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Iran Censured At UN Nuclear Meeting

2009-11-27T13:24:25Z

VIENNA — The U.N. nuclear agency's board censured Iran on Friday, with 25 nations backing a resolution that demands Tehran immediately mothball its newly revealed nuclear facility and heed U.N. Security Council resolutions calling on it to stop uranium enrichment.

Iran remained defiant, with its chief representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency declaring that his country would resist "pressure, resolutions, sanction(s) and threat of military attack."

The resolution – and the resulting vote of the IAEA's 35-nation decision-making board – were significant on several counts.

The resolution was endorsed by six world powers – the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany – reflecting a rare measure of unity on Iran. Moscow and Beijing have acted as a traditional drag on efforts to punish Iran for its nuclear defiance, either preventing new Security Council sanctions or watering down their potency.

They did not formally endorse the last IAEA resolution in 2006, which referred Iran to the Security Council, starting the process that has resulted in three sets of sanctions on the Islamic Republic. Their backing for the document at the Vienna meeting thus reflected broad international disenchantment with Tehran.

It also appeared to signal possible support for any new Western push for a fourth set of U.N sanctions, should Tehran continue shunning international overtures meant to reach agreements that reduce concerns about its nuclear ambitions.

Strong backing for the resolution at the meeting was also notable. Only three nations – Cuba, Venezuela and Malaysia – voted against the document, with five abstentions and one member absent.

That meant even most nonaligned IAEA board members abandoned Tehran, despite their traditional backing of the Islamic Republic.

The diplomats who reported the vote spoke on condition of anonymity Friday because of the sensitivity of the situation.

Iran argues that attacks on its nuclear program are an assault on the rights of developing nations to create their own peaceful nuclear energy network. The United States and other nations believe Iran's nuclear program has the goal of creating nuclear weapons.

The IAEA resolution criticized Iran for defying a U.N. Security Council ban on uranium enrichment – the source of both nuclear fuel and the fissile core of warheads.

It also censured Iran for secretly building a uranium enrichment facility and demanded that it immediately suspend further construction. It noted that IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei cannot confirm that Tehran's nuclear program is exclusively geared toward peaceful uses, and expressed "serious concern" that Iranian stonewalling of an IAEA probe means "the possibility of military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program" cannot be excluded.

Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's chief delegate to the IAEA, shrugged off the vote.

"Neither resolutions of the board of governors nor those of the United Nations Security Council ... neither sanctions nor the treat of military attacks, can interrupt peaceful nuclear activities in Iran, even a second," he told the closed meeting, in remarks made available to reporters.

Georgianne Nienaber: UN Report on Congo: A Boeing 727 From Florida, Money Laundering and Gold for Dubai

2009-11-27T09:27:18Z

From New York to Singapore, hundreds of major news organizations, including the New York Times, the BBC, the Associated Press, Reuters, and the Voice of America utilized the worst possible news cycle to announce that they were in receipt of a "leaked" United Nations Report detailing:

• Arms shipments or suspected shipments to the DRC from Spain, North Korea, Ukraine, Iran, Libya, China, Belgium, Tanzania, the British Virgin Islands and others;
• Roman Catholic and Spanish networks of support to the FDLR and other rebel groups;
• Recruitment of soldiers from Rwandan refugee camps;
• Violations of international humanitarian law;
• Impediments in the disarmament process;
• Wanted war criminal General Bosco Ntaganda's parallel military operations;
• Recruitment of child solders;
• Obstruction of humanitarian access in eastern DRC; and
• Linkage between the exploitation of natural resources and the financing of illegal armed groups which reach all the way to Dubai and North Korea and include the purchase of a Boeing 727 aircraft originating at the Opa-Locka Executive Airport in Florida.

The Security Council was scheduled to take up discussion of the final report on November 25, and when it appeared the report might be altered or scuttled, it was "leaked" (released) to every news organization on the planet. Considering that the United States, China, France, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and rotating member Uganda are all on the Security Council and all have been implicated in the report, it is no wonder the report was disseminated by rogues before it was dissected. Sources say China is especially eager to edit and delay the report and has demanded that it be translated into five additional languages before its "official" release.

The "leak" turned into a tsunami as hundreds of news organizations declared an exclusive on this "new" information.

The prose has been prolific about this report, which has flooded news desks the world over. Consider this, from the New York Times, which offered no in depth analysis of a nearly identical Interim Report, published last May.

The lengthy report, which has not been made public but was provided to The New York Times, details a vast, rebel-driven criminal network in eastern Congo with tentacles touching Spanish charities, Ukrainian arms dealers, corrupt African officials and even secretive North Korean weapons shipments.

The final document IS lengthy, 58 pages plus an Annex, all single spaced and containing an almost indecipherable data mother-load of individual's names, places, dates, serial numbers, and ship's manifests, many of which are in violation of international law and United Nations mandates and sanctions on arms trade and smuggling.

The problem is that there is nothing entirely new in the report other than the deluge of specific names of countries and individuals who appear to be complicit in the ongoing humanitarian tragedy known as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The Interim Report, penned by the same panel of experts whose names appear on the "leaked" report, was made very public, and largely ignored by the international press. It is anyone's guess why this final paper chase has been seized as a revelation.

Perhaps it is the covert nature by which it was distributed to international press corps that got everyone excited. This is sad and unfortunate, because if the press had seized the opportunity to begin investigation last May, the world would be that much closer to understanding the scope of international involvement in the slaughter of innocents in DRC.

Human Rights groups, including OXFAM and Human Rights Watch have been relentless in presenting the humanitarian crisis engendered by the joint Rwanda/Congo operations which began in January 2009. But, this crisis has its roots in international exploitation of ethnic conflicts that go back over 100 years.

In a well-reported July investigation, Global Witness reported that western mineral firms helped to fuel violence in the DRC. Global Witness names the same companies and countries mentioned in the "leaked" report. Belgium (Trademet, Traxys, SDE, STI and Specialty Metals), Thailand's Smelting and Refining Company, which is owned by the British company, AMC; the Malaysian Smelting Corporation, Berhad, China's African Ventures Ltd., India's Met Trade India Ltd. and Russia's Eurosib Logistics (JSC) are all part of the equation of non-documented transfers of mineral wealth.

Al Jazeera has also been all over this story and the resulting humanitarian crisis. The innocent are relentlessly punished while international coffers grow fat.

The US press has not done its homework. If they had, they would note that this report is an extension (December 2008 Security Council resolution 1857) of the mandate of the Group of Experts. The goal was to expand the investigation in order to expose individuals and countries supporting the armed groups currently operating with impunity through arms trades and illegal sales of natural resources.

The final report gains even more importance with the realization that the deployment of the UN peacekeeping forces (MONUC) in the region ends on December 31 as stated in Security Council resolution 1857.

Now that the press has had a field day with this "leak," one has to wonder how much in-depth analysis will result. You cannot fight a war without weapons, and the money used to purchase the weapons must originate somewhere.

The inventory of the weapons caches is extraordinary and includes UZI-submachine guns, hand grenades, AK-47s, 107 mm rockets, 82 mm mortar bombs, uncountable rounds of 12.7 machine gun ammunition and other arsenals.

As the Huffington Post reported earlier this month, the Rwandan backed North Kivu Governor, Eugene Serufuli, is tied into this mess.

Testimonies from five separate former FDLR combatants and three FARDC officers indicated that Col David Rugayi, formerly of the 14th integrated brigade, has been responsible for the diversion of large amounts of military equipment to the FDLR on several occasions in 2008, notably in February, June, October, November and December 2008 in the territory of Masisi and in the towns of Kalungu and Kibua. According to these testimonies, the equipment reportedly included hundreds of 107mm cannon rockets, a recoilless 107mm cannon, several RPGs, three machine guns of 12.7mm and 14.5mm caliber and two hundred boxes of 7.62x39mm ammunition (roughly 50,000 rounds), 230 AK-47s and several 82mm mortars.

Col Rugayi, who is loyal to former Rwandan-backed North Kivu governor Eugene Serufuli, one of the founders of the sanctioned entity Tous pour la Paix et le Developpement (TPD), is also reported by three FARDC officers, interviewed by the Group to have taken charge most of the heavier weapons controlled by the predominately Hutu PARECO Mai Mai before their fighters were integrated into the FARDC.

According to several military sources, Col Rugayi's 14th brigade was also heavily infiltrated by FDLR fighters when it was deployed in mining rich zones in the territory of Kalehe. The Group gathered several consistent testimonies from FDLR ex-combatants of Col Rugayi's involvement in exploiting cassiterite and gold in mining areas under the control of the FDLR in Kalehe, before the FDLR were pushed out of these areas by newly integrated FARDC units mainly composed of ex-CNDP elements.

Armies also need a means to transport their weapons and there is not one region of the world that has not been complicit in supplying, trucks, tanks, trailers and aircraft in violation of UN sanctions and reporting procedures. Besides the Boeing 727 from Florida, the United Arab Emirates supplied three Antonov (AN) 12 aircraft for the DRC Air Force. The Ukraine supplied Mi-24 attack helicopters, Sudan sent arms on Hewa Bora's Boeing 707 (9Q-CKR), China offloaded 191 tons of weaponry from the An Xin Jiang, and North Korea provided FARDC with 3,500 tons of equipment and weapons shipped on the vessel, Bi Ro Bong. This is only a fraction of the shipments detailed in the report that the Security Council does not want the world to see.

Regarding the Boeing 727 from Florida:

The aircraft was purchased for US$ 806,000 on 24 June 2009 by Mr. Timothy Roman, a U.S. national and former personal pilot of Joseph Kabila, from a company in Miami, Florida using an aircraft broker in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The Group was informed by an aviation industry source close to the deal that Mr. Roman purchased the aircraft for the Government of the DRC. The United States Federal Aviation Administration lists Mr. Roman's company, Professional Maintenance Services Incorporated in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, as the last owner of the aircraft, with the aircraft having been deregistered on 5 August 2009 because it was exported to the DRC. The Congolese Civil Aviation Administration (AAC) had no knowledge of this aircraft, and N-727YK does not appear in the AAC's most recent database. According to the testimony of sources and due to the fact that this aircraft does not appear on the civilian aircraft register, the Group believes that N-727YK was supplied to the Ministry of Defence upon arrival in the DRC. At the time of writing, the Group has been unable to obtain information on the sale and export of this aircraft to the DRC and requested further information from the United States and the DRC governments. The Group contacted Mr. Roman who said that the aircraft was sold by his company in Pennsylvania to Wimbi Dira Airways in the DRC, a company in which he serves as the chief executive officer.

The report terms these transactions "opaque arms deals."

Regarding shipments from Sudan:

The evidence presented above concerning arms flights from Khartoum to Kisangani and Kinshasa clearly shows repeated violations of paragraph 5 of resolution 1807 (2008) by the Government of Sudan. The Group requested information on the four flights in December 2008 and February 2009 but the Government of Sudan replied that no such flights had occurred, which is directly contradicted by three flight plans for these flights raised by Khartoum and transmitted to Kinshasa. The Group further requested that the Government of Sudan provide copies of logbooks from Khartoum International Airport as outlined in paragraph 7 of resolution 1596 (2005), but, at the time of writing, the Group did not receive a reply to this request.

Most interesting is a section of the report which corroborates information that Rwanda and DRC were operating in collusion in late January during the ouster of Laurent Nkunda from the CNDP. This action installed wanted war criminal Bosco Ntaganda as a commander in the FARDC. The story involves a white Mi-8 helicopter and meetings between John Numbi, the head of the Congolese police (Annex 65) who managed Operation Umoja Wetu, and Major General James Kaberebe, the army chief of Rwanda. Kabarebe is alleged to have been the spokesman for Bosco Ntaganda in early contacts with the BBC in January when the toppling of Laurent Nkunda was announced prematurely. Both men are alleged to have masterminded the detention of Nkunda though bribes to war criminal Ntaganda in the amount of $250,000.

The Group of Experts has investigated the operations of a white Mi-8 helicopter based out of Goma and requisitioned by the Congolese National Police (PNC). The white Mi-8 registered UR-HLC is owned by a Ukrainian company Khoriv-Avia but was leased to the Congolese Police by another company, Aerospace Consortium (FZE) in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates.

This company leased the helicopter on 27 January 2009 to the Minister of Interior Security of the DRC represented by the Police National Congolaise (PNC) (Annex 64). The document is signed by John Numbi, the head of the Congolese police (Annex 65) who managed Operation Umoja Wetu along with Major General James Kaberebe, the army chief of Rwanda.

Between the date of leasing and the helicopter's departure from the DRC on 10 June, it flew a total of forty flights out of Goma airport, with an additional two flights performed for the PNC prior to the signing of the contract. These flights, the last of which took place on 28 April 2009, were mainly listed as local flights within Goma but several aviation sources note that the genuine destination was hidden from the RVA. A source from the company that leased the Mi-8 informed the Group in writing that "most of the time the helicopter was used for the peace talks and evacuation of wounded personnel and shifting of Cargo [sic] from DRC to Rwanda and back".

The Mi-8 performed eight flights from Goma in January 2009, fourteen in February, fifteen in March, and five in April 2009. In total, the helicopter performed twenty-one flights from Goma after the official end of Umoja-Wetu. Since the departures and arrivals of the Mi-8 are only listed as local flights, the Group cannot determine its exact routing in the DRC and Rwanda. The local flight on 28 April 2009, for example, lasted four hours before the helicopter returned to Goma, and the flight on 22 April lasted six hours to and from Masisi, a destination that is approximately a fifteen minute flight from Goma.

Ntaganda, the "Terminator," is now making at least $250,000 per month in his smuggling, timber, taxing and marijuana operations in and around Goma.

There is so much more, and that is why I have uploaded the report for enterprising investigative journalists who do not have access.

Some things to consider:

While MONUC was at the very least complicit to civilian casualties during joint military operation to drive out the FDLR, costs were escalating to over $1 billion per year.

Spanish and Roman Catholic networks are supplying funds to the FDLR.

During the initial phase, Operation Umoja Wetu, FARDC (Congolese Army) and RDF (Rwandan Army) commanders embezzled "several million" dollars.

Why were Burundian officials in Malaysia trying to purchase 40,000 Steyer AUG assault rifles? Why is the United States building a new embassy in Burundi?

Why is Rwanda still holding Laurent Nkunda in a sham detention, when the report and all others sources indicate the General is in regular contact with his loyal officers? Either charge him with something, or let him go. Nkunda has never denied that the mineral wealth of Congo belongs to the Congolese.

CNDP sources tell us that "95 percent" of his forces remain loyal to him. As the report states, there has been no real "integration" of the CNDP loyalists into the Congolese army, unless you count CNDP traitor Ntaganda's "parallel command structure."

What about the flow of refugees from Rwanda into Congo? Are they being forcibly conscripted?

Images: Ilona Jablonski at Rwandan Refugee Camp

Why did the BBC not accurately report the violent protests in refugee camps in Rwanda during January when sources put them and their cameras on the scene? A Polish housewife, Ilona Jablonski, sent us photos of the demonstrations. Rwanda officials confiscated some of her film, but she managed to best the BBC.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Finally, estimates are that 40 tons of gold is stolen from Congo every year, while official records indicate only a few kilos. Astonishingly, the means are as varied as regularly scheduled commercial flights and pirogues across Lake Tanganyika. Perhaps CBS will shed some more light on mineral smuggling during its Sunday "60 Minutes Report." Their investigation is no big secret.

Daoud Kuttab: Palestine After Abbas

2009-11-27T04:36:23Z

RAMALLAH - A political leader's decision not to seek re-election usually triggers fervent discussion about potential heirs. Yet, President Mahmoud Abbas's withdrawal from the presidential election scheduled for January 24, 2010, has produced nothing of the kind in Palestine - not because of a dearth of leadership or a reluctance to mention possible successors, but because the presidency of the Palestinian Authority has become irrelevant.

Abbas's withdrawal comes at a time when Palestinian frustration with the political process has rendered suspect the entire rationale behind the PA, established in the mid-1990's, following the Oslo Accords. The main component of the PLO's agreement with Israel was a five-year interim period during which negotiations were expected to lead to an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Sixteen years later, it has become clear that the Israelis have made no effort to come to terms with Palestinian national aspirations - and that no effective effort has been made to convince them. The number of illegal Jewish settlers in Palestinian areas has doubled, leaving Palestinians increasingly convinced that negotiations are a waste of time. Many recall the preferred strategy of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir: "I would have conducted negotiations on autonomy for ten years, and in the meantime we would have reached a half-million people in the West Bank."

Initially, the five-year interim agreement called for the election of a Palestinian Legislative Council and an executive leader whom the Israelis wanted to call a "chairman," spurning the word "president." Because Arabic makes no distinction between chairman and president, the Israelis accepted use of the Arabic word rayyes in the official English text.

Palestinian refugees in exile and other Palestinians living in the diaspora were not allowed to vote. East Jerusalem Palestinians were allowed to vote only at the post office or at booths outside the city limits.

Abbas's withdrawal merely confirms the obvious. Another such election in the near future, including the one set for January, is unlikely to occur, mainly owing to the continuing rift between the PLO and Hamas, which controls Gaza.

Hamas participated in the 2006 legislative elections, which followed Israel's military withdrawal from Gaza. But for years Hamas and other radical Palestinian groups have rejected the Oslo process, on the grounds that free elections under Israeli occupation would be absurd. Hamas has the power to stymie the vote and has indicated that it would do so.

Moreover, Abbas has not given up his positions as head of the PLO and leader of its biggest faction, Fatah, which remains in control in the West Bank. Abbas cannot resign from his post for the foreseeable future, lest the Hamas-backed speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council take over. At the same time, no PLO official is likely to seek the presidency without Abbas's approval, which he will withhold until a new mechanism for ending the occupation is found.

The PLO will likely gain much from Abbas's decision, because it de-emphasizes the status of the PA president and raises the profile of his post as chairman of the PLO's executive committee. That shift, in turn, clears the way for a generational change in leadership - and, more importantly, a transition to post-Oslo politics.

The PLO's old guard - men like Yasser Arafat and Abbas, who led the liberation organization from exile and returned home with the Oslo Accords - dominated the Palestinian political landscape up to now. After they depart the scene, Palestinian leaders who were born under occupation and spent time in Israeli prisons will most likely fill the vacuum.

The most prominent such figure is Marwan Barghouti, the leader of the student movement at Birzeit University in the 1980's and one of the main organizers of the First Intifada, resulting in his deportation by Israel in the late 1980's. In 2002, he was arrested and sentenced to a long prison term on charges that he led the Second Intifada, which had begun two years earlier, and ordered some of its military attacks.

Despite being imprisoned, Barghouti was recently elected to Fatah's central council, and a number of others who spent time in Israeli prisons will join him. One is Jibril Rajoub, imprisoned for 19 years and deported in the First Intifada, only to return to lead one of the security services after the PA was established. Another is Mahmoud Dahlan, also an ex-prisoner and former security official, although the loss of Gaza to Hamas, for which many Palestinians hold him partly responsible, has dimmed his leadership prospects.

Finally, there is Nasser al-Qudwa, the former PLO representative at the United Nations. Qudwa is a dark-horse candidate to succeed Abbas - a possible compromise figure who has never been directly involved in security or military activities. For many Palestinians, Qudwa, a soft-spoken, multi-lingual nationalist (and Arafat's nephew), presents an acceptable face for Palestine locally and internationally.

The coming months will reveal whether we are, indeed, witnessing the dawn of the post-Oslo era in Palestinian politics, and whether a new leader, with new supporters, will be required to revive the Palestinian cause. Whoever emerges on top will have to present an effective strategy to end four decades of military occupation and bring about a truly independent state that a majority of Palestinians can embrace.

Cuba Prepares For U.S. Invasion With 3 Days Of Intense Military Exercises

2009-11-27T03:53:41Z

HAVANA — Cuba's armed forces launched three days of intense military exercises across the island Thursday, a mobilization that state-controlled media says is designed to guard against an American invasion.

Americans focused on a U.S. military assault more likely are thinking about how President Barack Obama will pursue war in Afghanistan – not Cuba. But the siege mentality of the Cold War hasn't faded on the island, where the communist government continues to warn about imperialist aggression and the menace from the north.

The exercises, which run through Saturday, are the first since President Raul Castro took over from his brother Fidel in February 2008 – and since relations between Havana and Washington began to thaw somewhat under Obama.

The U.S. leader has loosened financial and travel restrictions on Cuba. The two countries have begun negotiations on restarting direct mail service, and there is talk of future cooperation on counter-narcotics and disaster relief, among other things.

More than the specifics, officials on both sides speak of a new tone between Havana and Washington that has made further progress a possibility.

But the rhetoric connected with Thursday's mobilization – dubbed "Bastion 2009" – displayed none of that new warmth.

Radio Rebelde said the attack was aimed at "confronting a possible aggression by North American imperialism." The state-run newspaper Granma called the mobilization the largest and most important in more than five years.

The exact number of troops involved are not known, but past exercises have involved hundreds of thousands of people – both uniformed and civilian.

"The current political-military situation that characterizes the confrontation between Cuba and the U.S. government has made these strategic exercises a necessity of the first order," said an article on the Radio Rebelde Web site. All Cuban media is tightly controlled by the government.

Analysts say Cuba is more concerned with sending a message to those who would seek to destabilize the country than with an actual military assault.

"I don't think it is so much that they expect an invasion or anything like it," said Hal Klepak, a Cuba military expert and professor emeritus at the Royal Military College of Canada. "I think what they worry about is disorder in Cuba of any kind that would lead to blood in the streets."

Such a show of force is particularly important, Klepak said, given the open question of who would succeed Fidel and Raul Castro, aged 83 and 78, and because of Cuba's current economic difficulties.

But he said a fear of outside agitation is not far-fetched given America's long history of intervention in Cuba and the strong anti-Castro feelings of some in the exile community.

In 1961, U.S.-backed Cuban exiles launched the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion against Fidel Castro's fledgling communist government. A year later, the world came to the brink of nuclear Armageddon after the Soviet Union stationed missiles on the island, and the United States insisted they be removed. Washington has maintained an economic embargo on Cuba for 47 years.

Obama has said he would like to see Cuba's government enact social, political and economic reforms. But he has categorically ruled out a military invasion, most recently in written comments made last week to Cuban dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez.

The military exercises began in the 1980s and have taken place sporadically since then, most recently in 2004. They were meant to be held in 2008, but had to be canceled because of the need to use the armed forces to help rebuild after several large hurricanes hit the island, causing billions of dollars in damage.

Joseph B. Treaster: Clean Water Is Good Business; But It's No Easy Sell

2009-11-27T03:04:07Z

MIAMI--For nearly 10 years, Greg Allgood has been working on the problem of clean drinking water for one of the biggest corporations in America - Procter & Gamble, the maker of Tide detergent, Crest toothpaste and Pampers, the disposable diapers.

Procter & Gamble also makes a powder containing chlorine and iron sulfate that people in poor countries use to purify drinking water in their homes. Mr. Allgood's job at the company is to get the product, known as PUR, to people who routinely do not have safe drinking water. There are at least a billion people in this category.

Procter & Gamble sells PUR at cost to aid organizations. It is not a money-maker. But helping to ease one of the world's persistent health problems has proved to be good business. The work has drawn praise from former President Bill Clinton and clean water advocates. Mr. Allgood said it has boosted morale among Procter & Gamble employees and drawn attention to the company's other products, including water filters sold in the United States.

The problem of unsafe water around the world is enormous. Many experts say estimates of 1 billion people without consistent access to clean water are probably way low. The number, they say, could easily run to more than 2 billion.

The water these legions of people drink - mostly poor people in Africa, Asia and parts of Latin America - is loaded with bacteria and viruses. They are often sick with diarrhea. They get dehydrated. Their energy is sapped. Those with jobs sometimes don't make it to work. The children miss school and, too often, they die before anyone realizes how much the sickness has drained them.

The product, PUR, sells for a few cents. It is one of a handful of processes and devices that have been developed in the last 15 years that enable people to disinfect drinking water in their homes. But the whole idea has been slow in getting off the ground. Only a few million of the huge number of people whose water is unsafe are using these methods.

For one thing, many people don't associate their illness with the water they drink. "They might think diarrhea is something that is supposed to happen when a child is teething," Mr. Allgood said. So it is hard to get them to try something new that they don't necessarily think they need - even if it is free, which is often the case.

For another, governments and agencies like the World Bank tend to think in terms of large-scale projects like multi-million dollar water treatment plants and networks of pipes that can bring clean water into people's homes. But these projects are often too daunting to actually get funded. So the large number of people without safe drinking water stays large.

Mr. Allgood's product works like magic. You empty a packet into 2.5 gallons or 10 liters of really dirty water full of germs and twigs and actual dirt, stir for five minutes and let it sit a while. The solid bits and pieces drop to the bottom and the water becomes remarkably clear. Then you strain the water through a piece of cloth and in 20 minutes it's ready to drink.

Procter & Gamble was unable to figure out how to sell PUR directly to the people who need it most. But the company liked the idea. Now it sells PUR at cost to non-governmental organizations. The organizations either give it away or sell it to people who run grocery stores and small shops. With the middle-men involved, you have someone who has a cash incentive to get PUR into people's homes.

Dr. Eric Mintz, a team leader working on diarrheal diseases at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, is an advocate of household treatment of drinking water. Instead of waiting for treatment plants to be built, he said in an interview, "we can do something now - something simpler and less expensive."

Nearly 2 million children die every year as a result of drinking contaminated water. A staggering number. It works out to 5,000 a day. The total is more than the annual number of children killed by HIV/AIDS and malaria combined.

"This is something that will help keep people alive," Dr. Mintz said, "especially children, the vulnerable ones."

The unsafe water problem gets worse in emergency situations like outbreaks of cholera. In the aftermath of the Asian tsunami, much of the drinking water was contaminated.

It is in emergency situations that Mr. Allgood has been most successful. But after the emergency, people go back to drinking their usual water and routinely living with bouts of diarrhea.

Some big international agencies like the United Nations Children's Fund, or UNICEF, and the World Health Organization have begun supporting household water treatment, Mr. Allgood said. Population Services International, a Washington non-profit with wide experience in the developing world, also has been promoting household treatment.

Mr. Allgood has won several awards, including the strategic vision award in 2007 from CSIS, the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Procter & Gamble has gotten a lot of good press. President Clinton has been praising the company at his annual Global Initiative meetings. Popular Mechanics magazine sited PUR in 2008 as one of the top 10 World-Changing innovations of the year.

Mr. Allgood estimates that PUR is reaching four million people a year. He says the number could be 12 million four years from now. "With any new public health approach there are a series of barriers," Mr. Allgood told me.

He talks about oral rehydration, a powder that helps people, especially children, recover from severe diarrhea. Before the advent of oral rehydration, five million children a year were dying from unsafe water. The deaths have been reduced by three million annually.

Oral rehydration, Mr. Allgood said, also had a slow start. "It took a decade for oral rehydration to start making an impact," he said. "It hit its stride in the 1970s and 1980s. They started developing it in the 1960s." #

Alemayehu G. Mariam: Africorruption, Inc.

2009-11-27T01:43:22Z

Transparency International [TI] (the global coalition against corruption) has just released its 2009 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). Once again, Africa has the dubious honor of being Kleptocracy Central, the continental home of the most corrupt governments in the world. Leading the parade of kleptocracies are the regimes in Ethiopia, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya and the warlords of Somalia.

The CPI measures "the perceived level of public-sector corruption in 180 countries and territories around the world" based on data and analysis provided by such organizations as the African Development Bank, Economist Intelligence Unit, IHS Global Insight, the Institute for Management Development, the World Bank and the World Economic Forum. A high index score on the 10 point scale means less perceived corruption.

TI defines corruption as "the abuse of entrusted power for private gain". By that definition, the foregoing African countries scored an atrocious 3.0 or less. In certain countries, the corruption trend appears to be irreversible. For instance, in 2002, Ethiopia received a dismal score of 3.5 on the corruption index. In 2009, eight years after the ruling regime had established the "Federal Ethics and Anti-corruption Commission" (FEAC) with great fanfare and after periodic reports of "major accomplishments" in combating corruption, Ethiopia's score dropped to an abysmal 2.7.

Corruption in Africa can no longer be viewed as a simple criminal matter of prosecuting a few dozen petty government officials and others for bribery, extortion, fraud and embezzlement, as FEAC seems to believe in its reports. As Peter Eigen, founder and chairman of TI argues, "[C]orruption leads to a violation of human rights in at least three respects: corruption perpetuates discrimination, corruption prevents the full realisation of economic, social, and cultural rights, and corruption leads to the infringement of numerous civil and political rights." Beyond that, corruption undermines the very essence of the rule of law and destroys citizens' trust in political leaders, public officials and political institutions.

The poor and powerless bear the brunt of corruption in Africa. The devastating impact of corruption on the continent's poor becomes self-evident as political leaders and public officials siphon off resources from critical school, hospital, road and other public works and community projects to line their pockets. For instance, reports of widespread corruption in Ethiopia in the form of outright theft and embezzlement of public funds, misuse and misappropriation of state property, nepotism, bribery, abuse of public authority and position to exact corrupt payments and gain are commonplace. The anecdotal stories of corruption in Ethiopia are shocking to the conscience. Doctors are unable to treat patients at the public hospitals because medicine and supplies are diverted for private gain. Tariffs are imposed on medicine and medical supplies brought into the country for public charity. Businessmen complain that they are unable to get permits and licenses without paying huge bribes or taking officials as silent partners.

Publicly-owned assets are acquired by regime-supporters or officials through illegal transactions and fraud. Banks loan millions of dollars to front enterprises owned by regime officials or their supporters without sufficient or proper collateral. Businessmen must pay huge bribes or kickbacks to participate in public contracting and procurement. Those involved in the import/export business complain of shakedowns by corrupt customs officials. The judiciary is thoroughly corrupted through political interference and manipulation as evidenced in the various high profile political prosecutions. Ethiopians on holiday visits driving about town complain of shakedowns by police thugs on the streets. Two months ago, Ethiopia's former president Dr. Negasso Gidada offered substantial evidence of systemic political corruption by documenting the misuse and abuse of political power for partisan electoral advantage. Last week, U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelley stated that the U.S. is investigating allegations that "$850 million in food and anti-poverty aid from the U.S. is being distributed on the basis of political favoritism by the current prime minister's party."

Over the past two years, high profile corruption cases have been reported in the media. According to FEAC, in one case it was established that "USD$16 million dollars" worth of gold bars simply walked out of the bank. FEAC described the heist as a "huge scandal that took place in the Country's National Bank and took many Ethiopians by surprise [in which] corruptors dared to steal lots of pure gold bars that belonged to the Ethiopian people replacing them with gilded irons... Some employees of the Bank, business people, managers and other government employees were allegedly involved in this disastrous and disgracing scandal."

In another case involving a telecommunications deal with the Chinese, a high level regime official was secretly tape recorded trying to extort kickbacks for himself and other regime officials. FEAC reported that "there was another big corruption case at the Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation that took many Ethiopians by surprise" which involved the "competitive tendering for the supply of telecommunication equipment." After an investigation, FEAC "found out that nearly 200 million USD has been lost to corruption through the entire fraudulent and corrupt process."
Many corrupt African regimes have sought to play an anti-corruption shell game to hoodwink their international donors and the multilateral lending institutions. Nowhere is this more evident than in Ethiopia. The regime established FEAC in 2001 with the aim of ferreting out and evangelizing against corruption. As of 2005, FEAC claims to have offered ethics and anti-corruption education to more than 15,000 people and provided advisory services for 267 ethics officers on how they should fight corruption. The Prosecution Department "filed charges against 79 alleged corruption offences and obtained convictions in 28 cases."

In 2007/08, FEAC trained 325 individuals in corruption prevention strategies and "reviewed the practices and procedures" of 34 public offices and enterprises and 110 procurement, licensing, finance, human resources, health, education, media and other entities. It investigated 296 corruption suspects for claims of "undue advantage obtained/losses caused on government" in the astounding amount of Ethiopian Birr 2,180,311,361. Among the 296 cases, the largest percentage of suspects were investigated for abuse of power (43%) followed by forgery/fraud (30%), mal-administration/ betrayal of trust (13%); embezzlement (8%); bribery (2%) and other (4%). FEAC reported that "the Court ruled on 79 preparatory hearings. Verdicts on 66 cases were passed through trial proper. Some 31 of those verdicts were given in favour of the FEACC. During the budget year, the Court rendered rulings on 48 files, out of which suspects in 43 files were found guilty." Many of the convicted defendants were sentenced to low prison terms with nominal fines.

It is obvious that the whole "anti-corruption" drama of the ruling regime in Ethiopia is intended as political theatre for the international donors and multilateral lending institutions. It is nothing more than window dressing. No high level official in good standing with the regime has ever been investigated or prosecuted for corruption. No convincing reason has been given to explain the delay in the trial of the alleged "gold scammers" and telecom bandits given the massive, serious and unprecedented nature of the crimes. In sum, by prosecuting low level officials and others for corruption, the regime aims to divert attention from itself.

Interestingly, by doing a little "reverse engineering" on the "anti-corruption" Commission's reports, one can accurately reconstruct with precise detail the scope and magnitude of the public corruption problem in Ethiopia in each sector, and demonstrate the gross incompetence of the various public agencies. Suffice it to say that the evidence shows that the highest incidence of corruption today occurs in the area of "abuse of power", which points to the absence of the rule of law and substantial lack of procedures, rules and regulations that ensure individual and institutional accountability. The corrupt use of power always results in the abuse of power.

Corruption persists in Ethiopia and other parts of Africa because the people who cling to power benefit from it enormously. Having FEAC investigate the architects and beneficiaries of corruption in Ethiopia is like having Tweedle Dee investigate Tweedle Dum. It is an exercise in futility and absurdity. FEAC's claims of saving or thwarting the loss of billions of public birr by vigilant corruption detection and prosecution are laughable cock and bull stories. Most Ethiopians do not find corruption a laughing matter; but they do feel powerless and resigned to it. They view the whole anti-corruption effort with a jaded eye. At best, corruption control in Ethiopia today is a matter of triage: Does one start investigating corruption at the very top of the regime leadership, survey the bureaucratic middle and selectively prosecute, or focus on the petty local official and the street cop for dramatic effect?

One can not reasonably expect to root out corruption by setting up a toothless and feckless anti-corruption commission, or by paying lip-service to the cause of corruption eradication to impress international donors. Corruption in Ethiopia and many parts of Africa is the principal business of the State. Effective anti-corruption efforts require an active democratic culture based on the rule of law and a vigilant citizenry empowered to confront and fight corruption in daily life. In India, for instance, they have successfully organized local "vigilance commissions" against corruption. In Brazil, they counter corruption by engaging citizens in "participatory budgeting." In Botswana, regarded to be the least corrupt country in Africa, it is said that they have a big welcoming poster adorning the Gaborone Airport with an unusual message to incoming travelers: "Botswana has ZERO tolerance for corruption. It is illegal to offer or ask for a bribe."

FEAC says the major sources of corruption in Ethiopia are "poor governance, lack of accountability and transparency, low level of democratic culture and tradition, lack of citizen participation, lack of clear regulations and authorization, low level of institutional control, extreme poverty and inequity, harmful cultural practices and centralization of authority." Not quite. Poor governance, lack of accountability and transparency and the absence of the rule of law are the root causes of extreme poverty, inequity...

Dr. Orin Levine: Rising pneumonia, reassuring vaccine safety

2009-11-26T22:34:25Z

On the busiest travel day of the year in the United States, there was unwelcome and welcome news from the US CDC. On the one hand, Dr. Anne Schuchat of the CDC, announced that the H1N1 flu pandemic has been driving a surge in bacterial pneumonia, especially those due to a germ called pneumococcus. Importantly, the reports indicate that relatively younger Americans – ages 25-49 years old – are being most affected by the pneumonias. More reassuringly, she reported that the studies of side effects following H1N1 vaccine do not indicate any unexpected adverse effects.

This has been a difficult season for many Americans as they tried to figure out what to do about the flu. Many friends have called and emailed me with a lot of legitimate questions about the risk of the disease vs. the risks and benefits of the flu vaccine. These are smart people but they are struggling to figure out if the flu is really something to fear or if it is just “media hype”. Add to that a vaccine that has come fairly late in the season but was produced at a record pace and you have legitimate questions about the vaccine’s safety.

Also, Americans are getting information from everywhere these days. Consider for a moment that fellow Huffington Post blogger Bill Maher’s column on flu and the vaccine was shared more than 1100 times on Facebook and you can see how people can struggle to sort the facts from opinions and to figure out what to do.

It’s useful to remember that when the pandemic started, Dr. Schuchat’s job was pretty hard. There was little experience with this virus so most of what she had to go on was information from pandemics of nearly 100 years ago and some limited information from Mexico. With this information, she and her colleagues had to make recommendations, set priorities, communicate basic, factual messages to millions of Americans. And in spite of all this uncertainty, in the lead up to this pandemic, an increase in bacterial pneumonias was projected. In fact, this blog called pneumococcal vaccination the “low hanging fruit of pandemic prevention”.

So, maybe the news today will help people to consider the balance and in retrospect, illustrate why the CDC has been worried about this virus all along. The flu is driving up the incidence of a serious, life-threatening secondary infection. These infections are affecting 25-49 year old, not just the elderly or young babies, a sign that this can still pack a punch. Finally, the surveys of adverse events are reassuring that the vaccine is not causing anything unexpected.

If you do and want to protect your family and yourself, here’s some of what you can do about it. Get the vaccine. Wash your hands often with soap and water, or an alcohol-based wash if soap is unavailable. Stay home when you’re ill and avoid exposure to other sick people. Get to know the symptoms of more serious pneumonia and seek medical attention immediately.

At the end of the day we all have to judge the facts for ourselves. For me and my family, we chose the vaccine for our kids and us.

Iraqi Elections Unlikely To Happen By Constitutional Deadline

2009-11-26T20:29:31Z

Even with an agreement, the election is now unlikely to occur by a constitutional deadline in January; it could slip into February, or beyond. Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki warned on Thursday that any further delay in holding the vote would put the country "at grave risk."

Don Tapscott: The Dubai Summit On Redesigning Global Cooperation And Problem Solving

2009-11-26T20:26:14Z

I just returned from an extraordinary meeting of 900 academics, civil society leaders, business people and other innovative thinkers, held by the World Economic Forum in Dubai. Called the Global Agenda Summit, 80 Councils composed of a dozen members each, discussed how to redesign our systems for global cooperation for the 21st century.

Klaus Schwab, the founder of the Forum, was unable to attend due to a last minute illness, but in an interview shared his thoughts. "Our existing global institutions require extensive rewiring, and a fundamental shift in values and political culture is vital if we are to foster the global cooperation necessary to confront contemporary challenges in an effective, inclusive and sustainable way." To address this historic challenge Professor Schwab and the Forum have launched an unprecedented global multi-stakeholder and multimedia dialogue to develop a 21st century vision of global cooperation.

This initiative is an important one. The world is organized around nation states based on national economies and that is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. The idea of national sovereignty was initiated hundreds of years ago with the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648 and persists today. After the second world was there were many bold initiatives to create better systems of global cooperation, including Breton Woods, The United Nations, The General Agreement of Trades and Tariffs (GATT), The Geneva Conventions, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and later the World Trade Organization and now the G8 and G20.

But, as evidenced by the impending failure of the December UN Climate change Conference in Copenhagen, these structures are becoming increasing inept at fixing what ails the world.

However today there are strong regional economies like Europe and the financial crisis and global recession of 2009-10 has awakened many government leaders to a new compelling fact. We now have a truly global economy, and as the expression says: "everything is connected to everything else." But our international systems for cooperation are failing in achieving world goals of economic growth, climate protection, poverty eradication, conflict avoidance, human security and promotion of shared values.

An initial report from the Forum's "Global Redesign Initiative" process explains why existing instruments of global governance - principally multilateral institutions - have been so weak in mustering an effective response to the economic crisis. It notes that today there is a power shift from North to South, from West to East. It is also a young world, with a majority of the population below the age of 25.

"The major shifts in relative economic weight among countries that have occurred in recent decades have naturally led emerging players to seek a more consequential role in decision-making than is reflected in the governance of institutions organized for the most part following WWII. Countries with a vested interest in the current structures have often been reluctant to agree to changes that would dilute their influence."

The report notes how the digital world has brought about integration as well. "Decades of economic development, integration of product and service markets, cross-border travel and new technologies enabling virtual interaction have created a world that is much more complex and bottom-up than top-down." The result is that the world has become not only more economically, politically and environmentally interdependent. "People around the globe increasingly perceive their interdependence and seek ways to express it outside of formal national political structures." The upshot is that the world's citizens "have become more aware that global problems require global trusteeship and that efforts to solve problems solely through traditional negotiating processes, characterized by the defense of national interests, are inadequate in the face of critical global challenges."

At the Dubai summit many innovative proposals came forward. I personally found it very exhilarating. One group of law experts argued that we need to completely redesign the global legal system - the set of rules that enables the world to function. Another argued for a new global system to measure success, based on a universal graphic language and visualization tools. Another argued for a global vaccine protocol and another still for a global intellectual property system and another presented a plan on how a global risk management system could be build.

However, just about everyone agreed that what we don't need is some kind of global government or a new set of international bureaucracies piled on the existing ones.

This view is very different from other approaches that have sought to strengthen existing institutions of global governance like the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund. "Such would just create ever bigger more unmanageable bureaucracies," says Professor Schwab. Rather, the Initiative is taking a Wikinomics approach -- embracing more agile, networked structures enabled by global networks for new kinds of collaboration. Here, nation states continue to play a central role but can overcome their silo thinking and behavior by sharing information better, cooperate real-time on networks and "anchoring the preparation and implementation of their decisions more deeply in the processes of interaction with interdisciplinary and multi-stakeholder networks of relevant experts and actors."

But how would this new, networked system of global cooperation work? There are many tough issues. How would these vast multi-stakeholder networks achieve legitimacy? How could they be held accountable? How would they interact with existing structures? How would participation be achieved? What should existing governments and other institutions do to embrace global networked cooperation and problem solving?

In fact stronger global governance could create a new problem. As we attempt to achieve new models of global cooperation, citizens of the world could become one or more steps removed from their governments and relegated to passive consumers. Further, the capability of the world and its citizens will not be brought to bear on solving the world's problems. If this is not fixed there can be no legitimate, accountable and trusted global cooperation, problem solving and governance.

To address this challenge one Council in which I participated (on the Future of Governments) put forward a proposal called The Global Citizen Engagement Initiative. They argued that governments, in collaboration with other stakeholders, need to launch a new paradigm to involve the citizens of the world to co-innovate the 21st century and transformation society through mass collaboration. This is enabled by a new medium of communications; appropriate for a new generation of young people who have shown that they want to be engaged in the world; and necessary for the demands of the global economy and society.

These include ideation tools like digital brainstorms and town hall meetings: decision-making initiatives like citizen juries and deliberative polling; execution tools like policy wikis and social networks within government; and evaluation programs through mass collaboration monitoring systems to enable citizens to keep governments accountable and evaluate government performance.

The goal is not to replace existing institutions. This proposal will help them. It is not supplanting representative governance it enhances it. But additionally it enables existing institutions to unleash public value, catalyzing initiatives and unleashing human capital in the world. However leaders of current institutions will need to change their whole operating model to interact with their citizens.

This was one of literally hundred of innovative ideas that came forward. For sure this process is one to be watched carefully and the Forum in inviting thoughts from anyone. Next check point will be the Forum's Annual Meeting in Davos at the end of January. To me the stakes are very high.

Don Tapscott is the author or co-author of 13 books on new technology in society, most recently "Grown Up Digital" and "Wikinomics." He is Chairman of the think tank nGenera Insight and an Adjunct Professor at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. His upcoming book (Spring 2010) is co-authored with Anthony D. Williams and is entitled "Rebuilding the World."

Richard Grenell: Our Problematic Syria Policy

2009-11-26T18:13:33Z

I am currently in Israel, in an area called the Golan Heights, which rests alongside the Syrian border. The following is a video blog that highlights the problematic policy the United States has with regards to Syria, and its larger role in the region.

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Dana Frank: No Fair Election In Honduras Under Military Occupation

2009-11-26T18:04:39Z

As the Honduran election approaches this Sunday, let's be clear about the conditions under which it is taking place. Human rights abuses are rampant, freedom of speech is under attack, and the election process is in the hands of the very people who perpetrated the coup. Clearly, no free and fair election is possible under the repressive thumb of the military coup that has been in place for five months.

While the 23 nations of the Rio Group from Latin America and the Caribbean have condemned the election and announced they will not recognize its outcome, the Obama administration still insists it will recognize the results -- once again isolating the United States from those who are upholding democracy in the hemisphere.

President Obama should join the rest of the world and immediately declare the elections fraudulent and demand the immediate restoration of President Manuel Zelaya, the withdrawal of the Honduran military, and a delay of the election until three months after Zelaya has been full reinstated.

Imagine a "free and fair election" under the conditions in Honduras today (and imagine if this were taking place in the United States):

The same Honduran military,which perpetrated the June 28 coup forcing President Manuel Zelaya out of the country, and which has brutally occupied the country for five months, physically controls the ballots, the ballot boxes, the computers that tabulate the results, and the dissemination of the outcome.

The legitimate President of the country is being held captive in the Brazilian Embassy under draconian circumstances, and has denounced the elections as fraudulent.

The leading opposition candidate, the independent Carlos H. Reyes--who has a real chance of winning a free and fair election--has withdrawn his name from the ballot in protest. Throughout the country, hundreds of candidates for congress and municipal office, including those from the mainstream parties, have announced they are withdrawing from the election. They include the mayor of San Pedro Sula, the nation's second largest city.

All three trade union federations, the leading human rights organization, women's groups, organizations of indigenous and African-descent peoples, the gay and lesbian movement, and the campesino movement--united in the National Front Against the Coup d'Etat--have denounced the election as fraudulent.

The coup government has made it illegal to advocate not voting.

Peaceful demonstrations are routinely teargassed. As the Committee of Families of the Disappeared (COFADEH) has documented, dozens of people have been killed, over 600 beaten, and over 3,500 illegally detained, including lawyers who have shown up to secure the release of detainees. Opponents of the coup continue be threatened, illegally arrested, and beaten in their homes.

The military has recently instructed all mayors in the country to compile a list of persons in their jurisdiction who oppose the coup.

The two presidential candidates remaining in the election from the traditional parties of the oligarchy, Elvin Santos from the right wing of the Liberal Party, and Porfirio Lobo Sosa from the National Party, both initially supported the coup.

No free and fair election can take place under these circumstances. Only when the legitimate President of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, has been fully restored to office for three months, only when the military has been pushed back into its barracks, and only when civil liberties are completely restored can an orderly transfer of power to a new administration take place. By persuading coup leader Roberto Micheletti to briefly step aside in the week before the election, the U.S. State Department has tried to whitewash the election at the last minute. But that doesn't change the fact that the Honduran military and the oligarchs, who perpetrated the coup and who have dictated the nation's politics for decades, are still brutally repressing the people of Honduras.

The vast majority of Hondurans aren't fooled. After five months of military repression, they know the difference between a fraudulent cover for the continuation of the coup regime, and a truly free and fair election under the rule of law. So does the European Union, the Organization of American States, and the Rio Group. They understand well the dangerous precedent the Honduran coup represents.

President Obama should refuse to recognize the results of the election and bring an end to the embarrassing isolation of the United States from the rest of the world.

Obama Calls 10 US Service Members On Thanksgiving (PHOTO)

2009-11-26T17:50:25Z

WASHINGTON -- On his first Thanksgiving in the White House, President Barack Obama has telephoned 10 U.S. servicemen and women stationed in war zones to thank them for their service.

The White House says Obama called two service members each in the Army, Navy, Air Force, the Marines and the Coast Guard. The service members are stationed in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Arabian Gulf.

Obama was enjoying a quiet holiday at the White House with family and friends. The president next Tuesday is expected to announce a new battle plan for Afghanistan, including an increase in U.S. forces.

The White House released a photo of Obama making the calls:

Christopher Meyer, Ex-UK Envoy: US Focused On Iraq Hours After 9/11

2009-11-26T17:03:04Z

LONDON — Tony Blair could have delayed the 2003 invasion of Iraq and ensured better plans were in place for its chaotic aftermath by taking a tougher stance with President George W. Bush, Britain's ex-ambassador to Washington said Thursday.

Christopher Meyer, Blair's U.S. envoy from 1997-2003, told a panel investigating the Iraq war that Blair failed to use his influence with Bush to stall the frantic rush to invasion.

"We could have achieved more by playing a tougher role," Meyer testified to the five-person inquiry.

Meyer said U.N. inspections to determine whether or not Iraq harbored weapons of mass destruction were meaningless, because by late 2002, war was inevitable. Iraq's alleged possession of such weapons was a key justification for the war – even though no weapons were ever found.

"You had to short-circuit the inspection process by finding the notorious smoking gun," Meyer said. "We – the Americans, the British – have never really recovered from that, because of course there was no smoking gun."

Blair should have withheld British cooperation in a military offensive until detailed plans were drafted for action after Saddam Hussein was toppled, Meyer said. Blair could also have demanded Bush address the Arab-Israeli conflict, he said.

"There could have been a very different outcome, but that did not happen," Meyer testified. Hardball tactics from Blair "wouldn't have led to a rupture, but it would have changed the nature of American planning."

The inquiry, the most sweeping review of the conflict so far, was in its third day of hearing evidence in public. It is examining a period from the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States to the withdrawal of U.K. troops from Iraq in May.

Meyer said Blair's timidity meant he couldn't use his support for the war to win concessions from Bush on steel import tariffs.

"If I can put it charitably, we underestimated the leverage we had at our disposal," he told the panel.

Blair has long been derided as Bush's "poodle," over his supposed subservience to the U.S leader.

Meyer said ex-British leader Margaret Thatcher – nicknamed "The Iron Lady" during her 11-years in office – would have been more capable of challenging Bush.

"She would have insisted on a clear, diplomatic strategy and I think she would have demanded the greatest clarity about what the heck would happen if and when we removed Saddam Hussein," he said.

The envoy said Washington's dash to invade was accelerated, in part, by the misguided belief Saddam had links to al-Qaida and the Sept. 11 attacks.

Meyer said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice raised Iraq in a telephone call on Sept. 11, only hours after the attacks.

"She said there's no doubt this was an al-Qaida operation, we are just looking to see if there could possibly be any connection with Saddam Hussein," he told the panel.

The comments suggest the U.S. quickly tied the attacks with Saddam's regime. Years later, Bush's administration was forced to acknowledge they could find no connection.

Bush's White House also fretted during anthrax mailings that killed five people in late 2001. "The last person who had ever used anthrax was Saddam Hussein. Anthrax letters going round the country really spooked people," Meyer said.

By the time of a key meeting at Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002 attitudes had hardened on Iraq, Meyer said. War critics claim Blair secretly pledged to back the invasion of Iraq at the meeting – a year before Parliament approved Britain's involvement.

Bush and Blair spent a "large chunk of time" without advisers present, Meyer said.

"I'm not entirely sure to this day what degree of convergence was, if you like, signed in blood at the Crawford ranch," he said.

Shirin Ebadi: Nobel Laureate's Medal Confiscated By Iran, Norway Claims

2009-11-26T16:40:49Z

TEHRAN, Iran — Iranian authorities confiscated Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi's medal, the human rights lawyer said Thursday, in a sign of the increasingly drastic steps Tehran is taking against any dissent.

In Norway, where the peace prize is awarded, the government said the confiscation of the gold medal was a shocking first in the history of the 108-year-old prize.

Ebadi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her efforts in promoting democracy. She has long faced harassment from Iranian authorities for her activities – including threats against her relatives and a raid on her office last year in which files were confiscated.

The seizure of her prize is an expression of the Iranian government's harsh approach to anyone it considers an opponent – particularly since the massive street protests triggered by hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed June 12 re-election.

Acting on orders from Tehran's Revolutionary Court, authorities took the peace prize medal about three weeks ago from a safe-deposit box in Iran, Ebadi said in a phone interview from London. They also seized her Legion of Honor and a ring awarded to her by a German association of journalists, she said.

Authorities froze the bank accounts of her and her husband and demanded $410,000 in taxes that they claimed were owed on the $1.3 million she was awarded. Ebadi said, however, that such prizes are exempt from tax under Iranian law. She said the government also appears intent on trying to confiscate her home.

Ebadi, the first Muslim woman to be awarded the peace prize and the first female judge in Iran, said she would not be intimidated and that her absence from the country since June did not mean she felt exiled.

"Nobody is able to send me to exile from my home country," she said. "I have received many threatening messages. ... They said they would detain me if I returned, or that they would make the environment unsafe for me wherever I am.

"But my activities are legal and nobody can ban me from my legal activities."

Ebadi has criticized the Iranian government's crackdown on demonstrations by those claiming the June vote was stolen from a pro-reform candidate through massive fraud.

Ebadi left the country a day before the vote to attend a conference in Spain and has not returned since. In the days after the vote, she urged the international community to reject the outcome and called for a new election monitored by the United Nations.

During the past months, hundreds of pro-reform activists have been arrested, and a mass trial has sentenced dozens to prison terms. Authorities also went after Ebadi's human rights center in Iran.

"After the election all my colleagues in the center were either detained or banned from traveling abroad," Ebadi said.

Calls to Iranian judiciary officials were not returned Thursday.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere called the move "shocking" and said it was "the first time a Nobel Peace Prize has been confiscated by national authorities."

The Norwegian Foreign Ministry summoned Iran's charge d'affaires in Norway Wednesday to protest the confiscation, spokeswoman Ragnhild Imerslund said.

The Foreign Ministry also "expressed grave concern" about Ebadi's husband, who it said was arrested in Tehran and "severely beaten" earlier this fall, after which his pension and bank account were frozen.

Ebadi said her husband, Javad Tavassolian, and her brother and sister have been threatened many times by authorities pushing them to persuade her to end her human rights campaigning.

Ebadi has represented opponents of Iran's regime before but not in the mass trial that started in August of more than 100 prominent pro-reform figures and activists. They are accused of plotting to overthrow the cleric-led regime during the postelection turmoil.

The Iranian Embassy in Norway refrained from giving a comment.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee's permanent secretary, Geir Lundestad, said the move was "unheard of" and "unacceptable." He told The Associated Press that the committee was planning to send a letter of protest to Iranian authorities before the end of the week.

Ebadi said she planned to return to Iran when the time is right.

"I will return whenever it is useful for my country," she said. "Right now I am busy with my activities against violations of human rights in Iran and my international jobs."

___

MacDougall reported from Oslo, Norway.

Floods Kill 77 While Muslims Perform Hajj

2009-11-26T16:35:13Z

MOUNT ARAFAT, Saudi Arabia — Muslim pilgrims holding white umbrellas against the blazing sun clambered up a rocky desert hill for prayers Thursday during the annual hajj, a day after torrential rains that killed at least 77 people.

Flooding from the unusually heavy downpours hit hardest in the Red Sea coastal city of Jiddah, about 40 miles (60 kilometers) away from the holy city of Mecca and its surrounding sacred sites where the 3 million Muslims from around the world were performing the rites of the pilgrimage.

Most of the deaths occurred in the shantytowns around Jiddah and along the main highway to Mecca, populated by poorer, foreign immigrants who work in the city as drivers, construction workers and domestic help. Streets were swamped with water, some houses collapsed and mudslides took place, Civil Defense officials said.

It did not immediately appear that any pilgrims were among the dead. Jiddah's civil defense chief Capt. Abdullah al-Amri said 21 of the victims were identified as Saudis and the rest were believed to be residents of Saudi Arabia.

Wednesday's downpours snarled the opening day of the hajj, drenching pilgrims and knocking out roads that caused epic traffic jams as the faithful tried to make their way to the holy sites. The rains, if they continue as meteorologists predict, could raise safety hazards – particularly the perennial danger of deadly stampedes, since a trip-up on slippery walkways could lead to people getting trampled in crowds.

But skies cleared for most of Thursday, and the heat rose. The umbrellas that protected pilgrims from the rain now were shades from the hot sun as they conducted their rituals in the desert plateau of Mount Arafat, about 12 miles (20 kilometers) east of Mecca.

The site is where Islam's Prophet Muhammad delivered his farewell sermon. The huge crowds of faithful climbed up the Mountain of Mercy, a rocky hill at Arafat, and prayed for God's forgiveness of their sins in what Muslims consider the spiritual high point of the pilgrimage.

Mohammed Ismail, a 51-year-old Syria who has lived the Saudi capital for the past 15 years, brought his wife and two young sons for the hajj, and Wednesday night they slept in their car at Arafat before performing the rites.

"You can't really describe the feeling of being at hajj and being so close to so many Muslims. It's so happy," he said, sitting on a straw mat by the roadside with his family, eating oranges. "The heat and the crowds can be difficult, but hajj is a difficulty, it's not supposed to be easy."

At the Mountain of Mercy, men in the white robes that males are required to wear and women in headscarves called out in prayer, and some prostrated at the foot of the mountain. In the tent city around the site, tired families took shelter in the shade of cars and buses or napped.

In the evening, the vast sea of people headed toward the next stage of the pilgrimage,the nearby plains of Muzdalifah. Tens of thousands of buses, SUVs, and cars jammed the road, while flocks of pilgrims walked across the barren landscape, carrying their belongings.

At Muzdalifah, the faithful pick stones to use in the ritual that begins Friday, the symbolic stoning of the devil. At the nearby valley of Mina, they pelt stones at three walls representing Satan in a rejection of temptation.

The first day of stoning also marks the start of the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha, or feast of sacrifice, when Muslims around the world slaughter sheep and cattle in remembrance of Abraham's near-sacrifice of his son. The stoning lasts three days until the end of hajj on Sunday.

Saudi Arabia's biggest worry for months ahead of the hajj has been swine flu. The pilgrimage is one of the most crowded events in the world, with masses of Muslims from every corner of the globe packed shoulder to shoulder in prayers and rites – a perfect incubator for the virus, according to epidemiologists.

The Saudi government has been working with the United States' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to set up clinics and take precautions to stem any outbreak.

The rains came as an added difficulty.

It often rains in Mecca and Jiddah during the winter months, but Wednesday's downpour was the heaviest in years during the hajj. Jiddah was swamped with 2.76 inches (7 centimeters) of rain, more than it would normally get in an entire year, according to Dale Mohler, senior meteorologist at the Web site AccuWeather.com.