Return of Somalia's Warlords "This has blown up in our face, frankly." This blunt assessment by John Prendergast—a former adviser to the National Security Council and the State Department who is currently working for the International Crisis Group—wasn't about the January bombing of villages in southern Somalia by the United States. Prendergast was speaking some eight months ago about the clandestine American project of funding the warlords to try to quell the rise of radical Islamist forces in the northeastern African country.

He told the June 8, 2006, New York Times that through the C.I.A.'s program of helping to fund weapons for Somali warlords the United States had "strengthened the hand of the people whose presence we were most worried about"—the I.C.U.

Since the 22-year dictatorship of Mohamed Said Barre was ended in 1991, Somalia has been a country without a state. The transitional government, formed in late 2004, is the 14th attempt to create a government since the Barre regime collapsed. Throughout the period after Barre's fall, factions of the former national army have formed into rival warlord-controlled militias. The warlords split the capital into fiefdoms and have waged bloody battles for control of the country.

Officially, Washington denies funding the warlords, although aid workers with the Red Cross and other organizations in Mogadishu told the June 5, 2006, Newsweek that they had seen "many Americans with thick necks and short haircuts moving around carrying big suitcases." Worldpress Org

Korea nuclear talks 'make progress' ...South Korea's envoy to the negotiations, Chun Yung-woo, said: "We have confirmed that there is a consensus among the countries that there must be an agreement on the early steps on implementing the September 19 joint statement at this round [of negotiations]."

He was referring to the North's agreement with the five other countries in September 2005, so far not implemented, to stop its nuclear weapons programme in return for economic and security concessions.

Christopher Hill, the US chief delegate, said the six parties were "coalescing around some of the themes" that would be part of an initial agreement, and also said China may start circulating something "either later tonight or tomorrow morning".

"We hope we can achieve some sort of joint statement," he said. Aljazeera

The caricatures of Mahomet carry out “Charlie Hebdo” in front of justice The lawsuit of the satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo opens, Wednesday February 7 in front of the correctional court of Paris. The newspaper and its director of the publication, Philippe Valley, are continued by the Union of the Islamic organizations of France (UOIF) and the Large Mosque of Paris (GMP) to have published caricatures of Mahomet in February 2006. The weekly magazine wanted to thus answer the vagueness of violent demonstrations which had burst, at the end of 2005, in the Moslem world after the publication of drawings discussed in the Danish press, of the monk having judged these drawings blasphématoires or racists. Among the three drawings blamed, two had already been published in Denmark in the Jyllands-Posten newspaper in September 2005. Third is signed of the French caricaturist Cabu. Le Monde

Abbas: Dig near Al-Aqsa Mosque likely to endanger peace efforts Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday said that Israeli excavation works near the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem were likely to endanger regional peace efforts, Israel Radio reported.

Abbas added that the excavations demonstrated Israel's intentions to destroy holy Islamic sites, according to the radio.

Jordan's King Abdullah II on Tuesday said the excavation has led to a dangerous rise in Middle East tensions and could derail the revival of Arab-Israeli peace talks.
... Jerusalem area Archaeologist Yuval Baruch stated that there is no intention to dig underneath the Temple Mount or to cause any damage to the Western Wall of the Mount. A source at the Israel Antiquities Authority stated today that "The incitement occurring in the Muslim world over the excavations is merely an attempt to twist a non-political act into something religious and divisive."

"The excavations are being carried out according to procedure by a team of professional archaeologists and experts," the source added.

In recent weeks, militant Islamic leaders have warned that the Al-Aqsa Mosque is under threat from the excavation. They have urged followers to mobilize to block Israeli work near the compound. Haaretz

Palestinians arrive for Mecca talks Palestinian leaders have arrived in Saudi Arabia for talks aimed at ending months of factional fighting in Gaza between Hamas and Fatah.

However as they convened in Jeddah ahead of the talks on Tuesday a commander from the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, was shot dead in Gaza City.
Meanwhile Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, said on Tuesday that he was to hold trilateral talks with Condoleeza Rice, the US secretary of state, and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, on February 19.
Saudi King Abdullah met separately with Abbas, head of the Fatah movement and Khaled Meshaal, a senior Hamas leader, in Jeddah before open-ended discussions aimed at ending the power struggle in Gaza and the West Bank begin in the holy city of Mecca on Wednesday. Aljazeera

Bush's Iran madness You wouldn't think that the masterminds who dreamed up the Iraq war could possibly match that grand plan, but they have. The ignorant ideologues who brought us Iraq have learned nothing. They are still reading from the same delusional neoconservative script. So, with Iraq a bloody nightmare, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process dead, Lebanon and Gaza on the brink of civil war, the entire Middle East dangerously unstable, and America's standing in the Arab/Muslim world at an all-time low, the Bush administration geniuses have come up with another grand plan: demonize Iran, push it to the brink of war, strong-arm U.S. allies into confronting it, and whip up sectarian hatred in the region.

In his State of the Union address, Bush singled out Iran as a hostile troublemaker in Iraq and promised to attack its "networks," which U.S. officials have claimed are supplying advanced weaponry to Shia militias who kill American soldiers. He then threatened to "kill or capture" any Iranian intelligence agents found in Iraq. American aircraft carriers have moved menacingly into the Gulf. U.S. troops seized six Iranian officials in northern Iraq, accusing them of spying. U.S. officials darkly conjectured that Iran was responsible for the abduction and killing of five U.S. soldiers in Karbala. At the same time, the Bush administration is twisting the arms of its "moderate" Sunni allies to take a hard line against Iran.

Some see this gambit as representing a welcome return to coldblooded, "Great Game" realism after the wishful thinking that led to the Iraq debacle. But this is a superficial misreading. Bush's Iran ploy reeks of desperation and shortsightedness; it is no more "realistic" than his Iraq strategy. It may briefly postpone the day of reckoning by diverting Americans' attention and providing a temporary bad guy, one Bush is sure to blame when his Iraq venture completely falls apart. But it flies in the face of a historical shift, the rise of Shia and Iranian power, that Bush himself rashly set in motion, and cannot now be undone. It could lead to a shooting war, which would be utterly disastrous for U.S. interests and would set back the cause of reform in Iran by years. And by further exacerbating sectarian and ethnic tensions in the Middle East while denying, in time-honored neocon fashion, that there are actual causes for what Bush simplistically labels "extremism," it is likely to further destabilize an already-chaotic region -- and empower al-Qaida, which thrives on hatred and chaos. Salon

Deal ends Beatles' Apple battle Technology giant Apple has reached a deal with the Beatles to end the dispute over the use of the Apple name. Apple Inc will now take full control of the Apple brand and license certain trademarks back to the Beatles' record company Apple Corps for continued use.

The two companies have been wrangling over the use of the Apple name and logo for more than 25 years. The legal battle over the trademark will now end.




Apple Inc boss Steve Jobs said the court dispute had been "painful".

The Beatles' songs are still not available on any legal download service, but this truce could pave the way for their anticipated appearance on the iTunes download store. BBC News

Gaza abductions on eve of talks A series of tit-for-tat kidnappings of Hamas and Fatah members have taken place ahead of crucial talks due to be held between Fatah and Hamas in Mecca on Tuesday.

Gunmen in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun have stormed the headquarters of Force 17, which is loyal to Fatah, and abducted six members.
Fatah officials blamed Hamas for the abductions. Aljazeera

German leader on Middle East tour Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, is meeting Middle East leaders as part of a push to shore up support for renewed efforts for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
Before heading to Riyadh on Sunday, Chancellor Merkel held talks in Egypt with Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, and Amr Moussa, the Arab League secretary-general, who stressed the need to act quickly if progress is going to be made.
"He [Moussa] sees a window of opportunity basically this year," Merkel said after talks with Moussa. Aljazeera

Analysis: Will the real Mossad please stand up? In the classic joke, two Berlin Jews are sitting side by side on a park bench in the mid-1930s. One is reading a Jewish newspaper with growing concern, the other is chortling over a Nazi Party newspaper.

The first one scolds him, "It's bad enough you're reading that anti-Semitic rag, but you're laughing also?" His friend answers, "If I read your paper, all I get is here a Jew was killed, there a synagogue was torched, in this city Jewish shops were plundered. Instead I read this paper in which the Jews have all the money and rule the world."

This joke comes to mind after reading the various reports on the Institute for Intelligence and Special Roles, more commonly known as the Mossad. From American publications we learned that the Mossad had bumped off a senior Iranian nuclear physicist, apparently right within a uranium plant in Isfahan.

In Cairo, an Egyptian student was arrested for working for the Mossad over the last five and a half years in Turkey and Canada, together with a whole ring of agents.

And here back home, Israel's largest newspaper ran a magazine feature over the weekend portraying the Mossad as an organization in decline, that hasn't delivered the goods for the last 18 years, its hierarchy split through petty rivalry and its head exercising an almost Faustian control over the prime minister.

So who are they really? The Jerusalem Post

Crime Down, But Europeans Still Feel Threatened European citizens feel the crime rate has dropped in the last decade but about one person in three is still concerned about personal safety in the streets, according to a survey released Monday.

Fifteen percent of Europeans questioned said they had been the victim of a common crime -- including 10 categories of crime ranging from bicycle theft to burglary -- in 2004, compared to 19 percent in 2000 and 21 percent in 1995.

But the crime, safety and security survey, which studied people's perceptions about crime, found that about 30 percent of citizens in 18 EU countries were afraid of burglary and do not feel safe on the streets. Deutsche Welle

Jakarta on high alert as dramatic floods make 340,000 homeless Boats carried emergency supplies to desperate residents of Indonesia's flood-stricken capital yesterday as overflowing rivers again burst their banks following days of rain. At least 20 people have been killed and almost 340,000 others made homeless, officials said.

Hundreds of people remained on the second floors of their houses, either trapped or unwilling to abandon them despite warnings that muddy water running four meters deep in places may rise.

"Jakarta is now on the highest alert level," said Sihar Simanjuntak, an official monitoring the water levels of the many rivers that crisscross the city of 12 million people. "The floods are getting worse." The Independent

Taleban has '2,000 suicide bombers primed for spring war THE white flag of the Taleban still flies above the northern Helmand town of Musa Qala, as the group yesterday issued a chilling battle cry promising the bloodiest year since its fall in 2001, with legions of willing suicide bombers.
As the snows melt and the weather warms, NATO troops are preparing for the bloodiest spring offensive the Taleban has ever launched. It has arguably begun, with the brazen capture of Musa Qala. The attack began last Thursday, when hundreds of Taleban rebels rolled into the town in pick-up trucks, kidnapped government officials, bulldozed buildings, set up barricades and flew the white flag of the Taleban movement.
Taleban leaders promised this was only the beginning: "We have made 80 per cent preparations to fight American and foreign forces and we are about to start war," Mullah Hayatullah Khan, 35, a guerrilla leader, said from his rustic camp among the hills of eastern Afghanistan.
Mullah Khan boasted of having 2,000 suicide bombers ready to deploy against western forces, including British troops based in Helmand, and that his fighters were better trained and more eager for a fight than last year. The Scotsman

Amidst bloodshed, millions of Muslims pray for peace ONGI, Bangladesh (AP) -- Some 3 million Muslims put aside their country's violent struggle with political corruption and Islamic extremists and raised their hands in prayer for global peace at one of the world's largest religious gatherings.

The final prayer Sunday capped a three-day Islamic gathering on the sandy banks of the River Turag in a small industrial town just north of Dhaka, Bangladesh's capital.

Pilgrims, many of whom left work early to join the prayer, streamed into the site stretching 190 acres along both banks of the river. As the crowd overflowed the space, people arrived at the site on packed boats or climbed onto the rooftops of nearby buildings. (Watch a huge crowd gather to pray )

The annual gathering shuns politics, which have become increasingly bloody in Bangladesh, and focuses on reviving the tenets of Islam and promoting peace and harmony. CNN

Infighting hurting their case, Palestinians fear he fierce internal clashes among Palestinian factions have shocked many Palestinians and Arab governments, who fear that the bloodshed is damaging the Palestinian case before the world.

Even as the Bush administration moves in its second term to try to press for significant progress toward peace, Palestinians say their own infighting is making it too easy for Israel to argue that nothing needs to be done now to promote a Palestinian state.

Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia have all intensified efforts to stop the fighting and push the warring Fatah and Hamas factions into a form of unity government, no matter how fragile. On Tuesday, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has called a meeting in the holy city of Mecca between President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah and senior Hamas figures to try to restore at least the façade of Palestinian unity. the International Herald Tribune

France and 45 other countries call for world environmental monitor Forty-five nations joined France in calling for a new environmental body to slow global warming and protect the planet, a body that potentially could have policing powers to punish violators.

Absent were the world's heavyweight polluter, the United States, and two booming nations on the same path as the United States, China and India the International Herald Tribune