Six In The Morning

Israeli voters disapprove of attack on Iran without US help

According to a recent poll, 32 percent of Israelis opposed a strike in any circumstance.

By Dan Murphy Staff writer Christian Science Monitor
The Israeli public is champing at the bit for air strikes against Iran's nuclear program right? Wrong. A new poll run by the University of Maryland's Sadat Chair for Peace and Development Shibley Telhami was released as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gets ready to decamp to Washington next week, for direct meetings with President Barack Obama and a speech at the upcoming AIPAC conference. The annual meeting of AIPAC, a pro-Israel advocacy group with political views aligned with Mr. Netanyahu's Likud, is expected to be a platform for warnings of the Iranian threat, calls for unbreakable solidarity between the US and Israel, and demands that the US provide assistance to the Jewish state if it decides to attack the Islamic republic. Netanyahu has promised to make Iran the "center" of his talks with Obama.

Syria's deadly neighbourhood and the desperate attempts to escape
After days in Baba Amr with little food or water, the journalists and activists had no choice except to leave

Martin Chulov in Beirut The Guardian, Friday 2 March 2012
In the bitterly cold darkness of last Sunday morning, four western reporters and a group of activists protecting them made a decision they had twice tried to avoid – to flee Baba Amr. Led by local people determined to see their guests to safety, but themselves resigned to staying behind, the group made for a passageway that was to be their only way out of one of the most dangerous neighbourhoods on earth.

Robert Fisk: Jailed in Geneva - the colonel who stood up against Mubarak, but refused to spy for the Swiss
His defence of Christian Copts made him a thorn in the side of Egypt's regime. But when he fled, Colonel Ghanem found himself in an equally dangerous game. After six years in prison, he tells his story

Friday 02 March 2012
He is 54 but looks 70 – "like an Indian yogi with a long white beard," as ex-Colonel Mohamed el-Ghanem's Swiss lawyer puts it. "I entered his cell – I had a Swiss official next to me who formally introduced me. Colonel Ghanem was sitting on his bed with his feet on the floor. Then he lay on the bed and pulled the blanket up to his chin. He did not say a word – not a single word. For much of the time, he shut his eyes." Pierre Bayenet specialises in human rights cases but admits that ex-President Mubarak's former Interior Ministry colonel – locked up for six years without trial in a Swiss prison after accusing the Swiss security services of blackmailing him – is one of the strangest cases he has even been involved in. As a journalist, I must say the same.

'Putin opponents accused of faking vote fraud videos
The Irish Times - Friday, March 2, 2012

SÉAMUS MARTIN in Moscow
AS TENSIONS rise in the build-up to Sunday’s presidential election in Russia, the organisers of opposition protests have been accused of making false videos of voting irregularities in advance of the vote and have been compared to the Orange revolutionaries who overturned Ukraine’s presidential election eight years ago. Vladimir Markin of Russia’s state investigation commission (SK) has said there is evidence that false videos of ballot stuffing in Sunday’s elections have already been made with the bogus recording date of March 4th. In a country where one side does not believe the other and conspiracy theories abound, the announcement has been greeted with suspicion. Opposition members regard the investigation as a move to discredit genuine videos of electoral irregularities.

Mugabe admits allies have died of Aids
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe admitted on Thursday that some of his political allies have died of Aids

HARARE, ZIMBABWE
"In my political family as well, comrades I have worked with perished and quite a number of them it has been HIV and Aids," Mugabe told lawmakers. "Parliamentarians are certainly not immune to HIV/Aids and its consequences," Mugabe said. "I have witnessed the challenges that both they and our people face as a result of HIV and Aids, and yet I do not recall any lawmaker who has come out in the open about their HIV status." Three years ago, 88-year-old Mugabe admitted that members of his extended family had died of the syndrome, but he rarely speaks publicly about the syndrome that has exacted a heavy toll on his country.

North Korea's pivot
Korea

John Feffer
WASHINGTON - After three years of frozen relations between North Korea and the United States, the two long-standing adversaries are on the verge of a thaw. In what has been called the "leap-day deal", North Korea has pledged to stop uranium enrichment and suspend nuclear and missile tests. The US, meanwhile, will deliver 240,000 tonnes of food to the country's malnourished population. The administration of US President Barack Obama has maintained a policy of "strategic patience" toward North Korea, which amounted to a wait-and-see approach while Washington was preoccupied with other foreign-policy issues. Obama administration officials portray the leap-day deal as a modest first step in re-engaging North Korea.