DISPATCH FROM DOWN UNDER
Iran editor jailed for insulting leaders
23 February 2005
TEHRAN: An Iranian journalist has been jailed for 14 years on charges ranging from espionage to insulting the country's leaders in an unusually heavy sentence in Iran, where tens of journalists have been tried in recent years.
Rights activists said on Tuesday that Arash Sigarchi, 28, was convicted by the Revolutionary Court in the Caspian province of Gilan in northern Iran.
Sigarchi, a newspaper editor in Gilan who also wrote a blog was arrested last month after responding to a summons from the Intelligence Ministry.
"In total, he has been given 14 years in prison," Mohammad Saifzadeh, a member of Centre for Defence of Human Rights in Tehran said by telephone.
Sigarchi's family has asked Saifzadeh and Iran's 2003 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi to represent him in an appeal.
"I have compiled almost 12 pages of wrongdoings in the process of his arrest, interrogations and detention," Saifzadeh said. "His charges are political and journalistic and he should have been tried by a public court in the presence of a jury."
Iran's judiciary has closed down more than 100 liberal publications in the past five years and jailed many journalists, earning Iran the reputation as the biggest prison for journalists in the Middle East, according to rights groups
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3197178a12,00.html
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Battle against deadly bird flu far from won - UN
23 February 2005
HO CHI MINH CITY: Bird flu experts from around Asia were gathering in Vietnam yesterday to figure out how to kill off a virus one leading American expert has called the world's biggest threat to human health.
"At the moment, we are not on top of it," said Hans Wagner of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation as he prepared for a two-day conference in Vietnam, the country worst hit by a virus which has killed 46 people since it arrived in Asia in late 2003.
"Definitely we have made progress, but there is much to be done," he said in Ho Chi Minh City, home to 10 million people and close to the Mekong Delta where Vietnam's latest outbreak began.
The H5N1 virus, which experts in Asia say thrives best in the cool season now coming to an end, spread to half Vietnam's 64 provinces and cities, killed 13 people and forced the government to take drastic measures to contain it.
The new outbreak a year after the highly contagious virus arrived in Asia, probably brought by migrating wildfowl, has reinforced fears that it could mutate into a form which could spread through a world population with no immunity to it.
Such an influenza pandemic, like the one in 1918 which killed between 20 million and 40 million people, could be devastating.
There is yet no vaccine against the H5N1 virus.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3196295a12,00.html
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Rome advises its media to quit Iraq
22 February 2005
BAGHDAD: Italy's embassy in Iraq has advised Italian journalists and other nationals working in the country to leave following a series of threats, an embassy official says.
"We're urging the few journalists that are still in the country to go, as well as any other Italians still here, based on some pretty specific threats that we've heard about," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The decision comes two weeks after Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena was abducted by gunmen as she conducted interviews in Baghdad.
In Brussels, Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini said the warning was a precautionary measure following an escalation of the risk to their safety.
"We have again appealed to the sense of responsibility of (journalists) working in Iraq because the risk of another escalation of activity by criminal organisations who aim to kidnap journalists is a very real risk," Fini said.
The embassy official in Baghdad said threats had been made against four journalists, including one working for Rome daily newspaper La Repubblica and another working for national broadcaster Tg2. Two of the four have already left the country and a third is due to leave soon.
The fourth is an Italian-Iraqi and it was not clear what course of action he planned, the official said.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3196200a12,00.html
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Avian flu pandemic feared
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam (AP) - The world is on the verge of a deadly pandemic stemming from avian flu and governments need to start drafting emergency plans for the disease, a top international health official warned Wednesday.
Dr. Shigeru Omi, the World Health Organization's Western Pacific regional director, told the opening of a three-day conference on avian flu health agencies around the world need to better co-ordinate their fight against the virus. "We at WHO believe that the world is now in the gravest possible danger of a pandemic," Omi said.
"If the virus becomes highly contagious among humans, the health impact in terms of deaths and sickness will be enormous and certainly much greater than SARS."
"This is why we are urging all governments to work now on a pandemic preparedness plan - so that even in an emergency such as this, they will be able to provide basic public services such as transport, sanitation and power."
The conference is focused on long-term strategies for eradicating the virus, which devastated the region's poultry industry last year as it swept through nearly a dozen countries. It also has killed 45 people - 32 Vietnamese, 12 Thais and one Cambodian.
Experts have repeatedly warned the H5N1 avian flu virus could become far deadlier still if it mutates into a form that can be easily transmitted between humans, sparking a global pandemic that could kill millions.
Scientists and representatives from more than two-dozen countries met in southern Ho Chi Minh City, near the Mekong Delta where the latest outbreaks emerged this year
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2005/02/23/939222-ap.html
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Canadian cleared in Saudi bombing
LONDON (AP) - British police have found no evidence linking a fatal car bombing in Saudi Arabia to a Canadian and two others who were accused of launching the attack, an inquiry heard.
Canadian William Sampson, Briton Sandy Mitchell, and Belgian Raf Schyvens were arrested after a bomb exploded under Christopher Rodway's car in Riyadh in November 2000. Rodway died in the blast. Coroner David Masters ruled 47-year-old Rodway was unlawfully killed but found there was no evidence tying Sampson or the other suspects to the crime.
"As far as I am concerned, I have been exonerated by the coroner," said Sampson, who lives in Penrith, northwest England. "It effectively clears my name."
Sampson, 45, was working with the Saudi Industrial Development Fund when he was detained for his supposed role in two car bombings in November 2000.
He was sentenced to death and kept in solitary confinement until his release in August 2003.
He was seen on Saudi television confessing to the car bombings but later recanted and said the confessions were extracted through torture.
Det-Supt Kim Durham, from the anti-terror branch of London's Metropolitan Police, told the inquest he had found no proof that Sampson and Mitchell were involved in the death
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2005/02/23/939722-ap.html
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Forensic work at Ground Zero with 1,161 victims still unidentified
NEW YORK (AP)
- The medical examiner's office has ended its effort to identify the remains of those killed at the World Trade Center site on Sept. 11, 2001, leaving more than a thousand victims unidentified.
"We've finished making identifications for the World Trade Center," Robert Shaler, director of forensic biology at the medical examiner's office, told the New York Daily News in Wednesday's editions. The forensic effort failed to identify 1,161 victims, or almost half of the 2,749 who died there, according to the Daily News.
Since the attacks more than three years ago, the medical examiner's office identified 1,588 victims, although progress had slowed considerably in recent months. Since September, only eight victims have been identified.
The city has nearly 10,000 unidentified bone and tissue fragments that cannot be matched to the list of the dead.
The medical examiner's office will contact all victims' families who asked to be notified when the forensic effort ended.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2005/02/23/939719-ap.html
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Terrorist Plot to Kill Bush Alleged
Suspect, a Va. Man, Was Held by Saudis Nearly Two Years
By Jerry Markon and Dana PriestWashington Post Staff WritersWednesday, February 23, 2005; Page A01
Federal prosecutors unveiled broad terrorism charges yesterday against a Northern Virginia man who had been detained in Saudi Arabia for nearly two years, accusing him of plotting to assassinate President Bush and trying to establish an al Qaeda cell in the United States.
Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, 23, conspired with confederates in Saudi Arabia to shoot Bush on the street or kill him with a car bomb, according to a six-count indictment unsealed yesterday. The indictment said Abu Ali sought to become "a planner of terrorist operations" and compared him to leading al Qaeda figures associated with the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Abu Ali's family and supporters denied the charges and said he had been tortured while he was being held by authorities in Saudi Arabia. Abu Ali's attorney said he intends to plead not guilty.
Law enforcement sources said the plot against Bush, which the indictment says was hatched while Abu Ali was studying in Saudi Arabia, never advanced beyond the talking stage. One source involved in the case said the U.S. government had hoped Saudi Arabia would bring charges against Ali, in part because of the lack of evidence linking him to any al Qaeda activities.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43940-2005Feb22.html
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Plane crash site yields 46 bodies
From correspondents in KabulFebruary 23, 2005
From: Agence France-Presse
FORTY-SIX bodies have been recovered about two and a half weeks after an Afghan plane crashed into a mountain near Kabul killing all 104 people on board, officials said today."To date we have found 46 intact bodies and some human remains and carried them from the crash site," said General Mohammed Zahir Azimi, spokesman for the defence ministry and an international commission investigating the accident.
"Among the recovered bodies, two of them are women, three are children," he said.
"We could identify eight of them and we will announce their identity tomorrow."
The rest of the recovered bodies have not been identified. Italian experts are helping by using DNA tests that are unavailable in Afghanistan, he added.
The Kam Air Boeing 737 was on a domestic flight from the western city of Herat to the capital Kabul when it hit a 3300-metre mountain peak and broke into pieces during a snowstorm on February 3.
Twenty-four of the victims were foreigners.
The recovery operation has been hampered by Afghanistan's coldest winter in a decade, which left the crash site buried under metres of snow.
The first human remains were found by international peacekeepers on February 7 but recovery work did not start for another week because of the weather
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12345241-38201,00.html
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US 'did not influence' deployment
February 23, 2005
From: AAP
PRIME Minister John Howard's decision to double Australia's troop commitment in Iraq was not influenced by US intervention, he said tonight.Mr Howard said he was not involved in talks with the Americans about increasing Australia's military presence in Iraq and, as far as he knew, neither were his cabinet ministers.
"No, I was not involved in any discussions," he told ABC television when asked if the US intervened to persuade Australia to send more troops to Iraq.
"But whether there was some exchange between people lower down, I'm not going to say, I'm just telling you I wasn't involved in any discussions and I wasn't aware of any discussions at a senior ministerial level."
Mr Howard has not ruled out sending more troops to Iraq after yesterday announcing another 450 defence personnel were headed to the war-torn country to protect Japanese military engineers.
"We will continue to keep our troop levels under review," he said.
"I don't expect there to be a further commitment but I can't give categorical guarantees and I'm not going to do, other than to say we'll keep our levels under review
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12353061-29277,00.html
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Anti-war protesters plan rallies
February 23, 2005
From: AAP
ANTI-war activists plan rallies across Australia to protest about the decision to send more troops to Iraq.The Stop the War Coalition, a network of peace groups and student activists, plans rallies in most main cities on the weekend of March 18-20, the second anniversary of the Iraq invasion.
The largest rally is expected in Sydney's Hyde Park at noon on March 20. Speakers will include former intelligence analyst Andrew Wilkie and author John Pilger.
Coalition spokesman Luke Deer said many people were angry about Prime Minister John Howard's decision to send 450 more troops to Iraq.
It actually shows the occupation isn't stable and the situation isn't secure in Iraq and they are under pressure to prop it up," Mr Deer said.
"I think what (Mr) Howard has done is a mistake and a misjudgment on his part.
"And he has underestimated domestic opposition.
"It's a wake-up call to people that it's not something we can afford to ignore."
Mr Deer said Mr Howard's specific mention of Japanese trade interests as being a key factor behind the decision was also of concern to activists.
"I think it's true that part of the US strategy in Iraq is about asserting its version of globalisation around the world and Australia sees economic benefits ultimately out of participating in the war," he said.
"And I think the cost of the war is something that is becoming apparent to people."
The weekend of rallies will be preceded by student walkouts at a number of universities across the country supported by education unions.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12347679-29277,00.html
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Suspect package in shopping centre
February 23, 2005
From: AAP
MEMBERS of the Victoria Police bomb squad are examining a suspect package found in a shopping centre in Melbourne's east earlier today.Hundreds of people were evacuated from a section of the Knox City Shopping Centre in Melbourne's outer east after the package was found about 10.30 am (AEDT).
A Victoria Police spokeswoman won't confirm the nature of the package, but says it was found on level one of the shopping centre.
She says members of the elite police Special Operations Group and the Bomb Response Squad are at the scene.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12346969-1702,00.html
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No War protesters lose appeal
February 23, 2005
From: AAP
TWO peace activists who painted an anti-war slogan on the Sydney Opera House today lost their appeal on their conviction and sentence.David Burgess, 34, and Will Saunders, 34, were sentenced to nine months periodic detention for malicious damage after they painted "No War" on the tallest sail of the Opera House on March 18, 2003, as Australia prepared to invade Iraq.
They were also ordered to pay $151,000 to the Opera House fund for its cleaning bill.
The pair appealed on the ground on self defence, claiming they were defending the lives of those who would die in Iraq.
But the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal today rejected their argument saying it would be "outrageous" to claim an attacker could justify his actions "by raising self defence against an unrelated third party".
"The common law has never countenanced such a concept, nor would I believe the community ever accept such a proposition as representing a just law," Acting Justice Peter Newman said.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12345810-29277,00.html
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UK attorney general warned of Iraq war illegality
The British attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, warned less than two weeks before the Iraq war that military action could be illegal, the Guardian newspaper reported on Wednesday.
Lord Goldsmith raised his doubts about the legality of using military action in Iraq to Prime Minister Tony Blair, the U.S. strongest ally in the war, in a 13-page document dated March 7, 2003, the newspaper said.
The Guardian added that the British government was so concerned that it might be prosecuted to the extent that it formed a team of lawyers to be ready for any action in an international court.
The paper also said that Elizabeth Wilmshurst, deputy legal adviser at the Foreign Office, who resigned in protest against the Iraq war, described the planned invasion as a “crime of aggression”.
http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=7145
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Hariri killing plays into U.S. hawks plans
It seems it doesn't really matter whether or not Syria was behind the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri.
The fact of the matter is Hariri's death plays right into the hands of the hawks within President Bush's administration who have long argued for 'regime change' in Damascus.
Before the bomb blast that killed Hariri and 12 others, the balance of power between anti-Assad hardliners and the more flexible forces within the Bush administration was roughly even. Earlier this month, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, someone who is most definitely a hawk on the issue of Syria, even insisted to a Congressional panel that "it is not our policy to destabilize Syria." But following the sudden withdrawal of the American ambassador to Syria, it appears Washington's position is in the process of changing, if it hasn't already. "The regime changers will be strengthened by this," predicted Michael Hudson, who teaches at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University. According to Hudson Washington's precipitous recalling of its ambassador signals a "decision to really put the screws to the Syrians." Augustus Richard Norton, a specialist on Lebanon at Boston University, beleives that the balance of power within the administration will definitely shift in favor of the hardliners. http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/review/article_full_story.asp?service_ID=6999
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Someone needs to be held accountable
In the run up to the U.S. elections, numerous Bush supporters made strange comments, but none were as bizarre as the one offered by John Yoo, a former Justice Department lawyer who helped draft the cynical justifications for the illegal detention and torture of "unlawful combatants."
"The debate is over," Yoo told The New Yorker, "The issue is dying out. The public has had its referendum."
Yoo's statement brings up a multitude of emotions most of which border on outrage and more - that he actually believes Americans voted for the torturing of prisoners or that an official who was at the heart of this horrendous mess feels secure enough to make such statements.
The White House has done its utmost to try and bury this issue.
Nearly a year after the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal erupted, the Bush administration continues to drag its feet regarding public disclosures, stonewalls congressional requests for documents and suppresses results of internal investigations.
But the issue of unlawful detention and torture refuses to go away try as much as the White House can to make it disappear.
Hundreds of men remain imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, years after any information they had might have been useful and in defiance of two Supreme Court decisions.
http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/review/article_full_story.asp?service_ID=7134
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Bush: a scattered Palestinian state wont work
In an effort to drum up European support and to get the post-Iraq relations back on track, George Bush's speech in Brussels signalled a shift, albeit a small one, in U.S. policy towards Israel.
During his speech in Brussels, President Bush placed emphasis on the Palestinian-Israeli peace settlement being top of NATO's list of priorities. On his fence-mending whirlwind tour of European states, Bush called for the establishment of a democratic Palestinian state with territorial contiguity in the West Bank. "A state on scattered territories will not work," he said.
The usual pledging of support for the peace talks were said by the American president but more importantly he also emphasised the need for Israel to end its illegal settlement activity. In refering to the disengagement plan Bush said that when the PA leadership takes responsibility for Gaza and for more and more territory, the U.S. will help it to establish the economic, political and security institutions that are required for effective government.
Though indirectly said, Bush pressed Israel to be forthcoming on giving up illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank when peace negotiations on a Palestinian state reach their final stage. Bush said Israel must freeze settlement activity and help Palestinians build their economy for the peace process to work.
http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/review/article_full_story.asp?service_ID=7168
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DEMOCRATIC SENATE LEADERSHIP
JOINS PUSH FOR INQUIRY INTO GANNON AFFAIR;
DEM WHIP DURBIN
CIRCULATES LETTER ASKING OTHERS TO SIGN ON...
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/index.php?p=117
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Wanted: Journalists who can keep quiet
The Bush administration is hiring more reporters. Only this time, it wants them to keep quiet.The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) last week placed a help-wanted listing on journalismjobs.com, an employment website. The department sought reporters to participate in TOPOFF 3, a biennial exercise directed by Congress that simulates a terrorist attack on the United States.
The posting, which has since been taken off the site, sought applicants who can write copy for an online news service “reporting events within the exercise for an audience of exercise participants.”The ad follows the disclosure that two other federal agencies had hired conservative commentators Armstrong Williams and Maggie Gallagher to back administration proposals. Those contracts brought rebukes from media ethicists who said they blurred the line between journalism and propaganda.But DHS spokesman Marc Short said the department’s job posting is “nothing like” the earlier controversies. Instead of acting as advocates, the reporters would be prohibited from relaying the results of the exercise outside of the “virtual news network” that is part of the training exercise.“You must NOT be currently employed by a real news organization and will be required to sign a nondisclosure agreement barring you from writing about this in the future,” the job posting stated.http://www.thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/022305/homeland.html
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Australia Defends Extra Troops for Iraq,
Polls Sour
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian Prime Minister John Howard defended on Wednesday his decision to change policy and send hundreds of extra troops to Iraq, as opinion polls showed Australians overwhelmingly opposed the move.
Howard, who announced on Tuesday 450 more soldiers would go to Iraq to guard Japanese engineers and train the Iraqi army, said he could not rule out further deployments.
"I am not running away from the fact that I had previously said I did not contemplate a major (troop) increase. I admit quite openly that we have changed our position," Howard told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio.
"I acknowledge that I'll be criticized for that but in the end I've got to take decisions that I believe are right in the interests of this country and broader Western interests in the Middle East."
An analyst said the extra deployment showed Australian troops could be in Iraq for years. Opinion polls showed Australians opposed sending the extra troops to Iraq.
A telephone survey of 17,000 people by Channel Ten television found 71 percent opposed the deployment compared with 29 percent in favor.
The 50 percent increase in Australian troop numbers in Iraq follows the withdrawal of Dutch soldiers from the south of the troubled country and Howard did not rule out sending more.
"We could, but I think it is very unlikely," he told Sydney radio. "I think it is very unlikely but I am not going to go further than that."
More troops were committed after a request from Japan, a major trade partner of Australia, and a telephone call from British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Howard said.
Australia, a staunch ally of the United States, was one of the first to join the U.S.-led war in Iraq, initially sending some 2,000 military personnel to Iraq and the Middle East. It had since scaled back the deployment to around 880 personnel.
http://www.reuters.com/printerFriendlyPopup.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=770715
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Poll: 62% of voters say country ready for woman prez
By MARC HUMBERTAP POLITICAL WRITER
ALBANY, N.Y. — More than six in 10 voters believe the United States is ready for a woman president in 2008 and 53 percent of the voters think Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a New York Democrat, should try for the job, a nationwide poll has found.
The poll, conducted by the Siena College Research Institute and sponsored by the Hearst Newspapers, found that 81 percent of voters surveyed would vote for a woman for president; 62 percent said the country is ready for a woman president; and 67 percent said a female president would be better than a male chief executive in handling domestic issues.
Other national polls have identified the former first lady as the favorite among Democratic voters for the party's presidential nomination. In the Siena poll, 60 percent of voters said they expect a woman to be on the Democratic ticket for president in 2008. Only 18 percent of voters said they expected the 2008 Republican ticket to be headed by a woman.
New York GOP Chairman Stephen Minarik said the high percentage of voters who think a woman will head the Democrats' 2008 ticket is due to the widespread belief that Clinton will run for the job.
"I think everybody recognizes that, as the poll indicates," Minarik told The Associated Press Tuesday.
The telephone poll of 1,125 registered voters was conducted Feb. 10-17 and has a sampling error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points. The poll results were first reported in Monday's editions of Times Union of Albany, a Hearst newspaper.
"There was very little difference between men (64 percent) and woman (60 percent) on whether the country was ready for a woman president in 2008," said Douglas Lonnstrom, director of the Albany-area research institute.
While voters surveyed said a woman president would be better on domestic issues, there was no such advantage on who would do a better job as "commander in chief" — 18 percent said a woman would do better on that aspect of the job, 23 percent said a woman would do worse and 45 percent said gender wouldn't make a difference. On foreign policy issues, 24 percent said a woman president would do better; 11 percent said worse; and 52 percent said the president's gender didn't matter.
The Albany-area pollsters found that 37 percent of voters felt Clinton should not run for president.
On the Republican side, 42 percent of voters said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice should run for the White House while 41 percent said she should not and 33 percent said Sen. Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina should run for president while 48 percent said she should not do that.
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/breaking_news/story/283364p-242829c.html
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23 February 2005
TEHRAN: An Iranian journalist has been jailed for 14 years on charges ranging from espionage to insulting the country's leaders in an unusually heavy sentence in Iran, where tens of journalists have been tried in recent years.
Rights activists said on Tuesday that Arash Sigarchi, 28, was convicted by the Revolutionary Court in the Caspian province of Gilan in northern Iran.
Sigarchi, a newspaper editor in Gilan who also wrote a blog was arrested last month after responding to a summons from the Intelligence Ministry.
"In total, he has been given 14 years in prison," Mohammad Saifzadeh, a member of Centre for Defence of Human Rights in Tehran said by telephone.
Sigarchi's family has asked Saifzadeh and Iran's 2003 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi to represent him in an appeal.
"I have compiled almost 12 pages of wrongdoings in the process of his arrest, interrogations and detention," Saifzadeh said. "His charges are political and journalistic and he should have been tried by a public court in the presence of a jury."
Iran's judiciary has closed down more than 100 liberal publications in the past five years and jailed many journalists, earning Iran the reputation as the biggest prison for journalists in the Middle East, according to rights groups
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3197178a12,00.html
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Battle against deadly bird flu far from won - UN
23 February 2005
HO CHI MINH CITY: Bird flu experts from around Asia were gathering in Vietnam yesterday to figure out how to kill off a virus one leading American expert has called the world's biggest threat to human health.
"At the moment, we are not on top of it," said Hans Wagner of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation as he prepared for a two-day conference in Vietnam, the country worst hit by a virus which has killed 46 people since it arrived in Asia in late 2003.
"Definitely we have made progress, but there is much to be done," he said in Ho Chi Minh City, home to 10 million people and close to the Mekong Delta where Vietnam's latest outbreak began.
The H5N1 virus, which experts in Asia say thrives best in the cool season now coming to an end, spread to half Vietnam's 64 provinces and cities, killed 13 people and forced the government to take drastic measures to contain it.
The new outbreak a year after the highly contagious virus arrived in Asia, probably brought by migrating wildfowl, has reinforced fears that it could mutate into a form which could spread through a world population with no immunity to it.
Such an influenza pandemic, like the one in 1918 which killed between 20 million and 40 million people, could be devastating.
There is yet no vaccine against the H5N1 virus.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3196295a12,00.html
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Rome advises its media to quit Iraq
22 February 2005
BAGHDAD: Italy's embassy in Iraq has advised Italian journalists and other nationals working in the country to leave following a series of threats, an embassy official says.
"We're urging the few journalists that are still in the country to go, as well as any other Italians still here, based on some pretty specific threats that we've heard about," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The decision comes two weeks after Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena was abducted by gunmen as she conducted interviews in Baghdad.
In Brussels, Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini said the warning was a precautionary measure following an escalation of the risk to their safety.
"We have again appealed to the sense of responsibility of (journalists) working in Iraq because the risk of another escalation of activity by criminal organisations who aim to kidnap journalists is a very real risk," Fini said.
The embassy official in Baghdad said threats had been made against four journalists, including one working for Rome daily newspaper La Repubblica and another working for national broadcaster Tg2. Two of the four have already left the country and a third is due to leave soon.
The fourth is an Italian-Iraqi and it was not clear what course of action he planned, the official said.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3196200a12,00.html
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Avian flu pandemic feared
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam (AP) - The world is on the verge of a deadly pandemic stemming from avian flu and governments need to start drafting emergency plans for the disease, a top international health official warned Wednesday.
Dr. Shigeru Omi, the World Health Organization's Western Pacific regional director, told the opening of a three-day conference on avian flu health agencies around the world need to better co-ordinate their fight against the virus. "We at WHO believe that the world is now in the gravest possible danger of a pandemic," Omi said.
"If the virus becomes highly contagious among humans, the health impact in terms of deaths and sickness will be enormous and certainly much greater than SARS."
"This is why we are urging all governments to work now on a pandemic preparedness plan - so that even in an emergency such as this, they will be able to provide basic public services such as transport, sanitation and power."
The conference is focused on long-term strategies for eradicating the virus, which devastated the region's poultry industry last year as it swept through nearly a dozen countries. It also has killed 45 people - 32 Vietnamese, 12 Thais and one Cambodian.
Experts have repeatedly warned the H5N1 avian flu virus could become far deadlier still if it mutates into a form that can be easily transmitted between humans, sparking a global pandemic that could kill millions.
Scientists and representatives from more than two-dozen countries met in southern Ho Chi Minh City, near the Mekong Delta where the latest outbreaks emerged this year
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2005/02/23/939222-ap.html
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Canadian cleared in Saudi bombing
LONDON (AP) - British police have found no evidence linking a fatal car bombing in Saudi Arabia to a Canadian and two others who were accused of launching the attack, an inquiry heard.
Canadian William Sampson, Briton Sandy Mitchell, and Belgian Raf Schyvens were arrested after a bomb exploded under Christopher Rodway's car in Riyadh in November 2000. Rodway died in the blast. Coroner David Masters ruled 47-year-old Rodway was unlawfully killed but found there was no evidence tying Sampson or the other suspects to the crime.
"As far as I am concerned, I have been exonerated by the coroner," said Sampson, who lives in Penrith, northwest England. "It effectively clears my name."
Sampson, 45, was working with the Saudi Industrial Development Fund when he was detained for his supposed role in two car bombings in November 2000.
He was sentenced to death and kept in solitary confinement until his release in August 2003.
He was seen on Saudi television confessing to the car bombings but later recanted and said the confessions were extracted through torture.
Det-Supt Kim Durham, from the anti-terror branch of London's Metropolitan Police, told the inquest he had found no proof that Sampson and Mitchell were involved in the death
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2005/02/23/939722-ap.html
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Forensic work at Ground Zero with 1,161 victims still unidentified
NEW YORK (AP)
- The medical examiner's office has ended its effort to identify the remains of those killed at the World Trade Center site on Sept. 11, 2001, leaving more than a thousand victims unidentified.
"We've finished making identifications for the World Trade Center," Robert Shaler, director of forensic biology at the medical examiner's office, told the New York Daily News in Wednesday's editions. The forensic effort failed to identify 1,161 victims, or almost half of the 2,749 who died there, according to the Daily News.
Since the attacks more than three years ago, the medical examiner's office identified 1,588 victims, although progress had slowed considerably in recent months. Since September, only eight victims have been identified.
The city has nearly 10,000 unidentified bone and tissue fragments that cannot be matched to the list of the dead.
The medical examiner's office will contact all victims' families who asked to be notified when the forensic effort ended.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2005/02/23/939719-ap.html
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Terrorist Plot to Kill Bush Alleged
Suspect, a Va. Man, Was Held by Saudis Nearly Two Years
By Jerry Markon and Dana PriestWashington Post Staff WritersWednesday, February 23, 2005; Page A01
Federal prosecutors unveiled broad terrorism charges yesterday against a Northern Virginia man who had been detained in Saudi Arabia for nearly two years, accusing him of plotting to assassinate President Bush and trying to establish an al Qaeda cell in the United States.
Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, 23, conspired with confederates in Saudi Arabia to shoot Bush on the street or kill him with a car bomb, according to a six-count indictment unsealed yesterday. The indictment said Abu Ali sought to become "a planner of terrorist operations" and compared him to leading al Qaeda figures associated with the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Abu Ali's family and supporters denied the charges and said he had been tortured while he was being held by authorities in Saudi Arabia. Abu Ali's attorney said he intends to plead not guilty.
Law enforcement sources said the plot against Bush, which the indictment says was hatched while Abu Ali was studying in Saudi Arabia, never advanced beyond the talking stage. One source involved in the case said the U.S. government had hoped Saudi Arabia would bring charges against Ali, in part because of the lack of evidence linking him to any al Qaeda activities.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43940-2005Feb22.html
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Plane crash site yields 46 bodies
From correspondents in KabulFebruary 23, 2005
From: Agence France-Presse
FORTY-SIX bodies have been recovered about two and a half weeks after an Afghan plane crashed into a mountain near Kabul killing all 104 people on board, officials said today."To date we have found 46 intact bodies and some human remains and carried them from the crash site," said General Mohammed Zahir Azimi, spokesman for the defence ministry and an international commission investigating the accident.
"Among the recovered bodies, two of them are women, three are children," he said.
"We could identify eight of them and we will announce their identity tomorrow."
The rest of the recovered bodies have not been identified. Italian experts are helping by using DNA tests that are unavailable in Afghanistan, he added.
The Kam Air Boeing 737 was on a domestic flight from the western city of Herat to the capital Kabul when it hit a 3300-metre mountain peak and broke into pieces during a snowstorm on February 3.
Twenty-four of the victims were foreigners.
The recovery operation has been hampered by Afghanistan's coldest winter in a decade, which left the crash site buried under metres of snow.
The first human remains were found by international peacekeepers on February 7 but recovery work did not start for another week because of the weather
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12345241-38201,00.html
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US 'did not influence' deployment
February 23, 2005
From: AAP
PRIME Minister John Howard's decision to double Australia's troop commitment in Iraq was not influenced by US intervention, he said tonight.Mr Howard said he was not involved in talks with the Americans about increasing Australia's military presence in Iraq and, as far as he knew, neither were his cabinet ministers.
"No, I was not involved in any discussions," he told ABC television when asked if the US intervened to persuade Australia to send more troops to Iraq.
"But whether there was some exchange between people lower down, I'm not going to say, I'm just telling you I wasn't involved in any discussions and I wasn't aware of any discussions at a senior ministerial level."
Mr Howard has not ruled out sending more troops to Iraq after yesterday announcing another 450 defence personnel were headed to the war-torn country to protect Japanese military engineers.
"We will continue to keep our troop levels under review," he said.
"I don't expect there to be a further commitment but I can't give categorical guarantees and I'm not going to do, other than to say we'll keep our levels under review
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12353061-29277,00.html
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Anti-war protesters plan rallies
February 23, 2005
From: AAP
ANTI-war activists plan rallies across Australia to protest about the decision to send more troops to Iraq.The Stop the War Coalition, a network of peace groups and student activists, plans rallies in most main cities on the weekend of March 18-20, the second anniversary of the Iraq invasion.
The largest rally is expected in Sydney's Hyde Park at noon on March 20. Speakers will include former intelligence analyst Andrew Wilkie and author John Pilger.
Coalition spokesman Luke Deer said many people were angry about Prime Minister John Howard's decision to send 450 more troops to Iraq.
It actually shows the occupation isn't stable and the situation isn't secure in Iraq and they are under pressure to prop it up," Mr Deer said.
"I think what (Mr) Howard has done is a mistake and a misjudgment on his part.
"And he has underestimated domestic opposition.
"It's a wake-up call to people that it's not something we can afford to ignore."
Mr Deer said Mr Howard's specific mention of Japanese trade interests as being a key factor behind the decision was also of concern to activists.
"I think it's true that part of the US strategy in Iraq is about asserting its version of globalisation around the world and Australia sees economic benefits ultimately out of participating in the war," he said.
"And I think the cost of the war is something that is becoming apparent to people."
The weekend of rallies will be preceded by student walkouts at a number of universities across the country supported by education unions.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12347679-29277,00.html
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Suspect package in shopping centre
February 23, 2005
From: AAP
MEMBERS of the Victoria Police bomb squad are examining a suspect package found in a shopping centre in Melbourne's east earlier today.Hundreds of people were evacuated from a section of the Knox City Shopping Centre in Melbourne's outer east after the package was found about 10.30 am (AEDT).
A Victoria Police spokeswoman won't confirm the nature of the package, but says it was found on level one of the shopping centre.
She says members of the elite police Special Operations Group and the Bomb Response Squad are at the scene.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12346969-1702,00.html
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No War protesters lose appeal
February 23, 2005
From: AAP
TWO peace activists who painted an anti-war slogan on the Sydney Opera House today lost their appeal on their conviction and sentence.David Burgess, 34, and Will Saunders, 34, were sentenced to nine months periodic detention for malicious damage after they painted "No War" on the tallest sail of the Opera House on March 18, 2003, as Australia prepared to invade Iraq.
They were also ordered to pay $151,000 to the Opera House fund for its cleaning bill.
The pair appealed on the ground on self defence, claiming they were defending the lives of those who would die in Iraq.
But the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal today rejected their argument saying it would be "outrageous" to claim an attacker could justify his actions "by raising self defence against an unrelated third party".
"The common law has never countenanced such a concept, nor would I believe the community ever accept such a proposition as representing a just law," Acting Justice Peter Newman said.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12345810-29277,00.html
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UK attorney general warned of Iraq war illegality
The British attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, warned less than two weeks before the Iraq war that military action could be illegal, the Guardian newspaper reported on Wednesday.
Lord Goldsmith raised his doubts about the legality of using military action in Iraq to Prime Minister Tony Blair, the U.S. strongest ally in the war, in a 13-page document dated March 7, 2003, the newspaper said.
The Guardian added that the British government was so concerned that it might be prosecuted to the extent that it formed a team of lawyers to be ready for any action in an international court.
The paper also said that Elizabeth Wilmshurst, deputy legal adviser at the Foreign Office, who resigned in protest against the Iraq war, described the planned invasion as a “crime of aggression”.
http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=7145
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Hariri killing plays into U.S. hawks plans
It seems it doesn't really matter whether or not Syria was behind the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri.
The fact of the matter is Hariri's death plays right into the hands of the hawks within President Bush's administration who have long argued for 'regime change' in Damascus.
Before the bomb blast that killed Hariri and 12 others, the balance of power between anti-Assad hardliners and the more flexible forces within the Bush administration was roughly even. Earlier this month, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, someone who is most definitely a hawk on the issue of Syria, even insisted to a Congressional panel that "it is not our policy to destabilize Syria." But following the sudden withdrawal of the American ambassador to Syria, it appears Washington's position is in the process of changing, if it hasn't already. "The regime changers will be strengthened by this," predicted Michael Hudson, who teaches at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University. According to Hudson Washington's precipitous recalling of its ambassador signals a "decision to really put the screws to the Syrians." Augustus Richard Norton, a specialist on Lebanon at Boston University, beleives that the balance of power within the administration will definitely shift in favor of the hardliners. http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/review/article_full_story.asp?service_ID=6999
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Someone needs to be held accountable
In the run up to the U.S. elections, numerous Bush supporters made strange comments, but none were as bizarre as the one offered by John Yoo, a former Justice Department lawyer who helped draft the cynical justifications for the illegal detention and torture of "unlawful combatants."
"The debate is over," Yoo told The New Yorker, "The issue is dying out. The public has had its referendum."
Yoo's statement brings up a multitude of emotions most of which border on outrage and more - that he actually believes Americans voted for the torturing of prisoners or that an official who was at the heart of this horrendous mess feels secure enough to make such statements.
The White House has done its utmost to try and bury this issue.
Nearly a year after the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal erupted, the Bush administration continues to drag its feet regarding public disclosures, stonewalls congressional requests for documents and suppresses results of internal investigations.
But the issue of unlawful detention and torture refuses to go away try as much as the White House can to make it disappear.
Hundreds of men remain imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, years after any information they had might have been useful and in defiance of two Supreme Court decisions.
http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/review/article_full_story.asp?service_ID=7134
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Bush: a scattered Palestinian state wont work
In an effort to drum up European support and to get the post-Iraq relations back on track, George Bush's speech in Brussels signalled a shift, albeit a small one, in U.S. policy towards Israel.
During his speech in Brussels, President Bush placed emphasis on the Palestinian-Israeli peace settlement being top of NATO's list of priorities. On his fence-mending whirlwind tour of European states, Bush called for the establishment of a democratic Palestinian state with territorial contiguity in the West Bank. "A state on scattered territories will not work," he said.
The usual pledging of support for the peace talks were said by the American president but more importantly he also emphasised the need for Israel to end its illegal settlement activity. In refering to the disengagement plan Bush said that when the PA leadership takes responsibility for Gaza and for more and more territory, the U.S. will help it to establish the economic, political and security institutions that are required for effective government.
Though indirectly said, Bush pressed Israel to be forthcoming on giving up illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank when peace negotiations on a Palestinian state reach their final stage. Bush said Israel must freeze settlement activity and help Palestinians build their economy for the peace process to work.
http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/review/article_full_story.asp?service_ID=7168
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DEMOCRATIC SENATE LEADERSHIP
JOINS PUSH FOR INQUIRY INTO GANNON AFFAIR;
DEM WHIP DURBIN
CIRCULATES LETTER ASKING OTHERS TO SIGN ON...
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/index.php?p=117
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Wanted: Journalists who can keep quiet
The Bush administration is hiring more reporters. Only this time, it wants them to keep quiet.The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) last week placed a help-wanted listing on journalismjobs.com, an employment website. The department sought reporters to participate in TOPOFF 3, a biennial exercise directed by Congress that simulates a terrorist attack on the United States.
The posting, which has since been taken off the site, sought applicants who can write copy for an online news service “reporting events within the exercise for an audience of exercise participants.”The ad follows the disclosure that two other federal agencies had hired conservative commentators Armstrong Williams and Maggie Gallagher to back administration proposals. Those contracts brought rebukes from media ethicists who said they blurred the line between journalism and propaganda.But DHS spokesman Marc Short said the department’s job posting is “nothing like” the earlier controversies. Instead of acting as advocates, the reporters would be prohibited from relaying the results of the exercise outside of the “virtual news network” that is part of the training exercise.“You must NOT be currently employed by a real news organization and will be required to sign a nondisclosure agreement barring you from writing about this in the future,” the job posting stated.http://www.thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/022305/homeland.html
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Australia Defends Extra Troops for Iraq,
Polls Sour
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian Prime Minister John Howard defended on Wednesday his decision to change policy and send hundreds of extra troops to Iraq, as opinion polls showed Australians overwhelmingly opposed the move.
Howard, who announced on Tuesday 450 more soldiers would go to Iraq to guard Japanese engineers and train the Iraqi army, said he could not rule out further deployments.
"I am not running away from the fact that I had previously said I did not contemplate a major (troop) increase. I admit quite openly that we have changed our position," Howard told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio.
"I acknowledge that I'll be criticized for that but in the end I've got to take decisions that I believe are right in the interests of this country and broader Western interests in the Middle East."
An analyst said the extra deployment showed Australian troops could be in Iraq for years. Opinion polls showed Australians opposed sending the extra troops to Iraq.
A telephone survey of 17,000 people by Channel Ten television found 71 percent opposed the deployment compared with 29 percent in favor.
The 50 percent increase in Australian troop numbers in Iraq follows the withdrawal of Dutch soldiers from the south of the troubled country and Howard did not rule out sending more.
"We could, but I think it is very unlikely," he told Sydney radio. "I think it is very unlikely but I am not going to go further than that."
More troops were committed after a request from Japan, a major trade partner of Australia, and a telephone call from British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Howard said.
Australia, a staunch ally of the United States, was one of the first to join the U.S.-led war in Iraq, initially sending some 2,000 military personnel to Iraq and the Middle East. It had since scaled back the deployment to around 880 personnel.
http://www.reuters.com/printerFriendlyPopup.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=770715
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Poll: 62% of voters say country ready for woman prez
By MARC HUMBERTAP POLITICAL WRITER
ALBANY, N.Y. — More than six in 10 voters believe the United States is ready for a woman president in 2008 and 53 percent of the voters think Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a New York Democrat, should try for the job, a nationwide poll has found.
The poll, conducted by the Siena College Research Institute and sponsored by the Hearst Newspapers, found that 81 percent of voters surveyed would vote for a woman for president; 62 percent said the country is ready for a woman president; and 67 percent said a female president would be better than a male chief executive in handling domestic issues.
Other national polls have identified the former first lady as the favorite among Democratic voters for the party's presidential nomination. In the Siena poll, 60 percent of voters said they expect a woman to be on the Democratic ticket for president in 2008. Only 18 percent of voters said they expected the 2008 Republican ticket to be headed by a woman.
New York GOP Chairman Stephen Minarik said the high percentage of voters who think a woman will head the Democrats' 2008 ticket is due to the widespread belief that Clinton will run for the job.
"I think everybody recognizes that, as the poll indicates," Minarik told The Associated Press Tuesday.
The telephone poll of 1,125 registered voters was conducted Feb. 10-17 and has a sampling error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points. The poll results were first reported in Monday's editions of Times Union of Albany, a Hearst newspaper.
"There was very little difference between men (64 percent) and woman (60 percent) on whether the country was ready for a woman president in 2008," said Douglas Lonnstrom, director of the Albany-area research institute.
While voters surveyed said a woman president would be better on domestic issues, there was no such advantage on who would do a better job as "commander in chief" — 18 percent said a woman would do better on that aspect of the job, 23 percent said a woman would do worse and 45 percent said gender wouldn't make a difference. On foreign policy issues, 24 percent said a woman president would do better; 11 percent said worse; and 52 percent said the president's gender didn't matter.
The Albany-area pollsters found that 37 percent of voters felt Clinton should not run for president.
On the Republican side, 42 percent of voters said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice should run for the White House while 41 percent said she should not and 33 percent said Sen. Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina should run for president while 48 percent said she should not do that.
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/breaking_news/story/283364p-242829c.html
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posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 10:06 AM
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