Myanmar's Turn?

Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, is undergoing its most significant political change since military rule began in 1962. Thein Sein, the country's new president, has surprised the world with a series of democratic reforms. He has opened Myanmar to the western world, released hundreds of political prisoners and eased media censorship. Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition leader, has spent the past month campaigning openly in the country's by-election and expectations among the people are the highest they have been in a lifetime. Aung San Suu Kyi's NDL party won an over whelming victory in the only open free and fair election ever held in Mynamar in 1990 but were never allowed to take power as the ruling military junta nullified the election. Many of her supporters were imprisoned while she spent almost 20 years under house arrest.

Six In The Morning

Syria links troop pullback from cities to 'security'

Syrian troops will stay in residential areas of cities until "peace and security" prevail, the government says

31 March 2012
A foreign ministry spokesman made the announcement after the UN's peace mission to Syria called for troops to be withdrawn as a good faith gesture. President Bashar al-Assad has nominally accepted a peace plan proposed by UN envoy Kofi Annan. However fighting has continued between government and opposition forces, with 40 people reportedly killed on Friday. The UN believes at least 9,000 people have died in the year-long revolt against Mr Assad's rule. Many victims are said to have been civilians killed by government shelling.

Scoop! The curious world of Edward Trevor, the ace reporter who never was
He's the News of the World reporter, now under investigation, who scooped Fleet Street with tales of sleaze. But the most incredible thing about his stories? The author never existed

Ian Burrell Author Biography Saturday 31 March 2012
Of all the veteran reporters working for the News of the World during the period being investigated by Scotland Yard, one in particular will certainly never be arrested. That is because Edward Trevor doesn't exist. But that didn't stop his byline appearing on nearly 300 stories published in the ill-fated Sunday tabloid. Edward Trevor might have been a fiction but the work published under this strange sobriquet is being studied by detectives from Operation Weeting, which is investigating phone hacking and other potential criminality at the defunct newspaper.

Rush to judgment dividing US in Trayvon Martin murder case
AMERICA: For some George Zimmerman is a murderer; for others he is just a regular neighbourhood watch volunteer who fired in self defence

LARA MARLOWE The Irish Times - Saturday, March 31, 2012
IF YOU are a Republican and watch Fox News, you probably refer to the death of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, nearly five weeks ago, as a “tragedy” and believe George Zimmerman, who shot Martin in the chest, was a “neighbourhood watch volunteer” who fired in self defence. Most likely you support the “stand your ground” gun law under which police refused to arrest Zimmerman. If you’re a Democrat who gets your information from MSNBC, you call Martin’s death a crime and may have joined the million people who signed an online petition calling for Zimmerman’s arrest, or marched in the dozens of rallies – 20 last Monday alone – across the country this week demanding “Justice for Trayvon”. You regard “stand your ground” laws as a licence to kill. Zimmerman’s family say they have received death threats. A group calling itself the New Black Panthers has offered $10,000 for Zimmerman’s arrest.

The lady returns
Her national hero father was assassinated and she has spent much of the past 20 years under house arrest. But now certain to win a parliamentary seat in Sunday's byelections, Aung San Suu Kyi is set to play a key role in building a more democratic Burma

Lindsay Murdoch March 31, 201
FOR 30 years, journalist Thiha Saw was hounded by Burma's pervasive Press Scrutiny and Registration Division, which censors the country's media. In 2010, the editor and founder of the Open News Weekly Journal published a photograph of a crowd greeting pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi when she was released after 15 years of house arrest. ''I was punished … they suspended my editorship for six months,'' he says.

US woman to be retried in Rwandan genocide case
A New Hampshire woman accused of lying about her role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide to win asylum in the United States will face a second trial on immigration fraud charges following a mistrial.

Reuters | 31 March, 2012 09:40
Federal prosecutors on Friday notified a court in Concord, New Hampshire, that they would not drop charges against Beatrice Munyenyezi, 41, whom they accuse of helping to organise mass killings and rapes in the southern Rwandan town of Butare 18 years ago. A jury deadlocked in the case this month. The new trial is set to begin in September. Munyenyezi’s husband and mother-in-law were arrested more than a decade ago and put on trial by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Tanzania, where they were sentenced to life in prison on genocide charges.

Israel shields public from war risks with Iran
Middle East

By Gareth Porter
TEL AVIV - The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been telling Israelis that Israel can attack Iran with minimal civilian Israeli casualties as a result of retaliation, and that reassuring message appears to have headed off any widespread Israeli fear of war with Iran and other adversaries. But the message that Iran is too weak to threaten an effective counter-attack is contradicted by one of Israel's leading experts on Iranian missiles and the head of its missile defense program for nearly a decade, who says Iranian missiles are capable of doing significant damage to Israeli targets.

Six In The Morning

Japan will intercept N Korean rocket if necessary

Japan says it will shoot down a North Korean rocket if necessary, as new satellite images appeared to show preparations for the launch next month.

The BBC 30 March 2012
Defence Minister Naoki Tanaka issued the order to intercept the rocket if it threatened Japan's territory. Pyongyang says it will launch a satellite on a rocket between 12-16 April. Satellite images taken on Wednesday indicate that work at the launch site is under way, says a US university. Mr Tanaka had issued an earlier order on Tuesday to the country's defence forces to prepare ''destruction measures against ballistic missiles''.

Aung San Suu Kyi: Burma vote is neither free nor fair
Opposition candidates have been targeted in stone-throwing incidents and other intimidation, says Nobel peace laureate

Associated Press in Rangoon guardian.co.uk, Friday 30 March 2012 07.27 BST
Aung San Suu Kyi has said Burma's weekend elections will be neither free nor fair because of widespread irregularities, but vowed to press forward with her candidacy for the sake of the country. She said opposition candidates had been targeted in stone-throwing incidents and other intimidation that had hampered their campaigning in the runup to Sunday's byelections, which are considered a crucial test of Burma's commitment to democratic reforms. The 66-year-old Nobel peace laureate told a news conference that the irregularities went "beyond what is acceptable for democratic elections".

Spain on edge of becoming next bailout candidate


Ralf Bosen
Spain is shut down by a general strike as people's patience about austerity cuts, towering unemployment and tougher labor laws wears thin. But the country needs to save even more money to stave off bankruptcy. Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is expected to unveil about 35 billion euros ($40 billion) in spending cuts and tax hikes Friday, as he presents his 2012 budget, primarily aimed at slashing a huge 8.5 percent deficit. Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy Rajoy has to make big cuts if he is to meet EU targets Rajoy said that government expenditure would be "thinned out" to make progress towards a European Union demand that the budget deficit be reduced to just 3 percent by 2013.

A new chapter for Senegal


JEDI RAMALAPA DAKAR, SENEGAL - Mar 30 2012 00:00
Senegal's incoming president, Macky Sall, will be remembered as a man of firsts in the West African country's political history. He is the first presidential candidate to campaign for the presidency and win the first time around. His predecessor and mentor, out­going President Abdoulaye Wade, ran for office four times before he could claim his seat in the presidential palace -- the Palais de la République.

War porn: The new safe sex
(This is the much-abridged version of a conference at the XII Seminar of Political Solidarity at the University of Zaragoza, Spain, March 27, 2012.)

By Pepe Escobar
The early 21st century is addicted to war porn, a prime spectator sport consumed by global couch and digital potatoes. War porn took the limelight on the evening of September 11, 2001, when the George W Bush administration launched the "war on terror" - which was interpreted by many of its practitioners as a subtle legitimization of United States state terror against, predominantly, Muslims. This was also a war OF terror - as in a manifestation of state terror pitting urban high-tech might against basically rural, low-tech cunning. The US did not exercise this monopoly; Beijing practiced it in Xinjiang, its far west, and Russia practiced it in Chechnya.

Chavez leading rival in run-up to Venezuela elections
The president of Venezuela has a double-digit lead over opposition candidate Henrique Capriles.

By Fabiola Sanchez, The Associated Press
President Hugo Chavez has a double-digit lead over the opposition's presidential candidate, but a quarter of Venezuelan voters haven't committed to either candidate, a poll said Thursday. The survey released by the Caracas polling firm Datanalisis said nearly 45 percent of those polled said they would vote for Chavez, while 31 percent supported Miranda state Gov. Henrique Capriles. About 25 percent were undecided. "Those undecided ones are going to indicate the trend in the future," said Luis Vicente Leon, the polling firm's president.

Fukushima No.2 Reactor Has '10 Times The Fatal Dose' of Radiation

Meanhile The Original Contamination Data Was Dleted

TOKYO (AP) — One of Japan's crippled nuclear reactors still has fatally high radiation levels and hardly any water to cool it, according to an internal examination Tuesday that renews doubts about the plant's stability. A tool equipped with a tiny video camera, a thermometer, a dosimeter and a water gauge was used to assess damage inside the No. 2 reactor's containment chamber for the second time since the tsunami swept into the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant a year ago. The probe done in January failed to find the water surface and provided only images showing steam, unidentified parts and rusty metal surfaces scarred by exposure to radiation, heat and humidity. The data collected from the probes showed the damage from the disaster was so severe, the plant operator will have to develop special equipment and technology to tolerate the harsh environment and decommission the plant, a process expected to last decades. Tuesday's examination with an industrial endoscope detected radiation levels up to 10 times the fatal dose inside the chamber. Plant officials previously said more than half of melted fuel has breached the core and dropped to the floor of the primary containment vessel, some of it splashing against the wall or the floor. Particles from melted fuel have probably sent radiation levels up to dangerously high 70 sieverts per hour inside the container, said Junichi Matsumoto, spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power Co. "It's extremely high," he said, adding that an endoscope would last only 14 hours in that condition. "We have to develop equipment that can tolerate high radiation" when locating and removing melted fuel during the decommissioning. The probe also found the containment vessel — a beaker-shaped container enclosing the core — had cooling water up to only 60 centimeters (2 feet) from the bottom, far below the 10 meters (yards) estimated when the government declared the plant stable in December.

Fukushima Pref. deleted 5 days of radiation dispersion data just after meltdowns
The Fukushima Prefectural Government revealed on March 21 that it deleted five days of early radiation dispersion data almost entirely unread in the wake of the meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. The data from the System for Prediction of Environmental Emergency Dose Information (SPEEDI) -- intended to predict the spread of radioactive contamination, information vital for issuing evacuation advisories -- was emailed to the prefectural government by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.>

The Koch Brothers

The Koch brothers fueled the conservative Tea Party movement that vigorously opposes Barack Obama, the US president. They fund efforts to derail action on global warming, and support politicians who object to raising taxes on corporations or the wealthy to help fix America’s fiscal problems. According to New Yorker writer Jane Mayer, who wrote a groundbreaking exposé of the Kochs in 2010, they have built a top to bottom operation to shape public policy that has been "incredibly effective. They are so rich that their pockets are almost bottomless, and they can keep pouring money into this whole process"

The Kochs founded and provide millions to Americans for Prosperity, a political organisation that builds grassroots support for conservative causes and candidates. Americans for Prosperity, which has 35 state chapters and claims to have about two million members, has close ties to Tea Party groups and played a key role in opposing Obama's health care initiative. Last year, Americans for Prosperity spent at least half a million dollars supporting Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's efforts to cut social spending and roll back collective bargaining rights for public employee unions. The legislation passed by Walker makes it more difficult for unions, which are major backers of Democratic candidates, to secure funds for political purposes. Americans for Prosperity is also very active in a battle against unions in Ohio, another important 2012 presidential state. Its president, Tim Phillips, says that the organisation is winning in Wisconsin and around the country "because on the policies of economic freedom, we're right". He refused to tell People & Power reporter Bob Abeshouse how much the organisation is spending to combat the unions. The Kochs have also promoted their free market ideology and business interests through aggressive lobbying in Washington DC, and financial support of political candidates. Greenpeace has tracked more than $50m that Koch Industries has spent on lobbyists since 2006, when Cap and Trade and other legislation to combat global warming was being considered. The Kochs have been the largest political spender since 2000 in the energy sector, exceeding Exxon, Chevron, and other major players.

Six In The Morning

Russia OKs legislation to ease party registration

The move, which follows protests over elections seen as tainted, draws a mixed reaction. Skeptics say it could lead to a profusion of parties and confuse voters.

By Sergei L. Loiko, Los Angeles Times
Russia's parliament on Wednesday approved legislation intended to simplify the registration of political parties, a move influenced by massive protests after a December election widely viewed as tainted by fraud. The legislation, which outgoing President Dmitry Medvedev is expected to sign into law next week, was welcomed by those who believe it could help loosen the tight grip held by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the president-elect, and the governing United Russia party. But others remained skeptical of the good the changes would bring, saying the new rules could result in the creation of so many political parties that the electorate may become confused or disillusioned.

Robert Fisk: Living on the edge of Syria's bloody war
As Assad's troops fire shots across the border into Lebanon, the nation's religious factions remain bitterly divided on how to tackle their neighbour from hell: President Assad

Robert Fisk Thursday 29 March 2012
Syria's bloodbath is carving further divisions in Lebanon as President Bashar al-Assad's Lebanese allies and enemies shout more and more insults at each other. The Christians have even divided among themselves, the old Phalangist leadership calling for Assad's overthrow while the Catholic Maronite church performs its old role of fence-sitting on behalf of Syria's minority Christians. Only this week has the Maronite patriarch, Bechara Rai, had to re-explain himself for the umpteenth time after once more pleading for dialogue between Assad's regime and the Syrian people – instead of denouncing the government in Damascus for its killings.

Extreme weather: it's about to get worse, say scientists


March 29, 2012 - 1:40PM
Global warming is leading to such severe storms, droughts and heatwaves that nations should prepare for an unprecedented onslaught of deadly and costly weather disasters, an international panel of climate scientists says in a new report. The greatest danger from extreme weather is in highly populated, poor regions of the world, the report warns, but no corner of the globe - from Mumbai to Miami - is immune. The document by a Nobel prize-winning panel of climate scientists forecasts stronger tropical cyclones and more frequent heat waves, deluges and droughts.

Ousted Mali leader hiding out in capital


THOMAS MORFIN BAMAKO, MALI - Mar 29 2012 07:43
Mali's ousted leader Amadou Toumani Toure, whose whereabouts have been unknown since he was overthrown on March 22, has told Agence France-Presse he is safe in the capital Bamako and not being held by the junta. The president was chased out of power just five weeks before the end of his term in office ahead of elections on April 29 which the junta has since suspended with no fresh poll date fixed. "I am indeed in Bamako, and thank God my family and I are doing well," Toure said in a brief telephone conversation on Wednesday.

Algeria: France's Toulouse gunman is not ours
French media have repeatedly pointed out Mohammed Merah's Algerian roots, but their Algerian counterparts note that he was born and raised in France.

By Robert Marquand, Staff writer
French media have not shied away from referencing the Algerian roots of 23-year-old Toulouse gunman Mohammed Merah since French authorities disclosed them. However, their Algerian counterparts have kicked up a storm, eager to renounce Mr. Merah’s Algerian identity. No, wait. That’s not quite right. Algerian media are actually pointing out, correctly, that Merah is not Algerian at all. He was born and raised in France, went to French schools, ate and watched TV in the suburbs of Toulouse, and tried to join the French Foreign Legion. He spent much of his life with his family in the French projects, an area known as Les Izards in northeast Toulouse.

China scandal: Bo Xilai allegations 'preposterous'
A politician at the heart of China's biggest political scandal in years is the victim of a smear campaign, a source close to his family has said.

By Michael Bristow & Martin Patience BBC News, Beijing
The source, who did not want to be identified, said the allegations against Bo Xilai were "preposterous". Mr Bo was sacked from his job in charge of the city of Chongqing after his police chief fled to a US consulate, causing major embarrassment to Beijing. Since then, a steady stream of damaging stories about Mr Bo have emerged. Earlier this week it emerged that the British government had asked the Chinese authorities to re-open an investigation into the death of UK businessman Neil Heywood, a close friend of Mr Bo.

Syrian Government Insists It's Fighting Terrorists

Syria authorities target children, says UN rights chief

Syrian authorities are systematically detaining and torturing children, the United Nations' human rights chief, Navi Pillay, has told the BBC.

 

"They've gone for the children - for whatever purposes - in large numbers. Hundreds detained and tortured... it's just horrendous," she said.
"Children shot in the knees, held together with adults in really inhumane conditions, denied medical treatment for their injuries, either held as hostages or as sources of information."

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said President Assad would be judged by events.

"Given Assad's history of over-promising and under-delivering, that commitment must now be matched by immediate actions," she said.
 "If he is ready to bring this dark chapter in Syria's history to a close he can prove it by immediately ordering regime forces to stop firing and begin withdrawing from populated areas."

 

Six In The Morning

Sex and drugs and private cells: Behind bars in South America

A deadly riot in Mexico and an inferno in Honduras have turned the searchlight on conditions in Latin America's overcrowded and anarchic prisons. Simeon Tegel spends a day behind bars in Peru

SIMEON TEGEL

 

LURIGANCHO PRISON

 

WEDNESDAY 28 MARCH 2012

The cluster of shirtless, tattooed inmates in the prison courtyard make no effort to hide the joint as a policeman wanders by. Instead, one turns up the volume on the salsa booming out of a portable stereo. Unconcerned by the clouds of cannabis smoke billowing from the group, the officer does not miss a beat as he carries on patrolling the grimy maze of corridors and patios that make up Lurigancho, Peru's largest jail.

Built for 2,500 inmates, Lurigancho's crumbling walls are currently home to some 7,000 prisoners. Of Peru's 66 desperately overcrowded jails, this human clearing house on the arid outskirts of Lima is the most overcrowded.

The Irish Times - Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Former Polish intelligence chief questioned about CIA 'black sites'

DEREK SCALLY in Berlin

PROSECUTORS IN Warsaw have questioned a former intelligence chief about allowing the CIA to operate “black sites” for interrogation and torture on Polish territory.

The investigation into Zbigniew Siemiatkowski, head of the Polish intelligence service (AW) from 2002-2004, will shed light on co-operation between the CIA and AW during the Bush administration’s so-called “war on terror” – denied by Warsaw and Washington at the time.

According to the Gazeta Wyborcza daily, Mr Siemiatkowski was charged with “corporal punishment” and “depriving prisoners of their liberty”. His former AW deputy, Col Andrzej – who reportedly dealt directly with the CIA – is likely to and face similar charges.

Boy bomber in attack on high-profile Australian aid worker

Dylan Welch in Tarin Kowt

March 28, 2012 - 11:46AM

The suicide bomber behind the first Australian civilian casualty in Afghanistan was a boy of about 12, apparently drafted into a chilling new Taliban campaign to use children as weapons.

The injured man is frontline veteran David Savage, whose role with the Australian Federal Police as a peacekeeper in East Timor inspired a TV mini-series.

Mr Savage, 49, of Canberra, was treated at the Australian base at nearby Tarin Kowt before being flown to Kandahar, then Germany.

Defence Minister Stephen Smith told reporters in Sydney this morning that Mr Savage was in a satisfactory condition. Yesterday, his condition was described as serious but stable.

The bomber attacked as Mr Savage was with a group of soldiers and staff outside a bazaar in the Chora Valley, Uruzgan, where he was working with local communities on development activities.

Mali junta's new Constitution sets out elections

THOMAS MORFIN BAMAKO, MALI - Mar 28 2012 10:56

Mali's junta on Tuesday announced a new Constitution that rules its 
members out of upcoming elections, seeking to show it will not cling to 
power as West African leaders from Ecowas planned a mediation visit. 

Five days after the internationally condemned military coup that toppled President Amadou Toumani Toure, the junta lifted its night-time curfew and reopened the borders in a bid to show the country was returning to normal.

West African leaders meeting in neighbouring Côte d'Ivoire on Tuesday again denounced the coup -- and warned that the region's troops were on standby if the junta failed to engage in dialogue.

Israel gauges fallout from Iran strike

By Victor Kotsev Amid the ever-growing diplomatic noise and military buildup in the Persian Gulf, a key issue has received insufficient attention: the dual problem of possible radioactive contamination and civilian casualties resulting from an operation against Iran. Strikes on nuclear facilities carry enormous stigma; those directed at peaceful installations, specifically, are considered a grave violation of international law. 

Although a persuasive legal argument could be made that the Iranian nuclear program is anything but civilian (something that the Islamic Republic denies), many of the moral constraints against attacking installations loaded with thousands of tons of dangerous chemicals would remain. Surprisingly, given how much has been written and said on the topic of the Iranian nuclear program, there is very little reliable publicly available information on the issue. 

Why would anyone buy naming rights to a highway?

By Daniel NasawBBC News Magazine, Washington

The US state of Virginia is poised to become the first to sell naming rights to its bridges, highways and roads. But given how long drivers can spend in gridlock, is there a risk in putting your firm's name to this public space?

Arsenal fans travel to Emirates Stadium in London to see their football team, while Leicester City supporters crowd into King Power Stadium, which is named after the duty-free shopping company but used to be known as Walkers Stadium after the brand of crisps.

Naming sports facilities after corporate brands is even more pervasive in the US, where the New York Giants and Jets football teams play at MetLife Stadium and the Chicago White Sox baseball team plays at US Cellular Field.

Family Torn Apart

A Mexican-American family is forced to split up along a fault line of US politics.

Keeping house and home together can be hard enough even under the best of circumstances. But when you're only 18, and have two younger siblings to look after, it is very tough indeed. Lesley Munoz does just that in a small American town on the Mexican border – but this is all in the knowledge that her parents are alive and well, but forced to live in Mexico, on the other side of that border. The USA has been stepping up its deportation of illegal immigrants, showing little sympathy for families that are split apart by this policy. Family Torn Apart tells the story of a Mexican-American family who have been separated by a court judgment in pursuit of US immigration policy. The Munoz parents came to the USA many years ago on a temporary residence permit to get hospital treatment for their first child who was suffering from a terminal illness. After his death they stayed, fearing similar problems with the two children who then came along.

Six In The Morning

Obama urges North to seek peace

In speech at HUFS, U.S. president says ‘No rewards for provocations’

JoongAng Ilbo Mar 27,2012
Amid heightened security ahead of the Nuclear Security Summit which runs until today, United States President Barack Obama spoke to Korean students yesterday morning on a Seoul campus, the first incumbent U.S. president to do so. In his third visit to the South Korean capital, Obama addressed some 700 students of the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (HUFS), several hundred of its faculty and press in the school’s Minerva Complex auditorium in Imun-dong, Dongdaemun District, northern Seoul. He spoke of South Korea’s role in the global community, calling Korea “one of the world’s most dynamic economies,” and the “urgent work of preventing nuclear terrorism by securing the world’s nuclear materials” that needed to be addressed at the summit.

Asylum claims 'at highest since 2003'
The number of refugees seeking sanctuary in the world's richest countries rose 20% last year, says the UN, with many from Afghanistan, China and Iraq

Associated Press in Geneva guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 27 March 2012 08.28 BST
Afghans topped the list of asylum claimants to the world's richest countries in 2011, followed by Chinese and Iraqis, the UN refugee agency has reported. The number of Tunisians, Libyans and people from Ivory Coast saw the biggest annual rise, while the number of Pakistanis and Syrians applying for asylum also jumped noticeably. Overall, asylum applications to the 44 industrialised countries surveyed rose 20% in 2011, to 441,300 from 368,000 the previous year. The office of the UN High It is a gun battle people in the Shubra district in central Cairo still talk about six months after it happened. In a dispute over a piece of land he had seized amid the small shops and densely crowded streets, Mohammed Shaban, who had escaped from prison during the revolution, challenged the police to a fight. He told one policeman who tried to evict him "to get out or we will kill you". When other police arrived, two of them were wounded by gunshots and Shaban was killed along with a local plumber, shot dead by police who mistook him for a gunman. "Mohammed Shaban's family consider him a martyr but nobody else around here does," says Abu Hatem, a taxi driver living in Shubra

The true price of Egypt's freedom
Mubarak is long gone – but in place of brutality and cronyism, fear of crime and poverty have soared. In Cairo, Patrick Cockburn finds a nation on a knife-edge

Cairo Tuesday 27 March 2012
It is a gun battle people in the Shubra district in central Cairo still talk about six months after it happened. In a dispute over a piece of land he had seized amid the small shops and densely crowded streets, Mohammed Shaban, who had escaped from prison during the revolution, challenged the police to a fight. He told one policeman who tried to evict him "to get out or we will kill you". When other police arrived, two of them were wounded by gunshots and Shaban was killed along with a local plumber, shot dead by police who mistook him for a gunman. "Mohammed Shaban's family consider him a martyr but nobody else around here does," says Abu Hatem, a taxi driver living in Shubra.

'I Am the Last Free Man in This Country'
Georgian billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili has taken on President Mikheil Saakashvili by establishing an opposition movement. Many of his supporters were recently questioned in what Amnesty has called an intimidation attempt.


Just days after German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle had called for freedom of the press and "respect for the rights of the opposition" during a visit to Georgia, President Mikheil Saakashvili has mounted a major campaign against his political adversaries. More than 100 supporters of opposition leader and oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili were summoned for questioning earlier this month. The interrogations, which went on for hours, prompted the human rights group Amnesty International to accuse Saakashvili of conducting a deliberate campaign of intimidation.

'Red terror' adds to Bo scandal


SHARON LaFRANIERE March 27, 2012 - 1:19PM
BEIJING: As Bo Xilai, the dismissed Chongqing party chief, becomes immersed in an ever-more tangled scandal, disturbing new details are emerging about one of his best-known initiatives, a crusade against organised crime on which he built a national reputation. Since Bo was fired last month after a scandal involving his police chief, a starkly different picture of his sweeping campaign to break up organised gangs — called da hei, or smash black — is coming into focus. Once hailed as a pioneering effort to wipe out corruption, critics now say it depicts a security apparatus run amok: framing victims, extracting confessions through torture, extorting business empires and visiting retribution on the political rivals of Bo and his friends while protecting those with better connections.

Iran not keen to walk Turkey's red carpet
Middle East

By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts - In a major setback for Turkey's self-promotion as a pivot of regional diplomacy, Tehran could rebuff Ankara's bid to hold the next round of multilateral nuclear talks in Istanbul. As a result, unless Ankara sends Tehran some reassuring signals, it is a sure bet that the talks will be held elsewhere. Although no official announcement has been made, reports from Tehran indicate that compared to two years ago, when Iran trusted Turkey enough to consider inking an agreement with it, together with Brazil, that called for Turkey's safekeeping of Iran's enriched uranium, today a good deal of that trust has disappeared, replaced with a growing Iran disquiet about Turkey's perceived ill intentions toward Syria and, indirectly, Iran.

Six In The Morning

Obama warns Pyongyang on missile



JoongAng daily
President Lee Myung-bak and U.S. President Barack Obama yesterday urged North Korea to call off its plan to launch a missile next month, warning it is a violation of an international norm and will only deepen the country’s isolation. “Bad behaviors will not be rewarded,” Obama told a joint press conference after a meeting with Lee at the Blue House late yesterday. At the conference, Lee said the two countries will sternly deal with a North Korean provocation. The meeting between the presidents came a day before the start of the Seoul Nuclear Security Summit, designed to deal with nuclear threats from non-state terrorists.

iPad smugglers face fresh pressures
Shipping Apple's tablets to the Far East can make big profits – but is threatened by tougher customs, mail costs and global rollout

Charles Arthur and agencies guardian.co.uk, Monday 26 March 2012 08.22 BST
Early on the morning of 16 March, Wong Tat joined a line of about 100 people waiting for the launch of the new iPad in a chilly rain outside an Apple store on the outskirts of San Francisco. When the doors opened, he was among the first to buy his quota of two iPads – the maximum Apple allows per person. Then, sporting a bright red cap for easy identification, Wong began to direct a stream of people toting their new tablets to a silver Mercedes 4x4 in the parking lot.

Inside the mind of Mohamed Merah
Confessions by the Toulouse gunman depict a killer who found 'infinite pleasure' in the slaughter

Monday 26 March 2012
The last testament of Mohamed Merah, the Toulouse gunman killed last week, suggests that he was a psychopath as much as a terrorist, someone who found an "infinite pleasure" in killing. Disturbing extracts from his boasts and confessions, recorded by police while he was under siege last week, were leaked to a newspaper yesterday. Merah, 23, remained calm and courteous throughout the 32-hour siege, but showed no remorse for killing seven people, including three small children.

Wade admits defeat in Senegal election battle


BATE FELIX AND DIADIE BA DAKAR, SENEGAL - Mar 26 2012 08:29
Senegal's long-serving leader Abdoulaye Wade admitted defeat in presidential elections on Sunday, congratulating his rival Macky Sall -- a move seen as bolstering the West African state's democratic credentials in a region fraught with political chaos. Thousands of residents of the capital Dakar poured onto the streets overnight, honking car horns, beating drums and singing in celebration after state television reported that Wade had telephoned Sall to concede the country's most contentious election in recent history.

Proving you're gay to the Turkish army
Military service is mandatory for all Turkish men - they can only escape it if they are ill, disabled or homosexual. But proving homosexuality is a humiliating ordeal.

By Emre Azizlerli BBC World Service
''They asked me when I first had anal intercourse, oral sex, what sort of toys I played with as a child..." Ahmet, a young man in his 20s, told officials he was gay at the first opportunity after he was called up, as he and other conscripts underwent a health check. "They asked me if I liked football, whether I wore woman's clothes or used woman's perfume," he says. ''I had a few days' beard and I am a masculine guy - they told me I didn't look like a normal gay man.''

Japan's Tepco shuts its last nuclear facility
One nuclear reactor left operating as country debates future of nuclear energy after tsunami-triggered nuclear crisis.

Last Modified: 26 Mar 2012 08:07
Japan’s Tokyo Electric Power Company [Tepco], the operator of the tsunami-crippled Fukushima power plant, has shut its last operating nuclear reactor, leaving the country with only one nuclear facility still operating. Tepco said on Sunday it shut down the number 6 reactor at its Kashiwazaki Kariwa plant, the world's biggest nuclear power plant, raising concerns about a power shortage this summer. "We are currently closely studying the summer power supply situation. We will do our utmost to operate in a stable way and maintain our facilities," Toshio Nishizawa, Tepco president, said in a statement.

The Dangers Of Reporting The 'War On Terror'

Rarely does the Listening Post dedicate a whole show to the story of a single journalist. But when that story speaks so eloquently of how world history is being written, or erased, we decided it was something we just could not ignore.
In December 2009, Yemen's air force claimed it had killed 30 suspected al-Qaeda operatives during an airstrike on a training camp in the southern Abyan province.
This version of events was circulated around the world but when Yemeni journalist Abdulelah Haider Shaye managed to get to the scene, the remains of the missiles he found were clearly marked 'Made in the USA'. And among the dead were 14 women and 21 children.
Shaye's subsequent report incriminated the US in a military operation in which they had been so keen to deny any involvement. Yemen dismissed the report and the US refused to comment - and Shaye became a marked man. He was accused of being an al-Qaeda operative and has been behind bars ever since.
Last month, the Yemeni government pardoned Shaye and was about to release him. But it took just one phone call from the US president urging them to reconsider, and the government backtracked.
Shaye remains locked up.

Six In The Morning

On Sunday

U.S. Plans No Charges Over Deadly Strike in Pakistan



By ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON — The United States military has decided that no service members will face disciplinary charges for their involvement in a NATO airstrike in November that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, an accident that plunged relations between the two countries to new depths and has greatly complicated the allied mission in Afghanistan. An American investigation in December found fault with both American and Pakistani troops for the deadly exchange of fire, but noted that the Pakistanis fired first from two border posts that were not on coalition maps, and that they kept firing even after the Americans tried to warn them that they were shooting at allied troops. Pakistan has rejected these conclusions and ascribed most of the blame to the American forces.

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Rupert Cornwell: The murderous demon of race still stalks this land
Out of America: The killing of Trayvon Martin has again ruthlessly exposed the faultlines that underlie Obama-era America

Rupert Cornwell Sunday 25 March 2012
Every so often in America there comes a tragedy that exposes the country's most sensitive faultlines: a shooting rampage on a university campus, a convicted killer executed when common sense suggests the evidence against him is horribly flawed, the murder by pro-life extremists of a doctor who has carried out abortions. And now we have the death of Trayvon Martin. The basic facts of what happened are by now well known. A 17-year-old student of unblemished reputation, Martin was shot dead by a self-appointed local crime watch vigilante named George Zimmerman, as he walked home through an upscale neighbourhood in Sanford, Florida on the night of 26 February, carrying nothing more menacing than a mobile phone, a bottle of iced tea and a bag of fruit-flavoured sweets.

Clooney's satellites reveal secrets of Sudan's army


Mar 25 2012 06:20
Nathaniel Raymond is the first to admit that he has an unusual job description. "I count tanks from space for George Clooney," said the tall, easygoing Massachusetts native as he sat in a conference room in front of a map of the Sudanese region of South Kordofan. Close by, pins and ink scrawlings on the map detail the positions of Sudanese army forces and refugee populations in the troubled oil-producing province, where the Sudanese army is carrying out a brutal crackdown.

Amid bombings, Iraqi family celebrates a wedding and good grades
The Methboub family, which the Monitor has followed for a decade, has reasons for hope after dark days during which a son was wrongly imprisoned and a daughter's marriage collapsed.

By Scott Peterson, Staff writer
They don't need to turn on the TV or walk down the rickety narrow staircase of their modest Baghdad apartment to learn the news: Car bombs have been exploding in this family's district of Baghdad again, their percussions felt everywhere. Yet behind their apartment's battered metal door – its paint worn off, and peppered with screw holes from cheap latches and locks that have failed – the family of widow Karima Selman Methboub has reasons to celebrate. Through nearly eight years of American occupation, insurgency, civil war, and, before that, Saddam Hussein's oppressive rule, all eight children have survived.

In Mexico, tens of thousands gather before Pope Benedict's Mass
As religious fervor is displayed in Silao, a sexual-abuse scandal involving a notorious Mexican priest threatens to cast a pall over the pope's visit.

By Tracy Wilkinson and Michael Robinson Chavez, Los Angeles Times March 25, 2012
Reporting from Leon and Silao, Mexico— Singing, strumming guitars and trying to shield themselves from a searing sun, tens of thousands of Mexican Catholics came together Saturday nearly 24 hours before an open-air Mass with Pope Benedict XVI. They walked miles and took up positions in Bicentennial Park, a short distance from a hilltop monument that honors the 1920s Cristero War by Catholic counter-revolutionaries. But as religious fervor was on display in Silao, in central Mexico's Guanajuato state, a sexual-abuse scandal involving a notorious Mexican priest threatened to cast a pall over the pope's first visit to the Spanish-speaking Americas.

Berlin artists' lock-in protest to halt developers
Bohemians and anarchists have joined forces to fight the gentrification of their living space

Kate Connolly, Berlin The Observer, Sunday 25 March 2012
Darko stands behind an iron gate, his bare chest daubed in red paint with the words "victim of bank". Four floors above him Reza, an Iranian painter, leans out of the window to pull up a basket of provisions. The artists are among 20 who have locked themselves into Tacheles, one of Berlin's last bastions of alternative subculture, and are fighting eviction ahead of plans to develop it as an office and luxury apartments complex. "It will be a catastrophe for Berlin if this goes," says Darko, a painter from Bosnia who came to Berlin for a weekend, fell in love with Tacheles and stayed.

India;s Coal Rush

When the topic of land grabs, corruption of government officials, stolen wealth and numerous other problems of burgeoning economies China usually comes to the fore. The same can be said about pollution from coal fired power plants. Yet, this film isn't about China but India where similar problems are occurring with the countries need for vast amounts of energy to power its growing economy and its ever larger cities.

Six In he Morning

Shattered residents regroup after Syrian offensive in Idlib

They describe a government onslaught marked by bouts of terror, wanton destruction behind closed doors and strange moments of kindness by soldiers.

By Los Angeles Times Staff March 24, 2012
Reporting from Idlib, Syria— In a playground of slides and swings, children dug in the sand next to a string of simple dirt mounds that covered the bodies of at least 40 people. The makeshift graves, which extended nearly from one end of the park to the other, held those killed in the last two weeks of government attacks on this capital of the northern Syrian province of Idlib. "This park used to be for recreation and play. Now it has been turned into a cemetery," a grandmother said, wiping her eyes as she walked along the park's fence. Four members of her family are buried here.

Police accused of failures over Toulouse terror deaths
Islamist killer who died in shootout with officers could have been captured earlier, and taken alive, say critics

John Lichfield Author Biography Paris Saturday 24 March 2012
Mohamed Merah may be dead but the political crossfire over his 12-day reign of terror in south-west France rages on. Awkward questions were raised yesterday by opposition politicians, a retired police chief and President Nicolas Sarkozy's Defence Minister over the failure of the security services and police to identify the gunman earlier and capture him alive.

Havana Gets a Taste of the Free Market
Inhabitants of the communist bastion of Cuba have been getting a taste of the free market lately with the introduction of market reforms by President Raúl Castro. The Catholic Church is supporting his endeavor, and Pope Benedict's visit could boost efforts to open up the country.

By Jens Glüsing in Havana
The vehicle Juan Perez calls his Audi is a blue two-seater with seats made of imitation leather. The passenger has to do without an airbag and a seatbelt. Indeed, about the only thing it really shares in common with the German car brand are the four rings on the handlebar meant to look like the Audi logo. "Do you like my Audi?" Perez asks, throwing his weight into the pedals of his bicycle-powered rickshaw. He dreams of owning an A4 with air-conditioning and alloy rims.

Bloggers use Teletubbies to evade Chinese censors


Tania Branigan March 24, 2012
TV's Teletubbies, tomatoes and instant noodles might not sound like the stuff of high political intrigue, but this motley grouping has allowed microbloggers in China to evade censorship and speculate on trouble at the top of government. With facts in short supply since leadership contender Bo Xilai was dismissed as party chief of Chongqing, in south-west central China, last week, the online rumour mill has been in overdrive - fuelled by the opaque nature of Chinese politics and the knowledge that a power transition is fast approaching. Internet users disguise their references by using nicknames for the leaders they cannot mention.

Liberia's Sirleaf throws hat into anti-gay controversy
Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a Nobel Peace Laureate, on Friday defended her country's stand on gay rights after controversy following an interview she gave to a British newspaper.

MONROVIA, LIBERIA
Sirleaf came under fire after the Guardian published a video interview in which she is asked about decriminalising homosexuality and replies: "We like ourselves the way we are." Looking uncomfortable at the line of questioning, Sirleaf goes on to say she would not sign any law whatsoever relating to homosexuality. "We've got certain traditional values in our society that we would like to preserve," she says.

Occupy Wall Street plans return to spotlight – but in what form?
Demonstrators torn over whether to concentrate on economic inequality or to move towards protesting police brutality

Ryan Devereaux guardian.co.uk, Saturday 24 March 2012 01.38 GMT
Occupy Wall Street returned to the public spotlight this week following the largest mass arrest of its supporters since the movement was evicted from its home base in November. Last weekend's events, including a female protester apparently having a seizure while handcuffed – combined with numerous accounts of excessive police force – have been described by many protesters as some of the most violent in Occupy history. A New York Daily News reporter on the scene said the New York City police was "out of control". This weekend, occupiers plan to push back.

Random Japan

AC/DC MEETS JAILHOUSE ROCK

• Headline of the Week, courtesy of The Japan Times: “Prisons to give special consideration to inmates with gender identity issues”
• Apparently, at least according to the Justice Ministry, “about 40 prisoners in Japan, both male and female, were believed to have gender identity disorder as of 2011.” New guidelines will let them “bathe alone and wear the underwear of the gender they identify with.”
• Hiroki Homma, a sports reporter for the Sankei Shimbun, pulled out a jackknife after getting into a tussle with another guy near Yokohama Station. Homma, who had been out drinking, was arrested for violating a law against carrying concealed weapons.
• Japan’s farm minister Michihiko Kano had to skip a budget committee session and the government memorial service for the March 11 victims with some severe vomiting and diarrhea, likely caused by the notorious norovirus.
• The government asked three towns in Fukushima Prefecture—Okuma, Futaba and Naraha—to set up temporary facilities to store radioactive soil and waste. Needless to say, the three bergs were less than enthusiastic at the prospect.
• Two people from Sendai were in California to participate in a 200-person protest calling for the permanent shutdown of the San Onofre nuclear power plant.
• One of the protesters from Sendai, 39-year-old Kyoko Sugasawa, said, “The allowable radiation level used to be 1 milisievert and now it is 20 milisieverts for children. We feel as if our children are being experimented on.”

THERE’S GOOD NEWS AND THERE’S BAD NEWS…

• Women’s World Cup titleholders Nadeshiko Japan beat the powerful Americans in soccer once again, this time 1-0 at the Algarve Cup tournament in Portugal.
• Unfortunately, however, the Japanese women would go on to lose 4-3 to Germany in the Algarve Cup final.
• US pop singer and 1980s icon Cyndi Lauper was in tsunami-hit Ishinomaki to cheer up local elementary school students with a few songs. Lauper was also here a year earlier, arriving on March 11, 2011. Not the greatest timing for a girl who just wanted to have…
• A private detective agency in Japan revealed that 21.5 percent of married women with jobs that they were hired to track had been unfaithful.
• The number of Japanese students who committed suicide in 2011 was up to 1,029, a record and over 100 higher than the previous year, according to the National Police Agency.
• A 6m fishing boat, swept away by the March 11 tsunami from a town in Iwate Prefecture and later recovered off the coast of Hyogo Prefecture, was returned to the owner’s family. The man who owned the boat was killed by the tsunami.
• A Buddhist temple in Nagano has made wooden Jizo statues, which spiritually protect temples, out of fallen pine trees from disaster-hit Rikuzentakata in Iwate Prefecture.
• US Navy Admiral Robert Willard, the man who coordinated the US military’s post-March 11 relief operations in Japan—Operation Tomodachi—stepped down from his post as commander of the US Pacific Command.
• An elderly man and woman were found dead in a Tokyo apartment. The pair apparently expired due to “illness,” according to the local police.
• Pieces of haniwa clay figures shaped in the form of humans dating from the 5th century were found at a burial site in Shimane Prefecture, the oldest artifacts of their type ever discovered in Japan.

What's More Important Preventing A Crime Or Going On Holiday?

Going On Holiday

In The Name Of Love

Steal The Cash

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Oi reactors pass stress test, safety panel says

By KAZUAKI NAGATA

Staff writer

The Nuclear Safety Commission approved on Friday the results of the first-stage stress test for two reactors at the Oi power plant in Fukui Prefecture, clearing another key condition for bringing them back online.

The brief approval meeting sparked outrage among the nuclear foes present.

The Friday approval is the first from the safety commission, a government nuclear advisory body, for the stress tests now being conducted by the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, the country's main nuclear regulatory body under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.