Why do the heathens rage behind the firehouse
Where Peewee sits upon the wall to preach?
This boy and girl that gather pearls
Of wisdom falling from his mouth
U.N. Alleges Nuclear Work By Iran’s Civilian Scientists
Iranian nuclear engineer Mohsen Fakhrizadeh lectures weekly on physics at Tehran’s Imam Hossein University. Yet for more than a decade, according to documents attracting interest among Western governments, he also ran secret programs aimed at acquiring sensitive nuclear technology for his government.
Experts at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have repeatedly invited Fakhrizadeh to tea and a chat about Iran’s nuclear work. But for two years, the government in Tehran has barred any contact with the scientist, who U.S. officials say recently moved to a new lab in a heavily guarded compound also off-limits to U.N. inspectors.
USA
Clinton, Obama prepare for long, hard slog in Pennsylvania
With six weeks to woo voters, Democratic rivals will slow sprint, localize efforts
PHILADELPHIA – The door to the downtown storefront office says “Welcome to All,” but the layout of the Philadelphia Democratic City Committee’s premises makes clear who belongs in the clubhouse of one of the country’s last surviving big-city machines.
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The backroom, where smoke still stains the walls, has just enough space for the 69 Democratic leaders of Philadelphia’s wards and whoever at that moment is appealing for their fealty.
“It gets so crowded in there,” said Maurice Floyd, a former city commissioner who was in attendance Friday as a former president and sitting congressman came to work the room on behalf of each of their presidential candidates.
Domestic terror groups in disarray after Sept. 11
After the violent mayhem of the ’90s, right-wing extremist groups are less active. Some believe the 2001 attacks diverted rage away from the U.S. government and toward foreigners.
RENO — Three years after foreign terrorists killed nearly 3,000 Americans in the Sept. 11 attacks, Steve Holten left the San Francisco Bay Area, drove east through the Tahoe National Forest, skirted the Truckee River and settled himself in Reno. Here he proclaimed himself a lieutenant colonel of the local chapter of Aryan Nations. He sent an e-mail to area newspapers declaring war on the federal government, the media and the Jews.
Africa
We are facing food crisis, admits Mugabe
· President blames west for sanctions and shortages
· Almost half of Zimbabwe population malnourished
Robert Mugabe has, for the first time, admitted that Zimbabwe faces a grave food crisis amid the collapse of the country’s agriculture. But he blamed it on “racist” Britain trying to oust him at this month’s presidential election.
Responding to pleas at a campaign rally in Plumtree, in the province of Matabeleland South, from local officials of the ruling Zanu-PF party “to ensure the speedy distribution of food in the province as people were running out of supplies”, Mugabe accepted there was a crisis.
“There is hunger in the country and a shortage of food,” he said, according to the state-run Sunday Mail newspaper. Mugabe promised to speed up food imports which have so far met only a fraction of the country’s needs.
Europe
Spanish PM urges unity in face of conservative gains
By Elizabeth Nash in Madrid
Tuesday, 11 March 2008
Spain’s elections have produced two big political forces each with conflicting visions of the world, presenting the Prime Minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, with an uneasy ride as he faces the problems of a flagging economy, a resurgent terrorist threat and a militant Catholic Church.
His victorious Socialists face a conservative opposition that also strengthened its vote as smaller parties crumpled. Confronted by sharply defined alternatives of right and left, Spaniards defied a sustained conservative onslaught to back Mr Zapatero with the largest vote the Socialists have ever received, enabling him to govern for another four years.
Croat general Ante Gotovina stands trial for war crimes
A Croatian general who spent four years on the run goes on trial today, charged with jointly planning one of the largest episodes of “ethnic cleansing” of the Yugoslav wars and failing to prevent war crimes.
Ante Gotovina was commander of Operation Storm in August 1995, when between 150,000 and 200,000 Serbs fled or were forced to flee as the newly armed Croatian Army, trained by American advisers, smashed through Serb lines. Croat troops found towns and villages abandoned in panic, with meals still warm on the table.
General Gotovina fled Croatia after being indicted in 2001 and spent four years on the run, protected and funded by an international network of supporters.
Middle East
Cost of Iraqi and Afghan wars has doubled
· Bill for both conflicts adds up to £10bn since 2003
· Sharp rise mainly due to equipment prices, say MPs
The combined cost of military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq over the past 12 months has almost doubled to more than £3bn, a cross-party group of MPs revealed yesterday.
The costs of operations by British forces in Afghanistan has risen to more than £1.6bn, a year-on-year increase of 122%. More surprisingly, given the reduction in troops in Iraq, the cost of Britain’s military presence there has also increased to £1.6bn, a year-on-year rise of 72%, the Commons defence committee said.
The costs are about 50% more than the government forecast three months ago, the report said. It came as military officials made it clear that the number of British troops in Iraq would not now be cut this spring to the number previously indicated by Gordon Brown.
In the shadow of Sharon
He lies unconscious, two years after a stroke ended his political career. Israel can only wonder how its history would have unfolded had fate not intervened
By Donald Macintyre in Tel Aviv
Tuesday, 11 March 2008
The man who would surely still be Prime Minister of Israel today had he not suffered a massive stroke, is still fighting what threatens to be the last of a lifetime of battles, military, political and personal.
He lies in a coma in a private room at the Sheba Medical Centre in Tel Hashomer, guarded 24 hours a day by two plainclothes men from the intelligence service, Shin Bet. He has not regained consciousness since his stroke more than two years ago. But Ariel Sharon, who turned 80 last month, remains indomitably alive.
Asia
Warlord under siege after ‘kidnap and torture’ of former ally
By Kim Sengupta in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan
Tuesday, 11 March 2008
There is no one as colourful and controversial among the warlords of Afghanistan as General Abdul Rashid Dostum, a man of immense power and huge wealth whose name became synonymous with bloodshed and betrayal during the long years of conflict.
General Dostum, who once ruled a northern swath of the country with an iron fist is now under siege, with an arrest warrant against him and stripped of his post as chief of staff to the army commander.
A police attempt to arrest the warlord at his home in Kabul’s diplomatic enclave of Wazir Akbar Khan ended in a stand-off with his bodyguards, armed with rocket-propelled grenades.
Bombs kill 15 in Pakistan’s Lahore
LAHORE, Pakistan – Bombs exploded at a federal police building and in a residential area of the eastern city of Lahore on Tuesday, killing at least 15 people and wounding many more, police said.
The Federal Investigation Agency in downtown Lahore was devastated by a bomb planted near an elevator, said Mirza Mohammed Yasin, an FIA official in the capital, Islamabad. At least a dozen people died, said Mohammed Afzal, a Lahore police official.
Three more died in a second bombing at a house in an upscale residential area, Afzal said. It was not immediately clear who lived there.
Latin America
Drug-trafficking suspect will be tried in Venezuela
Hermagoras Gonzalez Polanco, alias Gordito, also faces money laundering and false identity charges, officials say.
BOGOTA, COLOMBIA — Venezuela, Colombia and the United States finally appear to agree on something: that drug trafficking suspect Hermagoras Gonzalez Polanco is a dangerous felon.
Gonzalez, arrested over the weekend in Venezuela by the nation’s intelligence police force, will be tried in Venezuela on drug trafficking, money laundering and false identity charges, Interior Minister Ramon Rodriguez Chacin said at a news conference Monday.
Gonzalez, 48, has been indicted in New Jersey and New York federal courts on drug trafficking charges and is wanted in Colombia on suspicion of murder. He has been on an Interpol list of wanted suspects since 2005.
