Stories from 2003-06-11

"The 'Nader factor' then, is akin to the antiwar movement of the last year in that they both robbed the 'victors' of moral legitimacy. Nader drove Democrats to get out the vote and kept Bush from winning election outright, much like the antiwar movement in the US, and much more so around the world, kept the UN from giving legal sanction to the Iraq invasion. Nader didn't stop Bush, but he helped put a cloud of illegitimacy over him; the antiwar movement didn't stop the war (which was unlikely in any event), but made Bush go ahead with it despite the opposition of practically the entire world." [more]

"Security procedures enforced today at the Erez checkpoint out of Gaza prevented Peter Hansen, UNRWA's Commissioner-General and an Under-Secretary General of the United Nations, taking his senior management team from Gaza to a meeting of the Agency's directors in Amman, Jordan. It is the first time in the 53-year history of UNRWA that its quarterly management meeting has had to be cancelled because the Agency's freedom of movement has been curtailed in this way." [more]

"The emptiness of the policy is clear from the way the aims have been put forward in public relations terms. Phrases like 'axis of evil', or 'the road map' are not policy statements, but merely sound bites that accumulate their own policy potential. The overwhelming newspeak that has swamped the world in the past 18 months is an indication of the absence of real policy. Bush does not do policy, but a stage act." [more]

"On Monday, officers recalled the assault as sophisticated and organised. 'They were definitely not some kids with pistols. It was well planned and well executed. They knew where we were in the building. They had done reconnaissance,' said Major George Pitt." [more]

"After a year of trying to negotiate accords with governments around the globe, the United States has so far signed agreements with 37 countries – primarily poor, small ones in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe." [more]