National President George W. Bush Birthday Meetup Day

Join other Bush's Birthday Celebrants near you!

Comment: At the time we checked the link it read: "Bush's Birthday Celebrants Worldwide. So far, 12 have signed up."

Shrub's Bio

The White House

The attacks of September 11th changed America - and in President Bush's words, "in our grief and anger we have found our mission and our moment." President Bush declared war against terror and has made victory in the war on terrorism and the advance of human freedom the priorities of his Administration. Already, the United States military and a great coalition of nations have liberated the people of Afghanistan from the brutal Taliban regime and denied al Qaeda its safe haven of operations. Thousands of terrorists have been captured or killed and operations have been disrupted in many countries around the world. In the President's words, "our Nation - this generation - will lift a dark threat of violence from our people and our future. We will rally the world to this cause by our efforts, by our courage. We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail."

President Bush is married to Laura Welch Bush, a former teacher and librarian, and they have twin daughters, Barbara and Jenna. The Bush family also includes their two dogs, Spot and Barney, and a cat, India.

Comment: Not even the Bush "family" pets could believe this stuff....

Also on this day . . .

in 1945 "Operation Overcast" was started, which was later renamed Operation Paperclip.

"Approximately 150 of the best [Nazi] scientists and technicians were rounded up and, after preliminary interrogation and background investigations by U.S. intelligence agencies, were offered five-year contracts to come to the United States and work for the U.S. Army. In turn, we promised to provide housing for their families, who had to remain [in] Germany until arrangements could be made to bring them to the United States." Operation Paperclip, by Lieutenant Colonel William L. Howard.

See our timeline, and the Occult Significance of 9/11 for other facts and instances of misdeeds that seem to be culminating in the current push for complete control of the world.

A year later, George W. Bush was born. A coincidence? We think not.

The Bush administration's dangerous manufacturing of post-9-11 dread

Jim McDermott

[...] On September 11, Americans suffered a horrible trauma, and we still suffer from the psychological fallout of the terrorist attacks. The administration's calculated campaign to raise and maintain fear and anxiety in America has been an effective tool in prolonging the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder caused by 9-11. As the Bush administration builds its military presence in the Middle East, it is upping the psychological ante here at home.

The deputies of the Bush Terror Posse -- Donald Rumsfeld, Tom Ridge and John Ashcroft -- are conducting a deliberate campaign to frighten us. One facet of the campaign has, over the last 18 months, persuaded large portions of the population to rush to the stores for water, food, plastic sheeting and, of course, duct tape. The threats of impending danger are on record for the future, the administration seems to be saying. When something happens, you won't be able to say we didn't warn you.

This is just the latest and most egregious step in a fear campaign designed to prepare Americans to do whatever the administration wants us to do. [...]

Comment: Yes, there is indeed a fear campaign. But where were these politicians when the Bush Reich was putting it into place? They were supporting it. And they can't argue that they didn't know it would turn out this way because people all over the world were saying otherwise. Now it comes out as a partisan ploy. The Truth is not partisan.

Cultural Exports

Salim Fredericks
Khilafah.com Journal
6 Jumaad al-Oola 1424 Hijri
5 July 2003

[...] The 21st century phenomenon of rap music has gone way beyond the barriers that jazz had breached. It is one of the only cultural forms that bridges a worldwide gap between rich and poor powerless and powerful. Hip-hop is the audio equivalent of the Big Mac. As Nike have come to symbolise the globalisation of consumer goods, and MacDonald’s have come to symbolise the metamorphosis of the fast food nation into the fast food world, Hip-hop has come to symbolise the ubiquitous junk music culture. As with jazz before it, rap music is an art form born of the black communities. It shares other similarities in its association with free expression, improvisation and ad libitum, breaks with convention, themes of racial harmony and rebellion against authority. It came out of the ghettos of New York, originally for home consumption. But now it has worldwide appeal, which is a relatively recent phenomenon.

There is a simple truth that it grew as an urban art form from kids on the street with limited means and resources. There is a more complex truth that it was allowed to develop under the watchful eye of the powers that be, and was hijacked to serve the system for its own ends. Whether we choose to believe the simple or the complex, there are certain issues that we should take into consideration when analysing anything from black America. African Americans were not invited over the Atlantic for their own good. They were stolen from Africa and shipped in appalling conditions for the sake of slaving their lives away. The US brought the blacks over to serve them. It is naivety to think that things have changed. The US government has and always has had agencies to keep blacks in check.

The FBI established the COINTELPRO campaign to suppress internal dissents; the program against Africans was entitled: "Counterintelligence Program Black Nationalist-Hate Groups Racial Intelligence"; the following is an excerpt from an FBI memo dated April, 1968:

"The Negro wants and needs something to be proud of. The Negro youth and moderate must be made to understand that if they succumb to revolutionary teaching, they will be dead revolutionaries. Is it not better to be a sports hero, a well paid professional athlete or entertainer, a regularly paid white or blue collar worker, a peaceful human being with a family, or a person who at least is being accepted, than a Negro who may have got even with the establishment by burning it down, but who along with this, burned down his own home and gained for him and all his people the hatred and distrust of the whites for years to come?"

Comment: A look at the nefarious use made of Black jazz musicians in the sixties by the US government in the Cold War.

The unlucky Mercury 13

Forty years ago, Russian Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space.

But while it was a cause for great celebration in the former USSR, her achievement finally ended the hopes of a secret group of US women - known as Mercury 13 - aiming to claim the title.

It was to be another 20 years before an American woman, Sally Ride, would make it into space.

"They shut the programme down, and the women were stopped at the final stage of their testing," Martha Akman, author of a book about Mercury 13, told BBC World Service's Everywoman programme.

Comment: Now that the Yanks have just celebrated their great liberties, alongs comes this story of the prejudice against women that kept them out of space for years. Everybody's equal in the USA, right?

Canadians win U.S. history book award

Last Updated 2003-07-04 00:00:00.0
ArtsCanada

Two Canadians have won a children's book award celebrating U.S. history.

Vancouver writer Peter Busby and Toronto illustrator David Craig won the James Madison Book Prize for First in Flight: How Wilbur and Orville Wright Invented the Airplane.

"We all decided it was probably best to keep it quiet that we were Canadian," Busby told CanWest News Services. "We weren't going to bring up the subject. No one asked, so we didn't have to tell."

The tyranny of George II

Comment: An American Patriot sends George a birthday letter. It may be gone from the WhatReallyHappened link as it was a letter. You can also find it on the New York Times' discussion board...along with the " Independence Day" thoughts of a member of the QFS.

Our Irrational Fear

By Richard Lovett
Psychology Today

Each year Earth is pelted by space debris, from tiny grains to car-sized boulders, their impact equivalent to a kiloton of TNT. Every 1,000 years or so, a bigger rock smacks our planet with the force of a hydrogen bomb.

So why aren't we quaking in our boots? David Ropeik, director of risk communication at the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, believes it's because asteroids are natural; we're far more terrified of man-made risks such as terrorism or bioengineered foods. Also, we've never watched an asteroid impact on TV, so we don't really believe it could happen.
Ropeik is intrigued by why people are disproportionately afraid of some things but can ignore others. [...]

Experience and culture also teach us what to fear. We're born with some basic phobias, but we must learn that DDT and terrorists are dangerous. Ropeik says we're more afraid of catastrophic events such as airplane crashes than of everyday risks like cancer. It's partly a matter of media coverage that makes the danger appear greater than it is; and partly because the more grisly the prospect, the more it frightens us. The result is a certain degree of illogical behavior.

From a statistical perspective, says Clark Chapman, Ph.D., an asteroid researcher at the Southwest Research Institute, in San Antonio, Texas, it was "very strange" that the deaths of a few people from anthrax dominated the news in late 2001, while the risks of influenza, which killed 30,000, "were just buried." That distortion, adds Geoff Sommer, a graduate student at the think tank Rand Corporation, is the essence of terrorism. It works as a "weapon of mass distraction," siphoning attention from other arenas.

As for those not-so-scary asteroids: one did hit Siberia in 1908, leveling hundreds of square miles of forest. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is now mapping the orbits of 2,000 large rocks likely to hit our planet in the future.

Norman Mailer writes in The Times of London...

We went to war just to boost the white male ego.

With their dominance in sport, at work and at home eroded, Bush thought white American men needed to know they were still good at something. That's where Iraq came in...

Comment: That may be played upon by those who pull Bush's strings. We have mentioned before that perhaps it is prejudicial to not even consider that despots and psychopaths may be in power (gasp!) even in America.

Some fall into blissfully daydreaming that tyrants are only German, or African, or Arabic. A three minute search on the internet is enough to convince anyone who has not been completely brainwashed that we have got a maniacal, rabid dog that stole an election, and is proceeding to kill Americans and Arabs by dancing on the graves of those Americans who died on 9/11.

Those who support Bush, or repeat silly platitudes like "'twas ever so" or "what does it matter? I can't do anything about it" are supporting this " happy dance".

The Great Impact Debate

Part I: The Benefits of Hard Bodies

Astrobiology Magazine

Benny Peiser: I find it very difficult to see any positive traits in comets or asteroids. From a psychological perspective, it is understandable that we try to put a positive spin on the ultimate threat NEOs pose to human survival. In the 17th century, Isaac Newton was the first to suggest that cometary impacts were essential for the preservation of the world since they "refurbished" and "replenished" the planets, the sun, and the stars .

While the general public at the time regarded comets as harbingers of doom and disaster, Newton claimed they were "absolutely necessary for the watering of the Earth, and the production and nourishment of vegetables." So much for wishful thinking.

As we have discovered during the last 50 years, the sad truth is that asteroids and comets have been the foremost agents of environmental annihilation and the key obstacles to the evolution of life. Life has taken root on Earth not because of cometary deliveries of organic material and volatiles but in spite of extensive NEO bombardment. We only need to look at the other pockmarked planets of our solar system to recognize that impacts essentially extinguish the chances for the evolution of life.

Complex forms of life have survived on Earth because we seem to be uniquely situated in a habitable niche that comprises relatively decent protection from colossal, life-exterminating impacts. We should bear in mind that 99.9% of all species that ever dwelled on Earth were wiped out, most likely, as a result of large impacts.

As long as we remain incompetent to take full control over these destructive forces, any over-optimistic undertone regarding asteroids and comets seems untimely to me. We need to get our priorities right first.

The anticipated opportunities for science to take advantage of and exploit NEOs for space exploration remains an ambition for the distant future. In order to bring this long-term goal to fruition, we need to learn how to reshuffle the cosmic game of dice to our advantage.

Space objects a threat

County astronomy group gets grant from NASA to study them

By Kaija-Leena Romero
The Californian

Massive tsunamis, miles of raging forest fires, a stratosphere clogged with enough debris to obscure the sun -- even a relatively small asteroid striking Earth would wreak enough havoc to end civilization.

"It's not whether it's going to happen," said Bruce Weaver, director of Monterey Institute for Research in Astronomy (MIRA). "The question is how long it will be (until one hits)." [...]

Meteor Astronomers: Looking Down Into Earth

based on Rice University report

Using fossil meteorites and ancient limestone unearthed throughout southern Sweden, marine geologists at Rice University have discovered that a colossal collision in the asteroid belt some 500 million years ago led to intense meteorite strikes over the Earth's surface.[...]

Changes

By T.

Wow. You people are alive and responsive. How utterly refreshing.

I live on the Okanagan Indian Reserve in British Columbia, Canada. Indians actually do consult their Elders on a variety of subjects, one of them being seasonal weather prediction.

Over the last four years of asking for predictions, the elders have been agreeing, to the person, on one thing: that the old tell-tale signs no longer work and are completely mystified as to what the trends are.

I personally haven't seen -35*C any winter for many years. Hmmmm...

No tornado: Environment Canada

GRIMSHAW (CP) - The storm that ripped through this North Peace town Monday wasn't a tornado, but a ferocious gust of wind that reached speeds of about 150 kilometres an hour, Environment Canada said Thursday.[...]

Quake Rattles Okanagan

The Grande Prairie Daily Herald Tribune
Fri. July 4/03

Penticton B.C. (CP) A 2.3 magnitude earthquake shook some residents of Okanagan awake Thursday. The Pacific Geoscience Centre in Victoria confirmed the mild earthquake hit at 2:38 am. It was centered near Penticton but some people living in Summerland and Naramata also reported being woken by the noise and the shaking. There were no reports of injuries or serious damage.

Comment: No link for this one yet, since a reader sent this article to us from their local newspaper. Quite often local news contain stories that the major media never gets around to mentioning. Check out our call to readers, if you haven't yet. We always appreciate news stories sent to us from our international readership.

Temperatures, rains, storms becoming extreme

GENEVA (AP) - Record extremes in weather and climate will likely become increasingly common as temperatures rise because of climate change, the United Nations weather agency said Thursday.

''New record extreme events occur every year somewhere in the globe but in recent years, the number of such extremes has been increasing,'' the World Meteorological Organization said. [...]

Caustic foam threatens Brazil town

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) -- A river polluted with waste from Brazil's biggest city of Sao Paulo covered the streets of a small colonial town with a thick layer of snow-like foam that emits harmful acidic gas on Friday.

A Town Hall official contacted by Reuters said the foam had been affecting Pirapora do Bom Jesus for about a month, but a clogged clear-water channel made the foam levels rise especially high, blocking bridges across the river Tiete which runs through the town and nearby streets.

"It is all a dreadful consequence of Sao Paulo city's pollution," said Mare Brasilio, a Town Hall spokeswoman. "The sulphydric gas caused by the foam provokes respiratory problems among children and elderly people."

Reaping the whirlwind

Extreme weather prompts unprecedented global warming alert

The Independent
03 July 2003

In an astonishing announcement on global warming and extreme weather, the World Meteorological Organisation signalled last night that the world's weather is going haywire.

In a startling report, the WMO, which normally produces detailed scientific reports and staid statistics at the year's end, highlighted record extremes in weather and climate occurring all over the world in recent weeks, from Switzerland's hottest-ever June to a record month for tornadoes in the United States - and linked them to climate change.

The unprecedented warning takes its force and significance from the fact that it is not coming from Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth, but from an impeccably respected UN organisation that is not given to hyperbole (though environmentalists will seize on it to claim that the direst warnings of climate change are being borne out).

The Geneva-based body, to which the weather services of 185 countries contribute, takes the view that events this year in Europe, America and Asia are so remarkable that the world needs to be made aware of it immediately.

The extreme weather it documents, such as record high and low temperatures, record rainfall and record storms in different parts of the world, is consistent with predictions of global warming. Supercomputer models show that, as the atmosphere warms, the climate not only becomes hotter but much more unstable. "Recent scientific assessments indicate that, as the global temperatures continue to warm due to climate change, the number and intensity of extreme events might increase," the WMO said, giving a striking series of examples.

In southern France, record temperatures were recorded in June, rising above 40C in places - temperatures of 5C to 7C above the average.

In Switzerland, it was the hottest June in at least 250 years, environmental historians said. In Geneva, since 29 May, daytime temperatures have not fallen below 25C, making it the hottest June recorded.

In the United States, there were 562 May tornadoes, which caused 41 deaths. This set a record for any month. The previous record was 399 in June 1992.

In India, this year's pre-monsoon heatwave brought peak temperatures of 45C - 2C to 5C above the norm. At least 1,400 people died in India due to the hot weather. In Sri Lanka, heavy rainfall from Tropical Cyclone 01B exacerbated wet conditions, resulting in flooding and landslides and killing at least 300 people. The infrastructure and economy of south-west Sri Lanka was heavily damaged. A reduction of 20-30 per cent is expected in the output of low-grown tea in the next three months.

Last month was also the hottest in England and Wales since 1976, with average temperatures of 16C. The WMO said: "These record extreme events (high temperatures, low temperatures and high rainfall amounts and droughts) all go into calculating the monthly and annual averages, which, for temperatures, have been gradually increasing over the past 100 years.

"New record extreme events occur every year somewhere in the globe, but in recent years the number of such extremes have been increasing.

"According to recent climate-change scientific assessment reports of the joint WMO/United Nations Environmental Programme Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the global average surface temperature has increased since 1861. Over the 20th century the increase has been around 0.6C.

"New analyses of proxy data for the northern hemisphere indicate that the increase in temperature in the 20th century is likely to have been the largest in any century during the past 1,000 years."

While the trend towards warmer temperatures has been uneven over the past century, the trend since 1976 is roughly three times that for the whole period.

Global average land and sea surface temperatures in May 2003 were the second highest since records began in 1880. Considering land temperatures only, last May was the warmest on record.

It is possible that 2003 will be the hottest year ever recorded. The 10 hottest years in the 143-year-old global temperature record have now all been since 1990, with the three hottest being 1998, 2002 and 2001.

The unstable world of climate change has long been a prediction. Now, the WMO says, it is a reality.

Comment: Surprise, surprise. The weather is only going to get stranger, folks. For a look at why, check out Laura's column " Independence Day".

Violent storms destroy homes in Illinois

Sunday, July 6, 2003 02:05 GMT

(CNN) -- Heavy storms ripped through northern Illinois early Saturday, destroying homes and leaving about 120,000 people without power, authorities and residents told CNN.

No weather-related deaths or injuries were reported, said Sgt. Laura Kubiak of the Chicago Police Department.

Winds as high as 85 mph sent trees crashing into houses and power lines, authorities said. [...]

New Wildfire Erupts in Arizona Forest

By STEVE ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer
July 6, 2003

TUCSON, Ariz. - A wildfire tore through Ponderosa pine and brush in an Arizona national forest, about 250 miles north of another blaze that has destroyed more than 300 mountaintop homes and burned six cabins as it jumped into a new subdivision.

The new wildfire erupted Saturday night in the Prescott National Forest, forcing the evacuation of about 100 homes, said forest spokesman Steve Sams. [...]

Where's Waikiki's sand?

Saturday, July 5, 2003 22:55 GMT

HONOLULU, Hawaii (AP) -- Millions of tourists have voyaged across the Pacific just to spread their beach towel on a patch of Waikiki's warm, inviting sand.

Trouble is, there's not as much of it as there used to be.

Waikiki's world-famous white sand beaches have been eroding an average of one foot a year since 1985, experts say. And as the shoreline shrinks and reefs fill with the sand moving offshore, many say it's time to protect the key asset of Hawaii's best-known tourist strip. [...]

New Mexico wildfires near Taos

Saturday, July 5, 2003 14:39 GMT

TAOS, New Mexico (AP) -- A mountain wildfire roared across 500 to 1,000 acres near Taos Pueblo, chasing campers from the area and prompting fire engines to be called in to protect homes.

The fire burned to within a half-mile to a mile of the Indian pueblo. Lightning was suspected in the blaze that broke out Friday afternoon, said Carson National Forest fire information officer Iggy Peralta.

Several campers were evacuated from Pueblo Canyon and from Encibado Canyon on the east slope of Rancho Canyon Peak, Peralta said. Fire engines were guarding a few homes from the fire on pueblo land, he said.

"This thing is moving pretty fast," Peralta said.

The wildfire, which Peralta said produced "80 to 100-foot flame waves," was south and east of Wheeler Peak, the state's highest mountain at 13,161 feet. [...]

BIZARRE B'KLYN BURN DEATH

by Erika Martinez
NY Post

July 3, 2003 -- A 39-year-old Brooklyn man was found burned to death on his kitchen floor last night, police said.

Andrew Puccini of East 73rd Street in Bergen Beach was found dead by his wife at 7:56 p.m., said police. An autopsy will determine the cause of his death.

Nothing else in the house was even singed, said law-enforcement sources - deepening the mystery behind Puccini's death.

American troops plead for reinforcements

From Daniel McGrory in Baghdad and Tim Reid in Washington

AMERICAN troops who narrowly escaped a rocket attack yesterday joined the growing number in the military who say that reinforcements are needed or they risk being overrun by the Iraqi resistance.

While President Bush and other political leaders continue to play down concerns that the peacekeeping force is struggling to cope, troops on the ground say that they must have more help.

One survivor from the attacked patrol sat with his head in his hands, saying: “We are being given the run-around. There just aren’t enough of us.” Three of his men were injured, one seriously, in the attack in Haifa Street in the heart of Baghdad when a rocket-propelled grenade was fired from a pick-up truck.

Senior officers scampered around ordering men not to express publicly such sentiments. Some disobeyed...

The attacks came the day after President Bush appeared to dare Iraqi militants who have been killing American soldiers to launch fresh assaults. Asked about the mounting US casualties, Mr Bush declared “bring ’em on”, asserting that US forces in Iraq are “plenty tough” to deal with the threat.

The provocative language provoked indignation from Democrats, who claimed that Mr Bush was endangering the lives of US troops. “I am shaking my head in disbelief,” , the veteran Democrat senator, said. “I never heard any military commander invite enemies to attack US troops.”

Dick Gephardt, a presidential candidate, said he had heard “enough of the phoney, macho rhetoric” from Mr Bush.

Comment: The Democrats should have stood up to Bush BEFORE the war. They are as responsible as he is. Ever since 9/11, the Democrats have been supporting Bush's war against humanity.

Blast outside Iraqi police station

BBC
Saturday, 5 July, 2003, 17:18 GMT

At least seven recruits to a US-backed Iraqi police force have been killed in an explosion near a police station in western Iraq.

More than 60 others were wounded in the blast which happened in the town of Ramadi some 100 km (60 miles) west of Baghdad.

The dead and injured were attending a graduation ceremony after more than a week's training from coalition forces.

Pools of blood covered the area and a light blue shirt worn by one of the Iraqi policemen lay tattered on the pavement.

Regulation black shoes issued to officers were also on the ground, some shredded by the explosion.

The bomb was placed at the foot of a street light, primed and detonated by remote control when scores of new recruits walked past. [...]

One elderly Iraqi - speaking in the hospital where the wounded were being treated - said: "That is what you get for working with the Americans. They have all been warned before." [...]

Another Journalist Shot - 15 journalist have died covering the Iraq Invasion

U.S. Says Holding Troops in Iraq, Probably Turks

KIRKUK, Iraq (Reuters) - A U.S. military official confirmed on Sunday that U.S. forces in northern Iraq had detained several soldiers they believed to be Turkish.
 
Asked about accusations from Ankara that U.S. troops had seized Turkish special forces, the official said: "There was a raid. The U.S. military is still trying to determine their ethnicity but they are probably Turkish."

Comment: More evidence that it is out right guerilla warfare.

Caymans transfer Iraqi millions to U.S.

GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands (AP) -- Banks in the Cayman Islands have transferred US $140 million in frozen Iraqi assets to the U.S. Federal Reserve, the British territory's government said.

The money's transfer was confirmed Monday by Assistant Financial Secretary Deborah Drummond. She said the funds were turned over by various U.S. banks with branches in the Cayman Islands to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in March.

U.S. officials couldn't immediately confirm whether the money had gone into the new Development Fund for Iraq. The fund is to be used for Iraq's postwar reconstruction and is being controlled by the United States and Britain.

Other Views: How believable is it that looters stole Saddam's weapons?

Dewayne Wickham

WASHINGTON -- As excuses go, this one has got to be the presidential equivalent of "the dog ate my homework."

During his weekly radio address a week ago, President Bush hinted that Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction -- the ones he used as justification for invading Iraq -- might have been carted off by thieves.

That's right, the "500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent" Bush told the nation back in January that Saddam possessed in violation of United Nations sanctions, plus nearly "30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents," might have been stolen by some petty crooks...

In other words, the president wants us to believe that looters have foiled the efforts of thousands of U.S. troops to find Saddam's nasty weapons of mass destruction.

I've got another explanation for what happened to the stuff -- several, in fact.

It's all stored in a warehouse in Area 51, that supersecret U.S. military base in the Nevada desert where space creatures that fell into U.S. hands are thought to be hidden away.

A bit far-fetched?...

Well, what about this? All the prewar talk about Saddam having weapons that threatened this country and our allies was a political ruse. It was an embellished charge that the Bush administration used to scare and enrage the American public...

Iraq: the human toll

By Ed Vulliamy

Sunday July 6, 2003: (The Observer) The hospital in which Salima Hashem died, where the childless Kassim and his wife lie, and from which Jessica Lynch was rescued, is one of two in Nasiriyah. At the other, the General Surgical Hospital, six o'clock in the evening in the wards on the North Wing would usually have been a quiet time, says Dr Karim Azurgan, an orthopaedic surgeon. 'We would have finished our rounds, with patients getting ready for their evening meal.' But on the night of 24 March, the ward was anything but tranquil. That was the hospital's turn to become the target of two war crimes: one by the Iraqis, with a retort from the Americans. The wing is now a rubble of twisted metal and masonry blown akimbo, with beds and medicine cabinets strewn around.

'They were not war patients in here, they were in hospital for normal reasons you would come to hospital for,' says Dr Azurgan. 'But then, of course, those who survived the bombing became war patients.'

The Americans might have seen reason for dispatching the bomb that crashed through the ward ceiling, in breezy defiance of the Geneva Conventions. As part of the Baa'th party's tactic to use such places as hospitals for human shields, the governor of Nasiriyah, Adel Mehdi, and head of security Kamil Bahtat had arrived that afternoon, brandishing satellite phones which give out global positioning signals easily picked up by American radar. The doctors, no fools, 'were screaming at the Ba'athists to leave,' says Dr Azurgan. 'One of my colleagues even threatened to shoot them if they did not.'

They remained - and survived. But, whatever the temptation to the Americans, two red crescents, still visible, clearly marked the roof of the building, as did a flag bearing the same symbol. In theory protected by the laws of war, some 70 patients were wounded and four killed - before the scene of mayhem that followed. 'As the ambulances moved in to take the injured to the other hospital, they fired at them, too, from helicopters,' recalls Dr Azurgan. 'They were shooting at anyone who was driving or walking on the street.'

It is hard to cite a figure for the civilian dead in Nasiriyah - 'about 800, maybe more', calculates the keeper of records at the main hospital, Abdel Karim, who logged 412 war-death certificates from his own wards alone, of which only 25 were military casualties - that is, those wearing a black or military uniform, or else a black ribbon somewhere on civilian clothes, as was the practice of the Fedayeen Saddam paramilitaries. The papers also show 3,013 war wounded, including Mr and Mrs Kassim, the deaths of whose children may or may not lie elsewhere, in some American record. [...]

Americans restore ancient treasures to museum - for two hours only

By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad
04 July 2003

The rattle of machine-gun fire rang out near the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad yesterday just as the US authorities were putting on display the fabulous golden treasure of Nimrud to demonstrate that they cared for Iraqi culture and that life in the capital was returning to normal.

As propaganda stunts go it was not very successful. American archaeologists immediately accused the authorities of putting at risk the fragile 3,000-year-old golden ornaments by rushing them from the vaults of the Central Bank and back again to show that the looting of the museum had not been as bad as first claimed.

"I think it is an act of propaganda," said Professor Elizabeth Stone, a specialist in Iraqi archaeology at New York State University. "It is to show that nothing really happened to the museum. No curator in the world would allow this sort of exhibition unless ordered to do so."

Paul Zimansky, professor of archaeology at Boston University, said dismissively: "This is a kind of stunt."

The aim of the exhibition was evidently to redress the damage done to the reputation of the US by its failure to protect the Iraqi Museum, one of the five greatest in the world, from looters after the fall of Baghdad on 9 April.

Only two rooms of the ransacked museum were on view yesterday...

"Now listen up folks," shouted a US officer to the assembled media at the gate of the museum. "Anyone caught wandering about the rest of the museum will be arrested, taken to the airport and shipped out."...

Professor Stone added that far from normality returning, the looting of archaeological sites in the Iraqi countryside was now much worse than it was six weeks ago, with thieves using bulldozers to excavate anything of value and breaking into tombs.

The US army was taking no chances that the Nimrud treasure would be stolen. It had been packed into a case the previous day and taken to the museum with American soldiers sleeping on the floor to guard it. It was then put on display for two hours so that Paul Bremer, the chief US official in Iraq, and the media could view it. The treasure was immediately returned to the bank.

Iraq attacks target cadets, journalist

BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 5 -- A British journalist was shot and killed outside the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad on Saturday, witnesses said. The shooting, which follows a bomb blast that killed seven U.S.-trained police cadets earlier in the day, comes amid almost daily attacks on coalition troops in recent weeks. So far, however, there has been no sign of foreign journalists in Iraq being explicitly targeted

THE IDENTITY of the journalist, a freelance television producer, was not immediately known. Fellow journalists, asking that their names not be used, said the male journalist was outside museum when he was shot. An American soldier guarding the museum was shot and killed by a sniper on Thursday...

Meantime, in the western city of Ramadi, the site of the attack on the police cadets, mosque loudspeakers wailed for blood donations for the wounded. Angry Iraqis said the victims had been told that collaborating with the Americans would come to no good. The attack came a day after Arab media aired an audiotape in which the speaker, purported to be Saddam Hussein, calls on Iraqis to back the resistance and stop helping the Americans.

Rabbi charged with incitement to racism against Arabs

By Baruch Kra and Gideon Alon, Haaretz Correspondents
Last Update: 04/07/2003 06:34

Rabbi Yitzhak Ginzburg, who wrote a book praising the deeds of Baruch Goldstein, who shot dead 29 Muslim worshippers in a Hebron mosque in 1994, was indicted for incitement to racism Thursday at Jerusalem Magistrate's Court for a second book in which he claims that Arabs are "more primitive peoples."

Ginzburg was charged along with the Gal Eini non-profit association, of which Ginzburg was a co-founder and which helped him to publish his 2001 book "Root Treatment."

The book contains "conversations" between Ginzburg and his students, including one in which the rabbi advises a pupil that Arabs have "no right" to reside in the land of Israel. He later concedes, however, that "there may be some among them [Arabs] who are good that do have a right."

In the book, Ginzburg labels Arabs as belonging to the "more primitive peoples, obviously on a lower rung of the global culture scale," and claims that Arabs have a "reckless, unrestrained character."

Comment: What a joke. Racism is part and parcel of many versions of Judaism and it has been enshrined in the State of Israel. One expression of this is the following remark from Ariel Sharon, psychopath in chief of the Israeli government:

"Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of Israel on trial."

'We didn't win. You didn't win'

Mideast foes cling to wafer-thin truce

MITCH POTTER
The Toronto Star
Jul. 5, 2003. 11:15 AM

It was a boastful slip of the tongue, driven as much by wishful thinking as actual events on the ground, and now Israel's top soldier is being made to swallow his words.

After nearly a week of silence on the brittle truce that has moved the region into a strange purgatory one can describe neither as war nor peace, the Israeli army's chief of staff, Lt.-Gen. Moshe Ya'alon, served up a stunning pronouncement this week. The intifada is over, he declared. And Israel won. [...]

Welcome to the world of Middle East machismo, where winning, it seems, sometimes matters more than life itself.

In real terms, Ya'alon's statement may eventually prove true. If the wafer-thin ceasefire, now just six days old, can endure, Palestinians will have little more than misery to show for 1,000 days of intifada. With more than 2,000 dead — three times the number of Israeli casualties — a devastated infrastructure, unprecedented unemployment and poverty, the delicate terms of détente leave Palestinians almost immeasurably behind where they were nearly three years ago, when the first stone was thrown. [...]

'You won't be forgotten'

Vietnam War casualties honored with touring memorial wall

Alex Breitler
Record Searchlight

July 05, 2003 — 7:40 a.m.

... Indeed, each name has a story — but The Wall itself tells a story, too. A look at its demographics paints an overall picture of the victims of Vietnam.

Sixty-one percent of those on that wall were 21 or younger. A dozen were just 17. Sixteen military chaplains are on that wall, and eight nurses.

Not all died from enemy fire or helicopter crashes. Hepatitis claimed 22 victims. Malaria, 117. Heart attacks killed 268. Suicide accounted for 381 deaths.

And 230 soldiers were the victims of noncombat homicide.

But in the end, The Moving Wall is not about names or numbers. It's about people that remain vibrant and alive in the memories of those who remain...

Comment: How many more walls will need to be built to "commemorate" the death of young men and women to statisfy the blood thirst of psychopathic leaders.

NASA shopping for vehicle to take on shuttle duties

Posted on Sat, Jul. 05, 2003
By Warren E. Leary
NEW YORK TIMES

WASHINGTON - It is called a space plane, but it may not be a plane. It is supposed to take over several jobs of the space shuttle, but it is not a shuttle replacement.

It is to be the most modern spaceship designed to carry humans in 30 years, but it is not supposed to use breakthrough technology. It is to be all that it can be, but less.

No one quite knows what the proposed orbital space plane will be, what it will look like, how many people it will carry or how it will operate...

Weapons of Mass Compliance

Now at a tech lab near you, agony-inducing tools that will control your disorderly tendencies and blast those riotous urges

by Ben Ehrenreich
LA Weekly

Firing indiscriminately on unarmed crowds of civilians, long a staple method of restoring order, is today almost universally frowned upon. Maybe we have the Internet or the low price of video cameras to thank for this, one of the few identifiable advances in humanity over recent decades. But the New World Order has its discontents. Police and military alike face new challenges not only from the usual terrorist suspects, but from all manner of uppity civilians the world over, from at-times unruly displays of democratic zeal at protests in Seattle, New York, Los Angeles, Washington, Philadelphia, Quebec City, Prague, Genoa and a grab bag of other Western cities, to occasional bits of ugliness in the dingier corners of the globe when the ungrateful subjects of American military “humanitarian” missions rudely snap at the hands that feed them. The primary challenge for a more media-savvy police state: to make people calm and compliant without actually making them dead.

Engineers, hard at work for years now on this problem, have come up with some creative solutions, fun gadgets that give the banalities of police work a little Flash Gordon–cum–Robocop sheen. Spurred in part by some embarrassing scenes in Somalia, the Department of Defense in 1997 established the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate (JNLWD), with an annual budget of about $25 million, to research toys that might hurt a lot but would — ostensibly at least — stop short of killing you. The high-tech defense industry, much of it just a couple of hours’ drive down Interstate 5 from Los Angeles, has responded with predictable enthusiasm and ingenuity, and will likely get a boost of legitimacy from a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report released earlier this year, urging greater federal funding for non-lethal weapons research and evaluation. [...]

Comment: This article is a good summary of the numerous non-lethal technologies that already exist or are being developed for use against those annoying people who think for themselves and resist American Imperialism.

Advanced telescope camera astounds

11 April, 2003
By Dr David Whitehouse
BBC News Online science editor

The biggest digital camera ever installed on a telescope has begun work, taking spectacular and scientifically rich images of the Universe.

The camera, called MegaPrime, has been placed on the aging Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) on the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii, US, restoring the facility once again to the forefront of optical astronomy.

The CFHT was once considered a large telescope with its 3.6-metre mirror, but today is small compared with current eight to 10-metre telescopes. But with MegaPrime installed, it is once again in high demand.

UFO lights were 'a prank'
Kevin Conde says he used patrol car lights to fool colleagues

Monday, 30 June, 2003,

A former US security policeman has said he was responsible for strange lights in a forest which sparked claims of a UFO sighting.

He said a patrol car - and not a UFO - was to blame for strange lights which have sparked two decades of debate...

Mr Conde said: ... "It wasn't a UFO, it was a 1979 Plymouth Volare."

Mr Conde was stationed elsewhere shortly after the incident, and he had no idea his hoax was responsible for the Rendlesham UFO myth, which led to requests for information from the Ministry of Defence and the US government.

The mystery of the lights has continued for 23 years.

Brenda Butler, a local resident, said: "It was definitely a craft, because we've seen craft down here.

"Rendlesham is a very strange place - it's like a doorway opening from another dimension."

Comment: Ms Butler makes an interesting comment. I guess that is why that are calling Conde out to disinfo duty...

The UFO craze

07/05/2003
Nelly F. Villafuerte

It is disturbing to note that stories about UFOs during these end times are spreading wide and far. The curiosity of many, including Bible-believing Christians, about UFOs has distracted many from the biblical truths. What is alarming too is that, there are so many deceptions going around slowly creeping into our human consciousness giving credence to the supernatural validation of UFOs sightings and close encounters. Obviously a diversionary tactic of Satan and his evil cohorts to divert our attention to Jesus and His Lordship.

Comment: Interesting slip of the pen, here. Maybe this woman knows more about Christianity than she is letting on.

***

People have always been attracted to search for the unknown. The obsession of many to know more about the existence of UFOs is a good example. The problem is that without the biblical guidelines as the spiritual compass – this attraction to search for the unknown can lead to disastrous consequences. As an offshoot of this attraction to search for the unknown, cults and occults that are inconsistent with the Holy Bible are born every day.

***

Our God is a personal God. Bible-believing Christians believe this without doubt. Not some kind of a cosmic IT or some kind of force floating out there. God did not make us robots to compel us to love and obey Him. God gave us a free will. This means that we have a choice to love God or not.

***

Instead of spending so much time trying to unravel the mystery of UFOs, why don’t we spend time to know more about our living God who created us and gave us life – by reading His Word, the Holy Bible?

Comment: Too bad most people choose to be robots. We could use a little more use of free will on this planet. Critical thinking. Figuring out what it really means to "love God".

Researchers Seek Witnesses To UFO Crashes

May 7, 2003
The Associated Press

AZTEC, N.M. -- Were you looking into the New Mexico sky in 1947 or 1948? Did you see little green men or the smoldering wreckage of a strange ship? A pair of researchers trying to uncover the secrets of two purported UFO crashes wants to pick your brain.

Stanton Friedman, a ufologist and nuclear physicist, was the first person to investigate a farmer's field in Roswell where many believe an alien spacecraft crash-landed in 1947. He's also gathering facts from a lesser-known purported UFO 1948 crash in Hart Canyon north of Aztec.

Friedman is hunting for people who may have witnessed either craft's flight or wreckage, but he knows time is running out.

Low 'UFO' activity in Hessdalen

18 Jun, 13:34

Norway's most renowned spot for mysterious aerial sightings, the village of Hessdalen in South Troendelag, is experiencing a dearth of sightings. The valley community's measuring station has registered 120-130 unidentifiable light phenomena since 1998, but only one in the past year, newspaper VG reports...

Strand said that they cannot explain the sharp drop in sightings but believes one key factor is technical problems connected to newly installed camera equipment.

"We are now in the process of reinstalling the equipment and then we believe that registered sightings will pick up again," Strand said.

Where did the Moon come from?

3 July 2003

Astronomers believe that the Moon was formed when a Mars-sized body smashed into the Earth, ejecting matter into orbit and lengthening our day to its present value of 24 hours. Until recently, however, estimates of much of the Moon is "impactor material" that came from this impactor object, as opposed to the Earth, have varied wildly - from 1 to 90%. Now, by comparing the compositions of lunar and terrestrial rock samples, astronomers in Germany have calculated that no more than two-thirds of the Moon is impactor material. Moreover, they estimate that the Moon must be at least 4.5 billion years old (C Münker et al 2003 Science 301 84)...

If the giant impact occurred while the core and mantle were forming, the Earth would have contributed little niobium to the Moon. But Münker and colleagues calculated that the lunar Nb/Ta ratio would be boosted to the observed level if up to 65% of the Moon consisted of impactor material.

This theory also leads Münker's team to believe that the Moon must be at least 4.5 billion years old, since radioisotope dating shows that the Earth's core and mantle were fully formed by that time.

Comment: There is NO, we repeat NO danger. Go back to sleep. Any major impacts on earth from space took place millions, if not billions, of years ago. There is no danger from cyclic comets. There have been no Dark Ages due to comet impacts. Everything is fine. It is swamp gas.

Group takes aim at Patriot law

Tim Hearden
Record Searchlight
July 05, 2003 — 2:27 a.m.

MOUNT SHASTA — Some residents here want city councilors to order police to defy the USA Patriot Act amid growing complaints that civil liberties have become a casualty in the war on terrorism.

A local citizens' group called the Bill of Rights Committee of Mount Shasta is circulating petitions this weekend to have the issue placed before the City Council on July 28.

The group's chairman, 64-year-old retired carpenter Donald Nobach, said the post-Sept. 11, 2001, legislation has bred "a fascist government" that can launch unbridled invasions of privacy and arrest people without warrants.

"This is not really a political thing . . . because civil rights crosses all boundaries," said Nobach, who served in the Air Force from 1956 to 1961. "Anybody in their right mind would want to maintain what I fought for. I served in the military, and I fought for these rights, and I'm not going to give them away easily."

Comment: Everything is under control here, folks. Move on along. Let the nice man with the big gun do his job...

'You are not welcome here'

July 05 2003 at 08:42PM
By Moffet Mofokeng

About 500 people staged a protest at the Library Gardens in Johannesburg on Saturday, calling on President Thabo Mbeki not to host his United States counterpart George Bush.

"Bush, you're not welcome here," read one poster held aloft by demonstrators.

Another one said: "Mbeki, do not embrace Bush."...

The United States president visits Botswana, Uganda, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa during his tour, which starts on Monday and ends on Friday...

Mauritian national Ram Seegobin said Bush delayed his first visit to the continent because he was "busy planning to murder people in Iraq".

"Bush is the naked (and) ugly face of American imperialism. In Iraq, in Afghanistan children died, what did Bush do?" Seegobin asked...

Kenyan native Wahoo Kara added: "We must stand up against this monster who has no respect for life. We must say 'Bush you are not welcome to Africa'."

Anti-War Coalition spokesperson Salim Vally said the Bush administration replaced the "dictatorship of Saddam Hussein with an equally ruthless occupation of Iraq with US troops".

"Bush is a warmonger," Vally said. "Bush represents a group of people who are undemocratic."

Before Vally spoke, the protesters' observed a moment of silence remembering "all victims of the US administration".

Pentagon Seeking New Access Pacts for Africa Bases

By ERIC SCHMITT
New York Times

WASHINGTON, July 4 — The United States military is seeking to expand its presence in the Arab countries of northern Africa and in sub-Saharan Africa through new basing agreements and training exercises intended to combat a growing terrorist threat in the region.

Even as military planners prepare options for American troops to join an international peacekeeping force to oversee a cease-fire in Liberia, the Pentagon wants to enhance military ties with allies like Morocco and Tunisia.

It is also seeking to gain long-term access to bases in countries like Mali and Algeria, which American forces could use for periodic training or to strike terrorists. And it aims to build on aircraft refueling agreements in places like Senegal and Uganda, two countries that President Bush is to visit on his five-nation swing through Africa that begins on Tuesday.

There are no plans to build permanent American bases in Africa, Defense Department officials say. Instead, the United States European Command, which oversees military operations in most of Africa, wants troops now in Europe to rotate more frequently into bare-bones camps or airfields in Africa. Marines may spend more time sailing off the West African coast.

This fall the command will send trainers to work with soldiers from four North African nations on patrolling and gathering intelligence.

Some plans are still on the drawing board and will need the approval of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld or his top aides. But other military initiatives in Africa are already under way or will soon begin.

Since late last year, for example, more than 1,800 members of the American military have been placed in Djibouti to conduct counterterrorism operations in the Horn of Africa...

"What we don't want to see in Africa is another Afghanistan, a cancer growing in the middle of nowhere," said Maj. Gen. Jeffrey B. Kohler of the Air Force, the European Command's director of plans and policy, who is to visit Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria this month. "That's what we're trying to prevent."

U.S. to send small military team to Liberia
Goal is to assess needs for possible peacekeeping mission

MONROVIA, Liberia (CNN) -- The U.S. military will send an assessment team to Liberia this weekend, a military official told CNN.

The team of about a dozen people will depart from Europe as soon as air transport can be arranged, the official said. The team's task will be to determine the requirements for a peacekeeping mission in Liberia, which could include troops from the United States and the Economic Community of West African States.

Two rebel factions in Liberia are insisting that President Charles Taylor step down, as he agreed to do in a recent cease-fire pact.

Taylor has said he will leave when an international team of peacekeepers has arrived to maintain order.

"Before I transit, I think it is important that peacekeepers be present," he told a meeting of Liberian clerics Friday.

Bush: Talks With African Leaders Crucial

By JENNIFER LOVEN
The Associated Press
Saturday, July 5, 2003; 7:25 PM

WASHINGTON - President Bush says he will not accept any outcome that allows Liberian President Charles Taylor, a one-time warlord wanted on war crimes charges, to remain in power in his embattled country...

"That's very important information for me, the decision-maker on this issue, to understand what the recommendations might be," Bush said in an interview with the Voice of America, conducted Thursday and aired Saturday...

With the question of additional troop deployments pending, and U.S. soldiers arrayed in hotspots around the globe, Bush saluted the armed forces Saturday in his weekly radio address.

"All who live in tyranny, and all who yearn for freedom, place their hopes in the United States of America," he said. "Our people in uniform do not have easy duty, and much depends on their success."

In the Democrats' weekly radio address, Texas Rep. Ciro Rodriguez demanded improved government support for military veterans and their families.

"Providing affordable and accessible health care to our veterans," Rodriguez said, "is a responsibility that we simply cannot abandon."

Bush opened Saturday with a round of golf and avoided reporters eager to ask his thoughts on Liberia.

The president, treated the night before by his wife, Laura, to an early birthday party - his 57th is Sunday - was spending a rare weekend in Washington. Two of his closest and oldest friends, Commerce Secretary Don Evans and former Yale classmate Roland Betts, joined him for a steamy 18 holes on Andrews Air Force Base's golf course.

Comment: Evans is the man with whom Bush found Jesus. Bush was a drunk, with no successes to speak of. He had been bailed out of a number of business disasters by his Daddy's friends. He joined the "Community Bible Study" group with Evans and began reading the New Testament. Evans has remarked that the Bible provided for Bush, for the first time, something upon which he could focus "intellectually". According to Evans, it was "Goodbye, Jack Daniels, Hello, Jesus".

Tolerance

DAN SECRIST
The Olympian

The word "tolerance" has become so politically correct that it is vocational suicide to object to it. Yet what tolerance (with regard to religion) has come to mean is that you are accepting of everything, except one thing -- Christianity.

The problem is that Jesus put an exclusive claim on truth. And if tolerance becomes the new truth, then there is no such thing as truth. Each person makes up his own moral code, and everyone else is supposed to be OK with it. Nobody's opinion can be superior to another. Nobody can be incorrect.

But Jesus was very exclusive when he said, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me" (John 14:6). He said there was such a thing as absolute truth. He said he personified that truth. He claimed to be the only expert. He taught us to love all people AND walk in truth.

Comment: So let's see, this guy is upset because people are intolerant about an intolerant religion? Christians, such as the man in the White House, justify the invasion of Iraq by saying "God told me to do it" and then we wonder why Christians are not tolerated?

CIA's secret war is revealed as Laos jails European journalists

By Phil Reeves in Bangkok
06 July 2003

International diplomatic efforts are under way to secure the release of two respected European journalists who were this week given 15-year prison sentences after setting out to explore a remarkable forgotten legacy of the CIA's covert operations in the Vietnam War.

The harsh sentences passed in Laos against the Belgian reporter Thierry Falise, 46, Vincent Reynaud, a 38-year-old French photographer, and their translator Naw Karl Mua - an American citizen - have outraged human rights activists and journalists...

The journalists, who entered the country on tourist visas, were researching the fate of ethnic Hmong who were hired by the CIA during the Vietnam War to fight on the side of the Americans against the Communists.

At the height of the conflict, more than 30,000 Hmong were engaged in what became known as America's "secret war" against the North Vietnamese and Communist Pathet Lao. Small pockets of them - hiding in the jungle and mountains of the north - have continued fighting; it appears they are still waiting for the Americans to come to their aid. [...]

The day suicide bombers came to a Moscow rock concert - and left 20 dead

Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow
Sunday July 6, 2003
The Observer

The black sheeting looked like bin liners as paramedics yesterday tried to cover up the shredded remains of the 20 dead from the first suicide bombing to hit Moscow.

One girl, in her early twenties, lay on the tarmac outside the Kruiliya (Wings) Rock Festival, her eyes blank and black to the summer sky, her skin already the drained, lifeless colour of her beige skirt.

Paramedic's latex gloves were strewn across the entrance to the underpass near the Tushino subway, blood on concrete steps that before 2.45 yesterday afternoon had been brimming with 40,000 rock fans, drinking beer with their shirts off in the hot sun, waiting for the start of the Russian equivalent of the Reading Festival.

Broken sunglasses, syringes and part of a leg littered the street.

Ninety minutes after two female suicide bombers, one of them Chechen, had detonated themselves at two spots outside the Tushino Aerodrome where the rock festival was being held, forensic experts were milling around the corpses, the black bags preserving little of their dignity.

The bands played on to prevent a panic, guitar melodies ringing out surreally over the scene of carnage. From the passport found on her remains, Russian officials identified one of the bombers as Zalikhan Elikhadzhiyeva, 20, from the Chechen village of Kurchaloi. [...]

Confess or die, US tells jailed Britons

Outrage over plight of Guantanamo detainees

Martin Bright, Kamal Ahmed and Peter Beaumont
Sunday July 6, 2003
The Observer

The two British terrorist suspects facing a secret US military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay will be given a choice: plead guilty and accept a 20-year prison sentence, or be executed if found guilty.

American legal sources close to the process said that the prisoners' dilemma was intended to encourage maximum 'co-operation'.

The news comes as Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, prepares to urge US Secretary of State Colin Powell to repatriate the two Britons. He will say that they should face a fair trial here under English law. Backed by Home Secretary David Blunkett, Straw will make it clear that the Government opposes the death penalty and wants to see both men tried 'under normal judicial process'.

Lawyers acting for Moazzam Begg, 35, from Sparkbrook, Birmingham, and Feroz Abassi, 23, from Croydon, said that any confessions gathered while the men were kept without charge or access to lawyers in Bagram airbase in Afghanistan and Camp Delta in Cuba would have no status in international law and would be inadmissible in British courts. [...]

Comment: In America and the lands under American rule, justice is dead. It was crushed under the well-oiled tread of the elitist military-industrial juggernaut. It is currently easier, however, for Americans to ignore that fact because it hasn't hit home yet in a serious way. Enemy combatants are still mostly just Arab names associated with a photo splashed on the television screen. The mass round-ups at home have not yet begun in earnest. But given these recent developments, is there anyone with at least two neurons firing who doubts that it will very likely happen? Is there anyone who thinks that NOT thinking about the implications of such developments, that not giving thought and thereby "not giving power" to these ideas, will magically make it all better like a sprinkling of fairy dust? The horrors of the Bush Reich are real, and it behooves each of us to fully cognize the terror of the situation.

Bioterrorism project falls into intelligence gap

June 16, 2003
By Siobhan Gorman, National Journal

Paul Redmond had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day recently. It was the day that Redmond, assistant secretary for information analysis at the Homeland Security Department, testified before the House Select Homeland Security Committee about Project BioShield, President Bush's $6 billion anti-bioterrorism project that's been cruising through the House.

Redmond didn't have an opening statement. He admitted he has only one person working under him to assess the bioterror threat. He said he isn't getting the information he needs from the intelligence community. His description of the bioterror threat was nothing more than what lawmakers had already read in the newspapers. And he wasn't prepared to brief them in a closed session. Redmond eventually made a plea for sympathy: "I'm trying to do my best at this point."

Comment: Drudge is now reporting that Redmond has resigned.

BBC clamps down on freelance writing

Jason Deans
Friday July 4, 2003

The BBC's director of news, Richard Sambrook, today reiterated his support for Today programme defence correspondent Andrew Gilligan, whose May 29 story that an intelligence source was claiming the government "sexed up" last September's Iraq dossier is at the centre of the row with Downing Street.

Mr Sambrook sent an email to all BBC News staff rejecting claims in today's Times that Gilligan's position was "under threat".

But senior BBC insiders admit that an article Gilligan wrote for the Mail on Sunday, shortly after his May 29 Iraq dossier story, provided unnecessary ammunition for the prime minister's communications director, Alastair Campbell.

In the Mail on Sunday article, Gilligan said his intelligence source alleged the document's claim that Saddam Hussein could launch weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes had been personally ordered by Mr Campbell.

Hong Kong to amend bill after mass protests

By Kim Coghill and Vicki Kwong

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong leader Tung Chee-hwa, struggling to defuse the biggest political crisis of his career,
has said he will amend a planned anti-subversion law after half a million people took to the streets to denounce it.

"After repeated and detailed discussions, we have decided to make amendments to further allay people's fears," Tung told a
news conference, looking weary after days of crisis talks with his cabinet and senior advisors. [...]

Comment: Meanwhile in America nothing is stopping, or even slowing down, Big Brother's Fascist boot from trampling over those freedoms supposedly held so dear. Perhaps they were illusory. At least, that illusion could be called upon in court. Not any more.

Op begins on conjoined adult twins

Unprecedented delicate surgery could kill one or both twins

(CNN) -- Doctors in Singapore have begun a marathon surgical effort -- possibly lasting up to four days -- to separate two Iranian women joined at the head since birth.

The delicate surgical process that could kill one or both of the 29-year-old sisters began Sunday morning following final brain scans to determine the course of the surgery.

Ladan and Laleh Bijani, both lawyers, began magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at 8 a.m. Sunday local time in Singapore's Raffles Hospital, a spokeswoman said.

The surgery to separate the women began soon after that with the twins in "good spirits", she said.

The first phase of operations to separate the twins' brains is expected to begin Sunday afternoon, the hospital said.
If the operation is successful, the Bijani sisters will be first adults joined at the head to become separated.

Comment: We just wanted to point out that these Iranian women, who are lawyers, may very well have their home destroyed by the Bush Reich. Women in Iran are allowed to educate themselves. Let's compare that with how Saudi Arabia treats women, who they do not allow to drive and whose police allowed women to burn rather than escaping from a burning house without their head scarves. Saudi Arabia is also along time allie with the U.S. One of those items, briefly touted as an excuse for destroying Iraq, was how they suppressed women. Iraq used to be a secular, educated society.

Athens airport opens archaeological museum

July 01 2003 at 09:00AM

Athens - Athens' international airport on Monday opened a small archaeological museum that will display the dozens of ancient artefacts uncovered during construction work at the site...

The artefacts, which date from the Neolithic to the Byzantine eras, provide rare insight into the history of the Spata region, a traditionally agricultural area located 27km south of the capital, Verelis said.

Women burnt for being 'witches'

Two Indian tribal women suspected of being witches were burnt to death by a village mob in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand, police said today.

Coke boycott over assassinations

UNIONS will remove Coca-Cola vending machines from their premises and encourage employers to do the same in retribution for the assassination of eight union leaders at the company's plants in Columbia.

NSW union action will coincide with an international day of action and boycott of Coca-Cola products from July 22, as a US court tries cases of human rights abuses against the soft drink giant's Columbian bottlers, Panamco and Bebidas.

Coca-Cola's main Latin-American bottler, Panamco, is being sued by Columbian food and beverage union Sinaltrainal for financing right-wing paramilitaries alleged to have murdered and intimidated union leaders. [...]

Comment: In related news see Tanzania fights human skinning. Which tells us, "Exhibits of skin are part of Tanzania's campaign to discourage the trade in human skin at an international business fair in the capital.[...] According to police the skins are in huge demand outside Tanzania."

Prairie dogs euthanized amid fears of monkeypox

By Patrick Healy
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Saturday, July 5, 2003

NEW YORK — Health officials in Suffolk and Nassau counties have begun euthanizing more than a dozen prairie dogs collected from their owners because of fears that the animals may be contaminated with monkeypox, a viral disease similar to smallpox.

The euthanization orders, issued by the State Department of Health and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, affect prairie dogs bought during the first three weeks of May from two Long Island pet stores.

The prairie dogs were among animals shipped to pet stores across the country from a Texas facility. Included in the shipment was a Gambian giant pouched rat infected with monkeypox, and health officials across the country are trying to track down all 850 animals that were part of that shipment.

Comment: Monkeypox coming from Texas...hmmmm. Could they have caught it from the psychopathic chimpanzee masqerading as "Birthday Boy" running around in the monkey suit...

Monkey Visits German Pizzeria, Vandalizes Toilet

Fri Jul 4, 7:22 AM ET

BERLIN (Reuters) - An escaped circus monkey dropped into a pizzeria in a small German town and vandalized the ladies toilet even though the owner had tried to pacify the animal with salad and rolls.

Franco Praino was standing in front of the counter of his pizzeria in the northern town of Lehre when "Lala," a one and a half foot tall Rhesus monkey, entered through the front door on Wednesday.

Praino and a cook used lettuce to lure Lala into the women's toilet, where they fed the monkey rolls to keep it calm.

But Lala broke a vase on the window, then tossed all the paper towels into the sink and turned on the tap, flooding both toilets, the kitchen, and part of dining room.

Comment: We would like to quash the rumour that Bush left the US early for his African tour. He is not scheduled to make a stopover in Germany.

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