DRAFT FROM DOWN UNDER
Specter Predicts Turmoil May Grow From Impasse
Senator Blames Both Sides for Stalemate on Judges
By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 25, 2005; Page A04
The Senate is headed toward turmoil unless it can resolve its bitter impasse over judicial nominees, a key Republican warned yesterday. But neither party showed signs of yielding as senators scheduled a hearing next week for one of the 10 appointees blocked last year.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), breaking from GOP orthodoxy that blames only Democrats, said both parties have allowed the battle over federal judgeships to escalate to a dangerous point where neither side is willing to back down. He said he is not sure Republicans have enough votes in the full Senate to confirm appellate court nominee William G. Myers III, but he will formally restart the contest by conducting a committee hearing Tuesday.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51617-2005Feb24.html?referrer=email
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Capitol Hill Journal
Unrepentant Specter Is Finding Life Lonely in the Center
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 25, 2005; Page A04
On an otherwise quiet day on the Hill, 100 journalists and jostling photographers jammed the Senate TV studio yesterday for a sighting of that most exotic and endangered of species: a moderate in the United States Senate.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) seemed amused that he was the object of so much attention. "Must be a slow day in Washington," he said during a burst of camera clicks. But as a prominent Republican senator taking on his president, his party leaders and conservative interest groups -- as Specter did in a meeting Wednesday with Washington Post editorialists -- Specter could not have been surprised.
The senator did not backpedal during his lengthy news conference about the standoff over Bush's judicial nominees. "Both parties are at fault," he said, even scolding Bush for "unheard-of" recess appointments of judges rejected by the Senate. "Each side ratcheted it up, ratcheted it up. . . . So the question is, where do we go from here?"
The answer came swiftly: Nowhere.
Minutes after Specter's remarks, Sen. Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), a Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, arrived in the same room to offer his response. Asked if he, like Specter, would give his own party some of the blame for the standoff, Schumer demurred.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51838-2005Feb24.html?referrer=email
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Analysis
In Russian Media, Free Speech for a Select Few
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 25, 2005; Page A18
If President Bush thought he would receive support from Russian reporters when he raised the cause of free speech, he did not know much about the Kremlin press pool.
"What is this lack of freedom all about?" one Russian reporter challenged Bush during his joint news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday. "Our regional and national media often criticize government institutions."
Bush seemed surprised. "Obviously, if you're a member of the Russian press, you feel like the press is free," he replied. "You feel that way? That's good." Bush added, "That is a pretty interesting observation for those of us who don't live in Russia to listen to."
The exchange illustrated more about the state of freedom in Russia than met the eye. While Putin travels around with a contingent of reporters just as Bush does, the Kremlin press pool is a handpicked group of reporters, most of whom work for the state and the rest selected for their fidelity to the Kremlin's rules of the game. Helpful questions are often planted. Unwelcome questions are not allowed. And anyone who gets out of line can get out of the pool.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51587-2005Feb24.html?referrer=email
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Group to Coordinate Attack on Bush Plan
Social Security Proposal Is Targeted
By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 25, 2005; Page A19
The battle lines in the coming war over Social Security have finally been drawn with the creation last week of a new umbrella group that will coordinate attacks on President Bush's drive to create personal investment accounts.
At the urging of Democratic leaders in Congress, a few political campaign veterans have formed Americans United to Protect Social Security. The nonprofit organization with close ties to organized labor plans to raise $25 million to $50 million to pressure lawmakers to vote against Bush's proposal.
At Americans United to Protect Social Security, we are going to run a national campaign to defeat the president's privatization plan," said Brad Woodhouse, the group's spokesman and the former communications director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. "The president and his supporters in Congress are messing with the third rail [of politics]; we're going to make sure they get zapped."
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees provided seed money of nearly $1 million. Other major players in the coalition include the AFL-CIO; USAction, a grass-roots issues network; and the Campaign for America's Future, an activist group that pushes issues from the perspective of the political left.
Americans United to Protect Social Security will be run by two longtime advisers to Senate Democrats. Its campaign manager is Paul Tewes, the former political director of the DSCC. Its general consultant is Steve Hildebrand, who ran the unsuccessful reelection campaign last year of Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.), the former Senate minority leader.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51517-2005Feb24.html?referrer=email
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Soldiers, child die in bombings
By Rory Mulholland in Baghdad
February 26, 2005
From: Agence France-Presse
A ROADSIDE bomb has killed three American soldiers north of Baghdad, while 10 Iraqis have died in other attacks.
Nine other US soldiers were wounded, five of them "very seriously", when the Task Force Baghdad troops were hit by a roadside bomb while on patrol near the town of Tarmiya, the military said overnight.
Coinciding with news of the attack, Iraq's government said a senior aide to al-Qaeda frontman Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had been arrested, along with a man who had acted as his driver.
Security forces in Iraq conducted a raid in Anah (in western Iraq) on February 20 resulting in the capture of Talib Mikhlif Arsan Walman al-Dulaimi, aka Abu Qutaybah, a trusted lieutenant of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi," it said.
He arranged safe houses and transportation for the Zarqawi network as well as passing packages and funds to Zarqawi himself, a statement said.
Security sources said that in addition to the latest attack near Baghdad on Friday, a US marine, two members of the Iraqi security forces, four civilians and four insurgents had been killed since Thursday.
The toll included two women and a child who were killed near the northern refinery town of Baiji when their car was blown up by a bomb that exploded just after a US army convoy passed, police said.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12375923-23109,00.html
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Afghan cold toll touching 500
by Sardar Ahmad in Kabul
February 25, 2005
From: Agence France-Presse
US-led forces and international agencies stepped up aid efforts as officials said today at least 478 people, perhaps half of them children, had died in Afghanistan's bitterest winter for a decade.
American Black Hawk helicopters defied freezing conditions to swoop down on isolated villages in the worst affected western province of Ghor Thursday and deliver aid while cargo planes air dropped vital food supplies.
At least 214 children were confirmed dead from diseases caused by the icy weather according to Health Minister Amin Fatimie, who added that it was impossible to give a complete casualty toll
In Kabul, over the past 24 hours 400 children have arrived in hospitals, 69 of them were hospitalised, and three have died," Mr Fatimie said.
Most disease cases have been respiratory tract infections or whooping cough.
In Ghor, at least 192 people have died from illness, malnutrition and avalanches, deputy provincial governor Ikramuddin Rezaie said.
Ninety of those deaths were children and were also included in the toll given by the health minister.
Late last week, Afghan officials said at least 162 other people had been confirmed dead in avalanches, road accidents and collapsing mud-brick houses due to heavy snowfall across the country.
The full scale of what aid officials have warned could become a humanitarian crisis is difficult to determine because affected regions are almost completely cut off from the outside world.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12372175-23109,00.html
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US troops press security operation
From correspondents in Baghdad
February 25, 2005
From: Agence France-Presse
US forces have pursued increased security operations throughout the Sunni Muslim rebel province of Al-Anbar, where the military says another Marine was killed yesterday,
Security sources, meanwhile, said five more people including two insurgents, had been killed in other incidents.
The marine from I Marine Expeditionary Force "was killed in action while taking part February 24 in a security and stabilization operation in Al-Anbar province," the statement said.
Operation River Blitz moved into its sixth day after a day of further bloodshed in which at least 23 people were killed in the war-wracked country.
The violence coincided with a poll in in the US that showed most Americans questioned on Iraq doubted US troops would soon be home, despite a belief the Iraqi elections would bring greater stability.
More than 54 per cent of respondents said US troops would remain in Iraq for at least two years, while 22 per cent said a US military presence would be needed for more than five additional years, up from 17 per cent in July.
Fifty-five per cent said it would be better to remain in Iraq until the situation was stabilised, but more Americans than ever, 47 per cent, said the decision to go to war was wrong, up from 44 per cent in January
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12371705-23109,00.html
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Iraq troops may be gone longer
by Maria Hawthorne
February 25, 2005
From: AAP
THE latest deployment of Australian troops may be in Iraq for more than a year, Prime Minister John Howard said today.
Mr Howard said he hoped the 450-strong contingent would not have tp stay in the southern province of Al Muthanna beyond a year, but they could stay past 12 months.
But he ruled out sending any Australian troops to help the US dismantle North Korea's nuclear weapons should the standoff not be resolved by negotiations.
"We are certainly concerned, very concerned about North Korea's nuclear ambitions," Mr Howard told Melbourne radio 3AW.
As to us providing any forces, that is simply not an issue ... I am not aware of any plans on the part of the US for it to become so therefore the ... issue simply does not arise."
Mr Howard said Australia was highly unlikely to send more troops to Iraq, but it could not be ruled out.
The Australian contingent announced this week will fill the void left by the withdrawal of 1400 Dutch troops who were protecting a Japanese engineering contingent in the relatively peaceful Al Muthanna province.
The initial plan was for a year-long commitment with a personnel rotation after six months.
Asked if the contingent could stay longer than a year, Mr Howard said: "I hope it won't be necessary but they could. I don't want to put it any stronger or weaker than that.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12369559-29277,00.html
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1161 WTC victims to stay unidentified
By James Bone in New York
February 25, 2005
From:
THE families of more than 1000 victims of the September 11 attack on the World Trade Centre face the heartbreak of knowing their loved ones might never be identified, after the New York coroner's office announced it had exhausted its efforts to trace DNA from the thousands of body parts recovered from ground zero.
The office, which has tested almost 20,000 fragments of human flesh, blood and bone, has identified 1588 of the 2749 people reported missing when two hijacked airliners crashed into the twin towers in 2001.
But it said yesterday the remaining 1161 victims might never be identified unless new technology allowed DNA to be extracted from 9720 stored body parts.
We have exhausted the technology that is available to us today to make any further identifications," spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said. "All the remains have been freeze-dried and vacuum-packed so they do not deteriorate any further. So perhaps we will be able to extract DNA using new technology.
"We are never going to give up. We have promised the families that. We are calling it a pause."
The announcement means many families will have to accept that their loved ones disappeared as the towers crumbled into a pile of smouldering rubble that burnt for weeks.
"Unfortunately, there are 1161 of us who have never received a call from the medical examiner to get any kind of identification," said William Doyle, whose son Joey worked for financial group Cantor Fitzgerald in the World Trade Centre.
Experts say that in order to make a DNA match, the coroner has to be able to extract a sample of 18 to 36 human cells, far less even than the residue left when a finger is rubbed on a glass slide.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12365387-38198,00.htm
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U.S. will wait on Iran sanctions till June
U.S. diplomatic papers show that Washington will give the European Union only until June to stop Iran’s nuclear program before it seeks UN sanctions.
The U.S. will not press the International Atomic Energy Agency to send Iran’s nuclear case to the Security Council when the board meets next week, UN officials said.
But the next quarterly meeting in mid-June will differ.
According to Reuters, the draft position paper states that Washington will give EU-Iran nuclear talks until the June meeting to end Tehran’s nuclear program. If the talks fail, it will resume its campaign to make the IAEA send Iran’s file to the UN for possible sanctions.
The documents also showed that the U.S. wants IAEA chief Mohammad ElBaradei to report again on Iran’s nuclear program before the June meeting.
http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=7355
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Briton saw detainees beaten to death in Afghanistan
A Briton who was detained in Guantanamo and Afghanistan said that he witnessed U.S. guards beating two detainees “so badly" that he believes it caused their death.
Moazzam Begg, 37, from Birmingham, was one of the four Britons freed last month from the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
He said that he was tortured by U.S. guards and CIA officers in Afghanistan and was left tied up and hooded for several hours even though he suffers from asthma.
Begg was detained in February 2002 and was held at the Bagram air base near Kabul in Afghanistan before being transferred to Guantanamo in early 2003.
He said he was working on "humanitarian relief" when he was arrested. "I went to a country where people are a lot more impoverished and a lot more worse off, and I tried to help them if I could,"
The former law student and shop owner also said that he spent much of his detention in solitary confinement, often exposed to extreme cold and deprived of basic needs.
http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=7353
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Iraq attacks kill more than 16
Security sources said on Friday that two Iraqi soldiers, four Iraqi civilians and four rebels have been killed since Thursday.
They identified the soldiers as Ahmed Mahmoud and Kahtan Ahmed, saying that they were killed by unknown gunmen Thursday night.
The sources also reported that two women and a child were killed near the northern refinery town of Baiji when a bomb exploded at their car just after a U.S. army convoy passed, police said.
In another development, Major General Peter Chiarelli, head of Task Force Baghdad and commander of the 1st Cavalry Division, said that there was still no fixed date for U.S. forces to hand over security to the Iraqi soldiers.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi government said on Friday that they arrested a top aide to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, along with his driver.
http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=7349
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Israel plans to build more West Bank homes
Israel's Yediot Ahronot daily newspaper said that the government plans to build more than 6,000 new homes in the West Bank this year and will authorize over 120 illegal outposts.
The newspaper's report was based on the 2005 working plan of the Israel Land Administration.
The daily said that the settlements' expansion would come at the same time of the planned pullout from the Gaza Strip.
According to Israel’s withdrawal plan, Jewish settlers and Israeli forces will leave all 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip as well as four other enclaves in the West Bank.
The new plans will damage the "road map" peace plan which demands a halt to illegal outposts and settlement-building on land seized by Israel in 1967, which the Palestinians want for their future state.
http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=7343
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Israeli jets violate Lebanese airspace
Israeli jets violated Lebanese airspace on Thursday, drawing retaliatory anti-aircraft fire from the Lebanese army.
Police reported that Israeli planes flew at low altitude over coastal areas around the main southern port cities of Tyre and Sidon, and that Lebanese forces responded with anti-aircraft fire in their direction.
Beirut often complained to the United Nations about Israel's frequent violations of its air space.
The United Nations representative, Staffan de Mistura, has frequently denounced Israel for its continued violations of Lebanese airspace.
The airspace violations took place amid tense situations in the region following the Feb. 14 assassination of Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri, which has been blamed by the opposition on the Lebanese and the Syrian governments.
Both countries denied involvement in the attack, which took place in the Lebanese capital, Beirut.
Israel plans air force 'umbrella' in Gaza
http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=7341
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Iran rejects U.S. involvement in nuclear talks
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said on Thursday that Tehran doesn’t want the United States to join its nuclear talks with the European Union.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran does not see any reason why the United States should join the negotiations between the three European countries and Iran on its nuclear program," Asefi said.
France, Britain and Germany want to persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear program in exchange for trade, security and technology benefits.
French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Shroeder demanded the U.S. President George W. Bush this week to participate in the EU negotiations with the Islamic republic.
On Wednesday, Bush’s national security adviser Stephen Hadley said that the U.S. President will consider the EU approach of offering incentives to Iran, such as the membership of the World Trade Organization and selling it civilian aircraft.
But Iran, which strongly denies the U.S. claims that it is secretly developing an atomic weapons program, said that it opposes Washington’s involvement in its nuclear talks with the EU.
http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=7350
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Israel upgrades top-of-range spy satellite
Israel is upgrading its top-of-the-range Ofek 6 spy satellite after its prototype failed to launch and fell into the Mediterranean Sea almost six months ago, the Israeli Yediot Aharanot daily reported on Wednesday.
Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) is developing the Ofek 7, which will have a precise radar system that enables it to target objects from a distance of 400 to 600 kilometers by night or day, regardless of weather conditions.
The ofek 6 was intended to expand the Jewish state's surveillance over its more distant enemies, particularly Iran, but it didn’t possess these advanced capabilities.
The daily also said that the new system, known as synthetic aperture radar (SAR), is similar to the radars uses by fighter planes and drones.
An IAI official was cited by Yediot as saying that "This satellite will provide us with 24-hour surveillance of enemy countries."
The Marker, the business supplement of the Haaretz daily, reported that Israel’s ministry of defense asked for an additional 400 to 600 million shekels (around 140 million dollars) to build two new observation satellites.
http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=7344
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Pakistan warns U.S. against arms sale to India
Pakistan warned the United States against selling the Patriot anti-missile system to India, saying that the move would lead to an "arms crisis" and damage the ongoing peace process between the South Asian nuclear rivals.
Indian media reported that officials from the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency made a technical presentation of the Patriot anti-missile system to Indian defense and foreign ministry officials earlier this week.
The Patriot system is used for defense against ballistic and cruise missiles and aircraft.
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Masood Khan said on Wednesday that any plans to go ahead with the arms deal would be "counter-productive".
"This would erode deterrance...this would send (the) entire region into a crisis mode," he said.
"You will have an arms race, an unintended arms race here which nobody wants and finally it would induce higher risk-taking," he said. "This we think is not in sync with goals of peace and security that we have in this region."
Khan also questioned New Delhi's intentions for buying Patriots, saying: "India has been pursuing rapprochement with China and a composite dialogue with Pakistan.
http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=7360
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Kansas demands late abortion data
Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline has demanded that clinics hand over records of nearly 90 women who had abortions.
He is seeking the women's names, sexual history and medical details, saying he wants to investigate possible child rape or illegal abortions.
But the clinics involved accuse Mr Kline, an abortion opponent, of trying to launch a "secret inquisition".
They say he is "fishing" rather than investigating a specific crime and want the state Supreme Court to intervene.
Mr Kline began the inquiry in October but it only became public when the clinics filed an appeal against a court order to hand over the record
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4298431.stm
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American media vs the blogs
By Kevin Anderson
BBC News, Washington
Bloggers. Truth-tellers or vigilantes? Trophy-hunters or watchdogs?
With the abrupt resignation of CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan, the American media are struggling with how to respond to bloggers.
Some see the bloggers as an explosion of free speech, a democratic counterbalance to media arrogance and a much needed call for greater transparency in the media, while others see bloggers as vigilante partisans bent on discrediting and destroying the media.
Blogswarm
The furore was touched off after bloggers questioned comments Mr Jordan made at the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland about journalists killed in Iraq.
At the forum, he said that he believed that several journalists had been targeted by the military.
He was quickly challenged by many at the forum who thought he was implying that it was official US policy to target journalists.
Mr Jordan qualified his statements saying that he was trying to differentiate between journalists who died as a result of being at the wrong place at the wrong time and those who were mistaken for the enemy
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4279229.stm
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Extent of US abuse cases revealed
The US army says it is conducting more than 100 criminal investigations into claims of detainee abuse in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Maj Gen Donald Ryder, in charge of US army detainee operations, said a further 200 such investigations had already been completed.
The military has been forced to reassess how it treats detainees after last year's Abu Ghraib prison scandal.
Gen Ryder said the army had tightened its rules as a result.
The US army says it has opened 308 criminal investigations into allegations of abuse, more than 100 of which are still open.
Gen Ryder could not say how many soldiers had actually been prosecuted for abusing detainees.
His comments came after two British soldiers were found guilty at a court martial of charges relating to abusing Iraqi prisoners.
Daniel Kenyon, 33, was convicted of three charges and Mark Cooley, 25, of two following abuse at Camp Bread Basket, Basra, during May 2003.
Both the soldiers, and a third - Darren Larkin - who had admitted assault, will be sentenced by a UK military panel in Osnabrueck, Germany, on Friday.
New procedures
The US army confirmed on Wednesday that it was investing an alleged sexual assault on an elderly woman who was detained by coalition troops in Iraq.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4293023.stm
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In pictures: California mudslides
1 of 7
California is braced for a massive cleanup after heavy rains triggered mudslides that killed at least nine and destroyed dozens of homes.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/4293419.stm
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Iran girl gets 100 lashes for sex
A teenage girl and two young men in Iran have been sentenced to lashes for having sex.
The court dismissed the girl's claim that she was raped. It said she had sex of her own free will, the official Iran Daily newspaper reported.
The girl was sentenced to 100 lashes because her accusations of rape and kidnap could have landed her partners a death penalty, the Tehran judge said.
Sex outside marriage is illegal in Iran and capital punishment can be imposed.
The young men in the case were sentenced to 30 and 40 lashes each.
Rights violations
The Iran paper quotes the girl, who has not been named, as confessing: "I trusted one of these young men, whom I got to know by phone, and went to his place.
"But because he betrayed me, I filed the case against him and his friend out of revenge."
International concerns continue to be raised about women's rights in Iran.
In December the UN General Assembly voted to censure Iran for human rights violations, including discrimination against women and girls.
Tehran rejected the criticism as propaganda.
Under Iranian law, girls over the age of nine and boys over 16 face the death penalty for crimes such as rape and murder, while capital punishment can be imposed in certain cases of illegal sexual relationships.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4295111.stm
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BuzzFlash GOP Hypocrite of the Week: George W. Bush
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
Welcome back to the BuzzFlash.com GOP Hypocrite of the Week.
Our BuzzFlash GOP Hypocrite of the Year in 2004, George W. Bush, is receiving his first encore recognition in 2005 for his scripted warning to "Press Putin on Democracy in Russia."
Poor Pooti Poot, just a short time ago, Bush was looking into his eyes and seeing a soulmate. Now Bush is abandoning his erstwhile comrade to parrot the theme of liberty and democracy he loves to repeat so much abroad and suppress so much at home.
Although it's not that he's really for democracy abroad. In Germany for instance, a town meeting was canceled by the White House because the German government insisted that questions not be scripted and audience members not be pre-selected by the White House.
And as Bush traveled through Germany, he was careful not to rub shoulders with actual residents of Europe. A BBC report noted that as Bush sped along in his motorcade, it was "the strangest sight. There is nobody here. They've all been cleared away. It's almost totalitarian in its reach and efficiency: the motorways are closed, whole towns we pass on the way from Frankfurt airport have been cleared of people.
"Our German colleagues say everyone on the motorcade route was told to stay indoors. The result may be more secure but it is eerie nonetheless - a political meeting without any public involvement. Freedom on the march but no-one free to see it."
Yes, democracy works so well when there are no people to participate in it!
http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/05/02/edi05033.html
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Canada refuses further role in missile defense
By OLIVER MOORE
Thursday, February 24, 2005 Updated at 2:35 PM EST
Globe and Mail Update
The formal announcement Thursday that Canada will refuse any further participation in the controversial U.S. missile-defence shield was met with an immediate warning that Canada had given up its sovereignty.
Although Prime Minister Paul Martin said Canada would “insist” on maintaining control of its airspace, U.S. ambassador Paul Cellucci warned that Washington would not be constrained.
“We will deploy. We will defend North America,” he said.
“We simply cannot understand why Canada would in effect give up its sovereignty – its seat at the table – to decide what to do about a missile that might be coming towards Canada.”
Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew made the Canadian decision public after months of equivocating by the Liberal government and days of denials that a decision had been made.
“After careful consideration of the issue, we have decided that Canada will not participate in the U.S. ballistic missile defence system,” Mr. Pettigrew said in the chamber of the House of Commons.
He insisted that the decision – which has reportedly left the Bush administration nonplussed – will not “in any way” hurt ties with the United States
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050224.w3miss0223/BNStory/National/
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FREEWAY BLOGGER TO POST 150 SIGNS ON BAY AREA FREEWAYS
FREE SPEECH ACTION TO MARK 1500th U.S. SOLDIER KILLED IN IRAQ
One Man. Two Days. More Than 3 Million People Reached.
Bay Area/San Jose, CA With the announcement of the 1500th U.S. soldier killed in Iraq, a lone activist known as the Freeway Blogger will post 150 banners on Bay Area freeways protesting the war in Iraq and the failure to find Osama Bin Laden. This action will reach communities including Marin, Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose. The Freeway Blogger has posted over 2,500 hand-painted signs on California freeways since the war began.
http://www.freewayblogger.com/pressrelease_feb23.htm
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3 GIs Killed In Roadside Bombing
Blast Occurred North Of Baghdad
Feb 25, 2005 9:29 am US/Eastern
TARMIYAH, Iraq (CBS)
A roadside bomb killed three U.S. soldiers and wounded eight others in an explosion in Tarmiyah, 20 miles northeast of Baghdad, CBS News Correspondent Cami McCormick reports.
McCormick said the device detonated while the soldiers were on foot patrol.
"I was heading to our house ... There was a group of American soldiers walking in the road while around five Humvees were parking behind them," said Waleed Nahed, 35, who lives in the area. "I heard a very loud explosion and I saw bodies flying."
He said he was about 200 yards way and believed explosives were hidden among the palm trees overlooking the street.
In other developments:
Iraqi forces captured the leader of an al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist cell allegedly responsible for carrying out a string of beheadings in Iraq. The government identified the captured cell leader as Mohamed Najam Ibrahim. It said he was arrested in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, but gave no date for the arrest.
A suicide bomber wearing a police uniform blew up his car at police headquarters in Tikrit, killing at least 15 people in Saddam Hussein's hometown.
The suicide bombings and other attacks came as politicians negotiated behind the scenes to forge the alliances needed to win enough backing in the 275-seat National Assembly for the post of prime minister.
http://cbs4boston.com/news/topstories_story_056080019.html
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Aal-Jaafari claims Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric endorses him for PM
NAJAF, Iraq (AP) - United Iraqi Alliance candidate Ibrahim al-Jaafari said Friday that Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has endorsed his nomination for prime minister
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/Iraq/2005/02/25/942435-ap.html
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Newspapers claim to have located Iraqi men depicted in army abuse photos
LONDON (AP) - The British military said Friday it would investigate allegations by five Iraqi men who say they are the prisoners featured in photographs showing abuse by British troops.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/Iraq/2005/02/25/942250-ap.html
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Pentagon announces rape allegations against U.S. troops in Iraq
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon is investigating an allegation a U.S. soldier raped an Iraqi female prisoner while she was in custody, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Tuesday.
The allegation has not yet been substantiated, he said. He gave no details. Another rape allegation against a U.S. soldier was dismissed for lack of evidence, Whitman said.
They are the only two rape allegations that have been made against U.S. troops in Iraq, the spokesman said.
During testimony last week on Capitol Hill, U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff, were pressed for information about rape allegations against U.S. forces in Iraq. Rumsfeld promised to look into the matter and report his findings.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/Iraq/2005/02/22/939101-ap.html
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Suicide barrier for Golden Gate?
Officials hear from relatives of some who jumped
SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- Golden Gate Bridge officials Thursday moved closer to building a barrier to prevent people from jumping off the famous suspension bridge, where about 1,300 people have killed themselves since the landmark opened in 1937.
Officials voted to develop a plan and explore funding for the suicide barrier after hearing emotional testimony from friends and family of people who jumped off the iconic bridge connecting San Francisco and Marin County.
The decision by a committee of the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District still must be approved by the district's board of directors when it meets March 11.
All the nearly 20 people who testified Thursday urged committee members to erect the barrier.
"I don't want one more family member to go through this pain," said Terry Oxford of San Jose, whose 26-year-old daughter, Jennifer, jumped to her death last week. "She chose this bridge because it was accessible."
An average of 20 people a year commit suicide by pitching themselves over the bridge's 41/2-foot-high rail. Four have already done so this year.
"This is the place where the most preventable suicides occur," said Eve Meyer, executive director of San Francisco Suicide Prevention. "These are the most impulsive, least planned and least strategized suicides."
Building a suicide barrier on the bridge has been suggested for decades, but the idea gained momentum earlier this year when bridge officials learned that a filmmaker had filmed 19 people jumping off the bridge. Eric Steel told the bridge district he had intended to "capture the grandeur" of the bridge but ended up making a movie about its history of suicides.
Earlier this week, district staff members said it would take about two years and $2 million to develop a plan for the barrier and another two years to build it. The cost of the barrier depends on the design.
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Three dead in disco suicide blast
From correspondents in Jerusalem
26feb05
THREE people were killed and about 30 wounded today in a suicide attack in a seaside disco in Tel Aviv, Israeli public radio said.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a Palestinian militant group loosely affiliated to the mainstream Fatah movement, claimed responsibility in a telephone call the media.
Tel Aviv's police chief David Tsour said the attack took place at the entrance to the disco, called The Stage, and left about 30 wounded.
Ambulances were at the scene to evacuate the injured, several of whom were in shock, according to pictures shown on Israeli television.
The Palestinian Authority has condemned the suicide attack.
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,12376126%255E1702,00.html
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Australia bans Zarqawi group
26feb05
A TERRORIST network blamed for much of the violence in Iraq was today added to Australia's list of banned organisations.
The Jordanian-born terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's network was the 18th organisation to be listed under Australia's counter-terrorism laws, said a statement from the office of Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said.
"The regulation was made to list the al-Zarqawi network as a terrorist organisation on the advice of competent authorities," it said.
The network, associated with al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the bomb attack on an Australian military barracks in Baghdad last month.
Mr Ruddock said at the time of the attack that the al-Zarqawi group was very active and had previously made threats against Australia's interests.
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,12376005%255E1702,00.html
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France honours Vietnam pilots
From correspondents in Washington
26feb05
SEVEN US pilots who flew secret missions in 1954 to help embattled French troops at Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam have been awarded the French Legion of Honour.
The French embassy in Washington announced the tribute, with ambassador Jean-David Levitte saying: "We are celebrating the courage of these pilots who carried out numerous missions above Die Bien Phu."
The 57-day siege of French troops in 1954 was a tragic turning point in France's battle to preserve its colonial status in Indochina.
The role of 37 US pilots who took part at Dien Bien Phu, flying CIA-controlled planes temporarily bearing French markings, is little known.
US historian Erik Kirsinger researched the case for more than a year to establish the facts of the pilots' role, said Mr Levitte
Aside from the seven still-living pilots recognised by France, two others who died over Dien Bien Phu were also honoured by the French.
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,12375927%255E1702,00.html
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US soldier to be tried in murder of Iraqi civilian
24 Feb 2005 22:05:27 GMT
Source: Reuters
WASHINGTON, Feb 24 (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier accused of shooting an Iraqi civilian last year and then trying to make it falsely appear like an act of self-defense will be tried in a military court on a murder charge, the Army said on Thursday.
Staff Sgt. Shane Werst, a 31-year-old combat engineer from El Toro, California, also has been charged with obstruction of justice. Werst faces up to life imprisonment without chance of parole if convicted, officials at Fort Hood in Texas said in a statement.
Maj. Gen. James Thurman, commander of the 4th Infantry Division, ordered a general court-martial following a pre-trial investigative hearing last month, according to the statement.
Werst was accused of fatally shooting Naser Ismail in the man's home in the Iraqi city of Balad in January 2004.
Prosecutors have said Werst took part in house raids for insurgents after a U.S. Army captain died in a mortar attack. Another U.S. soldier accused Werst of planting a gun on the victim's body to make the shooting look like an act of self-defense.
Werst also could face a reduction in rank, forfeiture of pay and a dishonorable discharge from the military if convicted, officials said. No trial date has been set.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N24469.htm
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Italy probes possible CIA role in abduction:
An Italian prosecutor investigating the apparent kidnapping of a suspected Islamic militant in the streets of Milan served military authorities this week with a demand for records of flights into and out of a joint U.S.-Italian air base in northern Italy.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
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Ex-Soldier Kills Two of Wife's Young Kids
UPDATED - Friday February 25, 2005 7:39am
COLUMBUS, Ga. (AP) - A former soldier fatally stabbed two of his wife's young sons with a hunting knife and wounded her three other children before committing suicide, police said.
Clarence L. Moore, 24, had a history of domestic violence, and police had responded to several domestic violence reports at the home he shared with his wife, Beverly. They were called back Wednesday to find Moore had attacked the children.
Cressa Matthews was visiting in the neighborhood when she heard Beverly Moore screaming and saw her collapse across the street from the house. When police arrived, a bleeding little girl came out into the front yard.
"She was all bloody and cut up," Matthews said, adding that Beverly Moore "kept asking, 'Did you get all five of my babies?'"
The family returned Wednesday, hours before Moore attacked the children. Moore served about two years as an Army parachute rigger at nearby Fort Benning before being given a general discharge last August. Military officials said he had not been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.
http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0205/209664.html
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US Army pays Halliburton big bonus
Friday 25 February 2005,
2:24 Makka Time, 23:24 GMT
The US Army has awarded defence contractor Halliburton more than $9 million in bonuses for some of its work supporting the military in Kuwait and Afghanistan.
But the Army said performance-based bonuses had not been paid yet to Halliburton's Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR) unit for dining services for US troops in those countries.
Military auditors have criticised those services as too costly and have asked the Texas-based company to justify its billing.
Halliburton and its subsidiaries have particularly been under scrutiny for over-billing some of its military contracts in Iraq.
The Pentagon has also been criticised for extending undue favours to the firm, once headed by US Vice-President Dick Cheney.
"Dining facilities costs questioned by the Defence Contract Audit Agency have not been included in Award Fee Boards but are scheduled to be addressed later," an army statement said on Thursday.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F1C74716-CF50-4F46-90A7-B8F06235A5A1.htm
Halliburton has made billions out of US military deployments
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Australia: former leading intelligence official exposes government lies
By Terry Cook
25 February 2005
Use this version to print | Send this link by email | Email the author
Like all regimes involved in criminal activity, systematic lying is now the modus operandi of the Howard government. It is a well-established fact that the government lied to parliament about “weapons of mass destruction” to create the pretext for Australian involvement in the criminal and illegal invasion of Iraq, and lied when it claimed that before the release of the horrific images of torture in Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison it had no knowledge of the abuse of Iraqi detainees.
A damning interview with former Australian intelligence officer Rod Barton on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation current affairs program “Four Corners” has not only provided further proof of the government’s lies on the prisoner abuse issue; it has blown to pieces the claim made last year by Defence Minister Robert Hill that no Australian personnel were involved in the interrogation of Iraqi detainees. The “Four Corners” program, aired on February 15, was aptly entitled “Secrets and Lies”.
Last June 16, in the wake of the Abu Ghraib revelations, Hill told parliament that a thorough review by the Defence Department had confirmed that, “Australia did not interrogate prisoners, Australia was not involved in guarding prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, or any other prison”. Prime Minister John Howard supported and repeated the claims both in and outside parliament. Even before Hill’s so-called review, Howard had declared in a radio interview on May 28: “We were not involved in any interrogations. We did not witness interrogations.”
However, Barton told “Four Corners” reporter Liz Jackson that he had been involved in the interrogation of Iraq prisoners at Camp Cropper. The detention facility, according to Barton, held about 100 “high value” prisoners, including senior officials of the former regime and Iraqi scientists. Barton is a trained microbiologist who worked as a senior specialist advisor for the US Iraq Survey Group (ISG), which was dispatched to search for “weapons of mass destruction” (WMDs) in Iraq. Before that, he had been seconded from the Australian Defence Intelligence Organisation to work with the chief UN weapons inspector, Hans Blix.
Barton said he had been “annoyed” by Hill’s June 16 statement because when responding to the Defence Department’s “review” questionnaire he had confirmed that he had been present at interrogations at Camp Cropper and had personally been involved in interviewing a senior Iraqi detainee. When Barton telephoned a high-ranking Defence Department official to object to Hill’s statement, he was told: “We regard that you did interviews and not interrogations.”
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/feb2005/bart-f25.shtml
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Professor criticizes U.S. foreign policy
By Barry Shatzman, STAFF WRITER
FREMONT — Stephen Zunes agrees with President Bush that democracy in Iran would be a good thing. He just finds it ironic that the country had a democratic government until 1953, when a CIA-led coup ousted it.
At Ohlone College's World Forum on Thursday, the University of San Francisco professor spoke about many ironies and contradictions in American foreign policy. Many of them, he said, led directly to terrorism.
Zunes spoke to more than 500 people at the college's gym, questioning the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Though Afghanistan was the only place where al-Qaida was living openly, he commented that the group had members scattered throughout world, and the hijackers came from a cell based in Germany.
"The U.S. did need to take decisive action," he said. "But why ... bombing of a war-torn country?"
Life in Afghanistan since the war, in which more Afghan civilians died than the number of people killed on 9/11, has only gotten worse, Zunes said.
With most of the country run by warlords, opium production is 20 times as high as before the war and growers receive government protection.
Diseases such as polio, scurvy and tuberculosis are rampant. Doctors Without Borders, a charity that stayed during the Soviet invasion and the reign of the Taliban, pulled out, saying it could not operate in safety. In addition, Zunes said, the Afghan human rights groups are now being ignored when they report problems.
"It is out of such failed states that terrorism flourishes and spreads," he said.
A similar situation exists in Iraq, he said.
More than 10,000 Iraqi citizens lost their lives in a war that was unnecessary because Iraq did not pose a threat to the United States, Zunes said.
But by attempting to link Iraq to terrorism, the administration not only was able to spend millions of dollars on reconstruction, but also was able to depict those against the war as being soft on terrorism, he added.
"One thing I noticed was that he did not mention oil even once," said Bill Parks, who teaches journalism at Ohlone.
Zunes said later that oil was less of a factor than the U.S. government's wanting control of key resources and geographic areas. Which, he said, is also a key reason why the United States has lost respect around the world.
"People are less tolerant of being pushed around. They want to be master of their own destiny," he said.
Ohlone's next World Forum, on the U.S.-China relationship and the changing global economy, will take place April 6.
http://www.insidebayarea.com/dailyreview/localnews/ci_2584361
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Former UN chief weapons inspector warns of possibility of new arms race
(AP)
25 February 2005
STOCKHOLM - Global nuclear disarmament is moving backward, and US plans to build new nuclear weapons could trigger another arms race, former UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix warned Friday.
With countries like Iran trying to enrich uranium, North Korea claiming to have nuclear weapons of its own and the United States planning to develop bunker-busting nuclear weapons, “disarmament is in the backwater,” Blix said during a conference on arms nonproliferation.
“We’re moving backward rather than forward,” he said. “After the Iraq war, it seems that the ’family counselors’ have advised their friends to reassume their cohabitation” with nuclear weapons.
“What’s worrisome is whether the USA. has moved away from the stance they had about global disarmament,” said Blix, who now heads the Swedish-based Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission.
If the United States was to move forward with plans for new bunker-busting nuclear weapons, “there is a risk for rearmament instead of a continued global cooperation” for disarmament, he said.
The conference, organized by The Swedish Network for Nuclear Disarmament, brings together nonproliferation organizations looking to find new options for arms control, organizers said.
It is set to discuss an upcoming United Nations review conference for the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty - the cornerstone of global efforts to control the spread of nuclear weapons. Many fear the UN conference will be a step back from the 2000 conference that resulted in a 13-step program for disarmament.
“There is a concern that (the review conference) will be a flop,” said Frida Blom, head of the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society. “We want to prevent that.”
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/theworld/2005/February/theworld_February667.xml§ion=theworld&col=
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POLITICS:
Peace Movement Gears Up for Global Protests on War Anniversary
Katherine Stapp
NEW YORK, Feb 24 (IPS) - At Fort Bragg, the largest U.S. army installation in the world and home to the famed 82nd Airborne Division, the mood is not exactly buoyant.
''There are people here who are being deployed for the third time,'' said Lou Plummer, a veteran with a son on active duty. ''At least 50 people from the base have been killed in Iraq.''
The total U.S. death toll since the start of the war is now 1,480, according to Pentagon officials. As for the number of civilians killed, the British group Iraq Body Count estimates a figure between 16,000 and 18,000.
In a sign of mounting discontent, the military also concedes that about 5,500 servicemen have deserted, although Plummer believes the real number is probably much higher.
This picture is somewhat bleaker than the one painted a year ago by Army Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack, Jr., commander of the 82nd Airborne -- also known as ''America's Guard of Honour'' -- who brightly told reporters in Baghdad that ''we're on a glide-path toward success.''
''We have turned the corner, and now we can accelerate down the straightaway,'' he said in a Jan. 6, 2004 briefing. ''There's still a long way to go before the finish line, but the final outcome is known.''
Not so fast, say anti-war activists like Plummer, who is helping to organise a mass protest rally near the base in Fayetteville, North Carolina on Mar. 19 to coincide with the second anniversary of the U.S. invasion.
''The message is not 'bring them home after they fix stuff', it's 'bring them home now','' said Plummer, an active member of the national peace group Military Families Speak Out.
''Organising in Fayetteville requires sensitivity that you wouldn't need to have in a non-military town,'' he added. ''You have to respect people who oppose the war but are afraid to go public because they have a spouse in the military and could lose their benefits.''
Even so, he says that interest in his group -- which represents 2,000 military families -- and in the March anti-war events has been ''overwhelming''.
The Fayetteville rally is being conceived and planned by veterans and relatives of soldiers, with delegations coming from as far away as the Pacific island state of Hawaii.
Speakers will include Daniel Berg, the father of Nick Berg, a U.S. civilian beheaded in Iraq; Lila Lipscomb, the grief-stricken mother of a U.S. soldier featured in the Michael Moore film ''Fahrenheit 9/11''; and David Potorti, a peace activist whose brother died in the Sep. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York.
Last weekend, Plummer attended a conference in the southern state of Missouri that drew several hundred representatives of pacifist groups, former combatants, soldiers' families, and others from 35 U.S. states and Canada.
http://www.ipsnews.net/new_nota.asp?idnews=27609
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Rocket Fuel Chemical Found in Breast Milk of Women in 18 States
By Robert Roy Britt
LiveScience Senior Writer
A toxic component of rocket fuel has been found in breast milk of women in 18 states and store-bought milk from various locations around the country.
The chemical, perchlorate, can impede adult metabolism and cause retardation in fetuses, among other things. It leaches into groundwater from various military facilities.
Previous studies have found perchlorate in drinking water, on lettuce, and in cows milk.
The new research, announced this week, suggests perchlorate is a bigger problem than thought, scientists said.
Texas Tech University researchers studied 36 samples of breast milk from women in 18 states and 47 samples cow's milk purchased from stores in 11 states. Every sample of breast milk contained perchlorate, as did all but one sample of dairy milk.
The highest levels were found in women from New Jersey, New Mexico, Missouri, Nebraska and California, in that order.
http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/050224_rocket_fuel.html
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Judge Orders Florida Woman's Feeding Tube Removed
Fri Feb 25, 2005 05:21 PM ET
By Robert Green
CLEARWATER, Fla. (Reuters) - A Florida judge on Friday ordered the feeding tube removed from a severely brain-damaged woman in three weeks, paving the way for her husband to allow his wife to die after a long court dispute with her parents.
Fifteen years to the day since a heart attack put Theresa "Terri" Schiavo into what some doctors call a persistent vegetative state, Circuit Judge George Greer ruled the feeding tube that keeps her alive should be removed on March 18.
That would give the parents time to appeal the ruling to higher courts, and their attorney immediately made clear they planned such appeals.
Schiavo, 41, has been at the center of a bitter seven-year legal fight that has become a rallying point for right-to-life activists, advocates for the disabled and proponents of the right to die.
Her husband, Michael Schiavo, who is her legal guardian, says his wife had told him she would not want to live in such a condition. Her parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, believe their daughter is in a "minimally conscious state" and say she could improve with treatment.
"I am very pleased that the Court has recognized there must be a finality to this process." Michael Schiavo said in a written statement. "I am hopeful and confident that the appellate court will also agree that Terri's wishes not to be kept alive artificially must now be enforced."
Greer, who ordered the feeding tube removed five years ago, said he would not grant any more stays in the case, but gave the Schindlers time to appeal the ruling.
UNLIKELY TO RECOVER
http://www.reuters.com/printerFriendlyPopup.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=7745642
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Senator Blames Both Sides for Stalemate on Judges
By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 25, 2005; Page A04
The Senate is headed toward turmoil unless it can resolve its bitter impasse over judicial nominees, a key Republican warned yesterday. But neither party showed signs of yielding as senators scheduled a hearing next week for one of the 10 appointees blocked last year.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), breaking from GOP orthodoxy that blames only Democrats, said both parties have allowed the battle over federal judgeships to escalate to a dangerous point where neither side is willing to back down. He said he is not sure Republicans have enough votes in the full Senate to confirm appellate court nominee William G. Myers III, but he will formally restart the contest by conducting a committee hearing Tuesday.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51617-2005Feb24.html?referrer=email
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Capitol Hill Journal
Unrepentant Specter Is Finding Life Lonely in the Center
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 25, 2005; Page A04
On an otherwise quiet day on the Hill, 100 journalists and jostling photographers jammed the Senate TV studio yesterday for a sighting of that most exotic and endangered of species: a moderate in the United States Senate.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) seemed amused that he was the object of so much attention. "Must be a slow day in Washington," he said during a burst of camera clicks. But as a prominent Republican senator taking on his president, his party leaders and conservative interest groups -- as Specter did in a meeting Wednesday with Washington Post editorialists -- Specter could not have been surprised.
The senator did not backpedal during his lengthy news conference about the standoff over Bush's judicial nominees. "Both parties are at fault," he said, even scolding Bush for "unheard-of" recess appointments of judges rejected by the Senate. "Each side ratcheted it up, ratcheted it up. . . . So the question is, where do we go from here?"
The answer came swiftly: Nowhere.
Minutes after Specter's remarks, Sen. Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), a Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, arrived in the same room to offer his response. Asked if he, like Specter, would give his own party some of the blame for the standoff, Schumer demurred.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51838-2005Feb24.html?referrer=email
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Analysis
In Russian Media, Free Speech for a Select Few
By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 25, 2005; Page A18
If President Bush thought he would receive support from Russian reporters when he raised the cause of free speech, he did not know much about the Kremlin press pool.
"What is this lack of freedom all about?" one Russian reporter challenged Bush during his joint news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday. "Our regional and national media often criticize government institutions."
Bush seemed surprised. "Obviously, if you're a member of the Russian press, you feel like the press is free," he replied. "You feel that way? That's good." Bush added, "That is a pretty interesting observation for those of us who don't live in Russia to listen to."
The exchange illustrated more about the state of freedom in Russia than met the eye. While Putin travels around with a contingent of reporters just as Bush does, the Kremlin press pool is a handpicked group of reporters, most of whom work for the state and the rest selected for their fidelity to the Kremlin's rules of the game. Helpful questions are often planted. Unwelcome questions are not allowed. And anyone who gets out of line can get out of the pool.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51587-2005Feb24.html?referrer=email
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Group to Coordinate Attack on Bush Plan
Social Security Proposal Is Targeted
By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 25, 2005; Page A19
The battle lines in the coming war over Social Security have finally been drawn with the creation last week of a new umbrella group that will coordinate attacks on President Bush's drive to create personal investment accounts.
At the urging of Democratic leaders in Congress, a few political campaign veterans have formed Americans United to Protect Social Security. The nonprofit organization with close ties to organized labor plans to raise $25 million to $50 million to pressure lawmakers to vote against Bush's proposal.
At Americans United to Protect Social Security, we are going to run a national campaign to defeat the president's privatization plan," said Brad Woodhouse, the group's spokesman and the former communications director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. "The president and his supporters in Congress are messing with the third rail [of politics]; we're going to make sure they get zapped."
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees provided seed money of nearly $1 million. Other major players in the coalition include the AFL-CIO; USAction, a grass-roots issues network; and the Campaign for America's Future, an activist group that pushes issues from the perspective of the political left.
Americans United to Protect Social Security will be run by two longtime advisers to Senate Democrats. Its campaign manager is Paul Tewes, the former political director of the DSCC. Its general consultant is Steve Hildebrand, who ran the unsuccessful reelection campaign last year of Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.), the former Senate minority leader.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51517-2005Feb24.html?referrer=email
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Soldiers, child die in bombings
By Rory Mulholland in Baghdad
February 26, 2005
From: Agence France-Presse
A ROADSIDE bomb has killed three American soldiers north of Baghdad, while 10 Iraqis have died in other attacks.
Nine other US soldiers were wounded, five of them "very seriously", when the Task Force Baghdad troops were hit by a roadside bomb while on patrol near the town of Tarmiya, the military said overnight.
Coinciding with news of the attack, Iraq's government said a senior aide to al-Qaeda frontman Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had been arrested, along with a man who had acted as his driver.
Security forces in Iraq conducted a raid in Anah (in western Iraq) on February 20 resulting in the capture of Talib Mikhlif Arsan Walman al-Dulaimi, aka Abu Qutaybah, a trusted lieutenant of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi," it said.
He arranged safe houses and transportation for the Zarqawi network as well as passing packages and funds to Zarqawi himself, a statement said.
Security sources said that in addition to the latest attack near Baghdad on Friday, a US marine, two members of the Iraqi security forces, four civilians and four insurgents had been killed since Thursday.
The toll included two women and a child who were killed near the northern refinery town of Baiji when their car was blown up by a bomb that exploded just after a US army convoy passed, police said.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12375923-23109,00.html
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Afghan cold toll touching 500
by Sardar Ahmad in Kabul
February 25, 2005
From: Agence France-Presse
US-led forces and international agencies stepped up aid efforts as officials said today at least 478 people, perhaps half of them children, had died in Afghanistan's bitterest winter for a decade.
American Black Hawk helicopters defied freezing conditions to swoop down on isolated villages in the worst affected western province of Ghor Thursday and deliver aid while cargo planes air dropped vital food supplies.
At least 214 children were confirmed dead from diseases caused by the icy weather according to Health Minister Amin Fatimie, who added that it was impossible to give a complete casualty toll
In Kabul, over the past 24 hours 400 children have arrived in hospitals, 69 of them were hospitalised, and three have died," Mr Fatimie said.
Most disease cases have been respiratory tract infections or whooping cough.
In Ghor, at least 192 people have died from illness, malnutrition and avalanches, deputy provincial governor Ikramuddin Rezaie said.
Ninety of those deaths were children and were also included in the toll given by the health minister.
Late last week, Afghan officials said at least 162 other people had been confirmed dead in avalanches, road accidents and collapsing mud-brick houses due to heavy snowfall across the country.
The full scale of what aid officials have warned could become a humanitarian crisis is difficult to determine because affected regions are almost completely cut off from the outside world.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12372175-23109,00.html
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US troops press security operation
From correspondents in Baghdad
February 25, 2005
From: Agence France-Presse
US forces have pursued increased security operations throughout the Sunni Muslim rebel province of Al-Anbar, where the military says another Marine was killed yesterday,
Security sources, meanwhile, said five more people including two insurgents, had been killed in other incidents.
The marine from I Marine Expeditionary Force "was killed in action while taking part February 24 in a security and stabilization operation in Al-Anbar province," the statement said.
Operation River Blitz moved into its sixth day after a day of further bloodshed in which at least 23 people were killed in the war-wracked country.
The violence coincided with a poll in in the US that showed most Americans questioned on Iraq doubted US troops would soon be home, despite a belief the Iraqi elections would bring greater stability.
More than 54 per cent of respondents said US troops would remain in Iraq for at least two years, while 22 per cent said a US military presence would be needed for more than five additional years, up from 17 per cent in July.
Fifty-five per cent said it would be better to remain in Iraq until the situation was stabilised, but more Americans than ever, 47 per cent, said the decision to go to war was wrong, up from 44 per cent in January
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12371705-23109,00.html
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Iraq troops may be gone longer
by Maria Hawthorne
February 25, 2005
From: AAP
THE latest deployment of Australian troops may be in Iraq for more than a year, Prime Minister John Howard said today.
Mr Howard said he hoped the 450-strong contingent would not have tp stay in the southern province of Al Muthanna beyond a year, but they could stay past 12 months.
But he ruled out sending any Australian troops to help the US dismantle North Korea's nuclear weapons should the standoff not be resolved by negotiations.
"We are certainly concerned, very concerned about North Korea's nuclear ambitions," Mr Howard told Melbourne radio 3AW.
As to us providing any forces, that is simply not an issue ... I am not aware of any plans on the part of the US for it to become so therefore the ... issue simply does not arise."
Mr Howard said Australia was highly unlikely to send more troops to Iraq, but it could not be ruled out.
The Australian contingent announced this week will fill the void left by the withdrawal of 1400 Dutch troops who were protecting a Japanese engineering contingent in the relatively peaceful Al Muthanna province.
The initial plan was for a year-long commitment with a personnel rotation after six months.
Asked if the contingent could stay longer than a year, Mr Howard said: "I hope it won't be necessary but they could. I don't want to put it any stronger or weaker than that.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12369559-29277,00.html
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1161 WTC victims to stay unidentified
By James Bone in New York
February 25, 2005
From:
THE families of more than 1000 victims of the September 11 attack on the World Trade Centre face the heartbreak of knowing their loved ones might never be identified, after the New York coroner's office announced it had exhausted its efforts to trace DNA from the thousands of body parts recovered from ground zero.
The office, which has tested almost 20,000 fragments of human flesh, blood and bone, has identified 1588 of the 2749 people reported missing when two hijacked airliners crashed into the twin towers in 2001.
But it said yesterday the remaining 1161 victims might never be identified unless new technology allowed DNA to be extracted from 9720 stored body parts.
We have exhausted the technology that is available to us today to make any further identifications," spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said. "All the remains have been freeze-dried and vacuum-packed so they do not deteriorate any further. So perhaps we will be able to extract DNA using new technology.
"We are never going to give up. We have promised the families that. We are calling it a pause."
The announcement means many families will have to accept that their loved ones disappeared as the towers crumbled into a pile of smouldering rubble that burnt for weeks.
"Unfortunately, there are 1161 of us who have never received a call from the medical examiner to get any kind of identification," said William Doyle, whose son Joey worked for financial group Cantor Fitzgerald in the World Trade Centre.
Experts say that in order to make a DNA match, the coroner has to be able to extract a sample of 18 to 36 human cells, far less even than the residue left when a finger is rubbed on a glass slide.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12365387-38198,00.htm
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U.S. will wait on Iran sanctions till June
U.S. diplomatic papers show that Washington will give the European Union only until June to stop Iran’s nuclear program before it seeks UN sanctions.
The U.S. will not press the International Atomic Energy Agency to send Iran’s nuclear case to the Security Council when the board meets next week, UN officials said.
But the next quarterly meeting in mid-June will differ.
According to Reuters, the draft position paper states that Washington will give EU-Iran nuclear talks until the June meeting to end Tehran’s nuclear program. If the talks fail, it will resume its campaign to make the IAEA send Iran’s file to the UN for possible sanctions.
The documents also showed that the U.S. wants IAEA chief Mohammad ElBaradei to report again on Iran’s nuclear program before the June meeting.
http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=7355
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Briton saw detainees beaten to death in Afghanistan
A Briton who was detained in Guantanamo and Afghanistan said that he witnessed U.S. guards beating two detainees “so badly" that he believes it caused their death.
Moazzam Begg, 37, from Birmingham, was one of the four Britons freed last month from the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
He said that he was tortured by U.S. guards and CIA officers in Afghanistan and was left tied up and hooded for several hours even though he suffers from asthma.
Begg was detained in February 2002 and was held at the Bagram air base near Kabul in Afghanistan before being transferred to Guantanamo in early 2003.
He said he was working on "humanitarian relief" when he was arrested. "I went to a country where people are a lot more impoverished and a lot more worse off, and I tried to help them if I could,"
The former law student and shop owner also said that he spent much of his detention in solitary confinement, often exposed to extreme cold and deprived of basic needs.
http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=7353
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Iraq attacks kill more than 16
Security sources said on Friday that two Iraqi soldiers, four Iraqi civilians and four rebels have been killed since Thursday.
They identified the soldiers as Ahmed Mahmoud and Kahtan Ahmed, saying that they were killed by unknown gunmen Thursday night.
The sources also reported that two women and a child were killed near the northern refinery town of Baiji when a bomb exploded at their car just after a U.S. army convoy passed, police said.
In another development, Major General Peter Chiarelli, head of Task Force Baghdad and commander of the 1st Cavalry Division, said that there was still no fixed date for U.S. forces to hand over security to the Iraqi soldiers.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi government said on Friday that they arrested a top aide to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, along with his driver.
http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=7349
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Israel plans to build more West Bank homes
Israel's Yediot Ahronot daily newspaper said that the government plans to build more than 6,000 new homes in the West Bank this year and will authorize over 120 illegal outposts.
The newspaper's report was based on the 2005 working plan of the Israel Land Administration.
The daily said that the settlements' expansion would come at the same time of the planned pullout from the Gaza Strip.
According to Israel’s withdrawal plan, Jewish settlers and Israeli forces will leave all 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip as well as four other enclaves in the West Bank.
The new plans will damage the "road map" peace plan which demands a halt to illegal outposts and settlement-building on land seized by Israel in 1967, which the Palestinians want for their future state.
http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=7343
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Israeli jets violate Lebanese airspace
Israeli jets violated Lebanese airspace on Thursday, drawing retaliatory anti-aircraft fire from the Lebanese army.
Police reported that Israeli planes flew at low altitude over coastal areas around the main southern port cities of Tyre and Sidon, and that Lebanese forces responded with anti-aircraft fire in their direction.
Beirut often complained to the United Nations about Israel's frequent violations of its air space.
The United Nations representative, Staffan de Mistura, has frequently denounced Israel for its continued violations of Lebanese airspace.
The airspace violations took place amid tense situations in the region following the Feb. 14 assassination of Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri, which has been blamed by the opposition on the Lebanese and the Syrian governments.
Both countries denied involvement in the attack, which took place in the Lebanese capital, Beirut.
Israel plans air force 'umbrella' in Gaza
http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=7341
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Iran rejects U.S. involvement in nuclear talks
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said on Thursday that Tehran doesn’t want the United States to join its nuclear talks with the European Union.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran does not see any reason why the United States should join the negotiations between the three European countries and Iran on its nuclear program," Asefi said.
France, Britain and Germany want to persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear program in exchange for trade, security and technology benefits.
French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Shroeder demanded the U.S. President George W. Bush this week to participate in the EU negotiations with the Islamic republic.
On Wednesday, Bush’s national security adviser Stephen Hadley said that the U.S. President will consider the EU approach of offering incentives to Iran, such as the membership of the World Trade Organization and selling it civilian aircraft.
But Iran, which strongly denies the U.S. claims that it is secretly developing an atomic weapons program, said that it opposes Washington’s involvement in its nuclear talks with the EU.
http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=7350
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Israel upgrades top-of-range spy satellite
Israel is upgrading its top-of-the-range Ofek 6 spy satellite after its prototype failed to launch and fell into the Mediterranean Sea almost six months ago, the Israeli Yediot Aharanot daily reported on Wednesday.
Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) is developing the Ofek 7, which will have a precise radar system that enables it to target objects from a distance of 400 to 600 kilometers by night or day, regardless of weather conditions.
The ofek 6 was intended to expand the Jewish state's surveillance over its more distant enemies, particularly Iran, but it didn’t possess these advanced capabilities.
The daily also said that the new system, known as synthetic aperture radar (SAR), is similar to the radars uses by fighter planes and drones.
An IAI official was cited by Yediot as saying that "This satellite will provide us with 24-hour surveillance of enemy countries."
The Marker, the business supplement of the Haaretz daily, reported that Israel’s ministry of defense asked for an additional 400 to 600 million shekels (around 140 million dollars) to build two new observation satellites.
http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=7344
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Pakistan warns U.S. against arms sale to India
Pakistan warned the United States against selling the Patriot anti-missile system to India, saying that the move would lead to an "arms crisis" and damage the ongoing peace process between the South Asian nuclear rivals.
Indian media reported that officials from the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency made a technical presentation of the Patriot anti-missile system to Indian defense and foreign ministry officials earlier this week.
The Patriot system is used for defense against ballistic and cruise missiles and aircraft.
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Masood Khan said on Wednesday that any plans to go ahead with the arms deal would be "counter-productive".
"This would erode deterrance...this would send (the) entire region into a crisis mode," he said.
"You will have an arms race, an unintended arms race here which nobody wants and finally it would induce higher risk-taking," he said. "This we think is not in sync with goals of peace and security that we have in this region."
Khan also questioned New Delhi's intentions for buying Patriots, saying: "India has been pursuing rapprochement with China and a composite dialogue with Pakistan.
http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=7360
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Kansas demands late abortion data
Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline has demanded that clinics hand over records of nearly 90 women who had abortions.
He is seeking the women's names, sexual history and medical details, saying he wants to investigate possible child rape or illegal abortions.
But the clinics involved accuse Mr Kline, an abortion opponent, of trying to launch a "secret inquisition".
They say he is "fishing" rather than investigating a specific crime and want the state Supreme Court to intervene.
Mr Kline began the inquiry in October but it only became public when the clinics filed an appeal against a court order to hand over the record
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4298431.stm
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American media vs the blogs
By Kevin Anderson
BBC News, Washington
Bloggers. Truth-tellers or vigilantes? Trophy-hunters or watchdogs?
With the abrupt resignation of CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan, the American media are struggling with how to respond to bloggers.
Some see the bloggers as an explosion of free speech, a democratic counterbalance to media arrogance and a much needed call for greater transparency in the media, while others see bloggers as vigilante partisans bent on discrediting and destroying the media.
Blogswarm
The furore was touched off after bloggers questioned comments Mr Jordan made at the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland about journalists killed in Iraq.
At the forum, he said that he believed that several journalists had been targeted by the military.
He was quickly challenged by many at the forum who thought he was implying that it was official US policy to target journalists.
Mr Jordan qualified his statements saying that he was trying to differentiate between journalists who died as a result of being at the wrong place at the wrong time and those who were mistaken for the enemy
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4279229.stm
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Extent of US abuse cases revealed
The US army says it is conducting more than 100 criminal investigations into claims of detainee abuse in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Maj Gen Donald Ryder, in charge of US army detainee operations, said a further 200 such investigations had already been completed.
The military has been forced to reassess how it treats detainees after last year's Abu Ghraib prison scandal.
Gen Ryder said the army had tightened its rules as a result.
The US army says it has opened 308 criminal investigations into allegations of abuse, more than 100 of which are still open.
Gen Ryder could not say how many soldiers had actually been prosecuted for abusing detainees.
His comments came after two British soldiers were found guilty at a court martial of charges relating to abusing Iraqi prisoners.
Daniel Kenyon, 33, was convicted of three charges and Mark Cooley, 25, of two following abuse at Camp Bread Basket, Basra, during May 2003.
Both the soldiers, and a third - Darren Larkin - who had admitted assault, will be sentenced by a UK military panel in Osnabrueck, Germany, on Friday.
New procedures
The US army confirmed on Wednesday that it was investing an alleged sexual assault on an elderly woman who was detained by coalition troops in Iraq.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4293023.stm
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In pictures: California mudslides
1 of 7
California is braced for a massive cleanup after heavy rains triggered mudslides that killed at least nine and destroyed dozens of homes.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/4293419.stm
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Iran girl gets 100 lashes for sex
A teenage girl and two young men in Iran have been sentenced to lashes for having sex.
The court dismissed the girl's claim that she was raped. It said she had sex of her own free will, the official Iran Daily newspaper reported.
The girl was sentenced to 100 lashes because her accusations of rape and kidnap could have landed her partners a death penalty, the Tehran judge said.
Sex outside marriage is illegal in Iran and capital punishment can be imposed.
The young men in the case were sentenced to 30 and 40 lashes each.
Rights violations
The Iran paper quotes the girl, who has not been named, as confessing: "I trusted one of these young men, whom I got to know by phone, and went to his place.
"But because he betrayed me, I filed the case against him and his friend out of revenge."
International concerns continue to be raised about women's rights in Iran.
In December the UN General Assembly voted to censure Iran for human rights violations, including discrimination against women and girls.
Tehran rejected the criticism as propaganda.
Under Iranian law, girls over the age of nine and boys over 16 face the death penalty for crimes such as rape and murder, while capital punishment can be imposed in certain cases of illegal sexual relationships.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4295111.stm
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BuzzFlash GOP Hypocrite of the Week: George W. Bush
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
Welcome back to the BuzzFlash.com GOP Hypocrite of the Week.
Our BuzzFlash GOP Hypocrite of the Year in 2004, George W. Bush, is receiving his first encore recognition in 2005 for his scripted warning to "Press Putin on Democracy in Russia."
Poor Pooti Poot, just a short time ago, Bush was looking into his eyes and seeing a soulmate. Now Bush is abandoning his erstwhile comrade to parrot the theme of liberty and democracy he loves to repeat so much abroad and suppress so much at home.
Although it's not that he's really for democracy abroad. In Germany for instance, a town meeting was canceled by the White House because the German government insisted that questions not be scripted and audience members not be pre-selected by the White House.
And as Bush traveled through Germany, he was careful not to rub shoulders with actual residents of Europe. A BBC report noted that as Bush sped along in his motorcade, it was "the strangest sight. There is nobody here. They've all been cleared away. It's almost totalitarian in its reach and efficiency: the motorways are closed, whole towns we pass on the way from Frankfurt airport have been cleared of people.
"Our German colleagues say everyone on the motorcade route was told to stay indoors. The result may be more secure but it is eerie nonetheless - a political meeting without any public involvement. Freedom on the march but no-one free to see it."
Yes, democracy works so well when there are no people to participate in it!
http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/05/02/edi05033.html
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Canada refuses further role in missile defense
By OLIVER MOORE
Thursday, February 24, 2005 Updated at 2:35 PM EST
Globe and Mail Update
The formal announcement Thursday that Canada will refuse any further participation in the controversial U.S. missile-defence shield was met with an immediate warning that Canada had given up its sovereignty.
Although Prime Minister Paul Martin said Canada would “insist” on maintaining control of its airspace, U.S. ambassador Paul Cellucci warned that Washington would not be constrained.
“We will deploy. We will defend North America,” he said.
“We simply cannot understand why Canada would in effect give up its sovereignty – its seat at the table – to decide what to do about a missile that might be coming towards Canada.”
Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew made the Canadian decision public after months of equivocating by the Liberal government and days of denials that a decision had been made.
“After careful consideration of the issue, we have decided that Canada will not participate in the U.S. ballistic missile defence system,” Mr. Pettigrew said in the chamber of the House of Commons.
He insisted that the decision – which has reportedly left the Bush administration nonplussed – will not “in any way” hurt ties with the United States
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050224.w3miss0223/BNStory/National/
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FREEWAY BLOGGER TO POST 150 SIGNS ON BAY AREA FREEWAYS
FREE SPEECH ACTION TO MARK 1500th U.S. SOLDIER KILLED IN IRAQ
One Man. Two Days. More Than 3 Million People Reached.
Bay Area/San Jose, CA With the announcement of the 1500th U.S. soldier killed in Iraq, a lone activist known as the Freeway Blogger will post 150 banners on Bay Area freeways protesting the war in Iraq and the failure to find Osama Bin Laden. This action will reach communities including Marin, Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose. The Freeway Blogger has posted over 2,500 hand-painted signs on California freeways since the war began.
http://www.freewayblogger.com/pressrelease_feb23.htm
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3 GIs Killed In Roadside Bombing
Blast Occurred North Of Baghdad
Feb 25, 2005 9:29 am US/Eastern
TARMIYAH, Iraq (CBS)
A roadside bomb killed three U.S. soldiers and wounded eight others in an explosion in Tarmiyah, 20 miles northeast of Baghdad, CBS News Correspondent Cami McCormick reports.
McCormick said the device detonated while the soldiers were on foot patrol.
"I was heading to our house ... There was a group of American soldiers walking in the road while around five Humvees were parking behind them," said Waleed Nahed, 35, who lives in the area. "I heard a very loud explosion and I saw bodies flying."
He said he was about 200 yards way and believed explosives were hidden among the palm trees overlooking the street.
In other developments:
Iraqi forces captured the leader of an al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist cell allegedly responsible for carrying out a string of beheadings in Iraq. The government identified the captured cell leader as Mohamed Najam Ibrahim. It said he was arrested in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, but gave no date for the arrest.
A suicide bomber wearing a police uniform blew up his car at police headquarters in Tikrit, killing at least 15 people in Saddam Hussein's hometown.
The suicide bombings and other attacks came as politicians negotiated behind the scenes to forge the alliances needed to win enough backing in the 275-seat National Assembly for the post of prime minister.
http://cbs4boston.com/news/topstories_story_056080019.html
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Aal-Jaafari claims Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric endorses him for PM
NAJAF, Iraq (AP) - United Iraqi Alliance candidate Ibrahim al-Jaafari said Friday that Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has endorsed his nomination for prime minister
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/Iraq/2005/02/25/942435-ap.html
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Newspapers claim to have located Iraqi men depicted in army abuse photos
LONDON (AP) - The British military said Friday it would investigate allegations by five Iraqi men who say they are the prisoners featured in photographs showing abuse by British troops.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/Iraq/2005/02/25/942250-ap.html
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Pentagon announces rape allegations against U.S. troops in Iraq
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon is investigating an allegation a U.S. soldier raped an Iraqi female prisoner while she was in custody, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Tuesday.
The allegation has not yet been substantiated, he said. He gave no details. Another rape allegation against a U.S. soldier was dismissed for lack of evidence, Whitman said.
They are the only two rape allegations that have been made against U.S. troops in Iraq, the spokesman said.
During testimony last week on Capitol Hill, U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff, were pressed for information about rape allegations against U.S. forces in Iraq. Rumsfeld promised to look into the matter and report his findings.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/Iraq/2005/02/22/939101-ap.html
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Suicide barrier for Golden Gate?
Officials hear from relatives of some who jumped
SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- Golden Gate Bridge officials Thursday moved closer to building a barrier to prevent people from jumping off the famous suspension bridge, where about 1,300 people have killed themselves since the landmark opened in 1937.
Officials voted to develop a plan and explore funding for the suicide barrier after hearing emotional testimony from friends and family of people who jumped off the iconic bridge connecting San Francisco and Marin County.
The decision by a committee of the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District still must be approved by the district's board of directors when it meets March 11.
All the nearly 20 people who testified Thursday urged committee members to erect the barrier.
"I don't want one more family member to go through this pain," said Terry Oxford of San Jose, whose 26-year-old daughter, Jennifer, jumped to her death last week. "She chose this bridge because it was accessible."
An average of 20 people a year commit suicide by pitching themselves over the bridge's 41/2-foot-high rail. Four have already done so this year.
"This is the place where the most preventable suicides occur," said Eve Meyer, executive director of San Francisco Suicide Prevention. "These are the most impulsive, least planned and least strategized suicides."
Building a suicide barrier on the bridge has been suggested for decades, but the idea gained momentum earlier this year when bridge officials learned that a filmmaker had filmed 19 people jumping off the bridge. Eric Steel told the bridge district he had intended to "capture the grandeur" of the bridge but ended up making a movie about its history of suicides.
Earlier this week, district staff members said it would take about two years and $2 million to develop a plan for the barrier and another two years to build it. The cost of the barrier depends on the design.
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Three dead in disco suicide blast
From correspondents in Jerusalem
26feb05
THREE people were killed and about 30 wounded today in a suicide attack in a seaside disco in Tel Aviv, Israeli public radio said.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a Palestinian militant group loosely affiliated to the mainstream Fatah movement, claimed responsibility in a telephone call the media.
Tel Aviv's police chief David Tsour said the attack took place at the entrance to the disco, called The Stage, and left about 30 wounded.
Ambulances were at the scene to evacuate the injured, several of whom were in shock, according to pictures shown on Israeli television.
The Palestinian Authority has condemned the suicide attack.
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,12376126%255E1702,00.html
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Australia bans Zarqawi group
26feb05
A TERRORIST network blamed for much of the violence in Iraq was today added to Australia's list of banned organisations.
The Jordanian-born terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's network was the 18th organisation to be listed under Australia's counter-terrorism laws, said a statement from the office of Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said.
"The regulation was made to list the al-Zarqawi network as a terrorist organisation on the advice of competent authorities," it said.
The network, associated with al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the bomb attack on an Australian military barracks in Baghdad last month.
Mr Ruddock said at the time of the attack that the al-Zarqawi group was very active and had previously made threats against Australia's interests.
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,12376005%255E1702,00.html
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France honours Vietnam pilots
From correspondents in Washington
26feb05
SEVEN US pilots who flew secret missions in 1954 to help embattled French troops at Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam have been awarded the French Legion of Honour.
The French embassy in Washington announced the tribute, with ambassador Jean-David Levitte saying: "We are celebrating the courage of these pilots who carried out numerous missions above Die Bien Phu."
The 57-day siege of French troops in 1954 was a tragic turning point in France's battle to preserve its colonial status in Indochina.
The role of 37 US pilots who took part at Dien Bien Phu, flying CIA-controlled planes temporarily bearing French markings, is little known.
US historian Erik Kirsinger researched the case for more than a year to establish the facts of the pilots' role, said Mr Levitte
Aside from the seven still-living pilots recognised by France, two others who died over Dien Bien Phu were also honoured by the French.
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,12375927%255E1702,00.html
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US soldier to be tried in murder of Iraqi civilian
24 Feb 2005 22:05:27 GMT
Source: Reuters
WASHINGTON, Feb 24 (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier accused of shooting an Iraqi civilian last year and then trying to make it falsely appear like an act of self-defense will be tried in a military court on a murder charge, the Army said on Thursday.
Staff Sgt. Shane Werst, a 31-year-old combat engineer from El Toro, California, also has been charged with obstruction of justice. Werst faces up to life imprisonment without chance of parole if convicted, officials at Fort Hood in Texas said in a statement.
Maj. Gen. James Thurman, commander of the 4th Infantry Division, ordered a general court-martial following a pre-trial investigative hearing last month, according to the statement.
Werst was accused of fatally shooting Naser Ismail in the man's home in the Iraqi city of Balad in January 2004.
Prosecutors have said Werst took part in house raids for insurgents after a U.S. Army captain died in a mortar attack. Another U.S. soldier accused Werst of planting a gun on the victim's body to make the shooting look like an act of self-defense.
Werst also could face a reduction in rank, forfeiture of pay and a dishonorable discharge from the military if convicted, officials said. No trial date has been set.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N24469.htm
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Italy probes possible CIA role in abduction:
An Italian prosecutor investigating the apparent kidnapping of a suspected Islamic militant in the streets of Milan served military authorities this week with a demand for records of flights into and out of a joint U.S.-Italian air base in northern Italy.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
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Ex-Soldier Kills Two of Wife's Young Kids
UPDATED - Friday February 25, 2005 7:39am
COLUMBUS, Ga. (AP) - A former soldier fatally stabbed two of his wife's young sons with a hunting knife and wounded her three other children before committing suicide, police said.
Clarence L. Moore, 24, had a history of domestic violence, and police had responded to several domestic violence reports at the home he shared with his wife, Beverly. They were called back Wednesday to find Moore had attacked the children.
Cressa Matthews was visiting in the neighborhood when she heard Beverly Moore screaming and saw her collapse across the street from the house. When police arrived, a bleeding little girl came out into the front yard.
"She was all bloody and cut up," Matthews said, adding that Beverly Moore "kept asking, 'Did you get all five of my babies?'"
The family returned Wednesday, hours before Moore attacked the children. Moore served about two years as an Army parachute rigger at nearby Fort Benning before being given a general discharge last August. Military officials said he had not been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.
http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0205/209664.html
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US Army pays Halliburton big bonus
Friday 25 February 2005,
2:24 Makka Time, 23:24 GMT
The US Army has awarded defence contractor Halliburton more than $9 million in bonuses for some of its work supporting the military in Kuwait and Afghanistan.
But the Army said performance-based bonuses had not been paid yet to Halliburton's Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR) unit for dining services for US troops in those countries.
Military auditors have criticised those services as too costly and have asked the Texas-based company to justify its billing.
Halliburton and its subsidiaries have particularly been under scrutiny for over-billing some of its military contracts in Iraq.
The Pentagon has also been criticised for extending undue favours to the firm, once headed by US Vice-President Dick Cheney.
"Dining facilities costs questioned by the Defence Contract Audit Agency have not been included in Award Fee Boards but are scheduled to be addressed later," an army statement said on Thursday.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F1C74716-CF50-4F46-90A7-B8F06235A5A1.htm
Halliburton has made billions out of US military deployments
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Australia: former leading intelligence official exposes government lies
By Terry Cook
25 February 2005
Use this version to print | Send this link by email | Email the author
Like all regimes involved in criminal activity, systematic lying is now the modus operandi of the Howard government. It is a well-established fact that the government lied to parliament about “weapons of mass destruction” to create the pretext for Australian involvement in the criminal and illegal invasion of Iraq, and lied when it claimed that before the release of the horrific images of torture in Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison it had no knowledge of the abuse of Iraqi detainees.
A damning interview with former Australian intelligence officer Rod Barton on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation current affairs program “Four Corners” has not only provided further proof of the government’s lies on the prisoner abuse issue; it has blown to pieces the claim made last year by Defence Minister Robert Hill that no Australian personnel were involved in the interrogation of Iraqi detainees. The “Four Corners” program, aired on February 15, was aptly entitled “Secrets and Lies”.
Last June 16, in the wake of the Abu Ghraib revelations, Hill told parliament that a thorough review by the Defence Department had confirmed that, “Australia did not interrogate prisoners, Australia was not involved in guarding prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, or any other prison”. Prime Minister John Howard supported and repeated the claims both in and outside parliament. Even before Hill’s so-called review, Howard had declared in a radio interview on May 28: “We were not involved in any interrogations. We did not witness interrogations.”
However, Barton told “Four Corners” reporter Liz Jackson that he had been involved in the interrogation of Iraq prisoners at Camp Cropper. The detention facility, according to Barton, held about 100 “high value” prisoners, including senior officials of the former regime and Iraqi scientists. Barton is a trained microbiologist who worked as a senior specialist advisor for the US Iraq Survey Group (ISG), which was dispatched to search for “weapons of mass destruction” (WMDs) in Iraq. Before that, he had been seconded from the Australian Defence Intelligence Organisation to work with the chief UN weapons inspector, Hans Blix.
Barton said he had been “annoyed” by Hill’s June 16 statement because when responding to the Defence Department’s “review” questionnaire he had confirmed that he had been present at interrogations at Camp Cropper and had personally been involved in interviewing a senior Iraqi detainee. When Barton telephoned a high-ranking Defence Department official to object to Hill’s statement, he was told: “We regard that you did interviews and not interrogations.”
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/feb2005/bart-f25.shtml
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Professor criticizes U.S. foreign policy
By Barry Shatzman, STAFF WRITER
FREMONT — Stephen Zunes agrees with President Bush that democracy in Iran would be a good thing. He just finds it ironic that the country had a democratic government until 1953, when a CIA-led coup ousted it.
At Ohlone College's World Forum on Thursday, the University of San Francisco professor spoke about many ironies and contradictions in American foreign policy. Many of them, he said, led directly to terrorism.
Zunes spoke to more than 500 people at the college's gym, questioning the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Though Afghanistan was the only place where al-Qaida was living openly, he commented that the group had members scattered throughout world, and the hijackers came from a cell based in Germany.
"The U.S. did need to take decisive action," he said. "But why ... bombing of a war-torn country?"
Life in Afghanistan since the war, in which more Afghan civilians died than the number of people killed on 9/11, has only gotten worse, Zunes said.
With most of the country run by warlords, opium production is 20 times as high as before the war and growers receive government protection.
Diseases such as polio, scurvy and tuberculosis are rampant. Doctors Without Borders, a charity that stayed during the Soviet invasion and the reign of the Taliban, pulled out, saying it could not operate in safety. In addition, Zunes said, the Afghan human rights groups are now being ignored when they report problems.
"It is out of such failed states that terrorism flourishes and spreads," he said.
A similar situation exists in Iraq, he said.
More than 10,000 Iraqi citizens lost their lives in a war that was unnecessary because Iraq did not pose a threat to the United States, Zunes said.
But by attempting to link Iraq to terrorism, the administration not only was able to spend millions of dollars on reconstruction, but also was able to depict those against the war as being soft on terrorism, he added.
"One thing I noticed was that he did not mention oil even once," said Bill Parks, who teaches journalism at Ohlone.
Zunes said later that oil was less of a factor than the U.S. government's wanting control of key resources and geographic areas. Which, he said, is also a key reason why the United States has lost respect around the world.
"People are less tolerant of being pushed around. They want to be master of their own destiny," he said.
Ohlone's next World Forum, on the U.S.-China relationship and the changing global economy, will take place April 6.
http://www.insidebayarea.com/dailyreview/localnews/ci_2584361
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Former UN chief weapons inspector warns of possibility of new arms race
(AP)
25 February 2005
STOCKHOLM - Global nuclear disarmament is moving backward, and US plans to build new nuclear weapons could trigger another arms race, former UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix warned Friday.
With countries like Iran trying to enrich uranium, North Korea claiming to have nuclear weapons of its own and the United States planning to develop bunker-busting nuclear weapons, “disarmament is in the backwater,” Blix said during a conference on arms nonproliferation.
“We’re moving backward rather than forward,” he said. “After the Iraq war, it seems that the ’family counselors’ have advised their friends to reassume their cohabitation” with nuclear weapons.
“What’s worrisome is whether the USA. has moved away from the stance they had about global disarmament,” said Blix, who now heads the Swedish-based Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission.
If the United States was to move forward with plans for new bunker-busting nuclear weapons, “there is a risk for rearmament instead of a continued global cooperation” for disarmament, he said.
The conference, organized by The Swedish Network for Nuclear Disarmament, brings together nonproliferation organizations looking to find new options for arms control, organizers said.
It is set to discuss an upcoming United Nations review conference for the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty - the cornerstone of global efforts to control the spread of nuclear weapons. Many fear the UN conference will be a step back from the 2000 conference that resulted in a 13-step program for disarmament.
“There is a concern that (the review conference) will be a flop,” said Frida Blom, head of the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society. “We want to prevent that.”
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/theworld/2005/February/theworld_February667.xml§ion=theworld&col=
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POLITICS:
Peace Movement Gears Up for Global Protests on War Anniversary
Katherine Stapp
NEW YORK, Feb 24 (IPS) - At Fort Bragg, the largest U.S. army installation in the world and home to the famed 82nd Airborne Division, the mood is not exactly buoyant.
''There are people here who are being deployed for the third time,'' said Lou Plummer, a veteran with a son on active duty. ''At least 50 people from the base have been killed in Iraq.''
The total U.S. death toll since the start of the war is now 1,480, according to Pentagon officials. As for the number of civilians killed, the British group Iraq Body Count estimates a figure between 16,000 and 18,000.
In a sign of mounting discontent, the military also concedes that about 5,500 servicemen have deserted, although Plummer believes the real number is probably much higher.
This picture is somewhat bleaker than the one painted a year ago by Army Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack, Jr., commander of the 82nd Airborne -- also known as ''America's Guard of Honour'' -- who brightly told reporters in Baghdad that ''we're on a glide-path toward success.''
''We have turned the corner, and now we can accelerate down the straightaway,'' he said in a Jan. 6, 2004 briefing. ''There's still a long way to go before the finish line, but the final outcome is known.''
Not so fast, say anti-war activists like Plummer, who is helping to organise a mass protest rally near the base in Fayetteville, North Carolina on Mar. 19 to coincide with the second anniversary of the U.S. invasion.
''The message is not 'bring them home after they fix stuff', it's 'bring them home now','' said Plummer, an active member of the national peace group Military Families Speak Out.
''Organising in Fayetteville requires sensitivity that you wouldn't need to have in a non-military town,'' he added. ''You have to respect people who oppose the war but are afraid to go public because they have a spouse in the military and could lose their benefits.''
Even so, he says that interest in his group -- which represents 2,000 military families -- and in the March anti-war events has been ''overwhelming''.
The Fayetteville rally is being conceived and planned by veterans and relatives of soldiers, with delegations coming from as far away as the Pacific island state of Hawaii.
Speakers will include Daniel Berg, the father of Nick Berg, a U.S. civilian beheaded in Iraq; Lila Lipscomb, the grief-stricken mother of a U.S. soldier featured in the Michael Moore film ''Fahrenheit 9/11''; and David Potorti, a peace activist whose brother died in the Sep. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York.
Last weekend, Plummer attended a conference in the southern state of Missouri that drew several hundred representatives of pacifist groups, former combatants, soldiers' families, and others from 35 U.S. states and Canada.
http://www.ipsnews.net/new_nota.asp?idnews=27609
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Rocket Fuel Chemical Found in Breast Milk of Women in 18 States
By Robert Roy Britt
LiveScience Senior Writer
A toxic component of rocket fuel has been found in breast milk of women in 18 states and store-bought milk from various locations around the country.
The chemical, perchlorate, can impede adult metabolism and cause retardation in fetuses, among other things. It leaches into groundwater from various military facilities.
Previous studies have found perchlorate in drinking water, on lettuce, and in cows milk.
The new research, announced this week, suggests perchlorate is a bigger problem than thought, scientists said.
Texas Tech University researchers studied 36 samples of breast milk from women in 18 states and 47 samples cow's milk purchased from stores in 11 states. Every sample of breast milk contained perchlorate, as did all but one sample of dairy milk.
The highest levels were found in women from New Jersey, New Mexico, Missouri, Nebraska and California, in that order.
http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/050224_rocket_fuel.html
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Judge Orders Florida Woman's Feeding Tube Removed
Fri Feb 25, 2005 05:21 PM ET
By Robert Green
CLEARWATER, Fla. (Reuters) - A Florida judge on Friday ordered the feeding tube removed from a severely brain-damaged woman in three weeks, paving the way for her husband to allow his wife to die after a long court dispute with her parents.
Fifteen years to the day since a heart attack put Theresa "Terri" Schiavo into what some doctors call a persistent vegetative state, Circuit Judge George Greer ruled the feeding tube that keeps her alive should be removed on March 18.
That would give the parents time to appeal the ruling to higher courts, and their attorney immediately made clear they planned such appeals.
Schiavo, 41, has been at the center of a bitter seven-year legal fight that has become a rallying point for right-to-life activists, advocates for the disabled and proponents of the right to die.
Her husband, Michael Schiavo, who is her legal guardian, says his wife had told him she would not want to live in such a condition. Her parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, believe their daughter is in a "minimally conscious state" and say she could improve with treatment.
"I am very pleased that the Court has recognized there must be a finality to this process." Michael Schiavo said in a written statement. "I am hopeful and confident that the appellate court will also agree that Terri's wishes not to be kept alive artificially must now be enforced."
Greer, who ordered the feeding tube removed five years ago, said he would not grant any more stays in the case, but gave the Schindlers time to appeal the ruling.
UNLIKELY TO RECOVER
http://www.reuters.com/printerFriendlyPopup.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=7745642
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posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 9:29 PM
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