|
Copyright
2005 Pierre-Paul
Feyte
WASHINGTON (Reuters)
- President Bush on Monday defended the U.S. treatment
of detainees and said the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks,
being held in secret custody, could provide valuable information
to help protect Americans and Europeans.
Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed, allegedly the brains behind the Sept.
11, 2001, attacks on the United States, has been
held at an undisclosed location since he was captured
in Pakistan in March 2003.
"We've got some in custody -- Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
is a classic example. The mastermind of the September
the 11th attack that killed over 3,000 of our citizens,"
Bush said at a press conference after meeting with European
Union leaders.
"And he is being detained because we think he
could possibly give us information that might not only
protect us, but protect citizens in Europe," Bush
said.
"And at some point in time he will be dealt with,
but right now we think it's best that he be kept in
custody. We want to learn as much as we can in this
new kind of war about the intention, and about the methods,
about how these people operate," he said. "And
they're dangerous, and they're still around, and they'll
kill on a moment's notice."
While a number of senior al Qaeda members have been
captured or killed, the network's leader, Osama bin
Laden, and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, have evaded
a U.S.-led manhunt. |
HANOVER, Germany - A Moroccan who
was dubiously acquitted of playing a role in the September
11, 2001 attacks on the United States, has left Germany
for Morocco, his lawyer said.
Abdelghani Mzoudi, 32, was acquitted last year of being
an accessory to the 9/11 murders and of belonging to
a terrorist organization, but the court in Hambourg
specifically refused to rule him innocent, saying it
was forced to acquit him because of lack of credible
evidence.
Hamburg was a rear base to three of the suicide hijackers
in the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
The federal court of justice confirmed the verdict
on June 9, and the state minister of the interior in
Hamburg gave Mzoudi 14 days to leave the country after
that date, saying that his presence had been tolerated
only so long as there was a judicial case against him.
Lawyer Gul Pinar said Mzoudi had left for Agadir in
the company of another lawyer, Michael Rosenthal.
"We want to be absolutely sure what happens to
him," she said, adding that it was likely he would
be interrogated by authorities in Morocco, where his
family has lined up legal counsel for him.
According to a German security expert,
Mzoudi risked being arrested and transferred to the
US military camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where Al-Qaeda
and Taliban suspects are held.
Mzoudi, who studied electronics in Hamburg, moved in
the same circles as three of the 9/11 hijackers.
He was only the second person anywhere in the world
to face trial over the attacks. The first, Moroccan
student Mounir El Motassadeq, is being re-tried after
his original guilty verdict was overturned.
Both men had attended Al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan. |
NEW YORK - Family members of those
killed at the World Trade Center are balking at plans
to add a museum of freedom at ground zero, arguing it
would allow politics to infect a place revered as sacred.
Relatives representing 14 family groups rallied at
the site Monday to condemn plans for the International
Freedom Center, which officials said would place the
2001 terror attacks in a historical context.
The center would be part of a cultural complex set
to open in 2009 at the northeast end of the rebuilt
trade center site. It would host
discussions on historical and current events, exhibits
on global freedom movements and a service program encouraging
activities that could range from joining the Peace Corps
to enlisting in the U.S. military.
According to the International Freedom
Center's Web site, the museum will "deal with the
international impact of September 11," as well
as such issues as segregation in America and the Holocaust.
"It doesn't belong at a memorial," said Charles
Wolf, whose wife, Katherine, died in the World Trade
Center collapse. "You wouldn't put a debate about
Nazism and authoritarianism at Dachau."
Center President Richard J.
Tofel said that while the causes of the Sept. 11 attacks
would not be up for debate, the center would
not bar criticism of the United States and its actions.
"Part of the way we celebrate
freedom is to acknowledge that even the greatest societies
in the world and those that have made the greatest contribution
to freedom are not perfect," he said.
The center's use of advisers that include some critics
of U.S. policy has prompted criticism from conservative
commentators in recent weeks. |
WASHINGTON (AP) -
FBI Director Robert Mueller says he doesn't believe
his counterterrorism supervisors need to have a background
in Arabic, the Middle East or international issues.
"Let me tell you that we want to develop that
within the bureau, but making that an absolute requirement
- if you do not have it you would be precluded from
advancing in counterterrorism - no,'' Mueller testified
recently in an employment lawsuit.
Mueller described his own expertise in Middle Eastern
terrorism as having been "relatively limited''
when he took over the FBI a week before the Sept. 11
attacks.
Mueller also testified he didn't give any guidance
to his top managers to seek out the bureau's most experienced
counterterrorism agents to work on the war on terror
immediately after Sept. 11, saying he expected those
managers to make good choices.
"It was in their hands as to how they did that,''
Mueller said in a wide-ranging deposition obtained by
The Associated Press. Some supervisors were brought
in without any terrorism training while some agents
who were more knowledgeable about al-Qaida were brought
from New York to work on the suicide hijackings investigation,
officials said.
Most of the men Mueller appointed to run the war on
terror testified that they didn't believe Middle East
and terrorism experience had been important for choosing
the agents they promoted, the AP reported Sunday.
Gary Bald, the bureau's executive assistant director
in charge of terrorism, testified he had to get his
terrorism training on the job when he came to headquarters
two years ago. When asked about his grasp of Middle
Eastern culture and history, he replied: "I
wish that I had it. It would be nice.'' |
WASHINGTON - US President George
W. Bush said he wanted the crisis-hit European Union
to be a "strong" global partner, as he and
visiting EU leaders took a united approach to Iran,
North Korea, and Lebanon.
"The United States continues to support a strong
European Union as a partner in spreading freedom and
democracy and security and prosperity throughout the
world," he said after the annual US-EU summit at
the White House.
Bush spoke after meeting with Luxembourg Prime Minister
Jean-Claude Juncker, the current EU president; European
Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso; and EU foreign
policy chief Javier Solana.
The European Union is reeling after its failure to
agree on a long-term budget and the postponement of
plans to adopt a constitution after French and Dutch
voters crushingly rejected the charter.
"We made clear in our frank and open and friendly
talks with the president that the European Union is
not (on) its knees," said Juncker, who has warned
that the 25-nation bloc may see its global influence
shrink.
In a series of joint statements, the
United States and the European Union declared a united
front on issues like North Korea's nuclear weapons programs,
Iran's atomic energy ambitions, and recent elections
in Lebanon.
They demanded that Pyongyang dismantle its nuclear
weapons "in a permanent, transparent, thorough,
and verifiable manner," while renewing their support
for six-nation diplomacy.
On Iran, the United States and Europe Union reaffirmed
their support for talks led by Britain, France and Germany
and urged Tehran to freeze uranium enrichment and reprocessing
and cooperate with the UN nuclear watchdog agency.
In his remarks, Bush thanked Europe for "sending
a clear message to the leadership in Iran that we're
not going to tolerate the development of a nuclear weapon."
Tehran denies charges that it seeks atomic weapons.
Washington and Brussels also jointly welcomed Lebanon's
elections, which led to a victory by the anti-Syrian
opposition, and said they would consider calling an
international conference to solicit support for a new
government.
"Once the Lebanese government has defined its
reform agenda and should it so request, we will consider
convening an international conference to consolidate
support for the Lebanese people and the new government,"
according to a joint US-EU statement.
Both sides insisted that deep transAtlantic
divisions over the war in Iraq were in the past, with
Bush and Juncker pointing to US-EU sponsorship of an
international conference on Iraqi reconstruction that
is set to open in Brussels on Wednesday.
"There may have been past differences over Iraq,
but as we move forward, there is a need for the world
to work together so that Iraq's democracy will succeed,"
said the US president.
"When it comes to substance,
when it comes to progress, when it comes to democracy,
to freedom and to liberty, both the US and the European
Union are cooperating closely together and working in
the same direction," said Juncker.
In their joint statements, the two sides also reaffirmed
their support for Israel's controversial plan to withdraw
from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank and expressed
strong support for Palestinian elections.
"We support the holding of free, fair, and transparent
multi-party legislative elections in the West Bank,
Gaza and East Jerusalem, under the scrutiny of international
observers and with full freedom of movement for candidates
and voters," they said.
They also expressed "deep concern" about
the human rights situation in Zimbabwe and said they
stood ready to provide help in the event of a dire food
shortage there. |
'Am
I Next?' |
By Ann Scott Tyson
– Washington Post Monday, June 20, 2005 |
At dawn, Miller and
his platoon awaken from a rough slumber cramped inside
Humvees or stretched out on the packed dirt of an austere
Army base in eastern Ramadi known as Combat Outpost.
The base has no running water, only a few wooden latrines,
and is regularly pounded by mortars…
Under the glare of a midmorning sun, Staff Sgt. Jody
Hayes stands sweating in the hatch of his M-113 armored
vehicle, scanning for insurgents. Hayes and his Iowa
National Guard crew have been stalled for nearly 30
minutes on a risky, slow-moving mission to clear road
bombs, and he's getting nervous.
Suddenly he hears the snap of a sniper's bullet flying
past his head. The round pierces the neck of the soldier
next to him, Spec. John Miller, entering the two-inch
gap between his Kevlar vest collar and helmet.
"Get down!" Hayes yells. Miller falls heavily
against Hayes's leg, and at first Hayes believes his
friend is taking cover. "Man, he got down pretty
quick," he recalls thinking. Then he glances down
and sees Miller bleeding at his feet. ...
"Doc," Hayes says, looking up at her. "He's
gone."
Holschlag begins checking Miller's pulse herself, as
if she hasn't heard.
"Doc," Hayes repeats, louder. "He's
gone!"
It is 10:18 a.m. on April 12, and John Wayne Miller
is no more. ..
Spec. John Wayne Miller was killed by sniper fire in
Ramadi, Iraq, on April 12.
With a fifth of its soldiers killed or wounded, the
platoon is reeling from the trauma of repeated loss,
facing a constant threat from bombs and gunfire on Ramadi's
streets, or mortar strikes on their base. ..
Ramadi is a grim destination for U.S. troops. No battalion
stationed inside the city has so far escaped a tour
without serious casualties. More than 120 troops have
been killed and hundreds more wounded since the summer
of 2003 -- proportionally more than in Baghdad. And
not all the deaths are from combat: One homesick 19-year-old
recently shot himself in the head. ..
"What sucks the most," says Miller's platoon
leader, Lt. Tom Lafave, of Escanaba, Mich., "is
we sweep an area and five hours later an IED goes off
in the same spot."
Miller's squad leader, Staff Sgt. Steve "Shaggy"
Hagedorn, is more blunt. "We spent three days clearing
a route and I guarantee it's worse now than when we
started," he says. "So everyone's asking,
'What are we doing it for?'
Everyone's asking, 'Am I next?' " ..
The shock is compounded by the loss just weeks earlier
of the platoon's commander, 2nd Lt. Richard B. Gienau,
29, of Peoria, Ill., and Sgt. Seth K. Garceau, 27, of
Oelwein, Iowa, when their Humvee was hit by a large
road bomb. ..
Edgington, so traumatized by the losses that he has
been unable to go on missions, is one of hundreds of
soldiers in Iraq being treated for combat stress each
month, even as they confront new dangers every day in
the war zone. ..
Edgington is the sole survivor to stay in Iraq from
the IED attack Feb. 27 that killed Gienau and Garceau
and wounded two other soldiers. He says he still dreams
about the attack nightly, disturbed above all by his
last glimpse of his commander. After the bomb exploded
and the dust cleared, he found Gienau lying in his lap.
"I remember looking for blood, and all it looked
like was a little scrape on his scalp. He really looked
like he had put his head in my lap and gone to sleep,"
he recalls. .. |
The White House has
failed for a second time to force the Senate to vote on
John Bolton, President George W Bush's controversial choice
for UN ambassador.
The failure leaves open the possibility Mr Bush will
appoint Mr Bolton without Senate approval during a recess.
There are 100 senators and 55 of them are Republicans,
so a straightforward vote on John Bolton would almost
certainly result in his confirmation.
But 60 members are needed to override a delaying filibuster
in the Senate.
So, provided the Democrats remain united, Mr Bolton will
not be passed.
'Unreasonable'
The Democrats say they are not blocking the nominee completely.
They would allow a vote if further information were given
on his behaviour while he worked at the state department.
But the Bush administration says that demand is unreasonable.
The two sides are deadlocked.
Assuming Mr Bolton does not withdraw,
the president is faced with a tough political choice.
He has the power to appoint his man over
the heads of the senators during their recess for the
4 July holiday - an appointment which would last until
2007.
Would that look like a bold move overcoming petty partisan
politics, or the desperate strategy of a lame-duck second-term
president?
Mr Bush's advisors must decide. |
WASHINGTON - Democratic senators
blocked John Bolton's controversial nomination as US
ambassador to the United Nations, defying White House
calls for the Senate to confirm President George W.
Bush's favored nominee. [...]
Bolton's nomination has been blocked by Democrats angry
at his past scornful statements about the United Nations,
his allegedly bullying manner, and charges that he manipulated
intelligence to fit to his political views.
Top Democratic senators say they will allow a vote
on Bolton -- but only after the Bush administration
provides classified documents that they say are crucial
to deciding the nomination.
If Bush were to appoint Bolton to the United Nations
without Senate endorsement it would only further tarnish
the nominee's battered reputation, according to top
Democrats.
"I think it's a bad mesage," Christopher
Dodd, a leading Democrat, told reporters Monday. "I
think the adminstration hurts itself" by insisting
on Bolton's nomination.
If Bush appoints him to the United
Nation "it would be the first nominee ever to go
to the UN without being confirmed," said Dodd.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, charged with
vetting his candidacy, sent Bolton's nomination to the
full Senate last month without
endorsing him after contentious hearings. |
WASHINGTON (AP) --
A federal agency collected extensive personal information
about airline passengers although Congress told it not
to and it said it wouldn't, according to documents obtained
Monday by The Associated Press.
A Transportation Security Administration contractor
used three data brokers to collect detailed information
about U.S. citizens who flew on commercial airlines in
June 2004 in order to test a terrorist screening program
called Secure Flight, according to documents that will
be published in the Federal Register this week.
The TSA had ordered the airlines to turn over data on
those passengers, called passenger name records, in November.
The contractor, EagleForce Associates, then combined
the passenger name records with commercial data from three
contractors that included first, last and middle names,
home address and phone number, birthdate, name suffix,
second surname, spouse first name, gender, second address,
third address, ZIP code and latitude and longitude of
address.
EagleForce then produced CD-ROMS containing the information
"and provided those CD-ROMS to TSA for use in watch
list match testing," the documents said.
According to previous official notices, TSA had said
it would not store commercial data about airline passengers.
The Privacy Act of 1974 prohibits the government from
keeping a secret database.
"I'm just floored," said Tim
Sparapani, a privacy lawyer with the American Civil Liberties
Union. "This is like creating an FBI file, not just
some simple check, and then they're storing the data."
TSA spokesman Mark Hatfield said the program was being
developed with a commitment to privacy, and that it was
routine to change the official definition of a system
of records during a test phase. |
George
W. Bush has done more to help Africa than other U.S. presidents,
says Live 8 organizer Bob Geldof.
Geldof made the comment in an interview in the current
issue of Time magazine. The Irish rocker was relating
how he had to defend Bush while he was in France.
"[The French] refuse to accept, because of their
political ideology, that he has actually done more than
any American president for Africa. But it's empirically
so," Geldof said. [...]
Geldof said he is also campaigning to have Pope Benedict
involved in some way in Live 8, and Bono added that he
thinks Bush can make a huge contribution.
"He
feels he's already doubled and tripled aid to Africa,
which he has. But he started from far too low a place,"
the U2 frontman said.
"He can stand there and say he paid at the office
already. He shouldn't, because he'll be left out of the
history books. But it's hard for him because of the expense
of the war and the debts. But I have a hunch that he will
step forward with something." |
Heads
Up |
Rigorous Intuition
Sunday, June 19, 2005 |
"There are stories of coincidence and chance,
of intersections and strange things told, and which
is which and nobody knows; and we generally say, 'Well,
if that was in a movie, I wouldn't believe it.'"
- Magnolia
As mourners prepared for a funeral near Los Angeles
in July, 1869, blood and flesh rained out of a clear
sky for three minutes, blanketing two acres of a corn
field. The flash ranged in size from small particles
to eight-inch strips, and included what witnesses took
to be pieces of kidneys, livers and hearts. Samples
were taken to the Los Angeles News, whose editor wrote,
in the August 3 edition, "That the meat fell, we
cannot doubt. Even the parsons in the neighborhood are
willing to vouch for that. Where it came from, we cannot
even conjecture."
For an hour on an August day in 1963, an enormous amount
of straw fell from clouds over Kent. "I looked
up, and the sky was full of it," said a witness.
A government meteorologist told Associated Press he
was "mystified."
On September 23, 1973, tens of thousands of toads fell
on Brignoles, France, during what was described as a
"freak storm." Peculiarly, they were found
to all be young toads.
Charles Fort loved this stuff. Until his death in 1932,
he collected hundreds of accounts of anomalous sky falls
of organic and inorganic matter. His theory, which according
to Jerome Clarke's Unexplained he "cheerfully acknowledged
to be preposterous," suggested that "under
certain conditions of gravidic and electromagnetic strain
in the solar system":
channels open through which material objects can
reach the Earth from parts unknown, or can be transferred
from one part of the Earth's surface to another....
Let us suppose that a channel opens between this Earth
and another, where the surface is a few hundred feet,
or a few thousand feet higher. Then things fall, from
that Earth to this. Frogs, minding their own affairs
in a pond, feel the bottom drop out...
A lot of strange things fall out of America's skies.
Why some do is not so strange.
The small plane of Gary Caradori, returning to Nebraska
with photographic evidence of an elite paedophile ring
run out of the Franklin Credit Union.
The United Airlines jet carrying the wife of Watergate
spook E Howard Hunt, as well as thousands of dollars
in hush money, who had been threatening to "tell
all." (Hunt immediately dropped his extortion of
the White House and agreed to plead guilty.)
Paul Wellstone's King Air A100, during an election
to decide control of the Senate, after having been the
only Senator standing for election to challenge Cheney's
war resolution, and just before his name would have
been left on the ballot in the event of his death.
The company plane of Jake Horton, Vice President of
Gulf Power, which exploded midair as he was en route
to confront his Board over dubious accounting and illegal
political payoffs. (According to Greg Palast, police
received an anonymous call later that day: "You
can stop investigating Gulf Power now.")
And we know many others; enough
that we can speak confidently of pattern recognition.
("Keep away from small planes" has become
our way of saying "Look after yourself.")
And since we can describe a pattern
- a pattern that repeats - we've left the Fortean realm
of anomalies for that of assassination science,
as James Fetzer has coined it. It's the coincidentalists
who are the true heirs of Charles Fort, because they
see no pattern, only anomalies. If they look up at all,
they can't make sense of aircraft falling with expedience
from the sky. They may as well be seeing toads or straw
or meat.
I wonder what Fort would have made of this: in separate
incidents last week, two helicopters fell into New York's
East River.
The first helicopter, carrying sightseers, concerns
us only as a precedent. (Accidents happen, but they
also happen sometimes to be a template for attempted
murder.) The second
helicopter, however, carried "top executives of
the financial services company MBNA Corp."
That's enough to merit attention most
weeks. But the same week, MBNA made news when a "computer
hacker" reportedly "accessed more than 40
million credit card accounts." This attack
"was the latest in a series of security lapses
affecting consumer information. The
breach appears to be the largest yet involving financial
data, said David Sobel, general counsel at the
Electronic Privacy Information Center."
And like a helicopter in the East River, it doesn't
begin or end there. Recent weeks have seen a bizarre
rash of "security lapses" at commercial and
credit institutions, with headlines like "Personal
data on millions of Citigroup clients lost in transit"
and "Fed
bank insurer's worker data breached".
I don't know what it means, if anything. But I think
only a fool could say with confidence that it means
nothing.
I'm just feeling like a frog who was minding his own
business in a pond, until suddenly, the bottom dropped
out.
Look out below.
Reader
Comments
8:45 AM
Anonymous said...
Connect the dots . . .
- CitiFinancial data lost
- Ameritrade data lost
- Bank of America data lost
- Time-Warner/AOL data lost
- 40M Mastercard accounts breached
- MBNA executives in the downed helicopter
Another 9/11, only not in the form of planes hitting
buildings? Economic crisis, anyone? Or perhaps just
another unfortunate coincidence?
|
"Want drive fast cars?"
asks an advertisement, in broken English, atop the Web
site iaaca.com. "Want live in premium hotels? Want
own beautiful girls? It's possible with dumps from Zo0mer."
A "dump," in the blunt vernacular of a relentlessly
flourishing online black market, is a credit card number.
And what Zo0mer is peddling is stolen account information
- name, billing address, phone - for Gold Visa cards
and MasterCards at $100 apiece.
It is not clear whether any
data stolen from CardSystems Solutions, the payment
processor reported on Friday to have exposed 40 million
credit card accounts to possible theft, has entered
this black market. But law enforcement officials
and security experts say it is a safe bet that the data
will eventually be peddled at sites like iaaca.com -
its very name a swaggering shorthand for International
Association for the Advancement of Criminal Activity.
For despite years of security
improvements and tougher, more coordinated law enforcement
efforts, the information that criminals siphon - credit
card and bank account numbers, and whole buckets of
raw consumer information - is boldly hawked on the Internet.
The data's value arises from its ready conversion into
online purchases, counterfeit card manufacture, or more
elaborate identity-theft schemes.
The online trade in credit card and bank account numbers,
as well as other raw consumer information, is highly
structured. There are buyers and sellers, intermediaries
and even service industries. The players come from all
over the world, but most of the Web sites where they
meet are run from computer servers in the former Soviet
Union, making them difficult to police.
Traders quickly earn titles, ratings and reputations
for the quality of the goods they deliver - quality
that also determines prices. And a wealth of institutional
knowledge and shared wisdom is doled out to newcomers
seeking entry into the market, like how to move payments
and the best time of month to crack an account.
The Federal Trade Commission estimates that roughly
10 million Americans have their personal information
pilfered and misused in some way or another every year,
costing consumers $5 billion and businesses $48 billion
annually.
"There's so much to this," said Jim Melnick,
a former Russian affairs analyst for the Defense Intelligence
Agency who is now the director of threat development
at iDefense, a company in Reston, Va., that tracks cybercrime.
"The story that needs to
be told is the larger, long-term threat to the American
financial industry. It's a cancer. It's not going to
kill you now, but slowly, over time."
No one is willing to estimate how many cards and account
numbers actually make it to the Internet auction block,
but law enforcement agents consistently describe the
market as huge. Every day, at sites like iaaca.com and
carderportal.org, pseudonymous vendors do business in
an arcane slurry of acronyms.
"Cobs," or changes of billings, are a hot
commodity. Typically, a peddler of cobs is offering
fresh bank or credit card accounts, along with the ability
to change the billing address through a pilfered PIN.
In other cases, a vendor selling cobs is offering to
change billing addresses himself, as a service. Sometimes
the address is changed to a safe "drop," which
might be an empty apartment in a local building, or
some other scouted locale where goods can be delivered.
(Information on reliable drops is also bought and sold.)
Lengthy tutorials posted at online "carding"
forums indicate that the cob art form is highly developed.
A patient criminal will wait until the day a victim
receives a billing statement. "That way you have
a full 30 days" before the victim is likely to
look over his account again, explained one frank tutorial
collected by the F.B.I.
A user going by the name "mindtrip" had cobs
for sale recently: "I'm selling cobs from at this
time only banks Discover and American Express t'ill
further notice," he wrote in brusque English. "The
cobs come with full info including MMN" (mother's
maiden name). Discover Card cobs with any balance were
on special: $50. American Express, a more exclusive
and potentially more lucrative account, commanded $85.
Alongside advertisements for cobs are pitches from
malicious-code writers, who sell their services to the
con artists, known as phishers, who contract with spammers
to send out millions of increasingly sophisticated phony
e-mails designed to lure victims into revealing their
account information.
A successful phishing operation might bring in thousands
of fresh account numbers, along with other identifying
details: names, addresses, phone numbers, passwords,
PIN's, and mothers' maiden names. The richer the detail
(and the higher the account balance), the better the
asking price.
A user by the nickname Sirota is peddling account information
so detailed, and so formatted, that it clearly came
from a credit report. He is asking $200 per dump on
accounts with available balances above $10,000, with
a minimum order of five if the buyer wants accounts
associated with a particular bank. "Also, I can
provide dumps with online access," he wrote. "The
price of such dumps is 5% of available credit."
Every day brings more. "These things have a short
shelf life," said Dan Larkin, the unit chief at
the F.B.I.'s Internet Crime Complaint Center in West
Virginia. "The criminal value of a compromised
credit card is very short term, so there's a constant
need to keep backfilling their resources."
A Full-Service Black Market
Those buying fresh batches of account numbers may try
to make purchases online, having goods delivered to
a drop and then fencing them through online auctions.
More sophisticated thieves will seek out a vendor of
encoding devices, and others who sell "plastic,"
or blank credit cards, and "algos," algorithms
that are needed to properly encode the magnetic strip
and produce a usable card. And "cash out"
services can be arranged with those offering to take
the encoded plastic to a cash machine and make daily
withdrawals until the account is depleted. (The cash-out
risk commands a premium - often 50 percent or more of
the total balance.)
Traders - whether they deal in plastic, algos, cobs
or other booty - build reputations first by earning
the right to advertise, and then, in a black-market
version of eBay buyer feedback, augment their status
by receiving published kudos from other members. No
one is permitted to post product or service offers at
most of these Web sites without first having their wares
vetted by site administrators, or by those who have
been selected as trusted "reviewers."
At iaaca.com, for example, those wishing to sell cobs
or cob services "will be required to provide ten
(10) change of addresses, to be distributed to two reviewers,"
who "will test this service by either phone or
Internet." New vendors of credit card numbers "will
be required to furnish 20 VALID dumps (5 Classics, 5
business, 5 platinums, 5 corporate; 50 percent Visa,
50 percent MasterCard)," according to the site
administrators. "The testers will determine the
quality, in a percentage of valid numbers."
Once the wares are vetted, a vendor might then pay
a fee to peddle them on a site's message boards. Banner
ads can also be purchased.
Contacts among deal makers almost
always move off the boards and onto ICQ, the instant-messaging
program of choice among cyberthieves because of its
easy anonymity (no names, no registration, no e-mail
required). Payments often
change hands in relative anonymity (and with little
regulation) by e-gold, an electronic currency that purports
to be backed by gold bullion and issued by e-gold Ltd.,
a company incorporated on the island of Nevis in the
Caribbean. (Secret Service agents have expressed skepticism
over the gold backing.)
Transactions might also be made in WMZ's, electronic
monetary units equivalent to American dollars and issued
by WebMoney Transfer, a company based in Moscow.
Plenty of noncriminal entities use such services to
move money, Secret Service analysts said - although
they added that the agency had conversations with some
of the e-currency issuers to discuss ways to address
the problem.
Thefts at Data Aggregators
Mark Rasch, the former head of cyberinvestigations
for the Justice Department and now the senior vice president
of Solutionary, a computer security company, said the
numbers taken in the CardSystems breach - at least 200,000
are said to have been in stolen files - are almost certain
to end up in one of these trading posts.
CardSystems represented a vital hub through which millions
of account numbers passed. ChoicePoint, a data aggregator,
was another gold mine; it announced in February that
thousands of records had been downloaded from its databases
by thieves posing as legitimate business clients (no
hacking required).
"The pattern in the last six months is going after
aggregators," Mr. Rasch said. "It used to
be you'd get a few numbers from a few merchants and
aggregate them yourself - a few numbers from a lot of
people. But at some point they said, 'Wait a minute,
there are other people who aggregate this stuff.' "
And, Mr. Rasch pointed out, it is nearly impossible
to stop. For all the information that law enforcement
and security experts can glean from sites like iaaca.com,
"there are whole marketplaces of bulletin board
systems and chats that are invisible," he said.
Still, law enforcement has made inroads. In October,
the Justice Department and the Secret Service announced
the internationally coordinated arrest of 28 individuals
in eight states and several countries, including Sweden,
Britain, Poland, Belarus and Bulgaria.
Among those arrested were Andrew Mantovani of Scottsdale,
Ariz., David Appleyard of Linwood, N.J., and Anatoly
Tyukanov of Moscow. The Justice Department says they
are the ringleaders of Shadowcrew.com, the largest English-language
Web bazaar trading in everything from stolen credit
card, debit card and bank account numbers to counterfeit
drivers' licenses, passports and Social Security cards.
The investigation, called Operation Firewall, broke
up a 4,000-member underground that, according to the
Justice Department, bought and sold nearly two million
credit card account numbers in two years and caused
over $4 million in losses to merchants, banks and individuals.
But eight months later, the traders have adapted and
resumed business. They are a bit more skittish now,
said John Watters, the chief executive of iDefense,
which generates cybercrime intelligence for government
and financial industry clients. Operation Firewall did
take out some of the "low-hanging fruit,"
Mr. Watters said. But that has only caused the pricing
models to become more refined, and the characters in
this black-market economy to become more sophisticated.
A New Market for New Identities
Mr. Watters said there was also a
small but growing market for the type of raw consumer
information that has been pilfered from ChoicePoint,
LexisNexis and other general data aggregators.
"We've observed people paying for identities,"
Mr. Watters said, describing Web forms where criminals
could tick off the fields they had to sell or wanted
to buy: address, date of birth, Social Security number,
driver's license number, mother's maiden name. And as
the traders slip deeper underground - or onto servers
in regions with lax laws, overburdened or uninterested
law enforcement and no real working relationship with
American authorities - the odds of pulling off another
Operation Firewall get worse.
"The next battle will be substantially
harder," Mr. Watters said. "It's getting harder
for us to do our job."
Asked at a symposium on cybercrime late last month
if law enforcement was losing the battle against cybercriminals,
Brian Nagel, assistant director for investigations at
the Secret Service, said no, according to published
reports.
But another panel member, Jody Westby, the managing
director of security and privacy practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers,
disagreed, insisting that based on Federal Trade Commission
statistics on identity and credit card theft, only about
5 percent of cybercriminals are ever caught.
In an interview, Ms. Westby offered
an assessment no less bleak. "We're not making
an impact," she said. "The criminals are too
hard to track and trace, too hard to prosecute, and
the information they steal is too easy to use."
At one Russian-language site over the weekend, a user
called Lexus celebrated the CardSystems breach, saying
that "judgment day has come for the bourgeoisie."
Another, Zer0, suggested on the site that the hacked
numbers might represent new opportunities in the underground.
"It is a good occasion for us," Zer0 said.
"Happy hunting." |
SEATTLE - A man carrying a hand
grenade and shouting threats was shot dead by police
Monday in the lobby of the federal courthouse.
The grenade was inactive, but police could not see
that as the man held it in his hand, Police Chief Gil
Kerlikowske said.
Witnesses said the man, wearing a backpack that he
later strapped to his chest, tried to get past security
and began shouting threats. Kerlikowske
said the backpack contained a cutting board.
The man "often frequented the courthouse as well
as the federal building," U.S. Marshal Eric Robertson
said, adding he had a "disdain"
for the federal government.
The medical examiner's office said it would not identify
the man until Tuesday.
In the lobby, a guard saw the man take the grenade
out of his backpack, then try to walk across a ledge
next to a pool that blocks public access to a secured
area, Robertson said.
Judges, jurors, employees and prisoners in the 23-story
federal building were evacuated. Meanwhile, security
officers tried talking to the man, but he refused to
put the grenade down. He also carried a sheaf of papers,
including some court documents and what authorities
described as a living will.
After about 25 minutes of negotiations
with police, "the man made a furtive movement,"
Robertson said. "At that point the officers had
no choice but to stop that threat."
An officer with a .223-caliber rifle and another with
a shotgun each fired once at the man, who fell to the
floor still holding the grenade.
Bomb squad members determined the grenade had been
drilled out and was inactive.
Kim Kingsborough told Northwest Cable News she saw
the man in the lobby before he was confronted by authorities.
"He just stood around for the longest time in the
lobby, looking around," he said.
The man then tried to make his way along the ledge
beside the pool, and as officers approached him, Kingsborough
said, the man shouted: "Don't come near me!"
Streets around the courthouse, a $171 million high-rise
that opened last August, were cordoned off. The building's
security features include glass walls that are blast-resistant. |
Driven by obscene greed
and hubris, the Oligarchs ruling America attempt to mercilessly
crush those who stand in the way of their imperialistic
ambitions.
John Steinbeck once wrote: "It always
seemed strange to me that the things we admire in men,
kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding
and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system.
And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness,
meanness, egotism and self interest are the traits of
success. And while men admire the quality of the first,
they love the produce of the second." The
plutocrats rule America behind the clever guise of a
constitutional republic rife with corruption. With an
unmatched ferocity in embodying the “traits of
success” discerned by Steinbeck, their Neocon
representatives in the government vigorously protect
the interests of the wealthy and tirelessly push the
American system of corrupt avarice on the rest of the
world. Strategies they typically employ include economic
pressure, psychological manipulation through propaganda
and media control, covert intervention by the CIA, and
in cases like Iraq, invasion and occupation. What the
proletariat has needed for a long time is a champion
for their cause. Plebeians of the world, meet Hugo Chavez.
Yes, there is a viable alternative to plutocracy
With America’s government fiercely advancing
the interests of avaricious corporations around the
world, Hugo Chavez has emerged in Venezuela as a welcome
antithesis. While there is little doubt that Chavez
is complex, acts with a degree of self interest, and
has a multi-faceted agenda, he has remained steadfast
in his promise to provide for the poverty-stricken in
Venezuela. His open defiance of US imperialism and nascent
attempt to implement a social democracy make him a rare
breed in this world. As they sustain blows to their
economic security, civil liberties, and intellectual
freedoms almost daily under the Bush administration,
people around the world can look to Chavez as illumination
in a very dark age.
Chavez has tenacity. He was
elected president of Venezuela in 1998 and again in
2000 by significant margins of victory. Contrary to
claims of corruption by the Bush administration and
its media lap-dogs, international observers declared
both elections to be free.
Chavez survived a coup attempt in 2002, which was openly
supported by the Bush administration. Dogged
by the opposition of the Oligarchs in his own country,
Chavez overcame a recall election in August of 2004.
His approval margin was a comfortable 59%. The recall
was organized and supervised by the Organization of
American States and the Carter Center. Jimmy Carter,
noted for his sterling integrity, helped supervise the
referendum process. Carter himself confirmed the legitimacy
of the procedures. Unlike Americans, Venezuelans can
rest assured that their recent elections have not been
rigged. Having tenaciously survived several rigorous
tests, Chavez is a president who truly represents a
majority of his people, and has the chutzpah to go toe
to toe with the Neocons.
In 1998, Chavez inherited a nation of extreme "haves"
and "have nots". For years, corrupt Oligarchs
had plundered the revenue from Venezuela's rich oil
reserves. Chavez rode to office on a wave of populist
support for his promises to bring social and economic
justice to his nation. When he took the reins of leadership,
3% percent of the population (mostly of white European
descent) owned 77% of the country’s land. About
80% of the Venezuelan population was of black and Indian
descent. They comprised most of the 21 million poverty-stricken
people in a nation with a population of 25 million.
Widespread poverty in a nation that sits atop the largest
oil reserves in the Western Hemisphere? The word unconscionable
could only begin to describe the situation. Enter Hugo
Chavez with his grand designs to beat back the economic
disparity.
Hollow rhetoric or real promises?
In Venezuela, just under a million
children who live in the many shameful shanty towns
now receive free education. Three new universities
offer a secondary education to 250,000 who would not
have had the opportunity for further education under
the Oligarchs. By the end of 2006, there will be six
more universities. In exchanged for subsidized oil,
Chavez has arranged for the immigration of 10,000 Cuban
doctors to operate free clinics for the poor. He has
tripled the health care budget. Under Chavez, over 100,000
families have received land under his Agrarian Reform
Act, despite stiff legal and sometimes violent resistance
from landlords. State subsidized markets offer necessities
to poor consumers for as little as fifty percent of
market cost. In 2004, 84% of the poor in Venezuela saw
their income increase 33%. Unemployment decreased from
17% in 2004 to 14% by February of 2005.
How has America fared under the Bush Oligarchy?
In a poll conducted in February of
2005, Chavez's approval rating in his country was 70%.
Bush’s approval rating in April of 2005 was a
paltry 45%. The numbers demonstrate who is acting in
the interest of their electorate, and who is not. Despite
victory (by landslide popular votes) in two presidential
elections and the recall, Bush still questions Chavez's
legitimacy. Tremendous controversy surrounded both of
Bush’s presidential “victories”, and
he lost the popular vote in 2000. Who is in a position
to question whom?
Since the Bush Oligarchy came to power, over 1600 Americans
have died in an imperialistic war which the Neocons
initiated by flagrant lies. The Patriot Act placed stunning
restrictions on the civil liberties of Americans as
Bush and the Neocons leveraged the fear inspired by
9/11. Theocracy has crept into what is left of America’s
democracy through Bush’s "faith based initiatives".
Corporate interests predominate over the welfare of
individuals. At $5.15 per hour, the pitifully low minimum
wage has not increased since 1997. Organized labor continues
to weaken as union membership has declined to about
12% of the workforce. Greedy, profiteering corporations
like Wal-Mart grow exponentially as they strip-mine
the American economy. 45 million Americans do not have
health insurance and the Oligarchs are deepening the
problem by slashing Medicaid’s budget. Under Bush,
the wealth gap has become a chasm. The top 1% of Americans
own 40% of the nation's assets, and lay claim to as
much wealth as the bottom 95%. The American government
is infested with Neocon disciples of Leo Strauss like
Paul Wolfowitz and Karl Rove. American leaders are driven
by a Machiavellian lust for power and practice deceit
like an art-form.
Wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth
Treading in deep water in Iraq, America’s Oligarchs
do not have the resources to deal with Chavez in their
usual ways. He has fostered a close relationship with
long-time "enemy of the state" Fidel Castro.
Venezuela is the fifth largest oil producer in the world
and accounts for 15% of US oil imports. Chavez has led
a resurgence in the power of OPEC to influence the world
oil market. Under his leadership, oil-rich developing
nations are increasingly demanding a just price for
their precious resource to enhance the quality of life
for their populaces. Having learned to wield oil as
an economic weapon to subdue the Neocons, Chavez presents
a tremendous challenge for Rumsfeld and company.
Chavez also represents a growing threat to the Neocon
agenda to advance the cause of "freedom and liberty"
around the globe. His philosophy of government is that
of a "new socialism", which carefully balances
democratic principles, a constitution, government intervention
in economic matters, and the existence of a private
business sector. In contrast, America espouses laisez-faire
capitalism and media-induced psychological tyranny masquerading
as "freedom and liberty". As evidenced by
the occupation in Iraq, George Bush has vowed not to
take "no" for an answer. Chavez is forcing
Bush to face rejection.
Bush's media loyalists like Fox have attacked Chavez's
sanity, reputation, competence, and legitimacy. The
Neocons have tried to unseat him by supporting a military
coup in 2002. Accusations from Chavez, leaks from the
CIA, and US history in Latin America all point to a
potential CIA assassination attempt against Chavez in
the near future. What the Neocons
would not give to use their military might to crush
Chavez and seize the bountiful oil fields of Venezuela.
With Saddam Hussein, the Neocons did not need to throw
too much mud to turn public opinion against him. Chavez
is another matter. Even the masters of deceit do not
lie well enough to discredit him in the court of public
opinion. How galling for them
that Chavez's devotion to the poor inspires such fierce
loyalty in his supporters, Venezuelan or otherwise.
Undaunted by coups, recall elections, or the $500 million
of US military aid to Colombia (his neighbor), Chavez
persists in aggressively pursuing his agenda. With unflinching
devotion, he works to strengthen his nation, tend to
the needs of the poor, and advance his "Bolivarian
Revolution". To defend his people, he recently
purchased military hardware from Russia, which included
100,000 AK 47s and 10 military helicopters. He is utilizing
PDVSA, the state-run oil titan, to finance his social
programs for the poor. To the tune of $4 billion per
year (drawn from a company with estimated profits of
$6.5 billion), Chavez is making good on his promise
to share the oil wealth of his nation. He is expanding
his profit base by finding new markets for Venezuelan
oil in Brazil and China. Chavez has increased the royalties
that foreign oil companies (like Chevron) pay to Venezuela.
Having raised them from 1% to 16.6%, he is now pushing
for 30%. Following the example of Simon Bolivar, the
liberator of South America from European powers, Chavez's
ultimate goal is to form a coalition of independent
South American nations to reject US leadership and intervention.
“Hello, Mr. President”
Despite drawing the wrath of the Bush administration
for his courageous defiance of their insidious agenda,
Chavez remains faithful to his causes. In his weekly
addresses to his constituents called "Hello, Mr.
President", he continues to express his views opposing
the American government quite candidly:
[US government advisers and planners
are] "not only planning the death of the world,
but are executing it. They are killing the world, our
world, and our grandchildren's world.....(in reference
to US imperialistic and environmentally damaging policies)
"....because we have generals,
commanders and soldiers who are patriots, and who will
not bend their knees before the US empire; they know
that there are people with a conscience who they will
not be able too confuse through the media they control."
"Look at the example of Iraq;
there was a campaign against Saddam Hussein, accusing
him of having chemical weapons, accusing him of being
a menace, by presenting evidence that resulted to be
false, to justify the aggression."
...."poisoned medicine..."
and "That is what is killing the peoples of Latin
America....This is the path of destabilization, of violence,
of war between brothers." (Chavez's condemnation
of Bush's capitalist free-trade policies)
The world needs him
Controversial as he may be, Hugo Chavez has a spine,
and he has stood by his devotion to economic justice.
He has weathered multiple political storms. Regardless
of the lies perpetrated by the Neocons and their lackeys
in the media, Chavez ascended to the presidency, and
has maintained office, through legitimate means. Too
little time has passed to judge the long-term efficacy
of his economic or political ideologies, but his ideals
are admirable, and he has done much to enhance the quality
of life for the poor of his nation.
His successes notwithstanding, Mr. Chavez has many
forces working against him. His fortunes are inextricably
linked to the volatile crude oil market. He inherited
an economy that was in shambles, and robust economic
health is still years away for Venezuela. The wealth
gap remains wide despite his programs that have provided
desperately needed assistance to the impoverished. Chavez
bears the universal burden of being human, all too human,
and could fall prey to the corruption that often accompanies
power. As a substantial obstacle to Neocon expansionism
in Latin America, Chavez has a highly visible target
painted on his back. He is in the cross-hairs of a well-armed
and experienced hunter. It is a steep grade, but Chavez
has the juice to keep climbing.
Bush and his Neocons have the deck stacked in their
favor. However, Hugo Chavez is no light-weight and will
not go down easily. America's Oligarchs need to learn
their place in the world community, and Chavez appears
poised to teach them. The real hope for the perpetuation
of human civilization is the success of Chavez, and
others like him. We need leaders who will champion the
rights of the poor and the plebeians. Strauss’s
disciples offer humanity the misery of perpetual war,
poverty for the masses, tyranny, and desecration of
our planet.
Bush and his Neocons long to awaken from their nightmare
in Latin America, but fortunately for the plebeians,
their real angst has just begun. Thank you, Mr. Chavez! |
RIYADH - US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice criticized Saudi Arabia's record on
democratic reform and the jailing of three activists
but was firmly rebuffed by Washington's staunch Middle
East ally.
"The row is really meaningless," Saudi Foreign
Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal told a post-midnight
news conference after Rice conferred with him and the
country's de facto ruler, Crown Prince Abdullah bin
Abdul Aziz,
"The assessment that is important
for any country in the development of its political
reform is the judgment of its own people," Prince
Saud said. "And that is, in the final analysis,
the criteria that we follow."
Rice flew into Riyadh on the fourth leg of a regional
swing after delivering a major speech in Cairo calling
for sweeping democratic change and naming Saudi Arabia
as one of the states still lagging.
Addressing 600 Egyptian officials, scholars and students
at Cairo's American University, she praised the "brave
citizens" in Saudi Arabia who are "demanding
accountable government."
"Some first steps toward openness have been taken
with recent municipal elections," the chief US
diplomat said. "Yet many people still pay an unfair
price for exercising their basic rights."
"Three individuals in particular
are currently imprisoned for peacefully petitioning
their government -- and this should not be a crime in
any country."
She was referring to three activists sentenced to between
six and nine years in prison in May on charges of demanding
a constitutional monarch in the ultra-conservative Gulf
sheikhdom.
Ali al-Demaini, Abdullah al-Hamed and Matruk al-Faleh
were found guilty of "using Western terminology"
in formulating their demands. They also allegedly questioned
the king's role as head of the judiciary.
The trio were the last activists held out of a dozen
people arrested in March 2004. The three planned to
lodge an appeal of their case Tuesday in a Riyadh court,
a lawyer and one of their wives said.
The State Department had already registered concern
over the fate of the activists and Rice said she raised
the matter in her talks late Monday with the Saudi leadership.
"We will continue to follow the progress of this
case, we think it is an important case," she said.
"The petitioning of the government for reform should
not be a crime." [...]
Rice's comments in Cairo were among the more forthright
US statements on Saudi shortcomings, but she toned down
her apppeal for reform as she stood alongside Prince
Saud at the Riyadh news conference.
"Obviously countries will do
this at their own speed," Rice said. "But
we encourage reform to go forward as quick as possible."
Prince Saud was unruffled by the remarks by Rice as
she wound up the Middle East portion of her trip before
heading Tuesday to Brussels for a conference on Iraq
and then to London for a meeting of the Group of Eight
powers.
Asked about Rice's speech at the American University,
the Saudi prince said he was too busy preparing for
her arrival here.
"I am afraid I haven't read it, to my eternal
shame," he said. |
Judges would sit without
a jury in serious and complex fraud trials under government
plans.
Prosecutors can ask for a trial without a jury in England
and Wales under laws passed in 2003, but Parliament
must approve the powers first.
Outlining his alternative to jury trials, Attorney
General Lord Goldsmith said the most devious fraudsters
must not be allowed to escape punishment.
He suggested the measure could be used for between
15 and 20 cases each year.
The move comes after a £60m fraud case collapsed
after almost two years in court.
The trial of six men, accused of bribing London Underground
officials, was abandoned after being blighted by illness
among jurors and legal delays.
Specialist judges
The Criminal Justice Act passed in 2003 allows prosecutors
to ask for long or complex fraud cases to be heard without
a jury if the trial is likely to be too "burdensome"
for them. [...] |
"In More Ways Than One"
Quote of the Week |
YnetNews |
"The only difference
I have felt here is the air, it's suffocating."
One of three "Falash
Muras" - Ethiopians who claim Jewish descent
- who are also long-distance runners and Olympic medal
hopefuls on arriving in Israel last weekend. |
Palestinians
say Israeli Civil Administration is wrecking Ramallah
festival by denying several artists permission to enter
territories
By Ali Waked
RAMALLAH - Artists from around the world were set
to participate in the Palestine International Festival
in Ramallah, which was supposed to open at the end of
the month, but local officials are now saying Israel
is attempting to torpedo the event.
The event's directors were notified on Monday night
that the Civil Administration decided to deny entrance
to the Palestinian Territories to a number of bands
and artists, among them a Circassian band from Jordan
and an Egyptian band, as well as the Iraqi musician
Elham El-Madfai, who carries a European passport.
The Festival management claimed it was not given any
reason for the denial, and blamed the Civil Administration
for trying to torpedo the event.
“After five years, during which the Festival
could not take place because of the conditions, we thought
that the new age will allow
for it,” one of the directors told ynet. “The
Civil Administration jeopardizes the entire event. We
are turning to all culture supporters to interfere and
help this important cultural event to take place.”
Lately, Palestinian authorities
have been trying to create an atmosphere of regular
life through television and radio broadcasts. They
have been working on bringing exhibitions, plays and
other art events to the territories as well. |
Israeli security forces
have seized Palestinian suspects across the West Bank,
hours before new talks between Ariel Sharon and Mahmoud
Abbas.
At least 50 suspected Islamic Jihad militants were arrested
overnight, Israeli military sources said.
It is the first wave of arrests on such a scale against
the group in six months and follows attacks on Israeli
targets.
The Israeli and Palestinian leaders are due to discuss
security but there appears little hope of progress.
It will only be the second time the two men have met
since Mr Abbas came to power and the first time the top
Palestinian and Israeli leaders have met in Jerusalem
- claimed by Israel as its exclusive capital despite Palestinian
objections.
Recent violence has soured the atmosphere and nobody
is expecting a great deal to emerge from these talks,
says BBC correspondent Alan Johnston.
End of restraint
An Israeli military source is quoted as saying that 36
suspects were detained overnight in the cities of Hebron
and Bethlehem in the south of the West Bank, while 14
more were arrested in Ramallah, Qalqilya and Jenin in
the north.
Two Israelis have died in the past two days in Islamic
Jihad attacks.
A senior Israeli army officer said the military would
no longer exercise restraint towards the militant group.
"Islamic Jihad has taken itself absolutely out of
the [cease-fire] agreement with its attacks, and so from
our view, we are operating fully against them, as we did
before," Lt-Col Erez Winner, a West Bank commander,
said.
"Anyone who is affiliated with this organisation
is a legitimate target."
He said further mass arrests were unlikely as most militants
under surveillance had already been arrested.
The militants say they were responding to what they regard
as Israeli violations of a ceasefire.
Familiar demands
"These things in the last 48 hours have really cast
a dark cloud over the summit. But I hope we continue to
exert maximum efforts," Palestinian negotiator Saeb
Erekat is quoted as saying.
The Palestinians say that they do not intend to focus
on the forthcoming Gaza withdrawal at Tuesday's talks
but see them as a chance to focus on other issues.
Mr Abbas is likely to press for Israeli concessions that
would make life easier for Palestinians in the occupied
territories: more freedom of movement, more chances for
Palestinians to work in Israel and more releases of Palestinian
prisoners.
These are familiar Palestinian demands and they are likely
to get a familiar Israeli response, our correspondent
says.
Mr Sharon can be expected to insist very forcefully again
that Israeli concessions will only be possible if the
Palestinian authorities act to counter militant groups.
Israel plans to withdraw all the settlers in Gaza - about
9,000 people - and the troops who protect them beginning
in mid-August.
It will maintain control of the territory's border, coastline
and airspace. Four small settlements in the West Bank
will also be evacuated. |
Prior to the Nixon
administration, the United States had never employed its
veto power in the U.N. Security Council. It was first
used March 17, 1970 over Southern Rhodesia. The second
U.S. veto came two years later, when Washington sought
to protect Israel from a resolution condemning Israel
for one of its attacks on its neighbors. Since then, the
United States has cast its veto a total of 39 times to
shield Israel from Security Council draft resolutions
that condemned, deplored, denounced, demanded, affirmed,
endorsed, called on and urged Israel to obey the world
body.
1. Sept. 10, 1972—Condemned Israel’s attacks
against Southern Lebanon and Syria; vote: 13 to 1, with
1 abstention
2. July 26, 1973—Affirmed the rights of the Palestinian
people to self-determination, statehood and equal protections;
vote: 13 to 1, with China absent.
3. Dec. 8, 1975—Condemned Israel’s air strikes
and attacks in Southern Lebanon and its murder of innocent
civilians; vote: 13 to 1, with 1 abstention.
4. Jan. 26, 1976—Called for self-determination of
Palestinian people; vote: 9 to 1, with 3 abstentions.
5. March 25, 1976—Deplored Israel’s altering
of the status of Jerusalem, which is recognized as an
international city, by most world nations and the United
Nation’s; vote: 14 to 1.
6. June 29, 1976—Affirmed the inalienable rights
of the Palestinian people; vote: 10 to 1, with 4 abstentions.
7. April 30, 1980—Endorsed self-determination for
the Palestinian people; vote: 10 to 1, with 4 abstentions.
8. Jan. 20, 1982—Demanded Israel’s withdrawal
from the Golan Heights; vote: 9 to 1, with 4 abstentions.
9. April 2, 1982—Condemned Israel’s mistreatment
of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip
and its refusal to abide by the Geneva Convention protocols
of civilized nations; vote: 14 to 1.
10. April 20, 1982—Condemned an Israeli soldier
who shot 11 Muslim worshippers on the Temple Mount of
the Haram al-Sharaf near the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Old
City of Jerusalem; vote: 14 to 1.
11. June 8, 1982—Urged sanctions against Israel
if it did not withdraw from its invasion of Lebanon; vote:
14 to 1.
12. June 26, 1982—Urged sanctions against Israel
if it did not withdraw from its invasion of Beirut, Lebanon;
vote: 14 to 1.
13. Aug. 6, 1982—Urged cut-off of economic aid to
Israel if it refused to withdraw from its occupation of
Lebanon; vote: 11 to 1, with 3 abstentions.
14. Aug. 2, 1983—Condemned continued Israeli settlements
in occupied Palestine territories of West Bank and Gaza
Strip, denouncing them as an obstacle to peace; vote:
13 to 1, with 1 abstention.
15. Sept. 6, 1984—Deplored Israel’s brutal
massacre of Arabs in Lebanon and urged its withdrawal;
vote: 14 to 1.
16. March 12, 1985—Condemned Israeli brutality in
Southern Lebanon and denounced Israel’s “Iron
Fist” policy of repression; vote: 11 to 1, with
3 abstentions.
17. Sept. 13, 1985—Denounced Israel’s violation
of human rights in the occupied territories; vote: 10
to 1, with 4 abstentions.
18. Jan. 17, 1986—Deplored Israel’s violence
in Southern Lebanon; vote: 11 to 1, with 3 abstentions.
19. Jan. 30, 1986—Deplored Israel’s activities
in occupied Arab East Jerusalem which threaten the sanctity
of Muslim holy sites; vote: 13 to 1, with 1 abstention.
20. Feb. 6, 1986—Condemned Israel’s hijacking
of a Libyan passenger airplane on Feb. 4; vote: 10 to
1, with 1 abstention.
21. Jan. 18, 1988—Deplored Israeli attacks against
Lebanon and its measures and practices against the civilian
population of Lebanon; vote: 13 to 1, with Britain abstaining.
22. Feb. 1, 1988—Called on Israel to abandon its
policies against the Palestinian uprising that violate
the rights of occupied Palestinians, abide by the Fourth
Geneva Convention and formalize a leading role for the
United Nations in future peace negotiations; vote: 14
to 1.
23. April 15, 1988—Urged Israel to accept back deported
Palestinians, condemned Israel’s shooting of civilians,
called on Israel to uphold the Fourth Geneva Convention
and called for a peace settlement under U.N. auspices;
vote: 14 to 1.
24. May 10, 1988—Condemned Israel’s May 2
incursion into Lebanon; vote: 14 to 1.
25. Dec. 14, 1988—Deplored Israel’s Dec. 9
commando raids on Lebanon; vote: 14 to 1.
26. Feb. 17, 1989—Deplored Israel’s repression
of the Palestinian uprising and called on Israel to respect
the human rights of the Palestinians; vote: 14 to 1.
27. June 9, 1989—Deplored Israel’s violation
of the human rights of the Palestinians; vote: 14 to 1.
28. Nov. 7, 1989—Demanded Israel return property
confiscated from Palestinians during a tax protest and
allow a fact-finding mission to observe Israel’s
crackdown on the Palestinian uprising; vote: 14 to 1.
29. May 31, 1990—Called for a fact-finding mission
on abuses against Palestinians in Israeli-occupied lands;
vote: 14 to 1.
30. May 17, 1995—Declared invalid Israel’s
expropriation of land in East Jerusalem and in violation
of Security Council resolutions and the Fourth Geneva
convention; vote: 14 to 1.
31. March 7, 1997—Called on Israel to refrain from
settlement activity and all other actions in the occupied
territories; vote:14 to 1.
32. March 21, 1997—Demanded Israel cease construction
of the settlement Har Homa (called Jabal Abu Ghneim by
the Palestinians) in East Jerusalem and cease all other
settlement activity in the occupied territories; vote:
13 to 1, with one abstention.
33. March 26, 2001—Called for the deployment of
a U.N. observer force in the West Bank and Gaza; vote:
9 to 1, with 4 abstentions.
34. Dec. 14, 2001—Condemned all acts of terror,
the use of excessive force and destruction of properties
and encouraged establishment of a monitoring apparatus;
vote: 12-1, with 2 abstentions.
35. Dec. 19, 2002—Expressed deep concern over Israel’s
killing of U.N. employees and Israel’s destruction
of the U.N. World Food Program warehouse in Beit Lahiya
and demanded that Israel refrain from the excessive and
disproportionate use of force in the occupied territories;
vote: 12 to 1, with 2 abstentions.
36. Sept. 16, 2003—Reaffirmed the illegality of
deportation of any Palestinian and expressed concern about
the possible deportation of Yasser Arafat; vote: 11 to
1, with 3 abstentions.
37. Oct. 14, 2003—Raised concerns about Israel’s
building of a securiy fence through the occupied West
Bank; vote 10 to 1, with 4 abstentions.
38. March 25, 2004—Condemned Israel for killing
Palestinian spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in a
missile attack in Gaza; vote: 11 to 1, with 3 abstentions.
39. Oct. 5, 2004—Condemned Israel’s military
incursion in Gaza, causing many civilian deaths and extensive
damage to property; vote: 11 to 1, with 3 abstentions.
|
Iran's electoral authorities
have moved to dispel accusations of vote-rigging in Friday's
presidential election by ordering a partial recount of
the vote and cracking down on two pro-reform newspapers
which attempted to publish allegations of malpractice.
The reformist Eqbal daily was given a 24-hour ban when
it tried to publish in full a letter written to the Supreme
Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameni, in which the third-placed
candidate detailed charges of electoral fraud by hardliners.
Reformist journalists say newspapers were warned not
to publish the whole letter by the office of the Tehran
prosecutor general, Said Mortazavi, the judge accused
of helping to cover up the death of the photojournalist
Zahra Kazemi in 2003. One paper decided not to publish
at all, while Eqbal was not allowed to be distributed.
Others were cowed into printing less controversial extracts.
The disputed election has resulted in a second round
run-off between the former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani
and the fundamentalist Tehran mayor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
who made a surprisingly strong showing.
The letter, by the former parliament speaker and moderate
reformist Mehdi Karoubi, protested against the involvement
of the Basij militia and Islamic Revolutionary Guards
Corps in voting. He had earlier questioned the propriety
of the Guardian Council's announcement of voting results
as they came in.
The clerical body is mandated to ensure that elections
comply with constitutional requirements, but Mr Karoubi
said it broke the law during the count by releasing figures
that gave a sudden boost of 1 million votes to Mr Ahmadinejad.
The conservative reached this Friday's second round with
about 700,00 votes more than Mr Karoubi.
The white-bearded ally of President Mohammad Khatami
surged unexpectedly in the poll, scoring high gains in
rural areas with the promise to pay Iranians £30
a month from energy savings. But he cried foul as Mr Ahmadinejad
drew ahead, claiming to have taped proof of fraud. He
said some votes had been bought and that the military
had been illegally involved in voter mobilisation. Mr
Karoubi also alleged that faked identity cards were distributed
among conservative supporters, allowing them to vote more
than once.
The Guardian Council yesterday ordered a recount of 100
boxes taken at random from the cities in which Mr Ahmadinejad
won the most votes. However that is unlikely to satisfy
reformists, because they believe the tampering did not
include miscounting of votes. The conservative has denied
any irregularities and dismissed the claims as evidence
that Mr Karoubi is a bad loser.
All pro-reformist groups have now swung their support
reluctantly behind the éminence grise of Iranian
politics, the former president Mr Rafsanjani.
The strength of Mr Ahmadinejad's support among poor Iranians
came as a shock to the reformists, who now recognise that
a fundamentalist victory is very possible.
Mr Rafsanjani has himself appealed for votes from all
groups to the left of Mr Ahmadinejad. "I seek your
help and ask you to be present in the second round of
the election so that we can prevent extremism," he
said in a press statement.
In a statement issued late on Sunday night, the main
reformist party, the Islamic Iran Participation Front,
instructed supporters to "not remain indifferent"
to the race, without mentioning Mr Rafsanjani by name.
Student groups who supported the reformists have also
rallied behind the former president, once considered a
hate-figure among students and still mistrusted for his
administration's constriction of free speech. |
PARIS, June 20 - Britain's
vision for the European Union is not that of most of the
bloc's 25 members, France said on Monday, deepening a
dispute between the two nations that hit crisis point
during an EU summit last week.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair "must act as president
of the union by taking into account the views of everybody,"
French European Affairs Minister Catherine Colonna told
France 2 television.
"The British vision is not shared
by the majority of European countries," she asserted.
France and Britain have each been striving to present
themselves as the EU's representative leader since the
Brussels summit collapsed amid acrimony between French
President Jacques Chirac
and Blair over EU budget negotiations.
Britain takes over the six-month rotating EU presidency
from July 1.
"Great Britain must assume its
responsibilities by taking into account what the majority
of Europeans want," Colonna said. "If it doesn't
do that, we will tell it to do so."
The junior foreign minister, who used to be Chirac's
spokeswoman, said the British government led only a minority
of EU countries at the summit.
At the meeting, Chirac and most of the bloc pushed for
Britain to give up a jealously-held EUR 5 billion rebate
that it is alone in getting from the EU budget, while
Blair, backed by the Netherlands, argued for a revision
of the EU agricultural subsidies system which gives French
farmers EUR 8 billion a year.
Neither gave ground, and the summit collapsed, with Chirac
accusing Blair of stubbornness, while Blair said he refused
to accept Chirac as an unofficial leader of the European
Union.
Colonna rejected Britain's portrayal
of the debate as being between modernity and immobility,
saying the EU Common Agriculture Policy had been reformed
three times, the latest in 2003.
"The only thing that doesn't change
is the British cheque, which has existed since 1984, even
though there is no longer any reason for it today,"
she said. |
BEIJING, June 21 --
Of all the problems posing a grave challenge to China's
economic and social development, one of the most serious
is the widening gap between the rich and poor.
The government and sociologists have, for a long time,
been talking about the large gap between the country's
urban and rural areas and between the booming coastal
regions and underdeveloped western regions.
But a more worrying and also dangerous trend is the
much sharper gap in incomes in Chinese cities.
A recent survey by the National
Bureau of Statistics found that earners in the highest-income
bracket in cities earned 11.8 times more than those at
the other end of the scale in the first quarter of this
year.
In stark contrast, the figures were
respectively 4.16 and 5.7 in 1996 and 2000.
Meanwhile, statistics from the Ministry of Labour and
Social Security also indicate that the richest 10 per
cent of households own 45 per cent of urban wealth.
The poorest 10 per cent of urban households have less
than 1.4 per cent of the wealth in Chinese cities.
All these figures and statistics point
to a yawning gap between the urban rich and poor, as well
as the emergence of an impoverished group in Chinese cities.
The Beijing News recently quoted
some researchers as saying slums have quietly come into
existence in the capital city.
Urban poverty has been increasing since
the mid-1990s although the Chinese Government has successfully
reduced rural poverty.
Now there are mainly three groups of urban poor. They
are the disabled and elderly without family support, jobless
workers and migrant workers.
Given the absence of a sound social security system
in the country, the rich-poor gap among Chinese urbanites
may become more threatening.
Currently, China is pushing for urbanization as part
of its modernization bid. If the rich-poor gap continues
to grow, it will hinder the development of Chinese cities.
A widening gap between the rich and poor in cities may
result in a multi-level urban society and cause confrontation
between different groups.
The problem could breed more unstable factors which
could endanger social stability and public security.
Many factors soaring unemployment, the reform of State-owned
enterprises and the migration of surplus rural labourers
into cities - have contributed to the rich-poor gap in
cities.
The government, however, is mainly to blame for its
failure to ensure equal opportunity and wealth distribution
and give enough help, in time, to the urban needy.
For instance, it has yet to reform the outdated personal
income taxation system, which was introduced as early
as 25 years ago, despite growing calls for such a move
from the public.
Governments at all levels have given too much priority
to GDP growth.
During development, economic efficiency and the principle
of equality should be balanced. Urbanization should not
be at the expense of the interests of the poor people.
Premier Wen Jiabao spoke of the "Economics of the
Poor" earlier this year, when asked how the government
will improve the lives of millions of poor farmers.
Now, since the poor have moved quickly into urban areas,
it is time for the government to take more action. The
sooner this happens, the better off we will all be. |
NASHVILLE,
Tenn. - The annual meeting of Southern Baptist Convention
will help kick off what may be the denomination's most
ambitious outreach effort ever - baptizing 1 million
new members in a year.
Headquartered in Nashville, the 16.3 million-member
faith is the second-largest denomination in the United
States, behind the Roman Catholic Church. Yet the number
of new member baptisms has declined in each of the past
five years.
"We have been playing it too close to the church,"
said President Bobby Welch, who will speak at the opening
of the two-day convention Tuesday following a satellite
address by
President Bush. "Southern Baptists have to reconnect
themselves with the communities and the needs of the
people in the communities."
Welch said complacency among Southern Baptists is a
big part of the reason for the slide, and it's an issue
he plans to address in his speech to an expected crowd
of about 9,000. [...]
Southern Baptists believe in
the inerrancy of the Bible and adhere strictly to conservative
beliefs. At last year's convention, the Southern Baptists
quit the Baptist World Alliance, citing what they saw
as the group's liberal drift. The last straw
came in 2003 when the alliance accepted as members a
breakaway group of moderate Southern Baptists.
One resolution that will likely be presented this year
urges churches to investigate their local school districts
to determine if they promote homosexuality, and remove
their children from such schools if they do. A similar
resolution failed last year. |
HANOI - A
Vietnamese doctor who treated bird flu patients has
contracted the disease himself, a state newspaper reported
on Friday.
The male doctor had been taking samples from carriers
of the H5N1 virus, the Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper said
without specifying how he contracted the disease. His
condition was stable, it said.
The infection took to 7 the number of bird flu victims
revealed this week in Vietnam and the number of infections
to 62 since December, 18 of whom have died.
The H5N1 virus has killed 38 people in Vietnam since
it appeared in late 2003. Twelve Thais and four Cambodians
have also died.
Bird flu first emerged in the Mekong Delta in southern
Vietnam in late 2003, then spread to the northern region
where the virus appears to develop rapidly during the
winter.
Scientists fear the avian flu, which is infectious
in birds but does not spread easily among humans, could
mutate into a form capable of generating a pandemic
in which millions of people without immunity could die.
|
About 6,000 chickens
have been infected with the deadly bird flu virus in southern
Vietnam in the country's first outbreak in two months.
The animal health director at Vietnam's Agriculture Ministry
said the outbreak occurred in Ben Tre, southwest of Ho
Chi Minh City. He said vigilance was essential.
"We must continue our prevention work against bird
flu," he said, warning that some provinces had failed
to pay serious attention to the problem.
Meanwhile, the director of Hanoi's Institute of Tropical
Diseases, Nguyen Duc Hien, has denied Vietnamese media
reports of two new human cases of bird flu.
On Friday he said six patients in Vietnam had tested
positive for the virus, which has killed 38 people in
the country since late 2003.
Doctors said all the patients had been admitted to the
institute from northern provinces in June.
A total of 54 people have died from the
H5N1 virus, including 12 Thais and four Cambodians, since
the beginning of the epidemic in 2003.
The World Health Organization has asked governments to
prepare for a possible pandemic after a study in Vietnam
showed signs of a greater risk of human-to-human transmission
of bird flu.
Meanwhile, the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization
is seeking clarification from China over a report it is
using a human anti-flu drug on poultry.
There are reports that Chinese farmers,
with government encouragement, have widely used the drug
amantadine to combat bird flu in poultry since the 1990s.
Experts fear, if the story is accurate,
the farmers are rendering the human vaccine useless.
Amantadine is one of only a handful of medications for
treating human influenza and one of the most common.
The WHO's China representative, Dr. Henk Bekedam, says
the most effective method of eradicating the flu from
poultry is through culling infected birds.
The WHO said it was still awaiting information from China's
Ministry of Agriculture about how the drug was administered
and in what quantities. |
BEIJING, June 21 --
The Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) plans to dispatch inspection
teams nationwide to stop the antiviral drug amantadine
- meant for humans - being used on poultry.
An MOA official spoke out yesterday
after reports, denied by the government, that some farmers
are being encouraged to illegally use amantadine on their
chickens to curb the spread of bird flu.
Researchers fear using the drug on animals
and humans could lead to drug resistance.
Drug-resistant forms of H5N1 - a bird flu strain - have
already been found in Thailand and Viet Nam, according
to reports.
The government has never permitted farmers to use amantadine
to treat bird flu, said Xu Shixin, MOA's division director
of the veterinary bureau.
But he did not identify where the drug misuse had taken
place.
"We'll take measures soon to curb the action,"
he said, without elaborating.
Xu refuted a report by the Washington Post on Saturday
that the Chinese Government had encouraged farmers to
use amantadine on their chickens to prevent bird flu.
"The report was groundless," Xu said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Food
and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have both expressed
concerns over the issue.
The WHO spokesman in China, Roy Wadia, said his organization
will seek more information from the Chinese Government.
Zhang Zhongjun, an assistant representative of the China
office of FAO, said his organization and the Chinese Government
have already set up a channel to report developments on
the fight against infectious diseases in animals.
"We haven't received any reports so far that the
Chinese Government has allowed the use of the drug on
chickens," said Zhang.
China has made breakthroughs in vaccine research against
H5N1 and H5N2, highly lethal strains of bird flu, and
they work effectively in combating poultry disease, he
said.
MOA's Xu said the government would supply farmers with
cheaper and more effective vaccines to replace the use
of amantadine by some farmers.
He also said that the bird flu outbreak in China has
already been brought under control.
Health experts worry that bird flu might mutate into
a form that can spread directly from person to person,
setting off a pandemic that could claim millions of lives. |
BEIJING - Scorching temperatures
baked northern China while the death toll from flooding
in the rain-soaked south continued to rise as rivers
swelled and threatened to break their banks, state media
said.
Seven people were dead and one missing in severe rainstorms
in the Guangxi autonomous region in southern China,
while another three died in rains pounding Fujian province
in the southeast, Xinhua news agency reported Tuesday.
Both places were covered by a rain belt hovering over
much of south China with up to 203 millimeters (eight
inches) of rain falling over the last three days in
the worst-hit areas, it said.
The level of the Mingjiang river in Guangxi was up
to three meters (10 feet) over the warning level, while
other major rivers in southern provinces were approaching
alert levels.
Torrential rains were forecast to continue through
Friday in the Guangxi and Guizhou regions and were expected
to stretch eastwards into Jiangxi, Guangdong, Fujian
and Zhejiang provinces, the China News Service said.
At least 255 people have been reported dead due to
heavy rains and flooding in parts of China since May.
Meanwhile, the death toll from a flash flood in northeastern
China's Heilongjiang province on June 10 rose to 117,
including 105 schoolchildren, as searchers found the
remains of another eight people, Xinhua said.
Thousands of people perish every year from floods,
landslides and mudflows in China, with millions left
homeless. Officials have said this year's floods could
be worse than usual.
A heatwave meanwhile scorched the northern half of
the country, sending the mercury soaring above 40 degrees
Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in many places.
In Beijing temperatures reached 38 degrees while areas
of Hebei, Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces sweltered in
temperatures of 42 degrees, Xinhua said. |
GOULBURN, Australia -
Severe drought is drying up drinking water in cities and
towns across Australia, threatening to shut down major
population centres but also creating conditions for a
revolution in water use.
Worst hit is the farming town of Goulburn, population
25,000, southwest of Australia's biggest city, Sydney.
Its main dam, Pejar, is a cracked-earth dustbowl holding
less than 10 percent of its 1,000-megalitre (220-million-gallon)
capacity.
The town will become the first in Australia to run
out of water in six months, if it gets no substantial
rain and if emergency action for new water supplies
fails to work.
The worst drought in 100 years is forcing Australians
to close the tap on profligate water use and turn treated
waste, most of which flows into the sea, into drinking
water. Some waste water is already recycled to irrigate
gardens and sports fields and this is set to increase.
|
Before the US sends
humans to Mars, it should rule out the possibility of
dangerous life forms on the planet, a NASA advisory
panel has reported. And it says the only reliable way
to do that is with a robotic sample-return mission -
which could take more than a decade to implement.
In January 2004, US president George W Bush announced
a plan to send astronauts back to the Moon as early
as 2015 and eventually on to Mars. In response, NASA's
Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group this month issued
a report on research needed to certify the safety of
such a Mars mission.
One of the panel's top priorities goes well beyond
the scope of any mission in NASA's current plans. The
panel concluded that no amount of robotic testing on
Mars could rule out the possibility of living microbial
life at future human landing sites.
So astronauts could inadvertently bring the life back
to Earth, with potentially dangerous consequences. "The
possibility of transporting a replicating life form
to Earth, where it is found to have a negative effect
on some aspect of Earth's ecosystem" would present
the greatest biological risk, the team wrote. |
Western Kentucky (AHN)-
An earthquake shook the ground and maybe a few people
out of their bed's Monday morning in Western Kentucky,as
a 3.6 quake struck around 7:21 AM.
The quake was centered about 3 miles south west of Blandville,
Kentucky.
The hypocentral depth of the quake was registered to
be about 13 miles deep.
There are no reports of injuries or damage. |
A debate is raging among
anthropologists over whether and how much our ancestors
mated with Neanderthals. The hominids with the large brows
and ultra-muscular bodies were once thought to be a forerunner
of modern man, then a separate species of humans who developed
independently and died out as humans spread into Europe.
Now, as evidence emerges that humans and Neanderthals
likely shared the same space for thousands of years, some
scientists consider them likely contributors to the modern
human gene pool. These anthropologists believe that when
early modern humans, the first built more or less like
us, came upon Neanderthals around 35,000 years ago in
Europe, the groups would have been too similar not to
have mated.
"They both would have been dirty
and smelly by our standards," says Eric Trinkaus,
an anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis.
"They would have been oblivious to the small anatomical
differences, like certain details at the base of the Neanderthal
skull. To each other, they would have both been people."
Trinkaus co-authored a paper in the latest edition of
the journal Nature that dates a collection of curious
bones from a cave in Mladec, Czech Republic, at 31,000
years, roughly the time in which Neanderthals were dying
out on The Continent. Although scientists agree the bones
belonged to early modern humans, the fossils have a number
of Neanderthal-like traits, including broad noses, large
teeth and a kind of bun in the back of the head where
the skull bulges out.
"The Mladec people show that European origins are
mixed," said Milford Wolpoff, an anthropologist at
Michigan University. "You can see it in their remains."
Wolpoff has long opposed the widely accepted theory that
the features of modern humans more or less developed in
Africa and changed little as humans fanned out into Asia
and Europe. He believes humans came from a blend of early
modern humans and various archaic hominids they encountered
while migrating.
"If the out-of-Africa theory was right," he
said. "Mladec people should look like Africans. They
don't. If that doesn't disprove it, I don't know what
does." Wolpoff's views are, however, in the minority.
Trinkaus, for example, believes early
modern humans did out-compete for food, land and water
with Neanderthals, who seem to have vanished from Europe
30,000 years ago. But he believes the Mladec bones, and
others like them, show that interbreeding between the
two groups was "neither rare nor trivial" and
that the complexity of the modern human gene pool cannot
be explained without a "Neanderthal admixture."
Other scientists, such as Chris Stringer, an expert on
Neanderthals at the Museum of Natural History in London,
believes a Neanderthal contribution to our bloodlines,
if there was one, was slight. "The strong brow ridges
and long, low skulls of the Mladec people are seen in
other early human fossils," he said. "The traits
could have come from (early human) ancestors. I don't
see any particular reason to assume they had Neanderthal
blood."
Is it bestiality? The debate over modern-human/Neanderthal
interbreeding is part quest to chart the origins of the
human race, part academic feud over old bones, and part
family soap opera: Did some of our ancestors go to bed
with creatures commonly thought of as less than human?
"People find the idea of early-man/Neanderthal
interbreeding both titillating and disgusting," said
Trinkaus. "Neanderthals are human, but they aren't
quite us. It borders on bestiality." With squat,
muscular bodies and protruding faces, Neanderthals had
an almost apelike appearance.
After the first of their remains were discovered in Germany
in 1856, they were thought to be socially crude and mentally
limited. Scientific opinion has changed but the reputation
has stuck: Although some scientists now believe Neanderthals
were as advanced as humans of their era, the word "Neanderthal"
survives in the English language as a synonym for boor.
Wolpoff believes even scientists are prejudiced by the
Neanderthal's bad press.
"Neanderthal is the only Paleoanthropic word in
the dictionary with a second meaning," he said. "When
you get mad at Bush, you call him a Neanderthal. Our reaction
to Neanderthals is seen in the term. It bothers some people
to think we have them among our ancestors, whatever the
percentage is. Every scientists would deny it, but I think
a part of this bias creeps into some of their work."
Looking askance at Neanderthals, no matter who is doing
it, is part family slur, because they are, if not our
direct ancestors, our distant cousins. Both Neanderthals
and early modern humans descend from archaic humans, or
Homo erectus. After arriving in Europe hundreds of thousands
of years ago, Homo erectus eventually adapted to the colder
climate by becoming thicker boned and shorter limbed.
Stringer says he doesn't rule out some mating between
early man and Neanderthals, but sees no reason to think
it was anything more than rare and inconsequential.
With scant fossil records, and no consensus on DNA data,
anthropologists are left with an incomplete puzzle. Where
the evidence ends, however, some scientists use their
gut knowledge of human behavior.
Fred Smith, an anthropologist at Loyola
University of Chicago who believes early humans and Neanderthals
mated, says: "They would have looked just about the
same to each other. If there's one thing we know about
humans, they're going to have sex with each other. A slight
difference in appearance won't stop them." |
Toronto, ON-- Saddam
Hussein, who among other occult pursuits, "studied
the sands", would have been better equipped with
orbitary American weather satellites.
During sand studies, the Black Arts Saddam conjured up
jinn (genies) to do his bidding. Said to have inherited
some of his mother Sabha’s psychic prowess, Saddam
was believed by many to have seven jinn lined up for his
personal protection. According to these people, the Butcher
of Baghdad spoke on a daily basis with the king and queen
of the jinn, who actually advised him.
All studying the sands ever got Saddam was death and
destruction.
In a search sponsored by oil magnate and "Soviet
agent of influence" Armand Hammer, American satellites
found `The Atlantis of the Sands’.
The late Hammer once sold a zinc mine to the father of
al Gore for $160,000, who within short order sold the
mine to son, Al Gore Jr. for $140,000.
"Observation satellites staring down from space
penetrated 600-ft. mountains of windswept sand to make
a startling find on the fringe of the Arabian desert (Space
Today Online). "The faint shadow of a lost civilization
has turned up like a ghost in computer-enhanced radar
images of ancient ground under the Rub al Khali desert
in the sultanate of Oman."
And there’s a bonus that could never be provided
by a genie out of any bottle: A timeworn network of roads
under the dunes seems to point to the burial place of
the legendary society of Ad.
"Referred to in the Koran, the tales of The Arabian
Nights and the Holy Bible, Ad probably was the bustling
hub of the world’s frankincense trade 5,000 years
ago. Biblical archaeologists suggest wise men traded there
for frankincense they bore as gifts for the infant Jesus."
The fragrance of frankincense hovers today in Catholic
cathedrals. An aromatic resin from the sap of Middle Eastern
and East African trees, frankincense provided an incense
that was used in days of old by crowned heads and commoners
alike. Incense perfumed the air in religious rituals,
cremations, and other ceremonies, and marked the steps
of monarchs during ancient imperial processions.
Technology-driven studies of the sand have sometimes
proved as frustrating as occult-driven ones. Back in the
1930s, the sand of the Rub al Khali defeated an out-of-water,
world famous British explorer’s search for Ad’s
ancient trade routes.
Even today’s modern archeologists can be frustrated
in their search of the entire perilous desert. Unlike
Indiana Jones adventuring in the field, they must content
themselves studying in laboratories, where they feed data
from satellite radar to computers searching for long-lost
clues.
Archeologists went into Eureka! Mode when colleagues
at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in sunny California
were able to perceive a 100-yard-wide, hoof-trodden path
hidden under tons of sand in giant dunes from 1980 satellite
photos.
"Backed by Hammer money, a scouting expedition of
NASA, British and private explorers tracked the trail
they had concluded was formed by frankincense traders
riding camels." (Space Today Online). The Ad expedition
included Blom, Elachi, British explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes,
Los Angeles attorney and part-time explorer George Hedges,
and an archeologist, geologist, computer scientist and
documentary filmmaker.
"Following their satellite map, the party looked
for geological evidence of a trail through the now-barren
land to the once-thriving city of Ubar.
An expedition highlight came when they stumbled upon
Ad artifacts—900 pottery shards and flint pieces
during a three-week scouting mission in July 1990. High
winds drove the team away, leaving the artifacts in the
hands of Oman’s Department of National Heritage.
"The adventurer T.E. Lawrence once described Ubar
as the "Atlantis of the sands". Frankincense
was an important commodity in the ancient world before
the rise of Christianity when Ubar may have been the main
shipping center of Ad. Worldwide shipments of frankincense
to markets as far away as China and Rome could have started
at Ubar.
"Ad society lasted from 3000 B.C. to the 1st century
A.D. In the end, it was victimized by politics, economics
and climate after a drop in demand for the frankincense
fragrance as Christianity preached burying bodies instead
of burning them. The abandoned villages of Ad eventually
were inundated by tides of shifting sands, and eventually
dunes reaching heights of 200 to 600 feet."
Sandboxes, including that of the genie obsessed Saddam
and anybody else’s can be likened to moving targets.
According to NASA, the world’s largest desert fluctuated
in size during the 1980s.
The Atlas Mountains and Mediterranean Sea make up a nearly
immovable northern boundary, but the Sahara’s southern
boundary moved south 80 miles between 1980 and 1990.
NASA observations indicate a nomadic Sahara. After moving
to the south between 1981 and 1984, the Sahara retreated
northward 88 miles from 1985 to 1986. However, it migrated
34 miles south in 1987. The southern boundary retreated
62 miles to the north in 1988, then expanded 46 miles
to the south in 1989 and 1990.
The sands of time never stand still.
Oman, once known as Muscat and Oman, is a sultanate on
the southeast side of the Arabian Peninsula, bounded on
the north by the Gulf of Oman and on the east and south
by the Arabian Sea. To the southwest is Yemen. To the
west is Saudi Arabia. On the northwest border is the United
Arab Emirates. The Rub al Khali desert extends into the
western area of Oman, but is mostly in Saudi Arabia.
Oman was ruled for centuries by emirs controlled by a
caliphate at Baghdad. Later it was controlled by Portugal
followed by the British government of India. Today, the
ruling sultan has close ties with Great Britain.
Meanwhile, someone should tip off Saddam that when it
comes to studying the sands of time, technology is always
more reliable than the occult. |
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