"Disasters involve cycles in the human experiential cycle [...] Human cycle mirrors cycle of catastrophe. Earth benefits in form of periodic cleansing. Time to start paying attention to the signs. They are escalating. They can even be 'felt'by you and others, if you pay attention."

Israel begins the campaign to debunk reports that it has nuclear capacity on its submarines. What took them so long? Meanwhile the US is making plans for a "peaceful coup" against Arafat. Now that Israeli EM waves have rendered him sick, the US calls on Arab doctors to declare him unfit for office. To complicate matters further, Qureia has given Arafat an ultimatum.

Arafat isn't the only one with health problems these days: US soldiers in Iraq, Mounties in Canada and a small group on Staten Island. But nothing to worry about with the outbreaks of a "mysterious illness." The US Army also admits that soldier suicides are up as the first group of vacationing troops returns to duty in Iraq.

In the US, Rice is taking over from Rummy which provokes an outburst from Rummie to a German journalist. Is this the first move against the neocons, or more window dressing? We ask the same thing about a report that Chalabi is on the outs in Washington.

The war against terror is going so well that experts are saying it is inevitable that there will be a dirty bomb attack in London. Feeling safer yet?

We continue our coverage regarding those who are speaking out against fascism. Today we focus on Jews warning Jews that Zionism has led the world, particularly Israel, into a dark alley. Parts of Palestine have been declared disaster areas, due to the continual destruction of peoples' homes.

Yet another US citizen is shocked at the darkness that is creeping over his country, but only after it touches him in a very personal and shocking way. It's official: Someone has obtained the documents proving Bush's family ties with Nazis. New technology is announced for better and constant surveillance. Diebold is mixed up in more election scandals; this time in Georgia.

Are observant Jews racists?
Intermarriage bad. Jewish continuity good. Discuss.

by Rabbi Avi Shafran

There may well be prejudiced people within the religious Jewish world, as there are among all communities, but they are not representative of that world. In fact, the Jewish religious imperative of "darkei shalom -- the ways of peace" mandates exemplary behavior toward all humankind.

And yet, all the same, it is certainly true: observant Jews do not choose non-Jews as spouses and want all Jews to marry other Jews.

How can that be understood?

Well, for starters, it needn't be. Judaism is a religion of laws, some of which are understandable and others puzzling. Like eating pork or creating fire on the Sabbath, intermarriage is prohibited by the Torah, period.

In the name of religion
What we do in the name of Judaism that desecrates Judaism.

by Rabbi Marc Howard Wilson
October 10, 2003

What happens when Judaism itself become the source of belligerence, even cruelty? What happens when its spokespeople become ludicrous mimics of the sanctimonious meanness of El Rushbo and Ann Coulter -- and, lest we be accused of leaning leftward -- James Carville and Al Franken?

[...] A young ba'al teshuvah (returnee to religion) who went off to study in a respected yeshiva called me to report a dilemma and its proposed resolution. His niece was having her Bat Mitzvah at a Reform temple. Her parents were going through an ugly divorce, and the family was distraught. The head of the yeshiva had instructed him not to attend, given the prohibition among some Orthodox Jews against entering a Reform temple. What did I think?

I told him, "You should absolutely attend. As the only frummeh Yid -- pious Jew -- in the family, it would be a kiddush Hashem -- a sanctification of God's name -- for you to serve as conciliator, kindly presence, and promoter of peace in the home. What a profound message about the essence of Jewish piety."

Well, he brought this argument to the head of his yeshiva, then called to tell me that the rabbi had counseled him to tell the family that he would attend, then to call them a day before the Bat Mitzvah to tell them he had taken sick and could not be there.

"The head of your yeshiva told you to lie?" Silence. "So, he believes that God is such a jerk that He is more pleased by lying and pouring frum salt on your family's festering wound than by your being a peacemaker and Jewish symbol of compassion? Tell him that the God in whom I believe is not a jerk!" Did he attend? You guess.

Sadly, it is not an isolated incident. I have attended plenty of synagogues, classes, and lectures, rabbis' eyes glinting with contemptuous smugness. The ratio of harangues to preachments about loving kindness and against social injustice is at best four-to-one. The harangues are not all about Bin Laden and Arafat. They are more likely about entities at odds with their own vested interests, dogma, and worldview.

Comment: In our work here, we have taken a strong stance against the way the monotheistic religions are used to control people, encouraging blind belief as opposed to critical thought. The article preceding this one is a good example of that. The Torah says it, so don't question; don't use the faculties of reason and critical thought given to you. Are they not also the Creator's gifts?

We have also taken a very strong stance against the State of Israel and its politics of genocide against the Palestinians. Butchery cannot be justified. The Torah and the Bible are creations of Man, not God, and cannot be used to justify murder. But in condemning Israel, Zionism, and the monotheistic religions, we must remain open to those individuals who are able to touch the sacred truths that have been twisted and distorted within these ideologies. This article, with its call for compassion, is an example.

But we also wonder whether this rabbi would show the same compassion for a gentile. This story is about differences between Jews. That we even ask the question is an indication of the frightful state of the world in which we live.

The end of Zionism

Israel must shed its illusions and choose between racist oppression and democracy

by Avraham Burg

Avraham Burg was speaker of Israel's Knesset in 1999-2003 and is a former chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel.

[...] The Israeli nation today rests on a scaffolding of corruption, and on foundations of oppression and injustice. As such, the end of the Zionist enterprise is already on our doorstep. There is a real chance that ours will be the last Zionist generation. There may yet be a Jewish state here, but it will be a different sort, strange and ugly.

[...] The opposition does not exist, and the coalition, with Ariel Sharon at its head, claims the right to remain silent. In a nation of chatterboxes, everyone has suddenly fallen dumb, because there's nothing left to say. We live in a thunderously failed reality. Yes, we have revived the Hebrew language, created a marvellous theatre and a strong national currency. Our Jewish minds are as sharp as ever. We are traded on the Nasdaq. But is this why we created a state? The Jewish people did not survive for two millennia in order to pioneer new weaponry, computer security programs or anti-missile missiles. We were supposed to be a light unto the nations. In this we have failed.

It turns out that the 2,000-year struggle for Jewish survival comes down to a state of settlements, run by an amoral clique of corrupt lawbreakers who are deaf both to their citizens and to their enemies. A state lacking justice cannot survive. More and more Israelis are coming to understand this as they ask their children where they expect to live in 25 years. Children who are honest admit, to their parents' shock, that they do not know. The countdown to the end of Israeli society has begun. [...]

Israel, having ceased to care about the children of the Palestinians, should not be surprised when they come washed in hatred and blow themselves up in the centres of Israeli escapism. They consign themselves to Allah in our places of recreation, because their own lives are torture. They spill their own blood in our restaurants in order to ruin our appetites, because they have children and parents at home who are hungry and humiliated. We could kill a thousand ringleaders a day and nothing will be solved, because the leaders come up from below - from the wells of hatred and anger, from the "infrastructures" of injustice and moral corruption.

If all this were inevitable, divinely ordained and immutable, I would be silent. But things could be different, and so crying out is a moral imperative. [...]

Israel jails Canadian 'refusenik'
Reserve medic won't serve in West Bank, Gaza 'We simply have to break the circle of violence'

MITCH POTTER
MIDDLE EAST BUREAU

JERUSALEM—A Canadian-born Israeli reserve soldier has been jailed for refusing to serve in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, citing "reasons of conscience."

Dan Goldenblatt, 33, a Montreal native, declined the order to deploy to the territories Tuesday morning after returning from a funeral for a friend killed in last weekend's Palestinian suicide bombing in the Israeli port city of Haifa, in which 19 civilians died.

Officers at the Israeli Defence Forces base at Yokneam immediately tried Goldenblatt, a paratrooper battle medic, sentencing him to 28 days. His detention began yesterday at an Israeli military prison near the northern Israeli town of Atlit.

How Zionists Created a Failed State

Fawaz Turki
Arab News

[...] Israelis — at least those among them who still cling to fin-de-siecle colonial ideas about pass laws and checkpoints and settlements and barbed wire and "restless natives" — are today caught in a time warp, believing improbably that their state, comprised of occupier and occupied, has a place and a future in the modern world.

Israel has become an anachronism, a cruel joke perpetrated against the Jewish people themselves. For have you noticed how this entity, established as a "haven" for Jews, has evolved into the only corner in the world where Jews are not safe? Rather than create a state where Jews could live in peace, looking confidently to the end of anti-Semitism, as a banished shadow, Zionists instead pounced on the little, native people of Palestine, demonizing them as five-headed monsters that you shoot missiles at, humiliate at checkpoints and build a Berlin Wall against. [...]

"The depressing truth is that Israel’s current behavior is not just bad for America, though it surely is," Tony Judt (no Gentile he) has written in the venerable New York Review of Books. "It is not just bad for Israel itself, as many Israelis silently acknowledge. The depressing truth is that Israel today is bad for the Jews." [...]

There is only one solution to the Palestine question and that is, as this column continues to suggest, binationalism, a pluralistic state with equal rights for all the inhabitants of the Holy Land — a solution that history’s crazy, but immutable, laws will one day dictate.

Look, if you have a better idea, let me know, because, sure as heck, everything else has failed.

Experts dismiss report Israeli subs can carry nukes

Oct. 12, 2003. 05:56 PM

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli and foreign defence experts today dismissed a report that Israel had modified submarine-based missiles to carry nuclear warheads, saying such an alteration was technically impossible.

The Los Angeles Times reported in Sunday editions that Israel had modified some of its nuclear warheads to fit U.S.-made Harpoon cruise missiles and upgraded the missiles so they could hit targets on land in addition to maritime ones. The article quoted two U.S. officials and one Israeli official, all speaking on condition of anonymity.

Comment: No one is permitted to discuss the Israeli's nuclear program. Ask Mordichai Vanunu. So it is not surprising to find Israeli experts and their foreign supporters starting the "Let's deny it all" routine.

U.S. recommends ''removing'' Arafat due to ''health concerns'' as he appoints new acting Interior Minister

13-10-2003,12 :40

U.S. officials are interested in the quick "disappearance" of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, preferably by natural means, according to a report in the Saudi Al Watan daily.

In the framework of plans for the "day after" Arafat's rule, American officials are crystallizing a joint Palestinian leadership, which would rule until elections are held in the Palestinian Authority, the Saudi paper reported Monday.

Moreover, the daily said that Arafat's deteriorating health has accelerated the discussion on the so-called "alternative leadership" plan.

According to the report, Washington seeks the removal of Arafat in a non-violent coup – similar to the one which ousted former Tunisian President El Habib Bourgiba by current President Zein El Abadin Bin Ali.

In addition, the U.S. officials suggest that Arab doctors create a report which would state that Arafat is currently incapable of carrying out his duties. Such a move, according to the officials, would bring about the non-violent removal of the Palestinian leader, replacing it with an alternative leadership – such as the Tunisian precedent.

Furthermore, the Americans suggest a scheme, in which Arab leaders and European officials would begin persuading Arafat to resign – and maybe even move to another Arab or European country.

Palestinian Authority declares Rafah a disaster zone

Daily Times

[T]he Israeli army pressed a major operation in Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip for a third straight day which has left eight people dead and hundreds more homeless. [...]

Alternative 'peace deal' for Mid-East

BBC

Israeli opposition politicians and Palestinian representatives have drawn up a draft peace agreement which they regard as a viable alternative to the international plan known as the roadmap.

The unofficial plan - known as the Geneva Accord - was finalised over the weekend during a meeting in Jordan.

It comes after two years of secret negotiations, backed by human rights activists and intellectuals, and supported by Swiss diplomats.

Those involved hailed it as a blueprint to end the Middle East conflict, but Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has angrily denounced the proposal, accusing left-wing Israelis of trying to bring down his coalition government.

The BBC Jerusalem correspondent, Orla Guerin, says Mr Sharon has long maintained there is no-one to talk to on the Palestinian side.

The left-wingers have set out to prove him wrong, but she says the public on both sides has grown weary and regard the plan as no more than a wish list with no legal standing.

The full details of the plan are due to be released when the initiative is formally adopted in Geneva next month, but sources say there is a key trade-off at its heart - Palestinians would not demand the right of return for refugees.

In exchange, they would get sovereignty over one of the most disputed religious sites in the Middle East, Jerusalem's Temple Mount, known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif.

The Palestinians involved, including former ministers, are reported to have the backing of the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. [...]

Sharon: "Geneva Accord" is most historic, tragic mistake since Oslo

By Ellis Shuman October 13, 2003

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon lashed out on Sunday against a final status agreement reached between Israeli left-wing politicians and senior Palestinian representatives, saying the so-called "Geneva Accord" would only undermine future peace negotiations. The Left said the accords proved there was someone to talk to on the Palestinian side. A Palestinian minister denied that the Palestinians had waived their "right of return" in the talks.

Government ministers and right-wing politicians harshly criticized the agreement, reached after a year of talks led by former justice minister Yossi Beilin and former Palestinian information minister Yasser Abed Rabbo. Last week, Sharon charged that the Left was working with the Palestinian Authority behind the government's back.

Agriculture Minister Yossi Katz (Likud) said that a similar situation in the United States would be if the Democrats signed an agreement with Osama bin-Laden and the Taliban.

"This agreement only promises useless hopes," Sharon told a political rally Sunday night, Yediot Aharonot reported. "What right do members of the Left have to suggest steps that Israel can't, and will never take?"

According to media reports, Sharon labeled the "Geneva Accord" as the most historic, tragic mistake since the failed Oslo Accords. "I trust this government and it is responsible enough to ensure that these sort of dangers will not befall us again," he said, quoted by ynet. Sharon said the accord would undermine future peace negotiations by determining opening positions that the government would not be able to retract.

"There is a government in Israel, and it deals with such matters," said Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom. "Everything else is virtual. I wouldn't have expected much else from those who brought us the Oslo Accords, for which foolishness we are still paying the price today, but therefore, we need to keep this in proportion."

Internal Security Minister Uzi Landau said he didn't understand how "Beilin and his friends, who were kicked out of power by the public twice, have the chutzpah to act behind the government's back at a time of war."

Members of the Israeli delegation that met with the Palestinians over the weekend in Jordan to finalize the terms of the agreement included Beilin, MK Haim Oron (Meretz); MK Amram Mitzna (Labor); MK Avraham Burg (Labor); former MK Nehama Ronen; Brig.-Gen. (res.) Giora Inbar and author Amos Oz.

Burg said the talks proved that Israel had a partner on the Palestinian side. "In a situation where there is a vacuum, where there is no dialogue and only violence for three years now, we were told we had no one to talk to. Now it turns out, after two years of intensive efforts, that there is someone to talk to."

Burg said the agreements reached by the Israeli side were important. "I expect the prime minister and his ministers to relate to the plan," he said.

Mitzna said the agreement was a "cocktail" of all the understandings reached between the Israelis and the Palestinians at talks held in Oslo, at Camp David and in Taba. [...]

PA says US Encourages Israel to Slaughter Civilians

Sunday, October 12 2003

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM - The Palestinian Authority (PA) has asked for a speedy international intervention to stop “Zionist massacres against our civilian population.”

“The Palestinian Authority urges the international community to step in to stop these massacres which target innocent people, including women and children,” said Palestinian spokesman Nabil Abu Ruedina.

He told the Palestinian news agency that Israel was indulging in wanton killings of Palestinian civilians and destruction of their property.

“This rampage of killing and destruction is a war crime which should be strongly condemned by the international community.

Abu Rudeina said Israel wouldn’t have embarked on the latest spare of killing and destruction in the Gaza Strip had it not been for “American acquiescence and connivance.”

He was referring to the onslaught by Israeli occupation troops, backed by tanks and armored vehicles in Rafah at the southern edge of the Gaza Stirp Friday in which at least seven Palestinians were killed and as many as 50 other were injured.

Palestinian medical sources said four of the seven people killed were innocent civilians, including 8-year-old Ibrahim Ahmed Qrainawi, and 15-year-old Sami Talal Salah both of which were shot dead. Qrainawi shot in the abdomen while Salah was hit in the head by shrapnel from a tank shell.

Twenty people, including eight children, sustained serious wounds. One body arrived in hospital with the head nearly blown off, medical sources said.

The Israeli occupation army said the purpose of the rampage, unprecedented since the outbreak of the Intifada more than three years ago, was to destroy tunnels used for smuggling weapons to the Gaza Strip through the Egyptian borders.

No tunnels, however, had been uncovered.

Comment: Three days of inflicting death and destruction on innocent civilians and they find NOTHING? Does this remind you of another "anti-terror" campaign that coincidentally also turned up nothing??

Qureia gives Arafat final ultimatum

By Eric Silver in Jerusalem
The Independent
13 October 2003

Ahmed Qureia, the Palestinian Prime Minister, told Yasser Arafat yesterday that he will resign in another three weeks if the men fail to resolve a dispute over control of Palestinian security services. [...]

Not so chummy with Rummy

The Bush administration works hard to obscure the inner workings of its foreign policy team. But Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s snippy comments last week about a new Iraq initiative by his colleague, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, suggest some of the tensions that lie beneath the surface.

Rumsfeld, a man for whom the expression “short fuse” might have been invented, complained in an interview Tuesday with four European news organizations that he had not been consulted about the creation of an Iraq Stabilization Group that will be chaired by Rice. When a German reporter pressed him, Rumsfeld snapped: “I said I don’t know. Isn’t that clear? You don’t understand English?”

[...] Because this administration covers its tracks so well, it’s hard to be sure about the Iraq reassessment. But here are some developments that are looming amid the fog of post-war: First, there is growing tension between occupation czar, Paul Bremer, and the Iraqi Governing Council he appointed.

[...] A second trend is that Ahmed Chalabi, a member of the Governing Council and once the Pentagon’s favorite Iraqi, has fallen from favor. One insider told me Chalabi “has burned most of his bridges” in Washington. He quarreled too often with Bremer, to the point that even his friends in the administration concluded that he was making a difficult situation in Iraq even worse.

Comment: True? Or misdirection? Is Chalabi on the outs, or are his American controllers playing him that way to give him a greater legitimacy in the eyes of the Iraqi people?

Condoleezza Rice takes charge

The White House went on the offensive this week in its Iraq and Afghanistan policies, this time domestically. On Monday, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice announced, on the front page of the New York Times no less, the establishment of an Iraq Stabilization Group. You can stop guessing which ideological camp ­ Secretary of State Colin Powell’s or Vice-President Dick Cheney’s ­ Rice is in: she’s just assembled her own.

In a bold, calculated move, Rice gave up playing honest broker in increasingly fractious interagency struggles in the Bush administration and took charge, wrestling control of Iraq and Afghanistan’s reconstruction from the Defense Department. The Pentagon suffered a very public loss of face. Widely overlooked in the fallout from the move was that this represented another blow to career Arabists and Middle East experts. Yet another senior official with no experience in Middle Eastern or South Asian affairs took charge of America’s most demanding foreign policy portfolios.

[...] Rice’s intentions are clear. The National Security Council’s senior director for the Middle East, Elliott Abrams, is finding his portfolio squeezed. Blackwill’s Iraq and Iran specialists will take the lead, while Abrams’ are relegated to secondary positions, mainly dealing with the Arab-Israeli issue.

Comment: Is this the beginning of a move against the neocons? Hard to believe given their power in Washington. But if Bush's ratings don't improve, someone has to be a scapegoat. We have read unconfirmed rumours that Cheney has suggested that this scapegoat could be the Jews.

Pictures of Destruction and Civilian Victims of the Anglo-American Aggression in Iraq

Troops Return to Iraq After 15-Day Leave

By WILEY HALL, Associated Press Writer
October 13, 2003

BALTIMORE - For the soldiers in Iraq facing the constant threat of attack, two weeks of home leave meant some precious rest and family time.

"I tried to cram as much family time as I could. I took my 8-year-old son to a couple of football games, and I got reacquainted with my daughter," said Staff Sgt. Jeffery Hannon, 32, from Fort Hood, Texas.

Though parting from loved ones was hard, many said they felt energized as the first troops to take advantage of the Army's unprecedented R&R program left Sunday to return to Iraq. [...]

Army probes soldier suicides

By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY
10/13/2003 5:27 AM

Alarmed by the number of suicides among soldiers in Iraq, the Army has asked a team of doctors to determine whether the stress of combat and long deployments is contributing to the deaths.

"The number of suicides has caused the Army to be concerned," said Lt. Col. Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, a psychiatrist at the Army's Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md. Ritchie is helping to investigate the suicides in Iraq. "Is there something different going on in Iraq that we really need to pay attention to?" [...]

Most of the suicides have occurred since May 1, after major combat operations were declared ended. [...]

The Army has sent 478 soldiers home from Iraq for mental-health issues. Officials say that in previous wars, many of those cases would have been treated in the war zone. The Army doesn't have enough mental-health resources in Iraq to treat many of the cases. [...]

Saddam's Syrian Stash

By ADAM ZAGORIN
Time.com
Saturday, Oct. 11, 2003

Since the fall of Baghdad in April, American officials have scoured the globe in search of Saddam Hussein's legendary fortune. Now they think they have found a big chunk. According to a U.S. estimate, as much as $3 billion in Iraqi assets is sitting in Syrian government- controlled banks, a senior U.S. official tells Time, and Washington is anxious to determine that the money is not funding violence against Americans in Iraq, or being drawn down by regime officials and supporters.

For months the U.S. has quietly insisted that Damascus give up the funds. Secretary of State Colin Powell met with Syrian President Bashar Assad in May and made that unpublicized demand. Top Syrian officials have been given the names of at least two suspect banks and provided with account numbers.

Syria's private response—that unspecified accounts were being frozen—was judged woefully inadequate. Publicly, Syria denies there is any Iraqi money in the country. But just over two weeks ago, the U.S. sent two American financial experts and two representatives of the Iraqi Central Bank to Syria to comb through records. U.S. officials now assert that Damascus has given them only "limited cooperation." [...]

Revelation casts doubt on Iraq find

Julian Borger in Washington
Tuesday October 7, 2003
The Guardian

The test tube of botulinum presented by Washington and London as evidence that Saddam Hussein had been developing and concealing weapons of mass destruction, was found in an Iraqi scientist's home refrigerator, where it had been sitting for 10 years, it emerged yesterday.

David Kay, the expert appointed by the CIA to lead the hunt for weapons, told a congressional committee last week that the vial of botulinum had been "hidden" at the scientist's home, and could be used to "covertly surge production of deadly weapons". [...]

It is also unclear whether the vial contained the bacteria botulinum, from which the toxin is drawn, or the toxin itself, as Mr Kay claimed in interviews over the weekend.

Furthermore, the most lethal form of the germ is the A strain, while the form found by the ISG was the B strain.[...]

The refusal to allow ISG experts to read a report on their own work adds weight to suspicions that the report has been manipulated. "They're under huge pressure to come up with whatever," the ex-colleague said. [...]

New Army 'Stryker' combat vehicle nears Iraq test

It's fast. It's lethal. And now it's going to Iraq. But is this new US weapon ready for combat?

By Ann Scott Tyson
The Christian Science Monitor

FORT LEWIS, WASH. –"Food!" "Water!" A crowd of irate young men in T-shirts and baseball caps shouts at American soldiers patrolling a dusty street in one of the Army's new, eight-wheeled Strykers.

The protesters aren't Iraqis. They are GIs impersonating Iraqi civilians in a training exercise. They stage a violent confrontation between a shopkeeper and a looter trying to draw a reaction - but the US troops drive on by. [...]

New Yorkers warned of mystery disease

www.chinaview.cn
2003-10-13 10:37:42

NEW YORK, Oct. 12 (Xinhuanet) -- The New York City Health Department has issued an alert after five residents in Staten Island, one of the five boroughs of the city, were hospitalized with what the department called a mystery illness.

Four of the five patients, ranging in age from 22 to 54, are incritical condition at Staten Island University Hospital. Doctors said they are suffering from symptoms of encephalitis, a rare swelling of the brain, but they said they do not know at this stage what is causing the disease.

Encephalitis is a symptom of the West Nile virus, but preliminary tests for the West Nile virus have been negative. Doctors are considering a strain of another virus that causes encephalitis and is also carried by mosquitoes and ticks.

[...] Symptoms include fever, headache, fatigue and malaise. Some of the hospitalized patients have also had seizures and exhibited confusion.

New York City investigating mystery illness cluster

Monday, October 13, 2003 Posted: 3:03 AM EDT (0703 GMT)

(CNN) -- The New York City Department of Health said Sunday it is investigating five patients on Staten Island who have or had symptoms of what appears to be viral encephalitis, but city health officials downplayed the possibility that they represented the harbinger of the outbreak of an infectious illness.

[...] "On Friday night, we thought we had something interesting, but we don't think we have anything interesting any more," Sandra Mullin, a spokeswoman for the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, told CNN. "Our concern has lessened dramatically."

62 have mystery illness at RCMP training academy

Canadian Press

REGINA — The number of those affected by a severe gastrointestinal illness at the RCMP national training academy has increased, say health officials.

Since the outbreak Monday of what is believed to be Norwalk-like virus, which causes severe vomiting, diarrhea and dehydration, a total of 62 patients have been treated by medical authorities.

British, Irish PMs to discuss election date in N. Ireland

www.chinaview.cn
2003-10-13 01:04:25

LONDON, Oct. 12 (Xinhuanet) -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair is to meet his Irish counterpart Bertie Ahern in London on Monday to discuss election date in Northern Ireland in a bid to revive deadlocked peace process there.

The deadline passes next week for an election to be held in mid-November, and efforts to reach an agreement have been intensifying in recent weeks.

British Secretary of State Paul Murphy and Irish Foreign Minister Brian Cowen are also expected to attend the talks, according to a BBC report.

Meanwhile, US president's special advisor Richard Haass is due to arrive in the province Monday for talks with the political parties.

Blair is expected to make a decision as late as in November on holding elections in Northern Ireland, where the devolved administration was suspended last October amid allegations of an Irish Republic Army (IRA) spy ring in the provincial government.

Experts fear dirty bomb attack in UK is inevitable

By Steve Connor, Science Editor in Stockholm
13 October 2003

International experts in radiation disasters have taken the unusual step of assuming that a terrorist attack with a "dirty" nuclear bomb will take place on a high-profile civilian target, such as the London Underground.

The scientists assess the risk of such disasters in terms of probability, but the unknown nature of the dirty-bomb threat has forced them to assume that an attempted attack is all but inevitable in the future.

[...] When scientists carry out risk assessments of disasters in nuclear power plants they assign probability estimates to different accident scenarios, but this is impossible when it comes to assessing the risk of a dirty bomb attack, he said.

"The problem with this sort of thing is that you cannot assign probabilities. Moreover, the probabilities change compared to the level of preparation of a government," he said.

Comment: So give the government tyrannical powers, right? How about changing the corrupt politics of support for Israel, a double standard that holds the Arab/Moslem "enemy of the week" to a different standard than the Zionist psychopaths in the Sharon government?

Officials Tell AP al-Qaida Had More Plans

By JOHN J. LUMPKIN, Associated Press Writer
Mon Oct 13,12:46 AM ET

WASHINGTON - Some of the al-Qaida operatives whose activities led to a U.S. security warning last month have been captured, while others remain at large, U.S. counterterrorism authorities say.

"We have received a lot of good information from these detainees over the past several weeks and corroborated the fact there were active plans, ongoing, to conduct another attack in the United States," said William H. Parrish, a top intelligence official with the Homeland Security Department, during a recent interview with The Associated Press.

"This attack as they indicated was probably going to be multiple attacks, simultaneous," he said. [...]

Like others, Parrish says he wonders why al-Qaida has not attacked inside the United States yet.

"Al-Qaida has always been focused and committed to the spectacular attacks," Parrish said.

"The individual suicide bomber, although certainly within (bin Laden's) grasp to be able to execute, may not fit into that strategy." But that could change, he warned.

"I think at some point, in time, like any organization, you go back and review that strategy," he said.

NATO's intention on expanding ISAF

www.chinaview.cn
2003-10-13 11:55:02

BRUSSELS, Oct. 13 (Xinhuanet) -- The decision-making body of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has agreed in principle to expand the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) beyond Kabul in Afghanistan, a move widely regarded as the military alliance's bid to achieve its new strategic goal.

[...] Expanding the 5,500-strong ISAF is in line with NATO's shift ofits focus further eastward. With the expected accession of seven new members in central and eastern Europe in 2004, NATO is set to pay more attention to the Middle East region and central Asia. TheISAF expansion in Afghanistan can be a good springboard for its more future deployment into the region.

In a related development, NATO is to announce its formation of a rapid response force next week. This force, highly flexible in deployment, is designed to have global reach. Together with the ISAF expansion, it is expected to help achieve NATO's transformation goals set by its leaders at Prague summit in November 2002.

Attempt to kill Iraq governor

The AFP news agency reports that the governor of Iraq's Diyala province escaped an assassination attempt when a roadside bomb exploded, seriously wounding two policemen and lightly injuring a civilian, A local police officer is quoted and no other details are yet to hand. AFP also reports from Riyadh the arrest by Saudi police of four armed Islamist militants as they tried to cross the border into Iraq.

Is The Pentagon Giving Our Soldiers Cancer?

by Hillary Johnson
Rolling Stone
October 2, 2003

U.S. military might relies on depleted uranium, which incinerates tanks on impact. But soldiers and civilians alike say the radioactive ammo is making them sick. THE WEAPONS OF WAR ARE QUIETLY CHANGING. The U.S. military's deadliest ammunition is now packed with depleted uranium -- radioactive waste left over from nuclear bombs and reactors. These so-called "hot rounds" penetrate armored tanks like a needle pierces burlap, vaporizing steel in hell-fires of 5,000 degrees Celsius. Unlike tungsten, the armor-piercing metal used since World War II that "mushrooms" when it hits a target, depleted uranium actually sharpens itself like a pencil as it bores into tanks.

Flaming radioactive particles shear off in every direction on impact, igniting fuel tanks and whatever explosives the target might be carrying. With virtually no public oversight, radioactive weapons have replaced conventional weapons as the cornerstone of American military might. [...]

China maps out objectives for its EU policy

www.chinaview.cn
2003-10-13 12:28:25

BEIJING, Oct. 13 (Xinhuanet) -- China Monday mapped out in a diplomatic strategy document the objectives of its policy towards the European Union (EU).

The document, titled "China's EU Policy Paper", is the first ever paper on the nation's policy towards the European Union. According to the paper, China's EU policy objectives are:

-- To promote a sound and steady development of China-EU political relations under the principles of mutual respect, mutualtrust and seeking common ground while reserving differences, and contribute to world peace and stability;

-- To deepen China-EU economic cooperation and trade under the principles of mutual benefit, reciprocity and consultation on an equal basis, and promote common development;

-- To expand China-EU cultural and people-to-people exchanges under the principle of mutual emulation, common prosperity and complementarity, and promote cultural harmony and progress betweenthe East and the West.

China calls on EU to lift ban on weapons exports

The Chinese government has said it wants to expand its relations with the European Union. In a strategy paper that was released Monday, it says the relations between the two sides are as good as ever and has called upon the EU to lift its ban on weapons exports to China. The ban was introduced after the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing in June, 1989.

Doors Opening Wider for Exxon

By Catherine Belton
Staff Writer

In the government's strongest endorsement yet of a possible sale of a stake in YukosSibneft to global oil giant ExxonMobil, Energy Minister Igor Yusufov said Friday that Russia would welcome such a deal as a "positive step."

"Of course, it fills us with pride that discussions are under way with the first company in the world, ExxonMobil," Yusufov said at a news conference for foreign reporters, AP reported.

"And to receive the addition of such a strong partner, we believe that would be a positive step."

[...] Some analysts have speculated that Khodorkovsky has been pushing for a sale of a stake in his company to a foreign oil major as a way of gaining protection from further Kremlin attack. The Yukos founder has been under fire from prosecutors since July when they jailed core Yukos shareholder Platon Lebedev on fraud charges and also opened investigations into alleged tax evasion, murder and attempted murder by company officials. Observers have seen the onslaught as a response to Khodorkovsky's financing of opposition parties amid a battle for position ahead of elections between two opposing Kremlin clans.

Mirror, Mirror: Who's the Crookedest of All?

By Matt Bivens
Monday, Oct. 13, 2003. Page 8

"I want to remind you that we have a proverb in Russia: 'One should not criticize a mirror if you have [a] crooked face.'"
-- President Vladimir Putin, (Oct. 5, The New York Times.)

[...] Last year, two Greenpeaceniks armed with a protest banner climbed onto a cargo ship they said was illegally importing mahogany from Brazil, and earned themselves a weekend in jail.

So, a typical Greenpeaceniks-and-their-rubber-speedboats story -- until now. Fifteen months later, federal prosecutors have indicted Greenpeace itself. They say Greenpeace, in arriving uninvited onboard the ship, violated an 1872 law written to protect freshly landed sailors from those in port who'd seduce them with booze.

[...] Yet the story is buried inside the paper, and I doubt many will ever hear of it.

Can you imagine the reaction of the American media if Russian prosecutors were to indict all of Greenpeace over an obscure 1872 tsarist decree to protect weak-willed sailors from vodka? Vast acres of trees would be felled to make the paper to hold all the outraged ink. Op-ed writers would again ask, "Who is Vladimir Putin?" The tale would be added to the mounting pile of evidence that Russia is backsliding on democracy.

Global Eye -- Red River

By Chris Floyd

In fact, there were many options short of war that could have been taken had Saddam actually possessed any WMD. Kay's report, along with dozens of pre-war intelligence concerns that have since come to light, show clearly that there was absolutely no justification for launching a full-scale conquest of Iraq in mid-March 2003. Even by the barbaric standards of the Bush Regime, which holds -- in contravention of international law and American tradition -- that aggressive war is justified under certain conditions, the invasion of Iraq was a wanton criminal act. Their own evidence proves that their own conditions were not met. Even by their own lights, the Bushists cannot justify the decision to go to war in March.

No, that particular date was chosen for one reason only: to get the long-planned conquest of Iraq out of the way before George W. Bush's presidential campaign next year. Thus, every Coalition soldier killed in Iraq has died solely for the personal aggrandizement of George W. Bush. Every one of the estimated 30,000 innocent Iraqi civilians killed in the invasion (according to a detailed body count carried out by an anti-Saddam Iraqi dissident group) died for the personal aggrandizement of George W. Bush. And the soldiers and civilians go on dying, day after day.

Turned Away at Border

Land Of The Free?

The love story of Trevor Hughes and his fiancee began in an elementary school in the Himalayan foothills.

They were "global nomads." He was a diplomat's son. She the daughter of missionaries. They lived in Asia, attended school together, fell in love and want to get married in June.

But when Hughes' fiancee, a German national, tried to visit him on a six-month tourist visa Monday, she was detained in Atlanta, handcuffed, jailed--even stripped of her diamond engagement ring.

Then, after 20 hours without food, she was put on a plane and shipped back to Stuttgart.

"This isn't the America I fought for," said Hughes, who served in the Navy and U.S. diplomatic corps. "You don't expect that from a great country like ours."

Comment: You can read her account of her prison time in her own words at the above link. The USA is run by psychopaths in love with Nazi ideology, with citizens in fear of speaking out, or who have bought into the Nazi ideology. There will be more shocks in store, for people like Hughes, who think that it is still a great country.

BUSH-NAZI LINK CONFIRMED

Documents in National Archives Prove George W. Bush's Grandfather Traded with Nazis - Even After Pearl Harbor

by John Buchanan

Exclusive to the New Hampshire Gazette

WASHINGTON - After 60 years of inattention and even denial by the U.S. media, newly-uncovered government documents in The National Archives and Library of Congress reveal that Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, served as a business partner of and U.S. banking operative for the financial architect of the Nazi war machine from 1926 until 1942, when Congress took aggressive action against Bush and his "enemy national" partners.

The documents also show that Bush and his colleagues, according to reports from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, tried to conceal their financial alliance with German industrialist Fritz Thyssen, a steel and coal baron who, beginning in the mid-1920s, personally funded Adolf Hitler's rise to power by the subversion of democratic principle and German law.

Furthermore, the declassified records demonstrate that Bush and his associates, who included E. Roland Harriman, younger brother of American icon W. Averell Harriman, and George Herbert Walker, President Bush's maternal great-grandfather, continued their dealings with the German industrial tycoon for nearly a year after the U.S. entered the war. [...]

Karl Rove's Greatest Hits

Did E-Vote Firm Patch Election? 

Wired News

Diebold Election Systems has had a tumultuous year, and it doesn't look like it's getting any better. [...]

Now a former worker in Diebold's Georgia warehouse says the company installed patches on its machines before the state's 2002 gubernatorial election that were never certified by independent testing authorities or cleared with Georgia election officials.

If the charges are true, Diebold could be in violation of federal and state election-certification rules. The charges also raise questions about the integrity of the Georgia election results and any other election that uses patched Diebold systems that have not been re-certified. [...]

Nasa tests laser-powered plane

Laser-powered planes could be used for surveillance

A remote-controlled plane powered from the ground by a laser beam has been tested by Nasa. [...]

Comment: Yet more technology for surveillance of the American people.

Rain-collapsed houses claim 23 lives in Shaanxi

www.chinaview.cn
2003-10-13

(Xinhuanet) -- Twelve more people were confirmed dead Monday morning by provincial authorities after houses collapsed from days of continuous heavy rainfall in northwest China's Shaanxi province.

The province, which had been hit by rain for five days, reported 11 deaths from collapsed houses Sunday in the counties of Shanyang, Heyang and Longxian. And the new reports came from Lintong district and the counties of Chengcheng and Baishui. [...]

Acid rains force China to impose stringent emission controls

Press Trust of India
Beijing, October 13

With one-third of China's territory suffering serious pollution from acid rain, the government has banned new construction of coal-fuelled power plants while imposing stringent emission controls on existing units in the country, a report said on Monday. [...]

At Least 28 Dead in Nepal Fighting

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - At least 28 people were killed when Maoist rebels tried to storm a police training center in western Nepal, a police official said Monday. Sunday night's attack comes a day after at least 40 people, including 37 Maoists, were killed in a fierce gun battle, also in the west of the Himalayan kingdom. A dozen policemen and 16 rebels died in the latest gun battle, which occurred in Bhaluwang, 250 miles west of Kathmandu, the official said. [...]

Nature devours men on world's highest battlefield, Siachen

By Myra MacDonald and Sanjeev Miglani

SIACHEN BASE CAMP, India (Reuters) - Nowhere in the world is there a battlefield so remote, so high, so alien.
In this wasteland of rock and ice, soldiers fight each other and the weather at heights above 18,000 feet, their bodies wasting away, starved of oxygen.

"They look like animals when they come down, unshaven, dirty and thin as rods," is how one soldier described his comrades.

Yet since 1984, India and Pakistan have been fighting for control of the Siachen Glacier and the surrounding tangle of mountains where South Asia, Central Asia and China collide.

Today, so great is the mistrust between the nuclear-armed neighbours, which came close to war last year, that neither side will withdraw its troops, fearing the other will move in.

The battle is not for the land itself -- the entire area is uninhabitable -- but for national pride and a belief that holding the heights of Siachen offers a strategic advantage. [...]

Howard censured over push for war with Iraq

October 8, 2003
The Age

Prime Minister John Howard was yesterday censured by the Senate for misleading the public in his justification for sending Australia to war with Iraq.

It was only the fourth time in more than three decades a sitting prime minister has been censured and the second in Mr Howard's seven-and-a-half years in office.

The motion attacked Mr Howard for failing to adequately inform Australians that intelligence agency warnings about a war with Iraq would increase the likelihood of a terrorist attack.

It also noted that no evidence had yet been produced by Mr Howard to justify his claims that in March this year, Iraq possessed stockpiles of completed biological chemical weapons that justified going to war. [...]

Drawn out terror war no failure, PM says

October 13, 2003 - 11:20AM

The war against terrorism would go on for years, but the fact it was ongoing was not a sign of failure, Prime Minister John Howard said today.

He said he was confident Australia and its allies had made an impact on terrorism, and gave as examples the capture of leaders from the al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiah terrorist groups. [...]

Low flying bombers spook Canberrans

October 12, 2003

Hundreds of jittery Canberrans, alarmed by military jets roaring low over the capital, discovered police were as much in the dark as they were about the flyover.

Australians' nervousness about terrorism on the eve of the Bali bombings anniversary was highlighted with Saturday's loud and spectacular flyover, part of a ceremony to mark the 100th anniversary of the High Court. [...]

Our spies want a licence to kill

By Gerard McManus
October 13, 2003

AUSTRALIAN spies overseas would be licensed to kill under a proposal by Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer. [...]

Citizens strike back in intelligence war

09:20 13 October 03
New Scientist

With the recent demise of the Bush administration's controversial Terrorist Information Awareness (TIA) programme to monitor everyone in the US, citizens now have a chance to get their own back. A website to be launched later in 2003 will allow people to post information about the activities of government organisations, officials and the judiciary.

The two MIT researchers behind the project face one serious problem: how to protect themselves against legal action should any of the postings prove false. The answer, they say, is to borrow a technique from the underground music-swapping community.

Instead of storing the data in one place, they plan to distribute it around the internet in a similar way to the notorious Napster software that got music file-sharing under way. Just like TIA, the new website, called Government Information Awareness (GIA), is designed to collect snippets of information to build a database that can later be searched to reveal patterns of suspicious behaviour. [...]

Australia steps up sex slave fight

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia has unveiled a four-year plan to stamp out the flow of women and girls being trafficked into the country to work as sex slaves following a public outcry about a trade riddle with drugs and violence. [...]

University sold research pigs as food

WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 — The government has determined the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign failed to comply with safety laws when it allowed offspring of animals used in a genetic experiment to be sold as food. [...]

Columbus 'sparked a genocide'

BBC

Venezuela's populist leader has urged Latin Americans to boycott celebrations for the anniversary of the "discovery" of the Americas by Christopher Columbus.

The 1492 arrival of the Italian explorer, employed by Spain, triggered a 150-year "invasion" of native Indians by foreign conquerors, who behaved "worse than Hitler", he said.

Columbus Day falls on 12 October and is celebrated with a public holiday on Monday in the United States and several Latin American nations.

Bolivia declares martial law in capital suburb

Monday, October 13, 2003 Posted: 0118 GMT

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) -- Bolivia's government imposed martial law on a city outside the capital after clashes between troops and demonstrators angry about proposals to export gas to the United States and Mexico. Sixteen people have been reported killed.

Soldiers manned major intersections Sunday in El Alto, a poor, industrial city 10 miles (16 kilometers) outside the capital, La Paz. But the move didn't stop protesters, who repeatedly clashed with the soldiers and police trying to disperse them. [...]

Antezana said the military decided to lock down El Alto after demonstrators attacked soldiers Saturday night with firearms and rocks.

He said martial law was necessary "to ensure the safety of its citizens and protect public and private properties." [...]

Boy killed by stray bullet while cycling

Associated Press
10:48 Monday 13th October 2003

A 12-year-old Croatian boy has died after being hit by a stray bullet from a machine gun in a domestic dispute. [...]

4,400 people evacuated for WWII-era bomb disposal in Japan's Osaka

TOKYO (AFP) Oct 13, 2003

About 4,400 people living in Japan's number two city Osaka were temporarily evacuated Monday while explosives specialists defused a US-made bomb from World War II.

Ground Self-Defense Force specialists defused the one-tonne bomb, believed to contain about 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) of TNT gun powder, without incident, an Osaka city official said. [...]

Insects stop train in Japan

Sun Oct 12, 7:42 AM ET

TOKYO (AFP) - A swarm of young millipedes stopped a train in the mountains near Osaka, western Japan as they covered a length of railway tracks following a massive hatch, press reports said. [...]

Chicago: Metra Train Derails Injuring 100

A Metra commuter train carrying about 200 people derailed Sunday afternoon on the city's South Side, causing mostly minor injuries to passengers, a fire official said.[...]

70,000 grocery store workers strike

Sunday, October 12, 2003 Posted: 0938 GMT

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Facing "major cuts" in salary and benefits, nearly 70,000 grocery store workers -- ranging from cashiers, to meat cutters, to pharmacists -- went on strike in southern California late Saturday, after failing to come to an agreement with their employers, according to a union spokeswoman. [...]

Maynard says the three employers want to "shift $1 billion in healthcare costs" onto workers, while the supermarkets say they are trying to keep up with the rising costs of health care as well as compete with other stores that provide lower wages and fewer benefits.

"The cost of providing health care benefits to [UFCW] grocery emplyees has risen by more than 50 percent during the four years of the expired contract," according to an Oct. 6 press release from all three grocery chains. [...]

100-million-year-old dinosaur footprints found in Portugal

LISBON (AFP) - Scientists said they have uncovered 130 100-million-year-old fossilised dinosaur footprints on a beach in central Portugal.

"This is one of the places in Portugal with the greatest concentration of dinosaur footprints," geologist Miguel Telles Antunes of Lisbon's Universidade Nova told reporters at a news conference.

At least 100 footprints, which were found along 17 different tracks in an 80 square metre (861 square foot) area, are very well preserved, scientists said. [...]

New Vaccines May Address Need To Protect Newborns In The Developing World

The Wistar Institute
2003-10-13

PHILADELPHIA -- In a new research study, two prototype oral vaccines have both been shown capable of inducing protection against a dangerous virus in newborn mice. If the new vaccines are able to do the same for human newborns, they might be able to address an important window of immunological vulnerability in the lives of infant children. Particularly in the developing world, where the threat of infectious diseases is generally greater than in the developed world, many lives might be saved with vaccines of this type.

The vaccines are based on human and chimpanzee adenoviruses that have been altered in the laboratory so that they are unable to replicate. In the current proof-of-principle study, the viruses were engineered to incorporate a gene from the rabies virus. Following oral administration of the vaccine, newborn mice developed antibodies that protected them from subsequent exposure to the rabies virus. By extension, the researchers say, the same vaccine strategy might also prove effective against other viral diseases, such as measles, viral respiratory infections, and viral diarrhea. A report on the study findings appears in the October 15 issue of the Journal of Immunology. [...]

Science celebrates 'father of nanotech'

Friday, 10 October, 2003
By Kristine Krug

When John Dalton walked in front of a meeting of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society on 21 October 1803, he began a revolution.

At a stroke, his new theory of atoms crushed the alchemists and their magic formulas for gold.

He had set chemistry on the path to becoming a modern science.

"The crucial step was to write down elements in terms of their atoms; instead of talking about water, you talk about its constituent hydrogen and oxygen," says Nobel Laureate Professor Sir Harry Kroto.

"I don't know how they could do chemistry beforehand, it didn't make any sense." [...]

The idea that all matter was ultimately composed of very small indivisible atoms had already been bounced about in Greek times by philosophers like Democritus. "Dalton made atoms scientifically useful," [...]

Comment: "Chemistry, incontestably is the science of facts, just as alchemy is that of causes. [...] While the object of the first is the study of natural bodies, the other tries to penetrate the mysterious dynamics which preside over their transformations. Therein lies their essential difference. Alchemy is a spiritualistic chemistry, for it allows us to catch a glimpse of God through the darkness of substance.

To say, for example, that two volumes of hydrogen combined with one volume of oxygen yield water, states a chemical banality. And yet, who will teach us why the result of this combination presents, in a special state, characteristics which the gases that produced it do not possess? What then is the agent which imposes its new specificity upon the compound and forces the water, solidified by cold, always to crystallize in the same system?

[The great scientists] are mistaken about the constitution and the profound qualities of matter, though they believe they have fathomed all its mysteries. Alas, the complexity of their theories, amount of words created to explain the inexplicable, and above all, the pernicious influence of materialistic education, pushes them to search far away for that which is within their reach.

They dream of imprisoning nature into a formula, of putting life into an equation. So, by successive deviations they unconsciously succeed in getting so far from simple truth that they justify the harsh words of the Gospel: "They have eyes not to see and minds not to understand!" Fulcanelli in "Dwellings of the Philosophers P 48, 60, 61.Emphasis ours.

Monkeys Control Robotic Arm With Brain Implants

By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 13, 2003; Page A01

Scientists in North Carolina have built a brain implant that lets monkeys control a robotic arm with their thoughts, marking the first time that mental intentions have been harnessed to move a mechanical object. [...]

Something fishy about ancients' shift to meat

By Guy Gugliotta

About 6 000 years ago, people living in what is now Britain, stopped eating fish and shifted to cattle, sheep, pigs and goats in an abrupt and mysterious transformation that may offer new insights into the complex reasons why ancient peoples periodically changed their way of life.

The dietary switch occurred as part of a Neolithic Revolution, a set of radical pre-Bronze Age changes that included the introduction of domesticated plants and animals, development of pottery and a distinctive type of ritual burial widespread in mainland Europe.

"All this stuff appears, but why did people suddenly stop doing the things they did before?" asked archaeologist Michael Richards, of the University of Bradford. "In most Old World areas, it was much more gradual. Why not in Britain? This is the big question." [...]

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