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I C T U R E O F T H E D
A Y
"ICH" - - Those were
the magic words of the time: "Papiere Bitte.
(Translation: "Papers, Please.") Hearing
those words, even now, causes dull echoes of sounds
akin to bodies hitting dirt, or bullets penetrating
flesh to thud into my mind. Because, if those papers
weren't correctly in order, or, if you were a Jew
sneakily present in any place (including the grocery
store) which displayed the usual "NO JEWS OR
DOGS ALLOWED" sign, you were dead meat--literally.
And, yes, of course I'm talking about my childhood
as a little Jewish kid in Nazi Germany.
No one ever forgets stench. Whether it is a long-forgotten
encounter with a ripe skunk, or a ripe egg, or a
ripe decomposing body, once one of those odors has
been brain-documented, then even the slightest tinge
of such an aroma pops back up immediately, along
with the circumstances under which it first offended
the nostrils.
And, that's what's happening
now. I smell the long-forgotten skunk, the long-forgotten
rot of fascism. What is happening all around can
no longer be denied. What I ran away from so desperately
in 1938 is coming back full circle. Only
the jack-boots have not yet arrived.
America quite literally saved my life. The love
and gratitude deep in my heart for this country
will never go away. But I'm scared now. Haunted
by deep fear for the generations to come, who may
wind up as I did – looking over their shoulders,
scurrying for cover, mute with terror. And it hurts.
Think I'm some kinda elderly nut-job neurotically
manufacturing dictatorship? Well, let's look at
the 82 billion dollar defense bill passed just a
few weeks ago, which (with a vote tally of 100 to
0) had the Real ID Act hidden inside it. This law
allows a national identification process in which
each and every person in the U.S.A. will be on computer.
This ID will be based on
driver's license applications, although it isn't
just for driving. Just
like the infamous "Internal Passport"
of Nazi Germany, no one will need it unless needing
to fly, cash checks, apply for jobs, walk the streets,
enter federal buildings -- or drive. As stated
in TIME magazine on May 15, 2005 , "If you
are a wealthy recluse with liquid assets, it doesn't
concern you." Everyone else better watch out!
Well, maybe that wealthy recluse had better watch
out also. After all, he/she might be of a forbidden
religion, or of suspicious racial origin.
Legal "ID Theft" and legal "illegal
surveillance?"
"The Real ID Act links driver's licenses of
all states, creating a data base including the private
details of every single U.S. citizen. It mandates
that your driver's license share a common machine-readable
digital photo of you, all the better to track your
every movement. It hands the federal government
unfunded mandate power to dictate what data all
states must collect for license holders, including
everything from fingerprints to retinal scans".
[1]
And, if you don't drive, you'll still need to submit
to the national ID card. How else, after all, will
the cop who doesn't like the shape of your face,
or the fact that you are (God Forbid) wearing a
turban get to arrest you? Yes, "Papiere Bitte"
has come home to roost.
And, folks, that's only
the beginning. More technically sophisticated
techniques will be implemented as they occur. If
the Nazis had had electronic surveillance, phone
bugging and all else that the Patriot Act not only
condones but advises, there would have been an even
tighter grip on the populace.
After all, the Patriot Act is modeled directly
after Gestapo methods: Those 3:00 AM home intrusions
– without warrant or reason for arrest –
will get our undesirable "domestic terrorists"
straight to the nearest version of Guantanamo with
no need for trial. The USA
is currently building thirty seven "detention
centers" nationwide, and they'll soon be filled
with persons who protest too much, or are simply
of the wrong nationality. After all, it worked
very well in Germany, successfully eliminating Jews,
Gypsies, and anyone willing to stand up, and refuse
to "Hail Hitler."
What's next? Well, it's already happening: The
Geneva Conventions were initiated after WW II to
prevent the insane war crimes and crimes against
humanity perpetrated by Nazi Germany from ever happening
again. Now, with blithe disregard of all of the
above, the U.S.A. not only institutes torture (not
just physical, but deliberately mental and emotional)
on its prisoners, but actually exports these folks
to countries in which such torture is governmentally
approved. What the U.S. domestic prison system has
kept hidden for years, is now right out there for
everyone to applaud. How
long it will take before the prison guards tie together
the legs of a woman in labor and then make bets
on how long it will take her to die? After all,
that's what guards did for fun in Nazi Germany.
Abu Ghraib, anyone?
So, you ask, "If that's
all true, why doesn't the media expose it all?"
Now, that's such a classic example of Nazi strategy,
it's almost funny. The Nazis took over the media,
folks. No newspaper published a single sentence
without governmental approval, and propaganda was
fed to the populace instead of news. Sound familiar?
A TIME magazine article, (April, 2005), gave illustrated
examples of how the current administration administers
this process.
And, last but certainly not
least, the Nazis took over the German government
in its entirety with one simple maneuver: They simply
took over the courts. You
know, like it's happening right now, today, even
as we speak: Our filibuster was busted, and those
neo-con activist judges are a-sittin' on the bench,
ready to take over the Supreme Court. Because,
once that Supreme Court is co-opted, hey, driver's
license ID cards are gonna be the least of our worries.
Ask me. I know!
[1] Jim Babka, Canyon Lake Week , Canyon Lake
, TX 5-11-2005 |
WASHINGTON - Former FBI deputy
director Mark Felt was hailed as a hero and denounced
as a villain Wednesday after confessing to being
the Watergate scandal's "Deep Throat"
-- a revelation that took even President George
W. Bush by surprise.
Felt's family and The Washington Post, which spearheaded
press coverage of the Watergate cover-up in the
early 1970s, confirmed that Felt was the celebrated
anonymous source whose leaks helped bring down President
Richard Nixon.
"I'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat,"
Felt, now 91, told Vanity Fair in an article published
that was the talk of the nation on Wednesday.
"All I can tell you is that it was a revelation
that caught me by surprise," President Bush
told reporters, summing up the feeling of many in
the Washington establishment.
"For those of us who grew up, got out of college
in the late '60s, the Watergate story was a relevant
story," Bush said. "And a lot of us have
always wondered who Deep Throat might have been.
And the mystery was solved yesterday."
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who was appointed
by Nixon as the US ambassador to NATO, in the 1970s,
gave a guarded response when asked if he thought
Felt had been right to leak confidential information.
"Well, I'm not in any judgmental mood,"
Rumsfeld told a Pentagon briefing. [...] |
TOKYO - The head of Amnesty
International hit back at US outrage over the group
labelling Guantanamo Bay a "gulag" and
challenged Washington to open the military-run detention
center to outside inspections.
US leaders, including President George W. Bush,
have said they were shocked that the human rights
group accused the United States of running "a
new gulag of prisons around the world beyond the
reach of the law and decency".
The secretary general of London-based Amnesty International,
Irene Khan, said the US response has lacked substance.
"Their response has been
defensive and dismissive," she said during
a visit to Japan. "We have not seen from them
a more detailed response to the concerns we have
expressed in our report.
"Our answer is simple. If
that is so (that the allegations are unfounded),
open up these detention centers. Allow us and others
to visit them," she told a news conference
on a visit to Tokyo.
"What is interesting is that we are actually
getting response from the US government" after
failing to do so for more than three years, Khan
said. "We welcome an opportunity to sit down
and have a debate with them on the issue."
Because the US military base in Guantanamo Bay
for prisoners from the "war on terror"
is located in Cuba, the Bush administration argues
its inmates do not enjoy the same legal protections
as those held inside the United States.
"We are concerned about allegations of torture
that frequently emerge and are not independently
and fully investigated," Khan said.
The Amnesty report came after allegations that
interrogators at Guantanamo had desecrated the Muslim
holy book the Koran to pressure prisoners.
Newsweek magazine retracted the report after it
set off deadly riots in Afghanistan and stirred
outrage in the Muslim world, saying its source had
backed away from the allegation. [...]
Khan said the report was compiled mostly by American
staff. |
UNITED NATIONS - The UN Security
Council agreed to extend the mandate of multinational
forces in Iraq "until the completion of the
political process."
Iraq had requested the council extend the mandate,
which it did informally in a statement to the news
media, without adopting a resolution.
The statement said council members "welcomed
the progress made in recruiting, training and equipping
Iraqi security forces and look forward to those
forces progressively playing a greater role and
ultimately assuming responsibility for Iraq's national
security."
In an interview, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar
Zebari called on the United States and other countries
to accelerate efforts to help the new government
get on its feet.
"We need the cooperation of all our neighbors,
of the international community, to accelerate this,
the process of training, of equipment, of assistance,
because that will shorten the mandate of the (multinational
force)," Zebari said.
"We need the continued
engagement of the United States in this process.
For us this is very important. It's important
to accelerate the training, the buid-up of these
forces. I know there are many efforts to see things
through being exerted, but speed is of the essence."
Zebari was scheduled to meet with US Secretary
of State
Condoleezza Rice in Washington on Wednesday to discuss
additional aid to his fledgling government. |
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NOTE: This video shows tough and shocking pictures
and it's aimed to adult viewers only.
This video has been recorded in Falluja in early
Janury, 2005, when the city was reopened to civilians
after the American attack of November 8th, 2004 ("Operation
Al-Fajr", i. e. "the dawn").
It's an important document since the city was closed
to reporters at that moment. This video was handed
over to the Italian weekly magazine Diario by the
Studies Center of Human Rights and Democracy of Falluja.
Diario issued a broad enquire
on Falluja battle on May 27th, 2005.
"Falluja-The day After" shows the total
devastation of the Iraqi town, the corpses of the
victims, the mass graves, the exhumation of many corpses
by local rescue teams in order to try to recognize
some of the victims. The last corpse shown in this
video belongs to a 14 year old girl.
The video lasts 18 minutes and 20 seconds. |
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi – a man notorious
for his alleged ruthlessness – is suspected of direct
involvement in the kidnap and beheading of several
foreigners in Iraq – even of wielding the knife
himself.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3483089.stm
A headline to conjure with no doubt, though clearly
whoever writes this drivel needs to go back to journalism
school and get a lesson in sentence construction.
"Alleged" and "suspected", but
nevertheless there's no doubt that he's "notorious",
what for, his allegedness?
Fascinating the way the media operates. Note here
that the words that will stick won't be his allegedness
but his ruthlessness and his notoriety, that is, after
all, entirely the objective of this piece of disinformation.
Now whether the BBC is leading or being led makes
little difference. I'm not sure if people even care
about Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. What does count however,
is the overall impression that's created, that is
after all the objective, to deflect attention from
the real issues through the creation of a mythological
figure, the archetypal 'bogey-man', who comes and
goes at will, seemingly impervious to capture. Able
to slip across borders that are we are told, under
surveillance 24/7, first he's here then he's there,
he moves at the speed of light, the master of disguise,
blah-blah-blah…
I caught a snatch of a news report on the BBC in
the am (31/5/05) that talked of "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,
the leader of the insurgency in Iraq", so the
elusive little bugger has been promoted overnight
just as it seemed he was about to be 'downsized'.
The BBC of course, is not exactly au fait
with the man, just with the bits and pieces of disinformation
it gets fed by the army of 'experts in terror' who
feed parasitically on the myth and for all I know,
are instrumental in its creation, or least 'conduits'
through which disinformation can be fed.
Just a 'throwaway' line but one that instils an entire
set of assumptions about what's going on in Iraq.
Now is this all self-delusion? After all, how do the
news mavens think? What exactly goes on between thought
and pen? The traditional argument is somewhat self-referential
as it relies on the idea that somehow, 'news' gets
onto the front page and hence becomes 'news' all on
its little own-some, without any help from its friends,
but of course 'news' has to be primed. Cues are handed
out from the 'powers that be' that inform the corporate/state
media what's what when it comes to what needs to be
the focus of the 'news' at any given time.
Much depends on the fact that most of us are not
informed about events, hence discontinuities in the
storyline escape unnoticed and unchallenged, although
this is changing rapidly, even if its only an escalating
state of utter disbelief at what we are being told
– or not told (eg see the latest MediaLens
piece) due in no small part to the Internet and the
collapsing credibility of the corporate/state media's
lock on events.
As regular readers will know, I've been on Abu's
case since he surfaced mysteriously in Colin Powell's
Powerpoint presentation to the UN way back in February
2003.
Zarqawi's pedigree is fascinating and an object lesson
in story continuity for any would-be scriptwriter
looking for a job with the imperium, for any analysis
of Abu Zarqawi's evolution as a character reveals
serious discontinuities. Not that these bother the
news organisations, as they regularly discard anything
that doesn't 'fit' the current scenario but you know
how the 'soapies' work, with characters often killed
off for a variety of reasons, only to re-emerge at
a later date without any apparent objections from
the viewer as to how, exactly, they arose from the
dead.
Scriptwriting 101 – Characterisation
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's name first came to be used
by the imperium shortly and not coincidentally, just
before the appearance of the notorious September 2002
UK government 'dodgy dossier', when a reference is
made to him by George Bush[1], then again but more
extensively, in Colin Powell's fictional account of
Saddam's WMD before the UN in February 2003. Indeed,
Powell devotes several paragraphs and Zarqawi even
gets a fuzzy aerial shot of his 'HQ' in northern,
Kurdish-controlled Iraq, where he is credited with
being boss of 'Ansar al-Islam', variously described
as an 'offshoot' or a 'competitor' of al-Qu-eda' (depending
on which press report you read, that in turn depends
on which parasitical 'expert' is selling them the
drivel). Powell is effusive in his description of
Zarqawi
When our coalition ousted the Taliban, the Zarqaqi
network helped establish another poison and explosive
training center camp. And this camp is located in
northeastern Iraq.
POWELL: You see a picture of this camp.
The network is teaching its operatives how to
produce ricin and other poisons. Let me remind you
how ricin works. Less than a pinch-image a pinch
of salt-less than a pinch of ricin, eating just
this amount in your food, would cause shock followed
by circulatory failure. Death comes within 72 hours
and there is no antidote, there is no cure. It is
fatal. [2]
Aside from anything else, Powell's description of
ricin is complete rubbish, relying not only on our
general ignorance about ricin but crucially, the fact
that such assertions are unlikely to be challenged
by the media. But who bothers about such details when
viewing a soapie? It's the overall effect that's important.
Later, in March of 2003, the camp (actually a small
collection of huts) was flattened by US bombing, to
such a degree that it was unrecognisable as a camp.[3]
A strange event given as how the US had known about
this 'al-Qu-eda HQ' for a considerable period of time.
Over the next few months, bits and pieces about Zarqawi
emerge but it's not until after the occupation of
Iraq by the 'coalition of the killing' that we start
to read more about Zarqawi but even then, who he actually
is and his relationship to al-Qu'eda is at best, sketchy
and fraught with contradictions but as with all fictional,
larger-than-life characters, it's best not to be too
specific, let the consumer's imagination fill in all
the blank sections, merely suggest, well, that's he's
evil, ruthless, cold-blooded, without a conscience,
well you know the sort of thing…
We learn that he is Jordanian and that he was a naughty
boy at school and a bit of drunk (clearly not a devout
Muslim at the time), though even here, we are totally
reliant on the Jordanian secret service for these
tidbits. He is variously described as being either
the murderer of CIA operative, Foley, an opponent
of the Jordanian monarchy, out to kill Israelis, Osama's
right-hand man, his competition, take your pick. He
did however spend some years in a Jordanian prison
before being released under an amnesty, although again,
what he did time for is not clear (one account says
it was for a bombing, another simply for his opposition
to the Jordanian regime) and that then he did a bunk
to Afghanistan where he was allegedly trained by al-Qu'eda,
then hopped it to Pakistan before or after either
falling out with Osama or being sent to Iraq by Osama,
take your pick.
Early US reports are contradictory about his relationship
to Osama, but this is the entire point about keeping
Zarqawi's activities deliberately vague, you can't
be too specific, else someone will actually be able
to follow a lead and expose the actual nature of his
activities, if any.
At some point it's alleged that he a lost a leg due
to US actions in Afghanistan or perhaps when they
flattened the Ansar al-Islam HQ in northern Iraq but
given the speed at which he allegedly moves around
the world, perhaps he found it? He has also – in line
with his soapie credentials – died and been reborn.
Of course, Zarqawi's actual
role was to establish a connection between Osama/al-Qu'eda
and Saddam Hussein and given that back in February
2003, Zarqawi was an unknown quantity, what better
character was there than this non-entity to establish
the connection with?
Once the idea has been planted, all that is necessary
is to feed the media with a variety of 'tidbits' about
the man, the more contradictory they are, the better,
it makes him all the more mysterious and, easy to
speculate about.
The Christian Science Monitor story of October
2003, 'The rise and fall of Ansar al-Islam' is one
of the more notorious pieces of disinformation about
Zarqawi, full of all manner of assumptions and accusations
but without a shred of supporting evidence to back
up a single claim by the author, Scott Peterson[4].
He tells us for example,
Ansar [al-Isam] was once part of a long-term Al
Qaeda dream to spread Islamic rule from Afghanistan
to Kurdistan and beyond. But that idea was embryonic
at best, and when US forces attacked Afghanistan
in October 2001, Al Qaeda support for Ansar dried
up.
Yet virtually all of Peterson's information comes
from the US-backed PUK or Patriotic Union of Kurdistan,
long a recipient of US funding and support, so anything
they say has to be viewed with suspicion, not to mention
its dealings with Saddam.[5] In fact the leader of
PUK, Jalal Talabani, now 'prime minister' of Iraq,
did deals with just about everybody![6]
The rest is up to the media and it's here that we
see the pivotal role the media plays in promulgating
the myth, or should we say myths, starting with Newsweek
Magazine's allegations about Zarqawi's role in the
'beheading' of the American Nicholas Berg, about which
I've written before, another piece of disinformation
that did the rounds, even ending up on the front page
of the Independent. Subsequent research revealed
that the Zarqawi/Berg connection had but a single,
unverifiable source that was at least one year old.
What is amazing is just how many different stories
there are about Zarqawi, most of which present entirely
contradictory accounts about his life and activities,
not that this bothers the media which is all too happy
to turn this one time drunk and petty thief (Jordanian
source) into Al-Qu'eda's #2 man in Iraq (US government
source) and now, we are told by the BBC, the actual
leader of the resistance in Iraq. Just for good measure,
Rumsfeld actually denied at one time, that Zarqawi
was of any consequence at all, as did the CIA.[7]
Take for example Zarqawi's alleged base in Falluja,
the primary reason we were told, as to why the US
demolished the city of 300,000 and slaughtered who
knows how many thousands of innocent people. At one
point, the US were alleging that Zarqawi directed
the entire defence of Falluja by telephone! A not
inconsiderable military achievement. Perhaps it was
a videophone, so as he scooted (hopped?) around the
country, he directed fire? Such assertions depend
entirely on the reader's lack of knowledge about how,
exactly, battles are fought.
We read this past week that he is now in Syria, Iran,
back in Pakistan, possibly licking his wounds (wound?)
somewhere in Iraq; that he had passed the baton on
to his #2 man. So where do all these stories actually
come from?
Scanning the stories, we find that none have an actual
source, it's all pure supposition, using the classic
phrase, 'it is alleged' but by whom we are never told
unless it's yet another unverified source.
Then there's the issue of the Websites that conveniently
tell us exactly what Zarqawi is not only thinking
but also doing, presumably because he's so confident
of success in carrying out his various and sundry
missions around the planet, that he wants to give
the US a sporting chance at catching him? What a sporting
fellow Mr Zarqawi must be to be so very helpful.
Is it not all so transparent as to be utter nonsense?
Apparently not, because this doesn't stop the home
of 'objective' news, the BBC, repeating all this rubbish
ad infinitum, with the able assistance of
a raft of 'terror experts', who are making a fine
living out of Mr Zarqawi thank you very much.
Typically, a BBC story purporting to be an "analysis"
of Zarqawi tells us
But trends like the increase in suicide bombings
in Baghdad may be evidence of growing collaboration
between the foreign elements and local Iraqi insurgents.[8]
Note the use of the phrase "may be" but
then again may be it's not. And for good measure,
the sentence leaves the impression that the resistance
is led by "foreign elements". This particular
piece dated 26 May, is full of may be's
It remains unclear whether he is seriously wounded,
whether he is in Iraq or elsewhere, and whether
he has been replaced at least temporarily as leader
of his group.
Unclear instead of a may be. Well they can't keep
saying may be can they. And in fact, it's not clear
whether he has actually been wounded at all (or for
that matter, is actually even in Iraq).
He is blamed for many of the most deadly attacks
and is the only widely-recognised leader in the
insurgency.
Blamed by whom? And who recognizes him as the leader
of the insurgency? Why the BBC of course. The use
of such stock phrases like "he is blamed"
are classic propaganda lines, for they leave an impression
of veracity without actually having to offer a single
piece of evidence.
The foreign fighters whom Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
leads may be only a portion of the total.
May be again. It's all complete rubbish, based on
nothing except pure supposition that ultimately serves
to obscure the fact of the complete failure of the
occupying forces to crush the resistance.
They have targeted and captured senior Zarqawi
associates, they say, and believe they may even
have got close to the man himself.
They say is of course, the Americans. Well what else
should they say? And the BBC calls this objective,
even-handed reporting!
The piece ends by saying
That may be, as the Americans contend, a sign of
increasing desperation.
Or it may be further evidence that the insurgency
is stronger and more sophisticated than US commanders
and intelligence have calculated.
It may be an invasion from outer space by one-legged,
aliens. Take for example, this BBC news report, also
dated 26 May
The denial [concerning Zarqawi's wounding] was
posted on a website often used by al-Qaeda after
a statement appeared on a lesser known website saying
that a new chief would take control while Zarqawi
recovers from his wounds.
The authenticity of either statement cannot be
verified.[9]
First it tells us authoritatively, that the Website
is used by Al Qu-eda but
then it tells us that the statement cannot be verified,
so how does it know that it's an al-Qa'eda statement
in the first place? It does this by implication, justifying
one supposition with another, that the Website is
"often used by al-Qaeda" though it offers
no evidence to support this claim any more than it
can substantiate the Website's claim that a "new
chief" will take control.
Ultimately of course, it serves to mask the disaster
that is the occupation and to cover up the fact that
the Iraqi people are not too happy at having their
country blown apart, its infrastructure destroyed,
hundreds of thousands of its people killed and its
natural resources ripped off by gang of heavily armed
pirates.
So in spite of thousands of 'news' reports about
Zarqawi, all of which are essentially self-referential
in that not one single piece of actual evidence backs
up any of the claims made in them, the overall impression
created is that of a vast body of knowledge about
the man and his alleged actions, that through the
sheer volume of reports creates the impression of
credibility. After all, if news outlet after news
outlet repeats the same assertions, the overall impression
is one of credibility.
One has to ask the question why do the corporate/state
media participate in such a gigantic fraud, to which
one can only answer that the media shares the same
ideological viewpoint as the state's and that its
objective is to project a view of the world that supports
the state's view. It serves to obscure the causes
of events through the creation of such mythological
characters as Zarqawi who then becomes the 'cause'
of the occupation's failure and of the Iraqi peoples
resistance to the occupation.
Moreover, it serves to dehumanise the Iraqi people
by transforming them into passive victims who can
only stand idly by whilst they are manipulated by
'outside' forces over which they have no control,
a tactic long used to rationalise invasion and occupation
of Vietnam, Nicaragua, El Salvador et al. That we
are only now coming to grips with the 'big lie' shows
just how powerful is the media's grip on reality through
the invention of archetypes like Zarqawi.
Notes
1. 'The World's Most Dangerous Terrorist',
June 23, 2004. www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5280219/site/newsweek
2. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell Addresses
the U.N. Security Council. www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030205-1.html
and 'No sign of poison in Ansar'. www.post-gazette.com/world/20030216ansar0216p4.asp
3. 'The rise and fall of Ansar al-Islam'. www.csmonitor.com/2003/1016/p12s01-woiq.html
4. ibid
5. 'US Met with Kurdish Factions On Overthrow of Hussein'.
www.why-war.com/news/2002/04/23/usmetwit.html
See also www.iwsolidarity.com/stop.htm
for PUK murders of Kurdish women members of WcP or
the Worker communist Party of Iraq. PuK, which fought
a long-running war with its main rival the PDK, even
did a deal with the Ba'ath regime prior to Saddam's
overthrow.
6. See Dilip Hiro's book, 'Desert Shield, Desert Storm'
and Iraq's 'New President Jalal Talabani: Ally of
CIA, Iranian Intelligence and Saddam Hussein' www.democracynow.org/print.pl?sid=05/04/07/1343226
7. 'Rumsfeld questions Saddam-Bin Laden link'. news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3715396.stm
See also 'Undeterred by CIA report, O'Reilly stood
firm on "smoking gun" Zarqawi; urged Rumsfeld
to watch The Factor'. mediamatters.org/items/200410070007
8. 'Analysis: Zarqawi's insurgency'. news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4583005.stm
9. 'Iraq backs Zarqawi wounded claim' news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4581801.st |
WASHINGTON, May
31 (AFP) - The United States indicated Tuesday it
wants to work with new French Prime Minister Dominique
de Villepin, yet suggested France's opposition to
the Iraq war when he was foreign minister had not
been forgotten.
"We look forward to working with the prime minister
and his government, when it's named," State Department
spokesman Richard Boucher said.
Asked about de Villepin leading opposition to the
war in Iraq, chiefly at the United Nations, Boucher
suggested the United States had not yet turned a page
on that strained phase in Franco-American relations.
"We all know that when he was foreign minister,
we had a variety of actions with him, and we know
him from those days," Boucher said.
"I'm not going to comment on the new French
prime minister," he added. "It's up to the
French government to decide who they want in their
government. They're doing so now." |
President
Bush was among the 260,000 graves at Arlington National
Cemetery when he said it. But it was clear Monday
that the president was referring to the more than
1,650 Americans killed to date in Iraq when he said,
"We must honor them by completing the mission for
which they gave their lives; by defeating the terrorists."
Bush insists on clinging to the
thoroughly discredited notion that there was any
connection between the old Iraqi regime -- no matter
how lawless and brutal -- and the terrorist attacks
of Sept. 11, 2001.
U.S. military action against an Afghan regime
that harbored al-Qaida was a legitimate response
to the 9/11 attacks. The invasion of Iraq was not.
As of Memorial Day 2003, Bush had declared major
combat operations at an end, predicted that weapons
of mass destruction would be found and that U.S.
forces were in the process of stabilizing Iraq.
One hundred sixty U.S. troops had died.
The U.S. death toll has grown
more than tenfold. No weapons of mass destruction
were found. More than 700 Iraqis have been killed
since Iraq's new government was formed April 28.
Bush said of the insurgents at a news conference
yesterday, "I believe the Iraqi government is plenty
capable of dealing with them."
Of course, this is the same president that assured
the world that military intervention in Iraq was
a last resort and that the United States would make
every effort to avoid war through diplomacy. Giving
lie to that as well is the so-called Downing Street
War Memo, which shows that as early as July 2002,
"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."
Perhaps all presidents' remarks
in military graveyards are by nature self-serving.
But few have been so callow as the president's using
the deaths of U.S. troops in his unjustified war
as justification for its continuance. |
BAGHDAD : A mortar attack in Baghdad killed four
people, including three children, while Turkish
Kurds sheltering in the north of the war-wracked
country held out an olive branch to Ankara.
"Four people, including three children, were killed
and another child wounded when a mortar shell fell
in Dura," a southern residential neighborhood,
an interior ministry source said.
The attack was one of the first following the
bloody month of May when an estimated 672 Iraqis
died in attacks, according to figures released by
the government.
An earlier attack at a Baghdad airport checkpoint
wounded 15 Iraqis, as the government said its major
anti-insurgent operation in the city was finally
reaping dividends. [...] |
At least 15 Iraqis have been injured after a bomber
targeted US forces, exploding a vehicle near the
heavily guarded checkpoint leading to Baghdad International
Airport.
The bomb went off just after 9am (local time) on
Wednesday but no soldiers were injured, US military
spokeswoman Captain Kelly Lewis said.
Iraqi police Captain Talib Thamir added that the
bomber, who died in the blast, was targeting a checkpoint
that is mainly manned by private security guards
backed by US troops.
A security official at western Baghdad's main
Yarmouk Hospital said earlier that three Iraqi Airways
employees were wounded.
One of the victims, Ghassan Yassin, said he suffered
facial wounds as a result of the blast.
"Me and some colleagues at Iraqi Airways were waiting
in line when we saw a speeding car, then we heard
a big explosion," Yassin said. "The next thing I
realised is that my car was on fire. I got out through
the window after the doors jammed due to the explosion."
Baghdad International has often come under mortar
attack, and vehicles travelling on the road leading
to it from downtown Baghdad are routinely targeted
by bombs.
Poisoned
In an unrelated development, an
Iraqi soldier died from poisoning and nine others
were in critical condition after they ate free watermelon
handed out at a checkpoint in northern Iraq,
police said on Wednesday.
"A vendor offered a poisoned watermelon on Monday
to Iraqi soldiers manning checkpoints between Shorgat
and Kiyara," said police Colonel Fares Mahdi.
"One soldier died and nine others who were rushed
to the hospital are in critical condition."
Police were searching for the assassin in what
is thought to be the first such attack against Iraqi
security forces. |
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A suspected
al-Qaida suicide bomber walked into a mosque during
the funeral of a Muslim cleric and blew himself
up Wednesday, killing 20 people, including Kabul's
police chief, and wounding 42 others.
The attack was the deadliest in Afghanistan since
a surge in violence began in March, casting doubt
on U.S. claims that it is stabilizing the country
and reinforcing fears that militants here are copying
the tactics of those in Iraq.
Hundreds of mourners were crowded inside the mosque
for the funeral of Mullah Abdul Fayaz in the main
southern city of Kandahar when the bomber struck.
President Hamid Karzai condemned the assault as
an "act of cowardice by the enemies of Islam and
the enemies of the peace of Afghan people" and ordered
a high-level investigation.
Parts of the bomber's body were found and Kandahar
Gov. Gul Agha Sherzai said he belonged to Osama
bin Laden's terrorist network.
"The attacker was a member
of al-Qaida. We have found documents on his body
that show he was an Arab," Sherzai said.
"We had an intelligence report that Arab al-Qaida
teams had entered Afghanistan and had been planning
terrorist attacks." [...] |
UNITED NATIONS - A recent maneuver by Saudi Arabia
to limit international inspection of its atomic
capabilities has raised suspicions that the kingdom
could be preparing to go nuclear.
The Saudis are calling for the implementation
of a provision of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty
that allows countries that are not suspected of
having nuclear aspirations to forgo heavy inspection
of their facilities by the International Atomic
Energy Agency. [...] |
After the horrific
story of soldiers abusing two Palestinian workers,
and forcing one of them to drink the soldiers' urine
until he fainted, one of the soldiers stood in court
and admitted to the hidden truth which even the press
was hesitant to admit: "What we did was inhuman".
The extreme brutality which revealed a hidden face
of the Israeli army was revealed during the trial
of the soldiers who abused the workers and forced
one of them to drink their urine.
The event took place on September, 2004 when soldiers
based at a military checkpoint in Abu Dis, near Jerusalem,
stopped Sameeh Rahhal, 22, from Bethlehem, and Firas
al-Bakry, 22, from Hebron, and other workers.
The soldiers claimed that the workers were 'illegally'
staying in Jerusalem and decided to "punish them".
And took them to an abandoned hotel, which the army
was using as a military post.
There, at the 'hotel' the abuse and cruelty of the
soldiers was exposed on its highest level.
Sameeh said in his testimony that soldiers forced
him to choose between having his hands and legs broken
or drinking the soldiers' urine.
"First, the soldiers stopped us, along with
dozens of workers, then they drew lots with our identity
cards, randomly choosing two, and released the other
workers", Sameeh said.
Sameeh and Firas and were forced – in what
Israeli soldiers called 'entertainment' – to
choose one from three paper notes inside a box.
The 'Game' which soldiers chose to play, included
three sorts of punishments; breaking hands, legs and
drinking from bottles filled with the soldiers' urine.
"I told them I would not do it, and they attacked
me and sprayed my face with one of the urine bottles,
I pushed one soldier away from me, then six soldiers
attacked me and pointed their M-16 rifles in my face,
this time I had to choose between drinking urine and
death", Sameeh added.
He had to drink the urine until fell unconscious.
After that, soldiers left him there on the ground
until he was found by other civilians near the checkpoint,
and was transferred to the Abu Dees clinic, where
his stomach was emptied of the urine, and he was then
moved to Beit Jala Hospital.
An Israeli military court convicted Nier Levy, the
commander of the unit, of abusing the workers and
sentenced him to 14 months, and one year on parole.
Apparently, abusing a Palestinian in this inhuman
way and degrading him, threatening him with death,
is not even grounds for a demotion.
The courts' ruling read that Levy, along with other
soldiers, identified as Ariel Simhayev, Alexander
Meropolsky, Robert Schneider and Yussi Moshiashiviely,
jumped over the two workers, clubbed them, then one
of the soldiers inserted his rifle top in the mouth
of Sameeh and said, "When I say I will shoot,
I mean I will shoot".
The soldiers also found a piece of soap on Sameeh's
bag, and forced him to 'paint' his face with it, and
rub it with sand, as if he was washing himself.
Later on, the soldiers told him to jump from a high
window, but he said that it's too high, and then they
ordered him to jump from a lower window, which caused
several injuries, and forced him to drink the urine
until he fell unconscious.
Sameeh was transferred to a clinic in Abu Dis, and
received medication to clean his stomach, and then
he was transferred to Bethlehem Governmental Hospital.
Simhayev was sentenced to 7 and a half months, Schneider
was sentenced to eight months, Moshiashiviely was
sentenced to four months in public service, 'since
he did not directly participate in the event', but
did not file a report against the soldiers who warned
him not to, while Meropolsky was not sentenced yet.
Israeli soldiers manning the random checkpoints throughout
the occupied Palestinian territories often force Palestinians
to go through such 'entertainment'. A civilian in
Hebron recently suffered multiple fractures in his
limbs when he was forced to go through the same choices
Sameeh had to choose from.
Yet, military checkpoints remain in every part of
Palestine, separating the cities from each other,
and even from their surrounding villages which depend
on these cities socially and economically.
At each of these checkpoint, residents are often
forced to undress, to dance, to stand in the sun or
rain for several hours. Sick residents and even ambulances
transporting patients in urgent conditions have to
wait until they are allowed to pass, and are often
blocked from passing through at all.
Over 100 patients have died at checkpoints since
2000, when Israeli troops prevented them from reaching
hospitals. Even unborn babies have to suffer from
these checkpoints, and die, those infants have been
sentenced to death, even before seeing the light of
this world, even before they managed to know what
it is like out there!
One of these cases was the fetus of Amnah Abdul-Karim
Safadi, 19, from a village near Nablus; the baby died
before being born because the mother was denied access
to the hospital at Huwwara checkpoint. She was delayed
for 5 hours before she could access Alitihad hospital
in Nablus. |
BEIJING - U.S. Commerce Secretary
Carlos Gutierrez kicked off his first official trip
to China on Thursday by saying that the country's
rampant counterfeiting of American products was
the top issue bedevilling trade ties.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has estimated that
global trade in fake and pirated goods, anything
from designer dresses to DVDs, costs the American
economy $250 billion each year.
"Intellectual property rights are not up for
negotiation, and frankly, abuse of intellectual
property rights is not acceptable," Gutierrez
told businessmen on his first visit to Beijing since
becoming commerce chief in February.
"Intellectual property rights violations are
a crime and we don't believe we should be negotiating
crimes with our trading partners."
Industry groups estimate that U.S. music, movie
and software companies lose up to $3.8 billion a
year in China from sales of pirated copies, a headache
for firms like entertainment giant Walt Disney Co.
and software titan Microsoft Corp. [...]
U.S. imports of some types of
clothing from China have risen dramatically since
Jan. 1, when a decades-old system of quotas on developing
countries' textile exports expired.
In response to the increases, Washington last month
announced it would temporarily restrict imports
of products such as pants, shirts and underwear.
[...] |
Move over, Brazil. Step aside,
China. Make room for Israel,
king of the copyright-violation hill. US
Trade Representative Charlene Barshevsky announced
in mid-February that sanctions could soon be imposed
on the Middle Eastern nation for what the State
Department calls piracy of "epidemic proportions."
The US ambassador to Israel, Edward Walker, suggested
earlier in the month that trade sanctions might
be applied to Israel to try to rein in the wholesale
piracy of American films and CDs. "Israel's
fundamental interest must be protecting intellectual
property rights," Walker warned Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
According to Barshevsky, Israel
is among the world's worst copyright offenders,
alongside China, Brazil, Paraguay, and Bulgaria.
The US has found it difficult to affect economic
policies and internal procedures in Israel due to
strong support for the nation among members of both
the US Congress and the American entertainment industry.
The piracy problem has been made worse in the past
two years by the Israeli Knesset, the nation's governing
body, which weakened what the Los Angeles Times
called "already feeble copyright laws."
The situation is compounded by the fact that some
illicit Israeli-owned duplicating plants are in
the West Bank area controlled by the Palestinian
Authority. The US Trade Representative's office
is required to submit a yearly report to Congress
on the state of intellectual property rights worldwide.
The office is also empowered to impose sanctions
against violators. |
PARIS, June 1 -
President Jacques Chirac has asked his European Union
counterparts to "take the time needed to analyse
the consequences" of France's rejection of the
EU constitution, in a letter released by his office
Wednesday.
"It would be appropriate to take the time needed
to analyse the consequences of France's vote for the
union," Chirac wrote to his 24 EU counterparts,
saying the process should begin at an EU summit later
this month in Brussels.
Nearly 55 percent of French voters on Sunday rejected
the EU constitution, which aims to streamline decision-making
in the expanded bloc. The Netherlands went to the
polls on Wednesday, with a "no" vote expected
there too.
"Above and beyond what this decision implies
for my own country, I am aware of the consequences
that this situation imposes on France's partners and
on the Union itself," Chirac wrote.
"It is up to all the other member states to
express themselves on this treaty," the French
leader said, suggesting that the ratification process
should continue despite France's historic "no"
vote. So far, nine EU countries have approved the
treaty - Austria, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy,
Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain.
As the constitution must be ratified by all 25 EU
states to take effect, observers suggested that the
treaty would stop dead in its tracks following the
French rejection, but EU officials insist the process
will move forward.
Chirac insisted that France's repudiation of the
EU charter "does not at all call into question
France's deep and historic commitment to the construction
of Europe," adding: "France is a founding
member of the Union."
The 72-year-old leader - who on Tuesday appointed
Dominique de Villepin as France's new prime minister,
replacing Jean-Pierre Raffarin in the wake of the
EU vote disaster - said Paris would maintain its position
within the bloc. |
PARIS - Europe was left agonising
over the future of the EU constitution after voters
in the Netherlands joined the French in rejecting
it, but many leaders insisted the treaty was still
alive and worth preserving.
Dutch voters on Wednesday followed their French
counterparts in rejecting the draft constitution
but the bloc's Luxembourg presidency and heavyweights
France and Germany demanded that the process of
ratifying the charter be allowed to continue in
other member states.
But Britain said the result raised "profound
questions" over the future of the constitution,
while other commentators said it was expiring fast.
Italian Prime Minister Giulio Tremonti went even
further.
"I think that the European Constitution as
it has been presented and managed is finished,"
he said early Thursday.
"After a popular vote such as took place in
France and the Netherlands, I think that the process
on the text is finished. I see no alternative, technically
or politically."
Most leaders said they were now looking toward
a June 16-17 Brussels summit that has suddenly assumed
crucial importance in determining the road ahead
for the beleaguered bloc.
Newspapers across Europe performed the last rites
over the body of the EU constitution.
"If France's vote dealt the treaty a critical
blow, Dutch have now delivered the coup de grace,"
said The Guardian newspaper in Britain.
London's The Independent pronounced the treaty
"dead and gone." [...] |
RIGA - Lawmakers in new EU
member state Latvia ratified the
European Union's constitution, giving the text a
much-needed boost after its rejection by French
and Dutch voters.
Seventy-one deputies in the 100-seat parliament
voted for the treaty, five against, and six abstained.
The remaining lawmakers were absent.
Two-thirds of lawmakers had to vote in favour the
constitution for it to be ratified.
Ahead of the vote, Foreign Minister Artis Pabriks
urged lawmakers to endorse the text after it was
decisively rejected in popular
votes in France and the Netherlands.
"All Europe turns its eyes toward Latvia today.
We have a chance to say our 'ja' after the stunning
rejections of the constitution in France and the
Netherlands," Pabriks said. [...]
Latvia's constitution does
not allow the EU basic law to be validated by a
popular vote. [...] |
WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - George Bush,
the president's father, would like to see another
Bush in the White House someday, saying on Tuesday
that he would want his son Jeb to run for president
when the timing is right.
Florida Governor Jeb Bush has repeatedly said he
does not plan to run for president in 2008, trying
to dampen speculation that another Bush could be
on the next Republican ticket for the White House.
In an interview on CNN's "Larry King Live," former
President Bush said he would want Jeb to run for
president "someday," but now was not the time.
"The timing's wrong. The main thing is, he doesn't
want to do it. Nobody believes that," Bush said.
But he and wife Barbara both said they believed
Jeb, 52, did not want to run in the next presidential
race.
Bush said he did not have a favorite candidate
for the Republican nomination to succeed his son,
President Bush.
Barbara Bush said she believed Senator and former
first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton would be the Democratic
nominee in the 2008 presidential race. "I'm not
going to vote for her, but I'm betting on her,"
she said. |
WASHINGTON - Paul Wolfowitz
became World Bank president on Wednesday and said
his agenda would focus on Africa, tackling corruption
and making poor countries feel less sidelined in
the bank's decisions.
In his first briefing with reporters since he was
confirmed unanimously in March, the former U.S.
deputy defense secretary said he did not plan an
organizational makeover.
The development bank was in "great shape,"
he declared, with a mission clearly trained on tackling
global poverty.
Wolfowitz takes the reins of the globe's premier
lender to impoverished countries despite widespread
criticism of his role as the architect of the U.S.
war in Iraq.
He quieted his critics by inviting them to meet
with him and even handed out his e-mail to staff
members still uneasy about their new boss.
Wolfowitz told reporters his immediate priority
would be Africa, while not forgetting the development
needs in Latin America, the Middle East and Asia.
"Africa has a dependence and need for the
bank that stands out among all the many people who
need what this bank has to offer" said Wolfowitz,
acknowledging he still had lots to learn.
He said the bank's role in Africa was especially
important given that a dozen or so countries were
growing at unprecedented rates of 5 percent annually.
Adding he was "cautiously hopeful," Wolfowitz
said, "There is a long, long way to go but
I would find nothing more satisfying than, at the
end of my tenure at this institution, to feel that
we have played a part in what hopefully could be
a period when Africa went from a continent of despair,
to a continent of hope."
He said he wanted to ensure that developing countries
that had complained to him about feeling alienated
were brought into the decision-making of the bank.
Without saying outright he would
give them a bigger role through management changes,
Wolfowitz said, "I would like to work very
hard at changing that feeling so that at the very
least their views are brought in a serious way."
CONFRONTING CORRUPTION
He said he would carry on with the campaign of
departing bank President James Wolfensohn to clean
up corruption in World Bank projects and push to
reduce corruption in borrowing countries.
Such messages should bode well in the U.S. Congress
where lawmakers led by Indiana Republican Richard
Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, are fighting to stamp out corruption
in multilateral development bank projects.
Lugar has presented legislation that would encourage
independent auditing and transparency and would
set up a trust fund to help poor countries combat
corruption on their own.
The former No. 2 Pentagon official
said the bank also had a role in rebuilding conflict-ridden
countries, including in Iraq.
Wolfowitz drew parallels between Iraq and African
countries like Liberia and the Democratic Republic
of Congo where the bank has projects despite political
instability.
He said he had surprisingly encountered
very little skepticism about his ability to distance
himself from the U.S. foreign policy agenda.
"You deal with it by being
objective and credible," he said of the critics,
adding, "If anything I have encountered 'Geez,
maybe you can get us some useful access to the White
House and to Congress."' |
WASHINGTON - New York has yet
to spend $125 million for workers injured in the
attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and their aftermath.
Tired of waiting, the federal government wants the
money back.
New York lawmakers are trying to hold on to the
funds ahead of a House committee meeting next week
to consider reclaiming the money as the Bush administration
has proposed for the budget year that begins Oct.
1.
Twenty-one lawmakers from the state, including
Democratic Sens.
Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles Schumer, want
the White House to redirect the money toward health
programs for ground zero workers affected with long-term
lung problems that might not appear for years.
So far, the administration has resisted.
The federal government agreed to give more than
$20 billion to help New York recover from the attacks.
That money included $175 million for the state's
workers compensation program. But
as the claims were processed, the bulk of the money
was not spent.
A report last year by the Government Accountability
Office, the investigative arm of Congress, found
that the state spent $44 million to pay out money
quickly through other state agencies.
An additional $4.4 million paid to upgrade the
compensation board's computer system to prepare
for a possible disaster in the future.
That left about $125 million because the board
has not paid out huge sums for Sept. 11-related
claims. In the case of $25
million set aside for rescue workers who came to
New York from out of town, the board had paid $456,000
by mid-2004.
Scott Milburn, spokesman for the White House Office
of Management and Budget, said New York has used
only $49 million of the $175 million and spent just
$6 million in last budget year.
"The needs were not as large
as initially feared," Milburn said.
Rep. James Walsh said the government is moving
too fast to retrieve the money.
"We don't know yet what the need is,"
said Walsh, R-N.Y. "What we do know is that
there was a witches' brew of toxic substances emanating
from that debris and those firefighters, police
officers and construction workers were breathing
that for days."
Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., said "too many
people in Washington still don't realize that thousands
of injured 9/11 responders still desperately need
our help."
The state received some 10,182
claims for workers comp, but did not tell investigators
how many claims were denied, saying it did not keep
such figures. |
WASHINGTON - Anti-war activists
upset by the continuing violence in
Iraq are planning demonstrations in Washington,
Los Angeles and San Francisco this fall to urge
the administration to bring U.S. troops home.
Act Now to Stop War and
End Racism (ANSWER) has seen turnout in its demonstrations
wane as the war has dragged on.
The group hopes a long lead-up to the Sept. 24 protests
will generate more interest. [...] |
A
38-year-old man with a violent past went on a 16-hour
rampage in Ventura County, killing three people
- including a mother who
was pistol-whipped in front of her children
- and injuring five others before taking his own
life Tuesday morning inside a Wal-Mart store, police
said.
The deadly spree began Monday afternoon in an
upscale neighborhood of Thousand Oaks when Toby
Whelchel ran up the driveway of attorney Steve Mazin's
home and opened fire, killing Mazin, 52, wounding
the attorney's best friend and killing the friend's
wife.
A motive for the attack is uncertain, but Mazin
and Whelchel had a bitter history. Mazin was granted
a temporary restraining order against Whelchel three
years ago after telling a judge he was "dangerous
and violent." In court papers, Mazin had described
Whelchel as the boyfriend of his estranged wife,
Joanne - a statement she denied last year.
But what may have begun as private vengeance on
Monday spiraled into highly public violence Tuesday
as Whelchel eluded capture overnight and then attacked
several strangers.
By the end of the rampage,
Whelchel had fired on at least five people, including
a sheriff's deputy; beaten five others; stolen two
trucks; and had broken into a home in a gated community.
There, he beat Carole Nordella, 48, who later died
of her wounds, and then attacked her two youngest
children, Jamie, 14, and Jeffrey, 10, as they tried
to hide in a bathroom.
"Satan came into our home
today. Let's pray he doesn't visit anyone else,"
Nordella's husband, Jeff, told a neighbor, Leslie
Baker.
Whelchel fled, and less than half an hour later,
shortly before 8:30 a.m., drove a pickup truck stolen
from outside the Nordella home to the Wal-Mart in
Simi Valley, with police in pursuit. As customers
ran out of the store, Whelchel shot himself. [...] |
Relations
with Indonesia were plunged into uncertainty last
night after a dangerous biological agent - possibly
linked to anthrax - was sent to the Indonesian embassy
in Canberra in a suspected act of retribution against
the Schapelle Corby sentence.
The Prime Minister, John Howard, issued an immediate
apology to Jakarta, describing the act as "recklessly
criminal", and saying it was a "very serious development
for our country".
It was likely the incident was linked to the outrage
over Corby's 20-year drug smuggling sentence. "Can
I say to people, please, this is not helping her.
In fact it will hurt her and anybody who imagines
that this kind of gesture towards the Indonesian
ambassador is going to alter attitudes in Indonesia
- it will have a negative effect on the judiciary,
it will have a negative effect on political opinion
in that country."
Mr Howard held back from labelling the act as
terrorism, but if initial analysis proves correct,
yesterday's events will be the first time in Australia
a biological agent has been used to further political
motives.
The embassy and Indonesian consulates have received
a number of death threats since the beginning of
the Corby trial.
Yesterday's discovery was made at the embassy
when two staff opened a letter addressed to the
ambassador, Imron Cotan, and a white powder fell
out.
They alerted Australian authorities who closed
the embassy for 48 hours. Inside, nearly 50 staff
were isolated but allowed to leave late last night
after being decontaminated. The substance was sent
for testing to the ACT Government laboratories.
The ambassador was not in the building at the
time.
An Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Marty
Natalegawa, said Indonesia would "not succumb to
such acts of intimidation".
Mr Howard said he had been told the substance
was a bacteria belonging to the bacillus group.
"It's still being tested … it's not an innocent
white powder, it's some kind of biological agent,"
he told the Nine network. "I'm not a scientist but
they say it belongs to the bacillus group and is
being tested."
He said he could not "overstate the sense of concern
I feel that such a recklessly criminal act should
have been committed".
Mr Howard told the Herald the Foreign Minister,
Alexander Downer, had phoned the Indonesian Foreign
Minister, Hassan Wirajuda, last night, who was with
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
Mr Downer told Dr Wirajuda Australia was very
concerned about the incident and strongly condemned
it, and that the Government would work hard to track
down the perpetrators.
A spokesman for Indonesia's Foreign Ministry,
Marty Natalegawa, told the ABC last night that Indonesia
would not be intimidated or close its embassy in
Canberra.
Mr Howard said the incident was "damaging" and
had put a strain on relations, which had been very
strong in the wake of Australia's response to the
Boxing Day tsunami.
The incident triggered a high-security operation
with hazardous substance experts wearing protective
gear and breathing apparatus to begin decontamination
measures.
Australian Federal Police cordoned off the block
around the embassy for most of the day. [...] |
PARIS
: Software protection companies are warning that
a vicious new form of cyber-attack known as "ransomware"
is threatening computers by encrypting documents
and demanding money for them to be decrypted.
Symantec, a manufacturer of anti-virus programmes,
said on Wednesday on its website that the attacking
programme is a "Trojan horse" that enters the computer
via holes in the victim's web browser, scans a hard
drive and encrypts any text-based documents that
it finds. Unlike a virus, a Trojan horse does not
replicate from machine to machine.
If it installs successfully, the new threat wipes
out text files then displays a ransom note demanding
US$200 (153 euros) to supply decryption software
that will restore the data back to its original,
readable form.
So far, only one case of "ransomware" has come
to light, but this could be the start of a new and
dangerous generation of malicious software, the
British weekly New Scientist says in its next issue
dated Saturday.
The algorithm used to scramble the data was not
very sophisticated in this case, and the encrypted
documents were easily decoded by a computer consultant.
"The danger now is that the virus writers might
turn to using strong military-grade encryption systems,"
leaving the victim with little option but to pay
up to decrypt his files, New Scientist warns. |
Government inspectors surveying
damage this hurricane season will be armed with
digital cameras - the latest attempt to bring more
accountability to the nation's disaster-relief agency.
The cameras will hold proof that the inspectors
saw damaged property before doling out disaster
aid. Photos will also help verify whether the damage
was caused by a storm.
It's one of several simple efforts to solve serious
problems of fraud and waste uncovered in an investigation
into the Federal Emergency Management Agency's response
to last fall's unprecedented hurricane season. The
recent problems come after more than a decade of
criticism leveled at FEMA, an agency that seems
to always be weathering another storm on the public-relations
front.
Members of Congress and the Homeland Security Department's
inspector general charged last month that FEMA gave
$31 million in disaster relief to 12,000 Florida
residents who it didn't verify had property damage
after Hurricane Frances in 2004 and may not have
deserved any money. They say FEMA paid $9 million
in rental assistance to 4,985 Miami-Dade County
residents who didn't need it, paid $125,742 for
three funerals for people whose deaths had nothing
to do with the storm and paid $192,592 for unverified
expenses for cleanup equipment.
Accustomed to criticism
"Taxpayers also bought rooms full of furniture
and new wardrobes (and) paid to repair or replace
nearly 800 cars and provide rental assistance to
people living in undamaged homes," Sen. Susan
Collins (news, bio, voting record), R-Maine, chairwoman
of the Senate homeland security committee, told
FEMA chief Michael Brown at a May 18 hearing. She
called the situation "outrageous."
The public grilling may have been a first for Brown,
but it was hardly a first for FEMA, which is bracing
for what could be another tough Florida storm season.
Wednesday was the first day of the Atlantic hurricane
season.
In the past decade-and-a-half, FEMA has been criticized
for its responses to earthquakes in California,
hurricanes in the South and the 9/11 attacks.
This time, acting Homeland Security Inspector General
Richard Skinner said the problems in Miami-Dade
are "indicative or representative of problems
we may have nationwide."
Collins accused FEMA of adopting a wasteful "pay-first-ask-questions-later"
policy and is demanding that Brown tighten the agency's
rules to make sure inspectors verify damage before
handing out checks.
However, if FEMA didn't dole the money out almost
immediately after a disaster, "the same people
bellyaching now would be bellyaching that you didn't
move fast enough," said Joe Allbaugh,
President Bush's first FEMA director. "It's
unfair."
Brown acknowledges that some changes should be
made - and he's started to make them. In addition
to digital cameras, inspectors must more carefully
document damage, including property that can't be
inspected because it had to be discarded or washed
away in the storm. Inspectors also must have software
in their handheld computers that helps them determine
how to hand out aid.
Brown makes no apologies for the agency's work
in 2004, when four hurricanes hit in six weeks.
He and others also dismiss
the notion that presidential politics prompted FEMA
to dole money out fast in a state crucial to Bush's
re-election. [...] |
JOHANNESBURG - More than a
fifth of the planet's bird species face extinction
as humans venture further into their habitats and
introduce alien predators, an environmental group
said on Wednesday.
While there have been some success stories of species
that reappeared or recovered, the overall situation
of the world's birds is worsening, BirdLife International
said in its annual assessment of the feathered fauna.
"The total number (of bird species) considered
to be threatened with extinction is now 1,212, which
when combined with the number of near threatened
species gives a total of exactly 2,000 species in
trouble -- more than a fifth of the planet's remaining
9,775 species," BirdLife said.
Several species from Europe appear in the list
for the first time, including the European roller,
for which key populations in Turkey and European
Russia have declined markedly.
BirdLife, a global alliance of conservation groups,
said 179 species were categorised as critically
endangered, the highest level of threat. They include
the Azores bullfinch, one of Europe's rarest songbirds
that has fewer than 300 left. [...] |
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has quarantined
a turkey layer farm in Abbotsford, British Columbia
based on preliminary results from the British Columbia
Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, indicating
the presence of the H3 influenza virus in the flock.
The turkey farm is near a swine farm that recently
experienced an H3 influenza infection and the virus
is suspected to have originated from swine. Transmission
of this influenza strain between swine and turkeys
is a danger that has been seen before.
This low pathogenic H3 virus is a milder form
of virus and has not been known to mutate into high
pathogenic avian influenza as the H7N3 strain did
last year in the Fraser Valley. [...] |
Australia's agricultural heartland
is experiencing its worst drought in 60 years, the
National Climate Centre said, while the government
said the dry-spell is affecting economic growth.
The four-year drought was the third worst on the
dry continent in recorded history after one between
1895 and 1903 and the 1938 to 1946 drought, senior
climatologist Grant Beard told AFP.
"We are talking about four years of pretty
bleak conditions in the current situation... the
other ones we are talking about went longer,"
he said.
Low rainfall and extremely high temperatures have
created the worst drought in six decades in Australia's
Murray Darling region, Beard said. The area generates
about one-third of the nation's agricultural output.
"In terms of the Murray Darling basin, the
drought there is the worst since the 1940s,"
he said of the water catchment area which stretches
south from Queensland to New South Wales and Victoria
and east into part of South Australia.
"Temperatures have also been quite above average
at record or near record levels," Beard said.
"Particularly, the last five months it's been
extraordinarily warm across a large part of the
country."
The drought affects the eastern coastal states
of New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland, as
well as South Australia and the lush southern island
of Tasmania. Many parts of Australia have not a
single drop of rain in April, according to the Bureau
of Meteorology.
The New South Wales government has declared 90
percent of the state in drought and on Tuesday introduced
tough new water restrictions on homes as dam levels
dropped below 40 percent capacity.
Treasurer Peter Costello said Wednesday the dry
spell was starting to cut into economic growth as
agricultural incomes had not fully recovered from
the 2002-03 drought.
"The impact of drought now evident in four
quarterly falls in agricultural production is now
affecting the measure of overall economic growth,"
he said. |
Torrential
rains and hailstorms overnight have left vast areas
to the north and north-east of Bulgaria plunged
underwater, with many houses ruined and farmland
destroyed.
Villages and towns in the region of Lukovit and
Russe have announced a state of emergency. Rivers
there are raging up to the brim and threaten to
spill over dam walls, local officials alarmed.
Besides the ruined harvest, many domestic stock
were killed of drowning in the barns.
Damaged municipalities claimed more than 15 M
to recover from the natural disaster, but the state
body for fight against natural disasters and accidents
has so far allotted BGN 1.4 M only. [...] |
WARSAW - Three people were killed and several injured
late Monday when a violent storm struck the Wroclaw
region of southwest Poland, local police said.
Two men in their 20s and a 14-year-old boy were
killed by falling tree branches, police spokesman
Pawel Petrykowski said.
Several car drivers were injured in similar accidents,
the PAP news agency quoted him as saying.
The high winds also struck power lines in Wroclaw,
immobilising electric trams in the town and affecting
traffic.
Most train services in the region were halted
late Monday.
A string of storms hit Poland Monday, where record
temperatures up to 35 degrees centrigrade (95 degrees
fahrenheit) have been recorded in recent days. |
ZAGREB - Three people died in Croatia over the weekend
after record high temperatures reaching up to 33
degrees Celsius (91 degrees Fahrenheit) which hit
the Balkans country, hospital sources said Tuesday.
Two people died in the eastern town of Osijek
and one in the northern town of Varadzin, all three
of heart attacks caused by the heath, hospital sources
said quoted by the Jutarnji List daily.
One person died in the capital Zagreb where temperatures
reached 32 degrees Celsius Monday.
According to the country's meteorological service
the temperatures are to get back to normal and drop
by an average of six degrees Celsius on Tuesday. |
Saltpond (Ghana) - Parts of Saltpond, the capital
of the Mfantseman District, got flooded on Tuesday
as a result of a heavy downpour, destroying property
worth millions of cedis. The worst affected areas
were: Eguabado, Kuranchikrom, Prabiw, Appiakwa and
the market area.
The flood destroyed houses and personal belongings.
There was however no casualty.
Mr Robert Quainoo-Arthur, acting District Chief
Executive, Mr Francis Donkoh, Assemblyman for Nkubem
Electoral Area and Nana Baah VII, Chief of Saltpond
Lower Town inspected some of the houses affected
and consoled the victims.
Nana Baah told the Ghana News Agency that the
flood was the worst experienced by the town in over
20 years. |
LOS
ANGELES - A landslide destroyed at least 15 luxury
homes in the upscale Southern California seaside
community of Laguna Beach on Wednesday, causing
panic but no serious injuries, authorities said.Police
said 15 to 18 homes were destroyed or seriously
damaged and about 20 others were destabilized by
the slide that happened just before 7 a.m. as residents
were getting up and preparing to go to work or school.
Some escaped in their pajamas.
Some of the ocean-view homes -- many of them valued
at more than $2 million -- slid intact down the
hillside. Others cracked in half or were left tilting
precariously on dirt piles as roads buckled, sidewalks
disappeared and utility poles crashed onto cars.
Firefighters said no one was trapped and injuries
were mainly cuts, scrapes and bruises as residents
fled.
About 350 homes in the Bluebird Canyon area were
evacuated while officials determined the possibility
of further slippages in the area, about 54 miles
(87 km) southeast of Los Angeles.
The landslide followed the heaviest winter rains
in over a century in Southern California. Bluebird
Canyon was also the site of a devastating landslide
in 1978 in which dozens of homes were destroyed
and damage ran into the millions of dollars. [...] |
BEIJING - Heavy rain has triggered floods and mudslides
in southern China, leaving at least 200 people dead
or missing, a resident and state media said on Wednesday.Torrential
rain hit a mountainous region of Hunan province
in the early hours on Wednesday and 22 people died
in floods, the official Xinhua news agency said.
Two officials were killed during rescue work.
Thirty-five people, including five students, were
missing, Xinhua said.
However, a local resident with knowledge of the
casualties and damage said at least 200 people died
or were missing after torrential rains hit Xinshao
and Lianyuan counties, Shaoyang city and three other
cities in Hunan province since Tuesday.
"Villagers, cadres and rescuers were washed away
by floods," the resident, who asked not to be identified,
told Reuters.
"More than 10,000 people were left homeless after
their homes were either washed away, flooded or
toppled," he said.
Mountain torrents in Xinshao were the worst in
the county's history, Xinhua said.
At least 47 villages were devastated by the torrents
and 54,600 villagers affected, Xinhua quoted Shen
Guirong, director of the county government's publicity
department, as saying.
About 3,560 homes were destroyed, Shen said, and
electricity and telecommunications services were
cut off in some villages. |
A strong earthquake occurred
at 10:55:58 (UTC) on Thursday, June 2, 2005. The
magnitude 6.1 event has been located in SALTA, ARGENTINA.
The hypocentral depth was estimated to be 164 km
(102 miles). (This event has been reviewed by a
seismologist.) |
A moderate earthquake occurred
at 02:11:14 (UTC) on Thursday, June 2, 2005. The
magnitude 5.6 event has been located SOUTH OF THE
FIJI ISLANDS. (This event has been reviewed by a
seismologist.) |
TAIPEI
: An earthquake measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale
rocked Taiwan on Thursday morning, rattling buildings
across the island, the Seismology Centre said.
There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.
The quake hit at 00:20 am (1620 GMT) with an epicenter
12.2 kilometres northeast of eastern coastal town
of Suao, 57.7 kilometres under the seabed.
Taiwan's worst earthquake, measuring 7.6 on the
Richter scale, struck in September 1999, leaving
about 2,400 people dead. |
LHASA, June 2 (Xinhuanet)
-- An earthquake measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale,
jolted Medog County, Mainling County and Bomi County
in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region at 4:06
a.m. Thursday, according to the State Seismological
Bureau.
The epicenter was located at about 29.1 degrees
of north latitude and 94.8 degrees of east longitude.
The locals, most herders and nomadic Tibetans, are
widely spread over the vast area in these counties,
and no casualties have been reported, said local officials.
|
NEW DELHI, June
2 (Xinhuanet) -- A high magnitude earthquake measuring
6.3 on the Richter scale shook India's northeastern
region Thursday, causing panic among residents, Indo-Asian
News Service reported.
Police in the region said people panicked and rushed
out of their homes.
There were no reports of damage or casualties so
far. India's northeastern region is considered by
seismologists as the sixth major earthquake prone
belt in the world.
Assam experienced a massive tremor measuring 8.5
on the Richter scale on Aug 15, 1950 that claimed
some 1,500 lives. |
DYERSBURG, Tenn.
(AP) - Some residents of northwestern Tennessee were
jarred awake this morning by a minor earthquake.
The U.S. Geological Survey reported the temblor
had a magnitude of 4 and was centered 10 miles north-northwest
of Dyersburg, near Ridgely. The agency said the quake
was about 15 1/2 kilometers below the surface.
Dyer County fire chief and emergency management
agency director James Paul Medling said emergency
agencies were flooded with telephone calls from anxious
residents shortly after the 6:38 a.m. CDT event, but
no one reported any damage.
"I was still in bed,'' Medling told The Associated
Press. "I felt my house shake twice, my bed shook
twice and I heard a big boom.''
Medling said he went outside and the water was swirling
in his dog's water bucket.
The area where the quake was felt is in the New Madrid
fault zone - a seismically active area that runs along
the Mississippi River from New Madrid in the Missouri
Bootheel to Marked Tree, Ark.
Scientists say a huge earthquake in 1811-1812 struck
the area, causing the river to run backward for a
time and creating Reelfoot Lake on the Tennessee-Kentucky
border.
The Geological Survey also reported a very small
quake in the region on Monday. The 1.6 magnitude temblor
was centered five miles south of Manila, Ark., about
45 miles west-southwest of Dyersburg. |
Discovering that
some great historical figure had the scruples of a
Mafia hit-man or the sexual morality of a rabbit is
nothing new these days. While such revelations often
ruin the reputation of run-of-the-mill celebrities,
this is not always the case for great scientists,
whose po-faced image often benefits from a whiff of
scandal.
Lovefilm
Many physicists still delight in exchanging anecdotes
about the late, great American Nobel prizewinner Richard
Feynman, who enjoyed breaking into safes and frequenting
topless bars. Madame Curie made tabloid headlines
in 1911 with an affair with a fellow physicist, and
was told by a member of the Nobel Prize committee
not to collect her award for the discovery of radium
(she turned up anyway). Erwin Schrodinger, one of
the founders of quantum theory, did his best work
between sessions with his mistress in a skiing lodge.
There is only one form of behaviour that is still
regarded as utterly beyond the pale in the scientific
mind, and that is any form of flirtation with the
occult. Even the likes of Sir Isaac Newton knew his
reputation would take a severe beating if anyone learned
of his fascination with matters spiritual and alchemical.
In public, Newton insisted that he had no interest
in putting forward the explanation of gravity, and
focused purely on its mathematical description. Only
centuries after his death did it emerge that Newton
believed gravity to be a manifestation of God's all-pervading
spirit.
The same sentiments hold sway today. Professor Brian
Josephson of Trinity College, Cambridge, is widely
regarded to have "cracked up" after winning
the 1973 physics Nobel at the precocious age of 33,
simply because he refuses to dismiss evidence for
paranormal phenomena.
Clearly anyone who hopes to succeed in the world
of science is best advised to keep their flaky ideas
to themselves. Just how far some scientists have been
prepared to go to avoid being labelled fruitcases
is made clear by a paper in the current issue of Physics
World by Dr Jeff Hughes, a scientific historian at
the University of Manchester.
While researching nuclear physics between the wars,
Dr Hughes came across a large grey box of papers at
the University of Cambridge Library belonging to the
late Nobel prize-winning scientist Francis Aston.
In 1922 Aston won the chemistry prize for his studies
of nuclear isotopes.
Among the papers was a yellowing 15-page manuscript
entitled On the homogeneity of atmospheric neon. Apparently
written in 1913, the paper was a version of a talk
Aston had given at that year's meeting of the British
Association for the Advancement of Science.
It described Aston's attempts to separate neon from
its chemically identical isotope, which he referred
to as "meta-neon". Reading the paper, Dr
Hughes was amazed to find that Aston had taken this
odd term from a book with the even odder title of
Occult Chemistry: A Series of Clairvoyant Observations
on the Chemical Elements. Its authors were Annie Besant
and Charles Leadbeater, two leading figures in the
theosophy movement. As followers of this mystical
philosophy, which insisted on direct experience of
God and His works, Besant and Leadbeater believed
in the powers of clairvoyance.
In 1895, Leadbeater had begun exploring chemical
elements such as hydrogen and nitrogen using these
paranormal means, and in 1908 reported his findings
in Occult Chemistry. Leadbeater claimed that as well
as exploring known elements, he had detected the presence
of ones hitherto undiscovered. Among them was something
he called "meta-neon", a slightly heavier
version of the inert gas discovered in 1898. It was
this bizarre claim to which Aston referred in the
document.
Aston noted that Leadbeater had done more than merely
announce the existence of meta-neon: he had even predicted
its atomic weight as 22.33 times the mass of hydrogen.
Aston's document then revealed the astonishing fact
that in 1912 he had found this new form of neon -
and its mass was within one per cent of the value
predicted by Leadbeater. It was a "coincidence"
that clearly disturbed Aston. Dr Hughes discovered
that by the time of his award of the Nobel Prize,
Aston had embarked on rewriting the whole story of
the discovery of isotopes, excising all reference
to Leadbeater and meta-neon.
Like the discovery of Newton's secret papers by John
Maynard Keynes in 1936, Aston's determination to rewrite
scientific history shows how uncomfortable the most
rational of people can become by the merest hint of
the non-rational. |
FORT WORTH – Faith can move mountains and make
the crippled walk, according to Elvira Garcia, who
said she was healed when she saw the image of Jesus
Christ in an apartment window.
Early Thursday, Ms. Garcia took flowers and a
candle to honor the image at the Fossil Ridge Apartments
in northeast Fort Worth.
"I came here hobbling, and
look how I am now: I can raise my leg," she said.
"It's a miracle. Now that I see God's image, I am
strong."
Clara Martinez, 43, said she noticed the image
Wednesday afternoon as she took care of her grandchildren
in the apartment.
"There were colors in the window. I went out and
saw the face," she said.
Her neighbors gathered outside to see it, bringing
candles, flowers and pictures of the Virgin of Guadalupe.
One man came with an ultrasound scan of his ill
wife.
The Rev. Esteban Jasso of All Saints Catholic
Church in Fort Worth said he saw a colorful figure
but not the face of Jesus.
"There are several ways to interpret this; there
are people who see what we don't," the priest said.
He said that expressions of faith are respected
by the church, and that if people bring flowers
and pray to the image, that's fine with him.
There is a rainbow in the widow
that is Jesus' hair, according to those who see
the image. They say his face is in the glass itself.
"The image is very clear. At first I didn't see
it; I was looking for the virgin. And now that I
look at it, it looks very good," said Norma Quiroz,
who was driving by Thursday and stopped when she
saw a crowd.
Father Jasso said that while he respects people's
beliefs, he's concerned that someone will start
asking for donations or otherwise try to exploit
people's faith.
"I don't think the Fort Worth Diocese will do anything
until this really causes a massive crowd to gather,"
he said.
A priest with the National Catholic Church of
Mexico, a church that is not governed by the Fort
Worth Diocese, said the image is a miracle and can
be seen very clearly.
"I will bring two bishops from Mexico to see the
image, and then we'll take proof to Rome," said
the Rev. John Parnell of St. Augustine Church of
Fort Worth.
He scheduled a Mass at the foot of the image. |
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