Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Israel Firm Cuts Palestinian Gas Supplies


By ALI DARAGHMEH and JOSEF FEDERMAN, Associated Press Writers 7 minutes ago

Palestinian gas stations began shutting down and motorists lined up at pumps after an Israeli fuel company cut off deliveries Wednesday, deepening the humanitarian crisis that has followed Hamas' rise to power.

An end to fuel supplies for the West Bank and Gaza could cripple hospitals, halt food deliveries and keep people home from work — a devastating scenario for an economy already ravaged by Israeli and international sanctions.

Dor Energy, the Israeli company that has been the sole fuel provider to the Palestinians since interim peace agreements were signed in the mid-1990s, cited growing debts for its decision, Palestinian officials said. Dor officials declined comment, but the company had threatened to cut off supplies twice before this year — only to be paid at the last minute by the Palestinians.

Asaf Shariv, a spokesman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said Israel would "absolutely not" bail out the Palestinians. Shariv said that since the Palestinian government resells gasoline to consumers, there is no reason for it not to have money to pay its debts.

But Palestinian officials said their cash-strapped government is one of the biggest users of gasoline and unable to pay the bill.

Mujahid Salame, head of the Palestinian petrol authority, predicted fuel supplies would run out in many areas by Thursday. "If this happens, there will be a humanitarian crisis," he said.

In Gaza City motorists formed long lines at filling stations, expecting a fuel crunch.

"I bought more than I need because I want to guarantee that I can reach work again," said Osama Shaban, 33, a construction engineer who drives 10 miles to work each day.

Though station owners said they still had several days of reserves, some limited motorists' purchases to conserve supplies.

Dr. Moaiya Hassanain, a top Health Ministry official in Gaza, warned that the area's hospitals, already suffering from a shortage of medicines, would cease to function without fuel.

He said ambulances would stop running, employees would not be able to get to work and gas generators — used to compensate for ongoing electric outages — would be hobbled.

"It's going to be a disaster for us in the medical profession," he said, speaking at a Gaza City gas station where he helped fill the gas tanks of several ambulances.

In the West Bank, the situation was more dire. Many stations said they were out of fuel, in some cases laying their dry nozzles on the ground.

"The only thing I've been doing for the past day is telling drivers that I don't have any gas," said Awad Dabous, who works at a gas station in the West Bank town of Jenin. A sign at the station said simply: "Sorry, no gas."

In Nablus, a line of taxi drivers said they stopped working because they had no fuel. One driver, Mahmoud Tourabi, said he would try to drive to a nearby Jewish settlement in hopes of filling his tank.

"They may kill me there, so I will be the martyr of the gas," he quipped.

The fuel crunch is the latest sign of trouble for the Palestinian economy, which has been hit hard by a cutoff in Western aid. The donors halted the money flow in response to Hamas' victory in legislative elections, demanding the group renounce violence and recognize Israel. The U.S. and European Union, the two biggest donors, consider Hamas a terrorist group.

Hamas has rejected the demands, despite a financial crisis that has left it unable to pay the salaries of thousands of government workers for two months.

Instead, it has raised some $70 million from Iran and Arab donors. Under U.S. pressure, banks have refused to transfer the funds to Hamas, and the money remains stuck in an account in Egypt.

Compounding Hamas' woes, Israel has cut off about $55 million in monthly transfers of tax money it collects for the Palestinians. Israel has placed the money in escrow.

Israel dipped into this money last month to pay Palestinian bills to government-owned companies, such as the Israeli electric monopoly. The Palestinians rely on Israel for many key supplies, including fuel, electricity and water

Palestinian officials and the World Bank say a humanitarian disaster is looming. Palestinians have been taking out loans, cutting back and selling valuables to scrape by. But officials say the situation can't continue much longer.

Fearing catastrophe, the Quartet of Mideast peace makers — the U.S., EU, United Nations and Russia — agreed Tuesday to restore some humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, as long as the money is not handled by Hamas. But it remains unclear when the money will start flowing, how much will be sent and who will administer the money.

In Brussels, European Commission spokeswoman Emma Udwin said more work was needed before the new mechanism would start to channel funds to the Palestinians. She said there is no timeline, only that "we want this to move as soon as possible."

Hamas said it welcomed any aid, but expressed regrets that the Quartet attached strings. Israeli officials said they had no objections to humanitarian aid reaching Palestinians, provided it is kept out of the hands of Hamas.

Olmert has said he would be willing to negotiate with Hamas if the group accepts the international community's demands to end its violent campaign against the Jewish state. With Hamas refusing to budge, however, Olmert says he is prepared to draw Israel's borders on his own.

Justice Minister Haim Ramon on Wednesday gave Hamas until the end of the year to prove it is willing to negotiate a peace deal.

"If it becomes clear by the end of the year that we really have no partner, and the international community is also convinced of this, then we will take our fate into our own hands and not leave our fate in the hands of our enemies," he told Israel's Army radio.

Ramon, a close associate of Olmert, was the first Israeli official to set a deadline for Hamas.

Source: AP via Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060510/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_palestinians...

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

India struggles with discrimination

Posted 5/7/2006 11:11 PM ET
NEW DELHI — Born into the lowest caste in Indian society, Pradeep Kumar Jatav holds a coveted job as a university lecturer.

Despite a strong academic record, the 31-year-old graduate student said he wouldn't have gotten the post without government-mandated quotas. "People don't want that you sit with them," he said. "At the moment they know your caste, they create barriers."

India still struggles with vestiges of an ancient and discriminatory caste system, even as it emerges as a potential 21st-century economic power.

The system, which dates back more than 2,000 years, divides the population into higher castes, which include priests and warriors, and lower castes, such as laborers. At the bottom sit the "untouchables," known as Dalits.

A recent government push to expand college admission and job quotas — an Indian form of affirmative action for the lower castes — has run into stiff opposition. Students have taken to the streets of New Delhi several times to protest the plan.

The clash pits the winners in India's ongoing economic boom against those who have been left behind.

While a burgeoning middle class snaps up automobiles and the latest appliances, 327 million Indians — about 30% of the population — still live in poverty on less than $1 a day, according to the Asian Development Bank.

Some low-caste families have risen to the middle class, thanks in part to quotas, but most remain poor, said Nandu Ram, a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and author of several books on India's lowest castes.

India sets aside 22.5% of its government jobs for the lowest castes, and an additional 27% for what are called the other "backward" castes, the next step up in the caste system.

'Divide in society' evident

The debate over quotas was intensified by the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, which was elected in 2004 on a promise of spreading the fruits of economic growth to the poor.

Singh wants to introduce job quotas at private companies and expand quotas for college admission.

The uproar over quotas is "the sharpest expression of the divide in society between the classes," human rights lawyer Colin Gonsalves said.

Students worry that higher quotas will make the competition for limited slots even tougher.

The All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, for example, has only 50 slots a year for graduate students, 11 of which are reserved for the lowest castes.

Donning white lab coats, undergraduates who expect to be competing for those spots marched in New Delhi last week to protest any quota increase.

Gonsalves remained unmoved. "These are elitist institutions," he said of the universities, "that need to be beaten on the head."

The anti-quota camp accuses the government of advocating quotas to seek votes from the lower castes. The backward castes make up about two-thirds of the population.

A better solution would be to ensure that the lower castes have better access to education, quota opponents say, something they blame the government for failing to provide. "The government can't provide primary and secondary education," said Peeyush Kumar, 20, a student who has protested the quotas. "That's why they are imposing this (quota), to increase the number of votes they are going to receive."

Business and academic leaders also warn that quotas could erode India's competitive advantages in a global economy.

"The only way we can compete with global players is by hiring best-in-class people from India and the rest of the world," said Azim Premji, chairman of software outsourcing giant Wipro. "We are an organization that requires selecting people on merit."

Freedom from humiliation

Blatant caste discrimination is on the wane in big cities but persists in rural communities, where Dalits must live apart from others and take water from separate taps.

In extreme cases, Dalits who violate caste codes are beaten and their houses destroyed.

Some offending women have been stripped naked and paraded around as a humiliating lesson to others, according to the New Delhi-based National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights.

As a young village schoolteacher, Hansraj Dugal would bring sweets to share with his colleagues at tea time. They remained uneaten. Not one of the other teachers would "pollute" themselves by touching the sweets of an untouchable, he said.

That kind of treatment drove Dugal, 45, to leave the village for the relative anonymity of New Delhi.

He changed the last name of his children to try to conceal their low-caste background.

Proudly describing their school honors, he hopes they can get through life without the benefit of quotas.

"I want to save my children from such discrimination," Dugal said.

Source: USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-05-07-caste-barriers_x.htm?csp=34

Razing of Mosque in India Brings Violence, Court Ban

NEW DELHI, May 4 — The Supreme Court ordered Gujarat on Thursday to stop demolishing buildings that the state says were constructed illegally. Six people died and dozens were injured this week during protests against the demolition of a Muslim shrine in Gujarat.

More than a thousand Indian Army troops were dispatched to Gujarat on Wednesday to contain further Hindu-Muslim violence.

The riots were set off by the demolition of the Syed Rashiduddin shrine in Vadodara, part of the state's effort to tear down buildings that it said had been built illegally. Several other houses of worship, including about a dozen small roadside Hindu temples, have also been torn down. But the demolition of the Muslim shrine — a larger and older structure used by Chishti, a mystical Sufi sect, which stood in the middle of a road — has become a touchstone of tension.

The court order was in response to a petition by the central government, which cited the violence and said the demolitions had been authorized without proper review.

Vadodara, also known as Baroda, remained under a curfew and was largely calm on Thursday. But Reuters quoted police officials as saying that three factories had been set on fire, and that mobs had pelted each other with stones. Army troops fanned out across the city, along with the local police.

Of the six people who died in three days of rioting, four were Muslims and two Hindu. One of the dead was Mohammed Rafik Vohra, the owner of a transport company, who was pulled out of his car by a Hindu mob and stabbed to death on Tuesday night, his brother, Mahmood, said.

The latest violence recalled Gujarat's ugly past and drew fresh scrutiny of its chief minister, Narendra Modi, of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. Four years ago, also during Mr. Modi's tenure in Gujarat, a prosperous and highly industrialized state, a train fire that killed 59 Hindu pilgrims set off reprisal attacks that left more than 1,100 dead, most of them Muslims.

Those on the train had been returning from a mission to build a temple in Ayodhya, on the site of a mosque whose destruction by fervent Hindus in 1992 set off riots that killed more than a thousand.

The police were accused of doing little to contain the anti-Muslim violence four years ago, and even less to see that wrongdoers were punished.

"The Gujarat government must be vigilant against extremist violence against helpless civilians," Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. "Instead of allowing this violence to deepen religious hatred, the authorities should launch an immediate, thorough and transparent investigation to ensure that those responsible are prosecuted and punished."

Several Muslim residents of Vadodara said this week's violence, and the delayed and biased response by the police, left them unconvinced that they would be protected.

M. I. Pathan, 60, a retired Gujarat policeman and a Muslim, said he called the police control room repeatedly on Tuesday night as a mob encircled his neighborhood looting houses and beating up anyone in sight. The police never came.

"We were really scared and praying for our lives," Mr. Pathan said in a telephone interview. "At one stage an operator in the police control room said: 'We do not have any police. You bring police from Pakistan.' I asked for his name but he did not tell me."

Source: New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/05/world/asia/05india.html

Monday, May 08, 2006

A Timeline of Relations Between Iran, U.S.

By The Associated Press
Mon May 8, 4:39 PM ET

Under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who came to power in 1941, Iran was a close ally of the United States. Since the shah was toppled in the 1979 Iranian revolution, the two countries have been bitter enemies. Following is a chronology of their relations:

• April 1951: Mohammed Mossadegh is elected prime minister and nationalizes oil interests. In June 1953, the Eisenhower administration approves a British proposal for a joint Anglo-American operation, code-named Operation Ajax, to overthrow Mossadegh. His toppling becomes a long-standing source of resentment among Iranians toward the U.S.

• 1970: Iran signs the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

• February 1979: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini leads a revolution that ousts the shah and creates the Islamic Republic of Iran. In October, President Jimmy Carter allows the exiled shah into the U.S. for medical treatment.

• Nov. 4, 1979: Iranian students occupy the U.S. embassy. Fifty-two American hostages are held for 444 days in response to Carter's refusal to send the shah back to Iran for trial.

• April 24, 1980: An attempt by U.S. commandos to free hostages ends in failure when helicopter crashes into C-130 transport plane in Iranian desert, killing eight American servicemen.

• July 27, 1980: The shah dies of cancer in Egypt.

• January 1981: Iran releases the American hostages.

• 1986: United States sells arms to Iran in secret deal aimed at helping win release of American hostages held by Shiite militias in Lebanon.

• July 3, 1988: The USS Vincennes in the Gulf mistakenly shoots down an Iranian commercial jet, killing 290 passengers and crew.

• June 3, 1989: Ayatollah Khomeini dies just four months after issuing a fatwa, or religious ruling, ordering Muslims to kill British author Salman Rushdie because of his book The Satanic Verses, judged blasphemous to Islam.

• 1995: U.S. imposes oil and trade sanctions on Iran, saying it sponsors terrorism, is seeking to acquire nuclear weapons and is hostile to the Mideast peace process.

• May 1997: Pro-reform cleric Mohammad Khatami wins presidential elections on platform of easing social restrictions and improving ties with West, including United States. Khatami is re-elected in June 2001 but faces mounting pressure from conservatives.

• January 2002: In his State of the Union address, President Bush describes Iran, Iraq and North Korea as "the axis of evil."

• September 2004: Secretary of State Colin Powell says Iran's nuclear program is a growing threat and calls for international sanctions.

• June 2005: Hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is elected president, sealing downfall of reform movement, vows to continue nuclear program, insisting it is peaceful.

• April 2006: Iran announces it has successfully enriched uranium on small scale.

• May 2006: Britain and France, backed by United States, propose Security Council resolution demanding Iran abandon uranium enrichment or face the threat of unspecified further measures, a possible reference to sanctions.

Source: AP via Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2630&ncid=2630&e=12&u=/ap/20060508/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_us_key_moments_1

Oil falls over $1 on Iran letter to Bush

Mon May 8, 9:38 AM ET

Oil fell over $1 on Monday on hopes tension over Iran's nuclear ambition will ease after Tehran made an unprecedented move to contact Washington.

U.S. light crude for June delivery was down $1.10 to $69.10 a barrel by 1330 GMT. London Brent crude fell $1.06 to $69.89 a barrel.

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has written to President Bush, Iranian government spokesman Gholamhossein Elham said.

"In this letter, he has given an analysis of the current world situation, of the root of existing problems and of new ways of getting out of the current vulnerable situation in the world," he said.

The letter is the first publicly announced personal communication from an Iranian Premier to a U.S. President since ties between the two countries were broken after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

The United States has led international action against Iran's nuclear plan, which it says is aimed at building atomic weapons.

Iran says it needs nuclear fuel for civilian use. It has reacted defiantly to the possibility of any U.N. resolution demanding it halt its nuclear program. At the weekend, it reissued a threat to leave the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Analysts were cautious over impact of the letter.

"The news from Iran is certainly bearish, at least immediately anyway. But the extent of how bearish it is going to be depends on the content of the letter, which no one knows as yet," said Tetsu Emori, the chief commodities strategist at Mitsui Bussan Futures.

The price of oil has risen over $8 to date this year as investors worry the Iran dispute may eventually lead to disruption to oil output from OPEC's second largest producer.

But the oil price has fallen $5 from record highs touched two weeks ago after concerns about U.S. gasoline supplies eased last week when motor fuel inventories rose.

BULLISH OUTLOOK

International Energy Agency director Claude Mandil said on Monday he expected oil prices to stay high for at least two to three years because of high global demand and tight supply.

"They (oil companies) have not invested enough for the last 20 years," Mandil said.

"This is a cyclical business. We had low prices in the 1990s, which was unfortunate for investment in future production. We now have accelerating investment, but that will not (see) results overnight," he told reporters in Australia.

Venezuela -- the world's fifth-largest oil exporter -- said it was seeking to boost royalties and income tax on four heavy oil projects that process some 620,000 barrels per day in the Orinoco Belt.

The announcement came less than a week after Bolivia rattled markets by sending troops into oil and gas fields in a surprise nationalization of the country's energy sector.

Source: AP via Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060508/bs_nm/markets_oil_dc

Fighting U.S. might with oil

5/6/2006 5:00:00 PM GMT

Despite numerous assurances by U.S. intelligence sources that Iran needs another 10 years before having nuclear weapons, media reports over the past couple of months all suggested that the U.S. is planning or actually finalizing plans to strike Iran.

On top of those reports was Seymour Hersh’s last month article on The New Yorker, in which he asserted that the U.S. government is planning to massively bomb Iran, as well as using nuclear bunker-busting bombs to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities and development sites.

An editorial published Saturday on Bloomberg’s website suggested that Iran could be readying plans to respond to a possible U.S. strike targeting its nuclear installations by using its strong position in world's oil markets.

“They will not allow us to limit the conflict to `tit for tat' -- us hitting their nuclear facilities, and they restricted to hitting deployed American military,'' Michael Eisenstadt, an Iran expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former Central Command analyst said in an interview.

In case the U.S. decides to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities to force it suspend its nuclear program, Tehran might consider choking off oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, and thus trigger a market disruption that would force America to back off.

However the Iranians hope that current escalation over the Islamic republic’s nuclear activities doesn’t end up with nuclear confrontation, for the devastation such war could bring to both nations, the U.S., Iran, as well as neighbouring states.

It’s noteworthy that about one-fifth of the world's oil consumption, 17 mln barrels, is shipped through the strait every day.

But using the oil rich country’s influence over oil markets would be just a part of a broader retaliation plan that would also include attacks against U.S. military bases and interests in Iraq and worldwide, the analyst added.

In a written statement to the House Armed Services Committee on March 15, top U.S. commander in the Middle East, General John Abizaid warned against Iranian plans involving expanding naval bases along its shoreline.

He also warned that Iran possess ``large quantities'' of small, fast- attack ships, many armed with torpedoes and Chinese-made high- speed missiles capable of firing from 10,000 yards.

President Bush has repetitively claimed that his administration prefers to solve the Iranian crisis using diplomacy, while on the other hand, he, and many officials at his government, warned that the military option could be used to forcefully stop Iran from pursuing nuclear technology, although it’s a signatory of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.

According to intelligence sources cited by many news reports, the U.S. Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency; the CIA, are examining the possible targets that would be hit in case of a military operation against Iran. Such targets would include the facility at Natanz and the facility for enriching uranium at Isfahan.

Earlier this month, John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations told Congress that what he called “diplomatic efforts” had so far been frustrated by Iran's “clout as the world's fourth-largest oil supplier.”

"The Iranians have been very effective at deploying their oil and natural-gas resources to apply leverage against countries to protect themselves from precisely this kind of pressure, in the case of countries with large and growing energy demands like India, China and Japan,'' Bolton said.

Also Ali Larijani, Iran's top nuclear negotiator, was recently quoted as saying that Tehran could be provoked to cut its oil exports as a result of the mounting pressure over its nuclear activities.

Amid nagging concern that Iran, a key exporter, could cut oil supplies because of international pressure, oil prices rose by 17% over the past two months, reaching $72, which reflects the potential impact disruption of Iran’s oil exports would have the next six to 18 months, said Jamal Qureshi, lead oil industry analyst for PFC Energy, a risk-analysis firm in Washington.

Even with that, a military conflict would shock the system so "you'd very likely get a quick spike that could very easily go to $100 a barrel,'' until the U.S. releases oil from its strategic reserve, Qureshi said in an interview.

”It could get messy real quick.''

Even if Iran can't block the strait, said Kenneth Katzman, a terrorism and Middle East analyst for the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, it "can create a sense of crisis to drive up the price of oil, and presumably'' the nations that consume all that oil "would pressure the U.S. to stand down or shrink from confrontation or end it quickly'.'

Iran supplies China with 4% of its oil; France, 7%; Korea, 9%; Japan, 10%; Italy, 11%; Belgium, 14%; Turkey, 22%; and Greece, 24%, according to Clifford Kupchan, a director of the Eurasia Group in Washington, a global risk-consulting group.

These figures "tell me that Iran for the foreseeable future will have considerable 'petro-influence' over prospective U.S. allies,'' Kupchan added.

Last week, Iran's deputy oil minister, M. H. Nejad Hosseinian, was quoted as saying that crude oil prices, currently about 40 per cent higher than a year ago, are expected to hit $100 a barrel this winter as demand outpaces supply.

But prices are still about 20 per cent below the records reached in 1981, when supplies became tight after a revolution in Iran and a war between Iraq and Iran.


Source: Al Jazeera Magazine
http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=11370