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"You get America out of Iraq and
Israel out of Palestine and you'll stop the terrorism."
- Cindy Sheehan
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P I C T U R E
O F T H E D A Y
©2005 Pierre-Paul
Feyte
An
American in chains
James Yee entered Guantanamo as a patriotic US officer
and Muslim chaplain. He ended up in shackles, branded
a spy. This is his disturbing story |
James Yee and Aimee Molloy
The Sunday Times
October 09, 2005 |
My cell was 8ft by 6ft, the same
size as the detainees' cages at Guantanamo. Barely
a week ago I had received a glowing evaluation for
my work as the US army's Muslim chaplain among the "Gitmo" prisoners.
Now I was the one in chains.
It was my turn to be humiliated every time I was taken
to have a shower. Naked, I had to run my hands through
my hair to show that I was not concealing a weapon in
it. Then mouth open, tongue up, down, nothing inside.
Right arm up, nothing in my armpit. Left arm up. Lift
the right testicle, nothing hidden. Lift the left. Turn
around, bend over, spread your buttocks, knowing a camera
was displaying my naked image as male and female guards
watched.
It didn't matter that I was
an army captain, a graduate of West Point, the elite
US military academy. It didn't matter that
my religious beliefs prohibited me from being fully
naked in front of strangers. It didn't matter that
I hadn't been charged with a crime. It didn't matter
that my wife and daughter had no idea where I was. And
it certainly didn't matter that I was a loyal American
citizen and, above all, innocent.
I was accused of mutiny and sedition, aiding the enemy
and espionage, all of which carried the death penalty.
I was regarded as a traitor to the army and my country.
This was all blatantly untrue - as would be proved
when, after a long fight, all the charges against me
were dropped and I won an honourable discharge from
the army.
I knew why I had been arrested:
it was because I am a Muslim. I was just the
latest victim of the hostility born the moment when
the planes flew into the twin towers and the Pentagon
on September 11, 2001.
My real "crime" had been that I had tried
to ensure that the suspected Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters
detained in the Gitmo cages were given every opportunity
to practise their religion freely, one of the most
fundamental of American ideals.
I had monitored the atrocious treatment meted out
by the guards. And I had come to suspect that my appointment
as the prisoners' chaplain was simply a piece of political
theatre.
When reporters came to Guantanamo on the media tour,
everyone had always wanted to talk to the Muslim chaplain.
I had told them the things that the command expected
me to say. We give the detainees a Koran. We announce
the prayer five times a day. We serve halal food. Everything
I said had been true. But it certainly wasn't the full
story.
I HAVE NOT always been a Muslim. I
am a third-generation American - my grandparents
left China in the 1920s - and as a child in New Jersey
I grudgingly attended Lutheran church services with
my mother.
On holiday after graduating from West Point, however,
I met a young woman who was intrigued by Islam. I began
to read about it and eventually converted. Then, after
the US army sent me to Saudi Arabia and allowed me
to visit Mecca, I wondered why there were no Muslim
chaplains in the US military.
My father had taught me as a boy
that America promises all people an opportunity to
lead an extraordinary life. By becoming a Muslim chaplain
in the summer of 2000, after four years' study in Damascus,
I saw myself fulfilling this opportunity. I had no
idea what I was letting myself in for.
Six months after the September 11 attacks I was asked
if I would like to work at Camp X-Ray, the new detention
centre at Guantanamo Bay. I said that it would be difficult:
Huda, my Syrian wife, was still adjusting to life in
America and Sarah, our daughter, was in the throes
of the "terrible twos". It turned out, however,
that I had no choice.
By the time I got to Guantanamo,
Camp X-Ray was too small for the number of prisoners
coming in. When I saw its remains I couldn't believe
that humans were once held here. It
looked like a cattle yard. There were hundreds
of cages in rows. The only protection from the blistering
sun was a tin roof. Dozens of enormous rodents crawled
throughout the camp. I was told that these were banana
rats and would attack if provoked.
The new prison, Camp Delta, consisted of 19 blocks,
each holding 48 detainees in individual open-air cells
with steel mesh walls. Like other military personnel,
I was briefed that the detainees were among the most
dangerous terrorists in the world. We were told that
many of the prisoners were responsible for the attacks
of September 11 and would strike again if given the
opportunity.
I expected to come face-to-face with hundreds of Osama
Bin Ladens, but most prisoners were friendly. There
were approximately 660 from dozens of countries, including
Britain.
An English-speaking Saudi detainee named Shaker was
eating a military "Meal Ready to Eat" or
MRE when I first met him. MREs often led to constipation. "Chaplain," Shaker
called out. "You know what we call this lunch
we eat every day? Meals that Refuse to Exit."
Shaker said that he had settled in London after marrying
a British woman. They had three children and his wife
had given birth to his fourth child after he was captured. "My
youngest son, we named him Faris, I've never seen," he
told me. "My wife doesn't know anything about
what happened to me and I'm so worried about her."
I got to know three men from Britain particularly
well: Rhuhel Ahmed, Asif Iqbal and Shafiq Rasul. Ahmed,
the most talkative, told me that they had grown up
together in Tipton, near Birmingham. Their families
were close and the men were like cousins. All three
told me they had never committed a crime and that their
arrests had been a serious mistake.
The man in overall charge was Major
General Geoffrey Miller, a slight but self-confident
Texan in his late fifties. He was later sent to Iraq
to make recommendations on improving intelligence collection
at Abu Ghraib prison in the months before it became
infamous for the maltreatment of its inmates.
If there was trouble with the prisoners, guards were
supposed to restore order calmly. But Miller said when
visiting Camp Delta or whenever seeing troopers around
the base: "The fight is on!" This was a subtle
way of saying that rules were relaxed and infractions
were easily overlooked.
Miller was a devout Christian.
In one of the first private conversations that he and
I had, he invited me for a stroll under the watchtowers
and told me that several of his friends and colleagues
had been killed in the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon.
He had felt a deep anger towards "those
Muslims"
who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon
- such anger, he explained, that he had sought counselling
with a chaplain. I appreciated his candour but
I sensed there was a subtle warning behind his words.
THE WORST punishment for prisoners was a "forced
cell extraction" by a group of six to eight guards
called the Initial Response Force. The troopers called
it IRFing.
I witnessed my first IRFing after a military policeman
had performed the "credit card swipe" - pressing
his fingers inside a detainee's buttock crack to look
for a weapon. This type of physical contact is not
acceptable under Islamic law and the detainee had pushed
the guard away. But prisoners were not allowed to touch
an MP and immediately eight guards were summoned.
They put on riot protection gear - helmets, heavy
gloves, shin guards and chest protectors - before forming
a huddle and chanting in unison, getting themselves
pumped up. Still chanting, they rushed the block, their
heavy boots sounding like a stampede on the steel floor.
Detainees throughout Camp Delta started to yell and
shake their cage doors.
When the IRF team reached the offending detainee,
the team leader drenched him with pepper spray and
opened the door to his cell. The others charged in.
He was no match for eight men in riot gear. The guards
used their shields and bodies to force him to the floor.
With his wrists and ankles tied, he was dragged down
the corridor to solitary confinement.
When it was over the guards high-fived
each other and slammed their chests together like professional
basketball players - an odd victory celebration for
eight men who took down one prisoner.
IRFing was used with extraordinary
frequency. Seemingly harmless behaviour could
bring it on: not responding when a guard spoke or
having two plastic cups in a cage instead of the
regulation one. Invasive body searches occurred daily
and were a constant source of tension leading to
IRFing. I came to believe that the searches were
done solely to rile the detainees. The prisoners
had been locked in cages for several months in a
remote area of Cuba. What could they possibly be
hiding?
Violent episodes were increasing.
In one incident a guard had hauled off a handcuffed
detainee whom he was beating on the head with a handheld
radio. By the time I arrived the detainee had been
taken to the hospital, but his blood was fresh on the
ground and what appeared to be large pieces of flesh
were soaking in it.
Bad as this violence was, many soldiers
discovered a weapon far more powerful than fists: Islam.
Because religion was the most important issue for nearly
all the prisoners in Camp Delta, it became the most
important weapon used against them.
Guards mocked the call to prayer and rattled doors,
threw stones against the cages and played loud rock'n'roll
music as the prisoners prayed.
Knowing that physical contact between unrelated men
and women is not allowed under Islamic law, female
guards would be exceptionally inappropriate in how
they patted down the prisoners or touched them on the
way to the showers or recreation. Detainees often resisted
and were IRFed.
The guards knew that Muslims believe that the Koran
contains the actual words of God and is to be treated
with the utmost respect. I never
heard of an incident where a detainee hid anything
dangerous in the Koran; doing so would be considered
an insult. Yet the guards
shook the prisoners' Korans violently, broke bindings,
ripped pages and dropped the
book on the floor, all on the pretext of searching
them.
Some of the worst complaints that I received were
about what was happening inside the interrogation rooms.
Some of the translators - Muslim military personnel
like me - told stories about female interrogators who
would take off their clothes during the sessions. One
would pretend to masturbate in front of detainees.
She was also known to touch them in a sexual way and
make them rub her breasts and genitalia. A translator
who had witnessed this woman's behaviour told me that
her supervisor had told her to tone down the tactics
but had not disciplined her.
Translators with the Joint Intelligence Group (JIG)
also confirmed that some prisoners were forced to prostrate
themselves in the centre of a satanic circle lit with
candles. Interrogators shouted at them, "Satan
is your God, not Allah! Repeat that after me!"
I came to believe that the hostile environment and
animosity towards Islam were so ingrained in the operation
that Miller and the other camp leaders had lost sight
of the moral harm we were doing.
I began to keep a record of the atrocities that I
was hearing about. But the more time I spent on the
blocks the more aggressive many of the guards became
towards me. I was authorised to have unescorted access
and to speak with detainees in privacy. But guards
eavesdropped on my conversations, standing very close
and attempting to intimidate me. Most refused to move
away.
"I've been told to stay within
one arm's length of you at all times," one guard
told me.
When an administrative assistant in
the navy chaplain's office showed me a slanderous and
hatefilled diatribe against Muslims that was to be
inserted into a weekly newsletter to hundreds of Christian
military personnel on the base, I decided it was time
for action.
It began, "Egyptian Muslim Mohammad Farouk hated
Christians . . . in an attempt to obey the Koran and
please Allah, Mohammad and his friends began to assault
and harass Christians in their village . . ." It
claimed that the Koran instructs Muslims to espouse
violence and hatred, the opposite of the truth.
Yet Vincent Salamoni, a Catholic priest who worked
as the naval command chaplain, only grudgingly complied
with the advice from the Christian chief chaplain on
the base not to distribute this material. Salamoni
said that he felt it was necessary first to find out
if the Koran did instruct Muslims to kill Christians.
In briefings to newcomers to the base, given with
the express support of the operations staff, I tried
to dispel the principal myth that all Muslims are terrorists.
Little did I understand that by trying to educate my
colleagues about the need for religious tolerance,
I was encouraging them to suspect me.
Although I had been ordered to prepare the presentation
by the command, the fact that I talked knowledgeably
about Islam was enough to lead some of them to question
my loyalty.
Captain Jason Orlich, an army reservist who had taught
in a Catholic school before arriving in Guantanamo
to take charge of intelligence and security for detention
operations, sat in my briefing on his first day and
asked: "Is he on our side or is he on the enemy's
side?" As I was to discover much
later from court documents, he made it his mission
to keep an eye on me. Nor was
I the only one under suspicion: Muslim colleagues -
all loyal Americans - were spied on and bugged.
When I got together with other Muslim personnel on
the base, our conversation routinely turned to what
appeared to be open religious hostility.
Ahmad al-Halabi, a young airman who helped me with
the detainees' library of religious books, told me
that he had been given a copy of a CD widely circulated
by the troopers. Among the images on it was a phoney
Playboy cover showing Muslim women in provocative dress
and poses, and another depicting Muslim men engaged
in anal sex during prayer. He suspected that the disc
had originated in the security section headed by Orlich,
who appeared in several photographs on the disc.
All of us on the base knew that, like the detainees,
we were likely to be under surveillance wherever we
were. Watch what you're saying, soldiers would joke,
because the "secret squirrels" are listening. We
never knew exactly who they were, but the government
agencies represented on the island included the FBI,
Naval Criminal Investigative Service, Army Counterintelligence
and the CIA. Nothing was off limits. Our e-mails
were read, our telephone calls were monitored and everything
we said had the potential of being overheard.
I had a feeling that our Muslim Friday prayers, attended
by about 40 in a small room at the chapel complex of
the camp, were under surveillance. Men in khakis and
polo shirts - the common uniform of the FBI and CIA
- would stand just outside, watching to see who came
and went. I sometimes asked if they wanted to join
us but they always declined, offering no explanation
of their presence. A translator
confirmed that a man sitting outside was an FBI agent
he had worked with in interrogations.
WHEN I was given a larger apartment to live in, I called
some of the guys to come over and share evening prayers
in my spare bedroom. Afterwards we hung around in my
living room and had sodas and snacks. Before long,
evening prayers at my house became a frequent occasion
and word spread among the Muslim personnel that anyone
who wanted to join us was welcome. People started turning
up with tasty Middle Eastern food. I did not realise
what the repercussions would be.
Many months later I learnt the facts from court documents.
People initially became suspicious of me because of
the presentation that I gave during the newcomers'
briefing. Stories quietly began to circulate about
me and my fellow Muslim personnel. We were too sympathetic
to the plight of the detainees and too critical of
how the MPs treated the prisoners. We prayed together
on Friday afternoons. Orlich even noted that Ahmad
was seen to be "shadow boxing" as he left
the chapel.
"I found that to be odd," Orlich told a
military investigator.
The accusations were retold and exaggerated in back
yards and on the beaches during the hot Cuban evenings,
fuelled by boredom and discount vodka. Some troopers
adopted names for us: "the Muslim clique" and,
far more disturbing, Hamas, after the Palestinian organisation.
Did these soldiers truly believe
the things they were saying about us and were they
truly threatened by the fact that we practised our
religion? Or were they just caught up in the pervasive
anti-Muslim hostility that defined the mission? I believe
that those who accused us of being "radical Islamists" were
unable to see that someone can be a Muslim and not
be a terrorist.
Most of the Christian soldiers at Guantanamo practised
their religion regularly and attended weekly services.
Miller was rarely missing from the front row of the
chief chaplain's service, which gave it an unstated
command emphasis.
Three Christian chaplains hosted weekly Bible studies
where soldiers met to discuss their faith. I am sure
that they believed this made them better people and
better soldiers and helped to ease the tremendous strain
of life at Guantanamo. Why couldn't they see that we
were simply doing
the same?
For months Orlich watched me and the other Muslims
who regularly attended my religious services. He was
particularly concerned with Ahmad whose
"case" was assigned to Lance Wega, a young
civilian agent from the Air Force Office of Special
Investigations.
Investigators twice surreptitiously entered Ahmad's
living quarters. They took photographs of the house,
copied his telephone records and mirrored the hard
drive on his computer.
Microsoft was instructed to store
Ahmad's e-mails and records of his internet activity
without his knowledge.
"You are requested to not disclose
the existence of this request to the subscriber or
any other person," the letter to Microsoft stated. "Any
such disclosure could subject you to criminal liability
for obstruction of justice."
Many Muslim personnel came to me to share concerns
that things just didn't feel right. Staff Sergeant
Mohammad Tabassum, a no-nonsense type of guy in his
mid-forties, told me that he had been cleaning out
a cupboard in his house on the base and discovered
a listening device hidden inside.
Ahmad then told me that his security clearance had
been suspended. He was the last person I thought would
come under suspicion; he was
a loyal American and an exceptional soldier,
the best translator in the camp.
When Ahmad's tour of duty came to an end, he left
with great excitement, heading for Syria to be married.
He and his fiancée had been forced to postpone
the wedding when his deployment at Guantanamo was extended.
His mother, who had recently recovered from cancer,
was to meet Ahmad at the airport in London and then
fly with him to Damascus.
A few days after Ahmad left, however, we heard that
he had been arrested in Jacksonville, Florida, when
he got off the plane from Guantanamo. Nobody knew why
or what had happened to him.
After a few weeks news arrived that Tariq
Hashim, an air force captain who had been on the
same plane, had also been arrested. The FBI
had taken both of them. Then we had heard that another
member of our prayer group, Petty
Officer Samir Hejab, a navy cook, had been arrested
as he left Guantanamo at the end of his deployment.
Suddenly it seemed as if every Muslim at Guantanamo
was being detained on reaching American soil. Were
we all going to be arrested and jailed without explanation?
In the midst of this confusion, I decided that it
was time for me to take a break from Guantanamo. Every
trooper was allowed a short vacation and by late August
I was ready for mine. I felt overjoyed at the idea
of seeing my family again. But I also was growing more
concerned by the day that something suspicious was
happening behind the scenes.
"Have you heard anything about Muslim personnel
being arrested recently?" I asked Orlich.
He looked me in the eye. "Nothing," he told
me.
"The situation is strange," I said to him. "There's
a lot of rumours and I'm wondering if I'm next."
Orlich smiled and put his hand on my shoulder, "Now
why would anyone want to arrest you, chaplain?"
I persisted: "Because I am the Muslim chaplain
and the one who leads these three missing Muslims in
prayer."
Orlich just laughed off my concerns.
My wife said she had my gun in one hand and two
rounds in the other
I still don't understand how the misguided suspicions
of a few inexperienced soldiers led to the ordeal that
changed my life, tore apart my family and destroyed
my career.
While my plane headed home to the US on September
10, 2003, representatives of at least five government
agencies awaited me at the Jacksonville air station:
FBI, Naval Criminal Investigative Service, US Bureau
of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, US Customs
and Border Protection and Army Counterintelligence.
After my arrest I was sure that General Miller would
order my release. He ran a tight ship and he was a
tough leader, but he was a general and he would therefore
be fair. But when I was at last arraigned at a pre-trial
hearing, I was presented with a memorandum signed by
Miller that stated: "Chaplain Yee is known to
have associated with known terrorist sympathisers."
He added: "Yee is suspected of several extremely
serious crimes, including espionage, which potentially
carries the death penalty."
I was too cut off from the world to know that the
news of my arrest had broken and that the government
was slandering me in the press. There
were reports that I had contact with Syrian government
officials, that I was affiliated with Al-Qaeda and
the Taliban, and that I had been found with maps of
Guantanamo and names of the detainees and interrogators.
Sometimes I wondered if I would go crazy trying to
deal with the situation and being locked in solitary
confinement for what turned out to be 76 days. If it
were not for my military training and my religion,
perhaps I would have.
After a month I learnt that I was not going to be
charged with spying, sedition or aiding the enemy after
all but with the "slap on the wrist" charges
of taking classified information to my housing quarters
and of transporting classified material without the
proper container. But my hopes quickly vanished when
my lawyer told me that the army was saying that more
serious charges might still be brought.
I discovered that I was in the
same prison as Yasser Hamdi, an American-born Saudi
who was allegedly captured fighting US forces in
Afghanistan, and Jose Padilla, who was arrested in
Chicago on suspicion of belonging to Al-Qaeda and
participating in a plot to detonate a dirty bomb
in the United States. Both were deemed enemy
combatants. Did this mean I was, too?
At another pre-trial hearing, investigators claimed
I was part of a spy ring. The
press repeated false information from anonymous government
sources that it was one of the most dangerous spy rings
to be discovered in the US military since the cold
war.
The army was doing far more harm to
me privately. Martha Brewer, an agent with the Department
of Defence Criminal Investigative Service, went to
my apartment near Seattle and told Huda, my wife: "Your
husband is not the person you think he is. He's having
an affair with three women."
She produced photographs of me with female colleagues
on social occasions at Guantanamo in what was clearly
a desperate attempt to turn Huda against me. Although
these photographs would have been acceptable to most
people, Brewer clearly understood that given her traditions,
Huda would be particularly upset to see me photographed
with women. Huda later told me she was so distressed
that some days she couldn't get out of bed and all
she could do was cry.
On November 25, with no serious charges in sight,
I was suddenly released from custody. But the same
day news bulletins announced that I was being charged
with adultery (a criminal offence in the military)
and with downloading pornography on a government computer.
By revealing the new charges on the day of my release
from prison, the army had captured the story.
I called Huda and had one of the most difficult experiences
of my entire ordeal. She told me that when she had
learnt of the new accusations, she had searched out
my Smith & Wesson .38 special handgun, which I
kept on the top shelf in my cupboard, hidden from view.
"I'm holding it in one hand," she told me, "and
two rounds in the other."
"Put it down," I said firmly, fear rising
inside of me.
"Tell me how to use it," she whispered.
She said that she couldn't deal with this any longer
and wanted to be free from everything - the media,
the scrutiny, the idea that
the United States government could be doing this to
our family. It was not the first time that Huda
had suggested a desire to die since my arrest, but
it had never gone this far.
I didn't know what to do. She hung up and when I called
back several times, she didn't answer. Finally I called
the local police department. They sent officers to
our apartment, who took Huda to a nearby hospital against
her will. She was released after several hours, but
the police kept the gun. I could not be with her. I
was forbidden to leave my military base.
In February last year my lawyers reached a deal with
the army that the criminal charges would be dismissed
and I would resign my commission with a recommendation
for an honourable discharge from Miller and other senior
officers. Even so, the military
continued to whisper that I was indeed a threat to
the nation but it was somehow in the interest of security
to drop the case against me. Miller found me
guilty of adultery and possessing pornography and formally
reprimanded me. Two months later - by which time my
case had become a cause celebre - I won an appeal against
his decision.
After the charges against me were dropped and it became
obvious that the government had erred, many newspaper
editorials were written to demand that the military
issue an apology.
Of course I want an apology, but it
will not restore my marriage which has suffered irreparable
damage from the vindictive claims that the military
made. Nor will it give me back my job as a Muslim chaplain
in the army - a job that allowed me to fulfil my dream
of serving both God and country.
Adapted from For God And Country by James
Yee with Aimee Molloy to be published by PublicAffairs,
a member of the Perseus Books Group, on November
3 at £14.99. Copies can be ordered for £12.09
with free delivery from The Sunday Times BooksFirst
on 0870 165 8585 |
STOCKHOLM - An American and an
Israeli won the 2005 Nobel prize for economics on Monday
for their work on "game theory," which can
help explain and resolve trade and business conflicts,
and even play a role in avoiding war.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences gave the 10
million crown prize to Thomas Schelling and Robert
Aumann for work that has found uses in "security
and disarmament policies, price formation on markets,
as well as economic and political negotiations."
Aumann, 75, was born in Germany but is an Israeli
and U.S. citizen who teaches at the Hebrew University
of Jerusalem. Schelling, 84, teaches at the University
of Maryland.
"Game theory" is the science of strategy
and attempts to determine what actions different "players" --
such as trading partners, employers, unions or even
organized crime groups -- should take to
secure the best outcome for themselves.
Game theory work has won the Nobel before. John Nash,
the mathematician whose life was portrayed in the movie "A
Beautiful Mind," won the economics prize with
two others in 1994.
"I think game theory creates ideas that are important
in solving and approaching conflict in general," Aumann
told the awards ceremony by telephone from Israel.
Asked whether it could help solve
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said: "I
do hope that perhaps some game theory can be used and
be part of this solution."
Schelling told Reuters by telephone from his home
in Maryland that he was glad to have his work recognized.
"I'm a student of cooperation and conflict, I'm
not really a game theorist...I
would not try very hard to make the case that what
I do is economics," he said.
GLOBAL SECURITY
Schelling, whose career began with work on the U.S.
Marshall Plan to help rebuild Europe after World War
Two, has applied game theory to global security and
the Cold War arms race.
In particular, he has tried to explain how a taboo
around nuclear weapons after the bombing of Hiroshima
in 1945 itself became a factor in deterring their use
after World War Two, even as both sides of the Cold
War amassed big nuclear arsenals.
In a 1978 work, Schelling also used examples from
everyday life, such as the difficulty in trying to
get ice-hockey players to overcome their fear of being
at a competitive disadvantage and wear helmets, even
though it would protect their heads.
Aumann was cited for his analysis of "infinitely
repeated games" to identify what outcomes can
be maintained over time.
"Insights into these issues help explain economic
conflicts such as price wars and trade wars, as well
as why some communities are more successful than others
in managing common-pool resources," said the Academy
citation.
Aumann had not decided what to do with the prize money. "I
am totally overwhelmed. I had absolutely no idea," he
said.
He told a news conference in Jerusalem that game theory
had become a cornerstone of economics worldwide.
"This is a badge of honor for this branch of
science, for game theory," he added.
The economics prize was not one of the original awards
for medicine, physics, chemistry, peace and literature
set up in the will of Swedish dynamite millionaire
Alfred Nobel in 1895.
It was added to the list in 1968 in memory of Nobel
by the Swedish central bank. |
ATLANTA - Three explosive devices
found in a courtyard between two Georgia Tech dormitories
on the East Campus Monday morning were part of a "terrorist
act," an Atlanta police official said.
One of the devices exploded, injuring the custodian
who found them inside a plastic bag. Two others were
detonated by a bomb squad.The custodian suffered
ringing to the ears and was treated at a local hospital.
The events led to a temporary evacuation Monday morning.
"It is a terrorist act
at this point and depending on the outcome of the
investigation it potentially could become a federal
violation as well," said Major C.W. Moss of
the Atlanta Police Department.
Under Georgia state law, a terroristic act is described
as the release of a "hazardous substance," specifically
for "the purpose of causing the evacuation of
a building" with "reckless disregard of the
risk of causing such terror."
The custodian found the three devices about 9 a.m.
in a plastic-type garbage bag, Moss said. When he picked
up the bag, one exploded, as it was designed to do
when handled. The explosives were made up of chemicals
placed inside plastic bottles and could have seriously
injured someone, officials said. Numerous agencies
were on the Georgia Tech campus to search for suspects.
"It will be a joint investigation between the
Atlanta Police Department, the Georgia Tech Police
Department, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms,
the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force. Every possible
lead will be followed," said Major Moss.
About 100 students were evacuated from the Cloudman
and Glenn dormitories, according to school spokeswoman
Amelia Gambino. |
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there been more happening at the University of Oklahoma
than hazing and all-nighters? The blogosphere, led
by Michelle Malkin, has been chronicling the suspicious
explosion at the University of Oklahoma just over a
week ago, and wondering why the big media doesn't appear
interested.
According to most reports,
Joel Hinrichs III was a young man with a history
of depression who used a homemade explosive device
to commit suicide just 100 yards or so from the
school's football stadium, which was filled with
over 80,000 people at the time. Officials
were quick to call the incident a suicide, but
rumors and reports of Hinrichs' attempts to buy
large quantities of ammonium nitrate and ties to
the Muslim community have raised a lot of questions
and the answers thus far are not forthcoming.
The Oklahoma
Daily, OU's independent campus paper, lays blame
on the FBI today for the confusion:
Remember, the FBI has commandeered this investigation.
In doing so and by not telling anyone anything,
they are only allowing the events of Oct. 2 to
be misinterpreted over and over by people who are
firm in believing something that is false and terribly
dangerous.
For example, unsubstantiated
claims that Hinrichs had been frequenting the Norman
mosque have managed to seep onto television news
broadcasts even though everyone we have contacted
at the mosque says Hinrichs was never seen there.
So who is lying? Inherently, people should perceive
the unfounded news broadcasts as the liars, but that
doesn't always happen. And even if only one person
sees and believes such a report there or online,
word of mouth can transmit that "truth" to
hundreds or thousands within a matter of days.
Which is why it is undeniably the duty of the FBI
to break its unctuous vow of silence and talk to
somebody. The longer the feds delay in doing so,
the more they become equally responsible for misinformed
social reactions as the hacks who started these rumors
in the first place.
Many, Malkin included, have wondered where the MSM is
on this story. As the Oklahoma Daily editorial notes,
local television has covered it and a quick Google search
turns up (sometimes conflicting) reports in local and
regional newspapers but no major media outlets appear
to have picked up the story yet. We asked CBS News national
editor Bill Felling, who told us the network is looking
into the story. Let's hope so, it's one worth airing,
whatever the facts are. |
LOS ANGELES - A calm and quiet
Westwood was briefly disrupted Friday afternoon when
the Los Angeles Police Department bomb squad inspected
and detonated an explosive device found within the
Midvale Plaza apartment complex on the 500 block of
Midvale Avenue.
After responding to a call made at 11:13 a.m., the bomb
squad arrived at 527 Midvale Ave. to find "an
improvised explosive device" in the building's
open-air courtyard, said Grace Brady, a spokeswoman for
the LAPD.
No injuries were reported, but authorities have been
slow to release details about the incident and the device.
Residents said they first heard a small explosion sometime
between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m. Friday, but most said they
went back to sleep. It was not until a resident found
an explosive device later that morning that the police
were called.
Police cars, FBI vehicles, ambulances, fire trucks and
parking-enforcement vehicles blocked access to the street,
and police officers restricted nearby pedestrian traffic
while the bomb squad inspected the device. About 15 people
waited at the corner of Midvale Avenue and Ophir Drive
until they were allowed to return to their apartments
near where the explosive was found.
Neither the apartment building nor nearby buildings were
evacuated, but Paul Robi, a detective with the FBI bomb
squad, said the squad executed "a moderate evacuation," which
amounted to telling residents to stay off their balconies
and in their apartments. Curious onlookers who stepped
onto their balconies said they were immediately told
to go back into their apartments.
Shortly after 1 p.m., the bomb squad remotely detonated
the device. A low boom was audible for about a one-block
radius, and several people who live across the street
said they felt their apartments shake.
Beau Gillman, a second-year business economics student
who lives across the street, said he heard shouts of "fire
in the hole" before he heard and felt the explosion.
About five minutes later, police reopened the street
to vehicles and pedestrians.
Most of the residents interviewed said they were aware
of the situation, but they did not feel afraid or threatened.
Most were surprised that someone would put an explosive
in a Westwood apartment building.
Several residents said their apartments were briefly
searched after the incident, but they said the searches
did not appear to specifically target any residents. They
also said it appeared to be apartment management who
conducted the searches, though Midvale Plaza managers
refused to comment.
Nancy Greenstein, director of the UCPD community services
division, said UCPD officers were not on the scene Friday,
but they routinely investigate suspicious packages. None
of the recent calls to the department have revealed actual
explosive devices, she said. |
NEW ORLEANS -- A 64-year-old man
who was repeatedly punched in the head by police in
an incident caught on videotape was not drunk, as police
have alleged, and put up no resistance as he was being
pummeled, his lawyer said Monday.
The man, a retired elementary school teacher, had
returned to New Orleans only to check on property
he owns in the storm-ravaged city, and was out looking
to buy cigarettes when he was arrested Saturday night
in the French Quarter, the lawyer and the man's father
said.
Police have alleged that Robert Davis was publicly
intoxicated.
A federal civil rights investigation was opened into
the incident. Davis is black. The three city police
officers seen on the tape are white. Police spokesman
Marlon Defillo said race was not an issue.
Two city officers accused in the beating, and a third
officer accused of grabbing and shoving an Associated
Press Television News producer who helped document
the confrontation, pleaded not guilty on Monday to
battery charges.
After a hearing at which trial was set for Jan. 11,
officers Lance Schilling, Robert Evangelist and S.M.
Smith were released on bond. They left in cars without
commenting.
The three were suspended without pay Sunday, Defillo
said. [...]
The APTN tape shows an officer hitting Davis at least
four times in the head outside a bar. Davis twisted
and flailed as he was dragged to the ground by several
officers. Davis's lawyer said his client did not resist.
"I don't think that when a person
is getting beat up there's a whole lot of thought.
It's survival. You don't have a whole lot of time to
think when you're being pummeled," Bruno said.
Davis was kneed and pushed to the sidewalk with blood
streaming down his arm and into the gutter. The officers
accused of striking Davis were identified as Schilling
and Evangelist.
Bruno said his client suffered
fractures to his cheek and eye socket, and
scrapes and bruises, but was expected to recover.
He added that his client was a recovering
narcotics abuser who hadn't had a drink or taken drugs
in "years and years. He was not taking anything."
Davis is a retired teacher who has lived in New Orleans
for about 30 years, said his father, David Davis, 87,
of Columbus, Ohio.
The elder Davis said his son had gone to New Orleans
over the weekend to visit his own house and a couple
of others that he owns with his wife, also a retired
teacher.
"They were there looking things over, trying
to find out what happened to their property," David
Davis said. "That's probably the reason he was
walking around the French Quarter." [...] |
LONDON - Britain said it will
cut its military presence in Iraq by around 500 troops
to 8,000 next month as it closes two small bases and
hands over some training duties to the Iraqi security
forces.
Defence Secretary John Reid told the House of Commons
that the changes involve having 7 Armoured Brigade
take over from 12 Mechanised Brigade.
"The total number of troops in Iraq following
the deployment of 7 Armoured Brigade will be around
8,000," Reid told the first session of the House
of Commons since it returned from its 80-day summer
recess.
"This is about 500 fewer than at present, reflecting
the closure of two small bases in Basra, the transfer
of some training tasks to the Iraqi security forces
and structural differences between the two brigades," Reid
said.
"These are relatively minor adjustments, however,
and will not affect the activities being carried out
by the United Kingdom forces," he said.
Reid has long said he hopes to begin the process
of withdrawing British troops from Iraq within the
next year as Iraqi security forces become better trained.
However, he also repeated Britain's determination
to keep troops in Iraq as long as the government in
Baghdad needs the US-led coalition forces, which invaded
Iraq in March 2003 to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
Britain would not "abandon Iraq before it is
ready to stand on its own two feet," Reid said.
[...] |
On paper, the Iraqi Army barracks
was a gleaming example of the future Iraq. The plans
called for a two-story, air-conditioned barracks housing
850 soldiers, a movie theater, classrooms, basketball
courts, a shooting range, even an officer's club.
But when the $10 million project in southern Iraq
is finished this month, it will fall far short of
those ambitious plans. The theater, classrooms, officer's
club, basketball courts and shooting range have all
been scrapped. The barracks will be one story instead
of two.
The reason for scaling back
the barracks? The U.S. government is running out
of money. The higher than expected cost of
protecting workers against insurgent attacks - about
25 cents of every reconstruction dollar now pays
for security - has sent the cost of projects skyward.
The result: Some projects have been eliminated and
others cut back.
"American money has dried up," says Brent
Rose, chief of program/project management for the Army
Corps of Engineers in southern Iraq.
And tracking the billions of dollars that flooded
into a war zone in the wake of the U.S.-led invasion
has proved difficult, too. Nearly
$100 million in reconstruction money is unaccounted
for.
The ultimate price of a slowdown in Iraq's reconstruction
could be steep. U.S. strategy here is based on the
premise that jobs and prosperity will sap the strength
of the insurgency and are as important as military
successes in defeating terrorists.
"A free and prosperous Iraq will be a major blow
to the terrorists and their desire to establish a safe
haven in Iraq where they can plan and plot attacks," White
House spokesman Scott McClellan said last week.
But there are signs that some of the early momentum
is gone, particularly for big infrastructure projects. The
Ministry of Municipalities and Public Works initially
planned to use U.S. funds for 81 much-needed water
and sewage treatment projects across the country, says
Humam Misconi, a ministry official. That list has dwindled
to 13.
Canceled projects include the $50 million project
that was supposed to provide potable water to the second-largest
city in the Kurdish region, and a $60 million water
treatment plant in Babil province, which would have
served about 360,000 residents, Misconi says.
Some progress has been made. More than 2,800 projects
have begun since the transfer of sovereignty last summer,
and 1,700 of those have been completed, according to
the Army Corps of Engineers. They
include refurbished schools, new police stations, hospitals,
bridges and new roads.
It is the larger, more expensive
projects such as water treatment plants, sewage networks
and power grids that are being cut back.
Congress appropriated $18.4 billion for Iraq reconstruction
in November 2003, but last year nearly $5 billion of
it was diverted to help train and equip Iraq's security
forces as the insurgency grew in strength.
And the security costs keep increasing.
Originally estimated at 9% of total project costs,
security costs have risen to between 20% and 30%, says
Brig. Gen. William McCoy Jr., commander of the Army
Corps of Engineers in Iraq.
Power outages throughout Iraq
By
2003, Iraq's infrastructure was run down after years
of United Nations-mandated sanctions and neglect. Rebuilding
it has proved tougher than first envisioned. Nearly
half of all of Iraqi households still don't have access
to clean water, and only 8% of the country, excluding
the capital, is connected to sewage networks.
And despite progress in fixing Iraq's antiquated oil
production system, the country's oil wells produce
about 1.9 million barrels of crude oil a day, lower
than 2003 levels and well under the 3.5 million barrels
Iraq was producing before the 1991 Gulf War.
Iraqi households still endure
about 10 hours a day of power outages. In Baghdad,
the power is out about 14 hours a day, according
to the Electricity Ministry. Iraqi power plants
are now generating nearly 4,800 megawatts, up from
4,400 before the U.S.-led invasion.
The increase hasn't been enough to keep up with demand. Since
the end of the war, demand for electricity has increased
by about 60% as Iraqis have bought new refrigerators,
televisions, air conditioners and satellite dishes,
says a Corps of Engineers spokesman.
The lack of dramatic economic
progress has hurt efforts to win over Iraqis,
says Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings
Institution. Unemployed young men are more easily
drawn into the ranks of the insurgency than those
with jobs.
And if other Iraqis don't see an improvement in their
daily lives, they may sympathize with rebels. "The
economy is not helping us win the war," O'Hanlon
says.
The U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority originally
set a goal of employing 50,000 Iraqis on reconstruction
projects, but the target wasn't achieved, according
to a recent report from the Center for Strategic and
International Studies. In August, unemployment and
underemployment were estimated at 50%, the report said.
[...]
Western contractors can't visit projects without
elaborate planning and preparation.
On a recent morning at Camp Adder, the fortified
base near here where the Corps of Engineers is housed,
a team of engineers huddled around the armored Ford
SUVs of an Erinys International security team for the
daily briefing. The Army Corps hires private security
firms, such as Erinys, to take them to sites.
The civilian and military engineers are briefed before
being ferried by the guards in a convoy of three vehicles.
A guard sits in the back of the last vehicle, his assault
rifle trained on any car that gets too close. [...]
"Reconstruction in Iraq has been slower, more
painful, more complex, more fragmented and more inefficient
than anyone in Washington or Baghdad could have imagined," said
Rep. Jim Kolbe, chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee
on foreign operations, during a subcommittee meeting
last month. .
Much of the security cost
is buried in "cost-plus" contracts in which
companies get reimbursed for all costs plus a percentage
of those costs as a fee.
All 11 multinational firms working on projects through
the Iraqi Project and Contracting Office have "cost-plus" contracts,
says Karen Durham-Aguilera, the office's director of
programs.
One "cost-plus" project is the water treatment
plant under construction here, which is managed jointly
by London-based AMEC and California-based Fluor Corp.
The project was originally estimated to cost $80 million,
according to Army Corps of Engineers records.
But the original Iraqi subcontractor
pulled out after he was threatened. Delays, drive-by
shootings and land-acquisition snags followed, driving
security and other costs up, according to Corps officials
and records. The project's
estimated completion cost rose to $200 million, the
corps said.
AMEC officials declined to comment. Bob Fletcher,
Fluor's director of water programs, disputed the corps'
figures but would not elaborate on the project's cost.
Iraqi contractors, not saddled
by steep security costs, say they can do the work
for less. The Ministry of Municipalities and
Public Works is using Iraqi funds to build two similarly
sized treatment plants in Karbala and Kut, says the
ministry's Misconi. Combined cost of both projects:
$185 million.
"We keep saying, 'Give us the
money and we could do it better, cheaper,'" Misconi
says. "Estimated cost of security on the Nasiriyah
project is $54 million. We could build a whole new
plant with this amount of money."
Salty water
As funds run dry, some projects are being handed
over to Iraqis. In Najaf, for example, Army Corps officials
bought parts to upgrade the city's electrical distribution
system, including transformers, lines and wires, then
handed them to local construction officials for them
to do the work, saving millions on labor, security
and administrative costs, McCallister says.
In the next few years, Najaf will benefit from 30
projects costing $100 million in U.S. taxpayer money,
including new hospitals, clinics and police stations,
McCallister says. But bigger projects, such as water
treatment plants and electrical grids, are too expensive
to launch, he says.
"Will (the projects) make a difference? Yes," McCallister
says. "Will it make a major, major difference?
No. We could continue putting three times that much
money into that city."
The refurbished hospitals and new
clinics in town are nice, says Abdul Hussein Ali, 52,
a retired hospital worker living in Najaf with six
children. But what would bring real joy, he says, is
water that doesn't pour into his sink cloudy and salty
and needing chemicals to purify.
"The water here is as salty as the desert," he
says.
"Since the start of the war
to today, you cannot say there has been remarkable
change," Ali says. "The situation is improving,
but very, very slowly." |
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq
has issued arrest warrants against the defense minister
and 27 other officials from the U.S.-backed government
of former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi over
the alleged disappearance or misappropriation of
$1 billion in military procurement funds, officials
said Monday.
Those accused include four other ministers from
Allawi's government, which was replaced by an elected
Cabinet led by Shiite parties in April, said Ali
al-Lami of Iraq's Integrity Commission. Many
of the officials are believed to have left Iraq,
including Hazem Shaalan, the former defense minister
who moved to Jordan shortly after the new government
was installed.
For months, Iraqi investigators have been looking
into allegations that millions of dollars were spent
on overpriced deals for shoddy weapons and military
hardware, apparently to launder
cash, at a time when Iraq was battling a bloody
insurgency that still persists.
In Baghdad, a suicide bomber detonated a car full
of mortars near an entrance to the fortified Green
Zone on Monday, killing a U.S. soldier and six Iraqis
in one of a string of insurgent attacks in which at
least 13 other Iraqis also died.
Gunmen opened fire on a convoy carrying delegates
from the Arab League in Baghdad during the organization's
first visit to Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
The league has met resistance from Shiite and Kurdish
leaders as it tries to piece together a reconciliation
conference with Sunnis. A policeman was wounded in
the shooting, but no one in the delegation was hurt.
The violence comes five days ahead of Iraq's key vote
on a new constitution, which Kurds and the majority
Shiites largely support and the Sunni Arab minority
rejects. Sunnis are campaigning to defeat the charter
at the polls, though officials from all sides have
been trying up to the last minute to decide on changes
to the constitution to swing Sunni support.
Whether the constitution passes or fails, Iraq is
due to hold elections for a new parliament on Dec.
15. The corruption allegations are a blow to Allawi
as he tries to assemble a coalition of moderates to
run against the current ruling Shiite-led coalition
in the election in a bid to get back into the government.
With strong U.S. backing, Allawi was named head of
the first transitional government after the U.S. returned
sovereignty to Iraq in June 2004, but his Iraqi List
party did poorly in January parliamentary elections
that swept the Shiite-Kurdish coalition into power.
Besides Shaalan, warrants were issued
against Allawi's labor, transportation, electricity
and housing ministers, as well as 23 former Defense
Ministry officials, said al-Lami, who heads Iraq's
De-Baathification Commission, part of the Commission
of Public Integrity.
He did not name all the officials, and Shaalan and
the ministers could not be reached for comment.
An attempt was under way to
strip Shaalan, a member of parliament, of his immunity
from prosecution. Parliament met Monday to
do so but did not have a quorum.
"The warrant was issued against Shaalan due to
the corruption allegations regarding the missing $1
billion in the Iraqi Defense Ministry. As soon as his
immunity is lifted, the country where he is now living
will be asked to extradite him to Iraq," al-Lami
said, without naming the country.
In Monday's worst attack, a suicide bomber drove his
car toward a U.S-Iraqi checkpoint at an entrance to
the Green Zone - the most fortified sector of Baghdad,
where government offices and the U.S. Embassy are located
behind a maze of blast walls and checkpoints.
Iraqi police opened fire on the car as it approached,
and it detonated. The car was packed with 11 mortar
rounds and 60 pounds of explosives, Sgt. 1st Class
David Abrams said.
A U.S. soldier was killed in the blast, the military
said. Three Iraqi policemen and three Iraqi civilians
were also killed, said Capt. Qassim Hussein said.
The American death brought to 1,956 the number of
U.S. service members who have died since the beginning
of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated
Press count.
Within an hour of that explosions, suicide attackers
set off car bombs in two other parts of Baghdad, though
they caused no death. One hit near a police station,
wounding four officers and leaving the twisted wreckage
of the vehicle and the bomber's body lying on the pavement
near a billboard advertising the constitution with
the slogan, "Iraq: A Promising Future."
Also Monday, a video was posted
on an Islamic Web site showing purported Iraqi militants
shooting dead two Iraqi policemen. The Ansar al-Sunnah
Army said it carried out the executions, but
the claim could not be immediately verified.
In earlier scenes, the victims were shown sitting
blindfolded. The men said they were captured while
traveling from Baghdad to the northern city of Kirkuk.
The group said the two were captured after a battle
that killed 10 other policemen.
In other violence:
Four policemen were killed in shootings in Baghdad.
In Kirkuk, a city 180 miles north of the capital, four
Iraqi soldiers were killed in two separate roadside
bomb attacks, police said.
Further north, two Sunni Arab political leaders, an
Iraqi soldier and an Iraqi policeman died in separate
drive-by shootings in Mosul, officials said.
A roadside bomb blast killed an Iraqi policeman in
the city of Fallujah, west of Baghdad. |
CORONADO, Calif. - The Navy SEALs
prefer to operate in the shadows, but the Pentagon's
need to increase the ranks of the elite terrorist-hunting
commando force is prompting an unusually splashy recruiting
effort.
Navy SEAL Mitchell Hall, who won a Bronze Star in
2001 in Afghanistan, hopes to use the upcoming Ironman
Triathlon in Hawaii to spread the word about the
need for more recruits.
The competition will make the 31-year-old chief petty
officer a spokesman for the community of self-described
quiet professionals and put him in front of the cameras
he spent years avoiding.
The change in recruiting methods
comes amid the Pentagon's increasing reliance on special
operations and the call for a 15 percent increase in
SEALs over the next several years.
The SEALs have a legendary reputation as an elite,
highly skilled fighting force, but it is hard to find
candidates with the necessary physical conditioning.
Just to get a chance to try out, SEAL recruits must
swim 500 yards, then breeze through a series of push-ups,
sit-ups and pull-ups and run 1.5 miles - all within
strict time limits. This year, 500 of the 823 SEAL
recruits - or 60 percent - failed the test in the first
days of boot camp.
"We can't survive on that any longer," said
Master Chief Petty Officer Andy Tafelski, 51, who has
a key role in the recruiting effort. "The pipeline
has to become more efficient."
For the SEALs, who consider themselves the best of
the best, lowering their standards is out of the question.
Hall, 31, will be competing in the Oct. 15 Ironman
- a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride and a 26.2-mile
marathon - wearing a blue jersey emblazoned with a
Navy SEAL insignia. He won the Navy SEAL's Superfrog
Triathalon in September and now his goal is to finish
among the top 100 in Hawaii's Ironman.
"When I'm out there at hour five or whatever
it is, and I feel like I'm hurting pretty bad, I've
had experience with the same things doing activities
in the SEALs," he said.
To boost the SEALs' ranks, the Navy is also working
with recruiters to begin testing potential SEALs before
they get to boot camp and making sure they have the
physical skills. Mentors will work with those who qualify
to prepare them for what comes next.
Every SEAL must finish one of the world's toughest
entrance exams, a six-month training program that typically
weeds out three of every four candidates.
The Navy also is creating a SEAL rating - a formal
job description - that should allow candidates to more
quickly begin formal SEAL training. Previously, SEALs
- the name stands for Sea, Air, Land - had to attend
school to learn traditional jobs held by Navy sailors.
Driving the changes is the need to
add 400 men by fiscal 2008, bringing the total number
of SEALs from 2,600 to about 3,000. Special operations
units in the Army and Air Force also are planning to
increase their ranks, and U.S. Special Operations Command
is offering bonuses of up to $150,000 to keep the most
experienced operators from bolting to the more lucrative
private sector.
The SEALs are looking to the fill the grueling Basic
Underwater Demolition/SEAL training program at Coronado,
outside San Diego, to its full capacity of 850 students
- something that has never happened,
Tafelski said. |
BERLIN - Germany's chancellor-in-waiting
Angela Merkel will turn to the task of building a coalition
government capable of injecting new life into the country's
ailing economy.
Merkel is set to become the first woman chancellor
in Germany's history at the head of a power-sharing
administration of her Christian Democrat alliance
and the Social Democrats.
She won her personal duel with Gerhard Schroeder,
who stood down on Monday after seven years in power,
but the price she will have to pay for her new position
is a government loaded with his Social Democrats.
The Financial Times Deutschland
newspaper said on Tuesday that Merkel would have to
work "in the worst possible conditions",
holding together a fractious administration.
The Tagesspiegel newspaper said she "will find
it hard to govern as she intended", but an editorial
also hailed the remarkable rise to power of Merkel
who grew up in the communist former East Germany.
"It is a turning point, a truly historic moment
because of Merkel's background," it said.
There was however little celebration in the air as
Merkel, 51, announced a deal on Monday which removed
the main obstacle to formal negotiations on a coalition
government which could last until mid-November -- many
Christian Democrats believe they should have won the
election on September 18 by a clear margin after leading
in opinion polls for weeks.
Instead, they secured only a four-seat advantage
over the Social Democrats, a wafer-thin margin which
has forced the conservatives to make wide-ranging concessions
in order to secure her nomination as chancellor.
The deal to end three weeks of political limbo will
see the Social Democrats take
eight ministries, including the powerful portfolios
of foreign affairs, finance, labour and justice, as
well as health, aid and cooperation, transport and
environment, party sources said.
The Christian Democrats would have
six -- economy, interior, defence, agriculture, education
and family.
Edmund Stoiber, the state premier of Germany's most
wealthy region Bavaria, confirmed he would be taking
over the economy job.
"I believe I can draw on my experience in Bavaria
to create a dynamic economy for the whole of Germany," Stoiber
said.
Other posts are less clear-cut.
Peter Struck, a Social Democrat and currently the
straight-talking defence minister, may switch to become
foreign minister to replace Joschka Fischer, according
to some reports.
Wolfgang Schaeuble, the wheelchair-bound close confidante
of the former chancellor Helmut Kohl, is rumoured to
be in line for a return to the interior ministry where
he was in charge from 1989 to 1991.
And the so-called poisonned chalice of the cabinet,
the finance ministry, may go to Peer Steinbrueck, the
former Social Democrat state premier of North Rhine-Westphalia.
At least Merkel will not have to deal with Schroeder,
who is not expected to play any role in the government.
Whoever ends up around the cabinet table, Merkel
will have a delicate balancing act on her hands and
the pastor's daughter will have to draw on all the
experience she gained on the way up the ranks of the
male-dominated Christian Democratic Union.
She faces formidable economic challenges, with unemployment
of more than 11 percent chief among them.
"The coalition government must create jobs," Merkel
admitted on Monday.
Economists hope a stable government will be able to
take a fresh look at the country's federal system,
simplify the tax system and get its public finances
in order, although they warn only a watered-down version
of Merkel's reform programme will survive the coalition
negotiations.
"The hope that Germany would
be a shining European example for accelerated reforms
has been dashed," said Bank of America economist
Holger Schmieding. |
GERMANY'S first female Chancellor
looked like a nervous schoolgirl yesterday, chewing
her nails and typing out text messages before announcing
that, yes, she had carried off the prize. "I'm
fine, in a good mood," she said in a voice drained
of enthusiasm.
There has never been a German
Chancellor so hemmed in, so weak. Half her
Cabinet will be made up of Social Democrats who
have shown her nothing but contempt. Other
key ministries will be occupied by old rivals,
such as Edmund Stoiber, the Bavarian premier.
Everything hinges on her ability to persuade ordinary
people of the need for reform. Yet nothing in her career
so far indicates a populist touch.
Frau Merkel is a physicist, and her dearest wish is
to lead a government of technocrats. "She would
like to remove the sting from politics," said
a Social Democrat close to Gerhard Schröder, the
outgoing Chancellor, "which goes to show that
she has missed the point. We are in it for the sting." Frau
Merkel has no regional powerbase. She
is disliked in her native eastern Germany and not completely
understood in the west of the country. As a Protestant
divorcée, she still has problems of acceptance
by the conservative wing of her Christian Democrats.
Unlike her male counterparts in the party, she did
not rise through its youth wing and create a network.
Her political training was in the communist Free German
Youth, where she was an enthusiastic organiser. All
her tactical skills, her ability to freeze out challengers,
derive from that.
She is remarkably friendless. Her closest ally remains
her second husband, Joachim Sauer, a misanthropic scientist
with a distaste for journalists and even politicians.
Many of the men she will be appointing to her Cabinet
bear grudges against her. She needs them now; they
do not need her.
As a girl, Angela Merkel learnt to be cautious. Her
father, as a pastor in East Germany, was under close
scrutiny and so she became a chameleon at school, a
conformist. She avoids open confrontation and waits
her chance. Together with her circle of women advisers,
she plots out moves in advance. The real skill needed
to head a grand coalition, however, is the ability
to improvise. |
Up to 2.5m Pakistanis have been left homeless and more
than 30,000 are feared dead from the earthquake that
struck south Asia at the weekend, according to estimates
from aid agencies and government officials.
"We think there are at least 4m very vulnerable
people in the affected area, of whom between 1m and
2.5m are severely affected, without a shelter for
the night," said Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswomen
for the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination
of Humanitarian Affairs.
The UN agency will on Tuesday launch a three-month "flash
appeal", calling for supplies of "winterised
tents and blankets", with many of the displaced
now having spent three nights without shelter.
Estimates of the likely death toll rose sharply again
on Monday when Faisal Saleh Hayat, Pakistan's minister
for Kashmir affairs, said more than 30,000 had died in
the Pakistani-administered half of Kashmir alone. A further
7,000 people are reported to have died in Pakistan's
adjacent North-West Frontier province. More than 800
people have also died in Indian-controlled Kashmir. This
compares with President Pervez Musharraf's tentative
estimate on Sunday of 15,000-20,000 fatalities across
Pakistan and intensifies the pressure on Pakistan's military
ruler as he faces one of his greatest challenges since
he seized power in 1999. Gen Musharraf has taken personal
responsibility for the relief operation, wearing his
military uniform instead of the civilian garb he adopted
recently. Pakistan on Monday also accepted an offer of
assistance from India, following Gen Musharraf's warning
at the weekend over accepting aid from its neighbour.
Though Pakistan's foreign ministry said there was "no
possibility" of joint relief operations with India,
Islamabad said it would accept New Delhi's offers of
tents, food, medicine and supplies for earthquake-hit
areas in the Pakistani portion of Kashmir.
Manmohan Singh, India's prime minister, directed the
supplies "on a very urgent basis", according
to Shyam Saran, India's foreign secretary.
Both the offer of aid and its receipt hold political
significance for both countries, which have fought
three wars, two of them over Kashmir. Both countries
have moved to improve relations in the past year.
About 75 per cent of buildings in Muzaffarabad, the
capital of Pakistani-administered Kashmir, were reduced
to rubble by the 7.6 magnitude earthquake. Many
of the survivors need to be housed in pre-fabricated
homes within a month to avert many deaths in sub-zero
temperatures, a senior Pakistani government official
warned on Monday night.
The official said Pakistan was considering a summit
of key prospective donors. The US on Monday pledged
$50m in aid, the use of eight helicopters and four
large military transport aircraft. |
Western governments rushed to
step up their pledges for the earthquake relief effort
after their initial response to the disaster was condemned
as slow-moving and financially inadequate.
The United States, which was under
pressure to increase a pledge of $500,000 (£280,000)
considered almost derisory by many Pakistanis when
it was made over the weekend, announced it intended
to give $50m in emergency aid.
The gesture, intended to make up for the resentment
caused by an initial pledge which, along with the British
offering of £100,000, was labelled as "peanuts" by
Qazi Hussain, the leader of the Pakistani opposition
party Jamat Islami, was greeted as a major boost to
the struggling relief effort.
Britain, too, increased its initial pledge to £1m
for the effort, which the Government stressed would
again be increased in coming days.
"The magnitude of this disaster is utterly overwhelming," Ryan
Crocker, the American ambassador, said from Pakistan
as he received an American transport plane full of
blankets, plastic sheets and jerry cans. "We have
under way the beginning of a very major relief effort," he
said.
But, in a clear echo of the international
response to the Boxing Day tsunami in south-east Asia,
the generous donations of private businesses and individuals
have caused eyebrows to be raised over government pledges
which, initially at least, were regarded as relatively
low.
A donation of $500,000 made by Li Ka-shing, Hong Kong's
richest business tycoon, is equal to half of the British
Government's increased pledge, and five times the amount
it originally wanted to give.
So far, international donors have announced tens of
millions of dollars in aid. But, again echoing the
tsunami relief effort, aid agencies were quick to draw
attention to the shortfall which almost always occurs
between pledges made by governments in the immediate
aftermath of a disaster and the total money that eventually
arrives.
As well as the American and British pledges, the European
Union has deployed aid workers to stricken parts of
Pakistan and allocated €3.6m (£2.47m) in
initial aid. In the Arab world, Kuwait has donated
$100m and Yemen has said it will send two aid planes.
South Korea, for its part, announced it would provide
$3m in aid, while a 46-member search and rescue team
including 18 medical officers from Malaysia was due
to leave yesterday for Pakistan. Malaysia has also
pledged $1m in aid. Australia lifted its contribution
from $380,000 to $4.2m, with the possibility of more
if it was needed.
Pakistan said Russia, the United Arab Emirates and
Spain had sent sniffer dogs to help with the rescue
efforts, while specialist rescue teams were sent over
the weekend by Britain, France, China and Turkey. Germany,
Japan and the Netherlands have also sent help.
But it was Washington's pledge, increased tenfold
from its original offering of $100,000, that went some
way to placating those in Pakistan who had recognised
the initial pledge as woefully inadequate.
(Sri Lanka, one of the most serious victim of the
tsunami and still struggling to rebuild itself, has
also pledged $100,000.) "The
initial announcement was a joke," said Rasul Bakhsh
Rais, a Pakistani political analyst at the Lahore University
of Management Sciences, pointing to the politically
sensitive nature of the US/Pakistani relationship. It
is very unusual for American aircraft to fly in Pakistan,
and Islamabad, faced with vehement opposition to the
US-led "war on terror" has forbidden American
forces to operate on its soil. "Every move of
the United States is judged here on political grounds.
It was a rare opportunity for the United States to
show that it's a true friend of Pakistan," said
Mr Rais.
It is not likely to have escaped Washington's notice
that its response to this latest disaster could be
key in improving perceptions of the United States in
Pakistan, an Islamic nation where many harbour deep
resentment over the United States' invasion of Afghanistan
and the Iraq war. In the wake of the tsunami, the US
military was given a warm reception in Indonesia, the
world's most populous Muslim nation.
Aid donors
Britain: £1m
United States: £50m plus helicopters
European Union: €3.6m plus aid workers on the
ground
United Nations: $100,000
Kuwait: $100m
South Korea: $3m
Malaysia: $1m
Australia: $4.2m
Sri Lanka: $100,000 |
MANAQUIRI, Brazil - The worst
drought in more than 40 years is damaging the world's
biggest rainforest, plaguing the Amazon basin with
wildfires, sickening river dwellers with tainted drinking
water, and killing fish by the millions as streams
dry up.
"What's awful for us is that all these fish
have died and when the water returns there will be
barely any more," Donisvaldo Mendonca da Silva,
a 33-year-old fisherman, said.
Nearby, scores of piranhas shook in spasms in two
inches of water -- what was left of the once flowing
Parana de Manaquiri river, an Amazon tributary. Thousands
of rotting fish lined the its dry banks.
The governor of Amazonas, a state
the size of Alaska, has declared 16 municipalities
in crisis as the two-month-long drought strands river
dwellers who cannot find food or sell crops.
Some scientists blame higher ocean
temperatures stemming from global warming, which have
also been linked to a recent string of unusually deadly
hurricanes in the United States and Central America.
Rising air in the north Atlantic, which fuels storms,
may have caused air above the Amazon to descend and
prevented cloud formations and rainfall, according
to some scientists.
"If the warming of the north Atlantic is the
smoking gun, it really shows how the world is changing," said
Dan Nepstadt, an ecologist from the Massachusetts-based
Woods Hole Research Institute, funded by the U.S. government
and private grants.
"The Amazon is a canary in a
coal mine for the earth. As we enter a warming trend
we are in uncertain territory," he said.
Deforestation may also have contributed to the drought
because cutting down trees cuts moisture in the air,
increasing sunlight penetration onto land.
Other scientists say severe droughts were normal and
occurred in cycles before global warming started.
DRIVING CARS WHERE THEY ONCE SWAM
In the main river port of Manaus, dozens of boats
lay stranded in the cracked dirt of the riverbank after
the water level receded. Pontoons of floating docks
sit exposed on dry land. People drive cars where only
months ago they swam.
An hour from where it joins the Rio Negro to form
the Amazon River, the Rio Solimoes is so low that kilometers
(miles) of exposed riverbank have turned into dunes
as winds whip up thick sandstorms. Vultures feed on
carrion.
Another major Amazon tributary, Rio
Madeira, is so dry that cargo ships carrying diesel
from Manaus cannot reach the capital of Rondonia state
without scraping the bottom. Instead, fuel used to
run power plants has to be hauled in by truck thousands
of kilometers (miles) from southern Brazil.
Dry winds and low rainfall have left the rainforest
more susceptible to fires that farmers routinely start
to clear their pastures.
In normal dry seasons, rains arrive often enough to
put out blazes that escape from farms and spread to
the forest. This year, the forest is catching fire
and staying aflame.
In Acre state, some 100,000 hectares
(250,000 acres) of forest have burned since the drought
started and thick black smoke has on occasion shut
down airports.
"It's illegal to burn but everyone around here
does it. I do it to get rid of insects and cobras and
to create fresh grass for my cows," a man who
would only identify himself as Calixto said while using
bundles of green leaves to smother flames and control
fires near a highway.
RIVER COMMUNITIES SUFFER
The drought has also upset daily life in communities
scattered throughout the basin's labyrinth of waterways.
"We closed 40 schools
and canceled the school year because there's a lack
of food, transport and potable water," said
Gilberto Barbosa, secretary of public administration
in Manaquiri. People whose wells have dried up risk
drinking river water contaminated by sewage and dead
animals.
Sinking water levels have severed connections in
the lattice of creeks, lakes and rivers that make up
the Amazons motorboat transportation network.
Many people in Manaquiri's 25 riverine communities
are now forced to walk kilometers (miles) to buy rice
or medicines.
Cases of diarrhea, one of the biggest killers in
the developing world, are rising in the region. Many
fear stagnant water will breed malaria. In response,
the state government has flown five tons of basic medicines
out to distant villages.
It will be two more months before
the river fills again during the rainy season. Even
then, residents fear polluted water will float to the
top, causing sickness and economic plight.
"I've never seen anything
like this," said Manuel Tavares Silva,
39, who farms melons and corn near Manaquiri, a town
149 km (93 miles) from Manaus, the capital of Amazonas
state. |
DENVER - A powerful storm that
dropped up to 20 inches of snow in parts of Colorado
knocked out power Monday to thousands of people, closed
an 80-mile stretch of a major highway and trigged rock
slides in the foothills. [...]
Authorities closed the main east-west route across
Colorado, Interstate 70, from Denver east to Limon.
Seventy miles of U.S. 24 from Limon southwest to
Colorado Springs were also closed. A day earlier,
the Red Cross opened a shelter for stranded travelers.
The storm cut off power to 25,000 homes and businesses
in Denver when power lines snapped and transformers
failed, Xcel Energy spokesman Tom Henley said. [...]
Power had been restored by Monday to about 2,000 homes
and businesses in Breckenridge.
Dozens of schools closed or were opening late, including
three in the Denver area that closed because of power
failures.
Two children were hospitalized with minor injuries
after a school bus slid backward down a steep embankment
south of Denver, Douglas County schools spokeswoman
Carol Kaness said.
In southwestern Colorado, rain associated with the
storm system was believed to have triggered two rock
slides in San Miguel County, including one that shut
down a lane of Colorado 145 near Telluride. No injuries
were reported. Steady rain also caused two rock slides
in Boulder Canyon northwest of Denver, forcing the
closure of one lane of Colorado 119 and damaging a
car. No one was hurt.
The National Weather Service had predicted up to 4
feet of snow in the southern Colorado mountains, but
some of the snow melted and the precipitation turned
to rain, leaving an accumulation of about a foot.
Snowfall amounts ranged from 20 inches in Breckenridge
to 12 inches in Strasburg, about 20 miles east of Denver.
[...] |
SAN FRANCISCO - Yahoo Inc. said
on Monday it will begin featuring the work of self-published
Web bloggers side by side with the work of professional
journalists, leveling distinctions between the two.
Yahoo News, the world's most popular Internet media
destination, is set to begin testing on Tuesday an
expanded news search system that includes not only
news stories and blogs but also user-contributed
photos and related Web links.
The move will further stoke the debate between media
traditionalists who want to maintain strict walls between
news and commentary and those who argue such boundaries
are elitist and undervalue the work of "citizen
journalists."
Blogs, short for Web logs, are easy-to-publish Web
sites where millions of individuals post commentary
from political analysis to personal musings, creating
a grassroots publishing medium that challenges the
authority of established media.
Yahoo said its move to combine professionally edited
news alongside the work of grassroots commentators
promises to enrich the sources of information on breaking
news events.
"Traditional media doesn't have the time and
resources to cover all the stories," Joff Redfern,
product director for Yahoo Search said. "It really
does add substantially to what you are looking at when
you are looking for news."
Yahoo has, in effect, created a three-tier system
for finding news that starts with the links to top
ten stories and related photographs produced by mainstream
news organizations on the main Yahoo News site.
Readers searching for further details will be taken
to a second-level news site, which splits the page
between news from 6,500 professional sources and links
to the hundreds of thousands of blogs available from
its syndication service.
Thus the expanded search stops short
of blurring all lines between edited news and self-publishing.
"We do try to demarcate what is mainstream media
and what is user-generated content so that there is
no confusion there," Redfern said.
Those choosing to dig still deeper can click on "More
Blog results..." to be taken to purely user-generated
news from blogs, photos and links. This allow the user
to search 10 million blogs listed on Yahoo's blo.gs
blog tracking service. [...] |
DUBAI - Al Qaeda has put job
advertisements on the Internet asking for supporters
to help put together its Web statements and video montages,
an Arabic newspaper reported.
The London-based Asharq al-Awsat said on its Web
site this week that al Qaeda had "vacant positions" for
video production and editing statements, footage
and international media coverage about militants
in Iraq, the Palestinian territories, Chechnya and
other conflict zones where militants are active.
The paper said the Global Islamic Media Front, an
al Qaeda-linked Web-based organization, would "follow
up with members interested in joining and contact them
via email."
The paper did not say how applicants should contact
the Global Islamic Media Front.
Al Qaeda supporters widely use the Internet to spread
the group's statements through dozens of Islamist sites
where anyone can post messages. Al Qaeda-linked groups
also set up their own sites, which frequently have
to move after being shut by Internet service providers.
The advertisements, however, could not be found on
mainstream Islamist Web sites where al Qaeda and other
affiliate groups post their statements.
Asharq al-Awsat said the advert did not specify salary
amounts, but added: "Every Muslim knows his life
is not his, since it belongs to this violated Islamic
nation whose blood is being spilled. Nothing should
take precedence over this."
The Front this week issued the second broadcast of
a weekly Web news program called Voice of the Caliphate,
which it says aims to combat anti-Qaeda "lies
and propaganda" on major global and Arab television
channels such as CNN and Al Jazeera.
Last month it issued an English-language video on
the Internet called Jihad Hidden Camera which showed
sniping and bombing attacks against U.S. forces in
Iraq, and carried comical sound effects as well as
laugh tracks.
Al Qaeda and other groups have increasingly turned
to the Internet to win young Muslims over to their
war against Western-backed governments in Arab and
Muslim countries.
Islamist insurgents fighting U.S. forces and the U.S.-backed
government in Iraq have often posted slick montages
of their military activities, including beheadings
of hostages, on the Internet. |
On the fourth
anniversary of the September 11th attacks, Laura Knight-Jadczyk
announces the availability of her latest book:
In the years since the 9/11 attacks, dozens of books
have sought to explore the truth behind the official
version of events that day - yet to date, none of
these publications has provided a satisfactory answer
as to WHY the attacks occurred and who was ultimately
responsible for carrying them out.
Taking a broad, millennia-long perspective, Laura
Knight-Jadczyk's 9/11:
The Ultimate Truth uncovers the true nature of
the ruling elite on our planet and presents new and
ground-breaking insights into just how the 9/11 attacks
played out.
9/11: The Ultimate
Truth makes a strong case for the idea that September
11, 2001 marked the moment when our planet entered
the final phase of a diabolical plan that has been
many, many years in the making. It is a plan developed
and nurtured by successive generations of ruthless
individuals who relentlessly exploit the negative
aspects of basic human nature to entrap humanity as
a whole in endless wars and suffering in order to
keep us confused and distracted to the reality of
the man behind the curtain.
Drawing on historical and genealogical sources, Knight-Jadczyk
eloquently links the 9/11 event to the modern-day
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She also cites the clear
evidence that our planet undergoes periodic natural
cataclysms, a cycle that has arguably brought humanity
to the brink of destruction in the present day.
For its no nonsense style in cutting to the core
of the issue and its sheer audacity in refusing to
be swayed or distracted by the morass of disinformation
that has been employed by the Powers that Be to cover
their tracks, 9/11:
The Ultimate Truth can rightly claim to be THE
definitive book on 9/11 - and what that fateful day's
true implications are for the future of mankind.
Published by Red Pill Press
Scheduled for release in October
2005, readers can pre-order the book today at our bookstore. |
Readers
who wish to know more about who we are and what we do may visit
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Fair Use Policy Contact Webmaster at signs-of-the-times.org Cassiopaean materials Copyright ©1994-2014 Arkadiusz Jadczyk and Laura Knight-Jadczyk. All rights reserved. "Cassiopaea, Cassiopaean, Cassiopaeans," is a registered trademark of Arkadiusz Jadczyk and Laura Knight-Jadczyk. Letters addressed to Cassiopaea, Quantum Future School, Ark or Laura, become the property of Arkadiusz Jadczyk and Laura Knight-Jadczyk Republication and re-dissemination of our copyrighted material in any manner is expressly prohibited without prior written consent.
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