Voice from the Commonwealth Commentary, World Views and Occasional Rants from a small 'l' libertarian in Massachussetts
"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest for freedom, go home and leave us in peace. We seek not your council nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams
.
Praise for Voice
"A smart fellow...I do like, recommend and learn from Barbera's blog." -Roger L. Simon
"Your blog is bullshit"- anonymous angry French reader.
The bill, passed by voice vote in a session that stretched passed Wednesday midnight, lauds Blair for having "clearly demonstrated, during a very trying and historic time for our two countries, that he is a staunch and steadfast ally of the United States of America."
A soldier thanks a class of fifth graders who wrote to his unit while in Kuwait.
He sat in the front row of the church gym, hands clasped, lips pursed, his body rigid and erect. On each side of him were elementary school students in their caps and gowns, ready to graduate from the First Missionary Baptist Church Child Development Center and Academy in northwest Huntsville.
He was here in his dress uniform Thursday night, just in from Ft. Riley, Kansas, to thank the fifth-graders who had written him and the other members of the 95th Maintenance Company.
He was the leader of the company's team of three sergeants and three specialists, a 42-year-old native of Hattiesburg, Miss., named David Chapman. He and the other soldiers had read the fifth-graders' letters two weeks before Christmas, just as the impact of being overseas for the holidays had taken hold.
Chapman, a sergeant, had hoped to be in Hattiesburg for the holidays. But as the fifth-graders' letters arrived from Huntsville around mid-December, it was apparent that no one in the 95th Maintenance Company was leaving Kuwait.
The effect of those letters was detailed Thursday night in Chapman's surprise presentation to each of the 10 fifth-graders. In thank-you letters to the class of seven boys and three girls, Chapman and the other members of the company wrote:
"We were all feeling really sad and blue because of the situation and the fact that we would not be with our families in time of celebration. To receive and read these letters from the youth of our nation expressing their thanks for what we were all doing was a super positive motivating experience and totally renewed our faith and belief in what we are doing and in God."
Volunteers with shovels excavated a mass grave in the Shiite holy city of Karbala on Friday, collecting remains of the dead and calling the bodies evidence of crimes committed by Saddam Hussein.
The remains of 45 bodies were pulled from the ground in about three hours at the site, located near the holy shrine of Hussein, the grandson of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad.
Women slapped themselves in the face in grief and men beat their chests to pay tribute to their slain countrymen.
"The blood of innocent people won't go away. Criminals should stand trial," some of the 1,000 people gathered at the site chanted. "Death to the Baath Party members."
Local residents in Karbala's Mokhayem district said they suspect as many as 5,000 sets of remains are buried in the area, though they offered no immediate proof. The mass grave is the third uncovered in Iraq this week.
Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik said he has accepted a position as a senior policy adviser in the Interior Ministry in Iraq.
"I was surprised and honored that I'd be asked to do this," Kerik told the Daily News for its Friday editions.
The White House reportedly selected Kerik, 47, to work with L. Paul Bremer, who was recently named chief civilian administrator for Iraq.
"It's a great honor to serve the president and the country," Kerik told the New York Post. He told Newsday he would in Iraq "at least six months - until the job is done."
Ananova is reporting that a mass grave containing Kuwaiti POW's from 1991 has been found. I've been wondering about this. There are more than 700 still listed as missing and I haven't seen any stories of Kuwaitis being found.
A mass grave of about 600 missing Kuwaiti prisoners of war has reportedly been discovered in Iraq.
It is believed the prisoners were taken from Kuwait during the first Gulf War in 1991.
Workers from the Iraqi National Congress say they made the grim find at an airbase in the town of Habbaniyah, north-west of Baghdad.
INC workers say they uncovered the grave after tip-offs from locals that 600 Kuwaiti PoWs were buried there.
The INC operations centre in Baghdad said its officials have conducted initial tests at the excavation site, and 40 bodies have already been recovered.
Dr Ahmed Chalabi, leader of the INC, said: "We extend our deepest sympathies to the Kuwaiti people and hope it will now be possible to have a final accounting of their loved ones.
"Those who supported this regime are now witnessing the monster that they enabled."
Slow Friday. So go spend some time here. It is a site set up by an American living in South Korea who had the opportunity last year to travel to North Korea. Very interesting and offering a unique view of the place. Very creepy.
Ruud Lubbers, top UN Refugee Official, shows he just doesn't get it. Speaking about the continuing massacre of people in Liberia he said.
"This can't go on," Ruud Lubbers told a small group of government representatives during a stop Wednesday in the war-blasted West African country's capital, Monrovia.
"You're killing your own people," he said.
In Monrovia on Wednesday, Taylor was a no-show for what had been a scheduled meeting with Lubbers.
Clearly annoyed, the U.N. refugee chief spoke flatly with local reporters who asked what the United Nations was doing to aid Liberia's war-displaced. "Your president makes it totally impossible," Lubbers answered.
Jesse Jackson pal, Charles Taylor couldn't care less about the average Liberian. They just get in the way. All he needs are his militias and the slaves necessary to extract Liberia's gold and diamonds. The rest can die and rot. Ruud thinks that pleas like this mean something to mass murderers like Kim, Taylor, Saddam, and other tyrants.They think we need only appeal to their decency and the killing will end.
Jayson Blair, who resigned as a national reporter for the New York Times amid charges he plagiarized and falsified stories, is taking steps to cash in on the scandal, the Daily News reported on Thursday.
Blair may not miss his Times paycheck for long after hiring literary agency David Vigliano Associates to explore book and TV deals, according to the newspaper.
Belgium is trying to defend the attendance, in Brussels, of Zimbabwe's Trade Minister. A man, who like Mugabe faces a travel ban.
Belgium's foreign affairs ministry said that its decision to grant the banned minister a visa to attend the conference was a diplomatic requirement and "absolutely not political".
"We find ourselves under an obligation in international law to allow [the ACP] to invite representatives of their member states," he said. "It is absolutely not a political case."
Justifying Mumbengegwi's entry for the conference, the spokesman hinted that the minister may have been barred if the choice was Belgium's alone.
"It is not a Belgian issue," he said.
"It is like when the UN are allowed to invite someone to address the general assembly, some of these people are not considered a friend of the US but there is an agreement and the situation is similar here."
British MEP Geoffrey Van Orden disputed the claims. "The ACP is just an EU creation, a conduit for the EU's own aid programmes. So we have the ludicrous situation of an individual banned by the EU, coming to the EU's 'capital', with the host country claiming it has no power to stop this," he said.
"The simple fact is that if EU Governments wanted to prevent Mugabe's henchmen from attending meetings in the EU, they would."
Javier Solana is busy assuring Syria that the 'road map' includes giving them back the Golan Heights.
Javier Solana, the EU's higher coordinator for Security and Foreign Affairs, said he officially handed Syrian officials a copy of the "road map" and clearly explained it was "directed (toward) ... a comprehensive peace that concerns all tracks, including the Syrian and Lebanese tracks, and of course the Golan Heights."
Of course Solana couldn't care less about Israel's security, so he doesn't mention that for Israel to leave the Golan Heights, Syria must stop supporting and dismantle every terrorist group in their borders and in Lebanon. He also appears to have clean forgotten to mention that Syria must end its occupation of Lebanon.
Hmmm. And now Lebanon is claiming they busted up a group that was about to attack the American Embassy in Beirut.
"The Lebanese secret services and those of the Syrian army present in Lebanon arrested Lebanese and Palestinian members of a network planning attacks against the U.S. embassy in Lebanon," the Lebanese army's press chief told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Nine people had been arrested, General Elias Farhat added.
He said the network also planned to "attack posts of the Lebanese military and the Syrian army in Lebanon and to kidnap a Lebanese political figure."
The statement comes a week after a Lebanese military court charged two Lebanese nationals with planning three unsuccessful attacks against the U.S. ambassador in Lebanon and the U.S. consulate north of Beirut.
Only one-fifth of know WMD sites have so far been explored.
"Of the roughly 600 WMD (weapons of mass destruction) sites we currently know about, we have only searched about 20 percent," Douglas Feith, undersecretary for defense policy, told the House of Representatives' Committee on International Relations.
"I am confident that we will eventually be able to piece together a fairly complete account of Iraq's WMD programs -- but the process will take months and perhaps years."
Qatari foreign minister Sheikh Hamad Bin Jasem Bin Jaber al-Thani in Paris met yesterday with his Israeli counterpart Salvan Shaloum in the first meeting of its kind for Shaloum with an Arab foreign minister since he was appointed a foreign minister on February 27th.
In a press conference he had held with Sheikh Hamad, Shaloum said "this meeting gives the sign of hope to the region as a whole." He added "I do think that our meeting today might be the beginning for better relations for each Israel and Qatar and for Israel and the Arab World." Shaloum described the meeting as "an important step towards bringing peace to Israel and the Arab world."
Sheikh Hamad said that Qatar is interested to playing a role to convince Israel and the Palestinians on ending 30 months of violence and returning back to the negotiations. He said "there is no alternative for negotiations." He said "however, it is imperative for the two sides to render sacrifices." The Israeli TV said that the real value of the meeting for its symbolic value. It noted intensive contact held along last week through the Israeli envoy in Qatar, Yaqoub Haddas, that concentrated on messages from Shaloum to Sheikh Hamad urging him to convene the meeting.
With the air base and the, relatively, open support for the war in Iraq they seem to be positioning themselves to take over Saudi Arabia's role. But this move, coupled with coming political reforms, seems to indicate they are aiming higher. There is some tough competition there. Egypt holds the de facto "Voice of the Arab World" title but Jordan is trying hard to take it away. It would be interesting if little Qatar tried to finagle their way into this competition. Especially with their oil and huge natural gas reserves. Coupled with a small relatively well off population they would not be in need of the huge grants we pay to Egypt and Jordan.
China Wednesday reported the lowest number of SARS cases since the government admitted covering up the extent of the epidemic, with just 16 new infections outside Beijing among a population of 1.3 billion.
The new figures showed 55 new cases, 39 of which were in the Chinese capital, bringing the cumulative number of cases nationwide to 5,124.
Five deaths were also recorded, all in Beijing, which now has 139 dead among 267 countrywide. The capital has 2,370 confirmed cases.
Seeing the numbers from industrialized and Westernized places (Hong Kong, Taiwan, Canada) make me question these numbers mightily.
Then comes the story of Army Sgt. Paul Smith, who reminds us what a real hero is. The 33-year-old soldier from Tampa was killed April 4 after valiantly fending off an Iraqi assault on his command post.
Smith's bravery in saving his troops is a story worth repeating. He was leading two dozen engineers building a prison at Baghdad International Airport when the contingent was attacked by 100 elite Republican Guards. As his soldiers fell around him, outmanned and outgunned, Smith dodged snipers and rocket grenades to tend to the wounded. He ran to a Humvee, grabbed a grenade and blew back the charging Iraqis. Then Smith climbed atop his armored vehicle and manned the .50-caliber machine gun, emptying four boxes of ammo over 90-minutes.
Witnesses said he killed 30 to 50 Iraqis and stopped the enemy from overrunning his post. When the firing stopped and the Americans regrouped, his men found Smith shot in the head. He was the only American to die in the fight.
A super-powered neutrino generator could in theory be used to instantly destroy nuclear weapons anywhere on the planet, according to a team of Japanese scientists.
There are of course obstacles.
If it was ever built, a state could use the device to obliterate the nuclear arsenal of its enemy by firing a beam of neutrinos straight through the Earth. But the generator would need to be more than a hundred times more powerful than any existing particle accelerator and over 1000 kilometres wide.
Romania claims Iraq was planning terrorist attacks against Israel and the West.
In a statement Thursday, the country's spy service said it established in the months before the war that Iraqi operatives were planning ``to organize terrorist attacks on Israeli and Western targets.''
``The terrorist attacks were to be carried out with AG-7 grenade launchers provided by the head of the espionage of the Iraqi Embassy in Bucharest,'' the statement said.
Romanian authorities reacted at the time by declaring 10 Iraqi diplomats and 31 other people as persona non grata, expelling or barring them from entering the country.
The service said it cooperated with other foreign espionage services, and that documents found in Iraq's espionage headquarters after the war ``fully confirmed the information obtained by the Romanian intelligence service.''
In March, Romania expelled five Iraqi diplomats for what it characterized at the time as ``activities incompatible with their status.''
UN Peacekeepers are failing to carry out their mandate. I don't blame the soldiers for this. They are too few. It is the UN's refusal to actually be effective because blocs will always stand in the way of actions. This is another example of why I do not trust the UN to finish the job we have begun in Iraq.
Rival ethnic groups battled outside a U.N. compound Wednesday, killing 10 civilians including women and children who tried to crowd into the base where thousands of terrorized people have taken refuge. Congo appealed for international troops to end a week of bloodshed.
Overwhelmed U.N. troops from Uruguay fired in the air to ward off the ethnic groups.
"There's firing everywhere, from mortars, Kalashnikovs and other heavy arms," U.N. spokeswoman Patricia Tome said by telephone from the compound during the fighting between Hema and Lendu warriors in the streets of Bunia city.
Stray mortar shells and gunfire riddled the compound. One mortar shell hit within 50 feet of the base, wounding 12 people, mostly children, Tome said.
A mortar shell also killed 10 people and wounded 100 others in a building next door to the compound, said Michel Kassa, a U.N. coordinator of humanitarian affairs.
"The people who were killed were in a building alongside (the compound), which has become the only place where people could huddle for protection. There were lots of people," he said. "I only saw civilians, poor women killed with their babies."
More than 10,000 residents have sought refuge in the U.N. compound and an airport.
The UN has appealed to France, among others, to send troops to intervene.
Russia is considering converting Typhoon Class submarines into oil tankers?
Once the pride of the Soviet navy, nuclear submarines could be refitted for a more humdrum life as oil tankers in the Arctic, according to a Russian regional governor.
"We see it as very economic and realistic to use atomic submarines for transporting oil and gas," Anatoly Yefremov, the governor of Archangelsk northern region, was quoted Wednesday as saying by Norwegian NRK public radio.
He told a seminar in northern Norway that submarines, of the Typhoon class depicted in Tom Clancy's spy thriller "The Hunt for Red October," could carry about 10,000 tons of oil if missile launch rooms were converted into tanks.
The Administration believes that most of the Husseins' $1,000,000,000 "withdrawal" from the Iraqi Central Bank.
David Aufhauser, general counsel to the Treasury Department, told members of a House Financial Services subcommittee that the soldiers found 191 of the 236 boxes of cash that documents indicate were prepared by Iraqi central bank workers for delivery out of Iraq.
Aufhauser said the 191 boxes contain $850 million in U.S. dollars and $100 million in euros. But he cautioned that it still needs to be determined if the cash is real or counterfeit.
A very interesting call for introspection, in the wake of Saddam's fall, from the President of the American University of Kuwait.
Suddenly, everything unexpectedly collapsed and the situation completely changed for the majority of Arabs. The people have the right to wonder if the Iraqi regime misled many Arabs about its patriotism and nationalism, to cover for its sanguinary practices and violations. Or do we tend as Arabs to accept everything that certain regimes, which do not consider honesty as a virtue, tell us? Have those regimes discovered the secret of tampering with Arabs’ feelings: the Palestinian issue and everything that is related to it? Have we reached a phase where Arab regimes can destroy their people and betray them on a daily basis? Where they can steal the money of their peoples while selling a slogan of resisting Israel or the United States in international organizations and through the media and other means?
He tell Arabs whom they must look to and how to begin the process.
But intellectual and cultural elites should be blamed because they are supposed to know a lot more than society knows, and have experienced the world on many levels. A lot of Arab cultural elites do not change their opinions based on research and discoveries, and do not search for the truth even if it does not match their own ideas. The problem of Arab cultural elites is that they have become frozen in time and space, no longer following changes in the West or the Arab world, which does not allow them an objective and patient interpretation of developments. Intellectual elites have abandoned their roles of enlightenment and culture, which contributed to the decline of ideological and political renewal. The major shock caused by Iraq could be an occasion for reconsideration and apology to the Iraqi people, by those who encouraged and supported the tyranny of the former Iraqi president.
The Arab world can raise questions and reconsider all issues dominating its political situation. Who can explain past events, including the fall of Baghdad, without reconsidering and thinking over the lessons and consequences?
While on one hand the war generated a form of enthusiasm in the Arab street, which wanted the conflict to become a new Vietnam, the Iraqi people wanted a swift end to the conflict. The lessons and consequences of the war will remain with us for a long time. One important lesson is the legitimacy of rulers. Without legitimacy, the regime will not be able to defend itself. Arab defeats and past mistakes will be repeated and we will forget the fundamental lessons of war, unless culture, intellectualism, the media and press freedoms, law, the rights of individuals regardless of their confession, gender or race, once again regain their role in society.
The Daily Star (of Lebanon) has a column calling for the cancellation of Iraq's debt.
Jubilee Iraq, formed in London in March, is campaigning for the complete cancelation of the Iraqi debt. “If Saddam turns out to be alive, he and his Baath Party cronies should be required to spend the rest of their lives crushing rocks and paying every dollar they earn to the creditors,” said Jubilee Iraq spokesperson Justin Alexander. “But the Iraqi people have no such obligation. At last they have a chance of freedom and ownership of Iraq and its assets.”
Sounds good to me.
The debt crisis in Iraq also brings up a larger set of questions.
Dictators support their rules through loans, and thus far the international community has not been too concerned with the legitimacy of the regimes it loans money to. If Iraq’s debts are canceled, this would hopefully usher in an era in international finance in which companies and governments could no longer be ruled simply by the profit motive, but would have to consider the legitimacy of the governments to which they were lending.
The writer is part of Jubilee Iraq. A group related to Jubilee 2000 which calls for the cancellation of all Third World debt. Whiel I would support a restructuring of the debts and new policies going forward, based on refrom, verified positive use of any money loaned ro borrowed I have trouble supporting blanket forgiveness on all this debt. Like blanket immunities for illegal imigrants it sets a bad precedent and can have some terrible consequences. Change needs to be made in a way that does not condone or encourage future bad behaviour.
Another Eurocrat who thinks only Israel needs to be strongarmed into accepting the 'road map'.
Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou, whose country holds the rotating E.U. presidency, took up where U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell left off a day earlier, meeting Tuesday with Israeli and Palestinian leaders to push the " road map."
But while Powell went to the desert oasis of Jericho to meet new Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas Abbas, pointedly snubbing Arafat, who is virtually trapped in his West Bank office in Ramallah, Papandreou went to Ramallah, met Abbas, and then saw Arafat.
Israel and the U.S. are boycotting Arafat, charging that he is involved with Palestinian terrorism. European nations reject that approach, saying that Arafat remains a key player in Mideast diplomacy.
"We want to live in peace with our neighbor Israel and this is our clear decision," Arafat said, adding that he and Papandreou "have agreed on the necessity to make the Israelis accept the road map in order to push the peace process ahead."
Abbas didn't make a statement, but Papandreou said he believed the new premier "is determined to go ahead with reforms and the necessary creation of a strong state structure that can govern and impose law and order in the Palestinian areas."
Papandreu despite every bit of evidence to the contrary stands by while Arafat lies through his teeth and without even speaking to Abbas chooses to state what he thinks he knows about him.
Papandreou said the international Quartet that unveiled the peace plan last month, which also includes the U.N. and Russia, "expects from Israel specific steps according to the road map, as this is the only way to go forward."
And evidence of the Palestinians' adherence to the 'peace process'? Stopping terrorism? Denouncing those in power who call for the destruction of Israel? He'll have none of that apparently. You see, it is only the Israelis standing in the way of peace.
The Israeli leader has suggested in the past, though never formally, that the Palestinians could have about half of the West Bank, composed of disconnected islands of land, as an interim solution for many years.
The Palestinians have rejected the idea, saying they are entitled to all the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, the areas Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war.
That's an outright lie. Not one Palestinian leader accepts only East Jerusalem. And as always the report never wonders exactly what constitutes the 'Occupied Territories'. Papandreou only needed to stop fawning over Arafat and take a passing glance at the map in his office. There is no Israel. Everything from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea is marked as the 'Occupied Territories'. And still this pompous ignorant fool thinks it is the Israelis who stand in the way of peace.
Lots of American soldiers stationed overseas bring home foreign brides. But as far as he can tell, Army National Guard Staff Sgt. Jim Hines is the only one to bring home a dog.
"Everyone said it couldn't be done," says Hines, 39, of the 220th Military Police Company in Denver. "My only words to that are, love does amazing things."
The object of his affection is Lanya, a 5-year-old German shepherd whom Hines first spotted while on patrol one frigid winter evening in 1999 in an isolated area of Tazar Air Base in Hungary.
"Winter time in Hungary, there's nothing to do," said Hines. "There was quite a bit of snow on the ground, and it was downright cold. We were just on patrol ...when we saw something moving in the distance. We thought at first it might be a coyote. Our second thought was that it was a Hungarian army dog. They periodically got loose. But this dog was completely different."
The starving dog could walk only a few feet at a time, then had to stop and rest. Finally, even that was too much effort. She just laid down and let the soldiers approach her.
"She was so weak and cold and malnourished," Hines said. "I walked up to her and she looked at me, and that was it. It was love at first sight."
"It took her about two weeks to get her strength back," Hines said.
Eventually, they were caught, and the base commander ordered Hines to get rid of the dog. Army regulations prohibited keeping pets on base.
Hines was heartbroken - until he learned about an obscure Army regulation that says any company-sized element on an overseas deployment for six months or more can have a mascot.
"So we presented that to the commander, and she said, 'Well, it's an Army regulation and that makes it legal. So you can legally keep her here."
Hines arranged with an Army veterinarian to get Lanya all the shots she'd need to come to the United States.
He got Lanya on a flight to Italy, then a connecting flight to Denver, where a friend would meet her at the airport and keep her until he returned home two months later.
Lanya arrived safely. Two months later, Hines went to pick her up. "I called ahead of time and said I'm coming around the corner. Just open the door and I'll be standing there," he said. "And that's what I did. And she just stood there, looking at me. She was processing the uniform. She was thinking 'I know that uniform, I recognize it.' Then I called her name, and it was heaven. She was just crying and jumping and whining, and I was crying. Everybody was crying."
Opposition leaders in Zimbabwe want the EU to adopt a boycott of the country.
In addition to cutting essential financial backing for his regime, Ms Holland says a similar move by the EU would help turn the screws on Mr Mugabe, whose grip on power appears to be weakening. But the MDC is also fighting to get Zimbabwe on the world's agenda.
With growing involvement from regional power brokers, South Africa and Nigeria, and some European policy makers asking for 'African solutions to African problems', "the fear", says Ms Holland, "is that the EU will start to backslide". There may be evidence to back this claim.
Despite the travel ban, a technicality coupled with political manoeuvring allowed the French government to invite Mr Mugabe to travel to Paris earlier this year, infuriating the MDC and some European capitals, most notably London.
Similarly the Zimbabwean Trade Minister, Samuel Mumbengegwi, who is also on the EU's list of undesirables, is to attend an ACP-EU ministerial meeting in Brussels this week, according to a spokesperson for Harare.
First France, and now Belgium have deemed travel sanctions against Mugabe's murderous regime not quite worthy of following. Both countries, once great Colonial Empires, now find they only have sway among the despots and tyrants of Africa and the Middle East (and of course, Castro) so they overlook the nature of these thugs in the hopes of regaining their lustre.
Romania is willing to send 5000 peacekeepers to Iraq. They will do so without the UN, if it is necessary.
''The idea is for Romania to send a contingent of a few hundred, most likely under British command,'' Foreign Minister Mircea Geoana told Reuters in an interview, adding the number of troops would be a few more than the 470 sent to Afghanistan.
''Most probably we'll be together with the Italians in a joint operation under British command,'' Geoana said. ''Of course it's now up to the coalition to decide what kind of format, what kind of structure, what kind of specialisation."
Mbeki finds his voice. He is calling for UN action in Congo.
Mbeki's security adviser, Billy Masethla, said the president, in his capacity as the chairman of the African Union, would this week appeal to Annan to push for UN troops to be authorised to open fire on militia attacking civilians in the east of the massive central African state.
This is all well and good. And should be done to prevent another Rwanda sized slaughter.
Now for Kofi.
"I am deeply alarmed by the deterioration of the security situation in Bunia," Annan said in a statement.
"Thousands of civilians have fled their homes, while militia groups are fighting for control of the town and engaged in extensive looting."
The Bunia headquarters of Monuc, the UN military mission in the DRC, "has been attacked by militias, despite the fact that it is sheltering thousands of innocent civilians," Annan added.
He further said militias "have also fired into crowds of displaced persons seeking shelter near Bunia airport."
"I am therefore asking the Security Council to consider effective measures to prevent the situation from deteriorating with further loss of civilian lives," Annan said. "I have called on the Government of Uganda to use its influence over militia forces in Ituri to maintain calm."
Where is Mbeki when it comes to the millions that face the Mugabe manufactured famine in Zimbabwe? Where was Kofi when Saddam's troops fired into crowds? Where is Kofi when we get the small glimpses of the hell that is North Korea? What resolutions have they put before the UNSC to end the massacres in Sudan? The difference is that Congo is not ruled by a favored tyrant and the massacres are not being carried out by a protected group.
''We have to put all the pressure in order to have the Israelis accept in a clear manner the content of the road map,'' Solana told reporters in Amman.
No mention of putting pressure on Palestinian security groups to end terrorism. Pressure must only be applied to the Israelis.
''The people in the region and in Palestine have to see that their lives begin to change, and the application of the road map would create hope that would create a determination by everybody to move forward.''
No need for Israelis to feel that that their lives may begin to change that their neighbors may begin to accept that Israel is not going to be wiped off the map.
''There is a new situation in the world'' since the end of the Iraq war, Solana said, and he called on all involved to ''behave in a positive and constructive manner to see the road map implemented'' in order to bring peace to the region.
After pointedly saying that Israel must be pressured Solana calls on "all involved" to behave positively and constructively. But still no mention that pressure must be put on the terrorist groups who have a great deal of support within the region and who openly admit that their goal is the destruction of Israel.
The new Palestinian government of Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas has endorsed the road map and voiced dismay that Powell had not persuaded Sharon to do the same.
Why the dismay? Doesn't he understand that words do not equal action. He has spoken out against violence now let us see him do something about it. When this happens Israelis will, as they have done in the past (Sinai and Southern Lebanon), do what is necessary.
The remains of 15,000 people killed by the regime of Saddam Hussein have been found in mass graves in the central city of Hilla, the Iraqi National Congress (INC) said.
Entifadh Qanbar, a spokesman for the group led by US-backed Ahmed Chalabi, said: "In the last week, four sites have been discovered in Al-Hilla city alone, with approximately 15,000 bodies."
He said that locals in Hilla, 60 miles south of the capital Baghdad and the site of ancient Babylon, were trying to identify their dead.
He asked the American-led coalition's Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), non-governmental organisations and human rights groups for help in identifying the remains.
Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin denied Paris wanted a new clash in the U.N. Security Council with Washington after its opposition to the Iraq war, but said the current U.S. draft resolution was merely a ''starting point'' in negotiations.
''I believe we need more transparency and information on Iraq,'' he told French RTL radio. ''That is why we are asking for international controls...And who better than the United Nations to perform this task?''
Oh yes, that paragon of transparency. If we want some prostitution rings and skimming of profits and entrenched bureaucracy and kickbacks and using food aid to bribe Iraqis, by all means the UN is your one stop shop. But transparancy?
Bank loans to Iraq and oilfield development contracts that were agreed to under the regime of deposed leader Saddam Hussein should be voided, billionaire U.S. financier George Soros said on Monday.
"I personally would be very happy to see the old creditors of Iraq not getting paid," Soros told a gathering at the Center for Strategic and International Studies here. "That would send a signal to the financial markets that it's dangerous to deal with oppressive regimes."
Right on. I'm with you there. But....
Separately, Soros said the revenue earned from Iraq's future oil exports should be managed by the United Nations. "Everybody has to be in favor of international, multinational supervision," he said.
How could 'everybody' possibly be in favor of UN control of Iraq's oil? Like they were in charge of the secretive oil-for-food program that neeted them $1 Billion while being held accountable to nobody? If the UN takes over the revenue from future oil exports, the Iraqis themselves will never gain control of their own destiny. I don't want anyone but the Iraqis to conrtol their oil and the only way that will happen is if it is a shared responsibility taken on by Iraqis and the Coalition that freed them.
Saddam is taking a page from the bin Laden playbook. First we got videotapes, then audio and now we are reduced to getting defiant letters from him. No emails or faxes yet.
Comrade Bob felt it necessary to deal harshly with women marching in Mother's Day parades.
Zimbabwean police arrested and charged 46 women, after some of them attempted to gather in the southern city of Bulawayo to celebrate Mother's Day in defiance of a police ban, witnesses and lawyers said.
The main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) condemned the move, which mirrored arrests of 73 women in Bulawayo and the capital Harare during peace marches on Valentine's Day in February. In a statement, the MDC said the arrests showed "the repressive regime's insensitivity to gender issues".
"Police swooped on the women...as they tried to gather at a central spot in town. They bundled them into a waiting vehicle and took them away," a witness told Reuters.
RSF has voiced its dismay over the prison sentences, ranging from four to 13 years, imposed on seven journalists by the Tehran Revolutionary Court on 10 May 2003, following a trial behind closed doors. The journalists, who were also stripped of their civic rights for 10 years, were members of the National Religious Movement, a liberal, nationalist Islamic grouping that has been banned since March 2001.
"We are appalled by these unacceptable sentences," RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard said, while noting that the journalists were not given the right to a fair trial. "The Iranian regime has once again demonstrated to what degree any peaceful protest or criticism is unwelcome in the country," he said. The Revolutionary Court was created following the Islamic revolution and has jurisdiction over matters affecting national security and institutions.
"We call on the European Union, which is currently in negotiations with Iran, to make greater efforts to ensure that human rights are respected in the country," Ménard said. Ten journalists are currently imprisoned in Iran, making it the biggest prison for journalists in the Middle East.
Of course it is France that is pushing closer EU/Iran ties. Originally they tried to anchor the ties to advances in human rights in Iran. But, in the wake of continuing crackdowns, the French have not uttered a word. Doesn't matter who the dictator is or how many he kills, he will always have a friend in France.
It is pretty sad that this type of thing doesn't disturb more people.
A man wearing a Star of David necklace was assaulted in a bus by a group of teenagers who called him a "dirty Jew," spit in his face and kicked him in the head, authorities said Monday.
The man, a non-Jewish German, was treated for facial injuries after the attack Sunday night on a downtown Berlin bus route, police said. The assailants, about 14 or 15 years old and described as Middle Eastern appearance, fled.
An American rabbinical student in Orthodox Jewish dress was assaulted by four men on Berlin's main shopping boulevard in March as scores of stunned passersby looked on. One of the assailants swung at the 21-year-old, striking him in the face, and another threw an object at him.
A year earlier two Orthodox Jews from New York were attacked and beaten on Kurfuerstendamm, the major retail thoroughfare in the heart of former West Berlin.
A few weeks later, two Arab-looking men assaulted two Jewish women at a Berlin subway station because one of them was wearing a Star of David pendant. The women suffered bruises.
In May 2001 a 16-year-old Iraqi youth was given a juvenile detention sentence in connection with an attack on a rabbi.
President Hamid Karzai will attempt to seize the initiative in Afghanistan (news - web sites)'s lawless provinces this week by sacking regional officials defying his rule, government officials said on Monday.
Karzai plans to target civil, military and police officials in several key provinces from governor downwards, said one official, who did not want to be identified.
"The government will issue a statement in this regard in the near future. The aim is to improve working procedures and create good co-ordination between the centre and the provinces," a second official said.
I wonder if this was part of a deal for moving US troops to Qatar.
Qatar's foreign minister said on Sunday his country, a political maverick among Gulf Arab states, could consider signing a peace treaty with Israel if it suited its interests.
Sometimes Mohamad Mahathir can seem the very picture of rationality and other times, espacially when he gets on a roll about denouncing the US, he can sound like a lunatic. He is now convinced that Malaysia will be the next US target for 'regime change'.
"They will push for regime change. They want governments that idolize them. When they are finished with the Arabs they will turn their attention to us."
In what is one of his final speeches to his party before he retires in October, the Malaysian prime minister--who is also UMNO president--said that while Western powers had not declared their intentions against Malaysia, they had already begun criticizing the country.
He pointed out that Malaysia was frequently criticized for having no freedom of the press or for having a poor human rights record.
Hmmmm. Now that is an interesting thing to say.
In his speech on Sunday, he also compared Malaysia and UMNO's history with that of the Palestinians and the formation of Israel in
1948.
He said the formation of UMNO in 1946 had convinced the country's
British colonial masters that Malays could be united and were able to
become future administrators of the country.
"Malays were then known as nature's gentlemen and we were giving
away our territories to the British, like Penang and Singapore. But we
were finally united in UMNO against the British," he said.
Dr Mahathir said the one English word the Malays had then learned
and used against the British was "boo."
"That is what the white man says when he does not like something. "If the Palestinians had learned to boo the British then maybe
there would be no Israel. They should not have waited before the problem was so huge before fighting," he said.
The Western Civilization and Democracy Net Ring celebrates Western civilization and its universal values of individual freedom, political democracy and equal rights for all. All sites promoting human rights and democracy are welcome.
