Hiroshima bomber dies as Bush reminds rise of Hitler, Lenin !

Hiroshima bomber dies as Bush reminds rise of Hitler, Lenin !
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
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Hiroshima bomber dies at 92
All N-weapons to be removed from high alert: UN
United Nations : The UN General Assembly's disarmament committee approved a resolution calling for all nuclear weapons to be taken off high alert over objections from the United States, Britain and France. The resolution calls for taking steps to decrease the readiness of nuclear weapons systems by "ensuring that all nuclear weapons are removed from high alert status." The vote was 124-3 with the three Western nuclear powers voting "no." There were 34 abstentions, mainly from NATO and Western countries as well as China. Russia did not vote. John Duncan, Britain's ambassador for multilateral arms control and disarmament, said on Thursday that his country voted against the resolution because there are more pressing issues to create a "nuclear-free world."
"We think a lot of de-alerting has been done. We have done a lot of de-alerting," he said. "We think the emphasis should be on other things, the numbers of nuclear weapons, not the operational readiness, and also the concerns of proliferation." The resolution, co-sponsored by Chile, New Zealand, Nigeria, Sweden and Switzerland, now goes to the 192-nation General Assembly for a final vote. Assembly resolutions are not legally binding but they do reflect world opinion. Richard Grenell, spokesman for the US Mission to the United Nations, said: "While we are thankful to the sponsors for making important changes to the original draft, the United States has an obligation to manage its military forces to ensure we remain able to protect our security and fulfill our commitments to our allies."
President George W Bush has compared Congress' Democratic leaders to people who ignored the rise of Lenin and Hitler early in the last century, saying "the world paid a terrible price" then and risks similar consequences for inaction today. Bush accused Congress of stalling important pieces of the fight to prevent new terrorist attacks by: dragging out and possibly jeopardising confirmation of Michael Mukasey as US attorney general, a key part of his national security team; failing to act on a bill governing eavesdropping on terrorist suspects; and moving too slowly to approve spending measures for the Iraq war, Pentagon and veterans programmes.
"Unfortunately, on too many issues, some in Congress are behaving as if America is not at war," Bush said during a speech at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
"This is no time for Congress to weaken the Department of Justice by denying it a strong and effective leader.... It's no time for Congress to weaken our ability to intercept information from terrorists about potential attacks on the United States of America. And this is no time for Congress to hold back vital funding for our troops as they fight al-Qaeda terrorists and radicals in Afghanistan and Iraq."
Paul Tibbets, who piloted the B-29 bomber Enola Gay that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima died at 92.
For six decades he had steadfastly defended the Hiroshima mission.
Tibbets died on Thursday at his Columbus home after a two-month decline caused by a variety of health problems, said Gerry Newhouse, a longtime friend.
Throughout his life, Tibbets seemed more troubled by other people's objections to the bomb than by having led the crew that killed tens of thousands of Japanese in a single stroke. The attack marked the beginning of the end of World War II.
Tibbets grew tired of criticism for delivering the first nuclear weapon used in wartime, telling family and friends that he wanted no funeral service or headstone because he feared a burial site would only give detractors a place to protest.
And he insisted he slept just fine, believing with certainty that using the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved more lives than they erased because they eliminated the need for a drawn-out invasion of Japan.
Tibbets said, 'What they needed was someone who could do this and not flinch and that was me,''' said journalist Bob Greene, who wrote the Tibbets biography, ''Duty: A Father, His Son, and the Man Who Won the War.''
''I'm not proud that I killed 80,000 people, but I'm proud that I was able to start with nothing, plan it and have it work as perfectly as it did,'' he said in a 1975 interview.
''You've got to take stock and assess the situation at that time. We were at war. You use anything at your disposal.'' He added, ''I sleep clearly every night.''
Man who won the war
Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr. was born on February 23 1915, in Quincy, Illinois, and spent most of his boyhood in Miami. He was a student at the University of Cincinnati's medical school when he decided to withdraw in 1937 to enlist in the Army Air Corps.
''I knew when I got the assignment it was going to be an emotional thing,'' Tibbets told The Columbus Dispatch for a story on the 60th anniversary of the bombing.
''We had feelings, but we had to put them in the background. We knew it was going to kill people right and left. But my one driving interest was to do the best job I could so that we could end the killing as quickly as possible.''
Tibbets, a 30-year-old colonel at the time, and his crew of 13 dropped the five-ton ''Little Boy'' bomb over Hiroshima the morning of August 6, 1945. The blast killed or injured at least 140,000.
Three days later, the US dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, killing at least 60,000 people. Tibbets did not fly in that mission. The Japanese surrendered a few days later.
Tibbets retired from the Air Force as a brigadier general in 1966. He moved to Columbus, where he ran an air taxi service until he retired in 1985.
Tibbets again defended the Hiroshima bombing in 1995, when an outcry erupted over a planned 50th anniversary exhibit of the Enola Gay at the Smithsonian Institution.
The museum had planned to mount an exhibit that would have provided the context of the bombing, but veterans groups objected that it paid too much attention to Japan's suffering and underestimated the number of Americans who would have perished in an invasion by Japan. Tibbets denounced it as ''a damn big insult.''
The museum changed its plan, and agreed to display the fuselage of the Enola Gay without commentary, context or analysis.
Tibbets is survived by his wife, Andrea and three sons Paul, Gene and James as well as a number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. A grandson named after Tibbets followed his grandfather into the military as a B-2 bomber pilot currently stationed in Belgium.
US faces burning emissions issue
Severe United States wildfires can contribute as much as vehicles to carbon emissions in some US states, although the amount is highly variable. New research published in the online open access journal Carbon Balance and Management quantifies these emissions and suggests fires will complicate emissions monitoring and modelling efforts, according to Eurekalert, the news service of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Christine Wiedinmyer of the National Center for Atmospheric Research and Jason Neff of the University of Colorado, both in Boulder, US, used satellite imaging data to determine the extent of fires over the period 2002-2006. They estimated the output of CO2 based on the degree of forest cover in a particular area.
Typical annual emissions from fires are around 5 percent of the manmade total for the United States. However during major fires in the Western and Southeastern US, the proportion of fire contributions to CO2 emissions can increase dramatically. The authors note, "A striking implication of very large wildfires is that a severe fire season lasting only one or two months can release as much carbon as the annual emissions from the entire transportation or energy sector of an individual state."
Although the release of CO2 in fires should be balanced over the long-term by the uptake of CO2 as new vegetation grows, the immediate impact of the fires on atmospheric CO2 is significant. This may create difficulties in accounting for carbon sources and sinks, and in assessing trends with current remote sensing technologies.
Dr Wiedinmyer also warns, "There is a significant potential for additional net release of carbon from the forests of the United States due to changing fire dynamics in the coming decades." Although fire emissions are not currently included in most CO2 emission restriction agreements, increasing fire frequency and severity can lead to greater emissions of CO2 to the atmosphere and compound the problems that are related to manmade emissions.
The fires include wild fires, prescribed burning and burning for agricultural purposes, but the majority of these emissions come from needle leaf forest fires in the western and southeastern States.
Rice answers diplomats' revolt over forced Iraq postings
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is trying to quell a revolt among US diplomats angry over attempts to fore foreign service officers to work in Iraq or face dismissal.
Rice plans to send a cable to all US embassies and missions abroad explaining the decision to launch the largest diplomatic call-up since Vietnam, following a contentious town hall meeting on Wednesday where angry diplomats raised deep concern about the "potential death sentence" of being ordered to work in Iraq, the State Department said.
"The secretary is going to send out a cable worldwide to people talking about this decision as well as encouraging people to serve in Iraq," spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters, saying the message would be distributed on Thursday.
He stressed the cable was not a "direct response" to Wednesday's unusually hostile session, but that "it speaks to some of the concerns that were aired in that town hall meeting."
Rice, who did not attend the meeting, was also making clear in the cable that foreign service officers have an obligation to uphold the oaths they took to carry out the policies of the government and be available to serve anywhere in the world, McCormack said.
"I don't know if we will have to direct assignments or not," Rice told reporters Thursday en route to diplomatic meetings in Turkey and the Middle East. "But we are one foreign service, and people need to serve where they are needed."
As for the diplomats' objections, she added: "I'm glad they spoke up because it's a sensitive issue. The department hasn't had directed assignments for a long time. I understand that."
India must be given 'augmented' voice in UN: Hillary Clinton
India, which has "special significance" as an emerging power, should be given a bigger voice in regional and international institutions like the UN, Hillary Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner for the upcoming US Presidential election has said.
"....India has a special significance both as an emerging power and as the world's most populous democracy. As co-chair of the Senate India Caucus, I recognize the tremendous opportunity presented by India's rise and the need to give the country an augmented voice in regional and international institutions, such as the UN," Clinton, who according to polls is leading in the race to become the next US President, said.
The former first lady also said terrorists are increasingly finding safe havens in Pakistan, its staunch ally in the war on terror, and called for "redoubling" of efforts in the South Asian country.
"Terrorists are increasingly finding safe havens in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan," Clinton wrote in an Essay in the respected Foreign Affairs Magazine.
She also said America's relationship with China will be "the most important bilateral relationship" in the world.
"The US and China have vastly different values and political systems, yet even though we disagree profoundly on issues ranging from trade to human rights, religious freedom, labor practices, and Tibet, there is much that the US and China can and must accomplish together," Clinton said.
The Democratic senator slammed the Bush administration for "squandering the respect, trust, and confidence of even our closest allies and friends."
After 9/11, Clinton said the world rallied behind the US and "we had a historic opportunity to build a broad global coalition to combat terror, increase the impact of our diplomacy, and create a world with more partners and fewer adversaries."
Iran, IAEA end latest talks
TEHRAN (AP): Iranian officials and the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog ended four days of talks here aimed at resolving questions related to the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme, state media reported.
The conclusion of the talks comes as the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany meet in London on Friday to try to coordinate strategy toward Iran's disputed nuclear activities.
A Saudi Arabian official, meanwhile, said Arab states in the Persian Gulf had proposed to Tehran that they set up a consortium to provide Iran with enriched uranium as way to defuse the nuclear fight.
The Iranian side expressed satisfaction with the U.N. discussions, which focused on P-1 and P-2 centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium, said a report on the Web site of Iran's state broadcasting company. The talks, which began Monday and ended Thursday, were the third round between the two sides to discuss the machines.
``In the talks, the agency's negotiators raised their questions and ambiguities over the machines, and the Iranian side provided necessary answers and information,'' the Web site quoted Javad Vaeedi, head of the Iranian negotiating team, as saying. The report did not provide further details.
The discussions were the latest attempt by the Vienna, Austria-based IAEA to address outstanding questions about the Iranian programme, which some Western countries believe is cover for weapons development _ an allegation Tehran denies. IAEA deputy chief, Olli Heinonen, headed the U.N. delegation.
US pushes partners for tougher sanctions on Iran in London talks
London (AP): U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns was pressing for a hardening of U.N. sanctions against Iran during talks in London on Friday on Tehran's disputed nuclear program.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and France support new sanctions if Iran continues to refuse to suspend uranium enrichment, though fellow permanent U.N. Security Council members Russia and China remain skeptical.
Burns was meeting diplomats from the four other permanent Security Council members and Germany for midmorning talks to rally support for a tougher track with Tehran, which has a deadline next month to fully disclose details of its nuclear program.
The U.S. and allies accuse Iran of using a civilian power program as cover to develop nuclear weapons. Tehran denies the charge and insists it needs the technology to generate power.
After talks Thursday in Vienna with Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency, Burns told reporters that Washington wants a resolution on a third round of U.N. Security Council sanctions passed soon.
``There are sanctions being implemented ... and there will be a third Security Council sanctions resolution'' if Iran continues to defy the council, Burns said.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier gave the call qualified backing on Thursday, saying Germany will support new U.N sanctions if Tehran fails to meet the December deadline to provide full details of its program.
But Iran's former president, Hashemi Rafsanjani, said Friday in Tehran that talks between Iran and the U.N. nuclear watchdog were making progress and he warned the U.S. to avoid resorting to threats.
``The U.S. is making mistakes. Iran is having talks (with the IAEA) and has said it will respond to IAEA questions. They are gradually coming and taking their response. One has to wait, talk and make discussions,'' he said.
Rafsanjani also spoke about the prospects of a U.S. attack against Iran, saying it would create a quagmire for Washington with unimaginable consequences.
Britain is likely to press for European Union sanctions against Iran within weeks, including bans on investment or export credit guarantees.
At a meeting in Luxembourg on Oct. 15, EU foreign ministers failed to agree on sanctions against Iran, despite an effort by Britain and France to get the 27-nation bloc to adopt specific measures as part of its common foreign policy.
Brown ``has already said the U.K. supports a further U.N. Security Council resolution if Iran does not comply with its international obligations,'' Britain's Foreign Office said in a statement.
During a state visit to Britain this week, Saudi officials discussed the possibility of creating a Middle East consortium of users of enriched uranium, the Foreign Office said.
The proposal by the Arab nations around the Persian Gulf is to build a uranium enrichment plant in a neutral country to supply the region's states, including Iran, with reactor fuel for nuclear energy programs.
Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband briefly discussed the proposal with Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, during talks, a Foreign Office spokesman said.
Prince Saud told London's Middle East Economic Digest that the plan had been proposed to Iran's government, which said it would consider the proposal.
However, the Iranians previously ignored a similar offer from Russia _ to host Iran's uranium enrichment facilities on its territory to allay Western concerns about monitoring.