12 - 11- 06

Ambushes, killings and riots: turmoil worsens in Darfur

Demonstrators take part in a protest called Global Day for Darfur, with this poster depicting Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, as they march through central London, Sunday Dec. 10, 2006. The protestors are urging the Sudanese government to agree to the deployment of UN peacekeeper troops to protect the people of Darfur. (AP Photo)
KHARTOUM, Sudan -- Turmoil in Darfur worsened Sunday when civilians assaulted African Union peacekeepers and the withdrawal of aid workers from the troubled area continued a day after at least 30 people were killed in ambushes.
Most of the violence in the vast region nearly the size of Texas is blamed on the pro-government janjaweed militias, who ambushed and executed some 30 civilians on Saturday outside Sirba on a road near the border with Chad, United Nations and aid workers said Sunday.
The governor for West Darfur said the attack near Sirba wasn't perpetrated by janjaweed but by rebels seeking "to make citizens lose confidence in the African Union."
Aid workers in El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur, and the U.N. said the assailants were janjaweed on horseback who ambushed a truck and killed about 30 people. "Some of the passengers were shot by the attackers and others were burnt to death," the U.N. said in a statement.
The spokesman for the 7,000-strong AU mission in Darfur, Noureddine Mezni, said a helicopter crew and team of AU peacekeepers sent Sunday to investigate the killing were detained for several hours by an angry mob of civilians in Sirba before being released.
Several hundred AU peacekeepers were also attacked in their base in El Geneina.
AU peacekeepers returned fire when they saw that assailants were armed with rocket-propelled grenades, an AU soldier said. It was not clear who the assailants were, said the soldier on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
In a sign of the AU's difficulties in Darfur, Sudanese police were deployed around the camp to protect the peacekeepers. The police presence suggested that the attack was by civilians frustrated with the AU, not by the janjaweed, said a U.N. official.
"There seems to be an alarming pattern of civilians assaulting the AU," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
The incident in El-Geneina was the second time in a week that civilians turned on AU peacekeepers. In the North Darfur capital of El-Fasher, civilians including refugees rioted, saying the peacekeepers should leave unless they do better protecting people against the janjaweed.
More than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million have been forced from their homes since ethnic African rebels rose up against the Arab-dominated government in early 2003.

http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/international/news/20061211p2g00m0in008000c.html


Buses carrying employees from U.S. venture in Algeria attacked

The Associated Press
Published: December 10, 2006


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ALGIERS, Algeria: Assailants hurled a bomb and fired at two vehicles carrying employees of an affiliate of U.S. company Halliburton near Algiers on Sunday, killing one driver, injuring nine and unnerving this oil-rich nation.

The driver was Algerian. The injured included one American, Britons, one Canadian, one Lebanese employee and one Algerian, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. Eight were treated in a nearby hospital and released, while one remained hospitalized. The statement did not indicate the patient's nationality.

The bold attack threatened to stain Algeria's international security image just as the U.S. ally is enjoying an oil boom and increased foreign investment after a bloody insurgency that wracked the North African nation in the 1990s.

Several employees of BRC, or Brown & Root-Condor, were heading from their offices to a Sheraton Hotel where they are housed in Bouchaoui, 15 kilometers (9 miles) west of Algiers, when they were attacked in the early evening.

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BRC is an Algerian-registered company created in 1994 and now owned jointly by Halliburton subsidiary KBR Inc., formerly known as Kellogg, Brown & Root, and affiliates of Algerian state-owned oil company Sonatrach. BRC has contracts with Algeria's oil and defense industries.

Most of the employees were in a bus following behind a security vehicle. The assailants hurled a bomb at the first vehicle, immediately killing the driver, security officials said.

Attackers then opened fire on the second bus, which quickly turned around and left before the gunmen dispersed, witnesses said.

Some of the BRC employees, visibly shaken, arrived at the hotel later Sunday, but refused to speak to reporters.

The British Foreign Office said three Britons were "slightly injured" in the attack. The Algerian Interior Ministry said four Britons were injured.

Algerian security forces immediately fanned out through the surrounding area and blocked off roads.

The attack was seen as unusually bold because it was so near the capital, and because there is always heavy security in the area, which includes exclusive housing complexes adjacent to a forest on the Mediterranean coast.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. Algerian officials remained tightlipped about details of the incident and security measures taken in response.

Attacks on American targets are rare in Algeria. Politics in the country were strongly anti-American during the Cold War, but Algiers has allied with the United States in its war on terrorism since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, sharing intelligence and cooperating militarily.

Algerian militants previously have focused their wrath on homegrown security forces. Attacks on foreign targets in the past primarily hit the French, reflecting lingering bitterness at Algeria's former colonial ruler.

Algeria is trying to pull itself out of an Islamic insurgency that started 14 years ago and has killed an estimated 150,000 people. Large-scale fighting died down in the late 1990s, but sporadic violence continues to rattle the nation.

BRC officials in Algeria would not comment on the attack.

KBR Inc. is an independent, publicly traded subsidiary of Houston-based oil services contractor Halliburton Co., once run by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/12/10/africa/AF_GEN_Algeria_Attack.php



Gunmen kill 3 boys outside Gaza City school
11 Dec 2006 06:20:39 GMT
Source: Reuters
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Background
Israeli-Palestinian conflict
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By Mohammed Salem
GAZA, Dec 11 (Reuters) - Unidentified gunmen killed three sons of a Palestinian intelligence chief loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas in Gaza on Monday after shooting at a car dropping the children at school, police and hospital officials said.
The attack, in which an adult bystander was also killed, came a day after gunmen shot at the interior minister's convoy in Gaza amid growing tension between the governing Hamas Islamist movement and Abbas's Fatah faction.
Interior Minister Saeed Seyam, a senior Hamas leader, was unharmed in that incident.
Police said two other children were wounded in Monday's attack. The intelligence chief, Baha Balousha, was not in the car when it was attacked.
Initial accounts from residents suggested the children had been killed in crossfire when gunmen opened fire on Hamas policemen near the school.
Residents said the gunmen fled with the Hamas policemen in pursuit. Hospital officials said the dead boys were aged between 6 and 9. Tensions between Hamas and the formerly dominant Fatah faction in the Gaza Strip and the Israeli-occupied West Bank have spiralled since Hamas took power in March, sometimes spilling over into street battles.
Islamist Hamas has refused international demands that it recognise Israel and renounce violence, prompting a Western aid embargo that has deepened Palestinian poverty.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L11765408.htm


Saudi, Gulf States to Study Using Nuclear Technology (Update4)
By Andy Critchlow

Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Saudi Arabia and five other Gulf Arab monarchies, which pump a fifth of the world's oil, said they will study using nuclear technology for power generation, a possible forerunner of an atomic weapons program.

``Nuclear technology is an important technology to have for generating power, and the Gulf nations will need it,'' Saud al- Faisal, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, said today at a press conference in Riyadh after a summit by Gulf heads of state.

The six Gulf Cooperation Council countries will set up a commission to study the applications of nuclear technology, according to the summit communiqué. It didn't specify a development timetable.

The initiative comes as the United Nations Security Council pressures Iran to stop the production of enriched uranium. The Islamic republic's atomic energy program has spurred concerns about the potential for nuclear proliferation in the Middle East.

``It is a question of the Iranian program. You need to build the know-how, and know-how always starts with a civilian program,'' Mustafa Alani, director of national security at the Gulf Research Centre in Dubai, said in a telephone interview. ``The Egyptians are also going for this. There is a general move in the Arab countries to agree to build a civilian program and build the knowledge,'' he said.

The U.S. and European Union accuse Iran, which has the world's second-biggest oil and natural-gas reserves, of seeking to develop nuclear weapons. Iran says its atomic program is aimed at generating electricity.

`No Bomb'

The Gulf Arab plan ``isn't a threat,'' Saudi foreign minister al-Faisal said at the press conference, which was carried live on Arabic television channels. ``We aren't doing it secretly. We want no bomb. Our policy is to have our region free from weapons of mass destruction.''

He urged Israel to abandon its nuclear program, saying it was the ``original sin that allowed for proliferation'' in the region. Israel has never confirmed that it possesses a nuclear weapons program.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ant3gmyiATa8&refer=home


Annan warns US against go-it-alone diplomacy
11 Dec 2006 19:56:55 GMT
Source: Reuters
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Background
Iraq in turmoil
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(Recasts with speech delivered, other comments; adds byline)
By Carey Gillam
INDEPENDENCE, Mo., Dec 11 (Reuters) - Kofi Annan, in his last major speech as U.N. secretary general, urged the United States on Monday to shun go-it-alone diplomacy and collaborate on its world challenges, including the Iraq war.
In a farewell address delivered at Harry Truman's presidential library in Independence, Missouri, Annan praised the 33rd U.S. president's legacy, and quoted Truman in cautioning that "no nation can make itself secure by seeking supremacy over all others."
Truman was a strong backer of the United Nations and was president when it came into being. The presidential library said it was chosen as the site for Annan's last big speech because of Truman's role in helping found the United Nations.
Annan, who steps down at the end of the month, to be succeeded by Ban Ki-Moon of South Korea, said, "We need U.S. leadership; we have lots of problems around the world ... and we require the natural leadership role the U.S. played in the past and can play today."
"None of our global institutions can accomplish much when the U.S. remains aloof. But when it is fully engaged, the sky's the limit," he said.
During his two five-year terms as U.N. leader, Annan has tangled often with President George W. Bush's administration, particularly over the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, launched without a green light from the U.N. Security Council.
"When power, especially military force, is used, the world will consider it legitimate only when convinced that it is being used for the right purpose -- for broadly shared aims -- in accordance with broadly accepted norms," Annan said.
WORKING WITH IRAN, SYRIA
In response to a question about his view on a solution to ending the war in Iraq, Annan said the United States needed to work with the international community, including Iran and Syria, to foster a "sharing" of political power and oil revenues within Iraqi's Sunni and Shi'ite factions.
"If you make them responsible and pull them into work with you, I think it will be in everyone's interests," he said. "Getting Iraq right is not only in the interests of the U.S. and the broad international community but even more so for the countries in the region."
Annan also reiterated his call for a reform of the 15-nation U.N. Security Council and took a dig at U.S. opposition to a plan to add 10 seats. Washington wanted to add just Japan and a few others, arguing to do more would undermine the council's effectiveness.
Bush administration officials have argued Washington should use the United Nations only to serve its national interests.
"It is only through multilateral institutions that states can hold each other to account. And that makes it very important to organize those institutions in a fair and democratic way, giving the poor and the weak some influence over the actions of the rich and the strong," Annan said.
The United States has historically been a leader in human rights, noted Annan.
"When it appears to abandon its own ideals and objectives, its friends abroad are naturally troubled and confused," he said in an apparent reference to charges of abuse at U.S. prisons in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Iraq's Abu Ghraib.
Annan praised Truman, in office from 1945 to 1953, as a model for American action in today's world.
"More than ever today Americans, like the rest of humanity, need a functioning global system through which the world's peoples can face global challenges together," Annan said. "And in order to function, the system still cries out for far-sighted American leadership, in the Truman tradition."
Truman, who ordered two atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945 making the United States the sole power in history to use nuclear weapons, learned from that experience that security from then on "must be collective and indivisible," Annan said.
"All civilization is at stake, and we can save it only if all peoples join together in the task," Annan said. "You Americans did so much, in the last century, to build an effective multilateral system, with the United Nations at its heart. Do you need it less today, and does it need you less, than 60 years ago? (Additional reporting by Irwin Arieff at the United Nations)

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