Hair Follicles May Regrow After Head Wounds
May 16, 2007
By Randy Doting
HealthDay Reporter
http://health.yahoo.com/news/175229
WEDNESDAY, May 16 (HealthDay News) -- A chance finding in wounded lab mice could point the way to reversing hair loss, scientists say.
While studying the healing of wounds in mice, a team at the University of Pennsylvania noticed that the animals developed new hair follicles after their skin was scraped.
This is very unusual, because "the dogma was that when you're born, you're stuck with the number of hair follicles that you have," said study co-author Dr. George Cotsarelis, director of the university's Hair and Scalp Clinic. And, if the follicles die -- as occurs during aging -- they can't be revived.
No one knows if new follicle growth occurs in wounded humans or if researchers can find a way to harness the hair-growing effect without having to actually hurt people.
But scientists are hopeful, especially considering that current treatments for baldness do not create new follicles to replace ones that have died.
"We're amazed that we're getting follicles to form," Cotsarelis said. He believes the findings could even "lead to a better understanding of regeneration that might be important for treating wounds and larger sorts of injuries down the road."
Apparently, something in the mice's healing process reprograms stem cells in the skin to start making new follicles, Cotsarelis said. Essentially, he said, the process is like rebooting a computer and sending out a new command through a gene. "You're getting the clock to go back to where it was at birth," he explained.
The result is new follicles that seem to act just like follicles should -- they sprout hair.
The study is published in the May 17 issue of the journal Nature.
The wounds that appear to cause the hair regrowth in the mice are similar to a common dermatological treatment known as dermabrasion, Cotsarelis said. In dermabrasion, layers of skin are scraped off and healing begins.
So, why not start treating balding people with dermabrasion on their heads? Cotsarelis -- who is forming a company to explore ways to develop the treatment for human use -- cautioned that it's not quite that easy. Scientists may have to expand upon the treatment and work with genes to make hair grow properly, he said.
Besides hair growth, the research could have other benefits. "The follicle is a small organ, a mini-organ," Cotsarelis said. "If you can figure out how to regenerate the follicle, you also have a better idea about how to regenerate a finger or a limb."
Dr. Andrzej A. Dlugosz, a professor of dermatology at the University of Michigan who's familiar with the study, said the research is "very elegant" and especially unique since it involves mice that have not been genetically altered.
As to the scientific study of hair loss, he said that hair growth problems are hardly trivial. "There are many types of hair loss, and some of these can be emotionally devastating. Developing effective ways to restore hair can do a lot of good for patients in terms of their general well-being," Dlugosz said.
Indeed, he said, the research might also help produce skin grafts that look and function more like normal skin in burn victims.
Friday 29 June 2007
Thursday 28 June 2007
Chavez ready for war against US
26 June, 2007
Source: Guardian
http://www.kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2007/06/26/8512.shtml
President Hugo Chavez has ordered Venezuela's armed forces to prepare for a guerrilla war against the United States, saying there must be a strategy to defeat the superpower if it invades.
He said Washington had already launched a non-military campaign using economic, psychological and political means to topple his socialist government and seize control of Venezuela's vast oil reserves.
"We must continue developing the resistance war, that's the anti-imperialist weapon. We must think and prepare for the resistance war every day," the president told hundreds of soldiers assembled at Tiuna Fort, a military base in the capital Caracas, on Sunday.
Wearing an olive-green uniform, red beret and presidential sash, Mr. Chavez said Venezuela was locked in "asymmetrical warfare" with the US and that, if it led to combat, soldiers must be prepared to lay down their lives.
"It's not just armed warfare, I'm also referring to psychological warfare, media warfare, political warfare, economic warfare," he said.
There was no immediate response from Washington, but the Bush administration has rejected previous claims that it was plotting to attack its outspoken South American foe.
Mr. Chavez's speech came on the eve of a trip to Russia, Belarus and Iran, hosts who share much of his antipathy towards Washington.
He said that while in Minsk he would put "the final touches" to a deal to buy an Air Defence system with long-range radar and missiles and in Moscow he would discuss the possible purchase of submarines.
Venezuela has recently purchased £1.5bn worth of Russian weapons including 53 military helicopters, 24 SU-30 Sukhoi fighter jets and 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles.
Mr. Chavez stressed the build-up was a deterrent. "We are strengthening Venezuela's military power precisely to avoid imperial aggressions and assure peace, not to attack anybody."
The air system was purely defensive, he said. "But if somebody comes here, well then, ssssssshhh," he said, imitating the sound of a missile.
The former paratrooper said US dirty tricks were evident in the student-led protests which greeted his decision last month not to renew the licence of RCTV, an opposition-aligned television station. He also said Washington was trying to sabotage the Copa America, a pan-regional football tournament which Venezuela is due to host over the coming weeks.
The Bush administration tacitly backed a coup that briefly ousted Mr Chavez in 2002 and has made no secret of its distaste for a leader who has thrown an economic lifeline to Fidel Castro's Cuba.
Mr Chavez claimed there have been numerous US-sponsored attempts on his life since the coup, but he has not provided details.
26 June, 2007
Source: Guardian
http://www.kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2007/06/26/8512.shtml
President Hugo Chavez has ordered Venezuela's armed forces to prepare for a guerrilla war against the United States, saying there must be a strategy to defeat the superpower if it invades.
He said Washington had already launched a non-military campaign using economic, psychological and political means to topple his socialist government and seize control of Venezuela's vast oil reserves.
"We must continue developing the resistance war, that's the anti-imperialist weapon. We must think and prepare for the resistance war every day," the president told hundreds of soldiers assembled at Tiuna Fort, a military base in the capital Caracas, on Sunday.
Wearing an olive-green uniform, red beret and presidential sash, Mr. Chavez said Venezuela was locked in "asymmetrical warfare" with the US and that, if it led to combat, soldiers must be prepared to lay down their lives.
"It's not just armed warfare, I'm also referring to psychological warfare, media warfare, political warfare, economic warfare," he said.
There was no immediate response from Washington, but the Bush administration has rejected previous claims that it was plotting to attack its outspoken South American foe.
Mr. Chavez's speech came on the eve of a trip to Russia, Belarus and Iran, hosts who share much of his antipathy towards Washington.
He said that while in Minsk he would put "the final touches" to a deal to buy an Air Defence system with long-range radar and missiles and in Moscow he would discuss the possible purchase of submarines.
Venezuela has recently purchased £1.5bn worth of Russian weapons including 53 military helicopters, 24 SU-30 Sukhoi fighter jets and 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles.
Mr. Chavez stressed the build-up was a deterrent. "We are strengthening Venezuela's military power precisely to avoid imperial aggressions and assure peace, not to attack anybody."
The air system was purely defensive, he said. "But if somebody comes here, well then, ssssssshhh," he said, imitating the sound of a missile.
The former paratrooper said US dirty tricks were evident in the student-led protests which greeted his decision last month not to renew the licence of RCTV, an opposition-aligned television station. He also said Washington was trying to sabotage the Copa America, a pan-regional football tournament which Venezuela is due to host over the coming weeks.
The Bush administration tacitly backed a coup that briefly ousted Mr Chavez in 2002 and has made no secret of its distaste for a leader who has thrown an economic lifeline to Fidel Castro's Cuba.
Mr Chavez claimed there have been numerous US-sponsored attempts on his life since the coup, but he has not provided details.
Friday 22 June 2007
Clerics to honour Osama bin Laden
NEWS: CENTRAL/S. ASIA
THURSDAY, JUNE 21, 2007
Source:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/BFF16653-B650-4EBF-A6D0-8281F5404683.htm
A group of Pakistani religious leaders led by a pro-Taliban figure has said it will bestow a title on Osama bin Laden in response to Britain's decision to grant a knighthood to Salman Rushdie.
Allama Tahir Ashrafi, head of the Pakistan Ulema Council, said on Thursday that the group would give bin Laden the title Saifullah.
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The name means "Sword of God" and would be given to the al-Qaeda leader for "serving Muslims by waging jihad against infidels".
Ashrafi said: "If Britain can give a knighthood to Rushdie, we too have the right to make awards to our leaders and heroes."
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He said that while he was not in contact with bin Laden, the award would reach the fugitive al-Qaeda chief "at an appropriate time".Ashrafi said his group represented more than 3,000 religious leaders. However, Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq, Pakistan's religious affairs minister, said he was not familiar with the group.
TensionsUl-Haq has stirred tensions by suggesting the knighthood could justify suicide attacks and undermine Pakistan's effort against "terrorism".
On Thursday, he said he would travel to Britain soon to meet Muslim scholars and promote interfaith harmony.
Religious parties in Pakistan, a predominantly Muslim state of 160 million people, have called for nationwide protests on Friday to condemn Britain for bestowing the honour on Rushdie.
On Thursday, about 200 people rallied in the eastern city of Multan chanting "We are ready to die for Prophet Muhammad's honour" and "Down with Britain".
Pakistan, a close ally of Britain and the US, has condemned the knighthood for Rushdie, who has been accused of insulting Islam in his novel The Satanic Verses.
Protesters have burned effigies of Rushdie and Queen Elizabeth II on the streets of Pakistani cities and demanded that Britain take back the award - a request London has refused.
NEWS: CENTRAL/S. ASIA
THURSDAY, JUNE 21, 2007
Source:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/BFF16653-B650-4EBF-A6D0-8281F5404683.htm
A group of Pakistani religious leaders led by a pro-Taliban figure has said it will bestow a title on Osama bin Laden in response to Britain's decision to grant a knighthood to Salman Rushdie.
Allama Tahir Ashrafi, head of the Pakistan Ulema Council, said on Thursday that the group would give bin Laden the title Saifullah.
bodyVariable350="Htmlphcontrol1_lblError";
The name means "Sword of God" and would be given to the al-Qaeda leader for "serving Muslims by waging jihad against infidels".
Ashrafi said: "If Britain can give a knighthood to Rushdie, we too have the right to make awards to our leaders and heroes."
bodyVariable300="Htmlphcontrol2_lblError";
He said that while he was not in contact with bin Laden, the award would reach the fugitive al-Qaeda chief "at an appropriate time".Ashrafi said his group represented more than 3,000 religious leaders. However, Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq, Pakistan's religious affairs minister, said he was not familiar with the group.
TensionsUl-Haq has stirred tensions by suggesting the knighthood could justify suicide attacks and undermine Pakistan's effort against "terrorism".
On Thursday, he said he would travel to Britain soon to meet Muslim scholars and promote interfaith harmony.
Religious parties in Pakistan, a predominantly Muslim state of 160 million people, have called for nationwide protests on Friday to condemn Britain for bestowing the honour on Rushdie.
On Thursday, about 200 people rallied in the eastern city of Multan chanting "We are ready to die for Prophet Muhammad's honour" and "Down with Britain".
Pakistan, a close ally of Britain and the US, has condemned the knighthood for Rushdie, who has been accused of insulting Islam in his novel The Satanic Verses.
Protesters have burned effigies of Rushdie and Queen Elizabeth II on the streets of Pakistani cities and demanded that Britain take back the award - a request London has refused.
Tuesday 19 June 2007
Carter Blasts US Policy On Palestinians
by: Shawn Pogatchnik
Associated Press Writer
June 19, 2007
Source:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070619/ap_on_re_eu/carter_us_palestinians
DUBLIN, Ireland - Former President Jimmy Carter accused the U.S., Israel, and the European Union on Tuesday of seeking to divide the Palestinian people by reopening aid to President Mahmoud Abbas' new regime in the West Bank while denying the same to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who was addressing a human rights conference in Ireland, also said the Bush administration's refusal to accept Hamas' 2006 election victory was "criminal."
Carter said Hamas, besides winning a fair and democratic mandate that should have entitled it to lead the Palestinian government, had proven itself to be far more organized in its political and military showdowns with Abbas' moderate movement.
Hamas fighters routed Fatah in their violent takeover of the Gaza Strip last week. The split prompted Abbas to dissolve the power-sharing government with his rivals in Hamas and set up a Fatah-led administration to govern the West Bank.
Carter said the consensus of the U.S., Israel and the EU to start funneling aid to Abbas' new government in the West Bank but continue blocking Hamas in the Gaza Strip represented an "effort to divide Palestinians into two peoples."
"All efforts of the international community should be to reconcile the two, but there's no effort from the outside to bring the two together," he said.
The U.S. and European countries cut off the Hamas-led government last year because of the Islamic militant group's refusal to renounce violence and recognize Israel. They have continued to send humanitarian aid to Gaza through the United Nations and other organizations.
In the latest crisis, the U.S., Israel and much of the West have been trying to shore up Abbas in hopes that the West Bank can be made into a democratic example that would bring along Gaza.
During his speech to Ireland's annual Forum on Human Rights, the 83-year-old former president said monitors from his Carter Center observed the 2006 election that Hamas won. He said the vote was "orderly and fair" and Hamas triumphed, in part, because it was "shrewd in selecting candidates," whereas a divided, corrupt Fatah ran multiple candidates for single seats.
Far from encouraging Hamas' move into parliamentary politics, Carter said the U.S. and Israel, with European Union acquiescence, sought to subvert the outcome by shunning Hamas and helping Abbas to keep the reins of political and military power.
"That action was criminal," he said in a news conference after his speech.
"The United States and Israel decided to punish all the people in Palestine and did everything they could to deter a compromise between Hamas and Fatah," he said.
Carter said the U.S. and others supplied the Fatah-controlled security forces in Gaza with vastly superior weaponry in hopes they would "conquer Hamas in Gaza" — but Hamas routed Fatah in the fighting last week because of its "superior skills and discipline."
by: Shawn Pogatchnik
Associated Press Writer
June 19, 2007
Source:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070619/ap_on_re_eu/carter_us_palestinians
DUBLIN, Ireland - Former President Jimmy Carter accused the U.S., Israel, and the European Union on Tuesday of seeking to divide the Palestinian people by reopening aid to President Mahmoud Abbas' new regime in the West Bank while denying the same to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who was addressing a human rights conference in Ireland, also said the Bush administration's refusal to accept Hamas' 2006 election victory was "criminal."
Carter said Hamas, besides winning a fair and democratic mandate that should have entitled it to lead the Palestinian government, had proven itself to be far more organized in its political and military showdowns with Abbas' moderate movement.
Hamas fighters routed Fatah in their violent takeover of the Gaza Strip last week. The split prompted Abbas to dissolve the power-sharing government with his rivals in Hamas and set up a Fatah-led administration to govern the West Bank.
Carter said the consensus of the U.S., Israel and the EU to start funneling aid to Abbas' new government in the West Bank but continue blocking Hamas in the Gaza Strip represented an "effort to divide Palestinians into two peoples."
"All efforts of the international community should be to reconcile the two, but there's no effort from the outside to bring the two together," he said.
The U.S. and European countries cut off the Hamas-led government last year because of the Islamic militant group's refusal to renounce violence and recognize Israel. They have continued to send humanitarian aid to Gaza through the United Nations and other organizations.
In the latest crisis, the U.S., Israel and much of the West have been trying to shore up Abbas in hopes that the West Bank can be made into a democratic example that would bring along Gaza.
During his speech to Ireland's annual Forum on Human Rights, the 83-year-old former president said monitors from his Carter Center observed the 2006 election that Hamas won. He said the vote was "orderly and fair" and Hamas triumphed, in part, because it was "shrewd in selecting candidates," whereas a divided, corrupt Fatah ran multiple candidates for single seats.
Far from encouraging Hamas' move into parliamentary politics, Carter said the U.S. and Israel, with European Union acquiescence, sought to subvert the outcome by shunning Hamas and helping Abbas to keep the reins of political and military power.
"That action was criminal," he said in a news conference after his speech.
"The United States and Israel decided to punish all the people in Palestine and did everything they could to deter a compromise between Hamas and Fatah," he said.
Carter said the U.S. and others supplied the Fatah-controlled security forces in Gaza with vastly superior weaponry in hopes they would "conquer Hamas in Gaza" — but Hamas routed Fatah in the fighting last week because of its "superior skills and discipline."
Friday 15 June 2007
Iran protest at UK Queen's party
By Frances Harrison
BBC News, Tehran
Thursday, 14 June 2007
Source:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6754905.stm
Demonstrators have thrown paint and eggs at the UK embassy in Tehran to try to prevent an annual party in honour of Queen Elizabeth II's birthday.
They said any Iranian guests who tried to attend the party were dirty traitors willing to sell out their country.
The protesters also called for the expulsion of the ambassador and relations to be cut off.
Police pushed back demonstrators as they tried to block the mission's side entrance to stop guests from entering.
This is the first time protesters have tried to sabotage an embassy reception like this, and it stems from a desire to stop Iranians having contacts with foreigners.
'England's servants'
"The British embassy should be shut down" and "Death to England, down with the den of spies," the demonstrators shouted.
All this as 1,500 guests were invited for the biggest diplomatic reception of the year at the embassy.
Islamic students in black shirts pelted the front gate of the building with bags filled with coloured paint, tomatoes and eggs.
"Shame on you, servants of the English," they chanted.
They called the guests dirty Iranians willing to eat the birthday cake of the queen of lies and corruption.
The women demonstrators screamed as the riot police pushed and shoved them to try to make them leave.
Some diplomatic cars turned back as they saw how volatile the situation was.
At least one vehicle was attacked, and many guests gave up trying to go to the party after getting stuck in traffic.
A couple of hundred determined guests did make it inside the compound. (Photographs were taken of them, possibly for future retaliation against these people).
But the intention was to intimidate Iranians from attending.
This comes as Iran's minister of intelligence recently warned Iranians not to give interviews or information to foreigners, and a number of Iranian-Americans have been jailed on suspicion of spying.
Queen Elizabeth II was born on 21 April 1926, but official celebrations to mark her birthday are held in June.
By Frances Harrison
BBC News, Tehran
Thursday, 14 June 2007
Source:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6754905.stm
Demonstrators have thrown paint and eggs at the UK embassy in Tehran to try to prevent an annual party in honour of Queen Elizabeth II's birthday.
They said any Iranian guests who tried to attend the party were dirty traitors willing to sell out their country.
The protesters also called for the expulsion of the ambassador and relations to be cut off.
Police pushed back demonstrators as they tried to block the mission's side entrance to stop guests from entering.
This is the first time protesters have tried to sabotage an embassy reception like this, and it stems from a desire to stop Iranians having contacts with foreigners.
'England's servants'
"The British embassy should be shut down" and "Death to England, down with the den of spies," the demonstrators shouted.
All this as 1,500 guests were invited for the biggest diplomatic reception of the year at the embassy.
Islamic students in black shirts pelted the front gate of the building with bags filled with coloured paint, tomatoes and eggs.
"Shame on you, servants of the English," they chanted.
They called the guests dirty Iranians willing to eat the birthday cake of the queen of lies and corruption.
The women demonstrators screamed as the riot police pushed and shoved them to try to make them leave.
Some diplomatic cars turned back as they saw how volatile the situation was.
At least one vehicle was attacked, and many guests gave up trying to go to the party after getting stuck in traffic.
A couple of hundred determined guests did make it inside the compound. (Photographs were taken of them, possibly for future retaliation against these people).
But the intention was to intimidate Iranians from attending.
This comes as Iran's minister of intelligence recently warned Iranians not to give interviews or information to foreigners, and a number of Iranian-Americans have been jailed on suspicion of spying.
Queen Elizabeth II was born on 21 April 1926, but official celebrations to mark her birthday are held in June.
Wednesday 13 June 2007
U.N. Mideast line swayed by U.S., Israel: ex-envoy
By Patrick Worsnip
Wed Jun 13
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A former U.N. Middle East envoy quit his job last month making bitter allegations that U.N. policy in the region had failed because it was subservient to U.S. and Israeli interests, according to a leaked document.
In a confidential end-of-mission report, seen by Reuters, Alvaro de Soto poured scorn on the Quartet negotiating group of the United States, Russia, European Union and United Nations, and suggested the world body should pull out.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Wednesday the report represented De Soto's personal views and disputed his former envoy's conclusion that the Quartet had become a "side-show."
De Soto, a Peruvian diplomat who formerly worked on El Salvador, Cyprus and the Western Sahara, spent two years on the Middle East before resigning in May, ending a 25-year U.N. career. He was replaced by Briton Michael Williams.
His scathing 53-page farewell, addressed to a handful of top U.N. officials and first reported by Britain's Guardian newspaper in Wednesday editions, made clear he left because he was frustrated that he was being ignored.
In the document dated May 5, he railed at restrictions he said were placed on him by U.N. headquarters against talking to the Hamas-led Palestinian government and to Syria.
De Soto condemned economic sanctions imposed by Israel, the United States and the EU on Hamas after it won Palestinian elections last year and said their effective endorsement by the Quartet had had "devastating consequences" for Palestinians.
"The steps taken by the international community with the presumed purpose of bringing about a Palestinian entity that will live in peace with its neighbor Israel have had precisely the opposite effect," he wrote.
"Even-handedness has been pummeled into submission in an unprecedented way since the beginning of 2007."
SIDE-SHOW
Speaking to reporters, Ban regretted that De Soto's report had leaked out, but said: "I'd like to make it clear that this is his personal view. I would not agree with his point that the Quartet has been kind of some side-show."
He said the grouping had been "re-energized" and noted that at its next meeting, in Egypt later this month, it would meet Israeli, Palestinian, Egyptian, Saudi Arabian, Jordanian, Qatari, Syrian and Arab League officials.
De Soto sharply criticized the Islamist Hamas movement for advocating Israel's destruction, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a foe of Hamas, for weak leadership, and the Palestinian failure to halt militant attacks on Israeli civilians.
But he also charged that Israeli policies seemed "perversely designed to encourage the continued action by Palestinian militants."
De Soto blasted what he called "the tendency that exists among U.S. policy-makers ... to cower before any hint of Israeli displeasure and to pander shamelessly before Israeli-linked audiences."
But much of his criticism was aimed at the United Nations, where, he said, "a premium is put on good relations with the U.S. and improving the U.N.'s relationship with Israel."
"I don't honestly think the U.N. does Israel any favors at all by not speaking frankly to it about its failings regarding the peace process," De Soto said.
He said Ban should "seriously reconsider" continued U.N. membership in the Quartet, which he said had become "pretty much a group of friends of the U.S."
De Soto said he regretted that his advice to U.N. headquarters had gone unheeded. "I concluded that my uphill effort was not going to succeed," he said.
By Patrick Worsnip
Wed Jun 13
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A former U.N. Middle East envoy quit his job last month making bitter allegations that U.N. policy in the region had failed because it was subservient to U.S. and Israeli interests, according to a leaked document.
In a confidential end-of-mission report, seen by Reuters, Alvaro de Soto poured scorn on the Quartet negotiating group of the United States, Russia, European Union and United Nations, and suggested the world body should pull out.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Wednesday the report represented De Soto's personal views and disputed his former envoy's conclusion that the Quartet had become a "side-show."
De Soto, a Peruvian diplomat who formerly worked on El Salvador, Cyprus and the Western Sahara, spent two years on the Middle East before resigning in May, ending a 25-year U.N. career. He was replaced by Briton Michael Williams.
His scathing 53-page farewell, addressed to a handful of top U.N. officials and first reported by Britain's Guardian newspaper in Wednesday editions, made clear he left because he was frustrated that he was being ignored.
In the document dated May 5, he railed at restrictions he said were placed on him by U.N. headquarters against talking to the Hamas-led Palestinian government and to Syria.
De Soto condemned economic sanctions imposed by Israel, the United States and the EU on Hamas after it won Palestinian elections last year and said their effective endorsement by the Quartet had had "devastating consequences" for Palestinians.
"The steps taken by the international community with the presumed purpose of bringing about a Palestinian entity that will live in peace with its neighbor Israel have had precisely the opposite effect," he wrote.
"Even-handedness has been pummeled into submission in an unprecedented way since the beginning of 2007."
SIDE-SHOW
Speaking to reporters, Ban regretted that De Soto's report had leaked out, but said: "I'd like to make it clear that this is his personal view. I would not agree with his point that the Quartet has been kind of some side-show."
He said the grouping had been "re-energized" and noted that at its next meeting, in Egypt later this month, it would meet Israeli, Palestinian, Egyptian, Saudi Arabian, Jordanian, Qatari, Syrian and Arab League officials.
De Soto sharply criticized the Islamist Hamas movement for advocating Israel's destruction, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a foe of Hamas, for weak leadership, and the Palestinian failure to halt militant attacks on Israeli civilians.
But he also charged that Israeli policies seemed "perversely designed to encourage the continued action by Palestinian militants."
De Soto blasted what he called "the tendency that exists among U.S. policy-makers ... to cower before any hint of Israeli displeasure and to pander shamelessly before Israeli-linked audiences."
But much of his criticism was aimed at the United Nations, where, he said, "a premium is put on good relations with the U.S. and improving the U.N.'s relationship with Israel."
"I don't honestly think the U.N. does Israel any favors at all by not speaking frankly to it about its failings regarding the peace process," De Soto said.
He said Ban should "seriously reconsider" continued U.N. membership in the Quartet, which he said had become "pretty much a group of friends of the U.S."
De Soto said he regretted that his advice to U.N. headquarters had gone unheeded. "I concluded that my uphill effort was not going to succeed," he said.
Palestinian Pinochet Making His Move?
by: Tony Karon
May 17, 2007
Source:
Global Research
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=5670
There’s something a little misleading in the media reports that routinely describe the fighting in Gaza as pitting Hamas against Fatah forces or security personnel “loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas.” That characterization suggests somehow that this catastrophic civil war that has killed more than 25 Palestinians since Sunday is a showdown between Abbas and the Hamas leadership — which simply isn’t true, although such a showdown would certainly conform to the desires of those running the White House Middle East policy.
The Fatah gunmen who are reported to have initiated the breakdown of the Palestinian unity government and provoked the latest fighting may profess fealty to President Abbas, but it’s not from him that they get their orders. The leader to whom they answer is Mohammed Dahlan, the Gaza warlord who has long been Washington’s anointed favorite to play the role of a Palestinian Pinochet. And while Dahlan is formally subordinate to Abbas, whom he supposedly serves as National Security Adviser, nobody believes that Dahlan answers to Abbas — in fact, it was suggested at the time that Abbas appointed Dahlan only under pressure from Washington, which was irked by the Palestinian Authority president’s decision to join a unity government with Hamas.
If Dahlan takes orders from anyone at all, it’s certainly not from Abbas. Abbas has long recognized the democratic legitimacy and popularity of Hamas, and embraced the reality that no peace process is possible unless the Islamists are given the place in the Palestinian power structure that their popular support necessitates. He has always favored negotiation and cooperation with Hamas — much to the exasperation of the Bush Administration, and also of the Fatah warlords whose power of patronage was threatened by the Hamas election victory — and could see the logic of the unity government proposed by the Saudis even when Washington couldn’t. Indeed, as the indispensable Robert Malley and Hussein Agha note, nothing has hurt Abbas’s political standing as much as the misguided efforts of Washington to boost his standing in the hope of undermining the elected Hamas government.
Needless to say, only an Administration as deluded about its ability to reorder Arab political realities in line with its own fantasies — and also, frankly, as utterly contemptuous of Arab life and of Arab democracy, empty sloganizing notwithstanding — as the current one has proved to be could imagine that the Palestinians could be starved, battered and manipulated into choosing a Washington-approved political leadership. Yet, that’s exactly what the U.S. has attempted to do ever since Hamas won the last Palestinian election, imposing a financial and economic chokehold on an already distressed population, pouring money and arms into the forces under Dahlan’s control, and eventually adapting itself to funnel monies only through Abbas, as if casting in him in the role of a kind of Quisling-provider would somehow burnish his appeal among Palestinian voters. (As I said, their contempt for Arab intelligence knows no bounds. )
But while the hapless Abbas is little more than a reluctant passenger in Washington’s strategy — and will, I still believe, repair to his former exile lodgings in Qatar in the not too distant future — Mohammed Dahlan is its point man, the warlord who commands the troops and who has been spoiling for a fight with Hamas since they had the temerity to trounce his organization at the polls on home turf.
Dahlan’s ambitions clearly coincided with plans drawn up by White House Middle East policy chief, Elliot Abrams — a veteran of the Reagan Administration’s Central American dirty wars — to arm and train Fatah loyalists to prepare them to topple the Hamas government. If Mahmoud Abbas has been reluctant to embrace the confrontational policy promoted by the White House, Dahlan has no such qualms. And given that Abbas has no political base of his own, he is dependent entirely on Washington and Dahlan.
Seeing the disastrous implications of the U.S. policy, the Saudis appeared to have put the kibosh on Abrams’ coup plan by drawing Abbas into a unity government with Hamas. And as Mark Perry at Conflict Forum detailed in an excellent analysis Dahlan was just about the only thing that the U.S. had going for it in terms of resisting the move towards a unity government.
Although his fretting and sulking in Mecca couldn’t prevent the deal, the U.S. appears to have helped him fight back afterwards by ensuring that he was appointed national security adviser, a move calculated to provoke Hamas, whose leaders tend to view Dahlan as little more than a torturer and a de facto enforcer for Israel.
But Dahlan appears to have made his move when it came to integrating the Palestinian Authority security forces (currently dominated by Fatah) by drawing in Hamas fighters and subjecting the forces to the control of a politically neutral interior minister. Dahlan simply refused, and set off the current confrontations by ordering his men out onto the street last weekend without any authorization from the government of which he is supposedly a part.
The new provocation appears consistent with a revised U.S. plan, reported on by Mark Perry and Paul Woodward, that emphasized the urgency of toppling the unity government. They suggest the plan emanates from Abrams, who they say is operating at cross purposes with Condi Rice’s efforts to appease the Arab moderate regimes by reviving some form of peace process.. They note, for example, that Jewish American sources have told the Forward and Haaretz that Abrams recently briefed Jewish Republicans and made clear to them that Rice’s efforts were merely a symbolic exercise aimed at showing Arab allies that the U.S. was “doing something,” but that President Bush would ensure that nothing would come of them, in the sense that Israel would not be required to make any concessions.
Whatever the precise breakdown within the Bush Administration, it’s plain that Dahlan, like Pinochet a quarter century, would not move onto a path of confrontation with an elected government unless he believed he had the sanction of powerful forces abroad to do so. If does move to turn the current street battle into a frontal assault on the unity government, chances are it will be because he got a green light from somewhere — and certainly not from Mahmoud Abbas.
But the confrontation under way has assumed a momentum of its own, and it may now be beyond the capability of the Palestinian leadership as a whole to contain it. If that proves true, the petulance that has substituted for policy in the Bush Administration’s response to the 2006 Palestinian election will have succeeded in turning Gaza into Mogadishu. But it may be too much to expect the Administration capable of anything different — after all, they’re still busy turning Mogadishu into Mogadishu all over again.
by: Tony Karon
May 17, 2007
Source:
Global Research
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=5670
There’s something a little misleading in the media reports that routinely describe the fighting in Gaza as pitting Hamas against Fatah forces or security personnel “loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas.” That characterization suggests somehow that this catastrophic civil war that has killed more than 25 Palestinians since Sunday is a showdown between Abbas and the Hamas leadership — which simply isn’t true, although such a showdown would certainly conform to the desires of those running the White House Middle East policy.
The Fatah gunmen who are reported to have initiated the breakdown of the Palestinian unity government and provoked the latest fighting may profess fealty to President Abbas, but it’s not from him that they get their orders. The leader to whom they answer is Mohammed Dahlan, the Gaza warlord who has long been Washington’s anointed favorite to play the role of a Palestinian Pinochet. And while Dahlan is formally subordinate to Abbas, whom he supposedly serves as National Security Adviser, nobody believes that Dahlan answers to Abbas — in fact, it was suggested at the time that Abbas appointed Dahlan only under pressure from Washington, which was irked by the Palestinian Authority president’s decision to join a unity government with Hamas.
If Dahlan takes orders from anyone at all, it’s certainly not from Abbas. Abbas has long recognized the democratic legitimacy and popularity of Hamas, and embraced the reality that no peace process is possible unless the Islamists are given the place in the Palestinian power structure that their popular support necessitates. He has always favored negotiation and cooperation with Hamas — much to the exasperation of the Bush Administration, and also of the Fatah warlords whose power of patronage was threatened by the Hamas election victory — and could see the logic of the unity government proposed by the Saudis even when Washington couldn’t. Indeed, as the indispensable Robert Malley and Hussein Agha note, nothing has hurt Abbas’s political standing as much as the misguided efforts of Washington to boost his standing in the hope of undermining the elected Hamas government.
Needless to say, only an Administration as deluded about its ability to reorder Arab political realities in line with its own fantasies — and also, frankly, as utterly contemptuous of Arab life and of Arab democracy, empty sloganizing notwithstanding — as the current one has proved to be could imagine that the Palestinians could be starved, battered and manipulated into choosing a Washington-approved political leadership. Yet, that’s exactly what the U.S. has attempted to do ever since Hamas won the last Palestinian election, imposing a financial and economic chokehold on an already distressed population, pouring money and arms into the forces under Dahlan’s control, and eventually adapting itself to funnel monies only through Abbas, as if casting in him in the role of a kind of Quisling-provider would somehow burnish his appeal among Palestinian voters. (As I said, their contempt for Arab intelligence knows no bounds. )
But while the hapless Abbas is little more than a reluctant passenger in Washington’s strategy — and will, I still believe, repair to his former exile lodgings in Qatar in the not too distant future — Mohammed Dahlan is its point man, the warlord who commands the troops and who has been spoiling for a fight with Hamas since they had the temerity to trounce his organization at the polls on home turf.
Dahlan’s ambitions clearly coincided with plans drawn up by White House Middle East policy chief, Elliot Abrams — a veteran of the Reagan Administration’s Central American dirty wars — to arm and train Fatah loyalists to prepare them to topple the Hamas government. If Mahmoud Abbas has been reluctant to embrace the confrontational policy promoted by the White House, Dahlan has no such qualms. And given that Abbas has no political base of his own, he is dependent entirely on Washington and Dahlan.
Seeing the disastrous implications of the U.S. policy, the Saudis appeared to have put the kibosh on Abrams’ coup plan by drawing Abbas into a unity government with Hamas. And as Mark Perry at Conflict Forum detailed in an excellent analysis Dahlan was just about the only thing that the U.S. had going for it in terms of resisting the move towards a unity government.
Although his fretting and sulking in Mecca couldn’t prevent the deal, the U.S. appears to have helped him fight back afterwards by ensuring that he was appointed national security adviser, a move calculated to provoke Hamas, whose leaders tend to view Dahlan as little more than a torturer and a de facto enforcer for Israel.
But Dahlan appears to have made his move when it came to integrating the Palestinian Authority security forces (currently dominated by Fatah) by drawing in Hamas fighters and subjecting the forces to the control of a politically neutral interior minister. Dahlan simply refused, and set off the current confrontations by ordering his men out onto the street last weekend without any authorization from the government of which he is supposedly a part.
The new provocation appears consistent with a revised U.S. plan, reported on by Mark Perry and Paul Woodward, that emphasized the urgency of toppling the unity government. They suggest the plan emanates from Abrams, who they say is operating at cross purposes with Condi Rice’s efforts to appease the Arab moderate regimes by reviving some form of peace process.. They note, for example, that Jewish American sources have told the Forward and Haaretz that Abrams recently briefed Jewish Republicans and made clear to them that Rice’s efforts were merely a symbolic exercise aimed at showing Arab allies that the U.S. was “doing something,” but that President Bush would ensure that nothing would come of them, in the sense that Israel would not be required to make any concessions.
Whatever the precise breakdown within the Bush Administration, it’s plain that Dahlan, like Pinochet a quarter century, would not move onto a path of confrontation with an elected government unless he believed he had the sanction of powerful forces abroad to do so. If does move to turn the current street battle into a frontal assault on the unity government, chances are it will be because he got a green light from somewhere — and certainly not from Mahmoud Abbas.
But the confrontation under way has assumed a momentum of its own, and it may now be beyond the capability of the Palestinian leadership as a whole to contain it. If that proves true, the petulance that has substituted for policy in the Bush Administration’s response to the 2006 Palestinian election will have succeeded in turning Gaza into Mogadishu. But it may be too much to expect the Administration capable of anything different — after all, they’re still busy turning Mogadishu into Mogadishu all over again.
Tuesday 12 June 2007
Venezuela Launches Sale of "Bolivarian" Computers
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
By: Chris Carlson
Source:
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=2326
Mérida, June 12, 2007 - The Venezuelan government of President Hugo Chavez announced the launch of their "Bolivarian Computers" last week, consisting of four different models produced in Venezuela with Chinese technology. The new computers will run the open-source Linux operating system and will first be used inside the government "missions" and state companies and institutions but eventually are expected to be sold across Venezuela and Latin America.
Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez presented the new machines to the public last week at an event in the state of Falcon as he donated them to a school there. The new computers are produced by the joint venture VIT (Venezuela de Industria Tecnológica), which is owned by the Chinese company Lang Chao and the Venezuelan Ministry of Light Industry and Commerce.
"The price of other similar brands is US$ 930, and the price of our computer is US$ 690, almost 40% less," explained President Chavez. "But, in addition, it has an added value, given that it comes with open-source software and a three year guarantee, while other brands only offer one year."
Production of the models began in the end of 2006 and the first 1,619 units were distributed to students of Integral Medicine in the government program Mission Sucre. Chavez promised last October to give a computer to every one of the 11,100 students in the second year of the new medical education program Integral Community Medicine (MIC) and began to follow through with that promise last May.
"I feel excited because the president came through with his promise, and that makes us be more responsible with the program, more dedicated, since it is a big help that motivates us to keep moving forward," said one student.
Units have also been given to the Urban Transportation Fund, the Agrarian Bank, the national mail service Ipostel, and the Experimental University of Simon Rodriguez.
And although the first units have been donated to the public sector, the new Bolivarian computers will also be sold inside Venezuela and exported.
"We are working with cooperatives and small companies to form our own distribution network," said the manager of sales Eduardo Hernandez. "It's a slow process. This month we have already completed the formation (of a distribution network) in Caracas and by the end of the year we will have distribution and technical support throughout the whole country."
The computer factory is located on the Paraguana Peninsula in the state of Falcon and has an annual capacity of 150,000 units. For this year the factory is expected to assemble 80,000 units and 6,000 laptop computers.
Until now Venezuela has always imported computers both from well-known brands and generic brands from the developed world. With this new venture the Venezuelan government hopes to diversify national production, integrate national productive chains, and work towards technological independence for the country.
According to the web page of the new state company, VIT has the objective of "production, marketing and sale of technological products, with an emphasis in manufacturing and assembling computers and accessories. Our efforts are also focused on national export, with a future projection to the international market."
By the end of the year, the intention is to begin to locally produce some of the technology in order to substitute some of the imported components used in the assembly of the machines for components produced in Venezuela. In order to do this, the government has built installations for research and development in order to design the components inside the same factory.
The company is offering 3 different desktop models and one laptop with a price range of US$ 405 (Bs. 870,750) to US$ 1,400 (Bs. 3,010,000). The processors will range in speed from 1.5 GHz to a 3.0 GHz Intel Pentium IV and the laptop will use a 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor.With respect to the operating system, Venezuela has taken a strong position in favor of open-source software in order to "promote technological development" and help "reach technological independence." For this reason the computers will use the open-source Linux, but the components are also compatible with the Windows operating system.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
By: Chris Carlson
Source:
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=2326
Mérida, June 12, 2007 - The Venezuelan government of President Hugo Chavez announced the launch of their "Bolivarian Computers" last week, consisting of four different models produced in Venezuela with Chinese technology. The new computers will run the open-source Linux operating system and will first be used inside the government "missions" and state companies and institutions but eventually are expected to be sold across Venezuela and Latin America.
Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez presented the new machines to the public last week at an event in the state of Falcon as he donated them to a school there. The new computers are produced by the joint venture VIT (Venezuela de Industria Tecnológica), which is owned by the Chinese company Lang Chao and the Venezuelan Ministry of Light Industry and Commerce.
"The price of other similar brands is US$ 930, and the price of our computer is US$ 690, almost 40% less," explained President Chavez. "But, in addition, it has an added value, given that it comes with open-source software and a three year guarantee, while other brands only offer one year."
Production of the models began in the end of 2006 and the first 1,619 units were distributed to students of Integral Medicine in the government program Mission Sucre. Chavez promised last October to give a computer to every one of the 11,100 students in the second year of the new medical education program Integral Community Medicine (MIC) and began to follow through with that promise last May.
"I feel excited because the president came through with his promise, and that makes us be more responsible with the program, more dedicated, since it is a big help that motivates us to keep moving forward," said one student.
Units have also been given to the Urban Transportation Fund, the Agrarian Bank, the national mail service Ipostel, and the Experimental University of Simon Rodriguez.
And although the first units have been donated to the public sector, the new Bolivarian computers will also be sold inside Venezuela and exported.
"We are working with cooperatives and small companies to form our own distribution network," said the manager of sales Eduardo Hernandez. "It's a slow process. This month we have already completed the formation (of a distribution network) in Caracas and by the end of the year we will have distribution and technical support throughout the whole country."
The computer factory is located on the Paraguana Peninsula in the state of Falcon and has an annual capacity of 150,000 units. For this year the factory is expected to assemble 80,000 units and 6,000 laptop computers.
Until now Venezuela has always imported computers both from well-known brands and generic brands from the developed world. With this new venture the Venezuelan government hopes to diversify national production, integrate national productive chains, and work towards technological independence for the country.
According to the web page of the new state company, VIT has the objective of "production, marketing and sale of technological products, with an emphasis in manufacturing and assembling computers and accessories. Our efforts are also focused on national export, with a future projection to the international market."
By the end of the year, the intention is to begin to locally produce some of the technology in order to substitute some of the imported components used in the assembly of the machines for components produced in Venezuela. In order to do this, the government has built installations for research and development in order to design the components inside the same factory.
The company is offering 3 different desktop models and one laptop with a price range of US$ 405 (Bs. 870,750) to US$ 1,400 (Bs. 3,010,000). The processors will range in speed from 1.5 GHz to a 3.0 GHz Intel Pentium IV and the laptop will use a 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor.With respect to the operating system, Venezuela has taken a strong position in favor of open-source software in order to "promote technological development" and help "reach technological independence." For this reason the computers will use the open-source Linux, but the components are also compatible with the Windows operating system.
Monday 4 June 2007
Overheard In A Montreal Restaurant
May 12, 2007
May 12, 2007
If George Wanker Dumbass Bushpig II -- cocaine-addict, drug-trafficker, and alcohol-induced war monger, war profiteer, war criminal, mass murderer, oil bandit extraordinaire, the Hebrew-whores' Grand Pimp and an international whoremaster, Jewish-cockroach lover, Zionazi-sympathiser, and your general cross-worshipping pagan and Jesus-worshipping heretic, son of Bushpig I -- can put a bounty of US$50 million on the head of Osama Bin Ladin, then why isn't Osama Bin Ladin putting a bounty of $500 million on Bushpig's head, since Bushpig is the bigger piece of shit and Osama is much richer than Bushpig with an estimated net worth of 5 billion dollars? Is it because Osama is too nice a guy to bring himself down to Bushpig's level, or he actually did put a bounty on Bushpig's head but our great and good, free and fair media didn't tell us about it in their unbiased news reports?
Saturday 2 June 2007
Shapur II, Emperor (Shahanhah, King of Kings) of Iran-Persia, 357 CE, Ctesiphon
Shapur II (The Great) was the ninth ruler of the Iranian Sassanid Empire from 309CE to 379CE. During his long reign (seventy years), the Iranian Sassanid Empire saw its first golden era since Shapur I (241CE - 272CE). It is said that Shapur II may have been the only king in history to been crowned in utero: the crown was placed upon his mother's belly. This child, named Shapur, was therefore born Emperor; the government was conducted by his mother and the magnates. But when Shapur II came of age, he turned out to be one of the greatest monarchs of the dynasty and one of the greatest in world history. By his death in 379CE, the Persian Empire was stronger than ever before, considerably larger than when he came to the throne, the eastern enemies were pacified, Rome (Iran's only real rival on the world stage) was forced into several humiliating defeats and treaties, and Persia had gained control over the largest world empire up to that time, an empire about the size of the USA, stretching from Gujrat State in India and modern-day Kyrghistan on the Chinese border to Libya in North Africa, and from Yemen, Oman,and the Gulf Sates on the Arabian Peninsula to the Russian Caucasus republics. It was the mightiest and richest state in world history up to that time, The Superpower of its era.
"I, the embodiment of the Iranian Nation, Land, People, and Religion, and the Ruler or Iran, Shāhanshāh, do hereby Proclaim, in my Imperial Decree, that I do declare of my God-given Right and Imperial Prerogative to do all that I can do and all that must be done to keep my Nation independent, sovereign, and free of any and all foreign invaders an mischief-makers, and that I do declare of my God-given Right and Imperial Prerogative to take the life of any Iranian and all other persons, foreign or domestic, who threaten the independence and integrity, freedom and functions, heritage and wholesomeness, culture and way of life, security and sovereignty of the Iranian Nation, Land, People, and Religion."
Friday 1 June 2007
COMMENTARY
Hang In There, America: Competent Leadership Is Just 600-plus Days Aaway
by: JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY
McClatchy Newspapers
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Source:
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/17240097.htm
So much of what they talked about doing in a new century and a new and different world never came to pass. So much of what they did to grow the power of the presidency and prune the constitutional safeguards crafted by our Founding Fathers, they never talked about.
The American people have turned their backs on Bush and his dreams of planting the seeds of democracy in Mesopotamia at the point of a gun and seeing them spread like kudzu across the Middle East.
He's failed in his quest for victory in Iraq and for a world put in order by a new and stronger United States, and his brash blundering into a dangerous land has made us all much less safe.
The president's approval ratings are below his knees, sinking to 28 percent in one recent poll, and he cannot recover short of the kind of miracle that parts seas and feeds the multitudes.
The war that was never ours to win by military means - the only button this president who never learned war ever learned how to push - is lost. Bush and Cheney and the rest of their cronies and co-conspirators are toast.
The question is: How did such ordinary-looking men - seemingly unable to carry out even the smallest non-political tasks of governing - succeed in doing such extraordinary and lasting damage to our country, our military and our body politic in so few years?
With Congress in the hands of the Democrats, and the 2008 election looming dead ahead, the president can't even count on key figures in his own Republican Party to stand behind him as he embarks on a long and painful lame duckhood.
His hopes of crafting meaningful immigration reform and fixing Social Security are dead on arrival. The legacies that Bush will carry into retirement are the war he started, lost, and stubbornly refused to end, and the corruption that he and his thuggish cronies visited on our democracy and Constitution.
The president's lawyer, "mi abogado," Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, dangles in the wind as we learn, day by day, of how grotesquely this regime politicized the professional staff of the Justice Department.
It was Gonzales, as White House counsel, who provided legal cover for the torture and maltreatment of prisoners and suspects that led directly to the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the CIA's secret Kafkaesque prisons scattered around the world where "enhanced" interrogation methods were generously, if unproductively, employed.
It was Gonzales, as attorney general, who hired and gave unprecedented hiring and firing powers to a 33-year-old attorney, Monica Goodling, who'd graduated from a TV evangelist's law school. It was Goodling who resigned and took the Fifth Amendment to avoid answering questions that hadn't even been asked. It was Goodling who was Justice's liaison to the White House and Karl Rove.
Meantime, the White House can't find 5 million e-mail messages involving official business and refuses to provide many of those it can find to the congressional committees investigating the firing of U.S. attorneys.
The agencies of government - the CIA, FBI, Treasury, Department of Defense and who knows who else - use secret executive authority to suck up databases of personal information about ordinary Americans, without regard to their privacy rights, in a search for suspected terrorists.
Have they found any using that information? Have they unearthed terror cells with more potential than the ones in Florida and New Jersey that were penetrated and perhaps manipulated by FBI informants? That sort of terrorist isn't half so frightening as Bush and his cabinet cronies.
Over in Iraq, 150,000 American troops soldier on, attempting, at the cost of their own lives and limbs, to follow the orders of a president who still thinks he can pull victory out of defeat.
A hopelessly divided Iraqi parliament feuds and dithers and contemplates its summer vacation while Americans and Iraqis die in increasing numbers in the streets outside the Green Zone, and the mortar and rocket fire lands inside that sanctuary with increasing frequency.
Six-hundred-fourteen days, and counting. Nineteen months. It doesn't seem possible or even bearable.
---------------------------
ABOUT THE WRITER
Joseph L. Galloway is former senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers and co-author of the national best-seller "We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young."
Hang In There, America: Competent Leadership Is Just 600-plus Days Aaway
by: JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY
McClatchy Newspapers
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Source:
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/17240097.htm
As of May 17th, there were 613 days left until Jan. 20, 2009, and the end of our long national nightmare as President George W. Bush and his Rasputin, Vice President Dick Cheney, shuffle off to their necessarily well-guarded retirement homes and onto the ash heap of history.
So much of what they talked about doing in a new century and a new and different world never came to pass. So much of what they did to grow the power of the presidency and prune the constitutional safeguards crafted by our Founding Fathers, they never talked about.
The American people have turned their backs on Bush and his dreams of planting the seeds of democracy in Mesopotamia at the point of a gun and seeing them spread like kudzu across the Middle East.
He's failed in his quest for victory in Iraq and for a world put in order by a new and stronger United States, and his brash blundering into a dangerous land has made us all much less safe.
The president's approval ratings are below his knees, sinking to 28 percent in one recent poll, and he cannot recover short of the kind of miracle that parts seas and feeds the multitudes.
The war that was never ours to win by military means - the only button this president who never learned war ever learned how to push - is lost. Bush and Cheney and the rest of their cronies and co-conspirators are toast.
The question is: How did such ordinary-looking men - seemingly unable to carry out even the smallest non-political tasks of governing - succeed in doing such extraordinary and lasting damage to our country, our military and our body politic in so few years?
With Congress in the hands of the Democrats, and the 2008 election looming dead ahead, the president can't even count on key figures in his own Republican Party to stand behind him as he embarks on a long and painful lame duckhood.
His hopes of crafting meaningful immigration reform and fixing Social Security are dead on arrival. The legacies that Bush will carry into retirement are the war he started, lost, and stubbornly refused to end, and the corruption that he and his thuggish cronies visited on our democracy and Constitution.
The president's lawyer, "mi abogado," Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, dangles in the wind as we learn, day by day, of how grotesquely this regime politicized the professional staff of the Justice Department.
It was Gonzales, as White House counsel, who provided legal cover for the torture and maltreatment of prisoners and suspects that led directly to the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the CIA's secret Kafkaesque prisons scattered around the world where "enhanced" interrogation methods were generously, if unproductively, employed.
It was Gonzales, as attorney general, who hired and gave unprecedented hiring and firing powers to a 33-year-old attorney, Monica Goodling, who'd graduated from a TV evangelist's law school. It was Goodling who resigned and took the Fifth Amendment to avoid answering questions that hadn't even been asked. It was Goodling who was Justice's liaison to the White House and Karl Rove.
Meantime, the White House can't find 5 million e-mail messages involving official business and refuses to provide many of those it can find to the congressional committees investigating the firing of U.S. attorneys.
The agencies of government - the CIA, FBI, Treasury, Department of Defense and who knows who else - use secret executive authority to suck up databases of personal information about ordinary Americans, without regard to their privacy rights, in a search for suspected terrorists.
Have they found any using that information? Have they unearthed terror cells with more potential than the ones in Florida and New Jersey that were penetrated and perhaps manipulated by FBI informants? That sort of terrorist isn't half so frightening as Bush and his cabinet cronies.
Over in Iraq, 150,000 American troops soldier on, attempting, at the cost of their own lives and limbs, to follow the orders of a president who still thinks he can pull victory out of defeat.
A hopelessly divided Iraqi parliament feuds and dithers and contemplates its summer vacation while Americans and Iraqis die in increasing numbers in the streets outside the Green Zone, and the mortar and rocket fire lands inside that sanctuary with increasing frequency.
Six-hundred-fourteen days, and counting. Nineteen months. It doesn't seem possible or even bearable.
---------------------------
ABOUT THE WRITER
Joseph L. Galloway is former senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers and co-author of the national best-seller "We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young."
Readers may write to him at:
P.O. Box 399,
Bayside,
Texas 78340
E-mail: jlgalloway2@cs.com
White House Follows New Path To Secrecy
by: PETE YOST (Associated Press Writer)
Friday, June 01, 2007
Source:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070601/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_cheney_secrecy_2
WASHINGTON - A newly disclosed effort to keep Vice President Dick Cheney''s visitor records secret is the latest White House push to make sure the public doesn't learn who has been meeting with top officials in the Bush regime.
Over the past year, lawyers for President Bush and Cheney have directed the Secret Service to maintain the confidentiality of visitor entry and exit logs, declaring them to be presidential records, exempt from a law requiring their disclosure to whoever asks to see them.
The drive to keep the logs secret, the administration says, is essential to assuring that the president and vice president receive candid advice to carry out their duties.
Cabinet officers often don't want to give up their meeting calendars to journalists. They have no choice under the Freedom of Information Act, which provides public access to some records kept by federal agencies.
But the FOIA disclosure law, which doesn't apply to Congress, also doesn't apply to presidential records.
The Bush regime has exploited that difference, triggering a battle in the courts.
The regime is seeking dismissal of two lawsuits by a private group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, demanding Secret Service visitor logs.
In trying to get the cases thrown out, the Justice Department has filed documents in court outlining a behind-the-scenes debate over whether Secret Service records are subject to public disclosure. The discussions date back at least to the administration of President Bush's father and involve the Justice Department and the National Archives as well as the White House and the Secret Service.
The government's court filings show that the Bush White House focused on the issue in the months before Election Day 2004.
Discussions moved into high gear when the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal prompted news organizations and private groups to demand that the administration turn over Secret Service records of visitors to the White House complex and the vice president's residence.There was precedent for the demands.
During the Clinton administration, Republican-controlled congressional committees obtained Secret Service visitor logs while conducting investigations of the president and first lady.
Christopher Lehane, a former special assistant counsel to President and press secretary to then-Vice President Al Gore, points out the political implications of the Bush regime's campaign to close off access to the records.
"The question it raises is 'what are these guys hiding?'" said Lehane, now a Democratic consultant. "They can live with it because they've only got a year or so left, but it doesn't do a lot for public confidence in open government."
White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Thursday, "I can't comment on a case in litigation, and I can't speak to the decisions made by other administrations."
The Bush regime says it is standing on principle.
"It is important that the president be able to receive candid advice from his staff and other members of the administration," Fratto said. "To ensure that he receives candid advice, it is essential as a general matter that the advice remains confidential."
In a declaration filed in court a week ago, Cheney's deputy chief of staff, Claire O'Donnell, stated that "systematic public release of the information regarding when and with whom the vice president and vice presidential personnel conduct meetings would impinge on the ability of the OVP (office of the vice president) to gather information in confidence and perform its essential functions, including assisting the vice president in his critical roles of advising and assisting the president."
In May 2006, the Secret Service and the White House signed a memorandum of understanding designating visitor records as presidential.
They are "not the records of an 'agency' subject to the Freedom of Information Act," says the agreement that was not disclosed until months later, in late 2006. The records are "at all times under the exclusive legal custody and control of the White House."
Four months after the memorandum of agreement, Cheney's counsel wrote the Secret Service, stating that visitor records for the vice president's personal residence "are and shall remain subject to the exclusive ownership, custody and control of OVP."
The Sept. 13, 2006, date on the Cheney letter coincides with requests by The Washington Post seeking records on the vice president's visitors under the Freedom of Information Act.
The law enforcement agency "shall not retain any copy of these documents and information upon return to OVP," stated the letter to the Secret Service's chief counsel.
"If any documents remain in your possession, please return them to OVP as soon as possible," the letter added.
The Justice Department filed the Cheney letter last Friday in one of the lawsuits brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which is invoking the FOIA law in seeking the identities of conservative religious leaders who visited the White House complex and the vice president's residence. The group, which represents Valerie Palme and her husband in their lawsuit against Cheney and other key regime figures in the leak of Plame's CIA identity, also is seeking White House visitor logs in the Abramoff scandal.
According to government documents, the Secret Service routinely destroyed five of eight categories of information relating to visitors to Cheney's residence. Of the records it retained, the Secret Service regularly turned over handwritten visitor logs to Cheney's office.
The Secret Service stopped the destruction in June 2006 because of lawsuits by various groups, according to the court papers. The law enforcement agency also is retaining copies of the material, contrary to the directive in the September 2006 letter from Cheney's counsel.
The court filings by the government show that:
_On three occasions late in the administration of the first President Bush and during the first term of President Clinton, the Secret Service proposed treating copies of White House visitor documents as non-presidential records. In its court filings, the current Bush administration opposes releasing details of the Secret Service proposals, saying this "poses a substantial risk of creating public confusion" because the proposals were never adopted.
_In January 2001, as Clinton prepared to leave office, White House lawyers proposed the transfer of visitor records from the Secret Service to the White House. The proposal was entitled "Disposition of certain presidential records created by the USSS," or the Secret Service. The records are now at the Clinton library in Little Rock, Ark., the National Archives confirmed Thursday.
_In September 2004, a lawyer for the Bush White House and a special assistant to the director of the Secret Service proposed "informal views on one way to address the disposition" of visitor records, according to court documents. The unnamed associate White House counsel and the Secret Service assistant jointly authored a July 29, 2004, document bearing the same title as the Clinton administration document from 3 1/2 years earlier.
_In July 2005, the Secret Service gave a presentation on the issue to the White House counsel's office, the Justice Department and the National Archives.
_On May 11, 2006, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel provided a legal opinion on the issue, which is among the many documents the government is refusing to disclose. Six days later, the White House and the Secret Service signed the agreement designating the records as presidential.
Presidential records are released starting five years after a president leaves office. Under the Presidential Records Act of 1978, non-classified material is disclosed first, with classified documents and advice to the president released later after review by federal agencies, the White House and the former president.
Under an executive order President Bush signed in 2001, the archivist of the United States cannot unilaterally release the records without the permission of the current president, former presidents and their representatives.
"The scary thing about this move by the vice president's office is the power grab part of it," said Tom Blanton, head of the National Security Archive, a private group which uses the FOIA law to pierce government secrecy.
"We're looking at a huge problem if the White House can reach into any agency and say certain records have something to do with the White House and they are presidential from now on," Blanton said. "This White House has been infinitely creative in finding new ways and new forms of government secrecy."
by: PETE YOST (Associated Press Writer)
Friday, June 01, 2007
Source:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070601/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_cheney_secrecy_2
WASHINGTON - A newly disclosed effort to keep Vice President Dick Cheney''s visitor records secret is the latest White House push to make sure the public doesn't learn who has been meeting with top officials in the Bush regime.
Over the past year, lawyers for President Bush and Cheney have directed the Secret Service to maintain the confidentiality of visitor entry and exit logs, declaring them to be presidential records, exempt from a law requiring their disclosure to whoever asks to see them.
The drive to keep the logs secret, the administration says, is essential to assuring that the president and vice president receive candid advice to carry out their duties.
Cabinet officers often don't want to give up their meeting calendars to journalists. They have no choice under the Freedom of Information Act, which provides public access to some records kept by federal agencies.
But the FOIA disclosure law, which doesn't apply to Congress, also doesn't apply to presidential records.
The Bush regime has exploited that difference, triggering a battle in the courts.
The regime is seeking dismissal of two lawsuits by a private group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, demanding Secret Service visitor logs.
In trying to get the cases thrown out, the Justice Department has filed documents in court outlining a behind-the-scenes debate over whether Secret Service records are subject to public disclosure. The discussions date back at least to the administration of President Bush's father and involve the Justice Department and the National Archives as well as the White House and the Secret Service.
The government's court filings show that the Bush White House focused on the issue in the months before Election Day 2004.
Discussions moved into high gear when the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal prompted news organizations and private groups to demand that the administration turn over Secret Service records of visitors to the White House complex and the vice president's residence.There was precedent for the demands.
During the Clinton administration, Republican-controlled congressional committees obtained Secret Service visitor logs while conducting investigations of the president and first lady.
Christopher Lehane, a former special assistant counsel to President and press secretary to then-Vice President Al Gore, points out the political implications of the Bush regime's campaign to close off access to the records.
"The question it raises is 'what are these guys hiding?'" said Lehane, now a Democratic consultant. "They can live with it because they've only got a year or so left, but it doesn't do a lot for public confidence in open government."
White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Thursday, "I can't comment on a case in litigation, and I can't speak to the decisions made by other administrations."
The Bush regime says it is standing on principle.
"It is important that the president be able to receive candid advice from his staff and other members of the administration," Fratto said. "To ensure that he receives candid advice, it is essential as a general matter that the advice remains confidential."
In a declaration filed in court a week ago, Cheney's deputy chief of staff, Claire O'Donnell, stated that "systematic public release of the information regarding when and with whom the vice president and vice presidential personnel conduct meetings would impinge on the ability of the OVP (office of the vice president) to gather information in confidence and perform its essential functions, including assisting the vice president in his critical roles of advising and assisting the president."
In May 2006, the Secret Service and the White House signed a memorandum of understanding designating visitor records as presidential.
They are "not the records of an 'agency' subject to the Freedom of Information Act," says the agreement that was not disclosed until months later, in late 2006. The records are "at all times under the exclusive legal custody and control of the White House."
Four months after the memorandum of agreement, Cheney's counsel wrote the Secret Service, stating that visitor records for the vice president's personal residence "are and shall remain subject to the exclusive ownership, custody and control of OVP."
The Sept. 13, 2006, date on the Cheney letter coincides with requests by The Washington Post seeking records on the vice president's visitors under the Freedom of Information Act.
The law enforcement agency "shall not retain any copy of these documents and information upon return to OVP," stated the letter to the Secret Service's chief counsel.
"If any documents remain in your possession, please return them to OVP as soon as possible," the letter added.
The Justice Department filed the Cheney letter last Friday in one of the lawsuits brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which is invoking the FOIA law in seeking the identities of conservative religious leaders who visited the White House complex and the vice president's residence. The group, which represents Valerie Palme and her husband in their lawsuit against Cheney and other key regime figures in the leak of Plame's CIA identity, also is seeking White House visitor logs in the Abramoff scandal.
According to government documents, the Secret Service routinely destroyed five of eight categories of information relating to visitors to Cheney's residence. Of the records it retained, the Secret Service regularly turned over handwritten visitor logs to Cheney's office.
The Secret Service stopped the destruction in June 2006 because of lawsuits by various groups, according to the court papers. The law enforcement agency also is retaining copies of the material, contrary to the directive in the September 2006 letter from Cheney's counsel.
The court filings by the government show that:
_On three occasions late in the administration of the first President Bush and during the first term of President Clinton, the Secret Service proposed treating copies of White House visitor documents as non-presidential records. In its court filings, the current Bush administration opposes releasing details of the Secret Service proposals, saying this "poses a substantial risk of creating public confusion" because the proposals were never adopted.
_In January 2001, as Clinton prepared to leave office, White House lawyers proposed the transfer of visitor records from the Secret Service to the White House. The proposal was entitled "Disposition of certain presidential records created by the USSS," or the Secret Service. The records are now at the Clinton library in Little Rock, Ark., the National Archives confirmed Thursday.
_In September 2004, a lawyer for the Bush White House and a special assistant to the director of the Secret Service proposed "informal views on one way to address the disposition" of visitor records, according to court documents. The unnamed associate White House counsel and the Secret Service assistant jointly authored a July 29, 2004, document bearing the same title as the Clinton administration document from 3 1/2 years earlier.
_In July 2005, the Secret Service gave a presentation on the issue to the White House counsel's office, the Justice Department and the National Archives.
_On May 11, 2006, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel provided a legal opinion on the issue, which is among the many documents the government is refusing to disclose. Six days later, the White House and the Secret Service signed the agreement designating the records as presidential.
Presidential records are released starting five years after a president leaves office. Under the Presidential Records Act of 1978, non-classified material is disclosed first, with classified documents and advice to the president released later after review by federal agencies, the White House and the former president.
Under an executive order President Bush signed in 2001, the archivist of the United States cannot unilaterally release the records without the permission of the current president, former presidents and their representatives.
"The scary thing about this move by the vice president's office is the power grab part of it," said Tom Blanton, head of the National Security Archive, a private group which uses the FOIA law to pierce government secrecy.
"We're looking at a huge problem if the White House can reach into any agency and say certain records have something to do with the White House and they are presidential from now on," Blanton said. "This White House has been infinitely creative in finding new ways and new forms of government secrecy."
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