DJIBOUTI – Al-Qaida is active in Somalia, but U.S. counterterrorism forces are succeeding in keeping its influence from spreading in East Africa — using shovels as their weapons, a commander said Monday.

Maj. Gen. Tim Ghormley, who assumed command of the task force in May, said his troops are focusing on humanitarian projects including drilling wells and refurbishing schools and clinics to improve the lives of residents in the region and keep them away from the terror network.

“We know that al-Qaida al-Itihaad is in Somalia,” Ghormley told reporters in an interview at his base in the impoverished nation of Djibouti. “They’d like to export that … if we weren’t there they would be.”

While the al-Qaida linked group al-Itihaad was largely destroyed or disbanded by Ethiopian troops fighting inside Somalia by 1997, some of its members have regrouped under new guises and have begun to grow in strength, according to an International Crisis Group report released in July.

Somalia, divided into warring fiefdoms and with no central government, remains fertile ground for terrorists.

The Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, set up in this former French colony in June 2002, is responsible for fighting terrorism in nine countries around the Horn of Africa: Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Somalia in Africa and Yemen on the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula.
yahoo.com

so…how many U.S. ‘anti-terrorism forces’ are deployed in East Africa?

Ever since the turn of the 1990s, there has been great stress on raising the rate of economic growth. In fact, it has become the be all and end all for the governments coming to power at the centre. It has been underlined time and again that the only way to accomplish this task is by following the ten points that constitute the Washington consensus, which boil down to liberalisation, privatization and globalisation. For quite some time the votaries of this thinking and their trumpeters in the academic world as well as the media have been announcing from the housetops that the salvation of India lies in this. They blame Nehru for shackling the Indian economy and the forces of economic growth by bringing in his “disastrous socialistic ideas” and “models”! The result was, what pro-Western media and academics called “the Hindu rate of economic growth” that hovered around average 3 to 3.5 per cent per annum. Now, it is claimed that, by following the prescription of Washington consensus, India has been able to raise the annual rate of economic growth to 7-8 per cent and, very soon, it will reach 10 per cent and the day is not far when it will be ahead of China. It will then join the club of world superpowers. But here an inconvenient question arises: will it take care of India’s problems of unemployment in all its forms and manifestations, illiteracy, poverty, sickness, regional economic imbalances and so on? Before we attempt to tackle this very pertinent question, let us be clear about the connotation of economic growth.

In common parlance, seldom any distinction is made between growth and development. They are generally taken to be synonyms. In development economics, however, they do not have the same connotations. Economic growth means only a sustained increase in the volume of goods and services produced annually by a nation, generally expressed in terms of GDP (Gross Domestic Product). The total volume of goods and services may increase by employing greater amounts of labour without any change in its productivity or by raising its productivity without any change or with even a decline in the quantum of labour or by increasing both the quantum of labour and its productivity. Obviously, there is a clear-cut possibility of “jobless growth”, i.e., GDP may increase without generating new employment opportunities or throwing workers out of jobs.
zmag.org

JERUSALEM, Jan 2 (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon plans eventually to scrap a U.S.-led “road map” to peace with the Palestinians and instead seek Washington’s blessing for annexing occupied West Bank land, a newspaper said on Monday.

The report by senior staff of Maariv newspaper gave no source, but Sharon’s initial plans for last year’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip were first floated in a similar way.

Sharon’s spokesman declined comment, while a senior Israeli political source dismissed the report as “pure speculation”.

A senior Palestinian official said he doubted whether the United States or the European Union would endorse the plan described by Maariv.
The paper said Sharon, who is up for re-election in March, would argue that Israel was justified in abandoning the peace plan and setting borders unilaterally because of the failure of the Palestinians to crack down on militant groups.

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who sparked international condemnation by calling the Holocaust a “myth”, has likened Zionism to fascism and said Israel was created in order to expel Jews from Europe.

Analysts have said Ahmadinejad’s frequent anti-Israel comments are aimed at boosting his standing at home and in the Islamic world. Diplomats say his remarks have hardened Western attitudes towards Iran’s nuclear programme.

In written answers to questions from the public reproduced in several newspapers on Monday, Ahmadinejad said the creation of Israel after World War Two had “killed two birds with one stone” for Europe.

The objectives achieved by Europe were: “Sweeping the Jews out of Europe and at the same time creating a European appendix with a Zionist and anti-Islamic nature in the heart of the Islamic world,” he said.

“Zionism is a Western ideology and a colonialist idea … and right now it massacres Muslims with direct guidance and help from the United States and a part of Europe … Zionism is basically a new (form of) fascism,” he added.
reuters.com/india

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) – Iraq’s oil minister said Monday he resigned after the government last week gave him a forced vacation and replaced him with Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi following criticism about fuel price increases.

Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum said he quit because the government raised fuel prices by nine times on Dec. 19, a decision he had strongly criticized.

“This decision will not serve the benefit of the government and the people. This decision brings an extra burden on the shoulders of citizens and caused an increase in the prices of all essential materials. It also caused a reaction on the Iraqi streets,” al-Uloum said.
guardian.co.uk

Puppet State Brought Down By Price Controls?
…And get this: Iraq’s on-the-books oil exports are at their lowest level in two years. No oil leaving and no oil coming in – at least on the books. This is the stuff of which genuine revolutions are made.

Remarkable isn’t it? What the rebels, insurgents, and terrorists have yet to accomplish – the end of US puppet rule in Iraq – may yet be accomplished by bad energy policy. And this policy was not only imposed after the US invasion but has been continued in the years since, leading to an ever-worse catastrophe.

The mystery to explain is why a country that is incredibly oil rich – with the 2nd largest oil reserves in the world – would face a massive shortage of all oil products. If you knew nothing more than this detail, and you knew something about the history of economic debacles, you might guess: price controls. You would be right.

From what I can gather from public sources, the government assumes ownership of all oil in the country. That hardly makes the Iraqi situation unique in the region, but what is unique is the combination of subsidies and price controls that led gasoline to be fix-priced at 5 cents per gallon until very recently.

You don’t have to be an economist to know what the results of this policy would be. Not only does it lead to overconsumption. The number of vendors willing to distribute the stuff in the open market collapses. What’s left is bought in Iraq and sold to neighboring countries at a profit.

Thus does a policy designed to make oil cheap for all result in the bizarre world in which a country full of oil underground would not have any of the stuff available above ground.

01/02/05 “ICH” — — Caught in gratuitous and illegal spying on American citizens, the Bush administration has defended its illegal activity and set the Justice (sic) Department on the trail of the person or persons who informed the New York Times of Bush’s violation of law. Note the astounding paradox: The Bush administration is caught red-handed in blatant illegality and responds by trying to arrest the patriot who exposed the administration’s illegal behavior

Bush has actually declared it treasonous to reveal his illegal behavior! His propagandists, who masquerade as news organizations, have taken up the line: To reveal wrong-doing by the Bush administration is to give aid and comfort to the enemy.

Compared to Spygate, Watergate was a kindergarten picnic. The Bush administration’s lies, felonies, and illegalities have revealed it to be a criminal administration with a police state mentality and police state methods. Now Bush and his attorney general have gone the final step and declared Bush to be above the law. Bush aggressively mimics Hitler’s claim that defense of the realm entitles him to ignore the rule of law.

Bush’s acts of illegal domestic spying are gratuitous because there are no valid reasons for Bush to illegally spy. The Foreign Intelligence Services Act gives Bush all the power he needs to spy on terrorist suspects. All the administration is required to do is to apply to a secret FISA court for warrants. The Act permits the administration to spy first and then apply for a warrant, should time be of the essence. The problem is that Bush has totally ignored the law and the court.
informationclearinghouse.info

What happened these past days in Bolivia was a great revolt by those who have been oppressed for more than 500 years. The will of the people was imposed this September and October, and has begun to overcome the empire’s cannons. We have lived for so many years through the confrontation of two cultures: the culture of life represented by the indigenous people, and the culture of death represented by West. When we the indigenous people–together with the workers and even the businessmen of our country–fight for life and justice, the State responds with its “democratic rule of law.”

What does the “rule of law” mean for indigenous people? For the poor, the marginalized, the excluded, the “rule of law” means the targeted assassinations and collective massacres that we have endured. Not just this September and October, but for many years, in which they have tried to impose policies of hunger and poverty on the Bolivian people. Above all, the “rule of law” means the accusations that we, the Quechuas, Aymaras and Guaranties of Bolivia keep hearing from our governments: that we are narcos, that we are anarchists. This uprising of the Bolivian people has been not only about gas and hydrocarbons, but an intersection of many issues: discrimination, marginalization , and most importantly, the failure of neoliberalism.
counterpunch.org

…The aim of the tour is, according to a recent communique, to “build a national programme of anti-capitalist and leftwing struggle”. By dubbing his caravan “The Other Campaign”, Marcos made it clear that much of the strategy hinges on rubbishing the July presidential election.

In a series of preparatory meetings in the jungle in August and September, Marcos reserved particular venom for the front-runner, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, calling him a traitor who would “give it to all of us” if he won. This alienated former fans in the intelligentsia who see Mr Lopez Obrador’s candidacy as an unprecedented opportunity for the left.

The government has made little comment on his tour plans. But should the authorities decide to arrest the rebel leader and outlaw, identified by the government in 1995 as former university teacher Rafael Guillén, Marcos instructed his supporters in a communique not to resist. “Run away and spread the word,” he wrote, “and bring me tobacco.”
guardian.co.uk

Baby Noor ‘responsive and smiling’
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) — Baby Noor, a 3-month-old Iraqi girl in need of urgent surgery to treat a dangerous birth defect, is in good condition and will undergo her operation within the next 10 days, according to a Saturday statement from the hospital where she’s being treated.

…Noor’s journey began when Georgia National Guard members raided her family’s home in Baghdad looking for weapons. As Noor’s parents nervously watched the soldiers searching their home, the girl’s grandmother — unfazed — thrust Noor at the Americans, showing them a purple pouch protruding from her back. (Watch Noor steal the guardsmen’s hearts — 2:11)

“I saw this child as the first-born child of the young mother and father, and really, all I could think of was my five children back at home and my young daughter,” Lt. Jeff Morgan said. “And I knew if I had the opportunity whatsoever to save my daughter’s life, I would do everything possible.”

Blowing up the other baby Noors: US forces step up Iraq airstrikes
…The number of airstrikes in 2005, running at a monthly average of 25 until August, surged to 120 in November and an expected 150 in December, according to official military figures.

In October, 2004, after taking TeenScreen, a 10-minute computer test developed in the psychiatric department of Columbia University, 16-year-old Chelsea Rhoades of Indiana was told she had two mental health problems, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and social anxiety disorder. The diagnoses were based upon Chelsea’s responses that she liked to help clean the house and didn’t “party” much.

Chelsea is one of countless children who get labeled with fraudulent diagnoses every day. The difference in her case is that her parents, who were unaware that TeenScreen had infiltrated their daughter’s school and had not given permission for the screening, reacted quickly. They filed a lawsuit against the officials of the high school who allowed the test to be administered and the TeenScreen program. In doing so, the Rhoades took a stand for all parents across the nation.
counterpunch.org