Det danske Fredsakademi

Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 21. november 2004 / Timeline November 21, 2004

20. November 2004, 22. November 2004

11/21/2004
Alert! Falluja women, children in mass grave
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/24EBE5BB-CA3F-462B-8279-546BC1D9B7E6.htm
Residents of a village neighbouring Falluja have told Aljazeera that they helped bury the bodies of 73 women and children who were burnt to death by a US bombing attack.
"We buried them here, but we could not identify them because they were charred by the use of napalm bombs used by the Americans," said one resident of Saqlawiya in footage aired on Aljazeera on Sunday.
There have been no reports of the US military using napalm in Falluja and no independent verification of the claims.
The resident told Aljazeera all the bodies were buried in a single grave.

11/21/2004
At $615 million, expenditures lag behind 1980s
By JAMIE FREED
www.newspress.com
WASHINGTON -- Defense spending in Santa Barbara County jumped 28 percent last year to $615 million -- despite worries about a long-term decline in Pentagon money coming to California.
Some of the county's military contracts are for landscaping, maintenance and food service at Vandenberg Air Force Base, but the vast majority of the dollars come from the Air Force and go toward high-tech aerospace projects at Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Mission Research, according to federal spending databases.
However, the future of defense spending and of the jobs that the federal money generates for the county and state is not clear. High labor costs and a strict regulatory environment are already pushing military contracts to other states.
The federal defense money flowing into the county is nowhere near the $950 million high point hit in 1985.
"What we have in California is really just a remnant of what we had," said Bill Watkins, executive director of the UCSB economic forecast. At the height of the Reagan administration's defense spending in 1985, California received $29.1 billion in military contracts, but by 1999, that had fallen to $17.4 billion -- a 64 percent drop when adjusted for inflation. Santa Barbara County defense spending hit a low of $406 million in 1998, before rebounding during the last few years.
Mr. Watkins said one reason military spending in the state fell is that companies can put in lower bids for contracts if the work is done in states where it is cheaper to do business. But at some point, he and other experts said, spending in California will level off.
A disproportional number of California bases were shut down during four rounds of military base closings in the 1990s, hitting the state's defense industry hard. Another round of base closings is expected next year, and California officials are trying to ensure that the state's bases stay off the target list.
Earlier this month, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger established the Council on Base Support and Retention, chaired by Leon Panetta, President Clinton's chief of staff.
The council also includes former Rep. Andrea Seastrand, R-San Luis Obispo, who heads the California Space Authority, which lobbies to promote the state's aerospace industry.
Several congressional aides said California has an advantage going into the next round of closings since much of its redundant military capacity disappeared after bases such as Monterey's Fort Ord were shut in the 1990s.

11/21/2004
Britain joins EU army
The Sunday Times - Britain
November 21, 2004
BRITAIN is to commit more than 2,000 troops to a new 18,000-strong European Union army that will be deployed as a peacekeeper to the world's trouble spots, write Adam Nathan and Nicola Smith.
Despite concerns within the military about overstretch, ministers will announce this week that at least one battle group will be ready by January. They will also say the force will expand by 2007 to comprise a multinational force of up to 12 elite rapid-reaction battle groups — each with 1,500 soldiers. At least two of these groups will be ready to deploy at 15 days' notice to humanitarian or peacekeeping emergencies, primarily in Africa.

11/22/2004
Protester mod the Western Hemispheric Institute for Security and Cooperation, USA.

11/22/2004
Iraqi Children Pay Silent Cost of Occupation: Report
The study says Iraq’s malnutrition rate is far higher than in Uganda and Haiti
CAIRO, November 21 (IslamOnline.net) – Iraqi children are paying the silent cost of the US-led occupation with malnutrition rates exceeding by far those in the world’s poorest and disease-plagued countries, a leading US newspaper reported on Sunday, November 21.
Acute malnutrition among Iraqi children has nearly doubled since the US invaded the country 20 months ago, The Washington Post reported, citing a study by Iraq's health ministry in tandem with Norway's Institute for Applied International Studies and the UN Development Program (UNDP).
“After the rate of acute malnutrition among children younger than 5 steadily declined to 4 percent two years ago, it shot up to 7.7 percent this year,” concluded the study.
“Iraq's child malnutrition rate now roughly equals that of Burundi, a central African nation torn by more than a decade of war. It is far higher than rates in Uganda and Haiti.”
The study further put at some 400,000 the number of Iraqi children suffering from “wasting”, a condition characterized by chronic diarrhea and dangerous deficiencies of protein.
The United Nations children's fund (UNICEF) had warned that the number of children who suffer from diarrhea, Iraq's number one killer of infants, has more than doubled under occupation.
Iraqi doctors attributed the increase in malnutrition to dirty water, unreliable supplies of the electricity needed to make it safe by boiling and a crippled economy.
The study said 60 percent of rural residents and 20 percent of urban dwellers have access only to contaminated water.

11/21/2004

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