I don't like to interject my conclusions or opinions to often. I would rather think anyone whom follows this blog would be independant thinkers and therefore find my commentary out of place. I would like to think the subjects focused on here would be received by all people and parties. It is not just to one specific group of people. I realize 'the blog' carries my personality in it's choices but what I post here I read. If I don't like reading it or the style in which it is written then I rarely read it. This blog is also a record for myself of events, thoughts and the like as well.
Just a perspective about these papers both in the previous secton (above) and this section because this hasn't been an intense focus before, although I do read these papers frequently.
The regions of Arabia have their own newsprint. The numbers are large but I stick to the 'mainstream' newsprint rather than local opinions. I find these newspapers keep a more global political interest.
The Jordan Times - Jordan
The Gulf News - Very regional but I believe it is based in the UAE. It highlights the concerns of the UAE when other print media don't.
The Arab News - Saudi Arabia
The Syria Times - Syria
The Daily Star - Lebanon
Jerusalem Post - Israel with a more intense focus on Jerusalem as well. I akin it to The Sydney Morning Herald to some extent. Local but with a regional inclusion. International is there as well.
Haaretz - Israel with a strong tilt toward conservative approaches, the government of Israel is focused here in more detail.
The Mail and Guardian - Africa. It's a darn good newsprint and pulls absolutely no punches. Very factual. Another good African site is the 'online' site called "All Africa." I like that as well.
The three papers below are the Jordan Times, the Mail and Guardian and The Gulf News. I grouped these together while including 'particular' interests there were overlapping issues with the Middle East. Some of the views are 'the extremes' of the circumstances now playing out in the Middle East and are just as important as the 'moderate' views.
Jordan seeks peace as it's economy and internal stability relies a great deal on cooperation between nations, not just in the Middle East by The West as well. In seeking to find a 'resolve' other than war (Which is a view I respect.) they are demonizing Israel unfairly. The focus is primarily on the human tragedy in Lebanon and there are three articles that list 55 deaths from one airstrike by Israel. This is the only newsprint that is reporting that number as I write this. They also ignore the casualites of Israel and the imputus to war provided completely by the terrorist networks of Hamas and Hezbollah. Jordan in some of it's articles, with some very gruesome descriptions (No one wants dead people. This could have been avoided.) comes across as being more desperate than they should to 'create' a scenario to force Israel out of Lebanon. I was also very surprised to see the tribute to Nelson Mandella in the editorial section. It was a good tribute. However. I have to speculate that was because Africa is seeking activism against Israel as well in hinting at a boycott. That article appeared yesterday in the Mail and Guardian.
There are a lot of good articles regarding recent episodes of political tragedy from the Mail and Guardian as well. I think anyone whom reads through them will find an appreciation of the current instability, violence and tragedy there as well as what seems like complete abandonment by the West of Africa. One of my pet peeves. I also need to go back and include a good artilce about Liberia and quite a few articles about Nigeria. They are not 'hanging' in the balance to a Middle East Peace so I'll include them next week.
The alarming aspect of the newsprint The Gulf News is the call for Arab Nations to form a unified and more than likely militarized effort against Israel. The Gulf News completely abandons Israel's right to protect and defend itself except for one article citing George Bush speaking to that issue. I found that 'radicalism' a bit unsettling considering this is the UAE and they were taking such active interests in American Ports and have concluded deals recently in Britain. It took me by surprise. Truly. I didn't expect a country that was attempting to become part of the 'national scene' of the West to be so militant itself.
But, read the newsprint, see you what you think. These are my takes on it. I am not a dictator so much as a guide.
Jordan Times
US vetoes Security Council resolution condemning Gaza offensive
Agencies
ISRAEL STRUCK BEIRUT airport and military airbases and blockaded Lebanese ports on Thursday, intensifying reprisals that have killed 55 civilians in Lebanon since Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers a day earlier.
Hizbollah fighters rained more than 100 rockets on northern Israel in their heaviest bombardment in a decade, hitting Israel's third largest city, Haifa, the Israeli army said.
Israel's envoy to the United States, Daniel Ayalon, told reporters in Washington the strike on Haifa was a "major, major escalation", but Hizbollah, a group backed by Iran and Syria, denied it had fired on the port city.
http://www.jordantimes.com/fri/news/news1.htm
Jordan, Japan urge end to military escalation
Bush says Jewish state ‘has a right to defend herself’; EU, Russia condemn ‘disproportionate’ use of force
Agencies
King Abdullah and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi pose Thursday for photographers in Aqaba (Photo by Yousef Allan)
JORDAN AND JAPAN on Thursday called for ending military escalation in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon as other leaders urged restraint to stop the fiercest clashes in a decade slipping into all-out war.
King Abdullah and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said at a meeting in Aqaba that the crisis should be solved through diplomatic means.
Israel blockaded Lebanese ports on Thursday, intensifying reprisals that have killed 55 civilians in Lebanon since Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers a day earlier.
Koizumi arrived in Jordan earlier on Thursday for the final leg of a Middle East trip that also took him to Israel and the Palestinian territories, where he announced a package of nearly $30 million in fresh humanitarian aid. He heads to Russia for the Group of Eight summit.
http://www.jordantimes.com/fri/homenews/homenews1.htm
Tel Aviv has to swap with Hizbollah to retrieve soldier
By Alaa Shahine
Reuters
BEIRUT — No matter how much military pressure Israel piles on Lebanon, it will eventually have to negotiate a prisoner swap with Hizbollah fighters if it wants to get two captured soldiers back, political analysts say.
Israeli forces have already launched a major offensive, bombing Beirut's airport, blockading its seaports and killing 55 civilians, and have warned of a lengthy military campaign.
http://www.jordantimes.com/fri/news/news2.htm
RJ flights to Beirut cancelled
By Rana Husseini
with agencies dispatches
AMMAN — The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) on Thursday said it has cancelled all Royal Jordanian (RJ) flights to Beirut until further notice because of the situation in Lebanon, official sources said.
“We decided to halt our three daily RJ flights to Lebanon for security reasons. The daily flights will return to normal once the situation is clear in Lebanon,” CAA Director Suleiman Obeidat said.
There were no Middle East Airline flights scheduled to depart from or arrive to Jordan on Thursday’s flight manifest.
The Israeli army bombed runways of Lebanon’s only international airport, Rafiq Hariri International Airport, forcing its closure and the diversion of all incoming flights.
http://www.jordantimes.com/fri/homenews/homenews2.htm
Iran defiant after atomic case goes back to UN
TEHRAN (Reuters) — Iran said on Thursday it would not abandon its right to nuclear technology in a defiant statement after Tehran's case was sent back to the UN Security Council over its atomic dispute with the West.
But US President George W. Bush kept up the pressure saying Tehran could not "wait us out" and Germany warned "other steps" would be necessary if Tehran did not respond to a package to rein in its atomic work.
Five permanent Security Council members, the United States, France, Britain, Russia and China, plus Germany backed a package calling for Iran to halt uranium enrichment in return for economic and diplomatic incentives. But on Wednesday they asked the council to intervene after Tehran failed to reply.
http://www.jordantimes.com/fri/news/news4.htm
Baghdad clashes underline gov’t security challenges
An Iraqi woman cries Thursday after hearing that her brother was one of the police officers who were killed in a car bomb attack in Kirkuk, 290 kilometres north of Baghdad (AP photo by Yahya Ahmed)
SAMAWA (Reuters) — Iraq took full control of a province from foreign troops for the first time since the 2003 US-led invasion on Thursday, but clashes in Baghdad underlined the security challenges facing the new government.
Addressing a ceremony to mark the handover of southern Muthanna province from British-led troops to Iraqis, Iraq's prime minister warned that insurgents would try to stage attacks to mar a day "written with golden letters in Iraq's history".
"Terrorists who want to disrupt the handover of security and the success of the national unity government will not spare any effort to sabotage this step," Nuri Maliki said in the provincial capital Samawa, 270 km south of Baghdad.
http://www.jordantimes.com/fri/news/news3.htm
Gruesome scenes after Israeli air raids on south Lebanon
By Jihad Siqlawi
Agence France-Presse
TYRE — A baby was sliced into three and body parts hung from olive trees as the full force of Israeli military might hit rural southern Lebanon Thursday.
In the deadliest Israeli strikes in a decade, at least 47 people were killed.
As the south came under a relentless air assault that destroyed vital bridges linking one area to another, ordinary life came to a standstill as terror-stricken residents hid indoors and businesses remained closed.
The silence that reigned over southern Lebanon was broken only by the sounds of violence and its aftermath — bomb blasts and the wail of ambulance sirens.
http://www.jordantimes.com/fri/news/news5.htm
Syrian sentenced for sending threatening e-mails
Prison term halved ‘to give him a second chance in life’
By Rana Husseini
AMMAN — The State Security Court (SSC) on Thursday sentenced a Syrian man to two-and-a-half-years in prison after convicting him of sending e-mails in which he threatened terrorist acts in the country.
Yousef Daghestani, 29, a blacksmith, was first handed a five-year prison term by the SSC prosecutor for threatening the use of force to disrupt security and spread panic among people following the Nov. 9, 2005, triple bombings in Amman.
But his sentence was immediately halved by the tribunal “to give him a second chance in life because the defendant is young and lives away from home.”
Under the user name 911 and with the password “blood,” the defendant posted threatening text in the Jordan Information Centre’s (JIC) online political forum, the charge sheet said.
http://www.jordantimes.com/fri/homenews/homenews5.htm
Morocco’s war against terror prompts charges of torture, persecution of innocent
By John Thorne
The Associated Press
RABAT — When a fellow Moroccan asked Mohammed to drive him from Bilbao, Spain to Barcelona, Mohammed was happy to oblige.
Two months later Mohammed was awakened by a heavy knock at his door. Police hauled him Madrid, where he was accused of being a terrorist and of owning weapons. He spent 10 months in Spanish jails, then four more in Morocco, before charges were dropped in March.
Mohammed's passenger had been a suspected terrorist watched by Spanish and Moroccan police, and that was enough to cast suspicion on Mohammed, too.
http://www.jordantimes.com/fri/news/news7.htm
Iraq’s breakup would prove disastrous for Jordan — ICG
By Grace Peacock
AMMAN — If Iraq’s struggle with sectarian violence, a growing insurgency and a dysfunctional government breaks the country apart, the result will be disastrous for Jordan and other countries in the region.
This was the message delivered this week by Joost Hiltermann, Middle East project director for the International Crisis Group (ICG) at a lecture hosted by the World Affairs Council (WAC).
“The situation in Iraq is indeed grave. The country is deteriorating and it’s not getting better, it’s getting much worse. I don’t know if Iraq as a nation-state will continue to exist,” he said to about 50 people gathered at WAC headquarters.
http://www.jordantimes.com/fri/homenews/homenews6.htm
French ambassador speaks out about cooperation, regional conflict
Interview conducted by Mahmoud Habboush
AMMAN — On the eve of Bastille Day, July 14, The Jordan Times interviews French Ambassador to Jordan Jean-Michel Casa on French-Jordanian cooperation and regional developments.
JT: Can you describe the Jordanian-French relations in general terms?
Ambassador: The relations have quite a long history back to the early 1960s with the resumption of the diplomatic ties between General [Charles] de Gaulle and King Hussein... We have exceptional political relations with total understanding between the two countries regarding the problems of the region.
http://www.jordantimes.com/fri/homenews/homenews7.htm
Keeping the G-8’s promises to the poor
By Kemal Dervis
When the Group of Eight (G-8) convenes in St. Petersburg Saturday for the annual summit of the leading industrialised nations, the world’s developing countries will be watching with keen interest and raised expectations.
To their credit, at their last gathering in Scotland, the G-8 leaders took on the challenge of extreme poverty in Africa, Asia and elsewhere in the developing world. They agreed to write off unpayable loans owed by highly indebted but low-income nations and promised an additional $50 billion in annual development aid by 2010, including a doubling of assistance to Africa. Perhaps most importantly, they pledged support for a pro-poor conclusion of global trade talks, with commitments to cut their own trade-distorting farm subsidies and to lift barriers to imports from the least developed countries.
http://www.jordantimes.com/fri/opinion/opinion4.htm
Nelson’s pistol
Gwynne Dyer
The oddest bit of news this week has been the tale of the hunt for Nelson Mandela’s pistol, buried on a farm near Johannesburg 43 years ago.
It was a Soviet-made Makarov automatic pistol, given to Mandela when he was undergoing military training in Ethiopia. (He also went to Algeria, to learn from the revolutionaries who had just fought a savage eight-year war of independence to drive out their French colonial rulers.) A week after he buried the gun, he was arrested by the apartheid regime’s police as a terrorist and jailed for life.
It’s very hard now to imagine Mandela as a terrorist. He is the most universally admired living human being, almost a secular saint, and the idea that he had a gun and was prepared to shoot people with it just doesn’t fit our picture of him. But that just shows how naive and conflicted our attitudes towards terrorism are.
Mandela never did kill anybody personally. He spent 27 years in jail, and only emerged as an old man to negotiate South Africa’s transition to democracy with the very regime that had jailed him.
But he was a founder and commander of Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), the military wing of the African National Congress, and MK, as it was known, was a terrorist outfit. Well, a revolutionary movement that was willing to use terrorist tactics, to be precise, but that kind of fine distinction is not permissible in polite company today.
As terrorist outfits go, MK was at the more responsible end of the spectrum. For a long time, it only attacked symbols and servants of the apartheid state, shunning random attacks on white civilians even though they were the main beneficiaries of that regime. By the time it did start bombing bars and the like in the 1980s, Mandela had been in prison for twenty years and bore no direct responsibility for the MK’s acts - but neither he nor the ANC ever disowned the organisation. Indeed, after the transition to majority rule in 1994, MK’s cadres were integrated into the new South African Defence Force alongside the former regime’s troops.
There’s nothing unusual about all this. Jomo Kenyatta in Kenya, Archbishop Makarios in Cyprus, Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe and a dozen other national leaders emerged from prison to negotiate independence after “terrorist” organisations loyal to them had worn down the imperial forces that occupied their countries. In the era of decolonisation, terrorism was a widely accepted technique for driving the occupiers out. South Africa was lucky to see so little of it, but terrorism was part of the struggle there too.
Terrorism is a tool, not an ideology. Its great attraction is that it offers small or weak groups a means of imposing great changes on their societies. Some of those changes you might support, even if you don’t like the chosen means; others you would detest. But the technique itself is just one more way of effecting political change by violence — a nasty but relatively cheap way to force a society to change course, and not intrinsically a more wicked technique than dropping bombs on civilians from warplanes to make them change their behaviour.
Neither terrorism nor military force has a very high success rate these days: most people will not let themselves be bullied into changing their fundamental views by a few bombs. Even in South Africa’s case, MK’s bombs had far less influence on the outcome than the economic and moral pressures that were brought to bear on the apartheid regime. But that is not to say that all right-thinking people everywhere reject terrorist methods. They don’t.
What determines most people’s views about the legitimacy of terrorist violence is how they feel about the specific political context in which force is being used. Most Irish Catholics felt at least a sneaking sympathy for the IRA’s attacks in Northern Ireland. Most non-white South Africans approved of MK’s attacks, even if they ran some slight risk of being hurt in them themselves. Most Tamils both in Sri Lanka and elsewhere support the cause of the Tamil Tigers, and many accept its methods as necessary. Americans understandably see all terrorist attacks on the United States and its forces overseas as irredeemably wicked, but most Arabs and many other Muslims are ambivalent about them, or even approve of them.
We may deplore these brutal truths, but we would be foolish to deny them. Yet in much of the world at the moment it is regarded as heretical or even obscene to say these things out loud, mainly because the United States, having suffered a major attack by Arab terrorists in 2001, has declared a “global war on terror”. Rational discussion of why so many Arabs are willing to die in order to hurt the United States is suppressed by treating it as support for terrorism, and so the whole phenomenon comes to be seen by most people as irrational and inexplicable.
And meanwhile, on a former farm near Johannesburg that was long ago subdivided for suburban housing, they have torn down all the new houses and are systematically digging up the ground with a back-hoe in search of the pistol that Saint Nelson Mandela, would-be terrorist leader, buried there in 1963. If they find it, it will be treated with as much reverence as the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch. The passage of time changes many things.
The writer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.
http://www.jordantimes.com/fri/opinion/opinion5.htm
The Mail and Guardian
Jewish bodies hit back at Cosatu over Israel
Johannesburg, South Africa
12 July 2006 06:08
Jewish bodies on Thursday hit back at the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) following its call for boycotts against Israel.
The union federation, along with the South African Council of Churches (SACC) and South African Communist Party (SACP), also denounced Israel's military incursions into Gaza.
These statements were based on a "a highly distorted view" of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, read a joint statement by the South African Zionist Federation (SAZF) and South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD).
They "reveal[ed] an unacceptable level of prejudice against the state of Israel and its people", they said.
"The SAZF and SAJBD unequivocally reject the statement ... denouncing the Israeli military incursion into Gaza and calling on South Africans to boycott the State of Israel."
Statements by Cosatu, the SACP, SACC and other organisations ignored "despicable" acts committed by the other side, said SAZF chairperson Avrom Krengel and David Saks, acting director of the SAJBD.
"Since Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005, in the process uprooting thousands of its own citizens who were living there, the Palestinians have used their freedom ... to launch hundreds of attacks and kassam rockets against Israeli population centres.
"In addition, there have been numerous cross-border raids, culminating in the abduction of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, whose life now hangs in the balance."
The Jewish organisations said Israel has continued to use a minimal amount of force in confronting those deliberately targeting its citizens. "That Israel has waited until now to enter Gaza is testimony to the enormous amount of restraint it has exercised in the face of unending Palestinian aggression."
The organisations said while many Palestinian civilians have been negatively affected by Israel's operations, it is a direct result of "Palestinian terrorists continuing their cowardly tactics of operating from civilian areas".
This led to them using their own civilian population as human shields, in direct contravention of international law. "Indeed, it is the Palestinians, and the hard-line, extremist Hamas government they have elected to office, that are guilty of multiple breaches of international law".
Bombing
Israeli jets bombed the Palestinian foreign ministry in Gaza on Thursday, causing heavy damage and wounding 10 children, ratcheting up the pressure on the Hamas government over the abducted Shalit.
Warplanes fired two missiles into the building, targeting Foreign Minister Mahmud al-Zahar's offices and causing serious damage to the recently renovated five-storey building, the neighbouring finance ministry and 15 other houses.
The attack came just hours before Israel bombed Beirut's international airport and killed at least 40 Lebanese, opening a new front in the Middle East crisis after Hezbollah captured another two soldiers on its northern border.
Israel confirmed the attack on the offices of Zahar, who an army spokesperson branded "one of the most extreme leaders of the Hamas terror organisation" directly responsible for planning "terrorist attacks".
Faced with the twin Israeli offensives, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas issued a stark warning against the eruption of "regional war".
Ten children, including babies aged four and six months old, who lived in nearby homes badly damaged in the powerful blast, were wounded in the foreign ministry attack, witnesses and doctors at Gaza City's al-Shifa hospital said.
Rescue workers battled to control the fire that raged after the air strike.
Seventy-five Palestinians have now been killed since Israel stepped up its ground offensive just more than a week ago, moving troops into areas evacuated less than 10 months ago as part of an historic pull-out from Gaza after 38 years.
Abduction
What has become the worst Israeli-Palestinian crisis in months was sparked by the June 25 abduction of Shalit on the Gaza border.
The armed wing of Hamas, together with two other Palestinian militant groups claimed responsibility for his capture, and, like Hezbollah, is demanding the release of prisoners in exchange for their hostage.
Israeli ground troops are still based inside the Gaza Strip, and artillery routinely battered rocket-launching sites in the north and south.
Israel has flatly refused to negotiate with Hamas or free Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Shalit, vowing the assault will continue "in places, in time, in measures" at its convenience.
Aid groups have expressed concern about the difficulties of providing assistance to 1,4-million people living in Gaza following months of financial crisis and the suspension of direct Western aid to the Hamas-led government. -- Sapa, AFP
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=277423&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/
'Apartheid Israel' worse than apartheid SA
Johannesburg, South Africa
10 July 2006 05:48
The "apartheid Israel state" is worse than the apartheid that was conducted in South Africa, Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) president Willie Madisha said on Monday.
He said Palestinians were being attacked with heavy machinery and tanks used in war, which had never happened in South Africa.
Cosatu and other organisations supporting Palestine have called on government to end diplomatic relations with Israel and establish boycotts and sanctions such as those against apartheid South Africa.
Israel has launched several attacks on Gaza, bombing its main university and firing missiles that have killed Palestinian bystanders.
This follows the capture of an Israeli soldier by Palestinians.
"We see no justification for this attack," said Palestinian ambassador to South Africa Ali Hamileh.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=276860&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/
Pahad: 'Grave danger' in Gaza
Pretoria, South Africa
27 June 2006 11:49
If Israel invades Gaza it would be the beginning of the end to finding a political solution in that country, South African Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad said on Tuesday.
He said South Africa had sent messages to both Hamas and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, urging them to put pressure on groups who kidnapped an Israeli soldier over the weekend.
Israeli and Palestinian authorities have been in a stand-off since the kidnapping.
The Israeli Defence Force has moved tanks and soldiers to the border of Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has warned of a "large scale military operation" to find the soldier.
Pahad urged Israel to give the international community time to find a diplomatic solution.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=275601&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/
SA concerned at escalating Middle East violence
Cape Town, South Africa
15 June 2006 04:39
The South African government has urged Israel to act with the utmost self-restraint in ensuring the legitimate defence and security of its own people.
"The South African government wishes to express its concern at the continuing Israeli military actions in the occupied territories," the Department of Foreign affairs said in a statement on Thursday.
The latest reported air strike by Israel in the Gaza strip, which killed 11 people, and the recent deaths of seven members of a Palestinian family on a beach in Gaza, reflect a very serious and dangerous situation.
"These tragedies underline the urgency of Israel to stop its excessive military actions in the occupied Palestinian territories.
"Such actions can only result in the growing anger, not only in the occupied territories, but the region as a whole, making a political solution more difficult," the department said.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=274628&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/
EU force caught in DRC pre-poll tensions
Ebba Kalondo Nairobi, Kenya
15 July 2006 07:27
The United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Monuc) says harassment and arbitary arrests have disrupted the election campaign as the troubled Central African country edges closer to its first multiparty polls in 45 years on July 30.
The 17 000 Monuc peacekeepers -- the UN's largest force worldwide -- will be assisted by a German-led European force (Eufor) of about 2 000 soldiers from different European countries, of which 700 will be stationed in the DRC.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=277622&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/
Somalia's interim govt wants to delay peace talks
Mohamed Olad Hassan Mogadishu, Somalia
14 July 2006 10:54
Somalia's nearly powerless interim government said on Friday it wants to postpone this weekend's peace talks with an Islamic militia that has seized control of nearly all of southern Somalia, saying the group has become increasingly radical.
The talks were expected to be a move toward international acceptance for the militia, which the US has accused of harbouring al-Qaeda and wanting to impose a Taliban-style theocracy.
"The Islamic group has extreme views which cannot go with the world's civilised and democratic system," said government minister Isma'il Mohamud Hurre.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=277502&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/
Somalia: Islamic leader vows to 'fight to the finish'
Mogadishu, Somalia
10 July 2006 10:59
The leader of Somalia's Islamic militia said on Monday that his group will "fight to the finish" against supporters of a secular warlord in the war-torn capital, one day after fierce fighting killed at least 20 people.
The Islamic fighters who wrested Mogadishu from warlords last month fired mortar rounds and rocket-propelled grenades on Sunday at supporters of Adbi Awale Qaybdiid, who refused to disarm after the United States-backed secular alliance lost control of the capital.
"We have been attacked by the alliance of warlords, and Qaybdiid's militia are the remnants of that alliance, so there is no other option but to fight to the finish," the Islamic fighters' leader Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys told the Associated Press in a telephone interview.
Hundreds of people fled their homes to escape Sunday's fighting.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=276803&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/
Somali govt wants Islamists out of peace talks
Mogadishu, Somalia
10 July 2006 10:59
The Somali transitional federal government has called for the powerful Islamist militia to be excluded from peace talks this week after sparking clashes in the capital that killed at least 21 people on the weekend, officials said on Monday.
Deputy Prime Minister Hussein Aidid, a warlord whose fighters were evicted from southern Mogadishu on Sunday, said the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia (SICS) militants had violated a mutual recognition and truce deal signed with government on June 21.
Another round of talks is expected to take place in Khartoum on Saturday.
Stung by loss of territorial control, Aidid demanded the Islamists abandon territories they seized in the Darkenlay, Medina and Hodan districts of Mogadishu and "return back to their former position [that] they were stationed [at] during and before June 21."
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=276795&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/
Somali president says no to talks with Islamists
Baidoa, Somalia
14 July 2006 04:46
Somalia's transitional president on Friday ruled out talks with Islamists in control of the capital, claiming they had broken an earlier agreement and planned to seize more territory.
The two sides had been due to meet in Sudan on Saturday for a second round of talks aimed at resolving differences that threaten to further engulf the lawless nation in conflict, but the government said it would not attend.
Even as an Islamist team left Mogadishu for Khartoum to show commitment to the talks, President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed said the movement could not be trusted because they had violated a truce and mutual recognition pact.
"The courts violated the previous agreement signed in Khartoum," he told lawmakers in Baidoa, where the transitional government is based due to insecurity in Mogadishu.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=277610&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/
Mugabe: No state of emergency, we will soldier on
Harare, Zimbabwe
14 July 2006 03:21
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Friday rebuffed calls to declare a state of emergency to stop the country's economic freefall as it "would send the wrong signals".
Instead, the cash-strapped country will "soldier on" and pursue its policy of finding financial partners in Asia, rather than depend on Western aid, Mugabe told the state-owned Herald newspaper in an interview.
"The government did not declare a state of emergency to arrest the economic decline as this would have sent wrong signals to the country's enemies and even to its friends," the veteran leader said.
"We decided to soldier on, seeking assistance from our friends, looking more East than West and getting assistance to sustain ourselves."
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=277591&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/
ANC supports appointment of mediator for Zimbabwe
Harare, Zimbabwe
14 July 2006 07:40
A top official of South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) said in Harare on Thursday that his party supports the appointment of former Tanzanian president Benjamin Mkapa as a mediator in the alleged Zimbabwean crisis with Britain.
The broadcast remarks by ANC Secretary General Kgalema Motlanthe represented a concession to Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, who has opposed a United Nations mediator and advocated Mkapa instead.
Mugabe blames years of economic decline and social conflict in Zimbabwe on its former colonial master, Britain.
The appointment of Mkapa has been viewed with skepticism by the British authorities, who say there is no need for mediation between Harare and London because Zimbabwe's problems are purely internal.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=277443&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/
Police arrest 220 in Zimbabwe protests
Harare, Zimbabwe
13 July 2006 07:57
Zimbabwean police arrested more than 200 activists in three cities on Wednesday as they marched to demand a new Constitution to replace one seen entrenching President Robert Mugabe's rule, a lobby group said.
The National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) said about 1 060 people took to the streets at midday in the capital Harare as well as in Bulawayo, Mutare, Gweru and Masvingo.
Police swooped on marchers in the first three cities while protests in the other two went undeterred.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=277283&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/
Rights group seeks release of Zim activists
Harare, Zimbabwe
13 July 2006 12:21
A leading Zimbabwean rights group on Thursday demanded the "immediate release" of 220 protesters arrested across the Southern African country as they marched to press for a new Constitution.
"Lawyers will be seeking the immediate release of the activists because they are being held by police illegally ... they did nothing that constituted public disorder," Ernest Mudzengi, a senior official of the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), told Agence France-Presse.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=277366&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/
Zim police arrest opposition offical amid protests
Harare, Zimbabwe
12 July 2006 03:32
Police in central Zimbabwe have arrested an official from the pro-democracy National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) as the group began muted protests in several cities, a spokesperson said on Wednesday.
Police in Masvingo city arrested Raymond Muzenda, the NCA's chairperson for the region, after about 310 people marched through the central bus station to a shopping centre, Madoc Chivasa said.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=277218&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/
Zimbabwe bans Tsvangirai rally
Harare, Zimbabwe
08 July 2006 10:22
Zimbabwe police have banned opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai from addressing a rally in a major town over fears he is mobilising support for anti-government protests, his party said on Saturday.
Tsvangirai's main Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has warned President Robert Mugabe to brace for wave of "peaceful democratic resistance" against his 26-year rule if he continues to resist political reforms. But it has not given dates.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=276713&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/
UK says Zim's problems stem from bad policy
Harare, Zimbabwe
07 July 2006 02:34
Britain says the crisis in former colony Zimbabwe is a result of bad policy and not a bilateral dispute between the two nations as President Robert Mugabe claims, it was reported on Friday.
British Embassy in Harare spokesperson Gillian Dare told the state-controlled Herald newspaper that there was no need for mediation between Zimbabwe and Britain because
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=276678&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/
International aid worker murdered in Darfur
Khartoum, Sudan
14 July 2006 11:10
An international relief worker was killed on Wednesday in northern Darfur, the United Nations said.
The aid worker was shot dead by unknown assailants who attacked a car carrying three international relief workers near al Sireaf, 60km north of Saraf Omra, according to a UN situation report issued on Thursday. The attackers drove away in the workers' vehicle, leaving the two other staffers unharmed at the scene.
The UN did not identify the relief organisation or the victim.
The incident took place in the same area where another employee of an international organisation was abducted May 3, and remains missing.
On Tuesday, tribal fighting in the southern Darfur village of Um Labanya left at least 10 members of one tribe dead, and some of their bodies mutilated, the report said.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=277525&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/
Chad and Sudan work to bury the hatchet
Khartoum, Sudan
11 July 2006 11:31
Sudan and Chad are ready to work to restore relations, three months after N'djamena broke off ties over alleged Sudanese backing of a failed coup, a foreign ministry spokesperson in Khartoum said on Tuesday.
Chadian Foreign Minister Ahmat Allami arrived in Khartoum late on Monday and went into talks with his Sudanese counterpart, Lam Akol, as part of a Libyan-sponsored bid to break the ice between the two countries.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=276944&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/
World Bank to help East African power crisis
Lesley Wroughton Arusha, Tanzania
14 July 2006 10:54
The World Bank is preparing funding for Tanzania and Uganda to help the East African countries cope with a power crisis triggered by a three-year drought, bank officials said on Thursday.
They were responding to an appeal for help from Juma Volter Mwapachu -- secretary general of the East African Community, which groups Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya -- during a meeting with visiting World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz.
Tanzania and Uganda have been worst hit by the power crisis and are currently enforcing rolling blackouts that are hurting their economies and stretching financial resources.
"In the short term we need a quick intervention," Mwapachu told Wolfowitz. He said the EAC was working on developing an East African power grid in which all three countries could share resources and storage capacity.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=277509&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/
Rwandan ex-mayor gets life for 'sadistic' genocide
Arusha, Tanzania
07 July 2006 01:23
A former Rwandan mayor convicted for the country's 1994 genocide saw his 30-year sentence boosted to life in prison on Friday, as a United Nations-backed court rejected his appeal, accusing him of "sadism".
Appeals judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) said the term handed down in June 2004 to Sylvestre Gacumbitsi had been too lenient, given the nature of his actions during the genocide.
"The trial chamber ventured outside its scope of discretion by imposing a sentence of 30 years imprisonment only," the panel said in its ruling.
Gacumbitsi had been convicted on numerous counts, including genocide, extermination and rape as a crime against humanity, for his role in leading mass killings and atrocities in the town of Rusumo in Rwanda's eastern Kibungu province of which he was mayor.
He had pleaded not guilty, arguing he had not been in Kibungu when an estimated 20 000 people perished during the genocide in which about 800 000 mainly minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered by Hutu extremists.
Gacumbitsi (59) had asked for the guilty verdicts to be overturned but the appeals panel was unconvinced and agreed with prosecutors who had also appealed the sentence, seeking a longer prison term.
"The appellant played a central role in planning, instigating, ordering, committing, and aiding and abetting genocide and extermination in his commune of Rusumo, where thousands of Tutsis were killed or seriously harmed," it said.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=276657&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/
Death toll in Angola's cholera epidemic tops 1,200
Luanda, Angola
17 May 2006 09:30
A cholera epidemic in war-devastated Angola has claimed 1 246 lives with more than 35 000 people ill with the disease, the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced on Tuesday.
"As of 15th May, Angola reported a total of 35 033 cumulative cases and 1 246 deaths in 11 of the 18 provinces," since its detection on February 13, the WHO said in a statement.
"In the last 24 hours 615 new cases including 16 deaths have been reported," it said.
Cholera, a highly infectious waterborne disease that causes severe diarrhoea, is present in large swathes of Angola, whose health care system has not recovered from a 27-year civil war that ended in 2002.
According to the UN, only 50% of Angolans have access to safe water.
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=271970&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/
The Gulf News
15 killed in air strikes
Agencies
Beirut: At least 15 Lebanese civilians who were fleeing the country have been killed by Israeli missile attacks.
Women and children were among 12 people killed in an apparent Israeli airstrike on a convoy which was leaving the village of Marwaheen, which runs along the Lebanon/Syrian border.
Residents of the border town claim they had been warned by Israeli forces they had to leave the village, but say they were turned away by Ghanaian UN peacekeepers when they tried to seek refuge.
Three civilians were also killed when a bridge on the Beirut/Damascus highway in eastern Lebanon's Bekaa Valley was attacked.
http://www.gulfnews.com/region/Lebanon/10053230.html
Timeline: Israel offensives
Gulf News web report
Saturday 15 July: Israeli jets target roads and bridges in the north, east and south of Lebanon as they try to seal borders; An overnight raid in Gaza targets Hamas MP's offices in Gaza; UAE nationals begin arriving back in the country after escaping from Lebanon; 15 civilians are killed in Israeli bombing bringing the total number of Lebanese civilians killed to more than 85; Four Israeli civilians have died so far in rocket attacks launched by Hezbollah
Friday 14 July: Overnight raids in Lebanon kill three civilians and injure more than 50; The main Beirut to Damascus highway is bombed as well as power stations and a fuel depot at Beirut airport; A draft UN resolution demanding an end to the strikes ends with no action being taken; Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah declares "open war" against Israel after his Beirut office is bombed and Israel confirms that four sailors are missing after a navy vessel was hit; Israel pulls out of central Gaza.
Thursday 13 July: Israel is attacking on two fronts - with missiles hitting the Palestinian Foreign Ministry in central Gaza and jets pounding southern Lebanon; Beirut international airport is closed after the runway is hit by Israeli air strikes and the navy has blockaded the port; Hezbollah fires several rockets into Israel; More than 25 people reported to have been killed in the past two days.
Wednesday 12 July: Six people are killed in an air strike in Gaza aimed at Mohammad Deif, leader of the governing Hamas movement's armed wing and Israel's most wanted man; Lebanese based militant group Hezbollah announces it has abducted two Israeli soldiers in a cross border raid; Israel responds by launching air strikes in southern Lebanon and moving onto Lebanese soil for the first time in six years; The Hezbollah leader Shaikh Hassan Nasrallah said that his group was ready to fight Israel and that the only way for the prisoners to be released would be as part of a swap. Israel rejected the deal.
Tuesday 11 July: A doctor at a Palestinian hospital accuses Israel of using a type of chemical ammunition which causes burns and injuries in soft tissue; Israel continues air strikes on Gaza.
Monday 10 July: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert calls Hamas' prisoner swap proposal a "major mistake" and defends Israeli army attack on Gaza; Exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal says the prisoner swap is the only option for peace.
Thursday 6 July: Israeli tanks and soldiers enter northern Gaza and take control of three former colonies (Nissanit, Dugit and Elei Sinai) following the second rocket attack; Fierce fighting breaks out between Palestinian fighters and Israeli troops.
Wednesday 5 July: Switzerland criticises Israel's actions in Gaza, accusing them of violating international law; The Israeli cabinet authorised the military to go deeper into Gaza after a second rocket attack on the Israeli city of Ashkelon.
Tuesday 4 July: Israel fails to comply with deadline and continues to pound Gaza throughout the night; Groups holding Corporal Shalit Gilad say that they will release no further information about him, but confirm that they will not kill him; Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warns that the campaign to free the soldier could turn into a 'long war'.
Monday 3 July: Palestinian militants from a group calling itself the Army of Islam set a 0300GMT deadline for their demands to be met.
Sunday 2 July: Israel launches a round of air strikes on Gaza hitting Palestinian Prime Minister Esmail Haniyeh's office.
Saturday 1 July: New statement demanding the release of 1,000 prisoners currently being held in the in exchange for Shalit is issued.
Thursday 29 June: Israeli forces make incursions into Gaza, arresting dozens of Hamas government ministers and MPs.
Tuesday 27 June: Israel attacks the Gaza Strip. Air strikes and a ground offensive involving hundreds of tanks are launched.
Monday 26 June: Palestinian Popular Resistance Committees issue statement demanding the release of hundreds of women and children who are being held in Israeli jails, in exchange for captured soldier.
Sunday 25 June: Corporal Shalit Gilad captured is captured by Palestinian militants during a cross-border attack.
http://www.gulfnews.com/indepth/israelattacks/puffs/mid_right/10050729.html
Bush blames Hezbollah for Middle East violence
Agencies
St Petersburg: US President George W Bush blamed the Islamic militant group Hezbollah and Syria for the esculating violence in the Middle East.
At a news conference on Saturday, Bush said, "In my judgment, the best way to stop the violence is to understand why the violence occurred in the first place. And that's because Hezbollah has been launching rocket attacks out of Lebanon into Israel and because Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers."
http://www.gulfnews.com/world/Russia/10053233.html
Tamil Tiger rebels kill 22
Reuters
Colombo: Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels said on Friday they killed 22 soldiers in a firefight in potentially the worst military clash since a 2002 truce, but the army said the number of fatalities would be far lower.
The Red Cross said their staff had seen the bodies of 12 soldiers and four Tiger fighters, and would coordinate the handover of the bodies on Saturday.
Kayal Viliyan, a senior rebel in the Tigers' eastern political office in the district of Batticaloa, told Reuters around 60 troops entered Tiger territory in an area the military say is government-held, and were surrounded by about 200 rebels.
http://www.gulfnews.com/world/Sri_Lanka/10053221.html
India points at Pakistan
Agencies
Mumbai/New Delhi: Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh warned yesterday the peace process with Pakistan could be harmed by the Mumbai train bombings and alleged the attackers had support "from across the border".
The prime minister, on his first visit to Mumbai since the blasts that killed 179 and injured almost 800, warned the peace process would struggle to advance unless Pakistan cracked down on militants operating from its soil.
"The terrorists [responsible for the blasts] were supported by elements across the border without which they cannot hit with such an effect," Singh said.
http://www.gulfnews.com/world/India/10053195.html
Sale of warplanes hits snag in US Congress
Reuters
Washington: US lawmakers, fearful of any warplane-technology leakage to China, are demanding more safeguards for a potential $5 billion (Dh18.3 billion) sale of F-16 fighter jets and weapons systems to Pakistan, a congressman said on Thursday.
"We have reason to be concerned that all security conditions be in place before we approve the sale," Representative Tom Lantos, the top Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, said in a telephone interview.
On June 28, the Bush administration formally notified Congress of plans to sell Pakistan up to 36 F-16C/D Block 50/52 Falcon fighters built by Lockheed Martin Corp.
http://www.gulfnews.com/world/Pakistan/10053208.html
Trial of five Bosnian Serbs begin
Reuters
The Hague: Five former Bosnian Serb officers went on trial on Friday at the UN war crimes tribunal on charges of genocide over the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of more than 7,000 Muslim men and boys.
The men have already appeared individually before the court but their indictments on charges of genocide or complicity in genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war were combined last year in a single indictment.
The five accused are Vinko Pandurevic, Ljubisa Beara, Vujadin Popovic, Drago Nikolic and Ljubomir Borovcanin.
http://www.gulfnews.com/world/Bosnia-Herzegovina/10053179.html
Police bust two mafia syndicates in Batangas
By Gilbert Felongco, Correspondent
Manila: Police commandoes on Friday swooped down on safehouses of two crime syndicates in Batangas, arrested 23 members and seized weapons and an armoured personnel carrier.
The commandoes were backed by Army armoured personnel carriers.
They burst into the safehouses of the Black Shark Gang and the Bantogon Group south of Manila.
Both groups are suspected to have ties with illegal gambling in the province.
http://www.gulfnews.com/world/Philippines/10053191.html
Crime syndicates have not taken root in UAE
By Bassma Al Jandaly, Staff Reporter
Dubai: The rapid growth of the UAE has brought with it a natural side-effect - high profile crimes. But security officials contend that criminal activities exist everywhere and things in the country are under control.
A notorious organised crime leader, Georgian Zahar Kalashov, was arrested in Dubai and sent to Spain last month where he was being sought on money laundering and other charges.
Also recently, a number of daring robberies took place in Dubai and other emirates that left people wondering if organised crime has landed in the UAE hand in hand with the booming business and thousands of professionals coming to work here.
http://www.gulfnews.com/nation/Police_and_The_Courts/10053145.html
Arabs must unite against Israel's war
Call it by any name you will - punishment, retaliation, revenge - but in truth, Israel is waging war on Lebanon.
As it never signed a peace treaty when it withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000, after 22 years of occupation there, Israel may be thinking it is merely a continuation of those times.
But times have changed and, as one Israeli minister said yesterday, "the rules have changed".
Israel has obviously received the White House seal of approval for its present actions against Lebanon when the Bush Administration said of the attacks upon Gaza, following the capture of an Israeli soldier, that Israel was entitled to defend itself.
With the endorsement of an American government which thinks along parallel lines to those of the new Israeli government, the "anything goes" policy of allegedly fighting a "war on terrorism" means there is no one to reign in either Israel, or even the US, which by now believes it can do what it wants as it rules the world.
There is nothing worse, or more pathetic, than to see Arab nations standing aside and wringing their collective hands over the death and destruction being meted out by Israel in Lebanon and Gaza.
The present inaction by Arab nations demonstrates fully well the divisions between respective countries, regardless of which organisation they are members of.
In the past "urgent" meetings called to discuss urgent issues took weeks to come to fruition and, frequently, failed to represent all Arab nations. It is no wonder Israel believes Arab countries will never take a united stand against its hostilities.
Yet this time, Arab leaders must stand united and firm behind Lebanon and Gaza and take positive action before Israel makes an already bad situation even worse by directing its attention towards Syria, as many pundits believe it will soon do.
http://www.gulfnews.com/opinion/editorial_opinion/region/10053156.html
Irish becomes 21st official EU language
The Telegraph Group Limited
Brussels: The European Parliament is preparing to spend more than £460,000 (Dh3.1 million) a year providing translations from Irish into English on behalf of six Gaelic-speaking MEPs, after European Union leaders agreed to make Irish the 21st official language of the EU.
Due to a lack of qualified Gaelic interpreters, the same MEPs will not be able to hear Irish translations in their headphones when foreign colleagues speak, but will instead have to listen in English.
This should not pose serious problems, as all the Irish MEPs are fluent in English, and only one of them was raised with Irish as his mother tongue.
The Irish members will also be asked to carry on using English in committee meetings, as the parliament waits for colleges in Dublin and London to begin a programme of training qualified Irish interpreters.
Irish is to become an official working language on January 1, 2007.
http://www.gulfnews.com/world/Belgium/10053178.html
Philippines heighten alert around Mayon Volcano
AP
Manila: Philippine authorities heightened the alert around a volcano southeast of the capital, after lava was seen trickling down its slopes on Friday, the country's chief volcanologist said.
Renato Solidum, chief of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said he had ordered the alert to be raised after observers saw lava trickling down the slopes of the 2,474-metre Mayon Volcano at around 6pm.
He said scientists were expecting lava flows after the volcano spewed ash on Thursday.
http://www.gulfnews.com/world/Philippines/10053224.html
WHO confirms Indonesian girl died from bird flu
AP
Jakarta: A World Health Organisation laboratory test confirmed the death of a 3-year-old girl from bird flu, bringing the number of people killed in Indonesia to at least 41, a health official said on Friday.
The toddler, from Cisauk village southwest of the capital, died in a Jakarta hospital on July 6, said Nyoman Kandun, a senior health ministry official.
A UN-recognised laboratory in Atlanta, Georgia, confirmed she had the H5N1 virus that has ravaged poultry stocks across Asia since 2003, jumping to humans and killing more that 100 worldwide.
Trisatya Naipospos, deputy head of Indonesia's national commission on bird flu, said the latest case in Pangerang, 40km west of Jakarta, shows the danger of the virus is still very real in Indonesia.
"The death means the virus is spreading there. As long as the virus is still there, it can infect other people," she told reporters on the sidelines of a bird flu conference.
The government needs to inform the public that sudden poultry deaths must be reported to health authorities because they are a sign the birds may have the disease, she said.
http://www.gulfnews.com/world/Indonesia/10053222.html
Will new pipeline ease energy woes?
By Nicholas Birch, The Christian Science Monitor
As global leaders prepare to tackle energy issues at this weekend's G-8 summit in Russia, dignitaries from 50 countries gathered on Thursday on Turkey's Mediterranean coast to inaugurate a key piece of the puzzle.
Twelve years in the making, the $4 billion Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline will pump 1 million barrels per day of Caspian Sea oil towards Western markets when it becomes fully operational next year.
Though that amounts to only 2.5 percent of global oil exports, analysts say the flow could significantly improve global energy security.
http://www.gulfnews.com/opinion/columns/world/10053155.html
Why can't the US fund the Kyoto Protocol?
By Cass R. Sunstein, Los Angeles Times-Washington Post
For the United States, the cost of the Iraq war will soon exceed the anticipated cost of the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement designed to control greenhouse gases. For both, the cost is somewhere in excess of $300 billion.
These numbers show that the Bush administration was unrealistically optimistic in its pre-war prediction that the total cost would be about $50 billion.
And the same numbers raise questions about the Bush administration's claim that the cost of the Kyoto Protocol would be prohibitive, causing (in President George W. Bush's own words) "serious harm to the US economy".
http://www.gulfnews.com/opinion/columns/world/10039750.html
Microbes with the Midas touch
AP
Researchers in Australia have uncovered evidence that a tiny microbe may have the Midas touch of Greek legend, capable of turning dust to gold.
Findings reported in the July 14 issue of the US-based magazine Science suggest a bacteria known as Ralstonia metallidurans may play a key role in forming gold nuggets and grains.
A group of scientists led by German-born researcher Frank Reith collected gold grains from two Australian mines more than 3,000km apart, and discovered that 80 per cent of the grains had the bacteria living on them.
http://www.gulfnews.com/world/Australia/10053167.html
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