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Global poll shows wide distrust of United States

Thursday, June 28th, 2007

Distrust of the United States has intensified across the world, but overall views of America remain very or somewhat favorable among majorities in 25 of 47 countries surveyed in a major international opinion poll, the Pew Research Center reported Wednesday.

“Anti-Americanism since 2002 has deepened, but it hasn’t really widened,” said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Global Attitudes Project. “It has worsened among America’s European allies and is very, very bad in the Muslim world. But there is still a favorable view of the United States in many African countries, as well as in ‘New Europe’ and the Far East.”

Nonetheless, majorities in many countries reject the main planks of current U.S. foreign policy and express distaste for American-style democracy, the survey found.

Respondents worldwide not only want Washington to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq “as soon as possible,” but also seek a rapid end to the American and NATO military intervention in Afghanistan, now in its sixth year.

The poll found growing wariness toward other major powers as well. Concerns over China’s economic and military might have tarnished its image in many nations, Pew found, and confidence in President Vladimir Putin of Russia has dropped sharply.

The survey, conducted in April and May, is by far the largest Pew has carried out since 2002, covering 47 countries in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas, and assessing the opinions of more than 45,000 people. It found that concern about global warming has increased dramatically in the last five years.

“Most of the citizens in the global survey agree the environment is in trouble and most blame the United States and, to a much more limited degree, China,” Pew said.

Negative views of Iran have intensified, including in some Muslim countries, Pew found, and respondents in almost all countries surveyed expressed overwhelming opposition to Tehran’s acquiring nuclear weapons.

While the survey covered a broad range of issues, it focused intensively on the world’s image of the United States, which was largely positive in 2002 - reflecting global sympathy for Americans after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on New York and Washington - but has declined steeply since 2003, when the Bush administration decided to invade Iraq.

Over the last five years, favorable ratings of the United States have decreased “in 26 of the 33 countries for which trends are available,” Pew said.

Confidence in President George W. Bush, which was already sagging, has dropped further in most countries over the past year, as the Iraqi quagmire has deepened and the world’s reprobation has increased.

“Global distrust of American leadership is reflected in increasing disapproval of the cornerstones of U.S. foreign policy,” Pew said in its report on the findings.

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, co-chair of the Pew Global Attitudes Project, linked this development directly to the Iraq war. “I think Iraq will go down in history as the greatest disaster in American foreign policy,” she said.

The poll found that:

Majorities in 43 of the 47 countries surveyed want a quick U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq. In the United States, 56 percent express this opinion. The exceptions are Ghana, Israel, Kenya and Nigeria.

Majorities or pluralities in 40 countries also want U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops out of Afghanistan as soon as possible. This view, strongest in the Muslim world, was also held in many NATO member countries, notably Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and Turkey.

Support for America’s so-called war on terrorism has plummeted since 2002, especially in Europe, where U.S. practices against inmates at the Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prisons have been harshly condemned.

There is a widespread perception that the United States acts unilaterally in making international policy decisions. This view is especially powerful in Europe, shared by 90 percent in Sweden, 89 percent in France, and 70 percent or more in Britain, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Germany, Russia, Slovakia and Spain. A full 83 percent of Canadians believe that their neighbor to the south ignores their interests. Middle Easterners overwhelmingly share this view, as do many Asians, including South Koreans and Japanese.

Majorities in most every country believe that the United States promotes democracy mostly where it serves American interests. Only in Nigeria did many say they believe that the United States “promotes democracy wherever it can.”

This, according to Pew, helps explain why American ideas about democracy are rejected by vast numbers around the globe. The exception is sub-Saharan Africa, where the majority approves of American-style democracy in all countries polled except Tanzania.

But elsewhere, majorities or pluralities in all but four survey countries excluding the United States itself - China, Israel, South Korea and Japan - say they dislike American ideas about democracy.

The country where America’s image is worst is Turkey, a NATO ally, where only 9 percent now have a favorable view, down from 52 percent before the United States went into Afghanistan in late 2001.

In Germany, traditionally one of the closest U.S. allies, only 30 percent now have a positive view, down from 78 percent before Bush took office in January 2001.

There has been serious slippage as well in Britain, America’s most reliable ally and its chief partner in the war in Iraq. A slim majority of Britons - 51 percent - now hold favorable views of the United States, down from 75 percent in 2002, before the Iraq invasion.

The picture is more complex with China, which is viewed favorably in more than half of the survey countries, particularly in Africa - where the Chinese have been investing heavily - and in Asia, excluding Japan.

At the same time, the Pew report said, “China’s expanding economic and military power is triggering considerable anxiety.”

Russia wins mixed reviews, with West Europeans largely unfavorable while opinions are split in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America, and generally positive in Africa, Canada and the United States.

With Putin’s grip tightening over pipelines to the West, dependence on Russia for energy supplies is worrying many Europeans, Pew found, with majorities expressing concern in Britain, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine.

Confidence in Putin’s leadership has plummeted in Europe since 2003, as has confidence in Bush. In contrast, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany enjoys high levels of confidence in Europe, although Middle Easterners - including Israelis and Palestinians - do not trust her on foreign affairs.

Asked about the crisis in the Middle East, Western publics were generally optimistic that a solution can be found that accommodates the needs of both Israelis and Palestinians, and Israelis also took that view. But Arabs in the region were pessimistic, with more than 70 percent in Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait and the Palestinian territories believing that “the rights and needs of the Palestinian people cannot be taken care of as long as the state of Israel exists.”

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Bush won’t supply subpoenaed documents

Thursday, June 28th, 2007

President Bush, in a constitutional showdown with Congress, claimed executive privilege Thursday and rejected demands for White House documents and testimony about the firing of U.S. attorneys.

His decision was denounced as “Nixonian stonewalling” by the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Bush rejected subpoenas for documents from former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor. The White House made clear neither one would testify next month, as directed by the subpoenas.

Presidential counsel Fred Fielding said Bush had made a reasonable attempt at compromise but Congress forced the confrontation by issuing subpoenas. “With respect, it is with much regret that we are forced down this unfortunate path which we sought to avoid by finding grounds for mutual accommodation.”

The assertion of executive privilege was the latest turn in increasingly hostile standoffs between the administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress over the Iraq war, executive power, the war on terror and Vice President Dick Cheney’s authority. A day earlier, the Senate Judiciary Committee delivered subpoenas to the offices of Bush, Cheney, the national security adviser and the Justice Department about the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program.

While weakened by the Iraq war and poor approval ratings in the polls, Bush has been adamant not to cede ground to Congress.

“Increasingly, the president and vice president feel they are above the law,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said Bush’s assertion of executive privilege was “unprecedented in its breadth and scope” and displayed “an appalling disregard for the right of the people to know what is going on in their government.”

White House press secretary Tony Snow weighed in with unusually sharp criticism of Congress. He accused Democrats of trying “to make life difficult for the White House. It also may explain why this is the least popular Congress in decades, because you do have what appears to be a strategy of destruction, rather than cooperation.”

Over the years, Congress and the White House have avoided a full-blown court test about the constitutional balance of power and whether the president can refuse demands from Congress. Lawmakers could vote to cite witnesses for contempt and refer the matter to the local U.S. attorney to bring before a grand jury. Since 1975, 10 senior administration officials have been cited but the disputes were all resolved before getting to court.

Congressional committees sought the documents and testimony in their investigations of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ stewardship of the Justice Department and the firing of eight federal attorneys over the winter. Democrats say the firings were an example of improper political influence. The White House contends that U.S. attorneys are political appointees who can be hired and fired for almost any reason.

In a letter to Leahy and Conyers, Fielding said Bush had “attempted to chart a course of cooperation” by releasing more than 8,500 pages of documents and sending Gonzales and other officials to Capitol Hill to testify.

The president also had offered to make Miers, Taylor, political strategist Karl Rove and their aides available to be interviewed by the Judiciary committees in closed-door sessions, without transcripts and not under oath. Leahy and Conyers rejected that proposal.

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s senior Republican, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, said the House and Senate panels should accept Bush’s original offer.

Impatient with the “lagging” pace of the investigation into the U.S. attorney firings, Specter said he asked Fielding during a phone call Wednesday night whether the president would agree to transcripts on the interviews. Fielding’s answer: No.

“I think we ought to take what information we can get now and try to wrap this up,” Specter told reporters. That wouldn’t preclude Congress from reissuing subpoenas if lawmakers do not get enough answers, Specter said.

Fielding explained Bush’s position on executive privilege this way: “For the president to perform his constitutional duties, it is imperative that he receive candid and unfettered advice and that free and open discussions and deliberations occur among his advisers and between those advisers and others within and outside the Executive Branch.”

This “bedrock presidential prerogative” exists, in part, to protect the president from being compelled to disclose such communications to Congress, Fielding argued.

In a slap at the committees, Fielding said, “There is no demonstration that the documents and information you seek by subpoena are critically important to any legislative initiatives that you may be pursuing or intending to pursue.”

It was the second time in his administration that Bush has exerted executive privilege, said White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto. The first instance was in December 2001, to rebuff Congress’ demands for Clinton administration documents.

The most famous claim of executive privilege was in 1974, when President Nixon went to the Supreme Court to avoid surrendering White House tape recordings in the Watergate scandal. That was in a criminal investigation, not a demand from Congress. The court unanimously ordered Nixon to turn over the tapes.

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Big Oil and Big Media V. Hugo Chavez

Thursday, June 28th, 2007

By Stephen Lendman
RINF Alternative News

On June 27, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal vied for attention with feature stories on oil giants ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips “walking away from their multi-billion-dollar investments in Venezuela” as the Journal put it or standing “Defiant in Venezuela” as the Times headlined. Both papers can barely contain their displeasure over Hugo Chavez wanting Venezuela to have majority ownership of its own assets and no longer let Big (foreign) Oil investors plunder them. Those days are over. State oil company PDVSA is now majority shareholder with a 78% interest in four Orinoco joint ventures. That’s up from previous stakes of from 30 to 49.9%. That’s how it should be, but it can’t stop the Journal and Times from whining about it.

What ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips reject, oil giants Chevron, BP PLC, Total SA and Statoil ASA agreed to. They’re willing to accept less of a huge profit they’ll get by staying instead of none at all by pouting and walking away as their US counterparts did. Or did they? The Wall Street Journal reports “Conoco isn’t throwing in the towel in Venezuela yet. By not signing a deal, the Houston company kept open the option of pursuing compensation through arbitration.” Exxon, however, is mum on that option for now. Responding to Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez saying the two oil giants will lose their stakes in the Orinoco oil fields altogether, a company spokesperson expressed “disappoint(ment) that we have been unable to reach an agreement on the terms for migration to a mixed enterprise structure (but will) continue discussions with the Venezuelan government on a way forward.”

So what’s likely ahead as most Big Oil giants agree to Venezuela’s terms while two outliers haven’t yet but may in the end do so. The country’s oil reserves are too lucrative to walk away from, especially with Russia now pressuring foreign investors the same way. It also wants majority stakes in its own resources with its giant oil and gas company Gazprom in control. It has a monopoly over the country’s Sakhalin gas field exports and has taken over two of the largest energy projects in eastern Russia.

If these actions by Venezuela and Russia succeed as is likely, they may influence other oil producing nations to follow a similar course and pursue plans for larger stakes in their own resources as well. Why not? They own them and even with less ownership interests, Big Oil will still earn huge profits from their foreign investments. They just won’t be quite as huge as they once were with one-sided deals benefitting them most. So the end of this story may not be its end according to Michael Goldbert, head of the international dispute resolution group at Baker Botts, an influential law firm representing major international oil companies. He said he didn’t think the June 26 actions were “necessarily the end of the story (adding) The prospects of a deal are never over until a sale is made or an arbitrator reaches a decision.”

The investments are large ranging from $2.5 - $4.5 billion for Conoco and $800 million for Exxon if Venezuela assumes ownership of its heavy oil projects. Conoco explained “Although the company is hopeful that the negotiations will be successful, it has preserved all legal rights, including international arbitration.” Exxon also expressed its hope an agreement could be reached permitting it to continue operating in an ownership role.

It looks like Conoco and Exxon want one foot in and the other outside Venezuela to keep its interests in the country alive. It also looks like they’re playing games and letting the Wall Street Journal and New York Times do their moaning about what they ought to be grateful for - the right to invest and earn huge profits the way other Big Oil investors are opting to do. Despite their June 26 decisions, Exxon and Conoco may, in the end, make the same choice. If they don’t, the stakes they relinquish will shift to other producers according to James Cordier, president of Liberty Trading Group in Tampa, Florida. He said production won’t halt, and “Before everyone walks out, a deal will be struck and production there will continue.” Caracas-based petroleum economist Mazhar al-Shereidah agrees saying “Venezuela is now free to find other partners (and) this doesn’t constitute a dramatic situation.” There are plenty of capable and willing takers around.

Conoco and Exxon may in the end accept less of a good investment, stop whining about it, and continue operating in Venezuela. Why not? The country is more open than many other oil-producing nations with much of their world’s proved reserves controlled by state monopolies barring private investment. Venezuela barred them from 1975 - 1992 when the nation’s energy sector was completely nationalized. That changed with a series of partial privatizations in the 1990s, and Chavez said he has no plans to reinstitute a complete oil industry nationalization. Private investors can thus remain in the country and continue earning huge profits doing so. Conoco and Exxon may decide after all to share in them.

Venezuelan V. Iraqi Oil Policies - A Study in Contrasts

High-level US officials from the administration, Congress and Pentagon are pressuring the puppet Iraqi parliament to pass its new “Hydrocarbon Law” drafted in Washington and by Big US and UK oil companies. Its provisions are in stark contrast to Venezuela’s oil management policies under Hugo Chavez. For Chavez, his nation and peoples’ interests come first. In Iraq, however, Big Oil licensed plunder will become law if the parliament agrees to accept what its occupier and corporate interests demand. At this stage, it’s nearly certain it will clearing the way for stealing part of what a US state department spokesperson in 1945 called “a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history” - the vast (mostly Saudi) Middle East oil reserves.

In Venezuela, the nation and its people will benefit most from the country’s oil wealth. In Iraq, their resources are earmarked mostly for Big US and UK Oil. The new “Hydrocarbon Law” is a shameless act of theft on the grandest of scale. It’s a privatization blueprint for plunder giving foreign investors a bonanza of resources, leaving Iraqis a mere sliver for themselves. As now written, its complex provisions give the Iraqi National Oil Company exclusive control of just 17 of the country’s 80 known oil fields with all yet-to-be-discovered deposits set aside for foreign investors.

Even worse, Big Oil is free to expropriate all earnings with no obligation to invest anything in Iraq’s economy, partner with Iraqi companies, hire local workers, respect union rights, or share new technologies. Foreign investors will be granted long-term contracts up to 30 or more years, dispossessing Iraq and its people of their own resources in a naked scheme to steal them.

The Wall Street Journal, New York Times and rest of the dominant US media shamelessly denounce Hugo Chavez for his courage and honor doing the right thing. In contrast, their silence, and effective complicity, on what will be one of the greatest ever corporate crimes when implemented shows their gross hypocrisy. It’ll be up to the people of Iraq to resist and reclaim what Venezuelan people already have from its social democratic leader serving their interests above all others.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on TheMicroEffect.com Saturdays at noon US central time.

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States signing DNA sharing deal

Thursday, June 28th, 2007

Australia is a step closer to a national DNA database with Queensland, Western Australia and the ACT signing the national information-sharing agreement.

Only NSW and Victoria are yet to sign up, and they have promised to do so.

Federal Justice Minister David Johnston said matching DNA databases across jurisdictions would give investigators far greater ability to catch offenders who have moved interstate.

“For too long our efforts to bring about a national DNA database have been frustrated by legal and operational hurdles. I am delighted that after seven years we have pushed past those obstacles,” he said in a statement.

Under the new arrangements, DNA profiles from state and territory databases will be uploaded and compared on a national database.

That will be managed by CrimTrac, the federal government-run organisation which coordinates national sharing of criminal information.

Senator Johnston said representatives of the Australian federal government, Queensland, ACT and Western Australia signed the DNA agreement at the Ministerial Council for Police and Emergency Management meeting in Wellington, New Zealand.

South Australia, the Northern Territory and Tasmania have already signed. NSW and Victoria have undertaken to follow suit as soon as required changes are made to their legislation.

“With full DNA matching across Australia, more and more DNA matching success stories should become commonplace,” Senator Johnston said.

“Recently a Northern Territory man who had a DNA sample taken from him in relation to a drink driving offence, pleaded guilty to a 1993 rape that he committed in Queensland, after his profile was matched through the national DNA database.”

“I urge those jurisdictions, who are not currently matching with other jurisdictions to start doing so as soon as possible. The Australian public deserve no less.”

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Globalist Study Says Citizens Want A World Government

Thursday, June 28th, 2007

Steve Watson
Infowars.net

An “in depth” study by a core globalist body and also funded in part by all manner of elitist groups and corporations, including the Rockefellers and the Ford Foundation, has found that the people of the world want a global government with a standing army to police the planet.

The study (PDF link) has been jointly released by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and WorldPublicOpinion.org who say that based on a survey conducted in 18 countries, the majority of people approve of strengthening the UN while rejecting the idea that the US should continue to be the preeminent world leader.

According to the two globalist think tanks, the results show that most people believe the UN should have the right to authorize military force and to usurp the national sovereignty of nations should it be necessary where cases of aggression, terrorism, and genocide are concerned.

“In general, there was recognition that many problems now transcend borders and require strengthened multilateral institutions and approaches to dealing with them,” Christopher Whitney, executive director for studies at The Chicago Council said.

Given that these two think tanks are funded and populated by a vast array of the most notorious globalists and heads of world corporations it is no surprise that they are lauding the findings.

The CCGA was formed in 1922 as an offshoot of the Council On Foreign Relations which was founded one year earlier. It is comprised of representatives from every globalist main player there is including the Federal Reserve, JP Morgan Chase and Company, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Booz Allen Hamilton, Mayer, Brown and Rowe and General Electric to name but a few.

See here for the full list.

In addition the World Public Opinion group is directly funded by the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund among others.

The Rockefellers, who also created the Trilateral Commission, have stated and proven many times that their goal is to undermine national sovereignty, subvert cultural norms, bring about a one world order and lead the way towards total control over society.

With this new study the institutions they have put into place are lauding the fact that they now have the majority of people on the planet hoodwinked into believing that globalism is their saviour.

In reality those that have hijacked the US and used it as a tool for global dominance are the same people that are pushing for this new global order.

The CCGA state that among the key findings of the study are:

On Globalization: Majorities around the world have a largely positive view of globalization and believe that international trade benefits national economies, companies, and consumers.
On Climate Change: There is widespread agreement that climate change is a pressing problem that poses a significant threat, though views differ on whether urgent, costly measures are needed.
On the United Nations: Large majorities approve of strengthening the United Nations by giving it the power to have its own standing peacekeeping force, regulate the international arms trade and investigate human rights abuses.
On U.S. Leadership: Publics around the world reject the idea that the United States should continue to be the preeminent world leader and prefer that it play a more cooperative role.
On China: Majorities around the world believe that the Chinese economy will someday grow to be as large as the US economy but only a minority thinks this would be negative.

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Senate Panel Subpoenas White House Wiretapping Papers

Thursday, June 28th, 2007

By William Roberts

A Senate panel probing the National Security Agency’s domestic wiretapping program issued subpoenas to the White House, Vice President Dick Cheney and the Justice Department for documents showing the Bush administration’s legal justification for the secret surveillance.

“This committee has made no fewer than nine formal requests to the Department of Justice and to the White House, seeking information and documents about the authorization of and legal justification for this program,” Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote in letters accompanying the subpoenas.

Those requests were “rebuffed” by a “pattern of evasion and misdirection” from administration officials, Leahy said.

The panel authorized Leahy to issue subpoenas on the secret surveillance on June 21. The panel is reviewing whether the White House properly developed a legal basis for the classified eavesdropping on the international phone calls and e-mails of suspected terrorist agents that was disclosed in December 2005.

President George W. Bush claimed authority to order the eavesdropping as commander-in-chief after the Sept. 11 attacks. The program allowed monitoring without a court order of communications into or out of the U.S. when one of the parties was suspected of having ties to terrorists.

Judicial Review

The Bush administration agreed earlier this year to allow the program to be subjected to review by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court.

“The terrorist surveillance program is lawful, limited, safeguarded and — most importantly — effective in protecting American citizens from terrorist attacks,” said White House spokesman Tony Fratto. “It’s specifically designed to be effective without infringing Americans’ civil liberties.”

The subpoenas seek documents related to the authorization of the program, agreements between the administration and telecommunications companies regarding liability for assisting the surveillance and information about the shutting down of an investigation of the surveillance by the Department of Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility.

“We hope the White House doesn’t stonewall on this issue that’s vitally important to what America is all about,” New York Democratic Senator Charles Schumer said.

Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey testified May 15 that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, while White House counsel, pressured then-Attorney General John Ashcroft against the advice of Justice Department lawyers to recertify a classified program, which senators said apparently was the wiretap program.

Gonzales Testimony

Meanwhile, Leahy said at a news conference that the Judiciary Committee will call Gonzales to testify again next month to follow up on his April 19 testimony about last year’s firings of eight U.S. prosecutors.

At the earlier hearing, Gonzales repeatedly said he didn’t remember events related to the firings, leading senators of both parties to question his candor.

Leahy said Gonzales will be provided with questions ahead of next month’s hearing “so that he will not do 60 or 70 times, `I don’t remember.”’

Also, House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers and House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry Waxman asked Gonzales to explain his role in Cheney’s refusal to submit to an order that his office preserve classified records.

Democrats Conyers, of Michigan, and Waxman, of California, said Gonzales hasn’t responded to a request from the National Archives and Records Administration for a ruling on the legality of Cheney’s actions.

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said the matter was under review. “The department will weigh all the issues raised by this request carefully and professionally,” he said.

Two days ago, Schumer called on Gonzales to disqualify himself from deciding whether Cheney’s office must comply with the order. Schumer said Gonzales’s testimony about the U.S. attorney firings put his impartiality in doubt.

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20% of UK CCTV could judge your behaviour within 3 years

Thursday, June 28th, 2007

By Mick Meaney
RINF Alternative News

A new CCTV system developed by ‘Agent Vi’ is being installed in some of the UK’s busiest stations, including Clapham Junction and Paddington Station.

The system uses advanced hi-tech monitoring technology to judge behaviour and it is expected that twenty percent all CCTV cameras in the UK will be connected to the system within the next three years.

The technology has been on trial at Liverpool Street station since 2003.

One of the main excuses being given for the use of these cameras is their promise to act as a deterrent against terrorism and to reduce vandalism, by detecting usual behaviour. The technology known as “Video Analytics” will also recognize how a train should look and then react by notifying authorities if the appearance changes.

Again, we see the threat of terrorism being used to advance a Big Brother state.

New York and Rome are also using similar systems, although they have proved less effective during rush hour, diminishing their initial purpose.

Agent Vi have already installed 20 systems in stations across Israel and Transport for London are considering installing more systems, while the overall number of CCTV cameras on the London Underground is expected to reach 12,000 by 2010.

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9/11 Giuliani says Gas not responsible for Explosions

Thursday, June 28th, 2007

YouTube

This clip is from Fox News on September 11, 2001, and is from a Press Conference given by Mayor Giuliani. In the clip, Mayor Giuliani states that he does not believe gas is responsible for the explosions being reported, and emphasizes that the gas has been turned off.

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Blair named Middle East envoy

Thursday, June 28th, 2007

Tony Blair has been appointed as envoy for the Quartet group of Middle East negotiators after he stepped down as Britain’s prime minister.

Members of the group - the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia - confirmed the position on Wednesday.

The decision came after Russia agreed to drop its reservations over the appointment.

Michele Montas, Quartet spokesman, said: “Following discussions among the principals, today the Quartet dealing with the Middle East is announcing the appointment of Tony Blair as the Quartet’s representative.”

Two-state solution

Blair was replaced on Wednesday by Gordon Brown, the finance minister, after 10 years in the position.

In his last appearance before parliament as prime minister, Blair told politicians a viable two-state solution in the Middle East is “possible… but it will require a huge intensity of focus and work”.

A spokesman for Blair said the former prime minister had telephoned Vladmir Putin, Russia’s president, late on Tuesday in an attempt to calm his concerns about him becoming the envoy.

Relations between Russia and Britain had been soured by London charging Andrei Lugovoi, a former Soviet-era spy, with the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, another ex-KGB officer who had been a severe critic of Putin.

But Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, said on Wednesday that his government backed Blair.

International reaction

Blair’s appointment was welcomed by figures in the US, Israel and Palestine.

George Bush, the US president, said: “I am pleased that this capable man has agreed to continue his work for peace in the Middle East.”

“Tony will help Palestinians develop the political and economic institutions they will need for a democratic, sovereign state able to provide for its people and live in peace and security with Israel.”

Mark Regev, an Israeli foreign ministry spokesman, said: “Tony Blair is a friend of Israel, a friend of the Palestinians and above all a friend of peace.

We are delighted with the idea of working with him.”

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, expressed satisfaction at the decision.

Saeb Erakat, chief Palestinian negotiator, said: “President Abbas welcomes the nomination of Mr Blair as envoy of the Quartet.

“The president, who was consulted on the matter, has given the assurance that he will work with Mr Blair to arrive at a peaceful solution on the basis of two states.”

Tough task

David Chater, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Jerusalem, said on Tuesday: “Tony Blair is being fitted up for a job that is a very difficult one, because unlike the previous occupant of the post he faces not only a geographic split between the West Bank and Gaza but also a political one.”

Hamas seized full control of Gaza two weeks ago prompting Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, to form an emergency cabinet drawn from Fatah and independent politicians, ignoring Hamas representation.

Chater said Blair has several skills that give him an advantage for the job of Middle East envoy.

“His micromanagement skills in finding a resolution to what was seen as an intractable situation in Northern Ireland will aid him greatly in this task.”

But Chater said Blair’s support for the US administration’s Middle East policy had been considered by many Arabs as a mark against his candidacy for the post.

Javier Solana, the EU’s foreign policy chief, was also said to have opposed Blair’s appointment.

Al Jazeera and agencies

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Cheney refuses to hand over classified records

Thursday, June 28th, 2007

There is growing anger among Democrats in the US over Vice-President Dick Cheney’s refusal to hand over classified records to the national archives.

Mr Cheney had been complying with a presidential order to surrender sensitive papers but then stopped, saying although he works in the White House, he is not part of the executive branch.

He argues that he is a member of the legislature because of his dual role as president of the Senate.

Democrats are threatening to cut off funding for Mr Cheney’s office and his official residence until he clarifies where he belongs.

But White House press secretary Tony Snow dismissed the threats.

“There are no specified executive activities for the Vice-President,” he said. “The Vice-President is the president of the Senate.

“It is a wonderful academic question and I’m just not going to go any further than we’ve gone.”

Source

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