Pat Lang’s diary is about the Iranian president and the holocaust reference, my diary is about the American rhetoric on foreign policy and warmongering in the media versus Iran.

NYT & Patrick Lang Beating the War Drums ¶ Exacerbates Fear of Iran

Iranian Conference on the Holocaust ◊ by Patrick Lang
Mon Jan 16th, 2006 at 08:56:21 PM PST

"Last month, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a speech, "They have invented a myth that Jews were massacred, and place this above God, religions and the prophets."

He added, "The West has given more significance to the myth of the genocide of the Jews."

He argued that the "myth" of the Holocaust served as Europe's pretext for the existence of Israel." CNN

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) -- A nationwide radio network said socialist Michelle Bachelet appeared to have won a solid victory in Chile's presidential runoff election on Sunday. She would become the country's first woman president.

Radio Bio Bio based its projection on reports from polling stations of about 180,000 votes counted, out of nearly 8 millions cast. It said Bachelet apparently received almost 53 percent of the vote to Sebastian Pinera's 47 percent.

Bio Bio has affiliate radio station in most of the country's main cities.

Chilean presidential candidate Michelle Bachelet is seen during a meeting with several artists. Bachelet, 54, is set to become the country's first woman president after a runoff vote on Sunday for which her unconventional CV has been a major asset.
AFP/File/Rodrigo Arangua

Simple majority         138
Two-thirds majority     183 is needed for constitutional change
Present interim coalition UIA Shia and Kurds have 215 seats.

JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a "significant" stroke Wednesday, a hospital official said, after Sharon was taken to the hospital from his ranch in the Negev desert.

Dr. Shlomo Mor-Yosef said Sharon suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, is under general anesthetic and is receiving breathing assistance and was being taken for treatment. Cabinet Secretary Yisrael Maimon said Sharon's authorities have been transferred to his vice premier, Ehud Olmert.

In a brief statement outside the hospital, Mor-Yosef said Sharon had suffered "a significant stroke," adding that he was "under anesthetic and receiving breathing assistance." A few minutes later, Mor-Yosef emerged to say that initial tests showed Sharon had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, or bleeding inside his brain.

Addressing reporters in English, Mor-Yosef said Sharon had "massive bleeding and was being transferred to an operating theater."

Haaretz – Condition of PM Ariel Sharon

Russia Will Send Extra 95mln m³ a Day to End Shortage

France, Italy, Germany, Hungary and Poland were among those reporting falling volumes.

Hungary says normal gas supplies
have now been restored

Russia says it will pump more gas to Europe after various countries said their supplies had fallen by up to 40% after Moscow cut Ukraine's provision.

My diary @BooMan’s ::
● Russia Vows to End Gas Shortage to Europe

Russia's Gazprom Shuts Off Natural Gas Supplies to Ukraine

Jan. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Russia's OAO Gazprom cut off natural gas supplies to Ukraine after the country refused to pay more than four times 2005's rate for the fuel, deepening tensions between the two former Soviet republics.

State-run Gazprom, which supplies a quarter of Ukraine's gas and uses the country's pipelines to supply a quarter of western Europe's, began to shut off supplies to Ukraine at 10 a.m. local time today, Sergei Kupriyanov, a spokesman for the Moscow-based company, said on its NTV television network. "The Ukrainian side is to blame for this. They rejected our offer."

Ukraine has enough fuel stored to last four months, and both sides have said supplies to western Europe won't be affected.

Read on …

PODGORICA, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) Dec. 25 -- Top Bosnian war crimes suspect Gen. Ratko Mladic is considering turning himself in to Serbian authorities and is negotiating terms under which he would surrender, a former police official was quoted as saying.

Marko Nicovic, former Belgrade police chief and an expert on security issues in the Balkan republic, told the Montenegro-based Mina news agency that the Bosnian Serb wartime commander is seeking from Serbia's authorities "material guarantees concerning his family and his supporters" who have helped him evade justice for years.

  ««  click on pic for history Srebrenica

Serbia has been under intense international pressure to find and extradite Mladic, as well as the other Bosnian Serb wartime leader, Radovan Karadzic, who headed the civilian government. Both were indicted for crimes against humanity during Bosnia's 1992 to 1995 war and have been sought for more than a decade by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.

Killing of Iraq Kurds Ruled A Genocide

A court in The Hague has ruled that the killing of thousands of Kurds in Iraq in the 1980s was an act of genocide. The ruling came in the case of Dutch trader Frans van Anraat, who was given a 15-year sentence for selling chemicals to Saddam Hussein's regime.

He was found guilty of complicity in war crimes over a 1988 chemical attack that killed more than 5,000 people, but acquitted of genocide charges.

Halabja was one of the worst atrocities of Saddam's regime

It is the first trial to deal with war crimes against Kurds in Iraq and Iran.

'Intent to destroy'

Dozens of ethnic Kurds gathered in the packed courtroom to hear the verdict.

"The court has no other conclusion than that these attacks were committed with the intent to destroy the Kurdish population of Iraq" Court ruling

The chemicals traded to Iraq did also originate in the United States.

 
«« click on pic for an “Embracing Saddam Hussein” »»

A Short History of Regime Change, Gassing People and WMDs

Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein expelled a senior member after he admitted he had been spying for Britain for two decades.

Denis Donaldson was cleared last week of spying for Sinn Fein, which seeks to end British rule in Northern Ireland. In fact, he said, he had been a British agent for 20 years.

Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern called it a "bizarre twist".

  ««  click pic for Scotsman article
Denis Donaldson, centre, with Martin McGuinness
and Gerry Adams last week.  Picture: Paul Faith/ PA

"I was a British agent at the time," Donaldson, formerly Sinn Fein's head of administration at the mothballed Stormont Assembly in British-ruled Northern Ireland, told Irish state broadcaster RTE.

"I was recruited in the 1980s after compromising myself during a vulnerable time in my life. Since that time, Donaldson said, he had worked for British intelligence and Northern Irish police. Over that period, I was paid money," he said.

Donaldson said he deeply regretted his activities and apologised to his family and the Republican movement. Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams told reporters at a news conference in Dublin that Donaldson had approached the party after police informed him his cover was about to be blown and his life was in danger.

The British government declined to comment on the revelations.

For a long period there have been bomb attacks in Kurdistan by the government's contra -guerrilla forces. Our attention has been brought to the fact that these attacks have mainly been in Hakkari's Semdinli district.

The latest bombings occurred on the 9th November, which was the day the EU published its annual report for the ended September 2005 on Turkey's progress towards accession. It was also the day on which an agreement was signed in which Germany would be selling two hundred tanks to Turkey. The report made no mention of the Kurdish question.

Since it was behind closed doors, we'll never know exactly what the German government told parliament, but it seems like the FDP party is not convinced that they got the whole truth. And poor El-Masri - link -, that guy's story is looking ever more credible.

The Swiss investigator looking into claims of secret CIA prisons in Europe has said that people were apparently abducted and transferred between countries.

Marty presents his report in Paris Keystone

Dick Marty told the Council of Europe on Tuesday that he deplored the fact that "no information or explanations" were provided by the United States government.

"Legal proceedings in progress in certain countries seemed to indicate that individuals had been abducted and transferred to other countries without respect for any legal standards," the Swiss senator said, while presenting his findings in Paris.

As current chairman of the Council's legal affairs committee, Marty has been empowered to head the investigation by the human rights body.

He is investigating claims that the Central Intelligence Agency transferred prisoners through European airports to secret detention centres, actions that would breach the human rights principles of the Council's member states.

Poland and Romania have been identified by the New York-based Human Rights Watch as sites of possible CIA secret prisons, but both countries have repeatedly denied any involvement.

Alleged existence of secret detention centres in Council of Europe member states:
Statement by Dick Marty, Rapporteur of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights

Press conference 1hr ago more to follow below »»

NEW YORK Dec. 21, 2004 -- Marco Greenberg, owner of a film production company who has abundant experience in public relations, sits down in front of several Israeli diplomats and spokesmen of government ministries in the conference room of a Manhattan office building.

Former manager Burson-Marsteller,
CEO NYPR involved with Rafi Ron
and QS-3 Security of Mahrev Group.

In an adjacent room, the images are repeated. Here the interviewer is Neal Sher, a consultant on media and lobbying, and a former executive director of AIPAC who was once a Nazi-hunter for the U.S. Department of Justice. "We're losing a lot of boys in Iraq," he says, "and some people claim Israel pushed America into the war in Iraq. Does Israel intend to push America into a war against Iran, on the basis of its nuclear programs?"

SKY NEWS -

There has been a large explosion followed by several smaller blasts in the Hemel Hempstead area, around 25 miles north of London.

Sky Correspondent Meade has said he can see flames about 200ft in the sky and there appears to be burning fuel.

The blast appears to be centered close to the Bunsfield fuel depot near junction 8 of the M1 and was so powerful, it was felt more than 20 miles away.

Witnesses have said that buildings have been brought down, and the roofs of houses were lifted by the force.

REPORTS OF INJURIES

Windows were blown out at a hotel in Hemel Hempstead, where there are reports of injuries.

More news as soon as available ...

MONTREAL (Reuters) 20 min. ago -- Environment ministers agreed to launch new, open-ended world talks on ways to fight global warming, including the United States which had resisted taking part.

Former President Bill Clinton addresses the press, following a speech at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Montreal. Christinne Muschi/Reuters

Ministers at the U.N. meeting in Montreal said the deal would "explore and analyze strategic approaches for long-term cooperative action to address climate change." The plan sets no timetables, nor targets.

A few minutes earlier, nations in the narrower Kyoto Protocol agreed to begin talks on extending the pact beyond a first phase lasting until 2012.

The United States pulled out in 2001 from Kyoto, which obliges about 40 rich nations to cut industrial emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide.

MONTREAL (The Independent) Dec. 10 — The US faced widespread condemnation after persistently rejecting even the mildest commitment to deal with climate change at the UN talks in Montreal.

Washington's behaviour represents a serious embarrassment to Tony Blair who has argued that he could obtain an undertaking from the US to tackle the issue.

As the US position was highlighted by its chief negotiator Harlan Watson walking out of talks, as the former president Bill Clinton launched an attack on his successor's environmental policy.

To thunderous applause from delegates from nations around the world who are readying themselves to move ahead with the next stage of the Kyoto Protocol, Mr Clinton said the environmental policy of George Bush's administration was "flat wrong".

The Post reports that Rice is walking backwards from the supposed tough line that Wilkinson fed to the American media over the weekend. The New York Times says that Rice is having a tough time convincing the Europeans of anything ...

Well, at least Rummy is being clear: he has no plans to retire, even if the White House wants his ass gone for Joe Lieberman.

NATO spokesman James Appathurai said Rice led off a long discussion on the issue of CIA-run prisons and treatment of prisoners in the war on terrorism at the dinner.

The Dutch foreign minister Bernhard Bot also said Rice spoke convincingly about the U.S. commitment to human rights at the dinner.

  ««  click on pic for NATO story
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice speaks during a North Atlantic Treaty Organization foreign ministers council in Brussels. Rice wrapped up a European trip having reassured her European counterparts about the secret CIA prison row but failing to convince much of the public  AFP/BELGA/Etienne Ansotte

"We welcomed him as a combatant, someone who fought for the Palestinian cause, for noble causes.  Now he's a hoodlum, his behaviour is shameful.  He drinks and goes out with women so much that I don't know if he's a Moslem.  Given that his presence has become a real danger we are going to hand him over.  We have no regrets.  Because of his behaviour, we are absolved from blame."
Sheik Hassan al-Turabi

At approximately 3am, he was woken by a group of men pinning him to the bed.  Before he could resist, he was handcuffed hand and foot and had a thin hood pulled over his head.  A doctor then stepped forward and injected him in the thigh with a hypodermic containing a tranquilliser.  A stretcher was produced and Carlos was bundled unceremoniously into a van that drove him to Khartoum airport where an executive jet was standing by.