Richard Pryor Has died

It is not on topic for this site but i wanted to express my sadness due to the death of Richard Pryor

The world has lost a Comic Genius

Rest in peace Mr Pryor

More details Here

Now then , Who Should America Invade Next ? ( Must watch video )

Who do you think ? , Iran , Syria , North Korea , Maybe some other 'terrorist' country ?







Well it seems if you were to give the pro war crowd in the US the power to make that choice then watch out Australia your next !

This is a comedy sketch highlighting the mind-numbing ignorance of war proponents. They want America to invade every country under the sun but asking them to locate those countries on a map proves a little difficult, but they'll still give you their opinion on it.

Enjoy Here (Windows media file)

Or watch the video at the source Prison Planet .

US blocks Red Cross access to terror suspects

The US has admitted for the first time that it has not given the Red Cross access to all detainees in its custody. The state department's top legal adviser, John Bellinger, made the admission but gave no details about where such prisoners were held.




Correspondents say the revelation is only likely to increase suspicion that the CIA has been operating secret prisons out of international oversight.

The issue has dogged Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's tour to Europe.

Mr Bellinger made the admission in Geneva.

He stated that the group International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had access to "absolutely everybody" at the prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which holds suspects detained during the US war on terror.

When asked by journalists if the organisation had access to everybody held in similar circumstances elsewhere, he said: "No". He declined to explain further.

Until now the US administration has been careful in its language, says the BBC's state department correspondent Jonathan Beale.

It has always said that the ICRC has access to all prisoners held at US defence department facilities - leaving open the question of whether there are CIA prisons elsewhere.

Mr Bellinger's comments will raise suspicions that high-profile terrorist suspects are being held out of international view, our correspondent says.

Source BBC

How did America plot to stop Kyoto deal

The Independent A detailed and disturbing strategy document has revealed an extraordinary American plan to destroy Europe's support for the Kyoto treaty on climate change.




The ambitious, behind-the-scenes plan was passed to The Independent this week, just as 189 countries are painfully trying to agree the second stage of Kyoto at the UN climate conference in Montreal. It was pitched to companies such as Ford Europe, Lufthansa and the German utility giant RWE.

Put together by a lobbyist who is a senior official at a group partly funded by ExxonMobil, the world's biggest oil company and a fierce opponent of anti-global warming measures, the plan seeks to draw together major international companies, academics, think-tanks, commentators, journalists and lobbyists from across Europe into a powerful grouping to destroy further EU support for the treaty.

It details just how the so-called "European Sound Climate Policy Coalition" would work. Based in Brussels, the plan would have anti-Kyoto position papers, expert spokesmen, detailed advice and networking instantly available to any politician or company who wanted to question the wisdom of proceeding with Kyoto and its demanding cuts in carbon dioxide emissions.

It has been drawn up by Chris Horner, a senior official with the Washington-based Competitive Enterprise Institute and a veteran campaigner against Kyoto and against the evidence of climate change. One of his colleagues ­ who describes himself as an adviser to President George Bush ­ was the subject of a censure motion by the Commons last year after he attacked the Government's chief scientist.

Mr Horner, whose CEI group has received almost $1.5m (£865,000) from ExxonMobil, is convinced that Europe could be successfully influenced by such a policy coalition just as the US government has been.

He thinks Europe's weakening economies are likely to be increasingly ill at ease with the costs of meeting Kyoto. And in particular, he has spotted something he thinks most of Europe has not yet woken up to. Most of the original 15 EU Kyoto signatories ­ Britain is an exception ­ are on course to miss their 2010 CO2 reduction targets. But under the terms of the treaty, they will face large fines for doing so, in terms of much bigger reduction targets in any second phase.

These will prove unacceptably costly to their economies, Mr Horner believes, even if they try to buy their way out by buying up "spare" emissions for cash from countries such as Russia. Mr Horner believes the moment for his coalition is at hand and has been seeking support for it from multinational companies. In his pitch to one major company, he wrote: " In the US an informal coalition has helped successfully to avert adoption of a Kyoto-style programme by maintaining a rational voice for civil society and ensuring a legitimate debate over climate economics, science and politics. This model should be emulated... to guide similar efforts in Europe."

Elsewhere he claimed: "A coalition addressing the economic and social impacts of the EU climate agenda must be broad-based (cross industry) and rooted in the member states. Other companies (including Lufthansa, Exxon, Ford) have already indicated their interest!"

Last night green groups hit out. Kert Davies, Greenpeace's climate campaign co-ordinator, which initially obtained the documents, said: "These are the hitmen for the Bush administration and the likes of Exxon. They are behind the scenes doing the dirty work. They are extending efforts to Europe where they are trying to undermine the momentum to solve global warming."

Read more at the Source

Oh the pressures of standing alone , against science , against reason and against the entire world . I have to admit it take incredible guts or incredible stupidity to take the view the United States holds , now which is it :-)

Ex Guantanamo bay inmates make hostage plea

Britain's former Guantanamo detainees call for the release of Norman Kember and three other hostages held in Iraq. Moazzam Begg told the BBC's Newsnight he and his fellow former inmates had been reminded of their ordeal by seeing the 74-year-old Briton in a jumpsuit.


Mr Begg said: "When we were first granted release by Allah's mercy we came home to find that there were people who opposed the government in their brutal war waged against Afghanistan and Iraq and stood on the side of justice, and they were not Muslims."

"It is our sincerest belief that Norman Kember, the 74-year-old Briton and those with him are amongst those people, the many people who opposed this war from the beginning and were only in Iraq to promote human rights for the oppressed.

Moazzam Begg was detained for nearly three years

"Just like Sheikh Abu Qatada we also hope that our words may encourage you to show mercy to these men and let them free."

Mr Kember, along with Mr Fox, 54, and Canadians James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, had travelled to Iraq as a "gesture of solidarity" with Canada-based international peace group Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT)

Their captors have accused the men of being spies, a charge their employers deny.

The latest video shows Mr Kember and Mr Fox dressed in orange jump suits with their hands shackled and wearing blindfolds, echoing film of British kidnap victim Ken Bigley who was shown wearing similar clothes before his murder.

Mr Kember is shown telling the camera he is "a friend of Iraq".

"I have been opposed to this war, Mr Blair's war, since the very beginning but I ask him now, and the British government, to do all that they can to work for my release and the release of the Iraqi people from oppression," Mr Kember says.

On Thursday, a radical cleric detained in the UK made an appeal for the hostages' release.

In a video filmed in prison, Abu Qatada urged the kidnappers to free them "in line with the principle of mercy of our religion".

source : BBC

Britain's top court bans "torture evidence"

LONDON (Reuters) Britain's highest court ruled on Thursday that information gleaned from torture anywhere in the world was unacceptable as evidence in British courts.



Rights groups immediately said the ruling sent a clear signal to governments around the world who are wrestling with accusations that they participated in, provided facilities for, or used evidence in court extracted from people detained as part of a CIA program known as "rendition".

The decision by the House of Lords to refuse evidence obtained under torture in third countries comes a day after the United States explicitly banned its interrogators from treating detainees inhumanely after widespread anger and pressure from European governments and the U.S. Congress.

"Torture is an unqualified evil. It can never be justified. Rather it must always be punished," said Lord Brown, one of seven Law Lords asked to rule on the issue.

Extraordinary rendition refers to a program in which U.S. operatives capture, detain and transport people suspected of terrorist activities to a third country where they are held.

Human rights groups say holding detainees incommunicado is illegal and often leads to torture.

The director of human rights group Liberty, Shami Chakbrabati, said the ruling sent a clear signal to governments around the world and Amnesty International called Thursday's decision "momentous".

"This ruling shreds any vestige of legality with which the UK government had attempted to defend a completely unlawful and reprehensible policy," rights group Amnesty International said.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke said the ruling would not affect its attempts to fight terrorism and insisted London did not condone torture in any way.

The British government had argued that a special tribunal meeting to decide if suspects were a threat to national security needed to consider all available evidence, however it was obtained.

Continue reading Here

It is good to see the House of Lords putting the British government in its place , now they know that any evidence provided by torture can NOT be used as evidence we can again see a clear line being drawn between the actions of the UK and the actions of the 'terrorists' . There is still a long way to go but this is a good step

New Al-Qaida video claim Osama is alive

CAIRO, Egypt - Al-Qaida's deputy leader called for attacks against Gulf oil facilities and urged insurgent groups in Iraq to unite to drive out American forces, according to a videotape posted on the Internet Wednesday.



The posting was a full version of a video by al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri that was issued on Sept. 19, excerpts of which were broadcast by the Arab television network Al-Jazeera at the time. The network aired more excerpts Wednesday, originally presenting all of the footage as new. A newscaster later told viewers some of the excerpts had previously been broadcast.

"I call on the holy warriors to concentrate their campaigns on the stolen oil of the Muslims, most of the revenues of which go to the enemies of Islam," al-Zawahri, the
Egyptian deputy of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, said in a portion of the tape not previously broadcast.

Al-Zawahri also said that Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was alive and well and leading the holy war against the West.

"Thanks be to God, (al-Qaida's) prince, Sheik Osama bin Laden, is still, God protect him, leading the holy war," al-Zawahri said in the September footage.

Al-Zawahri, who was wearing a white robe and black turban and was seated before a pale blue sheet, spoke to an off-camera interviewer. He said "the enemies of Islam" were exploiting oil with "incomparable greed, and we have to stop that theft with all we can save this fortune for the nation of Islam."

In the full version of the tape, which was posted on an Islamic Web site known for carrying statements from extremist groups, al-Zawahri called on Iraqi insurgent groups to unite.

Iraqi Arabs, Kurds and Turkomen, "whose hands were not tainted by Americans," should come together to fill "the gap that will be left by the Americans departure" from Iraq, he said.

The full video includes quotes from al-Zawahri on September elections in Afghanistan and on the July 7 London bombings that appeared in the excerpts aired by Al-Jazeera on Sept. 19.

Source : Here

Obviously more propaganda , It is in their interests for Osama to be alive , Infact it is one of the many things the US and Al-Qaida have in common . Though if Osama truly was alive and well Al-Qaida would not be able to resist putting him on film . The last 'claimed' Bin Laden tape was an obvious fake so i doubt we will be seing any more of them .

U.S. Christians March on Guantanamo to visit Prisoners on Hunger Strike

Twenty-five Christians in the nonviolent tradition of Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker arrived in Cuba last evening and plan to set out from Santiago today on a solemn fifty-mile march to the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They seek to defend human dignity by visiting with the hundreds of detainees who have been held for more than three years under horrific conditions by the U.S. government.


As a Christian, I feel compelled to reach out across national boundaries to perform one of the most basic acts of faith as described in the gospel of Matthew 25, I was in prison and you visited me, explained Catholic Worker Matthew Daloisio. We want our fellow Americans to see the shameful acts of torture and abuse taking place in this and other illegal prisons hidden across the globe. We pray that others will join us in urging our government to allow us to perform this act of Christian faith.

Participants in the group include a Jesuit Priest, Steve Kelly, a Catholic Nun, Sr. Anne Montgomery, Frida Berrigan, daughter of the late antiwar activist Phil Berrigan, and representatives of a number of Catholic Worker Communities. The marchers plan to arrive outside the gates of the U.S. naval base and prison complex on Guantanamo Bay on December 10, International Human Rights Day.

They are requesting entry into the compound to visit and interview the detainees as a work of mercy in keeping with their faith. If refused, as United Nations inspectors were just two weeks ago, they will hold a fast in solidarity and a vigil to pray for the immediate abolition of torture by all nations.

Source here

Good for them , I am not religous myself but this seems to be more like the actions that you would expect from those who follow the Christian faith . It surprises me how little noise the US Christian community makes on issues like torture . So these people deserve credit in my opinion for actually taking seriously the often over used phrase of 'What would Jesus do'

Praiseworthy indeed

Man shot dead at Florida airport

A man who claimed to have a bomb on board an American Airlines plane in Miami has been shot dead by US air marshals, officials say. Rigoberto Alpizar, a 44-year-old US citizen, was killed in the air bridge after running out of the plane pursued by marshals who had broken their cover.

No bomb was found on Mr Alpizar whose wife had tried to explain he had a mental illness, one witness said. It was the first time since 9/11 that air marshals had shot at a passenger.

The US dramatically increased the number of air marshals on flights after the 2001 attacks.

Local police and federal officers are investigating the incident, but officials say so far there is no hint of any links to terrorism.

Mr Alpizar had arrived in Miami, Florida, from Ecuador and was boarding a flight to Orlando at about 1410 local time.Alpizar had been married about 22 years, relatives said

"At some point, he uttered threatening words that included a sentence to the effect that he had a bomb," said Miami Federal Air Marshals official James Bauer.

"There were federal air marshals on board the aircraft. They came out of their cover, confronted him, and he remained noncompliant with their instructions.

"As he was attempting to evade them, his actions caused the FAMs to fire shots, and in fact he is deceased."

Homeland Security Department spokeswoman Joanna Gonzalez said Mr Alpizar had fled from the aircraft through the air bridge going toward the terminal.

"At that point, he appeared to be reaching into his carry-on bag... the air marshals took the appropriate action and that's when the shots were fired," she added.

Mary Gardner, a fellow passenger, told local television that the man had run frantically down the aisle of the Boeing 757 screaming while his wife tried to explain he was ill.

"I did hear the lady say her husband was bi-polar and had not had his medication," she said.

Source BBC

UK : Jailed terror suspect makes Iraq kidnap plea

A terror suspect held in a British jail has made a unprecedented video appeal for the release of Briton Norman Kember, taken hostage with three others in Iraq last month. Radical cleric Abu Qatada, detained since 2002, urged the kidnappers to free the hostage "in line with the principle of mercy of our religion".


Mr Kember's wife, Pat, also appealed for the release of her 74-year-old husband, from Pinner in north London.

The kidnappers have threatened to kill the hostages on Thursday.

The Foreign Office said Qatada volunteered to be filmed addressing the hostage-takers - who claim to belong to a group called the Swords of Truth. The terror suspect said on the video: "I am your brother Abu Qatada, Omar bin Mahmud Abu Omar, who is imprisoned in Full Sutton jail in Britain.

"I urge my brothers in the Brigades of Swords of Right in Iraq to release them in line with the principle of mercy of our religion, if there was no compelling religious duty against it."

Qatada, described by a Spanish judge as al-Qaeda's ambassador in Europe, was briefly released under a control order earlier this year before being re-arrested facing deportation to Jordan.

It is believed to be the first time a serving prisoner in the UK has made such an appeal.

Watch the appeal being made BBC (video)

Trial adjourned after Saddam refuses to attend

Source : Guardian

Saddam Hussein refused to attend his own trial in Baghdad today after declaring he had been mistreated by an "unjust court", a court official said.




The former Iraqi dictator delayed the hearing by four hours, before the presiding judge, Rizgar Amin, decided to continue without him. He subsequently adjourned the trial until December 21. Saddam's lawyers were present for the proceedings.

Saddam and seven co-defendants are being tried for the torture and killing of 140 Shia residents from the town of Dujail in 1982 in retaliation for an assassination attempt. He faces the death penalty if convicted.

At the end of yesterday's hearing, Saddam threatened to boycott proceedings, complaining that he and his co-defendants had been mistreated during the trial.

"I will not come to an unjust court," he said. "Go to hell."

He stuck by his threat this morning and refused to attend the hearing. Hours of legal discussions between Saddam and his defence team followed before the judge decided to reconvene the session without him.

Judge Amin later adjourned the trial. The hearing has already been adjourned twice after the accused men's defence team said they needed more time to prepare a case.

Saddam, dressed in a dark suit and holding a Qur'an, yesterday complained that he and his co-defendants were tired and had been deprived of opportunities to shower, change their clothes, exercise or smoke.

"This is terrorism," he said.

The trial has been frequently interrupted by violent outbursts. On Monday, Saddam declared he was not afraid of execution, while his half-brother and one of the co-defendants, Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, swore and spat at the judge.

Last week Saddam berated the judge for saying he would ask US soldiers to loosen the former president's shackles. "You do not ask them, you order them," Saddam said.

Yesterday's outburst came at the end of a harrowing session when an unidentified woman witness told of repeated beatings, torture and sexual humiliation in his regime's detention centres when she was a teenager.

But neither "Witness A", nor another woman who took the stand later, was able to identify Saddam as directly responsible for crimes against humanity.

All five witnesses - the two women and three men - who gave evidence yesterday had their voices disguised and were hidden to protect their identity.

The son of one of the guards at Saddam's trial was kidnapped this morning.

The eight-year-old boy was seized in front of his house in Baghdad. It is not yet known whether the kidnapping is connected to the trial.

Two defence lawyers for Saddam were shot dead by unidentifie

Insurgents dismiss Iraq polls, brace for battle

BAGHDAD (Reuters) Election posters promising a stable Iraq cut no ice with men like Abu Mohammed, who runs a women's clothing boutique in Baghdad's Adhamiya district by day but is an insurgent fighter by night.


As an insurgent, Abu Mohammed attacks U.S. military convoys with rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47 assault rifles, fights Iraqi troops and hunts down "informers".

"Expect black days. Elections won't change anything. This is a long-term struggle. We will fight for the next 20 years," said Abu Mohammed, who used that name as an insurgent.

Iraqi officials and their American allies are pinning their hopes on December 15 elections for the first post-war, full-term government to defuse a Sunni Arab insurgency that has killed thousands of security forces and civilians.

Even though many more Sunnis are expected to vote after largely boycotting January elections, the big question is whether hardcore fighters can be drawn into peaceful politics.

Abu Mohammed and his insurgent brother sitting beside him in his shop aim to dig in for a protracted battle.

They dismiss candidates like Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi, a former U.S. ally, and pro-Iranian Shi'ite leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim and say they are exiles who rode into Iraq on American tanks.

In Adhamiya, a northern Baghdad district that is a typical stronghold for Sunni insurgents, inspiration still comes from Saddam Hussein, not from promises of democracy and prosperity made after his fall in 2003.

They see signs of decline all around. An old officers' social club now has sandbags in front of it and what was once a feared intelligence headquarters is inhabited by the homeless.

Abu Mohammed says even election candidate and former prime minister Iyad Allawi, seen as a strongman who appeals to both Shi'ites and Sunnis amid sectarian fears of civil war, has little chance of winning over guerrillas in Adhamiya.

"We want Saddam back. If we can't have Saddam we want someone who stayed in Iraq and not exiles," said Abu Mohammed, a short, stocky man with glasses whose eyes fill with rage when he speaks of U.S. occupation and Iraqi politicians.

Both his favoured scenarios are highly unlikely. Saddam is fighting for his life in court and Iraq's political landscape, once controlled by Sunnis, is dominated by Shi'ites and Kurds.

Insurgent Abu Alaa, a former intelligence officer, says he wanted to join Iraq's new security forces but was discouraged by what he called Shi'ite discrimination and violence against Sunnis.

Unemployed, he spends most of his time fighting despite the slick election advertisements on television.

"These elections don't mean anything. There is no democracy in Iraq with our new leaders," he said.

Although Sunnis lost out by not voting in January elections, Abu Mohammed sees the elections as a U.S. plot to dominate Iraq.

His suspicions have been reinforced by the recent discovery of 173 malnourished Sunni prisoners found locked in a bunker by the Shi'ite-run Interior Ministry.

Workers in his shop listen closely as he criticises Iraq's new government while women stroll through looking at clothes.

Outside, insurgents who once served in Saddam's intelligence agencies keep a close eye on any strangers who enter Adhamiya, where he was last seen in public after the fall of Baghdad waving to crowds near the Abu Hanifa mosque.

The United States may be optimistic about democracy conquering violence but Abu Mohammed and others like him still prefer the bullet to the ballot box.

"How can we accept any new government when the Americans have arranged everything their way?," he asked.

"There are just too many differences between us. If an American man finds his wife in bed with another man it is normal. In Iraq if a man looks at my wife I will kill him."

Jerusalem Post sensationalize story about nuclear Iran (what a surprise)

Read the original article at Raw Story

An article in the Jerusalem Post trumpeted by the conservative Drudge Report grossly sensationalizes the comments of Mohamed El-Baradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency.



The piece, titled "El Baradei: Iran only months away from a bomb," takes a comment Baradei made to the British newspaper The Independent completely out of context.

According to the Independent, Baradei said he wasn't sure if the Iranians were building a nuclear weapon:

Although IAEA officials have said it would take at least two years for Natanz to become fully operational, Mr ElBaradei believes that once the facility is up and running, the Iranians could be "a few months" away from a nuclear weapon. "That's why there is the concern of the international community about Iran," he said, "because lots of people feel it could be a dual purpose programme".

Did he believe the Iranians were building a nuclear weapon? "The jury's out," he said. "It's difficult to read their intention. We're still going through the programme to make sure it's all for peaceful purposes.

"I know they are trying to acquire the full fuel cycle. I know that acquiring the full fuel cycle means that a country is months away from nuclear weapons, and that applies to Iran and everybody else."

The Jerusalem Post, meanwhile, turned Baradei on his head -- not only ignoring the fact that he said he wasn't sure Iran was developing a nuclear weapon, but also adding "will" where Baradei had said "could"

now read the twisted version

IAEA chairman Muhammad ElBaradei on Monday confirmed Israel's assessment that Iran is only a few months away from creating an atomic bomb.

If Teheran indeed resumed its uranium enrichment in other plants, as threatened, it will take it only "a few months" to produce a nuclear bomb, El-Baradei told The Independent.

However, ElBaradei didn't confirm Israel's assessment, since - in the worst case scenario - Iran is two years and a few months away from being able to acquire the full fuel cycle.

A lie can work its way around the world before the truth can even put its boots on , and this lie is out in the Muslim hating anti Arab right wing world , and will now be repeated as truth.

Why on earth anyone would take an article from an Israeli news source on this subject as evidence is beyond me . surely it is obvious that their perspective would be motivated by more then honesty.

Iran prints articles every day saying they are NOT building a bomb , and of course this is taken with little credibility , so why would that not be spotted the other way round ?

finally for those that which to check the lies for themselves here is the orignal article Independent and here are the lies based on the Independents article Jpost

Is This the SECRET of the secret prisoners on the secret overflights by CIA

A new lead on the torture flights ?

< It is now clear that the "detainees" , "rendered prisoners" were provided with US Diplomatic Passports starting series No 600 - , so notionally they were agents of the US State - i.e to legal eagles like Albert Gonzalez and Libby's successor, Addington. These un-uniformed people often had no documentation - so the CIA simply provided them with some along the lines of the Nansen certificates of the Displaced peoples (DP's) in Europe durting and after WWII.

State Department Briefing Dec 1st

MR. MCCORMACK: Again, Glenn, all U.S. actions comply with U.S. laws. They comply with the United States Constitution and they comply with our international obligations. I'm not a lawyer. I can't tell you exactly what European laws are and how they mesh up with U.S. laws. I can only tell you that U.S. actions comply with U.S. laws. We don't ask our U.S. Government officials to do things that are illegal. They comply with the Constitution and they are consistent with our international obligations.

It is this wonderful legal charade that has enabled the US State Department to say with straight face and a lightly beating heart, that nobody's "rights" were affected.

(c) PostmanPatel 2005

http://www.postmanpatel.blogspot.com/

Note : This article was sent to me by a reader and i am publishing here for your own assesment . I can not vouch for the accuracy of the claim but there is enough information to deserve closer scrutiny . For the original article and any further claims please visit the link above

US Army admits Iraqis outnumber foreign fighters as its main enemy

Iraqis, rather than foreign fighters, now form the vast majority of the insurgents who are waging a ferocious guerrilla war against United States forces in Sunni western Iraq, American commanders have revealed.


Their conclusion, disclosed to the Sunday Telegraph in interviews over 10 days in battle-torn Anbar province, contradicts the White House message that outsiders are the principal enemy in Iraq.

Of 1,300 suspected insurgents arrested over the past five months in and around Ramadi, none has been a foreigner. Col John Gronski, senior officer in the town, Anbar's provincial capital, said that almost all insurgent fighting there was by Iraqis. Foreigners provided only money and logistical support.

Read the rest Here

Netanyahu: Israel should take out Iranian nuclear facilities

Jerusalem - Israel should undertake an operation to destroy the Iranian nuclear programme similar to the airstrike it launched against the nuclear reactor built by Saddam Hussein, leading opposition legislator and prime ministerial candidate Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday.




'Israel should not allow Iran to develop a nuclear threat against it,' Netanyahu, challenging to become leader of the Likud Party and its candidate for premier in the March 28 elections, told Israel Radio.

'I'm carrying the tradition of (former Israeli premier) Menahem Begin, who did not let one of Iran's neighbours, the Iraq of Saddam Hussein, develop such a threat against Israel and in a bold and daring strike bought us two decades. I believe this is what Israel should do,' he said.

Israeli jets bombed Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osarik in summer 1981.

'The Iranian threat is a real one, a threat to the existence of Israel, from a state which has declared its intentions to destroy Israel,' Netanyahu said.

Premier Ariel Sharon said earlier in the day that while Iran should not be allowed to become a nuclear power, Israel was not spearheading attempts to stop it.

Army Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Dan Halutz told foreign reporters in Tel Aviv that he doubted diplomacy would succeed in halting Iran's nuclear programme.

'I believe that the political methods used by the Europeans and the United States to convince the Iranians to stop the project will not succeed,' he said.

© dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

America slowly confronts the truth

The Independent Watching the pathetic, old, lie-on-its-back frightened labrador of the American media changing overnight into a vicious rottweiler is one of the enduring pleasures of society in the United States. I have been experiencing this phenomenon over the past two weeks, as both victim and beneficiary

In New York and Los Angeles, my condemnation of the American presidency and Israel's continued settlement-building in the West Bank was originally treated with the disdain all great papers reserve for those who dare to question proud and democratic projects of state. In The New York Times, that ancient luminary Ethan Bonner managed to chide me for attacking American journalists who - he furiously quoted my own words - "report in so craven a fashion from the Middle East - so fearful of Israeli criticism that they turn Israeli murder into 'targeted attacks' and illegal settlements into 'Jewish neighbourhoods'."

It was remarkable that Bonner should be so out of touch with his readers that he did not know that "craven" is the very word so many Americans apply to their grovelling newspapers (and quite probably one reason why newspaper circulations are falling so disastrously).

But the moment that a respected Democratic congressman and Vietnam war veteran in Washington dared to suggest that the war in Iraq was lost, that US troops should be brought home now - and when the Republican response was so brutal it had to be disowned - the old media dog sniffed the air, realised that power was moving away from the White House, and began to drool.

On live television in San Francisco, I could continue my critique of America's folly in Iraq uninterrupted. Ex-Mayor Willie Brown - who allowed me to have my picture taken in his brand new pale blue Stetson - exuded warmth towards this pesky Brit (though he claimed on air that I was an American) who tore into his country's policies in the Middle East. It was enough to make you feel the teeniest bit sorry - though only for a millisecond, mark you - for the guy in the White House.

All this wasn't caused by that familiar transition from Newark to Los Angeles International, where the terror of al-Qa'ida attacks is replaced by fear of the ozone layer. On the east coast, too, the editorials thundered away at the Bush administration. Seymour Hersh, that blessing to American journalism who broke the Abu Ghraib torture story, produced another black rabbit out of his Iraqi hat with revelations that US commanders in Iraq believe the insurgency is now out of control.

When those same Iraqi gunmen this week again took control of the entire city of Ramadi (already "liberated" four times by US troops since 2003), the story shared equal billing on prime time television with Bush's latest and infinitely wearying insistence that Iraqi forces - who in reality are so infiltrated by insurgents that they are a knife in America's back - will soon be able to take over security duties from the occupation forces.

Even in Hollywood - and here production schedules prove that the rot must have set in more than a year ago - hitherto taboo subjects are being dredged to the surface of the political mire. Jarhead, produced by Universal Pictures, depicts a brutal, traumatised Marine unit during the 1991 Gulf War.

George Clooney's production of Good Night, and Good Luck, a devastating black-and-white account of Second World War correspondent Ed Murrow's heroic battle with Senator McCarthy in the 1950s - its theme is the management and crushing of all dissent - has already paid for its production costs twice over. Murrow is played by an actor but McCarthy appears only in real archive footage. Incredibly, a test audience in New York complained that the man "playing" McCarthy was "overacting". Will we say this about Messrs Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld in years to come? I suspect so.

And then there's Syriana, Clooney's epic of the oil trade which combines suicide bombers, maverick CIA agents (one of them played by Clooney himself), feuding Middle East Arab potentates - one of whom wants real democracy and wealth for his people and control of his own country's resources - along with a slew of disreputable businessmen and east coast lawyers. The CIA eventually assassinates the Arab prince who wants to take control of his own country's oil (so much for democracy) - this is accomplished with a pilotless aerial bomb guided by men in a room in Virginia - while a Pakistani fired from his job in the oil fields because an American conglomerate has downsized for its shareholders' profits destroys one of the company's tankers in a suicide attack.

"People seem less afraid now," Clooney told an interviewer in Entertainment magazine. "Lots of people are starting to ask questions. It's becoming hard to avoid the questions." Of course, these questions are being asked because of America's more than 2,000 fatalities in Iraq rather than out of compassion for Iraq's tens of thousands of fatalities. They are being pondered because the whole illegal invasion of Iraq is ending in calamity rather than success.

Yet still they avoid the "Israel" question. The Arab princes in Syriana - who in real life would be obsessed with the occupation of the West Bank - do not murmur a word about Israel. The Arab al-Qa'ida operative who persuades the young Pakistani to attack an oil tanker makes no reference to Israel - as every one of bin Laden's acolytes assuredly would. It was instructive that Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 did not mention Israel once.

So one key issue of the Middle East remains to be confronted. Amy Goodman, whom I used to enrage by claiming that her leftist Democracy Now programme - broadcast from a former Brooklyn fire station - had only three listeners (one of whom was Amy Goodman), is bravely raising this unmentionable subject. Partly as a result, her "alternative" radio and television station - how I hate that prissy word "alternative" - is slowly moving into the mainstream.

Americans are ready to discuss the United States' relationship with Israel. And America's injustices towards the Arabs. As usual, ordinary Americans are way out in front of their largely tamed press and television reporters. Now we have to wait and see if the media boys and girls will catch up with their own people.

Russia to Supply Iran with a billion dollar weapons deal

All Russian weaponry supplied to Iran is purely for defensive purpose, the Foreign Ministry said Saturday, responding to news reports that Moscow was selling more than $1 billion worth of missiles and other defense systems to Tehran.





Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kaminin did not comment on any specifics of weapons deals, saying in a statement only that they were "exclusively defensive weapons."

"All contracts concluded in the military-technical cooperation area fully comply with our international commitments, including in the sphere of nonproliferation, and are in full compliance with Russian law," he said, according to the statement.
The statement appeared to be timed to head off the expected heated reaction from the United States following reports in Russian media Friday that Russian and Iranian officials had signed contracts in November that would send up to 30 Tor-M1 missile systems to Iran over the next two years.

Interfax said the Tor-M1 system could identify up to 48 targets and fire at two targets simultaneously at a height of up to 6,100 meters.

Arab distrust of US growing at alarming rate

People in Arab nations believe the Iraq war has brought less peace, more terrorism and contrary to Washington's claims, will result in less democracy, a new poll indicates.






The survey of six Arab countries, also found a plurality of respondents got their news from Aljazeera, currently at the centre of a storm over an alleged US idea to bomb its headquarters.

When asked which country was the biggest threat to them, most respondents chose Israel or the United States, while France was nominated as the country most respondents would like to be a superpower.

The University of Maryland/Zogby International poll published on Friday was conducted in Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in October.

Eighty-one per cent of respondents said the Iraq war had brought "less peace" to the Middle East, while only 6% believed it had enhanced peace.

Seventy-eight per cent of people questioned believed the Iraq war had resulted in more terrorism than before, while 58% said it brought less democracy, with only 9% believing it enhanced democratic development.

While the administration of President George Bush frequently argues that it has liberated Iraqis from Saddam Hussein, only 6% of those surveyed believed that the Iraqi people were better off after the war. Seventy-seven per cent thought they were worse off.

"In addition to the Arab-Israeli issue, which has been the prism of how Arabs have looked at the US, there is an added new prism, and that is Iraq," said Shibley Telhami, Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland.

Only 6% thought spreading democracy was an objective in the war in Iraq, while 76% thought control of oilfields was important, and 68% believed support for Israel was the key motivating factor.

"The American presence itself is something they fear ... the perception of threat is there, because it does mean that in general people are rooting against the US in Iraq," said Telhami.

The survey makes unwelcome reading for US diplomats, who have repeatedly tried to improve US standing in the Middle East.

Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy Karen Hughes confronted some of the hostility during a regional visit in September.

The poll also asked, in a world with one superpower, which c country respondents would like to fulfil that role.

Twenty-one per cent said France, 13% said China and 10% said Pakistan. Only 6% voted for the United States, which came in just behind Britain, at 7%.

AFP