Summary: U.S. An EU panel has serious doubts about the legality of a Bush administration program that monitors international financial transactions, the group's leader said Monday, and plans to recommend tighter controls to prevent privacy abuses.
The Bush administration successfully pressed for a less restrictive description of how it could designate civilians as "unlawful enemy combatants." Kate Martin of the Center for National Security Studies said by including those who "supported hostilities" - rather than those who "engage in acts" against the US - the government intends the legislation to sanction seizure and indefinite detention of people far from the battlefield.
The conduct of the Iraq war fueled Islamic fundamentalism and created more enemies for the US, a retired U.S. Army general who served in the conflict said Monday.
The Army's top officer withheld a required 2008 budget plan from Pentagon leaders last month after protesting to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld that the service could not maintain its current level of activity in Iraq plus other global commitments without billions in additional funding, the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday.
55 per cent of US respondents believe the situation in Iraq was not worth going to war over, according to a poll by Bloomberg and the Los Angeles Times. 63 per cent of respondents believe neither side is winning the war.
Iran U.S. Secretary of State Rice said she did not support a gasoline embargo on Iran as a way of punishing Tehran for refusing to give up its uranium enrichment program. "I'm not sure that it would have the desired effect,'' she said. "You want to stay away from things that have a bad effect on the Iranian people to the degree that you can,'' she said. The comments appear to represent a more enlightened position on the question of the impact of sanctions on civilians than the views expressed by US officials during the Clinton Administration regarding sanctions on Iraq.
Iran is close to a deal that would include a temporary suspension of uranium enrichment and clear the way for nuclear talks but Tehran wants to keep the agreement secret, the Washington Times reported Tuesday. The leaking of the information by a Bush Administration official raises questions about the motivations of the official and whether European officials should be more circumspect in sharing information with their US counterparts.
Russia will ship fuel to a controversial atomic power plant it is building in Iran by March under a deal signed Tuesday, news agencies reported.
Lebanon Up to a million unexploded cluster bomblets are now the biggest threat to civilians in south Lebanon, U.N. agencies said Tuesday. Fourteen people have been killed and 90 wounded by unexploded ordnance since the end of the war, with all the fatalities and most of the injuries caused by cluster munitions. The U.N. Mine Action Coordination Center said Israel had yet to provide detailed information on the amounts of cluster bombs fired or the coordinates of the strikes.
Israel and an international peacekeeping force have yet to agree on rules of engagement in south Lebanon that would enable Israeli troops to complete a planned pullout, Israeli Defense Minister Peretz said Tuesday. Peretz's comments seemed to suggest a full withdrawal would take place by the start of the Jewish day of atonement, Yom Kippur, at sundown Sunday.
Pakistan The CIA paid Pakistan millions of dollars for handing over more than 350 suspected al-Qaeda terrorists to the US, Pakistani President Musharraf has reportedly said. The assertions come in the military ruler's upcoming memoir "In the Line of Fire." Such payments are banned by the US government. A Department of Justice official said: "We didn't know about this. It should not happen. These bounty payments are for private individuals who help to trace terrorists on the FBI's most wanted list, not foreign governments."
Thailand Last week was not the first time Thailand's monarch had given his blessing to a military takeover. A new history of the modern Thai monarchy argues that in his 60-year reign King Bhumibol Adulyadej has put the preservation of the monarchy ahead of a democratic Thailand. The book, "The King Never Smiles," challenges years of royal image-making that projects a king beyond politics, a man of peace, good works and Buddhist humility.
Bolivia Many Bolivians had hoped the election of Morales as president would end the instability marked by seven presidents in six years, the New York Times reports. But nine months into his term, Morales seems beset on all sides. The president is now being portrayed by some former supporters as a lackey of foreign interests and the country's light-skinned elite. Meanwhile, the president faces unrest in eastern provinces, where the elite of mostly European descent are pushing for more autonomy.
Contents: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/newsroom/index.html
-------- Robert Naiman Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org
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