[Peace-discuss] Just Foreign Policy News, October 23, 2006

[Robert Naiman]

Just Foreign Policy News
October 23, 2006

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Summary:
U.S./Top News
An estimate by public health experts that hundreds of thousands of
Iraqis have died because of the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq
is likely an accurate assessment, researchers say, according to
Reuters.

Two Republican senators, including the chair of the Foreign Relations
Committee, yesterday called for direct U.S.-North Korea talks over
North Korea's nuclear program, the Washington Times reports.

A senior State Department official apologized Sunday for saying the US
had acted with "arrogance" and "stupidity" in its campaign in Iraq.
Administration officials had earlier claimed that his remarks had been
mistranslated from Arabic.

The Bush administration is drafting a timetable for the Iraqi
government to address sectarian divisions and assume a larger role in
securing the country, the New York Times reports. Although the plan
would not threaten the Iraqi government with a withdrawal of American
troops, officials said the Bush administration would consider changes
in military strategy and other penalties if Iraq balked at adopting it
or failed to meet critical benchmarks within it.

"Plan B" - anything but "staying the course" - has been on the lips of
virtually every foreign policy analyst in Washington this past week
when the entire capital appeared to decide that whatever the U.S. has
been doing in Iraq is failing spectacularly, writes Jim Lobe for Inter
Press Service.

Iran
President Ahmadinejad said Monday Western powers were wrong if they
thought Iran would retreat under political pressure from its nuclear
plans, Reuters reports. Some European diplomats say a tough UN
sanctions resolution could boost support for Ahmadinejad's
conservative government.

Iraq
More than three million Iraqis who have been forced to flee their
homes to other areas of Iraq and to neighbouring countries are facing
what the UN refugee agency describes as a "very bleak future" after
the agency's budget for offices across the region was halved for the
coming year, the UN reports.

The brother of NFL player Pat Tillman, who was killed in Afghanistan
after quitting his team to join the Army Rangers, has spoken out
against the the war in Iraq and the Bush administration, AP reports.
"Somehow, the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal
invasion becomes," Kevin Tillman wrote.

A "polite rebellion" is under way among previously loyal allies of
President Bush aimed at persuading him to change course in Iraq and
quietly abandon the foreign policy doctrine he had hoped would be the
centrepiece of his legacy, the Guardian reports.

After three years of trying to thwart a potent insurgency and tamp
down the deadly violence in Iraq, the American military is playing its
last hand: the Baghdad security plan, the New York Times reports.
Baghdad security may not be a sufficient condition for a more stable
Iraq, but it is a necessary condition for any plan that does not
simply abandon Iraqis to their fate.

Israel
Israel confirmed Sunday it had used phosphorus shells, controversial
munitions condemned by many human rights groups, during its war in
Lebanon, the Washington Post reports. The Red Cross and human rights
groups have urged a world ban on the munitions, saying they cause
undue suffering through severe burns.

Many times, this or that Israeli politician has been accused of being
a fascist, Uri Avnery writes. But Avigdor Liberman, currently being
recruited to join the Israeli government, is the real McCoy. Liberman
has called for Israel to be made free of Arabs by swapping Jewish
settlements in the West Bank for Palestinian areas in Israel. That's
not going to happen, Avnery says. But he fears that Liberman's
inclusion in the government will help to legitimize in Israeli
political discourse a more realistic possibility which would be even
worse: expulsion of the Palestinian population while retaining their
land.

Palestine
For decades, Palestinian foreign nationals have entered the West Bank
and Gaza Strip on three-month tourist visas, renewing them regularly,
because residency cards were difficult to obtain, the Washington Post
reports. But in recent months Israel's Interior Ministry has refused
in many cases to grant new visas, separating thousands of family
members from relatives in the occupied territories. Israeli human
rights groups say an estimated 70,000 foreign nationals are awaiting
visitor permits, which the military rarely issues.

Tensions between rival Fatah and Hamas loyalists continued to smolder
Sunday as an informal cease-fire quickly disintegrated, the New York
Times reports. Meanwhile, some Israeli cabinet members called for
retaking control of Gaza's southern border with Egypt.

Panama
Panamanians Sunday overwhelmingly endorsed a plan to modernize the
country's aging canal, the New York Times reports. The Times notes
that as skyscrapers go up at a furious pace in Panama City, 40 percent
of the country's 3 million residents live in poverty.

Bolivia, Ecuador Trade Preferences
A senior Bush administration official said this week that the White
House would push Congress to pass a bill continuing trade benefits for
Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, the Los Angeles Times reports. It
wants the bill passed during the "lame-duck session" after the
November elections. The benefits are set to expire Dec. 31. The White
House said it would push Congress for an extension of trade
preferences for all four countries even though relations with Ecuador
and Bolivia have been strained. One analyst said the new U.S. posture
was a clear effort to send a message to Ecuadorean voters to support
candidate the pro-US candiate in the Nov. 26 presidential election.

Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Iraq Death Rate Estimates Defended by Researchers
Deena Beasley, Reuters, Sunday, October 22, 2006
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1022-03.htm
A controversial estimate by public health experts that hundreds of
thousands of Iraqis have died because of the March 2003 U.S.-led
invasion of Iraq is likely an accurate assessment, researchers said on
Saturday. "Over the last 25 years, this sort of methodology has been
used more and more often, especially by relief agencies in times of
emergency," said Dr. David Rush, a professor and epidemiologist at
Tufts University in Boston.

The study, published earlier this month by the Lancet medical journal,
employed a method known as "cluster sampling" in which data are
collected through interviews with randomly selected households.
Critics, including President Bush, have said the results are not
credible, but Rush said traditional methods for determining death
rates, such as counting bodies, are highly inaccurate for civilian
populations in times of war.

Researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and Al
Mustansiriya University in Baghdad estimated with 95 percent certainty
that the war and its aftermath have resulted in the deaths of between
426,000 and 794,000 Iraqis. Other estimates have calculated the number
of extra Iraqi deaths to be much lower. The Iraq Body Count Database
calculates that between 43,850 and 48,693 extra civilians have died
since the invasion. [This is comparing apples and oranges. Iraq Body
Count is a tally of deaths in Western press reports. Iraq Body Count
acknowledges that its numbers are an undercount, as they are
guaranteed to be: even the U.S. Census, carried out under much better
conditions, it is generally acknowledged, is an undercount of the U.S.
population. What is at issue is whether IBC's numbers are a _gross_
undercount. If the methodology of the Hopkins researchers is sound -
which experts in the field say it is, as reported in this article -
then the probability that the IBC number is roughly correct is well
under 2.5% - that's what a 95% confidence interval allows you to say.
Reuters deserves credit for reporting the 95% confidence interval, the
key conclusion, rather than the "point estimate" of  610,000, a
relatively meaningless number. - JFP]

Rush, speaking at a meeting in Los Angeles on the medical consequences
of the Iraq war, said that the relatively small size of the sample --
1,849 households -- doesn't change the findings, although it does
widen the "confidence limits," hence the large range of the estimated
additional deaths. In addition, the biases inherent in cluster
sampling, such as wording of questionnaires, would tend to undercount,
rather than inflate, the number of deaths, Rush said.

"I think this is an extremely credible study," said Michael
Intriligator, professor of economics at the University of California
at Los Angeles. Intriligator, who said he commonly uses cluster
sampling in his own work, noted that the study's most remarkable
finding was the death rates in the country have risen from 5.5 per
thousand Iraqis per year before the invasion to 13.2 per thousand per
year as of the study's July cutoff.

In addition to violence, death rates in Iraq are on the rise because
of threats to public health, including poorly equipped hospitals, said
activist Dr. Dahlia Wasfi. "The affects on the civilian population of
the war in Iraq have been grossly underestimated," said Jonathan
Parfrey, executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of Physicians
for Social Responsibility.

2) Direct Talks Urged With N. Korea
Eric Pfeiffer, Washington Times, October 23, 2006
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20061023-123503-6186r.htm
Two Republican senators, including the chair of the Foreign Relations
Committee, yesterday called for direct U.S.-North Korea talks over
North Korea's nuclear program. The panel's top Democrat said the other
four nations in the six-party negotiations -- China, Russia, South
Korea and Japan - have privately urged the same path on the US, which
has long rejected bilateral talks with North Korea.
"I believe that is going to happen," said Sen. Richard Lugar, Foreign
Relations chair, on Fox News Sunday. "I hope it happens sooner rather
than later. But I think it is inevitable, if this is to be resolved
diplomatically," he said. Sen. Arlen Specter also broke ranks to
endorse bilateral talks North Korea. Sen. Biden and Sen, Levin,
ranking members on the Foreign Relations and Armed Services
committees, respectively, also support direct U.S. talks, with Biden
saying that representatives from all the other nations involved in
negotiations with North Korea have endorsed direct talks to resolve
the standoff.

But the State Department would have to conduct the talks, and the
White House has repeatedly rejected earlier calls, mostly from
Democrats, for direct talks with North Korea.

3) State Dept. Official Apologizes for Criticism of Iraq Policy
Neela Banerjee, New York Times, October 23, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/23/world/23diplo.html
A senior State Department official apologized Sunday for saying the US
had acted with "arrogance" and "stupidity" in its campaign in Iraq.
The apology from Alberto Fernandez, director of the office of press
and public diplomacy in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, involved a
comment that he had made during an interview conducted in Arabic and
broadcast Saturday on Al Jazeera, the Arab television network.

In the interview, Fernandez, who speaks Arabic fluently, said,
"History will decide what role the US played." According to a CNN
translation, he said while the US had tried its best, its role might
be criticized by future historians "because undoubtedly there was
arrogance and stupidity from the US in Iraq." Other news sources have
translated the remarks in a similar way.

After news of the remarks spread Sunday, American officials said they
did not reflect the administration's views. "I can only assume his
remarks must have been mistranslated," said a senior administration
official. "Those comments obviously don't reflect our position."

In a statement released Sunday by the State Department, Fernandez
said, "Upon reading the transcript of my appearance on Al Jazeera, I
realized that I seriously misspoke by using the phrase 'There has been
arrogance and stupidity by the U.S. in Iraq.' This represents neither
my views, or those of the State Department. I apologize."

Some Iraqi lawmakers welcomed the remarks. Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish
lawmaker, said more American officials should be willing to be
self-critical about missteps in Iraq. "I have been expecting American
officials, someday, last year, this year, to say something about this,
that this policy has not worked," Othman said. "It has been a failure.
They should admit it before it is too late."

4) U.S. to Hand Iraq a New Timetable on Security Role
David S. Cloud, New York Times, October 22, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/world/middleeast/22policy.html
The Bush administration is drafting a timetable for the Iraqi
government to address sectarian divisions and assume a larger role in
securing the country, senior American officials said. Details of the
blueprint, to be presented to Prime Minister Maliki before the end of
the year and would be carried out over the next year and beyond, are
still being devised. But officials said that for the first time Iraq
was likely to be asked to agree to a schedule of specific milestones,
like disarming sectarian militias, and to a broad set of other
political, economic and military benchmarks intended to stabilize the
country.

Although the plan would not threaten Maliki with a withdrawal of
American troops, officials said the Bush administration would consider
changes in military strategy and other penalties if Iraq balked at
adopting it or failed to meet critical benchmarks within it. A senior
Pentagon official involved in drafting the blueprint said Iraqi
officials were being consulted as the plan evolved and would be
invited to sign off on the milestones before the end of the year. But
he added, "If the Iraqis fail to come back to us on this, we would
have to conduct a reassessment" of the American strategy in Iraq.

In a statement issued Saturday, a White House spokeswoman said the
Times's account was "not accurate," but did not specify what officials
found to be inaccurate.

5) Iraq: A Consensus Develops: Leave the Course
Jim Lobe, Inter Press Service, October 21, 2006
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1021-04.htm
"Plan B" - anything but "staying the course" - has been on the lips of
virtually every foreign policy analyst who considers him or herself
worthy of the name this past week when, it seemed, the entire capital
appeared to decide that whatever the U.S. has been doing in Iraq for
the past three months, six months, or three years is failing, and
failing spectacularly.

The sombre tone of this week's military briefings in Iraq certainly
reflected that view as active-duty senior officers who finally went
public with their growing frustrations. Indeed, the fact that the
chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen. Peter Pace, earlier this
month launched a comprehensive, 60-day review of Iraq strategy belied
Bush's notion that the current strategy is fundamentally sound.

Even a few of the war's most enthusiastic neo-conservative supporters
have come to admit that it may in fact have been a serious strategic
mistake. "The Iraq war was a mistake," wrote hard-line war hawk Jonah
Goldberg in the Los Angeles Times Thursday, suggesting that Iraqis
hold a special plebiscite on whether they want the U.S. to withdraw
from their country.

"That the Iraq war is, if not a failure, failing, requires little
demonstration," conceded Eliot Cohen, a member of the Pentagon's
Defence Policy Board (DPB), in a column entitled "Plan B" published in
the Wall Street Journal Friday.

Iran
6) Iran Won't Retreat From Atomic Rights: President
Reuters, October 23, 2006, Filed at 8:51 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-nuclear-iran-ahmadinejad.html
President Ahmadinejad said Monday Western powers were wrong if they
thought Iran would retreat under political pressure from its nuclear
plans, even as the country faces possible sanctions. Iran faces the
prospect of penalties after its case was sent back to the U.N.
Security Council for failing to heed a U.N. demand to suspend uranium
enrichment, a process the West believes Tehran is using to develop
atomic weapons.

France, Britain and Germany are drafting a Security Council sanctions
resolution. But Iranian officials have shrugged off the threat, and
say Iran will press ahead with its program. "They (the West) should
know that taking advantage of nuclear energy is the demand of all the
Iranian nation ... All the Iranian nation insists on this right and
will not retreat one iota," Ahmadinejad said in a televised speech.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has the final say in
nuclear and other matters. But, like Ahmadinejad, he has also insisted
Iran will not give up its atomic plans. Iran, the world's fourth
largest oil exporter, insists it wants to produce fuel for nuclear
power plants and dismisses charges it wants nuclear weapons.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday noted that so far
there was no resolution before the Security Council and there was
still the possibility of an agreement with Iran which would "open the
way to negotiations."

European states say any measures against Iran will be incremental.
Diplomats say steps are likely to initially target nuclear-related
activities. Some European diplomats say a tough resolution could boost
support for Ahmadinejad's conservative government. "It (a tough
resolution) would play right into the hands of the conservatives
because they will have the perfect excuse for any economic failures,"
one European diplomat said.

Iraq
7) Three million uprooted Iraqis face "bleak future", UNHCR says
IRIN, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 22 Oct 2006
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/a3eca4b722faa10052fe47a33d29b706.htm
More than three million Iraqis who have been forced to flee their
homes to other areas of Iraq and to neighbouring countries are facing
what the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) describes as a "very bleak future"
after the agency's budget for offices across the region was halved for
the coming year. Funds for the agency's Iraq programme have been
drastically reduced for 2007 because of donors scaling back their
contributions.

As Iraq makes up a significant proportion of UNHCR's work in the
Middle East, the cut in funds for Iraq roughly halves a region-wide
budget that is already "totally insufficient to provide tangible
results," according to Andrew Harper, coordinator for the Iraq unit at
UNHCR in Geneva. "Iraq has seen the largest and most recent
displacement of any UNHCR project in the world, yet even as more
Iraqis are displaced and as their needs increase, the funds to help
them are decreasing," said Harper. "This growing humanitarian crisis
has simply gone under the radar screen of most donors."

Harper added that this reduction of funds had led to the suspension of
a number of priority UNHCR projects. These include work to identify
and aid the most vulnerable Iraqi refugees, including single mothers,
the sick and the elderly. UNHCR estimates that more than 1.5 million
Iraqis are internally displaced in Iraq, including some 800,000 who
fled their homes prior to 2003 and 750,000 who have fled since. A
further 1.6 million Iraqis are refugees in neighbouring countries, the
majority in Syria and Jordan.

Donations to UNHCR's Iraq programme from the US, EU nations, Japan and
Australia have been in free fall since the start of the US-led
occupation of Iraq, despite the ever-increasing numbers of refugees
fleeing the deadly violence there.

8) Pat Tillman's Brother Blasts Iraq War, Bush
Associated Press, Monday, October 23, 2006; A12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/22/AR2006102200937.html
The brother of an NFL player who was killed by friendly fire in
Afghanistan after quitting his team to join the Army Rangers has
spoken out. Kevin Tillman, a former Army Ranger who served in Iraq and
Afghanistan with his older brother, Pat, has been silent since his
brother died in 2004. But last week, he wrote a scathing indictment of
the war in Iraq, the Bush administration and American apathy.

"Somehow, the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal
invasion becomes," Kevin wrote on Truthdig.com, an online magazine
that bought his work. The brothers joined the Army in response to the
Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Pat Tillman, who played defensive back for the Arizona Cardinals, was
killed near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in April 2004. The Defense
Department is investigating allegations of a coverup, including
failure by the Army to tell Tillman's family for several weeks that he
had been killed by gunfire from his fellow Army Rangers.

Kevin Tillman has not spoken publicly about the war or his brother's
death since his discharge from the Army. But on Truthdig.com, he wrote
openly about the war and America's response to it. "Somehow, the same
incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals
are still in charge of this country. Somehow, this is tolerated.
Somehow, nobody is accountable for this."

9) The genteel revolt that is remaking US policy on Iraq
Republican veterans push for end to interventionist approach
Julian Borger, The Guardian, Saturday October 21, 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1928058,00.html
A "polite rebellion" is under way among previously loyal allies of
President Bush aimed at persuading him to change course in Iraq and
quietly abandon the foreign policy doctrine he had hoped would be the
centrepiece of his legacy.

Many senior Republicans believe the "Bush Doctrine" has hit a wall in
Iraq and lies in ruins. The rebels, including many foreign policy
veterans close to the president's father, see it as an obstacle to
stabilising Iraq and extricating US forces. But they have decided that
earlier, head-on challenges have only deepened the president's
resolve, and a less confrontational approach was needed that avoided
blame for past mistakes if there was to be any hope of a fundamental
rethink.

"It's a polite rebellion by moderate and military-minded Republicans,"
said Steven Clemons, a Washington analyst. "Any walk-away from the
Bush line is going to be covered with a lot of cosmetics to make it
look like it's not really a big change." The focus of the new approach
is the Iraq Study Group (ISG), a bipartisan commission co-chaired by
the first President Bush's secretary of state, James Baker, which will
present its recommendations after the November elections.

Those elections are another reason for urgency. If the Democrats
capture the House of Representatives, as expected, they will be in a
position to cut funding for the war if they are not listened to. Even
if they fall short of an absolute majority in the Senate, there are
now Republican senators signalling that they could side with the
opposition if there is not a decisive rethink on Iraq. David Mack, a
diplomat in the first Bush administration who helped rally Arab
support for the Gulf War, said: "We are really at a point where any
talk of victory is an illusion."

10) To Stand or Fall in Baghdad: Capital Is Key to Mission
Michael R. Gordon, New York Times, October 23, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/23/world/middleeast/23baghdad.html
After three years of trying to thwart a potent insurgency and tamp
down the deadly violence in Iraq, the American military is playing its
last hand: the Baghdad security plan. The plan will be tweaked,
adjusted and modified in the weeks ahead, as American commanders try
to reverse the dismaying increase in murders, drive-by shootings and
bombings.

But military commanders here see no plausible alternative to their
bedrock strategy to clear violence-ridden neighborhoods of militias,
insurgents and arms caches, hold them with Iraqi and American security
forces, and then try to win over the population with reconstruction
projects, underwritten mainly by the Iraqi government. There is no
fall-back plan that the generals are holding in their hip pocket.

The Iraqi capital, as the generals like to say, is the center of
gravity for the larger American mission in Iraq. Their assessment is
that if Baghdad is overwhelmed by sectarian strife, the cause of
fostering a more stable Iraq will be lost. Conversely, if Baghdad can
be improved, the effects will eventually be felt elsewhere in Iraq.

Many ideas - new and not so new - are being discussed in Washington,
like a sectarian division of Iraq (which the current government and
many Iraqis oppose); and starting talks with Iraq's neighbor, Iran
(which the Iraqi government is already doing, but the US is not).

However the broader strategy may be amended, nothing can work if
Baghdad becomes a war-torn Beirut. Baghdad security may not be a
sufficient condition for a more stable Iraq, but it is a necessary
condition for any alternative plan that does not simply abandon the
Iraqis to their fate.

Israel
11) Phosphorus Shells Used By Israel in Lebanon War
Washington Post, from news services, Monday, October 23, 2006; A13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/22/AR2006102201080.html
Israel confirmed Sunday it had used phosphorus shells, controversial
munitions condemned by many human rights groups, during its war
against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. The International Committee
of the Red Cross and human rights groups have urged a world ban on the
munitions, saying they cause undue suffering through severe burns.

An Israeli military spokesman confirmed a report in the Israeli
newspaper Haaretz that it had used phosphorus munitions in the 33-day
offensive against Hezbollah, which ended in a U.N.-brokered cease-fire
Aug. 14. The US has acknowledged using incendiary white-phosphorus
munitions in a 2004 assault against insurgents in the Iraqi city of
Fallujah. It says using them against enemy fighters is legal and not
banned by any convention.

12) Ehud von Olmert
Uri Avnery, Gush Shalom, 19-10-2006
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1161514052
Many times, this or that Israeli politician has been accused of being
a fascist. But to be a fascist, it is not enough to espouse extreme
nationalist views or to carry out racist policies. The only leader in
the history of Israel who can accurately be defined as a fascist was
Meir Kahane. Now Israeli democracy is threatened by a much more
dangerous individual.

When Avigdor Liberman came to Israel from the Soviet Union, he already
brought with him a racist outlook. He wants a purely Jewish state,
with no Arabs. He proposes to get these citizens out of Israel,
together with the land they are living on. Not a second Naqba, God
forbid: the Arabs will not be driven from their lands, as then, but
will be expelled together with their land. In return, Israel will
annex the territories on which the settlers, one of whom is Liberman
himself, are living.

What's wrong with that? The basic idea is wrong: the turning of Israel
into a state "cleansed" of Arabs. That is clearly a racist slogan,
which appeals to the most primitive instincts of the masses. The
chances of this actually happening are, of course, nil. But the very
voicing of this idea prepares the way for something even worse: the
simple expulsion of the masses of Arabs from Israel proper and the
occupied territories.
	
Palestine
13) Stricter Policy Splits West Bank Families
Americans Who Live There Denied Visas
Scott Wilson, Washington Post, Monday, October 23, 2006; A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/22/AR2006102200853.html
The last time Adel Samara saw his wife Enayeh was the morning in May
when she pulled away from their home in a taxi bound for the border.
Her trips to Jordan had become routine, never lasting more than a few
days. To renew her tourist visa, Enayeh, a U.S. citizen, had left the
West Bank every three months during their three-decade marriage. For
years, Israeli officials had denied her residency applications, so
shuttling across the border to get a fresh visa in her U.S. passport
was the only way Enayeh could live legally in the place she was born.
This time, they refused to give her the tourist visa.

Since then she has moved in with a sister in Chicago, leaving Adel to
shutter her beauty salon on a hectic street here. Their case
highlights a change in Israeli policy that has left thousands of U.S.
citizens of Palestinian descent locked out of the occupied territories
where they work, invest and have families. "At first she thought it
was just a mistake," said Adel Samara, a former U.N. official and
political activist who holds a doctorate in economics. "Then we
realized it was not and that it was actually a very large problem. I
never knew it before."

For decades, Palestinian foreign nationals have entered the West Bank
and Gaza Strip on three-month tourist visas, renewing them regularly,
because residency cards were difficult to obtain. But in recent months
Israel's Interior Ministry has refused in many cases to grant new
visas, separating thousands of family members from their relatives
inside lands Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.

The tightening has coincided with the rise of Hamas to head the
Palestinian government, which most foreign donors have cut off from
economic aid. Palestinian officials and Israeli human rights groups
contend the shift will undermine private investment in the territories
- investment the Bush administration is seeking to encourage - while
potentially driving out the professional class most likely to have
relatives abroad.

"It is a policy that can only be seen in the context of population
control," said Nabeel Kassis, president of Bir Zeit University, who
along with 10 other Palestinian university presidents warned in an
open letter that the policy is depleting faculties, student bodies and
exchange programs. "They are taking away a segment of the population
that could help most with state-building."

Secretary of State Rice, in a recent speech to the American Task Force
on Palestine, pledged to guarantee that all "American travelers
receive fair and equal treatment." The State Department raised the
issue with Israel's government earlier this month, and a campaign by
Palestinian Americans to reverse the policy has emerged here. Israeli
human rights groups say an estimated 70,000 foreign nationals are
awaiting visitor permits, which the military rarely issues.

14) Tensions Rise Between Palestinian Factions
Dina Kraft, New York Times, October 23, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/23/world/middleeast/23mideast.html
Tensions between rival Fatah and Hamas loyalists continued to smolder
Sunday in the form of a deadly shooting, a kidnapping and tire-burning
protests as an informal cease-fire quickly disintegrated. In
Jerusalem, some Israeli cabinet members, citing concerns about weapons
smuggling, called for retaking control of Gaza's southern border with
Egypt. The government is expected to meet midweek to discuss the
possibility of expanding the military campaign in Gaza.

In Gaza City, stalls that would normally be crowded with shoppers
buying sweets for Id al-Fitr, the holiday that marks the end of
Ramadan, were shuttered. Outside, thick smoke rose in the air from
tires set ablaze by Palestinian policemen aligned with the Fatah
faction in protest of going unpaid by the Hamas-led government, which
has been denied aid from the West and tax revenue and customs duties
collected by Israel.

A meeting on Friday between Hamas and Fatah officials led to an
agreement to stop the violence between the sides. On Sunday, Mohammed
Shahadeh, 27, who is a member of a Fatah-aligned militant group, was
found shot to death in the Bureij refugee camp, and another Fatah
member was kidnapped in the Jabaliya refugee camp. Hamas denied any
role in either episode.

Panama
15) Panamanians Vote Overwhelmingly to Expand Canal
Marc Lacey, New York Times, October 23, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/23/world/americas/23panama.html
Panamanians Sunday overwhelmingly endorsed a plan to modernize the
country's aging canal, won over by government arguments that the $5.25
billion project would generate jobs and keep the canal relevant for
future generations.

The overhaul will double the canal's capacity by adding a third set of
locks that are 40 percent longer and 60 percent wider than the current
ones. Constructed by the US in 1914, the canal these days is congested
and too small to handle the world's largest container vessels and
tankers. Opposition to the project was vigorous as skeptics questioned
the government's cost estimates and raised fears that corruption would
doom the project.

But the government's campaign for the expansion was even more intense.
Officials portrayed a "sí" vote as a vote for the children of Panama.
Without an expanded canal, officials predicted, shipping traffic would
find other routes and Panama's growing economy would dry up. The canal
employs 8,000 Panamanians and is a source of national pride, as well
as foreign currency. But even as skyscrapers go up at a furious pace
in downtown Panama City, 40 percent of the country's three million
residents live in poverty.

All the same, preliminary results gave the expansion plan just shy of
80 percent support. A referendum is required for major changes to the
canal, a provision of the law meant to give the people ownership of a
resource that had long been in the hands of foreigners. Still, most
voters stayed away from the polls Sunday, with turnout estimated at
about 40 percent.

The approval is a victory for the Torrijos administration, which
staked its reputation on the project. The current president's father,
Gen. Omar Torrijos, negotiated in the 1970's for the US to hand over
the canal to the Panamanians. The canal changed hands in 1999. The
government backed off an earlier overhaul plan that would have
displaced thousands of Panamanians. No residents will be displaced
under the current proposal, officials said.

Bolivia, Ecuador, Trade Preferences
16) Scrambling to Save Trade Perks
The economies of four Latin American countries could wilt if U.S.
preferences aren't extended beyond the end of the year.
Chris Kraul, Los Angeles Times, October 21, 2006
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-andean21oct21,1,662204.story
The Bush administration has a prescription for fighting coca growing,
sidelining Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and saving thousands of
jobs in Latin America: extending free trade for Andean nations.

A senior Bush administration official said this week that the White
House would push Congress to pass a bill continuing trade benefits for
Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia under a little-known law. It wants
the bill passed during the "lame-duck session" after the November
elections and before the new Congress is sworn in in January - while
free-trade-friendly Republicans are still in control.

The administration has acknowledged that an extension of trade
preferences would improve frayed diplomatic relations in Latin America
while countering Chavez's influence, analysts said. The White House
has mounted an 11th-hour campaign to preserve the trade perks, which
have generated thousands of jobs, given birth to entire export
industries and provided alternatives to drug trafficking. The benefits
are set to expire Dec. 31.

The Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act was initiated in
1991 by then-President George H.W. Bush. U.S.-Colombia trade alone has
tripled to $15 billion since 1990, thanks partly to the boom in the
flower, apparel, liquor and fresh-produce industries.

Industries such as pouched tuna in Ecuador and asparagus in Peru have
sprung up to take advantage of special rules that allow products to
enter the U.S. market duty-free. Colombian flower exports have grown
10% annually since 2002 to $758 million in 2005. Flower-related jobs
now total 190,000, according to the nation's largest flower growers
association.

Expiration of the trade preferences could deliver a death blow to
industries that overnight will lose exemptions on duties of 6% to 20%.
That margin is crucial to flower growers here and in Ecuador, which
face rising competition from countries including China.

This month, Miami-based Dole Fresh Flowers, a major exporter of roses
and other flowers to the U.S., announced that it was cutting 3,500
jobs at greenhouses in Colombia and Ecuador, partly because of the
uncertainty surrounding free trade.

For a variety of reasons, none of the four countries will have
individual free-trade agreements in place by year's end. Peru and
Colombia are the furthest along, as both have completed free-trade
negotiations with the U.S. By December, both will have signed formal
agreements that could take months, perhaps a year, to take effect.

Negotiations on a free-trade agreement for Ecuador have stalled for
political reasons, and a prospective effective date is even farther
out. Bolivia is not ready for a formal free-trade agreement but wants
an extension of the one-way preferences.

In Ecuador, a presidential runoff election set for Nov. 26 will pit
pro-free-trade candidate Alvaro Noboa against Chavez friend and
free-trade opponent Rafael Correa.

The White House said it would push Congress for an extension of trade
preferences for all four countries even though relations with Ecuador
and Bolivia have been strained. In May, Ecuador's state oil company
seized an oil field operated by Westwood-based Occidental Petroleum
Corp. A month later, U.S. embassy officials there said chances of a
new free-trade deal were slim in light of the seizure. But this week,
the senior administration official said the U.S. now believed it was
best to "engage" both Ecuador and Bolivia with trade preferences. "We
would support an extension for all four countries for a year or two
perhaps," he said.

For Ecuador, the extension might hinge on whether its president,
whoever he is, agrees to abide by impending international arbitration
of the oil field seizure, which could end in a judgment requiring
Ecuador to reimburse Occidental hundreds of millions of dollars.

Bruce Bagley, a political science professor at the University of
Miami, said the new U.S. posture was a clear effort to send a message
to Ecuadorean voters to support candidate Noboa, because Correa has
said during the campaign that he will not take part in the Occidental
arbitration process. "The U.S. government is showing political acumen
for once in trying to tip the balance away from Correa, the pro-
Chavez candidate, and toward Noboa, whom they see as an entrepreneur,
free trader and capitalist," Bagley said.

--------
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org

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