be just

Chechen Interior Minister Tries to Play Down the Insurgency - The Jamestown Foundation : "It is worth noting that the news reports issued by the media outlets of the Chechen militants provide more figures about the police officers and servicemen from the Russian armed forces killed in Chechnya. Still, it is possible to infer even from the information provided by the Russian mass media that the number of Chechen police casualties as imagined by Chechen Interior Minister Alkhanov. For instance, five representatives of the law-enforcement authorities were killed and 22 were wounded in Chechnya over the last month alone. The figures for those who were killed do not include civilians, who were assassinated by the militants for their collaboration with the pro-Moscow police: if you add them in, the true number of people killed in the republic over the past month is 12. (These numbers are based on Russian mass media reports during the month of November.) In other words, nine years since ...

Ethiopian News | The Ethiopian dictator is worst than Robert Mugabe Can someone prove me wrong if I say the Ethiopian dictator Meles Zenawi is the worst dictator comparing to Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe? I’ll bet no one can. There is no question that Robert Mugabe is a dictator. However, when it comes to the intensity of the crimes he has committed against his own people, he is way less criminal than Meles Zenawi. Even at these defining moments, the falling Mugabe regime is not arresting or killing his own people. Observably, his political opponents are exercising their constitutional rights; they are assembling, they are freely expressing their views, they are protesting, etc. There is no local journalist that was arrested illegitimately and sent to prison for criticizing the Mugabe regime. Was there any point in time in the Mugabe regime in which hundreds of citizens were killed and tens of thousands of opposition supporters were arrested for having different political views? Never. No...

Tutu: Israel actions against Gaza bears "hallmarks of war crimes" : "Johannesburg - South African Nobel laureate and Anglican Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu on Sunday said Israel's air attacks on the Gaza Strip 'bears all the hallmarks of war crimes.' 'In the context of total aerial supremacy, in which one side in the conflict deploys lethal aircraft against opponents with no means of defending themselves, the bombardment bears all the hallmarks of war crimes,' Tutu said in a statement. The attacks would not contribute to the security of Israel, said the anti-apartheid icon who won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1984. 'It is a blight not only on the Middle East, but on the entire world - and particularly world leaders who have consistently failed the people of Palestine and Israel over the past 60 years,' Tutu added. Israel launched air raids on the Strip on Saturday in response to rocket fire from Palestinian militants in the salient."

Tutu: Israel actions against Gaza bears "hallmarks of war crimes" : "Johannesburg - South African Nobel laureate and Anglican Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu on Sunday said Israel's air attacks on the Gaza Strip 'bears all the hallmarks of war crimes.' 'In the context of total aerial supremacy, in which one side in the conflict deploys lethal aircraft against opponents with no means of defending themselves, the bombardment bears all the hallmarks of war crimes,' Tutu said in a statement. The attacks would not contribute to the security of Israel, said the anti-apartheid icon who won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1984. 'It is a blight not only on the Middle East, but on the entire world - and particularly world leaders who have consistently failed the people of Palestine and Israel over the past 60 years,' Tutu added. Israel launched air raids on the Strip on Saturday in response to rocket fire from Palestinian militants in the salient."

Gulfnews: Opposition says Mubarak blessed Israeli attacks : "Cairo: Egyptian opposition has reacted furiously to Israel's deadly airstrikes on Gaza, and accused the government of President Hosni Mubarak of blessing the raids to weaken Hamas. 'The decision to strike at Gaza was made in Cairo following talks between Ahmad Abul Geit [Egypt's foreign minister] and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni,' said Islamist MP Hussain Ebrahim. Livni visited Cairo on Thursday, where she vowed to stop Hamas from firing rockets at Israeli towns. 'The threats declared by Livni in Cairo against our Palestinian brethren in Gaza are a stigma for the Egyptian regime,' said Sayed Abdul Gani, the secretary General of the Nasserist Lawyers. 'These statements confirm that this regime is a partner in the aggression on Gaza,' he told Gulf News."

Chaos in Gaza as Israel’s strikes continue | Antiwar Newswire : "Terrified prisoners fled a Gaza City jail bombed by Israeli warplanes on Sunday, their faces white with dust and red with blood as they stumbled over huge piles of rubble. Across the territory, grieving families pitched traditional mourning tents of green tarp outside the homes. Yet the rows of chairs inside these tents remained largely empty, as residents cowered indoors for fear of new Israeli strikes. Plumes of gray smoke rising into the sky marked the site of the latest Israeli attacks."

The Associated Press: US: 14 children die in bombing near Afghan school KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The U.S. military says that a suicide bombing near an Afghan primary school killed 14 children. Authorities had earlier said five children were killed. A bomber was trying to attack a meeting of tribal elders in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday. The military says a total of 16 people were killed in the explosion and 58 were wounded. Khost deputy police chief Yacoub Khan says the suicide blast went off near the entrance to a police and army post. U.S. troops are also stationed inside the outpost, but no troops were wounded or killed in the attack.

Suicide bomber hits Iraqi Gaza protest | Antiwar Newswire : "A suicide bomber on a bicycle blew himself up Sunday amid a crowd of demonstrators in northern Iraq who were protesting Israel's airstrikes on Gaza, killing one demonstrator and wounding 16 others, Iraqi police said. The bomber rode his bicycle into the demonstration of about 1,300 people in the center of the northern city of Mosul, said a police officer who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with news media. The demonstration was organized by the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party. The party's Mosul spokesman, Yahiya Abid Mahjoub, complained that police and the Iraqi army had not taken security precautions for the demonstration. There has been no claim of responsibility for the attack, the officer said."

Israel Using New US-Supplied Smart Bombs in Gaza Attacks | News From Antiwar.com : "When Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared Hamas responsible for all the killings in Israel’s attacks on the Gaza Strip, it was easy to dismiss it as an expression of the Bush Administration’s “special relationship” with the Israeli government and knee-jerk support for any killings with the word terrorist remotely linked to them. Yet it seems there may have been a more practical concern of culpability at play. When he Israeli government was bombing every police station in the densely populated strip, some of those attacks were coming by way of US-supplied GBU-39 smart bombs. It is unclear how many of the hundreds of people killed in the Gaza Strip in the past 48 hours died at the hands of American munitions, but to the extent that the carnage has gotten some television coverage in the United States, direct American involvement is likely to be unpopular with a war-weary nation."

The Politics of the Gaza Massacre- by Justin Raimondo : "If you're looking for the cause of the most recent Israeli aggression against the Palestinians – over 300 killed so far, and many more wounded – forget Hamas. The real casus belli is politics, in Israel and America. On the Israeli front, elections loom large. The current Israeli government is enormously unpopular, and – with polls showing a massive swing to the right – this latest 'incursion' is its last attempt to shore up their sagging power base. The rightist surge in Israel has been building for a long time, with the settler movement gaining momentum and the Likud Party likely the chief beneficiary – in which case there will be no chance of a peaceful settlement of the Palestinian question, no matter how evenhanded President Barack Obama turns out to be. Speaking of Obama , the real focal point of the Israeli assault isn't Gaza – it's Washington, D.C. The whole point of this exercise in futilit...

Al Jazeera English - Africa - Somali president steps down : "Somalia's president has resigned after months of political infighting within the UN-backed transitional government. Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed has been under pressure since the parliament last week blocked his attempts to dismiss Nur Hassan Hussein, the prime minister. 'As I promised when you elected me on October 14, 2004, I would stand down if I failed to fulfil my duty, I have decided to return the responsibility you gave me,' he told legislators in Baidoa, where the administration is based, on Monday. 'The speaker will take over my responsibility.' The government has failed to restore security to Somalia, which has been without an effective central government since 1991. 'Most of the country was not in our hands and we had nothing to give our soldiers. The international community has also failed to help us,' Yusuf told parliament in his resignation speech."

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - Israel in 'all-out war' with Hamas : "Israel's military is in an 'all-out war' with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Ehud Barak, the defence minister, says. Palestinian medical sources say at least 345 Gazans have been killed and another 1,450 wounded in three consecutive days of Israeli bombardment in the heavily-populated territory."

YouTube - Six-month-old baby killed by Israel attacks - 28 Feb 08