"The occupation has turned into barbarism," the Friday edition of newspaper Yeni Safak quoted Mehmet Elkatmis, head of parliament's human rights commission, as saying. "The U.S. administration is committing genocide … in Iraq.

"Never in human history have such genocide and cruelty been witnessed. Such a genocide was never seen in the time of the pharaohs nor of Hitler nor of [Benito] Mussolini," Italy's World War II-era fascist leader, Elkatmis said.

"This occupation has entirely imperialist aims," he was quoted as saying.

Elkatmis does not speak for Turkey's government but is a prominent member of the ruling Justice and Development Party, a center-right group with Islamist roots.

Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul played down Elkatmis' comments but defended Turks' right to speak freely.

Elkatmis' comments drew barely a flicker of interest in Turkey, where polls point to growing anti-American sentiment.

Turkey has been especially disturbed by the recent U.S. offensive against insurgents in Fallouja in which civilians have died and mosques have been damaged.

LA Times

Charles Walker is scheduled to be executed in North Carolina on 3 December 2004. The jury which sentenced him to death did so despite finding that he had not actually killed Tito Davidson, whose body was never found. Several of the jurors now support clemency.

A prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group today called for an apology from the MSNBC cable television network over comments on its "Imus in the Morning" program that referred to Palestinians as "stinking animals" and suggested that they all be killed.

The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) also urged that the program's host, Don Imus, be reprimanded for failing to challenge his colleagues’ inflammatory remarks. CAIR, which says it received numerous complaints about the comments, quoted a transcript of Imus’ November 12th program in which he and his on-air colleagues engaged in the following discussion about live coverage of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's funeral:

DON IMUS: They're (the Palestinians) eating dirt and that fat pig wife of his is living in Paris.
COLLEAGUE: They’re all brainwashed, though. That’s what it is. And they're stupid, to begin with, but they’re brainwashed now. Stinking animals. They ought to drop the bomb right there, kill ‘em all right now…
IMUS: Well, the problem is we have (reporter) Andrea (Mitchell) there; we don't want anything to happen to her.
COLLEAGUE: Oh, she's got to get out. Andrea, get out and then drop the bomb and kill everybody…
COLLEAGUE: Look at this. Animals. Animals!
CAIR

British journalist Robert Fisk cleverly highlights the strange circumstances surrounding Margaret’s kidnapping in a recent article. He writes: “So, if anyone doubted the murderous nature of the insurgents, what better way to prove their viciousness than to produce evidence of Margaret Hassan’s murder?” He concludes with the thought-provoking question: “Who gains from Margaret Hassan’s death?

Certainly not the insurgency. Mrs. Hassan was married to an Iraqi, had dual British-Iraqi nationality, spoke fluent Arabic and was a convert to Islam. She had spent some 30 years caring for the Iraqi people and had been a vehement opponent of the US-led sanctions and invasion. So why was she taken in the first place? Even Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi’s ruthless band of thugs urged her immediate release.”

Every crime has a motive. In the case of Mrs. Hassan it is difficult to see what this could be from the point of view of the resistance.

When compared to previous militant tapes, the videos of Mrs. Hassan pleading for her life were unique. There were no banners, no armed, masked men in the background, no claims of responsibility, and, in a departure from the usual decapitation, Margaret was hooded and shot.

Despite a slowdown in fighting, the Palestinian economy remains crippled by four years of conflict with Israel and nearly half the population survives on less than $2 a day, the World Bank said.
LA Times

A rightwing Republican group on Monday has launched a television campaign calling for the United Nations (UN) to be kicked out of the United States (US), alleging the world body is a "safe harbour" for terrorism.

California-based Move America Forward wants the world body's New York headquarters shut down and its officials expelled from the country because it failed to support the US-led war on Iraq.

The advertisement, which Move America Forward officials said would begin airing nationally next week, calls for Americans to sign a petition calling for the United Nations to be booted off US soil.

It comes amid resentment from US conservatives over the UN refusal to fully back US President George Bush's decision to attack Iraq on the grounds that it had weapons of mass destruction, which were never came to light.

In addition, the group's petition drive, directed at UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and Bush, also calls for "a thorough review of the US financial contributions to the UN with a goal of a more equitable payment schedule."

"Until that review is concluded, eliminate all the payments made by the United States to the United Nations," the petition states.

Move America Forward's claims to be a "non-partisan, not-for-profit organisation" committed to backing the US war on terror and supporting its troops.

It is run by former Republican party politicans and a conservative talk show host and campaigned furiously against outspoken liveral US filmmaker Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," which denounced Bush's war on Iraq.

IOL

Ukraine was perilously close to civil conflict last night after the democratic opposition refused to recognise the regime's candidate as the victor in an election that will determine whether the country deepens its fragile democracy, and tilts towards the West, or heads down the autocratic route of its northern neighbour and former master, Russia.

Tens of thousands of Ukrainians thronged the streets of the country's capital, Kiev, and other major cities yesterday to denounce alleged fraud in the presidential elections.

The opposition and western election monitors accused the government of dirty tricks before and massive fraud during the poll to tip the victory to Mr Yanukovych by 3 per cent. In many polling stations where Mr Yanukovych gained most votes, more than 100 per cent of voters apparently turned out.

Senator Richard Lugar, chairman of the US Senate's Foreign Relations Committee, said in Kiev that there had been "a concerted and forceful programme of election-day fraud and abuse" and called on the outgoing President, Leonid Kuchma, "to review all of this and take decisive action in the best interests of the country". The EU also said Ukrainian ambassadors would be summoned to capitals of its member states and briefed about its "serious concerns".
Independent

Supporters of reform at the CIA Sunday criticized what Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., called the "unfortunate" wording of a memo from newly appointed Director of Central Intelligence Porter Goss in which staff at the agency were told that their job was to "support the administration."

The memo, circulated via e-mail to staff last week after the sudden and angry resignations of the senior management team at the agency's clandestine service, laid down what Goss called "the rules of the road."

Attention immediately focused on a single passage in which Goss writes: "We support the administration and its policies in our work. As agency employees, we do not identify with, support or champion opposition to the administration or its policies.

"What does 'support the administration ... in our work' mean? If it means support in the sense of cheerleading -- that's a problem. But if it means by providing intelligence, there's another problem, because he says in the next line that the agency doesn't 'support ... opposition.'

"Does that mean he won't provide intelligence to Democrats if they use it to disagree with or criticize administration policy?" Suzanne Spaulding, former Democratic staff director of the House Intelligence Committee asked.

UPI

The US Congress has denied the Bush administration funds to study a new generation of nuclear weapons.

Omitting $36.6 million from a huge $388 billion spending bill it passed over the weekend, lawmakers on Monday said the technology would encourage other nations to go nuclear.

Such bunker-busting nuclear weapons, packing half the power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in the second world war, would be used to destroy underground facilities as well as smaller nuclear arms.

The White House said it had no plans to build such weapons, but wanted to keep the door open to their development to deal with emerging threats.

Democrats said just considering the weapons takes nuclear warfare out of the realm of the unthinkable.

"If we are to convince other countries to forego nuclear weapons, we cannot be preparing to build an entire new generation of nuclear weapons here in the US," said Representative Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat.

Markey said this "should send a strong signal to the Bush administration to drop this weapon from next year's budget request".

Aljazeera

Consider the story of Henry Tandey, a British infantryman in the Duke of Wellington Regiment in the First World War. On September 28, 1918, Tandey participated in an attack against enemy trenches near the small French town of Marcoing. The British carried the day, and as they advanced, Tandey Cautiously peered into a trench. He saw an enemy soldier, a corporal, lying bleeding on the ground. It would have been easy for Tandey to finish off his enemy, as he had killed many that day; Tandey had played an heroic role in the battle and later was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest wartime decoration, for his great courage. But he felt it was wrong to shoot an injured man, and he spared the corporal's life.

In 1940, during the Nazi bombardment of Coventry, when Tandey worked as a security guard at the Triumph automobile factory, he gnashed his teeth. "Had I known what that corporal was going to become! God knows how sad I am that I spared him." The corporal was Adolf Hitler. Tandey's human gesture had led to the deaths of millions of people and, in a bitter irony of military destiny, had placed his own life at the mercy of the monster whose life he could have taken.

Murder is surely evil, yet every reasonable person will agree that the cause of good would have been greatly advanced if Henry Tandey had killed Hitler in that trench. History abounds with examples of good actions furthering the cause of evil...

A dispute among deer hunters over a tree stand in northwestern Wisconsin erupted in a series of shootings on Sunday that left five people dead and three injured, officials said.

The incident happened when two hunters were returning to their rural cabin on private land in Sawyer County and saw a man in one of their tree stands, Chief Deputy Tim Zeigle of Sawyer County said. A confrontation and shooting followed. It is not known who shot first, Deputy Zeigle said.

Both men were wounded, and one of them radioed back to the cabin, he said, adding that when other hunters responded they were shot.

The gunman was using a SKS assault-style rifle, Deputy Zeigle said, "chasing after them and killing them."

The dead included three men, a teenage boy and a woman, he said. The man who radioed for help was not fatally wounded. Some of the victims were shot more than once. All five were dead when officers arrived, Deputy Zeigle said. Two people who stayed in the cabin emerged safely after the shootings.

NY Times

An estimated 20,000 people have taken part in an anti-terror march in Germany. Many of those in the crowd were of Turkish origin. They had two messages: firstly to condemn violent attacks on Muslims; secondly to condemn the actions of some Islamic extremists. The demonstration in the city of Cologne is a reaction to increasing debate over the role of the country's 3.5 million Muslims in German society.

Iraq's child malnutrition rate now roughly equals that of Burundi, a central African nation torn by more than a decade of war. It is far higher than rates in Uganda and Haiti.

Dr. Fathi Arafat, the brother of the late Palestinian president and the Palestine Red Crescent Society’s honorary President, died on Sunday in a Cairo hospital. Fathi, 71, was admitted earlier this month to a specialized hospital in Cairo to continue medical treatment for his terminal cancer and his condition was reported in recent days as "critical."

A Kuwaiti daily reported on Saturday that Fathi Arafat's doctors decided not to update him regarding the death of Yasser Arafat.
AL Bawaba

While Yasir Arafat's death was met with a gloating silence by many Israelis, jazzman and writer Gilad Atzmon was one of the few who had something good to say about the departed Palestinian leader.

"It is clear that this man, this brave man, this hero, the biggest 20th century freedom fighter, went through a hell of a time," said Atzmon in a telephone interview from his North London home.

But Atzmon is not your average Israeli. In fact he takes offence at even being called Israeli.

"Let me make it clear, I am not an Israeli. I was born in Israel, for the first 22 years of my life I thought of myself as an Israeli. But when I realised what Israel was all about, I stopped regarding myself as an Israeli. I demand not to be seen as one. I am a Hebrew-speaking Palestinian," he says.

"For me it is clear that Zionism is a racist, nationalist and a fundamentally religious perception, and I don't want to live in a racist set-up," he says.

On his last album Exile, voted by the BBC as the best jazz album of 2003, he reworks an Israeli anthem written about the conquest of Jerusalem in the 1967 war, and adds the words of renowned Palestinian poet, Mahmud Darwish.

On another track on Exile, Atzmon took a Jewish song that commemorates the Nazi holocaust called Brother our Ghetto is Burning and renames it Jenin, a sad and soulful number dedicated to the residents of the West Bank refugee camp of the same name that was invaded and smashed by the Israeli army in April 2002.

Atzmon says his new album addresses the hijacking of popular music by American-led globalisation and big corporations.

"In my new album I don't attack Israelis any more than I attack the globalised world. I don't see any difference between the Israeli abusive treatment of the Palestinian people and the American abuse of the Arab world," he said.

Oddly, Atzmon thinks the re-election of George Bush is not quite the disaster that many believe it to be.

"They have elected a qualified imbecile. America is a superpower. No one can topple it. The only people who can topple America are Americans themselves and they have done it. They have elected a qualified imbecile to run their administration. They are getting involved in so many wars and they are far from being successful in any of them. This empire is falling apart," he said.
Al Jazeera

Learn more about Gilad Atzmon here

A child lies in a Baghdad hospital bed after losing a leg in fighting in Falluja.
Photo by ALI JASIM

Digital Rebel (EOS-300D) My new camera should be arriving in the next few days. It's a present from my husband for my birthday. He's so sweet. So, look for new and hopefully better photos. Does anyone else use this particular model?

Their successors should do the same

PALESTINIAN leader Yasser Arafat has died in Paris, aged 75. The official time of Arafat's death was 1.30pm (AEDT).

South Africa's foreign minister said Wednesday that more west African troops should be deployed to Ivory Coast to dilute the strong French military presence there.

Originally from Anchorage, Alaska, Dahr Jamail writes about the effects of the US occupation on the people of Iraq, since the mainstream media in the US has in large part, he believes, failed to do so.

I have to wonder if people in the US actually know what is happening in Iraq. If so, how can they allow this to go on? Is it possible for any to put themselves in the place of these people and feel compassion? How can you continue to condone the killing of thousands of innocent people and call yourself a 'Christian' nation led by God? These people have done nothing to the great USA. If you condone this action you are guilty of murder just as if you pulled the trigger yourself.