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P I C T U R E
O F T H E D A Y
©2005 Pierre-Paul
Feyte
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The U.S. dollar closed at 0.8357 euros on Friday, down
0.5% from last week's close of 0.8397. The euro, then,
went from 1.1908 dollars on July 1 to 1.1966 on July
8. Gold closed at 424.90 dollars an ounce, down 1% compared
to $429.30 an ounce a week earlier. Gold in euros would
be 355.09 an ounce, down 1.5% compared to 360.51 euros
an ounce at the previous week's close. Oil closed at
$59.04 up 0.5% compared to $58.75 a barrel on July 1.
Oil in euros was unchanged this week at 49.34. The
gold/oil ratio was 7.20, down 1.5% compared to 7.31
a week ago.In the U.S. stock market, the Dow closed
at 10,449.14 up 1.4% from last week's 10,303.44, shaking
off any terrorism effects even before the end of Thursday.
The NASDAQ closed at 2112.18 up 2.7% from the previous
Friday's close of 2057.37. The yield on the ten-year
U.S. Treasury bond closed at 4.10 percent up six basis
points from 4.04 on July 1.
The market reaction to the London bombings showed that
"normal" terrorist events are now already
factored into world market prices:
World
economy defies new terror onslaught
Fri Jul 8 6:44 PM ET AFP
Global terrorism is now such a tragic fact of life
that major economies will prove more resilient to the
attacks on London than to the shock of 9/11, analysts
said. Compared to the pandemonium that broke out on
financial markets after the attacks in the United States
of September 11, 2001, markets this time have quickly
got back in their stride after Thursday's rush-hour
carnage in London. Major European stock markets rose
Friday with London's FTSE 100 index closing up 1.43
percent at 5,232.2 points. New York stocks also rallied
strongly. "Unfortunately, western societies have
come to expect some type of terror attack somewhere
from time to time," US broker Ryan Beck and Co.
said in a research note. "As a result, terror risk
premiums already exist in all financial markets,"
it said. Analysts at Claymore Research played down the
wider impact of the four bomb blasts on London's public
transport system Thursday morning, which killed at least
50 people and injured more than 700. "Many worry
that terrorism threatens both the US recovery and the
global economy," they said.
"But, if we look to 9/11 as an example, overall
spending in the US economy was actually higher in
November 2001 than it was in August.
"While airlines and hotels suffered for years,
other spending accelerated, and the US consumer rebounded
quickly." On that reading, the British and other
European economies will be barely affected as a whole
by the carnage in London.
Indeed, there has been an upswing of economic optimism
in the United States in the past week. This has come
from some water-treading employment figures, strong
retail sales (meaning a continued housing bubble) and,
I believe, a reorienting of public attention away from
probable felony indictments of Bush's top advisor, Karl
Rove, away from a rapidly deteriorating situation in
Iraq and Afghanistan for the U.S., and away from a collapse
of support for Bush personally (below 40% approval ratings)
which usually means political turmoil and uncertainty,
towards the "war on terrorism" on Bush terms
after the London bombing. The political boost given
to Bush and Blair by the bombing (a godsend for them,
really) and by the G8 summit where they could pretend
to care about Africa on human terms and not on the next
destroyed region ripe for predatory capitalist exploitation
can only be good news for the capitalist system, still
dominated by the Anglo-American axis (Axis of Mammon?).
However, the problems we have been following here this
year have not changed, and it is hard to see a bombing
of the transit system of the center of the world finance
system, no matter who did it, as in any way being good
news.
So, first the good news:
Is
the economy accelerating?
by Chad Hudson July 6, 2005
Throughout the first half
of the year, the economic data has been ambiguous. Growth
in the manufacturing sector has moderated from the rapid
growth in 2004. Consumer spending has showed signs of
abating, with unseasonable weather cited as the
primary reason. Over the past week, economic data
indicates that economic growth has started to accelerate.
ISM manufacturing survey rose 2.4 points to 53.8.
This was the first gain in six months and higher than
economists expected, which was no change from May. Most
of the increase was due to the jump in new orders.
New orders increased 5.5 points to 57.2, the highest
level this year. The prices paid component dropped 7.5
points to 50.5. While this was the lowest the prices
paid component has been since February 2002, this was
the 40th consecutive month that manufacturers reported
that prices had increased. After contracting in May,
manufacturers reported that employment held steady in
June, rising 1.1 points to 49.9. The June non-manufacturing
survey was also better than economists expected. Instead
of a 0.2 point gain, the index increased 3.7 points
in June to 62.2. Six of the components rose. The employment
component increased the most, jumping 4.0 points to
57.4. This was the highest since February and the second
highest level since the survey started in 1997. While
manufactures said that prices stabilized in June, non-manufacturers
reported that prices accelerated in June. The prices
paid component increased 2.0 points to 59.8. This was
the first increase this year. Factory orders jumped
2.9% in May due to a 21.1% jump in transportation orders.
Excluding transportation, factory orders declined 0.1%
from April. While factory orders excluding transportation
dropped 0.1% from April, orders were up 7.2% compared
to last year. Orders for consumer goods rose 10.5% from
last year, which was the strongest growth since November
2004.
June annualized vehicle sales reached 17.5 million
units, which was better than the 17.0 million unit pace
forecasted and the fastest selling pace this year.
General Motors sales soared 47% after extending its
employee discount to everyone. This incentive eliminated
the rebates that GM had been offering and set prices
at a no-haggle low price. It is interesting that this
increased that average incentive by less than $500.
According to Autodata, the employee discount increased
the average incentive by $449 to $4,458. This week,
GM announced it will extend the employee-discount pricing
until August 1 and Chrysler announced that will also
sell vehicles at the employee price. This forced Ford
to match the offer. Last week, the Federal Reserve raised
rates by 25 basis points. More importantly it said monetary
policy remains accommodative and further tightening
will be measured. The statement also caused traders
to reassess how many more times the Federal Reserve
will increase rates this year. Before the meeting, Fed
Funds futures were trading at 3.78% yield, meaning that
traders expected the Federal Reserve to increase rates
by another 50 basis points this year. Now, the December
contract is trading at 3.895%, so now traders expects
three 25 basis points hikes over the next four meetings
this year.
Wal-Mart announced that its same store sales rose about
4.5% in June, slightly better than its plan of 2%-4%.
Additionally, throughout June the retailer said that
general merchandise was stronger than its food sales,
which had been stronger in May. Last week, Target said
that June same store sales were running above its plan
of 4%-6% growth. Some analysts attribute the recent
strength to the pent-up demand after poor weather hindered
purchases of seasonal items. According to the International
Council of Shopping Centers, retail sales increased
3.8% during the first week of July, from last year.
It also expects sales to have increased by 4.5% in June.
This would be the strongest year-over-year growth since
February's 4.7% increase. The uneven economic growth
over the past six-months has caused economists to forecast
a weakening economy. Similar to other "soft-patches",
interest rates headed lower, which in turn ignited the
already hot housing market. Recent economic reports
have revealed that the economy has expanded at a faster
pace than initially perceived. In the past, interest
rates have moved higher on stronger economic news. While
shorter-term bonds have increased, long-term interest
rates remain close to two-year lows. If the employment
number is stronger than the 198,000 gain economists
expect, its likely that the bond market will start to
price in a stronger economy.
In fact, the employment number was around 146,000,
less than expected. While the unemployment rate dropped
a bit in June, the June job growth numbers in the United
States were still high enough to keep the economy from
turning downwards.
US
economy creates 146,000 jobs in June
AFP Fri Jul 8, 5:33 PM ET
The US economy created 146,000 more jobs in June, the
government said, less than expected by Wall Street but
still enough to reinforce evidence of healthy growth.
Analysts were expecting a June rise in the closely watched
"non-farms payroll" figure of 195,000. But
the Labor Department also revised up the data for previous
months. For May, the figure was raised to 104,000 from
78,000 given initially. The number for April was increased
to 292,000 from 274,000. US Treasury Secretary John
Snow said the numbers "are a reminder that the
American economy is thriving". With the revisions
thrown in, the June figure reads closer to a more satisfying
rise of 190,000, Nomura chief economist David Resler
said. "That is amazingly close to the average of
about 183,000 for the past year and a half," he
said. "Labor markets are in a steady state of growth,
with wage rates offering no hint of inflation pressures."
The US unemployment rate fell to a four-year low
of 5.0 percent in June, down from 5.1 percent in May,
the Labor Department said.
But economists say the total number of jobs created
is a more reliable indicator of the US economy's health
than the jobless rate. They reckon that an average
rise of 150,000 a month is needed to keep pace with
population growth. The non-farms payroll data
has been choppy of late. The May and April revisions
come after February saw a big rise of 300,000.
Other data have given encouraging signs of growth
in the world's biggest economy. First-quarter gross
domestic product has been revised up to 3.8 percent,
while industrial and services indicators have been
solid.
The health of the jobs market is crucial for economic
confidence, with consumer spending remaining the biggest
motor of growth. In June, average hourly earnings
rose three cents, or 0.2 percent, to 16.06 dollars.
Earnings are up 2.7 percent in the past year. Job
creation was concentrated in professional and business
services, which added 56,000 posts, in healthcare
and education (up 38,000) and leisure (19,000). Construction
firms added 18,000 jobs. Employment losses were concentrated
in the auto sector, which lost 18,000 jobs. Among
84 manufacturing industries, 35.7 percent were hiring
in June, the lowest level since October 2003. The
report will feed into the Federal Reserve's thinking
on interest rates when it next meets on August 9,
analysts said. The figures inspired a powerful rally
on Wall Street as share traders focussed on an economic
scenario that is not too hot, but not too cold. "The
US economy's performance may once again start inspiring
the 'Goldilocks' metaphor, with growth and hiring
both running at a pace that is nearly just right for
the Fed," said CIBC World Markets analyst Leslie
Preston.
Now for the bad news. The following article on the
real U.S. budget situation is worth quoting at length:
Federal
Deficit Reality: An Update
by John Williams July 7, 2005
John Williams is publisher of "Shadow Government Statistics" which looks behind
the government's reported economic numbers.
When the U.S. Treasury reported the official 2004
federal budget deficit at a record $413 billion last
October, the hisses and boos in the financial media
were unrelenting. Two months later, the Treasury reported
the actual 2004 deficit using generally accepted
accounting principles (GAAP) to be an incredulous $11.1
trillion, up from $3.7 trillion in 2003, yet nary a
word was heard in the financial media, from Wall Street
or from any political denizen of that former malarial
swamp on the Potomac. An exception, of course, was
Treasury Secretary John Snow, who signed the government's
financial statements, but the data release was as low
key as physically possible.
The silence partially reflects the financial-market
terror that would accompany an effective national bankruptcy.
Such is the risk when a government's fiscal ills spin
so wildly out of control that they no longer are containable
within the existing system.
Consider the traditional solution of raising taxes.
Putting the $11.1 trillion deficit in perspective, if
the government raised individual and corporate income
taxes to 100%, seizing all salaries, wages and profits,
the government's 2004 operations still would have been
in deficit by trillions of dollars. The deficit has
moved beyond practical fiscal control! Many in government
and the markets are aware of the underlying deficit
reality, but few dare to sound the alarm, for the ultimate
resolutions to the situation all are political or financial
nightmares.
The government's GAAP-based accounting generally is
as used by Corporate America. It includes accrual accounting
for money not yet physically disbursed or received but
that otherwise is committed. The largest differences
come from the bookkeeping related to Social Security
and Medicare, where year-to-year changes in the net
present value (discounted for the time value of money)
of any unfunded liabilities are counted. In contrast,
traditional deficit accounting is on a cash basis. It
counts the cash received from payroll taxes (social
Security, etc.) as income, but it does not reflect any
offsetting obligations to the Social Security system.
That type of accounting
for Social Security would be fine as far as I'm concerned
as long as they kept it separate from the rest of the
budget, which they don't. That means that the payroll
taxes paid into Social Security are considered income
for the whole budget.
For nearly four decades, officially sanctioned accounting
gimmicks have masked federal deficit reality. Surpluses
in trust accounts, such as Social Security, have been
used to obscure the true shortfall in government spending.
With less than one tenth of the actual deficit being
reported each year, a cumulative negative net worth
for the U.S. government has built up in stealth to a
level that now tops $45 trillion, with total obligations
of $47.3 trillion (more than four times annual GDP).
The problem has moved beyond crisis to an uncontrollable
disaster that threatens the existence of the U.S. dollar
and global financial stability.
Indeed, the unfolding fiscal nightmare likely will
entail a U.S. hyperinflation and a resulting collapse
in the value of the world's primary reserve currency,
the dollar. With surviving politicians looking to
restore public faith in the global currency system,
a new system probably will be based on gold, the only
monetary asset that has held public confidence for millennia.
This article updates and expands upon our original background
piece on the topic, "Federal
Deficit Reality", published in September 2004,
and a special economic alert, "Financial
Report of the United States Government (FY 2004)",
which appeared last December. Portions of those articles
are revised and incorporated herein.
Current Detail and Options
While the official cash-accounting deficit for fiscal-year
2004 (year-ended September 30) widened by 10.0% to $413
billion, the broad GAAP-based deficit (including Social
Security, etc.) blew up to $11.1 trillion (96% of GDP)
in 2004, triple the 2003 deficit level of $3.7 trillion.
Much of the increase in the broad GAAP-based deficit
was due to a set-up charge from booking the 2004 "enhancements"
to the Medicare system. Net of the $6.4 trillion one-time
increase in net unfunded liabilities, the annual broad
deficit was about $4.7 trillion, which still would have
been a shortfall with 100% taxation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
U.S. Government - Alternate Fiscal Deficit
and Debt (Source: US
Treasury; $s Are Either Billions
or Trillions, as Indicated)
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Formal GAAP GAAP
GAAP Tot.
Federal
Cash- Ex-SS With
SS Federal
Gross Obliga-
Fiscal Based Etc.
Etc.
Negative Federal tions
Year Deficit Deficit
Deficit Net Worth Debt
(GAAP)
--------------------------------------------------------------------
(Bil)
(Bil)
(Tril) (Tril)
(Tril) (Tril)
------ ------
------ ------
------ ------
2004 $412.8 $615.6
$11.1* 45.9 $7.4
$47.3
2003 374.8
667.6
3.7 34.8
6.8 36.2
2002 157.8
364.5
1.5 32.1
6.2 32.7
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*$4.7 trillion, excluding one-time setup costs
of the Medicare
Prescription Drug, Improvement,
and Modernization Act of 2003
(enacted December 8, 2003).
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Nonetheless, the total numbers reflect something close
to true liability. The new Medicare charges show how
quickly politicians can make an already impossible situation
significantly worse. By adding features to Medicare
without setting up full funding for same, the Administration
and Congress helped increase the total net present value
of unfunded federal government obligations by 31%, from
$36.2 trillion to $47.3 trillion in just one year.
In like manner, any "fix" to Social Security,
such as raising the retirement age, would result in
a one-time change to the unfunded liabilities, but the
ongoing annual shortfalls would be affected only minimally.
An annual minimum broad GAAP-based deficit of $4.5 to
$5.0 trillion appears to be in place.
Wall Street hypesters recently have been touting how
the official 2005 federal deficit will narrow from 2004,
and the Administration is promising ongoing deficit
reductions from the official 2004 level. First, if the
economy falls into recession, which it appears to be
doing, all such projections are worthless. Second, even
if the promised cuts came to pass, after full reductions
in an about $4.5-trillion broad GAAP-based deficit,
the mere billions saved would still leave the annual
deficit rounded to about $4.5 trillion.
The impossibility of the current circumstance working
out happily is why lame-duck Federal Reserve Chairman
Alan Greenspan has been urging politicians in Washington
to come clean on not being able to deliver promised
Social Security and Medicare benefits already under
obligation. He suggests, correctly, that there is no
chance of economic or productivity growth resolving
the matter. The funding shortfall projections already
encompass optimistic economic assumptions.
The current circumstance also is why the Bush Administration
has been pushing for Social Security reform, but the
plans discussed do not come close to touching the magnitude
of the problem. Most Congressional Democrats will not
even admit there is a problem. Indeed, neither side
of the aisle is willing even to mention the scope of
the actual shortfall or talk about the Medicare problem,
which is even worse than Social Security.
If the Administration and Congress were willing to address
the unfolding fiscal Armageddon, only two very unpleasant
general solutions are available:
* The first solution is draconian spending cuts, particularly
in Social Security and Medicare, accompanied by massive
tax increases. The needed spending cuts and tax increases
are so large as to be political impossibilities.
* In the absence of political action, the second
solution is tacit bankruptcy, with the U.S. government
facing some form of insolvency within the next decade
or so. Shy of Uncle Sam defaulting on debt, the most
likely eventual outcome is the Fed massively monetizing
the U.S. debt, triggering a hyperinflation. U.S. obligations
then would be paid off in a significantly debased and
devalued dollar at literally pennies on the hundred
dollars.
These alternatives are politically unthinkable and unspeakable
for the Administration and Congress, hence the silence.
Yet, these same political bodies are responsible for
the current circumstance, along with the acquiescence
of the financial community and an uninformed or disinterested
voting public.
Decades of Deception -- Historical Perspective
Misleading accounting used by the U.S. government, both
in financial and economic reporting, far exceeds the
scope of corporate accounting wrongdoing that keeps
making financial headlines. The bad boys of Corporate
America, however, still have been subject to significant
regulatory oversight and at least the appearance of
the application of GAAP accounting to their books. In
contrast, the government's operations and economic reporting
have been subject to oversight solely by Congress, America's
only "distinctly native criminal class."
Nearly four decades ago, President Lyndon Johnson's
political sensitivities led him and the Congress to
slough off some of the costs of an escalating Vietnam
War through the use of accounting gimmicks. To mask
the rapid growth in the federal government's budget
deficit, revenues from the surplus being generated by
Social Security taxes were added into the general cash
fund, without making any accounting allowance for the
accompanying and increasing Social Security liabilities.
This accounting-gimmicked reporting was dubbed "unified"
budget accounting.
The government's accounting then, as it is now, was
on a cash basis, reflecting cash revenues versus cash
expenditures. There were no accruals made for monies
owed by or due to the government or to the government's
trust funds at some time in the future.
The bogus accounting understated the actual deficit
for decades and even allowed for claims of budget surpluses
in the years 1998 to 2001. While there were extensive
self-congratulatory comments between the President,
Congress and the Fed Chairman, at the time, all involved
knew there never were any actual budget surpluses. There
has not been an actual balanced budget, let alone a
surplus, since before Johnson and his cronies cooked
the bookkeeping.
The doctored fiscal reporting complemented the short-term
political interests of both major political parties.
Additionally, the ignorance and/or complicity of Pollyannaish
analysts on Wall Street and in the financial media --
eager to discourage negative market activity -- helped
to keep the fiscal crisis from arousing significant
concern among a dumbed-down U.S. populace.
…Dollar, Debt and Hyperinflation
The financial-market counterpart to the federal deficit
is federal debt, where gross federal debt was $7.8 trillion
as of June 30, 2005. That level was $7.4 trillion at
the end of fiscal 2004, of which $4.3 trillion was borrowed
from the public and $3.1 trillion was borrowed from
the government (i.e. Social Security). Therein lies
the problem. There is and will be too much debt from
the U.S. government for the financial markets to absorb
and remain stable.
The burgeoning deficit means the U.S. government will
be increasing its debt level significantly for years
to come. Near term, the amount borrowed will increase
more rapidly than the markets are expecting, with the
economy slowing down and entering recession. The ultimate
question is who will lend the money to the U.S. Treasury?
The answer is not U.S. investors.
The Federal Reserve's flow of funds accounts show that
foreign investors, both official and private, owned
42.5% of U.S. Treasuries at the end of 2004, up from
18.2% at the end of 1994. In 2004, foreign investors
bought 98.5% of new U.S. Treasury issuance. (See "A Look
at Foreign Investment Behavior in the Latest Flow-of-Funds
Data," courtesy of Gillespie Research Associates.)
Part of the reason for this relates to another deficit
crisis the United States faces on the trade front, where
an exploding trade deficit is throwing excess dollars
into global circulation. By holding dollars and investing
in Treasuries, instead of converting dollars to a local
currency, foreign investors have been helping to fund
much of the U.S. deficit.
The combination of the rapidly deteriorating trade and
budget deficits guarantee this will change. At some
point, willingness among foreign investors to hold dollars
will evaporate along with the reality that currency
losses are more than offsetting any investment gains.
When sentiment shifts away from the greenback, not only
are foreign investors going to stop buying U.S. Treasuries,
but also they likely will dump their holdings of existing
Treasuries along with the U.S. dollar. Such actions
would lead to a sharp dollar decline, a sharp spike
in interest rates and a sharp sell-off in equities.
The question, again, is who is going to buy the Treasuries?
With new debt continually hitting the market, eventually
the Fed will have to step in to buy the Treasuries --
as lender of last resort -- effectively monetizing the
debt. The more the Fed monetizes, the greater will be
the growth in the money supply, the greater will be
the weakness in the dollar, the greater will be the
rate of inflation.
Where the numbers already are there for this to happen,
fiscal pressures will get even worse. Already, the Pension
Benefit Guaranty Corporation looks like it needs a federal
bailout. As the economy deteriorates, the Congress or
the Fed will step in as needed to prevent the collapse
of any major financial institution that would threaten
the system. Such action, though, will prove fiscally
expensive.
The Fed let the banks fail in the 1930s, which helped
intensify a decline in the money supply. That in turn
was given major credit for deepening the Great Depression.
The Fed will try to avoid the mistakes of the 1930s,
but, in the process, it likely will end up triggering
a hyperinflationary depression.
…Such has been the traditional cure for countries that
borrowed so far beyond their means that they ended up
with a choice between bankruptcy and hyperinflation.
Hyperinflation seems to be the easier political route,
although, for the first time, it will involve the world's
primary reserve currency.
In a hyperinflation, the currency very rapidly becomes
worthless. In the classic case of the Weimar Republic
of the 1920s, a 100,000-Mark note became more valuable
as toilet paper than as currency; wheel barrows full
of currency were needed to buy a loaf of bread; an expensive
bottle of wine one night was worth even more the next
morning, empty, as scrap glass. That is the eventual
environment the United States faces because of its out-of-control
fiscal madness.
For decades, "The deficit doesn't matter"
and "The dollar doesn't matter" have been
guiding principles in Washington. The deficit and the
dollar do matter, greatly, as Washington, the U.S. public
and the global markets will learn shortly.
A New Gold Standard?
The dollar, as we know it, soon will be history.
Dollar inflation has been through a number of cycles
since the founding of the Republic, but its current
perpetual uptrend -- net of some bouncing during the
Great Depression -- only began once the Federal Reserve
was created in 1914. Now, with fiscal policy careening
beyond any chance of containment, the Federal Reserve
will get to oversee the U.S. currency's demise.
It is not that the Fed wants to monetize the federal
debt and trigger a hyperinflation -- the U.S. Central
Bank certainly will do its utmost to avoid that outcome
-- but it will have no politically acceptable alternative.
The system otherwise would tend to right itself anyway
through the economic shakeout of a hyperinflationary
depression. While the Fed might hope to mitigate and
to control the disaster, given the Fed's nature, it
is more likely to exacerbate conditions rather than
to improve them.
When the dollar loses most of its value, through
hyperinflation and/or currency dumping, the global currency
system and economy will be in shambles, and a new currency
system will have to be established. Those setting up
the new system will need to establish its credibility,
and there is only one monetary asset that can accomplish
that: Gold.
Gold is the only commodity that has held up as a
liquid store of wealth over the millennia. The amount
of gold used to buy a loaf of bread in Ancient Rome
still buys a loaf of bread today. In like manner, the
amount of gold that bought a regular haircut for a man
in 1914, still buys a similar haircut today. Where the
public does not trust today's politicians and central
bankers, it does trust gold.
Whatever structure evolves for the new currency system,
it most likely will have gold at its base. That is one
reason that central banks rarely have followed through
on threatened gold sales in recent years. The threats
usually were nothing but jawboning aimed at depressing
current market prices. Those countries holding the most
gold will have the greatest advantage in any new currency
system, and the central bankers know that, including
Mr. Greenspan.
Timing of Related Currency and Financial Market Troubles
Central banks, OPEC, corporations and investors, both
foreign and domestic -- as holders of U.S. dollars --
increasingly will sense or realize the greenback is
headed for the dumpster. It only is a matter of when,
not if.
The dumping of the U.S. dollar and/or U.S. debt by investors
likely will hit quickly, with little advance notice.
All the official actions that in turn could trigger
hyperinflation would follow rapidly, with a full-fledged
dollar collapse and developing hyperinflation possibly
unfolding in a matter of weeks.
When this will happen is the tough question. It could
be years; it could be next week. Without knowing the
precise proximal trigger of the shift in sentiment against
the U.S. currency, the timing is impossible to call.
Nonetheless, some early warning signs may be evident
in unusual anti-dollar activity in the currency markets,
or in unusually sharp and unexplained spikes in the
price of gold.
It would be extraordinarily surprising if the ultimate
dollar collapse can be held off a decade, let alone
three-to-five years. The pending global financial crisis
conceivably could break in the immediate future, triggered
possibly by one or more of the following developments:
action by China to peg its currency to a basket of currencies
instead of the dollar, OPEC pricing oil using a basket
of currencies instead of the dollar, a sovereign credit
rating downgrade on U.S. Treasuries, a major terrorist
act, a very bad monthly trade report, a misstatement
by an Administration official or some other event that
may appear obvious in retrospect.
The dire financial straights the United States government
finds itself in, after decades of bleeding the financial
health of the government and the society for the enrichment
of a few, helps explain the desperation of the foreign
policy of the United States. It is the behavior of
someone who is robbing a store to pay off huge gambling
debts.
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With London's police
and mayor urging a return to normal routine, commuters
boarded subways and buses Monday for the first full work
week since bomb blasts killed at least 49 people and injured
hundreds.
People crowded onto subway trains while buses in the
city were running at near normal service.
Transport police said people in the city should use the
transit system to defy those responsible for attacks on
three subway trains and one bus on Thursday. At least
49 people were killed and more than 700 were injured.
"London is open for business.
If we don't do that, then the terrorists will have won
and that's not what we want," said Andy Trotter,
deputy chief constable of the British Transport Police.
London Mayor Ken Livingstone boarded the subway Monday
in a show of support, saying the bomb attacks can't change
the city's way of life.
"We are going to work. We carry on our lives,"
said Livingstone. [...]
British police on Sunday arrested three men under anti-terrorism
provisions but later released them. Police refused to
connect the arrests to the bombings. |
Blair's
blowback
Of course those who backed the Iraq war refute any link
with the London bombs - they are in the deepest denial |
Gary Younge
Monday July 11, 2005
The Guardian |
Shortly after September
11 2001, when the slightest mention of a link between
US foreign policy and the terrorist attacks brought accusations
of heartless heresy, the then US national security adviser,
Condoleezza Rice got to work. Between public displays
of grief and solemnity she managed to round up the senior
staff of the National Security Council and ask them to
think seriously about "how do you capitalise on these
opportunities" to fundamentally change American doctrine
and the shape of the world. In an interview with the New
Yorker six months later, she said the US no longer had
a problem defining its post-cold war role. "I think
September 11 was one of those great earthquakes that clarify
and sharpen. Events are in much sharper relief."
For those interested in keeping
the earth intact in its present shape so that we might
one day live on it peacefully, the bombings of July 7
provide no such "opportunities". They do not
"clarify" or "sharpen" but muddy and
bloody already murky waters. As the identities
of the missing emerge, we move from a statistical body
count to the tragedy of human loss - brothers, mothers,
lovers and daughters cruelly blown away as they headed
to work. The space to mourn these losses must be respected.
The demand that we abandon rational
thought, contextual analysis and critical appraisal of
why this happened and what we can do to limit the chances
that it will happen again, should not. To explain is not
to excuse; to criticise is not to capitulate.
We know what took place. A group of people, with no regard
for law, order or our way of life, came to our city and
trashed it. With scant regard for human life or political
consequences, employing violence as their sole instrument
of persuasion, they slaughtered innocent people indiscriminately.
They left us feeling unified in our pain and resolute
in our convictions, effectively creating a community where
one previously did not exist. With the killers probably
still at large there is no civil liberty so vital that
some would not surrender it in pursuit of them and no
punishment too harsh that some might not sanction if we
found them.
The trouble is there is nothing in the last paragraph
that could not just as easily be said from Falluja as
it could from London. The two should not be equated -
with over 1,000 people killed or injured, half its housing
wrecked and almost every school and mosque damaged or
flattened, what Falluja went through at the hands of the
US military, with British support, was more deadly. But
they can and should be compared. We do not have a monopoly
on pain, suffering, rage or resilience. Our blood is no
redder, our backbones are no stiffer, nor our tear ducts
more productive than the people in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Those whose imagination could not stretch to empathise
with the misery we have caused in the Gulf now have something
closer to home to identify with. "Collateral damage"
always has a human face: its relatives grieve; its communities
have memory and demand action.
These basic humanistic precepts are the principle casualties
of fundamentalism, whether it is wedded to Muhammad or
the market. They were clearly absent from the minds of
those who bombed London last week. They are no less absent
from the minds of those who have pursued the war on terror
for the past four years.
Tony Blair is not responsible for the more than 50 dead
and 700 injured on Thursday. In all likelihood, "jihadists"
are. But he is partly responsible for the 100,000 people
who have been killed in Iraq. And
even at this early stage there is a far clearer logic
linking these two events than there ever was tying Saddam
Hussein to either 9/11 or weapons of mass destruction.
It is no mystery why those who
have backed the war in Iraq would refute this connection.
With each and every setback, from the lack of UN endorsement
right through to the continuing strength of the insurgency,
they go ever deeper into denial. Their sophistry has now
mutated into a form of political autism - their ability
to engage with the world around them has been severely
impaired by their adherence to a flawed and fatal project.
To say that terrorists would have targeted us even if
we hadn't gone into Iraq is a bit like a smoker justifying
their habit by saying, "I could get run over crossing
the street tomorrow." True, but the certain health
risks of cigarettes are more akin to playing chicken on
a four-lane highway. They have the effect of bringing
that fatal, fateful day much closer than it might otherwise
be.
Similarly, invading Iraq clearly
made us a target. Did Downing
Street really think it could declare a war on terror and
that terror would not fight back? That, in itself, is
not a reason to withdraw troops if having them there is
the right thing to do. But since it isn't and never was,
it provides a compelling reason to change course before
more people are killed here or there. So the prime
minister got it partly right on Saturday when he said:
"I think this type of terrorism has very deep roots.
As well as dealing with the consequences of this - trying
to protect ourselves as much as any civil society can
- you have to try to pull it up by its roots."
What he would not acknowledge is that his alliance with
President George Bush has been sowing the seeds and fertilising
the soil in the Gulf, for yet more to grow. The invasion
and occupation of Iraq - illegal, immoral and inept -
provided the Arab world with one more legitimate grievance.
Bush laid down the gauntlet: you're either with us or
with the terrorists. A small minority of young Muslims
looked at the values displayed in Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo
Bay and Camp Bread Basket - and made their choice. The
war helped transform Iraq from a vicious, secular dictatorship
with no links to international terrorism into a magnet
and training ground for those determined to commit terrorist
atrocities. Meanwhile, it diverted our attention and resources
from the very people we should have been fighting - al-Qaida.
Leftwing axe-grinding? As early as February 2003 the
joint intelligence committee reported that al-Qaida and
associated groups continued to represent "by far
the greatest terrorist threat to western interests, and
that that threat would be heightened by military action
against Iraq". At the World Economic Forum last year,
Gareth Evans, the former Australian foreign minister and
head of the International Crisis Group thinktank, said:
"The net result of the war on terror is more war
and more terror. Look at Iraq: the least plausible reason
for going to war - terrorism - has been its most harrowing
consequence."
None of that justifies what the bombers did. But it does
help explain how we got where we are and what we need
to do to move to a safer place. If Blair didn't know the
invasion would make us more vulnerable, he is negligent;
if he did, then he should take responsibility for his
part in this. That does not mean we deserved what was
coming. It means we deserve a lot better. |
Downing Street has
rejected a call by Michael Howard yesterday for a full
inquiry into possible security failures before the London
bombings.
In a television interview, the Conservative leader said:
"Let's look again at our arrangements, let's have
an inquiry into what happened and whether anything more
could have been done."
Tony Blair will today make his first statement to parliament
since the attacks, focusing on the hunt for the terrorists,
the continuing search for bodies and the arrangements
being led by the culture secretary, Tessa Jowell, to provide
advice and help for bereaved families.
In a separate development, the Guardian
has learned that MI5 is to conduct an internal investigation
into the bombings to try to establish how the terrorists
avoided detection.
Security and intelligence officials said yesterday they
had "absolutely nothing to hide" and described
MI5, the domestic security service, as a "self-critical
organisation".
They added: "[MI5] wants to find out how this got
through".
Mr Howard, speaking on BBC News 24, said it was too early
to say whether the government had made mistakes in its
handling of the attacks: "The inquiry we have asked
for is an inquiry into what happened, what went wrong."
His remarks drew short shrift from government.
An official said: "It is
pretty preposterous when we have a vital police investigation
under way for the police and security services to spend
their time on an inquiry. The prime minister has absolute
confidence in the security services and the police."
Mr Howard said: "Clearly in an ideal world we would
have been able to prevent this dreadful attack and we
weren't able to do that.
"It is not to say that was anybody's fault. We cannot
achieve a guarantee of total immunity from these attacks
in today's world. But it is sensible to have an inquiry
with the benefit of hindsight into what was done and what
wasn't done to see if there are lessons which can be learned.
Perhaps there are, perhaps there aren't."
The Conservatives favour a new border police and a minister
for homeland security, two issues raised by Mr Howard
during the election.
The Tory leader said the government must not be panicked
into introducing draconian measures following the attacks.
He did not believe determined terrorists could be stopped
by tagging them or ordering them to stay at home.
"Let's look at all these things calmly, not as a
knee-jerk reaction," he added.
David Davis, the shadow home secretary, again rejected
identity cards and said any control orders should be issued
by a high court judge, and not the home secretary.
The government is reviewing the use of control orders
in the next few months.
Charles Kennedy, leader of the Liberal Democrats, who
opposed the Iraq war, said he did not believe the bombings
were prompted by the war.
"I wouldn't link what's happened
in London to Iraq," he said on News 24. |
Tony Blair will on
Monday reject Conservative demands for a government inquiry
into last week's London bomb attacks, insisting such a
move would distract from the task of catching the perpetrators.
As the death toll rose to 52 and police and security
services continued searching for the bombers - thought
to be Islamist terrorists - Downing
Street said the prime minister believed an inquiry now
into the outrage which killed at least 49 people would
be a "ludicrous diversion."
Instead, in a statement to the Commons on Monday following
last week's Group of Eight summit, Mr Blair is expected
to focus on the direction the government must take to
ensure future terrorism is defeated.
In particular, the prime minister
believes there must be far greater co-operation among
European Union governments in the fight against terrorism
- a view Charles Clarke, the home secretary, is expected
to drive home at an emergency meeting of EU interior ministers
this week.
He is expected to tell his counterparts governments
must ensure operators keep data on telephone and internet
exchanges for up to a year.
He also indicated on Sunday that he
would consider granting further "control orders"
if he thought they were necessary.
Mr Clarke said he was "very optimistic indeed"
that last Thursday's bombers would be tracked down. But
he feared further attacks could take place until that
happened. "That is why the number one priority has
to be the catching of the perpetrators."
Police continued to sift through the debris from Thursday's
four explosions - three in the London Underground and
one on a bus - and to examine witness accounts and intelligence
as part of their hunt for the bombers.
But police chiefs indicated that had yet to establish
the identity or the whereabouts of the terrorists they
suspect belong to an extremist Islamist cell in sympathy
with the aims of Al-Qaeda.
Tension several cities remained high over the weekend.
Police said they had arrested, under prevention of terrorism
laws, three British nationals on an inward flight at Heathrow
early on Sunday but insisted that any link with last Thursday's
bombings was speculative. The three were released later
on Sunday night without charge.
But the arrests, the dozens of bomb alerts in the English
capital and an evacuation in the Birmingam city centre
over the weekend reflect the nervousness of both police
and the general public at the prospect that the bombers
were still at large and capable of striking again.
The police also revealed that there
had been a few cases of attacks on British Muslims in
the wake of the bombings - including one in which an individual
was "seriously injured."
The revelation came as some government officials expressed
irritation that an article in a Sunday newspaper by Sir
John Stevens, the former Metropolitan Police commissioner,
might stir up racial tensions. He said the bombers were
"almost certainly" British - with many more
born and bred here willing to attack. |
The Government has
decided to replace the Part 4 powers with a new system
of Control Orders. Control Orders
would be applied to any suspected terrorist, whether a
UK national nor a non-UK national, whatever the nature
of the terrorist activity (international or domestic).
The control orders will enable the authorities to impose
conditions ranging from prohibitions on access to specific
items or services, and restrictions on association with
named individuals, to the imposition of restritions on
movement or curfews.
The controls under the new scheme would not include detention
in prison although it is intended that a breach of a control
order should be a crimnal offence and prosecuted in the
usual way.
Control Orders Proposals –
The Facts
1. The Home Secretary will make a control order based
on an assessment of the intelligence
information.
2. The specific conditions imposed under a Control Order
would be tailored to each case to ensure effective disruption
of terrorist activity.
3. Conditions that could be imposed range from the imposition
of curfews, tagging, and a restriction on the use of specific
things (such as computers) to reporting to a specified
person at particular times and limitations on people with
who an individual could associate.
4. Control Orders could be varied and controls changed
if the threat an individual poses changes.
5. The individual concerned is entitled to appeal against
the Secretary of States decision to the High Court decision.
The court may consider the case in open or closed session
– depending on the nature and sensitivity of the
information under consideration. Special advocates will
be used to represent the interests of appellants in any
closed sessions.
6. Control Orders will be time limited and may be imposed
for a period of up to 12 months at a time. They would
be renewable thereafter.
7. Breach of a condition imposed by a control order will
be a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment. Steps
taken to monitor compliance with control orders may include
electronic tagging, or regular reporting ot a nomnated
person. |
The following correction
was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications
column, Friday June 10, 2005.
In the following article we referred to Alvaro Gil-Robles
as the "European commissioner for human rights".
To clarify, he represents the Council of Europe, which
is custodian of the European court of human rights. As
we pointed out in the previous day's report, the court
is not a part of the EU.
The government was
yesterday severely criticised for its policies on anti-terror
legislation, frequent use of anti-social behaviour orders,
high numbers of children held in detention and its treatment
of asylum seekers.
A scathing report by the European commissioner for human
rights, Alvaro Gil-Robles, condemned use of control orders
for terrorist suspects and other anti-terrorism measures,
which he said had had "a repercussion extending beyond
their impact on individual persons to entire communities".
The long-delayed report said the UK has
not been immune "to a tendency increasingly discernible
across Europe to consider human rights as excessively
restricting the effective administration of justice and
the protection of the public interest".
Mr Gil-Robles said the British government had occasionally
overstepped the mark. "Against
a background, by no means limited to the UK, in which
human rights are frequently construed as, at best, formal
commitments and, at worst, cumbersome obstructions, it
is perhaps worth emphasising that human rights are not
a pick-and-mix assortment of luxury entitlements but the
very foundation of democratic societies.
"As such, their violation
affects not just the individual concerned but society
as a whole: we exclude one person from their enjoyment
at the risk of excluding all of us," he said.
To limit the application of human rights
or to deny them was "to effect ourselves of what
terrorists wish to achieve". Some control orders
constituted criminal punishment without trial.
A further report on the treatment of suspected international
terrorists detained in the UK under the Anti-Terrorism,
Crime and Security Act (ATCSA) 2001 is to be published
today by the European Committee for Prevention of Torture
and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
Last night rights organisations such as Amnesty International,
Liberty, and Human Rights Watch said that the commissioner's
report confirmed what they had known all along, "that
the government's counter-terrorism strategy is on the
wrong track".
The report condemned use of evidence obtained under conditions
of torture and used in court as an "entirely indefensible
practice". It said: "Torture
is torture, whoever does it; judicial proceedings are
judicial proceedings, whatever their purpose - the former
can never be admissible in the latter."
An appeal court ruling last year said that ATCSA 2001
allowed the admission of "evidence" obtained
by torture provided it was not committed or connived at
by British officials. The ruling, which outraged human
rights campaigners, is to be challenged by an appeal to
the law lords.
The commissioner was also critical of the frequent use
of Asbos, which he said were "being touted as a miracle
cure for urban nuisance".
Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said the report
was "a serious wake-up call to politicians who have
rubbished notions of fairness and basic human dignity
for too long. There should be a full parliamentary debate
into all the key recommendations."
The prime minister's official spokesman said: "There
is a balance to be struck between the human rights of
individuals and the human rights of citizens to be protected
against terrorist threat.
"That is a difficult balance, but
we believe our legislation achieves that balance. It is
always difficult to achieve that balance, but you have
to bear in mind both sides of human rights." |
The
prevention of terrorism bill makes a mockery of human
rights and the rule of law and contravenes the spirit,
if not the letter, of the December 2004 Law Lords' judgment,
Amnesty International said today.
The United Kingdom (UK) Home Secretary Charles Clarke
unveiled his proposals for "control orders"
which range from tagging to "house arrest" without
charge or trial and would apply to UK citizens and foreigners
alike. The decision to impose such orders will be taken
by the executive alone. The introduction of "house
arrest" without charge or trial requires derogations
from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and
the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights
(ICCPR).
"The United Kingdom (UK) government's proposal to
issue, debate and pass a piece of legislation -- introducing
draconian measures and further derogating from obligations
under international treaties -- within the next few weeks,
is a repeat of the way in which they railroaded the enactment
of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act (ATCSA)
in 2001. As such it shows contempt for parliamentary and
public scrutiny and debate," Amnesty International
said.
"House arrest without charge
or trial is no different from internment at Belmarsh,
Woodhill or Broadmoor. It is still deprivation of liberty.
The provisions for judicial involvement post facto do
not alter the arbitrary nature of this bill,"
Amnesty International said.
"Those suspected of involvement
in 'terrorism' must be charged with a recognizably criminal
offence and tried in proceedings which fully comply with
international fair trial standards."
Amnesty International considers that rather than tabling
ill-conceived and dangerous legislation that contravenes
domestic and international human rights law -- and that
if implemented, would lead to serious human rights violations
-- the UK authorities should:
- commit themselves to upholding the rule of law and
human rights;
- end executive powers to deprive people of their liberty;
- release immediately all those interned unless charged
with a recognizably criminal offence and tried;
- withdraw the derogation from the ECHR and ICCPR;
- end the use of secret evidence to deprive people of
their liberty or restrict their freedoms of movement,
expression or association;
- ban the use of torture evidence in any proceedings.
The Home Secretary Charles Clarke justified the draft
bill on prevention of terrorism with the necessity to
counter "terrorists" who allegedly want to attack
the UK.
Amnesty International condemns, in the strongest terms,
acts of violence against civilians, whoever the perpetrator
and whatever the motive, but at the same time the organization
urges the UK government to ensure that any measure taken
to prevent or respond to such attacks fully conforms with
its obligations under international law, in particular
international human rights, refugee and humanitarian law.
Amnesty International is studying the legislation in
detail and will make its concerns public at a later stage. |
Control
order flaws exposed
First interview with ex-detainee reveals a regime that
leaves him in despair : Ex-detainee exposes flaws in terror
control orders |
Audrey Gillan and Faisal al
Yafai
Thursday March 24, 2005
The Guardian |
The
bizarre world of the government's controversial anti-terrorist
control orders was yesterday revealed when one of the
10 men who had been detained in high-security institutions
for more than three years walked into the Guardian offices
without any security escort.
Highlighting the stark contradictions in the control
orders, Mahmoud Abu Rideh, who had been detained without
charge and trial in Belmarsh prison and Broadmoor psychiatric
hospital, is kept under house arrest at night, but is
able to roam freely under tagging during the day.
The Palestinian refugee, who was held for three-and-a-half
years, says he cannot understand the double standards
of the order, and said it was further exacerbating his
psychiatric difficulties. He has been diagnosed as mentally
ill.
In the first interview from any of the 10 detainees placed
under control orders, he said: "I go everywhere now
- on the underground, buses, the mosque. But I must be
home by 7pm. People think I am dangerous, but I am not
dangerous. The government is playing games.
If I am a risk to security, why are they letting me out
to be with people? I wouldn't do anything silly.
I am not a dangerous man."
Mr Abu Rideh's control order says he is a key UK-based
contact and provider of financial and logistical support
to extreme Islamists with connections to al-Qaida. It
says: "You belonged to and have provided support
for a network of north African extremists directly involved
in terrorist planning in the UK, including the use of
toxic chemicals."
Mr Abu Rideh denies this is the case.
The control orders were rushed through parliament earlier
this month in the face of widespread opposition. The contradictions
inherent in them are clear from Mr Abu Rideh's experiences
since being released on bail almost two weeks ago:
- He is not allowed to make arrangements to meet anybody,
but he can drop in to see anyone if he does so unannounced;
- He cannot attend any pre-arranged meetings or gatherings,
but was present at the anti-war demonstration at Hyde
Park last Saturday. He says he stumbled across it while
playing football in the park with his children;
- He is banned from having visitors to his home unless
they are vetted in advance, but he is allowed to arrange
to attend group prayers at a mosque;
- He thinks he is being followed on the tube, but if
he calls a taxi, no one tails him.
Mr Abu Rideh told the Guardian that his confusion over
how the control orders work, and his lack of support,
led him to take a drug overdose last weekend. He was taken
to Charing Cross hospital after he swallowed 35 tablets
and was not released until Monday evening. He says he
cannot bear to live under the conditions imposed by the
home secretary.
He said: "I only want to kill myself. I don't want
to kill anybody else. I am not a danger to anybody else,
but this government has made me a danger to myself. It
is just as bad to be free with a control order as it is
in Belmarsh prison or Broadmoor hospital."
The control orders authorised by the home secretary,
Charles Clarke, caused a parliamentary crisis two weeks
ago and were only shunted through after 30 hours of ferocious
tussling between the two houses and a compromise on the
part of the government.
The 10 men include Abu Qatada, the Islamist preacher
who has been described by a judge as a truly dangerous
individual who was "at the centre of UK terrorist
activities associated with al-Qaida".
At the time of the parliamentary debate, the Home Office
said that the 10 released men were still a risk to national
security. This week, lawyers for Mr Abu Rideh and the
other men began a legal challenge to the control orders.
They told a high court judge that the orders were confused
and difficult to work with, saying: "It has been
continuous crisis management for the past 10 days."
Yesterday, Mr Abu Rideh explained some of these problems.
"The conditions are too complicated and they don't
work. The Home Office emergency number doesn't work. I
phoned Fulham police station and they said it's not their
problem," he said.
He claims that the voice recognition system operated
by the tagging company, Premier Monitoring Services, does
not work and the Guardian found that the Home Office control
order hotline was an answering machine.
Mr Abu Rideh is so frustrated that he has threatened
to take direct action similar to Fathers4Justice. He said:
"I will go to Big Ben and make a demonstration, I
will chain myself to the railings of the high court or
the House of Commons. My lawyer has told me not to, but
if I don't get justice I will."
The transition from being in Belmarsh and then in a hospital
with the criminal mentally ill to being at home with his
wife and five children is proving to be fraught. "I
think they will arrest me again. My kids worry that when
they get back from school I will be gone and they might
not find me again. My wife can't sleep. She is asking
me not to go out."
Surprise searches by Scotland Yard officers leave his
family on edge, he said, and his wife sleeps fully clothed
in case of any eventuality. He complained that officers
rifled through his wife's underwear drawer. "That's
wrong in anybody's culture," he said. "I asked
them, What are you searching there, do you think I have
a bomb in my house, do you think I would kill my kids?"
But the most frustrating thing of all is that, despite
being called an international terrorist by the government,
he has never been told where he crossed the line.
He said: "I want to talk to whoever locked me up.
Talk to me. Tell me, why? See my face, see my body. But
I can't find anybody to talk to me."
A spokesperson for Premier said the company could not
discuss individual cases. |
BRITAIN'S terrorist alert has
been raised to its highest-ever level because the
London rush-hour bombers are alive and planning another
attack, The Times has learnt.
Security services, military and police are on "severe
specific" alert - the second highest status and
higher than after the September 11 atrocities - after
it emerged that the terrorists who killed as many as
70 people were not suicide bombers.
The Times understands that the country's biggest manhunt
is focusing on evidence being gathered from King's Cross
station, which all three of the bombed Tube trains passed
through on Thursday morning.
A re-examination of the timings of
the explosions has revealed that the Underground bombs
exploded within seconds of one another at 8.50am.
Investigators believe that the bombers assembled at
the huge station, with its many rail connections, before
dispersing to plant their devices around the Tube network.
The Circle Line bombs detonated when the Aldgate train
was eight minutes east of King's Cross and the Edgware
Road train was eight minutes to the west. The Russell
Square train was blown up seconds later, south of King's
Cross on the Piccadilly Line.
The bombers who killed 191 people
in Madrid last year also gathered at one place before
separating to plant devices timed to explode simultaneously.
Examination of CCTV footage from the dozens of security
cameras around King's Cross is a priority for investigators.
Scotland Yard also appealed yesterday for Tube passengers
to send in mobile phone pictures and videos they may
have made in the bombings. Streets and car parks near
the station are being searched to discover if the terrorists
left a vehicle.
The bombers travelled from outside London. "We
believe they started out together, to ensure that there
were no slips on the journey. Then they are likely to
have split up to join separate trains," a senior
anti-terrorist source told The Times. "We need
to find where these men were staying in the days before
the attacks and where they collected the rucksack bombs."
The other main line of inquiry is to recover forensic
evidence from the mangled remains of the No 30 bus at
Tavistock Square, where officers think a fourth bomber
may have died at 9.47am. Police
are trying to discover why his bomb - thought to have
been of the same size and design as the Tube bombs -
detonated 57 minutes after the synchronised devices.
One theory is that the man was to launch a second wave
of attack, targeting people fleeing closed Tube stations.
When he found that stations had been quickly shut,
the terrorist may have panicked, or been under orders
to switch his attention to a bus, another symbol of
London's travel network.
One Scotland Yard source said: "We will never
know for certain what happened in those last few minutes.
He might not have woken up that morning as a suicide
bomber, but circumstances meant he became one."
Passengers on the bus noticed a 6ft tall, olive-skinned
man, thought to be aged in his early 20s, looking agitated
and rummaging in a rucksack.
Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, said that the Government's
priority was catching the surviving bombers before they
struck again. [...]
Three Britons were arrested
under the Terrorism Act at Heathrow after being refused
entry to the US but police said that they were not suspects.
A US report that a Pakistani man
was detained at Stansted on Friday, in possession of
a marked Tube map, was dismissed. [...] |
LONDON - Police arrested three
people at London's Heathrow Airport under anti-terrorism
laws but said no link had been established with the
Underground and bus bombings and later released the
trio.
"Three people have been arrested under the Prevention
of Terrorism Act at Heathrow Airport but it is not known
at this stage whether those arrests are linked to this
inquiry or not," a senior London police spokesman,
Commander Brian Paddick, told a news conference Sunday
morning.
Within hours police said that the
men had been released without charge.
Paddick had warned on announcing their arrest against
linking the three to the attacks.
"I am told that it is inappropriate and pure speculation
at this stage to be drawing any direct linkages with
the attacks in London, and at this stage we are not
in a position to give any further information."
[...]
Britain's Press Association said the men were three
British nationals who had been detained as they arrived
from abroad, but it quoted sources as saying they were
not being linked to the bombings.
Police said they had received valuable
information from the public, who had flooded a tip-off
line with 1,700 calls.
The confirmed death toll from the four blasts that
destroyed a double-decker bus and crumpled Underground
trains was 49, but police were still searching for trapped
bodies deep below street level near London's Russell
Square station.
The three London Underground bombs were detonated within
50 seconds of one another at about 8:50 am (0750 GMT),
a level of coordination that bore the hallmarks of an
attack by suspected Al-Qaeda operatives.
There have been two claims of responsibility
by groups linked to Osama bin Laden's organisation. |
JERUSALEM - Israel's Ariel Sharon
has imposed a gag order on his cabinet over the London
bombings to avoid offending British sensibilities with
comparisons to his country's fight against Palestinian
militants, officials said.
The prime minister muzzled his normally talkative cabinet
after Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom seemed to equate
Thursday's deadly attacks with suicide bombings against
Israeli civilians, comments that Israeli commentators
said were ill-timed.
"Keep quiet. Limit any response to expressions
of condolences," was Sharon's message to his ministers
after rush-hour blasts killed more than 50 people in
central London.
"The feeling is the last thing the British need
right now is Israeli ministers preaching to them about
the war on terror," a Sharon confidant said, speaking
on condition of anonymity.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has condemned the
London bombings as an "ugly crime."
After al Qaeda's September 11,
2001 attacks on the United States, Sharon was quick
to draw parallels to Israel's own struggle against Islamic
militancy. At the time, Israelis were battling
a wave of suicide bombings in a Palestinian uprising.
But with a five-month-old ceasefire in effect, Sharon
is taking a different tack in response to the London
bombings, which British officials said bore the hallmarks
of al Qaeda.
He issued a statement telling Londoners that Israelis
"feel their pain." But
he wants to keep a low profile to avoid stirring anti-Israel
sentiment in Britain or causing any fallout in relations,
which have sometimes been rocky, officials said.
Despite Sharon's directive, Finance Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu, visiting London at the time of the blasts,
wrote in the daily Maariv: "Now the British have
unwillingly joined not only us, the Israelis, in absorbing
murderous attacks in the heart of their cities.
"They also join the Americans, Spanish, Russians
and others who were marked as targets on the firing
line of Islamic terror."
Netanyahu told Sky television in a
separate interview that pressure should be applied by
Western nations on Iran and Saudi Arabia, countries
he accused of supporting terrorist groups.
"Without this kind of support al Qaeda would be
in a much more difficult state ... in fact its defeat
would be much more imminent," Netanyahu said.
"JERUSALEM-ON-THAMES"
Some ordinary Israelis voiced hope
the London bombings would cause the British and other
Europeans, whom they regard as
biased in favor of the Palestinians, to have
more sympathy for Israelis killed or wounded in Palestinian
attacks.
"Jerusalem-on-Thames" read a front page headline
in the Haaretz daily. In Jerusalem,
hard hit by bombers in the past 4-1/2 years, guards
stand outside cafes and markets, and shoppers must pass
through metal detectors to enter malls.
"I'm hoping people will have a little bit more
solidarity with us and the hardships that we go through,"
Jerusalem resident Ben Katz said.
In the meantime, Israeli pundits appeared torn between
admiring the way London's emergency services, news media
and citizens coped with the bombings and criticizing
the apparent intelligence failure that meant the bomb
plot went undetected.
Palestinians have matched Israeli condemnation of the
bombings.
But the militant Islamic group Hamas,
whose suicide bombers have killed hundreds of Israeli
civilians in public places since the start of the Palestinian
uprising, nuanced its response.
While denouncing the London attacks, Hamas -- sworn
to Israel's destruction -- called for an end to "occupation,
aggression and injustices against Islamic and Arab nations"
which it said created the climate for such bombings. |
Sometimes "the most likely
suspect" in an act of terrorism is actually a "false
flag" working for-or otherwise "framed"
by- those who are responsible.
Top U.S. Army analysts believe
Israel's intelligence agency, the Mossad, is "ruthless
and cunning," "a wildcard" that "has
[the] capability to target U.S. forces and make it look
like a Palestinian/Arab act."
This eye-opening assertion about America's supposed
closest ally was reported in a front page story in The
Washington Times on September 10-just one day before
the terrorist attacks in America that are being blamed
on "Arabs."
The Times reported that this serious charge by U.S.
Army officers against the Israelis appeared in a 68-page
paper prepared by 60 officers at the U.S. Army's School
for Advanced Military Studies, a training ground for
up-and-coming Army officers.
Then, just hours after the terrorist tragedies, a well-known
pro-Israel analyst, George Friedman, proclaimed Israel
as the primary beneficiary.
"The big winner today, intended or not, is the
state of Israel," wrote Fried man, who said on
his Internet website at stratfor.com that "There
is no question … that the Israeli leadership is
feeling relief" in the wake of the terrorist attack
on America as a result of the benefits that Israel will
glean.
Considering the U.S. Army's questions about possible
provocations by Israel, coupled with this noted intelligence
analyst's suggestion that Israel was indeed "the
big winner" on Sept. 11, a previous report in the
Aug. 3, 1993 issue of The Village Voice that Israel's
Mossad was perhaps involved in (or had foreknowledge
of) the previous "Arab terrorist" attack on
the World Trade Center, takes on new dimensions.
The events of Sept. 11 do require
careful attention in light of the fact that Israel has
had a long and proven record in planting "false
flags"-orchestrated assassinations and acts of
terrorism for its own purposes and pinning those atrocities
on innocent parties.
Perhaps the best-known instance in which Israel used
a "false flag" to cover its own trail was
in the infamous Lavon Affair. It
was in 1954 that several Israeli-orchestrated acts of
terrorism against British targets in Egypt were carried
out. Blame for the attacks was placed on the Muslim
Brotherhood, which opposed the regime of Egyptian President
Gamul Abdul-Nasser. However, the truth about
the wave of terror is found in a once-secret cable from
Col. Benjamin Givli, the head of Israel's military intelligence,
who outlined the intended purpose behind the wave of
terror:
[Our goal] is to break the West's confidence in
the existing [Egyptian] regime. The
actions should cause arrests, demonstrations, and
expressions of revenge. The Israeli origin
should be totally covered while attention should be
shifted to any other possible factor. The purpose
is to prevent economic and military aid from the West
to Egypt.
Ultimately the truth about Israel's involvement became
public and Israel was rocked internally in the wake
of the scandal. Competing political elements within
Israel used the scandal as a bludgeon against their
opponents. But the truth about
Israel's use of a "false flag" had come to
international attention and demonstrated how Israel
was willing to endanger innocent lives as part of its
grand political strategy to expand its influence in
the Middle East.
BLAMING 'RIGHT WING' EXTREMISTS
A shadowy "right wing" group known as "Direct
Action" was accused of the attack on Goldenberg's
Deli in Paris on Aug. 9, 1982. Six people died and 22
were injured. The leader of "Direct Action"
was Jean-Marc Rouillan who had been operating in the
Mediterranean under the cover name of "Sebas"
and had been repeatedly linked to the Mossad. All references
to Rouillan's Mossad links were deleted from the official
reports issued at the time.
However, the Algerian national news service, which
has ties to French intelligence, blamed the Mossad for
Rouillan's activities. Angry French intelligence officers
were believed to have leaked this information. Several
top French security officials quit in protest over the
cover-up of Mossad complicity in Rouillan's crimes.
However, other Mossad false flag
operations also took place on French soil.
FALSE CLUES
On Oct. 3, 1980, a synagogue on Copernicus
Street was bombed in Paris. Four bystanders were killed.
Nine were injured. The media frenzy which followed the
incident was worldwide. Reports held that "right
wing extremists" were responsible. Yet, of all
the "right wing extremists" held for questioning,
none was arrested. In fact, all were released. In
the upper echelons of French intelligence, however,
the finger of suspicion was pointed at the Mossad.
According to one report: "On April 6, 1979, the
same Mossad terror unit now suspected of the Copernicus
carnage blew up the heavily guarded plant of CNIM industries
at La Seyne-sur-Mer, near Toulon, in southeast France,
where a consortium of French firms was building a nuclear
reactor for Iraq.
"The Mossad salted the site of
the CNIM bomb blast with 'clues' followed up with anonymous
phone calls to police-suggesting that the sabotage was
the work of a 'conservative' environmentalist group-'the
most pacific and harmless people on earth' as one source
put it."
MORE OF THE SAME
On June 28, 1978, Israeli agents exploded a bomb under
a small passenger car in the Rue Saint Anne in Paris,
killing Mohammed Boudia, an organizer for the Palestine
Liberation Organization (PLO). Immediately afterward,
Paris police received anonymous phone calls accusing
Boudia of involvement in narcotics deals and attributing
his murder to the Corsican Mafia. A
thorough investigation subsequently established that
Mossad special-action agents were responsible for the
terrorist killing.
In October 1976 the same Mossad unit kidnapped two
West German students named Brigette Schulz and Thomas
Reuter from their Paris hotel. Planted "clues"
and anonymous phone calls made it appear that a Bavarian
"neo-nazi" formation had executed the abduction.
French intelligence established
that the two German youths had been secretly flown to
Israel, drugged, tortured, coerced into a false "confession
of complicity" in PLO activities, and then
anonymously incarcerated in one of the Israeli government's
notorious political prisons.
In February 1977 a German-born, naturalized U.S. citizen
named William Jahnke arrived in Paris for some secretive
business meetings. He soon vanished, leaving no trace.
Paris police were anonymously informed that Jahnke had
been involved in a high-level South Korean bribery affair
and "eliminated" when the deal went sour.
A special team of investigators from SDECE, the leading
French intelligence agency, eventually determined that
Jahnke had been "terminated" by the Mossad,
which suspected him of selling secret information to
the Libyans. Along with other
details of this sordid case, the SDECE learned that
Jahnke had been "fingered" to the Mossad by
his own former employer, the CIA.
BLAMING THE LIBYANS
One of Israel's most outrageous "false flag"
operations involved a wild propaganda story aimed at
discrediting Libyan leader Muamar Qaddafi. In the early
months of the administration of President Ronald Reagan,
the U.S. media began promoting a story that a "Libyan
hit squad" was in the United States to assassinate
the president. This inflamed public sentiment against
Libya.
Suddenly, however, the "hit squad" stories
vanished. Ultimately it was discovered
that the source of the story was Manucher Ghorbanifar,
a former Iranian SAVAK (secret police) agent with close
ties to the Mossad. Even the liberal Washington
Post acknowledged that the CIA itself believed that
Ghorbanifar was a liar who "had
made up the hit-squad story in order to cause problems
for one of Israel's enemies."
The Los Angeles Times had already blown the whistle
on Israel's scare stories. "Israeli
intelligence, not the Reagan administration," reported
the Times, "was a major source of some of the most
dramatic published reports about a Libyan assassination
team allegedly sent to kill President Reagan and other
top U.S. officials... Israel, which informed
sources said has 'wanted an excuse to go in and bash
Libya for a longtime,' may be trying to build American
public support for a strike against [Qaddafi]."
In other words, Israel had been promoting the former
SAVAK agent, Ghorbanifar, to official Washington as
a reliable source. In fact, he was a Mossad disinformation
operative waving a "false flag"-yet another
Israeli scheme to blame Libya for its own misdeeds,
using one "false flag" (Iran's SAVAK) to lay
blame on another "false flag" (Libya).
The Mossad was almost certainly responsible for the
bombing of the La Belle discotheque in West Berlin on
April 5, 1986. However, claims were made that there
was "irrefutable" evidence that the Libyans
were responsible. A U.S. serviceman was killed. President
Ronald Reagan responded with an attack on Libya.
However, intelligence insiders believed that Israel's
Mossad had concocted the phony "evidence"
to "prove" Libyan responsibility. West Berlin
police director Manfred Ganschow, who took charge of
the investigation, cleared the Libyans, saying, "This
is a highly political case. Some of the evidence cited
in Washington may not be evidence at all, merely assumptions
supplied for political reasons."
BLAMING THE SYRIANS
On April 18, 1986, Nezar Hindawi, a 32-year-old Jordanian
man was arrested in London after security guards found
that one of the passengers boarding an Israeli plane
bound for Jerusalem, Ann Murphy, 22, was carrying a
square, flat sheet of plastic explosive in the double
bottom of her carry-on bag.
Miss Murphy told security men that the detonator (disguised
as a calculator) had been given to her by her fiancee,
Hindawi. He was charged with attempted sabotage and
attempted murder.
Word was leaked that Hindawi had confessed and claimed
that he had been hired by Gen. Mohammed Al-Khouli, the
intelligence director of the Syrian air force. Also
implicated were others including the Syrian ambassador
in London. The French authorities
warned the British prime minister that there was more
to the case than met the eye-that is, Israeli involvement.
This was later confirmed in reports
in the Western press.
BLAMING THE PLO
In 1970, King Hussein of Jordan was provided incriminating
intelligence that suggested the Palestine Liberation
Organization was plotting to murder him and seize power.
Infuriated, Hussein mobilized his forces for what has
become known as the "Black September" purge
of the PLO. Thousands of Palestinians living in Jordan
were rounded up, some of the leaders were tortured,
and in the end, masses of refugees were driven from
Jordan to Lebanon.
New data, coming to light after the murder of two leading
Mossad operatives in Larnaka, Cyprus, suggested that
the entire operation had been
a Mossad covert action, led by one of its key
operatives, Sylvia Roxburgh. She contrived an affair
with King Hussein and served as the linchpin for a major
Mossad coup designed to destabilize the Arabs.
In 1982, just when the PLO had abandoned the use of
terrorism, the Mossad spread
disinformation about "terror attacks" on Israeli
settlements along the northern border in order to justify
a full-scale military invasion of Lebanon. Years
later, even leading Israeli spokesmen,
such as former Foreign Minister Abba Eban, admitted
that the reports of "PLO terrorism" had been
contrived by the Mossad.
It is also worth noting that the attempted assassination
in London of Israeli ambassador Shlomo Argov was initially
blamed on the PLO. The attempted assassination was cited
by Israel as one excuse for its 1982 incursion into
Lebanon. In fact, the diplomat was one of Israel's "doves"
and inclined toward a friendly disposition of Israel's
conflict with the PLO and an unlikely target of PLO
wrath.
It appears that the assassination
attempt was carried out by the Mossad-under yet another
"false flag"-for two purposes: (a)
elimination of a domestic "peacenik" friendly
toward the Palestinians; and (b) pinning yet another
crime on the PLO. |
MILAN - Italian police rounded
up 142 suspects, more than half of them illegal immigrants,
in a massive two-day security sweep across the northern
Lombardy region in the wake of the London bombings,
police officials announced.
The swoop came as the government mulls giving wider
powers to police in the fight against terrorism, including
so-called "aggressive monitoring" of Islamic
communities, and the establishment of a national anti-terrorism
agency to coordinate diverse investigations, media reports
said.
The operation, which involved 2,000 Carabinieri officers,
began in and around the area of Milan as part of Italy's
upgraded security measures implemented shortly after
the London attacks, which have been claimed by two groups
purporting to be Al-Qaeda affiliates.
Police combed through public squares, metro, rail and
bus stations over the previous 48 hours, questioning
more than 7,000 people, including around 800 immigrants
and foreigners.
Lombardy's Carabinieri commander, General Antonio Girone,
said the security forces had concentrated on Milan,
Italy's business capital, because "it constitutes
a possible prime target for possible terrorist action."
He said 83 of those arrested in the security sweep
were illegal immigrants, of which 52 have been given
expulsion orders.
Girone also said a quantity of explosives had been
discovered during the searches, but declined to say
if this was linked to any of the arrests.
Reform Minister Roberto Calderoli
welcomed the arrests, saying recent events in London
had "demonstrated the need to intervene immediately
to prevent and stifle any attempt at a terrorist attack
on our territory."
Italy has been directly threatened in Internet statements
from the two groups claiming affiliation to Al-Qaeda
since the London blasts.
Security has been stepped up around airports, train
and bus stations in the wake of the attacks.
Meanwhile, Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu was in
telephone contact Saturday with several European Union
colleagues to discuss the agenda of an extraordinary
meeting of EU interior ministers on Wednesday, the ministry
said.
Pisanu chaired a three-hour meeting of security and
intelligence chiefs on Friday with a view to implementing
tougher security measures across Italy in the wake of
the London attacks. The minister visited President Carlo
Azeglio Ciampi on Friday evening to keep him abreast
Italy's intended response to the threats.
"There is no real and specific
threat to Italy apart from deductions based solely on
the logic that after Madrid and London, the next target
could be Italy," the minister said.
He also acknowledged it was "impossible to protect
every possible place which could be a target for terrorist
attacks."
Italy currently protects around 14,000 sites around
the country deemed to be a high security risk, including
military bases, including
NATO and US bases, embassies, airports, train stations,
ports, hospitals and schools.
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi confirmed on Friday
at the end of the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland
that he would start pulling Italian troops out of Iraq
in September -- beginning with 300 soldiers, 10 percent
of the 3,000-strong contingent.
Back in Rome on Saturday, Berlusconi
sought to deflect criticism that the timing of his statement
was aimed at deterring extremists from striking at Italy
next.
"This is something which I announced some time
ago, and which is part of the plans of the (Italian)
command in Iraq. The allies are aware, as is the Iraqi
government."
Berlusconi first announced in March that he hoped to
begin withdrawing troops by September, with the agreement
of British and US allies. |
JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel's
cabinet, ignoring Palestinian objections and U.S. misgivings,
on Sunday endorsed a Jerusalem separation barrier meant
to stop suicide bombers but that will cut off 55,000 Palestinian
residents from the city.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon last week ordered the acceleration
of construction of the Jerusalem segment of the barrier
and government ministries have until Sept. 1 to complete
their preparations.
The wall around Jerusalem, originally approved in January
2004, is part of the partially completed barrier along
the West Bank.
Israel began building the controversial barrier at the
height of a suicide bombing campaign by Palestinians more
than two years ago. Attackers crossed the unmarked and
largely unguarded ceasefire line between the Israel and
the West Bank, captured by Israel in the 1967 war, and
blew themselves up in Israeli cities, killing hundreds.
But the route of the barrier dips into Palestinian territory
in several places to encircle main settlements, and Palestinians
denounce it as a land grab.
In its decision Sunday, the cabinet said it sees "great
importance in the immediate completion of the security
fence in the Jerusalem area, in order to improve the level
of personal security for the residents of Israel."
The barrier's route around Jerusalem is particularly
contentious.
It reshapes the boundaries of the city - claimed by Israelis
and Palestinians as a capital - and dramatically changes
its demographics.
The barrier leaves four Arab neighbourhoods of Jerusalem,
with some 55,000 residents, on the West Bank side, while
including the largest Jewish West Bank settlement, Maaleh
Adumim with close to 30,000 people, on the Jerusalem side.
The fate of Jerusalem was to have been
determined in talks on a final peace deal. The Palestinians
say the barrier pre-empts the outcome of negotiations,
and separates east Jerusalem - the sector they claim for
a capital - from its West Bank hinterland.
Israel has portrayed the barrier as a temporary security
measure, to keep out Palestinian bombers and gunmen. The
United States says Israel has the right to defend itself,
but should minimize hardship to Palestinians in drawing
the barrier route.
The cabinet on Sunday approved a plan
to build 11 passages through the Jerusalem barrier. The
ministers did not explain how they would ensure quick
passage of tens of thousands of Arab residents who need
to get to schools, jobs and hospitals and the centre of
the city.
The government said it would build new schools and clinics
in the Arab neighbourhoods cut off by the barrier.
Israeli Vice Premier Ehud Olmert said Sunday once the
barrier around Jerusalem is completed, some 55,000 Palestinian
residents of the city would find themselves on the wrong
side.
Jerusalem has about 700,000 residents, including about
230,000 Palestinians who carry blue Israeli identity cards
that identify them as permanent residents, grant them
freedom of movement and make them eligible for Israel's
social services.
The barrier will slice through four outlying Palestinian
neighbourhoods of Jerusalem-Kufr Aqab, Anata, Qalandia
and the Shufat refugee camp. Residents of these neighbourhoods,
who have Israeli identity cards, will find themselves
on the West Bank side of the divider, making it increasingly
difficult for them to get to jobs, schools and hospitals
in the city. Some 3,600 students would be among those
cut off from the city, Israel Radio said.
Silvia Albina, whose home in Kufr Aqab will fall on the
West Bank side, said anxiety about the future may eventually
force her to leave and emigrate to the United States.
Albina's daughter Leila, 4, goes to nursery school in
Jerusalem. Her husband, Tony, owns one of the oldest travel
agencies in the heart of the city where family and friends
reside. Even with the barrier not yet completed, it takes
father and daughter an average of 45 minutes every day
to get to Jerusalem because of waiting at army roadblocks.
The journey should take only about 15 minutes.
Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian official, said Israel
must stop building the barrier, which he said was bringing
"catastrophe" upon the Palestinians.
"The wall is separating between Palestinians and
Palestinians," Erekat said. "We have exerted
every possible effort with the Israelis themselves, the
Americans, the international community but the only thing
that is happening is that the wall is being completed."
|
Americans should think twice before
booking a Cuban holiday through scores of travel Web
sites that the U.S. government has deemed to be off-limits.
The U.S. Treasury Department has blacklisted more than
60 Cuba-centric sites, many maintained by a travel company
called Tour & Marketing International. The last
update to the list was published by the department's
Office of Foreign Assets Control on June 30.
Certain travel-oriented Web sites made it to the verboten
list because they provide easy access to Cuba for Americans
who choose to break the law, the OFAC says. While visiting
the sites may be permitted, downloading software from
them probably isn't.
The reason lies in a section of federal law prohibiting
people living under U.S. jurisdiction from doing business
with those on the OFAC's list of "specially designated
nationals," a category that also includes known
terrorists, narcotics traffickers and rogue regimes,
such as Iran, Iraq and Syria. (Many
of the Cuba sites have been on the list since a December
update.)
It's already illegal to go to Cuba without a special
Treasury Department-issued license, typically granted
based on educational or professional purposes. Tourism,
according to federal guidelines, is not allowed.
Once licensed, travelers must make travel arrangements
with an organization chosen from a list of OFAC-approved
agencies.
But if booking travel with an unauthorized dealer is
already illegal, then is booking travel through a company
also on OFAC's verboten list an even greater offense?
Lawyers aren't sure.
"I don't know what penalties OFAC would propose
in connection with the use of these sites," said
Daniel Waltz, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who specializes
in U.S. embargoes. "They might take the view that
because they're listed (with OFAC), the penalties should
be higher. They might take the view that we'll penalize
you once for travel and impose a second penalty for
use of the listed site."
"The problem, really, with the OFAC regulations
and export controls generally is they weren't designed
for the Internet," said Douglas Jacobson, a sanctions
lawyer in Washington, D.C.
Several of Tour & Marketing's sites--with gocubaplus.com
as the flagship--allow customers to make online reservations
for flights, hotels, rental cars and tour packages in
Cuba by traveling via a "third country." The
site mandates that customers pay online and claims to
be "not only Cuba's number one agency for American
travelers, but also...able to serve all travelers--regardless
of whether they have a Treasury-issued license,"
according to a Treasury Department press release.
The bulk of the sites under the company's ownership
provide information about the geography, history and
tourist attractions in a host of Cuban locales, from
Baracoa to Varadero Beach. Ads--also operated by the
company--rim each page and point to the e-commerce sites.
It doesn't seem to be a crime to check Cuban weather
or read up on Ernest Hemingway's ties to the island
at the sites. Signing up for free e-mail lists would
also be permissible, said Treasury spokeswoman Molly
Millerwise, provided that they did not include "interactive
software." That's because transfer of "intangible"
goods, like information, is exempt from the regulations,
but goods considered tangible, such as software, are
not.
Using the sites to get money to Cuban companies would
clearly be illegal, but lawyers suggested that enforcement
may be a little fuzzier.
"Theoretically, yes, a person can be prosecuted
and subject to civil or criminal penalties by OFAC for
purchasing a ticket or doing any businesses with any
of these Web sites," Jacobson said. "The reality
is, the chances of them actually being caught is relatively
slim, because there's really no way to track that information.
The only way they would do it is to raid their offices,
take the server, get e-mail addresses...But I don't
think they would go that far."
Owned by Stephen Marshall, a British entrepreneur,
Tour & Marketing takes a strong stance on Cuban
trade relations, defending the country's sovereignty
and calling on the U.S. and British governments to cease
their embargoes. According to
an online statement by the company, "The United
States' aim in stepping up the blockade is to isolate
Cuba, strangle it economically and create the conditions
for external intervention." Attempts to
reach Marshall on Friday were unsuccessful.
The current OFAC list also contains Sercuba.com, a
PayPal-esque electronic money transfer service, and
Cimex, a corporation that runs travel agencies but does
not appear to engage in e-commerce. Another site, Cuba-shop.net,
which OFAC added to the list in February 2004, furnishes
a 403 Forbidden screen when called up. |
ISTANBUL, Turkey -- First one sheep
jumped to its death. Then stunned Turkish shepherds,
who had left the herd to graze while they had breakfast,
watched as nearly 1,500 others followed, each leaping
off the same cliff, Turkish media reported.
In the end, 450 dead animals lay on top of one another
in a billowy white pile, the Aksam newspaper said. Those
who jumped later were saved as the pile got higher and
the fall more cushioned, Aksam reported.
"There's nothing we can do. They're all wasted,"
Nevzat Bayhan, a member of one of 26 families whose
sheep were grazing together in the herd, was quoted
as saying by Aksam.
The estimated loss to families in the town of Gevas,
located in Van province in eastern Turkey, tops $100,000,
a significant amount of money in a country where average
GDP per head is around $2,700.
"Every family had an average of 20 sheep,"
Aksam quoted another villager, Abdullah Hazar as saying.
"But now only a few families have sheep left. It's
going to be hard for us." |
The first humans to
arrive in Australia destroyed the pristine landscape,
probably by lighting huge fires, the latest research suggests.
The evidence, published in Science magazine,
comes from ancient eggshells.
These show birds changed their diets
drastically when humans came on the scene, switching from
grass to the type of plants that thrive on scrubland.
The study supports others that have blamed humans for
mass extinctions across the world 10-50,000 years ago.
Many scientists believe the causes are actually more
complex and relate to climate changes during that period,
but, according to Dr Marilyn Fogel, of the Carnegie Institution
in Washington, US, chemical clues gleaned from the eggshells
suggest otherwise.
"Humans are the major suspect," she said. "However,
we don't think that over-hunting or new diseases are to
blame for the extinctions, because our
research sees the ecological transition at the base of
the food chain.
"Bands of people set large-scale fires for a variety
of reasons including hunting, clearing and signalling
other bands.
"Based on the evidence, human-induced change in
the vegetation is the best fit to explain what happened
at that critical juncture."
Carbon clues
Dr Fogel's team, based in the US and Australia, examined
hundreds of fragments of fossilised eggshells found at
several sites in Australia's interior dating back over
140,000 years.
They looked at the indigenous emu and the Genyornis,
a flightless bird the size of an ostrich that is now extinct.
The type of carbon preserved in eggshells gives a picture
of the food the birds ate.
Before 50,000 years ago, emus pecked at nutritious grasses.
But after humans arrived, about
45,000 years ago, they switched to a diet of trees
and scrubs. Genyornis, however, failed to adapt and died
out.
"The opportunistic feeders adapted and the picky
eaters went extinct," said Professor Gifford Miller,
of the University of Colorado at Boulder, US.
"The most parsimonious explanation is these birds
were responding to an unprecedented change in the vegetation
over the continent during that time period."
The data sheds light on the contentious
issue of what led to the extinction of 85% of Australia's
large mammals, birds and reptiles, after about 50,000
years ago, when human settlers arrived by sea from Indonesia.
Climate change theory
Mass extinctions on other continents also coincide with
the arrival of modern humans, suggesting the two events
are linked.
In North America, for example, the disappearance
of the likes of mammoths and ground sloths is coincident
with the arrival on the landmass of new stone-spear technologies
carried by humans about 12,000 years ago.
In Australia, scientists have debated whether climate
changes, human fires or excessive human hunting were the
cause of the continent's big extinction.
Dr Fogel's team doubts the climate explanation
but there are plenty of others who support the theory
- such as Clive Trueman of the University of Portsmouth,
UK.
He says some large mammals survived long after the sudden
changes in vegetation identified by Dr Fogel's team.
"While there may be a connection between the arrival
of humans and changes in vegetation, as demonstrated by
carbon isotopes, sudden changes cannot be largely responsible
for megafaunal extinctions as the beasts survived for
at least 15,000 more years," he told the BBC News
website.
"It is likely that extinctions
were not caused by any single event, but reflect compounding
factors such as natural climate changes associated with
the Ice Age fluctuations and, quite possibly, the arrival
of humans," Dr Trueman added. |
The Group of Eight powers meeting
in Scotland declared Friday that global warming required
urgent action, but set no measurable targets for reducing
the greenhouse gases that trigger it.
The leaders recognized that "climate change is
a serious and long-term challenge that has the potential
to affect every part of the planet."
Their final declaration, seen by Reuters, acknowledged
that human activity contributed in large part to global
warming, and said there was a need to reduce greenhouse
gases--mostly the product of the fossil fuels that power
much modern industry.
They pledged to "act with resolve and urgency"
to tackle the problem. But they set no yardsticks or
clear goals.
And their declaration made only cursory reference to
the binding Kyoto accord on cutting greenhouse gases,
which was signed by all G-8 powers except the United
States--President Bush has branded it as economic suicide.
Sidestepping any further rancor over Kyoto, the G-8
agreed a wide-ranging "action plan" to promote
energy efficiency and the use of cleaner fuels. France,
which has championed Kyoto, made clear on Thursday that
it saw the outcome as only just sufficient.
"Even if it does not go as far as we would have
liked, it has one essential virtue in my eyes--that
is, to re-establish a dialogue and cooperation between
the Kyoto seven and the United States on a subject of
the highest importance," French President Jacques
Chirac said.
In the event, the G-8 declaration also went some way
to meeting other demands from Kyoto signatories.
In particular, they had been concerned that the Bush
administration continued to be skeptical about the view
of most scientists, including American experts, that
global warming is largely man-made and is affecting
the climate.
The text said that, while uncertainties remained in
understanding climate science, enough was known to act
now to "put ourselves on a path to slow and, as
the science justifies, stop and then reverse the growth
of greenhouse gases."
Environmentalists were dismissive of the text's failure
to commit the G-8 to any measurable reduction in greenhouse
gases.
"The agreement lacks a clear
acknowledgement of the urgent need for action and fails
to state any significant steps G-8 leaders will take
to tackle climate change," the activist group Greenpeace
said in a statement.
It said the Bush administration had been the main block
to a stronger outcome.
The eight powers did pledge to launch a wider dialogue
on climate change, clean energy and sustainable development,
bringing in other major energy consumers. British Prime
Minister Tony Blair said these talks would begin in
Britain on Nov. 1.
The document said it was in the interests of all to
work with large emerging economies--a reference in particular
to China and India, which attended the Gleneagles summit
and are expected to produce more pollution as their
industries grow.
The G-8 powers pledged to promote the transfer of new
technology to developing countries and also stated that
the United Nations provided the appropriate forum to
negotiate a future multilateral regime to address climate
change. |
ST. JOHN'S, Newfoundland - Ocean
temperatures in the North Atlantic hit an all-time high
last year, raising concerns about the effects of global
warming on one of the most sensitive and productive
ecosystems in the world.
Sea ice off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador
was below normal for the tenth consecutive year and
the water temperature outside
St. John's Harbor was the highest on record in 2004,
according to a report released Wednesday by the federal
Fisheries Department.
The ocean surface off St. John's averaged
almost two degrees Fahrenheit above normal, the highest
in the 59 years the department has been compiling records.
And bottom temperatures were also one degree higher
than normal, according the report.
"A two-degree temperature anomaly on the Grand
Banks is pretty significant in the bottom areas, where
temperatures only range a couple of degrees throughout
the year," said Eugene Colbourne, an oceanographer
with the Fisheries Department.
Water temperatures were above normal right across the
North Atlantic last year, from Newfoundland to Greenland,
Iceland and Norway.
The Newfoundland data is another wake-up call on climate
change, say environmentalists.
Anchorage, Alaska, has seen annual
snowfall shrink in the past decade, high river temperatures
are killing off millions of spawning salmon in British
Columbia and northern climates around the world have
noticed warming.
Meanwhile, ocean temperatures have risen around the
globe, and species are already dying, said Bill Wareham,
acting director of marine conservation for the Vancouver-based
David Suzuki Foundation.
"I don't think there's a question about whether
these changes are happening," Wareham said.
But "everyone's quite shocked
at the speed at which these things are changing."
Air temperatures in the Newfoundland region were also
higher than normal, but Colbourne said the results are
not conclusive.
Water temperatures in the cold Labrador current were
actually below normal levels. And while the other temperatures
were record highs, a similar warming trend occurred
in the 1960s, Colbourne said.
"We really can't say for sure if what we're seeing
in Newfoundland waters is a consequence of global warming,
when we've only got 50 years of data or so," Colbourne
said.
"It may be related to global warming but, then
again, it may be just the natural
cycle that we see in this area of the world."
|
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Edmund
Hillary, the first climber to conquer Mount Everest
with his Sherpa guide, on Monday urged that the world's
highest mountain be placed on the United Nations' list
of endangered heritage sites because of the risks of
climate change.
Himalayan lakes are swelling
from the runoff of melting glaciers, environmental
campaigners warned as the 29th session of the U.N. Environmental,
Scientific and Cultural Organization's World Heritage
Committee got under way Sunday in Durban. Many
could burst, threatening the lives of thousands of people
and destroying Everest's unique environment, they said.
"The warming of the environment
of the Himalayas has increased noticeably over
the last 50 years. This has caused
several and severe floods from glacial lakes and much
disruption to the environment and local people,"
Hillary said in a statement released Monday. "Draining
the lakes before they get to a dangerous condition is
the only way to stop disasters."
The New Zealander, who with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay first
scaled the world's highest peak on May 29, 1953, is
one of a collection of climbers and others who have
joined environmental groups in calling for the inclusion
of Nepal's Everest National Park on UNESCO's World Heritage
in Danger List.
Inclusion would commit UNESCO to assessing the risk
to the park and developing corrective measures in conjunction
with the government of Nepal.
Climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions from
industrialized countries also threatens the coral reefs
in Belize and glaciers in Peru, according to activists
who have petitioned for their inclusion too on the endangered
list. [...] |
PENSACOLA, Fla. -- Hurricane Dennis
roared quickly through the Florida Panhandle and Alabama
coast Sunday with a 120-mph bluster of blinding squalls
and crashing waves, but shellshocked residents emerged
to find far less damage than when Ivan took nearly the
same path 10 months ago.
The tightly wound Dennis, which had been a Category
4, 145-mph monster as it marched up the Gulf of Mexico,
weakened just before it struck less than 50 miles east
of where Ivan came ashore. And despite downed power
lines and outages affecting more than half a million
people, early reports indicated no deaths and relatively
modest structural damage.
"We're really happy it was compact and that it
lasted only so long," said Mike Decker, who lost
only some shingles and a privacy fence at his home near
where the storm came ashore. "It was more of a
show for the kids."
The storm indeed put on a show as it blew ashore at
3:25 p.m. EDT midway between the western Panhandle towns
of Pensacola Beach and Navarre Beach.
White-capped waves spewed four-story geysers over sea
walls. Sideways, blinding rain mixed with seawater blew
in sheets, toppling roadside signs for hotels and gas
stations. Waves offshore exceeded 30 feet, and in downtown
Pensacola, the gulf spilled over sidewalks eight blocks
inland. Boats broke loose and bobbed like toys in the
roiling ocean.
But Dennis, which was responsible for at least 20 deaths
in the Caribbean, spared those to the north because
of its relatively small size and fast pace. Hurricane
winds stretched only 40 miles from the center, compared
with 105 miles for Ivan, and Dennis tore through at
nearly 20 mph, compared to Ivan's 13 mph.
Rainfall was measured at 8 inches, rather than the
expected foot. [...]
Dennis caused an estimated $1 billion to $2.5 billion
in insured damage in the United States, according to
AIR Worldwide Corp. of Boston, an insurance risk modeling
company. [...] |
WETMORE, Colo. - Gusty wind and
temperatures heading into the 90s prompted authorities
to evacuate about 70 more homes Sunday east of a 2,900-acre
wildfire in southern Colorado.
"The fire has got the advantage right now,"
said fire incident commander Marc Mullenix.
Officials had already evacuated 150 homes since the
fire was reported Wednesday.
Black smoke billowed over the mountains Sunday as residents
evacuated from the west side of the fire were given
four hours to check their homes. Firefighters, meanwhile,
hoped to burn vegetation around a ranch in fire path's.
The fire was spreading in an area about 25 miles west
of Pueblo. [...]
Lightning was suspected as the cause of both the Colorado
and South Dakota blazes.
Thirteen large wildfires were active Sunday in nine
states, and had burned more than 688,000 acres, according
to the National Interagency Fire Center. Since January,
wildfires have burned slightly more than 3 million acres,
similar to the acreage burned by the same date last
year. |
TOKYO (AFX) - An earthquake
measuring 4.7 on the Richter scale shook eastern Japan
on Monday but there was no risk of a tsunami, the Japan
Meteorological Agency said.
The quake occurred at 7.27 am (2227 GMT), with its focus
located 30 kilometers below the sea surface off Ibaraki
prefecture, 150 kilometers northeast of Tokyo, the agency
said.
There were no reports of injuries or property damage.
|
JAKARTA, July 10 (Xinhuanet)
-- A strong earthquake hit Palu in Indonesian Central
Sulawesi province at 7:55 a.m. on Sunday, making hundreds
of thousands of people panic.
The local people felt the tremor and run out of their
homes, Antara News Agency reported. The quake also caused
blackout, said the report.
The meteorological Institute said it has not known where
is the epicenter of the quake and how much is the quake
measured on the Richter Scale.
But the Hong Kong Observatory said earlier an earthquake
measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale rocked sea waters near
SulawesiIsland of Indonesian at 8:05 a.m. Hong Kong time
(0005 GMT) Sunday.The epicenter was initially determined
to be 0.8 south latitude, 119.3 east longitude, about
70 kilometers west of Palu.
No immediate report on casualties, material losses and
damages was available, the Antara report said. |
An earthquake measuring
5.8 on the Richter scale rocked sea waters near Japan's
Izu Islands on Sunday morning.
The Hong Kong Observatory reports that the epicenter
was initially determined to be about 270 kilometers southeast
of Tokyo.
An earlier quake measuring 4.2 on the Richter scale shook
northern Japan on Saturday, but there was no risk of a
tsunami.
The quake occurred about 250 kilometers north of Tokyo,
with its focus located 10 kilometers underground.
There were no immediate reports of injuries or property
damage. |
A strong earthquake
shook northeast Albania on Sunday.
The earthquake, measuring 6 on the Richter scale, damaged
several homes in the Tropoja region, but there were no
reports of injuries.
The Albanian Seismologic Institute said the epicenter
was just a few kilometers outside the town of Bajram Curri.
The earthquake was also felt in neighboring Kosovo and
Montenegro.
Media reports said the earthquake lasted for about 30
seconds and caused some panic among the region's citizens. |
WASHINGTON - More than half a century
of U.S. dominance in science and engineering may be
slipping as America's share of graduates in these fields
falls relative to Europe and developing nations such
as China and India, a study released on Friday says.
The study, written by Richard Freeman at the National
Bureau of Economic Research in Washington, warned that
changes in the global science and engineering job market
may require a long period of adjustment for U.S. workers.
Moves by international companies to
move jobs in information technology, high-tech manufacturing
and research and development to low-income developing
countries were just "harbingers" of that longer-term
adjustment, Freeman said.
Urgent action was needed to ensure that slippage in
science and engineering education and research, a bulwark
of the U.S. productivity boom and resurgence during
the 1990s, did not undermine America's global economic
leadership, he added.
The United States has had a substantial lead in science
and technology since World War II. With just 5 percent
of the world's population, it employs almost a third
of science and engineering researchers, accounts for
40 percent of research and development spending and
publishes 35 percent of science and engineering research
papers.
Many of the world's top high-tech firms are American,
and government spending on defense-related technology
ensures the U.S. military's technological dominance
on battlefields.
But the roots of this lead may be eroding, Freeman
said.
Numbers of science and engineering graduates from European
and Asian universities are soaring while new degrees
in the United States have stagnated -- cutting its overall
share.
In 2000, the paper said, 17 percent
of university bachelor degrees in the U.S. were in science
and engineering compared with a world average of 27
percent and 52 percent in China.
The picture among doctorates -- key to advanced scientific
research -- was more striking. In
2001, universities in the
European Union granted 40 percent more science and engineering
doctorates than the United States, with that figure
expected to reach nearly 100 percent by about 2010,
the study showed.
The study said deteriorating opportunities and comparative
wages for young science and engineering graduates has
discouraged U.S. students from entering these fields,
but not those born in other countries.
These trends are challenging the so-called North-South
global economic divide, the paper said, by undermining
a perceived rich-country advantage in high technology.
"Research and technological activity and production
are moving where the people are, even when they are
located in the low-wage South," Freeman wrote,
citing a study saying some 10-15 percent of all U.S.
jobs were "off-shorable." |
Allegations of misconduct by U.S.
researchers reached record highs last year as the Department
of Health and Human Services received 274 complaints
- 50 percent higher than 2003 and the most since 1989
when the federal government established a program to
deal with scientific misconduct.
Chris Pascal, director of the federal Office of Research
Integrity, said its 28 staffers and $7 million annual
budget haven't kept pace with the allegations. The result:
Only 23 cases were closed last year. Of those, eight
individuals were found guilty of research misconduct.
In the past 15 years, the office has confirmed about
185 cases of scientific misconduct.
Research suggests this is but a small fraction of all
the incidents of fabrication, falsification and plagiarism.
In a survey published June 9
in the journal Nature, about 1.5 percent of 3,247 researchers
who responded admitted to falsification or plagiarism.
(One in three admitted to some
type of professional misbehavior.)
On the night of his 12th wedding anniversary, Dr. Andrew
Friedman was terrified.
This brilliant surgeon and researcher at Brigham and
Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School feared that
he was about to lose everything - his career, his family,
the life he'd built - because his boss was coming closer
and closer to the truth:
For the past three years, Friedman
had been faking - actually making up - data in some
of the respected, peer-reviewed studies he had published
in top medical journals.
"It is difficult for me to describe the degree
of panic and irrational thought that I was going through,"
he would later tell an inquiry panel at Harvard.
On this night, March 13, 1995, he had been ordered
in writing by his department chair to clear up what
appeared to be suspicious data.
But Friedman didn't clear things up.
"I did something which was the worst possible
thing I could have done," he testified.
He went to the medical record room, and for the next
three or four hours he pulled out permanent medical
files of a handful of patients. Then, covered up his
lies, scribbling in the information he needed to support
his study.
"I created data. I made it up.
I also made up patients that were fictitious,"
he testified.
Friedman's wife met him at the door when he came home
that night. He wept uncontrollably. The next morning
he had an emergency appointment with his psychiatrist.
But he didn't tell the therapist the truth, and his
lies continued for 10 more days, during which time he
delivered a letter, and copies of the doctored files,
to his boss. Eventually he broke down, admitting first
to his wife and psychiatrist, and later to his colleagues
and managers, what he had been doing.
Friedman formally confessed, retracted his articles,
apologized to colleagues and was punished. Today he
has resurrected his career, as senior director of clinical
research at Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical Inc., a Johnson
& Johnson company.
He refused to speak with the Associated Press. But
his case, recorded in a seven-foot-high stack of documents
at the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine,
tells a story of one man's struggle with power, lies
and the crushing pressure of academia.
Some other cases have made headlines:
- On July 18, Eric Poehlman, once a prominent nutrition
researcher, will be sentenced in federal court in Vermont
for fabricating research data to obtain a $542,000 federal
grant while working as a professor at the University
of Vermont College of Medicine. He faces up to five
years in prison. Poehlman, 49,
made up research between 1992 and 2000 on issues like
menopause, aging and hormone supplements to win millions
of dollars in grant money from the federal government.
He is the first researcher to be permanently barred
from ever receiving federal research grants again.
In 2001, while he was being investigated, Poehlman
left the medical school and was awarded a $1 million
chair in nutrition and metabolism at the University
of Montreal, where officials say they were unaware of
his problems. He resigned in January when his contract
expired.
- In March, Dr. Gary Kammer, a Wake Forest University
rheumatology professor and leading lupus expert, was
found to have made up two families and their medical
conditions in grant applications to the
National Institutes of Health. He has resigned from
the university and has been suspended from receiving
federal grants for three years.
- In November, 2004, federal officials found that Dr.
Ali Sultan, an award-winning malaria researcher at the
Harvard School of Public Health, had plagiarized text
and figures, and falsified his data - substituting results
from one type of malaria for another - on a grant application
for federal funds to study malaria drugs. When
brought before an inquiry committee, Sultan tried to
pin the blame on a postdoctoral student. Sultan resigned
and is now a faculty member at Weill Cornell Medical
College in Qatar, according to a spokeswoman there.
While the cases are high-profile, scientists have been
cheating for decades.
In 1974, Dr. William Summerlin, a top-ranking Sloan-Kettering
Cancer Institute researcher, used a marker to make black
patches of fur on white mice in an attempt to prove
his new skin graft technique was working.
His case prompted Al Gore, then a young Democratic
congressman from Tennessee, to hold the first congressional
hearings on the issue.
"At the base of our involvement in research lies
the trust of American people and the integrity of the
scientific exercise," said Gore at the time. As
a result of their hearings, Congress passed a law in
1985 requiring institutions that receive federal money
for scientific research to have some system to report
rulebreakers.
"Often we're confronted with people who are brilliant,
absolutely incredible researchers, but that's not what
makes them great scientists. It's the character,"
said Debbi Gilad, a research compliance and integrity
officer at the University of California, Davis, which
has taken a lead on handling scientific misconduct.
David Wright, a Michigan State University professor
who has researched why scientists cheat, said there
are four basic reasons: some sort of mental disorder;
foreign nationals who learned
somewhat different scientific standards; inadequate
mentoring; and, most commonly, tremendous and increasing
professional pressure to publish studies.
His inability to handle that pressure, Friedman testified,
was his downfall.
"And it was almost as though you're on a treadmill
that starts out slowly and gradually increases in speed.
And it happens so gradually you don't realize that eventually
you're just hoping you don't fall off," he told
a magistrate during a state hearing in 1995. "You're
sprinting near the end and taking it all you can not
to fall off."
At the time he started cheating, Friedman was in his
late 30s, married and a father of two young children.
Following the path of his father, grandfather and uncle
who were all doctors and medical researchers, he was
an associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology and
reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School and chief
of the department of reproductive endocrinology at Brigham
and Women's Hospital.
His reputation was tremendous and his work groundbreaking.
His 30-page resume highlighted numerous awards and honors,
lectures in Canada, Europe and Australia, and more than
150 articles, book chapters, reviews and abstracts.
Of those, 58 were original research articles, where
he had designed studies, conducted clinical trials,
enrolled patients, collected and analyzed data and made
conclusions.
In the end, investigators found -
and Friedman confessed - to making up information for
three separate journal articles (one of them never published)
involving hormonal treatment of gynecological conditions.
He testified that he was working 80 to 90 hours a week,
seeing patients two days a week, doing surgery one day
a week, supervising medical residents, serving on as
many as 10 different committees at the hospital and
the medical school and putting on national medical conferences.
He did seek help, both from a psychiatrist, who counseled
him to cut back, and from his boss, who demanded Friedman
increase his research and refused to reduce Friedman's
patient load.
As good as Friedman was as a doctor, surgeon and researcher,
he was actually a lousy cheater. One thing that brought
about his demise, in fact, was that the initials he
used for fictitious patients were the same as those
of residents and faculty members in his program.
Unlike many scientists who file immediate lawsuits
when they're caught, Friedman was repentant, resigning
from his positions at both Brigham and Women's, and
Harvard.
In 1996, Friedman agreed to be excluded for three years
from working on federally funded research. During the
next three years he consulted with drug companies, he
paid a $10,000 fine to the state of Massachusetts and
surrendered his medical license for a year, became very
active with the American Red Cross, donating more than
500 hours, and attended several lectures on ethics and
record-keeping.
"Andy can never undo the damage that his actions
have caused. However, he has paid the price - his academic
career is ruined, his reputation sullied, and his personal
shame unremitting," wrote Dr. Charles Lockwood,
then chair of obstetrics and gynecology at New York
University School of Medicine, in a letter on Friedman's
behalf.
In 1999, after successfully petitioning to get his
license reinstated, he went to work as director of women's
health care at Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceuticals. The job,
which he still has, involves designing and reviewing
clinical trials for hormonal birth control, writing
package insert labels and lecturing to doctors. Lately
he's appeared on television and in newspaper articles
responding to concerns about the safety of the birth
control patch.
Mary Anne Wyatt, a retired biochemist in Natick, Mass.,
is one of several former patients.
"I think it's not at all surprising
that a drug company would hire somebody who is very
comfortable with hiding the effects of very dangerous
drugs," said Wyatt, who unsuccessfully sued him.
Ortho-McNeil spokeswoman Bonnie Jacobs said the company
was well aware of Friedman's history when it hired him.
"He is an excellent doctor,
an asset to our company," she said. |
ARLINGTON, Va. - For years, the
U.S. military has explored a new kind of firepower that
is instantaneous, precise and virtually inexhaustible:
beams of electromagnetic energy. "Directed-energy"
pulses can be throttled up or down depending on the
situation, much like the phasers on "Star Trek"
could be set to kill or merely stun.
Such weapons are now nearing fruition. But logistical
issues have delayed their battlefield debut - even as
soldiers in
Iraq encounter tense urban situations in which the nonlethal
capabilities of directed energy could be put to the
test.
"It's a great technology with enormous potential,
but I think the environment's not strong for it,"
said James Jay Carafano, a senior fellow at the conservative
Heritage Foundation who blames the military and Congress
for not spending enough on getting directed energy to
the front. "The tragedy is that I think it's exactly
the right time for this."
The hallmark of all directed-energy weapons is that
the target - whether a human or a mechanical object
- has no chance to avoid the shot because it moves at
the speed of light. At some frequencies, it can penetrate
walls.
Since the ammunition is merely light or radio waves,
directed-energy weapons are limited only by the supply
of electricity. And they don't involve chemicals or
projectiles that can be inaccurate, accidentally cause
injury or violate international treaties.
"When you're dealing with people whose full intent
is to die, you can't give people a choice of whether
to comply," said George Gibbs, a systems engineer
for the Marine Expeditionary Rifle Squad Program who
oversees directed-energy projects. "What I'm looking
for is a way to shoot everybody, and they're all OK."
Almost as diverse as the electromagnetic spectrum itself,
directed-energy weapons span a wide range of incarnations.
Among the simplest forms are inexpensive, handheld
lasers that fill people's field of vision, inducing
a temporary blindness to ensure they stop at a checkpoint,
for example. Some of these already are used in Iraq.
Other radio-frequency weapons in development can sabotage
the electronics of land mines, shoulder-fired missiles
or automobiles - a prospect that interests police departments
in addition to the military.
A separate branch of directed-energy research involves
bigger, badder beams: lasers that could obliterate targets
tens of miles away from ships or planes. Such
a strike would be so surgical that, as some designers
put it at a recent conference here, the military could
plausibly deny responsibility.
The flexibility of directed-energy weapons could be
vital as wide-scale, force-on-force conflict becomes
increasingly rare, many experts say. But the technology
has been slowed by such practical concerns as how to
shrink beam-firing antennas and power supplies.
Military officials also say more needs to be done to
assure the international community that directed-energy
weapons set to stun rather than kill will not harm noncombatants.
Such issues recently led the Pentagon to delay its
Project Sheriff, a plan to outfit vehicles in Iraq with
a combination of lethal and nonlethal weaponry - including
a highly touted microwave-energy blaster that makes
targets feel as if their skin is on fire. Sheriff
has been pushed at least to 2006.
"It was best to step back and make sure we understand
where we can go with it," said David Law, science
and technology chief for the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons
Directorate.
The directed-energy component in the project is the
Active Denial System, developed by Air Force researchers
and built by Raytheon Co. It produces a millimeter-wavelength
burst of energy that penetrates 1/64 of an inch into
a person's skin, agitating water molecules to produce
heat. The sensation is certain to get people to halt
whatever they are doing.
Military investigators say decades of research have
shown that the effect ends the moment a person is out
of the beam, and no lasting damage is done as long as
the stream does not exceed a certain duration. How long?
That answer is classified, but it apparently is in the
realm of seconds, not minutes. The range of the beam
also is secret, though it is said to be further than
small arms fire, so an attacker could be repelled before
he could pull a trigger.
Although Active Denial works - after a $51 million,
11-year investment - it has proven to be a "model
for how hard it is to field a directed-energy nonlethal
weapon," Law said.
For example, the prototype system can be mounted on
a Humvee but the vehicle has to stop in order to fire
the beam. Using the vehicle's electrical power "is
pushing its limits," he added.
Still, Raytheon is pressing ahead with smaller, portable,
shorter-range spinoffs of Active Denial for embassies,
ships or other sensitive spots. [...]
In the meantime, Raytheon is trying to drum up business
for an automated airport-defense project known as Vigilant
Eagle that detects shoulder-fired missiles and fries
their electronics with an electromagnetic wave. The
system, which would cost $25 million per airport, has
proven effective against a "real threat,"
said Michael Booen, a former Air Force colonel who heads
Raytheon's directed-energy work. He refused to elaborate.
For Peter Bitar, the future of directed energy boils
down to money.
Bitar heads Indiana-based Xtreme Alternative Defense
Systems Ltd., which makes small blinding lasers used
in Iraq. But his real project is a nonlethal energy
device called the StunStrike.
Basically, it fires a bolt of lightning. It can be
tuned to blow up explosives, possibly to stop vehicles
and certainly to buzz people. The strike can be made
to feel as gentle as "broom bristles" or cranked
up to deliver a paralyzing jolt that "takes a few
minutes to wear off."
Bitar, who is of Arab descent, believes
StunStrike would be particularly intimidating in the
Middle East because, he contends, people there are especially
afraid of lightning.
At present, StunStrike is a 20-foot tower that can
zap things up to 28 feet away. The next step is to shrink
it so it could be wielded by troops and used in civilian
locales like airplane cabins or building entrances.
Xtreme ADS also needs more tests to establish that
StunStrike is safe to use on people.
But all that takes money - more than the $700,000 Bitar
got from the Pentagon from 2003 until the contract recently
ended.
Bitar is optimistic StunStrike will be perfected, either
with revenue from the laser pointers or a partnership
with a bigger defense contractor. In the meantime, though,
he wishes soldiers in Iraq already had his lightning
device on difficult missions like door-to-door searches.
"It's very frustrating when you know you've got
a solution that's being ignored," he said. "The
technology is the easy part." |
LOS ANGELES, California
(CNN) -- A toddler who was killed in a gunbattle between
a suspect and police was being used by the man as a shield,
officials said. The suspect also died and an officer was
wounded.
The man killed Sunday night after an hours-long standoff
was identified as Jose Raul Lemos, and the girl, about
17 months old, was related to him, police said. The officer,
who was not immediately identified, was shot in the shoulder
and was expected to recover.
"He was using the baby as a shield," Assistant
Police Chief Jim McDonnell.
"We showed a tremendous amount of restraint, but
unfortunately the suspect's actions dictated this,"
he said. "It's a true tragedy."
It was unclear who fired the shot that hit the girl,
but officers were struggling with the thought that they
killed a baby, he said.
"The officers are taking it very hard," McDonnell
said. "Anytime you have a baby killed, it takes its
toll."
The standoff began at around 3:50 p.m. when officers
responded to an area in South Los Angeles after residents
reported an armed man standing near an intersection with
a toddler and behaving erratically and aggressively.
There were three exchanges of gunfire between police
and Lemos, who was about 35, McDonnell told reporters.
In the final exchange, at around 6:20 p.m., Lemos held
the girl as he shot.
"We did everything we could to hold our fire,"
McDonnell said.
At one point, Lemos retreated into an apartment building,
where police said he held the girl hostage.
Police called in a SWAT team and tried to speak with
the man; when they at one point attempted to help a neighbor
escape the area, he fired at them and they fired back,
McDonnell said.
Under police regulations, officers may only fire "when
it reasonably appears necessary" to protect themselves
or others from death or serious injury.
The man had a 9 mm handgun and a shotgun and was intoxicated
on drugs and alcohol, police said. |
CHICAGO - A student at the University
of Illinois at Chicago was beaten to death with his
own bicycle lock during a fight near campus, and two
men were arrested, police said Sunday.
Tombol Malik, 23, of Chicago, was pronounced dead shortly
after the beating early Saturday at the University Village
housing complex several blocks from campus.
Police believe the two suspects struck Malik repeatedly
in the face and head with the bicycle lock. Investigators
also found a stun gun on the ground nearby.
Officials would not comment on a motive.
The death came several weeks after a UIC history professor
was beaten to death in suburban Oak Park. Peter D'Agostino
was found unconscious outside a home on June 22 and
died later. Police said Saturday there had been no arrests
in that case.
Charges of first degree murder and aggravated battery
were filed against Muaz Haffer, 21, of Burr Ridge, and
Mantas Matulis, 20, of Clarendon Hills, said police
Officer Patrice Harper. A hearing was held Sunday and
bail for each man was set at $900,000.
UIC spokesman Bill Burton said Malik was a sophomore
majoring in political science. Friends said he had planned
to study in Germany for at least part of the upcoming
academic year.
Malik and another man were leaving a party at the housing
complex when they encountered the two suspects, said
Samil Malik, the victim's brother. One of the suspects
appeared injured and when Malik's friend asked if they
needed help the men attacked, he said. |
LOS ANGELES - Daredevil skateboarder
Danny Way rolled down a massive ramp at nearly 50 mph
and jumped across the Great Wall of China on Saturday,
becoming the first person to clear the wall without
motorized aid, an event sponsor said.
Way botched the landing on his first attempt but then
successfully completed the jump across the 61-foot gap
four times, adding 360 degree spins on his last three
tries, sponsor Quiksilver, Inc. said.
"I was aware of the dangers and my heart was pumping
in my chest the whole time, but I managed to pull it
off with the help of my team, and I'm honored to have
my visions embraced by the people of China," Way
said in a statement.
A crowd of several thousand people, including China's
ministers of extreme sports and culture, gathered at
the Ju Yong Guan Gate about a 40-minute drive from Beijing,
Quiksilver's greater China marketing director Ryan Hollis
said.
"It was pretty fantastic," Hollis said in
an interview from Beijing. "He really has spent
quite a few years even thinking about this whole idea.
It's been in logistical planning for about eight months.
... It was pretty amazing today to see this happen,
to see it adopted by the culture, adopted by the government."
Way's made the jump on an adaptation of the so-called
mega ramp, a gigantic structure that he helped create
near his home in the Southern California desert. He
set a skateboard jump world record for distance (79
feet) on a mega ramp at last summer's X Games, and in
2003 set the height record of 23 1/2 feet at the desert
ramp.
Event sponsor Quiksilver, based in Huntington Beach,
makes skateboard apparel. |
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