Muslim clerics object as Western Christian groups hand out food and Bibles, reports Jason Burke in Banda Aceh Sunday January 16, 2005 The Observer Dozens of religious groups have moved in to Aceh, looking to help tsunami victims – and convert them and others, creating tensions in the disaster area. The arrival of Western Christian groups with records of aggressive preaching risks confrontation with local Muslim leaders which could jeopardise the provision of aid to the 600,000 local people made homeless by the disaster. The death toll in Aceh stands at around 110,000 and is expected to rise. Reacting...

Family members left behind by those who have died violent deaths amidst the occupation of Iraq, whether they are Iraqi or American, have every reason to be bitter. After all, each death is due to an illegal occupation as the result of an illegal invasion of a sovereign country (although the United States government disputes this view). With over 1,340 dead US soldiers and an estimated 100,000 dead Iraqi civilians as a result of the war and occupation, there are many families left behind engulfed in grief. In a recent delegation to Amman, Jordan, US family members who lost loved ones in the conflict...

Shocking images of British soldiers allegedly abusing Iraqi prisoners will be revealed in a courtroom in Germany. Three soldiers, from the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, are facing a court martial in Osnabruck, over the ill-treatment of the civilian prisoners. Corporal Daniel Kenyon, 33, and Lance Corporals Mark Cooley, 25, and Darren Larkin, 30, are accused of abusing the men at a humanitarian aid camp near Basra in May, 2003. Lance Corporal Larkin, from Oldham, in Greater Manchester, and Lance Corporal Cooley and Corporal Kenyon served in Iraq during the invasion. They will be tried in front of...

As prison ringleader awaits sentence, defence contractors win multi-million Pentagon contracts Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor Sunday January 16, 2005 The Observer Two US defence contractors being sued over allegations of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison have been awarded valuable new contracts by the Pentagon, despite demands that they should be barred from any new government work. Three employees of CACI International and Titan – working at Abu Ghraib as civilian contractors – were separately accused of abusive behaviour. The report on the Abu Ghraib scandal implicated three civilian...

WASHINGTON � The jail term meted out to Army Spc. Charles A. Graner Jr. for abuses at Abu Ghraib prison may prove to be the stiffest criminal punishment that emerges from the entire scandal, according to experts on military justice. To some, the low-level Army reservist may look like the fall guy in a debacle that embarrassed the United States throughout the world and tainted the image of American forces in Iraq. Yet analysts said that for now, at least, it was doubtful that higher-level officials would be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of criminal wrongdoing at the Iraqi...

The morgues at the hospitals of Baghdad are filling to capacity. At Yarmouk Hospital in central Baghdad, the three freezers reek of decaying bodies, despite the temperature. The smell rushes out at us as the doors are opened. I’ve smelled the burning bodies on the funeral pires in Nepal but this is different. This smell how do I describe it? But it never leaves me, long after we leave the hospital later. Dahr Jamail’s Iraq Dispatches [article cont] If you want to see how it’s really like…

The outgoing head of the US Department of Homeland Security has said torture may be used in certain cases in order to prevent a major loss of life. 01/15/05 “BBC” — Speaking to the BBC, Tom Ridge said the US did not condone the use of torture to extract information from terrorists. But he said that under an “extreme set” of hypothetical circumstances, such as a nuclear threat, “it could happen”. A spokesman for Mr Ridge said his comments were taken out of context and did not amount to approval of torture.` Mr Ridge’s remarks come a day after the US...

Florida’s office of the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-FL) today expressed deep disappointment over the government’s failure to charge as a “terrorist” a man who was actively plotting to bomb 50 Islamic centers and Muslim schools in that state. Robert Goldstein, 38, pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiracy to violate civil rights, attempting to damage religious property and a weapons possession charge. He faces a maximum of 15 years in prison. Goldstein was arrested last August when authorities found a large arsenal in his town house. That arsenal...