rigorousintuition.ca

Posted: **Sat Feb 04, 2006 6:41 pm**

<a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11105378/" target="top">IAEA refers Iran to Security Council over nukes</a> Tehran retaliates immediately, says it will resume uranium enrichment VIENNA, Austria - The U.N. nuclear watchdog Saturday reported Iran to the U.N. Security Council in a resolution expressing concern that Tehran’s nuclear program may not be “exclusively for peaceful purposes.” Iran retaliated immediately, saying it would resume uranium enrichment at its main plant instead of in Russia. The landmark decision by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 35-nation board sets the stage for future action by the top U.N. body, which has the authority to impose economic and political sanctions. ------------------- <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4681932.stm" target="top">Iran to halt snap nuclear checks </a> Iran has said it will no longer allow snap inspections of its nuclear sites, after the UN nuclear watchdog voted to report Tehran to the Security Council. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered the country's nuclear agency to end inspections from Sunday. Iran also plans to press ahead with full-scale uranium enrichment. The move to report Tehran, agreed by 27 of the 35 states on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), could lead to possible sanctions against Iran. ------------ <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,1702405,00.html" target="top">Syrian protesters set fire to embassies</a> Associated Press Saturday February 4, 2006 Thousands of Syrian demonstrators stormed the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus today, setting fire to both buildings in protest against caricatures of Islam's prophet. Police fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse demonstrators who had move on to the Norwegian embassy after setting fire to the Danish embassy, about six kilometres (four miles) away. But the protesters broke through police barriers and set fire to the building, shouting "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great). ------------ <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4681294.stm" target="top">Embassies burn in cartoon protest </a> ... However, several European papers reprinted the cartoons, citing free speech. The publications have prompted diplomatic sanctions, boycotts and death threats in some Arab nations. In other developments: - Palestinians protest in Gaza and the West Bank, as other demonstrators gather at the Danish embassy in London - A Jordanian editor sacked after publishing the cartoons is arrested - Iran says it should consider abandoning commercial and trade deals with countries where the cartoons have appeared ------------- <a href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HB04Ak01.html" target="top">Plan B and four nightmares in Iraq</a> By Sami Moubayed At present, there are four candidates for the job of prime minister: current Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari of the Da'wa Party, current Vice President Adel Abdul Mehdi from the SCIRI, Nadim al-Jabiri of the al-Fadila al-Islamiyya Party and Hussein Shahristani of the UIA. All of them are the product of Islamic parties. All of them are frowned on by Washington. The last thing the Americans wanted to install in Iraq, after toppling Saddam Hussein in 2003, was a group of men who believe in political Islam and are backed by the clerics of Tehran. This fear is shared by regional states such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and Syria. -------------- <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/03/AR2006020301853_pf.html" target="top">Ability to Wage 'Long War' Is Key To Pentagon Plan</a> Conventional Tactics De-Emphasized By Ann Scott Tyson Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, February 4, 2006; A01 The Pentagon, readying for what it calls a "long war," yesterday laid out a new 20-year defense strategy that envisions U.S. troops deployed, often clandestinely, in dozens of countries at once to fight terrorism and other nontraditional threats. Major initiatives include a 15 percent boost in the number of elite U.S. troops known as Special Operations Forces, a near-doubling of the capacity of unmanned aerial drones to gather intelligence, a $1.5 billion investment to counter a biological attack, and the creation of special teams to find, track and defuse nuclear bombs and other catastrophic weapons. China is singled out as having "the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States," and the strategy in response calls for accelerating the fielding of a new Air Force long-range strike force, as well as for building undersea warfare capabilities. The latest top-level reassessment of strategy, or Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), is the first to fully take stock of the starkly expanded missions of the U.S. military -- both in fighting wars abroad and defending the homeland -- since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The review, the third since Congress required the exercise in the 1990s, has been widely anticipated because Donald H. Rumsfeld is the first defense secretary to conduct one with the benefit of four years' experience in office. Rumsfeld issued the previous QDR in a hastily redrafted form days after the 2001 strikes. ... In the 2001 strategy, the U.S. military was to be capable of conducting operations in four regions abroad -- Europe, the Middle East, the "Asian littoral" and Northeast Asia. But the new plan states that the past four years demonstrated the need for U.S. forces to "operate around the globe, and not only in and from the four regions." ... "U.S. forces in all probability will be engaged somewhere in the world in the next decade where they're not currently engaged. But I can tell you with no resolution at all where that might be, when that might be or how that might be," Ryan Henry, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, said at a Pentagon news briefing unveiling the QDR. "Things get very fuzzy past the five-year point," Henry said of the review in a talk last month. ... In addition, civil affairs and psychological operations units will gain 3,500 personnel, a 33 percent increase. ------------ <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20060202-103630-7889r.htm" target="top">Seabees buzz in to build up bases</a> RAMADI, Iraq -- A U.S. Navy construction battalion fresh from Hurricane Katrina relief duty is battling the elements and daily insurgent attacks to build permanent bases in the dangerous Anbar province. The famed Seabees of Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 133, based in Gulfport, Miss., rode out Katrina in late August then immediately got to work clearing roads, repairing houses and delivering relief supplies in Gulfport and elsewhere in storm-ravaged Mississippi. A month later, the 650 sailors were deployed to a half-dozen sites in western Iraq to undertake a wide range of construction projects. At Al Taqaddum air base, one of two large airfields in the province used by the United States and destined to be a logistics hub, 50 Seabees are repairing the dilapidated runways where, before 1991, Iraqi jets flew out to drop chemical weapons on Iraq's Kurdish minority.

Posted: **Sat Feb 04, 2006 7:27 pm**

<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L04656842.htm">www.alertnet.org/thenews/...656842.htm</a> By Rasha Elass DAMASCUS, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Several thousand Syrian demonstrators set the Danish and the Norwegian embassies on fire on Saturday in protest at the publishing of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad by European newspapers. The protest marked an escalation in the Muslim world's uproar over the cartoons, which have been reprinted in a number of European publications. One depicted Prophet Mohammad wearing a turban resembling a bomb. The fire badly damaged the Danish embassy's building, a Reuters witness said. Firefighters put out the blaze. Chanting "God is Greatest," the protesters stormed the embassy; threw stones and shattered its windows; burned the national flag and replaced it with another flag reading "No God but Allah, Mohammad is His Propet". The building was empty as the protest has been expected. Protesters also torched the Norwegian embassy. The fire was brought under control and police, who cordoned off the area, fired teargas to disperse the protesters. A small Norwegian Christian newspaper was one of the first newspaper outside Denmark to publish the cartoons. A Danish paper published them in September. Muslims find depicting the Prophet Mohammad offensive. "When the issue came back into the headlines, we asked for increased security for the embassy. It appears we did not quite (get the increased security)," Norway's ambassador to Syria Sven Sevje told CNN. He said staff at the embassy were safe. His comments were echoed by Denmark and Sweden, which was dragged into the protests as it shares the embassy building with Denmark and Chile. Syrian police used water hoses to disperse hundreds of protesters outside the French embassy, several km away, and riot police were deployed to protect the U.S. mission. Syria's Minister of Islamic Endowments Mohammad Ziyad al-Ayoubi, responsible for all departments looking after Sunni religious affairs, criticised the protests for turning violent. "We have the right to protest and we have the right to express (our anger) but we do not have the right to exceed the boundaries drawn by Islam in protesting," he told state-run television. TRAVEL WARNING The Danish Foreign Ministry warned against travelling to Syria and urged all Danes to leave the country. "The situation for Danes in Syria has developed very negatively in the past hours," the ministry said in a statement. The Norwegian Foreign Ministry also advised Norwegians to leave Syria. It has already pulled aid workers and diplomats out of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip after protests there. Swedish Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds, considering what advice to give its citizens, told Reuters: "It is completely unacceptable that Syria has allowed the protests to develop into this and is not able to protect other countries' embassies." She said a Foreign Ministry official had met the Syrian ambassador to Sweden to convey a sharp official protest. Denmark has made similar complaints. Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller told DR1 television news: "It is completely unacceptable that the Syrian authorities did not protect the embassy, and I have told the Syrian foreign minister that." (Additional reporting by Andrew Gray in London, Per Bech Thomsen in Denmark, James Kilner in Oslo, Niklas Pollard in Stockholm)

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I read the news today, oh boy

I read the news today, oh boy

And..oh @#%!