Haditha: Massacre and cover-up?

By Martin Asser
BBC News

Haditha is an agricultural community of about 90,000 inhabitants on the banks of the Euphrates north-west of Baghdad.

It lies in the huge western province of Anbar, which has been the heartland of the insurgency since US troops led the invasion of Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein in 2003.

It is a dangerous place for the US marines who control this part of Iraq and for the inhabitants, caught between insurgents and American troops.

See differing accounts of Haditha deaths

On the morning of 19 November 2005, the Subhani neighbourhood was the scene of an event that has become like the pulse of the insurgency - a roadside bomb targeting a US military patrol.

It killed 20-year-old Lance Corp Miguel (TJ) Terrazas, driving one of four humvee vehicles in the patrol, and injured two other marines.

A simple US military statement hinted at the bloody chain of events which the attack started - though subsequent scrutiny showed it to be far from the truth.

It said: "A US marine and 15 civilians were killed yesterday from the blast of a roadside bomb in Haditha.

"Immediately following the bombing, gunmen attacked the convoy with small arms fire. Iraqi army soldiers and marines returned fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding another."

Video footage

The tragedy of Haditha may have been left at that - just another statistic of "war-torn" Iraq, a place too dangerous to be reported properly by journalists, where openness is not in the interests of political and military circles, and the sheer scale of death numbs the senses.

However, a day after the incident, local journalist Taher Thabet got his video camera out and filmed scenes that - whatever they were - were not the aftermath of a roadside bomb.

The bodies of women and children, still in their nightclothes; interior walls and ceilings peppered with bullet holes; bloodstains on the floor.

Mr Thabet's tape prompted an investigation by the Iraqi human rights group Hammurabi, which passed details onto the US weekly magazine Time in January.

Before publishing its account on 19 March, the magazine passed the tape to US military commanders in Baghdad, who initiated a preliminary investigation.

Following their findings, the official version was changed to say that, after the roadside bomb, the 15 civilians had been accidentally shot by marines during a firefight with insurgents.

Nevertheless, on 9 March the top commanders in Baghdad began a criminal investigation, led by the Naval Criminal Investigation Service (NCIS). Its report is expected within days.

On 7 April three officers in charge of troops in Haditha were also stripped of their command and reassigned.

Pretended to die

Eyewitness accounts suggest that comrades of Lance Corp Terrazas, far from coming under enemy fire, went on the rampage in Haditha after his death.

Twelve-year-old Safa Younis appears in a Hammurabi video saying she was in one of three houses where troops came in and indiscriminately killed family members.

"They knocked at our front door and my father went to open it. They shot him dead from behind the door and then they shot him again," she says in the video.

"Then one American soldier came in and shot at us all. I pretended to be dead and he didn't notice me."

Hammurabi says eight people died in the house, including Safa's five siblings, aged between 14 and two.

In another house seven people including a child and his 70-year-old grandfather were killed. Four brothers aged 41 to 24 died in a third house. Eyewitnesses said they were forced into a wardrobe and shot.

Outside in the street, US troops are said to have gunned down four students and a taxi driver they had stopped at a roadblock set up after the bombing.

Damage

The Pentagon has said little about the Haditha deaths publicly, and in Iraq the incident has caused little controversy - US troops there are already routinely viewed as trigger happy and indifferent to Iraqi casualties.

But politicians in Washington who have been briefed on the military investigation say it backs the story that marines killed civilians in cold blood.

The chairman of the Senate armed services committee, John Warner, says it will hold hearings into the incident and how it was handled.

Media commentators have spoken of it as "Iraq's My Lai" - a reference to the 1968 massacre of 500 villagers in Vietnam.

Democrat congressman John Murtha, a former marine and war veteran, has said the Haditha incident could turn out to be an even bigger scandal than the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal.

The Marine Corps has responded to Mr Murtha by saying it would be inappropriate to comment on an ongoing investigation, but would do so "as soon as the facts are known and decisions on future actions are made".

1) Marine Lance Corp Miguel Terrazas dies in attack on US convoy. 2) US military initially says bomb also killed 15 Iraqi civilians. 3) Eight insurgents killed after attacking convoy. US later says the 15 civilians were not killed by bomb, but shot accidentally in battle.

1) Marine Lance Corp Miguel Terrazas dies in bomb attack on convoy of four Humvees. Troops then "go on rampage". 2) At roadblock, four students and taxi driver killed. 3) Eight people killed in one of three houses. 4) Seven killed in a second house. 5) Four brothers put in wardrobe and shot dead in a third house.

Source: BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5033648.stm

Marine sorry for song about killing Iraqi family

Wed Jun 14, 4:27 PM ET

A Marine seen in an Internet video singing about killing members of an Iraqi family says the song was a joke.

Cpl. Joshua Belile, 23, apologized and said the song was not tied in any way to allegations that Marines killed 24 unarmed civilians in Haditha last year.

"It's a song that I made up and it was nothing more than something supposed to be funny, based off a catchy line of a movie," he said in Wednesday's Daily News of Jacksonville.

In the four-minute video called "Hadji Girl," a singer who appears to be a Marine tells a cheering audience about gunning down members of an Iraqi woman's family after they confront him with automatic weapons.

Maj. Shawn Haney, a Marine spokeswoman, said Wednesday the Marine Corps was looking into the matter. "The video, which was posted anonymously, is clearly inappropriate and contrary to the high standards expected of all Marines," she said in a statement.

Belile did not return a call Wednesday from The Associated Press.

He said his buddies pushed him on stage with his guitar while he was in Iraq in September and someone posted it on the Internet. It has since been removed.

Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the video should be investigated by the Pentagon and Congress.

"We welcome Cpl. Belile's apology," he said.

___

On the Net:

Defense Department: http://www.defenselink.mil

CAIR: http://www.cair.com

Related:
BBC News: Marine sorry for Iraq deaths song

Source: AP via Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060614/ap_on_re_us/iraq_marine_video...

U.S.-trained expert says shell was Israeli

By LAURIE COPANS, Associated Press WriterWed Jun 14, 7:21 PM ET

A U.S.-trained military expert disputed on Wednesday an Israeli claim that it had nothing to do with an explosion that killed eight Palestinian beachgoers in the Gaza Strip last Friday, an incident that has turned a critical spotlight on Israel's military practices.

Israel released results of its own inquiry, which determined that the blast was not caused by a shell fired from Israeli artillery.

But Marc Garlasco, a military expert from New York-based Human Rights Watch, inspected the damage, the shrapnel and the wounds and came to a different conclusion.

"I'm convinced this was from an Israeli shell," Garlasco said Wednesday in a telephone interview. He said the main question still open is where it came from and when — was it fired by an Israeli artillery piece, as Palestinians charge, or was it buried in the sand, either on purpose by militants, as Israel alleges, or left over from an earlier attack?

Garlasco was the first independent expert to examine the scene, though Israel has doubts about his conclusions and about Human Rights Watch. He was in Gaza doing research for the human rights group when the explosion killed eight people on Friday afternoon, seven of them relatives.

Garlasco is a former intelligence specialist battle damage assessment officer for the Pentagon who has studied conflicts in Bosnia and Iraq. He rankled the Israeli government with a highly critical HRW report on destruction of houses in the Rafah refugee camp in Gaza in 2004. Israeli officials consider the human rights group biased in favor of the Palestinians.

Garlasco said he concluded the explosion was caused by a 155 mm shell of the type Israel uses. He viewed shrapnel collected from the scene by a Palestinian ordinance disposal unit, and in X-rays of Palestinians wounded in the blast.

Maj. Gen. Meir Klifi, who headed the Israeli investigation, said tests on the shrapnel removed from the body of a girl in an Israeli hospital proved it was not from a shell.

"I'm sure that all over that beach there is shrapnel," he told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "So no wonder that there is 155 mm shrapnel to be found."

Israeli army spokesman Capt. Jacob Dallal said Wednesday that the beach area is used by militants, so "this is also a battleground. This area is used for terror groups to launch (rockets) on Israel," noting that a rocket was fired from the area on Wednesday.

Garlasco said more work needs to be done before a solid conclusion can be drawn.

Israeli analyst Gerald Steinberg, who heads a watchdog group called NGO Monitor, charged that Garlasco is not a credible expert, and Human Rights Watch officials have "a long and carefully documented history of exploiting human rights claims to promote a clear anti-Israel political and ideological bias."

Source: AP via Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060614/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_blast_probe...

Nine killed in Israeli air strike

Nine Palestinians, including two children, have been killed and up to 20 others hurt in an Israeli air strike in Gaza, witnesses and doctors say.

The Israeli army said it had targeted militants on their way to fire rockets at Israel, saying the vehicle was loaded with Katyusha rocket launchers.

The Islamic Jihad militant group said that some of its members had died in the blast.

The exchange of missile attacks between Gaza and Israel has escalated recently.

Scenes of anger

The BBC's Alan Johnston in Gaza says although Israeli strikes on vehicles travelling through the territory have become familiar, Tuesday's attack resulted in one of the heaviest death tolls.

A BBC reporter counted eight bodies being taken to a morgue, including that of a child. Palestinian sources said a second child was also killed.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of engaging in "state terrorism".

Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz said Israel had so far been showing restraint, but would no longer do so.

Israel says about 100 rockets have been fired from across the Gaza border in the past few days.

After Tuesday's strike a yellow van was left mangled on the main road through the north of Gaza, while pools of blood lay nearby.

Reports said the first strike was followed soon afterwards by another missile, which hit civilians who had gone to the scene of the first blast.

There were scenes of anger as bloodied civilians were taken to hospital.

At the hospital's morgue, angry women shouted: "Death to Israel, death to the occupation!"

An Israeli army statement said the attack was launched at "a vehicle loaded with rockets and carrying a terror cell en route to launch at Israel".

A spokeswoman said that the van was "loaded with Katyushas".

Katyushas have a longer range than the homemade rockets that are usually launched from Gaza.

Witnesses cited by the Reuters news agency said they saw rockets in the back of the yellow van.

Beach blast

The upsurge in violence follows the deaths of eight Palestinians on a beach in Gaza on Friday.

After those deaths, the militant group Hamas, which heads the Palestinian government, said it was breaking off its voluntary truce and launched rockets at Israel.

The beach explosion was initially blamed on Israeli shelling near the area where a family was enjoying a picnic.

However, an Israeli military inquiry is close to deciding Israel was not responsible, media reports say.

Source: BBC NEWS
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/5074798.stm

Islam doesn't preach terrorism

By Wade Hemsworth
The Hamilton Spectator(Jun 12, 2006)

Leaders in Hamilton's Muslim community say the kind of thinking that is alleged to have driven a terrorism plot in Toronto is both shocking and contrary to genuine Islamic ideology.

Although a McMaster University student was among the 17 Canadian Muslims arrested June 2 and 3, the concept of plotting violence against Canadian people and institutions is surprising and repugnant, say two key figures in the community.

Both men, who are well-connected to the community on several levels, say such thinking has not taken root in Hamilton's mosques, nor among more than 1,000 members of the McMaster Muslim Students' Association.

At the same time, they say, the recent developments reinforce the need to remain vigilant and firm, to make sure violent ideas do not find a home in smaller circles.

"I think we need to do a better job, even in Hamilton, to ensure that none of that takes root," said Hussein Hamdani, a lawyer representing the Muslim Association of Hamilton.

"It's a wake-up call to see that no one is immune to this -- to see how we can perhaps minimize such things in the future," said McMaster Muslim Students' Association representative Kareem Mirza.

While there is some significant opposition among Muslims to Canada's participation in Afghanistan and its friendly relations with the U.S. since its action in Iraq, that opposition is civil, when it is expressed at all, Mirza said.

"Nobody is particularly happy about the role that anybody, especially the U.S. or even Canada as a supporter, is playing in Afghanistan or Iraq, but we do recognize that Canada is a peacekeeping nation, and as Canadians we're all proud of that. We are Muslims, but we are Canadian Muslims. This is our home," he explained.

"This, honestly, comes as something that's shocking and surprising -- these allegations of hate literature, these allegations of terrorism pods, these allegations of beheading the prime minister."

Since 9/11, most Muslims are reluctant even to discuss international politics in public, Mirza said. They fear they will be misinterpreted or falsely accused of being unpatriotic.

"Especially post-9/11, if you look into the Muslim community itself, most people are scared to get involved politically," he said.

Hamdani said there needs to be two elements present for the kind of thinking that could generate a plot against Canadian people or institutions.

The first, he said, is psychological. It requires a victim mentality and a deep sense of disenfranchisement.

The second is theological. It's a literal, puritanical interpretation of Islam, an outlook that has developed only in the past 150 years, he said, and is most prevalent in the Arabian Peninsula.

"It's so foreign to Islamic history. This puritanical, literalist ideology is something that is new and foreign to Muslim societies," he said. "It's not something that's found in traditional Muslim societies."

While some Hamilton Muslims may take such an approach to Islam, they are not violent, nor do they support violence, Hamdani said.

"I do think there should be greater emphasis put on the historic, holistic teaching of Islam, which is much more spiritual, much more tolerant, much more merciful than what many of these people understand it to be," he said.

Hamdani said that danger arises if the puritanical thinking and the disenfranchisement are allowed to blend together and ferment.

"We need to look at what the root causes were for them to think this way, to ensure that this doesn't happen to other youths in the future, but let's not paint 750,000 Muslims in Canada, or 20,000 Muslims in Hamilton with the same brush. Let's not create more walls of intolerance and separation between ourselves."

Source: The Hamilton Spectator
http://www.hamiltonspectator.com/...rticle&cid=1150064107847&call_pageid

Beheaded man's father: Revenge breeds revenge

Michael Berg talks about the death of his son and al-Zarqawi

The U.S.-led coalition's No. 1 wanted man in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- who conducted a campaign of insurgency bombings, beheadings and killings of Americans and Iraqi civilians -- was killed in a U.S. airstrike.

A gruesome video was posted on Islamic Web sites in May, 2004, depicting a man believed to be al-Zarqawi beheading Nicholas Berg, an American businessman who was working in Iraq.

CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien talks to Nicholas Berg's father, Michael Berg, by phone from Wilmington, Delaware, for his reaction to the news.

O'BRIEN: Mr. Berg, thank you for talking with us again. It's nice to have an opportunity to talk to you. Of course, I'm curious to know your reaction, as it is now confirmed that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the man who is widely credited and blamed for killing your son, Nicholas, is dead.

MICHAEL BERG: Well, my reaction is I'm sorry whenever any human being dies. Zarqawi is a human being. He has a family who are reacting just as my family reacted when Nick was killed, and I feel bad for that. (Watch Berg compare Zarqawi to President Bush -- 1:44)

I feel doubly bad, though, because Zarqawi is also a political figure, and his death will re-ignite yet another wave of revenge, and revenge is something that I do not follow, that I do want ask for, that I do not wish for against anybody. And it can't end the cycle. As long as people use violence to combat violence, we will always have violence.

O'BRIEN: I have to say, sir, I'm surprised. I know how devastated you and your family were, frankly, when Nick was killed in such a horrible, and brutal and public way.

BERG: Well, you shouldn't be surprised, because I have never indicated anything but forgiveness and peace in any interview on the air.

O'BRIEN: No, no. And we have spoken before, and I'm well aware of that. But at some point, one would think, is there a moment when you say, 'I'm glad he's dead, the man who killed my son'?

BERG: No. How can a human being be glad that another human being is dead?

O'BRIEN: There have been family members who have weighed in, victims, who've said that they don't think he's a martyr in heaven, that they think, frankly, he went straight to hell ...

You know, you talked about the fact that he's become a political figure. Are you concerned that he becomes a martyr and a hero and, in fact, invigorates the insurgency in Iraq?

BERG: Of course. When Nick was killed, I felt that I had nothing left to lose. I'm a pacifist, so I wasn't going out murdering people. But I am -- was not a risk-taking person, and yet now I've done things that have endangered me tremendously.

I've been shot at. I've been showed horrible pictures. I've been called all kinds of names and threatened by all kinds of people, and yet I feel that I have nothing left to lose, so I do those things.

Now, take someone who in 1991, who maybe had their family killed by an American bomb, their support system whisked away from them, someone who, instead of being 59, as I was when Nick died, was 5-years-old or 10-years-old. And then if I were that person, might I not learn how to fly a plane into a building or strap a bag of bombs to my back?

That's what is happening every time we kill an Iraqi, every time we kill anyone, we are creating a large number of people who are going to want vengeance. And, you know, when are we ever going to learn that that doesn't work?

O'BRIEN: There's an alternate reading, which would say at some point, Iraqis will say the insurgency is not OK -- that they'll be inspired by the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the sense of he was turned in, for example, we believe by his own No. 2, No. 3 leadership in his ranks.

And, that's actually them saying we do not want this kind of violence in our country. Experts whom we've spoken to this morning have said this is a critical moment where Iraqis need to figure out which direction the country is going to go. That would be an alternate reading to the scenario you're pointing to. (Watch how Iraqi leaders cheered after learning about al-Zarqawi's death -- 4:31)

BERG: Yes, well, I don't believe that scenario, because every time news of new atrocities committed by Americans in Iraq becomes public, more and more of the everyday Iraqi people who tried to hold out, who tried to be peaceful people lose it and join -- what we call the insurgency, and what I call the resistance, against the occupation of one sovereign nation.

O'BRIEN: There's a theory that a struggle for democracy, you know...

BERG: Democracy? Come on, you can't really believe that that's a democracy there when the people who are running the elections are holding guns. That's not democracy.

O'BRIEN: There's a theory that as they try to form some kind of government, that it's going to be brutal, it's going to be bloody, there's going to be loss, and that's the history of many countries -- and that's just what a lot of people pay for what they believe will be better than what they had under Saddam Hussein.

BERG: Well, you know, I'm not saying Saddam Hussein was a good man, but he's no worse than George Bush. Saddam Hussein didn't pull the trigger, didn't commit the rapes. Neither did George Bush. But both men are responsible for them under their reigns of terror.

I don't buy that. Iraq did not have al Qaeda in it. Al Qaeda supposedly killed my son.

Under Saddam Hussein, no al Qaeda. Under George Bush, al Qaeda.

Under Saddam Hussein, relative stability. Under George Bush, instability.

Under Saddam Hussein, about 30,000 deaths a year. Under George Bush, about 60,000 deaths a year. I don't get it. Why is it better to have George Bush the king of Iraq rather than Saddam Hussein?

O'BRIEN: Michael Berg is the father of Nicholas Berg, the young man, the young businessman who was beheaded so brutally in Iraq back in May of 2004.

Source: CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/06/08/berg.interview/

House Backs Telecom Bill Favoring Phone Companies

By STEPHEN LABATON

WASHINGTON, June 8 — The House of Representatives approved the most extensive telecommunications legislation in a decade on Thursday, largely ratifying the policy agenda of the nation's largest telephone companies.

The bill passed by a lopsided vote of 321 to 101.

Supporters of the legislation said it would promote competition and lower costs by enabling the telephone companies to offer bundled packages of video, telephone, broadband, wireless and mobile phone services in new markets. They said the legislation was an important antidote to rapidly rising cable television subscription rates.

But even as the House took up the measure on Thursday, the political action had already swung to the Senate, which has been peppered by lobbyists and executives from many major telecommunications companies in recent days as it prepares to draft its own version. The prospects there are uncertain.

The House bill, sponsored by Representative Joe L. Barton, the Texas Republican who heads the House Energy and Commerce Committee, would make it much easier and cheaper for the phone companies to offer video services across the country by pre-empting the regulatory authority of municipal franchise officials. The telephone companies have been waging an expensive and protracted town-by-town war with their cable rivals, to offer video services.

The legislation would replace the regulatory role of more than 30,000 local franchising authorities with a national system supervised by the Federal Communications Commission. The current process has significantly slowed the ability of companies like Verizon and AT&T (formerly SBC Communications) to challenge the cable and satellite television companies with their own version of video services.

In a concession to the telephone and cable companies, the legislation does nothing to prevent the phone and cable providers from charging Internet content providers a premium for carrying services like video offerings that could rival those of the telecom companies.

Representative Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts and a group of other Democrats sought to amend the legislation to prohibit such practices and thereby, they said, ensure the Internet's vitality. Support for the provision, which backers call "Net neutrality," brought together such competitors as Google and Microsoft.

But the amendment failed by a vote of 269 to 152.

The largest telephone companies did not get everything they sought, however. The legislation threatens to delay any effort by the Federal Communications Commission to require Internet telephone providers to make the investments needed to connect customers to 911 services.

Still, the House bill reflected the considerable clout of the telephone industry in the House, and in particular its ties to the Republican leadership there. Rivals of the phone companies, particularly the cable industry, appear for now to have more important allies in the Senate. And the Senate's rules and customs, unlike those in the House, make it easier for a smaller number of lawmakers to influence and delay legislation.

In the meantime, the flurry of activity is proving to be lucrative on K Street, as every major lobbying firm has been enlisted and campaign coffers are filling with millions of dollars from the telephone, cable, software and high-tech industries trying to shape the legislation. In recent days the phone companies began to run attack ads on television and in local newspapers against Google over its "Net neutrality" stand.

The legislative calendar leaves little time for the two chambers of Congress to reach a final agreement on a telecommunications bill as ambitious as the one considered by the House. But some executives predicted a narrower one could stand a better chance of final passage.

The White House issued a statement on Thursday supporting the House legislation, saying it would "promote competition in both video and voice markets."

Representative Fred Upton, the Michigan Republican who heads a telecommunications and Internet subcommittee and is a co-sponsor of the measure, said it would bring "deregulatory parity" and that "for the consumers that have these services, it probably will mean a reduction of about $30 to $40 a month."

House Democrats raised several objections to the legislation. They said the new national franchise rules would sharply reduce the amount of money that cable companies now give towns and cities for public, educational and government programs. They said the failure to include build-out requirements for the telephone companies for their new video services would mean that people living in less affluent neighborhoods would be unlikely to see the benefits of any new competition for broadband and subscription television services.

But most of the criticism was over the bill's failure to include a provision that would prevent the cable and phone companies from charging the content providers for offering premium, or faster, Internet services.

The critics say that such a provision is vital to protect the free-wheeling architecture of the Internet. They also say it is necessary to prevent the telephone and cable companies, which are increasingly going into the content business, from favoring their own products over those of others. If the telephone companies can charge more to particular content providers, the critics say, the telephone and cable companies will ultimately offer broadband services that more closely resemble television services, with more limited choices than those now available on the Internet.

"The imposition of additional fees for Internet content providers would unduly burden Web-based small businesses and start-ups," said Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader. "They would also hamper communications by noncommercial users, those using religious speech, promoting civic involvement and exercising First Amendment freedoms."

The legislation gives the Federal Communications Commission the authority to enforce a year-old broadband policy statement that provides consumers access to the lawful Internet content of their choice. Those favoring the Markey amendment said that the commission's antidiscrimination principle was inadequate to ensure that content providers would not, in effect, be blocked if the telephone companies begin to require companies like Google and their smaller rivals to pay for premium services.

The phone companies and their Congressional allies say that such restrictions are both unnecessary and would discourage investment in upgrading networks. They also say that the legislation goes far enough to protect consumers. And they say that as there is increasing competition for broadband services, it would be impossible for a phone or cable company to be competitive by blocking or limiting Internet choices.

"A free and open Internet is crucial to formulating an effective policy," said Representative Clifford B. Stearns, a Florida Republican who is a co-sponsor of the bill. "For now, strict strong enforcement provisions that are in the bill are a tough deterrent to discrimination."

Source: NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/09/washington/09telecom.html

Related: Democracry Now!
House Passes Controversial COPE Telecom Bill, Rejects Amendment to Protect Net Neutrality

Pakistan to restore ten gurdwaras

SHAHEEDI DIWAS Z 7,000 PILGRIMS ALLOWED FOR 400TH MARTYRDOM OF GURU ARJAN DEV

‘Pak PM Sahaukat Aziz will release a postal stamp marking the ‘Shaheedi Diwas’ on June 15’
Sanjeev Chopra

Patiala, June 2: Deciding to participate in a Sikh religious function for the first time ever by observing the 400th anniversary of the martyrdom of Guru Arjan Dev later this month, the Pakistan government has said that it would restore ten closed gurdwaras in Pakistan. These include Gurdwara Dera Sahib in Lahore, where Guru Arjan Dev gave his ‘shaheedi’.

The restoration would be done through the Pakistan Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee. Disclosing this to chairman of the International Bhai Mardana Kirtan Darbar Society Harpal Singh Bhullar, PGPC president Bishan Singh said the Pakistan government would be releasing a postal stamp marking the ‘Shaheedi Diwas’ of Guru Arjan Dev on June 15. Pakistan PM Sahaukat Aziz would release the stamp.

PGPC president Sham Singh said the Pakistan government has allowed as many as 7,000 pilgrims from India to participate in the function in Lahore for which Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has also been invited.

Incidentally, the Pakistan government had earlier allowed 10,000 pilgrims, but later reduced the number to 5,000, which now been increased to 7,000.

Bhullar said the president of the reception committee of the PGPC, Sham Singh, who is organising the ‘Shaheedi Diwas’ with the help of the Pakistani government, disclosed that Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz would also host a reception on June 15 evening for a select pilgrims.

The ‘Shaheedi Diwas’ would be spread over ten days— from June 13 to 22— as against a weeklong function proposed earlier.

A seminar on Sikh history and historical sites would also be held in Lahore on June 14, where 300 pilgrims from the Bhai Mardana Society would participate, along with hundreds of other pilgrims.

Source: Express India
http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=185869

Israel building new illegal West Bank settlement

By LAURIE COPANS,
Associated Press Writer1 hour, 19 minutes ago

Israel has begun laying the foundations for a new Jewish settlement deep in the West Bank — breaking a promise to Washington while strengthening its hold on a stretch of desert it wants to keep as it draws its final borders.

The construction of Maskiot comes at a time when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert seeks U.S. backing for eventually annexing parts of the West Bank as part of a plan to set Israel's eastern border with or without Palestinian consent.

The Palestinians and Israel's settlement watchdog group Peace Now say the Maskiot construction amounts to a new attempt to push Israel's future border deeper into the West Bank. "It's about grabbing land," said Yariv Oppenheimer of Peace Now.

Otniel Schneller, an Olmert adviser, confirmed Israel is building in additional West Bank areas to ensure they are not included in the lands given to the Palestinians. He said Israel needs to keep the Jordan Valley, where Maskiot is located, as a security buffer against Islamic militants based in Iraq, Iran and elsewhere.

Olmert has said that if efforts to resume peace talks fail, as expected, he would annex large Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank and draw Israel's final borders by 2008. A separation barrier Israel is building in the West Bank is to serve as the basis for the future border.

In order to ensure a Jewish majority in lands it controls, Israel plans to evacuate as many as 70,000 West Bank settlers, relocating them to the western side of the separation barrier. Israel depicts the move as a major concession, but Palestinians fear Jewish footholds like Maskiot will prevent them from being able to build a contiguous state on the evacuated lands.

Maskiot would initially house 20 families, all former Gaza settlers forced out of their homes when Israel withdrew from the coastal strip last year. Israel has promised Washington it would not build new settlements in the West Bank.

The future residents of Maskiot say their homes are being financed by right-leaning Jewish donors and the Israeli government, and that they will be renting homes built by others.

Asked about Maskiot, Stewart Tuttle, the U.S. Embassy spokesman in Tel Aviv, said such settlement activity violates U.S. policy. "As a general principle, the U.S. government is opposed to settlement expansion," Tuttle said. "Ceasing settlement expansion is one of Israel's commitments under the road map."

At Maskiot, bulldozers have cleared the top of a hill and work crews have laid foundations for four houses. New trees have been planted on the edges of the settlement.

The first 20 families, all from the former Gaza settlement outpost of Shirat Hayam, are expected to move there in coming weeks, said regional settler leader Dubi Tal.

The Kinarti family from Shirat Hayam has moved into a temporary concrete block home in Maskiot. A knock on the door produced a man with a large skullcap who refused to comment on the construction of his new home but said he's originally from Shirat Hayam.

Another future Maskiot resident, Yossi Hazut, said he was settling in the Jordan Valley to help determine the borders of the state of Israel.

"I don't think there is even one Israeli who thinks that the Jordan Valley is not important," said Hazut, who is living in a nearby community until his house is ready. "God willing, many of us from Shirat Hayam will live in Maskiot."

Schneller, an architect of Olmert's West Bank plan, said Israel could move the separation barrier deeper into the West Bank to include Maskiot on the Israeli side.

Israel's Defense Ministry, which oversees settlement activity, confirmed it decided before Israel's March election to approve the construction of Maskiot.

The defense minister, Amir Peretz, has not tried to derail these plans, defense officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to the press. Peretz, leader of the Labor Party, is seen as a leading opponent of settlement expansion, but apparently wants to avoid stirring up too many conflicts in Olmert's coalition government.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Israel will eventually have to decide whether it wants to build more settlements or reach a peace agreement. "Every settlement is meant to take Palestinian land and meant to undermine a two-state solution," he said.

Source: AP via Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060602/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_new_settlement

US probe finds Haditha victims were shot: report

1 hour, 49 minutes ago

U.S. military officials say the killing of 24 civilians in the Iraqi town of Haditha in November appears to have been an unprovoked attack by U.S. Marines, after an investigation found the victims died of gunshot wounds, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.

The findings of the investigation contradicted Marines' claims that the civilians were victims of a roadside bomb, the newspaper said.

The Times report, citing an unidentified senior military official in Iraq, said the investigation in February and March led by Col. Gregory Watt, an Army officer in Baghdad, uncovered death certificates showing the Iraqis were shot mostly in the head and chest.

The three-week probe was the first official investigation into the killings.

"There were enough inconsistencies that things didn't add up," the senior official was quoted as saying by the Times.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, had been briefed on the conclusion of Watt's preliminary investigation, the newspaper said. The findings have not been made public.

In an interview with CNN, new Iraqi ambassador to the United States Samir al-Sumaidaie said there appeared to have been other killings of civilians by Marines in Haditha, where some of his family lives.

The ambassador said Marines shot and killed his cousin during a house-to-house search several months before the November incident.

"I believe he was killed intentionally. I believe that he was killed unnecessarily," al-Sumaidaie said.

He said three other unarmed youths were shot dead by Marines in a later incident in the area.

"They were in a car, they were unarmed, I believe, and they were shot."

Watt's investigation also reviewed cash payments totaling $38,000 made within weeks of the November shootings to families of victims, The New York Times said.

In an interview with the newspaper on Tuesday, Maj. Dana Hyatt said his superiors told him to compensate the relatives of 15 victims, but the other dead civilians had been determined to have committed hostile acts, leaving their families ineligible for compensation.

The U.S. military sometimes pays compensation to relatives of civilian victims.

Residents of Haditha, 200 km (125 miles) northwest of Baghdad in an area that has seen much activity by Sunni Arab insurgents, have told Reuters that U.S. Marines attacked houses after their patrol was hit by a roadside bomb.

On November 20, U.S. Marines spokesman Captain Jeffrey Pool issued a statement saying that, on the previous day, a roadside bomb had killed 15 civilians and a Marine. In a later gunbattle, U.S. and Iraqi troops had killed eight insurgents, he added.

U.S. military officials have since confirmed to Reuters that that version of the events of November 19 was wrong and that the 15 civilians were not killed by the blast but were shot dead.

Source: AP via Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060531/ts_nm/iraq_usa_haditha_dc...

U.S. policy was to shoot Korean refugees

By CHARLES J. HANLEY and MARTHA MENDOZA,
Associated Press WritersMon May 29, 2:44 PM ET

More than a half-century after hostilities ended in Korea, a document from the war's chaotic early days has come to light — a letter from the U.S. ambassador to Seoul, informing the State Department that American soldiers would shoot refugees approaching their lines.

The letter — dated the day of the Army's mass killing of South Korean refugees at No Gun Ri in 1950 — is the strongest indication yet that such a policy existed for all U.S. forces in Korea, and the first evidence that that policy was known to upper ranks of the U.S. government.

"If refugees do appear from north of US lines they will receive warning shots, and if they then persist in advancing they will be shot," wrote Ambassador John J. Muccio, in his message to Assistant Secretary of State Dean Rusk.

The letter reported on decisions made at a high-level meeting in South Korea on July 25, 1950, the night before the 7th U.S. Cavalry Regiment shot the refugees at No Gun Ri.

Estimates vary on the number of dead at No Gun Ri. American soldiers' estimates ranged from under 100 to "hundreds" dead; Korean survivors say about 400, mostly women and children, were killed at the village 100 miles southeast of Seoul, the South Korean capital. Hundreds more refugees were killed in later, similar episodes, survivors say.

The No Gun Ri killings were documented in a Pulitzer Prize-winning story by The Associated Press in 1999, which prompted a 16-month Pentagon inquiry.

The Pentagon concluded that the No Gun Ri shootings, which lasted three days, were "an unfortunate tragedy" — "not a deliberate killing." It suggested panicky soldiers, acting without orders, opened fire because they feared that an approaching line of families, baggage and farm animals concealed enemy troops.

But Muccio's letter indicates the actions of the 7th Cavalry were consistent with policy, adopted because of concern that North Koreans would infiltrate via refugee columns. And in subsequent months, U.S. commanders repeatedly ordered refugees shot, documents show.

The Muccio letter, declassified in 1982, is discussed in a new book by American historian Sahr Conway-Lanz, who discovered the document at the U.S. National Archives, where the AP also has obtained a copy.

Conway-Lanz, a former Harvard historian and now an archivist of the National Archives' Nixon collection, was awarded the Stuart L. Bernath Award of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations for the article on which the book is based.

"With this additional piece of evidence, the Pentagon report's interpretation (of No Gun Ri) becomes difficult to sustain," Conway-Lanz argues in his book, "Collateral Damage," published this spring by Routledge.

The Army report's own list of sources for the 1999-2001 investigation shows its researchers reviewed the microfilm containing the Muccio letter. But the 300-page report did not mention it.

Asked about this, Pentagon spokeswoman Betsy Weiner would say only that the Army inspector general's report was "an accurate and objective portrayal of the available facts based on 13 months of work."

Said Louis Caldera, who was Army secretary in 2001 and is now University of New Mexico president, "Millions of pages of files were reviewed and it is certainly possible they may have simply missed it."

Ex-journalist Don Oberdorfer, a historian of Korea who served on a team of outside experts who reviewed the investigation, said he did not recall seeing the Muccio message. "I don't know why, since the military claimed to have combed all records from any source."

Muccio noted in his 1950 letter that U.S. commanders feared disguised North Korean soldiers were infiltrating American lines via refugee columns.

As a result, those meeting on the night of July 25, 1950 — top staff officers of the U.S. 8th Army, Muccio's representative Harold J. Noble and South Korean officials — decided on a policy of air-dropping leaflets telling South Korean civilians not to head south toward U.S. defense lines, and of shooting them if they did approach U.S. lines despite warning shots, the ambassador wrote to Rusk.

Rusk, Muccio and Noble, who was embassy first secretary, are all dead. It is not known what action, if any, Rusk and others in Washington may have taken as a result of the letter.

Muccio told Rusk, who later served as U.S. secretary of state during the Vietnam War, that he was writing him "in view of the possibility of repercussions in the United States" from such deadly U.S. tactics.

But the No Gun Ri killings — as well as others in the ensuing months — remained hidden from history until the AP report of 1999, in which ex-soldiers who were at No Gun Ri corroborated the Korean survivors' accounts.

Survivors said U.S. soldiers first forced them from nearby villages on July 25, 1950, and then stopped them in front of U.S. lines the next day, when they were attacked without warning by aircraft as hundreds sat atop a railroad embankment. Troops of the 7th Cavalry followed with ground fire as survivors took shelter under a railroad bridge.

The late Army Col. Robert M. Carroll, a lieutenant at No Gun Ri, said he remembered the order radioed across the warfront on the morning of July 26 to stop refugees from crossing battle lines. "What do you do when you're told nobody comes through?" he said in a 1998 interview. "We had to shoot them to hold them back."

Other soldier witnesses attested to radioed orders to open fire at No Gun Ri.

Since that episode was confirmed in 1999, South Koreans have lodged complaints with the Seoul government about more than 60 other alleged large-scale killings of refugees by the U.S. military in the 1950-53 war.

The Army report of 2001 acknowledged investigators learned of other, unspecified civilian killings, but said these would not be investigated.

Meanwhile, AP research uncovered at least 19 declassified U.S. military documents showing commanders ordered or authorized such killings in 1950-51.

In a statement issued Monday in Seoul, a No Gun Ri survivors group called that episode "a clear war crime," demanded an apology and compensation from the U.S. government, and said the U.S. Congress and the United Nations should conduct investigations. The survivors also said they would file a lawsuit against the Pentagon for alleged manipulation of the earlier probe.

The Army's denial that the killings were ordered is a "deception of No Gun Ri victims and of U.S. citizens who value human rights," said spokesman Chung Koo-do.

Even if infiltrators are present, soldiers need to take "due precautions" to protect civilian lives, said Francois Bugnion, director for international law for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva, global authority on the laws of war.

After reviewing the 1950 letter, Bugnion said the standard on war crimes is clear.

"In the case of a deliberate attack directed against civilians identified as such, then this would amount to a violation of the law of armed conflict," he said.

Gary Solis, a West Point expert on war crimes, said the policy described by Muccio clearly "deviates from typical wartime procedures. It's an obvious violation of the bedrock core principle of the law of armed conflict — distinction."

Solis said soldiers always have the right to defend themselves. But "noncombatants are not to be purposely targeted."

But William Eckhardt, lead Army prosecutor in the My Lai atrocities case in Vietnam, sensed "angst, great angst" in the letter because officials worried about what might happen. "If a mob doesn't stop when they're coming at you, you fire over their heads and if they still don't stop you fire at them. Standard procedure," he said.

In South Korea, Yi Mahn-yol, head of the National Institute of Korean History and a member of a government panel on No Gun Ri, said the Muccio letter sheds an entirely new light on a case that "so far has been presented as an accidental incident that didn't involve the command system."

___

AP Investigative Researcher Randy Herschaft in New York and AP Writer Jae-soon Chang in Seoul contributed to this report.

Source: AP via Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060529/ap_on_re_as/no_gun_ri_letter...

John Allen Muhammad jury to weigh conspiracy theory

By STEPHEN MANNING,
Associated Press WriterMon May 29, 5:26 PM ET

Early in his closing argument, John Allen Muhammad laid out the heart of his defense against six murder charges for the 2002 sniper shootings in the Washington area: He and accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo were framed.

"My case is based on one thing. It is very simple. They lied on two innocent men," Muhammad said Friday, before launching into a rambling speech in which he claimed that government agencies conspired to falsely imprison him and that most of the evidence against him was planted.

As jurors begin their deliberations Tuesday in Muhammad's second trial for the sniper attacks, they will have to weigh Muhammad's conspiracy theory — for which he offered little proof and no motive — against the four weeks of testimony and evidence presented by prosecutors.

Witnesses reported seeing Muhammad and his car near shooting scenes. Forensic experts said his DNA was on evidence that included the rifle found in the car when he and Malvo were arrested. Ballistics experts matched the .223-caliber bullets used in the murders to the rifle.

Jurors also heard dramatic testimony from Malvo, whom Muhammad still referred to as "my son" even though his former protege took the stand to say Muhammad planned and carried out most of the shootings.

Muhammad defended himself, showing that he has learned a lot about lawyering from his time in courts here and in Virginia. He appeared comfortable with courtroom procedure. He cross-examined prosecution witnesses, seizing on inconsistencies as he looked for holes to suggest he was set up.

Prosecutors urged jurors not to be fooled by Muhammad's courtroom demeanor. It was just a facade, an act to cover his murderous plans, Assistant State's Attorney Vivek Chopra said in his closing argument.

"Scrub away that veneer that covers this man and see him for what he is," Chopra said, labeling Muhammad "a heartless, soulless, manipulating murderer."

Ten people were killed and three were wounded during the three weeks of shootings in October 2002. Victims were shot at gas stations and in parking lots, and a 13-year-old boy was struck by a bullet outside a school. People were afraid to pump gas, go out in public or send their children to school.

A Virginia jury convicted Muhammad of one shooting in Manassas, Va., and Malvo was given a life term for another Virginia shooting. Maryland prosecutors say their case is insurance in case Muhammad's Virginia conviction is overturned.

Muhammad and Malvo also are suspected in shootings in Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana and Washington state.

The most riveting witness was Malvo, who testified for two days last week. Malvo called Muhammad "a coward" as he confronted his former father figure, detailing each shooting and describing how Muhammad planned them. Muhammad was the shooter in five of the six Montgomery murders, he said.

Malvo detailed Muhammad's more sinister plans, saying he was about to launch "phase two" when the pair were arrested. Children were to be the principal target of that second phase.

Muhammad challenged Malvo's credibility, pointing out that Malvo first told investigators he was the shooter in each incident, then changed his story later. He suggested Malvo was prone to exaggeration, and noted Malvo had used an insanity defense in his first trial.

Muhammad pleaded with jurors Friday not to believe the case against him.

"These cases are not based on logic," he said, his voice rising. "I call these cases the cow jumping over the moon."

Source: AP via Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060529/ap_on_re_us/sniper_tria...

Gujarat 'bans' new Bollywood film

Cinema owners in Gujarat have refused to show Bollywood actor Aamir Khan's latest film, fearing protests about Khan's criticism of a big dam project.

Fanaa, a film about a romance between a blind girl and a tour guide opened across India on Friday.

The youth arm of the state's ruling party, the BJP, has led protests and asked Khan to withdraw his comments.

Khan had called on the government to adequately compensate people displaced by construction of the Narmada dam.

He has refused to withdraw his comments.

The latest protests against the dam followed a decision to raise its height from 110 to 112 metres.

Aamir Khan added his voice to calls for a halt to construction after Indian environmentalist Medha Patkar launched a hunger strike in April.

Court ruling

The Save Narmada Movement says the state government has failed to provide adequate rehabilitation of the 35,000 people whose villages will be submerged when the dam is constructed.

They asked the courts to halt construction, but earlier this month India's Supreme Court refused to stop the heightening of the dam.

The Sardar Sarovar dam project was initiated by India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, in the 1950s. But it has run into long delays, legal disputes and protests.

Source: BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/5022892.stm

Iraq Veteran Speaks Out On War Crimes

Testimony from a former U.S. Army Ranger

Jessie Macbeth, a Former Army Ranger and Iraq War Veteran Tells All

This 20 minute interview will change how you view the U.S. occupation of Iraq forever. I cannot possibly recommend this more highly. An Iraq war veteran tells of atrocities he and other fellow-soldiers committed reguarly while in Iraq. I have never seen this level of honesty from a U.S. soldier who directly participated in the slaughtering of Iraqis.

Excerpts:

"When we were doing the night raids in the houses, we would pull people out and have them all on their knees and zip-tied. We would ask the man of the house questions. If he didn't answer the way we liked, we would shoot his youngest kid in the head. We would keep going, this was our interrogation. He could be innocent. He could be just an average Joe trying to support his family. If he didn't give us a satisfactory answer, we'd start killing off his family until he told us something. If he didn't know anything, I guess he was SOL."

and

"For not speaking out, I feel like I'm betraying my battle-buddies that died."

Produced by Pepperspray Productions

Judicial Watch September 11 Pentagon Videos

"Defense Department Releases September 11 Pentagon Video to Judicial Watch

Department of Defense Responds to Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act Request and Related Lawsuit

(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that Department of Defense released a videotape to Judicial Watch at 1:00 p.m. this afternoon that shows American Airlines Flight 77 striking the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. The Department of Defense released the videotape in response to a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act request and related lawsuit.

"This is in response to your December 14, 2004 Freedom of Information Act Request, FOIA appeal of March 27, 2005, and complaint filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia," wrote William Kammer, Chief of the Department of Defense, Office of Freedom of Information. "Now that the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui is over, we are able to complete your request and provide the video."

Judicial Watch originally filed a Freedom of Information Act request on December 15, 2004, seeking all records pertaining to September 11, 2001 camera recordings of the Pentagon attack from the Sheraton National Hotel, the Nexcomm/Citgo gas station, Pentagon security cameras and the Virginia Department of Transportation. The Department of Defense admitted in a January 26, 2005 letter that it possessed a videotape responsive to Judicial Watch's request. However, the Pentagon refused to release the videotape because it was, "part of an ongoing investigation involving Zacarias Moussaoui." Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit on February 22, 2006 arguing that there was "no legal basis" for the Defense Department's refusal to release the tape.

"We fought hard to obtain this video because we felt that it was very important to complete the public record with respect to the terrorist attacks of September 11," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

"Finally, we hope that this video will put to rest the conspiracy theories involving American Airlines Flight 77. As always, our prayers remain with all those who suffered as a result of those murderous attacks."

A copy of the video is available on Judicial Watch's Internet site, www.judicialwatch.org.

Judicial Watch a non-partisan, educational foundation organized under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue code. Judicial Watch is dedicated to fighting government and judicial corruption and promoting a return to ethics and morality in our nation's public life."

Judicial Watch September 11 Pentagon Video 1 of 2



Judicial Watch September 11 Pentagon Video 2 of 2

1984 is finally here

President Bush says Americans' privacy is secure despite a massive data mining operation

First published: Sunday, May 14, 2006

Ever since last December, when news reports began to indicate that the government's domestic spying program might be more extensive than originally thought, there was good reason for Americans to fear that their privacy, and basic liberties, were at risk. Now those fears have been justified after an article in Thursday's USA Today described just how extensive the spying is. According to the report, the National Security Agency is attempting to track every phone call made within the U.S. to detect patterns that could suggest terrorist activity. Unlike the NSA's other controversial, and likely illegal spying program -- that is, the warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens' international phone calls and e-mails -- the surveillance is limited to collecting numbers and storing them in a data base. The agency isn't listening in on the contents of the phone calls it is tracking, and only numbers are collected, not names or addresses, although they could easily be retrieved. Nonetheless, the scope of the surveillance is breathtaking, and the willingness of the country's major phone companies -- only Qwest had the courage and principle to refuse to turn over records -- is frightening. It means Americans' phone records can be traced without their knowledge or consent, even though they are not suspected of any wrongdoing, let alone any connection to terrorists. But Mr. Bush, in responding to the latest revelations, assured Americans that their privacy is "fiercely protected in all our activities. Our efforts are focused on al-Qaida and their known associates." That is becoming harder to believe as more information comes out. As an angry Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., put it, "Are you telling me that tens of millions of Americans are involved with al-Qaida?" Mr. Bush's denials are all too typical of a White House that continues to tell the public it can be trusted to use surveillance powers appropriately. In truth, the more citizens learn about the spying, the less reason they have to trust government. That's largely because the full truth about these programs hasn't been told. Instead, it unfolds day to day, month to month. The obvious question that raises is: What else is the government hiding? There's no question that government has an obligation to spy on suspected terrorists who may be operating within the U.S., or contacting U.S. citizens from abroad. But the surveillance must be within the law. That means going to a secret court to obtain warrants before wiretapping phone calls or intercepting e-mails. And it means respecting the privacy of innocent Americans at all times. Regrettably, the Bush administration has been flouting the rules for some time, and Congress has been too meek to challenge it. Perhaps now, with the latest revelations, Congress will find the spine to stand up for basic liberties.

Source: Albany Times Union
http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=...5/14/2006

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...

India struggles with discrimination

Posted 5/7/2006 11:11 PM ET

By Ken Moritsugu, Special for USA TODAY

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

By HARI KUMAR

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

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