Iran offered to help finance the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority led by Hamas, a move that prompted an immediate warning from Israel, AFP reported.

The Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, announced the offer after a meeting with Hamas political leader, Khaled Mashaal, in Tehran, state radio reported.

Larijani said the decision was taken after the United States said it won’t finance a Hamas-led government. “The United States proved that it would not support democracy when it cut its aid to the Palestinian government after Hamas won the elections. We will certainly help the Palestinians,” Larijani said.

“Hamas is a genuine popular movement which has always pursued the objective of recovering the rights of the oppressed Palestinian people; but unfortunately the Americans have never paid any attention to this matter,”

The Americans‘ decision “to stop financial aid shows that they are not seeking to promote democracy in the region, contrary to their claims on the Middle East [road-map] proposal,” he added.

Asked if Israel would block the Iranian funds., Israel’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said: “we would be entitled to use all legal means to prevent that money from reaching its destination.”

Anti-Zionism jews pledge support for Hamas’ Haniyeh
Following Hamas’ announcement of appointing Ismail Haniyeh as the new Prime Minister of its government, Rabbi Hirsch, of the Neturei Karta of the Orthodox Jewry, sent the new PM a greeting message expressing the Jews’ support of the newly democratically elected Palestinian government led by Hamas, the Islamist anti-occupation movement that has a rich history of struggle for the welfare of the Palestinian population that has long suffered under the merciless occupation of the Israeli forces.

Neturei Karta has long rejected the bloody Zionist policy pursued by the Israeli government, the result of which was the killing and the suffering of thousands of innocent Palestinians, including women and children.

Neturei Karta stands as one of the strong anti-Zionism Jewish groups that support the Palestinians’ struggle to liberate their lands. It acknowledges that Zionism contradicts the original teachings and principles presented in the Holy Torah.

Palestinians Are Being Robbed by Israel
It is evidently difficult to scrub off the sticker that is glued onto the front window. That’s why when a new car from Germany or South Korea or the United States rolls onto the packed streets of Gaza or Ramallah, it generally has the big label with thick, red Hebrew letters forming the word “Checked” stuck on its windshield for several months.

The label is a mark of the special customs and security checks conducted at the Israeli seaports of Ashdod or Haifa, which serve as the main entrances for most of the foreign goods bound for the West Bank and Gaza. Palestinians import all sorts of products: water pumps from Sweden, bulldozers and boxes of corn flakes from the United States, plastic toys from China, washing machines from France and cheese from Denmark — and virtually all of them reach their destinations only after they’ve been through Israeli port authorities and Israeli security checks.

At the ports, Palestinian importers are required to pay the Israeli authorities the value-added tax of 17%, as well as whatever custom taxes are due on goods that come in on their way to the West Bank or Gaza. These transactions (along with direct Palestinian transactions with Israeli firms and merchants) last year yielded revenues of $711 million.

But whose revenues are they?

The enormity of the problems in tackling Afghanistan’s massive opium crop has become apparent as the first wave of British troops are deployed in one of the most dangerous parts of the country.

British Government ministers had repeatedly declared that one of the primary tasks of the 5,700- strong expeditionary force was to help end Afghan heroin production, which supplies 90 per cent of the narcotic in Britain. But the commander of the British forces in southern Iraq insisted yesterday that his troops would play no part in destroying poppy fields, while senior British civil servants cautioned that ending cultivation may take years.
independent.co.uk

2 killed, 14 injured in bomb explosion in Afghanistan

Of the 98 deaths, at least 34 were suspected or confirmed homicides that were “caused by intentional or reckless behavior”, the U.S. human rights group says.

According to the report, 11 more deaths are deemed suspicious and that between eight and 12 detainees were tortured to death. In once case, a prisoner was forced to jump off a bridge into Iraq’s Tigris river and another was pushed inside a sleeping bad and suffocated.
aljazeera.com

So the Bush White House, with Tom Tancredo oddly in tow, wants to sell public land throughout the west to help rural schools, primarily schools in California, Oregon, and Washington. It seems these schools got used to a token payment from timber sales on public land. Some cynics might call it payola; nevertheless, the timber has run out, even though the pass-back expectations of the locals have not.

Thus, we arrive at the present national crisis.

Here in Colorado the land on the immediate auction block runs to about 21,000 acres, much of it important recreation land to those unworthy louts who live and work in our cities and hunger for a modest retreat from the work-a-day world. Let them buy their own land seems to be the prevailing logic from the White House.

There are other help options of course. We could look at reducing the future cost of the Administration’s Iraqi adventure, giving that money to schools. In the selling, Iraq was promised to cost only $70 billion and magically lead to flowers sprouting from gun barrels. It is already over $300 billion with no end in sight, and there are no flowers except to bury the mourned dead. But this option has one drawback, the powerful don’t like it. After all it’s their war, and they don’t do the dying.
counterpunch.org

Secret Service agents guarding Vice President Dick Cheney when he shot Texas lawyer Harry Whittington on a hunting outing two weeks ago say Cheney was “clearly inebriated” at the time of the shooting.
Agents observed several members of the hunting party, including the Vice President, consuming alcohol before and during the hunting expedition, the report notes, and Cheney exhibited “visible signs” of impairment, including slurred speech and erratic actions.

According to those who have talked with the agents and others present at the outing, Cheney was drunk when he gunned down his friend and the day-and-a-half delay in allowing Texas law enforcement officials on the ranch where the shooting occurred gave all members of the hunting party time to sober up.

We talked with a number of administration officials who are privy to inside information on the Vice President’s shooting “accident” and all admit Secret Service agents and others say they saw Cheney consume far more than the “one beer’ he claimed he drank at lunch earlier that day.

“This was a South Texas hunt,” says one White House aide. “Of course there was drinking. There’s always drinking. Lots of it.”

One agent at the scene has been placed on administrative leave and another requested reassignment this week. A memo reportedly written by one agent has been destroyed, sources said Wednesday afternoon.
capitolhillblue.com

PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) — Ousted Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide said Tuesday he was willing to return home after two years in exile.

In an interview with South African television, Aristide stopped short of setting a date. He said he would decide on his return after consulting with Haitian President-elect Rene Preval, the South African government, the United Nations and other involved countries.
cnn.com

A bomb attack destroyed the golden dome of one of Iraq’s holiest Shia shrines today, sparking demonstrations and calls for revenge amongst the protesters.

There were no confirmed casualties in the explosion, which took place at 6.55am (0355 GMT) at the al-Askari shrine in Samarra, north of Baghdad. Early reports had quoted police saying they feared people may have been be buried under the debris.

Iraq’s national security adviser, Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, said two armed men wearing special forces uniforms broke into the shrine, overcame the guards and set off explosives.

The shrine – one of the four holiest Shia sites in Iraq – was extensively damaged and the mosque’s golden dome destroyed.

Mr al-Rubaie blamed Sunni militants for the bombing but insisted they would not draw Iraq into a civil war. He appealed for calm.

Up to 2,000 protesters in Najaf called on Shias to “rise up” and “take revenge” for the attack on the shrine, which contains the tombs of two Shia imams reputed to be descendants of the prophet Muhammad. It is part of the Imam Ali al-Hadi mausoleum.

“This criminal act aims at igniting civil strife,” said Mahmoud al-Samarie, a 28-year-old builder. “We demand an investigation so that the criminals who did this be punished. If the government fails to do so, then we will take arm and chase the people behind this attack.”

The Iraqi prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, declared three days of mourning and appealed for unity. He called the apparently sectarian attack an assault on all Muslims.
guardian.co.uk

Blast kills 22 as Straw calls for end to sectarianism

First promote ‘sectarianism’ and then speak out piously about stopping it. Yeah right.

Twenty-five years after he hung up his barrister’s wig, Jack Straw faces the unwelcome prospect of returning to court. Craig Murray, our former Ambassador to Uzbekistan, intends to call the Foreign Secretary to give evidence in any legal action over his forthcoming memoirs.

This month, Straw’s staff wrote to Murray – who was sacked for blowing the whistle on human rights abuses – saying they’d “actively consider a claim for breach of confidence or Crown copyright” over his book, Murder in Samarkand.

Despite that threat, Murray’s publishers, Mainstream, tell me they “intend to proceed” with the memoir, which will hit the shelves in July.

Meanwhile, Murray has used an interview with The Bookseller to launch a personal offensive against Straw, saying he has “proof that the Government has been obtaining intelligence from torture, and that Jack Straw approved it.”
independent.co.uk

…The ruling party is facing a serious and occasionally violent revolt in downtrodden communities, resulting in no-go areas for its members. Councillors have been beaten, shot and burned out of their homes. Party meetings have been ambushed. Several local branches have disbanded or gone underground.

“It is not safe for me. I cannot go back in the current climate,” said Papi Tselane, 44, one of 14 ANC councillors forced to flee the township of Khutsong after a mob destroyed their houses. The councillors are living in a mining compound. Several councillors have stepped down, said Bobo Ndlakuza, the ANC’s election coordinator for Merafong municipality, which includes Khutsong. “Some members think it is not worth their lives and just lie low.”

The party is being targeted in what was its heartland, the sprawls of shacks and low-cost homes where millions of impoverished black people live.

The cause of unrest is economic. People are fed up waiting for jobs and basic services such as electricity, clean water and sanitation. The service delivery protests, as they are known, flared last year and have grown in frequency and passion in the run-up to local elections on March 1. Khutsong, a township of 170,000, 40 miles from Johannesburg, has seen some of the worst trouble.
guardian.co.uk

MOGADISHU (AFP) – At least 15 people were killed and 23 wounded in fighting between gunmen loyal to warlords controlling Somalia’s capital and Islamic court security militia, in what residents called the fiercest battles in five years.

This brings the death toll to 33 and dozens wounded, according to witnesses and medical sources, since the clashes erupted on Saturday.

The fighting pits gunmen backed by the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT) — a coalition of warlords — against Islamic court militia along a road in southern Mogadishu’s Daynile district, they said.
news.yahoo.com