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| "A London Arabic newspaper has printed what it believes to be a handwritten
letter from ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
It urged the Iraqi people to rise up against the 'infidel, criminal, killer and cowardly occupier', the United States. The letter, sent by fax to the Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper, was dated 28 April, the day of Saddam Hussein's 66th birthday. The paper's editor, Abdul Bari Atwan said he believed the message was genuine." BBC |
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| "The security situation in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate, with deadly clashes between guerrilla forces and foreign troops increasingly frequent. This is not simply a matter of local unrest, though, and the country is at a point where it could once again become the breeding ground, and playground, of Muslim radicals." Asia Times |
| "Periodic fasting can be just as good for health as sharply cutting back on calories, even if the fasting doesn't mean eating less overall, a new study indicates." Washington Post |
| "In the toughest move to date against unsolicited commercial e-mail, Virginia enacted a law yesterday imposing harsh felony penalties for sending such messages to computer users through deceptive means." NYT(reg/req) |
| "Um Jenan used to wear gold jewellery, tight jeans and see-through
blouses to attract VIP clients to her apartment in Baghdad -- until the
masked men in black packed her into a minibus and drove her away.
When they laid out her body in front of her home the next day, she was dressed in loose-fitting sweat pants and a T-shirt. A banner on the wall above said "God is greatest!." Beside her lay her severed head. 'I couldn't stop looking at her,' said Ali Waad, who was 11 when Um Jenan was murdered by a death squad loyal to Saddam Hussein in 1999. 'Other boys burst out crying, but I just stood there staring at the head.' Such was the brutal justice meted out to prostitutes under the rule of Saddam, driving the world's oldest profession deep underground in recent years. But since U.S.-led forces toppled Saddam three weeks ago, Baghdad's sex workers have slowly crept back to the capital's bombed-out streets. Prostitutes face new dangers in a city ravaged by looting and lawlessness, but most are keen to take advantage of the power vacuum until a new government is established and religious leaders clamp down on their trade." Reuters |
| "The number of black Americans under 18 years old who live in extreme poverty has risen sharply since 2000 and is now at its highest level since the government began collecting such figures in 1980, according to a study by the Children's Defense Fund, a child welfare advocacy group." NYT (reg/req) |
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| "US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said that his country has entered a new era in which it must pre-emptively seek out and prevent attacks by terrorists and terrorist states." BBC |
| "Algeria has made an important breakthrough in its search for 31 missing European tourists with the discovery of one of their vehicles and confirmation from a senior army official that they are in the hands of more than a dozen Islamists." UK Guardian |
| "With his slicked-back hair, rimless glasses, and a cast-in-iron jaw,
this Secretary of Defense wields a clout like few others.
He brings a corporate executive's brazen ambition to scrap old ways, even if it rankles the top Pentagon brass. A national security crisis has emboldened him to transform the military, to exert greater civilian control over the services, and even to poach on the State Department's supremacy in foreign policy. His name: Robert McNamara. The year: 1962." Christian Science Monitor |
| "Iraqi civilians are preparing a complaint to present in court in Belgium accusing allied commander Gen. Tommy Franks and other U.S. military officials of war crimes in Iraq, according to the attorney representing the plaintiffs." The Washington Times |
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| "They reported from the trenches, hitched rides in tanks, slogged through
sandstorms, dodged enemy fire and used whiz-bang technology to bring the
war, live and unfiltered, into living rooms around the world.
And yet, despite the investment of tens of millions of dollars and deployment of hundreds of journalists, the collective picture they produced was often blurry." Washington Post |
| A new poll highlights Americans' conflicted feelings about affirmative action at colleges: A majority of those surveyed said it benefits society, but even more said schools should not admit minorities who have lower grades than other qualified candidates. The finding is part of a comprehensive survey of American attitudes toward colleges and universities released today by The Chronicle of Higher Education. |
| "NBC News correspondent Ashleigh Banfield has ripped television news networks, including her own, for their 'glorious' coverage of the Iraqi war and a lack of focus on international news overall." Hollywood Reporter via Yahoo! News |
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| "As Iraq moves into a post-Saddam Hussein era, a wide range of religious, ethnic and nationalist groups are jockeying for position in an attempt to gain national or local political power." Here's a who's who in post-Saddam Iraq from the BBC. |
| Saddam’s statues lie face down in the dust. His evil rule is at an end. So – can we, like, go home now? Alas, not quite, says Niall Ferguson in the NYT's magazine. |
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| If American families knew what was good for them, then most of them would cheerfully give up their tax cuts for guaranteed health care. NYT's Op-Ed (reg/req) |
| "Women and children have been among the biggest losers in this era of globalization, if we consider the massive increase in human trafficking in recent years. Cheated or sold into a life of sexual slavery or indentured servitude, the victims of human trafficking and their stories reveal the dark underside of increased international mobility. With the demise of socialist states, in particular, women and children from impoverished areas have been smuggled or lured to wealthy industrialized countries where they are exploited for high profits. Although some steps have been taken by the European Union, the UN, and individual national governments to prevent these abuses, precious little has actually been achieved. The continued sale of human beings as commodities on the world market must be addressed globally if the practice is to be curbed." YaleGlobal |
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| In an interview conducted by Tom Brokaw aboard Air Force One, President Bush described the war in Iraq from his perspective. Full Text in the NYT (reg/req) |
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audio clips brought to you by the BBC |
| "The ignorance of certain Arab TV personalities has done a great deal of harm to Arab women, their culture and their history. Arab women are distinguished for their modesty and respect for themselves. But these women are merciless in their enticement of men and their dedication to material things. The Arab situation is bitter enough. We should not become mired in a world of sensual pleasures and concerns of the flesh — Saddam Hussein was an example of what happens to a man who cares only for material pleasures and riches." Arab News |
| Ted Turner said on Thursday too few people owned too many media organizations
and called rival media baron Rupert Murdoch a warmonger for what he said
was Murdoch's promotion of the U.S. war in Iraq.
"He's a warmonger," Turner said in an evening speech to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco of Murdoch, whose News Corp. Ltd. owns the fast-growing Fox News Channel. "He promoted it." Reuters |
| "Even before US troops arrived in Baghdad, looting broke out--in Washington. While Republicans in Congress and their allies in the media yammered about the need to silence dissent and 'support the troops,' corporations with close ties to the Bush Administration were quietly arranging to ink lucrative contracts that would put them in charge of reconstructing Iraq." The Nation |
| "The word went out last Friday: Hundreds of millions of dollars in cash were left behind in bricked-up buildings inside one of fallen president Saddam Hussein's palace compounds. Before long, U.S. officers said, a half-dozen U.S. soldiers had stashed away $12.3 million for themselves." Washington Post |
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| "To millions around the world, the 'golden arches' and Colonel Sanders
are more recognizable symbols of the U.S. than the Stars and Stripes. But
now that identification is becoming a double-edged sword.
Since Sept. 11, McDonald's and other franchises have been hit by a rash of small bombings in the far-flung and sometimes chaotic markets they entered during the economic expansion of the 1990s. There have been bomb attacks in Saudi Arabia, Moscow, Beirut, and Xian, China, and three bombs in Istanbul. KFC outlets have been bomb targets in Indonesia, Lebanon, Greece, and Pakistan. A Pizza Hut was bombed in Lebanon." Christian Science Monitor |
| "Last week the Environmental Protection Agency announced concerns about a widely used chemical called perfluorinated acid. Tests in rats have shown reduced fetal weight of pups, delays in maturation and kidney problems — and 92% of Americans tested had trace amounts of it in their blood. That's because so-called PFOA or its byproducts are used in the manufacturing process for Teflon and Gore-Tex and can be released as the original Scotchguard and Stainmaster break down. PFOA also has other industrial uses." USA Today |
| "When one of the fedayeen said they were going to cut my tongue out, I said, `No, please, just kill me.' " NYT (reg/req) |
| "The U.S. Marines who seized control of [Kut] near the Iranian border more than two weeks ago still have not dared enter the mayor's office. That is the domain of Sayed Abbas Fadhil -- and for now, he is untouchable ... The refusal of Marine commanders to recognize Fadhil's new title has fueled particularly intense anti-American sentiments here. In scenes not seen in other Iraqi cities, U.S. convoys have been loudly jeered. Waving Marines have been greeted with angry glares and thumbs-down signs." Washington Post |
| "The American military moved ... to strip Baghdad's self-appointed administrator of his authority and warned Iraqi factions not to take advantage of the confusion and the political void in the country by trying to grab power." NYT (reg/req) |
| "The startling explosion of Shiite passion in Iraq is forcing US officials to contemplate the possibility that by toppling Saddam Hussein they have made the region safe for theocracy rather than democracy." Christian Science Monitor |
| Fat people (meaning, more than 60% of US population) face a dramatically higher risk of developing many kinds of tumors, and being overweight probably accounts for 14 percent of cancer deaths in men and 20 percent in women, researchers said on Wednesday. Reuters |
| "At least five U.S. troops are under investigation for allegedly skimming
hundreds of thousands of U.S. dollars from stashes of cash uncovered in
Baghdad, Pentagon officials said Wednesday. Another servicemember is being
investigated for shipping gold-plated ornamental weapons to the USA in
an incident officials said is likely to lead to questioning of more troops.
Meanwhile, a half-dozen journalists have been caught with items from Iraq, Customs officials said." USA Today |
| "The numbers have dropped tremendously," said Lt. Col. Jeff Fanto, who spoke by phone from the U.S. Central Command in Qatar, which has taken oversight of the embed program from the Pentagon. "A lot of individuals have either gone on as 'unilaterals' or just gone into Iraq on their own." (looking for keepsakes perhaps) Editor & Publisher |
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| "Civil rights advocates demanded today that the federal government explain how hundreds of people — some of them vocal critics of the Bush administration — have ended up on a list used to stop people suspected of having terrorist links from boarding commercial air flights." NYT (reg/req) |
| By Eric Margolis, Contributing Foreign Editor, Toronto Sun: "...in their lust to invade Iraq, the Bush administration and Tony Blair deeply discredited their own nations' moral standing, credibility, and democratic ideals by outrageously misleading their own people and whipping them into mass hysteria to justify an imperial war." Rense.com |
| "For decades, cities, towns and suburbs have been developed on the assumption that every trip will be made by car. That has all but eliminated walking from daily life for people in most parts of the country. Americans make fewer than 6% of their daily trips on foot, according to studies by the Federal Highway Administration." USA Today |
| "...the novelty lies in heightening the clash between the upper middle class and blue-collar America" NYT(reg/req) |
| "As further proof that TV viewers' attention to events in Iraq is waning, cable news viewing continued its steady decline last week, with the combined audience for Fox News Channel, CNN and MSNBC slipping over 30% from the previous week." LA Times |
| A FOX TV news engineer faces smuggling charges after attempting to take 12 stolen Iraqi paintings, monetary bonds and other items into America. Ananova |
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| "...concern is rising that the U.S.-led invasion might wind up replacing Saddam Hussein's brutal dictatorship with a cleric-dominated government that would be intolerant of Iraq's ethnic diversity and opposed to the interests of the United States." USA Today |
| "On Friday it took a fiery sermon by the Sunni cleric Dr Ahmad Al Qubaisee
to unleash Baghdad's full-throated Muslim religious fury at US occupation
forces.
On Monday, they didn't need a cleric at all." Asia Times |
| "She was hit by a car, shot in the head and kept in a freezer for two hours, but she survived and is now doing well under a veterinarian's care." BBC |
| "Iraq had a huge army, but only a fraction of its soldiers were killed or captured during the war. Hamed Nissam was one of those who took off his uniform and simply melted away." BBC |
| Alyx Sachs, a big time spammer, is a former producer with Geraldo Rivera. Makes sense. NYT (reg/req) |
| "Arnold Schwarzenegger has five. Mike Tyson has four. And they account for a third of all car sales in the US. But now, says Gary Younge, environmentalists are going to war against the SUV." UK Guardian |
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| "Feeling, it turns out, is not the enemy of reason, but, as Spinoza saw it, an indispensable accomplice." NYT (reg/req) |
| "The US is planning a long-term military presence in Iraq, in a move which will dramatically extend American power in the region and spread dismay and fear among its opponents across the Arab world." UK Guardian |
| "Thousands of Shia Muslims stage an anti-US protest as the new US administrator considers how to rebuild Baghdad." BBC |
| Not another season loaded with so-called reality TV, particularly shows
that focus on feuding or vulgar families, pseudo-celebrities roughing it
in the wild or the on-air equivalent of a bawdy singles bar.
"Anything that ends up in a hot tub, you don't want to be around," said Tom DeCabia, executive vice president of PHD USA, a major ad-buying firm. "Reality is not something that a lot of advertisers are beating down the door to get into." LA Times |
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| "As the war in Iraq is debated and turned into history, the emphasis will be on the role of technology -- precision bombing, cruise missiles, decapitation strikes. That was what was new. But there was another side to the war, and it was the one that most of the fighting men and women in Iraq experienced, even if it wasn't what Americans watching at home saw: raw military might, humans killing humans." NYT's magazine |
| "All three of the orphanages in Nasiriya were trashed by looters as soon as the fighting stopped. Now a British aid agency is helping to re-open one of them." BBC |
| "Beneath the uniformity of a US media high on victory in Iraq, a wave of books of a heretical flavor is flooding the bestseller lists." UK Guardian |
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| "It is true that America does not exile one to Siberia or hang one on the gallows for protesting against the government. But nevertheless it has its lynching and, what is far worse, its judicial murders. It has its great railroad casualties by which thousands are killed by the criminal carelessness of the great corporations, and besides all this it has the exploitation of the poor by the rich ...Where America surpasses Europe is in its personal liberty, which is the heritage of a race of heroes. But this is doomed to be extinguished by the legislatures of a time-serving generation." New York World, Sunday, February 7, 1909 |
| "The war in Iraq was neither as painful as its opponents predicted nor as painless as its proponents suggested." NYT (reg/req) |
| "Zacarias Moussaoui is the only person to be charged in the US in connection with the September 11 attacks. He has been dubbed the 20th hijacker. Here his brother Abd Samad Moussaoui describes a childhood beset by racism in France and the indoctrination he believes his brother received in London, which drove him into the arms of al-Qaida." UK Guardian |
| "No singing, no dancing, women should cover their heads: this may not be the kind of freedom US officials who promised to liberate Iraq had in mind." Christian Science Monitor |
| "Thousands of Sunni Muslims, uneasy at the prospect of losing their position in Iraqi society to the Shiite majority, staged their first show of force today since the fall of President Saddam Hussein's government, marching through the streets of Baghdad to protest the U.S. military occupation and to demand a Muslim state without distinction between Sunnis and Shiites." Washington Post |
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| "A growing body of scientific evidence suggests that abrupt climate change may be more typical of Earth’s history than the relatively stable conditions humans have enjoyed not only for the last few centuries, but the last 10,000 years. Yet most scientists, economists and policy-makers pay more attention to the issue of gradual climate change..." University of Chicago Chronicle |
| "Thousands of people have taken to the streets of Baghdad after Friday
prayers, to protest against what they see as a foreign occupation of their
country. The marchers carried flags and banners saying 'No to occupation'
and demanding that the unity of Iraq be preserved.
The BBC's Christian Fraser, who is at the scene, says it is the biggest demonstration of Arab nationalism since the end of the war, and shows what powerful sentiments the US-led invasion of Iraq has stirred up." BBC |
| "The men and women of Combat Camera land in war zones with a 9 mm Beretta pistol and 60 pounds of camera gear. They are photographers in uniform, surveying battlefields, POW camps and humanitarian missions through the lens of a camera." Baltimore Sun |
| "As Baghdad still smolders, senior Iraqi officers are beginning to absorb the scale of their defeat - and examine what went wrong." Christian Science Monitor |
| "The United Nations Security Council has asked the head of the UN weapons
inspection team, Hans Blix, to a meeting early next week to discuss the
readiness of his team to return to Iraq.
The request, issued by the current council president, Mexico, is expected to spark a heated debate between the United States and other members over whether Dr Blix and his team should be asked to verify any discovery of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq. Dr Blix may also be asked to help in the search for weapons." The Sydney Morning Herald |
| Throughout the debate before and during the Iraq war, one commentator consistently linked the cost of the war to issues of the working poor and the unemployed. Jimmy Breslin, 1986 Pulitzer Prize-winner for distinguished commentary, is a syndicated columnist based at New York’s Newsday, and author of several best-selling novels, among them, The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight. TomPaine.com’s Sharon Basco spoke with him about his observations on war-time media and politics. |
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| "The rescue of Private Jessica Lynch, which inspired America during one of the most difficult periods of the war, was not the heroic Hollywood story told by the US military, but a staged operation that terrified patients and victimized the doctors who had struggled to save her life, according to Iraqi witnesses." The Times |
| When the first American tank column arrived in Paradise Park, on the
east bank of the Tigris River (the park that later produced the now-famous
images of Saddam Hussein's statue being pulled down by an American tank)
on the morning of Wednesday, April 9, they met a young woman who was still
pulling on her shoes while running out into the roadway holding up a huge
hand-lettered sign that read: "How many children did you kill today?"
Naturally, one of the tank operators lowered his gun barrel so that
it pointed directly at Uzma's face. "Bring it on!" she screamed. "You bastards!
Murderers! Go ahead and kill me, you pricks!"
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| Attention is turning to the reconstruction of Iraq, in particular its sanction hit oil industry which could be used to pay for rebuilding programs. But political, legal and economic issues mean ending the restrictions on oil production will not be a simple step. BBC |
| Forty-two percent of Americans still don't use the Internet and the majority of them do not believe they ever will, according to a study released yesterday. Washington Post |
| Transcript of the speech given by actor Tim Robbins to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on April 15, 2003. |
| The typical U.S. journalist is a 41-year-old white man who makes $43,600, has a college degree but didn't major in journalism, and is more likely to vote Democratic than Republican, according to "The American Journalist in the 21st Century." Editor & Publisher |
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| For better and for worse, television and film can be equally effective as military and political operations in spreading American ideals and values ... "We are being introduced to the world by Los Angeles!" said Tad Low, the television producer behind such shows as VH1’s Pop-Up Video. "That is like going to a party and having a guy in ironed jeans and a Botoxed forehead introduce you to people." ... "It’s horrifying," said Mr. Low. "If the Arab world was pissed at us before, wait until they get a load of Bob Saget and Matt LeBlanc." The New York Observer |
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| While much of the nation's media treated the destruction of the Saddam Hussein statue in Baghdad as a moment of liberation and vindication, a report on the website of The New York Beacon, an African-American newspaper, offered a different perspective. The Boston Globe /via Romenesko |
| "Exasperated US military officials tried to hamper the media from covering
new demonstrations in Baghdad while some 20,000 people in Nasiriyah railed
against a US-staged meeting on Iraq's future.
Some 200-300 Iraqis gathered Tuesday outside the Palestine Hotel, where the US marines have set up an operations base, for a third straight day of protests against the US occupation. For the first time, visibly angered US military officials sought to distance the media from the protest, moving reporters and cameras about 30 meters (yards) from the barbed-wired entrance to the hotel. 'We want you to pull back to the back of the hotel because they (the Iraqis) are only performing because the media are here,' said a marine colonel who wore the name Zarcone but would not give his first name or title." |
| "... Fox has brought prominence to a new sort of TV journalism that casts aside traditional notions of objectivity, holds contempt for dissent and eschews the skepticism of government at mainstream journalism's core." NYT(reg/req) |
| The swift victory by mobile, high-tech American forces over heavily armored Iraqi troops dug in to defend large cities like Baghdad has jolted many Russian military planners. "The Iraqi Army was a replica of the Russian Army, and its defeat was not predicted by our generals," says Vitaly Shlykov, a former deputy defense minister of Russia. Christian Science Monitor |
| Nearly 6.6 million people had cosmetic plastic surgery in 2002, according to statistics released yesterday by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. |
| An unemployed man masquerading as a millionaire filed an income tax return claiming he was owed a refund of more than $1.5 million, authorities said. Turns out he almost got it. AP |
| Something we found while looking for something else: Search the Payphone Project's database of a half-million payphone numbers. |
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| "Russia and the European Union have urged the United States to show restraint in its dealings with Syria, which is accused of developing chemical weapons and helping fugitive Iraqi officials." BBC |
| Greg "Palast, who is American by birth, said he had to move his investigative reporting career to England because the American media routinely refuses to print highly political stories for fear of backlash and lawsuits. Consequently, he broke and published the Enron scandal story in Britain seven months before it made headlines in the United States. He attributed this to the increasing self-censorship of the American media." Yale Daily News /via Romenesko |
| "The White House has privately ruled out suggestions that the US should go to war against Syria following its military success in Iraq, and has blocked preliminary planning for such a campaign in the Pentagon, the Guardian learned yesterday." |
| "...the United States saved certain sites that it wants ... to be safe such as oil wells and the Ministry of oil, while ignoring the chaos and looting prevailing in Iraq although it is supposed to prevent such practices because it bears the lawful and moral responsibility as an occupation might." Syrian Arab News Agency |
| "Some Iraqis, however, question the allocation of U.S. forces around the capital. They note a whole company of Marines, along with at least a half-dozen amphibious assault vehicles, has been assigned to guard the Oil Ministry, while many other ministries -- including trade, information, planning, health and education -- remain unprotected." Washington Post |
| "Newspapers throughout the Arab world are worried by Washington's warnings
to Syria.
Syria itself is not the only country to see the hand of Israel behind the threats, while other Arab dailies fear they could be part of a domino effect aimed at the wider Islamic world. There is also interesting comment from Kuwait, one of the few Arab countries to back the war against Iraq. But one daily sees the fall of Baghdad as a tragedy, and blames the Arabs for their part in it." BBC |
| "On April 6, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz spelled it out: There will be no role for the United Nations in setting up an interim government in Iraq. The US-run regime will last at least six months, 'probably...longer than that.' " The Nation |
| "Top secret documents obtained by The Telegraph in Baghdad show that
Russia provided Saddam Hussein's regime with wide-ranging assistance in
the months leading up to the war, including intelligence on private conversations
between Tony Blair and other Western leaders.
Moscow also provided Saddam with lists of assassins available for 'hits' in the West and details of arms deals to neighbouring countries. The two countries also signed agreements to share intelligence, help each other to 'obtain' visas for agents to go to other countries and to exchange information on the activities of Osama bin Laden, the al-Qa'eda leader. The documents detailing the extent of the links between Russia and Saddam were obtained from the heavily bombed headquarters of the Iraqi intelligence service in Baghdad yesterday." The Telegraph (UK) |
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| With the most televised war in history winding down, executives at TV news organizations are noticing one startling detail in how Americans are watching the coverage: viewers are increasingly tuning out the broadcast networks' evening newscasts. NYT(reg/req) |
| White House accuses Arab state of developing weapons of mass destruction, harboring Iraqi leaders. Washington Post |
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| The United States has pledged to tackle the Syrian-backed Hizbollah group in the next phase of its 'war on terror' in a move which could threaten military action against President Bashar Assad's regime in Damascus. The move is part of Washington's efforts to persuade Israel to support a new peace settlement with the Palestinians. Washington has promised Israel that it will take 'all effective action' to cut off Syria's support for Hizbollah - implying a military strike if necessary, sources in the Bush administration have told The Observer. |
| President Bush today accused Syria of harboring senior Iraqi officials
and, perhaps more disturbingly, of possessing chemical weapons, but he
was careful not to threaten military force.
International Herald Tribune via NYT(reg/req) |
| Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk a-Shara said Sunday that if the United States decides to attack Syria, Israel will also be harmed as a result. Haaretz Daily |
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| A statue of Saddam Hussein was pulled down on Wednesday in, some say, the most staged photo-op since Iwo Jima. Here's a wide angle shot in which you can see the whole of Fardus Square (conveniently located just opposite the Palestine Hotel where the international media are based), and the presence of at most around 200 people – most of them US troops and journalists. Information Clearing House |
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Seven of diamonds just surrendered |
| The Pentagon contract given without competition to a Halliburton subsidiary to fight oil well fires in Iraq is worth as much as $7 billion over two years, according to a letter from the Army Corps of Engineers that was released yesterday. NYT(reg/req) |
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| A day after Baghdad's fall, many foresee American dominance in the Middle East - and possible reprisals. Christian Science Monitor |
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| The Iraqi currency may be worth next to nothing in the real world, but a 100 dinar note could set you back $100 on Ebay. BBC |
| "It has been an ugly 48 hours,'' said Red Cross spokesperson Roland Huguenin-Benjamin. "What kind of sense of rebuilding a country can you have if people are removing air conditioners from hospitals.'' Toronto Star |
| The dramatic rescue of former POW Jessica Lynch played like something out of a movie -- and soon it will be just that. NBC is fast-tracking development on a two-hour telepic detailing Lynch's jaw-dropping ordeal and the preparations that went into planning her rescue. Variety (reg/req) |
| Two-thirds of Americans have little stomach for extending the Iraq war to other so-called rogue nations that might aid terrorists or develop weapons of mass destruction, a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll shows. |
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| Yemeni authorities were hunting for 10 of the main suspects in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole after they escaped from prison Friday, officials said. USA Today |
| "A visit to Deputy Prime Minister Aziz' home reveals an interest in the popular american culture he once denounced...Upstairs in a child's room with a small wooden bed is a cluttered collection of American toys and pop-cultural trinkets: stuffed animals and cartoon characters such as the Tazmanian Devil, Popeye and Sylvester the cat. The walls are decorated with posters of Snoopy and photographs of Disney World, along with photos of the pop singer Britney Spears, apparently torn from magazines." Washington Post |
| It'll be a matter of days "before the nightly newscasts of Peter Jennings on ABC, Tom Brokaw on NBC, Dan Rather on CBS, Jim Lehrer of PBS and Brit Hume on Fox News would be beamed to Iraqi televisions." NYT (reg/req) |
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| "We know we don't target journalists," said the US Central Command
(CentCom) in Qatar. Contrary to CentCom's assertions, non-embedded journalists
know that they have been targeted.
It was inevitable. When it finally happened, it was like clockwork. Al-Jazeera's office in Kabul was incinerated by four missiles in the 2001 ousting of the Taliban in Afghanistan. True to CentCom form, al-Jazeera's office in Baghdad was hit by a Tomahawk this week in the invasion of Iraq - even though the Qatari network had offered its global positioning system (GPS) position to the Pentagon in late February. Asia Times |
| Whatever “vital” role the United Nations plays in reconstructing Iraq when the war ends, one thing is certain: the international body will first have to feed much of the country’s 27 million people. The Economist |
| Newpapers throughout the Arabic-speaking world reacted with a mixture
of amazement, concern and delight on Thursday to the sudden fall of central
Baghdad to US military forces.
"Momentous", "inexplicable" and "loathsome" were among the comments, as were "good news" and "rejoice". BBC |
| All over Washington, public relations professionals are distraught
at the sudden disappearance from television screens of Iraqi Information
Minister Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf.
"Many of us turned to his daily briefings just as people in this town look forward to their morning Starbucks," said veteran Democratic operative Dale Leibach, a principal in Prism Public Affairs and a man with an antic sense of humor. "We need to bring him over here to practice his amazing public relations skills. He has taken our profession, such as it is, to a level that is as inexplicable as it is humbling. I would hire him in a nanosecond." Washington Post |
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| "Of all the statues of Saddam Hussein scattered throughout the city, the crowds had conveniently picked one located across from the hotel where most of the media were headquartered. This was either splendid luck or brilliant planning on the part of the military," Tom Shales writes in the Washington Post. |
| "US special operations forces have sabotaged Kirkuk-Banias pipeline cutting flow of illegal Iraqi oil exports smuggled through Syria. Damascus notifies buyers that 2003 supply diminished by 40pc, equal to 240,000bpd – exactly the quantity that Iraq previously pumped through." |
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| "Forty million Africans are at risk of starving but are not getting enough aid because the world is distracted by Iraq, the World Food Program has warned." UK Guardian |
| "It's hard to smile when there's no water. It's hard to applaud when
you're frightened. It's hard to say, "Thank you for liberating me," when
liberation has meant that looters have ransacked everything from the grain
silos to the local school, where they even took away the blackboard."
Tom Friedman's NYT's Op-Ed (reg/req) |
| "The Pentagon said on Monday that it was holding 7,000 POWs, while Britain said on Tuesday that it was holding 6,500. The United States has already opened one so-called Theatre Internment Facility designed to house 4,000 prisoners at an undisclosed location in southern Iraq." BBC |
| "NASA is preparing to launch the last of its "Great Observatories," space telescopes that astronomers hope will explore the faint warm glow of the early days of the universe and see through the billowing clouds of interstellar dust that obscure the birthplaces of stars and, possibly, far-off planets." NYT (reg/req) |
| "The Great Lakes states will look more like parts of the South and Southwest by the end of the century as a result of global warming, a report released Tuesday concludes." UPI |
| "In wartime the press is always part of the problem. This has been true since the Crimean War, when William Howard Russell wrote his account of the charge of the Light Brigade and invented the profession of the modern war correspondent. When the nation goes to war, the press goes to war with it. The blather on CNN or Fox or MSNBC is part of a long and sad tradition." The Nation |
| "An animated clip of Kermit the Frog rolling a cannabis joint is being circulated by email in Chile." Ananova |
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| "When speaking of President Bush and his administration, Mr. Aboulmagd
uses words like narrow-minded, pathological, obstinate and simplistic.
The war on Iraq, he said bluntly, is the act of a 'weak person who wants
to show toughness' and, quite frankly, seems 'deranged.'
Such language from a man of Mr. Aboulmagd's stature is a warning sign of the deep distress that has seized the Arab elite, those who preach moderation in the face of rising Islamic radicalism and embrace liberalism over the tired slogans of Arab nationalism." NYT(reg/req) |
| "Last year rang in as the second-warmest on record, weather experts
reported Monday, making 2002 the continuation of a trend of warmer years.
The 'State of the Climate' report also described 2002 as a year that marked the worst flooding in Europe in 100 years and a record drought for parts of North America. In fact, scientists found that 2002 drought patterns in the southwestern USA match Dust Bowl records from the 1930s." USA Today |
| "A new cassette tape purported to be from Osama bin Laden surfaced today, urging suicide attacks and calling on Muslims to rise up against Arab governments that support the US-led attack on Iraq." UK Guardian |
| "A full-page ad Monday calling for the impeachment of President Bush sparked dozens of calls, letters and e-mails from readers angered that it would appear in" The San Francisco Chronicle. |
| "The whole Iraq will be happy if the news about Saddam’s death is confirmed," says Hussein Al-Rekabi, a prominent Iraqi opposition leader who spent several months in Al-Rasheed Jail with Saddam Hussein during the reign of Abdul Kareem Qasim. Arab News |
| "If you want to figure out whether the administration of President
George W Bush intends a crusade to remake the Middle East in the wake of
Washington's presumed military victory in Iraq, watch what happens with
R James Woolsey. A former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),
Woolsey is being pushed hard by his fellow neoconservatives in the Pentagon
to play a key role in the post-Saddam Hussein US occupation.
Less well-known than his long-time associates and close friends, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and the former head of the Defense Policy Board (DPB) Richard Perle, Woolsey has long believed that Washington has a mission to use its overwhelming military power and its democratic ideals to transform the Arab world. And he has pushed for war with Iraq as hard as anyone, even before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. If he soon pops up in Baghdad, you can bet that the "clash of civilizations" is imminent, if it has not begun already." Asian Times |
| It is one of the most emotional elements of any war, one of the hardest
to report accurately, and one of the most controversial. Coverage of civilian
casualties can spark both praise and anger from readers -- and much internal
discussion among editors, and front-page designers, directing coverage
of the war in Iraq.
"We pay more attention to American deaths," said Editor Anthony Marro of Newsday in Melville, N.Y., whose paper publishes few photos of dead bodies, even fewer if they are Iraqi. "It is easier to report on people we know, we put more faces on the Americans, we know who they are." But most editors who spoke with E&P believe civilian casualties need equal attention because they are an important effect of the war. "Our reporters are encouraged to cover everything they see," said John Walcott, Washington bureau chief for Knight Ridder Newspapers. "It is our responsibility to show the face of war -- no matter what it looks like." Editor & Publisher |
| Of the 108 coalition troops reported dead in Iraq as of midday Monday, 53 had been killed in action, according to military reports. Of the remaining 55, helicopter accidents had killed 28 and 14 others died in land accidents, according to a casualty database maintained by The Associated Press. |
| "According to the Iraqi horoscope, Iraqi civilians are a long way off from total peace and harmony with the coalition countries, due to their past 25 years of dictatorship and apprehensiveness. Unfortunately, it is not until Saturn (planet of stability) does its full passing of Iraq’s natal Sun over the next two and a half years, that peace and economic stability will be seen to be reasonable in Iraq." Milton Black |
| "An estimated 12 percent of African-American men ages 20 to 34 are in jail or prison, according to a report released ... by the Justice Department." NYT (reg/req) |
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| "With Baghdad under intensive bombardment, the International Red Cross says so many injured are arriving at hospitals that no one can keep track of the numbers." BBC |
| "The media's war music, some critics charge, tells viewers and listeners what to think and feel about the conflict even before the embedded reporters deliver their updates from the front." Chicago Tribune (reg/req) |
| "Bush's motives have more to do with empire and profit than with liberating Iraq." George McGovern explains why in The Nation. |
| "The United States military is attempting to write a new chapter in the history of urban warfare." Christian Science Monitor |
| "Man's two closest relatives in the animal kingdom - gorillas and chimpanzees in the forests of Western Equatorial Africa - will be on the edge of extinction within a decade, unless drastic conservation measures are put in place immediately." BBC |
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| "Mix the open-ended costs of war and reconstruction with huge tax cuts, shrinking tax revenues and a stalled economy, and you get a budget deficit bound to explode. The victims will be many." NYT's magazine (reg/req) |
| "Six more moons have been found orbiting Jupiter, pushing the planet's total to 58." NYT (reg/req) |
| "Before September 11, President George W Bush kept his evangelical
Christian beliefs largely to himself.
He had turned to God at the age of 40 as a way of kicking alcoholism,
and his faith had kept him on the straight and narrow ever since, giving
him the drive to reach the White House.
Those close to Mr Bush say that day he discovered his life's mission. He became convinced that God was calling him to engage the forces of evil in battle, and this one time baseball-team owner from Texas did not shrink from the task." BBC |
| "War in North Korea is now almost inevitable because of the country's diplomatic stalemate with America, a senior UN official claims. Ahead of this week's crucial talks between members of the UN Security Council, Maurice Strong, special adviser to the Secretary General Kofi Annan, was gloomy on the chances of a peaceful settlement." UK Observer |
| "With international attention focused on Iraq, despots are seizing the opportunity to get rid of their opposition — real or imagined. In Zimbabwe, Cuba and Belarus, independent journalists, opposition leaders and human rights advocates have been thrown in prison. Absent scrutiny, the leaders of these rogue regimes have been emboldened, aware that their actions are causing little more than a ripple of protest beyond their countries." NYT's Op-Ed (reg/req) |
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| "It is not easy being an old lefty on campus in this war.
At the University of Wisconsin at Madison, awash in antiwar protests in the Vietnam era, a columnist for a student newspaper took a professor to task for canceling classes to protest the war in Iraq, saying the university should reprimand her and refund tuition for the missed periods. Irvine Valley College in Southern California sent faculty members a memo that warned them not to discuss the war unless it was specifically related to the course material. When professors cried censorship, the administration explained that the request had come from students." NYT(reg/req) |
| U.S. forces have battled their way to central Baghdad for the first time in the 17-day war, a U.S. military spokesman said on Saturday. Read several defense analysts' views on the significance of the rapid U.S. thrust provided by Reuters. |
| "An estimated 22 per cent of Americans get their daily news from Talk Radio - bizarre, bigoted and often startlingly misinformed diatribes from radio show hosts hired for their ability to shock first and foremost. TV journalist Sheila MacVicar visited a few and was appropriately shocked." Index on Censorship |
| "Experts say the move, which began four days ago in a northern Iraqi town, may violate international law." Christian Science Monitor |
| "Buoyed by success on the battlefield, most Americans now express support for an expansive U.S. role in the Middle East, with a clear majority backing the war in Iraq and half endorsing military action against Iran if it continues to develop nuclear weapons, according to a new Los Angeles Times poll." |
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| "Congress waded into a feud between the Defense Department and the State Department on Thursday with a strong vote of confidence for Secretary of State Colin Powell." USA Today |
| "Iran's senior leadership decided last month to send irregular paramilitary units across their border with Iraq to harass American soldiers once Saddam Hussein's regime fell, according to U.S. intelligence reports." UPI |
| "The boycotts might have only a symbolic impact on the finances of large multinational corporations, but they come at a time when many companies are struggling in weak overseas markets." USA Today |
| "The Arab press — like Arab public opinion as a whole — predominantly opposes the British and American attack on Iraq, and does not hesitate to say so in its front page headlines, articles and photographs. Yet the press is neither monolithic nor uniformly anti-American." NYT/Op-Ed (reg/req) |
| "Former CIA Director James Woolsey said Wednesday the United States is engaged in World War IV, and that it could continue for years." CNN |
| "The neo-conservatives driving the war in Iraq point to US-occupied post-World War II Japan as a model of nation-building that can be applied to post-Saddam Iraq. But there are many differences between the two cases, and the international community will ignore these differences at its - and the Iraqis' - peril." Asia Times |
| "In a flat landscape of mud fields and flat-topped farmhouses, the palace of Chemical Ali stands out for miles...Only the name of Saddam Hussein himself strikes as much terror into the hearts of ordinary Iraqis as Ali Hassan al-Majid. After organising the gassing of the Kurds in 1986, he is better known as Chemical Ali." BBC |
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As we know, There are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know There are known unknowns. That is to say We know there are some things We do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, The ones we don't know We don't know. Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing
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| "For Arab leaders and Arab moderates, supported by Washington, the war has become a political crisis of street protests, militant calls for holy war and bitter public criticism of their ties to the United States." NYT (reg/req) |
| "Senator John F. Kerry said yesterday that President Bush committed a ''breach of trust'' in the eyes of many United Nations members by going to war with Iraq, creating a diplomatic chasm that will not be bridged as long as Bush remains in office." Boston Globe |
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| "Fears over the long-term impact of the war against Iraq on relations between the Arab world and the West are expressed in Thursday's Arabic press." BBC |
| "Underlying at least part of this attention is that Lynch is a demographically desirable protagonist. She's blond and attractive, and you can imagine the meetings as Hollywood agents and producers -- some of whom have already expressed interest in a TV movie of the story, as they invariably do in response to such events -- contemplate what star from the youth-oriented WB network might be right for the role. That she comes from the biblically named town of Palestine is a bonus." LA Times |
| "Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat today accused Israel of using the war in Iraq as cover to attack the Palestinians." UK Guardian |
| "Two Western journalists have arrived safely back in Kuwait City after being arrested, beaten up and deprived of food and water in Iraq — by members of the US Army’s military police." Arab News |
| "Newsday staffers Moises Saman and Matthew McAllester were recently held in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison for eight days with two other Western journalists and an American peace activist." Read McAllester's tale inNewsday. |
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| "With the exception of pressing regional issues and breathless soccer
analyses, global media reportage these days is all war, all the time.
But while such saturation coverage of the conflict in Iraq wouldn't surprise most Americans, the tone of these reports might. Channel-surf from Britain's BBC to Germany's ZDF, or flip through newspapers from Spain to Bangkok, and one finds stories that tilt noticeably against the war and in favor of besieged Iraqi civilians." USA Today |
| "...there is scary and disconcerting evidence that Hussein, despised by many Arabs for years, has morphed into a hero for the Arab resistance movement. Such developments have potentially serious ramifications. For once the fighting in Iraq has ended, the United States could be less safe than it was when the war began." Washington Post |
| Early last year, long before the war drums could be heard, we did a story about a Chicago-based Islamic-leaning university. At the time, one of the school's Muslim staff members offered this - "My main concern today is, will our leadership be wise enough not to build up future resentments? Is our response to this tragedy going to create 20 bin Ladens 20 years down the road?" Today it seems his 20 bin Ladens, 20 years down the road estimate was overly optimistic. |
| "A hotel in Basra being used as a base by al-Jazeera's team of correspondents
in the city was shelled this morning, the Arabic TV news channel has claimed.
The Basra Sheraton, whose only guests are al-Jazeera journalists, received four direct hits this morning during a heavy artillery bombardment, according to the Qatar-based broadcaster. UK Guardian |
| "Vandals have defaced one of the biggest British war cemeteries in northern France with graffiti condemning the US-British invasion of Iraq, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) said." Australian Broadcasting Corporation |
| "Iraq is one huge world heritage site, a unique storehouse of art and archaeology. Now the war threatens to destroy it all, writes Fiachra Gibbons in the UK Guardian. |
| "As American-led forces push toward Baghdad, the shrink-wrapped $200 suits that troops are carrying to protect against chemical and biological weapons could soon have their first real-world test, and experts and officials are divided over how well they will work." NYT (reg/req) |
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| "The firing of Peter Arnett [his controversial interview on Iraqi TV here] is just one more example of the way in which the White House and Pentagon propaganda machines are trying to stifle independent reporting." TomPaine.com |
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| "The Iraqi defense minister suggested tonight that Iraq was now pursuing a protracted war with stepped-up guerrilla tactics that would carry into the summer, when soaring temperatures would sap the American will to fight." NYT(reg/req) |
| "A disagreement has broken out at a senior level within the Bush administration over a new government that the US is secretly planning in Kuwait to rule Iraq in the immediate period after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Under the plan, the government will consist of 23 ministries, each headed by an American. Every ministry will also have four Iraqi advisers appointed by the Americans, the Guardian has learned." |
| What kind of school and university system is Washington planning, asks Joanna Walters in the UK Guardian |
| "There are over 40,000 Iraqi exiles already in Jordan, but since the
start of the war it has become obvious that predictions of thousands more
arriving as refugees were Iraqi gross miscalculations.
What in fact appears to be happening is the opposite. Huge numbers of the Iraqi exiles who initially left Iraq because of political reasons have decided to return to participate and fight side by side with their Iraqi brothers. According to the Iraqi Embassy in Amman, 5,700 Iraqis have left Jordan to go and fight what they believe is an invasion and potential occupation of their home country." Arab News |
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| Officers on the Iraqi battlefield complain that the Pentagon has not sent enough troops to wage the war as they want to fight it...One colonel, who spoke on the condition that his name be withheld, was among the officers criticizing decisions to limit initial deployments of troops to the region. "He wanted to fight this war on the cheap," the colonel said. "He got what he wanted." NYT (reg/req) |
| "Nearly two weeks into the Iraq campaign, Americans' overall support for the war remains consistently strong. But that resolve may be tested as the conflict shows signs of lasting longer than anticipated - and as the number of US service members killed, wounded, and missing in action continues to mount." Christian Science Monitor |
| "BAGHDAD, IRAQ—Baghdad resident Taha Sabri, killed Monday in a U.S. air strike on his city, would have loved the eventual liberation of Iraq and establishment of democracy, had he lived to see it, his grieving widow said." The Onion |