Monthly Archive for February, 2007

Taliban says targets Cheney in Afghan suicide blast
By Caren Bohan, Reuters, 27 February 2007
KABUL – A Taliban suicide bomber killed up to 12 people at the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan on Tuesday in an attack the rebels said was aimed at Dick Cheney, but the visiting U.S. vice president was not hurt.

An American and South Korea soldier were killed, as well as a U.S. government contractor whose nationality was unknown, NATO and Korean officials said. NATO said 27 people were wounded.

A Reuters photographer at the scene at Bagram Airbase, 60 km (40 miles) north of Kabul, saw eight bodies in addition to NATO’s tally of four dead, putting the toll at 12.

“We wanted to target … Cheney,” Taliban spokesman Mullah Hayat Khan told Reuters by phone from an undisclosed location.

Wall St. Tumble Adds to Worries About Economies
By FLOYD NORRIS and JEREMY W. PETERS, New York Times, 27 February 2007
Stock markets around the world plummeted Tuesday in a wave of selling set off by a plunge in China.

Asian Markets Fall Again on Worries About U.S. Economy
By KEITH BRADSHER, New York Times, 28 February 2007
HONG KONG, Feb. 28 � Stock markets fell sharply across most of Asia on Wednesday morning.

But most of the worries were not about China, which started a global sell-off on Tuesday, but about the strength of the American economy and the continued willingness of international investors to keep buying shares far from home.

U.S. Set to Join Iran and Syria in Talks on Iraq
By HELENE COOPER and KIRK SEMPLE, New York Times, 28 February 2007
WASHINGTON, Feb. 27 � American officials said Tuesday that they had agreed to hold the highest-level contact with the Iranian authorities in more than two years as part of an international meeting on Iraq.

The discussions, scheduled for the next two months, are expected to include Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Iranian and Syrian counterparts.

The announcement, first made in Baghdad and confirmed by Ms. Rice, that the United States would take part in two sets of meetings among Iraq and its neighbors, including Syria and Iran, is a shift in President Bush�s avoidance of high-level contacts with the governments in Damascus and, especially, Tehran.

The Empire and Inequality Report, no 12
by Paul Street, ZNet, 28 February 2007

�The United States has always exercised as much power as it could. It has always coupled that power with efforts to spread freedom�and fulfill their mission as the vanguard of progress.�

- David Brooks , New York Times columnist, February 1, 2007

I�m always amused when �conservatives� describe The New York Times as �left� and �liberals� describe it as intelligent. Dominant United States media�s leading �newspaper of record� regularly and routinely reports and comments on current events in remarkably sycophantic and stupid ways that hide and justify the crimes of Empire and Inequality.

[Read the report]

Noah Merrill, Electronic Iraq, 19 February 2007

The United States has announced that it will accept 7,000 Iraqi refugees who have fled their country’s catastrophe. In addition, the US will be contributing $18 million toward the the $60 million UNHCR is trying to raise this year to support Iraqis who have been internally displaced as well as those forced to flee to other countries in the region, most notably Jordan and Syria.

These steps, small as they are, are welcome. But the nature of this offer, and the comments surrounding it, highlight fundamental deficiencies in the approach of those in the US government most involved in addressing this crisis.

[Read the report]

‘Exodus’ of Iraq’s ancient minorities
By Patrick Cockburn, The Independent, 26 February 2007

Iraq’s minorities, some of the oldest communities in the world, are being driven from the country by a wave of violence against them because they are identified with the occupation and easy targets for kidnappers and death squads. A “huge exodus” is now taking place, according to a report by Minority Rights Group International.

[Read the report]

Water shortage leads people to drink from rivers
Report, IRIN, 20 February 2007

BAGHDAD (IRIN) – Umm Muhammad Jalal, 39, starts every day walking to a river 7km away from her temporary home in a displacement camp on the outskirts of Fallujah, 70km west of the capital, Baghdad. Because of severe water shortages, she and many others make the daily trip to the river to collect water for all their needs.

“For the past four months we have been forced to drink, wash and clean with the river water. There is a dire shortage of potable water in Fallujah and nearby cities,” Umm Muhammad said.

[Read the report]

AP, NABLUS, WEST BANK, 27 February 2007

Soldiers moved from door to door, entering homes in search of suspects, concentrating on the Old City, a section of rundown buildings and narrow alleyways.

At one point, a small group of nervous soldiers forced a Palestinian youth to lead them into a home. The soldiers then took him, along with several young Palestinian men, into a military vehicle.

Israel’s Supreme Court in 2005 banned the practice of using Palestinian civilians as “human shields” to search homes for explosives or militants ahead of soldiers. The army had no immediate comment on Sunday’s incident.

death, destruction, racism, flowers

At one point a group of eight soldiers walked passed us, guns aimed in every direction, accompanied by an older Palestinian man. I couldn�t figure out what the Palestinian man was doing with them because he didn�t appear to be under arrest. I asked one of the UPMRC volunteers who explained to me that the man had whispered to him that he was a human shield. He�d been �kidnapped� since 4am that morning and was forced to accompany the soldiers as they patrolled the streets so that Palestinian fighters would not shoot at the soldiers. You know this happens, you read about it but nothing prepares you for the shock and disgust of actually seeing it yourself. We made some phone calls to Israeli human rights organizations. The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the use of civilians as human shields in military operations. At this point I start to wonder if anyone cares if a father of five who sells vegetables in the market during the day is being used as a human shield in a military operation.

Michael Smith and Sarah Baxter, Times Online, 25 February 2007

SOME of America�s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.

Tension in the Gulf region has raised fears that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely before President George Bush leaves office. The Sunday Times has learnt that up to five generals and admirals are willing to resign rather than approve what they consider would be a reckless attack.

�There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,� a source with close ties to British intelligence said. �There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible.�

[Read the article] [hat tip]

Claims bones of Jesus found in Jersalem in 1980

(New York – WABC, February 26, 2007) – There is a new, controversial documentary by director James Cameron. The same man who brought Titanic to the big screen is now taking on Christianity, with claims by a panel of scholars that questions whether Jesus rose from the dead.

Eyewitness News reporter Joe Torres has details from the Upper West Side.

If you listen to the researchers, they’ll tell you they may have uncovered the greatest archeological find in history. Talk to the critics, however, and it’s a different viewpoint regarding the news. They say it’s a massive publicity stunt for a soon-to-air TV documentary. Either way, the central finding of this research appears to discredit a bedrock belief of the Christian faith.

Oscar-wining filmmaker James Cameron’s upcoming documentary says inside an ossuary, archeologists found the bones of Jesus Christ. The claim challenges the very foundation of the Christian faith, the resurrection of Jesus.

“The simple fact is that there’s never been a shred of physical, archeological evidence to support that fact until right now,” Cameron said.

[Read the article] [hat tip]