Most Interesting Topics on US, Iran,Pakistan & Specially On my Global Journalist's Community

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Nuclear watchdog agency fails to elect new chief
International Atomic Energy Agency members are in a deadlock amid a split between industrial powers and developing nations over the approach to arms control.
By Julia Damianova and Borzou Daragahi
March 28, 2009
Reporting from Beirut and Vienna -- Diplomats meeting in Vienna failed Friday to elect a new leader for the world's nuclear watchdog agency amid a hardening split between industrial powers and developing countries over how best to control atomic weapons and energy.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said its 35-member board could not muster the two-thirds majority needed to elect a director-general to replace Mohamed ElBaradei, who is retiring. The Egyptian ElBaradei, winner of the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize, put arms control in the international spotlight and led the agency during a crucial period when Iran and North Korea emerged as nuclear players.


Afghan returns home a little more whole
'We want a change,' Iran reformist says
Iran's Khamenei says Obama overture not enough
More on Iran from Borzou Daragahi
Whatever Iranian officials might feel about U.S. troubles in Afghanistan and Pakistan, there is a rising alarm in Tehran over the torrent of drug dealing, human trafficking and violence connected to the mayhem in the region that is washing across Iran's eastern border.

The Islamic Republic announced Thursday that it will join the United States in dispatching official delegations to two international conferences on Afghanistan. The Obama administration has welcomed Tehran's intended participation at one in the Netherlands.

U.S. and Iranian interests overlap in Afghanistan, perhaps more than on any other issue. The Obama administration, which has committed itself to diplomatic outreach to Tehran, has favored a greater Iranian role in efforts to stabilize Afghanistan as a way of building trust between the long-estranged U.S. and Iran and resolving disputes, especially over Iran's nuclear program.

But Iranians say they're wary of getting burned, as they say they were after quietly cooperating with the Bush administration in 2001 and '02 when the U.S. overthrew the Taliban government in Afghanistan and brought President Hamid Karzai to power. That brief flowering of diplomatic contacts ended with former President George W. Bush labeling Iran as part of an "axis of evil" along with North Korea and Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.

Since then Iran has ramped up its nuclear program, which it says is for civilian purposes, in defiance of U.S. demands to halt it. It has also increased its support for Arab militant groups fighting Israel, a key American ally. But increasingly, Tehran finds its interests coinciding with the U.S. in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the resurgence of the Taliban and the warfare have created a vortex of chaos drawing in Iran.

"Iran and the United States have a fundamental point of interest in the region vis-a-vis Afghanistan," said Sadegh Zibakalam, professor of political science at Tehran University. "Both want to see a moderate, democratic, stable Afghanistan because if there is chaos in Afghanistan, it means opium to Iran and Afghan refugees in Iran."

Russian officials said Thursday that they would be willing to help break the ice between Iranian and American officials at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization conference on Afghanistan, which opens today in Moscow.

Iran is sending Deputy Foreign Minister Mahdi Akhundzadeh, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Patrick Moon will represent the U.S.

"We assume that the launch of such a negotiating process would help reduce tensions in the situation surrounding Iran and the region on the whole," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko told reporters.

Iran is also attending the conference on Afghanistan at The Hague next week, after staying away from such meetings. But some Iranian analysts cautioned not to read too much into Tehran's decision; their concerns were underscored by Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hasan Qashqavi, who told The Times that the "level of participation is yet to be determined" for the Hague conference. Iran might dispatch a low-level envoy, suggesting an ambivalent response to U.S. gestures.

Iranians are wary of giving Americans a possible public-relations victory without getting anything in return.

"Whenever they need us, they use our influence; but as they reach their objectives, they treat us as a major threat in the region," said a recent editorial in the conservative Siasat Rooz newspaper.

But even some Iranian hard-liners have begun to welcome the idea of cooperating with the U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in helping secure Afghanistan, calling it a victory for Iranian steadfastness.

There are practical matters as well. Iranian officials say the drug war has cost their nation more than $600 million in the last two years. About 3,700 Iranian security officials were killed and 11,000 maimed in more than 12,000 clashes between traffickers and police officers between 1989 and 2003, according to Iranian statistics cited in a United Nations report.

All indications are that the problem is worsening as Afghanistan descends further into lawlessness. From 2006 to '07, drug seizures, as measured by weight, jumped 35% for heroin, 37% for opium and 52% for hashish, according to figures on the website of Iran's Drug Control Headquarters.

Total drug seizures rose from 155 tons in 2001 to 618 tons in 2007, almost all of it opium, heroin and hashish from Afghanistan; addiction is rapidly becoming Iran's top public health problem.

Tehran has been digging canals, raising earthen berms and laying out barbed wire. Still, the drugs flow in, sometimes strapped to camels crossing the desert, sometimes protected by well-armed gangsters equipped with satellite technology and automatic weapons.

"The more the Islamic Republic of Iran interacts in the regional and international arenas, the better," Hamid Reza Haji-Babai, a member of the parliamentary leadership, said Thursday. Easing tension between Iran and the U.S. "can be achieved within these interactions and participation in conferences."

Perceptions and politesse will play a significant role in determining the level of Iran's participation at the summit. Tehran canceled on French President Nicolas Sarkozy's Afghanistan conference in December after he said he would never shake hands with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a comment Iran decried as insulting.

Not one Iranian official, not even Tehran's ambassador to France, attended that conference.

daragahi@latimes.com

Mostaghim is a special correspondent.
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FOREIGN EXCHANGE
In Pakistan, fighting terrorists the five-star way
At the Marriott where 50 people died in a terrorist attack, an attentive staff is anxious to put visitors at ease — although the hotel still seems deserted. Most of the workers lost friends in the attack. Outside, security is tight.
An attack in September killed 50 people at this Islamabad Marriott. Now it's open again with intense security, deep discounts and plenty of available rooms.
By Mark Magnier
March 27, 2009
Reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan -- I'm living on the edge and doing my bit to make sure the terrorists don't win -- from the cloud-like, pillow-swamped bed of a luxury hotel.

As a correspondent, I've stayed in some shaky places over the years, from camping beneath Iraqi underpasses during the U.S.-led invasion to tenting it in an abandoned nunnery in East Timor amid civil war. So my hardship post rattling around in the five-star Marriott Hotel in Islamabad recently is about as good as it gets for danger duty.


Room service, please. Oh stop, not another mint on my pillow.

It's all a cakewalk, as long as you don't stop and think where you are: the site of a horrific attack in September that killed more than 50 people in the Pakistani capital. Somewhat understandably, the images beamed around the world of an explosives-packed truck ramming the security gate have damped customer enthusiasm.

The 24-foot-deep, 59-foot-wide crater has been filled in, replaced by a massively reinforced 12-foot-high wall and a pyramid berm structure of the sort used in war zones.

There are also dogs, dozens of police officers and guards with machine guns, high-intensity lighting that makes you look like you're at a Dodgers night game, sophisticated vehicle barriers and state-of-the-art X-ray machines. And a sniper sitting on the parapet.

Inside, though, it's another planet. Sonatas waft from a lonely piano player. A house band croons over in the dining area, its plaintive tones bouncing tinkle-tinkle off the opulent chandeliers. The silver glistens, the marble shines.

At one point as I sit for a meal, I count 17 employees all ready to serve yours truly, the only customer in sight.

Most of the workers lost friends and suffered near misses. Now they're not only worried about their security but their jobs. They try incredibly hard to be cheerful and make you feel welcome and mean nothing but the best. But every time I cross the lobby, I feel like something of a pied piper being followed by a small posse chirping, bobbing and Uriah Heeping as I head for the elevator. Can I help you navigate? Everything absolutely, totally, completely all right with your stay? Are you sure?

Why am I here? In part I suppose I'm slightly less risk-averse than some others, which may have drawn me to this profession. And I believe it's important to support the hotel and its staff. I also believe lightning tends not to strike twice. At least while I'm here, I hope.

And did I mention the rates are extremely reasonable -- a third the price of other hotels in town? As a sweetener, they've thrown in an endless mini-bar. We're in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, so there's no alcohol. But every time I have a chocolate bar, some juice, a cookie, a replacement magically appears. The tooth fairy does exist.

One of the nights I'm there, the hotel hosts a big wedding, returning some of the bustle to the place. Mostly it's pretty deserted. I chat with a few fellow guests. There's a German married to a French diplomat here on assignment who seems to spend most of his time lifting weights.

An Australian of Pakistani descent has come to Islamabad to visit relatives. "I'm very worried, very nervous," she says. "But I've been staying at the Marriott for 20 years and felt it was important to stay here." And a retired Spanish hunter with two satellite phones has just returned from killing some beasts near the insurgent-filled Swat Valley. He doesn't seem afraid of anything, let alone a high-profile luxury hotel.

I stop in for a chat with Zulfiqar Ahmed, the hotel's hospitable general manager, who offers me tea. The hotel was targeted, he said, because it's been a symbol of globalization, international trade and modernity in Islamabad.

Ahmed had just started in the job when the attack hit, and his first day was consumed with arranging funerals, helping the families of dead and injured employees, making sure there was counseling for the traumatized.

Throughout the hotel's accelerated rebuilding process -- it was accommodating guests three months later -- he received a string of personal threats. These came, he believes, from militants with an interest in seeing the hotel fail.

"Having destroyed us," he said, "it wasn't acceptable to allow us to rebuild."

The hotel's soft launch and discount rates have been extended through April and occupancy is slowly improving, he said. But he knows that the hotel's, and the nation's, recovery will take time.

"A place like Egypt is very nice with its pyramids and museums, but God blessed Pakistan with such incredible beauty," he said. "Until they improve the law and order in this country, however, it's foolish to think people will come and visit in large numbers."

So this is what it feels like to stay in a symbol of globalization, I reflect, as I amble back to my room, double-check the restocked mini-bar and gaze out the window at the elaborate security barriers outside my five-star bubble.

mark.magnier@latimes.com

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JOURNALISM IN THE AMERICAS
Newspaper Editors to Replace Cancelled Convention with Online "Webinars"
Since tough economic times caused the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) to cancel its annual convention in April, ASNE will offer a series of Webinars to newsroom leaders and editors.
Ten Webinars have been scheduled, with more on the way:
* Civilizing Online Comments: What Technology Can and Can't Do; March 31
* Leading Your Staff into the Twitterverse; April 7
* After the Launch: A Candid Assessment of Detroit's New Publication Plan; April 8
* Sharing Content; April 15
* ASNE Survey Results; April 16
* Live Blogging as Stories Unfold; April 21
* Journalism, Audience and Advertising on the Web; April 23
* The Continuous News Desk of the Future; April 29
* Mobile Trends; April 30
* Maintaining Journalistic Values Online; May 28
More information and registration information can be found here. The Webinars are free to ASNE members and cost $50 for non-members.

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JOURNALISM IN THE AMERICAS

U.S. Journalist Held in Iran To Remain in Detention
U.S.freelance journalist Roxana Saberi told her father this week that Iranian officials said she would remain in prison “for months or even years,” the Associated Press reports. Saberi was initially arrested for purchasing alcohol but was held because she had been illegally working in Iran after her press credentials had been revoked.
Earlier this month, Iranian officials announced Saberi would be released soon.
She is being held in Evin Prison in Tehran. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), two journalists have mysteriously died in Evin Prison, where many political prisoners are held. An Iranian blogger died there last week under questionable circumstances, The New York Time's Lede Blog reports. An Iranian-Canadian photojournalist also died in 2003 from a brain hemorrhage that resulted from a beating at the prison, CPJ reports.

U.S. Journalist to Be Freed Soon, Iran Says
Iran has completed its investigation of Iranian-American freelance journalist Roxana Saberi and will release her in the next few days, an official from the Iranian prosecutor's office said Friday, Reuters reports. Iranian officials said she had been working illegally as a correspondent in the country since her press credentials were withdrawn two years ago.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for the journalist's release at a press conference and said the State Department was working through Swiss authorities to seek more information about Saberi's detainment, since the U.S. does not maintain diplomatic relations with Iran, the Associated Press reports.
Saberi has been detained in Iran for more than a month. She was initially arrested for purchasing alcohol, which is illegal in Iran.
U.S. Journalist Held in Iranian Prison
Iranian officials confirmed Tuesday that they are holding 31-year-old freelance journalist Roxana Saberi on court order, but refused to provide further details on her detainment near Tehran, the Associated Press and the French news agency AFP report.
An Iranian foreign ministry spokesman said Saberi was engaged in "illegal" activities because she continued working in Iran after the government revoked her press credentials in 2006, the AP said.
Saberi's father said the reporter was detained in late January for purchasing a bottle of wine, which is illegal in Iran, according to NPR, for whom Saberi has reported. Saberi's family and Iranian press freedom advocates told the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) they believe the possession of wine—for which people are usually released from custody within a few days—was only a pretext for detaining the journalist.
Reza Saberi, the journalist's father, told NPR he received a call from his daughter on Feb. 10 from an unknown location, saying she was detained and would be released in a few days. He has not heard from her since.
CPJ has called Iran "the sixth-leading jailer of journalists," with more than 30 colleagues investigated or detained there in 2008.
Roxana Saberi has been living in Iran for six years, completing her Masters in Iranian studies and international relations. She has also contributed reporting to NPR, BBC and other international media outlets, NPR adds.
By Maya Srikrishnan at 03/03/2009 - 10:43

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Citizens and Former Journalists Create their Own News Sources After Newspapers Fail
After this month's shutdown of Denver's Rocky Mountain News, several of its reporters banded together to create the online-only InDenverTimes.Com, the first effort of its type by a group of former reporters from a large daily, Scooping the News reports.
Residents of Carbondale, Colorado, did something similar after losing their weekly newspaper, The Carbondale Valley Journal. Local resident Rebecca Young felt the loss when she was unable to attend a friend's funeral since there was no obituary to let her know he had died. So she decided to start a new newspaper, Sopris Sun (named for a nearby mountain peak), The Los Angeles Times reports.
To Young, the community needed information about local life: births, deaths, proposed developments, and high school sports scores, DeeDee Correll writes for The Times. Young and six other residents started the Sopris Sun as a nonprofit, staffed mostly by volunteers. Collaborators of the free weekly paper have doubts about its future, but for now, its Carbondale readers just seem enthusiastic that a newspaper exists again, Correll reports.

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Edited & Reproduced by MUKTI MAJID (Onbehalf of 'The Monthly Muktidooth',Dacca,Bangladesh