 to June 2003. During that time, several members
of Congress reported visiting the base, but military
officials said they do not know precisely how many toured
it.
Saar also told CBS, and claims in his upcoming book,
"Inside the Wire," that a
few dozen of the more than 750 men who have been held
at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay were terrorists,
and that little valuable information has been obtained
from them.
A spokesman for the U.S. military's Southern Command,
which oversees Guantanamo Bay operations, dismissed
the allegation of mock interrogations.
"I can say that we do not stage interrogations
for VIP visits at Guantanamo," said Col. David
McWilliams. "I don't want to characterize or comment
on what Sergeant Saar believes. He's written his book."
A Defense Department official familiar with interrogations
said Saar would not be privy to interview strategies.
He noted that interrogators often ask the same questions
in separate sessions to check a detainee's account.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) said she was "initially
impressed" by interrogations she saw on a tour
of Guantanamo Bay in February 2004 with members of the
Homeland Security Committee. The delegation watched
through mirrored glass as interrogators spoke in conversational
tones and rewarded cooperative
detainees with ice cream. Now, she believes,
"we were duped."
"The amount and depth of the
torture that's been alleged and corroborated leaves
no doubt in my mind that what we saw was a staged interrogation,"
Norton said.
Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional
Rights, which has led the legal challenge of detainees'
imprisonment and alleged abusive interrogation techniques,
said Saar's claims support lawyers' suspicions that
the official tours of Guantanamo were phony.
"They couldn't show people
what they were really doing, because what they were
really doing was illegal and inhumane,"
Ratner said. "It's such a fraud. It
reminds me of the special concentration camps set up
in World War II. They would take the Red Cross
there to see there was an orchestra and all sorts of
nice things." |
Private First Class
Lynndie England will plead guilty to abusing Iraqi detainees
in Abu Ghraib prison, about a year after photos of her
sexually humiliating inmates made her the face of a scandal
that damaged the credibility of the US military.
England will plead guilty in a military court on Monday
to seven of the nine counts against her: two counts of
conspiracy, four counts of maltreating prisoners and one
count of dereliction of duty, said Rick Hernandez, her
civilian lawyer.
England, a 22-year-old army reservist who was a clerk
at the Baghdad-area prison, was scheduled to go to trial
on Tuesday at Fort Hood, Texas. Hernandez said the plea
deal was reached on Friday afternoon during a meeting
with military prosecutors at the army post.
"This is in her best interests," he said. [...]
England, from Fort Ashby, West Virginia, was one of seven
members of the Maryland-based 372nd Military Police Company
charged with humiliating and assaulting prisoners at the
prison near Baghdad. She became a focal point of the scandal
after photos of her surfaced, including one that showed
her smiling and posing with nude prisoners stacked in
a pyramid.
In one notorious photo from the prison, England is shown
holding a hooded, naked Iraqi prisoner on a leash. In
another she is smiling and pointing at a naked detainee's
genitals while a cigarette dangles from the corner of
her mouth.
The Abu Ghraib scandal, which went public last April,
weakened confidence in America's military leadership in
the US, ignited outrage around the world, and spawned
several high-level government investigations.
So far, only low-level soldiers have been charged, although
the defendants and other critics have alleged higher-level
officials condoned the abuse.
England's lawyers had argued she and others in her unit
were acting on orders from military intelligence to soften-up
prisoners for interrogations.
But army investigators testified during hearings last
summer that England said the reservists took the photos
while "they were joking around, having some fun".
[Hernandez] said the defence would
also present evidence to the sentencing jury that England
had severe learning disabilities and mental health problems. |
SAVANNAH, Ga. - The Army said Friday
it has denied conscientious objector status for a soldier
who refused to deploy to Iraq for a second tour, saying
he became morally opposed to war during the 2003 U.S.-led
invasion.
Sgt. Kevin Benderman, 40, filed his objector application
Dec. 28, just 10 days before he skipped his unit's deployment
flight. The Army mechanic faces a court-martial May
12 on charges of desertion and missing movement.
The conscientious-objector denial came Wednesday from
the Army's Headquarters Department, Fort Stewart spokesman
Lt. Col. Robert Whetstone said.
Benderman and his military attorney, Maj. Scott Sikes,
did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment
Friday.
Benderman, who has served 10 years
in the Army, has said his eight months in Iraq in 2003
included scenes of misery such as a badly burned young
girl and mass graves filled with men, women and children.
He had faced tough questions about his sincerity at
a February hearing on his application, especially regarding
his decision to file his claim days before the Fort
Stewart-based 3rd Infantry Division began deploying
19,000 troops to Iraq in January.
His commanders contend Benderman was obligated to deploy
with his unit, the 3rd Forward Support Battalion, while
the Army processed his objector claim.
The military defines a conscientious objector as someone
who opposes war in all forms for deeply held moral or
religious reasons.
If convicted at his court-martial, Benderman
faces up to seven years in prison, reduction
in rank to private and a dishonorable discharge. |
NEAR SAMAWA, Iraq - Investigators
have uncovered a mass grave in southern Iraq containing
as many as 1,500 bodies, most of them thought to be
Kurds forcibly removed from their homes in the late
1980s.
The site, near the town of Samawa, about 180 miles
south of Baghdad, consists of 18 shallow trenches dug
by earth-moving vehicles into hard limestone rock.
Most of the victims were women and children who were
apparently lined up in front of the pits and shot with
AK-47 assault rifles, according to a U.S. investigator.
Around 110 bodies have been excavated from the site
so far, nearly two thirds of them children and teenagers.
They are being forensically examined and evidence gathered
will be used to build cases against Saddam Hussein and
his top deputies for war crimes, crimes against humanity
and genocide.
The site appears to have been carefully chosen and
was well concealed, factors prosecutors believe will
convince a court of the systematic nature of the crime.
Many of the victims were wearing clothing that is traditionally
Kurdish, and even specific to certain villages. They
were wrapped in multiple layers, suggesting they knew
they were being moved somewhere, investigators said.
The site was first identified early
last year by the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority
in Iraq, but proper examination did not begin until
early this month and finished on April 24.
A reporter was taken to visit the site with Iraq's
minister of human rights, an Iraqi judge and international
experts.
It is one of around 300 suspected mass graves that
have been discovered around Iraq since Saddam was overthrown.
Some contain as few as a dozen bodies, while others,
including one near the southern city of Basra, contain
several thousand.
In the area around Samawa, a largely Shi'ite Muslim
town where Saddam cracked down against locals after
an uprising in 1991, 27 suspected grave sites have been
found.
An official from the Regime Crimes Liaison Office,
a U.S. body working with Iraqi authorities to build
evidence of crimes committed by the former government,
said the Kurds were probably moved south during the
Anfal campaigns of 1987-88.
During that period, Saddam and his top lieutenants
oversaw the rounding up and forced removal of hundreds
of thousands of Kurds from towns and villages across
northern Iraq.
Saddam's armies crushed Kurdish opposition throughout
the region and are accused of gassing residents of Halabja,
near the Iranian border, killing more than 5,000 people.
The excavation of grave sites at this point is focused
on gathering evidence for trials against former Iraqi
leaders due to begin this year. Precise identification
of victims, including DNA analysis, is not expected
to happen for some time.
Bakhtiar Amin, Iraq's outgoing human rights minister,
who is a Kurd, said Iraqi authorities needed to set
up some sort of fund for the victims of Saddam's rule.
He suggested that five percent of oil revenues be allocated
for compensation.
"Compassion is not sufficient," he said.
"Something tangible needs
to be done for the victims of Saddam's regime." |
ROME - After a month-long
investigation, the U.S. and Italy said they cannot agree
on whether American soldiers are to blame for the death
of an Italian intelligence officer at a Baghdad checkpoint.
In a statement, the two countries, which participated
in a joint investigation into the March 4 death of agent
Nicola Calipari, said they could
not come to any "shared final conclusions."
Calipari was killed by gunfire coming from U.S. forces
as they tried to stop a car carrying him, two other agents
and a freed hostage, Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena.
Calipari died as he shielded Sgrena from the gunfire.
Soldiers at the checkpoint have said that the car was
speeding toward them and that the driver ignored warnings
to stop.
But the Italian officer driving the car and Sgrena have
claimed that they saw a warning light at the same time
gunfire broke out. The agent has also testified he was
driving slowly.
"The investigators did not arrive
at shared final conclusions even though, after examining
jointly the evidence, they did agree on facts, findings
and recommendations on numerous issues," the statement
said.
The killing sparked outrage in Italy and put pressure
on Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to withdraw Italy's
estimated 3,000 troops from Iraq.
Italy's foreign minister, Gianfranco Fini, said there
was no way the Italians could have approved of the American
version of events. "The Italian government could
not have been asked to sign off on reconstruction of the
facts that as far as we know does not correspond to what
happened that night," he told reporters.
Fini said a final report will be released in a few days
which will make it clear "why the Italian government
could not sign off a reconstruction of events that in
our opinion does not capture 100 per cent what happened."
Italy has launched its own criminal inquiry into Calipari's
death.
In Washington, State Department spokesman
Adam Ereli said the two countries had agreed to disagree
and that it was time to move beyond the dispute.
"The mark of a strong relationship is to be able
to work together to find the areas of agreement, to accept
the areas of disagreement, to put them all in the proper
perspective and then to move on," he said.
He also said the Americans would release their own report
based on the joint investigation soon. |
AMY GOODMAN: Yesterday,
Giuliana Sgrena blasted the results of the investigation
at a news conference in Rome.
GIULIANA SGRENA: [translated] Sgrena says, "I
didn't have great confidence in this inquiry given the
past experiences of similar incidents and inquiries.
Obviously, if what leaked today as the result of the
inquiry, then it's even worse than what I had anticipated,
because earlier the Americans have spoken about a tragic
mistake and they had somehow taken on some responsibilities.
Now they seem unwilling to accept responsibility,"
she says.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Giuliana Sgrena. The U.S.
government has said it will not comment on the report
until it is officially released. This is Secretary of
State Donald Rumsfeld and Joint Chief of Staff, Richard
Myers, speaking at a news conference at the Pentagon yesterday.
DONALD RUMSFELD: My latest information is that
they have not come to a final agreement on a joint report,
and the -- it will -- whatever is issued will be issued
in the period ahead and we'll know when it's issued.
It's an investigation. It was done together intimately,
and I think that we'll just have to wait and see what
they come out with.
RICHARD MYERS: I would say it will most likely
be announced in Baghdad. That's the plan right now,
when they come to their final conclusions.
REPORTER: Has the report essentially found that
American troops will not be punished in this --
RICHARD MYERS: It's not final yet, so we cannot
say.
REPORTER: So it hasn't determined whether or
not --
RICHARD MYERS: We haven't seen the report. General
Casey, he's still got the report.
REPORTER: Is there the possibility it that it
might be two separate reports?
RICHARD MYERS: Don't know. We'll have to wait
and see, and it will be announced in Baghdad.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Richard Myers, chair of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld. Meanwhile, Italian judges are conducting a separate
investigation into the killing. The report comes at a
bad time for Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi,
who was forced to resign last week in the wake of his
center-right coalition's defeat in recent regional elections.
The defeat was blamed in large part on Berlusconi's unpopular
decision to send troops to Iraq. He quickly put together
a new cabinet, hoping to cling to power through elections
due next spring.
Yesterday, I spoke with Giuliana Sgrena by telephone
from Rome, where she is recovering from the injuries she
suffered as a result of the shooting. I began by asking
her reaction to the Pentagon report.
GIULIANA SGRENA: Yes, for the moment we have
not an official result of the reports, but we have some
rumors about the conclusion of the report, so I am very
sad about that because I was – is words that I was waiting.
I thought that maybe the Americans will spoke of accident
or something like that, but now they say that the US military
because they have no responsibility for what happened
the 4th of March in Baghdad. They say that they respected
all the engagement rules, and that is not true, because
I was there and I can testify that they just shoot us
without any advertising, any intention, any attempt to
stop us before. So I think that it's very bad this conclusion
because they don't want to assume any responsibility and
they don't mind about our testifying, my one and the one
of the Italian intelligence agent that these are quite
the same. We were there and we are in a position to testify
what happened, so it's not true that the Americans say,
what the commission say. So we are very afraid, we are
very worried about that, and also the Italian government
for the moment, they doesn't accept this conclusion, and
those of the Italian members that were in the commission,
so it is a very bad situation. They wanted to give a strike
to the Italian government even if they are allied in the
war in Iraq.
AMY GOODMAN: Giuliana, the US military says your
car was going very fast.
GIULIANA SGRENA: That's not true, because we were
slow, and we were slowing down, because we have to turn.
And before there was some water, so it's not true that
the car was going fast.
AMY GOODMAN: They say the soldiers used hand and
arm signals, flashed white lights and fired warning shots
to get the driver to stop.
GIULIANA SGRENA: No, they didn't. No, no. No light,
no air fire, nothing at all. They were beside the road.
They were not on the street. They were away ten meters,
and they didn't give us any sign that they were there,
so we didn't saw them before they started to shoot.
AMY GOODMAN: Did they shoot from the front or
from the back?
GIULIANA SGRENA: No, on the back, not on the front.
They shot on the back, because Calipari was on the back
on the right and he was shot dead immediately, and I was
injured on my shoulder, but I was shot by the back. So
I am a proof that they were shooting on the back and not
in front of the car. We can see by my injured where I
was shot.
AMY GOODMAN: Did the Italians do this report with
the US military?
GIULIANA SGRENA: There were two Italians in the
commission, but they don't accept the conclusion of the
commission, so now there is some discussion between the
Italian authorities and the American ambassador here in
Rome. But the two members of the commission, they don't
accept the conclusion of the commission, so there is a
problem.
AMY GOODMAN: Did the Italians -- were they able
to inspect the car?
GIULIANA SGRENA: No, we are expecting for the
car tonight in Rome. We are supposed, the car will be
in Rome tonight, and so the judges that they are doing
the normal inquiry they can, they could see the car. I
hope to see the car also, but we don't know in which condition
we will receive the car. And the Italian judges, they
don't know also the names of the soldiers that were involved
in the shooting.
AMY GOODMAN: The other person in the car.
GIULIANA SGRENA: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Did the two of you testify?
GIULIANA SGRENA: Yes, he did the same testifying
as mine, but the American, the commission didn't take
in account our testifying. It seems to be like that, because
they didn't mention about our testifying.
AMY GOODMAN: After they shot you and killed Calipari,
what happened to the other man?
GIULIANA SGRENA: The other man left the car and
was shouting that we were Italian and of the embassy,
and he was speaking on the telephone with the Italian
government. And we have, my husband, for example, he was
there listening the call. And at a certain moment the
soldiers, they imposed to these agents because these are
agents of the Italian intelligence, and they imposed him
to cut the call with the weapons.
AMY GOODMAN: Say that again. What did they do?
GIULIANA SGRENA: They stopped him to -- he was
talking by telephone with the Italian member of the government.
It was Berlusconi there and the -- it was his advisor
Letta, there was the chief of the intelligence and also
my husband and the director of my newspaper, because they
were there waiting for our news of the liberation. And
they was talking about the shooting and at a certain moment
the soldier, the American soldier stopped him and with
the weapon they imposed him to cut the communication.
AMY GOODMAN: And then what happened?
GIULIANA SGRENA: And then what happened I don't
know, because I was injured, so they brought me to the
hospital, and I don't know what happened to the other
man, to the other agent.
AMY GOODMAN: Did you get permission, did Calipari
get permission to drive on the road to the airport?
GIULIANA SGRENA: Of course, I was there when they
called. They called the Italian, because there is an official
that is linked to the Americans. And this Italian general
spoke to the Captain Green, that is the American one,
telling him that we were on this road and that they were
aware that we were on that road. And this happened at
least 20-25 minutes before the shooting.
AMY GOODMAN: This road…
GIULIANA SGRENA: They knew that we were on this
road.
AMY GOODMAN: How do you know that they knew?
GIULIANA SGRENA: I know because I was there when
the agent called the Italian one, the general that is
in charge for the communication with the Americans, and
this general did a testifying, telling that he was there
with the Captain Green, and Captain Green was immediately
informed about our traveling to the airport. And the Captain
Green didn't say no, so I think that he's right. And he's
a general. I don't think that this general made a wrong,
false testifying.
AMY GOODMAN: So you're saying Calipari spoke to
-- this was an Italian or US general?
GIULIANA SGRENA: The Italians, they can't speak
to the Americans directly. There is a man, a special man,
a general that is in charge for the communication with
the American commanders. It's impossible for an agent,
an Italian agent, to speak with the Americans directly.
I knew the rules because I was there many times. And I
know that every time always in Iraq there is an Italian
that is in charge for the communication with the Americans.
And in this time, in this moment, was a general that was
there speaking with the Commander Green that was the correspondent,
American one. So I knew about that. And in all the newspaper,
Italian newspaper, was published that. So there is no
problem of communication. Commander Green knew about our
presence on that road. If he didn't inform the mobile
patrol, we don't know. But he knew, the commander, the
American commander knew about it.
AMY GOODMAN: And where did the conversation take
place? Was it in the Green Zone?
GIULIANA SGRENA: Which one?
AMY GOODMAN: The one where Calipari talked to
the Italian general.
GIULIANA SGRENA: I don't know. I don't know. I
don't follow the general, because they are the places
in the Green Zone I don't know where, I can't know where
are the general. You know is a secret place. Because it
is very dangerous in Baghdad, they don't say where they
meet.
AMY GOODMAN: Giuliana Sgrena, can you explain
the road? This wasn't the regular Baghdad -- the road
to the airport that you traveled on? This was a special
road?
GIULIANA SGRENA: Yes. It was a special road for
people that are working in embassies, or they are Americans,
or they are contractors. Special people that go to the
airport.
AMY GOODMAN: And did Calipari inform the Americans
when he arrived in Iraq what he was doing?
GIULIANA SGRENA: I don't know. This I don't know.
I can't testify about it. But I think that the intelligence
has the possibility to do -- anyway, he got a badge from
the US commanders, because he has to go around with weapons
and so. But I didn't know what he told to the Americans
he wanted to do. I can't say.
AMY GOODMAN: You mean a badge he got, like permission
to go?
GIULIANA SGRENA: Yes. I don't know. To go around
in Iraq you need a badge. And Calipari got a badge from
the American commanders in the airport. And they knew
that he was there with a car, with weapons, and with another
agent, and all these kind of things, because if not, he
couldn't go around. But what he really said to the Americans,
I can't say. I can't know. They are intelligence. They
don't say to other people like me what they say, what
they are doing. You know?
AMY GOODMAN: Giuliana, did you encounter any other
US military on that road before you were shot?
GIULIANA SGRENA: No. No, we didn't.
AMY GOODMAN: And where did Calipari pick you up?
How did you get rescued?
GIULIANA SGRENA: I don't know, but I was not --
I was covered.
AMY GOODMAN: Right now, do you think that Prime
Minister Silvio Berlusconi is doing enough in your case?
GIULIANA SGRENA: Sorry?
AMY GOODMAN: Do you think your prime minister,
Berlusconi, is doing enough in your case?
GIULIANA SGRENA: Yes, because I am free. I think
that he did before. Now I don't know what he is doing?
But before, he did, because I am free now, you know? And
I am happy to be free.
AMY GOODMAN: What do think should happen right
now, Giuliana Sgrena?
GIULIANA SGRENA: I don't know.
AMY GOODMAN: What are you calling for?
GIULIANA SGRENA: I am calling for the withdrawal
of the troops.
AMY GOODMAN: From Iraq?
GIULIANA SGRENA: Yes, of course. The Italian
troops from Iraq, and also the Americans. But for the
moment, as I am Italian, I ask for the withdrawal of the
Italian ones. But my situation will be the withdrawal
of all the troops from Iraq.
AMY GOODMAN: Are you satisfied with Berlusconi
saying they will come out by the end of the year?
GIULIANA SGRENA: Sorry?
AMY GOODMAN: Are you satisfied that Berlusconi
has said they will pull out the troops by the end of the
year?
GIULIANA SGRENA: I am not so sure they will, so
before, I want to wait if they will really withdraw all
the troops.
AMY GOODMAN: And in terms of your report right
now, the US military is saying the Italians don't want
to sign off on it. Will the Italian commissioners sign
this report?
GIULIANA SGRENA: I don't know. How can I know?
I don't know. I can't meet the Italian members. I don't
know.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you feel like a fair investigation
has been done?
GIULIANA SGRENA: No, I don't think so.
AMY GOODMAN: Who do you think should be held responsible?
GIULIANA SGRENA: I don't know. I wanted to know,
but if there is no further inquiries, it's impossible
to know.
AMY GOODMAN: Right now, you are calling for the
troops to come out. Are you now continuing to write about
Iraq? How are you feeling?
GIULIANA SGRENA: Now I am very bad, because my
physical situation is very bad, so I can't work for the
moment. This is my problem. I am not well, I am very sick.
Still I am still very sick, so I can't work for the moment.
I am going every day to the hospital. I am very tired,
you know?
AMY GOODMAN: Where did the bullet lodge in your
body?
GIULIANA SGRENA: The bullet was in the shoulder,
but some pieces reached the lung, so I am very, very sick.
AMY GOODMAN: And your time in captivity, do you
know who held you? And how were you treated?
GIULIANA SGRENA: I was treated normally, treated
from the material point of view. But I was prisoner, so
I was without freedom. And this is very terrible. But
I didn't know where I was. I was in Baghdad, but I don't
know where.
AMY GOODMAN: And do you know who held you?
GIULIANA SGRENA: No.
AMY GOODMAN: We all saw the videotape. What were
the circumstances of the videotape?
GIULIANA SGRENA: Of course when you hostages,
they tell you what you have to do, what you have to say,
you know? But I don't like so much to speak about my period
of kidnapping, because I spoke so much about it that every
time that I think about that I am so sick. That is bad
for my health, you know? I always go back to these things
and I prefer it, if possible, don't to speak so much about
that, because it is very bad for my health.
AMY GOODMAN: President Bush. Do you have a demand
of the US President, the American President?
GIULIANA SGRENA: No. I want only the truth. But
they don't seem to be interested to find the truth about
what happened in Baghdad that night.
AMY GOODMAN: Will you go back to Iraq?
GIULIANA SGRENA: No.
AMY GOODMAN: What will you do?
GIULIANA SGRENA: Sorry?
AMY GOODMAN: What will you do?
GIULIANA SGRENA: I don't know. For the moment,
I don't know. I have to take care of my health, you know?
I am very bad -- in very bad situation.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you feel like there is a cover-up
here?
GIULIANA SGRENA: Sorry?
AMY GOODMAN: Do you feel like there is a cover-up?
Do you feel that the investigation has been covered up?
GIULIANA SGRENA: Yes, of course. They don't want
the truth. They don't want to tell the truth.
AMY GOODMAN: What would make them tell the truth?
GIULIANA SGRENA: I don't know. I don't know. I
don't really know. Maybe if the Americans, they press
the American government to tell the truth. Because, if
the Americans, they don't mind; we are small, we are Italians,
we are few Italians, what we can do? I think that it is
important that the Americans, they press their government
to tell the truth, because it's in the interest also of
Americans, the truth. Not only of Italians, I think. So
if you make actions with press on the government, you,
maybe you can do something for us.
AMY GOODMAN: And when you were in Iraq, as a reporter,
before you were captured, what do you think was the most
important story for us all to understand?
GIULIANA SGRENA: I was looking around to see what
the people were thinking about. And overall, I was interested
in Fallujah. But when I went to interview some people
from Fallujah, I was kidnapped. Some people were not interested
in my story about Fallujah, I think.
AMY GOODMAN: What did you have to say about Fallujah?
What did you discover?
GIULIANA SGRENA: Just stories. I have not a scoop
about Fallujah, just stories.
AMY GOODMAN: Why did you go to Iraq to begin with?
It was a dangerous place. You knew that.
GIULIANA SGRENA: Yes, I knew. But I am a journalist.
I went to Somalia. I went to Afghanistan. I went to Algeria.
I went every places. And I went to Iraq also. I can't
go only where the places are not dangerous. It is our
work that is dangerous.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you regret having gone to Iraq?
GIULIANA SGRENA: No, I don't regret.
AMY GOODMAN: And in the car, before you were shot
and Calipari was killed, what did he say to you? What
did you talk about?
GIULIANA SGRENA: About the liberation, about experiences.
About I don't remember, really. I was very happy to be
free. But I was happy only for 20 minutes, and then it's
finished. And now I am very sad. I am very painful, I
am very tired. I am very…
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you very much
for being with us.
GIULIANA SGRENA: Okay. Thank you. |
Silvio Berlusconi is
denying that a ransom was paid in order to free Giuliana
Sgrena. On the subject of the Calipari case, he says he
hasn't spoken to George Bush on the phone, though he "definitely"
will be in touch.
Regarding the ransom, "The CBS has made allegation
which contrast with the information I have on it,"
said the premier. "I haven't spoken to Bush, not
on this occasion, not recently, but I know the situation
well".
For Berlusconi, however, with the USA, "our ties
of friendship are unshakeable. Our presence in Iraq is
also due to reasons which have to due with installing
democracy and freedom in a country which has had decades
of bloody dictatorship". A democracy, Berlusconi
concluded, "which is crucial in that region and which
is an important step for spreading democracy more widely
around the world". |
WASHINGTON - Wrapping
up his investigation into Saddam Hussein's purported
arsenal, the CIA's top weapons hunter in Iraq said his
search for weapons of mass destruction
"has been exhausted" without finding any.
The Bush administration justified its 2003 invasion
of Iraq as necessary to eliminate Hussein's purported
stockpile of WMD.
"As matters now stand, the WMD investigation has
gone as far as feasible," Duelfer wrote in an an
addendum to the report he issued last fall. "After
more than 18 months, the WMD investigation and debriefing
of the WMD-related detainees has been exhausted."
In 92 pages posted online Monday evening, Duelfer provided
a final look at an investigation that, at its peak,
occupied more than 1,000 military and civilian translators,
weapons specialists and other experts. His latest addenda
conclude a roughly 1,500-page report released last fall.
Among warnings sprinkled throughout the new documents,
one concludes that Saddam's programs created a pool
of weapons experts, many of whom will be seeking work.
While most will probably turn to the "benign civil
sector," the danger remains that "hostile
foreign governments, terrorists or insurgents may seek
Iraqi expertise."
"Because a single individual can advance certain
WMD activities, it remains an important concern,"
one addendum said.
Another addendum noted that military forces in Iraq
may continue to find small numbers of degraded chemical
weapons — most likely misplaced or improperly
destroyed before 1991. In an insurgent's hands, "the
use of a single even ineffectual chemical weapon would
likely cause more terror than deadlier conventional
explosives," the addendum said.
And still another said the survey group found some
potential nuclear-related equipment was "missing
from heavily damaged and looted sites." Yet, because
of deteriorating security in Iraq, the survey group
was unable to determine what happened to the equipment,
which also had alternate civilian uses.
Among unanswered questions, Duelfer said a group formed
to investigate whether WMD-related material was shipped
out of Iraq before the invasion wasn't able to reach
firm conclusions because the security situation halted
its work. Investigators were focusing on transfers from
Iraq to Syria.
The questioning of Iraqis did not produce any information
to support the transfer possibility, one addendum said.
The Iraq Survey Group believes
"it was unlikely that an official transfer of WMD
material from Iraq to Syria took place. However,
ISG was unable to rule out unofficial movement of limited
WMD-related materials." |
Tony Blair's credibility
was blown apart yesterday by the bombshell leak of the
Attorney-General's top-secret legal advice on invading
Iraq.
It revealed that the Prime Minister persistently lied
to Parliament and the public about the legal basis for
the war.
For two years Mr Blair has refused
to publish the advice, citing confidentiality, while
insisting the Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith, was
"unequivocal" that the war was lawful.
Last night's sensational leak to a TV news station
reveals the true reason for its suppression –
it was full of warnings that the invasion could be illegal.
It means the PM has not told the truth on the pivotal
question: Was the war legal? The revelation came minutes
after Mr Blair declared on TV: "I have never told
a lie."
Lord Goldsmith's advice, handed to the PM personally
on March 7, 2003 and never shown to the Cabinet, was
so guarded and equivocal it would have made an invasion
impossible to justify to Parliament.
Yet just 10 days later, under pressure from Downing
Street, the Attorney-General published new advice stripped
of all the caveats. It was on this "doctored"
advice that Mr Blair sent British troops to war.
In a statement last night, Lord Goldsmith confirmed
that the leaked document was genuine. [...]
Leading constitutional expert Professor Peter Hennessy
said: "The whole thing reeks. There is only one
word for it . . . it reeks.
"Even if the Prime Minister wins handsomely on
polling day this will stain him and his premiership
as long as people remember it, just as Anthony Eden's
name is forever associated with Suez."
Shadow attorney-general Dominic Grieve
said Mr Blair had been guilty of a "gross deception"
on Parliament and the public. |
The
final goal of the Middle East settlement is the creation
of an independent Palestinian state, Russian
President Vladimir Putin said at a news conference in
Ramallah, the Palestinian Authority, after meeting the
PA head Mahmoud Abbas.
Russia wants direct negotiations on the definitive
status of Palesine to be held with the assistance of
the Quartet of Middle East peace
negotiators in a bid to complete the peace process in
the region, Putin was quoted by RIA Novosti as saying.
Putin called on both Israel and Palestine to be consistent
with the agreements achieved earlier, including the
cease-fire declaration, the release of political detainees,
and an agreement on the freedom of movement.
The Russian side is ready to
develop economic, political and security cooperation
with the Palestinian Authority, Putin went on.
Initially, Moscow will send a delegation of observers
to work at the parliamentary elections scheduled for
June 17.
Before the start of the Ramallah negotiations
Putin laid a wreath at the grave of Palestinian leader
Yasser Arafat.
Near the official residence of Mahmoud Abbas the Russian
leader was met by several Russian women with children,
who had left Russia for Palestine in the early 1990s.
They carried posters with slogans "Putin, listen
to us!" and "There are Russians here!"
written in Russian. They said the Russian community
in Ramallah amounted to 600 people. When the president
got out of the car the crowd started shouting "Putin,
Putin!" and then sang the famous World War II song
Katusha.
Putin is the world's first president to visit Palestine
since Mahmoud Abbas was elected the head of the authority
on Jan. 9 after the death of Arafat. |
The Russian nuclear
fuel trader TVEL announced on Friday that fuel shipments
for a Russian built nuclear reactor in Iran will start
in the middle of 2005, six months before the plant becomes
operational in early 2006.
TVEL's vice president Anton Badenkov was quoted by
the Russian news agency RIA-Novosti as saying that the
construction of the Bushehr nuclear power plant was
progressing and that the nuclear fuel should be shipped
to the site half a year before the unit is launched.
"The unit should become operational at the beginning
of 2006," said Budenkov, who also heads the board
of directors of Atomstroiexport, the firm constructing
the Bushehr reactor.
Russia and Iran signed a fuel supply deal in February
2004.
A key part of the deal obliges Tehran to return all
spent nuclear fuel to Siberian storage units, a move
which Russia hopes will allay U.S. worries that Iran
may use the spent fuel, which could be reprocessed into
weapons-grade plutonium.
"We have already signed the deal to take back
the spent fuel from the plant, on which the international
agencies were insisting, and all obstacles are removed,"
Budenkov said. "We are now awaiting a license from
the Russian authorities for nuclear fuel exports,"
he said.
Iran's nuclear energy program aims to produce 7,000
megawatts at 20 nuclear power plants by 2025, according
to a decision taken by the Iranian Atomic Energy Council
in August 2004. Such a large-scale program would require
huge investment and is hardly feasible without reaching
an agreement with the EU and the United States. Russia
is for maintaining its cooperation with Iran in the
nuclear field, with China and Japan showing interest,
too. |
|
"ooh
ooh, ahh, ahh" |
At a prime time televised press conference Thursday President
George W. Bush said that despite Moscow's aid to the Iranian
nuclear program he was certain Russian counterpart Vladimir
Putin understood Iran could not be trusted with nuclear
weapons.
Russia is building Iran's first nuclear reactor at
Bushehr despite protests from Israel and the United
States.
The United States has pressured Russia over its assistance
to Iran's civilian nuclear program, which Western countries
fear could be adapted to produce nuclear weapons.
"What Russia has agreed to do is to send highly
enriched uranium to a nuclear civilian power plant and
then collect that uranium after it's used for electricity,
power," Bush was quoted by the CNN website as saying.
"I appreciate that gesture, what they recognized
and what America recognizes and what Great Britain and
France and Germany recognizes is that we cannot trust
the Iranians when it comes to enriching uranium."
"What Russia has said is 'we will provide you
the uranium, we will enrich it for you and provide it
to you and then we will collect it'," Bush said.
"I think Vladimir is trying to help there, and
I know Vladimir Putin understands the danger of Iran
with nuclear weapons and most of the world understands
that as well," he added.
Iran has long denied accusations it is secretly seeking
nuclear arms and has received strong backing from Putin,
who sees cooperation with the Islamic Republic as a
way to strengthen Russia's role in the Middle East,
Reuters reports.
In February, Moscow and Tehran signed the fuel supply
deal long opposed by Washington, which believes Iran
could use Russian know-how to make nuclear weapons,
Reuters added. |
RAMALLAH, West Bank
(AP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin promised Friday
to provide the new Palestinian leaders with helicopters
and other equipment and training to help maintain order
after Israel's promised withdrawal from the Gaza Strip
and parts of the West Bank of the Jordan River this summer.
In the first visit to the Palestinian territories by
a Kremlin leader, Putin also pledged to help the Palestinians
rebuild their infrastructure in anticipation of a viable
Palestinian state on the West Bank and in Gaza.
In a nod to Israel, Putin promised any assistance to
the Palestinians would be co-ordinated with both sides,
saying: "We want this co-operation to be absolutely
open."
The Palestinians and Moscow have a long history of political
and cultural co-operation dating to the Cold War, when
the Soviet Union backed Arab states and the Palestinians
in their fight against the U.S.-backed Israelis. About
15,000 Palestinians studied in Russia. In recent years,
however, Russian ties with Israel have warmed - and Putin
said Friday his visit had "turned over a new page"
with Israel.
His three-day Mideast trip is seen as an attempt to bolster
Russia's international standing and raise its profile
in Mideast peacemaking.
"We will provide the Palestinian leadership with
technical help, supplies of equipment and training of
personnel," Putin said after a two-hour meeting with
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who greeted him warmly
at the Palestinian headquarters, known as the muqata.
Israel has reacted coldly to a Russian proposal to give
the Palestinians 50 armoured vehicles, fearing they could
fall into hands of militants. But Putin said the Palestinians
will need resources to bring order to their territories
and heed Israeli and international calls to rein in militants.
"If we expect chairman Abbas to fight terrorism
effectively, he can't do it with slingshots and stones,"
Putin said.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Nasser Al-Kidwa said Russia
would provide the Palestinians with two helicopters and
talks on supplying armoured vehicles would continue.
Khairi al-Oriedi, the Palestinian representative to Moscow,
said the two Russian helicopters would be used to transport
Abbas. Israel destroyed the Palestinian Authority's presidential
helicopters as part of its campaign to limit the movement
of late leader Yasser Arafat.
Putin also said Russia is looking at ways to help rebuild
the Palestinian economy and infrastructure, badly damaged
in more than four years of fighting with Israel.
Israel plans to pull out of the impoverished Gaza Strip
this summer, and Palestinian efforts to maintain order
will be viewed by many as a test case for their handling
of a future state.
A day after talks with Israel's prime minister and president,
Putin visited Arafat's tomb at the Palestinian compound.
He bowed his head, stood silently at attention for a few
seconds, bowed again and walked away.
A Palestinian honour guard greeted Putin as a military
band played the Russian and Palestinian national anthems
as Putin and Abbas stood side by side.
In Jerusalem, Putin condemned anti-Semitism amid calls
by his critics to do more to fight it in Russia. He also
paid tribute to Holocaust victims by visiting a museum
dedicated to the Nazi campaign to exterminate Jews and
presenting Israel with a sculpture dealing with the subject.
He came to Israel from Cairo, the first Russian or Soviet
leader to make an official visit to the Egyptian capital
in 40 years.
Putin's trip saw no breakthrough. He found himself manoeuvring
through conflicting interests as he juggled his bid to
cement closer relations with Israel with moves to rekindle
warm ties to its longtime Arab enemies.
Putin arrived in the region promoting a fall Mideast
peace conference in Moscow but after a cool reception
from Israel he played down the idea Friday, saying instead
he was talking about a "meeting of high-level experts,"
rather than a summit. Russia is one of the four co-sponsors
of the "road map" peace plan, along with the
United States, United Nations and the European Union but
the Americans have taken the lead.
During the visit, Putin attempted to persuade Israel
short-range missiles he plans to sell to Israel's foe,
Syria, are not a threat, saying they can only be used
for defensive purposes. Israel appeared unconvinced.
Putin said Russia will go ahead with construction of
a nuclear-power plant in Iran, a grave source of concern
to Israel and the United States. But he repeated a warning
he issued in Jerusalem a day earlier, saying Iran must
show the world it does not seek nuclear weapons and forgo
efforts to acquire uranium-enrichment technology.
"Nuclear weapons proliferation is dangerous in general
and in such an explosive region as the Middle East it
is very dangerous. From a military standpoint it is illogical
and from a humanitarian standpoint it is unacceptable,"
Putin said - a statement apparently aimed both at Iran
and Israel, which is widely believed to have nuclear weapons.
Israel has never confirmed or denied it has them. |
RAMALLAH, April 29 (Xinhuanet)
-- Talks between visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin
and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas are focusing on holding
an international peace conference on Mideast peace, spokesman
for the Palestinian National Authority Nabil Abu Rudeineh
said Friday.
Rudeineh told reporters as the Abbas-Putin summit was
underway that Abbas was determined to push forward holding
such an international conference.
After talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on
Wednesday, Putin suggested that an international conference
be held in Moscow later this year to discuss the implementation
of roadmap peace plan.
The proposal drew an immediate welcome from Palestinian
leaders and the European Union, but was turned down by
Israel and the United States as premature. |
WASHINGTON - A member
of the U.S. peace team during the 2000 Camp David talks
has accused the United States of adopting a distinct
pro-Israeli policy that, together with other mistakes,
led to the failure of the negotiations between Ehud
Barak and Yasser Arafat.
"Far too often, we functioned
in this process, for want of a better word, as Israel's
lawyer," said Aaron Miller at a seminar
in the U.S. capital on Monday. "I say this without
any effort to diminish the importance, again, of gaining
Israeli trust. [Secretary of State Henry] Kissinger
gained it. [President Jimmy] Carter gained it, and [Secretary
of State James] Baker gained it. And they produced agreements.
They were also fairer and tougher".
Miller, who serves today as president
of the Seeds of Peace organization, charged that the
United States should not have accepted Barak's proposals
as "generous," but should have questioned
whether they were fair and could be worked with in order
to achieve a peace deal.
Dennis Ross, who coordinated the peace talks at the
time, rejected Miller's charges. "I can tell you,
Barak said to me on more than one occasion that I was
Arafat's lawyer. Why? Because I was always in there
making the case for what the Palestinians needed,"
he said.
Participating in the seminar, organized by the Middle
East Institute, were all four of the top U.S. officials
who played a part in the peace process during the Clinton
administration - Ross, Miller, Martin Indyk and Rob
Malley. The four presented opposing views regarding
the reasons for the failure of the talks, but all four
agreed that now was the time for increased U.S. involvement
in the process with the objective of strengthening the
regime of PAChairman Mahmoud Abbas. |
Twelve Palestinians
were wounded as Occupation Forces unleashed a torrent
of bullets, tear gas canisters and sound bombs in the
village of Bil’in on Thursday 28th of April. Over
600 protestors gathered by the village mosque and marched
to the west of Bil’in where land is being razed
for the construction of the Apartheid Wall, which will
trap the village in a ghetto. Around 10 Occupation bulldozers
have been at work constantly over the last two weeks,
in the project to annex Palestinian land for the expansion
of nearby settlements.
Starting at 11 am, dozens of schoolchildren led a lively
and colourful march, carrying an enormous Palestinian
flag to the confiscated lands. Occupation Forces tried
to prevent the crowd from reaching the lands but were
overwhelmed by the sheer numbers and resilience of protestors
chanting “No to the Apartheid Wall” and
“This Wall Must Fall.”
In an effort to disrupt the
demonstration, Occupation Forces disguised as Palestinians
infiltrated the protest and began to throw stones towards
the area in which the bulldozers were operating. Upon
confrontation by angry villagers, who demanded to see
their identification papers, the disguised group claimed
to be from the nearby village of Saffa. Knowing this
to be false, Palestinians clashed with the unit leading
to two of the Occupation Forces being injured. Their
true identity was established as they revealed pistols
and withdrew with their casualties from the area.
A flurry of rubber bullets was then pumped into the
unarmed crowd. Dozens were wounded as sound bombs and
tear gas were used in the attempt to push the demonstrators
back. Around 50 protestors were able to break through
into the Wall-path area where the bulldozers were engaged
in their destruction of Palestinian trees and lands |
Over 10,000 Orthodox Jews protesting the existence of
the state of Israel, and the recent beating of Orthodox
Jews who protested in Israel against the uprooting of
Jewish cemeteries of antiquity which was done in order
to enable the construction of a highway #6, near Haifa,
Israel – protest in front of the Israeli consulate
New York City, Thursday, April 28, 2005 |
The Israel Defense Forces reservist
killed Monday night in the West Bank died as
a result of shots fired by his fellow soldiers and not
because he was hit by a Palestinian taxi, the
IDF informed the family of Sergeant Major Tziki Eyal
on Thursday.
It was initially believed that Eyal
was hit at a West Bank checkpoint by a Palestinian taxi,
whose driver was then shot to death by the other soldiers.
The cause of Eyal's death was determined by pathologists
at the Institute of Forensic Medicine at Abu Kabir.
Eyal, 24, was laid to rest Tuesday night in his hometown
of Mazkeret Batya. He was serving with a reserve armored
battalion stationed in the Hebron region.
On Monday evening, soldiers from Eyal's unit set up
a surprise roadblock on Halhul bridge, which serves
Palestinian traffic between Hebron and Halhul. Soldiers
at the roadblock said they spotted the Palestinian taxi
coming from the southern direction of Hebron, and that
when the driver saw the roadblock, he began to make
a U-turn and then stopped.
The soldiers said the taxi was at a standstill for
about 30 seconds, at which point Eyal came out from
behind a concrete security block and approached the
vehicle. The taxi then began moving quickly, breaking
sharply to the right in Eyal's direction. Eyal managed
to shoot toward it before being hit by the vehicle.
Apparently the soldiers opened fire
on the taxi as it started moving again, and a bullet
hit Eyal in the head.
OC Central Command Yair Naveh surveyed the scene Tuesday
and spoke with the soldiers involved. He appointed an
investigative team, headed by the Nahal Brigade commander,
Colonel Roni Noma.
Palestinian sources said Tuesday
that the taxi driver, Iyad Dwek, 28, of Hebron, had
no record of security infractions, and none of his relatives
had previously been hit by IDF fire, suggesting this
was not a deliberate attack. |
CAIRO, – Israeli soldiers lied
and tampering with evidence in an attempt to obstruct
an inquiry into the killing of a British filmmaker,
according to leaked documents published by The Observer
on Sunday, April 24.
"Evidence shows that Second Lieutenant H. heard
his soldiers lying in their testimonies during the investigation,
and unfortunately did not mention that fact to his commanders,
that his soldiers are giving them details that are not
true," said a 79-page report by the chief lawyer
of the Israeli army's southern command into the shooting
of James Miller in the Gaza Strip.
The version of events offered by the soldier originally
implicated in the shooting, identified only as Second
Lieutenant H, were so contradictory that his accounts
were described in the report as coming "full circle".
Miller, 34-year-old award-winning
television journalist, was shot dead in the town of
Rafah near the Egyptian border in May 2003 as he was
filming a stand-up for a documentary on the Israeli
army's demolition of hundreds of homes in the Palestinian
territories.
His crew said they were carrying a
white flag and identified themselves as British media
to Israeli troops in the area, but as they left a Palestinian
home they were fired upon and a bullet struck Miller
in the neck, between his helmet and bullet-proof vest.
An autopsy carried out in Israel
with a British doctor present found that the freelance
journalist was hit by a bullet from an M-16 assault
rifle fired by Israeli soldiers facing him.
His father, Geoffrey, said that "by allowing
vital evidence to be tampered with, the Israeli army
was complicit in my son's murder".
Cover-up
According to the report, all the soldiers interviewed
changed their testimonies from accounts given to an
earlier inquiry by the military police.
"Their versions paint a poor picture, to say
the least," it states.
"Not only that there are differences
and contradictions between one soldier's version to
another soldier's version, but there are also contradictions
and differences within one soldier's testimony itself,
many times in the same version one could not find any
coherence."
By contrast, army lawyers said all
journalists and Palestinian witnesses interviewed gave
reliable accounts.
According to the report, the barrel of the rifle understood
to have been used in the shooting two years ago was
changed.
It maintained that rifles submitted as part of the
investigation could not have been those used in the
shooting because it was "impossible" that
bullets found at the scene in Rafah belonged to the
weapons surrendered.
"It is important to point out that during the
investigation a concern was raised, based on intelligence
information, that some of the soldiers later changed
the barrel they used during the event with a different
barrel," said the report.
More evidence of a cover-up is underlined
by the disappearance of videotapes that would have been
recorded by the army's observation system and may have
filmed Miller's death.
"Despite several attempts to locate them, the
tapes from 3 May 2003 have never been found", said
the report.
Mockery
Miller's widow condemned as a "mockery" of
justice the Israeli army earlier decision not to take
action against the officer accused of responsibility
over the fatal shooting.
"It shows that Israeli military activities in
Gaza are carried out with impunity," Sophie Miller,
34, said in a statement.
"We deplore the total failure to hold anyone
responsible for the most serious breaches of Israeli
rules of engagement."
The widow also accused the Israeli forces of having
no interest in establishing the facts surrounding the
killing.
"We believed at the outset there was no genuine
will to uncover the truth because the site of James's
death was not secured for forensic investigation;
the site was destroyed by bulldozers three days after
James's death; it took the Israelis 11 weeks to impound
the guns involved in James's death," she
said.
The Israeli army's judge advocate
general had argued that there was insufficient evidence
to press charges against the officer.
An Israeli army investigation into the death of 23-year-old
American Rachel Corrie concluded that her being crushed
to death by an Israeli bulldozer in Rafah in March 2003
had been an accident.
Tom Hurndall, a 22-year-old British activist, died
of critical head injuries from a bullet fired by an
Israeli soldier in Rafah in April 2003 as he was trying
to pull Palestinian children out of danger.
In November 22, Israeli occupation forces gunned down
Ian Hook, a British UN worker in Jenin refugee camp.
Three British lawmakers had also accused Israeli troops
of firing at them twice during a UN-supervised fact-finding
mission in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah. |
Those "fundamentalist
extremists" are at it again, trying to force women
back to the Dark Ages. Christian fundamentalists, that
is.
Intoxicated by their recent success at the voting booth,
Christian fundamentalists are no longer satisfied with
pressing their claim that fetal rights supercede those
of a living, breathing woman. They
are now championing the rights of the "unborn"
zygote, a fertilized egg, destroyed by oral contraceptives
in the moments after conception.
In a battle now raging in at least 23
states, the Christian Right has expanded its crusade against
abortion to include these "killer" birth control
pills. Pharmacy by pharmacy, members of "Pharmacists
for Life" are refusing to fill doctors' prescriptions
for emergency "morning after" pills and other
oral contraceptives.
In addition, these pharmacists of conscience refuse to
refer patients to other pharmacists to perform the deadly
deed. Karen Bauer, the group's president, stated plainly,
"A pharmacy should be for healing. It should not
be for killing."
Meanwhile, back in Washington, Bush
is doing his part to further advance anti-abortion mythology,
announcing on April 22 his administration's intent to
aggressively enforce "The Born-Alive Infant Protection
Act of 2002," requiring doctors to keep a fetus alive
that survives an abortion.
Bush administration officials admitted
they don't know how often a fetus survives an abortion
and noted no complaints about a lack of enforcement.
This could be because there aren't
any. No medical advancement can alter the laws of anatomical
development, which preclude fetal survival outside the
womb before hearts and lungs develop around the twentieth
week of pregnancy.
The overwhelming majority of abortions after this point
are performed only to save the health or life of the woman.
In fact, only four one-hundredths of 1 percent of legal
abortions are performed after the second trimester. And
more than 95 percent of all abortions are performed during
the first 15 weeks of pregnancy.
With ever more outlandish discourse, the Christian Right
has gained the upper hand in the battle over abortion
in Bush's second term. But the pro-choice movement has
helped pave the way.
Just one year ago, a million pro-choice supporters gathered
for the March for Women's Lives in Washington, D.C. Surely,
the human material exists to form a "Pharmacists
for Choice" group, to picket the local pharmacy that
refuses to dispense birth control pills and to assert
the rights of the three million women who face unplanned
pregnancies in the U.S. each year. Yet the pro-choice
movement is ceding ideological ground as fast as the Christian
Right demands it.
NARAL Pro-Choice America, the nation's
largest pro-choice organization, offered "no comment"
in response to Bush's absurd announcement on "born-alive"
fetuses. Its silence is deafening.
The pro-choice movement has reached a crisis point, stemming
directly from its uncritical support for the Democratic
Party. Having featured Hillary Clinton as an "honored
guest" at last year's March for Women's Lives, the
women's movement is paralyzed now that Clinton is leading
the party's full retreat on abortion rights.
In January, Clinton called abortion a "sad, even
tragic choice" in an overture to the religious right--while
asking "people of good faith to find common ground
in this debate."
Feminist Naomi Wolf, a political consultant for both
Al Gore and Bill Clinton, has long stumped for the other
side on key aspects of the abortion debate. In a 1997
New York Times editorial, Wolf called on pro-choice supporters
to join abortion opponents to lower the nation's "shamefully
high abortion rate."
"The pro-choice movement should give God a seat
at the table," urged Wolf, lambasting the pro-choice
movement for framing its defense of abortion rights around
"a woman's right to choose," which she claimed
is "abstract." Perhaps not surprisingly, Wolf
is now proposing a ban on abortion after the first trimester,
as Nation columnist Katha Pollitt noted with dismay in
the May 2 issue.
Mainstream feminists and their organizations are doing
more than shifting gears in the struggle for abortion
rights. They are following the Democratic Party in abandoning
it, at the very moment when the anti-abortion crusade
is moving ahead at full throttle. |
Pomona, California -- George W.
Bush and Tom DeLay, his political enforcer in the House
of Representatives, have changed long established rules
of U.S. political culture as "bipartisanship"
has become winner take all; debate and deliberation
has devolved into Party line dictates; civility has
turned into hostility.
This partnership for naked power involves the dousing
of executive and legislative power as they still haven't
taken the whole judicial branch with liquefied
Christian rhetoric. Concerned citizens and even some
Congressional Democrats have finally gotten the idea,
but have not yet formulated a strong political answer
to the audacious Bush-DeLay axis.
In the Senate, liberal Democrats
like Ted Kennedy (MA) and Dick Durban (IL) watch in
disgust and horror as Bush re-nominates for federal
judgeships the same incompetent people that the Senate
has already rejected. For Circuit Court, Bush
re-named California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers
Brown, who compared big government to slavery and referred
to minimum wage laws as the triumph of our own socialist
revolution. Senior citizens today, she claimed, cannibalize
their grandchildren by getting free stuff from the political
system. She weighed in heavily on the decision to end
meaningful affirmative action in California. Bush also
re-nominated 39-year-old Brent M. Kavanaugh for the
Court of Appeals. His record of judicial achievement
consists of his work with former Special Prosecutor
Kenneth Starr who tried unsuccessfully to convict Bill
Clinton for lying about having sex with Monica Lewinsky.
According to saveourcourts.org, Kavanaugh has a consistent
record of bias against gays, lesbians and transgender
people. The Senate rejected him just over a year ago
after reviewing his record and finding little but ultra
right wing views and lack of legal experience to recommend
him.
These candidates, like other Bush re-nominees,
share extreme right wing agendas and practice judicial
activism on the right to end judicial activism everywhere
else. Since God forbade gay marriages our law must certainly
not allow it. And, of course, enemy combatants don't
merit due process or any rights dictated by liberal
documents like the Magna Carta.
Perhaps Bush only knows a very limited number of people,
suggested comic Bill Maher, trying to generate a little
optimism, and that's why he keeps sending the same names
of ultra right wing cooks to the Senate.
Trying to put positive spin
on the nomination of Undersecretary of State for Arms
Control John Bolton for UN Ambassador, however, resembles
an attempt to find the upside of heroin addiction.
A Los Angeles Times editorial (April 20) described Bolton
as a man who appears to have a mean streak, apparent
arrogant restlessness that bodes ill for this assignment.
The Times might have added his addiction to bad information
that led him to scream at subordinates when they contradicted
him with the facts. He has said on several occasions
that Cuba possessed weapons of mass destruction, despite
clear warnings from intelligence experts that the information
indicated the very opposite. Senate testimony by Republican
officials and letters sent to the Foreign Relations
Committee by a Republican woman who had scary encounters
with Bolton, show him as a pathological bully and molester
of women aside from his apparent compulsion to repeat
false information.
The Bush-Delay gang indeed behaves
like people addicted to their drug of choice: power.
The inner circles seem to have gotten so high on this
dubious aphrodisiac that, once inhaled, forces them
to say anything, push other people around and spend
the nation's treasury on loony projects like wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq. This addiction,
enabled by the change in the basic rules by which the
U.S. government has operated for many decades, has also
allowed their corporate and banking supporters to grow
wealthier at the expense of the rest of us. When
Democrats object, Bush talks about the political capital
he earned in the 2004 election as if government
under law meant what Louis XIV said: "L'etat, c'est
moi."
The monarchical disdain Bush has shown for the informal
democratic process of U.S. government extends dramatically
to the behavior of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.
One dissident Member claimed that beyond personal peccadilloes,
we're watching the destruction
of the House of Representatives. In place of
debate, discussion, hearings and Committee meetings,
DeLay has substituted naked power: his. Referring to
DeLay's acceptance of huge sums of money from corporate
lobbyists to support his ambitions, the Congressman
said that DeLay covers his corruption
with layers of Christian babble. When adverse publicity
threatens to drown him, he uses Jesus as his life preserver.
Like Bush, the devout DeLay attends church and then
makes deals with corporate donor. He took a $56,500
contribution for one of his political action committee
fronts from Westar Energy Inc. In return, he promised
the energy company a "seat at the table" with
drafters of a critical energy bill. DeLay took oodles
of corporate money and then leveled pious tirades at
Godless liberals for murdering Terri Schiavo.
Lobbyists know that contributions in the hundreds of
thousands of dollars can lead to legislation that means
many millions in corporate profits. So, in May 2001,
Enron's top lobbyists gladly contributed to DeLay's
political coffers in addition to the $250,000
the company had already pledged to the Republican Party
that year. DeLay used some of the funds to help finance
the successful redistricting of Texas even using federal
power to try to force the recalcitrant Democrats into
appearing for a 2004 vote.
After the Republicans gained House seats in Texas,
an investigation began into the legality of corporate
political donations to the Republican Party in Texas
including large contributions by Enron officials in
2001 and 2002. According to Lou Dubose, DeLay may have
flagrantly broken a Texas law that bars corporate financing
of state legislature campaigns (Dubose, The
Hammer: Tom Delay, God, Money and the United States
Congress).
When it comes to raising money for his PACs, however,
DeLay shows his mastery of the modern world. He saves
his anti-modernism to explain the real causes for the
school terrorism at Columbine. "Guns have little
or nothing to do with juvenile violence. The causes
of youth violence are working parents who put their
kids into daycare, the teaching of evolution in the
schools, and working mothers who take birth control
pills (Stephen Pizzo, Inside Job: The Looting of America's
Savings and Loans," alternet May 16, 2002). The
man who has promoted himself as a champion of children
took "a $100,000 check from a private prison company"
(the Corrections Corporation of America or CCA, which
runs private prisons in Texas) while attending a fundraiser
for his own children's charity, the DeLay Foundation
for Kids. The Texas Observer (June 6, 2003) described
CCA as a company whose history over 20 years has been
"fraught with malfeasance, mismanagement, and abuse."
CCA wanted DeLay, who wields
heavy influence over the Texas legislature, to support
a bill that would privatize half of Texas' jails.
Fundraising and Christian values mix for DeLay the
way vodka goes with olives in an alcoholic's martinis.
Ed Buckham, DeLay's former chief of staff, also his
pastor, organized daily office prayer sessions and then
became a lobbyist who organized a DeLay junket to South
Korea. He was later indicted for illegal lobbying, but
nevertheless still pushes the Traditional Values Coalition
and its crusade to save America from the "war on
Christianity." Finally, in 2004, even the Republican
dominated House Ethics Committee had to respond to DeLay's
offer of $100,000 to former Congressman Nick Smith's
son, Brad, who vied for a House seat. In return, Brad
would vote for the Medicare prescription drug bill.
The Ethics Committee admonished DeLay (Roll Call, 11/22/04).
DeLay responded by ousting the chair of the Committee
and placing him with one of his own loyalists. The more
pious than thou DeLay also took a first class trip to
Europe ($4,285) at the expense of lobbyist Jack Abramoff,
who represented Indian gambling and Saipan sweatshop
interests. In exchange, DeLay helped defeat the Internet
Gambling Prohibition Act, which would have made it a
federal crime to place certain bets over the Internet
and which Abramoff's clients opposed (Washington Post,
March 1 and 12, 2005).
In 1997, DeLay had worked with Abramoff to foster sweatshop
labor on Saipan. Referring to these women-abusing factories
as "free market successes," DeLay urged textile
industry owners in those territories to "stand
firm" against those in Congress and the Clinton
Administration who were urging the island to adopt humane
labor and immigration laws [DeLay speech, December 1997,
Tan Reception, CNMI].
DeLay, like Bush, represents the culture
of naked power: endorsing illegal wars while ridiculing
opponents' appeals to law and fairness. According to
a senior democratic Member, DeLay routinely dismisses
legislation authored by Democrats and rails against
his own Members if they dare engage in bi-partisan authorship
of bills. He laughs at those who question his taking
large sums of corporate money and then invoking Jesus
principles to justify the donation.
Fifty five million voted against these
people and their policies in 2004. Now they must press
the Democrats to either turn into a real opposition
party or declare themselves terminally irrelevant.
Saul Landau teaches at Cal Poly Pomona University,
where he is the director of Digital Media Programs and
International Outreach, and is a fellow of the Institute
for Policy Studies. He is also the co-author of "Assassination
on Embassy Row," which is about the Letelier and
Moffitt murders. His new book is The Business of America. |
Chicago, Illinois - "He wields
near-imperial power, and most of Chicago would have
it no other way," Time magazine enthused about
Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley in an April 18 article
naming him one of the country's five best mayors. Daley,
Time declared, has used his power "to steer the
Windy City into a period of impressive stability, with
declining unemployment and splashy growth."
Stability? A nice euphemism for politics in a place
where there's less official opposition than in your
average Central Asian dictatorship--and about as much
corruption.
Declining unemployment? Never mind the fact that one
in six Chicago families subsists below or near the poverty
line, even though one family member is working, according
to a recent study--or that a quarter of kids under five
are poor, government statistics show.
Splashy growth? That's one way to describe the uncounted
thousands who've been forced out of impoverished neighborhoods
in recent years, thanks to the real estate speculation
and skyrocketing rents, spurred on by targeted tax breaks
often geared to Daley supporters.
Then there's the proposed $55 million "doomsday
cuts" in public transportation that would cut service
by almost 40 percent and lay off 2,000 workers unless
the state legislature--run by Chicagoans--comes up with
the money.
But none of this bothered the editorial writers at
the Chicago Tribune, who recently hailed Daley's "strong
sense of fairness" and his efforts to "narrow
the racial chasm"--an astonishing description of
what still remains one of the country's 10 most segregated
cities, some 16 years after the mayor first took office.
In fact, a 2003 Harvard University study found that
racial concentration in Chicago schools is "only
a few percentage points from an experience of total
apartheid for Black students."
The Wall Street Journal isn't phased either. Earlier
this year, it praised Daley as "a fix-it, a problem-solving
man"--strange praise for a mayor who did nothing
while an estimated 15,000 households went without heat
during last year's frigid Christmas week. It
was on Daley's watch in 1995 that a heat wave killed
700 people in what one disgusted city official called
"murder by public policy."
How does Daley get away with it? The mayor has repackaged
the ham-fisted methods of his father, who held the office
from 1955 until his death in 1977. Daley Senior's crude
bossism, so repugnant to 1960s middle-class liberals,
has given way to his son's style of a can-do manager
who tailors himself to yuppie sensibilities.
Where Richard I was caught on national television shouting,
"Fuck you, you Jew son of a bitch, you lousy motherfucker,
go home" to a U.S. senator at the 1968 Democratic
National Convention, Richard II installed rainbow street
sculptures for the city's main gay district.
Where Richard I engineered "urban renewal"
to corral African Americans into the high-rise ghettos
of public housing, Richard II ordered those units demolished--for
the good of the poor, of course, who are being shunted
off to poor, segregated neighborhoods, while high-priced
condos are built on the site of their previous homes.
And where Richard I relied on the Chicago cops to hound
African Americans and Latinos and crack the heads of
protesters...well, some things never change.
* * *
WELCOME TO the Chicago of the 21st century, de facto
capital of Blue State America. While California is governed
by the Republican's Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the mayor
of New York City and governor of New York are also Republicans,
Illinois is dominated by the Democrats--the Chicago
Democratic machine, whose reach extends from the city's
wards to the state legislature and the governor's mansion.
This Democratic utopia is devoted to
corporate-dominated politics, symbolized by a $16 million
tax break to get Boeing to relocate its headquarters
to Chicago. Next comes the handover of 100 Chicago public
schools to private business, putting kids under corporate
control and gutting the teachers' union contract, even
as 800 teachers face layoffs next year.
The school selloff reflects the way that the old patronage
machine of Daley Senior has been restructured for the
free-market, neoliberal era. Handouts today go not only
to loyal ward heelers, but to transnational corporations
with more clout than the old man ever dreamed of. As
a recent University of Illinois-Chicago study put it,
Daley's "patronage precinct captains are supplemented
by candidate-based, synthetic campaigns using large
sums of money from the global economy."
As a consequence, the elder Daley's backroom deals
with unions have given way to his son's in-your-face,
take-it-or-leave-it demands for job cuts and concessions.
City College teachers had to
wage a three-week strike last autumn to hold the line,
and Chicago's municipal unions have been without contracts
for more than two years as Daley demands $20 million
in concessions.
But there's one element of today's
Chicago politics that the elder Daley would recognize:
nepotism. The current mayor's brother, John,
sits on the Cook County Board--which encompasses Chicago--and
sold insurance to crooked trucking firms that did business
with the city. Another mayoral brother, William, former
architect of NAFTA and secretary of Commerce in the
Clinton White House, is president of the telecommunications
company SBC, which smoothed the way with Illinois regulators
for a takeover of the regional phone company.
To be fair, the Daleys aren't
the only Illinois Democrats who treat politics as a
family business. Gov. Rod Blagojevich moved from
the U.S. Congress to the governor's mansion thanks to
his father-in-law, Chicago Alderman Richard Mell. Blagojevich,
who campaigned against the scandals that imploded the
state Republicans, promptly rewarded campaign donors
with $24.3 million in state construction contracts.
When he's not seeking TV cameras to record his imports
of prescription drugs from Canada, the governor is taking
a hard line with union negotiators and demanding cuts
in public-sector workers' pensions and social spending--even
though state poverty has soared 31 percent in the last
five years.
Of course, there's a legal watchdog overseeing all
this: State Attorney General Lisa Madigan, whose father
happens to be the Chicago-based speaker of the Illinois
House of Representatives.
Time Magazine once denounced
such practices as an "intricately developed system
of crony capitalism, in which personal connections trump
the rule of law or markets almost every time."
But that was in reference to East
Asia in 1997. In today's Chicago, Time praises Daley
for having "professionalized the city by hiring
skilled managers and burnished its business-friendly
image."
Chicago certainly is business-friendly--especially
to businesses with connections to the Outfit, as the
city's mob is known.
The current roster of wrongdoing by public officials
includes the "hired truck" scandal, in which
Outfit-tied companies billed the city for bogus work
on construction sites; the towing scandal, in which
impounded cars were sold to mob-tied companies that
resold them for profit; the road-paving scandal, in
which a contractor's father told reporters he bribed
Daley administration officials to obtain $40 million
in contracts; and the fake-minority business scandal,
in which the city funneled $100 million in city contracts
to white businessmen in the Outfit-linked Duff family--longtime
Daley campaign contributors--working through
dummy companies.
And that's the short list.
* * *
WHAT HAPPENED to the "people's movement"
that propelled Harold Washington into office as the
city's first Black mayor in 1983, seeming to vanquish
the old Daley machine for good? The reality is that
Washington was never the radical that his racist opponents
alleged him to be. When he died suddenly in 1987, his
camp fractured.
In 1989, Daley won a special election, undercutting
the divided Black vote by cultivating alliances with
Latino politicians like Luis Gutiérrez, who was
rewarded with a promotion from alderman to Congress.
An outspoken liberal in Washington, he's a loyal Daley
ally at home.
Likewise, Daley positioned himself as gay-friendly
to court the white "lakefront liberals" who
had backed Washington, and he encouraged gentrification
to win over younger middle-class voters.
This liberal camouflage has led
many to forget that Daley built his political base as
a race-baiting Cook County state's attorney--on whose
watch Police Commander Jon Burge presided over a torture
ring that sent innocent men to death row on the basis
of coerced confessions. Racist police violence
is still endemic in Daley Junior's Chicago--in 1999,
Robert Russ and LaTonya Haggerty, two unarmed young
African Americans, were killed in separate police shootings
in a 24-hour period.
Such outrages should be fuel for political opposition,
but Daley has bullied and bought off virtually all his
would-be rivals. Thus, Alderman Helen Schiller, an old
Washington ally and one of the last of the white liberal
reformers, supported Daley in his last two reelection
campaigns.
Dick Simpson, a former alderman turned university professor,
studied Chicago City Council voting records and concluded
that today's council is even more of a rubber stamp
than under Daley Senior. Even
the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., based in Chicago, and his
son, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., effectively have a non-aggression
pact with the mayor.
When protesters do take to the streets against the
war on Iraq or other issues, they're typically surrounded
by cops in riot gear--and often denied the right to
march on their chosen route. The
First Amendment applies in Chicago only when the mayor
says it does. [...]
Lee Sustar is a regular contributor to CounterPunch
and the Socialist Worker. He can be reached at: lsustar@ameritech.net |
Handful
of Congressmen Could Rule America in Event of Catastrophe
No longer do Capitol Hill legislators need a quorum
to do the people's business. Now under a piece of hotly
contested legislation passed without media attention
on Jan. 5, only a few members of Congress are needed
to do official business in the event of a catastrophe
instead of the usual 218.
Critics claim H. Res. 5 paves the
way for tyranny, allowing "only a few to decide
for so many."
The provision states: "If the House should be
without a quorum due to catastrophic circumstances,
then . . . until there appear in the House a sufficient
number of representatives to constitute a quorum among
the whole number of the House, a quorum in the House
shall be determined based upon the provisional number
of the House; and . . . the provisional number of the
House, as of the close of the call of the House . .
. shall be the number of representatives responding
to that call of the House."
Supporters claim the bill, passed "under the cover
of congressional darkness," is intended to allow
the government to "continue operating" in
the event of a catastrophic emergency or terrorist attack.
However, constitutional experts say the law is blatantly
unconstitutional and ripe for challenge.
Normally, 218 lawmakers out of the 435 members are
needed to declare war, pass laws and validly conduct
the people's business. But under
the new rule a majority is no longer needed when circumstances
arise, including natural disaster, attack, contagion
or terrorist attacks rendering representatives incapable
of attending House proceedings.
"It's another measure brought
up by lawmakers that shows their callous disregard for
democracy," said one California attorney
who preferred to remain anonymous.
GOP House leaders pushed the controversial "doomsday
legislation" through for passage as a part of a
hefty and voluminous rules package. It drew little attention
and was probably not even discovered by many who voted
on it since the rules package centered on recent ethics
violations.
"I think the new rule is disgusting, terrible
and unconstitutional," said Norm Ornstein, of an
independent, bipartisan panel called the Continuity
of Government Commission which is studying the issue.
"The way it was passed was deceitful and the intent
behind the legislation was very foolish."
Rep. Brian Baird, (D-Wash.) agrees, arguing that the
rule change violates the Constitution, which specifically
states: "a majority of each Chamber shall constitute
a quorum to do business."
"Allowing for as few as 12 lawmakers
to make vital decisions and to possibly declare war
on another nation is not what this country is all about. |
Evangelical Christians
among the officers and cadets at the US Air Force Academy
have created an atmosphere of systematic intolerance towards
Jewish and non-religious students, according to reports
by minority students and investigations by off-campus groups
concerned about the rise of fundamentalist bigotry.
On April 19, academy officials revealed that 55 complaints
against religious harassment by Christian fundamentalists
have been filed in the last four years, including "saying
bad things about persons of other religions or proselytizing
in inappropriate places," a spokesman said.
In response to the complaints, the academy has created
a program called RSVP, for Respecting the Spiritual Values
of all People, which consists of a 50-minute class that
all 4,300 cadets are required to attend. Similar sensitivity
sessions will be held for the 9,000 staff and employees
of the academy.
According to an account published in the Los Angeles
Times, Mikey Weinstein, a graduate of the academy and
lawyer in Albuquerque, New Mexico, who is Jewish, was
outraged by the religious bigotry expressed against his
son Curtis when he entered the academy. His son was called
a "filthy Jew," among other slurs.
"When I visited my son," he told the Times,
"he told me he wanted us to go off base because he
had something to tell me. He said, 'They are calling me
a ... Jew and that I am responsible for killing Christ.'
My son told me that he was going to hit the next one who
called him something."
"When I was at the academy, there wasn't this institutional
notion that if you didn't accept Christ you would burn
eternally in hell," he added. "This is not a
Jew-Christian thing, it's an evangelical versus everyone
else thing. I am calling for congressional oversight and
for the academy to stop trivializing the problem by calling
it non-systemic. If they can't fix it and Congress won't
fix it, the next thing to do is go to the federal court
and file a lawsuit alleging a violation of the Constitution
and civil rights."
Members of the Yale Divinity School who visited the academy
last year sent a memo subsequently documenting the overtly
fundamentalist environment. During Protestant church services,
they said, cadets chanted, "This is our Chapel and
the Lord is our God." They were encouraged to proselytize
to others and "remind them of the consequences of
apostasy." Speakers declared that those not "born
again will burn in the fires of hell," and cadets
were "regularly encouraged to 'witness' to fellow"
cadets.
On April 28, Americans United for Separation of Church
and State (AUSCS) issued a report on the academy, including
a long list of mandatory religious observances, proselytizing
by teachers (many of them officers who are the military
superiors of cadets) and allegations by minority students
that Protestant fundamentalism is given preferential status
at the school.
Barry Lynn, the group's executive director, said, "I
think this is the most serious, military-related systemic
problem I have ever seen in the decades I've been doing
this work... There is a clear preference for Christianity
at the academy, so that everyone else feels like a second-class
citizen." He wrote to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld
seeking an immediate investigation.
The report said that cadets who declined
to attend an evening chapel service were marched back
to their dorms by upperclassmen (who have command authority
over them) in a procedure they called "heathen flight."
Teachers openly identified themselves as born-again Christians,
called on students to pray before exams, and sought to
recruit students to their religious persuasion.
The report explains that the prayers regularly held before
routine events at the Air Force Academy, including meals
and award ceremonies, would be deemed unconstitutional
if held in a public high school or college or a federally
financed state-run military training school like Virginia
Military Institute. Even non-sectarian prayers which make
only a general reference to god are considered a violation
of the establishment clause of the First Amendment, let
alone prayers specifically invoking the name of Jesus
Christ.
One incident demonstrating the institutional pressure
on behalf of Christian fundamentalism is the publication
of a full-page Christmas greeting in the academy's newspaper
in December 2003, in which 300 signatories, including
16 heads or deputy heads of academic department, three
deans and other top officials jointly declare that they
"believe that Jesus Christ is the only real hope
for the world" and urge cadets to contact any of
the signatories to "discuss Jesus."
According to the AUSCS report, "faculty members
and other officers who use their official positions to
communicate such messages ... are sending a strong and
unequivocal message of the Academy's and the United States
Air Force's unconstitutional endorsement of religion."
It concluded that the evidence showed "systematic
and pervasive religious bias and intolerance at the highest
levels of the Academy command structure."
The tone is set from the top: the academy
commandant, Brig. Gen. Johnny Weida, is a professed "born-again"
Christian who addresses the cadets in chapel service and
urges them "to discuss their Christian faith"
with other students. In an official "Commander's
Guidance," he declared that cadets "are accountable
first to your God." He also instructed cadets to
engage in a call-and-response in which he would shout
the word "Airpower" and they would reply "Rock
Sir!", invoking the New Testament image of the church
built on a rock.
The academy engaged in institutional religious discrimination,
denying Jewish and Seventh-Day Adventist students permission
to attend off-campus religious events on Saturdays, while
permitting Christian students to attend such events on
Sundays. A cadet who wanted to attend a Freethinkers'
meeting off base was denied permission, and also denied
the right to form a similar non-religious group on campus.
(Colorado Springs, Colorado, the city where the academy
is located, is the headquarters of dozens of evangelical
Christian groups, including Focus on the Family, the best-financed
right-wing fundamentalist pressure group, as well as the
International Bible Society and the New Life Church.)
Perhaps the most ominous allegation in the report from
Americans United for Separation of Church and State is
the following: "At a more basic
level, we have been informed that General Weida has cultivated
and reinforced an attitude—shared by many in the
Academy Chaplains' Office and, increasingly, by other
members of the Academy's permanent [staff]—that
the Academy, and the Air Force in general, would be better
off if populated solely by Christians. A stronger message
of official preference for one particular faith is hard
to imagine."
The implications of this are quite staggering: it means
the Air Force officer corps is being educated not as a
military force subordinate to a civilian authority, but
as soldiers who are "accountable first to God."
Those who will be placed in control of the vast destructive
power of modern aerial weaponry, including "smart
bombs" and nuclear missiles, are to constitute a
sort of praetorian guard of Christian fundamentalists.
Aside from its dire meaning for American democracy, there
is the overriding question of mankind's survival: The
Pentagon is putting the power to incinerate the human
race in the hands of religious zealots who believe in
an imminent "second coming" in which Jesus Christ
will stage a fiery return. Certainly an officer corps
steeped in such a religious dogma will have few moral
qualms about the use of nuclear weapons. Quite the contrary,
they may well see a nuclear holocaust as a religiously
ordained and even desirable way of hastening the "end
time." |
BOISE, Idaho - A
woman once held up by the Bush administration as a crusader
against domestic violence is now facing kidnapping
and drug charges.
Barbara Dehl, 49, conspired with her
live-in boyfriend and another man to abduct a young
couple after the three found money, jewelry and drugs
missing from Dehl's safe, police said in court documents.
Dehl was indicted by a grand jury this week on two
felony counts of kidnapping and one count of trafficking
methamphetamine. The men also were indicted on a variety
of charges.
All were in custody awaiting arraignment May 4, and
they were appointed public defenders. Dehl's lawyer,
Joseph Ellsworth, was not immediately available for
comment reachable by telephone Friday.
Five years ago, Dehl stood teary-eyed next to Gov.
Dirk Kempthorne as he signed a law named after her deceased
daughter, Cassandra.
The 17-year-old was killed in 1999 by her boyfriend
when he purposefully drove off the road while they were
arguing. State courts had refused to issue a protective
order against him, contending Idaho's domestic violence
law did not apply to dating teenagers. A jury eventually
convicted the boyfriend of misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter.
After Cassandra's death, Dehl, a divorced mother, tirelessly
lobbied state lawmakers to extend domestic abuse protections
to teenagers trapped in abusive dating relationships.
When "Cassie's Law" passed, Kempthorne said
Dehl's efforts would become "one of those lasting
legacies ... that will save lives in the future."
In 2002, Dehl was appointed
by Attorney General John Ashcroft to serve on the National
Advisory Committee on Violence Against Women.
She attended a ceremony at the White House the next
year when President Bush announced initiatives to combat
domestic violence.
She appeared on national talk shows, won state citizenship
awards and formed an educational nonprofit foundation
dedicated to teen domestic violence prevention. |
WASHINGTON - The Senate committee
weighing John Bolton's troubled nomination for U.N.
ambassador on Friday interviewed former deputy CIA director
John McLaughlin, who has been described as having clashed
with Bolton on intelligence analyses.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff interviewed
McLaughlin as part of the examination driven by Democrats
and a few Republicans of whether Bolton bullied subordinates
and tried to force analyzes of Cuba, Syria, North Korea
and Iran to conform to his hardline views.
McLaughlin was asked about his intervention to block
a transfer Bolton sought of Fulton Armstrong, then a
national intelligence officer for Latin America, a Democratic
committee aide said.
The aide said the committee staff also questioned three
others about accusations brought by a former U.S. Agency
for International Development contractor that Bolton
angrily chased her through a Russian hotel, threw things
at her and spread malicious rumors in a dispute over
a foreign aid project.
The White House has stepped up its defense of Bolton,
its current top diplomat for arms control. President
Bush said in a news conference on Thursday Bolton's
"blunt" style would be an asset in pushing
reforms at the United Nations. [...] |
The US government warned that it
had ongoing concerns about security in Central Asia,
warning of "the potential for terrorist actions"
there and urging US citizens to step up their own security.
"The US Government continues to receive information
that terrorist groups in Central Asia may be planning
attacks in the region, possibly against US Government
facilities, Americans or American interests," the
State Department said in a public announcement.
"Elements and supporters of extremist groups present
in Central Asia, including the Islamic Jihad Group,
Al-Qaeda, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU),
and the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, have expressed
anti-US sentiments in the past and have the capability
to conduct terrorist operations in multiple countries."
The State Department noted use of improvised explosive
devices and suicide bombers, targeting public areas,
such as markets and local government facilities, in
previous Central Asian attacks.
It warned Americans to exercise caution given that
attackers might be looking for "softer targets"
due to the increase in security at official locations.
Last July, the US and Israeli Embassies in Uzbekistan
were attacked, with four Uzbek security guards killed,
as well as police.
Uzbek President Islam Karimov has said the violence
was coordinated from Kazakhstan and Pakistan.
The State Department also urged caution, given that
hostage-takings and "skirmishes" had occurred
near the border areas of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and
Kyrgyzstan. |
WASHINGTON - US Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld said Thursday it makes "all the
sense in the world" to study the feasibility of
designing a nuclear weapon capable of penetrating deeply
buried targets.
Rumsfeld defended the proposed 8.5 million-dollar
study of a "robust nuclear earth penetrator"
at a Senate hearing after it came under fire from Senator
Diane Feinstein, a California Democrat.
Feinstein noted that Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman
has acknowledged in previous hearings that no missile
could bore deep enough into the earth to trap all fallout
from a nuclear explosion.
"It is beyond me as to
why you are proceeding with this program when the laws
of physics won't allow a missile to be driven deeply
enough to retain the fallout which will spew in hundreds
of millions of cubic feet if it is a hundred kilotons,"
Feinstein said.
Rumsfeld said more than 70 countries have programs
to build facilities underground, and have available
to them equipment that can dig chambers the size of
a basketball court from rock in a single day.
"We can't go in there and get at things in solid
rock underground," Rumsfeld said.
"The only thing we have is very large, very dirty
nuclear weapons. So the choice is: do we want to have
nothing and only a large, dirty nuclear weapon, or would
we rather have something in between. That is the issue,"
he said.
He said the administration wanted see if it is feasible
to develop weapons casings hard enough to penetrate
"not with a large nuclear weapon but with either
a conventional capability or a very small nuclear capability
in the event that the United States of America at some
point down the road decided they wanted to undertake
that type of project."
"It seems to me studying it makes all the sense
in the world," he said.
The proposal has been attacked by arms control advocates
as a step toward developing a weapon that would lower
the threshhold for the use of nuclear weapons.
Congress last year killed funding for the study, but
the administration has requested resumed funding in
its 2006 budget proposal. Besides 8.5 million dollars
in 2006, the proposal calls for another 14 million dollars
to complete the study in 2007. |
If a kite appears to be following
you in La Plata, Md., it very well may be.
The Charles County Sheriff's Office
recently monitored a gathering of motorcycle riders
by launching a remote-control aerial camera to watch
for emergencies or troublemakers.
An official said yesterday the battery-powered spy
plane was launched as a test run and that he's not sure
whether the agency will buy the craft - but the results
were good.
"I liked what I saw," said Lt. Chris Becker,
the agency's commander of homeland security and intelligence.
"A tactical operations team member could readily
carry it in the trunk of his patrol car and assemble
it in just minutes."
Still, not everybody is pleased with the mini spy plane,
marketed by Cyber Defense Systems Inc. and sold regionally
by Applied Techniques Corporation.
Susan Goering, executive director of the ACLU of Maryland,
said devices such as CyberBug are an intrusion on a
citizen's civil rights.
"The concern is, obviously,
a privacy issue, but also that the constitutional right
to assemble is being chilled," Miss Goering
said. "We are fast approaching the time when the
government will be monitoring our every move."
She also said the issue is of special concern when
citizens rally against the government.
"Dissent in this country is the lifeblood of democracy,"
Miss Goering said. "If someone is attending an
event that's [anti-government], they should be able
to do so without fear the government will retaliate
in some manner."
Lt. Becker said the "CyberBug" went on two
30-minute flights April 17 over the 12th annual Southern
Maryland "Blessing of the Bikes" at the Charles
County Fairgrounds, which organizers said was attended
by about 8,000 people.
"I was quite impressed with how easy it was to
launch and how well it monitored the area," he
said. "Besides crowd and traffic control, I see
law enforcement using the CyberBug in a multitude of
applications especially when it comes to crime fighting
and homeland security."
A base-model CyberBug costs $7,500 and can be placed
in a stationary position or controlled with a joystick
device. It can stay in the air for more than three hours
and comes with a variety of features - including the
camera, a global positioning system and an explosive
trigger for qualified customers.
Cyber Defense Systems is marketing CyberBug as a low-cost
way for law-enforcement agencies, military forces, business
owners and state or local governments to monitor their
properties, including potential terrorist targets.
Lt. Becker said Sheriff Frederick E. Davis will make
the decision on whether to buy the CyberBug and that
he knows of no other agencies in the region that have
it. |
CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA. - A U.S.
rocket has blasted off without a hitch from a Florida
air force station, after repeated delays amid fears
it might drop debris on oil platforms off Newfoundland's
shore.
The Titan IV rocket launched from Cape Canaveral shortly
before 9 p.m. EST Friday and successfully cast off a
military satellite several minutes later, observers
said.
The mission caused a diplomatic scramble earlier in
April, when officials revealed that a 10-tonne solid
rocket booster and other materials would land near oil
platforms on the Grand Banks, about 350 kilometres east
of St. John's.
Newfoundland and Labrador's premier, Danny Williams,
said three of the platforms – including Hibernia
– would be evacuated. He called on the Americans
to cancel the mission.
The U.S. Air Force Space Command postponed it repeatedly,
blaming technical problems.
At the same time, it assured Canadians that the chance
of anyone being hurt was 1 in a trillion. [...] |
WASHINGTON - A human rights organization
known for tracking down Nazi war criminals is taking
aim at North Korea, saying the regime uses deadly nerve
gas on its own citizens and may even be operating experimental
gas chambers.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center sent American rabbi Abraham
Cooper, the centre's associate dean, to Asia to investigate
the reports, which the North Korean regime denies.
Cooper interviewed a number of former North Korean
officials who have since defected.
One man, a 55-year-old chemist, claimed he was in charge
of an experiment to test the effect of deadly nerve
gas on political prisoners.
"He said he was involved in the killing of two
people – one who did not expire for 21⁄2
hours, and the second didn't die till 31⁄2 hours
had passed," Cooper told CBC for a documentary
airing Wednesday night on the radio program Dispatches.
Other defectors told him of "mass starvations,
gruesome experimentations, and yes, as we now are beginning
to learn and to confirm, gas chambers," he said.
Soon Ok Lee, a North Korean now living in the United
States, said she spent years in a political prison camp
before escaping.
"When I was in jail, there was at least once
or twice in the prison camp, chemical testing on humans
that I witnessed," she said. [...] |
An ongoing argument between a 15-year-old
boy and his single mother about guns, porn and the teen's
girlfriend may have led to a violent outburst sometime
last weekend in which the son brutally killed his mom
-- stabbing her 111 times,
police said.
According to law enforcement officials, sometime before
her death, Diane Michele took away the gun her son,
a Rochester Hills high school freshman, apparently made
out of PVC pipe to shoot marbles. She did not like that
he played paintball. She found out he had been looking
at porn.
The teenager, Christopher Dankovich, was arraigned
Tuesday before 52-3 District Court Judge Nancy Carniak
in Rochester Hills and charged with murder, accused
of slashing his mother's body with a knife -- even poking
her eyes. Police say he admitted to the killing. He
is being held without bond in Children's Village, a
juvenile detention facility in Pontiac.
If convicted, Dankovich could face life in prison.
To people who knew the 50-year-old victim, what is
most shocking about her violent death is that Michele
was a loving mom who constantly doted on her only son
and often told them how he was her pride and joy.
A licensed professional counselor, Michele was a flamboyant
woman, her friends said. She practiced holistic medicine
and had an office off Woodward in Bloomfield Hills.
She was a minister, and according to her Web site, she
founded the HeartLight Metaphysical Ministry and offered
her services at weddings, baptisms and funerals.
On the site, she referred to herself as a "Psychotherapist/Speaker/Teacher/Trainer/Minister."
She taught classes on "Developing Your Intuition,"
"Starting Your Own Spiritual Path," "Near-Death
Experiences," "Remote Viewing" and "Miracles."
Her Rochester Hills home was filled with inspirational
sayings about love, police said. The license plate on
her car was "LOVE4U." She dressed in flowing,
colorful clothing and wore flashy jewelry, friends said.
Purple was her favorite color, they said.
They said that the center of her world was her son.
"That son was the apple of her eye," said
Sheila Becker of Birmingham, a friend of Michele who
also is a psychologist. "She constantly told me
she thanked God for her son because he was never on
drugs or booze. They did everything together.
"She lived for that boy," Becker added.
Law enforcement officials said
the gruesome nature of the crime and the unclear motive
for the violence troubles them. The boy, who according
to neighbors and friends was quiet and "very nice,"
must have been filled with rage, police said."It's
one of the most horrific crimes I've ever come across,"
Oakland County Prosecutor David Gorcyca said.
Dankovich was a good student at Rochester Adams High
School, school officials said. He kept to himself and
walked the dog when his mom asked, a neighbor said.
He got along with other students and had friends, his
peers said.
Exactly why the teen killed his mother is unclear,
Gorcyca said.
"That's the million-dollar question," Gorcyca
said. "What motivated a 15-year-old, who was otherwise
a well-behaved child, to butcher his mom? This investigation
is far from complete. There has to be something in this
boy's background for him to commit such an angry crime."
[...] |
Tonya Vasilev, a
woman described by friends as kind, caring and godly,
was accused Friday of slaying her two children in a
frenzied attack at their Hoffman Estates home.
Vasilev, 34, was charged with two counts of first
degree murder in the Wednesday night deaths of her children
Christian, 9, and Gracie, 3. Each
was stabbed more than 100 times, authorities
said.
A heavy bandage covered Tonya Vasilev's left wrist
and hand as she stood in court Friday afternoon and
answered the judge's questions in a soft, shaking voice.
The judge appointed a public defender to represent her
and ordered her held without bail.
Assistant State's Attorney Richard Karwaczka described
for the court the scene that Vasilev's husband found
when he and a friend walked into the family's suburban
Chicago home around 9:20 Wednesday night.
In the kitchen, Nikolai Vasilev spotted his 9-year-old
son, Christian, lying on the floor in a pool of blood,
Karwaczka said. The father scooped him up and carried
him to the front door, where he frantically called 911.
Then he and the friend started up the stairs.
At the top of the stairs, they found the Vasilevs'
3-year-old daughter, Grace, dead from stab wounds, the
prosecutor said.
``Right next to Grace was the defendant, Tonya, sitting
there with a knife,'' he said.
The 34-year-old mother was taken to the police station
for questioning, where she ``admitted stabbing her son
and daughter at their residence,'' Karwaczka said.
Hoffman Estates police would not speculate on a motive
Friday afternoon. Lt. Rich Russo said it appeared the
children struggled against their assailant, and that
officers who came to the house in the 1100 block of
John Drive pulled Christian outside to give him first
aid, only to realize he was already dead.
The scene was so disturbing
that the department was offering counseling to everyone
from the dispatcher to the responding officers, Russo
said.
"I don't think that it can get much worse that
this," he said.
A preliminary hearing for Tonya Vasilev was set for
May 20. |
LOS ANGELES - A string of highway
shootings since mid-March has left four people dead
in Southern California and raised fears of a return
to the bad old days of the 1980s, when the Los Angeles
area gained a reputation for freeway gunplay.
Authorities have increased freeway patrols and considered
installing recorders on roadside traffic cameras.
Five people have been shot in their cars in apparently
unrelated - and definitely unsolved - attacks. In at
least three cases, the shooters were in other cars.
Manny Padilla, a California Highway Patrol chief in
Southern California, said the bloodshed may reflect
frustration with gridlock.
"Driving behavior has changed tremendously with
all the congestion here. That causes people to be extremely
short-tempered and inconsiderate," he said. "The
courtesy we used to extend often isn't there anymore."
Authorities said the overall
number of shootings so far this year appears to about
the same as in other recent years. But so many
deaths in so short span have some motorists on edge.
"We just hope things don't get worse and go back
to the way they were," Esmeralda Miller, 65, said
Friday at a gas station.
Still, few appear ready to give up driving the freeways,
a Southern California way of life.
Nestor Tuazon added several minutes to his daily commute
but gained peace of mind by driving side streets instead
of a stretch of freeway where two motorists have been
killed in Los Angeles. But after two days, he returned
to the fast lane.
"I'm just extra careful," said Tuazon, 49,
who travels the 110 Freeway between his Los Angeles
home and job at a Gardena nursing home, "but I
will not stop taking the freeway."
In 1987, Southern California seemed to be America's
road-rage capital, with nearly 70 highway shootings
over 10 summer weeks, according to Ray Novaco, a psychology
professor at University of California at Irvine, who
has written about the violence. The shootings left at
least five people dead and 11 wounded.
"It was novel phenomenon then, so people grabbed
onto it," Novaco said.
Some motorists began carrying guns in self-defense,
afraid that a bullet could be just one bad lane change
away.
The shootings dropped off after 1987, and since 2001
have averaged around 40 a year in Los Angeles alone,
according to police.
In March, a 26-year-old engineer was fatally shot in
the head along an Orange County freeway. Over the weeks
that followed, two motorists, including a 47-year-old
car salesman on his way to Bible study, were killed
in separate shootings on the 110 Freeway in Los Angeles.
A fourth motorist was gunned down on a Riverside County
freeway east of Los Angeles on April 22. A fifth was
wounded in Orange County on Sunday.
In the shooting of the car salesman, police suspect
he may have angered another motorist without knowing
it by making a move in traffic. In Riverside County,
witnesses reported the two cars may have been driving
alongside each other before the attack, but police do
not know why. Other shootings may have stemmed from
disputes that began off the freeway, authorities said.
No one has been arrested, and authorities
say they have found no links among the five shootings,
which took place at different times and places.
As in 1987, the recent wave of shootings has sparked
concerns about copy cat attacks, but police said there
is no indication that is happening. |
Ho Chi Minh City,
Vietnam, April 30 (Xinhuanet) -- Vietnam on Saturday held
a solemn ceremony with military parades and public marches
in front of the Reunification Palace in Ho Chi Minh City
to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the national reunification.
Addressing at the ceremony, which was attracted more
than 50,000 people, Nguyen Minh Triet, secretary of the
Communist Party of Ho Chi Minh City said the victory of
April 30, 1975 opened a new era for the Vietnamese people.
This is the victory of the revolutionary heroism and Vietnam's
stuff and intellect. |
PARIS, April 29 (Xinhuanet)
-- French President Jacques Chirac is "optimistic"
about the opportunity that the French "yes"
camp would win the May 29 referendum on the European Union
constitution,French TF1 channel reported Friday.
Four weeks ahead the referendum, the French president
has the feeling that the "no" camp declines,
according to a source close to him.
The latest IFOP-JDD survey published Friday showed that
52 percent of the questioned French people would vote
"no" to the European constitutional treaty,
against 48 percent of "yes" vote.
A total of 70 percent of the respondents are sure of
their choice, while 30 percent would change their opinion.
Chirac decided to multiply his interventions to convince
the French that only the European constitution would make
Europe more social, more independent and stronger to face
up to big regional poles in the world and that the "no"
would be a serious mistake toweaken France, said the source. |
The European Union's
three biggest powers and Iran have failed to reach agreement
over Tehran's nuclear programme but have decided to hold
more talks in the future.
Iran had threatened before the five-hour meeting on Friday
to resume sensitive atomic activities unless France, Britain
and Germany agreed to allow it to carry out small-scale
uranium enrichment.
"The informal talks have concluded. No conclusions
were reached and both sides, the EU three and Iran, have
agreed to go away and reflect on what was discussed and
to continue the discussions in future," said a British
Foreign Office spokesman.
But an Iranian official said some progress was made in
the London talks.
Iranian negotiator Sirus Naseri told the AFP on Saturday:
"We believe there has been some progress on the framework
for a long-term agreement. The difference is about the
timing."
Naseri was referring to a proposal concerning enrichment
which the two sides discussed at a meeting on Friday.
Iran has been accused by the US of having a secret agenda
to develop nuclear weapons. Tehran denies the charge,
saying its nuclear programme is solely for the generation
of power.
The EU's three biggest powers, which share Washington's
concerns, are leading talks intended to persuade Iran
to scrap its atomic fuel programme in exchange for economic
and political incentives. Tehran has refused.
The latest proposal from Tehran suggests it be allowed
to build up its uranium enrichment programme in stages,
beginning with a small pilot enrichment plant and ending
with a commercial-scale complex.
Negotiations
The EU powers hope to leave the hard negotiations on
Tehran's atomic ambitions until after Iran's 17 June presidential
elections, on grounds that campaigning for the ballot
could produce heightened tensions.
"We don't want to break things up now and have
a row. We want to continue the negotiating process after
the Iranian election," said a European diplomat,
declining to be identified.
But Naseri said before the London meeting that he wanted
agreement soon.
"The foundation for agreement is in place,"
said Naseri.
"We think it is unreasonable to avoid agreement,"
he added, insisting he was not putting undue pressure
on the EU powers.
Programme suspended
Iran has suspended its enrichment programme under international
pressure, but four months of talks with the Europeans
have yielded no breakthrough and Iran says the programme
must resume.
"If there is no agreement and the Europeans insist
on further time ... we may have to readjust the situation
so it will be a more balanced position. It will not be
balanced if the suspension will remain," said Naseri,
in an apparent threat to resume enrichment unilaterally.
He later told Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency
(Irna): "In case of not reaching an agreement in
London, Iran might be obliged to resume part of its uranium
enrichment programme, but in that case it will still continue
the talks."
'At any cost'
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, an influential former Iranian
president preparing to run again in June, said Tehran
was determined to embark on uranium enrichment and other
branches of nuclear technology.
"And we will have it at any cost," he told
worshippers in Tehran.
Washington warned Tehran not to leave the negotiating
table or resume any parts of its enrichment programme.
It also reminded the EU of its pledge to help refer Iran's
case to the UN Security Council, which could lead to economic
sanctions, if Tehran followed through on its latest threats.
"If Iran chooses to walk away from talks with the
EU three and end its current suspension ... the EU three
have already made clear to Iran that they would work with
us and others to report Iran's nuclear programme to the
UN Security Council," a US official in Vienna said.
EU diplomats say Tehran knows the idea of pilot enrichment
is unacceptable to them and to Washington, which takes
a harder line than the Europeans despite last month giving
its backing to the diplomatic initiative. |
TEHRAN, April 30 (Xinhuanet)
-- Iran will resume nuclear activities concerning uranium
enrichment next week if it failed to reach an agreement
with the European Union over Iran's nuclear file, the
chief nuclear negotiator said on Saturday.
"Iran will make decision on resumption of uranium
enrichment in Tehran next week," Hassan Rowhani,
also secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council,
was quoted by the official IRNA news agency as saying.
|
TEHRAN - Today's Iran
is the latest manifestation of a great and endlessly undermined
Persian empire that once stretched from Iraq to Afghanistan,
embracing a multitude of ethnicities along the way. The
Islamic republic that came into being a generation ago
is a microcosm of its imperial past, with Arabs, Azeris,
Bakhtiaris, Balochis, Kurds, Turkmens and Lurs co-existing
alongside the majority Persian population.
But as this month's riots by ethnic Arabs in the southern
province of Khuzestan demonstrated, Iran's multicultural
milieu could also be its Achilles' heel, an open door
for foreign opportunists seeking to infiltrate this fledgling
nuclear power.
Iran is particularly vulnerable to foreign penetration
in that non-Persian, non-Shi'ite ethnic minorities inhabit
its extremities. Aside from Khuzestan's Shi'ite Arabs,
there are Sunni Balochis in the southeast, Sunni Kurds
and Shi'ite Azeris in the northwest and Sunni Turkmens
in the northeast.
All these areas adjoin countries that are either hostile
to Iran's ruling clerics or contain US troops. The United
States has dramatically expanded its presence in the region
post-September 11, 2001, even as it has raised the level
of its anti-Tehran rhetoric. US troops and advisers currently
reside in Iraq, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Pakistan.
At the same time, Tehran maintains ambiguous relations
with neighbors Pakistan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Turkey
and Iraq, although it is currently on a regional charm
offensive and a pro-Iranian government seems poised to
come to power in Baghdad. |
With Hospital Emergency
Room Infrastructure To Provide Secure ID and Medical Record
Access For VeriChip Patients, Thought and Opinion Leaders
to Play Key Role in Adoption of VeriChip(TM)
VeriChip Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Applied
Digital (NASDAQ: ADSX), announced today that the Bergen
County, New Jersey Chief of Police has been implanted
with the VeriChip. Chief of Police Jack Schmidig, a member
of the police force for over 30 years, received a VeriChip
as part of the Company's strategy of enlisting key regional
leaders to accelerate adoption of the VeriChip. With hospital
emergency room infrastructure forming, patients will have
the ability to provide secure ID and medical record access
in an emergency or clinical situation. |
MADRID: Spain has
suffered its driest winter and early spring since records
began almost 60 years ago, data from meteorologists
showed on Friday.
Rainfall from November to the end of March this year
was 37 per cent below the average for the period and
the lowest since records started in 1947, the National
Meteorological Office said.
With water reserves in Spain at just 60 per cent of
full capacity, farmers fearing water rationing say they
are planting fewer crops.
Neighbouring Portugal is suffering its worst drought
for 25 years and authorities there have imposed irrigation
restrictions in the south, a popular tourist destination.
|
QUEBEC
CITY - Heavy rains across Quebec and New Brunswick have
brought flooding and forced dozens of families out of
their homes.
Some areas have received as much as 100 millimetres
of rainfall in the past week. Environment Canada's heavy
rainfall warning was lifted on Friday, but the downpours
have not stopped.
Rivers across Quebec are overflowing and the rain
has caused landslides and washed out roads.
In the village of Petite-Rivière-St-François,
north of Quebec City, more than two dozen families have
been forced out of their homes. [...] |
Scattered thunderstorms brought
showers to parts of the Tennessee Valley and southern
Plains Friday, while light rain and scattered snow showers
lingered across the central Rockies.
The most severe storms were in northern Arkansas, where
1.75 inches of hail fell in White and Lanoke counties
and Russellville recorded 1.2 inches of rain.
Thunderstorms were also reported across the Tennessee
Valley and lower Mississippi Valley, while light rain
fell in portions of the Northeast, Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic.
Rain totals generally remained under .4 inches.
The Great Lakes, Deep South and central Plains were
mostly dry under partly cloudy skies.
In the West, the central Rockies saw light isolated
rain showers and a few snow showers. Up to 6 inches
of snow were recorded in elevations about 6,000 feet.
Light rain also fell in parts of the Pacific Northwest,
while the northern Rockies, Great Basin, California
and the Desert Southwest enjoyed partly cloudy skies
and dry conditions.
Friday's temperatures around the Lower 48 states ranged
from a low of 6 degrees in West Yellowstone, Wyo., to
a midday high of 92 degrees in Laredo, Texas. |
BUCHAREST - Heavy rains in western
Romania have flooded hundreds of villages, forcing 3,700
people to abandon their homes and disrupting rail and
road traffic, the Environment Ministry said on Friday.
Television stations showed army helicopters and national
guard dinghies arriving at disaster areas to evacuate
shivering victims from what authorities called the worst
floods in 50 years.
"I lost everything. My pigs drowned and I couldn't
rescue them after my house crumbled in the water,"
said an elderly peasant from Otelec, where floods were
two meters deep.
Up to 2,000 people, mostly from Timis county at the
border with Serbia and Montenegro, were displaced to
temporary shelters on nearby highlands. They are likely
to stay there until at least Sunday, the Orthodox Easter.
But TV reports said many were risking their lives to
defend saturated homes from looters by taking refuge
in their lofts, which were liable to collapse at any
moment.
In the city of Arad, near the border with Hungary,
apartment blocks and streets were flooded, with stranded
residents forced to use dinghies for transport.
The Environment Ministry said the floods were partly
caused by broken 300-year-old dams on the Timis river
but that waters were now beginning to ebb. [...]
Prime Minister Calin Tariceanu, who visited the flood-affected
areas, said the government would rebuild destroyed houses
with materials from the state reserves. The houses are
expected to be ready by the winter.
The government has allocated 500 billion lei ($18 million)
to repair the collapsed railway infrastructure and 280
billion for the dams. Some 30 billion will also go toward
vaccines to prevent epidemics spreading, emergency food
and basic supplies. [...]
The government had yet to present an overall assessment
of the damage, but the farm ministry said 110,000 hectares
(271,800 acres) of wheat, barley, sunflower and vegetables
fields had so far been damaged at an estimated financial
loss of 300 billion lei. |
Giant waves have been lashing some
parts of Andhra Pradesh coast leading to panic, but
experts have assured people that there is no threat
of another tsunami.
Six to seven ft tall waves struck Uppada beach, about
20 km from the port town of Kakinada in East Godavari
district, on Thursday. People living in other coastal
villages in Prakasam district also experienced the unusually
high tidal waves.
No loss of life or property was reported. [...] |
Brigham City leaders have
declared a state of emergency as they prepare for a
few more days of heavy rain and flooding.
BRIGHAM CITY-(KSL News) -- Brigham City has declared
a state of emergency because of the flooding.
"The reservoir is filling into the mayor's pond
which is spilling into the Box Elder Creek."
Mayor Lou Ann Christensen says they've let water go
into irrigation canals and onto the golf course so it
doesn't clog the creek any more.
The city's emergency services director says the rain
is what's causing this flooding. |
Up to 1,100 people are expected
to take part Saturday in what organizers say may be
the largest mock disaster drill ever in Michigan involving
public safety agencies from nine Michigan counties.
[...]
The purpose of the simulated disaster is to "help
our emergency services coordinate response to a (terrorist)
situation and learn from the exercise," says Tom
Gualdoni, assistant scoutmaster for Boy Scout Troop
350 in Brighton and scout organizer for the event. "It's
quite a statement to the community that this many people
would come forward and offer their services," he
says.
The drill will unfold at around 9 a.m. at the ski
area in Genoa Township.
"There is an initial explosion
and release of a hazardous chemical, followed by arrival
by a terrorist group which infiltrates the countryside,
spreading pneumonic plague," Gualdoni says.
The hazardous material wasn't being identified in advance,
in order to test the agencies' ability to successfully
identify it and respond appropriately, Waters says.
Emergency personnel will be on the scene to perform
triage on the victims and give placebos in place of
real medications. From there, victims will be taken
to hospitals in Howell and Lansing. In
the afternoon, a "terrorist group" will swarm
on Maltby Middle School at Bauer and Brighton roads
in Genoa Township and take over two classrooms, using
students as hostages.
SWAT teams from the Livingston County Sheriff's Department
and Brighton City Police will then converge on the school
and take control of the situation from the terrorists.
"We're testing some procedures and plans we've
never done before, and now we need to see where we need
to do better," Waters says. "We'll see how
this goes. It's a continuing process." |
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, North Carolina,
- Farmers who used agricultural insecticides experienced
increased symptoms of nervous system disorders, even
when they were no longer using the products, new research
by federal government scientists shows.
The research is part of the ongoing Agricultural Health
Study funded by the National Institute of Environmental
Health Sciences (NIEHS) and the National Cancer Institute,
two of the National Institutes of Health, and the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Data from 18,782 North Carolina and Iowa farmers linked
use of insecticides, including organophosphates and
organochlorines, to reports of reoccurring headaches,
fatigue, insomnia, dizziness, nausea, hand tremors,
numbness and other neurological symptoms.
Some of the insecticides addressed by the study are
still on the market, but some, including DDT, have been
banned or restricted. [...] |
GENEVA (AP) - The UN health agency
Friday said that 18 new cases of polio have been found
in Yemen and more people are believed infected, sparking
fears of an epidemic in the Middle East country with
a low immunization rate among children.
"What we're facing now is a major epidemic in
Yemen," said David Heymann, chief of the World
Health Organization's polio eradication campaign. The
latest cases bring to 22 the number of confirmed instances
of polio in the country.
Heymann noted that the disease had spread across the
country from the initial four cases that were recorded
in the Red Sea port of Al-Hudaydah last week. The country
was previously thought to be to be free of the disease.
"Ongoing field investigations have identified
additional suspected polio cases across the affected
governorates in Yemen," WHO said. "Low immunization
rates among Yemen's children may facilitate the spread
of the virus."
Heymann said all the infected so far were children.
"It will never be possible to tell how this virus
came into Yemen," Heymann told reporters. "What's
important is that the virus is there and that we have
to stop it." [...] |
WASHINGTON — While
Mount St. Helens and Kilauea generate the most attention,
many other volcanoes in the United States have little
or no regular monitoring and need to be watched for
potential eruptions, a new report warns.
The U.S. Geological Survey said Friday that monitoring
gaps exist for volcanoes in Alaska, California, Washington,
Oregon, Hawaii, Wyoming and the Northern Mariana Islands
that could pose a hazard both on the ground and to aviation.
The report reviews the hazard of 169 volcanoes in the
U.S. and its territories and calls for a 24-hour, seven-day
Volcano Watch Office and increased monitoring at many
of the peaks.
"We cannot afford to wait until a hazardous volcano
begins to erupt before deploying a modern monitoring
effort. The consequences put property and people at
risk including volcano scientists on site and pilots
and passengers in the air," said Survey Director
Chip Groat.
"It forces citizens, scientists, civil and aviation
authorities, and businesses into playing catch up with
a dangerous volcano, a risky game indeed," he said.
Monitoring volcanoes in advance of problems is essential
to help develop emergency response plans to keep communities
safe, he said.
The study said three groups of volcanoes are the highest
priority for study:
The volcanoes erupting now Mount St. Helens in Washington
State, Anatahan in the Mariana Islands, Kilauea in Hawaii
and the volcanoes that are showing periods of significant
unrest, Mauna Loa in Hawaii and Mount Spurr in Alaska.
The 13 very high threat volcanoes with inadequate
monitoring. These include nine volcanoes in the Cascade
Range Rainier, Hood, Shasta, South Sister, Lassen, Crater
Lake, Baker, Glacier Peak and Newberry. Also, four Alaskan
volcanoes, Redoubt, Makushin, Akutan and Augustine.
The agency noted that while Cascade volcanoes do not
erupt frequently, they threaten major populations and
developments. [...] |
WASHINGTON - Type 2 diabetics got
a new option to help control their blood sugar Friday,
a drug derived from the saliva of the Gila monster -
but one that must be injected twice a day.
The Food and Drug Administration approved Byetta, known
chemically as exenatide, the first in a new class of
medications for Type 2 diabetes - but for now, it's
supposed to be used together with older diabetes drugs,
not alone.
Makers Amylin Pharmaceuticals and Eli Lilly & Co.
(LLY) said the prescription drug would begin selling
by June 1, but wouldn't provide a price. [...] |
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