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Summary: U.S./Top News An estimate by public health experts that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died because of the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq is likely an accurate assessment, researchers say, according to Reuters.
Two Republican senators, including the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, yesterday called for direct U.S.-North Korea talks over North Korea's nuclear program, the Washington Times reports.
A senior State Department official apologized Sunday for saying the US had acted with "arrogance" and "stupidity" in its campaign in Iraq. Administration officials had earlier claimed that his remarks had been mistranslated from Arabic.
The Bush administration is drafting a timetable for the Iraqi government to address sectarian divisions and assume a larger role in securing the country, the New York Times reports. Although the plan would not threaten the Iraqi government with a withdrawal of American troops, officials said the Bush administration would consider changes in military strategy and other penalties if Iraq balked at adopting it or failed to meet critical benchmarks within it.
"Plan B" - anything but "staying the course" - has been on the lips of virtually every foreign policy analyst in Washington this past week when the entire capital appeared to decide that whatever the U.S. has been doing in Iraq is failing spectacularly, writes Jim Lobe for Inter Press Service.
Iran President Ahmadinejad said Monday Western powers were wrong if they thought Iran would retreat under political pressure from its nuclear plans, Reuters reports. Some European diplomats say a tough UN sanctions resolution could boost support for Ahmadinejad's conservative government.
Iraq More than three million Iraqis who have been forced to flee their homes to other areas of Iraq and to neighbouring countries are facing what the UN refugee agency describes as a "very bleak future" after the agency's budget for offices across the region was halved for the coming year, the UN reports.
The brother of NFL player Pat Tillman, who was killed in Afghanistan after quitting his team to join the Army Rangers, has spoken out against the the war in Iraq and the Bush administration, AP reports. "Somehow, the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes," Kevin Tillman wrote.
A "polite rebellion" is under way among previously loyal allies of President Bush aimed at persuading him to change course in Iraq and quietly abandon the foreign policy doctrine he had hoped would be the centrepiece of his legacy, the Guardian reports.
After three years of trying to thwart a potent insurgency and tamp down the deadly violence in Iraq, the American military is playing its last hand: the Baghdad security plan, the New York Times reports. Baghdad security may not be a sufficient condition for a more stable Iraq, but it is a necessary condition for any plan that does not simply abandon Iraqis to their fate.
Israel Israel confirmed Sunday it had used phosphorus shells, controversial munitions condemned by many human rights groups, during its war in Lebanon, the Washington Post reports. The Red Cross and human rights groups have urged a world ban on the munitions, saying they cause undue suffering through severe burns.
Many times, this or that Israeli politician has been accused of being a fascist, Uri Avnery writes. But Avigdor Liberman, currently being recruited to join the Israeli government, is the real McCoy. Liberman has called for Israel to be made free of Arabs by swapping Jewish settlements in the West Bank for Palestinian areas in Israel. That's not going to happen, Avnery says. But he fears that Liberman's inclusion in the government will help to legitimize in Israeli political discourse a more realistic possibility which would be even worse: expulsion of the Palestinian population while retaining their land.
Palestine For decades, Palestinian foreign nationals have entered the West Bank and Gaza Strip on three-month tourist visas, renewing them regularly, because residency cards were difficult to obtain, the Washington Post reports. But in recent months Israel's Interior Ministry has refused in many cases to grant new visas, separating thousands of family members from relatives in the occupied territories. Israeli human rights groups say an estimated 70,000 foreign nationals are awaiting visitor permits, which the military rarely issues.
Tensions between rival Fatah and Hamas loyalists continued to smolder Sunday as an informal cease-fire quickly disintegrated, the New York Times reports. Meanwhile, some Israeli cabinet members called for retaking control of Gaza's southern border with Egypt.
Panama Panamanians Sunday overwhelmingly endorsed a plan to modernize the country's aging canal, the New York Times reports. The Times notes that as skyscrapers go up at a furious pace in Panama City, 40 percent of the country's 3 million residents live in poverty.
Bolivia, Ecuador Trade Preferences A senior Bush administration official said this week that the White House would push Congress to pass a bill continuing trade benefits for Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, the Los Angeles Times reports. It wants the bill passed during the "lame-duck session" after the November elections. The benefits are set to expire Dec. 31. The White House said it would push Congress for an extension of trade preferences for all four countries even though relations with Ecuador and Bolivia have been strained. One analyst said the new U.S. posture was a clear effort to send a message to Ecuadorean voters to support candidate the pro-US candiate in the Nov. 26 presidential election.
Contents: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/newsroom/blog/ -------- Robert Naiman Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org