In an interview with New York Public Radio on Tuesday, Jarrar said, "I grew up and spent all my life living under authoritarian regimes and I know that these things happen. But I'm shocked that they happened to me here, in the U.S."

Jarrar could not immediately be reached for comment.

JetBlue said it was investigating the August 12 incident.

"We're not clear exactly what happened," JetBlue spokeswoman Jenny Dervin said.

The American-Arab Anti-discrimination Committee said the U.S. Transportation Department and the Transportation Security Administration were also investigating the incident after the committee lodged complaints on behalf of Jarrar.

Carmody Middle School principal John Schalk looked at the curriculum for Eric Hamlin's world geography class "and there was nothing ... related to any of these countries," said Lynn Setzer, district spokeswoman.

She said Schalk asked the teacher three times to remove the flags and warned there would be consequences, but Hamlin refused.

Hamlin, in his first year at Carmody, said he regularly displays flags from different countries, rotating them out based on countries being studied.

He said that the first six weeks of school are devoted to discussing the "fundamentals of geography" and that the flags were randomly selected.

District officials are citing Colorado Revised Statute 18-11- 205. It says: "Any person who displays any flag other than the flag of the United States of America or the state of Colorado or any of its subdivisions, agencies or institutions upon any state, county, municipal or other public building or adjacent grounds within this state commits a class 1 petty offense."

It says an exception to that law is "the display of any flag ... that is part of a temporary display of any instructional or historical materials not permanently affixed or attached to any part of the buildings"

Mark Silverstein, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said he didn't see how the statute applied to this situation.

District Superintendent Cindy Stevenson said the district has contacted

Hamlin and is trying to resolve the issue.

"We have not heard back," she said.

She said Hamlin could have complied with the principal's request and then followed policies that allow him to appeal.

Schalk did not return a phone call seeking comment, but Stevenson said the current topic for the class was "latitude and longitude, not the culture of China, not the culture of Mexico."

The punishment for insubordination could range from a reprimand to dismissal, Setzer said.

Hamlin said he was in his classroom Monday when an assistant principal came in, saw the flags and told him they needed to be removed.

Hamlin said there is an American flag stationed permanently in the classroom.

He said he believes school officials are being extra cautious because of a controversy at Denver's North High School when a Mexican flag was hung by a social studies teacher and people complained.

The Department of Treasury named al Manar as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity" in March 2006, thereby making it a crime to, among other things, engage in business transactions with al Manar. In conjunction with the arrest, agents executed search warrants at both HDTV's Brooklyn office and Iqbal's Staten Island residence where, it is alleged, Iqbal maintained several satellite dishes.

Iqbal was arrested Wednesday.

His case will be presented today in Manhattan federal court before U.S. Magistrate Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein, who will decide whether Iqbal is detained or released on bail pending further proceedings.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Miller is in charge of the prosecution.

The company said it immediately shut down the online store, notified credit card companies, and was working with law enforcement agencies to track down the hackers.

"We recognize that there is an active market for illegally obtained personal information," Priscilla Hill-Ardoin, AT&T's chief privacy officer, said in a statement.

"We will work closely with law enforcement to bring these data thieves to account," Hill-Ardoin said.

AT&T said it would also pay for credit monitoring services to assist in protecting the customers involved. The data theft involved people who had bought DSL equipment for high-speed Internet access.

On August 23 the BBC reported that Amnesty International has brought war crimes charges against Israel for deliberately targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure as an "integral part" of Israel’s strategy in its recent invasion of Lebanon.

Israel claims that its aggression was "self-defense" to dislodge Hezbollah from southern Lebanon. Yet, Israel bombed residential communities all over Lebanon, even Christian communities in the north in which no Hezbollah could possibly have been present.

United Nations spokesman Jean Fabre reported that Israel’s attack on civilian infrastructure annihilated Lebanon’s development: "Fifteen years of work have been wiped out in a month."

Israel maintains that this massive destruction was unintended "collateral damage."

President Bush maintains that Israel has "a right to protect itself" by destroying Lebanon.

Bush blocked the attempt to stop Israel’s aggression and is, thereby, equally responsible for the war crimes. Indeed, a number of reports claim that Bush instigated the Israeli aggression against Lebanon.

Bush has other war crime problems. Benjamin Ferenccz, a chief prosecutor of Nazi war crimes at Nuremberg, recently said that President Bush should be tried as a war criminal side by side with Saddam Hussein for starting aggressive wars, Hussein for his 1990 invasion of Kuwait and Bush for his 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Under the Nuremberg standard, Bush is definitely a war criminal. The US Supreme Court also exposed Bush to war crime charges under both the US War Crimes Act of 1996 and the Geneva Conventions when the Court ruled in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld [ PDF] against the Bush administration’s military tribunals and inhumane treatment of detainees.

President Bush and his Attorney General agree that under existing laws and treaties Bush is a war criminal together with many members of his government. To make his war crimes legal after the fact, Bush has instructed the Justice (sic) Department to draft changes to the War Crimes Act and to US treaty obligations under the Geneva Conventions.

One of Bush’s changes would deny protection of the Geneva Conventions to anyone in any American court.

Bush’s other change would protect from prosecution any US government official or military personnel guilty of violating Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. Article 3 prohibits "at any time and in any place whatsoever outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment." As civil libertarian Nat Hentoff observes, this change would also undo Senator John McCain’s amendment against torture.

Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice says that Bush’s changes "immunize past crimes."

Under the US Constitution and US legal tradition, retroactive law is impermissible. What do Americans think of their President’s attempts to immunize himself, his government, CIA operatives, military personnel and civilian contractors from war crimes?

Apparently, the self-righteous morally superior American "Christian" public could care less. The Republican-controlled House and Senate, which long ago traded integrity for power, are working to pass Bush’s changes prior to the mid-term elections in the event the Republicans fail to steal three elections in a row and Democrats win control of the House or Senate.

Meanwhile, the illegal war in Iraq, based entirely on Bush administration lies, grinds on, murdering and maiming ever more people. According to the latest administration estimate, the pointless killing will go on for another 10-15 years.

Trouble is, there are no US troops to carry on the war. The lack of cannon fodder forces the Bush administration to resort to ever more desperate measures. The latest is the involuntary recall of thousands of Marines from the inactive reserves to active duty. Many attentive people regard this desperate measure as a sign that the military draft will be reinstated.

According to President Bush, the US will lose the "war on terror" unless the US succeeds in defeating "the Iraqi terrorists" by establishing "democracy in Iraq." Of course, insurgents resisting occupation are not terrorists, and there were no insurgents or terrorists in Iraq until Bush invaded.

Bush’s unjustified invasion of Iraq and his support for Israeli aggression have done more to create terrorism in the Muslim world than Osama bin Laden could hope for. The longer Bush occupies Iraq and the more he tries to extend US/Israeli hegemony in the Middle East, the more terrorism the world will suffer.

Bush and the Zionist/neoconservative ideology that holds him captive are the greatest 21st century threats to peace and stability. The neoconized Bush regime invented the war on terror, lost it, and now is bringing terror home to the American people.

Paul Craig Roberts [email him] was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration. He is the author of Supply-Side Revolution : An Insider's Account of Policymaking in Washington;  Alienation and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for Peter Brimelow’s Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the recent epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.

Woodward is a member of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, an organization that maintains the Bush administration permitted the terrorist attacks to occur, and may even have planned them, so as to rally the public around its policies.

Woodward has discussed the theory in his classroom and has said he hopes to teach a new class that would explore Sept. 11 "in psychological terms."

Andy Lietz, chairman of the system's Board of Trustees, said he asked university administrators to review Woodward's comments in the classroom. He maintained, however, that Woodward may belong to any organization he chooses, and that he may present controversial material so long as he does it responsibly.

"I think he's absolutely wrong, and I'm disappointed that he would have those positions," Lietz said. "But he's an individual, and he has a right to have positions, as you and I have a right to have positions."

In a statement yesterday, the university's interim president, J. Bonnie Newman, said UNH encourages "the open inquiry of ideas."

"For me," Newman said, "there is no doubt that this tragic incident was the result of terrorists who had one objective in mind: to destroy the United States of America, the freedoms we enjoy and the principles that guide our democracy."

However, she said, "Among those principles is freedom of speech."

A similar controversy swirled in Wisconsin earlier this month, when legislators there called on the public university system to fire Professor Kevin Barrett, also a member of Scholars for 9/11 Truth. Barrett retained his job and is teaching a course on Islam this fall.

Scholars for 9/11 Truth claims to have 300 members nationwide. Its founder and co-chairman, retired University of Minnesota-Duluth Professor James H. Fetzer, said about 75 of those members have "academic affiliations."

Woodward's critics, Fetzer said, are "arrogant in their ignorance."

"Of course, all of us have difficulty imagining our government could have attacked our own government," he said. "But do you know there are an awful lot of people who have paid attention to the evidence that are coming around?"

Fetzer's writings dispute the conclusions of the Sept. 11 Commission, whose 2004 report clearly states that the attacks were carried out by Islamic extremists under the leadership of Osama Bin Laden.

Fetzer argues the hijacked planes could not have destroyed the World Trade Center. Among other claims, he says several of the suspected hijackers have turned up "alive and well."

"Virtually every aspect of the government's position on 9/11 is provably false," Fetzer said.

Woodward also is a member of New Hampshire Peace Action and other anti-war organizations. In May, he and five other demonstrators were charged with criminal trespassing during an anti-war protest at U.S. Rep. Jeb Bradley's office in Dover.

In an op-ed in Foster's Daily Democrat last month, Woodward accused Israel of committing "atrocities" against the Palestinians and labeled the U.S. as "directly complicit."

"The U.S. should stop support of Israel until it returns its 10,000 kidnapped victims, withdraws from settlements, and pays reparations," Woodward wrote in a piece published July 28.

Lugar was the keynote speaker Tuesday at a Purdue University energy summit. In the audience were energy leaders, politicians, educators, and researchers analyzing America's dependence on foreign oil.

"We keep talking about ordinary wars between states, but today energy is a much better weapon for those who own it," Lugar was quoted by RIA Novosti as saying.

Perino said the United States was willing to talk to Iran "in the context of positive response to the P5+1 package," referring to the five UN Security Council permanent members - the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China - and Germany.

At a news conference in Tehran on Tuesday, Ahmadinejad proposed the live television debate with Bush on world issues.

"I suggest holding a live TV debate with Mr. George W. Bush to talk about world affairs and the ways to solve those issues," he said.

The reports are impossible to verify, but they come amid growing signs of Chinese anger with Mr Kim over last month's missile tests, and regional anxiety about his next move. Earlier this month, the South Korean president, Roh Moo-hyun, requested an emergency summit with Beijing's leaders.

For the past two weeks, Washington and Seoul have been buzzing with speculation that Pyongyang may be preparing to test a nuclear bomb. North Korea has frequently boasted it possesses such a weapon, but has never proved it. Testing a nuclear weapon would be seen as a dangerous escalation of the crisis.

Mr Kim hopes to frighten Washington into making concessions, particularly lifting the financial restrictions on North Korea's overseas deposits. The choking of Pyongyang's foreign accounts, initiated by Washington in the name of an anti-money laundering campaign, has put Mr Kim under more pressure than any previous measure.

China has also demonstrated its frustration with the North Korean leader. Although the two countries were once described as being "as close as lips and teeth", there have been several signs of a rift in the past year.

According to customs figures, China's exports of rice, maize and wheat to North Korea have slumped by more than two thirds in the first seven months of this year to 102,000 tonnes, compared with 331,000 tonnes in the same period last year. South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper has reported a "significant decline" in oil exports. Chinese financial institutions are also said to have cooperated with US moves to freeze North Korean accounts.

"It's quite clear that relations between China and North Korea are tense now," said Shi Yinhong of Renmin University in Beijing. "Since the North Korean missile test, China has been indirectly supporting US sanctions on Pyongyang. If today's visit is confirmed, it may show that Kim Jong-il wants to complain about this."

Mr Kim is said to have expressed his distrust of his country's traditional allies after Beijing and Russia supported a United Nations security resolution criticising Pyongyang for the missile tests. According to a report by the Kyodo news agency, Mr Kim said China and Russia were unreliable at a meeting of North Korea's ambassadors, all of whom were hastily recalled to Pyongyang and instructed to prepare for a strengthening of the country's deterrent power.

"It is a critical time for North Korea. They are clearly frustrated. The financial restrictions are getting tighter and the Bush administration is showing no sign of flexibility," said Peter Beck, a North Korea expert at the International Crisis Group in Seoul. "If North Korea wants to do a nuclear test, they would want to consult with China first."

But he said Beijing was already unhappy with its neighbour and a test would make relations worse. "China's leaders want a stable buffer, but they also want a stable region and right now North Korea is threatening that stability. I don't know at what point Chinese leaders would start to think that North Korea is acting in such an irresponsible way that they cannot support it any more."

Armitage was the first to tell columnist Bob Novak that CIA employee Plame was the wife of former ambassador Joe Wilson. Novak called Rove and mentioned the revelation, and Rove said he'd heard the same thing.

Ironically, Corn was the first to suggest an administration conspiracy to smear Wilson. Now he is simultaneously backing off and sticking to that story. He acknowledges that the White House did not initiate the leak. But he tries to redeem his previous wild speculation by saying that the White House later spread word that Plame recommended Wilson for his famous CIA-backed trip to Niger and encouraged reporters to look into how Wilson's trip was arranged.

But so what? Wilson himself made the arrangement of his trip a subject for scrutiny. He hid the fact that his wife arranged the contacts that led to his hiring by the CIA, and he promoted the erroneous ideas that he was sent on behalf of Vice President Dick Cheney and that his trip was some sort of definitive investigation rather than a diplomatic courtesy call.

Those were intentional deceits. Wilson misled, and we are to believe that his deception was OK, but the White House attempt to correct the record was a smear campaign. That does not fly.

The facts are quite clear. There was no conspiracy to out an undercover CIA agent. None. Zero. Nada. It did not happen. End of story.

Now, can we finally drop this non-issue and move on?