Saturday, April 12, 2008
Italian probe alleges huge arms sale bid by Libya in grab for global role
The Libyan officer tried to cloak the purpose of his call to the Italian arms dealer. "A friend," he said, wanted to buy 1 million "pieces" and 50 million items of "food."
But when that phone call was placed in 2006, Italian police were listening. They knew the meaning. Libya was shopping for guns - lots of them.
Authorities shadowed the negotiations between Libyan officials and a group of black-market dealers from across Italy for a year before they moved in and broke up what would have been a $64 million deal for hundreds of thousands of Chinese-made assault rifles.
The case, detailed in documents obtained by The Associated Press, raises questions about whether Libya, a country eagerly shedding its reputation as a sponsor of terrorism, is still surreptitiously supporting suspect groups and regimes. The investigation also underscores the Italian underworld's role as a go-between for illegal arms deals. (AP)
Robert Fisk: Semantics can't mask Bush's chicanery
After his latest shenanigans, I've come to the conclusion that George Bush is the first US president to march backwards. First we had weapons of mass destruction. Then, when they proved to be a myth, Bush told us we had stopped Saddam's "programmes" for weapons of mass destruction (which happened to be another lie).
Now he's gone a stage further. After announcing victory in Iraq in 2003 and "mission accomplished" and telling us how this enormous achievement would lead the 21st century into a "shining age of human liberty", George Bush told us this week that "thanks to the surge, we've renewed and revived the prospect of success".
Now let's take a look at this piece of chicanery and subject it to a little linguistic analysis. Five years ago, it was victory – ie success – but this has now been transmogrified into a mere "prospect" of success. And not a "prospect", mark you, that has even been glimpsed. No, we have "renewed" and "revived" this prospect. "Revived", as in "brought back from the dead". Am I the only one to be sickened by this obscene semantics? How on earth can you "renew" a "prospect", let alone a prospect that continues to be bathed in Iraqi blood, a subject Bush wisely chose to avoid? (Independent - Statistical Comparison with Vietnam and Korea towards the end)
Iran pressed to free campaigner
Hundreds of civil society activists in Iran have signed an open letter calling for the release of women's rights defender Khadijeh Moghaddam.
Mrs Moghaddam, who is also a campaigner for the environment, was arrested on 8 April and accused of acting against national security.
She is very involved in the drive to gather one million signatures opposing laws that discriminate against women.
The open letter was sent to newspapers and websites across Iran.
Bail for Mrs Moghaddam, 56, was set at more than $100,000 (63,000 euros). (BBC)
Labels: Iran, Womens Rights
Food prices fuel security fears
The head of the UN food agency has said that rising food prices are a threat to security in developing nations, and called for an increase in funding to address the crisis.
The comments by Jacques Diouf, head of the Food and Agriculture Organisation [FAO], came after rioting in several countries over increasing food prices.
"I'm surprised I have not been summoned to the UN Security Council, since many problems discussed there do not have the same consequences for peace and security in the world and the human rights of people who need to be fed," Diouf said on Friday.
Between $1.2bn and $1.8bn is needed to help ease the crises in developing nations, he said.
An FAO report released this week says that 37 countries were experiencing severe problems in supplying cheap food to their citizens.
Speculation on world food markets is reducing the effectiveness of increased food production, the report said. (Al Jazeera)
Labels: U.N.
Iraq: Mass Grave Found South of Baghdad
Iraqi soldiers acting on tips from detained Shiite militiamen found 14 bodies Saturday that had been buried in a field south of Baghdad, officials said.
It was the second discovery this week of mass graves in the area, raising to 44 the number of bodies located by Iraqi troops.
Twelve bodies found Saturday had been dumped in one grave about 500 yards away from the local office of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's movement, while two others were buried together in a nearby area on the western outskirts of Mahmoudiya, a city spokesman said.
The spokesman, Ather Kamil, said the bodies were found after members of al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia were detained and confessed to killing and burying dozens of Sunnis as well as some Shiites killed for criminal purposes. (AP)
Labels: Iraq
Thousands of Turks march in anti-government rally
Thousands of secularist Turks rallied in Ankara on Saturday against the ruling AK Party, which is facing a high court challenge by a prosecutor who wants it shut down for alleged Islamist activities.
Demonstrators waving red Turkish flags and pictures of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey, chanted slogans against the AK Party and the European Union, criticized by many Turks for perceived meddling in Turkey's domestic politics.
Turkish TV put the numbers at roughly 20,000 people, with many coming from faraway cities.
The Constitutional Court last month agreed to hear the case calling for 71 AK Party officials, including Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, to be banned from politics for five years. (Reuters)
Labels: Turkey
Kuwait diwaniya ban sparks protest
Kuwaiti authorities have used force to disperse a crowd protesting over a clampdown on diwaniyas, traditional meeting places, banned by law.
Colonel Mohammed al-Saber, the interior ministry spokesman, said in comments carried on Kuwaiti state television that no one was seriously injured in the clash on Friday in Sabahiya, south of the capital.
Special forces intervened and disperse more than 1,000 people who threw stones at them during an alleged secret vote for tribal primaries at a diwaniya, al-Saber said.
The TV showed forces beating back people with batons and using tear gas. Al-Saber said authorities used minimum force.
Friday's incident was the second time in a month that tribal members clashed with police over primaries that became illegal in 1998 in the Gulf country. (Al Jazeera)
Labels: Free Speech, Kuwait
Iran top nuclear official to meet ElBaradei: IRNA
A top Iranian official will discuss his country's disputed nuclear program with the U.N. atomic watchdog boss Mohamed ElBaradei in Vienna this week, the official IRNA news agency reported on Saturday.
IRNA said the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, Gholamreza Aghazadeh, would meet on Monday with ElBaradei, the head of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency.
The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany will meet on April 16 in Shanghai to discuss whether to sweeten incentives they offered Iran in 2006 to curb its nuclear program, which they fear could produce a bomb.
Iran announced on Tuesday it had expanded its nuclear work by starting to install 6,000 more centrifuges, defying international demands to halt the sensitive atomic work. (Reuters)
Labels: IAEA, Iran, Nuclear Power, U.N.
Mass grave unearthed in northern Afghanistan
Afghan authorities have discovered a mass grave containing at least 100 bodies believed to be victims of a Taliban massacre in the 1990s, security officials said on Saturday.
The grave was discovered in the northern province of Balkh, about 15 km (10 miles) from the city of Mazar-i-Sharif.
Provincial security official Abdurrauf Taj said about 100 bodies had been found in the grave, which is about 100 meters (yards) from a residential area.
"We expect the number may rise," Taj told Reuters.
Residents of the area said they suspected the dead were members of the Hazara ethnic minority, massacred after the Taliban captured the area in the late 1990s.
"These were all innocent people killed by the Taliban," said shopkeeper Mohammad Sami. (Reuters)
Labels: Afghanistan, Taliban
24 Taliban Killed in Afghanistan
Afghan and foreign troops clashed with and called airstrikes on militants in southern Afghanistan, leaving 24 dead and eight wounded, an official said Saturday.
The fighting was in two separate mountainous areas of Zabul province late Friday, said provincial deputy governor Ghulab Shah Alikheil.
The operation was aimed at militants responsible for Tuesday's ambush on a road construction crew in the province that left 17 people killed and 16 others wounded, Alikheil said.
There were no casualties among the joint forces, he said.
Road-building is a key part of Afghan reconstruction and many projects are in remote, insurgency-plagued areas. Militants have targeted work crews in roadside bomb attacks, ambushes and kidnappings, killing and wounding dozens of workers and their private security guards. (AP)
Labels: Afghanistan, Taliban
US says Iranian boats 'taunted' warships in Gulf waters, Iran denies confrontation
Iranian boats engaged in a "mild" and "taunting" incident with a US warship in the Gulf, CNN television reported Friday, while a source in the navy of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards told Iran's Al-Alam Arabic television that Iranian vessels did not engage in any kind of "confrontation."
Late Thursday the three small Iranian boats approached the USS Typhoon, the CNN report said.
"One of those Iranian boats came within 200 yards of the navy boat," CNN reported, "leading the crew onboard the Typhoon to fire a warning flare."
"The Iranians were manning in a taunting manner," CNN said, citing an unidentified American official. (Daily Star)
Bush Approved Meetings on Interrogation Techniques
President Bush said Friday that he was aware his top national security advisers had discussed the details of harsh interrogation tactics to be used on detainees.
Bush also said in an interview with ABC News that he approved of the meetings, which were held as the CIA began to prepare for a secret interrogation program that included waterboarding, or simulated drowning, and other coercive techniques.
"Well, we started to connect the dots, in order to protect the American people" by learning what various detainees knew, Bush said in the interview at the presidential ranch here. "And yes, I'm aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved."
The remarks underscore the extent to which the top officials were directly involved in setting the controversial interrogation policies. (Washington Post)
Iran Top Threat To Iraq, U.S. Says
Last week's violence in Basra and Baghdad has convinced the Bush administration that actions by Iran, and not al-Qaeda, are the primary threat inside Iraq, and has sparked a broad reassessment of policy in the region, according to senior U.S. officials.
Evidence of an increase in Iranian weapons, training and direction for the Shiite militias that battled U.S. and Iraqi security forces in those two cities has fixed new U.S. attention on what Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates yesterday called Tehran's "malign" influence, the officials said.
The intensified focus on Iran coincides with diminished emphasis on al-Qaeda in Iraq as the leading justification for an ongoing U.S. military presence in Iraq. (Washington Post)
Rice condemns Carter's Hamas plans
Condoleezza Rice has criticised reported plans by former US president Jimmy Carter to meet a senior Hamas leader in Syria next week.
"I find it hard to understand what is to be gained by having discussions with Hamas about peace when Hamas is in fact the impediment to peace," the US secretary of state said in Washington on Friday.
Carter, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, could meet Khalid Meshaal, the exiled leader of Hamas, during a trip to the Middle East that begins on Sunday.
Hamas has said the meeting will take place but Carter is yet to confirm it.
The US state department has urged Carter not to violate foreign policy by meeting Hamas's political leader. (Al Jazeera)
US Iraq envoy stresses Arab role
The US ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, has called on Arab countries to do more to support Iraq.
"You can't beat something with nothing," he said, urging great Arab diplomatic and economic engagement to counterbalance Iranian influence.
He added that the US was ready to hold security talks to Iran in Baghdad but was waiting for an Iranian response.
Mr Crocker was speaking after a week of testimonies in front of the US Congress, on progress made in Iraq.
President George W Bush on Thursday announced that he was reducing the length of the deployment tour in Iraq back to 12 months, down from 15, but said there would be no further pull-out of troops after the five surge brigades return home this summer.
Mr Crocker talked again at length about what the US sees as Iran's negative role in Iraq but he struck a slightly more positive note than during the Iraq hearings in Congress.
Iran, he said, was not about to take over its neighbour and he spoke of a backlash starting against Iranian-backed militias in Iraq. (BBC)
Gates Says US Not Likely To Arrest Moqtada al-Sadr
Defense Secretary Robert Gates says it is unlikely radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr would be subject to arrest by U.S. forces if he returns to Iraq. In related developments, unidentified gunmen have shot and killed a senior aide to al-Sadr in the southern holy city of Najaf. VOA Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from Washington.
Secretary Gates was asked at a Pentagon news conference if he considers Moqtada al-Sadr to be an enemy of the United States. Gates said those who are prepared to work within the political process in Iraq are not enemies of the United States. When asked about the prospects of arresting Sadr if he returns to Iraq, Gates said he would be surprised if that happened.
"He is a significant political figure. And clearly if he is willing to work within ... we want him to work within the political process in Iraq. He has a large following," he said.
Secretary Gates said it is important that the cleric become a part of the political process if he is not already. (VoA)
Labels: Iraq, Mehdi Army, U.S.
Struggling country where bread means life
It is an overcast morning in the Bulaq neighbourhood of Cairo, three hours after the muezzin's call to prayer. The streets are choked with honking cars, while goats - and a few ragged-looking people - pick at piles of stinking rubbish overflowing from metal wheelie bins.
Tempers flare outside a government bakery as the smell of hot baladi (country) bread wafts out from the ovens. There is pushing and shoving as a worker appears at the window to hand out plastic bags of the rough, round flat loaves - each weighing a standard 160 grams (5.5oz)- to customers.
"I've been here since before six and this is what I get," grumbles Umm Islam, her face contorted in fury. "My husband is retired and I have five children and it's not enough."
Others complain of their pitifully small incomes and shortages. In the last two months 11 people have died in bread queues, either from exhaustion, heart attacks, brawls or accidents. (Guardian)
Labels: Egypt
Israel warns troops of Facebook security risk
The use of Facebook by off-duty soldiers is a security threat, say Israeli military authorities. They have imposed rules to stop Israeli soldiers and the military's civilian employees revealing security-sensitive information on Facebook and other social networking sites.
Defence officials say some soldiers have inadvertently uploaded information that compromises security, as well as pictures of the networkers with classified equipment.
The new rules reportedly allow soldiers to create pages on such sites provided they do not disclose they are in the Israeli forces or describe their work. The Israeli military said that as part of its ongoing activity "to increase awareness of the dangers of military information exposure" it "works to apply the rules and inform about this subject". (Independent)
Labels: Israel
Barack Obama campaign launches Hebrew blog in Israel
Barack Obama has launched a Hebrew blog in Israel, which an aide Eric Lynn says Obama hopes will help strengthen his ties with the Israeli public.
The blog that opened Friday includes Obama's speech to a pro-Israel lobby in March. (Click here to view the blog.)
Lynn says at the bottom of the blog that Obama is committed to Israel's
security.
The Yediot Ahronot newspaper reported Friday that Obama's campaign insisted that the blog be opened before the Democratic primary April 22 in Pennsylvania. The state has a large Jewish population.
Obama's staff has worked hard to disprove a mass e-mail campaign, which had leveled a succession of allegations against the candidate, branding him a secret anti-Semite, a closet Muslim who took his official oath of office with his hand on the Koran instead of the Bible, and a disciple of fiery Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.
The campaign further alleged that several of Obama's Mideast policy advisors are pro-Palestinian haters of Israel. (AP and Haaretz)
New Iran incentives, sanctions unlikely now -Rice
The United States will consider both fresh incentives or sanctions to persuade Iran to rein in its nuclear program but major changes are unlikely now, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Friday.
"We will always continue to consider refreshing both tracks but this is not the time, I think, to expect major changes," Rice told reporters.
"We have just passed a (U.N.) Security Council resolution (imposing additional sanctions) and we will see how Iran responds," she added at a news conference with Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Senior officials from the major powers dealing with Iran -- the United States, France, Germany, Britain, Russia and China -- are due to meet on April 16 in Shanghai to discuss what the next steps should be against Iran.
China and Russia are pushing for greater incentives to get Iran to give up sensitive nuclear work that the West believes is aimed at building a nuclear bomb and Tehran says is aimed at increasing its civilian power capacity. (Reuters)
Friday, April 11, 2008
US raids claim lives in Iraq cities
Fresh US air strikes have killed at least 12 people in Baghdad and Basra amid continued street battles between Shia fighters and Iraqi security forces in the two Iraqi cities.
Six fighters were killed by US aircraft in the southern port city of Basra early on Friday, hours after a Hellfire missile fired from a drone killed six fighters in the capital, US and British military officials said.
The US military said an unmanned aircraft fired a Hellfire missile and killed six "heavily armed criminals" at around 9:45pm local time (1845 GMT) on Thursday.
It said the missile was fired after the drone observed a large group of people with rocket-propelled grenade launchers and mortar tubes.
Two previous air strikes announced by the military on Thursday killed six people in similar cricumstances. (Al Jazeera)
Labels: Iraq, Mehdi Army, U.S.
Israeli tanks in deadly Gaza raid
A 12-year-old Palestinian boy has been killed and seven other people injured after several Israeli tanks and bulldozers crossed into Gaza Strip and engaged in a gun battle with Palestinian fighters.
Palestinian security sources said that 10 tanks and two bulldozers entered 1km into Gaza on Friday, west of the Bureij refugee camp.
The incursion drew heavy fire from Palestinian fighters.
An Israeli army spokeswoman confirmed that forces were operating in Gaza and had come under gun and mortar fire.
The incursion comes after two Hamas fighters were killed in an overnight Israeli air strike in southern Gaza, and two days after Palestinian fighters carried out a cross-border raid in which two Israelis were killed.
The two Palestinians killed in Thursday's strike were named as cousins Mohammed and Amil Al Najaf, both members of Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades. (Al Jazeera)
Labels: Hamas, Israel, Palestine
Israel removes fewer roadblocks than promised: U.N.
Israel has removed 44 roadblocks in the occupied West Bank, short of the number promised to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a United Nations agency has found.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said most of the roadblocks removed were of little or no significance.
Palestinians say Israel's network of hundreds of checkpoints and roadblocks amount to collective punishment, stifle their economy and undermine support for U.S.-backed peace talks.
Israel says the barriers are needed to stop suicide bombers from reaching its cities.
OCHA, which charts the location of roadblocks in the West Bank, conducted its own field survey of the 61 obstacles that Israel said it removed earlier this month after Rice's visit. (Reuters)
Israeli nuclear dissident seeks asylum in Norway
Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu has asked for asylum in Norway for a second time, Norwegian officials said on Friday, but they held out no hope that he would be accepted.
Vanunu, whom Israeli authorities have prevented from leaving Israel, sent his application directly to Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg. His first asylum application to Norway in 2004 was rejected.
"We received it yesterday and it has been sent to the Ministry of Labour and Social Inclusion, which will handle it," a spokeswoman for the prime minister's office said.
Vanunu was convicted of treason and imprisoned for 18 years after telling a British newspaper in 1986 about his work as a technician at Israel's main atomic reactor, disclosures which cracked the secrecy around the assumed Israeli nuclear arsenal.
He was released from prison in 2004 but has not been allowed to leave Israel and in 2007 was sentenced to six months in prison for violating his parole. (Reuters)
Labels: Israel
'Hamas has built up a force of 20,000'
Since 2005's disengagement from the Gaza Strip, Hamas has forged a formidable military of 20,000 men, many of whom have been trained in Iran and Lebanon, an Israeli think tank said in report issued on Thursday.
Entitled "Hamas's Military Buildup in the Gaza Strip," the report - compiled by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center - detailed the structure of the Hamas military force in Gaza, naming commanders of its various brigades and the types of weapons it had succeeded in smuggling in from Egypt via tunnels underneath the Philadelphi Corridor.
According to the think tank, which receives its information from the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), Hamas's military buildup will take a few years to finish.
Hamas's military capabilities are based on the Izzadin Kassam Brigades - the group's military wing, responsible for terror attacks against Israel. (JPost)
Labels: Hamas, Israel, Palestine
Alcohol fatwa sparks controversy
A prominent Egyptian cleric has created controversy by issuing a fatwa that says tiny amounts of alcohol are permissible in Islam.
Yusuf al-Qaradawi's fatwa says a level of 0.5% is allowed, whereas most Muslims would say alcohol of any quantity is banned.
Sheikh Qaradawi was recently refused entry to Britain as the UK government said his views could spark violence.
He issued his fatwa in response to a question about high energy drinks.
Sheikh Qaradawi is talking about tiny quantities of alcohol - equivalent to about one-eighth of that found in one unit of light beer.
He ruled there was no religious ban on consuming drinks with a minute amount of alcohol in them if it was formed naturally through the process of fermentation. (BBC)
Slowdown to hit world oil demand
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has cut its forecast for oil demand in 2008 on expectations of a global economic slowdown.
The IEA has cut its 2008 forecast by 310,000 barrels per day to 87.2 million barrels per day.
The revision came after new projections on slower worldwide economic growth by the International Monetary Fund.
But demand for oil, which hit a record above $112 on Wednesday, is still expected to be 1.5% higher than 2007. (BBC)
Labels: Oil
Cheney 'approved' waterboarding
The US vice-president approved the use of waterboarding against al-Qaeda suspects, US media reports have said.
Dick Cheney and other senior Bush administration officials attended meetings to approve harsh interrogation techniques, which took place after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the US, ABC news and The Associated Press reported.
The officials took care to insulate George Bush, the US president, from the meetings, where waterboarding - simulating drowning and feelings of suffocation by causing reflexive choking and gagging - sleep deprivation and slaps and pushes were approved, according to the reports.
Participants were said to be members of a National Security Council's Principals Committee, a senior group of advisors to the president Bush.
Condoleezza Rice, formerly national security adviser now US secretary of state, Donald Rumsfeld, the former US defence secretary, Colin Powell, who was secretary of state, George Tenet, the former CIA director and John Ashcroft, the former US attorney-general also reportedly attended the meetings.
It was unclear which officials attended which meetings.
Al Jazeera contacted the White House for a reaction, but it declined to comment. (Al Jazeera)
Labels: Al Qaeda, Torture, U.S.
US tells Carter not to meet Hamas
The US state department has urged Jimmy Carter, the former president, not to violate foreign policy by meeting Hamas's political leader during a tour of the Middle East next week.
The "advice" follows plans by Carter to meet Khaled Meshaal in Syria on a nine-day trip that is to include Israel, the West Bank, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
On Thursday Hamas officials said Carter had requested a meeting with Meshaal, the Palestinian group's political leader in exile in Syria.
"There is an agreement to hold the meeting and arrangements are under way," Ayman Taha told Reuters, adding that the meeting had been fixed for April 18.
The US-based Carter Centre did not confirm the meeting or "any specifics" in Carter's undisclosed itinerary. (Al Jazeera)
Labels: Hamas, Israel, Palestine, U.S.
Middle East water crisis warning
Governments in the Middle East and North Africa need to invest now if they want to avoid severe water shortages in the future, the World Bank has warned.
The amount of water available per person in the arid region will halve by 2050, a report from the bank estimates.
It blames climate change and population growth for new pressures on supplies.
Governments in the region should tackle water waste, build more efficient networks and reduce water use, the World Bank says.
The bank's report suggests agriculture is a key target area.
With 85% of water-use devoted to agriculture, the report suggests countries such as Morocco will have to cut back on irrigation and switch to crops that require less water but earn more money. (BBC)
Labels: Water, World Bank
Egyptian opposition party condemns crackdown
Egyptian opposition movement Kefaya on Thursday slammed a wave of arrests of its members for involvement in violent protests earlier this week, saying the authorities were behind the unrest. The movement, whose popular demonstrations calling for President Hosni Mubarak to step down grabbed the spotlight in 2005, said that 61 of its members had been arrested, including former chief George Ishaq, on Wednesday night. The arrests came after two days of unrest, sparked by a call for a general strike to be held on Sunday.
At least one person was killed and 300 arrested in the rioting in the Nile Delta industrial city of Mahalla. "George Ishaq was arrested on the orders of the magistrate for incitement to strike, calling for demonstrations and involvement in the troubles in Mahalla," a security official said. Kefaya leader Abdelwahab al-Missir told journalists in Cairo that the authorities were behind the violence in Mahalla as "agents were employed to create chaos and justify the massacre." (AFP)
Labels: Egypt, Fair Elections
Mehdi Army truce 'will definitely be lifted' if Sadr City siege continues
The movement of Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on Thursday said it was "under siege" by security forces in its Baghdad bastion and warned its militia were ready to take up arms again. "Today, 3 million inhabitants of Sadr City are under siege. They are prevented from leaving and from reaching food supplies," said Salman al-Fraiji, head of the Sadrists in the sprawling Baghdad district.
"We will obey the orders of Muqtada al-Sadr but if the violence against the Iraqis continues, if the blood of Iraqis continues to be spilled, the cease-fire will definitely be lifted," he said, referring to a truce being observed by Sadr's Mehdi Army militia since August.
Residents of Sadr City, Fraiji said, are continually being targeted by US military snipers and bombed by American warplanes. From Sunday, US and Iraqi forces have been pushing into Sadr City in operations the American military says are targeted at "criminals" firing rockets and mortars into Baghdad neighborhoods and at the fortified Green Zone where the Iraqi government and the US Embassy are based.
"Many civilians, including women and children, have been killed and there are ongoing arbitrary arrests," said the Sadrist chief in an interview in his office in the heart of Sadr City. (AFP)
Labels: Iraq, Mehdi Army, U.S.
US 'sabotaging' cluster-bomb treaty
A leading group working on behalf of disabled people has accused the United States of pressuring European and African countries not to join a new treaty next month banning cluster bombs. "Five weeks before the conclusion of the historic Cluster Munition Treaty, Handicap International urges states to resist the growing pressure from the US and other arms-producing countries," the group said in a statement on Wednesday.
Cluster bombs are notorious for killing and maiming civilians. They contain smaller bomblets, which scatter over a wide area and can explode decades after a conflict has ended.
The treaty banning the weapons is expected to be published in Dublin during an event involving almost 100 countries from May 19 to 30.
"We got evidence from a number of states they have been lobbied, sometimes very aggressively, by the US," said Stan Brabant, head of the non-governmental organization's Belgian section. He said African states had been threatened with losing aid from the United States if they signed up. He also accused Britain and the Netherlands of trying to weaken treaty provisions on helping the victims of such weapons. (AFP)
Labels: U.S., Weapons Ban
U.S., Iraq Negotiating Security Agreements
The Bush administration is negotiating two accords with the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to replace the U.N. mandate for a multinational military presence there that expires at the end of this year.
The first is a "status of forces agreement," or SOFA, defining and protecting the legal status of U.S. military personnel and property in Iraq. Negotiated and signed under executive authority, it is a binding commitment but does not require congressional approval.
Among aspects unique to the proposed SOFA, Senate Democrats said, are that it would allow U.S. forces to unilaterally initiate military operations and to detain Iraqis, and would immunize civilian U.S. contractors from prosecution in Iraq. (Washington Post)
Turkey jails Kurdish Nobel nominee
A Turkish court has sentenced Leyla Zana, a Kurdish politician and former Nobel peace prize nominee, to two years in prison for spreading "terrorist" propaganda, court officials said.
Zana was convicted in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir for a speech she made at Kurdish festival last year.
In the speech, she said that the Kurdish people had three leaders, Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani, Kurdish politicians in northern Iraq, and Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader.
Zana came to prominence in 1994 when she was convicted for links to the PKK, which is outlawed in Turkey.
She was released in 2004 after Turkey's appeals court overturned her conviction and that of three other Kurdish former politicians. (Al Jazeera)
Labels: Free Speech, Turkey
American envoy to UN may run against Karzai after quitting post
Zalmay Khalilzad, the American envoy to the United Nations and an influential figure in the Bush administration, may run against Hamid Karzai for the Afghan presidency after resigning from his post.
Mr Khalilzad, who is Afghan-born, fuelled recurring reports of his political ambitions by appearing on television in Kabul to announce that he is to leave his job and wants to be "at the service of the Afghan people".
Although Mr Khalilzad, who holds US citizenship, added: "I have said earlier that I am not a candidate for any position in Afghanistan," his decision to step down from the prestigious UN job has been widely regarded as clearing the way for a run at the Afghan leadership, with President Karzai facing serious and mounting internal and international criticism. (Independent)
Labels: Afghanistan
Warlord: The rise of Muqtada al-Sadr
In early March 2004, I went to visit the office of al-Hawza, Muqtada al-Sadr's newspaper in Baghdad. There were only a few staff there, but they were relaxed and friendly. I talked to a young man called Hussein who was a student in the French department at Mustansiriyah University on Palestine Street near Sadr City, which was increasingly under Sadrist control. He was explaining the Sadrist positions on various questions when he was interrupted by the roar of an explosion nearer to the city centre.
I said I would have to cut short our meeting to go to the nearest hospital to talk to the injured. It was almost impossible to get to the site of a bomb blast in central Baghdad, unless one was very close by when it happened, because the explosion immediately caused immense traffic jams. I had discovered that the best way to find out what had happened was to go directly to the hospitals receiving the casualties and talk to survivors and their friends. (Independent)
Labels: Iraq, Mehdi Army, U.S.
Barak: Up quota for Palestinian workers
A day after two Israelis were killed in a Palestinian cross-border raid at Nahal Oz, officials announced on Thursday that Defense Minister Ehud Barak will ask the government to increase the quota of Palestinian workers allowed into Israel from the West Bank.
Illegal Palestinian construction workers line up after being caught by a volunteer border police unit in Har Homa near Jerusalem. None were wanted by security services and they were released into the territories two hours later.
The move is part of the gesture package presented by Barak to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salaam Fayad during their meeting in Jerusalem two weeks ago.
Barak planned to ask the cabinet on Sunday to increase the number of Palestinians allowed into Israel for construction work from 14,000 to close to 20,000. This would bring the total number of Palestinians allowed into Israel for work to nearly 25,000. (JPost)
Gunmen Kill Sadrist Official in Iraq
A senior aide to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr was assassinated Friday in the holy city of Najaf, officials said. Authorities immediately announced a citywide curfew and security forces were seen deploying on the streets.
The killing threatened to raise tensions amid a violent standoff between al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia and the U.S.-backed Iraqi government.
Riyadh al-Nouri, the director of al-Sadr's office in Najaf, was gunned down as he drove home after attending Friday prayers in the adjacent city of Kufa, a police officer and a local Sadrist official said. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Al-Sadr has his headquarters in Najaf, but the shrines in that city are dominated by a rival Shiite group and most of his followers are concentrated in Kufa. (AP)
Labels: Iraq, Mehdi Army
Egypt: Pro-democracy activist charged
Prosecutors charged a key leader of Egypt's main pro-democracy group on Thursday with inciting unrest and violence, officials said, four days after thousands stayed home from work and school as part of a nationwide strike.
George Ishaq, co-founder of the opposition group Kifaya, was arrested Wednesday night in a raid on his home in downtown Cairo.
Another of the group's founders, Abdel-Halim Qandil, said the case against Ishaq is part of a government crackdown on Kifaya in retaliation for Sunday's labor strike where thousands of Egyptians skipped school and work and hundreds marched at rallies to protest high food prices.
The demonstrations were organized by several opposition groups, including Kifaya, which means "Enough" in Arabic. (AP)
Labels: Egypt
US Shifts Enemy in Iraq
The top U.S. commander has shifted the focus from al-Qaida to Iranian-backed "special groups" as the main threat to a democratic Iraq - a significant change that reflects both the complexity of the war and its changing nature.
The shift was articulated this week in Washington by Gen. David Petraeus, who told Congress that "unchecked, the special groups pose the greatest long-term threat to the viability of a democratic Iraq."
Before, American commanders have called al-Qaida the greatest threat.
There is little doubt that Shiite extremists fighting U.S. and Iraqi forces have received Iranian weapons, although Iran's government denies supplying them. (AP)
Corruption plagues Egypt's bread
It's a sore point for a country struggling to contain bread riots: Bakeries that get government-subsidized flour often sell it on the black market at a huge profit, taking food from poor people's mouths.
But in Egypt - notorious for low wages and corruption - bakery workers say they have little choice but to steal the flour and sell it, both to feed their families and to pay the crushing bribes demanded by government officials and police.
The bread crisis here in recent days has largely been fueled by the worldwide increase in food prices, which has pushed more people to rely on subsidized bread in an impoverished country where 20 percent of the 76 million population live on less than $1 a day. The result has been bread shortages and riots by customers waiting in long lines at subsidized bakeries.
But the crisis has also highlighted the widespread petty corruption pervading Egyptian life - from bakeries to hospitals to police stations - that many who earn meager paychecks maintain is the only way to make ends meet.
In one poor district of Cairo, a government official in charge of a public bakery shows his paycheck: After 20 years in his position, he earns about $55 a month, including supposed bonuses. (AP)
Labels: Egypt
Thursday, April 10, 2008
"We'll make you see death"
On a recent trip to Amman, Jordan, during a visit to the home of someone who had been detained by the Jordanian intelligence service in 2002, I was given two very thin strips of paper covered with Arabic writing and marked with a thumbprint. Curled up into a tight spiral, they were no bigger than the cap of a pen.
My contact, who had smuggled the papers out of intelligence detention a few years previously, told me that the message therein had been written by a prisoner who had been detained with him. He said it gave a detailed account of that person's experiences.
That evening, in my hotel room, an Egyptian colleague translated the text, word for word. Stunned by its contents, I transcribed the message into electronic form and sent it into cyberspace for safekeeping.
The message's author was a Yemeni terrorism suspect named Ali al-Hajj al-Sharqawi, who was arrested in Pakistan in February 2002. Though the message was undated, it was clear from the narrative that it had been written in October 2002. (Salon)
Morocco under fire over record on human rights
Morocco is failing to undertake democratic reforms, lobby groups said Wednesday, accusing Rabat of "hypocrisy" on human rights. Speaking in Geneva during a United Nations Human Rights' Council assessment of the kingdom's rights record, non-governmental organizations hailed reforms in family law, the media, criminal procedures and nationality rights. "But we have worries about the implementation of this arsenal of laws," said Youssef El Bouhairi of the Moroccan Association of Human Rights (AMDH). "The state has not demonstrated a political will to implement these reforms."
He said it was "hypocritical" of Parliament to vote in favor of reforms to protect the rights of detainees, while giving wide-ranging powers to the security forces as part of anti-terrorism measures. The AMDH, along with other human rights groups, said torture is still practiced in Morocco, even though the country says its conforms to international standards.
"Police officers and security officials are still resorting to violence," said Bouhairi.
Saida Drissi Amrani, president of the Democratic Association of Moroccan Women, said she welcomed the reform of the family code, but thought "these achievements are still fragile." Polygamy continued to be tolerated, she said, while changing one's religion was still penalized. (Daily Star)
Labels: Morocco
Bahraini policeman dies in petrol-bomb attack
A policeman was killed when his patrol was attacked with petrol bombs in a Bahraini village south of the capital Manama overnight, police said on Thursday.
"A security force patrol was attacked by masked people. A police officer was killed and others were lightly wounded," the official news agency BNA quoted a police official as saying.
The official added that an inquiry had been launched into the incident which took place in a Shiite majority village.
Bahraini Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa denounced the attack in an interview with local media, saying it marked a "serious and unjustifiable escalation" in tensions.
Anger has spilled out on to the streets of the tiny Gulf archipelago after demonstrations in December following the death of an opposition protester.
The Shiite majority in Sunni-ruled Bahrain has been campaigning for compensation for alleged human rights violations during the 1980s and 1990s.
At least 38 people died in Shiite-led protests in Bahrain, a close US ally, between 1994 and 1999. (AFP)
Labels: Bahrain
Bush approves Iraq troop freeze
George Bush, the US president, has said he will suspend troop withdrawals from Iraq after July to assess the security situation in the country.
Bush endorsed the recommendation, made to US Congress by General David Petraeus, his senior commander in Iraq, that a period of evaluation should follow the withdrawal of five brigades.
Speaking at the White House, Bush said General Petraeus would also be given "all the time he needs" to evaluate further troop withdrawals.
The US president also said he would reduce the length of military combat tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan from 15 months to one year. (Al Jazeera)
Ending Saudi deal probe 'unlawful'
A fraud office within the British government acted unlawfully in ending investigations into arms deals with Saudi Arabia, two judges have ruled.
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) had called off an investigation into allegations of bribery and corruption in relations between BAE Systems, a British weapons manufacturer, and the Saudi government.
But the judges on Thursday allowed a legal challenge to go ahead by the Corner House Research Group and the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CATT), over the SFO's handling of the case.
The campaign groups say there was "very large scale bribery" of senior Saudi Arabian officials by BAE Systems over military aircraft deals, known as the Al Yamamah contracts.
BAE Systems was alleged to have held a multimillion pound (dollar) "slush" fund to buy support for contracts from Saudi officials. (Al Jazeera)
Labels: Saudi Arabia, U.K.