Other Conflicts

"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]

"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]

"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]

"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]

"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]

"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]

"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]

"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]

"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]

"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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

"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]

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]

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

"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]

"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]

"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]

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]

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]

"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]

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]

"Like so many conflicts in West Africa, the one in Ivory Coast is in large part a contest for the country's most valuable asset: the land on which cocoa is grown. Making it particularly entrenched are issues that were never fully resolved at independence: Who is a citizen of Ivory Coast, who can rule, who can own land?" [more]

"Last week, the Nyala relocations prompted a chorus of international condemnation, with the United States accusing Khartoum of violating UN principles concerning internally displaced people and UN security council resolutions on Darfur." [more]

"A United Nations team has begun investigating allegations of genocide against the Sudanese Government as ethnic-minority rebels accuse the army and its militia allies of destroying the evidence of mass graves in Darfur." [more]

"Tuesday's attack on civilians was just one of many, and anti-government rebel groups are growing more violent and numerous. From Bosnia to Sierra Leone, the world has a painful history of putting peacekeepers into situations where there is no peace to be kept. Darfur may be one more." [more]

"Rape in war, if committed by combatants, is both a grave human rights violation and a war crime. Yet it has long been mischaracterized as a private crime, the ignoble act of wayward soldiers. Worse still, it has been accepted precisely because it is so common." [more]

But a complex set of political challenges appears to have all but assured that an even earlier end to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's current government is a matter of when, not if. [more]

In a confused, post-modern, deconstructed world, the settlement movement spokesmen offer the ultimate temptation to the confused Israeli looking for an answer to the question of why there's no end to the cycle of violence and what, if any, should be the price of the peace (or at least the quiet). [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]

"(The force) is evolving into a mission to maintain peace... with probable logistical support from the United States," Thiam explained. [more]

Officials have warned that failure to secure a compromise by Friday could set back efforts to pry open multi-billion dollar agriculture markets, especially for poor countries, by years. [more]

Qorei's announcement, which came 10 days after he tendered his resignation, followed extensive mediation efforts by MPs who said they had secured an agreement by Arafat to implement reforms and crack down on corruption. [more]

"In a report to be released Monday, Amnesty International said the sexual attacks in Darfur amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity. But it said it did not have sufficient evidence to show that the Janjaweed, as the government-backed militias are known, have carried out genocide in Darfur, as some critics of Sudan's government maintain." [more]

"Two rebel groups — the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Army — took up arms against the Sudanese government in February 2003, demanding a greater share of power and wealth in Africa's largest nation. Violence in Darfur has since made more than 1m homeless and killed an estimated 30,000 people." [more]

"The world will help Zimbabweans, but they must first help themselves. And helping themselves must mean going far beyond tame protests 1,000km away from Harare." [more]

Last December, the United Nations General Assembly voted to ask the UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) to rule on the legality of the barrier. On Friday July 9th, the court published its ruling, declaring the barrier illegal under international law, demanding the dismantlement of those parts that already encroach on the West Bank and calling for compensation for the many Palestinians whose rights have been “gravely” infringed by it. [more]

Israel is counting on the US to use its veto in the UN Security Council to block any Palestinian attempts to have the ruling enforced. [more]

"'This incident has shown me first hand the indiscriminate violence faced by Palestinians on a daily basis,' Baroness Northover said./ 'If the Israeli Defense Forces are prepared to shoot at a delegation of parliamentarians under the supervision of the UN, one wonders what treatment ordinary Palestinians are given,' she said." [more]

"'Why do you think the Erez industrial estate is still attractive for 200 factories that have stayed put despite all the terrorist attacks?' asked Gabi Bar. 'The most important motive is the low wages paid to the workers: around 1,500 shekels ($332) as against 4,500 shekels ($995), which is the minimum wage in Israel. What is more, the employers don’t have to abide by Israeli labour laws.'" [more]

Colonel Erez "argued that Israel's decision to use ground troops, rather than simply bomb the neighborhood from the air, showed its concern for Palestinian civilians and 'maintaining our moral posture.' Several wounded Palestinians interviewed in the last 24 hours said they were shot by snipers when they stepped out into the street. Noting the curfew, Colonel Erez said, 'Someone who exits is obviously someone who is looking for trouble' and was therefore 'a legitimate target.' " [more]

"Last week, Bush decided to allow Cuban Americans to visit relatives in Cuba only once every three years and lowered their daily spending limit while on the island to $70 from $228." [more]

"It is only through continuous struggle, which will lead to revolution, that we can today find true freedom. To create a world where equality and welfare will not be a dream, where the essence of progress will not be connected with the modern brutality of high technology. Instead, it will find its reward in the ability of society to guarantee equality in front of the law, and the power of each person to participate in the formulation of its social and financial role." [more]

"Since the September 11 attacks in the United States, neo-conservatives who dominate policy making within the Bush administration have tended to view violence in the Middle East and Central Asia through the prism of what Roy termed the international jihadist struggle. This tendency encourages authoritarian practices in the two regions by effectively giving a green light to governments to engage in repression, while shunning needed economic and political reforms." [more]

"On that day, the current war ceased to be a war on terror. It ceased to be a war for Israel's existence. On May 2, 2004, the war became a war of not-a-single-settlement. Not a single outpost. Until the last mobile home." [more]

"... as President Akhmad Kadyrov saluted troops parading past, the stadium was rocked by an explosion leaving a cloud of dust which cleared to reveal a jagged hole where the president and his entourage had been standing moments before." [more]

"US President George W. Bush said on Saturday the 'roadmap' 2005 target for a Palestinian state was unrealistic./ 'I readily concede the date has slipped some. I think the timetable of 2005 is not as realistic as it was two years ago,' Bush told the Egyptian semi-official daily Al-Ahram, adding that it 'may be hard' to achieve the 2005 target." [more]

"The jury in New York supported Swiss Re’s claim that it had signed up to a policy which clearly defined the destruction of the twin towers as one event, rather than two." [more]

"During the ceremony it was also announced that plans to build additional housing in other Gaza Strip communities have been approved." [more]

"The US has announced it might declare shortly imposing sanctions on Syria, according to a decision approved with the aim to punish Damascus, which Washington accuses of supporting terrorism." [more]

Several castes and communities still feel that they are not getting their share of power and government jobs as compared to tiny number of upper caste privileged groups. Similarly the minority communities like Muslims feel that they have been given a raw deal... [more]

"...the recent interview of Benny Morris in Haaretz has alarmed many Palestinians, who fear that it foreshadows official Israeli policy. Morris, the leading Israeli revisionist historian, showed from documentary evidence that Israel expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948 and that most of them did not (as Israel has alleged) leave voluntarily. He now justifies this 'ethnic cleansing' as necessary to the establishment of a Jewish state and predicts that it may be necessary again." [more]

"By simultaneously increasing despair and anger, Sharon is hoping to raise the stakes in this conflict. It is astonishing to think it, but Sharon has been restrained thus far. He has been held back by world opinion, the US and Israeli public opinion. But the hold of each of these over Sharon diminishes as Palestinian violence increases." [more]

"Passions boiled over on Monday as the protesters, many of them highland Aymara Indians, seized the town officials. Mayor Robles was dragged, tied to a post, beaten and left for dead beneath a bridge, according to local news reports. He later bled to death." [more]

"'Pre-emptive strikes will continue because they undeniably weaken terrorist organisations,' Yaalon told public radio in an interview marking Remembrance Day, which is observed each year to commemorate the country's fallen soldiers." [more]

"The DPRK [North Korea] made the remarks in a statement issued by the spokesman for the Panmunjom Mission of the Korean People's Army (KPA), saying the 'US decision to take even its small force out' of the JSA and the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) 'indicates that the US preparations for a preemptive attack upon the DPRK are under way at a final phase.'" [more]

"The Polisario, backed by Algeria, has since 1976 been claiming independence of this territory despite the local populations' refusal to be separated from the Kingdom./ On Thursday, the Moroccan Government ruled out any negotiation on the independence of these Southern Moroccan provinces." [more]

"The London raids were the start of a week of concerted police sweeps throughout Europe. Cops in Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, as well as Turkey, launched similar 'antiterror' raids, arresting a total of 63 people, most of them Turks. The pretext was 'minimizing a terror threat ahead of June’s NATO summit in Istanbul, Turkey' and 'increased international security cooperation before the Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece,' according to an April 2 Associated Press dispatch. Police claimed those arrested had 'ties' to a banned Turkish organization, the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Army/Front." [more]

"The Palestinians blamed the United States for emboldening Israel to assassinate Rantisi by vetoing a Security Council resolution condemning last month's 'extrajudicial execution' of Hamas' founder." [more]

"Defense counsel Norman Sepenuk also questioned the decision of the original trial chamber that killing 7,500 men and deporting Srebrenica`s 25,000 women and children was tantamount to genocide." [more]

"As I reflect on lessons learnt from the Rwandan genocide, the most powerful one remains the reality that African lives do not matter to the leaders, and the majority of the citizens, of the world's most powerful nation and its European allies./ Their non-interventionist attitude is couched in references to lack of strategic interest. But the underlying reason is an entrenched racism that prevents them from reacting with the urgency and emotional commitment that has propelled them to intervene in less extensive acts of mass murder among their kinsmen in Europe." [more]

"'We've called it a humanitarian crisis,' State Department spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters on April 6. 'But I really hesitate to use the G-word at this point, not really having considered it in that light.'" [more]

"The Stalinist state's official news agency accused Washington of 'driving the military situation on the Korean peninsula to the brink of a nuclear war' with plans for a pre-emptive strike on North Korea." [more]

"The Sudanese Government must immediately stop local militias from committing atrocities against the local population and must provide unrestricted access to humanitarian aid agencies. I condemn these atrocities, which are displacing hundreds of thousands of civilians, and I have expressed my views directly to President Bashir of Sudan." [more]

"In interviews with the Maariv, Yediot Aharonot and Haaretz dailies, Sharon defended the plan, saying it serves Israel’s interest, not that of the Palestinians. 'The Palestinians understand that this plan is to a large extent the end of their dreams, a very heavy blow to them,' he told Haaretz." [more]

"The ABC letter said Spain had until April 4 to end its support for the United States and withdraw its troops from Iraq and Afghanistan./ 'If these demands are not met, we will declare war on you and ... convert your country into an inferno and your blood will flow like rivers,' the letter said." [more]

"Turkish Ambassador to the United States Faruk Logoglu has reacted to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell who described Turkey as an Islamic Republic, and stressed, 'Turkey is a democratic and secular republic.'" [more]

"...Tamil Tiger rebels today warned they would renew their fight to win their demands if the new government denied them autonomy./ The rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said their overwhelming sweep of the island's north and east in Friday's general election was a 'major victory' and an endorsement of their nationalist struggle." [more]

"Most of the 'erased' are fellow former Yugoslavs, whom many Slovenes regard as poor Balkan cousins who failed to show sufficient loyalty to independent Slovenia. Supporters of the law and opponents of the referendum called the 4 April vote a victory for xenophobia and injustice." [more]

"The Queen has warned Britain and France that they cannot afford to be divided while facing threats to their security./ Her state visit, which began in Paris, follows a series of tensions between the two countries, most recently over the war in Iraq." [more]

"Fighting in Darfur broke out more than a year ago, when rebels attacked government targets, saying black Africans were being oppressed in favour of Arabs. Mr Egeland described it as one of the world`s worst humanitarian crises." [more]

"On each side thousands of citizens greeted the people leading the demonstration with applause and irrintzis (long yells). They later joined the march bearing Basque flags, flags of Navarre and posters saying Autodeterminazioa orain (Self-determination now). The Askapena organisation carried its own banner saying 'No to occupation; peoples’ self-determination! Long live the peoples’ resistance!' and in this group many flags of Palestine and Iraq could be seen among the Basque ones." [more]

"Marcus maintains that the World Bank is ignoring, or is possibly unaware of, the fact that the very PA universities they will be strengthening all have official student branches of Hamas (called Al-Kutlah Al-Islamiyah) and Islamic Jihad (called Al-Jama'ah Al-Islamiyah), both terrorist organizations found on the U.S. and E.U. terrorist lists." [more]

"'No one threw stones (before the police action),' Waqf director Adnan Husseini told Reuters. 'They (police) started doing this every Friday to scare elderly worshippers as younger ones are already banned. This is flagrant violation of freedom of worship.'" [more]

"Following the assassination of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin last week, Israeli Defense Forces Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon said that the responses of Arafat and Hezbollah leader Sheikh Ahmed Nasrallah showed that 'they understand that this is approaching them.'" [more]

"NATO more and more ressembles a terrorist organization with every day that passes. Its arbitrary decisions on who is guilty of war crimes never takes into consideration the fact that this organization itself was responsible for hundreds of civilian deaths during the Kosovo campaign and in Afghanistan." [more]

"The Uzbek government has been systematically persecuting Muslims for more than five years, jailing roughly 7,000 believers for engaging in non-state-sanctioned forms of religious expression. Some reports suggest the current Uzbek arrest spree is merely an extension of the ongoing crackdown on Islam, with Muslims being indiscriminately arrested. According to one British Broadcasting Corp. report March 31, one woman asserted that four of her sons were taken into custody because they share the same name as an militant who was captured March 30." [more]

"'I don’t think this is going to be resolved with the current regime,' Gilinsky said. 'What we need to do is wait them out and hem them in as best we can and use other ways to soften them up and have the juices of capitalism maybe corrode their spirit,' he added." [more]

"The hearings have highlighted serious gaps between Dr Rice's statements about what the White House did before September 11 and evidence from Mr Clarke that is backed by classified White House documents. In particular, Dr Rice's claim that a White House plan to 'destroy' al-Qaeda was radically different from president Bill Clinton's plan has been brought into question." [more]

"The independent An-Nahar in Lebanon said the United States wanted the summit to fail in order to ensure that its own initiative would have no competition./ 'American pressure undermined the summit,' it charged, since Washington was 'indisposed by an Arab document on reforms since it wants to impose its "Greater Middle East" initiaitive.'" [more]

"The government has claimed that Islamic radicals, with international terrorist connections, are behind the violence. Radical groups operating in Uzbekistan, including Hizb-ut-Tahrir, have not claimed responsibility. Scattered bits of information coming to light raise questions about an international terrorist connection, lending credence to the notion that the violence is a popular reaction to government repression." [more]

"Kamerhe and Interior Minister Theophile Mbemba both refused to comment on diplomats' accounts of the attack, which they said was linked to the recent discovery of an arms cache buried in Kinshasa./ During the fight, authorities seized six rocket-propelled grenades, two mortar launchers, 30 grenades, 75 AK-47 assault rifles and thousands of rounds of various ammunition, the army said." [more]

"According to unofficial information, at least five people were killed in the Uzbek capital in the two blasts, up to 30 blast victims were brought to the first Tashkent city hospital. A female suicide bomber set off an explosive device fixed on her body at the Chorsu marketplace near the entrance to the three-story shop Detski Mir ('Children’s World'). There were luckily few visitors in the morning." [more]

'US ambassador to Uganda, Mr Jimmy Kolker, has said there are no parallels between LRA and Al Qaeda terrorist organisations. He was responding to a question in an interview with Irin that donors are urging the government to talk to Kony, yet America can’t do the same with Al Qaeda because that would amount to ‘appeasing terrorists’." [more]

"The scale of the ruling coalition's losses makes it likely President Jacques Chirac will next week reshuffle Raffarin's two-year-old government, reducing the number of ministers and bringing more professional politicians into the cabinet, said academics such as Laurent Dubois of the Paris Institut d'Etudes Politiques." [more]

"In a further bid to quell such concerns, Mr. Erdogan did not field any female candidates, who wear the Islamic style headscarf in Sunday's polls. And in a gesture to non-Muslim Turks, the AKP ran three ethnic Armenians for smaller municipal districts in Istanbul." [more]

"Israel has prohibited vehicles belonging to the United Nations and other humanitarian agencies from crossing the Erez checkpoint into Gaza for the last three weeks, the statement said, and staff must go through on foot. Food shipments through Karni, the only commercial crossing point in Gaza, have also been obstructed." [more]

"Whatever the sum involved, it vanished from the UN-administered Iraq Oil For Food programme, and unlike last year's petty looting, those at the centre of suspicion aren't lowly bureaucrats but a tight cluster of high-up insiders centred on the office, family and inner circle of Secretary-General Kofi Annan himself." [more]

"Does it really make sense that two European Union member countries hold a veto power on the Security Council while the Third World (outside of China) is completely unrepresented? The EU does not have a common foreign policy and it will not have one in the foreseeable future, but this is no reason to continue to provide a preference to France and Britain." [more]

"'They are not content with building the huge sinister wall around the West Bank; they want to build a wall around every Palestinian town, village and hamlet. They are learning from the Nazis and the Russians.'" [more]

"So the future of US-India ties will depend largely on the election results. RSS-supported economists believe that the world has entered the era of economic warfare with the developed nations and that by kowtowing to the US, India is merely prolonging its status as a developing country. This is also the view of India's president, missile scientist Dr Abdul Kalam, whom the RSS sponsored for the post of the president, even though he is a Muslim. The ideas expressed in his books - about economic warfare - are very popular in the country." [more]

"A conservative party in Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's coalition government presented legislation Wednesday to limit the building of new mosques, calling them 'political places' used to spread hatred for the West." [more]

"'We know for sure this is a fabricated story from A to Z. Would you believe that a 13 or 14-year old would agree to blow up himself in return for a hundred shekels which he would receive after his death?'" [more]

"Mark Lance, associate professor of justice and peace at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, argues that two recent major attacks on important international leaders make a mockery of the international legal system. 'The elected president of Haiti was driven from office, and the spiritual leader of Hamas, along with 10 civilian bystanders, was executed,' he told IPS." [more]

"According to reports in the highly politicised press supporting President Gbagbo, the planned protest actions of the opposition and the Forces Nouvelles however aim at stopping just this UN deployment by creating political violence. The same media however are nourishing conspiracy theories against the opposition and the ex-rebels, strongly contributing to the increased level of conflict." [more]

"In theory the companies should be accountable under guidelines produced by the Paris-based agency, the Organization for Co-operation and Development./ But Thursday’s report said no progress has been made in pursing the companies by their own governments." [more]

"...since the 1980s, the sources of most urban anxiety have not been terrorists, but stigmatised ethnic and racial minorities, immigrants, criminals, drug-users and the poor. Following the US model, in which surveillance and punishment are the preferred methods of social regulation, European cities have expanded their police forces and toughened penalties, resulting in dramatically increased rates of incarceration across the Continent. New anxieties will accelerate this trend, but with a twist: Arabs and North Africans will be subjected to heightened ethnic or racial profiling, and citizens will begin monitoring each other more aggressively." [more]

"The boys’ deaths on Wednesday triggered days of rioting, looting and arson by ethnic Albanians against Serbs that left 28 people dead, 600 injured." [more]

An accountant in Long Beach, Calif., is leading a violent and bloody campaign to overthrow the government of Cambodia. Why doesn't the U.S. government seem to care? [more]

"The left-wing opposition has sought to turn the regional elections, in theory based on local issues, into an anti-government vote, allowing them to recoup some of the ground lost in the 2002 polls./ Opposition parties believe they have profited from the knock-on effect of of last Sunday's surprise Socialist victory in Spain." [more]

"By making Syria a pariah nation, Bush has helped to realize a goal of current Israeli policy: to secure US help in weakening its unfriendly neighbors. In addition, by getting Congress to condemn Syria for alleged weapons development, Israel refocused attention away from its own nuclear arsenal." [more]

"The eruption of violence was fuelled by tit-for-tat incidents in recent days and showed how tense Kosovo remains, despite almost five years of UN peacekeeping. With Albanian hardliners in the ascendant in Kosovo and a new nationalist government in power in Serbia, the portents are dismal." [more]

"The intended target, the use of plastic explosives, the cooperation between militant groups and the fact that Palestinian bombers managed to slip out of Gaza for the first time since 2000 were all seen as signals of escalation in tactics." [more]

"But oil is just one reason for West Africa's growing demand for guns for hire. The US, for instance, is now more engaged in West Africa. But with troops tied down in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, it's increasingly hiring private security firms to represent it." [more]

"At his briefing in Washington on March 8, Gen Wald acknowledged US interest in establishing 'forward operation locations' in sub-Saharan Africa for American military forces. The facilities would not amount to full-scale bases but would instead serve as refuelling and equipment-storage points." [more]

"Corrupt Russian army officers and local Chechen officials have a financial stake in keeping the war going, getting rich from black market deals on everything from oil to weapons sales. On the other side, many Chechen field commanders long ago stopped answering to Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov. With whom, then, can the Russian government negotiate?" [more]

"Mr Mohadi went on explaining that Mr Moto, a controversial Equatoguinean opposition leader exiled in Spain, had hired the 'mercenaries' to do the job. Mr Moto and the 'mercenaries' had received logistic aid from the secret services of the US, the UK and Spain, he said." [more]

"The new allegations against President Kagame surely will not improve the already strained French-Rwandan relations. Since the current government came to power ... Paris has been hostile towards the leaders in Kigali. Several French sources have tried to connect Mr Kagame to the assassination of President Habyarimana, while it is official knowledge in Rwanda that France protected the genocidal government of 1994." [more]

"The expansion of the geographical boundaries of the region dilutes the importance of the Palestinian problem and demotes it from its central position on the political stage of the Middle East to a marginal position as just one of several "hot" issues plaguing a much wider region. Moreover, given Washington's fixation on terrorism, it could well use the new rationale to classify the Palestinian struggle for nationhood as just one more example of the terrorism that is widely propagated throughout the greater Middle East." [more]

"Aristide flew out from the same airport with US help on Sunday morning, under pressure from a mounting insurrection and abandoned by the international community. Aristide's departure 'was the result of perfect co-ordination' between Washington and Paris, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said." [more]

"...the transfer of the exercise's venue out of Mindanao has alarmed the New People's Army of the Communist Party of the Philippines. They claim the exercises are just a disguised offensive against local communist insurgents." [more]

"The Security Council tonight, acting in response to the deteriorating political, security and humanitarian situation in Haiti, authorized the immediate deployment of Multinational Interim Force for a period of three months to help to secure and stabilize the capital, Port-au-Prince, and elsewhere in the country." [more]

"President Museveni has several times before accused the donors of limiting government’s defence spending and said that was the main reason for the continuation of the rebellion." [more]

"Mugabe told the opening it was time to rediscover the spirit of the founders the G15 and that developing countries were threatened by arrogant leaders of the industrialized world." [more]

"The scale of the humanitarian crisis continues to escalate, with internally displaced persons estimated to be in excess of 700,000 requiring urgent humanitarian assistance, according to EU reports." [more]

"It would be irrational for Palestinians not to believe that the goal of Sharon's fence is anything other than their confinement in a series of bantustans, if not a prelude to a second 'transfer.'" [more]

"Seventeen Palestinians were reported injured as Israeli soldiers fired tear gas and rubber-coated steel pellets to disperse dozens of stone throwers during the raids. Three Palestinians were said to be in critical condition." [more]

"Kyrgyz politicians bristle over what they characterize as Uzbekistan’s desire to act as the 'elder brother' in Central Asia. 'Official documents draw one picture and reality draws a completely different one,' Kyrgyz MP Oksana Malevanaya complained in an interview with the Bishkek newspaper Obshestvennii Rating." [more]

"'There's enough indications from our point of view, at least from my point of view, that the United States certainly knew what was coming about two weeks before this military operation started,' Kurzban said. 'The United States made contingency plans for Guantanamo.'" [more]

"At The Hague, the Palestinian envoy to the UN, Nasser Al-Kidwa, said he hoped an opinion against the wall would lead to the same kind of international sanctions that followed after the Court's 1971 ruling against South Africa's occupation of Namibia. But if this hope is what Palestinian Authority (PA) strategy is built on, then we are in trouble." [more]

"The rebellion has ravaged the northern and northeastern region where thousands of people have died, been displaced from their homes into camps or abducted into rebel ranks or married off to rebel commanders." [more]

"What this wall is really doing is taking Palestinian lands. It is also ... helping turn Palestinian communities into dungeons, next to which the bantustans of South Africa look like symbols of freedom, sovereignty and self-determination." [more]

A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world. [more]

"Cobler told reporters the initiative aimed at securing a full partnership between the transatlantic coalition and the greater Middle East, in light of US and European consensus that reforming the Middle East must be a top priority 'because reform is the basic measure required for uprooting terrorism, which is a danger to both the West and the Arab world.' " [more]

"The U.S. game in Haiti has always been a double game - public lip service for "democracy" - at the same time giving concrete covert aid to the most violent anti-democratic forces." In sharp disagreement with establisment media, Reeves states " Whatever Aristide's mistakes and weaknesses have been (and they are many), they pale when compared to the extreme brutality of those who are today implicated in the violence in Gonaives and elsewhere in Haiti." [more]

"...Israel won't remain entirely on the sidelines in the closely watched case. The Foreign Ministry is dispatching spokespeople, hundreds of Israeli demonstrators plan to fly to the Netherlands, and the Israeli rescue service ZAKA is sending the skeleton of a Jerusalem bus mangled in a Palestinian suicide bombing." [more]

"Mr Powell said on Thursday that he was 'disappointed' at Mr Aristide’s actions since his re-election, but the Haitian leader ought to be allowed to finish his mandate. However, State Department officials had said earlier in the week that 'some fairly thorough changes' would be needed in the way Haiti is governed." [more]

At least 20,000 rallied yesterday in freezing weather against the signing of a free trade pact with Chile. "Violence erupted as their voices of dissent were silenced. Carts were set on fire, police busses and barricades were attacked, and police were fended off with steel pipes, stones and other small objects." [more]

"A big reason for the new-found intimacy is the Indian government's desire to solidify its friendship with the United States. Indian officials have been bending over backwards to ingratiate themselves with the pro-Israel lobby in Washington in order to work Congress and to gain access to the neoconservatives who dominate the Bush administration's foreign policy." [more]

"Given the well-documented rights violations and other issues, the Bush administration’s policy towards Azerbaijan has been less than exemplary, and inconsistent with its self-declared 'forward strategy of freedom.' Whereas the circumstances appear to warrant a strong US condemnation of the Aliyev administration’s repression, the Bush administration has been solicitous of the new Azerbaijani president." [more]

"This missile has a range of 700-2,700 KM and it can carry 1,100 kg of explosive material." [more]

"From what we can piece together from his actions and statements, Sharon's vision includes offloading to a faux Palestinian state the burden of Gaza, political responsibility for Palestinians in the West Bank, and a significant number of Israeli citizens of Arab origin as well. Such an arrangement would closely resemble efforts by South Africa's apartheid rulers to maintain white rule and strip black citizens of their rights as South Africans by creating ostensibly independent states for them known as Bantustans" [more]

"Prime Minister Ariel Sharon wants U.S. approval to expand large West Bank settlement blocs that are intended to be annexed once a permanent peace agreement is reached in exchange for evacuation of most settlements in the Gaza Strip and a few others in the West Bank." [more]

"The Palestinian leadership was infuriated by what it saw as European treachery. Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat said: 'The United States, Britain and Germany ask the Palestinians not to have recourse to violence, but when the Palestinians have recourse to diplomacy they slam the door on us.'" [more]

"The vast majority of what we hear and see in the US is about suicide bombing, and in both programs we see the depth of pain inflicted on Israelis by Palestinian suicide bombings through footage of their carnage, and disturbing, emotional scenes ... Although these are appalling scenes, they are certainly no less horrific or newsworthy than an Israeli apache helicopter firing missiles into crowds of civilians, or Israeli tanks killing and wounding Palestinian men, women and children." [more]

"The decision to put the graphic five-minute, 38-second video on the Israeli Foreign Ministry Web site just hours after the Thursday morning explosion, which killed 11 people and the bomber, has unleashed an emotional public debate. Many Israelis are weary of a conflict that has turned buses, cafes and streets into targets and are increasingly frustrated with political leadership on both sides that has not stopped the violence." [more]

"The idea that political and economic liberty could trigger ... atrocities is heretical to many Western liberals. That, Ms. Chua says, is because people here are blind to ethnicity." [more]

"The Palestinian Prisoners Club estimates that 7500 Palestinians are currently detained by Israel either on its territory or in prisons it controls in the occupied West Bank." [more]

"The paramilitarization, so the mentioned manual continues, 'serves at the same time to legitimize the presence of the Federal Army, arguing that the indigenous are killing each other, and the Army is here to prevent this, as was maintained when the Acteal massacre occured'." [more]

"People started posting the story in Internet forums. It snowballed into a rage, with most people accusing the rich and the powerful of trampling on the underprivileged. The BMW and the tractor stacked with vegetables have taken symbols of the haves and the have-nots." [more]

Bush has extended economic sanctions against Libya — a tool commonly used against nations in the Middle East. [more]

"'This is an Israeli decision that the Golan Heights is an integral part of the state of Israel, and we don't have any intention of giving up our hold.''" [more]

Agrochemical giant Monsanto is suing the state of Maine to ban small organic farmers from advertising their milk as having "NO ARTIFICIAL HORMONES." [more]

"Unilateral moves would include the completion of a West Bank separation barrier that swallows up large chunks of the land the Palestinians seek for their state, as well as the dismantling of some Jewish settlements ... Sharon will stop short of annexing parts of the West Bank, to avoid further angering the United States." [more]

We used to take it for granted that milk was good for us. But now the industry faces a crisis, with the public questioning such assumptions. So just how healthy is milk? Anne Karpf investigates, in two parts. [more]

Part II of Ann Karpf's investigation of the dairy industry. (See Part I, click here). [more]

"Throughout the five-day course, Lisa Reed and her fellow Terror Tourists will fire machine-guns, learn hand-to-hand combat and take part in mock attacks by Israeli commandos pretending to be Arab terrorists." [more]

In addition to other egregious civil rights violations, police in Miami prevented 20 busloads of seniors from attending a permitted AFL-CIO march in Miami against the FTAA. [more]

The city was closed down by squads of riot police during the Free Trade Area of the Americas meeting ... armored vehicles patrolled the streets, police helicopters hovered overhead and, during street clashes on Nov. 20, police fired volleys of rubber bullets and pepper spray at protesters in the city center. [more]

"Rumblings of discontent have come from the army chief of staff and four former chiefs of the security services, from members of Sharon's governing coalition and from opposition politicians who have forged their own model peace agreement with Palestinian counterparts." [more]

"The decision to demolish houses suspected of sheltering insurgents resembles a tactic long in use by Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to punish the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Like the Israelis, troops with the 4th Infantry have also flattened wide swaths on roadsides to inhibit the laying of bombs." [more]

With all the recent propaganda released by police about the upcoming Free Trade Agreement of the Americas protests in Miami, Indymedia provides a refreshingly realistic account of the preparations (on both sides) being made to ready Miami for the impact of the FTAA. [more]

"The giant Caterpillar bulldozer, used by the Israeli military to destroy Palestinian homes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, now comes with a controversial new feature: remote control." [more]

"The Quartet's plan is now a dead issue. Instead, there are continuing violent attacks by Palestinian terrorist groups and increasingly harsh reprisals from Israel. Supporting such policies is the worst thing America could do for Israelis who want peace." [more]

"Civil and governmental life is interrupted, due to a major loss of equipment, databases, and documents. There is so much destruction. Tom Twiss's compilation of the damage to the libraries and cultural centers is comprehensive and accurate, as I saw at the places I was able to visit and meet with staff, or talk to people who saw the sites I was not able to visit." [more]

"A military official said the fleeing Islamic Jihad gunman received shelter at the police station and policemen helped him to escape the area." [more]

"The campaign against Damascus is rooted in the accusation that two groups labeled terrorist organizations by the United States and Israel, among others — Hamas and Islamic Jihad — are orchestrating suicide bombings from here. Few analysts expect that the elimination of their representatives here would do much to dent such operations." [more]

"While U.S. officials say they aren't satisfied with the route changes made so far, the White House has held off on withholding foreign aid, a move that could cause domestic political damage to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and provoke an uproar among Sharon's supporters in the United States." [more]

"Since 1996, when the first Wal-Mart supercenter and Sam's Club opened in the city of Shenzhen in south China, it has set up 30 stores in 14 cities all over China in which over 99.9 percent of its employees are Chinese." [more]

"Buoyed by U.S. backing for Israel's right to defend itself, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said on Tuesday the Jewish state was ready to hit its enemies anywhere following an air raid deep inside Syria." [more]

"In the West Bank, the barrier's rapid construction is altering lives, the landscape and, critics say, foreclosing on the possibility of a viable Palestinian state — all factors that will deepen Palestinian anger and motivation to strike at Israel." [more]

"The attack was in retaliation for a devastating suicide bomb on a restaurant in the northern port of Haifa on Saturday, which killed 19 people. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan strongly deplored the Israeli air strike and expressed concern that this could lead to a further escalation of an already tense and difficult situation in the Middle East." [more]

"The Israeli attack on an alleged terrorist camp inside Syria yesterday helped punctuate a message the Bush administration has been sending to Syria for months — stop supporting terrorist organizations. But analysts said it could also lead to a widening of the Arab-Israeli conflict, thus threatening the administration's efforts to stabilize Iraq and foster peace between the Israelis and Palestinians." [more]

"Mr. Sharon on Monday expressed his support for building a barrier around the settlement, Ariel, which is about 15 miles inside the West Bank. The measure appears set to win cabinet approval at a session on Wednesday." [more]

" 'We refuse to participate in air force attacks on civilian populations,' said the letter, which was sent to the head of the air force, Maj. Gen. Dan Halutz. 'We refuse to continue harming innocent civilians.' " [more]

"So, Yasser Arafat is the man responsible for the killing of Israeli civilians. Kill him, and the killing of Israeli civilians will stop. If only it were that simple. Terrorism must be met by forceful preventive measures, but it cannot be ended by responding with force alone, or wild threats." [more]

The vice prime minister's remarks "amounted to the most explicit description of options Israel is considering for dealing with Mr. Arafat since Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government decided 'in principle' to remove him, leaving the timing and type of action deliberately vague." [more]

"Israel on Wednesday said that an 'unwritten and abstract' axis with India and the United States has been created to combat international terrorism and make the world a more secure place for all." [more]

"New lobbying groups dedicated to promoting India's interests in Washington, such as the US-India Political Action Committee set up in September 2002, are increasingly working with Jewish groups such as the American Jewish Committee to promote what they say are India and Israel's common concerns and values. The AJC is planning to open a permanent liaison office in India this year and has been helping to train Indian Americans in the art of lobbying." [more]

"Public opinion surveys both in Israel and Palestine consistently show that a clear majority on both sides endorses the cease-fire, supports the road map to peace and favors the idea of a two-state solution, Israel next to Palestine." [more]

"The deal would call for current President Moses Blah to cede power by October, handing control over to the interim government. That government would see Liberia through elections. The two rebel movements and the government would be shut out of the top administration posts of chairman and vice chairmanship." [more]

"The team urged that the United States immediately deploy a 2,300-strong Marine Expeditionary Unit to stabilize the country and protect civilians amid a vicious civil war, said several U.S. officials familiar with the report. Two hundred Marines arrived in the country Thursday, five weeks after the call for urgent action." [more]

"The barrier will leave 300,000 Palestinians on the 'Israeli' side of the wall. Twenty thousand Palestinian residents of Jerusalem — Israelis in the eyes of Israeli law — live outside the fence, denied virtually all municipal and governmental services." [more]

"Entire districts of the Liberian capital were clogged with people who carried, dragged, pushed and wheeled what they could, as rebels fired in the air and waved knives in a vain effort to stop the chaos." [more]

"President Bush said Wednesday he sent the contingent to help clear the way for humanitarian relief, adding that he still expects Liberian President Charles Taylor to leave the country. Washington has said repeatedly it will play only a limited role." [more]

"Salvation is at hand, but President Bush bizarrely has refused to order the U.S. forces into the country. With the UN, the regional allies and all factions of Liberians begging the United States to act, the president dithers." [more]

"The protestors were occupying the house in Mashah, near the town of Qalqiliya, in a bid to stop the Israelis bulldozing the Palestinian owner's garden to build the fence cutting off the West Bank from Israel." [more]

"Hunching down to sprint across road junctions, ducking the ever-whistling bullets, has become a way of life for people who have no choice but to move in an often futile hunt for food and clean water." [more]

"The Solomon Islands government is nearly broke and issued an appeal to its neighbors this month to help rein in armed militants and criminals who are killing at will, taking hostages and extorting money." [more]

"Secretary of State Colin Powell said Bush was examining the options and was still considering sending combat troops. But the Pentagon was believed to be reluctant to commit soldiers." [more]

"An angry crowd laid 18 bodies, one of them headless, in front of the U.S. embassy and hurled abuse at the mission for not intervening to stop the fighting in a country founded by freed American slaves in the 19th century." [more]

"Troops on the archipelago seized power Wednesday in a dramatic escalation of bubbling political turmoil on the mountainous archipelago, fanned by arguments over what may be rich oil reserves lying near its shores." [more]

"Officials say the LRA has abducted hundreds of children in northern Uganda in recent years, forcing them to fight as child soldiers if they are boys, or to become sex slaves for rebel commanders if they are girls." [more]

"Bush set Taylor's departure as a first condition for bringing stability to Liberia and necessary before he would agree to send peacekeepers to the West African country wrecked by nearly 14 years of violence. But the former warlord has said he wants a peacekeeping force in place first to prevent rebels or his own volatile fighters from running wild." [more]

"Bush said he would not be rushed into making a decision before he leaves Monday evening for a five-country African tour. He called anew on President Charles Taylor to resign and leave the country, steps that U.S. officials have hinted are a condition for dispatching American troops." [more]

Analysts lay out ten international-security developments that aren't getting the attention they deserve. [more]

"For Palestinians in Gaza, the key test of whether the new agreement is working will be whether they can resume moving around freely." [more]

"Washington tried to have the Security Council adopt a statement putting pressure on Pyongyang in April. But the plan was shelved because Beijing and Moscow — permanent members of the council with veto power — disapproved." [more]

"Aid agencies urged the warring parties to reinstate the truce and warned of serious humanitarian problems as thousands fled the centre of the capital to seek refuge in the embassy of the US, with which Liberia has close historical links." [more]

"Palestinian sources have acknowledged 70 of the 250 arrested were members of the Islamic resistance group Hamas but questioned why a large number of minors and university students were detained." [more]

"A US defense official with knowledge of the intelligence that led to the strike, said reports that Saddam or his sons were hit were 'wishful thinking.' " [more]

"Liberian rebels signed a long-awaited ceasefire with President Charles Taylor's government to end a devastating four-year civil war which has spread havoc across west Africa." [more]

"The original intention was to extend settlements during the Oslo process, without being stopped. Meanwhile, most have been legalized whether de jure or de facto. People forget that. Using the term "illegal" makes people forget the fact that international law prohibits all the settlements in the West Bank and Gaza because international law prohibits the occupying power from moving its population into the occupied territory." [more]

"Dr. Samir Abu Zarzur, the head of the casualty department at Rafiah hospital in Nablus, said that his department treated 32 people injured by the Israeli army on Tuesday, the day President Bush was meeting the Palestinians' Mahmoud Abbas and other Arab leaders in Sharm Al-Sheikh and urging them to join a struggle against 'terrorism.'" [more]

"Many of the outposts that are actually removed are in fact uninhabited or 'dummy outposts' — empty outposts erected by the settler movement to use as a tool for negotiations or public relations. Only four of the 15 outposts Israel has slated for dismantlement are inhabited." [more]

"If Bush is contemplating a pre-emptive airstrike—on North Korea's nuclear facilities or a wider strike against a range of military targets—he would have to worry about the possibility of retaliation from thousands of North Korean artillery tubes, including 500 long-range tubes within range of Seoul. Therefore, he might want to get U.S. troops outside of that range." [more]

"The prevailing military regime with a civilian facade is the optimal combination for us to strike a deal with. The Indian illusion needs to be buried once for all: that a democratic government, as we understand it, can ever be conjured into existence in Pakistan. The army is the largest political party by far and it has conquered the only country it is capable of conquering — its own." [more]

" 'It is not enough to be with us in the war on terrorism, but you have to trumpet it,' explained an American official in Southeast Asia. Washington would prefer that leaders behave like President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of the Philippines, who has publicly pledged her allegiance to the United States in the campaign against terrorism." [more]

"[A] senior Hamas leader in Gaza, Ismail Abu Shanab, had outlined three conditions for a ceasefire: that Israel stops operations against Palestinians, frees Palestinian prisoners, and withdraws from the West Bank and Gaza." [more]

"UN peacekeepers will be sent to the Democratic Republic of Congo starting next week. According to diplomatic sources, the United States would vote in favor of a resolution forming a peacekeeping force and would support it but would not participate." [more]

"Israel's unprecedented recognition of Palestinian statehood aspirations, with its acceptance Sunday of the so-called roadmap, cleared the way for Bush to host a June summit between Sharon and Abbas." [more]

"Pipes is ... founder of Campus Watch, a website that compiles public files on college professors who are critical of Israel or certain aspects of American Foreign policy." [more]

"Sharon's public statements during and following Powell's visit cast doubt upon Israel's willingness to adhere to the settlement freeze. Ha'aretz quoted Sharon as telling Powell, 'What do you want, for a pregnant woman to have an abortion just because she is a settler?' In an interview this week, Sharon reinforced his commitment to the maintenance of settlements in the West Bank, asserting that Jewish settlers will continue to live there under Israeli sovereignty." [more]

"Rebels ignored [a] deadline, saying they were prepared to fight what could be a bloody new phase in a 26-year conflict that has killed nearly 12,000 people. But they also suggested there still was room for compromise." [more]

"Here [I have] a photo of Rachel standing determined in front of the bulldozer, here she stands on the mound of earth. And here she disappears, she lies on the ground, her mouth open as if trying to say something, Alice crouches over her (later, Alice would quote what she said with her last strength: "My back is broken"), she draws in her two legs, the body lies like a lifeless sack. Rachel is dead." [more]

"This looks like America's moment. History should give us pause." [more]

"U.S. intervention is a bad idea, because people want to make their own history, even if the face of oppression is like Saddam Hussein's. A quick and easy victory over Iraq must not be the model for a series of future campaigns of regime change around the world." [more]

"The killings, in the northeastern region of Ituri on Thursday, occurred barely 24 hours after both sides in the country's 40-year war signed a deal to set up a government of national unity. [It] was the latest incident in a series of bloody inter-tribal feuds between the Hema and Lendu ethnic groups." [more]

"An unprecedented explosion of state-sponsored violence broke out amid charges of massive vote-rigging before voting begins today in two crucial parliamentary byelections." [more]

What seems to be clear is that the United States government is playing the same game as in Iraq - pushing for "regime change" in Haiti. Their strategy includes a massive disinformation campaign in U.S. media, an embargo on desperately needed foreign aid to Haiti, and direct support for violent elements, including former military officers and Duvalierists, who openly seek the overthrow of President Aristide. [more]

"At the very moment men and women in the armed forces are being sent into military action, the Republicans back home are cutting their current and future benefits." [more]

"Some of the biggest rallies this month have endorsed President Bush's strategy against Saddam Hussein, and the common thread linking most of them is Clear Channel Worldwide Inc., the nation's largest owner of radio stations." [more]

"The Bush administration has concluded that it probably cannot prevent North Korea from developing nuclear weapons and is now focusing on managing the geopolitical fallout, informed Capitol Hill sources said Tuesday." [more]

"[B]acklash against the U.S.-led war on terror is also a big part of the problem. Unlike in much of the rest of the world, the war on terrorism is opposed by majorities in 10 of the 11 countries predominantly Muslim country surveyed by Pew. This includes countries outside the Middle East/Conflict Area, such as Indonesia and Senegal where majorities still held favorable opinion of the US. While they still like us, they don't like our war on terrorism. The principal exception is the overwhelming support for America's anti-terrorist campaign found in Uzbekistan, where the United States currently has troops stationed." [more]

"The Pentagon is considering whether to dispatch additional forces to the Pacific Ocean as a warning to North Korea that the United States could stop any attack even while embroiled in an Iraqi invasion, defense officials said. Some U.S. ships, fighter jets and bombers have been alerted for a possible deployment." [more]

"Unilateralism is a weak name for the foreign policy sketched in 'The National Security Strategy of the United States of America.' The strong name for it is imperialism. We will be hearing more about that as Europeans come to assess the actions of the Bush administration in the light of this thirty-one-page manifesto. Practical wisdom in the face of terror comes to be identified with the always apposite words of a single man." [more]

"In other words, the struggle that aims to transcend capitalism actually improves it. And it is this tendency that obliges the most lucid members of the ruling class to give ground to the workers in order not to lose everything. ... Democratization and integration—we would add—are not irreversible processes, as demonstrated by the social disintegration and marginalization that has occurred in Argentina over the last twenty years." [more]

"The more the U.S. resolves to ratchet up the pressure and force Pyongyang into submission, the less likely it is that there will be a successful outcome." [more]

"The peace accord, brokered by France, envisions rebel groups sharing power with the government, an approach that has enraged backers of President Laurent Gbagbo." [more]

"An apparent double suicide bombing in Tel Aviv left 23 people dead and more than 100 injured Sunday." [more]

"On Wednesday and Thursday eight Palestinian militants were killed by Israeli forces, across the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. They were swift to take revenge. Islamic Jihad said that they were responsible for an attack on Friday night on a Jewish settlement in the West Bank in which four seminary students were shot dead." [more]

"Yesterday's clash occurred less than a week after French soldiers fired on a rebel convoy that was speeding toward a French checkpoint northeast of Duekoue. Rebels accuse the French of backing Gbagbo's troops and have warned that any French attack on their positions would be deemed 'an act of war.' " [more]

"The Bush administration has prepared a list of terrorist leaders the Central Intelligence Agency is authorized to kill, if capture is impractical and civilian casualties can be minimized, senior military and intelligence officials said." [more]

"The unprecedented seizure Monday of a ship carrying North Korean missiles highlights US preemption doctrine." [more]

" 'We became aware of the departure of the ship from North Korea that was carrying what we believe to be weapons of concern,' Fleischer said. 'This was a non-flagged vessel, which gave us further concern. And the vessel was destined for Yemen.' " [more]

"The Bush administration published a new strategy today on combatting weapons of mass destruction that included a statement, clearly directed at potential opponents like Iraq. Washington is prepared to 'respond with all our options' if such weapons are used against American troops or allies." [more]

"Seventy-two percent of Palestinians regard nonviolent demonstration as at least as effective as violent methods ... [while] the Jewish-Israeli public also indicates readiness to agree to a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders if the Palestinians will refrain from violence for an extended period. [Yet] mistrust blocks the formation of a clear majority ready to renounce violence." [more]

"All three were surprised to find that Israeli papers print much fuller accounts of Israeli wrongs and Palestinian reprisals than those here. Peace groups there flourish and stage nonviolent protests. A large majority, there as well as here, favors separate states for Israel and Palestine. This sentiment is not reflected in the surveys of the present election campaign. The yearning for peace does not show up at all." [more]

"The lethal missile strike that killed a suspected leader of Al Qaeda in Yemen was carried out under broad authority that President Bush has given the C.I.A. over the past year to pursue the terror network well beyond the borders of Afghanistan, senior government officials said today." [more]

"A Bush administration intelligence review has concluded that four nations — including Iraq and North Korea — possess covert stocks of the smallpox pathogen, according to two officials who received classified briefings, [though] an authoritative official said there is 'no reason' to believe bin Laden succeeded in obtaining the smallpox pathogen." [more]

"Most Russians agree that there can be no military solution. Three years ago, many favored renewed conflict under a decisive new leader, Putin, but by this past summer support for Putin's war was hemorrhaging, despite the Kremlin-imposed media whitewash of the war's horrors. Days after the terrorist attack, polls showed that almost half still favored negotiations." [more]

"The 25 Labor members of the 120-seat Parliament now move into the opposition, with Mr. Ben-Eliezer as the opposition leader. Mr. Sharon is left for the moment with a minority of 55 seats. He has not only lost moderate allies but gained leftist antagonists. Where before, Labor's political interest lay in blurring its differences with Mr. Sharon, it now lies in spotlighting disagreements as the party tries to define itself as an alternative government." [more]

"All of those questioned during the raids in Sydney, Perth and Melbourne had local connections to Abu Bakar Bashir, the Indonesian cleric who heads the outlawed Muslim group Jemaah Islamiah (JI)." [more]

"Mr. Lieberman and other right-wing leaders believe that after two years of conflict with the Palestinians, Israeli voters will give them additional parliamentary seats in a new election. Mr. Lieberman is an ally of Mr. Netanyahu." [more]

"Indonesian police on Wednesday released sketches of three suspects — including one possibly linked to al-Qaida — who allegedly planted bombs that destroyed two nightclubs in Bali and killed nearly 200 people." [more]

"The leader of the People's Democratic Party (PDP) in Indian-administered Kashmi, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, has been formally invited to form the state's new government. " [more]

"North Korea has hinted it may be prepared to discuss its reported nuclear weapons programme with the United States, according to South Korean media reports." [more]

"A ceasefire between the government and rebels in Ivory Coast appears to be holding even as officials charge insurgents with violations. " [more]

"In advance of a White House visit, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon urged Palestinians today to overthrow their leadership, calling it a 'despotic regime that is leading you from failure to failure.' " [more]

"The blast that killed nearly 200 people on the Indonesian resort island of Bali this weekend is a different type of terrorism from what the Bush administration has campaigned against, and will open a new geographic front in that campaign, Western officials said yesterday." [more]

"Details have emerged of a brutal massacre over the weekend in the north of Uganda carried out by the rebels' Lord's Resistance Army (LRA)." [more]

"America must be 'willing and prepared to act decisively to use the force necessary to prevail, plus some,' [Rumsfeld] wrote. In particular, leaders must avoid 'promising not to do things (i.e., not to use ground forces, not to bomb below 20,000 feet, not to risk U.S. lives, not to permit collateral damage, not to bomb during Ramadan, etc.).' " [more]

"Congo has been torn apart by fighting in recent years. But now that its smaller neighbours are pulling their armies out, an end is in sight for the world's biggest war." [more]

"Forced deportation of Palestinians from the occupied territories — "transfer," as it is widely described inside Israeli society — is the most horrifying possibility being discussed. It is also the option that, unless vigorously and consistently opposed by Washington, would do the most harm to America's broader interests in the Middle East — and that includes America's ability to bring the campaign against Saddam Hussein to a successful conclusion." [more]

"A senior police officer in Bangalore told Asia Times Online that what has emerged in the media of Bangalore's links with the terrorist/criminal underworld is 'just the tip of the iceberg'." [more]

"India's missile arsenal includes Trishul, a surface-to-air missile which targets aircraft and can counter sea-skimming missiles; the intermediate-range Agni, which can reach 1,500 miles; the short-range ballistic missile Prithvi with a range of 95 miles; and the anti-tank Nag missile." [more]

"It was very exciting, but the Israelis soon became aware of the importance of these exhibitions and started hitting the League of Palestinian Artists. They made us get permits to show our work, censoring art and invading artists' studios. Several of us were imprisoned, usually on charges that they were painting in the colours of the Palestinian flag. They would say, 'You can paint, but don't use red, white or black,' and they would imprison you if you used those colours. You couldn't paint a poppy, for example, or a watermelon: they were the wrong colours. Often it was up to the artistic judgment of the particular officer in charge." [more]

"In addition to the dozen or so resolutions currently being violated by Iraq, a conservative estimate reveals that there are an additional 91 Security Council resolutions about countries other than Iraq that are also currently being violated." [more]

"President Bush also expressed strong reservations a day earlier as he signed a spending bill that urges his administration to shift the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which both the Palestinian and Israelis consider their capital. Bush said he would treat the clauses as a recommendation rather than an order." [more]

"How did George W. Bush manage to transform himself from leader of the free world into the world's most determined suicide bomber? Of all the remarkable transformations since 9/11, this is the most dangerous." [more]

"Israel has seriously disrupted United States planning for war with Iraq by incensing Arabs with its new humiliation of Yasser Arafat and defiantly vowing to respond militarily to any Baghdad attack on its soil." [more]

"Revisiting Ritter's argument a few days later in his Pentagon office, Wolfowitz seems genuinely puzzled by the notion that we need evidence of imminent danger to justify getting rid of Saddam. He has encountered this argument earlier — from the State Department and the C.I.A., in fact, before President Bush stifled that particular line of internal debate by declaring Saddam an intolerable threat, end of story." [more]

"So far the Bush administration's foreign policy team has manifested all the symptoms of groupthink that Janis identified." [more]

"Authorities in Singapore announced today the arrests of 21 men they identified as members of an extremist Islamic organization that spans Southeast Asia, strengthening evidence gathered by American investigators that the group was preparing attacks on American targets." [more]

"The document argued that the core assumption guiding U.S. foreign policy in the 21st century should be the need to establish permanent U.S. dominance over virtually all of Eurasia. It envisioned a world in which U.S. military intervention would become 'a constant fixture' of the geo-political landscape. [T]hrough the nineties, the two authors and their boss, then-Pentagon chief Dick Cheney, continued to wait for the right opportunity to fulfill their imperial dreams. Their long wait came to an end on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001." [more]

" 'The goal is not just a new regime in Iraq. The goal is a new Middle East,' said Raad Alkadiri, an Iraq analyst with PFC, a Washington-based energy consulting organization. 'The goal has been and remains one of the main driving factors of preemptive action against Iraq.' " [more]

" 'We will have, and do have, a capability in the United States to provide for homeland defense, to undertake a major regional conflict and win decisively — including occupying a country and changing the regime if necessary — and simultaneously swiftly defeat another aggressor in another theater,' Rumsfeld told CBS's Face the Nation. [more]

"Israel's Supreme Court has approved the expulsion of relatives of a Palestinian militant from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip. Palestinian officials called the decision a 'black day for human rights' and said they might file a complaint with the UN Security Council and the International Criminal Court." [more]

"Iran is a key player in US efforts to bring peace to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And its 66 million people appear far more interested in stability and growth than exporting revolution and terrorism. Iran also needs more democracy to possibly ensure it doesn't develop nuclear weapons." [more]

"The debate was set off by the killings of 12 Palestinians in three separate incidents between Thursday and Sunday. The Palestinians, who accuse Israel of having used excessive force throughout the past two years, said Monday they had little faith the new inquiry will result in soldiers being punished." [more]

"America's war debate has grown in intensity, dominating the agenda to the exclusion of everything else." [more]

"Leaked papers say militants will end attacks in Israel." [more]

"In calling for a "war against terrorism" of indefinite duration and uncertain scope, he made a dangerously unlimited bid for the extraordinary authority and heightened deference that presidents enjoy only in wartime. Although "war" was the right term for the conflict that unfolded in Afghanistan, it doesn't describe most of what's required to stop terrorism in the future, and the risk of using the term is that it provides a rationale for restricting civil liberties and treating disagreement as disloyalty." [more]

"Ý'You cannot ignore a command that is repeated 36 times in the Mosaic books: "You were exiled in order to know what it feels like to be an exile." I regard that as one of the core projects of a state that is true to Judaic principle. And therefore I regard the current situation as nothing less than tragic, because it is forcing Israel into postures that are incompatible in the long-run with our deepest ideals.'Ý" [more]

"If we go to war, we will be the initiators of aggression. It would be a mistake, however, to take this as fresh cause for doubt about the link between democracy and peace. We ought instead to view this imminent possibility as an occasion for raising hard questions about whether, in the critical matter of waging war, we still function as a genuine democracy." [more]

"The message that supposedly came from Boyle was a forgery -- one of thousands sent out in the names and from e-mail addresses of prominent advocates for the Palestinians -- designed to sow dissension, create confusion and waste time in the activist community." [more]

"'We have approximately 80 members of Team Alpha, Fifth Company, 19th Special Forces who have been activated to support Operation Enduring Freedom,' said Capt. Denise Varner, a California National Guard spokeswoman. 'They will be deploying soon for a classified destination.'" [more]

"While still wrangling over how to overthrow Iraqís Saddam Hussein, the Bush administration is already looking for other targets. President Bush has called for the ouster of Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat. Now some in the administrationóand allies at D.C. think tanksóare eyeing Iran and even Saudi Arabia. As one senior British official put it: 'Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran.' ...'Syria and even Egypt are now under discussion in neoconservative circles, along with North Korea and Burma.' " [more]

"The stories selected by Memri for translation follow a familiar pattern: either they reflect badly on the character of Arabs or they in some way further the political agenda of Israel." [more]

"Hamas is a humane movement, which cares for human rights and is committed to the tolerance inherent in Islam as regards attitudes towards other religions. It is only hostile to those who are hostile towards it, or stand in its way in order to disturb its moves or to frustrate its efforts. Under the shadow of Islam it is possible for the members of the three religions: Islam, Christianity and Judaism to coexist in safety and security." [more]

"This was to have been the first Jewish-Muslim co-sponsored Congressional delegation to Palestine and Israel. The bi-partisan delegation planned to meet with Israeli and Palestinian peace activists, American and international humanitarian organizations, and U.S. government officials." [more]

"Ethics are not black and white - they are all white. Ethics have to be free of vengefulness and rashness. Every act must be carefully weighed before a decision is made to see whether it meets strict ethical criteria. Our ethics are hanging by a thread, at the mercy of every soldier and politician." [more]

"Israeli government sources in Jerusalem and Florida confirmed Tuesday that Sharon is planning to appear in Miami in early September, around the Jewish High Holy Days. Rosh Hashanah is Sept. 6 and 7 and Yom Kippur is Sept. 15 and 16." [more]

"'What this generation is passing through will bear more hatred, and they will become more and more hostile against the Jews in the future,' says Maryan Suleiman, 62, as she sadly watches her giggling 7-year-old twin grandchildren pretend to be terrorists in her living room. 'The suiciders now are nothing compared to what will be.'" [more]

"I have never considered myself instinctively anti-Israel any more than I am anti-American or anti-Papua New Guinean, for that matter. I don't believe that nation-states are the arbiters of behaviour, therefore I believe it is a ruse to start using such language ... it is very Pro-Israel, in a tangible way, to advocate an end to the occupation, a just solution to the refugees, a two-state solution that is federated so that within a few decades and dissipation of religous extremism, the border will dissipate, and justice for the extremists in both Hamas and Likud." [more]

"[A]t Hiroshima and Nagasaki ó Japanese versions of New York City's Ground Zero, only much bigger ó the atomic cauldron bubbled and churned. There, just like in lower Manhattan, it was not easy picking up the pieces when there were so few pieces to pick up." [more]

"Three administration sources said Mr. Rumsfeld is not happy at the rate at which al Qaeda and Taliban fighters are being found and eliminated in Gen. Franks' theater. Some of Mr. Rumsfeld's senior advisers view the four-star Army general as too cautious." [more]

"Indian and Pakistani officials say their armies traded heavy artillery fire overnight along the Line of Control (LoC) which divides the disputed Kashmir region. Indian police say three Indian soldiers were killed and two civilians wounded in the exchange of shelling in the Kargil, Tangdar and Gurez districts." [more]

"The U.N. report said 52 Palestinian deaths had been confirmed by April 18, and that up to half may have been civilians. It called the Palestinian allegation that some 500 were killed 'a figure that has not been substantiated in the light of evidence that has emerged,' the diplomats said Wednesday. The U.N. findings mirrored those of Human Rights Watch, which said its experts had found nothing to back allegations of an Israeli army massacre. Human rights groups have said 22 civilians were killed in Jenin." [more]

"Many of the reports of human rights groups contain accounts of wounded civilians waiting days to reach medical assistance, and being refused medical treatment by IDF soldiers. In some cases, people died as a result of these delays. In addition to those wounded in the fighting, there were civilian inhabitants of the camp and the city who endured medication shortages and delays in medical treatment for pre-existing conditions. For example, it was reported on 4 April that there were 28 kidney patients in Jenin who could not reach the hospital for dialysis treatment." [more]

"This is the first time such charges have been made by a senior military man with pro-settler associations ó factors that make the charges difficult for the settlers and their supporters to brush aside." [more]

"[South-East Asia] Regional officials have agreed a landmark declaration of co-operation with the US that will give the Americans, which has 100,000 troops in the region, far greater latitude to operate against terrorists in their countries. It will be signed by Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, who meets Foreign Ministers from the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) in Brunei tomorrow." [more]

"A text identified as the planned cease-fire announcement that was published today in the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot, promised an end by Tanzim to 'all attacks on innocent men, women, and children who are noncombatants.' It is unlikely that any unilateral cease-fire would have applied to Israeli soldiers and or to settlers in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which Israel occupied during the 1967 war. The announcement said, however, that Tanzim would continue to oppose 'the occupation of the Israeli Army of the West Bank.' " [more]

"I can understand the deep anger and anguish of the Israeli people...I can understand the deep anger and despair of the Palestinian people." [more]

" 'I see this as a war crime; I see this as a crime against humanity,' said the chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat. 'It's a very alarming development.' B'Tselem, the Israeli human rights group, issued a statement saying that 'punishment of innocent persons will constitute an unerasable moral blight on the State of Israel' and that the policy would violate the Geneva Convention against both collective punishment and deportation." [more]

"Sarid also criticized US Security Advisor's remarks last week, where, in an interview with Israel's Channel 2, she welcomed the Israeli government's 'courageous decision to remove illegal settlements', pointing out that he is ready to provide the American administration with information proving that no such measures have taken place. 'I agree with you that the removal of settlements is a positive thing, but this is not what took place in the ground. I can assure you that some of these settlements-which [the Israeli government] said they have removed, did not exist at all', Sarid stressed in his letter." [more]

"Rejecting Islamabad's persistant demand for a plebiscite in Kashmir in accordance with the UN resolution, the US on Friday said it favoured the settlement of the problem bilaterally between India and Pakistan in accordance with the Shimla accord and hoped the coming Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir would lead to the resolution of the issue." [more]

"We are now faced with a unique moment to reach out to this generation and build a future with them. That is perhaps the surest thing America can do to help provide a secure future for Israel and hope for the Palestinian people. To do this, the United States must avoid policies that isolate us in the world community. We face both opportunity and risk, but there is no other option." [more]

"Economic chaos — and a looming humanitarian crisis — undermine both the Palestinian Authority and the intifada." [more]

"The barrier cordoning off the West Bank restores the Jewish State to its 1967 borders. It could also be the birth of a Palestinian nation." [more]

"The Palestinians are fighting with human suicide bombers, that's all they have. The Israelis ... they've got one of the most powerful military machines in the world. The Palestinians have nothing. So who are the terrorists? I would make a case that both sides are involved in terrorism." [more]

"European and Russian leaders on Tuesday insisted that Yassir Arafat was the legitimate leader of the Palestinian people, while the US softened its stance, saying Mr Arafat could maintain a figurehead position." [more]

"After some turns and twists, the group's outside leaders accepted the call for ending the campaign made by the imprisoned leaders in the endóleading to the all-out termination of the group's seven-year antigovernment campaign, in which about 1,200 people were killed." [more]

"An authoritative UN study concludes that Arab states are among the most backward in the world in education and research investment." [more]

"The president said by the grace of Almighty Allah the armed forces had the capacity to not only defend every inch of the motherland but also to strike a telling blow to anyone who dared to challenge the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country." [more]

"The United States Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, is pushing a series of sweeping proposals that will weaken congressional supervision of the Pentagon and give the military more freedom to manage itself." [more]

"To criticize the occupation is not to overlook Israel's unique strengths, just as protesting the Vietnam War did not imply ignoring the distinct freedoms and humanitarian accomplishments of the United States. In a region where repressive governments and unjust policies are the norm, Israel is certainly more democratic than its neighbors. This does not make dismantling the settlements any less a priority." [more]

"The Bush administration begins a new round of high-level Middle East diplomacy this week at odds with virtually all of its partners in the peace process, including Arab and European allies who are hoping for an evolution in U.S. policy away from the hard lines enunciated in President Bush's most recent speech on the subject." [more]

"Such acts are painful, even though the target is institutional, actions often mean a breach with longstanding colleagues. It is thus important that the boycott is coupled with positive support for those Israeli refuseniks who continue to oppose the actions of their elected government." [more]

"It was the deadliest assault in disputed Kashmir since a May 14 strike by Islamic militants against a military base near Jammu that killed 34 people. That attack had put India on a war footing with neighboring Pakistan. More than 1 million Indian and Pakistani soldiers are still massed along their frontier." [more]

"At least five people were wounded in what some witnesses said was an attack on the home of Youssef Abed al-Wahab, a leader of the militant Hamas group in southern Gaza." [more]

"Nine Europeans and three Pakistanis were wounded on Saturday when an assailant hurled a hand grenade at a tourist party in northern Pakistan, a senior interior ministry official said. No one claimed responsibility for the attack — the fifth such incident on Westerners in Pakistan this year." [more]

"Police and witnesses said that between three and five attackers entered Qasim Nagar dressed in the robes of Sadhus (holy men) and carrying bags. They then put down the bags, pulled out guns and opened fire indiscriminately, police at the scene said. The attackers then ran to two small temples nearby, where they again took position and began firing on civilians, they added." [more]

"While some have claimed that anti-Americanism stems primarily from misinformation from local media and distorted Hollywood images of American values, the core problem results from specific U.S. foreign policies. Arabs and Muslims are profoundly angered by three policies in particular: a bias toward Israel in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict; the U.S.-led sanctions against Iraq, which harms innocent Iraqi civilians but does nothing to topple Saddam Hussein's brutal dictatorship; and Washington's consistent support for authoritarian regimes friendly to U.S. interests. While public diplomacy can be effective, no amount of marketing, slick packaging or explaining our message loudly can solve this problem." [more]

"Like their Muslim extremist counterparts, Hindu nationalists seek to expel Western secularism from their midst, persecuting non-Hindus, trashing hotels that celebrate Valentine's Day or Christmas, and demanding that cities with Islamic names, such as Allahabad, be changed. Other religions — and there are more Muslims in India than there are in Pakistan — are considered offshoots of a basic Hindu entity that should submit to Hindutva." [more]

"Over 50 years of Arab and Palestinian dealings with the US have ended in the rubbish bin, so that Bush and his advisers could convince themselves and much of the electorate that they had a god-given mission to exterminate terrorism, which means essentially all the enemies of Israel. A quick survey of those 50 years shows dramatically that neither a defiant Arab attitude nor a submissive one have made any changes in US perceptions of its interest in the Middle East, which remain the quick and cheap supply of oil and the protection of Israel as the two main aspects of its regional dominance." [more]

"The BBC this week broadcast footage of the gruesome incident, showing the tank firing two shells at the terrified children who were at close range. In a filmed interview, the murdered boys' father, Youssef Abu Aziz, told the BBC that his kids had gone outside to buy chocolate, thinking the Israeli curfew had been lifted. The Israeli army never really explained why a tank would fire artillery shells at children." [more]

"The targeting of Sari Nusseibeh, an Oxford-educated philosopher who is the PLOís commissioner for Jerusalem affairs, comes just weeks after he spearheaded a petition of academics calling for a halt to Palestinian suicide bombings inside Israel." [more]

"The past 21 months of violence with the Palestinians have prompted American Christian evangelicals to find more reason than ever to support the Jewish state. A growing number have visited the region ó appearing on radio and talk shows, increasing their financial donations to Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza and even financing advertisements on Israeli television stressing their 'unwavering friendship' with Israel." [more]

"Now George Bush has joined Sharon in endorsing the notion that any small bunch of fundamentalist extremists can veto a peace process. Of course, had the U.S. insisted as a precondition for withdrawal that the Vietnamese end acts of violence against Vietnamese civilians who supported the U.S., we'd still be fighting that war." [more]

"The three children took their bikes to buy candy. A tank chased them and fired two rounds at short range. Two brothers were killed, and the third brother was severely wounded. It's all there on the video." [more]

"But when any foreign power, let alone one with America's clout, urges a people to vote out their duly elected leaders as a condition for achieving statehood, this represents a challenge to the very foundations of world order. To admit the right of a foreign power to change the leadership of a state, or of an authority likely to become a state in the foreseeable future, is to undermine the idea of national sovereignty, of the right of peoples to self-determination, indeed, of world order itself." [more]

"It has been muffled by Israel's latest military offensive, but a debate is under way among Palestinians over whether suicide bombing is in their self-interest." [more]

"A Palestinian Authority official, Ahmed Abdul Rahman, urged all Palestinians not to meet Mr Powell or any Israeli officials as long as the Palestinian people were, as he put it, under siege." [more]

Israel "must find some way of defending itself against an enemy so eager to inflict pain that it is willing to bring suffering and death on itself in the process. Retaliation is unlikely to work, but retreat is likely only to bring more of the same. If there is any way out of this dilemma, it may lie in convincing the Palestinian public that its constructive goals can be achieved only by relinquishing its destructive strategy. Israel should therefore embark on a policy that rewards the Palestinians for genuinely fighting terrorism and avoid any policy that feeds the perception that terrorism works." [more]

"Israeli security forces began to remove two Jewish settler outposts in the West Bank on Sunday shortly after Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer vowed to dismantle 10 of the rogue settlements by Monday." [more]

"The study found that words such as "murder", "atrocity", "lynching" and "savage, cold-blooded killing" were used only to describe Israeli deaths. "The extent to which some journalism assumes the Israeli perspective," wrote Professor Greg Philo, "can be seen if the statements are 'reversed' and presented as Palestinian actions. [We] did not find any [news] reports stating that 'The Palestinian attacks were in retaliation for the murder of those resisting the illegal Israeli occupation'."" [more]

"Clinton said Colombia's government should be allowed to use U.S. aid 'not only against drug trafficking, but in a direct confrontation against those terrorist groups.' " [more]

"Israeli troops and bulldozers are searching through the rubble of the Palestinian Authority's local headquarters in the West Bank town of Hebron, which they blew up in two huge explosions on Friday night. The army says 15 wanted Palestinian militants were hiding inside, but no-one has been found — dead or alive — according to Israeli officials." [more]

" 'We must take the battle to the enemy and where necessary pre-empt grave threats to our country before they materialize,' Cheney told several hundred people in Charlotte, N.C. 'The only path to safety is the path of action. The United States of America will act, and we will defeat the enemies of freedom,' he said." [more]

"To A world that had been longing for an all-powerful America to rescue the Israelis and Palestinians from their self-inflicted purgatory, it was the dampest of damp squibs. Even Israelis admitted that the peace plan George Bush and his divided administration set forth this week could just as well have been written by their own prime minister, Ariel Sharon." [more]

"Many Palestinian intellectuals criticise what they view as the petition's 'decontextualisation' of the suicide bombings. The petition, these critics note, fails to mention specific instances of Israel's use of force against Palestinian civilians, such as the artillery shelling of a crowded market in Jenin on 22 June, which resulted in the killing of three children and a man, and the maiming of 20 civilians. It is such acts of terror, most Palestinians argue, that make the resort to suicide bombings almost inevitable, regardless of how one views them ethically." [more]

"Said Karzai, "In Afghanistan, we have the loya jirga. In the United States, you have your own process -- as we understand, it's traditional over there for corporations to play a large part in electing officials and writing legislation. We're very interested in looking into that kind of system ourselves."" [more]

"What, I wonder, does this mean? Do these 'certain aspects' include the continuation of illegal Jewish settlement building? Or the absence of any international guarantees for this interim/provisional state? Or perhaps a get-out clause for the United States to wash its hands of the whole shebang if Israel decides to annex the entire West Bank?" [more]

"So, no Palestinian state unless Arafat goes. There were no Bush conditions for Israel. He did not secure an end to the continuing building of Jewish settlements for Jews and Jews only on Arab (that is somebody else's) land. Nor did he secure a halt to continuing Israeli military 'incursions' how I love that word 'incursions'." [more]

"Shall we count the ways in which this is completely absurd? George Bush is demanding that Palestine become Sweden before it can become Palestine: it must be stable, prosperous and boast constitutional arrangements which still elude Britain — our judiciary and legislature are not separate — let alone the Arab world before it can become even a state-in-waiting." [more]

"Israel needs the West Bank and Palestinians need Israel. Rather than a stand-alone Palestinian state, PNS Associate Editor Andrew Reding sees a federal structure — such as that found in Switzerland, Belgium and Canada — as a real solution for two warring peoples." [more]

"In September 2001, CNN changed its policy on how to characterize Gilo: 'We refer to Gilo as "a Jewish neighborhood on the outskirts of Jerusalem, built on land occupied by Israel in 1967." We don't refer to it as a settlement,' said the order from CNN headquarters. CNN denies that its decision was a concession to outside pressure, but according to veteran Middle East reporter Robert Fisk, sources within the network said that the switch followed 'months of internal debate in CNN, which has been constantly criticized by CNN Watch, honestreporting.com and other pro-Israeli pressure groups.' " [more]

"An Israeli tank opened fire on a crowded market in the West Bank city of Jenin today, killing four Palestinians as hundreds gathered to shop in the mistaken belief that an around-the-clock curfew had been suspended. The dead included a 6-year-old girl, two brothers ages 6 and 13, and a 60-year-old man, hospital officials and Palestinian reporters in Jenin said." [more]

"As Palestinian suicide attacks on Israel have intensified in recent weeks, so has Arab criticism of bloody attacks on civilian targets. On June 19, a group of 54 Palestinian intellectuals and public figures called on the organizers of the suicide attacks to cease their operations. The "urgent appeal" followed public criticism of suicide attacks in the Lebanese, Egyptian, and Palestinian press." [more]

"According to ICT papers, Hamas was legally registered in Israel in 1978 by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the movement's spiritual leader, as an Islamic Association by the name Al-Mujamma al Islami, which widened its base of supporters and sympathizers by religious propaganda and social work." [more]

"With both oil-rich Central Asia and the Middle East riddled by conflict and U.S. voters' continued distaste for new domestic oil exploitation, Washington is getting serious about changing policy toward Africa." [more]

"A thumbnail sketch of politics and the environment in the United States today depicts oil as the lifeblood running through every vein of an administration forging ahead with its energy policy." [more]

"I am interested in what we as a people think of our leader, and there I believe we must be absolutely clear in rejecting his entire programme of reform, elections, reorganising the government and security services. [Arafat's] record of failure is too dismal and his capacities as a leader too enfeebled and incompetent for him to try yet again to save himself for another try." [more]

"This week, General Musharraf summoned Kashmiri leaders to his office to reassure them that he was not walking away from the Kashmiri cause, a deeply felt issue for many Pakistanis. One of the Kashmiri leaders who attended that meeting said the president appeared concerned about the possibility of a takeover by fundamentalists. 'It will be difficult for him to survive,' said Altaf Qadri, leader of the All Party Hurriat Conference, which represents 23 Kashmiri groups." [more]

"No war has been declared, and yet the latest conflict between India and Pakistan is now raging all across their 1,800-mile border: from the icy Siachen glacier, through Kashmir and Jammu, down to Rajasthan and Punjab — and past Mr Singh's bungalow." [more]

"She reportedly told friends she is being held without charge at a prison near Tel Aviv after being detained at the weekend." [more]

"But there is no peace industry commensurate with the world's war industry. There are no vested interests to appease, no campaign contributions to be gained from preventing rather than encouraging the use of weapons. As a result the hundreds of thousands of peacekeepers whose deployment is required in Kashmir do not exist. While wars are plotted in loving detail, there is no global peace plan for the territory, despite 55 years of conflict." [more]

"The Israeli government revealed last month that Ahmed Saadat, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) used the telephone in the Jericho "prison" to order the suicide bombing in Netanaya that murdered two Israelis and wounded 25 on May 19, 2002." [more]

"Hamas thrived on an Israeli policy that was based on the Likud Bloc strategy of cultivating an alternative to Arafat that might win the hearts and minds of the Palestinian masses while allowing Israel to extend its control ... Israel nurtured the rise of the Islamic movement among the Palestinians, first in the Gaza Strip and to a limited degree in the West Bank. Desperate to prevent Arafatís return under any peace accord and seeking to undermine his popularity in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, a year later Israel allowed a 42-year old quadriplegic religious leader to license his humanitarian organization, later called Hamas." [more]

"If the United States decides to make surprise strikes on other countries, it will mark a big change in strategy for the US military, which traditionally acts only in self-defence." [more]

"Pakistan this week reserved the right to use nuclear weapons, even in the event of a 'conventional war', and denied subscribing to a 'no-first-use' policy. Diplomatic efforts to defuse the crisis continue, with US President George Bush sending his defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to both countries next week. Deputy secretary of State Richard Armitage is expected in the region at the end of this week." [more]

Despite differences between Hindu and Muslim majority areas on some issues, results also showed a commitment to a distinct Kashmiri cultural identity — they did not want to see the state divided. [more]

"A Palestinian woman and her 12-year-old daughter were killed Saturday by IDF fire east of the el Bureij refugee camp in the center of the Gaza Strip, Israel Radio reported. The IDF spokesman said that the army was investigating the circumstances of the shooting." [more]

" 'No one has ever seen pressure like this before,' said Jeffrey Dvorkin of NPR. 'In the last three months I've received 14,000 e-mails and 9,000 of them deal with the Middle East,' he said. 'E-mail traffic in the last month has overwhelmingly accused us of having a pro-Palestinian bias.' " [more]

"Whenever I square off against some righteous hawk, male callers describe me as a bad Jew, and an egregiously pushy one, at that. 'Don't go on television anymore,' one guy commanded after a dustup with Alan Keyes last week. 'And don't say anything bad about Israel.' He made no threat, but it struck me as a stage-one warning and reminded me of how fraught speaking out against Israeli policies can be if you're a Jew." [more]

"Nearly eight months after the first bombs fell on Taliban strongholds in Afghanistan, the effort to stamp out other potential safe havens is like putting mercury back in a thermometer. While bringing stability to Afghanistan is proving tough, hot spots are popping up elsewhere. Some were predictable; others, like Georgia, are surprises. To keep its message to the American public simple, the Bush administration has lumped all of these places into a pot with Osama bin Laden and the Qaeda network. But many indigenous anti-American movements are growing because of the war on terror." [more]

"US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld confirmed here on Friday that Pakistan has moved some troops away from its border with Afghanistan to its border with India since the escalation of tensions between New Delhi and Islamabad." [more]

"A Kashmiri separatist leader was gunned down in Indian Kashmir Tuesday in the latest incident in a spiral of violence which is pushing India and Pakistan to the brink of war." [more]

"Israeli forces have encircled Palestinian cities in the West Bank and set up checkpoints across Palestinian territories which they say are meant to prevent attacks on Israelis. But Palestinians have branded it collective punishment." [more]

"Yemeni tribes in provinces on the Saudi Arabian border warned the United States on Friday not to launch military attacks on their territories as part of the war on terrorism, saying it would be 'a strategic mistake.' " [more]

"Not every Palestinian wants a Palestinian state. PNS contributor Jalal Ghazi wants justice and freedom for Palestinians, but says it's time to face facts. Because of Israeli settlements and their control of water, any Palestinian state encompassing the West Bank will be fractured, parched and powerless. Palestinians should emulate the U.S. civil rights movement, and gain their freedom within Israel through non-violent civil disobedience." [more]

"Journalists on an Israeli military-escorted tour of the site saw a small entrance in the floor of a shower in a small four-room house about 100 yards from the Egyptian border fence. A short shaft lined with wood planks led into the tunnel." [more]

"About 30 U.S. Special Forces troops arrived in Yemen on Thursday to train forces ... in counterterrorism. Elsewhere, U.S. and Indian troops Thursday began their first joint military exercises in years. " [more]

After weeks of equivocation, the U.S. government has quietly released to Congress a report refuting the Israeli claim that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was directly implicated in the funding and planning of attacks against Israeli civilians. [more]

"There is now not the slightest pretence that the scope of the US's regime-change wishlist is in any way tethered to the attacks of Sept. 11." [more]

"At least 30 people have been killed in Indian-administered Kashmir as suspected separatists attacked an army camp. The dead include women and children as well as the three attackers." [more]

" 'There were absolutely no such allegations made or questions raised,' Mr. Carter said at a biological research center before an audience that included President Fidel Castro of Cuba and numerous scientists. 'I asked them myself on more than one occasion if there was any evidence that Cuba has been involved in sharing any information with any country on earth that could be used for terrorist purposes. And the answer from our experts on intelligence was no.' [more]

"What would happen if Israel were to become isolated internationally while the Palestinians gradually build up their military strengthójust as China did at the outset of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937óand if they gained military support from neighboring countries?" [more]

"The meeting affirms to both the United States and Israel that the Arab world holds a unified position. 'The meeting in itself is very important, because every time Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria come together and coordinate their position, this is generally perceived as a very positive step. It means the Arab system is not about to collapse, the coordination is going ahead, and you do not have to expect a fragmentation of the Arab position.' " [more]

"Negotiators were trying to revive parts of a deal to end Israel's 37-day-old siege of the church after it stalled on Tuesday when Italy refused to take 13 militants whom Israeli and Palestinian officials had agreed would be sent into exile." [more]

"Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, under pressure to crack down on militants following a suicide bombing, Wednesday ordered Palestinian security forces to foil any attempt to attack Israeli civilians." [more]

"Musharraf promised to fight back. 'We feel this act of international terrorism has to be met with full force. My government has the complete resolve of meeting this threat,' he said without elaborating. 'I would appeal to the international community to understand our domestic environment resulting from our cooperation against international terrorism,' Musharraf said." [more]

In taking the western media to task for wrongly associating terrorism to Islam, the conference pointed out that such action failed to acknowledge the fact that terrorism was an international problem that cannot be linked with any religion and race, and that no society was free from such problems. [more]

"We continue to look at ways to reform the Palestinian Authority. And we look at ways to bring hope to the Palestinian people through economic development and humanitarian efforts. And we look forward to security activity that Mr. Tenet will be pushing forward next week when he goes over." [more]

"In a speech called Beyond the Axis of Evil, the undersecretary of state John Bolton presented no evidence for his claims, pointing only to Cuba's advanced biomedical industry and Mr Castro's visits last year to three 'rogue states' accused by the the US state department of sponsoring terrorism: Iraq, Syria and Libya." [more]

"The insurgency in Nepal is just one of three deadly conflicts in South Asia which have brewed quietly in the background of the Afghan conflict. But the lack of media attention is no indication of a lack of US involvement. In all three conflicts, which together have claimed tens of thousands of lives over the past two decades, US officials have quietly been applying pressure and support for peace talks, and, in the case of Nepal, a war against Maoist rebels." [more]

"We call on Libya, Cuba, and Syria to live up to the agreements they have signed. We will watch closely their actions, not simply listen to their words. Working with our allies, we will expose those countries that do not live up to their commitments." [more]

"Human right must be respected by all, and in all circumstances. That is why the international community is right to seek to investigate the recent assault on Jenin." [more]

"In a draft resolution, the Arab states are demanding that Annan present a report on Jenin and other Palestinian cities by 'drawing upon the available resources and information.' The group demanded that it receive the report two weeks after the resolution is adopted." [more]

"With Yasser Arafat released from his month-long confinement in Ramallah and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon set to visit Washington for talks this week with President Bush, the Middle East crisis is on the verge of a new round of diplomatic struggle." [more]

"The new aid for Colombia, being considered on Capitol Hill, would for the first time allow the US military to help and train forces in the battle against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the largest Colombian guerrilla group, which controls about 40 percent of the country. US law has limited American assistance to the Colombian government to fight the drug trade." [more]

" 'The Maoists' casualty should be between 550 to 600 in surface and air attacks at a training camp where the terrorists had gathered for training and preparation strategy,' said the official." [more]

"Emergency rule ... has failed to contain the insurgency and the government is seeking to fight its internal war with foreign military assistance, mainly from the United States, Britain and India. Nepal's wish list includes assault rifles, 12 armored Mi-17 helicopters, two fixed-wing short-takeoff-and-landing transport planes, communications equipment and night-vision gear." [more]

"The squalid, corrupt little dictator of Ramallah, Mr Arafat, and the brutal, merciless leader of the Middle East's mightiest army, Mr Sharon, have nothing to offer each other. Mr Arafat cannot fulfil his required role of colonial governor ó to 'control his own people' ó while Mr Sharon cannot fulfil his promise to provide Israelis with security. As one of his legal advisers admitted hours after Washington's call for a peace conference, the diminution in Palestinian violence 'won't last for ever.' " [more]

"During the shooting, houses in the Shuka neighborhood about half a kilometer away, where the Shaluf family lives, were hit by four to six shells. The baby was killed in the house. Her father and mother, and four other members of the family, were wounded. An armored force then rolled into the neighborhood, and after it departed, the body of a 25-year-old deaf man was found, apparently crushed by a tank." [more]

"The two Congressional resolutions were non-binding, but they put the legislative branch of the American government on record as backing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's military steps, even as President Bush was calling on Israel to end its 'occupation' of several Palestinian towns and calling on Yasir Arafat to show more leadership." [more]

"Arrests are the first tangible sign of U.S. pressure on Georgia to crack down on what the Bush administration says are terrorists with al Qaeda connections in the Pankisi Gorge, about 30 miles from Georgia's northern border with Chechnya. To urge Georgia on, the United States has promised $64 million to train and equip about 1,500 Georgian soldiers." [more]

"Israel agreed on Sunday to a proposal by U.S. President George W. Bush to end a month-long siege of Yasser Arafat, but defied the United Nations over a fact-finding mission to the ravaged Jenin refugee camp." [more]

"Air Force officials here estimate they have already pumped more than $13 million in cash into Kyrgyzstan's economy. A single takeoff or landing can cost as much as $7,000 in fees paid to the government. The base has spent millions of dollars on everything from gravel and jet fuel to televisions, computers, cell phones and even guided tours." [more]

"President Bush, at his ranch in Texas, said he was not surprised that Congress wanted to take a strong stand in support of Israel. But he said, 'I also hope Congress recognizes we've got interests in the area as well beyond Israel ó that we have good relationships with the Saudis and Jordanians and the Egyptians, and our foreign policy is aimed to do that.' " [more]

"Mr. Bush affirmed his support for Israel today, but he said the Israelis 'understand my position,' adding, 'I've been very clear, and there has been some progress, but it's now time to quit it altogether.' " [more]

"Palestinian gunmen disguised as soldiers slipped into an Israeli settlement in the West Bank on Saturday and went from house to house, shooting residents in their bedrooms and killing four people, including a 5-year-old girl, the army said." [more]

" 'The orders were to shoot at each house,' recalled the sergeant, a member of a heavy weapons company in the Yoav regiment of the army's Fifth Brigade, a reserve unit that did the bulk of the fighting in Jenin. 'The words on the radio were to "Put a bullet in each window." ' " [more]

"Covert U.S. military units have been conducting reconnaissance operations in Pakistan in recent weeks and participated in attacks on suspected al Qaeda hide-outs there, opening a new front in a shadowy war being waged by the United States along the mountainous Afghan-Pakistan border." [more]

"If you want to undertake an action and be ready to face up to challenges, you need at least $100 billion," [Egyptian Prime Minister Atef Ebeid] told the Abu Dhabi Government's Al-Ittihad newspaper when asked why Egypt had taken no measures against Israel's military offensive against the Palestinians." [more]

"MPs are demanding an explanation after Israel upgraded British Jaguar bombers made by India under licence and potentially capable of carrying nuclear weapons." [more]

Why War? hosted its first panel discussion on Dec. 3 with Swarthmore Professors Timothy Burke (history), Ray Hopkins (political science) and Donna Jo Napoli (linguistics). Reproduced are Prof. Napoli's comments. [more]

"The U.S. war on terrorism has reached into this corner of the Caribbean, [Venezuela,] focusing on a long-resident ethnic community as a potential refuge for terrorists." [more]

"A quiet, but growing number of taxpayers say they have had enough. 'I absolutely feel like I am paying for this war on terrorism,' said Westport resident Deana Chase. 'Part of my tax dollars is going to buy the missiles that don't necessarily kill soldiers or terrorists, but target innocent adults and children. I have a problem with that.' " [more]

"Officials said the administration has requested $28.5 million in the emergency supplemental budget for fiscal 2002. The money is meant to help countries that are participating in the U.S. campaign against terrorism. Bahrain is home for the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, which patrols the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean." [more]

"A United Nations envoy has said that the devastation left by Israeli forces in a Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank is 'horrific beyond belief.' Terje Roed-Larsen, who toured the Jenin refugee camp on Thursday, said it was 'morally repugnant' that Israel had not allowed emergency workers in for 11 days to provide humanitarian relief." [more]

"Bush came under immediate fire from foreign policy thinkers known as the neo-conservatives. That group, composed mostly of Jewish and Roman Catholic intellectuals such as William Kristol and William J. Bennett, argues that Israel is responding to terror in the same way the United States did after Sept. 11. It is hypocritical for Bush to tell Israel to stop, they say." [more]

"However, fears were growing that the attempt to mediate in the bloody conflict was serving only to undermine Mr Bush's authority in the region. Mr Powell, seen as a moderating influence in the Administration, has often served as a lightning rod for conservative dissatisfaction." [more]

"A terrible crime has been committed by Israel in Jenin refugee camp, and the world is turning a blind eye. Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, visited the scene of a suicide bombing that murdered six Israelis in Jerusalem, but he did not visit Jenin, where the Israelis admit they killed at least 100 Palestinians. The Israel army claims all of the dead were armed men, that it took special care to avoid civilian casualties. But we saw the helicopter rockets rain down on desperately crowded areas: civilian casualties could not have been prevented." [more]

"As fiscally strapped governments cut funding for public services, privately funded Islamist schools, clinics, hospitals and welfare agencies filled the breach, lending credence to the Islamists' claim that 'Islam is the solution!' " [more]

"The United States maintains a close alliance with the unsavory House of Saud ó which continues to fund schools that teach Islamist extremism and anti-Semitism ó because we need Saudi oil." [more]

"The attacks of Sept. 11 demonstrate that the danger increases when people are left without hope and help in desperate situations in which they have nothing to lose." [more]

"Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Tuesday that Israel's military offensive in the West Bank would continue until Palestinian militias have been crushed." [more]

"Opposition politicians capitalized on yesterday's special Knesset session to lambast Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and his policies." [more]

"The U.S. said it would block an Arab attempt to get the Security Council to pass its fourth resolution on the Middle East crisis in four weeks, arguing in a protracted debate here Monday that further U.N. action could undermine Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's cease-fire mission." [more]

"The Israeli Prime Minister is, after all, the man who sent his army into Lebanon in 1982 to 'root out Palestinian terror' ó note the identical rhetoric, as well as the same cast of characters ó and whose 'elite' Israeli forces killed up to 17,500 people, almost all civilians." [more]

"A logistics assessment team is in Yemen now preparing for the arrival of as many as 150 American troops to help train that country's military to fight terrorism. Pentagon officials said an initial group of 50 to 70 troops would be sent by the end of the month, with the remainder arriving in the weeks after." [more]

"President Bush is arming troops to protect Occidental Petroleum in Colombia. What next?" [more]

"One of the problems of conducting the sort of broad, global war on terror that Mr. Bush envisions is that terrorism is not so much a system of belief as a situational, shifting set of means to achieve some larger goal. It has been used over the last two centuries by radical groups of both the left and right, in developing countries and advanced democracies, if only recently on such a large, efficient scale." [more]

"Pakistan's military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, suddenly raised military tensions with India with a stark warning yesterday that he is prepared to use nuclear weapons in the event of war. "In an interview to be published tomorrow in Germany's Der Spiegel magazine, Gen Musharraf warns that if the pressure on Pakistan becomes too great then 'as a last resort, the atom bomb is also possible.' " [more]

"Hidden in an ambulance beneath a stretcher carrying the bodies of those who had died in the West Bank town of Bethlehem during the current Israeli invasion, they were told by the paramedics to play dead when troops checked them." [more]

"As the Egyptian cabinet acted, a sixth day of demonstrations at Cairo University and on other campuses pitted students demanding the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador, Gideon Ben-Ami, against riot police armed with tear gas and water cannons. At Benha University, in the Nile Delta city of Tukh, 15,000 students marched and held prayers for Palestinian victims of violence. About 6,000 students at an Islamic college in Cairo, the Azhar University, joined in a chant that asked, "Where is the Arab army?" Members of a lawyers union rushed into downtown streets in Cairo, but was pushed back by a cordon of police." [more]

"Israeli troops seized control of [Bethlehem] in their drive against Palestinian towns, reportedly shooting dead a Catholic priest and wounding at least six nuns in a church." [more]

"Confronting the toughest diplomatic challenge of its 15 months in office, the Bush administration is struggling to forge an effective Middle East policy as escalating Israeli-Palestinian violence and the rush of events rapidly shift the ground beneath it." [more]

"For the first time since violence between Israel and the Palestinians erupted 18 months ago, the bloody conflict threatened last night to spill over into the Arab world." [more]

Bush "now must reckon with the prospect that the Middle East conflict will force a delay in, or substantial changes to, the next phase of the war on terrorism ó apparently aimed at Iraq ó that they have been planning for months." [more]

"Now, belatedly, the administration needs to dive in and separate the Israelis and Palestiniansóand with fear and rage pounding through both combatants' veins, it's going to take a higher-ranking referee than Anthony C. Zinni to make that happen." [more]

"Calling Yasir Arafat 'the enemy of the entire free world,' Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared Israel on Sunday to be in a war. He spoke after a suicide bomber blew himself apart in a restaurant in the seaside city of Haifa, killing at least 14 other people, while Israel was tightening its ring of tanks and rifles around the Palestinian leader." [more]

"So what will happen if an Israeli bullet kills Arafat now? After Moses, no second Moses appeared, but Jehosuah, the merciless warrior who committed genocide. (This, by the way, is also a myth. All serious scholars believe that this holy genocide never actually happened.) After Arafat, the heir will not be Abu-this or Abu-that. It will be Brother Kalachnikoff - like the song we used to sing in our youth, during the fight against the British occupation: "Give the floor to Comrade Parabellum, Give the floor to Comrade Tommy-gun." Parabellum was a pistol, tommy-gun a sub-machine-gun." [more]

"Someone had taken off his boots, revealing his blue socks. The wounds that he had obviously been clutching when he died were also to his upper body. But what must have killed him, like his colleague, was a shot fired at close range to his temple that had demolished the back of his head." [more]

""We do not want to open a new front, we do not want an escalation but this operation could not have taken place without the knowledge and authorisation of Syria," Mr Ben Eliezer said." [more]

"The United States joined other U.N. Security Council members Saturday in adopting a resolution that calls on Israel to withdraw its troops from Palestinian cities, including Ramallah, where Yasser Arafat's headquarters is under siege." [more]

"Thus the rhetoric becomes ever more cruel, ever more revolting. Hamas calls its Jewish enemies 'the sons of pigs and monkeys', while Israeli leaders have variously bestialised their enemies as 'serpents', 'crocodiles', 'beasts' and 'cockroaches'. Now we have an Israeli officer ó according to the Israeli daily Ma'ariv ó advising his men to study the tactics adopted by the Nazis in the Second World War. 'If our job is to seize a densely packed refugee camp or take over the Nablus casbah, and if this job is given to an [Israeli] officer to carry out without casualties on both sides, he must before all else analyse and bring together the lessons of past battles, even ó shocking though this might appear ó to analyse how the German army operated in the Warsaw ghetto.' " [more]

" 'Listen to me,' he said, pointing his finger and switching from Pashtu to English. 'There was a time, when Russia was in power, we liked Americans.' Indeed, when the Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan, men from the tribal areas joined the guerrilla army that was backed by the United States. 'Now we hate Americans. Under our tribal rules, we designate an enemy. America is now the enemy.' " [more]

"As the United States tries to mediate a truce in the Middle East, Israeli military planners are preparing for a major assault on Palestinian cities, towns and refugee camps that would be broader and deeper than the offensive undertaken earlier this month, according to Israeli officials." [more]

Real Video news broadcast. [more]

"Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, who placed $18 million into the 2002 Defense budget for counterterrorism in the Pacific, hinted Tuesday that more money may be on the way for U.S. operations in Indonesia." [more]

"The broadcast of television images the Israeli army wanted censored has raised concerns that Israelis are getting a sanitized view of the conflict with Palestinians." [more]

"Since Sept. 11, Washington has tried to re-establish a working relationship with Khartoum in order to gather intelligence on Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network, which once operated out of Sudan. U.S. special envoy and former senator John Danforth has traveled to the country to mediate peace talks, and the Nuba cease-fire is a direct result of these efforts." [more]

"Eight Yemeni opposition parties issued a statement saying Cheney's visit would 'lead to more bloodshed than is being spilled every day on Palestinian land and in besieged Iraq.' " [more]

"Framed by the flags of scores of nations that have supported Bush's initial strikes against terror, Bush began a public campaign to persuade . . . nations ó many of them skeptical or hostile to the idea ó to stay with him as he moves forward with plans to replace the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein." [more]

"President Bush declared today that the United States was willing to train and provide military aid to 'governments everywhere' in the fight against terrorism and for what he made clear would be battles beyond Afghanistan." [more]

"US forces are active in the biggest array of countries since the second world war. Troops, sailors and airmen are now established in countries where they have never before had a presence. The aim is to provide platforms from which to launch attacks on any group perceived by George Bush to be a danger to the US." [more]

"There is another reason why the US wants to stabilize Georgia, no easy task given its weak and corrupt central government. The Americans want to build a $2.9 billion, 1,530-kilometer pipeline from the Caspian Basin oilfields in Azerbaijan to Turkeyís Mediterranean terminal at Ceyhan through Georgia, sidelining Russia and Iran and extending US (along with Israeli and Turkish) influence into the former Soviet republics in the Caucasus and Central Asia." [more]

"An Israeli F-16 jet which bombed a Palestinian police compound in Gaza City today narrowly missed more than 3,100 refugee children in UN-run schools, a UN spokeswoman said." [more]

"Georgia said on Thursday militants from Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network were in rebel Abkhazia, raising the specter of military action by Georgian forces under the banner of the U.S.-led war on terrorism." [more]

"I'm beginning to suspect that 11 September is turning into a curse far greater than the original bloodbath of that day, that America's absorption with that terrible event is in danger of distorting our morality. Is the anarchy of Afghanistan and the continuing slaughter in the Middle East really to be the memorial for the thousands who died on 11 September?" [more]

" 'If the Palestinians are not being beaten, there will be no negotiations,' Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told reporters at Parliament. 'The aim is to increase the number of losses on the other side. Only after they've been battered will we be able to conduct talks.' " [more]

"Torture camps where suspected opponents are being murdered and mutilated have been set up in Zimbabwe as Robert Mugabe unleashes a reign of terror ahead of elections this week. Faced with defeat for the first time since his party came to power in 1980 after overthrowing white minority rule, the 78-year-old President is turning on his own people in an orchestrated campaign of violence and intimidation." [more]

"The Bush administration has agreed to Yemen's request to provide U.S. troops to train its military in combating terrorists, officials said Friday." [more]

The Yemeni official said U.S. forces will train 2,000 Yemeni military personnel at a coast guard training center to be built in Aden, site of the October 2000 attack that killed 17 American sailors on the USS Cole. [more]

"In the Middle East the war on terrorism could have the unintended consequence of disturbing regional politics to a degree unknown since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I." [more]

"Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said Thursday that the United States will have failed in the war on terrorism unless it finds Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. Daschle also said he will need more information before going along with any expansion of the war." [more]

"The Israeli military attacked two West Bank refugee camps with helicopter gunships, tanks and paratroopers Thursday in a high-stakes attempt to break strongholds of Palestinian militants. An Israeli soldier and 12 Palestinians were killed — pushing the Palestinian toll past 1,000 in 17 months of fighting." [more]

"US military advisers have arrived in the former Soviet republic of Georgia to train its forces in the fight against terrorism, according to defence officials in the capital Tbilisi. But Russia, which has traditionally regarded Georgia as in its sphere of influence, has criticised the US involvement." [more]

India and Pakistan have massed an estimated 800,000 troops on their common border since military tensions escalated in the wake of a December attack on the Indian parliament, which New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based militant groups. Despite a landmark speech by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf last month in which he banned five militant groups and instigated a crackdown that led to the arrest of around 2,000 alleged religious extremists, India has insisted that Pakistan has not done enough to warrant a de-escalation at the border. [more]

"A Pakistani terrorist who Indian police say admitted to aiding the 1993 street war against U.S. forces in Somalia may be the long-suspected link between Osama bin Laden and the killing of 18 U.S. soldiers in Mogadishu." [more]

"Nearly 1,000 anti-war protesters marched Saturday in San Francisco, chanting that the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan and campaign against terrorism are inhumane and an excuse to erode civil liberties." [more]

"Pre-emptive strikes by the United States could be on the horizon as the United States fights terrorism, the Pentagon's No. 2 official said Tuesday. " 'We've already lost enough Americans. We're not going to lose any more by hesitating,' Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told a group of defense contractors." [more]

"The Pentagon is developing plans to provide news items, possibly even false ones, to foreign media organizations as part of a new effort to influence public sentiment and policy makers in both friendly and unfriendly countries, military officials said." [more]

"America has reached 'just the beginning' of the war in Afghanistan, the Pentagon's senior soldier said yesterday." [more]

"By threatening war against Iran, Iraq and North Korea in his now-famous "Axis of Evil" address, the president painted himself into a corner. Either Bush now goes to war against one of these regimes, or he will be humiliated and exposed as a bellicose bluff." [more]

"A new anti-war newspaper has begun publication in the East Bay [Area], hoping to promote what it bills as a more humane, less jingoistic alternative to the gung-ho militarism of President Bush." [more]

"The brilliance of the Permanent War Campaign is that as long as the United States appears to be on the move against foreign adversaries, the question of whether any action is actually taken becomes of secondary interest." [more]

"Instead of taking advice from the U.S. Treasury Department or the International Monetary Fund, many struggling countries would rebound from economic crisis more quickly if they focused efforts on the specific needs of society, said Joseph Stiglitz, who was one of former President Clinton's economic advisers and co-winner of the 2001 Nobel prize in economics." [more]

"Britain revealed its increasing irritation with America over the war against terrorism yesterday when senior Government sources said that hawkish elements in the White House were using 'unnecessarily belligerent' language." [more]

"Chris Patten, the EU commissioner in charge of Europe's international relations, has launched a scathing attack on American foreign policy — accusing the Bush administration of a dangerously 'absolutist and simplistic' stance towards the rest of the world." [more]

"The Palestinians have a vision of peace: it is a peace based on the complete end of the occupation and a return to Israel's 1967 borders, the sharing of all Jerusalem as one open city and as the capital of two states, Palestine and Israel. It is a warm peace between two equals enjoying mutually beneficial economic and social cooperation. Despite the brutal repression of Palestinians over the last four decades, I believe when Israel sees Palestinians as equals, and not as a subjugated people upon whom it can impose its will, such a vision can come true. Indeed it must." [more]

" 'I would say to everyone, let's step back here, and instead of worrying so much about what the president said Tuesday night, let's put equal energy into working to make sure that these regimes don't get these weapons of mass destruction,' Rice said on Fox News Sunday. Political leaders in allied countries, including Britain, France and Russia, have expressed concern over Bush's declaration in his State of the Union speech Tuesday that the three states were an 'axis of evil' committed to developing weapons of mass destruction and must be stopped." [more]

"There is mounting international concern about President George W Bush's grouping together of Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an 'axis of evil.'Ý" [more]

"President Bush's warning to the "evil axis'' of Iran, Iraq and North Korea has raised questions and anxiety at home and abroad. Just what was Mr. Bush signaling when he used the term during his State of the Union address?" [more]

"Our culture is such that we choose people who are responsible to the nation, not to a certain group or a certain financial contributor. If you look at the systems of other countries and you see a lot of people who are beholden to whoever put them in office, whether that's a company or a group." [more]

"An unmanned Pakistani spy plane was on Sunday shot down after it intruded into Indian air space in Poonch sector of Jammu and Kashmir, defence sources here said." [more]

"With the British Prime Minister expected to visit the region in the next few days, Mr. Fernandes said India would wait to see whether various diplomatic efforts had succeeded in getting Pakistan to take effective action against the groups.
" 'If they should fail, then we are left with only the option that the United States exercised to deal with terrorism,' he said in an interview. Asked if he meant the military option, he said, 'That's right.' " [more]

"[P]reparing for war, waging war, and adjusting to war's aftermath have been not distractions but crucial organizing aspects of American life." [more]

"From the thirty-five-page handwritten prison diary of Ahmad Omar Sayed Sheikh, the main suspect in the abduction of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Sheikh traveled to Croatia in 1993 and was unable to enter Bosnia but made contacts with mujahedeen fighters who advised that he go to Afghanistan for training. After spending several months in Afghan training camps, Sheikh joined Harkat-ul-Mujahedeen, a terrorist group operating in Kashmir, and was sent to India on a mission to kidnap Westerners who could be used in a prisoner exchange." [more]

"Officials with Pakistan's military intelligence agency gave figures today intended to show that India had moved 23 more army divisions with at least 150,000 additional combat troops into what Pakistan described as strike positions along the border in recent days, bringing Pakistan's estimate of India's border force to about one million. Pakistan also said that India had deployed 600 combat aircraft." [more]

"As the two gigantic nations, the second and sixth most populous in the world, ominously gear up for what could be an enormous war, the capabilities
and resilience of both of them are vastly underestimated in the outside world." [more]

"Indian and Pakistani troops exchanged fresh mortar and heavy machinegun fire on Monday as New Delhi expelled a Pakistani diplomat, raising tensions between the nuclear-armed enemies ever higher." [more]

"In a nationwide television address, Putin repeated Russia's often-stated position that the 1972 treaty is a cornerstone of world security. 'This step was not a surprise for us. However, we consider it a mistake,' Putin said.
President Bush gave Moscow formal notice on Thursday that Washington was withdrawing from the treaty, marking an end to attempts to negotiate a compromise with Russia. The decision goes into effect in six months." [more]

Why War? hosted its first panel discussion on Dec. 3 with Swarthmore Professors Timothy Burke (history), Ray Hopkins (political science) and Donna Jo Napoli (linguistics). Reproduced are Prof. Hopkins' comments. [more]

"Islam in sub-Saharan Africa, an often overlooked member of the world's Muslim community, is growing in size and influence. Statistics on religious affiliation are difficult to come by, and are too sensitive a topic for governments with mixed populations. But most experts agree that Islam is spreading faster than any other faith in East and West Africa." [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]