Leader of Darfur Peacekeeping Mission Resigns

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UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) — The head of the joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission in Sudan’s Darfur region, who some diplomats say has been ineffective, is stepping down, United Nations officials said Tuesday.

Officials from the United Nations are working closely with the African Union to find a replacement for the head of the peacekeeping mission, Rodolphe Adada, who is a former foreign minister of Congo, said Marie Okabe, a United Nations spokeswoman.

The peacekeeping force in Darfur, known as Unamid, said in a statement that Mr. Adada’s resignation would take effect on Monday. Diplomats said he was expected to return to politics in Congo.

Gen. Henry Anyidoho of Ghana, deputy chief of the peacekeeping force, will be in charge until a permanent replacement for Mr. Adada is named, United Nations officials said.

The conflict in Darfur in western Sudan has been going on for more than six years. The United Nations says that as many as 300,000 people have died, while Sudan’s government has placed the official toll at 10,000. About 4.7 million people in Darfur rely on international aid to survive, according to the United Nations.

The peacekeeping force was established by a Security Council resolution in July 2007, but deployment of the peacekeeping troops has been slow and difficult.

At the end of June, about 60 percent of Unamid’s planned full strength of 26,000 troops and police officers had arrived in Darfur, an area roughly the size of France. The United Nations says it hopes that 90 percent of the troops will be on the ground by the end of the year.

The slow pace of deployment has frustrated the United Nations, its member states and aid workers. Diplomats and activists have also complained that the United Nations has done too little to revive the stalled Darfur peace effort.

John Prendergast, a former State Department official and co-founder of the Enough Project, an antigenocide group, said the peacekeeping force had been widely perceived as a failure.

“There is an urgent need to construct a more credible and effective peace process backed by stronger leverage,” he said.

Chinese Leader Visits Volatile Xinjiang Region

By EDWARD WONG and JONATHAN ANSFIELD

BEIJING — President Hu Jintao has been visiting the volatile western region of Xinjiang for four days, state news media reported Tuesday, in his first trip to the region since deadly rioting in July left scores of people dead and strained relations between ethnic Han and ethnic Uighurs.

According to Xinhua, the state news agency, Mr. Hu visited rural areas and factories; a major oil center; and the regional capital, Urumqi, where the rioting occurred.

On Tuesday, he told government officials and security forces that stability was a top priority in the region. “The key to our work in Xinjiang is to properly handle the relation between development and stability in the region,” Xinhua quoted him as saying.

Reporters gathered in Xinjiang this week in anticipation of the start of trials related to the riots. But an official with the news media office of the local Communist Party headquarters said that he had no information that any such trials would take place this week.

The official, Li Hua, said Tuesday by telephone that a report on Monday in China Daily, a state-run English-language newspaper, had incorrect information on the timeline for the trials. Some Chinese Web sites and foreign news organizations, including The New York Times, ran articles based on the China Daily report.

“Of course they have to be tried, just not according to the timeline of the China Daily story,” Mr. Li said, referring to the scores of men, mostly ethnic Uighurs, charged with taking part in the riots. Mr. Li said he had no information on exactly when the trials would start.

The China Daily article, published on the front page, said that more than 200 suspects had been formally charged with an array of crimes related to the rioting that began on July 5, and that trials were expected to start this week in Urumqi. The article cited an unnamed court official.

It also said the local police had gathered 3,318 pieces of evidence, including bricks and clubs stained with blood.

Some Chinese and foreign reporters have waited in Urumqi for the trials to start. In late July, China Daily had reported that the trials would start in August.

On Tuesday, Global Times, a newspaper published by the Communist Party’s main news organization, reported that the government had not yet set a date for the trial and that the number of suspects remained at 83. Global Times quoted Hou Hanmin, a spokeswoman for the Xinjiang regional government, saying that the China Daily report was “totally untrue.”

The announcement of a trial date on a matter as delicate as the ethnic riots would usually be reported first through Xinhua. But Xinhua had yet to report on any fixed date as of late Tuesday.

The conflicting reports appeared to be an indication of growing competition among official news organizations in China as senior officials encourage more aggressive reporting on topics of international interest.

On July 5, mobs of Uighurs, Turkic-speaking people who make up the largest ethnic group in Xinjiang, stormed through the streets of Urumqi after clashes between Uighur protesters and riot police officers. The initial protesters had been holding a rally over the killing of Uighurs in an earlier ethnic brawl at a factory in southeastern China.

In the violence in Urumqi, at least 197 people were killed and 1,721 injured, most of them Han civilians, according to state news organizations. It was the deadliest ethnic riot in China in decades. The Han are the dominant ethnic group in China.

In the days afterward, Han vigilantes armed with sticks and knives went into Uighur neighborhoods to exact revenge.

Uighurs in Urumqi say the government has not given an accurate count of Uighur casualties.

Xiyun Yang contributed reporting from Beijing.

Palestinian Leader Maps Plan for Separate State

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By ISABEL KERSHNER

JERUSALEM — The Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, unveiled a government program on Tuesday to build the apparatus of a Palestinian state within two years, regardless of progress in the stalled peace negotiations with Israel.

The plan, the first of its kind from the Palestinian Authority, sets out national goals and priorities and operational instructions for ministries and official bodies. Mr. Fayyad said it was meant to hasten the end of the Israeli occupation and pave the way to independent statehood, which he said “can and must happen within the next two years.”

There was no immediate official Israeli comment, with the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in Europe. But two Israeli officials reacted with consternation over what they saw as a unilateral action. The United States consul general in Jerusalem expressed approval for the plan.

Mr. Fayyad, an American-educated economist and a political independent who has gained the confidence of the West and is largely respected in Israel, made the announcement in the West Bank city of Ramallah. He said the goal of the plan was “to establish a de facto state apparatus within the next two years.”

His plan was not meant to be “in lieu of the political process, but to reinforce it,” Mr. Fayyad said in an interview with The New York Times. Negotiations and state-building, he said, need to be pursued in parallel.

The Western-backed Palestinian leadership has recently been accused of passivity in its approach to peacemaking and pursuit of independence. Mr. Fayyad said the new program represented a proactive effort to form the foundation of the state. His announcement came on a day when Mr. Netanyahu met with Prime Minister Gordon Brown in London. On Wednesday, he is to meet there with George J. Mitchell, the Obama administration’s Middle East envoy.

Jacob Walles, the American consul general, spoke of the plan in an interview here on Monday, before Mr. Fayyad’s announcement. He said that it was the first time he had seen such a “concrete plan” and that the Palestinians were working in a practical way toward their goal.

Mr. Walles added that under the premiership of Mr. Fayyad there had been “a lot of progress in the West Bank” in economic, security and other spheres.

Yuval Steinitz, the finance minister of the conservative Likud Party, called Mr. Fayyad’s ideas “disappointing.”

“This is contrary to all the agreements signed between the sides,” Mr. Steinitz told Israel Radio. “There is no place for unilateralism, no place for threats, and of course, there will be no Palestinian state at all, if any, without ensuring the state of Israel’s security.”

Daniel Ayalon, the deputy foreign minister of the nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu Party, said that “artificial dates and arbitrary deadlines never worked in the past, but caused only damage and would not work now.”

Mr. Fayyad’s plan lays out a broad outline for a democratic Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as its capital. The plan states, for example, that “shelter, education and health insurance are basic rights which will be preserved and protected by the state,” which also has “an enduring obligation to care and provide for the martyrs, prisoners, orphans and all those harmed in the Palestinian struggle for independence.”

Aspirations for the economy include ridding it of outside hegemony and reversing its dependence on Israel. Goals for the Finance Ministry include reducing reliance on international aid by controlling spending and increasing domestic revenues. The government is to offer tax incentives to local and foreign investors.

The Palestinian Authority has instructed its Ministry of Transport to help develop legislation and plans for modern seaports, crossing points and airports, including an international airport in the Jordan Valley.

Mr. Fayyad acknowledges that the Palestinian national cause has been hampered by internal schism, which limits the authority of President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah and the Fayyad government to the West Bank and leaves Hamas, its Islamic rival, in control of Gaza.

The program could be adopted by any Palestinian government over the next two years, Mr. Fayyad said. “It is a rallying call for our people to unite behind our vision,” he said

Atomic Agency Is Pressed on Iran Records

By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD

The Obama administration and its European allies are pressing the International Atomic Energy Agency to make public evidence that they believe points toward an Iranian drive to gain the ability to build a nuclear weapon, part of a broad effort to build a case for far more punishing sanctions against the country.

The request has touched off an internal debate in the agency over how directly to confront Iran over its continued refusal, over several years, to answer questions about documents and computer files suggesting military-led efforts to design a nuclear weapon. Iran has charged that the documents, many of which came from American, Israeli and European intelligence services, are fabrications. The agency, according to current and former officials there, has studied them with care and determined that they are probably genuine.

“What we and all the allies are pressing for is for the full case to be laid out, in public,” one senior Obama administration official said last week, speaking anonymously because he was discussing intelligence data.

The administration’s push for an open discussion of Iran’s suspected weapons program, and for tougher sanctions, reflects growing pessimism about efforts to engage with the country’s leaders. Administration officials said that while they had received some communications from the Iranian leadership before the presidential election in June, there had been no communications of substance since.

But agency officials say that Mohamed ElBaradei, the departing director general, resisted a public airing, fearing that such a presentation would make the agency appear biased toward the West in the effort to impose what Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton recently called “crippling” sanctions. Dr. ElBaradei, who has argued for allowing Iran to maintain a token capacity to produce uranium under strict inspection, has said that the evidence does not create an airtight case against Iran.

The Obama administration’s effort to make the case public contrasts with the approach of President George W. Bush. After the intelligence debacle surrounding Iraq, Bush administration officials said they lacked the credibility to make public the evidence about Iran’s nuclear efforts. Mr. Bush admitted as much in 2005, saying that the case would have to be made quietly.

Moreover, American intelligence agencies had balked at publishing some of their most sensitive discoveries, including data stripped from a laptop computer slipped out of the country by an Iranian nuclear engineer.

Some of that information was described to member countries of the I.A.E.A. by the agency’s chief inspector during a closed meeting in February 2008. The official, Olli Heinonen, laid out an array of documents, sketches and video that he said were “not consistent with any application other than the development of a nuclear weapon.” News of that presentation quickly leaked, and the details were denounced by Iranian officials as fabrications.

But before and since Mr. Heinonen’s briefing, Iran has refused to allow the agency to talk with Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the scientist believed to lead two secret efforts inside the Iranian government called Project 110 and Project 111. The evidence collected by the agency suggests that each centers on elements of designing and delivering a nuclear weapon, though the United States said in a National Intelligence Estimate published nearly two years ago that it believed those projects were halted, at least temporarily, in late 2003.

A European diplomat familiar with the agency’s internal deliberations said that the United States, Britain, France and Germany were pressing the agency to reveal the strongest information it had gathered.

“There’s multilateral activity under way to ramp up pressure on Iran,” the official said. “It’s not just Israel.”

The agency’s next report on Iran is expected to be released as soon as Thursday or Friday. A senior European official said it contained “no bombshells,” but it was unclear how much analysis of previous information on bomb design and conversations among Iran’s nuclear engineers it might reveal. Much of that information came from the laptop, from a penetration of Iran’s computer networks and from the agency’s own findings, American and European officials said.

One nuclear official familiar with the preparation of the report said that a high-level dispute had broken out in the atomic agency over whether the report should include a toughly worded analysis of Iran’s activities, in hopes of forcing a response from Iran. But Dr. ElBaradei has remained cautious, they said, and it was unlikely that much of the material would be included in the report.

Assessing the progress that Iran has made in the nuclear arena over the past year is difficult, and it has been made more complex by the upheaval that followed the election there.

Next Wednesday, American and European officials are scheduled to meet to discuss their next steps on Iran, and President Obama has said he will use the opening of the United Nations General Assembly later in the month, and perhaps an economic summit meeting in Pittsburgh, to press for far tougher sanctions. Among the penalties under consideration is a cutoff of refined gasoline to Iran, but a senior administration official said last week that such a step “will be a hard sell for China and Russia,” which have extensive economic ties to Iran.

When the inspectors last reported on their periodic visits to Iran’s main nuclear site, at Natanz, they said roughly 7,000 centrifuges had been installed to produce uranium. All of it was low-enriched uranium, which is not suitable for weapons. Iran insists that the fuel is for eventual use in nuclear power plants.

Iran has barred the inspectors from other sites, including some suspected of being part of a nuclear weapons program. It was during such an inspection five years ago that I.A.E.A. inspectors discovered enrichment activities that had been hidden for 18 years.

But last week the agency’s inspectors were allowed to visit the nearly finished Arak heavy water reactor after being barred from the site for nearly a year. That facility has been of intense interest to the inspectors because its technology could aid nuclear weapons development.

Obama administration officials said they suspected that the visit was part of an effort to show cooperation just before the I.A.E.A.’s report. But they said that since Iran’s election, they had not received an Iranian response to Mr. Obama’s invitation to open discussions on nuclear issues.

Afghan Bombing Strikes at Foreign Agencies

By TAIMOOR SHAH

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — A huge bomb detonated on Tuesday night in a part of Kandahar where international aid agencies and United Nations offices are clustered, in an attack assumed to be by the Taliban on foreigners in the country.

At least 31 people were killed and 56 wounded in the blast, which shook the entire city just after dusk at 7 p.m., when Afghans were gathered for the festive evening meal that breaks their daily Ramadan fast. Officials said most of the dead and wounded were civilians. The explosion flattened the headquarters of Saita, a Japanese company engaged in reconstruction efforts, destroyed at least 20 homes and set off raging fires.

A witness, Muhammad Anwer, said the devastation was immense. “I thought it was doomsday,” he said. “I saw dead men and children lying on the road.”

Provincial officials in this southern Afghan city initially said that five car bombs had been involved, but later said the explosion appeared to be from a single truck bomb outside the building used by Saita. Officials said that the attack appeared to be aimed at the company, which employs mostly Pakistani workers.

The toll was expected to rise. More people appeared to be trapped in the rubble of the destroyed buildings, and fires burned in dozens of nearby shops.

At the Marwais hospital in central Kandahar, injured children lay in hospital beds, some missing limbs. “We have received 30 bodies,” said Dr. Mohammed Daoud Farhad, the hospital’s director. “Most of them are civilians, including women and children. And still there are more coming.”

Kandahar has been relatively quiet over the last several months, and witnesses said that this explosion was the largest in the city in years.

There was no initial claim of responsibility for the attack, but it bore the hallmarks of the Taliban, who have been carrying out attacks of increasing complexity and brutality in Kandahar against Afghan and international forces and those allied with them.

The Taliban also mounted a campaign of violence and intimidation against potential voters in Thursday’s presidential election. During the voting in Kandahar, 20 rockets hit the city, many near polling stations, and four people were killed, hospital officials said.

Sharon Otterman contributed reporting from New York.

Senior Centers, Nursing Homes Respond to Increased Diversity of Older Population

Senior Centers, Nursing Homes Respond to Increased Diversity

By Tara Bahrampour
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Dvoira Rososhanskaya wheeled her chair through the Hebrew Home of Greater Washington, past the bathrooms that say "tuyalet" in Cyrillic letters and the bookcase full of Russian translations of Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle. A Russian writer had just read his short stories to a group of senior citizens from the former Soviet Union, and Rososhanskaya, 87, had loved it.

"It's very important for me to be among Russian speakers," said the onetime preschool teacher from Ukraine who earned three medals digging trenches near Stalingrad during World War II. "Everything he was telling and reading from his book corresponded with things I'd gone through in my life."

Rososhanskaya is one of 42 Russian-speaking residents at the Rockville facility, which is responding to what experts believe will be a growing demand for multicultural offerings at senior centers and nursing homes as America's elderly population becomes increasingly diverse.

In the Washington area, which has residents from 193 countries, there are retirement homes that cater to a single ethnic group, such as Chinese or Korean, serving their native foods and hiring staff who speak their native tongues. Now some general population facilities are also tailoring their services to an increasingly diverse clientele.

"Everyone is going to have to learn more about various ethnic and cultural sensitivities, because the marketplace of aging is getting more diverse," said Larry Minnix, president and chief executive of the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging. "I think, over the next five to 10 years, you're going to see a lot of attention paid to this."

About 10 percent of people 65 and older in the United States are foreign-born. The Pew Research Center estimates that by 2050, that figure will rise to 20 percent, with the total number of elderly immigrants quadrupling to about 16 million.

The movement to serve this population seems to be taking root in individual facilities that see a need rather than coming as a top-down corporate decision. Representatives for large national organizations such as Leisure World and Sunrise Senior Living said they knew of no such programs in their organizations.

Ian Brown, chairman of the diversity and inclusion council at Erickson Living, a retirement organization with 23,000 residents nationwide, said multiculturalism sometimes begins with the employees, who increasingly come from countries such as Nigeria, India and the Philippines.

"They go home to their own parents and say, 'Hey, this is something that celebrates you and celebrates me, and I think this would be a great place for you to be,' " Brown said, adding that the facility where he is based, in Illinois, hosts special meals that showcase staff members' homelands.

In some ways, moving into a retirement facility can be a bigger culture shock than immigration itself. While younger immigrants usually learn some English and adapt to American culture for school and work, those who arrive after retirement often have less incentive to assimilate. Staying at home and communicating through younger family members, they can cling to their language and customs for decades.

But with fewer old-world extended families to care for them at home, many face the prospect of nursing homes where the language, food and signs are unfamiliar and where staff members and fellow residents might know nothing about their backgrounds.

On top of that, in many cultures, separating an old person from the family is taboo. Leaders of Muslim communities have approached Minnix's organization looking for facilities, but also expressing ambivalence. "There's a bias -- if your mother has to be put somewhere, then you're not fulfilling your responsibility," he said.

There are also fewer facilities catering to more recent arrivals. "If you're, say, kosher Jewish, there's plenty of places," Minnix said. "But what do you do if you're Pakistani? I don't think we've got any disciplined, well-thought-out answer to that."

Jasmine Borrego, president of Telacu Residential Management, which provides housing for the elderly and disabled in Southern California, said that in recent years more Hispanics are moving into retirement homes.

"In the past 10 years, it's evolved, and it's not so much 'We don't want Mom and Pop to live with us,' it's about what's best for Mom and Dad," she said. "It's really a cultural shift."

Making everyone feel comfortable can present cultural obstacles for even the best-intentioned facility, however. Minnix recalled a Native American nursing home resident who shut himself in his room and stopped eating, mystifying his caretakers until they discovered the cause.

"In the lobby was a picture of, I think, an owl, and that symbolized, for him, death, and it took a while to figure out that that was the problem," Minnix said. The owl was removed, and the man resumed eating. "What we don't know are the subtle barriers to culture and religion that are going to be an issue over the next few years."

At the same time, he said, delegations come from other countries to learn how elder care is done here. If retirement communities become more prevalent abroad, they might become more palatable for future immigrants to the United States.

City- and county-run organizations, as well as private ones, are increasing their multicultural offerings. At the Rockville Senior Center, Hispanic, Chinese, Korean and Iranian immigrants participate in a range of activities in their native languages, and the center is paying for staff to learn foreign languages.

In the center's cafeteria Friday, Chinese women rehearsed a fan dance, then joined several dozen compatriots for exercises based on chi-gong and a Chinese lunch of tofu, rice, chicken and noodles.

"I thought it would be harder to find Chinese culture in America," said Yi Hua Wang, 73, who moved to Gaithersburg from Beijing two years ago. "I like America; I can do the twist," she said, swiveling her hips a bit. "But I cannot forget my own culture."

Down the hall, women from Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, and El Salvador played bingo. Felipa Gochez, 70, of El Salvador won the game, then joined the group doing chi-gong. She could not understand the instructor on the videotape, who explained in Mandarin that slapping your face and neck prevents wrinkles and hitting your shoulder calms worries. But, she said, "It does me a lot of good."

At the Hebrew Home, the Russian program started in 2006 as more Russian speakers moved into the home, the result of a wave of immigration in the late 1980s and early 1990s as the Soviet Union collapsed.

Sophia Presman, an immigrant from the former Soviet republic of Moldova, was hired as the home's first Russian recreation coordinator. She orders Russian books and magazines; arranges for Russian-speaking guests to talk with residents about literature, history, and politics; organizes bingo in Russian; and brings in a Russian psychotherapist to meet with residents.

Natives of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Moldova and Armenia quickly took a new interest in their surroundings. Word spread and the Russian-speaking population there quadrupled.

It was something many would never have foreseen. "Nursing homes in the Soviet Union were like concentration camp," Presman said. "Well, not as bad, but almost equivalent to it. The conditions were despicable. To put someone in a nursing home, it was absolutely last resort. It meant that no one would take care of them."

Rososhanskaya, the former preschool teacher, agreed. Back in her home town of Zhitomir, she said, "it was absolutely inconceivable to me to consider that I would ever be placed in a nursing home." But here, "I think it's the smartest idea. I'm very comfortable, very well treated, and I feel that my life is not lost."

Pakistani Taliban Announces That Baitullah Mehsud Is Dead; New Leaders Named

By Ishtiaq Mahsud
Associated Press
Wednesday, August 26, 2009

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan, Aug. 25 -- Pakistani Taliban commanders acknowledged Tuesday that the militant group's top leader, Baitullah Mehsud, was dead, ending weeks of claims and counterclaims over his fate after a U.S. missile strike on his father-in-law's home this month.

Hakimullah Mehsud and Wali-ur-Rehman, two of Mehsud's top aides and reportedly rivals to succeed him, called the Associated Press to say that their leader had died Sunday of injuries from the Aug. 5 strike in South Waziristan, near the Afghan border.

"He was wounded. He got the wounds in a drone strike, and he was martyred two days ago," Hakimullah Mehsud said. Rehman later repeated the assertion.

The Taliban had insisted for weeks -- in periodic, sometimes contradictory telephone calls to media from various commanders -- that Baitullah Mehsud was still alive after the missile strike, while U.S. and Pakistani officials said that he was almost certainly dead and that a leadership struggle had ensued.

Hakimullah Mehsud and Rehman denied the reports of infighting in their Tuesday evening call to the AP, repeating a Taliban announcement that Hakimullah Mehsud now leads the Pakistani Taliban and adding that Rehman would head the al-Qaeda-linked movement's wing in South Waziristan.

They said they were calling together -- handing the telephone back and forth to each other at an undisclosed location -- to dispel reports of disunity. They spoke to a reporter who had interviewed both and recognized their voices.

"Our presence together shows that we do not have any differences," Rehman said.

The loss of Baitullah Mehsud -- Pakistan's most-wanted militant -- is a significant blow to the Taliban. His Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or Pakistani Taliban Movement, had provided a degree of unity among an array of regional and tribal factions, and under his leadership, it posed a growing threat to the Pakistani government. He was suspected in dozens of suicide bombings and other assaults, including the 2007 assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. He was also accused of mounting attacks on U.S. and Afghan forces in neighboring Afghanistan.

His death is a boost for both Pakistan and the United States, which has relied heavily on the CIA-controlled missile strikes to target militants in Pakistan's wild northwest.

Analysts said Tuesday's announcement was a sign that a new Taliban leader had finally emerged after the reported power struggle over who should succeed Mehsud.

The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan had announced Friday that Hakimullah Mehsud would lead the group because Baitullah Mehsud was ill. Members of the Mehsud clan use the same last name.

Possible Gaddafi Visit Stirs N.J. Town

Libyan Leader May Pitch Tent There

By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi often brings a Bedouin tent along on his foreign trips, and he has pitched one in Cairo, in Rome and next to the Elysee Palace in Paris. But reports that he is planning to set up camp in suburban Englewood, N.J., next month have prompted outrage from U.S. lawmakers and a diplomatic scramble in Washington.

Rep. Steven R. Rothman (D-N.J.), whose district includes Englewood, said Tuesday that he had taken the matter to the State Department and the White House and that they had "strongly urged the Libyan government to have Mr. Gaddafi remain only in New York City" when he visits to address the U.N. General Assembly.

The topic dominated the daily State Department news briefing, with spokesman Ian Kelly saying officials are reaching out to members of Congress and local authorities about the tent. "We're also talking to the Libyans to highlight the concerns that we have and the very raw sensibilities or sensitivities of the families who live in that area," Kelly said.

After decades of animosity, oil-rich Libya and the United States have normalized ties in recent years, as Gaddafi's government renounced support for terrorists and dismantled its nuclear program. Gaddafi's son Mutassim met with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in April as part of an effort to further boost relations.

But American officials were infuriated by the joyful homecoming celebration in Libya last week for the convicted bomber in the attack on Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. They have warned that relations will suffer if the bomber, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, who was released from a Scottish prison, continues to be lionized by his government. Thirty-eight of the 270 victims of the attack lived in New Jersey.

Gaddafi's planned visit next month would be his first to the United States since becoming Libya's leader in 1969. He had initially asked if he could pitch his tent in New York's Central Park during the U.N. session, but "we said no," said Jason Post, a spokesman for New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I).

After reports in local newspapers that the Arab ruler would instead set up the tent on the grounds of a house owned by Libya's U.N. mission in Englewood, a town of 29,000 about 12 miles from Manhattan, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) wrote to Clinton on Monday asking that Gaddafi's visa restrict him to the area around the U.N. headquarters.

Rothman said the Libyans bought the Englewood house in 1982, when he was mayor of the town. At the time, the State Department sent the Libyan government a letter saying the residence was to be used only by the Libyan U.N. ambassador's family and not by Gaddafi, Rothman said.

The congressman said he emphasized to federal officials that those restrictions "should not be waived under any circumstances." His objections stem partly from concerns about local residents' security and partly from "Gaddafi's well-deserved reputation as a murderous dictator who had American blood on his hands," he said.

Kelly, the State Department spokesman, said Tuesday that the Libyan government had not yet decided where Gaddafi would stay.

A Libyan Embassy spokeswoman, Nicole DiCocco, told the Associated Press that Gaddafi's tent might be set up in Englewood, but only for social events, not sleeping. Reached Tuesday by The Washington Post, however, DiCocco referred calls to a public relations firm. A representative there, Molly Conroy, declined to comment.

An Orthodox rabbi who lives next to the Libyan estate said he plans to gather local residents at his home Sunday for a protest against the possible Gaddafi visit.

"Gaddafi has shown his true colors," Shmuley Boteach said. "He has welcomed al-Megrahi as an icon, when this is a cowardly mass murderer."

Megrahi, who has terminal prostate cancer, was freed by Scottish authorities last week on compassionate grounds after serving eight years of a 27-year sentence.

Iranian Prosecutor Requests 'Maximum Punishment' for Protest Figures

By Thomas Erdbrink
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, August 26, 2009

TEHRAN, Aug. 25 -- The attorney prosecuting leading opposition figures in Iran asked a court Tuesday to give them "the maximum punishment," offering the clearest indication to date that the government crackdown against the organizers of protests this summer could include executions.

The defendants, who include former deputy ministers and a former presidential spokesman, are accused of endangering national security in the aftermath of the disputed June presidential election. If convicted, their parties will be banned.

The session was the fourth in a large-scale trial of opposition figures, who belong to parties locked in a power struggle with hard-liners since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

A party connected to the opposition called the trials "a scandalous play."

"This ridiculous show was staged to provide legitimacy for the coup government," the Islamic Iran Participation Front said in a statement posted on the Norooznews Web site.

The request for maximum punishments reflects the determination of a group of Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders, Friday prayer leaders and lawmakers supportive of the government to prosecute their political enemies for disputing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election victory.

The group has also called for the arrest of the opposition movement's leaders, including defeated candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi and former president Mohammad Khatami.

One of the defendants in Tuesday's session, former deputy minister of intelligence Saeed Hajjarian, was accused of instigating riots and encouraging illegal gatherings, the semiofficial Fars News Agency reported. Several of the offenses are punishable by death.

"Because of the importance of the issue . . . and creating intense disruption of public security and discipline, I request a maximum punishment," said the prosecutor, whose name was not made public.

Hajjarian begged the court for forgiveness and said he had canceled his membership in the Islamic Iran Participation Front, which is close to Khatami.

"Once again I ask the great Iranian nation who tolerated lots of damages because of our mistakes to forgive us," Hajjarian, who was left nearly unable to speak after a 2000 assassination attempt, said in a statement read by another defendant.

The court case is the first major test for the new head of the judiciary, Sadeq Larijani, who was appointed last week by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

"Larijani's decision and strength will determine the course of the system," said Nargess Mohammadi, the deputy head of the Human Rights Defenders, an organization led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi. "These people were all major political players. If they are convicted, others within the system might turn their backs on it."

Meanwhile, the director of the vast Behest-e Zahra cemetery in Tehran was fired Tuesday after a parliamentary commission visited to investigate claims that 44 protesters killed in the post-election unrest were buried there in unmarked graves, the Parlemannews Web site reported.

The report did not cite a reason for Mahmoud Rezaian's dismissal, but several Web sites have shown clips of 44 gravestones at the cemetery without names but with burial codes.

On Monday, Rezaian denied that any unmarked graves existed. "Illegal, secret night burials of bodies at this cemetery are rumors and untrue," he told the semiofficial Mehr News Agency.

The reports of unmarked graves surfaced after a controversy in which several detained demonstrators died in prison, leading the supreme leader to shut down the facility. Karroubi, the defeated candidate, met with the commission Monday and presented evidence that prisoners had been raped, according to his party's Web site. His opponents say he fabricated the allegations.

Key Members of Both Parties Criticize Holder Decision to Look Into Alleged CIA Abuse of Detainees

By Paul Kane and Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Senior Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill voiced their dissatisfaction Tuesday with Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s decision to appoint a special prosecutor to examine CIA interrogators' alleged abuse of terrorism suspects earlier this decade.

Leading Republicans denounced the appointment of John H. Durham, a career prosecutor, saying it will hinder intelligence-gathering in the fight against terrorists, while top Democrats criticized the investigation as too limited. They renewed calls for an independent review of most of the controversial anti-terrorism policies adopted by George W. Bush's administration.

Holder had no new comment Tuesday on the matter. The attorney general issued a lengthy statement Monday explaining his decision and acknowledging that it could engender "controversy." But he concluded that he had no other choice than to order a preliminary review of about 10 cases of alleged detainee abuse.

House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) decried that in a statement Tuesday, saying: "The men and women who protect this country should never have to worry that they will face criminal prosecution as a result of a political election. The Obama administration's decision smacks more of a witch hunt designed to satisfy political allies than a strategy to keep the American people safe." Boehner added that the inquiry will "have a chilling effect on the ability of our intelligence professionals to do their jobs."

His words echoed the sentiments of senior Senate Republicans, eight of whom wrote a letter of protest to Holder on Monday evening. "We fear that the true cost of this endeavor will ultimately be borne by the American people, who rely on the intelligence community, operating without distraction, to protect them from the many threats, known and unknown, that our country faces in this post-9/11 world," the group wrote.

Those signing the letter included Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (Ariz.); Christopher S. Bond (Mo.), the ranking Republican on the intelligence committee; and Jeff Sessions (Ala.), the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee. They also questioned why the case was handed to Durham instead of an internal Justice Department lawyer, saying that previous independent prosecutors have taken "an expansive view of their investigative authority."

Democrats largely applauded Durham's appointment, but some urged that the inquiry extend beyond the actions of the interrogators who were accused of going further than the Bush administration's guidelines allowed when questioning detainees. A key area of concern for many Democrats is learning what Bush's most senior advisers knew about the interrogation policies.

"The abuses that were officially sanctioned amounted to torture, and those at the very top who authorized, ordered or sought to provide legal cover for them should be held accountable," said Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), a senior member of the intelligence and judiciary panels.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) cited Monday's release of a 2004 report from the CIA inspector general on the treatment of detainees in renewing his call for a "commission of inquiry," an independent review of all Bush-era policies against alleged terrorists.

"Who justified these policies? What was the role of the Bush White House? How can we make sure it never happens again?" he said.

Leahy's proposed commission has been opposed by Republicans and has divided Democrats, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) endorsing the approach and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) opposing it. President Obama rejected the call for such a panel in the spring, saying he wanted his administration to "look forward" and not spend time in a partisan dispute about the previous administration.

Liberal legal scholars and activists also said Holder did not go far enough in pushing the investigation, leaving off the hook top Bush advisers as well as Justice Department lawyers whose legal memos created the foundation for the harsh techniques employed in the interrogations.

"It's pretty clear that his intention is not to investigate the lawyers and Cabinet-level officials who approved the program in the first place," said Georgetown University law professor David Cole, referring to Holder. "If that's what's done, then it's really a matter of scapegoating rather than true accountability."

Cole, who wrote a book that looks at the Justice Department's "torture memos," gave the attorney general credit for bucking the president's desire to move forward. But he added, "It seems to me a good-faith application of the law would go much farther."

"It's a good first step, but it's not, in and of itself, enough," said Tom Parker, the policy director for terrorism and human rights at Amnesty International, referring to the preliminary inquiry. "We're certainly pleased to see the most egregious cases getting attention, but we don't think it goes far enough."

Cupcakeries Emerge as Washington's Sweet Spot in a Downturn

By Thomas Heath
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 26, 2009

The line outside tiny Georgetown Cupcake sometimes stretches 100 people or more, all queuing up for one of the shop's distinctive $2.75 treats. Regulars have been known to pay people to hold their place. Others multitask or use their cellphones to check whether their favorites are still available. Passersby wonder what all the commotion is about.

In a recession that has laid low many businesses in the region, from mighty real estate developers to struggling retailers, the pint-size cupcake sector is a bright spot. On a single weekend day, Georgetown Cupcake will bake 5,000 or so of the confections. Many are headed -- in the company's Range Rover -- for Washington's toniest suburbs, destined to fatten the waistlines at baby showers and birthday parties.

The company suddenly has many competitors, all trying to capitalize on a desire for a simple, inexpensive indulgence at a time when the economic news seems so depressing.

At least half a dozen cupcake bakeries have opened around Washington in the past 20 months, and more are on the way. Penn Quarter's Red Velvet will expand next month to Dupont Circle, where it will compete with year-old Hello Cupcake. A shop called Something Sweet opened in Northwest Washington.

There are online-only local cupcakeries, a vegetarian cupcakery, Blushing Bakeshop in Potomac, a Lavender Moon in Alexandria and Rhonda's Cupcakery in Greenbelt. Established bakers such as CakeLove, Just Cakes, Furin's, Best Buns and Baked & Wired are all in on the act. Early arrivals at the 9:30 Club are treated to Buzz Bakery cupcakes.

"They are everywhere . . . like ants," said Leslie Goldman-Poyourow, a 14-year baker who operates Cakes by Leslie in downtown Bethesda.

As if the competition was not already fierce, Georgetown Cupcake this fall is moving its flagship store to a larger, sit-down location a block away on M Street, and it's opening a branch in downtown Bethesda, which is foodie central in Montgomery County.

Even those in the business see a bubble in the works.

"As more and more places pop up that sell cupcakes and try to take advantage of the wave, the more they lose their uniqueness and the aura that you are getting something special," said Something Sweet co-owner Bo Blair, who also sells full-size cakes, milkshakes, ice cream and other goodies for when the cupcake fad dies.

A Shop to Watch

One development being watched closely is Georgetown Cupcake's foray into Bethesda, where it will pay a hefty rent and compete with the likes of Giffords Ice Cream, Bethesda Bagels, Just Cakes, Haagen-Dazs, a French bakery and Goldman-Poyourow's cake store.

If Georgetown Cupcake's Bethesda store is a hit, generating long lines and lots of buzz, it could be a sign that cupcake stores are here to stay, like Starbucks. If the business doesn't take off, it could mean lights out for the fad.

"We are coming close to a bubble now," Red Velvet owner Aaron Gordon said. "One or two more shops is about as much as the public can support. After that, the folks with the highest-quality cupcakes and best locations will be the ones who survive."

For now, fans simply seem to have an appetite for more. There's even a District cupcake group, with its own Facebook page, that meets monthly at cupcakeries and bakeries to conduct taste tests. One member, self-proclaimed cupcake enthusiast Shelley Santora Jones of Arlington, boasted that she has tried samples from nearly every cupcakery, bakery and store in the area.

"For me, it's a personal-size treat. You don't have to share it with anybody. It's a guilt-free, happy treat that takes you back to your childhood," Jones said. "Do I think it's a stable business? No. I wouldn't invest in a cupcake store."

Paul Sapienza, vice president for the Retail Bakers of America, offers his own assessment of the confection's popularity: "They are cute. They are an economic treat, which helps out in the recession. They are a little decadent, so you get cake, frosting and sometimes filling all at the same time."

Georgetown Cupcake is Washington's version of Magnolia Bakery in Manhattan, which opened in 1996 and with the help of cameos in "Sex in the City" turned cupcakes into a destination dessert.

Georgetown Cupcake opened on Valentine's Day 2008 after sisters Sophie LaMontagne, a former venture capitalist, and Katherine Kallinis, a former marketer for Gucci, had worked on a business plan for a year. They initially thought most of their customers would buy cupcakes for events such as bridal showers, with a small number of walk-ins.

"We honestly thought we would have a quiet little bakery," Kallinis said.

There were 100 people lined up on that Valentine's Day. The sisters said they now sell 3,000 to 5,000 cupcakes a day. About 30 percent of Georgetown Cupcake's business is pre-ordered; the other 70 percent is walk-ins. They won't talk financial details.

Guarding Cupcake Secrets

Competitors may snicker at the Range Rover and the shop's home in a quaint townhouse with the awning over the front door. But the sisters are there nearly every day and sometimes stay until 3 a.m. cleaning grease traps. They have a full-time catering manager, and require employees to sign nondisclosure and noncompete agreements to protect cupcake secrets.

"We try to protect our human capital and our intellectual capital," LaMontagne said.

Red Velvet may be their biggest competition. Gordon said he is averaging 1,500 cupcakes sold a day at $3.25 each. He estimates that he will earn a profit of $150,000 to $200,000 this year on $1 million in sales.

Gordon attributed Red Velvet's success to two factors: a prime location at Seventh and E streets NW and hiring pastry chef David Guas to design his menu. "You have to have top quality and a great location to keep up," said Gordon, who sunk $400,000 of his own, as well as money from his sister and father, into the company.

He had no qualms about the chef's fee, which was about $35,000, because he knew that he had to sell a quality product. He also knew that he needed a good location, but the $100,000 a year rent made him sweat.

"I lost a lot of sleep, a lot of sleep before I signed that lease agreement," Gordon said. To make the most of the spot, he keeps the cupcakery open until 1 a.m. on weekends, which created a sub-niche that brings in lots of nightclub patrons and people pouring out of Verizon Center.

He also built a frozen yogurt shop next-door, which helps hedge his bet.

Something Sweet's Blair has targeted a sub-niche, too. A seasoned marketer who owns several District restaurants, Blair dropped his dessert store right in the middle of a restaurant row on Macomb Street, where families who pile out of Two Amys, Cactus Cantina and Cafe Deluxe can stroll a few feet and buy a cupcake for dessert.

"We just feel its a perfect spot for all those people coming out after dinner," said Blair, who hopes to clear a 50-cent profit on each $2.75 cupcake. He is hoping to gross $800,000 his first year and be cash positive by Christmas.

"As with anything in America, things get real hot and tend to die off after a point," he said. "That will happen with cupcakes."

CIA Releases Its Instructions For Breaking a Detainee's Will - washingtonpost.com

By Joby Warrick, Peter Finn and Julie Tate
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, August 26, 2009

As the session begins, the detainee stands naked, except for a hood covering his head. Guards shackle his arms and legs, then slip a small collar around his neck. The collar will be used later; according to CIA guidelines for interrogations, it will serve as a handle for slamming the detainee's head against a wall.

After removing the hood, the interrogator opens with a slap across the face -- to get the detainee's attention -- followed by other slaps, the guidelines state. Next comes the head-slamming, or "walling," which can be tried once "to make a point," or repeated again and again.

"Twenty or thirty times consecutively" is permissible, the guidelines say, "if the interrogator requires a more significant response to a question." And if that fails, there are far harsher techniques to be tried.

Five years after the CIA's secret detention program came to light, much is known about the spy agency's decision to use harsh techniques, including waterboarding, to pry information from alleged al-Qaeda leaders. Now, with the release late Monday of guidelines for interrogating high-value detainees, the agency has provided -- in its own words -- the first detailed description of the step-by-step procedures used to systematically crush a detainee's will to resist by eliciting stress, exhaustion and fear.

The guidelines, along with thousands of pages from other newly released documents, also show how the CIA gradually imposed limits on the program and eliminated some of the most controversial practices after the agency's medical advisers protested.

Still, by Dec. 30, 2004, the date of the CIA memo that outlines the guidelines to the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, agency interrogators had grown adept at using sleep deprivation, stress positions and sometimes multiple methods to create a "state of learned helplessness and dependence."

"Certain interrogation techniques place the detainee in more physical and psychological stress and, therefore, are considered more effective tools," according to the memo, released under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by Amnesty International USA and the American Civil Liberties Union.

The CIA on Tuesday declined to comment on the memo, which was written by an agency lawyer whose name was redacted from the document. But agency spokesman George Little noted that the interrogation program operated under guidelines approved by top legal officials of the Bush administration's Justice Department.

"This program, which always constituted a fraction of the CIA's counterterrorism efforts, is over," Little said. "The agency is, as always, focused on protecting the nation today and into the future."

CIA officials also have noted that harsh techniques were reserved for a small group of top-level terrorism suspects believed to be knowledgeable about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Agency officials believe the methods prevented future attacks.

Medical Concerns

As outlined in the memo, the agency's psychological assault on a detainee would begin immediately after his arrest. With blindfolds and earmuffs, he would be "deprived of sight and sound" during the flight to the CIA's secret prison. He would have no human interaction, except during a medical checkup.

In the initial days of detention, an assessment interview would determine whether the captive would cooperate willingly by providing "information on actionable threats." If no such leads were volunteered, a coercive phase would begin.

The detainee would be ushered into a world of constant bright light and high-volume "white noise" at levels up to 79 decibels, about the same volume as a passing freight train. He would be shorn, shaved, stripped of his clothes, fed a mostly liquid diet and forced to stay awake for up to 180 hours.

"Establishing this baseline state is important to demonstrate to the [detainee] that he has no control," the memo states.

Interrogations at CIA prisons occurred in special cells outfitted on one side with a plywood wall, to prevent severe head injuries. According to the agency's interrogation plan, the nude, hooded detainee would be placed against the wall and shackled. Then the questioning would begin.

"The interrogators remove the [detainee's] hood and explain the situation to him, tell him that the interrogators will do what it takes to get important information," the document states.

If there was no response, the interrogator would use an "insult slap" to immediately "correct the detainee or provide a consequence to a detainee's response." If there was still no response, the interrogator could use an "abdominal slap" or grab the captive by his face, the memo states.

Each failure would be met with increasingly harsher tactics. After slamming a detainee's head against the plywood barrier multiple times, the interrogator could douse him with water; deprive him of toilet facilities and force him to wear a soiled diaper; or make him stand or kneel for long periods while shackled in a painful position. The captive could also be forced into a wooden box for up to 18 hours at a stretch.

Such techniques raised concerns among some agency officials, particularly members of a medical advisory group known as the Office of Medical Services (OMS). When the interrogation program began, the group "was neither consulted nor involved in the initial analysis of the risk and benefits" of enhanced interrogation techniques, according to a 2004 report by the CIA's inspector general.

According to the report, the OMS did not issue formal medical guidelines until April 2003, after the waterboarding of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Over time, however, as the interrogation program was refined and strict guidelines were imposed on the use of certain techniques, the OMS began to play an increasingly pivotal role.

A 2005 Justice Department memo repeatedly referred to December 2004 OMS guidelines in assessing the application of coercive techniques, noting that the "OMS has, in fact, prohibited the use of certain techniques in the interrogation of certain detainees."

The medical office appears to have been deeply skeptical of the use of waterboarding, a simulated-drowning technique that was suspended by 2004. OMS personnel told the inspector general that "the reported sophistication" of the preliminary review of waterboarding was "exaggerated," and it said the power of the technique was "appreciably overstated."

The OMS also raised serious concerns about the medical dangers of waterboarding.

"Most seriously, for reasons of physical fatigue or psychological resignation, the subject may simply give up, allowing excessive filling of the airways and loss of consciousness," the OMS warned, according to the 2005 Justice Department memo.

Modifying the Program

Such warnings, combined with congressional concerns about the CIA's secret prisons, gradually led the agency to modify the program. The menu of enhanced interrogation techniques was reduced from about a dozen to six, according to a Justice Department memo. Gone were nudity, walling, water-dousing, stress positions, cramped confinement in boxes and waterboarding. The proposed six techniques to be kept were dietary manipulation, sleep deprivation for up to 180 hours, the facial hold, the attention grasp, the abdominal slap and the insult slap.

The CIA said those techniques were "the minimum necessary to maintain an effective program."

By the summer of 2006, the number of detainees in CIA prisons had dropped below 20, including 14 high-value detainees who were transferred to the secret Camp 7 at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Still, as late as 2006, many of the basic conditions remained, according to a Justice Department memo dated Aug. 31, 2006.

The facilities were constantly illuminated, and the agency used closed-circuit surveillance to monitor the prisoners at all times, suggesting that hidden cameras were placed inside cells.

"The detainee is isolated from most human contact, confined to his cell for much of each day, under constant surveillance, and is never permitted a moment to rest in the darkness and privacy that most people seek during sleep," the memo said.

But, to combat mental problems, each detainee was given quarterly psychological examinations "to assess how well he is adapting to his confinement," the memo said. Detainees also had regular access to gym equipment and physical exercise.

"The CIA also counteracts the psychological effects of isolation by providing detainees with a wide variety of books, puzzles, paper and 'safe' writing utensils, chess and checker sets, a personal journal, and access to DVD and VCR videotapes," the document said.

Detainees were even allowed to grow back their hair and beards, which were shaved when they arrived.

"The CIA provides detainees with the option of shaving other parts of their bodies in recognition of specific Islamic practices," according to the 2006 memo.

On Afghanistan, Obama Torn Between Generals Urging Buildup and His Party's Base

By Scott Wilson and Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, August 26, 2009

President Obama is caught between two important constituencies as he recalibrates his policy in Afghanistan -- the generals who want more troops, and the base of his own party, whose tolerance for a worsening conflict is quickly evaporating.

As the Obama administration prepares for a report from its senior field commander that is likely to request additional forces, congressional Democrats, in particular, have begun to question the wisdom of further reinforcements on top of the 62,000 U.S. troops already deployed in Afghanistan, with an additional 6,000 scheduled to arrive by year's end. The criticism comes as international fatalities in Afghanistan have risen to historic highs after a presidential election undermined by Taliban violence and low voter turnout.

The U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan marked a grim milestone Tuesday when four American troops died in a roadside explosion near the volatile southern city of Kandahar. The attack brought the number of foreign troops killed in Afghanistan this year to 295, making this, with more than four months to go, the deadliest year for international forces since the war began in 2001. Americans account for 172 of the deaths this year, compared with 155 U.S. troop deaths in all of last year.

The domestic criticism is largely coming from those in the left wing of Obama's party, who say the president's plan to send more troops, monetary assistance and civilian advisers to Afghanistan does not include a well-defined exit strategy. Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called this week for the first time for Obama to set a "flexible timetable" to withdraw U.S. forces, saying he is "not convinced that simply pouring more and more troops into Afghanistan is a well-thought-out strategy."

During last year's campaign, Obama made clear that he intended to draw down U.S. forces in Iraq to focus resources on winning in Afghanistan, despite the Democratic base's consistent opposition to doing so. He removed Gen. David D. McKiernan as the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan in May and replaced him with Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who is expected to request as many as 25,000 additional troops in a report to the president due next week.

In a speech to veterans this month, Obama reiterated his view that the United States is fighting a "war of necessity" in Afghanistan. He said his strategy was to deny al-Qaeda and its affiliates safe haven in the region, protect nuclear-armed Pakistan from a Taliban insurgency and bring a measure of stability to Afghanistan. A number of congressional delegations visited the country during their legislative recess this month and are reporting back their findings.

Congressional Democrats' calls for a strategic rethinking have coincided with a downward turn in U.S. public opinion toward the war, which will mark its eighth year in October. A Washington Post-ABC News poll published last week showed that a majority of Americans do not think the war is worth fighting and that nearly one-third think the United States is "losing."

"Afghanistan is going to be a huge political challenge. There's no doubt about that," said a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the military assessment is pending. "The key for us is to have a strategy and have the competency to execute that strategy. It's going to be hard to convey this. And it's never going to be popular."

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reiterated his concern Tuesday about the decline in U.S. public support for the Afghan war, which he called vital earlier in the week. But he invited a national debate over the conflict, saying it was better to take a "hard look" at the problem than to ignore it.

"I've seen the public opinion polls saying that a majority of Americans don't support the effort at all," Mullen told an audience of thousands of veterans at the American Legion convention in Louisville. "I say, good. Let's have that debate, let's have that discussion."

"Let's take a good, hard look at this fight we're in, what we're doing and why," he said. "I'd rather see us, as a nation, argue about the war -- struggling to get it right -- than ignore it."

Mullen said in an interview that with the "right resources," the coalition could begin to make progress in quelling the insurgency within 12 to 18 months.

For Obama, the declining support for the Afghan effort threatens to siphon off energy and political capital at a time when he critically needs it as he pushes to reform the nation's health-care system and carry out the rest of his domestic agenda. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who was in Afghanistan this weekend, told reporters in a conference call Monday that he had spoken to President Hamid Karzai and other key Afghan officials.

"To all of them, the message was clear: that American patience doesn't last forever, that changes are necessary," Brown said. "They need to show real benchmarks of success in the months ahead."

The senior administration official said support for the Afghan and Iraq wars has often followed the public's sense of the economy; when times are bad, concerns grow that too much money is being spent on foreign wars. As the economy begins to show signs of improvement, the administration thinks the case for remaining in Afghanistan may be easier to explain.

In addition, the official said, the administration is struggling to define the importance of the Afghan war after years of Bush administration preoccupation with the Iraq effort. If McChrystal requests more troops and Obama agrees to deploy them, the official said, the administration will have to explain to the American people "how this will accomplish our goals there faster."

But Obama is also facing the political challenge of having stronger support for his Afghan policy from the opposition party than from his own. For years, Afghanistan has been perceived by the moderate left as the "good war" in contrast with the Iraq effort, which Obama himself has referred to as a war of choice. That appears to be changing. The Post-ABC News poll showed that fewer than 20 percent of Democrats support sending additional troops to Afghanistan. Meanwhile, a clear majority of Republicans said the war is worth fighting.

Sen. Richard G. Lugar (Ind.), the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union" that "the president really has to face the fact that his own leadership here is critical. He really can't just leave this to the Congress, to General McChrystal, and say, folks, sort of, discuss this, after the report comes in."

The deaths of the Americans came amid further violence in Kandahar, a city of historic and strategic importance to the Taliban. An explosion in the center of the city Tuesday killed as many as 40 people and injured at least 100, provincial officials said. It also destroyed dozens of buildings, including houses and the offices of a Japanese construction company.

"People in Kandahar haven't heard an explosion like this in the past eight years," said Khalid Pashtun, a member of the provincial parliament.

The death toll for international troops has risen every year since 2003. U.S. military officials attribute this year's rise in fatalities to a strengthening Taliban insurgency, coupled with the growing number of American troops battling them.

"It's not the sophistication. That really hasn't been a factor here," said Rear Adm. Gregory J. Smith, a U.S. military spokesman in Afghanistan. "Here you still are talking about very basic but very deadly IEDs -- that's the largest killer of the force," he added, referring to improvised explosive devices.

A U.S. military spokeswoman, Lt. Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker, said NATO forces are trying to deny the Taliban influence in population centers such as Kandahar and are fighting the group in drug-producing areas it relies on for financing.

"We are engaging an enemy in areas that the enemy needs to fight hard for," she said.

Partlow reported from Mazar-e Sharif, Afghanistan. Staff writers Ann Scott Tyson in Louisville and Ben Pershing in Washington contributed to this report.

Magma: A Billboard Hot 100 for Online Video

August 25th, 2009 | by Ben Parr

Online video is a giant sea of mostly unfiltered content. There were 11.2 billion video streams in July in the US alone. That’s a ton of video.

So how do you go about finding the best video the web has to offer? You can just watch the popular listings on YouTube, but you’re going to get a lot of Fred and Phillip DeFranco. Some companies have launched their own solutions, including eGuders (media expert recommendations) and Reddit.tv (browse top videos on Reddit).

But now the founder of RocketBoom has launched his own solution: Mag.ma, a video aggregator and rating algorithm that acts like the Billboard Hot 100 of online video.

Hop onto the website and it’s immediately apparent what you should do: watch videos. The system takes videos from YouTube (), Hulu (), Vimeo (), TED, and more. Each of the videos are ranked in terms of “hotness” on a scale of 1 to 11. All of this is done in a column-based interface to show where Magma is finding top videos.

Magma also offers users the chance to interact with the Magma charts, either by adding videos (there’s a bookmarklet to help) or by signing up and personalizing your account and channel list.

Magma helps solve a difficult problem – oversaturation of video – with a clever solution and does it with a clean but content-rich interface. It takes into account social sharing on Twitter (), Facebook (), and elsewhere to rank videos. So far, we’re impressed and look forward to hearing more about this new service.

Boycott Israel?

posted by Roane Carey on 08/24/2009

Mention boycott in a discussion of Israel, and chances are you'll find yourself the butt of vicious attacks. Israeli professor Neve Gordon elicited just such denunciations when he published an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times last Thursday in support of the growing boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, or BDS (read Naomi Klein's January Nation column supporting BDS here). After Gordon's op-ed was published, several Members of the Israeli Knesset demanded his firing. The president of Ben-Gurion University in Beer-Sheva, where he teaches, said he should seek employment, and a home, elsewhere. And he's received death threats.

Nation readers, particularly those who follow the Israel-Palestine conflict, will recognize Gordon as a longtime contributor to this magazine (disclosure: I've worked with Neve for years as his editor and am a friend as well). He didn't come by this position lightly. As he explains in the op-ed,

It is indeed not a simple matter for me as an Israeli citizen to call on foreign governments, regional authorities, international social movements, faith-based organizations, unions and citizens to suspend cooperation with Israel. But today, as I watch my two boys playing in the yard, I am convinced that it is the only way that Israel can be saved from itself.

I say this because Israel has reached a historic crossroads, and times of crisis call for dramatic measures. I say this as a Jew who has chosen to raise his children in Israel, who has been a member of the Israeli peace camp for almost 30 years and who is deeply anxious about the country's future.

Gordon then drops another word, apartheid, that seems to function as a red cape before the enraged bulls of the right-wing, ultra-Zionist camp:

The most accurate way to describe Israel today is as an apartheid state. For more than 42 years, Israel has controlled the land between the Jordan Valley and the Mediterranean Sea. Within this region about 6 million Jews and close to 5 million Palestinians reside. Out of this population, 3.5 million Palestinians and almost half a million Jews live in the areas Israel occupied in 1967, and yet while these two groups live in the same area, they are subjected to totally different legal systems. The Palestinians are stateless and lack many of the most basic human rights. By sharp contrast, all Jews -- whether they live in the occupied territories or in Israel -- are citizens of the state of Israel.

Gordon gets to the heart of the matter: "The question that keeps me up at night, both as a parent and as a citizen, is how to ensure that my two children as well as the children of my Palestinian neighbors do not grow up in an apartheid regime." After weighing the one-state versus two-state solution to the conflict and concluding that for now the latter is the more feasible, he argues that there is only one way to reach that goal:

I am convinced that outside pressure is the only answer. Over the last three decades, Jewish settlers in the occupied territories have dramatically increased their numbers. The myth of the united Jerusalem has led to the creation of an apartheid city where Palestinians aren't citizens and lack basic services. The Israeli peace camp has gradually dwindled so that today it is almost nonexistent, and Israeli politics are moving more and more to the extreme right.

It is therefore clear to me that the only way to counter the apartheid trend in Israel is through massive international pressure. The words and condemnations from the Obama administration and the European Union have yielded no results, not even a settlement freeze, let alone a decision to withdraw from the occupied territories.

I consequently have decided to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement that was launched by Palestinian activists in July 2005 and has since garnered widespread support around the globe. The objective is to ensure that Israel respects its obligations under international law and that Palestinians are granted the right to self-determination.

In Bilbao, Spain, in 2008, a coalition of organizations from all over the world formulated the 10-point Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign meant to pressure Israel in a "gradual, sustainable manner that is sensitive to context and capacity." For example, the effort begins with sanctions on and divestment from Israeli firms operating in the occupied territories, followed by actions against those that help sustain and reinforce the occupation in a visible manner. Along similar lines, artists who come to Israel in order to draw attention to the occupation are welcome, while those who just want to perform are not.

The firestorm wasn't long in coming. Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar called Gordon's article "repugnant and deplorable," and several other MKs, along with one far-right political party (National Union), demanded that Gordon be fired; never mind that he's a tenured professor voicing a carefully reasoned opinion on an issue directly relevant to his specialty. Even worse, the president of BGU, Rivka Carmi--instead of standing by a member of her faculty and defending a fundamental tenet of academic freedom--joined in the attack. "We are shocked and outraged by [Gordon's] remarks, which are irresponsible and morally reprehensible," she said, adding, "Academics who entertain such resentment toward their country are welcome to consider another professional and personal home."

What's truly shocking is for a university president to call, essentially, for the exile of one of her own faculty members and to turn the principles of academia, and reality, on their head by claiming Gordon's views are an "abuse [of] the freedom of speech prevailing in Israel and at BGU." No doubt Carmi was shaken by a letter she'd received from the Israeli consul-general in LA, Yaakov Dayan, who said some BGU benefactors were threatening to withhold donations.

Fortunately, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel has condemned BGU and is standing by Gordon. You should too, by writing a letter to the president of BGU and the education minister backing him--and you don't have to support his position on the boycott question to do so. Read Stephen Walt's wise comments in Foreign Policy; Walt is against BDS but stands by Gordon's right to express his opinion and warns against the chilling effect the attacks on him will have.

I'll give the last word to Gordon, who was quoted Sunday in Ynetnews:

From the responses to the article it seems most people don't have the courage to discuss the main issues: Is Israel an apartheid state? How can the Israeli-Palestinian conflict be resolved? Is the settlement project good for Israel or will it cause the state's destruction? It's easy to criticize me while evading the tough and important questions.

Abdullah Abdullah's Unmentioned History

By Barbara Crossette

August 24, 2009

Abdullah Abdullah, the most powerful challenger to Hamid Karzai in the presidential elections in Afghanistan, argues on his campaign website that "there can be no greater priority than regaining the trust of the Afghan people," a trust he now claims is being squandered again in voter fraud by his rivals.

While the votes are still being counted and the Electoral Complaints Commission is urging candidates not to rush into predictions and accusations, Abdullah, an ophthalmologist by training, might well be a little more forthcoming and expansive about his own history and what that would mean to his turbulent country should he be elected, or even force Karzai (no democratic paragon either) into a bitter runoff.

A political chameleon (a widely encountered species in Pakistan and India also), Abdullah, born in 1960, was a close adviser to Ahmed Shah Massoud, a legendary Tajik mujahedeen commander from the Panjshir Valley who served as defense minister of the government set up after the fall of the pro-Soviet leader, Najibullah.

Abdullah was also an informal chief spokesman for the loose coalition of mujahedeen warlords known as the Northern Alliance, which had driven Soviet forces out of the country with considerable American help. Then, with Washington's back turned, they began fighting among themselves, laying waste to large swaths of Kabul and creating so much havoc and violence in the countryside that by 1995-1996 Afghans greeted the arrival of the Taliban with relief. Trust of the people?

The mujahedeen "government" of the post-Soviet, pre-Taliban 1990s was known for its efforts to deprive women, particularly urban women, of the gains they had made under communist governments. When the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women was held in Beijing in 1995, Afghan women were forbidden to send a delegation. In the Afghan countryside, women were not safe from either civil war or sexual assault.

One of the most conservative of the mujahedeen leaders, Abdul Rasul Sayyaf (who tried to ban all female journalists from his news conferences), not the Taliban, was the first to welcome Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan, according to Kathy Gannon, a Canadian who reported from Afghanistan for eighteen years and wrote one of the best books on the events of recent decades, I Is for Infidel.

Abdullah was officially the spokesman of the mujahedeen government's defense ministry in Kabul from 1992 to 1996, when the Taliban, a very different movement than it is today, took control of the capital. Abdullah then became a roving global spokesman for what the mujahedeen called their exiled Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. He appeared to be cut out for the task, as all of us who encountered him noticed.

"He always seemed more diplomat than warrior," Gannon wrote. "Abdullah has the uncanny ability of knowing and saying what foreigners want to hear, regardless of whether it's true."

As Kabul was falling to the Taliban, Abdullah was telling reporters that the Talibs had been repulsed; but he knew the city was lost, and he was actually "getting ready to run," Gannon said. He wasn't gone for too long. After the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and essentially gave Kabul back to the murderous mujahedeen, Abdullah became part of the team charged with rebuilding the country. Later, when a transitional government was formed and an election held, he was Karzai's foreign minister. Now he is his most outspoken foe.

Abdullah's ability to resurface in any political climate, along with other mujahedeen figures, is symbolic of the situation that has alienated many Pashtuns, the largest and now most mistrustful ethnic group in Afghanistan, a point made by Amin Tarzi in a collection of scholarly essays, The Taliban and the Crisis of Afghanistan. After 2001, the Pashtuns got a Pashtu president, Karzai, but he had no militia of his own and has been surrounded, obstructed and compromised by Tajik and Uzbek warlords.

Enter Abdullah, all things to all men. His official bio says that he was born in Kabul to a devout Muslim family and that his father (a former Pashtu politician) was from Kandahar, a Pashtun/former Taliban stronghold, where Abdullah needs votes. In an election year, the bio doesn't mention that his mother was a Tajik.

About Barbara Crossette

Barbara Crossette, United Nations correspondent for The Nation, is a former New York Times correspondent and bureau chief in Asia and at the UN.

She is the author of So Close to Heaven: The Vanishing Buddhist Kingdoms of the Himalayas, published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1995 and in paperback by Random House/Vintage Destinations in 1996, and a collection of travel essays about colonial resort towns that are still attracting visitors more than a century after their creation, The Great Hill Stations of Asia, published by Westview Press in 1998 and in paperback by Basic Books in 1999. In 2000, she wrote a survey of India and Indian-American relations, India: Old Civilization in a New World, for the Foreign Policy Association in New York. She is also the author of India Facing the 21st Century, published by Indiana University Press in 1993.