[Peace-discuss] Just Foreign Policy News, November 1, 2006

[Robert Naiman]

Just Foreign Policy News
November 1, 2006

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Summary:
U.S./Top News
The US embassy in Nicaragua threatened economic sanctions if
Nicaraguans elect frontrunner and Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega in
Sunday's presidential elections, Democracy Now reports.

A classified briefing prepared two weeks ago by the US Central Command
portrays Iraq as edging toward chaos, the New York Times reports.

US and UK forces have continued to use depleted uranium weapons
despite warnings they pose a cancer risk, the BBC reports.

Iran
Iran will offer cash incentives to travel agencies to encourage
Western tourists to visit the country, giving a premium for Americans,
the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

Iran announced Wednesday it would be holding military maneuvers in the
Gulf this week, days after U.S.-led navies held exercises in the Gulf,
Iranian state television reported.

Russia said Tuesday it believed Iran's nuclear program was peaceful,
and a political dialogue, not sanctions, must be used in talks with
Iran, Reuters reports.

Iraq
American soldiers lifted a near siege of Baghdad's largest Shiite
enclave Tuesday, following the orders of an Iraqi government whose
assertion of sovereignty had Shiites celebrating in the streets, the
Washington Post reports.

About two-thirds of the deaths among US troops in Iraq in October
occurred outside Baghdad, the New York Times reports.

Lebanon
Hezbollah's leader said in an interview broadcast Tuesday that
"serious negotiations" were under way over the release of two Israeli
soldiers, the New York Times reports. The interview appeared intended
to help shore up Hezbollah's standing with the public amid a power
struggle over control of the government.

The US has said there is "mounting evidence" that Syria, Iran and
Hezbollah are planning to topple the Lebanese government. The White
House statement casts doubt on any willingness by the Bush
administration to consider Syria and Iran as potential partners over
the future of Iraq, BBC reports.

Pakistan
Faced with protests across the country, President Musharraf Tuesday
defended a military strike that killed 80 people at a religious
school, and insisted that the dead were militants undergoing terrorist
training. General Musharraf's claim came amid protests across the
political spectrum, the New York Times reports.

Turkey
A Turkish court has acquitted a 92-year-old academic of charges of
insulting Muslim women and inciting religious hatred, BBC reports. The
archaeologist, an expert in the ancient Sumerian civilisation, was
prosecuted over a book in which she linked the wearing of headscarves
with ancient Sumerian sexual rites.

Afghanistan
The lives of Afghanistan's women have changed little five years after
the fall of the Taliban, according to a report by the women's rights
group Womankind Worldwide, based in the UK. Honor killings are still
widespread. Only 5 per cent of girls of secondary school age are
enrolled. Many abuses take place in the north and west, where the
Taliban are not active, the Independent reports.

Venezeuela
Executives at Sequoia Voting Systems said they had asked for a U.S.
government investigation "to put to rest baseless but persistent
rumors" about the parent company's ties to Venezuelan President
Chavez.

Nicaragua
Former revolutionary Daniel Ortega could emerge from 16 years in
opposition to become Nicaragua's president on Sunday, helped by the
weak record of pro-Washington governments, Reuters reports. Opinion
polls have Ortega well in the lead, but the Bush Administration hopes
center-right former banker Eduardo Montealegre will come in second,
stave off a first-round defeat and beat Ortega in a runoff.

Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) US Threatens Nicaragua With Sanctions Over Ortega Election
Democracy Now, Wednesday, November 1st, 2006
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/01/1456220
In Nicaragua, the Bush administration has issued one of its harshest
warnings to date over the outcome of Sunday's presidential elections.
The administration is now threatening economic sanctions if
Nicaraguans elect frontrunner and Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega. In
an interview with the Nicuraguan newspaper La Prensa, embassy
spokesperson Kristin Stewart says: "If a foreign government has a
relationship with terrorist organizations, like the Sandinistas did in
the past; U.S. law permits us to apply sanctions… Again, it will be
necessary to revise our policies if Ortega wins."

2) Military Charts Movement of Conflict in Iraq Toward Chaos
Michael R. Gordon, New York Times, November 1, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/01/world/middleeast/01military.html
A classified briefing prepared two weeks ago by the US Central Command
portrays Iraq as edging toward chaos, in a chart that the military is
using as a barometer of civil conflict. A one-page slide shown at the
Oct. 18 briefing provides a rare glimpse into how the military command
that oversees the war is trying to track its trajectory, particularly
in terms of sectarian fighting.

The slide includes a color-coded bar chart that is used to illustrate
an "Index of Civil Conflict." It shows a sharp escalation in sectarian
violence since the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra in February,
and tracks a further worsening this month despite a concerted American
push to tamp down the violence in Baghdad.

In fashioning the index, the military is weighing factors like the
ineffectual Iraqi police and the dwindling influence of moderate
religious and political figures, rather than more traditional military
measures such as the enemy's fighting strength and the control of
territory.

The conclusions the Central Command has drawn from these trends are
not encouraging, according to a copy of the slide that was obtained by
The New York Times. The slide shows Iraq as moving sharply away from
"peace," an ideal on the far left side of the chart, to a point much
closer to the right side of the spectrum, a red zone marked "chaos."
As depicted in the command's chart, the needle has been moving
steadily toward the far right of the chart.

An intelligence summary at the bottom of the slide reads "urban areas
experiencing 'ethnic cleansing' campaigns to consolidate control" and
"violence at all-time high, spreading geographically."

3) Depleted uranium risk 'ignored'
BBC News, Wednesday, 1 November 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6105726.stm
UK and US forces have continued to use depleted uranium weapons
despite warnings they pose a cancer risk, a BBC investigation has
found. Scientists have pointed to health statistics in Iraq, where the
weapons were used in the 1991 and 2003 wars. A report by the World
Health Organisation (WHO) in 2001 said they posed only a small
contamination risk. But a senior UN scientist said research showing
how depleted uranium could cause cancer was withheld.

Depleted uranium is extremely dense and hard, and is used for
armour-piercing bullets or shells. Fears over health implications led
to a study by the WHO in 2001. Dr Mike Repacholi, who oversaw work on
the report, told Angus Stickler of BBC Radio Four's Today programme
that depleted uranium was "basically safe"."You would have to ingest a
huge amount of depleted uranium dust to cause any adverse health
effect," he said.

But Dr Keith Baverstock, who worked on the project, said research
conducted by the US Department of Defense suggested otherwise.He
described a process known as genotoxicity, which begins when depleted
uranium dust is inhaled."The particles that dissolve pose a risk -
part radioactive - and part from the chemical toxicity in the lung,"
he said. Later, he said, the material enters the body and the blood
stream, potentially affecting bone marrow, the lymphatic system and
the kidneys. The research was not included in the WHO report, and Dr
Baverstock believes it was blocked.

Repacholi said the findings were not collaborated by other reports and
it was not WHO policy to publish "speculative" data. He denied any
pressure was brought to bear. But other senior scientists have pointed
to worrying health statistics in Iraq, which show a rise in cancer and
birth defects.

Prof Randy Parrish of the Isotope Geosciences Laboratory in the UK
said environmental and health assessments were needed in Iraq to
establish the facts. Iraqi scientists trained by the UN are seeking to
carry out such an assessment, but Henrik Slotte of the UN
Environmental Programme said without clear information from the US on
what was used and where, it was "like looking for a needle in a
haystack".He said there was "no indication" this information was
forthcoming from the US.

Iran
4) Iran to Pay Incentives to Attract Tourists
Associated Press, November 1, 2006, Filed at 4:11 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iran-US-Tourism.html
Iran will offer cash incentives to travel agencies to encourage
Western tourists to visit the country, giving a premium for Americans,
the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported. The Islamic
republic's political leadership has been trying to reach out to
ordinary Americans to show that a standoff over Iran's nuclear
ambitions is with the Bush administration - not U.S. citizens.

The latest initiative comes as the UN Security Council deliberates a
draft resolution that would impose sanctions on Iran for its disputed
nuclear program. "Iran's tourism department will pay $20 per person to
those who attract European or American tourists to the country," the
agency on Tuesday quoted Mohammed Sharif Malakzadeh, deputy head of
the department, as saying. Visitors from other countries would earn
travel agents $10 per tourist, Malakzadeh said.

Last week, Iran's fiercely anti-U.S. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
expressed opposition to a bill that would require Americans to be
fingerprinted on arrival in Iran. The bill, which passed a preliminary
reading in the Iranian parliament earlier this month, was drafted by
conservatives who sought to retaliate for U.S. requirements that
Iranian visitors be fingerprinted. It has not been debated yet.

In an earlier attempt to reach out to Americans, Ahmadinejad in
January proposed the resumption of direct commercial flights between
Iran and the US, which were halted more than 25 years ago.

5) Iran Announces Military Maneuvers
Associated Press, November 1, 2006, Filed at 8:41 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iran-Military.html
Iran unexpectedly announced Wednesday that it would be holding
military maneuvers in the Gulf this week, only days after U.S.-led
navies held exercises in the same waterway. Iranian state television
quoted the head of the Revolutionary Guards, Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi,
as saying the 10-day maneuvers, named "Great Prophet," would take
place in the Gulf and the Sea of Oman, beginning Thursday. "The war
games are aimed at demonstrating the deterrent power of the guards
against possible threats," Safavi said.

Safavi stressed the drills were not a threat to neighboring countries,
saying: "Our neighbors are our friends. The guards just want to prove
that they ready to resist in any threatening situation." His
announcement came two days after U.S.-led warships finished a two-day
maneuver in the Gulf - an exercise that Iran described as
""adventurist."

Iran said the six-nation drills would not improve security in the Gulf
waters, through which about 20 percent of the world's oil passes. It
also called on Gulf nations to set up their own regional security
arrangements.

6) Russia Says Believes Iran's Nuke Program Peaceful
Reuters, October 31, 2006, Filed at 9:38 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-nuclear-iran-russia.html
Russia said Tuesday it believed Iran's nuclear program was peaceful,
and a political dialogue, not sanctions, must be used in talks with
Tehran. "We do not have information that would suggest that Iran is
carrying out a non-peaceful (nuclear) program," Russian Security
Council Secretary Igor Ivanov said. "We believe that the possibilities
for continuing political discussion around this problem (Iran's
nuclear program) have not been exhausted," he said.

Iranian President Ahmadinejad told his Russian counterpart Putin by
telephone Monday talks over Iran's nuclear dispute were being hindered
because the European side did not have enough authority. "The most
important problem in continuing Iran and Europe's negotiations (over
the nuclear issue) is the European side's lack of enough authority (to
take decisions)," an Iranian television report quoted Ahmadinejad as
telling Putin.

In a statement on Monday, the Kremlin said Putin had told the Iranian
leader that Moscow favored further talks. Iran says negotiations are
the only way to resolve the dispute. But Iran's failure to meet a U.N.
deadline to halt enrichment has opened up the possibility of U.N.
sanctions.

European states have prepared a draft sanctions resolution but Russia
has voiced misgivings. "Sanctions should not be adopted for their own
sake," Ivanov said.

Iraq
7) Iraq Tells U.S. to Quit Checkpoints
Sadr City Celebrates Lifting of Blockade as Premier Asserts Authority
Ellen Knickmeyer & John Ward Anderson, Washington Post, November 1, 2006; A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/31/AR2006103100225.html
American soldiers rolled up their barbed-wire barricades and lifted a
near siege of the largest Shiite Muslim enclave in Baghdad on Tuesday,
heeding the orders of a Shiite-led Iraqi government whose assertion of
sovereignty had Shiites celebrating in the streets. The order by Prime
Minister al-Maliki to lift the week-old blockade of Sadr City was one
of the most overt expressions of self-determination by Iraqi leaders
in the 3.5 -year-old U.S. occupation.

Maliki's decision exposed the growing divergence between the U.S. and
Iraqi administrations on some of the most critical issues facing the
country, especially the burgeoning strength of Shiite militias. The
militias are allied with the Shiite religious parties that form
Maliki's coalition government, and they are accused by Sunni Arab
Iraqis and Americans of kidnapping and killing countless Sunnis in the
soaring violence between Iraq's Shiite majority and Sunni minority.

Sadr City is the base of the country's most feared militia, the Mahdi
Army, which answers to Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Sadr's strongly
anti-American bloc is the largest in the Shiite governing coalition
and was instrumental in making Maliki prime minister five months ago.

The move lifted a near siege that had stood at least since last
Wednesday. U.S. military police imposed the blockade after the
kidnapping of an American soldier of Iraqi descent. The soldier's
Iraqi in-laws said they believed he had been abducted by the Mahdi
Army as he visited his wife at her home in the Karrada area of
Baghdad, where U.S. military checkpoints were also removed as a result
of Maliki's action.

The crackdown on Sadr City had a second motive, U.S. officers said:
the search for Abu Deraa, a man considered one of the most notorious
death squad leaders. The soldier and Abu Deraa both were believed by
the U.S. military to be in Sadr City.

U.S. soldiers in Humvees had used concertina wire and sandbags to
close off all bridges and other routes into Sadr City, home to 2.5
million Shiites, from the rest of Baghdad. The U.S. troops, backed by
Iraqi soldiers, admitted vehicles only one at a time after searches.
The blockade caused hours-long backups, and Sadr City's largely
working-class residents complained that the cost of food and fuel was
soaring. Sadr's aides held a rally of about 1,000 people against the
blockade on Sunday and called a strike, starting Monday, in what they
described as the spirit of civil disobedience.

Residents said armed Mahdi Army members moved early Tuesday into what
quickly became deserted streets across Sadr City, enforcing the
protest. Even in surrounding Sunni neighborhoods, teachers described
Mahdi Army fighters entering schools to order students home for the
protest. Government workers were driven out of their offices in some
neighborhoods, and shops were shuttered.

Before the strike, the U.S. blockade of Sadr City already had become a
"hot issue" in daily meetings between U.S. and Iraqi officials, said
Hadi al-Amiri, a member of Iraq's governing Shiite alliance. Amiri
said he believed it was decided at Monday's meeting between U.S. and
Iraqi officials that the operation must end. "We became convinced that
going further with this blockade would increase tensions," he said.
However, Maliki's order appeared to take at least some American
officials by surprise.

Sadr City residents celebrated both the flexing of the Shiite
government's clout and what they saw as a concession by the US.
Children cheered. Drivers honked horns as they bounced into Sadr City
on newly cleared streets. Pickup trucks full of young men sped down
the district's main roads. The men waved red and green banners of
Sadr's movement.

8) U.S. Military Deaths in Iraq Still Mostly Outside Capital
Thom Shanker & David S. Cloud, New York Times, November 1, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/01/world/middleeast/01troops.html
About two-thirds of the deaths among US troops in Iraq in October
occurred outside Baghdad, even with a sharp increase in combat deaths
in the capital that made it the fourth deadliest month of the war for
the US, Defense Department figures show. The October death toll, which
stood at 103 late Tuesday, was the highest since January 2005, when
107 American troops were killed. Forty American soldiers were killed
in and around Baghdad in October, double the number there just two
months ago, a review of casualty reports shows.

Military officers and civilian analysts said the rise in October
resulted in part from more aggressive American security operations in
Baghdad, which exposed larger numbers of troops to danger. The
security operation in the capital put American troops on the streets
not only in greater numbers, but more often on foot patrols outside
their armored vehicles, where they were more vulnerable to improvised
bombs and a growing threat of snipers.

The spike in violence in the capital was accompanied by higher tolls
in other parts of the country, notably in Anbar Province, where 37
Americans died and deaths have climbed steadily since this summer.

The jump in combat deaths in October mirrored the annual rise in
violence that coincides with the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
Military officers and civilian analysts rejected assertions by some
Bush administration officials that the insurgents had planned
offensives to influence the elections in the US next Tuesday.

Hidden bombs remained the single biggest killer, and more deaths
occurred throughout Iraq from such devices in October than in any
previous month but one. Beyond that, more soldiers were also killed by
small-arms fire and snipers than in the past, according to officials
and the casualty reports.

Lebanon
9) Hezbollah Says Talks About Release of 2 Israeli Soldiers Have Begun
Michael Slackman, New York Times, November 1, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/01/world/middleeast/01lebanon.html
Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, said in an interview
broadcast Tuesday that "serious negotiations" were under way over the
release of two Israeli soldiers whose capture in June sparked Israel's
34-day war in Lebanon. The television interview appeared intended to
help shore up Hezbollah's standing with the Lebanese public amid a
power struggle over control of the government.

Sheik Nasrallah tried to paint his group's main political opponent -
the March 14 Coalition, which controls the largest bloc in Parliament
and the government - as a collaborator with the US and Israel. He also
had harsh words for the Americans, who he said had failed in the
Middle East and would have to flee. "They will leave the Middle East,
Arab and Islamic worlds, just as they left Vietnam, and I advise those
who count on them to draw conclusions from the Vietnam experience," he
said.

Demonstrating the power of the Hezbollah organization, Sheik Nasrallah
appeared Tuesday night on Al Manar, the group's own television
station. His comments came a week before the political factions vying
for political supremacy in Lebanon are to meet to discuss the makeup
of the government. He made it clear that he would not accept anything
short of capitulation on the part of the March 14 Coalition.

Since the end of the war, Sheik Nasrallah has been pressing for a
so-called national unity government that would include the party of
Michel Aoun, a Maronite Catholic and former commander of the Lebanese
Army who has become an important ally of Hezbollah. The proposal has
been strongly resisted by those in power.

On television, Sheik Nasrallah said that if a unity government was not
formed soon, he and his followers would take to the streets - a threat
that could lead to instability if other groups tried to hold
counterdemonstrations as promised. "Hezbollah does not want to topple
the government," he said, offering a note of threatening moderation.
"If it wanted to, it could have done it earlier."

In laying out his case for a coalition government, he tried to assure
the public that Hezbollah was still fighting for its rights and
asserted that the March 14 Coalition had tried to neuter the
resistance against Israel. He also said the UN secretary general, Kofi
Annan, had appointed an arbitrator to work with Hezbollah and Israel
to discuss conditions for releasing two soldiers captured by Hezbollah
in June. "I just want to assure everyone that the file is on the right
track and negotiations have started," Sheik Nasrallah said.

10) US issues Lebanon 'plot' warning
BBC News, Wednesday, 1 November 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6107224.stm
The US has said there is "mounting evidence" that Syria, Iran and
Hezbollah are planning to topple the Lebanese government. The White
House said Syria hoped to stop the formation of an international
tribunal to try suspects in the killing of former Lebanese PM Rafik
Hariri. Spokesman Tony Snow said any attempt to destabilise the
Lebanese government would violate UN resolutions. A UN team has been
investigating who was behind Hariri's death in 2005.

BBC News world affairs correspondent Paul Reynolds says the White
House statement appears to result from the tense situation in Lebanon,
where Hezbollah is demanding one third of cabinet seats, thereby
giving it a veto over decisions. Such a veto would enable it to block
approval of the international tribunal to try suspects in Hariri's
assassination, our correspondent says.

The Hezbollah leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, has threatened street
demonstrations in support of his demand. The US is concerned that this
instability could result in the fall of the government of Prime
Minister Fouad Siniora. The statement also casts doubt on any
willingness by the Bush administration to consider Syria and Iran as
potential partners over the future of Iraq, an idea that the Baker
commission on Iraq is expected to suggest, our correspondent adds.

Former US Secretary of State James Baker is heading a bipartisan Iraq
Study Group, considering future strategy in Iraq for US policy makers.
The White House said it was "increasingly concerned by mounting
evidence that the Syrian and Iranian governments, Hezbollah, and their
Lebanese allies are preparing plans to topple Lebanon's
democratically-elected government.

Pakistan
11) Pakistan's Leader Defends Airstrike on School
Salman Masood, New York Times, November 1, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/01/world/asia/01pakistan.html
Faced with protests across the country, President Musharraf Tuesday
defended a military strike that killed 80 people at a religious
school, and insisted that the dead were militants undergoing terrorist
training. General Musharraf's claim came amid protests across the
political spectrum, but especially by an alliance of Islamic parties
and thousands of people in the semi-autonomous tribal areas straddling
the Afghan border where the strike took place.

Angry speakers at rallies across the country condemned General
Musharraf's alliance with the US and the airstrike on Monday, when
helicopter gunships fired missiles into the Islamic school, or
madrasa, in the village of Chingai, near the town of Khar in the Bajur
region. General Musharraf said the dead were militants, and Pakistani
military officials maintained that the madrasa was being used as a
staging post for Al Qaeda and that it was frequently visited by Qaeda
leaders.

Some local residents and opposition politicians have said that there
were children in the school, and alleged that American warplanes had
taken part in the attack. But the president dismissed the suggestion
that the dead were innocent. "Anyone who is saying that these were
innocent Taliban is telling lies," General Musharraf said. "We were
watching them since the last six, seven days," he said. "We knew
exactly who they are, what they were doing. They were all militants,
using weapons, doing military training within the compound."

The strike is expected to further polarize the political environment
in the country. General Musharraf's alliance with the US has incensed
hard-line Islamists who accuse him of being subservient to the US. But
apart from Islamic opposition parties, liberal opposition parties also
condemned the airstrike. "This was a very ill-planned operation," said
Enver Baig, senator from the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party. "They
knew that there were students inside the madrasa and in case of an
aerial operation, the casualties would be on a large scale. "It has
not gone well with the common man on the street."

Turkey
12) Turkey court clears archaeologist
BBC News, Wednesday, 1 November 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6106098.stm
A court in the Turkish city of Istanbul has acquitted a 92-year-old
academic of charges of insulting Muslim women and inciting religious
hatred. Archaeologist Muazzez Ilmiye Cig was prosecuted over a book in
which she linked the wearing of headscarves with ancient Sumerian
sexual rites. The judge ruled at the first hearing of her trial that
her actions did not constitute a crime. Dr Cig's publisher was also
cleared in a trial lasting less than half an hour. The archaeologist
was applauded by supporters as she left the courtroom.

This trial is the latest in a series of prosecutions of Turkish
intellectuals, including 2006 Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk and novelist
Elif Shafak. Charges were brought against her by a Turkish lawyer who
took offence at her 2005 book "My Reactions as a Citizen".

In the book Dr Cig said that headscarves were first worn more than
5,000 years ago by Sumerian priestesses who initiated young men into
sex. Dr Cig is an expert in the ancient Sumerian civilisation which
emerged in Mesopotamia in the third millennia BC. The issue of
headscarves has polarised Turkey in recent years.

Although predominantly Muslim, Turkey is a secular state and
headscarves are banned in government offices and universities. The
ruling Justice and Development Party, which has roots in political
Islam, has unsuccessfully tried to lift the headscarf ban.

Afghanistan
13)  Women's Lives 'No Better' in New Afghanistan
Justin Huggler, Independent (UK), Wednesday, November 1, 2006
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1101-01.htm
The lives of Afghanistan's women have changed little five years after
the fall of the Taliban, according to a new report by a UK-based
women's rights group. Womankind Worldwide found violence against women
is still endemic - and the number of women setting fire to themselves
because they cannot bear their lives is rising dramatically.

The iconic images of women throwing off their burqas after the
overthrow of the Taliban in 2001 were always a fiction. Except among a
small elite in Kabul, the overwhelming majority of women in
Afghanistan are still forced to cover their entire bodies and faces.

The report's researchers found that very little has changed. Between
60 and 80 per cent of all marriages in Afghanistan are forced. As many
as 57 per cent of girls are married off below the age of 16, some as
young as six. Because of the custom of paying a bride price, marriage
is essentially a financial transaction, and girls a commodity.

The custom of baad, when girls and women are exchanged to settle debts
and disputes, is still widely practised. The women are not treated as
proper wives, but in effect are slave workers for their husbands.
Honour killing is also still widespread. Women are killed for
dishonouring their families through "crimes" such as even being seen
associating with a man. A family member kills the woman. Even women
who have been raped cannot report the crime because they risk being
prosecuted for having sex outside marriage.

The Taliban were vilified for denying girls education, but even now
only 19 per cent of Afghan schools are for girls and only 5 per cent
of girls of secondary school age are enrolled. And the West cannot
blame the Taliban, as many of the abuses take place in the north and
west, where the Taliban are not active. In the north-east, where the
Taliban never had control, a woman dies every 20 minutes in
childbirth.

Venezeuela
14) Vote Machine Maker Asks U.S. to Probe Alleged Ties
Marc Lifsher, Los Angeles Times, October 31, 2006
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-sequoia31oct31,1,2532931.story
The maker of electronic voting machines to be used in next week's
election in parts of California and 15 other states sought Monday to
quell concern about its connections with the Venezuelan government and
its anti-American president, Hugo Chavez. Executives at Oakland-based
Sequoia Voting Systems Inc. and its parent company said they had asked
for a U.S. government investigation "to put to rest baseless but
persistent rumors" about the parent company's ties to Chavez. The
parent, Smartmatic Corp., is owned by Venezuelans.

"No foreign government from any country ever held a stake in
Smartmatic, period," said Smartmatic's Venezuelan president, Antonio
Mugica, at a Washington news conference. "We are definitely concerned
about the allegations which have been published that are utterly
false."

Nicaragua
15) Ortega could win Nicaragua's cliffhanger election
Catherine Bremer, Reuters, Wednesday, November 1, 2006; 11:59 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/01/AR2006110101660_pf.html
Former revolutionary Daniel Ortega could emerge from 16 years in
opposition to become Nicaragua's president on Sunday, helped by the
weak record of pro-Washington governments. Voting in the Central
American nation will be closely watched by the US, which trained and
financed Contra rebels to fight Ortega's Sandinista government in a
1980s civil war that killed 30,000 people.

A Sandinista win would be likely to irk President Bush, whose father,
then president, celebrated the end of Ortega's decade-long rule in
1990. It would also mark a victory for President Chavez of Venezuela.
Chavez has shipped cheap fuel to Nicaragua to boost the chances of his
ally Ortega.

Opinion polls have Ortega well in the lead, thanks to a split in the
ruling Liberal Party. But Washington hopes center-right former banker
Eduardo Montealegre will come in second, stave off a first-round
defeat then beat Ortega in a runoff.

Die-hard Ortega backers say he deserves another chance at running the
country, this time without the ravages of a civil war and a crippling
U.S. trade embargo. Ortega has lost two previous election attempts to
regain the presidency. "I fought in the 1980s and I am still here,"
said Adolfo Pantojo, 43, at an Ortega rally in the northern town of
Chinandega. "If Daniel wins, it will mean the death of so many friends
was worth something," he said.

At the end of a campaign colored by fierce rhetoric, fireworks and
scantily-clad dancers, polls show Ortega within a whisker of nailing
the presidency in one round. He needs at least 35 percent of the vote
and a lead of 5 points over his nearest rival on Sunday to avoid a
politically perilous runoff. Some polls show him with enough support
but others have him falling just short.

-
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org

Just Foreign Policy is a membership organization devoted to reforming
U.S. foreign policy so it reflects the values and interests of the
majority of Americans.