HOUSTON, April 21 Thousands of hurricane evacuees who counted on a year of free housing and utilities are being told by the Federal Emergency Management Agency that they are no longer eligible for such help and must either pay the rent themselves or leave.

Of about 55,000 families who were given long-term housing vouchers, nearly a third are receiving notices that they no longer qualify, FEMA officials said. For the rest, benefits are also being cut: they will have to sign new leases, pay their own gas and electric bills and requalify for rental assistance every three months.
nytimes.com

South Africa has been hailed for its peaceful transition to democracy, yet the past still haunts those who were oppressed by the racist apartheid regime.

This month, the country marks the 10th anniversary since the first sitting of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), designed to allow victims to deal with the horrors of apartheid, which ended in 1994.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who led the commission, acknowledges the forum’s success in setting an international benchmark for dealing with post-conflict situations.

But, he adds, it failed to uncover the truth in many cases or meet the needs of victims.

“We probably shouldn’t have operated as we did. Amnesty was granted with immediate effect,” he said at a gathering in Cape Town, South Africa, to mark the anniversary.

Tutu was also unhappy with the “ungenerous reparations” paid to apartheid victims who appeared before the commission.

“We should have had a budget (for victims) and estimated what they should get, with immediate effect.”

Instead, the ANC government decided in 2003 to grant a once-off reparations payment of 30,000 rand ($3,670 at the time) to apartheid victims who gave testimony to the commission.

Many among the more than 21,000 victims thought the amount wasn’t even enough to meet their medical expenses.
aljazeera.net

Havana, April 26 (ACN) Bolivia will sign an accord with Cuba and Venezuela next Saturday, in Havana, to join the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) and launch the PeoplesÍ Trade Treaty (TCP).

At a public rally, held in the Bolivian city of Cochabamba on Tuesday, Bolivian President Evo Morales said that the initiative will allow a free-of-tariff flow of goods between the three countries.

President Morales said that Bolivia’s soy-bean production, whose sales were largely affected by the signing of a Free Trade Agreement between Colombia and the United States, has secured its market in Venezuela.

He added that there was an interest in the purchase of quinua, a fat free highly nutritious plant and the trade of coca-leaf with Cuba and Venezuela for medicinal purposes.
cubaweb.cu

La Coca: An Indigenous Perspective
Don Justico is one of thousands of campesinos who live in the uplands of the Andes. When I ask him about coca, he tells me:
“In the last ten years its cost has skyrocketed from 10 loaves per pound to 50. This hurts me deeply because these little leaves, I see them each time moving farther away from my family. I chew my coca to guide me in the planning of the dates for sowing my land. I chew my coca to begin the harvest, and its sweet or bitter taste is a microcosmic prediction of the success or failure of my efforts.

“The relationship between coca and myself (which cannot be said the other way around) is a companionship that’s almost biological and magical. It is biological in the sense that each leaf I lift to my mouth is intertwined with an intimate need whose purpose only it, in communion with humans, can comprehend. It is magical in the sense that it guides me to plan the fiestas of happiness or sadness of my community.

…Big Oil has been pushing its pipelines into the Amazon rainforest frontier since the 1960s. Nowadays, prompted by high oil prices and militarization of the Middle East’s fossil fuels, the eastern slope of the Andes and the Amazonian jungle lowlands are being stripped, sawed, plowed, and piped into a global barrel of politically cheap fossil fuels. From Colombia to Ecuador, Brazil to Peru, themes are common: sloppy extractive industries tainting key ecosystems, polluting water, killing plants and animals, and causing strange human illnesses. The Camisea Natural Gas Project is the king of all extraction projects in this region, a billion-dollar operation that taps jungle gas here in the Lower Urubamba, then pipes it over the Andes and down to the Peruvian coast.
grist.org

On Monday, April 17 the US Ambassador in Nicaragua met with right wing parties in the country to discuss their opposition strategy against Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega in the November 5 presidential elections. Support for Ortega is growing, and many expect him to win the race. The US has called on Nicaraguans to not vote for Ortega.

Reuters reported that U.S. envoy Paul Trivelli is lobbying right-wing parties to join forces and pick a single candidate to represent them in the election, to reduce the chances of a Sandinista victory. He said his intention was “to see if we can push the democratic unification of this country a little more.”
Stratfor.com reports that

Eduardo Montealegre of the right-wing Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance represents Nicaragua’s future, U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua Paul Trivelli said April 19. Trivelli met with representatives from the country’s right-wing parties, including the prominent Liberal Constitutionalist Party, on April 17-18 to discuss potential candidates to oppose former Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega of the left-wing Sandinista National Liberation Front in Nicaragua’s Nov. 5 election.
upsidedownworld.org

Correction: Stories on April 6, 7 and 13 about the Divine Strake test at Nevada Test Site incorrectly reported that the explosion planned for June 2 will be five times larger than the largest conventional weapon in the U.S. arsenal. The explosion actually will be nearly 50 times bigger.

WASHINGTON – A powerful blast scheduled at the Nevada Test Site in June is designed to help war planners figure out the smallest nuclear weapon able to destroy underground targets. And it has caused a concern that it signals a renewed push toward tactical nuclear weapons.

The detonation, called Divine Strake, is intended to “develop a planning tool to improve the warfighter’s confidence in selecting the smallest proper nuclear yield necessary to destroy underground facilities while minimizing collateral damage,” according to Defense Department budget documents.

Irene Smith, a spokeswoman for the Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency, said the document doesn’t imply that Divine Strake “is a nuclear simulation.” She said it will be used to assess computer programs that predict ground shaking in a major blast.

While it will not be a nuclear explosion – no nuclear or radioactive material will be used – the Divine Strake blast will be fifty times larger than the military’s largest conventional weapon, the Massive Ordinance Air Blast Bomb, or MOAB, nicknamed the Mother of All Bombs. It will still be many times less powerful than the smallest weapon in the U.S. nuclear stockpile.
sltrib.com

ZAKHU, Iraq, April 21 (Reuters) – Iranian forces shelled Iranian Kurdish rebel positions inside mountainous northern Iraq on Friday to repel an attack, wounding at least four civilians, Iraqi Kurdish officials said.

“This morning Iranian Kurdish fighters infiltrated the border into the Iranian side and the Iranian army bombed the area and repelled them. The shelling hit Iraqi land at Sidakan,” said Saadi Pira, an official in Iraq’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party.
alertnet.org

JERUSALEM (AP) – Iran has recently purchased missiles from North Korea that put European countries within firing range, Israel’s military intelligence chief said, according to an Israeli newspaper report Thursday.

The BM-25 surface-to-surface missiles, which have a range of 1,550 miles, are capable of carrying nuclear warheads, and part of the shipment has already reached Iran, the Haaretz daily reported Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin as saying.
guardian.co.uk

ANKARA, April 26 (KUNA) — An incursion into northern Iraq by military units of the Turkish Special Forces was reported Wednesday by a Turkish daily.

“The operation was aimed at chasing Kurdish secessionist armed elements near the Turkish border,” the paper said.

“Turkish forces were reported several kilometers deep into Iraqi territory as they were chasing Kurdish gunmen in neighboring Kurdish villages,” the paper said.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiar Zibari expressed dismay about the incursion and summoned Turkish Ambassador to Iraq Unal Cevikoz and asked him to convey to Ankara “Iraq’s wish that such incusions be halted.” Meanwhile, Iraqi Ambassador in Ankara Sabah Omran on Wednesday paid a visit to Turkish Special Representative in Iraq Oguz Celikkols at his office in Ankara and urged him to put a stop to the Turkish incursions because they could “upset law and order in the entire Iraqi territories.” Celikkols is due to convey this wish to the Ankara government.
kuna.net

Ten minutes to midnight
The armies of Turkey and Iran are getting ready for showdown with the PKK. About 230,000 Turkish soldiers have been massing along the border with southern Kurdistan (northern Iraq) since April 2. The Iranians, in coordination with the Turks, have massed along “their” border with southern Kurdistan with about 30,000-50,000 soldiers according to Kurdish non-media sources close to HPG.

Turkish and Iranian incursions into southern Kurdistan have already occurred, and one Turkish battalion has already positioned itself within the borders of southern Kurdistan. Turkish forces crossed the border in two occasions on week 15. Incursions occurred at the Sirnak-Zaxo and the Esendere (Shemzinan [Semdinli])-Barzan borders, the HPG Press and Liaison Center (HPG-BIM) reported on April 13.

On April 23, one Turkish battalion moved and positioned itself inside southern Kurdistan close to Shemzinan (Semdinli). HPG identified it as a preparation and scout unit. Some sources call the battalion an “expendable bait” in order to easily justify a full-scale invasion if attacked. The battalion are currently under supervision by HPG scouts and special forces.

All Turkish gendarmerie bases in the Gerdiya area have been filled with soldiers from the Mountain Commando Brigades of Bolu and Kayseri. Two commando brigades, a total of 3,000 soldiers, from Bolu and Kayseri have been sent to the area. [1]

BIM also reports that a battalion of Turkish commando soldiers from the brigades has positioned itself at the zero point border in Gerdiya. The Bolu brigade is currently positioned in or around the Ikizce battalion in the Gabar mountains in the Sirnak province, with some selected soldiers positioned along the zero point.

Only a small number of the 200,000 Turkish soldiers „ the majority of them mechanized brigades, artillery units and commando forces „ have been positioned at the zero points. The leaves for all soldiers positioned in Kurdistan have been canceled for six months and current leaves have been recalled.

Iranian forces conducting military operations, in coordination with the Turkish army, in the Kelaresh area „ located between Salmas and Maku in eastern Kurdistan and which stretches into southern Kurdistan „ clashed with HPG guerrillas on the 18th day of the military operations. A HPG unit was ambushed by Iranian soldiers, triggering a fierce clash where two HPG guerrillas and six Iranian soldiers, of them one Major, were killed. BIM identified the martyred HPG guerrillas as Ersin Sefil (Memyan) of Erzurum and Cemil Yildirim (ÉzgŮr Deniz), 29, of Ankara. The clash occurred in the Kelaresh area of southern Kurdistan.

This is stating the obvious, but events are spiralling into maximum chaos.

QATIF, Saudi Arabia „ The conflict in Iraq has begun to spill over onto this hardscrabble, sunburned swath of coast, breathing new life into the ancient rivalry between the country’s powerful Sunni Muslim majority and the long-oppressed Shiite minority in one of the most oil-rich areas of the world.

“Saudi Sunnis are defending Iraqi Sunnis, and Saudi Shiites are defending Iraqi Shiites,” said Hassan Saffar, Saudi Arabia’s most influential Shiite cleric. “There’s a fear that it will cause a struggle here.”
newsday.com