February2004

Bitter Baghdad Seeing Disaster As Rebels Rise: Even if you are a deaf person and an optimist, it would be hard not to hear the sound of the wheels coming off.

Arab Summit May Be Held Mid-May: An Arab summit postponed last month over opposition to a U.S.-backed reform plan may be held in mid-May, the Arab League secretary-general said in remarks published Tuesday.

WHERE IS THE ROAD TO PEACE IN IRAQ? The Shiite revolt in Iraq against the occupation regime of the USA and its allies is an undoubtedly significant event. For the first time in the 12 months since the occupation began, the USA is witnessing an outbreak of popular wrath of such great force.

The High Price of Failure: A longtime friend and professional colleague who has been consistently opposed to the war in Iraq and, for that matter, the Bush administration's foreign policy generally could hardly contain his rage on the phone the other day after viewing the horrible events in Fallujah.

Learn From Rwanda: This month marks 10 years since the advent of the Rwandan genocide, a cruel, violent and well-organized rampage that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children and the total disruption of Rwandan society.

Test of American patience: L Paul Bremer, the top American administrator in Iraq, declared the young Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr an outlaw on April 5. Muqtadar's response: "I'm accused by one of the leaders of evil, Bremer, of being an outlaw. If that means breaking the law of the American tyranny and its filthy constitution, I'm proud of that, and that is why I'm in revolt."

Distracting the public: The current violent confrontation between Israelis and Palestinians has lasted three and a half years. Israel has never found itself in such a long a war of attrition, and one so close to home. The violence reached a zenith on the eve of Passover two years ago with the terrorist attack that altered the shape of the confrontation.

Left standing: Ralph Nader, veteran presidential candidate and consumer champion, is refusing to sacrifice himself to the Democratic cause.

On Palestinian Child Day: 651 Killed and 348 Imprisoned Behind Bars During the Intifada: Dr. Al Tibi said in statement on the occasion of the Palestinian Child Day today that the innocent civilians are the victims of the missiles fired by the Israeli tanks and combat helicopters as well as the indiscriminate shootings at the dispossessive civilians while trying to practice their routine life, going to or backing from schools and most cases as laying sleep inside their rooms.

No blame on OPEC for US gas price: Saudi Arabia on Sunday blamed record high US gasoline prices on America's tough environmental laws and lack of refining capacity, saying OPEC's oil production policies were not at fault.

Blurring the line: Invariably, the most frequent question I am asked is, "Can't I be critical of Israel or be anti-Zionist without being labeled an anti-Semite?" Invariably, my answer is, "Yes, but ..." And it is with that "but" that I try to make the questioner understand how easily the line can be crossed between legitimate criticism of a sovereign nation, and the demonization and delegitimization of the Jewish people, its nationalism and its state.

Jenin Marks Israeli Mass Killing of Its Inhabitants Two Years Ago: Massive rallies engulfed Jenin city on Saturday, organized by all the national and Islamic factions, to mark the 2ed anniversary of the Israeli massacre in the West Bank refugee camp of Jenin.

Fallujah atrocity and the genesis of hate

The Facts We Must Face: The horrifying images of four American bodies being desecrated in Fallujah are a brutal reminder that the United States is involved in a very real war, as well as an uncertain nation-building exercise of vast strategic importance.

Opec faces challenge in implementing pact

So what if Sharon said it? Ariel Sharon knows he is unable to kill, or remove, Yasser Arafat. So why did he tell Israel's three major newspapers that the Palestinian leader has no insurance guarantee against assassination? The answer is simple: For Israel's prime minister, words do not have binding authority.

Aid No More: In one of the European dailies, the following news item by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency recently appeared: “The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) announced Thursday it stopped distributing emergency food aid to some 600,000 refugees in the Gaza Strip.

3/17-3/31

WMD Threats "Everybody's Fight", Director General ElBaradei Says

Sharon burned the porridge: The Likud ministers who are due to meet today with the prime minister to hear the details of his disengagement plan, so they can lend their support, need to be well aware of what is at stake: nothing less than his political fate, the future of his government and his ability to continue to rely on U.S. President George Bush's support.

The Dishonour Awards: Roasting the Most Outrageously Biased Liberal Reporters of 2003

Future on shaky ground: A year after the coalition of the willing launched its attack on Saddam Hussein, Iraq looks closer to civil war than the democratic peace America promised. Paul McGeough reports from Baghdad.

Petrol prices ease despite cut fears

"Small window of opportunity" for restarting peace process remains open, Security Council told

Oil stages further rise, $40 now in sight

Egyptian doctor who laid the foundations for global jihad: Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian paediatrician and surgeon thought to be surrounded by troops on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, probably did more to shape the strategy of al-Qaida than anyone else - including Osama bin Laden.

Shock and Awe, from Mesopotamia to Madrid: "We know they have biological and chemical weapons": A 450-kilogram bomb ripped apart a hotel in the heart of Baghdad, killing at least 30 and wounding at least 50, all of them civilians: Jordanians, Egyptians, Lebanese, British and most of all Iraqis. In a tragic atmosphere of de facto civil war, this is how the Iraqi resistance/guerrilla/mujahideen chose to celebrate the first anniversary of the US-led operation "Shock and Awe".

Primate virus spreads to humans: Hunting for - and eating - primate 'bushmeat' is exposing humans to a form of virus carried by apes and monkeys, experts say.

One Year Since the Killing of Rachel Corrie: Amnesty International Urges President Bush to Call for Independent Investigation: Observing the one-year anniversary of the killing of Rachel Corrie, Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) today renewed its call for an independent investigation of her death. Corrie, a US citizen, was apparently trying to stop the demolition of a Palestinian building in the Rafah refugee camp in the Gaza Strip when an Israeli army bulldozer ran her over, crushing her to death.

Al-Qaeda's naval fleet: For the last year and a half, U.S. and British spies have been trying to track the 15 freighters believed to be under the control of al-Qaeda and sailing somewhere in the Indian and Pacific oceans. The fear is that the vessels, thought to be currently used to transport weapons and equipment for the terrorist organization, could be turned into floating suicide bombs.

Oil price breaks post-Iraq war high

Time to take road to reform: Reform in the Arab world is the hot topic currently. The Arab press is full of articles dealing with this contentious issue. This is not surprising, if we take into account the multitude of failures in the political, economic and social spheres. The catalogue of failures was exposed dramatically in various reports dealing with Arab development.

Astronomers discover 'new planet': Sedna is currently about 13 billion km from Earth. Astronomers have detected what could be the Solar System's 10th planet. It was first seen by astronomers using California's Mount Palomar Observatory, and has been given the name "Sedna" after the Inuit goddess of the ocean.

Victory of brutality: A new species of officer is achieving greatness in the Israel Defense Forces. These people did most of their service as occupation officers, and their excellence is a function of the degree of violence and brutality they exercise against the Palestinians.

Imagining a world without birds: Take a walk in a Tokyo garden -- particularly an undisturbed, crow-haunted one such as the Institute for Nature Study's park in Meguro -- and you might find this hard to believe, but the world's bird population is shrinking. According to a report released to coincide with BirdLife International's quadrennial world conference in South Africa last week, one in eight of the world's bird species are threatened with extinction.

One Bold Thinker Among the Democrats: On the left of the Democratic Party, they don't come any smarter than Barney Frank, the 12-term congressman from Massachusetts. Republicans enjoy debating him, because if you've beaten him, you know the next liberal will be easier.

Distant voices: A world consensus is emerging on the destructive effects of globalisation - but the Bush administration is out of line.

U.S. Global Primacy and National Security: Choices for the Next President: Foreign policy received insufficient attention in the 2000 presidential election campaign. Few Americans pondered the intricacies of grand strategy. September 11, and the events since, have significantly altered the landscape.

3/15-3/16

There's a limit to silence: Five Supreme Court justices heard oral arguments from both sides on Wednesday in a dispute over the correct interpretation of the right to remain silent and to avoid self-incrimination, a dispute between the state's desire to enforce the law and the suspect's desire to make it difficult to gather evidence against him.

Energy watchdog sees tighter oil supplies: Hunger for imported oil in China, scanty global inventories of crude, and political unrest in petroleum-rich Venezuela could combine to drive gasoline prices higher this summer, the International Energy Agency warned Thursday.

"Stolen Youth" launched in London: On 27 January 2004, over 200 people gathered at the Brunei Gallery on the University of London campus for the launch of "Stolen Youth: The Politics of Israel’s Detention of Palestinian Children" written by former DCI/PS staff and volunteers Adam Hanieh, Adah Kay and Catherine Cook and published by Pluto Press in association with Defence for Children International/Palestine Section.

Survival of the biggest in Amazon's rainforests: Pristine Amazon forests are changing dramatically because of rising levels of carbon dioxide. Even in rainforests unaffected by human activities such as logging or burning, researchers have noticed big differences in the growth patterns of trees over the past 20 years that could distort the forest's fragile balance, affecting rare plant and animal species.

War: Just whose business is it anyway? Wars are costly undertakings. They almost always cost more than government officials claim they will. Yale economist William D Nordhaus has suggested that governments have an incentive to understate the costs of conflict because "If wars are thought to be short, cheap and bloodless, then it is easier to persuade the populace and the Congress to defer to the president".

Loan ranger: Not so long ago, the International Monetary Fund was fond of lecturing developing nations in financial trouble on the need to undergo harsh structural reforms in order to qualify for assistance. Now the boot is on the other foot: it is the IMF that needs to go through a bout of painful restructuring. Leaderless and now all but rudderless - after a near humiliation at the hands of Argentina - the IMF is in danger of becoming irrelevant unless it makes significant changes.

3/10-3/11

Annan calls for the creation of UN adviser on prevention of genocide

On Beirut's Arab Women Forum: The Forum of "Arab Women and Armed Conflicts" was opened in Beirut on Monday in the presence of Mrs. Asma al-Assad, wife of president Bashar al-Assad, and a number of wives of Arab Kings, Presidents and the Arab League Secretary General.

IAEA: US, European envoys clash over Iran nuclear plan decision: The Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) postponed discussions on Iran's nuclear issues on Tuesday upon a request by the head of the group of 77 (developing countries). The board is to continue its review on Wednesday. An informed source at the IAEA, talking to IRNA said talks between IAEA officials on issues regarding Iran's nuclear programs are still going on. "No working document, a draft resolution or a statement, on Iran has been agreed upon so far," the source said, according to IRNA.

Benny Morris and the Road Back from Liberal Zionism: Over the course of Arab-Jewish fighting between 1947 and 1949, well over 700,000 Palestinians were made refugees, the majority of them by direct expulsion or the fear of expulsion or massacre. The largest single expulsion occurred after Israeli conquest of the towns of Lydda and Ramla in the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv corridor during July 9-18, 1948. Some 50,000 Palestinians were driven out of their homes in these towns by Israeli forces whose deputy commander was Yitzhak Rabin, prime minister of Israel from 1974-1977 and 1992-1995. Some two dozen massacres of Palestinians were perpetrated by pre-state Zionist militias and Israeli forces, the most infamous of them on April 9-10, 1948, at the village of Deir Yassin.

Scientist accuses UN inspectors of hiding findings: A leading Iraqi nuclear scientist accused UN inspectors Monday of succumbing to US pressure by keeping their findings silent that Iraq was free of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) before the US-led invasion last year.

UN warns women face Aids threat: Ten years ago, "statistics indicated that women were less affected", but the balance is changing, he said. The UN secretary general blamed social inequalities - including poverty, abuse and violence - for what he called a new "terrifying pattern".

Same Old Iraq: BAGHDAD. EACH TIME I return to Iraq, it's the same, like finding a razor blade in a bar of chocolate. The moment you start to believe that "New Iraq" might work - just - you get the proof that it's the same old Iraq, just a little tiny bit worse than it was last month.

Boukhari draws up list of alleged 'torturers': Moroccan former secret agent draws up list of 123 torturers from 1960-1980 including man who is now politician.

Finding Strengths and Weaknesses in No Child Left Behind: More than a month ago I asked for stories about how the new federal No Child Left Behind law is affecting children in our public school classrooms. I was unhappy about the lack of specifics in most of the published attacks on the law, and I begged for some concrete examples of harm.

Quakes, Nazis and People: Quakes It took Emperor George W. about nine months to kill a few thousand Iraqis and a few hundred Americans. It took only about 18 seconds for an earthquake to kill tens of thousands of Iranians. The dead that Bush spread on the soil of Iraq will be part of history. Their fate will be analyzed by historians, by academic scholars, by journalists, etc for decades in the future. The dead Iranians will be forgotten by everyone but their relatives.

Let’s write energy legislation that works - By Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.): Congress is well into a session that will be made shorter by political conventions and elections. At the same time, a number of energy problems that have long been on the horizon are coming more closely into view. More than ever, we need to provide America with an effective, forward-looking energy policy.

'Greatest Generation' Struggled With History, Too: When the U.S. Department of Education reported that in 2001 nearly six out of 10 high school seniors lacked even a basic knowledge of the nation's history, Bruce Cole was indignant and concerned. "A nation that does not know why it exists, or what it stands for, cannot be expected to long endure," said Cole, the chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

3/8 - 3/9

Body of missing actor-writer Spalding Gray pulled from East River

Means, Not Ends, at Issue in U.S. Policy: Foreign nations and their citizens often agree with U.S. policy goals - an Iraq without the brutal Saddam Hussein, a Haiti without the ineffective and increasingly corrupt President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. But they often don't agree with the Bush administration's go-in-first and alone, and talk-with-friends later approach to achieving those goals. In short, they agree with the ends, not the means.

Scientist 'gagged' by No 10 after warning of global warming threat: Downing Street tried to muzzle the Government's top scientific adviser after he warned that global warming was a more serious threat than international terrorism. Ivan Rogers, Mr Blair's principal private secretary, told Sir David King, the Prime Minister's chief scientist, to limit his contact with the media after he made outspoken comments about President George Bush's policy on climate change.

Extinction threat to more than 1,000 bird species: Environmental degradation could wipe out 1,211 species, an eighth of the world's total, according to the report by BirdLife International, an umbrella conservation body. Expanded farming and forestry, and the introduction of alien species are cited as threats to African species. Glimmers of good news, such as the rediscovery on a Japanese island of the short-tailed albatross thought to be extinct, fail to lift the gloom from the report, State of the World's Birds 2004.

As U.S. detains Iraqis, families plead for news - Frequent raids have swept up 10,000 men: Sabrea Kudi cannot find her son. He was taken by American soldiers nearly nine months ago, and there has been no trace of him since.

The ouster of democracy: In Haiti, Washington confirmed a foreign policy that is driven by self-interest and delivered through force

The Ghetto Inside: "It is easier to get the Jews out of the ghetto than to get the ghetto out of the Jews!" - this dictum of the early Zionists is now assuming a new meaning. Israel is cutting itself off from the world and enclosing itself in a ghetto, and not only physically.

In age of outsourcing, do the old rules apply? Most experts say globalization's benefits outweigh the costs, but some see altered equations.

The democratisation in the Middle East: Myth or reality: At the end of March the Arab League will hold one of its most important summit meetings. The meeting, which will be held in the Tunisian capital, Tunis, is the first Arab summit after the collapse of Saddam's regime in Iraq. What makes the meeting exceptional is the issues that will be discussed by the Arab leaders and Arabs' consensus on the idea of change and reform in their countries.

3/6 - 3/7

Second Mars Rover Finds Signs of Water: NASA's Spirit rover has found evidence of past water activity in a volcanic rock on the other side of Mars from where its twin, Opportunity, discovered signs that ground there had once been drenched.

UN's nuclear watchdog to review Iran, Libya: The UN nuclear watchdog meets next week with the United States, which has vowed to keep up pressure on Iran over an alleged hidden atomic weapons programme but backed off on taking the matter to the Security Council.

Stop Violence against women: Murdered for speaking out - persecution of women human rights defenders in Colombia

U.N. Supports U.S.-Backed Terrorism Plan: A U.S.-backed plan to energize and strengthen the global fight against terrorism won broad support from U.N. member nations, but several warned the effort must also protect human rights.

Huge hunt on for wanted Zarqawi: The suspected al Qaeda operative believed to be behind a wave of deadly attacks in Iraq is still in that country and the target of an intense manhunt, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan has said.

ILO: 4 Million Enslaved in Russia: A report published Thursday by the International Labor Organization said that 80 percent of an estimated 5 million illegal immigrants in Russia are involved in forced labor. The report, titled "Forced Labor in Contemporary Russia," is the first in a worldwide campaign to raise awareness of the problem.

Scientists make new human stem cell lines: Scientists said Wednesday they have created 17 new lines of human embryonic stem cells, an advance that doubles the number of lines available to researchers and could trigger a review of President Bush's policy on the cells.

3/1-3/5

The spots are fading: Stop at the robot, look at the car alongside you and accelerate as fast as you can to the next robot. If you were driving a Ferrari F1, you could get from 0 to 100km/h in about four seconds. But there is a sleek, spotted creature that could still streak past you. Cheetahs can achieve 100km/h in less than three seconds.

Fight Against Narco-Trafficking Goes Local: Experts on the illegal narcotics trade used to focus on the drug kingpins, but now they are shifting their gaze towards the small-time dealers who are active in local communities.

Explosives workshop or peace laboratory?: Israeli peace activists who recently visited Cairo came away with the impression that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has decided to host the Arab League in the near future, to bestow an all-Arab seal of approval upon the Geneva Initiative.

NATO needs a long-term political strategy: This June, at the NATO summit meeting in Istanbul, the time will be ripe for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to begin its next major phase of transformation in response to the pressing security challenges of our day. As the permanent forum for consultation among the allies, NATO must come together to define a comprehensive long-term political strategy to frame and complement its military capabilities. Italy has a vision of how this can happen.

Palestinian Leadership Warns of Sharon’s ‘Deceptive’ Schemes, Satisfied with ICJ Proceedings: The Palestinian leadership warned on Tuesday of the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s ‘deceptive’ schemes, aiming to destroy the Palestinian people and cutting the Palestinian lands into cantons and ghettoes, leading to the confiscation of %58 of the West Bank and Gaza Strip territories.2/25 -2/29

Putin: Iraq new home to terror: Russian president says his strong initial opposition to US-led war on Iraq is now fully justified.

Greenpeace demands advice on Iraq war: The Government was facing fresh demands to release the Attorney-General's advice on the legality of the war in Iraq. On Wednesday the trial of the former intelligence officer turned whistleblower Katharine Gun was dropped after her lawyers asked to see the advice. Now the environmental group Greenpeace is demanding access to Lord Goldsmith's advice to ministers so it can defend 14 activists in court following an anti-war protest last year.

Tales of the Taliban: Part Tragedy, Part Farce: To the outside world, the Taliban was a forbidding, mysterious clique of Islamic militiamen who shut women away, enforced puritanical rules with whips and crushed all military rivals until U.S. bombers drove them from power in 2001. But as seen from the inside, the Taliban's five-year reign over most of Afghanistan was also one of bumbling comedy, fatal military mistakes, disabling preoccupation with minor religious matters, deep internal splits and awkward relations with the Arab fighters who flocked to the movement's aid.

Nato sets date for big expansion: The nations' flags will be raised next to those of the 19 existing members at a foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels, a spokesman told the BBC. They are Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. This is the biggest expansion in the history of Nato, which was created in 1949 to defend Western Europe against the Soviet Union.

Scientists suspect GM maize crop of triggering respiratory illnesses: Scientists investigating a spate of illnesses among people living close to fields of genetically modified maize in the Philippines believe the crop may have been the cause of fevers, respiratory illnesses and skin reactions. If preliminary results are confirmed, it would be one of the first recorded cases of serious health problems associated with GM crops and could damage the reputation of the biotech agriculture industry, which is rapidly expanding in developing countries.

Sharon in Barak's footsteps: Ehud Barak boasts of being the ideological father of the "disengagement plan." According to Barak, after he realized at Camp David that "he had no partner" on the Palestinian side, he suggested unilateral disengagement from most of the territories, and annexation to Israel of settlement blocs, behind a fence, until conditions were ripe for renewing the negotiations. If only they had listened to him.

Defiant sheikhs and deadly shakedowns: The road west from Baghdad to Ramadi and Fallujah is closed for an hour near the town of Khaldiya, a dusty assortment of small brick structures sticking out of the rocky desert hills. A long convoy of colorful trucks bound for Jordan is lined up, shimmering in the sun, the drivers squatting outside in the shadows of the cabs. Several hundred feet in front, a green Bradley armored personnel carrier and two armored Humvees block the road, soldiers waving threateningly from behind their turrets at anyone who approaches.

What goes up ...: What do walls have a habit of doing? Cracking. Falling. Tumbling. Being breached, climbed over, written on, or even ignored altogether. The next time he gazes on his own wretched wall, or "security fence", Ariel Sharon might yet learn a lesson from history; from the Old Testament even. Before the gates of Jericho, the Lord instructed Joshua to "compass the city seven times" with priests, rams' horns, the Ark of the Covenant and the people of Israel.

People Power: From revolution to riot: The EDSA Revolution of 1986 - known throughout the world as "People Power" - did more than end 20 years of Marcos rule. It seemingly cured a nation that had, along with the Marcoses, slipped into decadence, and it had done so without violence, through a collective act of conscience.

Averting a Humanitarian Crisis: The nation of Haiti now faces the collapse or violent overthrow of its democratically elected government, and with no clear governmental structure to take its place. This situation, combined with a looming humanitarian catastrophe, demands the attention of the United States.

The French Were Right: In a February 23 speech, President Bush asserted what has become a common defense of his decision to go to war with Iraq. All nations saw the danger, he said, but only he had the courage to act. It is true that many nations believed that Iraq likely retained some undeclared chemical or biological weapons. But few thought the danger so grave and immediate as to require war over containment and intrusive inspections. In the UN Security Council, France was the most outspoken opponent of the rush to war.

Another Try in Iraq: THE REPORT of the United Nations' fact-finding mission on Iraq yesterday returned the Bush administration to the drawing board. The U.N. report endorsed the administration's preferred deadline of June 30 for transferring sovereignty but vetoed its plan for creating a transitional government through a caucus system. Another U.S. goal, the negotiation of a bilateral agreement on the continued presence of U.S. troops in the country, has been put off, while a third, the drafting of a temporary constitution by the end of this week, may or may not be reached.

FBI, CIA Heads Outline World Terror Threat: Despite gains made against al-Qaida, FBI Director Robert Mueller believes the organization remains the primary terrorist threat against U.S. interests at home and abroad. The FBI is concerned the organization will attempt to launch another major attack.

A senior mutters, ‘Sure ... it’s a scam’: GOP lawmakers face a tough sell to skeptical retirees.

Fewer professors spend a full day on campus: The full-time tenured professor is becoming an endangered species. The reason: money. As universities drift away from the traditional model of the full-time professor, a cheaper alternative is taking their place - part-timers who often teach at several institutions.

Oxford legal experts take aim at the fence: "In its current form, Israel's construction of the separation Barrier in the Occupied Territories violates both international humanitarian law and international human rights law. Israel has not presented any compelling justification on security grounds for the Barrier as it is currently being constructed, and the Barrier imposes unnecessary and disproportionate restrictions on the human rights of the Palestinians."

Fence creates logistical problem for Palestinians: From his front door, Hani Amer once took in a view of rolling, rock-crusted hills and the stately minarets that poke above mosques of nearby Palestinian villages like exclamation points.

Rhode Island's War on Anarchism: You Could Get 10 Years in Prison Just for Reading This

2-22 - 2/24

A Secret Hunt Unravels in Afghanistan - Mission to Capture or Kill al Qaeda Leader Frustrated by Near Misses, Political Disputes: The seeds of the CIA's first formal plan to capture or kill Osama bin Laden were contained in another urgent manhunt -- for Mir Aimal Kasi, the Pakistani migrant who murdered two CIA employees while spraying rounds from an assault rifle at cars idling before the entrance to the CIA's Langley headquarters in 1993.

To hell - and back: As the five Camp Delta detainees prepare to leave one nightmare, at home another awaits. But not only are their communities divided, their imprisonment has caused a serious rift between Britain and the US.

Just a little extra effort: The settler leaders and spokespeople of the radical right-wing groups are asserting that the prime minister's proposal to withdraw unilaterally from Gaza came a moment before the Palestinian Authority's final defeat.

Pope's plea to halt 'absurd violence': POPE John Paul II, reacting to Sunday's suicide bombing in Jerusalem that claimed eight lives, called on authorities and citizens alike to reject the "absurd dynamic of violence" undermining the Middle East peace process, the Vatican said.

GLOBALISATION - A Positive Force or Source of World's Woes?: One of the most provocative interpretations of globalisation comes from former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger, who has said the process "is really another name for the dominant role of the United States."

RAF photo file fuels row over Auschwitz - Documents reveal RAF turned down plea to attack death camps in 1944: Jewish leaders have condemned Britain for its 'shameful' failure to save Holocaust victims after previously unseen reconnaissance photographs revealed the RAF was monitoring Nazi death camps in wartime.

2/21

Switzerland and UNRWA to host major conference on humanitarian assistance to Palestine refugees: More than five decades after they first lost their homes, millions of Palestine refugees continue to live lives of hardship and poverty across the Middle East. Now, for the first time in 54 years, an estimated 65-70 countries and inter-governmental organisations will gather together to plan humanitarian and human development strategies for the 4.1 million Palestine refugees registered with UNRWA. The conference will discuss these issues without prejudice to the refugees' status or to any future political agreement.

Lifeline thrown to species at risk: Thousands of endangered species should be saved from extinction thanks to an ambitious plan to expand the world's protected areas and improve their management approved on Friday by more than 120 countries. To the surprise of many environmental groups, 12 days of often fractious negotiations at the convention on biological diversity in Kuala Lumpur resulted in a concrete programme to ensure the "significant reduction of biodiversity loss by 2010".

The little priest who became a bloody dictator like the one he once despised: There was a time, 20 years ago, when anyone wishing to come to grips with the grotesque poverty and fitful violence of Haiti under the crumbling Duvalier dictatorship would have been itching to meet Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Group urges UN to focus on young victims of conflicts: Children caught up in one of Latin America's longest running military conflicts, in Colombia, are dying violently at a rate of about seven per day, according to a report released on Wednesday by the Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict. "We are outraged that the international community is standing by so silently," said Watchlist Coordinator Julia Freedson. "Countless children are losing their families, their homes, their communities, and even their lives to the ongoing conflict," she added.

A wasted year: Three days after the opinion polls made us wince, the prime minister got up on the podium in the Knesset to sum up the government's first year in office. It wasn't exactly a presidential State of the Union speech with vision and sweep, but neither was it a pat on the back over the government's achievements. "A year is too short a time to sum anything up," said Sharon. Who says? Remember Menachem Begin? During his first year in office he brought President Sadat to Jerusalem and paved the way for peace with Egypt.

British soldier - We kicked, punched Iraqi prisoners: Serving British soldier tells The Sun of his comrades' ways of torturing Iraqi prisoners in Iraqi city of Basra.

2/20

Arab Perspective: Neighbours must help to stabilise Iraq

Help needed - Islamic revolution in the west: Muslim nations import absolutely everything from the outside world. Perhaps it is time to add a renovated understanding of Islam to the order form. We need our Muslim brethren in the western democracies to export to us the ideals of democracy and freedom.

Iran, Iraq, and two Shiite visions: As Shiite-run Iran begins its elections Friday, Shiites in Iraq follow a different vision toward their own democratic debut.

Another President for the Occupation?: "The Cause of Israel is the Cause of America" - By SEN. JOHN KERRY: Editors' Note: We offer this unfettered pledge of fealty to Israel by John Kerry as yet more evidence that there's scarcely a dime's worth of difference between the major political candidates of both parties on the life-and-death issues of our time. AC/JSC

Security Comes First: The story began last week when our new freelancer in the capital gave me a copy of her ID card so I could give her a press pass. I noticed that the area reserved for her photo was covered. I asked her why, and she told me that someone from the National Guard had come to her workplace asking if any Saudi women wanted to participate in the Janadriyah festival. The representative told the people there to tell her to cover the photo on her ID card.

Arabs should focus on growth: The Prime Minister of Bahrain, Shaikh Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, has said that there could be no peace or stability in the region unless a just and durable solution to the Palestinian issue was achieved. He warned that failure to address the issue would result in further violence and extremism

2/18

Teaching them who's boss: During the past three-and-a-half years, S., a veteran ambulance driver, has been evacuating victims injured by Israeli army gunfire and the bodies of those killed on the firing line in Rafah. Early in the morning of February 8, he was summoned to pick up an older man who was suffering an anxiety attack. His house, the family home of the Abu Labada family, had been seized by an Israel Defense Forces unit; his son Ashraf, who was not known in Rafah to be on the army's wanted list, fled from the house, and was shot and killed.

Boosting Arab women's legal participation: Scores of legal professionals from 16 Arab countries will conclude today their discussions on how to enhance women's participation in the formulation of laws. "The importance of this meeting stems from the relations that would be built up and knitted among Arab women working in the legal field," said Reem Abu-Hassan, a Jordanian lawyer.

Warsaw Ghetto Abu Dis: Five haikus on the Apartheid Wall: An obscene monument to the belief that "too much is never enough," Israel's monstrous Apartheid Wall is a visible indictment of the racist folly of forcibly separating people from each other and the places they love.

2/17

Enough of this demographic panic: Here is a tool that both the right and the left use in the same manner, but for opposite purposes: demography. The prophets of demographic doom appear at every political gathering, warning that only a few years from now, Israel will no longer have a Jewish majority.

Anti-terror fight result right abuse: A working group of the UN commission on human rights said Monday it was gravely worried about rights abuses by several countries, including the United States, in their quest to battle terrorism.

For Our Children’s Sake, Let Us Stop This Folly! Life, as we knew it before Sept. 11, 2001, no longer exists. The horrid attacks on New York and Washington were a Pandora’s box, out of which emerged fear, panic, wars, violence, bloodshed, suspicion, uncertainty, mistrust, prejudice, discrimination, racism, fanaticism, dangerous nationalism, politicization of world religions, lack of respect for humanity and for world cultures, flagrant breach of international law, a media that is actively driving a wedge between nations, hostility toward Islam, and a vicious campaign, which portrays all Muslims as potential terrorists and all Arabs as enemies of Western civilization.

Imaginative initiatives needed to bring peace - de Klerk: "The lesson we learned was that only when we - in our party which governed South Africa for 50 years - said to ourselves that we must accept that apartheid is wrong, that it is morally indefensible and that we have to change; not because of pressure, not just because we were becoming isolated but because we have failed to bring justice to everybody."

SIS Report: 19 Israeli Settlements Occupy %12.6 of the Gaza Strip and Deprive Palestinians of their Livelihood: The report said that 7,000 Israeli settlers are living in these 19 settlements, nine of which have been constructed on religious grounds and controlled by ultra-orthodox Jews, while both secular and religious Jews live in seven others, as the remaining three are purely secular ones.

2/16

Arab silence over WMD scandal is perplexing: Weapons of mass destruction scandals are gaining momentum in the United States as well as Britain. The two major war allies, who violated Iraq's sovereignty without an international mandate last year, are now scrambling to show that they were simply behaving with honourable motives when they marched into Baghdad, leaving behind uncounted corpses of innocent Iraqis.

A Life Sentence Without a Trial? Senior U.S. defense officials have told The New York Times that they are planning to keep many of the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detainees there for many years, maybe "indefinitely," which presumably means for life. This is a sweeping and highly questionable assertion of government power. The only mitigating circumstance is that the Bush administration seems to be planning a three-member panel to conduct annual reviews of long-serving prisoners; at least the imprisonments won't be totally arbitrary.

Al Qaeda's new young guard: a shift in tactics: Even as Osama bin Laden remains at large, Al Qaeda may be anointing new, younger leaders to carry on his cause. Some experts go so far as to call this coterie terrorism's next generation.

Inflection point on war: public evenly split: Factors behind a sharp drop in public support may include casualties in Iraq, questions about the prewar rationale for war, and dipping approval for Bush.

OPEC President: May Output Cut Possible

ElBaradei among Nobel nominees: Jailed Israeli atomic whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu, the head of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei and former Czech President Vaclav Havel are among a record 173 nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize.

2/15

Terror groups flourish in Canada: U.S. report: Canada is "a favoured destination" for terrorists and organized crime groups because of lax law enforcement, proximity to the United States and a generous social welfare system, a U.S. report says.

Israeli soldier indicted for manslaughter: Soldier who shot British pacifist Tom Hurndall in Rafah last April has his indictment upgraded to include manslaughter.

Invasion of Afghanistan was a big mistake: Fifteen years ago, the last Soviet troops left Afghanistan, ending a disastrous 10-year invasion that claimed the lives of at least 15,000 soldiers and fuelled the rise of Islamic extremists. The Afghan invasion still provokes heated debate in Russia, which is bogged down in a bleeding guerrilla conflict for the past decade in its republic of Chechnya, where 10,000 Russian troops have been killed.

World Bank condemns defence spending: The president of the World Bank condemned the amount developed countries spend on defence on Friday, saying it was "madness" compared with the sums committed to aid projects. James Wolfensohn told an audience in Australia: "We are spending 20 times the amount on military expenditure than what we are spending on trying to give hope to people."

Of politics and peace: As the intifada approaches its bloody three-and-a-half-year milestone at a cost of almost 3,000 Palestinian and 1,000 Israeli lives, the question that arises is what role will the United States play in addressing this conflict, given the natural tendency of past administrations to avoid the potentially negative electoral consequences of dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in an election year.

2/12

Iraqi deaths rise but no count on bodies: The U.S. military knows 537 of its soldiers have been killed in the war in Iraq, can cite names, how and when they died. But when it comes to dead Iraqi civilians, it will not even talk hundreds or thousands.

What was the purpose of the IDF's operation?: Why did Israel decide on military action that caused so many Palestinian deaths in the northern Gaza Strip so soon after the prime minister announced his intention of dismantling many of the settlements in that area? Was the purpose to show the Palestinians that the decision to withdraw was not a victory for them or for terror?

Paradox for U.S.: Allies more skeptical yet more cooperative: The failure to find unconventional weapons in Iraq has produced headlines around the world about how American credibility has been reduced to tatters, producing fresh concerns in the Bush administration over possible damage to the effort to curb the global spread of such weapons.

Rise of Khomeinism and the last of the 'Ten Little Indians': Ten Little Indians" is the title of a nursery rhyme that inspired one of Agatha Christie's best loved thrillers. In it, the "Indians" in question disappear one after another until we learn that "then there was none".

Al Qedwa: Israel Makes Empty Claims About its Desire for Peace: Mr. Nasser Al Qedwa, the permanent observer of Palestine to the United Nations, in a letter submitted to the President of the Security Council, Mr. Wang Guangya, lashed out at Israel's “empty claims before the international community regarding Israel alleged peace,” as its military forces had perpetrated yesterday a carnage, taking the lives of 15 Palestinians.

Fabricating an Enemy: It is the Bush Administration, rather than Baghdad, which is supporting Al Qaeda

New York Police Sued Over Anti-War Protest Arrests: Civil rights lawyers on Wednesday sued the New York Police Department on behalf of 52 people arrested at an anti-war protest, the latest in a series of lawsuits nationwide challenging police conduct at rallies opposing the U.S.-led war on Iraq.

Withdrawing from the pullout: Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz last week backed Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to evacuate all settlements from the center and southern portions of the Gaza Strip. Whatever his political motives might have been, Mofaz's statements were refreshing. Before he made them, he was considered a spokesman for the hard line that opposes "retreat under fire" - and Sharon's unilateral plan takes into account the likelihood Palestinian fire will continue.

Diversionary actions, Sharon's devious turn: One cannot help noticing that both President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon have a knack for missing the obvious. Just examine how the American president refused to go along with the belated and widespread American perception, after learning that "we were all wrong" about Iraq's weapons cache, that the American-led war on Iraq was unjustified, or that Saddam's Iraq hardly posed an "imminent" threat to the United States.

US among the 'ruins' of Arab nationalism: Since the occupation of Iraq last April, analysts have puzzled over what impact this new reality will have on Arab nationalism, as well as on political Islam, the two ideological pillars that shape the Arab world.

Groups Decry FCC Ownership Rules Debate: Federal regulators were assailed by media access groups and big media companies alike as a federal appeals court began considering whether the FCC overstepped its authority when it rewrote rules barring companies from owning newspapers and broadcast outlets in the same cities.

2/11

Time runs out to save species: Hopes are high that an international conference in Malaysia will agree on ways to reverse the decline in plant and animal species worldwide.

Historic New York Rendezvous Starts in Good Spirit: Bringing the Cypriot leaders together for a solution to the Cyprus issue, United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Kofi Annan's messages before the historic rendezvous enlivens the hope for a solution.

Food: It's soy easy to eat healthy: Between 1998 and 2003, the consumption of vegetarian food in the United States developed into a $1.6 million market, growing at constant prices by 113 percent. Since family-brand companies like Kraft, General Mills and Kellogg's have joined the vegetarian food products market, buyers have burgeoned beyond the traditional health food store customer, and the vegetarian image is no longer hippy-dippy.

UN study analyzes how benefits from traditional medicines are shared: A new United Nations report spotlights the complexities of equitably sharing profits from the commercial use of herbs traditionally nurtured by indigenous groups, but recently analyzed and patented by non-indigenous corporations.

UN health agency issues safety and sustainability guidelines for herbal medicines

KYOTO PROTOCOL WILL NOT IMPROVE WORLD ECOLOGICAL SITUATION - SAYS RUSSIAN VICE PREMIER: "In the present-day conditions, the Kyoto Protocol will not improve the ecological situation in the world, in particular because of the USA's refusal to ratify it," he noted. However, the Vice Premier remarked, the United States accounts for 25 percent of the world's economy.

Ernesto Che Guevara complex declared: Nilson Acosta, executive secretary of the National Monuments Commission, read the resolution approving that just initiative, which took into account the extraordinary merits of the heroic guerrilla, whose name has been given to the monument complex of a plaza, a bronze sculpture and its base and other facilities. This singular work was built in 1988 with the participation of the people.

'Heinous' Assassination Of Colombian Journalist: "Democracy cannot be considered to be securely established while those who use the gun to curtail freedom of expression enjoy impunity for their crimes and I welcome moves by the authorities to collect information on this case," Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura said of Oscar Alberto Polanco Herrera, known for his broadcasts criticizing authority, who was murdered in the city of Cartago.

France's great paradox to pursue secularism with religious zeal: It's on. The lower house of the French Parliament has overwhelmingly voted to make into law the proposal to ban wearing "ostensible religious symbols" such as veils, yarmulkes and large crucifixes in public schools. The idea seems to be catching on elsewhere - Belgium and Germany have indicated they would consider a similar law.

2/10

Time Could Be Running Out for the ‘Endless War’ Brigade: Richard Perle, former chairman of the US Defense Policy Board, and George W. Bush’s former speech writer David Frum — co-authors of a book entitled “An end to evil: How to win the war on terror” — outlined their right-wing extremist views on Boston University’s WUBUR radio last Friday. Their message was loud and clear. US global dominance using military might when necessary is the only way forward.

Justification for Military Action: The confession by the Bush Administration's chief arms investigator that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction before the war has sent a thunderbolt of puzzlement through the pundits and politicians of the Anglo-American elite. "How could the intelligence reports have been so wrong?" they cry, wringing their hands in consternation. "Independent" commissions filled with Establishment worthies are now in the offing, as the architects of the war -- and their media sycophants -- pledge to resolve this disturbing mystery.

Aggressions have become a great school for our people: IN setting out the Revolution’s colossal accomplishments in education at the closing session of University 2004, President Fidel Castro affirmed that what the Cuban people have created is an unprecedented achievement that the terrorist U.S. government would like to destroy.

Al Qaeda plotting Iraq civil war: The United States says a militant it describes as an associate of Osama bin Laden has plotted a series of attacks in Iraq aimed at provoking a civil war. "There is clearly a plan on the part of outsiders to come into this country and spark civil war, breed sectarian violence and try to expose fissures in the society," said General Kimmitt, the top US military spokesman in Iraq.

Muslim terrorists step up activities in Latin America: Muslim terror groups, including Hamas and Hezbollah, have recently stepped up their efforts to consolidate their power in distant areas of Latin America, particularly in the triangle of borders of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, say Israeli and American security sources.

Seeking An Organized Solidarity: Today, ten years after Oslo, after the many new initiatives and agreements, the second Intifada rages and we have yet to see all of its consequences. Today, who would continue to assert that the Palestinians are in control of their destiny?

Success worth noting in Iraq: The Bush administration offered two reasons to wage unilateral war in Iraq – Saddam Hussein was stockpiling vast quantities of weapons, and efforts to contain him through sanctions and inspections were hopeless. The more time passes, the more it appears that both arguments were wrong.

Doubts, dissent removed from public report on Iraq: The public version of the U.S. intelligence community's key prewar assessment of Iraq's illicit arms programs was stripped of dissenting opinions, warnings of insufficient information and doubts about Saddam Hussein's intentions, a review of the document and its once-classified version shows

Israeli Media Incitement Against the Palestinian People over the Third Year of the Intifada: The Israeli occupying state has been launching a comprehensive war against the Palestinian people over the three-year- Aqsa Intifada (uprising). During which Israel has used its most devastating military ordnance, targeting all walks of Palestinian life. The Israeli military war against the Palestinian people has been accompanied by another more callous media war whereby Israel tries to conceal its inhuman crimes against the Palestinian people.

NATO Says World Security Tied to Afghan Stability: Afghan stability is vital to world security and is NATO´s top priority, the alliance´s secretary general said Monday at a ceremony to hand command of the NATO-run force, policing mainly Kabul, from Germany to Canada.

Oceans need urgent attention, environmental groups say: Environmental groups say fishing practices are damaging the world's oceans and they are calling for urgent action to protect the high seas. They have expressed their concerns at a UN conference on biodiversity in Kuala Lumpur.

Bows and arrows: According to some old Indian - or is it Arabic? - proverb, there are two things that can't be retrieved once released: an arrow and the spoken word. The prime minister has shot an arrow and also let some words fly that he can't take back.

Shifting rationale for Iraq war: President Bush today offered a shifting rationale for the Iraq war -- that Saddam Hussein had the capacity to develop unconventional arms if not the actual weapons.

New UN measures strengthen sanctions against Al-Qaida, chairman of panel says: The Chairman of a United Nations Security Council committee monitoring the sanctions against Al-Qaida and the Taliban today described a strengthened regime designed to stem the terrorist threat posed by those groups.

The Anti-Semitism Spectre: Some 30 years ago when the U.S. military was bogged down in Vietnam, a number of prominent Jewish intellectuals worried that the visibility of U.S. Jews as leaders in the anti-war movement would spark a resurgence of anti-Semitism once the conflict ended.

OPEC must do something about oil production: Algerian Energy Minister says oil cartel must definitely take steps to curb output to avoid fall in oil prices.

Battle over Twin Towers insurance: A US federal jury has begun hearing a case to decide whether the leaseholder of the World Trade Center can claim insurance for one attack or two.

2/9

The real voice of America: Torrents of mail poured in from the U.S. condemning the Bush administration.

The Grand Strategy Behind the Gaza Offer: Do you want to make the deal of a lifetime? Go to Gaza!

Banking on Empire: Iraqi ministries will now be able to borrow billions of dollars to buy much-needed equipment from overseas suppliers, but only by mortgaging the national oil revenues through a bank managed by New York-based multinational JP Morgan Chase.

Court Hearing Case Over West Bank Barrier: The Supreme Court heard petitions from two Israeli human rights groups against the West Bank separation barrier Monday, a day after the government said it would change the route to minimize hardship for Palestinians.

'Hello, I'm Israeli-Palestinian': Ali Jarbawi has long seen the creation of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side, as the best solution to the Middle East conflict. But the professor of political science from Bir Zeit university in the West Bank is not sure any more.

IN YOUR FACE: Connections between Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force, 9/11 and Peak Oil “On the Table”

Lockheed Martin To Develop New Next Generation Missile Defense: Lockheed Martin has won a contract from the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) to further develop and demonstrate the first system capable of destroying multiple ballistic missile threats and decoys with a single launch. The system will carry multiple small kill vehicles that will destroy adversarial missiles and decoys by colliding with them in space.

Security, Terror, and the Psychodynamics of Empire: On September 11, 2001, the United States experienced a massive terrorist attack that killed some 3,000 people. To put this event in perspective, remember, the United Kingdom experienced the latest IRA terror campaign for over two decades. Italy experienced the Red Brigades for at least a half-dozen years along with a variety of right-wing terrorist groups. Many Latin American countries have experienced terrorism of left and right, along with state terror, often supported by the United States, killing tens to hundreds of thousands in several countries. Iraq has been through three wars and over a decade of sanctions resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands and the impoverishment of a once thriving country. And, in the last 25 years, several African countries have experienced the terror of civil wars resulting in the deaths of millions.

Gulf News says: Nato's new role - Help build nations: When America went into Afghanistan, seeking to destroy the Taliban regime and capture Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar, it vowed not to leave the country in the lurch, in the way it did when the Soviet Union withdrew. Yet, with the US presidential elections looming, it is apparent President George W. Bush is keen to see less troops in Afghanistan and Iraq

Lawyers, Activists Investigated for Iraq War Protest: Sporadic news reports since the U.S. invaded Iraq in the Spring of 2003 have revealed that the Bush Administration is conducting surveillance on anti-war protestors. Except for the man in South Carolina who was prosecuted for displaying an anti-war placard within a "restricted area" (meaning where Bush could see it) at a Columbia, S.C. airport, no one has been charged with a crime for protesting.

Kay's Findings (or lack thereof) Started Dubya's Slide: President Bush's January decline in public opinion started soon after a top adviser on the search for weapons of mass destruction said he did not believe Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons, a tracking poll suggests.

Friendliness of Host Countries Influences US Troop Redeployment: Speaking at a press conference in Munich, where he was attending a NATO ministers meeting, Rumsfeld said the repositioning of forces was an "enormously complex" exercise that was still being worked on, "but clearly the countries that have the most substantial numbers of forces are going to be affected."

Short Memories: PERHAPS IT WAS inevitable that the No Child Left Behind Act, passed in 2001, would become a political football in this election year. It's the domestic achievement that President Bush most likes to boast about. Just last month, he made what can be described only as a campaign stop at a low-income school in St. Louis, telling students there that he'd like to "hold you up for the nation to see what is possible when you raise the bar." But it's also a piece of legislation with a few serious flaws. The rigid No Child Left Behind rules produce absurdities, particularly in their requirements for special education students and non-English speakers.

Support it, despite the doubts: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan for dismantling Gaza Strip settlements stirs incredulous responses. Indeed, there is cause for a large measure of skepticism regarding the seriousness of Sharon's intention to carry out what he has declared within a reasonable period of time - the doubts stem both from his statements' departure from well-known positions he has held for dozens of years, and from the fact that many of his declarations as prime minister have been empty rhetoric.

Groups link autism to vaccines: A panel from the Institute of Medicine will examine a raft of new studies on the subject, including a Danish study of nearly 500,000 children that found no link between vaccines and autism and a US study that found a possible mechanism for mercury, lead and other heavy metals to cause such disorders.

2/8

See No Evil?: "A week into Palestine, I was no stranger to Israeli troops, their checkpoints, closed roads and the houses they've destroyed. But nothing I had experienced prepared me for Gaza .. -- From the checkpoints and 'security fence' of the West Bank to the gunfire and desperation of Gaza, this is the story Palestinians want you to hear."

Number Two, To Go: GOP inner circles are buzzing with the rumor that President Bush is planning to drop Dick Cheney from his re-election ticket and replace him with 9/11 action hero Rudy Giuliani.

We Are the Majority - by Bernie Sanders: How do we build a political movement in this country that represents all of the people and not a handful of millionaires? The middle class is collapsing, the people on top are making out like bandits, and the poorest people are struggling just to keep their heads above water.

The CIA Ate My Homework: Can President Bush, Vice President Cheney and the Pentagon neoconservatives get away with blaming the Central Intelligence Agency for the mess in Iraq?

Islamic rappers' message of terror: It's rap, jihad-style. A music video with blood-curdling images, fronted by a young British Muslim rapper brandishing a gun and a Koran is the latest hit in radical Islamic circles.

Identity crisis: Israel will undoubtedly continue to exist as the state of the Jews. However, is a state in which Jews constitute a majority also by the same token a Jewish state? Is it a state in which the humane values of Judaism in the course of 3,000 years are also leading values for the majority of its citizens?

2/7

G7 calls for exchange rate stability: The world's top finance officials have warned that "disorderly" currency movements threatened the global economy, adopting a European stand that seeks to brake the slide in the dollar.

UN's Cambodian 'success' in question: More than a decade after the United Nations claimed as a success story the restoration of democracy in war-ravaged Cambodia, the Southeast Asian country is showing this achievement to be much less than it has been vaunted to be.

Annan: Israel must also consider leaving West Bank: Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia will leave Sunday for Egypt, on his way to Europe, and will meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to discuss the West Bank security fence and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan, Israel Radio reported Saturday.

There's more to the US image than PR: The United States' standing abroad, especially in the Muslim world, had deteriorated to such an extent that "it will take as many years of hard, focused work" to restore it. That was the latest testimony of Margaret Tutwiler, Under Secretary of State for public diplomacy, before a House Appropriation sub-committee. What Tutwiler said, though, has been a well-known fact for anyone tracking public opinion polls on the subject. But what should be part of high public attention is that solutions to this problem are still being sought through the wrong strategies.

McNamara: the Sequel: Apparently to McNamara's mortification, Errol Morris, whose film The Fog of War I recently discussed here, passes over his subject's thirteen-year stint running the World Bank, whither he was dispatched by LBJ, Medal of Freedom in hand.

A Boom Year for Corporate Crime: The 10 Worst Corporations of 2003

2/6

Court deluged by barrier opinions: Forty-four nations have filed opinions with the International Court of Justice on the controversial barrier that Israel is building in the West Bank.

Palestinian Women Hard Hit by Israeli Occupation: Israel's repressive policies in military-occupied West Bank and Gaza have had a devastating impact on the lives of Palestinian women and children, a new U.N. study says.

Palestinian malnutrition at African levels under Israeli curbs, say MPs

Bush's fantasy budget: President George W. Bush's new budget proposal is an exercise in election-year cynicism. It calls for cuts in programs he knows Congress will protect and future tax cuts he knows the nation cannot afford. Meanwhile, vital domestic programs, like environmental protection and housing for the poor, wind up as the sacrificial victims.

'Artists for the UN' scheme launched to promote global peace: An initiative to encourage artists, entertainers, statesmen and stateswomen to publicly support the ideals, vision and mandate of the United Nations as the best organization to promote peace across the globe was launched at the world body's Headquarters in New York today.

Israel's wall tainted with violence, brick for brick: It is needless to say that suicide bombings play well into the hands of Israel, thanks in part to unbalanced and out-of-context media coverage throughout the United States, and to a lesser extent, Europe. Only Palestinians seem to target civilians "in the hearts of their cities." Israel's much higher rate of killing occupied and oppressed Palestinians is vindicated under the banner of "self-defence."

Breakfast with Sharon: As Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and I finished our chat with a cup of tea and halvah, I took my leave with the feeling that Sharon has embarked on a road of no return. Either he marches forward, or he's out of the game.

Republicans ready the 'L' word: Republicans and their allies have begun laying the groundwork for a familiar line of attack against Senator John Kerry:

US dissuades Sinopec from bidding in Iranian oil-field - China/the US/Iran, an energy game: A senior official at China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) lately stated, "Sinopec pays no attention to the US request" and "will do its utmost to carry on its bidding for the exploitation project in Iranian oilfield". Why did the American government decide to put direct pressures on Chinese oil companies? Experts believe that the "uncompromising stand of the Sinopec is the manifestation of "being somewhat prepared".

Iraqi Palestinian update: Refuge and Death: Peering through the gateway into Haifa Sports Club, one is struck by a sea of gray and weather weary UNHCR tents. Strung between several, over dried muddy ground are ropes used to dry clothes and hang television aerials. Although the conditions have improved some and the numbers have dropped greatly, there are still a large number of Palestinians in Baghdad nearing their second year in this small tent city

The US Media and the Wall: Thomas Friedman and 60 Minutes: Why do Americans understand so little about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the damage created by Israel's colossal West Bank Wall? The self-imposed US media blackout on the Wall's construction finally began to lift last August when President Bush mentioned the problems created by Israel's Wall "snaking its way through the West Bank."

Prosecutor blasts U.S. secrecy as German court acquits Sept. 11 suspect: A court on Thursday acquitted a Moroccan man of helping the Sept. 11 hijackers while they lived and studied in Hamburg, citing a lack of evidence that he was involved in the al-Qaida cell's plans to attack the United States.

‘The Soldiers Ruined Our Lives’: A Mangyan is beaten up with an Armalite and its barrel forced into his anus. Another is made to climb a tree and sing while soldiers taunted him with insults. A house is torn down and a mini-store looted. There are other beatings and arbitrary arrests. All these and more are what happened when about 2,000 soldiers stormed three towns in Occidental Mindoro for seven days late January in search of NPA guerrillas. Military operations are continuing.

Is the UN Returning to Iraq as US Front?: Pressed by the United States, the United Nations will send an electoral team to assess the feasibility of holding nation-wide elections in Iraq before the end of June. But some observers doubt the world body will be able to present an unbiased perspective of the view on the ground, because of U.S. opposition to the proposed vote.

From policeman to suicide bomber: The family of the latest Palestinian suicide bomber have expressed shock at his involvement in the attack because he was due to be married next week.

1st fossilized footprints in Asia: Fossilized footprints from stone age men have been discovered for the first time in Asia in South Korea, cultural authorities said Friday.

Tribal justice takes hold in Iraq: As Iraqis wait for the establishment of a new constitution and judicial framework, so-called "tribal courts" are already administering rough justice in the south.

A Month into 2004, and ARV's Still Scarce: AIDS campaigners in South Africa are worried about the apparent lack of progress in implementing a plan to distribute anti-retroviral drugs to millions of people living with the disease.

Palparan: From Mindoro to Iraq: In the Philippine military, it has been customary to send errant soldiers to Mindanao for tougher assignments. Col. Jovito Palparan, Jr. is however considered an asset to government’s counter-insurgency campaign and has been promoted to brigadier general. Human rights groups are wondering whether his new assignment in Iraq is a way of plucking him out of the hot seat he faces at home for alleged human rights violations – or as yet another promotion.

2/5

Kissinger Document Shows Pre-Emption in Practice: While critics and supporters of the Bush administration's pre-emption doctrine have described it as unprecedented in U.S. diplomacy, the release of a 34-year-old memo advocating ''regime change'' in Chile shows the policy has been around for quite some time.

LIFELOG DEAD: The Pentagon has pulled the plug on LifeLog, its stunningly ambitious effort to build a database tracking a person's entire existence. (Darpa's Pageon Lifelog)

Bush says Iraq is ''free nation'' as CIA chief defends pre-war intelligence: US President George W Bush on Wednesday vowed to advance the cause of freedom and democracy everywhere, including the Middle East."America," said Bush, "is pursuing a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East. We are challenging the enemies of reform, confronting the allies of terror, and expecting a higher standard from our friends."

Same Skeletons, Different Closet: How Many People Will Die Because of This "Mistake", Senator Kerry?

Palestine and the Media - The Imagery of Arabs: After years of military occupation, Palestinians have many demands on their limited resources. Managing the media gets a low priority when faced with humanitarian demands from a population that needs amongst other things health care, education and replacement housing. Yet managing the media is an important way of getting your message across to a Western public that sympathises when Israelis are killed by Palestinian suicide bombers, while Palestinians are portrayed as a barbaric people who hate Israel and do not want peace.

Iraqis are learning the deadly cost of working for the US: In the northern city of Mosul, Mustafa al-Sheikh, a businessman turned television producer, has just received a letter warning that he will be killed if he works with the Americans. Mr Sheikh has been hired by the US military to make a film for local television lauding the Iraqi police in Mosul. He did not plan to tell the police about the death threats. "They cannot even defend themselves," he said.

FlashBack - “Killing You is a Very Easy Thing For Us”: Human Rights Abuses in Southeast Afghanistan

Privacy and Consumer Profiling: This occurs through aggregating information from online and offline purchase data, supermarket savings cards, white pages, surveys, sweepstakes and contest entries, financial records, property records, U.S. Census records, motor vehicle data, automatic number information, credit card transactions, phone records (Customer Proprietary Network Information or "CPNI"), credit records, product warranty cards, the sale of magazine and catalog subscriptions, and public records.

New Moves Underway in Nuclear Poker: Pakistan's government clearly seems to be moving toward putting on trial some of the individuals allegedly involved in clandestine transfer of nuclear weapons technology and components from Pakistan to North Korea, Iran and Libya.

Israel Out of Gaza, Not so Fast: Since taking office three years ago, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has made a series of bold political pronouncements, especially for a right-wing prime minister. But questions have arisen over what he meant before, and what he means this time.

The Deadly Lies of Reliable Sources: Ninety-five days before the invasion of Iraq began, I sat in the ornate Baghdad office of the deputy prime minister as he talked about the U.N. weapons inspectors in his country. “They are doing their jobs freely, without any interruption,” Tariq Aziz said. “And still the warmongering language in Washington is keeping on.”

Pakistani arms network case is the tip of an iceberg: UN nuclear chief: The revelations from the father of the Pakistan atomic bomb about a clandestine network for spreading nuclear technology are just the "tip of an iceberg" about such illegal trafficking, UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei said Thursday.

2/4

Devious Dubya's Dismal Dilemma: If George W. Bush weren’t such an arrogant horse’s ass, you could almost feel sorry for him. Almost.

Powell may have blown lid off debate over war: The US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, has lit the fuse on what may prove to be one of the most explosive political debates in the American election. Have more than 500 US soldiers died in Iraq, thousands more been maimed and US taxpayers been hit with a massive bill because of an intelligence failure?

Sharon Drops Another Bombshell: One day after announcing his intention to dismantle all Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon dropped another bombshell yesterday, saying Israel was considering redrawing Israel’s borders to place parts of the country’s Arab population under Palestinian control in exchange for settlements.

UK: Intelligence chiefs 'ignored WMD warnings': Intelligence chiefs ignored warnings from their own leading experts that they could not be certain Iraq had chemical and biological weapons, a former intelligence official who gave crucial evidence to the Hutton inquiry claimed today.

ILO: 'Child labour prevents development': Educating children, rather than forcing them to work, could yield enormous economic benefits for developing nations, according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

Pilgrims Head Home En Masse: Hundreds of buses and cars streamed out of Mina and Makkah, packed with pilgrims heading home after what for many was a once-in-lifetime journey of faith. After living in austere conditions for the past week, the devout traveled to Jeddah to catch flights back home or to the holy city of Madinah to offer prayers at the Prophet’s Mosque, the second holiest site in Islam.

A Venezuelan Miracle? For those who like numbers and data, it is worth reminding them that five years after he became president, Hugo Chavez maintains a level of popularity that has never been reached by any president, not even in their second year in office. This is particularly unusual, given that he defeated a fascist coup attempt, which attempted to eliminate all democratic freedoms, and he defeated the strike-sabotage of December 2002 and January 2003, which cost the country billions of dollars.

Agent Orange victims file first U.S. suit: Three Vietnamese who say they or their families became ill from Agent Orange defoliant used by America in the war nearly 30 years ago have filed the first lawsuit against makers of the product, a victims group says.

Background / For the Gaza settlers, this time it's personal: They have been under fire for decades, stoned, shot at, and shelled. They have suffered no less than 4,000 mortar and rocket hits in the last three years alone. But for the battle-hardened settlers of the Gaza Strip, the deadliest threat to their homes may have begun this week, in the form of friendly fire from the man who, more than any other, put them where they are: Ariel Sharon.

Sex, Lies and Bush on Tape: President Bush's budget policies have mortgaged America, yet instead of repairing the damage, he is intensifying the harm by trying to make his tax cuts permanent. And this week he presented a budget that is so dazzlingly deceitful it does not even attempt to include the bills for our presence in Iraq.

Bush Budget Cuts a Variety of Programs

World's media focus on US 'credibility gap': The hunt is officially on. Not for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but for where to put the blame for the faulty intelligence that indicated there were WMD in the country before the US-led coalition launched a preemptive war based on that premise.

Ricin: Easy to acquire and a stealth killer: Extracted from the seeds of the castor bean plant Ricinus communis, ricin is one of the most feared substances with the potential to be used as a bioterror agent or weapon of mass destruction.

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US war machine nearly fell apart, army reveals: The first official army history of the Iraq war reveals that United States forces were plagued by supply shortages, radios that could not reach far-flung troops and virtually no reliable intelligence on how Saddam Hussein would defend Baghdad.

Committing to Afghanistan: The most common sin of international crisis management is tardiness. Governments dither and delay about putting up the resources needed to extinguish a flare-up; by the time they act, the trouble is worse and the late-arriving antidote is not good enough. So it may be in Afghanistan.

Sars virus antibody identified: Scientists have identified a human antibody that can block infection by the Sars virus, a discovery that could speed up the development of a drug for the prevention or early treatment of the deadly disease, a research institute said Monday.

Photostory: The Wall in Abu Dis: As the building of Israel's Apartheid Wall continues, Palestinians living in its path are being cut off from their agricultural lands, their schools and hospitals, and sometimes even from their next door neighbours. In Abu Dis, on the edge of Jerusalem, the Wall has been built right in the center of Palestinian neighbourhoods with no consideration for the residents, creating what one piece of graffiti on the Wall dubbed, "Ghetto Abu Dis".

US, Europe still at odds on satellite navigation systems: Negotiators from the two sides ended three days of talks on Friday without US concerns being met on Europe's Galileo system's potential interference with the military applications of the US Global Positioning System (GPS), the officials said.

A hollow achievement: Following the diplomatic victory Israel chalked up when it transpired that most Western countries were uniting in opposition to the international court at The Hague debating the legality of the separation fence, the government is now trying to win another. According to a report by Aluf Benn in yesterday's Haaretz, it is now using its friends in Congress and has asked the administration in Washington to delay the State Department's annual report on human rights violations around the world, until after the hearings in The Hague.

The C.I.A.: Method and Madness: After speaking to "innumerable" U.S. intelligence officers, David Kay has concluded that Bush administration officials did not pressure analysts to exaggerate the threats posed by Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. On Capitol Hill, the Senate Intelligence Committee staff has interviewed over 175 analysts and critics and reached the same conclusion.

Trade Talk (Weekly Standard): Members of the G7 head to Florida to whisper sweet nothings to one another.

He helps guard the Afghan president: Paul Margulies is one of five U.S. State Department special agents on a yearlong assignment to protect Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, who is under near-constant siege as the country moves toward democracy and tries to eradicate terrorism.

Dynastic succession dogs democracy: Republican India consigned hereditary monarchy to history more than 50 years ago. But it has yet to free itself from the spell of political dynasties, judging by the heated exchanges between major political parties ahead of general elections expected in late April or early May.

Antiterror Budget Rises, but Critics Say City Is Shortchanged: His proposal did not include a major change that New York lawmakers had been demanding in the federal budget: a strict limit on the number of cities entitled to the money. That means that the best New York can expect to receive is $94 million, a figure that New York lawmakers say would be much higher if the president and Congress agreed to revise the formula and spread the money among fewer cities.

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Bush yields to pressure for independent WMD inquiry: "The president wants a broad, bipartisan and independent review of our intelligence, particularly relating to weapons of mass destruction and counter-proliferation efforts," an official told Reuters.

For Bush, a Tactical Retreat on Iraq: In deciding to back an independent review of the intelligence regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, President Bush is implicitly conceding what he cannot publicly say: that something appears to be seriously wrong with the allegations he used to take the nation to war in Iraq.

Israel wants U.S. report held until after Hague hearing: Israel has asked the U.S. administration to postpone publication of the State Department's annual report on human rights around the world, fearing it will be used against Israel in the discussion on the separation fence at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

New reports cast doubt on Internet voting: Computers are spreading into nearly every aspect of American life, but the door may have just slammed shut on them as they try to enter the polling booth. Two recent reports have called for pulling the plug on online voting unless serious security concerns are addressed. Many security experts say the flaws cannot be fixed.

US: Global Trade Issues Hit Home: Loss of Jobs Has Trickle-Down Effect on Local Economies in S.C., Other States

UN embargo,inspections disarmed Iraq: UN sanctions against Iraq and weapons inspections "disarmed" former President Saddam Hussein's regime, the UN's Chief nuclear weapons inspector said in a magazine interview published on Sunday.

Symbol of strength and loathing: As you leave Gaza City heading south, there are fewer and fewer houses. The feeling of relative safety you have in the crowded urban streets slips away.

Saving the Palestinian Authority: "Who will turn the tables and [reject] the intifada, which has lost its purpose," asked the headline of an article written at the end of last week by Imad Shakur - who has Israeli citizenship, who was for years an adviser to Yasser Arafat, and who still has a say in the Palestinian leadership.

Bush Giving Congress $2.4 Trillion Budget: President Bush is sending Congress a $2.4 trillion election-year budget that provides big increases to the military and homeland security while squeezing scores of other programs in an effort to cut a deficit projected to top a half-trillion dollars this year.

Why we must focus on Afghanistan once more: Two years ago, the Taliban government was put to flight following a US-led invasion of Afghanistan and hopes were high that the country would be put on the road towards freedom. The infrastructure would be repaired, schools re-opened, women’s rights restored and life in general would return to normal. It has not quite turned out that way.

They came to celebrate. Minutes later, 70 were dead and Kurdistan was in turmoil: Suicide bombs at party offices drag region into heart of insurgency.

Pilots call for evaluation of US intelligence: Pilots today called for greater scrutiny of warnings from US intelligence services, after a new terror alert forced six transatlantic flights to be grounded.

Has North's nuke plan been sexed up?: If the United States did get it "all wrong" on Iraq's non-existent arsenal, why should the world trust its intelligence on North Korea's nuclear drive which sparked a diplomatic meltdown with Pyongyang?

The pieces of Iraq: Ethnic rifts threatening U.S. plan for self-rule: It was among the worst-case scenarios for the Bush administration as it prepared to invade Iraq: civil war once Saddam Hussein's iron grip was broken. Recent weeks have seen potentially worrisome cracks forming along ethnic and religious lines in Iraq that could lead to unrest or worse.

Who's in charge in the territories?: "Unfortunately, the Palestinian Authority is capable of doing no more than condemning the attack, but how does it dare condemn it when our nation is being massacred?"

Israel's 'execution' troops face death quiz: Conal Urquhart reports from Nablus on what the army says was an anti-terrorist operation, but witnesses describe as cold-blooded killing

Revealed: the gas chamber horror of North Korea's gulag: A series of shocking personal testimonies is now shedding light on Camp 22 - one of the country's most horrific secrets

Iraq Blasts May Have Killed More Than 100: Two suicide bombers blew themselves up at the offices of two rival Kurdish parties in this northern Iraqi city. Kurdish officials said casualties were still being counted but one minister said the death toll could rise above 100.

UN Worried of Partial Collapse in PNA, Demands Urgent Funds to the Palestinians: The United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, warned Wednesday that if the economic deterioration continues in the occupied Palestinian territories, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) might face a partial collapse.

European Oil Market Will Collapse - Predicts Expert: If all plans with the Caspian shelf are eventually implemented, the new Baku-Ceyhan pipeline project will cause the European oil markets to collapse, the vice-president of the Russian company Transneft, Sergey Grigoryev, said.

US officials knew in May Iraq possessed no WMD: Blair comes under pressure as Americans admit it was widely known that Saddam had no chemical arsenal.

Bush, Blair nominated for peace prize: Bush and Blair are known to be on the list, having been proposed by Jan Simonsen, a member of the Norwegian parliament. Formerly of the far-right Progressive Party but now an independent, Simonsen said that the duo ought to be honoured "for having dared to take the necessary decision to launch a war on Iraq without having the support of the UN".

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BBC dossier reveals fury at Hutton 'flaws': The war between the BBC and the Government was re-ignited last night after a series of leaked documents revealed growing insistence within the corporation that there are fundamental flaws in Lord Hutton's report.

Pakistan loses ground in Afghanistan: As the Taliban prepare for a crucial phase of their struggle against foreign troops in Afghanistan, a prelude for the final "spring offensive", the resistance movement has lost its support from Pakistan's establishment, under pressure from the United States.

Glimpsing the new world orders: What do Indian street-children, Japanese railway workers, Brazilian farmers, Nepali Dalits and European political activists have in common? All were among the 100,000 people at the fourth World Social Forum in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) last week discussing the theme "Another world is possible".

Soros Foundation Mission Continues: The Soros Foundation is leading the efforts to create a coalition of non-governmental organizations dedicated to monitoring oil export revenues in Kazakhstan. This organization will ensure that revenues are used for the benefit of society at large and are not squandered through corruption and mismanagement.

Columbia astronauts' families say NASA still 'fudging': One year after the crash of the space shuttle Columbia, some of the astronauts' families refuse to forgive NASA, claiming its concealment and "fudging" practice vis-a-vis flight security has not been uprooted.

UN gives nations deadline on al-Qaeda, Taliban sanctions: The UN Security Council turned up the pressure Friday on nations to clamp down on al-Qaeda and the Taliban, saying they must report on the steps taken by April or risk being named in public.