The Bittersweet Player – Clear your browser cache to hear the latest play list.
2 April 2012
Syria – The Hindustan Times reported: Syria has pledged to withdraw all military units from towns by April 10 to pave the way for a ceasefire with rebels two days later, though Western envoys were skeptical on Monday about Damascus’ intent to halt its year-long assault on opponents. The UN-Arab League peace envoy Kofi Annan briefed the UN Security Council on the deadline behind closed doors. He told them there had been no reduction in violence so far, but urged them to consider an observer mission nevertheless in light of Syria’s acceptance of the April 10 deadline, diplomats said. Washington’s UN ambassador Susan Rice, president of the 15-nation Security Council this month, said some council members “expressed concern that the government of Syria not use the next days to intensify the violence and expressed some skepticism about the bona fides of the government in this regard.” Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has repeatedly promised to stop his campaign against anti-government activists, which has brought the country to the brink of civil war, but has not kept his word.
Cambodia – Bloomberg Businessweek reported: Southeast Asian officials say North Korea’s feared rocket launch, long-broiling territorial disputes and Myanmar’s democratic reforms are expected to be key issues in the region’s annual diplomatic summit. Cambodia, which is hosting the two-day Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit starting Tuesday, wants to focus on a plan to turn the region into a European Union-like community by 2015. But ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan says some leaders may raise security concerns, including Pyongyang’s planned rocket launch. ASEAN diplomats on Monday praised Myanmar’s weekend by-elections as an important step in the former military-ruled nation’s efforts to move to democracy.
Israel – Haaretz reported: Senior defense official presents Israeli cabinet with assessment of number of people dead should Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas launch missiles at Israel; number is far lower than the one mentioned previously by Defense Minister Barak. Israel Defense Forces officials told cabinet ministers on Monday that should Israel undergo a coordinated missile attack, there would be less than 300 Israeli casualties. The number was mentioned by IDF officials during a discussion in Israel’s security-diplomatic cabinet, Channel 10 reported on Monday, and is far lower than the number mentioned previously by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who reportedly said that a maximum of 500 Israelis would die in such an attack.
Egypt – The Washington Post reported: Egypt’s Coptic Church withdrew Monday from an Islamist-dominated committee that will draft the nation’s new constitution, and a leading Christian figure said the minority was never really represented to begin with. The move fed growing fears that Islamists and the military will control the most important governmental bodies in post-revolutionary Egypt and minorities, women and the liberal groups that drove last year’s uprising will be largely excluded. Out of 100 members of the committee originally selected, there were six Christians, six women and a handful of liberals. Yousef Sidhom, editor of the weekly Watani newspaper and a Coptic Church official, said the church never officially put forth any members for the panel selected last week.
Mexico – CBS NEWS reported: The explosion of drug-fueled violence along Mexico’s border with the United States could harm relations between the two nations, President Barack Obama said Monday; Mexico’s leader retorted that much of the problem of drugs and guns begins on the U.S. side of the line. In the thick of political contests in both the United States and Mexico, Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon traded unusually direct claims about the cause and effect of the drug violence that has consumed a swath of northeastern Mexico. They were cordial and complimentary to one another, but did not hide the degree of worry on both sides about a six-year spasm of violence that has killed more than 47,000 people. “It can have a deteriorating effect overall on the nature of our relationship,” Obama said. “And that’s something that we have to pay attention to.” Calderon made a government crackdown on warring drug cartels the hallmark of his six-year term, which expires later this year. His center-right party has seen its election chances fall in the face of a wide perception in Mexico that the crackdown has not worked. The Mexican presidential election that formally began last week will culminate with elections July 1.
Mexico – USA Today reported: A magnitude-6.3 earthquake struck southern Mexico today in an area hard hit by a quake two weeks ago. The jolt was felt in Mexico City, but there were no reports of injuries or major damage. Update at 2:13 p.m. ET: Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard said via Twitter that no major damage had been reported by a helicopter flight of the city, the AP reports. The U.S. Geological Survey says the epicenter was in southern Mexico near the border of Guerrero and Oaxaca states, very close to the epicenter of a strong quake nearly two weeks ago. At least two people died in the earlier quake. Update at 1:55 p.m. ET: The U.S. Geological Service says the quake struck in the Oaxaca region, 111 miles east southeast of Acapulco at a depth of 12 miles.
France – The BBC Europe Corps reported: French officials say two radical Islamists have been deported and three more are to be expelled. The move appears be a response to last month’s attacks by Mohamed Merah, an Islamist gunman who killed seven people around the city of Toulouse. The interior ministry said two men had been sent back to their home countries of Algeria and Mali, while another three face expulsion orders. On Friday, police arrested 19 suspected Islamist militants in dawn raids. The domestic intelligence agency (DCRI) also seized a number of other cities.
Iraq – Bloomberg NEWS reported: Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) is honoring its oil exploration contracts in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq, the Kurdish minister for natural resources said in disputing a report from Iraq’s government. Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest energy company, hasn’t halted the agreements in Kurdistan, Ashti Hawrami, the natural resources minister, said yesterday in an interview in Washington. Iraq’s oil minister said Exxon Mobil confirmed in a letter April 1 that it has frozen its contracts with Kurdistan. What comes out of Baghdad is about 90 percent, with respect, rubbish,” Hawrami said yesterday. The regional government hears from Exxon Mobil on an “almost daily basis,” as the Irving, Texas-based company is “committed” to all its contracts in the region, he said.
3 April 2012
Syria – Reuters reported: The success or failure of Kofi Annan’s peace plan for Syria will depend largely on how willing Russia is to keep sustained pressure on a government that Moscow is determined to protect from Western calls for “regime change.” Even if, as expected, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad fails to comply fully with an April 10 deadline to halt military operations and pull its army out of population centers, U.N. diplomats say Annan will keep pushing Russia and China to help him pressure Damascus to end the year-long conflict. The former U.N. secretary-general, now an envoy for the United Nations and the Arab League on Syria, told the 15-nation Security Council on Monday the Syrian government had agreed for the first time to a deadline to halt fighting by April 10, to be followed by an end of rebel operations within 48 hours. The council hopes to endorse the deadline formally soon. Russia has endorsed the April 10 deadline, and said Assad’s government should take the first step toward a cease-fire. While Moscow still staunchly opposes outside intervention in the Syrian conflict, diplomats and observers said its position has shifted toward putting more pressure on Damascus.
France – Reuters reported: Police arrested 10 suspected Islamist militants in dawn raids across France on Wednesday after a shooting spree by an al Qaeda-inspired gunman prompted President Nicolas Sarkozy to order a security clampdown, just ahead of an April 22 election. The DCRI domestic intelligence service, supported by elite police commandos, carried out arrests in the southern cities of Marseille and Valence, two smaller towns in the southwest, and in the northeastern town of Roubaix, a police source said. Interior Minister Claude Gueant pledged there would be no respite in France’s pursuit of militants. “The pressure on radical Islam and the threats it represents will not stop,” he said.
France – Bloomberg Businessweek reported: MILLIONAIRE TAX: French presidential candidate Francois Hollande, leading in polls but normally bland, is now saying that, as president, he would levy a 75 percent tax on anyone who makes more than (EURO)1 million ($1.33 million) a year. EDGY IDEA: The proposal proved wildly popular, fanning hostility toward executive salaries and forcing President Nicolas Sarkozy to defend his friendships with rich people. BUT NOT A SHOE-IN: As much as the French like Hollande’s plan, it does not seem to have assured his victory. Less than three weeks before the first round of voting, Sarkozy is reaping the benefits of projecting presidential mettle during recent violence in France.
Australia – Reuters reported: About 200 U.S. Marines began a six month deployment in Australia on Wednesday, in the first wave of a build up of 2,500 troops due eventually to rotate through a de facto base in Darwin, as the U.S deepens its military presence in the Asia-Pacific. The deployment of Marines to northern Australia has sparked concern in China, where officials have questioned whether it is part of a larger U.S. strategy aimed at encircling it and thwarting the country’s rise as a global power. “We see this very much as responding and reflecting the fact that the world is moving into our part of the world, the world is moving to the Asia Pacific and the Indian Ocean. We need to respond to that,” Australia Defence Minister Stephen Smith said in Darwin, where he met the Marines off a charter flight.
4 April 2012
Washington D.C. – RT NEWS Service reported: The United States is seeking information about Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, founder of Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), “that can be usable to convict him in a court of law.” This was stated by State Department deputy spokesperson Mark C. Toner during a daily press briefing in Washington on Wednesday. Saeed told a news conference in the Pakistani capital Islamabad on Wednesday that he was neither a fugitive from American law nor a militant in hiding from authorities in Pakistan, after the United States announced a $10-million bounty on his head. Terming the U.S. reward as “ridiculous and misguided,” he suggested that it should be given to him as his whereabouts in Pakistan were well known. “I am here, I am visible, I will be in Lahore tomorrow. America can contact me whenever it wants to,” Saeed said and dared Washington to carry out a military raid against him like the one that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
Somalia – CBS NEWS reported: The president of Somalia’s Olympic committee and the head of the national soccer federation were killed in a bomb blast Wednesday that the IOC called an “act of barbarism.” Somali Olympic Committee head Aden Yabarow Wiish and Somali Football Federation chief Said Mohamed Nur were among at least 10 people killed in the explosion at the newly reopened national theater in Mogadishu during a ceremony also attended by top government officials. The government said a female suicide bomber carried out the attack, but Islamist group al-Shabab, using its official Twitter feed to claim responsibility, said explosives had been planted in the theater before the event. British Prime Minister David Cameron said his country would “stand with” Somalia’s Olympic team at this year’s London Games in memory of their loss. The bomb went off as Somali Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali was standing at a podium to deliver a speech. The prime minister was unharmed, said government spokesman Abdirahman Omar Osman.
Greece – The BBC Europe Corps reported: Protesters have clashed with riot police in the Greek capital, Athens, hours after a pensioner shot himself dead outside parliament. The 77-year-old man killed himself in the city’s busy Syntagma Square on Wednesday morning. Greek media reported he had left a suicide note accusing the government of cutting his pension to nothing. Flowers have been laid at the spot where he died and tributes have been paid online. Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in the square outside parliament on Wednesday evening, the scene of many large protests in recent months. Violence erupted, with petrol bombs hurled at police, who fired tear gas in response.
Germany – The San Francisco Chronicle reported: German Nobel literature laureate Guenter Grass labeled Israel a threat to “already fragile world peace” in a poem published Wednesday that drew sharp rebukes at home and from Israel. In the poem titled “What must be said,” published in German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung and Italy’s La Repubblica among others, Grass criticized what he described as Western hypocrisy over Israel’s own suspected nuclear program amid speculation that it might engage in military action against Iran to stop it building a suspected atomic bomb. The 84-year-old Grass said he had been prompted to put pen to paper by Berlin’s recent decision to sell Israel a submarine able to “send all-destroying warheads where the existence of a single nuclear bomb is unproven.”
France – The (AP) reported: French police rounded up 10 suspected radical Islamists in their second countrywide sweep in several days Wednesday, leading to criticism that President Nicolas Sarkozy is ramping up raids to win votes in a tight election. The arrests are part of a high-profile crackdown in the wake of attacks on soldiers and a Jewish school. They were carried out as part of a preliminary investigation opened Monday into terror-linked activity in France, a judicial official said. Another official close to the investigation said the 10 were suspected of links to Islamist websites and of threatening violence in online forums. Some of them may have been trying to attend jihadist training camps along the Afghan-Pakistan border, he added. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity, citing policy.
Afghanistan – The (AP) reported: A suicide bomber on a motorcycle killed at least 10 people, including three American soldiers, at a park in a relatively peaceful area of northern Afghanistan on Wednesday, part of an increase in violence at the start of the spring fighting season. The Taliban, which claimed responsibility for the attack, are targeting Afghan and NATO security forces as they fight to assert their power and undermine U.S. efforts to try to build up the Afghan military, who will take the lead in combat responsibility over the next couple of years. Shortly before noon, the bomber detonated his explosives at the gate of the park in Maimanah, the capital of Faryab province, police spokesman Lal Mohammad Ahmad Zai said. His target was unclear, but Zai said four of the 10 killed were Afghan police officers. At least 20 people were wounded, officials said. In Kabul, NATO said three of its service members were killed in a bombing Wednesday in northern Afghanistan. It provided no other details about the attack or the nationalities of the three.
South Sudan – The New York Times reported: South Sudan said that it shot down a north Sudanese fighter jet in its territory on Wednesday, as the two national armies continue to clash in a dispute that international observers worry may be inching closer to war. The jet, a MIG-29, was one of a number of Sudanese warplanes dropping bombs on South Sudan’s oil-rich Unity State, a South Sudanese military spokesman said, a region that has been at the epicenter of violent tensions along the border between Sudan and South Sudan. “Their planes have been bombing our positions,” said the spokesman, Col. Philip Aguer, “and finally one was shot down by our defenses.” Colonel Aguer did not specify the equipment that South Sudan used to down the fighter jet, and said it had crashed in an area between the two nations’ front lines, adding that South Sudan had sent out patrol units to try to recover the plane. A Sudanese military spokesman could not be reached for comment.
5 April 2012
Syria – The BBC Middle East Corps reported: The UN Security Council has urged Syria to implement “urgently and visibly” a peace plan requiring a 10 April deadline for ending a military offensive against the opposition. Envoy Kofi Annan’s plan calls for Damascus to pull back troops and heavy weaponry by that date, and for a full ceasefire by 48 hours later. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the conflict was getting worse. Mr Annan urged both sides to seize the moment and end the violence. “Let us stop the killing and start a serious political dialogue,” he told the UN General Assembly. He said he expected a full ceasefire to take effect by 06:00 (03:00 GMT) on 12 April.
Mali – The Herald Sun of Australia reported: ARMED Islamists have stormed the Algerian consulate in northeastern Mali and abducted seven diplomats amid fears Al Qaeda-linked fighters are turning the country into a rogue state and fuelling a humanitarian crisis. Alarmed by the sudden collapse of the west African nation, which has split into a rebel-controlled north and junta-controlled south in two weeks since a coup, the international community grappled for a response. Algeria’s foreign ministry said an unidentified group had attacked its consulate in the town of Gao and kidnapped the consul and six staff members. Witnesses told AFP the raiders hoisted the black Salafist flag that has been the emblem of Islamist rebels who have overrun Timbuktu and other northern cities.
Egypt – Reuters reported: A rocket fired from Egypt’s Sinai desert struck the southern Israeli resort of Eilat on Thursday, police said, fuelling Israeli worries over militant activity in the border area. No casualties or damage were reported. An Egyptian security source told Reuters in Cairo that Egyptian forces were searching the area along the border but had not found any evidence indicating any rockets had been fired from the Sinai. The head of Eilat police, Ron Gertner, told Israeli Army Radio that explosions were heard in Eilat soon after midnight. Police found the remains of one rocket in a construction site, about 400 meters (yards) from a residential area. Asked if the rocket was fired from Sinai, Gertner said: “Based on our working assumptions and the range, yes.” Officials in Israel have been worried that the Sinai has become a base for Islamist militants since former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s downfall last year.
Egypt – ABC of Melbourne reported: Pope Benedict has reasserted the Roman Catholic Church’s ban on women priests during a sermon at Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The Pope warned he would not tolerate priests challenging the Church on topics such as priestly celibacy and the ordination of women. Pope Benedict, who for decades before his 2005 election was the Vatican’s chief doctrinal enforcer, delivered an unusually direct denunciation of disobedient priests in a sermon at a morning mass on Holy Thursday, when the Church commemorates the day they believe Christ instituted the priesthood. The Pope responded specifically to a call to disobedience by a group of Austrian priests and laity, who last year boldly and openly challenged Church teaching on taboo topics such as priestly celibacy and women’s ordination. “Is disobedience a path of renewal for the Church?” he asked rhetorically.
Iran – The New York Times reported: Prospects for the scheduled resumption of talks on Iran’s contentious nuclear energy program next week appeared to recede further Thursday, when the Iranians issued new objections to Turkey as the formerly agreed location for the talks and revealed they had rejected alternate proposals to hold them in at least three European countries. Doubts that the talks would be held at all were compounded by the prime minister of Turkey, who criticized Iran for reneging on his country as the host and for what he described as the specious Iranian proposal of Syria and Iraq as alternate sites, knowing in advance that they would be rejected by the other side. “The offer circulating around, whether Damascus and Baghdad, is all about dragging the feet,” the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said at a news conference in Ankara. “It’s another way of saying ‘Let’s not do it.’ ” Mr. Erdogan, who visited Iran last week and came home expressing confidence that the Iranians were sincere, seemed angry over what he implied was an Iranian betrayal. “You need to be honest,” he said. “Because of the lack of honesty, they keep losing credibility in the world. This is not the language of diplomacy, but another language. And that does not suit me.”
UAE – The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported: The United Arab Emirates detained two employees of an American-financed pro-democracy organization and barred one of them from leaving the country on Thursday, worsening a diplomatic confrontation with the United States that has embarrassed and puzzled administration officials. The United Arab Emirates, one of the closest American allies in the Persian Gulf, last week ordered the closing of the organization, the National Democratic Institute, and then detained its two employees as they prepared to leave the country late Wednesday, administration officials and others briefed on the detentions said. The institute’s local director, Patricia Davis, an American, was ultimately allowed to leave. Her deputy, Slobodan Milic, a Serb, was released on Thursday after being detained overnight and questioned, but was not allowed to leave the country, they said. The detentions appeared to be part of a broader crackdown on nongovernmental organizations in the country, which also shut down a German advocacy group, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, which has close ties to the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel.
6 April 2012
Mali – The Washington Post reported: Under intense pressure from the nations bordering Mali, the junior officer who seized control of the country in a coup last month signed an accord late Friday, agreeing to return the nation to constitutional rule. The announcement came only hours after separatist rebels in Mali’s distant north declared their independence, a move that further complicates a crisis that began 16 days ago when a group of disgruntled soldiers stormed the presidential palace, reversing two decades of democratic rule in the space of a day. On Friday, Capt. Amadou Haya Sanogo emerged from his office inside the same military base where the mutiny began and which has acted as the de facto seat of government ever since the March 21 coup. Flanked by the ministers of neighboring nations, he read out the accord, stating that under Article 36 of Mali’s constitution the head of the national assembly becomes interim president in the event of a vacancy of power. The head of the parliament will form an interim government, which will organize new elections.
Syria – The Euro NEWS reported: At least 27 Syrian soldiers, rebels and civilians were killed in violence on Friday, opposition activists said, four days before a troop pullback agreed by President Bashar al-Assad as part of a U.N.-backed peace plan. The Free Syrian Army (FSA) said it had met a delegation from peace envoy Kofi Annan this week and confirmed its fighters would stop shooting if Assad withdraws his tanks and troops to barracks before a ceasefire deadline next Thursday. “Talks were held and the FSA said if the regime commits to the plan and withdraws from the cities and returns to its original barracks then we are committed to the plan,” Colonel Riad al-Asaad told Reuters. He declined to give further details. The plan calls for a troop withdrawal by April 10 and a ceasefire by April 12. Assad told Annan two weeks ago he had accepted the terms. The Annan plan does not stipulate a withdrawal to barracks. It says the army must “begin pullback of military concentrations in and around population centres”.
Syria – The Guardian UK reported: Turkey has urged the UN to send officials to its border after several thousand refugees crossed from Syria to escape a bloody government attack with troops and helicopters. Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, called the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, at 2am on Friday to discuss the unprecedented exodus and humanitarian situation. Ban later issued a statement criticising the Syrian government for its latest attacks on civilians and demanded that it keep a pledge to halt all military operations. More than 2,800 Syrians poured into Turkey on Thursday, more than double the highest previous one-day total. The refugees were fleeing heavy shelling by the Syrian army of villages in the north-western province of Idlib. They crossed near the Turkish village of Bukulmez, officials said, and were waiting on the other side. Forty-four minibuses took the arrivals to a refugee camp at Reyhani. Others were still trying to cross, officials added. “The army is destroying buildings and bombing them until they turn to charcoal,” Mohammed Khatib, a refugee who said he came from Kastanaz, a Syrian town of 20,000 people, told Reuters. “The army wants people to move out of their houses. If the residents refuse, they destroy them with the people inside.” There were reports of a mass grave nearby after days of shelling and strafing by regime helicopters.
Egypt – The New York Times reported: A former deputy of ousted President Hosni Mubarak announced his presidential candidacy on Friday, shaking up an already heated race that is emerging as a contest between former government officials and Islamists who have surged in influence. The deputy, Omar Suleiman, was the chief of intelligence under Mr. Mubarak and one of the most powerful figures in his government. Mr. Suleiman had said this week that he would not run. But he said he changed his mind after hundreds of people rallied in Cairo to support him. The announcement drew outrage from youth activists who spearheaded the popular uprising that toppled Mr. Mubarak last year and have since been disappointed by the continued influence of members of his former government. Liberals and revolutionaries have been largely squeezed out of the presidential race. Some have said they will boycott the election on May 23 and 24.
Egypt – The VOA reported: In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood’s presidential candidate, Khairat el-Shater, submitted his candidacy forms on Thursday, just days after Egyptian clerics said el-Shater pledged to them that he would introduce Sharia, or Islamic law, if he is elected in May. El-Shater’s supporters chanted and cheered as he submitted his formal candidacy documents in Cairo. But some minority party members in Egypt as well as some outside observers are concerned that the Muslim Brotherhood is a step closer to holding a monopoly on power in that country. Marina Ottaway, a Middle East expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, says the Brotherhood did nothing illegal when it opted to field a candidate, even after it had pledged to not do so. Still, Ottaway says, it was not the Brotherhood’s best move. “I think it was a very unwise decision because it increased the level of anxiety that exists in Egypt about the role of the Muslim Brotherhood,” Ottaway said.
Afghanistan – The BBC South Asia Corps reported: A prominent anti-Taliban commander in the Afghan province of Badakhshan has been killed in a suspected Taliban suicide attack, police say. They say that Nazik Mir was killed in Kisham district. At least 16 civilians were injured. Mr Mir was one of the biggest enemies of the Taliban in Badakhshan, stopping them from operating in the area. Separately, gunmen in Farah province killed eight people late on Wednesday in a checkpoint attack. They say that the checkpoint was manned by a government-sponsored militia. Officials say both attacks show how the Taliban is targeting its Afghan enemies as well as Nato forces.
Yemen – The New York Times reported: President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi replaced nearly 20 top military officers on Friday, including a half brother of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, but he left Mr. Saleh’s son and other allies in place in important military units, the official Saba news agency reported. Mr. Hadi, who had served as Mr. Saleh’s deputy, took power in February as part of a negotiated deal and was given the task of reunifying a military that had split during the yearlong uprising against Mr. Saleh. Mr. Hadi also replaced the governors of four provinces, including Taiz, where a Saleh ally led a crackdown against protesters, and Abyan, a militant stronghold.
Yemen – The New York Times reported: Günter Grass, Germany’s most famous living writer, tried Friday to quell the growing controversy over a poem critical of Israel that he published this week, saying that he did not mean to attack the country wholesale but only the policies of the current government. However, three days of worldwide debate, including a stinging personal rebuke from Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, show no sign of subsiding. The nine-stanza, 69-line poem, “What Must Be Said,” appeared Wednesday on the front of the culture section of the Munich-based newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. Mixing lyrical turns of phrase with discussions of the need for international supervision of both Israel’s and Iran’s nuclear programs, it bluntly called Israel a threat to world peace for its warnings that it might attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. By supplying weapons to Israel, including submarines, Germany risked being complicit in “a foreseeable crime,” Mr. Grass wrote. “Why do I say only now, aged and with my last drop of ink, that the nuclear power Israel endangers an already fragile world peace?” his poem asks. “Because that must be said which may already be too late to say tomorrow.”
-&-



