Recent News & Opinion

"In just five years, Bush has challenged more than 750 new laws, by far a record for any president, while becoming the first president since Thomas Jefferson to stay so long in office without issuing a veto." [more]

"Gennady Yefstafiyev, a former general in Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service, wrote: 'The US's long term goals in Iran are obvious: to engineer the downfall of the current regime; to establish control over Iran's oil and gas; and to use its territory as the shortest route for the transportation of hydrocarbons under US control from the regions of Central Asia and the Caspian Sea bypassing Russia and China. This is not to mention Iran's intrinsic military and strategic significance.'" [more]

"Nothing is therefore more important than a revision of the concept of security as the basic principle of state politics. European and American politicians finally have to consider the catastrophic consequences of uncritical use of this figure of thought." [more]

"Taken together Virilio's grey ecology and 'hyper-vigilance regarding immediate perception' constitute a bold reaffirmation not only the life of the planet, but our own lives, our memories, the anima of our souls; everything that distinguishes us from mere automata." [more]

"Democracy thus inscribing itself in polls and consensus necessarily arouses the philosopher’s critical suspicions. For philosophy, since Plato, means breaking with opinion polls. Philosophy is supposed to scrutinize everything that is spontaneously considered as 'normal.'" [more]

Thus, it is simply not true that voting is considered to be an expression of the freedom of opinion. For in reality it is subject to what I call the principle of the homogeneous: candidacy is available to anyone, but to be elected to a place pre-coded for potential power you have to conform to a certain norm. [more]

There is a growing conviction among members of the United States military, and in the international community, that President Bush’s ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change. [more]

"Marcos has said the rebels will embark on a cross-country, pre-election tour aimed at uniting workers, students and activists around a leftwing agenda. The new phase of Zapatista action 'is not to draw lines, is not to promote the armed fight in another state', Marcos said. He added: 'It is to go and ask the people what they think and how their problems are being resolved.'" [more]

"I looked at IMC sites based in cities where I knew there were actions, and found nothing. Eventually, I found what I was looking for—on the BBC. The experience, unfortunately, is not uncommon. Each time I try and find news among the Indymedia drivel, I ask myself the same question: What happens when—in our attempts not to hate the media but to be it—we end up hating the media we’ve become?" [more]

"Now, suddenly, in June 2005, the Zapatistas proclaimed a red alert, calling all their communities to leave their villages and come into the forest for a massive "consultation" of the base. The reason? They said they could no longer afford simply to wait indefinitely as the Mexican state ignored the promises they had made a decade earlier in the truce agreements. ... The Zapatistas declared that they had ended the first phase of their struggle, and that it was time to move on to a second stage, one that would be political and not military." [more]

"The Eco-village was the epicenter of brilliant tactical coordination. This was a result of months of reconnaissance work and a chaotic yet functional plan of blockading that provided both fluidity and agility. As soon as a report would come in that one blockade was breaking or being threatened by the police, the transportation team would have vehicles ready to take people to the location and reinforce the blockade." [more]

"Horizontalism is not an ideology, however, it is a relationship — a way of relating to one another in a directly democratic way while at the same time creating through the process of discovery. What has resulted is the creation of an amazing complex of movements, all linked." [more]

"northern Arabized minority groups led by Bashir may junk the peace accord and attempt a power grab. In fact, some Islamic fundamentalists have issued fatwas against anyone renting places or giving support to the SPLAs in the capital city." [more]

"The Minutemen left California as a failure, drawing few people to their project while encountering strong resistance from a broad coalition of opposition." [more]

"Once you sign a plea you cannot appeal it. I was threatened with 20 years in prison under an additional terrorist enhancement if I didn't take a plea, and I didn't have the financial resources to acquire the appropriate legal council for trial. I was railroaded." [more]

"'Every single thing the U.S. did led to civil war,' says Christian Parenti, author of 'The Freedom,' his account of occupied Iraq. 'The failure of reconstruction, the firing of the army, the blatant theft of Iraqi oil money, the use of the Badr Brigade, the use of Peshmerga, the use of death squads, the use of indiscriminate detention and torture, the destruction of Falluja and other towns in Al Anbar province,' explains Parenti, created a raging insurgency and sparked civil war. [more]

"When former military liberation movements come to power, the very 'command character' that ensured success against the enemy tends to become the structural flaw which impedes their building of the democratic institutions required by civil society ... The much-celebrated attainment of formal peace with the north and, maybe eventually, independence for the south, should not be equated with liberation, and certainly not with the creation of lasting democracy." [more]

"U.S. broadcast media are failing to provide even minimal coverage of the ongoing crisis — some say genocide — in Darfur, Sudan, according to a new report, which concludes that media fixation with celebrity, as well as the Iraq war, is crowding out news of important events that deserve global attention 10 years after the genocide in Rwanda." [more]

Three seemingly unrelated recent events highlight the imperial nature of the Bush administration's foreign policy: U.S. F-16 sales to Pakistan, the creation of an office in the State Department to plan for future U.S military interventions in developing nations and the indefinite detention in Guantanamo prison of a German man held on the basis of secret evidence that even U.S. intelligence disputes... [more]

And the recent suggestions of the presidential commission on intelligence make the 9/11 commission's appetite for recommendations look restrained. The presidential commission went on a federal feeding frenzy and recommended stuffing the intelligence community with many new offices and organizations. [more]

"Under the Bush administration, the federal government has aggressively used a well-established tool of public relations: the prepackaged, ready-to-serve news report that major corporations have long distributed to TV stations to pitch everything from headache remedies to auto insurance. Many were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government's role in their production. [more]

"The Pentagon is now convinced that air strikes on Syria have become necessary to overthrow the Assad regime, liberate Lebanon and stop support of insurgents waging a guerrilla war against American forces in Iraq as well as Palestinian militants against Israel, the U.S.-sponsored Al Hurra TV network says." [more]

"But ad rates are set by circulation figures: As circulation drops, so too will the amount papers can charge advertisers. / The result can be a vicious cycle. As advertising declines, newsrooms find it more difficult to afford overseas bureaus, extensive national operations and other editorial additions that help produce an authoritative daily report. As they cut back, they risk sending readers elsewhere for news, leading to further circulation declines and lower ad rates." [more]

"The Israel Defense Forces recently began to distribute 'resident' stickers to West Bank settlers to be affixed to their cars' windshields. The stickers are intended to allow settlers to drive quickly through army checkpoints along the Green Line." [more]

"Or ratchet it way up and consider the possibility that, the next time he goes in for surgery to replace his current ICD, Vice President Dick Cheney upgrades to an implanted device that automatically transmits data to his cardiologist and permits the physician to remotely tweak the Veep’s ticker." [more]

"The Bush administration has told a federally funded conference on LGBT suicide to remove the words 'gay,' 'lesbian,' 'bisexual' and 'transgender' from its material. [...] 'It is incredible, the venom from these people,' said spokesperson Mark Weber who added that the name change was 'only a suggestion'. / But, when pressed by the Post about how strong a suggestion it was, Weber replied: 'Well, they do need to consider their funding source.'" [more]

"Two stories posted in the last week on the CNN website, one on nukes in Iran last Wednesday, and another on nukes in North Korea on Saturday, both use the same aerial photograph of the same purported nuclear power plant. [...] A different news organization has published a story using a different photo of the same alleged nuclear facility that CNN used in both it's North Korea and Iran stories! That story was also about... North Korea! A detailed update later ..." [more]

"Small teams, each composed of about 10 U.S. servicemembers, will be attached to Iraqi units at the battalion level and above, the officer said today, speaking on background. [...] Such tactics are nothing new. Special operations forces have used similar approaches for decades. What makes the situation in Iraq different, according to the officer, is that conventional troops, such as infantry or artillery soldiers, will serve as advisers." [more]

"Details of the tsunami bomb, known as Project Seal, are contained in 53-year-old documents released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. / Papers stamped 'top secret' show the US and British military were eager for Seal to be developed in the post-war years too." [more]

"I heard that 15,000 US troops invaded Fallujah while planes dropped 500-pound bombs on ‘insurgent targets’. I heard they destroyed the Nazzal Emergency Hospital in the centre of the city, killing 20 doctors. I heard they occupied Fallujah General Hospital, which the military had called a ‘centre of propaganda’ for reporting civilian casualties. I heard that they confiscated all mobile phones and refused to allow doctors and ambulances to go out and help the wounded. I heard they bombed the power plant to black out the city, and that the water was shut off. I heard that every house and shop had a large red X spray-painted on the door to indicate that it had been searched." [more]

"The public anger has dented Mr. Putin's ratings and rattled his government ministers, who responded slowly and confusedly to the first wave of protests over pensions before retreating in part on changes that the Kremlin had pushed through a pliant Parliament last summer. Mr. Putin's appointees have attributed the demonstrations to a disgruntled few, incited by agitators, but the protests show little sign of dissipating. A coalition of political, social, environmental and labor organizations has called new rallies across the country for Saturday, including two in Moscow." [more]

"In the Senate hearings, lawmakers grilled Gonzales on whether it is legally permissible for U.S. personnel to engage in 'cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment' of noncitizens detained outside of the United States. Gonzales replied that 'aliens interrogated by the United States outside the United States enjoy no substantive rights' under the U.S. Constitution or the Convention Against Torture, a treaty ratified by the Senate in 1994 that bans all interrogation methods that cause severe pain or discomfort." [more]

"The Bush administration has turned Guantánamo into a place that is devoid of due process and the rule of law. It's a place where human beings can be imprisoned for life without being charged or tried, without ever seeing a lawyer, and without having their cases reviewed by a court. Congress and the courts should be uprooting this evil practice, but freedom and justice in the United States are on a post-9/11 downhill slide." [more]

"Sharon's interest in Rice, who is 46 and single, was first reported Friday by Israel's mass-circulation newspaper Yedioth Aharonoth. According to the article, Sharon told journalists and executives of Israel's Channel 2 News last Tuesday, 'I have to confess, it was hard for me to concentrate in the conversation with Condoleezza Rice because she has very nice legs.'" [more]

"'The biggest surprise was that 76 percent of people who had a medical-related bankruptcy had health insurance when they first got sick,' said Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a doctor at Cambridge Hospital and one of the authors. 'That's really new. No one has asked that before.'" [more]

"Former Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash., and former Deputy Interior Secretary Steven Griles are joining a lobbying firm headed by a former top White House energy adviser." [more]

"There is no social entity called Iraq that benefited from some self-sacrifice it suffered for its own greater good, like a patient who voluntarily endures some pain to be better off than before. There were only individual human beings living in Iraq before the war, with their individual lives. Sacrificing the lives of some of them for the benefit of others killed them and benefited the others. Nothing more. Each of those Iraqis killed in the war was a separate person, and the unfinished life each of them lost was the only life he or she had, or would ever have. They clearly are not better off now that Saddam is gone from power." [more]

"Then, one day, some focus group showed that people, particularly older people, react negatively to any connection between Social Security and the word private. For some reason, people like the sound of 'personal accounts' better than they do 'private accounts.' / So the Republicans, with their fabulous ability to march in lockstep, all about-faced and started referring to the privatization of Social Security as 'personal accounts.' This is the new political correctness." [more]

"In October 2004, Indonesia held its second democratic elections after four decades of authoritarian government. The president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyonoa, is a retired general who had attended the U.S. Army's Command and General Staff College. Wolfowitz said this is a positive sign because Yudhoyono understands the role of the military in a democracy. / Recent reforms in the country's military and close cooperation since the Dec. 26 tsunami could lead to building military-to-military ties with the United States –- or, as Wolfowitz put it, 'Defense Department to Defense Department.'" [more]

An eyewitness report from the 2004 Presidential Inauguration protests in Washington, D.C. [more]

"Without a resolution of the fighting in Darfur, peace in Sudan is only partial. Despite this, Secretary of State Colin Powell has signaled Washington's intention to relax sanctions and allow U.S. companies to take advantage of Sudan's oil wealth." [more]

"Hundreds of Pakistanis staged rallies against President Pervez Musharraf in a day of protests after he reneged on his pledge to quit as army chief." [more]

"The deal, three years in the making, gives the southern rebels seats in the government and guarantees them revenue from the country's oil wealth to spur development. It also integrates the militaries and grants the southern region a chance to opt for self-determination after six years. ... The accord does not cover the conflict in Darfur." [more]

"Rather than extremist foreign fighters battling to the death, the marines are mostly finding local men from Falluja who are fighting to defend their city from what they view as an illegitimate occupier." [more]

"For instance, one PSYOPS officer worked in CNN's satellite division. According to Intelligence Newsletter, rear admiral Thomas Steffens, a psychological warfare expert in the Special Operations Command, recently told a PSYOPS conference that the military needed to find ways to 'gain control' over commercial news satellites to help bring down an 'informational cone of silence' over regions where special operations were taking place." [more]

"The United States, having broken Iraq, is not in the process of fixing it. It is merely continuing to break the country and its people by other means, using not only F-16s and Bradleys, but now the less flashy weaponry of WTO and IMF conditions, followed by elections designed to transfer as little power to Iraqis as possible." [more]

"A revolutionary antiwar movement should be well aware of its ability to create a real state of exception, that is an exception to the exception of global civil war." [more]

Interview with Yemeni Judge Humud al-Hattar, "chairman of the committee for religious dialogue with Al-Qa'ida supporters in Yemen," by Mahmud Ma'ruf, in Sanaa; date not given: "Chairman of the Committee for Religious Dialogue With Al-Qa'ida Supporters in Yemen Humud al-Hattar Tells Al-Quds al-Arabi: Violence Is Due to Restricting Freedom of Islamists and the Positions Toward Arab Issues, Especially Palestine" [more]

Telephone interview with extreme right-wing activist No'am Federman by Anat Davidov. [more]

"Taking a look at the new Bush administration composition in the ministries and institutions that are affiliated to the White House reveals that powerful and influential neo-conservative leaders that earlier were busy in America's research and study centers such as the American Enterprise, the Heritage Institute, the Near East Political Institute, etc., devising and drawing up projects such as the "New American Century", the national security document, have been transferred from centers of producing ideas to centers of decision-making." [more]

Leonard Asper, president and chief executive officer of CanWest, said, "We are pleased that this acquisition is moving forward as planned and are excited about working with our new partners in Israel in building on a great global newspaper brand. One of our first priorities will be to bring CanWest MediaWorks' expertise to bear in improving the profile and circulation in North America of the Jerusalem Post." [more]

"The Treasury Department lists the Jewish Legion and the Voice of Judea as Kahanist aliases and prohibits U.S. citizens from transactions with them. The group's Web site invites volunteers to Israel for a paramilitary training program in West Bank Jewish settlements." [more]

"Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan is 20 years old or more. He believes the Palestinian problem can be solved by a Palestinian enclave in Gaza and three or four enclaves in the West Bank that will leave Israel in control of half of the West Bank." [more]

"The Palestinian nonviolent movement is as old as the Palestinian liberation movement itself. As far back as the 1930s, Palestinians engaged in nonviolent protests and demonstrations against the British Mandate authorities. This form of protest peaked with the breakout of the 1987 intifada." [more]

"We are planning three parallel operations: The first operation is called Operation Double (Mivtza Makhpil) in which each family in the Qatif Bloc will join up with a family from outside the Bloc. Their relatives or friends will take up permanent residence here already in the first stage." [more]

"The Judea and Samaria Police is investigating the Gedud Ha'ivri (the Jewish Brigade), a militant right-wing group based in the West Bank settlement of Kfar Tapuach, for setting up unauthorized roadblocks in which its members randomly select Palestinian vehicles for inspection." [more]

"Messianic Jews believe the destruction of the mosque and construction of the temple would expedite the appearance of a Jewish Messiah, or redeemer, who would rule the world from Jerusalem and bring about salvation for the Jewish people." [more]

"In all parts of the world many scholars and those who want the world to be saved from the evil of America wished for Bush to be re-elected and for America to remain in the hands of his bullying friends in order to push America closer to ruination." [more]

"The deals were agreed as three Polish soldiers were killed in Iraq Wednesday and four injured when their Sokol helicopter made an emergency landing south of Baghdad." [more]

"Nine Coalitions and 81 Political Entities Presented Lists of Their Candidates For National Assembly. Four Political Entities Withdrew, and Three Entities Changed Their Status and Joined Existing Coalitions" [more]

"Hoshyar Zibari and Barham Salih will keep their posts after elections." [more]

Summary of Iraqi domestic press from December 27, 2004 to December 19, 2004. [more]

Interview with interim Iraqi Prime Minister Dr Iyad Allawi by Raja Talab and Ghayth al-Tarawinah; place, date not given: "Allawi: The Prophet's Family Is an Element Unifying the Sunnis, Shiites, Arabs, and Kurds" [more]

"If we study the recent propaganda war waged by Iran's enemies, we will see that it demonstrates their renewed use of old tricks that America has used for the past 25 years. Iran is very familiar with these tricks. However, as to why such accusations are raised at this time, it must be clearly connected with America's defeat in Iraq and the failure of the White House to force Iran to accept the unconditional surrender of its nuclear program." [more]

"The failure of the controlled electronic media--outlets reaching the largest audience in Pakistan--to publicize the commander's statement on the unsuccessful effort to locate Bin Ladin or other Al-Qa'ida leaders contrasts with the airing those remarks received by Pakistan's private electronic and print media." [more]

"It is believed that the United States receives such defective information from Afghanistan's opportunist warlords, Indian secret agencies, or from Pakistani experts who never visited Kabul or Kandahar but who are earning dollars by writing imaginary stories about the Taliban and Al-Qa'ida. " [more]

In a characteristically unwitting way, President George W. Bush himself stumbled upon a resolution of the seeming paradox when he told Time magazine’s interviewer last summer that the war had proved to be a “catastrophic success.” By that oxymoron, he sought to convey the idea that in the invasion the U.S. military forces had overcome the enemy unexpectedly quickly, “being so successful, so fast, that an enemy that should have surrendered or been done in, escaped and lived to fight another day.” [more]

"During the last three years, this holocaust has not only spread wider but also been given a general acceptability, to such an extent that now it seems to be a matter of routine even when several hundred Muslims are slaughtered in a single day." [more]

" With the Truman Doctrine and the declaration of support for the governments of the world against the destructive actions of the Communists, this expansionism increased. The Eisenhower Doctrine was a continuation, strengthening, and completion of the past expansionism. With the Kennedy and Nixon Doctrines, the military treaties, nuclear weapons, intercontinental missiles, and suppression of independence-seeking and freedom movements became widespread, while arms competition with the Soviet Union was approaching its height. Parallel to such expansionism, the concept of U.S. national security, or in other words, the interpretation of the Americans of their own national security and interests, became more expansive." [more]

The only way to find and eliminate Iranian nuclear weapons using military action would be to launch a full-scale invasion of Iran. If the Bush administration even began to contemplate this course of action, however, the U.S. military would probably be near open revolt. Invading Iran would likely make the bloody quagmire in Iraq look like a picnic. [more]

The Missile Defense Agency has spent $80 billion since 1985 and has very little to show for it. Over the next five years, the U.S. government will dump another $50 billion into missile defense programs. Yet rogue states probably will be able to come up with cheap countermeasures to foil costly defensive systems. [more]

"The FBI complained that military interrogators have gone far beyond the restrictions of the Geneva Conventions prohibiting torture and have followed an apparently new executive order from President Bush that permits the use of dogs and other techniques to harass prisoners." [more]

"Today, as in the years leading up to the Russian and French revolutions, the eruptions of ‘68, and the fall of the Soviet Empire, the economic and political pressures are building up to boiling point." [more]

"The 'war on terrorism' the United States is babbling about can never coexist with genuine democracy. In the places where the United States wages the 'war on terrorism,' the democratic freedom and rights of the people are repressed and obliterated and the sovereignty of countries and nations is violated without any exception." [more]

"It seems that the other side supporting Abbas is trying at the same time to carry out a harsh and violent pressure campaign on anyone they can apply pressure on within the wings of the Al-Aqsa Brigades, in order to fragment the determination of the firm and controlling group that support Al-Barghuthi. This also explains the emergence of media expressions about differing stances within the Brigades every now and then." [more]

"Comrade Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, deputy secretary general of the Iraq Command of the Ba'th Party, head of the Higher Jihad Committee, and commander of the armed resistance in sisterly Iraq, has addressed a message full of nationalist, jihadist, and religious spirit to all men of resistance and jihad in the land of the two rivers." [more]

Mr Fabius has taken a calculated risk that, if it pays off, would utterly reverse the French Socialist party's current hierarchy. Unfortunately, for many Europeans both inside and outside France, his strategy amounts to little more than playing with the future functioning of the EU for his own personal political advantage. [more]

First, the US is, and will remain for some time to come, the world's only superpower. This status is usually accompanied by currency supremacy. [more]

For four years, Palestinian victims were almost anonymous to most members of the Israeli public. Now the preoccupation with these victims, and with the ethical questions involved in the army's blame for their killing, has become an almost daily question. [more]

While Russia and the West fight for the soul of Ukraine, the domestic political storm that followed the election has abated, for now. It has been agreed that a re-run of the second round will take place on December 26th, following a ruling last week by Ukraine’s Supreme Court. [more]

An estimated US$30-50 billion in "hot money," or speculative short-term foreign investments, may have entered China this year. Much of that would have been prompted by speculation that the currency will be revaluated. [more]

Officials, as well as most of the Palestinian public, have few doubts that Israel will seek and find another pretext to avoid engaging in any process that might bring an end in sight to 37 years of military occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem [more]

The meeting comes in the wake of downward pressure on oil prices which in ten days have lost 17 per cent of their value, the largest collapse in prices since the start of the Iraq war. US light crude eventually settled down $1.52 at $41.46 a barrel, the first time it has broken the $42 floor since late August. [more]

If Israel is genuinely willing to move in the direction of peace, argues the diplomat, then Arab countries will move in the direction of normalisation. He added that several Arab capitals are receiving messages that with the death of Arafat -- who was snubbed by Sharon and Bush -- Washington is willing to pressure Israel to pick up the Middle East peace file. [more]

Aljazeera reports that member states have decided to maintain the existing official output ceiling of 27 million barrels per day, although they are currently producing about 1.1 million barrels more than that figure. [more]

Sentenced to three years in prison, Staff Sergeant Johnny Horne was also demoted to the rank of private, ordered to forfeit all pay and handed a dishonourable discharge at a court martial in the Iraqi capital, the army said. [more]

December 6, 2004, marked the centennial of one of the landmark statements in U.S. foreign policy: Theodore Roosevelt’s so-called “Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.” It was here, and not in the post-9/11 speeches of George W. Bush, that we first heard the rationalization for a pre-emptive imperialism coming from the White House. [more]

"The Council's current relationship with Mr. Kissinger," Maxwell wrote in his resignation letter to Hoge, "evidently comes at the cost of suppressing debate about his actions as a public figure. This I want no part of." [more]

The Federal Court (Bundesgerichtshof) in Karlsruhe is obliged to accept the case filed by the American-based Center for Consitutional Rights (CCR) [against Rumsfeld], a legal group renowned for their spirited defense of the Guantanamo-detainees and representation of soldiers victimized by "stop-loss" policies, because of a law passed in 2002 in Germany stipluating that War Crimes can be tried in Germany regardless of whether the case involves a German citizen or resident. Whether Rumsfeld will be able to weather this and other storms may have less to do with the letter of law, however, than with the strength of his persona. [more]

A U.S. human rights group filed war crime charges against U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other senior U.S. officials and military officers early this week, saying they were responsible for the torture and humiliation of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib. [more]

Imagine you could write cheques that were accepted as payment but never cashed. That is what it amounts to. If you had been granted that ability, you might take care to hang on to it. America is taking no such care, and may come to regret it. [more]

Long-awaited proposals on reforming the United Nations have been unveiled. Backers hope they will rejuvenate the world body. But they come at a time when the UN is under fire—especially from Americans, many of whom think it is irrelevant and corrupt [more]

Labor does not need the security portfolio to demand that the pullout from the northern West Bank not end with the evacuation of only four settlements, as Sharon wishes it to be, or to demand that the separation fence route, the roadblocks and closures do not rupture the life fabric of tens of thousands of residents in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. [more]

The officer, identified by the army only as Captain R, was charged this week with illegal use of his weapon, conduct unbecoming an officer and other relatively minor infractions after emptying all 10 bullets from his gun's magazine into Iman al-Hams when she walked into a "security area" on the edge of Rafah refugee camp last month. [more]

Mr Bush will remain in office till 2008 and General Musharraf would like to be still president when the next general elections are held in Pakistan in 2007. A lot will doubtless happen in Pakistan before that but for any Pakistani leader to rule in Pakistan external support is traditionally a crucial factor. [more]

Occupation is the opposite of democracy, for it is a way of deciding, through military force, the future and laws of the country. Occupation undermines Iraq's right to independence, sovereignty, and self-determination, a right upheld by international laws and defended by the resolve of our people. [more]

This "war of posters and banners", as one Iraqi politician puts it, is about the only visible sign that this is a country which is due to go to the polls less than eight weeks from now. The Iraqi electorate, who are still trying to come to terms with a ruthless US military machine working flat out to destroy what remains of ordinary life in the name of fighting "insurgents", are simply irrelevant to pre- election campaigning activities. [more]

"There is no talk about a truce now at all," Mahmud Al-Zahhar, a top Hamas leader, said on Sunday. [more]

The planned election will change the political composition of Iraq to suit the interests of the occupation authorities. The change will also lead to ethnic, sectarian and religious divisions that the Iraqi state and people had succeeded to avoid. [more]

With more than 90 people killed in the last three days in a spike of unrest despite the end of US-led assaults on rebel cities south and west of Baghdad, Sunni Muslim Iraqis also stepped up calls to delay January's landmark polls. [more]

Unfortunately, Iraq is then likely to descend into chaos and civil war. So despite Bush administration boasting of killing 1,200 guerrillas in Falluja, the future of Iraq looks grim indeed. [more]

"Six days on and still they chant, still they march, still they seek to overturn the election result that cheated them. The crowds and the momentum are on their side, but nothing in Ukraine is that simple." [more]

"Last Thursday morning, Natalia Dimitruk, an interpreter for the deaf on the Ukraine's official state UT-1 television, disregarded the anchor's report on Prime Minister Viktor F. Yanukovich's 'victory' and, in her small inset on the screen, began to sign something else altogether." [more]

"While the gains of the orange-bedecked 'chestnut revolution' are Ukraine's, the campaign is an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in western branding and mass marketing that, in four countries in four years, has been used to try to salvage rigged elections and topple unsavoury regimes." [more]

"A senior Western diplomat in Kiev, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the political situation, portrayed the Ukrainian leadership as being at an impasse, stung by public and diplomatic reaction, and unsure of how to react to the growing protests." [more]

"Many Ukrainians, disenchanted after a decade under the scandal-ridden outgoing presidency of Leonid Kuchma, have drawn courage from the Georgian example. Some protesters have called for a Chestnut Revolution — after Kiev's renowned chestnut trees — in emulation of the Rose Revolution and Velvet Revolution that forced out the Czech communists in 1989." [more]

There are things that settlers have been doing lately to the army that if they were done by Palestinians would be defined as violence, and even as terrorism. [more]

Washington, in other words, is relying on a soft landing for the dollar. History shows, however, that there is a better than even chance of this process ending in a full-scale crisis, as it did in the mid 1980s, when the weakness of the dollar culminated in the stock market crash of 1987. [more]

Countries such as France which opposed the invasion argue that the presence of US and other international forces contributes towards the violence, and a timetable should be set for them to leave. [more]

State investigators in Baden-Württemberg said they have been closely watching developments in the Netherlands, but that there was no evidence of similar ethnic tensions in the region. [more]

"We are all encouraged. We reaffirmed our determination to work with the Palestinian leadership to support the election" for a successor to Arafat, UN chief Kofi Annan told reporters. [more]

Iraq and neighbours Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey signed off on the document in a closed-door meeting Monday, with the Egyptian hosts turning down any last-minute amendments. The text was put to the rest of the delegates Tuesday for approval. [more]

Germany's finance minister has said that he and his US counterpart have reached an agreement under which Iraq's creditors would write off up to 80% of the war-ravaged country's debt. [more]