13/11/07

Iraq in the time of cholera
Cesar Chelala, Guardian
It is the kind of news that everybody had been dreading. An outbreak of cholera in Iraq, which started in two northern provinces, has already reached Baghdad and has become Iraq’s biggest cholera outbreak in recent memory. This “frightening and dangerous situation,” as stated by Bahktiyar Ahmed, a Unicef emergency health facilitator, serves to underscore the unrelenting threat to people already affected by a devastated healthcare system. Statistics from the World Health Organisation indicate that there have already been more than 3,300 cases of cholera in the country and more than 33,000 cases of diarrhea, which could be a milder form of the disease. The cholera epidemic aggravates what is already, by any measure, a serious humanitarian and public health emergency….

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.de/?p=38203

Report: Iraqis detained in Lebanon
SAM F. GHATTAS, Associated Press Writer
Iraqis fleeing violence in their homeland are increasingly detained in Lebanon and jailed alongside “common criminals,” a U.S. refugee protection group said Monday. The report by Washington-based Refugees International also outlined discrimination and other obstacles facing Iraqi refugees in Egypt and Syria. The report, however, highlighted the plight of the estimated 50,000 Iraqis who have reached Lebanon. It said authorities have been “systematically arresting and detaining those who are in Lebanon illegally” since May, when government troops battled al-Qaida inspired militants holed up in a Palestinian refugee camp in the country’s north. “The government has taken to detaining Iraqis, placing them in jail with common criminals,” the report said. Lebanese government did not immediately comment on the report. But security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to media, said about half of the estimated 1,000 jailed illegal migrants were Iraqi. Most of them likely face deportation because of prison overcrowding, the officials said….

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.de/?p=38204

US, British and Australian forces build oil-protection base in Iraq
Patrick Martin, WSWS
The US Navy, with the assistance of British and Australian commandos, is building a permanent base to guard two oil-export platforms in Iraqi waters at the northern end of the Persian Gulf, according to a report Monday in the Wall Street Journal. Troops from all three occupying countries are now stationed at the Khawr al Amaya oil terminal, protecting it and the neighboring Al Basrah oil terminal, facilities critical for any significant expansion of tanker shipments of Iraqi oil to the world market..

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.de/?p=38196

Abbas bamboozled again
Khalid Amayreh in Occupied East Jerusalem
….As we all know, Israel has been insisting that the pledges George Bush made to Ariel Sharon in 2004, that Israel would have the right to annex major settlements in the West Bank in the context of a final-status solution, are part and parcel of the roadmap. And how about the 14 reservations Israel appended to its formal acceptance of the roadmap in 2003? Are they also part of it? So, we ask our Palestinian leaders and negotiators: Are these infamous pledges part of the roadmap? If yes, then you are no better than cheap stupid quislings working, knowingly or unknowingly, for the enemy, which qualify you for a treatment and a fate befitting traitors. And if not, then why are you embracing a plan you don’t know what it is and what it means and implies? Finally, Abbas has been telling Arab and western media that he would be willing to trade large parts of East Jerusalem, covered by Jewish colonies such as Ma’ali Adomim, Har Homa, Pisgat Ze’ev, etc, for land of the same area and quality? Well, this is stupidity bordering on treason. Who in his right mind would trade the vicinity of the Al-Aqsa Mosque for a real estate elsewhere? Are Abbas and his followers out of their minds? Are they adopting the old adage “feed me today, and slaughter me tomorrow”?…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.de/?p=38198

Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Tuesday, 13 November 2007
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice. www.freearabvoice.org
In a dispatch posted at 5:56pm Baghdad time Tuesday evening, the Yaqen News Agency reported that mass searches and arrests were underway in the area of al-Karmah, 20km east of al-Fallujah (which is 60km west of Baghdad) in an effort to halt the increasing incidence of Resistance operations in the area. Yaqen reported an official in the al-Fallujah puppet police who asked not to be identified as saying that so far the sweep had led to the arrest of 12 people on “suspicion” of membership in the Resistance. Among the prisoners being held is Hamid Ibrahim, a cameraman for the Reuters News Agency. The official said that all the prisoners had been taken to the al-Fallujah puppet police directory for interrogation. Residents of al-Karmah said that a force of puppet policemen launched a widespread sweep in the town on Tuesday, arresting dozens of young men in random arrests. One witness said that members of the collaborationist tribal puppet police the “al-Anbar Awakening Council” took part in the raids and arrests alongside the puppet policemen….

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.de/?p=38200

Geopolitical Diary: A U.S.-Iranian Trade?
Stratfor
Iran handed over a set of blueprints to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Tuesday that detail precisely how one might shape weapons-grade uranium into a form useable in a nuclear warhead (…) On the surface, this is a manifestly inane move, but only if you assume that Iran really wants a bomb. Stratfor has long maintained that Iran never expects to possess a nuclear weapon. Were Iran to ever get close, Israel and/or the United States undoubtedly would wage an air campaign to prevent its nuclear ascension. Instead, the program is more akin to that of North Korea: It is intended to function as a chip to be traded for concessions in other areas. Pyongyang is trading the North Korean program for international integration; Tehran wishes to trade the Iranian program for security guarantees in Iraq….

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.de/?p=38201

Geopolitical Diary: A U.S.-Iranian Trade?
Stratfor
Iran handed over a set of blueprints to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Tuesday that detail precisely how one might shape weapons-grade uranium into a form useable in a nuclear warhead (…) On the surface, this is a manifestly inane move, but only if you assume that Iran really wants a bomb. Stratfor has long maintained that Iran never expects to possess a nuclear weapon. Were Iran to ever get close, Israel and/or the United States undoubtedly would wage an air campaign to prevent its nuclear ascension. Instead, the program is more akin to that of North Korea: It is intended to function as a chip to be traded for concessions in other areas. Pyongyang is trading the North Korean program for international integration; Tehran wishes to trade the Iranian program for security guarantees in Iraq….

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.de/?p=38201

F.B.I. Says Guards Killed 14 Iraqis Without Cause
DAVID JOHNSTON and JOHN M. BRODER, NYTimes
Federal agents investigating the Sept. 16 episode in which Blackwater security personnel shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians have found that at least 14 of the shootings were unjustified and violated deadly-force rules in effect for security contractors in Iraq, according to civilian and military officials briefed on the case. The F.B.I. investigation into the shootings in Baghdad is still under way, but the findings, which indicate that the company’s employees recklessly used lethal force, are already under review by the Justice Department…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.de/?p=38202

November 13, 2007: Tuesday: 49 Iraqis Killed, 36 Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
At least 49 Iraqis were killed and 36 more were wounded in the latest round of violence. Among the incidents, U.S. troops accidentally killed a woman and infant in Mosul. A large battle was waged in Adwaniya. No Coalition troops were reported killed. In Baghdad, six unidentified bodies were found dumped throughout the city. A roadside bomb in Karrada left eight wounded, including three policemen. A car bomb in front of a mosque in al-Jadida wounded two people. Seven car bombs were confiscated in Adhamiya. A roadside bomb in New Baghdad left no casualties. A U.S. Humvee was damaged during an IED explosion. Also, Prime Minister al-Maliki hopes to end a months-long curfew and reopen closed streets thanks to a reduction in violence in the capital….

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.de/?p=38199

November 13, 2007: Tuesday: 49 Iraqis Killed, 36 Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
At least 49 Iraqis were killed and 36 more were wounded in the latest round of violence. Among the incidents, U.S. troops accidentally killed a woman and infant in Mosul. A large battle was waged in Adwaniya. No Coalition troops were reported killed. In Baghdad, six unidentified bodies were found dumped throughout the city. A roadside bomb in Karrada left eight wounded, including three policemen. A car bomb in front of a mosque in al-Jadida wounded two people. Seven car bombs were confiscated in Adhamiya. A roadside bomb in New Baghdad left no casualties. A U.S. Humvee was damaged during an IED explosion. Also, Prime Minister al-Maliki hopes to end a months-long curfew and reopen closed streets thanks to a reduction in violence in the capital….

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.de/?p=38199

U.S. finds a way to pacify Iraqi town — by using cash
Nancy A. Youssef | McClatchy Newspapers
…The town is run by deals among its anointed leaders, nearly all of them former Sunni Muslim insurgents. None was elected. No one pays any mind to what might be happening in Iraq’s Shiite-dominated parliament in Baghdad. In fact, residents assume that the elected central government will never help them. Instead, the insurgents-turned-leaders depend on an influx of money from the U.S. or from the provincial government to keep Islamic extremists from dominating the town again…. Residents reopened more than 40 shops and are sending their children to school. Townspeople are no longer locked in their homes. But everyone agrees that a major bombing, the assassination of a key figure or a sudden drought of money could break the deal. And it raises questions of what role the central government will have in Iraq. If residents reject that government, can Iraq stay together? Or will the state become a series of fiefdoms run by unelected leaders backed by the United States?…

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.de/?p=38195

ICRC says around 60,000 detained in Iraq
Middle East Online
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Tuesday that around 60,000 people are currently detained in Iraq. “Today, there are some estimated 60,000 persons deprived of freedom and detained by the Iraqi authorities or the US-led coalition in different places all over Iraq,” said Karl Matti, head of the Jordan-based Iraq delegation. “The ICRC has access to part of them,” said Matti, adding that the international relief agency also has access to “permanent places of detention” run by the coalition forces. “The ICRC looks forward to sign soon an agreement with the Iraqi government granting general access to all places of detention. Negotiations are ongoing,” he told a press conference in Amman….

Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.de/?p=38194