Aug. 27 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. government officials will tell North Korea that their country won't invade the communist nation, the Nihon Keizai newspaper said in a dispatch from Beijing.
U.S. delegates, at a meeting beginning today in the Chinese capital, will inform North Korea that the U.S. has no intention of staging an attack. The U.S. won't provide a written guarantee until North Korea shows willingness to abandon its nuclear weapons program, the paper said.
The U.S. negotiators disclosed the plan at a meeting last night with Japanese and South Korean officials, the Japanese daily reported, citing unidentified people involved in the talks.
China and Russia are also participating in the three-day discussion, which is aimed at persuading North Korea to give up its weapons program. Any economic assistance to the impoverished country won't be offered until the country agrees to do so, the newspaper said.
More:
Afghan Taliban a Growing Menace to Stability
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Operating in growing numbers, the Taliban and their allies have succeeded in destabilizing large parts of Afghanistan and creating conditions that could undermine the U.S. military and central government.
Aid and reconstruction is suspended across swathes of territory in the center, south and southeast, giving Afghans the impression the international community has abandoned them now the Taliban has been formally ousted.
"Once people are discouraged, that is the point of success for them, as no one will collaborate (with the authorities)," said Khalid Pashtun, director of foreign affairs in the south of the country.
Local power brokers are also behind lawlessness in southern and central provinces, further tarnishing the image of U.S. forces in the people's already skeptical eyes.
(from Reuters)PRAGUE, Aug. 26 — German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer warned European countries on Tuesday not to tamper with the continent's proposed constitution unless they make sure they can find a better deal for all.
Says another group on women's rights:
WASHINGTON, Aug. 26 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Feminist activists held a press conference today to grade the President on their version of Global Women's Issues -- such as U.S. assistance to Afghan and Iraqi women, the CEDAW treaty and international family planning.
Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse, senior fellow of CWA's Beverly LaHaye Institute: A Center for Studies in Women's Issues, said, "As the nation's largest public policy women's organization, CWA gives this Administration highest marks for holding firm to pro-women, pro-family, pro-life and pro-marriage policies. Instead of exhibiting cultural arrogance by funding forced abortions, condom distribution programs, and exporting the radical feminist agenda, the Bush Administration is concentrating on providing helpful services abroad."
For more, see:
. . . and be sure to see the other post on this topic with the opposing point of view.
Says one set of women's rights groups:
The groups selected issues important to women globally and rated the Bush administration's rhetoric on the issues, as well as the current reality. For example, the Bush administration received a "B" on its rhetoric about Afghan women, but received an "F" for the reality. "A year ago President Bush declared that women's rights had been restored in Afghanistan and that girls had returned to school," said Smeal. "Last week we learned that because of the worsening security situation in the country more girls' schools have been set on fire by fundamentalist extremists. Because the Bush Administration refuses to support expansion of international peace troops beyond Kabul, girls' schools are under attack, regional warlords are able to impose Taliban-like restrictions, people who speak out for women's rights and human rights receive threats, and many women still wear the burqa out of fear." The administration received incompletes for both rhetoric and reality on the passage of the Convention to End all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the International Women's Rights treaty, because of its inaction on the issue. Last summer, the 1979 treaty passed for the first time out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but it has not yet been brought up for a vote by the full Senate. If there was a vote, says Smeal, CEDAW would pass. "What Senator in what year wants to go down in history being opposed to basic equality for women?" she said.
For more see go to the following:
. . . but also see the companion posting on this issue which gives an opposing point of view.
Peasants bear the brunt of China's energy plans By Jasper Becker
All along China's Yangtze River, the last residents have been cleared from the hundreds of towns and villages that will be submerged in perhaps the largest hydropower project ever attempted. All along the 600-kilometer stretch of the Yangtze up to Chongqing city, thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, are refusing to leave.
They are being forced out in deference to China's plans to double its hydropower by 2010. China is preparing to build at least two other dams of equal size to Three Gorges on the Yangtze. Altogether, Beijing intends to invest 300 billion yuan (US$36.2 billion) in new dams, mostly in Yunnan and Sichuan provinces.
This is a staggering ambition for a country that is already home to most of the world's big dams. Of the 45,000 large dams in the world, 22,104 are in China; 6,390 are in the United States and just over 4,000 in India. In a dictatorship run by engineers, in particular hydropower engineers such as Communist Party leader Hu Jintao and the longtime No 2 in the Party, Li Peng, few critics dare to point out that this policy is causing irrevocable harm, not just to China but to the rest of the world.
China is planning a series of giant dam cascades across rivers such as the Mekong, the Salween and the Bramaputra that are vital to the prosperity of Southeast Asia. If as a result these rivers end up disappearing like the Yellow, the Huai or the Hai in China, the consequences will be incalculable. The mismanagement of northern China's water resources is already visible in the dust storms blowing out of China each year to arrive in Seoul or Tokyo in a dangerous choking and blinding miasma. Gobi dust from continuing desertification has even been deposited on the east coast of the United States.
Hydropower enthusiasts say that if China does not keep building dams at a furious rate, tripling capacity from 60 gigawatts to 171GW by 2020, it will be forced to burn more coal, with dire consequences for the world's atmosphere.
The consequences to China's people are dire enough. The towns along the Three Gorges look as if they have been carpet-bombed. More than 1.8 million people have been removed to make way for the Three Gorges Dam reservoir. As if in some scene from World War II, bands of scavengers now wander like homeless refugees amid the piles of gray bricks, stooping to pick up bits of wiring or wood.
Some scrap merchants specialize in iron and copper, but others have collected doors or window frames, so the traveler climbs up from the ferry boats through a strange market of bric-a-brac, past half-ruined houses where some inhabitants linger on like crazed outcasts in some post-apocalypse movie.
High above old towns such as Fengjie, blocks of new housing can be glimpsed, painted in breezy pastel colors. Those hanging on below are dubbed "nail households" because they refuse to be uprooted from land they have claimed for generations and, in a dangerous game of chicken, are hoping to force the government officials to offer better compensation before the Three Gorges reservoir starts to cover it.
For more information see:
Asia Times - Peasants bear brunt of China's energy plans
Peasants bear the brunt of China's energy plansBy Jasper Becker Part 1: The death of China's riversï¿Š All along China's Yangtze River, the last residents have been cleared from the hundreds of towns and villages that will be submerged in perhaps the largest hydropower project ever attempted. All along the 600-kilometer stretch of the Yangtze up to Chongqing city, thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, are refusing to leave. They are being forced out in deference to China's plans to double its hydropower by 2010. China is preparing to build at least two other dams of equal size to Three Gorges on the Yangtze. Altogether, Beijing intends to invest 300 billion yuan (US$36.2 billion) in new dams, mostly in Yunnan and Sichuan provinces. This is a staggering ambition for a country that is already home to most of the world's big dams. Of the 45,000 large dams in the world, 22,104 are in China; 6,390 are in the United States and just over 4,000 in India. In a dictatorship run by engineers, in particular hydropower engineers such as Communist Party leader Hu Jintao and the longtime No 2 in the Party, Li Peng, few critics dare to point out that this policy is causing irrevocable harm, not just to China but to the rest of the world. China is planning a series of giant dam cascades across rivers such as the Mekong, the Salween and the Bramaputra that are vital to the prosperity of Southeast Asia. If as a result these rivers end up disappearing like the Yellow, the Huai or the Hai in China, the consequences will be incalculable. The mismanagement of northern China's water resources is already visible in the dust storms blowing out of China each year to arrive in Seoul or Tokyo in a dangerous choking and blinding miasma. Gobi dust from continuing desertification has even been deposited on the east coast of the United States. Hydropower enthusiasts say that if China does not keep building dams at a furious rate, tripling capacity from 60 gigawatts to 171GW by 2020, it will be forced to burn more coal, with dire consequences for the world's atmosphere. The consequences to China's people are dire enough. The towns along the Three Gorges look as if they have been carpet-bombed. More than 1.8 million people have been removed to make way for the Three Gorges Dam reservoir. As if in some scene from World War II, bands of scavengers now wander like homeless refugees amid the piles of gray bricks, stooping to pick up bits of wiring or wood. Some scrap merchants specialize in iron and copper, but others have collected doors or window frames, so the traveler climbs up from the ferry boats through a strange market of bric-a-brac, past half-ruined houses where some inhabitants linger on like crazed outcasts in some post-apocalypse movie. High above old towns such as Fengjie, blocks of new housing can be glimpsed, painted in breezy pastel colors. Those hanging on below are dubbed "nail households" because they refuse to be uprooted from land they have claimed for generations and, in a dangerous game of chicken, are hoping to force the government officials to offer better compensation before the Three Gorges reservoir starts to cover it.
Hydrogen Economy And Nigeria Daily Champion (Lagos) OPINION by: Peter B. U. Achi, LagosTODAY, Nigeria is about the sixth highest producer of crude oil among the OPEC cartel. Presently, the Nigeria economic activities are 90 per cent hinged on petroleum. Whatever efforts that have been made to considerably reduce the nation's dependence on the petroleum economy have made very little difference in the economic mix. The reasons for the failure of the efforts at economy mix is not the thrust of this discussion but suffice to say that it has to do with the nation's value systems!
The result of the extremely scanty economy mix is that (as we had lamented in earlier articles) the Nigerian economy vibrates to the whims and caprices of the petroleum sector. The national budget from year to year remains pegged to the performance of the petroleum sector and indeed the social and political stability of Nigeria also depends on the health of the petroleum economy, especially the international price of crude oil!
As a result, the life of Nigerians remains at the mercy of other countries all of whom may not remain friendly in future.; In fact, most developed countries strongly resent the dependence of their energy economy on petroleum which is well known as a wasting asset. The efforts of these countries at the diversification of their energy economy have given greater importance to nuclear, wind power, geo-thermal, solar and even coal energies. Renewal energy economy has been the target of the international community in the all important quest for sustainability in energy economies. With the exception of geo-hydro energy, Nigeria has not made any significant development of renewable energy to sustain our economy.
Once a European person asked me the question (in Britain): "What do you think that you have more abundantly than any developed country in the world?" "Solar energy in unharnessed form,, of course." I replied. "Yes", he said, "you people should be exporting solar technology and solar energy if you have your priority right in Nigeria! In an earlier article in the Champion newspaper, I had advocated a very radical approach to development and installation of solar energy technology, especially photo-voltaic cell development in Nigeria. (The governments hardly take any notice of the recommendations from "ordinary" Nigerians but rely heavily on those few they know from political perspectives. The country however belongs to all of us and is our collective responsibility!). Today, Nigeria imports a handful of solar technology products and so far has shown no serious commitment to diversifying the energy economy to the solar sector where we are naturally endowed more than most nations of the world. Many other countries of the world have more than stolen wide marches on Nigeria in solar developments. Some may rise up quickly to remind us about the dearth of ancillary technologies needed for meaningful development of solar technology. The dearth of ancillary technology is only a "lame" excuse as what Nigeria needs in any technology development, especially solar, is the genuine will and radical policies and the matching funds and personnel.
The main concern of this work is the hydrogen economy, the discussions of which is raging presently in the developed and developing countries. The impetus on the development of "hydrogen economy" is fuelled by the urgency to reverse the atmospheric damage already done by the "green house" gases, especially carbon dioxide, the main flue gas from the combustion of hydrocarbons (especially petroleum). Road, sea and air transportation account for the highest release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The carbon dioxide forms a heat shield enveloping the earth and thus prevents heat from the earth escaping into the outer atmosphere. The phenomenon causes global warming of the earth resulting in the predicted higher earth temperatures (increase of 1 to 6oC between 1990 and 2100)!
If the whole earth could speak with one voice, it would ban the combustion of hydrocarbons, especially petroleum fuels totally. Then would Nigeria suddenly cease to exist?! The banning of the use of petroleum fuels, however, is coming gradually, indirectly but surely. Then what would Nigeria do? Indeed, the "Kyoto protocol" aims to gradually phase out the emission of green housed gases among which carbon dioxide is the worst offender. This is time for Nigeria to begin to plan vigorously for alternative energy economy and means of livelihood.
For more, see:allAfrica.com: Nigeria [opinion]: Hydrogen Economy And Nigeria
TODAY, Nigeria is about the sixth highest producer of crude oil among the OPEC cartel. Presently, the Nigeria economic activities are 90 per cent hinged on petroleum. Whatever efforts that have been made to considerably reduce the nation's dependence on the petroleum economy have made very little difference in the economic mix. The reasons for the failure of the efforts at economy mix is not the thrust of this discussion but suffice to say that it has to do with the nation's value systems!The result of the extremely scanty economy mix is that (as we had lamented in earlier articles) the Nigerian economy vibrates to the whims and caprices of the petroleum sector. The national budget from year to year remains pegged to the performance of the petroleum sector and indeed the social and political stability of Nigeria also depends on the health of the petroleum economy, especially the international price of crude oil!As a result, the life of Nigerians remains at the mercy of other countries all of whom may not remain friendly in future.; In fact, most developed countries strongly resent the dependence of their energy economy on petroleum which is well known as a wasting asset. The efforts of these countries at the diversification of their energy economy have given greater importance to nuclear, wind power, geo-thermal, solar and even coal energies. Renewal energy economy has been the target of the international community in the all important quest for sustainability in energy economies. With the exception of geo-hydro energy, Nigeria has not made any significant development of renewable energy to sustain our economy.Once a European person asked me the question (in Britain): "What do you think that you have more abundantly than any developed country in the world?" "Solar energy in unharnessed form,, of course." I replied. "Yes", he said, "you people should be exporting solar technology and solar energy if you have your priority right in Nigeria! In an earlier article in the Champion newspaper, I had advocated a very radical approach to development and installation of solar energy technology, especially photo-voltaic cell development in Nigeria. (The governments hardly take any notice of the recommendations from "ordinary" Nigerians but rely heavily on those few they know from political perspectives. The country however belongs to all of us and is our collective responsibility!). Today, Nigeria imports a handful of solar technology products and so far has shown no serious commitment to diversifying the energy economy to the solar sector where we are naturally endowed more than most nations of the world. Many other countries of the world have more than stolen wide marches on Nigeria in solar developments. Some may rise up quickly to remind us about the dearth of ancillary technologies needed for meaningful development of solar technology. The dearth of ancillary technology is only a "lame" excuse as what Nigeria needs in any technology development, especially solar, is the genuine will and radical policies and the matching funds and personnel.The main concern of this work is the hydrogen economy, the discussions of which is raging presently in the developed and developing countries. The impetus on the development of "hydrogen economy" is fuelled by the urgency to reverse the atmospheric damage already done by the "green house" gases, especially carbon dioxide, the main flue gas from the combustion of hydrocarbons (especially petroleum). Road, sea and air transportation account for the highest release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The carbon dioxide forms a heat shield enveloping the earth and thus prevents heat from the earth escaping into the outer atmosphere. The phenomenon causes global warming of the earth resulting in the predicted higher earth temperatures (increase of 1 to 6oC between 1990 and 2100)!If the whole earth could speak with one voice, it would ban the combustion of hydrocarbons, especially petroleum fuels totally. Then would Nigeria suddenly cease to exist?! The banning of the use of petroleum fuels, however, is coming gradually, indirectly but surely. Then what would Nigeria do? Indeed, the "Kyoto protocol" aims to gradually phase out the emission of green housed gases among which carbon dioxide is the worst offender. This is time for Nigeria to begin to plan vigorously for alternative energy economy and means of livelihood.
BRUSSELS, Belgium — America's trade dispute with the European Union over importing genetically engineered foods has implications far beyond the dinner table.
After a U.S.-European split over the war in Iraq, the stage was set for a particularly contentious trade dispute. And, last Monday, the divisions deepened. The United States, Canada and Argentina formally asked the World Trade Organization to outlaw a European Union prohibition on importing GMOs — genetically modified organisms.
The Brussels-based E.U. has refused to import genetically engineered foods unless they have specific GMO labels, and it says its policies are in line with WTO rules.
U.S. trade officials contend that's nonsense. They argue that Europe is erecting a barrier to protect its advantage of nearly $1.2 billion in annual food and agriculture trade with the United States. Furthermore, they say the ban has cost U.S. farmers $1 billion in sales since 1998, when six E.U. countries, led by France, called for a moratorium on GMOs.
For more, see:
Pioneer Press | 08/24/2003 | EATING ALTERED FOODS
BRUSSELS, Belgium ï¿‘ America's trade dispute with the European Union over importing genetically engineered foods has implications far beyond the dinner table.After a U.S.-European split over the war in Iraq, the stage was set for a particularly contentious trade dispute. And, last Monday, the divisions deepened. The United States, Canada and Argentina formally asked the World Trade Organization to outlaw a European Union prohibition on importing GMOs ï¿‘ genetically modified organisms.The Brussels-based E.U. has refused to import genetically engineered foods unless they have specific GMO labels, and it says its policies are in line with WTO rules.U.S. trade officials contend that's nonsense. They argue that Europe is erecting a barrier to protect its advantage of nearly $1.2 billion in annual food and agriculture trade with the United States. Furthermore, they say the ban has cost U.S. farmers $1 billion in sales since 1998, when six E.U. countries, led by France, called for a moratorium on GMOs.
The Bush Doctrine's Achilles Heel
There is not yet a clearly articulated “Bush doctrine” of national security. Yet the pointers so far, especially the victory in Iraq, suggest the shape of one that is stunning in its ambition. Focused on terrorism and weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the emerging Bush doctrine is anticipatory, pre-emptive, and, if need be, unilateral. Yet the emerging doctrine is bedeviled at its core by legitimacy and capacity, including, critically, the capability of U.S. intelligence. Although the United States has the military power to take out whatever miscreant state it chooses, it still lacks the ability to precisely locate and pre-emptively target WMD, despite all the technical wizardry of its intelligence. Indeed, even determining whether a potential adversary, such as Iraq, is developing and deploying nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons will continue to prove difficult. Taking out a foe’s real or suspected WMD is likely to continue to require taking out the foe.
What a Difference Four Years Makes: Why U.N. inspectors left Iraq--then and now
The U.N. orders its weapons inspectors to leave Iraq after the chief inspector reports Baghdad is not fully cooperating with them.
-- Sheila MacVicar, ABC World News This Morning, 12/16/98
To bolster its claim, Iraq let reporters see one laboratory U.N. inspectors once visited before they were kicked out four years ago.
--John McWethy, ABC World News Tonight, 8/12/02
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Iraq story boiled over last night when the chief U.N. weapons inspector, Richard Butler, said that Iraq had not fully cooperated with inspectors and--as they had promised to do. As a result, the U.N. ordered its inspectors to leave Iraq this morning
--Katie Couric, NBC's Today, 12/16/98/
As Washington debates when and how to attack Iraq, a surprise offer from Baghdad. It is ready to talk about re-admitting U.N. weapons inspectors after kicking them out four years ago.
--Maurice DuBois, NBC's Saturday Today, 8/3/02
This article from India notes:
The foreign broadcasters, BBC and CNN were predictably the last to join the coverage. Compare that to the time when we had to tune in to BBC to find out that Mrs Gandhi had been assassinated. CNN did have correspondent Ram Gopal live from India pitching in with a report but that was around an hour after the news came out in full on domestic channels. It later picked up footage from Sahara Samay. The wheel clearly has turned full circle. Where the international news media used to inform us about developments and disasters within the nation, today Indiy,Indian media suffice.
Indiantelevision.com's Breaking News : 'Blasts coverage send news channels scurrying for coverage
Chicago Tribune: Recruits giving Taliban muscle for comeback
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- For Rahmatullah, 18, an impoverished Afghan student enrolled at a small religious school in the Pakistani border town of Chaman, the offer made by the Taliban mullah who visited in June was too good to refuse.
In return for 3,700 rupees--about $60--the mullah promised, he would be given a gun and the chance to wage holy war against the infidels occupying his country.
So Rahmatullah, who uses only one name, took the money, said goodbye to his classmates and joined the swelling ranks of a revived Taliban rebellion against U.S. forces and the government of President Hamid Karzai.
He didn't fight for long. A week after he crossed into Afghanistan and linked up with a unit of 20 Taliban fighters, the group was betrayed by a local villager and attacked by Afghan forces. Rahmatullah was captured, his money was confiscated, and now he says he regrets his decision.
WASHINGTON: The United States has turned to the United Nations for help in Iraq, embraced diplomacy with North Korea and only reluctantly sent small numbers of US troops to help a West African peacekeeping mission in Liberia.For an administration known for a go-it-alone, heavy-handed approach to world affairs, those developments reflect something new, analysts here say: The United States is bumping up against the limits of its military power.After back-to-back wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and entangling, open-ended occupations in both countries, the United States no longer has the luxury of readily available military options.
SEATTLE (Reuters) - In a year marked by war, Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign to become California's next governor and the largest blackout in U.S. history, news junkies are facing a surging flood of news.
That's why many are turning to Web sites that can sift through stories published around the clock on the Internet such as Google News (http://news.google.com) and Columbia Newsblaster (http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/nlp/newsblaster/).
News sites, or "aggregators," are not new to the Web, but these sites and a few others are gaining in popularity because they constantly take a wide sample of news and distill them into digestible headlines, without human intervention.
Good introduction to some key news sites. Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News CoverageBoston.com / Business / Land of economic unrest
DAMASCUS -- In the cavernous Al Hamadiyyeh market in the heart of Old Damascus, businessman Ayman Abdullah surveyed a cluster of run-down shops and envisioned a four-star hotel, complete with a courtyard and fountain.
"I'll have to buy out the shopowners, of course," Abdullah said.
All Abdullah needs is a loan, but there is not a banker in Syria willing to extend him credit. That's not because of concerns that Syria may be next on a US list of countries due for regime change, or because of the increasingly troubled US occupation in Iraq or violence between Israelis and Palestinians.
The problem is there are no private bankers in Syria -- no private banks, period.
"We have no banks, so we have no capital and no investment," said the 32-year-old Abdullah, who holds a master's degree in business administration from a university in Lebanon and is fluent in Arabic, English, and French. "This is strangling our economy."
THE reason the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad were bombed is because the UN has been taken over by the US and turned into a "dark joke" and a "malignant force", according to one of the UN's most internationally respected former leaders.
Thus contends this article from The Sunday Herald of Scotland:
washingtonpost.com: Dueling Timelines in Iraq
IF A TERRIBLE WEEK in the Middle East shook any of the complacency out of the Bush administration, there was little public evidence. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell traveled to United Nations headquarters to express condolences for the U.N. staffers killed in Tuesday's bombing in Baghdad and to seek more foreign contributions of troops to aid U.S. forces in Iraq. But he came without any stated willingness to do what would be needed to attract such contributions, that is, to share political authority over Iraq with the United Nations. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld continued to maintain that U.S. troop strength in Iraq is adequate. There was no talk of an accelerated effort of any kind to improve daily life for Iraqis.
Boston.com / News / Boston Globe / Ideas / The real world
IT'S NOT HARD THESE days to find a magazine full of articles contending that the United States under George W. Bush has shattered important alliances, launched an ill-advised imperial project, and pursued a reckless, unnecessary war. But lately, such claims don't just fill left-leaning publications like The Nation. They also animate this summer's issue of The National Interest, a conservative foreign affairs quarterly whose contributors argue that the United States underestimates European power and risks overstretching its economic resources abroad.
In fact, a deep foreign policy rift has opened within the Republican party. On one side are the aggressive, idealistic hawks who advocated the war in Iraq and talk of a democracy domino effect in the Middle East. On the other are pragmatic realists who disdain Bush's foreign policy not because they think it's immoral but because they think it's imprudent.
Salon.com News | We're losing the war in Afghanistan, too
A human rights worker reports from the other front in the U.S. war on terror, where warlords rule supreme, music is once again banned, journalists hide from gunmen, and even the streets of Kabul are filled with fear.
Aug. 21, 2003 | KABUL, Afghanistan -- If the Winter Olympics are ever held in Kabul, the bucolic district of Paghman, just to the city's west, will be an important site for events. Tucked into the mountains just above the city, with its scenic vistas and orchards, Paghman is the perfect base site for downhill skiing, bobsledding or luge. With the snowcapped peaks above it and the picturesque city below, it couldn't be a better backdrop for televised winter sports.
Yet the Olympics aren't coming anytime soon; Kabul isn't ready quite yet. Much of the city is still in ruins, destroyed during the civil fighting here 10 years ago, and the civilian population today is still plagued by attacks from rogue troops and police, the mujahedin veterans who, with the backing and support of the United States, swept back into the city when the Taliban collapsed. Extortion, corruption and poverty are everywhere.
BBC NEWS | Africa | High toll for Niger Delta violence
The number of casualties from the recent violence in the Delta port of Warri is much higher than previously believed, says the Red Cross in Nigeria.
After three days of relative calm, the Nigerian Red Cross says it has been able to assess the situation more accurately and it believes that about 100 people were killed and 1,000 injured.
It says the fighting between militias of the local Ijaw and Itsekiri people also drove several thousand residents of the city from their homes.
Army troops and riot police were deployed in the city, where authorities said that they had secured a cease-fire on Thursday, between the warring groups.
The violence between the Ijaw and Itsekiri people, in the oil-rich Delta region of Nigeria - has been the worst since March, when several multi-national oil companies were force to halt their operations.
U.S. Expects Informal Direct Talks With North Korea
WASHINGTON, Aug. 22 — The Bush administration will not offer any specific economic or diplomatic rewards to North Korea to abandon its nuclear arms program but will not stop other countries from making such offers, administration officials said today as they prepared for a new round of talks with North Korea.
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They also said the principal State Department negotiator in the talks, Assistant Secretary of State James A. Kelly, would probably have informal one-on-one conversations with his North Korean counterpart during a six-nation meeting next week in Beijing.
Bolder Taliban steps up attacks
Taliban steps up attacks.
Resurgence of violence in Afghanistan leaves nearly 100 dead
KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 19 — Taliban militants killed 10 policemen, including a police chief, in a province south of Kabul in the latest incident in a spate of violence that has claimed more than 90 lives in the past week, police said on Tuesday. The expanded attacks put more pressure than ever on a fragile U.S.-backed government struggling to rebuild a country following the ouster of the Islamic militia in late 2001.
Asia Times - North Korea's case for nuclear weapons
By Erich Marquardt
On October 21, 1994, the United States and North Korea signed the US-DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) Agreed Framework, an understanding in which Pyongyang accepted a proposal to scrap its development of plutonium-based nuclear-energy facilities in exchange for normalization of ties with Washington, in addition to other benefits such as internationally funded twin light-water reactors and shipments of heavy oil. As of now, the Agreed Framework is in tatters; Pyongyang blames the death of the agreement on Washington, and Washington blames it on Pyongyang.
But which party is more responsible for the unraveling may not be as important as the following questions: Will North Korea follow up on its nuclear rhetoric and become a nuclear-armed state? And how will other regional powers, such as the United States and Japan, react to a nuclear-armed North Korean state?
At present, it is not exactly clear whether North Korea is a nuclear-armed state. Various North Korean officials have ambiguously stated in the past that the country already possesses such weapons; however, there has been no concrete public pronouncement from Pyongyang that it does indeed possess nuclear arms. Regardless, what is clear is that Pyongyang has been developing the components and resources capable of creating nuclear arms. International observers argue that it will be only a short time, possibly months, before North Korea develops its first functional nuclear device. Furthermore, Pyongyang already possesses the rockets necessary to launch a nuclear weapon at neighboring states, such as its historical nemesis, Japan; this capability puts US troops at risk, as Washington maintains large troop contingents in Japan and South Korea.
(Go to link above for much more.)
By Jane Mayer
The New Yorker
July 28, 2003.
One day this past March, in Langley, Virginia, there was jubilation on a little-known thoroughfare called Bin Laden Lane. Analysts at the C.I.A.’s Counter-Terrorism Center, a dingy warren of gray metal desks marked by a custom-made street sign, were thrilled to learn that, seven thousand miles away, in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, colleagues from the agency had helped local authorities storm a private villa and capture Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the man believed to be the third most important figure in the Al Qaeda terrorist organization.
At last, the stalled hunt for Al Qaeda fugitives had gained momentum. The authorities in Pakistan had obtained Mohammed’s laptop computer and satellite phone; this breakthrough, they hoped, would help them track down the organization’s leader, Osama bin Laden. Analysts in Washington speculated that news of Mohammed’s capture might even prompt bin Laden into fleeing his current hideout. According to an F.B.I. official, in the weeks before his arrest Mohammed had been moving from one place to another in Baluchistan, a lawless province that borders Afghanistan and Iran. Bin Laden, it was thought, was probably in the same area.
Days later, American intelligence satellites traced a telephone call made to Baluchistan by Saad bin Laden, one of Osama’s sons, who was thought to be hiding in Iran. Intelligence officials knew that bin Laden no longer dared to answer the phone, but they believed the call might have been placed to one of his aides.
An unmanned spy plane dispatched to the region spotted a suspicious convoy moving at night. It consisted of about a hundred people on horseback and on foot, and was advancing along an ancient smugglers’ route, in a rocky desert area. Bin Laden, the officials hoped, might be travelling with this group.
A team made up of C.I.A. paramilitary operatives, Delta Force soldiers, and Pakistani officials descended upon the convoy. Meanwhile, in Washington, the C.I.A. had orders to launch a Hellfire missile from an unmanned Predator intelligence aircraft if the presence of bin Laden could be confirmed. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, President Bush signed a top-secret Memorandum of Notification, calling for bin Laden to be either captured or killed on sight.
“The C.I.A. was very confident—they thought they had him there in Baluchistan, across from the Iranian border,” Vincent Cannistraro, a former chief of operations for the C.I.A.’s Counter-Terrorism Center, said. “They had a fixed location on him. They mounted a moderate-sized operation.” The convoy was intercepted, Cannistraro said. Each traveller was examined. “Lo and behold, bin Laden wasn’t there,” he said. The convoy was merely a group of refugees.
Instead of firing a Hellfire missile, American aircraft dropped flyers that featured an image of bin Laden’s face behind bars. The flyers also publicized a twenty-five-million-dollar reward that would be given to anyone who could hand bin Laden over to the authorities.
Go to: THE SEARCH FOR OSAMA for much more.
CHRONOLOGY-Journalist Casualties in Iraq War and Its Aftermath
Reuters
August 17, 2003
LONDON (Reuters) - Reuters cameraman Mazen Dana was shot dead on Sunday while filming near a U.S.-run prison in western Baghdad, witnesses said.
Dana, 41, a Palestinian, is the second Reuters cameraman to have been killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion.
His death brings to 17 the number of journalists or their assistants who have died in Iraq since the war began on March 20, though some of the deaths were accidental or natural. Two others have been missing since the first days of the war.
(For complete list, go to article.)
U.S. Abandons Idea of Bigger U.N. Role in Iraq Occupation
WASHINGTON, Aug. 13 - The Bush administration has abandoned the idea of giving the United Nations more of a role in the occupation of Iraq as sought by France, India and other countries as a condition for their participation in peacekeeping there, administration officials said today.
China is Losing the War on Advancing Deserts
China is Losing the War on Advancing Deserts by Lester R. Brown
China is now at war. Its territory is being claimed not by invading armies but by expanding deserts. Old deserts are advancing and new ones are forming, forcing Beijing to fight on several fronts. And, worse, the growing deserts are gaining momentum, occupying an ever-larger piece of China's territory each year.
Published on Wednesday, August 13, 2003 by the Baltimore Sun
Terror's Gains
Editorial: REALITY HAS FINALLY caught up with rhetoric. Last winter the Bush administration wasted no opportunity to declare that Iraq posed a clear and present danger to America in part because it was in league with terrorists -- maybe even including al-Qaida. There wasn't much evidence for it then, but it made a handy hook to hang a war on.
There's more evidence now. Both Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez and civilian boss L. Paul Bremer III have said that some measure of the continuing trouble in Iraq is caused by foreign terrorists who appear to have al-Qaida behind them. Organizations linked to al-Qaida have been moving men into Iraq and stepping up activity there, they say.
Let's put it another way: Since the war, Iraq has started to look like a fertile ground for terrorists. The American invasion made this possible. The United States has created what it went to war to prevent. Now Iraq really is a threat to Americans, starting with the 150,000 troops who are stationed there.
A U.S. soldier was killed in an explosion outside Baghdad yesterday, the 57th to be killed since May 1. If this was a case of taking the fight to the enemy, it might be understandable, but it looks more and more as though the United States has inadvertently chosen to present the enemy with an opportunity.
At one time al-Qaida was on the run -- Vice President Dick Cheney said so himself -- but the chance to crush the group that carried out the Sept. 11 attacks was squandered in the mountains of Afghanistan, and now the American invasion of Iraq has opened up new possibilities. There was, to be sure, an allied militant group called Ansar al-Islam in the mountains of northeastern Iraq while Saddam Hussein was in power, but they were hemmed in by hostile Kurds and had no ties to the regime in Baghdad. Now they appear to be settling in, in the capital itself. Is this any way to combat terrorism?
The Jordanian embassy in Baghdad is demolished in an explosion and sacked by a mob. Iraqis who were glad to see the American troops arrive now heartily wish they would go. The city of Basra simmers just below a boil in 120-degree heat, with fitful supplies of water and electricity. American administrators seal themselves off in presidential palaces and wonder why Iraqis don't love them, while American soldiers go out on raids every day.
American tactics have so far produced unfortunate results: a major spike in Middle East instability and far more hostility toward the United States in the Muslim world than existed two years ago. It's time for a reality check; the invasion of Iraq may have gotten rid of an odious regime, but it was a setback, not a victory, in the war on terror.
Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage
BEIJING (Reuters) - China confirmed on Thursday it will host six-way talks this month on North Korea's nuclear program, saying they marked an important step in efforts to defuse the 10-month crisis.
It said the talks would take place on August 27-29 in Beijing, ending weeks of speculation about when officials from the two Koreas, the United States, Russia, Japan and China would try to bridge what has been termed an "abyss of distrust."
"The opening of the six-way talks marks another important step toward a peaceful resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its Web site, www.fmprc.gov.cn.
Only the UN Can Give Iraq Security and Sovereignty
The critical paragraph here is the last - though the whole article contains interesting facts that substandiate it:
It is not too late for the UN to be given overall control over the transition to independence, as France, India, Russia and others have suggested. This would make it possible for UN peacekeepers to come in. The notion of US and British troops remaining in Iraq after an independent Iraqi government takes power in elections next year is absurd. A government that hosts invaders cannot be independent. But a government can retain UN-authorized peacekeepers for a period of several years without forfeiting its sovereignty, as for example Cyprus has done. If Iraqis want protection from potential instability when the US departs, the UN is the place to turn.
'The President's Ideologically Narrow Agenda has Seriously Divided America...'
Here's the main chunk of what he had to say about our policy and Iraq.
Millions of Americans now share a feeling that something pretty basic has gone wrong in our country and that some important American values are being placed at risk. And they want to set it right.
The way we went to war in Iraq illustrates this larger problem. Normally, we Americans lay the facts on the table, talk through the choices before us and make a decision. But that didn't really happen with this war -- not the way it should have. And as a result, too many of our soldiers are paying the highest price, for the strategic miscalculations, serious misjudgments, and historic mistakes that have put them and our nation in harm's way.
I'm convinced that one of the reasons that we didn't have a better public debate before the Iraq War started is because so many of the impressions that the majority of the country had back then turn out to have been completely wrong. Leaving aside for the moment the question of how these false impressions got into the public's mind, it might be healthy to take a hard look at the ones we now know were wrong and clear the air so that we can better see exactly where we are now and what changes might need to be made. In any case, what we now know to have been false impressions include the following:
(1) Saddam Hussein was partly responsible for the attack against us on September 11th, 2001, so a good way to respond to that attack would be to invade his country and forcibly remove him from power.
(2) Saddam was working closely with Osama Bin Laden and was actively supporting members of the Al Qaeda terrorist group, giving them weapons and money and bases and training, so launching a war against Iraq would be a good way to stop Al Qaeda from attacking us again.
(3) Saddam was about to give the terrorists poison gas and deadly germs that he had made into weapons which they could use to kill millions of Americans. Therefore common sense alone dictated that we should send our military into Iraq in order to protect our loved ones and ourselves against a grave threat.
(4) Saddam was on the verge of building nuclear bombs and giving them to the terrorists. And since the only thing preventing Saddam from acquiring a nuclear arsenal was access to enriched uranium, once our spies found out that he had bought the enrichment technology he needed and was actively trying to buy uranium from Africa, we had very little time left. Therefore it seemed imperative during last Fall's election campaign to set aside less urgent issues like the economy and instead focus on the congressional resolution approving war against Iraq.
(5) Our GI's would be welcomed with open arms by cheering Iraqis who would help them quickly establish public safety, free markets and Representative Democracy, so there wouldn't be that much risk that US soldiers would get bogged down in a guerrilla war.
(6) Even though the rest of the world was mostly opposed to the war, they would quickly fall in line after we won and then contribute lots of money and soldiers to help out, so there wouldn't be that much risk that US taxpayers would get stuck with a huge bill. Now, of course, everybody knows that every single one of these impressions was just dead wrong.