Moscow, March 14 – Russia cautioned the United States on Tuesday against raising its military presence in the strategic Caspian sea region bordering Iran, saying buildup of forces from “outside” would destabilize the region, Itar-Tass news agency said.

Russia “is opposed to the presence of third-party military forces on the Caspian,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at the start of a meeting among representatives of the five countries that border the sea: Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

His comments were seen as directed at the United States, which has stationed military advisors in Azerbaijan and is helping that country upgrade its naval forces and two powerful radar stations.

Itar-Tass also quoted Lavrov however as saying that Russia was not calling for withdrawal of all military forces from the Caspian sea region, which is known to hold vast oil and gas resources.
iribnews.ir

The Israeli government has begun to develop facilities for what eventually could be the largest settlement project in the West Bank since 1967.

On Monday, Israeli officials confirmed that Israel was building a police headquarters and “other facilities” in what it calls the E-1 area, extending from East Jerusalem to the settlement of Maali Adomim, the largest in the West Bank.

In addition to 3550 settler units, the planned development would include a road network, six hotels and a park.

Non-Jews would not be allowed to live or buy land in the settlement.
aljazeera.net

JERICHO, West Bank (Reuters) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday condemned Israel’s raid on a West Bank prison and seizure of a militant leader as a crime that would not be forgiven.

Across the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, Palestinians went on strike over an Israeli operation that has boosted interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ahead of March 28 general elections.

Israeli security forces were on high alert after Ahmed Saadat’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Islamist militant group Hamas promised retaliation.

Israeli forces used tanks and bulldozers to tear apart the Jericho jail on Tuesday to grab Saadat, accused by Israel of overseeing the 2001 assassination of Israeli cabinet minister Rehavam Zeevi claimed by the PFLP.

Speaking at the destroyed jail, Abbas accused British and U.S. monitors supervising the incarceration of Saadat and five other militants who were detained of complicity with Israel.

“What happened is an ugly crime which cannot be forgiven and a humiliation for the Palestinian people and a violation of all the agreements. Their arrest by Israel is illegal,” Abbas said.

The United States and Britain, citing security concerns, withdrew the monitors on Tuesday and Israeli forces moved in minutes later. Both Washington and London denied cooperating with Israel.
reuters.com

Blair defends withdrawal of monitors from Jericho jail
Tony Blair today laid the blame squarely at the door of the Palestinian Authority for yesterday’s outbreak of violence across the Gaza Strip and the withdrawal of British monitors from a prison in Jericho.
The prime minister told the Commons that he had personally warned the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, that the British personnel would be withdrawn unless security agreements were met.

During prime minister’s questions, Mr Blair said there could be no long-term peace in the region until the Palestinian authorities were able to maintain law, and the incoming Hamas government recognised Israel’s existence and put an end to violence.

“If people want progress towards a two state solution, which we have championed in this country – an independent viable Palestinian state living side by side with Israel – then the security within the Palestinian area is of prime concern,” Mr Blair said. “We have done everything we can to support them. But we need some help back.”

Just answer the question, Mr. Blair.

U.S. may veto bid for UN condemnation of jail siege
The threat of a U.S. veto hovers over planned closed-door deliberations Wednesday over Qatar’s bid for a UN Security Council to condemn Israel’s Jericho jail siege and its capture of the killers of former cabinet minister Rehavam Ze’evi.

A draft statement by Qatari Ambassador Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, representing Arab nations, would have condemned “Israel’s violent incursion” in besieging the Jericho jail, and would have demanded that Israel return the prisoners it seized “and to return the situation to that which existed prior to the Israeli military attack.”

Security forces went on high alert Tuesday fearing Palestinian reprisal attacks after Israel Defense Forces troops laid siege to the Jericho prison and arrested six wanted inmates.

A tense, gunfire-punctuated nine-hour IDF siege of a Jericho prison complex ended after dark on Tuesday with the abrupt surrender of Ahmed Sa’adat and five other Palestinian militants.

Sa’adat, leader of the Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine, is believed to have ordered the assassination of cabinet minister Rehavam Ze’evi in a Jerusalem hotel in 2001.

One of the other militants was Fuad Shobaki, the alleged mastermind of an illegal mass weapons shipment to the Palestinian Authority in 2002.

The six arrested wanted militants are to be held in prison in Israel, officials said.

The PFLP threatened
that “Israel will pay a heavy price for the operation.”

VERACRUZ, Mexico – President Vicente Fox climbed aboard a drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday to formally announce a new deep-water oil discovery he said could eventually yield 10 billion barrels of crude oil.

An exploratory well dubbed Noxal 1 was drilled at a depth of 3,070 feet below the water, and is seeking a depth of 13,125 feet.

“With Noxal we will begin a new era of oil exploration in our country,” Fox said aboard the “Ocean Worker 6 Britania” platform.

Government estimates say the find could exceed reserves at the giant offshore field Cantarell, Mexico’s largest oil field, which has seen its production decline but is still expected to yield 1.9 million barrels a day this year.
news.yahoo.com

…The major question for the twenty-first century is whether this fateful inability to adjust to changes in the global power-structure can be overcome. Thus far the signs are negative. Can the United States and Japan, today’s versions of rich, established powers, adjust to the reemergence of China — the world’s oldest, continuously extant civilization — this time as a modern superpower? Or is China’s ascendancy to be marked by yet another world war, when the pretensions of European civilization in its U.S. and Japanese projections are finally put to rest? That is what is at stake.
tomdispatch.com

MOSCOW. March 14 (Interfax) – Russian Communist party leader Gennady Zyuganov has blamed the United States for the spread of avian influenza, or bird flu, in a number of European countries, including Russia.

“The forms of warfare are changing. It’s strange that not a single duck has yet died in America – they are all dying in Russia and European countries. This makes one seriously wonder why,” Zyuganov said at a press conference at the Interfax main office on Tuesday.

Zyuganov said that he has good knowledge of war gases as he dealt with them during his army service.

“I tested all kinds of war gases at a range myself,” he said.

Asked to be more precise as to whether he believes the bird flu outbreak could be a deliberate attack by the U.S., Zyuganov answered positively.

“I not only suggest this, I know very well how this can be arranged. There is nothing strange here,” he said.
interfax.ru

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Dominican Republic is looking to Washington for help recovering at least $80 million in damages from a U.S. utility it accuses of dumping thousands of tons of coal ash on the country’s beaches, sickening residents and harming the tourism industry.

The Dominican government has hired a Washington lawyer to attempt to open settlement talks with the company, AES Corp., or failing that, to file a lawsuit in U.S. courts against AES before a two-year statute of limitations expires late next week.

The government says 82,000 tons of coal ash were shipped from an AES plant in Guayama, Puerto Rico, and left on beaches in Manzanillo and the Samana Bay port town of Arroyo Barril between October 2003 and March 2004 without proper government permits.

“It’s had a devastating impact upon the economy of these two communities. Their tourist traffic is off 70 percent in Samana and down sharply in Manzanillo as well,” said Bart Fisher, the Washington attorney hired by the Dominican government. “It’s had a devastating impact on the health of the people living near the toxic dumps in terms of respiratory problems and asthma, and some have died in fact.”
guardian.co.uk

WASHINGTON (AP) — Wisconsin Sen. Russell Feingold accused fellow Democrats on Tuesday of cowering rather than joining him on trying to censure President Bush over domestic spying.

”Democrats run and hide” when the administration invokes the war on terrorism, Feingold told reporters.

Feingold introduced censure legislation Monday in the Senate but not a single Democrat has embraced it. Several have said they want to see the results of a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation before supporting any punitive legislation.

Republicans dismissed the proposal Tuesday as being more about Feingold’s 2008 presidential aspirations than Bush’s actions. On and off the Senate floor, they have dared Democrats to vote for the resolution.

”I’m amazed at Democrats … cowering with this president’s numbers so low,” Feingold said.
nytimes.com

by Corey Harris
I first heard Ali Farka Touré perform at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in 1994. At that time many North American audiences were beginning to learn about the man and his music, often through Ry Cooder, one of his early American collaborators. I remember crowds flocking to hear their set, the fans talking about some African guy who plays with Ry Cooder. Seeing the two perform onstage together, it was immediately obvious who was the teacher and who was the student. Cooder, thrilled to play with Ali Farka, backed him up dutifully, supporting each song with carefully placed licks and riffs tossed from his slide guitar like small bombs. In his long boubou, Ali Farka carried himself like the royalty that he was, striking to behold yet immensely approachable. With his easy smile and humble, gracious manner, he was at home in the world.

After his performance, he attended a question and answer session. American audiences had heard of this African bluesman and repeatedly asked him questions about his encounters with blues music and how he began to play. His responses often surprised, like when he answered that blues meant nothing to him, since it is only a color. Even though he was continually typecast as the Malian bluesman who learned guitar listening to John Lee Hooker, this was far from the truth. In fact, Ali Farka’s music sounded like blues because it came way before the blues, spirituals, slavery, and the European conquest of the Americas. He embodied the deep roots of centuries of African music; many couldn’t see the tree for the leaves, fixated as they were on the record company’s marketing of him as the African John Lee Hooker. When asked about his main profession, he would simply say that he was a farmer. To him, music seemed to be something one did anyway, in addition to living one’s life and going to work. Many recognized him as a great musician, but it was not his music that made him great, but rather his commitment to others, his town, his country, and his roots which made him great. Even his middle name, Farka, evokes the donkey that carries everyone’s burdens on his back. Ali was always ready to help his fellow man, or to make a stranger feel welcome in his desert home. This star did not shine in some far away galaxy, but right here among us, as one of us.
counterpunch.org

by Hugo Blanco
I was in Bolivia when the presidential mandate was transferred to Evo Morales. I was invited by comrade Evo. An atmosphere of revolutionary process floated in the air and imbued the people. It could be seen by the numbers who assembled and by the revolutionary fervour of people on the occasion of the big rallies.

You felt it on the occasion of the fighting speeches of Evo, who referred to Che and to the expression of Sub-commandant Marcos: “command by obeying”. Evo spoke clearly against neo-liberalism. This atmosphere is also reflected in the fact that the Ministry of Justice is headed by a woman domestic servant who suffered physical, psychological and sexual abuse, which are a sort of “custom” in our countries.

It can be seen by the fact that the Ministry of Labour, is occupied by a trade unionist, it is expressed by the fact that a large number of generals have been dismissed, etc.

Here, I want to concentrate on only one aspect: the type of revolution.

Obviously, we greatly respect the Cuban Revolution and its principal instrument, the guerrilla army. In the same way we greatly respect the Venezuelan process. There we had an officer who made a coup d’etat against a corrupt government and who subsequently won against the bourgeois parties in the elections, faced with these parties that had disgusted people.

We recognize that what they did is good and that it was the right road to follow.

The Bolivian revolutionary process is completely different. It is marked by a rise of progressive and combative popular struggles, without a centralized organization. Part of the combatants decided to organize in order to conduct the struggle on the enemy’s terrain: the elections. This fraction built a party: the Political instrument for the Sovereignty of the Peoples (IPSP). Since the government set legal traps against this party being registered, this fraction decided to enter an organization which had a legal status: the MAS. That is why today we refer to the MAS-IPSP.

In the Bolivian revolutionary movement, including in the MAS, there is a great diversity of points of view. It is in a completely natural way that people express differences with Evo. But there are no expulsions, as there are in the PT in Brazil. Evo affirms: “I can make mistakes, but I won’t betray”. He adds: “If I stop, push me!”

Cuba and Venezuela each have their commander. Not Bolivia. Evo systematically speaks of the re-founding of Bolivia. He mentions that during the first founding of Bolivia, the indigenous populations were excluded from it.

In this re-founding, these populations will be present. But not only they will be present, the entire Bolivian people will also be present.
axisoflogic.com