GAZA CITY, Occupied Palestine, Aug. 3--The Palestinian movement Islamic Jihad said Wednesday it had ordered its activists to stop firing rockets at Israeli targets in the lead-up to the pullout from the Gaza Strip.
In a statement received by AFP, the movement’s armed wing said it wanted the pullout starting in two weeks to take place in a peaceful manner.
“The leadership of the Al-Quds Brigades issued orders three days ago to all groups to stop firing rockets in order to preserve the national Palestinian project at this critical and historic juncture,“ said the statement.
Jihad wanted to “give a chance for the withdrawal to place in a peaceful manner.“
Jihad signed up to a truce agreement earlier this year but it has since been behind a number of deadly attacks, including a suicide bombing in the Israeli town of Netanya last month.
The movement also denied in the statement that its followers fired a rocket on Tuesday night which killed a six-year-old Palestinian boy when it landed on a house in Beit Hanun in the northern Gaza Strip.
“The Al-Quds Brigades categorically denies any responsibility for this tragic accident and any attempt to implicate us,“ said the statement.
Israel has threatened to launch a vast offensive in Gaza if rocket attacks are carried out during the pullout of troops and settlers which is due to begin in a fortnight.

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 3--Hundreds of millions of dollars have been wasted on unnecessary and overpriced equipment for Iraq’s new army at a time when the United States and its allies are struggling to get the force in shape to battle insurgents, AP quoted Iraqi officials as saying.
Iraqi authorities have opened inquiries into several cases of possible corruption at the Defense Ministry. The ministry official believed behind most of the questionable deals was removed from his job in June and banned from leaving the country.
“Corruption is widespread at the ministry. One of the cases alone is worth $226 million. The investigation is still going on,“ said legislator Kamal Al-Saaidi, a member of the independent Supreme Anti-corruption Commission.
Most of the alleged unnecessary purchases were made during the term of interim Prime Minster Ayad Allawi, who took office after occupation authorities turned over sovereignty to Iraqis on June 28, 2004.
When new Defense Minister Saadoun Al-Dulaimi took office in May, an investigation was opened into several alleged cases of corruption.
Former National Security Adviser Qassim Dawoud refused to speak about corruption at the ministry, citing the ongoing investigation.
Iraqi investigators are probing several weapons and equipment deals engineered by the dismissed official, former procurement officer Ziad Cattan, and other defense officials.
One case involves Polish weapons maker Bumar, which signed a $236 million contract in December to equip the Iraqi army with helicopters, ambulances, pistols, machine guns and water storage tanks. Added to other deals signed last year, Bumar’s contracts with the Iraqi army totaled nearly $300 million.
Iraqi officials said that when Iraqi experts traveled to Europe to check on their purchase of the transport choppers, they discovered the aircraft, which cost tens of millions of dollars, were 28 years old and outdated. They refused to take them and returned home empty-handed.
A Defense Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media, said the helicopter deal was “canceled after the ministry discovered that the helicopters are not needed at the moment.“
In Warsaw, however, a spokeswoman for Bumar denied her company ever provided Iraq with poor-quality helicopters and said that although they were several years old and used, this was at the request of the Iraqi Defense Ministry.
Iraqi authorities wanted them at “half the price and wanted to get them quickly,“ spokeswoman Roma Sarzynska told The Associated Press.
It would have taken the company longer to provide new helicopters, she said.
“The Iraqis paid us the full amount of money for the machines, they are in good condition, standing ready to be picked up, but no one seems to want to come to claim them,“ Sarzynska said. “In the deal signed with the Iraqis, it was specified that the helicopters were to be built between 1978 and 1992, so the age element of the helicopters was well known in advance.“
She said the helicopters were renovated, but when the Iraqi delegation arrived “they unfortunately could not take them back with them to Iraq because they said that they themselves did not have the authority to do so.“
Another case involving Cattan was a deal to purchase 7.62 mm bullets, used in machine guns and rifles. Iraqi officials said the bullets should have cost between 4 and 6 cents apiece but the ministry was eventually charged 16 cents per bullet.
Jawad Al-Maliki, who heads parliament’s Security and Defense Committee, said that despite spending huge sums, “we did not see weapons on the ground.“
Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, the American commander in charge of training and equipping the Iraqi military, declined to comment on the corruption claims, saying it was a matter to be resolved by the Iraqi government.
Since US authorities turned over sovereignty last year, Iraqis have obtained weapons three different ways: Procuring them through the auspices of the multinational force command, donations from other countries and purchases by the Defense Ministry.
A US military officer who used to work with the Defense Ministry said equipment that could have been useful was not being purchased, such as new armored vehicles or good ammunition.
The US official spoke on condition of anonymity because it was an internal Iraqi issue. He said there appeared to be little oversight and accountability in the procurement of equipment.
Repeated attempts by The Associated Press to contact Cattan in recent weeks were unsuccessful. However, in a telephone interview in May, he spoke proudly of his efforts to procure equipment.
Cattan said that in only six months, he had signed contracts worth $600 million and that he headed military delegations to 15 countries including Russia, Poland and Germany. He added that he signed contracts to “buy 500 Humvees, 600 armored personnel carriers from Poland as well as transport planes from Russia and Poland.“
Earlier this year, another scandal broke when media reports revealed that Allawi’s defense minister, Hazem Shaalan, transferred $500 million to a bank account in Lebanon to buy weapons. Ahmad Chalabi, the current deputy prime minister, demanded an investigation into that case. Shaalan left Iraq after a new government was formed and remains abroad.
Prime Minister Ibrahim Al-Jaafari recently complained about administrative and financial corruption but also blamed former dictator Saddam Hussein.
“Just as a house that is burned down takes time to rebuild, so it will take us time to clean out the culture that Saddam brought to Iraq,“ he said.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 3--Americans are anxious about the direction of US foreign policy and how the country is perceived overseas and a majority believe the government has been too quick to go to war, Reuters quoted a survey released on Tuesday as saying.
“Contrary to conventional wisdom that the American public doesn’t know and doesn’t care how it is seen abroad, strong majorities“ believe the US image overseas is suffering and “large majorities are worried about it,“ the survey concluded.
Some 63 percent of Americans say the charge that the United States has been too quick to go to war is ustified and three-quarters worry about losing trust abroad and about the growing hatred of the United States in Muslim countries, it said.
“So far, public thinking is a disquieting mix of high anxiety, growing uncertainty about current policy and virtually no consensus about what else the country might do,“ the survey concluded.
The national survey of 1,004 American adults between June 1 and June 13 was conducted by the Public Agenda, a non-profit organization dedicated to public policy research, in conjunction with Foreign Affairs magazine, which is published by the Council on Foreign Relations.
It was funded by the Ford Foundation and is intended to be the first in a series of surveys designed to produce a “foreign policy index“ that measures long-term US thinking on foreign policy.
Dan Yankelovich, Public Agenda’s chairman, declined to describe the results as a reprimand of the Bush administration but said “there is definitely dissatisfaction...a feeling that we’re not on the right track.“
Although much of the concern focused on Iraq and US relations with Muslim countries, the survey found that the problems of illegal immigration and the outsourcing of American jobs overseas also resonated strongly with the public.
These issues have received less attention from political leaders but the survey found that attitudes “are reaching a point where the public’s concerns will be too strong to be ignored.“
Some 64 percent of respondents said the US government should put more emphasis on using diplomatic and economic methods to fight terrorism and 72 percent said that showing more respect for the views and needs of other countries would enhance US security.

Anwar Ibrahim

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Aug. 3--Malaysia’s former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim on Wednesday won an apology and undisclosed damages in a settlement of a civil suit lodged over the beating he suffered after his 1998 arrest, AFP quoted his lawyer as saying.
Anwar had demanded a public apology and compensation from the government, former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, and former police inspector-general Rahim Noor when the suit opened in court Monday.
Anwar’s lawyer Gobind Singh said that under the out-of-court deal, Rahim agreed to make a written apology and damages would also be paid. But the two sides agreed not to disclose which of the parties was paying.
“The only two facts we can make public is that there is payment of an unspecified amount and that Rahim makes a public apology to Anwar and his family,“ he told AFP.
Singh said Anwar was happy with the settlement and was looking forward to moving on from the events which were “a very dark moment in his life“.
“No, he doesn’t get a public apology from Mahathir or the government, but he is of the view that the apology given by Rahim is sincere and very strong so he’s very happy with that,“ he said.
“My client has maintained from the very beginning that this action is not about money but it was more about showing the police force that they cannot do as they please, abuse their position and get away with it.“
Anwar was Mahathir’s deputy and heir-apparent before being sacked on September 2, 1998. He refused to go quietly and on September 20 led a massive anti-government protest that triggered his arrest.
That same evening he was beaten up by Rahim while blindfolded and handcuffed. The image of his black eye, seen as he was led into court later, caused an international furor and gravely embarrassed Mahathir’s government.
Admitting he had lost his temper with Anwar, Rahim assumed full responsibility for the assault and announced his resignation in January the following year. In 2000 he was jailed for two months for the incident.
In court Wednesday he again took the blame, with the apology read out by his lawyer.
Political commentator P. Ramasamy from the National University of Malaysia said the settlement was disappointing and did not vindicate Anwar as much as a public apology and damages ordered by the court would have done.

(R to L) Mayor Akiba of Hiroshima, and Mayor Itoh of Nagasaki march along with survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and thousands of demonstrators who took part in a rally in New York, May 1. (Reuters File Photo)

SAIPAN,
Northern Mariana Islands, Aug 3--Atomic bomb survivors from the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki visiting the staging ground for the attacks have called on world leaders to stop developing nuclear weapons and ensure nuclear warfare is never repeated, AFP reported.
Keijiro Matsushima and Fumiaki Kajiya of Hiroshima and Kiyoshi Nishida of Nagasaki are visiting the US-administered Northern Marianas Islands for the 60th anniversary of the bombing of the two Japanese cities in early August 1945.
The central Pacific island of Tinian in the Northern Marianas was the staging post for the atomic attacks on Japan. Ceremonies will be held there on August 6, the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing.
The Japanese survivors said they were worried about nuclear proliferation in countries such as North Korea, India, Pakistan and Iran.
“We feel very, very sad about the situation,“ said 76-year-old Matsushima.
“We want people all over the world to learn what happened to Hiroshima and Nagasaki--the reality of the nuclear weapons.
“We want people to think of the future. Hiroshima and Nagasaki must never be repeated again. That’s our desire.“
The three “Hibakusha“--literally “bomb-affected people“--said they do not feel any hatred towards Americans.
As survivors, the three said they have to live each day with the tragic memories of their own people slowly dying from radiation in their ruined cities. More than 210,000 people were killed by the two bombings.
But Matsushima said the survivors had long moved on. He said he himself eventually learned the language of the Americans and has taught it to thousands of Japanese students.
“Just after the bombings, of course, we had very fierce hatred toward the American people. But after the war, we could understand the stream of history. We learned many things. These days, we don’t hate Americans. We don’t blame people any more,“ he said.

DUBAI, UAE, Aug. 3--The London-based Saudi opposition Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia (MIRA) rejected on Wednesday the new King Abdullah and called for the release of all political prisoners in the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom.
“The movement and its followers do not recognize the allegiance“ to King Abdullah, who was anointed monarch on the death of his half-brother on Monday, Mira president Saad Al-Faqih told AFP.
“The regime has no religious legitimacy.“
“The movement is determined to pursue its fight through peaceful means,“ said Faqih who called on the group’s followers to “express their rejection of the pledge of allegiance during weekly Friday prayers.“
Faqih also called on King Abdullah to “free political detainees and allow freedom of expression and gathering as well as the independence of the judiciary.“
MIRA, an opposition group inspired by the same Wahhabist strict doctrine of Islam that reigns the kingdom, has criticized the Saudi regime for “corruption and anti-democratic methods.“