One month ago, we
began our first ever Signs of the Times
fundraiser. The final results are shown above.
We are extremely thankful for the generous support we
received from our readers. While we did not reach our
goal, your support will certainly help us to continue
to produce and improve the Signs page.
For
the first time, the Signs Team's most popular and discerning
essays have been compiled into book form and thematically
organized.
These books contain hard hitting exposés into
human nature, propaganda, psyop activities and insights
into the world events that shape our future and our
understanding of the world.
The six new books, available now at our bookstore,
are entitled:
WHEN he is not biking up hills
or slashing overgrown brush, US President George W.
Bush has 1,500 pages of reading material to fill his
free time this month.
The White House said Mr Bush took three heavy books
with him on his five-week stay at his ranch in Crawford,
Texas.
One is The Great Influenza:
The Epic Story Of The Deadliest Plague In History.
It tells the story of the virus that killed more than
50 million people worldwide in 1918 and argues that
the US government ignored the crisis and created conditions
that allowed it to thrive.
Another is Salt: A World History which tells
the history of salt and how this rock shaped the world.
The third is Alexander II:
The Last Great Tsar. This book by celebrated
Russian playwright Edvard Radzinsky does not go on sale
until October.
Apparently, a perk of the presidency is getting advance
copies of anticipated biographies.
Comment: Given
the recent flu outbreaks (see below) along with the
talk of a possible worldwide flu outbreak, Bush's first
choice in vacation reading material is rather curious...
A deadly strain of influenza B
has claimed three young lives in the past six weeks
and is now an epidemic among children in the North Island.
The Health Ministry appealed for vigilance yesterday
after revealing that the flu outbreak, which has struck
thousands of children and swept through schools around
the country, had killed a third victim.
All three young people died after developing complications
from the Hong Kong B strain of the virus. [...]
Elective surgery
has been postponed as Hawke's Bay Hospital reels from
the impact of the flu bug and other viruses which have
hit staff and patients and filled its beds.
The hospital is "full to
capacity", Hawke's Bay District Health Board's
chief operating officer Ray Lind said.
It was the second time in as many months that the hospital
has been hit hard by people suffering from seasonal
illnesses.
Mr Lind urged people to take steps to look after themselves.
"If you or your children are sick, take time off
to recover before going back to work or sending your
children back to school," Mr Lind said.
"It's vitally important to seek medical attention
early, from your GP or medical centre. In many cases
a trip to the doctor for expert advice and treatment
can stop people getting so sick that they have to be
admitted to hospital," he said.
Mr Lind also made a plea to the local community to
rally round and support elderly family and neighbours.
[...]
New Zealand - This year's flu vaccine
did not not offer protection against a virulent strain
which has infected thousands.
Three young people have died from complications after
contracting the Hong Kong strain of influenza B.
Ministry of Health Chief Advisor
Pat Tuohy says the World Health Organisation did not
issue a warning about this particular strain,
so it was not included in this year's vaccination. He
says the current outbreak is significant, with thousands
of children affected.
The outbreak comes as a new campaign is launched, to
reduce the spread of viruses amongst children.
Virologist Dr Lance Jennings says children are particularly
susceptible to viruses and on average, have one respiratory
infection every two months. He says germs spread through
schools like wildfire.
Dr Jennings suggests the use of anti-viral tissues
which kill bugs as soon as they hit the tissue. [...]
Classrooms commercially cleaned over weekend and St Marks
Church School reopens after unidentified virus caused
illness
NZCity 30
May 2005
St Marks Church School in Wellington
reopens this morning after more than a quarter of its
pupils were off sick last week, due to an unidentified
virus.
It is one of
several schools in the region to struck by the illness,
which has not yet been identified.
The school's classrooms were commercially cleaned over
the weekend to help stop the bug spreading.
Schools across Auckland are
also battling a winter virus outbreak and hundreds of
students have been stricken. [...]
Comment: It
looks like New Zealand is a sort of "petrie dish"
and has been "breeding" stuff for awhile...
From the September 24, 2001 Cassiopaean Transcripts:
Q: (L) Are there going to be any other kinds of violence,
such as bombs or airplanes being flown into buildings,
or release of anthrax, or small pox, or any other kind
of chemical or germ warfare activities. Any of those?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Which ones?
A: Fair chance of germ disbursement.
Q: (L) What kind of germ?
A: Influenza.
Q: (L) Do you mean a deadly form of flu?
A: Yes.
From the August 6, 2005 Cassiopaean Transcripts:
Q: Is there any update on the possibility of some form
of germ disbursement and is something like that imminent?
A: Expect a good round this fall
Q: Is this germ warfare going to be strictly in the
US?
A: It's already starting.
Q: Is it going to be worldwide?
A: Spottily.
Q: Are we talking about a deadly form of flu?
A: It will be eventually.
The first bar-headed
geese have already arrived at their wintering grounds
near the Cauvery River in the southern Indian state of
Karnataka. Over the next 10 weeks, 100,000 more geese,
gulls and cormorants will leave their summer home at Lake
Qinghai in western China, headed for India, Bangladesh,
Myanmar, and, eventually, Australia.
An unknown number of these beautiful
migrating birds will carry H5N1, the avian flu sub-type
that has killed 61 people in Southeast Asia and which
the World Health Organization (WHO) fears is on the verge
of mutating into a pandemic form like that which killed
50 to 100 million people in the fall of 1918.
As the birds arrive in the wetlands of South Asia, they
will excrete the virus into the water, where it risks
spreading to migrating waterfowl from Europe, as well
as to domestic poultry. In the worst-case scenario, this
will bring avian flu to the doorstep of the dense slums
of Dhaka, Kolkata, Karachi and Mumbai.
The avian flu outbreak at Lake Qinghai was first identified
by Chinese wildlife officials at the end of April. Initially
it was confined to a small islet in the huge salt lake,
where geese suddenly began to act spasmodically, then
to collapse and die. By mid-May it had spread through
the lake's entire avian population, killing thousands
of birds. An ornithologist called
it "the biggest and most extensively mortal avian
influenza event ever seen in wild birds".
Chinese scientists, meanwhile, were horrified
by the virulence of the new strain: when mice were infected
they died even quicker than when injected with "genotype
Z", the fearsome H5N1 variant currently killing farmers
and their children in Vietnam.
Yi Guan, leader of a famed team of avian flu researchers
who have been fighting the pandemic menace since 1997,
complained to the British Guardian newspaper in July about
the lackadaisical response of Chinese authorities to the
unprecedented biological conflagration at Lake Qinghai.
"They have taken almost no
action to control this outbreak. They should have asked
for international support. These birds will go to India
and Bangladesh and there they will meet birds that come
from Europe." Yi Guan called for the creation
of an international task force to monitor the wild bird
pandemic, as well as the relaxation of rules that prevent
the free movement of foreign scientists to outbreak zones
in China.
In a paper published in the British
science magazine Nature, Yi Guan and his associates also
revealed that the Lake Qinghai strain was related to officially
unreported recent outbreaks of H5N1 among birds in southern
China. This would not be the first time that Chinese
authorities have been charged with covering up an outbreak.
They also lied about the nature and extent of the 2003
SARS epidemic, which originated in Guangdong but quickly
spread to 25 other countries. As in the case of SARS'
whistleblowers, the Chinese bureaucracy is now trying
to gag avian-flu scientists, shutting down one of Yi Guan's
laboratories at Shantou University and arming the conservative
Agriculture Ministry with new powers over research.
Meanwhile, as anxious Indian scientists
monitor bird sanctuaries throughout the sub-continent,
H5N1 has spread to the outskirts of Lhasa, the capital
of Tibet; to western Mongolia; and, most disturbingly,
to chickens and wildfowl near the Siberian capital of
Novosibirsk.
Despite frantic efforts to cull local poultry, Russian
Health Ministry experts have expressed pessimism that
the outbreak can be contained on the Asian side of the
Urals. Siberian wildfowl migrate
every fall to the Black Sea and southern Europe; another
flyway leads from Siberia to Alaska and Canada.
In anticipation of this next, and perhaps inevitable,
stage in the world journey of avian flu, poultry populations
are being tracked in Moscow; Alaskan scientists are studying
birds migrating across the Bering Straits, and even the
Swiss are looking over their shoulders at the tufted ducks
and pochards arriving from Eurasia.
H5N1's human epicenter is also expanding:
in mid-July Indonesian authorities confirmed that a father
and his two young daughters had died of avian flu in a
wealthy suburb of Jakarta. Disturbingly, the family had
no known contact with poultry and near panic ensued in
the neighborhood as the media speculated about possible
human-to-human transmission.
At the same time, five new outbreaks among poultry were
reported in Thailand, dealing a terrible blow to the nation's
extensive and highly publicized campaign to eradicate
the disease. Meanwhile, as Vietnamese officials renewed
their appeal for more international aid, H5N1 was claiming
new victims in the country that remains of chief concern
to the WHO.
The bottom line is that avian influenza
is endemic and probably ineradicable among poultry in
Southeast Asia, and now seems to be spreading at pandemic
velocity among migratory birds, with the potential to
reach most of the earth in the next year.
Each new outpost of H5N1 - whether among
ducks in Siberia, pigs in Indonesia or humans in Vietnam
- is a further opportunity for the rapidly evolving virus
to acquire the gene or even simply the protein mutation
that it needs to become a mass-killer of humans.
This exponential multiplication of hot spots and silent
reservoirs (as among infected but asymptomatic ducks)
is why the chorus of warnings from scientists, public-health
officials, and finally, governments has become so plangently
insistent in recent months.
The new US Health and Human Services
Secretary Mike Leavitt told the Associated Press in early
August that an influenza pandemic was now an "absolute
certainty", echoing repeated warnings from the WHO
that it was "inevitable". Likewise, Science
magazine observed that expert opinion held the odds of
a global outbreak as "100%".
In the same grim spirit, the British media revealed that
officials were scouring the country for suitable sites
for mass mortuaries, based on official fears that avian
flu could kill as many as 700,000 Britons. The Blair government
is already conducting emergency simulations of a pandemic
outbreak ("Operation Arctic Sea") and is reported
to have readied "Cobra" - a cabinet-level working
group that coordinates government responses to national
emergencies, like the recent London bombings, from a secret
war room in Whitehall - to deal with an avian flu crisis.
Little of this Churchillian resolve is apparent in Washington.
Although a sense of extreme urgency is evident in the
National Institutes of Health, where the czar for pandemic
planning, Dr Anthony Fauci, warns of "the mother
of all emerging infections", the White House has
seemed even less perturbed by migrating plagues than by
wanton carnage in Iraq.
Prevention and cure
As the president was packing for his long holiday in
Texas, the Trust for America's Health was warning that
domestic preparations for a pandemic lagged far behind
the energetic measures being undertaken in Britain and
Canada, and that the administration had failed "to
establish a cohesive, rapid and transparent US pandemic
strategy".
That increasingly independent operator,
Senate majority leader Bill Frist, had already criticized
the administration in an extraordinary (and under-reported)
speech at Harvard at the beginning of June. Referring
to Washington's failure to stockpile an adequate supply
of the crucial antiviral oseltamivir (or Tamiflu), Frist
sarcastically noted that "to acquire more anti-viral
agent, we would need to get in line behind Britain and
France and Canada and others who have tens of millions
of doses on order".
The New York Times on its July 17 editorial
page, a May 26 special issue of Nature and the July/August
issue of Foreign Affairs have also hammered away at Washington's
failure to stockpile enough scarce antivirals - current
inventories cover less than 1% of the US population -
and to modernize vaccine production. Even a few prominent
Senate Democrats have stirred into action, although none
as boldly as Frist at Harvard.
The Department of Health and Human Services, in response,
has sought to calm critics with recent hikes in spending
on vaccine research and antiviral stockpiles. There has
also been much official and media ballyhoo about the announcement
of a series of successful tests in early August of an
experimental avian flu vaccine.
But there is no guarantee that the vaccine prototype,
based on a "reverse-genetically-engineered"
strain of H5N1, will actually be effective against a pandemic
strain with different genes and proteins. Moreover, trial
success was based on the administration of two doses plus
a booster. Since the government has only ordered 2 million
doses of the vaccine from pharmaceutical giant Sanofi
Pasteur, this may provide protection for only 450,000
people. As one researcher told Science magazine, "it's
a vaccine for the happy few".
At the least, gearing up for larger-scale production
will take many months and production itself is limited
by the antiquated technology of vaccine manufacture, which
depends on a vulnerable and limited supply of fertile
chicken eggs. It would also likely mean the curtailment
of the production of the annual winter flu vaccine that
is so often a lifesaver for many senior citizens.
Likewise, Washington's new orders for antivirals, as
Frist predicted, will have to wait in line behind the
other customers of Roche's single Tamiflu plant in Switzerland.
In short, it is good news that the vaccine tests were
successful, but that does little to change the judgment
of the New York Times that "there is not enough vaccine
or antiviral medicine available to protect more than a
handful of people, and no industrial capacity to produce
a lot more of these medicines quickly".
Moreover, the majority of the world,
including all the poor countries of South Asia and Africa
where, history tells us, pandemics are likely to hit especially
hard, will have no access to expensive antivirals or scarce
vaccines. It is even doubtful whether the WHO will have
the minimal pharmaceuticals to respond to an initial outbreak.
Recent theoretical studies by mathematical epidemiologists
in Atlanta and London have raised hopes that a pandemic
might be stopped in its tracks if 1 to 3 million doses
of oseltamivir (Tamiflu) were available to douse an outbreak
in a fail-safe radius around the early cases.
After years of effort, however, the WHO has only managed
to inventory about 123,000 courses of Tamiflu. Although
Roche has promised to donate more, the desperate rush
of rich countries to accumulate Tamiflu will be certain
to undercut the WHO's stockpile.
As for a universally available "world
vaccine", it remains a pipe-dream without new, billion-dollar
commitments from the rich countries, above all the United
States, and even then, we are probably too late.
"People just don't get it," Dr Michael Osterholm,
the outspoken director of the Center for Infectious Disease
Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, recently
complained. "If we were to begin a Manhattan Project-type
response tonight to expand vaccine and drug production,
we wouldn't have a measurable impact on the availability
of these critical products to sufficiently address a worldwide
pandemic for at least several years."
"Several years" is a luxury
that Washington has already squandered. The best guess,
as the geese head west and south, is that we have almost
run out of time. As Shigeru Omi, the Western Pacific director
of WHO, told a UN meeting in Kuala Lumpur in early July:
"We're at the tipping point."
Comment:
Bird flu and plans for population reduction, do we think
there might be a link?
It is no secret that there are proponents for the need
to reduce the world's population by several billion people
in order to establish a viable, sustainable economy. From
Maurice Strong to Mike Ruppert, from the Club of Rome
to Lambda Corporation, to name but a few, the arguments
have been circulating for many years. They cite diminishing
resources, especially oil, as one of the reasons. Climate
change is offered as another, with visions of snow and
ice covered fields reducing the arable land to the point
that those not lucky enough to be living protected in
underground cities will be fighting for food.
Mike Ruppert grabbed the bull by the horns and launched
a call for the formation of a group, including such luminaries
as the Dalai Lama, that would work out humane ways of
reducing the population.
And into the breach rides, or should we say flies, the
solution: bird flu.
By ANGELA K. BROWN
Associated Press
Thu Aug 18, 7:21 PM ET
CRAWFORD, Texas - The grieving
woman who started an anti-war demonstration near President
Bush's ranch nearly two weeks ago left the camp Thursday
after learning her mother had had a stroke, but she
told supporters the protest would go on.
Cindy Sheehan told reporters she had just received
the phone call and was leaving immediately to be with
her 74-year-old mother at a Los Angeles hospital.
"I'll be back as soon as possible if it's possible,"
she said. After hugging some of her supporters, Sheehan
and her sister, Deedee Miller, got in a van and left
for the Waco airport about 20 miles away.
Sheehan, whose 24-year-old son Casey died in Iraq,
said the makeshift campsite off the road leading to
Bush's ranch would continue.
The camp has grown to more than 100 people, including
many relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq. After Sheehan
left, dozens of the demonstrators gathered under a canopy
to pray for her mother.
Sheehan, of Vacaville, Calif., had vowed to remain
at the camp until Bush met with her or until his monthlong
vacation ended.
Her protest inspired candlelight vigils across the
country Wednesday night, and she has drawn sympathy
for the loss of her son, which says tore apart her marriage
as well.
Bush has also said he sympathizes with Sheehan. White
House spokeswoman Dana Perino said earlier Thursday
that the president said Sheehan had a right to protest
but that he did not plan to change his schedule and
meet with her. Bush is scheduled to return to Washington
on Sept. 3.
Two top Bush administration officials talked to Sheehan
the day she started her camp, and she and other families
met with Bush shortly after her son's death and before
she became a vocal opponent of the war.
Michelle Mulkey, a spokeswoman
for Sheehan, said Sheehan hoped to be back in Texas
within 24 to 48 hours. Mulkey said Sheehan's
mother, Shirley Miller, was in a hospital emergency
room and Sheehan didn't yet know how serious her condition
was.
Sheehan and the other demonstrators have camped in
ditches along the road to Bush's ranch since Aug. 6.
After complaints from some neighbors, they planned to
start moving the camp site Thursday and Friday to a
private one-acre lot owned by Fred Mattlage, who opposes
the war and offered his property to give them more room
and safety.
FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley and
Sen. Becky Lourey, a Minnesota lawmaker whose son died
in Iraq, were expected to join the demonstrators later
Thursday.
Even after my repeated attempts
to keep the focus of my protest on the war, the Drudge
Report and others continue to try to make the issue
about me. But I am not the issue. The issue is a disastrous
war that's killing our sons and daughters and making
our country less secure. They attack me because they
can no longer defend this war.
I've come to Crawford to bring to the president's doorstep
the harsh realities of a war he's been trying so hard
to avoid. But no matter what they say or how many shotguns
they fire or how many crosses they destroy, they're
not going to stop me from speaking out about a war that
needlessly killed my son.
PARIS - A handful of US expatriates
living in France held a small protest Wednesday under
the Eiffel Tower, their way of participating in a night
of vigils against the Iraq war taking place later the
same night across the United States.
The 16 people at the Paris gathering said they and
the US-based demonstrators were showing support for
Cindy Sheehan, the US woman who has been camped outside
US President George W Bush's Texas ranch in protest
against the US-led occupation of Iraq. Sheehan's son,
a soldier, was killed in Iraq last year.
"We're also thanking the French government for
not having joined the Iraq war," said one of the
expatriate protesters, who identified herself only by
her first name, Karen.
A fellow protester, who said his first name was Arnie,
added: "I think these kind of things isolate the
(Bush) administration."
The group sat quietly on the steps of a monument to
peace located at the far end of a park from the Eiffel
Tower, which loomed over the expatriates and hundreds
of picnicking French people and tourists.
Anti-war movements supporting Sheehan organised hundreds
of similar candle-lit vigils Wednesday across the United
States.
They hope the media attention surrounding Sheehan's
one-woman campaign will fuel the increasing disapproval
of the war registered in US public opinion surveys and
force Bush to bring home the 138,000 troops he has deployed
in Iraq.
More than 1,850 US soldiers have died in Iraq since
Bush ordered the March 2003 invasion of the country
to rid it of a supposed arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.
Damascus, Syria - MP George Galloway
said in a lecture at the Assad Library in Damascus last
week: "I came to declare that I am a friend to
Arabs, at a time when it is not easy to be friend to
Arabs, because nowadays those who have ambitions and
interests would not befriend Arabs."
It is very true, as befriending Arabs and Muslims would
brand one as a "suspect" associate of a group
of people who prefer death to life due to incomprehensible
reasons. In spite of the industrious effort of think
tanks and research centers, this incomprehensibility
has reached an alarming edge demanding a prudent solution.
One of the repercussions has been
depriving Muslims and Arabs, wherever they were, of
their civil and human rights, passing discriminating
laws against them, and entrapping them in peculiar interrogations:
"Do you feel more European or more Muslim? More
British or more Muslim? Which feeling overwhelms the
other the most?"
Hate-crimes have prevailed against the colored "suspects"
in Western countries, giving new life to the racism
and xenophobia the world has been fighting in Europe,
the United States and South Africa over the last century.
Today, it is a neo-racism against Arabs and Muslims.
Only last week, Anthony Walker was killed in Liverpool
for his brown skin, and four Arabs on a bus near the
city of Shafa Amro in occupied Palestine were killed
in a vivid translation of the Israeli Prime Minister's
mother's advice "Don't trust Arabs." No condemnation
resonated anywhere in the civilized West.
Some Universities in the West have
also started eliminating Muslim applicants, especially
seekers of sciences, in fear they might use their education
to produce bombs and feed terrorism.
The seventy's academic triumph in celebrating scholarly
achievement regardless of race, color, religion or nationality
has come to an end. As for travel, it has become a tormenting
and humiliating hustle for the black haired, dark eyed
or brown colored. It has become indeed, as PM Galloway
put it "not easy to be friend to Arabs," to
Muslims or truth.
Arabs and Muslims are required
everywhere to abide by international rules and regulations;
however they don't seem to enjoy any right under those
very same rules and regulations.While
newspapers casually refer to the heavy water supply
to Israel's nuclear weapons production, they threaten
and caution against any Muslim development of nuclear
programs.
So, as long as the target was
Arabs and Muslims, any nuclear threat is safe to maintain.
The world cannot permit those who do not share the same
level of "rationality and responsibility"
to possess nuclear weapons. This is the driving logic
behind legitimizing racism and discrimination against
Arabs and Muslims, and the very same logic that will
eventually undermine the value system of "freedom"
and "democracy."
Turning a blind eye on the oppression and occupation
feeding Arab and Muslim frustration with the West is
not the road to safety, neither are the racist crimes
and statements used by western leaders to gather votes
for an election or support for a policy.
The worst calamity of all is that the terrorists, who
claim avenging Islam, are themselves the most lethal
weapon in the hands of those who profit from locking
Arabs and Muslims up behind the bars of suspicion and
depriving them of their lands and resources.
The world should re-examine the core of such ideological
policies of hate and pay more heed to the prudent, moderate
truth-seekers like MP George Galloway, the late Robin
Cook, Ken Livingston, Noam Chomsky, Henry Sigeman, Avi
Shliem and their like, in stead of bypassing them as
suspicious pro-Arab and pro-Muslim advocates.
Humanity has paid a high price
fighting racism and discrimination over centuries; how
could we loose the battle today to similar ideologies
covered up in the cloaks of "freedom" and
"democracy?" Whether President Bush's
advisors concur to call it "international struggle
against violent extremism" or "war on terrorism,"
prudence demands they listen first to the words of General
Wallace Grigson of the American Marines base in the
Pacific: "winning hearts and minds is more important
than arresting and killing people."
The great majority of Muslims
and Arabs today feel they are victims to the American
war on terrorism; this majority will inevitably be decisive
in how the war ends. This is a risk factor alarming
enough for the United States to reconsider not names
and titles, but more importantly policies and ideologies.
By RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI
Associated Press Writer
Aug 18 8:06 PM US/Eastern
(KFAR DAROM, Gaza Strip) -- Riot
troops stormed synagogues in two hardline Jewish settlements
Thursday to evict hundreds of militant holdouts who
locked arms in a human chain and pelted soldiers with
acid, oil and sand, the most violent clashes in Israel's
historic Gaza pullout.
By the close of the day, 14,000 unarmed forces had
cleared all but four of Gaza's 21 settlements - including
Kfar Darom and Neve Dekalim, pillars of resistance to
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to cede Gaza to the
Palestinians and alter the course of Mideast peacemaking.
Dozens of protesters at Kfar Darom sequestered themselves
behind razor-wire on the synagogue roof, at first singing
and waving flags, then attacking soldiers below with
their arsenal of caustic liquids and objects, including
paint-filled lightbulbs. Police and soldiers stripped
off their clothes after being doused. Comrades poured
water on their heads and torsos to wash them.
Breaking the siege, army cranes lowered metal cages
filled with helmeted troops onto the roof, as cannon
sprayed protesters with blasts of blue-tinted water.
Other troops carrying wire cutters climbed ladders that
became slick with oil.
At Neve Dekalim, troops wrestled for hours against
some 1,500 extremists making their last stand inside
Gaza's largest synagogue. Protesters lay on the floor
with their arms linked, kicking against the Israeli
forces while supporters held their shoulders in a tug-of-war.
After breaking the human chain, troops dragged protesters
out of the synagogue one by one, holding them by their
arms and legs as they twisted and squirmed. Other protesters
chanted "blasphemy, blasphemy." One religious
soldier, who wore a skullcap, suffered a panic attack
and was taken away by medics.
Outside, teenage girls confronted
a wall of troops surrounding the building, waving their
fists and screaming, "You're driving Jews out of
a synagogue. The last time this happened was the Holocaust.
... You're Jews, you have a Jewish heart, you don't
have to do this."
For years, 8,500 Israelis lived among Gaza's 1.3 million
Palestinians in perpetual tension and frequently lethal
violence. The standoff at the synagogues was a symbolic
climax to the withdrawal operation that started early
Wednesday, since many of the settlers are Orthodox Jews
who believe Gaza is the biblical birthright of the Jewish
people.
Palestinians watched the drama in satisfaction from
the rooftops of their nearby homes. "I'm standing
here without any fear that Israelis will shoot at me
because their battle today is against themselves,"
said Mohammed Bashir, a farmer in the town of Deir al-Balah,
near Kfar Darom.
Thursday's evictions leave several hundred people still
in Gaza. Evictions of the remaining four settlements,
which will be suspended before Friday evening for the
Jewish Sabbath, could be completed by next week, officials
said - far earlier than planned.
President Bush was receiving regular
updates on the withdrawal, White House spokeswoman,
Dana Perino, told reporters in Crawford, Texas.
"We understand the deep sentiments that are felt
and the difficulty one feels when leaving their home,"
she said. "We agree that the disengagement will
only make Israel stronger. We agree with Prime Minister
Sharon on that. And the president has also said that
this will bring our two countries closer together."
At least 41 police and soldiers and 17 civilians were
injured during Thursday's raids on six settlements,
including Neve Dekalim and Kfar Darom, police said.
In Kfar Darom, about 50 people were arrested.
"What we saw here crossed all boundaries,"
said Maj. Gen. Dan Harel. "Everybody
who was now on the roof will be arrested and put in
prison." He said several troops were wounded
by acid.
The daylong rooftop standoff
recalled images from 1982 when Israeli troops evacuated
Yamit, an Israeli town build on the coast of the Sinai
Peninsula that was being returned to Egypt under a peace
treaty between the two countries.That
was the first time Israelis saw their army fighting
their own civilians, and the army was equipped only
with ladders to storm the roof - a lesson learned this
time. [...]
Some Israelis were offended that the extremists chose
houses of worship as their last redoubt. But experts
on Judaism say it's not necessarily taboo for a synagogue
to be used as a place of refuge.
In another standoff, at the beachfront settlement of
Kfar Yam, settler Aryeh Yitzhaki clambered onto his
roof at with an M-16 rifle slung over his shoulder.
Three other extremists accompanied him.
"No one can ask me to hand over my weapon,"
he told Israel's Channel Two TV, speaking by mobile
phone. "I have said very clearly that I will do
everything to stop the uprooting, to stop it with my
body."
He held off police for hours before negotiators persuaded
him and the others to surrender and get on an evacuation
bus.
Most of the extremists battling
the troops Thursday came from Israel or the West Bank
to reinforce the resistance.Faced
with the threat of a loss of government compensation
for their houses, the majority of settlers left Gaza
before a deadline Sunday or during the two following
days of grace before the forced evictions began.
Residents of Netzer Hazani set fire to homes, garbage
and tires as columns of soldiers entered the settlement.
In Shirat Hayam, a small but hardline settlement, troops
brought in a hydraulic platform to bring down more than
a dozen protesters singing and chanting on a rooftop.
In a nursery school, one young girl screamed, "You
can't throw us out of our house."
The army sent in a bulldozer to douse flames raging
from a barricade at the entrance. When the bulldozer
arrived, settlers threw balloons with red and white
paint at it.
One man collapsed in the sand in tears after soldiers
came to evacuate him. "This is the land of Israel,
people, this is the land of Israel," he shouted.
"I just want to stay here."
Friday August 19, 2005 1:01
PM
By DAVID McHUGH
Associated Press Writer
COLOGNE, Germany (AP)
- Pope Benedict XVI warned Friday of rising anti-Semitism
and hostility to foreigners during a visit to a synagogue
that was rebuilt after being destroyed during the Nazis'
infamous Kristallnacht pogrom in 1938.
Benedict became only the second pope to visit a synagogue,
praying and remembering Holocaust victims with Cologne's
Jewish community - Germany's oldest.
``Today, sadly, we are witnessing the rise of new signs
of anti-Semitism and various forms of a general hostility
toward foreigners,'' he said.
He reaffirmed his commitment to continue in the path
of his predecessor, John Paul II, who made the first papal
visit to a synagogue in Rome in 1986 and improved relations
between Catholics and Jews.
Benedict said progress had been made, but ``much more
remains to be done. We must come to know one another much
more and much better.''
He did not elaborate on his warning except to call for
more vigilance, receiving loud applause from the audience
after his remarks.
Earlier, Benedict stood quietly with his hands clasped
during a Hebrew prayer before a memorial to the 6 million
Jews killed by Nazi Germany, and strode into the main
hall as the choir sang, ``Shalom alechem,'' or ``peace
be with you.''
Comment:
While the Arabs are being portrayed in the West as blood-thirsty,
sub-human killers, certainly a racist portrayal, the Western
media is still selling the idea that "anti-Semitism"
is the real danger. While most of the so-called "terrorist"
attacks around the world are the work of Mossad, we are
being told over and over again that it is the Arabs who
are the terrorists.
The past week, the media has been full of close-ups of
grieving Israeli settlers mourning the loss of their government-built
illegal homes. The coverage is almost exclusively from
the point of view of the settlers, even though they have
stolen the land their houses were built upon, even though
the settlements are illegal under international law, even
though their Palestinian neighbours live in shacks that
can be bulldozed at a moment's notice by the IDF, even
though they are being well-paid to "give up"
the houses, even though they will be resettled in new
illegal homes on the West Bank, and even though the whole
thing is being orchestrated to portray Ariel Sharon as
a man of peace.
Which has to make you wonder why the Israelis are always
being favoured in the press and why the Israelis are always
being supported by the US.
The
New Pravda has fingered
one of the unnamed U.S. government officials implicated
in the AIPAC spy scandal -- while bending over backwards
to make it clear the whole thing is really just a great
big fuss about nothing. I mean, we're talking about Israel,
for Christ's sake, not some foreign country.
The second-highest diplomat at the United States
Embassy in Baghdad is one of the anonymous government
officials cited in an Aug. 4 indictment as having provided
classified information to an employee of a pro-Israel
lobbying group, people who have been officially briefed
on the case said Wednesday.
The diplomat, David M. Satterfield, was identified
in the indictment as a United States government official,
"USGO-2," the people briefed on the matter said. In
early 2002, USGO-2 discussed secret national security
matters in two meetings with Steven J. Rosen, who has
since been dismissed as a top lobbyist for the American
Israel Public Affairs Committee, known as Aipac, who
has been charged in the case.
Now if you read the indictment
filed against Rosen, his AIPAC colleague Keith Weissman,
and Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin, you'll see that "USGO-2"
is just one of a rather large cast of uncredited actors
who appear in this movie. Others include:
"USGO-1," which the Jewish Telegraphic Agency has
suggested
is someone "recently appointed to a senior Bush administration
post."
DoD employees "A and B," who accompanied Franklin
on some of his clandestine meetings with AIPAC's dynamic
duo.
"A senior fellow at a Washington D.C. think tank."
FO (foreign officials) 1, 2 and 3 -- all alleged diplomats
at the Israeli embassy in Washington. FO-3 has been
positively identified as Naor Gilon, former head of
the embassy's political department, and a guy who, for
a political officer, took an awfully keen interest in
intelligence matters.
"A person previously associated with an Israeli intelligence
agency, now running a think tank in Israel." This individual
has also been identified
as ex-Mossad official Uzi Arad.
Like Satterfield, none of the American members of this
supporting cast have been indicted, or disciplined, or
even hindered in their career progress -- as Satterfield's
posting to Baghdad indicates. Neither have any of Rosen
and Weissman's fellow AIPACers, even though the indictment
claims that classified information obtained from both
Satterfield and Franklin was distributed to others within
the organization -- continuing a pattern that stretches
back to at least the early 1980s, according to this
report and this
one in the New York Jewish Week.
On the face of it, it's hard to grasp the legal logic
for giving USG-01, USG-02 and DoD employees A and B a
pass from prosecution (I kept waiting for the indictment
to mention Little Cats C, D and E, but apparently the
U.S. Attorney's Office doesn't read Dr. Seuss.) In Satterfield's
case, for example, the indictment clearly states he leaked
classified information -- including secret stuff about
Al Qaeda -- to Rosen, who then passed it along to the
Israelis. This is cited as one of the overt acts backing
up the conspiracy charge against the AIPAC lobbyist.
But if Rosen committed a crime by promptly passing that
information along to the Israelis, what about Satterfield,
the guy who gave it to him? Or what about USGO-1? According
to the indictment, Rosen was overheard in 1999 boasting
that USGO-1 had given him "code-word protected intelligence."
Such codes are normally used to protect what the spooks
call SCI -- or "sensitive compartmentalized information"
-- the highest possible level of classification.
According to the indictment, this particular SCI consisted
of "national defense information concerning terrorist
activities in Central Asia," which I'm guessing was code
worded to prevent the disclosure of intelligence sources
and methods (the most common use of the SCI designation).
That ain't chicken feed -- nor is it the kind of harmless
"policy-related" leaking that AIPAC and its media apologists
have tried to portray in their spin on the scandal.
There are still other leakers who are not specifically
listed in the cast, but whose existence can be deduced
from the indictment. In June of 1999, for example, Weissman
(Rosen's sidekick) told an Israeli official he had obtained
a "secret FBI, classified FBI report" on the Khobar Towers
bombing from three different sources, including
at least two U.S. government officials. Who are these
people? Does the FBI know? If not, does the Justice Department
have any particular interest in finding out?
If it does, you sure can't tell from the statements and
actions of Jay McNulty, the U.S. Attorney handling the
case. As the New Pravda notes, USGO-2 (Satterfield)
is "not believed to be the subject of a continuing investigation,"
and McNulty ruled
out any further delving into AIPAC's activities when
he announced the indictments against Franklin, Rosen and
Weissman:
“We have no basis for charging anyone else for
unlawful disclosure of classified information,” he said.
“And I might add also that AIPAC as an organization has
expressed its concern on several occasions with the allegations
against Rosen and Weissman, and, in fact, after we brought
some of the evidence that we had to AIPAC’s attention,
it did the right thing by dismissing these two individuals.”
Yeah, sure. They were fired all right -- eight months
after news of the investigation first broke, and long
after it became clear the FBI had been tailing Rosen and
his Israeli contacts (or should I say handlers?) for years.
Of course, this hasn't stopped the usual fools and tools,
like neocon fanatic Joel Malbray, from dismissing
the whole scandal as a figment cooked up by the liberal
media and (you had to expect this part) those sneaky pro-Arab
diplomats in the State Department:
Now that the election is history—as are the
secretary and deputy secretary of state who allowed such
anonymous character assassinations—the smearing has stopped.
No stories have run since September . . . Here’s what
loyal readers of the Post won’t know: Mr. Franklin is
back working for the Department of Defense. And he still
has not been arrested, let alone charged. His security
clearances remain pulled, but it would seem significant
that after using up a combination of vacation and leave—though
he was never suspended—he’s back at work.
That was a rather spectacular bit of bad timing on Mowbray's
part, since Franklin was arrested and charged about
three weeks after his column ran. But Mowbray's hardly
the only media stooge trying to deny the obvious.
With few exceptions (I'll get to them later) the corporate
media -- and the New York Times in particular --
have also rigidly toed the party line, with increasingly
absurd results. Today's Times story, for example,
professes to be "puzzled" by the FBI's focus on such a
well-established (if informal) exemption from the rules
normally applied to the handling of classified information:
The investigation is one of the more puzzling
national security cases in recent years, focusing on the
interactions between foreign affairs lobbyists and officials
of the United States and other governments, who over the
years, have routinely traded gossip and sometimes classified
information. Under the Justice Department's theories of
the case, it is no longer clear whether such conversations
are legally permissible.
It would be interesting to hear the Times describe
some of the other "interactions" between U.S. officials
and lobbyists that somehow or another have resulted in
highly sensitive compartmentalized information being passed
to a foreign government that is:
a.) not a NATO ally,
b.) not bound by any formal defense treaty with
the United States, and
c.) has been known to trade
sensitive intelligence materials (like the satellite recon
photos it received from Jonathan Pollard) with hostile
foreign governments.
I won't hold my breath.
It's also amusing to note that the two U.S. officials
quoted to back the Times's assertion that passing
secret materials to Israel is an old and accepted custom
inside the Beltway are former ambassador to Israel Martin
Indyk, an ex-AIPAC
staffer, and Dennis Ross, former lead U.S. negotiator
in the Israeli-Palestinian "peace process" and the director
of a pro-Israel Washington think tank created by
AIPAC.
Nobody here but us chickens.
But there's nothing new about making excuses for Israel's
espionage activities in the United States, and nothing
partisan about aiding and abetting it. Republican and
Democratic administrations alike have been doing it for
years, as Stephen Green, a former UN official and a diligent
user of the Freedom of Information Act, makes clear in
this
article, which covers the unauthorized leaks -- and
subsequent cover ups -- of many of the usual suspects
(Perle, Feith, Wolfowitz, Ledeen, etc.) as well as some
players most people have never heard of, like Stephen
Bryen, ex-Senate Foreign Affairs Committee staffer, ex-deputy
assistant secretary of Defense, and current member of
the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission,
which is charged with monitoring the flow of advanced
technology to the People's Republic.
Bryen had been overheard in the Madison Hotel
Coffee Shop, offering classified documents to an official
of the Israeli Embassy in the presence of the director
of AIPAC, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee.
It was later determined that the Embassy official was
Zvi Rafiah, the Mossad station chief in Washington. Bryen
refused to be polygraphed by the FBI on the purpose and
details of the meeting; whereas the person who'd witnessed
it agreed to be polygraphed and passed the test.
Update: 8/19 12:30 am ET: A well-informed source
tells me that Rafiah was not, in fact, the Mossad station
chief in Washington, but rather the head of Israel's
defense procurement mission. Which, in light of Bryen's
later career, is even more interesting.
A few years later, in his role as director of the Pentagon's
Defense Technology Security Administration, Bryen was
involved in an attempt to transfer extremely sensitive
ballistic missile technology to Israel -- "without the
usual consultations with the tech transfer officials of
the Army and Air Force."
Other Pentagon officials (including one of Mowbray's
"character assassins," then-DoD assistant secretary Dick
Armitage) intervened and the deal was cancelled. But,
according to Green:
Two senior colleague in DOD who wish to remain
anonymous have confirmed that this attempt by Bryen to
obtain klystrons for his friends was not unusual, and
was in fact "standard operating procedure" for him, recalling
numerous instances when U.S. companies were denied licenses
to export sensitive technology, only to learn later that
Israeli companies subsequently exported similar (U.S.
derived) weapons and technology to the intended customers/governments.
I could go on to explore the potential links between
Bryen's current job on the China Commission and the long-running
dispute over Israeli sales of military technology
to Beijing. But I'm not trying to write a comprehensive
history of the "special relationship" here -- just making
the point that conduct that would be considered criminal,
or even borderline treasonous, in any other context, has
been a routine feature of U.S.-Israeli diplomacy for going
on 25 years now, if not longer. To the point where you
really have to wonder why the FBI got such a bug up its
ass about Larry Franklin and his lunch buddies.
I mean, Ross and Weissman must have been flabbergasted
when they were finally confronted by the gumshoes. It
seems to have taken them a few days even to process the
fact that they were in big trouble -- otherwise it's hard
to believe they would have continuedleaking
the stuff Franklin gave them even after they were
contacted by the FBI:
52. One or about August 9, 2004, WEISSMAN was
interviewed by FBI agents and falsely told the agents
Franklin had never discussed classified information with
him and had never provided him with classified information.
53. On or about August 20, 2004, WEISSMAN contacted
another member of the media and disclosed to that person
classified national defense information obtained on
July 21, 2004 from Franklin. WEISSMAN further advised
that he was trying to arrange a meeting (!) between
Franklin and the member of the media.
I'm not trying to make excuses for espionage here, but
when you put the Franklin-Rosen-Weissman spy ring in the
context of the overall U.S.-Israel relationship, you do
start to see the point their apologists are trying to
make.
Israel, for all intents and purposes, is no longer treated
like a foreign country in Washington, but more like Puerto
Rico -- an affiliated territory that enjoys most of the
benefits of U.S. statehood, without actually being one.
Except unlike Puerto Rico, Israel has nukes, and
the upper hand in the relationship. To the point where
when Franklin wanted a job at the White House, he knew
who to ask:
19. On or about February 14, 2003, FRANKLIN
and ROSEN discussed FRANKLIN's prospects for a position
on the National Security Council (NSC) staff, and ROSEN
told FRANKLIN that by working at the NSC that he would
be "by the elbow of the president." FRANKLIN asked ROSEN
to "put in a good word" for him, and ROSEN said "I'll
do what I can."
It isn't clear from that paragraph whether Franklin was
asking Rosen to put in a good word at the White House
-- or the Israeli embassy. Nor is it clear that it would
have made much of a difference.
This is all quite embarrassing for those who like to
argue that there's nothing peculiar, nothing at all, about
the behavior of the Israel lobby and its affiliates in
the U.S. government -- and that anyone who thinks otherwise
is a raving anti-Semite. (Or rather, it would be
embarrassing, if the Washington press corps was devoting
more than perfunctory coverage to the story.) But the
minnows now wriggling in the net hardly seem to justify
the effort and expense that clearly were poured into the
FBI's big fishing expedition.
Did the guys in the shiny blue suits really spend six
years (maybe more) following Israeli diplomats around
Washington and New York in order to snag one low-level
analyst with an obsession about Iran and a couple of pro-Israel
lobbyists who never learned not to talk about their clandestine
activities on their cell phones?
One theory is that the indictment is supposed to serve
as a warning
-- or, as one, ex-prosecutor puts it, a "brush back pitch,"
to let the Israelis and their U.S. agents know that while
the relationship may be special, it's not that
special:
"If I am the prosecutor, what I really want
to prosecute is not AIPAC," says Rishikoff. "I want to
start prosecuting anyone who thinks they can give information
to AIPAC. I want to use this as a test case, to stop people
feeling the US has a special relationship with this group."
On the other hand, a few establishment journalists have
been treating the story like a legitimate spy scandal,
and they've intimated that the FBI's fishing hole may
contain much bigger trophies than the ones hauled up so
far. Last September, the Washington Post's Steno
Sue Schmidt, of all people, suggested
that secret NSA intercepts -- the crown jewels of the
American intelligence community -- might be involved:
The counterintelligence probe, which is different
from a criminal investigation, focuses on a possible transfer
of intelligence more extensive than whether Franklin passed
on a draft presidential directive on U.S. policy toward
Iran, the sources said. The FBI is examining whether highly
classified material from the National Security Agency,
which conducts electronic intercepts of communications,
was also forwarded to Israel, they said.
Hmmmm . . . access to leaked NSA
intercepts, a pro-Israel official recently appointed
to a senior position in the Bush administration -- a conspiratorially
minded person might try to connect the dots.
But there are already so many dots in plain view, clearly
connected, that it hardly seems worth the effort. Like
a grizzled old investigative reporter once told me: It's
not the stuff they try to hide that's the real scandal;
it's the stuff they think they can get away with right
out in the open. And after more than 25 years of this
particular stuff, the lines between Israeli influence
peddling and Israeli espionage have gotten awfully blurry.
The Franklin case isn't likely to make them any clearer.
It might, if USGO-1 and USGO-2 -- and the rest of the
alphanumeric cast of characters -- were required to testify
in court, or if the FBI decided to follow the trail a
little higher up the bureaucratic food chain. But those
avenues of investigation now appear to be blocked. And
the smart money is betting that, rather than risk seeing
all the beans spill out in court, the Justice Department
eventually will settle for plea bargains from Rosen and
Weissman. That would leave Franklin (a bit player in a
minor sideshow) to take the fall -- something like 40
years worth. Maybe he and Pollard can become pen pals.
So: problem solved, harmony restored, a special relationship
(which one particularly ardent pro-Israel Senator -- Frank
Lautenberg -- once compared to a marriage) preserved.
'Til death do us part.
But while the marriage may look like perfect conjugal
bliss from the Washington end, the Jerusalem end has a
different point of view -- and always will. The Israelis
understand, even if their American patrons do not, that
they live in another country, one with its own national
interests, its own strategic ambitions and its own enemies,
none of which necessarily overlap with America's.
They don't even make much of an attempt to hide it, as
this
writer for David Horowitz's Frontpage (to Israel
what the Daily Worker once was to the Soviet Union)
makes clear:
A more independent Israel is determined to make
its own mark on the world -- questioning US authority
more frequently in order to establish its own autonomous
relations with other countries.
A good idea. It's just a shame our own political lap
dogs and their media water carriers won't do likewise.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Inmates at
a maximum security prison in Southern California jumped
guards in the prison yard, sparking a riot that left
one inmate dead and at least 30 inmates and 20 guards
wounded, officials said.
The riot at Calipatria State Prison near San Diego
began Thursday afternoon when a guard was slashed in
the head as he tried to search an inmate he suspected
of concealing a weapon, said Terry Thornton, spokeswoman
for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Prisoners rioted in the yard for about 45 minutes before
guards could bring them under control. Another group
of inmates then jumped into the yard and attacked the
staff about 20 minutes later, said prison spokesman
Lt. Ray Madden.
Some inmates attempted to breach a control booth by
"throwing brooms and shoving sticks in," said
Lance Corcoran, executive vice president of the California
Correctional Peace Officers Association.
He said a tower guard broke up the rioters by firing
his gun.
The inmate who died had been shot in the abdomen, officials
said. Five inmates were taken to outside hospitals,
while at least 25 inmates were treated at the prison.
Sixteen guards were treated at hospitals and released
Thursday night, including the two most seriously wounded.
Four others suffered minor injuries.
The prison in Imperial County east of San Diego houses
more than 4,000 inmates. Ninety inmates were placed
in administrative segregation after the riot, which
means they will be locked up for 23 hours a day until
they have an administrative hearing, Madden said.
The incident follows a riot at San
Quentin Prison on Aug. 8 that left 42 inmates injured.
That fight broke out between white and Hispanic inmates
in a medium security dormitory-style unit that houses
but only last six minutes, officials said.
Comment: Two
prison riots occurred within a week and a half of each
other, and both happened in California. In Los Angeles,
it seems some teenagers also decided to beat some homeless
men...
LOS ANGELES -- Two homeless men
were attacked with baseball bats and one of them critically
injured, allegedly by teens inspired by videos of homeless
people brawling that have sold hundreds of thousands
of copies over the Internet.
The alleged attackers told officers
they had recently seen the DVD "Bumfights"
and wanted to do some "bum bashing" of their
own, police Officer Jason Lee said.
The first victim told authorities he was attacked early
Tuesday while sleeping on a sidewalk. About 90 minutes
later, a private security guard saw two men beating
another homeless man with a bat, police said.
William Orantes and Justin Brumfield, both 19, were
arrested for investigation of attempted murder. Bail
was set at $500,000 for each man.
One homeless man was treated and released after the
attack, but the other, Ernest Adams, suffered severe
head trauma and was in critical condition at Los Angeles
County-USC Medical Center, Lee said.
More than 300,000 copies of the "Bumfights"
DVDs were sold over the Internet, authorities said earlier
this year. But its producers were charged with crimes
related to the filmed fights, which the participants
said they joined in exchange for money and alcohol.
Four men pleaded guilty in 2003 to misdemeanor conspiracy
to stage illegal fights. Two later were jailed for six
months because authorities said they did not perform
their community service.
Adams was a well-known sight in downtown Los Angeles,
acquaintances said. Leo Tolano, an outreach worker with
the Downtown Center Business Improvement District, said
transitional housing had been arranged for him but he
refused to go because he feared the bad people he had
spent time with in the past.
Robert Mallano, an associate justice on the U.S. Court
of Appeals, said he saw Adams regularly while walking
to work and would occasionally give him money even though
Adams never asked for it.
"He would talk to people and smile. He was always
polite and smiling," Mallano said. "I never
saw him in a black mood or anything. He was always groomed.
He had dignity."
"I read what happened to him in the paper, and
I was just sick about it," Mallano said.
By Richard McGregor in Beijing
Financial Times
August 18 2005 21:59
China has set up a new police force
in large cities, equipped with helicopters and armoured
vehicles, to combat the threat of terrorism and the
rising incidence of rioting and social unrest across
the country.
The squads, to be stationed in 36 large cities, reflect
the need for a more professional police force amid concerns
that it is currently ill-equipped to manage such issues,
scholars and analysts said on Thursday.
Combating urban and rural rioting has traditionally
been the preserve of the People's Armed Police, a paramilitary
force formed in 1983 to relieve the military of any
internal security responsibilities.
But the Public Security Bureau, the mainstream policing
body, has in practice been forced to handle an increasing
number of incidents of domestic unrest and under a powerful
minister, Zhou Yongkang, may have been able to make
a case for funds for a new force.
"The new squads are aimed at
improving the ability of the police to handle terrorist
crimes, riots and other emergencies," said a statement
on Xinhua, the official news agency.
Mr Zhou said the authorities dealt with 74,000 protests
and riots nationwide last year, involving more than
3.7m people, compared with 10,000 incidents in 1994.
The 2008 Beijing Olympics, which may make the capital
and other cities a target for attacks, has also focused
on China's anti-terror and anti-riot capability.
The new squads will consist of 600-strong units in
large urban centres such as Beijing and Shanghai, and
slightly smaller groups in second-tier cities.
They will also be well equipped, according to Xinhua,
with plans to arm the squad in Zhengzhou, the capital
of the poor province of Henan, with three helicopters
and an armoured vehicle.
Nicolas Becquelin, Hong Kong-based research director
for Human Rights in China, said there were many "political
and institutional reasons" to establish such a
force, ranging from the global war on terror to worries
about increasing protests. "It
is legitimate for China to have an anti-terror force
but the problem is the context in which it is used and
how you define terror," Mr Becquelin said.
China is also drafting a new anti-terror
law, which is due to be released later this year.
Zhou Xiaozheng, a professor at Renmin University in
Beijing, was sceptical about the ability of any new
force to have a real impact on the root cause of unrest.
"The crux of the problem lies in an unbalanced
society which lacks justice and equality," he said.
Mr Zhou went on: "As the income gap widens, and
officials become more and more corrupt, better equipped
police will only be used to protect the rich people
and residents of big cities.
"The only way out is to actively and steadily
implement a reform of the political system."
Comment: Add
another country to the list of those who have jumped
on the "anti-terror" bandwagon...
Mounir al-Motassadek
insisted he knew nothing about the plot
A Moroccan man who was friends with three of the 9/11
suicide hijackers has been found guilty in Germany of
belonging to a terrorist organisation.
Mounir al-Motassadek, 31, was sentenced to seven years
in prison following a year-long retrial.
However, the court in Hamburg ruled there was no proof
that he knew about the 11 September 2001 plot.
Motassadek was originally convicted of those charges
in 2003 but the verdict was overturned and a retrial ordered.
After the original conviction was quashed by Germany's
Supreme Court last year, the retrial heard new evidence
- excerpts of interviews with key al-Qaeda suspects provided
by the US.
One of these told how Motassadek had taken part in vitriolic
anti-US discussions in the home of hijacker Mohammed Atta,
but also insisted he was not aware of the 9/11 plot.
Prosecutors argued that Motassadek provided key assistance
to the "Hamburg cell", pointing out that he
signed the will of Atta - believed to be the ringleader
of the 19 suicide hijackers - and held power of attorney
on the bank account of another hijacker.
While the hijackers were attending flight training schools
in the US, he used that power of attorney to handle the
transfer of small amounts of money for them.
Motassadek had also admitted attending an al-Qaeda training
camp in Afghanistan in early 2000.
But he has repeatedly denied any prior knowledge of the
attacks on New York and Washington, saying that the favours
he did for the hijackers were just part of being a good
Muslim.
US criticised
When Motassadek was originally convicted, he was sentenced
to 15 years in prison. Following the quashing of that
conviction he was released on bail.
Announcing the fresh verdict, Judge Ernst-Rainer Schudt
did not explain the reasons, but he criticised the US
for not giving more evidence.
Washington had refused to let the court question captured
al-Qaeda suspects, citing security concerns, and released
only excerpts of information the prisoners revealed during
interrogation.
"The point is we would have liked to have questioned
them ourselves," said Judge Schudt
He said the summaries released by the US did not constitute
"sufficient proof in either direction".
The BBC's Ray Furlong in Berlin says the latest verdict
is something of a surprise as there had been an expectation
that Motassadek would be acquitted, after a fellow Moroccan
was cleared of having links to the 9/11 hijackers.
Abdelghani Mzoudi was cleared by the same Hamburg court
in February 2004 and the decision upheld by Germany's
federal appeals court in June.
Mr Menezes was shot
a day after the failed London bombings
Brazilian investigators will fly to London next week for
talks with their British counterparts over the shooting
of Jean Charles de Menezes by police.
Brazil wants the Independent Police Complaints Commission
(IPCC) to clarify conflicting reports of how Mr Menezes
died at Stockwell station on 22 July.
Investigation papers leaked to the media this week seemed
to contradict the police version of events.
Despite pressure, Met Police chief Sir Ian Blair has
said he will not resign.
Sir Bill Morris, who chaired an inquiry into professional
standards in the Met Police, has warned the row is "detracting
from the fight against terrorism".
The IPCC has said Scotland Yard "initially resisted"
its attempts to launch an investigation into the shooting.
Graphic images
Mr Menezes was shot after police mistook him for a suicide
bomber. The incident came a day after the failed 21 July
attacks on the London Underground and a bus.
Graphic photos of Mr Menezes' dead body lying on the
floor of the Tube train have appeared in most of Brazil's
newspapers.
The papers also reported claims from the leaked documents
that the Brazilian electrician had not fled from police
as initially claimed, nor had he hurdled a ticket barrier.
A statement from the Brazilian Foreign Ministry on Thursday
night said the press coverage had heightened the government's
sense of indignation at the shooting.
As a result, two top judicial officials would fly to
London next week to meet members of the IPCC.
Significant shift
The Brazilian government wants an explanation as to how
the two versions could differ so dramatically.
BBC's Brazil correspondent Tom Gibb said the move was
a "significant shift" in the government's position.
Officials in the South American country had said they
would wait for an end to the British investigation before
commenting.
The move comes as the Met Police handling of the incident
is subject to scrutiny in the UK, with claims Scotland
Yard tried to delay the IPCC inquiry.
IPCC deputy chairman John Wadham said: "[Scotland
Yard] initially resisted us taking on the investigation
- but we overcame that. It was an important victory for
our independence."
Sir Ian Blair has strongly defended his actions and those
of his officers in the aftermath of the shooting.
He told the BBC: "At that stage I and my officers
thought the dead man was a suicide bomber and we were
in the middle of the biggest counter-terrorist operation."
Clarity
Sir Bill Morris told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the
Met was "squabbling" with the IPCC.
"What is required now is a statement of clarity
which puts a lot of these issues beyond doubt," he
said.
Jean Charles de Menezes' body after he was shot dead
An image leaked to ITV shows Mr de Menezes lying dead
on the Tube
He said it was vital people didn't lose confidence in
the police.
"There is strong support for the police service.
They need that support, they need our trust and they need
our confidence in the fight against terrorism, but we
need to be told the truth about exactly what's happened,
because these things have been done in our name.
"If we ask our police officers to carry out the
most severe act in operational policing then they at least
need to know there is clarity and there is support and
that is not the situation that we face."
BRASILIA, Aug. 18
(Xinhuanet) -- The Brazilian Foreign Ministry said Thursday
that new reports about the killing of a Brazilian man
who was allegedly mistaken for a terrorist by British
police have "outraged" the government.
"The most recent information," together with
images linked to the killing, "worsen the Brazilian
government's feeling of outrage," the ministry said
in a statement.
Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes was shot eight times
by a British policeman in a London subway station on July
22, a day after suspected terrorists carried four bombs
into London's subway system.
But British news reports this week, citing documents
apparently based on closed-circuit footage, suggested
that Charles de Menezes did not act suspiciously or disobey
police instructions.
London police said previously that Charles de Menezes
ran away from police officers because his work permit
had expired. And seeing that Charles de Menezes was running,
police officers mistook him for a terrorist, chased him,
overpowered him and killed him. The police expressed sorrow
for this incident but said it would do so again under
similar circumstances.
The British press said on Wednesday that Charles de
Menezes might have been killed not by mistake, but because
of a series of ambiguities tainted with racist elements.
Contradicting the initial police statement, the images
obtained from the subway's closed-circuit video show that
the Brazilian was not wearing winter clothes and was not
carrying a suspicious backpack.
The British press reported that Charles de Menezes did
not know he was being followed by the police and did not
run away from the agents; nor did he jump over the Stockwell
subway station gates. He walked calmly and even took a
free newspaper before boarding the train.
Such information seems to refute chief of London police
Ian Blair's statement that the Brazilian man, a 27-year-old
electrician, was directly linked to the unsuccessful July
21 attacks in London.
The Brazilian Foreign Ministry said the country will
send a team to London next Monday to help with the investigation.
08/18/05 "The
Guardian" -- -- The leaked statements from witnesses
to the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes refute the
account spun to a compliant press in the immediate aftermath
of his killing (Reports, August 17). It was claimed he
was wearing a heavy jacket, implying he could have been
concealing bombs on his body, that he vaulted a barrier,
ran from the police and refused to stop.
Now we learn he was wearing a light denim jacket, used
his oyster card at Stockwell station, descended to the
platform by escalator, had time to pick up a paper and,
most damning of all, was being restrained by a surveillance
officer when police officers pumped him full of bullets.
In addition we are told surveillance broke down when one
officer went to relieve himself, that mysteriously and
culpably no CCTV cameras were working on Stockwell station
just two weeks after 7/7. This is appalling.
If the original story we were spun had had some truth
in it, then it could have been argued the police might
have had some excuse for shooting Jean Charles in what
was a tragic accident. But if the statements that have
been leaked are true, serious consequences must follow.
The police officers who shot Jean Charles must be prosecuted
with the full rigour of the law. Those who fed the initial
pack of lies to the press must be exposed and sacked.
And Ian Blair and the government ministers who were responsible
for sanctioning the shoot-to-kill policy which produced
the utterly avoidable death of this young man, must resign.
There was a time when ministers would have resigned automatically
when far less serious events occurred on their watch.
In the culture of lies and spin under this government,
we seem to have lost that idea of responsibility. It's
high time it was reestablished.
British secret forces
have rejected Russia’s proposal to help in the investigation
of London terrorist attacks, the head of Russia’s
Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Friday.
“I contacted the heads of local secret service,
proposed them our efforts,” Nikolai Patrushev was
quoted by Interfax news agency as saying. “They
thanked us but rejected our service.” The director
of the FSB said at the same time that “as regards
providing information, they (British special services
— Interfax) are interested, and we will be providing
information to them”.
Patrushev took part in the joint exercises Kaspiy-Antiterror-2005
that finished on Friday. The drill started in July and
took place in several CIS countries, mostly in Russia,
Ukraine and Kazakhstan. For the first time, observers
were invited from the United States, China, Germany, Iran
and Pakistan. “We will continue these practices.
We are open enough and we must cooperate with the secret
forces of CIS and other leading countries of the world
in the area of the fight against international terrorism,”
Patrushev said.
He added that Russian secret services had helped their
colleagues in Uzbekistan to investigate the clashes in
Andijan that took place in May and took hundreds of lives.
“First of all, it was an opportune exchange of information.
We presented it. Also, we sent experts (to Uzbekistan)
who worked directly with our colleagues.”
The United States has
rejected Russian President Vladimir Putin's call to set
a timetable for pulling its troops out of Iraq and withheld
comment on his proposal for an international conference.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack on Thursday
echoed President George Bush's refusal to lay out a calendar
for withdrawing the 138,000 American troops battling an
uprising 28 months after the removal of Saddam Hussein.
"As Iraqis stand up their capabilities, we and the
multinational forces will be able to stand down,"
McCormack stated.
"We have a robust training programme for Iraqi police
and security forces that's progressing under the leadership
of General [David] Petraeus working very closely with
the Iraqis."
Putin told reporters after meeting with Jordan's King
Abdullah II earlier on Thursday that "we deem it
necessary to work out a schedule for the staged withdrawal
of foreign troops" in Iraq.
Perception
"Many Iraqis perceive these forces as occupying
forces, and this is a reality that should be taken into
account," the Russian leader said.
He also said an international conference this year "would
give a new impulse to the normalisation of the situation"
in the war-battered country.
But McCormack withheld a response on that, saying: "I
haven't seen President Putin's comments so I haven't had
a chance to take a look at them and analyse what our thoughts
on that might be."
The spokesman added that a Russian delegation already
attended an international conference on Iraqi reconstruction
that was held in Brussels on 22 June.
Beijing (XNA) -- China's first
high-end and multi-functional remote sensing unmanned
aerial vehicle (UAV) made its successful test flight
on Monday in Huangguoshu Airport, Anshun City, southwest
China's Guizhou Province.
The remote sensing system, jointly developed by Peking
University and Guizhou Aviation Industry (Group), adopts
intelligent and high-definition data retrieving technologies.
According to experts, it is of a world-class standard
in terms of flight function, navigation accuracy, communications,
equipment as well as manufacturing cost.
The Institute of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information
System of Peking University is one of the pioneering
units to have engaged in developing remote sensing technologies
and application research in China.
Guizhou Aviation is China's largest aviation development
and production base. It has been researching and developing
UAVs for many years. The coaching and unmanned planes
developed by it made successful maiden flights on December
12, 2003.
In recent years, the institute and the company have
cooperated in research and development, making breakthroughs
in remote sensing facilities, image recognition and
processing, image resolution and downsizing facilities.
According to experts, the UAV remote
sensing technology has great development potential in
China. It could be widely used for land and environment
surveys, meteorological research and natural disaster
monitoring.
Remote sensing technology is a tool that is widely
used to study, for example, the Earth's surface and
atmosphere, from a distance from an aircraft or satellite.
Comment: Yes,
it will only be used for monitoring the environment.
The new UAV certainly has absolutely nothing to do with
the fact that China is forming an "anti-terror"
force and will soon introduce new anti-terror laws.
Dallas TX -- Lockheed Martin has
received a $55 million Guided Multiple Launch Rocket
System (GMLRS) rocket contract from the United Kingdom.
This contract represents the first international sale
of GMLRS.
The initial contract calls for the production of GMLRS
rockets with the Dual Purpose Improved Conventional
Munitions (DPICM) warhead, with an option to migrate
to other GMLRS variants in the future.
It was procured under a Foreign Military Sales agreement
with the U.S. Army. Delivery of the rockets is expected
to be completed by March 2007. [...]
"Lockheed Martin is dedicated to providing warfighters
around the world with technologically advanced equipment
necessary to complete their missions, and we're very
pleased to have our U.K. partners now fielding GMLRS
rockets." [...]
11,000 apply for 400 openings at retailer's new Oakland
store
Pia Sarkar, SF Chronicle Staff
Writer
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
For all the criticism that Wal-Mart
receives for its low wages and minimal health benefits,
the retail giant says more than 11,000 people in the
Bay Area are clamoring to get a job at its new Oakland
store.
The country's largest employer plans to welcome customers
into its 148,000-square-foot store on Edgewater Drive
next Wednesday, and it says it already has filled 350
of its 400 openings.
Wal-Mart has accepted more than 11,000 applications
from Bay Area job seekers, marking the largest volume
of interest it has received at any of its Northern California
stores, said Wal-Mart spokeswoman Cynthia Lin.
"I needed a job ASAP, and they had their doors
open," said Virginia Ford, 19, of Oakland, who
had applied for 25 jobs in three months before she landed
one as a cashier at Wal-Mart in Oakland on Tuesday.
Stephen Levy, an economist for
the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy,
said the pent-up demand for work reflects the Bay Area's
slow recovery from the dot-com crash. [...]
Comment: Um,
somehow we think that the huge response to Wal-Mart's
job openings is the result of a lot more than just the
dot-com crash years ago...
Anti-sweatshop advocacy group charges that workers make
books under oppressive conditions
CNN
August 18, 2005: 2:54 PM EDT
NEW YORK - The National Labor Committee,
an anti-sweatshop advocacy group that once exposed labor
abuses in apparel produced for Kathie Lee Gifford's
clothing line, made new charges Thursday against The
Walt Disney Company, releasing a videotape alleging
that two Chinese factories making books for Disney operate
under unsafe conditions.
At a press conference, Charles Kernaghan, director
of the NLC, released an 11-minute videotape in which
workers -- their faces hidden -- in the Hung Hing and
Nord Race factories say they have been injured by unsafe
equipment and show their bandaged fingers and cut hands.
"There's blood on this book," Kernaghan said
as he held up a copy of a child's book made in China
and published by Disney (Research).
On the video, some workers describe
the oppressive conditions under which they are forced
to work, including heat, long hours and unpaid, forced
overtime. Still pictures show the machines, which
workers describe as lacking basic safeguards.
One woman holds up a Mickey Mouse book, "Haunted
Halloween," and describes the dangers of the machines
that press and glue the binding together.
Plant workers also describe how visiting
businessmen are given show tours at Hung Hing where
everything is cast as rosy.
Kernaghan called for Disney to release the names of
all of its factories in China and to make their monitoring
system more open to review.
When contacted for comment, Disney spokesman Greg Foster
said he had not seen the tape, but Disney "takes
claims such as those raised today by the NLC very seriously."
And in a written statement, Disney said, "We have
a strong International Labor Standards Code of Conduct
for Manufacturers and conduct regular social compliance
audits of the independently run factories that produce
Disney branded merchandise."
The statement went on to say, "The Walt Disney
Company has contacted Verité, a non-profit social
auditing and training firm, to conduct an investigation
of the claims regarding the Hung Hing and Nord Race
factories."
Disney, which does not own the factories, but subcontracts
to them, said in the statement that its officials "have
conducted approximately 20 ILS audits at these factories
since 1998."
According to the statement, "These
audits reflect instances of noncompliance followed by
remediation. However, these audits at no time revealed
the severity of the violations reported by the NLC today."
"Disney and its licensees will work closely with
Verité to ensure a thorough investigation of
these claims and take the appropriate actions to remediate
violations found. Disney will also work with local civil
society organizations in China with which we maintain
an existing relationship to determine whether a role
in the investigation or any subsequent remediation efforts
would be appropriate," the statement added.
Foster said Disney does audits both announced and unannounced.
The videotape was made by a Hong Kong-based group called
Students and Academics against Corporate Misbehavior,
and passed along to the NLC.
Both Kernaghan and the Chinese workers
say these factories never take action until prodded
by international pressure.
Comment: Isn't
capitalism wonderful? Of course, this is not just a
US problem. "Civilized" western countries
have been selling goods produced in horrible conditions
by virtual slaves in "third world" countries
for a long, long time. Go out and buy any article of
clothing or electronic device in any country, and guess
where it was made? China, perhaps? Or how about Taiwan?
The simple fact of the matter is that we all convince
ourselves that those "poor people over there"
are fortunate to have jobs. We tell ourselves that by
buying this new toy, we are supporting the growth of
our own nation's economy as well as that of the "poor
people". In other words, we lie to ourselves.
Of course, we will undoubtedly ask, "So, what
should I do? Stop buying clothes and run around naked?!"
Obviously, that is not a useful solution, because it
would probably result in being arrested and thrown in
jail, and that doesn't do anyone any good. Similarly,
protesting against the Iraq war and the fascist plans
and laws of our leaders is not a bad idea, but doing
so in a violent way will only result in us being hurt,
imprisoned, or even killed. What good does that do anyone?
Who will speak out then?
When we realize the terror of the situation, we are
inclined to react emotionally and to want to change
reality to something that we think would be better.
Others do not want to change anything. As such, the
best thing we can do is to educate ourselves even more,
and become aware of as much of the often grim details
of this world as possible - and then share that knowledge
with those who are open to it.
We often state on the Signs page that one little butterfly
flapping its wings can have extraordinary effects, since
reality seems to operate in a nonlinear fashion. Look
at the effect that one grieving mother of a killed American
soldier has had on those who oppose the Bush Reich,
or the results of our P3nt4gon Str!ke flash, viewed by about 500 million people
worldwide.
This concept may not be a very satisfying course of
action to some people, but if we join the control game
that people like Bush play in trying to force their
version of what is real on humanity by "creating
reality", we are no better than they. Real
change requires learning, knowledge, and above all,
patience - and it's a lot harder to do than a pointless
violent uprising or the hijacking of the soul of an
entire nation.
KIEV, Aug. 18 (Xinhuanet)
-- Heads of state of Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania and Georgia
met on Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula Thursday to discuss
how to improve their relations and regional cooperation.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and his Polish
counterpart, Aleksander Kwasniewski, met for one-to-one
talks Thursday and discussed the issue of neighboring
Belarus, which is now in dispute with Poland over the
status of ethnic Poles there.
Yushchenko then met with Lithuania's President Valdas
Adamkus on ways to boost trade and cooperation in the
Baltic and Black Searegions.
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili joined the three
presidents later.
One day before, Polish Prime Minister Marek Belka expressed
his hope to set up a working group with Ukraine, Lithuania
and Latvia to coordinate their policies toward Belarus.
By CANDICE CHOI
Associated Press Writer
Aug 19 1:39 AM US/Eastern
ALBANY, N.Y. -- Gastrointestinal
illness possibly stemming from a state-run water playground
has sickened more than 700 people, mostly children and
teenagers, the state Health Department said Thursday.
"The numbers are growing significantly,"
said department spokesman Rob Kenny.
Seneca Lake Park's Sprayground, which has water jets
shooting up from a hardtop surface, was closed after
tests showed the tank system that feeds the water jets
was contaminated with a common waterborne disease called
cryptosporidiosis.
The disease is highly contagious and can cause diarrhea,
nausea and fever that can last for weeks. It usually
goes away without treatment in healthy individuals,
according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Five of the illnesses from the Sprayground have so
far been confirmed as cryptosporidiosis.
No deaths have been associated with the outbreak, and
many of the people connected with the outbreak have
already recovered, Kenny said.
The Sprayground averages more than a thousand visitors
a day in August. It is in the Finger Lakes region, about
45 miles southwest of Syracuse.
The water is monitored several times a day for proper
chlorine levels and tested monthly for bacteria like
E. coli, said Wendy Gibson, spokeswoman for the state
parks department.
The Health Department at first temporarily shut down
the Sprayground on Tuesday after receiving more than
100 reported cases of illness dating to early July.
After the public was notified of the outbreak, the number
of reported illnesses jumped to 746.
By TODD RICHMOND
Associated Press
Fri Aug 19,12:53 AM ET
STOUGHTON, Wis. - A tornado killed
one person and damaged dozens of homes as it roared
through this southern Wisconsin city late Thursday.
At least eight other people were hospitalized as the
severe storms blasted their way across the central and
southern parts of the state, authorities said.
"The sky just exploded.
It was debris everywhere," said David Murray,
43, who captured the Stoughton tornado on his camera
phone. "When it went across the road and it hit
all the houses over there ... it was something you can't
explain. It just exploded."
State Emergency Management spokeswoman Lori Getter
said one person died in the tornado and five others
were hospitalized; she had no further information about
the victims. The tornado destroyed
15 homes, and 35 others had moderate to severe damage,
she said.
Getter said a natural gas leak caused the evacuation
of about 200 residents.
The storms also damaged homes in Viola,
about 70 miles northwest of Madison. Getter said three
people there were treated for injuries and about 70
to 80 homes were damaged.
"There's houses half gone. All the trees in town
are gone," said Bill Bender, owner of the Viola
Quick Stop. "There was stuff flying by the building,
like big chunks."
Storm debris traveled eastward in
clouds, depositing papers, shingles and other materials
in the Milwaukee area, some 60 miles from Stoughton.
Murray described seeing a smashed truck upside down
in the middle of a wrecked house, and debris, including
an engine block, strewn across the nearby Stoughton
Country Club. [...]
Prospect of water rationing looms as severe dry spell
causes dam levels across the country to drop drastically
By Reme Ahmad
Malaysia Bureau Chief
August 19, 2005
KUALA LUMPUR - A WATER crisis is
looming in Malaysia, with Johor being among the worst
hit of several states facing a prolonged drought.
Two of Johor's three main dams are running below critical
levels and the dry spell, the worst in a decade across
the country, could last till October, officials say.
Across the country, water levels at
seven of the 14 dams and lakes were close to or slightly
above 'alert' levels, the Department of Irrigation and
Drainage said on its website.
The affected dams are on the populated west coast of
the peninsula, from Kuala Lumpur to Perlis.
Water rationing has been imposed in the central state
of Negeri Sembilan and in the central Johor area of
Kluang.
Unless rain comes down hard in the water catchment
areas in the next few weeks, officials are not ruling
out the possibility of water rationing in some other
areas around the country.
'This is a prolonged dry season we are going through,
especially in Johor,' a senior official at the Department
of Irrigation and Drainage told The Straits Times.
'If a severe drought were to happen instead of a rainy
season, rationing may well happen again.'
Water rationing would be a double whammy for Malaysians
who last week went through the haze crisis, the worst
in eight years. There is a feeling of deja vu among
Kuala Lumpur and Selangor residents for there was also
water rationing in 1997 after the haze crisis.
But officials are loath to mention
the 'R' word - rationing - as it would affect everyone
from housewives to factories, from mamak restaurants
to swanky malls.
The data on the irrigation department's website shows
that two dams in Johor and one in Perak are below the
critical levels. Water levels at the other dams around
the country are not far from dropping below the critical
levels, at which point officials must act to slow any
further fall.
The action could range from initiating cloud-seeding
to induce rains, to telling the public to take active
steps to save water.
Cloud-seeding began yesterday near Johor's Sembrong
dam and will continue today and tomorrow, said Mr Tan
Kok Hong, the Johor official in charge of energy, water
and communications.
The water levels at the Sembrong and Bekok dams in
Johor fell below the critical levels several weeks ago.
But Mr Tan said the public should not be unduly worried
as there is 'plenty' of surface water left in Johor.
'There's nothing to worry about for Singapore as its
water supply comes from the Linggui dam. We also have
plenty of surface water in Johor,' he said.
But the dry beds of some lakes are naturally a cause
for concern.
In Taiping - Malaysia's wettest town - a small puddle
surrounded by dried mud is the only evidence left of
Jungle Lake, one of 10 lakes badly hit by the dry spell.
In Kedah's Lake Pedu, a huge body of water used for
irrigation and water supply, water sports have stopped
for about a year.
'The water is so low these days that
you can see branches of old trees sticking out from
the lake's bottom at some places,' said Mr Roslan Abdul
Karim, resident manager of the Desa Utara Lake Pedu
Resort.
While there is rain in many areas around the country,
not enough falls in the water catchment areas near dams,
lakes and rivers that supply drinking water.
Geneva - Authorities and farmers
in northern Switzerland have put up a reward of Sf 26
000 ($20 700) after a string of blood curdling and sadistic
assaults on farm animals in recent weeks that have baffled
police.
Police from three Swiss regions have joined forces
in an "intense" manhunt amid warnings that
the mysterious culprit or culprits could be extremely
dangerous because of the cruelty involved in the mutilations
of cows, sheep, horses, rabbits and cats.
The 43 confirmed attacks since late May in rural areas
south of the city of Basel have a similar pattern, mainly
involving surgically excised genitalia or mammary organs.
Many of the animals died or had to be put down.
Some bore traces of zoophilia or sexual assault, according
to the police forces at the centre of the hunt, which
have imposed a partial news black-out on their investigation.
In their latest weekly report on the "emotionally-charged"
attacks, police in the canton of Basel-Country said
on Wednesday that three people had been detained, but
were later cleared.
One of the suspects was spotted while he was masturbating
in his car near a meadow, another turned out to be a
burglar, while the third had been on the run for eight
years, police said.
"If this pervert comes back to my land he won't
leave alive," the owner of one of the animals said.
Speculation about the profile of the
attacker has been rife, ranging from someone from nearby
Germany, to a vet or a farmer because of their apparent
skill in approaching and dealing with animals.
"Above all this is someone who takes pleasure
in mutilating, spilling blood and killing, that's their
main characteristic," prison psychologist Bruno
Gravier said.
"I think the cruelty and violence are far more
significant in this affair than the choice of victims.
"And cruelty towards animals is a characteristic
found in the profile of many psychopaths," Gravier
told the Swiss newspaper Le Temps.
The singer, HPB's smoke-free ambassador, hopes to influence
Malay women to kick the habit
By Tracy Sua
Straits Times
Aug 19, 2005
SINGAPORE Idol Taufik Batisah
is hoping his star appeal will help convince the increasing
number of Malay women taking up smoking to quit the
habit.
The 24-year-old singer, a former smoker himself, was
named the Health Promotion Board's (HPB) smoke-free
ambassador at the fashionable Gallery Hotel on Wednesday
night.
In front of about 40 mostly female fans, the star said
he personally preferred women who do not smoke - which
in itself might have been enough to persuade several
fans to give up.
"It is about how you smell. So when you stink,
it is a problem and if you smoke I don't think you will
smell good," he said.
According to a national health survey, smoking among
young women aged 18 to 29 went up from 5.2 per cent
in 1998 to 6.6 per cent last year. Malay women make
up the majority of new smokers.
"Taufik has a large following among young Malay
women and we want to get as much mileage as we can,"
said Dr Theresa Yoong, the board's director for adult
health promotion.
The singer will be appearing at a number of events
and touring schools to spread the anti-smoking message.
He told fans on Wednesday that he was a smoker for
12 years. But in February, he had a throat infection
and feared it might be a cancer that would ruin his
voice.
The fear drove him to quit smoking. He has stopped
smoking since March.
"This is my rice bowl, so why should I destroy
my voice for the sake of smoking," said Taufik.
Like many teenagers, he said he thought smoking was
cool while he was in school and even pretended to smoke
in front of a mirror to see how it looked.
Peer pressure got him hooked on the habit and, before
long, he was smoking 20 cigarettes a day.
"Before, I was not too focused
in life and I was just sailing. I thank God for the
Singapore Idol competition. Now that I know what I want
to do in life and I have found my focus, I don't take
life so lightly," he said.
Comment: Wow,
an article that not only promotes the anti-smoking campaign,
but mindless television as well! What will they think
of next?
NICE - The US father of a five-year-old
girl said Wednesday he would defy a French court order
to hand her back to his estranged French wife pending
their divorce, deepening a transatlantic tug-of-law
over the child.
David Washington told the French newspaper Var Matin
that his daughter, Charlotte, "will stay with me"
in New York state, in the latest twist in a case that
has tested an international convention on binational
family cases.
On Tuesday, a French family court judge ordered Washington
to provisionally return the girl to her mother living
in southern France, Sophie Maumousseau, until a divorce
she has instigated is completed.
The judgement was a legal victory for Maumousseau,
who was forced to give custody of Charlotte to Washington
last year in line with a 1980 Hague Convention that
obliges signatory states to return a child to his or
her usual residence in another country in case of an
illegal abduction by one of the parents.
Maumousseau had taken her daughter to France with her
in 2003, after her three-year-old marriage to Washington
started breaking up.
"This is maybe the end of a nightmare that I've
been living every day for the past six months,"
Maumousseau told the newspaper Le Parisien.
But Washington, in his interview from New York, made
it clear he had no intention of obeying the French court
order.
"I know pertinently that if Charlotte goes back
to France, I will never see her again," he said.
"American justice has decided, above everything,
even before Charlotte was returned to me under the Hague
Convention, that I alone had custody of my daughter.
The French court knows that. Its decision doesn't mean
anything."
One of his lawyers, Lionel Escoffier, told AFP that
it was likely Washington would appeal the French verdict.
Comment: When
an American couple gets a divorce, the court generally
favors the mother's right to raise her child, and the
father gets visiting rights. It is therefore rather
interesting that in this case, the US court system favors
the father more than the mother.
LILLE, France - In a feat that
will have statisticians shaking their heads, a French
family has twice won a national lottery -- using the
same numbers each time.
The lucky clan, who were not identified, picked up
EUR 1.5 million (US $1.8 million) in an August 3 lottery
using the same selection of numbers it marks down every
week, said Beatrice Vandersype, the wife of the tobbaconist
who sold the winning ticket.
She added that those same numbers netted the family
900,000 French francs back in 1978, a sum equivalent
to around EUR 500,000 in today's money, taking into
account inflation.