The Bush administration has blocked the reappointment of the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency chief, Peter Hansen, after a campaign by conservative and Jewish groups in the US, and the government in Jerusalem which accused him of being an “Israel hater”.

Some European and Arab governments were keen for Mr Hansen to stay on at the end of his nine-year tenure but the US supported Israel’s assertion that the head of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is biased and soft on “terrorists”. This week Mr Hansen sent an email to staff saying he will leave on March 31.

Yesterday, the UNRWA chief declined to discuss his failure to be reappointed but did say he believes politically motivated opposition played a role in his removal.

“I was willing to stay. There are certain facts about the views of certain groups in the US and Israel about how I have carried out my functions and those groups influenced the decision not to reappoint me,” he said.

Mr Hansen infuriated the Israeli government with public criticisms of the military’s wholesale destruction of Palestinian homes which he described as a grave breach of international humanitarian law.

He also spoke out against the killing of children by indiscriminate Israeli gunfire hitting UN-run schools, and Israeli policies that have contributed to economic collapse and growing hunger among about 1m refugees in Gaza.

The Israeli ambassador to the UN, Dan Gillerman, often attacked Mr Hansen, saying he was exceeding his remit and calling him an “Israel hater”.
Full Article: guardian.co.uk

In a blizzard of dry ice, operatic music and multiethnic dancing, the world’s largest passenger plane made its first public appearance at a vast airfield on the outskirts of Toulouse yesterday.

Bathed in soft purple light, the Airbus A380 “superjumbo” dwarfed a crowd of 5,000 guests including Tony Blair and his fellow heads of government from France, Germany and Spain.

The doubledecker aircraft, which can carry up to 850 passengers, and has a wingspan of 90 metres, is billed as the biggest development in mass market air travel since the introduction of the Boeing 747 in 1969.

Virgin Atlantic, which has ordered six of the planes, is planning to use the extra space for in-flight gyms, beauty salons and casinos. Other airlines, including Emirates, intend to install showers and private rooms for first-class passengers.

With Welsh-made wings, a German fuselage and a Spanish tail, the aircraft is regarded as a symbol of European industrial cooperation. Its completion is a huge boost to Airbus in its long-running transatlantic battle with America’s Boeing to be the world’s top manufacturer of passenger aircraft.

Mr Blair described the superjumbo as “simply stunning” and said it marked “an unprecedented level of industrial cooperation between European countries”.
Full Article: guardian.co.uk

$2 billion in debt relief, $30 billion for their newest toy.

TEHRAN, Jan. 18 – A number of Iranian officials declared Tuesday that Iran would not be intimidated by threats, a day after President Bush refused to rule out military action against Iran if it continued to pursue nuclear weapons.

“We are not afraid of foreign enemies’ threats and sanctions, since they know well that throughout its Islamic and ancient history, Iran has been no place for adventurism,” Iran’s former president, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, told the state news agency, IRNA.

Iran’s defense minister, Ali Shamkhani, made some vague threats of his own, saying, “We have developed a might that no country can attack us because they do not have accurate information about our military capabilities,” according to the Mehr news agency. “We have produced equipment at a rapid pace with the minimum investment that has resulted in the greatest deterrent force.”

Mr. Rafsanjani announced in October that Iran had successfully increased the range of its missile, Shahab-3, to 1,200 miles, putting Israel, American bases in the Persian Gulf and even parts of Europe in range.

Mehr news agency, which reportedly has close ties to the office of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, boasted in non-specific terms about Iran’s ability to retaliate against any attacks. “Today, the Islamic Republic has acquired massive military might, the dimensions of which still remain unknown, and is prepared to attack any intruder with a fearsome rain of fire and death,” it said, according to Reuters.

Iranian officials also had more to say about an article in The New Yorker that said United States commandos have been operating inside the country since mid-2004, selecting sites for future airstrikes. The chief spokesman at Iran’s national security council scoffed at the report, dismissing it as a “ridiculous bluff” and “psychological warfare against Iran.”
Full Article: nytimes.com

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Thousands of Iraqis have returned to the former insurgent stronghold of Falluja and will be allowed to vote inside the city in Iraq’s Jan. 30 national election, a senior U.S. Marine general said on Tuesday.

Lt. Gen. John Sattler, speaking in a videoconference from Falluja with Pentagon reporters, said residents of the nearby city of Ramadi, another restive area of the so-called “Sunni Triangle,” will also be allowed to vote there.

But Sattler refused to disclose how many polling places would be set up in the two cities in al Anbar Province or where they would be, hoping to avert possible attacks on voters.

“If you’re in Falluja, you’ll be able to vote in Falluja. If you’re in Ramadi, you’ll definitely be able to vote in Ramadi … It will be safe. It will be secure,” said the general, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force based in al Anbar Province.

“I’ll leave it at that for now. We have not even put the word out to the Iraqi people. We’re going to hold that until right down to the bitter end to ensure that the enemy does not have much time at all … to plan against those positions,” Sattler said.
Full Article: nytimes.com/reuters

How many ‘thousands’ have returned to Fallujah? 3? Leave it to the US to stage the most ridiculous ‘free and fair’ election yet-

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) — The al-Qaida in Iraq terror group claimed that it carried out a truck bombing at the Australian Embassy in Baghdad that killed two people Wednesday, according to a statement posted on an Islamic Web site.

The embassy blast was the first in a series of car bombings to hit Bagndad and surrounding area within 90 minutes of one another.

Iraqi authorities said nine people were killed in the blasts. The U.S. military put the death toll at 26, based on initial reports from American soldiers who responded to the attacks. The discrepancy in the count could not immediately be resolved.

Al-Qaida in Iraq is led by Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a militant who has allied himself with Osama bin-Laden’s terror network and is among the Americans’ most wanted.
Full Article: nytimes.com

A few weeks ago the Iraqis said they arrested Zarqawi, the U.S. denied it, and that was the last word about it. ‘Al Qaida in Iraq’: did Zarqawi buy a franchise?

NEW YORK (AP) – The kingdom of Saudi Arabia, three Saudi princes and several Saudi financial institutions were dismissed Tuesday as defendants in six civil lawsuits accusing them of providing support to al-Qaida before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Judge Richard Casey said the president, not the courts, has the authority to label a foreign nation a terrorist, though he said he understood the “desire to find a legal remedy for the horrible wrongs committed on Sept. 11, 2001.”

The lawsuits alleged more than 200 defendants provided material support to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. Defendants included al-Qaida, its members and associates, charities, banks, front organizations, terrorist organizations and financiers who allegedly supported al-Qaida.
Full Article: guardian.co.uk

Images of British soldiers described as shocking and appalling that allegedly show the abuse of Iraqi prisoners were shown to a court martial in Germany yesterday as the long-awaited case of three members of the 1st Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers got underway.

Graphic photographs showing how squaddies forced Iraqis to strip bare and simulate oral and anal sex were put before a panel of seven officers. They also saw pictures of a grimacing Iraqi who had been strung up in a cargo net made from thick rope which had been hung from a forklift truck. Another showed a soldier, wearing just shorts and flip flops, standing on an Iraqi man who was crouched in a foetal position on the ground.
Full Article: guardian.co.uk

Yup, and these are the people who are going to ‘save’ Africa.

WASHINGTON – Asia’s tsunami disaster provided a “wonderful opportunity” for the United States to show compassion with relief efforts that reaped “great dividends” on the diplomatic front, Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice said.
Full Article: commondreams.org

by Robert Fisk
“Hotel journalism” is the only way to describe it. More and more, Western reporters in Baghdad are reporting from their hotels rather than the streets of Iraq’s towns and cities.

Some are accompanied everywhere by hired and heavily armed Western mercenaries. A few live in local offices, from which their editors refuse them permission to leave.

Most use Iraqi “stringers” – part-time correspondents who risk their lives to conduct interviews for American or British journalists – and none can contemplate a journey outside the capital without days of preparation, unless they “embed” themselves with US or British forces.

Rarely, if ever, has a war been covered by reporters in so distant and restricted a way. Several Western journalists simply do not leave their rooms while on station in Baghdad.

So grave are the threats to Western journalists that some television stations are talking of withdrawing their reporters and crews altogether. Amid an insurgency where Westerners – and many Arabs as well as other foreigners – are kidnapped and killed, reporting on this war is becoming close to impossible.

Not many British and American papers still cover stories in Baghdad in person, moving with trepidation through the streets of a city slowly being taken over by insurgents.
Full Article: commondreams.org

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States has been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran to help identify potential nuclear, chemical and missile targets, The New Yorker magazine reported Sunday.

The article, by award-winning reporter Seymour Hersh, said the secret missions have been going on at least since last summer with the goal of identifying target information for three dozen or more suspected sites.

Hersh quotes one government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon as saying, “The civilians in the Pentagon want to go into Iran and destroy as much of the military infrastructure as possible.”

One former high-level intelligence official told The New Yorker, “This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush administration is looking at this as a huge war zone. Next, we’re going to have the Iranian campaign.”
Full Article: reuters.myway.com