IRAQ

Al-Jazeera: Iraqi Intellectuals Flee 'Death Squads'

In recent months assassinations have targeted engineers, pharmacologists, officers, and lawyers.

More than 1000 leading Iraqi professionals and intellectuals have been assassinated since last April, among them such prominent figures as Dr Muhammad al-Rawi, the president of Baghdad University.

The identity of the assailants remains a mystery and none have been caught.
But families and colleagues of victims believe that Iraqi parties with foreign affiliations have an interest in wiping out Iraq's intellectual elite.

Usama al-Ani, director of the research and development department in the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research said top Iraqi scientists have been targeted by foreign parties.

"I believe Iraqi scientists are being targeted by foreign powers, most probably Israel."
Terror campaign

TERRORISM

Progress.org: 10 Things You Don't Know About Terrorism

Loretta Napoleoni is a true journalist, someone willing to uncover shocking facts that the powerful fatcats would rather keep secret. That's dangerous. Be sure to tell others to read this remarkable article.

Two and a half years into the 'war on terror', the US is running a $500 billion budget deficit, its highest ever and the country is struggling to cover war costs. Terrorism seems to be a very costly business. So how can terrorists afford it? The answer is simple: terrorism is their business.
1. Terrorism has always been a business

During the Cold War terrorism was the trade of the superpowers. They fought wars by proxy across the world by funding local armed groups with legal or covert operations (for example the Contras in Central America). In the late 1970s-early 1980s, some of these groups managed to privatize terrorism. To raise money, they used a mixture of legal and illegal activities -- the IRA had the monopoly of private transport in Belfast; the PLO got a cut out of the Hashish trade from the Bekaa Valley; Carlos the Jackal and Aby Nidal became 'guns for hire' for Arab leaders such as Gaddafi.

2. Globalization boosted terrorism

In the 1990s, as international economic and financial barriers were lowered, terror groups expanded their businesses, which become transnational. Today, money is raised cross border, as proved by the joint business empires of Yousef Nada and Idris Nasreddin, two of bin Laden's associates. According to the UN, their portfolios, which range from real estate to fisheries, sprawl across Europe and Africa, and are worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

IRAQ: RESISTANCE



MSNBC: Bush should beware the Mogadishu effect

Call it the Mogadishu effect: nightmarish, beastly images of humiliating death so far beyond the pale of the Western idea of war that they shake American politics to the core. Will the pictures from Fallujah have the same impact that the ones from Somalia had a decade ago? Bill Clinton flinched back then. Will George Bush?

Here's why I ask: I've never thought that the Clarke-Condi battle would decide the presidential election. It's Iraq that will matter. The fundamental question: whether the invasion and occupation of that country has made America safer — or less so.

ECONOMY: NEW 911?

Propagandamatrix: Footprints of New 9/11 Seen in Markets Says Top Analyst

A leading market analyst says he has spotted suspicious trading in gold and the dollar --which could herald an imminent huge terror event in the Middle-East or Europe.

Jim Sinclair says he can see the footprints of a new 9/11 in recent trading. Sinclair says that as soon as the spiritual leader of the terror group Hamas was killed by Israeli forces, he began to see a pattern of market intervention which means that some new group or strategy is in play on world markets

Many informed insiders recall the suspicious trading in airline stocks just before 9/11 --trading which was never properly investigated at the time. Sinclair remembers it well. He is a former advisor to the Hunt Oil family and a world reknowned expert on the gold markets.

The intervention is driving up both the dollar and gold. Sinclair fears it is designed to benefit from an unthinkable event in the Middle East or Europe which triggers a flight into dollars and gold. and drives the price of oil to at least $60 if not higher. The picture his analysis paints, leaves Sinclair scared to death.

He wants the CIA or the NSA to chart the unique footprint now active in the dollar, and see if matches the airline options trading just before 9/11.

IRAQ: RESISTANCE

Spiegel: USA schockiert über den Totentanz von Falludscha
Die bestialischen Bilder aus Falludscha verstören die amerikanische Öffentlichkeit. Eine entfesselte Menge verstümmelte die verbrannten Leichen von US-Zivilisten. Die Regierung in Washington gibt sich demonstrativ unbeeindruckt.

Spiegel: Fotostrecke: Die Attacke von Falludscha

IRAQ: RESISTANCE

Robert Fisk: Things Are Getting Much Worse In Iraq
It's Not Just A 'Spike' Or An 'Uptick' In Violence

What has happened to the Coalition Provisional Authority, also known as the occupying power?

Things are getting worse, much worse in Iraq. Yesterday's horrors proved that. Yet just a day earlier, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, America's deputy director of military operations, assured us that there was only an "uptick" in violence in Iraq.

Not a sudden wave of violence, mark you, not a down-to-earth increase, not even a "spike" in violence - another of the general's favourite expressions. No, just a teeny-weeny, ever-so small, innocent little "uptick". In fact, he said it was a "slight uptick".

....He almost smiled when General Kimmitt announced his army's intention to conduct "precision operations" against "anti-Coalition elements and enemies of the Iraqi people". But wasn't this all a bit Soviet? Didn't the Red Army conduct operations against "anti-socialist elements and enemies of the Afghan people"?

IRAQ: DEMOCRACY NOW!

SMH: US now looking to install a PM in Iraq

The United States wants to transfer power in Iraq to a hand-picked prime minister, abandoning plans for an expansion of the current 25-member governing council, coalition officials in Baghdad say.

With less than 100 days before the US occupation authorities are to transfer sovereignty on June 30, fears of wrangling among Iraqi politicians has forced Washington to make its third switch of strategy in six months.

The search is now on for an Iraqi to serve as chief executive. He will almost certainly be from the Shia Muslim majority, and probably a secular technocrat. It is not clear if Iraqi agreement on this issue has been sought.

GLOBAL WARMING

Independent: Global warming spirals upwards

Levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have jumped abruptly, raising fears that global warming may be accelerating out of control.

Measurements by US government scientists show that concentrations of the gas, the main cause of the climate exchange, rose by a record amount over the past 12 months. It is the third successive year in which they have increased sharply, marking an unprecedented triennial surge.

IRAQ

Dissidentvoice: There Are No Words ... Radiation in Iraq Equals 250,000 Nagasaki Bombs

....The admiral in India calculated the number of radioactive atoms in the Nagasaki bomb and compared it with the number in the 4,000,000 pounds of uranium left in Iraq from the 2003 war. Now, believe me, it is a lot more complex than that; but, that is essentially what the experts in India did.

How many Nagasaki Nuclear Bombs equal the Radiation loosed in the 2003 Iraq war? Answer: About 250,000 Nuclear Bombs.

How many Nagasaki Nuclear Bombs equal the Radiation loosed in the last Five American Nuclear Wars? Answer: About 400,000 Nuclear Bombs.

MIDDLE EAST

onlinejournal: A malignant tumor onto the world: Israel and its self-defeating actions

Anti-occupation, anti-apartheid and anti-dehumanization is not anti-Semitism nor anti-Israel. Pro-peace, pro-human rights and pro-freedom is not pro-Palestinian. The power of freedom is pointing out when it is being denied. The search for justice and equality comes not from hiding from fear of criticism but rather from taking the road less traveled up the mountain of truth.—Manuel Valenzuela

March 26, 2004—What were Sharon and the Israeli government thinking when they decided to decapitate Hamas through the assassination of its founder, Sheik Ahmed Yassin? If the state sponsored murder of Yassin was not so recklessly self-defeating, one might be inclined to think that Sharon is on a mission to implode the state of Israel.

IRAQ: FREEDOM OF SPEACH

NY TIMES: G.I.'s Padlock Baghdad Paper Accused of Lies

American soldiers shut down a popular Baghdad newspaper on Sunday and tightened chains across the doors after the occupation authorities accused it of printing lies that incited violence.

Thousands of outraged Iraqis protested the closing as an act of American hypocrisy, laying bare the hostility many feel toward the United States a year after the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

"No, no, America!" and "Where is democracy now?" screamed protesters who hoisted banners and shook clenched fists in a hastily organized rally against the closing of the newspaper, Al Hawza, a radical Shiite weekly.

CHINA

Reuters: China's Army On Combat Alert

In response to the disputed presidential election in Taiwan, China's army went over to combat alert on Saturday (Reuters). If Taiwan is unable to resolve the dispute in an orderly fashion, Beijing officials have hinted at military intervention. The South China Morning Post is reporting, as of Wednesday, that Taiwan's election recount deal has collapsed. Violence has been reported between opposition protestors and Taiwan's police. This crisis offers the communists a possible rationale for exercising Beijing's declared sovereignty over Taiwan.

The disordered state of Taiwan's democracy stems from Saturday's presidential poll in which incumbent President Chen Shui-bian won by a narrow margin of 30,000 votes. The election took place the day after an apparent assassination attempt on President Chen that has been decried as a "stunt" by opposition partisans.

Intervention by China is yet unlikely, despite the combat readiness of the People's Liberation Army.

IRAQI DEMOCRACY

Rense: Iraq - 'It's All Bad News'

Several hours later a call was intercepted from another Ayoub. "Oh shit," said the unit's intelligence officer, "it was the wrong Ayoub." The innocent father of six who had the wrong name was not immediately let go so as not to risk revealing to the other Ayoub that the Americans were searching for him. The night after his arrest a relieved Ayoub could be seen escorted by soldiers to call his family and tell them he was fine, but would not be home for a few days. "It was not the wrong guy," said the units commander defensively, shifting blame elsewhere. "We raided the house we were supposed to and arrested the man we were told to." Meanwhile Army intelligence was still confounded by the meaning of the intercepted conversations until somebody realized it was not a terrorist intent on obtaining weapons. It was a kid playing video games and talking about them with his friend on the phone.

USA! USA!
The procrustean application of spurious information gathered by intelligence officers who cannot speak Arabic and are not familiar with Iraqi, Arab or Muslim culture is creating enemies instead of eliminating them. Many languish in prisons indefinitely, lost in a system that imposes English-language procedures on Arabic speakers with Arabic names not easily transcribed. I walked past a detainment center once where a dozen prisoners could be seen marching in a circle, surrounded by barbed wire. They were shouting "USA, USA!" over and over.

"They were talkin' when we told 'em not to, so we made 'em say somethin' we liked to hear," grinned one of the soldiers guarding them. Another gestured up with his hands, letting them know they had to raise their voices. A sergeant later quipped that the ones who are not guilty "will be guilty next time", after such treatment. Some prisoners are termed "security detainees" and held for six months pending a review to determine whether they are still a "security risk". Most are innocent. Many were arrested simply because a neighbor did not like them, or because they were male.

"CHECK IT"

IRAQI DEMOCRACY

Robert Fisk: US Soldiers Ordered To Search Robert Fisk's Room

Room 106 is the hotel suite occupied by The Independent . I gave Mr Scheetz my card. What on earth did he want, I asked? Another soldier turned to me. "I guess we don't want any more hotels blowing up," he said. Of course. And so say all of us. But what has Room 106 got to do with it? "Security," another American said. Which, of course, is the excuse for any raid, any military operation, any body search, any decision taken by anyone - even President Bush - if they don't choose to explain their behaviour.

The day the 1st Armoured Division, with guns at the ready, came to check on our man in Baghdad

I was standing on my balcony in the darkness, puffing on a fine Havana - I had just filed my day's report to The Independent's foreign desk - when I saw the soldiers of the 1st Armoured Division padding down the road outside.

The guys at the rear were walking backwards, two officers in the centre, all moving purposefully towards the hotel entrance. By the time I got downstairs, Mohamed, the receptionist, was incurring the wrath of Iraq's occupying army.

"Show me the hotel register, please, Sir," the officer was saying. "It's in the other building," Mohamed replied innocently. "Don't play games with me, Sir," snapped the soldier. "I want the hotel register."

I've often wondered why American soldiers do this sort of thing - insult a guy and then add "Sir" so they can claim they have been polite. "Mohamed is not playing games," I said. The register is always kept in the other part of the hotel.