John Mearsheimer Speaks on Israel Lobby

Apr. 8, 2008 | By Jake Robert Nelson, DSJ Opinions Editor

John Mearsheimer, commonly seen as one of the foremost thinkers in modern international
relations theory, presented on Monday a lecture entitled “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Middle East
Policy" to a packed University Center Commonwealth Auditorium.

In the lecture, which coincided with the recently published and controversial book of the same
name written by Mearsheimer and fellow IR theorist Stephen Walt, Mearsheimer discussed the
considerable influence exerted by the Israel Lobby on American foreign policy.

The Anti-Defamation League, an interest group devoted to the cessation of anti-Semitism, said
in a 2007 press release, “Jew hatred lives on in speeches by Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad [and] in the writings of the professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt.”

Mike Tierney and Sue Peterson, directors of the College’s Institute for the Theory and Practice
of International Relations (TRIP), the group that brought Mearsheimer to campus, introduced the
speaker. Mearsheimer was described as a “public intellectual,” who was not only a theorist but
also a New York Times bestselling author with accessible publications in journals like The
Atlantic Monthly.

http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/

There are good reasons for Tamil separatists to panic. In 1972 they
resolved to create the Tamil Elam nation in the North-East of Sri
Lanka. In 1977 the TULF made it an election manifesto. In 1983 the
LTTE, with the blessings of the TULF, locked horns with the security
forces in a bitter battle. Just four years later, in 1987, Tamil
separatists managed to merge the North with the East amply supported
by India. It took them only 15 years to achieve what nobody thought
possible then. However, things changed drastically. The 1987 political
solution failed to end the war; in fact it made it more ferocious. In
a landmark decision the Supreme Court split the North from the East in
2006. What violence, terror, Indian interference and malice managed to
achieve was reversed. This was a victory of the...

BAGHDAD, 4 May 2008 — A US rocket attack damaged a hospital in the
Iraqi capital’s Sadr City district yesterday, wounding 28 people as
American forces claimed to have killed 14 insurgents in the district.

The US military said it used a rocket in an attack on insurgents in
Sadr City that witnesses earlier reported was an airstrike.

An international agency reporter at the scene said the district’s main
Al-Sadr Hospital was badly damaged and a fleet of ambulances was
destroyed.

Just outside the hospital, a shack, which appeared to have been the
target, was reduced to a pile of rubble.

The military said it destroyed a “criminal element command and control
center” by munitions from a “rocket system” at approximately 10 a.m.
“Intelligence reports indicate the command and control center was used
by criminal elements to plan and coordinate attacks against Iraqi
security and coalition forces and innocent Iraqi citizens,” it said.

Hospital staff said at least 28 people wounded in the strike were
brought inside for treatment at the complex, which had its windows
shattered, and medical and electrical equipment damaged.

http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=32657

Daily Star, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Published On: 2008-04-18 Front Page

National Women Development Policy
Review body opposes equal rights for women
Recommends deletion of 6 provisions, change in 15

The ulema committee formed to review the National Women Development
Policy has strongly opposed equal rights to women, recommending
deletion of six sections of the policy and amending 15 others as they
said these sections "clash" with the provisions of the Quran and
Sunnah.

There are several sections in the policy which are "very
objectionable", said Mufti Mohammad Nuruddin, acting khatib of Baitul
Mukarram National Mosque who headed the review committee.

"A woman cannot enjoy rights equal to a man's because a woman is not
equal to a man by birth. Can there be two prime ministers--one male
and one female--in a country at the same time?" Nuruddin told The
Daily Star after submitting the seven-page report to Law and Religious
Affairs Adviser AF Hassan Ariff yesterday.

The Press Release OSRSG /PRO0804 brought to my notice that you were
visiting the International Criminal Court in The Hague after the
submission of an "amicus curiae" on Thomas Lubanga Dylio, who was
arrested on March 17, 2006 in Kinhasa, for enlisting children under 15
as soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

He, as we know it was a Congolese national leader and alleged founder
and leader of the Union of Patriotes Congolaise (UPC) who was arrested
and transferred to the International Criminal Court as part of
judicial proceedings under the Rome Statute (July 1998) for allegedly
committing war crimes: conscripting and enlisting children under the
age of 15-years and using them to participate actively in hostilities.

Likewise the former President of Liberia, Charles Taylor, was indicted
by the special court of International Criminal Law for recruiting
child soldiers. And so did the United Nations-backed International
Crimes Court in Sierra Leone handed down landmark convictions against
Tamba Brima, Brima Bazzy Kamarea and Santiogie Borbor Kanu for
recruiting and using child soldiers.

I am encouraged by your enthusiasm in bringing these human rights
violators to justice according to International Criminal Law.

http://www.thedailystar.net/law/2008/04/02/index.htm

Daily Star, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Women's rights in jeopardy
Qumrunnessa Nazly

On 8 March 2008, the chief of the present interim government declared
a policy document on women development: Jatio Nari Unnayan Niti 2008.
Even before this policy, we got two more policies on women
development. The first one was adopted in 1997 and the other, in 2004.

The first women development policy was adopted through a comprehensive
participatory approach and was welcomed by all the relevant groups
including women's rights activists of the country as a progressive
policy document. In 2004, the successive government declared a new
policy document, they said, on women development, named Jatio Nari
Unnayan Niti 2004.That policy of 2004 was rejected by women's rights
activists of the country, as the document restricted the space for
women's rights and empowerment, and they continuously demanded for the
replacement of the policy of 1997.

http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=35123

Daily Star, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Monday, May 5, 2008 07:28 AM GMT+06:00 Metropolitan

Diarrhoeal Diseases - Number of patients on rise
Staff Correspondent

The number of the patients undergoing treatment for diarrhoeal
diseases shows sharp rise this week.

Around 1319 people sought treatment at different hospitals across the
country from Saturday morning to yesterday morning, according to the
control room of Directorate General of Health Services.

International Centre for Diarrhoeal Diseases and Research, Bangladesh
(ICDDR,B), the lone specialised hospital for diarrhoeal diseases in
the country, experienced 650 patients yesterday, which was 699 on
Saturday and 656 on Friday.

Since the last few weeks the number of patients with diarrhoea has
been increasing. Currently the average number of patients receiving
treatment every day at the ICDDR,B is 650 to 700. It was 500 to 600
three weeks ago, experts at ICDDR,B said.

http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=31475

Daily Star, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Published On: 2008-04-09

Rising food prices dent Bangladesh’s prospect - Finds World Bank-IMF
report
Staff Correspondent

Rising food prices undermine the country's prospect of meeting the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of development targets to
be achieved by 2015, says World Bank-IMF Global Monitoring Report,
2008.

The other South Asian countries too will have trouble reaching the
MDGs with serious shortfall in areas like child and maternal
mortality, primary education, nutrition, and sanitation, it observes.

Speaking to reporters here through a video-conference from Washington,
lead author of the report Zia Qureshi said, “With a 10 percent rise in
food prices, poverty rates increase by 1 percent. So rising food
prices will have adverse effect on Bangladesh's effort to halve
poverty rates.”

http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=33232

Daily Star, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Published On: 2008-04-22 Front Page

Polls Under Emergency
New US envoy says task to be very difficult

New US Ambassador to Bangladesh James F Moriarty yesterday said the
state of emergency should be lifted as it will be 'extremely
difficult' to hold an election under emergency rules.

At a news conference in the American Club just hours after presenting
his credentials to President Iajuddin Ahmed yesterday morning,
Moriarty said the emergency does not allow political parties to
campaign for elections and hinders other electoral preparations.

"I will tell the government…that the United States believes credible
elections would be extremely difficult under a state of emergency and
it should be lifted," said Moriarty in his first news conference since
arriving on April 10.

He said it will be 'impossible' for political parties to campaign
under the state of emergency.