A surprise American or Israeli air strike on Iranian nuclear sites could cause a large number of civilian as well as military casualties, says a report published today.

The report, Iran: Consequences of a War, written by Professor Paul Rogers and published by the Oxford Research Group, draws comparisons with Iraq. It says the civilian population in that country had three weeks to prepare for war in 2003, giving people the chance to flee potentially dangerous sites. But Prof Rogers says attacks on Iranian facilities, most of which are in densely populated areas, would be surprise ones, allowing no time for such evacuations or other precautions.
guardian.co.uk

The Report: IRAN:
CONSEQUENCES OF A WAR
This briefing paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the likely nature of US or Israeli military action that would be intended to disable Iran’s nuclear capabilities. It outlines both the immediate consequences in terms of loss of human life, facilities and infrastructure, and also the likely Iranian responses, which would be extensive.

An attack on Iranian nuclear infrastructure would signal the start of a protracted military confrontation that would probably grow to involve Iraq, Israel and Lebanon, as well as the USA and Iran. The report concludes that a military response to the current crisis in relations with Iran is a particularly dangerous option and should not be considered further. Alternative approaches must be sought, however difficult these may be.

Four U.S. service members were killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan today while on patrol with Afghan National Army forces, the military announced today.

The troops were traveling in a Humvee armored vehicle when the attack occurred north of Deh Rahwod in Uruzgan Province.

After the attack, the military said the patrol got into a firefight involving small arms and rocket propelled grenades.

U.S. aircraft were called in to aid forces on the ground, according to a news release issued by the Combined Forces Command in Kabul.

“This is a said and tragic day for all of us,” Brig. Gen. John Sterling, deputy commanding general, said in a statement. “This incident increases our resolve to continue their efforts to ultimate success.”
washingtonpost.com

Two Afghan militiamen killed, six missing in Taliban attack
KABUL: Two militia soldiers working for US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan were killed and six were missing after an attack by Taliban in the volatile south, a commander said Monday.

An eight-member militia convoy came under attack in troubled Helmand province, “Two of our soldiers were killed yesterday as they came under attack by Taliban. We have found two bodies and another six soldiers are missing,” he said.

A purported spokesman for the Taliban militia, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, claimed responsibility for the ambush in Helmand’s Girishk district and said eight soldiers had been killed.

There are regular clashes in Helmand, Afghanistan’s top opium-producing area. More than 40 people were killed there earlier this month in a single day of battles between suspected Taliban and security forces.

Washington, D.C. – Congressman Henry A. Waxman, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Congressmen George Miller and Elijah E. Cummings, and other senior Democrats released a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report today finding that the Bush Administration spent more than $1.6 billion in public relations and media contracts in a two and a half year span.

“The government is spending over a billion dollars per year on PR and advertising,” said Congressman Waxman. “Careful oversight of this spending is essential given the track record of the Bush Administration, which has used taxpayer dollars to fund covert propaganda within the United States.”
californiachronicle.com

Just a few years ago, World Trade Organisation officials used to act hurt when described by social activists as irresponsible, secretive bureaucrats who trampled over national sovereignty and placed free trade over the environment or human rights. But that was when the global-trade policeman ruled on disputes that had little bearing on Europeans.

The WTO court’s latest ruling will greatly increase the number of people who believe the organisation needs radical reform, if not burial. This week three judges emerged after years of secret deliberation to rule that Europe had imposed a de facto ban on GM food imports between 1999 and 2003, violating WTO rules. The court also ruled that Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and Luxembourg had no legal grounds to impose their own unilateral import bans. “Europe guilty!” shouted the US press. “This is glorious news for the Bush administration,” said one blogger.
guardian.co.uk

More than four-fifths of the wetlands along northern China’s biggest river system have dried up because of over-development, the state media reported yesterday in the latest warning of the dire environmental consequences of the country’s economic growth.

Fifty years ago, the Haihe river and its tributaries formed an ecologically rich area that included 1,465 square miles of wetlands. But in the years since, the expanding mega-cities of Beijing and Tianjin have sucked much of it dry. The Xinhua news agency reported that the wetlands have shrunk to 207 square miles.
guardian.co.uk

A controversial Kuwait-based construction firm accused of exploiting employees and coercing low-paid laborers to work in war-town Iraq is now building the new $592-million U.S. embassy in Baghdad. Once completed, the compound will likely be the biggest, most fortified diplomatic compound in the world.

Some 900 workers live and work for First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting (FKTC) on the construction site of the massive project. Undoubtedly, they have been largely pulled from ranks of low-paid laborers flooding into Iraq from Asia’s poorest countries to work under U.S. military and reconstruction projects.

Meanwhile, their boss, Wadih al-Absi jets back and forth to the United States, dreaming of magazine covers celebrating his rise to a global player in large-scale engineering and construction.
corpwatch.org

…The real surprise, though, may be how so much of what you do on an everyday basis already gets screened, monitored, tracked, scanned and observed – often without your ever knowing it.

From spyware on your computer to police cameras on your street to GPS devices on your cell phone, how much of your private life is really private any more?

“It’s all part of the general evaporation of privacy,” said Peter Wayner, a Baltimore-based computer programmer who has written several books about online protocol and safety.

The Justice Department has obtained records of millions of anonymous, random searches made on Microsoft, Yahoo and America Online as it attempts to revive a child pornography law struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court. But Google, the world’s most popular search engine, refused to comply, and the Justice Department has gone to court to force the company to turn over the data.

“I think the Justice Department isn’t looking for personal information. They seem to want to do some research,” Wayner said. “But the future may be different.”
sun=sentinel.com

MONDAY, Feb. 13 (HealthDay News) — Black Americans are five times more likely to die of asthma and four times more likely to be hospitalized for the condition than other Americans.

That’s just one of the asthma care disparities between minorities and whites noted in a number of studies in the February issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

Among the other statistics:

Puerto Rican Americans have the highest prevalence of asthma (13.1 percent), followed by Native Americans (9.9 percent), and non-Hispanic blacks (9.5 percent).
The asthma death rate for blacks increased from 9.9 to 13.2 deaths per 1 million people from 1980-84 to 2000-2001. During that same time, asthma death rates for whites increased from 2.1 to 2.6 deaths per 1 million people.

One study noted that national efforts to improve asthma care over the past decade haven’t shrunk the gap between blacks and whites in terms of asthma-related deaths and hospitalizations. Reducing these disparities in asthma care should be a national priority, said study author Dr. Ruchi S. Gupta, of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago.

When treating children with asthma, doctors should consider racial/ethnic factors that might help prevent hospitalizations and premature death. In a prepared statement, Gupta also noted: “The number of uninsured adults is increasing, and lack of insurance for adults could explain why asthma prevalence and mortality has increased.”

Another study suggested genetics may explain the differences in asthma prevalence in blacks, Puerto Ricans and Mexican Americans.

And separate research found that one way to reduce asthma disparities is through traditional prevention strategies, such as identifying and removing asthma risk factors, and disease detection, management and control.
yahoo.com

Let’s see-there’s the fact that poor, predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods like South Bronx are subjected to an array of toxic pollutants from chemical plants, medical waste incinerators, etc. disproportionately placed there, and then there’s just the reality that asthma is also anxiety/stress related. The pscychological stress caused simply by being black in the USA is a killer.

…Awuah says that he could do more, but like some other enterprising individuals in Africa I know of, he has been turned away by official aid agencies. Everyone, it seems, was invited to the “Save Africa” campaign of 2005 except for Africans. They starred only as victims: genocide casualties, child soldiers, AIDS patients and famine deaths on our 43-inch plasma screens.

Yes, these tragedies deserve attention, but the obsessive and almost exclusive Western focus on them is less relevant to the vast majority of Africans — the hundreds of millions not fleeing from homicidal minors, not HIV-positive, not starving to death, and not helpless wards waiting for actors and rock stars to rescue them. Angelina, the continent has problems but it is not being destroyed.

…Dare one hope that in 2006, it will finally be understood that Africa’s true saviors are the people of Africa, and that those who would help them in their task must also be accountable to them?
washingtonpost.com

PORT-AU-PRINCE (AFP) – More than 10,000 people demonstrated in the Haitian capital demanding Rene Preval be declared president, despite partial results that put him just shy of the 50 percent needed to win the election outright.

Results announced earlier in the day and based on 75 percent of the ballots showed that Preval, a former president, had 49.1 percent of the vote, short of the majority he needs to avoid a runoff election.

Several hours before the final outcome of the February 7 election was to be announced, residents of dirt-poor shantytowns poured into the streets of Port-au-Prince for a second consecutive day, chanting “Preval president.”

The demonstrators marched and danced in a carnival atmosphere, and had no doubt the victory went to Preval, who enjoys widespread support among the millions of impoverished Haitians.

Tension mounted as the protesters stopped in front of the electoral council’s offices, where only a few Haitian police, armed with automatic weapons, were in evidence.

Pro-Preval marches were also staged in other parts of the country, according to radio stations.

Members of the 9,500-strong UN military and police force took position in key parts of the capital amid concern of a renewed explosion of violence if Preval fails be declared victorious.

Should the balloting go to a runoff, scheduled for March 19, Preval, 63, would likely compete against Leslie Manigat, 75, also a former president, who had 11.7 percent in the partial results.
yahoo.com