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Editorial: The Siege Of Gaza Goes On
John Dugard
05 October 2006
The Independent
In August last year Israel withdrew its settlers and armed forces from Gaza, claiming that this brought to an end 38 years of military occupation. Of course, it did nothing of the sort. Israel retained power over Gaza by controlling its air space, sea space and external borders. Sporadic shelling continued, as did the targeted assassination of militants. Despite this, there was at least an appearance of disengagement, which Israel could claim as a major step towards the peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
On 25 June 2006, a group of Palestinian militants attacked an Israeli military base near the Israeli-Egyptian border, which left two Palestinians and two Israelis dead. In retreating, the Palestinians took Cpl Gilad Shalit hostage and demanded the release of women and children in Israeli jails in return for his release. This act, together with the continued firing of Qassam rockets into Israel, unleashed a savage response, which continues to this day.
In July, international attention was diverted from Gaza by Israel's attack on Hizbollah's bases in Lebanon. Sadly, despite the ending of these hostilities, Israel's war in Gaza has disappeared from the radar of international concern. Yet it is as important as the conflict in Lebanon. It highlights the intractability of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and reveals, yet again, the brutality of Israel's occupation.
Israel's attack on Gaza has taken several forms. On the military front, it has made repeated incursions in which both militants and civilians have been killed. Targeted assassinations have continued, accompanied by "collateral damage" - the name Israel gives to the indiscriminate killing of civilians who happen to be in the proximity.
The Israeli Air Force has bombed all six transformers of the only domestic power plant in Gaza. Since then, the power supply has been substantially reduced. Generators are used to operate X-ray departments and operating theatres. Perishable food cannot be preserved.
Poverty in Gaza stands at 75 per cent. Food prices have inflated and sugar, dairy products and milk are low as commercial supplies from Israel are limited. Fish is no longer available as a result of Israel's sea blockade.
Gaza's border crossings, for persons to Egypt, and for goods to Israel, have been mostly closed since 25 June. This has brought to a virtual end the export of produce; and drastically limited the import of foodstuffs and other goods.
Israel justifies its actions as a security operation designed to put an end to the firing of Qassam rockets into Israel and as pressure aimed at securing the release of Cpl Shalit. Israel's actions, in these circumstances, have been excessive.
In short, the people of Gaza have been subjected to collective punishment in clear violation of article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. For what? Surely not for sporadic Qassam rocket fire and the capture of Cpl Shalit? Instead, it seems the people of Gaza are being punished for having elected a Hamas government earlier this year.
Regime change, rather than security, probably explains Israel's punishment of Gaza. Whatever the reason, Gaza deserves more attention from the international community.
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Editorial: As the Arabs see the Jews
King Abdullah of Jordan
November 1947
This fascinating essay, written by King Hussein's grandfather King
Abdullah, appeared in the United States six months before the 1948
Arab-Israeli War. In the article, King Abdullah disputes the mistaken
view that Arab opposition to Zionism (and later the state of Israel)
is because of longstanding religious or ethnic hatred. He notes that
Jews and Muslims enjoyed a long history of peaceful coexistence in the
Middle East, and that Jews have historically suffered far more at the
hands of Christian Europe. Pointing to the tragedy of the holocaust
that Jews suffered during World War II, the monarch asks why America
and Europe are refusing to accept more than a token handful of Jewish
immigrants and refugees. It is unfair, he argues, to make Palestine,
which is innocent of anti-Semitism, pay for the crimes of Europe. [Ed: or the Zionists] King
Abdullah also asks how Jews can claim a historic right to Palestine,
when Arabs have been the overwhelming majority there for nearly 1300
"As the Arabs see the Jews"
His Majesty King Abdullah,
The American Magazine*
November, 1947
I am especially delighted to address an American audience, for the tragic problem of Palestine will never be solved without American understanding, American sympathy, American support.
So many billions of words have been written about Palestine-perhaps
more than on any other subject in history-that I hesitate to add to
them. Yet I am compelled to do so, for I am reluctantly convinced that
the world in general, and America in particular, knows almost nothing
of the true case for the Arabs.
We Arabs follow, perhaps far more than you think, the press of
America. We are frankly disturbed to find that for every word printed
on the Arab side, a thousand are printed on the Zionist side.
There are many reasons for this. You have many millions of Jewish
citizens interested in this question. They are highly vocal and wise
in the ways of publicity. There are few Arab citizens in America, and
we are as yet unskilled in the technique of modern propaganda.
The results have been alarming for us. In your press we see a horrible
caricature and are told it is our true portrait. In all justice, we
cannot let this pass by default.
Our case is quite simple: For nearly 2,000 years Palestine has been
almost 100 per cent Arab. It is still preponderantly Arab today, in
spite of enormous Jewish immigration. But if this immigration
continues we shall soon be outnumbered-a minority in our home.
Palestine is a small and very poor country, about the size of your
state of Vermont. Its Arab population is only about 1,200,000. Already
we have had forced on us, against our will, some 600,000 Zionist Jews.
We are threatened with many hundreds of thousands more.
Our position is so simple and natural that we are amazed it should
even be questioned. It is exactly the same position you in America
take in regard to the unhappy European Jews. You are sorry for them,
but you do not want them in your country.
We do not want them in ours, either. Not because they are Jews, but
because they are foreigners. We would not want hundreds of thousands
of foreigners in our country, be they Englishmen or Norwegians or
Brazilians or whatever.
Think for a moment: In the last 25 years we have had one third of our
entire population forced upon us. In America that would be the
equivalent of 45,000,000 complete strangers admitted to your country,
over your violent protest, since 1921. How would you have reacted to
that?
Because of our perfectly natural dislike of being overwhelmed in our
own homeland, we are called blind nationalists and heartless
anti-Semites. This charge would be ludicrous were it not so dangerous.
No people on earth have been less "anti-Semitic" than the Arabs. The
persecution of the Jews has been confined almost entirely to the
Christian nations of the West. Jews, themselves, will admit that never
since the Great Dispersion did Jews develop so freely and reach such
importance as in Spain when it was an Arab possession. With very minor
exceptions, Jews have lived for many centuries in the Middle East, in
complete peace and friendliness with their Arab neighbours.
Damascus, Baghdad, Beirut and other Arab centres have always contained
large and prosperous Jewish colonies. Until the Zionist invasion of
Palestine began, these Jews received the most generous treatment-far,
far better than in Christian Europe. Now, unhappily, for the first
time in history, these Jews are beginning to feel the effects of Arab
resistance to the Zionist assault. Most of them are as anxious as
Arabs to stop it. Most of these Jews who have found happy homes among
us resent, as we do, the coming of these strangers.
I was puzzled for a long time about the odd belief which apparently
persists in America that Palestine has somehow "always been a Jewish
land." Recently an American I talked to cleared up this mystery. He
pointed out that the only things most Americans know about Palestine
are what they read in the Bible. It was a Jewish land in those days,
they reason, and they assume it has always remained so.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. It is absurd to reach so far
back into the mists of history to argue about who should have
Palestine today, and I apologise for it. Yet the Jews do this, and I
must reply to their "historic claim." I wonder if the world has ever
seen a stranger sight than a group of people seriously pretending to
claim a land because their ancestors lived there some 2,000 years ago!
If you suggest that I am biased, I invite you to read any sound
history of the period and verify the facts.
Such fragmentary records as we have indicate that the Jews were
wandering nomads from Iraq who moved to southern Turkey, came south to
Palestine, stayed there a short time, and then passed to Egypt, where
they remained about 400 years. About 1300 BC (according to your
calendar) they left Egypt and gradually conquered most-but not all-of
the inhabitants of Palestine.
It is significant that the Philistines-not the Jews-gave their name to
the country: "Palestine" is merely the Greek form of "Philistia."
Only once, during the empire of David and Solomon, did the Jews ever
control nearly-but not all-the land which is today Palestine. This
empire lasted only 70 years, ending in 926 BC. Only 250 years later
the Kingdom of Judah had shrunk to a small province around Jerusalem,
barely a quarter of modern Palestine.
In 63 BC the Jews were conquered by Roman Pompey, and never again had
even the vestige of independence. The Roman Emperor Hadrian finally
wiped them out about 135 AD. He utterly destroyed Jerusalem, rebuilt
under another name, and for hundreds of years no Jew was permitted to
enter it. A handful of Jews remained in Palestine but the vast
majority were killed or scattered to other countries, in the Diaspora,
or the Great Dispersion. From that time Palestine ceased to be a
Jewish country, in any conceivable sense.
This was 1,815 years ago, and yet the Jews solemnly pretend they still
own Palestine! If such fantasy were allowed, how the map of the world
would dance about!
Italians might claim England, which the Romans held so long. England
might claim France, "homeland" of the conquering Normans. And the
French Normans might claim Norway, where their ancestors originated.
And incidentally, we Arabs might claim Spain, which we held for 700
years.
Many Mexicans might claim Spain, "homeland" of their forefathers. They
might even claim Texas, which was Mexican until 100 years ago. And
suppose the American Indians claimed the "homeland" of which they were
the sole, native, and ancient occupants until only some 450 years ago!
I am not being facetious. All these claims are just as valid-or just
as fantastic-as the Jewish "historic connection" with Palestine. Most
are more valid.
In any event, the great Moslem expansion about 650 AD finally settled
things. It dominated Palestine completely. From that day on, Palestine
was solidly Arabic in population, language, and religion. When British
armies entered the country during the last war, they found 500,000
Arabs and only 65,000 Jews.
If solid, uninterrupted Arab occupation for nearly 1,300 years does
not make a country "Arab", what does?
The Jews say, and rightly, that Palestine is the home of their
religion. It is likewise the birthplace of Christianity, but would any
Christian nation claim it on that account? In passing, let me say that
the Christian Arabs-and there are many hundreds of thousands of them
in the Arab World-are in absolute agreement with all other Arabs in
opposing the Zionist invasion of Palestine.
May I also point out that Jerusalem is, after Mecca and Medina, the
holiest place in Islam. In fact, in the early days of our religion,
Moslems prayed toward Jerusalem instead of Mecca.
The Jewish "religious claim" to Palestine is as absurd as the
"historic claim." The Holy Places, sacred to three great religions,
must be open to all, the monopoly of none. Let us not confuse religion
and politics.
We are told that we are inhumane and heartless because do not accept
with open arms the perhaps 200,000 Jews in Europe who suffered so
frightfully under Nazi cruelty, and who even now-almost three years
after war's end-still languish in cold, depressing camps.
Let me underline several facts. The unimaginable persecution of the
Jews was not done by the Arabs: it was done by a Christian nation in
the West. The war which ruined Europe and made it almost impossible
for these Jews to rehabilitate themselves was fought by the Christian
nations of the West. The rich and empty portions of the earth belong,
not to the Arabs, but to the Christian nations of the West.
And yet, to ease their consciences, these Christian nations of the
West are asking Palestine-a poor and tiny Moslem country of the
East-to accept the entire burden. "We have hurt these people
terribly," cries the West to the East. "Won't you please take care of
them for us?"
We find neither logic nor justice in this. Are we therefore "cruel and
heartless nationalists"?
We are a generous people: we are proud that "Arab hospitality" is a
phrase famous throughout the world. We are a humane people: no one was
shocked more than we by the Hitlerite terror. No one pities the
present plight of the desperate European Jews more than we.
But we say that Palestine has already sheltered 600,000 refugees. We
believe that is enough to expect of us-even too much. We believe it is
now the turn of the rest of the world to accept some of them.
I will be entirely frank with you. There is one thing the Arab world
simply cannot understand. Of all the nations of the earth, America is
most insistent that something be done for these suffering Jews of
Europe. This feeling does credit to the humanity for which America is
famous, and to that glorious inscription on your Statue of Liberty.
And yet this same America-the richest, greatest, most powerful nation
the world has ever known-refuses to accept more than a token handful
of these same Jews herself!
Comment on this Editorial
Editorial: To BYU President Cecil Samuelson: On behalf of Scholars for 9/11 Truth
James H. Fetzer, Ph.D.
13 September 2006
Dear President Samuelson,
As the founder and co-chair of Scholars for 9/11 Truth (st911.org), I want to write in support of Steven Jones, whom I invited to become my co-chair when I founded Scholars in December 2005. In the brief span of time since, the society has made a tremendous impact with the public relative to 9/11. We are dedicated to exposing falsehoods and revealing truths and have more than 300 members divided into four categories, including civil engineers, mechanical engineers, aeronautical engineers, pilots, and other experts.
We have discovered that virtually everything the government has told the American people about 9/11 is not only false but provably false. Learning from the efforts of those who have gone before, we have conducted our own research and have discovered that the official account is not only provably false but, in major respects, implies the violation of laws of physics and engineering that are inviolable and unchangeable. This means what we have been told is fine as long as you are willing to believe impossible things:
The impact of the planes cannot have caused enough damage to bring the buildings down, since the buildings were designed to withstand them (as Frank DeMartini, the project manager, has observed), the planes that hit were very similar to those they were designed to withstand, and they continued to stand after those impacts with negligible effects.
The melting point of steel at 2,800*F is about 1,000*F higher than the maximum burning temperature of jet-fuel-based fires, which do not exceed 1,800*F under optimal conditions. UL estimated that the actual fires averaged only around 500*F, so the fires cannot have caused the steel to melt and melting steel did not bring the buildings down.
UL certified the steel in the buildings up to 2,000*F for at least three to four hours before it would even significantly weaken, where these fires burned too low and too briefly--about one hour in the South Tower and one and a half in the North--to have even caused the steel to weaken, much less melt.
If the steel had melted or weakened, the affected floors would have displayed completely different behavior, with some asymmetrical sagging and tilting, which would have been gradual and slow, not the complete, abrupt, and total demolition that was observed.
Heavy steel construction buildings like the Twin Towers, built with more than 100,000 tons of steel, are not even capable of "pancake collapse", which could occur in "redundant" welded-steel buildings, such as the Twin Towers, only if every supporting column were removed simultaneously, as Charles Pegelow, a structural engineer, has pointed out to me.
The destruction of the South Tower in 10 seconds and of the North in 9 is even faster than free fall with only air resistance, which would have taken at least 12 seconds, which, as Judy Wood, a mechanical engineer, a civil engineer, and a materials science expert, has emphasized, an astounding result that would have been impossible without extremely powerful explosives.
The towers are exploding from the top, not collapsing to the ground, where the floors do not move, a phenomenon that Wood has likened to two gigantic trees turning to sawdust from the top down, which, like the pulverization of the concrete, the official account cannot possibly explain.
Massive pools of molten metal were found at the subbasement levels three, four, and five weeks later, an effect that could not have been produced by the plane-impact/jet-fuel-fire/pancake-collapse scenario, which, of course, implies that it was not produced by such a cause.
WTC-7 came down in a classic controlled demolition at 5:20 PM/ET after Larry Silverstein suggested the best thing to do might be to "pull it", displaying all the characteristics of classic controlled demolitions, including a complete, abrupt, and total collapse into its own footprint, where the floors are all falling at the same time, and so forth.
The hit point at the Pentagon was too small to accommodate a 100-ton airliner with a 125-foot wingspan and a tail that stands 44 feet above the ground; the kind and quantity of debris was wrong for a Boeing 757: no wings, no fuselage, no seats, no bodies, no luggage, and no tail! Which strongly suggests that the building was not hit by a Boeing 757.
The Pentagon's own videotape does not show a Boeing 757 hitting the building, as even Bill O'Reilly admitted when it was shown on "The Factor"; but at 155 feet, the plane was more than twice as long as the 71-foot Pentagon is high and should have been present and visible; it was not, which reinforces the conclusion that the building was not hit by a Boeing 757.
The aerodynamics of flight would have made the official trajectory-- flying at 530 mph barely above ground level--physically impossible; and if it had come it at an angle instead, that would have created a massive crater; but there is no crater and the government has no alternative explanation, which means that what we have been told cannot possibly be correct.
If Flight 93 had come down as advertised, then there would have been a debris field of about a city block in size, as a former Air Force Inspector General has told me; but in fact the debris is distributed over an area of around eight square miles, which would be explainable if the plane had been shot down in the air but not if it had crashed as claimed.
There are more, especially about the alleged hijackers, including that they were not competent to fly the planes; their names were not on any passenger manifest; they were not subject to any autopsy; several have turned up alive and well; the cell phone calls appear to have been impossible; on and on. The evidence may be found at st911.org. What this means is that the official account the government has presented cannot possibly be true.
Demonstrating that the official position is false is different than establishing what actually happened on 9/11, especially since the government continues to withhold much of the most important evidence from public inspection. (See our Petition at the top-left of our home page at st911.org.) That is why Steve's work, which is dedicated to establishing what actually happened in Manhattan on 9/11, is extremely important but also extraordinarily difficult to conduct.
We believe that discovering how and why the victims of 9/11 lost their lives is the highest form of repect that they could possibly be paid. To ignore what we have found and casually accept the government's account, when we know that it is indefensible, would be grossly disrespectful. As a former Marine Corps officer, I consider my obligations to my country to take precendence over support for an administration that has been lying to the American people, not only about the reasons for going to war but on other major issues.
I imagine you are aware that President Bush recently acknowledged in response to a question at a press conference that Saddam Hussein had "nothing to do" with the events of 9/11. You may also know that a Senate Intelligence Committee Report, releases just this past Friday, observed that there had been no links between Saddam and Osama. But do you also know that, two months ago, our FBI admitted it had "no hard evidence" relating Osama to the events of 9/11? If neither Saddam nor Osama was responsible for 9/11, who carried out the attacks?
This means that the government has been lying to us about 9/11 from scratch. I must tell you that I am not alone in following the evidence where it leads and drawing the tentative and fallible inference that some of our highest officials, including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, General Richard Myers, Paul Wolfowitz, Rudy Guliani, and Larry Silverstein have to have been involved. There is not only massive circumstantial evidence but even some that is direct.
Because of his understanding of BYU's preferences, Steve has largely avoided public appearances, the vast majority of which have fallen to me. He is not used to being badgered by talk hosts or having his words "spun" to create the impression that he said something he did not say. This host would have been unable to abuse me. Because of differences in our character, background, and personality, I would have been far more aggressive in thwarting his behavior.
Which leads me to the crucial point. Steve Jones is a very fine, conservative, upright, and honorable man. He is a very gentle and kind human being, someone whom I greatly admire and would emulate if only I could. He certainly does not have a racist bone in his body. If you consider my list of principal suspects, observe just how easy it would be to pick and choose and make the case that I was biased against blacks, women, or Jews, when the reality is that, like Steve, I am biased against the killers and traitors who are subverting our way of life.
Respectfully,
James H. Fetzer, Ph.D.
Founder and Co-Chair Scholars for 9/11 Truth
http://www.st911.org
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Bushwhacked
Bush says he can edit security reports
By LESLIE MILLER
Associated Press
Thu Oct 5, 2006
WASHINGTON - President Bush, again defying Congress, says he has the power to edit the Homeland Security Department's reports about whether it obeys privacy rules while handling background checks, ID cards and watchlists.
In the law Bush signed Wednesday, Congress stated no one but the privacy officer could alter, delay or prohibit the mandatory annual report on Homeland Security department activities that affect privacy, including complaints.
But Bush, in a signing statement attached to the agency's 2007 spending bill, said he will interpret that section "in a manner consistent with the President's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch."
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said it's appropriate for the administration to know what reports go to Congress and to review them beforehand.
"There can be a discussion on whether to accept a change or a nuance," she said. "It could be any number of things."
The American Bar Association and members of Congress have said Bush uses signing statements excessively as a way to expand his power.
The Senate held hearings on the issue in June. At the time, 110 statements challenged about 750 statutes passed by Congress, according to numbers combined from the White House and the Senate committee. They include documents revising or disregarding parts of legislation to ban torture of detainees and to renew the Patriot Act.
Privacy advocate Marc Rotenberg said Bush is trying to subvert lawmakers' ability to accurately monitor activities of the executive branch of government.
"The Homeland Security Department has been setting up watch lists to determine who gets on planes, who gets government jobs, who gets employed," said Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
He said the Homeland Security Department has the most significant impact on citizens' privacy of any agency in the federal government.
Homeland Security agencies check airline passengers' names against terrorist watch lists and detain them if there's a match. They make sure transportation workers' backgrounds are investigated. They are working on several kinds of biometric ID cards that millions of people would have to carry.
The department's privacy office has put the brakes on some initiatives, such as using insecure radio-frequency identification technology, or RFID, in travel documents. It also developed privacy policies after an uproar over the disclosure that airlines turned over their passengers' personal information to the government.
The last privacy report was submitted in February 2005.
Bush's signing statement Wednesday challenges several other provisions in the Homeland Security spending bill.
Bush, for example, said he'd disregard a requirement that the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency must have at least five years experience and "demonstrated ability in and knowledge of emergency management and homeland security."
His rationale was that it "rules out a large portion of those persons best qualified by experience and knowledge to fill the office."
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"Bush has used signing statements to challenge more than 800 laws."
Boston.com
05 Oct 2006
Bush signings called effort to expand power --Report sees broad strategy
President Bush's frequent use of signing statements to assert that he has the power to disobey newly enacted laws is "an integral part" of his "comprehensive strategy to strengthen and expand executive power" at the expense of the legislative branch, according to a report by the non partisan Congressional Research Service... Last week, Bush signed the 2007 military budget bill, but then issued a statement challenging 16 of its provisions.
The bill bars the Pentagon from using any intelligence that was collected illegally, including information about Americans that was gathered in violation of the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable government surveillance.
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Unlikely Terrorists On No-Fly List
CBS News
Oct. 5, 2006
60 Minutes, in collaboration with the National Security News Service, has obtained the secret list used to screen airline passengers for terrorists and discovered it includes names of people not likely to cause terror, including the president of Bolivia, people who are dead and names so common, they are shared by thousands of innocent fliers.
Steve Kroft's investigation, in which an ex-FBI agent who worked on its al Qaeda task force says the list of 44,000 names is ineffective, will be broadcast this Sunday, Oct. 8, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
The former FBI agent, Jack Cloonan, knew the list that was hastily assembled after 9/11, would be bungled. "When we heard the name list or no-fly list ... the eyes rolled back in my head, because we knew what was going to happen," he says. "They basically did a massive data dump and said, 'Okay, anybody that's got a nexus to terrorism, let's make sure they get on the list,'" he tells Kroft.
The "data dump" of names from the files of several government agencies, including the CIA, fed into the computer compiling the list contained many unlikely terrorists. These include Saddam Hussein, who is under arrest, Nabih Berri, Lebanon's parliamentary speaker, and Evo Morales, the president of Bolivia. It also includes the names of 14 of the 19 dead 9/11 hijackers.
But the names of some of the most dangerous living terrorists or suspects are kept off the list.
The 11 British suspects recently charged with plotting to blow up airliners with liquid explosives were not on it, despite the fact they were under surveillance for more than a year.
The name of David Belfield who now goes by Dawud Sallahuddin, is not on the list, even though he assassinated someone in Washington, D.C., for former Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini. This is because the accuracy of the list meant to uphold security takes a back seat to overarching security needs: it could get into the wrong hands. "The government doesn't want that information outside the government," says Cathy Berrick, director of Homeland Security investigations for the General Accounting Office.
Berrick says Homeland Security would probably agree that leaving such names off the list is a concern. The Transportation Security Administration is trying to fix the list through a program called "Secure Flight," says Berrick, but after three years and an estimated $144 million spent on the program, there's "nothing tangible yet," she says.
Even if the list is made more accurate, it won't help thousands of innocent travelers who share a common name on the list and who get detained, sometimes for hours, when they attempt to fly.
Gary Smith, John Williams and Robert Johnson are some of those names. Kroft talked to 12 people with the name Robert Johnson, all of whom are detained almost every time they fly. The detentions can include strip searches and long delays in their travels.
"Well, Robert Johnson will never get off the list," says Donna Bucella, who oversaw the creation of the list and has headed up the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center since 2003. She regrets the trouble they experience, but chalks it up to the price of security in the post-9/11 world. "They're going to be inconvenienced every time ... because they do have the name of a person who's a known or suspected terrorist," says Bucella.
Cloonan, when shown a copy of the list from March 2006, tells Kroft, "I did see Osama bin Laden, both with an "O" in the first name and "U" in the second...I was glad to see that. But some of the other names I see here...I just have to scratch my head and say, 'My God, what have we created here?'"
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EU and US agree on new passenger data deal
6 October 2006
BRUSSELS - The US and the European Union have struck a new deal for sharing transatlantic airline passenger data.
The new interim agreement replaces a 2004 deal ruled illegal for technical reasons by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in May.
The agreement followed a transatlantic video conference lasting at least seven hours. EU justice ministers will meet later on Friday to discuss and back the deal.
Negotiations were primarily over which information will be shared with the American counter-terrorist organisations such as the FBI or the CIA.
Negotiations collapsed last week, creating a legal vacuum where airlines risked losing landing rights in the US if they did not supply the data or legal action in the EU if they did.
The deal involves 34 pieces of data about passengers flying from Europe to US destinations, including addresses, telephone numbers and credit card numbers.
The data - including passengers' names, addresses and credit card details - must be transferred to US authorities within 15 minutes of a US-bound flight's departure.
EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini said new mechanisms had been agreed to distribute data from airlines to the US, the BBC reported.
US officials will now only be able to access data by having information "pushed" from airline computer systems. Previously the US could "pull" data from the systems whenever it was needed.
The new accord will expire at the end of July 2007 and negotiations over a permanent deal will start in November.
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United States of America stepping up espionage efforts in Venezuela by 50%
Published: Thursday, October 05, 2006
Bylined to: Jess Hunter-Bowman
While politicians from across the political spectrum and editorial pages throughout the United States have been taking their shots at Venezuela's Hugo Chavez since his now infamous ''devil'' comment at the United Nations, no one is asking what made him so mad.
Seats are getting crowded on the anti-Chavez bandwagon as retailer 7-Eleven announced it will drop Venezuelan-owned CITGO gasoline from its 2,100 service stations in the United States in protest and Florida lawmaker Rep. Adam Hasner has called for CITGO to be kicked off of the state's turnpike.
But perhaps we should try to understand why so many people around the globe are upset with the United States rather than simply dismiss Chavez as a despot or off his rocker.
A quick glance at recent US policy and posture toward Venezuela gives us some clues as to why people in Venezuela are getting set to reelect a President who calls the United States an empire.
US role in 2002 coup
A good place to start is the short-lived 2002 coup in Venezuela. While the United States publicly denies any role in the coup, numerous published reports show that at the very least the United States had a cozy relationship with many of the opposition figures who allegedly planned the coup and immediately welcomed the overthrow of the democratically elected president.
The US government, through the National Endowment for Democracy and ominously named Office of Transition Initiatives, has funneled millions of dollars to some of the most radical elements of domestic opposition in Venezuela, including political parties.
Do you think President Bush and Karl Rove would be upset if the tables were turned and Chavez were funding a 527 group supporting the Democrats in the mid-term elections?
Few would praise Chavez for his diplomacy. But while Chavez' gaffe got non-stop play in the US media, the same media pay little attention as Washington pulls no punches in its rhetoric against the Venezuelan President. In February, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld equated Chavez to Hitler. ''We've got Chavez in Venezuela with a lot of oil money,'' said Rumsfeld. "He's a person who was elected legally, just as Adolf Hitler was elected legally.''
The 2006 National Security Strategy refers to Chavez as ''a demagogue awash in oil money'' who is undermining democracy and seeking to destabilize the region.
At the same time, the United States is stepping up its spying efforts in Venezuela. In August the director of national intelligence, John Negroponte, announced the creation of a new ''mission manager'' position for Venezuela and Cuba. According to the State Department, the only other countries in the world with ''mission managers'' based out of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence are Iran and North Korea. Unconfirmed reports among security analysts suggest a recent 50% increase in CIA agents operating in Venezuela.
Let Venezuelans decide
Clearly the situation is not all rosy in Venezuela. Chavez recently admitted that the military was responsible for the killing of six miners in a clash in southern Venezuela. Yet he immediately called for a full investigation and punishment for those found responsible. ''This government isn't covering up, nor will it cover up any abuse,'' Chavez said.
At the same time, he has bolstered his popularity by using oil revenue -- long funneled into the pockets of bureaucrats -- to pay for arguably the most comprehensive social programs in South America.
Before making snap judgments based on Chavez's fiery rhetoric, we should ask the question: Why is Chavez so mad? The answer may be unsavory.
* Welcoming an unconstitutional coup, supporting radical domestic opposition and ramping up espionage would make any sane president upset.
Many in the United States and Venezuela have called on the US Congress and the Bush administration to let the Venezuelan people decide their fate, without interference from Washington.
When Venezuelans go to the polls on December 3, they are likely to reelect Chavez.
It is up to Venezuelans, and Venezuelans alone, to decide who leads their country, despite his strong words against Bush.
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Chavez shooting was to occur as he exited a helicopter on a trip to Zulia
Published: Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Bylined to: Bob Chapman
This past Saturday in Venezuela, it was announced that a sniper with a long-range rifle and a motorcycle to escape was captured ... his target was President Hugo Chavez Frias.
The shooting was to occur as he exited a helicopter on a recent trip in June to western Venezuela in the region of Zulia, where his main rival for election, Governor Manuel Rosales, holds forth.
Venezuela says it will cut oil production 50,000 barrels a day to try to stem the recent fall in oil prices.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias says he received warnings from within the White House that the Bush administration is plotting to assassinate him or topple his duly-elected government.
Chavez says Bush wants him killed before he leaves office...
* Mr. Chavez says there was a recent attempt to assassinate him and said those responsible had since fled to Colombia.
Mr. Chavez runs for president again on 12/3 and intends to rule for 14 more years.
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US set to cut deal with Taliban
Times of India
5 Oct, 2006
Alarm bells are going off in the US political and strategic community over the Bush administration's weighing the option of bringing Taliban back into the power equation in Afghanistan.
First signs of impending overtures to Taliban from Washington came last month when Bush and his aides gingerly supported Pakistan's agreement with Taliban in the Waziristan province, a deal which was panned in strategic circles as a sell-out to extremists at the expense of US and NATO ground troops in Afghanistan.
Undeterred by the criticism, the Bush subsequently persuaded Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who is vehemently opposed to the deal, to 'wait and see' how the Pakistani deal works.
Now comes advice from Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist that the Bush administration should consider bringing Taliban back into the power equation in Kabul.
Arguing that Taliban fighters were "too numerous and too popular" to be defeated, Frist told reporters after a visit to Afghanistan last weekend that "You need to bring them (Taliban) into a more transparent type of government... And if that's accomplished, we'll be successful."
"Approaching counterinsurgency by winning hearts and minds will ultimately be the answer. Military versus insurgency one-to-one doesn't sound like it can be won. It sounds to me... that the Taliban is everywhere," he was quoted as saying.
The remarks sparked outrage in US political-strategic circles with critics panning Frist, who is a doctor by profession, of waving the white flag before elements who helped perpetuate 9/11.
"Senator Frist now suggests that the best way forward in Afghanistan is to coddle the Taliban by welcoming Taliban members into a coalition government, as if 9/11 had never happened," Democrat leader Nancy Pelosi chafed in a statement. Frist, who is a Republican Presidential aspirant in 2008, was also criticized by John Kerry.
Not that the Democrats have a great record with the fundamentalist yahoos first mid-wifed by the Pakistani military to get a foothold in Afghanistan and gain strategic depth against India, which prefers the more broad-based and pan-Afghan Northern Alliance.
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Wis. lawmaker urges arming teachers
AP
Thu Oct 5, 2006
MADISON, Wis. - A state lawmaker, worried about a recent string of deadly school shootings, suggested arming teachers, principals and other school personnel as a safety measure and a deterrent.
It might not be politically correct, but it has worked effectively in other countries, Republican Rep. Frank Lasee said Wednesday.
"To make our schools safe for our students to learn, all options should be on the table," he said. "Israel and Thailand have well-trained teachers carrying weapons and keeping their children safe from harm. It can work in Wisconsin."
In Thailand, where officials have been waging a bloody fight with Muslim separatists for the last two years, some teachers carry weapons for self defense as they are viewed as part of the government. In Israel, teachers are not allowed to carry weapons in the school, but security guards at the entrances are armed.
Lasee said he planned to introduce legislation that would allow school personnel to carry concealed weapons. He stressed that it would hinge on school staff members getting strict training on the use of the weapons, and he acknowledged he would have to work around a federal law that bans guns on school grounds.
The director of school safety for Milwaukee Public Schools, Pete Pochowski, opposed the idea.
"Statistically, the safest place for a child to be is in school," Pochowski said. "We have problems in our schools, but not to the point where we need to arm our teachers and principals."
Last week, a 15-year-old Wisconsin student was arrested in the shooting death of Weston Schools Principal John Klang. The criminal complaint said the teen brought guns to school to confront students, teachers and the principal.
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Survey: New Orleans Under 190,000 People
AP
Oct 05, 2006
Fewer than 190,000 people are living in New Orleans a year after Hurricane Katrina, according to a door-to-door survey released Thursday.
The population of 187,525 is about 41 percent of the 454,000 people estimated to be living in Orleans Parish before the storm hit Aug. 29, 2005.
A spokeswoman for the Louisiana Recovery Authority, Natalie Wyeth, called the results "the definitive, most precise set of numbers we've seen."
The survey was conducted for the authority and the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals by the Louisiana Public Health Institute.
Population estimates have ranged widely for New Orleans.
For example, a recent report by a local demographer estimated there were about 230,000 people. Mayor Ray Nagin has cited a slightly higher figure, and last month said he believed the city was on track to reach 300,000 people by year's end.
The results are meant to help planners determine where clinics, schools, transit systems and other key infrastructure should be placed, Wyeth said.
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U.S. denies making "lethal threat" against DPRK
www.chinaview.cn 2006-10-06 03:37:29
WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 (Xinhua) -- The United States said on Thursday that its warnings to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) against conducting a nuclear weapons test were "not a lethal threat."
"It's important that North Korea not develop and try to deploy nuclear weapons. That's enormously important," White House spokesman Tony Snow told reporters.
Referring to the warning that a nuclear-armed DPRK would be "unacceptable," Snow said "It's a statement -- no, it's not a lethal threat."
"It's a statement of our policy, which is, we don't think they should have nuclear weapons," Snow said.
The United States has been pursuing diplomatic means to prevent the DPRK from pursuing its nuclear program, the spokesman said.
The DPRK announced Tuesday that it will undertake an unprecedented nuclear test. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that a nuclear test by the DPRK would be a "very provocative" act.
Pyongyang declared in February 2005 it had nuclear weapons, but there have been no reports of a test.
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Bumpy Road to Fascism
Thousands nationwide protest Bush
By LUBNA TAKRURI
Associated Press
October 6, 2006
WASHINGTON - Hundreds of people called the Bush administration's policies a crime and held up yellow police tape in front of the White House on Thursday amid a nationwide day of protest against the president.
The 500 demonstrators were among many who gathered for similar events in more than 200 cities to protest Bush on issues ranging from global warming to the war in
Iraq.
"We are turning the corner in bringing forward a mass movement of resistance to drive out the Bush regime," said organizer Travis Morales with the activist group World Can't Wait.
Some dressed in costume, including a hooded prisoner in an orange jumpsuit, a devilish rendition of President Bush and two grim reapers. One man wore a red cheerleader outfit with "Radical" emblazoned on the jersey.
The demonstrators held up yellow police tape along a three-block stretch in front of the White House.
Thousands of protesters clogged New York City's streets as they marched from the United Nations headquarters. Some people lay down in the middle of the street, while others carried signs saying "Expose 9/11" and "This war should be over." They also handed out fliers reading, "Drive out the Bush regime."
Lydia Sugarman, 82, of Manhattan, said she believed in the power of demonstrating.
"That's how we got our civil rights," she said. "If we didn't protest we wouldn't be Americans."
White House spokeswoman Nicole Guillemard defended the administration's Iraq policy.
"Our constitution guarantees the right to peacefully express one's views. The men and women in our military are fighting to bring the people of Iraq these same rights and freedoms," she said. "The president believes it is important to stay on the offense in Iraq."
World Can't Wait was founded in 2005 and has organized several marches since then, including a nationwide protest coinciding with Bush's State of the Union address in January, according to the group's Web site. Supporters listed on the site include Edward Asner, Ed Begley Jr. and Jane Fonda and activists such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Al Sharpton and Cindy Sheehan.
In Seattle, a person carrying a rifle wrapped in a blanket was among five people arrested. The charges against the other people ranged from resisting arrest to assault.
"They're still investigating to determine what that person was doing with the rifle," said Seattle Police spokeswoman Debra Brown.
The march through Seattle's streets was peaceful as protesters chanted, waved signs and wore costumes mocking administration officials. One woman dressed as a pageant queen with a sash that read, "I Miss America."
In Portland, Ore., at least 10 people were detained because they did not follow police instruction to get out of the street during a protest march through downtown.
Cathe Kent, a police spokeswoman, said one person, 26-year-old Christopher Knudtsen, also faced a charge of attempted assault for trying to attack a police officer.
An estimated 800 people, mostly college age, chanted "Impeach Bush" and carried signs, including one that read: "We Can't Wait for 2008."
Hundreds marched in Los Angeles, carrying caskets draped in U.S. flags to a federal courthouse, where protesters held a mock marriage of church and state.
In Asheville, N.C., dozens of University of North Carolina students walked out of classes. In Chicago, thousands of people flooded Michigan Avenue waving anti-Bush signs.
"We are at a defining moment for this country and our people," said World Can't Wait's Rick Strandlof in Reno, Nev.
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Three More Former Pages Accuse Foley of Online Sexual Approaches
Brian Ross, Rhonda Schwartz & Maddy Sauer
CBS News
October 05, 2006
Three more former congressional pages have come forward to reveal what they call "sexual approaches" over the Internet from former Congressman Mark Foley.
The pages served in the classes of 1998, 2000 and 2002. They independently approached ABC News after the Foley resignation through the Brian Ross & the Investigative Team's tip line on ABCNews.com. None wanted their names used because of the sensitive nature of the communications.
"I was seventeen years old and just returned to [my home state] when Foley began to e-mail me, asking if I had ever seen my page roommates naked and how big their penises were," said the page in the 2002 class.
The former page also said Foley told him that if he happened to be in Washington, D.C., he could stay at Foley's home if he "would engage in oral sex" with Foley.
The page told ABC News he was interviewed this week by FBI agents who had a six-page list of questions about Foley and the exchanges.
The second page who talked with ABC News, a graduate of the 2000 page class, says Foley actually visited the old page dorm and offered rides to events in his BMW.
"His e-mails developed into sexually explicit conversations, and he asked me for photographs of my erect penis," the former page said.
The page said Foley maintained e-mail contact with him even after he started college and arranged a sexual liaison after the page had turned 18.
The third page interviewed by ABC News, a graduate of the 1998 page class, said Foley's instant messages began while he was a senior in high school.
"Foley would say he was sitting in his boxers and ask what I was wearing," the page said.
"It became more weird, and I stopped responding," the page said.
All three pages described similar instant message and e-mail patterns, with remarkably similar escalations of provocative questions.
"He didn't want to talk about politics," the page said. "He wanted to talk about sex or my penis," the page said.
The three new verbal accounts are in addition to two sets of sexually explicit instant messages provided to ABC News by former pages.
An online story on the Drudge Report Thursday claimed one set of the sexually explicit instant messages obtained by ABC News was part of a "prank" on the part of the former page, who reportedly says he goaded the congressman into writing the messages.
"This was no prank," said one of the three former pages who talked to ABC News today about his experience with the congressman.
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Inquiry To Look At House, Not Foley
By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 6, 2006
The House ethics committee launched a wide-ranging investigation into Congress's handling of information about a Florida lawmaker and teenage pages yesterday, as Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) vowed to keep his job, saying, "I haven't done anything wrong."
The ethics panel approved nearly four dozen subpoenas for documents and testimony from House members, officers and aides. Its leaders said they plan to complete the inquiry in a matter of weeks, but not necessarily before the Nov. 7 congressional elections.
"Our investigation will go wherever the evidence leads us," Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) told reporters at the Capitol. The committee is evenly divided between the two parties, and Hastings and Rep. Howard L. Berman (Calif.), the top Democrat, promised to conduct an impartial investigation into the House's handling of warnings about the conduct of then-Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.).
The committee's inquiry will proceed in tandem with investigations by the FBI and Florida officials. Unlike those agencies, the ethics committee has no jurisdiction over Foley, who resigned last week as ABC News was publishing sexually graphic electronic messages between him and teenage former congressional pages. Hastings said his committee will focus on the "conduct of House members, officers and staff related to information concerning improper conduct involving members and current and former pages."
Democrats and some Republicans have accused Hastert and his leadership team of brushing off early indications of a problem -- including what they called an "over-friendly" e-mail that Foley sent to a Louisiana boy in 2005 -- that might have led investigators to find the explicit instant-message exchanges that had occurred in previous years. Two high-ranking House Republicans have said they told Hastert about that e-mail, and another lawmaker says he told Hastert's staff.
Kirk Fordham, Foley's former chief of staff, said this week that he repeatedly alerted Hastert's staff in 2003 to complaints that the Florida lawmaker was showing inappropriate interest in male pages, who are high-schoolers spending a semester or two working for Congress. The FBI spent more than three hours yesterday interviewing Fordham.
Some Republicans said they are most concerned about Fordham's assertions. Scott Palmer, the speaker's top aide, has denied the allegations and spent much of Wednesday night rummaging through old e-mails and files to determine whether he ever corresponded with Fordham, a source close to Hastert said. Palmer, who was described as very emotional, told Hastert that Fordham's assertions are false, the source said.
Hastert's office has been on edge. Deputy Chief of Staff Mike Stokke, who handles politics for the speaker, has offered to resign, two sources close to Hastert said, and several aides have expressed frustration that Ted Van Der Meid, the top counsel in the office, did not do a better job monitoring the Foley situation. Hastert did not accept Stokke's resignation offer, the source said.
Hastert, addressing reporters in Batavia, Ill., reasserted that he knew nothing of complaints about Foley's behavior until the day the Floridian resigned last week. The speaker rejected calls for his resignation by a handful of conservative groups, saying: "I haven't done anything wrong, obviously. And we need to come back." At the same time, he said, "We're taking responsibility, because ultimately, as someone has said in Washington before, the buck stops here."
Hastert suggested that Democrats may have known about the lewd instant messages and leaked them for partisan advantage, but he said he had no evidence.
Hastert had hoped to announce the bipartisan appointment of former FBI director Louis J. Freeh to look into ways to improve the page program, in which teenagers live in a Capitol Hill dorm and attend a special school. But when he called Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) early in the afternoon, she declined to go along with the plan.
Pelosi saw the Freeh proposal as a ploy to burnish the GOP's image, aides said. She told the speaker that investigators should examine whether existing rules and procedures were followed before the House considers new rules, the aides said.
Rather than presenting Freeh as an appointee backed only by Republicans, Hastert delayed his remarks and dropped the idea.
At the ethics committee's news conference, Hastings said he thinks Hastert "has done an excellent job" as speaker but added that as committee chairman he would be able to render impartial judgments on the Foley affair.
The committee has a stormy history, in part because Hastert replaced key members in early 2005 as the panel was investigating then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.). The committee was essentially paralyzed, but public furor over the Foley scandal forced it into action on a high-profile issue.
The four-person subcommittee handling the Foley matter consists of Hastings, Berman, Judy Biggert (R-Ill.) and Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio). Berman said that "we are dealing with a fundamental institutional issue" concerning the handling of information and warnings about Foley.
As he had done before, Hastert described the Foley chronology yesterday in ways that some Republican colleagues challenge. "Could the Page Board have handled it better?" he said. "In retrospect, probably, yes."
But only two of the Page Board's six members -- three lawmakers and three staffers -- knew anything about the e-mail to the Louisiana boy. Among those kept in the dark were Reps. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and Dale E. Kildee (D-Mich.). They have said they should have been brought into the decision-making process earlier this year.
Hastert was feistier in a Chicago Tribune interview published yesterday. "The people who want to see this thing blow up," he said, "are ABC News and a lot of Democratic operatives, people funded by George Soros," a major contributor to liberal causes. "I saw Bill Clinton's adviser Richard Morris was saying these guys knew about this all along."
Morris is a former Clinton consultant who was been sharply at odds with the former president for years. Hastert offered no proof for his assertions, and Democrats called them absurd and laughable.
High-ranking House Republicans, after challenging Hastert's handling of the Foley matter in recent days, issued statements of support yesterday.
President Bush called Hastert last night to offer his support. "He's saying at this point that the speaker should not resign," spokesman Tony Snow said.
Meanwhile yesterday, a 26-year-old Atlanta man says Foley began sending him sexually suggestive messages and invited him to his Washington home after he served as a congressional page nine years ago. Tyson Vivyan said Foley began sending him online instant messages a month or two after his nine-month stint as a page ended in June 1997. Foley entered Congress in January 1995.
Vivyan's account appears to show the earliest exchange of suggestive messages reported so far between Foley and former pages. Vivyan said he played along at first, thinking it was someone he knew. After weeks of peppering the anonymous message sender with questions, he said he figured out who it was and refused to engage in the sexual banter that Foley tried to instigate.
"I had absolutely no sexual interest in him. He was a man twice my age," said Vivyan, who added: "I don't call my self gay, I don't call myself straight."
Vivyan, who is divorced, said he found the congressman's behavior "morally reprehensible" but tried to maintain a platonic professional relationship in which they talked about legislation and "votes on the Hill."
He said that in 1999 Foley invited him and another former page over to his home for pizza. Vivyan said they went and "everything was completely platonic and nonsexual."
Also yesterday, ABC News reported that three more former congressional pages have come forward to reveal what they call "sexual approaches" over the Internet from Foley. The pages served in the classes of 1998, 2000 and 2002, ABC said, and they do not want their names used.
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Foley scandal clouds remaining Bush term
By TOM RAUM
Associated Press
Fri Oct 6, 2006
WASHINGTON - The final two years of President Bush's term could be bleak for Republicans if the congressional-page scandal roiling Washington ends up costing them control of the House or Senate or even both.
Republicans are grumbling - some publicly, most privately - about how House Speaker Dennis Hastert and other House leaders have handled the scandal surrounding sexually explicit e-mails that resigned Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., sent to teenage male pages.
GOP strategists fear that Democrats could spend the next two years tying up the administration with congressional investigations and subpoenas and scrutinizing Iraq war decisions and spending if they claim one or both chambers in Nov. 7 midterm elections.
"They would have a great time with it, which would be a big distraction," said Charles Black, a longtime GOP strategist with close ties to the White House.
"The control of the House was in play before the Foley thing happened, but this does not help," Black said. "If Democrats were to take the House, that would make it harder to get Bush initiatives through."
The House, with Hastert at the helm, has generally delivered for Bush, even when the Senate has not.
Democrats are believed to have a better shot at winning control of the House than of the Senate, although recent developments have raised Democratic expectations for both chambers.
Despite public expressions of support for Hastert by Bush and Vice President
Dick Cheney, the White House worked to distance itself from the firestorm. "We're not getting into telling the House how to do its business," White House spokesman Tony Snow said Thursday.
Even if Republicans do retain control, it probably would be by reduced margins, increasing the likelihood of gridlock. And even if Hastert doesn't step down - Democrats and some Republicans advocate that he resign as speaker - there now is a huge cloud over his leadership.
Hastert on Thursday said he was "deeply sorry this has happened" and took responsibility as the top House leader, but he held fast against calls for him to quit.
White House aides suggest they are doing little to actively prop up Hastert, despite expressions of support from Bush, Cheney and Snow.
Bush said Foley's behavior "disgusted" him - but that he supported Hastert. Cheney said "it makes no sense" for Hastert to step down, predicting that Republicans would retain both chambers of Congress.
Still, in an interview with the Washington Examiner newspaper, Cheney said that if Democrats did seize control, "I don't think we fear investigations."
"I don't think they would get much done, if that's all they've got. And I don't think there's great enthusiasm on the part of the country for that," Cheney added.
Republican strategists worried that the scandal could suppress Election Day turnout among the social conservatives that form the GOP base.
"We understand people's real concern about this. I mean, people ought to be concerned. It's a hideous thing," said Snow.
The scandal comes amid growing public opposition to the Iraq war and lagging confidence in GOP leadership.
In an AP-Ipsos poll conducted this week after the Foley revelations surfaced, about half of likely voters said recent disclosures of corruption and scandal in Congress will be very - or extremely - important in their vote next month. Democrats enjoyed a nearly 2-to-1 advantage as the party better able to fight corruption.
Republicans worried the scandal would ripple throughout the electorate, turning voters against GOP incumbents who had nothing to do with it - especially if evidence develops to back up allegations that some Republican leaders knew about Foley's activities months or years ago but failed to act.
Republicans pushed for quick action in the congressional and
FBI investigations.
At the same time, some gallows humor circulated.
"It took Bob Woodward's book off the front pages," said GOP consultant Rich Galen, referring to the new book by the Washington Post journalist that portrays Bush as intransigent in his defense of the Iraq war and his advisers as bitterly divided.
The page scandal "obviously keeps Republicans from talking about what they want to talk about," said Galen. But he warned against leaping to conclusions that it would automatically translate into Republican losses.
He noted that, in 1998, the situation was reversed and he and other Republicans "were rubbing our hands together in glee every day we had the Democrats talking about Monica (Lewinsky) and Bill (Clinton). And guess what happened?" Republicans suffered midterm election losses.
"We always flirt with danger when trying to predict future events based upon current data," Galen said. "When something flashes this hot, it often can't sustain itself and burns out quickly."
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Anti-U.S. Attack Videos Spread on the Internet
By EDWARD WYATT
New York Times
October 6, 2006
LOS ANGELES - Videos showing insurgent attacks against American troops in Iraq, long available in Baghdad shops and on Jihadist Web sites, have steadily migrated in recent months to popular Internet video-sharing sites, including YouTube and Google Video.
Many of the videos, showing sniper attacks against Americans and roadside bombs exploding under American military vehicles, have been posted not by insurgents or their official supporters but apparently by Internet users in the United States and other countries, who have passed along videos found elsewhere.
Among the scenes being viewed daily by thousands of users of the sites are sniper attacks in which Americans are felled by snipers as a camera records the action and of armored Humvees or other military vehicles being hit by roadside bombs.
In some videos, the troops do not appear to have been seriously injured; in one, titled "Sniper Hit" and posted on YouTube by a user named 69souljah, a serviceman is knocked down by a shot but then gets up to seek cover. Other videos, however, show soldiers bleeding on the ground, vehicles exploding and troops being loaded onto medical evacuation helicopters.
At a time when the Bush administration has restricted photographs of the coffins of military personnel returning to the United States and the Pentagon keeps close tabs on videotapes of combat operations taken by the news media, the videos give average Americans a level of access to combat scenes rarely available before, if ever.
Their availability has also produced some backlash. In recent weeks, YouTube has removed dozens of the videos from its archives and suspended the accounts of some users who have posted them, a reaction, it said, to complaints from other users.
More than four dozen videos of combat in Iraq viewed by The New York Times have been removed in recent days, many after The Times began inquiries.
But many others remain, some labeled in Arabic, making them difficult for American users to search for. In addition, new videos, often with the same material that had been deleted elsewhere, are added daily.
Russell K. Terry, a Vietnam veteran who founded the Iraq War Veterans Organization, said he had mixed feelings about the videos.
"It's unfortunate there's no way to stop it," Mr. Terry said, even though "this is what these guys are over there fighting for: freedom of speech."
One YouTube user, who would not identify himself other than by his account name, facez0fdeath, and his location, in Britain, said by e-mail that he posted a video of a sniper attack "because I felt it was information the U.K. news was unwilling to tell."
"I was physically sickened upon seeing it," he said, adding, "I am wholly opposed to any form of censorship."
The video he posted, which had been viewed more than 33,000 times, was removed earlier this week.
Another YouTube user, who said he was a 19-year-old in Istanbul and who posted more than 40 videos of Iraq violence, said via e-mail that "anti-war feelings and Muslim beliefs (the religion of peace) motivates me."
Neal O. Newbill, a freshman at the University of Memphis who viewed some of the YouTube videos and posted comments on them, said in an interview that he was enraged by the recorded chants of "Allahu Akbar," Arabic for "God is great," that follow some of the sniper attacks.
But Mr. Newbill added that he was awed by the size of the blasts from the improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.'s, used against American vehicles. A son, nephew and grandson of American veterans, Mr. Newbill said he had sought out the videos, searching on YouTube for "I.E.D.," "because I like watching stuff blow up."
The Web sites also contain a growing number of video clips taken by American soldiers. One shows the view from the back of a truck containing several members of a platoon, whose vehicle then hits an I.E.D. and is turned on its side. A few videos also show American servicemen or private security guards firing at attackers, and one shows an American rocket-propelled grenade hitting a building from which insurgents are firing.
A spokesman for United States Central Command, which oversees troops in Iraq, said the military was aware of the use of common Internet sites by both insurgent groups and American military personnel.
"Centcom is aware we are facing an adaptive enemy that uses the Internet as a force multiplier and as a means of connectivity," Maj. Matt McLaughlin, the spokesman, said by e-mail.
While posting of Web logs, pictures and videos by American troops is subject to military regulations, Major McLauglin said, "Al Qaeda uses the Internet and media to foster the perception that they are more capable than they are."
Some of the videos are obvious propaganda, with Arabic subtitles and accompanying music, while others simply have scenes without sound or graphics. They appear to be real, though the results of attacks are not always clear.
One frequently posted video shows individual photographs of several hundred American soldiers allegedly killed by a Baghdad sniper referred to as Juba. But a television news report from the German weekly Der Spiegel that also has been posted on the video sites shows an interview with one American soldier whom the insurgent group claimed to have killed but whose protective vest stopped the sniper's bullet.
Geoffrey D. W. Wawro, director of the Center for the Study of Military History at the University of North Texas and a former instructor at the United States Naval War College, said the erosion of the command structure of terrorist and insurgent groups had led them to increase their reliance on the Internet and videos to gain recruits.
American troops, too, have always sent snapshots home from the front, Mr. Wawro said, and digital pictures and video are simply a new incarnation of that.
"This is how the new generation does things," he said.
"It results in a continued trivialization of combat and its effects," Mr. Wawro added, "but no one feels completely comfortable saying, Don't do it."
YouTube does feel comfortable saying so, however, as does Google Video. Both have user guidelines that prohibit the posting of videos with graphic violence, a measure that spokeswomen for each service said was violated by many of the Iraq videos.
Julie Supan, senior director of marketing for YouTube, said the company removed videos after they were flagged by users as having inappropriate content and were reviewed by the video service.
In an e-mail message, Ms. Supan said that among the videos removed were those that "display graphic depictions of violence in addition to any war footage (U.S. or other) displayed with intent to shock or disgust, or graphic war footage with implied death (of U.S. troops or otherwise)."
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US casualties soar as military intensifies violence in Baghdad
Patrick Martin
WSWS
6 October 2006
The worst three-day period for US forces in the greater Baghdad area since the beginning of the Iraq war has driven the American casualty total up sharply. Thirteen US soldiers were killed in the Iraqi capital Monday through Wednesday, and a total of 23 died throughout Iraq in the first four days of October, according to fragmentary reports from US military sources given to the American press.
Eight US soldiers were killed on Monday alone in Baghdad, the worst one-day total in 15 months. Other deaths include five Marines killed in Anbar Province, a British soldier killed in Basra, and four more deaths in Baghdad on Wednesday morning.
The deaths in Baghdad are directly bound up with the influx into the Iraqi capital of US troops as part of an offensive launched by the Pentagon to suppress sectarian militias and forestall the breakup of the puppet regime of Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki.
This is a brutal action, with American troops going door-to-door in targeted neighborhoods, breaking down doors and arresting alleged militia members. Very little has been reported about the offensive, and no figures have been released of Iraqi dead and wounded, or the number arrested. However, ABC News noted Thursday night that US forces have raided 100,000 buildings over the past two months.
Eight of the 13 deaths in Baghdad were attributed to small arms fire rather than improvised explosive devices, the leading killer of American soldiers in Iraq. A US Army spokesman, Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, told the press, "When you're conducting operations and you've doubled the number of troops doing operations in Baghdad, there is more opportunity-as there is much more activity as they go into more neighborhoods-for attacks to occur and casualties to result." He said insurgents "are reacting to an opportunity to attack."
According to a report Wednesday in the Los Angeles Times, "US military deaths appear to be rising, even as fatalities among Iraqi security forces have fallen... As American fatalities increased, the number of deaths among Iraqi security forces fell in September to 150, the lowest number since June and among the lowest tallies in 18 months, according to the Brookings Institution Iraq Index."
These figures demonstrate the failure of the Bush administration's policy of shifting front-line military responsibilities to the troops and police of the US-installed regime in Baghdad headed by Maliki. With Iraqi troops either unable or unwilling to conduct the type of brutal counterinsurgency sweeps demanded in densely populated Baghdad neighborhoods, more than 15,000 American troops have been mobilized to carry out the dirty work-and take the ensuing casualties.
In addition to the small arms fire encountered in the house-to-house searches, the number of bombs planted is "at an all-time high," according to another military spokesman, Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell. "This has been a hard week for US forces," he admitted.
Army Maj. Gen. James D. Thurman, commander of the Multinational Division Baghdad, told the Times last month that attacks against US-led coalition forces in Baghdad had reached an average of 42 a day-with about six causing casualties or equipment damage-up from 36 or 38 attacks. "Why are we seeing an increase in attacks?" he said. "Well, we have twice as many forces operating throughout the city now. We're challenging the anti-Iraqi forces where they live and operate."
In the bizarre terminology of the Pentagon, Iraqi insurgents-people who, as General Thurman admits, "live and operate" in Baghdad and fight against the Americans who have come 10,000 miles to occupy the country-are described as "anti-Iraqi forces."
Meanwhile, the Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr, whose political movement dominates the eastern half of Baghdad, issued a warning that he and his Mahdi Army militia were the likely next target for a massive US military onslaught. A top aide to al-Sadr, Sahib al-Amery, said Wednesday that a US attack on Sadr City, the main Shiite area on east side of Baghdad, was imminent.
"They want to turn it into mass graves similar to the previous ones conducted by the former regime," al-Amery said. "The occupation forces want to start a sectarian crisis on the pretext that there are Shiite militias."
US officials have issued a steady drumbeat of statements criticizing the Maliki government for not moving against al-Sadr's organization and against another big Shiite militia, the Badr Brigade, controlled by the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of the two main components of the ruling Shiite bloc that controls a majority of seats in parliament.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice flew to Baghdad Wednesday for talks with Maliki. Her trip, not announced in advance, was a manifestation of the deepening crisis of the US occupation regime. Rice's landing at the Baghdad International Airport had to be delayed by 30 minutes because of mortar fire near the facility.
Her trip was largely aimed at stepping up the pressure on Maliki and his government to support and participate in an attack on al-Sadr's forces.
She arrived in the Iraqi capital barely 24 hours after the Iraqi Interior Ministry suspended an entire Iraqi police brigade after charges that it had permitted or directly participated in sectarian death-squad killings. Members of the brigade were alleged to have taken part in a raid on a meatpacking plant in which 24 workers were seized and presumably executed. The bodies of seven of the kidnapped workers were found the next day.
According to the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, which monitors deaths reported by the US military, 74 soldiers and Marines were killed in Iraq in September, the highest number since April, when 76 died. The death toll diminished during the summer, at least in part because of a deliberate decision by the Pentagon to scale back the number of American patrols, which, according to the New York Times, are down from a daily average of 400 in 2005 to only 100 a day this year.
It is quite likely that this decision was taken for political, not military reasons-to prevent the US death toll from hitting the 3,000 mark during the critical last two months of the 2006 election campaign. Total US deaths in Iraq are nearing 2,750. If American soldiers had died at September's rate throughout the summer, the death toll would have hit 3,000 only days before the November 7 vote.
A preliminary analysis of the September deaths, prepared by the Washington Post's web site, found that the 70 soldiers for whom biographical information was available came from 31 states and two US territories (Puerto Rico and Micronesia). There were 67 men and three women.
In terms of states, the largest number of deaths, six, was among Ohio soldiers, followed by five each from California and Texas, four from Florida, and three apiece from Georgia, Maryland, Missouri, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Washington.
The tragic waste of lives-a tragedy multiplied a hundredfold in terms of Iraqi war dead-is underscored when one considers the age at which these soldiers were killed. One was only 18 years old, five were 19, 9 were 20 years old, and 13 were 21 years old (the most common age). Three were in their 50s, the oldest of whom was 57.
The ongoing slaughter testifies to the bipartisan support for the continuation of the war. No prominent Democrat has criticized the intensification of US violence in Baghdad. On the contrary, many of the Democratic critics of the Bush administration have combined complaints about the government's incompetence and its strategic blunders with calls for more troops and more decisive military action to crush the Iraqi resistance.
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Soldiers' deaths in Afghanistan the price of leadership: Harper
Last Updated: Friday, October 6, 2006 | 10:27 AM ET
CBC News
Prime Minister Stephen Harper says the toll of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan is the price Canada is paying for playing a leadership role in world affairs.
Speaking in Calgary on Thursday night, Harper praised Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan, saying they are well aware of the risks involved in their work there.
"The Canadian men and women who serve there have gone willingly, knowing that not all of them will return," he said.
"When I went to Afghanistan and visited our troops there, I saw - as anyone could see first-hand there on the ground - just how dedicated, professional, skilled and courageous they are."
Thirty-nine Canadian soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since Canada first sent troops there in early 2002.
"We see just how proud Canadians are of their soldiers and their families and we have also seen how difficult it is to bear the sorrows of their losses. But, ladies and gentlemen, that is the price of leadership in the world," Harper told the audience.
"It is also the price of moving the world forward."
Harper was in Calgary to receive the Woodrow Wilson Award for public service. He said Canadians want their country to be confident and to take a clear role in the world, even if it is not always the safest path.
They want "a Canada that doesn't just criticize, but one that can contribute," he said. "They want a Canada that reflects their values and interests, and that punches above its weight."
Soldiers' remains to arrive Friday evening
Harper, whose government was criticized by a Senate committee on Thursday for not doing a good job of explaining Canada's mission in Afghanistan, made his comments as the bodies of two Canadian soldiers were on their way back home to Canada.
Sgt. Craig Paul Gillam and Cpl. Robert Thomas James Mitchell were killed on Tuesday. They were both members of the Royal Canadian Dragoons, based in Petawawa, Ont. Their bodies were expected to arrive at 7 p.m. ET at CFB Trenton in eastern Ontario.
Gillam and Mitchell were providing security for a road construction project about 20 kilometres west of Kandahar when a handful of insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles attacked. Gillam and Mitchell were killed in the attack, which also left five other soldiers wounded.
They were the 38th and 39th Canadian soldiers to die in Afghanistan since 2002, when Canada first contributed troops to help stabilize the country for reconstruction.
Canada has more than 2,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, the majority stationed in the southern province of Kandahar.
Comment: Translaed out of the Orwellian newspeak, Harper statement says:
"It is worth killing Canadian soldiers and Afghani civilians in order to justify my meetings with other deviants from around the globe as we plot and carry out our attacks on people of conscience. You'll all going to die anyway, so what's the big deal?"
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New research turns up more evidence of warming Arctic waters
Last Updated: Friday, October 6, 2006 | 11:16 AM ET
CBC News
Abnormal water flows from the North Atlantic to the Arctic Ocean are causing unprecedented warming in some areas, new research collected this fall shows.
Information gathered aboard a Russian icebreaker found the Arctic waters were warmer by as much as one degree in places.
"It's a pretty substantial, warm anomaly, comparable and even warmer than an anomaly found in the early '90s," Dr. Igor Polyakov, of the International Arctic Research Center in Fairbanks, Alaska, told CBC News.
The warming could change the thickness of Arctic sea ice as well as the amount of area it covers, affecting the marine ecosystem and the species that live there, he said.
"In 2004 we found this anomaly in the eastern Eurasian basin and now we are tracing this anomaly propagating further towards the Canadian part of the basin and towards Alaska," he said.
Prof. Julie Brigham-Grette, who is with the U.S. National Research Council, said changes have already been noticed off the coast of Alaska.
"A lot of the fishing vessels are following the northward shift in the ecosystem," she said. "A lot of the commercial fish are migrating northward as the warmer waters migrate northward."
The American researchers are working with international partners including Norway, Greenland and Canada.
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Zionism in Action
Palestinian Murdered by Israeli Soldiers east of Khan Younis
IMEMC
06/10/2006
The sources said that Yousef Qabalan, 18, was killed after the army stationed at a military post east of Khan Younis fired shells and rounds of live ammunition at the area.
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Are Israeli security forces trigger-happy when it come to Arabs? (naturally)
Haaretz
06/10/2006
Eighteen Israeli Arabs have been killed since the October 2000 riots by the security forces under circumstances unrelated to national security. Eleven of these were shot to death by cops and Border Police troops. During this period there was only one comparable case in which a cop shot to death a Jew, while trying to prevent the man from stabbing his parents.
Yesterday's casualty is not included in the grim statistics, because he was a Palestinian without an Israeli identification card.
Yet despite such dramatic data, police refuse to check whether cops have a "lighter trigger finger" when dealing with Arab suspects. For example, Nadim Milham who was killed outside his house in January 2006, was shot to death by a cop for carrying an illegal firearm. Last July, Mahmoud Ghanim of Baka al-Garbiyeh was killed after a cop suspected him of breaking into a car in Pardes Hannah. Jewish suspects in comparable circumstances have not been shot to death even though there have been dozens of confrontations during this period with Jews who were illegally armed, or with Jews suspected of breaking into cars.
A few days ago, the Justice Ministry's Police Investigation Department (PID) decided to indict the cop who shot Milham for manslaughter.
Surprisingly, the data published here, and not for the first time, is news to the police: An investigation by Haaretz several months ago found that police do not maintain statistical data on police shootings at civilians, or about more grievous incidents in which civilians are killed in encounters with the police. Senior officials at police headquarters admitted at the time that they tried to obtain such data from police sources, but failed because "the police do not perform a breakdown of police shooting casualties by population, and address each case separately."
In six of the deaths in question, PID ruled the shootings were justified under the circumstances. The police were quick to accept these conclusions and prefered not to examine the considerations that had led cops to open fire on an Arab car thief, but to take a "softer" approach toward a Jewish thief.
Internal probes were held in every shooting incident, and the cops were brought up on charges when necessary. However, there was never any examination of the prevailing thinking among cops who deal with the Arab populace, compared to the thinking among cops trained to deal with the Jewish populace.
Senior officials in the police and Public Security Ministry recently rejected any need to look into this matter, claiming that trust had developed since 2000 between Israeli Arabs and the police. Mossawa Center for Arab Citizens of Israel, which gathered the data on Arab Israelis killed since 2000, accused the police several months ago of whitewashing attempts and "questionable" decisions to close investigations into police shootings of Arab civilians.
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Palestinian child deaths in conflict with Israel already nearly double that of 2005 - UN
5 October 2006
UN News Center
Ninety-one Palestinian children have already been killed this year in the West Bank and Gaza, almost double the number for the whole of 2005, with youngsters suffering increasing levels of stress from violence and fear in the Israeli-Palestinians conflict, according to the latest United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) update.
"They are confronted with regular military operations, shelling, house demolitions, checkpoints on their way to schools," UNICEF Child Protection Officer Anne Grandjean said. "As a result we find high prevalence of signs of stress such as anxiety, eating and sleeping disorders, and difficulties concentrating in school.
"All of these signs need to be tackled as soon as possible to avoid a long-lasting impact on the child's development," she added.
UNICEF and the Humanitarian Aid Department of the European Commission have established teams of social workers and psychologists to respond to the children's needs. Every month they reach some 3,000 children and their families, offering support and counselling after violent incidents.
The counselling sessions end every month with a festival and beach party organized by UNICEF and its partners, where thousands of children are given the chance to play and interact with each other away from the conflict.
"These festivals are important because they are about protecting childhood," UNICEF Special Representative for Gaza and the West Bank Dan Rohrmann said. "It's an opportunity for children to be children, which is rare here in Gaza, because they live in an environment of extraordinary fear and violence and insecurity."
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Israeli Bomblets Plague Lebanon
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
Published: October 6, 2006
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Sept. 29 - Since the war between Israel and Hezbollah ended in August, nearly three people have been wounded or killed each day by cluster bombs Israel dropped in the waning days of the war, and officials now say it will take more than a year to clear the region of them.
United Nations officials estimate that southern Lebanon is littered with one million unexploded bomblets, far outnumbering the 650,000 people living in the region. They are stuck in the branches of olive trees and the broad leaves of banana trees. They are on rooftops, mixed in with rubble and littered across fields, farms, driveways, roads and outside schools.
As of Sept. 28, officials here said cluster bombs had severely wounded 109 people - and killed 18 others.
Muhammad Hassan Sultan, a slender brown-haired 12-year-old, became a postwar casualty when the shrapnel from a cluster bomb cut into his head and neck. He was from Sawane, a hillside village with a panoramic view of terraced olive farms and rolling hills. Muhammad was sitting on a hip-high wall, watching a bulldozer clear rubble, when the machine bumped into a tree.
A flash of a second later he was fatally injured when a cluster bomblet dropped from the branches. "I took Muhammad to the hospital in my car, but he was already dead," said Yousef Ftouni, a resident of the village.
The entire village was littered with the bomblets, and as Mr. Ftouni recounted Muhammad's death, the Lebanese Army worked its way through an olive grove, blowing up unexploded munitions in a painfully slow process of clearance.
Cluster bombs are legal if aimed at military targets and are very effective, military experts say. Nonetheless, Israel has been heavily criticized by United Nations officials, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch for using cluster bombs, because they are difficult to focus exclusively on military targets. Israel was also criticized because it fired most of its cluster bombs in the last days of the war, when the United Nations Security Council was negotiating a resolution to end the conflict.
Officials calculate that if they are lucky, and money from international donors does not run out, it will take 15 months to clear the area. There are now about 300 Lebanese Army soldiers and 30 other clearance teams, each of up to 30 experts, working on the problem of unexploded bomblets.
The United Nations Mine Action Coordination Center in southern Lebanon recorded 745 locations across the south where unexploded bombs had been found. Of the million estimated to be scattered around, so far 4,500 have been disposed of, according to the center.
"Our priority at the moment is to clean houses, main roads and gardens so that the displaced people can return to their villages," said Col. Mohammad Fahmy, head of the national mine clearing office. "The next stage will be cleaning agricultural lands."
In Lebanon there are two explanations of why Israel unleashed cluster bombs at the end of the war: to inflict as much damage as possible on Hezbollah before withdrawing, or to litter the south with unexploded cluster bombs as a strategy to keep people from returning right away.
The United States has sold cluster bombs to Israel in the past and says it is investigating whether Israel's use of cluster bombs in its war with Hezbollah violated a secret agreement that restricted when they could be used.
The final days of the war - a conflict that began when Hezbollah launched rockets from Lebanon into northern Israel and sent militiamen across the border to capture Israeli soldiers - were marked by a huge Israeli offensive. Israel hoped its final push would, in part, help force the Security Council to adopt a tougher resolution on Hezbollah than appeared to be taking shape.
Israel has said it leafleted areas before bombing and provided Lebanon with maps of potential cluster bomb locations to help with the clearing process. United Nations officials in Lebanon say the maps are useless.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz published an article on Sept. 12 anonymously quoting the head of a rocket unit in Lebanon who was critical of the decision to use cluster bombs. "What we did was insane and monstrous; we covered entire towns in cluster bombs," Haaretz quoted the commander as saying.
Repeated efforts to get Israeli officials to explain the rationale behind the use of the bombs have proved fruitless, with spokesmen referring all queries to short official statements arguing that everything done conformed with international law.
In Lebanon the problem of the unexploded munitions is magnified by the desire to return to villages and lives in a region that is effectively booby-trapped. People want to begin rebuilding and harvest their crops. In some cases they have tried to clear the bomblets themselves, and some people have begun charging a small fee to clear away bombs - a practice that officials have discouraged as dangerous.
But the people are desperate.
"If I lost the season for olives and the wheat, I have no money for the winter,"' said Rida Noureddine, 54, who farms a small patch of land on the main road in the village of Kherbet Salem. There was a small black object at the entrance to his farm, and he thought it was a cluster bomb.
"I feel as if someone has tied my arms, or is holding me by my neck, suffocating me because this land is my soul," he said.
The bomblets, about the size of a D battery, can be packed into bombs, missiles or artillery shells. When the delivery system detonates, the bomblets spread like buckshot across a large area, making them difficult to aim with precision. A fact sheet issued by the Mine Action Coordination Center says cluster bombs have an official failure rate of 15 percent.
That means that 15 percent of the bomblets remain as hazards. According to the fact sheet, the failure rate in this war is estimated to be around 40 percent. "We estimate there are one million," said Dalya Farran, the community liaison officer of the mine action center.
Ms. Farran has worked at the center for nearly three years. It was set up in 2000 to help deal with the mines and unexploded ordnance left behind after the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon and from other wars.
After this war, Ms. Farran said, there are two types of cluster bomb fragments across the south. The most commonly found type is known as M42, a deceptively small device resembling a light socket.
She said a large percentage of the unexploded bomblets were made in America, while some were produced in Israel. Each one has a white tail dangling off the back, like the tail of a kite. As they fall to the ground, the tail spins and unscrews the firing pin.
When the device hits, the front end fires a huge slug while the casing blasts apart into a spray of deadly metal fragments. When they fail to detonate they cling to the ground, and with their white tails look deceptively like toys, so children are often those who are injured.
"This is what they are living with every day," said Simon Lovell, a supervisor with one of the clearance teams as he looked at five unexploded bomblets poking out of the soft, rocky soil of the Hussein family farm.
Across the street, Hussein Muhammad, 48, at home with his wife and four children, waited for the clearance team. His olive trees were heavy with fruit, but he could not tend to the harvest.
"I feel that the land has become my enemy," he said. "It represents a danger to my life and my kids' lives."
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Condi's top priority
Brian Whitaker
October 6, 2006 12:29 PM
The Guardian
With a cheery wave and admiring smiles from the Palestinian president, Condoleezza Rice continues her whirlwind visit to "moderate" parts of the Middle East. Meanwhile, the real purpose of her trip is becoming a little clearer.
Brian Whitaker
According to the Wall Street Journal (subscribers only), "leaders across the political spectrum" in Israel "now agree that Israel must find ways to work with other Middle Eastern states, even if that means dealing with governments that have been hostile to Israel in the past".
The idea is to form a "moderate" alliance in which Israel and some of the Arab countries (principally Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states) would join forces to combat Iranian influence, and Shia influence more generally.
This is partly motivated by American/Israeli desires to "get" Iran but also an attempt to repair damage from the 34-day war in which Israel accidentally bolstered the regional standing of Iran and its Lebanese ally, Hizbullah.
The bones of the emerging package are that Arab support for the US and Israel against Iran would be rewarded by progress - or at least the prospect of progress - on the Israeli-Palestinian front. So now, for example, we have the Israeli justice minister, Meir Sheetrit, testing the water with a hint that Israel might finally be prepared to discuss the Arab Peace Initiative after ignoring it for the last four years.
"We are talking about a full peace," he said encouragingly. "We want a full peace. We do not necessarily have to accept every detail of the initiative - withdrawal to the 1967 borders. But let's talk."
A spokeswoman for prime minister Ehud Olmert said later: "These are not the Israeli government's ideas. These are his [Mr Sheetrit's] ideas." Nevertheless, the move is seen as significant because Mr Sheetrit is one of Mr Olmert's close allies. Similarly, there have been reports (subsequently but not very convincingly denied by both sides) of secret high-level contact between Israel and Saudi Arabia. All this is meant to indicate, rightly or wrongly, that after a long period of stagnation movement is afoot.
On the Arab side, it is certainly true that the Sunni-ruled Gulf states are apprehensive about Iran, as they have been for many years. They are, after all, a good deal closer to Tehran geographically than either Tel Aviv or Washington.
The Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s was widely viewed as a proxy war in which Saddam Hussein (also classified as a "moderate" in those days) fought on behalf of the rich Gulf states - and partly with their funding - to keep Iran at bay. Their alleged ingratitude afterwards was one factor behind Saddam's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
The Sunni Gulf rulers are nervous, too, because most have Shia communities of varying sizes in their midst which are marginalised at present but could stir up trouble under Iranian influence.
Well away from the Gulf, Jordan, whose indigenous Shia population is negligible, has suddenly (perhaps a little too conveniently) discovered a Shia "threat" of its own - apparently coming from Iraqis who have taken refuge there. In a press briefing on October 1, Ms Rice stated that Jordan "is making really great strides in its political evolution". If anyone has the foggiest idea what she was referring to, please let me know, but it's easy to see the beginnings of a claim that Jordan's giant strides under the unpopular King Abdullah are being sabotaged by militant Iranian-backed Shias.
Whether any of this will be enough to draw some of the Arab states into an alliance with the US and Israel against Iran remains to be seen - though I think it's very unlikely. A similar idea was tried in the early 1980s under president Ronald Reagan but failed for the same reasons that it is likely to fail this time.
The problem is differences in priorities. The US is misreading the signals if it thinks the Gulf Arab leaders share its Iranophobia. They are uneasy, yes, but not hysterical.
"They know they have to live with Iran; it's not going to go away," said Robert Hunter, a Middle East expert at the RAND Corporation. "It's not like the early 1980s when the mullahs tried and failed to spread their revolution ... Aside from [their backing of] Hizbullah and a few minor scrapes here and there, Iran has not been particularly assertive toward these countries."
As far as the Gulf states are concerned, the priority issue is not Iran but the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which in their eyes lies at the root of the Middle East's problems. Washington - especially under President Bush - does not share that view, so it's not surprising if the Gulf states conclude that talk of Israeli-Palestinian peace is merely a ruse to get them on board for a showdown with Iran.
"The holy grail of US policy in the region has always been to get the Arabs to forget about the Arab-Israeli conflict and to focus instead on some other threat," said Gary Sick, an expert on Iran at Columbia University. "If you don't think you can or are not prepared to deal with the Arab-Israel dispute, then trying to convince the Arabs that they should subordinate it to other strategic concerns is really a very attractive thought."
Attractive as it may seem from Washington, it's essentially a non-starter. In the words of Michael Hudson, a Middle East specialist at Georgetown University:There's no doubt that there are people in the Gulf, especially, who are very worried about Iran, but the idea that they would be enlisted in an alliance with the US and Israel is just not a politically inviting prospect.
Until the US starts getting actively and even-handedly involved in bringing the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to an end, it's really politically impossible for the so-called moderate Arab leaders to sign on to the [anti-Iran] project.
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Rice fails to win Israel pledge to ease Palestinian restrictions
Reuters
06/10/2006
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice failed to secure a pledge from Israel to ease restrictions on the beleaguered Palestinian territories as she ended a visit aimed at breathing life into the moribund Middle East peace process.
Comment: Oh my god! How completely unexpected! (sarcasm)
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Rice: Economic boycott on Hamas gov't effective
www.chinaview.cn 2006-10-05 18:57:29
JERUSALEM, Oct. 5 (Xinhua) -- Visiting U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday that she believes the international economic boycott on the Hamas-led Palestinian government is effective and should be maintained.
Rice made the remarks at a meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni in Jerusalem Thursday morning.
During the 40-minute talks, Livni stressed that the weapons embargo on Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah must be enforced.
Rice later met with Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz.
On Wednesday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert also met Rice and informed her that Israel would not agree to release Palestinian prisoners before the return of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
"With all my desire to help, I will not agree to release Palestinian prisoners before Gilad Shalit is returned to Israel," Olmert told Rice.
Release of Palestinian prisoners without return of Shalit first would bring about heightened demands from Hamas, asserted Olmert.
He, however, told Rice that Israel would help Palestinian National Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to "create a better environment" and return to peacemaking.
Rice met with Olermt after she finished the talks with Abbas in Ramallah on Wednesday.
Abbas and Rice discussed the crises facing the Palestinians and the way in which the U.S. could bolster the chairman's position.
Throughout her visit in the Middle East this week, Rice has emphasized her intention to rally moderate elements in the region to bolster the embattled Abbas in his power struggles with the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas.
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U.S., EU warn Israel over closure of Gaza border
By Adam Entous Thu Oct 5, 4:05 AM ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - U.S. and European security officials have told Israel that European states may withdraw their monitors from the Rafah border crossing between the
Gaza Strip and Egypt unless Israel agrees to keep it open.
Rafah is the Palestinians' only crossing to the outside world that does not require passing through Israel.
It has been closed for all but 12 days since June 25 when Gazan gunmen seized an Israeli soldier and killed two others in a cross-border raid.
In a letter to Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, the officials said Rafah's continued closure could well prompt EU member states to "seriously question the desirability of maintaining" their monitoring mission there.
The monitors are required for the crossing to function under a deal brokered last year by U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, who was in the region again on Wednesday for talks with Palestinian and Israeli leaders.
The withdrawal of the monitors would amount to a diplomatic slap for Israel as well as the United States.
The September 29 letter -- signed by U.S. security coordinator Lieutenant-General Keith W. Dayton and EU monitoring mission chief Pietro Pistolese -- warned Israel that Rafah's frequent closure would also "make it very hard to convince the EU to send monitors to Karni," Gaza's main commercial crossing, as Washington has proposed.
After meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah on Wednesday, Rice said she would try "to make sure that some of those crossings are indeed open longer and more frequently so that economic activity can return," although she offered no details.
Rafah was opened for some travelers on Wednesday and Thursday, but the European monitors said it was unclear when it would open thereafter and for how long.
RICE CHAMPIONED RAFAH'S OPENING
Rice personally brokered the deal last year to boost the flow of people and goods into and out of Gaza after Israel's withdrawal from the impoverished coastal strip.
"The fact that the members of the (monitoring) mission have been prevented from performing their duties for three months is not in accordance with the spirit of the agreement," Dayton and Pistolese wrote. "The Rafah crossing is not a security risk."
Senior officials in the Hamas-led Palestinian government have used the crossing to bring millions of dollars in cash into Gaza to get around a Western aid embargo.
A U.S. plan for Karni envisages bolstering security at the crossing, deploying 90 foreign monitors there and expanding Abbas's presidential guard.
Israeli security officials have welcomed the Karni proposal but said it would remain on hold until the soldier captured by Palestinian militants was freed.
Israel has shut Karni frequently this year because of what it says are threats from Palestinian militants.
Aid groups say the closures at Karni have worsened humanitarian conditions in densely populated Gaza, home to 1.4 million people.
A European official said pulling the monitors out of Rafah was one option being looked at ahead of the current agreement for the crossing expiring in November. Other options include relocating the monitors, now based in Israel, to Egypt.
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Senior Hamas official: Shalit deal to be finalized within 2 weeks
By Yoav Stern and Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz Correspondents and Reuters
Last update - 18:07 06/10/20
The deal over the release of kidnapped Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit will be solved before the end of the Muslim month of Ramadan in two weeks, senior Hamas official Ahmed Yousef said on Friday.
The deal would allow Shalit to be released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli jails, Yousef told the Kuwaiti daily A-Rai Al-Am.
The Hamas official, who serves as an adviser to Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, said an Egyptian team was continuing to mediate between Israel and Shalit's captors, adding that they had delivered letters from Shalit to his parents indicating that he is still alive.
Yousef denied reports of Syrian involvement in the prisoner exchange negotiation process. "This is a matter within the Gaza Strip, and all of the sources handling the negotiations are there as well," he said.
He said the majority of negotiations with Hamas was taking place in the Palestinian territories and with officials jailed in Israel, with the considerations of Damascus-based exiled Hamas leaders.
In his interview, Yousef also reiterated Hamas' refusal to recognize Israel. "Hamas' point of view with regard to peace agreements is based on the principle of hudna [cease-fire]," Yousef said, adding that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was long from finished.
Report: Exiled Hamas chiefs condition Shalit release on their return
Exiled Hamas leaders based in Damascus have said they are willing to release captive IDF soldier Gilad Shalit from Gaza if they were allowed to return to the Strip, Israel Radio reported Friday morning.
The radio report was based on an article released Thursday in the Nazareth-based daily Al-Sinara.
The report added that the Hamas leadership in Gaza is willing to release Shalit in exchange for ten Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, but senior members in Damascus rejected the plan.
The Damascus-based leadership reportedly support the plan only if Khaled Meshal, exiled leader of the group's political wing, was returned to Gaza along with other senior officials.
Hamas turned down an Israeli offer to free between 900 and 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for captured Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said Monday.
"Egypt succeeded in securing a swap deal with Israel to free [Palestinian] women, children, elders and those who have been serving long prison terms in exchange for the soldier," Abul Gheit told Al Arabiya television. "A deal that could have guaranteed freeing 900-1,000 prisoners- but sadly they have decided to keep holding him [Shalit]," said Abul Gheit.
The negotiations between Israel and Hamas on a potential prisoner exchange have so far failed to make progress on any of the major issues.
"It is obvious to both sides that there will be a prisoner exchange," sources close to the negotiations told Haaretz, "But there is no concrete understanding on how many prisoners will be released in exchange for Shalit, who they will be, and when.
"We have not even begun the real negotiations on implementing the deal, on the mechanism which will bring about the release of Shalit and the Palestinian prisoners," said the sources. "We are still at the stage [of discussing] principles."
Egypt is continuing its mediation efforts despite reports that it was no longer involved in the negotiations due to tensions between Hamas and the Egyptian government.
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Palestinian PM faints during speech in Gaza -- TV
www.chinaview.cn 2006-10-06 21:54:32
GAZA, Oct. 6 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haneya fainted on Friday during a speech to an outdoor rally in Gaza City, BBC Television channel reported.
Addressing a crowed of his supporters, Palestinian Prime Minister Haneya, also a senior leader of Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), showed signs of looking unwell and pale, and he was helped away from the podium by his aides, said the report.
Haneya is observing fasting, like all other Muslims during the holy month of Ramadan. The speech was delivered on a hot autumn day.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians rallied in a sports stadium in the Gaza Strip Friday to show their supports for the embattled Hamas-led government.
The protestors, wearing green baseball hats and waving green Hamas banners, gathered in the crowded stadium in support of the six-month-old Hamas cabinet which took office in late March.
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U.S. Fugitive Pays Record N$10 Million Bail
The Namibian
October 4, 2006
A SIX-DAY stint in the Windhoek Central Prison ended for Israeli-born high-tech industry millionaire Jacob 'Kobi' Alexander yesterday.
Alexander, who was arrested at his house in Windhoek at the request of the United States government on Wednesday last week, posted a record N$10 million - the highest bail amount yet set in Namibia - to be released from custody yesterday.
Magistrate Uaatjo Uanivi ruled that Alexander could be granted bail while a formal request from the US government for his extradition was awaited by Namibia.
The Magistrate ruled that Alexander (54) could be released if he paid bail of N$10 million.
He further ordered Alexander to surrender his Israeli passport to a Namibian Police officer attached to the local branch of Interpol, Inspector Rudolph Mbumba, who was involved in the arrest of Alexander at the Windhoek Country Club Estate last week, and also ordered Alexander to report to Mbumba each Monday and Friday between 08h00 and 20h00.
The Magistrate told Alexander that he would not be allowed to leave the Windhoek district without Mbumba's permission.
He warned him that if he broke any of the set bail conditions, his bail would be cancelled and he would be rearrested and kept in custody.
Alexander's wife, Hana Alexander, was present to hear that her husband would regain his freedom after spending six nights in Namibia's largest prison - an accommodation establishment that is a far cry from the sort of standards that Alexander would have become accustomed to at the upmarket house that he bought for N$3,8 million after his arrival in Namibia in late July.
Alexander and his wife kissed and embraced immediately after the court adjourned following the bail ruling.
They declined giving comment to journalists - from Namibia, Israel and also from South Africa - present in court.
As Alexander left the court building in the company of one of his team of lawyers, Rudi Cohrssen, about two hours after the bail ruling, his only comment was that the first thing he was going to do when he got home would be to hug his children.
Alexander, who was born in Israel but has been living and working in New York for about 20 years, was until May this year the Chief Executive Officer of Comverse Technology Inc, a Nasdaq-listed company that he helped found and steered to become a leading maker of telecommunications software.
While he was in charge of the company, though, the US authorities charge, he became involved in an allegedly fraudulent scheme in which he helped manipulate the sale of shares in the company in order to pocket extra earnings of tens of millions of US dollars.
Between January 1998 and March 2006, it is charged in an indictment filed against Alexander in a New York court, Alexander's own wealth ballooned through him making a profit of US$138 million (about N$1,05 billion) through his selling of shares in Comverse.
Out of this profit, however, about US$6,4 million (N$49,9 million) was ill-gotten fruits from the illegal manipulating of the timing and pricing of shares that he received in the company, it is claimed.
In his bail ruling, Magistrate Uanivi said the court had heard evidence that Alexander had transferred a substantial amount of money from Israel to Namibia after he came to the country in late July.
His family - his wife and three children - had joined him in Namibia, and his children had been enrolled in a school in Windhoek, the court heard during the bail application.
It also heard that Alexander was granted a two-year work permit for Namibia on August 29, and that the Chairman of the Immigration Selection Board, Samuel /Gôagoseb, at the same time informed Alexander in a letter that his application for permanent residence in Namibia would be considered, provided that he submitted an investment plan for the transfer of amount of N$300 million over the same period.
According to an affidavit by Alexander that was filed with the court on Monday, he had already transferred N$120 million to Namibia, and had invested N$11 million in various business ventures since he took up residence in the country - mostly focusing on property and housing projects at Walvis Bay, but also, curiously, including a panel-beating business, in which he stated he has invested N$5,9 million.
The Magistrate noted that the court had heard that Alexander had embarked on various business ventures in Namibia, and that he had bought a house in the country at a price of N$3,8 million.
Claims that Alexander had manipulated the American criminal justice system in an effort to prevent being prosecuted in the US, or that he was likely to interfere with the process of justice if he was released on bail, had not been substantiated by evidence given under oath during the bail application, the Magistrate added.
He commented that the court had also not been provided with evidence supporting the prosecution's argument that there was a likelihood that Alexander would flee from Namibia if he was released on bail.
Alexander's arrest on Wednesday last week was requested by the US Embassy in Namibia, which asked for him to be detained while the US Government prepared a request to the Namibian Government for Alexander's extradition to the US.
Such a formal extradition request has to be filed within 30 days after arrest, meaning that the extradition request will have to be filed by October 27.
Comment: As the head of Comverse Infosys, financial fraud is not the only thing that Jacob 'Kobi' Alexander should be on trial for. The world would like to know more about the technology that Comverse Infosys' produces, particularly the wiretapping equipment and software that it makes for U.S. law enforcement agencies.
Fox news reporter Carl Cameron mentioned in his 2001 report on Israeli spying in the US:
Every time you make a call, it passes through the nation's elaborate network of switchers and routers run by the phone companies. Custom computers and software, made by companies like Comverse, are tied into that network to intercept, record and store the wiretapped calls, and at the same time transmit them to investigators.
The manufacturers have continuing access to the computers so they can service them and keep them free of glitches. This process was authorized by the 1994 Communica-tions Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA. Senior government officials have now told Fox News that while CALEA made wiretapping easier, it has led to a system that is seriously vulnerable to compromise, and may have undermined the whole wiretapping system.
Indeed, Fox News has learned that Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller were both warned Oct. 18 in a hand-delivered letter from 15 local, state and federal law enforcement officials, who complained that 'law enforcement's current electronic surveillance capabilities are less effective today than they were at the time CALEA was enacted.'
Comverse insists the equipment it installs is secure. But the complaint about this sys-tem is that the wiretap computer programs made by Comverse have, in effect, a back door through which wiretaps themselves can be intercepted by unauthorized parties.
Adding to the suspicions is the fact that in Israel, Comverse works closely with the Is-raeli government, and under special programs, gets reimbursed for up to 50 percent of its research and development costs by the Israeli Ministry of Industry and Trade. But investigators within the DEA, INS and FBI have all told Fox News that to pursue or even suggest Israeli spying through Comverse is considered career suicide.
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Science and Health
New Comet Discovered by David Levy
CANARY ISLANDS, Spain, Oct. 5 /PRNewswire/
Renowned comet hunter David Levy discovered Comet C/2006 T1 on Monday, marking his twenty-second find. Soon after hosting his live web broadcast on Slooh.com, Levy turned his telescope towards Saturn and was astonished to find the unexpected object close by the ringed planet. The International Astronomical Union confirmed his discovery Tuesday.
Slooh will broadcast live images of the comet throughout the week -- culminating in a special edition of "David Levy's Sky" at 9:00PM EDT Monday, October 9. "I look forward to seeing the comet live thorough the Slooh Telescopes and sharing my story of discovery with its global membership," said Levy.
"Slooh.com allows astronomy to be enjoyed as a true international sport." The soon to be launched "Slooh Discovery Project" will empower everyday people to make their own amazing astronomical discoveries by expanding Slooh's telescope network to new continents, and coordinating with distinguished comet and supernova hunters worldwide.
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Space ripples discovery "changed everything"
By Maggie Fox
Reuters
Tue Oct 3, 2006
WASHINGTON - The discovery by John Mather and George Smoot of "cosmic ripples," which won them the Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday, was lauded in 1992 by cosmologist Stephen Hawking as "the greatest discovery of the century, if not of all time."
While most physicists do not go that far, they are universal in their praise of the experiment, in which the pair and their team designed a satellite and used it to find proof of the Big Bang theory of the universe's origins.
They found faint variations in microwave radiation that dated back to just 300,000 years after the fiery birth of the universe.
These ripples in the microwave radiation, they said, were the primordial framework on which the galaxies, stars and other stuff of the universe took shape. It explained why the universe is lumpy and not a smooth sheet of matter and energy.
"The discovery changed everything," said Lawrence Krauss, a theoretical physicist at Case Western University in Ohio.
"It produced a revolution in what we know about the universe -- we know it is expanding, we know it is flat ... and we can measure that to an incredible accuracy," Krauss said in a telephone interview.
"Cosmology now is a precision science."
Until then, theoretical physicists had cobbled together small pieces of evidence that the universe and everything in it had appeared suddenly about 15 billion years ago from an infinitesimally small point in a vacuum of nothingness.
When the 40-member research team announced some of their findings to a meeting of physicists in 1992, an "audible gasp was heard from the audience," according to the American Institute of Physics.
Stephen Hawking, the Cambridge University physicist who explained theories about how the universe was formed in his popular book "A Brief History of Time," was one of most excited. "It is the discovery of the century, if not of all time," Hawking said in a statement at the time.
FILLING IN THE BLANKS
"I don't think he was completely out of control," Krauss said. People had known what to look for. "The picture, however, had been blank up to then," he said.
"Then it was clear -- it wasn't a vague idea. It was clear the lumps were there."
These fluctuations were faint variations in temperature, and scientists have since followed up on those measurements to try to understand, for instance, dark matter -- mass that no one has been able to see or measure but which must exist because of the amount of gravity measured in the universe.
Some teams have come up with new theories of dark energy -- a mysterious force that may be accelerating the expansion of the universe.
While the implications may far outlast humanity -- the end of the universe may be coming in a few more billion years -- Smoot has been clear on the need for the work.
"It is extremely important for human beings to know their origins and their place in the world," Smoot said in a statement.
Krauss said the prize supports his own arguments -- made to
NASA and the U.S. Congress -- that funding should go to similar experiments.
President Bush has urged NASA to concentrate on getting people to the moon and Mars.
"New experiments on the cosmic microwave background, new experiments to probe dark energy, to look for habitable planets -- all these have been delayed and/or canceled because we are sending people back to the moon," Krauss said.
Comment: It's strange that they call this experiment's results "proof" of The Big Bang theory of the universe. There are quite a number of physicists who disagree with that assessment. Furthermore, Krauss' statement that "cosmology now is a precision science" is a bit misleading. We can precisely measure the effects of gravity on an object, yet no one really understands what gravity is or how it really works.
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UK tests new means to decipher DNA samples
www.chinaview.cn 2006-10-05 08:04:35
LONDON, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- British police are testing a new DNA profiling technique that may help to decipher previously inscrutable samples and resolve many thousands of unsolved crimes.
Starting on Wednesday, the technique is being tested by four police forces in the north of England and after a three month trial period, it is scheduled to be extended to police forces in the rest of England and Wales, the New Scientist reported on its website.
The computer-based technique developed by the government's Forensic Science Service (FSS), allows the profiling of small, poor quality and mixed DNA samples from crime scenes, according to the report.
The new software, called DNA boost, could help scientists identify 40 percent more samples than presently possible - and ultimately increase crime detection rates by up to 15 percent.
"The software allows us to carry out a much more sophisticated interpretation process," Paul Hackett, DNA manager at the FSS in Birmingham, UK, was quoted as saying.
In conjunction with a form of supersensitive DNA testing also developed by the FSS, the technique could double the number of unsolved "cold cases" that can be cracked, the report said.
The FSS runs the world's first and largest national DNA database, handling over 10,000 samples of DNA from crime scenes and 50,000 from individuals every month.
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Apex, NC Under State Of Emergency After Chemical Fire
WRAL.com
October 6, 2006
APEX, N.C. -- Apex and Wake County officials declared a state of emergency early Friday and evacuated about 16,000 people -- half of of Apex -- after a cloud containing chlorine gas spewed from a volatile industrial fire.
Apex Town Manager Bruce Radford said a leak at the EQ North Carolina plant on Investment Boulevard sent several large plumes of chlorine gas into the air around 9 p.m. A large fire broke out at the plant afterward, sending flames more than 100 feet into the night sky and setting off multiple explosions.
"This is the worst possible hazardous materials incident you could have," Radford said.
By 3 a.m. Friday, the evacuation area stretched from N.C. Highway 55 to Hunter Road, Hunter Road to Old Raleigh Road, and U.S. Highway 64 to Highway 55.
Mayor Keith Weatherly said changing weather conditions could force additional evacuations later Friday morning.
U.S. Highway 1 and U.S. 64 were expected to remain open for the morning commute, but Radford said traffic would be rerouted off N.C. 55.
The town's central business district, including Town Hall, will be closed Friday, Radford said. Anyone in the area without a legitimate reason would be arrested, he said.
Many local schools also will be closed Friday, officials said, and no school buses would be running in Apex. Parents of students at Salem Elementary School and Salem Middle School, would have to arrange other transportation, officials said.
Radford warned residents wandering the streets late Thursday and early Friday to get inside, saying that walking in the smoke would endanger people's lives.
"There are all grades of contaminated materials in this smoke and the fire," he said. "If you see this smoke, get away from it."
Ten law enforcement officers and one firefighter were treated for respiratory distress, Radford said.
Also, fewer than a dozen Apex residents went to the Rex Hospital emergency room in Raleigh, complaining of respiratory difficulties, officials said. The affected law enforcement officers were transported to WakeMed Raleigh.
WakeMed Cary Hospital officials said that at 10 people had visited their emergency room with illnesses related to the fire, including the affected firefighter. Also, 90 residents of Rex Rehabilitation and Nursing Care Center of Apex were brought to the hospital as a precautionary measure.
A decontamination chamber was set up outside the hospital in case firefighters, residents or others came in contact with hazardous materials.
Prolonged direct inhalation of chlorine gas could cause sickness or even death, authorities said. Chest pain, vomiting, and difficulty breathing are among the symptoms that might be experienced.
Firefighters were unable to approach the blaze for hours after it ignited because of the explosions and hazardous chemicals. Crews started staging for various scenarios and planned to move into the area around daybreak, Radford said.
"We want to get in there as quickly as we can, but we're not going to endanger anyone," Radford said. "Rather than put water or foam on the fire, it's better to let the fire burn itself out so we don't create a large hazardous area on the ground."
Officials don't have any idea how long the fire might burn, he said.
Weatherly said the fire had spread to a nearby petroleum farm and had ignited four storage tanks. But officials were unsure if the fire had spread beyond that, he said.
A plane tried to fly over the plant early Friday morning to assess the situation but had to return to the airport because of adverse weather.
Authorities evacuated about 100 residences in the Briarcliff area shortly after the fire began, and several streets also were blocked off. Shifting winds moved the smoke in different directions throughout the night, forcing further evacuations.
Radford said the eastern half of Apex had been evacuated by midnight, including residents in the Haddon Hall, Surrey Meadows, Knollwood, Shepherd's Vineyard and Weatherford Green subdivisions.
"It was one of the most frightening moments I've ever had," one woman said of hearing the explosions and receiving the evacuation order.
Weatherly declared a state of emergency in Apex at about 12:30 a.m. Friday, and Wake County declared a state of emergency about two hours later for unincorporated areas around Apex.
The declarations will make it easier for the town to apply for federal emergency aid, if needed, officials said.
Authorities had to move their command post three times to get downwind of the explosions and gas plume. The town's 911 center was relocated from the police department downtown to Apex Elementary School.
Flights into and leaving Raleigh-Durham International Airport were being rerouted to at least 5 miles from downtown Apex to avoid the fire and explosions, officials said.
The Raleigh Fire Department Hazardous Response Team arrived at the scene shortly after 10:30 p.m. to aid Apex authorities. Over 300 firefighters from Raleigh, Cary, Holly Springs and other jurisdictions also assisted in the effort.
The state Air Toxics Analytical Support Team was brought to the area early Friday to help monitor the air quality following the chlorine gas leak and fire and develop a plan of action.
Firefighters spent much of the night making sure they had the proper equipment to handle various scenarios. Radford said authorities would rely on air quality experts to determine when it was safe to go back into the area around the EQ plant.
All residents within a one-mile radius of Investment Blvd and Sheffelein Road were evacuated to Olive Chapel Elementary School on Olive Chapel Road.
Apex residents who weren't evacuated were asked to turn off their air conditioners and stay indoors with doors and windows closed until further notice.
Around 250 residents had taken refuge at Olive Chapel Elementary by 4:30 a.m. Authorities also opened a second shelter at Turner Creek Elementary School. Officials are also asking residents to seek temporary residence at hotels elsewhere in Wake County or with relatives if shelters are full.
Local Red Cross volunteers arrived at the shelters early Friday to provide food, water, blankets, cots and other items to evacuees.
"Schools are community centers, and we're here to serve the community," Olive Chapel Elementary Principal Melissa Burns said.
All school activities at Apex Elementary, Apex Middle, Apex High, Baucom Elementary, Lufkin Road Middle, Olive Chapel Elementary and Turner Creek Elementary schools have been cancelled Friday, Wake County Schools officials said. St. Mary Magdalene School also canceled classes.
School district officials said they are closely monitoring the situation and would update the district Web site later Friday morning with information about the fire's impact on other area schools.
EQ officials were on their way to the plant late Thursday, Radford said.
The Wayne, Mich.-based company is a licensed hazardous-waste facility that serves businesses. It offers services to a variety of institutions that have hazardous chemicals and other materials that must be disposed of according to state and federal regulations. The facility is federally licensed by the Environmental Protection Agency under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
Cregg Johnson, a truck driver who hauls materials to and from EQ, said he was sleeping in his tractor-trailer cab outside the plant Thursday night when a firefighter pulled him out to evacuate as part of the building was engulfed in flames.
"As we were headed off, barrels started blowing, and it just sounded like thunder," Johnson said. "I saw black smoke in the air and it was going south, and I told the firefighters I was heading north."
He said he had to leave his tractor-trailer full of flammable household chemicals, including paints and paint thinner, parked outside the plant.
EQ's Web site states that the company serves "R&D facilities, educational institutions, manufacturing companies, government agencies, hospital and medical facilities."
State environmental officials fined EQ $32,000 in March for failing to minimize the possibility of a release of hazardous-waste materials or implement a contingency plan for a possible release.
Town officials were unaware of the fine and would be discussing the matter with state officials, Weatherly said.
"It certainly would have been prudent for us to have been aware," he said.
In August 2005, a large explosion and fire rocked an EQ plant near Detroit. More than 1,000 nearby residents were evacuated.
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Human-rabbit hybrids planned
Oct 5 2006
ITV News
British scientists are seeking permission to press ahead with controversial plans to create hybrid human and rabbit embryos.
Three teams in London, Newcastle and Edinburgh are due to make applications this month for permission to carry out the work as part of their stem cell research programmes.
They are seeking licences from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority allowing them to create embryos that are 99.9 per cent human and 0.1 per cent rabbit.
The scientists are also looking at the possibility of creating similar "chimera" embryos by mixing human and cow genes.
The aim is to find a ready source of "human" embryonic stem cells without the ethical problems of tampering with human life.
Making the chimeras would involve removing the nuclei from animal eggs and replacing them with genetic material taken from human cells.
The resulting embryos would be mostly human, but would also contain small numbers of animal genes.
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California companies suspected of spreading E. coli
www.chinaview.cn 2006-10-06 03:41:37
LOS ANGELES, Oct. 5 (Xinhua) -- Two spinach produce companies in California were suspected of being connected with the nationwide E. coli outbreak that killed one person and sickened 191 others in 26 states.
Agents from the FBI and the Food and Drug Administration's Office of Criminal Investigations were searching the two companies in a possible criminal case, according to the Los Angeles Times on Thursday.
The warrants were served at a Natural Selection Foods LLC plant in San Juan Bautista and at Growers Express in Salinas, both in central California.
The searches were the first sign that authorities were looking at potential criminal charges in last month's outbreak from tainted spinach, said the report.
"We are investigating allegations that certain spinach growers and distributors may not have taken all necessary or appropriate steps to ensure that their spinach was safe before it was placed into interstate commerce," U.S. Atty. Kevin V. Ryan said in a statement.
He said there was no indication that the spinach was deliberately contaminated.
The search "does indicate that it was a very significant outbreak, and they are looking at all their options," said Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
"They're looking for the possibility of criminal negligence," she said.
A separate federal and state investigation traced bags of spinach that tested positive for the strain of E. coli responsible for the outbreak- 0157:H7 - to Natural Selection and is continuing to search for the source of the deadly bacteria at the processing plant and at nine farms that supplied it with spinach.
"The documents requested .. included those that have been previously provided to both the FDA and the California Department of Health Services in the course of the investigation, as well as additional information that investigators believe will be helpful to their investigation," Charles Sweat, Natural Selection's chief operating officer, said in a statement Wednesday. "We .. welcome all efforts to trace this problem back to its source."
Growers Express, which grows and packs produce and operates a cooling facility, declined to comment.
Federal health officials on Friday lifted a warning against eating fresh spinach other than products that had already been recalled by Natural Selection.
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Target: Iran
War or Rumors of War?
10/05/06
Foreign Policy In Focus
What's going on with the current bustle around U.S. naval stations? According to Time, the Navy has issued "Prepare to Deploy Orders" (PTDOs) to a strike group including minesweepers, a submarine, an Aegis class cruiser, and a mine hunter. Taken alongside disclosures that the chief of naval operations asked his planners for a rundown of how a blockade of Iranian oil ports would work, these military preparations led Time to conclude cautiously that the United States "may be preparing for war with Iran."
Military officials downplay these recent moves as routine. But given the administration's recent history of manufacturing threat, misreading intelligence, and misrepresenting war plans, it is tempting to read between the lines-especially when increasingly hot rhetoric is coming from Washington.
Asked whether the United States will do anything to stop the Iranians from having a nuclear bomb, Vice President Dick Cheney paid lip service to diplomacy before emphasizing that "we think they should not have a nuclear bomb ... the President has always emphasized no options have been taken off the table." President Bush leveled some barbed criticism at Iran during his recent UN General Assembly address. Tehran continues to "fund terrorism, and fuel extremism, and pursue nuclear weapons," he said. "Iran must abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions."
What might push this combative rhetoric over the edge toward war? Iran's purported interest in nuclear weapons and its insistence on the right to enrich uranium have been portrayed as one and the same. And members of the administration have cited Tehran's hostility to Israel, its support of terrorism, and its alleged desire to control some of the world's richest oil regions as part of an apparent propaganda campaign to justify acts of war against Iran.
President Bush claims that the United States is "working toward a diplomatic solution to this crisis, and as we do, we look to the day when you can live in freedom, and America and Iran can be good friends and close partners in the cause of peace." But U.S. military preparations belie this talk of peace. On September 17, speaking to a group of peace activists, former CIA official Ray McGovern offered a dire warning: "We have about seven weeks to try and stop this next war from happening."
The Absurdity of War
Given the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the sheer cost of existing military commitments, it would seem that the last thing the United States can afford right now is another war. But as retired Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner observes, the Bush administration didn't apply the "making sense" filter over the past four years in Iraq. It is therefore unlikely to use common sense in evaluating whether to attack Iran.
In a report for the Century Foundation, Gardiner puts forward a hypothetical view of the "seven truths" about Iran shared by members of the Bush administration. Of these propositions, Gardiner sees two as true: that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons and that sanctions aimed at stopping them will be ineffective. He also maintains that Bush policymakers mistakenly assume that the Iranian people support "regime change" and that Iran cannot be negotiated with. He further notes that U.S. and Israeli commandos have been exploring targets in Iran for some time. This combination of U.S. beliefs and real world actions, Gardiner believes, will lead to U.S. air strikes against Iran and even possibly a campaign for regime change.
Bombing Iran, however, is not an easy proposition. According to estimates quoted in Time, there are 1,500 different "aim points" (or viable targets) in Iran related to their nuclear development complex. Air strikes would require almost everything the Air Force has, and even then, a White House official admits, "we don't know where it all is ... so we can't get it all." Gardiner and most other analysts assume that air strikes would bring Iranian retaliation, from stepped up support for Hezbollah and a greater role in fostering attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq to efforts to block the straits of Hormuz, a main outlet for Persian Gulf oil. Less likely but not out of the question would be Iranian attacks on the oil pipelines of other major suppliers such as Iraq and Saudi Arabia, which would send world oil prices through the roof and make Iran's reserves worth all that much more.
In light of these potential counter moves, Anthony Zinni, former c ommander of U.S. troops in the Middle East, warns: "You've got to be prepared for the worst case, and the worst case in Iran is [U.S.] boots on the ground."
Bluff or Chicken?
The administration may well be bluffing to demonstrate its "hard-nosed" diplomatic resolve. The U.S. military does not believe that air strikes on Iran are either workable or advisable, and, as noted above, an attack would not likely hit all major Iranian nuclear sites since U.S. intelligence doesn't know where they are.
Fred Kaplan, writing in Slate, argues that Iran policy may be moving along parallel tracks-one involving force as a form of pressure and the other involving plans for an actual military attack. He imagines the current situation as a dangerous game of highway chicken in which two drivers speed toward each other, head on. The winner is the one who doesn't veer off the road, and it's a tie if both drivers steer off the road. "If they both keep driving straight on, pedal to the metal, certain of victory, opposed on moral principle to backing down, the outcome is mutual catastrophe," Kaplan writes. "And in this case, we're all sitting in those cars."
The flaw in Kaplan's metaphor is that it implies two equal adversaries. Even with a nuclear weapon, Iran couldn't subject the United States to the kind of damage that Washington could inflict on it. But as we see every day in Iraq, the car that "veers off the road" can come back to fight another day, by other means that are just as deadly.
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British patrols find no evidence of arms traffic from Iran
Washington Post
October 5, 2006
US allegations are put to test in Iraqi desert
Since late August, British commandos in the deserts of far southeastern Iraq have been testing one of the most serious charges leveled by the United States against Iran: that Iran is secretly supplying weapons, parts, funding, and training for attacks on US-led forces in Iraq.
A few hundred British troops living out of nothing more than their cut-down Land Rovers and light armored vehicles have taken to the desert in the start of what British officers said would be months of patrols aimed at finding the illicit weapons trafficking from Iran, or any sign of it.
There's just one thing.
"I suspect there's nothing out there," the commander, Lieutenant Colonel David Labouchere, said last month, speaking at an overnight camp near the border. "And I intend to prove it."
Other senior British military leaders spoke as explicitly in interviews over the previous two months. Britain, whose forces have had responsibility for security in southeastern Iraq since the war began, has found nothing to support the Americans' contention that Iran is providing weapons and training in Iraq, several senior military officials said.
"I have not myself seen any evidence -- and I don't think any evidence exists -- of government-supported or instigated" armed support on Iran's part in Iraq, British Defense Secretary Des Browne said in an interview in Baghdad in late August.
"It's a question of intelligence versus evidence," Labouchere's commander, Brigadier James Everard of Britain's 20th Armored Brigade, said last month at his base in the southern region's capital, Basra. "One hears word of mouth, but one has to see it with one's own eyes."
Allegations that Iran or its agents are providing military support for Iraqi Shi'ite Muslim militias and other armed groups is one of the most contentious issues raising tensions between Washington and Tehran. US generals and diplomats accuse Iran of providing infrared triggers for special explosives that are capable of piercing heavy armor.
Evidence of Iranian armed intervention in Iraq is "irrefutable," one US commander in Iraq, Brigadier General Michael Barbero, told Pentagon reporters in August. The lead US military spokesman in Iraq renews the allegation almost weekly in Baghdad.
Iraq's remote Maysan province is "a funnel for Iranian munitions," said Wayne White, who led the State Department's Iraq intelligence team during the war and now is an adjunct scholar at the Washington-based Middle East Institute. White said that in the first year of the occupation a well-placed friend had seen "considerable physical evidence of it, and just about everyone in al-Amarah knew about it." Al-Amarah is the commonly used name of Maysan province.
Here in Maysan, Jasim Alawa Salum, an Iraqi father of 10 whose home is in a warren of thatched farmhouses near the border, agreed. "All troubles come from Iran," he said, bending his head to show a wound from the 1980s Iran-Iraq war
Comments: More evidence that the Bush administration utters nothing but lies.
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Russia slams US "unilateral" move on Iran
khaleejtimes.com
5 October 2006
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday slammed Washington for acting "unilaterally" in the crisis over Iran's nuclear programme and urged the world powers to continue diplomatic efforts to resolve the standoff with Teheran.
"We believe the community of action must be continued but the United States has already taken a unilateral decision affecting all parties, which limits activities in Iran not only of American companies but of all companies," Lavrov said during a visit to Poland.
"The six have already agreed on a number of points, and (EU foreign policy chief) Javier Solana has held talks with the Iranians, which did not bring a satisfactory response," he said.
The so-called P5-plus-1 group, made up of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council -- Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States -- and Germany, is due to meet in London Friday to try to reach compromise deal over Iran's nuclear programme, the Russian foreign ministry announced earlier.
"We will continue with the diplomatic effort, even though some are in favour of sanctions as of now," the Russian foreign minister added.
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Russia, China reject use of force, ultimatums against Iran
By News AgenciesLast
update - 17:21 06/10/2006
Russia and China reject the use or threat of force against Iran over its nuclear program and believe any attempts to pressure Tehran with ultimatums are counterproductive, the Interfax news agency quoted a top Russian diplomat as saying Friday.
"Iran is a large regional nation that has noticeable influence on the situation in a wide and very tense region. Speaking to it in the language of threats and ultimatums, attempts to drive it into a corner, are counterproductive," the agency quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alexeyev as saying.
Earlier on Friday, Russia's foreign minister urged the international community to focus on efforts to get Iran back to the negotiating table over its disputed nuclear program, news agencies reported.
Speaking as top officials from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China gathered in London on Friday to decide a next step in the nuclear standoff with Iran, Sergey Lavrov appeared reluctant to back immediate
sanctions against Iran.
He said that Russia's stance was based on an agreement among the six powers that "all measures to be considered should aim solely at bringing Iran back to the negotiating table," according to the Interfax and RIA-Novosti news
agencies.
The EU's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, said Friday that talks with Iran would still be possible even as major powers prepared to discuss the possibility of sanctions to force Tehran to suspend its nuclear program.
"The door to negotiations is and will be always open," said Solana in a speech to security experts in Paris. "I'm convinced that the Iran dossier can only be solved, and will be solved, through negotiations."
The world powers are likely to agree on the principle of imposing sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program but not to approve specific language, a U.S. official said.
"What we would expect to come from this meeting is the political decision to move to the next step of diplomacy, which is a sanctions resolution," said the Bush administration official, who was traveling in Iraq with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters the foreign ministers would likely ask their political directors to spend the next several days hammering out specific language on sanctions.
"I expect activities to intensify in New York and in capitals," he said.
World powers are divided over how best to resolve the Iran deadlock. Russia and China have up until now been wary of rushing into sanctions and some European countries say diplomacy must be given more time.
The French Foreign Ministry said Thursday that any sanctions should be "progressive, proportionate and reversible, with the objective being to convince Iran to cooperate with the international community."
Washington has been aggressively lobbying for sanctions at the UN Security Council after long-running talks with Iran to stop enrichment failed to produce results.
Iran again urged the West on Thursday to solve the dispute through talks but repeated it would not stop uranium enrichment. Tehran says the programme is only for power generation but the West suspects it wants to make a nuclear bomb.
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Rice's travel woes doom London meeting on Iran
Last Updated: Friday, October 6, 2006 | 11:14 AM ET
CBC News
Officials of six big powers were gathering in London on Friday to talk about Iran's nuclear ambitions, with the United States again pushing them to get tough with the Islamic republic if it won't give up its uranium enrichment efforts.
But mechanical problems in a U.S. military transport plane meant U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would be late and nothing much would happen, officials said.
The Americans, backed strongly by the British, argue that Iran must be stopped before it can accumulate material to build atomic bombs. Iran says its program is purely peaceful, aimed at generating electricity, a claim not widely believed in the West.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, has also raised doubts and the UN Security Council ordered Iran to stop the enrichment program by Aug. 31 or face the possibility of economic sanctions - but Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ignored the deadline.
Chances of immediate action faded when Rice was delayed in Iraq. She had to wait about two hours for a replacement plane because of problems in a giant C-17 Globemaster that was to have flown her to Turkey on the way to London.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the delay meant the group would be unable to finish its business. In fact, the full group would not meet face to face because the Russian foreign minister was to leave for a cabinet meeting in Moscow before Rice arrived, the Washington Post reported.
Iran is one of three countries U.S. President George W. Bush famously described as an "axis of evil" in 2002, accusing them of seeking weapons of mass destruction. The others were Iraq, which turned out to have no such weapons, and North Korea, which has a serious bomb program and says it is poised to begin test explosions.
The so-called EU3+3 meeting - involving British, French, German, U.S., Russian and Chinese officials - had been expected to confirm that negotiations with Iran are at a standstill after a long series of carrot-and-stick approaches seeking a voluntary end to the enrichment program.
The next step would be to send the matter back to the United Nations Security Council, which can impose sanctions on Iran.
The initial penalties, if any, are not expected to be severe, partly because of resistance from Russia and China, which have extensive business dealings with Iran. The possibilities include embargoes on transfers of technology, travel bans on Iranian officials and moves to freeze Iranian assets held outside the country.
Ahmadinejad, who seems to enjoy irritating the Bush administration and being treated as a potential nuclear power, dismissed the idea that Iran can be intimidated.
"Those who threaten Iran by sanctions and embargo should know that this nation lived under the hardest situation in the past 27 years and achieved nuclear technology. This nation will not be frightened by the threats," state-run television quoted him as saying on Thursday.
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Culture of Violence
Muppets teach children a land mine lesson
By Rachel Morarjee
Christian Science Monitor
Thu Oct 5, 2006
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN - "Bang!" The little puppet boy steps on a mine, and now he only has one leg. The Afghan children watching the video at a school on a Kabul hillside gasp.
Puppets have long been used to entertain and to teach children basic lessons such as how to count and the letters of the alphabet.
Now in Afghanistan the creators of Muppet stars Miss Piggy and Fozzy Bear have teamed up with two charities to teach children a lesson in survival: how not to get killed or maimed by the millions of land mines still buried in the Afghan soil.
"The Story of the Little Carpet Boy," loosely based on Pinocchio, is the brainchild of No Strings International, a British charity set up to reach children in war-torn areas and teach them vital life lessons through puppetry.
"It's hard to get a crowd of children to listen to an adult, but the minute you bring a puppet out, kids just light up," says Johnie McGlade, founder of No Strings.
Mr. McGlade worked for more than a year with two of Muppet-creator Jim Henson's original team, Kathy Mullen and Michael Frith, to create a culturally sensitive film using characters from Afghan folklore to teach children about the dangers of minefields.
About 60 Afghans a month are killed or injured by mines and unexploded ordnance around the country, and almost half of them are under 18 years old, according the
United Nations Mine Action Center for Afghanistan (UNMACA).
Children are disproportionately vulnerable as they are often sent to collect firewood or herd animals, which puts them at a higher risk for accidents.
Hugo Speer, a star of the British film hit "The Full Monty," journeyed to Afghanistan with No Strings to promote the charity's work and deliver the puppet film and two mobile cinemas to an Afghan charity, the Organization for Mine Action Rehabilitation (OMAR).
The mobile cinemas are motorcycles fitted with a generator and projector screen on their sidecar, and can reach far-flung mountain villages to deliver their lesson.
"These bikes are really a dream come true for us," says Haji Fazel Karimi, OMAR's director, "because we will be able to reach areas that are very remote and teach children with a film they can remember."
Although the film follows a familiar children's programming formula of repetition and features puppets similar to many Western Muppet favorites, the lessons for children living in Afghanistan are far grimmer than any aired on Western television.
Chuche Qhalin, the film's puppet hero, loses an arm and both legs until he has learned his lesson and the children watching have learned what mines look like, where they might be buried, and how to avoid them.
"I liked the film," says Masiha, an 11-year-old girl who watched the film's first screening in Kabul, "and I learned that you should stay away from fields that have red stones. There are mines there. I didn't know that before,"
She also liked the film's happy ending in which Chuche is granted his wish to become a real boy and gets his limbs back.
After two decades of war, Afghanistan remains one of the most heavily mined countries in the world, a threat that looms in the background while headlines are taken up with the dangers of a resurgent Taliban in the south.
The hill where the Qalai Zaman Khan primary school perches and the film was screened, is one of the few around the Afghan capital that have been totally cleared of mines.
In urban areas around the capital, minefields are marked with painted red stones. But in rural areas overgrown paths are often the only indications of a minefield.
Since 2002, when about 150 to 200 Afghans were killed or injured by mines every month, UNMACA has supervised the clearance of over a billion square meters (247,105 acres) of land, which has lessened the mines' toll.
"Returning refugees are often injured when they try to rebuild their houses in areas which have been mined," says Mr. Karimi.
No Strings is now looking into using the puppet characters to make another video on the dangers of drug use in Afghanistan, which is the world's No. 1 producer of opium and heroin.
"The idea was to create a set of Afghan characters that can be used again and again for different storylines," says McGlade.
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Police: Suspect's Basement Like 'Silence Of The Lambs'
NBCSanDiego.com
October 5, 2006
OAKLAND, Calif. -- Authorities arrested a man Tuesday night who they believe brutally tortured and killed a woman and may have tortured at least two other women in his east Oakland home, Oakland homicide Detective Tony Jones said during a press conference Wednesday.
On Aug. 26, Earl Stefanson, 41, drove a woman suffering from severe trauma over her entire body to Highland Hospital, Jones said. The woman, later identified as 36-year-old Leslie Lamb of San Leandro, was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Stefanson, who was employed as a roofer, claimed he found her in a car.
Police said they were able to determine that Lamb had not been inside the car where Stefanson claimed to have found her.
Police said they determined Stefanson had a history of abusing Lamb.
When authorities searched his home in the 3400 block of Coolidge Avenue, they found Lamb's blood and the blood of two other unidentified women.
Police said Stefanson tortured her in a room set up in his basement, which they described as frightening.
Jones wouldn't elaborate on what the basement looked like, except to say that "it was a 'Silence of the Lambs' type of setting down there." He also said that the room was "very dark and frightening" even for the experienced police officers working the case.
It appeared as if Stefanson had made an attempt to clean up the blood and conceal evidence of Lamb having been at the residence, Jones said. At this point, police have no idea who the other two victims are or even whether they are dead or alive.
When police attempted to arrest Stefanson Tuesday night, he led them on a lengthy chase through Oakland and Hayward, Jones said.
Oakland police, with assistance from Hayward police, were eventually able to capture Stefanson and take him into custody.
Jones said that Stefanson was uncooperative during questioning following his arrest. However, from talking to acquaintances of Stefanson and Lamb, police were able to determine that the two had been dating since early this year and that Stefanson had a history of being extremely violent toward Lamb.
Jones attended Lamb's autopsy and said "the attack was very, very brutal."
According to Jones, Stefanson didn't have a "lengthy criminal history" and was known by most people as Earl. However, "We know that he has a history of abusing women," Jones said. "It's important that we locate every woman he has ever attacked in his life."
Police are looking at other unsolved murders in Oakland to see if any show signs of torture similar to what Lamb suffered. They are also asking anyone who has been a victim of Stefanson to contact the Oakland Police Department.
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30 bodies found in Baghdad in 24 hours
www.chinaview.cn 2006-10-05 19:07:11
BAGHDAD, Oct. 5 (Xinhua) -- The Iraqi police patrols found 30 bodies in different Baghdad neighborhoods during the past 24 hours, police said on Thursday.
"Our patrols found ten bodies, including one beheaded, on Thursday morning in addition to 20 others Wednesday night," a police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
The bodies were bound, blindfolded and showing signs of torture with bullet holes in different parts of their bodies, he said.
The almost daily gruesome body findings, assassinations and explosions in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities were seen as a major setback for the Iraqi government's efforts to stem violence and achieve national reconciliation.
UN and Iraqi officials estimate that more than 100 Iraqis are killed everyday in insurgent attacks and fighting between Sunni and Shiite factions.
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Nazi-era mass grave found in Germany
Oct. 6, 2006. 11:04 AM
ASSOCIATED PRESS
DUESSELDORF, Germany - Authorities said today that they are investigating the discovery of dozens of skeletons, many of them babies or children with signs of physical handicaps, in what appears to be a Nazi-era mass grave of euthanasia victims.
Following a tip from a resident, authorities in Arnsberg this week began searching the western town's Roman Catholic cemetery. So far, the remains of 51 people have been discovered, said prosecutor Ulrich Maass.
Many of the skeletons, which appeared to be of children ranging from newborns to seven-year-olds, had signs of physical handicaps, Arnsberg authorities said.
They added that medical instruments also were found in the grave.
Maass, a prosecutor at the Dortmund-based Central Office for Investigation of Nazi-era Crimes, told The Associated Press he had begun a criminal investigation for at least 22 counts of murder in connection with the deaths, which appear to have been the result of Nazi-era euthanasia programs, but it was unclear if charges could be pressed.
"Of course, there is the question of how we are to prove these crimes after all this time," he said. "If the children were poisoned, that will be practically impossible."
Maass expressed hope that several witness, including an elderly woman who worked during the war in the nearby Wickede-Wimbern Hospital where he suspects the children were killed, would be able to help his case.
"A hospital administrator and a doctor are also still alive," Maass said.
Around 275,000 people, many of them children, who were deemed unfit were killed by doctors under the Nazis as part of a vast Europe-wide euthanasia program, according to the U.S. Holocaust Museum and other sources.
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The Many Faces of "Terrorism"
London Times Journalist: Atta Tape Is "Not From Al Qaeda"
ABC News
06/10/2006
Al-Jazeera London bureau chief speaks to a Sunday Times of London contributor:
Sciutto: Would al Qaeda release this type of unedited tape of the hijackers?
Fouda: I think it's quite clear, in my opinion, that this is not exactly the style that we are used to seeing from al Qaeda. Al Qaeda to start with would never release anything unedited. ... When I interviewed Khalid Sheikh Mohammed [and] Ramzi Binalshibh, one of the conditions I would leave without [my video] tapes for them to doctor and then find a way for the tapes to reach me. So that's a sacred rule so to see Mohamed Atta and Ziad Jarrah socializing together and laughing and smiling, going over their scripts and the rest of it before delivering their scripts to camera, that's very strange, we've never seen this before from al Qaeda. Which gives me the impression that this is a different source, not al Qaeda.
Comment: And that source would be? You guessed it! "Al-CIAduh"! Which happens to be the same organisation as "al-Qaeda".
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British minister says Muslim veils a barrier
Last Updated: Thursday, October 5, 2006 | 11:17 PM ET
CBC News
Jack Straw, the leader of the British House of Commons, disclosed Thursday that he often asks Muslim women visiting his office to remove their veils, sparking controversy.
Straw, who served as foreign secretary for five years until May, made the comments in his weekly newspaper column for the Lancashire Telegraph. Straw said he feels uncomfortable talking with someone whose face is covered, saying the veil could be seen "as a visible statement of separation and difference."
Straw said he makes sure he has a female member of staff with him when he asks women to lift their veils, and that he couldn't recall an occasion when a woman refused his request in the past year, since he started making the request.
"The value of a meeting, as opposed to a letter or phone call, is so that you can -almost literally - see what the other person means and not just hear what they say," he wrote. "So many of the judgments we all make about other people come from seeing their faces."
He said he defended "absolutely" the rights of women to wear a headscarf if they chose, but that he was concerned about the potential impact on relations in the greater community of the increasing number of British Muslim women wearing the veil.
'Outrageous': Islamic group
Several Muslim groups condemned the column.
Massoud Shadjareh, leader of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, described the comments as "outrageous" and asked whether Straw would make a similar request of Orthodox Jews.
"We're really astonished that someone so senior and responsible as Mr. Straw would make such a statement," said Shadjareh.
"I'm sure many people go [to his office] with many different types of clothing and fashions. Why does he suddenly have a problem with this?"
Dr. Daud Abdullah, of the Muslim Council of Britain, was more sympathetic to Straw.
"The veil does cause some discomfort to non-Muslims. One can understand this," he said.
"There are those who believe it is obligatory for the Muslim woman to cover her face," he added. "Others say she is not obliged to cover up. It's up to the woman to make the choice."
Straw has traditionally enjoyed the support of a majority of Muslims in Lancashire.
He was replaced as foreign secretary by Margaret Beckett in May in a Cabinet shuffle.
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Hungary PM tells MPs not to give in to "blackmail"
06 Oct 2006 10:25:19 GMT
Source: Reuters
BUDAPEST, Oct 6 (Reuters) - Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany said on Friday parliament should not give in to threats and street blackmail ahead of a mass rally outside parliament staged by the main opposition Fidesz party.
"This debate is about much more than a person, a programme or a lie. It is about whether we allow the parliamentary minority to launch an attack against constitutional order," Gyurcsany said.
"I call on parliament not to give in to threats and street blackmail organised by the opposition," he said in a speech ahead of a confidence vote in parliament.
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Dollars and Sense
Dow Hits 3rd Straight Record Close
By ELLEN SIMON
AP
Oct 5, 2006
NEW YORK - Wall Street rose modestly Thursday, nudging the Dow Jones industrial average to its third straight record high close as investors welcomed upbeat retail sales and jobless claims figures.
The Dow closed at 11,866.69, surpassing the record of 11,850.61 set Wednesday. The blue chip index traded up to 11,870.06, which stands as its trading high.
Rising oil prices didn't smother investors' good mood.
"Considering the distance we've come over the last three months and certainly the last three days, it's interesting we could have a data point like oil's climb and not have the market backup much," said Arthur Hogan, chief market analyst at Jefferies & Co. "It's certainly a scenario where the longer term prospects for the market are looking more positive."
Stocks pulled back briefly after Charles Plosser, the newly installed president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, signaled that further Fed interest rate hikes may be in the best interests of the economy's long-term performance.
The Dow rose 16.08, or 0.14 percent. The blue chips have gained 196.34 over the past three sessions; on Tuesday, the index shattered closing and trading highs that had stood since Jan. 24, 2000, toward the end of the dot-com boom.
Broader stock indicators were also higher Thursday. The S&P 500 index rose 3.00, or 0.22 percent, to 1,353.22, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 15.39, or 0.67 percent, to 2,306.34.
Advancing issues led decliners by roughly 2 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange.
Bonds fell as stocks wavered, with the yield on the 10-year Treasury note at 4.61 percent, up from 4.56 percent Thursday. The U.S. dollar was mostly higher against other major currencies. Gold prices rose.
Crude oil futures rose. A barrel of light crude settled at $60.03, up 62 cents in trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The day's economic news was stronger than expected, with retailers such as Target Corp. (TGT), Nordstrom Inc. (JWN) and Limited Brands Inc. (LTD) reporting their same-store sales in September surpassed analysts forecasts. Also, the number of new unemployment claims dropped to its lowest level in 10 weeks.
Still, just where stocks are in their long recovery from their 2002-03 lows remains a topic of debate on Wall Street.
Some traders have questioned the depth of the rally, saying technical markers such as the ratio of advancers to decliners are weaker than they've hoped. And while the Dow has recovered, the S&P 500 still remains more than 11 percent off its all-time high.
Other traders say the market's biggest fears - high energy prices and additional rate hikes by the Federal Reserve - are behind it, leaving room for a greater run-up in stock prices.
Hugh Johnson, chairman and chief investment officer of Johnson Illington Advisors, said he sees this as a stock market in the more advanced stages of a recovery that has been driven, in large part, by declining energy prices.
In company news, Wyeth fell 28 cents to $50.90 after a Philadelphia jury awarded a woman $1.5 million after finding that the drug company's hormone replacement drug was a factor in her breast cancer. This is the second such case against the company to go to trial; Wyeth won the first.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) dropped $1.14 to $48.41 after the world's largest retailer reported disappointing September sales. Rival discounter Target Corp. rose $1.05 to $58.68 after it reported a solid sales gain for the month and beat analyst estimates.
Nordstrom Inc. rose 25 cents to $45.44 and Limited Brands Inc. dropped 12 cents to $27.87.
Marriott International Inc. (MAR), the world's largest hotel company by revenue, said its third-quarter earnings weakened, falling 5.4 percent. But its 33 cents per share net income beat estimates of 30 cents and the stock rose $2.52 to $40.85.
Class A Shares of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRKA), Warren Buffett's investment company, crossed $100,000 a share for the first time Thursday, before retreating slightly. The shares closed up $1,301.00 at $99,000.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 9.61, or 1.31 percent, to 743.08.
Consolidated volume on the New York Stock Exchange was 2.73 billion shares, compared with 2.99 billion Wednesday.
Overseas, Japan's Nikkei stock average surged, rising 2.28 percent as investors welcomed Thursday's advance on Wall Street. Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.64 percent, Germany's DAX index gained 0.48 percent, and France's CAC-40 increased 0.61 percent.
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The Dow's Phony New High
News With Views
06/10/2006
"One day soon one special event will occur. It may be an unexpected bankruptcy of a major corporation, i.e., Fannie Mae, a major bank or a highly leveraged hedge fund. It could also be a terrorist attack on a major US city. When that event occurs it will be too late to protect your assets. We will be in a liquidating crisis. That's when you call your broker up to sell and his response is "To who"? Like the Boy Scott motto says, we must be prepared.
"It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world." -- Thomas Jefferson to A. L. C. Destutt de Tracy, 1820. FE 10:175
The Dow's Phony New High is the caption of a very important column which appeared a few days ago. I consider this column by Michael Nystrom to be a must read because he does an excellent job in bringing this sometimes complicated issue to a level that even people like me can understand the deceit. I hope you can take the time to read this important information about how the American people are being manipulated into buying this grand "new high" on Wall Street, believing it to be an indicator of how good the economy is doing, when in fact, this economy is heading for a hellish dive. One only need look at the dead housing market to feel the massive sucking sound just over the horizon.
Harvey Gordin, who owns El Dorado Gold, also sent me this link with the comment, "In my opinion, it is the single most important, story I have read this year. It explains the PPT, or Plunge Protection Team, and it's direct effect on the price movement of the gold and silver markets. It explains why 60% of all trading on the NYSE is controlled, and why we have a controlled stock market. Our government tells us how important free markets are to the U.S., while they are trying to micro-manage all of our equity markets. The system is broken! When the bubble pops, which is inevitable, investors that think they are investing in a "free market economy," will incur horrific stock market losses while the metals markets will rise in value to unthinkable heights." You can read this important information here which show how this incestuous relationship between bankers and the federal government is putting everything you've ever worked for at risk.
So many Americans contact me asking for guidance on what do regarding their retirement nest eggs. Folks are very worried about what's going on and with 77 million baby boomers getting ready to retire beginning in 2008, the financial picture has long passed gloom and doom. The numbers don't lie and they get worse by the day with a Congress unconstitutionally stealing from we the people every day, kissed and blessed by Bush to fund nonsense, unconstitutional wars and unconstitutional nation "rebuilding." No president of these united States of America has the authority to simply steal from the public treasury and yet every president for the past 60+ years has done just that with the approval of one rotten, corrupt Congress after another.
Here's one for you: Today you will work to rebuild Lebanon. You remember Lebanon? It's the bombed out city Israel destroyed a scant 2 1/2 months ago. As soon as Israel was finished with their murderous rampage, Bush proclaimed, as if he were a King and not subject to the law of the land:
"Today, I'm announcing that America will send more aid to support humanitarian and reconstruction work in Lebanon, for a total of more than $230 million. These funds will help the Lebanese people rebuild their homes and return to their towns and communities. ... America is making a long-term commitment to help the people of Lebanon because we believe every person deserves to live in a free, open society that respects the rights of all."
What hubris. There isn't a scintilla of constitutional authority for Bush to simply rob the treasury and stealing your children's future to rebuild any city or country. This is just another one of Bush's grotesque violations of the supreme law of the land while Americans chew their nails about the new episode of crap like Survivor or fill their gut with beer at the local sporting event. Congress should have immediately stepped in and said, no, "Mr. President. Neither you nor this body has any authority to loot the people's treasury for your political games." Instead, both parties went on vacation and did nothing. The U.S. Treasury is over $8 TRILLION dollars in debt. There is no money in the treasury. That $230 million, which will eventually turn into ten times that amount, has to be borrowed from the thieves called the central bank (FED), further putting you, your children and grand children into financial slavery for all your natural lives. So, have a great time at work today knowing that the sweat off your back is being stolen to fund the "ordering of the new world."
And don't fall for the PR smoking mirrors released by the White House in mid-June: 'Tax Revenue Reaches Highest One Day Total Ever'. This deceptive splash sucked up by cable and mainstream media without ever questioning the figures proclaimed the Treasury Department had collected $61 billion dollars in one day. Most Americans probably thought to themselves, "That's great, now the government can fund more money for education!!!" Wrong. If you don't know the money trail and how the deception works, please read this column I wrote. If you don't have time to read it, you can order it (Vol I, Disk II) on my CDs and listen to it while driving or at home on your CD player; see here, scroll to the bottom.
I cannot give anyone financial advice on how to manage what they have left, but I can provide you with as much credible research as I can through my columns. One thing I will say: The legacy of the U.S. Congress for the past 60+ years is consigning you to poverty for your golden years. Between the massive rape to fund these unconstitutional wars to the illegals invading this country bleeding us dry, anyone who isn't extremely concerned over all of this is in a state of denial. I asked Harvey to give me a short overview of the situation:
"The US account deficit is at $829 billion dollars for the past year and rising. This means that each month the US must borrow $2.27 billion dollars to pay its bills. In the past it has been foreign nations that wanted to invest their excess capital in the US. As of June 2005, these investments have come to a halt. Russia, China and Japan have stopped buying our debt. In fact they have been liquidating dollars. What is it that they know that we as US citizens don't know? The answer is that the empire of the US is bankrupt and our dollar is doing to depreciate in epic proportions. So they are saying why invest in the US when they know they will lose money?
"Well, then, how do we then pay our monthly $2.27 billion debt? Since June of 2005, the consortium of Caribbean Banks stepped up to the plate and purchased our debt month by month. They pick up the slack and purchase our debt allowing us to continue our spending into further debt and entering into the biggest bankruptcy of the history of mankind. Just who are these benevolent Caribbean Banks? They're the same folks who allow investors to shelter their money through trusts and other entities so as to lessen the taxes of the US citizens. These banks are the same people who bring us money laundering. So then how do they get their money? If the truth be known and it rarely is, our government with the assistance of the Federal Reserve, creates money out of nothing and gives that creation to the Caribbean Banks who in turn invest in US debt instruments thereby keeping us financially alive. That is called "monetizing the debt." Why don't you personally try to duplicate this concept? Answer? "I don't want to go to jail."
"The last time a nation did what we are doing was Germany 1919-1923. They were printing money out of thin air. When that bubble broke it cost 87 trillion marks to buy one ounce of gold. By the way, the US has a balance sheet called the off line budget. This budget contains Medicare, social security, the post office and debts for the Iraq war and all of the previous wars not yet paid for. That budget deficit is over $70 TRILLION - is it any wonder why the government doesn't make mention of this balance sheet? Fellow Americans spend more money than they earn. Where do they get the money to pay their bills? They have been borrowing from what was their only increasing asset, their home. The price of your main asset is rapidly dropping in value. In fact, individuals who bought homes in the past two years on an interest only basis are now upside down and are finding it difficult to obtain conventional 30 year loans. This is 20% of the housing market. Another 20% of the market consists of homes paid for by ARMS. The end of this year and in 2007 their monthly payments will be adjusted upward dramatically. One big problem is that the majority of these home loans have a pre penalty payment of $10-$15 thousand dollars. That's a big problem if you have little or zero equity.
"How will it end? We are witnessing the end of the middle class. The death of what makes our nation great. If you are reading this brief overview then you're one step ahead of the average hard working American who doesn't have a clue as what's about to happen to his hard earned assets. Straight talk: all debts have one thing in common, they all eventually come due. It is impossible for us for us to ever, ever, ever repay our national debt. We are only being kept alive because the central bank owns the printing presses.
"One day soon one special event will occur. It may be an unexpected bankruptcy of a major corporation, i.e., Fannie Mae, a major bank or a highly leveraged hedge fund. It could also be a terrorist attack on a major US city. When that event occurs it will be too late to protect your assets. We will be in a liquidating crisis. That's when you call your broker up to sell and his response is "To who"? Like the Boy Scott motto says, we must be prepared. The only things that will grow in value are hard assets. It took 27 years for the Dow Jones to reach its previous high reached in 1929. During that time the only investments that increased in value were gold and silver. That's why I tell you to own physical gold. Gold has to move higher. It's the only commodity that can bring sanity and stability to the fiat currencies of the world. That's why the people that used to buy our US debt are buying and adding to their supply of gold and silver. It's the only thing I know that can preserve your hard earned assets."
It boggles the mind that the American people just don't seem to care about the flushing of all they have worked for during their life time. How can you be "too busy" to safeguard that which you have toiled 30, 40 years to obtain? For those who do care, I respectfully recommend you do some homework and consider getting your hard earned assets out of the stock market (rigged to protect the money changers) and diversify some into gold at the very least. It's no fun writing these columns, no one wants to be the bearer of bad news. One woman commented to me in Denver two weeks ago, "I don't watch the news because I'm tired of bad news. I just want to hear good things happening." Well, that's ever so nice, but, ignoring a problem won't make it go away and the best in the business are cringing as they watch Americans bury themselves in debt while trusting mother government to safeguard their retirement. Very foolish, indeed.
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Oil prices jump after Opec cuts output
By Chris Flood
Financial Times
October 5 2006
Crude oil rallied on Thursday after officials from the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said the cartel had informally agreed to cut output by at least 1m barrels a day.
ICE November Brent rose 91 cents to $60.13 a barrel after having sunk to $57.70 a barrel in the previous session, its lowest level this year.
Nymex November West Texas Intermediate increased 78 cents to $60.19 a barrel.
A move by Opec to cut production for the first time since 2004 has been widely anticipated by the market after Nigeria and Venezuela announced they would reduce output recently.
All Opec countries are expected to take part in production cuts, with Saudi Arabia, the world's top exporter, reducing its output by 300,000 barrels a day.
The announcement drew a negative reaction from Sam Bodman, the US energy secretary who said that the global market still needed Opec's supplies.
The cartel has been moved to action as US stocks of crude oil stand well above their five year average, prompting concerns that prices would decline further if markets remained oversupplied.
"It's a clear signal that Opec wants to defend the $60 level and will provide good fundamental support for prices," said Kevin Norrish of Barclays Capital.
Concerns over disruptions to supplies from Nigeria also provided support for prices yersterday. Nigerian militants claimed they killed 17 soldiers in two separate gun battles on Wednesday and threatened further attacks on strategic oil facilities.
The recovery for crude helped US natural gas prices strengthen. Nymex November Henry Hub rose almost 3 cents to $6.265 per million British thermal units after US weekly inventories data showed a 73bn cubic feet increase in stocks, in-line with market expectations. Stocks currently stand at more than 3.3 trillion cubic feet and on-track to surpass the record of 3.5 trillion by November 1.
Wheat prices reached a fresh 10-year high in Chicago, trading 14 cents higher at $4.79 a bushel on concerns about low stock levels and Brazil's move to become the latest grower to reduce its harvest forecast.
French wheat prices jumped to a 2½ year high, rising €3 to €152 a tonne after Ukraine imposed export licences which may slow export growth.
Copper rose 3.8 per cent to $7,300 a tonne supported by a decline of 2,550 tonnes in London Metal Exchange stocks, helping the price recover most of the sharp fall in the previous session.
Nickel gained 2.9 per cent at $28.900 a tonne while zinc increased 4 per cent to $3,435 a tonne a tonne after LME stocks fell 1,625 tonnes. Aluminium rose 2.9 per cent to $2,547.5.
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Today's SOTT Awards
Pope To "Abolish Limbo"
BBC News
06/10/2006
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Would you trust this man with your soul??
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The Pope may be about to abolish the notion of limbo, the halfway house between heaven and hell, inhabited by unbaptised infants. Is it really that simple?
Pope Benedict XVI's anticipated pronouncement on limbo will have been informed by the International Theological Commission - a group of leading Roman Catholic theologians who have been meeting to consider the issue.
The Pope, himself, has been quoted in the past as saying that he would let the idea of limbo "drop, since it has always been only a theological hypothesis".
He was quoted as saying that limbo has never been a "definitive truth of the faith".
Vatican to review limbo
According to the BBC's Religion and Ethics site [see internet links, right], the church held that before the 13th Century, all unbaptised people, including new born babies who died, would go to hell. This was because original sin - the punishment that God inflicted on humanity because of Adam and Eve's disobedience - had not been cleansed by baptism.
This idea however was criticised by Peter Abelard, a French scholastic philosophiser, who said that babies who had no personal sin didn't even deserve punishment.
It was Abelard who introduced the idea of limbo. The word comes from the Latin "limbus", meaning the edge. This would be a state of existence where unbaptised babies, and those unfortunate enough to have been born before Jesus, would not experience pain but neither would they experience the Beatific Vision of God.
But limbo has long been a problem for the Church. Unease has remained over reconciling a Loving God with one who sent babies to limbo and the Church has faced much criticism.
The current review of limbo began in 2004, when Pope John Paul II asked the commission to come up with "a more coherent and enlightened way" of describing the fate of such innocent babes.
This review is part of a wider re-examination of the notion of salvation that has been taking place within the Church.
Many Catholics would see the abandonment of limbo as a good thing - there is little doubt that some interpretations of the teaching may have caused untold misery to the millions of parents whose children have died without being baptised.
But there are those who argue that it is not simply a "hypothesis" that can just be swept aside; that the notion that unbaptised children do not go to heaven has been a fundamental part of Church teaching for hundreds of years.
Then, of course, there is the argument that if this can be abolished, what else is disposable?
Not popular
According to church historian Michael Walsh limbo is so unpopular it has all but dropped out of Catholic consciousness.
It has not really been standard teaching for decades and it has not been part of official teaching since the early 1990s, when it was omitted from the catechism - the Church's summary of religious doctrine.
A papal decree reversing the firm Catholic belief of two millennia that infants dying unbaptised to not go to heaven would be like an earthquake in the structure of Catholic theology and belief
Father Brian Harrison
"Most priests don't talk about the notion of limbo anymore. There is a understanding that it just simply doesn't wash with people," says Mr Walsh.
But, there are a number of conservative and traditionally minded Catholics who say they are shocked by the notion of getting rid of limbo.
Father Brian Harrison, a theologian, told the BBC News website that while limbo may have been a "hypothesis", he argues that the clear "doctrine of the Catholic Church for two millennia has been that wherever the souls of such infants do go, they definitely don't go to heaven".
He argues that this is borne out in the various funeral rites for unbaptised children practised by the Church.
"A papal decree reversing the firm Catholic belief of two millennia that infants dying unbaptised do not go to heaven would be like an earthquake in the structure of Catholic theology and belief," he said.
Some argue that the question of limbo has taken on fresh urgency because it could be hindering the Church's conversion of Africa and Asia, where infant mortality rates are high.
An article in the UK's Times newspaper this week suggested that the "Pope - an acknowledged authority on all things Islamic - is only too aware that Muslims believe the souls of stillborn babies go straight to heaven".
The theological commission ends its deliberations on Friday. Most commentators believe the Pope will not make any decision immediately. Until he does, the fate of limbo is in - well, limbo.
Comment: Well, since more or less all of the teachings of the catholic church are the work of human hands, it seems appropriate that its public leader should decide if some part of those teachings needs further amending.
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Electronic teenager repellant and scraping fingernails, the sounds of Ig Nobel success
Alok Jha, science correspondent
Friday October 6, 2006
The Guardian
It's a device with a variety of practical applications; an ingenious gadget that disperses gangs of loitering teenagers by emitting a piercing shriek only they can hear. Not the pinnacle of science, perhaps, but high enough to win the Welsh engineer who designed it an award from Harvard.
Howard Stapleton today receives the 2006 Ig Nobel award for peace, joining a prestigious group of previous British winners of prizes that are becoming nearly as coveted their more high-minded Nobel cousins. The Ig Nobels celebrate the quirkier side of serious scientific endeavour, according to Marc Abrahams, the man behind them, honouring "achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think".
For Mr Stapleton, of Compound Security Systems in Merthyr Tydfil, south Wales, the accolade came for his electronic teenager repellant, called the Mosquito.
The Mosquito exploits an ageing effect that sees our ability to hear high frequency sounds dwindle as we get older. In our teens, we can typically hear sounds ranging from 20Hz to 20kHZ, but with age, the highest frequencies we can hear drops, sometimes to 18kHz or less.
"We discovered that, even at relatively low volumes, the right frequency noise would only be heard by 25s and below and it was highly annoying after five minutes," Mr Stapleton said. "The Mosquito was born."
Tests of the £580 unit at a local Spar shop in Barry, south Wales, last year were declared a success when teenagers that congregated outside the premises pleaded with the owner, Robert Gough, to turn it off. Older customers were reported to be oblivious to the high-pitched shriek. The box, mounted on a wall outside the shop, was programmed to emit an 80-decibel pulse of high frequency sound that cleared an area up to 15 metres away.
A second Ig Nobel went to US scientists for their work on the mystery of why fingernails being dragged down a blackboard produces an excruciating sound. The team, which was led by D. Lynn Halpern at Northwestern University in Chicago, found the noise topped a list of annoying sounds and revealed that it remains deeply unpleasant even if the high-pitched squeals are digitally silenced.
The study, entitled Psychoacoustics of Chilling Sound, was published in the journal Perception and Psychophysics but failed to answer the pressing question of why the sound is so shudder-inducing: "Still unanswered, however, is the question of why this and related sounds are so grating to the ear," the authors wrote.
In all, 10 winners were honoured with awards, including Ivan Schwab of the University of California, Davis, who received the ornithology prize for his paper on how woodpeckers avoid headaches.
His research, published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology, followed studies of head injuries in woodpeckers from the 1970s. The answer lies in how a woodpecker's skull and brain are arranged: the muscles around the sensitive brain tissues make the woodpecker's head function like a perfect shock absorber.
Dr Abrahams said it was classic Ig Nobel territory. "It epitomises what the Ig Nobels do every now and again - the moment they hear the question, they're happy that somebody has put the question into words and they're even happier that someone's begun to answer it," he said. "This prize will give new meaning to the old phrase, to rack your brains."
While this year's Nobel prize for physics went to two scientists who helped to prove that the universe began with a big bang, Basile Audoly and Sebastien Neukirch of the Université Pierre et Marie Curie, in Paris won the Ig Nobel physics prize for tackling the conundrum of why dry spaghetti breaks into more than one piece when it is bent.
The prizes were handed to the winners by Nobel laureates Roy Glauber (Physics, 2005), Dudley Herschbach (Chemistry, 1986), William Lipscomb (Chemistry, 1976), Rich Roberts (Physiology or Medicine, 1993) and Frank Wilczek (Physics, 2004).
Each winner was allowed 60 seconds to deliver an acceptance speech and will try to explain themselves further at public lectures tomorrow afternoon at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Last year, top billing went to the award for fluid dynamics, shared by Victor Benno Meyer-Rochow of the International University Bremen and Jozsef Gal of Lorand Eotvos University in Hungary "for using basic principles of physics to calculate the pressure that builds up inside a penguin". Previous years have honoured a centrifugal-force birthing machine that spins pregnant women at high speed and Britain's official six-page specification for how to make a cup of tea.
Dr Abrahams said the awards, now in their 16th year, are becoming increasingly popular, with up to 7,000 new nominations every year. "Some of those nominees are really intent on getting an Ig Nobel prize for themselves," he said. "Not only are individuals nominating themselves, we see companies nominating their employees, universities nominating their faculty and, in a couple of cases, governments nominating ... people."
Last night's ceremony ended with the traditional call from Dr Abrahams to researchers everywhere: "If you didn't win an Ig Nobel prize tonight - and especially if you did - better luck next year."
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