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August 3, 2003

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Super Volcano Special!

New research proves existence of super volcano beneath Loch Ness

Professor Tom Plume PhD (51) of the EU Volcanic Research Committee has warned that the famous fault-line, known as the Great Glen, may be about to rip apart as a result of a Super Volcano, which has lain dormant for millions of years. [...]

Super Volcano In Yellowstone National Park

Comment: Take a look at the maps of volcanoes in the Western United States.

Tiny Crystals Predict A Huge Volcano In Western United States

[...]With insight gained from new analytical techniques to study crystals of zircon and quartz, minerals that serve as veritable time capsules of geologic events, a group of scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison has proposed a new model for the origin of volcanism in young calderas.

These are volcanoes that occur over "hot spots" in the Earth and they erupt every few hundred thousand years in catastrophic explosions, sending hundreds to thousands of cubic kilometers of ash into the atmosphere and wreaking climatic havoc on a global scale. [...]

Super Volcanoes: Satellites Eye Deadly Hot Spots

By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer

[...]A host of U.S. and European satellites have been trained to see "hot spots ," where underground molten rock is pushing its way to the surface. The new view is giving researchers an unprecedented peek into how volcanoes work.

What they see is often illuminating. Sometimes it is just plain frightening. [...]

Supervolcanoes could trigger global freeze

By environment correspondent Alex Kirby
BBC

[...] The threat of climate change caused by human activity could turn out to be a minor problem by comparison with a scarcely acknowledged natural hazard.

Geologists say there is a real risk that sooner or later a supervolcano will erupt with devastating force, sending temperatures plunging on a hemispheric or even global scale.

A report by the BBC Two programme Horizon on one supervolcano, at Yellowstone national park in the US, says it is overdue for an eruption.

Yellowstone has gone off roughly once every 600,000 years. Its last eruption was 640,000 years ago. [...]

Red Planet at brightest for 60,000 years

Alan Pickup
The Scotsman

IT IS almost 60,000 years since Mars was as bright and close to the Earth as it gets this month. It shines at magnitude -2.4 and stands 62 million km away when it rises in the east-south-east during the evening twilight on the 1st. By the 27th, though, the Red Planet is 55,670,000 km distant and blazes at magnitude -2.9, more than three times brighter than Sirius, the brightest star. [...]

Comment: Sky maps are included in the above article.

New Volcano Portland

Move over, Mount St. Helens. There's a new volcano in town.

The Oregon Geographic Names Board has formally renamed the massive volcano that sprawls across 630 square miles of Central Oregon.

Newberry Crater is now to be known on maps and in conversation as Newberry Volcano. [...]

And geologists say Newberry is not extinct. Evidence indicates that magma lies about two or three miles beneath Newberry Crater, and scientists say the next eruption probably will be in the caldera. [...]

GIANT CRATER FOUND UNDERSEA

By Irene Brown, Discovery News

[...]A quest for oil in the North Sea has turned up an ancient impact crater so well preserved that it could give scientists fresh insight into the effects of large meteorite impacts on Earth. The 12-mile wide crater is buried under 120 feet of water and more than 900 feet of sediment, which has helped preserve features that on Earth's surface would have been eroded away. [...]

"540A.D."

The Science Show
Radio National

[...] Mike Baillie: Well what really made this event take off was when it became obvious from chronologies built by colleagues in Germany, Finland, North America that we were able to see the same event, a growth downturn in trees all the way from Siberia across Scandinavia, across Northern Europe, across North America down into South America, it became obvious that this was a global event and that the confines of it are between 536 and 545AD it’s centred on 540.

Robyn Williams: Do you know what happened then?

Mike Baillie: I wish I did. There are two basic schools of thought that all of these events were initially thought to be the results of volcanic dust fields, big volcanoes loading the atmosphere with dust and acid causing an environmental effects, basically cooling on the earth’s surface. The problem with that is that there in fact there is no categorically good evidence for a volcano in the vicinity of 540 and certainly not a very big effective volcano. This event stands out as being the worst environmental event as far as the trees are concerned in the last 1500, possibly in the last 3000 years. And just any old volcano won’t do. This would have to be almost a super volcano and there just isn’t any evidence for a super volcano or a really massive eruption around that time, and that caused me to then look at the next most likely possibility, which is something to do with bombardment from space. You’re loading the atmosphere with dust from outside the earth rather than from inside the earth. [...]

Big earthquake round the corner?

The Daily Star

It is a great deal worrying to learn that Chittagong and Rangamati have been jolted by earthquakes quite a few times in the last one week. People in the region are passing their days amid uncertainty and shock, fearing that a major seismic convulsion may occur any time.

The real extent of the damage caused by Friday's tremor in Rangamati is yet to be known, nor are the experts in a position to determine whether it boded any serious earthquake in the near future as they were not equipped with micro-seismic devices. It is on the whole believed that the country needed to brace for a major earthquake, thanks to the tectonic plate it is sitting on, which is said to be in a state of volatility. [...]

When humans faced extinction

By Dr David Whitehouse
BBC News Online science editor

"Humans may have come close to extinction about 70,000 years ago, according to the latest genetic research. The study suggests that at one point there may have been only 2,000 individuals alive as our species teetered on the brink."

Gravity Variations Predict Earthquake Behavior

PASADENA, Calif. -- In trying to predict where earthquakes will occur, few people would think to look at Earth's gravity field. What does the force that causes objects to fall to the ground and the moon to orbit around the earth have to do with the unpredictable ground trembling of an earthquake?

Now, researchers at the California Institute of Technology have found that within subduction zones, the regions where one of the earth's plates slips below another, areas where the attraction due to gravity is relatively high are less likely to experience large earthquakes than areas where the gravitational force is relatively low. [...]

Alaskan Warming is Disturbing Preview of What's to Come, Scientists Say

by Seth Borenstein

Global warming has caused the Columbia Glacier to retreat 7 miles in the last 20 years, leaving calves of ice in Prince William Sound. Seth Borenstein, KRT.

Glaciers are receding. Permafrost is thawing. Roads are collapsing. Forests are dying. Villages are being forced to move, and animals are being forced to seek new habitats.

What's happening in Alaska is a preview of what people farther south can expect, said Robert Corell, a former top National Science Foundation scientist who heads research for the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment team.

"If you want to see what will be happening in the rest of the world 25 years from now, just look at what's happening in the Arctic," Corell said.

Alaska and the Arctic are warming up fast, top international scientists will tell senior officials from eight Arctic countries at a conference in Iceland next week. They will disclose early, disturbing findings from a massive study of polar climate change. [...]

US anti-war activists hit by secret airport ban

By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles
The Independent
03 August 2003

After more than a year of complaints by some US anti-war activists that they were being unfairly targeted by airport security, Washington has admitted the existence of a list, possibly hundreds or even thousands of names long, of people it deems worthy of special scrutiny at airports.

The list had been kept secret until its disclosure last week by the new US agency in charge of aviation safety, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). And it is entirely separate from the relatively well-publicised "no-fly" list, which covers about 1,000 people believed to have criminal or terrorist ties that could endanger the safety of their fellow passengers. [...]

Comment: Surprise! The lists are real. And you can bet that anti-war activists are not the only people listed, and that there is more than just one list.

United States suspends two visa programs

From Jeanne Meserve
CNN
Saturday, August 2, 2003 Posted: 2104 GMT

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Fearing that terrorists could exploit a vulnerability, the United States suspended two programs Saturday that allow some international air passengers to transit through the country without a visa. [...]

Trio held in terrorist operation charged

Ananova.com
19:24 Saturday 2nd August 2003

Three men arrested in a police operation in Scotland have been charged with terrorist-related offences. [...]

Teen arrested at Logan for alleged bomb threat in his bag

By Nicole Fuller, Globe Correspondent

A Paxton teenager was arraigned on a felony charge yesterday morning after he and his family were removed from a plane bound for Hawaii following the discovery of a profanity-filled note referencing a bomb in his luggage examined at Logan International Airport. [...]

According to the police report, the note, which was placed on top of clothes in a black gym bag read: ''[Expletive] you. Stay the [expletive] out of my bag you [expletive] sucker. Have you found a [expletive] bomb yet? No, just clothes. Am I right? Yea, so [expletive] you.'' [...]

''Putting a false bomb threat in your luggage is not something we take lightly,'' Procopio said. ''In the current climate, it's just unacceptable because of the fear and panic it causes.''

Ruth E. Ryan, a neighbor of the Socha family, said by phone yesterday that the Sochas are a ''nice family.''

''I'm surprised,'' Ryan said. ''I thought he was a good kid.'' [...]

Comment: Looks like he will pay for not being a docile sheep. Just lay down and take what Big Brother says is good for you. Making fun of homeland security? Why you terrorist bastard. Feel my jack boot on your neck, while your neighbors voice support.

Belgium approves scaled down war crimes law

(AP) -- Lawmakers in Belgium are trying to resolve an issue that's led to diplomatic tensions with the United States and other countries.

They've given final approval to a scaled-down war crimes law. The measure passed the Belgian Senate today, and cleared the lower house on Tuesday.

The new law allows war crimes cases to be brought only if the victim or the suspect is a Belgian citizen -- or a long-term resident at the time of the alleged crime.

The original law was broader in scope, and claimed "universal jurisdiction." That led to complaints against President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Israeli leader Ariel Sharon -- among others.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had threatened to move NATO headquarters out of Belgium unless the law was scrapped. U.S. officials have said they're awaiting the final text of the scaled-down law before deciding if it satisfies them.

Comment: Psychopaths using Game Theory triumph yet again.The final line in the article, "U.S. officials have said they are waiting for the final text before deciding if it satisfies their concerns."

Pentagon Report: China's Space Warfare Tactics Aimed at U.S. Supremacy

By Leonard David
Senior Space Writer


01 August 2003 China appears to be sharpening its war fighting space skills, from creating anti-satellite weaponry, building new classes of heavy-lift and small boosters, as well as improving an array of military space systems.

That judgment comes courtesy of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) which earlier this week released its annual report to Congress : The Military Power of the People's Republic of China.

The report focuses on the current and probable future course of that country's growing military-technological prowess, including the use of space to assure military advantage.[...]

War crimes life term for Serb

By Adam Sage of The Times
August 2, 2003

A BOSNIAN Serb politician has been given an unprecedented life sentence by the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague for his role in the extermination of Muslims in Bosnia during the early 1990s...

As the top official in the Prijedor region of northwest Bosnia in 1992, Stakic played a key role in setting up the infamous Omarska, Keraterm and Trnopolje detention camps, where 7000 civilians were held. Hundreds were murdered, tortured and raped in the camps before they were closed after an international outcry at the sight of famished people clutching the metal fencing around them.

The three detention centres were set up as part of a policy of ethnic cleansing that reduced Muslims from 43 per cent of Prijedor's population before the war to just 1 per cent after it.

Green Light for Global Study on Food Security

By Ian Geoghegan

[...]After months of regional meetings across the globe, a World Bank -sponsored group of experts has recommended a searching look at how to harness agricultural technologies, including genetic modification, to meet global food needs over the next 50 years. [...]

Comment: The standard PR release to make us believe that the "third world" has unsolvable problems and these nice corporations want to help by feeding them their GM food. No mention of how the "third world" found themselves in such prediciments due to deliberte manipulation.

Global strife swells Exxon's coffers

David Teather in New York
Friday August 1, 2003
The Guardian

Exxon Mobil, the largest publicly quoted oil company, yesterday reported a 58% increase in profits to $4.2bn (£2.6bn) during the second quarter, on the back of soaring energy prices.

The sharp growth continued a trend seen in the past two quarters at Exxon Mobil and was recorded in the face of turbulent conditions, including a national strike in Venezuela and disruptions in North Sea and west African operations. [...]

Comment: Death, destruction, turmoil and chaos, the values that global corporate giants are built on, just like their governmental patrons.

Mild tremor hits western Nepal

AFP, KATHMANDU

Aug 2: A tremor measuring 4.4 on the Richter scale hit Nepal's northwestern Himalayan foothills Saturday, sending panic among residents, officials said.

"There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage but the tremor sent the locals scurrying from their homes to safety," said an official at Nepal's earthquake monitoring centre. He said the quake hit at 6:58 am (0113 GMT) near Rara Lake in Mugu district.

Black box in car to trap speed drivers

Juliette Jowit, transport editor
Sunday August 3, 2003
The Observer

Drivers face automatic speeding fines without being caught by the police or roadside cameras under a proposal being studied by the Government to fit all cars with satellite tracking devices for road tolls.

Under the anti-congestion tolling plan being examined by the Department for Transport, all vehicles would be fitted with a 'black box' to charge drivers according to the type of road they are using and when they are driving.

But transport experts believe the equipment will pave the way for 24- hour monitoring of drivers to see if they break the speed limit. It could also be used to determine whether drivers were speeding before an accident.

Martin Luther King diner shuts down

By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
The Independent
03 August 2003

For close to 50 years, Paschal's diner has served up ordinary food to extraordinary people.

At a time when there were restrictions on where black people could eat, it was a place where the events that would change those racist rules were planned over plates of collard greens and fried chicken. To some it was the "kitchen of the civil rights movement".

But last week Paschal's - where Martin Luther King was a regular and where events such as the Selma-Montgomery march were planned - served up its final meals and shut its doors for the last time. "That's it - we're closed," said the 73-year-old assistant manager, Moses Gammage, as he locked the door after one last lunchtime session attended by more than 500 regulars and devotees. [...]

But times change, and Paschal's is no longer what it was. The university claims it has been losing $500,000 (£310,000) a year and that it was no longer economically viable. Despite protests from community activists and campaigners, the university plans to knock down the diner to make room for new student accommodation.

"It is a complex thing," said university spokeswoman Sheila Jack. "It has never made any money. It has always been a losing proposition."

Comment: There you have it. Never mind that the diner is a historical landmark. Never mind that it is a symbol of freedom and hope. It is a losing proposition, and losing propositions are torn down and replaced with student housing in the Land of the Free (Market). The puppet masters also benefit by eliminating a reminder of Dr. King, who didn't exactly jibe with the official culture in America.

N Korea snubs US official

By Charles Scanlon
BBC correspondent in Seoul

North Korea has said it will have no dealings with a senior US state department official who launched a stinging attack on the Communist regime during a visit to the region last week.

A North Korean spokesman said it would still hold talks on its nuclear weapons programme, but not with John Bolton.

The North last week dropped a long-standing demand to exclude its neighbours from negotiations.

Last week Mr Bolton described life in North Korea as "a hellish nightmare".

U.S. and Japan discuss N.Korea inspection team

Associated Press
Saturday, Aug. 2, 2003 11:50 PM EDT

North Korea warned Saturday any moves to discuss its suspected nuclear weapons programs at the United Nations would "hamstring" efforts for dialogue and be a "prelude to war." [...]

America silences Niger leaders in Iraq nuclear row

By David Harrison in Niamey, Niger

America has warned the Niger government to keep out of the row over claims that Saddam Hussein sought to buy uranium for his nuclear weapons programme from the impoverished West African state.

Herman Cohen, a former assistant secretary of state for Africa and one of America's most experienced Africa hands, called on Mamadou Tandja, Niger's president, in the capital Niamey last week to relay the message from Washington, according to senior Niger government officials.

One said: "Let's say Mr Cohen put a friendly arm around the president to say sorry about the forged documents, but then squeezed his shoulder hard enough to convey the message, 'Let's hear no more about this affair from your government'. Basically he was telling Niger to shut up." [...]

"Old" America And "New" Europe

Azmi Bishara Al-Hayat 2003/07/31

It is now possible to speak of an Old U.S. and a New Europe. The American policy that Washington demands Europe to support is an old one. What is new about it is the possibility of implementing it throughout the world unilaterally. No matter how extensively one researches the ideals of the neo-conservatives, the fact that will always be clear is that they have added little to what Henry Kissinger had already said many years ago.

Moreover, it will be discovered that a main group of the neo-conservatives had been inherited by the current administration from that of Ronald Reagan, and that its relationship with the region dates back to the efforts to conceal the Iran-Contra affair. The main elements of the policy that is being propagated is monopoly of the truth in foreign policy which divides the world into two camps: good and evil, as well as using force without hesitation in politics, to act as an empire in the areas of influence, not to consider the status quo as a justification for not changing it, and to avoid legal formalities when interest so demands.

The main thing that is new is centralizing policy and turning the U.S. into a police state, which is beyond the scope of this article.

Disagreement Between Congress And Bush About Saddam's Fate

Selim Nassar Al-Hayat 2003/08/2

The timid opposition in the U.S. exploited the prevailing confusion and chaos to accuse the administration of misconduct, claiming that Bremer had known, for almost a month, where Udai and Qusai were hiding, based on the confessions of Hussein's bodyguard, Abed Hamud Mahmud who gave information about the places where Hussein and his family would go to. Thus, Bremer put these places under intensive surveillance until the date of the attack, serving the popularity of President Bush, which was decreasing. Indeed this popularity dropped from 70% to 50% over the last two weeks. Then suddenly it rose after the death of Udai and Qusai, which also served the popularity of Tony Blair, who is coming under staunch accusations of falsifying information about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq!

Army Sends Teams to Probe Iraq Illness

By PAULINE JELINEK
Associated Press Writer
August 1, 2003, 12:40 PM EDT

WASHINGTON -- The Army is trying to figure out what is causing a rash of serious pneumonia cases, including two fatalities, among soldiers serving in Iraq...

Though only 14 cases were considered serious, there have been 100 cases altogether since March 1 among troops that began deploying late last years to the Persian Gulf.

Army-wide, pneumonia cases serious enough to warrant hospitalization happen in about 9 of 10,000 soldiers per year. Given the number of troops deployed, the 100 cases "do not exceed expectations," the surgeon general's office said.

Soldier snoozes in fridge to escape Iraq heat

A British soldier serving in Iraq has tried to escape from the sweltering heat by sleeping in a walk-in fridge and ended up being treated for hypothermia. [...]

$600M gold cache really brass

Aug. 2, 2003. 01:00 AM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Gold-coloured bars seized by U.S. forces in Iraq appear to be melted-down shell casings made of brass, the White House said in a report obtained yesterday. [...]

Meet the Real WMD Fabricator
A Swede Called Rolf Ekeus

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
Counterpunch.org

In order to stifle this opposition, which is accusing President Bush of using his soldiers' activities to improve his electoral situation, Bush said that his troops were very close to capturing Saddam Hussein. Secretary of State Colin Powell told Reuters that the grip is tightening around Saddam, although he couldn't predict the date of his capture. Observers are even predicting that Saddam will be killed only after the presidential electoral campaign starts, maintaining that Saddam will be hunted until President Bush needs his corpse to boost his electoral situation.

In the wake of the first Iraq war it was UNSCOM chief Ekeus, exuding disinterested integrity as only a Swede can, who insisted that Saddam Hussein was surely pressing forward with the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction.

[...] Ekeus learned this on the night of August 22, l995, in Amman, from the lips of General Hussein Kamel, who had just defected from Iraq, along with some of his senior military aides. Kamel was Saddam's son-in-law and had been in overall charge of all programs for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and delivery systems.

That night, in three hours of detailed questioning from Ekeus and two technical experts, Kamel was categorical. The UN inspection teams had done a good job. When Saddam was finally persuaded that failure to dispose of the relevant weapons systems would have very serious consequences, he issued the order and Kamel carried it out. As he told Ekeus that night, "All weapons, biological, chemical, missile, nuclear, were destroyed."

Did Ekeus immediately proclaim victory, and suggest that sanctions could be abated? As we have seen, he did not. In fact he urged that they be intensified. The years rolled by and Iraqi children by the thousand wasted and died.

An American Analysis Market

Salameh Nematt
Al-Hayat 2003/07/31

[...] Whether that was the aim behind the Pentagon's program, or the issues that were used were only used by coincidence, it is important to remember that American institutions comprise a current allied with the Israeli right, which never ruled out the possibility of solving the Palestinian issue at the expense of Jordan.

It is no secret that the Israeli prime minister champions the idea of deporting the Palestinians, and he has avoided on several occasions to declare the end of the "alternative nation" proposal, while a number of his ministers have declared their insistence on deporting hundreds thousands of Palestinians into Jordan, through the "transfer" plan, which would lead to undermining the Kingdom and paving the way to turning it into the "alternative nation" of the Palestinians.

Israel, Yellowcake and the Media

By JERRY KROTH

Can you name a country in the Middle East suspected of developing nuclear weapons, refusing to open itself to international inspection, and one that probably possesses chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction?

Iraq, perhaps, Iran, maybe, but most definitely Israel. Indeed, while its official spokespersons still deny it, Israel is thought to possess as many as 240 nuclear weapons along with awesome biological weapons. [...]

Now fantasize for a moment the world learned that it was Iran that was behind the forged letters. What was their gain? To bring the US war machine right to their own borders? Not a very interesting theory.

What would it mean if Israel's Mossad forged them? Well, it would show that Israel falsely dragged Britain and the U.S. into invading its major adversary and with yellowcake all over its face, relations with that country just might be in for some serious review. [...]

A Trilogy of Dysfunction

By: Dr. Hanan Ashrawi

When the Bully Whines

[...] Had these phenomena taken place elsewhere, and had the “marriage bill” been passed by any other country to exclude a specific minority, the world would have been in an uproar.

It is time that Israel is treated like any other state, made subject to a global rule of law, and its actions scrutinized for such outrageous policies and practices.

However, with “whiners” like Sharon, “friends” like DeLay, and “racists” like the Knesset and Eitam, Israel seems to be set on a suicidal course indeed.

Prisoners' Fate Key To Mideast Talks

Israel Asserts Palestinians Held for Security

By John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, August 3, 2003

HEBRON, West Bank -- Since Haifa Jawat Amasi married her husband in 1986, she figures he has been picked up and imprisoned by Israeli security officers at least 15 times, usually for four to six months. He has never been charged with a crime, she said, nor has he ever been accused of participating in any violence.

But her husband, Ismail Mohammed Amasi, 41, is a senior political officer in the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a militant group that during the 34-month Palestinian uprising has participated in 20 attacks in which 28 Israelis have been killed, according to Israeli, Palestinian and media accounts.

On June 24, 2002, Israeli soldiers went to the family's house and detained Amasi. He was not charged with a crime, nor was he allowed to see any of the evidence against him. In a secret proceeding, a military judge ruled that, under Israeli law, Amasi was a security risk to Israel and ordered him held in a process known as "administrative detention" for the maximum period of six months.

The detention has been extended twice, for six months each time, and comes up for review again on Dec. 24. Israeli officials said they could not answer specific questions about the case, but they confirmed that Amasi had been in detention since June. [...]

Israel Tells U.S. That Iran Is Growing Threat

By Adam Entous
Tue July 29, 2003 08:10 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Israeli officials told the Bush administration there was growing evidence that Iran was stepping up support for Palestinian militants following the war in Iraq, people close to the discussions said on Tuesday.

Israeli officials also told Washington that Tehran was accelerating efforts to develop nuclear weapons that could strike the Jewish state and other U.S. allies in the region.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon raised the issues during his White House meeting with President Bush, who warned a week earlier that Iran and Syria would be "held accountable" if they supported terrorism.

"There are concerns both in Jerusalem and in Washington," one official said.

Standoff at Arafat's HQ

By Wafa Amr

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Israel and the Palestinians are trying to resolve the fate of 20 militants held by Yasser Arafat's forces after taking refuge in his West Bank headquarters, Palestinian security officials say.

The 20 men from al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an offshoot of the Palestinian president's Fatah faction, are wanted by Israel for attacks during a 34-month-old uprising for independence.

Campaign Planned Against Israeli Wall

Nazir Majally • Asharq Al-Awsat

RAMALLAH, West Bank, 3 August 2003 — The Palestinian Cabinet decided yesterday to launch an international campaign against Israel’s continued construction of a security barrier around the West Bank.

“The Palestinian Cabinet decided to make an international campaign against the wall in order to push Israel to stop building it,” Information Minister Nabil Amr said.

Editorial: Jewish Fanatics

Asharq Al-Awsat
3 August 2003

The American administration has given Steven Emerson and Dore Gold the authority to identify terrorists and their supporters in Arab countries. There could never have been any doubt that by doing so it will worsen relations between the United States and the Arab and Islamic world. Both of these men are Jewish fanatics who do nothing to hide either their enmity toward Muslims or their role in the anti-Islam smear campaign. Gold’s book, “Hatred’s Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terror”, is a travesty of scholarship, the real intention of which is to persuade the West that Israel has nothing to do with Islamist anger.

Emerson is the type of a man who coolly tells people who know nothing about Islam that “Muslims wear a red head cover because they have a bloody mentality.” He said this to the American media when he produced a documentary on “Jihad in America,” which was transmitted and financed by a cultural station supported by the US government and funded by donations, not advertising.

[...] Emerson and his Zionist partner in crime Gold are out to get Saudi Arabia because the Kingdom is a staunch supporter of the Palestinians and they are Islamaphobes.

It is as simple as that.

Four Israeli firms attending UK's biggest arms show

London, Aug 2, IRNA - Peace campaigners are staging an international protest to prevent the holding of next month's Defence Systems Equipment International (DSEi) arms fair in east London. The biennial exhibition, sponsored by the British government, is the biggest in Europe and includes four companies from Israel, Astot Ashkelon, Israel Military Industries, M-Systems and Rafael, displaying their arms ware. Thousands of protesters from all around the world are expected to join in the calls for a boycott, supported by up to 50 organisations under the 'Disarm DSEi 2003' campaign "to stop the market of death and work towards shutting down the whole murderous industry." It warned that rich western countries were trying to entice delegates from some of the poorest countries in Africa and Asia to buy expensive weapons instead of spending money on education, development and medicine. It was recalled that the last DSEi exhibition was held during the events of September 11 2001 and that while many businesses around the world closed down, the arms fair stayed open for three more days.

The exhibition next month comes as the UK government is due to decide whether to purchase 5,000 Spike anti-tank missiles from Israel at an estimated cost of Pnds 200 million (Dlrs 320 m). The International Solidarity Campaign (ISC) has urged Foreign Secretary Jack Straw "not to facilitate further Israeli war crimes" by buying missiles that were tested on civilian targets in Lebanon and have since being used against the Palestinians.

Global Hawk rolls off production line

By ALLISON GATLIN
Valley Press Staff Writer

PALMDALE - With a light show worthy of a rock concert, the latest star in the Air Force's arsenal was unveiled Friday with the rollout of the first production-model Global Hawk. [...]

It is the first time a developmental aircraft has been used operationally, before the production version. [...]

Comment: Indeed, such aircraft allow people like Rumsfeld to view civilian targets in such a detached way that when they give the order it dosen't feel like mass murder at all!

'Al-Qaeda tape' warns US

BBC
Sunday, 3 August, 2003, 04:12 GMT

An audio tape purported to be from a top al-Qaeda official has warned the United States it will pay a "high price" if any of the men it is holding at Guantanamo Bay are harmed.

The tape was broadcast by al-Arabiya television, which said it was from Ayman al-Zawahri, widely believed to be Osama Bin Laden's right hand man. [...]

Blair and Bush join forces to spin away weapons issue

By Andrew Buncombe in Washington and Raymond Whitaker in London
The Independent
03 August 2003

The British and US governments are drawing up a controversial new strategy to convince the public that Saddam was developing weapons of mass destruction - an admission that they have so far failed to make a convincing case. [...]

In press conferences on either side of the Atlantic on Wednesday, the Prime Minister and the President both conceded that to maintain trust, they would have to prove their pre-war claims on WMD. "In order to placate the critics and cynics about intentions of the United States, we need to produce evidence," Mr Bush said. [...]

Comment: Spoken like a true psychopath...

Blair may quit before end of third term - Mandelson

Ananova.com
21:08 Saturday 2nd August 2003

Tony Blair may not serve out a full third term as Prime Minister if he wins the next General Election, says one of his closest allies.

Peter Mandelson says Mr Blair will not go "on and on and on and on" beyond the point where he is no longer wanted. [...]

And on the seventh day Tony Blair created...

Sunday August 3, 2003
The Observer

It may prove an uphill struggle in this secular day and age, but the Prime Minister is aiming to put religion right at the centre of government. Kamal Ahmed reports on a major break with British tradition

Tony Blair knows it is one of the most delicate of subjects. When asked about it he squirms and tries to change to a more comfortable line of inquiry. But quietly the Prime Minister is putting religion at the centre of the New Labour project, reflecting his own deeply felt beliefs that answers to most questions can be found in the Bible. [...]

Comment from QFS member: Well, it was really only a matter of time, wasn't it? Neo-nazism all nicely wrapped up in religion. It won't be long now before we're back to burning heretics at the stake to save their souls from eternal damnation and hell fire. The kindling is already being set alight.

Blair drug vow fiasco

Aug 2 2003
From Nick Meo In Afghanistan


BRITAIN has abandoned plans to wipe out Afghanistan's poppy fields despite fears this year's opium harvest will be the biggest ever.

Customs and police are bracing themselves for the arrival in the next few months of a glut of cheap heroin from the war-ravaged country, source of 90 per cent of the Class A drug on our streets.

Two months after the September 11 atrocities which led to the attack on Afghanistan and the fall of its cruel Taliban regime, Tony Blair pledged Britain would take the lead role in wiping out the lethal Afghan opium trade. He said: "In helping with the reconstruction of Afghanistan we shall make clear we want it to develop farming of proper agricultural produce, not produce for the drugs trade.''

The reality is a scandal. While the US spends an estimated £600million a month on military operations in Afghanistan, Britain has pledged just £70million over three years to build up an anti-drugs force.

None of the money has yet arrived. Meanwhile opium production since the fall of the Taliban, which banned the drug, has risen by some 1,400 per cent.

Last year production rose to 3,400 tonnes - three quarters of the world total. Output is expected to increase. No major drugs arrest has been made. [...]

MI6 boss to stand down

BBC
Saturday, 2 August, 2003, 22:42 GMT

The head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, is to stand down next year, the Foreign Office has confirmed.
A spokesman said Sir Richard, 58, would be retiring in August 2004 but denied the move was motivated by any differences with ministers over Iraq.

The Observer newspaper claimed the departure was caused by unhappiness over Downing Street's handling of intelligence on Iraq. [...]

Fury as Hoon skips Kelly funeral to take holiday

By Colin Brown

Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, was under fire from cabinet colleagues last night after it emerged that he plans to go on holiday rather than attend the funeral of Dr David Kelly, the Government scientist who died in an apparent suicide last month.

Mr Hoon has decided to travel to the United States for a long-planned break with his wife and three children, despite being warned by colleagues that it will be seen as insensitive if he misses Dr Kelly's funeral on Wednesday.

Senior ministers are privately furious that Mr Hoon will not be present to pay his respects at the graveside, even though Dr Kelly was a senior official in his ministry.

"It is unbelievable that he is doing this," said one minister last night. "We have to sacrifice our private lives for the job but he won't do it."

Colleagues pointed out last night that, as it was official duty, he would not have to cancel his holiday but could travel back at the taxpayers' expense. Mr Hoon is known for refusing to break his family commitments when they have clashed with his official duties. In February, he caused outrage when he went skiing in France while British soldiers were gathering in the heat of the Kuwaiti desert in preparation for the Iraq war.

He was also criticised for going to the British Grand Prix two days after Dr Kelly's body was found.

Comment: Just how many psychopaths are there in Blair's cabinet?

Iraqi Scientists Still Deny Iraqi Arms Programs

U.S. Interrogations Net No Evidence

by Walter Pincus and Kevin Sullivan

Despite vigorous efforts, the U.S. government has been unsuccessful so far in finding key senior Iraqi scientists to support its prewar claims that former president Saddam Hussein was pursuing an aggressive program to develop nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, according to senior administration officials and members of Congress who have been briefed recently on the subject.

The sources said four senior scientists and more than a dozen at lower levels who worked for the Iraqi government have been interviewed by U.S. officials under the direction of the CIA. Some scientists have been arrested and held for months, others have made deals in return for information and at least one has agreed to be interviewed outside Iraq.

Amir Saadi, Iraq's chief liaison with United Nations weapons inspectors, told a German television crew there were no weapons of mass destruction as he surrendered to U.S. troops in April. (Photo/Zdf Tv Via AFP)

No matter the circumstances, all of the scientists interviewed have denied that Hussein had reconstituted his nuclear weapons program or developed and hidden chemical or biological weapons since United Nations inspectors left in 1998.

List of video files on 9/11, Iraq War, CIA etc.

US killed Uday, Qusay to cover up past dealings

Troops could have captured Saddam’s sons alive, says Syrian official

BEIRUT: A Syrian official said the US could have captured Saddam Hussein’s sons alive and hinted that killing the pair in a US military raid in Iraq may have been to cover up past American political dealings with the defunct regime. Uday and Qusay Hussein were reportedly killed on July 22 in a gun battle in northern Iraq by a US force hunting down leaders of the former regime.

Syria has been a vocal critic of the US war in Iraq. Relations between Washington and Damascus have been strained in recent months over American accusations that Syria supported the ousted Iraqi regime and sheltered some members during and after the war — charges that Syria denied.

“Of course Saddam Hussein and his children bear the responsibility of turning this country (Iraq) into this rubble,” Syrian Foreign Ministry official Buthaina Shaaban said last night. But the spokeswoman, speaking from Damascus added: “it was very possible of the US to capture Uday and Qusay instead of killing them. But maybe — and this is very possible — that there are files that they (Americans) don’t want to be uncovered.” —AP

Tribe gathers to bury Saddam's sons

Wrapped in an Iraqi flag, the blood brothers are laid to a dusty
rest

Jamie Wilson in Baghdad
Sunday August 3, 2003
The Observer

With their coffins wrapped in the Iraqi flag but guarded by troops of their mortal enemy, the bodies of Uday and Qusay Hussein were laid to rest yesterday in a dusty cemetery in the village where their father was born.

Nearly two weeks after Saddam's sons were killed when US troops raided their hideout in the northern town of Mosul, around 150 tribesmen and relatives gathered in Awja, on the edge of the town of Tikrit, to dig graves in the sun-baked ground and pile earth and stones on the coffins...

The deposed dictator's family was said to have been angered by the way American mortuary attendants prepared the dead: Muslim tradition calls for bodies not to be embalmed or retouched and to be buried before sundown on the day of death.

The brothers' faces, however, were heavily made up using cosmetic putty before officials allowed them to be filmed by journalists in an attempt to persuade a sceptical Iraqi public that they really were dead.

As the hunt went on for Saddam, the American chief of the coalition authority, Paul Bremer, said he had not seen any hatred of US troops among the Iraqi people.

Hours before the funerals, however, an American soldier was killed and three others were injured in a rocket-propelled grenade attack on a convoy north of Baghdad. At least two American soldiers were injured in remote-controlled bomb attacks in Tikrit.

At Funeral for Hussein Sons, a Call for 'Death to America'

By DEXTER FILKINS
The New York Times

WJA, Iraq, Aug. 2 — The brothers Hussein were buried today here in their hometown 11 days after they were killed by American soldiers. The funeral touched off an outpouring of nostalgia for their fugitive father and was filled with angry calls to rid Iraq of its American occupiers. [...]

Paternalistic Democracy for Iraq
Bremer's Looking-Glass Fantasy

By ROBERT FISK

Paul Bremer's taste in clothes symbolises "the new Iraq" well. He wears a business suit and combat boots. As the pro-consul of Iraq, you might have thought he'd have more taste.

US Troops Doling Out Vigilante Justice To Iraq Civilians

8-1-3

BAGHDAD (AFP) - At the checkpoint, the Americans found a handgun, ordered the 56-year-old man out of his car and proceeded to bash his head with a rifle butt.

Rahim Nasser Mohammed points to his right temple, the side of his mouth and lifts his shirt, to show the spots where the soldier cudgeled him again and again nearly a month ago.

His story -- that of a government employee pulled over in his car by the US army -- seems one in a thousand as reports mount of beatings and sometimes deaths of Iraqi civilians at the hands of US soldiers. [...]

"My Alma Mater is a Moral Cesspool"
Neo-Cons, Fundies, Feddies and the University of Chicago

By FRANCIS A. BOYLE
Professor of Law, University of Illinois School of Law

[...] Chicago routinely trained me and numerous other students to become ruthless and unprincipled Machiavellians. That is precisely why so many neophyte Neo-con students gravitated towards the University of Chicago or towards Chicago Alumni at other universities. The University of Chicago became the "brains" behind the Bush Jr. Empire and his Ashcroft Police State. Attorney General John Ashcroft received his law degree from the University of Chicago in 1967. Many of his "lawyers" at the Department of Injustice are members of the right-wing, racist, bigoted, reactionary, and totalitarian Federalist Society (aka "Feddies"), which originated in part at the University of Chicago.

Although miseducated at Yale and Harvard Business School, the "Ivies" proved to be too liberal for Bush Jr. and his fundamentalist Christian supporters, whose pointman and spearcarrier in the Bush Jr. administration was Ashcroft, a Fundie himself. The Neo-cons and the Fundies contracted an "unholy alliance" in support of Bush Jr. across the board. For their own different reasons, both groups also worked hand-in-hand to support Israel's genocidal Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, an internationally acknowledged war criminal. Strange bedfellows indeed.

According to his own public estimate and boast before the American Enterprise Institute, President Bush Jr. hired about 20 Straussians to occupy key positions in his administration, many holding offices where they could push American foreign policy in favor of Israel and against its chosen enemies such as Iraq, Iran, Syria, and the Palestinians. It was the Chicago Straussian cabal of pro-Israeli Neo-cons who set up a separate "intelligence" unit within the Pentagon that was responsible for manufacturing many of the bald-faced lies, deceptions, half-truths, and outright propaganda that the Bush Jr. administration then disseminated to the lap-dog U.S. news media in order to generate public support for a war of aggression against Iraq for the benefit of Israel and in order to steal Iraq's oil. To paraphrase something Machiavelli once advised his Prince in Chapter XVIII of that book: Those who want to deceive will always find those willing to be deceived.

Promenade or Provocation?

Essam Al-Ghalib • Arab News Staff

JEDDAH, 3 August 2003 — The question of whether Saudi women should be allowed to drive has generated a heated debate. One of the main arguments given against allowing women to drive is that they themselves do not in fact want to, mainly because they do not feel protected from personal harassment.

Hundreds of jobless Iraqis demonstrate outside US HQ

SyriaTimes

Hundreds of jobless Iraqis demonstrated outside the headquarters of the US-led coalition in Baghdad on Saturday, demanding that Iraq`s occupiers give them either work or unemployment benefits.

"Jobs, jobs", "unemployment benefits", chanted the protesters, who were kept at a distance from the building by a cordon of US troops.

"We`re prepared to stay here as long as it takes to get what we want," said Jamal Mahmud, a member of the Syndicate of Unemployed, who called the protest.

"We demanded to meet the Americans, but got no response," he said, adding that he and a handful of other unemployed staged an overnight sit-in without being impeded by US forces despite a night-to-dawn curfew in force in the Iraqi capital.

Bigamy blitz on Mormons

Utah cracks down on multiple marriages to protect underage brides

Richard Luscombe in Miami
Sunday August 3, 2003
The Observer

The Mormon state of Utah has launched a crackdown on polygamists who for generations have used their religious beliefs to justify marriage to underage relatives. [...]

'The bottom line is that we have to protect the children, especially the young girls, who are the victims here. People have looked the other way for too long,' he said.

In a high-profile move last week, police raided a picnic attended by 800 members of one family and arrested 32-year-old Jeremy Kingston, wanted since May on a charge of incest stemming from his 1995 wedding to his 15-year-old niece and cousin, LuAnn.

This week in Salt Lake City, Rodney Holm, a police officer from the state's polygamous Hildale community, will face trial on charges of bigamy and unlawful sex with a 16-year-old he took as his third wife four years ago when he was 32. [...]

Holm belongs to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and Kingston to the Latter Day Church of Christ. Both extreme groups base their beliefs on the Mormon religion, which for nearly 50 years advocated plural marriages then outlawed them in 1890 when Utah's founders sought admission to the federal union.

Kingston's arrest came after LuAnn, now 23, went to the state attorney's office three years after walking out on her husband. 'I didn't want to hurt them, or to make a big scene or anything, but after being out for a while you see things more clearly. Something needed to be done,' she told the Deseret News. [...]

Many of the bigamists live on the Arizona-Utah border in secretive communities. There are also numerous 'freelance' bigamists, who follow no group rules but instil fear in their younger victims, convincing them their salvation will be lost if they do not submit to 'God's will'.

One such individual is Brian David Mitchell, who calls himself the prophet Emmanuel and is alleged to have abducted the Mormon schoolgirl Elizabeth Smart from her Salt Lake City home in June 2002 and held her for nine months.

During her captivity, Elizabeth was made to become Mitchell's second 'wife' in a bizarre ceremony, after which he is said to have raped her. Mitchell and first wife Wanda Barzee will face trial this autumn for aggravated kidnap and sexual assault. [...]

Observers of polygamist groups in Utah, where 73 per cent of the state's 2.4 million residents are Mormons, believe the crackdown could herald the end of a way of life pursued for generations. [...]

Comment: Organised monothestic religion, the bane of humanity for millenia.

Porn king meets Arnie in US poll farce

August 3 2003
The Sun-Herald

Porn king Larry Flynt says slot machines will resolve California's budget crisis. Porn star Mary Carey says it is smarter to tax breast implants.

Hollywood billboard queen Angelyne has adopted the slogan "Think rational pink", whatever that means.

Dozens of other eclectic, eccentric extras have begun the process of nominating to run in the October recall election for governor of California, adding farce, folly and fantasy to deadly serious political combat - a bid to dump Democratic Governor Gray Davis eight months into his second term.

"We are becoming a laughing stock," California's Democratic Party chairman, Art Torres, said. "This just exacerbates the impression that we are a bunch of wackos out here."

Bestseller ponders Jesus, Mary Magdalene as married

Roxanne Roberts, Washington Post
Published August 2, 2003


Mary Magdalene is back.

Not that she ever really went away, but every now and then she's thrust into the spotlight, the canon's cover girl for a lively debate about women, sex, feminism and the church.

Her latest starring role comes in the blockbuster thriller "The Da Vinci Code." The novel, which has topped bestseller lists for 16 weeks, poses the not-so-innocent question: What if Jesus and the Magdalene were husband and wife?

It's not a new premise, but it never fails to rile the faithful, the faithless and the devil's advocates.

"I think Mary Magdalene is the most fascinating figure in the New Testament outside of Jesus Himself," says Charlotte Allen, author of "The Human Christ: The Search for the Historical Jesus." As the first person to see the risen Christ, Magdalene is central to the Resurrection story. Other than that, the Bible offers a few tantalizing clues.

Was Magdalene, as portrayed in centuries of art and literature, the penitent prostitute, the devoted follower, the woman with the alabaster jar?

Or, as "The Da Vinci Code" suggests, was she Jesus' wife, partner, confidante, beloved disciple, the "apostle to the apostles"? All this and more, says "Code" author Dan Brown.

[...] A passage in Philip describes Magdalene as Jesus' companion whom he kisses on the mouth. The rest of the disciples ask, "Why do you love her more than all of us?" The gospel of Mary stresses Magdalene's spiritual wisdom and closeness to Jesus. At one point, Peter challenges Magdalene to share a vision from Jesus, and then rejects it. "Are we to turn around and listen to her?" he asks the other men. "Did He choose her over us?" Levi defends Magdalene, telling Peter that he is hot-tempered and that she is worthy to teach the male disciples.

But Peter and the other church fathers won out by the second century, says Karen King, a professor of ancient Christianity at Harvard Divinity School.

"What they did is divide the tradition into orthodoxy and heresy," she says. "They associated orthodoxy with Mary the mother and heresy with Mary Magdalene as an apostle. But they saved Magdalene for the church by making her a repentant prostitute. That made women nonthreatening. They had to somehow undermine her as a female authority figure." The facts, say King, are on Magdalene's side: "She got a raw deal."

Comment: More Merovingian Disinfo. Stay tuned for a new article based on our research here in France which reveals that, yes, it is very likely that Jesus had a wife; but there is considerable evidence, easily available but IGNORED by this crowd, that it was NOT Mary Magdalene. See French Connection 8 for more.

Terrorism and Civil Society as Instruments of U.S. Policy in Cuba (1)

PHILIP Agee, a former CIA agent, relates his experiences of the modi operandi of subversive action against the island

THE condemnation of Cuba was immediate, strong and practically global for the April imprisonment of 75 political dissidents and for the summary execution of three ferry hijackers. Prominent among the critics were past friends of Cuba of recognized international stature.

As I read the hundreds of denunciations that came through my mail, it was easy to see how enemies of the revolution seized on those issues to condemn Cuba for violations of human rights. They had a field day. Deliberate or careless confusion between the political dissidents and the hijackers, two entirely unrelated matters, was also easy because the events happened at the same time. A Vatican publication went so far as to describe the hijackers as dissidents when in fact they were terrorists. But others of usual good faith toward Cuba also jumped on the bandwagon of condemnation treating the two issues as one. The remarks that follow address the human rights issues in both cases.

With respect to the imprisonment of 75 civil society activists, the main victim has been history, for these people were central to current U.S. government efforts to overthrow the Cuban government and destroy the work of the revolution. Indeed regime change, as overthrowing governments has come to be known, has been the continuing U.S. goal in Cuba since the earliest days of the revolutionary government. Programs to achieve this goal have included propaganda to denigrate the revolution, diplomatic and commercial isolation, trade embargo, terrorism and military support to counter-revolutionaries, the Bay of Pigs invasion, assassination plots against Fidel Castro and other leaders, biological and chemical warfare, and, more recently, efforts to foment an internal political opposition masquerading as an independent civil society.

[...] One of the best sum-ups of the U.S. terrorist war against Cuba in the 1960’s came from Richard Helms, the former CIA Director, when testifying in 1975 before the Senate Committee investigating the CIA’s attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro. In admitting to "invasions of Cuba which we were constantly running under government aegis," he added:

"We had task forces that that were striking at Cuba constantly. We were attempting to blow up power plants. We were attempting to ruin sugar mills. We were attempting to do all kinds of things in this period. This was a matter of American government policy."

During the same hearing Senator Christopher Dodd commented to Helms:

"It is likely that at the very moment that President Kennedy was shot, a CIA officer was meeting with a Cuban agent in Paris and giving him an assassination device to use against Castro." [Note: the officer worked for Desmond Fitzgerald, a friend of Robert Kennedy and at the time overall chief of the CIA’s operations against Cuba, and the agent was Rolando Cubela, a Cuban army Comandante with regular access to Fidel Castro whose CIA codename was AMLASH.]

Helms responded:

"I believe it was a hypodermic syringe they had given him. It was something called Blackleaf Number 40 and this was in response to AMLASH’s request that he be provided with some sort of a device providing he could kill Castro¼ .I’m sorry that he didn’t give him a pistol. It would have made the whole thing a whole lot simpler and less exotic."

[...] Reports abound of the arrest in Panama in November 2000 of a group of four exile terrorists led by Luis Posada Carriles, a man with impeccable CIA credentials. They were planning the assassination of Fidel Castro who was there for a conference. Posada’s résumé includes planning the Cubana airliner bombing in 1976 that killed all 73 people aboard; employment by the CIA in El Salvador in 1980’s re-supply operations for the contra terrorists in Nicaragua; and organizing in 1997 10 bombings of hotels and other tourist sites in Havana, one of which killed an Italian tourist. A year later he admitted to the New York Times that CANF directors in Miami had financed the hotel bombings. Through the years Posada freely traveled in and out of the United States.

Press conference by Foreign Minister of the Repúblic of Cuba, Felipe Pérez Roque on the mercenaries at the service of the empire who stood trial on April 3,4,5 and 7, 2003. Havana City, April 9, 2003

After more than 40 years of an ironclad economic, financial and commercial blockade, of aggressions, terrorist acts, more than 600 assassination attempts on the life of the Cuban President; after decades of incitement to subversion, illegal emigration, sabotage, activities by armed groups whose acts of terrorism against our country have been tolerated in the country where they originate; after all that history, which our people know only too well having suffered the loss of many lives and considerable material losses –the blockade alone has cost Cuba more than $70 billion USD– on top of all that, our people have had to contend with the obsession of U.S. governments to fabricate an opposition in Cuba, to fabricate an organized dissidence in Cuba, to foment in Cuba the emergence or strengthening of groups responding to their interests, with an evidently annexationist vision, those who would be responsible some day for propitiating Cuba’s annexation to the United States, in the supposed scenario of the defeat of the Cuban Revolution. That has been its obsession and the purpose of the laws, the funding, the incitement and the role of the special services.

Fight cop beats jail sentence

Aug 2 2003
By Paul Byrne


A POLICEMAN filmed attacking a man has had a two-month jail term quashed. But PC Keith Empsall's conviction for common assault was upheld after a three-day appeal hearing.

He was ordered to do 200 hours community service. An amateur film maker recorded Empsall, 43, kicking, kneeing and punching 28-year-old Chris Wilson as he was being arrested for drunken behaviour in June 2001.

The Recorder of Leeds, Judge Norman Jones QC, described it as "gratuitous and unnecessary." He added: "The violence was far more than could have been justified." But he said a jail term would be "draconian".

The court was told of Empsall's "glowing" references and a 500-name petition of support. Last night Empsall, who must pay £2,500 costs, said: "I want to get home to my wife and family."

Comment: A good example of the acceptance and approval of psychopathic behavior in society...

The Bush administration's desperation is showing

By Bev Conover
Online Journal Editor & Publisher

August 2, 2003—With the baring of each lie the administration told about Iraq and the revelations still to come about its foreknowledge or complicity in the events of Sept. 11, 2001, that cost some 3,000 Americans their lives, in addition to an economy in tatters, the destruction of the US's paltry social safety net and deficits future generations will have to cope with, the Bushies' desperation level has reached a crescendo.

Despite the efforts of George W. and his minions to allay or ignore the questions finally being tossed at them, they just won't go away. What to do? What to do? Create a diversion. [...]

Leery spouses spy on each other online

John LaSage, founder of the Chatcheaters Web site, demonstrates how to set a surveillance vehicle tracker underneath his truck's bumper.

NEW YORK (AP) [...] With the surge in cyberaffairs, a new market for electronic spying has developed. Web sites such as Chatcheaters.com and InfidelityCheck.org describe an array of surveillance products capable of tracking a cheating spouse's e-mails and online chats, including some that can monitor each key stroke in real time. [...]

Comment: We are living in a society that is making it easier and easier for the psychopath to flourish, and making it more difficult to escape from them.

Intel beefs up on-chip security

by Frances Gleeson

Intel is to introduce new motherboards in the fourth quarter that incorporate Wave Systems' security software to combat theft and unauthorised copying of data. [...]

Privacy advocates have criticised the TPM system saying that rather than securing data, it will be used to monitor consumers' use of music, film and software for licensing purposes. [...]

Man Sentenced For Dissecting Guinea Pig He Thought Was Spy

Car Crash Reveals Racist Church in Louisiana

NEW ORLEANS, La. (Reuters) - A car crash this week in a town near New Orleans revealed that a building thought to be a home improvement business was actually a white supremacist church, police said on Friday. [...]

More payroll weakness

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - U.S. employers cut thousands of jobs in July, the government said Friday, defying expectations that payrolls would grow, but a decline in the labor force sent the unemployment rate down. [...]

Hate crime earns record jail time

Jeff Mitchell
yorkregion.com

[...]"Folks like me, sometimes we create our own vision."

That vision, according to the Crown attorney's office, was communicated in numerous hate-filled letters to politicians, the national director of a Holocaust studies group and even York Region's police chief.

The racist screeds often consisted of newspaper clippings to which Mr. Love had added his own commentary, prosecutor Moiz Karimjee told Mr. Justice William Gorewich.

"The message being communicated is direct and clear: These groups must be despised," Mr. Karimjee said during the Ontario Court of Justice hearing in Newmarket.

Justice Gorewich agreed with a joint submission from the prosecution and defence, which called for a sentence of 11 months in jail in addition to the seven months Mr. Love served in pre-trial custody. He was also placed on probation for three years. [...]

Sgt. Heidi Schellhorn, of the York Regional Police hate crimes unit, also applauded the sentence.

"I think it's going to send a strong message to the community," she said[...]

Stratosphere's role in weather suggested

NASA NEWS RELEASE
August 1, 2003

What happens in the stratosphere, the atmospheric layer just above where commercial airplanes fly, may have a larger influence on our climate and weather than previously thought, according to research funded by NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the National Science Foundation. [...]

Baldwin and his co-authors suggest, although the stratosphere is mostly clear and weather free, it appears changes to the stratospheric circulation can affect weather patterns for a month or more. Wind patterns in the lower stratosphere tend to change much more slowly than those near the surface. [...]

A better understanding of the stratosphere's effect on the troposphere could also be useful in gaining additional insight into the climatic effects of stratospheric ozone depletion, solar changes and variations in aerosol amounts associated with major volcanic eruptions. [...]

Firefighters battle Canada wildfires

BBC
Sunday, 3 August, 2003, 00:45 GMT

The fires are behaving unpredictably and proving impossible to control
Firefighters are struggling to slow the advance of forest fires that have led to thousands of people fleeing their homes in the western Canadian province of British Columbia.

More than 8,000 people have fled three major fires in the region - one southeast of the city of Kamloops, about 150 miles (240 km) north east of Vancouver, and two in the north. [...]

58 crop circles reported in Germany so far for 2003

Reports in German and English. Some have been identified as hoaxes.

And here is the site for the German Association for Crop Circle Research

Mysterious crop circles drawing hundreds to southern Ontario farm
 
Canadian Press

HENSALL, Ont. (CP) -- Hundreds of people are flocking to a southern Ontario farm to inspect something they've only seen in the movies -- crop circles.

Erv Willert says the elaborate geometric signs appeared in his 16-hectare wheat field on Wednesday evening, and he doesn't think anybody in the area is responsible.

"There's nobody with enough energy to do this," he said. "They'd get one circle done and lay down and have a beer." [...]

Sonic boom? Earthquake? Big bang theories abound

BY TERRY JOYCE
Of The Post and Courier Staff

The earthquake experts say it wasn't a shaker, and military authorities say they didn't have the kind of planes in the air that can make a sonic boom.

But whatever it was, the noise that rattled Lowcountry communities about 1:30 p.m. Friday commanded a lot of attention.

"There was this extremely loud, percussive noise," said Reynolds Pommering of Mount Pleasant. "My sister (on James Island) said she heard it, too, and that's eight miles across as the crow flies. I first thought somebody had run into the building." [...]

Ancient cities discovered in Yangtze Valley

By David Keys, Archaeology Correspondent
The Independent
03 August 2003

China's Yangtze River was once home to an ancient civilisation, just as the Nile, the Tigris-Euphrates and the Indus rivers were, according to new archaeological research.

A series of 13 walled towns and cities have so far been discovered. Dating from around 3000BC these ancient urban centres - excavated by Chinese and Japanese archaeological teams over the past decade - appear to have had populations of up to 10,000. The largest cities had up to three miles of defensive walls. [...]

Son Shocks Family - Returns As A Zombie

DOUALA - Is there Really a Zombie in the Bay City of Cameroon? Ten months after his death, a 23 year old man who died under mysterious circumstances in a traffic accident returns to his family. [...]

Delphic oracle was ancient glue-sniffer

Robin McKie, science editor
Sunday August 3, 2003
The Observer

She advised generals about invasions; told citizens about the fates of their investments; and even warned Oedipus about the dangers of murdering his father and marrying his mother.

Yet the oracle at Delphi was not blessed with prophetic vision, scientists have discovered. In fact, she was high on alcoholic vapours. [...]

Bad Feng Shui Blamed for German MPs Lacking Ideas

Sat Aug 2, 7:02 AM ET

BERLIN (Reuters) - If German politicians lack ideas for reforming the country's struggling healthcare and pensions systems, they can now blame an adverse flow of energy in their workplace.

The German parliament's glass dome, a Berlin landmark, makes for bad feng shui, according to an expert in the Chinese art of positioning objects, buildings and furniture. [...]

'It had to be a UFO'

BY RYAN O'LEARY
NWI Times

[...]On that serene and surreal evening, the forces of nature (and perhaps some other forces, depending on whom you ask) converged with our national pastime on the corner of the Bermuda Triangle, crafting a moment that, in terms of sheer oddity, may have no peer in baseball lore.

Some eyewitnesses have told the story hundreds of times to thousands of people. Most listeners refuse to believe it. Reporters and baseball historians have never taken it seriously enough to run with it -- perhaps in part because one of those present doesn't recall it even happening.

Can't really blame any of them. The tale is, in a word, unbelievable. And it's been buried among baseball's most obscure X-Files for nearly 29 years. [...]

White animals resembling Polar bears spotted in Tibet: Report

Source : PTI

Beijing - White animals appearing identical to Polar bears have been spotted by local people in Tibet, a media report said on Saturday.

The sightings, reported in several remote counties of the Himalayan region, could be of great significance to the study of the evolution of species in Tibet, Xinhua news agency quoted experts as saying.

Puce, an old herdsman from Qomo village of Gerze county of Ngari prefecture, was full of excitement when recalling his encounter recently with the mysterious animal.

"I was herding the sheep when suddenly I saw a white creature in the distance and thought it might be a snow leopard," said Puce.

"After a careful study, I found it was a big white bear quite identical to Polar bears as we have seen in the films," Puce told Xinhua news agency. [...]

Cashiers Diapered to Avoid Breaks?

Fri Aug 1, 8:11 AM ET

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (Reuters) - Supermarket cashiers in Argentina are being forced to wear diapers to keep them from taking toilet breaks at work, a union says. [...]

Cordova refused to name the supermarket, but he did say the chain is backed by foreign capital, said Sandra Varela, Mendoza's labor subsecretary. [...]


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