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"The Fifth Column"

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The new ice age

[,,,] If anything, it is the risk of an ice age which we have to fear. When ice ages arrive, the geological record tells us, they arrive quickly, within the space of a few years. A repeat of the last ice age would see the ice caps extending to the Thames. England would become like Greenland: capable of supporting marginal settlements on its southernmost fringes, but a wasteland within.

What is more, the geological record shows that ice ages have tended to occur at 10,000-year intervals and are preceded by few warning signs. The last ice age ended 10,000 years ago.

For anyone reading this on a sun-lounger in Bournemouth, enjoy it while you can. For readers in Skegness, it may be too late already. Even the mass of hot air generated by the climate-change lobby will not prevent the next ice age when it does arrive.

Flashback:

September 6, 2002 - A perspective on potential climate changes presented by Dr. Robert B. Gagosian, President and Director of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution - Global warming could actually lead to a big chill in some parts of the world. If the atmosphere continues to warm, it could soon trigger a dramatic and abrupt cooling throughout the North Atlantic region—where, not incidentally, some 60 percent of the world’s economy is based.

When I say “dramatic,” I mean: Average winter temperatures could drop by 5 degrees Fahrenheit over much of the United States, and by 10 degrees in the northeastern United States and in Europe. That’s enough to send mountain glaciers advancing down from the Alps. To freeze rivers and harbors and bind North Atlantic shipping lanes in ice. To disrupt the operation of ground and air transportation. To cause energy needs to soar exponentially. To force wholesale changes in agricultural practices and fisheries. To change the way we feed our populations.

In short, the world, and the world economy, would be drastically different. [...] And when I say “abrupt,” I mean: These changes could happen within your lifetime, and your grandchildren’s grandchildren will still be confronting them.

And when I say “soon,” I mean: In just the past year, we have seen ominous signs that we may be headed toward a potentially dangerous threshold. If we cross it, Earth’s climate could switch gears and jump very rapidly—not gradually— into a completely different mode of operation. [...]

These warm-to-cold transitions happen in about 3 to 10 years. The cold periods lasted for 500 to 1,000 years. Such oscillations in temperature and ocean circulation have occurred on a regular basis.

Comment:

February 22, 1997

A: Climate is being influenced by three factors, and soon a fourth.

Q: (L) All right, I'll take the bait; give me the three factors, and also the fourth!. A: 1) Wave approach. 2) Chlorofluorocarbon increase in atmosphere, thus affecting ozone layer. 3) Change in the planet's axis rotation orientation. 4) Artificial tampering by 3rd and 4th density STS forces in a number of different ways. [...]

Q: (L) All right, were those given in the order in which they are occurring? The fourth being the one that's coming later?

A: Maybe, but remember this: a change in the speed of the rotation may not be reported while it is imperceptible except by instrumentation. Equator is slightly "wider" than the polar zones. But, this discrepancy is decreasing slowly currently. One change to occur in 21st Century is sudden glacial rebound, over Eurasia first, then North America. Ice ages develop much, much, much faster than thought.

02-19-00:

Q: You also made a remark once that ice ages occur much, much faster than people ever thought...
A: Yes.
Q: Do we need to invest in some mukluks and snowshoes?
A: ??
Q: Well, what I am trying to get at is: should we start stockpiling firewood?
A: Maybe.
Q: So, it could be that fast?
A: Oh yes, and faster when in response to global "warming."
Q: When you put "warming" in quotes, you obviously mean warming in more than just an ordinary sense? Is that correct?
A: And/or not really "warm."
Q: Whitley Strieber and Art Bell have published a book about a "global superstorm." Is any of the information they have given in this book fairly accurate?
A: Derived from non-human sources known for stark accuracy, when convenient.
Q: What makes it convenient at the present time for them to be "starkly accurate?"
A: Fits into plans.
Q: Plans for what?
A: Do we not know already?
Q: In other words: world conquest and the takeover of humanity?
A: Not as simple. Call it amalgamation.

Ulysses spacecraft sees galactic dust on the rise

EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY NEWS RELEASE

Since early 1992 Ulysses has been monitoring the stream of stardust flowing through our Solar System. The stardust is embedded in the local galactic cloud through which the Sun is moving at a speed of 26 kilometres every second. As a result of this relative motion, a single dust grain takes twenty years to traverse the Solar System.

Observations by the DUST experiment on board Ulysses have shown that the stream of stardust is highly affected by the Suns magnetic field.

In the 1990s, this field, which is drawn out deep into space by the out-flowing solar wind, kept most of the stardust out. The most recent data, collected up to the end of 2002, shows that this magnetic shield has lost its protective power during the recent solar maximum.

In an upcoming publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research ESA scientist Markus Landgraf and his co-workers from the Max-Planck-Institute in Heidelberg report that about three times more stardust is now able to enter the Solar System.

The reason for the weakening of the Suns magnetic shield is the increased solar activity, which leads to a highly disordered field configuration. In the mid-1990s, during the last solar minimum, the Suns magnetic field resembled a dipole field with well-defined magnetic poles (North positive, South negative), very much like the Earth.

Unlike Earth, however, the Sun reverses its magnetic polarity every 11 years. The reversal always occurs during solar maximum. Thats when the magnetic field is highly disordered, allowing more interstellar dust to enter the Solar System.

It is interesting to note that in the reversed configuration after the recent solar maximum (North negative, South positive), the interstellar dust is even channelled more efficiently towards the inner Solar System. So we can expect even more interstellar dust from 2005 onwards, once the changes become fully effective.

While grains of stardust are very small, about one hundredth the diameter of a human hair, they do not directly influence the planets of the Solar System. However, the dust particles move very fast, and produce large numbers of fragments when they impact asteroids or comets.

It is therefore conceivable that an increase in the amount of interstellar dust in the Solar System will create more cosmic dust by collisions with asteroids and comets.

We know from the measurements by high-flying aircraft that 40,000 tonnes dust from asteroids and comets enters the Earths atmosphere each year. It is possible that the increase of stardust in the Solar System will influence the amount of extraterrestrial material that rains down to Earth.

Comment: In the August 7th edition of the Signs page, we posted an article (with commentary) from the NewScientist.com news service, Galactic dust storm enters Solar System.

The article mentions the potential danger from a galactic dust storm:

[...]The effect this will have on our planet - if any - is unknown. But some researchers have speculated that sustained periods of cosmic dust bombardment might be related to ice ages and even mass extinctions.[...]

From today's article, it sounds like the dust storm creates something like a feedback loop, increasing the amount of dust and subsequently the amount of dust that enters the earth's atmosphere...

Relations Between Israel and the Apartheid Regime in South Africa

We looked yesterday at the issue of Ethnic Weapons, biological and chemical weapons that can be built to single out populations by their genetic characteristics. We saw evidence that Israel may be building such weapons to be used in their final solution against the Palestinians.

The technology for this program came from the apartheid regime of South Africa, that is, the Boers who ruled over the Blacks until the last decade of the 20th century.

The close relations between Israel and the apartheid regime go back to the mid seventies.

Profile of Bilateral Relations

State of Israel
HISTORY OF RELATIONS

Israel established a Legation in South Africa in 1952 and in 1974 it was upgraded to an Embassy. In 1972 South Africa established a Consulate General in Tel Aviv which was upgraded to an Embassy in December 1975. Israel continued to enjoy close relations with the Apartheid Government in South Africa.

While many African countries had seen Israel as an ally in the fifties and early sixties, another country struggling to survive in a hostile climate, after the wars of 1967 and 1973, their view had changed and Israel was now the neighborhood bully. For more on this, see the article Africa, Arabia, and Israel: Forty-Five Years of Relations.

South Africa had seen two of its neighbors become "Popular Republics" under Marxist-inspired "People's Armies" after the fall of the Salazar regime in Portugal in 1974. So both Israel and South Africa had a siege mentality, believing they were surrounded by enemies.

Africa, Arabia, and Israel
Forty-Five Years of Relations

(Originally published as Sheen-File #053)

[…] In the wake of the 1973 Yom Kippur War between Israel and the joint forces of Egypt and Syria, almost all of sub-Saharan Africa broke off diplomatic relations with Israel completely. And in 1975, the Arab League states succeeded in passing a motion on the floor of the United Nations General Assembly, equating Zionism with racism and South African apartheid. It passed in large measure to the near-automatic support the resolution received from the sub-Saharan African states.

Although there is evidence that several African nations wished to maintain covert relations with Israel, privately insisting that its public condemnation of Israel was merely an act for show, designed to placate the Arab states, to many Israelis, this hypocrisy was an unimaginable slight that could not easily be forgiven. It was said that, in response to this overwhelming rejection, "Israel pursued its relationship with South Africa with an element of vindictiveness."

Israel and South Africa

excerpted from the book
Israeli Foreign Policy
by Jane Hunter
South End Press, 1987

Israel has also been connected with the mercenary forces deployed by South Africa against Angola and Mozambique. In the 1970s Israel aided the FNLA (Angolan National Liberation Front) proxy forces organized and trained by the CIA to forestall the formation of a government led by the MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola-now the ruling party of Angola).

John Stockwell, who ran the CIA operation against Angola, recollected three arms shipments Israel made in cooperation with the CIA: a plane full of 120 mm shells sent via Zaire to the FNLA and Unita; a shipment of 50 SA-7 missiles (all of which were duds); a boat-load sent to neighboring Zaire in a deal that the Israelis had worked out with President Mobutu, even though the Zairian strong man had broken ties with Israel two years earlier.

South Africa's Nuclear Policy

Ruchita Beri, Research Fellow, IDSA

The political changes in the Southern African region heightened the security concerns of South Africa. The end of Portuguese rule in Africa after the 1974 Lisbon coup and the subsequent accession to power of Communist regimes in Angola (MPLA) and Mozambique (Freelimo) enhanced the encirclement by Communist forces regionally. The mid- 1970s also saw the intensification of the anti-apartheid struggle within South Africa-in the apartheid government's perception, sponsored by the Communist forces.

Thus, perceiving itself to be encircled by Communist forces, the South African government promoted a militarist ideology legitimising the use of force by the state to counter that threat, codified in the concept "Total National Strategy" to coordinate its national security planning. This ultimately involved a nuclear deterrent capability.

The arrival of Cuban troops in Angola after the establishment of the MPLA regime provided the final stimulus. Defence Minister P.W. Botha spelled out the defence requirements to meet this challenge as "South Africa can establish a balanced defence force to defend itself against terrorism...and this we are fully able to do....Secondly, we must have a deterrent to be able to resist a fairly heavy conventional attack on South Africa."3 This statement was quite ambiguous; however, one could reach the conclusion that both conventional and nuclear capabilities would be pursued by South Africa. Ambiguity became the trademark of the South African nuclear policy in the apartheid era.

The attitudes of the two countries can be summed up by this comment from Jane Hunter, cited above:

It has also been said that those arms sales are understandable, given the striking similarities between the two countries in their day-to-day abuse and repression of their subject populations, South African blacks and Palestinians under Israeli rule; in their operating philosophies of apartheid and Zionism; and in their similar objective situations: "the only two Western nations to have established themselves in a predominantly nonwhite part of the world," as a South African Broadcasting Corporation editorial put it. That understanding, however, is somewhat superficial, and the focus on similarities of political behavior has somewhat obscured the view of the breadth and depth of the totality of Israeli-South African relations and their implications.

As she suggests, this understanding is "somewhat superficial, as we will see below.

Another factor cementing the relationship was the embargo placed on South Africa following the riots of 1975 and the international outcry over the death of Stephen Biko.

S O U T H A F R I C A: 1 9 6 2 - 1 9 8 9
Access to Critical Events in Recent U.S. Policy Toward South Africa

The second period (1976-1980) deals primarily with the response of the U.S. government and the international community to the South African government's brutal reaction to the June 1976 student revolt, the death of Steve Biko (the leader of the Black Consciousness Movement), South Africa's subsequent security crackdown on opponents of apartheid and the adoption of the U.N. Security Council Resolution that called for a mandatory arms embargo against South Africa.

Because of this, South Africa was isolated, at least "officially", from the world.

One of the projects Israel and South Africa undertook together was the development of nuclear weapons. Hunter continues:

Israel's relations with South Africa are different than its interactions with any of its other arms clients. That Israel gave South Africa its nuclear weapons capability underscores the special nature of Tel Aviv's relations with the white minority government and begins to describe it - a full-fledged, if covert, partnership based on the determination of both countries to continue as unrepentant pariahs and to help each other avoid the consequences of their behavior.

Arms industry

Nuclear Apprentice

There are few areas where the respective needs and advantages of Israel and South Africa dovetailed so perfectly as in the field of nuclear cooperation.

"The most powerful reason for Israeli willingness to bear the undesirable consequences of expanded and more open trade with South Africa may be her desire to acquire material necessary to manufacture nuclear weapons," wrote a military analyst in 1980.' To that must be added Israel's great desire to test the nuclear weapons it already had, and the attractions of South Africa's vast territory and proximity to even vaster uninhabited spaces-the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

Then at the point in its nuclear development where it was fashioning sophisticated bombs (devices which use less nuclear material but have infinitely greater explosive force than the "primitive" bomb dropped by the U.S. on Hiroshima), Israel would find it particularly helpful to observe the performance, explosive force and fallout of a detonated weapon.

Since 1984, Israel had been operating a plutonium extraction plant in a secret underground bunker at Dimona in the Negev Desert. Built by the French in the late 1950s, the Dimona plant also included facilities for manufacturing atomic bomb components. At the time of the 1976 accords, Israel was preparing to build an adjoining plant for the extraction of lithium 6, tritium and deuterium, materials required for sophisticated thermonuclear weapons.

Israel's reasons for devoting what had to have been a significant portion of its scant resources to such an ambitious nuclear weapons program - nuclear experts have recently ranked it as the world's sixth nuclear power, after the U.S., the USSR, Britain, France and China - have been variously offered as the desire to develop a credible deterrent to attack by its neighbors and the desire to substitute that deterrent for at least part of the costly conventional arsenal that Israel, with one of the world's most powerful military forces, maintains, and also (with much less frequency) as an "umbrella" over a partial withdrawal from the occupied territories.

This cooperation is discussed as well here:

Abstract:

Note: Details about the Blaauw case are provided in the Africa Confidential article. ..... According to information released regarding the secret mid-1980s extortion trial of Johann Blaauw, a brigadier in the South African army, South Africa and _Israel_ participated in four clandestine nuclear deals in the mid-1970s. Blaauw was found not guilty of trying to extort mining concessions from Minister of Mines Fanie Botha in a trial in 1989 [1].

The first nuclear deal occurred in shortly after the Yom Kippur War in 1973 when "Benjamine," a member of the Israel Council for Scientific Liaison, asked Blaauw to acquire South African yellowcake which Israel could use for weapon-grade plutonium. ("Benjamine" is believed to be Benjamin Blumberg, the head of the Israeli Intelligence division Lish Ka l-Kishrei (Lakam) [2].)

After discussions with Gen. Hendryk van den Bergh, head of the Bureau of State Security (BOSS), South African Prime Minister John Vorster eventually agreed to sell 50 metric tons of yellowcake to Israel. The deal was handled by Minister of Mines Fanie Botha, who replaced Piet Koornhog [Koornhof] after Koornhog opposed the sale. Uranium Enrichment Corporation Chairman Ampie Roux was also aware of the deal.

During his testimony, Blaauw said that "a high degree of confidence was developing between the South African and Israeli governments which involved the exchange of military technology, joint aeronautic ventures, and the supply of 'know-how' by Israel to South Africa in regard to the manufacture of weaponry."

There is evidence of a joint nuclear test carried out in the Indian Ocean in September, 1979. Ruchita Beri, cited above, writes:

1979 Nuclear Test

On September 22, 1979, a US Vela satellite detected an unusual "double flash" indicative of a nuclear test, in an "area of the Indian Ocean and South Atlantic including portions of the Antarctic continent, and the southern part of Africa." In fact, some have claimed it to be a joint Israeli-South African nuclear test. South Africa denied that it had conducted a nuclear test. As late as March 1993, the AEC's Chairman, Waldo Stumpf, is reported to have said, " If it was a nuclear explosion, South Africa was definitely not involved.

I doubt that it was a nuclear [test] because no radioactive fallout was detected." Eighteen years after the event, Aziz Pahad, the Deputy Foreign Minister, confirmed that South Africa conducted a nuclear test in the South Indian Ocean in 1979. This admission has laid to rest the controversy surrounding the test.

We can see that the relations between the two countries were very close.

Not only were nuclear weapons part of the partnership, but strategy and tactics in dealing with their enemies, both internal and external were also an important part of the collaboration. Jane Hunter again:

The South Africans began teaching the lessons of Israel's 1967 war at their maneuver school, and Israeli advisers began teaching the Boers the arts of suppressing a captive population and keeping hostile neighbors off balance...

The white government's practice of domestic counterinsurgency combines outright military brutality with the extensive use of informers and collaborators. It is impossible to know how many refinements of these age-old techniques have been borrowed from the Israelis' occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights.

The Israeli system of village leagues is obviously comparable to the hated town councils imposed on segregated townships by the apartheid government. The collective punishment employed by the Israelis, such as the destruction of a whole family's home when one of its members is arrested as a suspect in an act of resistance, has lately been matched by the recent South African practices of sealing off townships, and assaulting entire funeral processions.

What is perhaps more salient is the South African victims' perceptions of Israel's involvement in their oppression and how readily that perception is communicated...

And when the population you are systematically trying to annihilate fights back, how do you justify it? Of course, you call it "terrorism". Hunter continues:

The Frontline States

The South Africans noted that their May, 1983 aerial attack (dubbed Operation Shrapnel) on Mozambique's capital, Maputo, was analogous to Israel's attack on Beirut the previous summer. One analyst, Joseph Hanlon, believes that one of South Africa's objectives in the attack was to see how its version of events would play in the media. It was received very well indeed, according to Hanlon, with the Western press accepting South Africa's claim that its attack was in "retaliation" for an ANC attack and that ANC "bases" were hit.

Instead, the South African Air Force hit a child-care center and private houses with "special fragmentation rockets," leaving 6 dead and 40 wounded. This follows the Israeli practice in Lebanon of speaking about PLO installations while civilians are the actual targets, and attacking with particularly heinous anti-personnel weapons-cluster bombs and phosphorous bombs.

The victims of South Africa's angst are not blind to the similarity of attacks-or motives.

President Samora Machel likened the Israeli Government to the Pretoria regime. He said that because of its inability to contain the fury of the Palestinian people led by the PLO, the Zionist regime is trying to transfer the war to other regions.

So reported Mozambican radio shortly after Israeli aircraft bombed PI headquarters in Tunisia in October 1985.

The model provided by Israel, which punishes every internal act of resistance and violent act outside its jurisdiction with a bombing raid on Palestinian targets in Lebanon-almost always refugee camps cynically identified by the Israelis as "terrorist bases" or "headquarters"-has served South Africa well. In January 1986, the white government's radio delivered a commentary on "the malignant presence" of "terrorism" in neighboring states and said "there's only one answer now, and that's the Israeli answer." Israel had managed to survive "by striking at terrorists wherever they exist."

In May 1986, South Africa demonstrated that it had assumed the right to attack its neighbors at a time and on a pretext of its own choosing. The chosen time was during a visit by the Eminent Persons Group of the Commonwealth of Nations, which was attempting to establish negotiations between the apartheid regime and its opposition. The victims-Zambia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, all Commonwealth members-were chosen for their alleged harboring of "terrorists"; the real victims were South African exiles and an employee of the government of Botswana. The South Africans said they had attacked "international terrorism" and compared their raids to the Israeli attack on Tunisia and the U.S. attack on Libya in April 1986.

The attack was similar in style to Israel's 1985 attack on Tunisia. Initially, the Israelis had been threatening Jordan and perhaps because King Hussein of Jordan was at the time on an official visit to the U.S., the Israelis chose to take revenge for the killing of three Israelis (believed to be top Mossad agents) in Larnaca, Cyprus on the PLO in Tunisia.

Two weeks after its three-pronged attack on its Commonwealth neighbors, South Africa attacked the Angolan harbor of Namibia, firing their version of the Israeli Gabriel missile.

When Israel reestablished relations with Zaire (in 1982) and began to train Zairian forces in the Shaba border province, Angola had cause for concern. The leader of the FNLA had been Holden Roberto, brother-in-law of Zairian president Mobutu, Israel's new client. In 1986, it would be established that Zaire acted as a funnel for "covert" U.S. military aid for the Unita forces of Jonas Savimbi.

In 1983, the Angolan News Agency reported that Israeli military experts were training Unita forces in Namibia. Since Zaire began receiving military aid and training from Tel Aviv, Angola has been ill at ease. Its worries increased after discovering that:

Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon was personally involved in the organization, training and equipping of "commando" units of the army of Zaire, especially organized for missions along the borders of the RPA [Angola].

In 1984, the Financial Times (London) wrote of "joint Israeli-South African support for Unita forces." Other sources also report the transfer of Israeli arms and financial support to Unita.

In 1983, Angola's President Jose Eduardo dos Santos told Berkeley, California Mayor Eugene (Gus) Newport that an Israeli pilot had been shot down during a South African attack. The Angolan President showed Newport pictures of captured Israeli weapons. The following year, Luanda reported the capture of three mercenaries who said they had been trained by Israeli instructors in Zaire.

Israel has also been involved with the Mozambican "contras," the South African-backed MNR (Mozambique National Resistance or "Renamo"), which has brought great economic and social distress to Mozambique. Renamo has a particular reputation for ideological incoherence, being regarded by most other right-wing insurgencies as a gang of cutthroats. For several years there have been stories coming from Southern Africa of captured mercenaries of Renamo who say they were trained in neighboring Malawi-one of the four nations to maintain relations with Israel after the Organization of African Unity (OAU) declared a diplomatic embargo in 1973-by Israelis. And more than one report has told of "substantial Israeli aid" to the MNR, thought to have been funded by the CIA and Saudi Arabia as well as South Africa and former Portuguese nationalists.

Two countries, both with the mentality of the "besieged", begin carrying out attacks against their neighbors under the cover of "defence". Sometimes "to see how its version of events would play in the media".

In fact, it looks as if they were field-testing the strategies and tactics that the Bush Reich is now imposing upon the US population and the rest of the world.

The links between Israel, the apartheid regime, and the CIA are well-established. It is not too much to suspect that this information was being shared by the intelligence agencis of the three countries.

But as we are trying to see "behind the scenes", as it were, we leave you with one last item to reflect upon. Remember a few years ago how the anti-globalization forces were growing stronger? Remember the Conference Against Racism held in South Africa? Remember how Israel was becoming isolated because of its butchering of the Palestinians in the period following Sharon's provocative visit to the Temple Mount in September 2000?

Israel and US walk out of UN conference on racism

By Chris Marsden
6 September 2001

The joint US-Israeli walkout from the United Nations conference on racism in Durban, South Africa was something of a foregone conclusion. It was a stage-managed affair, the purpose of which was to portray all opposition to the Zionist state's persecution of the Palestinians as inherently racist.

The original draft resolution to the UN conference stated its "deep concern" at the "increase of racist practices of Zionism and anti-Semitism" and spoke of the emergence of "movements based on racism and discriminatory ideas, in particular the Zionist movement, which is based on racial superiority." It made direct criticisms of Israeli repression against the Palestinians on the West Bank as a "new kind of apartheid, a crime against humanity."

The US and Israel insisted on the removal of any direct reference to Israel.

[…] Israel has also achieved some success in winning a more friendly response from Russia, which is again seeking to challenge US domination of Middle Eastern affairs by offering itself as an honest broker between Israel and the Arab regimes. During the Durban conference Sharon visited Moscow for talks with President Putin to discuss the common threat posed by Islamic terrorism-Sharon has even indicated sympathy for Russia's bloody suppression of Islamic rebel forces in Chechnya-the possibility of a further one million Jewish immigrants from Russia to Israel, armaments and other trade deals.

[…]Shimon Samuels, the head of the Jewish caucus in Durban, declared, "We saw an NGO document that would have made [Hitler's Nazi Party propaganda chief] Goebbels happy. And now it is clear that we are going to see, at the end of the government conference, resolutions that can be called the UN's Mein Kampf."

Mordechai Yedid, Israel's official spokesman at the conference, insisted there could be no condemnation of Israel in the resolution. He told the plenary meeting prior to the US-Israeli departure, "anti-Zionism, the denial of Jews the basic right to a home, is nothing but anti-Semitism, pure and simple." Yedid derided the Arab regimes proposals to criticize Israel's treatment of the Palestinians as "a group of states for whom the terms 'racism', 'discrimination', and even 'human rights' simply do not appear in their domestic lexicon". The UN resolution, he continued, was "the most racist declaration in a major international organization since World War Two".

His remarks prompted a walkout by Egypt's Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher, who represents one of the most pro-US of all the Arab states.

Announcing its withdrawal from the conference, US Secretary of State Colin Powell denounced any attempt to single out "only one country in the world, Israel, for censure and abuse'" and any suggestion that apartheid existed in Israel. For his part, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres proclaimed, "We were portrayed in an insulting and baseless manner as a colonial nation... The Arab League, all of it, has come out against peace."

The right-wing media in Israel marched to the same tune. An article in the September 4 Jerusalem Post by Yossi Olmert described the Durban conference as "the mirror image of the Nuremberg rallies, in which the Nazis propagated their anti-Jewish messages, striving hard to delegitimise the Jews, as an inevitable step leading to their eventual liquidation." He conceded reluctantly that "not all the participants in Durban are Nazis, maybe not even a majority of them, but too many are, and they clearly give this shameful gathering its true character".

We wonder what Sharon was discussing with Putin, aside from the "common threat posed by Islamic fundamentalism".

Did you happen to notice the date?

Five days latter the world would explode. The field trials carried out for thirty years by the Israelis and South Africans would be implemented throughout the world. The battle against "terrorism" would become the justification for imposing the New American Tyranny on the world.

Coincidence? We think not.

New Revelation Surfaces about Gulf War II "Mystery Illness"

Joyce Riley vonKleist & Dave vonKleist www.gulfwarvets.com

The American Gulf War Veterans Association (AGWVA), an independent Gulf War Veterans’ support organization, has long searched for answers to explain why nearly half of the 697,000 Gulf War I Veterans are now ill and why over 200,000 of those servicemen/women have requested disability, but have received no adequate diagnosis or treatment, from either the Department of Defense (DOD), or Veteran’s Affairs.

The AGWVA is now again asking questions, this time, about the newest “mystery illness” to hit the military. Again, however, there were no adequate answers, but, only that the “mystery illness” diagnosis had reared its ugly head again. According to a family member of one of the military victims, the DOD recently, has changed its label of the illness and is now calling it “pneumonia” in sharp contrast to what a physician on the scene reported.

Contrary to the “pneumonia” and “mystery illness” labels, enlightening information surfaced today on " The power hour” radio show in an interview with Mark Neusche, father of Josh Neusche, one of the GW II troops to lose his life from the “mystery illness” while serving in Iraq. The father stated that his 20-year-old healthy son, a former track star and non-smoker, had written home on June 26th explaining that he would be going on a 30-hour “hauling” mission, but that he could not disclose what they would be hauling.

Marsha Paxson also appeared on the show, as she is the journalist who broke the U.S. story for the Lake Sun Leader. Ms. Paxson revealed in her articles that the father reported that his son was not the only ill soldier. Neusche stated that while his son was in a coma at Landstuhl Hospital, the father overheard the nurses say that they were expecting numerous sick troops to be brought in all at one time.

In fact, the father actually witnessed approximately 55 other troops being received by the hospital after they were transported by a military ambulance (bus). According to the father, the transported troops were exhibiting varying degrees of the illness. Some walked, some were in wheelchairs and others were on respirators. In the commotion, a doctor reported to the father that his son was suffering from a “toxin”. No mention of pneumonia was made, nor was it ever reported in the medical record.

Paxton and the AGWVA now question the diagnosis, the actual number of troops that were reported ill, and the date when the DOD first became aware of this incident.

One of the most surprising statements to come from The Power Hour interview conducted on “The Genesis Network” was that while the son, Josh Neusche, was a healthy young soldier on June 26, 2003, when he reported that he was going to serve on the secret hauling mission, by July 1, 2003, he was in a coma, and that day was suddenly classified by the military, as medically retired from the Army without Josh or his family’s consent. Josh did not die until July 12, 2003. Among other problems that this new classification created was that the DOD was no longer obligated to assist the family in getting to Germany to be with their son as he lay in a coma.

Because the DOD would not provide even so much as plane or taxi fare for the Neusche family, all 650 members of the 203rd Engineer Battalion each contributed $10.00 to make the family’s final visit possible.

White House accused of manipulating data

Science used to serve Bush ideology, report says

By Christopher Marquis
New York Times

WASHINGTON | The Bush administration persistently manipulates scientific data to serve its ideology and protect the interests of its political supporters, a report by the minority staff of the House Committee on Government Reform says. [...]

On topics ranging from global warming to sex education, the administration "has manipulated the scientific process and distorted or suppressed scientific findings," the report said.

"The administration’s political interference with science has led to misleading statements by the president, inaccurate responses to Congress, altered Web sites, suppressed agency reports, erroneous international communications and the gagging of scientists," the report added. [...]

Air Force Officer Delivers Blistering Excoriation Of Bush

Says Bush is Responsible for September 11th Attacks

By Jerry Isaacs
8-11-3

A US Air Force officer in California recently accused President Bush of deliberately allowing the September 11 terror attacks to take place. The officer has been relieved of his command and faces further discipline. The controversy surrounding Lt. Col. Steve Butler's letter to the editor, in which he affirmed that Bush did nothing to warn the American people because he "needed this war on terrorism," received scant coverage in the media.

Universally ignored by the press, however, was that the officer was not merely expressing a personal opinion. He was in a position to have direct knowledge of contacts between the US military and some of the hijackers in the period before the terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon.[...]

He wrote:

"Of course President Bush knew about the impending attacks on America. He did nothing to warn the American people because he needed this war on terrorism. His daddy had Saddam and he needed Osama. His presidency was going nowhere. He wasn't elected by the American people, but placed in the Oval Office by a conservative supreme court. The economy was sliding into the usual Republican pits and he needed something on which to hang his presidency.... This guy is a joke. What is sleazy and contemptible is the President of the United States not telling the American people what he knows for political gain."[...]

Judge refuses to dismiss charges against Canadian in missile case

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - With a co-defendant's guilty plea, the focus of a federal weapons case shifts back to its key figure, David Hudak of Vancouver, accused of amassing thousands of warheads and training foreign troops in counterterrorist strategies in Roswell.

Hudak, president of Roswell-based High Energy Access Tools Inc., or HEAT, and co-defendant Michael Payne were arrested one year ago when the missiles were found. Payne pleaded guilty last month, acknowledging that he helped train soldiers from the United Arab Emirates in marksmanship and counterterrorism.

A trial date in the Hudak case has been set for later this month.

During a motions hearing Monday, U.S. District Senior Judge John Conway rejected motions to dismiss.

Conway also ruled that the jury could hear testimony about Houston-based Halliburton Corp. role in the Hudak transactions. But he said that there could be no mention of U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney, who came on as the company's chief executive a year after the explosives were purchased in 1994.

The prosecution had asked to have any mention of Cheney or Halliburton excluded from the case, contending Cheney joined Halliburton after the missile deal was finalized. Defence lawyer Robert Gorence responded that Hudak's belief Halliburton would not break the law - the company's credibility bolstered by Cheney - was relevant to his defence. [...]

TSA in "witch hunt," air marshals say

Homeland Security denies knowledge of formal investigation

By Brock N. Meeks
MSNBC

WASHINGTON, Aug. 11 — The Transportation Security Administration is conducting a “witch hunt” to ferret out and discipline employees in the federal air marshal program who have talked to the media, several sources within the program told MSNBC.com. Some air marshals are even being threatened with having the USA Patriot Act, a law enacted to help fight terrorism, used against them. The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the TSA, denies that any such investigation is taking place. [...]

US pushes pedal on energy projects

Oil, gas development ordered in Rockies

Prepare for Tube terror drill

11 August 2003

A major exercise simulating a terrorist strike on London Underground is to take place next month, the Government announced today.

Police on alert for 'imminent' al-Qa'ida terror attack on Britain

By Nigel Morris Home Affairs Correspondent
11 August 2003

Police in London have been put on their highest state of alert after warnings were received that an al-Qa'ida suicide attack may be imminent. [...]

Comment: Prisonplanet.com has compiled an archive of news reports regarding M15/M16 terrorist activity.

US soldier found dead in barracks

A US soldier in Iraq with the 2nd Armoured Cavalry Regiment has been found dead in the regiment's barracks, according to the US military's Central Command.

"The soldier was taken to the unit medical facilities but could not be resuscitated," it said in a statement.

It added that the cause of death was unknown and Saturday's incident was under investigation.

At least 61 American troops have now died in non-combat incidents since US President George W Bush declared major combat operations in Iraq over on May 1, while 56 US soldiers have been killed in guerrilla-style attacks.

Iraqis, soldiers wilt in 122-degree heat

By Steven R. Hurst
Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- It's 122 degrees in the shade.

The temperature in the Iraqi capital - already superheated by resistance to the American occupation - has danced around that enervating, shoe-sole frying figure for days now.

This year, with electricity in short supply after the war, what is normally a nuisance has become a catalyst for violence that raises the deadly threat facing U.S. and British soldiers. [...]

Baghdad is always hot in summer. The difference this year is the electricity cuts. Normally, most Baghdadis stay cool through the August heat with air conditioners or old water-evaporation coolers.

But with no electricity, there's no cooling. And who's to blame? The Americans, who haven't been able to bring electricity generation back to prewar levels. [...]

The heat has been deadly for American troops who patrol the city in 12-hour shifts, weighed down with weapons, helmets and 30-pound flak jackets. One soldier reportedly died of heat stroke over the weekend in a convoy, and a second was found dead in his living quarters - cause of death not immediately known. [...]

US Troops Kill Two Iraqi Policemen

(AFP) -- US soldiers in Baghdad on Saturday shot dead an Iraqi policeman they mistook for an attacker, killed another as he tried to surrender to them and beat a third, a survivor of the incident said.

The three Iraqi officers were firing from their unmarked car at a suspect vehicle they were chasing when the Americans opened fire on them in a western suburb of the capital, Sergeant Hamza Atiya Muhsen, who said he was driving the car, told AFP. [...]

Rebuilding Iraq Likely to Top War's Cost

By ALAN FRAM, Associated Press Writer
August 12, 2003

WASHINGTON - The U.S. bill for rebuilding Iraq and maintaining security there is widely expected to far exceed the war's price tag, and some private analysts estimate it could reach as high as $600 billion. [...]

Whatever the costs, administration officials have resisted making estimates on how much of them will be shouldered by U.S. taxpayers. They cite several uncertainties: the future numbers and missions of U.S. troops, contributions by allies, and revenue from the hobbled Iraqi oil industry and seized Iraqi assets.

Comment: Well, what seems to be so is:

1. There will be more military activity around the world involving U.S. invasion forces
2. Allies don't seem to want to invest money in Iraq, they want rewards from the U.S. for being good little lap dogs (or they have been blackmailed into helping out)
3. Profits from Iraqi oil sales are going straight to the companies in which the Bush Gang has a vested interest
4. Iraqi assets, what Iraqi assets? They were all either "looted" or destroyed.
5. The national debt and Americans' personal debts are at an all-time high.

That leaves John and Joanie Taxpayer to foot the bill. Too bad they've both been unemployed for the past year. Unless something changes, these and other factors seem to be leading toward an economic collapse.

Family Shot Dead by Panicking US Troops

Justin Huggler in Baghdad - The Independent 10 Aug 2003

The Abd al-Kerim family didn't have a chance. American soldiers opened fire on their car with no warning and at close quarters. They killed the father and three of the children, one of them only eight years old. Now only the mother, Anwar, and a 13-year-old daughter are alive to tell how the bullets tore through the windscreen and how they screamed for the Americans to stop.

"We never did anything to the Americans and they just killed us," the heavily pregnant Ms abd al-Kerim said. "We were calling out to them 'Stop, stop, we are a family', but they kept on shooting."

The story of how Adel abd al-Kerim and three of his children were killed emerged yesterday, exactly 100 days after President George Bush declared the war in Iraq was over. In Washington yesterday, Mr Bush declared in a radio address: "Life is returning to normal for the Iraqi people ... All Americans can be proud of what our military and provisional authorities have achieved in Iraq."

But in this city Iraqi civilians still die needlessly almost every day at the hands of nervous, trigger-happy American soldiers.

Doctors said the father and his two daughters would have survived if they had received treatment quicker. Instead, they were left to bleed to death because the Americans refused to allow anyone to take them to hospital.

It happened at 9.30 at night, an hour after sunset, but long before the start of the curfew at 11pm. The Americans had set up roadblocks in the Tunisia quarter of Baghdad, where the abd al-Kerims live. The family pulled up to the roadblock sensibly, slowly and carefully, so as not to alarm the Americans...

Explosions rock US Iraq base

From correspondents in Baghdad
August 12, 2003

SIX huge explosions rocked a US military base west of Baghdad overnight as mysterious assailants fired on the compound, an eyewitness said.

Faras Mustafa, 34, said he saw smoke rising from the base, in Ramadi, 100km from Baghdad, after the blasts.

There was no immediate comment from the US army, but earlier, Colonel Guy Shields, the coalition's top military spokesman, said the base in Ramadi had come under repeated mortar attack the previous few nights.

The town is considered a stronghold of sympathisers of Saddam Hussein's regime, who hailed from the same Sunni Muslim community, now embattled in the post-war Iraq era as the country's Shi'ite majority asserts its will.

US bases attacked after US forces strike at suspected guerrillas

Tuesday August 12, 11:26 AM

Huge explosions rocked a US military base west of Baghdad, several hours after US troops raided two sleepy villages where they suspected pro-Saddam Hussein guerrillas were hiding.

US officials announced the death of a US soldier, killed when assailants hurled a grenade at a police station he was protecting late Sunday in the town of Baquba, 66 kilometres (41 miles) northeast of Baghdad. Two other soldiers were wounded in the attack, US Army Major Josslyn Aberle said.

At least 57 US soldiers have now been killed in guerrilla-style attacks, while another 60 have died in non-combat incidents since the White House declared major combat operations in Iraq over on May 1. [...]

Armless Iraqi Boy Bears No Grudges for U.S. Bombing

By Gideon Long
Mon Aug 11, 2:25 PM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - A boy whose armless torso, horrific burns and haunted eyes symbolized civilian suffering in the Iraq war smiled for the cameras Monday and said he bore no grudges against U.S. forces for his injuries.

Ali Ismaeel Abbas, 13, victim of a U.S. bombing raid on Baghdad that killed his parents and other family members, spoke to reporters at Queen Mary's Hospital in London where he and another Iraqi boy are due to be fitted with artificial limbs.

In a sign of his affection for Britain's biggest soccer club, Ali said he wanted a Manchester United logo on one of the artificial arms he will be given.

"I'm looking forward to getting the ... limbs as soon as possible," said Ali, speaking through a translator.

"He's very grateful to the British people and he assures us he has no bitter feelings," said Zafar Khan, chairman of the Limbless Association, which is affiliated to the rehabilitation center where the boys will be treated. [...]

The limbs, each costing about $30,000-$40,000, will have to be changed regularly as the boys grow. The Kuwaiti government has said it will foot the bill for all medical care until the boys reach adolescence. [...]

Comment: The U.S. blows off Ali's arms and murders his family, and yet it is the U.K. who gives him prosthetics, paid for by Kuwait. This is referred to as freedom and justice according to the Bush Reich. But don't worry about poor Ali, because he has a Manchester United decal on one of his new fake arms. He's perfectly content now, so everyone please just go back to sleep.

THE TROOPS: Chance of a Short Trip Home for Soldiers on Yearlong Tour

By THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON, Aug. 10 — The commander of the 101st Airborne Division, which is on patrol in northern Iraq, has proposed an unusual holiday that would allow his troops to visit home once in their lengthy tours of duty.

In a letter to families of the division's troops, the commander, Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus, wrote of his efforts to fly the soldiers back to the United States for up to two weeks of leave after they are midway through a 12-month deployment. [...]

To ease the separation of his troops from their families at home, General Petraeus wrote, each battalion will soon set up a computer center for Internet access and e-mail, and the number of telephones available to the troops will be increased. Over 200 satellite dishes should be installed in time to watch the fall football season, he wrote.

But reliable electricity remains a challenge, he wrote, which especially complicates efforts to cool the sleeping quarters.

2 Israelis dead in Ariel and Rosh Ha'ayin blasts

By Roni Singer, Jonathan Lis and Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondents, Haaretz Service and The Associated Press

Two Israelis were killed and at least 13 people were wounded in two separate suicide attacks Tuesday morning, one in the Israeli town of Rosh Ha'ayin and a second at the entrance to the West Bank settlement of Ariel.

These are the first major attacks since militant Palestinian organizations declared a temporary truce on June 29. However, there have been several other nationalistic attacks on Israelis since the truce, or hudna, was signed.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for either attack, but security sources said they thought the Ariel attack was carried out by Hamas activists from Nablus and the Rosh Ha'ayin bombing was carried out by Fatah activists from Nablus, whom IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon called Fatah renegades.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad spokesmen said they didn't know who was responsible for the attacks and that their groups remained committed to the cease-fire.

Ismail Hanieh, a spokesman for Hamas, laid the blame for the attacks at Israel's feet. "This situation was born as a result of Israel's refusal to commit to the Palestinian hudna," he said.

Comment: Hamas generally admit to suicide bombings when they are responsible. Sharon has proven that he is desperate, and will do whatever is needed, to keep the war against the Palestinians active.

As we have often said, the only group to benefit from the "Palestinian terrorist bombings" are the extreme right-wing Zionist Jews like Sharon and those in this world that delight as we slip further down the slope towards catastrophe.

Bomb in Jakarta Hotel Was American/Israeli

Someone in Washington has a lot of explaining to do

By now we have all been saturated with the standard “War on Terror” blurb about the bombing of the Marriott Hotel in downtown Jakarta on 5 August 2003. Speaking with a single corporate voice, the western media stated surprisingly quickly that the bomb was the work of a lone suicide bomber working for the “feared terrorist organization ” Jemaah Islamiah, which allegedly and very brazenly drove a Toyota van up to the front of the hotel, where the Toyota obligingly and predictably exploded with a loud and unmistakable bang.

Warming to this incredibly inaccurate and deceitful theme, the corporate media then ran thousands of feet of video footage showing smoke billowing out of the hotel, people running around in circles, “experts” from three different continents saying how evil these Muslim Jemaah Islamiah folk really are, and so on and so on. Then in less than 48 hours we were told that the guilty bomber was called “Asmal”, who was unfortunately killed in the blast, making embarrassing trials like those in Bali completely unnecessary in the future.

Alas, the corporate media was lying through its teeth as usual, with none of its “facts” standing up to even the most casual of scrutiny.[...]

CIA behind Jakarta, Bali blasts, alleged Islamic militant leader says

Tuesday August 12, 1:38 PM

Indonesian prosecutors were due later to recommend a sentence for alleged terror group chief Abu Bakar Bashir, as the Muslim cleric accused US intelligence of carrying out deadly bombings in Bali and Jakarta.

Bashir, a Muslim cleric who allegedly leads the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), faces 20 years if convicted of trying to topple the government through terrorism and to establish an Islamic state.

In a radio interview before the hearing, he said his trial has produced no proof of his guilt. "The issue now is the extremely high likelihood that foreigners have intervened in it," Bashir told Elshinta radio.

The 64-year-old cleric alleged that the US Central Intelligence Agency was behind last week's car bombing of the American-run JW Marriott hotel, which killed 11 people. [...]

Fears of new suicide terror squad

From CNN Jakarta Bureau Chief Maria Ressa
Tuesday, August 12, 2003 Posted: 0354 GMT

JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNN) -- The al Qaeda terrorist network has claimed responsibility for last week's bombing of the Marriott Hotel in the Indonesian capital Jakarta, terror experts have confirmed for CNN.

The claim comes amid reports the Marriott bomber may have been a member of a new 15-strong suicide strike brigade which is preparing more attacks. [...]

Comment: It has never been clearer who is really behind the "terrorist threat" with which the US government has attempted to terrorise the global population.

Bush Picks Utah Gov. Leavitt to Head EPA

By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writer
August 12, 2003

WASHINGTON - For the second time in his term, President Bush chose for his environment chief a GOP governor who has cultivated an image as a moderate on environmental issues. [...]

"It's an appointment that fits right in line with the Bush administration record. You're not going to see any dramatic improvement. It's business as usual," Young said. [...]

Scientists Designing Spacecraft To Crash Into Comet

BOULDER, Colo. -- Engineers at Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. are getting ready to test equipment they have built to propel a spacecraft into a comet.

The team hopes the craft will be able to hit Comet Tempel 1 on July 4, 2005 in a spot 80 million miles from earth. The craft will be about 2 feet high and 4 feet wide with a large copper nose that will be able to smash into the comet, traveling at 22,000 mph, creating a crater.

Another spacecraft will record the image of the collision using two high-powered telescopes. [...]

Selfish Baby Universes

By Kenneth Silber 08/11/2003

Has an Oregon lawyer discovered the secret of the universe?

[...] Gardner's hypothesis is called the "Selfish Biocosm." It states that intelligent life plays a key role in a cosmological cycle whereby the universe, over enormous timescales, creates new copies of itself. The laws of physics, in this view, strongly favor the emergence of life and intelligence -- and indeed are designed to do so. However, this design is not of supernatural origin. Biocosm carries the subtitle "The New Scientific Theory of Evolution: Intelligent Life is the Architect of the Universe."

The universe, in Gardner's telling, is "selfish" in the same metaphorical sense that genes are regarded as "selfish"; it is geared for self-replication. The Big Bang thus resulted from a Big Crunch in a previous universe. Our universe will end with a similar event, giving rise to one or more baby universes. Intelligent life arises in each universe, and eventually develops the ability to create new universes friendly to intelligent life.

But how did the cycle begin? Isn't there a gigantic chicken-and-egg problem? One might suppose the first universe containing intelligent life arose by accident, perhaps as part of an ensemble of universes that were mostly unfriendly to life. But Gardner regards this as an unsatisfying explanation. Rather, he proposes a notably strange idea. There may be a "closed timelike curve," a gravitational warping of space and time such that future events can influence the past. Thus, the universe may have been created by its own inhabitants!

Another quake jolts northern Japan

TOKYO (AFP) Aug 12, 2003

An earthquake measuring 4.5 on the Richter scale shook a northern Japan region on Tuesday that has been hit by powerful earthquakes recently, the meteorological agency said. There was no danger of tsunami tidal waves, the agency said.

The quake took place at 9:28 am (0028 GMT), with the focus located about 10 kilometers (six miles) underground in northern Miyagi Prefecture, some 350 kilometres (220 miles) north of Tokyo. [...]

Quake rocks Taiwan

TAIPEI (AFP) Aug 12, 2003

An earthquake measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale rocked Taiwan Tuesday, seismologists said. There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.

The tremor struck at 00:30 am (1630 GMT Monday) with an epicenter eight kilometers (4.96 miles) east of Niutou in eastern Ilan County, the Seismology Center said. [...]

Quake hits northwestern Iran

TEHRAN (AFP) Aug 12, 2003

An earthquake measuring a 4.7 on the Richter scale rocked northwestern Iran early Tuesday, state news agency IRNA reported. [...]

The epicenter of the quake was 15 kilometres (nine miles) northeast of the city of Khoy, bordering Turkey, at 00:42 am (2012 GMT). [...]

China races to keep up with electricity demand

By Richard McGregor in Shanghai
August 11 2003 19:03

China's orders for new power equipment so far this year have outstripped its purchases for the whole of 2002 by 50 per cent, as a restructured local industry attempts to keep pace with surging demand for electricity from industry and households.

The purchases of power equipment in the seven months to July will add 30 gigawatts of new capacity to the national grid, equal to nearly 10 per cent of existing capacity, according to a survey of orders conducted for foreign energy executives. [...]

The greatest growth in demand has come from increased industrial production, barely interrupted during the Sars crisis, and investments in power-hungry aluminium smelters.

The rapid expansion coincides with an extended heatwave in parts of China, especially around Shanghai, which has forced the government to ration power to some factories and even close them on some days. [...]

Europe's Heatwave Claims More Lives, but End Seen

By Inmaculada Sanz
Mon Aug 11, 3:05 PM ET

MADRID (Reuters) - Five members of the same family were killed by forest fires that ravaged Spain Monday as forecasters predicted there would be some relief from Europe's sizzling heatwave by the end of the week. [...]

In neighboring Portugal, which has been worst affected by the blazes, four villages in the Algarve resort region were evacuated because of a fire that more than 200 firefighters have been battling to control for three days.

Germany too struggled to contain blazes. In Jueterbog in the eastern state of Brandenburg, emergency services said up to 250 acres of forest was burning.

But weather forecasters said the hot, dry weather that has claimed dozens of lives was expected to break by the weekend. [...]

Bodies left unburied in Paris as heat toll soars

French mortuaries in crisis and mafia blamed for Italy's forest fires

Amelia Gentleman in Paris and John Hooper in Rome
Tuesday August 12, 2003
The Guardian

Funeral parlours in the Paris region were forced to turn away new arrivals yesterday, with no more space in their mortuaries to accommodate the increased number of mainly elderly victims of heat-related illnesses.

At least 50 people, and maybe many more, have died in the capital as a result of the exceptional heatwave which has gripped France for 10 days, according to emergency services. As forecasters warned that there would be no imminent relief from the extreme temperatures, doctors and opposition politicians con demned the government for failing to alleviate the situation.[...]

Hospitals in the Paris region were unable to find beds for the continuing flow of arrivals. A spokesman for the health ministry conceded that "the extreme heat is clearly linked to an increase in mortality".[...]

Paris has witnessed temperatures of 40C (104F) in the past week. Yesterday morning, after the highest night-time temperatures ever recorded in Paris [...]

Agent Orange Lingers in Vietnam Food

HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam War-era defoliant Agent Orange continues to contaminate livestock and fish eaten by Vietnamese decades after it was used, a study released on Monday showed. [...]

"Although the spraying ended over three decades ago, in certain areas of Vietnam food is clearly a present-day route of intake of dioxin from Agent Orange," the study said. [...]

US Army Plane Crashes in S.Korea, Casualties Unknown

Tuesday, August 12, 2003; 3:15 AM

SEOUL (Reuters) - A U.S. Army cargo plane crashed in a populated area of South Korea on Tuesday, but it was unclear whether the crew or civilians on the ground were injured, the U.S. military in Seoul said in a statement.

Local fire and rescue personnel had reached the site where the C-12 Huron twin turboprop crashed, southwest of the city of Pyongtaek, 24 miles south of the capital Seoul, the statement said.

Temple of doom

Christopher Hale's account of a Nazi expedition to Tibet, Himmler's Crusade, explores the delusion and dementia in the psuedo-science of the concentration camp

Peter Preston
The Observer

[...]Christopher Hale returns to Auschwitz in the end, sure enough, but his centrepiece is the bizarre all-German expedition to Tibet dispatched by Himmler to hunt for the remnants of the Aryan race. Call it Raiders of the Lost Lama. [...]

Unopened letter might be key to history

Mishawaka man holds on to returned parcel that might be linked to Martin Luther King slaying

By CAROL DRAEGER
Tribune Staff Writer

[I]t is to whom the envelope is addressed, "Mr. James Earl Ray," that makes it a mind-twisting mystery -- one that could have some connection or no connection to the death of Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968.

Ray died in 1998 in prison, having served nearly 30 years of a 99-year sentence after pleading guilty to King's assassination.

He later recanted his guilt and tried to get a new trial but was not successful. [...]

Auto Accidents Rise 14% During Full Moon, U.K. Insurer Says

[...] "We know that the moon is a strong source of energy, as it affects the tides and weather patterns, but were surprised by this bizarre trend,'' Craig Staniland, head of car insurance at Churchill, said in the release. [...]

Seeing Things: Chicago Spooked by 'Ghost Planes'

Just what are the ghost planes of Chicago?

ABC News

No one's quite sure, but they're spooking pilots and air traffic controllers alike. Images of airplanes that either do no exist or are very far away are popping up on radar that controls traffic at O'Hare International Airport, according to reports.

And on a few occasions, controllers at Terminal Radar Approach Control center in Elgin unnecessarily ordered pilots to make sudden, dangerous moves to avoid the false images.

'The ghosting is a complete terror for the air traffic controllers,' Charles Bunting, president of the Elgin local of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, told the Chicago Sun-Times. [...]

Family questioned over 'tortured' child

Associated Press
21:44 Monday 11th August 2003

A nine-year-old boy has died after being severely beaten and tied to his bed in eastern France, police have confirmed.

Several family members, including his parents, are in custody. Police said the boy suffered through "torture and barbaric acts". [...]

Saddam's 'personal wizard' spells out his fate

Associated Press
07:48 Tuesday 12th August 2003

A man who claims to be Saddam Hussein's sorcerer predicts the dictator will be found dead. The 62-year-old says troops will find his corpse in Dhuluaiyah, a village 55 miles north of Baghdad. The magician has asked not to be identified because he says Saddam is still alive. [...]

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