Today's conditions brought to you by the Bush Junta -
marionettes of their hyperdimensional puppet masters - Produced and
Directed by the CIA, based on an original script by Henry
Kissinger, with a cast of billions.... The "Greatest Shew on
Earth," no doubt, and if you don't have a good sense of humor,
don't read this page! It is designed to reveal the "unseen."
If you can't stand the heat of Objective Reality, get out of the
kitchen!
The
material presented in the linked articles does not necessarily reflect
the views or opinions of the editors. Research on your own and if you
can validate any of the articles, or if you discover deception and/or
an obvious agenda, we will appreciate if you drop us a line! We often
post such comments along with the article synopses for the benefit of
other readers. As always, Caveat Lector!
(Bookmark
whatsnew link! In
case site is down, info will be there!)
A
Portugal-based investigative journalist has presented THE NEWS with
version of the September 11th attacks that has to date failed to
attract the attention of the international press. The report,
compiled by an independent inquiry into the September 11th, World
Trade Centre attack, warns the American public that the
government’s official version of events does not stand up to
scrutiny.
A
group of military and civilian US pilots, under the chairmanship of
Colonel Donn de Grand, after deliberating non-stop for 72 hours,
has concluded that the flight crews of the four passenger
airliners, involved in the September 11th tragedy, had no control
over their aircraft.
In a
detailed press communiqué the inquiry stated: "The so-called
terrorist attack was in fact a superbly executed military operation
carried out against the USA, requiring the utmost professional
military skill in command, communications and control. It was
flawless in timing, in the choice of selected aircraft to be used
as guided missiles and in the coordinated delivery of those
missiles to their pre-selected targets."
The
report seriously questions whether or not the suspect hijackers,
supposedly trained on Cessna light aircraft, could have located a
target dead-on 200 miles from take off point. It further throws
into doubt their ability to master the intricacies of the
instrument flight rules (IFR) in the 45 minutes from take off to
the point of impact. Colonel de Grand said that it would be
impossible for novices to have taken control of the four aircraft
and orchestrated such a terrible act requiring military precision
of the highest order.
A
member of the inquiry team, a US Air Force officer who flew over
100 sorties during the Vietnam war, told the press conference:
"Those birds (commercial airliners) either had a crack fighter
pilot in the left seat, or they were being manoeuvred by remote
control."
In
evidence given to the enquiry, Captain Kent Hill (retd.) of the US
Air Force, and friend of Chic Burlingame, the pilot of the plane
that crashed into the Pentagon, stated that the US had on several
occasions flown an unmanned aircraft, similar in size to a Boeing
737, across the Pacific from Edwards Air Force base in California
to South Australia. According to Hill it had flown on a pre
programmed flight path under the control of a pilot in an outside
station.
Hill
also quoted Bob Ayling, former British Airways boss, in an
interview given to the London Economist on September 20th, 2001.
Ayling admitted that it was now possible to control an aircraft in
flight from either the ground or in the air. This was confirmed by
expert witnesses at the inquiry who testified that airliners could
be controlled by electro-magnetic pulse or radio frequency
instrumentation from command and control platforms based either in
the air or at ground level.
All
members of the inquiry team agreed that even if guns were held to
their heads none of them would fly a plane into a building. Their
reaction would be to ditch the plane into a river or a field,
thereby safeguarding the lives of those on the ground.
A
further question raised by the inquiry was why none of the pilots
concerned had alerted ground control. It stated that all pilots are
trained to punch a four-digit code into the flight control’s
transponder to warn ground control crews of a hijacking - but this
did not happen.
During the press conference
Captain Hill maintained that the four airliners must have been
choreographed by an Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS).
This system can engage several aircraft simultaneously by knocking
out their on-board flight controls. He said that all the evidence
points to the fact that the pilots and their crews had not taken
any evasive action to resist the supposed hijackers. They had not
attempted any sudden changes in flight path or nose-dive procedures
- which led him to believe that they had no control over their
aircraft.
THE
NEWS, in an attempt to further substantiate the potential veracity
of these findings, spoke to an Algarve-based airline pilot, who has
more than 20 years of experience in flying passenger planes, to
seek his views. Captain Colin McHattie, currently flying with
Cathay Pacific, agreed with the independent commission’s
findings. However, he explained that while it is possible to fly a
plane from the ground, the installation of the necessary equipment
is a time-consuming process, and needs extensive planning. THE NEWS
will publish a full interview with Captain McHattie in next
week’s edition.
The
FBI also came in for criticism for the various pieces of
contradictory evidence it has published regarding the suspects.
Questions are now being asked as to how incorrect information was
given out regarding the ID cards of the suspects, and the seat
numbers they supposedly occupied after boarding the
flights.
None
of the suspects named by the FBI appeared on any of the official
passenger lists. A further point was how the FBI had managed to
retrieve the passport of one of the suspects amid the molten and
twisted remains of thousands of tons of steel and rubble brought
about by the Twin Towers collapse.
Dr.
Paul Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury, and
presently Senior Research Fellow at Stamford University, has lent
his support to the independent inquiry findings. He also claims
that Osama Bin Laden was not responsible for September 11th. The
doctor has challenged President Bush to make public the so-called
"irrefutable evidence" incriminating Bin Laden.
Colonel Donn de Grand said
that if President Bush is lying it would not be the first time that
the American people had been mislead by its government. He cited
the recently published official government archives describing
President Roosevelt’s duplicity in deceiving Americans about
the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, which triggered the US entry
into WWll.
He
also highlighted the role of the country’s government in
misleading its citizens in respect of the Bay of Pigs invasion in
Cuba, and the events that brought about the Spanish American war in
the late 19th, century. "Whilst considering who committed this act
of war on September 11th," he said, "albeit Russia, China, an
Islamic country or NATO, we must also consider that the enemy may
well be within the gates.
"Not
for the first time the American public might be being mislead, by
those with ulterior motives, into lending its support to a war,
this time against Iraq, that has no bearing whatsoever on the
interests of the people of the USA."
So
far the mainstream American news media has failed to publish or
broadcast any details regarding the independent inquiry. Similarly,
the White House, whilst having received a copy of the report, has
remained silent on its findings.
Comment:"The media work their
standing joke about CONSPIRACIES, so that anyone who begins to see
through the curtain is thought of as a nut with delusions. This is
a very important point, because clues about conspiracies are
actually everywhere. They are as easy to find as pebbles in a
stream. So people must be trained to feel a certain negative reflex
kick in when they start to bend down and pick up one of those
pebbles. [...] And then people eat up the lies as if that is the
“patriotic” thing to do. They eat the lies as they wave
the flag. They take pride in their own status as mind-control
victims.
Which is a very good working definition of insanity. A definition
you will not find in the psychiatric texts."
No More Fake News,
SECRET OPERATIONS, PART 2, by Jon Rappaport. See also
The
Occult Significance of 9-11.
06/30/03:
(The Japan Times) A group of Japanese lawyers unveiled documents
Monday "indicting" U.S. President George W. Bush for war crimes
allegedly committed against the Afghan people since the United
States-led coalition began its antiterrorism campaign in
Afghanistan in October 2001.
"This is
an act that breaks international rules, such as the idea of
(honoring) human rights, that have been formed over so many years,"
said Koken Tsuchiya, former president of the Japan Federation of
Bar Associations and head of the 11-member prosecutors' team in the
tribunal. "We decided this case has sufficient reason to be brought
to court."
A civic
tribunal will be held in Tokyo, with the first hearing scheduled
for July 21.
The
charges against Bush, according to the indictment, include
aggression, attacks against civilians and nonmilitary facilities
and the torturing and execution of prisoners.
They said
the indictment will be handed to the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo next
week.
The
tribunal is being organized by Tokyo Zokei University professor
Akira Maeda and others.
LONDON
(Reuters) - Forget anthrax and smallpox. Influenza could easily be
turned into the next weapon of mass destruction, scientists said on
Tuesday. They sounded their warning as researchers come close to
completing the blueprint for the virus of the 1918 'flu epidemic
that killed up to 40 million people globally.
"Taken
together with the fact that influenza virus is readily accessible
and may be causing more deaths than previously suspected, the
possibility for genetic engineering and aerosol transmission
suggests an enormous potential for bioterrorism," the University of
Texas scientists said.
Writing
in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, the team led by Dr
Mohammed Madjid noted that last century a series of 'flu epidemics
from Spain to Russia and Hong Kong had killed millions of people as
the virus naturally mutated.
They
pointed out that sequencing of the genome of the 1918 Spanish 'flu
epidemic was nearly complete, opening the door to unscrupulous
scientists to build an even more potent virus. [...]
Comment:
September 24, 2001
Q: (L) Are there going to be any
other kinds of violence, such as bombs or airplanes being flown
into buildings, or release of
anthrax, or small pox, or any other kind of chemical or germ
warfare activities. Any of those?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Which ones?
A: Fair chance of germ disbursement.
Q: (L) What kind of germ?
A: Influenza.
Q: (L) Do you mean a deadly form of flu?
A: Yes.
Palestinian police have been taking control of northern and central
parts of the Gaza Strip, after a crucial Israeli troop
withdrawal.
The
Israeli army removed the main checkpoints on the main north-south
highway, allowing Palestinians free movement along it for the first
time in more than two years.
The two
sides are discussing an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank - as
required by the US-backed peace plan known as the roadmap - after
three main groups of Palestinian militants declared a
ceasefire.
The first
full day of the truce was marred when a Palestinian faction killed
a foreigner working for an Israeli company in the northern West
Bank. [...]
By
ALEXANDRA ZAVIS, Associated Press Writer
July 1, 2003
JERUSALEM
- Israel agreed to return the West Bank town of Bethlehem to
Palestinian control after its pullback Monday from the Gaza Strip,
crucial steps that advance a U.S.-backed "road map" to Palestinian
statehood and raise hopes that 33 months of violence may be nearing
an end.
The two
sides' prime ministers also set a meeting to plan their next moves,
as bulldozers tore down Israeli checkpoints and traffic flowed
freely in Gaza for the first time in months. Palestinian police
took control of the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun on the heels of the
departing Israeli troops. [...]
GAVIN RABINOWITZ, Associated Press Writer Sunday, June 29,
2003
Israel's Shin Bet security agency has held Palestinian
prisoners incommunicado for weeks at a time at a secret detention
center in violation of international law, The Associated Press has
learned.
Prisoners say they are blindfolded and kept in black,
windowless cells. When they ask where they are, they are told: "On
the moon."
Israel refuses to say where the center is located or who is
being kept there, but hints foreigners are among the
prisoners.
The
state's attorney confirmed the existence of the center, known as
facility 1391, in a June 9 response to a Supreme Court petition
filed by the HaMoked human rights group over missing detainees
Bashar and Muhammed Jodallah. But Israel would only say the center
was located on a secret army base, arguing that revealing the
location would jeopardize national security. [...]
CNN
erred in giving more programming time to the family of a
Palestinian suicide bomber than to his Israeli victims and tried to
rectify the mistake, the network's top news executive said Sunday
during a damage-control visit to Israel.
CNN's coverage of recent suicide bombings has provoked anger in
Israel and led a local cable company to start carrying CNN's chief
U.S. competitor, Fox News Channel. Fox said it expects others to
follow suit. Recent comments from CNN founder Ted Turner describing
both Israel and the Palestinians as terrorists have fueled Israeli
anger.
Interviewed on Israel Television, Eason Jordan, CNN's president
of newsgathering, said his company strives for fairness.
"On
occasion we make mistakes but that's not because there's any bias,"
he said. "CNN is not pro-Palestinian or anti-Israeli. We're fair,
we're responsible in our reporting, we try to be as accurate as we
possibly can be."
[...] Jordan said the company was taking criticism from both
sides, with Palestinian officials he met Saturday accusing CNN of
serving Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
"They believe that CNN is the propaganda arm of the Sharon
government," he said.
Comment: "Every time we do something, you
[Shimon Peres] tell me America will do this and will do that... I
want to tell you something very clear: Don't worry about American
pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the
Americans know it." - Ariel Sharon, Israeli Prime Minister,
homicidal psychopath, Jewish Mafia member, Knesset, Tel Aviv,
October 3, 2001.
The
Satellite and Cable Commission decided Thursday to allow Israeli
cable companies to remove CNN from their programming. The decision
was approved by a large majority, following a stormy discussion on
the issue.
The
central argument for the decision was the availability of three
foreign news networks other than CNN: BBC, Fox News and Sky
News.
About a week ago, three cable companies filed separate requests
to the Commission to end the CNN broadcasts. The cable companies
wrote that they were unable to reach an agreement with CNN on
payment rates for the news broadcasts...
A
senior CNN official harshly criticized the cable companies' tactics
in the negotiations, which he said included attacks on the
network's coverage of Israel and the conflict with the
Palestinians, while taking advantage of the sensitive political
situation.
Prior to the Commission's decision, the official said that the
cable companies were given "a very fair offer at a rate we didn't
make available anywhere else in the world."
CNN
is currently a part of the cable companies' basic programming
package which every subscriber receives without paying extra fees.
A few weeks ago, some cable companies began broadcasting Fox News,
a competitor of CNN.
Comment: Maybe what cable television needs
is a news channel that isn't totally controlled by mega-companies
and their power-mongering puppetmasters...
(Filed: 01/07/2003) There
were no signs of celebration in Beit Hanoun and little in the way
of optimism even after Israeli tanks pulled out of this devastated
area of the Gaza Strip yesterday. [...]
Later, the Israelis handed
over control of the main north-south road, so that for the
first time in two and a half years Palestinians can travel
freely along it.
Some
Palestinians hoisted flags along the route to mark the occasion but
the principal emotions were bewilderment and shock at the
devastation left behind by the Israelis.
Many local people
spoke of their anger as they sifted through the wasteland of
damaged buildings, uprooted trees and ploughed-up roads.
[...]
Another man, Abdul Hamid
Shanti, walked up and examined the area where his orange trees and
all his life's savings had been swept away. He gazed towards the
Israeli miltary watchtower and camp on the far hilltop.
"They say they have pulled
out but they are still here," he said with a wry smile. "I do not
believe peace is coming."
Comment: "Zionism!
An ideology that is antithetical to Judaism, one fomented by
unabashed atheists, heretics and even some ostensibly 'religious'
collaborators who have sold their souls to the irreligious Zionists
for money and power. [...] Anti-Jewish prejudice is the lifeblood
of Zionism! Without it, Zionism could not survive! Zionism seeks to
label anyone opposing its policies as 'anti-Semitic,' which is
utterly false, both logically and factually!" Rabbi Yisroel P.
Feldman, during a rally hosted by the New England Committee to
Defend Palestine, to protest the "Boston Celebrates Israel
Festival" in Boston, Mass. on Sunday, June 15,
2003
by
Helen & Harry Highwater
Unknown News
June 27, 2003
A
Missouri company has been fined $6,000 for answering a customer's
question and not reporting to the federal government that the
question was asked. The question that's punished by law is: Are any
of these products made in Israel, or made of Israeli
materials?
The
Kansas City Star reports:
The
anti-boycott provisions bar U.S. companies from providing
information about their business relationships with Israel. They
also require that receipt of boycott requests be reported to the
Bureau of Industry and Security, formerly known as the Bureau of
Export Administration.
We
ask: Why is this question forbidden? Why is any question
forbidden?
It
sounds more like the USSR than the USA, to punish people for asking
a forbidden question, or for not immediately reporting to the
government that someone else asked a forbidden question.
Only
a few years ago, during South Africa's apartheid era, it was
considered the height of good moral backbone to ask whether a
product came from that country. Today, many Americans are asking
such questions about products they suspect came from France, after
the French government declined to join "Operation Iraqi
Freedom."
The
article doesn't make it clear whether these restrictions apply only
to US companies selling stuff outside the US, or whether the law
applies to everyone. Either way, it's reprehensible.
Comment:
Unknown News, after posting their commentary
above took all kinds of flack: zionist attempts at censorship along
with the usual anti-semitic ranters. In their own words: "Our
article on the US law forbidding boycotts of Israel has brought out
all the loonies. Over the weekend, 35 people sent us blatantly
anti-Semitic emails, and 27 wrote emails that amounted to
accusations of anti-Semitism for writing the article. We read the
first few of these loony letters, shaking our heads, and deleted
the rest. All 62 of you are all invited to take a Mediterranean
cruise together — and we hope your ship
sinks.
"We don't believe a word of
such claptrap from either side, and we don't care to share your
stupid, petty hatreds. We're sure as shit not going to turn our
dialogue page over to people who preach lies "explaining"
everything from Jewish blood-sucking circumcision to how Arabs are
bred to blow things up by heredity, tradition, and inferior
genetics. To some people, the world will always come down to Jews
and gentiles, or some other offensive form of us and them. Your
equal and opposite mutually codependent insanities bore us, so
we've blocked each and all of your email addresses. Your future
hate emails addressed to us will (as the kids say) bounce back and
stick to you.
"Meanwhile, to reiterate
the amazingly obvious: The article we wrote was about a law
breaching freedom of speech in America. The law prohibits companies
and, apparently, individuals from discussing a boycott of Israel
— but that volatile noun — Israel — neither
excuses the censorship nor makes it worse. We would be just as
enthusiastically offended by a law banning boycotts against
Methodists, Armenians, or math teachers."
[Isaac Fidelis] left his home on
Natan Street in Tel Aviv's Hatikva quarter Sunday night after
saying good night to his wife, Uche, her sister Victoria Agaon and
her husband Ignatius, who Fidelis calls "my brother" according to
Nigerian custom, and went to roam the city streets before turning
in for the night in a public park.
Ever
since the men in blue started to burst into the homes of foreign
workers unannounced, Fidelis, 38, spends his nights in public
parks, yet another place he never thought he would lay his head
while in Israel. He falls asleep between bushes, on flower beds,
until the sun rises and he returns home for a quick shower before
heading off for work. He says that all the African men do
this.
At
10.30 P.M., he spoke to his wife to wish her good night. They
married half a year ago and Uche is in her second month of
pregnancy with their first child. Ignatius and Victoria were also
looking forward to their first child. The doctor said she was due
to give birth this week. Ignatius stayed to sleep with his wife
because of her advanced state of pregnancy.
Suddenly, at 4.20 A.M. a huge explosion broke the night's
silence, and buried an entire family's dreams. [...]
A
Letter From Michael Moore To George W. Bush
6-27-3
Dear
Lt. George W. Bush,
I
hope you don't mind me referring to you by the only true military
rank you ever achieved, that being the one from your on-again,
off-again "days" in the, um, Texas Air National Guard. Ever since I
saw you in that flyboy outfit, landing on that ship, I assumed you
now wanted to be addressed by your military title, as opposed to
the civilian rank imposed on you by your dad's friends.
So,
Lieutenant, I was wondering, would you do me a favor?
Could you PLEASE do better than a ROSE BUSH?
I
saw the guy on TV yesterday that your boys found, the Iraqi who
said he had "planted" some nuclear plans in his "back yard" in
Baghdad -- 12 years ago -- "under a rose bush."
Woo
boy. That's a good one. Do you really think we are as dumb as we
look? I know our fascination with "American Idol" and Scott
Peterson may make us Americans look a little light in the head, but
when it comes to lying to us to lead us into war, we really do
demand a bit more of an EFFORT and a FOLLOW-THROUGH.
You
see, George, it's not the lying and the doctoring of intelligence
that has me all upset. It's that you've had control of Iraq for
over two months now -- and you couldn't even find the time to plant
just a few nukes or vats of nerve gas and at least make it LOOK
like you weren't lying to us.
You
see, by not faking some evidence of weapons of mass destruction, it
shows that you thought no one would mind if it turned out you made
everything up. A different kind of president, who believes that the
American public would be outraged if they ever found out the truth,
would go to great lengths to cover up his subterfuge...
By BASSEM
MROUE, Associated Press Writer
July 1, 2003
NAJAF,
Iraq - American troops moved in force Monday to arrest the
U.S.-appointed mayor of this holy Shiite town, removing him on
kidnapping and corruption charges and detaining 62 of his top
aides, officials said.
The
arrest came as a sweep in a wide swath of central Iraq moved into
its second day. The sweep, dubbed operation Sidewinder, is designed
to capture Saddam Hussein loyalists and curb a wave of attacks on
American soldiers. So far, however, no major fugitives have been
reported arrested, and some soldiers say their efforts have been
plagued by faulty intelligence and bad luck.
The
arrest of the mayor of Najaf, Abu Haydar Abdul Mun'im, came less
than three months after he was installed by American troops after
they entered the town in April. The former Iraqi army colonel was
unpopular from the start with the local population because of his
military background. [...]
Comment:
This is nothing new, given that
Bush has appointed known criminals to government positions in the
USA.
FALLUJAH, Iraq (CNN) -- There were conflicting reports Tuesday
about an explosion at a mosque in Fallujah that killed at least two
people.
The
blast occurred shortly after midnight and there was no immediate
confirmation of what caused the explosion.
Iraqis at the scene claimed the blast was caused by a U.S. missile
or bomb, but the U.S. military said stored explosives were to
blame.
A
U.S. military spokesman described the damage to the mosque as
"minimal," saying it appears the explosion took place in a building
next to the Muslim house of worship.
But
video from the scene contradicted the U.S. account.
[...]
An ammunition dump has exploded in Iraq, killing about 30 people,
according to reports.
Many of the dead were said to have been looting the site at the
time, looking for artillery casings to sell.
Local
residents said scores of people were also injured in the blast,
which happened in a desert area near the town of Haditha, about 260
kilometres (160 miles) north-west of the capital, Baghdad on
Saturday.
A
spokesman for US Central Command in Baghdad said that the dump was
Iraqi, not American.
Because
of that, he said, US forces in the area were not taking
responsibility for caring for the wounded.
"There
are quantities of dead and wounded, but we don't know exactly how
many," he told BBC News Online. [...]
By Sa'id
Ghazali in Beit Hanoun, Gaza Strip
01 July 2003
"I cried
in blood," Fawzi al-Kafarneh told me as we walked through the ruins
of his brick factory in Gaza, "all my savings of 20 years are blown
away."
Unshaven
and disheveled, the 58-year-old Palestinian man talked ceaselessly
to himself in a low voice yesterday, sweating profusely under his
flowing, tan-coloured shirt.
The
Israeli army wrecking crews left his factory in smithereens as they
left, much like the orange groves, homes and other factories that
used to line the main road into Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza.
Finally, after months under curfew - which kept workers from their
jobs, farmers from their fields and children from schools - the
relief is palpable.
After
1,000 days of fighting and intermittent occupation, Israeli and
Palestinian commanders shook hands as bulldozers dismantled
checkpoints allowing Palestinian traffic to flow freely again in
the Gaza Strip. The pullback - first in Gaza, and in Bethlehem and
other West Bank towns later this week, is part of the
American-backed peace plan, which has gained momentum since the
Iraq war.
Today the
Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, will meet his Palestinian
counterpart, Abu Mazen, to discuss further confidence-building
measures.
But it is
a bitter return to normal life for the Palestinians. Just nine
months before the start of the latest uprising, Mr al-Kafarneh
invested $300,000 (£180,000) to build his factory. He now has
late-onset diabetes and high blood pressure and sees no prospect of
rebuilding his life, along with that of his four sons, who worked
with him. "Now my family - 37 people - will eat bread and drink
water. We have no livelihood," he said. [...]
By Scott
Peterson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
July 01, 2003
DOURA AND
FALLUJAH, IRAQ – Starting at dawn Monday, American soldiers
searching for weapons on the southern outskirts of Baghdad knocked
on door after door, visiting house after house. On 2,300 separate
visits, they were let in by quietly cooperative Iraqis, and then
moved on.
The last
major sweep of the two-week-long Operation Desert Scorpion netted
just eight Kalashnikovs, a sniper rifle, and a handful of pistols.
But it also showed how many Iraqis - despite a recent surge of
lethal anti-US attacks - are resigning themselves to American
occupation.
Nearly
three months after the fall of Baghdad, and amid still chronic
shortages of basics like electricity, Iraqis and US military and
civilian officials alike say relations are beginning to mature, as
both sides adjust to the new reality across Iraq.
"We are
now in a situation where there is no substitute for the Americans
in our city," says Taha Bidawi Hamid, mayor of Fallujah, 30 miles
west of Baghdad, where US troops killed 16 protesters in late
April. Now Mr. Hamid works closely with US forces to dole out
school-building and other contracts, while calming the frayed
nerves of families who have lost relatives, and want revenge
against US forces.
"There is
a debate," the mayor says. "When you go to the street, people say:
'We are against the Americans.' But sheikhs, imams, and educated
people say: 'Don't hurt the Americans, because that hurts us,
too.'"
Mayor
Hamid even presided over a meeting last Friday during which
religious leaders in Fallujah "agreed that it was no longer allowed
to shoot Americans in the city, and instead to work with the
Americans. All of them agreed."
That
shifting attitude reflects the results of a first-ever poll of
Iraqis, reported by CBS earlier this month, that nearly two-thirds
of Baghdad residents want US forces to stay until Iraq is stable
and secure, and that only 17 percent want US troops to go home
immediately. Iraqis say that result is accurate, but by default:
While they are grateful the US has removed Saddam Hussein, and note
that US troops are now critical to reestablishing yearned-for
security, they still don't approve of their stay here.
"They are
occupiers," says Fallujah truck driver Nouri Khalil, clicking his
small wooden prayer beads while waiting for business on a
sweltering street corner. "But if they leave, there will be no
security. We want the Americans to form an Iraqi government, so
they can go." [...]
Scott
Peterson is currently in Baghdad. He traveled extensively in Iraq
and Iran before the Iraq war. Since the end of hostilities, he has
reported on conditions there. [...]
Does the
average Iraqi on the street believe the US will pull out before a
lasting democracy or an orderly government is
established?
The
average Iraqi on the street remains unsure of US motives in his
country. One officer told me today, about this mismatch of
expectations, that most Iraqis believed that when the regime
collapsed, the Americans would "drive up and park with the full
American dream: a house, two-car garage, white picket fence and a
dog." Instead, there is only one thing that Iraqis - nearly three
months after the war - can point to as an improvement since the
fall of Saddam Hussein: freedom of speech. Other than that, the
litany of complaints is long, and that means the window of
opportunity for the US to put together a credible interim
government is swiftly closing.
How easy
is it for people in Baghdad to get food and basic necessities for
cooking, cleaning, and healthcare?
Chaos
still reigns in terms of most public services. Electricity remains
the most troublesome, as temperatures climb toward 120 degrees.
Food is not as big a problem, but sporadic water, spotty power, and
chronic insecurity means that few new jobs are being created. Lack
of electricity has meant that some hospital emergency wards have
had to shut their doors from time to time. Iraqis say repeatedly -
and seem to believe - that the US chief administrator for Iraq,
Paul Bremer is "punishing" them for resistance to the US
occupation, with the electricity cuts. The reality is that the
weakness of the electrical grid, and sabotage, are thwarting
efforts to put the system back together. Military engineers have
met every day for more than a month to solve the problem - but
Iraqis rarely believe that.
How would
you describe life in Baghdad now for an average Iraqi? In the
daytime? After dark? Do US troops go on even higher alert after the
sun goes down?
Life in
Iraq has been hard since the start of the Iran-Iraq war in the
1980s, but many remember when everything "worked" in Iraq in the
1970s. So, Iraqis spend their days trying to get by. Insecurity has
changed their way of living, though. Iraqis have told me that they
can't go out and buy shoes anymore, unless they travel - for safety
- as an entire family together. And few venture very far after
dark. US troops certainly go on a higher alert after dark, but with
their night-vision capability, they have many more advantages than
those who want to wage guerrilla-style attacks against them.
[...]
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- As a new
poll shows Americans are taking a dimmer view of U.S.-led coalition
efforts in Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Monday that
the fighting there would continue "for some time."
Only 56
percent of Americans view the current fighting as going well in
Iraq, according to a new CNN/USA Today Gallup poll. That is much
lower than the 70 percent in late May and the 86 percent in early
May who thought the fighting was going well. [...]
Although
the percentage of those who believe going to war in Iraq was
worthwhile has fallen to 56 percent from 73 percent in April, more
than two-thirds believe having U.S. troops in Iraq now is
worthwhile.
However,
the series of raids on coalition forces has led to questions of
whether Iraq is turning into another Vietnam: A guerrilla conflict
marked by high U.S. casualties.
Rumsfeld
criticized reporters' questions about the terms "guerrilla war" and
"quagmire," saying they drew too heavily on the U.S. experience in
Vietnam. [...]
The poll
also found little difference in the number of those who believe the
Bush administration deliberately misled the public about Iraqi
weapons -- 37 percent now, up from 31 percent earlier in June. More
than half said it would matter a great deal if they were to become
convinced that they were mislead. [...]
BAGHDAD
(AP) — Amnesty International said today it has gathered
evidence that points to U.S. violations of international law by
subjecting Iraqi prisoners to "cruel, inhuman or degrading"
conditions at its detention centres here.
The
report coincides with a two-day UN conference on human rights that
began in Baghdad today. The conference, which focuses on abuses
committed during the rule of Saddam Hussein, will co-ordinate
investigations into the regime's alleged killings of some 300,000
Iraqis.
London-based Amnesty
International said hundreds of Iraqis held at U.S.-run tent camps
and former Iraqi government prisons have been denied the right to
see families or lawyers or have a judge review their
detention.
The
prisoners include those suspected of looting and other crimes as
well as political suspects, including former high-ranking members
of Saddam's regime.
Iraqis
released from U.S. detention reported having their wrists tightly
bound with plastic handcuffs and sometimes being denied water and
access to a toilet in the first night of arrest. Amnesty said its
investigators saw numerous ex-detainees with wrists still scarred
by the cuffs a month after their arrests. [...]
Monday June 30, 2003
By JIM KRANE
Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Amnesty International said Monday it has
gathered evidence that points to U.S. violations of international
law by subjecting Iraqi prisoners to "cruel, inhuman or degrading''
conditions at its detention centers here.
The
report coincides with a two-day United Nations conference on human
rights that began in Baghdad on Monday. The conference, which
focuses on abuses committed during the rule of Saddam Hussein, will
coordinate investigations into the regime's alleged killings of
some 300,000 Iraqis.
London-based Amnesty International said hundreds of Iraqis held
at U.S.-run tent camps and former Iraqi government prisons have
been denied the right to see families or lawyers or have a judge
review their detention.
Tuesday July 1, 2003
The Guardian
Peter McKay Daily Mail, June 30
"Marketing and presentation have taken over politics. The real
power resides with [Alastair] Campbell, who controls the words and
images [and has] revelled for the past six years in the power he
was given by Tony Blair ...
"Mr
Campbell told the pathetic posse of MPs questioning him last week
that to accuse a prime minister of taking his country to war on
false pretenses was a very serious matter. Quite so. As an
unelected propagandist, he shouldn't have been allowed anywhere
near the decision making process involved. The fact that he and his
blustering attack on the BBC are now the story - not whether the
prime minister wilfully deceived us over Iraq - is the true measure
of how Tony Blair... allowed himself to be humiliated and
undermined by a 'servant'."
Scotsman Editorial, June 30
"Now come reports that the select committee report, due this week,
is set to clear Mr Campbell of the key charge of exaggerating
intelligence about Iraq to justify war... But of most concern to
many is what this whole episode has revealed both about the inner
workings of the Downing Street communications machine and the
extraordinary power of Mr Campbell. He may survive this bruising
encounter, but the fact that he has been so publicly embroiled in a
challenge to the credibility and trust of the Prime Minister's
office is the point that many will see as the real - and ongoing -
issue of concern."
Alex Bell Herald, Glasgow, June 30
"Mr Campbell and a cabinet of lawyers... have asked the nation, who
do you trust, Downing Street or the BBC, and may come to regret
it...
"It's not whether we trust the BBC more - it's simply that we
may no longer trust the government. In that sense, Mr Campbell is
also a mere distraction, if a slightly more novel one. He's a paid
official with no democratic mandate. The real issue is, did we go
to war to combat an invented threat? That is down to Tony Blair.
Not the security forces, or the spies, or spin doctors, or anyone
else... Worse though, now we are thinking about trust: will we put
our faith in a rushed report by MPs who merely quizzed some of the
key players?"
Independent Editorial, June 30
"Mr Campbell... has to decide whether the attention he has drawn to
himself requires his sacrifice for the good of the government he
serves... Why did Mr Campbell go over the top last week and make
himself 'the story' once again? One possibility is that he sensed
the searchlights closing in on him as the fall guy for the
government's failure to substantiate its case for the war in Iraq
...
"It
is healthy for our democracy that Mr Campbell should have appeared
before MPs to account for himself. But ultimately... he is merely
the spokesman for his boss, and it is Mr Blair who must be held
responsible for taking the nation to war on the basis of assertions
which turn out to be untrue."
Tony Parsons Daily Mirror, June 30
"In front of the Commons foreign affairs select committee... Jack
Straw absolved himself and Mr Blair of all blame, and seemed to
offer up Alastair Campbell as human sacrifice...
"Mr
Straw and Mr Blair had already made up their minds to go to war...
It was a done deal. Mr Campbell's dossiers had bugger-all to do
with it...
"Many people despise Mr Campbell. But he was a good, honest
journalist, and I have seen nothing at all to convince me that the
man is a liar... What counts is why did we attack Iraq?
Increasingly, nobody seems to know... Crucifying the spin-doctor, a
modern variation on shooting the messenger, will hardly give this
story a happy ending."
Microsoft Word documents are notorious for containing private
information in file headers which people would sometimes rather not
share. The British government of Tony Blair just learned this
lesson the hard way.
Back
in February 2003, 10 Downing Street published a dossier on Iraq's
security and intelligence organizations. This dossier was cited by
Colin Powell in his address to the United Nations the same month.
Dr. Glen Rangwala, a lecturer in politics at Cambridge University,
quickly discovered that much of the material in the dossier was
actually plagiarized from a U.S. researcher on Iraq.
Anyone got several million dollars to spare? If so
it appears that the government and the Washington Times think you
might be interested in an F-22 Raptor.
This
link appears on a
Washington Times article (appearsperiodically
as one of a number of ads). If this is not evidence of blatant "war
mind" programming of the public then we don't know what
is...
WASHINGTON, June 30 —
American intelligence officials now believe that North Korea is
developing the technology to make nuclear warheads small enough to
fit atop the country's growing arsenal of missiles, potentially
putting Tokyo and American troops based in Japan at risk, according
to officials who have received the intelligence reports.
In the
assessment — which they have shared with Japan, South Korea
and other allies in recent weeks — officials at the Central
Intelligence Agency said American satellites had identified an
advanced nuclear testing site in an area called Youngdoktong. At
the site, equipment has been set up to test conventional explosives
that, when detonated, could compress a plutonium core and set off a
compact nuclear explosion.
Some
intelligence officials say they believe that the existence of the
testing range is evidence that North Korea intends to manufacture
much more sophisticated weapons that would be light enough to put
onto its growing arsenal of medium- and long-range missiles.
[...]
Comment: Given the
extraordinary accuracy that U.S. intelligence agencies are known
for, it's far more likely that Youngdoktong is a baby formula
factory.
The US is
now sending $11 billion in high-tech equipment - part of a redesign
of the South's defense.
By Robert
Marquand | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
July 01, 2003
TOKYO AND
HONOLULU – As the US prepares to reduce and redeploy troops
that have long guarded the DMZ in South Korea, it is also sending a
huge array of state-of-the-art military equipment onto a peninsula
confronting a nuclear crisis.
Along
with a new Pentagon study of tactical nuclear weapons that would
penetrate the deep tunnels and entrenched artillery positions of
North Korea's military, the $11-billion infusion of weaponry has
raised concerns in Seoul that Kim Jong Il, the North's isolated
leader, will interpret the buildup as a prelude to war or "regime
change."
The new
materiel includes precision-guided rockets, Patriot missile-defense
units, attack helicopters, and a rotating strike force team.
[...]
Europe gets its first taste of being ruled by an Italian
billionaire media magnate tomorrow, when Italy assumes the European
Union's rotating presidency for the next six months, with Silvio
Berlusconi at its head.
A
shiver of dire anticipation ran through the continent at the
weekend, with French, German, Spanish and British newspapers
expressing foreboding. The German newspaper Die Zeit, referring to
the new immunity law by the Italian Prime Minister extracted
himself from a trial for bribing judges that was close to reaching
a verdict, commented, "Berlusconi is putting himself above the
law."
The
paper argued that Europe should take developments in Italy as
seriously as it did the election of the neo-fascist leader Jorg
Haider in Austria three years ago, which prompted the EU to impose
sanctions.
Der
Spiegel, the German news weekly, labels Mr Berlusconi "The
Godfather" on the cover of its latest issue, and comments, "at home
he dismantles justice, subjugates television, has laws tailored to
his needs. And now ... he will represent Europe."
Comment: Sounds like Berlusconi and Bush are
two of a kind.
ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) - An Algerian military plane slammed into a
house west of the capital Monday, killing up to 17 people,
including women and children on the ground, authorities
said.
Fire
raged through several houses after the C130 Hercules transport
crashed in the neighbourhood of Beni Mered shortly after takeoff
from the Boufarik military airport, 40 kilometres southwest of the
capital. Hours after the crash, confusion surrounded the number of
deaths with rescuers saying 17, state-run Algerian television
putting the toll at 15, and Col. Zoubir Sbaa of the Algerian
military saying 12...
KINSHASA, Congo Congo's president signed a new power-sharing
government into being Monday, joining Congo's existing government
and rebels in an administration meant to lead the central African
nation out of nearly five years of war.
If
it holds, the transition government stands as a major step toward
ending a war that has split Africa's third-largest
nation.
President Joseph Kabila, signing the government into being in a
decree, called on Congo's belligerents to "draw a line between the
past and the present, and look toward a bright future."
The
pact divides 36 ministries among the government, rebel movements
and pro-government militias, political parties and representatives
of civil society, in line with a December peace accord.
The
main obstacle to formation of the transition government was removed
over the weekend, when the government and two rebel groups agreed
to divide control of branches of the military and top military
posts among them.
[...] Ethnic fighting is rife in lawless northeast Congo, and
Congo's riches there provide a powerful disincentive for armed
factions there to give up fighting and yield control to a
government. Mistrust between the new government partners, as
Nyarugbo said, remains strong...
Forces loyal to President Charles Taylor repelled the
rebels
The
United Nations Security Council has adjourned its emergency debate
on the conflict in Liberia without a decision on whether to send an
international force to monitor the ceasefire.
Members agreed to follow developments closely and reconvene
next week to continue to discuss the situation.
UN
Secretary General Kofi Annan had called for the urgent deployment
of a multinational force to protect Liberian civilians from clashes
between government troops and rebels...
West
African leaders and Mr Annan have urged the US to lead a
peacekeeping force to Liberia in order to avoid a "major
humanitarian tragedy".
Liberia was founded by freed US slaves and the population also
looks to the US for help...
The
United States itself had made no commitment to helping
Liberia.
"We've been looking more broadly at the overall situation to
see what contribution we could make and how we might help work with
others to calm that," said state department spokesman Richard
Boucher.
"We're determined to help the people of Liberia find a path to
peace."...
Comment: "We've been looking more broadly at
the overall situation to see what contribution we could make and
how we might help work with others to calm that," said state
department spokesman Richard Boucher. "We're determined to help the
people of Liberia find a path to peace."
If that path to peace is anything like the
so-called "help" the Bush Reich said they were giving the Iraqis to
gain their to-date-unreceived "freedom" then the people of Liberia
had better watch their backs! The only thing the Bush Reich is
interesting in helping is themselves.
HISTORY was made June 16, 2003 as 28 countries from Africa,
Asia, Europe, Middle East, Oceania, South America and the European
Community converged at the Geneva headquarters of the World Health
Organization (WHO) to ratify the Framework Convention on Tobacco
Control (FCTC) — the only global health treaty to be produced
in decades. By participating to swiftly sign and then ratify this
all-important Convention on the first day, a country is seen as
exhibiting more proof of the solid political commitment to put an
end to the estimated five million annual deaths resulting from
tobacco use throughout the world.
The
initial signature does not yet bind signatory countries to the
treaty, rather is an expression of political support and of good
faith to abide by the principles it enshrines in the interim period
until ratification. As soon as 40 countries ratify the Convention,
it becomes law for those countries and thereafter, for other
countries that ratify it...
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) - A bomb ripped through a mosque in
southern Kandahar on Monday as worshippers gathered for the final
prayer of the day, wounding 16 people, four of them seriously, a
religious leader said.
No
one claimed responsibility for the remote-controlled bomb, which
was hidden beneath a vest in the mosque, said Mullah Abdullah
Fayaz.
Fayaz and local officials said they suspected militants from
the former Taliban regime or their allies placed the bomb because
he had condemned their interpretation of Islam...
OSLO, Norway – Rocks deep below the North Sea or the Ohio
River in the United States could become burial grounds for global
warming despite opposition from environmentalists who fear a leaky,
short-sighted fix.
Governments and companies around the world are studying ways to
pump greenhouse gases – created by power stations, oil
platforms or steel mills – into deep, porous rocks where they
might be trapped for millions of years and curb a rise in
temperatures.
The
United States signed a charter last week with the European Union's
executive Commission and 12 countries including Russia, China,
Japan, Canada and Brazil to research the technology in a "Carbon
Sequestration Leadership Forum."
But
some environmentalists say the idea is costly and like trying to
sweep one of the planet's greatest problems under the carpet.
[...]
CO2
is the main gas blamed for blanketing the planet and driving up
temperatures, disrupting the climate with more frequent floods,
droughts and storms that could trigger everything from
desertification to higher sea levels. [...]
The
Environmental Protection Agency's first comprehensive report on the
state of the environment is mute on global warming and says little
about the growing threats of pesticides and industrial pollution.
The draft report did say the nation's land, air and water were
better off than they were 30 years ago. That is no surprise because
landmark environmental laws were passed and the EPA was created
three decades ago.
The
document says of global warming, "This report does not attempt to
address the complexities of this issue." Change — probably
for the worse — might occur by the time the report becomes
final, after a new administrator succeeds Christie Whitman, who
left office Friday.
An
early version included two pages on the general scientific
consensus about the threat posed by global warming, believed to be
caused primarily by the emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon
dioxide. The White House insisted that there was no such consensus
and ordered the section rewritten.
Rather than serve up "pablum," as she put it, Whitman purged
the two pages. At least she will be remembered for having stuck to
her guns during her final days in office. The next EPA
administrator must be watched closely to make sure that the pablum
or flat-earth science is not reinserted.
A
defensive White House official says the administration has produced
a number of reports about global warming. But what matters is not
what an administration says, but what it does...
(AP) The United States is accelerating its push for other countries
to help develop a global climate watch system to monitor
environmental threats like El Nino or rising sea levels, a U.S.
official said Friday.
During a weeklong trip in Europe, Conrad Lautenbacher, head of
the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, tackled
an environmental debate in which the United States has often been
at odds with other countries in recent years.
Lautenbacher said current environmental observation methods,
such as those involving satellites or floating buoys on the seas,
don't provide a complete picture of environmental
threats.
"We
need to reach the next level of observing systems ... to make wise
policy decisions in the future," he told reporters at the U.S.
Embassy in Paris, summing up the message of his trip to Germany,
England and France.
While dozens of monitoring systems exist in the United States
alone, U.S. officials want both developed and developing nations to
unite behind a global system to watch environmental
changes...
The
push builds on the U.S. administration's belief that scientific
information isn't complete enough to accurately determine the
breath of threats to the environment.
For
example, the United States has rejected the 1997 Kyoto accord on
greenhouse gas reduction, which has been signed by dozens of
countries, saying it is too costly for the economy and relies on
uncertain environmental forecasts.
Lautenbacher defended U.S. environmental policies, saying "the
world has misunderstood or not fully absorbed what the U.S. is
doing on the International Treaty for Climate
Change."
You've got to hand it to those clever little problem-solvers at
the White House. What a bunch of brainiacs. They have resolved the
entire problem of global warming: They cut it out of the
report!
This
is genius. Everybody else is maundering on about the oceans rising
and the polar icecaps melting and monster storms and hideous
droughts, and these guys just … edit it out.
"The
editing eliminated references to many studies concluding that
warming is at least partly caused by rising concentrations of
smokestack and tailpipe emissions, and could threaten health and
ecosystems," reports The New York Times. Presto -- poof!
What
do they care about health and ecosystems? Think of the
possibilities presented by this ingenious solution. Let's edit out
AIDS and all problems with drugs both legal and illegal. We could
get rid of Libya and Syria this way -- take 'em off the
maps...
Speaking of said same tax cut, too bad about the children of
the working poor. Congress just announced that it's too busy to get
around to restoring the child tax credit to 6.5 million low-income
families (known to The Wall Street Journal as "lucky duckies"
because, you see, they pay little or no income tax -- they only pay
19 percent of their meager incomes in other taxes).
FYI:
If you put "George W. Bush" and "lies" into the Google search
engine, you get 250,000 references in nine-tenths of a
second.
Comment: The Bush Reich doesn't care about
the environment. The Bush Reich doesn't care about "teaching poor
kids to read, helping old folks in nursing homes, setting up
community gardens, and a thousand other good and useful tasks --
many of which get the young people started on careers in that kind
of work." What the Bush Reich cares about is setting up the planet
for massive destruction to "cull the human herd" down to what they
think is a more manageable number (in the millions in stead of
billions), where they hope they can then more easily wield total
control over everybody and everything. And they'll lie, cheat,
steal, murder, plunder, pillage, spray us with chemtrails, poison
our food and water, and bombard everyone with electromagnetic (EM)
radiation every single day trying to get their way.
From Session with the C's on February 22
1997:
A: Climate is being influenced by three factors,
and soon a fourth.
Q: (Laura) All right, I'll take the bait; give me the three
factors, and also the fourth!.
A: 1) Wave approach.
2) Chloroflorocarbon increase in atmosphere, thus affecting ozone
layer.
3) Change in the planet's axis rotation orientation.
4) Artificial tampering by 3rd and 4th density STS forces in a
number of different ways.
Q: (Laura) All right, were those given in the order in which they
are occurring? The fourth being the one that's coming later?
A: Maybe, but remember this: a change in the speed of the rotation
may not be reported while it is imperceptible except by
instrumentation. Equator is slightly "wider" than the polar zones.
But, this discrepancy is decreasing slowly currently. One change to
occur in 21st Century is sudden glacial rebound, over Eurasia
first, then North America. Ice ages develop much, much, much faster
than thought.
And then from session with the C's on February 19,
2000:
Q: You also made a remark once that ice ages occur
much, much faster than people ever thought...
A: Yes.
Q: Do we need to invest in some mukluks and snowshoes?
A: ??
Q: Well, what I am trying to get at is: should we start stockpiling
firewood?
A: Maybe.
Q: So, it could be that fast?
A: Oh yes, and faster when in response to global"warming."
Q: When you put "warming" in quotes, you obviously mean warming in
more than just an ordinary sense? Is that correct?
A: And/or not really "warm."
Q: Whitley Strieber and Art Bell have published a book about a
"global superstorm." Is any of the information they have given in
this book fairly accurate?
A: Derived from non-human sources known for stark accuracy, when
convenient.
Q: What makes it convenient at the present time for them to be
"starkly accurate?"
A: Fits into plans.
Q: Plans for what?
A: Do we not know already?
Q: In other words: world conquest and the takeover of humanity?
A: Not as simple. Call it amalgamation.
Robert B. Gagosian
President and Director
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Prepared for a panel on abrupt climate change at the
World Economic Forum
Davos, Switzerland, January 27, 2003
Are
we overlooking potential abrupt climate shifts?
Most
of the studies and debates on potential climate change, along with
its ecological and economic impacts, have focused on the ongoing
buildup of industrial greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and a
gradual increase in global temperatures. This line of thinking,
however, fails to consider another potentially disruptive climate
scenario. It ignores recent and rapidly advancing evidence that
Earth’s climate repeatedly has shifted abruptly and
dramatically in the past, and is capable of doing so in the
future.
Fossil evidence clearly demonstrates that Earthvs climate can
shift gears within a decade, establishing new and different
patterns that can persist for decades to centuries. In addition,
these climate shifts do not necessarily have universal, global
effects. They can generate a counterintuitive scenario: Even as the
earth as a whole continues to warm gradually, large regions may
experience a precipitous and disruptive shift into colder
climates.
This
new paradigm of abrupt climate change has been well established
over the last decade by research of ocean, earth and atmosphere
scientists at many institutions worldwide. But the concept remains
little known and scarcely appreciated in the wider community of
scientists, economists, policy makers, and world political and
business leaders. Thus, world leaders may be planning for climate
scenarios of global warming that are opposite to what might
actually occur.
[...] Are ‘little ice ages’ and
‘megadroughts’ possible?
Scientists are investigating whether changes in ocean
circulation may have played a role in causing or amplifying the
“Little Ice Age” between 1300 and 1850. This period of
abruptly shifting climate regimes and more severe winters had
profound agricultural, economic, and political impacts in Europe
and North America and changed the course of history.
During this era, the Norse abruptly abandoned their settlements
in Greenland. The era is captured in the frozen landscapes of
Pieter Bruegel’s 16th-century paintings and in the famous
painting of George Washington’s 1776 crossing of an icebound
Delaware River, which rarely freezes today. But the era is also
marked by persistent crop failures, famine, disease, and mass
migrations. “The Little Ice Age,” wrote one historian,
“is a chronicle of human vulnerability in the face of sudden
climate change.”
Societies are similarly vulnerable to abrupt climate changes
that can turn a year or two of diminished rainfall into prolonged,
severe, widespread droughts. A growing body of evidence from joint
archaeological and paleoclimatological studies is demonstrating
linkages among ocean-related climate shifts,
“megadroughts,” and precipitous collapses of
civilizations, including the Akkadian empire in Mesopotamia 4,200
years ago, the Mayan empire in central America 1,500 years ago, and
the Anasazi in the American Southwest in the late 13th century.
[...]
Lebec,
Calif. — A wildfire that raged across dry, grass-covered
hills was partially contained Monday and residents who had been
told to evacuate were allowed to return home.
The fire,
about 65 kilometres southeast of Bakersfield, Calif., began Sunday
afternoon when a vehicle caught fire on the side of the Golden
State Freeway, near Fort Tejon State Historic Park, officials said.
It was the second wildfire in Kern County during the
weekend.
The fire
had blackened about 450 hectares by Monday and was 50 per cent
contained, officials said.
In the
Northwest, authorities in Oregon evacuated campgrounds and cabins
Sunday because of a windblown fire near 17 kilometres west of La
Pine. The blaze quadrupled in size overnight, growing to nearly
6,500 hectares by Monday morning. It was 30 per cent contained and
full containment was expected by Saturday, officials
said.
Utah
authorities recommended evacuation for about 100 people and closed
a stretch of highway between Gunlock, Utah, and Mesquite, Nev.,
because of a fire about 15 kilometres west of Apex, Utah. The blaze
spread quickly through 2,500 hectares of grass, pinion and juniper
trees and brush in the Beaver Dam Mountains. Firefighters were
hampered by high temperatures, erratic wind and steep
terrain.
Elsewhere, the 15,000-hectare
fire atop southern Arizona's Mount Lemmon was 65 per cent contained
by late Sunday, said fire information officer Art Morrison. The
human-caused fire began June 17 on the peak northeast of Tucson and
destroyed 317 homes or cabins and seven businesses in the summer
vacation community of Summerhaven.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge could move
up to eighth in the line of presidential succession, leapfrogging
10 other Cabinet members in a congressional effort to better
prepare for a catastrophic attack on Washington.
Under
legislation approved by the Senate and now pending in the House,
Ridge would move from 18th to eighth, behind Attorney General John
Ashcroft and in front of Interior Secretary Gale Norton, in the
line to succeed the president in a disaster.
The
measure sped through the Senate without debate last Friday.
[...]
In recent months, President Bush and the Republican-controlled
Congress have missed no opportunity to heap richly deserved praise
on the military. But talk is cheap — and getting cheaper by
the day, judging from the nickel-and-dime treatment the troops are
getting lately.
For
example, the White House griped that various pay-and-benefits
incentives added to the 2004 defense budget by Congress are
wasteful and unnecessary — including a modest proposal to
double the $6,000 gratuity paid to families of troops who die on
active duty. This comes at a time when Americans continue to die in
Iraq at a rate of about one a day.
Similarly, the administration announced that on Oct. 1 it wants
to roll back recent modest increases in monthly imminent-danger pay
(from $225 to $150) and family-separation allowance (from $250 to
$100) for troops getting shot at in combat zones...
On This Day, In 1946 Atomic Testing
begins using the Nagasaki-type implosion bomb at Bikini
Atoll
"If we fight a war and win
it with H-bombs, what history will remember is not the ideals we
were fighting for but the methods we used to accomplish them. These
methods will be compared to the warfare of Genghis Khan who
ruthlessly killed every last inhabitant of Persia."
Hans
A. Bethe
David Fickling in
Sydney
Tuesday July 1, 2003
The Guardian
States of the Pacific
region agreed yesterday to send peacekeepers to the Solomon
Islands, brought to the brink of civil war by more than three years
of unrest. [...]
Australians will make up
threequarters of the force, and the deployment has been claimed by
the Australian foreign minister, Alexander Downer, as emblematic of
a new doctrine of intervention in the Pacific. He told ABC radio
last week: "Sovereignty in our view is not absolute. Acting for the
benefit of humanity is." [...]
In a 2 to 1 ruling on June 17, a federal appeals court in
Washington, D.C. upheld the Bush administration's right to keep
secret the names of some 700 immigrants arrested by the Justice
Department after the Sept. 11 attacks in New York City and
Washington, D.C.
The
ruling, expected to be appealed, is yet another victory for the
Bush administration, whose rewriting of judicial procedures has
been challenged by civil liberties groups. Speaking for the White
House, Attorney General John Ashcroft has cited the war against
terrorism as the justification for a steady erosion of rights
accorded to immigrants and citizens. Recent court decisions have
affirmed the Bush administration's right to hold secret hearings;
indefinitely detain and deny access to attorneys to U.S. citizens
labeled "enemy combatants" and declared that Afghan prisoners held
at the U.S. Guantanamo Naval base in Cuba are not subject to
protections embodied in U.S. constitutional law. [...]
By Brian
McWilliams
Wired.com
02:00 AM Jun. 25, 2003 PT
To track
domestic terrorist threats against the military, the Pentagon is
creating a new database that will contain "raw, non-validated"
reports of "anomalous activities" within the United
States.
According
to a Department of Defense memorandum, the system, known as Talon,
will provide a mechanism to collect and rapidly share reports "by
concerned citizens and military members regarding suspicious
incidents."
Talon was
described in a May 2 memorandum to top Pentagon brass from Deputy
Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. In the memo, Wolfowitz
directed the heads of military departments and agencies to begin
producing Talon reports immediately.
A similar
reporting system proposed by Attorney General John Ashcroft was
shelved last year following opposition from privacy groups and
others. Known as Operation TIPS, the Department of Justice system
was intended to enlist civilian workers nationwide to report
possible terrorist activity. [...]
Lee Tien,
staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an online
rights group, said Talon raises many of the same questions as those
that plagued the unsuccessful Operation TIPs.
"What is
the value in accelerating the speed of the rumor mill?" said Tien.
"You have a wealth of really weak data that ends up percolating its
way through the system. How will they ensure that there's no
opportunity for people's dossiers to become tainted?"
[...]
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United
States could begin cutting military aid to countries that fail to
sign an agreement exempting American military and other personnel
from prosecution in the International Criminal Court.
[...]
If
it's allowed to stand, an FCC ruling will feed media merger
mania
BY
BILL CLINTON
[...] For more than 60 years, the FCC allowed companies to own
a number of local TV stations, provided that no single company
owned enough to reach more than 35% of the population of the United
States.
But
on June 2, by a 3-to-2 vote, the FCC raised the limit to 45%,
giving big media firms the chance to gobble up many more local TV
stations. In fact, a single giant corporation will be able to
control up to three of the television stations in America's nine
largest cities.
The
FCC also opened the door to local TV-newspaper mergers in many
places, so you'll be getting your news and information from the
same company regardless of whether you're turning on the TV or
opening the newspaper.
Why
is this bad? Because more monolithic control over local media will
reduce the diversity of information, opinion and entertainment
people get. Interesting local coverage will be supplanted by
lowest-common-denominator mass-market mush.
[...] The lack of diversity and independence in the broadcast
media may be why you didn't hear much about this big issue on TV or
radio in recent months.
Comment: Read the next story to see the
power of mega-media-merger already in action, and why you might
never see a real story of what happened to Jessica Lynch on
CBSNews...
The
affair of Jessica Lynch, the U.S. Army private who was injured in
Iraq and rescued in a commando raid, seems unrelated to monopoly
control of the media. But the handling of her story offers good
reason to cheer Senate elders for moving to reverse the
ideologically besotted Federal Communications Commission decision
to trash safeguards against deepening concentration of media
ownership.
In
the latest development of the Lynch story, CBS News, desperate to
get the 19-year-old West Virginia girl for an exclusive on-camera
interview, sweetened the pot dramatically.
CBS
can do this. As fans of monopolistic excess know, CBS belongs to
Viacom, which also owns all things Paramount, 39 TV stations, MTV,
VH1, Showtime, Comedy Central, The Movie Channel, Sundance,
Nickelodeon, Simon & Schuster and the huge Infinity radio
network, plus such trifles as Blockbuster Video and several big
movie and TV producers.
So
in wooing young Lynch, CBS News wasn't confined to offering flowers
for Mom, a limo to the studio and a backstage tour. Viacom's
honchos dangled a two-hour CBS News documentary, a TV movie
produced by CBS Entertainment, the possibility of co-hosting an MTV
special and a book deal with the venerable Simon &
Schuster.
[...] But that's not the most vexing ethical quandary with the
Lynch affair. The real problem is that nobody knows what the facts
of the story really are. So what exactly is Viacom
buying?
[...] But Viacom would hardly buy the story of a supply clerk
whose superiors landed her in a fine mess and who spent agonized
days in a sparsely equipped enemy hospital, tended by kindly but
ineffectual doctors until she was rescued in a needless display of
videotaped bravado.
No,
the parent of CBS News -- one of the world's great news
organizations, the home of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite --
can only be falling over itself to invest in a different Lynch
story, the one built by Pentagon propagandists around blinding
courage and patriotism, the one that may well be
make-believe...
Comment: Fiction is more profitable than the
truth. Media outlets know this, and they'll use it to suppress the
truth every chance they get, because the major media outlets are
puppets of those who seek to ultimately control absolutely
everything.
[...] By making Lynch an all-American metaphor epitomizing the
best of us, the TV movies will yield a pro-war rub-off, bulking up
support for the U.S. decision to invade Iraq.
Theatrical movies also burn in searing historical images that
shape our perceptions of the past in powerful ways, influencing our
feelings about the present. Yet ...
From
the credible documentaries of "American Experience" on PBS to the
incredible distortions of fact by many small-screen movies, TV for
years has been this culture's greatest pop historian, claiming to
beam enlightenment to the multitudes.
It's
a pat on the back NBC and A&E will surely give themselves when
airing their planned movies about 20-year-old Lynch,
ripped-from-war, quickie biographies likely to contain at least as
much fiction and speculation as fact.
But
do these opportunists care? Nah.
[...] "All made-for-TV movies based on fact have some fiction
in them," Jeff Zucker, president of NBC Entertainment, said
recently. Well, that's comforting to know.
By
Jack Shafer
Posted Friday, June 27, 2003, at 3:23 PM PT
On
Wednesday, Howard Kurtz offered a scoop in the Washington Post
about the imperious conduct of New York Times reporter Judith
Miller in Iraq ("Embedded Reporter's Role in Army Unit's Actions
Questioned by Military"). I've disparaged the substance of Miller's
WMD reporting for more than six months, devoting many columns to
her dubious stories. But should we automatically assume that
Miller's behavior—as distinct from her reporting—is
beyond the pale?
[...] But let's uncouple our judgment of what Miller writes
(faulty and biased copy, basically) from the methods she used to
cover the Iraq story. Viewed in this light, Miller starts to look
like a victim of a turf battle in which one military faction used
the Washington Post to punish another—MET Alpha—by
trashing Miller. Government sources routinely use the press to
punish their bureaucratic enemies; it just isn't something
journalists like to acknowledge. For example, in the orgy of
finger-pointing last summer about who was responsible for letting
two 9/11 hijackers into the country, the FBI told its
CIA-disparaging story to Newsweek, and the CIA ripped the FBI in
the Washington Post.
I
think that's what's going on in the Kurtz story.
Comment: The real point of the Miller story
is that she is imposing her neocon political views on her
reporting. She is a shill for the Bush Reich. So the spin given to
it by the writer of this reporter is a case of
whitewashing..."sure, Miller's not a pleasant person, but..." The
focus is moved away from her politics to her
personality.
The
week before last, a rumor swept Washington that Ronald Reagan had
died. The story first wound its way through Republican circles,
then moved on to the State Department, and finally reached House
Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's office.
The
source of the report was ABC News. But the staff of ABC News never
actually thought Mr. Reagan was dead. Rather, it seems, the word
spread as the staff took part in one of the division's now common
breaking-news drills, which news executives concocted to make sure
the division never again gets caught off guard by breaking news, as
it was during the space shuttle Columbia disaster and the start of
Gulf War II.
The
division's initial slowness to aggressively cover those events
infuriated the prickly yet powerful affiliates. The division has
promised it will never happen again.
So,
during the last couple weeks, producers, camera operators,
correspondents, technicians and even Peter Jennings, on a couple of
occasions, have scrambled to cover a host of potential tragedies,
from a major bridge collapse to a terrorist attack in New York. The
results have been shown on the ABC News internal television system,
with on-screen writing that labels them as test
material.
Legal proceedings against
the "Deutscher Bundestag", the Parliament of the Federal Republic
of Germany: Because of the intentional continuation of acts of
killing and manslaughter (220a StGB Germany) by the German
Parliament. During the last six years proofs have been collected
for the following actions that have taken place inside Germany: The
State intentionally is using non-valid tests to persuade healthy
persons to take a deadly long-term medication. The persons,
being
healthy before being tested die during the long-term-medication.
The German Parliament, since years intentionally is securing that
this crime continues. [...]
The document of the
German Bundestag DS 12/8591 holds proof that the Bundestag had
already known in 1994 that neither Montagnier (1983) nor Gallo
(1984) had isolated any virus in connection with AIDS.
Based on this the Bundestag safeguarded the persistent lie of the
AIDS information campaign (RKI) from 9th March 1995 about the
successful isolation of a virus in connection with AIDS. As a
consequence of non-tolerating this lie and because of
non-tolerating the deadly consequences of this lie, the trial took
place on 15th January 2001.
It is impossible – as
far as laboratory conditions are concerned – to develop a
valid Virus-antibody-test, if the virus has not been isolated
before. Every layman understands that an individual proof for an
infection with a virus is impossible, if the existence of the virus
has never been generally proven. This knowledge of the German
health authorities, that the tests are not validated, can be proven
via the authorities` documents themselves. The error concerning the
test's validity is spread and supported by the authorities –
against better knowledge.
With two more petitions the
Bundestag safeguarded the default of the responsible authorities,
not to carry out the law (§63 AMG, Stufenplan II), to do
studies and observations to protect persons taking the
AIDS-Medicine, the chemotherapy AZT (Pet. 5-13-15-2002- 058744 and
Pet. 5-13-15-212-023567a).
The health
authorities and the Bundestag know that there will be no test
method to prove an HIV-Infection, as long as HIV has not been
isolated. And there is no doubt that AZT – as well as the
HIV- medications in general – are deadly themselves when used
as long-term- medication. In the course of the proceedings
of the petitions the Bundestag created an apparent peace of law
– by means of deliberately untruthful statements. President
of the German Parliament Wolfgang Thierse regards untruthful
behaviour of this kind (as shown by the Bundestag) as being
justified by the Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional
Court). A videotape documenting an interview (28th June 1995) shows
that his predecessor in office, Prof. Rita Süssmuth did know,
that there had never been any proofs for a virus in connection with
AIDS and that there are no proofs for the claims of infectivitiy.
[...]
Healthy people are
intentionally lead into a deadly medication via tests with invalid
results - and then die. The criminal law of the BRD and especially
§ 220a StGB (Genocide) protects citizens from
act of killings organised by a state which is deliberately
misleading the public. It also protects the citizens binding the
legal authorities to take actions after perusal. The prosecuting
attorneys attended the trial on 15th January 2001 at the
Landgericht Dortmund and learned about the facts – in front
of the public. Their passivity afterwards serves as a further proof
for their further intention in this matter.
A
Midland woman who has received international acclaim using a
cadaver-sniffing dog to crack homicide cases was charged in federal
court Monday with planting evidence at crime scenes.
[...]
Anderson, the director of
the Great Lakes Search and Rescue of Michigan K-9 Unit, in Midland,
conducts about 200 searches a year, according to news reports. She
has searched for mass graves in Bosnia and Panama, and helped
search for victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism attacks at the
World Trade Center.
[...]About 6 percent of
kids and 1 percent of adults suffer from this parasomnia - the word
for bizarre sleep behavior - which occurs when there's a glitch
between sleep cycles, and the sleeper is stuck in a confusing and
frightening state between deep sleep and wakefulness. The disorder
has long been a sideshow in sleep science, but new research is
shedding light on what makes some people go bump in the night and
may help curb the disturbing spells. [...]
ROCKVILLE -- The farmer
stood alone at the edge of his 80-acre wheat field on Saturday, and
in the early morning quiet, he stared across a sea of stalks and
saw something strange.
Larry Balestra walked into
the field and waded through the waist-high grass, and with every
step, it slowly came into view.
After about 100 feet he stopped inside a massive circle stamped
into his field, the stalks pushed down, flat. It measured about 140
feet in diameter.[...]
AN
investigation has begun after sightings of a legendary "ape-like"
beast in the forests of central China, state press said
today.
The
mythical creature was apparently seen by six people, including a
journalist, in the Shennongjia Nature Reserve in China's Hubei
province yesterday afternoon, the Xinhua news agency reported.
[...]
TOKYO
(AP) — The world's deepest-diving submarine is lost in the
choppy Pacific Ocean off the coast of Japan, dealing a blow to
deep-sea research on everything from earthquakes to rare bacteria,
an official said today.
Kaiko,
which entered the record books in 1995 by diving 10,911.4 metres to
the bottom of the Challenger Deep — the ocean's deepest
point, snapped its tether as a typhoon approached in late May and
has been missing ever since.
The Japan
Marine Science and Technology Centre, which runs the bright yellow,
3.1-metre-long unmanned submersible, will decide Thursday whether
to continue so-far fruitless searches for the vessel, spokesman
Tomoaki Kanai said.
"We have
no idea why it broke free. This is a first. But if we lose it, it's
going to have a big impact on deep-sea research," Kanai
said.
Equipped
with two robot arms and four television cameras, the 1.8
billion-yen ($20.3-million Cdn) Kaiko is the world's only probe
capable of plumbing the ocean's deepest points. [...]
NEW YORK
(Reuters) - This burglar could have used some lessons from Santa
Claus.
A man
became wedged in the chimney of an Italian family restaurant in
Queens, New York, for almost three hours during an early Friday
break-in, police and the owners said. [...]
WASHINGTON - Between 1962 and 1973, the Pentagon involved more
than 5,800 service members in its secret testing of dangerous
chemical and biological agents.
Findings released Monday by the Pentagon said that during a
10-year period, 50 tests were conducted by the military to see how
these chemical agents measured up.
Some
of the tests used non-lethal bacteria and other experiments tested
ways to use submarines to distribute biological weapons.
Officials said the tests were done to study the combat uses of
biological and chemical weapons and how to protect American troops
from such attacks.
It
was originally believed that simulated agents were used in the
testing, but last year the Defence Department admitted that real
chemical and biological weapons were used.
One
test called Blue Tango, involved spraying two types of bacteria,
including E. coli, in a rain forest in Hawaii in 1968 to gauge how
the bacteria would linger in the vegetation.
Another test, Folded Arrow, involved spraying bacillus globigii
from a submarine over part of Oahu, Hawaii, and over several boats
off the coast in 1968 to gauge how Venezuelan equine encephalitis
would be carried by wind.
"It
bespeaks the time, the early '60s, when we were in the Cold War,
and we were concerned that Russia and perhaps China had chemical
and biological capabilities that could be used against American
troops and against us in the homeland," said an official with the
Defence Department's Deployment Health Support
Directorate.
The
U.S. scrapped its biological weapons program in the late 1960s and
agreed in a 1997 treaty to destroy all its chemical
weapons.
Mon
June 30, 2003 04:35 PM ET
By Deborah Zabarenko
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Shuttle Columbia commander Rick Husband
and pilot William McCool knew that insulating foam hit the craft
after liftoff, but were told it was "not even worth mentioning,"
according to an e-mail released on Monday.
Investigators have said the foam strike seconds after launch is
the most probable cause of the Feb. 1 disaster, in which the craft
disintegrated over Texas as it re-entered the atmosphere, killing
all seven astronauts aboard...
"There is one item that I would like to make you aware of,"
Stich wrote. "This item is not even worth mentioning other than
wanting to make sure that you are not surprised by it in a question
from a reporter."...
"We
have seen this same phenomenon on several other flights and there
is absolutely no concern for entry," Stich added.
Comment:
Cassiopaeans comment on the Shuttle "Event":
Session: February 2, 2003
Q: One of the first questions we want to ask
tonight is about the event of the Space Shuttle that was lost.
First, was it an explosion, or was it just disintegration, or
breaking up?
A: It was a "direct hit."
Q: A direct hit by what?
A: EM pulse.
Q: (S) What was the source of the EM pulse?
A: 3/4th density Consortium.
Q: Well, I thought Bush was a puppet of the
Consortium? (A) Well, we know that the military are scrambling
planes to go after UFOs…there are even reports of firing on
them and there have been reports of military jets being
disintegrated by UFOs. The UFOs are, somehow, in cahoots with the
consortium. It seems that Bush and the gang are not in control of
the Consortium and maybe they needed to be "reminded?"
A: It is not so much that he needs to be reminded, as he needs to
be stimulated to react.
Q: (L) You once before said that Bush knows very
little anyway - or that the "White House" level is pretty much in
the dark about the plans of the Consortium - even if they are
carrying them out. So, you are suggesting that they are being
driven by forces of which they are unaware and do not
understand?
A: Exactly. Bush is a "reaction machine."
Q: (L) I would like to know about this supposed
"body guard" of Saddam recently presented by MOSSAD? Was he one of
Saddam's former bodyguards?
A: To an extent, yes. But certainly not in the way presented. Just
remember this: if pilots can be conditioned to commandeer airliners
that will fly into certain death, how hard is it to "Produce" a
"bodyguard?"
Q: (L) Piece of cake to produce a bodyguard, I
guess. (A) He is saying exactly what the Israelis want him to say.
He is not revealing any particular data that counts. It is just
general things. Anybody could say such things and be called a
"bodyguard." (L) Exactly. Okay, you say that an EM pulse brought
down the shuttle. (A) Where did the EM pulse come from?
A: From space based satellite.
Q: (A) Does NASA know about the cause?
A: There are some who suspect.
Q: (L) Which explains why they are so anxious to
convince everyone that it was NOT sabotage. Like Wellstone's death,
there was "no question" about it being a terrorist attack. The
likelihood is that the Bush Junta was behind Wellstone's death. In
both cases they "know" the cause and want to divert the attention
away from it. But, in the case of the shuttle, they aren't "dirty,"
but they most definitely do NOT want anyone to realize that they
also are not "in charge." It makes me think of the remark the C's
made a few years ago about the reason for the Military Industrial
Complex build-up and manipulations. C's said that the REAL enemy is
"out there" and that war was just a "cover" to prevent the masses
from realizing what they were really doing. Maybe Bush and the gang
are really convinced, in their own minds, that they are acting to
"protect" humanity from this threat. Meanwhile, they are simply
being driven to fulfill the agenda of the Consortium. And it is so
interesting that the shuttle broke up over Palestine, Texas…
as though it was saying to Bush: this is what is going to happen to
you: Palestine is going to be your destruction. But, of course,
Bush would be incapable of perceiving it in that context. Is it so
that a message was intended in this event?
A: As always, confusion is the mask.
Q: (L) In other words, everyone's reaction to the
event will depend on their own context. There is the view that it
was a "message to Bush." Bush and gang will, of course, see it only
as a stimulus to faster and more "decisive" military action. So, it
will really work on them the way it is wanted. (A) And of course,
we wonder how they will make use of this event.
A: The primary effect among the masses will be shock, thus making
them less resistant to Bush's policies. Still other groups will see
the clear threat to Bush and Co. from their activities. Bush and
Co. will, of course, seek to capitalize on the event even while
remaining in the dark as to its meaning. But there most certainly
is awareness among them that there is a "Maverick" element at
loose. Bush has even "felt" a bit of primal fear in respect of this
event.
BOSTON (AP) The man whose lawsuit helped reveal the scope of
the sex scandal in the Roman Catholic Church said Monday he has no
memory of how he was found facedown in a river, but he denies it
was a suicide attempt.
"All
I know is that when I came out of it in the hospital, six days
later, my head was throbbing, in the back, and I had a black eye in
the front,'' Patrick McSorley said in his first public appearance
since he was found in the Neponset River on June 18. "I'm not sure
what led up to this.''
McSorley said he had gone to downtown Boston to get a boat
license, and decided to go for a walk with a friend, whom he
refused to identify, in Pope John Paul Park. He said the injuries
happened when he was separated from the friend for several minutes,
though he had no memory of how that occurred.
McSorley said he has occasionally had near-fainting spells in
the past. He also said he was not robbed...
A
lawsuit filed by McSorley, an alleged victim of defrocked priest
John Geoghan, helped unveil the breadth of the clergy sexual abuse
within the church. The lawsuit was among the first of hundreds
eventually filed against the Boston Archdiocese claiming clergy sex
abuse.
The
church settled with 86 plaintiffs, including McSorley, for $10
million in 2002. Hundreds of other cases are still
pending.
VIENNA (Reuters) - A woman lay awake during surgery for 45
minutes, unable to move or call for help, after staff forgot to
hook up the machine pumping out anaesthetic, the Austrian daily
Kurier reported Monday.
The
woman was temporarily paralyzed because she had been given a muscle
relaxant, and her ordeal ended only after a replacement doctor who
came into the operating room saw tears in her eyes and noticed the
machine was not connected properly.
The
woman, who was undergoing abdominal surgery, is suing for 70,000
euro ($79,970) in damages, the hospital in the Austrian province of
Carinthia confirmed.
On This Day, In 1946 Atomic Testing
begins using the Nagasaki-type implosion bomb at Bikini
Atoll