Chechnya, according to the Russian Federal authorities, is returning to a state of normalcy after decades of unrest. A process of "Chechenization" is supposed to be underway, transferring the task of law-enforcement to pro-Moscow Chechen officials who are generally assumed to have given up any sympathies they might have had for separatism or national independence. The government they represent, led by the 3-year-old premier Ramzan Kadyrov, is presented to the nations of the West as an example of how radical Islam can be defeated and made to obey.
Yet there are many signs that this is far from what is actually happening on the ground. Indeed, if one looks closely, one discovers that not only is the closure of independent mosques leading, as Anna Neistat reported in the London Review of Books in July, to a re-radicalization of Chechen youth -- the Kadyrov regime itself is increasingly showing itself to be as ruthless and bloody as the Islamists it professes to replace. C.J. Chivers, whose shattering, extensive account of the Beslan tragedy, The School, aroused empathy and horror throughout the world, has written for the New York Times a description of what happened to a Chechen woman who because of some aspects of her family life managed to incur the violent wrath and vindictiveness of the local security forces:
The humiliation of Malika Soltayeva, a pregnant Chechen woman suspected of adultery, was ferocious and swift.
Ms. Soltayeva, 23, had been away from home for a month and was reported missing by her family. When she returned, her husband accused her of infidelity and banished her from their apartment. The local authorities found her at her aunt’s residence. They said they had a few questions.
What followed was no investigation. In a law enforcement compound in this town in east-central Chechnya, the men who served as Argun’s police sheared away her hair and her eyebrows and painted her scalp green, the color associated with Islam. A thumb-thick cross was smeared on her brow.
Ms. Soltayeva, a Muslim, had slept with a Christian Russian serviceman, they said. Her scarlet letter would be an emerald cross. She was forced to confess, ordered to strip, and beaten with wooden rods and hoses on her buttocks, arms, legs, hands, stomach and back.
“Turn and be condemned by Allah,” one of her tormentors said, demanding that she position herself so he could strike her more squarely.
The torture of Ms. Soltayeva, recorded on a video obtained by The New York Times, and other recent brutish acts and instances of religious policing, raise questions about Chechnya’s direction.
Read it all.
The idea that a country at war can't attack the enemy's resupply routes (at least until it has direct evidence that there is a particular military shipment arriving) has nothing to do with human rights or war crimes, and a lot to do with a pacifist attitude that seeks to make war, regardless of the justification for it or the restraint in prosecuting it [at least if it's a Western country doing it], an international "crime."
Law professor David Bernstein, quoted in Alan Dershowitz's searching analysis of Amnesty International's capitulation to double standards in its repeated attacks on Israel.
By Umalt Chadayev
(my tr.)
Via Prague Watchdog
Ten years ago Aleksandr Lebed and Aslan Maskhadov brought the war of 1994-1996 to a virtual conclusion. The signing of the so-called "Khasavyurt accords" was preceded by the seizure of the Chechen capital and other towns and major population centres by guerrilla forces on August 6.
In Russia today the "Khasavyurt Peace", which in the view of many signified the federal centre’s defeat by the Chechen guerrillas and very nearly its capitulation to them, is usually “attributed” to the late General Alexander Lebed. It is, however, obvious that Lebed, who was then in government service, acted on the direct orders of Boris Yeltsin, the master of the Kremlin at the time.
"By the summer of 1996 the situation in Chechnya had more or less reached deadlock,” a local political analyst believes. “The Russian army occupied almost the whole of Chechnya, but fighting continued all the same. In nearly every population centre there were self-defence groups and Ichkerian government bodies parallel to those of the pro-Moscow forces. The guerrillas were present in practically every town and village. Indeed, after the end of the ‘first’ war Maskhadov and other field commanders said that only 800 guerrillas took part in the seizure of Grozny on August 6, and that the remaining several thousand had already been in the city for a long time. This in itself tells us something."
"In the end Lebed saved the lives of thousands of Russian soldiers and tens of thousand of civilians,” he says. “The fact is that nearly all the places in Grozny where Russian soldiers were deployed were subject to a total blockade. The soldiers’ supplies of water, food and ammunition had run out. General Pulikovsky's ultimatum, which demanded that Grozny’s inhabitants should leave the city in 48 hours, and threatened to wipe it off the face of the earth with air and artillery, was dictated more by the hopelessness of the situation than anything else. The situation was no longer under the Russian soldiers’ control, and many local law-enforcers either went over to the side of the guerrillas or simply fled."
The agreement signed at Khasavyurt between the Russian and Chechen sides was given an ambiguous reception even at the time. The generals spoke of having been “robbed of victory” and "not allowed to finish off the guerrillas”, while the ultra-patriots called the document “capitulatory” and “treacherous” with regard to Russia – even though at Khasavyurt Lebed and Maskhadov agreed only on a cessation of hostilities, the withdrawal of Russian troops, the joint combating of crime and terrorism, and the future restoration of Chechnya’s social and economic sphere.
Nationalistically-inclined Russian politicians were extremely irritated by the point in the agreement which stated that relations between Chechnya and Russia were to be built on the observance of the principles of international law, and not in accordance with the Russian constitution. In other words, the Chechen Republic was acknowledged as being subject to international law, and this could be treated as a de facto recognition of the republic’s independence.
The original plan was for two Russian military brigades – one from the Ministry of Defence and one from the Interior Ministry – to be permanently deployed on the territory of the Chechen Republic. However, by the end of December all units and subdivisions of federal forces were withdrawn from Chechnya.
In the night of August 31, General Lebed and Aslan Maskhadov signed two documents at Khasavyurt: the "Announcement of a cessation of hostilities in the Chechen Republic" and the "Principles for identifying the foundations for mutual relations between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic”. These two documents became the basis of a ceasefire which lasted approximately 20 months.
The bottom line under the “first Chechen war” was drawn, however, not by General Lebed but by Boris Yeltsin. On May 12, 1997, Aslan Maskhadov, who had been elected President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria in national elections several months earlier, signed the "Agreement on peace and the principles of mutual relations between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria" with Russia’s President Boris Yeltsin. One of the points of this document made it clear that the two sides forever rejected "the application of force and the threat of the application of force for the resolution of any disputed issues.”
Nevertheless, the signing of the agreement did not prevent the Kremlin from starting a new war in Chechnya in the autumn of 1999. It was now called a "counter-terrorist operation", as distinct from the "establishment of constitutional order" of 1994.
Translated by David McDuff.
A report in Helsingin Sanomat says that Alisher Usmanov, generally considered a supporter of Russia's President Putin, has bought the Kommersant newspaper.
Update: However, RFE/RL Newsline notes:
In the latest in a string of media reports about the possible sale of the business daily "Kommersant," which is one of the few remaining major papers not controlled by the Kremlin, metals magnate Alisher Usmanov said on August 30 that he might buy the daily for about $200 million, "The Moscow Times" reported on August 31 (see "RFE/RL Newsline," April 5 and June 8 and 9, 2006). Usmanov said that he would not fundamentally change the editorial policy or management but would consider "improvements," such as more color. Self-exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky, who once owned the paper, told "The Moscow Times" by phone that Usmanov is a level-headed businessman who "doesn't let political passions get the better of him." Berezovsky added that "the authorities will try to influence the company's policies by leaning on Usmanov, of course, but I know that he is also very protective of his personal reputation. He will try to find a reasonable compromise in the interest of 'Kommersant' [that will] allow him to maintain as much independence as is possible in Russia today, while not spoiling his relationship with the authorities." "Forbes" puts Usmanov's personal fortune at $3.1 billion. He and his partners hold the country's largest iron-ore assets through the Metalloinvest holding company. He also works as a troubleshooter for the state gas monopoly Gazprom. Usmanov said, however, that he is under no pressure from the Kremlin to buy the daily, adding that it is "purely a business deal."
PM
...AND SOME JOURNALISTS ARE CONCERNED. Some Russian websites and news agencies reported on August 31 that Usmanov has already concluded the deal to buy "Kommersant." Interfax, however, said that the "deal will be completed by the end of the week." Whatever the case may be, several journalists told that news agency that the daily will need to maintain its current editorial policy if it is to hold its position in the market. Rodionov publishing house President Aleksei Volin said that "'Kommersant' will lose its influence and its readers if they turn it into another [state-run daily] 'Rossiiskaya gazeta' or the printed counterpart" of the state-run television news program. Igor Yakovenko, who is a leader of the Russian Union of Journalists, said that the sale of "Kommersant" is linked to preparations for the 2007 parliamentary elections. He argued that the daily will either become the mouthpiece of the pro-Kremlin Unified Russia party or retain a certain degree of independence in order to maintain its credibility. Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov told Interfax that Usmanov's
purchase of "Kommersant" "was carried out as a personal investment
and is not related to his work with Gazprom." PM
According to Stratfor's Colin Chapman, Hizballah continues to receive a steady supply of arms and ammunition from Syria and Iran -- the principal method of transportation being the mule train, and the principal area of stockpiling the Bekaah Valley.
In a visit to Malaysia earlier Tuesday, Chavez suggested his country is set to win a UN Security Council seat, saying the support of Malaysia and other nations would help defeat a U.S. campaign to block Venezuela's bid.
"We're going to occupy that seat with the support of countries like Malaysia," Chavez was quoted as saying by Venezuela's state news agency at an event with Malaysian business leaders.
U.S. officials, alarmed by Chavez's deepening ties with countries such as Iran and North Korea, have sought to block his country's bid for a rotating Security Council seat and are backing Guatemala instead.
Over the last six weeks, Chavez has traveled to a dozen countries, including Argentina, Russia, Belarus, Iran, Vietnam, Qatar, Mali, Benin, China, Malaysia and Syria, in what his opponents argue is a costly effort to drum up support for the UN bid.
Chavez insists he has not urged other nations to vote in favor of Venezuela, saying many countries have independently voiced support.
Titov argued that such Lithuanian "hints" amount to "political repairs..., which are spurious and provocative. Those who came up with such ideas must be aware that threats of this kind could have consequences for bilateral relations." He acknowledged that the Lithuanian statements about the trunk line came in response to the recent Russian shutdown of the Druzhba-1 oil pipeline to Lithuania's Mazeikiu oil refinery, which is the only refinery in the Baltic states and which a Polish firm is about to acquire at the expense of Russian interests. But Titov said that "it is regrettable that an accident on the Druzhba pipeline has given rise to so much speculation. The pipeline cannot be fully restored instantly. The accident [that led to a massive leak] must be investigated and measures taken if an environmental disaster is to be prevented." He claimed that an unspecified amount of Russian oil is still reaching the refinery by "alternative routes...in line with signed agreements" (see "RFE/RL Newsline," August 16, 17, and 22, 2006). PM
August 28, 2006 -- A member of the Russian parliamentary commission investigating the 2004 Beslan hostage crisis says it may be federal forces, and not the militants orchestrating the siege, who started the final battle that claimed the vast majority of victims.
Yury Savelyev, an explosives expert and a Duma deputy with the Motherland (Rodina) party, says in a report published today in the "Novaya gazeta" weekly that forensic evidence suggests the battle may have been started by Russian soldiers firing rocket grenades from a building across from the school that was the site of the hostage siege.
Some federal investigators say it was the detonation of bombs planted inside the school by the hostage takers that caused a massive fire and sparked a gun battle in which the majority of the 330-plus siege victims were killed. Members of the investigating commission called Savelyev's report a "deliberate falsification."
The report comes just days before the second anniversary of the September 1-3 siege.
The website pravdabeslana.ru has posted a 700-page, six-part report by Yury Savelyev, a member of the Russian State Duma commission that investigated the September 2004 Beslan hostage taking, including the events that triggered the storm of the school in which most of the 332 victims died. Savelev claimed that the authorities were aware of the impending seizure of the school at least three hours in advance; that an initial proposal by then-North Ossetian President Aleksandr Dzasokhov to try to persuade the hostage takers to release the children in exchange for 800 government personnel was rejected, and Dzasokhov was threatened with arrest if he sought to negotiate with the hostage takers; that the authorities decided to storm the school building, but create the impression that they did so in response to actions by the hostage takers; and security personnel opened fire on the school building from mortars and flame-throwers while the hostages were still inside the building. The initial findings of the Duma commission faulted local police and officials for their response to the hostage taking, but Russian Deputy Prosecutor-General Nikolai Shepel said an investigation by his office failed to establish any failings on the part of law enforcement agencies during the siege (see "RFE/RL Newsline," December 29, 2005). The commission's official investigative report is expected to be released in September. LFThe Russian text of the Savelyev report is here.
In the view of head prosecutor Petri Vaaja the motive was hatred of Christianity.
While the chief suspect denies that he planned the attack, he admits that his opinion of the Christian faith influenced the night's events.
"Christianity was brought here by force and it holds particular sway in Finland and Europe. But Christianity does not represent European culture in any way, especially in the Nordic countries."
In an increasingly confused world, it has become apparent that Russia, for all its talk, is consistently positioning itself against the interests of the United States, Europe - and often on the side of Islamist radicals.Read the rest.
Various Palestinian middlemen were used by British agents at the request of the US to bring the Fox journalists [Olaf Wiig and Steve Centanni] home. They worked out a convoluted deal which entailed their public conversion to Islam, an anti-American harangue on air and a six-figure cash ransom paid under the table to Dughmush to fund his terrorist militia’s operations in Gaza. While the first two parts of the ransom were publicly aired, the third part will no doubt be vehemently denied. But the face remains that a terrorist chief who freelances for at least three fundamentalist terrorist organizations walks free with a strong incentive to develop his profitable hostage-taking business.Whatever the facts of the deal that was struck may be, it seems fairly clear that Britain was involved in the release of the hostages at some level. On August 16, A NewstalkZB/Reuters report confirmed that
The British Consul has contacted the office of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas asking for assistance in securing the pair's release and Palestinian security forces have been deployed.
-----
Prime Minister Helen Clark says New Zealand's diplomats credited to Palestine are based in Turkey and they will work with British authorities to try to secure Mr Wiig's release.
For consumers of Russian fossil fuels, such as Western Europe, there is little threat that oil prices will dramatically increase because of a "leaky" Russian pipeline -- the continent can easily obtain oil from other countries. But whether orchestrated by Mr. Putin or caused by inadequate infrastructure, a slowdown in the production or transportation of Russian natural gas would be much harder for Western Europe to rectify and could seriously undermine Western economies.
Both the oil pipeline's leak and the way Russia has taken advantage of it should serve as a warning to countries dependent on Russian natural gas. Countries in Western Europe in particular should invest in more liquefied natural gas terminals to accommodate tankers from other countries that produce natural gas. The West relies on Russian energy supplies at its peril.
The Slavic members of the group were devoted Muslims who chose to enter the ranks of militant Islam. As sign of their dedication to the cause, they reportedly destroyed their identification documents and adopted Muslim names.
Among them were ethnic Ukrainian Vitaly Zagorulko, an officer in Russia's Interior Ministry and a graduate of the Rostov High Militia School, and police colleagues Viktor Semchenko, a Russian, and David Fotov. Another alleged Karachai Jamaat member was a former Russian paratrooper, Yury Menovshchikov, and Russian Army veteran Ivan Manarin, an ethnic Russian. All but Manarin, who is now under arrest, were killed in fighting with federal special forces.
The Kremlin may be the main winner in the Lebanon war. Israel has been attacked with Soviet Kalashnikovs and Katyushas, Russian Fajr-1 and Fajr-3 rockets, Russian AT-5 Spandrel antitank missiles and Kornet antitank rockets. Russia’s outmoded weapons are now all the rage with terrorists everywhere in the world, and the bad guys know exactly where to get them. The weapons cases abandoned by Hezbollah were marked: “Customer: Ministry of Defense of Syria. Supplier: KBP, Tula, Russia.”Read it all.
Today’s international terrorism was conceived at the Lubyanka, the headquarters of the KGB, in the aftermath of the1967 Six-Day War in the Middle East. I witnessed its birth in my other life, as a Communist general. Israel humiliated Egypt and Syria, whose bellicose governments were being run by Soviet razvedka (Russian for “foreign intelligence”) advisers, whereupon the Kremlin decided to arm Israel’s enemy neighbors, the Palestinians, and draw them into a terrorist war against Israel.
The purchases come at a time when Iran is refusing to bow to growing Western demands to halt its nuclear program, and after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map."Update: The German government is now doing its best to soft-pedal this move, saying that the submarines will not be supplied until 2010, and will be for non-nuclear defensive purposes only.
The new submarines, built at a cost of $1.3 billion with Germany footing one-third of the bill, have diesel-electric propulsion systems that allow them to remain submerged for longer periods of time than the three nuclear arms-capable submarines already in Israel's fleet, the Jerusalem Post reported.
The latest submarines not only would be able to carry out a first strike should Israel choose to do so, but they also would provide Israel with crucial second-strike capabilities, said Paul Beaver, a London-based independent defense analyst.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) says the advanced technology could help Iran dramatically speed up uranium enrichment and eventually lead to atomic-bomb material.Haaretz covers the story here.
The chairman of NCRI's Foreign Affairs Committee, Mohammad Mohadessin, told a news conference in Paris today that his group has located what it believes is a secret production site for P-2 centrifuges near Tehran.
Mohadessin further claims blueprints for the P-2 centrifuges were provided to Iran in 1995 by a black-market network run by Abdul Qadeer Khan, then Pakistan's leading nuclear scientist.
NCRI, which is widely believed to be a front group for the Mujahedin-e Khalq (People's Mujahedin) of Iran, is considered a terrorist organization by the United States.
In August 2002, the group was among the first to alert the world of Iran's uranium-enrichment activities.
- As the country with the EU’s presidency, Finland ought to have been much sharper in its choice of words and should also have taken up the question with other EU countries. Russia has no right to wreck the environment of a neighbouring country, especially when that country is ready to help with the problem.
- Polluting the air of a neighbouring country is a gigantic environmental crime. Finland’s government ought to complain and take the matter to the international court in the Hague. The government should act much more forcefully in the case.
- What do the deadly smoke particles contain? I suffer badly from asthma and allergies. Who is going to pay these extra costs? The Russian Duma or the Finnish parliament?
- I got lung cancer five years ago, and am now starting to get really tired of all this. Our cowardly authorities are seeing to it that the whole of the population of Southern Finland will fall ill. Our politicians, especially the social democrats, are so scared of Putin’s cannons that they don’t dare to do anything.
- The Russians have definitely not done enough. They haven’t even accepted help from Finland. So Finland should send Russia a stiff bill for all the extra doctor’s expenses, all the extra hospital visits and all the personal suffering the smoke has brought with it.
- The government has been asleep for a week. They ought to have reacted at once. And in Russia they ought to put out all the fires immediately. I think we ought to have helped them, even though they didn’t ask for help. Elderly people and asthma patients have found it hard to breathe.
- Our authorities haven’t done enough. When garbage tips and compost heaps burn, it's dangerous. We don’t know what’s burning in them. Our authorities have behaved very badly. I have never known anything like it.
Perhaps the most elaborate celebration of the former president was the premiere of "Vow," a play put on by the State Chechen Theater in Grozny. Set in the early years of the second Chechen war, the play's main characters include Akhmad Kadyrov, Chechen rebel leaders Dzhokhar Dudayev and Aslan Maskhadov, and former Russian Defense Minister Pavel Grachev. The hero of the play is Kadyrov, whose character courageously fights Wahhabi extremists and ultimately breaks with Maskhadov. In the end, Kadyrov triumphs.
"What we are talking about is a group that was deep underground and which used techniques that amount to terrorism," said Vladimir Novitsky, legal director of the non-governmental Moscow Human Rights Bureau.
"This is of course a new level of preparation compared to the attacks by skinheads which are usually just opportunistic," said Novitsky, who has represented targets of race-hate propaganda in court. "This is a cause for concern."
But there are serious drawbacks to the site also. Some of those weaknesses are to do with the blogging medium itself, of which I am broadly sceptical (as I've written here). Others are to do with the heavy bias of its contributors towards some subjects but not others (e.g. not much on the elections in Congo). But there is one characteristic specific to CiF that I doubt Ms Henry and her colleagues can have foreseen. The intention of drawing readers into the conversation has had consistently appalling consequences, at least in the posts that I have followed. The threads below the posts have been skewed, and in some cases dominated, by contributors who hold exceptionally peculiar ideas and appear susceptible to anti-Jewish notions. The site invites readers to alert the editors to offensive or otherwise unsuitable comments, but this appears to work only partially, owing to the volume of material. In general, as well as being inadequately moderated (which is not a criticism of the newspaper: I don't see how it's possible even in principle for the editors to keep up with the constant flow of bile), the threads contain much personal abuse and poor English. Full marks to The Guardian for providing the facility, and all sympathy to it for trying to resolve the problem. But there definitely is a problem, and it's one that other newspapers will have to consider carefully before expanding into the blogging medium.
We're just appalled at these accusations. First of all, they announced last Thursday that they were going to initiate an investigation into our international assets. The fact of the matter is that company management did set up a foundation in early 2005 to protect our international assets from expropriation by the Russian Federation. And that came on the heels of the expropriation of our largest Russian asset Yukosneftegaz, in late 2004, and it was after that that we concluded there was absolutely nothing we could do to save our Russian assets if the Russian authorities wanted to take them. But we felt we had a strong fiduciary responsibility to take steps to protect the assets that we could protect, and that was our international assets. And so using a long known technique in the Netherlands, we set up a foundation to protect these assets from unfriendly hands.
What about the criminal case that's actually being brought against you? Are you going to fight it, or are you simply going to ignore it?
We're not going to sit on our hands. This is just an amazing move that the Russian authorities have taken, to open an investigation against individuals who are not residents of Russia. They are trying to impose their will on those of us who have spent the last two years doing nothing but trying to do the right thing in protecting the interests of the company. And it brings up, I think, an important point of what I've discovered in the time I've been in Russia, and that is that even though my principles have always been to always do the right thing, time after time, but in Russia today the key to success is more doing what the authorities want you to do rather than doing the right thing.
Do you feel extremely bruised by this whole process?
I just feel angry about this whole process. What complicates it for me personally is I see things that go on in Russia that would be considered illegal in any country in the West, and the results of these illegal activities are then in essence exported to Western countries and the actions that were taken in Russia seem to be forgiven and ignored and overlooked. It's just creating a Russia that is becoming more and more confident that they don't need to comply with Western standards in order to be accepted and get along in the West. And I think it's creating a much harder Russia, I think it's creating a Russia that's going to be increasingly more difficult to deal with - where does it all stop?
You resigned last month as chief executive of Yukos. What do you see your role being now?
Well, I resigned all of my responsibilities with Yukos as president as well as on the board of directors of Yukos Oil Company. I want my role to be reduced substantially to the point where I can put the Yukos saga behind me and move on, with my life. It would appear that the Russian authorities are going to make it difficult for me to do that, at least for a while. The fact that they've announced an investigation may or may not allow them to invoke certain extradition treaties that are in place with a number of European countries. I don't know how serious a threat extradition might be - just my motto here is going to be for a while better safe than sorry, so my travels will be restricted mainly just to the UK and the US. Outside of that I will probably be very, very careful.
"We have worked every day to do the right thing, but in Russia doing the right thing isn't what they're looking for," Theede said. "What they're looking for is doing what they want you to do. We're caught in this completely impossible situation where for us, doing the right thing is defending the company from the Russian authorities' attack on it. But if we fulfill our fiduciary responsibility, we are going to be on the wrong side of the fence from the Russian authorities."
The other claimant in the Dutch courts is Rosneft, Russia's state-owned oil company, which acquired Yukos's prime asset at an auction that Theede and others said was rigged. Theede and other Yukos executives unsuccessfully attempted to prevent Rosneft holding a public offering that raised billions of dollars in London earlier this year. Rosneft has pushed for Yukos's liquidation in Russia, and it is expected to snap up most of its remaining assets in the country when the bankruptcy is finalized.
"We felt that it was our responsibility to protect our international assets; I mean that's what management does when they are under unfriendly attack or facing a takeover," Theede said. "We established the foundation they referred to in order to provide protection for the assets and begin a sale process so that legitimate creditors could be paid."
And that includes Rosneft, but also Group Menatep, he said.
The Russian authorities are unlikely to succeed in prosecuting Theede and the others. Foreign courts, including those in London, have repeatedly refused to extradite Russian employees of Yukos to Moscow in earlier cases. But that is little consolation to Theede.
"Many, many people have told me, 'Consider the source; we know this can't be right,' but there are going to be people who don't fully understand, read these things and wonder," Theede said. "I've never had to face a situation like this in my life and I'm quite angry."
Larsen calls on Israel to end Lebanon embargo
United Nations Middle East Envoy UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen told reporters in Tel Aviv on Tuesday that the United Nations sees it appropriate that Israel lifts an embargo imposed on Lebanon.
Larsen said the world body received no new information on two Israeli soldiers kidnapped by Hizbullah. (Aviram Zino)
It says its members "are reporting significant lost earnings" because they are unable to take their instruments on board aircraft as hand luggage.Certainly, it's generally out of the question for violins, violas and cellos to be stowed in the hold, though it's a moot question whether some brass and woodwind instruments would suffer quite so badly from being handled in this way.
Many instruments are too fragile to be placed in the hold of an airliner, the union told the BBC News website.
But the Department for Transport says the security regulations will "be in place for as long as they need to be".
Wickert: You experienced a horrible situation in 1967, during a reading of "Örtlich betäubt" ("Local Anesthetic") at a church conference. A man walked onto the stage, said he wanted to be provocative, greeted his comrades from the SS, swallowed a cyanide capsule and died. What were you thinking at the time?(via Marius)
Grass: It was a shocking incident. When I visited the Scheub family a few weeks later and spoke with his widow and children, I learned more about this man, who was completely torn. On the one hand, he was still caught up in these Nazi ideas that had shaped him. But at the same time, he considered himself a pacifist as a result of his wartime experiences, and he helped his two older sons, who both wanted to be conscientious objectors, to write their statements. A strange man. A daughter of Scheub's has just published a book in which she quotes the passages I wrote about this incident in "Diary of a Snail," because the matter affected me deeply.
Wickert: Wouldn't it have been a relief for you to be able to write about your own, similar experiences?
Grass: It's difficult to say in retrospect. I didn't do it, and I'll just have to stand by that -- and I'll certainly be listening to these accusations for a long time to come. All I can say about the issue is that it's a topic in this book. I spent three years working on it, and I've written everything I have to say about it, and anything I say now, essentially after the fact, is only by way of explanation as it relates to the book.
Sources at the firm, SDMS, of London, said that the published serial numbers on one of the kits found by the Israelis did not match any aspect of the contract that it had won to supply Iran with equipment for counter-narcotics operations on the Iranian-Afghan border.
The Israelis claimed that the equipment they had uncovered in a house in a village in southern Lebanon was for highly sophisticated military use. They confirmed that it was British, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office promised a full investigation.
One source at the company, which is a distribution firm, not a manufacturer, said: “The kit we supplied was actually made in Russia, which makes some pretty rugged equipment. But they were not the sort of systems which the Israelis seem to be talking about.”
to demonstrate its support for Israel. Almost a week after the end of the war in Lebanon, an estimated 2,800 demonstrators expressed their support at a solidarity rally that was patrolled by dozens of police officers.Ynet has a report here.
Among the demonstrators were many members of the local Jewish community, alongside non-Jewish Finns. “We decided to show the citizens of Helsinki another point of view,” said businessman Yaron Goresh, who has been living in Finland for the past 18 years. “Every day at 5:00 p.m., the Muslim community holds an anti-Israel demonstration opposite the embassy. So we decided to answer them.”
See also:
August 20, 2006 -- The daily Israeli newspaper "Maariv" says Israel has provided Moscow with documents and pictures that prove Hizballah used Russian-made weapons during the recent fighting in Lebanon.
The newspaper quotes unidentified senior security officials as saying that an Israeli delegation presented the evidence during a recent visit to Moscow. The report says the weapons had been provided by Russia for the Syrian Army.
The officials say a fresh Russian arms shipment is due to arrive in Syria in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, Israel has set up a ministerial working group on Syria.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's office said in a statement today the group is to make a diplomatic assessment concerning Syria. The statement said the assignment was not related to "any type of negotiations" with Damascus.
Media reports, however, say the group will submit an assessment on the prospects for renewing peace talks with Syria, which have been stalled since 2000. Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 war.
Suominen expressed surprise at the Finnish decision-makers' toothless approach to the issue and wondered why the incident did not lead Finland to give Israel a diplomatic note or why the [Finnish] ambassador was not recalled for discussions with the foreign minister.Such hostile attitudes towards Israel are widespread in Finnish public opinion. The reservists' statement is all the more remarkable coming from an organization which has as its main aim "the strengthening of the national defense will".
According to Suominen, as Finland currently holds the EU's presidency, it should have demanded that those responsible be held to account and that the EU should discuss a trade embargo or other sanctions against Israel.
The Reservists' Association has 33,000 members divided among 359 member groups.
The German novelist Gunter Grass — who served in the Wehrmacht — recently lectured in the New York Times about postwar “power blocs,” in terms that suggested the Soviets and the Americans had been morally equivalent. German problems of reunification, he tells us, were mostly due to a capitalist West, not a Communist East that caused them.Victor Davis Hanson, writing in 2005
Anti-Americanism is a phenomenon as old, actually even older, than the United States itself. Although it has gone through various periods and emphases, the main themes have remained remarkably consistent, long predating either the influence of Hollywood or America being a great power internationally. Two of the most important are the vision of the United States as a bad society, which threatens to become the model for the whole world, and that of America as seeking global conquest.Barry Rubin, Understanding Anti-Americanism
For example, the first clear statement of anti-Americanism came from the French lawyer Simon Linguet in the 1780s. The dregs of Europe, he warned, would build a dreadful society in America, create a strong army, take over Europe, and destroy civilization. If one were to be talking about the spread of notions like democracy and liberty, Linguet’s fear was something of a personal premonition. A few years later, he was guillotined by the French revolution.
Similarly, the first use of the word “Americanization” has been traced to an 1867 article in a French journal which warned that the import of American agricultural machinery would end with the elimination of French culture. It is no accident that France has long been the global capital of anti-Americanism. Indeed, the level of hatred toward the United States in the 1920s and 1930s, as well as other decades, has been arguably higher than today.
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VÃctor Rolando Arroyo Carmona
Arrested on 18 March 2003 at his home in Pinar del Rio.
Sentenced on 30 March to 26 years in prison (one of the heaviest sentences imposed on the independent journalists) by the Pinar del Rio provincial people’s court. The prosecution asked for life imprisonment. Aged 51.
Arrest and trial
The verdict was announced at the end of a single hearing that lasted 12 hours (for four defendants). The court appointed a defence lawyer because Arroyo refused to choose one, saying the outcome of the trial had been decided in advance. He was accused of "undermining national independence and territorial integrity" and the judge called him a "traitor to Cuba" and "lackey of the US government."
When the verdict was announced, he consoled his mother, Martha Carmona, and wife, Elsa González Padrón, who were present. "Don’t be upset, I’m not going to die in jail," he said.
He was sent to prison in Guantanamo, 1,100 km from where he lived.
Police searched his home and seized a computer, fax, camera and cash and used his Transcard credit card to draw out $100 he had in his account. A TV set and furniture were sequestered in the house.
- Arroyo has belonged to the UPECI (Independent Cuban Journalists and Writers Union) agency since 1996 and contributed to the website CubaNet and Radio Marti.
- He has been in prison twice before.
The first time was in 1996 for publishing an unauthorised article called "El Tabaco," criticising tobacco growing methods in Pinar del Rio, where the famous Havana cigars are produced.
He was jailed again on 14 February 2000 and sentenced this time to six months in prison for "possessing public property," an offence that had been dropped in practice since the dollarisation of the economy. He had bought toys in hard-currency shops in Pinar del Rio that he was going to hand out to poor children in the city as part of the "Three Kings of the Millennium" project funded by the diaspora to revive the traditional Catholic Three Kings Day festival in Cuba. The toys were confiscated and have not been returned.
- He also ran one of the biggest independent libraries in Cuba (part of the Varela Project network), containing about 5,000 books.
In prison
On 14 April, Cubanet printed an open letter from him to foreign minister Felipe Pérez Roque describing as a "badly-concocted joke" the minister’s 24 March remarks to the foreign media that prisoners were being treated well and without being humiliated." The journalist noted that the 75 dissidents arrested in 2003 had been imprisoned very far from their home towns. He accused the authorities of keeping them shut up for months in windowless cells, with no right to use the telephone, with bad food and with little medical care that was also used as a means of pressure.
A cubanet.org article on 10 June reported that the health of Cubanet journalist VÃctor Rolando Arroyo was very worrying. He has high blood pressure, headaches and diarrhea and has lost between 15 and 20 kg since he was imprisoned. Nonetheless, he was moved to a punishment cell for protesting against the way a fellow inmate was treated. Although the 21-day punishment period established in the regulations has elapsed, he is still in solitary confinement. Most of the letters sent by his wife Elsa González Padrón have not been delivered.
Cubanet.org reported on 16 July that Victor Rolando Arroyo was not receiving the necessary treatment for the high blood pressure and infection he is suffering from. He has also been banned from leaving his cell.
If the war restarts, Hizbullah is going to face far greater pressures, especially since the Israeli government's leaders have already been harshly criticized for going too slowly in the ground offensive.
And that is not all. Hizbullah may face a two-front war. Lebanese Christians, Druze and Sunnis, the majority of the population, are largely angry at how Hizbullah dragged their country into a war and is increasingly subjugating it to Iran and Syria.
"Definitely some papers never give any credit to Israel... for some people, especially on papers such as The Guardian and the Independent, the human face of the Israeli doesn't exist. It's always the helmet, the rifle, the aggressor, the occupier. You can have the most pleasant meetings and lunches with them, but it's frustrating, because you feel that what you say falls on deaf ears."
The Independent, Davidovitch notes, had launched a campaign in conjunction with the Save the Children charity. "Lebanese children, because - of course - Israeli children aren't suffering. When it comes to human misery in Israel, you don't see it. Israeli refugees don't exist." Another example: the mayor of Sderot wrote an op-ed talking about the daily firing of Qassam rockets at his town, but, she says, The Guardian refused to take his article. And, "during the academic boycott, one of the commentators on Ma'ariv offered an op-ed and didn't even get a reply. I mean, be polite."
In two days the Deputy Director of the Middle East and North Africa Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Oleg Ozerov, was taking part in a "round table" discussion that had gathered Russian diplomats and experts, Lebanese and Palestinian politicians and journalists. With Ozerov's tacit consent, the participants of the forum declared Israel "the shock-troops of global fascism", and Ozerov himself accused Israelis of the attempts "to bomb Lebanon back to the Stone Age". On July 31, the Russian Foreign Ministry subjected Tel Aviv to strictures for "the gross violation of elementary norms of international humanitarian rights". On a level with this, three days later, again in a Foreign Ministry statement, it was marked that "there are no doubts on the necessity of providing security of Israel, preclusion of bombardments of the Israeli territory and acts of terror with the victims among civilians".The article reaches the conclusion that Russian Middle East policy has not yet greatly evolved since the Soviet era. Moscow still tries to appear as a "mediator" in the conflict, while in general following a pro-Arab line which does not, however, commit it to direct action. Its statements and actions are a balancing act that is founded on simulation. The consequences of this are not without danger:
Fundamental revision of its regional policy is required to change the status of Russia in the Middle East. Most likely, at least up to the 2008 presidential elections, the Kremlin would be not making such a decision. Accordingly, in the immediate future, Russia will continue to simulate an active participation in the further settlement of the Middle East conflict, simultaneously playing no essential role in it. One should expect that, as before, this will be widely used by the conservative regimes and radical elements in the region, in particular Iran, Syria, HAMAS and Hezbollah. Factually not reckoning with Russia’s interests, they are considering the "Russian factor" as one of the elements of restraint of activity of the United States in the Middle East, and also within the frame of strengthening of their own international position.
RUSSIAN EXPERT SAYS ISRAEL WAS READY TO BOMB SYRIA AND IRAN
Middle East expert and former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov was quoted by "Izvestia" on August 17 as saying that Israel prepared its recent incursion into Lebanon "for a very long time...to bring about the collapse of Lebanon...and a possible civil war." He argued that the Israelis hoped that other elements in Lebanese society would then rally against Hizballah and destroy its power. Primakov believes that Israel was prepared to bomb Syria and Iran if they became involved in the conflict. He said that Israel did not succeed in its objectives, however, and must now return to the negotiating table, where Russia will play a key role. Primakov believes that there is little danger of a major confrontation emerging in the immediate future in the Middle East because the United States has no interest in one in the run-up to the November mid-term elections. He added that he hopes that Washington has "drawn the conclusion" from the latest crisis that it was unwise "to export democracy and revolution around the world. The Trotskyites have already shown that this is a hopeless task." Primakov recently said the United States would not mind seeing Syria and Iran dragged into the Lebanese conflict (see "RFE/RL Newsline," July 31, 2006). PM
It’s clear that Israel isn’t going to be a Czechoslovakia thrown over the side by the West. What’s less clear is whether it might eventually become a Poland, a nation carved up under a temporary truce between twin evils (the so-called Hitler-Stalin pact) before they went at each other’s throats.(via Rumanian Minorities)
JAPANESE FISHERMAN KILLED IN KURILES INCIDENT.
A Russian patrol boat on August 16 fired on the Japanese fishing schooner "Kisshin Maru No. 31" near Kaigara Island in the southern Kuriles, which are held by Russia but claimed by Japan, nhk.or.jp and Reuters reported (see "RFE/RL Newsline," October 14, 2005, and February 22, March 23, and August 3, 2006). One fisherman died in the gunfire, the first fatality since October 1956 in an area where maritime incidents are otherwise common. Russian officials took the Japanese ship, the remaining three crew members, and the body of the dead fisherman to Yuzhno-Kurilsk, Interfax reported. The Military Prosecutor's Office in Sakhalin is investigating the incident, in which Russian officials claim that the "Kisshin Maru" ignored repeated warnings to stop. The Japanese authorities are also investigating. The Japanese Foreign Ministry has lodged a protest with the Russian Embassy in Tokyo, calling the killing "totally unacceptable" and demanding compensation and the repatriation of the crew. The Russians rejected the claim on the grounds that the schooner had violated Russian territorial waters, RIA Novosti reported. Russian officials said that the crew lacked documents or other identification, and that the ship carried a large quantity of illegally caught crab and octopus. The Russian authorities will file criminal charges against the Japanese captain for illegal entry into Russian waters. PM
perhaps most troubling for the West, there is no sign that any of the 24 Islamists arrested last week in the United Kingdom were motivated by their hatred for Britain's or the West's freedoms, liberties and lifestyle—the motivation most frequently attributed to Islamist fighters by the West's political leaders and media. The arrested men, moreover, were not impoverished and uneducated—two more of the factors that Western leaders hold as major motivations for terrorists. Most of the arrested were middle-class individuals with jobs, wives, children and futures; several were ardent soccer fans; one was a record company executive; and another was a university student in biomedicine (Time, August 11).3) Andrew McGregor looks at Hizballah's creative use of anti-tank weaponry, much of it either Russian-designed or Russian-supplied.
In this conflict, what Hezbollah has achieved is not so much a defeat of Israel as a demonstration that destruction in detail is not an inevitable outcome of challenging Israel. Hezbollah has showed that it is possible to fight to a point that Israel prefers a cease-fire and political settlement to a military victory followed by political accommodation. Israel might not have lost any particular battle, and a careful analysis of the outcome could prove its course to be reasonable. But the loss of the sense -- and historical reality -- of the inevitability of Israeli military victory is a far more profound defeat for Israel, as this clears the way for other regional powers to recalculate risks.Friedman supposes that neither Hizballah nor its Syrian and Iranian backers expected such an outcome. The question now, he suggests, is how they will utilize that outcome, having achieved it.
