Just Foreign Policy News November 1, 2006 No War with Iran: Petition More than 3300 people have signed the Just Foreign Policy/Peace Action petition through Just Foreign Policy's website. Please sign/circulate if you have yet to do so: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/involved/iranpetition.html
Get Local: the Just Foreign Policy NorthEast Tour If there's an event in your area, try to come. If not, pass the info to folks you know who live near upcoming events; we'll try to drop by your neighborhood soon. http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/tour/index.html Just Foreign Policy News daily podcast: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/podcasts/podcast_howto.html 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.
