Although the US is resisting pressure to deal with Iran’s nuclear ambitions through direct talks with Tehran, rather than sanctions or military strikes, it still intends to meet senior Iranian officials for discussions on Iraq at which it will demand an end to Iranian meddling, according to Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador in Baghdad.

He is to head the US team at face-to-face talks, which will be the first formal diplomatic meeting between the two countries since the Islamic revolution in 1979 and are expected to open in Baghdad shortly.

Leading Republican and Democratic senators have urged the Bush administration to engage Iran in full-scale talks, but in an interview with the Guardian Mr Khalilzad made it clear that the talks would be limited to Iraq. The US wanted Iran to halt aid to Iraq’s sectarian militias, and stop smuggling al-Qaida fighters and weapons across the border, he said.

He criticised Iranian “negative propaganda”. “The Shias have been the main beneficiaries of this change, yet Iran has been very critical of the liberation and the liberators,” he said. “A lot of media in Iran exaggerate the problems here … They are inciting people against the forces that have come to liberate Iraq.”

The talks with Iran have the backing of Iraqi leaders, who also insist on their own representation at the table. “We have no objection,” Mr Khalilzad told the Guardian. “We’re not going to negotiate on behalf of Iraq.” The talks were put on hold until Iraq had a new government because “in this part of the world people always think in great conspiracy theories … We didn’t want people here to think that the Iranians and the Americans are together deciding on the Iraqi government.”
guardian.co.uk

umm…okay…

April 24, 2006 issue – The terrorists trying to drive Iraq toward full-scale civil war have put sacred shrines at the top of their target list. So who, then, is protecting Iraq’s most revered holy sites these days? The answer might tell us something about where real power lies in Iraq—or at least how it’s divvied up by rival factions competing for power and authority. With that aim in mind, Iraqi reporters for NEWSWEEK set off last week to visit some of the country’s most sacred sites. They didn’t get far. At the first stop on their list—the 10th-century Kadhimiya shrine in Baghdad—two reporters were detained and questioned. The armed men who held them were from an obscure security force called the Facilities Protection Services, which now apparently numbers a staggering 146,000 men.

The visit began at about 11 a.m. on Wednesday. The two reporters, who do not want to be named for personal security reasons, first passed through a checkpoint manned by Iraqis clad in police uniforms. Each of the guards carried an AK-47 over his shoulder and a Glock 9mm pistol on his hip. Some wore body armor. They frisked the two reporters, who then proceeded through one of four towering gates that led to a marble courtyard. Inside the shrine’s offices, the reporters sat down with Sayeed Abdul Zarrah, a Shia religious administrator. A brown-bearded man dressed in civilian clothes hovered nearby. When the reporters asked about who was guarding the site, the plainclothes guy stepped in. He told them all the armed men at the shrine were members of the FPS. Then one of his commanders entered the room.

First he demanded to listen to the recorded interview. “This is not journalism,” he fumed. “This is intelligence research.” He wore the blue shirt and dark trousers typically worn by the police, but with no badge on his arm. He told them he was a colonel in military intelligence under Saddam Hussein, and had “participated in training programs in countries like Egypt, so I have good experience in these things.” More questions followed, punctuated by long waits as the commander left and re-entered the room. “I just want to know whom you work for,” he insisted, ignoring the reporters’ press cards and repeated statements that they worked for NEWSWEEK. Finally, the commander allowed them to leave. Two plainclothesmen followed them through the crowds of Kadhimiya market until the reporters jumped in a taxi and sped away.
msnbc.msn.com

April 26 2006 marks the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Award-winning Dutch photographer Robert Knoth has visited the area worst hit by radioactive fallout – Ukraine, Belarus and western Russia – to document the toxic legacy of Chernobyl and other nuclear accident sites of the former Soviet Union. The Fallout exhibition, which is free, runs from April 18 to May 14 at the Oxo Tower in London.
guardian.co.uk

Survivors of the Bhopal disaster called off a week-long hunger strike last night after India’s prime minister promised to clean up the disused chemical factory, provide fresh drinking water for local people and build a £13m memorial to the dead.

A leak of lethal methyl isocyanate gas from a pesticide plant operated by the Indian arm of the US firm Union Carbide killed more than 3,500 people in the central city of Bhopal in December 1984. At least 15,000 others have died since from cancer and other diseases, and deformed children have been born to survivors.

Despite compensation schemes, campaigners say the toll continues to rise as people living near the derelict plant drink water poisoned by toxic waste still present on the site. They want a piped water supply installed for families living nearby. Two years ago a study found contamination in water around the plant 500 times higher than the maximum recommended by the World Health Organisation.

For more than 20 years, victims have been fighting with little success to get the site cleaned up. This year, to highlight their struggle, a group of 40 campaigners and survivors spent 33 days walking the 500 miles from Bhopal to New Delhi, arriving late last month.
guardian.co.uk

Unlike the Antarctic continent spread around the south pole, the Arctic has no formal international treaty to regulate activities. And while howling winds, drifting icebergs and months of freezing darkness kept prospecters at bay, there was little activity to regulate.

But as global warming thaws the ocean’s icy layer, oil giants, shipping companies and even the odd enterprising tourist operator are casting their eyes towards the high north.

Last August a Russian vessel, the Akademik Fyodorov, became the first to reach the north pole without an icebreaker – one of seven ships to make it to the top of the world last year. This summer, Russian icebreakers aim to go one better and take paying guests, for £17,000 each. If the ice continues to thin and shrink as expected, then within a few decades cruise liners, container ships and tankers could all head over the pole, shaving thousands of miles off their voyages across the globe.

The biggest boom could be oil and gas. The US Geological Survey surprised some experts when it declared that a quarter of the world’s undiscovered reserves lay under the Arctic Ocean. As the ice retreats, oil companies are scrambling to open a new frontier.
guardian.co.uk

HOUSTON — Unseasonably hot temperatures forced power utilities around the Houston area and Texas to conduct rolling blackouts on Monday.

As temperatures climbed into the upper 90s and above 100 for another day, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas Inc., which runs Texas’ electricity grid, declared an emergency situation and ordered the blackouts because of the lack of electricity around the state.

ERCOT said it declared the emergency after concluding there was insufficient generating capacity in the region to reliably serve the public’s electricity demand.
As much as 15 percent of the state’s power supply goes off-line each spring so plants can perform seasonal maintenance before energy usage peaks in the summer, said Public Utility Commission spokesman Terry Hadley. He said maintenance is typically finished by mid-May.

But unusually high temperatures this spring have pushed demand for electricity, creating a shortage, he said.

The rollouts were limited to the ERCOT grid, which provides electricity to about 80 percent of Texas.

CenterPoint Energy spokeswoman Emily Mir Thompson said rolling blackouts every 15 minutes for the Houston area were ordered just after 4 p.m. Monday.

“ERCOT requested that 1,000 megawatts of load be dropped throughout the state of Texas, so CenterPoint Energy represents 26 percent of that load. So, we started periodically dropping customers in 15-minute intervals on a rotating basis in our service area,” she said.

Austin Energy said it began its rotating blackouts about 4:20 p.m. to comply with our share of the load shedding requirement.

ERCOT urged customers around the state to curtail their use or electricity to the lowest level possible, including setting their thermostats at 78 degrees or higher and not using electric lighting, appliances or equipment unless absolutely necessary for health or safety.
click2houston.com

Authorities in Romania and Bulgaria were working frantically yesterday to shore up flood defences after the Danube reached its highest levels for more than a century.

Emergency teams and soldiers were trying to prevent further flooding, after a weekend in which hundreds of people were forced to flee their homes. Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria were the worst hit.

Melting snow and steady rain have seen the Danube, which flows from Germany and Austria through the Balkans to the Black Sea, reach levels not seen since 1895. In Romania officials have taken the drastic step of deliberately flooding farmland and forested areas to protect towns.
guardian.co.uk

NDJAMENA, Chad, April 15 (AP) ? Chad threatened Saturday to cut off its flow of oil unless the World Bank releases money frozen in a dispute over how the government should use its oil revenues.

The announcement followed a late-night meeting by President Idriss Déby and his cabinet to discuss their response to the rebel attack on the capital on Thursday. The rebels, led by former commanders in Mr. Déby’s army, were repulsed but are believed to be regrouping nearby.

It is likely that the government wants the frozen money to pay for its fight against the rebels.

Chad had a deal with the World Bank to pay for a pipeline on condition that most of the revenues would be used to ease poverty. Mr. Déby broke that deal this year to use the money to finance his military, prompting the World Bank to suspend $124 million in aid.

The government gave the World Bank until Tuesday to unfreeze the money, saying that if it did not do so Chad would shut down the pipeline that carries its oil through Cameroon to terminals on the Atlantic Ocean.

Chad exports about 160,000 barrels per day, a small amount by world standards.

An Exxon Mobil-led consortium exported 133 million barrels of oil from Chad from October 2003 to December 2005, according to the World Bank. Chad earned $307 million, the bank said.

Hourmadji Moussa Doumgor, the communications minister and government spokesman, said the effort to restrict how the government spends its oil revenues violated Chad’s sovereignty. He said government officials would enter into negotiations with the consortium so that oil revenues would no longer be deposited into Western banks but would go directly to the government.
nytimes.com

LUBUMBASHI, DRCongo (AFP) – More than 167,000 people have fled fighting between the army and militias in Katanga province in the southeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo since mid-November, the UN has said, as violence continues ahead of this year’s crucial elections.

“The number of displaced people continues to rise because several thousand of them, who had stayed hidden in the bush because they were afraid to take the roads, are starting to reach villages where aid is dispatched,” said Alfred Gondo, head of the UN office for the co-ordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA) for the centre of Katanga.

The wave of newly-displaced comes in addition to 121,000 others who had fled the war-torn region of the vast central African state in 2005 following continued unrest.
news.yahoo.com

As the tambourine and drums beat louder and faster, some members of the group climb to their feet. They begin to swirl slowly in circles and raise their hands to the ceiling. A few fall into trances.

“You can somehow touch relaxation,” says 22-year-old Mahsa, who believes that music and dance can provide a direct route to Allah.

“It’s a very good sensation, and you think your soul is flying, that somehow you’re not in your body.”

These Iranians consider themselves Shia Muslims, as do most Iranians, and look to the first Shia Imam, Ali, as a spiritual guide.

But they also call themselves Sufis.

Sufis believe that at the core of all religions lies the same truth and that God is the only reality behind all forms of existence.

They also believe that the individual, through his or her own efforts, can reach spiritual union with God.

Sufism, or Islamic mysticism, appeared in the eighth century in present-day Iraq.

Iranian Sufis say Islamic mysticism has become more and more popular in the country in recent years.

No official statistics are available, but Heshmatollah Riazi, a former professor of philosophy and theology in Iran, believes two to five million Iranians practice Sufism today – compared to only about 100,000 before Iran’s Islamic Revolution of 1979.

He says Iran is home to the largest number of Sufis in the Middle East.
bbc.co.uk