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Washington Post Monday, February 27, 2006

Female Pilots Get Their Shot in the Iraqi Skies

Men Say Women Are Proving Skills in Direct Combat

TALL AFAR, Iraq -- Buzzing over this northern Iraqi city in her Kiowa scout helicopter, a .50-caliber machine gun and rockets at the ready, Capt. Sarah Piro has proved so skillful in combat missions to support U.S. ground troops that she's earned the nickname "Saint." In recent months of fighting in Tall Afar, Piro, 26, of El Dorado Hills, Calif., has quietly sleuthed out targets, laid down suppressive fire for GIs in battle and chased insurgents through the narrow alleys of this medieval city -- maneuvering all the while to avoid being shot out of the sky. In one incident, she limped back to base in a bullet-riddled helicopter, ran to another aircraft and returned to the fight 10 minutes later.

"They call her 'Saint Piro' -- she's just that good," said her co-pilot, Chief Warrant Officer Todd Buckhouse, a 19-year Army veteran who has worked with Piro on two tours with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Iraq. "There was no one I wanted to hear more on a raid than her. She's a spectacular Army aviator," said Maj. Chris Kennedy, executive officer of the regiment, which is returning home this month.

Female helicopter pilots like Piro are demonstrating their valor in Iraq in one of the few direct combat roles women are officially allowed to perform in the military. Their missions often put them at risk of being hit by enemy machine-gun fire and rockets, and require them to shoot back. Piro's unit, Outlaw Troop, lost three of its eight Kiowas after insurgents shot them down over Tall Afar, and four or five others were hit by enemy fire, U.S. officers said. On Piro's first tour in Iraq, her wingman hit a wire and crashed into the Euphrates River. She and Buckhouse made an emergency landing and jumped into the water to try to save the two aviators, but they had already perished.

Despite the dangers, a growing number of women have chosen the job since the 1990s, and today about 9 percent of women in the Army are aviators. There are four female pilots in Piro's troop of 33 soldiers. "I didn't want to be a staff officer. I wanted to be an operator," said Capt. Monica Strye, 29, of San Antonio, commander of Outlaw Troop. "I wanted to have more of a combat role." But while proving their competence in the air, female aviators say they still face obstacles from the predominantly male military on the ground. "It's far better than when my mother was in the military, but we still have a long ways to go," said Strye, whose mother was an Army nurse in Vietnam. "I know I constantly have to prove myself."

And even as the 360-degree battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan are exposing women to combat as never before, policies excluding women from ground combat units have not been eased, but instead face increased scrutiny in Congress. Under a law signed last month, the Defense Department must submit to Congress this year a report on the assignment of women, particularly in the Army, to ensure compliance with existing Pentagon policy, which was also codified by the law. The law requires that before opening any new positions to women, the Defense Department must tell Congress what justifies the change and observe a 30-day waiting period.

The legislation, while greatly watered down from earlier versions that would have rolled back opportunities for women, still limits the Pentagon's flexibility in adjusting to new wartime realities, critics say. It was passed over the objections of Pentagon leaders, including Army Secretary Francis Harvey, who said the change was not necessary. "We have opinions on the law, but it's now the law and we will abide by it," Harvey said in an interview last month. Congressional critics say the change sends the wrong message to women in the military, especially the thousands now serving in Iraq. Women make up about 15 percent of the active-duty members in the military. Tens of thousands of women have served in Iraq; 48 have been killed and more than 350 wounded in action, according to Pentagon figures.

At Outlaw Troop's base outside Tall Afar, the flight line hummed with aircraft coming and going around the clock. Piro, Strye and other pilots fly demanding six- to eight-hour missions in full body armor.

 Monday Feb 27 12:22 AEDT  Australia

No plans to ban Muslim garb: Howard

Prime Minister John Howard says he has no plans to ban Muslim women from wearing full traditional garb, despite saying most Australians find the head-to-toe costume confronting. Mr Howard says the experience in France, where schoolchildren are banned from wearing overtly religious clothes and symbols, shows how difficult it is to legislate against clothing. Some government backbenchers have called for the hijab, or headscarf, to be banned.

My Note :  OK, I'm a male, but so what. I'm wearing one the next time I go to the Bank !.

  February 26, 2006

Dog show's finest emerge from the pack

 February 26, 2006

Iran Says It Reached Nuclear Agreement With Russia

BUSHEHR, Iran (AP) -- Iran's nuclear chief said an agreement was reached with Moscow on Sunday to set up a joint uranium enrichment facility on Russian soil, a deal that could assuage global concerns that Tehran wants to build atomic bombs. The plan proposed by Russia is backed by the United States and European Union. The agreement was announced after a meeting between Russian nuclear chief Sergei Kiriyenko and Gholamreza Aghazadeh, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran and the country's vice president. The two countries ''reached a basic agreement on the creation of a joint venture (to enrich uranium),'' Aghazadeh told a news conference.

The International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board of governors is scheduled to meet March 6 to consider what to do about Iran's recent resumption of nuclear activity. The meeting could start a process leading to punishment by the U.N. Security Council, which has the authority to impose economic and political sanctions on Iran. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was quoted by Russian media as saying Moscow will continue its talks with Iran until the March 6 IAEA board meeting in an effort to resolve the crisis. Moscow has been struggling to persuade Tehran to reinstate a moratorium on uranium enrichment and agree to shift its enrichment program to Russian territory to ease world concerns it could divert enriched uranium to a weapons program. Enriched uranium can be used for both nuclear energy and weapons.

Kiriyenko said Moscow would insist on resolving the Iranian nuclear dispute within the IAEA, Russia's RIA Novosti news agency reported. Russia is one of the five permanent Security Council members with veto power over any resolution. Russia has said its enrichment offer was contingent on Iran reinstating the moratorium on domestic enrichment, but Iran has rejected such a link and in the past insisted on its right to enrich uranium domestically. Kiriyenko was quoted by Russian media as saying the joint enrichment venture in Russia was just ''one of the elements in the complex of issues related to the Iranian nuclear problem.''

After several days of talks with Iranian officials, Kiriyenko said ''negotiations weren't going simply and easily.'' But he was quoted as saying that ''there were practically no technical, organizational and financial problems left'' in talks on the Russian proposal. Aghazadeh and Kiriyenko, who together visited a nuclear plant being built by Russia in the Persian Gulf city of Bushehr, said nuclear talks would continue in Moscow over the next few days. Also, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi confirmed than an IAEA team was in Tehran to discuss the country's nuclear program.

Iran has denied seeking atomic weapons and more than three years of IAEA probing have not produced concrete evidence to the contrary. But the agency discovered suspicious activity, including plutonium experiments and long-secret efforts to develop enrich uranium. Asefi played down a secret nuclear project that U.S. intelligence has linked to warhead design, saying it would offer information on it to the IAEA. ''We will discuss the issue, and the rumors surrounding it, with the agency. It is not very sensitive or ambiguous,'' Asefi told reporters at a news conference when asked about the secret ''Green Salt Project.''

Public mention of the ''Green Salt Project'' first surfaced in an IAEA report drawn up earlier this month for a meeting of the agency's board of governors. The meeting ended with the board reporting Tehran to the Security Council over concerns it could be hiding a nuclear weapons program. Asefi reiterated that Iran would continue its nuclear fuel research activities and would not give in its rights under pressure and ''bullying language.'' He said his country expects the next IAEA board session to be held on a ''nonpolitical, independent and professional'' basis.

Washington Post Sunday, February 26, 2006

It Could Be the Head Of Nicolaus Copernicus

Breakthrough in Search for Remains Forces Reckoning in Poland

FROMBORK, Poland -- This Baltic coastal village prides itself as the hometown of Nicolaus Copernicus, the astronomer and scientific revolutionary who showed that Earth revolved around the sun. There's a Copernicus museum and a Copernicus altar; even the tower where he did his stargazing almost 500 years ago has been carefully preserved. One thing is missing: Copernicus himself.

The people of Frombork have long known that Copernicus died somewhere around here in 1543, but the failure of their ancestors to record exactly where he was buried has fueled one of the most enduring mysteries in Polish history, despite repeated attempts over the centuries to locate his grave. Recently, however, a team of archaeologists reported a breakthrough: the discovery of a skull deep below the flagstones of the 14th-century Frombork Cathedral. Aided by fresh historical research and a high-tech police crime lab, the archaeologists have tentatively concluded that the skull -- that of a man with a broken nose who was approximately 70 years old when he died -- is indeed that of the astronomer.

The findings have aroused excitement in Poland, where Copernicus is regarded as a national hero. But they have also forced Poles to make some uncomfortable reckonings with history, such as the question of whether Copernicus was Polish at all. There's also the complicated role in Copernicus's legacy *played by the Roman Catholic Church, which suppressed his research as the work of a heretic for almost 300 years after his death, but is now sponsoring the effort to identify his remains.

Historians had long suspected that Copernicus was buried in the Gothic cathedral on a hilltop overlooking Frombork, where he worked as a canon for decades while dabbling in astronomy on the side. But the task of determining exactly where was made all the more difficult because Swedish invaders repeatedly ransacked the crypts beneath the cathedral in the 17th century. Dozens of long-deceased Fromborkians were buried and re-buried on top of each other, turning the church foundation into a giant boneyard.

Jerzy Gassowski, the archaeologist who led the search for Copernicus, said he almost turned down the assignment when he was asked by church officials in 2004 to help. "I said, 'No -- that would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack,' " said Gassowski, chairman of the Institute of Anthropology and Archaeology at the Pultusk School of the Humanities, near Warsaw. "I did not believe for one minute that we would discover him."

Nicolaus Copernicus was born in Torun, Poland, in 1473, and moved to Frombork in 1510. Shortly after arriving, he began formulating radical theories about astronomy, including the idea that Earth circled the sun, rather than vice versa. Catholic leaders declared Copernicus's work immoral and theologically incorrect, placing it on the church's Index of Forbidden Books, where it remained until 1835.

Around that time, historians began to show renewed interest in Copernicus. Unsuccessful searches for his final resting place were conducted in 1802 and again just before the outbreak of World War II. Under its post-war communist government, Copernicus was celebrated in Poland as a national icon. But his burial site remained a mystery, in part because church leaders were not eager to allow communist functionaries to dig up their property. That obstacle was removed with the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989. But it wasn't until 2004 that another organized search began, on the instruction of the auxiliary bishop of Warmia, a region of northeastern Poland that includes Frombork.

   Sunday Feb 26 11:00 AEDT

Clooney relishes 'traitor' label for questioning US policy

   Another Prize Moron

US actor and director George Clooney said on Friday that he was proud to be denounced as unpatriotic for questioning US policy because he wanted to be on "the right side of history". Interviewed on BBC television's Newsnight about his latest films Syriana and Good Night, and Good Luck, Clooney said that not only did he accept the right to be attacked for his views but he even relished them.

Clooney, who has weathered attacks since opposing the 2003 Iraq invasion, said at one point that it was "frustrating" to be listed as a "traitor" on a set of playing cards, but he also accepted people's right to free speech. He later admitted he relished the attacks. "I think it's important to be on the right side of history," Clooney said. "I want to be on that deck of cards. And I want to be able to say that they boycotted my films ... I want to be able to say I was on the cover of a magazine called a 'traitor'," he said.

"I'm proud of those because those were badges of honor for me because that was when you did it when it was hard to do," the actor and director said. Clooney has received critical acclaim for Syriana — about oil politics and Islamic extremism — and for Good Night, and Good Luck," a reminder of the threat to civil liberties through a story about the anti-communist hysteria in the United States of the 1950s. Clooney said Syriana did not single out US President George W. Bush's administration for attack, though it "certainly goes at this administration" as well as at 60 years of failed Middle East policy.

"If it's an attack, it's because you're asking questions," Clooney said. Clooney has said the chilling effect of the September 11, 2001 attacks on US politics had inspired Syriana and its unflinching look at the ways extremism and political instability are fostered by the interests of big oil.

   Sunday Feb 26 16:16 AEDT

Thomas convicted under terror laws

Former Melbourne taxi driver Joseph Terrence Thomas has become the first person in Australia to be convicted under new terrorist funding laws. A Victorian Supreme Court jury found the 32-year-old Muslim convert guilty of intentionally receiving funds - $US3,500 ($A4,740) and a plane ticket - from al-Qaeda and of possessing a false passport.

But Thomas was cleared of two counts of intentionally providing resources to al-Qaeda.

The jury of nine women and three men reached its verdict in a little over two days.

The Werribee father of three faces a maximum 25 years' jail for receiving funds from al-Qaeda and two years' prison, or a $5,000 fine, for the passport offence. His wife Maryati and parents Patsy and Ian held hands as the verdict was read out after the week-long trial. Outside the court, Thomas' lawyer Rob Stary said it was a win that his client had been cleared of providing himself as a resource for al Qaeda, a charge which related to claims Thomas agreed to be a sleeper agent for Osama bin Laden in Australia.

"The fact that Jack Thomas has been acquitted of ... supporting a terrorist organisation or being a resource for a terrorist organisation, which were the ... most-serious charges in our view, is a very significant victory," Mr Stary told reporters. Thomas' father said he and his wife would continue to support their son. "As we have always known, Jack had nothing to answer for with these charges," he said. "We are very pleased with the jury, we thank the jury and the acquittal has been a great victory."

Thomas' wife Maryati said the couple's daughters, aged about five and two, and their newborn son, aged around three months, longed to have their father home. "He is missing his kids very much," she said. She said she would tell the children their father loves them very much and he was looking forward to seeing them soon. Thomas was the first Australian to be charged under new terrorist funding laws and the fifth charged under anti-terrorism legislation passed by federal parliament in October 2002, following the September 11 attacks in the United States. A spokesman for federal Attorney General Philip Ruddock said the convictions showed anti-terrorism laws were working.

"The convictions of Mr Thomas for the terrorist offence and the offence related to passport manipulation demonstrate the seriousness with which these issues are dealt with by the law and highlights the consequences of becoming involved in these activities," he said. While Thomas was in Pakistan, bin Laden associate Khaled bin Attash gave him $US3,500 and a plane ticket home. During the trial, his barrister Lex Lasry QC said there was no dispute Thomas took the ticket and the cash, but he planned to use the money to help his family and not for terrorism. He said the case against his client was based on guilt by association and branded it a "trophy trial" for the Australian Federal Police.

Thomas left Australia for Pakistan on March 23, 2001, and returned home on June 6, 2003. He had a Pakistani visa which had been altered to make it appear as if he had only been in the region for two weeks, instead of two-and-a-half years. Thomas' bail was revoked when the jury began deliberations last Thursday and he has been held in the Acacia maximum security unit at Barwon Prison. After the verdict, Mr Lasry asked Justice Philip Cummins to release Thomas on bail until his next court appearance. He said his client had no prior convictions and had already spent time in Pakistani custody and three months in solitary confinement at Acacia. But Justice Cummins remanded Thomas in custody until March 2, when he will attend a pre-sentence hearing.

  February 26, 2006

Dublin Protests Halt a March By Ulsterites

DUBLIN, Feb. 25 — A planned parade by Northern Irish Protestant groups through the capital of the Irish republic led to violent clashes between protesters and the police on Saturday, forcing cancellation of the march and briefly turning a sunny afternoon into a melee, with bricks flying over the heads of weekend shoppers. Five people were injured.

About 300 Protestants, including several marching bands in uniform, were stopped by the police before they could begin their planned "Love Ulster" march along O'Connell Street, Dublin's main thoroughfare. They intended to walk to the Irish Parliament building to protest what they say is the Irish government's tolerance of violence by groups like the Irish Republican Army. Representatives from Sinn Fein, the I.R.A.'s political wing, had encouraged its supporters to ignore the march, and the Irish public was expected to do the same. But crowds of Dubliners lined the parade route, shouting vulgarities and waving homemade banners telling the Northern Irish demonstrators to go back home.

A group of Dubliners who opposed the march confronted the police and, using construction equipment that had been left unattended on the street as weapons, began smashing windows of shops. One policeman was struck by a homemade gasoline bomb. At least three police officers and two protesters were injured. Tensions between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland are at the lowest point in nearly a decade.

Washington Post Saturday, February 25, 2006

Sectarian Violence Resurges in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Feb. 25 -- Fierce sectarian violence erupted anew Saturday despite an extraordinary daytime curfew, killing more than two dozen people in a series of incidents around the country, including a brazen attack on the funeral procession of an Iraqi television journalist in Baghdad. The violence took place even though a daytime curfew emptied the streets of Baghdad and three neighboring provinces for a second day.

President Bush made a round of phone calls to Iraqi political leaders Saturday in an effort to defuse the violence that has killed more than 150 people in the country since the destruction of the golden-domed Shiite Askariya Shrine in Samarra four days ago. Bush "encouraged them to continue to work together to thwart the efforts of the perpetrators of the violence to sow discord among Iraq's communities," said Frederick Jones, a spokesman for the White House's National Security Council, according to news agency reports. Iraq's top political and religious leaders held emergency talks in Baghdad and said they would join forces to ease the sectarian bloodshed that has put the country on tenterhooks waiting to see whether a full-scale civil war will erupt, news agencies reported from Baghdad. They also discussed the formation of a new government, the agencies reported.

In a symbolic gesture, Shiite and Sunni leaders held hands and then prayed after the talks at the Abu Hanifa mosque in Baghdad, the Reuters news agency reported from Baghdad. The Iraqi Interior Ministry announced that the ban on all vehicular traffic will be continued in Baghdad and its suburbs for 24 hours from 6 a.m. Sunday. The ban was lifted for three other Iraqi provinces, Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said at a news conference, according to reports. The first day of the curfew, Friday, brought a relative calm to the embattled country. Shiite and Sunni Arab political leaders have issued public pleas for calm, but each side has accused the other of mounting revenge attacks since the Askariya bombing.

The main Sunni political bloc, the Iraqi Accordance Front, issued a statement Saturday welcoming the government's promise to rebuild the Shiite shrine in Samarra and Sunni mosques that were damaged in reprisal attacks afterwards. The Sunnis suspended talks with the Shiites and Kurds on Thursday following attacks against more than 180 mosques in retaliation for the Samarra bombing. Despite the flurry of meetings and calls, on Saturday there were signs that the Sunnis were conducting their own offensive. In the morning, gunmen burst into a Shiite house and killed 13 members of one family living near the predominantly Sunni Arab town of Baqubah, north of Baghdad. The victims, all men, consisted of three generations of one family, the Associated Press reported. In Karbala, a Shiite holy city some 50 miles south of Baghdad, a car bomb explosion killed at least five people and injured more than 30, police and hospital officials said, according to the Associated Press. Karbala's governor said on television that a suspect, who witnesses said detonated the bomb by remote control, was caught as he tried to flee the scene.

And in Baghdad, gunmen opened fire on the funeral procession for an Al Arabiya television reporter, who was killed along with two colleagues while covering the bombing in Samarra. One security guard was killed in the firefight, the network said. When the mourners were returning from the cemetery, a car bomb ripped through an Iraqi military patrol that was escorting the mourners, news agencies reported. At least two soldiers and one police commando were killed then, police and army officials said, according to the Associated Press. And at least two rockets slammed into homes in Baghdad's Shiite slum, Sadr City, killing three people, including a child, the Associated Press reported.

Sunni leaders say Shiite militias affiliated with political parties have been allowed to rampage through the streets unchecked by the army and police. The Sunnis, in turn, have hastily organized groups of local men to defend their neighborhoods from attack. Special correspondents K.I. Ibrahim in Baghdad and Hassan Shammari in Baqubah contributed to this report. Daniela Deane reported from Washington.

President Bush warned yesterday that sectarian violence is confronting Iraqis with a "moment of choosing," as administration officials pleaded with all sides of the country's religious and ethnic divides to show restraint. Bush said yesterday that Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, had met with the leaders of an array of Iraqi factions in an effort to promote unity over reprisals. The latest bloodshed poses a new challenge to the Bush administration's strategy for reconstruction and eventual troop withdrawals. The sectarian attacks threaten to paralyze Iraq's fledgling political process while prompting fears that unrest could wash into neighboring countries.

Bush and senior officials sounded a newly grim note yesterday about the near-term difficulties. Several independent analysts said the attacks will raise political pressure to bring U.S. troops home, even as they underscore that Iraq is too unstable to allow a precipitous withdrawal. Speaking in Washington to the American Legion, Bush blamed the violence on insurgents intent on disrupting Iraq's democratic progress, and he predicted the violence is likely to continue. "The days ahead in Iraq are going to be difficult and exhausting," the president said. Still, he pleaded for patience, saying that Iraq's leaders are committed to stopping civil strife and that the will of the moderates will eventually take hold.

More than 100 people across Iraq have been killed in attacks and counterattacks between Sunni and Shiite Muslims touched off by the bombing earlier this week of the Askariya shrine, a revered Shiite site in Samarra. The attacks prompted the Iraqi government to impose a curfew in Baghdad and three provinces. That led to a sharp reduction in the violence yesterday as U.S. and Iraqi troops worked to maintain the peace. In a telephone briefing with reporters, Khalilzad called the situation "a moment of, of course, danger, but it is also a moment of opportunity." "In crises such as the one caused by this attack," he said, "there is an opportunity to bring people together and to defeat goals of those who want to promote a civil war in this country."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, returning from a week-long visit to the Middle East, said Arab leaders expressed fear violence will spread. "There is a concern that sectarian tension that outsiders are stoking in Iraq, that those same outsiders might try and stoke sectarian tensions in other parts of the region," Rice said. The prospect of a wider regional war erupting between Sunni and Shiite populations if civil war broke out in Iraq has been a concern of many analysts.

    February 22, 2006

One of Iraq's Most Sacred Shrines Damaged in Blast

SAMARRA, Iraq (AP) -- A large explosion heavily damaged the golden dome of one of Iraq's most famous Shiite religious shrines Wednesday, sending protesters pouring into the streets. It was the third major attack against Shiite targets in as many days. Police believed an unknown number of people may have been buried under the debris after the 6:55 a.m. explosion at the Askariya mosque. The shrine contains the tombs of two revered Shiite imams, both descendants of the Prophet Muhammad. Tradition says the shrine, which draws Shiite pilgrims from throughout the Islamic world, is near the place where the last of the 12 Shiite imams, Mohammed al-Mahdi, disappeared. Al-Mahdi, known as the ''hidden imam,'' was the son and grandson of the two imams buried in the Askariya shrine.

Shiites believe he is still alive and will return to restore justice to humanity. An attack at such an important religious shrine constitutes a grave assault on Shiite Islam at a time of rising sectarian tensions in Iraq. National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie said armed men wearing special forces uniforms broke inside the shrine and seized the guards, including policemen, responsible for protecting the site. The gunmen planted the explosives and fled, he said. Al-Rubaie blamed extremists represented by the al-Qaida terror network and Sunni militant group Ansar al-Sunnah for the explosion, which he told the Al Arabiya television aimed ''to pull Iraq toward civil war.''

Thousands of demonstrators gathered near the shrine, waving Iraqi flags, Shiite religious banners and copies of the Muslim holy book, Quran. Shiite leaders in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood called for demonstrations against the blast. ''This criminal act aims at igniting civil strife,'' said Mahmoud al-Samarie, a 28-year-old builder who was among the crowd in this city 60 miles north of Baghdad. ''We demand an investigation so that the criminals who did this be punished. If the government fails to do so, then we will take up arms and chase the people behind this attack.'' A roadside bomb exploded Wednesday near a primary school in a mostly Shiite area in southern Iraq, killing two boys and injuring four others, police said. The incident happened at about 7:45 a.m. in the Bashrogiya area near Kut, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, police Lt. Othman al-Rawi said.

On Tuesday, a car bomb exploded on a street packed with shoppers in a Shiite area of Baghdad, killing 22 people and wounding 28, police said. It was the deadliest bomb attack in the Iraqi capital in a month. Terrified children screamed and several women wailed for their dead, crying, ''the terrorists, may God punish them.'' Shattered bits of fruits and vegetables from vendors' pushcarts lay scattered on the street amid pools of blood. At least eight other people were killed and more than 30 injured Tuesday in bombings and shootings elsewhere in Baghdad and in attacks on beauty parlors and liquor stores -- symbols of Western influence -- in Baqouba northeast of the capital. The car bombing occurred shortly before 5 p.m. in a Shiite corner of Dora, a predominantly Sunni Arab district of Baghdad and one of the most dangerous parts of the city -- rocked almost daily by bombings, ambushes and assassinations.

Another policeman, 1st Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razaq, said the blast apparently was aimed at a police patrol but missed its target, killing and maiming shoppers strolling with their families along a street lined with appliance shops and fruit and vegetable stalls. It was the deadliest bombing in Baghdad since Jan. 19, when a suicide attacker blew himself up in a coffee shop, killing 22 people and injuring 23. The Dora bombing was the second major attack in as many days against a Shiite target in the capital. Twelve people died Monday when a suicide bomber detonated an explosives belt on a bus in the heavily Shiite district of Kazimiyah. At least 969 Iraqis have been killed in war-related violence this year and at least 986 have been wounded, according to an Associated Press count. However, large-scale attacks against civilians have declined in recent weeks amid widespread public criticism, including from Sunnis clerics and others sympathetic to the Sunni-dominated insurgency.

Religious leaders at other mosques and shrines throughout Samarra denounced Wednesday's mosque attack in statements read over loudspeakers. The Sunni Endowment, a government organization that cares for Sunni mosques and shrines, condemned the blast and said it was sending a delegation to Samarra to investigate. Following the blast, U.S. and Iraqi forces surrounded the shrine and began searching houses in the area. Five police officers responsible for protecting the mosque were taken into custody, said Col. Bashar Abdelallh, chief of police commandoes in Samarra. The shrine contains the tombs of the 10th and 11th imams, Ali al-Hadi, who died in 868 A.D., and his son Hassan al-Askari, who died in 874 A.D. and was the father of the hidden imam. The golden dome was completed in 1905.

Washington Post Thursday, February 23, 2006

Blast Rocks Shiite Shrine in Samarra

BAGHDAD, Feb. 11 -- One of the most revered shrines in Shiite Islam was bombed early this morning, causing the collapse of its dome, police and eyewitnesses said. There was no immediate estimate of casualties in the latest in a series of sectarian attacks in the country. The shrine in Samarra, a predominantly Sunni Arab city 60 miles north of Baghdad, contains the remains of two of Shiite Islam's most prominent Imams. The bomb is believed to have been planted a day earlier, said Capt. Basheer Qadoori, of the city's police force.

"Last night, five armed men wearing ski masks broke into the shrine, kidnapped 5 guards of the shrine and planted two bombs inside," Qadoori said. Iraq's most notable Shiite religious authority, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, announced a week long mourning and urged people to go to the streets in "peaceful demonstrations to denounce this criminal act." Sistani's office said a detailed statement would be released later today. Shiite Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari announced a three-day mourning in a televised appearance. "I call on my people to express their condemnation," Jaafari said. He asked Iraqis to "close the door to all those who are fishing in the troubled water."

The attack, which sparked immediate and widespread protests among Shiites across Iraq, appeared designed to further inflame sectarian tension between Iraq's Shiite majority and the Sunni Arab population from whose ranks the bulk of the country's insurgency is drawn. In Samarra, witnesses said that interior ministry commandos and Iraqi police were cordoning the shrine before the explosions took place. Ahmed Abdul Ghafour, 30, lives near the shrine said, "I was leaving my house to go to work at 6 a.m. but the commandoes did not allow me and said curfew is imposed. About an hour later, we heard the explosions." "The main aim of these terrorist groups is to drag Iraq into a civil war," said Iraq's national security advisor Mowaffak al-Rubaie in an interview on Al-Arabiya, a Dubai based Arabic news channel.

Residents and clerics in Samarra expressed their anger and took to the streets in protest. Sunni Imams--religious leaders-- used loudspeakers to urge people to demonstrate in front of the holy Shrine peacefully. But Sunni demonstrators were dispersed by Iraqi police who shot in the air. Two people were wounded during the protests. Sheikh Ahmed al-Dhaye, a Sunni cleric and a member of the Muslim Scholars Association in Samarra denounced the act and said, "We blame the interior ministry and the US forces for failing to protect this holy shrine. We and all the people in Samarra are very enraged against this crime as we never expected this to happen."

Protests were also reported in Baghdad, and the southern cities of Najaf, Hilla and Karbala, where Shiites predominate. The shrine in Samarra contains the tombs of the 10th and 11th imams, Ali al-Hadi who died in 868 A.D. and his son Hassan al-Askari who died in 874 A.D and was the father of Imam Al-Mahdi, the "hidden imam" whom the Shiites believe is still alive. The golden dome was completed in 1905.

   International.  Feb. 20, 2006

Iranian Students Plot Anti-U.S. Suicide Attacks

Students at Training Seminars Say They'll Attack in Iraq if U.S. Strikes First

A group of potential suicide bombers in Tehran warned the United States and Britain it will attack coalition military bases in Iraq if there is a strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. An Iranian group calling itself  Esteshadion, which translates as "Martyrdom Seekers," hopes to sign up thousands of potential bombers. 

Suicide Bombing 101

As they gather in Tehran at Khajeh Nasir University, these students aren't studying the subtleties of history or science, they're learning about suicide bombings. The students study videos showing suicide attacks around the Middle East and listen to lectures from a former Revolutionary Guard member who praises the use of suicide bombers. "Their possible attacks to [nuclear facilities of Iran] will not certainly be a ground attack — that would be, a missile attack — but they should know that they have interests in some sensitive areas which can be targeted by our suicide attackers," said Muhammad Ali Samadi, one of the movement's leaders, speaking in Farsi.

Samadi claims to have trained 1,000 students already. At the meeting over the weekend, more than 200 people gathered and 50 signed up.

"For example, if some day it's necessary to attend such operations, I will definitely do that," said university student Ahmed Salehi. "I will attack the one who have attacked us." But another student said he had no interest in signing up, he just wanted to hear what the group had to say. Esteshadion was formed in late 2004, calling for members on a sporadic basis at Friday prayer ceremonies, state-sponsored rallies and at the group's occasional meetings.

  February 21, 2006

U.S. Reclassifies Many Documents in Secret Review

WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 — In a seven-year-old secret program at the National Archives, intelligence agencies have been removing from public access thousands of historical documents that were available for years, including some already published by the State Department and others photocopied years ago by private historians.

The restoration of classified status to more than 55,000 previously declassified pages began in 1999, when the Central Intelligence Agency and five other agencies objected to what they saw as a hasty release of sensitive information after a 1995 declassification order signed by President Bill Clinton. It accelerated after the Bush administration took office and especially after the 2001 terrorist attacks, according to archives records. But because the reclassification program is itself shrouded in secrecy — governed by a still-classified memorandum that prohibits the National Archives even from saying which agencies are involved — it continued virtually without outside notice until December. That was when an intelligence historian, Matthew M. Aid, noticed that dozens of documents he had copied years ago had been withdrawn from the archives' open shelves.

Mr. Aid was struck by what seemed to him the innocuous contents of the documents — mostly decades-old State Department reports from the Korean War and the early cold war. He found that eight reclassified documents had been previously published in the State Department's history series, "Foreign Relations of the United States." "The stuff they pulled should never have been removed," he said. "Some of it is mundane, and some of it is outright ridiculous." After Mr. Aid and other historians complained, the archives' Information Security Oversight Office, which oversees government classification, began an audit of the reclassification program, said J. William Leonard, director of the office. Mr. Leonard said he ordered the audit after reviewing 16 withdrawn documents and concluding that none should be secret. "If those sample records were removed because somebody thought they were classified, I'm shocked and disappointed," Mr. Leonard said in an interview. "It just boggles the mind."

If Mr. Leonard finds that documents are being wrongly reclassified, his office could not unilaterally release them. But as the chief adviser to the White House on classification, he could urge a reversal or a revision of the reclassification program. A group of historians, including representatives of the National Coalition for History and the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations, wrote to Mr. Leonard on Friday to express concern about the reclassification program, which they believe has blocked access to some material at the presidential libraries as well as at the archives. Among the 50 withdrawn documents that Mr. Aid found in his own files is a 1948 memorandum on a C.I.A. scheme to float balloons over countries behind the Iron Curtain and drop propaganda leaflets. It was reclassified in 2001 even though it had been published by the State Department in 1996.

Another historian, William Burr, found a dozen documents he had copied years ago whose reclassification he considers "silly," including a 1962 telegram from George F. Kennan, then ambassador to Yugoslavia, containing an English translation of a Belgrade newspaper article on China's nuclear weapons program. Under existing guidelines, government documents are supposed to be declassified after 25 years unless there is particular reason to keep them secret. While some of the choices made by the security reviewers at the archives are baffling, others seem guided by an old bureaucratic reflex: to cover up embarrassments, even if they occurred a half-century ago. One reclassified document in Mr. Aid's files, for instance, gives the C.I.A.'s assessment on Oct. 12, 1950, that Chinese intervention in the Korean War was "not probable in 1950." Just two weeks later, on Oct. 27, some 300,000 Chinese troops crossed into Korea.

Mr. Aid said he believed that because of the reclassification program, some of the contents of his 22 file cabinets might technically place him in violation of the Espionage Act, a circumstance that could be shared by scores of other historians. But no effort has been made to retrieve copies of reclassified documents, and it is not clear how they all could even be located.

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Propaganda Matrix 

Muslim Riots Aid Neo-Con Global Agenda

"Clash of Civilizations" Advanced by Naive and Controlled Groups

Muhammad cartoon on Egypt's al-Fagr newspaper cover in October 2005 (courtesy: Freedom for Egyptians)

The riots that are currently sweeping across Europe and the Middle East in response to caricatures of Mohammed that were originally printed in Danish newspapers are staged managed and are helping the Neo-Cons advance the "clash of civilizations" that they need to impose world order and imperial hegemony. Images of Muslims with signs that read "freedom go to hell" and "Europe, take some lessons from from 9/11" are playing right into the hands of the Globalists by enabling them to hold up examples of how the Muslims are dangerous barbarians who wish to take away our liberties and need to be dealt with.

The elite is encouraging and fostering the spread of Islamofascism throughout Europe by allowing mass immigration in increasing levels year after year. It is in their interests to create a balkanized melting pot so they can use divide and conquer tactics to enslave all races under a centralized new world order. The elite want us to be at each others throats while they dominate over the downtrodden and befuddled warring tribes. Race is the ultimate touchstone hot button issue and the Globalists have enacted policies of rampant uncontrolled immigration in order to force hostile cultures to intermingle. The outcome is always tribal warfare, as we saw in Bosnia and Kosovo.

The right of newspapers to publish these caricatures is unwavering and freedom of speech takes precedence over everything else. Violent Muslim demonstrators should be aware that they are sowing the seeds of their own destruction by allowing the media to portray them as freedom hating, brutal and out of control. This ensures increased support for future wars that primarily target Muslim and Persian majority countries. During collection of material that is posted on this website, we regularly scan political cartoon and artwork archives such as Daryl Cagle's Professional Cartoonists Index. This is an archive for cartoons that appear in US newspapers nationwide on a daily basis. On numerous occasions over the past five years we have seen cartoons and caricatures that depict Mohammed. Why the sudden outrage now?

As Kurt Nimmo points out, the three most offensive cartoons that caused the outrage were not even printed in the Danish Jyllands-Posten newspaper but were added in and handed out by Danish imams who “circulated the images to brethren in Muslim countries,” according to the London Telegraph. It also appears highly suspicious that Muslims in Gaza City and other places had gained access to a plentiful supply of Danish flags to burn in front of the waiting world media as soon as the controversy broke out. We have tirelessly documented previous cases where Muslim clerics and leaders were proven to be acting on behalf of Western intelligence agencies. Early indications strongly suggest that the original riots that led to worldwide demonstrations were staged managed. Last November's French riots were used to advance a similar agenda that we see unraveling today. The melting pot of multiculturalism does not work, it has never worked and it was never intended to work. The Algerians in France do not want to be part of the Western fabric because they fundamentally hate it to its very core. This is not helped by promotion of decadent and hedonistic lifestyles pumped out from every cultural and media orifice.

A sizeable proportion of the secular humanist Westerners who like to think of themselves as part of the establishment, when in reality they are unwitting tools of the true elite, have bought into the cuddly utopian philosophy that the West is a global village which welcomes all comers and has the enlightened innate ability to homogenize millions of different people of all different colors and creeds into one giant melting pot. The reality couldn't be further from the truth and images of flaming buses, schools, nurseries, terror and panic betrayed that fact in France last November. Establishment controlled Mexican groups such as Aztlan and Mecha advocate killing all whites and blacks and driving them out of the southern states by means of brutal ethnic cleansing. Flags and placards carried at marches depict white people having their heads cut off, as seen in the picture below.

Those that protest such groups are then attacked by the establishment media and labeled as racists, despite the fact that the Plan of San Diego, a rallying cry for the Hispanic Klan groups, advocates total eradication of any race but Hispanics. Mecha's own slogan reads, "For the race everything. For those outside the race, nothing." Again, this racial warfare only benefits a smug elite who are content to sit back and watch all the chaos unfold, leaving a terrified middle class to beg for a choking police state to be instituted as the only solution to the problem, a problem manufactured by elite control of so-called minority groups in the first place. Violent Muslim demonstrators need to take a step back and consider what is important in the long term. The ability of western media to exercise freedom of speech and print cartoons, or unwittingly greasing the skids for a giant engineered backlash against the Muslim world that will see all Muslim nations subjugated and dominated under a tyrannical world government, along with every other race, color and creed.

  1:12 p.m. February 19, 2006

Security forces seal Pakistani capital to quell prophet cartoon protests

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Pakistani security forces arrested hundreds of Islamic hard-liners, virtually sealed off the capital and used gunfire and tear gas Sunday to quell protests over the Prophet Muhammad cartoons that were banned after a wave of deadly riots. Elsewhere in the Muslim world, demonstrators with wooden staves and stones tried unsuccessfully to storm the U.S. Embassy in Indonesia, while tens of thousands rallied in the Turkish city of Istanbul and complained about negative Western perceptions of Islam.

Troops patrolled the deserted streets of the northern Nigerian town of Maiduguri, where thousands of Muslims attacked Christians and burned churches Saturday, killing at least 15 people during a protest over the cartoons. Most of the victims were beaten to death by rioters. The cartoons, first published by a Danish newspaper in September and reprinted by other Western publications, have outraged Muslims. But protests over the past three weeks have grown into a broader anger against the West in general, and Israel and the United States in particular. Demonstrations have turned increasingly violent and claimed at least 45 lives worldwide, including 11 in Afghanistan during a three-day span two weeks ago and 10 on Friday in the Libyan coastal city of Benghazi. The Libyan riot outside the Italian consulate apparently was sparked by a right-wing Italian Cabinet minister who wore a T-shirt with a caricature of Muhammad. Pakistani authorities ordered a protest ban after riots killed five people in two cities last week.

On Sunday, thousands of police and paramilitary troops manned armored personnel carriers and sandbag bunkers in and around Islamabad to block a planned rally organized by a coalition of hardline Islamic parties that sympathizes with the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan and is fiercely anti-American. As roadblocks went up around the capital, authorities declared they would arrest anyone joining a gathering of more than five people. Opposition leader Maulana Fazlur Rahman, who denounced the government ban as unconstitutional, was allowed to stage a small rally with eight other opposition lawmakers and a few supporters. They chanted “God is great!” and “Any friend of America is a traitor.”

But police fired tear gas and guns to chase off hundreds of stone-throwing protesters who tried to join the rally and then enter an enclave where most foreign embassies are. The three-hour clash left the street littered with rocks and spent tear gas shells. An Associated Press reporter saw two injured police, one bleeding from his head, and several injured protesters. Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said police used tear gas, but denied they fired guns. The private Geo TV network said officers fired rubber bullets. Sherpao also said 100 to 150 people had been arrested in the capital since late Saturday. Police also raided homes and offices overnight in the nearby city of Rawalpindi and the eastern hub of Lahore, rounding up about 300 people, including some lawmakers.

Qazi Hussain Ahmad, a top leader of the hardline Islamic coalition, the Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal (United Action Forum), was confined to his Lahore residence and others were detained or told to stay at home, police said. “These people could create problems of law and order,” said Chaudhry Shafqaat Ahmed, chief investigator of the Lahore police. In Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, police said 15,000 coalition supporters, most wearing white shrouds of mourning splashed with red paint to symbolize their willingness to die defending the prophet's honor, rallied peacefully. Twelve-year-old Amar Ahmed joined the protest, carrying a sign reading, “O Allah, give me courage to kill the blasphemer.” Hundreds of Muslims burned a church in the southern city of Sukkur. No worshippers were inside at the time, but one person was hurt afterward when police fired tear gas.

Local police chief Akbar Arian said the riot was not sparked by the cartoons but by allegations that a local Christian had burned pages of Islam's holy book, the Quran – another sign of the heightened sectarian tensions in this overwhelmingly Muslim nation. In Indonesia, about 400 people marched to the heavily fortified U.S. Embassy in central Jakarta behind a banner that read, “We are ready to attack the enemies of the prophet.”  Brandishing wooden staves and lobbing stones, they tried to storm the gates. They also set fire to U.S. flags and a poster of President Bush, and smashed the windows of a guard outpost before dispersing after a few minutes. The U.S. Embassy condemned the attack as “thuggery.” In Istanbul, tens of thousands joined a protest organized by the Islamic Felicity Party, whose leaders shouted over loudspeakers that the crowd symbolized the anger of the world's 1.5 billion Muslims and urged them to “resist oppression.” Protesters chanted slogans against Denmark, Israel and the United States.

Ethem Erkovan, a 47-year-old participant, who held a banner in one hand and his daughter in the other, accused Western nations of maligning Islam. “They are the ones who are trying to depict the expanding Islamic community as terrorists, though all we want is peace,” he said.

U.S.-German Flare-Up Over Vast Nazi Camp Archives  February 20, 2006

Tempers are flaring over a United States demand to open to scholars and researchers a huge repository of information about the Holocaust contained in the files of the International Tracing Service at Bad Arolsen, Germany. Based in part on documents gathered by Allied forces as they liberated Nazi concentration camps, the stock of files held by the organization stretches for about 15.5 miles, and holds information on 17.5 million people. It amounts to one of the largest closed archives anywhere. The collection is unique in its intimate personal detailing of a catastrophe, which is what makes the question of open access so delicate. The papers may reveal who was treated for lice at which camp, what ghoulish medical experiment was conducted on which prisoner and why, who was accused by the Nazis of homosexuality or murder or incest or pedophilia, which Jews collaborated and how they were induced to do so.

Since the end of World War II the Tracing Service, operating as an arm of the International Committee of the Red Cross, has used the files to help people trace the fates of relatives who disappeared into the murderous vortex of Nazi terror. Now, more than 60 years after the end of the war, the United States says that task is largely done and it is time to open up the archive, copy it so that it can also be stored in other countries and make it available to historians. "The U.S. government favors opening up all records on the Holocaust," said Edward O'Donnell, the special envoy for Holocaust issues at the State Department. "Our objective is to open the archive, and we will continue to push." But that push has met a wall of legal and procedural objections — from Charles Biedermann, the Red Cross official who has been director of the Tracing Service for two decades, and from the German and Italian governments. The atmosphere within the 11-nation international commission that oversees the operation has become poisonous.

At meetings to discuss the opening of the archive, German officials have asked whether it is really in anyone's interest to have accusations about particular Jews being murderers or homosexuals made public. Because German privacy laws are much stricter than those in the United States, German authorities are concerned that an opening could lead to lawsuits charging that personal information was handed out illegally. Wide access to the papers could also provoke new claims for compensation. "This is a scandal and a big scar on the image of Germany," said Sara Bloomfield, the director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, which has been eager to secure copies of the files. Paul Shapiro, the director of advanced Holocaust studies at the museum, accused Germany of "abusing efforts to achieve consensus" and "exerting a stranglehold on the process." He added, "Hiding this record is a form of Holocaust denial."

Such strong words are at odds with the generally positive tenor of German-American relations on Holocaust matters, even through negotiations as elaborate as those that led to Germany's agreement in 2000 to compensate former slave laborers of the Nazis. Germany is outraged at the suggestion that it may be dragging its feet. "I object to the assertion that we have something to hide or are not forthcoming," said Wolfgang Ischinger, the German ambassador to the United States. "That insinuation is false." The clash has some of its roots in the complex history and labyrinthine legal structure of the Tracing Service. Set up late in the war, it has long been administered under the terms of the 1955 Bonn Agreements, which restored German sovereignty. That treaty says the facility must "take all reasonable steps to avoid divulging information about a person or persons which might prejudice the interests of the person or persons concerned or of their relatives." In essence, it confines access to information to the persecuted themselves, their relatives or legal representatives. But the accord also says all of the governments in the 11-nation governing commission have the right to inspect documents. Those countries are the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Greece, Israel, Poland and Luxembourg.

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  AUSTRALIA

Prime Minister John Howard says he stands by his comments that sections of Australia's Muslim population are antagonistic to Australian culture. Mr. Howard's views are outlined in a book to mark the 10th anniversary of his rise to power written by journalists and commentators from The Australian newspaper. In the book, the prime minister said a commitment to jihad and extreme attitudes towards women were two problems unique to Muslims that previous intakes of migrants from Europe and Asia did not have.

Mr. Howard said it was his "right and duty" to express his thoughts.

I stand by those comments that there is a small section of the Islamic population in Australia that, because of its remarks about jihad, remarks which indicate an extremist view, that is a problem," Mr. Howard told reporters in Sydney. "It is not a problem that we have ever faced with other immigrant communities who become easily absorbed by Australia's mainstream." Australians wanted people to assimilate, Mr. Howard said.

"We want people when they come to Australia to adopt Australians' ways. "We don't ask them to forget the countries of their birth, we respect all religious points of views and people are entitled to practice them but there are certainly things that are not part of the Australian mainstream." The Prime Minister also expressed concern about Muslim attitudes to women. "There is within some sections of the Islamic community an attitude towards women which is out of line with mainstream Australian society," he said.

"It needs to be dealt with by the broader community, including Islamic Australia. "There is really not much point in pretending it doesn't exist." But Mr Howard said it was important people realised he had made the comments about Muslims before the Cronulla race riot and subsequent violence in Sydney. "I was not trying to make some kind of tawdry political point, it is a view that I have held for some time," he said.

Israel, in Slap at Hamas, Freezes Money for Palestinians  February 19, 2006

JERUSALEM, Feb. 19 — Israel's cabinet decided today to immediately freeze the transfer of about $50 million a month in tax and customs receipts due to the Palestinian Authority, arguing that Saturday's swearing in of a Hamas-dominated legislature means that the Palestinians are now led by the militant group. "It is clear that in the light of the Hamas majority in the parliament and the instructions to form a new government that were given to the head of Hamas, the Palestinian Authority is in practice becoming a terrorist authority," the acting prime minister, Ehud Olmert, told his cabinet. "The state of Israel will not agree to this."

Israel's position put it at odds in terms of timing with its main ally, the United States, and the rest of the so-called quartet — the European Union, Russia and the United Nations. The quartet has said that its financial support for the Palestinian Authority would continue until a new Hamas-led government is in place, a process that could take five weeks or longer. Even as Israel acted to cut off money to the Palestinians, the quartet's representative, James D. Wolfensohn, was in the Middle East raising money for the Palestinian Authority until Hamas fully takes over the government.

The Israeli move now means that Mr. Olmert, in the midst of an election campaign, will not have to transfer February's customs and taxes to the Palestinians. He was sharply criticized by the Israeli right for having transferred January's money, and if he had agreed to the Quartet's timetable, he might even have had to transfer the payment due for March. The Israeli move means that the Palestinian Authority will have an immediate shortfall of about $110 million a month in its budget, which largely goes to pay 135,000 workers, including about 58,000 in the security services. Hamas says it will seek economies and other aid from the Muslim world, including Iran.

In Gaza City, the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said that the Palestinians were in a financial crisis. "Unfortunately, the pressures have begun and the support and the aid started to decrease," he said. "Therefore we are currently in a financial crisis, and we hope to overcome it month by month." Mr. Abbas went there to meet with Ismail Haniya, 42, whom Hamas confirmed would be its choice for prime minister, to ask him to form a government. The meeting will take place on Monday. Once Mr. Haniya accepts the charge, he has up to five weeks to form a government, though he says he will need less time than that.

On Saturday, Mr. Abbas, in a speech to the new Palestinian parliament, said he expected a new government to accept previous agreements with Israel, including the peace plan known as the road map, and to support negotiations with it. These are positions that Hamas rejects. He did not specifically require an explicit recognition of Israel, however. Hamas is expected to move slowly for now, leaving relations with Israel in the hands of Mr. Abbas and the Palestine Liberation Organization. "We will start a dialogue with President Abbas and the other factions," Mr. Haniya said in remarks broadcast on Al Jazeera, the Arab satellite television channel. He also criticized Israel's new sanctions against the Palestinians, calling them "part of the continued Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people."

Israel's cabinet decided to hold back for now on other sanctions that would have further serious effects on Palestinian life. Instead, the cabinet said that it would urge the international community to refrain from all financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority except for humanitarian aid, that it would seek to prevent any new shipments of arms or equipment to the Palestinian security services, and that it would "increase security checks" at crossings between Israel and Gaza. "These are measured and graduated responses to the swearing in of a Hamas legislature," said Raanan Gissin, an Israeli spokesman. "The point is to leave some ammunition in the magazine and give Hamas and the Palestinians the chance to assess the consequences of failing to meet the international community's demands."

Israel and the quartet have threatened to isolate Hamas and cut back aid to the Palestinian Authority unless a new government complies with three conditions: recognizing Israel's right to exist, forswearing violence, and accepting previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements, including the 1993 Oslo accords, which are predicated on negotiations with Israel leading to a permanent two-state solution. Hamas rejects those conditions, but a senior Western diplomat said the militant group was seeking wording capable of satisfying at least part of the world community. But Mr. Olmert, in the middle of an Israeli election campaign, listed a much harsher version of those conditions than appears in the quartet's statement of them, on Jan. 30.

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U.S. Digs In on Withholding Aid to Hamas Government

February 17, 2006

Workers hung a verse of the Koran Thursday at a Gaza office of the Palestinian parliament, which Hamas will lead. Hamas's refusal to pledge to negotiate peacefully with Israel jeopardizes $1 billion in foreign aid.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 16 — The Bush administration is struggling to maintain a united front with its European and Arab allies to stick to a warning to cut off financial aid to the Palestinian Authority if Hamas does not renounce its anti-Israel positions, American officials said Thursday.        Read Bellow

A landslide buried an entire village in the central Philippines on Friday leaving up to 3000 people feared dead, the Red Cross said.Eyewitnesses said only a few houses were left standing after the side of a mountain collapsed and slammed into the village of Guinsaugon in the south of the Philippine island of Leyte. "There are about 1,500 missing, 200 dead," Richard Gordon, the head of the Philippine Red Cross, said in a radio interview.

"We're hoping for the best but preparing for the worst," he said. The first footage from the devastated village showed a sea of mud covering what had been lush green valley farmland. The mud was estimated to be at least six metres (yards) deep. Only a few sheets of tin roofing and the occasional coconut tree could be seen. Tiny groups of mud-spattered survivors walked through the muck, apparently stunned by the scope of the destruction. Among those feared buried in the mire were nearly 250 children and adults in the village school, officials said.

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Bird flu vax passes first hurdle  Friday, 17 February 2006

A human vaccine against the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu virus has successfully passed the first stages in testing its safety and effectiveness, reports the manufacturer.

A veterinarian removes a dead swan from the Baltic island of Ruegen. The birds will be tested for the H5N1 strain of bird flu now that other swans in the area have died of the infection.

Poultry farmers burn chicken carcasses in Nigeria, a country that has just started investigating suspected human cases of the H5N1 bird flu virus. Now scientists are preparing for a worst-case scenario: a human bird flu pandemic.

A human vaccine against the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu virus has successfully passed the first stages in testing its safety and effectiveness, reports the manufacturer. The trial, carried out at the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute with the University of Melbourne and the Royal Adelaide Hospital, recently tested a vaccine made by CSL Ltd of Melbourne.
CSL today announced that the vaccine triggered an immune response it predicts will equate with "a good level of protection" in "about half" of the 400 healthy adult volunteers tested.

And, says Dr Andrew Cuthbertson, CSL's chief scientific officer, the participants got little more than the odd sore arm. "It was very reassuring in a safety sense." The vaccine was based on a deactivated virus originally taken from a Vietnamese patient. It was then grown up in fertilised chicken eggs, killed and mixed with an aluminium phosphate adjuvant before being given to volunteers.
Cuthbertson says the trial found immune stimulation occurred at two antigen doses of 7.5 microgram and two of 15 micrograms, although greater stimulation occurred at the double 15 microgram dose, which is the dose used in normal flu shots.

While it is generally assumed the higher the immune stimulation, the greater the protection, Cuthbertson says no one knows yet precisely what immune level will protect. Further safety and efficacy studies
CSL says it now plans to organise a second trial to study the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine in 800 other healthy volunteers, in particular children and older people who respond differently to vaccines. It also plans to test the impact of higher doses of vaccine to clarify the dose that gives the best immune response.

He hopes the vaccine could be registered some time in the first half of 2007. But, says Cuthbertson, if the vaccine is eventually registered, it will be a matter for governments and regulatory agencies to decide the lowest dose that can protect the most number of people.

How ready are we?
CSL says if a bird flu pandemic arrived now, and it was directed by the government to do so, they would be able to produce the vaccine as it is in six weeks. But, if the pandemic strain mutated from the H5N1 to a strain more readily transmitted to humans, he says the time frame could be stretched. "If [the virus] was not too different we would proceed to crank out as much vaccine as possible of the one that we made already," says Cuthbertson. If it was very different CSL would have to switch to making a new vaccine and this would take another six weeks.

Cuthbertson says registering a vaccine against the H5N1 strain will still save time even if the eventual pandemic strain is different because the Therapeutic Goods Administration has told CSL it would not have to repeat clinical trials. "It's making the assumption that the safety profile and so forth will be similar," he says.
 

Other trials?
While there have been many attempts to make a vaccine around the world, there have been few results of clinical trials announced, says Professor Aileen Plant, chief executive officer of the Australian Biosecurity Cooperative Research Centre at Curtin University and a consultant to the World Health Organization.

"It is exciting, really ... I don't think there's been anywhere else that's been able to get that sort of immunological response with two doses of 15 micrograms," says Plant, who also sits on the federal government's National Influenza Pandemic Action Committee.
She says a US trial last year that did not use an adjuvant had to give substantially more antigen to get an immune response, which means fewer people could be vaccinated. Plant agrees that the vaccine could be used in an emergency, despite the missing data on children and elderly people. "If the pandemic came tomorrow, the risks would be so high that we would say that it was worth going with it even if we didn't have the data."

  Fri 17 Feb 2006

New Abu Ghraib Abuse Pictures Spark Fear, Outrage

A prisoner at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison is seen in an image from 2003 and made available Feb. 15 by Australia's Special Broadcasting Service.

Feb 16 2006 - New images broadcast by SBS last night showing Iraqis abused by U.S. guards at Abu Ghraib prison three years ago, threatened to inflame public anger already running high over footage of British soldiers beating youths in southern Iraq. Images of naked prisoners, some bloodied and lying on the floor, were taken about the same time as earlier photos that triggered a worldwide scandal. Some of the images broadcast, one appears to show corpses, were more graphic than those previously published. One of the video clips depicted a group of naked men with bags over their heads standing together and masturbating.

New images showing Iraqis abused by U.S. guards at Abu Ghraib prison three years ago threatened Wednesday to inflame public anger already running high over footage of British soldiers beating youths in southern Iraq. Images of naked prisoners, some bloodied and lying on the floor, were taken about the same time as earlier photos that triggered a worldwide scandal and led to military trials and prison sentences for several lower-ranking American soldiers. Many of the images broadcast by Australia's Special Broadcasting Service, including some that appear to show corpses, were more graphic than those previously published. One of the video clips depicted a group of naked men with bags over their heads standing together and masturbating. The network said they were forced to participate. Al-Jazeera TV later aired some of the pictures in the Middle East. The Arab satellite station refrained from showing some of the most shocking and sexually explicit images, however. Excerpts were also broadcast on CNN. Iraq's acting human rights minister, Nermine Othman, said she was "horrified" by the pictures and would study whether any action could be taken against those responsible, even though some offenders have been imprisoned.

  February 17, 2006

Illinois Student Paper Prints Muslim Cartoons, and Reaction Is Swift

CHAMPAIGN, Ill., Feb. 16 — Since the morning the cartoons satirizing the Prophet Muhammad were republished in the student newspaper at the University of Illinois here, response has been swift and split.

Acton H. Gorton, right, and Chuck Prochaska were suspended after cartoons satirizing the prophet Muhammad were reprinted in The Daily Illini.

Muslim students and others held a protest on the main quadrangle on Tuesday, saying they were stunned and hurt by The Daily Illini's publication on Feb. 9 of the images that had stirred so much violence and caused so much pain in other parts of the world. Some members of The Daily Illini staff said they were furious, too, and in Wednesday's editions, the publisher announced that the editor in chief and opinions page editor had been suspended, pending an investigation into how the cartoons had ended up in the paper.

"This has gotten crazy," said Acton H. Gorton, 25, the suspended editor in chief who decided to run 6 of the 12 cartoons even though he said he found them "bigoted and insensitive." Mr. Gorton received calls for his resignation but also a deluge of praise, including comments of support from students as he walked on campus. "We did this to raise a healthy dialogue about an important issue that is in the news and so that people would learn more about Islam. Now, I'm basically fired." Most major American newspapers, including The New York Times, have not published the cartoons, which were first published in a Danish newspaper last September.

But on college campuses, student journalists are still grappling with the decision, saying the choice of most of the nation's newspapers makes theirs even more crucial. Editors at some student publications at the University of Wisconsin, Harvard University, Northern Illinois University and Illinois State University have published some of the cartoons. The decisions have set off a painful clash, seemingly pitting two of the values so often embraced in university environments — freedom of speech and sensitivity to other cultures — directly against each other. Other student newspapers, including those at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Arizona State University and the University of Arizona, have published their own cartoons that comment on or refer to the controversial cartoons.

The issue has prompted letters to the editor, community meetings and public forums. Officials at the University of Wisconsin were organizing a forum in Madison for next week after The Badger Herald on Monday ran one of the cartoons, one that portrayed Muhammad with a turban in the shape of a bomb. "Universally, we found the cartoon to be repugnant," said Mac VerStandig, the editor in chief of The Badger Herald. "But we believe that there was a certain endangerment of free speech here, especially given the general prudishness of the American press. We believe our readers are mature enough to look at these images."

In Champaign on the morning of Feb. 9, angry phone calls began within hours of The Daily Illini's hitting the stands. The cartoons were printed on the opinions page beside a column by Mr. Gorton explaining why he was publishing them. Shaz Kaiseruddin, a third-year law student and president of the Muslim Student Association, said she awoke to a phone call from an angry colleague. "I was in disbelief that they would do this," Ms. Kaiseruddin, 24, said. "That our own student-based newspaper would be so ignorant and disrespectful." Producing any image of Muhammad is considered blasphemous by many Muslims, and reproducing such anti-Muslim images, she said, revealed no understanding of the pain that would carry. Students met to plan a response.

Richard Herman, the chancellor of the university, sent a letter criticizing the newspaper, which is published independently. In part, it said, "I believe that the D.I. could have engaged its readers in legitimate debate about the issues surrounding the cartoons' publication in Denmark without publishing them. It is possible, for instance, to editorialize about pornography without publishing pornographic pictures." At the paper, meanwhile, some staff members said they were furious — and surprised. They said Mr. Gorton and Chuck Prochaska, 20, the opinions editor, had made the decision to publish the images without properly consulting the newspaper's other top editors. The pair denied this, saying they had followed the normal decision-marking procedures and that anyone who was working at the newspaper could have seen the planned pages before they ran.

In the days that followed, the newspaper ran an apology, held conversations with Muslim students and promised more complete, nuanced coverage on the issue. "We need to start fixing our image," said Shira Weissman, one of two interim editors in chief of the paper in Mr. Gorton's absence. "We're being viewed as being hateful." But among students interviewed on Thursday, many said they were angry not because the newspaper had published the images but because it was now doubting that choice. "I was absolutely crushed to see that the editors were removed," said Cody Kay, 18. "What happened to freedom of speech? If we start saying we can't look at things, what's next? Our books?" Ms. Weissman said the suspensions stemmed from the fact that the two journalists had not properly consulted the staff about the decision.

Ms. Weissman said she would not have printed the cartoons. Others said they might choose to run them, but only with plenty of context, explanation of the controversy and perhaps a guest column from a member of the Muslim student group. Mr. Gorton said on Thursday that he wished he had discussed the issue more with his staff. And he would have printed more context, more explanation, something The Northern Star, Northern Illinois's student newspaper, did when it published the cartoons on Monday. Derek Wright, the editor in chief of The Northern Star, said his newspaper included a front-page editorial explaining the choice to run the 12 images, as well as an article about them, student reaction and a column from a Muslim student leader. "There really hasn't been as much outcry as we might have expected," Mr. Wright said. Either way, Mr. Gorton said he still would have printed the images. "My first obligation is to the readers," he said. "This is news."

Vice President Cheney accepted full responsibility yesterday for shooting a 78-year-old lawyer in a hunting accident in Texas last weekend, calling it "one of the worst days of my life," but he expressed no regret about waiting until the next day to reveal the incident to the public. Breaking his silence four days after the shooting, a subdued Cheney recounted the incident in sometimes stark and personal terms, saying he was haunted by the memory of his friend, Harry Whittington, falling to the ground. While Cheney allies have faulted Whittington for not signaling fellow hunters that he was nearby, the vice president took the blame.

"Ultimately, I'm the guy who pulled the trigger and fired the round that hit Harry," Cheney said in a hastily arranged White House interview with Fox News Channel anchor Brit Hume. "And you can talk about all of the other conditions that existed at the time, but that's the bottom line. And there's no -- it was not Harry's fault. You can't blame anybody else. I'm the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend. And I say that is something I'll never forget." The vice president rejected critics, including Republicans, who said the incident should have been announced promptly by the White House, rather than by the ranch owner calling a friendly local reporter the next day. "I thought that made good sense because you get as accurate a story as possible from somebody who knew and understood hunting," he said, adding: "And I thought that was the right call. . . . I still do."

Cheney agreed to discuss the accident publicly only after senior White House officials and Republican strategists complained that his belated disclosure and refusal to speak out had made the situation worse. The furor over the shooting and its aftermath has provided extensive fodder for late-night comedians, exposed tensions within the White House between Cheney and presidential aides, and drawn fresh criticism about the vice president's secretive operating style. The interview came as Whittington's condition was upgraded at Christus Spohn Hospital in Corpus Christi, Tex., where a birdshot pellet was discovered to have moved to his heart and doctors performed a cardiac catheterization Tuesday. Whittington was in stable condition yesterday and being kept in intensive care only to guard his privacy, hospital officials said. Whittington, they added, was sitting up, eating regular food and contemplating doing legal work.

"He's doing extremely well," said Peter Banko, a hospital vice president, who estimated that Whittington would remain hospitalized six more days. Whittington "still kind of wonders what all the hoopla is about," Banko said. "It's kind of much ado about nothing." David Blanchard, the hospital's emergency room chief, said he was "100 percent satisfied that where the BB is, it will remain." White House aides and allies expressed hope that Cheney's public comments would defuse the uproar. "If people get an understanding of what happened and how he feels about it, then in the long term this isn't going to be a problem for him," said Charles R. Black, a Republican strategist who advises the White House. But Democrats continued to pound away. Even before the interview, the office of Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) issued a statement accusing Cheney of being "unable, or unwilling, to level with the American people." Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) added: "Vice President Cheney had a chance to shoot straight with the American people, but he decided to stonewall and delay. Now that he feels forced to talk, he wants to restrict the discussion to a friendly news outlet, guaranteeing no hard questions from the press corps."

Like other aspects of the incident, Cheney's office kept its plan to grant the interview tightly held. While President Bush flew to Ohio to talk about his health care plan yesterday morning, White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters aboard Air Force One that he had no updates to Cheney's schedule for the day. Fifteen minutes later, he returned to the press cabin to say that Cheney would go on television. The 27-minute interview, in Cheney's ceremonial office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, was a remarkable moment in modern politics as a vice president described shooting another person. Cheney's account largely squared with that of Katharine Armstrong, one of the owners of the huge Armstrong Ranch in southern Texas where the vice president was hunting Saturday. But, in his own reserved way, Cheney sounded emotional about what happened. "The image of him falling is something I'll never be able to get out of my mind," he said softly. "I fired, and there's Harry falling. And it was, I'd have to say, one of the worst days of my life."

Whittington, dressed in hunter's orange and wearing hunting glasses, had left the group of three hunters to recover a bird he had shot and, according to Armstrong, failed to let his partners know he had returned. Cheney said he was trying to shoot a low-flying quail when he swung his 28-gauge shotgun to the right, the setting sun in his eyes. "I turned and shot at the bird, and at that second saw Harry standing there," he said. Cheney estimated that Whittington was 30 yards away when the birdshot struck the right side of his face, neck and torso and knocked him to the ground, where he lay bleeding as the vice president rushed over. "We went over to him, obviously, right away," Cheney said. He said Whittington was conscious, with one eye open. "He was laying there on his back, obviously bleeding." "I said, 'Harry, I had no idea you were there,' " Cheney recalled. "He didn't respond." The vice president said a physician assistant from his entourage arrived on the scene within a minute or two to treat Whittington, who was later taken to a hospital with as many as 200 pellets embedded in him.

Cheney described Whittington as an acquaintance he first met 30 years ago but said this was their first time hunting together. The vice president said he had consumed a beer during a barbecue lunch hours earlier but added that no one was drinking at the time of the shooting, which authorities said took place about 5:30 p.m. Texas time. Banko, the hospital administrator, declined to comment yesterday on whether Whittington was given a blood alcohol test when he was admitted Saturday night. Whittington's health could have an impact on whether Cheney faces significant legal repercussions. Kenedy County Sheriff Ramon Salinas III has said that the shooting was an accident with no misconduct involved. But if Whittington were to die, Carlos Valdez, the district attorney for Kleberg County, who also has jurisdiction in Kenedy County, said a grand jury would investigate the case and could press criminal charges.

Although the White House was notified of the incident Saturday night, Cheney said he did not speak with Bush or anyone else there until Sunday morning, when he talked with White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. He did not talk with the president until Monday. Cheney acknowledged that White House aides pressed him to disclose the incident promptly and directly. "They urged us to get the story out," he said. "The decision about how it got out, basically, was my responsibility." He said he decided it was better to wait to see how Whittington was faring before informing the media and blamed the resulting controversy on jealousy by the White House press corps that a small Texas newspaper was told first.  A longtime hunter, Cheney suggested that he may reconsider pursuing the avocation. "It's part of who I am," he said. "But, as I say, the season is ending. I'm going to let some time pass over it and think about the future."

   February 15, 2006

Afghan Suicide Bombings, Tied to Taliban, Point to Pakistan

Sajjad, left, and Abdullah are two of the arrested Pakistanis who reportedly told Afghan interrogators that they had been recruited in Pakistan for a Taliban-directed campaign of suicide bombings in Afghanistan

Note : Look at the hate in the eyes of these subhuman trash !.  Invite them home to dinner ?

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Feb. 12 — Arrests and interrogations of suspects in a recent series of suicide bombings in Afghanistan show that the attacks have been orchestrated from Pakistan by members of the ousted Taliban government with little interference by the Pakistani authorities, Afghan officials say. In taped interviews by an Afghan interrogator, two Afghans and three Pakistanis who were among 21 people arrested in recent weeks described their roles in the attacks, which have killed at least 70 people in the last three months, most of them Afghan civilians but also international peacekeepers, a Canadian diplomat and a dozen Afghan police officers and soldiers.

In the tape, the men described a fairly low-budget network that begins with the recruitment of young bombers in the sprawling Pakistani port city of Karachi. The bombers are moved to safe houses in the border towns of Quetta and Chaman, and then transferred into Afghanistan, where they are provided with cars and explosives and sent out to find a target. The tape appears to confirm Afghan officials' suspicions that the suicide bombings, which are largely a recent phenomenon in Afghanistan, were generated outside Afghanistan, and in particular from neighboring Pakistan. It was shown to The New York Times by an Afghan official who asked not to be identified because of the diplomatic implications of the contents.

A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, dismissed the claims of the Afghan government. "This is a propaganda campaign of the government," he said by satellite telephone from an unknown location. "Our mujahedeen don't send one group to one area so they can be found and arrested. Our mujahedeen send different people to different areas at different times." He added that there was no need to recruit Pakistanis for the attacks. "They are all Afghans," he said of the suicide bombers. But Afghan officials said the confessions provided the proof they needed to demand action from Pakistan. "I think there is a factory for these bombers," said Asadullah Khaled, the governor of Kandahar Province, where 15 attacks have occurred in the last three months.

President Hamid Karzai is traveling to Pakistan on Wednesday specifically to raise the issue with President Pervez Musharraf and in speeches to Parliament and officers at a military academy as well. "If you are the ones blowing yourselves up, why are you making the explosion in front of the police headquarters, where people like you are standing in front getting passports?" Mr. Karzai said, addressing the bombers rhetorically, in a televised speech to elders from southern Afghanistan last week. He has spoken increasingly of the need to tackle the problem at the source. Anti-Pakistan sentiment has been rising in Afghanistan, and a popular refrain is that if the hand of Pakistan were cut, the Taliban, many of whom fled over the border when they were ousted in late 2001, would be no more.

"Most of the attackers are non-Afghans," the governor of Kandahar, Mr. Khaled, said Saturday at a memorial service for 14 victims of the latest bombing. "We have proof, we have prisoners," he added. "We have addresses, we have cassettes." Pakistani officials in the past have said the Pakistanis arrested in Afghanistan are usually illiterate laborers looking for work. Judging by the tape, Pakistan appeared to be the base for the terror network, however. In the interviews, all of the men appeared to speak freely, some expressing regret for what they had done. Only one showed some nervousness, though the interrogations seemed relatively relaxed. Three of the men, speaking in Urdu, said they were Pakistanis and had been recruited as bombers.

Two of the men, Akhtar Ali and Sajjad, who only gave one name, said they had been recruited by a man named Jamal, who was working for the Taliban and who owns a bookstore in Karachi. Sajjad had been staying with his brother in Karachi when Jamal showed him video cassettes in which Muslim clerics urged listeners to go and fight a holy war and earn a sure way to paradise. "I was doing nothing, walking around, playing cricket and football," Sajjad said, adding in reference to a senior cleric: "The maulavi sahib talked to me and showed me a cassette, so I got involved. They were talking on the cassettes and telling us to do this and that, telling me to kill Americans."

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