Monday, July 11, 2005

Three items from this morning's New York Times

Rob e-mails to note Greg Myre's "Israeli Barrier in Jerusalem Will Cut Off 55,000 Arabs" in this morning's New York Times.

Israel's separation barrier in Jerusalem will cut off 55,000 Palestinian residents from the rest of the city, Israeli officials acknowledged Sunday. Palestinians responded sharply, saying they will face daily complications in reaching jobs, schools and hospitals.
[. . .]
The Israeli announcement came a year and a day after the International Court of Justice at The Hague handed down an advisory ruling that said building the separation barrier inside the West Bank violated international law.
Israel rejected the court's ruling, saying the barrier was needed for security, and has pressed ahead with construction, though it has revised the path in some areas in response to Israeli court rulings that Palestinian needs must be taken into account.


As noted Sunday morning in The Third Estate Sunday Review editorial (posted here Sunday morning as well) and in a Sunday evening post, "British Memo Details a Plan to Cut Troops."
In the Times it's reported on by Alan Cowell and David S. Cloud this morning:

A confidential British military assessment examines the possibility of drastically cutting troop strength in Iraq by the end of next year, to 3,000 from about 8,500 now, in a memo leaked to the newspaper The Mail on Sunday. The memo also raises the possibility of a sharp drop in the number of troops the United States and other allies have in Iraq by the middle of 2006.

Thomas e-mails to note Eric Lipton and Andrew C. Revkin's "High-Tech Antiterror Tools: A Costly, Long-Range Goal:"

With the mass transit systems in Britain and the United States on high alert, the best available defense the governments can provide against a terrorist armed with a bomb is decidedly low-tech: vigilance with dogs, video cameras and security officers.
That limited arsenal has provoked calls for an accelerated campaign to develop high-tech tools like artificial noses that sniff out explosives or devices that can detect bombs through clothing.
"We need a crash program," said Senator Charles E. Schumer, a Democrat from New York. "Terrorists have chosen mass transit as their target of choice."
But installing such technologies would take years, cost billions of dollars and could prove impractical in dealing with millions of passengers every day, transit officials and security experts say. And even then, they might not deter an attack.


For those wondering, Billie does have a post on this topic that will hopefully go up this evening or tomorrow morning. She's decided to note it bullet-style the way Rob & Kara did.

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