Caught between the Taliban and the Pakistan Army, Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from Fata are making do in camps established by the NWFP government. Even here, their fate is uncertain, as the government remains vague about how long it will continue to support the IDPs.Over 400,000 people have fled Fata in recent months. According to Jamil Amjad, director general of the NWFP Disaster Management Authority and former provincial relief commissioner, over 52,000 people are being accommodated in 11 camps. These are located in Peshawar, Noshera, Lower Dir, and Charsadda, while another “spontaneous camp” in Malakand is housing 5,000 families.

Katcha Garhi itself currently houses 1,800 families from Bajaur Agency and another 800 families from Mohmand Agency. According to Sadeeq Ahmad Khan, district administrator for the camp, Katcha Garhi was initially meant to serve the IDPs until Dec 31, 2008. With financial support from UNHCR, that deadline has now been extended. Support and services are also available from Red Crescent, Edhi Foundation, and the Benazir Income Support Programme.

According to Mr Amjad, the 11 IDP camps are expected to stay functional for another nine months, until September 2009. “We will host the IDPs through the winter since they have no chance of returning in the harsh climate, especially since their homes have been destroyed,” he says. However, no formal plans for camp closure or repatriation have been finalised. Read more…

compiled by Jason Ditz

The French Foreign Ministry summoned Israeli ambassador Daniel Shek today over an incident in which a convoy of French diplomats, including the nation’s consul general were blocked from crossing the Gaza border for over six hours and shot at by Israeli troops….Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Yossi Levy said the incident was not directed at the French consul general in particular, and that all the border crossings were closed because of yesterday’s bombing incident. No explanation was provided for why troops felt the need to fire multiple “warning shots” at a diplomatic convoy. Read more…

compiled by Jason Ditz  Read here…

by Joshua Holland

One of the great legacies of the Bush era is that his administration’s routine politicization of national security stripped any lingering credibility that might have adhered to our intelligence agencies’ habitually leaked reports and unsourced statements. Read more…

by Cindy Sheehan

….What is so audacious about “hope” is that it disarms our intellect and our energy for true change. Our willingness to confront The Empire® at every turn thaws into only opposing what the new Emperor decrees are “dumb wars.”

This is the Audacity of Empire and this is what we must still resist. Read more…

Oh well. They are probably “needed” in Afghanistan anyway. Or else the decision will be ignored by the US…again. Anyway, they are not the only private security company in operation there.

Read article…

By Larry Pinkney
“BlackCommentator” — January 22, 2009 — The so-called democracy of the powerful U.S. elite continues to live up to its legacy of hypocrisy and deceit.

Now that the spectacle of the Barack Obama coronation as the “American” Empire’s first African-American emperor has run its course, and many, many millions of dollars have been spent on self-adulation by the power elite of this nation, the huddled masses will necessarily be compelled to return to a system of no universal, single-payer health care, increasing joblessness, insatiable corporate / military greed, homelessness, de facto racial disparity & discord, police brutality, a burgeoning U.S. prison population, and endless U.S. wars abroad. For yet again, this nation will have done what it all too often does: perverted its promise, including the dream of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., into a hypocritical nightmare of gigantic and historic proportions. Read more »

Tehran continues to express reservations about the British-Saudi scheme of putting the “new Taliban” in power in Kabul.

To see the reality of New Taliban, see this video and see how this gambling, drinking, murderous crowd is funded, supported and presented as new Taliban. Also see: The Myth of “Modernized” Taliban Read more »

The alleged victim said she remembers being in Warren’s bed and asking him to stop, but that “Warren made a statement to the effect of ‘nobody stays in my expensive sheets with clothes on.’” She told investigators “as she slipped in and out of consciousness she had conscious images of Warren penetrating her vagina repeatedly with his penis.” more…..

Also see: Videos of Warren “engaged in sexual acts” were also discovered.

It is not shocking to hear this happening at the hands of a CIA operative. What is shocking is only one of such abuse stories hit the news once in a while, while the agnecy enjoys every kind of crime one can think of from drugg running to assassinations, rapes and toruture. Zardari’s videos are also in those hands otherwise he would not have risked his presidency for not restoring the Supreme court judges removed by Musharraf.