Britain faced threats from Libya that it would cut all ties with the country if the ailing Lockerbie bomber died in prison in Scotland, confidential US cables released by WikiLeaks show.
Libyan officials warned their British counterparts that "consequences for the UK-Libya bilateral relationship would be dire were [Abdelbaset] al-Megrahi to die in Scottish prison," read one dispatch from the US ambassador to Tripoli in January 2009.
Threats included the cessation of all British commercial activity in Libya and demonstrations against British facilities, as well as suggestions Britons in the country could be put at risk, according to the cables released on Tuesday.
It went on to say that if Washington publicly opposed the release, "the US Embassy and private Americans in Libya could face similar consequences".
And despite London's attempts to publicly distance itself from the decision to release al-Megrahi, which was made by the devolved Scottish government, the cables showed the British ambassador in Tripoli "expressed relief" about al-Megrahi's imminent release.
"They could have cut us off at the knees, just like the Swiss," the ambassador, Vincent Fean, is cited as saying, in reference to a dispute between Libya and Switzerland prompted by the arrest of the Libyan leader's son.
Compassionate release
Al-Megrahi was the only person ever convicted over the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jumbo jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people, most of them US nationals.
He was released in August, 2009, on compassionate grounds after doctors diagnosed him with prostate cancer and gave him just three months to live, sparking outrage in the US.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/12/20101286931729749.html
The Russian Army In Chechnya
The armed conflict in Chechnya that began in September 1999 is well into its fourth year. Despite repeated pledges by the authorities in Moscow that they would do their best to improve the human rights situation and stop the constant abuse of civilians by members of the federal military and security forces, the atrocities continue, apparently unabated.
As far as is known, no high-ranking Russian officer has been meaningfully punished for allowing or participating in the abuse of civilians or the mistreatment of separatist combatants who have been taken prisoner. In December 2002 the most publicized case of a Russian officer to face charges over conduct in Chechnya - the prosecution of the tank regiment commander Colonel Yuri Budanov, accused of strangling an 18-year old Chechen girl in 2000 - ended with the defendant acquitted on the grounds of temporary insanity. Following an international outcry, the Russian Supreme Court overturned the verdict in February 2003 and has ordered a retrial.
Budanov’s initial acquittal by a military court seemed like a signal to Russian commanding officers and security service officials that killing Chechen civilians was acceptable and that no one would be seriously punished, no matter what they did. At the same time, it is clear that continued massive mistreatment of the Chechen population is undermining the Kremlin’s policy of trying to pacify the rebellious republic. Virtually all outside observers, including many influential members of the military and political elite in Moscow, agree that the continuing abuse of civilians by the military and security forces is the main source of support for the rebel movement – helping it to recruit more young men and women to fight for the cause to revenge dead relatives.
http://www.crimesofwar.org/chechnya-mag/chech-felgenhauer.html
As far as is known, no high-ranking Russian officer has been meaningfully punished for allowing or participating in the abuse of civilians or the mistreatment of separatist combatants who have been taken prisoner. In December 2002 the most publicized case of a Russian officer to face charges over conduct in Chechnya - the prosecution of the tank regiment commander Colonel Yuri Budanov, accused of strangling an 18-year old Chechen girl in 2000 - ended with the defendant acquitted on the grounds of temporary insanity. Following an international outcry, the Russian Supreme Court overturned the verdict in February 2003 and has ordered a retrial.
Budanov’s initial acquittal by a military court seemed like a signal to Russian commanding officers and security service officials that killing Chechen civilians was acceptable and that no one would be seriously punished, no matter what they did. At the same time, it is clear that continued massive mistreatment of the Chechen population is undermining the Kremlin’s policy of trying to pacify the rebellious republic. Virtually all outside observers, including many influential members of the military and political elite in Moscow, agree that the continuing abuse of civilians by the military and security forces is the main source of support for the rebel movement – helping it to recruit more young men and women to fight for the cause to revenge dead relatives.
http://www.crimesofwar.org/chechnya-mag/chech-felgenhauer.html
Born Free to Fight Oppression
When my young ones were only a few days old. I remember my mom showed me a way to strap them with a blanket when they sleep as so they can sleep better at night. Me I thought to my self " that's a great idea to also strengthen their tiny bodies with their own resistance force". The blanket was very small and just made it around them, so with enough work they always broke free, but it was very intriguing to see how much effort they would put in to be free. I was found of it, taken by it and logically this infant which is at a COMPLETE STATE OF PURITY is resisting the oppressor which is the blanket. Amazed how every time they fought and never gave up. It was obvious that their Nature was calling out " resist your oppressor, your born Free".
Humanity has overcome many overwhelming odds to make it to our modern age.No body really specifically knows exactly when mankind began or where exactly. Many leading sciences lead to Africa as the birth place of humanity. I believe that naturally makes sense, since it is a warm climate and very fitting to suit human beings. Furthermore the past 100 years have changed things DRAMATICALLY which showed how deadly mankind can be against itself in displaying a figure no lower then 150 to 200 million death. All at the hands of human beings, regardless of ideology, regime, system, religion or color and race. One thing for sure, we know that those who were on the offensive had evil plots behind all their work and humanity was compromised as being of no value, tools of slavery, money makers, under-paid, under-appreciated, money slaved driven societies.
Born Free to Fight Oppression
Subscribe to Mo5lim by Email
Humanity has overcome many overwhelming odds to make it to our modern age.No body really specifically knows exactly when mankind began or where exactly. Many leading sciences lead to Africa as the birth place of humanity. I believe that naturally makes sense, since it is a warm climate and very fitting to suit human beings. Furthermore the past 100 years have changed things DRAMATICALLY which showed how deadly mankind can be against itself in displaying a figure no lower then 150 to 200 million death. All at the hands of human beings, regardless of ideology, regime, system, religion or color and race. One thing for sure, we know that those who were on the offensive had evil plots behind all their work and humanity was compromised as being of no value, tools of slavery, money makers, under-paid, under-appreciated, money slaved driven societies.
Born Free to Fight Oppression
Subscribe to Mo5lim by Email
Palestinian prisoners protest inhumane Israeli punishment
Palestinian prisoners protest inhumane Israeli punishmentThe Ministry of Prisoner Affairs for the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah has warned of an 'explosion' of the situation within Israeli prisons, given the systemic conduct of collective punishment of detainees exercised in most Israeli jails.
In a press release issued on Monday (26.07.2010), the ministry stated that the management of Israel's Prison Service continues to enforce repressive policies against Palestinian detainees who have in turn responded by escalating their active objection.
The ministry's lawyers explained that all detainees of the Ramon prison have recently begun a partial hunger strike in protest at the sudden campaign of carrying out night searches. 11 detainees of the Eshel prison have also taken the same step in objection to the collective punishment they are all subjected to; they are banned from receiving visitors for 6 months - a measure that was taken after the prison management found a cell phone on one of the detainees.
A detainee of the Israeli Shata prison has said that special army units carry out inspection campaigns that usually last for four consecutive hours, during which time prisoners' personal effects are tampered with and some items are even confiscated - searches are carried out on the pretext of searching for cell phones.
In the Gilbo'a prison five detainees have been prevented from receiving visitors while electric fans have been confiscated and all inmates have been stopped from taking part in any sports for two months without reason.
The Ministry also mentioned that detainees in Ofer prison said that the prison's management has installed distraction devices which make noises that continuously irritate prisoners and cause mental and physical disorders. According to the ministry, Ofer's prisoners have demanded that Israeli authorities be pressured into removing these devices which are spread all over the prison.
Source
In a press release issued on Monday (26.07.2010), the ministry stated that the management of Israel's Prison Service continues to enforce repressive policies against Palestinian detainees who have in turn responded by escalating their active objection.
The ministry's lawyers explained that all detainees of the Ramon prison have recently begun a partial hunger strike in protest at the sudden campaign of carrying out night searches. 11 detainees of the Eshel prison have also taken the same step in objection to the collective punishment they are all subjected to; they are banned from receiving visitors for 6 months - a measure that was taken after the prison management found a cell phone on one of the detainees.
A detainee of the Israeli Shata prison has said that special army units carry out inspection campaigns that usually last for four consecutive hours, during which time prisoners' personal effects are tampered with and some items are even confiscated - searches are carried out on the pretext of searching for cell phones.
In the Gilbo'a prison five detainees have been prevented from receiving visitors while electric fans have been confiscated and all inmates have been stopped from taking part in any sports for two months without reason.
The Ministry also mentioned that detainees in Ofer prison said that the prison's management has installed distraction devices which make noises that continuously irritate prisoners and cause mental and physical disorders. According to the ministry, Ofer's prisoners have demanded that Israeli authorities be pressured into removing these devices which are spread all over the prison.
Source
From the 1953 CIA Overthrow of Democracy in Iran, to the Iraq War, to the Criminal Gulf Catastrophe and Deaths, BP Was There
f you were to draw an oily line from the first exploitation of oil in the Middle East by the British in 1901 (they were in the process of converting their then world dominating naval fleet from coal to oil and were in desperate need of it) to the overthrow of the secular democratic leader in Iran, Mohammed Mossadeq, in 1953, to the Iraq War, to the criminal environmental catastrophe in the Gulf, BP would have been there.
But the fourth largest company in the world wasn't always called BP. It used to be owned by the British Government (remember the navy armada in need of oil). It was named the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company when the CIA teamed up with the British because the Western style Iranian leader Mossadeq wanted to nationalize Britain's 100% owned and run giant oil concession in Iran, and the West would have none of that. So Eisenhower authorized "Operation Ajax," and the Shah of Iran was placed in power -- ruling with an iron fist and the dreaded SAVAK, all the time fully backed by the U.S. -- leading to the radical theocratic revolution that we still confront today. All the time BP, which formally adopted its current name in 1954, was there.
BP was there throughout the de facto colonization of the Middle East to provide oil to the West, the British and the U.S. remaining strong partners in keeping any recalcitrant nations in line. Which leads to the Iraq War and why many Americans and Brits were puzzled by Tony Blair's eagerness to go along with Cheney's secret oil committee plan to seize Iraq oil fields and Bush's belief that the war was Biblically justified. BP is the largest corporation in the UK and the third largest energy company. Do you have any more questions?
BP and its American counterparts are part of the corporate oligarchy that run governments when it comes to energy policy. They don't take orders from sovereign nations; they give them. They are unelected, but because of their hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue and profit, they run the show when it comes to oil policy, and profit comes first: forget about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Oil is their gold; we are just consumers who can be replaced at any time by more consumers, vassals to the oil company Masters of the Universe. There is no brake on their malfeasance, greed and criminal behavior, nor their ability to get nations to go to war, overthrow democratically elected leaders, and to get away with pollution of proportions beyond the imagination.
For over a century, whenever American and British GIs have died for oil, whenever pollution and toxicity have been let loose to ravage our shores, whenever residents have died of cancer caused by the oil refining process and spills, whenever Congress and White Houses have loosened regulations to allow reckless and massively damaging behavior, BP was there, along with their American counterparts: companies so large that they are above the law and governmental control.
Most American presidencies and Congress -- and particularly the Bush/Cheney Presidency -- have regarded oil companies and the control of oil resources as essential to the survival of the American economy. As a result oil companies and the secondary businesses that support them -- such as Halliburton and Transocean -- are indeed able to call the shots and get the U.S. and the UK to do their bidding. In the UK, BP is the power behind 10 Downing Street when it comes to foreign policy, drilling, and all things oil; that is why Tony Blair could not refuse to join the Bush/Cheney (and Rumsfeld) attack on Iraq.
Which leads us to the catastrophe in the Gulf.
From the 1953 CIA Overthrow of Democracy in Iran, to the Iraq War, to the Criminal Gulf Catastrophe and Deaths, BP Was There
But the fourth largest company in the world wasn't always called BP. It used to be owned by the British Government (remember the navy armada in need of oil). It was named the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company when the CIA teamed up with the British because the Western style Iranian leader Mossadeq wanted to nationalize Britain's 100% owned and run giant oil concession in Iran, and the West would have none of that. So Eisenhower authorized "Operation Ajax," and the Shah of Iran was placed in power -- ruling with an iron fist and the dreaded SAVAK, all the time fully backed by the U.S. -- leading to the radical theocratic revolution that we still confront today. All the time BP, which formally adopted its current name in 1954, was there.
BP was there throughout the de facto colonization of the Middle East to provide oil to the West, the British and the U.S. remaining strong partners in keeping any recalcitrant nations in line. Which leads to the Iraq War and why many Americans and Brits were puzzled by Tony Blair's eagerness to go along with Cheney's secret oil committee plan to seize Iraq oil fields and Bush's belief that the war was Biblically justified. BP is the largest corporation in the UK and the third largest energy company. Do you have any more questions?
BP and its American counterparts are part of the corporate oligarchy that run governments when it comes to energy policy. They don't take orders from sovereign nations; they give them. They are unelected, but because of their hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue and profit, they run the show when it comes to oil policy, and profit comes first: forget about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Oil is their gold; we are just consumers who can be replaced at any time by more consumers, vassals to the oil company Masters of the Universe. There is no brake on their malfeasance, greed and criminal behavior, nor their ability to get nations to go to war, overthrow democratically elected leaders, and to get away with pollution of proportions beyond the imagination.
For over a century, whenever American and British GIs have died for oil, whenever pollution and toxicity have been let loose to ravage our shores, whenever residents have died of cancer caused by the oil refining process and spills, whenever Congress and White Houses have loosened regulations to allow reckless and massively damaging behavior, BP was there, along with their American counterparts: companies so large that they are above the law and governmental control.
Most American presidencies and Congress -- and particularly the Bush/Cheney Presidency -- have regarded oil companies and the control of oil resources as essential to the survival of the American economy. As a result oil companies and the secondary businesses that support them -- such as Halliburton and Transocean -- are indeed able to call the shots and get the U.S. and the UK to do their bidding. In the UK, BP is the power behind 10 Downing Street when it comes to foreign policy, drilling, and all things oil; that is why Tony Blair could not refuse to join the Bush/Cheney (and Rumsfeld) attack on Iraq.
Which leads us to the catastrophe in the Gulf.
From the 1953 CIA Overthrow of Democracy in Iran, to the Iraq War, to the Criminal Gulf Catastrophe and Deaths, BP Was There
US Ambassador wife to Afghanistan fell in love with Kabul.
When Karl was picked by President Obama to be the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan in January, 2009, we both were extremely honored. At the time, Karl was a career Army officer serving our country as the Deputy Chairman of the Military Committee at NATO headquarters in Brussels; I was a freelance journalist who had been following this man, to whom I said “I do” decades ago, wherever in the world his career took him.
I never thought I would come to a war-torn Afghanistan and gain a family here. But this is what has happened.
Being a Chinese-American, I have often said I have two mothers: Mother China gave me life and Mother America gave me soul. Coming to the United States in the late 1960s, I witnessed the greatness of this country, its democracy and liberty available to all. So when my husband accepted the nomination, I raised my hand to accompany him and became the first ambassador’s spouse to live in Kabul since the fall of Taliban.
US Ambassador wife to Afghanistan fell in love with Kabul.
I never thought I would come to a war-torn Afghanistan and gain a family here. But this is what has happened.
Being a Chinese-American, I have often said I have two mothers: Mother China gave me life and Mother America gave me soul. Coming to the United States in the late 1960s, I witnessed the greatness of this country, its democracy and liberty available to all. So when my husband accepted the nomination, I raised my hand to accompany him and became the first ambassador’s spouse to live in Kabul since the fall of Taliban.
US Ambassador wife to Afghanistan fell in love with Kabul.
A Nation of Faith and Religious Illiterates
By Stephen Prothero
Stephen Prothero teaches at Boston University and is author of "American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon" (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2003).
Los Angeles Times
January 12, 2005
The sociologist Peter Berger once remarked that if India is the most religious country in the world and Sweden the least, then the United States is a nation of Indians ruled by Swedes. Not anymore. With a Jesus lover in the Oval Office and a faith-based party in control of both houses of Congress, the United States is undeniably a nation of believers ruled by the same.
Things are different in Europe, and not just in Sweden. The Dutch are four times less likely than Americans to believe in miracles, hell and biblical inerrancy. The euro does not trust in God. But here is the paradox: Although Americans are far more religious than Europeans, they know far less about religion.
In Europe, religious education is the rule from the elementary grades on. So Austrians, Norwegians and the Irish can tell you about the Seven Deadly Sins or the Five Pillars of Islam. But, according to a 1997 poll, only one out of three U.S. citizens is able to name the most basic of Christian texts, the four Gospels, and 12% think Noah's wife was Joan of Arc. That paints a picture of a nation that believes God speaks in Scripture but that can't be bothered to read what he has to say.
U.S. Catholics, evangelicals and Jews have been lamenting for some time a crisis of religious literacy in their ranks. But the dangers of religious ignorance are by no means confined to those worried about catechizing their children or cultivating the next generation of clergy.
When Americans debated slavery, almost exclusively on the basis of the Bible, people of all races and classes could follow the debate. They could make sense of its references to the runaway slave in the New Testament book of Philemon and to the year of jubilee, when slaves could be freed, in the Old Testament book of Leviticus. Today it is a rare American who can engage with any sophistication in biblically inflected arguments about gay marriage, abortion or stem cell research.
Since 9/11, President Bush has been telling us that "Islam is a religion of peace," while evangelist Franklin Graham (Billy's son) has insisted otherwise. Who is right? Americans have no way to tell because they know virtually nothing about Islam. Such ignorance imperils our public life, putting citizens in the thrall of talking heads.
How did this happen? How did one of the most religious countries in the world become a nation of religious illiterates? Religious congregations are surely at fault. Churches and synagogues that once inculcated the "fourth R" are now telling the faithful stories "ripped from the headlines" rather than teaching them the Ten Commandments or parsing the Sermon on the Mount (which was delivered, as only one in three Americans can tell you, by Jesus). But most of the fault lies in our elementary and secondary schools.
In a majority opinion in a 1963 church-state case (Abington vs. Schempp), Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark wrote, "It might well be said that one's education is not complete without a study of comparative religion … and its relationship to the advance of civilization." If so, the education of nearly every public school student in the nation is woefully inadequate.
Because of misunderstandings about the 1st Amendment, religious studies are seldom taught in public schools. When they are, instruction typically begins only in high school and with teachers not trained in the subtle distinction between teaching religion (unconstitutional) and teaching about religion (essential).
Though state educational standards no longer ignore religion as they did a decade or so ago, coverage of religion in history and social science textbooks is spotty at best. According to Charles Haynes, senior scholar at the First Amendment Center in Arlington, Va., "It is as if we got freedom of religion in 1791 and then we were free from religion after that."
Now that the religious right has triumphed over the secular left, every politician seems determined to get religion. They're all asking "What Would Jesus Do?" — about the war in Iraq, gay marriage, poverty and Social Security. And though the ACLU may rage, it is not un-American to bring religious reasoning into our public debates. In fact, that has been happening ever since George Washington put his hand on a Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. What is un-American is to give those debates over to televangelists of either the secular or the religious variety, to absent ourselves from the discussion by ignorance.
A few days after 9/11, a turbaned Indian American man was shot and killed in Arizona by a bigot who believed the man's dress marked him as a Muslim. But what killed Balbir Singh Sodhi (who was not a Muslim but a Sikh) was not so much bigotry as ignorance. The moral of his story is not just that we need more tolerance. It is that Americans — of both the religious and the secular variety — need to understand religion. Resolving in 2005 to read for yourself either the Bible or the Koran (or both) might not be a bad place to start.
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/news/lat-1-13-05a.html
Stephen Prothero teaches at Boston University and is author of "American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon" (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2003).
Los Angeles Times
January 12, 2005
The sociologist Peter Berger once remarked that if India is the most religious country in the world and Sweden the least, then the United States is a nation of Indians ruled by Swedes. Not anymore. With a Jesus lover in the Oval Office and a faith-based party in control of both houses of Congress, the United States is undeniably a nation of believers ruled by the same.
Things are different in Europe, and not just in Sweden. The Dutch are four times less likely than Americans to believe in miracles, hell and biblical inerrancy. The euro does not trust in God. But here is the paradox: Although Americans are far more religious than Europeans, they know far less about religion.
In Europe, religious education is the rule from the elementary grades on. So Austrians, Norwegians and the Irish can tell you about the Seven Deadly Sins or the Five Pillars of Islam. But, according to a 1997 poll, only one out of three U.S. citizens is able to name the most basic of Christian texts, the four Gospels, and 12% think Noah's wife was Joan of Arc. That paints a picture of a nation that believes God speaks in Scripture but that can't be bothered to read what he has to say.
U.S. Catholics, evangelicals and Jews have been lamenting for some time a crisis of religious literacy in their ranks. But the dangers of religious ignorance are by no means confined to those worried about catechizing their children or cultivating the next generation of clergy.
When Americans debated slavery, almost exclusively on the basis of the Bible, people of all races and classes could follow the debate. They could make sense of its references to the runaway slave in the New Testament book of Philemon and to the year of jubilee, when slaves could be freed, in the Old Testament book of Leviticus. Today it is a rare American who can engage with any sophistication in biblically inflected arguments about gay marriage, abortion or stem cell research.
Since 9/11, President Bush has been telling us that "Islam is a religion of peace," while evangelist Franklin Graham (Billy's son) has insisted otherwise. Who is right? Americans have no way to tell because they know virtually nothing about Islam. Such ignorance imperils our public life, putting citizens in the thrall of talking heads.
How did this happen? How did one of the most religious countries in the world become a nation of religious illiterates? Religious congregations are surely at fault. Churches and synagogues that once inculcated the "fourth R" are now telling the faithful stories "ripped from the headlines" rather than teaching them the Ten Commandments or parsing the Sermon on the Mount (which was delivered, as only one in three Americans can tell you, by Jesus). But most of the fault lies in our elementary and secondary schools.
In a majority opinion in a 1963 church-state case (Abington vs. Schempp), Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark wrote, "It might well be said that one's education is not complete without a study of comparative religion … and its relationship to the advance of civilization." If so, the education of nearly every public school student in the nation is woefully inadequate.
Because of misunderstandings about the 1st Amendment, religious studies are seldom taught in public schools. When they are, instruction typically begins only in high school and with teachers not trained in the subtle distinction between teaching religion (unconstitutional) and teaching about religion (essential).
Though state educational standards no longer ignore religion as they did a decade or so ago, coverage of religion in history and social science textbooks is spotty at best. According to Charles Haynes, senior scholar at the First Amendment Center in Arlington, Va., "It is as if we got freedom of religion in 1791 and then we were free from religion after that."
Now that the religious right has triumphed over the secular left, every politician seems determined to get religion. They're all asking "What Would Jesus Do?" — about the war in Iraq, gay marriage, poverty and Social Security. And though the ACLU may rage, it is not un-American to bring religious reasoning into our public debates. In fact, that has been happening ever since George Washington put his hand on a Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. What is un-American is to give those debates over to televangelists of either the secular or the religious variety, to absent ourselves from the discussion by ignorance.
A few days after 9/11, a turbaned Indian American man was shot and killed in Arizona by a bigot who believed the man's dress marked him as a Muslim. But what killed Balbir Singh Sodhi (who was not a Muslim but a Sikh) was not so much bigotry as ignorance. The moral of his story is not just that we need more tolerance. It is that Americans — of both the religious and the secular variety — need to understand religion. Resolving in 2005 to read for yourself either the Bible or the Koran (or both) might not be a bad place to start.
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/news/lat-1-13-05a.html
12-Year-Old Des Moines, IA Peace Activist Faces Trespassing Charge for Antiwar Protest at Offices of Sen. Harkin
Frankie Hughes, twelve-year-old who was charged with trespassing after protesting war funding at Iowa Senator Tom Harkin’s office last week.
For more on this story we’re joined now via Democracy Now! video stream by twelve year old Frankie Hughes and her mother Renee Espeland.
Renee Espeland, charged with “contributing to the delinquency of a minor” last week after her twelve-year-old daughter refused to leave a protest at Iowa Senator Tom Harkin’s office. The charge was dropped this week.
12-Year-Old Des Moines, IA Peace Activist Faces Trespassing Charge for Antiwar Protest at Offices of Sen. Harkin
For more on this story we’re joined now via Democracy Now! video stream by twelve year old Frankie Hughes and her mother Renee Espeland.
Renee Espeland, charged with “contributing to the delinquency of a minor” last week after her twelve-year-old daughter refused to leave a protest at Iowa Senator Tom Harkin’s office. The charge was dropped this week.
12-Year-Old Des Moines, IA Peace Activist Faces Trespassing Charge for Antiwar Protest at Offices of Sen. Harkin
Jerusalem: heart of conflict, beginning of reconciliation
For me -- as for most Palestinians, both Muslim and Christian -- Jerusalem is the city I love the most and visit the least. As a boy, I remember traveling to Jerusalem with my late father along the old road -- a trip that took many hours due to the "no-man's zone" that forbade us from directly accessing the city. Despite the obstacles that existed even then, I remember going to Jerusalem as a deeply happy event. It meant eating the sweets we couldn't find in our village, and visiting the holy places we'd only heard about in school and church. Or else it meant going to the doctor, since most doctors were based in Jerusalem at that time. In any case, my sentimental relationship with the city is strong.
During the 1980s, I worked at the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in Jerusalem, and I drove to the office by car every morning. However, when the first Palestinian intifada broke out in 1987, Jerusalem was sealed off to those of us who lived in the occupied West Bank, and we had to obtain special permits in order to enter the city. Legally visiting Jerusalem became impossible for me. Due to my past as a political prisoner, I was put on some kind of state blacklist, and so the Israeli authorities wouldn't grant me a permit. For some years, I did manage to enter from time to time -- until, that is, Israel began construction of the "separation wall," at which point all entrances were closed to me. Since 2002, I have not returned. My 25-year-old son, Dafer, has never been to Jerusalem at all, although he has probably traveled half the world. Being barred from Jerusalem is a great loss to me and to my family.
While I must invariably address my relationship with Jerusalem in these ways -- in the voice of the child I was, the father I am -- I also wish to address Jerusalem's many symbolic meanings for myself and for others: for Palestinian Christians in our struggle for religious freedom. For Palestinians in general, in our struggle for political self-determination. And for Christians and Muslims and Jews, so often locked in conflict over a place that should in fact be a model of reconciliation.
For Palestinian Christians, Jerusalem is full not only of symbolic richness, but also of symbolic tensions. First of all, although Jerusalem is considered universally sacred for Christians all over the world -- the place of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, the birthplace of Christianity itself, the site of the first churches, the historical destination of pilgrimages -- it is in many ways a normal city for us Palestinians. It is our political capital, and has traditionally been an economic hub, a center of tourism, health services and education. In this sense, then, my relation to Jerusalem as a Palestinian Christian is twofold: it is, for me, both the universal sacred place where people go to pray and connect to the holy sites and the capital of my country, Palestine, even when the occupying state doesn't acknowledge it as such. Even more powerfully, however, Jerusalem is the universal sacred place I cannot go to practice my faith, and the capital city I cannot visit.
Yet Jerusalem is also a focal point of the Palestinian struggle, the place where our struggle began and where it will end.
According to international law, East Jerusalem is occupied territory, as are the parts of the West Bank that Israel unilaterally annexed to the district of Jerusalem. The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and the Hague Regulations of 1907 forbid occupying powers from altering the ways of life of occupied citizens; they likewise prohibit members of the occupying state from settling in the occupied territory.
Israel's actions in East Jerusalem, throughout history as well as today, constitute gross violations of international law. The violations themselves are copious and ongoing: historical expropriation (since 1967 and through the present day) of private Palestinian-owned land, paving the way for illegal Israeli settlements (referred to as "neighborhoods" in Israeli discourse); demolitions of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem (in 2009 alone 47 houses were destroyed, leaving 256 people homeless); discriminatory housing permit policies, in the sense that nearly 10 times as many building permits are issued to Jews in West Jerusalem than to Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem; Israel's "quiet transfer" policy, revoking the residency of East Jerusalemites who moved from municipal borders (1,363 revocations in 2006, a 300 percent increase from the previous year); and countless others.
What transpires in Jerusalem, then, is a shocking abuse of power, a systematic, ongoing and flagrantly illegal usurpation of Palestinian property and autonomye. When we speak of Jerusalem, we must speak not only of the Old City and the sacred sites, but also of the Jerusalemites themselves. The streets and houses are synonymous with the people who live and work and raise their children there. The holy places are synonymous with the people praying within them. The city itself is also synonymous with all the people who are forcibly prevented from doing so.
In this way, the physical Jerusalem -- from land to houses to holy sites -- becomes the grounds on which both practical and symbolic struggles are carried out. Israel is not simply trying to find its place in Jerusalem; rather, it is trying to monopolize Jerusalem (again, on both quotidian levels and on universal, sacred ones) and exclude Palestinian Christians and Muslims from the city. For us Palestinians, Jerusalem is a city for all three faiths: Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Its preciousness should not be stifled, and its holiest symbols -- like the al-Aqsa Mosque for Muslims, or the Wailing Wall for Jews -- all deserve their existence in this universal city. Any attempt to monopolize them is an attempt to monopolize that universality, and this is an effort we (meaning all peoples) must resist.
These beliefs are articulated in the Kairos document, the Christian Palestinians' statement to the world about the occupation of Palestine and a call for support in opposing it. The document's position on Jerusalem and its significance to Christians echoes the statement issued by the Heads of Churches published in 1994 and the second one in 2006. Many tend to think that Jerusalem is only important for Muslims and Jews; the document stresses its equal importance for Christians. The Kairos document addresses Jerusalem both from a specifically Palestinian Christian perspective and from a universal human perspective. We state very clearly that Jerusalem, and particularly East Jerusalem, is an occupied city; that the occupation of Jerusalem is a sin against God and humanity; that it constitutes a defiance of His will as well as that of the international community.
In the Kairos Document, we also stress that Jerusalem should be the place of and model for reconciliation, while in actuality it's the locus of and reason for our conflict. Thus, we believe that the issue of Jerusalem should be the beginning of our reconciliation, and should absolutely not be left to the so-called "final" items on the negotiation agenda. Resolving the conflict over Jerusalem first will establish a model for the two nations themselves, as well as for resolving other conflicts between them; it will also encourage the growth and development of a just peace in our region.
The document highlights many other central concerns that help us illustrate and expand our discussion of Jerusalem. For one thing, we address (and condemn) the many theological justifications of the Israeli occupation that appear in some theologies. We believe that these justifications are nothing short of hearsay, and that they distort the true Christian teachings; we reject the arguments of those who attach Biblical legitimacy to the violation of our rights. We also emphasize the right of the oppressed to resist oppression -- on our independent terms and in our local context. The Kairos Document calls on Palestinian Christians (both here in Palestine and all around the world) to change the current reality, and calls on Israel to stop its ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Jerusalem by means of house demolitions and land confiscation.
The Kairos document reminds Jews, Muslims and Christians alike that Jerusalem should be the place where God reconciles with his people and where the creatures of God reconcile with each other. And it affirms the equal importance of Jerusalem for the Palestinian people, whether Christian or Muslim. This affirmation, this unity of vision -- not in the sense that everyone must share the same beliefs, but in the sense that the freedom to believe must always be shared -- is the document's greatest strength.
The fate of Jerusalem is the fate of the conflict itself. No matter the shape of a final resolution, Palestinians must have the right to exert their sovereignty in East Jerusalem. And as the Kairos Document urges, the very nature of Jerusalem -- universal, sacred and embracing -- must be honored as we proceed.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11200.shtml
During the 1980s, I worked at the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in Jerusalem, and I drove to the office by car every morning. However, when the first Palestinian intifada broke out in 1987, Jerusalem was sealed off to those of us who lived in the occupied West Bank, and we had to obtain special permits in order to enter the city. Legally visiting Jerusalem became impossible for me. Due to my past as a political prisoner, I was put on some kind of state blacklist, and so the Israeli authorities wouldn't grant me a permit. For some years, I did manage to enter from time to time -- until, that is, Israel began construction of the "separation wall," at which point all entrances were closed to me. Since 2002, I have not returned. My 25-year-old son, Dafer, has never been to Jerusalem at all, although he has probably traveled half the world. Being barred from Jerusalem is a great loss to me and to my family.
While I must invariably address my relationship with Jerusalem in these ways -- in the voice of the child I was, the father I am -- I also wish to address Jerusalem's many symbolic meanings for myself and for others: for Palestinian Christians in our struggle for religious freedom. For Palestinians in general, in our struggle for political self-determination. And for Christians and Muslims and Jews, so often locked in conflict over a place that should in fact be a model of reconciliation.
For Palestinian Christians, Jerusalem is full not only of symbolic richness, but also of symbolic tensions. First of all, although Jerusalem is considered universally sacred for Christians all over the world -- the place of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, the birthplace of Christianity itself, the site of the first churches, the historical destination of pilgrimages -- it is in many ways a normal city for us Palestinians. It is our political capital, and has traditionally been an economic hub, a center of tourism, health services and education. In this sense, then, my relation to Jerusalem as a Palestinian Christian is twofold: it is, for me, both the universal sacred place where people go to pray and connect to the holy sites and the capital of my country, Palestine, even when the occupying state doesn't acknowledge it as such. Even more powerfully, however, Jerusalem is the universal sacred place I cannot go to practice my faith, and the capital city I cannot visit.
Yet Jerusalem is also a focal point of the Palestinian struggle, the place where our struggle began and where it will end.
According to international law, East Jerusalem is occupied territory, as are the parts of the West Bank that Israel unilaterally annexed to the district of Jerusalem. The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and the Hague Regulations of 1907 forbid occupying powers from altering the ways of life of occupied citizens; they likewise prohibit members of the occupying state from settling in the occupied territory.
Israel's actions in East Jerusalem, throughout history as well as today, constitute gross violations of international law. The violations themselves are copious and ongoing: historical expropriation (since 1967 and through the present day) of private Palestinian-owned land, paving the way for illegal Israeli settlements (referred to as "neighborhoods" in Israeli discourse); demolitions of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem (in 2009 alone 47 houses were destroyed, leaving 256 people homeless); discriminatory housing permit policies, in the sense that nearly 10 times as many building permits are issued to Jews in West Jerusalem than to Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem; Israel's "quiet transfer" policy, revoking the residency of East Jerusalemites who moved from municipal borders (1,363 revocations in 2006, a 300 percent increase from the previous year); and countless others.
What transpires in Jerusalem, then, is a shocking abuse of power, a systematic, ongoing and flagrantly illegal usurpation of Palestinian property and autonomye. When we speak of Jerusalem, we must speak not only of the Old City and the sacred sites, but also of the Jerusalemites themselves. The streets and houses are synonymous with the people who live and work and raise their children there. The holy places are synonymous with the people praying within them. The city itself is also synonymous with all the people who are forcibly prevented from doing so.
In this way, the physical Jerusalem -- from land to houses to holy sites -- becomes the grounds on which both practical and symbolic struggles are carried out. Israel is not simply trying to find its place in Jerusalem; rather, it is trying to monopolize Jerusalem (again, on both quotidian levels and on universal, sacred ones) and exclude Palestinian Christians and Muslims from the city. For us Palestinians, Jerusalem is a city for all three faiths: Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Its preciousness should not be stifled, and its holiest symbols -- like the al-Aqsa Mosque for Muslims, or the Wailing Wall for Jews -- all deserve their existence in this universal city. Any attempt to monopolize them is an attempt to monopolize that universality, and this is an effort we (meaning all peoples) must resist.
These beliefs are articulated in the Kairos document, the Christian Palestinians' statement to the world about the occupation of Palestine and a call for support in opposing it. The document's position on Jerusalem and its significance to Christians echoes the statement issued by the Heads of Churches published in 1994 and the second one in 2006. Many tend to think that Jerusalem is only important for Muslims and Jews; the document stresses its equal importance for Christians. The Kairos document addresses Jerusalem both from a specifically Palestinian Christian perspective and from a universal human perspective. We state very clearly that Jerusalem, and particularly East Jerusalem, is an occupied city; that the occupation of Jerusalem is a sin against God and humanity; that it constitutes a defiance of His will as well as that of the international community.
In the Kairos Document, we also stress that Jerusalem should be the place of and model for reconciliation, while in actuality it's the locus of and reason for our conflict. Thus, we believe that the issue of Jerusalem should be the beginning of our reconciliation, and should absolutely not be left to the so-called "final" items on the negotiation agenda. Resolving the conflict over Jerusalem first will establish a model for the two nations themselves, as well as for resolving other conflicts between them; it will also encourage the growth and development of a just peace in our region.
The document highlights many other central concerns that help us illustrate and expand our discussion of Jerusalem. For one thing, we address (and condemn) the many theological justifications of the Israeli occupation that appear in some theologies. We believe that these justifications are nothing short of hearsay, and that they distort the true Christian teachings; we reject the arguments of those who attach Biblical legitimacy to the violation of our rights. We also emphasize the right of the oppressed to resist oppression -- on our independent terms and in our local context. The Kairos Document calls on Palestinian Christians (both here in Palestine and all around the world) to change the current reality, and calls on Israel to stop its ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Jerusalem by means of house demolitions and land confiscation.
The Kairos document reminds Jews, Muslims and Christians alike that Jerusalem should be the place where God reconciles with his people and where the creatures of God reconcile with each other. And it affirms the equal importance of Jerusalem for the Palestinian people, whether Christian or Muslim. This affirmation, this unity of vision -- not in the sense that everyone must share the same beliefs, but in the sense that the freedom to believe must always be shared -- is the document's greatest strength.
The fate of Jerusalem is the fate of the conflict itself. No matter the shape of a final resolution, Palestinians must have the right to exert their sovereignty in East Jerusalem. And as the Kairos Document urges, the very nature of Jerusalem -- universal, sacred and embracing -- must be honored as we proceed.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11200.shtml
Osama bin Laden - Is Dead
Barack Obama has launched a fresh operation to find him. Working with the Pakistani Army, elite squads of U.S. and British special forces were sent into Waziristan this summer to 'hunt and kill' the shadowy figure intelligence officers still call 'the principal target' of the war on terror.
This new offensive is, of course, based on the premise that the 9/11 terrorist is alive. After all, there are the plethora of 'Bin Laden tapes' to prove it.
Yet what if he isn't? What if he has been dead for years, and the British and U.S. intelligence services are actually playing a game of double bluff?
What if everything we have seen or heard of him on video and audio tapes since the early days after 9/11 is a fake - and that he is being kept 'alive' by the Western allies to stir up support for the war on terror?
Incredibly, this is the breathtaking theory that is gaining credence among political commentators, respected academics and even terror experts.
Of course, there have been any number of conspiracy theories concerning 9/11, and it could be this is just another one.
But the weight of opinion now swinging behind the possibility that Bin Laden is dead - and the accumulating evidence that supports it - makes the notion, at the very least, worthy of examination.
The theory first received an airing in the American Spectator magazine earlier this year when former U.S. foreign intelligence officer and senior editor Angelo M. Codevilla, a professor of international relations at Boston University, stated bluntly: 'All the evidence suggests Elvis Presley is more alive today than Osama Bin Laden.'
Prof Codevilla pointed to inconsistencies in the videos and claimed there have been no reputable sightings of Bin Laden for years (for instance, all interceptions by the West of communications made by the Al Qaeda leader suddenly ceased in late 2001).
Prof Codevilla asserted: 'The video and audio tapes alleged to be Osama's never convince the impartial observer,' he asserted. 'The guy just does not look like Osama. Some videos show him with a Semitic, aquiline nose, while others show him with a shorter, broader one. Next to that, differences between the colours and styles of his beard are small stuff.'
There are other doubters, too. Professor Bruce Lawrence, head of Duke University's religious studies' department and the foremost Bin Laden expert, argues that the increasingly secular language in the video and audio tapes of Osama (his earliest ones are littered with references to God and the Prophet Mohammed) are inconsistent with his strict Islamic religion, Wahhabism.
He notes that, on one video, Bin Laden wears golden rings on his fingers, an adornment banned among Wahhabi followers.
This week, still more questions have been raised with the publication in America and Britain of a book called Osama Bin Laden: Dead or Alive?
Written by political analyst and philosopher Professor David Ray Griffin, former emeritus professor at California's Claremont School of Theology, it is provoking shock waves - for it goes into far more detail about his supposed death and suggests there has been a cover-up by the West.
The book claims that Bin Laden died of kidney failure, or a linked complaint, on December 13, 2001, while living in Afghanistan's Tora Bora mountains close to the border with Waziristan.
His burial took place within 24 hours, in line with Muslim religious rules, and in an unmarked grave, which is a Wahhabi custom.
The author insists that the many Bin Laden tapes made since that date have been concocted by the West to make the world believe Bin Laden is alive. The purpose? To stoke up waning support for the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan.
To understand Griffin's thesis, we must remember the West's reaction to 9/11, that fateful sunny September day in 2001. Within a month, on Sunday, October 7, the U.S. and Britain launched massive retaliatory air strikes in the Tora Bora region where they said 'prime suspect' Bin Laden was living 'as a guest of Afghanistan'.
This military offensive ignored the fact that Bin Laden had already insisted four times in official Al Qaeda statements made to the Arab press that he played no role in 9/11.
Indeed, on the fourth occasion, on September 28 and a fortnight after the atrocity, he declared emphatically: 'I have already said I am not involved. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge... nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act.'
Within hours of the October 7 strikes by the U.S. on Tora Bora, Bin Laden made his first ever appearance on video tape. Dressed in Army fatigues, and with an Islamic head-dress, he had an assault rifle propped behind him in a broadly lit mountain hideout. Significantly, he looked pale and gaunt.
Although he called President George W. Bush 'head of the infidels' and poured scorn on the U.S., he once again rejected responsibility for 9/11.
Islam And The Moslim World: Osama bin Laden - Is he Dead or Alive ? More evidence suggest he is .....
This new offensive is, of course, based on the premise that the 9/11 terrorist is alive. After all, there are the plethora of 'Bin Laden tapes' to prove it.
Yet what if he isn't? What if he has been dead for years, and the British and U.S. intelligence services are actually playing a game of double bluff?
What if everything we have seen or heard of him on video and audio tapes since the early days after 9/11 is a fake - and that he is being kept 'alive' by the Western allies to stir up support for the war on terror?
Incredibly, this is the breathtaking theory that is gaining credence among political commentators, respected academics and even terror experts.
Of course, there have been any number of conspiracy theories concerning 9/11, and it could be this is just another one.
But the weight of opinion now swinging behind the possibility that Bin Laden is dead - and the accumulating evidence that supports it - makes the notion, at the very least, worthy of examination.
The theory first received an airing in the American Spectator magazine earlier this year when former U.S. foreign intelligence officer and senior editor Angelo M. Codevilla, a professor of international relations at Boston University, stated bluntly: 'All the evidence suggests Elvis Presley is more alive today than Osama Bin Laden.'
Prof Codevilla pointed to inconsistencies in the videos and claimed there have been no reputable sightings of Bin Laden for years (for instance, all interceptions by the West of communications made by the Al Qaeda leader suddenly ceased in late 2001).
Prof Codevilla asserted: 'The video and audio tapes alleged to be Osama's never convince the impartial observer,' he asserted. 'The guy just does not look like Osama. Some videos show him with a Semitic, aquiline nose, while others show him with a shorter, broader one. Next to that, differences between the colours and styles of his beard are small stuff.'
There are other doubters, too. Professor Bruce Lawrence, head of Duke University's religious studies' department and the foremost Bin Laden expert, argues that the increasingly secular language in the video and audio tapes of Osama (his earliest ones are littered with references to God and the Prophet Mohammed) are inconsistent with his strict Islamic religion, Wahhabism.
He notes that, on one video, Bin Laden wears golden rings on his fingers, an adornment banned among Wahhabi followers.
This week, still more questions have been raised with the publication in America and Britain of a book called Osama Bin Laden: Dead or Alive?
Written by political analyst and philosopher Professor David Ray Griffin, former emeritus professor at California's Claremont School of Theology, it is provoking shock waves - for it goes into far more detail about his supposed death and suggests there has been a cover-up by the West.
The book claims that Bin Laden died of kidney failure, or a linked complaint, on December 13, 2001, while living in Afghanistan's Tora Bora mountains close to the border with Waziristan.
His burial took place within 24 hours, in line with Muslim religious rules, and in an unmarked grave, which is a Wahhabi custom.
The author insists that the many Bin Laden tapes made since that date have been concocted by the West to make the world believe Bin Laden is alive. The purpose? To stoke up waning support for the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan.
To understand Griffin's thesis, we must remember the West's reaction to 9/11, that fateful sunny September day in 2001. Within a month, on Sunday, October 7, the U.S. and Britain launched massive retaliatory air strikes in the Tora Bora region where they said 'prime suspect' Bin Laden was living 'as a guest of Afghanistan'.
This military offensive ignored the fact that Bin Laden had already insisted four times in official Al Qaeda statements made to the Arab press that he played no role in 9/11.
Indeed, on the fourth occasion, on September 28 and a fortnight after the atrocity, he declared emphatically: 'I have already said I am not involved. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge... nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act.'
Within hours of the October 7 strikes by the U.S. on Tora Bora, Bin Laden made his first ever appearance on video tape. Dressed in Army fatigues, and with an Islamic head-dress, he had an assault rifle propped behind him in a broadly lit mountain hideout. Significantly, he looked pale and gaunt.
Although he called President George W. Bush 'head of the infidels' and poured scorn on the U.S., he once again rejected responsibility for 9/11.
Islam And The Moslim World: Osama bin Laden - Is he Dead or Alive ? More evidence suggest he is .....
Haiti Christian missionaries' adviser probed for sex trafficking
Ten Americans charged with abducting children in Haiti are still waiting for a decision on their fate, but the case took an unexpected turn as their former legal adviser was probed for sex trafficking.
Chief prosecutor Joseph Manes Louis arrived at the court in the capital Port-au-Prince without indicating whether the missionaries, from the US state of Idaho, would be provisionally released or remain behind bars pending trial.
Alain Lemithe, a lawyer for one of the Americans, said a decision could come as early as Monday (local time) and suggested the judge might even throw out the charges against them altogether.
But Mr Lemithe said he was concerned their possible release could be derailed by an investigation by police in El Salvador involving their Dominican former legal adviser.
"I fear that. Sincerely, I fear that," he said.
That adviser, Jorge Puello, who is now back in the Dominican Republic, denied the allegations of sex trafficking and said he had anyway had no contact with the Americans prior to their arrest on January 29.
Salvadoran police say Mr Puello bears a strong resemblance to Jorge Torres Orellana, accused by Interpol of running an international sex trafficking ring that lured women and girls from the Caribbean and Central America into prostitution with bogus offers of modelling jobs.
"They are accusing me of something that I don't even know myself," Mr Puello said.
"I'm open to questions. It could happen that two people could have the same name. Whatever the case may be, I'm not afraid of anything."
Even if Mr Puello is completely innocent, his implication in such a case is an unwelcome coincidence for the 10 Americans, who have been languishing in a Port-au-Prince jail for more than two weeks.
The group from the New Life Children's Refuge was caught trying to take a bus load of 33 children they said they thought were orphans across the border into the Dominican Republican.
After it emerged that many of the children had parents, the Americans' lawyers have sought to portray the Baptists as acting selflessly to help during Haiti's catastrophe. They say the group had no criminal intent.
Some of the parents have told the judge in the case they willingly gave up their children because they were unable to care for them following the devastation wrought by the January 12 disaster.
As the nation still struggles to recover, the case threatens to overshadow relief efforts and Gervais Charles, president of the Port-au-Prince bar association, suggested it should be transferred to the US.
"I believe that at the moment we don't have what is really necessary" to try this case, Mr Charles said.
"It's not only the [collapsed] buildings. There is the trauma."
The US military said Haitian officials were expected to make an announcement in the coming days about reopening commercial flights at Port-au-Prince airport.
Source : http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/16/2820529.htm
Chief prosecutor Joseph Manes Louis arrived at the court in the capital Port-au-Prince without indicating whether the missionaries, from the US state of Idaho, would be provisionally released or remain behind bars pending trial.
Alain Lemithe, a lawyer for one of the Americans, said a decision could come as early as Monday (local time) and suggested the judge might even throw out the charges against them altogether.
But Mr Lemithe said he was concerned their possible release could be derailed by an investigation by police in El Salvador involving their Dominican former legal adviser.
"I fear that. Sincerely, I fear that," he said.
That adviser, Jorge Puello, who is now back in the Dominican Republic, denied the allegations of sex trafficking and said he had anyway had no contact with the Americans prior to their arrest on January 29.
Salvadoran police say Mr Puello bears a strong resemblance to Jorge Torres Orellana, accused by Interpol of running an international sex trafficking ring that lured women and girls from the Caribbean and Central America into prostitution with bogus offers of modelling jobs.
"They are accusing me of something that I don't even know myself," Mr Puello said.
"I'm open to questions. It could happen that two people could have the same name. Whatever the case may be, I'm not afraid of anything."
Even if Mr Puello is completely innocent, his implication in such a case is an unwelcome coincidence for the 10 Americans, who have been languishing in a Port-au-Prince jail for more than two weeks.
The group from the New Life Children's Refuge was caught trying to take a bus load of 33 children they said they thought were orphans across the border into the Dominican Republican.
After it emerged that many of the children had parents, the Americans' lawyers have sought to portray the Baptists as acting selflessly to help during Haiti's catastrophe. They say the group had no criminal intent.
Some of the parents have told the judge in the case they willingly gave up their children because they were unable to care for them following the devastation wrought by the January 12 disaster.
As the nation still struggles to recover, the case threatens to overshadow relief efforts and Gervais Charles, president of the Port-au-Prince bar association, suggested it should be transferred to the US.
"I believe that at the moment we don't have what is really necessary" to try this case, Mr Charles said.
"It's not only the [collapsed] buildings. There is the trauma."
The US military said Haitian officials were expected to make an announcement in the coming days about reopening commercial flights at Port-au-Prince airport.
Source : http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/16/2820529.htm
US faces diplomatic slog to get China to back sanctions against Iran
The US was today spearheading a diplomatic campaign to overcome Chinese opposition to further sanctions aimed at Iran and its Revolutionary Guards in a renewed push following Tehran's decision to produce uranium almost six times more enriched than its existing stockpile.
Barack Obama said yesterday that his administration was "developing a significant regime of sanctions that will indicate to them [Iran] how isolated they are from the international community as a whole".
Those sanctions will target a wide range of business interests belonging to Iran's Revolutionary Guards, which is accused of running a covert weapons programme behind the front of a civilian nuclear industry, as well as a missile development programme.
To help convince Beijing of the need to act, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, is due to fly to Qatar and Saudi Arabia this weekend, in part to discuss assurances the Gulf states could give China that its oil and gas needs would be met during the sanctions period.
Tehran said yesterday it had begun making 20% enriched uranium, with the aim of producing medical isotopes. Western officials described the move as a new act of defiance of UN resolutions that would bring Iran significantly closer to the capacity to make a nuclear bomb.
Obama said he expected UN negotiations to move quickly. But European diplomats warned that those talks would be hindered by Chinese resistance to new punitive measures against Iran. "We think it is going to be slow going," said one, pointing to the poor state of US-Chinese relations.
Beijing is furious with Washington over its recent sale of more than $6bn (£3.8bn) in arms to Taiwan, which it views as a breakaway region. It is also irritated by Obama's decision to meet the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
Even before the recent dip in bilateral ties, China was reluctant to endorse sanctions which it described as ineffective and damaging to its extensive economic ties to Iran.
A Foreign Office official said the potential crisis caused by Iran's nuclear ambitions, including the prospect of Israeli military action, would not be in China's long-term interests. "You would think China would take the long view of its interests," the official said. "On this, I am not sure it is doing that."
Russia, which had taken the lead in resisting sanctions until last year, signalled it would back punitive measures this time. "Iran says it doesn't want to have nuclear weapons. But its actions, including its decision to enrich uranium to 20%, have raised doubts among other nations, and these doubts are quite well-founded," Nikolai Patrushev, the head of Russia's security council, said.
Iran's decision to make 20% enriched uranium follows the collapse of a deal, agreed in principle last year, by which Russia would carry out the enrichment and France would turn the processed uranium into fuel rods.
The agreement broke down because Iran was not prepared to wait between the export of its uranium for processing and the receipt of the fuel rods. Negotiators for three other parties to the deal, the US, France and Russia, insisted on the time gap to reduce the size of Iran's uranium stockpile, for the time it took the uranium to be enriched and made into rods.
The percentage degree of uranium enrichment is a measure of the concentration of the fissile isotope, U-235. At the level of 90% enrichment and above the uranium can be used to make a nuclear bomb. Owing to the nature of the enrichment process, in which uranium hexafluoride gas is fed into linked arrays of spinning centrifuges, it takes considerably less effort to turn 20% enriched uranium into 90%, than it takes to make 20% uranium from the current enrichment level of 3.5%.
This story was posted at the Guardian
Barack Obama said yesterday that his administration was "developing a significant regime of sanctions that will indicate to them [Iran] how isolated they are from the international community as a whole".
Those sanctions will target a wide range of business interests belonging to Iran's Revolutionary Guards, which is accused of running a covert weapons programme behind the front of a civilian nuclear industry, as well as a missile development programme.
To help convince Beijing of the need to act, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, is due to fly to Qatar and Saudi Arabia this weekend, in part to discuss assurances the Gulf states could give China that its oil and gas needs would be met during the sanctions period.
Tehran said yesterday it had begun making 20% enriched uranium, with the aim of producing medical isotopes. Western officials described the move as a new act of defiance of UN resolutions that would bring Iran significantly closer to the capacity to make a nuclear bomb.
Obama said he expected UN negotiations to move quickly. But European diplomats warned that those talks would be hindered by Chinese resistance to new punitive measures against Iran. "We think it is going to be slow going," said one, pointing to the poor state of US-Chinese relations.
Beijing is furious with Washington over its recent sale of more than $6bn (£3.8bn) in arms to Taiwan, which it views as a breakaway region. It is also irritated by Obama's decision to meet the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
Even before the recent dip in bilateral ties, China was reluctant to endorse sanctions which it described as ineffective and damaging to its extensive economic ties to Iran.
A Foreign Office official said the potential crisis caused by Iran's nuclear ambitions, including the prospect of Israeli military action, would not be in China's long-term interests. "You would think China would take the long view of its interests," the official said. "On this, I am not sure it is doing that."
Russia, which had taken the lead in resisting sanctions until last year, signalled it would back punitive measures this time. "Iran says it doesn't want to have nuclear weapons. But its actions, including its decision to enrich uranium to 20%, have raised doubts among other nations, and these doubts are quite well-founded," Nikolai Patrushev, the head of Russia's security council, said.
Iran's decision to make 20% enriched uranium follows the collapse of a deal, agreed in principle last year, by which Russia would carry out the enrichment and France would turn the processed uranium into fuel rods.
The agreement broke down because Iran was not prepared to wait between the export of its uranium for processing and the receipt of the fuel rods. Negotiators for three other parties to the deal, the US, France and Russia, insisted on the time gap to reduce the size of Iran's uranium stockpile, for the time it took the uranium to be enriched and made into rods.
The percentage degree of uranium enrichment is a measure of the concentration of the fissile isotope, U-235. At the level of 90% enrichment and above the uranium can be used to make a nuclear bomb. Owing to the nature of the enrichment process, in which uranium hexafluoride gas is fed into linked arrays of spinning centrifuges, it takes considerably less effort to turn 20% enriched uranium into 90%, than it takes to make 20% uranium from the current enrichment level of 3.5%.
This story was posted at the Guardian
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