Guantanamo 2

De Guardian bericht: 'Return My Work, Says Guantánamo Poet. The Americans can't return the three years that Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost lost, locked in a cell in Guantánamo Bay. But they could at least give back his poetry. "Please help," said Dost, who says he penned 25,000 lines of verse during his long imprisonment. "Those words are very precious to me. My interrogators promised I would get them back. Still I have nothing." The lost poems are the final indignity for Dost, a softly spoken Afghan whom the US military flew home last year, finally believing his pleas of innocence. Accused of being an al-Qaida terrorist, Dost had been whisked from his home in Peshawar, northern Pakistan, in November 2001. Five months later he was shackled, blindfolded and flown to Cuba. Wearing an orange jumpsuit and trapped inside a mesh cage, the Pashtun poet crafted his escape through verse. "I would fly on the wings of my imagination," he recalled. "Through my poems I would travel the world, visiting different places. Although I was in a cage I was really free." Inmates were forbidden pens or papers during Dost's first year in captivity. So he found a novel solution - polystyrene teacups. "I would scratch a few lines on to a cup with a spoon. If you held it up to the light you could read it," he said. "But when the guards collected the trash they threw them away." It was only when prison authorities provided awkward rubbery pens - so soft they could not be used as weapons - that Dost wrote in earnest. His themes were love of his homeland, poetry and his children, and especially his hope of release. Sitting in his library, he quoted a couplet from a favourite poem: "Handcuffs befit brave young men/Bangles are for spinsters or pretty young ladies." Dost lampooned his military captors, mocking what he perceived as ridiculous - women with men's haircuts, men without beards. "In the American army I could not see a real man," he said. "And they talk rudely about homosexuals, which is very shameful to us." The satires delighted fellow inmates, who passed them from cage to cage using a pulley system fashioned from prayer cap threads. Some even passed Dost their two-sheet paper allowance so he could write some more. But invariably the poems were confiscated during cell searches.' Lees verder: http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329448739-103681,00.html Of: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0403-04.htm

Klimaatverandering 31

Common Dreams bericht: 'Is It Too Late to Stop Global Warming? WASHINGTON - A man stands on a railroad track as a train rumbles closer. "Global warming?" he says. "Some say irreversible consequences are 30 years away. Thirty years. That won't affect me." He steps off the tracks -- just in time. But behind him is a little girl, left in front of the roaring train. The screen goes black. A message appears: "There's still time." It's just an ad, part of a campaign from the advocacy group Environmental Defense, which hopes to convince Americans they can do something about global warming, that there's still time. But many scientists are not so sure that the oncoming train of global warming can be avoided. Temperatures are going to rise for decades to come because the chief gas that causes global warming lingers in the atmosphere for about a century. "In the short term, I'm not sure that anyone can stop it," said John Walsh, director of the Center for Global Change and Arctic System Research at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. There are limits, experts say, to how much individuals can do. The best we can hope for is to prevent the worst -- world-altering disasters such as catastrophic climate change and a drastic rise in sea levels, say 10 leading climate scientists interviewed by The Associated Press. They pull out ominous phrases such as "point of no return." The big disasters are thought to be just decades away. Stopping or delaying them would require bold changes by people and government. "The big payoff is going to be for our children," said Tim Barnett, a senior scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California. "Together, if we take a concentrated action as a people, we might be able to slow it down enough to avoid these surprises."
But he and other scientists say it's too late to stop people from feeling the heat. Nearly two dozen computer models agree that by 2100, the average global temperature will be 3 to 6 degrees Fahrenheit higher than now, according to Gerald Meehl, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.' Lees verder:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0403-01.htm

Iran 22

De Engelstalige editie van de Pravda bericht: 'This week in the world of economics began with the opening of the international oil exchange in Iran. The intrigue of the situation is accentuated by the fact that trading will take place in the European currency. This in itself is setting a precedent: in modern history oil has been quoted exclusively in dollars. Alarmists and antiglobalists from all countries have rushed to describe this as yet another sentence against the hegemony of the dollar and the USA. It can not be ruled out that this idea is what is motivating the Iranian authorities. At the height of tension in relations between the USA and Iran the latter’s move looks like a blow to the economic power of its enemy. This cannot be deemed a weak blow – Iran has a share of at least 4% of worldwide oil production. Moreover, it has been declared that the format of the exchange will meet international norms: the question now is: which other of the Persian Gulf states will support Iran? “The situation there will depend on the extent to which other countries and regions will want to convert from the dollar to the euro,” the analyst of IK ‘FINAM” Olga Belenkaya told Pravda.Ru.' Lees verder:
http://english.pravda.ru/world/asia/21-03-2006/77628-oil-0

Cyber War

De Sunday Herald bericht: 'While the US remains committed to hunting down al-Qaeda operatives, it is now taking the battle to new fronts. Deep within the Pentagon, technologies are being deployed to wage the war on terror on the internet, in newspapers and even through mobile phones. -- -- IMAGINE a world where wars are fought over the internet; where TV broadcasts and newspaper reports are designed by the military to confuse the population; and where a foreign armed power can shut down your computer, phone, radio or TV at will.In 2006, we are just about to enter such a world. This is the age of information warfare, and details of how this new military doctrine will affect everyone on the planet are contained in a report, entitled The Information Operations Roadmap, [PDF] commissioned and approved by US secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld and seen by the Sunday Herald.The Pentagon has already signed off $383 million to force through the document’s recommendations by 2009. Military and intelligence sources in the US talk of “a revolution in the concept of warfare”. The report orders three new developments in America’s approach to warfare:lFirstly, the Pentagon says it will wage war against the internet in order to dominate the realm of communications, prevent digital attacks on the US and its allies, and to have the upper hand when launching cyber-attacks against enemies.lSecondly, psychological military operations, known as psyops, will be at the heart of future military action. Psyops involve using any media – from newspapers, books and posters to the internet, music, Blackberrys and personal digital assistants (PDAs) – to put out black propaganda to assist government and military strategy. Psyops involve the dissemination of lies and fake stories and releasing information to wrong-foot the enemy.lThirdly, the US wants to take control of the Earth’s electromagnetic spectrum, allowing US war planners to dominate mobile phones, PDAs, the web, radio, TV and other forms of modern communication. That could see entire countries denied access to telecommunications at the flick of a switch by America.Freedom of speech advocates are horrified at this new doctrine, but military planners and members of the intelligence community embrace the idea as a necessary development in modern combat.Human rights lawyer John Scott, who chairs the Scottish Centre for Human Rights, said: “This is an unwelcome but natural development of what we have seen. I find what is said in this document to be frightening, and it needs serious parliamentary scrutiny.”' Lees verder: http://www.sundayherald.com/54975 Of:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12609.htm

Guantanamo

Trouw bericht: 'Guantánamo / Onschuldig opgesloten. Voor het eerst wordt meer duidelijk over de rechtsgang in Guantánamo Bay. Sommige van de 480 gevangenen zijn officieel onschuldig verklaard, toch zitten ze nog steeds vast. Advocaat Neil McGaraghan (36) had tot een jaar terug alleen in de krant over Guantánamo gelezen. Van het oorlogs- of internationaal recht, dat bepaalt hoe landen met gevangenen uit een gewapend conflict om moeten gaan, wist hij niets. Hij deed alleen commercieel werk. Op zijn bureau op de 19de verdieping van een kantorenkolos in het hart van Boston liggen papieren over beslechting van geschillen in de bouw.
Maar op een dag sprak een collega hem aan. „Die zei echt misselijk te worden van het nieuws over Guantánamo Bay. Dat dit in Amerika kon gebeuren. Hij wilde de partners van ons advocatenkantoor overhalen hem deels vrij te maken voor de verdediging van gedetineerden. Hij vroeg me te helpen.” Sindsdien is er veel gebeurd. Bingham & McCutchen vertegenwoordigt intussen twaalf gevangenen. Op het hoofdkantoor in Boston werken zes man aan hun zaak. McGaraghan telt hardop: „Een paar advocaten op het kantoor in Washington helpen, één in Hartford en nog één in San Francisco.” Alles pro bono, wat betekent ’voor het algemeen goed’, gratis dus. McGaraghan besteedt een kwart van zijn tijd aan "Gitmo".' Lees verder:
http://www.trouw.nl/deverdieping/overigeartikelen/
article269183.ece/Guant%E1namo+%2F+Onschuldig+opgesloten De twee reacties die het artikel kreeg van Trouw-lezers stemmen niet hoopvol. Er zijn kennelijk nog steeds Nederlanders die moeite met het recht hebben.

Iran 21

De Washington Post bericht: 'Attacking Iran May Trigger Terrorism. U.S. Experts Wary of Military Action Over Nuclear Program. As tensions increase between the United States and Iran, U.S. intelligence and terrorism experts say they believe Iran would respond to U.S. military strikes on its nuclear sites by deploying its intelligence operatives and Hezbollah teams to carry out terrorist attacks worldwide. Iran would mount attacks against U.S. targets inside Iraq, where Iranian intelligence agents are already plentiful, predicted these experts. There is also a growing consensus that Iran's agents would target civilians in the United States, Europe and elsewhere, they said. U.S. officials would not discuss what evidence they have indicating Iran would undertake terrorist action, but the matter "is consuming a lot of time" throughout the U.S. intelligence apparatus, one senior official said. "It's a huge issue," another said. Citing prohibitions against discussing classified information, U.S. intelligence officials declined to say whether they have detected preparatory measures, such as increased surveillance, counter-surveillance or message traffic, on the part of Iran's foreign-based intelligence operatives. But terrorism experts considered Iranian-backed or controlled groups -- namely the country's Ministry of Intelligence and Security operatives, its Revolutionary Guards and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah -- to be better organized, trained and equipped than the al-Qaeda network that carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.' Lees verder:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/01/AR2006040100981.html?referrer=email&referrer=email

Henk Kamp als Pion

Het Parool bericht vanavond: 'Chávez: Kamp is pion van Amerika. Van onze redactie buitenland.
CARACAS - President Hugo Chávez van Venezuela vindt de Nederlandse minister Henk Kamp van Defensie een 'pion van Washington'. Kamp suggereerde onlangs dat Chávez de Nederlandse Antillen en Aruba wil veroveren. In zijn tv-programma Aló Presidente veegde Chávez Kamp de mantel uit. Volgens Chávez passen de 'leugens' van Kamp in de 'wereldwijde campagne' van de VS tegen hem. Chávez zei dat Venezuela en de Antillen juist 'goede buren' zijn en blijven.Volgens Hugo Chávez doet Kamp aan de Amerikaanse campagne tegen Venezuela mee omdat de minister 'een man van de extreem-rechtervleugel is'. Chávez zei onlangs te vermoeden dat Amerika de Nederlandse Antillen en Aruba wil gebruiken voor een aanval op Venezuela.Kamp noemde Chávez ''een onverdraagzame populist die met grote ogen kijkt naar de snippertjes voor de kust van Venezuela, die onderdeel zijn van Nederland''. ' Lees verder:
http://www.parool.nl/nieuws/2006/APR/03/p1.html Kamp een pion van Amerika? Dat is helemaal geen nieuws. Ieder mens met een beetje politiek inzicht weet dat. Maar toch raakt Het Parool er helemaal opgewonden van, want op pagina 2 van de krant lezen we als kop: 'Chavez dol op tirades.' U begrijpt het wel: Chavez, Zuid-Amerikaan, negerbloed, geen vriend van de Verenigde Staten nadat Washington via een militaire staatsgreep had geprobeerd de democratisch gekozen Chavez weg te werken. En dus moet deze onbesuisde vlerk worden afgeschilderd als een halve gare brulboei. Maar een feit blijft dat Kamp een pion is van de VS. Hoe hard of zacht Chavez dit ook roept. En nu zou de redactie buitenland van het Parool aan de slag moeten, huiswerk doen, kijken of Kamp ook meewerkt via de Antillen, net zoals hij braaf in Irak heeft meegedaan en nog steeds in Afghanistan meedoet. Aan de slag! Ik ben benieuwd.