The British Foreign Office has appointed a controversial Israeli government adviser to one of its most sensitive posts as head of the legal department.

Advice from Daniel Bethlehem QC in 2002 to the then Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, led Israel to block a UN inquiry into the battle of Jenin. The Israeli refusal to cooperate was widely condemned at the time by various human rights organisations.

Mr Bethlehem, who was Israel’s external legal adviser, also took the lead for the Israeli government at the International court of justice in The Hague in 2004 to defend the barrier being built along the West Bank. Israel lost the case.
guardian.co.uk

An Israeli special operations team is working undercover in Iran, according to a report Sunday in a British newspaper.

The soldiers are on a mission to prevent the Iranians from succeeding in their bid to develop a nuclear weapon. They are involved in locating uranium enrichment facilities in Iran, according to the British Sunday Times, and are currently based in neighboring northern Iraq.

The United States is supporting the move, says the paper.

Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made an oblique reference to the operation on Sunday in his video address to the annual AIPAC conference in the U.S. He warned that Israel would not be able to stop the Iranians on its own, adding his hope that the international community, led by the U.S., would impose sanctions on Iran. He said the country is a threat to the modern world.

Defense Minister Sha’ul Mofaz also spoke on Sunday about the issue. He said that Iran poses a major threat to Israel, and that the verbal hostility coming out of Tehran is something that needs to be closely monitored.
israelnationalnews.com

Palestinian children killed in Israeli airstrike on Gaza
On Monday evening, 6 March 2006, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) carried out another extra-judicial execution in Gaza City, leaving 5 Palestinians, including three children and two members of the al-Quds Brigades, dead. In addition, 12 civilian bystanders, including 6 children, were injured.

This latest attack comes following decisions taken by the Israeli political and military establishments to target Palestinian resistance activists, in response to the launching of locally made rockets from the OPT at Israel.

According to investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 16:55 on Monday, 6 March 2006, an IOF aircraft launched a missile at a civilian car (white Peugeot) that was travelling on a side road in the al-Tuffah neighbourhood in the northeast of Gaza City. The car was destroyed. Two members of the al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad, who had been travelling in the car, and 3 children that had been passing nearby, were instantly killed: Muneer Mohammed Mohammed Sukkar, 29, from the al-Shojaiya neighbourhood of Gaza City; Ashraf ‘Ali Shallouf, 25, from the al-Shojaiya neighbourhood of Gaza City; Ra’ed Ahmed al-Batash, 11; Mahmoud Ahmed al-Batash, 17; and Ahmed al-Swaifi, 14.

In addition, 12 civilian bystanders, including 6 children and the father of 2 of the victims, were injured by shrapnel.

…Transneft, the state-controlled pipeline operator, is set to build the 2,500-mile pipeline, which would run from Taishet in eastern Siberia to the Pacific coast. With an annual capacity of 80 million tons of crude, it would allow Russia to increase its oil exports to China, Japan and other Asia-Pacific economies.

The $11.5 billion project is a strategic goal of President Vladimir Putin’s government, which wants to diversify the country’s export network and build Russia into an energy superpower.
washingtonpost.com

ISTANBUL — Turkey is reviving its long-deferred quest for nuclear power, pressed both by serious energy shortfalls within its own borders and by strident nuclear ambitions in neighboring Iran that threaten to upset a regional balance of power.

“The rise in oil prices and the need for multiple sources of energy make our need for nuclear energy an utmost priority,” Energy Minister Hilmi Guler said last month in announcing plans to build as many as five atomic energy plants. The first, to be located on the Black Sea at Sinop, would come on line in 2012 and ease Turkey’s costly dependence on natural gas, 90 percent of which arrives by pipeline from Russia and Iran.

With a rapidly expanding economy, a population of 70 million and scarce petroleum deposits, Turkey appears to be a logical candidate for nuclear power. Guler, who made his remarks while visiting a nuclear plant in Virginia, said the new Turkish reactors could provide about a tenth of the 54,000 megawatts the country expects to need over the next two decades.
washingtonpost.com

It should be obvious, considering the photo to the left, who John Bolton, the Straussian neocon “representative” to the United Nations, works for—the American-Israel Political Action Committee. “U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, speaking at a convention of Jewish-Americans, said it is too soon for the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions on Iran but other countries are talking about doing so and Washington is ‘beefing up defensive measures to cope with the Iranian nuclear threat,’” in other words the Pentagon is preparing to shock and awe Iran, maybe later this month, but probably down the road, sooner before later.

“Bolton reaffirmed that the United States does not see the security council moving quickly to impose sanctions on Iran, but he pointedly noted that ‘many other governments have begun to include the word sanctions in their discourse on Iran,’ implying they may take action outside the security council.” As was the case with the Iraq invasion, the United Nations is considered irrelevant. “Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding or will it be irrelevant?” Bush asked the Security Council in September, 2002, a couple months before his neocon handlers invaded Iraq. Bolton is setting up a re-run.

Recall Condi’s Boy Friday, neocon national security adviser Stephen Hadley, suspected of the vicious outing of Valerie Plame, telling AIPAC last November that the “spread of democracy [i.e., invading various Arab and Muslim countries] will make the Middle East a safer neighborhood for Israel. An American retreat from Iraq, on the other hand, would only strengthen the terrorists who seek the enslavement of Iraq and the eventual destruction of Israel.” In other words, the two thousand plus (and actually closer to 10,000) Americans killed in Iraq were sacrificed to make a “safer neighborhood for Israel.”
kurtnimmo.com

The US government says it is mulling all its options – including the military one – in response to an IAEA report that Iran has begun enriching uranium on a small scale and is slowly building up its enrichment capabilities.

The IAEA recently stated it “has not seen any [Iranian] diversion of nuclear material to nuclear weapons”, a charge made by the Bush administration.

However, the nuclear watchdog says there are many outstanding questions about Iran’s nuclear programme that the Islamic republic has yet to answer.

Iran plans to set up 3000 enrichment centrifuges later this year.

With talks to resolve the issue appearing less and less likely, the United States and a European Union troika made up of Britain, France and Germany persuaded the watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to report Iran to the Security Council for action.

The current standoff has led to a spate of media stories suggesting the US and/or Israel might be planning a military strike to disrupt Iranian nuclear facilities.

However, Adam Ereli, a spokesman for the US State Department, told Aljazeera.net that a military move “is not something we’re looking at right now”.

“What we’re looking at is diplomatic action with our partners from the international community to prevent Iran from causing trouble which it intends on doing by supporting terrorism and developing a nuclear weapon.”
aljazeera.net

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, March 6 — Pakistani security forces battled pro-Taliban rebels holding out in a town near the Afghan border on Monday, killing 19 of them as the toll from three days of clashes rose to more than 120, the military said.

The rebels launched attacks on government positions in Miran Shah on Saturday as President Bush met Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, in the capital. The fighting has raged since.

“Helicopter gunships have been pounding militant positions around Miran Shah,” said a resident of the town that serves as the administrative capital of North Waziristan, a tribal region. “The situation is very tense.”

The semiautonomous ethnic Pashtun lands along the Afghan border are Pakistan’s front line in the war on terrorism.

After U.S. and Afghan opposition forces ousted the Taliban in late 2001, many al-Qaeda militants fled to the area, which was awash in weapons. Taliban supporters among the Pashtun clans offered al-Qaeda a refuge.

Hundreds of people have been killed since late 2004 as Pakistani forces have been trying to clear foreign militants from the border area and subdue their Pakistani allies.
washingtonpost.com

* KHALIS – A car bomb killed three Iraqi soldiers and wounded one other in the town of Khalis, north east of Baghdad, the Iraqi army said.
* BAGHDAD – Six civilians were wounded when two car bombs parked on the side of the road were detonated in northern and northeastern Baghdad, police said. The target of the explosions was not clear, they said.
* BAGHDAD – A roadside bomb exploded in the New Baghdad district in the east of the capital, police said. There were no casualties.
BAQUBA – Gunmen killed three members of radical Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s office in Baquba, police and hospital sources said. Two other members were wounded.
BAGHDAD – Three mortar rounds landed on the headquarters of the National Dialogue Front, a Sunni Arab party headed by Salih al-Mutlak. No casualties were reported.
KIRKUK – Three students and a soldier were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded as an Iraqi army patrol drove by Kirkuk University in central Kirkuk, 250 km (150 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.
HAWIJA – A policeman was killed and another wounded in a drive-by shooting on the Kirkuk-Hawija highway, 60 km (40 miles) southwest of Kirkuk, police said.
BAGHDAD – Five civilians were wounded when a car bomb exploded in southern Baghdad, police said. The target of the explosion was not clear.
BAGHDAD – A civilian was killed and his wife was wounded when a car bomb struck at a U.S. patrol in western Baghdad, police said.
BAQUBA – A car bomb killed one civilian and wounded three police officers. The policemen had arrived at the scene after gunmen had killed a policeman on a patrol.
HILLA – Three traffic policemen and four civilians were wounded when a car bomb went off in central Hilla, 100 km (60 miles) south of Baghdad. Another car bomb exploded in northern Hilla but no casualties were reported.
BALAD – A policeman was wounded when four mortar rounds landed in and around Balad police station in Balad, 90 km (55 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.
BAIJI – Three policemen were killed and four were wounded when gunmen attacked their patrol in the oil refinery city of Baiji, 180 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.
TIKRIT – A Sunni shrine was destroyed on Monday when gunmen planted bombs inside it in the city of Tikrit, 175 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.
alertnet.org

Rumsfeld Says Media Exaggerating Iraqi Civilian Deaths
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld today presented an upbeat report of the conflict in Iraq and said he agrees with the commander of the U.S.-led coalition, Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., that the news media has exaggerated the number of civilian casualties in the conflict.

Rumsfeld said that while insurgents are “obviously trying to ignite a civil war,” Iraqi security forces have “taken the lead in controlling the situation” and the Iraqi government has taken “a number of key steps that have had a calming effect in the situation.”

But the news media in the United States and abroad has misreported the number of Iraqi civilians that have been killed and the number of mosques that have come under attack, Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon news conference.

Iraq Weapons — Made in Iran?

Intelligence Officials Say Weapons Responsible for Increasing U.S. Deaths in Iraq

March 6, 2006 — – U.S. military and intelligence officials tell ABC News that they have caught shipments of deadly new bombs at the Iran-Iraq border.

They are a very nasty piece of business, capable of penetrating U.S. troops’ strongest armor.

What the United States says links them to Iran are tell-tale manufacturing signatures — certain types of machine-shop welds and material indicating they are built by the same bomb factory.

“The signature is the same because they are exactly the same in production,” says explosives expert Kevin Barry. “So it’s the same make and model.”

U.S. officials say roadside bomb attacks against American forces in Iraq have become much more deadly as more and more of the Iran-designed and Iran-produced bombs have been smuggled in from the country since last October.

“I think the evidence is strong that the Iranian government is making these IEDs, and the Iranian government is sending them across the border and they are killing U.S. troops once they get there,” says Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism chief and an ABC News consultant. “I think it’s very hard to escape the conclusion that, in all probability, the Iranian government is knowingly killing U.S. troops.”

OH ok. Forget the nukes, let’s attack them anyway.

US envoy to Iraq: ‘We have opened the Pandora’s box’
The US ambassador to Baghdad conceded yesterday that the Iraq invasion had opened a Pandora’s box of sectarian conflicts which could lead to a regional war and the rise of religious extremists who “would make Taliban Afghanistan look like child’s play”.

Zalmay Khalilzad broke with the Bush administration’s generally upbeat orthodoxy to present a stark profile of a volatile situation in danger of sliding into chaos.

Mr Khalilzad told the Los Angeles Times Iraq had been pulled back from the brink of civil war after the February 22 bombing of a Shia shrine in Samarra. However, another similar incident would leave Iraq “really vulnerable” to that happening, he said. “We have opened the Pandora’s box and the question is, what is the way forward?” He added that the best approach was to build bridges between religious and ethnic communities.

On February 7, 2006 (and with due homage to the great Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano) the people of Haiti were not to be denied. Few people anywhere have endured more oppression and human misery or for a longer period of time (with all too few periods of relief). In spite of an election process orchestrated, controlled and shamelessly rigged by an interim puppet government (the IGH) and an oppressive occupying force (UN Blue Helmets supposedly there to maintain order and protect them), they overcame overwhelming obstacles and elected Rene Preval for the second time as their President (his first time in office was from 1996-2000). It’s no secret that the real power calling the shots in Haiti is not in Port-au-Prince. It’s in Washington making policy, giving orders and letting its approved proxies do its bidding, which has been bloody and brutal since US Marines in the dead of night kidnapped and deposed democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide at gunpoint in February, 2004.

In a normal country with a tradition of stability and democracy (or any one for that matter) the election of the peoples’ choice would be a cause for celebration. Indeed for the first time in the past 2 years the Haitian people are celebrating and hope finally for an end to the nightmare they’ve been through. But nothing is ever simple in Haiti, a country that for over 500 years has had very few periods of stability free from the oppressive heel of a foreign occupier or repressive dictatorship. They never had a real democracy until the election of Jean-Bertand Aristide in 1991. Two US led, directed or authorized coups later (both against President Aristide), they have one again at least in the office of president. But do they really have good reason to rejoice?

Before continuing I must point out that until February 7 Jean-Bertand Aristide was still Haiti’s democratically elected President. It’s a valid argument to say he’s entitled to remain so for the remainder of the time he lost, but he graciously never requested it and now calls Rene Preval “my President.” The benighted Haitian people loved Aristide, called him their President and want and expect him to return. They now have every reason to feel the oddest combination of joy and fear as they await future events to unfold without knowing what will haappen.
zmag.org

Less than six months ago Brazil’s President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, appeared down and out. Racked by a campaign funding scandal that enveloped his party, he was trailing in the polls and there would doubts he would even fight for re-election.

Now the man universally known as Lula appears to have bounced back and arrives in London today for a three-day state visit. He has lost 30lbs, foresworn alcohol and been politically reinvigorated by new numbers that show his approval rating has jumped to 53.3 per cent from a low of 47 per cent in November and suggest he could win re-election in October.

Mr da Silva has also gone back on the attack and dropped the defensive tone he adopted at the peak of the scandal.

Speaking during a tour of Brazil’s northeastern region, where he was born, he said. “I haven’t done everything that needs to be done. But I’ve certainly already done much more than the elite that governed this country for nearly 500 years and forgot about the poor part of the population.”
independent.co.uk

Brazil leader begins London visit
The Brazilian President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has arrived in London at the start of a three-day state visit.

He will attend a royal banquet at Buckingham Palace on his first evening in London and will meet Tony Blair for talks at Downing Street on Thursday.

The two leaders are likely to discuss the shooting of Brazilian man Jean Charles de Menezes in London last July.

The visit comes as the Crown Prosecution Service considers whether to charge police over the shooting.

The Foreign Office has flatly denied press reports that the Queen will publicly apologise for the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, but diplomats acknowledge the case is likely to be discussed by President Lula and Tony Blair.

British officials have sought to play down the rift caused by his death.

Mr Menezes was killed after being mistaken for a suicide bomber
The Brazilian government has expressed concern that the dead man’s family have not seen the report into the killing by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.