The polling stations closed last night in what was hailed as Afghanistan's first free parliamentary elections since 1969. Overseeing the security of the elections in the capital was the special Kabul Multi-National Brigade (KMNB VIII), composed of units from 24 countries, together with the Afghan National Army (ANA) and Kabul City Police (KCP). KMNB VIII patrols of Kabul's streets started at daybreak, with the police and Afghan army supervising the polling stations. Three days before the vote a large number of 107-mm rockets were found along with some surface-to-air missiles and other explosives in a joint Italo-French operation on the outskirts of Kabul, on the road to Bagram. A few hours before the vote, Kabul's chief of police and four officers were killed in the city center. Yesterday morning the Counting Center, where ballot boxed are due to be opened and counted was hit by two rocket attacks, which both failed to cause significant damage. According to initial estimates by the multi-national Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB), turnout was as high as 55%. For the transportation of ballot boxes a variety of vehicles are being used, from four-wheel drive trucks to a fleet of 1,250 donkeys, 300 horses and 20 camels, allowing even the most remote villages to be reached. The KMNB operation will continue until the counting of the votes ends on October 9, with a declaration of results due on October 22. (AGI, Sept. 19)

We recently aired first-hand accounts from paramedics in New Orleans that police from the suburb of Gretna had turned back refugees attempting to flee the devastated city at gunpoint. A Sept. 17 LA Times story, "A Roadblock to Compassion," reprinted by New York Newsday, confirms that this was the case:

GRETNA, La. - The city council of this mostly white suburb - heavily criticized for using armed officers to seal one of the last escape routes from New Orleans, trapping thousands of mostly black evacuees in the flooded city - has passed a resolution supporting the police chief's move.

Venezuela's left-populist President Hugo Chavez made history this weekend with a visit to New York for an appearance at the UN summit. His brief sojourn in La Manzana Grande consciously evoked his mentor Fidel Castro's historic 1960 debut address at the General Assembly—complete with a blistering verbal attack on the global economic order, and visits to the city's poor communities.

Violence is reported in Athens, with riot police clashing with left-wing anarchists. The masked protesters threw petrol bombs and stones, and police responded with tear gas. The street-fighting in the student quarter followed a rally by neo-fascists demanding that Turkey be barred from joining the European Union. Right-wingers from across Europe have gathered in Greece hoping to attend a two-day rally, Euro-Fest 2005, despite a government ban.

Disasters

by Jordan Flaherty

September 15, 2005

New Orleans was not devastated by a hurricane. From my travels around New Orleans and surrounding areas, it's clear that very little damage was done to my city by hurricane Katrina.

Bay St. Louis, Biloxi, Gulfport and other Gulf cities have suffered extensive hurricane-related damage. However, the damage to New Orleans came from brutal negligence - a lack of planning and a stunningly slow response, created by a federal government that didn't care about the people of New Orleans, and still doesn't. Academic Cornel West has called it Hurricane Povertina. Poet Suheir Hammad has referred to the "survivors of the rescue," others have referred to the displaced as "victims of hurricane FEMA," or simply "Michael Brown's victims." The houses of New Orleans were not hit by 35 foot tall waves or 200 mile winds. On the day after the hurricane, most of the city was in good shape, and many of us still in the city felt that New Orleans had once again come through battered and bruised but all right. Then, over the next few days, the levee broke and water rushed into the city, and relief rescue and repair efforts were far too little, far too late.

Israel, which claims it no longer occupies the Gaza Strip and wants the world to see it that way, has not taken long to take back some Gazan land, according to AFP:

Israel is to set up a "security zone" extending into Palestinian territory in northern Gaza to avoid militants infiltrating the Jewish state, the defence ministry said Friday.

The Guardians of the Cedars, an outlawed ultra-nationalist mostly Christian party set up during the 1975-1990 civil war has resurfaced in Lebanon. Lebanon's Al-Safir newspaper reported that at a Sept. 14 news conference, the long-dormant faction announced that "the civil war has never ended," and called for "every Lebanese to kill a Palestinian." It also declared that "not one Palestinian will remain in Lebanon." (Ynet, Sept. 15) The three members who gave the press briefing were arrested by Lebanese authorities for "issuing a statement that incites internal sedition." The group's leader, Etienne Saqr, was sentenced to death in absentia in 1996 for collaboration with Israel, where he is believed to be residing.

At least 80 are reported dead and twice as many wounded in suicide car bomb explosion near a gathering of laborers in Kadhimiya, a Shiite area of north-central Baghdad. About three hours later, another suicide car bomb targeted shoppers in the busy Shiite neighborhood of Shula in northwestern Baghdad, killing four and wounding 22 others. In Taji, about 10 miles north of Baghdad, men wearing Iraqi army uniforms stormed homes and pulled 17 Shiite men from their homes, shooting them execution style, police said.

Attacks were also staged on at least three military convoys. A suicide car bomb targeted an Iraqi army convoy in the al-Adil intersection in western Baghdad, killing three Iraqi soldiers. About 40 minutes earlier, another suicide car bomber hit a US military convoy in eastern Baghdad, wounding two soldiers and damaging their Humvee. A roadside bomb also exploded near a US convoy in the capital. There were no reports of casualties.