The Guardian
Investigator links Europe's spy agencies to CIA flights
Jon Henley in Paris and Richard Norton-Taylor
Wednesday December 14, 2005
The Guardian
CIA prisoners in Europe were apparently abducted and moved between countries illegally, possibly with the aid of national secret services who did not tell their governments, according to the first official report on the so-called "renditions" scandal. Dick Marty, a Swiss senator investigating allegations of secret CIA prisons for the Council of Europe, said that he did not think the US was still holding prisoners in Europe, but had probably moved them to north Africa last month.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1666824,00.html
Calls for mass protest as Syria critic's murder plunges Lebanon into crisis
Rory McCarthy in Beirut and Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Wednesday December 14, 2005
The Guardian
Political leaders called for a large demonstration in Beirut today in protest at the murder of a leading newspaper journalist and critic of Syria, as Lebanon was plunged into political crisis.
Schools and universities were closed, many shops were shut and television stations broadcast sombre footage of crowds praying in memory of Gibran Tueni, an outspoken politician and publisher of the respected An Nahar newspaper.
The Lebanese prime minister, Fouad Siniora, led calls for an international investigation into his death and into the spate of attacks on prominent Lebanese figures in recent months.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/syria/story/0,,1666894,00.html
Clarke may reveal secret intelligence on July 7 bombers
Rosie Cowan, crime correspondent
Wednesday December 14, 2005
The Guardian
The government is considering the unprecedented step of making public secret intelligence on the July 7 bombings, it was revealed yesterday.
Charles Clarke, the home secretary, is consulting the prime minister, police and the security services about producing an edited version of what is known about the four London suicide bombers.
There were demands for an independent judicial inquiry after the attacks, which killed 52 innocent people on three underground trains at Aldgate, Edgware Road and King's Cross, and a bus in Tavistock Square.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/story/0,,1666776,00.html
Quiet death of a man condemned
Dan Glaister in San Quentin
Wednesday December 14, 2005
The Guardian
The moment, when it came, was gentle and dignified. The crowd of more than 1,000 who had been gathered outside the gates of San Quentin prison for four hours was meandering through a rendition of We Shall Overcome when news reached the speakers, on a makeshift stage beneath a yellow anti-death penalty banner, that Stanley "Tookie" Williams was dead.
"Long live Tookie Williams," came a solitary cry. Then another, "Long live Tookie Williams." Then more, ringing through the night air, piercing the stillness, overcoming the sound of helicopters overhead.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1666850,00.html
Bush friend linked to top job in Russian oil industry
Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow
Wednesday December 14, 2005
The Guardian
A former cabinet minister and close personal friend of George Bush may be appointed head of Russia's leading state oil company, it was reported yesterday.
Donald Evans, who was until early this year US commerce secretary, has been offered the position of head of the board of directors of Rosneft by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, the respected business daily, Kommersant, reported yesterday.
If the appointment is confirmed, Mr Evans would be the second former senior foreign official to join the Kremlin's expanding energy empire. Last week, the former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder accepted a job as chairman of the North European Gas Pipeline, a project to ferry gas between Russia and Germany that he helped broker.
A source close to Mr Evans in Washington last night declined to confirm the report, but said the former US official had met President Putin during his visit to Moscow last week. "He does not disclose the contents of private meetings," the source said, adding that Mr Evans had met other officials in the hope of improving business ties. Kommersant reported that Mr Evans also met the head of Rosneft, Sergei Bogdanchikov.
When asked about the report hours after it was published, the deputy minister for economic development, Andrei Sharonov, said the appointment of well-known foreign specialists to head Russian companies was "a positive fact that kills several birds with one stone".
Since Mr Putin's re-election in 2004 the Kremlin has been hastily expanding the state's energy companies. Rosneft recently bought part of Yukos's production arm for what some regarded as a low price after state bailiffs seized it in their assault on the business empire of Kremlin critic and billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Gazprom, Russia's biggest company, which is valued at £55bn, has also seen rapid expansion, including the NEGP.
Analysts believe the Kremlin is seeking to re-establish its position as a superpower by placing Russia's massive energy resources directly under its political control. Yesterday Moscow flexed its muscles over one unruly pro-western neighbour, Ukraine, with Gazprom saying it could cut gas off from January 1 if price negotiations were not resolved.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1666840,00.html
CIA flights reports 'credible'
Agencies
Tuesday December 13, 2005
An investigator looking into claims of secret CIA prisons in Europe today said that people were apparently abducted and transferred between countries illegally.
Swiss senator Dick Marty told a news conference that he believed the United States was no longer holding prisoners clandestinely in Europe but that claims about "extraordinary renditions" of prisoners, some of whom allegedly faced torture, had "credibility".
He said he believes any prisoners who were held in eastern Europe - there have been claims about secret prisons in Romania and Poland - were moved to North Africa in early November, when reports about the secret detention centres appeared in the Washington Post.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1666433,00.html
No record of rendition flights in UK, says Straw
Staff and agencies
Monday December 12, 2005
The foreign secretary today said there was no evidence that US "extraordinary rendition" flights had passed through the UK.
Jack Straw said the Foreign Office had checked flight records and could not find anything relating to a rendition flight.
"Careful research has been unable to identify any occasion ... when we have received a request for permission by the United States for a rendition through the United Kingdom territory or airspace," Mr Straw told BBC Radio Four's Today Programme.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1665399,00.html
Refusal to question US over 'torture flights' may be illegal
· Straw finally admits CIA planes landed in Britain
· Calls grow for inquiry into use of UK in 'renditions'
Richard Norton-Taylor
Tuesday December 13, 2005
The Guardian
The government may be breaking the law by refusing to question the US about "torture flights", senior MPs said yesterday, as it admitted for the first time that CIA aircraft had landed at British airports.
Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, said yesterday "careful research by officials" had failed to identify any request from the Bush administration for the passage through Britain of aircraft taking terrorist suspects to secret interrogation centres - described in the US as "extraordinary rendition". He said two such requests were approved under the Clinton administration for flights taking suspects to the US for trial. Another case, also under president Clinton, was still being investigated but might have been refused, Mr Straw said. In answers to Commons questions from Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, Mr Straw also said no records had been found of any later requests from Washington.
But ministers have said that no relevant records exist of such flights because the government does not need to keep them. The Ministry of Defence has said no records of passengers are needed if they do not leave the airfield. And yesterday Adam Ingram, the armed forces minister, refused to say how many times a Boeing 737 and a Gulfstream identified by the Guardian as being used by the CIA - registered N313P and N379P - had landed in Britain. Such information could only be provided at "disproportionate cost", he said. The Department of Transport says it does not need a record of the two aircraft unless they were involved in "civil commercial" operations. It also says it needed no record if the aircraft landed to refuel.
Mr Straw and Mr Ingram yesterday refused to say what MI5 and MI6 knew about such flights, or about "rendering" suspects. It was the government's policy "never to comment on intelligence matters", they said. In an interview on BBC Radio 4's Today programme yesterday Mr Straw admitted CIA flights came to Britain. Asked if he was saying that aircraft - first identified by the Guardian - were not CIA planes, Mr Straw replied: "I am not telling you that."
Andrew Tyrie, Conservative MP for Chichester and chairman of a parliamentary committee set up to investigate the CIA flights, told the Guardian: "Turning a blind eye is not good enough. There is enough weight in the evidence which requires the UK to investigate and ask the US categorically what is going on.
"Until that is done and we have a clearer and frank answer the British government will remain exposed to the possibility they may be breaking the law."
Sir Menzies said it now seemed "self-evident that a system of inspections is required". He added: "The government's legal obligations - both domestic and international - make it imperative that we can be satisfied in all cases that no extraordinary rendition is taking place".
Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said: "Few would be naive enough to expect a foreign power to ask specific permission to use Britain for the shameful and shadowy business of kidnap and torture. We need a proactive investigation rather than a [Foreign Office] file-check."
Charles Clarke, the home secretary, writes in today's Guardian that while the law lords last week precluded the use in court of evidence obtained by torture, they "held it perfectly lawful for such information to be relied on operationally, and also by the home secretary in making executive decisions".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1665910,00.html
How planespotters turned into the scourge of the CIA
Gerard Seenan and Giles Tremlett
Saturday December 10, 2005
The Guardian
Paul last saw the Gulfstream V about 18 months ago. He comes down to Glasgow airport's planespotters' club most days. He had not seen the plane before so he marked the serial number down in his book. At the time, he did not think there was anything unusual about the Gulfstream being ushered to a stand away from public view, one that could not be seen from the airport terminal or the club's prime view.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1664149,00.html
Soviet air bases in Poland are labelled secret CIA sites
Ian Traynor, central Europe correspondent
Saturday December 10, 2005
The Guardian
The CIA operated two secret "black sites" for terrorism suspects in Poland, the main European location for the clandestine operation, according to a Polish press report yesterday.
The military expert with Human Rights Watch, which said last month that US intelligence had been using facilities in Poland and Romania to incarcerate and interrogate senior al-Qaida suspects, told the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper that about a quarter of 100 prisoners had been held secretly at two former Soviet air bases in Poland.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1664084,00.html
Extraordinary and unacceptable
Leader
Tuesday December 6, 2005
The Guardian
Condoleezza Rice does not seem prepared to explain very much when she meets European leaders facing mounting pressure about the US policy of "extraordinary rendition" - flying terrorist suspects round the world to secret jails where they are allegedly tortured beyond the reach of any legal system. Broadly speaking, the message from the secretary of state as she embarked on her trip to Berlin, Brussels and points east yesterday was a blunt "trust and cooperate" on the basis that we are all in the same boat in the "war on terror". The sovereignty of US allies is respected, Dr Rice insisted, adding that if they were failing to inform their own citizens that was a matter for them. If that clever hint is true there may be much embarrassment. The best Jack Straw could manage was to welcome her carefully-constructed denial of torture. The Foreign Office says it has "no evidence to corroborate media allegations about the use of UK territory in rendition operations." But taken the strong circumstantial evidence about US executive aircraft owned by CIA front companies transiting this country (and Ireland) this smacks of lawyerly evasion. Is there really no information? Do British intelligence officers working with the US just look the other way or make sure no questions are asked when these aircraft (210 since 9/11) land? It will be the task of the all-party committee which began work yesterday to provide full and honest answers.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1659241,00.html
Human rights group to sue CIA
Staff and agencies
Tuesday December 6, 2005
A US human rights group is suing the CIA over claims a man was kidnapped and tortured after being wrongly suspected of links to al-Qaida.
The news came on the day Condoleezza Rice hinted that the US had made mistakes with its policy of rendition.
Khaled al-Masri claims he was abducted by CIA operatives during a trip to Macedonia in 2004, taken to a prison in Afghanistan and tortured. He also says he was held incommunicado for five months.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1660182,00.html
Last oil tank extinguished amid union calls for inquiry
Sandra Laville
Wednesday December 14, 2005
Firefighters survey one of the destroyed fuel storage tanks at the Buncefield oil depot near Hemel Hempstead. Photograph: Reuters
The last burning fuel tank at one of Britain's biggest oil depots was extinguished last night after 59 hours of fire fighting on a scale not witnessed for more than half a century. But the firefighters' success was overshadowed by a dispute between the Fire Brigades Union and Hertfordshire fire authority.
Roy Wilsher, the chief fire officer for Hertfordshire, said the heroic efforts of more than 650 firefighters from 16 brigades had succeeded in quenching an inferno which had destroyed the Buncefield oil depot in Hemel Hempstead, closed hundreds of schools, forced thousands of residents from their homes and shut down motorways.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/buncefieldfueldepotblaze/story/0,,1666779,00.html
Gay cowboy film receives seven Golden Globe nominations
· Blockbusters lose out as independents steal show
· Match Point brings Woody Allen back in from cold
Dan Glaister
Wednesday December 14, 2005
The Guardian
The belief that Hollywood loves nothing more than a minority was given a boost yesterday when the gay cowboy drama Brokeback Mountain topped the list of nominations for the Golden Globe awards. The film, made by the genre-hopping director Ang Lee, received seven nominations, including best drama, director, actor, supporting actress, screenplay, score and song.
http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1666804,00.html
The New York Times
Palestinian Gunmen Storm Election Offices in Gaza and West Bank
By GREG MYRE
JERUSALEM, Dec. 13 - Palestinian gunmen stormed four election offices in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank on Tuesday, adding to the political instability in advance of parliamentary elections planned for next month.
Dozens of masked gunmen belonging to the Fatah movement of the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, fired into the air and burst into election offices in Gaza City. The gunmen said they were upset with the candidates Mr. Abbas and the Fatah leadership planned to enter in the election. The gunmen eventually left.
Armed Fatah agents also charged into two other election offices in Gaza and one in Nablus in the West Bank, where they stole a computer and a television set. No injuries were reported in the incidents.
"This is a peaceful step to protest the policy of appointments within Fatah," Abu Eyad, a spokesman for the gunmen, told Reuters.
The chief Palestinian election official, Amar Dwik, ordered all election offices closed and their activities suspended. Wednesday night is the deadline for parties to submit candidates for the elections, on Jan. 25.
The gunmen "asked our staff to leave the offices; they started to shout and even shoot inside the offices," Mr. Dwik told The Associated Press in Ramallah in the West Bank. "We call upon the Palestinian Authority to assume its responsibilities and to provide security."
Mr. Abbas's office released a statement calling on the security forces "to take the necessary measures to arrest the perpetrators."
He also urged the election commission to "resume its work to save the elections and ensure the success of the Palestinian democratic process."
Although Palestinian factions have clashed with the Palestinian Authority, the turmoil reflected worsening tensions in Fatah, which has dominated Palestinian politics for decades.
The gunmen said they were upset by reports that the candidate list would be made up mostly of old-guard Fatah members with close ties to the leadership, rather than younger members who have been demanding prominent positions. The official list has not been announced.
Fatah held primary elections in recent weeks, and younger leaders fared better than the veterans. But gunmen disrupted the balloting several times, and in some areas the primaries were canceled.
As a result, Mr. Abbas and other Fatah leaders plan to select their candidates in a private meeting, bringing new cries of protest from younger members.
The generational split within Fatah has been developing for years.
Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader who died a year ago at age 75, surrounded himself with close aides of his generation, including Mr. Abbas, 70. Mr. Abbas has removed a few members of the older generation, but most have retained prominent posts.
Most of the gunmen in the incidents on Tuesday were believed to be members of Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, a militant group that is part of Fatah. In a statement, Al Aksa demanded that Marwan Barghouti, the jailed leader of the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation, be atop the Fatah candidate list.
In another development, Israeli troops entered Nablus and clashed repeatedly with stone-throwing youths and gunmen. One Palestinian was killed and more than 20 were wounded, Palestinian medical workers said. Two soldiers were slightly wounded, the military said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/14/international/middleeast/14mideast.html?pagewanted=print
China Struggling to Control Protests
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 4:43 a.m. ET
SHENZHEN, China (AP) -- Increasingly violent protests throughout China over land, taxes and other disputes are forcing the government to strike a difficult balance, trying to maintain order while letting the public vent frustrations to prevent a larger explosion, analysts say.
In the latest incident, police last week shot and killed villagers protesting land seizures in Dongzhou, a coastal village northeast of Hong Kong. The government says three people were killed, while residents put the death toll at up to 20.
On Tuesday, activists issued a letter calling on the government to allow an independent investigation of the shootings and publish the names of the dead.
''The government now finds itself with a dilemma,'' said Murray Scot Tanner, a political scientist with the RAND Corp., a Washington think tank. ''How to contain these sorts of things without either excessive violence or without sending the signal that people are free to protest is very, very difficult.''
Beijing's biggest fear is that ''the misuse of violence ... could cause a small protest to turn into a huge riot,'' he added.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-China-Protest-Control.html?pagewanted=print
Qaeda-Iraq Link U.S. Cited Is Tied to Coercion Claim
By DOUGLAS JEHL
Editors' Note Appended
WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 - The Bush administration based a crucial prewar assertion about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda on detailed statements made by a prisoner while in Egyptian custody who later said he had fabricated them to escape harsh treatment, according to current and former government officials.
The officials said the captive, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, provided his most specific and elaborate accounts about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda only after he was secretly handed over to Egypt by the United States in January 2002, in a process known as rendition.
The new disclosure provides the first public evidence that bad intelligence on Iraq may have resulted partly from the administration's heavy reliance on third countries to carry out interrogations of Qaeda members and others detained as part of American counterterrorism efforts. The Bush administration used Mr. Libi's accounts as the basis for its prewar claims, now discredited, that ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda included training in explosives and chemical weapons.
The fact that Mr. Libi recanted after the American invasion of Iraq and that intelligence based on his remarks was withdrawn by the C.I.A. in March 2004 has been public for more than a year. But American officials had not previously acknowledged either that Mr. Libi made the false statements in foreign custody or that Mr. Libi contended that his statements had been coerced.
A government official said that some intelligence provided by Mr. Libi about Al Qaeda had been accurate, and that Mr. Libi's claims that he had been treated harshly in Egyptian custody had not been corroborated.
A classified Defense Intelligence Agency report issued in February 2002 that expressed skepticism about Mr. Libi's credibility on questions related to Iraq and Al Qaeda was based in part on the knowledge that he was no longer in American custody when he made the detailed statements, and that he might have been subjected to harsh treatment, the officials said. They said the C.I.A.'s decision to withdraw the intelligence based on Mr. Libi's claims had been made because of his later assertions, beginning in January 2004, that he had fabricated them to obtain better treatment from his captors.
At the time of his capture in Pakistan in late 2001, Mr. Libi, a Libyan, was the highest-ranking Qaeda leader in American custody. A Nov. 6 report in The New York Times, citing the Defense Intelligence Agency document, said he had made the assertions about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda involving illicit weapons while in American custody.
Mr. Libi was indeed initially held by the United States military in Afghanistan, and was debriefed there by C.I.A. officers, according to the new account provided by the current and former government officials. But despite his high rank, he was transferred to Egypt for further interrogation in January 2002 because the White House had not yet provided detailed authorization for the C.I.A. to hold him.
While he made some statements about Iraq and Al Qaeda when in American custody, the officials said, it was not until after he was handed over to Egypt that he made the most specific assertions, which were later used by the Bush administration as the foundation for its claims that Iraq trained Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons.
Beginning in March 2002, with the capture of a Qaeda operative named Abu Zubaydah, the C.I.A. adopted a practice of maintaining custody itself of the highest-ranking captives, a practice that became the main focus of recent controversy related to detention of suspected terrorists.
The agency currently holds between two and three dozen high-ranking terrorist suspects in secret prisons around the world. Reports that the prisons have included locations in Eastern Europe have stirred intense discomfort on the continent and have dogged Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her visit there this week.
Mr. Libi was returned to American custody in February 2003, when he was transferred to the American detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, according to the current and former government officials. He withdrew his claims about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda in January 2004, and his current location is not known. A C.I.A. spokesman refused Thursday to comment on Mr. Libi's case. The current and former government officials who agreed to discuss the case were granted anonymity because most details surrounding Mr. Libi's case remain classified.
During his time in Egyptian custody, Mr. Libi was among a group of what American officials have described as about 150 prisoners sent by the United States from one foreign country to another since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks for the purposes of interrogation. American officials including Ms. Rice have defended the practice, saying it draws on language and cultural expertise of American allies, particularly in the Middle East, and provides an important tool for interrogation. They have said that the United States carries out the renditions only after obtaining explicit assurances from the receiving countries that the prisoners will not be tortured.
Nabil Fahmy, the Egyptian ambassador to the United States, said in a telephone interview on Thursday that he had no specific knowledge of Mr. Libi's case. Mr. Fahmy acknowledged that some prisoners had been sent to Egypt by mutual agreement between the United States and Egypt. "We do interrogations based on our understanding of the culture," Mr. Fahmy said. "We're not in the business of torturing anyone."
In statements before the war, and without mentioning him by name, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Colin L. Powell, then the secretary of state, and other officials repeatedly cited the information provided by Mr. Libi as "credible" evidence that Iraq was training Qaeda members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons. Among the first and most prominent assertions was one by Mr. Bush, who said in a major speech in Cincinnati in October 2002 that "we've learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and gases."
The question of why the administration relied so heavily on the statements by Mr. Libi has long been a subject of contention. Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, made public last month unclassified passages from the February 2002 document, which said it was probable that Mr. Libi "was intentionally misleading the debriefers."
The document showed that the Defense Intelligence Agency had identified Mr. Libi as a probable fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the foundation for its claims about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda involving illicit weapons.
Mr. Levin has since asked the agency to declassify four other intelligence reports, three of them from February 2002, to see if they also expressed skepticism about Mr. Libi's credibility. On Thursday, a spokesman for Mr. Levin said he could not comment on the circumstances surrounding Mr. Libi's detention because the matter was classified.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/politics/09intel.html?emc=eta1&pagewanted=print
New Army Rules May Snarl Talks With McCain on Detainee Issue
By ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON, Dec. 13 - The Army has approved a new, classified set of interrogation methods that may complicate negotiations over legislation proposed by Senator John McCain to bar cruel and inhumane treatment of detainees in American custody, military officials said Tuesday.
The techniques are included in a 10-page classified addendum to a new Army field manual that was forwarded this week to Stephen A. Cambone, the under secretary of defense for intelligence policy, for final approval, they said.
The addendum provides dozens of examples and goes into exacting detail on what procedures may or may not be used, and in what circumstances. Army interrogators have never had a set of such specific guidelines that would help teach them how to walk right up to the line between legal and illegal interrogations.
Some military officials said the new guidelines could give the impression that the Army was pushing the limits on legal interrogation at the very moment when Mr. McCain, Republican of Arizona, is involved in intense three-way negotiations with the House and the Bush administration to prohibit the cruel treatment of prisoners.
In a high-level meeting at the Pentagon on Tuesday, some Army and other Pentagon officials raised concerns that Mr. McCain would be furious at what could appear to be a back-door effort to circumvent his intentions.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/14/politics/14detain.html?ei=5094&en=82c2f1a581e2e2c8&hp=&ex=1134622800&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print
Post-Soviet Voting, and Dogging the Watchdogs
By C. J. CHIVERS
MOSCOW, Dec. 13 -- Early this year, as President Bush began his new term, he declared a vision with allure for many people living within the stunted democracies or autocratic governments in the former Soviet Union.
"The policy of the United States," Mr. Bush said, "is to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world."
Eleven months on, Mr. Bush's inaugural challenge is facing an oblique but determined attack in territory once under Moscow's sway. The battlegrounds are elections, which offer a glimpse into an emerging nation's political health. At issue are perceptions. What exactly is democratic progress? And who gets to define it?
In much of the former Soviet Union, a patchwork of corrupt and semi-functional states where authoritarianism has proven durable and political liberalization has been uneven or thwarted, elections are routinely flawed or stolen, making rigged polls as sure a feature of the political landscape as the remaining statues of Lenin.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/14/international/europe/14letter.html?hp=&pagewanted=print
Death of an American City
We are about to lose New Orleans. Whether it is a conscious plan to let the city rot until no one is willing to move back or honest paralysis over difficult questions, the moment is upon us when a major American city will die, leaving nothing but a few shells for tourists to visit like a museum.
We said this wouldn't happen. President Bush said it wouldn't happen. He stood in Jackson Square and said, "There is no way to imagine America without New Orleans." But it has been over three months since Hurricane Katrina struck and the city is in complete shambles.
There are many unanswered questions that will take years to work out, but one is make-or-break and needs to be dealt with immediately. It all boils down to the levee system. People will clear garbage, live in tents, work their fingers to the bone to reclaim homes and lives, but not if they don't believe they will be protected by more than patches to the same old system that failed during the deadly storm. Homeowners, businesses and insurance companies all need a commitment before they will stake their futures on the city.
At this moment the reconstruction is a rudderless ship. There is no effective leadership that we can identify. How many people could even name the president's liaison for the reconstruction effort, Donald Powell? Lawmakers need to understand that for New Orleans the words "pending in Congress" are a death warrant requiring no signature.
The rumbling from Washington that the proposed cost of better levees is too much has grown louder. Pretending we are going to do the necessary work eventually, while stalling until the next hurricane season is upon us, is dishonest and cowardly. Unless some clear, quick commitments are made, the displaced will have no choice but to sink roots in the alien communities where they landed.
The price tag for protection against a Category 5 hurricane, which would involve not just stronger and higher levees but also new drainage canals and environmental restoration, would very likely run to well over $32 billion. That is a lot of money. But that starting point represents just 1.2 percent of this year's estimated $2.6 trillion in federal spending, which actually overstates the case, since the cost would be spread over many years. And it is barely one-third the cost of the $95 billion in tax cuts passed just last week by the House of Representatives.
Total allocations for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on terror have topped $300 billion. All that money has been appropriated as the cost of protecting the nation from terrorist attacks. But what was the worst possible case we fought to prevent?
Losing a major American city.
"We'll not just rebuild, we'll build higher and better," President Bush said that night in September. Our feeling, strongly, is that he was right and should keep to his word. We in New York remember well what it was like for the country to rally around our city in a desperate hour. New York survived and has flourished. New Orleans can too.
Of course, New Orleans's local and state officials must do their part as well, and demonstrate the political and practical will to rebuild the city efficiently and responsibly. They must, as quickly as possible, produce a comprehensive plan for putting New Orleans back together. Which schools will be rebuilt and which will be absorbed? Which neighborhoods will be shored up? Where will the roads go? What about electricity and water lines? So far, local and state officials have been derelict at producing anything that comes close to a coherent plan. That is unacceptable.
The city must rise to the occasion. But it will not have that opportunity without the levees, and only the office of the president is strong enough to goad Congress to take swift action. Only his voice is loud enough to call people home and convince them that commitments will be met.
Maybe America does not want to rebuild New Orleans. Maybe we have decided that the deficits are too large and the money too scarce, and that it is better just to look the other way until the city withers and disappears. If that is truly the case, then it is incumbent on President Bush and Congress to admit it, and organize a real plan to help the dislocated residents resettle into new homes. The communities that opened their hearts to the Katrina refugees need to know that their short-term act of charity has turned into a permanent commitment.
If the rest of the nation has decided it is too expensive to give the people of New Orleans a chance at renewal, we have to tell them so. We must tell them we spent our rainy-day fund on a costly stalemate in Iraq, that we gave it away in tax cuts for wealthy families and shareholders. We must tell them America is too broke and too weak to rebuild one of its great cities.
Our nation would then look like a feeble giant indeed. But whether we admit it or not, this is our choice to make. We decide whether New Orleans lives or dies.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/opinion/11sun1.html?emc=eta1&pagewanted=print
Pentagon May Be Spying on Anti - War Activists: NBC
By REUTERS
Filed at 2:09 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon has a secret database that indicates the U.S. military may be collecting information on Americans who oppose the Iraq war and may be also monitoring peace demonstrations, NBC reported on Tuesday.
The database, obtained by the network, lists 1,500 ''suspicious incidents'' across the United States over a 10-month period and includes four dozen anti-war meetings or protests, some aimed at military recruiting, NBC's Nightly News said.
The network said the document was the first inside look at how the Pentagon has stepped up intelligence collection in the United States since the September 11, 2001, attacks.
The report quoted what it said was a secret briefing document as concluding: ``We have noted increased communication between protest groups using the Internet,'' but not a ''significant connection'' between incidents.
Americans have been wary of any monitoring of anti-war activities since the Vietnam era when it was learned that the Pentagon spied on anti-war and civil rights groups and individuals. Congress held hearings in the 1970s and recommended strict limits on military spying inside the United States.
A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment on the NBC report about the database. However, he said: ``The Department of Defense uses counterintelligence and law enforcement information properly collected by law enforcement agencies.
``The use of this information is subject to strict limitations, particularly the information must be related to missions relating to protection of DoD installations, interests and personnel,'' he added.
The Pentagon has already acknowledged the existence of a counterintelligence program known as the ``Threat and Local Observation Notice'' (TALON) reporting system.
This system, the Pentagon said, is designed to gather ''non-validated threat information and security anomalies indicative of possible terrorist pre-attack activity.''
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-security-pentagon-spying.html?pagewanted=print
Politician, US Soldiers Killed Before Iraq Poll
By REUTERS
Filed at 12:09 p.m. ET
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Four U.S. soldiers died in a bomb attack and gunmen assassinated a high-profile Sunni Muslim politician on Tuesday, in a stark reminder of Iraq's insecurity two days before a watershed election.
The American soldiers were killed in a bomb attack on their patrol northwest of Baghdad, the military said. No other details were immediately available.
Mizhar al-Dulaimi, who ran his own political party, was shot dead as he campaigned in Ramadi, a violent city west of Baghdad, police said. Three of his bodyguards were wounded.
He was the latest of several influential Sunni Muslims, including a top cleric, to be killed ahead of Thursday's poll, as militants try to sabotage the U.S.-backed political process.
The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, condemned Dulaimi's murder and urged Iraqis to go ahead and vote on Thursday for the first full-term parliament since Saddam Hussein's fall.
``This is a defining moment,'' Khalilzad told reporters. ''While I encourage participation from all, the United States does not endorse any candidate.''
The deaths of Dulaimi and the U.S. soldiers came a day after the first votes were cast in the election -- detainees, Iraqi security forces and hospital patients voted on Monday -- and as Iraqis abroad also began to vote.
More than 15 million Iraqis are registered to vote in what the poll's supporters hope will be a turning point, ushering in a four-year, 275-seat parliament and a new government to tackle rampant violence as foreign forces begin to withdraw.
Security for the election will be stringent with Iraq's borders and airspace closed and travel between provinces banned. More than 150,000 Iraqi police and soldiers will ring 6,000 polling sites and the next five days are a national holiday.
Campaigning officially ends on Tuesday, leaving a day of reflection for voters ahead of the poll.
Militant groups have told Iraqis not toport in central and western Iraq, even if some elements remain adamantly opposed to the process.
BUSH ENCOURAGES VOTE
U.S. President George W. Bush offered encouragement to Iraqi voters in a speech on Monday, but also ackof the population.
``This government never helped us and the next one won't either,'' said Haider Moussawi, a casual laborer who said he had worked only a few days in the past three months.
ALLAWI FACTOR
A poll commiselection politics.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-iraq.html?pagewanted=print
U.S. Ranks Sixth Among Countries Jailing Journalists, Report Says
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
The United States has tied with Myanmar, the former Burma, for sixth place among countries that are holding the most journalists behind bars, according to a new report by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Each country is jailing five journalists. The United States is holding four Iraqi journalists in detention centers in Iraq and one Sudanese, a cameraman who works for Al Jazeera, at the United States Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. None of the five have been charged with a specific crime.
This year, China topped the list of countries with the most journalists - 32 - in jail, many of them for activity on the Internet. This is the seventh year in a row in which China has led the list.
Fifteen of the Chinese journalists are being held under national security legislation for writing critically about the Communist Party online, the report said.
A total of 125 writers, editors and photojournalists were held in jails around the world on Dec. 1, 2005, the report said. The tally is 3 higher than were held on Dec. 1, 2004, but it is not the highest number in the 25 years that the committee has been keeping track. The highest was 182 journalists jailed in 1995.
Cuba ranked second with 24, Eritrea was third with 15, Ethiopia was fourth with 13 and Uzbekistan ranked fifth, with 6 journalists in jail.
No American journalists are being held in jails anywhere in the world, the committee said. The survey is taken on a single day each year and does not count those who may have been held and released at other points during the year. Thus, Judith Miller, a former reporter for The New York Times who served 85 days in jail this summer for refusing to reveal a confidential source, was not included because she was not incarcerated on Dec. 1.
The United States has made the list before because other journalists have been in jail on Dec. 1 for refusing to reveal their sources. But Ann Cooper, executive director of the committee, said this was the first year in which the United States had been on the list for cases in which journalists had been held without specific charges being filed against them.
"This is a country where we are trying to foster democracy," Ms. Cooper said, referring to Iraq. "Detaining people in this fashion and holding them for weeks and months with no charges against them - that is not a lesson in democracy."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/14/business/media/14journalists.html?pagewanted=print
Names of the Dead
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
The Department of Defense has identified 2,138 American service members who have died since the start of the Iraq war. It confirmed the deaths of the following Americans yesterday:
CASICA, Kenith, 32, Sgt., Army; Virginia Beach; 101st Airborne Division.
NELSON, Travis L., 41, Staff Sgt., Army; Anniston, Ala.; 101st Airborne Division.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/14/national/14list.html?pagewanted=print
Sydney Morning Herald
Whale stranding: last survivor dies
December 14, 2005 - 10:29AM
The last surviving whale stranded on a beach in northern Tasmania has died.
The 10-metre female sperm whale died early this morning, despite a concerted rescue effort.
The whale was one of four female sub-adult sperm whales discovered on a 100-metre stretch of Bakers Beach in Narawntapu National Park yesterday morning.
A marine biologist is taking scientific samples from the four carcasses before they're buried.
Tasmania has the highest number of marine strandings in the world.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/whale-stranding-last-survivor-dies/2005/12/14/1134500886141.html
Both sides of the Iraqi street
Little has changed for a powerful family empire that played a big part in Saddam Hussein's corrupt dealings, reports Paul McGeough.
Sheik Hatam Al-Khawam
IRAQIS dare not utter the sisters' names. But through their marriages, the Al-Khawam women delivered the keys of the vaults of Baghdad for their four businessman brothers.
This wealthy quartet was virtually unknown beyond Iraq and the Middle East until late in October, when a global corruption report revealed their business empire as a vital conduit for huge kickbacks to Saddam Hussein - including $US221.7 million ($300 million) from the Australian Wheat Board.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/both-sides-of-the-iraqi-street/2005/12/13/1134236063780.html
Final pleas fail to save reformed gang leader
By Gerard Wright
December 14, 2005
Silent vigil ... Queen Mother Dr Delois Blakely, the community mayor of Harlem, protests outside San Quentin, where about 2000 people gathered at the time of execution for Williams, inset.
Photo: AP
STANLEY Tookie Williams, convicted murderer and the latest cause celebre in America's 30-year debate over the death penalty, was executed yesterday.
The execution - by lethal injection at San Quentin State Prison, north of San Francisco, at 12.35am - followed a frenzied effort to reopen the case by supporters of Williams.
The 51-year-old's fate was sealed on Monday by the refusal of the California Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to grant clemency, and the denial of a last minute judicial hearing at state, regional, and, finally, the United States Supreme Court level.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/final-pleas-fail-to-save-reformed-gang-leader/2005/12/13/1134236063743.html
Time dumps senior executives in shake-up
December 14, 2005 - 11:59AM
Magazine publisher Time Inc cut 105 employees on Tuesday, including several senior executives, as part of a management overhaul.
Among those losing their jobs are advertising sales chief Jack Haire and Richard Atkinson, who had formerly been the chief financial officer, spokeswoman Dawn Bridges said.
Former Time magazine president Eileen Naughton and other business-side executives will also go, Bridges said.
Fewer than 10 editorial employees at Time's magazines will lose their jobs.
The reorganisation will streamline Time's management structure, which had grown "organically" in recent years with several acquisitions, Bridges said.
She said the new organisational chart would clarify reporting lines, leaving CEO Ann Moore with only six direct reports as against 10 under the old system.
The shake-up will also result in two executives - John Squires and Nora McAniff - being named to the new position of co-chief operating officers.
Time has about 13,000 employees and publishes more than 150 magazines including Time, Sports Illustrated, People, InStyle and Entertainment Weekly. It is part of the media conglomerate Time Warner Inc.
AFP chooses new agency head
Agence France-Presse on Tuesday chose a member of its senior management, Pierre Louette, as the news agency's new head.
AFP's board elected Louette, 42, to replace Bertrand Eveno, who said last month he was resigning for personal reasons.
His announcement came as staff approved a no-confidence motion in management after a decision to hand news photographs over to police.
The new chairman and chief executive was the only candidate approved by the selection committee to replace Eveno, said AFP's information director, Pierre Taillefer.
Louette has been the agency's executive vice-president since 2003.
He also served in the cabinet of former Prime Minister Edouard Balladur and worked for state broadcaster France Televisions. His private-sector jobs included posts in Havas Advertising and at an investment fund run by LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton Group's chairman, Bernard Arnault.
Louette was elected by AFP's board, which includes representatives from personnel, the national and regional press and the French state. He has a three-year renewable contract, Taillefer said.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/time-dumps-senior-executives-in-shakeup/2005/12/14/1134500891925.html
Howard quizzed on riots over cocktails
December 14, 2005 - 1:44PM
Leaders at the East Asia Summit have asked Prime Minister John Howard about Sydney's race riots following global news coverage of the violence.
Mr Howard today said it was too early to discuss the long-term reasons for the riots, which should be viewed right now as a law and order problem.
He said several leaders raised the issue at a gala dinner last night ahead of today's 16-nation meeting, which aims to open talks on a pan-Asia free-trade zone.
"It was mentioned informally, yes," Mr Howard told reporters in Kuala Lumpur.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/howard-quizzed-on-riots-over-cocktails/2005/12/14/1134500896575.html
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