Category Archives: Issues

Most mammals won’t flee climate change fast enough

DiscoveryNews reports: As the climate changes over the next century, the ranges of nearly 90 percent of mammal species will shrink — in many cases because animals won’t be able to get to areas where the climate is going to become suitable for them, says new research.

Across the Western Hemisphere, the study also found, nearly 10 percent of mammals will be unable to move fast enough to keep up with changes in climate. In some areas, such as the Amazon, that number will be as high as 40 percent.

And while some animals will do just fine or even better than before, certain animals in certain places face catastrophic losses of survivable habitat. Most at risk are primates, which will likely lose 75 percent of their range because of both inhospitable climate and the inability to get to livable places. [Continue reading…]

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Rebekah Brooks to be charged with perverting the course of justice

The Guardian reports: Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of News International, is to be charged over allegations that she tried to conceal evidence from detectives investigating phone hacking and alleged bribes to public officials.

Brooks, one of the most high-profile figures in the newspaper industry, will be charged later on Tuesday with three counts of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in July last year at the height of the police investigation, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced.

She is accused of conspiring with others, including her husband, Charlie Brooks, the racehorse trainer and friend of the prime minister, and her personal assistant, to conceal material from detectives.

Brooks and her husband were informed of the charging decision – the first since the start of the Operation Weeting phone hacking investigation last January – when they answered their bail at a police station in London this morning.

They are among six individuals from News International, along with the company’s head of security, Mark Hanna, to be charged over allegations that they removed material, documents and computers to hide them from officers investigating phone hacking. The charge is a serious one which carries a maximum penalty of life, although the average term served in prison is 10 months.

In a statement Brooks and her husband – who are both close to David Cameron – condemned the decision made by senior lawyers and overseen by Keir Starmer QC, the director of public prosecutions.

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Obama administration ready to legalize Washington’s favorite terrorist organization

The Wall Street Journal reports: The Obama administration is moving to remove an Iranian opposition group from the State Department’s terrorism list, say officials briefed on the talks, in an action that could further poison Washington’s relations with Tehran at a time of renewed diplomatic efforts to curtail Iran’s nuclear program.

The exile organization, the Mujahedin-e Khalq, or MeK, was originally named as a terrorist entity 15 years ago for its alleged role in assassinating U.S. citizens in the years before the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran and for allying with Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein against Tehran.

The MeK has engaged in an aggressive legal and lobbying campaign in Washington over the past two years to win its removal from the State Department’s list. The terrorism designation, which has been in place since 1997, freezes the MeK’s assets inside the U.S. and prevents the exile group from fundraising.

Senior U.S. officials said on Monday that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has yet to make any final decision on the MeK’s status. But they said the State Department was looking favorably at delisting MeK if it continued cooperating by vacating a former paramilitary base inside Iraq, called Camp Ashraf, which the group had used to stage crossborder strikes into Iran.

The group has already renounced terrorism, which was the main earlier sticking point. Residents have resisted leaving the camp because they feared retribution if they were returned to Iran and political irrelevancy abroad.

The U.S. officials said Mrs. Clinton would make her final decision on the MeK’s status no less than 60 days after the last MeK member is relocated from Camp Ashraf to a new transit facility near Baghdad international airport. The U.S. is working with the United Nations to resettle Camp Ashraf residents in third countries. Roughly 1,200 people remain at the camp from an earlier population of over 3,000.

“The MeK’s cooperation in the successful and peaceful closure of Camp Ashraf…will be a key factor in her decision regarding the MeK’s [foreign-terrorist organization] status,” said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland on Monday.

Western and Iranian diplomats are concerned that the MeK issue could draw serious recriminations from Tehran, which has been fixated on neutralizing the group. Many of Iran’s top leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, were targets of MeK attacks during the 1980s.

Iran has regularly accused Western countries of hypocrisy for providing shelter to MeK members while criticizing Tehran’s support for militant groups, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories. “We believe that despite the claims that others make about fighting terrorism, they [Western nations] provide the most support for terrorist groups,” Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Ramin Mehmanparast, said last week. “In Europe, the MeK has already been removed from the list of terrorist organizations and they are completely safe to continue their activities.” [Continue reading…]

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Palestinian hunger-striking detainees sign deal with Israeli prison authority

Update: Numerous tweets from Ali Abunimah et al claim the hunger strike of Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahleh has not ended. Awaiting further reports.
2nd update — @muiz: At 2am in #Palestine, almost 2 hours into their national record-breaking 78th day of #PalHunger-strike, THAER & BILAL agreed to end protest.

Ma’an News Agency reports: Detainees on Monday signed a deal with the Israeli prison authority to end their mass hunger strike, officials told Ma’an.

Prisoner representatives from each of the factions agreed to the deal in Ashkelon jail, prisoners society chief Qaddura Fares said in a statement.

Israel’s internal security service Shin Bet confirmed the deal, and prison authorities said detainees would halt their hunger strike within hours, the Israeli news site Ynet reported.

Senior Hamas official Saleh Arouri, who was a member of the negotiations team, said Israel agreed to provide a list of accusations to administrative detainees, or release them at the end of their term.

In comments to the Hamas-affiliated new site Palestine Information Center, he said that under the Egypt-brokered deal Israel agreed to release all detainees from solitary confinement over the next 72 hours.

Israel will also lift a ban on family visits for detainees from the Gaza Strip, and revoke the so-called Shalit law, according to the official. [Continue reading…]

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HRW calls on NATO to investigate civilian deaths in Libya

Human Rights Watch: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has failed to acknowledge dozens of civilian casualties from air strikes during its 2011 Libya campaign, and has not investigated possible unlawful attacks, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

The 76-page report, “Unacknowledged Deaths: Civilian Casualties in NATO’s Air Campaign in Libya,” examines in detail eight NATO air strikes in Libya that resulted in 72 civilian deaths, including 20 women and 24 children. It is based on one or more field investigations to each of the bombing sites during and after the conflict, including interviews with witnesses and local residents.

“NATO took important steps to minimize civilian casualties during the Libya campaign, but information and investigations are needed to explain why 72 civilians died,” said Fred Abrahams, special adviser at Human Rights Watch and principal author of the report. “Attacks are allowed only on military targets, and serious questions remain in some incidents about what exactly NATO forces were striking.”

NATO’s military campaign in Libya, from March to October 2011, was mandated by the United Nations Security Council to protect civilians from attacks by security forces of then-Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

The number of civilian deaths from NATO air strikes in Libya was low given the extent of the bombing and duration of the campaign, Human Rights Watch said. Nevertheless, the absence of a clear military target at seven of the eight sites Human Rights Watch visited raises concerns of possible laws-of-war violations that should be investigated.

Human Rights Watch called on NATO to investigate all potentially unlawful attacks and to report its findings to the UN Security Council, which authorized the military intervention in Libya.

NATO should also address civilian casualties from its air strikes in Libya at the NATO heads of state summit, taking place in Chicago on May 20 and 21, Human Rights Watch said.

The Human Rights Watch report is the most extensive examination to date of civilian casualties caused by NATO’s air campaign. It looks at all sites known to Human Rights Watch in which NATO strikes killed civilians. Strikes that resulted in no civilian fatalities – though civilians were wounded or property destroyed – were not included.

The most serious incident occurred in the village of Majer, 160 kilometers east of Tripoli, the capital, on August 8, 2011, when NATO air strikes on two family compounds killed 34 civilians and wounded more than 30, Human Rights Watch said. Dozens of displaced people were staying in one of the compounds.

A second strike outside one of the compounds killed and wounded civilians who witnesses said were searching for victims. The infrared system used by the bomb deployed should have indicated to the pilot the presence of many people on the ground. If the pilot was unable to determine that those people were combatants, then the strike should have been canceled or diverted.

Under the laws of war, parties to a conflict may only direct attacks at military targets and must take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians. While civilian casualties do not necessarily mean there has been a violation of the laws of war, governments are obligated to investigate allegations of serious violations and compensate victims of unlawful attacks.

Human Rights Watch said NATO should also consider a program to provide payments to civilian victims of NATO attacks without regard to wrongdoing, as NATO has done in Afghanistan.

At seven sites documented in the report, Human Rights Watch uncovered no – or only possible – indication that Libyan military forces, weapons, hardware, or communications equipment had been present at the time of the attack. The circumstances raise serious questions about whether the buildings struck – all residential – were valid military targets. At the eighth site, at which three women and four children died, the target may have been a Libyan military officer.

NATO officials told Human Rights Watch that all of its targets were military objectives, and thus legitimate targets. But it has not provided specific information to support those claims, mostly saying a targeted site was a “command and control node” or “military staging ground.”

NATO said the Majer compounds were a “staging base and military accommodation” for Gaddafi forces, but it has not provided specific information to support that claim. During four visits to Majer, including one the day after the attack, the only possible evidence of a military presence found by Human Rights Watch was a single military-style shirt – common clothing for many Libyans – in the rubble of one of the three destroyed houses.

Family members and neighbors in Majer independently said there had been no military personnel or activity at the compounds before or at the time of the attack.

“I’m wondering why they did this; why just our houses?” said Muammar al-Jarud, who lost his mother, sister, wife, and 8-month-old daughter. “We’d accept it if we had tanks or military vehicles around, but we were completely civilians, and you can’t just hit civilians.”

To research the eight incidents, Human Rights Watch visited the sites, in some cases multiple times, inspected weapons debris, interviewed witnesses, examined medical reports and death certificates, reviewed satellite imagery, and collected photographs of the wounded and dead. Detailed questions were submitted to NATO and its member states that participated in the campaign, including in an August 2011 meeting with senior NATO officials involved in targeting.

NATO derived its mandate from UN Security Council Resolution 1973, which authorized the use of force to protect civilians in Libya. The relatively few civilian casualties during the seven-month campaign attests to the care NATO took in minimizing civilian harm, Human Rights Watch said.

Countries such as Russia that have made grossly exaggerated claims of civilian deaths from NATO air strikes during the Libyan campaign have done so without basis, Human Rights Watch said.

“The countries that have criticized NATO for so-called massive civilian casualties in Libya are trying to score political points rather than protect civilians,” Abrahams said.

NATO asserts that it cannot conduct post-operation investigations into civilian casualties in Libya because it has no mandate to operate on the ground. But NATO has not requested permission from Libya’s transitional government to look into the incidents of civilian deaths and should promptly do so, Human Rights Watch said.

“The overall care NATO took in the campaign is undermined by its refusal to examine the dozens of civilian deaths,” Abrahams said. “This is needed to provide compensation for victims of wrongful attacks, and to learn from mistakes and minimize civilian casualties in future wars.”

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Colonized by corporations

Chris Hedges writes: In Robert E. Gamer’s book “The Developing Nations” is a chapter called “Why Men Do Not Revolt.” In it Gamer notes that although the oppressed often do revolt, the object of their hostility is misplaced. They vent their fury on a political puppet, someone who masks colonial power, a despised racial or ethnic group or an apostate within their own political class. The useless battles serve as an effective mask for what Gamer calls the “patron-client” networks that are responsible for the continuity of colonial oppression. The squabbles among the oppressed, the political campaigns between candidates who each are servants of colonial power, Gamer writes, absolve the actual centers of power from addressing the conditions that cause the frustrations of the people. Inequities, political disenfranchisement and injustices are never seriously addressed. “The government merely does the minimum necessary to prevent those few who are prone toward political action from organizing into politically effective groups,” he writes.

Gamer and many others who study the nature of colonial rule offer the best insights into the functioning of our corporate state. We have been, like nations on the periphery of empire, colonized. We are controlled by tiny corporate entities that have no loyalty to the nation and indeed in the language of traditional patriotism are traitors. They strip us of our resources, keep us politically passive and enrich themselves at our expense. The mechanisms of control are familiar to those whom the Martinique-born French psychiatrist and writer Frantz Fanon called “the wretched of the earth,” including African-Americans. The colonized are denied job security. Incomes are reduced to subsistence level. The poor are plunged into desperation. Mass movements, such as labor unions, are dismantled. The school system is degraded so only the elites have access to a superior education. Laws are written to legalize corporate plunder and abuse, as well as criminalize dissent. And the ensuing fear and instability—keenly felt this past weekend by the more than 200,000 Americans who lost their unemployment benefits—ensure political passivity by diverting all personal energy toward survival. It is an old, old game.

A change of power does not require the election of a Mitt Romney or a Barack Obama or a Democratic majority in Congress, or an attempt to reform the system or electing progressive candidates, but rather a destruction of corporate domination of the political process—Gamer’s “patron-client” networks. It requires the establishment of new mechanisms of governance to distribute wealth and protect resources, to curtail corporate power, to cope with the destruction of the ecosystem and to foster the common good. But we must first recognize ourselves as colonial subjects. We must accept that we have no effective voice in the way we are governed. We must accept the hollowness of electoral politics, the futility of our political theater, and we must destroy the corporate structure itself. [Continue reading…]

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Romney’s education in cruelty

Marjorie Cohn writes: Last week, I was invited to speak to 40 high school freshman about human rights. When we discussed the right to be free from torture, I asked the students if they could think of an example of torture. They said, “bullying.” A major problem among teens, bullying can lead to depression, and even suicide. When most people list the qualities they want to see in their President, “bully” is not one of them.

Yet evidence continues to emerge that Mitt Romney is a bully. When he was a high school senior at the prestigious Cranbrook School, Romney orchestrated and played the primary role in forcibly pinning fellow student John Lauber to the ground and clipping the terrified Lauber’s hair. The soft-spoken Lauber, it seemed, had returned from spring break with bleached-blond hair draped over one eye. Romney, infuriated, declared, “He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!” Lauber eyes filled with tears as he screamed for help. One of the other students in the dorm at the time, said, “It was a hack job . . . It was vicious.”

But instead of owning up to his stupidity and expressing regret at his bullying attack on Lauber, Romney told Fox News that he didn’t remember the incident, although he apologized for his pranks that “might have gone too far.” It’s hard to believe that Romney cannot recall an incident that others who assisted in the attack have regretted for years. Or perhaps there were so many more that he doesn’t recall this one.

Lauber wasn’t the only student Romney harassed. Gary Hummel, a gay student who had not yet come out, says Romney shouted, “Atta girl!” when Hummel spoke out in English class. Once again, Romney claims he doesn’t remember that insult.

In still another high school incident, Romney caused English teacher Carl Wonnberger, who had severe vision problems, to smack into a closed door, after which Romney laughed hysterically.

While these episodes demonstrate cruelty, one might dismiss them as the work of an immature high school prankster. But, unfortunately, Romney’s bullying didn’t end in high school. Romney is now famous for driving to Canada with the family dog caged and strapped to the roof of his car.

Moreover, Romney made a career of bullying when he was head of private equity firm Bain Capital. Bain would invest in companies, load them up with debt, and then sell them for huge profits. The companies often had to lay off workers and sometimes were forced into bankruptcy.

Reading the Washington Post‘s detailed report on Romney’s high school behavior brought back a lot of memories. Though the school I attended for seven years in England was not as prestigious as Cranbrook, it was an example of the type of school on which Romney’s was modeled.

We too wore ties and blazers and carried briefcases, called our teachers “masters” and mostly addressed each other by our family names. The 400-year-old school under the direction of a decorated former Royal Air Force commander was a boot camp for the next generation of commanders of industry. We were being groomed to become leaders and an integral part of that process was being taught how to suffer.

The theory was that those who learn how to suffer stoically would acquire the strength and endurance to meet life’s later challenges. Cold showers, smashed knees on the rugby field, respect for authority in a rigid hierarchy, the suppression of individuality under a rigid code of uniformity — all of these forms of discipline were supposed to mold a boy’s character so that he was ready to assume the position of leadership for which he was destined. And leaders these schools did indeed pump out. (Of course they also produced a few rebels.)

But here’s the catch: it’s hard to learn how to suffer without also learning to be callous. Weakness is treated as an object of scorn and compassion finds no place in this brutal approach to life. How is it possible to learn that ones own pain doesn’t matter without also concluding that the pain of others is similarly of little consequence?

Mitt Romney probably didn’t stand out as a noteworthy bully; more likely he faithfully mirrored the twisted educational philosophy by which he had been shaped.

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Louisiana’s prison-industrial complex

The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports: Louisiana is the world’s prison capital. The state imprisons more of its people, per head, than any of its U.S. counterparts. First among Americans means first in the world. Louisiana’s incarceration rate is nearly triple Iran’s, seven times China’s and 10 times Germany’s.

The hidden engine behind the state’s well-oiled prison machine is cold, hard cash. A majority of Louisiana inmates are housed in for-profit facilities, which must be supplied with a constant influx of human beings or a $182 million industry will go bankrupt.

Several homegrown private prison companies command a slice of the market. But in a uniquely Louisiana twist, most prison entrepreneurs are rural sheriffs, who hold tremendous sway in remote parishes like Madison, Avoyelles, East Carroll and Concordia. A good portion of Louisiana law enforcement is financed with dollars legally skimmed off the top of prison operations.

If the inmate count dips, sheriffs bleed money. Their constituents lose jobs. The prison lobby ensures this does not happen by thwarting nearly every reform that could result in fewer people behind bars.

Meanwhile, inmates subsist in bare-bones conditions with few programs to give them a better shot at becoming productive citizens. Each inmate is worth $24.39 a day in state money, and sheriffs trade them like horses, unloading a few extras on a colleague who has openings. A prison system that leased its convicts as plantation labor in the 1800s has come full circle and is again a nexus for profit.

In the past two decades, Louisiana’s prison population has doubled, costing taxpayers billions while New Orleans continues to lead the nation in homicides.

One in 86 adult Louisianians is doing time, nearly double the national average. Among black men from New Orleans, one in 14 is behind bars; one in seven is either in prison, on parole or on probation. Crime rates in Louisiana are relatively high, but that does not begin to explain the state’s No. 1 ranking, year after year, in the percentage of residents it locks up.

Read more at Louisiana Incarcerated.

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Shlomo Sand, author of ‘The Invention of the Land of Israel’, receives death threat

Haaretz reports: Prof. Shlomo Sand, a Tel Aviv University history professor, said Sunday that he had received an envelope containing white powder and a letter that included death threats.

In the letter, which was received by the secretary of the university’s Department of History, the professor was accused of being an “anti-Semitic,” among other things. The letter also threatened Sand that he would “not live much longer.”

In a conversation with Haaretz, Sand said, “I opened a series of letters as usual, and then all of a sudden a white cloud jumped out. I was shocked that the powder got on to my hands and threw down the letter. It’s been brought to the attention of the security officer and the police sent a squad car to the site and the substance was taken for a test.”

Sand, who intends on filing a complaint with Israel Police on Monday, said he was concerned after having received the letter. “They wrote that I’m an anti-Semite, Nazi, that my time will come. It’s a very unpleasant feeling,” he said.

The history professor said it was possible that his new book, “The Invention of the Land of Israel: From Holy Land to Homeland,” might have been what caused someone to send him the letter. “Four years ago, when I published my previous book, ‘The Invention of the Jewish People,’ there were fewer crazy people than there are today,” Sand told Haaretz.

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Israel warned of volatile situation as Palestinian hunger strikers near death

The Guardian reports: Demonstrations in the West Bank and Gaza in support of about 2,000 Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike are escalating amid efforts by Egyptian mediators to broker a deal to avoid protests spiralling out of control if a detainee dies.

Two prisoners, who have refused food for 77 days, are thought to be close to death with another six in a critical condition, say Palestinian groups. The Israeli prison service (IPS) says no one’s life is at risk.

In an unusual intervention, Tony Blair, the representative of the Middle East quartet, urged Israel to “take all necessary measures to prevent a tragic outcome that could have serious implications for stability and security conditions on the ground”. He said he was “increasingly concerned about the deteriorating health conditions” of hunger strikers.

Earlier, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, said the situation was “very dangerous”. He told Reuters: “If anyone dies … it would be a disaster and no one could control the situation.” Abbas has appealed to Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, to intervene.

Jamal Zahalka, a member of the Israeli parliament, told a solidarity rally in Jaffa: “If one of the striking prisoners dies, a third intifada [uprising] will break out.”

According to Physicians for Human Rights, there is no previous recorded case of anyone surviving without food or supplements for more than 75 days. IRA hunger strike Bobby Sands died after 66 days in 1981.

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Conservative thinktanks step up attacks against Obama’s clean energy strategy

The Guardian reports: A network of ultra-conservative groups is ramping up an offensive on multiple fronts to turn the American public against wind farms and Barack Obama’s energy agenda.

A number of rightwing organisations, including Americans for Prosperity, which is funded by the billionaire Koch brothers, are attacking Obama for his support for solar and wind power. The American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), which also has financial links to the Kochs, has drafted bills to overturn state laws promoting wind energy.

Now a confidential strategy memo seen by the Guardian advises using “subversion” to build a national movement of wind farm protesters.

The strategy proposal was prepared by a fellow of the American Tradition Institute (ATI) – although the thinktank has formally disavowed the project.

The proposal was discussed at a meeting of self-styled ‘wind warriors’ from across the country in Washington DC last February.

“These documents show for the first time that local Nimby anti-wind groups are co-ordinating and working with national fossil-fuel funded advocacy groups to wreck the wind industry,” said Gabe Elsner, a co-director of the Checks and Balances, the accountability group which unearthed the proposal and other documents.

Among its main recommendations, the proposal calls for a national PR campaign aimed at causing “subversion in message of industry so that it effectively because so bad that no one wants to admit in public they are for it.”

It suggests setting up “dummy businesses” to buy anti-wind billboards, and creating a “counter-intelligence branch” to track the wind energy industry. It also calls for spending $750,000 to create an organisation with paid staff and tax-exempt status dedicated to building public opposition to state and federal government policies encouraging the wind energy industry.

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Spain’s indignado protesters mark anniversary of anti-austerity rallies

The Guardian reports: Tens of thousands of “indignado” protesters have taken part in overnight rallies across Spain, with police evicting a few hundred hardcore demonstrators from city squares during the largely peaceful protests.

At least 100,000 people took to the streets across dozens of towns and cities to mark the first anniversary of the Occupy Madrid’s movement.

“They don’t represent us!” was the most common chant directed at the country’s politicians as a carnival atmosphere reigned in cities such as Puerta del Sol. Protesters there included parents with young children on their shoulders and a group of pensioners called The Indignant Grandparents.

A new conservative government led by Mariano Rajoy has banned camps this year. Its attempts to impose time limits on the protests failed, however, with thousands of chanting people still occupying Puerta Sol’s city square at midnight, despite being told to leave at 10pm.

Police acted calmly and moved into squares between 2am and 5am on Sunday morning, when indignado numbers had reduced.

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Training terrorists to catch terrorists

Philip Knightley describes how the Saudi-CIA operation that foiled the latest al Qaeda bombing plot, employed a technique first used in the Soviet Union.

When the story of the foiled bomb plot first broke it seemed too good to be true. The security authorities had intercepted a man carrying a supposedly undetectable bomb which was being examined at the FBI laboratories in Quantico, Virginia. This suggested an amazing piece of intelligence work. What had led the authorities to the man? Why were they suspicious of him? Had they been tipped off? As details emerged it became apparent that the action was rather more straightforward.

In the tradition of [the founder of the KGB, Felix] Dzerzhinski, the Saudi intelligence service had apparently “dangled” one of its agents in front of known al-Qa’ida members hoping for a “bite”. To make the bait attractive, the agent, it later emerged, was a British passport holder. Al-Qa’ida was fooled and handed him the bomb with instructions to smuggle it on a plane bound for the United States. He handed it over to the Saudis. It seems likely that the Saudis passed on the information the agent had gathered on al-Qa’ida to enable the US to mount a drone attack on an al-Qaida leader in Yemen. The Saudis are thought to have planned more operations for its star undercover agent but were forced to abandon them when the story leaked to the Western media. Thus espionage history repeated itself, and echoes can be heard of the most famous of all counter-espionage operations in the Soviet Union, the Trust.

The Trust appeared to be a huge anti-Bolshevik organisation working from Moscow to overthrow the Communists and reverse the revolution. Instead,Dzerzhinski used it to identify anti-communists. All he needed to do was set up the organisation and wait to see who joined it. He could then choose when to roll it up and arrest its members or whether to let it run in the hope of revealing bigger prey.

In intelligence circles the Trust became a textbook operation and its principles copied worldwide. But to be most effective required a ruthlessness that Western services often felt unable to carry out. For instance, if the authenticity of a front organisation was questioned, the KGB did not hesitate to initiate a terrorist incident to reinforce the organisation’s reputation. So the Trust would plant bombs that would kill innocent people just so that possible recruits would think it a genuine organisation.

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Ex-Taliban leader-turned peace negotiator shot dead in Afghan capital

The Washington Post reports: A former Taliban leader-turned peace negotiator was assassinated by an unidentified gunmen in a brazen attack in the Afghan capital on Sunday.

Arsala Rahmani was gunned down by three armed men traveling in a car near a downtown part of the city as Rahmani headed to his office from his home, officials said.

“He died from bullet wound on the way to the hospital,” General Mohammad Zaher, chief for the criminal branch of Kabul police said by phone.

“It is a big loss for Afghanistan. He was thinking about peace and about key national issues,” said Nisar Hares, a lawmaker and close colleague of Rahmani who was also serving as senator apart from running a commission in the government-appointed High Peace Council (HPC).

The embassy of the United States, which is the main donor for the HPC, described the assassination as a tragedy.

No group has claimed responsibility for the killing. Taliban insurgents said they were not behind it, although the guerrillas, while announcing the launch of their annual spring offensive early this month, said the militants would target members of the HPC among others.

Last year, a suicide bomber, posing as an emissary for the Taliban insurgents, killed HPC head Burhanuddin Rabbani in his Kabul home. Rabbani’s killing led to the collapse of HPC’s unsuccessful efforts for reaching out to the insurgents.

Afghan government officials at the time accused neighboring Pakistan in the killing, with suspicion falling largely on the Taliban, which still has neither taken nor denied responsibility for the assassination.

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NATO: Pakistan may be unwelcome at Afghan War summit

Yahoo News reports: When President Barack Obama welcomes NATO leaders to Chicago in ten days for a high-stakes summit on the war in Afghanistan, there could be a big gap in the alliance’s talks on strategy — a hole the size and shape of Pakistan.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen strongly suggested at his monthly press conference on Friday that Pakistan would not be welcome at the May 20-21 gathering unless it reopens key supply routes into Afghanistan.

“We have actually invited a number of countries from the region — neighbors of Afghanistan, Central Asian countries, Russia — because they provide important transit arrangements to the benefit of our operation,” he said.

“But, as you also know, our transit routes through Pakistan are currently blocked so we have to continue our dialogue with Pakistan with a view to finding a solution to that because that’s really a matter of concern,” Rasmussen said.

The secretary general also echoed past statements from leaders like President Barack Obama that no Afghanistan war strategy can ultimately be successful without Pakistan’s help.

“If we are to ensure long-term peace and stability in Afghanistan, we also need a positive engagement of Pakistan,” he said.

White House officials declined to comment on the record about Rasmussen’s comments. But an administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Yahoo News that “The U.S. and NATO want to see these lines opened up, and it would be preferable to have Pakistan participating in Chicago.”

“But we’ll have to see what progress Pakistan can make in the coming days to determine whether they might ultimately be issued an invitation,” the official said. Rasmussen’s comments came two weeks after the Pentagon released an Afghanistan war progress report that highlighted “both long-term and acute challenges” of the conflict, and warned that the Taliban and their al-Qaida allies “still operate with impunity from sanctuaries in Pakistan.”

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