Martin Seligman Imitates Sgt. Schultz–He “Knew Nothing”!

[The man who wizened the Pentagon up about the strategic value of learned helplessness, opening-up the wide vista of methods to be used to destroy the will to resist within targeted populations (SEE: Weaponizing Psychology) and in torture methods that were based on instilling hopelessness in prisoners.  Bravo, Professor.  I think you do protest too much.]

A letter to the editor by Martin Seligman

Voltaire, international

by Martin Seligman*

Following the publication of Thierry Meyssan’s investigation titled « The secret behind Guantánamo », we received the following clarification from Professor Martin Seligman, denounced in the article for his role in Guantánamo.

JPEG - 12.1 kb

Explanatory remarks

The article in question recounts the torture experiments conducted by the Guantánamo medical teams not to extort confessions, but to inculcate them into the detainees. It is founded on the abundant literature existing on the subject as well as on witness accounts.

I reported on Professor Seligman’s role on the strength of a testimony provided by a witness speaking on condition of anonymity. I apologise to Martin Seligman for having divulged an accusation which I am not in a position to prove. Moreover, I take note of his strong condemnation of the application to human beings of the principles he brought to light by torturing dogs.

I further take note of his relativisation of the suffering inflicted on others when he asserts never having practiced or participated in torture, in spite of the fact that, in the 70s, he had recommended and practiced electric shock treatments on homosexual teenagers to force them to alter their behaviour.

This said, his response shows an intent of dissimulation.

- He omits to say that he was invited and remunerated by the CIA in relation to the above-mentioned conference.

- He contradicts himself when he states having given, but not administered, a course on torture resistance techniques, while asserting that he could not have spoken to his listeners about the interrogation methods applied since he was not authorised to do so.

- In fact, he feigns naiveté in affirming to have accepted the allegations of his hosts that they conducted interrogations without employing violence or brutality, when already in January 2002 the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights had denounced the United States for resorting to torture methods.

- He is inelegant when he makes excuses by pointing his finger at a third party, in this case James Mitchell.

- He is ridiculous when, as former President of the American Psychological Association, he makes reference to « good » science, claiming to be horrified to discover that human knowledge can be applied for inhuman purposes.

- Finally, he is despicable when he alludes to « alleged torture programs » as if the existence of the facts that he purports to condemn still remained to be proven, just at the time when Physicians for Human Rights has released a stinging report titledExperiments in Torture.

As for Professor Seligman, his role still remains to be clarified.

Thierry Meyssan

Brave Ladies Prepare To Depart Lebanon for Gaza on “Miriam”

JERUSALEM — From wire dispatches
Lebanese Christian and Muslim women peace activists pray at the Virgin Mary church in the Christian village of Maghdusheh in southern Lebanon on Thursday. AFP photo
Lebanese Christian and Muslim women peace activists pray at the Virgin Mary church in the Christian village of Maghdusheh in southern Lebanon on Thursday. AFP photo

As women activists in Lebanon prepare a blockade-busting voyage to Israel, its U.N. envoy warned the world body that Israel is entitled to use “all necessary force” to stop them.

In a letter to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon quoted by Israeli radio stations and Internet news sites on Saturday, Ambassador Gabriella Shalev said Israel suspected that organizers might be linked to Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

After the envoy released her statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with top ministers to devise a strategy for easing restrictions on the Gaza Strip and stopping ships trying to breach its blockade of the Hamas-ruled territory.

The Israeli Security Cabinet met to discuss “practical steps to implement” the June 17 Cabinet statement that concerns “expanding the inflow of materials for civilian projects into Gaza, while maintaining the existing security procedures on preventing the entry of weapons and war materiel,” the statement from Netanyahu’s office said.

The prime minister said last week that Israel would widen the range of food and construction supplies allowed into Gaza after three years of strict limits. The decision follows international criticism over the blockade of Gaza after Israel’s May 31 commando raid on a flotilla of ships in which nine Turks and one American of Turkish descent were shot dead.

Lebanese activists prepare to set sail

A group of dozens of Lebanese women activists is planning to set sail for Gaza on a ship loaded with medical supplies in a new bid to break Israel’s four-year blockade of the Palestinian territory.

But according to a report by An Nahar on Saturday, Lebanese Minister of Transport and Public Works Ghazi Aridi said his government won’t grant permission for ships to sail from its coast to Gaza.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia denied on June 18 that it was sponsoring any aid ships planning to break the Israeli embargo on Gaza, saying it didn’t want to give Israel an excuse to attack the activists.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Thursday warned the Beirut government that it would bear responsibility for any “violent and dangerous confrontation” with any vessel sailing to Gaza from Lebanese shores.

“You are responsible for the boats leaving your ports, which have the clear and stated intention of trying to break the naval blockade on Gaza,” he said in a statement.

Israeli probe finds flaws in raid

The nine activists were killed on May 31 as their ship headed toward Gaza to run the Israeli blockade, prompting international criticism. Israeli officials have said its forces came under attack as they boarded the ship. There was no major violence on five other boats intercepted in the operation.

An Israeli Navy probe has found serious flaws in the May 31 seizure of the ship, Israel Radio said, without saying how it obtained the information. Naval commandos were unprepared, lacked good intelligence and used the wrong approach, according to the probe, Israel radio said.

Compiled from AFP and Bloomberg reports by Daily News staff.

Gazprom Ready To Buy All of Azerbaijan’s Gas–Screw Nabucco!

Russia's Gazprom ready to buy all of Azerbaijan's gas - CEO Miller (UPDATE)

Russian gas giant Gazprom is prepared to purchase all of Azerbaijan‘s gas volume, the company’s CEO announced on Saturday, RIA Novosti reported.

“We are ready to buy as much [gas] as Azerbaijan is ready to deliver. We are ready to buy all of Azerbaijan’s gas,” Alexei Miller said at a press conference on the sidelines of the International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg.

Miller added that buying gas from Azerbaijan was “beneficial.”

Deliveries of Azerbaijani gas began on January 1 of this year after Azerbaijan’s GNKAR signed a contract with Russia’s Gazprom in October of 2009 to deliver 500 million cubic meters of gas annually up to 2015, with the option of renewing the contract in the future.

Later the companies agreed to double gas deliveries to Russia, bringing the total amount of gas delivery from Azerbaijan to 1 billion cubic meters. The companies will again double that amount to 2 million cubic meters in 2011.

Azerbaijan’s gas reaches Russia through its Baku-Novo-Filya gas pipeline along the Caspian Sea to the Russia’s North Caucasus republics.

Azerbaijan Defense Ministry Promises “More telling Blows”

Shootout between armed forces of Azerbaijan and Armenia had indeed occurred - Azerbaijan Defense Ministry (UPDATE)

Editor’s note: Paragraphs 4-7 added

Shootout between units of the armed forces of Azerbaijan and Armenia had indeed occurred, said the head of the press service of Defense Ministry of Azerbaijan Eldar Sabiroglu.

“The firing lasted for a long time, Armenians suffered losses and pulled back”, he said.

According to him, such skirmishes are not uncommon in recent times, but it is interesting that it is the first time Armenian side concedes defeat.

“Usually, the Armenians are trying to hide the fact of their losses. I think that we should not look for causes. Anger and discontent of the Armenian people against the authorities and the leadership of the army are worrying them,” he said.

According to Sabiroglu, the Armenian side understated its losses and the losses of Armenian side is much more.

“In order to get away from the Madrid principles, Armenia violates the cease-fire and thus they themselves lured into a trap and it should be seen as yet another provocation,” he said.

Sabiroglu said that if Armenia will not withdraw from occupied territories, and if it will undertake such provocations, it can get even more telling blows.

Armenian Press Claims Azeri Incursion Into Karabakh

FOUR ARMENIAN SOLDIERS KILLED IN KARABAKH FIGHTING

tank

  • Armenia accused Azerbaijan on Saturday of “doing everything” to scuttle the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process after four Armenian soldiers were killed in the worst Armenian-Azerbaijani truce violation reported in more than two years.Citing the Karabakh Armenian military, Armenia’s Defense Ministry said the fighting occurred in the northeast of Karabakh overnight. It said an Azerbaijani sabotage unit attacked Karabakh Armenian positions there, killing four and wounding as many soldiers before retreating into Azerbaijani-controlled territory.

    “As a result of measures taken by the Armenian side, the enemy’s advance was stopped,” the ministry said in a statement. “The enemy retreated, leaving a killed soldier and weapons on the battlefield.”

    The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry did not immediately comment on the incident. The Azerbaijani APA news agency confirmed and identified the Azerbaijani casualty on Saturday. “The martyr’s body remains in an Armenian-controlled section of the line of contact,” it said.

    The area bordering Karabakh’s northern Martakert district was already the scene of the most serious firefight in years that was reported from the main Armenian-Azerbaijani frontline, lying north and east of the disputed territory, in March 2008.

    The latest incident came just over a day after the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents held yet another meeting in Saint-Petersburg, Russia in an attempt to make further progress towards a peaceful settlement of the Karabakh dispute proposed by the U.S, Russian and French mediators. Official Yerevan was quick to accuse Baku of deliberately instigating it.

    Both President Serzh Sarkisian and Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian described the deadly fighting as an Azerbaijani “provocation” directly connected with the Saint-Petersburg talks, which the Kremlin said were productive. “This inhuman act is all the more unacceptable as it took place just hours after the trilateral meeting initiated by the Russian president,” Sarkisian told reporters in Saint-Petersburg. He said the incident was also an affront to the three mediating powers and urged them not to let it go “unpunished.”

    The Armenian president also made clear that the firefight will have no impact on Yerevan’s position in the peace talks. “We are determined to and, I think, we will achieve [international] recognition of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic,” he said in televised remarks. “This is our aim and I see no need to rethink it.”

    “Having barely left the negotiation room, the Azerbaijani leadership organized a sabotage action in Nagorno-Karabakh’s Martakert district on the night from June 18-19,” Nalbandian said, for his part.

    “Evidently, it was a pre-planned and programmed operation,” Nalbandian charged in a written statement. “It once again shows the real face of Baku, which is doing everything to kill the negotiating process.”

    The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry rejected the accusation later in the day. A ministry spokesman, Elkhan Polukhov, told the Trend news agency that the deadly skirmish resulted from the “continuing occupation of Azerbaijani lands.” “Incidentally, this fact once again shows that the Armenian-Azerbaijani Karabakh conflict is not a frozen one, as the Armenian side would like to think,” Polukhov said.

    Although a Russian-mediated truce, which stopped the 1991-1994 Karabakh war, has largely held, ceasefire violations around Karabakh and along Azerbaijan’s long border with Armenia proper are a regular occurrence costing dozens of lives each year. Each conflicting party blames the other for such incidents.

    Deadly exchanges of automatic gunfire there were also reported ahead of the latest Armenian-Azerbaijani summit hosted by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. One Armenian and one Azerbaijani soldiers were shot dead near Karabakh on Wednesday. It is not clear if they died in the same section of the frontline.

    President Ilham Aliyev and other Azerbaijani leaders regularly threaten to win back Karabakh and Azerbaijani districts surrounding it by force. Aliyev warned earlier this month that Baku will pull out of its long-running peace talks with the Armenians if they yield no breakthrough soon.

    Medvedev’s office said late Thursday that Aliyev and his Armenian counterpart, Serzh Sarkisian, narrowed their differences on the mediators “basic principles” of settling the conflict at Saint-Petersburg. Nalbandian also hinted at progress in the talks when he spoke to journalists in the Russian city.

    Polukhov commented more equivocally on the results of the Aliyev-Sarkisian talks on Friday. “We would like the Armenian side to realize the necessity of turning the quantity of meetings on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement into quality,” he told Trend.

    Aliyev reportedly flew back to Baku early Friday shortly after his meeting with Sarkisian and Medvedev. Alieyv’s press service had announced earlier that the Azerbaijani leader will visit Saint-Petersburg to participate in an annual international economic conference held there.

    Medvedev and Sarkisian jointly attended the opening session of the Kremlin-sponsored forum on Friday. They also attended an Armenia-related event at Saint Petersburg State University and held a brief meeting there the next day. Sarkisian commented on the Karabakh fighting afterwards.

Armenia Azerbaijan Exchange Heavy Fire–the Fruit of Medvedev’s Labors

YEREVAN – Agence France-Presse

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. AP photo

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. AP photo

Armenian and Azerbaijani troops have clashed in the heaviest fighting in months over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, leaving at least four Armenian soldiers dead, officials said Saturday.

With tensions rising between the rival nations, Armenia’s defense ministry said in a statement that four soldiers had been killed and four wounded after Azerbaijani forces attacked late Friday. The ministry also claimed an Azerbaijani soldier had been killed.

Azerbaijani defense ministry spokesman Eldar Sabıroğlu confirmed the fighting had taken place but blamed Armenian forces for the attack and said Yerevan was understating its losses. “Armenian armed forces breached the cease-fire. They have lost even more soldiers than they admit,” he said, refusing to comment on casualties among Azerbaijani soldiers.

Armenian President Serge Sarkisian condemned the incident as a “cowardly provocation,” noting that it occurred almost immediately after he met Thursday with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev for talks in St. Petersburg mediated by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

“Provocations are unacceptable, and the recent cowardly provocation is even more unacceptable as it came just hours after the meeting held under Russia’s mediation,” Sarkisian said in a statement.

Nagorno-Karabakh is an enclave in Azerbaijan that has been under Armenian control since the end of a six-year conflict that left some 30,000 people dead and displaced approximately 1 million prior to a 1994 truce. The territory’s unilateral independence is not recognized by the international community.

International mediators have been pushing since 2007 for the two sides to agree to the Madrid principles, a deal that would see Armenian forces withdraw from areas surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh, international peacekeepers deployed in the region, refugees granted the right to return and an eventual vote on the region’s status.

Aliyev earlier this month threatened to withdraw from foreign-backed peace talks after he accused Armenia of stalling the negotiations.

Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry accused Armenia of provoking the recent violence by delaying negotiations. “There is a fairly simple way to avoid armed conflict. It is to sit down at the negotiating table and continue working on the basis of the updated Madrid principles,” Azerbaijani foreign ministry spokesman Elkhan Polukhov said.

“Azerbaijan will never reconcile itself with the occupation of its territories,” Polukhov added. “The Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh is not frozen, as the Armenian side would like to think.”

Pakistan rice crop hit by tight water supplies

Pakistan rice crop hit by tight water supplies

Sun Jun 20, 2010 8:32pm IST
A boy is photographed as he sits on a jerry can while waiting in queue to get water from a nearby tap in the slum area of Karachi May 11, 2010. REUTERS/Athar Hussain/Files
A boy is photographed as he sits on a jerry can while waiting in queue to get water from a nearby tap in the slum area of Karachi May 11, 2010. REUTERS/Athar Hussain/Files

By Amena Bakr

BUSINESS

(Reuters) – Pakistan’s 2010-2011 season rice crop is expected to drop by 14 percent versus the year earlier as India limits water supplies to Pakistan, a board member on Pakistan’s Rice Exports Association told Reuters on Sunday.

Pakistan’s Indus river basin is supplied by melting snow and glaciers from the Himalayas. Both India and Pakistan make use of the Indus, with the river managed under a 1960 water treaty.

Pakistan has lately begun accusing India of taking more than its fair share from the headwaters by building a number of dams and waging water war against its downstream neighbour. India denies this.

“In 2010-2011 we expect to face a drop of 14 percent in production because of limited water supplies because India is building dams and diverting water from the same river we share,” Sham Khan told Reuters on the sidelines of an industry conference in Dubai.

“This water issue is a serious problem and Pakistan is currently in talks with India to try to resolve this issue as agriculture represents around 23.3 of our GDP.”

During the 2009-2010 season, which starts in August and ends in February, Pakistan produced around 6.7 million tonnes of the water intensive crop due to good weather conditions, Khan said.

Other factors aside from water supplies have also impacted the rice crop, Khan said. Some farmers have switched to cash crops such as cotton and sugar due to the abundance of rice on global markets, he added. Global rice supplies this year are expected to grow by 1 percent compared to 2009, he said.

“The excess supply will push the prices down and farmers want to make the most profit out of their land. That’s why they are looking to grow other crops,” he said.

Despite the drop in output, exports were expected to remain buoyant as domestic demand in Pakistan was mainly for wheat and not rice, said Khan.

He declined to estimate the volume of exports for the 2010-2011 crop. For the previous season, Pakistan exported around 3 million tonnes of rice, he said.

Pakistan mainly exports long grain Basmati rice to the Middle East, Europe and Asia.

“We also have a small market in Africa but right now they are demanding cheap grades of grain like broken rice which comes from places like Vietnam, so our target this year is to expand our Middle East market share to compensate for this,” Khan said.

The vast majority — between 90 and 95 percent — of Pakistan’s water is used for agriculture, while the average use in developing countries is between 70 and 75 percent.

The remaining trickle is used for drinking water and sanitation for Pakistan’s 180 million people.

(Reporting by Amena Bakr; Editing by Simon Webb and Jon Loades-Carter)

Holbrooke Warns Pakistan About Assisting Iran In Violation of UN Chapter 7

English.news.cn
ISLAMABAD, June 20 (Xinhua) — Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi Sunday defended the 7.5 billion-U.S.-dollar gas pipeline with Iran and said Islamabad will take the project forward despite sanctions on Iran.

Qureshi’s comments came hours after U.S. Special envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke warned Pakistan against the pipeline intended to bring the much-needed natural gas to the energy starved country.

Pakistan and Iran formally signed the deal in Tehran on June 13, under which Iran will supply Pakistan with natural gas from mid- 2014.

“The gas pipeline project with Iran is in Pakistan’s interests, ” the Pakistani Foreign Minister told a news conference in the city of Multan in Punjab.

Qureshi said that Pakistani experts are of the opinion that sanctions on Iran will not affect gas pipeline project as it is a bilateral agreement and both countries have already finalized the deal.

He said that gas pipeline deal with Iran will not violate international laws, adding Pakistan will focus on its interests without violating international laws.

The Pakistani Foreign Minister said that the visiting U.S envoy Richard Holbrooke also remained silent when he was asked about the Iran gas pipeline deal on Saturday.

He said sanctions on Iran have not been imposed for the first time and that the Islamic republic had also been slapped with curbs three times before. He added that it is fourth time that Iran has been sanctioned, adding that if these sanctions have been imposed under chapter 7 of the UN then all UN members will apply and Pakistan will respect it like other countries.

[Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter sets out the UN Security Council's powers to maintain peace. It allows the Council to "determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression" and to take military and nonmilitary action to "restore international peace and security".]

The pipeline was initially mooted to carry gas from Iran to Pakistan and on to India. India withdrew from negotiations last year after signing a nuclear deal with the United States, but has kept open the option of rejoining the project at a later stage.

Iran will export more than 21 million cubic metres (742 million cubic feet) of natural gas daily, according to the deal.

Meanwhile Iranian ambassador in Islamabad Mash’ Allah Shakeri has said the multi-billion Iran gas pipeline has enhanced Pakistan ‘ s strategic importance, particularly in relation to India.

“In addition to the added economic value of billions of dollars, the Iran gas pipeline agreement has boosted the strategic value of Pakistan in the region. If there is any third country recipient, they have to recognize that Pakistan is going to provide a peaceful passage,” Shakeri told Express Television in an interview.

Editor: Mu Xuequan

Iranian Press On Developments In Red Sea

USS Harry Truman and accompanying strike ships are heading toward the Persian Gulf

US and Israeli Ships Heading Toward the Persian Gulf

The move might be in connection to US self-inflicted embargo against Iran aimed at inspecting Iran bound ships for suspected goods related to the country’s nuclear program.

Tehran, June 20, 2010 (Hamsayeh.Net) – There have been reports of more than a dozen US and Israeli warships passing through the Suez Canal on Friday and they are supposedly heading towards the Persian Gulf. The move might be in connection to US self-inflicted embargo against Iran aimed at inspecting Iran bound ships for suspected goods related to the country’s nuclear program.

Early this month a so-called UNSC resolution sought to impose sanction on Iran unless Tehran agreed to halt enrichments domestically. Tehran rejected the resolution saying it’s unjustified and promised to further speed up its already advanced nuclear program.

Reportedly the USS Harry Truman along with 12 other accompanying ships including at least one Israeli vessel passed through the Suez Canal as the Egyptian army made extra security measures for their safe passage. Thousands of Egyptian army troops lined up along both sides of the Suez Canal on the Red Sea coast to protect the flotilla. USS Harry Truman and its strike group carry 60 warplanes and 6000 troops.

Iran has promised to retaliate in kind if shipping lanes were to be disturbed in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman. Analysts warn the US bullying postures against Iran and an eventual military confrontation would lead to the start of Third World War.

Will the Late June Gaza Flotilla Result in Another Israeli Invasion of Lebanon?

Will the Late June Gaza Flotilla Result in Another Israeli Invasion of Lebanon?

By: EdwardTeller

A lot is happening in the eastern Mediterranean Sea this week and weekend. Boats, ships and fleets are coming and going. Friday, the biggest U.S. Naval task force in decades passed out of the Med through the Suez Canal, on its way to the Persian Gulf:

More than twelve United States Naval warships and at least one Israeli ship crossed the Suez Canal towards the Red Sea on Friday, British Arabic Language newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi reported Saturday.

According to the report, thousands of Egyptian soldiers were deployed along the Suez Canal guarding the ships’ passage, which included a U.S. aircraft carrier.

The Suez Canal is a strategic Egyptian waterway which connects between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea.

According to eyewitnesses, the U.S. battleships [sic] were the largest to have crossed the Canal in many years, Al-Quds reported.

And in the Eastern Mediterranean itself, the Lebanese contingent of the next flotilla is leaving port today and tomorrow, headed first to Cyprus, and then on to Gaza, or to its likely confrontation with the Israeli Navy:

Some 50 Christian and Muslim Lebanese women as well as foreigners are preparing to leave Lebanon on Sunday on board of the Miriam.

The group of women, who announced that they do not belong to any political group, will sail from the northern Lebanese port city of Tripoli to Cyprus and then to Gaza, between June 23 and 25.

The ship, which will be loaded with medical supplies for cancer patients, would be the latest bid to break Israel’s four-year blockade of the Hamas-ruled territory.

On Thursday, Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned the Lebanese government that it would be held responsible for ships sailing from Lebanon to the Gaza Strip, Israel Radio reported.

Samar al-Hajj, who is organizing the Miriam voyage to Gaza, thanked Israel “for its threats which only strengthened these women’s willpower to make the trip. I tell the Israelis we are not afraid and we are going on with our plans.”  (read HERE)

Army’s Hand Suspected in Kyrgyzstan

[With statements by Kyrgyz that they were paid by government officials to attack Uzbeks in Osh, coupled with videos which show Government tanks rolling down the streets, covered with civilians and many more running on foot, helps to prove the "false flag" nature of some of the ethnic-cleansing.  This all has a Russian smell to it, since Russia's allies, the Uzbek govt., has shown little concern about the events in Osh (other than worrying about them being contagious), and the Russian govt. shows no inclination to help bring the situation under control, coupled with the fact that interim president, Roza Otunbayeva was protected by Moscow.  The big question with this false flag, as with most of them in recent history, is what part did America play?  Only time will tell, whether all of this was done with America, or without us.  The closing of Manas would be an excellent indicator.]

more about “Local Kyrgyz Claim Govt. Paid for Ant…“, posted with vodpod
more about “Anti-Uzbek Kyrgyz Riding Govt. Tank“, posted with vodpod

Army’s Hand Suspected in Kyrgyzstan

Viktor Drachev/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Ethnic Uzbek men cried near a destroyed house in the village of Shark outside Osh, Kyrgyzstan, on Wednesday.

By CLIFFORD J. LEVY

OSH, Kyrgyzstan — As the armored personnel carrier rumbled down the street, men in Kyrgyz military uniforms clinging to its sides, residents of an ethnic Uzbek neighborhood here felt a surge of relief. The peacekeepers, it seemed, had finally arrived.

Bryan Denton for The New York Times

Kyrgyz soldiers stopped and searched a car of ethnic Uzbeks as they left an Uzbek enclave in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, on Wednesday.

But then the men in uniforms jumped down and began firing automatic weapons into homes while shouting anti-Uzbek slurs, more than a dozen residents of the neighborhood, Shai-Tubeh, said in interviews on Wednesday. They spoke of the terrifying moments last week when they realized that they were under attack from what appeared to be their own nation’s military. They said the assailants killed several people, wounded many others and set fire to buildings.

“We believed that they had come to protect us,” said Avaz Abdukadyrov, 48. “But instead, they came to kill us.”

Mr. Abdukadyrov and others said one memory of the events last Saturday haunted them: as they fled and their homes burned, the men in uniforms laughed and danced in the street.

In the wake of ethnic riots that broke out last Thursday night and killed hundreds over the weekend here and throughout southern Kyrgyzstan, questions arose about whether the violence was spontaneous — and then increased in the absence of strong local authority — or the work of more organized forces, possibly doing the bidding of Kyrgyzstan’s deposed president,Kurmanbek S. Bakiyev.

The accounts from the people of Shai-Tubeh and numerous other reports by witnesses lend powerful credence to suspicions of organized violence, pointing to rogue elements of the Kyrgyz government and military. The involvement of even a faction of the military could be a sign that the interim Kyrgyz government is not in complete control.

Shai-Tubeh does not seem to be an isolated case. On Wednesday, at a mosque near the border with Uzbekistan that is now sheltering ethnic Uzbek refugees, several people from other areas of Osh described similar scenes of neighborhoods and houses being assaulted by men in uniform using Kyrgyz military vehicles, arms and matériel.

A doctor at the shelter, Halisa Abdurazakova, 37, said that residents of her neighborhood had blocked the main road with large boulders and other objects after the violence started. But a Kyrgyz Army tank soon arrived, she said, and pushed aside the debris, allowing gunmen in an armored personnel carrier to drive through and start shooting.

“This was a blatant attack on us by the authorities,” Dr. Abdurazakova said.

The witness reports underscore why it may be difficult to persuade Uzbeks to return to Osh and surrounding areas. Many now see the government as the enemy, scoffing at official assurances that they can safely return.

The interim government has maintained from the outset that Mr. Bakiyev, who was ousted in April, incited the rioting to destabilize the country and pave the way for his return.

From his exile in Belarus, Mr. Bakiyev has repeatedly denied any involvement in the violence. But he comes from a prominent family in southern Kyrgyzstan and is said to maintain strong ties to government and military officials in the region.

In addition to the hundreds of Uzbeks who were killed in the past week, more than 100,000 by some estimates have left their homes, mostly women and children, causing a crisis on the Uzbek border. Ethnic Uzbeks account for only about 15 percent of Kyrgyzstan’s population, but they account for a larger percentage in the Osh region. While a minority, they are generally more prosperous than the Kyrgyz, a factor that also may have figured in the animosities that have exploded, political experts say.

The Uzbeks remaining in Osh are mostly men who have hunkered down in places like Shai-Tubeh, guarding their damaged homes from looters and squatters and refusing almost all contact with the authorities. Shai-Tubeh, in fact, is part of a warren of Uzbek neighborhoods that are now closed off from the rest of Osh by makeshift roadblocks, often the carcasses of buses or cars that were damaged in the rioting.

Jittery young Uzbeks stand guard at the entrances, and rarely allow ethnic Kyrgyz to pass, not that many would try, given the still seething emotions. Even as the violence has diminished, the barricades have given Osh the feel of a city under siege, divided into ethnic cantons.

While blaming Mr. Bakiyev for the hostilities, the interim government has also dismissed questions about whether the military took part.

“These are just rumors,” said Omurbek Suvanaliyev, the Osh region’s police chief. “This is part of a large-scale disinformation campaign.”

He said it was not easy to examine who was responsible for the violence because Uzbeks were so distrustful of the Kyrgyz authorities that they would not speak to investigators. “We now do not even go into these places because we do not want to inflame the situation,” he said.

But a leader of the ethnic Uzbeks in Osh, Jalal Salakhutdinov, said evidence of military complicity reinforced Uzbek demands that an international peacekeeping force be deployed in the city, and that an international inquiry be undertaken.

“The world must learn what happened here,” Mr. Salakhutdinov said.

The accounts of witnesses in the Shai-Tubeh neighborhood could not be independently confirmed. But more than a dozen residents were interviewed separately, and they recalled many of the same details. The destruction of buildings was undeniable.

What is striking about the events in Shai-Tubeh is that they occurred well after the violence in Osh began, residents said, contradicting earlier suggestions that a few strategic attacks by agents provocateurs might have lighted a fuse on longstanding ethnic tensions.

It was Saturday morning, roughly 36 hours after the outbreak of violence in Osh, when the military vehicles showed up at the intersection of Lenin Street and Mamadzhan Street. Many residents had spent the night in the nearby mosque, hoping that they would be safe there.

Jahangir Karabayev, 31, said the men in Kyrgyz Army uniforms were accompanied by civilians who were also armed, as well as others in police uniforms.

“They kept chanting, ‘Uzbeks, we are going to kill you,’ and ‘This is the end of you,’ ” Mr. Karabayev said.

His brother, Anvar Karabayev, 29, owner of a convenience store, said people stayed put at first because they did not expect the soldiers to attack. “But then they started shooting, and we ran or hid,” he said.

The residents said the shooting lasted about 20 minutes, pointing to numerous walls in the neighborhood that were scarred by bullets, including those of the mosque. Some said military snipers were involved.

There was some disagreement on what started the fires. Two residents said they saw flamethrowers. Anvar Karabayev said his roof burned after being hit by tracer bullets.

On Wednesday, Anvar Karabayev offered a brief tour of his home, which is across the street from his store. The exterior and much of the interior had been devoured by fire. In a smashed box on the floor were several hundred eggs, which he had taken from the store so they would not be looted. Many had been cooked by the flames.

“This has been my family’s home for generations,” he said.

Michael Schwirtz contributed reporting from Osh, and Ellen Barry from Moscow.

Karachi Attackers Attempt To Free Bolton Mkt. Ashura Fire Terrorists

City court attack – by M Amjad Rashid

Terrorist groups are using name of Allah, our beloved Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H) and Sahaba (his companions) which is surely symbolizes Dajjal.  Prophet Muhammed (P.B.U.H) told Sahaba that Dajjal will come in a disguise of good. If I look at terrorist and sectarian outfit which use sacred Islam name and titles for terror activities I’m forced to believe that they not just outlaw but in fact Dajjal and his companions.

Some of famous armies of Dajjal are   Lashkar-e-Taibah (The pious army), Taliban (students of Islam), and Sipah-e-Sahaba (the army of the followers of Prophet Muhammad), and Sipah-e-Muhammad (the army of Prophet Muhammad).Now another terrorist group have emerged “Janduallah”, which was responsible for tragic Ashura attack in Karachi earlier this year.

Yesterday four Janduallah terrorist successfully managed to escape from police custody after a well coordinated attack. Attack occurred when terrorist were brought to city court on a hearing of Ashura and Bolton market attack case. Unfortunately one police constable Shahbaz lost his life due to terrorist attack, and it would be unfortunate if whole nation don’t stand up and pay tribute to him for his bravery and declare him “national hero”.

Television experts should now realize the gravity of the situation and they should stop making statements that police only captured innocent citizen and pedestrian from crime scene of Ashura attack . They should now realize the capacity of Janduallah especially after yesterday’s successful escape of terrorist outside the city court.In this trouble times we should support our policemen .

Post Published: 20 June 2010
Author: Humza Ikram

Major railway sabotage plan foiled

The Baloch Hal News

QUETTA: Unidentified persons attempted to blow up a railway track aiming at a passenger train, Chaltan Express, near Sariab Road in Quetta on early Saturday, however, Quetta-Sibi linked rail track received minor damages but all passengers escaped unhurt, officials said.

Train service on Quetta-Sibi railway section is temporarily suspended while the repair work is underway, railway sources told media.

According to details, the explosion took place when Faisalabad-bound Chaltan Express was passing on a rail track in Darakhshan locality near Sariab Road located in provincial capital Quetta, but however, driver instantly took control over train and brought it to immediate halt.

Minor damages did occur to train but no passenger received any injury, sources said.

Divisional Superintendent Railway Quetta, Maqbool Ahmed Magsi, was quoted by  Geo News saying that the train engine had passed by the site when the explosives went off but three train compartments were on track, however, no loss of life occurred.

Rescue teams have been dispatched to blast scene which will unexpectedly repair minor-damaged track within an hour, he claimed.

Baloch Resistance To Pipelines

The Baloch Hal News

QUETTA: The Balochistan National Party (BNP), Balochistan’s largest Baloch nationalist political party, has vocally opposed Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline project by terming it anti-Baloch and devoid of enjoying the backing of Baloch people.

Habib Jalib Baloch, central secretary general of the BNP, said here on Saturday that the Balochs had not been consulted by the government to enter a deal with Iran on a gas-pipeline which is planned to pass from Balochistan. The BNP leader termed the gas project as a tool of destruction for the Balochs under the disguise of economic development.

“We will not let the gas pipeline pass from the Baloch land as our reservations have not been addressed before signing the agreement,” said Jalib, “ The Balochs are not bound to respect the gas pipeline agreement between both the countries because we fully disown it.”

Mossad/CIA Implicated In a Coup Plot In Turkey

Mossad implicated in a coup plot in Turkey, a NATO country; CIA fingerprints also found on attempt

By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal Contributing Writer

Dec 4, 2008, 00:20

(WMR) – Fresh from revelations, reported by WMR, that Israel’s Mossad and Chabad House-based criminal syndicates were targets in a criminal gangland retribution attack by a notorious Muslim gang in Mumbai, comes word that Mossad has, once again, been implicated in an intelligence and criminal network, this time in Turkey.

What makes this latest example of Israel’s failure to stem the criminal activities of its intelligence service and criminal syndicates worse is that Turkey, unlike Israel, is a NATO ally of the United States and, therefore, the United States is bound by treaty to protect NATO allies from aggression by non-NATO states, including Israel.

The Turkish and other Middle East media are reporting that the Mossad has been fingered in connection with a right-wing Turkish criminal and intelligence gang, known as Ergenekon, that stands accused of attempting to overthrow Turkey’s democratically-elected Justice and Development (AKP) Party of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul. Several Turkish papers have named a Turkish rabbi, Tuncay Guney, aka Daniel T. Guney and Daniel Levi and code-named “Ipek” or “Silk,” as having served as a double agent for the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT) tasked with infiltrating the shadowy but powerful “state within a state” group Ergenekon. Guney had been arrested by Turkish authorities in 2001 for distributing fake drivers’ licenses and phony license plates for luxury cars. A document recently uncovered by the Turkish press revealed that Guney had also infiltrated a police intelligence unit (JITEM) working with Ergenekon to destabilize Turkey. Guney was exfiltrated to the United States and he now heads up the B’nai Yaakov Synagogue and Community Center in Toronto, Canada. Guney has denied that he has been an agent for Israel, Turkey or the United States but the MIT has confirmed the document identifying Guney as an agent for MIT is authentic.

The Turkish daily Hurriyethas reported that Guney served in MIT’s Counter-terrorism Unit (CTU) and in the MIT unit that monitors Iran. Hurriyet also reported that Guney had developed a contact at the Iranian consulate in Istanbul, Muhsin Karger, the consulate’s political affairs undersecretary.

Guney also has claimed to be a journalist and it is also alleged that he was a member of the PKK. Silvyo Ovaydo, the leader of the Turkish Jewish community, called Guney a fraudulent rabbi and said he was not even registered as a rabbi at the B’nai Yaakov synagogue in Toronto. Guney is said to have once worked for Islamist media organizations in Turkey but suddenly converted to Judaism and became an “instant rabbi” in Toronto.

At the heart of the Ergenekon story lies Mossad and its reported attempts to turn Turkey into another Lebanon or West Bank/Gaza, a country wracked by internal strife and constant warfare that would usher into power a strong right-wing military dictatorship. In the trial of one of the accused murderers of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, the lawyer for one of the accused murderers asked another accused murderer, Erhan Tuncel, a one-time police informer like Guney, if he had an Israeli girlfriend. Tuncel refused to answer the question, citing an invasion of his privacy. However, it was clear that what the lawyer was driving at was a Mossad connection to the murder of Dink, a murder that was being pinned on Turkish anti-Armenian nationalists by the corporate and heavyily Israeli Lobby-influenced media in the West.

When 89 suspects were named in a 2,455-page indictment by a criminal court in Istanbul last July, many retired Turkish army officers, the neocon network, especially in Washington, which is their major citadel, along with Jerusalem and London, began to throw cold water and the term “conspiracy theory” around charges in the Turkish indictment that Ergenekon played a major role in the formation of several Turkish terrorist groups to disrupt Turkish politics, including the illegal Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Turkish Hizbollah (Party of God), the Marxist-Leninist People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP-C), and the little-known Islamic Great East Raiders Front (IBDA-C). The neocon Jamestown Foundation in Washington called the indictment’s links between Turkish military elements and radical terrorists a “conspiracy theory.” Organizations like Jamestown have no other choice. If it were also proven, as it was in Turkey, that various terrorist groups like “Al Qaeda,” “Deccan Mujaheddin,” and others exist courtesy of the nurturing and support by American, Israeli, and other Western military-intelligence structures, groups like Jamestown would lose their reasons for existence — to make propaganda and receive funding in order to keep the terrorist bogeymen, the actual “Emmanuel Godsteins,” alive.

Guney is reported to be the 86th suspect in the indictment of Ergenekon. Guney is believed to have revealed the initial detailed information on the existence of Ergenekon in order to avoid being charged in the case.

The involvement of extreme right-wing Turkish military and intelligence officials and Turkish organized crime networks, with Mossad and, possibly, CIA agents acting in concert with a suspected CIA-funded Turkish Islamic charismatic madrassaand Islamic centers’ chief named Fethullah Gulen — whose activities parallel pan-Turkic/Eurasianist (re: George Soros) goals of Ergenekon — is similar to the scenario now playing out in India where a little known group called “Deccan Mujaheddin” may have been created as a ruse by Indian right-wing military and intelligence officers, allied with Mossad and CIA agents, to sow discord in India and bring about a right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena Hindu government.

Gulen owns a number of media and business interests in Turkey and runs Islamic centers throughout central Asia and even in Russia.

In polls, some one-third of the Turkish public believe Islamist Nurcu sect charismatic leader Grand Hodja Fethullah Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania, is part of a movement that aims to seize control of the Turkish state and a little over a third believe that Gulen is funded by “international powers.” After he was acquitted in Turkey of attempting to overthrow the secular state with his religious organization, Gulen was first denied a Permanent Resident Card or “Green Card” to remain in the United States by the U.S. Distrrict Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania but then an appeals court granted Gulen a Green Card. In October of this year, a federal appellate court found that U.S. immigration authorities improperly rejected Gulen’s request for a Green Card. The appeals court ruled that Gulen was “an alien of extraordinary ability,” a decision that saw approval of Gulen’s residency status. Observers of the case suspect the CIA intervened with the court on Gulen’s behalf. Gulen’s support for the AKP government may be an insurance policy by the CIA to maintain a close relationship with the “Islamist tendency” AKP government in Ankara. The Bush administration, after seven years of trying to deport Gulen to Turkey, suddenly dropped its opposition to his permanent residency status.

The public prosecutor in the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) case against Gulen’s permanent residency status argued in filed documents that Gulen’s movement was financially supported by Saudi Arabia, Iran, the Turkish government, and the “Central Intelligence Agency.” The deposition stated that some Ankara businessmen donated up to 70 percent of their income to Gulen’s movement.

If Gulen’s operations are funded by the CIA that means the “Agency” may be linked to Ergenekon. With the U.S. having a mutual defense treaty with Turkey’s recognized government that puts the CIA potentially in violation of U.S. law. And Israel’s connections with Ergenekon means that the United States is bound by treaty to protect its ally Turkey from Israeli covert or overt aggression.

There is an element of “McCarthyism” in the Ergenekon case. Some well-meaning officials have been subjected to being tainted by the broad brush of being associated with Ergenekon. One is Asil Serdar Sacan, the former head of the Istanbul organized crime department, who was the first to confiscate documents on Ergenekon in 2001 and broadened his investigation to include both Ergenekon and the Gulen organization. Sacan, who investigated the murder of Turkey’s “King of Casinos” Omer Lutfu Topol, successfully beat attempts to smear him, being acquitted of 36 criminal charges brought against him and being reinstated six times to his police position. Sacan is currently in jail as an Ergenekon suspect but his only “crime” appears to have exposed Guney as a possible triple agent for the MIT, Mossad, and CIA. In 2001, Guney was spirited out of Turkey thanks to an agreement between MIT’s undersecretary Senkal Atasagun and the CIA. Guney was given a 10-year U.S. visa thanks to the CIA’s intervention.

In fact, Ergenekon and its “deep state” players in Turkey and Shiv Sena and its extremist Hindu “deep state” allies in India, backed by elements of Mossad and the CIA, appears to be a replay of the CIA’s secret “Gladio” network in Europe that placed weapons caches in the hands of fascists and neo-Nazis groups to take up arms in the event of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe.

The use of “false flag” terrorist attacks in Western Europe by Gladio units were blamed on Communists in an effort to forestall Communist-Socialist coalition governments in Western Europe, particularly in Italy and France.

Similarly, Ergenekon stands accused of inciting conflicts between Turks and Kurds to create anarchy in the country with the aim of having Ergenekon seizing control of the Turkish government and re-cementing close ties with the United States and Israel.

In 2004, Ergenekon attempted three military coups against the AKP government. They were code-named Eldiven (The Glove”), Sarikiz (“The Blond Girl”), and Ayisigi (“Moonlight’).

Ergenekon has been cagily kept off the newspaper pages and TV news screens in the United States. To investigate Ergenekon and Gulen in Turkey is to peel away at an onion that could expose some other “unpleasantness” for certain quarters.

On January 10, 2007, WMR reported: “According to Federal law enforcement sources, two influential businessmen — Turkish Sunni Muslim Fetullahci charismatic leader Fetullah Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania after being acquitted in Turkey in 2006 of plotting against the secular republic, and Saudi BMI Islamic investment chief investor Yasin Qadi, a major investor in Turkey who was named in October 2001 by President Bush as a Special Designated Global Terrorist — were both involved with the CIA in the late 1990s in funneling weapons and other support to the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), an Albanian terrorist group operating in the former Yugoslavia. The KLA was allied with the Clinton administration and supported by leading neocons such as Richard Perle, whose lobbying firm, International Advisers, Inc., counts Turkey as its major client. Gulen’s books have been translated into Albanian. BMI’s founder, Soliman Biheiri, also helped to start PTech, a Braintree, Massachusetts-based firm that had active software contracts with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Pentagon on 9/11. PTech’s offices were raided by federal authorities in December 2002 after it came under suspicion for terrorist financing. Qadi is suspected of using a series of northern Virginia-based businesses and charities to fund ‘Al Qaeda’ activities in Bosnia. Osama Bin Laden was granted a special passport by the Bosnian government in 1993. Qadi was reportedly a business partner of Turkish businessman Cuneyd Zapsu, an adviser to the Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Reconciliation Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, AKP).”

The dramatic revelations about Ergenekon coming out of Turkey also points to the reasons why the neocons in Washington were keen to stymie the work of FBI Turkish translator Sibel Edmonds and the CIA’s non-official cover agent Valerie Plame Wilson, both of whom had smuggling and other activities in Turkey high on their priority lists. On January 18, 2008, WMR reported: “WMR has learned that former CIA covert agent Valerie Plame Wilson, whose covert status was leaked by the Bush White House, and former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, who was focused on a major covert network involving Turkish, Israeli, and key members of the Bush administration and Republican Party and weapons and drug smuggling, were essentially looking at the same network. The nexus of Turkey with both the covert CIA Brewster Jennings and Associates operations and the Turkish-Israeli network of influence active within the Defense and State Departments, is the key factor in understanding the complicated counter-espionage operation conducted by both the FBI and CIA.” It now appears that the Washington-connected criminal network being looked at by Edmonds and Plame was, in fact, closely linked to the Ergenekon network in Turkey.

WMR’s January 18, 2008 report continued: “Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald was also, according to our sources, well aware of the massive conspiracy to cover-up the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction components from former Soviet Central Asian states, as well as Ukraine, Moldova, and Ukraine, to the international weapons bazaar. The Abdul Qadeer Khan (A Q Khan) network based in Pakistan was a major beneficiary of the weapons smuggling operation that used Turkey as a pass-through. Rather than expand his investigation, Fitzgerald demurred on looking at the activities of the American Turkish Council, Turkey’s influential lobbying group in Washington, and its parallel symbiotic organization, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Turkey and Israel are close military and intelligence partners.”

Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin has called on President-elect Barack Obama to reappoint Fitzgerald as U.S. Attorney for Northern Ilinois. If Obama does so, it means that the network being investigated by Edmonds and Plame, one that stretches to Ergenekon and the Gulen network in Turkey, has its hooks deep into the future Obama administration.

Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.

Copyright © 2008 WayneMadenReport.com

Turkey’s Trouble and the “Hidden Hand” of History

[The strangeness of modern day Turkey, as seen in the Kemalist legacy of democratic reforms, secularism, intersecting East and West, "moderate Islam,"--all of these reflect the movement of history in the direction of human liberation, but within this progress  you also see evidence of the creeping "hidden hand" of history's secret manipulators.  With each stride forward, for any segment of the human race, comes the companion shadow step of the secret power center, looking for ways to limit the liberation and to steer the moving popular force ("movement") in an unnatural alternate direction.  In Turkey's case, the covert herders of the movement have undermined the Nation from within, using groups like the "Young Turks" and the PKK to attack progress and create national divisions in order to multiply the anger and hatred.  Many of the Young Turks were "crypto-Jews," Turkish Jews who hid their identities and secretly worked in support of a hidden anti-Islamic and anti-Turkish agenda.  In present-day Turkey, the PKK is much more than merely a Kurdish liberation group, it is also the tool used by the hidden hand to serve the cause of the "Jewish state," while disrupting the Nation and multiplying the divisions.  The PKK advances the Israeli cause in Turkey, Iraq and Iran.

Today, the Israeli-backed PKK has been activated in a new offensive which has already claimed the lives of many Turkish troops.  This new offensive by Israel's surrogates is timed simultaneously with the international effort to break the Gaza seige, which turned into a contest between Israel and Turkey with the flotilla attack.  The next planned international incident has already been set into motion from Lebanon and in the Red Sea against Israel's primary enemy, Iran.

There is another covert operation connected to the Israeli Mossad now unfolding in Turkey as well, the "Ergenekon Plot." This is a plot by right-wing Turkish generals, with uncovered connections to the Israeli Mossad, to incite "Islamic" terrorism and cause a return to a military dictatorship.  The exposure of this network, with its connections to Mossad, as well as its secret ties to the American "Stay Behind" "Deep State" network ("Gladio"), represents as Turkey's last chance to save itself from the hidden forces pushing instability and military dictatorship.

Most of Turkey's ongoing troubles are not of its own making.]

Turkey’s trouble

Arab News

The upsurge in fighting between the Turkish armed forces and the Kurdish rebel PKK is a serious setback for the efforts of Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to bring an end to the long-standing conflict.

Ten Turkish soldiers were killed in an attack on a fort near the Iraqi border. In response the military sent warplanes and helicopter gun ships to attack PKK bases in Iraq. There is every sign the conflict is once again escalating.

The PKK abandoned a yearlong unilateral cease-fire in March and have since been mounting roadside bomb attacks on army convoys and killing local Kurdish militiamen and village guards. The army is rushing reinforcements to the region and says that it is expecting the PKK to increase its attacks during this summer.

War-weary Turks of all ethnic backgrounds will be in despair that this so-called dirty war has once more flared up. The tragic truth is that they have been here so many times before. This bitter 20-year conflict which has cost in excess of 40,000 lives is un-winnable by either side. With their Iraqi refuges, the PKK will always be able to escape across the border and regroup. Meanwhile, the Turkish military are tough and indomitable. They are unlikely to be deflected by the losses they are suffering.

Indeed there are some in Turkey who suspect their country’s top brass actually welcome the Kurdish insurrection. It ensures that the largely conscript armed forces are given generous portions of the state budget so they are well equipped to fight the PKK. Basic training for army recruits remains little changed from when it was introduced by Prussian officers at the start of the twentieth century. Military service is seen as part of the creation of good Turkish citizens. Typically recruits from the east of the country do their military service in the west and vice versa. As its past political interventions have shown, Turkey’s generals consider themselves to be the custodians of the Kemalist republican flame.

For them therefore the PKK insurrection rates as more than a rebellion but as a challenge to the homogeneity of the country that Kemal Ataturk created. There is resentment among nationalist politicians as well as senior commanders at the way in which the Erdogan government has sought to accommodate Kurdish demands for greater rights for their language and culture.

Therefore it could be feared that beyond welcoming the fighting with the PKK, individual officers may even be fostering it.  Were this true, it would be an extremely serious situation. Soldiers should implement the policies of the elected government, not their own agenda. Yet in the bad lands of eastern Turkey where the fighting is taking place, it is hard for Ankara politicians to know what is actually going on.

The violence will only be ended by negotiation and compromise. The Erdogan administration recognizes this but there remains a core of nationalists who regard an accommodation with the Kurds as a betrayal. If their view prevails, then blood will continue to flow.

The Plight of Kyrgyz Refugees

Send baby body armor

18/06 16:13, Jalal-Abad – IA “24.kg”, Egamberdiev KABUL

From country to country

They fled. Take-only documents, cell phones and food for children. The sick and elderly were carried on stretchers, carried in wheelbarrows. We walked by day, but most nights. Skulk through the mountains to where they believed would save themselves, children, parents from death. To the boundary. But they are not missed.

At the border crossing “Khanabad accumulated a huge number of people. They did not open the gate. They said: do, go to Osh, where the refugees are allowed to pass. And where to go if they got something here somehow?

In nearby villages, people have opened their doors. We took all. Put on the fire huge mahalla seemed ready meals for refugees quickly amassing deckchairs and sunshades: I had to place more than a hundred people in the house, where usually live about five people.

Products and firewood is also not enough. Villagers slaughtering cows, chopped apple and cherry trees for firewood.

The only TV on the whole street was put on a high place. In the evening to watch it come refugees from other houses. Hundreds of people sat and stood under the open sky in the small yard, carefully looked into the small screen and waiting for good news. There were none.

In the morning they again went to the border, hoping to cross it and be safe.

Tabib

This word is translated as “healer” or “witch doctor”. A small, wizened little man, fifteen years ago, finished a three-course medical college with a degree in medical assistant, in a white gown hurriedly trotted from one village to another. His eyes were red from lack of sleep. He was not with a doctor’s bag. In his pockets he was carrying drugs patients. He carried them in their pockets because they were few. That’s all – analgine, diphenhydramine, aspirin.

What he could help people with his meager knowledge, not having enough bandages, the most common pills and green stuff? But another doctor was not. He was one of tens of thousands of people.

He cried quietly because he could not help everyone. Cursed himself for what did not finish my studies. He could not keep up everywhere. Two refugee women took birth midwife. In another of the experiences a miscarriage.

Only one drug was in plenty, and it was enough for all – prayer.

Cemetery as rescue

For three days she spent the night with a baby among the graves. Shots and explosions could be heard far away. She correctly reasoned, the young, even the young woman: live it will not help. Dead it will save. She came to the graves of their ancestors. They gave her and her child lives.

Another woman walked all day to the border, bent double. Because it is tied to the child’s chest. She did not bring him back, as usual, because I was afraid that someone behind shoot.

But she also feared that the fire can and front. Therefore, it was bent to the worst case a bullet could hit her on the head, but not in the child. And so it came.

Already in the security, he continued to walk hunched over. Not because I could not straighten his back, but because it was a reflex.

When I told her that humanitarian aid will arrive soon – drugs, food – she said: “A baby will be handing out body armor ?»…

URL: http://www.24.kg/osh/76979-prishlite-detskie-bronezhilety.html

Kyrgyzstan Folk Vigilantes to Be Stationed at Each Polling Station

Nikolay Davydov: Kyrgyzstan to each polling station to ensure the presence of folk vigilantes

18/06 16:34 Bishkek – IA “24.kg”, Aizada KUTUEVA

“Kyrgyzstan will be at each polling station to ensure the presence of folk vigilantes” – said today at a meeting with the citizens of organizational work department head an interim government Nikolay Davydov.

According to him, during the referendum, some destructive forces certainly try to create conflict situations, to organize provocations. “Often, the members of the commission is not enough time to thoroughly analyze conflicts. And if at each site in conjunction with law enforcement agencies will be present 25-30 vigilantes, they will be able to quickly address emerging issues “, – said Nikolai Davydov.

As the head of the department, all the republic organized 2000 310 precinct election commissions.

URL: http://www.24.kg/konstitucija2010/76984-nikolaj-davydov-v-kyrgyzstane-planiruetsya-na.html