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Friday, November 5, 2010

Spaniards lobby Madrid on shark protection: campaigners

by Staff Writers
Madrid (AFP) March 12, 2009

Thousands of Spaniards have signed a petition demanding greater protection for sharks from overfishing, marine protection campaigners Oceana said Thursday.

The document, signed by about 13,000 people, has been handed to Spain's marine ministry, the group working with fellow environmental campaigners the Shark Alliance said in a statement.

According to these organizations, Spain is fourth in a world league table for shark fishing, with the European Union, "principally due to Spain," a global hotspot for shark "capture, consumption and commercialization."

"We are asking the Spanish government to protect sharks" through "the rapid application" of conservation measures outlined in a European Commission action plan drawn up in February, the statement added.

The Commission recommended that fishing boats be banned from hacking off valuable fins on board then throwing the rest of the shark back in the water.

Its plan also includes possible temporary fishing exclusion zones to protect young or reproducing sharks and tightened rules on fishing gear to minimize unwanted catches and ensure such catches are released back into the water.

Oceana and the Shark Alliance said that measures should also include quotas based on scientific research, saying "urgent action" was needed to avoid the "exhaustion of species vital to marine ecology."

EU member countries are due to present their responses to the action plan by April, with the package requiring approval by member states and the EU parliament.

A recent study by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature suggests that as many as one-third of the shark species caught in EU waters are threatened by excessive fishing.

Sharks are targeted by British, French, Spanish and Portuguese fleets, with the Spanish fishing fleet taking more than half of the European catch of around 100,000 tonnes each year, according to the Shark Alliance, which provided Brussels with data.

Shark meat is served in restaurants across Europe, including at traditional British fish-and-chip shops, according to WWF.

The European Commission said that between 1984 and 2004, world shark catches grew from 600,000 to over 810,000 tonnes per year.

Of these, more than half are taken in the North Atlantic, including in the North Sea.

Source: Terra Daily.
Link: http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Spaniards_lobby_Madrid_on_shark_protection_campaigners_999.html.

Tibetan areas of China are no-go zones for foreign media

by Staff Writers
Xining, China (AFP) March 12, 2009

Along remote mountain roads of western China hundreds of kilometers (miles) from the nearest big city, police stand in the snow waiting to stop foreign reporters from going any further.

Past the checkpoints are no-go zones for the journalists who are trying to verify the government's portrayal of Tibetans as happy and content under Chinese rule.

"This is not an open area," a policeman told an AFP team this week after authorities discovered that the journalists had traveled through some of the checkpoints and made it to a Buddhist monastery in Qinghai province.

Many foreign journalists encountered more severe problems as they sought to travel through Qinghai and other areas of western China this week on the sensitive 50th anniversary of a Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule.

One foreign journalist described the security crackdown aimed at ensuring no protests by Tibetans to mark the anniversary as "undeclared martial law".

Foreign reporters are banned from traveling independently to the Tibet Autonomous Region, but are officially allowed to visit Tibetan regions of western China such as Qinghai.

China's foreign ministry has insisted that foreign reporters are allowed to visit these areas with Tibetan populations, but that local authorities have the final say.

Beniamino Natale, Beijing bureau chief of the Italian news agency ANSA, said he arrived Monday at a monastery in Guinan, a town in Qinghai where monks told him a protest against Chinese rule was held last month.

Nine monks were arrested for that protest, they told Natale.

However police quickly arrived, causing the fearful monks to withdraw and preventing any further conversation from taking place.

The police then took Natale and his local driver to a police station where they were held for three hours, he said.

As police "harassed" the frightened driver, three monks from the monastery were seen being brought into custody, Natale said.

"The driver was very scared by the ordeal. There is a very heavy security presence now and they clearly do not want journalists there," Natale told AFP.

Aside from being ordered out of the La Jian monastery, the team of AFP reporters was repeatedly stopped and turned away from Tibetan-populated areas of Qinghai this week.

During one incident, the journalists were prevented from traveling to the monastery town of Rebkong, where protests flared on last year's anniversary of the sensitive uprising that forced the Dalai Lama to flee into exile.

Police officers photographed them and recorded their identification. Police were overheard warning their ethnic Han Chinese driver not to take the journalists to Rebkong.

Rosa Maria Mollo, Asia bureau chief for Spanish network TVE, and two colleagues were held twice by police last week in Tibetan areas of Sichuan province.

Police interrogated them about their activities and deleted tapes, said producer Isabel Hormaeche, a member of the TVE team.

Police later blocked further filming by intimidating interviewees, she said.

"We were also watched for two nights while being advised to stay in a hotel recommended by the police. Our local interpreter and driver were also harassed and interrogated at night in these hotels," she said.

The crew was eventually escorted from the area.

The scenes encountered by foreign journalists stand in contrast to China's official description of Tibetan areas.

Even as China tightened its security grip in recent weeks, its state-controlled media have issued a series of reports describing happy Tibetans living gratefully under Chinese rule.

Source: Sino Daily.
Link: http://www.sinodaily.com/reports/Tibetan_areas_of_China_are_no-go_zones_for_foreign_media_999.html.

Airport symbolizes Palestinian statehood hopes

By Mohammed Assadi
Reuters

JORDAN VALLEY, West Bank - Engineers in the West Bank have drawn up plans to turn a strip of desert in the Jordan Valley into an airport where they hope visitors will one day touch down in the independent state of Palestine.

The fate of the project, along with the Palestinian dream of independence, hinges on the course of peace talks with Israel. It would be built far below sea-level on flat desert land north of the Dead Sea, which the Israelis currently control.

Skepticism abounds, even as the United States seeks to revive the 17-year old “peace process” aimed at creating a state for the Palestinians on occupied land next to Israel.

The blueprints for Palestine International Airport are part of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s effort to push the Palestinians towards that goal by next year.

At a cost of $462 million, the airport is one of the more ambitious elements in the Fayyad plan - a state-building program that has won praise from the Palestinian Authority’s Western sponsors.

It can be built in two years, said Mohamad Jaradat, designer of the airport and head of the Palestinian Aviation Authority.

The one-terminal facility “will be one of the pillars of the state”, Jaradat said, who has helped build airports in Kuala Lumpur, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman.

At the site, there is scant sign of activity. Camels roam the parched landscape and Israeli soldiers fire at targets during a training exercise.

The Palestinians have asked Israel for permission to start work. As yet, it has not been granted.

For now, the peace process is grounded. US-backed talks have been stalled by a dispute over Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank. There is widespread pessimism about the prospects for a deal ending the conflict through the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Been there before?

Reflecting a sense of purpose instilled by Fayyad’s state-building project, the Palestinian transport minister says he will push ahead with the airport construction next year with or without Israeli permission.

The pledge rings hollow. The proposed building site is in part of the West Bank which, according to interim peace accords, is under full Israeli control. Known as Area C, the area accounts for 60 per cent of the West Bank.

Restrictions in Area C are a major obstacle to the Fayyad plan and Palestinian development in general.

With the help of Western allies, Fayyad, a former World Bank economist, has been able to reform PA ministries and security services and improve roads. But he has been unable to build the industrial parks and railways also set out in his plan.

To Palestinians, talk of a new airport inspires a sense of deja vu. During a previous bout of state-building in the 1990s, in the era of the late leader Yasser Arafat, the Palestinians built an international airport in the Gaza Strip.

US President Bill Clinton was the most prominent visitor to land at Gaza International Airport, opened to great fanfare in 1998. The Palestinian Authority founded a national carrier, Palestinian Airlines. Optimism swirled around the peace process.

Gaza International Airport is today in ruins - a symbol of the peace process’ collapse into violence when Clinton’s diplomacy reached a dead end a decade ago. Most of the violence of the Palestinian Intifada abated some five years ago.

Today, few Palestinians are able to travel from the Gaza Strip, which has been run by the Hamas Islamist group since 2007. Most of those who travel do so via the Rafah crossing to Egypt - a time-consuming journey involving complicated coordination with the Egyptian authorities. Palestinians traveling from the West Bank mostly do so via Jordan, passing through an immigration terminal in the Israeli-controlled Jordan Valley.

On a bad day, with temperatures in the high 40oC, procedures for crossing the Allenby Bridge which spans the Jordan River can take hours.

“People are eager to have an airport of their own,” said Jaradat.

5 November 2010

Source: The Jordan Times.
Link: http://jordantimes.com/?news=31570.

Maoists kill two people in eastern India

Fri, 05 Nov 2010

New Delhi - Maoist rebels shot dead two villagers and injured four more in a revenge attack in India's eastern state of Bihar on Friday, police said.

The group of 30 rebels struck in a village in Banka district, 200 kilometers south-east of state capital Patna, and opened fire on the locals.

"Two villagers were killed and four were seriously injured. They have been admitted at a local hospital but are out of danger," police spokesman PK Thakur said.

"The killings were apparently in retaliation for an incident in 2008 in which the villagers caught some Maoist militants and killed one of them," he added.

Additional forces had been dispatched to the region, the spokesman said.

More than a third of India's 626 administrative districts are affected by the insurgency, which has left more than 1,000 people dead since January.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/352065,kill-people-eastern-india.html.

Myanmar vote rigged, shouldn't be recognized, exiles say

Fri, 05 Nov 2010

Dhaka - Myanmar exiles living in Bangladesh on Friday asked the international community not to recognize the results of Myanmar's general election this weekend because they said it was run by the ruling military junta there and would only benefit the junta.

"This upcoming election is only the creation of the military junta to benefit a small number of high-ranking military officers and to lengthen their bad rule," said Mra Raza Linn, the president of the Rakhaing Women's Union, during a protest on the streets of Dhaka.

The group of more than 20 women gathered in front of the Supreme Court building, chanting slogans against the military rulers in Myanmar and seeking assistance from other countries in their fight for self-determination.

"We earnestly request our neighboring countries - Bangladesh, India and China - to help us get real democracy and get the right of self-determination for the ethnic minorities in the country," a statement issued after the demonstration said.

The demonstrators carried placards and banners, one of which said, "The 2010 election is for the military junta, not for the Burmese people."

More than 200,000 citizens of Myanmar, which is also called Burma, live in exile in squalid slums in neighboring Bangladesh's south-eastern Cox's Bazar district. A handful has received refugee status.

Myanmar is to hold its first general election in 20 years Sunday, but critics of its regime argued that it has been stage-managed by the junta that has ruled the country with an iron fist since 1988.

It lost the 1990 election to the pro-democracy National League for Democracy (NLD), but the junta never let the party take power.

For Sunday's election, authorities introduced regulations effectively disqualifying the NLD from running.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/352072,be-recognized-exiles-say.html.

Women poorly represented in Myanmar polls

Fri, 05 Nov 2010

Yangon - Less than 4 per cent of the 3,071 candidates contesting Myanmar's general election this weekend are female, the Myanmar Times reported Friday.

Myanmar's best-known female politician, opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, has been excluded from the polls. She is serving an 18-month house detention sentence that is due to expire on November 13, when she may or may not be released.

While there are few woman candidates in the election, the first to be held in two decades, several of the contesting parties have women in senior positions.

The Democratic (Myanmar) Party is led by Nay Yee Ba Swe, the daughter of former premier Ba Swe.

The Union of Myanmar party is also led by a woman, Nan Shwe Kyar.

"The number of women involved in this year's election is still better than in 1990 and I think in five years there will be more female candidates," she told the Myanmar Times.

The May 1990 elections were won by Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party. Suu Kyi, the daughter of Myanmar independence leader Aung San, has spent 15 of the past 20 years under house arrest, and won the Nobel peace prize in 1991.

Her party has refused to contest Sunday's polls as new regulations would have forced them to drop Suu Kyi as a member to qualify.

Western observers have complained that the polls are neither free nor fair, nor inclusive.

It was widely believed that the election would be won by the well-financed, pro-junta Union Solidarity and Development Party, which is packed with former military men and government officials. The second-largest party is the National Unity Party, which is associated with the former regime under military strongman Ne Win, who ruled Myanmar between 1962 and 1988.

Each of these parties have fielded more than 1,000 candidates to contest the 1,159 seats up for grabs in Myanmar's three houses of parliament.

The two military-flavored parties have only "a handful of women in their ranks," the Myanmar Times said.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/352056,poorly-represented-myanmar-polls.html.

US to face first review at UN rights council

Geneva - The United States will take center stage at the United Nations Human Rights Council on Friday, in a session likely to see some of Washington's thorniest policies face criticism.

For the US, this will be the first time it faces the council's Universal Periodic Review (UPR), a mechanism which aims to ensure that every country has to be accountable for its human rights record.

Started in 2008, the UPR is over half way through a four-year cycle, which at its conclusion will see all 192 member-states of the UN stand before the council.

Much of Washington's report to the Geneva-based council focused on issues pertaining to equality, fairness and dignity within the country's borders.

The report explained both the death penalty, which is controversially still in use, and the jail system, which has faced intense criticism from human rights groups for harsh conditions and a disproportionately large number of people behind bars.

The US delegation to Geneva, expected to include some 30 officials being flown in, will also likely focus on President Barack Obama's recently passed health care reform, as a human rights achievement.

Guantanamo Bay also featured extensively in the US report, mostly in an effort to explain Obama's decision to close the detention facility, an order which has not been carried out, much to the chagrin of allies abroad.

Following the recent defeat his Democratic Party suffered in the elections for Congress, in which they lost control over the lower house, closing the highly emblematic detention camp might be even tougher for Obama.

The US delegation in Geneva is expected to be asked tough questions, by friend and foe alike.

European allies will push for greater action by the US to improve conditions of prisoners, abolish the death penalty, stop torture, bolster workers and enhance gay rights.

Countries in the southern hemisphere will likely want answers on US immigration policy.

The US military's actions abroad, including in Pakistan and Afghanistan, will also be looked at closely, including by countries that are staunchly opposed to US foreign policy, such as Iran.

Obama chose to have the US join the 47-member council within his first months in office, reversing a decision by George W Bush, who was staunchly opposed to the UN rights body.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/352051,review-un-rights-council.html.

China halts artist's satirical crab feast

Fri, 05 Nov 2010

Beijing - Chinese police on Friday held famous artist Ai Weiwei under house arrest to prevent him from staging a feast in Shanghai that was designed to poke fun at the ruling Communist Party.

The police placed Ai under house arrest after telling him they would not allow him to travel to Shanghai, where he had invited friends and supporters to eat 10,000 river crabs on Sunday, he told the German Press Agency dpa.

"The police came several times in the last few days. This afternoon their final position was that I could not go (to Shanghai)," he said.

"They are forceful measures and my personal freedom is restricted, so I cannot go," Ai said.

The Chinese word for "river crab" is a homophone for "harmony," the party's ideological buzzword for maintaining a stable and "harmonious society," which underpins its continued crackdown on dissent.

In response, activists have made "river crab" a popular metaphor for many forms of official suppression of rights in China, including media and internet censorship.

Ai organized the Shanghai event to consume "harmony" in response to the authorities' decision to demolish, or "harmonize," his new studio in the city.

His wasted order of 10,000 crabs and other dishes for the planned feast was a "small problem," he said.

"The (bigger) problem is that thousands of guests are on their way," Ai said. "They bought their tickets and some of them wanted to take their children and partners, but now they have to cancel their tickets."

Some Beijing-based activists who were held under long-term house arrest said they still planned to eat crabs individually and post photographs online.

Shanghai officials invited Ai to build a studio in a new art district two years ago but this year they reversed their decision and said the building had to be demolished.

Ai, 53, has become increasingly active in China's human rights movement in recent years.

In September last year, he underwent surgery in Germany for a cerebral haemorrhage that he said was caused when he and other rights activists were attacked in his hotel in the central city of Chengdu during the trial of rights activist Tan Zuoren.

Tan and Ai have tried to determine how many children died when poorly constructed schools collapsed in the May 2008 Sichuan earthquake, which killed at least 80,000 people.

Beijing-based Ai has gained an international reputation for his wide range of artworks, installations and performances. He was an artistic consultant for the Bird's Nest Olympic stadium in Beijing.

In July, he placed a giant rock on the peak of the Hoher Dachstein mountain in Austria as a monument to the Sichuan earthquake victims.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/352063,artists-satirical-crab-feast.html.

China warns European nations of 'consequences' for Nobel support

Fri, 05 Nov 2010

Beijing - A Chinese official on Friday warned European nations that they would face diplomatic consequences if they continued public support for jailed Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo.

Nations voicing support for Liu were playing "political games" and would damage diplomatic relations with China, Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai told reporters.

"So the choice before some European countries and others is clear and simple," Cui said.

"Do they want to be part of the political games, and do they want to be part of the effort to challenge the Chinese judicial system, or do they want to want to develop friendly relations with the Chinese government and people.

"If they make the wrong choice, they will have to bear the consequences," he said.

Cui's remarks follow reports that Chinese officials in Oslo warned some European nations' ambassadors to Norway against attending the presentation ceremony of the Nobel Peace Prize in the city on December 10.

A German official confirmed that the German embassy in Oslo received a "verbal note" from a Chinese diplomat and said other European embassies in Oslo were given similar messages.

German diplomats replied that Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle had welcomed the award of the prize to Liu and had expressed hope that China would allow the dissident writer to collect the prize in person, the official told the German Press Agency dpa.

"Germany traditionally takes part in the Nobel (peace) prize ceremony. There is no reason not to follow this long-standing practice," the official quoted the German diplomats as saying.

China's ruling Communist Party reacted with hostility to the award of the prize on October 8 and placed Liu's wife, Liu Xia, under house arrest.

The Foreign Ministry earlier insisted that Liu Xiaobo was a "convicted criminal" under Chinese law and urged the Nobel Committee and foreign governments not to "interfere in China's internal affairs."

Liu Xiaobo, a prominent writer and one of China's leading dissidents, was arrested in December 2008 for his part in writing the Charter '08 for democratic reform. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison for subversion.

The government has kept many other dissidents and rights activists under house arrest or other forms of detention since October 8 to prevent them from publicly celebrating the award or supporting Liu.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/352084,nations-consequences-nobel-support.html.

New Monkey Species Discovered In Myanmar

posted by Beth Buczynski Nov 4, 2010

Primatologists have discovered a new species of monkey living in a remote forested region of northern Myanmar (Burma) which is under threat from logging and a Chinese dam project.

The research, published in the American Journal of Primatology, describes the monkey (Rhinopithecus strykeri) as having almost entirely blackish fur with white fur only on ear tufts, chin beard and perineal area. It also has a relatively long tail, approximately 140 percent of its body size.

Scientists were alerted to the monkey’s presence by hunters who said it was easy to find in the rain because its upturned nostrils made it prone to sneezing when water dripped in.

Sightings were reported from the eastern Himalayas to the northeastern Kachin state leading the team to conduct field surveys which led to the discovery of a small population of a new species which displays characteristics unlike any other snub-nosed species previously described.

Although the species is new to science, the local people are very familiar with it. Locals told scientists that to avoid getting rainwater in their noses the monkeys spend rainy days sitting with their heads tucked between their knees.

Unfortunately, the future of the mey nwoah, or ‘monkey with an upturned face’ is quite uncertain.

Scientists estimate that there are between 260 and 330 of the monkeys living in an area of about 270 sq km (100 sq miles). The area is being developed by China Power Investment Corp. as a new dam site, and many fear that construction and logging roads invading the area could negatively affect the critically endangered species.

Frank Momberg, of Fauna and Flora International and a co-author of the study, said that the company has an economic interest in preserving the forested region where the monkeys live.

“More roads and logging would cause erosion around the watershed that could clog up the new reservoir with silt, reducing power generation, he said.”

Source: Care2.
Link: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/new-monkey-species-discovered-in-myanmar.html.

Diplomacy over Western Sahara

Morocco v Algeria
Can yet another bout of talks break a 35-year-old stalemate?

Nov 4th 2010 | LAAYOUNE

DURING the sweltering day, an oddly subdued mood hangs over the sleepy city of Laayoune. Only at night, after the sun has set below the desert horizon and the smell of grilled camel drifts out of the sandwich shops that dot the broad boulevards, does the city come to life. For Morocco Laayoune is a hub for fishing and phosphate mining. For the separatist Polisario movement it is the occupied capital of what should be the independent Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR). The rebel movement has never come close to running the place—and, as things stand, probably never will. Yet the impasse still blocks the resumption of proper relations between Morocco and Algeria, which has long backed Polisario.

For a good three decades, the UN has been trying to arrange a deal. Sometimes it has seemed close to giving up. But on November 8th-9th representatives of Morocco’s government and Polisario are to meet under the world body’s aegis in Manhasset, New York, along with officials from Algeria and Mauritania, to try to find a solution. If they fail as usual, the bad blood could get worse. The UN’s latest envoy, Christopher Ross, says the status quo is “unsustainable”.

The row has been going on since November 1975, when Morocco’s then king, Hassan II, got 350,000 of his people to mass on its southern border, in order to bully Spain, which controlled Spanish Sahara, as it was then called, into ceding the territory. Spain duly did so. The following month, the Moroccan army marched in, prompting a 16-year war with Polisario fighters backed by neighboring Algeria.

By Moroccan standards, Laayoune is prosperous. The government in Rabat has invested a lot of cash in an effort to win hearts and minds. And yet, despite a ceasefire since 1991, a nervy atmosphere permeates the city. At its eight checkpoints, zealous secret police and UN peacekeepers’ white jeeps stand by. The indigenous people are far from happy.

Since early October thousands of Sahrawis have gathered at Gadaym Izik, ten minutes’ drive outside the city, where they have pitched some 8,000 tents. Campaigners say it is the biggest demonstration since Morocco took control of Western Sahara. But the demands of the tent people are not overtly political. Instead, they are calling for economic equality and a proper say on the exploitation of the territory’s resources. Morocco is renegotiating a fishing agreement with Europe which includes the seas off Western Sahara.

The protests are fraying nerves. After a 14-year-old boy was killed, the authorities said he had been bringing guns to the tented camp, which foreign journalists have been prevented from visiting. Al-Jazeera’s offices in Rabat have been closed because of the satellite channel’s alleged “prejudice against Morocco”.

Native Sahrawis now account for only a fifth of the city’s 200,000-odd people, most of whom are Moroccans lured by subsidies and government jobs. In the mainly Sahrawi district of Maatala, where SADR flags and pro-Polisario graffiti can occasionally be seen, doors are reinforced with steel against police raids.

“Continuing human-rights abuses and the lack of a solution risk radicalizing our young people,” says Aminatou Haidar, a human-rights campaigner and former political prisoner sometimes called “the Saharan Gandhi” for preaching non-violence. In 1999 and again in 2005, riots shook the city. Smaller clashes between separatists and the Moroccan authorities flare up intermittently.

A year ago Ms Haidar was turned back at Laayoune’s airport, apparently for writing “Western Sahara” as her country on her landing card. She spent the next month on hunger strike at an airport in the nearby Canary Islands, which belong to Spain, before the Moroccans were persuaded (apparently by Hillary Clinton, the American secretary of state, among others) to let her back in.

Her expulsion came a week after King Muhammad VI, who succeeded his father, King Hassan, in 1999, had hardened his line against the separatists. “One is either a patriot or a traitor,” he said. “One cannot enjoy the rights of citizenship and at the same time plot with the nation’s enemies.”

Such comments make diplomacy go backwards, says Ms Haidar, who echoes the Polisario view that, as Morocco initially agreed, the territory’s future should be determined by a referendum. But in 2000, after Morocco and Polisario had failed to agree on a range of issues, the UN had to abandon a census that would have enabled a voters’ roll to be drawn up. Since then, Morocco, with a French and American nod, has proposed autonomy as the only solution. Morocco is now proceeding with a plan for a regional authority to be set up as a step towards autonomy.

“The parties…do not yet possess the political will to enter into genuine negotiations on the future of the Western Sahara,” wrote Mr Ross in June. Since then he has been calling on the Group of Friends of Western Sahara, consisting of Britain, France, Russia, Spain and the United States, to stop the stumbling talks between Morocco and Polisario from breaking down altogether. The upcoming meetings are at least partially the result of his efforts.

But it is an uphill task. Earlier this year flights between Laayoune and Tindouf, the nearest big town in Algeria, close to Polisario’s main camps in exile, were hailed as a confidence-building measure. But the flights have since been canceled. Ms Haidar’s treatment and the arrest in Tindouf of Mustafa Salma, a senior Polisario man, after he had declared his support for Morocco’s autonomy proposal, worsened the mood. Mr Ross wants Algeria’s government, Polisario’s main backer, to become a fully-fledged party to the talks, but it has refused so far to join in, saying that only Polisario can speak for the Western Saharans. Along with Mauritania, it will only observe the talks.

“Sahrawis are pawns in the rivalry between Algeria and Morocco,” concludes Eddah Laghdaf, who directs a state-run television station in Laayoune and backs Morocco’s autonomy idea. “We Sahrawis are obliged to choose between Algeria and Morocco, since an independent state would be an Algerian satellite,” he adds. “I choose Morocco as it offers at least a glimmer of hope for democratization.” Algeria, he implies, is a deadlier dictatorship. But that hardly means Saharans are itching to stay under Moroccan control.

Polisario’s SADR is recognized by at least 50 countries today, though the movement says more than 80 governments at one time did so. But African countries, especially, have blown hot and cold, sometimes granting recognition and then withdrawing it, often depending on their relations with Morocco and Algeria. Uncertainty, it seems, is pervasive.

Source: The Economist.
Link: http://www.economist.com/node/17421589?story_id=17421589.

Internal enemies of the Ummah

By Tahir Mustafa
March 2010

Apart from external instruments used against Muslims, imperialists have mastered their ability to infuse fifth columnists inside the Muslim Ummah. Not only have we observed the phenomenon of injecting poisonous ideologies into the Muslim Ummah whose real intentions became evident almost immediately, there are also those whose appearance, rhetoric and ambitions appear on surface to be based on the primary sources of Islam. The unfortunate reality is that in the Ummah there are people, organizations and groups that inflict great damage on Muslims because of their political, social and academic simplicity and narrow-mindedness. It is the naivety of such groups that is used to impose the war of terror on Muslims by the forces of global arrogance.

The regrettable reality is that the global Islamic movement, the respected scholars of Islam, and the vanguard of the Islamic resistance did not even begin to address the stagnation imposed by these fringe groups on the wider Muslim Ummah. So far the polemics and discussions have remained within a narrow sectarian framework and have not extended into the wider Islamic discourse on solving this important problem. However, the events instigated in Gaza by “Jund Ansar Allah” in mid-August 2009, if properly analyzed and presented to the wider Muslim Ummah may instigate the much needed discourse and open the eyes of many Muslims that will lead to a non-sectarian solution to the problem.

The historic roots of the alliance between Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab and the House of Saud in 1746 will not be analysed here. A brief reference to it, however, is necessary to understand its contemporary repercussions. The movement that emerged as a result of the alliance of a pseudo-scholar with a power hungry clan has managed to put Islam at the service of power while jurisprudentially and historically, it is power that must serve Islam. The greatest manifestation of the Saudi distortion of Islam in its contemporary mode was observed in 2005 when King Abdullah took the throne. During the widely televised inauguration, Saudi scholars from different cities pledged allegiance to the king. About a week prior to Abdullah’s accession to power, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad was inaugurated as President of Iran. During his inauguration one fact upon which the world media focused was how in Iran every President pledges allegiance to Islamic law and the Supreme Leader who represents the law and who himself is an Islamic jurist-consult. These two distinct practices of correlation between Islamic law and government is one of the root causes why deviant organizations within the Muslim Ummah are easily manipulated by the corrupt regimes.

Parts of the Muslim world that are not completely blacked out of Islam, those representing the Saudi agenda with an Islamic veneer, can be easily exposed. There are enough scholars and Islamic scholarly sources to refer to in order to clarify such matters. However, in places like the former USSR where Muslims were totally banned from practicing their religion, the Saudi school is beginning to penetrate some segments of society. One of the primary reasons for this is that Saudi control of Makkah and Madinah provides them a false perception of legitimacy. In most Muslim countries of the former USSR, a majority of Muslims has very superficial information about the political events in the Muslim world. Therefore, whatever comes with a stamp of Makkah and Madinah is accepted at face value.

Another factor in facilitating the penetration of Saudi instigated ideas into this region is the war in Chechnya. When the Chechen resistance managed to stall Russian imperial ambitions, many Chechen leaders were “recruited” into the Saudi orbit. Since the Chechen resistance of 1994–1996 was unanimously supported by all Muslims in the former USSR and its leaders were viewed as role models, due to the absence of legitimate local leaders, the Saudi version of Islam gained a powerful foothold through the phenomenon known as “the Chechen field commander.” To make matters worse, many legitimate and charismatic Muslim leaders in the former USSR were eliminated in a treacherous manner thus making Chechens the only alternative role models that were fighting the common enemy — the hated imperial Russia. The unsuspecting adherence of some Chechen leaders to Saudi ideology conferred legitimacy on it for the wider Muslim population in the former USSR. Through the legitimate aspirations of the Chechens for independence, Saudi distortions of Islam gained legitimacy in the former USSR.

An additional contributing factor to the marginal success of Saudi advocates was the fear of Islamic Iran among the Muslim regimes of the former USSR. The ruling elites realized that Saudi-backed preachers were under Saudi government control and that the regime would not instigate major changes in their societies without US consent. Since many of those regimes themselves are sustained in power through US backing, they correctly calculated that the advocates of Saudi distortions could easily be reined in with Saudi and US backing. Thus, such activities were tolerated to a certain degree in order to counter the growing Iranian influence.

Thus far, the political consequences of the Saudi ideology commonly referred to as Wahhabism, have been aimed mainly at Shi‘i Muslims. However, the earlier referenced event in Gaza shows that the Saudi sponsored school of thought with deep historical connections to British secret service is beginning to spoil the achievements of all Islamic resistance movements. The fact that people claiming to follow the Qur’an and Sunnah, raised weapons against an Islamic movement fighting for the liberation of Palestine when the Zionist armed occupiers were only a few kilometers away, signals a major problem which must be addressed on a deep and practical level.

Source: Crescent Online (News Magazine of the Islamic Movement).
Link: http://crescent-online.net/special-reports/1849-march-2010/2680-internal-enemies-of-the-ummah.html.

Boycott advocates plan to go ahead with sit-in

By Thameen Kheetan

AMMAN - Election boycott advocates on Wednesday said they are planning to go ahead with a sit-in outside the Parliament even though their request to hold a demonstration was turned down.

Youth activists from the Islamic Action Front (IAF) and the left-wing Jordanian Democratic Popular Unity Party (Wihda), who are boycotting the November 9 parliamentary elections, were scheduled to meet late Wednesday to discuss the matter.

“We will push for continuing with the activity because this [refusal] is against citizens’ right to peacefully express their opinions,” IAF youth leader Ghaith Al Qudah told The Jordan Times yesterday.

Amman Governor Samir Mubaidin turned down a sit-in request by Wihda’s Boycotters for Change campaign, and another by IAF youth activists to organize a march on the same day, Qudah said.

The march was supposed to start at the IAF premises in Abdali and then join the Wihda activists in front of the Parliament, he noted.

Qudah said that the Islamists have decided not to go ahead with the march, but are still willing to join the sit-in.

“I inform you that the request is turned down and that it is possible to hold the activity inside the party headquarters,” Mubaidin said in a letter to Wihda, a copy of which was made available to The Jordan Times.

Under the Public Gatherings Law, Jordanians are required to obtain prior permission from local governors to organize rallies or assemblies.

The law stipulates that political parties are not required to obtain prior permission if the gathering is held inside their headquarters.

Mubaidin could not be reached for comment yesterday.

In a statement e-mailed to The Jordan Times yesterday, Boycotters for Change said the sit-in refusal “contradicts the government’s recent pledge” to allow freedom of expression.

The IAF and Wihda have announced their boycott of the elections, saying the temporary Elections Law, which maintained the one-person, one-vote system and divided the existing constituencies into sub-districts, incites bigotry and favors tribal and “sub-national” sentiments.

4 November 2010

Source: The Jordan Times.
Link: http://www.jordantimes.com/?news=31557.

Elections in Jordan

Judging by turnout
Expect a nice election but ponder the number who fail to vote

Nov 4th 2010

JORDAN seems to be the Canada of the Middle East. Well-run compared with the neighbors, it has safe and tidy streets, good schools and steady if plodding economic growth. Its police are tough and efficient but generally pretty nice.

Jordan even runs better elections than most. The one on November 9th, for the lower house of parliament, has 763 candidates competing for 120 seats, 24 of them reserved for women and minorities. The campaign has been peaceful and festive so far, with plenty of banners and posters and catchy sloganeering. Foreign observers are expected to give the vote a clean bill of health. Its likely outcome is a solid pro-government majority sprinkled with mild dissent.

The trouble is that few Jordanians seem to care much, for good reason. For the past 20 years their rulers, first King Hussein, now his son Abdullah, have promised meaningful democratic reform. Lots of lofty-sounding changes have been decreed, such as a new election law in May, which boosted the quota for women and allotted new seats to some under-represented districts. Yet the meaningful part has been largely absent.

Even with the new districting, for instance, a vote cast in the crowded capital, Amman, carries only a quarter of the weight of one cast in the dusty provincial town of Ma’an. This is because most people in Jordan’s bigger cities are of Palestinian descent, and therefore seen as less attached to the monarchy. By contrast, natives to the east side of the Jordan river, many of whom retain strong tribal ties, dominate in the hinterlands. Tribes still supply much of the manpower for Jordan’s security forces, and in tacit reward for such patronage have historically remained staunchly loyal to the ruling Hashemite family.

In any case, Jordan’s legislature does not have much influence. The king appoints the upper house, chooses the prime minister and cabinet, and can dissolve parliaments he dislikes. He has done this twice since ascending the throne in 1999, and during those legislative hiatuses ruled by decree. Loopholes and fuzzy laws let him muzzle the press and stifle dissent, much as happens in the meaner-looking countries next door.

This is why Jordan’s only real opposition, the Islamic Action Front, tied to the global Muslim Brotherhood, is boycotting this year’s polls. Its stand marks a break from the past, when the Islamists have traded loyalty to the Hashemites for a wider margin of maneuver. The growing stridency of the front, which supports Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement, and bridles at Jordan’s 16-year-old peace treaty with Israel, has heightened tension with the Hashemites. So the question in many Jordanian minds is not who will win seats in the election but how many people will vote at all. What will remain unclear is how many of those who abstain will have done so in sympathy for the Islamists and how many simply could not be bothered.

Source: The Economist.
Link: http://www.economist.com/node/17421579?story_id=17421579.

YouTube removes 'al-Qaeda videos'

Website says it is removing speeches by Anwar al-Awlaki following complaints from UK and US officials.

04 Nov 2010

YouTube, the video-sharing website has begun removing clips of speeches by an American-born Yemeni religious leader who US authorities believe is a leading figure in al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

The move by YouTube, first reported by the New York Times newspaper on Wednesday, comes after a "British official" and a US politician put pressure on the Google-owned website.

Anthony Weiner, a congressman from New York, sent YouTube a letter last week calling al-Awlaki the "bin Laden of the internet," referring to Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda founder.

Weiner listed hundreds of al-Awlaki's videos that appear on YouTube, writing: "There is no reason we should give killers like al-Awlaki access to one of the world's largest bully pulpits so they can inspire more violent acts within our borders, or anywhere else in the world."

Al-Awlaki appears in more than 700 videos which have received a combined 3.5 million views, Weiner wrote.

A YouTube spokeswoman told the Times that the site had removed videos that violated guidelines against showing "dangerous or illegal activities such as bomb-making, hate speech, and incitement to commit violent acts", or that came from accounts "registered by a member of a designated foreign terrorist organization" or used to promote such a group's interests.

But as of Thursday, there were still hundreds of videos featuring speeches by al-Awlaki on YouTube.

Al-Awlaki gained US media attention after a Muslim army major who had communicated with the cleric shot to death 13 people and wounded 30 others at the Fort Hood military base in Texas.

Al-Awlaki also reportedly had contact with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian man who attempted to blow up a passenger airplane over the US on December 25.

In May, a woman in Britain who had reportedly watched dozens of hours of al-Awlaki's videos on YouTube was sentenced to life in prison for stabbing a British politician, The Times said.

Weiner said YouTube's first response to his letter had been merely "bureaucratic", but that the company took his request more seriously after a plot was uncovered to send two explosives hidden in parcels bound from Yemen to the US.

Barack Obama, the US president, linked the plot - thought to be an attempt to blow up the airplanes the parcels were carried on mid-flight - to AQAP.

Source: Al-Jazeera.
Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/11/2010114204058597893.html.

Weather delays Discovery space shuttle launch: NASA

by Staff Writers
Cape Canaveral, Florida (AFP) Nov 4, 2010

NASA postponed until Friday the launch of shuttle Discovery due to bad weather, the latest in a series of delays for orbiter's final scheduled flight to the International Space Station.

Heavy rain early Thursday buffeted Florida's Kennedy Space Center where Discovery had already been rolled out to the launchpad after early glitches that postponed the launch three times earlier in the week were resolved.

"There is a no go for 24 hours because of the weather," a spokesman at Kennedy Space Center said.

Launch is now set for 3:03 pm (1903 GMT) Friday, with weather forecasts showing a 60-percent chance of favorable conditions, the US space agency said.

Mission experts had agreed on Thursday's launch attempt after a close study of the latest electrical glitch found that a circuit-breaker was the origin of a cockpit problem, not the main engine controller which would have been more serious.

After three postponements to Discovery's final flight before it is retired, NASA experts were eager to see it fly Thursday.

"From a vehicle prospective we are ready to go," said mission management team leader Mike Moses, although with just a 20 percent chance of favorable conditions he acknowledged the mission might be grounded by Mother Nature.

A green light from mission managers would begin shuttle fueling operations, which normally take three hours.

The launch window closes Sunday. The next window for the mission would come on December 1 and last only a few days.

Discovery's 11-day mission, originally scheduled for November 1, was delayed twice for an engine pressurization problem and again on Tuesday for an electrical malfunction of a circuit-breaker in the shuttle's cockpit which failed to turn on as expected.

While the latest glitch with the back-up controller for shuttle engine three was not considered a major problem -- the breaker worked after several tries -- NASA engineers wanted to understand its causes should it malfunction again during takeoff, Moses said.

NASA concluded the problem was residue buildup on the breaker switch.

Discovery's all-American six-member crew, including female mission specialist Nicole Stott, will deliver a pressurized logistics module called Leonardo, which will be permanently attached to the space station to provide more storage space.

The shuttle will also bring Robonaut 2, the first human-like robot in space and a permanent addition to the orbiting space station, as well as spare parts.

Two space walks, for maintenance work and component installation, are scheduled.

The flight to the ISS is the fourth and final shuttle flight of the year, and the last scheduled for Discovery, the oldest in the three-shuttle fleet that is being retired in 2011.

"Discovery is not going out easy, she is giving us a little bit of trouble but that is fine, she will fly perfectly when she does," said launch director Mike Leinbach.

The three US shuttles -- the other two are Atlantis and Endeavor -- are due to be sent off to become museum pieces after a final shuttle mission to the space station in late February.

That means Russian Soyuz spacecraft, a modernized version of which recently dropped off three fresh crew members to the ISS, doubling the crew to six, will for several years be the only vehicle for transporting humans into space.

However, NASA's recently approved 2011 budget has left the door open to an additional shuttle flight in June.

Source: Space Travel.
Link: http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Weather_delays_Discovery_space_shuttle_launch_NASA_999.html.

Mubarak worried about Middle East, Egyptian official says

Thu, 04 Nov 2010

Jerusalem - President Hosny Mubarak is "worried" about the future of the Middle East and Egypt is interested in making a breakthrough in the peace process, Egyptian security chief Omar Suleiman said in Jerusalem Thursday.

Speaking as he was about to meet Israeli President Shimon Peres, Suleiman said that he had been sent to Jerusalem "to ensure the peace process momentum continued."

Direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which resumed at the beginning of September after a nearly-two-year hiatus, quickly fell into limbo after Israel did not extend a freeze on construction at its West Bank settlements.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said the talks will not resume until and unless Israel renews the freeze, something Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not publicly agreed to to do.

Efforts are underway to find a compromise which would allow the negotiations to restart, but so far without success.

Suleiman also held talks with Netanyahu in Tel Aviv Thursday evening, in an hour-and-a-half meeting Netanyahu's office said focused on ways to renew the peace negotiations.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/351982,east-egyptian-official-says.html.

Dr Aafia Siddiqui To Be Incarcerated In CarsHELL

By Yvonne Ridley

November 04, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- When Dr Aafia Siddiqui was sentenced to 86 years by New York judge Richard Berman it sent shock waves around the world.

Many of her supporters felt that it was just one step down from the death penalty … sadly, this could be closer to the truth than they imagine.

For not only did the New York judge expose his vindictive pursuit of the defendant by imposing the unprecedented sentence he also personally intervened to make sure she would serve it in one of America’s most brutal institutions.

In short he probably HAS sentenced Dr Aafia Siddiqui to death because if she remains in the innocuous sounding Federal Medical Facility in Carswell, Texas, like many others who have gone before her, she may not survive the experience.

Carswell is the only mental institution of its kind in the USA, and despite the fact that Judge Berman refused to accept Dr Siddiqui was not mentally fit to stand trial he subjected her to a judicial farce in which she was found guilty of attempted murder of US soldiers.

So if he refused to accept Dr Siddiqui was unstable why would he then insist on sending her to Carswell which is known across the USA as the Hospital of Horrors?

Let me tell you how Carswell – or CarsHELL which houses 1500 female prisoners, earned its reputation.

In the last 10 years...

· COUNTLESS young women – more than 100 - have died under “questionable circumstances” with families unable to obtain autopsy reports

· NUMEROUS cases of sex abuse, including sodomy and rape, were carried out by prison chaplain Vincent Bassie Inametti whose reign of terror lasted eight years until he was finally convicted in 2008

· RAMPANT sex abuse of prisoners was reported by prison doctor Roger Guthrie who was fired for whistle-blowing

· PRISON doctor was convicted of sexually abusing inmates while another doctor was allowed to leave without charge after being caught sexually abusing a woman patient

· GROSS medical negligence has been reported including lack of care for several cancer patients - one went untreated for a year and died

· SERIAL sexual predator and prison guard Michael Miller was convicted of raping a detainee

· FORCED psychotropic medication on reluctant detainees

· INFESTATION of ants went unchecked even when one patient in a coma was covered by the biting creatures as was the corpse of another.

To quote one local newspaper, The Fort Worth Weekly, time served in Carswell “can be a death sentence for women prisoners”.

In a different report about Carswell earlier this year the same newspaper said: “It has a troubling history of medical misconduct and sexual abuse of prisoners. Inametti is the eighth man to be convicted of or fired for sexual abuse, including rape, of female prisoners at the facility since 1997. But women there say that sexual abuse is much more rampant than that; the eight cases only became known when women overcame their fears of retribution and reported their attackers.”

And renowned lawyer Elizabeth Fink said in a statement: “One of my clients was transferred to Carswell to receive chemotherapy. She did not receive it for one full year after the therapy was prescribed. She died of classic Kaposi’s Sarcoma, a cancer with a low mortality rate – when treated.”

There are a string of court cases outstanding against the institution from those who have survived the Carswell experience and there are families of those who died in custody who are still fighting for justice, demanding to know the truth.

The catalogue of crimes against the female detainees reads like something from a third world country and such an institution would have certainly been closed down by now or overhauled if it existed in Europe.

In fact Dr Siddiqui should be removed from the US prison system altogether pending her repatriation.

All of this will, of course, make uncomfortable reading for Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi who promised Dr Siddiqui’s family that wherever she was sent she would be treated with respect.

“I will make sure Aafia’s living conditions are humane and respecting Islamic ideology and she be provided full access to family and lawyers without strip searches,” he assured Dr Siddiqui’s sister Dr Fazia Siddiqui recently.

Well if he really wants to make good his promise he should now move heaven and earth to get the Daughter of the Nation out of this vile hell-hole before she becomes another of Carswell’s grim statistics.

Once again the US has shown its contempt towards the wishes of the Pakistan Government and its vindictive persecution of a woman who has been renditioned, raped, tortured and abused since March 2003 when she and her family were kidnapped in Karachi during a joint US-Pakistani-led operation.

The move to repatriate Dr Siddiqui must now take on a new sense of urgency … before it is too late.

Journalist Yvonne Ridley is also a patron of Cageprisoners, a London-based NGO concerned with human rights of those caught up in the War on Terror.

Source: Information Clearing House.
Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26751.htm.