Elsewhere Today (409)
Aljazeera:
North Korea: Nuclear test a success
Monday 09 October 2006, 11:12 Makka Time, 8:12 GMT
North Korea says it has successfully carried out its first nuclear weapons test, prompting the UN to call an emergency meeting .
The country's official Korean Central News Agency said the test was performed underground and that there had been no radioactive leak from the site in the northeast of the country at Hwadaeri near Kilju at 10.36am (0136GMT) on Monday.
The agency said: "Our science research section has safely and successfully conducted an underground nuclear test.
"The nuclear test is a historic event that brought happiness to our military and people."
The South Korean intelligence services detected a 3.58-magnitude seismic tremor, a foreign ministry spokesman told the Reuters news agency.
The alleged test coincided with the ninth anniversary of the rise of Kim Jong-Il, North Korea's leader, to communist party chief.
The Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, on a visit to South Korea, said Japan said information was still being gathered to confirm the test, estimated as being equivalent to 550 tons of TNT.
Aid suspended
Roh Moo-hyun, the South Korean president, has convened a meeting of security advisers over the issue, and halted a shipment of aid to the North.
The government postponed the departure of a ship which was to leave for North Korea on Tuesday with 4,000 tons of cement on board.
A unification ministry official said: "The move, however, is temporary, and the government will decide later on whether to stop further aid shipments to North Korea."
South Korea suspended regular aid shipments to its impoverished communist neighbour after the North's missile tests in July.
But the following month it announced a one-off $230m emergency aid package after severe floods hit North Korea.
Emergency meeting
The UN Security Council is also expected to hold an emergency meeting on Monday to decide how to respond to the nuclear test.
The United States said that if confirmed, the move would be a "provocative act" and called for immediate action by the UN Security Council.
Tony Snow, White House spokesman, said: "We would expect the Security Council to meet Monday."
Last week, John Bolton, US ambassador to the UN, urged the council to respond to a test with punitive action going beyond the missile-related sanctions imposed on the North in a Security Council resolution passed in July.
That resolution was passed after the North launched seven missiles, including a long-range Taepodong-2 believed to be capable of striking US soil.
The North said last week it would conduct a nuclear test as part of its deterrent against a possible US invasion.
The announcement sparked alarm in the region, particularly in Japan. The Japanese prime minister had just arrived in South Korea for talks on North Korea's nuclear plans.
Surprise
Tony Chang, Aljazeera's Beijing bureau chief, said the announcement of the test was a surprise despite earlier government announcements.
"Is it clearly aimed to coincide with the Japan prime minister, Shinzo Abe's, trip to South Korea.
"It shows that China, who has been calling on North Korea to halt the test, doesn't necessarily have the power over the country that people think."
North Korea has long claimed to have nuclear weapons, but had never before performed a known test to prove its arsenal.
Agencies
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/C52E7FA6-6848-48A1-97C7-198AA85A6CF9.htm
AlterNet:
The Insanity of 'Staying the Course' in Iraq
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet
Posted on October 9, 2006
As the bodies pile up in Iraq, new polls show that most Iraqis want us out of their country, and they want us out soon. At the same time, Al Jazeera acquired a letter believed to be from a high-ranking al Qaeda operative that shows that our worst enemies think a protracted occupation of Iraq is "the most important thing" for the future of their cause.
Yet the Bush administration and its mouthpieces insist that we must "stay the course" in Iraq - either to bring stability to the war-torn country or out of some misguided belief that we can salvage America's dignity from an embarrassing Vietnam-style defeat.
Underlying the "stay the course" argument is a fundamentally flawed assumption that U.S. troops are at least keeping havoc in check. But every year of the occupation has brought about worsening violence, peaking during a summer that saw thousands of Iraqi civilians killed each month. The Washington Post reported that last month "the number of U.S. troops wounded in Iraq has surged to its highest monthly level in nearly two years," and Reuters added that "bomb attacks in Baghdad have hit an all-time high ..." Studies by the Saudi government and a respected (and hawkish) Israeli think tank found that most of the insurgents in Iraq had never engaged in political violence but were radicalized by the occupation itself. The recently leaked National Intelligence Estimate predicts that with American troops on the ground, the insurgency in Iraq will grow and fester over the next two years.
But more importantly, the U.S. presence creates a Catch-22. One of the biggest problems in Iraq is that its fledgling government has little legitimacy, and a large part of that problem comes from a widespread perception that it remains subservient to U.S. commanders. According to a recent poll by the Project on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA), Iraqis, by a 5 to 2 margin, thought that a U.S. commitment to withdraw would "strengthen the Iraqi government." Three out of four believe an American withdrawal would make the various factions in Iraq's parliament more willing to cooperate with one another.
Eight out of ten Iraqis believe the U.S. military presence is "provoking more conflict than it is preventing," and they're in the position to know best. Just 14 percent said the U.S. forces were having "a positive influence on the situation in Iraq."
The idea that Iraq will spiral out of control if U.S. forces withdraw has been hammered home since the beginning of the occupation by the war's supporters, but while it's a danger, it is also anything but the certainty that's become part of the conventional wisdom. Seventy percent of Iraqis have confidence that their police force can maintain order.
The hawks who brought us this war have gone through an exquisite set of intellectual gymnastics to produce new justifications for why we have to stay the course. The latest is that pulling out of Iraq will "embolden" the terrorists. Vice President Cheney said recently that a withdrawal at this point would only "validate the al Qaeda strategy and invite even more terrorist attacks." The obvious flaw in that argument is that whatever "emboldening" might or might not occur has already happened; before the invasion, the secretary of defense of the most powerful country the world has ever known predicted that the war "could last six days, six weeks" but doubted it would last six months. Yet three and a half years later, a few thousand Iraqi insurgents with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades have kept the leviathan pinned down, and there's no sign that they're anywhere close to their "last legs." They've isolated the United States from its allies, stymied U.S. foreign policy from Singapore to the Sudan and halted Bush's ambitions to "reform" the Middle East. The lesson has already been learned, as evidenced by the Taliban's adoption of many of the Iraqi insurgents' tactics in Afghanistan.
This latest administration talking point couldn't make anyone happier than the leadership of al Qaeda. The Christian Science Monitor's Dan Murphy reported last week that a letter from a senior al Qaeda leader was discovered in the rubble of the house where Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in June. Murphy wrote that "al Qaeda itself sees continued American presence in Iraq as a boon for the terror network." "The most important thing," wrote the al Qaeda official, is that "prolonging the war is in our interest."
Iraq's government is dysfunctional, and that creates an environment ripe for turmoil. Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi told Reuters that the U.S. presence - especially under the vague rules in which its forces operate - is "impeding the ability of Iraq's Shi'ite-led national unity government to tackle rampant violence and economic woes."
And while the Sunni insurgents have made repeated attempts - the most recent of which came last week - to open up negotiations with the occupation forces, they rejected a call by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to join in the political process earlier this year. The Sunnis - who are not the only combatants at this point - won't participate in the political process as long as the open-ended occupation continues, and there won't be stability until they do engage politically - Catch-22.
For all these reasons, majorities of Iraqis of all sects want their government to request a U.S. withdrawal. Seven out of ten want a deadline within a year, while just one in ten want the U.S. to remain until "the security situation approves" - the Bush administration's line. Even two-thirds of the Kurdish population - long the strongest supporters of U.S. policy - agreed, although many Kurds want a two-year window.
They join majorities of American Democrats and Republicans, and U.S. military personnel in Iraq, all of whom favor a "strategic redeployment" and an end to the occupation (interestingly, three out of four Americans also believe that if the Iraqi government asked the United States to withdraw, it wouldn't do so).
But Iraqis are getting a taste of U.S.-style democracy, a system in which popular will needs to be managed rather than considered seriously in policymaking.
In September, 104 members of Iraq's 275-seat parliament sponsored a resolution asking the United States for a timetable to get out. As Raed Jarrar notes, "typically a good 80 MPs haven't actually been coming to the sessions, so it is possible that the resolution" would have passed with 104 votes. That was unacceptable to both Iraqi and American leaders; the AP reported that a procedural maneuver shelved the resolution for six months (which, conveniently for the United States, will be three months after Iraq's permanent Oil Law must be passed). A similar resolution in mid-2005 got the support of 103 Iraqi parliamentarians. When that resolution was killed, they signed a petition that accused the National Assembly of "blatantly ignoring the demands of the MPs."
Even if the request were made, most Iraqis consider us to be "occupiers" rather than "liberators" (A Gallup poll last year found that fewer than one in five Iraqis viewed the U.S. as "liberators"). PIPA found that a "large majority of Iraqis-and a majority in all ethnic groups-believes that the United States plans to maintain permanent military bases in Iraq and would not withdraw its forces if asked by the Iraqi government."
As a result - at least in part - six out of ten Iraqis approve of attacks on U.S. forces (including among the Shiites that benefited politically from our "liberation"). The insurgency may have started with a small number of Baathist "dead-enders," but as a result of U.S. mismanagement, it now has broad popular support. And that means it has legs.
The question of whether it would be a net gain to leave Iraq is itself far too narrow. The occupation is having a dangerous ripple effect; the National Intelligence Estimate found that Iraq had become a "cause célèbre" for radical Islamists across the region (and worldwide) and was creating a whole new generation of "jihadists." That means that the U.S. presence in Iraq is fueling conflicts in neighboring countries, where a major realignment of power between Sunnis and Shiites could easily blow up into a series of regional wars that would make the past few years in Iraq look like a stroll in the park.
And as domestic political pressure to come up with some kind of chimerical victory mounts, U.S. policymakers will find the idea of splitting Iraq into three autonomous zones - long championed by Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., former Ambassador Peter Galbraith and others - more and more appealing. This, too, is contrary to what the Iraqi people want; according to PIPA, "Iraqis appear to agree on having a strong central government, and ... majorities of all groups do not favor a movement toward a looser confederation." According to the Times of London, the Iraq Study Group - the commission headed by former Secretary of State James Baker that has guided much of the disaster in Iraq - may recommend the partition approach. As the University of Michigan's Juan Cole notes, "If the loose federal plan ends in partition, the situation is set up for a series of wars of the Sunni Arabs versus the Shiites, as well as of the Sunni Arabs and some Turkmen versus the Kurds. Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia will certainly be pulled into these wars."
Most Americans and Iraqis of every religious sect and political persuasion want the United States to set a timetable for withdrawal, but the Bush administration and al Qaeda's leaders believe it's in their best interests to prolong the occupation. What more does one need to know?
Joshua Holland is an AlterNet staff writer.
© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/42741/
AlterNet:
American Prison Camps Are on the Way
By Marjorie Cohn, AlterNet
Posted on October 9, 2006
The Military Commissions Act of 2006 governing the treatment of detainees is the culmination of relentless fear-mongering by the Bush administration since the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Because the bill was adopted with lightning speed, barely anyone noticed that it empowers Bush to declare not just aliens, but also U.S. citizens, "unlawful enemy combatants."
Bush & Co. has portrayed the bill as a tough way to deal with aliens to protect us against terrorism. Frightened they might lose their majority in Congress in the November elections, the Republicans rammed the bill through Congress with little substantive debate.
Anyone who donates money to a charity that turns up on Bush's list of "terrorist" organizations, or who speaks out against the government's policies could be declared an "unlawful enemy combatant" and imprisoned indefinitely. That includes American citizens.
The bill also strips habeas corpus rights from detained aliens who have been declared enemy combatants. Congress has the constitutional power to suspend habeas corpus only in times of rebellion or invasion. The habeas-stripping provision in the new bill is unconstitutional and the Supreme Court will likely say so when the issue comes before it.
Although more insidious, this law follows in the footsteps of other unnecessarily repressive legislation. In times of war and national crisis, the government has targeted immigrants and dissidents.
In 1798, the Federalist-led Congress, capitalizing on the fear of war, passed the four Alien and Sedition Acts to stifle dissent against the Federalist Party's political agenda. The Naturalization Act extended the time necessary for immigrants to reside in the U.S. because most immigrants sympathized with the Republicans.
The Alien Enemies Act provided for the arrest, detention and deportation of male citizens of any foreign nation at war with the United States. Many of the 25,000 French citizens living in the U.S. could have been expelled had France and America gone to war, but this law was never used. The Alien Friends Act authorized the deportation of any non-citizen suspected of endangering the security of the U.S. government; the law lasted only two years and no one was deported under it.
The Sedition Act provided criminal penalties for any person who wrote, printed, published, or spoke anything "false, scandalous and malicious" with the intent to hold the government in "contempt or disrepute." The Federalists argued it was necessary to suppress criticism of the government in time of war. The Republicans objected that the Sedition Act violated the First Amendment, which had become part of the Constitution seven years earlier. Employed exclusively against Republicans, the Sedition Act was used to target congressmen and newspaper editors who criticized President John Adams.
Subsequent examples of laws passed and actions taken as a result of fear-mongering during periods of xenophobia are the Espionage Act of 1917, the Sedition Act of 1918, the Red Scare following World War I, the forcible internment of people of Japanese descent during World War II, and the Alien Registration Act of 1940 (the Smith Act).
During the McCarthy period of the 1950s, in an effort to eradicate the perceived threat of communism, the government engaged in widespread illegal surveillance to threaten and silence anyone who had an unorthodox political viewpoint. Many people were jailed, blacklisted and lost their jobs. Thousands of lives were shattered as the FBI engaged in "red-baiting." One month after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, United States Attorney General John Ashcroft rushed the U.S.A. Patriot Act through a timid Congress. The Patriot Act created a crime of domestic terrorism aimed at political activists who protest government policies, and set forth an ideological test for entry into the United States.
In 1944, the Supreme Court upheld the legality of the internment of Japanese and Japanese-American citizens in Korematsu v. United States. Justice Robert Jackson warned in his dissent that the ruling would "lie about like a loaded weapon ready for the hand of any authority that can bring forward a plausible claim of an urgent need."
That day has come with the Military Commissions Act of 2006. It provides the basis for the President to round-up both aliens and U.S. citizens he determines have given material support to terrorists. Kellogg Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Cheney's Halliburton, is constructing a huge facility at an undisclosed location to hold tens of thousands of undesirables.
In his 1928 dissent in Olmstead v. United States, Justice Louis Brandeis cautioned, "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding." Seventy-three years later, former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, speaking for a zealous President, warned Americans "they need to watch what they say, watch what they do."
We can expect Bush to continue to exploit 9/11 to strip us of more of our liberties. Our constitutional right to dissent is in serious jeopardy. Benjamin Franklin's prescient warning should give us pause: "They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security."
Marjorie Cohn, a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, is president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild, and the U.S. representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists. Her new book, "Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law," will be published in 2007 by PoliPointPress.
© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/42458/
Arab News:
War With Israel Possible: Bashar
Agence France Presse
Monday, 9, October, 2006 (17, Ramadhan, 1427)
KUWAIT CITY, 9 October 2006 — Syrian President Bashar Assad has said that a war with archenemy Israel cannot be ruled out as long as a lasting peace in the Middle East is not achieved.
“In principle, we (always) expect that there will be an Israeli aggression at any time. We all know that Israel is militarily powerful and is backed directly by the United States,” Bashar said in an interview with Kuwait’s Al-Anbaa daily published yesterday.
“We can’t debate whether to be prepared or unprepared. We must remain always prepared,” Bashar said. The Syrian president said Israel had abandoned the Middle East peace process since Ariel Sharon came to power in 2001. “This means that there will be no peace in the foreseeable future. If there is no peace, naturally you should expect that war may come. The no-war, no-peace situation means there will either be peace or war,” the Syrian leader said.
Syria had been on alert for an Israeli attack during the Jewish state’s 34-day offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon which ended in mid-August.
Peace talks between Syria and Israel have been frozen since 2000, with Damascus demanding that Israel hand over the Golan Heights, which it has occupied since 1967.
“One must defend one’s country fiercely,” Bashar said, citing as an example Hezbollah’s “resistance” to the Israeli offensive launched on July 12 following the capture of two Israeli soldiers by the group.
A political adviser to Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said Israel must take Bashar’s comments about the possibility of war seriously. Reserve Gen. Amos Gilad told army radio: “It is necessary to carefully study such menacing declarations.”
Copyright: Arab News © 2003 All rights reserved.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4§ion=0&article=87882&d=9&m=10&y=2006
Asia Times:
The two faces of Iraq
By Sami Moubayed
Oct 7, 2006
DAMASCUS - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has a remarkable nerve. In July, she went to Israel in the midst of a Lebanon war in which thousands of civilians were being killed and insisted on not calling for a ceasefire until a final solution to Hezbollah was reached between Israel and Lebanon.
This week, she makes a surprise visit to Baghdad to show support for Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, the man responsible for much of the violence and sectarian killing taking place in Iraq. Speaking at her press conference with Maliki, she said: "This is an important time and a challenge for the Iraqi people, but they
are a strong people, they are committed people, and we know that they will overcome these challenges." She added: "I think he is a very good and strong prime minister."
Surely Rice should have know that the previous seven days had been horrendous for Iraq and that in September a total of 2,667 people were violently killed, while another 2,994 were injured. The only logical and blameworthy person for all this madness is the man leading the country, whose duty as prime minister is to bring security to his citizens.
The last thing they need are the confronting words of the US secretary of state, who seems to care little for the number of Iraqis dying per day, and the ineffective US military in the country, which is unable to end the raging insurgency.
The week prior to Rice's visit marked the highest death toll since the Iraqi war started in March 2003. On Wednesday, four US soldiers were killed southwest of Baghdad, bringing the total number of US troops killed over the previous seven days to 14. Officially, this brings the number of US troops killed in Iraq since March 2003 to 2,729. Most in the Arab world, and particularly in Iraq, estimate a much higher number.
One wonders where Maliki's security plan stands, since he promised to make safety a priority on his agenda in May. A smarter question would be: Why are the Americans still supportive of this failed premier? His security plan has catapulted 15,000 US troops into a hands-on presence on the streets of Iraq, backed by 40,000 Iraqi soldiers.
According to a US statement, they have "cleared approximately 95,000 buildings, 80 mosques and 60 muhallas [small administrative districts], detained more than 125 terrorist suspects, seized more than 1,700 weapons, registered more than 750 weapons and found 35 weapons caches. The combined forces have also removed more than 196,921 cubic meters of trash from the streets of Baghdad."
All the same, the rising death toll shows that Maliki's security plan has failed. According to the Ministry of Displacement and Migration, a quarter of a million Iraqis have been displaced, because of deteriorating security conditions and rising sectarian violence, since February. Between July and August, about 80,000 Iraqis were registered with the ministry as refugees and 40,000 families applied for government aid.
This number, naturally, might be much higher, since many Iraqis have fled the country altogether and not registered with the ministry. Many have gone to neighboring Iran, Syria or Kurdistan. According to the International Organization for Migration, nearly 9,000 Iraqis flee their homes every week.
Elsewhere in Iraq, an entire Iraqi brigade, with 1,200 police officers, has been suspended because of suspected connections to the mass kidnapping of 26 workers last Sunday. Six of the workers were later found dead.
Also prior to Rice's visit were heightened rumors in Iraq and the international media that Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the new leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, had been killed. Had this been true, it would have been a great bonus to Maliki, who celebrated the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarkawi, Masri's predecessor, in June shortly after he had come to power.
The reports on Masri, denied by a US military spokesman, were triggered by Hasan al-Senaid, a parliamentarian close to Maliki, who said that Masri had been killed in a US strike in western Iraq. The rumor, apparently, was a publicity stunt by the prime minister's supporters, who wish to raise his ratings among the Iraqi public. It was intended to show that at least the prime minister and his US allies were working to bring terrorism to a halt.
Maliki and Rice sidestepped all of these issues at their press conference. Maliki actually seems reluctant to impose real security, since this would mean a certain clash with powerful cleric Muqtada al-Sadr (who currently supports him) and dismantling Muqtada's Mehdi Army.
Since September 26, Iraqis - as elsewhere in the Muslim world - have been celebrating the holy month of Ramadan, and Maliki has ordered a halt to house-to-house searches during the period to avoid arousing religious emotions against the government.
He has also given strict orders that Iraqi troops do not enter Sadr City in Baghdad, where Muqtada is based. Theirs is a marriage of convenience based on religious affiliations and common vision. Muqtada promises to steer clear of anti-government activity, while Maliki pledges to refrain from harassing, arresting or disarming Muqtada's militia.
The two men are united on not wanting an independent Shi'ite state in southern Iraq, although both of them are Shi'ites, and refusing Iranian influence in Iraqi affairs. The fact that Maliki is able to walk the tightrope, with the US on one side and their deadly enemy Muqtada on the other, is in fact remarkable. His friendship with Muqtada has nullified the Mehdi Army's attacks on US troops - and vice versa - and also given great credibility to the government because Muqtada has ministers in the Maliki cabinet and seats in parliament.
To think that the US supports a prime minister who dabbles with militiamen, wants to establish a theocracy and is unable to bring security to Iraq is indeed baffling. This is the Iraq that Rice visited on October 5, 2006.
A story published in Britain's Guardian newspaper on Thursday claimed that Iraq's school and university system was in danger of collapse as students and teachers sought refuge to avoid sectarian violence. Coincidentally, on the day the story was published, this correspondent met an Iraqi college student at a coffeehouse in Damascus. He confirmed that classes had shrunk in size as it was unsafe for students and teachers to venture into the streets in many cities, and added that he had dropped out of the Mechanical Engineering School at Baghdad University in his senior year to search for safety and a job in Damascus.
He said, "If I do not find a job in my domain, I will work in anything. I can work as a waiter, a driver or a secretary!" Universities, he added, had been infiltrated by Islamic militias that forced female students to wear the veil and that persecuted the Christian community.
This community in Iraq was listed at 1.4 million in 1987. Because of rising sectarian violence, only 60,000-80,000 remain in Iraq. Most fled to Syria after a series of church attacks in 2004. According to the United Nations, minorities in Iraq - Christians included - "have become the regular victims of discrimination, harassment and, at times, persecution, with incidents ranging from intimidation to murder". It added that "members of the Christian minority appear to be particularly targeted".
This type of violence is particularly acute in the area around Mosul. High-ranking clergy there claim that priests in Iraq can no longer wear their clerical robes in public for fear of being attacked by Islamists.
Beyond the platitudes at their public show, one wonders whether Rice was able to give Maliki any pointers to getting Iraq out of its mess. Rice and the US administration insist that Iraq is now better off than it was under Saddam Hussein.
The facts, however, prove otherwise. The Human Rights Report for 1998 showed that "massive and extremely grave violations of human rights and of international humanitarian law" were happening in Saddam's Iraq. It added, "Torture and ill-treatment continue to be widespread."
Today, the UN mission in Iraq notes: "Detainees' bodies show signs of beating using electric cables, wounds in different parts of their bodies, including the hands and genitals, broken bones of legs and hands, electric and cigarette burns." The report adds that Iraqi morgues have bodies that "often bear signs of severe torture, including acid-induced injuries and burns caused by chemical substances, missing skin, broken bones, missing eyes and wounds caused by power drills or nails". Those not tortured, it added, are shot in the head.
Rice should have raised such topics as these in her meeting with Maliki, who in his alliance with Muqtada is responsible for a lot of what is happening in Iraq. Sharing the blame are other militias, such as the Badr Organization of Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim.
As head of state, though, Maliki (and his rebel ally Muqtada) should be blamed and punished for the chaos in Iraq, rather than supported by the encouraging words of Rice.
Sami Moubayed is a Syrian political analyst.
Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HJ07Ak02.html
Asia Times:
Bloody fight over Kirkuk's future
By Mohammed A Salih
ARBIL, Iraq - The security situation in the northern oil-rich city of Kirkuk has further deteriorated over the past few weeks after the Iraqi government formed a committee assigned to "normalize the situation".
The creation of that committee under a constitutional provision has led to a rise in ethnic tensions among Kirkuk's Kurdish, Arab and Turkoman populations. Violence has risen with the tensions.
September was one of the bloodiest months for Kirkuk, with an unprecedented number of attacks. For many, the message behind the attacks is to stop implementation of Article 140 of Iraq's constitution, and to inflame sectarian strife in the city.
Article 140 sketches a three-step plan to remove traces of the Arabization policy of the regime of former president Saddam Hussein. The constitution now provides for a census followed by a referendum on the fate of the city, after normalizing the situation. The issue is whether Kirkuk should be added to the autonomous Kurdish-run region of northern Iraq.
Some representatives of non-Kurdish groups in Kirkuk believe that Article 140 supports only Kurdish interests. "We will act as an obstacle in the way of implementing Article 140," Jamal Shan, deputy head of the Iraqi Turkoman Front, told the Kurdish weekly Hawlati in Sulaimaniya. Shan's party has close ties with Turkey and holds three seats in the Iraqi parliament. Implementation of the article would "endanger the geography" of Turkoman territories, Shan said.
Seen as a microcosm of Iraq for its mix of several ethnic groups, Kirkuk awaits an uncertain future as disagreements about the future of the city increase. A victim of its oil wealth, Kirkuk has for long been a divisive issue in Iraq's politics.
Many Kurds say Kirkuk is really a Kurdish city, and that large numbers of Arabs were settled there by the Saddam Hussein regime - a move that Article 140 could undo. They also see the Turkomans, a people of Turkish descent, as outsiders. But each of Kirkuk's ethnic groups claims historical ownership over the city.
Turkomans claim that Kirkuk has been historically a Turkoman-dominated city. Arab leaders say they were legally settled there and have a right to stay. Kurds say that before the start of the Saddam-led ethnic-cleansing policies, Kurds constituted the majority of the population in the city.
Kurdish leaders want to speed up action over Article 140 in the hope of bringing Kirkuk into a Kurdish autonomous region. "There is little time left for implementation of Article 140, but if there is goodwill in Baghdad, then this remaining time is still enough," Mohammed Ihsan, minister for extra-regional affairs in the Arbil-based Kurdistan regional government, said in a statement. He added that the regional government had various strategies to deal with contingencies that may arise over Kirkuk, but did not elaborate.
Interference by neighboring countries, most notably Turkey, is believed to have complicated the situation and rendered a solution more difficult. Turkey claims it acts to protect the Turkoman community in Kirkuk, but not all Turkomans welcome its intervention. Turkoman leader Irfan Kirkuli says Turkomans would be better off joining a Kurdish autonomous area. He also warned against interference by outside powers, saying, "They aim to create turmoil and tension in Kirkuk."
Turkey has been exercising diplomatic and local pressure in support of the Turkomans. Several commentators say Turkey wants to block creation of an autonomous Kurdish region to limit the aspirations of its own Kurdish population. Turkey also claims historical rights in Kirkuk, on the grounds that the city was ruled by Ottoman Turks for centuries until the creation of the modern state of Iraq in the 1920s.
During a recent visit by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan to Ankara, Turkish officials described the situation in Kirkuk as "critical", and asked him to "support Turkey over the current issue of Kirkuk".
Amid all these tensions, residents resent remarks that Kirkuk may become the "flashpoint" for an all-out civil war in the country. But not many are sure how the microcosm can withstand the larger divisions within Iraq.
(Inter Press Service)
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HJ07Ak01.html
Asia Times:
Taliban put Pakistan on notice
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - With trouble on the battlefield, US Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has recommended, for the first time since September 11, 2001, the need to bring the Taliban into the Afghan government. At the same time, Pakistan is secretly playing its own game of carrot and stick in Afghanistan to influence events to its liking.
However, two quick warning signals to Islamabad this week convey the unmistakable message that regardless of what Washington or Islamabad might desire, the Taliban are the ones who will decide which carrots and which sticks to play.
Last month could prove to be pivotal in determining the ultimate fate of the Taliban and Afghanistan, and even the United States' "war on terror".
The Taliban, after the success of this year's spring offensive, have drawn up a blueprint for an Islamic intifada in Afghanistan next year in the form of a national uprising and an internationalization of their resistance.
This followed a "peace" deal between the Pakistani Taliban in the Waziristan tribal areas on the border with Afghanistan in which Islamabad agreed to release some al-Qaeda suspects in return for the Taliban stopping cross-border activities.
President General Pervez Musharraf then went to Washington, where he announced that foreign forces in Afghanistan would be given the right of hot pursuit into the tribal areas. He also said the authorities would take action against former army officials associated with the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) for supporting the Taliban.
That all is not well with this agreement is illustrated by two events this week. First, a missile landed in Ayub Park, the highest-security zone in Rawalpindi, just a few hundred meters from Musharraf's official residence at Army House. The next day, several rockets apparently linked to a mobile phone for firing were found near parliament in Islamabad.
Asia Times Online has learned that the incidents were a clear show of disapproval in Waziristan over Musharraf's basking in "Washington's charm", and that he had not implemented a key aspect of the peace accord - the release of al-Qaeda suspects - despite numerous promises.
In other words, the Pakistani Taliban are using their own stick to keep Islamabad in line.
The sore point, as mentioned, was the release of "al-Qaeda-linked" Pakistani militants arrested in Pakistani cities. The Pakistani authorities did release many, but a few, whose arrest was also known to US intelligence, were not. Musharraf said they would be freed once he returned from Washington, but this did not happen. Negotiations were still taking place when an incident happened that angered the Pakistani Taliban.
Progress arrested
Shah Abdul Aziz of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, a six-party religious alliance, is a member of the National Assembly from Karak in North-West Frontier Province. Though his direct party affiliation is with the Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam led by Maulana Samiul Haq (the father of the Taliban), his real status derives from his being a veteran mujahideen from the days of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. He vocally supports the Taliban, Arab militants and Osama bin Laden, and his fiery speeches on these topics are compiled into compact discs that are popular among the Pakistani Taliban.
Shah Mehboob Ahmed is a younger brother of Shah Abdul Aziz and also enjoys a great deal of respect among local as well as Afghan Taliban for helping the mujahideen.
The story starts when Mehboob hosted a British-born Pakistani, known only as Abdullah, who was on a list of wanted people. Abdullah then went to Islamabad and met with the biggest Taliban-supporting cleric, Ghazi Abdul Rasheed, at Lal Mosque. As Abdullah left the mosque, he was picked up by intelligence agencies. One of the leads acquired from Abdullah was that he had been hosted by Mehboob. So Mehboob was also detained.
Shah Abdul Aziz, the member of parliament, contacted ISI high-ups about his brother's arrest and was informed that he would be released soon after formal investigations. However, neither Abdullah nor Mehboob was released.
This took tension between the Pakistani Taliban and the authorities to boiling point, with the former charging that not only had Islamabad not fulfilled its promises to release all Taliban and al-Qaeda detainees, but it was violating the agreement and arresting such people as Mehboob and Abdullah.
Islamabad responded that the two were part of Indian intelligence's proxy network, and that was why they had been held - not because of any possible links to al-Qaeda or the Taliban. The Pakistani Taliban did not buy this and made it clear that as the authorities had violated the agreement, they should be ready to face the Taliban's music.
At this point Musharraf said in an interview in the US that some retired ISI officials could be assisting Taliban insurgents, adding: "We are keeping a very tight watch and we will get hold of them if that at all happened. I have some reports that some dissidents, some retired people who were in the forefront in the ISI during the period of 1979 to 1989, may be assisting the links somewhere here and there."
This set off heated debate in Pakistan, leading some people to speculate that Hamid Gul, one of the most popular Islamist generals and Musharraf's immediate boss and close associate before September 11, 2001, might be arrested. Speaking to Asia Times Online, Gul termed Musharraf's statement a reflection of his "impulsive nature" and said he was in danger of opening up a "Pandora's box".
The upshot of all this, according to signals reaching this correspondent, is that Musharraf has been put on notice. The first two incidents this week caused no damage. That was possibly the intent. This is unlikely to be the case with the next ones.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/HJ07Df01.html
Asia Times:
Buying friends and influencing drug lords
By David Scott Mathieson
CHIANG MAI, Thailand - If the drug trade ever had a friend, it's the man in uniform. Access to the authorities is a necessary companion of efforts to subvert authority, and make a buck, or a kyat, a yuan or some baht.
Sometimes the criminal himself is in uniform, and some of the most lucrative rackets in history have been organized and run by the police or the army. As Hand in Glove, [1] a new study by the Chiang Mai-based Shan Herald Agency for News demonstrates, Myanmar's army, the Tatmadaw, has been a good friend of the drug trade for years. This probably explains why Myanmar remains one of the world's biggest producers of illegal narcotics.
While there have been several serious efforts at uncovering the truth behind the drug-trade dynamics in Myanmar - from Alfred McCoy's The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, Bertil Lintner's definitive book Burma in Revolt, and Ronald Renard's The Burmese Connection - there has never been a systematic cataloguing of collusion between the Tatmadaw and the vast web of opium farmers, drug financiers, caravan-protection crews and laboratory locations that stretch through northern Myanmar.
Hand in Glove provides a unique ground-eye view of the trade in opium, heroin and amphetamine-type substances (ATS), known in Thailand as yaa baa (crazy medicine) or in China as bingdu. It augments a previous report by the Shan news agency, "Show Business", released in 2003, which presented trends in narcotics production, and the punitive and largely ineffectual attempts of Myanmar's ruling junta, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), to control it by pretending to curtail it.
First-hand accounts
The people behind the Shan Herald Agency for News know their subject well. Their director, Khuensai Jaiyen, once worked as an information officer for Khun Sa, the Chinese-Shan drug lord who controlled swaths of the Shan state mountains for decades, becoming one of the most powerful, and media-friendly, opium and heroin smugglers in the world. Khun Sa exploited Shan nationalism to make a profit.
The drug lord's true character was revealed in 1996, when he surrendered to the Myanmar regime in return for a comfortable retirement in Yangon, avoiding a US$2 million arrest bounty by the Americans. He remains safely protected by Myanmar military authorities, many of whom, such as former eastern Shan state commander and now No 2 in the regime, General Maung Aye, had profited from his generosity and "charity".
The rapid disbanding of Khun Sa's once powerful Mong Tai Army (MTA) gave the Tatmadaw a free hand to rampage through central Shan state, displacing hundreds of thousands of civilians, killing hundreds and driving thousands more to Thailand. The Myanmar authorities then gave control of the drug trade to the United Wa State Army (UWSA) and its local allies.
For Khuensai and his news agency, documenting drug-trade patterns, environmental destruction, human-rights abuses and the politics of Shan state has more urgency than the (literally) cutthroat world of the drug trade. The independent, grassroots news agency has developed into an impressive portal of information into the ravages of conflict in Shan state, and the network of reporters and informants used in the book are enviable.
Khuensai has also supported young journalists and human-rights activists, which has helped raise international awareness of the Shan cause, leading to the renowned 2002 report by the Shan Women's Action Network (SWAN), "License to Rape", which documented cases of systematic sexual violence committed by the Tatmadaw against women in Shan state. That report later caused a stir of embarrassing media attention for the junta and helped win SWAN activist Charm Tong a private visit with US President George W Bush last October.
Hand in Glove is an impressively detailed survey of the dynamics of the drug trade. It lists the key traffickers and groups' involvement, opium-cultivation sites, drug-laboratory locations, precursor-chemical flows and smuggling routes. It also contains instructions on how to process ATS pills, and the methods of smoking opium, heroin and yaa baa. The detailed maps impressively illustrate the vast spread of the production and supply chain of the heroin and ATS trade, many of them suspiciously close to hundreds of Tatmadaw units.
The main purpose of the book is to outline the systemic collusion between drug dealers and Myanmar's military, and this it does with disturbing accuracy. The names of notorious players in the drug trade, such as Wa leaders Bao Youxiang and Wei Hsuehkang, are listed alongside obscure but equally potent operators, such as Sai Tun Aye, Myint Swe, Ja Ngoi and more.
These are mainly pro-SPDC ethnic militia leaders, Lahu, Kachin, Wa and others, given local security responsibilities in exchange for economic ventures in drug production, casinos, and cross-border trading. The Pyithu Sit (People's Militia) leaders and businessmen operate under the control of Tatmadaw officers from battalion to regional-command level.
The patronage network fostered by the drug trade has economic and security dimensions that require army officers to regulate it. The militias attack anti-government forces, supply army units, lavish gifts such as four-wheel-drives and jewelry on officers (and their wives) and finance local festivals and military operations. In return they are granted freedom to transport drugs and smuggle them across borders, sometimes with Tatmadaw assistance.
This system has developed over the years, and the Tatmadaw knows who the main players are. An informant for this book mentioned this to an SPDC official. "The fact is that national security says we need them and their sources," the unnamed official replied. Serving officers such as former northeastern commander Lieutenant-General Myint Hlaing and deposed military intelligence chief General Khin Nyunt have benefited personally. When the monthly salary of SPDC leader Senior General Than Shwe is only 1.2 million kyat (US$1,000) and his lifestyle is clearly beyond his means, who is providing him with the disposable income?
On a local level, the drug trade provides kickbacks to poorly paid and supported government soldiers who extort protection fees from poppy fields and yaa baa smugglers. The soldiers are considerate, recounted one farmer: "They make sure not to step on the opium plants when they walk though the farm."
Numbers of Tatmadaw battalions and units that are actively involved in protecting the trade at a local level are located and listed in the book. Even if one were skeptical of the information presented here, it is an important source for further research on this long suspected cooperation.
Antidote to the West
The book is also a powerful antidote to elite perspectives from the United Nations and Western counter-narcotics agencies that cooperate with Myanmar authorities on opium-eradication projects and drug-suppression activities. Their encouraging pronouncements have been suspect for a long time, especially when Antonio Maria Costa, former executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) declared in 2004, "What we may be seeing, if the decline continues, is a potential end to more than a century of opium production in the Golden Triangle."
It is clear that there have been major shifts in the drug trade in the past several years. Opium cultivation has decreased, from 1,676 tonnes in 1997, to 680 tonnes in 2005, partly in response to an explosion of production in Afghanistan, but also because of draconian government policies of displacing farmers from opium-cultivation sites to meet unrealistic deadlines to become "drug free".
Hundreds of thousands of civilians in Shan state have been forcibly relocated or their opium crops destroyed, leading to large-scale starvation and poverty. The UN's World Food Program has staged emergency feeding programs for communities in Shan state since late 2003 as a result.
But as the book demonstrates, cultivation has spread across northeastern Myanmar through what is called "the bubble effect": squeeze here and the trade moves somewhere else. New plantations are often outside survey zones, so who knows how much is really there?
The market shift from opiates to amphetamines in the 1990s replaced profits lost on heroin production, but also had the perverse result of diffusing the number of small-level smugglers and producers under the control of major armed groups such as the UWSA and Kokang Chinese, with Tatmadaw connivance. As Hand in Glove argues, the trade has changed but everything remains the same. Even the UNODC admits this: its report this August on ATS dynamics noted an increase in production in Asia.
This book should serve as a challenge. If there are still ATS labs in Panghsang, the headquarters of the United Wa State Army and a regular port of call for UNODC and other international development officials, then shouldn't international agencies check it out? If Lahu Pyithu Sit units are operating in downtown Tachilek and running convoys of drugs, then maybe the Tatmadaw units nearby should, as the police parlance goes, make some inquiries. The international community should no longer diplomatically believe in "assurances" from SPDC officials that the trade is being effectively interdicted.
Annual US narcotics reports declare that no Tatmadaw officer over the rank of colonel has ever been disciplined for drug offenses. Hand in Glove will make you ask why that is.
Note
1. Hand in Glove: The Burma Army and the Drug Trade in Shan State (pdf).
David Scott Mathieson is a doctoral candidate at the Australian National University.
Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/HJ07Ae03.html
Clarín: Afirman que la periodista rusa asesinada
en Moscú estaba investigando las torturas en Chechenia
Lo reveló hoy el diario en el que trabajaba. "No tenemos las notas, pero sabemos que hay testimonios y fotografías", dijo uno de sus editores. Además, afirmó que sus compañeros iniciarán una investigación independiente. Anna Politkovskaya apareció muerta ayer en su casa.
Clarín.com, 08.10.2006
La periodista rusa Anna Politkovskaya, que ayer apareció muerta en su casa de Moscú, estaba preparaba un artículo sobre las torturas sistemáticas en Chechenia, según informó hoy el diario "Nóvaya Gazeta", donde ella trabajaba desde 1999. "Por ahora aún no tenemos las notas en nuestras manos, pero sabemos que hay testimonios y fotografías", adelantó Vitali Yaroshevski, redactor jefe del periódico. De hecho, la Policía rusa ya está analizando el disco rígido de su computadora para conocer el material sobre el que estaba trabajando.
Además, hoy se supo que los compañeros de Politkovskaya, considerada una de las periodistas más críticas con la política del Kremlin en Chechenia, llevarán adelante una investigación independiente sobre el asesinato. "La experiencia de otras investigaciones confirma que nosotros podemos conseguir más información que los órganos de seguridad. Simplemente, que ellos no tienen las fuentes con las que nosotros sí contamos", aseguraron.
El asesinato de Politkovskaya, que recibió cuatro balazos, ya fue condenado por todas las fuerzas políticas rusas y distintas organizaciones internacionales como Reporteros sin Fronteras.
El presidente de Chechenia, Alú Aljánov, lamentó hoy la muerte de la periodista, que pasaba varios meses del año en ese país y otras repúblicas del Cáucaso norte ruso. Mientras tanto, el secretario general del Consejo de Europa, Terry Davis, y el Departamento de Estado norteamericano demandaron una investigación urgente del hecho.
Politkovskaya había denunciado, en varias ocasiones, amenazas de muerte. En sus libros, la periodista criticaba la política de mano dura del presidente ruso en Chechenia y la participación diaria de los soldados rusos en el secuestro y violación de chechenos.
Copyright 1996-2006 Clarín.com - All rights reserved
http://www.clarin.com/diario/2006/10/08/um/m-01286350.htm
GlobalResearch: Britain:
The mysterious case of the disappearing 'terror’ plots
By Norm Dixon
Green Left Weekly, September 13, 2006.
Readers of Britain’s newspapers are regularly accosted with blood-curdling banner headlines screaming of the “thwarting” of potentially catastrophic “terror plots”, of “Islamic fanatics” being apprehended in daring midnight raids. “Chilling” details, “revealed” by anonymous police and government “sources”, underline why “we” must accept a “trade-off” between civil liberties and “security”, the editorials assure an apprehensive populace. Months or even years later, however, news that many of the “plots” never actually existed is buried behind the latest sex scandal or exploitative “expose” — if reported at all.
On August 10, deputy commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police Paul Stephenson declared that a plan to “cause untold death and destruction” and “mass murder on an unimaginable scale” had been foiled with the arrest of 24 people. “We believe that the terrorists’ aim was to smuggle explosives onto planes in hand luggage to detonate them in flight”, Stephenson alleged. Britain’s and the world’s mass media trumpeted the claims.
However, within days the dramatic case against the detainees as told to the media by anonymous US and British government and police “sources” began to unravel. The claim that an attack was “imminent” was false. No reservations had been made or airline tickets purchased by the 10 charged with serious terrorism offences; several did not even have passports. Apparently, just one had used the internet to check flight schedules recently. There were no bombs.
The assertion that the detainees intended to destroy 10-12 aircraft was “speculative and exaggerated”, a British official admitted to the August 28 New York Times. Claims of a convoluted “Pakistani connection” between the plotters and al Qaeda have disappeared. The possibility of successfully concocting “liquid bombs” from household products in a plan’es toilet mid-air has been dismissed by chemical experts.
Misrepresentation
Gareth Pierce, defence lawyer for the 17-year-old in the case accused of possessing items “useful to a person preparing acts of terrorism”, told the August 31 Chicago Tribune how police had misrepresented what they had found at the boy’s mother’s home and twisted it to fit their grandiose claims. According to police, “suicide notes”, a map of Afghanistan and a bomb “manual” had been found.
What was actually discovered, Pierce told the Tribune, were wills written by people who had fought in Bosnia more than 10 years earlier. The accused was just six when much of this material was placed in the box! “They’re not suicide notes at all. They’re really simple wills. To call these suicide notes was absolutely disgraceful”, Pierce said.
The wills were found in a box that once belonged to the boy’s father — who has since divorced and moved out — when he ran a now-defunct charity that helped displaced Bosnian Muslims. The box also contained a crude map drawn by the boy’s younger brother when he was a child. There was also a book of drawings of electrical circuits, which even if it was of some use in building a bomb, it would be useless for the device that police allege the group was trying to construct.
Associated Press on September 4 reported that prosecutors told a London court that the detainees will not face trial until March 2008. They will remain in prison and the key details of the prosecution’s case will be kept secret until then.
Lies and fabrication
Will the British government and mass media’s accusations stand up in court? Not if the record of British police, government and media lying, exaggeration and fabrication in recent “terror” cases is anything to go by.
As Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, pointed out in an August 14 article on his website (<http://www.craigmurray.co.uk>), “Of the over 1000 British Muslims arrested under anti-terrorist legislation, only 12% are ever charged with anything. That is simply harassment of Muslims on an appalling scale. Of those charged, 80% are acquitted. Most of the very few — just over 2% of arrests — who are convicted, are not convicted of anything to do with terrorism, but of some minor offence the police happened upon while trawling through the wreck of the lives they had shattered.”
At 4am on June 2, around 250 police, some wearing chemical suits, stormed a house in Forest Gate, east London. Police claimed that a chemical bomb was in the house. Awoken by the sound of doors being broken down, the two families living there thought they were being attacked by robbers. Mohammed Abdul Kahar was shot in the chest by police, who failed to identify themselves or give a warning, narrowly missing his heart.
Rupert Murdoch’s seedy Sun newspaper on June 3 ramped up the anti-Muslim panic, without a shred of evidence: “A CHEMICAL bomb held by Islamic terrorists is primed to go off at any time, police feared last night. The device is believed to have been designed to release a toxic cloud in a crowded space — killing hundreds. And senior officers are convinced it has been prepared for an 'imminent’ attack in the UK ... Last night a frantic hunt was on to find the bomb before it could be activated by fanatics. One senior security source said: 'We are absolutely certain this device exists and could be used either by a suicide bomber or in a remote-controlled explosion.’”
Not to be outdone, Murdoch’s Times on June 3 reported the finding of a “poison suicide vest of death”. No chemical bombs or suicide vests ever existed. Kahar and his brother were detained for eight days without charge under the Terrorism Act (2000) before being released. “The only crime I have committed is being Asian and having a long beard”, Kahar told the BBC on June 13. “They haven’t had the decency to apologise.”
'Red mercury’
In one of more bizarre examples of how the British government, police and the media work hand in glove to manufacture terror scares was provided when the notorious “fake sheikh” Mazher Mahmood, a journalist for Murdoch’s tacky News of the World who regularly dresses up in Arab robes to trick celebrities and others into compromising themselves, and an undercover police agent in 2004 attempted to entrap three people in a “virtual” terror plot.
Mahmood offered to sell them an imaginary nuclear substance, “red mercury”, telling them it could be used to make a radioactive “dirty bomb”. However, the three seemed to be more interested in the claim that red mercury could also wash marked money. The undercover cop then offered to buy the fake substance from them for $300,000 a kilo.
With the approval of the Labour government’s attorney-general, the three dupes were arrested by the Met’s anti-terrorist squad on September 24, 2004. They were charged with attempting to secure funding or property for terrorism and having “a highly dangerous mercury-based substance” for use in terrorism. The following day, the News of the World’s front page screamed, “Anti-terrorist cops move in after News of the World uncovers bid to buy radioactive material”. Red mercury, the News of the World lied to its unfortunate readers, is“a deadly substance developed by cold war Russian scientists for making briefcase nuclear bombs”.
The three remained in jail until their acquittal almost two years later. During the trial, which cost more than £1 million, the government prosecutor declared that “the Crown’s position is that whether red mercury does or does not exist is irrelevant” and urged the jury not to get “hung up” on that point. Luckily, the jury did not agree.
Own goal in Manchester
Britain’s government-police-press team scored an own goal in April 2004, when 400 Greater Manchester police rounded up 10 Iraqi Kurds. Leading the lynch mob was the Sun, which ran an invented story that began: “A SUICIDE bomb plot to kill thousands of soccer fans at Saturday’s Manchester United-Liverpool match was dramatically foiled yesterday. Armed cops seized ten terror suspects in dawn raids. Intelligence chiefs believe al-Qaeda fanatics planned to blow themselves up amid 67,000 unsuspecting supporters. A source said: 'The target was Old Trafford.’ The Islamic fanatics planned to sit all around the ground to cause maximum carnage. They had already bought the tickets for various positions in the stadium, cops revealed last night.”
The entire fantastic story, and the cops’ case against the Kurds, was improvised from leaked police information about the “discovery” of a couple of old ticket stubs from a Manchester United soccer match in a suspect’s flat. He was indeed guilty of being a fanatic — a fanatical supporter of Manchester United who had kept the stubs as a souvenir of the only game he and a friend had attended! They were bought from a scalper, which explained why the tickets were for different parts of the ground. The 10 people were released without charge.
Ricin reflux
Perhaps the most cynically exploited of the British government’s series of fabricated “terror scares” was the police announcement in January 2003 that a “terrorist cell’s” plans to use ricin poison in an attack had been foiled.
On January 7, British government ministers announced that “traces of ricin” had been found in a flat raided by police. Prime Minister Tony Blair seized on the “plot” to bolster the propaganda campaign to go to war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Blair made the ludicrous claim that the discovery of ricin, which can only kill if directly injected into a person’s bloodstream, proved that “this danger [of weapons of mass destruction] is present and real and with us now. Its potential is huge.”
Then US Secretary of State Colin Powell also referred to the alleged “cell” during his speech to the UN Security Council on February 5, 2003, arguing for war against Iraq if Hussein did not abandon his non-existent WMD. Powell claimed it was proof of a “sinister nexus between Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network”.
The truth was that there was no al Qaeda cell and no ricin. On the same day that the government proclaimed the discovery of “traces of ricin” in the flat, tests by the government’s own research facility at Porton Down had found there was no ricin. That finding was kept secret by the government for more than two years.
In April 2005, four people were acquitted on charges of conspiracy to commit terrorism, while charges against four others were dropped. One person, Kamel Bourgass, was convicted on a lesser charge of “conspiracy to cause a public nuisance by the use of poisons and/or explosives”, based on his possession of “recipes” to make ricin and evidence of attempts to do so. However, the April 20, 2005, Independent reported that “Professor Alistair Hay, one of Britain’s foremost authorities on toxins, said Bourgass’s attempts to construct toxic weapons from his small supplies of ingredients and ramshackle 'laboratory’ were 'incredibly amateurish and unlikely to succeed’.”
From Green Left Weekly, September 13, 2006.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
© Copyright Norm Dixon, Green Left Weekly, September 13, 2006., 2006
© Copyright 2005 GlobalResearch.ca
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?
context=viewArticle&code=DIX20061004&articleId=3378
Guardian:
In praise of ... Anna Politkovskaya
Leader
Monday October 9, 2006In praise of ... Anna Politkovskaya
Leader
"People sometimes pay with their lives for saying out loud what they think," Anna Politkovskaya told a conference on press freedom last December. On Saturday she was killed outside her apartment in Moscow - an assassination that ended the life of one of Russia's bravest and most brilliant journalists, and set back the cause of freedom in her country. In books and articles, including several for this paper, she confronted repression and deceit in all its forms, well aware of the risk she was running. More than any other journalist, she defied both the Russian state and Chechen rebel forces to expose the brutality of the Chechen war, which has been sustained by Moscow, often in secret, for 12 years. Her sympathies as a writer and campaigner always lay with the civilian victims of a conflict they had done nothing to start and could do nothing to resolve. In her last piece for the Guardian, published in March, she described the consequences of intentional chemical poisoning in the Shelkovsk region of the republic. "People who have the misfortune to live in Chechnya are seen as biomaterial for experiments," she wrote. A victim of poisoning herself, in an earlier apparent assassination attempt, she defied enemies in the Russian government, military and underworld, though friends, aware of the risk she faced, encouraged her to leave Moscow. Instead she stood her ground. Such courage cost Ms Politkovskaya her life. The test for President Putin is to be equally courageous in finding her killers.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,1890911,00.html
Guardian:
Putin silent as fiercest critic is murdered
· Reporter was investigating torture in Chechnya
· Protesters blame Kremlin for apartment shooting
Tom Parfitt in Moscow
Monday October 9, 2006
A crowd of protesters gathered in central Moscow yesterday to express their anger at the assassination of the crusading journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who at the weekend became the 13th Russian journalist to be killed in a contract-style killing since President Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000.
Politkovskaya, 48, had today been due to publish an article on torture and kidnappings by pro-Moscow forces in the restless southern republic of Chechnya, her colleagues said.
The prosecutor general took personal control of the investigation yesterday, but Mr Putin made no comment on the killing of one of the country's best-known public figures and his fiercest critic.
Politkovskaya, who won international acclaim for exposing the brutality of Russian forces in Chechnya, was shot dead in the lift of her apartment block in Moscow on Saturday. Police were last night hunting a man in a white baseball cap who was filmed by a CCTV camera entering the building a few moments before she was shot three times in the chest and once in the head.
The killing immediately threw suspicion on the security services and the pro-Moscow Chechen forces that control Chechnya. "You just have to look at the subjects of her latest work and there's your list of chief suspects," said Viktor Shenderovich, a well-known radio and television commentator, who joined the protest by several hundred people on Pushkin Square. In a reference to the KGB's successor, the federal security service FSB, Mr Shenderovich said: "The culprits will never be found, because the people who will be investigating this murder walk down the same corridors as those who ordered it."
Protesters carried placards reading "The Kremlin killed freedom of speech", and "Anna, great daughter of Russia".
Flyura Arslanova, a pensioner clutching a photograph of Politkovskaya and dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief, said: "It's a tragedy. She was killed for being honest."
Eduard Limonov, a radical opposition figure, said: "It is Putin who has created this society of hate where journalists are murdered and other nationalities become the victim of Russian race supremacy."
Politkovskaya, a mother of two, had harried security officers, military men, and Chechnya's controversial prime minister, Ramzan Kadyrov, in numerous articles for the newspaper Novaya Gazeta which condemned the cruelty wrought against civilians in the conflict between pro-Moscow forces and separatist rebels.
She was widely admired for her courage and tenacity in uncovering stories that few other reporters dared to touch. Her books - A Dirty War: A Russian reporter in Chechnya; and A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya - brought her worldwide acclaim.
She was once arrested and subjected to a mock execution by security forces in Chechnya, and came close to death on another occasion in an apparent poisoning attempt. Yet she denied being particularly brave, saying in one interview: "The duty of doctors is to give health to their patients, the duty of the singer to sing, and the duty of the journalist is to write what this journalist sees in reality."
A spokesman for Russia's prosecutor general, Yury Chaika, told NTV that all motives for the killing were being examined, but "of course the main one we are looking at is the professional activity of the journalist".
In Washington, the US state department said Politkovskaya was "personally courageous and committed to seeking justice even in the face of previous death threats", but the Kremlin was silent. Mr Putin held a routine meeting of his security council, but did not mention the murder. The EU said Russian authorities should launch "a thorough investigation" into the "heinous crime" of her murder.
Novaya Gazeta placed a portrait of Politkovskaya trimmed with black on its website and announced a 25m-rouble (£500,000) reward for information leading to the capture of the people who ordered her killing. Its deputy editor, Andrei Lipsky, told the Guardian that Politkovskaya had been preparing an article for today's edition exposing torture of opponents by officials of the Chechen prime minister, but she did not manage to complete it before she was shot. "We are trying to piece together the fragments [from her notes]," he said.
Mr Kadyrov was asked yesterday to comment on accusations that his men carried out the killing. He replied: "Making assumptions without any basis or serious evidence means arguing on the level of rumours and gossip, and that flatters neither journalists nor politicians." He told the Itar-Tass news agency: "I want to underline that although Politkovskaya's material about Chechnya was not always objective, as a human being I am sincerely sorry for the journalist."
Outside Politkovskaya's apartment block on Lesnaya Street, mourners left carnations and candles close to a portrait of her placed on top of a post box.
Svetlana Khokhlova, 60, who uses a wheelchair, said she had travelled from the outskirts of the city to pay her respects. "She wrote about the forgotten people like me," she said. "She was sharp and intelligent and she wrote the truth. I'm ashamed of my country today."
Inside the building, the doors of the lift where Politskovaya was shot stood open, a single bullet hole just below head-height puncturing the steel back wall of the lift. Detectives went from floor to floor questioning the block's residents.
What she wrote
Anna Politkovskaya regularly commented on brutality by pro-Moscow forces in Chechnya. Here are some of her latest thoughts
21.09.06
In Chechnya there is a sharp lack of people who question themselves. They are mostly single-minded amoebas. For them to kill is like having a sip of tea. For such amoebas to understand a person presented to them as an enemy is impossible. And what does it mean "to understand" in Chechnya? To understand is to preserve somebody's life. That's the price of tolerance: there is no other. And many people still think that this game with an amnesty [for rebel fighters] is some kind of story about [Chechen PM Ramzan] Kadyrov's tolerance, about how he's saving the fighters and preserving the nation. It's lies. In fact, the fighters are tied in to yet more bloodshed - in order to keep them on his side.
11.09.06
What is Kadyrov syndrome? Its main characteristics are insolence, boorishness and cruelty masquerading as courage and manliness. In Chechnya the Kadyrovtsy [forces loyal to Kadyrov] beat men and women whenever they think it's necessary. They cut off the heads of their enemies in the same way as the Wahabis [Islamic militants] did. And all this is allowed by the appropriate authorities and is even called officially "specifics of raising national awareness as a result of the final choice of the Chechen people in favour of Russia".
11.09.06
The world is afraid of an uncontrolled nuclear reaction - I'm afraid of hatred. Uncontrolled and building up. The world somehow came up with mechanisms to control the leaders of Iraq and North Korea but nobody can foresee how personal revenge works. And the world is defenceless against it. In our country there is now a rare and irresponsible stupidity. Hundreds of people are deliberately forced to keep their storage of hatred. What do we want from the Chechens sitting in prison for so-called terrorism? There are hundreds of people with long jail sentences ahead of them. They are hated and all the "special methods" [of torture] that come in to the heads of both their fellow inmates and the administers are tested out on them.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,1890857,00.html
Harper's Magazine:
A Cartoon
Posted on Friday, October 6, 2006. By Mr. Fish
This is A Cartoon, a cartoon by Mr. Fish, published Friday, October 6, 2006. It is part of The Cartoons of Mr. Fish: a Selection, which is part of Features, which is part of Harpers.org.
Written By
Fish, Mr.
Permanent URL
http://harpers.org/Family-20061006.html
Jeune Afrique: Les Africains expulsés d'Europe
en vedette au "Forum des migrants" de Bamako
MALI - 5 octobre 2006 – AFP
"Regardez, on nous traite comme des animaux", lâche Ali Diakité, un Malien expulsé d'Espagne voilà quelques mois, en montrant du doigt une photo d'un Africain en cours d'expulsion, les pieds liés, coincé entre deux policiers français et se tordant de douleur.
A l'image d'Ali, les Africains expulsés d'Europe sont venus nombreux au "Forum des migrants" de Bamako, qui a ouvert ses portes le 29 septembre
Houreye Sacko, une Malienne de 29 ans, enceinte, arrive au forum avec sa fillette de 4 ans. Elles ont été récemment expulsées de France, et une foule de curieux se presse autour d'elles.
"Ce qui vous arrive est inhumain. Comment peut-on renvoyer comme ça d'un pays une femme enceinte et son bébé", s'interroge un participant avant de glisser un peu d'argent dans la paume de la fillette.
Pris de pitié, Amadou Konté, un jeune journaliste local, rassure Mme Sacko: "Sachez que vous êtes ici chez vous, et que rien ne vous arrivera".
Pour s'assurer de leur présence, les organisateurs de la manifestation ont mis un bus à la disposition des expulsés et leur donnent une indemnité journalière de 3.000 FCFA (4,5 euros).
Plusieurs expulsés du squat de Cachan, en banlieue parisienne, ont également fait le déplacement pour raconter ce qu'ils ont vécu. C'est le cas de Cissé Drissa, qui détaille son expulsion lors d'une séance plénière du Forum.
"Je souffre d'une maladie très grave", explique-t-il en préalable avant de rappeler qu'il était "dans le couloir du squat de Cachan quand la police a débarqué". Il n'a pas eu le temps d'aller prendre ses affaires, notamment ses médicaments, raconte-t-il devant un public ému.
"Les policiers m'ont dit que d'autres médicaments étaient en bas. Jusqu'à présent je les attends", explique-t-il avec amertume.
Sylla Diadié a pour sa part quitté le squat de Cachan sans sa femme et sa fille. "Ma famille est restée en France. Comment peut-on expulser quelqu'un comme ça, le séparer de sa famille. Où sont les droits de l'Homme?", s'interroge-t-il.
Lors de la séance plénière, le débat a fait rage entre les expulsés qui ont décidé de rester et ceux qui veulent repartir.
"Moi je veux repartir, même si c'est pour mourir", affirme un refoulé des enclaves espagnoles de Ceuta et de Melilla, dans le nord du Maroc. D'autres disent simplement vouloir rejoindre leurs familles restées en France.
"Il vaut mieux vivre dans son pays en paix au lieu d'aller mourir en Europe bêtement comme ça. On est mieux chez soi. On peut être pauvre et vivre tranquillement chez soi", rétorque un autre expulsé, décidé à ne plus tenter l'aventure.
Le "Forum des migrants" qui s'est achevé samedi, était organisé par une coalition d'ONG maliennes pour marquer le premier anniversaire des assauts d'immigrants sur Ceuta et Melilla.
A l'automne 2005, 14 émigrants africains y étaient morts, dont certains tués par balles par les forces de sécurité, lors d'assauts sur les grillages-frontières.
Le renforcement des clôtures et des contrôles autour des enclaves a fini par détourner les clandestins cherchant à gagner l'Europe vers la façade ouest de l'Afrique. Plus de 27.000 clandestins, essentiellement ouest-africains, sont ainsi arrivés dans l'archipel espagnol des Canaries depuis janvier.
© Jeuneafrique.com 2006
http://www.jeuneafrique.com/jeune_afrique/article_depeche.asp?
art_cle=AFP60506lesafokamab0
Jeune Afrique: L'émigration clandestine
se poursuit malgré les rapatriements
SÉNÉGAL - 3 octobre 2006 – XINHUA
Malgré le retour massif des émigrés clandestins, près de 2000 en date du 3 octobre, les jeunes continuent d'explorer les voies maritimes pour s'offrir un exil "doré" en Espagne, selon l'Agence de presse sénégalaise (APS).
De trois au départ le 14 septembre dernier, les charters sont passés à quatre et font des rotations entre les Iles Canaries et Saint-Louis tous les lundi, mercredi et vendredi pour rapatrier les infortunés, a indiqué l'Agence de presse officielle
Selon des sources concordantes, des opérations "commandos" continuent à s'organiser avec des convoyeurs déterminés à tirer leur épingle du jeu malgré les menaces d'alourdissement des peines brandies par les autorités, selon la même source.
La tactique des convoyeurs se révèle payante. Un témoin d'un départ récent de candidats à l'émigration clandestine souligne que pour contourner le Frontex, système de contrôle maritime et aérien mis en place par le Sénégal en collaboration avec l'Italie et L'Espagne, les convoyeurs ont changé leurs habitudes.
Selon lui, la nuit les avions arrivent difficilement à localiser les pirogues qui regagnent facilement les eaux internationales. Tous ceux qui ont été appréhendés par le Frontex ont pris le risque d'embarquer le jour, selon ce témoin qui a requis l'anonymat.
Les candidats devaient embarquer dans la nuit du 25 au 26 et toutes les dispositions préalables étaient prises pour la réussite de cette opération.
© Jeuneafrique.com 2006
http://www.jeuneafrique.com/jeune_afrique/article_depeche.asp?
art_cle=XIN60026lmigrstneme0
Mail & Guardian:
Choreography of opposite effect
John Matshikiza: WITH THE LID OFF
02 October 2006
The stage is filled with a dim, blue light. Six figures, two women and four men, barefoot, all dressed in loose white shirts and trousers, sit motionless on chairs around the perimeter. One of the figures gets up and stands absolutely still to one side of the stage. As the music begins to play, he is gradually surrounded by a pool of light.
He is a small man with a trim moustache, wearing elegant dark glasses. Four of the other figures gradually rise and approach him one by one, waving their hands in front of his eyes, barely touching him, a ritual of the senses. Still the small figure is motionless. There is something strange, hypnotic about his stillness, facing straight ahead.
The other dancers begin to move on the stage. The music intensifies.
The sixth figure stays seated, almost as motionless as the man in dark glasses. He is a large man, his legs stretched out in front of him, strangely twisted, a pair of crutches at his side. His big eyes watch the other dancers. The small man is still motionless upstage.
Then he gradually moves forward, lifts his arms, palms upward and then retreats again. The other dancers delicately guide him in different directions, left, right, back to his original position. We realise he is blind.
The dance becomes more frenzied in the centre of the stage. The small man’s slow, hypnotic movements are a counterpoint to the gradually increasing pace of the other dancers.
Suddenly, without warning, the sixth figure leaps into the fray from the side of the stage, moving with stunning speed on his crutches, his legs trailing uselessly beneath him. There is a fury about the way he attacks his path between the other bodies. He leaps up and down on the crutches with impossible agility, Richard III in the thick of battle, defying his crippling disability.
This is the Agulhas Theatre Works contemporary dance company on stage at the Frascati Theatre in Amsterdam, performing on the opening night of Afrovibes, a mini festival founded by South African performing artist Raymond Matinyana, who died of Aids in Amsterdam in 2001, at the age of just 31. Afrovibes continues in his name.
The dance company was founded by the classically trained dancer Gladys Agulhas, who choreographed the piece Encounters with the members of her company. This is one of many collaborations with Gregory Maqoma’s Vuyani Dance Theatre, two of whose members, Smolly Mashida and Melusi Mkhan-sane, are part of the group.
Agulhas, a powerful, radiant, presence on the stage, has been working with dancers of varied abilities and disabilities, professional and amateur, for many years. She says dance itself is therapy, a kind of leveller, a way of seeking perfection through the many imperfections we all share, whatever our physical condition. In performance, as in this latest production, it is also a dramatic way of illustrating the many daily encounters we have, how we react to them, and how differently we could relate to them if we were prepared to open ourselves to the idea of a common humanity.
Agulhas, Belinda Nagel and the two male dancers from Vuyani Dance company have a physical perfection that they use to beautiful effect on the stage. In the presence of their flowing muscularity, the eye is constantly drawn to the two performers with disabilities. As Agulhas says, in day-to-day life those of us who think we have healthy, perfect bodies constantly recoil from the disabled. Here, the choreography produces the opposite effect.
Chris “Kappie” Isaacs comes from Keetmanshoop in what is now Namibia. As a young man, like many black Namibians, he was recruited into the apartheid-era South West Africa Defence Force and inevitably spent several hard years hunting his own kind, those labelled “terrorists”, under the command of white South African officers.
He survived the war, but was blinded in the peace that followed during a savage mugging in central Johannesburg. He had never been involved in any formal dance until he met Agulhas.
David Fumbatha was born with crushingly disabled legs and completed his education at Soweto’s Adelaide Tambo School for Children with Special Needs. Dance therapy and professional performance has been part of his life for many years, although the excercises often make him suffer excruciating pain. Agulhas always presses him to go on, to push his body to its limits, as any dancer, in different ways, is obliged to do.
Both men give riveting performances in the midst of their more agile counterparts. Isaacs’s pas de deux with Agulhas is delicately moving. Fumbatha’s duet with Nagel requires more acrobatic power and is astonishing for its tenderness in spite of this.
Across town, photographer Zanele Muholi opens an exhibition of her works that exposes another kind of perceived disability — the dilemma of a black lesbian in a violent, men-dominated society. The subject is dealt with in a startlingly beautiful manner, literally hiding nothing, challenging the labelling that is imposed by both women and men in black South Africa.
On this opening evening, both Agulhas and Moholi speak of their work afterwards, independently giving a fierce indictment of the new South Africa in which they, or the people they choose to work with, have become the new oppressed. “Our wonderful new Constitution has no meaning for someone like me,” says Moholi. And yet their work equally shows a strong commitment to carry on with what they are doing, in the way they choose to do it, in the land of their birth.
All material copyright Mail&Guardian.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?
articleid=285490&area=/columnist__john_matshikiza/#
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Un debate agresivo y sin propuestas
LULA DA SILVA Y GERALDO ALCKMIN SE ENFRENTARON DE CARA AL BALLOTTAGE
La corrupción fue el eje del duelo entre el presidente brasileño y su rival socialdemócrata. Este último sorprendió en el arranque.
Lunes, 09 de Octubre de 2006
Geraldo Alckmin salió con los tapones de punta. Casi sin entrar en calor, el candidato opositor abrió el debate preguntándole al presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva por los 800 mil dólares con los que sus asesores de campaña pensaban pagar el dossier que incriminaría a sus correligionarios. La ofensiva sorprendió a todos, incluso a Lula, que logró recuperarse en el segundo bloque, atacando al gobierno de Fernando Henrique Cardoso por su falta de políticas sociales y su corrupción. Titubeos, un pequeño derrame en un ojo y respuestas vagas caracterizaron la primera impresión que dio el mandatario. A pesar de las promesas sobre un intercambio de ideas y de propuestas, el debate emitido por Bandeirantes giró sobre las denuncias de corrupción que golpean hace un tiempo al oficialismo y que le habrían costado la victoria en primera vuelta.
A: ¿De dónde vino el dinero sucio, los 1,7 millones de reales que fueron decomisados a dos personas vinculadas al oficialista PT?
L: Hace 30 días que quiero saber de dónde vino el dinero. Yo quiero saber quién diseñó ese plan maquiavélico, cuál era el contenido del dossier.
A: Vea, telespectador (Lula), no sabe. No tuvo la curiosidad de preguntárselo al director del (estatal) Banco do Brasil, al coordinador de su programa.
L: No soy policía, soy presidente. Tal vez (Alckmin) tenga nostalgia del tiempo en que en la tortura se podía obtener información en media hora.
Así comenzó el primer debate de cara al ballottage del próximo 29 de octubre. La discusión de anoche fue un espejo de la tensión y la agresividad que se ha instaurado en la dirigencia brasileña, y que promete dominar el resto de la campaña. La lógica del programa, además, parecía estar diseñada para que sea un ring de lucha libre. Sin temas prefijados, la primera mitad del debate se basó en un ida y vuelta de acusaciones.
Ya en el segundo bloque, Lula recuperó el control de la situación. Recordó que los casos de corrupción que actualmente se investigan tuvieron su inicio durante el gobierno del correligionario de Alckmin, Fernando Henrique Cardoso. El gran golpe de Lula fue destacar la ausencia del ex presidente socialdemócrata entre los dirigentes y allegados de los dos candidatos que observaban el debate desde una platea detrás de las cámaras. “Veo que están intentando ocultar a Cardoso”, retrucó con éxito Lula. Alckmin no bajó su nivel de agresividad, llegando incluso a llamarlo “delincuente”. Pero ya no era lo mismo; ahora el presidente contraatacaba.
Lo único que saben hacer ustedes es “privatizar, privatizar y privatizar”; nosotros, en cambio, nos focalizamos en “lo social, lo social y lo social”, afirmó Lula, intentando cambiar el rumbo de la discusión y preparando el terreno para exponer los logros de su administración. Habló de las políticas sociales, el fomento de la agricultura familiar y del saneamiento básico. Es en este campo, en la comparación con el gobierno anterior, donde el presidente se mostró más cómodo y confiado, permitiéndose incluso algunos chistes.
El último gran tema fue Bolivia. Alckmin acusó al gobierno de ser sumiso y débil al negociar con La Paz. Lula supo responder y comparó a su rival con el presidente George Bush. Aseguró que el mismo argumento que lleva a Alckmin a criticar la política de diálogo con un país más débil como Bolivia fue el que llevó a Bush a atacar a Irak.
Lula llegó al debate con una intención de voto del 50 por ciento, contra un 43 por ciento de Alckmin, según Datafolha. Un empate sería un éxito para el petista. Pero, este resultado se volvió incierto después del embate inicial del opositor.
© 2000-2006 www.pagina12.com.ar|República Argentina|Todos los Derechos Reservados
http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elmundo/4-74223-2006-10-09.html
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En la ONU todos dirán te quiero a un surcoreano
Ban Ki-Moon, que tiene el beneplácito de Washington, es el favorito a suceder a Kofi Annan en la secretaría general. La ONU evalúa qué hacer si Norcorea avanza en su amenaza nuclear.
Lunes, 09 de Octubre de 2006
Un surcoreano será elegido hoy, si no se presentan sorpresas de último momento, sucesor del secretario general de la ONU, Kofi Annan. El Consejo de Seguridad convocó a una votación formal para decidir quién dirigirá los destinos de la organización internacional a partir de enero de 2007. Tras cumplir dos mandatos, contabilizando diez años al frente de la ONU, Annan sería relevado por Ban Ki-Moon, un diplomático de 62 años que atesora una larga trayectoria profesional y que ha estado muy vinculado a la ONU y a Estados Unidos. El surcoreano, que ocupa el Ministerio de Exteriores de su país desde 2004, vio favorecida su candidatura porque le toca a Asia, según una norma no escrita de rotación regional, ocupar el puesto en la secretaría. Ban sería confirmado en la secretaría general en un momento en que las relaciones de su vecino, Corea del Norte, con la comunidad internacional pasan por un momento de tensión.
Ban nació el 13 de junio de 1944, obtuvo la licenciatura en Relaciones Internacionales por la Universidad Nacional de Seúl en 1970 y un Master de Administración Pública por la Universidad de Harvard en 1985. El Ministerio del Exterior, que ocupa desde enero de 2004, suponía hasta ahora el colofón a una carrera diplomática que comenzó en Nueva Delhi y continuó más tarde en la misión surcoreana en la ONU. De ahí dio el salto a la Embajada de Corea del Sur en Washington. Tras su paso por Estados Unidos, Ban Ki-Moon fue nombrado viceministro de Planificación Política y Organizaciones Internacionales en 1995, un año antes de convertirse en consejero nacional de Seguridad de la Presidencia surcoreana.
Además de ser embajador de Austria, este político cristiano y padre de tres hijos se ha especializado en las relaciones entre las dos Coreas, ya que en 1992 fue vicepresidente de la Comisión de Control Nuclear entre ambos países. Ya como ministro de Exteriores, también fue uno de los participantes en las conversaciones a seis bandas de Pekín, que acordaron el año pasado ayudar económicamente a la depauperada Corea del Norte a cambio de su renuncia a las armas nucleares. Aunque no se logró un acuerdo, la oportunidad le granjeó a Ban el reconocimiento de las potencias que intervenían en la negociación: Estados Unidos, China, Japón y Rusia.
Gracias a estos contactos y la larga experiencia acumulada en el cuartel general de la ONU, al candidato surcoreano no le ha sido difícil batir a los otros seis aspirantes que optaban al puesto de secretario general. Sus rivales eran el depuesto viceprimer ministro de Tailandia, Surakiart Sathirathai; el diplomático hindú Shashi Tharoor; el embajador de Jordania en la ONU, príncipe Zeid Raad al Hussein; el diplomático de Sri Lanka Jayantha Dhanapala, el anterior titular de Finanzas afgano, Ashraf Ghani; y la presidenta de Letonia, Vaira Vike-Freiberga.
Para ser seleccionado para el puesto en votación oficial se requiere tener el apoyo de al menos nueve de los 15 países miembros del Consejo y no tener el veto de alguno de los cinco permanentes: Estados Unidos, Francia, Rusia, China y Gran Bretaña. Una vez que el Consejo alcance un acuerdo, y en cuestión de mero trámite, la persona seleccionada deberá recibir el respaldo de la Asamblea General, en donde se sientan los 192 estados miembros de la organización.
Ban llega a la votación de hoy con el apoyo de 14 de los 15 miembros del Consejo. Según fuentes diplomáticas, ha sido su reputación de “hombre de consenso” lo que ha imperado en las preferencias de los miembros del máximo órgano de decisión de la ONU. Efectivamente, Ban se autodefine como “armonizador y equilibrador” de puntos de vista diversos. El surcoreano es considerado por muchos como un diplomático muy cercano a Estados Unidos, pero él afirma que lejos de jugar en su contra, esto juega a su favor. “Sólo sé que soy alguien que puede trabajar con todo el mundo, y tener interlocución con todo el mundo. En un tiempo como el que vivimos, eso yo lo veo como ventaja”, puntualizó Ban.
Aunque todavía no fue seleccionado oficialmente, el diplomático ya está haciendo planes para su mandato. En una entrevista del diario Financial Times, Ban expresó su intención de visitar Corea del Norte con el objetivo de convencer al gobierno de ese país de la conveniencia de seguir la vía diplomática y no implicarse en “actividades negativas”. Apuntando que Annan no pudo visitar Corea del Norte durante sus diez años de mandato, Ban indicó que un viaje a ese país está claramente entre sus planes. Sobre todo después de que la semana pasada Corea del Norte anunció que hará una prueba nuclear en un futuro, con el fin de fortalecer su poder de disuasión atómica ante la “hostilidad” de Estados Unidos. Declaración que le valió una respuesta del Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU, que exhortó al país a desistir de realizar la prueba.
Ban espera poder realizar su aporte en el conflicto. “Dado que tengo un mayor conocimiento y experiencia sobre las relaciones inter-coreanas, creo que estaré en una mejor posición para abordar este asunto como secretario general”, indicó el diplomático. El interrogante que se abre es si Corea del Norte estará tan dispuesta como él a tratar el tema, siendo Bar surcoreano. El político asiático es optimista. Si bien admite sus “limitaciones” como titular surcoreano de Exteriores para interceder en la crisis, insiste en que en calidad de secretario general podrá mediar mejor entre Seúl, Pyongyang y las potencias internacionales.
Informe: Virginia Scardamaglia.
© 2000-2006 www.pagina12.com.ar|República Argentina|Todos los Derechos Reservados
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Universidad de Cambridge
Por Adrián Paenza
Lunes, 09 de Octubre de 2006
Lea este mensaje:
Sgeún un estsdio de una uinveisdad inelgsa, no importa el odren en el que las ltears etsan ersciats, la úicna csoa ipormtnate es que la pmrirea y la útlima ltera etsén ecsritas en la psioción cocrrtea. El rsteo peuden etsar taotlmntee mal y aún pordás lerelo sin pobrleams.
Etso es pquore no lemeos cada ltera por sí msima sino que la paalbra es un tdoo.
Pesornamelnte me preace icrneílbe...
Con todo, uno podría suponer que esto sólo pasa en castellano, pero el siguiente párrafo sugiere algo distinto:
Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh?
Aquí es donde a mí se me escapa totalmente mi capacidad de elaboración. ¿Cómo funciona el cerebro? ¿Cuánto realmente uno lee textualmente y cuánto uno anticipa lo que debería decir?
Recuerdo una anécdota con un grupo de amigos, que quizá sirva también para ejemplificar que uno, en realidad, tampoco escucha lo que se le dice en su totalidad, sino que “rellena lo que está por venir” con la imaginación propia. Y claro, eso suele traer algunos problemas.
Allá por el año 2001, estábamos un grupo de amigos en la cantina de David (un restaurante italiano en el corazón de Buenos Aires) y el tema del fútbol resultó inevitable, sobre todo si en la mesa estaban Carlos Griguol, Víctor Marchesini, Carlos Aimar, Luis Bonini, Miguel “Tití” Fernández, Fernando Pacini, Javier Castrilli y el propio dueño de la cantina, Antonio Laregina.
En un momento, Tití se levantó para ir al baño. Cuando él no podía escuchar, les dije a todos los otros que prestaran atención al diálogo que tendríamos con Tití cuando él retornara a la mesa, porque quería demostrarles a todos (y a mí también) lo que escribí antes: uno no siempre escucha todo. En todo caso, uno intuye lo que el otro va a decir, pone la mente en control remoto y se retira a pensar cómo seguir o algo distinto.
Cuando Tití volvió a la mesa, le pregunté:
–Decime, ¿no tenés en tu casa algún reportaje que le hubiéramos hecho a Menotti en la época de Sport 80? (Nota: eso debió suceder unos veinticinco años antes del diálogo.)
–Sí –me contestó Tití–. Yo creo que tengo varios cassettes en mi casa... (y se quedó pensando).
–Haceme un favor –le dije–. ¿Por qué no me los traés la semana que viene? Yo los escucho, los borro y no te los devuelvo nunca más.
–Está bien, Adrián, me dijo sin mayores sobresaltos. Pero no me empieces a apurar. Yo sé que los tengo, pero no recuerdo exactamente dónde. No bien los encuentro, te los traigo.
Moraleja: ante la risa generalizada, Tití seguía sin poder comprender qué había pasado. El, en realidad, había sido sólo un “conejillo de Indias” para el experimento. Yo creo que muchas veces no nos concentramos en escuchar, porque “asumimos” lo que el otro va a decir.
El cerebro usa ese tiempo, ese “ratito”, para pensar en otra cosa, pero claro, algunas veces comete un error.
© 2000-2006 www.pagina12.com.ar|República Argentina|Todos los Derechos Reservados
http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/contratapa/13-74209-2006-10-09.html
The Nation:
In Russia, a Courageous Voice is Silenced
Katrina vanden Heuvel/BLOG
Posted 10/08/2006
Russia and the world have lost a great and courageous journalist. The killing of Anna Politkovskaya on October 7 is horrifying and shocking, but not unexpected. As Oleg Panfilov, who runs Moscow's Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, said upon learning of her murder, "There are journalists who have this fate hanging over them. I always thought something would happen to Anya, first of all because of Chechnya." It was "a savage crime," said former Russian President -and the father of glasnost-Mikhail Gorbachev. "It is a blow to the entire democratic, independent press. It is a grave crime against the country, against all of us."
Politkovskaya was just 48 years old when she was found in her apartment building, shot in the head with a pistol. In the last decade, her unflinching reporting on the brutality and corruption of the Chechen war made her one of the bravest of Russia's journalists.
The numerous death threats she had received in these last few years never slowed her. In fact, when she was killed Politkovskaya was at work finishing an article-to have been published Monday-about torturers in the government of the pro-Kremlin Premier of Chechnya.
Politkavskaya was a fearless chronicler of the mass executions, the torture, the rape and kidnappings of Chechen civilians at the hands of Russian troops and security forces. She understood the cancer that was the war-and wrote and spoke of how the "Bush-Blair war on terror" had given Putin allowance to say he was fighting international terrorism. In fact, the Kremlin's policies and the brutal Russian occupation of Chechnya, she wrote in many dispatches, were instead engendering the terrorists they were supposed to eliminate.
Her raw and searing reports on the human catastrophe of the Chechen war appeared primarily in Novaya Gazeta, which has become in these last five years the main opposition newspaper in Russia. It is to Novaya's credit that her crusading investigative articles were published inside Russia. In the wake of her death, there is concern that the next victim may be her newspaper. That's why it's important that the international journalistic community defend the weekly newspaper's independent, dissenting voice. (In a little-noted development, last june Gorbachev became a minority partner/shareholder in Novaya. His role may provide some protection from any kremlin attempts to curb the paper's voice.)
I met Politkovskaya a few times-in Moscow and in New York, including at a Committee to Protect Journalist's dinner in New York where she received one of the many honors that came her way in these last years.. she spoke with fierce intensity about the horror of the war-and the injustice and corruption she believed was strangling Russia. There was a bluntness to her personal style-as there was to her investigative reporting. A mother of two, Politkovskaya spoke of her fear, and the risks she knew she faced in taking on the most powerful forces in Russia. But she never let that interfere with what she believed passionately was her duty as a journalist. In an interview two years ago with the BBC, Politkovskaya said "I am absolutely sure that risk is [a] usual part of my job; job of [a] Russian journalist, and I cannot stop because it's my duty. I think the duty of doctors is to give health to their patients, the duty of the singer is to sing. The duty of [the] journalist [is] to write what this journalist sees is the reality. It's my one duty."
Her latest book, Putin's Russia-an uncompromising indictment of her beloved country's corrupt politics-has just been published in the US. Read it. But it is her reporting on Russia's long-running brutal war -collected in a previous book, A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya,- which best explains what her friend Panfilov said on Saturday: "Whenever the question arose whether there is honest journalism in Russia, the first name that came to mind was Politkovskaya." And may it be remembered that this brave and honest journalist never compromised on the fundamental ideals of free speech and a free press in the long battle for human rights in Russia.
Since 1992, forty-two journalists in Russia have been killed-most in unsolved contract executions. Journalists-and citizens of all countries who value the importance of a free press-should join in calling on the Russian government to conduct an immediate and thorough investigation in order to find, prosecute and bring to justice those responsible for Anna Politkovskaya's murder-and those of her colleagues.
Copyright © 2006 The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut?pid=128596
ZNet | Mainstream Media
The Vocabulary of Fascism
by Steve Yoder; October 08, 2006
Just in time for the November elections, the White House is again trying to make the case that the “global war on terror” has this in common with World War II: the enemies are fascists bent on world domination. President Bush said in August that the United States is “at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation.” Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said that the administration’s critics are trying to appease “a new type of fascism.” Bush and Rumsfeld are right on message: the Associated Press reports that “Islamic fascism” is indeed the Republican buzzword for the fall campaign.
In fact, that term often has been the administration’s baton for clubbing the opposition whenever an election approaches or another outrage surfaces about Iraq. Calling out fascists also has been an easy substitute for evidence that the “war on terror” has achieved anything except create more hatred of the United States.
But what Bush and company have not done is make a substantive case that there are ideological links between terrorism by Islamic fundamentalists and 1930’s fascism. As Daniel Benjamin of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told talk show host Thom Hartmann, “There is no sense in which jihadists embrace fascist ideology as it was developed by Mussolini or anyone else who was associated with the term. This is an epithet, a way of arousing strong emotion and tarnishing one’s opponent, but it doesn’t tell us anything about the content of their beliefs.”
Since Bush and Rumsfeld have opened up the issue, it’s fair to assess whether the administration itself has ideological links with fascism. This is not a new topic, to be sure: Bush has gotten his fair share of comparisons to Hitler. Most of these have been ill conceived in terms of effect: Bush has not ordered Muslims into death camps en masse, outlawed opposition parties, or used overt lebensraum logic to justify invading two countries.
But in terms of language, the administration’s link to the Nazis deserves serious scrutiny. What follows is a sampling of how the administration’s messaging stacks up with that of the Third Reich on war, national security, and executive power.
Allies and Enemies
“Over time it’s going to be important for nations to know they will be held accountable for inactivity. You’re either with us or against us in the fight against terror.”
– George W. Bush, 2001
“My party comrades, today the swastika forces the world to take a position for or against us. The world must decide, it has no choice. There can be no compromise.”
– Dr. Robert Ley, Nazi Reich Organization Leader, 1939
Executive Authority
“In light of the President’s complete authority over the conduct of war, without a clear statement otherwise, we will not read a criminal statute as infringing on the President’s ultimate authority . . . . Congress lacks authority under Article I to set the terms and conditions under which the President may exercise his authority as Commander-in-Chief . . . .”
– Memo by Judge Jay Bybee, head of the Bush administration’s Office of Legal Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice, 2002
“The authority of the Fuehrer is not limited by checks and controls, by special autonomous bodies or individual rights, but it is free and independent, all-inclusive and unlimited . . . .”
– Adolf Hitler, 1934
International Law
“In my judgment, this new paradigm [of the stateless terrorist] renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners . . . .”
– Alberto Gonzalez, then White House Counsel (now Attorney General), 2002
“Geneva Conventions? Obsolete rubbish.”
– Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, chief of staff of the German Army, 1939
International Opinion
“Our job is not to conduct international opinion polls, but to defend the American people.”
– Dick Cheney, 2004
“Any attempt to criticize, judge or reject my actions from the rostrum of international presumption has no foundation before history and personally leaves me stone-cold.”
– Adolf Hitler, 1939
Interrogation
“Problem: The current guidelines for interrogation procedures at GTMO [Guantanamo] limit the ability of interrogators to counter advanced resistance. [Approved] category II techniques [include] (1) the use of stress positions (like standing), for a maximum of four hours. . . . (5) deprivation of light and auditory stimuli . . . (7) the use of 28-hour interrogations . . . (9) switching the detainee from hot rations to MREs [meals ready to eat]. . . (12) using detainees’ individual phobias (such as fear of dogs) to induce stress.”
– Memorandum signed by Donald Rumsfeld in 2002 with the note, “However, I stand for 8–10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?”
“Third degree may only be applied if it is clear from preliminary investigation that the prisoner can give information on important facts, as social or subversive to the State and to the Reich, but will not disclose what he knows, and the information cannot be obtained by investigation . . . . Third degree can, according to the circumstances, consist, among other methods, of very simple diet (water and bread), hard bunk, dark cell, deprivation of sleep, exhaustion drill, but also in the administration of flogging (for more than 20 strokes a doctor must be consulted).”
– Heinrich Mueller, Chief of the Gestapo, 1942
Peace
“Weakness and drift and vacillation in the face of danger invite attacks. . . . Only America has the might and the will to lead the world through a time of peril, toward greater security and peace.”
– Dick Cheney, 2003
“A defenseless nation is a danger to peace. Its defenselessness all too easily invites the attention of easy attacks by foreign armies.”
– Rudolf Hess, Nazi Party Deputy Fuehrer, 1934
Preemptive War
“I don’t think it makes any sense if you’re serious about prosecuting the war on terror, if you’re serious about defending the nation, if you believe as I do and the President does that the best defense is a good offense, that you’ve got to go on offense and go after them over there where they plot and train and plan so we don’t have to fight them here at home.”
– Dick Cheney, 2004
“For perhaps many a person will ask himself the question, why are we fighting at such great distances? We are fighting at such great distances in order to protect our homeland, in order to keep the war as far removed from it as possible . . . . It is therefore preferable to keep the front line at a distance of 1,000 and if necessary 2,000 kilometers from the borders of the Reich, than to hold that front somewhere near the border of the Reich and to be forced to hold it there.”
– Adolf Hitler, 1942
Prisoners of War
“Under Article 4 of the Geneva Convention, Taliban detainees are not entitled to POW status . . . . To qualify as POWs under Article 4, al Qaeda and Taliban detainees . . . would have to have worn uniforms or other distinctive signs visible at a distance . . . .”
– Ari Fleischer, White House Press Secretary, 2003
“[English and American] sabotage units in civilian clothes or German uniform have no claim to treatment as prisoners of war.”
– Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, German Chief of Military Intelligence, 1942
(Here both the Nazis and the Bush administration ignored a key provision of the Geneva Conventions, which requires that all prisoners be given prisoner-of-war status until a court determines otherwise.)
Propaganda
“We don’t lie. We don’t need to lie. We do empower our operational commanders with the ability to inform the Iraqi public, but everything we do is based on fact, not based on fiction.”
– Major General Rick Lynch, spokesman for the Multinational Force in Iraq, on the U.S. military’s practice, with Bush administration approval, of planting news stories in Iraqi newspapers that are written by U.S. soldiers posing as freelance journalists.
“Its [propaganda’s] task is the highest creative art of putting sometimes complicated events and facts in a way simple enough to be understood by the man on the street . . . . Good propaganda does not need to lie, indeed it may not lie.”
– Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister, 1934
Torture
“In the absence of any textual provision to the contrary, we assume self-defense can be an appropriate defense to an allegation of torture.”
– Memo by Judge Jay Bybee, head of the Bush administration’s Office of Legal Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice, 2002
“In the occupied territories, where occupation personnel were daily threatened by attempts on their lives, more severe methods of interrogation were permitted, if it was thought that in this manner the lives of German soldiers and officials might be protected against such threatened attempts.”
– Dr. Robert Servatius, defense counsel for accused Nazi war criminals at the Nuremburg trials, 1946
Troops
“And in this long run, we can be confident in the outcome of this struggle . . . because we have on our side the greatest force for freedom in the history of the world: the men and women of the United States Armed Forces.”
– George W. Bush, 2006
“Our enemies claim that the F?hrer’s soldiers marched as conquerors through the lands of Europe—but wherever they came, they brought prosperity and happiness, peace, order, reliable conditions, a plenitude of work, and therefore a decent life.”
– Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister, 1945
Us Versus Them
“But my most important job these days is to protect the homeland, is to protect America against nothing but a bunch of cold-blooded killers. Protect our country against people who hate us because of what we love. They hate us because we love freedom. They hate us because we love the idea that people can worship an almighty God any way they see fit. They hate us because we speak our mind, we allow public discourse and dissent. They hate us because we have a free press. And so long as we love freedom, they’ll hate us.”
– George W. Bush, 2002
“No one can doubt that the warmongering cliques in London and Paris want to stifle Germany, to destroy the German people. . . . They hate our people because it is decent, brave, industrious, hardworking, and intelligent. They hate our views, our social policies, and our accomplishments. They hate us as a Reich and as a community.”
– Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister, 1939
History is our most reliable judge of leaders. Napoleon, Andrew Jackson, Stalin, Pinochet, Efrain Rios Montt—all had what appeared at the time to be perfectly logical arguments for their draconian steps in defense of their nations. Today, hindsight tells us that their crimes were monstrous.
Likewise, without a historical reference, it’s a losing battle to debate this administration’s individual wartime policies. Bush likes to say, “We just disagree, that’s all,” or “That’s just politics,” when opponents object to the summary disappearance and torture of alleged terrorists, planting of false media stories, or advocacy of an all-powerful executive branch.
Bush’s deeper message is that it’s up to the voters to choose from competing value systems: due process versus good intelligence, press freedom versus the need to promote support for the troops, checks and balances versus absolute Presidential authority to act quickly to protect the country. The administration will always win these arguments politically because they know that scared citizens—whether Germans in 1936 or Americans in 2006—will choose security over democracy, ends over means. Hitler, after all, was made Fuehrer by the will of the German voters.
Rather, when challenging individual administration policies, we need to state the obvious: the President, like Hitler, is using war to further personal and national power and is using Hitler’s language to convince us to go along. History has passed judgment on the autocratic, ultranationalist, expansionist thinking that drives the Bush administration, as it did the Third Reich. That verdict was rendered at Nuremburg: the Nazis, despite their sophisticated legalisms in defense of their innocence, were war criminals.
We have reason to boil over when we hear Bush talk as though he were the world’s commander-in-chief, dismiss Red Cross requests to visit secret U.S. prisons overseas, and defend his lawyers’ opinions that there is no check on his authority.
It’s because we’ve heard it before.
Steven Yoder is a writer based in Willow, New York.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=21&ItemID=11143
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