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In 1992 a group of neuroscientists traveled to India to research the effects of meditation. In the mountains above Dharamsala, the scientists spent time with a young monk who had been meditating intensively for six years. Richard Davidson, a psychobiologist from the University of Wisconsin, had done pioneering work correlating minute shifts in facial expression with emotions. He explained to the monk that he would be shown a video of Tibetan demonstrators being beaten by Chinese security forces. His face would simultaneously be videoed to record any reactions. Writer Alan Wallace described the result:

"As the monk watched the video, we didn't detect any change of expression in his face at all, no grimace, no shudder, no expression of sadness." (Wallace, Buddhism With An Attitude, Snow Lion Publications, 2001, p.176)

The monk was asked to describe his experience while watching the video. He replied:

"I didn't see anything that I didn't already know goes on all the time, not only in Tibet but throughout the world. I am aware of this constantly."

It was not that the monk failed to experience compassion while watching these brutal scenes, Wallace explains:

"He was aware that he was simply being shown a video -- patterns of light -- representing events that took place long ago. But this suffering was simply one episode in the overall suffering of samsara [existence], of which he was constantly aware. Hence, while looking out over the ocean of suffering, he didn't feel anything extraordinary when he was shown a picture of a glass of water". (E-mail to author, July 15, 2005)

This account came to mind when I saw the response to the July 7 terrorist atrocities in London. In the video experiment, the monk's mind was so steeped in compassion that his expression did not change at all even when he saw images of his own people being brutalized. So what does it tell us that so many British people were so deeply shaken by the suffering of their fellow citizens? After all, have we not been reading and watching endless accounts and footage of near-identical horrors in Iraq and Palestine on mainstream and internet-based media over the last few years? The suffering of the Iraqi people, for example, is almost beyond belief. When the West again blitzed Baghdad in March 2003, this followed years of war and sanctions that had shattered the country's infrastructure. The population again being bombed had already had to endure the deaths of literally hundreds of thousands of children from malnutrition, water-borne diseases and other horrors caused by US-UK sanctions. This truly was suffering heaped on suffering.

Howard Zinn made the point after the September 11 attacks:

"One of the things that occurred to me, after I had gotten over my initial reaction of shock and horror at what had been done, was that other scenes of horror have taken place in other parts of the world and they just never meant very much to us." (Zinn, Terror And War, Open Media Book, 2002, p.90)

One Second Per Death

I don't believe this comparative indifference is hard-wired into human nature. The truth is that we are trained to value the lives of our countrymen more highly by a socio-political system that has much to gain from a restricted, patriotic version of compassion, and much to lose from an excess of popular concern for suffering inflicted on 'foreigners' by our governments and corporations.

It was a very real disaster for American elites when ordinary Americans became outraged by the catastrophe inflicted by US power on the people of Vietnam. This concern seriously obstructed US realpolitik, stirring previously slumbering democratic forces and threatening elite control of society (see Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove, Voices of a People's History). Famously, the champion boxer Muhammad Ali refused to fight in Vietnam, saying:

"No, I am not going ten thousand miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end." (Ali, 1966. Quoted, Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove, Voices of a People's History, Seven Stories, 2004, p.431)

At time of writing, the death toll from the London bombings stands at 56 dead. In the early evening of March 28, 2003, the media reported the killing of 55 Iraqi civilians (the final toll was 62) by an American missile in the al-Shula district of Baghdad. Hours later, David Sells of the BBC's Newsnight program devoted 45 seconds to the atrocity 16 minutes into the program -- less than one second per death.

These 45 seconds presented the slaughter as an Anglo-American public relations problem, and a predictable one at that: "It is a war, after all," Sells observed blandly over footage of Iraqi women wailing in grief, adding: "But the coalition aim is to unseat Saddam Hussein by winning hearts and minds."

Imagine if Sells had commented on the London bombings that people had died, "It is a terrorist campaign, after all," but the bombers' aim was "to win hearts and minds."

I asked George Entwistle, then Newsnight editor, how he justified just 45 seconds of coverage. He replied: "As a current affairs program we lead on a news story where we think we can add analytical value; i.e., can we take it on? We didn't feel we could add anything." (Interview with the author, March 31, 2003)

Something of "analytical value" would certainly have been found if the victims had been British or American. We can make all the excuses we like, but the fact is that tragedies of this kind just don't mean as much to us.

Last week, The Independent noted that an October 2004 report in The Lancet had estimated Iraqi civilian deaths at nearly 100,000, but that the methodology "was subsequently criticised." (Terry Kirby and Elizabeth Davies, "Iraq conflict claims 34 civilians lives each day as 'anarchy' beckons," The Independent, July 20, 2005)

But the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, which conducted the survey, is one of the world's most prestigious research organizations. And The Lancet is one of the world's leading science journals. I asked Terry Kirby, co-author of The Independent article, which criticisms he had in mind. Kirby replied: "So far as I am aware, The Lancet's report was criticized by the Foreign Office." (E-mail to the author, July 22, 2005)

You couldn't make it up!

On the same day, an Independent leader added that the Lancet findings had been reached "by extrapolating from a small sample... While never completely discredited, those figures were widely doubted." (Leader, "The true measure of the US and British failure," The Independent, July 20, 2005)

Lead author Gilbert Burnham from the Johns Hopkins School told me the sample size was entirely standard:

"Our data have been back and forth between many reviewers at the Lancet and here in the school (chair of Biostatistics Dept), so we have the scientific strength to say what we have said with great certainty. I doubt any Lancet paper has gotten as much close inspection in recent years as this one has!" (Dr. Gilbert Burnham, e-mail to the author, October 30, 2004)

By contrast, an independent website, Iraq Body Count, last week published a report estimating that nearly 25,000 Iraqi civilians have died since the invasion and occupation began. The report was not conducted by a leading research body, it was not peer reviewed, and yet it was broadly accepted and granted headline status by the BBC, ITV News, The Guardian and many other media. Even senior government figures were happy to mention the website's results.

This is a perfect example of how the establishment tends to see only what it wants to see. That would be fine, except that the public is therefore unable to understand or address the real problems our governments have created. That means more suffering for everyone.

Repeated endlessly, and contrasted with mass coverage of Western victims of terror, such entrenched bias inevitably trains us to value Western lives above non-Western lives. Like the air we breathe, this parochial compassion comes to seem normal and natural to the extent that we barely even notice when our armies are killing Third World people in vast numbers. Noam Chomsky is a rare voice willing to discuss this reality:

"If they do something to us, the world is coming to an end. But if we do it to them, it's so normal, why should we even talk about it?" (Chomsky, Power and Terror, Seven Stories Press, 2003, p.20)

We Cry! We Live!

I've sometimes had discussions with people on the subject of altruism, love and compassion where someone has indicated, say, their wife and children, and declared: "I'd sacrifice my life to protect them."

Alan Wallace invites us to consider whether this kind of commitment is necessarily rooted in compassion and altruism, or whether it might involve an extension of selfishness. Are we in fact defending what we see as part of "me" and "mine", extensions of ourselves?

The media praise public outpourings of compassion and grief for the victims of London, New York and Madrid as signs of a nation's humanity. And surely they are. But how much of this concern is also rooted in a sense that we - our people, our security, our way of life -- are under attack? How much is our reaction actually an expression of self-concern?

Comment: Given that our leaders and the controlled media are drilling into our heads the line that our "way of life" is under attack, it is highly probably that all of our reaction is an expression of self-concern. We are told what to think and how to feel, and most of us tend to automatically do both without question.

It is vital that we aspire to broaden and equalize our compassion for suffering. Not because it's "nice", not because we should "teach the world to sing." It is vital because otherwise there is a real danger that, in caring deeply for real and important "us", and ignoring irrelevant "them", we become utterly blind to the misery we are causing, and entirely ruthless in crushing those who cause us harm.

Even as the media were asking how on earth human beings could kill innocent commuters in London, Christopher Hitchens wrote in the Daily Mirror: "We shall track down those responsible. States that shelter them will know no peace." (Hitchens, "07/07: War on Britain," The Mirror, July 8, 2005)

In the New York Times last week, leading columnist Thomas Friedman wrote:

"We need to shine a spotlight on hate speech wherever it appears. The State Department produces an annual human rights report. Henceforth, it should also produce a quarterly War of Ideas Report, which would focus on those religious leaders and writers who are inciting violence against others. I would compile it in a nondiscriminatory way." (Friedman, "Giving the hatemongers no place to hide," New York Times, July 22, 2005)

And yet this is the same Thomas Friedman who had himself written at the height of the NATO bombing of Serbia in April 1999:

"Like it or not, we are at war with the Serbian nation (the Serbs certainly think so), and the stakes have to be very clear: Every week you ravage Kosovo is another decade we will set your country back by pulverizing you. You want 1950? We can do 1950. You want 1389? We can do 1389 too." (Friedman, "Stop the Music," New York Times, April 23, 1999)

Many people believe there is a deep divide between ethics and politics. But a patriotic version of compassion is often the most potent weapon of realpolitik. It is used to persuade us to ignore our own crimes and to turn against "evildoers", official enemies often selected on the basis of carefully hidden agendas.

Compassion can also, however, be the most potent tool of liberation, breaking the links of greed, hatred and ignorance from which our political chains are formed. Power needs compassion to be partial, patriotic, rooted in self-concern. Humanity needs compassion to be universal, unconditional and equal.

The basis for this equalized concern is straight forward enough: everyone is identical in yearning from the depths of their hearts for an end to suffering and for lasting happiness. Recognizing that this is so -- that others truly are just like us in this respect -- provides a basis for universal compassion. Or are we seriously to believe that suffering is somehow deeper and more important "here" than "there"? Suffering is simply suffering.

Every time our media present Third World people as anonymous crowds, as inconsequential extras in grand Western dramas, we might remind ourselves of the deeply humane words spoken by the cousin of a Palestinian man shot dead by the Israeli army in Nablus refugee camp. The man spoke of his shock at the events of September 11, but continued:

"I know what they feel. But I want them to know what I feel. I think many of them don't want to know about us, don't want to know what we feel. They think we are from another country, or from another star. We also, like them, we cry! We live! We feel sad! We feel happy! And we have minds, also! I want them to use their minds and to understand what happened here." (Through Muslim Eyes, Channel 4, September 6, 2002)

Media Lens is a UK-based media watchdog group headed by David Edwards and David Cromwell. Visit the Media Lens website (www.medialens.org) and consider supporting their invaluable work (www.medialens.org/donate.html).

Rene Welch cut "a deal with the devil," a deal she recently broke when she went public about her two 1987 encounters with Saudi royals, including two of the bin Laden brothers who claimed the U.S. government was actively involved in pre-arranging 9/11.

Welch's incredible story, first made public in May, has already been verified by one other former NASA scientist. But this week another person present at the meeting also came forward to verify Welch's story.

The meetings with the Saudis took place in Sedona and Pleasant Valley, Arizona, and lasted more than eight hours each time, the bin Ladens revealing in 1987 detailed plans how the U.S. government was planning to attack the World Trade Center, kicking off a global catastrophe, including a massive war in the Middle East.

Besides being verified by Ronald Logsdon, 49, of Philadelphia, a scientist who worked in a NASA program with Welch and also present at the bin Laden meetings, this week long time Sedona resident, Naomi Niles, also verified the Sedona meeting took place.

"Yes, I was there at one of the meetings back in 1987," said Niles this week from her Sedona home, adding the details of the story should be left for Logsdon and Welch to describe since she was not a part of the NASA program.

And Welch not only learned about the U.S. government's pre-planning of 9/11 from the bin Ladens back in 1987, but this week from her Albuquerque home Welch added more, saying when working for NASA as a scientist on brain development research in Phoenix, she obtained a secret computer code and was able to uncover the findings of a government-funded project titled "Global Cleanse 2000," a study outlining strategies for global war and population reduction.

After learning of the government's evil intentions almost 20 years ago and being a government target ever since, Welch talked about "the deal she made with the devil," adding she always had a tacit understanding with FBI and CIA operatives, that if she'd "shut up and lay low," they'd leave her alone.

But two months ago Welch broke the deal, deciding to tell America what she learned about the U.S. government's pre-planning of 9/11, saying although the story's a hard pill to swallow and "may sound unbelievable," she felt the need to risk public humiliation, government harassment and warn Americans anyway.

"Just like before, they'll be after me again now that I went public," said Welch who has been drugged and beaten on several occasions by government operatives.

And since she went public in May the harassment stated again, starting in the similar subtle manner it did after she was unexpectedly approached by the Saudis, including the bin Ladens.

But Welch, instead or running and hiding, is now prepared to fight back hard, making public a 200 page document detailing information obtained about the staging of 9/11, Global Cleanse 2000 and about FBI and CIA civil rights violations.

"I'm naming names and want justice," added Welch.

She also said she wants to document her story in a book, starting from the time she was a 'military brat,' her father being an Air Force B-52 pilot, when at the age of three she displayed exceptional ESP abilities and channeling powers, powers that eventually led her into the NASA program as an adult.

Concerning the 200 page diaries documenting her FBI troubles and knowledge of 9/11, copies of the documents have previously been sent to several members of the former Clinton White House, including Hillary Clinton, as well as to Taos, NM. former district attorney John Paternoster, who Welch approached in 1995 about government death threats.

Paternoster, now in private practice in Taos, recently said he couldn't remember ever meeting Welch or hearing about the bin Laden story.

"He knows me and an investigator named Martinez was even assigned to my case," said Welch this week in a telephone conversation from her New Mexico home. "I saw him several times and even have kept receipts from his office, given to me regarding the 200 page document I gave him. He just wants the whole thing to go away and is probably afraid to tell the truth.

Regarding possible FBI and CIA further retaliation, she added:

"What's the difference if they're planning global war and mass population reduction," said Welch. "When I worked for NASA Application Technical Center In Phoenix, involved in brain development and mind control projects, I accessed the code for the computers and read a secret project they were working on called "Global Cleanse 2000," outlining certain strategies like 9/11 to start a global war and how other strategies regarding how to reduce the world's population.

"Now, again, after I went public, the harassment has started, my phone is tapped and they are starting to mess with my life. This time I am really frightened since they are very serious about keeping people like me, who know too much, quiet since they are getting closer to their objective of destroying this country.

"In the past I noticed when I stayed quiet, they left me alone. But when I started talking, the harassment then followed. That's how I know they are still watching me and have always been watching me."

Welch's claim that two of the outspoken bin Laden brothers, not Osama, told her about the U.S. government's plans to stage 9/11in 1987 is not an idle fantasy or a story made up by a hyper-sensitive person's imagination.

Logsdon, the other NASA employed scientist who worked along side Welch, verified her story this way:

"Two of the bin Laden brothers came some 90 miles from Phoenix, Arizona, and stopped at our doorstep unannounced. Their bodyguards set up a surveillance parameter around our property and others came into our house, taped up the windows and set up a film projector. The people in this motorcade seemed very scared, and presented this as a matter of life and death," recalled Logsdon, who said at the time in 1987 the couple had no idea about the eventual 9/11 implications.

"These men told us to be very cautious and to assume that we were under surveillance by our government. For several hours they showed us films of meetings of key Arabs and U.S. government officials discussing the oil issues. The bottom line was that if the Arabs did not do it their way, the U.S. would simply take their oil by force. They also explained that they have been manipulated into setting up bank accounts where oil profits were siphoned off and were no longer under their control.

"They then explained why the World Trade Centers were the ideal target for this purpose. The two bin Ladens showed us this film because they made it very clear how they did not want to be involved with any U.S. plot to manipulate the Arab governments or start a war."

Regarding the ongoing government harassment to keep her quiet, Welch said a two year period in the mid 1990s was most troubling when an agent infiltrated her life, finally using drugs and other types of physical harassment to get information after gaining her trust.

"I wouldn't be honest if I didn't tell you I was scared again and I know some people have a hard time believing this story, but it's true," said Welch, recalling the years when she said the agent who used the name Alfred Hermendorf injected her with several types of different drugs.

"But I am going to release the information and tell my story in a book because these people are evil and want to destroy America. There is a global catastrophe right around the corner and they may even make it look like a natural disaster. But I saw the plans back in the 1980s and after 9/11. I know it is going to happen unless we quickly get Bush out of power."

Welch and Logsdon became aware of this radical element in our government, trying to create this new world order, when they worked together as scientists at NASA's Application Technical Center Institute in Phoenix.

Together with over 100 "think tank" participants, Logsdon, an engineer, and Welch, a licensed hypnotism -therapist and head of the Global Elite Scientist's Club, were developing technology to better understand the brain's memory and psychic ability capacities.

The pair came up with they called the "light and sound" machine, receiving much praise during the 80s for what was thought then to be ground breaking work. It was this project that eventually brought them in contact with the bin Ladens, creating the backdrop for why they both know 9/11 was a staged U.S. government event.

"They (at NASA) ended up stealing our work and then after the bin Laden incident denied knowing that Rene and I even existed," said Logsdon.

"This is not an isolated criminal act we are dealing with; it is an extreme and evil ideology whose roots lie in a perverted and poisonous misinterpretation of the religion of Islam"
- Prime Minister Tony Blair

The "evil ideology" that underscores the war on terror is predicated on two basic theories; preemption and enemy combatants. Both of these run counter to fundamental principles of human rights and democratic governance. Both must be met head-on and defeated. There is no wiggle-room for equivocating or appeasement; this ideology is the greatest manifestation of fanaticism in the world since the rise of Nazism in the 1930's and must be collectively challenged. As Tony Blair says, "This is not an isolated criminal act" but "an extreme and evil ideology" thrusting us towards global war and ever-increasing human rights abuse.

The preemptive doctrine overturns the conclusions of the Nuremburg Tribunals that "War is the Supreme Crime" from which all the lesser crimes naturally flow. It elevates war to a viable form of foreign policy; an acceptable means of establishing one state's superiority over another. In the case of Iraq, where the theory was applied with the most appalling results; it has been exposed as a cruel facsimile of unprovoked aggression against a defenseless enemy. The horrific after-effects have been the destruction of Iraqi society, the death of over 100,000 civilians and an enduring conflict with no end in sight. These are the predictable consequences of a pernicious theory that glorifies force above all else.

The principle at the heart of "enemy combatants" is no less sinister than that of preemption. The theory presupposes that there is a category of men that are intrinsically undeserving of any human rights whatsoever. "Enemy combatants" is not intended to selectively deprive people of particular rights; it is a blanket indictment of anyone the president arbitrarily chooses to name; stripping them of their civil liberties without any legal recourse. It overturns every meaningful precedent of International law and American jurisprudence. Due process, habeas corpus and the presumption of innocence are all rescinded by executive edict. "Enemy combatants" is the language of tyrants; it represents the dénouement of the rule of law and the birth of the imperial presidency.

We have no choice but to categorically reject both these theories as a direct assault on the constitutional system, representative government and the inalienable rights of man.

It is clear now that the neocons, in their rise to power, developed a strategy to eliminate the obstacles in their path. They wisely narrowed their focus to three main areas where they anticipated the most resistance; civil liberties, congressional approval of war and the checks on presidential power. The monikers of "enemy combatant" and preemption, minted in neo-fascist think-tanks, have concealed the real objectives of their creators behind modern-sounding jargon. The goals, however, remain the same; declaration of a permanent state of war and the supremacy of the president.

That's where we are now; the world tilting further and further to the right and the litany of horrors growing by the day. Torture and indefinite detention have become staples of the new foreign policy regime; compromising America's prestige in the world and eroding the nation's moral authority. "Usable nukes" are now an integral part of the Pentagon's forward-defense strategy making the Bush administration the first country to claim a "first-strike" policy if US national interests are at stake. This makes the US the most dangerous nation in the world; brandishing its high-tech weaponry at third world countries and threatening to attack if they fail to comply with Washington's directives.

The expression of Bush's maligned vision is now evident everywhere; from the gun-towers over Guantanamo, to the concertina wire surrounding Falluja, to the cement abutments enclosing the White House. The rising wave of militarism has been accompanied by an equal and opposite retreat in civil liberties and personal freedom. The full-force of the economic-political-military establishment is bearing down on the institutions that preserved the peace for the last 60 years. The old order is crumbling and being replaced by a system that accepts no rule except the absolute authority of the executive.

Ideas are the fuel that power the engine of history. The radical ideology that animates the Bush regime is a force as real as the laser-guided munitions that pummeled Baghdad. They may be obscured by the vile fictions of the media, but their deadly meaning is not hard to grasp. They represent the greatest danger the world has ever seen; the globalization of state terror.

Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He can be reached at: fergiewhitney@msn.com

JERUSALEM - Israeli diplomats will court moderate Muslim leaders in Europe to counteract the sway of Islamists hostile to the Jewish state, a Foreign Ministry official said on Thursday.

The initiative was announced as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made a fence-mending visit to France, among European nations where Jews have complained of anti-Semitism among Muslims sympathetic to a 4 1/2-year-old Palestinian revolt.

Israeli embassies in Europe have long kept track of local Islamists whose rhetoric is believed to have stoked anti-Jewish sentiment. Reda Mansour, a veteran diplomat from Israel's Druze Arab minority, said moderate Muslims would now also be sought.

"We will continue to search out and identify the extremist entities who encourage anti-Semitism and are sometimes involved in inciting terrorism," Mansour told Israel's Army Radio.

"But the novel element here is that we also want to find the silent voice -- to give it a means of speaking out so that it will condemn terror, condemn anti-Semitism, and connect with the local Jewish communities for the sake of joint civil actions."

Sharon's plan to withdraw from the occupied Gaza Strip in mid-August has won favor in Europe after a period of chilly relations. Europeans see the pullout as a basis for launching a "road map" peace plan for a Palestinian state beside Israel.

This month's al Qaeda-style suicide bombings in London raised calls for more inter-faith dialogue, and the European Union promised improved measures against Islamist violence.

Israel has full diplomatic relations with two Arab Muslim states, Egypt and Jordan, and its foreign minister has vowed to expand regional ties.

Mansour did not give a start-date for the outreach campaign in Europe, but said orders were issued to Israeli embassies throughout the continent.

"Of course, I suppose that naturally there will be more activity in places with large Islamic communities, like Britain, France, Holland, Belgium, Italy, countries like that," he said.

It is why they so desperately need "hate crimes" legislation, and an "Anti-Defamation League" to defame anyone who opposes their racist crimes of apartheid and genocidal mass murder. It is why they require and consistently rely on the best intelligence organization in the world, which, when it partners with our own CIA, creates the false flag operations necessary to incite Americans to war, and which has also resulted in the total destruction of our basic human freedoms via the USA PATRIOT Act. The terrorist acts perpetrated against US and the slaughter of over 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001, was just such an operation.

Human lives mean absolutely nothing to these sociopathic, lying, conniving psychopaths. They have bribed and bought the loyalty of virtually every member of Congress, both in the Senate and the House of Representatives. They have annexed Washington, D.C. and rendered it a mere suburb of Tel Aviv. They control the White House. They have taken over and commandeered our own Pentagon, and conspired and arranged to have our own military fight wars selected and deemed necessary by their vicious, cruel and inhumane government. They call themselves "Israel," yet another atrocity, this one an historical and sacrilegious falsehood directed at the Old Testament.

As perceived enemies of the Bush regime draw near to expose the latter's disloyalty, lies, treason and its collaboration in false flag operations to ignite wars orchestrated by Israel, Zionists will smear, whine, deny, flee, bribe, discredit, blackmail and conceivably even kill to avoid both the exposure of their conspiratorial activities as well as the resultant total elimination of their influence. Should Americans ever find out precisely what happened on 9-11, their power will be forever neutralized and they will eventually be totally destroyed. Yet the truth will set US free!

Israel's primary mission here is to protect the criminal regime of President George W. Bush. It is Bush and his support from Congress that is directing our youth to fight and die for Israel, the ploy being that once "our ally" gets total control of the Middle East, oil accessibility will be a "cakewalk." Nonsense! When our troops were running low on ammunition, Israel offered ammunition they acquired free from the American taxpayer - but for a price! Israel is not our ally - Israel is now America's most dangerous enemy!

Israel, and more to the point, Zionism, is indeed the tool of the Illuminati. And we're not talking about Dan Brown's [Angels & Demons - The Da Vinci Code] ancient Illuminati cult - we're talking about the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg, Skull and Bones, Thule Society, etc. The Rothschild-Rockefeller international bankers plotting the New World Order have acquired untold wealth by orchestrating wars, thereby generating the enormous military spending on the part of the belligerents for whom they provide funding. A World War III would fit quite nicely into their plans for the human race; the United States of what?

So, as Bush enemies approach, Zionism strikes! Congressman John Conyers' inquiry into the Downing Street Memo was crushed by the usual charges of "anti-Semitism" from the usual anti-think/pro-Israel shills, schmucks and schlocks. The domination of our corporate establishment mainstream media by Zionists and dual-loyalty Jews supports the ring of protection the Bush regime needs to conduct its war crimes against humanity. This is why there was little or hardly any mention of the Memo in the MSM. This is why there's no journalistic follow-up on the AIPAC scandal or the White House/Washington pedophile ring.

As acts of conspiracy are uncovered distractions and smears will increase. No sooner had I pointed this out and the London bombings followed. And as I also pointed out afterwards, there was Israel again, smack, dab in the middle of things along with Benjamin Netanyahu. When terrorism strikes, can Israel and its Mossad be far away?

Now we learn that we have a "shoot-to-kill" policy on the part of London police; and where did they learn such brutal, cold-blooded techniques in unjustly and violently terminating human life? From the "experts" of course: Israel!

These are the same "experts" who encouraged US to ignore all international laws and moral standards, precisely as they have, to commit torture and atrocities against both POWs and rounded-up civilians. These are the "experts" who taught US how to use female interrogators to sexually humiliate Muslims so they no longer wished to return to their homes and people. These are the demolition "experts" who have crushed people and homeowners to death while they were still inside their homes using huge D9 Caterpillar bulldozers, and killing old people and those on crutches who were unable to evacuate in a timely fashion.

These are the same world-renowned demolition "experts" who planted explosives in Larry Silverstein's leased buildings: the WTC towers and Building 7. They are the ones who took such pride in their handiwork that they danced in the streets, hooted, and high-fived each other celebrating when the towers collapsed killing 3,000 of our own with our government's help. They laughed while we died. And they are laughing still. They are Israel.

Two questions just rose up out of the political ashes, making it imperative that I run to my "think" room and consult my crystal ball. Question One, are we, or are we not, going to experience the horrors of another World War, this time nuclear?

Question Two, if a nuclear war is inevitable, how do we know who our enemy is?

The answer to the first question has presumably already been answered by a recent Associated Press-Kyodo poll---how more accurate can you get than an AP-Kyodo poll?---which clearly shows that six out of 10 Americans believe that a nuclear war is likely. Not all countries believe this, of course, but they don't know what we know about wars.

With Question One settled, let us now zero in on Question Two. In the event that WWIII should break out---and since we can't help being in it--- maybe even starting it---who will our enemy be?

Every one of our wars has had a target-participant. One we could finger and fix our sights on. If we bother to declare war at all, we should have somebody in mind to declare it on.

In 1776 it was England; in 1812 it was also England; in 1865 it was the Confederacy; in 1898 it was Spain; in 1917 it was Germany; in 1942 it was Germany, Italy and Japan (the Axis Powers): in the 1960's it was Korea; in the 1970's it was Vietnam; in 2005 it is Iraq and Afghanistan.

We have always had a designated enemy. So it is quite natural to ask, in a nuclear war, who will we blast into oblivion?

Not Terrorists---they don't have a country to blow up; they're all over the world; besides, every time we find one, he blows himself up before we can get to him.

Not Arabs---killing another hundred thousand or so innocent men, women, and children doesn't contribute much to any viable war effort.

Not Osama bin Laden---after three years we haven't found him, so how are we going to nuke him? Besides, Bush fudged again and said this guy is no longer a priority target.

Not Japan---the U.S. and Japan have never had a closer relationship. Or so it would seem from our automobile sales.

Not China---that wouldn't be very smart since we gave them all our nuclear secrets. Also, there are so many Chinese they would stomp hell out of us.

Not Mexico---thanks to Presidents Bush and Fox, if we started "eliminating" Mexicans, California would lose half its population. Not France---bomb the nation that gave us our Statue of Liberty? Are you nuts?

Not Russia---it wouldn't make sense to start a "hot" war with the country we defeated in a "cold war." A luke-warm war? Maybe.

Not Africa--- the instant we blow up any African nation the ACLU would come down on us like a swarm of tse tse flies.

Not England--- we've already kicked their butts twice. Furthermore, Tony Blair's personal secretary is a distant cousin of my boss's wife's uncle.

Not Israel--- with so many international bankers being Jewish, we would be out of cash two days into a war.

Not Cuba--- Castro has outlasted us for 40 years. No reason to believe that starting World War III would shake him up.

Not the Arctic regions---nuclear explosions would melt the ice caps, causing massive flooding, and we would quick have to build another Ark. Moreover, who really wants to kill Eskimos?

No, my belief is that if we insist on starting another war, our designated target should be Ourselves. It would be The Quiet War, with no explosions of any kind whatsoever, including nuclear.

In conducting The Quiet War we would take stock of what we have done, and are doing, to this planet and the people on it. We would take seriously all dissents, all injustices, all tyrannical acts, and put them into a Court of Complaints for immediate review and remedial action.

We would kick the conniving, war-making neo-conservatives out of the Administration and the Pentagon, revamp our foreign policy, rethink our domestic agenda, restructure our whole approach to other nations in the world, and begin running America the way our founding fathers envisioned it should be run. Which, by the way, they put on paper in a document called the U.S. Constitution.

We would start minding our own business, respect other countries and cultures, and adhere to our own unique values, principles, and heritage. "Live and let live" would be our motto.

This way there would be no need to declare war on anybody, nor them on us, and the miseries of World War III might never come to pass. Is this an idea whose time has come? Apparently not yet.

Lyndon LaRouche, on this Wednesday afternoon, issued an international alert, covering the period of August 2005, which is the likely timeframe for Vice President Dick Cheney, with the full collusion of the circles of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, to unleash the recently exposed plans to stage a preemptive tactical nuclear strike against Iran. The danger of such a mad, Hitler-in-the-bunker action from the Cheney circles would be even further heightened, were the United States Congress to stick with its present schedule, and go into recess on July 30 until September 4. With Congress out of Washington, the Cheney-led White House would almost certainly unleash a "Guns of August" attack on Iran.

LaRouche based this assessment on a series of factors, reported to him over the recent days, beginning with the qualified report, from a former U.S. intelligence official, published in the American Conservative magazine, that Dick Cheney ordered the Strategic Command (STRATCOM) to prepare contingency plans for a conventional and tactical nuclear strike against hundreds of targets in Iran, in the event of a "new 9/11-style attack" on the United States. As EIR reported several months ago, the Bush Administration, under CONPLAN 8022, had already placed the relevant "mini-nukes" under the control of theater military commanders, as part of a new Global Strike doctrine, a doctrine originally conceived when Dick Cheney was Secretary of Defense under George H.W. Bush in the early 1990s.

The recent bombings in London have provided Tony Blair with his own "Reichstag fire" incident, and the full resources of the British "liberal imperial" faction can now be expected to weigh in behind the brutish Cheney circles in Washington.

The most compelling evidence of this "Guns of August" plan, LaRouche emphasized in discussions with colleagues, is the pattern of eyewitness reports of Dick Cheney's state of mind. Cheney is living out an American version of "Hitler in the bunker," lashing out at Republican Senators who have dared to resist his mad tirades, accusing anyone who fails to follow his orders—including senior members of the United States Senate—of being "traitors" and worse.

And finally, LaRouche identified a series of reports from highly qualified Congressional, military, and intelligence community sources, who have confirmed the essential features of the original American Conservative account of Cheney's Strangelove schemes for a preemptive nuclear strike on Iran. These sources have emphasized that these Iran plans are not merely military contingency studies, but represent the policy intentions of Cheney.

Arthur Bernklau, an advocate with the Veterans for Constitutional Law, an antiwar group, says that depleted uranium weapons used in the first Gulf War have caused the deaths of 11,000 soldiers. Bernklau says that 584,000 soldiers served in Gulf War I and 11,000 of them are now dead. 325,000 are on permanent medical disability.

Bernklau stated that the long-term effect of depleted uranium weapons are a "virtual death sentence", and that the departure of Anthony Principi as secretary of the Veterans Affairs Department was triggered by the scandal of the deaths. Bernklau says that over half of those who served in Gulf War I have permanent medical problems.

The London bombings, and subsequent attempted bomb attacks, have added a complex range of thoughts and emotions to the daily commute, Magazine readers' e-mails reveal.

Many people wrote of their suspicions, worry and guilt, as they found themselves judging other passengers.

Other readers wrote from all over the world to say changing seats or carriages because of someone's 'non-Western' appearance or because of what they were carrying was ridiculous and at worst "racist".

Several e-mails said being suspicious was "natural" in today's strange times, while others told London to "get a grip".

Jonathan from London wrote that the Tube "is now a place buzzing with nervous energy and suspicion".

Patrick from Reading said "everyone in the carriage" looked at a "young Muslim guy who was carrying a kind of kitbag with a drawstring" sat opposite him on the Bakerloo line.

"At one point he adjusted his grip on his bag, then pulled at the string. There was an audible gasp from one or two people. I'm ashamed to say I felt a moment of fear, too.

"A couple of stations later, he got off, and everyone watched him go. Nobody spoke, but you could feel the release of tension, and perhaps mutual shame."

Reassurance

Among the most interesting of responses were those from readers on the end of quick looks and snap judgements.

Some commuters said they had made small amendments to their behaviour to reassure people, others asked why should they?

Josh said that travelling to central London from multi-cultural Bow "doesn't seem that bad".

"As an Asian male, however, the fact I'm reading Bill Clinton's autobiography makes carrying my work backpack (quite sizeable, occasionally with computer components in it that could be wires...) a lot easier," he wrote.

Salikah from London said as a Muslim woman "and visibly so because of my hijab" she had found people avoiding sitting next to her on the Tube.

"I've thus resorted to standing to try and avoid any tense atmosphere, reading books like Harry Potter, and wearing my Make Poverty History band," she said

Elton Ali from Bermondsey wrote: "As I'm an Asian male that's been getting suspicious looks, I've taken to carrying a bottle of wine as if I'm taking it home for dinner. It's ironic, I don't even like wine, but it's a clear visual symbol that says I'm not a fanatic Islamic bomber."

TJ, a mixed race male in London, said: "to avoid the odd stares on the tube, I'm now carrying my gym kit in a clear plastic bag."

He added he was also going to make his iPod wires "nice and obvious to everyone". However, he said he was "simmering with resentment" over other travellers' "ill-concealed racism".

'Feel stares'

Another man, a British Asian and life-long Londoner called TG, said he had "increasingly felt the stares" of fellow commuters.

"These, I feel, are understandable in this current climate, but are nonetheless upsetting. I tend to keep my head down and fiddle around less with my iPod.

"I want to occasionally stand up and say that I was on the Kings Cross train that got bombed and I'm as terrified of recent events as they are." [...]

"Big Brother is Watching You?" has become the mantra of today's Europe in the wake of the terrorist attacks on London, which sent seismic waves across the continent and put all citizens, particularly Muslims, under the microscope, an Austrian daily reported Wednesday, July 27.

Watertight security measures are now the norm in Europe, including installing closed circuit TV cameras in every nook and cranny, tapping phones, tracking e-mails and placing all mosques under scrutiny, mass-circulation Der Kurier reported.

Cell phones and the Internet are no exception. "Suspicious" numbers will also be tapped via state-of-the art technologies and "exp
losive" Web sites downed.

The new technologies might be a bit costly and inapplicable sometimes as it is impossible for authorities in a country like Austria to handle 200 million phone calls a day, according to the paper, citing an economic study.

"It seems as if famed British writer George Orwell's "Big Brother" vision has been materialized," the paper commented on the security mania.

Orwell prophesied in his masterpiece "1984" almost 50 years ago that European societies would turn oppressive and totalitarian, stifling individual lives and personal freedoms through omnipresent police.

Tougher Security

As far as Austria is concerned, lay people started feeling the fallout from the July 7 bombings in London , which killed 56 people including four suicide bombers.

Politicians have also grown critical of the police measures, arguing that it is untraditional for freedom-loving Austrians to feel they are under round-the-clock surveillance.

Peter Pliz, spokesman for the Greens party, said the tougher security measures would eventually prove futile since the closed-circuit system in London failed to thwart the terrorists attacks, according to the daily.

Wolfgang Bachler, an expert at security affairs, told Standard daily Tuesday, July 26, that authorities would not be able to track or record a torrent of phone calls and data pouring day in and day out.

"We should take into account how people would feel when they find their lives crippled and restricted all of a sudden under the new circumstances," he told the daily.

Former interior minister Caspar Einem has further called for recruiting Muslims to spy on fellow ones in mosques.

The proposal was endorsed by police personnel commissioner Michael Kloibmüller. Muslims make up four percent of the country's eight million people.

Following the London attacks, many European governments, particularly in Britain , moved to give police expanded powers to root out terrorism.

London Police Chief Ian Blair said earlier in the week that British police remain under orders to shoot "suspected" bombers in the head despite the storm triggered by the mistaken killing of Brazilian Jean-Charles de Menezes.

Two more suspects in the attempted London bombings have been arrested, Sky News has revealed. A total of three of the suspects are now in custody.

One of them is thought to be the man who tried to detonate a bomb at Oval station, who remains unnamed.

The other is thought to be Muktar Said Ibrahim - the man responsible for attempting to blow up the number 26 bus.

Anti-terror police have also arrested one other person.

None of this information has been officially confirmed by Scotland Yard.

Police are still hunting at least one other suspect, including the man suspected of planting a bomb at Shepherd's Bush.

One of those arrested today was taken into custody after a dramatic raid on an estate in the north Kensington area of west London.

The man under arrest was led away from the scene wearing a white forensic boiler suit, often used to preserve evidence.

During the siege, one eyewitness told Sky News that a man was inside a flat and police were surrounding the property and shouting at him to take his clothes off and get out.

Officers carrying guns and wearing balaclavas took part in the siege, in which officers called the man inside the flat "Mohammed".

A number of explosions had earlier been heard at the scene, possibly the sound of police entering the property.

Today's arrests are connected to the failed bombing attempt on July 21 - exactly two weeks after 56 people were killed in bombs on London's transport network.

Sky News' correspondent Martin Brunt said: "It looks as though police had no more than an hour-and-a-half to prepare for this."

He added: "This is a serious operation - rather more substantial than the raids we have seen in the past few days.

"It is half a mile or so from where a bomb was left on Thursday last week and discovered later by a member of the public."

A number of other arrests have been made in a series of other operations.

Officers carrying machine guns and wearing gas masks sealed off Tavistock Road and the adjoining crescent.

Tavistock Road runs close to Westbourne Park Tube station where the man who attempted to blow himself up on a train near Shepherd's Bush on July 21 got on to the network.

Liverpool Street Station has been re-opened after being evacuated and shut down. Armed police arrested two women.

LONDON - British police captured two more suspected bombers who fled after a failed attack on London last week, a report said, marking a potentially crucial breakthrough in the massive investigation. [...]

The most dramatic scenes were played out in Dalgarno Gardens, a run-down estate of public housing apartments in the White City area, where locals reported seeing police laying siege to a man in a flat. [...]

In a separate operation, streets around Notting Hill, another part of west London nearby, were sealed off for another raid, residents there said. [...]

Amid frantic efforts to track down the men responsible for the two sets of attacks, there has also been an unseemly spate of bickering between officials.

In highly unusual public criticism of another force, London police chief Ian Blair condemned the use of a high-voltage stun gun by officers in Birmingham to subdue Hassan Omar.

"I'll be honest, we don't understand how they could possibly," Blair said on BBC television late Thursday when asked why the Taser stun gun was used.

"It was an incredible risk to use a Taser on a suicide bomber because the Taser itself could set it (a bomb) off and that is not the policy," he said.

Comment: Ya don't say! Perhaps they knew he wasn't a suicide bomber at all. No worries, though - next time, the police force will be sure to pop off at least eight rounds into the head of anyone who so much as litters... It's the only way we can preserve our freedoms and our way of life.

And as relatives and friends mourned Jean Charles de Menezes, a young Brazilian man shot by anti-terror police a week ago, the official leading an inquiry into his death condemned the interior ministry for revealing the 27-year-old's visa had expired.

Officials should "shut up" until the inquiry was over, Nick Hardwick, head of the Independent Police Complaints Commission, said in an unusually blunt rebuff.

Comment: Yeah, we can't have officials leaking important information like the fact that Menezes' visa had expired, and that was why he ran from police before being chased down and shot... That might make the police look even worse than they already do.

Friends and family of De Menezes remembered him Friday, a week after his death, laying flowers at Stockwell Underground station in south London, where the electrician was chased before being shot dead on July 22.

"No matter what's said in the press and the future, he was a good and decent person and we need to remember him as a decent man," said Alice Soares, a friend.

CAIRO President Hosni Mubarak is moving slowly in his embrace of Western-style democracy, but the man who has been called a modern Pharaoh because of his unrivaled power and his 24 years in office has kicked off a re-election campaign that bears many of the hallmarks of a Western-style political campaign.

Setting up a campaign headquarters and having a candidate give a speech on the grounds of his high school is not surprising in industrialized democracies, but until Thursday it was unheard of in Mubarak's Egypt.

There he was, a man who three times before ran for re-election without ever having to face an opponent, announcing his bid for a fifth term from a stage inside his old high school. He gave a speech that sought to humanize himself, laying out his accomplishments, spelling out the challenges ahead and trying to use adversity - in this case recent terror attacks - as cause to stay the course and not change leaders.


"He is trying to tie himself to his country, to his people, to his own community," said Osama El-Ghazaly Harb, a political analyst based in Cairo. "Mubarak never made this before. This is something new and strange."

Mubarak took to the stage at his old high school in Shibeen El Kom, an hour and a half from Cairo, to deliver a speech that his supporters said laid out his vision for the future. It was a speech short on details but filled with grand ideas, like limiting the power of the presidency and doing away with the emergency laws imposed on the nation after the assassination of Anwar Sadat. The laws give the authorities the power to arrest and hold citizens without charge.

And Mubarak promised that the elections "will be free, fair and transparent," and will give "equal opportunities to all the candidates." He spoke of creating and restoring checks and balances between the different institutions of government. [...]

Washington - The United States cannot keep up with military demand for ammunition which has more than doubled since the war on terrorism and the invasion of Iraq were launched, according to a Congress watchdog report released Wednesday.

The report said that the amount of small ammunition needed had increased from about 730 million rounds a year to nearly 1.8 billion.

For medium calibre ammunition, the rise had gone from 11.7 million rounds to almost 22 million, said the General Accounting Office.

Defence Department purchases of ammunition had reduced after the end of the Cold War and a number of government owned production factories were closed, said the report by the Congress watchdog.

The department has spent more than 90 million dollars on improvements at the remaining three main facilities for small and medium calibre bullets in a bid to boost production.

But supplies of small sized ammunition is lagging behind demand and the United States is now relying on foreign producers, including from Israel, to help meet its needs.

"Unforeseen events such as the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and subsequent military deployments, make predicting future requirements difficult," said the GAO.

"However it is imperative that the warfighter be provided with sufficient ammunition to carry out missions to counter ongoing and emerging threats without amassing wasteful unused stockpiles."

China is building up its nuclear forces as part of a secret strategy targeting the United States, according to a former Chinese diplomat.

China's strategy calls for "proactive defense," and senior Chinese Communist Party leaders think that building nuclear arms is the key to countering U.S. power in Asia and other parts of the world, said Chen Yonglin, a diplomat who defected to Australia two months ago.

A recent comment by a Chinese general shows that Beijing's leaders are prepared to launch "a pre-emptive attack on the country considered a huge threat to China," Mr. Chen said.

Chinese Maj. Gen. Zhu Chenghu told reporters two weeks ago that China is prepared to use nuclear weapons against "hundreds" of U.S. cities if a conflict breaks out over Taiwan.

The former diplomat, who until recently was posted to the Chinese Consulate in Sydney, said the number of Chinese nuclear warheads is a closely guarded secret.

Asked about a Pentagon report revealing that China has 20 nuclear warheads that can reach almost all of the United States, Mr. Chen said, "We don't know the exact number."

"Everything about nuclear weapons is held by a very limited number of people," he said. "Even sometime vice ministers may not know because it is strictly controlled by the general staff and central party leaders."

The Pentagon report to Congress made public last week stated that China is "qualitatively and quantitatively improving its strategic missile force."

"It is fielding more survivable missiles capable of targeting India, Russia, virtually all of the United States and the Asia-Pacific theater as far south as Australia and New Zealand," the report said.

China's nuclear weapons are developed and built in secret under the direction of a company Mr. Chen identified as the Nuclear Energy Company. The company builds both civilian nuclear-power stations and warheads for missiles and bombers.

"It sounds like a nongovernment company, but it is totally top secret," he said.

Mr. Chen, who is visiting the United States and testified before a House committee last week, said that during internal discussions among Communist Party and government leaders and military commanders, military leaders often have urged going to war against Taiwan, a self-governing island -- also known as the Republic of China -- that broke with the mainland in 1949. [...]

LAS VEGAS: Scientists at the Nevada Test Site said they generated a current equal to roughly four times all the electrical power on Earth.

The current, which created pressures in materials millions of times greater than normal, was part of an experiment to better understand nuclear weapons.

The experiment was conducted on Wednesday at the test site's Atlas Pulsed Power Facility by scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, During the few millionths of a second it operated, the generator discharged nearly 19 million AMP of current, it said.

Controversial director OLIVER STONE has hit out at US President GEORGE W BUSH for "misusing" his powers after the terrorist attacks on September 11th (01).

The NATURAL BORN KILLERS film-maker, who is currently preparing the first major Hollywood movie to deal with the 2001 atrocities, believes Bush is the wrong man to lead America at the moment, and he is particularly angry about the US invasion of Iraq.

Stone says, "There was an over-reaction after 9/11. Bush was given enormous powers and misused them. He created a war in Iraq that has further helped bust the economy, and has led to civil war there."

"He was the wrong leader at the wrong time. I always felt that. I wish I was wrong."

WASHINGTON - Daylight-saving time would start three weeks earlier and run through Halloween under a change included in an energy bill approved Thursday by the House.

The energy legislation was expected to be passed by the Senate, probably Friday, and sent to
President Bush.

The time change is supposed to save energy because people have more daylight in the evening and do not have to turn on lights.

The House had approved a two-month extension — one in the spring and the other in the fall. But that was scaled back after airline officials complained that the extension would cause problems with intentional flight schedules.

Farmers said the change would adversely affect livestock.

Some senators also questioned how much actual energy savings would be achieved. [...]

SAN FRANCISCO -- Patients at a state mental hospital overdosed on illegal drugs, were improperly restrained for hours on end and were forced to spend 12 hours in soiled diapers, according to a scathing report issued by the U.S. Justice Department.

The report said the problems were among "widespread and systematic deficiencies" at Napa State Hospital, including suicide and inadequate medical care. Some patients were bathed only every two to four weeks, the report said.

State officials were given until Aug. 15 to implement "minimum remedial measures" at the mental hospital, which has about 1,100 patients.

Lupe Rincon, a hospital spokeswoman, said many allegations were based on inaccurate information from family members, advocates and old surveys. But she said she could not respond to specific complaints.

"Releasing further information could compromise our negotiations for a settlement agreement" with the Justice Department, she said.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office had no response to the report, contained in a June 27 letter to him, and directed inquiries to the state Department of Mental Health.

The Justice Department investigation began in January 2004. The California Department of Mental Health has refused to cooperate, repeatedly preventing access to the facility, said the letter from Bradley J. Schlozman, acting assistant attorney general. A Justice Department spokesman did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Department of Mental Health spokeswoman Kirsten Macintyre said Thursday the department did not deny access, but simply asked for a delay because an investigation is "a huge diversion of resources" and because time and money was already being spent on preparing for the hospital's reaccreditation, which takes place this fall.

"I'm not saying we're perfect on patient care," said Macintyre, who added that the department already has improved some of its problem areas. "But you have to present things in a fair light."

The report also said that hospital staff punished patients who sought release, failed to provide English interpreters and refused to intervene during violent episodes among patients.

Three patients also overdosed on methamphetamine or cocaine in the fall of 2004 and one died, according to the report. Three other patients were able to use heroin, the report said.

Restraints and seclusion also are overused at Napa, according to the Justice Department. The report cited one patient who was restrained for 369 consecutive hours.

AMHERST, Ohio -- Three Amherst teenagers are accused of holding a 10-year-old Elyria boy against his will.

The teens were charged Wednesday with kidnapping and aggravated menacing, which police said is threatening someone's life.

The case started when the boy was at his grandmother's home and went next door to play video games with the teens.

Police said the teens stopped playing the games and started a real-life drama with real weapons.

Officers said the teens hog-tied the child with a telephone cord and threatened him with a shotgun and a bow and arrow.

The boy finally broke loose and ran from the house.

The grandmother of the fourth-grade honor roll student said he's having trouble sleeping since Monday's attack.

The teenagers denied all of the charges in court Wednesday. Two of the teens, ages 15 and 17 remain locked up. A 16-year-old was released, but must wear an electronic ankle bracelet until the next court hearing.

The great predators of the seas - tuna, swordfish, marlin and others - could be on the way out. Canadian researchers who surveyed the catches from ocean fishery "hotspots" warn that not only are numbers in decline, but also the variety of species in any region.

The research, published in Science today provides fresh ammunition for conservationists who want to see the creation of large, internationally protected marine parks where fish populations can breed and recover.

Boris Worm and Ransom Myers of Dalhousie University, who showed in 2003 that shark populations in the north Atlantic had fallen by 90% in 15 years, combed fisheries data for the past 50 years to discover that catches were becoming less diverse.

Where fishermen might once have caught 10 different species, they now haul in only five. "It's not yet extinction - it's local fishing out of species," Dr Myers said. "Where you once had a range of species in dense numbers, now you might catch one or two of a certain species." [...]

PALMER, Alaska -- A moderate earthquake struck in Alaska's Aleutian Islands but apparently caused no significant damage, officials said.

The quake, with a preliminary magnitude of 5.6, was reported at 9:01 p.m. Thursday, said geophysicist Guy Urban of the Alaska Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer. No tsunami warning was issued.

The temblor follows a 5.6-magnitude quake that struck southwestern Montana on Tuesday. A series of small-to-moderate quakes have also struck California this summer.

A light earthquake occurred at 01:09:08 (UTC) on Friday, July 29, 2005. The magnitude 4.8 event has been located in NEAR THE COAST OF SOUTHERN PERU. The hypocentral depth was estimated to be 37 km (23 miles). (This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.)

A moderate earthquake occurred at 03:26:00 (UTC) on Friday, July 29, 2005. The magnitude 5.0 event has been located OFF THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN. The hypocentral depth was poorly constrained.

Hundreds of properties were left damaged and trees uprooted
Residents have camped out in two sports centres in Birmingham after their homes were damaged by a tornado.

Twenty people were injured - three of them seriously - after winds of 130mph were recorded on Thursday afternoon.

The sudden storm damaged buildings and cars, uprooted trees, and took entire roofs off some homes in areas in the south of the city.

Emergency services worked alongside engineers overnight to clear tons of rubble and search properties.

Workers used dogs and specialist equipment to see if anyone had been trapped in damaged buildings. [...]

"Hundreds" of properties in the Kings Heath area were damaged, council officials said.

West Midlands Fire Service said the areas affected by the tornado, which hit the area at 1445 BST, also included Moseley, Quinton, Balsall Heath and Sparkbrook. [...]

"We have an average of 33 reports of tornadoes in the UK each year but these are especially rare in built-up areas and there has not been one of this strength in many years," said a Met Office spokesperson.

"City centres are not the natural habitat of a tornado; the tall buildings would normally stop their formation."

MUMBAI - Deaths from India's record monsoon have climbed to near 900, as rescuers unearthed more bodies from landslides and residents of a Mumbai shantytown stampeded on rumours of storm-created tsunamis.

"We are now confirming that the number of dead in Mumbai is 370," said A. N. Roy, police chief of the western commercial hub.

The figure included 18 killed in the overnight stampede, 74 bodies dug out by rescuers from a landslide that engulfed houses in Mumbai's Sakinaka area and five other flood-linked deaths, Roy said, updating earlier tolls.

At least 513 people have been killed elsewhere in Maharashtra state, of which Mumbai is the capital, according to B.M. Kulkarni, of the state police, taking the total number of confirmed deaths to 883.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Amitabh Gupta said more than 50 people were injured in the stampede, which followed false reports that a wall of water was about to swamp the area -- variously from a burst dam or a tsunami.

"It was just a rumour and people believed it and they started running out of their homes through the narrow alleys," Gupta told AFP. "It was pitch dark as there was no electricity and a stampede followed.

"Police present at the scene made repeated appeals, which were ignored by the residents. The sea is just a kilometre (half a mile) away and some heard there was a tsunami," he said.

Police chief Roy said 17 people were detained "for spreading tsunami rumours."

Hospital officials said 11 of the 18 dead in the stampede were women and one was a three-year-old girl.

Arjun Periswamy, who lives in the slums as a daily labourer, said he watched the stampede in horror from his rooftop.

"All I could gather was there was an emergency and people started running. I shouted loud to my relatives below not to get out of the house. But my aunt and her daughter ran out and died in the stampede," he said.

More than 300 relatives of the dead and injured gathered outside a local hospital waiting to hear from doctors.

Chandrasekhar Prajapati, another survivor of the stampede, said he heard shouts of "run, run, water is coming."

"It has been raining heavily for the last couple of days. So everybody believed it," he said.

The gushing waters damaged the overstretched sewerage system and littered the streets of Mumbai with rotting vegetables, plastic bags and other garbage.

Strong winds accompanying the rains, which continued to hit Mumbai Friday, tossed billboards on to the roads and toppled power lines.

Susheela Ayre, a resident of the suburb of Thane said there had been no drinking water since Wednesday. [...]

The city's weather bureau said Mumbai received 944.2 millimeters (37.1 inches) of rainfall in a 24-hour period ending mid-morning Wednesday, the most rainfall ever recorded in a single day in India.

The annual monsoon rains that sweep the subcontinent from June to September routinely kill hundreds of people in India and cause widespread devastation.

Astronomers have found a large object in the Solar System's outer reaches. It is being hailed as "a great discovery".

Details of the object are still sketchy. It never comes closer to the Sun than Neptune and spends most of its time much further out than Pluto.

It is one of the largest objects ever found in the outer Solar System and is almost certainly made of ice and rock.

It is at least 1,500km (930 miles) across and may be larger than Pluto, which is 2,274km (1,400 miles) across.

The uncertainty in estimates of its size is due to errors in its reflectivity.

It might be a large, dim object, or a smaller, brighter object. Whatever it is, astronomers consider it a major discovery.

In 2004 scientists discovered Sedna, a remote world that is 1,700 km across.

Frantic checking

Two groups of scientists will be claiming the latest discovery.

It was picked up by astronomers of the Institute of Astrophysics in Andalusia as part of a survey of the outer solar system for new objects that they have been carrying out since 2002.

"We found a bright, slow moving object while checking some older images of our survey for Trans-Neptunian Objects," Jose-Luis Ortiz, one of the objects co-discoverers, told the BBC News website.

It was subsequently designated 2003 EL61.

However, American astronomers also appear to have detected it.

The same team that found Sedna have designated it K40506A after it was picked up by the Gemini telescope and one of the twin Keck telescopes in Hawaii.

They are due to present their findings at a conference in Cambridge in September.

Because the object is relatively bright, astronomers are frantically checking other observations that may have picked it up, particularly robotic sky surveys.