Anthrax attacks

A Newsnight investigation raised the possibility that there was a secret CIA project to investigate methods of sending anthrax through the mail which went madly out of control.

The shocking assertion is that a key member of the covert operation may have removed, refined and eventually posted weapons-grade anthrax which killed five people.

In the wake of Sept 11th, the anthrax attacks caused panic throughout the States and around the world. But has the FBI found the whole case too hot to handle? Our science editor Susan Watts reported from Washington.

Nukes and Consequences

Thinking about nuclear weapons is sort of like looking directly at the sun: If you do it for more than a split second, you go blind. Or insane.
Our government is now contemplating such a ne plus ultra of idiocy that it's enough to make one yearn for the dear, departed days of MAD (mutual assured destruction). MAD was such a sane policy.

We are about to get a new nuclear-weapons policy -- cute nukes. Teeny-tiny nukes. I was betting the Pentagon would name them ''precision nukes,'' but I have once again underestimated our military's ability to obfuscate with mind-numbing language. The cute nukes are ``offensive-strike systems.''

Now here's a sane sentence from the Pentagon's new Nuclear Posture Review: ''Non-nuclear strike capabilities may be particularly useful to limit collateral damage and conflict escalation.'' That means we won't wipe out entire populations and start WW III if we stick to non-nukes. A point to consider.

But our busy military planners like to plan for all contingencies (except terrorists with box-cutters) and are proposing ''a new generation of nuclear weapons'' -- just what we need. The cute nukes are to be ``employed against targets able to withstand non-nuclear attack (for example, deep underground bunkers or bio-weapons facilities).''

Planning for martial law?

Civil libertarians say the Bush administration may give the military scary new police powers in its secret planning for a bunker-based, post-disaster shadow government.

Clinton haters are obsessive, weird

Bill Clinton's extracurricular sex life was in the papers, I hope, for the last time last week as independent counsel Robert Ray, the man who took over for the infamous Kenneth Starr, issued his final report and proclaimed that he could have prosecuted Clinton for perjury if he had wanted to.

Ray's report essentially rehashed the scandal that was orchestrated from the very beginning by a fanatical wing of the Republican Party obsessed with its hatred of Clinton and his wife, Hillary.

Once this investigation was supposed to implicate the president on everything from "murdering" Vince Foster to bilking investors in a land development scheme in Arkansas. But after $70 million and months and months of national anguish, it wound up finding that the president lied when asked if he had oral sex with a White House intern.

That was it, folks. Admittedly, it's no excuse for a president, but how many married men do you know who might risk perjury when asked whether they've cheated on their wife?

The Phantom Liberal Media

Don't look now, but that bane of the conservative's existence, the phantom liberal media, is back.

Back from the dead. Again.

Not bad, for something that doesn't even exist.

The trick here is to put this as delicately as possible, lest one be considered part of that dreaded liberal media. So, here goes. The notion of a liberal media, is, well, how to say it ...

A complete crock, of colossal proportions.

There.

Are there liberals in the media? Oh, yeah.

More liberals than conservatives? Hmm. Sounds about right.

But the liberal media? Sorry. No such thing.

Doctors operate on patients they don't like. Sportscasters report on teams they don't root for. And journalists write about people and causes they don't vote for.

Do some reporters and editors -- bad ones, mind you -- slant stories toward their left leanings? Sure. And others -- still bad ones -- overcompensate for the fear of being accused of being a liberal and lean the other direction, sacrificing good journalism in the process.

America is not a hamburger

When the White House decided it was time to address the rising tides of anti-Americanism around the world, it didn't look to a career diplomat for help. Instead, in keeping with the Bush administration's philosophy that anything the public sector can do the private sector can do better, it hired one of Madison Avenue's top brand managers. As undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, Charlotte Beers' assignment was not to improve relations with other countries but rather to perform an overhaul of the US image abroad. Beers had no previous diplomatic experience but she had held the top job at both the J Walter Thompson and Ogilvy & Mather ad agencies, and built brands for everything from dog food to power drills.
Now she was being asked to work her magic on the greatest branding challenge of all: to sell the US and its war on terrorism to an increasingly hostile world. The appointment of an ad woman to this post raised some criticism but Colin Powell, the secretary of state, shrugged it off: "There is nothing wrong with getting somebody who knows how to sell something. We are selling a product. We need someone who can rebrand American foreign policy, rebrand diplomacy." Besides, he said, "She got me to buy Uncle Ben's rice."

So why, only five months on, does the campaign for a new and improved Brand USA seem in disarray? Several of its announcements have been exposed for playing fast and loose with the facts. And when Ms Beers went on a mission to Egypt in January to improve the image of the US among Arab "opinion makers," it didn't go well. Muhammad Abdel Hadi, an editor at the newspaper Al Ahram, left his meeting with Ms Beers frustrated that she seemed more interested in talking about vague American values than about specific US policies. "No matter how hard you try to make them understand," he said, "they don't."

Amnesty accuses U.S. of violating rights of detainees

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A significant number of the foreign nationals detained in the United States in the months after the September 11 attacks are being deprived of their basic human rights, Amnesty International said, accusations disputed by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

The organization in its report released Thursday accused the U.S. government of arbitrarily imprisoning the detainees and denying them "the right to humane treatment, to be informed of reasons for detention, to have prompt access to a lawyer, to be able to challenge the lawfulness of the detention, and to be presumed innocent until proven otherwise."

Other violations it listed include prolonged solitary confinement, heavy shackling, and lack of adequate exercise, and it called the high level of secrecy surrounding the detentions "disturbing."

Six months after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, more than 300 of the 1,200 people initially detained -- many of whom are immigrants of Muslim or Middle Eastern descent -- remain in the custody of the INS, Amnesty International said.

Fight Looms On 527s

Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.)is working to move a bill in the next few weeks that would amend legislation passed in 2000 that forced disclosure by so-called stealth PACs,but his efforts are likely to face strong opposition in the Senate.
In both the House and Senate, reform-minded lawmakers are balking at some aspects of Thomas' bill aimed at changing disclosure requirements for the political committees (dubbed "527s"because they are governed by that section of the tax code), arguing that the changes would gut the law's original intent.

"I am happy with the law the way it is - full disclosure," Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), an original co-sponsor of the 527 reform bill in the Senate, said yesterday.

"And they are trying to cut out full disclosure," he added, referring to Thomas and others interested in making significant changes to the current law.

Anything less than leaving the law as it is, he said, results in "secrecy, and I don't want that."

A Failure of Energy

Americans should be outraged at the Senate's vote on Wednesday to compromise important national security and environmental concerns in order to please the auto industry and its unions. That is precisely what took place when 62 senators, as part of the ongoing debate on new energy legislation, rejected a long-overdue effort to increase fuel efficiency standards by 50 percent over 13 years. Doing so promised ultimately to save 2.5 million barrels of oil a day, more than is currently imported from the Middle East.

The average mileage for vehicles sold in America has dropped to 24 miles per gallon, the lowest level since 1980. The standard for cars, set in 1985, is an average 27 miles, but the broader average is falling due to the increasing popularity of S.U.V.'s and minivans. These are classified, absurdly enough, as light trucks, and therefore must meet only a 20.7-mile-per-gallon standard.

In mimicking the House's failure last year to raise the standards or close the gap between S.U.V.'s and cars as part of a broader energy bill, the Senate seemed to shut its eyes to the historic moment. Senators acted as if the California energy crisis had never taken place, and as if the industrialized world were not increasingly concerned about its dependence on fuel imports from a turbulent Middle East.

Ashcroft Personnel Moves Irk Career Justice Lawyers

Attorney General John D. Ashcroft has moved in recent months to consolidate his control over the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, turning over control of sensitive issues traditionally handled by career lawyers to more conservative political appointees.

On a variety of issues, including voting rights and employment discrimination, Ashcroft aides have moved to limit the input of career employees, in some cases meeting with defendants without informing the career lawyers handling the cases or allowing them to be present, career lawyers said.

Political staff also took control of the department's consideration of Mississippi's redistricting plan, sources said, and rejected career lawyers' recommendation to approve a plan proposed by the state's Democratic-controlled legislature. After delays, a panel of three Republican federal judges approved a plan favorable to Rep. Charles W. "Chip" Pickering Jr. (R-Miss.), whose district was affected by the redistricting.

Ashcroft aides describe the actions as part of the normal process of a new administration taking over an agency previously led from a different political viewpoint.

Lott to Retaliate for Judge Defeat

WASHINGTON (AP) - Senate Republican leader Trent Lott on Friday threatened to retaliate against Democrats for defeating the promotion of one of President Bush (news - web sites)'s nominees to a federal appeals court.

"I'm not going to let go of it for a long time," said Lott, upset because the Senate Judiciary Committee (news - web sites) killed the nomination of U.S. District Judge Charles Pickering of Mississippi to the U.S. Appeals Court in New Orleans.

Lott also announced he will block an aide of Senate Majority Leader Thomas Daschle from getting on the Federal Communication Commission.

Daschle, in response, said that could backfire on Bush's other nominees in the Democratic-controlled Senate. "I would think they would want our cooperation in moving other nominees," the South Dakota Democrat said.

Lott, Pickering's friend of 40 years, called the committee's racially charged proceedings and its 10-9 party-line vote a "slap at Mississippi." The NAACP and other liberal rights groups, a core constituency of the Democrats, strongly disapproved the nomination because they said Pickering supported segregation as a young man and had an ultraconservative voting record as a Mississippi lawmaker.

Media deregulation hurts the public

THE RECENT DECISION by the federal appeals court in Washington to relax television-ownership limitations has been praised by the networks and condemned by consumer advocates. Once again in the continuing debate about media deregulation, the lines have been drawn between corporate power and the public interest. Once again, the public interest has lost.

The 1996 Telecommunications Act was designed to be a means by which media companies could remain competitive in a new multimedia economy dominated by large conglomerates. But if the 1996 act encouraged economic competitiveness across industries, it clearly stifled competition in the marketplace of ideas by reducing the number of owners and thus consolidating, centralizing and homogenizing formerly disparate voices.

The effects have been most dramatic in the radio industry, which was all but completely deregulated in 1996. Since then, there have been more than 10,000 radio station transactions worth more than $100 billion, and there are now at least 1,100 fewer station owners than before -- a decline of nearly 30 percent in six years.

There is an echo of imperial Rome in Bush's war capital

The wartime capital that is Washington today is a strange place. There are workmen busy restoring the Pentagon to the state it was in before September 11, and a few extra guards here and there. The city, with its well kept public places, its slow traffic along rather inert streets, and its stately morning streams of coffee-bearing commuters, shows no other outward sign of being at the centre of a world conflict. Yet, as if that was what the Dubya of his middle initial now stands for, the word "war" itself is rarely off the president's lips, or those of his ministers and advisers.
The struggle against terrorism, Bush said this week, is more akin to the second world war than to Vietnam. Vietnam, nevertheless, is worth remembering because it teaches the lesson that "politics ought to stay out of fighting the war". Criticising those in Congress who worry over raising the administration's debt ceiling, he said: "We ought not to be playing politics with the debt ceiling - particularly now we're at war."

Crony Capitalism Goes Global

William Conway, managing director and co-founder of the Carlyle Group, was talking recently about the media coverage of his bank and the cast of ex-Presidents and former officials, including George H.W. Bush, James Baker III and Frank Carlucci, on its payroll. "One of the words that has recently cropped up as an adjective around us--and I love this adjective--is the 'secretive' Carlyle Group," he said in an interview in his offices overlooking Pennsylvania Avenue in downtown Washington. "What's the secret? I don't think we have many secrets. The reality is, we're a group of businessmen who have made an enormous amount of money for our investors by making good investments over the past fifteen years."

To give Conway his due, Carlyle has done exceedingly well for the 435 pension funds, banks and investment funds--40 percent from overseas--that have entrusted their money to one of the world's largest private equity funds. Under the leadership of Carlucci, a former CIA deputy director who was Defense Secretary in the Reagan Administration, Carlyle has become the nation's eleventh-largest defense contractor, a major arms exporter to Saudi Arabia and Turkey, one of the biggest foreign investors in South Korea and Taiwan, and a key player in global telecommunications, wireless, real estate and healthcare markets.

Governor to consider suing Enron funds manager

TALLAHASSEE - Gov. Jeb Bush signaled Monday that he will seek today to launch a lawsuit against the money management firm largely responsible for the Florida public pension fund's $329 million loss on Enron stocks and bonds.

In a letter to Tom Herndon, the executive director of the State Board of Administration, which invests the pension fund, Bush requested that a possible lawsuit against Alliance Capital Management be discussed at today's trustee meeting.

If Bush is successful, he and his two fellow trustees of the State Board of Administration would join a growing list of people who have all but abandoned speculation that alleged political machinations or criminal misdeeds by money managers at Alliance Capital Management contributed to the pension fund's loss.

The Fringe: You Too Might Be A Terrorist!

If you've ever given money to an environmental organization, if you support the movement's agenda, then you're probably part of a grand conspiracy that's degrading life in America. Worse yet, you might even be a terrorist, or at least an accomplice. At least that's what Nick Nichols seems to think.

Nichols' views wouldn't matter if he were just another backwoods loser. On the contrary, environmental watchdogs fear he's at the vanguard of efforts to exploit the nation's post-September 11th mood by tarring the entire green movement as extremists. Nichols acts under the pretext that, "If environmental groups cost business money, then they're eco-terrorists," says Dan Barry, of the Clearinghouse for Environmental Advocacy and Research (CLEAR), which tracks anti-environmental groups.

Nichols is the CEO of "crisis communication" firm Nichols Dezenhall. The firm doesn't reveal its clients, but they have reportedly included business pillars such as Audi, Arco and the Society of the Plastics Industry. He's also popular on the nation's lecture circuit.

At a March 7, 2002 conference on "Eco Extremism" co-sponsored by Nichols Dezenhall and the Competitive Enterprise Institute (a "free market" think tank) Nichols delivered a thinly-veiled marketing pitch for his firm, in an assembly room overlooking the U.S. Capitol grounds. Among the well-heeled, attentive audience members were journalists, think tankers and executives from the paper, forestry and plastics industries.

A Failure of Energy

Americans should be outraged at the Senate's vote on Wednesday to compromise important national security and environmental concerns in order to please the auto industry and its unions. That is precisely what took place when 62 senators, as part of the ongoing debate on new energy legislation, rejected a long-overdue effort to increase fuel efficiency standards by 50 percent over 13 years. Doing so promised ultimately to save 2.5 million barrels of oil a day, more than is currently imported from the Middle East.

The average mileage for vehicles sold in America has dropped to 24 miles per gallon, the lowest level since 1980. The standard for cars, set in 1985, is an average 27 miles, but the broader average is falling due to the increasing popularity of S.U.V.'s and minivans. These are classified, absurdly enough, as light trucks, and therefore must meet only a 20.7-mile-per-gallon standard.

Al-Qaida fighters evaded US siege, Afghans claim

Afghan commanders yesterday cast doubt on the success of the US military operation in the mountains at Shah-i-Kot when they admitted that hundreds of al-Qaida and Taliban fighters had escaped during the 12-day assault.
US military officials have repeatedly said that they killed at least 500 fighters in their bombing campaign and ground operations, but yesterday at the village of Shah-i-Kot, the heart of the battle, there was little evidence to match their claims.

Three badly disfigured bodies lay by deep craters at the side of the village. One man, wearing camouflage trousers and boots, lay twisted on his side, a thin, silver ring still on his finger. The two other bodies were burned beyond recognition.

Further on, surrounded by minefields, the handful of mud-hut compounds which made up the village had been torn to rubble by days of heavy pounding from B-52 and B-1 bombers. But nearly all the Taliban and al-Qaida fighters appeared to have fled the area.

Vast dimwit conspiracy

Ken Starr's replacement as the independent prosecutor of former President Bill Clinton, comically partisan lawyer-for-hire Robert Ray, has finally lost interest in attaching scarlet letters to non-Puritans.

Approached by New Jersey Republicans with the offer of party support for a U.S. Senate run this fall, Ray reviewed the years of taxpayer-funded witch-hunting and essentially declared, "Never mind." The rest of America lost interest in the Clinton investigation years ago - after Starr released a report that read more like a National Enquirer feature story than a meaningful examination of presidential wrongdoing. Now, perhaps to remind us all of why we did not care, Ray has released a final "final report" on the investigation.

Aside from giving the folks over at the government printworks more work, what could be the possible point of releasing another review of salacious but inconsequential White House high jinks?

Lynch mobs run wild on Bethlehem's streets

Wars breed hate, inhumanity and lawlessness. And this degrading trinity was on full display in Israeli-occupied Bethlehem yesterday outside the ancient church marking the place of Christ's birth.

Manger Square has become a wild, blood-drenched place, the scene yesterday of a lynching. Two years ago, the Pope shuffled across its flagstones, blessing Catholic pilgrims who had come by the thousand from across the globe to glimpse him.

This is where the BBC broadcast the turning of the millennium live to the world which – labouring under the illusion that the Middle East was making peace with itself – watched contentedly as a flock of white doves crashed into the corporation's cameras, before reeling up into the midnight sky.

Lawmakers Slam White House 'Attitude Problem'

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lawmakers from both parties blistered the Bush administration on Thursday for "a severe attitude problem" in its dealings with Congress, citing a public campaign against their pet projects and Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge's refusal to testify on Capitol Hill.

Appearing before a House of Representatives Appropriations subcommittee, White House Budget Director Mitch Daniels apologized for any "inadvertent" impression created that the White House was slighting Congress' constitutional role, but defended the effort to restrict the so-called earmarking of budget funds for programs in individual lawmakers' districts.

"You and several others in the administration, in my view, have a severe attitude problem," said Wisconsin Rep. David Obey, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, which wields considerable power through its control of the federal government's purse strings.

Ex-spy chief: Al Qaida has U.S. prisoners

WASHINGTON, March 13 (UPI) -- A former Pakistani spy master with links to the Taliban claims that al Qaida has captured American prisoners in eastern Afghanistan, forcing U.S. troops to end the siege of their stronghold and withdraw.

U.S. officials have denied the claim.

Talking to United Press International from his home in Islamabad, Gen. Hamid Gul, the former chief of Pakistan's main spy agency Inter Services Intelligence, said the United States sent "some Americans to Shahikot, dressed as Afghans."

Shahikot is the mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan where U.S. forces and their Afghan allies taking part in "Operation Anaconda" have been bombing and fighting several hundred al Qaida and Taliban fighters holed up in a series of cave complexes since March 1.

According to Gul the Americans sent to infiltrate the mountain strongholds could speak the local language of Pashto, and some even had beards.

Pickering Nomination Rejected

The Democratic-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee voted along party lines Thursday to kill the appeals court nomination of Judge Charles Pickering, handing President Bush a stinging defeat in a racially charged confirmation battle.

In a series of roll calls, the panel also snubbed Bush's request to allow a vote in the full Senate on Pickering, a 64-year-old Mississippian with more than a decade on the bench.

Pickering "deserves better than to be blocked by a party-line vote of ten senators on one committee," Bush said in a statement issued moments after the panel voted. "The voice of the entire Senate deserves to be heard."

Al Qaeda Firepower Changed U.S. Plans

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan, March 12 -- They stagger off the big black helicopters, bent low under enormous packs with ammunition and pieces of disassembled machine guns or grenade launchers strapped on top.

Their faces are burned from sun and cold, their hands caked with dirt. Most of them are infantrymen in their early twenties who had never been in combat before Operation Anaconda. Some had never seen snow before they were dropped onto 8,000-foot slopes in the Shahikot mountains.

Over the past three days, more than 600 U.S. soldiers have returned here from the fighting in eastern Afghanistan, where majestic ridges hid treacherous sniper pockets, the air was pure but nearly impossible to breathe, and starry nights were filled with the roar of bombing.

Bush may tap retirement funds to avoid hitting debt ceiling

The Bush administration may borrow billions of dollars from federal employee retirement funds, temporarily eliminating the need for Congress to raise the debt ceiling and helping Republicans sidestep a public relations thicket.

According to several sources familiar with the issue, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, who has the authority to tap federal retirement kitties to meet federal obligations, is likely to act on the idea. The move would be a temporary measure that would not jeopardize the retirement accounts, Republicans said. The funds would have to be repaid, with interest.

According to a House Republican leadership aide, Treasury officials presented several options to House leaders last week for tapping retirement funds.

Stimulus package's dirty details
Many may not qualify for plan's extra unemployment benefits

The new federal law extending unemployment benefits for up to 13 weeks -- plus an additional 13 weeks in high-unemployment states -- is welcome news for jobless people whose benefits have run out.

But in some ways, the extended benefits are "less than advertised," says Rick McHugh, a staff attorney with the National Employment Law Project.

Some low-wage unemployed workers in a number of states -- including California -- may not get the full 13 weeks. In a few cases, they might not get anything.

And even though California's official unemployment rate is 6.2 percent, it's currently not high enough to qualify workers for the second 13-week extension.

Navy report shows polar cap is shrinking fast: Maritime military may soon face challenge of dealing with new ocean

The polar ice cap has been shrinking so fast that regular ships may be steaming through the Northwest Passage each summer by 2015, and along northern Russia even sooner, according to a new U.S. Navy report.

Global warming will open the Arctic Ocean to unprecedented commercial activity. The seasonal expansion of open water may draw commercial fishing fleets into the Chukchi and Beaufort seas north of Alaska within a few decades. The summer ice cover could even disappear entirely by 2050 -- or be concentrated around northern Greenland and Ellesmere Island.

For the U.S. Navy, this presents an unprecedented challenge: a new ocean.

The nation's maritime military does not yet have the ships, training, technology and logistics in place to patrol or police a wide-open polar sea, according to the final report from a symposium on Naval Operations in an Ice-Free Arctic.

The War on Dissent Widens

A powerful group of neo-conservatives is launching a new public relations campaign in support of President George W. Bush's war on terrorism.


At a Tuesday gathering of the National Press Club, members of the new Americans for Victory Over Terrorism (AVOT) declared their intention to "take to task those groups and individuals who fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the war we are facing."


Those groups and individuals, AVOT claims, need to be resisted both here and abroad. A full-page AVOT advertisement carried in the March 10 Sunday New York Times pointed to radical Islam as "an enemy no less dangerous and no less determined than the twin menaces of fascism and communism we faced in the 20th century." At the same time, the $128,000 ad lambasted those at home "who are attempting to use this opportunity to promulgate their agenda of 'blame America first.'"


"Both [internal and external] threats," the ad continues, "stem from either a hatred for the American ideals of freedom and equality or a misunderstanding of those ideals and their practice."

Fear of Them, fear of Us

I'M NOT A particularly fearful fellow. But I haven't been this frightened since, say, October 1962.


And I have two opposite but reinforcing fears. One is fear of Them. The other is fear of Us.

It's clear that we now live in a world in which Americans are no longer safe from other people's rage, justified or not. And, very likely, it is only going to get worse.

Since Sept. 11, we've gone through three stages. The first stage was: The world will never be the same; we are all vulnerable. This was only reinforced by the anthrax scare.

But the experts reassured us that Sept. 11 was a ''one-off'' - a fluke. It had been years in the planning. They had thrown at us everything they had. Our security was asleep at the switch. But now we were wide awake. Nobody would ever successfully turn an jetliner into a human bomb again.

In Afghanistan, we routed Al Qaeda and the Taliban. We dedicated tens of billions to upgrade everything from airport screenings to electronic surveillance. The anthrax turned out to be home-grown.

SENATOR DEMANDS FTC OVERSIGHT DOCUMENTS: Committee to Review Transfer of Media Antitrust Authority to Justice

WASHINGTON (AdAge.com) -- The chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee is demanding to see details of the meetings between Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department that created the agreement to cede antitrust oversight in media deals to Justice.

Sen. Fritz Hollings, D-S.C., today has informed FTC Chairman Timothy Muris and Attorney General John Ashcroft that his committee will conduct a formal review into last week's decision that limits the FTC's enforcement over "key industries" and assigns the Justice Department exclusive enforcement over broadcast and print media companies.

Details of meetings
Sen. Hollings is apparently irate that the move was made without congressional approval. He has asked Messers. Muris and Ashcroft to provide him with the list of meetings that were held to craft the agreement; a list of participants, including the "names and identities of any and all outside parties and consultants that provided recommendations and advice"; and any e-mails or correspondence with outside parties.

Latin America: Enron Fallout is a Hot Issue

The implications of Enron's dramatic fall extend far beyond US borders. The once-mighty energy giant's murky dealings in Latin America have emerged as a hot political issue throughout the region, where politicians in some countries are using it as an election tool or to take attention away from their own economic or political woes.

Enron played a major role in the privatization wave that pervaded much of Latin America in the 1990s. The now-bankrupt corporation brought -- or promised to bring -- badly needed investment to the region. Now many of its assets there are up for grabs, though companies are reluctant to buy anything while investigations are ongoing.

Enron's presence was felt in Brazil, Bolivia, Venezuela, Colombia, and Argentina and in most cases, it entered the local market by creating the same off-balance-sheet special-purpose entities (SPEs) that are currently the subject of exhaustive probes in the US Congress, due to Enron allegedly using these vehicles to hide losses.

Many of these Enron-backed projects in Latin America never amounted to much, prompting accusations that they too were used as tools for Enron's shadowy accounting practices.

"They abused the mechanism [of setting up SPEs] to hide debt, generate income, and pay commissions that were not always ethical," alleged one source involved with Enron's project negotiations in Colombia and Venezuela.

Transcript: “Earth Shattering” World Bank Scoop

AJ: This is earth shattering. Can you break it down for us and tell us what the economists have done?

GP: Well, I'll tell you two things. One, I spoke to the former chief economist, Joe Stiglitz who was fired by the (World) Bank. So I, on BBC and with Guardian, basically spent some time debriefing him. It was like one of the scenes out of Mission Impossible, you know where the guy comes over from the other side and you spend hours debriefing him. So I got the insight of what was happening at the World Bank. In addition, he did not brief me but I got some other sources. He would not give me inside documents but other people handed me a giant stash of secret documents from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

AJ: So to insulate himself, somebody else did it.

GP: No, I'm telling you. He wouldn't touch it but I really did get from completely independent sources a big stack of documents.

AJ: Just like you got W199I, from the same folks we got it from.

GP: And so one of the things that is happening is that, in fact, I was supposed to be on CNN with the head of the World Bank Jim Wolfensen and he said he would not appear on CNN ever if they put me on. And so CNN did the craziest thing and pulled me off.

Groups demand the release of task force data

round wooden library table bears six small stacks of papers - many blank pages except for the inscription: "Deliberative Process." The documents represent the scanty returns from "Freedom of Information" requests filed with nine federal agencies and departments almost one year ago by Judicial Watch, a conservative public interest law firm.

Judicial Watch once stalked the Clinton administration with such requests, forcing the release of thousands of documents containing embarrassing secrets. Now - as crucial energy legislation is debated by the Senate - Judicial Watch and several environmental groups are in hot pursuit of documents generated by an energy task force run by US vice-president Dick Cheney.

The law firm's manoeuvres complement the constitutional struggle taking place between the White House and Congress' General Accounting Office, which is seeking names and details of those who advised Mr Cheney. The White House has rejected the GAO's request.

Global Crossing asked to explain accounting practices

A congressional committee on Tuesday asked bankrupt telecommunications company Global Crossing Ltd. to explain its accounting practices and compensation packages for top executives.

The letter from leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee marked the first time congressional investigators have sought documents from Global Crossing, which filed for bankruptcy protection in January.

Lawmakers said they want to determine whether Global Crossing concealed its true financial condition, similar to the way Enron Corp. has acknowledged misstating earnings, revenue and debt in recent years.

Gun Violence Prevention
Groups Claim Victory

Washington, D.C.-In a stunning defeat for the gun lobby, H&R Block, the nation's largest tax preparation firm, today severed a controversial marketing agreement it had entered into with the National Rifle Association (NRA). H&R Block's withdrawal from the program came as a result of widespread protests spearheaded by the Alliance for Justice's Gun Industry Watch, and supported by the Million Mom March united with the Brady Campaign and the Mid-Atlantic Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence.

No Need To Lie: Hiding The Truth About 'Star Wars'

"This certainly has the appearance of a well-orchestrated fraud," MIT physicist Theodore Postal, a critic of the ‘Star Wars’ missile defense program, told The Boston Globe last week. Postal was reacting to a just-released General Accounting Office report documenting how, in a 1997 test, missile defense contractors Boeing and TRW manipulated data to make a failure look like a success.
Also last week, the Union of Concerned Scientists released an analysis of a January 25 anti-missile test that defense contractor Raytheon said "demonstrated the capability" of sea-based missile defense systems. "This is clearly not true," concluded UCS analyst David Wright, who detailed the test’s many shortcomings.

Cheney Gets Warning in Jordan

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) - Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) received a public warning Tuesday from Jordanian King Abdullah II that expanding the terrorism war to Iraq could destabilize the region and undermine gains in Afghanistan

U.S. officials had hoped for a more muted message from the king, whose comments came as Cheney began a whirlwind tour of the Middle East.

Abdullah has been a top ally in the terror war, but like many Arab leaders he has been openly skeptical of U.S. hints of hostile action against Iraq.

During a private meeting with Cheney, Abdullah "expressed hope for a solution to all outstanding problems with Iraq through dialogue and peaceful means," said a palace statement.

Tension Rises as Pickering Fight Drags On

As the vote on 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals nominee Charles Pickering Sr. was tabled for a second time on March 7, the partisan tension at the Senate Judiciary Committee expanded from mere sniping to far-fetched proposals to rejigger the nominations process.

And for the first time since last year, the White House brought strong pressure to bear on the process last week, playing a part in a carefully orchestrated effort to make life difficult for Democrats intent on rejecting Pickering.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, took the lead at the hearing where the Pickering vote was scheduled to take place, blaming liberal advocacy groups for a "lynching" of Pickering, a word that carries particular bite when applied to a Mississippi judge accused of racial insensitivity. The word also recalls Clarence Thomas' 1991 reference to his Supreme Court confirmation battle as a "high-tech lynching."

Proscribing prosecutor abuse

Independent Counsel Robert W. Ray's "Final Report Regarding Monica Lewinsky and Others" (March 6, 2002) featuring former President William Jefferson Clinton, highlights a prosecutorial abuse that President George Bush should end: namely, officially pronouncing unindicted targets of investigations guilty of crimes that have not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt in judicial proceedings.
The Final Report gratuitously declares that the evidence Mr. Ray gathered proved Mr. Clinton guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice.
It elaborates: "More specifically, the Independent Counsel concluded that President Clinton engaged in conduct that impeded the due administration of justice

Bush flatly refuses to hand over energy papers

WASHINGTON, March 13 (Reuters) - A defiant President George W. Bush flatly refused on Wednesday to divulge details of internal energy task force meetings to congressional investigators, calling the information privileged and the request a threat to executive authority.

The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, sued the administration in February for records of the task force's meetings. Democratic lawmakers allege Enron Corp. and other energy companies played a disproportionately large role in the task force's deliberations, whereas environmentalists were largely shut out.

The task force, headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, produced a policy favoring more oil and gas grilling as well as a revival of nuclear power. Cheney's office has acknowledged that representatives of Enron (Other OTC:ENRNQ.PK - news) (NYSE:ENE - news), Bush's biggest financial backer in the 2000 campaign, were among industry experts the task force consulted.

But Bush insisted that releasing the documents would damage the executive branch's ability to obtain candid outside advice, signaling he was ready for courtroom combat.

``When the GAO demands documents from us, we're not going to give them to them,'' Bush told a White House news conference. ``These were privileged conversations.''

``I have an obligation to make sure that the presidency remains robust and that the legislative branch doesn't end up running the executive branch,'' he added.

FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION LAUNCHES INVESTIGATION OF INDEPENDENT COUNSEL ROBERT RAY

Judicial Watch Complaint Sparks Probe of Ray’s Illegal Run for NJ Seat in U.S. Senate

Ray’s Final Report On Clinton Investigations Challenged By Judicial Watch

(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch, the public interest law firm that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, revealed today that the Federal Election Commission has commenced an investigation of Independent Counsel Robert W. Ray based on a February 21, 2002 complaint by Judicial Watch.

Judicial Watch requested a thorough investigation of Ray based on confirmed reports of his conduct in running as the Republican candidate for one of New Jersey’s seats in the U.S. Senate, while simultaneously serving as Independent Counsel. Ray has met with New Jersey Republican leaders and has spoken at fundraising events. At a minimum, Ray’s actions are a gross violation of ethics regulations, as well as a violation of law.

Iran Contra Alumni in Bush Gov't

Former Iran-Contra figures who have been given jobs in the Bush administration:

-JOHN POINDEXTER. Reagan national security adviser during Iran-Contra, the retired admiral is director of the Pentagon's Information Awareness Office. Created after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the office uses computer technology to detect and analyze new kinds of military threats, including those from terrorist organizations. Poindexter was convicted in 1990 on five felony counts of conspiracy, making false statements to Congress and obstructing congressional inquiries. In 1991, an appellate court overturned the convictions and similar ones against former White House aide Oliver North. The court held that the government had improperly used immunized congressional testimony against them.

-ELLIOTT ABRAMS. A former assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, Abrams was hired by Bush last year as special White House assistant for democracy and human rights. Abrams pleaded guilty to withholding Iran-Contra information from Congress and was among six Iran-Contra figures pardoned on Dec. 24, 1992, by the first President Bush.

-OTTO REICH. Serving as assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, Abrams' old job. From 1983 to 1986, Reich led a State Department office accused of running an illegal covert domestic propaganda effort against Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista government. Senate Democrats blocked his nomination last year. Bush installed him with a ``recess appointment,'' allowing him to serve for a year. The formal nomination was resubmitted recently.

-RICHARD ARMITAGE. As deputy secretary of state, Armitage is No. 2 at the State Department after Secretary of State Colin Powell. The first President Bush nominated him to be Army secretary, but Armitage withdrew after his knowledge of Iran-Contra dealings as a top Pentagon official became an issue. In congressional hearings, he denied he had met an Israeli official to discuss the Iran arms sales. A classified Israeli intelligence report suggested otherwise.

-JOHN NEGROPONTE. A veteran diplomat serving now as U.N. ambassador, Negroponte's nomination was stalled for months by Democrats. They criticized his work as ambassador to Honduras in the 1980s, when the Central American country was used as a base for the U.S.-backed Contra rebels. He was approved quickly, however, after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

-MITCH DANIELS. Currently director of the Office of Management and Budget, Daniels was Reagan's political director who participated in a White House political damage-control effort in 1986 and 1987. Daniels privately complained to associates at the time, however, that the White House account of the secret diplomatic initiative to Iran was not believable, according to various reports.

Players on a rigged grand chessboard: Bridas, Unocal and the Afghanistan pipeline

The Bush Administration's Afghan Carpet

March 10,2002—During the final months of the Clinton administration, the Taliban was officially a rogue regime. After nearly a decade of fierce competition between the US-supported Unocal-CentGas consortium and Bridas of Argentina, neither company had secured a deal for a trans-Afghanistan pipeline.

Immediately upon seizing the White House, George W. Bush resumed relations with the Taliban.

Bush stocked his cabinet with figures from the energy industry with long-time ties to Central Asia (including Dick Cheney of Halliburton, Richard Armitage of Unocal, Condoleeza Rice of Chevron), and rode into office on the largesse of corporations with vested interests in the region (Enron). Suddenly, the prospects for a trans-Afghanistan oil and gas pipeline that would help ensure American dominance of Eurasia, described by Zbigniew Brezezinski as "The Grand Chessboard," began to improve.

The Bush family's involvement in the Middle East and Central Asian oil politics, and its deep ties to the Saudi royal and bin Laden families, span generations. Throughout his oil-soaked tenure as governor of Texas, George W. Bush colluded on a daily basis with oil and power companies, including Enron. In light of his close personal relationship with Enron CEO Ken Lay, it is reasonable to assume that Bush was aware of the company's Central Asian aspirations. Among Enron's many projects in the region was the Unocal pipeline, for which Enron did feasibility studies. (One recently unearthed letter between Lay and Bush on Central Asian projects can be found at: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/bushlay12.shtml)

Hole Found In Nuclear Reactor Cap

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) - An acid leak inside a nuclear power plant ate a hole 6 inches deep into a steel cap that covers the plant's reactor vessel, federal inspectors said.

The hole, which stopped at a layer impervious to the acid, does not pose a safety threat, said Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Jan Strasma.

America as Sparta

WHEN DID ATHENS become Sparta? When did America redefine itself so profoundly around war?


Events of this winter had already prompted the question, but then over the weekend The Los Angeles Times published the stunning news of the Pentagon's Nuclear Posture Review. Reversing a longtime trend away from nuclear dependence, our government is projecting a US military strategy based on usable nukes, with unprecedented potential for first use against nonnuclear states, for development of new nuclear weapons, and even for a resumption of nuclear testing. This is a move from Mutual Assured Destruction, as The New York Times put it, to Unilateral Assured Destruction - our enemy's. Washington has invited Dr. Strangelove back.

How did this happen? In half a year we have reinvented ourselves as the most belligerent people on Earth. Why?

AN AMERICAN WARWOLF IN LONDON

WARMONGERING US Vice-President Dick Cheney was in London yesterday trying to drum up support from Tony Blair for invading Iraq.

Six months after September 11, President Bush's deputy told the Prime Minister he suspected Saddam Hussein might supply chemical weapons to al-Qaeda.

And despite more than 70 MPs signing a motion opposing any military action, Cheney made it clear Iraq is the next target in the War on Terror.

Downing Street officials later admitted the West has no evidence that links al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden with Iraqi dictator Saddam.

Cheney warned over Iraq attack

King Abdullah of Jordan has warned US Vice-President Dick Cheney that a US attack on Iraq could seriously destabilise the region.
In a statement released by the royal palace following a meeting with Mr Cheney in the Jordanian capital Amman, King Abdullah said that he hoped instead for "a solution to all outstanding problems with Iraq through dialogue and peaceful means", the Associated Press reported.

The announcement will be a blow for American efforts to shore up support for an attack on Iraq, one of the key reasons for Mr Cheney's current ten day tour of the region.

The pair also discussed a proposal for defusing the violence in the Middle East by getting Palestinians and Israelis to agree to talks.

Israelis may be excluded from Pentagon contracts

WASHINGTON — Israeli nationals could be banned from participating in U.S. defense contracts under new regulations that seek to keep foreigners out of sensitive projects.

U.S. officials said the Defense Department plans to reduce access by foreign nationals to military programs. They said this would include the use of foreign nationals in contracts relating to unclassified information used by the Pentagon.

Israeli nationals are said to be included in information technology-related contracts with the Pentagon, according to Middle East Newsline. This includes the sale of encryption technology and software required to protect the department's huge data base.

Outrage over death of handcuffed suspect

PICTURES of Israeli police killing a bound captive on a Jerusalem street are evoking outrage among Palestinians, but the police yesterday defended the shooting, saying it was necessary to prevent him from detonating an explosive device.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces shot dead five Palestinians as they expanded their offensives in the occupied territories and rounded up 400 Palestinians in the town of Qalqilya, which troops invaded yesterday, and close to 600 in the Dehaishe refugee camp near Bethlehem.

The pictures of the killing on Friday of Mahmoud Salah, a member of the al-Aqsa militia belonging to Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction, were published on the front pages of Palestinian newspapers. Al-Aqsa said it had dispatched him on a suicide bombing mission.

The pictures, taken by the resident of a nearby flat, show police arresting Mr Salah, who came from Nablus, and then pushing him on to the ground.

Another picture shows him being pinned down and having a gun pointed at him by forces after having been stripped to his underwear. Yet another shows him lying head down in his own blood, his hands bound behind his back.

Israeli Army Fires on Journalists: Israeli Army Fires on Hotel Where Journalists Were Filming Assault on Al-Amari Refugee Camp

RAMALLAH, West Bank March 12 — Israeli forces fired for 10 to 15 minutes from tank-mounted machine guns on a hotel where journalists were photographing armor targeting the al-Amari refugee camp early Tuesday.

No one was injured in the shooting, which sprayed the glass-enclosed stairwell and nearby rooms where about 40 journalists were working. An ABC television camera left running on a tripod when the journalists took cover was hit by seven bullets one directly in the lens.

The army said the tanks were returning fire from a gunman located somewhere on the upper floors of the hotel and that they were unaware journalists were working from the building. "It was dark," a spokesperson said. An investigation was continuing, the army said.

The reporters said there were no gunmen in the four-story New City Inn, where about 40 television and photo journalists covering the army assault on al-Amari were working from the upper floors.

Fallout fierce over Washington's new nuclear policy

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon's new contingency plans for using nuclear weapons against a range of countries, including some who do not even have them, came under heavy fire on Monday here and abroad.

China said it was "deeply shocked" by the "Nuclear Posture Review" (NPR), leaked to the media last weekend, and arms-control groups here said the secret study is almost certain to heighten international tensions and fuel concerns about the unilateralist aims of President George W Bush's administration.

"It isn't likely that the US will go around nuking countries at random," said Stephen Young, a nuclear analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), "but the study conveys the notion that the US will be the global policeman and arbiter of justice, and that's not a role everyone agrees we should have."

Another group, the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, said the NPR "will weaken the non-proliferation regime by encouraging other states to acquire nuclear weapons and increasing the likelihood that nuclear weapons will actually be used".

India braces for sectarian showdown

NEW DELHI (AFP) - India was set on the path of sectarian confrontation after the failure of negotiations aimed at resolving a bitter Hindu-Muslim row over a disputed religious site.

The central government now has four days to try to head off a showdown in the northern town of Ayodhya, where hardline Hindus plan to hold a symbolic ceremony Friday to mark the construction of a temple at the site of a razed mosque.

The Muslim board dismissed a compromise formula on the grounds that it was "incomplete and inchoate," although it later said it was willing to negotiate with anyone except Hindu extremists.

The militant Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP - World Hindu Council), which has been spearheading the temple construction campaign, responded with defiance, saying it would go ahead with Friday's ceremony.

Provincial Gujarat gripped by sectarian violence

Hindu mobs attacked Muslim homes and shops yesterday in a remote town in Gujarat, where two weeks of sectarian violence have claimed more than 700 lives.

Police said that gangs of Hindus, mostly young men armed with iron rods and lead pipes, attacked Muslim neighbourhoods in Kanwant, 125 miles south of Ahmedabad, Gujarat's commercial capital. They set ablaze and vandalised houses and shops, and smashed glass panes.

Police officers used tear gas and fired shots in the air to disperse the troublemakers but were badly outnumbered and could not prevent crowds regrouping, the town's deputy superintendent said.

The incidents followed on from Monday's attacks on Muslim houses and shops in and Rajpipla, two other towns in south Gujarat, as violence continued to spread across the western Indian state.

Rightists quit Israel's unity government

TEL AVIV - The political partners that advocate the hardest line against Palestinians in the occupied territories withdrew last night from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's national unity coalition, a development that many political activists and analysts said marked the beginning of the end of Sharon's political life.

The revolt on the right occurred despite stepped-up sweeps of Palestinian cities and refugee camps by the Israel Defense Forces, including an incursion late last night into Gaza's Jabalya camp, where Reuters reported that 17 Palestinians were killed.

The Israel Beiteinu, Tekuma, and Moledet parties have only seven votes in the Knesset, but their withdrawal from the coalition led by Sharon's Likud party dramatically changes the balance of power

U.S. Endorses Palestinian State

UNITED NATIONS –– The United States endorsed a Palestinian state late Tuesday for the first time in the Security Council, introducing a resolution that also calls for a cease-fire in the escalating Mideast conflict.

The resolution, the first offered by the United States since the latest round of fighting began in September 2000, was circulated hours after Syria introduced a Palestinian-backed measure.

The council convened shortly before midnight and was expected to vote on the U.S. resolution.

As a result of intense negotiations, the United States decided late Tuesday to amend its text by "affirming a vision of a region where two states, Israel and Palestinian, live side by side within secure and recognized borders."

US making tall claims on fighting: French military

PARIS, March 11: French defence sources say that the allied bombing of Gardez has proved to be much less successful than official Washington sources have heretofore admitted.

The "pockets of resistance" that the Pentagon says it's destroyed in recent days "continue to exist," according to French military sources, indeed the resistance being put up by the Taliban and their allies "is so formidable that the number of points of resistance has multiplied in recent days, instead of decrease," says one of the sources.

"The combatants we are presently fighting give the impression they have nothing to lose and we expect for them to go to the end of their task," reports the source, who also notes that intelligence gathered by French forces would indicate that most of the remaining combatants are non-Afghans.

In fact, says the French source, the problem with the allied attack on Gardez and its region is one of reliable intelligence, with Washington, he says, making claims "that, in our eyes, don't hold up".

Firstly, he says, the surveillance of the pockets of resistance in and about Gardez,"has not been as effective as Washington would have it." Then too, he adds, "when night falls, the surveillance is so ineffective that the combatants manage to regroup or indeed create new pockets of resistance".

Massive Israeli tank attack spikes Bush's diplomacy

AMERICAN efforts to mediate in the accelerating Middle East conflict were in doubt last night after Israel launched its biggest ground offensive for 20 years on the eve of the arrival of President Bush’s special envoy.
Washington is urgently seeking a formula to take the heat out of the fighting as it works to put together a coalition with Arab countries for its planned campaign against President Saddam Hussein of Iraq. But yesterday Israel moved troops, tanks and armoured bulldozers into the West Bank and Gaza Strip, seizing control of most of Ramallah, where Yassir Arafat has his headquarters.

The operation took the death toll in the 18-month-old intifada past 1,500, and the total this month to more than 220. It also brought the harshest criticism yet from Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, who urged Israel to end its “illegal occupation” of Palestinian territories captured in the 1967 war. He warned Ariel Sharon’s Government to stem attacks on Palestinian civilians, saying they gravely eroded Israel’s international standing and fueled the fires of hatred.

Afghan govt fears uprising in east

GARDEZ/BAGRAM AIR BASE, March 11: Taliban and Al Qaeda guerillas have regrouped in several Afghan provinces near Kabul and thousands of government troops are on the way to head off a fresh uprising , a senior Afghan military official said on Monday.

The official said the provinces were Wardak, Ghazni, Khost and Paktia, an eastern region where thousands of US-led troops are in the ninth day of a battle to rout Al Qaeda holed up in mountain caves. "We have intelligence that remnants of the Taliban and Al Qaeda are armed and still active in these regions," the official said. "Up to 5,000 troops will be deployed and stationed in these areas within the next two days," he said.

As the battle near Gardez, capital of Paktia, looked close to ending, hundreds of Afghan troops with rocket-propelled grenades and Kalashnikov rifles moved in to take the lead in a possible final assault on Al Qaeda around the area of Shahi Kot. With the Afghan forces closing in, the United States withdrew more troops from the battle zone.

For the second day running MH-47 Chinook helicopters landed at Bagram air base, the staging point for "Operation Anaconda", with troops fresh from battle. Some 400 soldiers returned on Sunday.

Allies split over peace plan to let fighters escape

A SPLIT between America and its Afghan allies opened up yesterday over a senior Afghan commander’s proposal to allow Taleban and al- Qaeda fighters to flee the mountains of eastern Afghanistan unharmed.
News of the peace proposal came as hundreds of Afghan troops working with US forces swept into the Shahi-kot mountains for what is hoped to be the final push against the militants. Afghan tanks rumbled up the snow-covered mountain as American B1 bombers attacked the rocky ridge where the remaining hideouts are situated.

The Pentagon said that Operation Anaconda was winding down but denied that surrender negotiations were under way and insisted that there was much work to be done to eliminate pockets of al-Qaeda resistance.

What Foreign Affairs?: Why U.S. News Isn't International

Hundreds of people were killed when a cataclysmic blast blew up an ammunition depot at the Ikeja Military Cantonment, north of Lagos, Nigeria in January. It's not your fault if you know little about it. The U.S. media shamefully underplayed the story.

That's not uncommon. Africa too often is given too little attention. It's like Africans don't count.

"Americans have very poor foreign affairs knowledge," says Doyinsola Abiola, president of the Johannesburg-based Foundation for African Media Excellence (FAME) . She earned her doctorate in mass communications and political science at the University of Wisconsin. "In fact, I think they think the world begins and ends here," she said in a recent interview while visiting the United States.

Abiola lives in Ikeja and the blast shattered the windows and doors of her home. Through FAME -- which is getting help from the Virginia-based Freedom Forum -- she plans to focus on improving journalism in Africa. The Nigeria story demonstrates the dire improvement needed in this country's coverage of Africa. And it's just the latest example: the death toll from the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, genocidal attacks in Burundi, and famine in the Horn of Africa are just some of the stories that received too little play in the U.S. media.

There might seem to be an inconsistency in the criticism of people like me who complain about African coverage. We groan that news organizations give too much coverage to bad news, then moan when the media don't give things like the explosion prominent play.

The problem is the superficial nature of the coverage and its lack of context and balance. There are far too many important African topics the American media ignore in favor of disaster stories. Compared to the coverage of catastrophes in Europe and Israel, for example, the coverage of African events tends to diminish the value of black life.

FoxNews.com: Flaunting Conservative Bias

During the 2000 campaign, Fox News Channel officials were furious at the Gore / Lieberman campaign.

After it was announced that Al Gore picked Joe Lieberman as his VP candidate, the senator made his rounds on all the various TV news networks. All, except for one: the Fox News Channel.

Fox News executives were furious, apparently, after a campaign aide told Fox they had been excluded because it had "a certain editorial predisposition and because of that you will sometimes be left out."

Should Fox News execs be surprised if such an incident occurs again? And is such righteous indignation warranted?

The Fox News Channel's right-wing bias has already been established by numerous reports, including The Columbia Journalism Review and The Boston Globe.

The most comprehensive, however, came from a FAIR survey conducted last year that surveyed the Fox News Channel's lead political show, "Special Report With Brit Hume," and found it over represented conservative views. It also noted "the most obvious sign of Fox's slant is its heavily right-leaning punditry." Indeed, a single indicator of the poor presence of "balanced reporting" can be seen with Fox's most noted liberal: out-of-work radio disc-jockey Alan Colmes.

Take back the tax cut

As the new year begins, the economic future seems more uncertain than usual. We don't know when the recession will end. Nor do we know when the war on terrorism will end—or even how we will know when it is over.

But there are a couple of assumptions that we can safely make.

First, whenever the recession ends, the U.S. economy is unlikely to return to the boom conditions of the last half of the 1990s. In the wake of the collapse of major companies like Enron and the loss of some five trillion in stock market value, it will take years to arouse the animal spirits of speculation that pumped up the economic bubble.

Second, intense competition from a deregulated global economy and the domination of short-term financial horizons will continue to fray the bonds of loyalty and commitment between employers and workers.

As a result, all the problems we were wrestling with before the boom will reappear. Slower growth will mean greater unemployment—particularly for those at the bottom of the wage ladder. With a safety net that is increasingly torn, hardship will spread. The long-term trend toward rising inequality, which was interrupted by the tight labor markets of 1996-2000, will resume. The health care crisis will get worse—not only will the number of uninsured and underinsured grow, but the cost of health care and the shifting of that cost to individuals will continue.

And with the bursting of the stock market bubble, the heady expectations that ordinary workers could speculate themselves to retirement security have deflated. The assets of many 401k plans are back to where they were in the early 1990s. With the disappearance of defined benefit plans, a growing crisis in retirement income is in the offing.

The O'Reilly Obligation: You'd Better Go On His Show, Or Else ...

Conservative Bill O'Reilly is full of himself.

He's full of himself because he won an award, one he erroneously claimed was an "Emmy" (it was a Polk), for his "investigative" work on the tabloid-ish "Inside Edition."

He's full of himself because he gets higher primetime ratings than CNN, which he gleefully states periodically, along with his obligatory "they're biased, we're not" comment.

He's full of himself because he thinks his show is an obligation, not a choice. And if you don't go on his show, well, you'd better be prepared to face the consequences.

In a parody aired last week on "Saturday Night Live," Bill O'Reilly, played by Jeff Richards, questions Barry Bonds' single-season homerun record, commenting, "We keep trying to have him on but HE KEEPS DUCKING US!" Strange, but satire doesn't seem far from the truth.

Why Congress Has to Ask Questions

WASHINGTON — Do members of Congress have any business questioning a president's military strategy in the midst of war? That was the question swirling around Capitol Hill last week. In the heat of debate, some went so far as to insinuate that any questioning of a wartime president is divisive and unpatriotic.

What dangerous nonsense this is. Congress not only has the right to question a president's policies, but also the duty. In a war, the American people have every right to a full accounting of what their sons and daughters are fighting for and what their government expects to achieve. To question is not to accuse or to condemn. To question is to seek the truth. The less forthcoming a president is, the more Congress will have to probe for answers. Such is the current situation.

In the wake of Sept. 11, President Bush declared all-out war on terrorism. Money is no object; time is no deterrent. We will win this war, the president vowed. We will hunt down and destroy the terrorists.

Those words constitute a sweeping manifesto. I support the president's commitment, but as a senator, I have a responsibility to look beyond the rhetoric. How will we win this war? What are the costs? What are our objectives? What are the standards by which we measure victory? How long will we be in Afghanistan? Where else will we go?

Arafat urges resistance to Israel raids
The Palestinian Authority including President Yassar Arafat have called on Palestinians to resist Israeli occupation troops who seized the city of Ramallah in the biggest single military operation in 17 months. The Israeli military ordered all men aged between 15 and 45 to gather in al-Am'ari's public square. However, witnesses told the Reuters news agency, women and children took to the streets in defiance while the men stayed indoors. The Palestinian leadership urged the men not to surrender. Further reports indicate Israeli troops then entered homes arresting the men who were blindfolded and bound, and dragged towards tanks and armoured vehicles. Television footage showed hundreds of men gathered in squares blindfolded, and with their hands tied. Mr. Arafat told Abu Dhabi television on Monday that the Israeli army's conduct during the sweeps amounted to "new Nazi racism".
-- Duetsche Welle

Gulf News says: Their own worst enemy

The United States is its own worst enemy. At the same time that it is trying to improve relations with Russia and China, the Bush administration has asked the Pentagon to draw up plans on how it might target its nuclear weapons at those two countries, along with Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Libya and Syria.

In one move, the U.S. has reinforced the image put about by its enemies that is the greatest threat to world peace, exactly the opposite of what the Bush administration has been trying to portray. It is ridiculous that the Bush administration is aiming nuclear weapons at countries with which it is trying to befriend. The Russians and Chinese feel betrayed; the Iranians are wondering why they have tried to achieve better relations with the U.S.; and the Syrians are horrified, just as they have been moving into the mainstream of diplomacy; the Iraqis will be delighted that their wilder statements on America have been proved real.

In addition, the Pentagon wants to use nuclear weapons on a battlefield level, which creates far more opportunities to use the weapon of last resort. For example, they could have dropped a nuclear shell into the Tora Bora caves, and given the worst possible example to the two most recent nuclear states, Pakistan and India. Both these states would have drawn the lesson that tactical use of nuclear weapons was acceptable.

Nuclear weapons are too awful to contemplate as part of the normal armoury of any nation because the destruction they offer is so total and all embracing. The Cold War is over, and the balance of terror is not required. Better understanding between nations is far more effective than aiming nuclear weapons at friends.

US sends suspects to face torture

The US has been secretly sending prisoners suspected of al-Qaida connections to countries where torture during interrogation is legal, according to US diplomatic and intelligence sources. Prisoners moved to such countries as Egypt and Jordan can be subjected to torture and threats to their families to extract information sought by the US in the wake of the September 11 attacks.
The normal extradition procedures have been bypassed in the transportation of dozens of prisoners suspected of terrorist connections, according to a report in the Washington Post. The suspects have been taken to countries where the CIA has close ties with the local intelligence services and where torture is permitted.

According to the report, US intelligence agents have been involved in a number of interrogations. A CIA spokesman yesterday said the agency had no comment on the allegations. A state department spokesman said the US had been "working very closely with other countries - It's a global fight against terrorism".

37 More Killed in Mideast Violence

JEBALIYA REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip –– Israel intensified its offensive against Palestinian militants – the largest military operation in 20 years – killing 28 Palestinians in raids Tuesday on refugee camps and other targets. Seven Israeli motorists were killed in shooting attacks.

Six of the Israelis were killed when gunmen opened fire on cars near Kibbutz Metsuba, a communal farm near the border with Lebanon. Israeli troops killed two gunman and battled a third for more than an hour. Officials were trying to determine whether the gunmen had crossed over from Lebanon.

That shooting and another in the West Bank that killed one Israeli were apparently in retaliation for Israel's offensive, launched last week after a series of deadly attacks on Israeli civilians.

Enron, Creditors Negotiating Bonuses for Crucial Employees

NEW YORK -- As 4,500 fired Enron Corp. workers await meager severance payments, the bankrupt energy firm and its creditors are negotiating a new round of "retention bonuses" for the luckier few considered indispensable to keeping Enron running.

The new bonus package was expected to be submitted for approval by Judge Arthur J. Gonzalez in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York this week, perhaps as early as today, Enron spokeswoman Karen Denne said.

Few issues in the Enron scandal have raised more hackles than the $55 million in bonuses that the company awarded to about 550 people on Nov. 30, two days before filing for the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history. Critics have made much of the contrast between bonuses of as much as $5 million for certain key employees and the relative pittance for the fired workers, many of whom face financial hardship. Gonzalez last week approved an additional $1,100 apiece for the idled workers, on top of initial severance payments of $4,500 each.

Lawyers for the fired workers are seeking severance of as much as $30,000 apiece. The issue has been scheduled for a hearing April2.

Enough Is Enough
They lie they cheat they steal and they've been getting away with it for too long.

Arthur Levitt, the tough-talking former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, spoke of a "multi-tude of villains." Red-faced Congressmen hurled insults, going so far as to compare the figures at the center of the Enron debacle unfavorably to carnival hucksters. The Treasury Secretary presided over a high-level working group aimed at punishing negligent CEOs and directors. Legislators from all but a handful of states threatened to sue the firm that bollixed up the auditing, Arthur Andersen. There was as much handwringing, proselytizing, and bloviating in front of the witness stand as there was shredding behind it.

It took a late-night comedian, though, to zero in on the central mystery of this latest corporate shame. After a parade of executives from Enron and Arthur Andersen flashed on the television monitor, Jon Stewart, anchor of The Daily Show, turned to the camera and shouted, "Why aren't all of you in jail? And not like white-guy jail--jail jail. With people by the weight room going, 'Mmmmm.' "

It was a pitch-perfect question. And, sadly, one that was sure to get a laugh.

Not since the savings-and-loan scandal a decade ago have high crimes in the boardroom provided such rich television entertainment. But that's not for any lack of malfeasance. Before Enronitis inflamed the public, gigantic white-collar swindles were rolling through the business world and the legal system with their customary regularity. And though they displayed the full creative range of executive thievery, they had one thing in common: Hardly anyone ever went to prison.

A document that confirms people's rights

Lately I've been reading the Constitution. It's a short document -- scarcely 7,000 words.

I can't find any place in the Constitution making a distinction between citizens and noncitizens, except in the right to vote. This is strange, because our government says that noncitizens are not protected by the Constitution.

In fact, there are very few mentions of "citizens" in the Constitution: Article Two says the president must be a "natural born" citizen; the Fourteenth Amendment says "All persons born or naturalized in the United States . . . . are citizens . . . ." The Fifteenth says "The rights of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be abridged . . . on account of race. . . ." The poll-tax amendment and the Nineteenth Amendment, which recognized women's right to vote, refer to citizens.

They are also mentioned in parts of Article III and in the Eleventh Amendment that deal with civil law suits between citizens of different states. "Noncitizen" is never mentioned.

Allowing them to meet in secret is akin to tyranny

I am a child of the South but I envy New Hampshire for its state motto: Live Free or Die. You have to admit, that is not a namby-pamby motto.

In the same spirit, sometimes I wish we had kept as our national flag the coiled rattlesnake and the slogan: Don't Tread on Me.

Both of these sentiments date back to the time when the American people were ruled by the British king. We fought a war to throw off that king so we could govern ourselves.

But when we created our own government, we wrapped it in chains so that it could not become a new tyrant. We did not trust it.

Neither do I trust the government now. It is true that properly supervised, the government can do good. That ought to be its goal. But I do not trust it. I do not trust it with my money. I do not trust it with unchecked power to pass laws over me. It is a dangerous servant that has to be watched constantly.

Watched.

Men and women who enter the government are invariably tempted to use its power for their own benefit, or for a select few.

AMERICANS ARE DOWN ON CORPORATE AMERICA

Nearly 70 percent of Americans say they do not trust Corporate America, according to a survey conducted for Interpublic's Golin/Harris International unit.


Sixty-nine percent of respondents to the "Trust Survey" say "recent economic events have created a crisis of confidence and trust in the way we do business in America," and as a result, they're "going to hold business to a higher standard in their behavior and communications."


"When more than two-thirds of Americans express this level of skepticism and cynicism, American business has a serious problem that goes beyond the `Enron factor,'" said Richard Jernstedt, CEO, G/HI.


"Obviously, the current wave of scandals has a direct impact on specific industries, but when you look at trust levels across the entire spectrum of American business, almost every category is affected. The malaise of trust is becoming epidemic, and no business can escape by saying `It's not my problem,'" said Jernstedt.

The British See Things Differently

British newspapers responded to the attacks of September 11 just as American papers did: saturation coverage and outrage. But it didn't take long before reporting and commentary in Britain revealed essential differences between journalism in the U.K. and the U.S. -- differences in style and substance as well as in the trans-Atlantic perspective.

On September 12, Britain's famously competitive national press spoke with one voice, with full-page photographs of the collapsing World Trade Center towers on nearly every front page. The Sunday Times of September 16 included a twenty-four-page ad-free section headlined america at war.

The Guardian's media critic, Roy Greenslade, was struck by the rare unanimity. "What was so notable about all the coverage was the way in which British newspapers treated the United States as 'one of us,'" he wrote in his review a week later.

That's Rich:
National Review's editor suggests nuking Mecca. We're not kidding.

Brief history lesson: Ann Coulter, the notorious bomb-throwing lawyer/pundit, wrote a post-September 11 column for National Review Online in which she cautioned restraint in the coming months.

No, wait a second, that's not right. Coulter took a somewhat stronger line on what she desired of America's collective response. We had been "invaded by a fanatical murderous cult" -- Muslims -- and should therefore "invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity" (though she later explained that such conversion should be voluntary).

The scuttlebutt from that and future columns got Coulter canned by the National Review. Online Editor Jonah Goldberg explained that Coulter wasn't fired for her over-the-top warmongering. Rather, "We ended the relationship because she behaved with a total lack of professionalism, friendship, and loyalty," Goldberg said. Most people, however, assumed that the brass had made a decision to tone down the excessive saber rattling.

If so, then editor and television talking head Rich Lowry missed that memo. Recently on National Review's new Web log, "The Corner," Lowry addressed the question of what sort of retaliatory measures should be taken in the case of a nuclear detonation -- probably of a "dirty bomb" -- on U.S. soil. Judging from the e-mail he's received, there's "lots of sentiment for nuking Mecca." Nor, in Lowry's eyes, was such an idea nuts. He allowed that "Mecca seems extreme, of course" -- of course -- "but then again few people would die and it would send a signal."

Paraguay's archive of terror

The nightmare of Ana de Mancuello's life began on 25 November 1974.

That was the day plainclothes police officers invaded her Asuncion home and took away her husband Mario and her 20-year-old son Hugo.

Unknown to her, her oldest son Jose, 22, an engineering student in Argentina, was also in an Asuncion prison with his pregnant wife and infant daughter, the three having been arrested days before.

"[The police] told me they were guerrillas," recalls Mrs Mancuello, now 70. "It was nothing but an invention of the police."

After nine months of abuse, Hugo and his father were released, the father's health broken forever. But Ana de Mancuello would never see Jose. again.

Cheney May Find Mideast A Hard Sell

LONDON (AP) - Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) will find it a hard sell to enlist Arab support for deposing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites). He promises no announcements but a lot of listening during his swing through the Middle East.
"I'll be there to conduct frank discussions and to solicit the views of important friends and allies," Cheney said of a trip that will take him to nine Arab nations, Israel and Turkey.

Cheney was beginning the trip on Tuesday in Jordan, where King Abdullah II said ahead of the visit that, while Jordan supports the U.S.-led war on terrorism, it "rejects the use of force against Iraq."

Turkey has also warned the United States that a military strike against neighboring Iraq could destabilize the region. Leaders of Saudi Arabia and Egypt also oppose a military campaign against Iraq.

The Bush administration is mindful of the Arab world's suspicions of any widening of the terror war into its neighborhood.

Anderson: The Mayor Utah Loves to Hate

Pleasant Grove resident Jan Davis doesn't know much about Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson. But she knows she doesn't like him.
Like so many other Utahns powerless to affect Anderson's political career, Davis is frustrated by the publicity he gets, his penchant for needling the establishment, his unapologetically liberal agenda. She bases her opinion on news reports and neighborhood gossip.

Price of oil surges as sabres rattle

Speculation that the United States is preparing to launch a military attack on Iraq sent oil prices surging to a six-month high yesterday.
The slowdown in the global economy had depressed the price to well below $20 a barrel in the months since the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, but Brent crude powered to $24.30 yesterday, up $0.46 on the day, and close to pre-September 11 highs.

A recovery in oil prices will raise fears of dearer petrol for motorists in the months to come, after prices at the pump fell 8% in the year to January.

California's GOP: Toast on the Coast?

For several years, California Republicans have been living in a mortuary, producing their own dysfunctional version of the cable-TV series Six Feet Under. In last week's episode, the party bought a coffin and climbed in to try it on for size. Between now and November, California voters will decide whether to slam the lid and let Democrats nail it shut.

President Bush and White House political chief Karl Rove have been playing comic supporting roles. Star of the season so far, oddly, has been a Democratic strategist.

The story to date: In the nation's most populous state, Republicans hold only one statewide office, and that lone ranger, Secretary of State Bill Jones, was unable to raise enough money to mount a television ad campaign and ran third in the gubernatorial primary Tuesday.

The doomsday regime
The Bush administration is hurtling us toward Armageddon

Since nothing else the Bush Administration does seems to be inspiring hundreds of thousands of people to pour into the streets of every major city in anger, perhaps this will: the news this past weekend, as reported by Paul Richter of the Los Angeles Times, that George W. Bush is planning to destroy the world.
They didn't phrase it that way, of course. And it isn't exactly a one-step process, though it's a hell of a lot fewer steps than anyone has a right to concoct.

But that's the net effect of the plans, outlined in a report obtained by the L.A. Times, given to Congress on January 8. The report directs the Pentagon to draw up plans to wage nuclear war against China, Russia, Iraq, North Korea, Syria, Iran, and/or Libya.

Enron tapped DeLay for aid in Congress

WASHINGTON - When Houston-based Enron needed help in Congress, it often turned to a powerful friend in its own back yard - Rep. Tom DeLay, a free-market conservative from the Houston suburbs and the third-highest ranking member of the Republican-controlled House.

DeLay and a cadre of close political advisers operated at the center of an Enron-backed crusade for energy deregulation in the late 1990s. A former top aide to DeLay worked as an Enron lobbyist, and only three other House members received more campaign contributions from the company.


Now, with the approach of this year's midterm congressional elections, Democrats are eagerly recycling every morsel of DeLay's relationship with the scandal-ridden company in an attempt to make him a symbol of Republican subservience to corporate greed.

Israeli Policies Could Tear Jews Apart

Many Jews will tell you that Israel’s violence against the Palestinians is unfortunately necessary to safeguard the existence of the Jewish state. But the real threat to the Jewish people, in Israel and around the world, may come not from Palestinian bombs, but from Israel’s own policies. A backlash is brewing that could tear Jewish society apart.
For months now, left-wing Israeli commentators have been warning that their nation faces its own Vietnam syndrome. Many Israeli Jews will soon reach their limit, both as victims and as perpetrators of violence. These commentators point back to Israel’s war against Lebanon in 1982, which gave birth to the first Israeli peace movement. Eventually, public disenchantment forced Israel’s government to withdraw all its troops from Lebanon.

There are signs that the same disenchantment may be setting in against the Sharon government’s hard-line policies in the West Bank and Gaza. After more than a year of tiny peace demonstrations, huge crowds have now gathered in Tel Aviv to say “no to occupation” and “yes to peace.” Several hundred officers and soldiers have publicly pledged not to serve in the army of occupation.

Washington has a love affair with terror

Many questions remain unasked as the U.S. continues its war on terrorism. One is whether Washington possesses the moral right to condemn terrorism when its own hands are so bloody.

Let's examine our use of terror directed against civilians to achieve political or military goals, beginning with the atomic devastation of Japan. "Little Boy," exploded over Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, killed 130,000 people immediately (including a dozen U.S. POWs) and 200,000 within five years, all but some 20,000 of them civilians. Twenty-five square miles of civilization were gutted.

"Fat Man," detonated over Nagasaki three days later, took another 70,000 lives immediately, and nearly double that over five years. All but 150 were civilians.

That's the equivalent of 50 World Trade Centers of people vaporized.

When the Korean War erupted in 1950, the U.S. worked on perfecting this criminal way of waging war, the targeting of a country's civilian population. Gen. Douglas MacArthur ordered that every "installation, factory, city and village" be destroyed in much of the north. Gen. Curtis LeMay reported that "over a period of three years or so ... we burned down every town in North Korea and South Korea, too."

Three million civilians died in that conflict, a large majority from American bombing. That's the equivalent of another 750 World Trade Centers full of the dead.