From the New York Times

Audit Finds U.S. Hid Cost of Iraq Projects

By JAMES GLANZ
Published: July 30, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 29 — The State Department agency in charge of $1.4 billion in reconstruction money in Iraq used an [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/30/world/middleeast/30reconstruct.html?hp&ex=1154232000&en=8b11e105dbfa0141&ei=5094&partner=homepage|accounting shell game] to hide ballooning cost overruns on its projects there and knowingly withheld information on schedule delays from Congress, a federal audit released late Friday has found.

The agency hid construction overruns by listing them as overhead or administrative costs, according to the audit, written by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, an independent office that reports to Congress, the Pentagon and the State Department.

Called the United States Agency for International Development, or A.I.D., the agency administers foreign aid projects around the world. It has been working in Iraq on reconstruction since shortly after the 2003 invasion.

The report by the inspector general’s office does not give a full accounting of all projects financed by the agency’s $1.4 billion budget, but cites several examples.

The findings appeared in an audit of a children’s hospital in Basra, but they referred to the wider reconstruction activities of the development agency in Iraq. American and Iraqi officials reported this week that the State Department planned to drop Bechtel, its contractor on that project, as signs of budget and scheduling problems began to surface.

From the New York Times

Rice Returns to Israel to Press for Cease-Fire

By STEVEN ERLANGER and HELENE COOPER
Published: July 30, 2006
JERUSALEM, July 29 — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice returned to Israel on Saturday evening to press for a substantive agreement that could lead to a more rapid cease-fire and the insertion of an international force along the Lebanese border with Israel.

Ms. Rice, on her way back from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, praised the Lebanese government, which includes two Hezbollah ministers, for agreeing on the outlines of a possible cease-fire package.

As she spoke of “fairly intense” negotiations to come with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel, there was a sense here that President Bush, after his meeting in Washington with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, had [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/30/world/middleeast/30mideast.html?hp&ex=1154232000&en=98a3f89b79ca464c&ei=5094&partner=homepage|suddenly decided] to give Israel a shorter period in which to hammer Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon.

From the Guardian

Cabinet in open revolt over Blair's Israel policy

Gaby Hinsliff in San Francisco, Ned Temko in London and Peter Beaumont in Beirut
Sunday July 30, 2006
The Observer

Tony Blair was facing a full-scale cabinet rebellion last night over the Middle East crisis after his former Foreign Secretary warned that Israel's actions risked destabilising all of Lebanon.
Jack Straw, now Leader of the Commons, said in a statement released after meeting Muslim residents of his Blackburn constituency that while he grieved for the innocent Israelis killed, he also mourned the '10 times as many innocent Lebanese men, women and children killed by Israeli fire'.
He said he agreed with the Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells that it was 'very difficult to understand the kind of military tactics used by Israel', adding: 'These are not surgical strikes but have instead caused death and misery amongst innocent civilians.' Straw said he was worried that 'a continuation of such tactics by Israel could destabilise the already fragile [http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1833538,00.html|Lebanese nation'].

from the Washington Post
What Next, Lebanon?
Consternation Grips Nation as It Again Looks Up From War's Ruins
By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, July 30, 2006
MUKHTARA, Lebanon, July 29 -- From his hilltop citadel, Walid Jumblatt was a worried man Saturday. In Lebanon's Byzantine, ever-shifting politics, the leader of the country's Druze community has emerged as one of Hezbollah's harshest critics. But a savvy veteran, he understood the arithmetic of the Middle East these days: In war, survival often means victory. And after 18 days of the conflict with Israel, he was bracing for what Hezbollah's survival would mean for a country seized with volatile uncertainty.

Lebanon's [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/29/AR2006072901107.html|survival], he said, was now in the hands of Hezbollah and its leader, Hasan Nasrallah.

"We have to acknowledge that they have defeated the Israelis. It's not a question of gaining one more village or losing one more village. They have defeated the Israelis," he said. "But the question now is to whom Nasrallah will offer this victory."

In contrast to the first days of the war, with ambitious U.S. and Israeli vows to dismantle the Lebanese group's militia, hardly anyone now expects Hezbollah to fade from a scene in which it has long played an intrinsic part, drawing support from a Shiite Muslim community that feels even more besieged today

from Al Jazeera
Lebanon demands return of Shebaa Farms
By Cilina Nasser in Beirut
Sunday 30 July 2006, 5:48 Makka Time, 2:48 GMT
Israel, which has bombarded Beirut's suburbs and southern Lebanon with aircraft and artillery since July 12, has said it wants to weaken Hezbollah so that the Lebanese government can disarm the group.

In an interview with Aljazeera.net late on Friday, Siniora said his government cannot force Hezbollah to disarm as long as Israel continues to occupy the [http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/B99073EF-D5EA-4F81-BCFC-6755FF28BF92.htm|Shebaa Farms].

He said: "I'd like to remind you that the Shebaa Farms is not a property of Hezbollah. It's a property of Lebanon and it's for all the Lebanese.

"So anyone who would say that giving this land back to Lebanon would be considered a victory for Hezbollah is mistaken. This issue has to be looked at in totality. Lebanon gets back its land and, ultimately, Israel gets a safe border."

Israel withdrew from the country in May 2000 but it maintained control over the Shebaa Farms that is claimed by Lebanon.

 

July 29, 2006

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Anti-U.S. leaders Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad met in Tehran on Saturday, pledging to stick together in their frequent clashes with the United States.

Chavez' two-day visit came as Iran faces renewed international criticism for its nuclear program and for backing Hezbollah guerrillas, engaged in fighting with Israel since they captured two Israeli soldiers July 12.

The five permanent members of the UN Security Council on Friday reached a deal on a resolution that would give Iran until the end of August to suspend uranium enrichment or face the threat of economic and diplomatic sanctions.

In Tehran, Chavez pledged that his country would "stay by Iran at any time and under any condition."

Ahmedinejad said he saw in the Venezuelan president a kindred spirit. "I feel I have met a brother and trench mate after meeting Chavez," Ahmedinejad was quoted as saying by state-run Iranian television.

Chavez said admired the Iranian president for "his wisdom and strength."

He invited Iranian oil companies to invest in Venezuela. Venezuelan state TV also reported that the countries are considering having Iran participate in a natural gas project off the Venezuelan coastline.

"We are with you and with Iran forever. As long as we remain united we will be able to defeat (U.S.) imperialism, but if we are divided they will push us aside," Chavez said.

The Venezuelan leader has been on a trip that included a visit to Belarus where he met with authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, who is dubbed Europe's last dictator by Washington and shares Chavez's strong anti-U.S. views.

Earlier this week he secured an arms agreement with Russia that prompted U.S. criticism.

Chavez boasted in Moscow on Thursday that Russia had helped his country break a U.S.-imposed "blockade" by agreeing to sell fighter planes and helicopters worth billions of dollars to Venezuela.

Chavez is also hoping to set up Kalashnikov weapons plants and ammunition plants in Venezuela under Russian license.

During his visit to Qatar, which began Friday, Chavez said Venezuela could eventually export guns and ammunition to Bolivia and other allies once these plants were built.

Bilateral trade last year between Iran and Venezuela was valued at approximately $1 billion US. Iranian investment in Venezuela includes a production line for tractors and several housing projects.

During his visit, Chavez was to inaugurate the new Venezuelan embassy in Tehran and meet Iranian business leaders. He was also to tour Iran-Khodro, Iran's giant public sector automobile manufacturer. The leaders and top officials were expected to sign memorandums of understanding in various fields.

Iranian state television reported that Chavez was also to meet Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

 

Anti-U.S. leaders Chavez, Ahmedinejad pledge mutual support

 

 Flea: We will be seeing many more of these folks joining forces, me thinks. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

You just need to be a flea against injustice. Enough committed fleas biting strategically can make even the biggest dog uncomfortable and transform even the biggest nation. ~~ Marian Wright Edelman

From the ABC

Scores killed in Israeli air strike
An Israeli air strike in the south of Lebanon has killed at least 51 Lebanese civilians, including 22 children, in the village of Qana.

The attack is the bloodiest single attack during Israel's 19-day-old war on Hezbollah.

Several houses collapsed and a three-storey building, where about 100 civilians were sheltering, was destroyed, witnesses and rescue workers said.

Israel's military said it had warned residents of Qana to leave and said Hezbollah bore responsibility for using it to fire rockets at the Jewish state.

"Hezbollah used the village of Qana as a base to launch rockets and it bears responsibility that this area is a combat zone," army spokesman Jacob Dalal told AFP.

Distraught people in Qana screamed in grief and anger amid the rubble of wrecked buildings.

People scrabbled at slabs of concrete with their bare hands to try to reach those still buried in the debris.

The bodies they pulled out included those of a baby and a 70-year-old man.

Ibrahim Shalloub, speechless with distress, was desperately looking for his sister, still buried under the rubble.

Qana is already a potent symbol of Lebanese civilian deaths at the hands of Israel's military.

Israel has rejected responsibility for civilian deaths saying Hezbollah bore the blame because it used the village as a rocket-launching site.

From Al Jazeera

UN stormed amid fury over Qana bombing

Sunday 30 July 2006, 13:35 Makka Time, 10:35 GMT

Thousands of Lebanese protesters have stormed the UN building in Beirut in fury after at least 20 children and dozens of other civilians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the Lebanese town of Qana.

Hundreds of demonstrators are running through corridors in the building smashing offices as they vent their anger of the deaths.

Smoke has been seen rising from parts of the building as UN security troops struggled to contain crowds.

The anger erupted after an Israeli bombing raid killed 21 children and dozens of adults as they slept in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Lebanese media reported that dozens of people remain trapped inside the three-storey building which was sheltering several families, some of whom had fled the Israeli bombardment of the Lebanese coastal town of Tyre.

Yasir Abu Hilala, Aljazeera's correspondent in Qana, said aid workers had only managed to pull out three people alive.

Efforts to get the wounded to hospital have been hampered as all roads around Qana have been destroyed by Israeli air strikes, he said.

The Israeli army has rejected responsibility for the deaths, saying that Hezbollah bore the blame because it used the village as a site for launching rockets.

However Hasan Fadlallah, a Hezbollah MP, told Aljazeera that Israel had committed "a new massacre".

"This massacre will enhance the Lebanese people's determination to endure Israeli aggression and will increase the [Hezbollah] resistance's determination to confront this enemy," he said.

"Israel is mistaken and deceived if it believes it can break the will of the Lebanese people in this way."

from the ABC

Rice urges truce after war's bloodiest attack
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has cancelled her visit to Beirut, with her diplomatic mission in jeopardy after Israel killed at least 51 civilians when it bombed a Lebanese village.

Dr Rice says she has work to do in Israel to achieve a truce, after returning to the Middle East yesterday in new push to bring Israel and Hezbollah together.

She says she is "deeply saddened" by the Israeli bombing of Qana in southern Lebanon, killing at least 51 civilians, including 23 children.

The bombing is the bloodiest single attack during Israel's 19-day-old war on Hezbollah.