Again the Russian and South Ossetian Troops near South Ossetia begin to fire upon innocent Turkish TV Reporters. Georgia has mostly Turkish TV Reporters filming the war because they are the closest to Georgia. It is reported that one reporter was shot and blinded.  There are reports of a Journalist from Holland being killed.

There is video of Turkish TV Reporters being shot:

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When the Turks invaded Cyprus, did the United States not engage in an embargo against Turkey, even though it was a peace keeping operation as approved by the treaties and the Turkish Cypriots were suffering slaughter by the Greek fascists that had taken over the island? When Iraq invaded Kuwait, did we not enact embargoes and eventually invade Iraq? When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, did not the whole world frown and show their anger at the United States even though the United States had every right to stop a threat? So what changed? Why is it that the world silently ignores the plight of the Georgians when it is obvious that Russia invaded Georgia as part of a long term plan to assert influence in the region?

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In a move that is reminiscent of Darfur and the Congo the just “reelected” President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, has come up with a new tactic to assert the power he so blatantly stole:

Mugabe thugs raping teens: aid staff

DOZENS of teenage girls have been made pregnant after being taken into the bush and raped in torture camps by President Robert Mugabe’s youth militia operating near Mudzi, a town 160km northeast of Harare, human rights workers allege.

Read the rest on: Freedom’s Cost

We’ll all be happy. Well: “Everyone’s favorite IRNA editor-at-large has taken issue with my UN death knell… I think Cernig’s primary hang-up here is how he views the UN, and what precisely the role of such a global, deliberative body should be.  The problem with his argument is that the UN was not an institution built for growth, but rather, an institution built for results.” Quite right Kevin. The problem with the UN is that the only ‘results’ are pro-Islamist and anti-Israel results. Interesting to see that Kevin’s referred to as a “liberal” with quotation marks. What, liberals are not allowed to be hawks with regards to foreign policy? If they are they’re not liberals but “liberals”?

Taiwan’s March 2008 referendum will evidently take place without much support from the United States.  Per the BBC:

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says Washington is strongly opposed to Taiwan’s plan for a referendum on United Nations membership.

Ms Rice said applying to the UN in the name of “Taiwan” was a “provocative policy” - it raised tensions in the Taiwan Strait “unnecessarily”.

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Good news from Sudan:

After resisting for months, Sudan has agreed to a joint United Nations and African Union force of nearly 20,000 peacekeepers in Darfur, its western province and the site of one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, the African Union said Tuesday.

Of course, there is a ‘but’:

African Union officials hailed the announcement as a breakthrough, but others cautioned that the Sudanese government had made similar pledges only to reverse itself. Sudan has also set conditions for the deployment, including an insistence that a majority of the soldiers be African and that non-Africans be used only as a last resort, which may hamper efforts to raise the force to full strength.

The NYT’s Lydia Polgreen and Warren Hoge are still of the opinion, however, that the agreement offered “the clearest hope yet that an enlarged and strengthened peacekeeping force would be deployed in Darfur, where the conflict pitting the government and its allied militias against rebel groups has driven 2.5 million people from their homes and killed at least 200,000.”

Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador to the UN: “If this is an unconditional acceptance, this would be a positive step that we would welcome, but if it is conditional, as we hear, that there will be only African troops involved and no non-Africans, that is putting a condition on the acceptance, and that would be unacceptable.”

John Prendergast, a Sudan expert who helps lead Enough Project shares Khalilzad’s concerns: “The gulf between the rhetoric of acceptance and the reality of deployment is huge,” he said, adding that haggling over the composition of the force “is putting a condition on the deployment which ensures its failure.”

This is taking far too long as it is. I am starting to believe that the international community should not ask Sudan for permission at all. Just strive to organize a sizeable force and go in. The people of Darfur have to be protected, against militias and, first and foremost, against the central government.

It is the Sudanese government that is responsible for a lot of the violence, and a lot of the deaths. I do not quite see why the international community needs Sudan’s permission to stop Sudan from killing civilians in Darfur.

US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice responded to ElBaradei:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sought today to minimize any sense of division within the Bush administration over Iran after the head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency delivered a pointed new warning against what he called the “new crazies” pushing for military action against Tehran.

“The President of the United States has made it clear that we are on a course that is a diplomatic course,” Ms. Rice said here. “That policy is supported by all of the members of the cabinet, and by the vice president of the United States.”

Absolutely ludicrous that this response, this explanation, is deemed necessary by Rice et al. ElBaradei should not have said what he said, the US should have told him so, and that should have been the end of it. It is not ElBaradei’s job to criticize US foreign policy: it is his job to make sure that countries like Iran do not develop nuclear weapons. Rice should have said that ElBaradei should focus a bit more on doing his job, and a bit less on what America does.

Betsy Pitsik reports for the Washington Times:

The U.N. agency that oversees the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon, the scene of three days of battles between Lebanese troops and Muslim militants, said yesterday it had been aware for months that heavily armed foreigners were moving into the Palestinian enclave but were helpless to stop them.

The extremists of Fatah Islam, who local reports say hail from Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Bangladesh, apparently entered the camp, just north of Tripoli, several months ago. They are thought to have arrived in a group, not individually.

Officials of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) could not say how a large band of foreigners carrying what has been described as mortars, rockets, explosive belts and other heavy weapons were able get past the Lebanese army soldiers stationed outside the camp.

They also could not explain why militias of young Palestinian men who provide security and gather intelligence throughout Nahr el-Bared and other Palestinian areas allowed foreign fighters to settle there.

Ed Morrissey, writing at Heading Right, rightfully concludes that “the UN once again shows itself to be useless when it comes to fighting international terrorism.”

I agree with Ed, even if providing security isn’t the responsibility of the UNRWA it should have, at least, informed the Lebanese government and other governments (about the infiltration of the camp by heavily armed foreigners). If governments would have been informed, and if they were allowed to take action, perhaps the current mess could have been avoided.