Civilians killed in Darfur attack
Quick guide: Darfur
Q&A: Peacekeeping in Darfur
About 30 civilians have been killed in an attack by gunmen on a convoy carrying medical and relief supplies in the Darfur region of western Sudan.
"Some people were shot, others were burned to death," said United Nations spokeswoman Radhia Achouri.
The attack appears to be the work of the pro-government Janjaweed militia, the BBC's Jonah Fisher in Sudan says.
About 200,000 people have been killed in Darfur since 2003, when rebels took up arms against the government.
Since then, an estimated two million people, mostly black Africans whose villages have been attacked by the Arab Janjaweed, have fled their homes.
The Sudanese government has rejected a UN Security Council resolution authorising the deployment of UN troops and police to Darfur.
A small force of 7,000 African Union (AU) peacekeepers has struggled to protect civilians in the absence of a UN contingent.
Our correspondent says that in the last few months, the Janjaweed have been mobilised along the border with Chad, destroying villages considered loyal to rebel movements.
The Sudanese government denies accusations that it is backing the militias to put down the uprising.
'Rebels to blame'
Saturday's attack on the convoy took place near Sirba, close to the Sudan-Chad border.
The UN and the AU did not identify who was behind it.
An international aid worker told the Associated Press news agency that Janjaweed members attacked the convoy with rocket-propelled grenades, then killed survivors.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6166305.stm
The connection between the short-term and long-term needs, interests and force projections of the US in Iraq and the region requires revision as well if there is to be a real convincing of Iranians and Syrians that there is going to be a real change in the "primary mission", as claimed in the report's introduction.
This is an important point, given the serious misgivings in Iran and other parts of the Muslim Middle East about the real purpose of the United States' invasion of Iraq, which is, in the words of Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, establishing hegemony in the region and aimed at controlling an oil state in a crucial part of the world.
The ISG report candidly states: "Even after the US has moved all combat brigades out of Iraq, we would maintain a considerable military presence in the region, with our still-significant force in Iraq, and with our powerful air, ground and naval deployments in Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar, as well as an increased presence in Afghanistan."
Given this, an Iranian political scientist put it this way to this author: "Why should we join a support group for a US hegemonic policy and its new 'soft power' approach aimed at providing delayed legitimacy to US intervention and creating the badly needed domestic support in the US for a failed and illegitimate adventure?" The ISG's answer is: "No country in the region will benefit in the long term from a chaotic Iraq."
Another answer, drawn from international-relations literature, is that following the logic of "stable deterrence", Iran and US can and should cooperate over Iraq to bring a measure of stability to their ongoing power rivalries. In other words, it is not the resolution of their long-standing clashing interests, but the durability of their "managed competition" that dictates cooperation on Iraq.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HL09Ak01.html
Africa: The Aids Catastrophe And the Future of Mankind
The Monitor (Kampala)
COLUMN
December 8, 2006
Posted to the web December 8, 2006
December 9, 2006
Timothy Kalyegira
Last week, World Aids Day was observed around the world, with 2006 being marked as the 25th anniversary since the earliest cases of the new killer disease that we would know as Aids were first reported in the United States.
2006 was also ten years since the first multi drug antiretroviral cocktail treatment was announced, the first real possibility that the HIV virus can be stopped in its tracks.
What we are witnessing is truly historic. The bubonic plague of 540-590 A.D. in the Roman world killed an estimated 100 million people.
The Black Death in medieval Europe that started in 1346 wiped out one third of Europe's population. Twenty million people perished between 1918 and 1920 when Influenza sped through the world.
In terms of the number of deaths, Aids is now steadily rising to become the greatest killer disease in the annals of human history.
In July 2002, the United Nations published a report estimating that in the time until 2020, Aids will claim another 68 million lives.
In huge population countries like India, the epidemic is only just starting to spread and already India this year surpassed South Africa as the country with the highest number of HIV-positive people numbering over 5.5 million to South Africa's five million.
Most estimates say that as alarming as the Aids crisis in Africa is, it is only in its early stages.
Speaking to the American public broadcaster PBS (America's BBC) earlier this year, Dr. David Ho, one of the world's leading Aids researchers, sounded a note of resignation:
"Even if we come up with a cure vaccine tomorrow, just think about the time that would be needed to implement all these measures widely throughout the world. So to me it's clear that I'm not [going to] see the end of this epidemic and it's also pretty clear that my children won't see the end of this epidemic. I think we won a few battles [but] I think most of the time HIV wins." (PBS/ Frontline, May 31, 2006)
Since 1996, while two million people went on the multi drug cocktails, 15 million more people got infected. That the number of new infections outstripping the number of those on the powerful new drugs by seven times, demonstrates just what staggering a crisis this is.
All other diseases in human history came from a microbe or virus but there was always the body's immune system to strike back. Who would have imagined that there would come a virus whose lethal power came from attacking the body's very defences?
Almost as if it has a cunning, strategic mind, the HIV virus has revealed an ability to adapt and outmanoeuvre the best drugs thrown at it, astonishing scientists.
Almost no reports on Aids have adequately ever probed into the psychological toll the pandemic has taken on us.
Aids has cast a shadow over life in Africa and it is unlikely that our societies will ever be the same again. There is not one single family in Black Africa that can say it has not lost an immediate or extended family member to Aids. Where the 16th century trans-Atlantic slave trade left off in human displacement, Aids has picked up.
It is going to make its way into our folklore, legends, and collective memories for the next foreseeable generations. The loneliness it has left behind is incalculable. The sense of despair and frightening helplessness, of seeing one's death approach, is impossible to express.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200612081150.html
Whitening creams are ordered off the shelves
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) hasbanned 57 skin-whitening products found to contain harmful substances.
FDA officials collected cosmetic products from various shops in Bangkok's Sam Pheng and Pahurat areas for testing and found that 57 brands - most not registered with the FDA - had prohibited substances, FDA secretary-general Siriwat Thiptaradol told a press conference on Friday.
The harmful substances included hydroquinone, retinoic acid and ammoniated mercury. These could cause severe skin irritation, white spots, incurable melasma and could harm the foetus in pregnant women, Siriwat said.
Siriwat urged consumers, especially women with a melasma problem, not to buy products that did not identify their source and manufacturing date.
The list of banned cosmetics is available at www.fda.moph.go.th.
The FDA is also pushing for the punishment for manufacturers, importers and sellers of unsafe cosmetics to be increased to five years' imprisonment and a fine up to Bt500,000, he said.
The current punishment is up to one year in jail or a Bt60,000 fine.
http://nationmultimedia.com/2006/12/10/national/national_30021173.php
News Corp.: No agreement with Liberty Media yet
SYDNEY (MarketWatch) -- News Corp. (NWS) confirmed Friday it is in discussions with Liberty Media Corp. (L) regarding buying Liberty's shares in News Corp.
"No agreement has been concluded as yet," News Corp. said in a brief statement to the Australian Stock Exchange.
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that News Corp. is nearing an end in a deal that will return Liberty to a powerful position in the media sector and solidify News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch's control of his company.
Citing people close to the situation, the Wall Street Journal said that under an agreement, which could be finalized in the next few weeks, News Corp. will buy Liberty's $11 billion stake in the media giant in exchange for News Corp's 38.6% stake in satellite-TV firm DirecTV Group Inc., some cash and some smaller News Corp. assets. While the two sides have been discussing a deal along these lines for several months, the report said significant progress has been made this week.
-Edited by Paul Godby
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/news-corp-no-agreement-liberty/story.aspx?guid=%7B59AD8F47-73C8-47CF-BCCC-43386AA00493%7D
Dec. 8, 2006, 10:10PM
FEMA loses bid to withhold payments
Agency must tell judge how it will resume housing aid for some evacuees
By MIKE SNYDER
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle
A judge ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Friday to explain how it intends to comply with his ruling that the agency must resume paying rent and make back payments to thousands of evacuees from hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon in Washington denied FEMA's request for a stay of his Nov. 29 order. He instructed lawyers for FEMA and for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which sued the federal agency, to answer a series of questions and attend a conference in his courtroom Wednesday to discuss compliance plans.
Notices were called vague
Robert Doggett, an attorney with Texas RioGrande Legal Aid in Austin representing evacuees, said Friday's order shows that "the judge has not changed his mind and is insisting that FEMA comply."
Leon ruled that notices FEMA sent to evacuees it deemed ineligible for continued housing assistance were so vague and confusing that they provided no basis for the families to appeal the denials or correct the problems that made the families ineligible.
He ordered the agency to immediately resume paying rent for an estimated 11,000 households around the country, including about 2,600 in Houston, and to pay these families three months of back rent.
FEMA appealed the decision on Tuesday. Representatives of the agency did not respond to a request for comment on Friday. Doggett said he expects FEMA to ask an appeals court for the stay that Leon denied. But it's unlikely the court would act before Wednesday's conference with Leon, Doggett said.
FEMA warns of 'burden'
In its motion asking Leon to stay his order pending the appeal, FEMA argued that Leon had granted relief to an entire class of people even though the lawsuit was not a class action.
The federal law authorizing the housing assistance, FEMA's lawyers said, grants the agency "absolute discretion" over how to administer it.
"The time, expense, and administrative burden that FEMA will be put through if it has to comply with the order will substantially interfere with its ability to carry out the emergency assistance duties that are its primary function during major disasters," the motion states.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4390060.html
The rape of Darfur: a crime that is shaming the world
Children as young as eight are attacked by militiamen
By Marie Woolf, Political Editor
Published: 10 December 2006
Halima Bashir is a survivor. She was tortured and gang- raped for days as a punishment for speaking out about an attack on primary school children in Darfur.
Her crime was to tell people that a group of Janjaweed militia and government soldiers had attacked the primary school for girls, raping pupils as young as eight. She paid a terrible personal price.
"They were aged between 8 and 13," she said. "They were in shock, bleeding, screaming and crying. It was horrific. Because I told people what happened, the authorities arrested me. They said, 'We will show you what rape is'. They beat me severely. At night, three men raped me.
"The following day the same thing, different men. Torture and rape, every day, torture and rape."
The gang-rape of girls as young as eight has prompted fresh calls for intervention in the western Sudanese region, where tens of thousands of women and girls have been subjected to rape and other extreme sexual violence since the crisis erupted in 2003. The Islamist government in Khartoum has given the Janjaweed militia a free hand in putting down a rebellion by African tribes in the region, and there has not been a single conviction in Darfur for rape against displaced women and girls .
According to a report published today by a charity, the Alliance for Direct Action against Rape in Conflict and Crises, there has been a rise in sexual violence in the region. In the past five weeks alone, more than 200 women in Darfur's largest displacement camp, Kalma, have been sexually assaulted. Unicef and other charities working on the ground have expressed concern about the gang rape of minors by up to 14 men. In one case, schoolgirls and their teachers were targeted by a gang in the Tawila area of Northern Darfur. In an incident in the town of Kailek, Janjaweed militiamen separated women and men. More than 80 rapes were reported - but many more were kept quiet.
Under international law, sexual violence as a tactic in war is considered a crime for which states can be held accountable. A United Nations commission of inquiry found recently that the atrocities in Darfur amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity. There was hope that the sexual violence would end when a peace agreement was signed in May. But observers say that since then, sexual violence has escalated and the conflict has expanded into Chad and the neighbouring Central African Republic, where rapes and killings have continued.
Charities fear that women and children living in refugee camps are not being protected from Janjaweed militiamen, who have targeted civilians collecting firewood and water to bring back to camp.
The African Union, in an attempt to stop sexual violence, set up "firewood patrols" to provide armed escorts for women. But these patrols recently ended because of problems with finance and questions about the AU's mandate.
Aid agencies say the end of the patrols has contributed to the massive increase in sexual violence. They report that victims not only face trying to recover from their ordeal without proper support, but are often stigmatised. Many women who have been raped in Sudan have been thrown out of their communities, while children conceived in rape have been abandoned. In addition to this, victims face the added fear of contracting HIV.
"Rape is feared all the more in Darfur for two reasons. Most important, a woman who has been raped is ruined; deeply traumatised, in some cases she is thrown out of home by her family and forced to survive on her own," the report, entitled Sexual Violence in Darfur, says. "Raped women, not the perpetrators, are blamed. The woman is shamed for life and so is her entire family. Witnesses to large-scale attacks typically record repeated and systematically conducted incidents of widespread rape and other forms of sexual violence committed by armed groups. The mass rapes in Darfur have been among the most effective means to terrorise tribal populations, break their will and drive them away."
The publication of the report coincides with today's global day of action to highlight violence in Darfur. Thousands of people, mainly women, will march on the Sudanese embassy and Downing Street to highlight the increase in sexual violence. The women, who will include WI members, are expected to let off thousands of rape alarms in a symbolic gesture. It will be one of many events around the world, including in Africa and the Middle East.
Among them will be the rape survivor Halima Bashir, who will speak publicly of her experience and hand over a letter to Lord Triesman, the Minister for Africa, to call for immediate action to help the women of Darfur.
Yesterday Tony Blair called on the government of Sudan and rebel movements in Darfur to implement an immediate ceasefire and agree a resolution to the conflict.
Mr Blair hinted at sanctions against the government in Khartoum if the violence continues, warning: "If rapid progress is not made, we will need to consider alternative approaches with international partners. The government of Sudan must prove it is taking its responsibilities seriously."
The Prime Minister said Darfur would remain "at the top of my agenda".
About 400,000 people have been killed and two million driven from their homes during three years of conflict. The Government in Khartoum has been accused of tacitly supporting Janjaweed militiamen,
Brendan Cox , director of Crisis Action, a co-organiser of today's events, said: "The global message going out today in events right around the world is that the international community is at a turning point: either it can turn its words into actions and deploy a peacekeeping force, or it can turn its back on the people of Darfur."
How it started: 2m displaced in a region the size of France
Militants from non-Arab African tribes in Darfur started a rebellion against the Arab-led Sudan government in 2003, claiming discrimination. The Islamist government in Khartoum used a local Arab militia, known as the Janjaweed, to crush the insurgency. More than 85,000 people have since been killed, with a further 200,000 dying of war-related disease, and over two million displaced. The African Union sent in a 7,000-strong peacekeeping force in 2004, patrolling a region the size of France.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/article2062481.ece
Darfur, Chad conflicts spread to neighbor
By Lydia Polgreen
The New York Times
KALANDAO, Central African Republic — The Central African Republic — so important as a potential bulwark against the chaos and misery of its neighbors in Chad and the Darfur region of Sudan — is being dragged into the dangerous and ever-expanding conflict that has begun to engulf Central Africa.
So porous are its borders and ungoverned are parts of its territory that foreign rebels are using the Central African Republic as a staging ground to mount attacks over the border, spreading what the United Nations has already called the world's "gravest humanitarian crisis."
The situation is so bad in some places that 50,000 residents have fled the Central African Republic to find refuge in Chad, of all places, while starvation threatens hundreds of thousands who remain.
"This is the soft belly of Africa," said Jerome Chevallier, a World Bank official who is trying to help stabilize the Central African Republic. "It has little protection from whatever might strike it."
A visit to Kalandao underscores the point. The residents here had fled their country's own army, which has been burning villages to smoke out a homegrown rebel movement bent on overthrowing the government. Once the villagers realized the approaching vehicles were from the U.N. World Food Program, they trickled back to tell their story.
"We are living in the bush like animals," Leontine Makanzi said. "Our children are dying. We are eating nothing. We have no security."
Poverty-stricken nation
The Central African Republic, one of the poorest places on Earth, has suffered through four coups in the last decade and sits almost at the bottom of the U.N. development index. In few places do people live so short a lifespan, bury so many of their young children or succumb to more treatable disease.
But its vulnerability has only grown in recent months. On its northeast border with Sudan, Chadian rebels supported by the Sudanese government have built a base, according to government officials and diplomats, to bolster their bid to overthrow Chad's president, Idriss Deby.
Now the Central African Republic government says these foreign fighters have teamed up with local rebels to overthrow it as well, making it increasingly hard to separate one conflict in the region from another.
"The world must act now to prevent an even graver crisis here," said Jean-Charles Dei, country director for the U.N. World Food Program, which is feeding 250,000 people in the Central African Republic, one of just a handful of organizations offering any aid at all here.
To stem the tide of destruction in this morass of cross-border enmity, the United Nations is examining the possibility of placing international troops to protect the borders of Chad, Sudan and the Central African Republic.
The hope is to avoid a broad, multicountry conflict like the one that swept Congo, formerly Zaire, after the fall of Mobutu Sese Seko. That war, which followed the Rwandan genocide and pulled in fighters from Uganda, Angola and Rwanda, among others, killed 4 million people, mostly from hunger and disease, and its aftermath continues to kill 1,200 people a day.
"As long as the problem of Darfur is not solved, you will not have peace in N'Djamena or Bangui," said Lamine Cisse, the top U.N. official in Central African Republic, referring to the capitals of Chad and Central African Republic. "The conflicts are all linked, and solving one requires solving all."
The Central African Republic is a former French colony of 4 million people sprinkled in tiny villages across a tangle of jungle about the size of Texas.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003470360_centafrica10.html
Quick guide: Darfur
Q&A: Peacekeeping in Darfur
About 30 civilians have been killed in an attack by gunmen on a convoy carrying medical and relief supplies in the Darfur region of western Sudan.
"Some people were shot, others were burned to death," said United Nations spokeswoman Radhia Achouri.
The attack appears to be the work of the pro-government Janjaweed militia, the BBC's Jonah Fisher in Sudan says.
About 200,000 people have been killed in Darfur since 2003, when rebels took up arms against the government.
Since then, an estimated two million people, mostly black Africans whose villages have been attacked by the Arab Janjaweed, have fled their homes.
The Sudanese government has rejected a UN Security Council resolution authorising the deployment of UN troops and police to Darfur.
A small force of 7,000 African Union (AU) peacekeepers has struggled to protect civilians in the absence of a UN contingent.
Our correspondent says that in the last few months, the Janjaweed have been mobilised along the border with Chad, destroying villages considered loyal to rebel movements.
The Sudanese government denies accusations that it is backing the militias to put down the uprising.
'Rebels to blame'
Saturday's attack on the convoy took place near Sirba, close to the Sudan-Chad border.
The UN and the AU did not identify who was behind it.
An international aid worker told the Associated Press news agency that Janjaweed members attacked the convoy with rocket-propelled grenades, then killed survivors.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6166305.stm
The connection between the short-term and long-term needs, interests and force projections of the US in Iraq and the region requires revision as well if there is to be a real convincing of Iranians and Syrians that there is going to be a real change in the "primary mission", as claimed in the report's introduction.
This is an important point, given the serious misgivings in Iran and other parts of the Muslim Middle East about the real purpose of the United States' invasion of Iraq, which is, in the words of Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, establishing hegemony in the region and aimed at controlling an oil state in a crucial part of the world.
The ISG report candidly states: "Even after the US has moved all combat brigades out of Iraq, we would maintain a considerable military presence in the region, with our still-significant force in Iraq, and with our powerful air, ground and naval deployments in Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar, as well as an increased presence in Afghanistan."
Given this, an Iranian political scientist put it this way to this author: "Why should we join a support group for a US hegemonic policy and its new 'soft power' approach aimed at providing delayed legitimacy to US intervention and creating the badly needed domestic support in the US for a failed and illegitimate adventure?" The ISG's answer is: "No country in the region will benefit in the long term from a chaotic Iraq."
Another answer, drawn from international-relations literature, is that following the logic of "stable deterrence", Iran and US can and should cooperate over Iraq to bring a measure of stability to their ongoing power rivalries. In other words, it is not the resolution of their long-standing clashing interests, but the durability of their "managed competition" that dictates cooperation on Iraq.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HL09Ak01.html
Africa: The Aids Catastrophe And the Future of Mankind
The Monitor (Kampala)
COLUMN
December 8, 2006
Posted to the web December 8, 2006
December 9, 2006
Timothy Kalyegira
Last week, World Aids Day was observed around the world, with 2006 being marked as the 25th anniversary since the earliest cases of the new killer disease that we would know as Aids were first reported in the United States.
2006 was also ten years since the first multi drug antiretroviral cocktail treatment was announced, the first real possibility that the HIV virus can be stopped in its tracks.
What we are witnessing is truly historic. The bubonic plague of 540-590 A.D. in the Roman world killed an estimated 100 million people.
The Black Death in medieval Europe that started in 1346 wiped out one third of Europe's population. Twenty million people perished between 1918 and 1920 when Influenza sped through the world.
In terms of the number of deaths, Aids is now steadily rising to become the greatest killer disease in the annals of human history.
In July 2002, the United Nations published a report estimating that in the time until 2020, Aids will claim another 68 million lives.
In huge population countries like India, the epidemic is only just starting to spread and already India this year surpassed South Africa as the country with the highest number of HIV-positive people numbering over 5.5 million to South Africa's five million.
Most estimates say that as alarming as the Aids crisis in Africa is, it is only in its early stages.
Speaking to the American public broadcaster PBS (America's BBC) earlier this year, Dr. David Ho, one of the world's leading Aids researchers, sounded a note of resignation:
"Even if we come up with a cure vaccine tomorrow, just think about the time that would be needed to implement all these measures widely throughout the world. So to me it's clear that I'm not [going to] see the end of this epidemic and it's also pretty clear that my children won't see the end of this epidemic. I think we won a few battles [but] I think most of the time HIV wins." (PBS/ Frontline, May 31, 2006)
Since 1996, while two million people went on the multi drug cocktails, 15 million more people got infected. That the number of new infections outstripping the number of those on the powerful new drugs by seven times, demonstrates just what staggering a crisis this is.
All other diseases in human history came from a microbe or virus but there was always the body's immune system to strike back. Who would have imagined that there would come a virus whose lethal power came from attacking the body's very defences?
Almost as if it has a cunning, strategic mind, the HIV virus has revealed an ability to adapt and outmanoeuvre the best drugs thrown at it, astonishing scientists.
Almost no reports on Aids have adequately ever probed into the psychological toll the pandemic has taken on us.
Aids has cast a shadow over life in Africa and it is unlikely that our societies will ever be the same again. There is not one single family in Black Africa that can say it has not lost an immediate or extended family member to Aids. Where the 16th century trans-Atlantic slave trade left off in human displacement, Aids has picked up.
It is going to make its way into our folklore, legends, and collective memories for the next foreseeable generations. The loneliness it has left behind is incalculable. The sense of despair and frightening helplessness, of seeing one's death approach, is impossible to express.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200612081150.html
Whitening creams are ordered off the shelves
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) hasbanned 57 skin-whitening products found to contain harmful substances.
FDA officials collected cosmetic products from various shops in Bangkok's Sam Pheng and Pahurat areas for testing and found that 57 brands - most not registered with the FDA - had prohibited substances, FDA secretary-general Siriwat Thiptaradol told a press conference on Friday.
The harmful substances included hydroquinone, retinoic acid and ammoniated mercury. These could cause severe skin irritation, white spots, incurable melasma and could harm the foetus in pregnant women, Siriwat said.
Siriwat urged consumers, especially women with a melasma problem, not to buy products that did not identify their source and manufacturing date.
The list of banned cosmetics is available at www.fda.moph.go.th.
The FDA is also pushing for the punishment for manufacturers, importers and sellers of unsafe cosmetics to be increased to five years' imprisonment and a fine up to Bt500,000, he said.
The current punishment is up to one year in jail or a Bt60,000 fine.
http://nationmultimedia.com/2006/12/10/national/national_30021173.php
News Corp.: No agreement with Liberty Media yet
SYDNEY (MarketWatch) -- News Corp. (NWS) confirmed Friday it is in discussions with Liberty Media Corp. (L) regarding buying Liberty's shares in News Corp.
"No agreement has been concluded as yet," News Corp. said in a brief statement to the Australian Stock Exchange.
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that News Corp. is nearing an end in a deal that will return Liberty to a powerful position in the media sector and solidify News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch's control of his company.
Citing people close to the situation, the Wall Street Journal said that under an agreement, which could be finalized in the next few weeks, News Corp. will buy Liberty's $11 billion stake in the media giant in exchange for News Corp's 38.6% stake in satellite-TV firm DirecTV Group Inc., some cash and some smaller News Corp. assets. While the two sides have been discussing a deal along these lines for several months, the report said significant progress has been made this week.
-Edited by Paul Godby
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/news-corp-no-agreement-liberty/story.aspx?guid=%7B59AD8F47-73C8-47CF-BCCC-43386AA00493%7D
Dec. 8, 2006, 10:10PM
FEMA loses bid to withhold payments
Agency must tell judge how it will resume housing aid for some evacuees
By MIKE SNYDER
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle
A judge ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Friday to explain how it intends to comply with his ruling that the agency must resume paying rent and make back payments to thousands of evacuees from hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon in Washington denied FEMA's request for a stay of his Nov. 29 order. He instructed lawyers for FEMA and for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which sued the federal agency, to answer a series of questions and attend a conference in his courtroom Wednesday to discuss compliance plans.
Notices were called vague
Robert Doggett, an attorney with Texas RioGrande Legal Aid in Austin representing evacuees, said Friday's order shows that "the judge has not changed his mind and is insisting that FEMA comply."
Leon ruled that notices FEMA sent to evacuees it deemed ineligible for continued housing assistance were so vague and confusing that they provided no basis for the families to appeal the denials or correct the problems that made the families ineligible.
He ordered the agency to immediately resume paying rent for an estimated 11,000 households around the country, including about 2,600 in Houston, and to pay these families three months of back rent.
FEMA appealed the decision on Tuesday. Representatives of the agency did not respond to a request for comment on Friday. Doggett said he expects FEMA to ask an appeals court for the stay that Leon denied. But it's unlikely the court would act before Wednesday's conference with Leon, Doggett said.
FEMA warns of 'burden'
In its motion asking Leon to stay his order pending the appeal, FEMA argued that Leon had granted relief to an entire class of people even though the lawsuit was not a class action.
The federal law authorizing the housing assistance, FEMA's lawyers said, grants the agency "absolute discretion" over how to administer it.
"The time, expense, and administrative burden that FEMA will be put through if it has to comply with the order will substantially interfere with its ability to carry out the emergency assistance duties that are its primary function during major disasters," the motion states.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4390060.html
The rape of Darfur: a crime that is shaming the world
Children as young as eight are attacked by militiamen
By Marie Woolf, Political Editor
Published: 10 December 2006
Halima Bashir is a survivor. She was tortured and gang- raped for days as a punishment for speaking out about an attack on primary school children in Darfur.
Her crime was to tell people that a group of Janjaweed militia and government soldiers had attacked the primary school for girls, raping pupils as young as eight. She paid a terrible personal price.
"They were aged between 8 and 13," she said. "They were in shock, bleeding, screaming and crying. It was horrific. Because I told people what happened, the authorities arrested me. They said, 'We will show you what rape is'. They beat me severely. At night, three men raped me.
"The following day the same thing, different men. Torture and rape, every day, torture and rape."
The gang-rape of girls as young as eight has prompted fresh calls for intervention in the western Sudanese region, where tens of thousands of women and girls have been subjected to rape and other extreme sexual violence since the crisis erupted in 2003. The Islamist government in Khartoum has given the Janjaweed militia a free hand in putting down a rebellion by African tribes in the region, and there has not been a single conviction in Darfur for rape against displaced women and girls .
According to a report published today by a charity, the Alliance for Direct Action against Rape in Conflict and Crises, there has been a rise in sexual violence in the region. In the past five weeks alone, more than 200 women in Darfur's largest displacement camp, Kalma, have been sexually assaulted. Unicef and other charities working on the ground have expressed concern about the gang rape of minors by up to 14 men. In one case, schoolgirls and their teachers were targeted by a gang in the Tawila area of Northern Darfur. In an incident in the town of Kailek, Janjaweed militiamen separated women and men. More than 80 rapes were reported - but many more were kept quiet.
Under international law, sexual violence as a tactic in war is considered a crime for which states can be held accountable. A United Nations commission of inquiry found recently that the atrocities in Darfur amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity. There was hope that the sexual violence would end when a peace agreement was signed in May. But observers say that since then, sexual violence has escalated and the conflict has expanded into Chad and the neighbouring Central African Republic, where rapes and killings have continued.
Charities fear that women and children living in refugee camps are not being protected from Janjaweed militiamen, who have targeted civilians collecting firewood and water to bring back to camp.
The African Union, in an attempt to stop sexual violence, set up "firewood patrols" to provide armed escorts for women. But these patrols recently ended because of problems with finance and questions about the AU's mandate.
Aid agencies say the end of the patrols has contributed to the massive increase in sexual violence. They report that victims not only face trying to recover from their ordeal without proper support, but are often stigmatised. Many women who have been raped in Sudan have been thrown out of their communities, while children conceived in rape have been abandoned. In addition to this, victims face the added fear of contracting HIV.
"Rape is feared all the more in Darfur for two reasons. Most important, a woman who has been raped is ruined; deeply traumatised, in some cases she is thrown out of home by her family and forced to survive on her own," the report, entitled Sexual Violence in Darfur, says. "Raped women, not the perpetrators, are blamed. The woman is shamed for life and so is her entire family. Witnesses to large-scale attacks typically record repeated and systematically conducted incidents of widespread rape and other forms of sexual violence committed by armed groups. The mass rapes in Darfur have been among the most effective means to terrorise tribal populations, break their will and drive them away."
The publication of the report coincides with today's global day of action to highlight violence in Darfur. Thousands of people, mainly women, will march on the Sudanese embassy and Downing Street to highlight the increase in sexual violence. The women, who will include WI members, are expected to let off thousands of rape alarms in a symbolic gesture. It will be one of many events around the world, including in Africa and the Middle East.
Among them will be the rape survivor Halima Bashir, who will speak publicly of her experience and hand over a letter to Lord Triesman, the Minister for Africa, to call for immediate action to help the women of Darfur.
Yesterday Tony Blair called on the government of Sudan and rebel movements in Darfur to implement an immediate ceasefire and agree a resolution to the conflict.
Mr Blair hinted at sanctions against the government in Khartoum if the violence continues, warning: "If rapid progress is not made, we will need to consider alternative approaches with international partners. The government of Sudan must prove it is taking its responsibilities seriously."
The Prime Minister said Darfur would remain "at the top of my agenda".
About 400,000 people have been killed and two million driven from their homes during three years of conflict. The Government in Khartoum has been accused of tacitly supporting Janjaweed militiamen,
Brendan Cox , director of Crisis Action, a co-organiser of today's events, said: "The global message going out today in events right around the world is that the international community is at a turning point: either it can turn its words into actions and deploy a peacekeeping force, or it can turn its back on the people of Darfur."
How it started: 2m displaced in a region the size of France
Militants from non-Arab African tribes in Darfur started a rebellion against the Arab-led Sudan government in 2003, claiming discrimination. The Islamist government in Khartoum used a local Arab militia, known as the Janjaweed, to crush the insurgency. More than 85,000 people have since been killed, with a further 200,000 dying of war-related disease, and over two million displaced. The African Union sent in a 7,000-strong peacekeeping force in 2004, patrolling a region the size of France.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/article2062481.ece
Darfur, Chad conflicts spread to neighbor
By Lydia Polgreen
The New York Times
KALANDAO, Central African Republic — The Central African Republic — so important as a potential bulwark against the chaos and misery of its neighbors in Chad and the Darfur region of Sudan — is being dragged into the dangerous and ever-expanding conflict that has begun to engulf Central Africa.
So porous are its borders and ungoverned are parts of its territory that foreign rebels are using the Central African Republic as a staging ground to mount attacks over the border, spreading what the United Nations has already called the world's "gravest humanitarian crisis."
The situation is so bad in some places that 50,000 residents have fled the Central African Republic to find refuge in Chad, of all places, while starvation threatens hundreds of thousands who remain.
"This is the soft belly of Africa," said Jerome Chevallier, a World Bank official who is trying to help stabilize the Central African Republic. "It has little protection from whatever might strike it."
A visit to Kalandao underscores the point. The residents here had fled their country's own army, which has been burning villages to smoke out a homegrown rebel movement bent on overthrowing the government. Once the villagers realized the approaching vehicles were from the U.N. World Food Program, they trickled back to tell their story.
"We are living in the bush like animals," Leontine Makanzi said. "Our children are dying. We are eating nothing. We have no security."
Poverty-stricken nation
The Central African Republic, one of the poorest places on Earth, has suffered through four coups in the last decade and sits almost at the bottom of the U.N. development index. In few places do people live so short a lifespan, bury so many of their young children or succumb to more treatable disease.
But its vulnerability has only grown in recent months. On its northeast border with Sudan, Chadian rebels supported by the Sudanese government have built a base, according to government officials and diplomats, to bolster their bid to overthrow Chad's president, Idriss Deby.
Now the Central African Republic government says these foreign fighters have teamed up with local rebels to overthrow it as well, making it increasingly hard to separate one conflict in the region from another.
"The world must act now to prevent an even graver crisis here," said Jean-Charles Dei, country director for the U.N. World Food Program, which is feeding 250,000 people in the Central African Republic, one of just a handful of organizations offering any aid at all here.
To stem the tide of destruction in this morass of cross-border enmity, the United Nations is examining the possibility of placing international troops to protect the borders of Chad, Sudan and the Central African Republic.
The hope is to avoid a broad, multicountry conflict like the one that swept Congo, formerly Zaire, after the fall of Mobutu Sese Seko. That war, which followed the Rwandan genocide and pulled in fighters from Uganda, Angola and Rwanda, among others, killed 4 million people, mostly from hunger and disease, and its aftermath continues to kill 1,200 people a day.
"As long as the problem of Darfur is not solved, you will not have peace in N'Djamena or Bangui," said Lamine Cisse, the top U.N. official in Central African Republic, referring to the capitals of Chad and Central African Republic. "The conflicts are all linked, and solving one requires solving all."
The Central African Republic is a former French colony of 4 million people sprinkled in tiny villages across a tangle of jungle about the size of Texas.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003470360_centafrica10.html
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