You know, having to face oneself, day after day, into the grim deception-fueled reality here on planet earth is not easy. It has long become clear to us that there is a world-wide battle over the truth going on. On one side there are the many apparent psychopaths and compulsive liars that make up the US and British governments etc., and on the other...well, on the other side there are small independently run web sites like this one that strive to connect the dots and present an as close to accurate view of the truth as possible. Needless to say, there are far too few such sites and they receive far too little attention from the wider public, and it can get more than a little depressing when one realises the size and power of our "enemy" and the mammoth task the confronts us.

One, or perhaps the only, positive aspect about the preponderance of government lies and deceit at this particular time in our history however, is that those who invest so much energy in attempting to deceive the world on a wholesale basis, are ultimately fighting a losing battle. As the lies and manipulations become more and more blatant, the likelihood that they can be permanently and completely covered up becomes ever more remote. As we watch the process unfold, and do our part to speed it along, we can derive a little enjoyment from watching the increasingly ridiculous attempts by the liars to justify the unjustifiable.

A case in point is a recent article penned by one of arch NeoCon apologist David Horowitz's buddies. Published in Horowitz's rabid FrontPageMagazine.com, the author attempts to explain away the damning revelations contained in the now infamous memo from the British Attorney General to Blair's government, where he stated clearly that the US was "fixing evidence" of Saddam's WMDs around Bush's already formulated policy to invade Iraq at any cost.

As you will see, the article itself is an exercise is self-delusion, which, of course, the author is entitled to engage in. We would however, appreciate it if he and his NeoCon friends would refrain from attempting to implicate the entire planet in his little macabre fantasy:

Bush, Blair and the Plan for War

By Thomas Patrick Carroll
FrontPageMagazine.com
May 17, 2005

On 1 May, just days before Britain’s national election, The Sunday Times obtained and published a secret government memo on the ousting of Saddam. Public reaction was appallingly unsophisticated (much of it, anyway) and undoubtedly contributed to Labour’s lackluster performance at the polls. Because of the party’s poor showing, Prime Minister Tony Blair may now be forced to step aside, most likely in favor of Gordon Brown.

Comment: In the twisted thinking of this particular war monger, public outrage in response to news that Blair had lied to the British people about the reasons for the Iraq invasion is "unsophisticated". Supposedly, "sophisticated" would then be confronting a liar and the lies they tell by sucking up to them because they are in a position of power, and telling them that you understand the reasons that they lied to the entire planet and sacrificed hundreds of thousands of innocent lives in the process. The term "scum bag" comes to mind, if that is not too much of a "vernacularisation" for our readers.

There is a sad irony in all of this. If more British voters (and the opinion makers who influenced them) had made a genuine effort to understand the significance of that memo, the elections would likely have gone in precisely the opposite direction and Blair would now be sitting on an even larger majority than he enjoyed before.

Comment: Here we are being told that if more British people had IGNORED the fact that Blair had lied to them, then they could foreseeably have voted for a war criminal and liar like Blair. Well sure! Everyone knows that! Heck, if the entire British public had simply submitted themselves for mass lobotomisation, that would have done the job too, eh? Thankfully, at least some of the British public understand the memo only too clearly and realised that the simple fact was that both their own and the American governments had lied to them.

The document in question, classified SECRET – UK EYES ONLY, was a record of a meeting between Blair and his senior advisors. The topic was what to do about Saddam. The memo was dated 23 July 2002, well before the first coalition bombs struck Baghdad on 20 March of the following year.

The memo said that among Washington policymakers, “[m]ilitary action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”

Comment: Just for clarification, the words: "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" mean that Bush and Co "made stuff up" about Saddam's WMDs and then presented it as fact to the public. Some might call it a lie.

The text went on:

The Prime Minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors. Regime change and WMD were linked in the sense that it was the regime that was producing the WMD… If the political context were right, people would support regime change. The two key issues were whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan the space to work.

The “military plan” was what ultimately became Operation Iraqi Freedom, and the “political strategy” was the diplomatic push on WMD. “We should work on the assumption,” the memo concluded, “that the UK would take part in any military action.”

Blair’s political opponents hit the ceiling, as did much of the press. This was proof that Bush and Blair had lied their countries into an unnecessary war, for reasons unclear but probably nefarious. Or so went the rant. Sir Menzies Campbell, deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, was typical when he said the Blair government had “agreed to an illegal regime change with the Bush administration. It set out to create the justification for going to war. It was to be war by any means.”

Comment: Indeed it was. And now we get to the little NeoCon's argument:

Although too late to do Blair much good politically, a response to such charges is still worthwhile. If nothing else, it may make our struggle against militant Islam easier to appreciate going forward.

First, the matter of secrecy. Within hours after it hit The Sunday Times, Blair’s office came out and said the memo contained nothing new. And, of course, that’s right. But the very fact that the contrary would even be seriously asserted is amazing.

Comment: No. You see, the problem here is that Blair had lied, and by saying that the document contained nothing new, he was simply lying again. Up until the memo was released to the public, Blair had claimed that "he never lied" about the reasons for the Iraq war. The memo proved conclusively that Blair had indeed lied when he personally sanctioned the government claim in 2003 that Saddam could launch a Biological or Nuclear attack in 45 mins. Saddam had no such ability, and Blair, Bush and their Iraq war policy manufacturers knew it well.

Almost from the moment military action against Saddam was publicly floated by the Bush administration, informed analysts were pointing out the obvious — i.e., there was a grand strategic design at work, not just some knee-jerk concern with WMD.

Comment: Really? If so, then it really is unfortunate that they failed to inform the American and British public, the vast majority of whom, for some strange reason, were under the impression that the ENTIRE rationale for going to war was that Saddam possessed WMDs and posed a direct threat to the British and American people. Now where might they have got that crazy idea from? Perhaps it came from the same source that led almost 50% of Americans to believe that Saddam was involved in the 9/11 attacks?

I myself have been laying out the strategic importance of Operation Iraqi Freedom for several years now, so I won’t repeat it again here. (Ed: phew!) Suffice to say, Bush and Blair (and especially Bush) recognized early on that a military invasion of Iraq, followed by a physical presence in-country for an indefinite period of time, was key to changing the poisonous social/political environment in the Middle East that enabled violent Islamist ideology to flourish.

Comment: Aha! Now we understand! The whole idea was NOT to neutralise the direct threat that Saddam posed to the American and British people (because there was none of course) but to change the social and political environment in the Greater Middle East. If this was the case, then why was it not presented to the world public in these terms? Perhaps the entire world would have laughed at the idea of an armed invasion of a sovereign Islamic nation by ignorant red neck Christian American soldiers having ANY chance of changing such a country's social and political environment. Unless, of course, the idea was to forcibly impose a US puppet government in said country and manipulate the resulting guerilla war to foment a civil war among the indigenous population which would eventually destroy much of the country. No doubt in this way one could change the political and social environment - but needless to say, there are not many people that would support such a plan if it were proposed to them in those terms. Indeed, some people might even have pointed out that the vast majority of Iraqi people were not "violent Islamists" but simple decent people, and that an illegal invasion of the type described would actually give rise to fundamentalism - a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts.

Perhaps this is then is an explanation as to why the American and British population somehow missed out on our little NeoCon's grand strategy and got the whole thing wrong by thinking that it was all about WMDs.

The talk about Saddam and WMD was not a lie — Bush and Blair certainly believed it, as did pretty much every intelligence service in the Western world — but there was far more to Operation Iraqi Freedom than WMD. The now-famous memo is simply another confirmation of Bush and Blair’s proper concern with larger strategic realities, and the relatively subordinate role that Iraqi WMD played in their calculations. Nothing new there, as Blair correctly said.

Comment: Erm...I think we are missing something here. The memo from British intelligence to Blair in July 2002 stated clearly that "intelligence was being fixed around the policy", i.e. the intelligence was being manufactured, made up, falsified - it was a lie! And what were the entire British and US intelligence apparatuses focusing their attention on? WMDs! Hence the intelligence about Saddam's WMDs was being falsified by the CIA, MI6 and the Israeli Mossad and, at the meeting in July 2002, Blair was made fully aware of this fact, yet our little NeoCon has no qualms about saying "Bush and Blair believed it".

But there is another aspect to this whole affair that is more troubling. We are now over three years into the war against militant Islam. It is simply inexcusable for opinion makers and public intellectuals (e.g., those who made such a fuss about the “revelations” in the Downing Street memo) not to grasp the strategic imperatives behind what we are doing in Iraq and elsewhere. It’s certainly okay to disagree with our strategy, but for supposedly sophisticated commentators to miss the entire point and continue raving about WMD and UN sanctions is simply beyond the pale. Regardless of whether they support or oppose the Bush Doctrine and attendant strategies, critics have a responsibility to acknowledge those strategies and the goal of a new Middle East toward which they are driving.

Comment: Apparently, the little NeoCon's point is that we were all meant to have immediately seen through the lies that Bush and Blair went to such lengths to promote and have grasped the "strategic objectives" (restructuring of the Middle East), even though the Bush and Blair governments sought to cover up those those strategic objectives and convince the world that the real objective was Saddam's WMDs (now nonexistent) that posed a threat to the world. Of course, we might also wonder why, if the real reasons behind the Iraq invasion were so obvious to our little NeoCon from the outset and he is so perturbed that people did not "get it" as he did, he did not take the opportunity two years ago to inform his readers via Horowitz's Front Page Magazine that Bush and Blair were lying about Saddam's WMDs. It really is edifying to watch the squirming that is going on among these warmongering NeoNaziCons, but of course, it is not at all surprising since everyone expects worms to squirm.

A perfect example of an opinion leader who takes this responsibility seriously is Efraim Halevy, former chief of Mossad. He recently said about America’s strategy in Iraq and beyond:

I believe that for the U.S. to be able to reap the benefits of its very bold policies in the Middle East, it will be necessary for successive presidents to maintain a formidable military presence in the region for quite some time to come. The U.S. has set in motion a sea change in the entire region and we are only witnessing the preliminary phases of this change… I think there will be many in the Arab world who will come to appreciate the enormous contribution that the U.S. is making to the future of the societies of the Middle East. But for all this to happen, the U.S. must stay the course.

Comment: Indeed, even now we can hear the shouts of appreciation as they issue from the mouths of innocent Iraqis caught up in illegal US torture camp hellholes like Abu Ghraib and "G'itmo" - not to mention those of ordinary Iraqi civilians who are enjoying the 'benefits' of a US and Israeli-sponsored Iraqi civil war.

LONDON (Reuters) - A British court agreed on Tuesday to allow a computer expert to be sent to the United States to be tried for allegedly funding Islamic militants, despite ruling that Washington mistreats suspects classified as enemy combatants.

Judge Timothy Workman said he was satisfied Babar Ahmad would receive a fair trial in the U.S. after the U.S. embassy promised he would not be sent to the prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or turned over to a third country for torture.

Comment: What a ridiculous supposition; that a bunch of cutthroats like those associated with US embassies would actually honor any promises about so-called "terrorist" prisoners! Was the Gestapo known for honoring ITS promises??

Ahmad's supporters argue that if he has charges to answer, he should be tried in Britain.

"This is a difficult and troubling case," Workman said at London's Bow Street magistrates' court.

"The defendant is a British subject who is alleged to have committed offences that, if the evidence were available, could have been prosecuted in this country."

Comment: Hmm... we wonder who is withholding the "evidence" that is forcing his extradition to the US?

He said, however, the United States has the right to seek Ahmad's extradition under a new British law, passed in 2003, which allows American prosecutors to request such a move without presenting their evidence to a British court.

In language that Ahmad's supporters said partially vindicated their case, the judge ruled that the United States denies basic human rights to suspects the U.S. president declares "enemy combatants."

"If such an order were made, there is a substantial risk that the defendant would be detained at Guantanamo Bay or subjected to rendition to another country," he said. "(He) would probably be subject to detention in circumstances which would be inhuman and degrading, and there would be a denial of justice contrary to article 6 of the European Convention."

But he said he accepted assurances from the U.S. embassy that Ahmad would be tried in a civilian court.

The case is the first test of the new British procedure, which makes it easier for a group of countries including the U.S. to have suspects extradited from the U.K.

Britain's Home Secretary (interior minister) now has 60 days to decide whether to send Ahmad to the United States. If he does, Ahmad's lawyers say they will appeal to the High Court.

Comment: And what are the details of the case against this alleged "terrorist"?

INVESTIGATED AND RELEASED

Ahmad, 30, has been held in British jail since August last year under a U.S. warrant, after being indicted in America for running a Web site that raised funds for Muslim militants in Afghanistan and Chechnya.

Months earlier, British police had arrested him, investigated him and released him without charge.

Comment: British police could find no evidence to prove the US allegations against him, yet the lapdog British government created a new "anti-terror" law where wholly suspect claims against a British citizen could be upheld! Even in the case that the US evidence against him accurate, his only "crime" was to support a grassroots uprising among the Afghan people to oust the oppressive and wholly unrepresentative US-backed Karzai regime. The fact that the alleged support by a British citizen for "militants" in two areas of the world that should have nothing to do with the US worrying in the extreme. The "war on terrorism" is being used as an excuse for the draconian clamping down on fundamental citizen and human rights around the world, regardless of national boundaries. It would appear that we are making significant process towards the unveiling of an overt and fascist one world government.

"You have to ask yourself a final question: why was Babar Ahmad not charged in this country? The reason ... is that there was not enough evidence," said his lawyer, Mudassar Arani, outside the court.

Ahmad's cause has been taken up within Britain's 1.8 million strong Muslim community, once seen as loyal to Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour party, but who have largely deserted Labour over the Iraq war and Blair's alliance with the United States.

From his prison cell, Ahmad stood unsuccessfully for parliament in this month's election in an area of northwest London with a large Muslim population.

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), an umbrella group representing some 400 British Muslim associations, said it deplored the court decision.

"This is a very sad day for all who value fairness and justice," said MCB Secretary-General Iqbal Sacranie.

"The U.S. can now simply order that British citizens be plucked from our streets and into U.S. jails by making serious and wholly unproven allegations against them."

Some 100 Israelis - survivors, witnesses and investigators of Islamic terror attacks in their own country - will travel to Florida next month to give evidence in what is being billed as the most important terror trial in the US since 11 September 2001.

In the dock at the Tampa court will be four Arab-Americans, headed by Sami al-Arian, a University of South Florida professor of computer engineering.

He is accused of being a member of the Islamic Jihad radical group, and of running a fund-raising operation. This is said to have helped finance a series of terrorist attacks in which 100 people died, in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Israel itself. The case is mainly based on intercepted telephone calls, faxes and other documents gathered by FBI foreign intelligence agents, starting as long ago as 1984.

The four defendants face a 53-count, 118-page indictment on charges including racketeering, conspiracy and providing material support to terrorists.

Five other men have been indicted but are not in custody. Jury selection began this week for the trial, which is scheduled to open on 8 June and likely to last several months.

The array of witnesses is unprecedented in a case of this kind here. Among them are survivors of attacks, victims' relatives, police and emergency medical workers who rushed to the bloody aftermath of an attack, some of them to collect the fragments of flesh and bone left after an explosion.

All of them, in one way or another, have been on the receiving end of terrorism. The aim, prosecutors say, is to allow an American jury to review not just abstract evidence of alleged terrorist fundraising, but to understand its concrete and gruesome end-product - to see "what terror looks like".

Mr Arian and his associates are alleged to have used an Islamic academic think-tank and a Palestinian charity founded by Mr Arian as fund-raising fronts for Islamic Jihad, which is on a State Department list of terrorist organisations.

The defence is expected to argue that Mr Arian was a significant figure in the Arab-American establishment, who knew US politicians as illustrious as the former president Bill Clinton and his successor George Bush, despite the fact he was under investigation for such serious offences. Successful prosecution of the case is highly important for the credibility of US legal efforts to deal with terrorism. The case of Zacharias Moussaoui, the sole person charged in connection with the 11 September attacks, long teetered on the brink of farce before Moussaoui finally pleaded guilty to some offences on 22 April. But his conviction throws little new light on al-Qa'ida's detailed planning for the attacks.

The first major terrorist case since the 11 September hijackings - ending in the 2003 conviction of four north African immigrants allegedly part of a Detroit terror cell - was thrown out the following year amid accusations of prosecutorial misconduct. The trial was hailed by the Bush administration as a major victory in the "war on terror". But the convictions were overturned because documents that could have helped the defence were not handed over by the government as required. This week the Justice Department prosecutor involved resigned.

AN aircraft carrier packed with hundreds of US marines will be anchored off the west coast of Scotland during the G8 summit, according to security sources.

The assault ship, also laden with helicopters, is expected to be dispatched as the United States armed forces prepare their own massive security operation to protect the president, George Bush, during the Gleneagles summit in July.

A fleet of Galaxy C-5 planes, carrying armoured limousines and the helicopters that will take Bush and his entourage to the venue, is expected to touch down at Prestwick airport.

The US is also believed to be insisting on having its own command post so it can act independently of the British police and military if there is a threat to the president.

A military source said: "The Americans want to do everything themselves. They want to have their own helicopters; their own armoured limousines. This happens at every summit like this, and it always causes tension between America and their hosts.

Caracas - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez lashed out at US President George W Bush, calling him "Mr. Danger" and saying wars from Iraq to Colombia show the American government is a menace to the world.

Chavez paused during a televised speech on Friday to read aloud Bush's comments to reporters at the White House a day earlier, when he said Venezuela's plans to buy 100 000 assault rifles from Russia raise concerns the guns could fall into the hands of Colombian rebels.

"The rifles are defensive weapons," Chavez said, adding that Kalashnikovs are nothing to the array of weapons wielded by US forces, such as "trans-Atlantic missiles."

"If I were buying one of those devices, with which we press a button to travel, arrive at the White House, then they could worry," he said. "They have thousands of those devices."

Chavez, a close ally of Fidel Castro, has accused the United States of plotting behind-the-scenes to overthrow him. Venezuela is a major supplier of US oil, but Chavez has said he would halt shipments if the Americans try to attack Venezuela.

"We do have reasons to be worried, Mr Danger, about the US arms build-up, about US threats, about the presence of US soldiers in Colombia," Chavez said.

He accused the US government of having "an interest in having war in Colombia" and providing large amounts of weapons.

"That's a reality, as it was in Central America, as it was in the Middle East. Who armed Saddam Hussein? Who gave Saddam Hussein weapons, ammunition, military technology? The US government," said Chavez, a fierce critic of the US war in Iraq.

"Who armed Osama bin Laden, and gave al-Qaida the great power it has? The United States," he said, apparently referring to US support for Afghan forces in their war against Soviet troops in the 1980s.

Chavez said he wouldn't be surprised if the United States were supplying guns to Colombian rebels, their paramilitary enemies and the Colombian army at the same time "to justify their Plan Patriot and at the same time establish military bases in Colombia."

"It's the perfect excuse for them to have a military presence in Colombia, and from there to threaten Venezuela, and threaten any other country that begins changes they don't like," Chavez said. "The Lords of War, you can call them."

US officials have expressed concerns that Chavez, elected in 1999, is growing increasingly authoritarian. In response, he has said Venezuela is moving toward a socialist system that will be more democratic that the capitalist system of the past.

Chavez said he hopes the United States will "leave me in peace so that I can work."

Television is a window on the world, but if you're sitting in Latin America, that window is more likely to be facing Baghdad than Buenos Aires. Or show Michael Jackson instead of Mexico City. Or offer a clearer view of Ukraine's Orange Revolution than the one in Ecuador last month.

The networks that cover regional news in Latin America are based elsewhere - such as CNN Español out of Atlanta, or Spain's TVE. International news delivered from a Latin point of view has been almost non-existent.

"Not for long," Venezuelan journalist Aram Aharonian says. On May 24, Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez will launch a 24-hour hemispheric TV news network, with Aharonian at the helm. The idea, Chávez has explained, is to combat "the conspiracy" by foreign networks to ignore or distort information about Latin America. "We have been trained to see ourselves through foreign eyes," Aharonian says. "Europeans and Americans see us in black and white, and yet this is a Technicolor continent."

Critics say Televisora del Sur (Telesur) - or TV of the South - will be used by Chávez to drown out the free press at home and spread his populist, socialist and anti-U.S. message throughout the region.

"We get enough of him already," says Ana Cristina Nuñez, legal counsel at Globovision, a 24-hour news station critical of Chávez.

Globovision, like all channels in Venezuela, is obligated by law to drop its regular programming to cover Chávez speeches whenever instructed by the government. His TV appearances are often hours-long rants against the United States or rambling chats with "the people." In the past, he has used them to praise Cuba's
Fidel Castro or to describe President Bush as a "jerk" bent on invading Venezuela.

Chávez's Telesur is drawing comparisons to Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based Arab satellite network. Al-Jazeera has been criticized repeatedly by the U.S. government and military for inflammatory and biased reporting in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East.

New sources of news can be healthy, says John Dinges, associate professor of journalism at Columbia University in New York. "I am in favor of initiatives that create additional voices in the news," he says. "Al-Jazeera, for example, has made an important impact on journalism in the Middle East."

If Telesur is a propaganda tool for Chávez, "that's politics, not journalism," Dinges says. "But if it's being done in order to spread an alternative journalistic voice, it will be good journalism and a contribution."

Telesur's programming, available by satellite, will be split between news and "Latin America interest" documentaries, reaching viewers across South, Central and North America. The network is a regional endeavor: Argentina owns 20%, Cuba 19% and Uruguay 10%. But Venezuela, with 51%, is the main player: The government has provided $2.5 million in start-up money. Other funding will come from corporate sponsors, though not advertising.

Venezuelan Information Minister Andrés Izarra is Telesur's president, and headquarters are being constructed here in Caracas. Other offices are being set up in Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Mexico, Cuba and in Washington. One of the news anchors will be Ati Kiwa, an indigenous Colombian woman who wears traditional native dress.

"We all like the idea of a Latin American perspective of news, but not a one-sided view," says Globovision's Nuñez. "I am very suspicious that Telesur will represent the voice only of leftist governments in Latin America - and will be an instrument of propaganda for them."

Globovision, like many other private media outlets in Venezuela, has tangled with Chávez. During the April 2002 coup that briefly ousted him, several news organizations openly sided with the opposition, providing round-the-clock coverage of anti-Chávez protests while refusing to air footage of massive demonstrations by his supporters. Ever since, "it has been payback time," she says.

Globovision hired Nuñez four months ago in response to Chávez's new press laws, under which whoever "offends," or "shows disrespect for," or "defames" the president or his top officials, faces fines and up to 30 months in prison.

Nuñez says the new laws have already led to self-censorship across the country's half-dozen private channels, she says. "There is no jurisprudence to go by, and people don't know what is allowed and what's a crime," she says.

Late-night TV jokes about Chávez are out, risqué political talk shows are being canceled, and news reports are being finely combed before airing. "Telesur is introducing a super-well-funded official voice, just as free-press voices are being fined and intimidated," she says.

Aharonian dismisses the idea that Telesur is part of a plan to muzzle the media or give Chávez an open microphone. The programming is not "against or instead of any other," but simply an option, he says. "That is what the remote control is for," he says, "so people can pick and choose between different perspectives."

NEW YORK A survey to be released Monday reveals a wide gap on many media issues between a group of journalists and the general public. In one finding, 43% of the public says the press has too much freedom, while only 3% of journalists agree. And just 14% of the public can name "freedom of the press" as a guarantee in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, in the major poll conducted by the University of Connecticut Department of Public Policy.

Six in ten among the public feel the media show bias in reporting the news, and 22% say the government should be allowed to censor the press. More than 7 in 10 journalists believe the media does a good or excellent job on accuracy -- but only 4 in 10 among the public feel that way. And a solid 53% of the public thinks stories with unnamed sources should not be published at all.

Perhaps the widest gap of all: 8 in 10 journalists said they read blogs, while less than 1 in 10 others do so. Still, a majority of the news pros do not believe bloggers deserve to be called journalists.

Asked who they voted for in the past election, the journalists reported picking Kerry over Bush by 68% to 25%. In this sample of 300 journalists, from both newspapers and TV, Democrats outnumbered Republicans by 3 to 1 -- but about half claim to be Independent. As in previous polls, a majority (53%) called their political orientation "moderate," versus 28% liberal and 10% conservative.

Earlier this year, a survey from the same department gained wide attention after it showed that American high schoolers had a rather flimsy grasp of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Half of the young people said they thought newspapers should not be able to publish stories without government approval. Stories about that survey appeared in hundreds of newspapers and it was even mentioned on the March 13 episode of the ABC drama "Boston Legal." [...]

Newspaper relevance in the average American's news diet appears to have slipped, with 61% of non-journalists using television as their main new source, and only 20% citing newspapers.

Blogs showed their growing influence among those polled, as 83% of journalists reported the use of blogs, with four out of 10 saying they use them at least once a week. Among those who use them, 55% said they do so to support their news-gathering work. And even though 85% believe bloggers should enjoy First Amendment protections, 75% say bloggers are not real journalists because they don't adhere to "commonly held ethical standards."

Overall, 61% of the news pros say that the emergence of the Internet has made journalism better.

Faced with the biggest recruitment shortfall since the draft was abolished in 1973, the Army has come up with what it thinks is a good idea. The nation's largest military force will allow new enlistees the option of serving just 15 months on active duty.

That's a lot less time spent in uniform than was required of most of the men who were drafted into the Army during the Vietnam War. And it's considerably less than the three- and four-year active duty service options that most of the men and women now in uniform were given when they enlisted.

But before anyone bellies up to a recruitment center to take advantage of this offer, they should read the fine print in the enlistment contract and an appeals court ruling that was issued a day after the Army's announcement.

'Stop-loss' authority

While one year and three months might not sound like a long time to serve this country in a time of war, those who take advantage of the Army's offer should know that their actual commitment to Uncle Sam will be at least eight years - not 15 months. Everyone who enters the all-volunteer military incurs a total service obligation of eight years, a portion of which is spent on active duty. For the remainder of this time, the enlistee can be called back into uniform at the government's discretion under a program called "stop-loss."

Now this small detail shouldn't cause a buckling of the knees among those who are moved by patriotism to accept the Army's offer. But for anyone who sees the Army's mini-tour as a quick way to earn some G.I. benefits and then retreat back into private life, they could be in for a big surprise.

Since the Bush administration launched its war on terrorism, enlistments in the Army have fallen sharply. Initially, the Army's use of its stop-loss authority was seen as a way of keeping highly trained people as fighting raged in
Iraq and
Afghanistan and the nation's military was stretched thin by the deployment of troops to other hot spots. But as the war in Iraq started taking a steady toll on American lives, the Army's use of its stop-loss power seems to be intended more to keep the ranks of its units filled as enlistments continue to decline.

Appeals court acts

Now if that isn't enough of a rude awakening, a ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals might make the Army's latest recruitment offer look even less inviting. A three-judge panel ruled Friday that the Army can use its stop-loss authority to keep people in the service even beyond their full eight-year military obligation.

"We do not minimize the disruption, hardship and risk that extension of his enlistment is causing," the appeals court said of Sgt. Emiliano Santiago, an Oregon Army National Guardsman who sued to keep from being forced to stay on active duty beyond the eight-year period. "For the reasons we have set forth, however, we conclude that the application of the stop-loss order did not breach his enlistment contract."

Other soldiers have mounted legal challenges to the stop-loss policy, but it's not likely that they will prevail where Santiago failed. In times of national emergency - and the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan qualifies as that - the nation's all-volunteer Army has the power to involuntarily extend the time soldiers have to spend on active duty.

But such a practice, while not illegal, is a serious breach of faith. It is also compelling evidence of the need for this nation to return to a military conscription, which would give the Army a steady flow of inductees to fill its ranks. By offering new recruits a 15-month tour of duty, the Army has effectively gutted its own argument against a draft that the longer enlistments of the all-volunteer force are needed to produce better trained soldiers.

The 15-month enlistment is an act of desperation. The Army, and the nation, would be better served by a return to the draft.

Reality Checks Needed During War

No doubt, Saddam has mistreated Kurds during his rule. But it's misleading to say, so simply and without context, that he killed his own people by gassing 5,000 Kurds at Halabja.

Halabja (pop. 80,000) is a small Kurdish city in northern Iraq. On Wednesday, the Star reminded readers that Saddam Hussein's Iraqi army killed 5,000 Kurds in a 1988 chemical weapons attack on Halabja near the end of a bloody, eight-year war with Iran.

The statement that Saddam was responsible for gassing the Kurds — his own people — was straightforward.

Indeed, U.S. President George W. Bush has used similar language about the disaster at Halabja in making a case for a military strike to oust Saddam.

Yet the Star also reported, in a Jan. 31 Opinion page column, that there's reason to believe the story about Saddam "gassing his own people" at Halabja may not even be true.

Curious about those contradictory reports, and prodded by Star reader Bill Hynes, the ombud decided to examine how this paper covered the Halabja story 15 years ago, when Washington was tilting toward Saddam's side in the Iran-Iraq war.

The Star's early coverage was skimpy. I found no breaking news story about the March 16, 1988 gas attack on the city.

But four days later, a Reuters News Agency dispatch (filed from Cyprus) said Kurds, fighting on the Iranian side, had managed to seize Halabja and nearby villages "where Iran has accused Iraq of using chemical weapons against Kurds."

Two days later, Reuters reported, Iran was alleging that 5,000 Kurds were killed by chemical bombs dropped on Halabja by the Iraqi Air Force.

Iranian officials put injured Iraqi civilians on display to back up their charges. An Iranian doctor said mustard gas and "some agent causing long-term damage" had been deployed.

Burn victim Ahmad Karim, 58, a street vendor from Halabja, told a reporter: "We saw the (Iraqi) planes come and use chemical bombs. I smelled something like insecticide."

Two weeks later, the fog of war over Halabja thickened a little when the Star ran a Reuters story saying a United Nations team had examined Iraqi and Iranian civilians who had been victims of mustard gas and nerve gas.

"But the two-man team did not say how or by whom the weapons had been used," the Reuters story said.

It explained that Iraq and Iran were accusing each other of using poison gas in violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol against chemical weapons.

In September, 1988, the Star quoted an unnamed U.N. official as saying the Security Council chose to condemn the use of gas in the Iran-Iraq war rather than finger Iraq, generally believed to have lost the war with Iran.

The same story said Iraq's claims that Iran also had used chemical weapons "have not been verified."

Buried in that story by freelancer Trevor Rowe was an intriguing piece of information. Rowe reported the Iraqi forces had attacked Halabja when it "was occupied by Iranian troops. Five thousand Kurdish civilians were reportedly killed."

Let's fast-forward to Jan. 31 of this year, when The New York Times published an opinion piece by Stephen C. Pelletiere, the CIA's senior political analyst on Iraq during the 1980s.

In the article, Pelletiere said the only thing known for certain was that "Kurds were bombarded with poison gas that day at Halabja. We cannot say with any certainty that Iraqi chemical weapons killed the Kurds."

Pelletiere said the gassing occurred during a battle between Iraqis and Iranians.

"Iraq used chemical weapons to try to kill Iranians who had seized the town ... The Kurdish civilians who died had the misfortune to be caught up in that exchange. But they were not Iraq's main target," he wrote.

The former CIA official revealed that immediately after the battle the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency investigated and produced a classified report that said it was Iranian gas that killed the Kurds.

Both sides used gas at Halabja, Pelletiere suggested.

"The condition of the dead Kurds' bodies however, indicated they had been killed with a blood agent — that is, a cyanide-based gas — which Iran was known to use. The Iraqis, who are thought to have used mustard gas in the battle, are not known to have possessed blood agents at the time."

"A War Crime Or an Act of War?" was the way The Times' headline writer neatly summed up Pelletiere's argument.

No doubt, Saddam has mistreated Kurds during his rule. But it's misleading to say, so simply and without context, that he killed his own people by gassing 5,000 Kurds at Halabja.

The fog of war that enveloped the battle at Halabja in 1988 never really lifted. With a new war threatening in Iraq, it's coming back stronger than ever.

Journalists risking their lives to cover an American-led attack on Iraq would face many obvious obstacles in trying to get at the truth.

In light of that, editors need to consider assigning staff back home to do reality checks on claims and counter-claims made in the fog of war.

As our retrospective on the Halabja story suggests, the bang-bang coverage — gripping though it may be — may not be enough to get the job done.

Muslims are rioting in Afghanistan because US interrogators at Guantanamo Bay flushed copies of the Koran down the toilet.

How do the rioters know this?

It was reported in Newsweek, a publication owned by the family of Eugene Meyer, a past Director of the War Finance Board (WW1), Governor of the Federal Reserve and President of the World Bank.

Nothing appears in the mass media without an ulterior purpose. The Illuminati is promoting a clash of "civilizations" between Islam and the US.

In the present run-up to World War Three, it is worth asking if this sinister cabal also orchestrated World War Two, which saw the genocide of 70 million human beings.

A detail in Prince Michel Sturdza's aptly titled "The Suicide of Europe" (1968) set off my alarm bells.

Sturdza was Romanian Foreign Minister from Sept.-Dec. 1940. He was a leader in the pro-Nazi, anti-Communist, nationalist Christian "Legionary" movement. The Nazis like their Communist counterparts were NWO, and opposed to all nationalist movements. They soon overthrew the Legionaries and put these patriots in concentration camps.

Before assuming his post in 1940, Sturdza was visiting Berlin. No one wanted to speak to him with the exception of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the wily chief of the Abwehr, German Army Intelligence.

Canaris had a request that both surprised and shocked Sturdza. He asked him to cooperate with Canaris' counterpart in Bucharest; a certain Moruzov who Sturdza suspected was a Communist agent.

Pressed on this, Canaris said Moruzov was providing the "best information concerning Soviet Russia's military preparations."

Before leaving Berlin, Sturdza received a visit from Canaris' deputy, a Captain Muller, "bearer once more of his chief's insistences, which left my wife and me perplexed."

"Captain Muller informed us that Great Britain had never been and would never be defeated. He added: "What I am about to tell you, coming from a Prussian officer, might perhaps be considered as an act of high treason. Pay attention however. Don't under any circumstances take the responsibility as Minister of Foreign Affairs in your country, of pushing it into a war where you have Great Britain as an adversary. You will be crushed. Great Britain is always victorious."

Considering that Germany had just routed England and France a few months ago, and ruled supreme over Europe, this was a peculiar thing for German Army Intelligence official to say.

Sturdza thought he was being tested and was non-committal. "I had not the faintest idea that I had been in contact with the greatest spy ring and traitors known to the military history of any country." (Page 162)

Indeed Canaris, who may have been of Greek-Jewish origin, sabotaged the Nazi war effort. Sturdza believes his ring was the main cause of the Nazi defeat. After a failed attempt to assassinate Hitler, Canaris and his associates were brutally murdered by the Gestapo.

Naturally, they are portrayed as courageous heroes: principled humanists who resisted fascist tyranny. I respect this and hope it is the case.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/

Yet, the statement, "You will be crushed. Great Britain is always victorious," suggests a different agenda, a larger design.

The headquarters of the "Communist-Capitalist International" is in the City of London. The Bank of England network financed the Nazi war machine just as it financed the Bolshevik revolution.

The bankers orchestrated World War Two to concentrate wealth in their hands, destroy the great nation states of Europe and wipe out the cream of the new generation. For example, the Soviets slaughtered 15,000 Polish officers in the Katyn forest even though the Poles could have helped resist the Nazis onslaught.

Was Canaris Illuminati or an illuminati dupe? Apparently he wanted to overthrow Hitler and end the war early, but the Allies insisted on "unconditional surrender," i.e. maximum slaughter. Thus the German army had no choice but fight to the end.

I don't see the Second World War as "the good war." It was fabricated to further degrade and demoralize humanity; both sides were guilty of unspeakable atrocities.

The two great wars, and the upcoming third are designed to bring about Illuminati one-world dictatorship and mind control.

Mankind is in the grip of a multigenerational diabolical conspiracy, and is too mesmerized by money and sex to realize it.

US Homeland Security Officers tying down a (domestic?) "terrorist"

PLAYAS, N.M.-- With its pristine Spanish-style houses and flowering gardens, this remote town seems an unlikely place to be the most dangerous spot in the United States. But for the past six months it has been under siege by terrorists.

First, a man took some hostages and holed up inside No. 1 Mesquite St., threatening to blow up the place. A SWAT team had to shoot its way inside and take him out. Then came the discovery of a pipe-bomb factory in a neighbor's kitchen, and an explosion on a bus in which eight were killed or wounded.

The attacks are simulations, part of a national training program for emergency personnel such as police, paramedics and border patrol officers. For the roughly 20 families who live in this government-contracted town and the several dozen others who live on the outskirts, however, the events are sometimes almost too real.

"It feels like I'm in war," said Trent Johnson, 17, who was born and raised here. Helicopters fly overhead in the middle of the night. Sometimes while he is going to school or running errands he and his parents must make their way past a maze of ambulances, fire engines and Humvees. "It's kind of freaky to see people in uniform walking down your street with M-4s."

Mercifully, evidence of the attacks does not last long. After each crisis, a cleanup crew arrives, quietly sweeping up shattered glass, replacing smashed doors, patching cracked walls. Their job is to rewind the clock, returning the town to the way it was before the attack, as if nothing had happened.

Next come a few quiet days, sometimes a few quiet weeks. Then the attacks begin all over again.

Life has been this way since December, when the first trainees began arriving from across the country. Nicknamed "terror town" by locals, Playas is part of a multibillion-dollar initiative by the federal government to prepare for what some think is inevitable: another attack on U.S. soil.

While the government's efforts to prevent terrorism -- extra security at airports and at the borders, the roundup of suspect combatants -- have been the most visible, it also has dedicated significant resources to trying to predict and respond to worst-case scenarios. The cornerstone of that effort involves simulations.

"You'll never fight the scenario you train against but the fact that you've been exposed to similar conditions in a synthetic environment -- one where there's no penalty or harm for making a mistake -- is the best opportunity you're going to have to learn," said Corey Gruber, director of policy for the Office for Domestic Preparedness in the Homeland Security Department.

The challenge for those who design the simulations is to create something that is more than a flashy Hollywood act. Some critics have questioned the cost and usefulness of simulations, saying that trying to get a handle on the infinite number of variables involved in any possible attack is pointless and the government might be better off putting its resources into other projects. Another worry is the danger that enemies of the United States may be able to use data from the exercises as a playbook for targets. [...]

New Mexico specializes in explosives.

Letter bombs, pipe bombs, car bombs and the improvised explosive devices placed on roadways are among the easiest of weapons for terrorist to create. That is why many believe they have been so difficult to control in Iraq and are the most likely to make their way to the United States first.

"This is something that terrorists have been using for a long time and we believe they'll use here in the future," said Van Romero, vice president for research and economic development at New Mexico Tech.

Playas resident Benjamin Davis recalled what it was like to play a bus passenger seated next to a bomber in one scenario.

"It makes you realize how awful the world can be . . . It makes you think," said Davis, 23, a furniture store worker and volunteer firefighter who was paid $10 an hour for his role-playing.

When New Mexico Tech moved in, it closed the town to newcomers. Existing families were relocated to three streets on the eastern side of town. They pay about $375 a month in rent, depending on their home's size, condition and location.

Bill Cavaliere, 47, is one of those who decided to stay. He is the former sheriff of Hidalgo County which includes Playas and extends south to the Mexican border. He said is proud of his town's role in helping stop terrorism. When soldiers came to train recently, he said, "we said 'God bless you' and waved American flags."

David and Kathy Johnson, Trent's parents, have mixed feelings about their decision to remain in Playas. They did it mostly because they did not want to uproot their son during his senior year of high school. They say that their new landlords have tried hard to minimize disruptions to their lives--for instance, building a special half-mile road for David, 50, so his commute to his job at the cattle ranch on the other side of town would not take him through training exercises in the center of town. And, as landlord, New Mexico Tech continues to make available a bank window, convenience store and diner. It also threw the residents a Christmas dinner and gave each family a bottle of champagne for New Year's.

But despite the university's best efforts, Kathy, 47, a bookkeeper for a nearby school district who has lived in Playas for 17 years, said that lately she has been feeling as if she is living in an occupied town.

One afternoon on her way back from work, she was stopped by a soldier standing next to a tank who asked to see her driver's license. Then New Mexico Tech barricaded half of the town, declaring it a restricted area and making her family sign forms saying they will not enter without an escort. Last month, the town's operators instituted a new visitor's policy, requiring outsiders to check in at the police station before entering town.

CANNES, France (Reuters) - The dark underside of the United States has taken center stage in several films at Cannes this year, capped on Monday with a scathing attack of past and present racism in America by Danish director Lars von Trier.

"Manderlay," about a fictional Alabama plantation where people are living in 1933 as if slavery were never abolished, staggered festival-goers with a disturbing portrayal of America that fails, even today, to come to terms with its racist past.

There are a number of other films that examine dark and depressing aspects of the United States and "American Dream" losers, filled with violence, drugs and alcohol abuse. They were made by directors from the United States, Canada and Europe.

The films, screening at the world's most important festival here, also feed off a lingering anti-American sentiment prevailing in Europe over the Iraq war. Michael Moore won the festival's top award last year for his film "Fahrenheit 9/11."

Von Trier, whose fear of flying has prevented him from visiting the United States, won thunderous cheers at the world premiere and a news conference, where he said he enjoyed bashing America on screen because it invades his life even in Denmark.

"We are all under the influence -- and it's a very bad influence -- from America," said the 49-year-old Dane. "In my country everything has to do with America. America is kind of sitting on the world.

"America has to do with 60 percent of my brain and all things I experience in my life, and I'm not happy about that," von Trier said. I'd say 60 percent of my life is American so I am in fact an 'American' too. But I can't go there and vote or change anything there. That is why I make films about America."

"Manderlay," which stars Danny Glover, Willem Dafoe and Bryce Dallas Howard in a bare theatrical setting, is only the latest film by von Trier to probe America's darkest corners -- all with anything but happy endings.

VON TRIER WAITING FOR ANTI-DANISH FILM

Other dark American films include U.S. director Gus van Sant's "Last Days" about rocker Kurt Cobain's drug-induced demise and suicide while parasite friends ignored his distress, and Canadian Atom Egoyan's "Where the Truth Lies" with Kevin Bacon as an over-sexed, over-drugged celebrity.

"The world is a very dark and sinister place," van Sant told Reuters. He agreed those films appeal to European audiences.

Egoyan said the United States is a rich target for directors but his film, despite its dark story, was not attacking America.

"The film isn't trying to condemn a culture," he said, but he added: "That culture is based on a tremendous sense of power of the media. It's a culture that looks at itself all the time."

European filmmakers have long had an awkward relationship with the United States. Hollywood films dominate markets with between 60 and 80 percent of each national box office. While loudly criticising the style and substance of big Hollywood films, many have quietly adopted some of those very techniques.

At Cannes there are other films probing America's underbelly: "A History of Violence" is a portrayal of redneck American bloodletting, "Sin City" with Bruce Willis needs no further explanation, and "Don't Come Knocking" is about an over-the-hill Western hero's steep fall with alcohol and drugs.

Canadian David Cronenberg, who directed "A History of Violence," said he could have set his film anywhere but chose a small Midwestern town because it fitted the story best.

"As any artist will tell you, to be universal you have to be specific," Cronenberg said. "It's very deliberately put in an American setting to show a universal problem."

There are also films not in competition that examine the dark side of the United States.

"The Power of Nightmares" is a powerful British documentary about U.S. President George W.. Bush's use of fear and illusions to rally support for his war on terror.

But von Trier, whose equally bleak America story "Dogville" starring Nicole Kidman was also at Cannes in 2003, said he would be happy to watch a film slamming his home country of Denmark.

TEL AVIV — Israel's military brass expects that the West Bank would become the next arena in a resurgence of the Palestinian war against Israel.

Israeli security sources said the intelligence community has determined that Palestinian insurgents have smuggled Kassam-class short-range missiles and mortars into the West Bank. They said reports that SA-7 anti-aircraft missiles are also being transferred are under investigation.

The sources said the smuggling of weapons started from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, into Israel's southern Negev desert and then into the West Bank.

"Keeping anti-aircraft missiles in the Gaza Strip doesn't do much good because there is no civilian air traffic," an officer said. "But bringing the missiles into the West Bank means you can target planes going in and out of Ben-Gurion [international airport]."

Comment: Given the Israeli penchant for fighting their war against the Palestinians from both sides, the above sounds like the mother of all setups.

Senior military officers said Palestinian insurgency groups, supported by Iran, Hizbullah and Syria, have sought to deploy heavy weapons into the West Bank for attacks against Israeli communities both in the area as well as within the pre-1967 borders of the Jewish state. They said the military and security services believe the ruling Fatah movement along with the opposition Hamas smuggled the first Palestinian missiles into the West Bank in early 2005.

"The terrorists won't quit after the disengagement," a senior officer said. "Their goal is to introduce the same kind of weapons and the same attacks that have taken place in the Gaza Strip over the last three years."

In the first Israeli air strike against Palestinian resistance fighters since they began observing a de facto truce in February, a Hamas member was wounded when an Israeli fighter plane attacked a group of Palestinians in southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday.

Palestinian medical sources named the victim of the air strike as Ahmed Shahwan, a 24-year-old Hamas member from Khan Yunis.

Shahwan lost both legs and an arm when Israeli fighter planes attacked, according to medics and witnesses.

The Israeli army said around 20 mortar shells and two Qassam rockets were fired by Hamas fighters at Jewish colonies in Gaza.

Israeli settlements in Gaza and the West Bank are illegal under international law.

Hamas charge

Hamas said the mortar shells were fired in retaliation against the killing of one of its members in Rafah earlier on Wednesday.

The slain man was on a patrol when a grenade or small explosive device was detonated by Israeli occupation soldiers, Hamas said.

The Israeli army said its forces could not have been behind the Rafah killing because they did not fire explosive devices during a brief exchange with Palestinian fighters.

The Israeli army said, though, that soldiers had come under attack from automatic gunfire and anti-tank rockets and had responded.

At nightfall on Wednesday, three members of the Palestinian security services were wounded in violent clashes with Hamas activists in the Gaza Strip.

The security officers were attempting to stop the men from firing mortars at a Jewish settlement in retaliation against Wednesday's Israeli military operations.

Officer shot

One Palestinian security officer was shot and the other two were wounded by stone-throwing Hamas supporters. None of the three were thought to have been seriously injured.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri denied the group's members were involved in the incident, saying the cell concerned consisted of members of another, small Palestinian faction.

But the Palestinian Interior Ministry charged that Hamas activists used civilians as shields, and eight officers were hurt by rocks.

"This cannot be accepted and this serious violation will not pass (unanswered)," a ministry statement said.

Hamas denied opening fire at the police.

Comment: So while Hamas are firing dodgy rockets at Israeli settlements and providing the justification for Sharon to claim that the PA is doing nothing about "terrorism", Hamas is also attacking PA policemen. How very, very convenient for Sharon. Just who's side is Hamas on?

Speaking in Jerusalem Dec. 20, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer made the connection between the growth of the Islamic fundamentalist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and Israel's promotion of the Islamic movement as a counter to the Palestinian nationalist movement. Kurtzer's comments come very close to EIR's own presentation of the evidence of Israel's instrumental role in establishing Hamas, and its ongoing control of that organization.

Kurtzer said that the growth of the Islamic movement in the Palestinian territories in recent decades—"with the tacit support of Israel"—was "not totally unrelated" to the emergence of Hamas and Islamic Jihad and their terrorist attacks against Israel. Kurtzer explained that during the 1980s, when the Islamic movement began to flourish in the West Bank and Gaza, "Israel perceived it to be better to have people turning toward religion rather than toward a nationalistic cause [the Palestinian Liberation Organization—ed.]." It therefore did little to stop the flow of money to mosques and other religious institutions, rather than to schools. [...]

The ambassador's comments are an acknowledgment of what any serious Middle East observers knows: Hamas has always been seen as a tool by which Israel could undermine the nationalist movement led by Palestinian Authority President and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat. Similar statements by Arafat have been dismissed by Israel as "cranky" propaganda. In an interview with the Dec. 11 Italian daily Corriere della Sera, Arafat said, "We are doing everything to stop the violence. But Hamas is a creature of Israel which at the time of Prime Minister [Yitzhak] Shamir [the late 1980s, when Hamas arose], gave them money and more than 700 institutions, among them schools, universities and mosques. Even [former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak] Rabin ended up admitting it, when I charged him with it, in the presence of [Egpytian President Hosni] Mubarak."

It is difficult to imagine that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, with his much vaunted military and strategic acumen, did not understand the consequences of his policies over the past month.

Since the last suicide bombing on November 21, escalating Israeli military assaults have killed over sixty Palestinian civilians, culminating in the December 26 wave of killing and abductions, in which Israeli occupying forces killed at least nine Palestinians, injured more than 30 and abducted several others.

On that day alone, Israeli execution squads assassinated three prominent members from three different militant Palestinian groups: Hamza Abu el-Rab of Islamic Jihad, Ibrahim Hawash, of Hamas and Gamal Abu el-Nader of Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigades. All three groups vowed revenge.

As if on que, the horrific double suicide bombing near the old Tel Aviv bus station took place within two weeks of these assassinations and reports have now confirmed that the bombers were members of the Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigades. Twenty two Israeli's and foreign workers were killed and a hundred more injured.

Any observer with elementary skills in discerning cause and effect could see this latest suicide bombing atrocity coming. In fact, the vast majority of the nearly 100 Palestinian suicide bombings since they began in 1994 have followed an almost predictable sequence: Israeli attacks that cause major Palestinian civilian casualties or Israeli assassinations of important militant leaders are the most common trigger leading to suicide bombing cycles.

But what is even more incriminating is the extent to which Sharon has systematically ordered violent Israeli military incursions and assassinations during major cease-fires by militant Palestinian groups as well as diplomatic efforts to ease the hostilities, resulting in new suicide attacks.

More notorious was Sharon's decision to assassinate leading Hamas militant Mahmud Abu Hanoud on November 23, 2001 just when the Hamas was upholding an agreement with Arafat not to attack targets inside of Israel and a few days before US envoy General Zinni was to arrive in Israel.

In a widely cited article from November 25 2001, the conservative military commentator for one of Israel's leading newspapers Yediot Aharanot, Alex Fishman, noted that this assassination had the effect of "shattering in one blow the gentleman's agreement between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority." He continued that "Whoever decided upon the liquidation of Abu Hanoud knew in advance that [a terrorist attack inside of Israel] would be the price. The subject was extensively discussed both by Israel's military echelon and its political one, before it was decided to carry out the liquidation."

And any observer can easily discern the obvious political windfall for Ariel Sharon generated by this attack.

First, Sharon is now able to resist any pressure to agree to the latest draft of the Middle East peace "road map" drawn up by the so-called quartet, made up of the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia. Sharon strongly opposed its recommendations that in the first stage, from January to June 2003, Israeli commitments would include a total freeze on Jewish settlements in the West Bank and a pullback to positions held before the uprising began in September 2000.

Second, the talks in Cairo between members of Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction and representatives from Hamas and Islamic Jihad about a temporary cease-fire are now irrelevant.

And finally, Ariel Sharon is now almost assured re-election as Palestinian attacks inevitably give a strong boost to the hard line parties in Israel that he leads.

Palestinian officials were quick to point out the obvious following December 26 assassinations.

"The escalation of violence by (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon is aimed at creating a volatile atmosphere which he believes will serve him in his election campaign," Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo told Reuters on December 27. "Sharon is inviting retaliation because he wants ... to prevent any possibility of an agreement (between Palestinian factions) on a cease fire," he continued.

In a scathing August 2, 2002 editorial in Israel's prestigious Ha'aretz newspaper, Doron Rosenblum declared that "In short, any four-year-old child who examined this pattern of events would conclude thatthis government, whether consciously or not, is simply not interested in the cessation of the terrorist attacks, for they constitute its raison d'etre".

Israeli occupation forces have shot and killed a Palestinian on the Gaza-Egyptian border, according to witnesses. Ahmed Barhoum, 22, a volunteer guard at the Rafah refugee camp, was hit in the head by a bullet early on Wednesday.

Palestinians at the camp said they also heard an explosion. The Israeli military said it did not know of the incident, but over 20 Palestinians have been killed since a ceasefire was announced on 8 February, most of them children.

Meanwhile, hundreds of young protesters flooded Israeli courtrooms on Tuesday after blocking dozens of highways a day before.
Extra judges were brought into courtrooms to handle hearings for more than 300 protesters, most of them in their teens and early 20s, detained while blocking highways with burning tires and their own bodies.

Police agreed to release about 130 with a ban on similar protests for 60 days.

Supporters of the Israeli protesters, most of them teenagers with large skullcaps and ritual fringes identifying them as Orthodox Jews, sang and danced outside the coutrooms on Tuesday, encouraging their friends as they were taken inside, many in handcuffs.

The protest ban would expire in mid-July, just as the activists move into high gear in their drive to scuttle the pullout. [...]

JERUSALEM (AP) - Kidnapped, beaten at knifepoint, and told he would not leave his makeshift prison alive: That was the punishment the family of Israel's Sephardi chief rabbi meted out to a 17-year-old youth who dared to seek the attentions of the rabbi's daughter, according to an indictment issued Tuesday.

The rabbi, Shlomo Amar, is not a suspect in the case, but his wife, Mazal, son Meir, and two Arab accomplices were charged, variously, with kidnapping, assault, wrongful imprisonment and extortion through threats, the Justice Ministry said.

The case has been at the center of a media frenzy, but prompted only isolated calls for the rabbi's resignation or the dismantling of the office of chief rabbi, a government position. Israel has two chief rabbis _ one Sephardic, one Ashkenazi _ for Jews of Middle Eastern and European descent, respectively.

Speaking after the indictments were filed in Tel Aviv district court, Rabbi Amar said he would stand by his wife, and again pinned the blame for the incident on his 31-year-old son Meir, who has broken with his ultra-Orthodox upbringing.

"The decision to file an indictment against my wife fills me with sorrow because I am certain with all my heart and soul that she did not know anything about Meir's intentions," the rabbi said in a statement.

Mazal Amar's attorney denied the charges against her.

The youth, who was not identified because he is a minor, became acquainted with the rabbi's 18-year-old daughter, Ayala, through an Internet chat room, and the two subsequently met, unchaperoned, Israeli media have reported. Contact between unmarried men and women is taboo in the ultra-Orthodox world.

According to the indictment, when Mazal Amar found out about the relationship, she warned the youth to stay away from her daughter, and threatened to expose his romantic pursuits to the ultra-Orthodox school where he studies.

When the youth refused to be put off, Meir Amar hatched a plot to teach his sister and her suitor a lesson: He would kidnap them both, and bring them to heel using violent means, the indictment said.

Luring Ayala into a car one night on a pretext, he forced her to entice her beau into the vehicle on a pretext, too _ threatening to use gunfire to get the youth into the car if she didn't.

Meir Amar then drove to the apartment where his accomplices lived, locked Ayala in the car and hustled her suitor into the house, the charge sheet said.

There, held at knifepoint, the boy was beaten _ at times with a belt later used to handcuff him _ kicked, slapped in the face, and interrogated about his ties with Ayala, the indictment said. His assailants also cut off his forelocks, a terrible humiliation in the ultra-Orthodox world, and told he wouldn't leave the apartment alive.

One of the assailants also brought in a pair of attack dogs and positioned them, snapping and snarling, near the youth.

The assault shifted to the rabbi's house the following morning after a middle-of-the-night phone call from Meir Amar to his mother, the indictment said. At his parent's home, Meir Amar spoke with both his father and mother, the indictment said, with no further elaboration. That laconic mention of the chief rabbi is the only one in the indictment.

Mazal served her son and his accomplices coffee after that discussion, and looked on, pleased, as the beatings resumed, the indictment said.

About an hour after arriving at the rabbi's house that morning, Meir Amar told the youth to get out of Jerusalem and stay out until 2007, and threatened to kill him and hurt his family if he were to go to the police, the indictment said.

TBILISI, Georgia -- A grenade hurled in a crowd during last week's speech by President Bush in the Georgian capital was live and considered a threat against the president, though it failed to explode because of a malfunction, the FBI said Wednesday.

In Washington, the White House spokesman said Secret Service agents in Georgia were examining whether security changes were needed, noting that some people at Freedom Square were seen getting around metal detectors at Bush's May 10 speech.

Initially Georgian officials said the Soviet-era grenade was found on the ground, was inactive and posed no danger to Bush.

But FBI agent Bryan Paarmann said Wednesday that the grenade, wrapped in a dark handkerchief, fell about 100 feet from the podium where Bush was speaking and "simply failed to function."

He identified it as a live hand grenade, whereas initial Georgian statements said it appeared to have been an "engineering grenade," a device that is not designed to spread shrapnel.

"We consider this act to be a threat against the health and welfare of the president of the United States as well as the welfare of the multitudes of Georgian people who turned up for this event," Paarmann said.

Bush spoke to tens of thousands of people in Freedom Square, a main plaza in Tbilisi, as part of a visit aimed at cementing relations between the United States and the ex-Soviet republic's new pro-Western leadership. He offered strong support for Georgia's democratic developments, and the crowd response was overwhelmingly favorable.

President Mikhail Saakashvili also was on the podium when Bush spoke, raising the prospect that the grenade could have been directed at him. Saakashvili, who came to power after the 2003 Rose Revolution that ousted Eduard Shevardnadze, has provoked enmity with anti-corruption initiatives and insistence on restoring control over two de-facto independent separatist regions.

Bush spoke from behind bulletproof glass and U.S. officials said last week that he had not been in danger.

In fact, the president was not aware of the grenade incident until Secret Service agents on the plane told him about it as he returned to Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said at the time.

No arrests have been made in the case, and police have appealed to the public for videotapes that may contain footage of the incident. A reward equal to $11,000 is being offered.

"Work is going on in a lot of directions; that's all that can be said," said Inter Ministry spokesman Guram Donadze.

McClellan said Wednesday the president was updated on the new information Tuesday night and given an additional report when the FBI director attended the president's usual security briefing.

"The FBI is working very closely with Georgian authorities to make sure that this is fully investigated," he said. "We want to see the results of that investigation once it is completed."

McClellan would not comment on the president's personal reaction to the news and would not say whether it would effect future presidential events.

"The Secret Service is looking into all those issues," he said. "The Secret Service has the full trust of the president. They go to great lengths to provide for his security."

Weapons apparently are widespread among the Georgian populace, partly because of the disorder that has plagued the ex-Soviet republic during the past decade, including two wars with separatist regions.

The separatist conflicts remain unresolved and two regions -- Abkhazia and South Ossetia -- bristle at Saakashvili's repeated statement of intent to restore Georgian control of the regions.

Russia has close ties with both regions' internationally unrecognized governments. In his Tbilisi speech, Bush said all nations must respect Georgia's territorial integrity, a clear message to Russia to not exacerbate separatist tensions.

NEW YORK : New York property tycoon Donald Trump unveiled his design Wednesday for "bigger, stronger and better" twin towers to replace the World Trade Center originals destroyed on September 11, 2001.

Denouncing the existing plans for rebuilding Ground Zero as the "worst pile of crap architecture I've ever seen," Trump argued that erecting two new, even taller twin towers was the only valid response to the terrorists.

The consummate self-promoter, known as "The Donald," showed off his proposal just weeks after the official master design was put on hold because of security concerns surrounding the centerpiece 1,776 foot Freedom Tower.

Describing the Freedom Tower as an "empty skeleton," Trump said its construction would be a capitulation.

"If we rebuild the World Trade Center in the form of a skeleton ... the terrorists win. It's that bad," he told reporters gathered in the lobby of his Fifth Avenue Trump Towers headquarters in Manhattan. [...]

As if swiping a card at the checkout counter weren't fast enough, credit companies will soon let you buy goods by simply tapping a card, waving a key fob or holding a cell phone next to the cash register.

Visa, MasterCard and American Express all are planning nationwide rollouts this year of "contactless payment" programs.

Anyone who has used a Speedpass wand to buy gas at a Mobil or Exxon station already is familiar with contactless payments. The pinky-sized Speedpass contains a radio frequency identification (RFID) chip that transmits the user's credit and security information to a gas pump.

Credit card companies want to embed similar RFID technology in their plastic cards, key fobs or other devices that many consumers always carry with them, such as a cell phone or a handheld PDA computer.

For merchants, such quick-pay devices could make purchases with credit a faster and more attractive alternative to cash — especially at places where cash transactions are more common, such as fast-food restaurants and movie theaters. More transactions mean more money for merchants and for the credit card companies and banks that issue cards.

Card companies have flopped with new technology before, though. Convincing merchants to pay for special terminals won't be easy, and just because the option is available to consumers doesn't mean they'll use it.

Nonetheless, "we see great promise in this type of technology," said Molly Faust, a spokeswoman for American Express, which is beginning a nationwide rollout of its ExpressPay system based on chips developed by Dallas-based Texas Instruments Inc. "It's a great new payment product."

In a lengthy test in Phoenix, customers using Amex's chip-embedded key fobs at select merchants completed transactions 63 percent faster than with cash, Faust said. The average transaction amount, meanwhile, was up more than 20 percent, she said.

In addition to issuing key fobs to cardholders who request them, Amex has said it plans to include the technology in all its new Blue credit cards.

Amex this year plans to introduce ExpressPay at 5,300 CVS drug stores nationwide. It also has signed up other merchants, including 1,500 Ritz Camera shops and Sheetz convenience stores.

Other credit card companies are making similar moves.

MasterCard, the biggest proponent of contactless payment cards, has been diligently signing up merchants for more than a year to participate in its PayPass program, including select McDonald's, vendors at the stadiums of the NFL's Baltimore Ravens and Seattle Seahawks, and most recently Regal Entertainment Group movie theaters nationwide.

MasterCard ran an extensive consumer test of its contactless cards in Orlando two years ago and tested specially equipped Nokia cell phones with consumers in Dallas.

MasterCard officials declined to comment, in part because they were too busy preparing for another major announcement as early as next week, according to a company representative. Other MasterCard representatives said a major rollout of a contactless payment system is slated for Atlanta and other cities in coming months.

Visa International, meanwhile, announced in February it had completed development of its own contactless payment program. The world's biggest credit card company has been mum on specifics, but has hinted it expects to announce by this summer that one or more major national banks will support chip-embedded Visa cards. It also has successfully introduced the system, using both cards and cell phones, in Asia and other parts of the world. [...]

CIUDAD JUAREZ, MEXICO - Police found the body of a 10-year-old girl who had been sexually abused, strangled and partly burned in Ciudad Juarez on Tuesday, just two days after the body of a 7-year-old girl was found in similar circumstances nearby.

Ciudad Juarez has suffered a decadelong series of sexually motivated killings of young women.

The child found Tuesday, identified as Anahi Orozco, had been raped, asphyxiated and set afire, probably late Monday night, according to assistant state prosecutor Flor Mireya Aguilar.

The girl's body was found on a mattress in her house; her two younger sisters, ages 1 1/2 and 3, were also apparently at home at the time of the attack. The children's parents had left the girls alone while they worked. Two possible suspects have been identified.

On Sunday, the body of a kidnapped 7-year-old girl was found in a wood-and-cardboard shack about 20 miles south of Ciudad Juarez.

Police and school district officials said Tuesday that a fifth-grader at Blanton Elementary School confiscated a loaded semiautomatic handgun from a 5-year-old pre-kindergartener at the Northeast Austin campus after realizing the weapon was real. [...]

Scotland Yard today revealed it has been unable to trace all but two of 300 black boys aged four to seven reported missing from school in a three-month period.

Child welfare experts say the number highlights the scale of the trade in children brought to Britain as domestic servants and covers for benefit fraud.

The figure emerged through the murder inquiry following the discovery of a child's torso in the Thames in September 2001. The identity of the victim, named "Adam" by police, is not known but his background was traced to Nigeria, it is believed he died in a ritual sacrifice.

Detectives asked each London local education authority to give them details of black boys aged four to seven reported missing from school between July and September 2001. It emerged 300 had vanished, 299 from Africa and one from the Caribbean.

Police only managed to trace two children. The true figure for missing boys and girls is feared to be several thousand a year.

Detective Chief Inspector Will O'Reilly, leading the hunt for Adam's killers, said: "It is a large figure, far more than we anticipated. 300 young boys didn't return to school and are really lost in the system."

Police visited the children's addresses, but in most cases were told the boys had returned to Africa. Inquiries undertaken via Interpol in the boys' home countries failed to trace them.

Journalist Yinka Sunmonu, an expert in the issue, told the BBC's Today programme: "Children are being trafficked. There is domestic slavery, physical abuse, sexual abuse. Children are ... here one day and gone the next."

The Met's recent Paladin child investigation found hundreds of unaccompanied children arrive in Britain each month.

CLIMATE change researchers have detected the first signs of a slowdown in the Gulf Stream — the mighty ocean current that keeps Britain and Europe from freezing.

They have found that one of the “engines” driving the Gulf Stream — the sinking of supercooled water in the Greenland Sea — has weakened to less than a quarter of its former strength.

The weakening, apparently caused by global warming, could herald big changes in the current over the next few years or decades. Paradoxically, it could lead to Britain and northwestern and Europe undergoing a sharp drop in temperatures.

Such a change has long been predicted by scientists but the new research is among the first to show clear experimental evidence of the phenomenon.

Peter Wadhams, professor of ocean physics at Cambridge University, hitched rides under the Arctic ice cap in Royal Navy submarines and used ships to take measurements across the Greenland Sea.

“Until recently we would find giant ‘chimneys’ in the sea where columns of cold, dense water were sinking from the surface to the seabed 3,000 metres below, but now they have almost disappeared,” he said.

“As the water sank it was replaced by warm water flowing in from the south, which kept the circulation going. If that mechanism is slowing, it will mean less heat reaching Europe.”

Such a change could have a severe impact on Britain, which lies on the same latitude as Siberia and ought to be much colder. The Gulf Stream transports 27,000 times more heat to British shores than all the nation’s power supplies could provide, warming Britain by 5-8C.

Wadhams and his colleagues believe, however, that just such changes could be well under way. They predict that the slowing of the Gulf Stream is likely to be accompanied by other effects, such as the complete summer melting of the Arctic ice cap by as early as 2020 and almost certainly by 2080. This would spell disaster for Arctic wildlife such as the polar bear, which could face extinction.

Wadhams’s submarine journeys took him under the North Polar ice cap, using sonar to survey the ice from underneath. He has measured how the ice has become 46% thinner over the past 20 years. The results from these surveys prompted him to focus on a feature called the Odden ice shelf, which should grow out into the Greenland Sea every winter and recede in summer.

The growth of this shelf should trigger the annual formation of the sinking water columns. As sea water freezes to form the shelf, the ice crystals expel their salt into the surrounding water, making it heavier than the water below.

However, the Odden ice shelf has stopped forming. It last appeared in full in 1997. “In the past we could see nine to 12 giant columns forming under the shelf each year. In our latest cruise, we found only two and they were so weak that the sinking water could not reach the seabed,” said Wadhams, who disclosed the findings at a meeting of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna.

The exact effect of such changes is hard to predict because currents and weather systems take years to respond and because there are two other areas around the north Atlantic where water sinks, helping to maintain circulation. Less is known about how climate change is affecting these.

However, Wadhams suggests the effect could be dramatic. “One of the frightening things in the film The Day After Tomorrow showed how the circulation in the Atlantic Ocean is upset because the sinking of cold water in the north Atlantic suddenly stops,” he said.

“The sinking is stopping, albeit much more slowly than in the film — over years rather than a few days. If it continues, the effect will be to cool the climate of northern Europe.”

One possibility is that Europe will freeze; another is that the slowing of the Gulf Stream may keep Europe cool as global warming heats the rest of the world — but with more extremes of weather.

BEIJING- Global warming is shrinking glaciers on the Tibet side of Mount Everest faster than ever, putting world water supplies at risk, Xinhua news agency said on Tuesday.Chinese scientists researching the world's tallest peak, which China refers to by its Tibetan name, "Qomolangma", had found clear evidence of increasing glacial melting, Xinhua said.

"Global warming has resulted in glaciers melting fast in the Mount Qomolangma area ... threatening the balance of global water resources," it said.

Around 75 percent of the world's fresh water is stored in glacial ice, much of it in mountain areas, allowing for heavy winter rain and snowfall to be released gradually into river networks throughout the summer or dry months.

"The growing melting area means less fresh water reserves for the world in the future," Xinhua said.

The Chinese scientists had found the melting point of one Everest glacier had risen around 50 metres (165 ft) in just two years, more than twice as fast as normal, while a huge, high-altitude ice cliff seen in 2002 had apparently disappeared, it said.

Similar melting has been reported on Nepal's side of the mountain. The United Nations warned in 2002 that more than 40 Himalayan glacial lakes were dangerously close to bursting, endangering thousands of people, because of global warming.

Scientists say global warming could drive the average global temperature up by 1.4-5.8 degrees Celsius over the next 100 years, which would cause glaciers to retreat and oceans to rise and swamp low-lying areas around the world.

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) - Deforestation in the Amazon rain forest in 2004 was the second-worst ever, figures released by the Brazilian government showed Wednesday.

Satellite photos and data showed ranchers, soybean farmers and loggers burned and cut down a near-record area of 26,130 square kilometres of rain forest in the 12 months ending in August 2004, the Brazilian Environmental Ministry said.

The destruction was nearly six per cent higher than in the same period the year before, when 24,600 square kilometres were destroyed.

The deforestation hit record numbers in 1995, when the Amazon shrank by a record 29,000 square kilometres, an area roughly the size of Belgium.

Environmentalists were shocked with the new figures, which were announced nearly a year after the Brazilian government announced a multimillion-dollar package to curtail destruction.

"It's a tragedy, a demonstration that more needs to be done by the government," said Paulo Adario, head of Greenpeace's Amazon program. [...]

ARICHA, Bangladesh : Efforts to find the bodies of scores of passengers feared drowned in Bangladesh's second ferry sinking in three days have been put on hold early due to strong currents, as thousands of people gathered at the scene, desperate for news of missing relatives. Two people were confirmed dead in Tuesday's accident in central Bangladesh, which happened two days after another boat sank in the south of the country with the loss of at least 60 lives.

The twin-decked "M.V. Raipura" went down in a storm in the Padma river at Aricha about 100 kilometres (62 miles) west of Dhaka.
"We have a team of 10 divers here but they cannot dive for more than four to five minutes at a time because the currents are so strong," said Nurul Haq, assistant director of Dhaka fire brigade, at the scene.

Survivors said there were at least 100 people on board. [...]

AN earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale shook parts of Indonesia's Sumatra island today, but there were no immediate reports of casualties or property damage, a meteorologist said.
The offshore quake hit at 11.54am AEST, with the epicentre 240km west of the town of Sibolga in North Sumatra, at a depth of 33km, said Syahnan, chief meteorologist in Aceh province in northern Sumatra.

Residents of Aceh's provincial capital, Banda Aceh, ran out of their homes and offices in panic, fearful of more tremors on the scale of the December 26 earthquake and tsunami that left at least 128,000 dead in the province.

On March 28, an 8.7-magnitude earthquake killed more than 900 people on the island of Nias off Sumatra.

It was centred on the same Indian Ocean geological fault line as today's quake.

Indonesia sits on the so-called Pacific Rim of Fire, where the meeting of continental plates causes high volcanic and seismic activity.

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - A magnitude 4.6 earthquake rattled the northwest Australian town of Port Hedland on Thursday morning, the country's geophysics agency said.

There were no reports of injuries or major damage.

The quake struck at 7:39 a.m. (2339 GMT) close to Port Hedland, a remote mining community of 15,000 people, about 1,700 kilometers (1,056 miles) north of Western Australia state capital Perth.

TOKYO : Two earthquakes measuring 5.4 and 5.1 on the Richter scale shook Japan Thursday although there were no reports of casualties, officials said.

The earthquake that registered 5.4, which was felt in Tokyo, occurred 30 kilometres deep under Pacific waters off Chiba prefecture east of the capital at 10:18am (0118 GMT), the Meteorological Agency said. The first quake occurred at 1:33am (1633 GMT Wednesday) and was focused in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of the main northernmost island of Hokkaido.

It was 60 kilometres deep, the agency said.

No tsunami warning was issued for the separate quakes, the agency said.

There were no police reports of injuries or damage.

ORTING, Wash. -- In the shadow of Mount Rainier, people go about their lives _ going to shop, going to school, going to work. One day, though, the routine will be broken by a rumble that sounds like a thousand freight trains. If all works accordingly, sirens will alert the 4,400 residents that they have less than 45 minutes to evacuate _ or be buried by an avalanche of mud and debris tumbling off the flank of the 14,411-foot volcano.

Scientists know Mount Rainier will eventually awaken as Mount St. Helens did in 1980. It could gradually build up and explode, or part of it may collapse. It could happen in 200 years, or it could happen tonight.

"People get burned by these kind of events because they think it can't happen in their lifetime," said Willie Scott of the U.S. Geological Survey.

The agency ranks Mount Rainier as the third most dangerous volcano in the nation, after Kilauea on Hawaii's Big Island and Mount St. Helens. Both are currently active. [...]

Mount St. Helens and other Cascades peaks such as Hood remain candidates for eruption

Mount St. Helens had been asleep for 123 years when scientists got the first alarm.

An earthquake set off the only seismometer positioned near the volcano. The magnitude 4.1 quake, strong enough to be felt nearby, sent snow avalanches tumbling down the mountain.

It was only the beginning.

"The earthquakes began coming so fast and furious we couldn't recognize one from another," said seismologist Steve Malone at the University of Washington. "This isn't rocket science -- we knew the volcano had reawakened."

That was March 20, 1980, two months before the big blow. More than 10,000 earthquakes rattled the mountain from that day forward. Hundreds of explosions blasted a crater into the summit, and rising magma shoved part of the north side upward in an ominous bulge.

When the big one hit, at 8:32 a.m. May 18, it was the most lethal eruption in recorded U.S. history. Within minutes, 57 people died, including Spirit Lake innkeeper Harry Truman and geologist David Johnston.

The mountain didn't blow its top in a single burst, but in a nine-hour-long cataclysm that left 230 square miles of once-green forests a gray wasteland.

"It was worse than the worst-case scenario," Malone said. "We weren't able to predict that eruption on a time scale that was socially useful, meaning hours or a day or so ahead. There was no indication that was going to take place. "

Today the mountain is active again, not only heightening awareness for its massive dome-building activity but also intensifying scientists' scrutiny of other Cascades peaks, among them Rainier and Hood, that also could become monsters.

Though they are dormant, Rainier and Hood are perilous volcanoes because they are filled with rock weakened into soft clay by centuries of exposure to hot, acidic fluids in their plumbing systems. An earthquake, oversaturation from intense warm rains, a high rate of glacial melting or even gravity could trigger a collapse of the weakened rock.

Rainier, the highest Cascades mountain at 14,410 feet, is considered the most dangerous. A decade ago, a National Academy of Sciences report on Rainier warned that a major eruption or debris flow could kill thousands of residents and cripple the economy of the Pacific Northwest. More than 150,000 people live on ancient mudflow deposits from the volcano. [...]

(New Zealand) - Record rainfall has turned parts of the Bay of Plenty into a disaster zone, with a state of emergency being declared in Tauranga on Wednesday afternoon.

Around 230 millimetres of rain fell in and around Tauranga, stretching emergency services and bringing the city to a standstill.

A state of emergency has also been declared in the small township of Matata near Whakatane due to serious flooding.

The Whakatane District Council says it has received reports that a number of homes are underwater or have been hit by mudslides.

Emergency services are in the township to assess the damage and assist where needed. A number of people are being evacuated to Whakatane.

In one of Tauranga's worst hit suburbs, Otumoetai, several streets have been blocked and houses are teetering on a cliff edge. Elsewhere emergency services have called in the Army to help get people to safety.

Homes have collapsed and many are on the verge of destruction as mud slides and floods sweep through the suburbs of Tauranga. Eight houses have already been seriously damaged by flooding and slips, and 200 people have been evacuated.

Tauranga Mayor Stuart Crosbie says the forecast for more rain could bring further flooding to the city. Up to 120 millimetres is forecast for Wednesday night. [...]

SEWAGE PLANT A SUSPECT BUT EVIDENCE IS LACKING

MORRO BAY - Known for its fishing port, sandy beaches and hulking Morro Rock, a granite monolith that has guided sailors since the 1600s, Morro Bay has gained another distinction lately: It's a place where California sea otters appear to be dying in unusual numbers.

Two years ago, a toxic algae bloom off the quiet San Luis Obispo County town was to blame. Last year, dozens of otters there died of a brain parasite found in opossums. And in a 2002 study, otters in Morro Bay were found to suffer the highest rate of infection of Toxoplasma gondii, a potentially fatal parasite found in cat feces, of any coastal area in California.

Marine biologists -- who are working the mystery like sleuths in the TV series "CSI'' -- say they don't know for sure what the culprit is. They offer a range of theories: polluted storm runoff, the geography of the area, even toxic chemicals used in boat paint that might weaken otter immunity or -- most likely -- a combination of things.

But as the detective work continues, one landmark is making environmentalists uneasy: the town's sewage plant.

Built in 1954, the oceanfront plant discharges 1 million gallons a day of partially treated sewage into the ocean, half a mile off the beach. [...]

BRAZZAVILLE, CONGO - Ebola has returned to the Republic of Congo, killing nine people since early May, the World Health Organization says.

Test results have confirmed the deadly disease in the country, also known as Congo-Brazzaville, the UN health watchdog said Wednesday.

Eight of the victims came from the forested Cuvette region, about 700 kilometres northwest of the capital, Brazzaville.

The disease killed 203 people in the same region during outbreaks in 2001, 2002 and 2003.

Authorities said elephant hunters might have brought the infection into a community after handling a dead, infected primate in the jungle.

Ebola, one of the world's most contagious diseases, causes massive hemorrhaging, diarrhea and shock.

It kills within days, claiming up to 90 per cent of its victims.
There's no known cure.

WHO officials said two other people in the Congo have been infected with Ebola.

PARIS -- A Norwegian man who leaped off the Eiffel Tower in a publicity stunt was killed after his parachute got stuck on an upper deck of the monument and came off, officials said Tuesday.

The man was Norwegian, said Anne Lene Sandsten, a spokeswoman for Norway's Foreign Ministry.

Preliminary investigations indicate the man planned to film his jump as part of a publicity stunt for a Norwegian clothing brand, police said. The man, 31, entered the tower with a hidden parachute and a helmet that had a small video camera attached to it, an official at Paris' police headquarters said on condition of anonymity.

When the man reached the tower's second deck 380 feet up Monday evening, he jumped. Investigators believe his parachute got caught on the tower's structure and detached.

The man continued his fall, crashing onto the 182-foot-high first deck of the Paris landmark, according to police and an official for SNTE, the company that manages the tower.

Hundreds of people have died at the tower, which is 1,063 feet tall with its flagpole, since it opened as a star attraction of the 1889 World's Fair. [...]

He had lain in his icy tomb on an Alpine glacier in northern Italy for 5,300 years, a perfectly preserved Stone Age warrior, complete with fur robes, leather shoes and bow and arrow.

But since being found 14 years ago, five of the people who came in close contact with Oetzi the Iceman have died, leading to the inevitable question: is the mummy cursed?

Konrad Spindler, head of the Iceman investigation team at Innsbruck University, died on Monday, apparently from complications arising from multiple sclerosis. But that has not stopped his name being linked to a string of strange deaths related to the mummy.

He had spent years studying the remains of the frozen warrior, who was discovered in the melting Similaun glacier, on the border between Italy and Austria in 1991. The 66-year-old scientist had been aware of curse theories, built around the supposition that the Iceman was angry at having been disturbed after 53 centuries, and used to joke: "The next victim could be me."

The other "victims" of the mummy include the forensic expert Dr Rainer Henn, who placed the cadaver in a body bag with his bare hands, and who died in a road accident on his way to a conference to discuss his famous subject.

The Alpine guide Kurt Fritz organised the transportation by helicopter of the mummified remains, and was killed by a snowslide in an accident in the mountains, in an area he knew well. He was the only one of a party of climbers to die.

Then there was journalist Rainer Hoelz, who filmed the recovery of the Iceman, and who died of a brain tumour.

The fourth death was that of Helmut Simon, the German tourist who spotted the Iceman in 1991 while on a walking trip with his wife. He became bitter that he was not recognised or financially compensated for his discovery.

Last October he failed to return from a mountain hike and was found dead eight days later, the victim of a 300ft fall. Local newspapers recorded that his body was found frozen, under a sheet of snow and ice.

A possible sixth victim has also been named, that of Dieter Warnecke, the man who helped find the missing 69-year-old and who died of a heart attack after attending his funeral.

Like all good curse theories, natural death, accidents and sheer bad luck have been compressed into a single sinister hypothesis and with all this doom and gloom, there is only one piece of good news. Visitors to the museum in the Italian town of Bolzano specially constructed for the Iceman, where he is on display in a hi-tech refrigerated casket chilled to a glacial -6C, are expecting an increase in curious visitors.