News: Asia
» 2008
December 5, 2009
Dr David Kelly: doctors start legal action for new inquest
Six senior doctors have begun legal action to force a new inquest into the death of Dr David Kelly, the scientist who died days after being exposed as the source of a controversial BBC story on the Iraq war. The action is being taken because six doctors are convinced that the original verdict of suicide is unsafe and should be overturned. Some suspect that Dr Kelly, 59, was murdered shortly after it was revealed that he was the source of a BBC story which alleged that evidence against Iraq had been "sexed up" by the Government in order to justify the 2003 invasion. The body of Dr Kelly, who was a UN weapons inspector, was found more than six years ago in woods near his Oxfordshire home after he went out for a walk. His wrist had been slashed.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
December 1, 2009
Blair may have ‘signed in blood’ to topple Saddam a year before war
Tony Blair and President Bush might have secretly “signed in blood” a deal to overthrow Saddam Hussein a year before ordering the Iraq war, according to a former senior diplomat. Sir Christopher Meyer, Britain’s Ambassador to Washington in the run-up to the war, said an agreement to aim for “regime change” may have been reached during a private meeting at the President’s Crawford ranch in April 2002.
Read article in the Tehran Times (Iran)
November 30, 2009
Iraq inquiry: The 'just war' that was illegal and immoral
Tony Blair, with a truly toxic mixture of sanctimoniousness and wealth-enhancing chutzpah, has always maintained that his Iraq invasion was a just war. He has held to this shibboleth with trembling lip and quasi-religious conviction. But the letter to him from Lord Goldsmith, which emerged at the weekend, changes everything. Dated July 29, 2002, a full eight months before Blair launched his grotesque Middle-eastern misadventure, the then Attorney General wrote to tell him that such an invasion would be illegal under international law. It is in the bundle of documents at the Chilcot inquiry, to be addressed when the former prime minister, abortive President of Europe and putative Middle East peace envoy gives evidence to it in the new year.
Read article by George Pitcher in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
November 24, 2009
Iran gains $5b on dollar to euro shift
Iran has gained $5 billion through its policy of shifting away from the U.S. currency in favor of the euro, Central Bank Governor Mahmoud Bahmani was quoted as saying on Monday. “Iran has considerably reduced the amount of U.S. dollars in its currency basket,” said Mahmoud Bahmani in Tehran at the 3rd Seminar on Banking Services and Export, Press TV reported. Since October 2007, Iran has received 85 percent of its oil revenues in currencies other than the U.S. dollar, and “the country expresses determination to substitute the greenback for the remaining 15 percent of its oil revenues.”
Read article in the Tehran Times (Iran)
November 15, 2009
Big rise in birth defects may be linked to war
BIRTH defects in Falluja have increased to 15 times the normal rate, in a spike that may be linked to the Iraq War. Early-life cancers have also risen, possibly in connection with toxic materials left over from battles. Detailed clinical records of all newborns are being compiled after the extraordinary rise was spotted. Defects include a baby born with two heads and babies with multiple tumours or nervous system problems. Neurologists and obstetricians in the city say the rise is unprecedented. Iraqi and British officials have petitioned the United Nations to ask for an independent investigation and for help to clean up toxic materials.
Read article on the Scotland on Sunday website (Scotland/UK)
November 14, 2009
South Korean Teenager Jumps From Apartment Window After Taking Tamiflu
A South Korean teenager who took Tamiflu, an antiviral drug, leaped from an apartment window after suffering from auditory hallucination, China's Xinhua news agency said citing a local media report on Saturday.
Read article on the website of the Malaysian National News Agency
November 12, 2009
British ex-PM Blair faces Iraq inquiry next year
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair will face questioning next year about Britain's entry into the Iraq war from a committee which has heard the decision was illegal and based on deception, its chairman said on Friday. The order to send 45,000 British troops to take part in the 2003 invasion to topple Saddam Hussein has always been controversial and led to massive anti-war protests in London. During meetings with the inquiry committee held before the formal hearings begin, relatives of British soldiers killed during the conflict accused Blair of taking Britain into an illegal war and deceiving the public.
Read news report at reuters.com
November 10, 2009
First Obama envoy to visit North Korea
WASHINGTON — The new US administration will send its first mission to North Korea to jumpstart denuclearization talks, officials confirmed Tuesday, saying the visit was likely before year end. "After careful consideration and extensive consultation among our allies and partners, we have told North Korea that we are prepared for Ambassador Bosworth and a small interagency team to visit Pyongyang at an appropriate time not yet determined," State Department spokesman P.J Crowley said. North Korea has invited special envoy Stephen Bosworth to visit for talks to end what it calls Washington's "hostile" policy toward the communist state.
Read AFP news report at google.com
October 27, 2009
Brother of Afghan Leader Is Said to Be on C.I.A. Payroll
Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials. The agency pays Mr. Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the C.I.A.’s direction in and around the southern city of Kandahar, Mr. Karzai’s home. The financial ties and close working relationship between the intelligence agency and Mr. Karzai raise significant questions about America’s war strategy, which is currently under review at the White House.
Read article in the New York Times (USA)
October 25, 2009
Asean working on EU-style bloc
Leaders of East Asian countries have laid the groundwork for a European Union-style bloc that will cover half the world's population, analysts and officials say. Discussions on the grand project began on Saturday during the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit, which opened at the Thai beach resort of Hua Hin on Friday. Rodolfo Severino, Asean's former secretary-general, told the AFP news agency: "It is coming together." The proposal for the so-called East Asian Community project was mooted by Yukio Hatoyama, the Japanese prime minister, to fellow leaders at the summit, saying the region should aspire to "lead the world".
Read article at aljazeera.net
Comment: Informed citizens of East Asia who are aware of the facts about the European Union may well be deeply concerned that their leaders are modelling this project upon it.
October 7, 2009
Most 'remain against Afghan war'
Most people in the UK continue to oppose Britain's military operations in Afghanistan, a BBC survey suggests. Of 1,010 people polled on the eighth anniversary of the start of operations, 56% were opposed, 37% in favour, 6% unsure and 1% refused to answer.
Read article on the BBC News website (UK)
October 6, 2009
The demise of the dollar
In a graphic illustration of the new world order, Arab states have launched secret moves with China, Russia and France to stop using the US currency for oil trading.
In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar. Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars. The plans, confirmed to The Independent by both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong, may help to explain the sudden rise in gold prices, but it also augurs an extraordinary transition from dollar markets within nine years.
Read article in The Independent (UK)
September 17, 2009
Obama shelves Europe missile plan
US President Barack Obama has shelved plans for controversial bases in Poland and the Czech Republic in a major overhaul of missile defence in Europe.
Read article on the BBC News website (UK)
September 15, 2009
Genetic engineering now an issue for five neighbouring Asian countries
Viet Nam is one of five neighbouring nations considering issuing a declaration against the use of genetically modified soybeans. This was announced at the second annual conference of the so-called Greater Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta Sub-region (GMS) a the weekend. At the meeting, Viet Nam reported that several non-modified varieties of rice, soybean and potatoes it had received from other members had brought promising results. The move to ban transgenic materials was made by Thailand, one of the six members of the GMS. Thailand is one of the growing number of nations throughout the world that has banned the importation of transgenic soybeans for any purpose. The other members of the group are Viet Nam, Myanmar, Thailand, China and Laos.
Read article on the Vietnam News Agency website
September 6, 2009
China alarmed by US money printing
The US Federal Reserve's policy of printing money to buy Treasury debt threatens to set off a serious decline of the dollar and compel China to redesign its foreign reserve policy, according to a top member of the Communist hierarchy.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
September 3, 2009
Living with Cheney's poisonous legacy
Nine years on, 'war on terror' policies still haunt the US and its allies. Who will stand up to challenge the ex-VP's recklessness?
The former US vice-president Dick Cheney is almost as busy now as he was when he was running the United States and its wars. Most of his effort, repeated and of course unchallenged on Fox News last Sunday, is devoted to an open and unapologetic defence of torture, aka "enhanced interrogation techniques", which he says have "prevented the violent death of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people". He should have said "other people" or "more people", because thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people have indeed died as a result of the full-scale Bush-Cheney wars unleashed in response to the 9/11 atrocities, as if fighting crime with crime, mass murder with mass murder, was the obvious and right thing to do.
Read article in the Guardian (UK)
August 27, 2009
US to abandon Polish-Czech missile shield, lobbyist says
The United States has all-but abandoned plans to house anti-missile bases in Poland and the Czech republic, according to a senior White House lobbyist. Riki Ellison, the chairman of the 10,000 member-strong Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, said in Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza on Thursday (26 August) that the US has changed its mind to avoid a rift with Russia and is now looking at Israel, Turkey, the Balkans or ship-borne facilities instead. "The signals given by generals from the Pentagon are clear: the current US government is looking for different solutions on the question of missile defence than Poland and the Czech republic," he said. "The new [US] team is paying more attention to Russian arguments," he added.
Read article at euobserver.com
August 19, 2009
A Nuremberg for Guantánamo
AT the end of World War II, the Allied powers found themselves in charge of thousands of captured enemies, many of whom had committed unspeakable crimes. Some among the victors thought that the prisoners should simply be shot. Others, including many in the American government, steadfastly insisted that these men should be subjected to criminal proceedings. Thus the Nuremberg trials were born, tribunals that meted out justice for some of the 20th century’s worst atrocities while demonstrating the return of the rule of law on the European continent and the superiority of democratic values over Fascist lunacies. The Guantánamo detainees pose a similar conundrum today.
Read Op-Ed article by Guénaël Mettraux in the New York Times (USA)
Comment: As Guénaël Mettraux points out in this article, by giving a fair trial to the Guantánamo detainees, the United States would reassert its core values and bring the nation back within the tradition of law and justice that it so forcefully defended during WWII and the subsequent Nuremberg trials. In the same way, the principle of law and justice forms the backbone of the campaign for a trial against the pharmaceutical drug cartel. “A Nuremberg for the Pharma Cartel” would ensure that the fraudulent business model of the pharmaceutical drug cartel is finally ended and that the health and interests of six billion people and all future generations would be placed above those of the special interests behind the business with disease. To learn what you can do to help bring about such a trial, click here. To send your personal testimony, click here.
August 18, 2009
US
military deaths in Iraq war at 4,332
As of Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2009, at least 4,332 members of the U.S. military had died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Read article in the Washington Post (USA)
Comment: Tragic and unnecessary though they are, the number of military deaths in the Iraq war are dwarfed by the number of civilians who have lost their lives as a result of the George Bush/Tony Blair-led invasion. Even by September 2007, estimates suggested that more than 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens had been murdered since the invasion took place in 2003.
August 10, 2009
Chemical companies, US authorities knew dangers of Agent Orange
Those responsible for exposing Vietnamese citizens and US troops to toxic defoliants kept silent about known health implications, a review of documents finds. US chemical companies that made Agent Orange and the government and military authorities who ordered its spraying on Vietnam knew the human health toll it could take, according to official and unofficial documents detailing the history of the deadly defoliant. A review of the documents related to the use of Agent Orange – a dioxin-laden herbicide – in Vietnam, including decades-old declassified papers from the companies that manufactured it and the government and military that used it, provides compelling evidence that those in charge also concealed evidence of the devastating effects it could have on people.
Read article in the Thanh Nien Daily (Vietnam)
July 19, 2009
Calls for probe into Dr. Kelly's 'suicide'
A US Air Force linguist joins a host of doctors in demanding a new probe into the mysterious death of a British scientist and weapons expert who opposed the Iraq war. The controversy surrounding Dr. David Kelly's death was first rekindled following a Daily Express report in June that revealed the expert was in the middle of writing a book containing damaging government secrets on the Iraq war as well as biological warfare in apartheid South Africa. The linguist, Mai Pederson, who was part of Kelly's weapons inspection team in Iraq, has called on the Attorney General for England, Wales and Northern Ireland to carry out an 'independent' review of the case, reported the Mail on Sunday.
Read article on the Press TV website (Iran)
July 15, 2009
‘Drug firm offered posters to Arroyo’
MANILA, Philippines — A party-list representative said that the pharmaceutical firm Pfizer also offered to produce promotional posters of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Health Secretary Francisco Duque III. Citing confidential sources, Akbayan Rep. Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel on Wednesday said this was on top of the five million discount cards it proposed to give the government in exchange for not implementing sections of the law on affordable medicines. Baraquel said the posters were part of the offer Pfizer had made to the government in a purported attempt to derail the implementation of an order that would forbid its discount card program.
Read article in the Philippine Daily Inquirer
July 10, 2009
Medvedev given first coin of future supranational currency at G8
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Friday he had been given an example coin of a possible global currency at the G8 summit in Italy, adding that all aspects of reserve currencies were under discussion. "We are discussing both the use of other national currencies, including the ruble, as a reserve currency, as well as supranational currencies," the Russian leader said at a news conference following the G8 summit. Medvedev showed reporters an example of a coin of a supranational currency, which he called a "united future world currency."
Read article on the RIA Novosti website (Russia)
July 5, 2009
Kelly’s Book Of Secrets
Weapons inspector David Kelly was writing a book exposing highly damaging government secrets before his mysterious death. He was intending to reveal that he warned Prime Minister Tony Blair there were no weapons of mass destruction anywhere in Iraq weeks before the British and American invasion. He had several discussions with a publisher in Oxford and was seeking advice on how far he could go without breaking the law on secrets. Following his death, his computers were seized and it is still not known if any rough draft was discovered by investigators and, if so, what happened to the material. Dr Kelly was also intending to lift the lid on a potentially bigger scandal, his own secret dealings in germ warfare with the apartheid regime in South Africa.
Read article in the Daily Express (UK)
July 1, 2009
Russia, U.S. arms reduction deal closer than expected – diplomat
Russia and the United States have made more significant progress in the preparation of a new strategic arms reduction treaty than the sides expected, a Russian deputy foreign minister said on Wednesday. "Progress is more significant than we expected when we started the talks on the issue," Sergei Ryabkov said in an interview with RIA Novosti prior to the visit of U.S. President Barack Obama to Russia on July 6-8. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Obama agreed in April to launch discussions on a new agreement to replace the START 1 treaty, which expires in December.
Read article on the RIA Novosti website (Russia)
June 21, 2009
Tony Blair pushed Gordon Brown to hold Iraq war inquiry in private
• Former PM feared facing 'show trial'
• Leak reveals plan to provoke invasion
Tony Blair urged Gordon Brown to hold the independent inquiry into the Iraq war in secret because he feared that he would be subjected to a "show trial" if it were opened to the public, the Observer can reveal. The revelation that the former prime minister - who led Britain to war in March 2003 - had intervened will fuel the anger of MPs, peers, military leaders and former civil servants, who were appalled by Brown's decision last week to order the investigation to be conducted behind closed doors. Blair, who resisted pressure for a full public inquiry while he was prime minister, appears to have taken a deliberate decision not to express his view in person to Brown because he feared it might leak out. Instead, messages on the issue were relayed through others to Sir Gus O'Donnell, the cabinet secretary, who conveyed them to the prime minister in the days leading up to the announcement of the inquiry last week.
Read article in the Observer (UK)
Comment: With more than one million Iraqi citizens having been murdered since the American and British-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, reports suggest Blair is desperate to avoid the inquiry being held in public as it would damage his ambitions of becoming EU president.
June 21, 2009
Confidential memo reveals US plan to provoke an invasion of Iraq
A confidential record of a meeting between President Bush and Tony Blair before the invasion of Iraq, outlining their intention to go to war without a second United Nations resolution, will be an explosive issue for the official inquiry into the UK's role in toppling Saddam Hussein. The memo, written on 31 January 2003, almost two months before the invasion and seen by the Observer, confirms that as the two men became increasingly aware UN inspectors would fail to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD) they had to contemplate alternative scenarios that might trigger a second resolution legitimising military action. Bush told Blair the US had drawn up a provocative plan "to fly U2 reconnaissance aircraft painted in UN colours over Iraq with fighter cover". Bush said that if Saddam fired at the planes this would put the Iraqi leader in breach of UN resolutions.
Read article in the Observer (UK)
Comment: This year, the Dutch government launched its own inquiry into its support for the war; significantly, this will see all the intelligence shared with the Dutch intelligence services by the UK intelligence services. The Dutch inquiry intends to publish its report in November – thus suggesting that confidential information about the role played by the UK and the US could become public before the results of the UK inquiry are published next year.
June 15, 2009
Outcry over Government's decision to hold Iraq war inquiry in secret
Gordon Brown ran into fresh trouble today as he announced that the long-awaited Iraq war inquiry would be held in secret.
Read article in The Times (UK)
Comment: A study conducted by the prestigious British polling group, Opinion Research Business (ORB), suggests that more than one million Iraqi citizens have been murdered since the U.S. and U.K invasion in 2003. As such, we can only conclude that by deciding to hold this inquiry in private, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is attempting to cover up evidence that the perpetrators of this war are guilty of war crimes.
June 11, 2009
Russia to make WTO bid jointly with Belarus and Kazakhstan
After 16 years of touch-and-go accession talks with the WTO, the Russian authorities have decided to stop the process of individual accession and make a joint bid with Belarus and Kazakhstan instead. The decision was announced at a meeting of their Customs Union on June 9. Later that day, the meeting of the Eurasian Economic Community established Eurasec’s Anti-crisis Fund to the amount of $10 billion. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on June 9 after a meeting of the Customs Union’s Supreme Body that Russia would no longer have to negotiate accession to the World Trade Organization as an independent state. “WTO accession remains a joint priority for us,” he said. Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan are still seeking WTO entry, “but as a united customs union, not as separate countries.” However, they first need to formalize their union, which is to become operational on January 1, 2010, when its common customs tariff will be applied.
Read article on the RIA Novosti website (Russia)
June 8, 2009
US denies N Korea invasion plans
The US has no plans to invade North Korea or topple the country's government by force, the Obama administration's top disarmament envoy has said. The comments from Stephen Bosworth came as North Korea warned it would use its nuclear weapons in a "merciless offensive". Speaking in New York on Tuesday, Bosworth rejected the North's claim to be responding to a threat or hostile policy by the US as "simply groundless". He added that "negotiations and dialogue are the best means to achieve the goal of complete and verifiable denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula."
Read article at aljazeera.net
May 5, 2009
Russia's Medvedev welcomes new U.S. stance on missile defense
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev welcomed on Tuesday the readiness of the new U.S. administration to take on board Moscow's objections to the deployment of a U.S. missile shield in Central Europe. Moscow considers Washington's plans to deploy a tracking radar in the Czech Republic and interceptormissiles in Poland to be a threat to Russian security. The United States has argued the facilities are necessary to guard against the threat of missile attacks from states such as Iran. "I am pleased that our American partners are showing willingness to discuss this issue rather than take a stubborn stance and deploy [the shield] no matter what," Medvedev said at a meeting with A Just Russia party activists.
Read article on the RIA Novosti website (Russia)
April 24, 2009
Russia, U.S. to hold full-scale arms reduction talks in mid-May
Russian-U.S. negotiations on a new strategic arms reduction treaty will take place in May in Washington, a Russian Foreign Ministry official said on Friday. The Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty (START 1), signed in 1991, obliges Russia and the United States to reduce nuclear warheads to 6,000 and their delivery vehicles to 1,600 each. The treaty expires on December 5 this year. "The first round of full-scale negotiations between Russia and the United States on a [new] strategic arms reduction treaty will be held in mid-May in Washington," said Anatoly Antonov, director of the Foreign Ministry's department for security and disarmament, who led the Russian delegation at the U.S. Embassy in Rome earlier on Friday.
Read article on the RIA Novosti website (Russia)
April 17, 2009
Moscow irked by NATO exercises in Georgia
NATO's decision to hold exercises in Georgia next month threatens to complicate ties with Russia, the Russian president said on Friday. The Cooperative Longbow 09/Cooperative Lancer 09 command-and-staff exercise, led by the Western military bloc, will be held from May 6 through June 1, and will not feature light or heavy weaponry. "Such decisions are disappointing and do nothing to help restore full-level contacts between the Russian Federation and NATO," Dmitry Medvedev said.
Read article on the RIA Novosti website (Russia)
March 23, 2009
China ready to discuss new reserve currency at G20 summit
China is ready to discuss Russia's proposal of a new global reserve currency as an alternative to the U.S. dollar at the G20 summit in London, a vice governor of the country's Central Bank said on Monday. Russia earlier submitted a proposal to the G20 summit which could see the IMF examining possibilities for creating a supra-national reserve currency, and also forcing national banks and international financial institutions to diversify their foreign currency reserves.
Read article on the RIA Novosti website (Russia)
March 9, 2009
NK Threatens War Over Satellite Shootdown
North Korea Monday threatened to retaliate if anyone tries to shoot down a satellite it plans to launch, saying interfering with the country's peaceful space activity would mean war. The statement comes as South Korea and the United States began their annual war drill Monday, in what could be an indication that North Korea may try to launch the supposed satellite during the joint exercise that will continue through March 20, Yonhap News Agency reported. "We will retaliate any act of intercepting our satellite for peaceful purposes with prompt counter strikes by the most powerful military means," a spokesman for the General Staff of the Korean People's Army was quoted as saying, specifically naming South Korea, the U.S. and Japan. "Shooting our satellite for peaceful purposes will precisely mean a war," the spokesman said in a statement carried in English by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
Read article in the Korea Times (South Korea)
February 18, 2009
Blair’s reward for having the ‘right’ foreign policy
So, Tony Blair has been awarded a $1m prize for "his exceptional leadership and steadfast determination in helping to engineer agreements and forge lasting solutions to areas in conflict". Some will argue that Blair should be on trial for war crimes, not receiving prizes. Others will say that the award, made by the Dan David Foundation of Tel Aviv, is a huge own goal for Israel because it sinks the country's international standing even lower after its actions in Gaza. But they are missing the point. The award - along with many of the other riches which have come Blair's way since he left Downing Street - is the payback for doing 'the right thing' by way of the US and Israel while he was in office.
Read article by Neil Clark on the First Post magazine website (UK)
February 7, 2009
Biden Signals U.S. Is Open to Russia Missile Deal
MUNICH — Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said Saturday that the United States will pursue a missile defense plan that has angered the Kremlin, but he also left open the possibility of compromise on the issue and struck a more conciliatory tone than the Bush administration on relations with Russia. “It is time to press the reset button and to revisit the many areas where we can and should be working together with Russia,” Mr. Biden said in a speech at a security conference here attended by global leaders and diplomats.
Read article in the New York Times (USA)
January 30, 2009
N. Korea revives Cold War tensions with border threats
With threats to scrap a fundamental accord safeguarding against inter-Korean military clashes, North Korea revived Cold War era tensions on Friday, sending an ultimatum to Seoul's government: Withdraw your hard-line policy or face a possible clash. The warning comes as the new U.S. administration is reviewing policy on North Korea, a timing that appeared to be also an attempt to draw Washington's attention to stalled nuclear negotiations, analysts said. Whether Pyongyang will immediately try a military provocation is uncertain, but analysts cautioned Seoul to be on full alert along a volatile inter-Korean sea border where bloody skirmishes occurred in 1999 and 2002.
Read article on the Yonhap news agency website (South Korea)
January 19, 2009
Arab states say Israel used ammo in Gaza that contained depleted uranium
Arab nations accused Israel on Monday of blasting Gaza with ammunition containing depleted uranium, and urged the International Atomic Energy Agency to investigate reports that traces of it had been found in victims of the shelling. In a letter on behalf of Arab ambassadors accredited in Austria, Saudi ambassador Prince Mansour Al-Saud expressed "our deep concern regarding the information ... that traces of depleted uranium have been found in Palestinian victims."
Read article at haaretz.com
January 14, 2009
Military Planners, in Nod to Obama, Are Preparing for a Faster Iraq Withdrawal
Military commanders are drawing up plans for a faster withdrawal of American troops from Iraq in anticipation that President-elect Barack Obama will reject current proposals as too slow, Pentagon and military officials said Wednesday.
Read article in the New York Times (USA)
January 13, 2009
Bush gives Blair highest US civilian honour
Former prime minister receives presidential medal of freedom for 'efforts to promote democracy and peace abroad'
George Bush presented Tony Blair with the presidential medal of freedom, the highest honour awarded to civilians in the United States, at a ceremony at the White House today. The former prime minister received the medal for "efforts to promote democracy, human rights and peace abroad", the White House said.
Read article in The Guardian (UK)
Comment: Together with George Bush, Blair has been responsible for the deaths of more than one million people in Iraq. As such, rather than being given a medal, he should be put on trial for war crimes.
January 5, 2009
Leader tells Iraq PM: U.S. promises should not be trusted
Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei on Sunday expressed concern about a security deal signed between Iraq and the United States, saying Iraq will see no carefree time as long as the U.S. occupies the country.
Read article in the Tehran Times (Iran)