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Saturday, December 30, 2006
SPECIAL: 911 CONSPIRACY THEORIES SMASHED, ETHIOPIA STAYS IN FOR THE LONG HAUL, MUSLIM ANIMAL SACRIFICE STOPPED BY POVERTY IN GAZA
Religious organizations in Pakistan are using the Internet to help Muslims in Western countries buy and sacrifice animals for an annual festival.
Eid al-Adha marks the end of the Haj pilgrimage each year to Mecca and is known as the feast of sacrifice. Muslims who can afford it buy and slaughter animals and distribute the meat among the poor and relatives.
Muslims in Western countries unable to perform the ritual can now buy an animal over the Internet and even watch it being slaughtered, before its meat is given away.
"It is not easy for them to buy animals and carry out the sacrifice according to our religious rites in those countries," said Sohail Ahmed, an official at the Al-Khidmat trust Islamic welfare organization.
"They are turning to the Internet to complete their religious obligations," said Ahmed, whose organization offers the service.
In Pakistan, thousands of cows, goats, sheep and camels are sacrificed to celebrate Eid al-Adha, which this year falls at the end of December.
Traditionally, sacrificial animal markets are set up in big cities and towns where traders bring animals in from villages.
Buying a sacrificial animal over the Internet is also becoming popular in Pakistan, said Farukh Sheikh of the Sahara trust for life.
"It is a matter of convenience. People nowadays don't have time to go to the markets and haggle over prices," Sheikh said.
http://news.com.com/2100-1038_3-6144700.html
Just read about relatives of some of those killed during 911 filing suit about the rumors that 911 was an inside job. They have been convinced this is true.
The horror and anxiety and paranoria these "harmless" rumors have caused really pisses me off. I like conspiracy theories that are true, but every single claim you have heard from the "Bush was behind 911" crowd has been dismantled.
Popular Mechanics is not a political magazine. Maybe you saw it when you were a kid at the library or your dad was a tech guy or mechanical guy. Maybe you are in a field and get the magazine. But no one, and I mean no one has ever said the magazine was a propaganda tool for ANY cause or group.
When they did a special issue debunking the 911 claims it didn't get any press. Too bad Americans don't know about it. Too bad those relatives will undergo more pain and suffering, because they don't clearly know about it.
It is now on the net:
FROM THE MOMENT the first airplane crashed into the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001, the world has asked one simple and compelling question: How could it happen?
Three and a half years later, not everyone is convinced we know the truth. Go to Google.com, type in the search phrase "World Trade Center conspiracy" and you'll get links to an estimated 628,000 Web sites. More than 3000 books on 9/11 have been published; many of them reject the official consensus that hijackers associated with Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda flew passenger planes into U.S. landmarks.
Healthy skepticism, it seems, has curdled into paranoia. Wild conspiracy tales are peddled daily on the Internet, talk radio and in other media. Blurry photos, quotes taken out of context and sketchy eyewitness accounts have inspired a slew of elaborate theories: The Pentagon was struck by a missile; the World Trade Center was razed by demolition-style bombs; Flight 93 was shot down by a mysterious white jet. As outlandish as these claims may sound, they are increasingly accepted abroad and among extremists here in the United States.
To investigate 16 of the most prevalent claims made by conspiracy theorists, POPULAR MECHANICS assembled a team of nine researchers and reporters who, together with PM editors, consulted more than 70 professionals in fields that form the core content of this magazine, including aviation, engineering and the military.
In the end, we were able to debunk each of these assertions with hard evidence and a healthy dose of common sense. We learned that a few theories are based on something as innocent as a reporting error on that chaotic day. Others are the byproducts of cynical imaginations that aim to inject suspicion and animosity into public debate. Only by confronting such poisonous claims with irrefutable facts can we understand what really happened on a day that is forever seared into world history.--THE EDITORS
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html
The Pentagon is mapping seceral strategies for troops surges, in order to have them actually do something.
Somalia’s Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi drove triumphantly into Mogadishu on Friday, claiming total victory over rival Islamists and stressing that his Ethiopian military allies would stay as long as needed. Gedi returned in an armed convoy one day after government forces and Ethiopian troops had forced Islamist leaders to abandon the coastal capital they had controlled for six months. “Most of the Islamists were destroyed by our forces ... the Islamic courts do not exist any more,” Gedi told reporters, adding that their defeat had curbed the expansion of terrorism in Africa. Ethiopia has fought two territorial wars with Somalia and the role of the Ethiopian military in helping drive out the Islamists has been a contentious one, but Gedi stressed that there would be no immediate withdrawal. “The Ethiopian (forces) will stay as long as needed by the transitional federal government ... The stabilization of Somalia is needed for the stability of our neighbours,” he said. The African Union has called for the Ethiopian troops to pull out immediately and, even as Gedi drove into Mogadishu, there was a large-scale protest in the northern part of the capital with protestors throwing stones, burning tyres and calling for the foreign soldiers to leave. Gedi’s weak government, which relied heavily on the Ethiopian military to secure its victory over the Islamists in nine days of heavy fighting, has announced plans to impose three months of martial law to restore order. Looting and gunbattles had erupted in Mogadishu on Thursday between rival clan-based militias after the Islamists-including the movement’s leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys-withdrew to their last stronghold in Kismayo port. “This country has been through a lot of anarchy, so to restablish order we will have to have an iron hand, especially with the private militia,” Gedi said. The Ethiopian intervention in Somalia has received tacit US support, with Washington arguing that Addis Ababa had legitimate security concerns about the possibility of Islamists with al-Qaeda links gaining control of the country. Gedi said victory over the Islamists had opened “the path for a new future for us to prevent any attempt of terrorism and to reverse the expansion of terrorism in the whole of Africa.” But Islamist fighters still held Kismayo, where their local commander, Sheikh Mohamed Ibrahim Bilalone, vowed they would launch guerrilla-style hit-and-run attacks across Somalia. http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=37347
For Muslims around the world, the holiday of Eid Al-Azha is synonymous with joy and sumptuous feasts. For Muslims in Gaza this year, it has never been so grim. Civil servants not paid in full in months because of the international boycott of the Hamas-led government, unemployment, internecine violence between rival Hamas and Fatah factions, Israeli border closures, the cold, the low grey sky-all contribute to the depressing atmosphere. Normally during the feast marking the end of the annual pilgrimage to Macca and Medina, the head of each family sacrifices an animal, mostly sheep or goat. But in Gaza’s market, cattle vendors are not happy. “I’ve sold but one goat and a little goat since this morning,” laments Ahmad Abu Warda, 30, who is asking 110 to 200 dollars for a sheep and is willing to bargain. “Last year at this time, I’d sold around 30. Even with lower prices, there are no buyers. The people are broke.” Nahed Shoshaa, a 50-year-old policeman, asks the price of a baby sheep and walks away. “Last year, a bunch of guys at work went in to buy a cow. This year, I am looking for a small sheep, because no-one wanted to go in on buying an animal with me. To pay for it, I worked in construction and sold oranges from my father’s grove. I was lucky,” he says. Traditionally for the Eid, the children get spoiled with brand new clothes, toys and candy. But despite his entreaties, Sameh Shuhaibar, 26, can’t get people to approach his stall overflowing with Turkish sweets. “I am a soldier,” says Shuhaibar, a member of the security services. “But I haven’t received but 200 dollars in salary for six months, so I am trying to get by.” “This is a mournful Eid. The people are sad, they don’t buy anything. Me, I don’t have the means to buy a sheep... We’ll try to do something with the whole family,” he says. Mohammed Rohme, 55, says that last year, 10 people were working at his stall selling chickens and rabbits. “This year, I have two, and they don’t even work full-time,” he says. Rohme has cut his prices in half, but in vain. “This is the worst Eid of my life, the worst for the Palestinians,” he says. “This boycott is strangling us. And on top of it, there are battles between us... As if life wasn’t hard enough in Gaza! They are fighting for power at the time when they have to fight for Jerusalem, for the prisoners!” He was referring both to an international aid freeze imposed on the Palestinian government after the Islamist Hamas formed a cabinet in March, and to deadly clashes last week between rival Hamas and Fatah factions. http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=37368 Posted at 12:28 pm by Psychomike
Friday, December 29, 2006
IRAQI TV SHOWING FOOTAGE OF SADDAM'S ATROCITIES
SADDAM TO HANG BEFORE HOLIDAY, WITHIN A FEW HOURS!
Posted at 08:52 pm by Psychomike
NIXON COVERED UP TERROR ATTACK!
NIXON COVERED UP TERROR ATTACK!, ETHIOPIA ON THE BRINK, THE CONGO HEATS UP, RUSSIA USES OIL AS A WEAPON!
US: Arafat responsible for diplomat's death
State Dept. declassifies document revealing Yasser Arafat was behind attack on US embassy in Sudan 34 years ago. During attack, terrorists killed US ambassador, his deputy, and Belgian diplomat
Yitzhak Benhorin
WASHINGTON - Thirty four years after Palestinian terrorists kidnapped and killed the American ambassador to Sudan, the US Department of State announced Thursday that the person who was behind the planning of the attack was none other than PLO chairman and later Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat.
The attack was carried out on March 1, 1973. According to a declassified State Department document, eight "Black September Organization" terrorists seized the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Khartoum as a diplomatic reception honoring the departing United States Deputy Chief of Mission was ending.
After the takeover, the terrorists kidnapped US Ambassador Cleo Noel, his deputy George Curtis Moore, the two deputy ambassadors of Belgium and Jordan. In return for the freedom of the hostages, the terrorists demanded the release of various individuals, mostly Palestinian guerrillas, imprisoned in Jordan, Israel and the United States.
When the terrorists became convinced that their demands would not be met and after they reportedly had received orders from Fatah headquarters in Beirut, they killed the two United States officials and the Belgian Charge, sparing the life of the Jordanian envoy.
US intelligence agencies managed to intercept a message from Arafat to the terrorists in Khartoum before the attack, prompting an urgent message to the embassy warning of the attack. Unfortunately, the message did not reach the embassy in time.
"The Khartoum operation was planned and carried out with the full knowledge and personal approval of Yasser Arafat, Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and the head of Fatah," the document reads.
"Fatah representatives based in Khartoum participated in the attack, using a Fatah vehicle to transport the terrorists to the Saudi Arabian Embassy. Initially, the main objective of the attack appeared to be to secure the release of Fatah/BSO leader Muhammed Awadh (Abu Da'ud) from Jordanian captivity."
The document also estimates that one of the primary goals of the operation was to strike at the United States because of its efforts to achieve a Middle East peace settlement which many Arabs believe would be inimical to Palestinian interests.
Iran is financing Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel through Lebanon's Hezbollah, Israeli intelligence officials say.
Ha'artez, quoting sources with Shin Bet, the Israeli security agency, reported Thursday the money is being smuggled to Palestinian groups through Lebanon and Syria in a cash-for-attack scheme.
"We know Hezbollah is involved in funding terrorist activity in the Gaza Strip and West Bank," an unidentified Sin Bet official was quoted as saying.
"Palestinian terrorists get thousands of dollars per attack. Sometimes they are paid before the attack and sometimes they submit a bill to Lebanon and the money gets transferred a short while later."
According to intelligence officials, Islamic Jihad receives the money from Hezbollah through its headquarters in the Syrian capital. Fatha's Tanzim group and the so-called Popular Resistance Committees get payments through Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The money, the report said, all originates from Iran, which is the major financial backer of Hezbollah, which in addition to its military wing that fought Israel last summer has a number of legislators in the Lebanese parliament.
Hezbollah is based in southern Lebanon, which borders Israel.
http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20061228-014148-8175r
Fatah secretary general in Lebanon Sultan Abu al-Einin said Thursday that four attempted attacks by the group near the Israeli border have been curbed by Hezbollah.
In an interview with the Nazareth-based newspaper Kul al-Arab, al-Einin said that in some of the incidents Hezbollah operatives detained the Palestinian militants sent to carry out the attacks and handed them over the Lebanese law-enforcement authorities.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/807020.html
Ethiopian troops, with Washington’s tacit approval, have routed the Islamists who seized power in Somalia last June. The official Government forged by the international community in 2004 can take power. Good news, surely?
As one of the few journalists to have visited Mogadishu recently, I fear it is not. Far from restoring stability to Somalia, this week's developments could well plunge that country back into the protracted anarchy from which it emerged only recently. What struck me most forcefully during a week in Mogadishu this month was the gulf between Washington's view of the so-called Union of Islamic Courts and that of the Somali people.
To Washington the Union is — or was — a new Taleban: al-Qaeda sympathisers who were turning Somalia into a haven for terrorists including those responsible for the US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
That may or may not be true, but most Somalis I met welcomed the Union because it had banished the warlords who had reduced their country to mayhem during 15 years of civil war. For the first time in a generation people could walk the streets in safety. Gone were the ubiquitous checkpoints where the warlords’ militias extorted and killed. Guns had been banned. Somalis who had fled the violence were returning from abroad. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,174-2522027,00.html
Saddam Hussein bade two half brothers farewell on Thursday in a rare prison meeting as he awaits execution, a lawyer said, but U.S. and Iraqi officials gave conflicting accounts of whether he would hang within days.
Fighting broke out Wednesday in the eastern Congo between government troops and forces loyal to a dissident general, killing at least 19 people, a U.N. official said.
The largely ungoverned region has been the site of sporadic fighting for years, and clashes between forces allied with general-turned-warlord Laurent Nkunda battled government troops for days in late November and early December. But the area had been relatively calm in recent weeks.
The clashes broke out before dawn around the village of Jomba, about five miles north of the regional capital of Goma, said Lt. Col. Didier Rancher, spokesman for the U.N. force in the sprawling Central African country.
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/news/16335046.htm?source=rss&channel=journalgazette_news
Four men were arrested around Britain after extradition warrants were issued accusing them of taking part in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, a police spokesman told AFP. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061229/wl_uk_afp/britainrwandapolice
A new offensive in the European gas war loomed last night after Russia vowed to press ahead with a threat to cut off gas supplies to neighbouring Belarus on New Year's Day leaving the country of 10 million in the cold and European supplies in peril.
With just three days to go before the current contract expires, the two countries have failed to agree a price for Russian gas next year and talks appear deadlocked, raising the prospect that Belarus will be left without gas in 2007 and Moscow without a reliable partner to transit its energy exports to points further west in Europe.
Russia sends about one-fifth of its European gas exports via Belarus on to countries such as Poland, Germany, and Lithuania and any prolonged dispute between Moscow and Minsk could pinch supplies to the West.
The dispute is reminiscent of a similar row between Russia and Ukraine last year that saw Gazprom, Russia's state-controlled energy giant, turn off the taps for several days causing supply shortfalls in western and eastern Europe.
At the time, Russia was accused of using its huge energy resources to bully a country seen as pursuing an anti-Russian course. But this year it is Belarus, traditionally a Kremlin ally, that is on the receiving end of Gazprom's wrath.
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2110323.ece
The Taliban have established a command and control structure in the tribal areas and are using their “sanctuary” for regrouping, said a senior US official on Tuesday.
Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher, however, acknowledged at a briefing in Ottawa, Canada, that Pakistan was aware of the problem and was making concerted efforts to deal with it.
Mr Boucher, who looks after South and Central Asian affairs at the State Department, said the presence of Taliban forces in the tribal region was “one of the key items” on the US agenda.
A text of the statement, issued by the State Department on Wednesday, quoted him as saying that “the Taliban have been able to use these areas for sanctuary and for command and control and for regrouping and supply.” The United States, he said, was not only alarmed by this development but had also conveyed its concerns to Pakistan.
“We have been very clear with the Pakistani government that this is one of the key items on all our agendas – on our own agenda, on the Pakistani agenda, the Afghan agenda,” he said.
The US official said that to underscore the importance of this issue, President Bush invited Pakistani and Afghan leaders to the White House in September. http://www.dawn.com/2006/12/28/top1.htm
President Hugo Chávez said his government would not renew the license of RCTV, Radio Caracas Televisión, a private station known for opposing his policies. The press freedom group Reporters Without Borders expressed concern this month that not renewing RCTV’s license when it expires in March could curtail editorial diversity in Venezuela, where newspapers and television stations supporting Mr. Chávez have grown more powerful in recent years. The tension between Mr. Chávez and some private media groups dates from their tacit approval of a coup that briefly ousted him in 2002. “There will be no new concession for that coup-plotting television channel named Radio Caracas Televisión,” Mr. Chávez said. http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/sf/nyt12_29_6_4.htm
Posted at 12:56 am by Psychomike
Thursday, December 28, 2006
How This Little Blog Rocks
At this blog http://civildefense.blogdrive.com which is not only free, but there is no solicitation for donations ever I have:
1. Had a person call Iraq a civil war after visiting there and leaving the Green Zone. He did what no press, not even Geraldo has done. He met with the leaders of the opposition (!), was almost kidnapped, but ten months before our press called it a civil war, my blog did. He even met with Moqtada Sadr, long before anyone in America heard of him. None of our press has met with him. None.
2. Days before Katrina hit my blog covered it as a disaster that the state, local and federal government would be quickly devastated by. While our press was saying "it might miss New Orleans", the day it hit, my blog was already at the stage of calling the people refugees.
3. One week before Ethiopia went into Somalia I not only posted that fact here at my blog. A quick glance at my blog and you'll see I was covering the war while our press ignored it, while our government denied it, while Ethiopia denied it. This blog was covering the battles going on!
4. Right now I have a person on the ground in the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank. He will be covering the fact that the Palestinian government has stopped paying police, teachers, firemen and the like- to go on a weapons buying spree. You can read it at my blog, or wait 10 months for the press here to cover it. 
I am not Nostradamous. But I have figured out how power works, and how the various branches of our government work and have become a great guesser!
Unlike other people in the entertainment biz who speak from the heart, one of my people met with the heads of the opposition in Iraq. Get it?
Because this is a blog- from Islamists to the Palestinian authority, no one knows quite what to make of me. Will this last? I don't know. But if you have an interest in events of the day whether you agree with me or not, go to the blog and register for updates in the box off to the side. There is no spam, no requests for money, no charge. And tell your friends.
Have a Happy New Year!
Michael Flores Posted at 12:05 pm by Psychomike
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
The Ford Pardon Revisited!
IRANIANS CAUGHT ATTACKING U.S. FORCES!, STATE DEPARTMENT ADMITS SUPPORT OF ETHIOPIA, NORTH KOREA SELLING OFF GOLD, FORGET OSAMA- THESE TWO HAVE ELUDED CAPTURE FOR 11 YEARS, THE CONTROVERSIAL FORD PARDON RE-VISITED!
The American military said Tuesday that it had credible evidence linking Iranians and their Iraqi associates, detained here in raids last week, to criminal activities, including attacks against American forces. Evidence also emerged that some of the detainees were involved in shipments of weapons to illegal armed groups in Iraq.
In its first official confirmation of last week’s raids, the military said it had confiscated maps, videos, photographs and documents in one of the raids on a site in Baghdad. The military confirmed the arrests of five Iranians, and said that three of them had since been released.
The Bush administration has described the two Iranians still being held late Tuesday night as senior military officials. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell IV, the chief spokesman for the American command, said that the military, in the raid, had “gathered specific intelligence from highly credible sources that linked individuals and locations with criminal activities against Iraqi civilians, security forces and coalition force personnel.”
General Caldwell made his remarks by e-mail in response to a query about the raids, first reported Monday in The New York Times. “Some of that specific intelligence,” he said via e-mail, “dealt explicitly with force-protection issues, including attacks on MNF-I forces.”
MNF-I stands for Multinational Force-Iraq, the official name of the American-led foreign forces there.
American officials have long said that the Iranian government interferes in Iraq, but the arrests, in the compound of one of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite political leaders, were the first since the American invasion in which officials were offering evidence of the link.
The raids threaten to upset the delicate balance of the three-way relationship between the United States, Iran and Iraq. The Iraqi government has made extensive efforts to engage Iran in security matters in recent months, and the arrests of the Iranians could scuttle those efforts.
http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/sf/nyt12_27_6_1.htm
The first pardon President Ford did created controversy- the pardoning of Richard Nixon. Today that is seen by historians as part of a healing process. But his last pardon he did leaving office outraged veterans of World War 2 at the time. Today her nickname is used by "everyone who knows" as a symbol of treason. But like other facts "everyone knows"- that Joe McCarthy was wrong, that Lincoln was a defender of Constitutional rights, upon examination- the "facts" fall apart.
THE CONTROVERSIAL FORD PARDON
Iva Ikuko Toguri D'Aquino - accused Tokyo Rose - used Orphan Ann as broadcasting pseudonym.
Iva Toguri was an American stranded in Japan at the outbreak of World War II. She was forced to broadcast propaganda to the Allied troops for Japan. In these radio programs, she taunted the troops and played music from home. She took the name Orphan Ann on the program, Zero Hour.
"Tokyo Rose" is a myth: Iva Toguri, like other women who also broadcast Japanese propaganda to Allied troops, was never referred to as Rose or Tokyo Rose. It was a name given by the Allies to the various female Japanese broadcasters. But it has been used since the war primarily to refer to Iva Toguri D'Aquino.
After the war, Iva Toguri was convicted of treason and imprisoned, released early for good behavior. She maintained her innocence, asserting that she had not said the words used to convict her, and that she had remained a loyal American. Though forced to broadcast to the troops, she claimed that she, with the help of American POWs assigned to the radio broadcasts, made herself and her words purposefully ridiculous. She had refused to give up her American citizenship, despite pressure and even punishment from the Japanese who forced her into the broadcasting role.
In the 1970s a public campaign brought to light the testimony of the POWs who worked with her and supported her story. The testimony of the witnesses against her was questioned, and some admitted lying. Eventually (1977) she was pardoned by President Gerald Ford, and early in 2006, the same year she died, she was given the Edward J. Herlihy Citizenship Award by the World War II Veterans Committee.
After her imprisonment she returned to Chicago where her family owned a store. She continued to work at the store nearly until her death.
http://womenshistory.about.com/library/bio/blbio_toguri_iva.htm
Iva Toguri has lived a long time, but she said the "most memorable" day of her life came earlier this year when she was recognized by a group of U.S. military veterans.
The Chicago ceremony was rich with irony. The Edward J. Herlihy Citizenship Award, which the World War II Veterans Committee bestowed on 89-year-old Ms. Toguri at a January luncheon in Chicago, was named for a famous broadcaster whose narration of the Universal newsreels won him the moniker "The Voice of World War II."
Ms. Toguri was also a broadcaster -- once notoriously known as Tokyo Rose.
The January award was an important vindication of Ms. Toguri, who was sent to federal prison after being convicted of treason based on perjured testimony. Her American citizenship was stripped in 1949. President Ford restored it in 1977.
The irony-filled saga of this woman born on the Fourth of July -- in Los Angeles in 1916 -- is the kind of amazing story that sounds like a Hollywood script. Indeed, Paramount has a film of Ms. Toguri's life in the works, to be produced by Frank Darabont, best known for such films as "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Green Mile."
The child of Japanese-American parents, Ms. Toguri grew up in a middle-class family determined to assimilate into the American mainstream. Ms. Toguri, who spoke almost no Japanese and hated Japanese food, was a Girl Scout, a Methodist and a Republican. She loved pop culture ("Orphan Annie" was her favorite cartoon character) and graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles, with plans to become a doctor.
Then, in June 1941, a letter arrived from her aunt, who had remained in Japan and was in failing health. She begged Ms. Toguri's mother to come to Japan for one last visit.
Ms. Toguri's mother also was in poor health, however. Her father and brother were busy running the family business, and so Ms. Toguri was sent instead, boarding a ship for what she expected would be a six-month visit to Tokyo.
Then came the December 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the United States into World War II. Ms. Toguri found herself trapped in the capital of the Japanese empire, 7,000 miles from her American home.
Unlike some Japanese-Americans who found themselves stuck in wartime Japan under similar circumstances, Ms. Toguri resisted official pressure to renounce her U.S. citizenship.
Ms. Toguri found work as a typist at the Domei News Agency and at the Danish Embassy and, in 1943, responded to an ad from Radio Tokyo for English-speaking typists. At about the same time, Japanese military authorities decided to step up their radio propaganda broadcasts by bringing in three Allied prisoners of war -- Australian Maj. Charles Cousens, American Capt. Wallace Ince and Philippine Lt. Norman Reyes -- to run a new daily show called the "Zero Hour."
Maj. Cousens resolved to use the "Zero Hour" to entertain, rather than demoralize, the U.S. troops who were targets of the broadcast and, arguing that the shows would be more persuasive if presented with an authentic Western touch, talked his Japanese captors into granting him control of the program.
http://womenshistory.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.washingtontimes.com/culture/20060529%2D115535%2D6055r.htm
Former U.S. President Gerald Ford, who was swept into office after the Watergate scandal and later pardoned Richard Nixon, died at age 93, his widow said on Tuesday.
"My family joins me in sharing the difficult news that Gerald Ford, our beloved husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather, has passed away at 93 years of age," Betty Ford said in a statement.
"His life was filled with love of God, his family and his country."
A former Republican congressman, Ford took office vowing, "Our long national nightmare is over." He served for 2 1/2 years with a style often mocked as bumbling until he lost the 1976 U.S. presidential election to Democrat Jimmy Carter.
Ford, the oldest living U.S. president, had been ailing and largely out of the public eye for several years.
He was the only U.S. president who was not elected to either the presidency or vice presidency. He was appointed vice president in 1973 after Nixon's vice president, Spiro Agnew, resigned to avoid prosecution on corruption charges.
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=newsone&storyID=2006-12-27T091801Z_01_N26411374_RTRUKOC_0_US-FORD.xml&WTmodLoc=IntNewsHome_R1_newsone-1
The State Department signaled support Tuesday for Ethiopian military operations against Somalia, noting that Ethiopia has had "genuine security concerns" stemming from the rise of Islamist forces in its eastern neighbor.
Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos also said that the Ethiopian military acted at the request of Somalia's internationally backed secular government, which has been resisting with little success the spreading influence of the more powerful Islamist forces.
Gallegos noted that Ethiopia has said that its action is intended to prevent further aggression by the Islamic Courts militias.
Ethiopia's Christian-led government has received counter-terrorism assistance from the United States. It includes military training for aviation security, police training and border and coastal security, the Pentagon said.
The Bush administration has been increasingly alarmed by the growing strength of the militias and the welcome they reportedly have given to al-Qaida militants.
The Islamic militants operate under the umbrella of the Council of Islamic Courts.
The government has no presence in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, its reach limited to the western town of Baidoa. In contrast, the CIC has dominated the country's entire southern region.
A priority U.S. goal in Somalia is the capture of three reputed al-Qaida militants wanted for the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and a hotel in Kenya in 2002. The three are from Sudan, Kenya and the Comoros Islands, located off Africa's east coast.
Al-Qaida militants are operating with "great comfort" in Somalia, Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer said recently.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2006/12/26/national/w130749S85.DTL&type=printable
In three current high-profile criminal cases, federal prosecutors have asked that the identities of Israeli government witnesses be withheld from defendants and their attorneys — a move some legal scholars see as a highly unusual end run around the 6th Amendment.
Defense attorneys in all three cases have argued, with mixed results, that allowing U.S. prosecutors to keep the witnesses' identities secret — as demanded by Israel to protect its agents — violates their clients' constitutional right to confront their accusers.
Though courts have allowed witnesses to testify in secured courtrooms or found other ways to protect their identities when they might be in danger, experts say it is extraordinary to keep the identities secret even from defense attorneys.
"It absolutely gives me pause," said Jeffrey L. Fisher, a Stanford University law professor and 6th Amendment expert. "The essence of cross-examination is often being able to do a background investigation on the witness and use that as a lever for questioning their testimony. And if you take that away from a defendant, he is not left with very much."
Fisher added, "I can safely say the Supreme Court has never had a case about testifying under a pseudonym."
In Chicago, a federal judge recently permitted two Israeli agents to testify anonymously against two men accused of aiding the Palestinian group Hamas, designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization since 1995. Judge Amy J. St. Eve said that the right to learn a witness' identity was "not absolute" and that the use of pseudonyms for the Israeli agents was justified because of their assignments.
"Given the safety issues inherent in revealing the [Israeli] agents' true identities, the government has met its burden that it need not disclose this identifying information," St. Eve said.
In Miami, however, a federal judge rejected a government request that six Israeli undercover police officers testify in disguises and without revealing their identities against a man awaiting trial on charges of trafficking in the drug Ecstasy.
http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fairenough/latimes677.html
Life at the Ramadi Outpost picture story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/galleries/061223/ramadi/index.html
The armed forces, already struggling to meet recruiting goals, are considering expanding the number of noncitizens in the ranks - including disputed proposals to open recruiting stations overseas and putting more immigrants on a faster track to US citizenship if they volunteer - according to Pentagon officials.
Foreign citizens serving in the US military is a highly charged issue, which could expose the Pentagon to criticism that it is essentially using mercenaries to defend the country. Other analysts voice concern that a large contingent of noncitizens under arms could jeopardize national security or reflect badly on Americans' willingness to serve in uniform.
The idea of signing up foreigners who are seeking US citizenship is gaining traction as a way to address a critical need for the Pentagon, while fully absorbing some of the roughly one million immigrants that enter the United States legally each year.
The proposal to induct more noncitizens, which is still largely on the drawing board, has to clear a number of hurdles. So far, the Pentagon has been quiet about specifics - including who would be eligible to join, where the recruiting stations would be, and what the minimum standards might involve, including English proficiency. In the meantime, the Pentagon and immigration authorities have expanded a program that accelerates citizenship for legal residents who volunteer for the military.
And since Sept. 11, 2001, the number of immigrants in uniform who have become US citizens has increased from 750 in 2001 to almost 4,600 last year, according to military statistics. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/122606A.shtml
The number of military service women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan has reached 70, more than the total from the Korean, Vietnam and Desert Storm wars.
"Some have argued that the women who have died are no different than the men," according to a report noting the 70 casualties from the Center for Military Readiness, which opposes women in combat. "But deliberate exposure of women to combat violence in war is tantamount to acceptance of violence against women in general."
The reasons for the historical high casualty rate are multiple. Women now make up more than 14 percent of the volunteer force, performing a long list of military occupational specialties they did not do 50 years ago. Women in earlier wars were mostly confined to medical teams. Today, they fly combat aircraft, drive trucks to resupply fighting units, go on patrol as military police (MPs) and repair equipment.
What's more, the Afghan and Iraq conflicts are lasting longer than the relatively brief Desert Storm, which featured the first large contribution of American women in a war zone.
But the real difference in Afghanistan and Iraq is the battlefield. It is virtually every road, neighborhood and rural village. Insurgents do not just attack front-line combat troops. Suicide bombers and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) strike at any time, meaning that women in support units can be just as vulnerable as men in ground combat.
"What it means is, it's just unprecedented," said Elaine Donnelly, who heads the Center for Military Readiness. "It is something that people are not aware of, for the most part. Some of these stories are incredibly sad." http://washtimes.com/national/20061225-110520-6688r.htm
North Korea, desperate for foreign currency under harsh US-imposed sanctions, has started to sell its gold reserves on the international markets, Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported yesterday.
The US last year blacklisted a Pyongyang-linked bank in Macau, infuriating the communist regime, which then boycotted six-nation disarmament talks for 13 months, during which it tested an atom bomb.
Since the US crackdown on the bank, North Korea has earned $US28 million in foreign cash by exporting gold to Thailand, which had not imported gold from Pyongyang for the previous five years, the newspaper reported.
The US blacklisted Macau's Banco Delta Asia in September last year, saying it suspected $US24 million ($30.6 million) in North Korean bank accounts was linked to counterfeiting or money-laundering. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,20977194,00.html
After 11 years, the hunt for Radovan Karadzic and Gen. Ratko Mladic may well be the most frustrating, infuriating and fruitless around.
The two, wanted for the most heinous crimes of Bosnia’s bloody civil war from 1992 to 1995, have managed to elude thousands of Western peacekeepers and local police forces with what is widely suspected to be the collusion of the Serbian military. Reality and myth have grown indistinguishable as stories have emerged of their possible hide-outs and of the failed attempts to track them down.
Now, for the first time, clear — even mundane — details of how General Mladic has managed to dodge arrest are emerging bit by bit in a Belgrade courtroom.
Until January this year, the general, the former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, was living in the Serbian capital protected by a network of former comrades in arms, according to testimony given during the trial of 11 people accused of helping to hide him.
Evidence at the trial describes an urban odyssey that started out with the general hiding in Belgrade’s best known army barracks with the full knowledge of the army hierarchy, and then shows him being whisked away in a Yugo by bodyguards to a private apartment.
For a period of three and half years, the onetime Yugoslav Army officer — who is still regarded as a hero by many Serbs but is vehemently despised by the Bosnian Muslims he victimized — moved between six different addresses. He used some for a matter of days and others for months, before finally holing up in a Communist-era monolith for over two years. There, prosecutors say, he was provided with a housekeeper, and groceries and phone cards were brought to his door.
Throughout, he seemed to have the protection of the army and state officials. At one point, he was offered plastic surgery and a false passport to help him flee the country, something he appears to have declined. To this day, he still eludes arrest. http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/sf/nyt12_26_6_1.htm
Posted at 03:42 am by Psychomike
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Saddam: Dead Man Walking!
FRANCE IN COLLAPSE, ANGRY ISRAEL BREAKS PROMISE TO U.S., CATHOLICS QUITTING NORTHERN IRELAND POLICE FORCE, NIGERIANS SCAMMING U.S. IRISH, 1000 DEAD ISLAMISTS IN SOMALIA- ETHIOPIA WAR!
Iraq's highest court rejected Saddam Hussein's appeal Tuesday and said the former dictator must be hanged within 30 days for ordering the killing of scores of Shiite Muslims in 1982.
The sentence has already stoked Iraq's sectarian rage, with the Shiite majority demanding Saddam's death and his fellow Sunni Arabs calling the trial tainted.
"From tomorrow, any day could be the day" Saddam is sent to the gallows, the chief judge said. Saddam was condemned to death for his role in the execution of 148 Shiite Muslims from the small northern town of Dujail, after a 1982 assassination attempt.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20061227/D8M8RSR80.html
Israel has approved a new settlement in the West Bank to house former Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip, officials said Tuesday, breaking a promise to the U.S. to halt home construction in the Palestinian territories. http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6304475,00.html
Somalia's Islamists are in full retreat after Ethiopian airstrikes and a ground offensive that have killed up to 1,000 of the religious movement's fighters, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said on Tuesday.
"A joint Somali government and Ethiopian force has broken the back of the international terrorist forces… These forces are in full retreat," Meles told reporters in Addis Ababa, adding that up to 1,000 Islamist fighters had been killed.
"A few are Somali but the majority are foreigners," he said of the dead. http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2751428
More than 70 Catholic recruits have quit the Northern Ireland Police Service, it was revealed today.
Even though representation from the Catholic community has increased since the introduction of the new policing arrangements, all sorts of pressures have been blamed for numbers dropping out.
These include domestic and work difficulties and republican paramilitary threats.
"One of the main reasons for people leaving was cited as personal reasons, as was individuals failing to meet standards required," a police spokeswoman said.
"Family and work life was also a factor and this includes people coming under pressure from family and indeed societal pressure to leave.
"Unfortunately a small number of student officers have been advised about their personal security and for some this has resulted in them deciding to leave the organisation."
Sinn Féin is considering joining the Policing Board oversight committee but Catholic members of scrutiny structures have been threatened by dissident republicans.
http://www.eecho.ie/news/bstory.asp?j=181133512&p=y8yy34y35&n=181134200
J'ACCUSE
Betrayal: France, the Arabs, and the Jews
By David Pryce-Jones (Encounter Books 171pp £20.99)
As I write, it is exactly a year since the desolate banlieues of France erupted in an orgy of violence, on a scale which had not been seen for generations. At the time, these riots were blamed on social exclusion. Since then, it has become clear that the rioters are not just 'immigrants' or 'youths', but are first and foremost Muslims. When they set light to a car, their cry is often: 'Allahu akhbar!' ('Allah is great!')
The violence, moreover, is endemic and ubiquitous. In 2005, there were 110,000 incidents of urban violence, including 45,000 vehicles burnt out. This year, there has been an average of over 100 incidents a day. Since the riots supposedly subsided last January, some 3,000 police officers are reported to have been injured. France is quite deliberately being made ungovernable.
This 'French intifada' was merely the culmination of a process that has turned many suburbs into no-go areas for the police and increasingly for non-Muslims too. In particular, the Islamist rabble-rousers who are behind the insurgency have incited their followers to attack Jews, who are now outnumbered by Muslims in France by at least ten to one.
How has it come to this? In this devastating indictment, the cri de coeur of an Englishman who loves France but is exasperated by the French, the background to this breakdown of civil society gradually emerges. David Pryce-Jones has discovered the explanation in the archives of the French foreign ministry, known after its imposing headquarters, the Quai d'Orsay. The corps diplomatique who have run this institution like a private club - known to initiates simply as 'la carrière' - are responsible not only for the decline of French prestige abroad, but also for creating the conditions for the unfolding catastrophe at home.
Like so many misfortunes, this one has its origins in the megalomania of the Bonaparte clan. For more than two centuries, since Napoleon's expedition to Egypt, French diplomacy has been gripped by a delusion of grandeur: the idea of France as une puissance musulmane, 'a Muslim power' - a phrase that has a new and sinister echo now.
French diplomats, determined to outdo their British and German rivals in great-power politics, were also convinced that France had a special mission civilisatrice in the Islamic world. Yet their sentimental orientalism was entirely compatible with an institutional anti-Semitism that is documented in shocking detail by Pryce-Jones. The rise of Zionism transformed this anti-Semitism from a mere prejudice, odious perhaps but peripheral to foreign policy, into a distorting mirror which motivated and reinforced the fatal misjudgements that have led France to its present predicament.
The French had pretensions to be the protecting power for all Catholics in the Middle East, and they saw Zionism as a competitor - one, moreover, that was associated in their eyes first with German and then with British interests. In response to what it saw as an impudent demand for a Jewish homeland, the Quai d'Orsay 'effectively launched the Arab nationalist movement' on the eve of the First World War.
Some of this book makes uncomfortable reading for Catholics, because several of the most outré orientalists who have controlled French policy in the last century turn out to have been Tartuffes of the worst kind. Pryce-Jones devotes a whole chapter to the curious case of Louis Massignon, who was the Arabist guru of the Quai d'Orsay both before and after World War II. Massignon's faith was a bizarre confection of Catholic and Islamic mysticism, and he ended up as a Melkite priest. Though he was married, it was the homoerotic attractions of Arab boys that evidently drew him to the East. He enjoyed cloak-and-dagger espionage, alternating between the robe and turban of an Egyptian imam and the habit of a Franciscan. He liked Lawrence of Arabia - as Pryce-Jones comments, 'they were two of a kind' - but enjoyed correcting the Englishman's Arabic grammar.
Massignon's influence was similarly pernicious. Put in charge of French propaganda to the Muslim world, he dedicated himself to building a Franco-Islamic 'bloc' or 'entente' and worked hard to scupper the Zionist project. His conversation and writings are riddled with rage against 'the ignominy of the Jews', and he even had the temerity to tell Martin Buber that Israel must stop 'Atlantic speculators' from exploiting Arab oil. Though he died in 1963, Massignon anticipated much of the contemporary French critique of the Zionist-Anglo-Saxon alliance.
Other pre-war intellectuals played an equally nefarious role in this episode of the betrayal of French rationalism - what Julien Benda called 'la trahison des clercs'. Pryce-Jones singles out Paul Morand, Jean Giraudoux and Paul Claudel: all writers, all senior officials at the Quai d'Orsay, all virulent anti-Semites. It is hard not to see the present prime minister and littérateur, Dominique de Villepin, as their spiritual descendant, when he describes Israel as 'a parenthesis in history'.
The one brief phase of rapprochement between post-war France and Israel, during the mid-1950s, took place despite the Quai d'Orsay, which was kept in the dark about defence and nuclear co-operation. The Suez operation was doomed partly because the ministry had to be kept out of the loop. Even the then foreign minister, Christian Pineau, had to tell colleagues: 'Above all, not a word to the Quai d'Orsay!'
Under General de Gaulle, France reverted to its traditional 'Muslim policy' and imposed an arms embargo on Israel. After the Six Day War in 1967, de Gaulle set the tone for future French statesmen by calling the Jews 'an elite people, self-assured and domineering' with 'a burning ambition for conquest'. He ignored Raymond Aron, who warned that de Gaulle had opened 'a new era in ... anti-Semitic history', and instead echoed the old Quai d'Orsay motto of France as a 'Muslim power'.
Thereafter, Israel looked to America, while France recklessly encouraged a succession of Muslim leaders who proved to be implacably hostile to the West, from Gaddafi to Saddam Hussein. It was the French who turned Yasser Arafat into a figure on the world stage and tolerated his terrorists in their midst. And it was the French who enabled Ayatollah Khomeini to launch his Islamic revolution from a suburb of Paris.
The cynicism, corruption and arrogance of all four presidents since de Gaulle - Pompidou, Giscard, Mitterrand and Chirac - have reinforced the déformation professionnelle of the Quai d'Orsay. Far from buying France influence in the Muslim world, the 'Arab policy' has merely imported the conflicts of the Middle East onto the streets of Paris.
Only now, when the country is in the grip of an Islamist jihad, has Chirac acknowledged that anti-Semitism - the existence of which in France he had long denied - is so serious that 'an attack against a French Jew is an attack against France'. It is David Pryce-Jones's great merit to have documented the conflict between this affirmation of the rights of French Jews at home and their denial abroad by French foreign policy. Whether the French public will heed this English indictment of their political class is more than doubtful, but Betrayal should resonate among those for whom Zola is still not a footballer but the author of J'accuse. http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/johnson_12_06.html
An Ulster research centre today said it had been unable to stop fraudsters using its name to con US people out of tens of thousands of dollars.
A Nigerian-based gang has been targeting Californian bookkeepers, claiming that they are doing experimental work for the Agricultural Research Institute of Northern Ireland (ARINI), which is based in Newforge Lane in Belfast.
However, US police have said they believe no one at the institute is involved in the scam, which involves the book-keepers being asked to send cash to Nigeria in return for false travellers cheques.
The gang first places adverts in Californian newspapers claiming that they need bookkeepers for part-time work.
They then claim to the bookkeepers that they are based in Africa, are going fieldwork for ARINI but are paid in UK travellers cheques, which they are unable to cash in the troubled west African country. http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/article2103989.ece Posted at 08:13 pm by Psychomike
Monday, December 25, 2006
The Christmas Miracle Of 1914
THE CHRISTMAS TRUCE, ETHIOPIA OPENLY DECLARES WAR ON SOMALIA, BUSH TO COMMIT TROOPS TO IRAQ LONG TERM, JAMES BROWN HAS DIED
Dr. Richard Elam: Peace on earth: The Christmas truce of 1914
In 2006, peace on earth is as elusive as ever as small wars occur regularly and expand into bigger conflicts. Territorial “imperatives,” aggressive tendencies and desire for plunder always interfere with an ability to sustain a lasting peace. Wars are such a regular routine for humanity that the European lack of a continent-wide conflagration between the final exile of Napoleon in 1815 and the beginnings of the Great War (World War I) in 1914 is sometimes referred to as the “hundred year’s peace.”
As a general rule, wars and conflicts are extensions of foreign policy goals for nations and peoples. For this reason, the rationale for quarrels sometimes eludes those fighting. This explains why governments feel compelled to begin massive propaganda campaigns as a means of convincing the people of the righteousness of the cause. This is especially important for the soldiers themselves. Units of soldiers learn to protect each other because of cohesiveness as much as or more than hatred of the enemy.
What would happen, then, if the soldiers themselves simply decided to not fight? There was a popular poster in the ’60s that said “What if we had war and nobody came?” On this Christmas Eve we might remind ourselves that this is precisely what happened in December 1914 along several places in the trenches of the Great War.
The famous Christmas Eve truce spontaneously began at several points along the line as German, British, Scot and some French soldiers began to fraternize. It may have started with German soldiers placing Christmas trees on their parapets or with singing. One account has German soldiers singing “Stille Nacht” while their English counterparts sang “Silent Night.”
By the next day, foods were being exchanged along with small gifts. Soldiers from both sides mingled in no-man’s land and shared photos of family back home. There are stories of a soccer match played between Germans and British that the Germans won 3-2. Other accounts state that burial ceremonies were attended by soldiers from each side.
Attempts by higher officials to end the truce failed in most cases as it carried over until the end of Christmas day. In at least one case, the truce lasted until New Year’s Day. Not wanting to repeat this episode in subsequent years, artillery barrages were ordered on Christmas Eve and soldiers were routinely shuffled so they would not be too friendly with the enemy across the way. Nevertheless, much smaller episodes did occur in the following years.
Lesson of history: Throughout history there has existed a tension between people willing to fight for narrow national and ethnic interests, and the desire of individuals to get along with others. The result of that tension usually falls on the side of war, but on rare occasion comes down on the side of peace. The insanity of the Great War that began in August 1914 gave way to a brief moment of sanity in December as soldiers quit fighting to enjoy Christmas.
May your Christmas season be a time of peace and joy as you enjoy the birthday celebration of the Prince of Peace.
Dr. Richard Elam has been a
history and government
instructor for Hill College
Johnson County Campus for the past two decades. http://cleburnetimesreview.com/cnhi/cleburnetimesreview/opinion/local_story_358110059.html
It is 2:00 in the morning and most of our men are asleep in their dugouts—yet I could not sleep myself before writing to you of the wonderful events of Christmas Eve. In truth, what happened seems almost like a fairy tale, and if I hadn’t been through it myself, I would scarce believe it. Just imagine: While you and the family sang carols before the fire there in London, I did the same with enemy soldiers here on the battlefields of France!
As I wrote before, there has been little serious fighting of late. The first battles of the war left so many dead that both sides have held back until replacements could come from home. So we have mostly stayed in our trenches and waited.
But what a terrible waiting it has been! Knowing that any moment an artillery shell might land and explode beside us in the trench, killing or maiming several men. And in daylight not daring to lift our heads above ground, for fear of a sniper’s bullet.
And the rain—it has fallen almost daily. Of course, it collects right in our trenches, where we must bail it out with pots and pans. And with the rain has come mud—a good foot or more deep. It splatters and cakes everything, and constantly sucks at our boots. One new recruit got his feet stuck in it, and then his hands too when he tried to get out—just like in that American story of the tar baby!
Through all this, we couldn’t help feeling curious about the German soldiers across the way. After all, they faced the same dangers we did, and slogged about in the same muck. What’s more, their first trench was only 50 yards from ours. Between us lay No Man’s Land, bordered on both sides by barbed wire—yet they were close enough we sometimes heard their voices.
Of course, we hated them when they killed our friends. But other times, we joked about them and almost felt we had something in common. And now it seems they felt the same.
Just yesterday morning—Christmas Eve Day—we had our first good freeze. Cold as we were, we welcomed it, because at least the mud froze solid. Everything was tinged white with frost, while a bright sun shone over all. Perfect Christmas weather.
During the day, there was little shelling or rifle fire from either side. And as darkness fell on our Christmas Eve, the shooting stopped entirely. Our first complete silence in months! We hoped it might promise a peaceful holiday, but we didn’t count on it. We’d been told the Germans might attack and try to catch us off guard.
I went to the dugout to rest, and lying on my cot, I must have drifted asleep. All at once my friend John was shaking me awake, saying, “Come and see! See what the Germans are doing!” I grabbed my rifle, stumbled out into the trench, and stuck my head cautiously above the sandbags.
I never hope to see a stranger and more lovely sight. Clusters of tiny lights were shining all along the German line, left and right as far as the eye could see.
“What is it?” I asked in bewilderment, and John answered, “Christmas trees!”
And so it was. The Germans had placed Christmas trees in front of their trenches, lit by candle or lantern like beacons of good will.
And then we heard their voices raised in song.
Stille nacht, heilige nacht . . . .
This carol may not yet be familiar to us in Britain, but John knew it and translated: “Silent night, holy night.” I’ve never heard one lovelier—or more meaningful, in that quiet, clear night, its dark softened by a first-quarter moon.
When the song finished, the men in our trenches applauded. Yes, British soldiers applauding Germans! Then one of our own men started singing, and we all joined in.
The first Nowell, the angel did say . . . .
In truth, we sounded not nearly as good as the Germans, with their fine harmonies. But they responded with enthusiastic applause of their own and then began another.
O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum . . . .
Then we replied.
O come all ye faithful . . . .
But this time they joined in, singing the same words in Latin.
Adeste fideles . . . .
British and German harmonizing across No Man’s Land! I would have thought nothing could be more amazing—but what came next was more so.
“English, come over!” we heard one of them shout. “You no shoot, we no shoot.”
There in the trenches, we looked at each other in bewilderment. Then one of us shouted jokingly, “You come over here.”
To our astonishment, we saw two figures rise from the trench, climb over their barbed wire, and advance unprotected across No Man’s Land. One of them called, “Send officer to talk.”
I saw one of our men lift his rifle to the ready, and no doubt others did the same—but our captain called out, “Hold your fire.” Then he climbed out and went to meet the Germans halfway. We heard them talking, and a few minutes later, the captain came back with a German cigar in his mouth!
“We’ve agreed there will be no shooting before midnight tomorrow,” he announced. “But sentries are to remain on duty, and the rest of you, stay alert.”
Across the way, we could make out groups of two or three men starting out of trenches and coming toward us. Then some of us were climbing out too, and in minutes more, there we were in No Man’s Land, over a hundred soldiers and officers of each side, shaking hands with men we’d been trying to kill just hours earlier!
Before long a bonfire was built, and around it we mingled—British khaki and German grey. I must say, the Germans were the better dressed, with fresh uniforms for the holiday.
Only a couple of our men knew German, but more of the Germans knew English. I asked one of them why that was.
“Because many have worked in England!” he said. “Before all this, I was a waiter at the Hotel Cecil. Perhaps I waited on your table!”
“Perhaps you did!” I said, laughing.
He told me he had a girlfriend in London and that the war had interrupted their plans for marriage. I told him, “Don’t worry. We’ll have you beat by Easter, then you can come back and marry the girl.”
He laughed at that. Then he asked if I’d send her a postcard he’d give me later, and I promised I would.
Another German had been a porter at Victoria Station. He showed me a picture of his family back in Munich. His eldest sister was so lovely, I said I should like to meet her someday. He beamed and said he would like that very much and gave me his family’s address.
Even those who could not converse could still exchange gifts—our cigarettes for their cigars, our tea for their coffee, our corned beef for their sausage. Badges and buttons from uniforms changed owners, and one of our lads walked off with the infamous spiked helmet! I myself traded a jackknife for a leather equipment belt—a fine souvenir to show when I get home.
Newspapers too changed hands, and the Germans howled with laughter at ours. They assured us that France was finished and Russia nearly beaten too. We told them that was nonsense, and one of them said, “Well, you believe your newspapers and we’ll believe ours.”
Clearly they are lied to—yet after meeting these men, I wonder how truthful our own newspapers have been. These are not the “savage barbarians” we’ve read so much about. They are men with homes and families, hopes and fears, principles and, yes, love of country. In other words, men like ourselves. Why are we led to believe otherwise?
As it grew late, a few more songs were traded around the fire, and then all joined in for—I am not lying to you—“Auld Lang Syne.” Then we parted with promises to meet again tomorrow, and even some talk of a football match.
I was just starting back to the trenches when an older German clutched my arm. “My God,” he said, “why cannot we have peace and all go home?”
I told him gently, “That you must ask your emperor.”
He looked at me then, searchingly. “Perhaps, my friend. But also we must ask our hearts.”
And so, dear sister, tell me, has there ever been such a Christmas Eve in all history? And what does it all mean, this impossible befriending of enemies?
For the fighting here, of course, it means regrettably little. Decent fellows those soldiers may be, but they follow orders and we do the same. Besides, we are here to stop their army and send it home, and never could we shirk that duty.
Still, one cannot help imagine what would happen if the spirit shown here were caught by the nations of the world. Of course, disputes must always arise. But what if our leaders were to offer well wishes in place of warnings? Songs in place of slurs? Presents in place of reprisals? Would not all war end at once?
All nations say they want peace. Yet on this Christmas morning, I wonder if we want it quite enough.
About the Story
http://www.aaronshep.com/stories/061.html
Neoconservative pundit Bill Kristol believes that any increase of U.S. troops in Iraq must be a permanent increase to achieve success.
"There's no point having a short term surge," Kristol said on Fox News Channel. "Especially, if it's proclaimed ahead of time that it's just short term. Then [the enemy] goes into hiding for 3 or 6 months."
"We pull back and we're in the same situation," the Weekly Standard editor said. "Bush will commit -- I believe, when he speaks in a couple of weeks -- to doing this. That this is a strategy for victory and that he's willing to do this for the remaining 2 years of his presidency."
Forcasting the president's plan for Iraq, Kristol adds, "I think [Bush] will say 'We can win. We have to win. We're going to increase troop levels as part of a new strategy for the sake of victory.' And, so, it will not be a short term surge."
Kristol respects the president for increasing troops against conventional wisdom in D.C. and against the wishes of public sentiment, but mocks the majority of people that have doubts about a troop increase, saying, "This is a remarkable moment, though. I came to Washington 30 years ago. How often does a president go against -- what Juan referred to -- the wider consensus in this town, 'the military solution isn't possible?' It's a very broad consensus of the establishment and, I think, that's why there's so much anger among the establishment-types. 'Gee. The Baker-Hamilton Commission pronounced its verdict. And how dare the president make up his own mind and decide that he's not just going to just gracefully accept defeat with this nice bi-partisan patina of the Baker-Hamilton Commission. How dare he decide that we might win in Iraq." http://www.rawstory.com/printstory.php?story=4140
Ethiopia for the first time acknowledged its ground troops and tanks were fighting in Somalia as it Sunday attacked Islamist forces controlling much of the country and Ethiopian jets were reported to have bombarded Islamic positions. The actions marked a sharp escalation of conflict in the Horn of Africa nation, where Addis Ababa has long denied a major military presence beyond trainers and advisers helping Somalia’s weak government.
War planes hit the town of Beledweyne and other frontier outposts, residents said, while heavy artillery battles erupted at several towns deeper in Somalia, putting hundreds of civilians to flight. “The planes targetted infrastructure, Islamic installations like recruitment centres, and a small airstrip,” Hussein Muhamoud, a Beledweyne resident, told AFP from the town about 30 kilometres from the border. An Islamist officer in Beledweyne, Sheikh Hassan Derrow, said Ethiopian MiG aircraft were “bombing our civilians” and described the attackers as the “enemy of Allah”, while other Islamists renewed calls for a war against the Ethiopians and hundreds demonstrated in Mogadishu.
The government in mainly Christian Orthodox Ethiopia, which has its own Muslim population to consider as well as ethnic Somalis of the Ogaden region that has already seen two territorial wars, said the offensive was provoked by Islamist attempts to infiltrate Ethiopia. http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=36897
Ethiopian fighter jets bombed Mogadishu International Airport in the middle of Somalia’s capital on Monday, witnesses said, in the first direct attack on the headquarters of an Islamic movement attempting to wrest power from the internationally recognized government. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16343382/
The American military is holding at least four Iranians in Iraq, including men the Bush administration called senior military officials, who were seized in a pair of raids late last week aimed at people suspected of conducting attacks on Iraqi security forces, according to senior Iraqi and American officials in Baghdad and Washington.
The Bush administration made no public announcement of the politically delicate seizure of the Iranians, though in response to specific questions the White House confirmed Sunday that the Iranians were in custody.
Gordon D. Johndroe, the spokesman for the National Security Council, said two Iranian diplomats were among those initially detained in the raids. The two had papers showing that they were accredited to work in Iraq, and he said they were turned over to the Iraqi authorities and released. He confirmed that a group of other Iranians, including the military officials, remained in custody while an investigation continued, and he said, “We continue to work with the government of Iraq on the status of the detainees.”
It was unclear what kind of evidence American officials possessed that the Iranians were planning attacks, and the officials would not identify those being held. One official said that “a lot of material” was seized in the raid, but would not say if it included arms or documents that pointed to planning for attacks. Much of the material was still being examined, the official said.
Nonetheless, the two raids, in central Baghdad, have deeply upset Iraqi government officials, who have been making strenuous efforts to engage Iran on matters of security. At least two of the Iranians were in this country on an invitation extended by Iraq’s president, Jalal Talabani, during a visit to Tehran earlier this month. It was particularly awkward for the Iraqis that one of the raids took place in the Baghdad compound of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, one of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite leaders, who traveled to Washington three weeks ago to meet President Bush. http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/sf/nyt12_25_6_2.htm
James Brown, who impacted popular music through three major pop music periods, has died. http://popculture.blogdrive.com Posted at 10:09 am by Psychomike
Friday, December 22, 2006
Failed Drug War, Military: No Troops!
JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: DON'T SEND MORE TROOPS, POWER SHARING IN N IRELAND BY MARCH, THE FAILED WAR ON DRUGS!
The Democrats have been pushing for a draft and more troops in Iraq from day one. Now that President Bush is considering increasing troop size, the Joint Chiefs of Staff are flat out opposed to the idea. And Have Gone Public!
The Bush administration is split over the idea of a surge in troops to Iraq, with White House officials aggressively promoting the concept over the unanimous disagreement of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to U.S. officials familiar with the intense debate.
Sending 15,000 to 30,000 more troops for a mission of possibly six to eight months is one of the central proposals on the table of the White House policy review to reverse the steady deterioration in Iraq. The option is being discussed as an element in a range of bigger packages, the officials said.
But the Joint Chiefs think the White House, after a month of talks, still does not have a defined mission and is latching on to the surge idea in part because of limited alternatives, despite warnings about the potential disadvantages for the military, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the White House review is not public.
The chiefs have taken a firm stand, the sources say, because they believe the strategy review will be the most important decision on Iraq to be made since the March 2003 invasion.
At regular interagency meetings and in briefing President Bush last week, the Pentagon has warned that any short-term mission may only set up the United States for bigger problems when it ends. The service chiefs have warned that a short-term mission could give an enormous edge to virtually all the armed factions in Iraq -- including al-Qaeda's foreign fighters, Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias -- without giving an enduring boost to the U.S military mission or to the Iraqi army, the officials said.
The Pentagon has cautioned that a modest surge could lead to more attacks by al-Qaeda, provide more targets for Sunni insurgents and fuel the jihadist appeal for more foreign fighters to flock to Iraq to attack U.S. troops, the officials said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/18/AR2006121801477_pf.html
Steny Hoyer, the Maryland congressman who was selected by the Democratic caucus to be the new House Majority Leader last week, set the Democratic Party’s tone in an interview on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” on ABC News on Sunday. Stephanopoulos asked Hoyer to respond to the position of Arizona Republican Senator John McCain that more US troops should be sent to Iraq. He also noted that one of the options under consideration by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group is to increase US troop strength to help crush militias operating in Baghdad.
“If that temporary increase is consistent with a plan to transition and to redeploy” US forces, Hoyer said, then he would be prepared to go along with it. Hoyer also repeated the position of many Democrats and sections of the military brass that the main problem with the Bush administration’s Iraq policy has been that not enough troops were sent in to begin with.
Hoyer’s comments were a clear signal to the Bush administration that the Democrats would support a troop increase if it could be packaged as a step towards an eventual drawdown. To emphasize this point, Hoyer stated toward the end of his interview that US troops were placed in danger not because they are forced to fight in Iraq, but because “their lack of numbers exposes them on a daily basis to danger and death.”
The new Majority Leader also made clear that the Democrats would not consider cutting off funding for the Iraq occupation. “We are not going to de-fund the troops in the field, period,” he said. The power to cut off spending on a war is the ultimate power wielded by Congress to compel the executive branch to change its foreign policy. Rejecting that out of hand means that the Bush administration can continue the war in Iraq, as Bush has pledged, until the end of his term in office, January 20, 2009. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/nov2006/dems-n20.shtml
Britain's secretary of state for Northern Ireland wished the province's divided community a Merry Christmas — and said Friday that the best present they could have was a revived Belfast assembly in 2007.
The British government expects Northern Ireland's Protestant and Catholic parties to forge a devolved power-sharing administration in March, ending a period of direct rule from London.
Local rule has been on hold since October 2002, when a coalition collapsed amid heightened tensions between Protestants and Sinn Fein, the party linked to the provisional IRA.
The current plan — unveiled following negotiations in St. Andrews, Scotland, in October — requires Sinn Fein leaders to accept the authority of Northern Ireland's police force in return for a share of power alongside Protestant leaders. So far, Sinn Fein has refused to call a special party conference to abandon it's decades-old policy of opposition to the police.
The plan calls for the Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Hain, to cede control of most government departments to local hands March 26 — or to dissolve the Northern Ireland Assembly if Protestants refused to work with Sinn Fein. http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/12/22/europe/EU_GEN_Northern_Ireland.php
Paul Thomas: Why the US is losing the war at home too
While the politicians, diplomats, generals and spies engage in an increasingly academic debate over whether America is winning, losing or indeed has already lost the war in Iraq, the comprehensive nature of its defeat in another, more protracted war was rubbed in this week.
According to a report citing United States Government figures, marijuana is now America's most valuable cash crop, worth more than corn and wheat combined. Weed is bigger than cotton in Alabama, than grapes in California and peanuts in Georgia.
Despite billions of dollars and the strenuous efforts of local police forces, the FBI and the gigantic Drug Enforcement Agency, marijuana production has increased 10-fold over the past 25 years.
In Pentagon-speak, the war on drugs is an irony-rich environment. For instance, the losing side refuses to accept that the war was lost some time ago and its prolongation achieves nothing beyond turning a defeat into a rout. The drug warriors obviously never absorbed the cardinal rule of warfare: don't expend resources in a hopeless cause.
The core strategy of prohibition has brought about exactly the situation it was intended to prevent: the entrenched and widespread use and acceptance of recreational drugs in Western society.
Prohibition was supposed to marginalise and eventually eliminate the drugs trade. Instead, by creating an immensely profitable black market, it enabled the trade to thrive.
Because drugs are illegal, those who traffic in them pay no tax on their earnings, an enormous incentive to invest and expand. It seems strange that governments, which use the taxation system as a tool of economic management, should persist with policies that confer irresistible commercial logic and appeal on an activity of which they thoroughly disapprove.
With benefactors like these, who needs Santa Claus?
Because the power structure and society in general are either unwilling or unable to recognise defeat, no one has had to carry the can for this catastrophic failure of analysis and policy.
This is one key difference between the war on drugs and the war in Iraq: in the latter case the guilty men have been identified and are being picked off one by one.
Another key difference is the media and public reaction to the mounting evidence that the Iraq project has failed. The occupation began a mere three years ago yet the overwhelming consensus is that the US and Britain should declare defeat and get out, whatever the consequences for the people of Iraq and a region that's already dangerously close to flashpoint.
The war on drugs, however, will meander on pointlessly and counter-productively for years without protesters taking to the streets or committees crafting elegant strategies for disengagement, i.e. cutting and running.
But there are also striking similarities. Like the war on drugs, the war in Iraq has achieved the exact opposite of what was intended.
Instead of becoming the tolerant, secular democracy that would transform the Middle East by its benign example, as the neo-conservatives fondly imagined, Iraq has collapsed into an ungovernable chaos of sectarian barbarism, a model for no one save al Qaeda's gleeful nihilists.
Both wars were launched on the basis of two questionable assumptions. The first is that people know what's good for them - sobriety and clean living on the one hand, secular democracy on the other - and will embrace it given half a chance and provided the opportunity or temptation to do otherwise is curtailed.
The second is that, if used robustly enough, the instruments of state - prohibition and prosecution on the one hand, military force on the other - can create better people and better societies.
There will always be resistance to the legalisation of narcotics, particularly hard drugs. Those most likely to abuse drugs and suffer the consequences are the young, and as a society we place a high value on our children.
As the writer Auberon Waugh observed many years ago, parents are hardly going to agree that the children in whom they've invested years of care, effort, attention, and money should be free to choose oblivion as soon as they leave home.
But this is wishful thinking: children can and sometimes do choose oblivion as soon as they leave home or even earlier because the war on drugs has failed in its most basic and narrow objective - that of making it really, really hard for people to get their hands on dope.
Drugs are now so readily available and with so little legal risk attached that the real question is why the majority of children don't choose oblivion as soon as they leave home. It's not because they're afraid of ending up behind bars; it's because they grasp - thanks in part to anti-drug education - that drugs can be bad for you and oblivion hasn't got a lot going for it.
Enough of drugs: 'tis the season to be jolly and nothing encourages jollity like alcohol, the recreational drug we can guzzle with a clear conscience. I wish readers a happy, safe and oblivion-free festive season. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=359&objectid=10416577 Posted at 10:22 am by Psychomike
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Iran Now A Nuclear State!
Iranian president: Our scienists have reached zenith, accessed nuclear fuel cycle
Iranian president: Our scientists have reached zenith, accessed nuclear fuel cycle
Yaakov Lappin
Iran is now a "nuclear power," its President, Mahmoud Ahamdinejad, delcared Wednesday, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency .
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| Ahmadinejad: Israel, US will vanish / News agencies |
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Ahmadinejad says Israel, US, Britain will vanish – 'this is a divine promise;' Iran demands UN Security Council condemn Israel's nuclear development, place Israel's facilities under inspection |
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During a speech delivered in the Western Iranian province of Javanroud, Ahmadinejad said: " The Islamic Republic of Iran is now a nuclear power, thanks to the hard work of the Iranian people and authorities."
The announcement of Iran as a "nuclear power" is bound to significantly escalate tensions between the West and Iran, and marks a dramatic stage in the Islamic Republic's nuclear campaign.
In recent days, the US military has begun to build up forces around the Gulf, in what is being seen as as a warning to Iran.
Ahmadinejad was also reported to have announced that "Iranian young scientists reached the zenith of science and technology and gained access to the nuclear fuel cycle without the help of big powers."
The Iranian president began the speech by saying that "the powerful Iranian nation resists bullying powers and will defend its rights, including the right to pursue peaceful nuclear technology," the IRNA said.
http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3342489,00.html
Iran’s oil minister, Kazem Vaziri Hamaneh, said today that the country will begin to purchase all oil industry related equipment in euros instead of dollars as the Iranian government has elected to base its new-year budget in euros.
"Based on the government's policy of substituting the euro for the dollar, all oil industry purchase contracts will be done in the euro," the official IRNA news agency quoted Vaziri as saying.
http://www.resourceinvestor.com/pebble.asp?relid=27390
'All I want to say is that the age of hardship, threat and spite will come to an end someday and, God willing, Jesus would return to the world along with the emergence of the descendant of the Islam's holy prophet, Imam Mahdi, and wipe away every tinge of oppression, pain and agony from the face of the world,' Ahmadinejad said.
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53430
The next time you beat your keyboard in frustration, think of a day when it may be able to sue you for assault. Within 50 years we might even find ourselves standing next to the next generation of vacuum cleaners in the voting booth.
Far from being extracts from the extreme end of science fiction, the idea that we may one day give sentient machines the kind of rights traditionally reserved for humans is raised in a British government-commissioned report which claims to be an extensive look into the future.
Visions of the status of robots around 2056 have emerged from one of 270 forward-looking papers sponsored by Sir David King, the UK government’s chief scientist. The paper covering robots’ rights was written by a UK partnership of Outsights, the management consultancy, and Ipsos Mori, the opinion research organisation.
“If we make conscious robots they would want to have rights and they probably should,” said Henrik Christensen, director of the Centre of Robotics and Intelligent Machines at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
The idea will not surprise science fiction aficionados. It was widely explored by Dr Isaac Asimov, one of the foremost science fiction writers of the 20th century. He wrote of a society where robots were fully integrated and essential in day-to-day life.
In his system, the ‘three laws of robotics’ governed machine life. They decreed that robots could not injure humans, must obey orders and protect their own existence – in that order.
Robots and machines are now classed as inanimate objects without rights or duties but if artificial intelligence becomes ubiquitous, the report argues, there may be calls for humans’ rights to be extended to them. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/5ae9b434-8f8e-11db-9ba3-0000779e2340.html
Somali Islamists and troops defending the government's only stronghold battled with rockets and heavy weapons today at two frontline areas as a European Union envoy flew in to stave off the brewing war.
The flare-ups to the southwest and southeast of Baidoa, the interim government's surrounded outpost, heightened fears of a Horn of Africa conflict a day after the expiry of an Islamist deadline for government-allied Ethiopian troops to leave. With a battle under way 70km southwest of Baidoa since late on Tuesday, another clash erupted today just 25km southeast of the town on a strategic portion of the frontline where both sides' fighters have massed.
"Neither side is winning. It is the Ethiopian troops who are fighting the Islamists. I am trapped," a driver stranded between the opposing sides said, with the sounds of the fighting echoing in the background. "Bullets and heavy rockets are flying everywhere. Fresh Islamist troops are now fighting Ethiopians who are waiting for backup," the driver, who declined to give his name, said.
http://www.sabcnews.com/africa/east_africa/0,2172,140570,00.html
A little more than six months after seizing control of the Somali capital of Mogadishu, Somalia's Islamic Courts Union is enforcing its form of law and order across a wide swath of the east African nation, home to a large majority of the population. But the hard-line Islamist leaders' alleged ties to terrorism, and their expansionist policies, have brought Somalia to the brink of war with neighboring Ethiopia. VOA's East Africa Correspondent Alisha Ryu, who has traveled widely in Somalia, tells us in this yearend report, there are fears that clashes in Somalia could trigger a wider regional conflict. http://origin.www.voanews.com/english/2006-12-19-voa36.cfm
U.K. authorities investigating the death of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko detected radiation contamination in three London hotel workers, the Health Protection Agency said.
Litvinenko died on Nov. 23 after exposure to the radioactive substance polonium 210. The isotope was later discovered in at least 12 London locations, and on Dec. 7, the agency said it was detected in ``low levels'' in seven workers employed at the Pine Bar in the Millennium Hotel, which Litvinenko had visited on Nov. 1, the day he reported feeling ill.
``Results received from a further two members of staff at the Millennium Hotel London Mayfair, and a member of staff at the Sheraton Hotel, Park Lane, London, show that they have been exposed to low levels of Polonium-210,'' the agency said today in an e-mailed statement. ``The levels are not significant enough to result in any illness in the short term and any increased risk in the long term is likely to be very small.''
The trail of polonium has taken the investigation to Russia and Germany. Dmitry Kovtun, a Russian businessman who met Litvinenko at the Millennium hotel on Nov. 1, this month fell ill with radiation poisoning, and authorities in Germany found traces of polonium in places frequented by Kovtun in Hamburg before his visit to the U.K.
British investigators today concluded two weeks of inquiries in Moscow into the case, the Russian Prosecutor General's Office said today in a statement on its Web site. Two days before he died, Litvinenko blamed his illness on the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has denied the allegation.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ahbgz4FYWksw&refer=worldwide Posted at 11:11 am by Psychomike
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
CIVIL WAR BREAKS OUT IN GAZA STRIP, WHAT'S BEHIND THE PALESTINIAN CRISIS?, PAKISTAN INTEL AGENT PROTECTED BIN LADEN!
Schools have been closed in Gaza amid what officials say is a state of anarchy caused by fighting between Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah.
The education ministry acted after several children were among those hurt in a day of clashes that killed three.
Violence has flared since Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday called for new elections, a move the Hamas-led government branded a "coup".
Mr Abbas has called for all factions to respect a truce agreed on Sunday.
In a statement, he called on "all, without exception, to adhere to a ceasefire and to end the killings and all other operations in order to maintain our national unity".
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| The Palestinian territories are experiencing some of their tensest moments for decades, as inter-factional rivalries spill out into the most serious street fighting yet. The BBC News website's Martin Asser explains why the pressures have reached such a dangerous point.
What has led to the sharp rise in tension?
Rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas have been trying to agree a unity government that would solve a crisis sparked by Hamas's victory in January elections and an international boycott that followed it.
Talks have been difficult and recently hit an apparently irreparable deadlock. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, of Fatah, has now called fresh elections.
For many months now, law and order has been deteriorating in the Palestinian territories, which are also in the grip of an economic crisis, exacerbated by Israel's military siege and the international boycott.
With no salvation in sight, violence has taken a nasty turn in Gaza in the last week, with the killing of three sons of a Fatah security chief and an apparent attempt on the life of Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, of Hamas.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6182969.stm |
Over 50 new species have been discovered in a 'Lost World' on the island of Borneo in just 18 months, say scientists.
Among them are two tree frogs, a whole range of plants and trees and 30 brand new types of fish including a tiny one less than a centimetre long and a catfish with an adhesive belly that allows it to stick to rocks.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html?in_article_id=423523&in_page_id=1965
'All I want to say is that the age of hardship, threat and spite will come to an end someday and, God willing, Jesus would return to the world along with the emergence of the descendant of the Islam's holy prophet, Imam Mahdi, and wipe away every tinge of oppression, pain and agony from the face of the world,' Ahmadinejad said.
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53430
The chief U.S. negotiator said Tuesday that there had been no progress yet at renewed six-nation talks aimed at persuading North Korea to abandon its nuclear arms program in exchange for economic aid and security guarantees.
As the disarmament talks convened Monday for the first time since the North tested a nuclear device, Pyongyang insisted it be treated as a full-fledged nuclear power. But the United States dismissed the communist regime's opening comments as unsurprising rhetoric and warned time was running out for the North to dismantle its nuclear arsenal or face sanctions.
``In terms of implementing the joint statement, I'd say (there was) not too much progress from yesterday,'' U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill told reporters early Tuesday.
http://www.registerguard.com/news/2006/12/19/a14.int.koreanukes.1219.p1.php?section=nation_world
Afghanistan says it has arrested a Pakistani intelligence agent who acted as a key link with al-Qaeda leaders.
Presidential spokesman Karim Rahimi said the agent had been detained in eastern Kunar province carrying documents which proved his guilt.
The news came a day after intelligence officials said an Afghan general had been arrested for spying for Pakistan.
Afghanistan has long blamed Pakistan for cross-border attacks by the Taleban. Islamabad denies the charges.
'Bin Laden escort'
Mr Karimi named the man arrested as Sayed Akbar, who he said worked for Pakistan's controversial Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.
Officials say he has confessed to his "illegal activities" in Afghanistan. These are said to include escorting Osama Bin Laden last year from Nuristan to Chitral.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6192939.stm Posted at 11:27 am by Psychomike
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