The Middle East Times
Lebanon quizzes ex-security chiefs in Hariri probe
Salim Yassine
AFP
August 31, 2005
FREED: Former Lebanese MP Nassir Qandil speaks in Beirut in this undated file photo. The pro-Syrian figure, who was questioned by UN investigators as a suspect in the killing of Lebanese former prime minister Rafiq Hariri, was freed on August 31.
(REUTERS)
BEIRUT -- Four former pro-Syrian security chiefs arrested as suspects in the murder of ex-premier Rafiq Hariri six months ago were brought before a Lebanese judge on Wednesday after being grilled by UN investigators.
Media owned by the Hariri family accused the four, who include a top aide to President Emile Lahoud, of plotting the February attack that plunged the nation into turmoil.
But former pro-Syrian lawmaker Nasser Qandil, who was also detained in the probe, was freed after appearing before the UN commission of inquiry in Beirut on Tuesday.
http://www.metimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20050831-073917-1322r
Iran claims new nuclear breakthrough
Stefan Smith
AFP
August 30, 2005
TEHRAN -- Iran announced on Monday that it has made another breakthrough in its controversial nuclear program by successfully using biotechnology to extract purer uranium from its mines.
A report on state television said that researchers from Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, after six years of research, had mastered the technique of employing microbes to purify uranium ore in mines prior to mining.
It said, "using biotechnology substantially decreases the cost, increases optimization and prevents environmental contamination" in the process that leads to the production of yellowcake, or concentrated uranium oxide.
http://www.metimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20050830-085200-5007r
56 killed in US airstrikes on Qaeda suspects in Iraq
Seb Walker and Jay Deshmukh
AFP
August 30, 2005
BAGHDAD -- At least 56 people were killed in multiple US airstrikes in Iraq against suspected Al Qaeda hideouts near the Syrian border at dawn on Tuesday, an Iraqi security source said.
The attacks, the second such raid in less than a week, came as Sunni Arabs, believed to be the backbone of the raging insurgency, were seeking alliances to defeat Iraq's newly drafted charter.
"At least 56 people were killed in the airstrikes carried out by US forces near Qaim close to the Syrian border," the security source said.
The US military said that it had no exact numbers of casualties.
"There was a total of three strikes targeting terrorist safe houses ... Abu Islam [a reported Al Qaeda operative] and several associates are believed killed," a US military spokesman in Baghdad said.
http://www.metimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20050830-093006-7019r
Viewpoint: West Sahara conflict lingers
Jacques Roussellier
August 25, 2005
WASHINGTON -- The self-congratulatory statements could be heard reverberating from Washington after the release of 404 Moroccan prisoners-of-war held by the Algerian-backed Polisario separatist rebels fighting for the independence of the Western Sahara region. The release is a fitting tribute to the tenacious, yet discreet, bipartisan American diplomacy that spanned the Clinton and Bush administrations. Still, the release does not fundamentally shift the political dynamics of one of Africa's longest conflicts.
More than 2,100 Polisario-held POWs, captured between 1978 and 1991, were counted in 1995. Their piecemeal release started in 1996 and intensified after 1999. It was part of efforts to find a political solution to the Western Sahara dispute that for 30 years has pitted pro-annexation Morocco against pro-independence Algeria. The newest prisoners have been detained for 15 years, others for more than 20 years.
http://www.metimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20050825-061655-2726r
Australia's Howard rejects Muslim headscarf ban
August 29, 2005
SYDNEY -- Australian Prime Minister John Howard on Monday slapped down suggestions by some ruling party lawmakers that Muslim girls should be banned from wearing Islamic headscarves in public schools.
Howard, who held a landmark meeting with Muslim leaders last week to secure their support for joint action against Islamic extremism, said that he did not support such a ban.
http://www.metimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20050829-034910-8428r
In hiding, another Pakistani rape victim seeks justice
Mazhar Abbas
AFP
August 31, 2005
KARACHI, Pakistan -- Her ordeal at the hands of five rapists was harrowing enough, she says. But the medieval-style tribal justice system that lives on in parts of Pakistan made what happened next even worse.
"I may not be able to speak much to you but my life is in danger. I don't know why this happened to me, but my life has been destroyed," 33-year-old Mariam Bano says in a hasty telephone call from a secret location.
http://www.metimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20050831-051036-2690r
Kenya's star female boxer wants a shot at Ali's daughter
Ken Wekesa
AFP
August 31, 2005
‘HANDS OF STONE’: File photo of Kenya's top female boxer and the first African woman to hold an international title. Congestina Achieng looks on during a training session in Nairobi on April 4.
(REUTERS)
NAIROBI -- She is known as "hands of stone" and trains relentlessly every day, brushing off fatigue as she lifts weights, jumps rope and spars with a single-minded purpose: to take on and beat legendary boxer Muhammed Ali's daughter.
This is Congestina Achieng, Kenya's 27-year-old African women's middleweight boxing champion, a lady pugilist resolute in her determination to knock out Laila Ali, progeny of "The Greatest", at any cost, any time, any place, anywhere.
http://www.metimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20050831-071229-9279r
Viewpoint: The reality-challenged challengers to Cindy Sheehan
Stan Moore
August 31, 2005
It is probably the fault of the media. Or maybe the failure of the public education system. Whosoever fault it is, the American citizens who have flocked to Crawford, Texas, to say that Cindy Sheehan does not speak for them, and to demand that Cindy stop giving aid and comfort to "the enemy", know little about Iraq.
A couple of years ago virtually no Iraqis would describe themselves as enemies of the US. Iraqis welcomed Americans as tourists and as guests. Iraqis came to America to study as university students and maintained close ties with Americans and with their relatives in America. There was no enmity between Iraqis and Americans.
What changed?
America invaded Iraq, illegally and brutally - that's what changed. America's military bombed Iraq and shattered the infrastructure. America's military took away fresh water and electricity and air conditioning and basic comforts and necessities of life. America's military occupied Iraq and began jailing Iraq's citizens, breaking in doors at night in search of resisters to the invasion, and putting thousands of "suspects" in Abu Ghraib and other prisons. Americans began shooting suspicious vehicles, "lighting them up" with machine-gunfire with Iraqi women and children inside. American soldiers began taking photos of themselves with nude Iraqi prisoners stacked like firewood or pyramids or smiling while military dogs barked and bit frightened Iraqi detainees.
The American military came to Iraq and brutalized, sodomized and humiliated the Iraqi people. That is what happened. And some Iraqis started fighting back against the illegal, brutal occupation, thus becoming "the enemy".
Cindy Sheehan wants to reverse the situation. There is no intrinsic reason that Iraqis should be the enemies of Americans. If America withdrew the troops the fighting would cease. Iraqis would not attempt to follow the American army back to America to battle us here. Iraqis would like to heal and restore their nation and live in peace and prosperity, but they cannot do so under the barrel of American guns and tanks and with warplanes and attack helicopters threatening their every move.
If not for oil the US Army would not be in Iraq, and the spectacular gamble to take over and control Iraq's oil is not working, because Iraqis know that American success in controlling their oil is tantamount to colonial subjugation. Iraqis have been there and done that with colonial Britain and many would rather die than be subjugated. And so they fight on.
Cindy Sheehan has the right answer. The Anti-Sheehan's are reality-challenged. Iraqis do not hate us for our freedoms and would not be our enemies if we did not deny them their own freedoms. The American military is the problem, not the solution. The deaths of American soldiers are the American side of the pain caused by our occupation of Iraq. The deaths of Iraqis are the Iraqi share of the pain of occupation. When the occupation ends the pain begins to subside and the healing can begin - not before.
Americans should get a grip on reality. If we were invaded we would fight till the invaders left. That is what Iraqis are doing and will continue to do until they drive us out. Then, after a period of healing, we can become friends once again. Our enemies in Iraq are enemies of our own making. Let us never forget this reality.
Stan Moore is a member of several falconry and ornithological clubs and organizations. Acknowledgement to Media Monitors Network (MMN)
http://www.metimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20050831-082332-3008r
Netanyahu bid puts Sharon between rock and hard place
AFP
August 31, 2005
CHALLENGER: Israeli ex-finance minister Binyamin Netanyahu speaks during a news conference in Tel Aviv, on August 30. Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's bitter rival, launched a bid on Tuesday to topple him as Likud party leader.
(REUTERS)
JERUSALEM -- Binyamin Netanyahu's challenge for leadership of Israel's rightwing Likud leaves Prime Minister Ariel Sharon facing the prospect of electoral defeat at the hands of a party ripped apart by the Gaza pullout.
Tuesday's challenge from his charismatic political nemesis, 22 years his junior, leaves Sharon between a rock and a hard place in a party left angry and embittered by his historic decision to leave the Gaza Strip.
http://www.metimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20050831-074923-5024r
Palestinian militant groups claim Israel suicide attack
AFP
August 29, 2005
RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Palestinian militant groups Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades linked to Fatah and Al Quds Brigades of Islamic Jihad jointly claimed Sunday's suicide bombing in southern Israel, in a statement.
"This operation is a response to the arrogance of the Zionist occupation, to the terrible massacre committed in Tulkarem against the mujahideen of the Al Quds Brigades and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades," the groups said in a joint statement.
A Palestinian blew himself up while trying to board a bus in the southern town of Beersheba, seriously wounding two people with around 40 taken to hospital for treatment.
Sunday's attack was the first suicide bombing against Israel since the evacuation of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip last week.
http://www.metimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20050829-085051-3667r
'Lost Tribe' Jews move again with Gaza withdrawal
Amelia Thomas
Middle East Times
August 29, 2005
TEL AVIV, Israel -- As the last remaining Israeli residents of Gaza were escorted from the settlements last week, one small group, while sad at leaving their homes, also looked forward to a happy future in what they see as their ancestral homeland. These are some of the families of the Bnei Menashe, one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, originating from Manipur and Mizoram, two remote Indian states wedged between Myanmar and Bangladesh.
This tribe, whose roots are steeped in mystery, believes its members to be direct descendents of the Israelite tribe of Manasseh, exiled by the Assyrians almost 3,000 years ago. According to the Bnei Menashe's oral tradition the tribe wandered from Assyria to Afghanistan, then on to Mongolia and southern China. Suffering persecution in China for their beliefs, however, tribe members retreated to a cave-dwelling existence, before heading to a far-flung region of India, where until recently, they all remained.
http://www.metimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20050829-051546-1650r
Haaretz
Netanyahu: PM's policies put Jerusalem in danger
By Jonathan Lis and Mazal Mualem, Haaretz Correspondents, and Reuters
Former prime minister and finance minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched his campaign to lead the Likud and regain the premiership Wednesday with a verbal assault on the current party leader, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, accusing him of promoting policies that threatened the future of Jerusalem.
"Sharon has created a precedent which is likely to lead to the division of Jerusalem," Netanyahu told reporters during a tour of E1 - the area between the West Bank settlement of Ma'aleh Adumim and the capital.
"Jerusalem is in danger, and Sharon is making [the threat] greater. He determined that Jews should be uprooted to the 1967 lines from Gush Katif [in Gaza] to the southern outskirts of Ashkelon. The second threat he poses is that he is the one who delayed the construction between Ma'aleh Adumim and Jerusalem."
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/618686.html
The only plan
By Haaretz Editorial
Things have never been as clear and as focused as they are today. Perhaps for the first time in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there is agreement among the Americans, Europeans and Israelis over the way forward in ending the conflict in this generation and not in some faraway future.
The willingness of the Palestinians and the Israelis to accept the compromises outlined in the road map, Egypt's involvement in the attempt to stabilize the rule of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and prevent terror, and the fact that it is Ariel Sharon, the creator of the settlement project, who is making the first significant step in dissolving it - all of these create an atmosphere of coordinated movement in the right direction on both the regional and international levels.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/619156.html
Sharon's loss would be Israel's gain
By Gideon Samet
"It's nothing personal" - Ariel Sharon's standard utterance when talking about all of his political enemies, with the exception of Benjamin Netanyahu - should be the guiding principle to all those who are being asked now to chose between the two. Everything that Arik says about Bibi can be turned around and said about the prime minister himself - apart from the weak nerves. For every zigzag that the panicky Netanyahu has made as a leader, in breach of his election promises, there is at least one that Sharon has made as prime minister.
Who has lied more during the course of his career? Only a polygraph test can tell. One cannot take away from Netanyahu his intelligence and his success as finance minister, just as one cannot underestimate the achievements of the prime minister. But at issue here is something else entirely: Netanyahu as Likud leader would symbolize a political regression, while Sharon, defeated by the Likud, would create an interesting political proposition once he is removed from a party that has gone berserk.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/619153.html
Comptroller slams PM, treasury over hidden defense allocations
By Motti Bassok
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the Finance Ministry and the Defense Ministry allocated extra funds to the defense budget without informing the government or the Knesset, State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss said in his report on the defense establishment published Wednesday.
The report says that at the same time that the government in 2004 decided to cut the defense budget, Sharon and the ministries went behind the back of the government and the Knesset and gave the defense division millions of shekels, at the expense of budgetary reductions in other government ministries.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/619500.html
At least 640 Shi'ites killed in panic stampede in Baghdad
By News Agencies
Two top Iraqi Shi'ite officials accused Islamist terrorists and militants and loyalists of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein of deliberately causing a stampede over a Baghdad bridge in which at least 647 people died on Wednesday.
The crowd, on its way to the Kadhimiya mosque for an important religious ceremony, panicked as rumors spread that a suicide bomber was preparing to blow himself up. The bridge which they were crossing at the time collapsed in the stampede, a police commander said.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/619498.html
Knesset set to approve Gaza border troop deal with Egypt
By Gideon Alon, Haaretz Correspondent
The Knesset discussed Wednesday an agreement with Egypt for it to deploy a force of 750 soldiers to guard along the Philadelphi route between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.
The move is aimed at enabling Israel to remove all of its troops from the Gaza Strip, so as to be recognized by the international community as having completely ended its occupation of the area.
A majority in the Knesset is expected to pass the agreement. Its supporters include half of the Likud MKs as well as those in Labor, Shinui, Meretz-Yahad and the Arab parties. The Likud "rebels," Shas MKs, the National Union and the National Religious Party all oppose the deal.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/619534.html
New Zealand Herald
Ozone layer has stopped shrinking, study finds
31.08.05 1.00pm
WASHINGTON - The ozone layer has stopped shrinking but it will take decades to start recovering, scientists say.
They said an international agreement to limit production of ozone-depleting chemicals has apparently worked, but the damage to ozone has not been halted completely.
An analysis of satellite records and surface monitoring instruments shows the ozone layer has grown a bit thicker in some parts of the world, but is still well below normal levels, the scientists report in Wednesday's issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10343338
Taiwan issues typhoon warning
31.08.05 2.20pm
TAIPEI - Taiwan issued a land warning as a powerful typhoon headed toward the island on Wednesday, with the government warning of strong wind and heavy rain that could trigger landslides and flooding in mountain regions.
By 12pm NZT, Typhoon Talim was 390 km east-southeast of Hualien on Taiwan's east coast and packing maximum sustained winds of 184 km/h and gusts of up to 227 km/h, the Central Weather Bureau said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10343374
More than 600 dead in Iraq stampede
01.09.05 10.50pm UPDATE
By Sebastian Alison
BAGHDAD - Most of the 647 dead in a Baghdad bridge stampede today were women and children, a source in Iraq's Interior Ministry said.
"Most died by drowning or being trampled on," the source told Reuters.
"Most were women and children."
By 10.15pm NZT the death toll had risen to 647, with 301 injured.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10343430
Hundreds feared dead after Hurricane Katrina
31.08.05 7.10pm
By Rick Wilking
NEW ORLEANS - Army engineers raced to staunch rising floodwaters submerging historic New Orleans as helicopters plucked frantic survivors from rooftops and hundreds were feared dead after Hurricane Katrina tore across the US Gulf Coast.
Authorities made plans to remove thousands of storm refugees from the Superdome stadium and other shelters in New Orleans and forged a bold scheme to airdrop giant sandbags to plug breaches in the city's protective levee system as water from Lake Pontchartrain poured into the city.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10343320
NZ and Australia lobby UN on Mugabe
31.08.05 1.00pm
CANBERRA - New Zealand and Australia are to lobby the United Nations Security Council to indict Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and his government for crimes against humanity.
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Mr Downer said yesterday because Zimbabwe was not a party to the International Criminal Court Mr Mugabe could only be indicted with a reference from the UN Security Council.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10343351
Zimbabwe plans travel bans for 'traitors'
31.08.05 1.00pm
HARARE - President Robert Mugabe's ruling party has pushed through amendments to Zimbabwe's constitution, paving the way for the government to nationalise seized white-owned farms and impose travel bans on "traitors".
Mugabe's ZANU-PF party, using the two-thirds parliamentary majority it won in disputed March elections, approved constitutional changes that also set up a second legislative chamber to be known as the senate, which critics say will be packed with Mugabe allies.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10343332
UN team probes pro-Syria suspects in Hariri death
31.08.05 12.20pm
BEIRUT - United Nations investigators have questioned five senior pro-Syrian figures, including a top aide to Lebanon's president, as suspects in the February killing of former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri.
Lebanese police and UN investigators detained three former security chiefs in dawn raids, the first time they have implicated allies of Syria in the killing that shook Lebanon and hastened the departure of Syrian troops after three decades.
"The detentions in Beirut are the beginning of justice," Hariri's son, member of parliament Saad Hariri, told Arab television news channel Al Arabiya from Paris. "This is a start ... There will be more detentions."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10343328
London mayor faces hearing over 'Nazi' jibe
31.08.05 4.20pm
LONDON - London mayor Ken Livingstone is to face a disciplinary hearing over remarks comparing a Jewish journalist to a concentration camp guard, the body responsible for English local government standards has said.
Livingstone won widespread praise for rallying Londoners after last month's bomb attacks on the city but he has frequently courted controversy.
He clashed with journalist Oliver Finegold of the Evening Standard newspaper -- which has been involved in a long-running feud with the mayor -- after a function in February.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10343377
Forces let me in to Beslan, Chechen rebel says
31.08.05 3.20pm
MOSCOW - The man behind the Beslan school siege said on Tuesday a failed Russian special services sting had allowed his militants a free passage into the region to conduct the attack that killed 330 people almost a year ago.
Shamil Basayev, Russia's most wanted man, issued the statement on separatist website www.kavkazcenter.com days before the anniversary of the bloodbath and at a time when authorities face criticism for failing to clarify what happened.
Basayev said a special services agent had been sent undercover to the rebels to persuade them to plan an attack in Vladikavkaz, capital of the North Ossetia region bordering Chechnya. But the agent confessed to the rebels, who were then able to plan an alternative.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10343376
Chirac urges action after 7 die in new blaze
31.08.05 9.20am
By Jon Boyle
PARIS - French President Jacques Chirac ordered action on fire safety after seven immigrants, including four children, died in a blaze in a rundown building in Paris.
Monday night's fire raised questions about the government's housing policies as it came three days after 17 African immigrants died in another blaze in Paris. Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy requested all squats in the capital be closed.
Chirac expressed his horror at the latest fire, offered his condolences to bereaved families and ordered a prompt investigation into what he called "another dreadful fire".
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10343325
'Ship her back for all I care', says Brogden
31.08.05
SYDNEY - Disgraced NSW Liberal John Brogden said former Labour Premier Bob Carr could "ship his mail-order bride back to where she came from, for all I care", Australian newspapers have reported.
The context of Brogden's racial slur against Malaysian-born Helena Carr was revealed by News Ltd, which also claimed he harassed three women at the function where he made the comments, rather than two.
The state Opposition leader resigned and apologised for the slur and for behaving inappropriately towards two female journalists.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10343252
Hundreds of fetuses found in garage
31.08.05 1.00pm
PHILADELPHIA - Officials in Pennsylvania are investigating the discovery of 400 fetuses found in a garage that once belonged to a funeral home director under contract with a local hospital to cremate them.
Most of the foetuses were preserved in embalming fluid inside labelled plastic containers and officials plan to notify the hospital patients involved once all the remains have been identified, officials said.
The foetuses were discovered in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, last Friday by a relative of the garage's former owner. The former owner ran a funeral home, now closed, that contracted with Magee-Womens Hospital in Pittsburgh to cremate aborted or miscarried fetuses.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10343331
US abstinence programmes hurting AIDS fight
31.08.05
By Andrew Quinn
JOHANNESBURG - The US government's emphasis on abstinence-only programs to prevent AIDS is hobbling Africa's battle against the pandemic by playing down the role of condoms, a senior UN official said on Monday.
Stephen Lewis, the UN secretary-general's special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, said Christian ideology was driving Washington's AIDS assistance program known as PEPFAR with disastrous results such as a shortage of condoms in Uganda.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10343259
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