The US called for extraordinary action to get to the bottom of Iran’s nuclear programme yesterday as Tehran and Washington moved into confrontational mode in the long-running dispute.
The American ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Greg Schulte, called for “special inspections” by the UN nuclear teams in Iran, in effect giving them carte blanche in their detective work, at the Vienna meeting of the IAEA board that is reporting Iran to the UN security council. The mechanism has been used only once before, unsuccessfully, in North Korea 13 years ago.

Capping a long campaign to take the nuclear row to the security council, Mr Schulte said: “The time has now come for the security council to act … It should emphasise that Iran will face consequences if it does not meet its obligations.”
Iran reacted furiously, squaring up to the US and making implicit threats to use oil as a weapon against it.

“Let the ball roll,” said Javad Vaeidi, the deputy head of Iran’s national security council, using the words used against Iran at the weekend by the US hawk and ambassador to the UN, John Bolton.

“The United States may have the power to cause harm and pain. But it is also susceptible to harm and pain,” he said.
guardian.co.uk

ElBaradei’s swan song?
…Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei has spent more than a year investigating neo-crazy charges that Iran has conducted nuclear activities in furtherance of some military purpose at various Iranian military sites, including Lavizan, Parchin and Kolahduz. On Jan. 27, ElBaradei’s deputy even confronted the Iranians with what he characterized as “information” provided him about a military plan to construct a small facility to convert uranium-oxide into uranium-tetrafluoride.

The CIA claims they gleaned this “intelligence” from what they suspect is a “stolen” Iranian military laptop computer. However, ElBaradei has yet to find any “indication” of that or any other use of source or special nuclear materials in furtherance of a military purpose.

And, according to the Iranians, so says ElBaradei’s most recent – and final – report, which was circulated last week to the 35 members of the IAEA Board.

Needless to say, that isn’t what U.S. officials say, echoed by domestic and international neo-crazy media sycophants.

“We’ve said that during this time the regime in Iran has an opportunity to change their ways and change their behavior when it comes to the nuclear program,” said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

And if they don’t?

‘US Cannot Use Gansi Base for Iran’
Kyrgyzstan Minister of Foreign Affairs Alikbek Ceksenkulov said the United States can not use Gansi Military Base for a possible attack on Iran.

It would be a violation of the mutual covenant between the two countries if the US decides to use the Gansi Air Base, close to Manas Airport in Bishkek, against Iran. The base was built to suppress terror in Afghanistan, Ceksenkulov told BBC Monday, adding that the base should not pose a threat to any Asian countries, including Iran.
Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev also told Russian “Komersant” last week that America could only use Gansi for Afghanistan, not for Iran.

The President reminded the US access period would only be extended depending on the stability of Afghanistan.

Israel will have to act on Iran if UN can’t
BERLIN (Reuters) – If the U.N. Security Council is incapable of taking action to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, Israel will have no choice but to defend itself, Israel’s defense minister said on Wednesday.

Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz was asked whether Israel was ready to use military action if the Security Council proved unable to act against what Israel and the West believe is a covert Iranian nuclear weapons program.

“My answer to this question is that the state of Israel has the right give all the security that is needed to the people in Israel. We have to defend ourselves,” Mofaz told Reuters after a meeting with his German counterpart Franz Josef Jung.

* MOSUL – Hospital and police sources said they received five bodies shot dead by U.S. forces in Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad. No details of the incident were available. The U.S. military said it was checking the report.
BAGHDAD – Gunmen attacked the house of Interior Minister advisor Major General Hikmat Moussa Salman in western Baghdad. Police said two of his bodyguards were killed and two wounded.
BAGHDAD – Gunmen wearing Iraqi police commando uniforms seized about 50 employees from the offices of a security company in eastern Baghdad, police said.
BAGHDAD – Four civilians were wounded when a car bomb exploded near a U.S. patrol in the western part of Baghdad, police said.
BAGHDAD – Two Interior Ministry personnel were killed and five wounded when a roadside bomb went off near minister of interior’s convoy in eastern Baghdad, an Interior Ministry official said.
TAL AFAR – A U.S. soldier was killed and four others wounded on Tuesday when a roadside bomb went off near their patrol in Tal Afar northwest of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, U.S. military said in a statement.
BAQUBA – Iraqi army and police arrested 19 suspects in raids in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.
BAGHDAD – The bodies of 18 men, bound and blindfolded, were found on Tuesday night in a minibus in western Baghdad, an Interior Ministry spokesman said.
FALLUJA – Four civilians were killed and two wounded when a roadside bomb exploded in a main road in Falluja, police said.
BAGHDAD – Two policemen were killed and six civilians and two policemen wounded when a roadside bomb went off near a police patrol in central Baghdad, police said.
BAGHDAD – The bodies of two people were found, bound and blindfolded, after they were shot dead in eastern Baghdad, police said.
alertnet.org

50 security firm workers kidnapped in Iraq
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Gunmen in Interior Ministry commando uniforms stormed the offices of a private security company and kidnapped as many as 50 employees today, while U.S. and Iraqi patrols reported the discovery of 24 shot or garroted bodies in the capital.

Iraq’s Shiite vice president, meanwhile, signed a presidential decree calling parliament into session, breaking a major logjam that had delayed the creation of a unity government that U.S. officials hope can curb the unrelenting violence so their forces can start going home in the summer.

“He signed the decree today. I expect the first session to be held on Sunday or by the end of next week at the latest,” said Nadim al-Jabiri, head of one of seven Shiite parties that make up the United Iraqi Alliance, the largest bloc in parliament.

Unidentified attackers hit the al-Rawafid Security Co. at 4:30 p.m. and forced the workers into seven vehicles, including several white SUVs, said Interior Ministry Maj. Falah al-Mohammedawi. The victims, including bodyguards, drivers, computer technicians and other employees, did not resist because they assumed their abductors were police special forces working for the Interior Ministry, al-Mohammedawi said.

Official Says Shiite Party Suppressed Body Count
BAGHDAD, March 8 — Days after the bombing of a Shiite shrine unleashed a wave of retaliatory killings of Sunnis, the leading Shiite party in Iraq’s governing coalition directed the Health Ministry to stop tabulating execution-style shootings, according to a ministry official familiar with the recording of deaths.

The official, who spoke on the condition that he not be named because he feared for his safety, said a representative of the Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, ordered that government hospitals and morgues catalogue deaths caused by bombings or clashes with insurgents, but not by execution-style shootings.

A statement this week by the U.N. human rights department in Baghdad appeared to support the account of the Health Ministry official. The agency said it had received information about Baghdad’s main morgue — where victims of fatal shootings are taken — that indicated “the current acting director is under pressure by the Interior Ministry in order not to reveal such information and to minimize the number of casualties.”

Ali Farka Toure, who has died of bone cancer in the Malian capital Bamako in his late 60s, was the finest, most influential and best-loved guitarist in Africa. The “godfather of the desert blues”, he was the first African musician to show, through his often hypnotic, rhythmic and self-assured playing, that the blues had originated in his home country, out on the edge of the Sahara.
His work certainly echoed the blues – and, in particular, the playing of John Lee Hooker – but it was a comparison that first boosted his career, and then infuriated him. He told me that he played African music, not blues, and that “this music has been taken from here. I play traditional music and I don’t know what blues is. For me, blues is a type of soap powder.”

Though Toure was the first of a long line of great musicians from Mali to find fame in the west, he insisted that music was not the only interest in his life. He toured the world and won his first Grammy for his 1994 collaboration with Ry Cooder, Talking Timbuktu, then retreated to his home town of Niafunke, on the banks of the Niger river in north-west Mali, where he devoted his time to farming and his role as the local mayor, spending the money he earned from his albums on irrigation and development schemes that transformed the region, making it self-sufficient for food.
guardian.co.uk

Gordon Parks, a photographer, filmmaker and poet whose pioneering chronicles of the black experience in America made him a revered elder and a cultural icon, died yesterday at his home in New York. He was 93.

His nephew, Charles Parks of Lawrence, Kan., said Parks had cancer and had been in failing health since 1993.

Parks, the son of a dirt farmer, rose from meager beginnings and above recurrent discrimination to walk through doors previously closed to African Americans. He was the first black person to work at Life magazine and Vogue, and the first to write, direct and score a Hollywood film, “The Learning Tree” (1969), which was based on a 1963 novel he wrote about his life as a farm boy in Kansas. He also was the director of the 1971 hit movie “Shaft,” which opened the way for a host of other black-oriented films.

Elegant and aristocratic with a trademark mustache, his work traversed a vast landscape from poverty and crime to luxury and high fashion. He was a high school dropout turned award-winning photographer who traveled the world, using his camera with deftness and defiance.
washingtonpost.com

Bolivian President Evo Morales has signed a law convening a special assembly to rewrite the constitution.

Mr Morales said Bolivia would be refounded, with indigenous peoples playing the role that they had been denied for hundreds of years.

Mr Morales also signed a law calling a referendum on greater regional autonomy, which will be held on 2 July.
bbc.co.uk

1% of the titled land in the world is owned by women

A baby girl born in the UK is likely to live to 81 – but if she is born in Swaziland, she is likely to die at 39

70% of the 1.2 bn people living in poverty are women and children

21% of the world’s managers are female

62% of unpaid family workers are female

9% of judges, 10% of company directors and 10% of top police officers in the UK are women

Women comprise 55% of the world’s population aged over 60 years old and 65% of those aged over 80

£970,000 is the difference between lifetime earnings of men and women in the UK finance sector

85m girls worldwide are unable to attend school, compared with 45m boys. In Chad, just 4% of girls go to school.

700,000,000 women are without adequate food, water, sanitation, health care or education (compared with 400,000,000 men)

Women in full-time jobs earn an average 17% less than British men

Women in part-time jobs earn an average 42% less than British men

67% of all illiterate adults are women

1,440 women die each day during childbirth (a rate of one death every minute)

1 in 7 women in Ethiopia die in pregnancy or childbirth (it is one in 19,000 in Britain)

In the US, 35% of lawyers are women but just 5% are partners in law firms

In the EU, women comprise 3% of chief execs of major companies

12 is the number of world leaders who are women (out of 191 members of the United Nations)

Men directed 9 out of every 10 films made in 2004
independent.co.uk

UN: Women denied representation, making war on poverty hard to win
Millions of women around the world, including those in the UK and other Western countries, are being denied effective representation because of the low numbers of female politicians, judges and employers, the United Nations has warned.

Campaigners say that unless urgent action is taken on the status of women, the Millennium Development Goals on reducing poverty, infant deaths and standards of education will not be met.

To mark International Women’s Day, the UN has published a report that says rates of female participation in governments across the developed and developing world are still appallingly low. The report says that for women to be adequately represented in their country, at least 30 per cent of parliamentary seats should have a female representative.

NEW DELHI, March 7 — Bombs exploded in a crowded Hindu temple and a railway station in the holy city of Varanasi on Tuesday evening, killing at least 15 people and raising fears of retaliatory violence against India’s minority Muslim population. Authorities appealed for calm and police officers in major cities were placed on high alert.

Even before the blasts, communal tensions had been rising in India. Angry Muslim protests against President Bush, who visited India last week, as well as against cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, first published in a Danish newspaper, have erupted into violence in several cities.

The first blast Tuesday ripped through the Sankat Mochan temple shortly after 6 p.m. as Hindu devotees gathered to make offerings to the monkey god Hanuman, Indian news agencies reported. Among the dead was a bridegroom who had come to seek the deity’s blessings, according to the Press Trust of India news service. Tuesday evening is the traditional time for visiting the temple.

The second explosion came minutes later at the railway station. The blast left a foot-deep crater, shattered windows and splattered the station with blood and body parts, the Press Trust reported. Four more unexploded bombs were found at another site next to the Ganges River.

In an interview with the Reuters news agency, Navneet Sikera, senior superintendent of police in Varanasi, put the death toll at 15, with 60 injured. The Press Trust said 20 people had died, including 14 at the train station. [Five people died overnight of injuries, according to a police official cited by the Associated Press.]
washingtonpost.com

Under pressure from President Jacques Chirac, the main French television channel, TF1, has appointed a black journalist as “substitute” presenter of the country’s most-watched news bulletin.

From July, Harry Roselmack, 32, will become the first non-white person to present a prime-time, mainstream television news programme on France’s most-watched channel, TF1.

During the rioting by multiracial suburban gangs of young people in November last year, French television companies were criticised for their failure to present an ethnically diverse picture of French society.

Although journalists of Arab or African origin, such as Roselmack, have presented the news on minor channels or out of prime time, the main news bulletins have been an all-white preserve.

This was said to reinforce the sense of alienation felt by black and Arab youths in poor, French suburbs.

After the riots, President Chirac urged all the French media, and especially television companies, to make greater effort to hire journalists from ethnic minorities.
independent.co.uk

More than 20 million people in the Horn of Africa are at risk of famine in conditions which the head of the World Food Programme (WFP) described yesterday as the worst in his experience.

James Morris, executive director of the WFP, the UN’s food aid organisation, was in London yesterday to warn the international community that millions of people in Kenya, Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia and the Tanzania are now at risk because of drought.
guardian.co.uk

We cannot tolerate children dying for a glass of water
Nobody reading this started the day with a two-mile hike to collect the family’s daily water supply from a stream. None of us will suffer the indignity of using a plastic bag for a toilet. And our children don’t die for want of a glass of clean water.

Aw I don’t know…look what we tolerate already.

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – If the Netherlands becomes the first European country to ban the burqa and other Muslim face veils this month, Hope says she’ll resort to wearing a surgical mask to dress in accordance with her religious beliefs.

“I’ll wear one of those things they wore during the SARS epidemic if I have to,” said the Dutch-born Muslim, one of about 50 women in the Netherlands who wear the head-to-toe burqa or the niqab, a face veil that conceals everything but the eyes.

“I’m very practical,” the 22-year-old added.

Last December, parliament voted to forbid women from wearing the burqa or any Muslim face coverings in public, justifying the move in part as a security measure.

The cabinet is awaiting the results of a study into the legality of such a ban under European human rights laws, before making its final decision. The results are expected in the second half of this month.
news.yahoo.com