Stories from 2002-02-26

"Rarely do we hear that Iraq has never committed any aggression against the United States. No one in the media questions our aggression against Iraq for the past 12 years by continuous bombing and imposed sanctions responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children." [more]

India and Pakistan have massed an estimated 800,000 troops on their common border since military tensions escalated in the wake of a December attack on the Indian parliament, which New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based militant groups. Despite a landmark speech by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf last month in which he banned five militant groups and instigated a crackdown that led to the arrest of around 2,000 alleged religious extremists, India has insisted that Pakistan has not done enough to warrant a de-escalation at the border. [more]

Karzai, who arrived in Tehran on Sunday for a three-day visit to Iran, told a press conference here that "Iran has never interfered in the internal affairs of Afghanistan and has always shown goodwill toward Afghanistan and its people." [more]

The Justice Department acknowledged the arrest of 1,200 people before it stopped releasing numbers in November; human rights groups believe the total number could be as high as 2,000. But Haddad's case is perhaps the most troubling of all because of the sheer severity of his treatment and the shockingly abrupt suspension of his rights to due legal process. Government lawyers have refused to spell out what evidence, if any, they have against him, saying that they do not have to under the Bush administration's stiff new anti-terrorism law passed in late October, the so-called Patriot Act. The US Attorney's office in Chicago refused all comment. [more]