Iranian Alert -- October 7, 2003 -- IRAN LIVE THREAD PING LIST

The regime is working hard to keep the news about the protest movment in Iran from being reported.

From jamming satellite broadcasts, to prohibiting news reporters from covering any demonstrations to shutting down all cell phones and even hiring foreign security to control the population, the regime is doing everything in its power to keep the popular movement from expressing its demand for an end of the regime.

These efforts by the regime, while successful in the short term, do not resolve the fundamental reasons why this regime is crumbling from within.

Iran is a country ready for a regime change. If you follow this thread you will witness, I believe, the transformation of a nation. This daily thread provides a central place where those interested in the events in Iran can find the best news and commentary.

Please continue to join us here, post your news stories and comments to this thread.

Released Iranian journalist Mohsen Sazgara talks to reporters

Payvand's Iran News
10/7/03

Journalist Mohsen Sazgara said in Tehran on Monday that he went on hunger strike for 79 days during his 114-day detention, IRNA reported.

Talking to reporters after his release from prison and while he was surrounded by relatives and friends in his father's house, he said that he had gone on hunger strike twice, once for 56 days and once for 23 days.

Sazgara said that he had been hospitalized for five times by prison authorities due to his bad health condition followed by his hunger strikes.

On his health condition, the released journalist said that he had to go under treatment due to some problems in his heart, digestion system and liver.

He said that he was released on a rls six billion-bail while facing two files opened at the Revolutionary Court.

Rejecting the accusations concerning his presence at the university dormitory and involving in student unrest, he said the accusation was made by a daily which was rejected by investigators. "I have never been interested in unrest and disorder and I do believe that all problems should be solved through diplomatic solutions," the 48-year old Sazgara pointed out.

Sazgara was an advocate of the 1979 Islamic Revolution but in recent years has turned to a critic of the Islamic republic's authorities.

He was arrested in June, during a wave of student unrest in Tehran. His Golestan-e Iran (Garden of Iran) newspaper was closed down last year shortly after hitting the newsstands.

He was also arrested in February for challenging the current political system and calling for a referendum, but was released after a few days in custody after starting a hunger strike.

http://www.payvand.com/news/03/oct/1041.html

Iranian Agent Denies Killing Kazemi

October 07, 2003
The Associated Press
Ali Akbar Dareini

TEHRAN -- An Iranian Intelligence Ministry agent pleaded not guilty today to charges of killing a Canadian-Iranian photojournalist who died after suffering head injuries while in custody.

In the opening session of the trial, Mohammad Reza Aghdam Ahmadi denied he murdered Zahra Kazemi during interrogation after her June 23 detention. She died in a hospital on July 10.

"I strongly reject the charges raised against me," Ahmadi said, requesting more time to study the indictment. Judge Rasoul Ghanimi agreed to the request, and it was unclear when the trial would resume.

Kazemi, 54, who held both Canadian and Iranian citizenships, was detained while taking photos outside the Evin prison north of Tehran during student-led protests. After 77 hours of questioning, she was rushed to a hospital's intensive care unit with severe head injuries.

Tehran Deputy Prosecutor General Jafar Reshadati said Tuesday that Ahmadi was the only interrogator who spent hours alone with Kazemi at prison and the only agent who refused to answer some questions and gave contradictory statements. Reshadati said the killing was "semi-premeditated."

Initially, prosecutors maintained that Kazemi had died of a stroke, but a presidential-appointed committee found she had died of head injuries sustained while in custody.

Ahmadi was one of two Intelligence Ministry agents initially charged in the death, but the persecutor's office dropped the charges against the other agent last month.

Kazemi's death quickly became part of the power struggle between the reformist and conservative wings of the Iranian government. The Intelligence Ministry, which is controlled by reformists, rejected the indictment of its agents. It threatened to "expose all the facts" about the case if the conservative judiciary did not withdraw the charges.

Ministry officials claimed a judicial agent beat Kazemi on her head and accused the judge of ignoring evidence to prove their claim.

Prosecutor Reshadati said Tuesday that evidence shows Kazemi suffered beatings between June 25 and June 26, when the photojournalist was in the custody of Intelligence Ministry agents who included Ahmadi.

Kazemi was taken to the Baqiyatollah Azam Hospital on June 26, where she died two weeks later. The authorities prevented photographers from entering the courtroom on Tuesday, saying they did not want the faces of Intelligence Ministry agents to be published.

Canada has said it was unhappy with the conduct of the investigation. Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham has accused a hard-line prosecutor of being implicated in the killing, saying agents would not act without orders from above.

Canada also threatened sanctions and withdrew its ambassador after the photojournalist's body was buried in her birthplace, the southern Iranian city of Shiraz, against the wishes of Canadian authorities and her son, who lives in Montreal.

Canadian ambassador Philip Mackinnon, who returned to Iran earlier this month, attended the trial today.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1065520926005&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154

Rowhani Deplores US Abusing IAEA!

October 07, 2003
Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting
IRIB News

Tehran -- Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) here on Tuesday deplored the abuse of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) by the United States.

"This is the worst kind of interference in international law and order when a specialized United Nations agency and its legal authorityis exploited for political objective of the United States," Rowhani said in his address to 18th conference of the Friday prayers leaders from across the country.

He said that the Iranian philosophy and the Islamic commands forbid using the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and Iran appeals to the international community to make the Middle East free from WMD.

"From the outset, Iran has exercised good cooperation on non-proliferation treaty (NPT) by signing the treaty.

Iran was among the first regional countries which signed the convention on prohibiting chemical weapons (CPCW)," Rowhani pointed out.

He deplored that there is ominous goals behind raising controversy about Iranian nuclear program and said that none of the provocative statements could make Iran abandon its national program to generate electricity by using nuclear energy.

"The United States has orchestrated the controversy over Iranian nuclear program.

Washington, taking advantage of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, has embarked on turning the international community into a security issue and pursuing it as a strategy," he said.

Washington imposed the unilateral war on Iraq for what it called the possession of WMD and it became clear later that Iraq did not have such weapons.

The shameful air raid on Syria of Israel also took place thanks to unconditional US support for the occupying power in Palestine, he said.

Iran will never allow its national nuclear program to cause tension in its relations with other countries and pursues intensive work with the IAEA to encourage the agency to extend expertise to Iran for its national program.

He said that Iran has two concerns about the NPT and performance of the IAEA, and that Iran opposes the current discrimination in implementing the NPT whose main part is transfer of technology to member states.

The IAEA has withheld the technology from Iran and Iran believes the same thing will happen about the IAEA commitments over the additional protocol to NPT.

Secondly, Iran has concerns about the context of the additional protocol, because the IAEA has not proved it can work independently of Washington's political agenda, Rowhani said.

"The decision-making bodies of the Islamic Republic of Iran will not compromise over national sovereignty and the rights of the Iranian nation," he said.

"The conflict between Iran and the United States emanates from the fact that Iran presses ahead with national economic development plan, but, the US has objections to Iran's development and progress," he said.

http://www.iribnews.com/Full_en.asp?news_id=189800

Neither Safe Nor a Haven

October 07, 2003
National Review Online
James S. Robins

One of the blind spots in the global war on terrorism is the unwillingness of the United States to integrate the Palestinian terrorist organizations into the matrix of groups with which we are at war.

This is explained by way of definition — the conflict we are engaged in with our Coalition partners is against the global terrorist network. The cluster of terror groups targeting Israel — Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Hezbollah, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) among others — are not globally networked. They are a local or regional problem, and not part of the fundamentalist threat aimed at the United States. Thus, they are not on the radar screen. So goes the explanation.

This reasoning is a fig leaf at best — and I direct readers to Michael Ledeen's invaluable The War Against the Terror Masters for a full explanation why. Some of these groups have active networks that reach every continent, and into the United States. And almost all of them receive support in one fashion or another from Syria and Iran. In fact, they have for decades. And while the United States may choose not to involve itself overtly in cutting these strands of the international terrorism web, the recent suicide bombing in Haifa, which killed and wounded around 70 people, demonstrates that this is a threat Israel cannot afford to ignore.

The Israeli attack on the Ayn al-Sahib terrorist training camp in Syria was the first of what the Israeli government has called "expanded military operations" against terrorism. Sharon spokesman Raanan Gissin said that Israel "will take whatever measure is necessary to defend our citizens regardless of the geographic location of these training camps," including strikes in Syria and Iran. Syrian officials claimed that the Ayn al-Sahib camp had been previously used by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) but had been abandoned for the last seven years. The Associated Press reported that "for the past decades the valley of olive and fig groves has only been used by picnickers and walkers." (It is strange that the Mossad, which is blamed for masterminding every event in the Mideast, if not the world, cannot figure out the difference between a terrorist base and an olive garden.) Most press reports are marking the location of the terrorist camp as "deep within Syria." The tone would be much different if the stories described the camp as being close to the Syrian border with Lebanon, along the main access road between Damascus and the Bekka Valley. A 1997 report described Ayn al-Sahib as "the most important base of [the PFLP] and ranks as one of the preeminent training camps where it houses extreme fundamentalists from Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Algeria. The training is run by officers from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. They are instructed in street fighting, plane hijacking, hostage taking, and blowing up specific targets — Israeli, American, European, and other targets in certain Arab countries." Clearly, this was no place for a picnic.

But let's say the PFLP had closed down that facility. Their spokesmen seemed to know immediately exactly how much damage had been done in the attack, but that aside. The Israeli strike was aimed at the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the group that carried out the Haifa bombing. The PIJ is rumored to be planning to relocate their headquarters operations out of the Palestinian Authority, in response to the very effective Israeli tactic of targeting their leadership in retaliation for attacks on Israeli civilians. The PIJ may recently have set up new quarters in Ayn al-Saheb, and this was Israel's way of telling them they can run but they cannot hide. Whether any PIJ members died in the attack has yet to be revealed.

The attack was also a message to Syria, and to other countries who use terrorism as an instrument in executing their international strategy. The old paradigm of state sovereignty will not deter military or other action taken in pursuit of violent non-state actors. Terrorists can no longer exploit the rules of the international system established to govern relations between states. In this, Israel is following the U.S. lead. Syrian sovereignty is not worth any more than Taliban Afghan or Hussein Iraqi sovereignty was when those regimes chose to facilitate international terrorism. Any other state pondering whether to allow Islamic Jihad or other terror groups to find safe haven must know that it will neither be safe nor a haven. Israel's new policy — called "escalation" by some, but "expansion" is a more accurate term — places countries that harbor terrorists in a position either to deplore the presence of terrorists on their soil and thank Israel for helping out; to acknowledge their support for terrorism; or to pretend that the problem doesn't exist, complain to the U.N., and keep on supporting violence against innocents, which seems to be the Syrian approach.

On a related note: When the Israelis bombed the French-built Iraqi "Osirak" nuclear reactor in 1981, the U.S. official response was critical but privately there was a sense of relief. Had Israel not taken that farsighted action, the "imminent threat" that the president's critics believe is required before decisive action can be taken against rogue states would have been well evident even by 1991. And rather than reviewing evidence of Saddam's WMD program last week, Congress might be looking at the results of a WMD strike, and asking, Why didn't somebody do something before the threat was imminent? Rogue states and terrorists don't play by the rules. The international system was set up to maintain the peace, not facilitate terror, and no civilized country under siege should feel constrained by the norms its deadly enemies despise.

http://www.nationalreview.com/robbins/robbins200310070819.asp

EU Joins Other Nations To Campaign Against Death Penalty

October 07, 2003
Dow Jones Newswires
The Associated Press

BRUSSELS -- The European Union said Tuesday it would continue to use all diplomatic means possible to try and persuade China, Iran, the U.S., Japan and others to abolish the use of the death penalty.

E.U. officials made their commitment just days before the 15-nation bloc plans to mark the first 'World day against the Death Penalty' on Friday.

The E.U. is teaming up with other countries like Mexico and Canada and the 45-nation Council of Europe in calling for the end of the use of capital punishment "in all circumstances."

But efforts to try and convince Washington and Tokyo, the only two democracies which still carry out executions, to scrap the punishment have not been easy E.U. officials acknowledge.

"This is a complex and delicate area," said Daniele Smadja, head of the European Union Commission's human rights section. "We should not lose hope...We do get results, but progress is slow."

On Friday's anti-death penalty day, activities are planned in some 45 countries to raise awareness for the issue, said Michel Taube, head of French group ECPME - "Together Against the Death Penalty".

"There are 80 countries which abolished the death penalty...but around 70 still do (carry out the penalty) and are mostly authoritarian regimes," Taube said.

Taube's group is one of 23 activist groups, including Amnesty International, which are part of the 'World Coalition Against the Death Penalty', which is organizing lectures, exhibits, and concerts on Friday in countries like the U.S. and Uzbekistan.

According to Amnesty, 2,468 people were executed in China, 139 in Iran, 79 in Saudi Arabia and 66 were put to death in the U.S. in 2001.

The Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly earlier this month urged the U.S. and Japan to participate in a more "fruitful dialogue" on the abolition of the death penalty and put in place a moratorium on its use, or face losing its observer status within the organization.

All 45 member nations of the Council of Europe and the 15-nation E.U., have to commit to abolishing the use of the death penalty once they join.

However, the Council said four countries -Russia, Armenia, Turkey and Azerbaijan -have yet to sign the new protocol banning capital punishment in all circumstances.

All four countries introduced a moratorium on the use of capital punishment when they joined.

http://framehosting.dowjonesnews.com/sample/samplestory.asp?StoryID=2003100714360003&Take=1

Missing Israeli Flier Said to Be Alive

October 07, 2003
The Associated Press
Fox News

JERUSALEM -- An Israeli air force navigator shot down over Lebanon 17 years ago and captured is probably still alive, family members said Tuesday, quoting a secret government report on his fate.

A news conference Tuesday by the family of the navigator, Ron Arad (search), came amid reports that negotiations for a prisoner swap between Israel and the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah did not include Arad.

The government permitted members of Arad's family to see the top-secret report last week.

Arad's brother, Chen, said it shows that authorities determined at different points in recent years that Ron Arad was still alive, though he has not been heard from in more than a decade. Arad would now be 45 years old.

"The report concludes that the likelihood that Ron is alive is greater than any other possibility," Arad said. The document also speculates about his captors and where he is being held, he said.

"The address is Iran," Arad said, refusing to give details, saying he wanted to protect the identity of the source of the information in the report.

Israeli officials refused to comment.

Israeli media have reported that the document — kept under wraps because of its sensitive contents — concluded that the Israeli defense establishment should act on the assumption that Arad is alive.

Ron Arad's plane was shot down over south Lebanon in 1986. The pilot was rescued, but Arad was captured.

His captors released a picture of him a year later, and a single letter from Arad arrived by way of the International Red Cross, but no signs of life have been seen since then.

In a prisoner swap in the works between Israel and Hezbollah, Israel would free several hundred Arab prisoners, including Palestinians, in exchange for Israeli businessman Elhanan Tannenbaum and the bodies of three soldiers abducted by Hezbollah in 2000.

Among those freed by Israel would be two Lebanese guerrilla leaders, Abdel Karim Obeid and Mustafa Dirani, whom Israel snatched in 1989 and 1994, respectively, as bargaining chips for the release of Arad.

Israelis say Dirani personally held Arad for a time before turning him over to a Lebanese group. The Arad family objects to Dirani's release unless Arad is part of the deal.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,99372,00.html

Sharon: I'll Strike at Enemies Anywhere

October 07, 2003
The Associated Press
The Toronto Star

JERUSALEM -- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, in his first public comments since an Israeli air strike against Syria, said today his country would not hesitate to attack its enemies wherever they are.

Syrian President Bashar Assad countered that the raid - targeting what Israel said was a Palestinian militant training camp - would only enhance his country's power in the Middle East.

And he denounced Sharon's administration as a "government of war" in remarks published today.

The raid raised concern in Israel and the Arab world that the Palestinian conflict could widen into a regional crisis if Israel begins pursuing militants in neighbouring countries. With tensions high after the strike, there was shooting and mortar fire overnight along the border between Israel and Lebanon, where Syria is the main power-broker.

Sharon's statement came two days after Israeli warplanes bombed a suspected Islamic Jihad training base outside the Syrian capital of Damascus in the first major Israeli attack on Syrian soil in three decades. That bombing was in retaliation for a Jihad suicide bombing Saturday that killed 19 people in a restaurant in Haifa.

"Israel will not be deterred from protecting its citizens and will strike its enemies in every place and in every way," Sharon said at a memorial service for Israeli soldiers killed during the 1973 Middle East war.

After the air raid, Israel accused Syria of harbouring and funding Islamic Jihad and also named Iran as a key backer of the militant group.

However, Sharon also said he was open to peace overtures.

"We will not miss any openings or opportunities to reach an arrangement with our neighbours and comprehensive peace," he said. "Only with this combination can we be sure that this generation will see with its own eyes the end of this war and will reach the gates of peace."

But in comments to the London-based newspaper Al-Hayat, Assad asserted that Syria's role in the region "is painful" to Sharon's government and the air strike "was a failed Israeli attempt to undercut this role."

"We can, with full confidence, say that what happened will only make Syria's role more effective and influential in events in the region," Assad said.

U.S. President George W. Bush said today that Israel's air strike was part of an "essential" campaign to defend the country, and he drew a parallel between U.S. policy on terrorism and Sharon's actions.

"But we're also mindful when we make decisions, as the prime minister should be, that he fully understand the consequences of any decision," said Bush, cautioning that Sharon be wary of creating "the conditions necessary for" more violence.

Itamar Rabinovitch, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington and a former peace negotiator with Syria, wrote in the daily Yediot Ahronot that the raid signalled a sharp escalation in the conflict with Palestinians and questioned its wisdom.

"As of now, this was a solitary act - a sort of signal to Damascus, and behind Damascus, to Tehran - that Israel is liable to turn the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into a regional crisis," Rabinovitch wrote. "But does Israel really want this? Is Israel willing to step up the battle with Syria?"

Israel's Vice-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said today the security cabinet had decided at a meeting on Aug. 19 - following a Hamas bus bombing that killed 23 people - to target an Islamic Jihad training camp near Damascus, but postponed the air raid for operational reasons.

After the Haifa suicide bombing Saturday, the army said it was possible to carry out the operation, and a group of cabinet ministers approved the air raid, Olmert said.

Israeli warplanes bombed the training camp, which apparently has been abandoned for some time, early Sunday.

"We have no limitations regarding the targets and the goals so long as they are, in the end, connected to the terrorist acts," Olmert told Israel Radio.

Raanan Gissin, a Sharon aide, said the air raid came after two clear messages that Israel means business, Gissin said. The first message came shortly after the Iraq war when Secretary of State Colin Powell gave Assad an Israeli demand that Damascus remove the militant groups operating in Syria, he said.

In August, Israeli warplanes flew over Assad's summer palace in Latakia, Gissin said. The warplanes reportedly flew so low that windows in the palace shattered.

Now, Israel wants to send a message to both the militant groups and to Assad, Gissin said.

"We hope the Syrians will sober up and realize that what they are doing is endangering them," Gissin said. "Hopefully, Assad will get the message."

Meanwhile today, a four-year-old Lebanese boy was killed in Houla, a village on the Israeli-Lebanese border, apparently after an anti-aircraft shell or mortar that was fired from within Lebanon toward Israel fell short.

Lebanese security officials and residents said Ali Yassin was killed and his twin brother wounded in the explosion. Israel's army said at least three mortar shells were shot from Lebanon toward northeastern Israel.

Hours earlier, Israeli Staff Sgt. David Solomonov, 21, who also held U.S. citizenship, was killed in a cross-border shooting. Solomonov, from the town of Kfar Saba, emigrated to Israel with his parents 13 years ago from Pennsylvania, the U.S. Consulate said.

The Israeli army said shots were fired by a sniper of the Syrian-backed Hezbollah guerrilla group, sparking return fire from Israeli troops. Hezbollah denied any involvement in a fax to The Associated Press in Beirut.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1065524448733&call_pageid=968332188854&col=968705899037

A tribute to weapons inspectors

The UN knew full well that no WMD would be found in Iraq

Isabel Hilton
Tuesday October 7, 2003
The Guardian

Even before Robin Cook's revelations that Tony Blair went to war without believing in the threat from Saddam's phantom arsenal, the air had been leaking out of the inflated official claims. No longer was he a dictator with concealed WMD. Instead he had morphed into someone with weapons programmes, and his lethal strategic arsenal was downgraded to the unquantified potential of unidentified battlefield munitions that "military planning" determined could be ready for use in a 45-minute time frame.
But this new formulation still allows for retrograde elasticity: "Military planning" could imply plans that are current, future or obsolete, and we still do not know which battlefield weapons it refers to. But seven months on from the attack on Iraq, it is time to stop and pay tribute to the system that the US administration so energetically derided, determined as it was to apply military solutions to a political problem: the UN weapons inspections process.

Nothing has been discovered in Iraq that was not known to exist as a result of the inspections. With breathtaking disingenuousness, Blair and Bush now deny that they ever gave the impression that Iraq was close to possessing nuclear weapons or the means of delivering them. The weapons for which we went to war, in the most recent versions, were chemical and biological. Now, even they have dematerialised - from actual weapons to a sinister but insubstantial potential.

But Iraq's potential to make chemical weapons was known to the UN as a result of its Unscom inspections in the mid-90s. According to former head of Unscom, Rolf Ekeus, it had "eliminated Iraq's capabilities fundamentally in all areas". They had accounted for and destroyed all but one of Saddam's missiles, his secret biological weapons programme and his chemical weapons programme.

It was also known that Iraq had retained the capacity to return to production. Why was that potential important to Iraq? In general terms, Iraq wanted to be a regional power. Specifically, Iraq's continuing preoccupation was with Iran. Chemical weapons had only been used during the war against Iran (in which, of course, Britain and the US were supporting Saddam) and both sides made use of them. Iraq still had such weapons at the time of the first Gulf war in 1991, but they are ineffective against a mobile and protected enemy and the US had threatened nuclear retaliation if Iraq did use them.

For Iraq, the use of chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war had been an important factor in avoiding defeat. After a decade of sanctions and of deterioration in Iraq's conventional military capacity, Iraq was militarily much weaker than Iran and the importance of retaining a potential for chemical weapons even greater.

Neither Bush nor Blair have produced evidence that turns these unpleasant but familiar facts into a "current" threat against the US, the UK or even Iraq's immediate neighbours. The question, as the UN inspectors knew, was not whether Iraq maintained a capacity to resume production of such weapons, but whether that potential had been activated after British and US bombing ended the inspections in 1998. The resumption of UN inspections - under the US administration's credible threat of the use of force - would have answered that question.

The cost of this adventure can be counted in many ways: there is the damage to future potential for international action against rogue states; the risk of terrorism is heightened; and the possibility of disaffected personnel from Iraq's weapons programmes throwing in their lot with some kind of jihad is higher than before. Equally dangerous is the manner in which a system of internationally sanctioned monitoring and control has been sacrificed in favour of unilateral action.

If we have learned anything from this adventure, it is that weapons inspection - slow, unglamorous and difficult - is effective, even in a regime intent on concealment. If a rat poison factory is diverted to the manufacture of nerve agent, systematic monitoring can discover it. It may not look good on TV, but it works.

More dramatic interventions, on the other hand, have been counter productive. In 1981, Israel unilaterally bombed Iraq's nuclear reactor, supposedly to destroy Saddam's capacity to produce nuclear weapons. The bombing, in Ekeus' opinion, had no substantive impact on Iraq's nuclear potential. What it did do was encourage the Iraqis to speed up a clandestine development programme that brought them to the brink of nuclear capacity by 1990.

By the beginning of this year, US pressure through the UN had succeeded in forcing the resumption of inspections. We will probably never know what they might have found. But the next dictator who tries to transform himself from a local thug into an international menace by acquiring WMD will have less to fear from the difficult, patient and methodical inspections that the UN inspections teams pursued. Bush and Blair have seen to that.

isabel.hilton@guardian.co.uk

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,9115,1057467,00.html

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