Washington - The US army will soon mark a milestone that the commander in chief, US President George W Bush, hardly anticipated. On Sunday, the US will mark its 1,347th day in Iraq - the same amount of time the United States fought Germany and Japan in World War II. With one of the worst 24-hour periods of carnage since the US-led invasion in 2003 - more than 170 people were killed from Thursday to Friday - Washington has no quick solution in mind. To the contrary, US government officials and military leaders, including General John Abizaid, the top commander of US forces in the Middle East, warn of failure and civil war if the murdering militia and death squads are not quickly brought under control. The Pentagon estimates there are at least 23 serious militia in Iraq. The biggest danger, US military experts say, is the Mahdi Army, the militia of the young Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
On Sunday, the US will mark its 1,347th day in Iraq - the same amount of time the United States fought Germany and Japan in World War II.
With one of the worst 24-hour periods of carnage since the US-led invasion in 2003 - more than 170 people were killed from Thursday to Friday - Washington has no quick solution in mind.
To the contrary, US government officials and military leaders, including General John Abizaid, the top commander of US forces in the Middle East, warn of failure and civil war if the murdering militia and death squads are not quickly brought under control.
The Pentagon estimates there are at least 23 serious militia in Iraq. The biggest danger, US military experts say, is the Mahdi Army, the militia of the young Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
US commentators like the Washington Post`s Colbert King point out that Sistani and his followers owe a debt of gratitude to the US for freeing them from oppression under Saddam Hussein.
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - Lebanon's U.S.-backed government on Saturday approved the creation of an international tribunal to try suspects in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, overriding objections by Hezbollah and the country's pro-Syrian president. The approval, though widely expected, was bound to deepen the country's political crisis and spark mass street demonstrations threatened by Hezbollah and its allies to topple the government of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora. Saniora insisted the decision was not ``a provocation'' against its opponents. ``On the contrary, it is aimed at protecting everybody,'' he said, according to a statement read by Information Minister Ghazi Aridi after the tribunal's approval. An ongoing U.N. investigation into the February 2005 truck bombing that killed former Hariri and 22 others has said the killing's complexity suggests the Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services played a role in the assassination. Damascus has denied any role in the killing. Saniora, according to Aridi, stressed that the creation of the international tribunal would help in uncovering ``the truth'' in former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's assassination.
The approval, though widely expected, was bound to deepen the country's political crisis and spark mass street demonstrations threatened by Hezbollah and its allies to topple the government of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora.
Saniora insisted the decision was not ``a provocation'' against its opponents.
``On the contrary, it is aimed at protecting everybody,'' he said, according to a statement read by Information Minister Ghazi Aridi after the tribunal's approval.
An ongoing U.N. investigation into the February 2005 truck bombing that killed former Hariri and 22 others has said the killing's complexity suggests the Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services played a role in the assassination. Damascus has denied any role in the killing.
Saniora, according to Aridi, stressed that the creation of the international tribunal would help in uncovering ``the truth'' in former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's assassination.
In his diary of a week which saw yet another assassination, our man in Beirut reflects that the present violence in Lebanon creates longings for a supposedly peaceful past Sunday 19 November To Khiam, in the far south of Lebanon, to photograph Israeli bomb craters in which a British scientific team say they have found traces of enriched uranium. Spanish troops - along with Indian soldiers - now patrol this dangerous corner of Lebanon, and their UN vehicles hum past us as we drive under a white-bright winter sky. All of this has a screen of irrelevance over it - journalists writing yesterday's story for tomorrow's paper - as the dangerous political war between supporters of the Lebanese government - Sunni Muslims and Christians - and the pro-Syrian forces opposed to it, especially the Shias, employ increasingly incendiary language. The Shia Hizbollah's leadership demand an end to the democratically-elected Fouad Siniora cabinet, set up after the murder of the ex-prime minister, Rafiq Hariri, last year. The Christians are calling Hizbollah fascists. Tomorrow the cabinet is supposed to sign up to the new UN tribunal to try suspects for Hariri's murder, even though all six Shia ministers (largely pro-Syrian, of course) have resigned. Monday 20 November Sure enough, Syria's faithful Lebanese president, Emile Lahoud, claims the cabinet is constitutionally unable to approve the UN's tribunal, which just might point a finger at Emile Lahoud himself. My driver, Abed, mourns for the French mandate of Lebanon under which he was born. The French, according to Abed, provided a respite between the brutality of the Ottoman Empire - Abed's father was taken from his young bride only days after his marriage to fight for the Turks against General Allenby in Palestine - and the corruption of post-independence Lebanon.
Sunday 19 November
To Khiam, in the far south of Lebanon, to photograph Israeli bomb craters in which a British scientific team say they have found traces of enriched uranium. Spanish troops - along with Indian soldiers - now patrol this dangerous corner of Lebanon, and their UN vehicles hum past us as we drive under a white-bright winter sky.
All of this has a screen of irrelevance over it - journalists writing yesterday's story for tomorrow's paper - as the dangerous political war between supporters of the Lebanese government - Sunni Muslims and Christians - and the pro-Syrian forces opposed to it, especially the Shias, employ increasingly incendiary language. The Shia Hizbollah's leadership demand an end to the democratically-elected Fouad Siniora cabinet, set up after the murder of the ex-prime minister, Rafiq Hariri, last year. The Christians are calling Hizbollah fascists. Tomorrow the cabinet is supposed to sign up to the new UN tribunal to try suspects for Hariri's murder, even though all six Shia ministers (largely pro-Syrian, of course) have resigned.
Monday 20 November
Sure enough, Syria's faithful Lebanese president, Emile Lahoud, claims the cabinet is constitutionally unable to approve the UN's tribunal, which just might point a finger at Emile Lahoud himself.
My driver, Abed, mourns for the French mandate of Lebanon under which he was born. The French, according to Abed, provided a respite between the brutality of the Ottoman Empire - Abed's father was taken from his young bride only days after his marriage to fight for the Turks against General Allenby in Palestine - and the corruption of post-independence Lebanon.
A ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants was agreed last night, with a pledge to end all rocket fire into Israel in return for an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. In a surprise development, Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President, agreed in a telephone conversation to cease the bloodshed in a sign of increased co-operation between the two sides. The deal is a sign that the log jam in the peace process has been broken, and there was hope last night that negotiations between the two sides could commence. Khaled Mashaal, the leader of Hamas, said the militant group was willing to allow negotiations with Israel but warned of a fresh uprising if talks fail to reach a deal for a Palestinian state within six months. The breakthrough came after the Palestinian leadership reached an agreement with resistance groups and factions to stop firing rockets into Israel. President Abbas told the Israeli premier of the development yesterday in a telephone call and Mr Olmert pledged to stop military operations in the Gaza strip.
In a surprise development, Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President, agreed in a telephone conversation to cease the bloodshed in a sign of increased co-operation between the two sides.
The deal is a sign that the log jam in the peace process has been broken, and there was hope last night that negotiations between the two sides could commence. Khaled Mashaal, the leader of Hamas, said the militant group was willing to allow negotiations with Israel but warned of a fresh uprising if talks fail to reach a deal for a Palestinian state within six months.
The breakthrough came after the Palestinian leadership reached an agreement with resistance groups and factions to stop firing rockets into Israel. President Abbas told the Israeli premier of the development yesterday in a telephone call and Mr Olmert pledged to stop military operations in the Gaza strip.
How Windows XP Wasted $25 Billion of Energy Microsoft has been touting Vista's new power saving features, saying that upgrading to Vista could easily save consumers and corporations $50 to $75 per computer per year in energy costs. The question, though, is what marvelous new code makes this miracle possible. The answer? They fixed three stupid mistakes that have cost the world billions of dollars and millions of tons of CO2 in the past five years.
Microsoft has been touting Vista's new power saving features, saying that upgrading to Vista could easily save consumers and corporations $50 to $75 per computer per year in energy costs. The question, though, is what marvelous new code makes this miracle possible. The answer? They fixed three stupid mistakes that have cost the world billions of dollars and millions of tons of CO2 in the past five years.
Since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the average number of employees filing whistle-blower disclosures with the government has risen 43%, from an average of 376 annually in the four years before the attacks to 537 annually after. The statistics are kept by the Office of the Special Counsel, an independent federal investigative agency that handles whistle-blower cases if employees prefer not to directly confront their bosses about suspicions of wrongdoing. An increasing number of whistle-blowers allege that rather than being embraced, they're being retaliated against for coming forward. In the four years before the terrorist attacks, whistle-blowers filed an average of 690 reprisal complaints with the OSC annually. Since the attacks, an average of 835 complaints have been filed each year, a 21% increase. The number of whistle-blower reprisal complaints is higher than the number of whistle-blower disclosure complaints because employees can file reprisal complaints with the OSC even if they had not previously filed their disclosure with the OSC. "The sad reality is that rather than learning lessons from 9/11, the government appears to have become more thin-skinned and sensitive," says Tom Devine, legal director of the Government Accountability Project, a non-profit group that offers legal aid to whistle-blowers. <...> For those who are fired or have their security clearances revoked -- tantamount to firing in the intelligence agencies -- there is little recourse. Most national security whistle-blowers are not protected from retaliation by law. That's because the intelligence-gathering agencies are exempted from the 1989 whistle-blower Protection Act, which guarantees investigations into disclosures made by federal employees and protects whistle-blowers from retaliation. Whistle-blowers employed by these agencies must seek recourse within the same agency they are blowing the whistle on. And even if the investigators within their own agency confirm reprisal allegations, the investigators have no power to remedy the situation. Devine says the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has ruled against whistle-blowers in 125 of 127 of the reprisal cases seen by the court since 1994. "They've gutted the law," Devine says, "and it's degenerated into a rubber stamp for retaliation."
An increasing number of whistle-blowers allege that rather than being embraced, they're being retaliated against for coming forward.
In the four years before the terrorist attacks, whistle-blowers filed an average of 690 reprisal complaints with the OSC annually. Since the attacks, an average of 835 complaints have been filed each year, a 21% increase.
The number of whistle-blower reprisal complaints is higher than the number of whistle-blower disclosure complaints because employees can file reprisal complaints with the OSC even if they had not previously filed their disclosure with the OSC.
"The sad reality is that rather than learning lessons from 9/11, the government appears to have become more thin-skinned and sensitive," says Tom Devine, legal director of the Government Accountability Project, a non-profit group that offers legal aid to whistle-blowers.
<...>
For those who are fired or have their security clearances revoked -- tantamount to firing in the intelligence agencies -- there is little recourse.
Most national security whistle-blowers are not protected from retaliation by law. That's because the intelligence-gathering agencies are exempted from the 1989 whistle-blower Protection Act, which guarantees investigations into disclosures made by federal employees and protects whistle-blowers from retaliation.
Whistle-blowers employed by these agencies must seek recourse within the same agency they are blowing the whistle on. And even if the investigators within their own agency confirm reprisal allegations, the investigators have no power to remedy the situation.
Devine says the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has ruled against whistle-blowers in 125 of 127 of the reprisal cases seen by the court since 1994. "They've gutted the law," Devine says, "and it's degenerated into a rubber stamp for retaliation."
The labor ministry is taking a look at exempting white-collar workers who make 10 million yen [€66,000] or more a year from legal limitations on their work hours, sources familiar with the discussion said Saturday. The ministry has been studying the feasibility of implementing a system in which employees would no longer be protected by the Labor Standard Law provision limiting regular hours to eight hours a day, 40 hours a week. <...> Workers who earned more than 10 million yen last year accounted for 4.8 percent of all employees in the private sector, according to the National Tax Agency. <...> The ministry developed a set of conditions for applying the system and recommended them Nov. 10 to an advisory panel subcommittee in charge of the issue, the sources said. The conditions include those workers whose tasks cannot be appropriately assessed through the length of working hours, that the work implies significant power and responsibility and that the workers' annual income is considerably high. Under the system, which has been modeled on one in the United States, overtime pay would not be paid to workers under certain conditions in terms of wages and the nature of the work.
The ministry has been studying the feasibility of implementing a system in which employees would no longer be protected by the Labor Standard Law provision limiting regular hours to eight hours a day, 40 hours a week.
Workers who earned more than 10 million yen last year accounted for 4.8 percent of all employees in the private sector, according to the National Tax Agency.
The ministry developed a set of conditions for applying the system and recommended them Nov. 10 to an advisory panel subcommittee in charge of the issue, the sources said.
The conditions include those workers whose tasks cannot be appropriately assessed through the length of working hours, that the work implies significant power and responsibility and that the workers' annual income is considerably high.
Under the system, which has been modeled on one in the United States, overtime pay would not be paid to workers under certain conditions in terms of wages and the nature of the work.
Migeru?
