Hospital sources in southern Afghanistan says suspected Taleban insurgents on motorcycles have attacked a police checkpoint, killing five officers and wounding three.

A doctor at the hospital where the victims were taken says the ambush occurred Sunday on the outskirts of Kandahar city.

Meanwhile, in neighboring Helmand province, a Taleban militant, posing as a traveler looking for a place to spend the night, killed four policemen after eating dinner with them.

Local authorities say the assailant shot the officers after they had gone to sleep late Friday.

In the same province Saturday, Taleban insurgents torched four fuel trucks delivering supplies to coalition forces. Local authorities say the drivers were not harmed.
voanews.com

MP assassinated in Afghan capital

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 1 — The war in Iraq has entered a bloodier phase, with the killings of Iraqi civilians rising tremendously in daily sectarian violence while American casualties have steadily declined, spurring tens of thousands of Iraqis to flee from mixed Shiite-Sunni areas.

The new pattern, detailed in casualty and migration statistics from the past six months and in interviews with American commanders and Iraqi officials, has led to further separation of Shiite and Sunni Arabs, moving the country toward a de facto partitioning along sectarian and ethnic lines — an outcome that the Bush administration has doggedly worked to avoid over the past three years.

The nature of the Iraq war has been changing since at least the late autumn, when political friction between Sunni Arabs and Shiite Arabs rose even as American troops began implementing a long-term plan to decrease their street presence. But the killing accelerated after the bombing on Feb. 22 of a revered Shiite shrine, which unleashed a wave of sectarian bloodletting.

About 900 Iraqi civilians died violently in March, up from about 700 the month before, according to military statistics and the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, an independent organization that tracks deaths. Meanwhile, at least 29 American troops were killed in March, the second-lowest monthly total since the war began.
nytimes.com

Explosions, grisly finds in Baghdad
Insurgents blew up a small Shi’ite mosque north-east of Baghdad today, while police reported the discovery of nearly 40 bodies in several neighbourhoods of the Iraqi capital.

The US military reported the death of three American soldiers.

US and UK forces establish ‘enduring bases’ in Iraq
The Pentagon has revealed that coalition forces are spending millions of dollars establishing at least six “enduring” bases in Iraq – raising the prospect that US and UK forces could be involved in a long-term deployment in the country. It said it assumed British troops would operate one of the bases.

Love and hate in Baghdad
This is the extraordinary blog of ‘Riverbend’, a young Iraqi woman who lays bare her life in occupied Iraq. It has been long-listed for the Samuel Johnson literary prize.

The Government is to hold secret talks with defence chiefs tomorrow to discuss possible military strikes against Iran.

A high-level meeting will take place in the Ministry of Defence at which senior defence chiefs and government officials will consider the consequences of an attack on Iran.

It is believed that an American-led attack, designed to destroy Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear bomb, is “inevitable” if Teheran’s leaders fail to comply with United Nations demands to freeze their uranium enrichment programme.
telegraph.co.uk

Baradei Urges Calm in Iran Debate

Sleuths look for the tiniest smoking gun that could lead to war on Iran

Hugo Chávez Warns of Impending Invasion of Iran

UNITED NATIONS, March 31 — Britain circulated a draft resolution to Security Council members on Friday that would transfer the war crimes trial of Charles G. Taylor, the former Liberian president, to the Netherlands because of what it said was a threat to regional peace posed by his continued presence in West Africa.

Under its terms, Mr. Taylor would be tried in the International Criminal Court complex in The Hague under the auspices of the United Nations-backed court that was established in Sierra Leone to try people suspected of responsibility for atrocities during the country’s civil war, from 1991 to 2002.

Mr. Taylor was indicted by that court in March 2003, while still president of Liberia, on 17 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. He had been living in exile in Nigeria from August 2003 until Wednesday, when he was arrested while trying to flee to Cameroon and flown to Sierra Leone.

Mr. Taylor is accused of backing rebels who, in a civil war that killed 50,000 people, gained grisly notoriety for raping victims and maiming and killing people by chopping off their arms, legs, hands, ears and lips.

The draft resolution said Mr. Taylor’s presence in West Africa constituted “an impediment to stability and a threat to the peace of Liberia and of Sierra Leone, and to international peace and security in the region.”
nytimes.com

If Not Peace, Then Justice

I. A Day in Court for the Criminals of Darfur?

A thick afternoon fog enveloped the trees and streetlights of The Hague, a placid city built along canals, a city of art galleries, clothing boutiques, Vermeers and Eschers. It is not for these old European boulevards, however, that The Hague figures in the minds of men and women in places as far apart as Uganda, Sarajevo and now Sudan. Rather, it symbolizes the possibility of some justice in the world, when the state has collapsed or turned into an instrument of terror. The Hague has long been home to the International Court of Justice (or World Court), a legal arm of the United Nations, which adjudicates disputes between states. During the Balkan wars, a tribunal was set up here for Yugoslavia; it has since brought cases against 161 individuals. It was trying Slobodan Milosevic — the first genocide case brought against a former head of state — until his unexpected death last month. And now the International Criminal Court has begun its investigations into the mass murders and crimes against humanity that have been committed, and are still taking place, in the Darfur region of Sudan.

How ugly, the perpetrators of horrific crimes in Africa with total impunity now taking up the mantle of Great White bringers of ‘peace and justice.’

An Open Letter to New Exxon/Mobil CEO, Rex Tillerson

You have to be feeling pretty good about your new position heading the world’s largest oil and gas company. You stand astride the globe where, with few exceptions, the Congress is like putty in your hands, the White House is your House and the consuming public is powerless. Governments in the Third World may huff and puff, but Exxon/Mobil pretty much gets its way in dozens of arrangements completed and about to be concluded.

Seven years ago, your predecessor, Lee Raymond, took over Exxon’s main competitor, Mobil Oil Company, through a merger approved by the misnamed Antitrust Division of the Justice Department. Really, what is left of antitrust standards when the number one and number two companies in an industry are permitted to marry?

Profits of your company are beyond your dreams of avarice. Over $36 billion last year, after modest taxes, yet you blithely ignored urgent pleas by members of Congress, especially that of the powerful Chairman, Senator Chuck Grassley (Rep. Iowa) to contribute some significant deductible money to charities which help impoverished American families pay the exorbitant prices for heating oil this past winter. Rarely has there been such a demonstration of corporate greed and insensitivity by a company that has received huge government welfare subsidies, de-regulation and tax expenditures over the years at the expense of the smaller taxpayers of America.

…Unchanged is Exxon/Mobil’s stubborn refusal to pay the modest $5 billion punitive damage award following the Exxon Valdez oil spill that damaged or put so many small businesses out of business. They are still waiting, according to a recent network television expose. Last year your company made that much post-tax profits in about seven weeks. After the devastating spill in Alaskan waters, your gasoline prices rose sharply in California and you made money there. And your delay for 12 years resisting the court ordered payout by legal maneuvers has returned in interest on that award about that amount. Not that many years ago, a company in your mega-profitable position would have considered the public relations if not the simple justice benefits before dragging on the proceedings. Not so, with the impregnable Exxon/Mobil.
counterpunch.org

A Tangle in Caracas for Exxon
… Few moves can rattle the executive suites of companies here in Houston. But one that did came late this week: a comment from Venezuela’s energy minister, Rafael Ramírez, who essentially told Exxon that it was no longer welcome in Venezuela.

“We don’t want them to be here, then,” Mr. Ramírez said Thursday in a television interview in relation to Exxon’s earlier decision to sell its stake in an oil field to Repsol of Spain rather than submit to a venture controlled by Petróleos de Venezuela. Venezuela’s Congress approved measures this week that give the government control of 32 privately run oil fields.

If Venezuela needs Exxon, Mr. Ramirez said, “we’ll call them.”

Still, nothing is simple in the relationship between Venezuela and Exxon, which played a contentious role in the building of the country’s oil industry. For all the rising tensions, the relationship between Exxon and Venezuela is more nuanced and intertwined than the harsh statements from Mr. Ramírez might suggest.

Exxon’s chief executive, Rex W. Tillerson, said this month that he, at least for the moment, would avoid making any major investments in the country. Western oil companies fear a creeping nationalization of petroleum assets in Venezuela under Mr. Chávez’s government, which is using its growing wealth from high oil prices to spread its influence around the rest of Latin America.

Those rising revenues from oil exports have also emboldened Mr. Chávez’s government in its dealings with foreign energy companies.

Yet for all its difficulties in Venezuela, the placement of Exxon in the government’s cross hairs may have more to do with symbolism than substance because of the way the company is perceived as a symbol of American influence in a country where anti-American sentiment is flourishing.

Exxon also stands out because of its signature method of dealing with governments in countries where it operates. Exxon, for example, has publicly criticized Venezuela’s moves to increase royalties on projects in the country’s Orinoco region, threatening last year to take the issue to international courts.

Venezuela has repeatedly been a challenging operating arena for Exxon, with the company taken off a $3 billion petrochemical project in February and a $5 billion project to export natural gas in 2002.

While Exxon and Venezuela continue to dance around each other, most other foreign oil companies operating there, including some of the largest energy concerns from the United States, Britain and France, have acquiesced to government requests for higher taxes, royalties and even fines.

MOQUEGUA, Peru, March 28 — In a presidential campaign filled with symbolism, the front-runner here found a perfect image for his hard-charging crusade: on Tuesday, he jumped on a chestnut mare and, with his followers sprinting behind him, galloped to the central plaza to promise to revolutionize this Andean country.

The candidate is Ollanta Humala, 43, who was seeking to evoke the image of the authoritarian man on horseback known as the caudillo. He says that if elected on April 9, he will waste no time before cracking down on the multinationals he says cheat citizens and arresting the crooked politicians he says have plundered Peru. As the leader of the newly formed Nationalist Party, he also says he will ally himself with President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, who wants to form a bulwark against the Bush administration.

Mr. Humala, whose first name means “warrior who sees all,” is as populist as they come on a continent that has been swept by leftist leaders mining popular discontent with free-market policies and suspicions of the United States. His antiglobalization stance and talk of transforming the economy provoke fear in the entrepreneurial class; the stock market suffered its biggest tumble in five years when he rose in the polls.
nytimes.com

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — U.S. corporate profits have increased 21.3% in the past year and now account for the largest share of national income in 40 years, the Commerce Department said Thursday.

Strong productivity gains and subdued wage growth boosted before-tax profits to 11.6% of national income in the fourth quarter of 2005, the biggest share since the summer of 1966.

For all of 2005, before-tax profits totaled $1.35 trillion, up from $1.16 trillion in 2004 and just $767 billion in 2001.

Meanwhile, the share of national income going to wage and salary workers has fallen to 56.9%. Except for a brief period in 1997, that’s the lowest share for labor income since 1966.

“It’s a big puzzle,” said Josh Bivens, an economist for the Economic Policy Institute. “If this is a knowledge economy, how come the brains aren’t being compensated? Instead, the owners of physical capital are getting the rewards.”

Despite the flood of cash coming in the door, corporations are investing comparatively little in expanding their operations. Capital spending has been below average, especially considering the strength of the economy, the level of profits and the special tax breaks given to boost investment.

In the fourth quarter, business fixed investment increased just 4.5%. In the past year, investment has risen 6.8%. The growth rate has been falling for the past four quarters.

Some economists are counting on the corporate sector to pick up their investments in the coming year, to replace the economic stimulus that will be lost as the housing market cools.

Profits have been so high because almost all of the benefits from productivity improvements are flowing to the owners of capital rather than to the workers.
marketwatch.com

April is Confederate History month. Before the pall of political correctness descended on the country and drained politicians of what little courage they had, Southern governors routinely proclaimed the month. These days, I suspect few will.

Nevertheless, there are only two really important events in American history. One is the American Revolution, and the other is the War Between the States and Reconstruction. The latter has been called America’s second revolution and, by some, America’s French Revolution.

Sad to say, the America we live in today comes from that second revolution, not the first. Contrary to the politically correct version of history, Confederates saw themselves as defenders of the first revolution, not as defenders of slavery – though, to be sure, slavery played a part in the conflict. It came to symbolize all the other differences.

It was not a civil war because the South never aspired to overthrow the government of the United States. The Southern states simply withdrew peacefully from what they believed, and in earlier years all Americans believed, was a voluntary union. The U.S. remained, and the government in Washington remained. No Confederate official or military officer was ever tried for treason because no treason had been committed.

The war, which the North started (we Southerners refer to it as the War of Northern Aggression), was a conflict between nationalism and federalism. Regardless of which side you agree with, the events are so important to understanding America today that you owe it to yourself to get up to speed on what really happened, as opposed to the Hollywood version.
lewrockwell.com

If South Dakota’s abortion ban stands, it won’t ban them from all parts of the state. The Oglala Sioux tribe president wants to open a women’s clinic on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation that will offer abortions only if House Bill 1215 becomes law.

Cecilia Fire Thunder, President, Oglala Sioux Tribe

“The best solution to abortion is to make sure that women have access to contraceptives, have access to family planning options, and that information needs to be out there at all times where all women of childbearing age have that information and use it.”

For those reasons, Fire Thunder wants to open a women’s clinic on Pine Ridge, providing women with birth control options and proper health care, and if 1215 passes the clinic would also provide abortions.

“We just want to make sure that something is done for women who make that decision. All we can do is provide that to them, no questions asked. It’s their choice. It’s between her and God and that unborn baby. And I honor that.”

South Dakota Attorney General Larry Long says providing an abortion on the Pine Ridge Reservation is not unlawful because state law doesn’t apply to sovereign land.
msnbc.msn.com

What an astonishing historical irony. If they had been able, the US government would have aborted every Lakota baby.

Is Barry Bonds the object of a racist witch-hunt? Over the last week I have had to publicly argue this issue against some of the finest minds of my generation (all right, John Rocker and Jose Canseco). In addition, I have duked it out on talk radio, sports radio, email chats, and various blogs. The dominant argument I hear repeatedly, whether from Mr. Rocker or Mr. Liberal Blogger, is that I am an idiot if I think that the Bonds steroid-mania is all about bigotry run amok. Unfortunately that is not my argument.

To be clear:

I don’t think that everyone against Bonds is a racist. I don’t think every sportswriter who wants Bonds punished is a racist. And I certainly don’t think anyone who believes in harsh penalties for steroid use is a racist. One can hate Barry Bonds and also spend Sundays singing “We Shall Overcome” with the Harlem Boys Choir before reading select passages from Go Tell it On The Mountain. But to argue that race has nothing to do with the saga of Barry Bonds is to practice ignorance frightening in its Rocker-ian grandiosity.

Of course you can always simply agree with San Francisco Giants owner Peter Magowan, CEO of Safeway Supermarkets and anti-union zealot, who believes that it is a remarkable sign of racial progress that Barry Bonds is flayed before the public. Magowan said, “I don’t believe this is a case of racism. In fact, I think this shows how far we’ve come. If the media brought this up 20 years ago, they would have been considered racists.”

Now that’s progress. The media can be as racist as they want without being called on it.

The fact is that racism smears this entire story like rancid cream cheese on a stale bialy.

First and foremost, there are the death threats. USA Ttoday reported yesterday that Bonds is being deluged with letters that threaten his life, many with overtones about as subtle as a burning cross. Today I was on a tremendous radio show out of Cincinnati called The Buzz, and we were deluged with calls by older African-Americans who recalled with chilling clarity the trials of Henry Aaron. When Aaron approached Babe Ruth’s home run record, the death threats came rolling in. Now that Bonds is just six behind Ruth’s 714, the slurs are returning 32 years later like a white power Halley’s Comet.
counterpunch.org