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Iran in the Crosshairs?: As U.S. Increases Threats, Iran
Vows to Form "United Front" With Syria
New Highly Resistant Strain of HIV Diagnosed in NYC
Outsourcing Torture: The Secret History of America's "Extraordinary
Rendition"
The CBS Three Won't Slink Off
Iran in the Crosshairs?: As U.S. Increases Threats,
Iran Vows to Form "United Front" With Syria
Iran and Syria directly confronted the Bush administration
Wednesday by declaring they will form a "united front"
to confront possible threats against them by the United States.
The move was announced after a meeting in Tehran between the
Vice President of Iran and the Syrian prime minister. We speak
with former Iranian diplomat Mansour Farhang. [includes rush
transcript]
The announcement came on the same day that Iran accused the
United States of using satellites "and other tools"
to spy on its nuclear sites and threatened to shoot down any
American surveillance craft.
The potential for conflict was further heightened just hours
later when an explosion near a nuclear facility in southern
Iran was initially reported as a missile strike. The news
caused a surge in oil prices and rattled financial markets.
It later emerged the explosion was caused during the construction
of a dam.
Also on Wednesday, Israeli foreign minister Silvan Shalom
said Iran was just six months away from building a nuclear
weapon that would be able to target "London, Paris and
Madrid" by the end of the decade. Back in Washington,
CIA director Porter Goss told the Senate Intelligence Committee
that Iran poses a serious security threat to the United States.
- Porter Goss, CIA Director speaking before the Senate
Intelligence Committee on Feb. 16, 2005.
CIA chief Porter Goss speaking yesterday before the Senate
Intelligence Committee. To talk about the latest news on Iran,
we are joined in our studio by Iranian-born author and former
diplomat, Mansour Farhang.
- Mansour Farhang, Iranian-born author and former diplomat.
He served as revolutionary Iran's first ambassador to the
United Nations and working as a mediator in the early months
of the Iran-Iraq war. He left Iran as a dissident in 1981
and now teaches international relations and Middle Eastern
politics at Bennington College, Vermont. He is the co-author
of "U.S. Press and Iran: Foreign Policy and the Journalism
of Deference" (Univ. of California, 1987).
New Highly Resistant Strain of HIV Diagnosed in NYC
Late last week, the New York City Health Department reported
that a highly resistant strain of HIV was diagnosed for the
first time in a New York City resident. [includes rush
transcript]
The resident is a male in his 40's who engaged in unprotected
sex with multiple male partners in the fall of 2004. The department
reported that this particular strain appeared to be more aggressive
than other forms of the virus given that the patient was diagnosed
with HIV in December of 2004 and by January, it had progressed
to full-blown AIDS.
It is the combination of the strain's resistance and the
rapid onset from infection to AIDS seen in the patient that
has alarmed members of the health community and AIDS activists.
But it is unknown whether this is some new virulent strain
of HIV or if it is confined to this particular patient. Doctors
studying the case say that the man may have genetic factors
that caused the rapid progression to AIDS. The man was also
a user of the drug crystal meth which could have been a factor
in the rapid onset of disease.
- Dr. Gal Mayer, Associate Medical Director of Callen Lorde
Community Center focused on health care needs of the lesbian,
gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities and people
living with HIV/AIDS.
Outsourcing Torture: The Secret History of America's
"Extraordinary Rendition"
Journalist Jane Mayer outlines her major new article in
The New Yorker on the practice known as "extraordinary
rendition," where prisoners, such as Maher Arar, are
shipped to countries known for their poor human rights records
and history of torture.
Alberto Gonzalez was sworn in this week as the new US Attorney
General amidst ongoing criticism from human rights groups
and Congressional Democrats that Bush appointed a man who
called the Geneva Conventions "quaint" and gave
legal cover for the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and
Guantanamo Bay. Meanwhile, a major piece in last week's New
Yorker magazine documents the practice known as "extraordinary
rendition," where prisoners are shipped to countries
known for their poor human rights records and history of torture.
The piece is called "Outsourcing Torture" by Jane
Mayer and it documents the increased use of rendition since
2001. One of the cases she writes about is a case we have
covered extensively on this program. And that is the case
of Canadian citizen Maher Arar. Two years ago the Syrian-born
software engineer was detained by US officials while on a
stopover in New York. He was then jailed and secretly deported
to Syria. He was held for almost a year without charge in
an underground cell not much larger than a grave, where he
was tortured. Time Magazine in Canada named him the country's
newsmaker of 2004.
- Maher Arar, archived Democracy Now! interview from November
2003 shortly after he returned to Canada from Syria.
- Jane Mayer, journalist with The New Yorker. Her most
recent piece is "Outsourcing Torture: The Secret History
of America's 'Extraordinary Rendition'"
The CBS Three Won't Slink Off
Five weeks after CBS blamed them for botching an expose
into President Bush's questionable service in the Texas Air
National Guard, three staffers who were asked to resign are
refusing to quit. [includes rush
transcript]
They are: Josh Howard, executive producer of "60 Minutes
Wednesday"; senior broadcast producer Mary Murphy, and
senior vice president Betsy West. The New York Observer is
reporting that Howard has hired a lawyer and wants CBS executive
Leslie Moonves to retract comments he made following the release
of an exhaustive investigation into how the report got on
the air. All three staffers remain on the CBS payroll. CBS
refused to comment after the Observer broke the story. Along
with CBS producer Mary Mapes, the three were blamed for what
an independent panel convened by the network called their
"myopic zeal" to nail Bush. We're joined now by
Joe Hagan, the reporter who broke this story in The New York
Observer. The piece is called "The CBS Three Won't Slink
Off; Hiring Lawyers."
- Joe Hagan, reporter with The New York Observer. His latest
piece is titled "The CBS Three Won't Slink Off; Hiring
Lawyers"
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Mike Burke, Sharif Abdel Kouddous,
Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, Jeremy Scahill and Parvez Sharma.
Mike Di Filippo is our engineer.
Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Russeau, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Joe Murgio, John Randolph,
Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Eric Rweyemamu,
Jenny Filipazzo and Isis Phillips.
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