"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."

Mahathir calls Bush a liar. Seems Georgie-boy didn't "rebuke" the Malaysian PM after all. Bush's tough-guy macho swagger is all show. But thousands are being killed and maimed in any case.

Americans, and the world, should not have been surprised about the events of 9/11. Staged terror attacks have been a mainstay in US government policy for over 100 years. It is the tried and tested way to get things done. Israel, too, seems to have gotten the idea...

More reports on the bombing of the USS Liberty, this time from sailors on board. The jury is still out on why, but one thing is beyond doubt, Israel deliberately attacked the ship, in full knowledge that it was American.

The White House is working hard to ensure that the 9/11 panel never discovers the truth. The FBI is working hard to fool and ensnare expert microbiologists like Dr. Butler. The scientist appears to be on his way to a 400-year prison sentence for doing nothing wrong, he claims.

The gloves are off in the next round of the Royal Family vs Burrell. Does he have the "secret that could topple the monarchy"?

Has the move begun to get rid of Bush by the Overseers? His ratings are down and thousands march while another article about "free speech zones" surfaces. Still no sighting of the map published by Israeli Defense showing the plan for the "security wall". Maybe they were too busy raiding Palestinian hospitals and destroying the homes of thousands of Palestinians.

There has been another mysterious assassination. We have the story, along with a look at a couple of other recent ones.

Mahathir denies Bush rebuke

By Jonathan Kent
BBC correspondent in Kuala Lumpur

The row over a recent speech by Malaysia's prime minister in which he alleged that the world is controlled by Jews has escalated.

Dr Mahathir Mohamad has accused US President George W Bush of lying when he told reporters that he had rebuked the Malaysian leader for his remarks.

Meanwhile, Dr Mahathir has said a call by some Jewish groups for a boycott of Malaysia amounts to blackmail.

With just six days until he retires, the prime minister is speaking without any apparent regard for the consequences.

Ten days ago Dr Mahathir told dozens of Muslim leaders gathered in Malaysia that they should learn from the example of the Jews.

Despite the Nazi holocaust they now ruled the world by proxy, Dr Mahathir claimed, inventing democracy, socialism and human rights to further their own ends.

'Biggest lie'

Days later Dr Mahathir and President Bush met at a summit in Bangkok.

The Malaysian leader rejected the US State Department's account of their exchange - that George Bush told Dr Mahathir his remarks were divisive and wrong.

But the president stood by the account and Dr Mahathir has hit back.

"It was the biggest lie. If he'd rebuked me I'm quite sure I would have rebuked him also," Dr Mahathir said.

"If you can tell a lie about the existence of weapons of mass destruction and go to war because of it I'm not surprised if he is prepared to lie about what he said to me."

Rather, the Malaysian leader insists, the president had apologised for speaking out against him, after which they were "walking practically hand in hand," Dr Mahathir said.

Meanwhile, the veteran prime minister has called on Malaysians to stand up against what he termed blackmail by those Jewish groups who have called for a boycott of foreign investment in the country.

"I don't think we should allow ourselves to be blackmailed by them...The press belongs to the Jews and their power is so great that people are afraid to criticize them," he was quoted as saying.

"On the other hand, you can accuse Muslims of being terrorists ... and Europe does not protest," he added.

Comment: Last week, critics of Canada's PM Jean Chretien criticised him for not "rebuking" Mahathir the way Georgie had done it. They thought that Chretien was a wimp. Looks like the real wimp is Bush who lies as he breathes.

Perpetual War - Perpetual Deceit

Partly excerpted from Fake Terrorism: The road to Dictatorship

War with Spain 1898

On the night of February 15 1898, the USS Maine, lying in Havana harbor Cuba in a show of US resolve to protect her interests, exploded violently. Captain Sigsbee, the commander of the Maine, urged that no assumptions of enemy attack be made until there was a full investigation of the cause of the explosion. For this, Captain Sigsbee was excoriated in the press for "refusing to see the obvious". The Atlantic Monthly declared flat out that to suppose the explosion to be anything other than a deliberate act by Spain was “completely at defiance of the laws of probability.”

Under the slogan “Remember the Maine”, Americans went to war with Spain, eventually winning the Phillipines (and annexing Hawaii along the way).

In 1975, an investigation led by Admiral Hyman Rickover examined the data recovered from a 1911 examination of the wreck and concluded that there had been no evidence of an external explosion. The most likely cause of the sinking was a coal dust explosion in a coal bunker imprudently located next to the ship's magazines. Captain Sigsbee's caution had been well founded.

War with Germany 1942

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt needed a war. He needed the fever of a major war to mask the symptoms of a still deathly ill economy struggling back from the Great Depression (and mutating towards Socialism at the same time). Roosevelt wanted a war with Germany to stop Hitler, but despite several provocations in the Atlantic, the American people, still struggling with that troublesome economy, were opposed to any wars. Roosevelt violated neutrality, and even ordered the sinking of several German ships in the Atlantic, but HItler refused to be provoked.

Roosevelt needed an enemy, and if America would not willingly attack that enemy, then one would have to be maneuvered into attacking America.

The way open to war was created when Japan signed the tripartite agreement with Italy and Germany, with all parties pledging mutual defense to each other. Whereas Hitler would never declare war on the United States no matter the provocation, the means to force Japan to do so were readily at hand.

The first step was to place oil and steel embargoes on Japan, using Japan's wars on the Asian mainland as a reason. This forced Japan to consider seizing the oil and mineral rich regions in Indonesia. With the European powers militarily exhausted by the war in Europe, the United States was the only power in the Pacific able to stop Japan from invading the Dutch East Indies, and by moving the Pacific fleet from San Diego to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Roosevelt made a pre-emptive strike on that fleet the mandatory first step in any Japanese plan to extend it's empire into the “southern resource area.”

Roosevelt boxed in Japan just as completely as Crassus had boxed in Sparticus. Japan needed oil. They had to invade Indonesia to get it, and to do that they first had to remove the threat of the American fleet at Pearl Harbor. There never really was any other course open to them.

To enrage the American people as much as possible, Roosevelt needed the first overt attack by Japan to be as bloody as possible, appearing as a sneak attack much as the Japanese had done to the Russians. From that moment up until the attack on Pearl Harbor itself, Roosevelt and his associates made sure that the commanders in Hawaii, General Short and Admiral Kimmel, were kept in the dark as much as possible about the location of the Japanese fleet and it's intentions, then later scapegoated for the attack. (Congress recently exonerated both Short and Kimmel, posthumously restoring them to their former ranks).

But as the Army board had concluded at the time, and subsequent de-classified documents confirmed, Washington knew the attack was coming, knew exactly where the Japanese fleet was, and where it was headed.

On November 29th, Secretary of State Hull showed United Press reporter Joe Leib a message with the time and place of the attack, and the New York Times in it's special 12/8/41 Pearl Harbor edition, on page 13, reported that the time and place of the attack had been known in advance.

The much repeated claim that the Japanese fleet maintained radio silence on it's way to Hawaii was a lie. Among other intercepts still held in the Archives of the NSA is the UNCODED message sent by the Japanese tanker Shirya stating, “proceeding to a position 30.00 N, 154.20 E. Expect to arrive at that point on 3 December.” (near HI)

War with Vietnam 1964

President Lyndon Johnson wanted a war in Vietnam. He wanted it to help his friends who owned defense companies to do a little business. He needed it to get the Pentagon and CIA to quit trying to invade Cuba. And most of all, he needed a provocation to convince the American people that there was really “no other choice”.

On August 5, 1964, newspapers across America reported “renewed attacks” against American destroyers operating in Vietnamese waters, specifically the Gulf of Tonkin. The official story was that North Vietnamese torpedo boats launched an “unprovoked attack” on the USS Maddox while it was on “routine patrol.”

The truth is that USS Maddox was involved in aggressive intelligence gathering in coordination with actual attacks by South Vietnam and the Laotian Air Force against targets in North Vietnam. The truth is also that there was no attack by torpedo boats against the USS Maddox. Captain John J. Herrick, the task force commander in the Gulf, cabled Washington DC that the report was the result of an "over-eager" sonarman who had picked up the sounds of his own ship's screws and panicked. But even with this knowledge that the report was false, Lyndon Johnson went on national TV that night to announce the commencement of air strikes against North Vietnam, “retaliation” for an attack that had never occurred.

War with Iraq 1991

President George Bush wanted a war in Iraq. George Bush is motivated by money. Specifically oil money. But with the OPEC alliance failing to keep limits on oil production in the Mideast, the market was being glutted with oil pumped from underneath Iraq, which sat over roughly 1/3 of the oil reserves of the entire region.

George wanted a war to stop that flow of oil, to keep prices (and profits) from falling any further than they already had. But like Roosevelt, he needed the “other side” to make the first move.

Iraq had long been trying to acquire greater access to the Persian Gulf, and felt limited, confined to a narrow strip of land along Kuwait's northern border, which placed Iraqi interests in close proximity with hostile Iran. George Bush, who had been covertly arming Iraq during its war with Iran, sent word via April Glaspie that the United States would not intervene if Saddam Hussein grabbed a larger part of Kuwait. Saddam fell for the bait and invaded.

Of course, Americans were not about to send their sons and daughters to risk their lives for petroleum products. So George Bush arranged a hoax, using public relations firm Hill & Knowlton, which has grown rich on taxpayer money by being most industrious and creative liars! Hill & Knowlton concocted a monumental fraud in which the daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador to the United States, went on TV pretending to be a nurse, and related a horror story in which Iraqi troops looted the incubators from a Kuwaiti hospital, leaving the premature babies on the cold floor to die. The media, part of the swindle from the start, never bothered asking why the “nurse” didn't just pick the babies up and wrap them in blankets or something.

Enraged by the incubator story, Americans supported operation Desert Storm, which never removed Saddam Hussein from power but which did take Kuwait's oil off of the market for almost 2 years and limited Iraq's oil exports to this very day. That our sons and daughters came home with serious and lingering medical illnesses was apparently not too great a price to pay for increased oil profits.

War with Eastern Europe 1992

Following the victory in Iraq, yet another war appeared to be in the offing in the mineral rich regions of Bosnia. Yet again, a hoax was used to create support for military action.

The photo of Fikret Alic, a Muslim, staring through a barbed wire fence, was used to "prove" that the Bosnians were running modern day “Concentration Camps”. As the headline of “Belsen 92” indicates, all possible associations with the Nazi horrors were made to sell the necessity of sending yet more American troops into someone else's nation.

But when German Journalists went to Trnopolje, the site of the supposed Bosnian Concentration Camp. to film a documentary, they discovered that the photo was a fake. The camp at Trnopolje was not a concentration camp but a refugee center. Nor was it surrounded by barbed wire. Careful examination of the original photo revealed that the photographer had shot the photo through a broken section of fence surrounding a tool shed. It was the photographer who was on the inside, shooting out at the refugees.

Once again, Americans had been hoaxed into support of actions they would otherwise not have agreed with.

Creating the bogeyman

While several American Presidents have willingly started wars for personal purposes, perhaps no President has ever carried it to the extreme that Bill Clinton has.

Coincident with the expected public statement of Monica Lewinsky following her testimony, Bill Clinton ordered a cruise missile attack on Sudan and Afghanistan, claiming to have had irrefutable proof that bogeyman extraordinaire (and former Afghani ally) Osama Bin Ladin was creating terrorist chemical weapons there.

Examination of the photos of the debris revealed none of the expected structures one would find in a laboratory that handled lethal weapons-grade materials. Assurances from the CIA that they had a positive soil test for biological weapons fell on their face when it was revealed that there had been no open soil anywhere near the pre-bombed facility. Sudan requested that international observers come test the remains of the factory for any signs of the nerve gas Clinton had insisted was there. None was found. The Sudanese plant was a harmless aspirin factory, and the owner has sued for damages. Later examination of the site hit in Afghanistan revealed it to be a mosque.

War on the Arab world 2001

George W Bush and the neocons in Washington were tasked with taking the plan to the next level. No longer satisfied with war every few years, a plan was hatched that would create the false justification for a perpetual war that would allow them to strike with impunity wherever and whenever they chose. For this, the same tried and tested method of a fake, staged attack was of course used. Clinton had begun the setup of Bin Laden as the ultimate bogeyman, George W bush completed it with the elaborate staged attacks on the World Trade center towers in New York and the Pentagon on September 11th 2001.

The public outcry was huge, within minutes of the attacks, with no supporting evidence, the official proclamation was that Bin Laden and his supposed Al-Qaeda group were responsible. For the public the message (repeated ad nauseum) was: "nondescript Arab terrorists with turbans hate Americans and their freedom and democracy - they are everywhere and anywhere, they could strike again at any time - American must strike first."

As a result of the psychological trauma inflicted by images of falling bodies and buildings in America's unofficial capital city, and the concomitant mix of fear and government sponsored jingoistic propaganda, the necessary public support was garnered for a "perpetual war on terror." Easy when you know how and when you have a population with a large and personal vested interest in believing that "our government would never do that"

With this most recent mass manipulation of the American (and world) public, a carte blanche has been given to the US government and it's secret agencies to wage their war in a more public way than ever before. We see the truth of this in the often barely concealed lies and obvious propaganda issuing from the White house by way of justification for it's actions. From their POV, the people have spoken, in the face of government lies and deceit they have remained unmoved, silent. The warmongers don't feel the need to ask a second time.

9/11 subpoena threat to White House

Sunday 26 October 2003

The White House could face court action to force it to hand over documents relating to the September 11 attacks.

The chairman of a commission investigating the September 11 attacks says he is prepared to subpoena some documents relevant to his probe from the White House, if it fails to turn them over within weeks, The New York Times reported in its Sunday edition.

Former New Jersey governor Thomas Kean told the newspaper the White House was continuing to withhold several highly classified intelligence documents.

Kean also said in an interview on Friday that he believed the bipartisan 10-member commission would soon be forced to issue subpoenas to other executive branch agencies because of continuing delays by the Bush administration in providing documents and other evidence needed by the panel, according to the report.

"Any document that has to do with this investigation cannot be beyond our reach," Kean is quoted by The Times as saying.

The remarks were his first explicit public warning to the White House that it risked a subpoena and a politically damaging courtroom showdown with the commission over access to the documents, including Oval Office intelligence reports that reached President Bush's desk in the weeks before the September 11 attacks, the paper said.

"I will not stand for it," Kean said. "That means that we will use every tool at our command to get hold of every document."

He said that while he had not directly threatened a subpoena in his recent conversations with the White House legal counsel, Alberto Gonzales, "it's always on the table, because they know that Congress in their wisdom gave us the power to subpoena, to use it if necessary," according to the report.

The Truth About America's 'Ally'

On June 8, 1967, the armed forces of Israel attacked the American intelligence ship USS Liberty for 90 minutes in international waters following several hours of close, low-level reconnaissance. Israel was later to claim the attack was a mistake, a simple case of misidentification, but survivors maintain otherwise. And some researchers contend that the attack was a deliberate attempt to prevent US Intelligence from witnessing the massacre of Egyptian Prisoners Of War.

According to eyewitness accounts by Israeli officers and journalists, the Israeli Army executed as many as 1,000 Arab POW’s during the 1967 war. Historian Gabby Bron wrote in the Yediot Ahronot in Israel that he witnessed Israeli troops executing Egyptian prisoners on the morning of June 8, 1967, in the Sinai town of El Arish.

Bron reported that he saw about 150 Egyptian POWs being held at the El Arish airport where they were sitting on the ground, densely crowded together with their hands held on the back of their necks. Every few minutes, Bron writes, Israeli soldiers would escort an Egyptian POW from the group to a hearing conducted by two men in Israeli army uniforms. Then the man would be taken away, given a spade, and forced to dig his own grave.

"I watched as (one) man dug a hole for about 15 minutes," Bron wrote. "Afterwards, the (Israeli military) policeman told him to throw the shovel away, and then one of them leveled an Uzi at him and shot two short bursts, each of three or four bullets."

Bron says he witnessed about ten such executions, until the grave was filled. Then an Israeli Colonel threatened him with a revolver, forcing him to leave the area.

As these executions were underway, America's most sophisticated intelligence platform, USS Liberty, was less than 13 miles from El Arish. Could the USS Liberty have intercepted voice radio messages authorising these killings? Did senior Israeli officers sanction the murders, or did they learn of them? How would they have reacted to the knowledge that USS Liberty was nearby and might have heard incriminating radio traffic?

We may never know because Israel, America's “ally,” launched a murderous attack on the virtually unarmed American intelligence ship. To this day, many Americans are unaware that this attack even took place. But recently, PRAVDA.Ru took the opportunity to interview Mr. Hrankowski, a survivor and crew member of the USS Liberty. [...]

Comment: See here for the text of the interview

The fact of the matter is that the Israeli government is guilty of sponsoring the terrorist activities of its secret agency "Mossad" and of its military personnel. This fact was admitted by former Israeli PM when he said:

Neither Jewish morality nor Jewish tradition can be used to disallow terror as a means of war...We are very far from any moral hesitations when concerned with the national struggle. First and foremost, terror is for us a part of the political war appropriate for the circumstances of today." -- Yitzhak Shamir Israeli Prime Minister-- Quoted from in an August 1943 article titled "Terror" written for "Hazit" the journal of Lehi, the organization to which he belonged.

The Palestinian militants that Israel brands "terrorists" are as justified in their activities as Israel is - you cannot condemn one without condemning the other. Palestinians are guilty only of fighting back against Israeli aggression. As a result of the settlement activities, the targeting of civilians, the building of the wall, and its policy of "collective punishment" Israel is in gross violation of international law and the Geneva convention.

Israel Army to destroy 3 buildings in Gaza, home to five thousand people.

The IDF has called on five thousand residents to evacuate their homes in three 13-storey buildings in the A-Zahar neighborhood south of Netzarim, which it plans to blow up. The detonations are in response to the attack on an army base early Friday morning that killed three.

IDF officials said Palestinians used the buildings to monitor Netzarim and the adjoining military base and compiled information regarding the troop movements and daily routine. Three IDF soldiers were killed and two wounded, one seriously after a terrorist infiltrated an army base in the northern Gaza Strip community of Netzarim before dawn Friday morning.

Security forces have already blown up the nearby Palestinian police station into which the second attacker fled; police officials then helped him return to the Gaza Strip...

IDF destroys buildings in Gaza town

Structures overlooked site of Netzarim attack, Israel says

Sunday, October 26, 2003

(CNN) -- Israeli forces destroyed three residential buildings late Saturday in El Zahara, Gaza, near a Jewish settlement that was the site of an attack the day before, Palestinian sources in Gaza City told CNN.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told CNN in a phone interview from his home in Jericho that the action has left at least 180 families homeless.

"This is a crime, a war crime," he said. "It's a good thing that people are out of their apartments on the eve of Ramadan."

Erakat urged President Bush to take a stronger role in the Mideast peace process, and called on Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to rethink the operations.

"This will bring you no peace and no security," he said. "With such attacks you are bringing about the destruction of the Palestinian moderate camp."

The sources in Gaza City said they heard a loud explosion and that soon after the Israel Defense Forces pulled out of the area.

The incident came hours after the IDF warned residents in El Zahara to temporarily move as it prepared to destroy three abandoned buildings, which it described as observation posts for terrorist attacks on the Netzarim settlement in north-central Gaza.

In a statement, the Israeli military said the targeted buildings were used in connection with terrorist activity, but according to Palestinian sources they belonged to the families of members of the Palestinian security forces.

Comment: As much as any other nation, there exists justification for condemning Israel for its actions towards the Palestinians. Israel is continually in breach of international law and the Geneva convention, but nothing is done by the international community.

No criticism of Israel is tolerated, and anyone attempting such is immediately and illogically branded an anti-Semite. When expressing our views on the brutal treatment of Palestinians by the IDF, we in no way express a religious or political bias. We condemn the violent and illegal actions of the Israeli military in its targeting of civilians and "collective punishment." We advocate upholding the stipulations of the Geneva convention and respecting internationally recognised laws on human rights.

Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV); October 18, 1907, Article 50

"No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.

No general penalty, pecuniary or otherwise, shall be inflicted upon the population on account of the acts of individuals for which they cannot be regarded as jointly and severally responsible.

Pillage is prohibited.

Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited."

Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Geneva, 12 August 1949, Part III : Status and treatment of protected persons, Section I : Provisions common to the territories of the parties to the conflict and to occupied territories, Article 33

"Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons, or to the State, or to other public authorities, or to social or cooperative organizations, is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations."

Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Geneva, 12 August 1949, Part III : Status and treatment of protected persons, Section III: Occupied Territories, Article 53

"International law also prohibits an occupying power from imposing collective punishment on the occupied population"

Muslims in US need to re-register

By Anwar Iqbal

WASHINGTON, Oct 25: Citizens from Pakistan and 24 other mainly Muslim nations, who registered with US immigration officials last year, are now required to report for their second annual registration, US officials said on Saturday.

"All foreign male nationals who are currently in the United States and submitted to special call-in registration are reminded that the one year re-registration requirement is still in effect," said an official statement.

Those who registered with US immigration authorities during the special call-in registration programme initiated in 2002 must return to their local immigration office to comply with the one-year re-registration requirement, the announcement said.

Comment: Muslim males are terrorists. The war on terror will last for decades. Big Brother has spoken.

Administration Faces Supoenas From 9/11 Panel

By PHILIP SHENON
The New York Times
Sat Oct 25, 2:56 PM ET

MADISON, N.J., Oct. 25 ' The chairman of the federal commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks said that the White House was continuing to withhold several highly classified intelligence documents from the panel and that he was prepared to subpoena the documents if they were not turned over within weeks.

The chairman, Thomas H. Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey, also said in an interview that he believed the bipartisan 10-member commission would soon be forced to issue subpoenas to other executive branch agencies because of continuing delays by the Bush administration in providing documents and other evidence needed by the panel.

"Any document that has to do with this investigation cannot be beyond our reach," Mr. Kean said on Friday in his first explicit public warning to the White House that it risked a subpoena and a politically damaging courtroom showdown with the commission over access to the documents, including Oval Office intelligence reports that reached President Bush's desk in the weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks.

"I will not stand for it," Mr. Kean said in the interview in his offices here at Drew University, where he has been president since 1990. [...]

While Mr. Kean said he was barred by an agreement with the White House from describing the Oval Office documents at issue in any detail ' he said the White House was "quite nervous" about any public hint at their contents ' other commission officials said they included the detailed daily intelligence reports that were provided to Mr. Bush in the weeks leading up to Sept. 11. The reports are known within the White House as the Presidential Daily Briefing. [...]

Last year, the White House confirmed news reports that President Bush received a written intelligence report in August 2001, the month before the attacks, that Al Qaeda might try to hijack American passenger planes. [...]

After months of stating that it believed subpoenas to the executive branch would not be necessary, the commission voted unanimously this month to issue its first subpoena to the Federal Aviation Administration after determining that the F.A.A. had withheld dozens of boxes of documents involving the Sept. 11 attacks. [...]

"It's obvious that the White House wants to run out the clock here," he said in an interview in Washington. "It's Halloween, and we're still in negotiations with some assistant White House counsel about getting these documents ' it's disgusting." [...]

Slade Gorton, a Republican member of the panel who served in the Senate from Washington from 1982 to 2000, said that he was startled by the "indifference" of some executive branch agencies in making material available to the commission. "This lack of cooperation, if it extends anywhere else, is going to make it very difficult" for the commission to finish its work by next May, he said. [...]

Congress would need to approve an extension if the panel requested one, a potentially difficult proposition given the reluctance of the White House and many senior Republican lawmakers to see the commission created in the first place. [...]

U.S. leaders offering their people war without end

05:31 AM EST Oct 26
MATT KELLEY

WASHINGTON (AP) - Given the chance to talk with the U.S. defence secretary, one solider asked what was on the minds of many: when will the worldwide fight against terrorism be over?

"I mean, should I get my three-year-old ready for air-assault school?" the soldier asked Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld during an Iraq tour last month.

"I wish I could give you a date but I can't," Rumsfeld said.

That would be like estimating when a town will no longer need firefighters or police, he told the soldier.

Privately, U.S. administration officials have said for months they see the anti-terrorism fight as a decades-long struggle similar to the Cold War that dominated the second half of the 20th century. A private memo from Rumsfeld to his top aides brought the issue once again to the public's eye last week.

"It is pretty clear that the coalition can win in Afghanistan and Iraq in one way or another but it will be a long, hard slog," Rumsfeld wrote in the memo, which was leaked to the news media.

Two years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon clearly is digging in for that long slog. In one of the most striking signs, the military is repositioning its forces to encircle areas of the world seen as possible hotbeds of terrorism.

Many of the changes were envisioned before the Sept. 11 attacks. But the terrorism fight has added momentum and urgency.

[...] Some of the most visible changes involve where U.S. troops will be based overseas.

Pentagon planners are considering moving some of the 116,000 troops under the U.S. European Command away from their Cold War bases in Western Europe and into former Warsaw Pact countries closer to the Middle East.

Comment: How clearly will it have to be made before people come to the understanding that the events of 9/11, not to mention the fraudulent election of 2000, were organised in order to implement this American Imperial strategy? We refer people to a new site, Physics911.org, that "aims to cast light on the true nature of the dramatic events of September 11th, 2001." It is produced by a group called the Scientific Panel Investigating Nine Eleven.

Pentagon seeks new nuclear weapons

By Julian Coman in Washington
October 27, 2003

Influential advisers at the Pentagon are backing the development of a new generation of low-yield nuclear weapons - so-called mini-nukes - in a controversial report to be published before the end of the year.

The document, Future Strategic Strike Force, has been produced by the Defence Science Board, which has a Pentagon brief to "transform the nation's armed forces to meet the demands placed on them by a changing world order".

The board's findings envisage a revamped nuclear arsenal made up of small-scale missiles whose explosive impact would be easier to control and could be aimed at smaller aggressive states.

The most radical part of the report argues for a move away from the Cold War view of nuclear arms as catastrophic weapons of last resort.

The document is believed to have the strong backing of the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, who last week, in a leaked Pentagon memo, called for a "bolder" approach to national security. A month ago the Senate eased restrictions on nuclear tests at the military's Nevada site, where no new test has taken place since 1992. [...]

Comment: So the good 'ol boys in the Pentagon want to have some fun with mini nukes, and these are the people helping to shape US foreign policy. Is it easier now to think that the type of person that wants to free up mini-nukes for use against "enemies" (read civilian populations) could also orchestrate 9/11?

Do you think these people actually care about the 'pleb' in the street? Please! get real! When it comes to ensuring the success of their carefully laid plans they will stop at NOTHING.

The Case Against Dr. Butler

CBSNews.com
October 19, 2003 23:51:42

Early this year, government investigators, who have yet to determine who was responsible for the anthrax attacks, were faced with another scare with another possible bio-terrorism weapon: deadly bubonic plague.

This scare involved 30 vials of the plague bacteria that had disappeared from a research laboratory.

There had been intelligence reports that Osama bin Laden had an active program to weaponize plague for use in the United States. And so, when the 30 vials turned up missing from the laboratory of a world-renowned scientist at Texas Tech in Lubbock, the president was briefed, and a full-scale investigation was launched.

The scientist is Dr. Thomas Butler, who was working on a new antidote for plague when he discovered the 30 vials missing from his lab. Butler gives his only interview to Correspondent Lesley Stahl.

Butler feared the vials were stolen. 'It was my leading concern,' he says.

He reported to university officials that the vials were missing, and in no time, 60 FBI agents showed up. Butler was questioned for nine hours, and his lab and his home searched thoroughly. After finding no evidence of a break-in, the FBI concluded there had been no theft and honed in on Butler.

'They presented me with their evidence of the investigation that pointed to only one possibility, and that was accidental destruction,' says Butler.

Butler says if he had destroyed the vials, he'd remember, which he didn't. But he says the FBI pressed him anyways to sign a statement that he had 'accidentally destroyed' the vials -- and that he had done so long before he reported them missing. In other words, that he had lied.

'They told me that I would not be charged if I were able to confirm the accidental destruction,' says Butler.

He says they told him if he signed a confession, he could go home, case closed. So he signed, even though no attorney was present. But instead of going home, Butler was hauled off to jail in handcuffs and leg irons. The charge? Lying to the FBI.

'I was tricked and deceived by the government. I feel I was naïve to have trusted them and the assurances they gave me,' says Butler.

'They wanted to conclude the investigation and, they told me, reassure the public that there was no danger to the public.'

Today, at 61, Butler's long and distinguished career is in ruins. He's a physician, a professor, and perhaps the nation's leading researcher on plague.

'I was working with a specific antibiotic called gentimycin, which our FDA wants, if effective in plague, to add to the national stockpiles for use in a possible bio-terrorist attack,' says Butler.

What can he say to people who are hearing this story and wondering how 30 vials of a deadly pathogen can be missing? How could this have happened?

"Destruction of bacteria is a routine procedure in laboratories. And for one set of vials to be mixed up and placed inadvertently into the sterilizer is something that might happen," says Butler. "It could be carelessness. It could be hurried activity at the end of a day."

However, Butler said the FBI had come to the conclusion that he had accidentally destroyed the plague bacteria: "I didn't quickly accept it as the right explanation, but I did because I trusted the FBI agents."

Even Butler's friends would tell you that it's impossible for them to see him as a criminal. But he is now barred from his lab, his research has been confiscated, and he stands accused of 69 felonies - a maximum penalty, he says, of more than 400 years in jail.

A court imposed a gag order in the case about an hour after 60 Minutes finished our interviews with Butler and his lawyer, Jonathan Turley. [...]

Comment: There can be only one reason why the U.S. government would want to take out its leading plague researcher - along with numerous other microbiologists. Dr. Butler may spend the rest of his life in jail because he knew the wrong things at the wrong time. That's freedom and democracy, American style.

Free speech kept off U.S. streets

DAVID LINDORFF
SPECIAL TO THE TORONTO STAR
Oct. 26, 2003

When retired Pittsburgh steelworker Bill Neel learned that President George W. Bush was coming to town last year, he decided he would be on hand to protest the president's economic policies.

Neel and his sister made a hand-lettered sign ' The Bush family must surely love the poor! They have made so many of us! ' and headed for a road where the motorcade would pass.

But he never got to display his sign for Bush to see.

As he stood among milling groups of Bush supporters, he was approached by a local police detective and told that he and his sister had to move to a "free-speech area" for protesters, on orders of the U.S. Secret Service.

"He pointed out a relatively remote baseball diamond that was enclosed in a chain-link fence," Neel recalls.

"I could see these people behind the fence, with their faces up against it, and their hands on the wire.

"It looked more like a concentration camp than a free-speech area to me, so I said, 'I'm not going in there. I thought the whole country was a free-speech area'."

After refusing several times to go to the area, he was handcuffed and arrested on a charge of disorderly conduct. [...]

A number of individual plaintiffs in the ACLU suit say they were told local police were acting "on orders from the Secret Service" when directing them to remote areas or arresting them for refusing to go to such sites.

That's the story Bill Ramsey got when he was arrested last Nov. 4 by police in St. Charles, Mo., while attempting to unfurl an anti-war banner amid a group of pro-Bush people during a presidential visit to a local airport.

"The police told us if we wanted to show the banner, we'd have to go to a parking lot four-tenths of a mile away and out of sight of the president's motorcade," says Ramsey.

"When we attempted to put it up anyway, they arrested us and said they'd been ordered to by the Secret Service."

But Ramsey says that when members of his organization, the Instead of War Coalition, seek to obtain permission to hold demonstrations during presidential visits, the Secret Service tells them such matters are the responsibility of local police. [...]

Anti-war rally marches in Washington

By Benjamin Duncan
Sunday 26 October 2003, 11:01 Makka Time, 8:01 GMT

Tens of thousands of anti-war demonstrators marched in Washington on Saturday to express fierce opposition to the US-led occupation of Iraq.

With the Washington Monument looming in the background, people gathered before the march to hear dozens of speakers from various political and social walks of life denounce President Bush’s decision to go to war.

“As more troops start to come home in body bags, more and more people don’t know what we’re doing there,” said Bill Hackwell, a spokesman for Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) the coalition that organised the march along with another advocacy group, United for Peace and Justice.

Hackwell estimated that 100,000 people attended the demonstration, though that number could not be independently verified.

A spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police Department said it no longer gave crowd estimates. Reuters reported that police on the scene put the figure at roughly 30,000.

An overwhelming number of protesters seemed to believe the Bush administration lied to the American people about Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction programme and led the United States into an unjust war, driven by oil and imperialist designs on the Middle East.

US support for Bush drops: poll

A Newsweek poll carried out this week shows support in the United States for President George W Bush is waning.

The weekly magazine reports that 58 per cent of Americans think the United States is spending too much on the reconstruction of Iraq.

The poll also shows that voters were almost equally divided over Mr Bush personally, with 46 per cent in favour of his re-election and 47 against.

The poll's editor, Kel Dougherty, says the number of Americans wanting the troops home is steadily climbing.

"It's up 7 per cent in the last month, up from 32 per cent to 39 per cent and we see sharp increases among Democrats, women, young people."

"All are becoming increasingly supportive of pulling the troops out as soon as possible.

"There's still a majority that says they want to wait until a stable government is formed, but there's momentum on the other side."

Senators: Conditions 'unacceptable' for sick reservists at Fort Stewart

Embattled US troops kill civilians

Sunday 26 October 2003

Five Iraqis have been killed and several civilians seriously injured by US troops on a day of resistance attacks that left about 20 occupation soldiers wounded.

Rockets slam into Wolfowitz's hotel

Sunday 26 October 2003, 12:03 Makka Time, 9:03 GMT

A barrage of rockets has hit the Baghdad hotel at which US assistant defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, has been staying, killing one person and wounding 15 others.

AFP quotes a top military officer as saying the No. 2 Pentagon official escaped uninjured when 29 heavy rockets slammed into the landmark al-Rashid Hotel at 0310 GMT on Sunday morning.

Ayoon wa Azan (What Will Be Will Be)

Jihad Al Khazen Al-Hayat 2003/10/25

I must have lived a lot, because I've seen a thousand strange things happening before and after the war on Iraq, and I still am. While it is already absurd enough to insist on the presence of weapons of mass destruction, which simply don't exist, I am now talking about the Western media, as we all complained from its biasness and submission to the logic of the U.S. administration during the war, as well as its agreement on censorship and self-censorship. Then, we lived to see that the Bush administration considered the media that supported it as biased against it, to the extent that it made moves to retaliate and to voice its opinion the way it wants.

Facts Awaiting The Visitor

Ghassan Charbel Al-Hayat 2003/10/25

Three events have preceded the new visit to Iraq of Paul Wolfowitz, one of the architects of the plan to topple Saddam Hussein's regime. The first is the donor countries conference for the reconstruction of Iraq. Through the level of participation and the deals inked, this conference shed light on the international community's dissatisfaction with having to deal with Iraq's future through the coalition forces and the latter's way of managing this future.

The second is the statement made by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell that the greatest wish of the U.S. administration is to hand over power to the Iraqi people. As for the third incident, it is the killing of three American soldiers yesterday.

The U.S. Under Secretary of Defense doesn't need much effort to discover a group of facts. The first is that the dream to foster a democratic model after quashing Saddam Hussein's regime to the end of bringing about in Iraq and the region has rapidly vanished into thin air, and latching on to it would merely contribute to turning the U.S. intervention into an entanglement without end.

The second fact is that the Iraqi people's joy towards the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime didn't systematically turn into an acceptance of those who toppled it and an authorization granted to them to formulate Iraq's future without an Iraqi participation.

The third fact is that the U.S. ability to understand the complexity of the Iraqi situation and the feelings of the Iraqi people has proven to be limited. The way Iraq has been managed after the war has unintentionally contributed in promoting the option of resistance. As for the forth fact, it is the failure to conceal the growing misunderstanding between the coalition forces and the Iraqis through blaming the neighboring countries for the deteriorating security.

New poll: More than 40 % of Britons feel Blair distorted information on WMD as British soldier injured in Basra attack

26-10-2003,08 :00

Over 40 percent of Britons believe Prime Minister Tony Blair deliberately distorted information about Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD), according to a poll released on Sunday.

The YouGov survey for Britain's ITV television network also found that less than half the population now thought it was right to invade Iraq.

Lynch rescuer shot dead at BBQ

From correspondents in Long Beach, California
October 23, 2003

A MARINE who helped in the rescue of US Army Private Jessica Lynch in Iraq was shot dead at a family barbecue in California, just 12 days before he was to be discharged.

Lance Corporal Sok Khak Ung, 22, and a family friend, Vouthy Tho, 21, were killed on Monday in a garage at a Long Beach home by a gunman who fired six to eight shots before fleeing, police said.

Yesterday, Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe offered a $US10,000 ($14,000) reward for information on the killings.

"I am outraged that someone would so cowardly gun down this brave soldier," Knabe said. "Ung served his country well, protecting our freedoms in the war against terrorism. His killers should be brought to justice."

FLASHBACK: MYSTERIOUS DEATH IN SOUTH CAROLINA

Jon Rappoport
No More Fake News

JULY 7. Josh Speer, a 21-year-old Marine, died in a car crash Sunday morning off State 11, in South Carolina.
Speer was part of the group that rescued Pvt. Jessica Lynch in Iraq.

US Army PR about the details of Lynch's capture and subsequent heroic rescue has been under intense scutiny. Details were exaggerated. Lynch is said to have no memory of events.

Her story, as the Army told it, created an inspirational myth for America during the war. At least part of that myth appears to have been fabricated out of thin air. No one seems to be able to verify that the shootout-rescue actually took place...

Sunday, in broad daylight, Speer's car simply went off the road on Hwy 11 and turned over several times. He was alone in the car, and was wearing a seat belt, the cops say.

Did he know something he wasn't supposed to know?

No one in South Carolina seems to be interested in that question.

Local press reports don't indicate that Speer was drunk or otherwise impaired. No mention of rain, slick roads, or dangerous curves.

Comment: Is there a pattern here? Both Speer and Ung can no longer comment on such things like the new ghost written book, I Am a Soldier, Too: The Jessica Lynch Story.

FLASHBACK: The truth about Jessica

Thursday May 15, 2003
The Guardian

Her Iraqi guards had long fled, she was being well cared for - and doctors had already tried to free her. John Kampfner discovers the real story behind a modern American war myth

PR Specialist of Debunked Persian Gulf War Incubator Story Promotes New Book on Lynch "Rescue"

One Year Later: Paul Wellstone is Gone, But Not Forgotten

by Rob Hotakainen
Star Tribune

[...] Blodgett said he believes that Wellstone's national standing was enhanced when he voted to oppose the war in Iraq. In a move that many said would risk his reelection, Wellstone was among the first to oppose President Bush's request to use any means necessary, including military force, to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

"He could be one of those who say, 'I told you so,' " Harkin said. "He had this thing pegged right."

Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., said Wellstone "would have been all over" the president's request to spend another $87 billion on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"He was one of our most eloquent and passionate and out-front spokesman for our causes. . . . It's immeasurable what the loss has been," Dayton said.

Dayton has no doubt that Wellstone would have been reelected. With a 50-50 Senate, Democrats and Republicans would have been equally represented on Senate committees. [...]

Comment: A documentary on Paul and Sheila Wellstone's life is in production. You can watch part of it here.

FLASHBACK: The Predictable Assassination of Senator Paul Wellstone

October 30, 2002
By Cyndi Smith
nsnews editorial

Dr. Michael I. Niman teaches journalism and media studies at Buffalo State College, and he suggests that Senator Paul Wellstone was murdered [...]

Dr. Niman is a courageous man who has exposed something that many people felt. Senator Paul Wellstone's death was not a surprise. In his own words:

Anyone familiar with my work knows that I'm certainly not a conspiracy theorist. But to be honest, I know I wasn't alone in my initial reaction at this week's horrible and tragic news: that being my surprise that Wellstone had lived this long. Perhaps it's just my anger and frustration at losing one of the few reputable politicians in Washington, but I also felt shame. Shame for not writing in my column, months ago, that I felt that Paul Wellstone's life, more so than any other politician in Washington, was in danger. I felt that such speculation was unprofessional and would ultimately undermine my credibility. In the end, my own self-interest triumphed, and I never put my concerns into print. Neither did any other mainstream journalist, though I know of many who shared my concern.

When I heard Wellstone's plane went down, I immediately thought of Panamanian General Omar Torrijos, who in 1981 thumbed his nose at the Reagan/Bush administration and threatened to destroy the Panama Canal in the event of a U.S. invasion. Torrijos died shortly thereafter when the instruments in his plane failed to function upon takeoff. Panamanians speculated that the U.S. was involved in the death of the popular dictator, who was replaced by a U.S. intelligence operative, Manuel Noreiga, who previously worked with George Bush Senior.

It is a sad state of affairs, when we live in a society where political assassination are predictable. [...]

FLASHBACK: Wellstone's plane gave no indication of trouble

Plane broke into pieces, caught fire

By Bill Gardner, Phil Pina and Jim Ragsdale
St. Paul Pioneer Press

Ulman said there was no distress call or any indication of trouble before the plane went down about 10:20 a.m. The pilot had notified the airport that he was going to land and had clicked his microphone to turn on the landing lights. [...]

Ulman said he went up in a private plane himself to look for the Wellstone plane after it failed to land on the runway.

"I looked to the south and saw smoke plumes," Ulman said.

He flew over the area, thick with pine and spruce trees, and saw the plane's tail had broken off.
"It was engulfed in flames," he said. [...]

Thousands evacuate for Israeli demolitions

Sunday 26 October 2003Time

Forcing thousands of residents to leave their homes in the night, the Israeli army has blown up three Palestinian Authority buildings in the Gaza Strip.

Sunday's deafening explosion sent shock waves kilometres away. It was the largest such demolition since the start of the Intifada three years ago.

The 13-storey partly constructed buildings were dynamited after troops at night evacuated an estimated 2000 Palestinian residents from the Gaza Strip town of al-Zahra.

A flash of light was seen against the night sky as the simultaneous blasts sent all three buildings tumbling down and a cloud of grey smoke from the rubble rose into the air.

Apartments in Gaza City shook from the force of the blast which took place at about 02:30 (00:30 GMT) and could be felt across the border in Israel.

Message

"It was very accurate, very well done. I hope there is no collateral damage. I hope it will be a good message to the Palestinian Authority not to let their infrastructure be used for terror," said Brigadier-General Gadi Shammi, commander of Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip.

Security sources said the buildings were used by Palestinian groups to observe troop movements before launching a resistance attack on the nearby Jewish settlement of Netzarim on Friday in which three soldiers were killed.

Leaflets in Arabic were distributed to residents in the hours before the explosion saying: "You must leave your homes immediately until the end of this operation.

"The army is going to blow up some sites. Please leave your windows open, turn off electrical devices and go to the southern part of your neighbourhood. Anyone who stays is risking his life. Anyone seen with a weapon will risk his life."

Israelis Raid 2 Palestinian Hospitals

Washington Post
Sunday, October 26, 2003

NABLUS, West Bank, Oct. 25 -- Israeli troops raided two Palestinian hospitals Saturday and arrested two suspected militants in , a commando operation the army said would be repeated in other hospitals where suspects might be hiding.

The troops, wearing black ski masks and carrying assault rifles, entered the hospitals in the West Bank city of Nablus before dawn. They snatched one man from his bed, where he was in critical condition, and found another in a basement with a pistol, the army said. [...]

Human rights groups and Palestinians condemned the hospital raids, expressing fear that they are no longer neutral ground and saying that international law bans military operations in medical facilities. The army countered that international law bars militants from seeking refuge in a hospital. The army has carried out four hospital raids in the past two months.

Arriving at about 3 a.m., troops swept into the hospitals and confined doctors and other employees to rooms for more than an hour as they kicked open doors in room-to-room searches, witnesses said.

Soldiers entered the intensive care unit of Anglican Hospital and grabbed Khaled Hamed from his bed. The 25-year-old member of the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, was badly injured Wednesday when explosives in a car he was riding in went off accidentally. [...]

The Convenient Formula For Israelis

Yasser Al Zaatera Al-Hayat 2003/10/25

A few weeks ago, "we celebrated" the 10th anniversary of the Oslo Accords, which were signed on 13/9/1993. The signatories promised us a fully sovereign Palestinian state with East Jerusalem for its capital, over the West Bank and Gaza, which means the 1967 territories.

Now, ten years later, we realize that things have gone even worse than they were at the time of the Accords. According to Saeda Hamad, who published an important report in Al-Hayat on 15/9/2003, settlements have increased over the past ten years by more than 100%, while Jerusalem was exposed to the most dangerous campaign as to control "the demographic balance" and implement the "Great Jerusalem" project. Not to mention the achievements Israelis have made, namely in politics, through the international recognition and the cancellation of the legitimacy of the Palestinian resistance.

Ten years following the Oslo Accords and over three years after Camp David summit, it seems to us that the entire issue is nothing but an illusion.

Political circumstances have gone worse, as the radical right is ruling in Tel Aviv and Washington, and it does not seem to be looking for another solution formula on the Palestinian level, as well as regarding the Israeli expansion in the region.

Iran provides UN with names of 225 al-Qaida suspects: spokesman

www.chinaview.cn 2003-10-26

TEHRAN, Oct. 26 (Xinhuanet) -- Iran has provided the United Nations with the names of 225 suspected al-Qaida members who had already been extradited to their countries of origin, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said Sunday.

The move is in line with UN Security Council Resolution 1455, said Hamid-Reza Asefi.

Iran says it is studying halt of uranium enrichment

www.chinaview.cn 2003-10-26 18:51:35

TEHRAN, Oct. 26 (Xinhuanet) -- Iranian said Sunday that it had not suspended enriching uranium and an earlier comments made by a Foreign Ministry spokesman had been wrong.

"Iran is currently studying suspending uranium enrichment," the Foreign Ministry said in a brief statement.

Hamid-Reza Asefi said earlier Sunday that Iran had stopped its uranium enrichment activities under international pressure to show it is not developing nuclear weapons.

"Since we have discussed it, I imagine that it has been done," Asefi said, referring to Iran's agreement to suspend its uranium enrichment.

Top Iranian officials on Tuesday struck a deal with visiting British, French and German foreign ministers, agreeing to sign the additional protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and halt its uranium enrichment.

Iranian politician warns US trying to come between Iran and Europe

HAMBURG, Germany (AFP) Oct 25, 2003

Washington was trying to obstruct relations between his country and the European Union and was looking for excuses to make trouble for Iran, a senior Iranian politician warned in an interview to be published on Monday. [...]

"We fear the Americans are looking for new excuses, for political reasons, to cause problems for us. But, thank God, the Europeans behave differently." [...]

Response to Indian offer next week

By Ihtashamul Haque

ISLAMABAD, Oct 25: Pakistan will respond next week to Indian proposals for normalization of relations between the two countries, as at present inter-ministerial meetings are being held to sort out issues concerning restoration of overflights , rail links, easing of visa procedure and detained fishermen.

Informed sources told Dawn here on Saturday that as soon as the inter-ministerial meetings, being conducted on the advice of the foreign office, are over the government would come up with a detailed response next week.

"There would be no delay from our side as internal consultations are taking place right now," said a source commenting on Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha's statement made on Friday that New Delhi was waiting for Islamabad's response.

In Shift, N. Korea to Consider Bush's Security Offer

By Anthony Faiola
Washington Post Foreign Service
October 26, 2003

TOKYO, Oct. 26 -- In a major about-face, North Korea said Saturday it was "ready to consider" an offer by President Bush for a multilateral security guarantee in exchange for terminating its nuclear weapons program. The statement from the North, issued by its official news service in Pyongyang, marked a significant shift from its initial reaction, when it dismissed last week's proposal by Bush to give North Korea a security guarantee signed by its neighbors and the United States as "laughable." [...]

Russian oil baron charged with tax evasion, fraud

DEBORAH SEWARD
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Oct. 25, 2003. 11:54 AM

MOSCOW ' Prosecutors charged Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the head of Russia's largest oil producer, Yukos, with tax evasion and fraud today after the oil magnate was forcibly detained in Siberia and brought back to Moscow, the prosecutor's office confirmed. [...]

Top Russian business people and political leaders have expressed deep concern about the developments surrounding Yukos, saying the investigation is damaging the Russian economy and dissuading foreign investors from sinking their money in Russia. [...]

The butler and the secret that could bring down the royals

Harry and William prepare to meet former butler amid fears he might be ready to reveal Diana's 'crown jewels'

Jamie Doward, social affairs editor
Sunday October 26, 2003
The Observer

Speculation has now turned to whether Burrell is in possession of what Diana called the 'crown jewels', which included a series of letters from the Duke of Edinburgh and a tape recording of a royal servant, George Smith, witnessing an 'incident' between a senior royal and a member of staff, which could bring down the monarchy.

How Diana schooled her 'rock' in the art of PR

The butler knows how to sell his story - because he learnt from a past master. Jamie Doward reports on the betrayals, motives and intrigue in the latest palace scandal

Sunday October 26, 2003
The Observer

[...] Already the book's serialisation has prompted a furious backlash against the monarchy. The Mail and the Times accuse a coterie of palace advisers, determined to prosecute Burrell, for immersing the royal family in a swamp of intrigue that would only ever end up tarnishing its image.

They could not have realised how much devastation would ensue. Those close to Burrell say the heavy-handed dawn raid on his home and the resulting trial were what finally convinced him to publish and be damned. 'Once they had raided his home and put him on trial, that was it. All bets were off. He owed them nothing,' said one person who knows him well.

Burrell appeared to confirm this on Friday night when he responded to the princes' attack on him at an impromptu press conference. 'I would like to point out that, following the collapse of my trial at the Old Bailey last year, no one from the Royal Family contacted me or said sorry for the unnecessary ordeal myself, my wife and my sons were put through,' a gaunt Burrell said.

Others suggest Burrell made up his mind to write a book on Diana long before SO6 knocked on his door. 'Everything that has happened he brought on himself. Make no mistake, he can handle it all,' said one royal source.

Comment: The gloves are off. The Royals are going to get down and dirty. Does Burrell have the "Crown Jewels" as people say?

Europe gears up for comet chaser

By Helen Briggs
BBC News Online science reporter

Europe is stepping up its preparations for the launch of a space craft designed to chase and land on a comet.

The Rosetta mission was scrubbed at the last minute in January because of problems with the Ariane rocket system that would have launched it from Earth.

It will now lift off in February 2004, after a delay of more than a year.

[...] The New Year promises to be an exciting time for cometary missions. The US space agency (Nasa) will direct its Stardust space craft to fly by Comet Wild 2 at the beginning of January.

The probe will capture up-close pictures of the icy heart of a comet for only the third time ever. For the first time in history, it will then try to snatch a sample of dust due for return to Earth in 2006.

Comment: To understand why these governments may be interested in comets, look at the article Independence Day by Laura Knight-Jadczyk.

Two earthquakes in northwestern China kill at least four

05:30 AM EST Oct 26

BEIJING (AP) - Two strong earthquakes struck northwestern China, killing at least four people and seriously injuring eight others, the government said Sunday.

The quakes - which magnitudes 6.1 and 5.8 - hit Gansu province at 8:41 p.m. and 8:48 p.m. local time Saturday, China's Xinhua News Agency reported from Lanzhou, the provincial capital. Another 17 people had minor injuries, Xinhua said.

Reservoirs in quake-hit NW China release water

www.chinaview.cn 2003-10-26 15:13:12

LANZHOU, Oct. 26 (Xinhuanet) -- The tremors that struck northwest China's Gansu Province Saturday night have caused damage to two local reservoirs, which may burst into flooding, local government said.

Cracks, five and one decimeter wide respectively, have been spotted on the dams of the Shuangshusi and Zhaizhaizi reservoirs in the quake-hit Mingle county, and the county government has decided to lower water levels of the reservoirs by releasing waterin storage.

Severe flooding in Thailand

Flooding in Thailand has forced thousands of people from their homes and severed the railway line to the south of the country.

Several areas in provinces to the south of Bangkok were inundated when authorities released water from three dams after very heavy rain last week.

Germany's big freeze sees temperatures hit record low for October

OBERSTDORF, Germany (AFP) Oct 25, 2003

A cold snap in southern Germany saw temperatures overnight plunge to below minus 12 degrees Celsius (10 degrees Fahrenheit), the coldest temperature ever recorded there in October. [...]

Steamboat erupts for 4th time in 18 months

By MIKE STARK
Gazette Wyoming Bureau

A law-enforcement ranger living near Norris Geyser Basin heard it Wednesday evening and quickly called the communications office at Yellowstone National Park headquarters.

News spread quickly that, for the third time this year, the largest geyser in the world was erupting.

Steamboat geyser, one of the most celebrated and wildly unpredictable geysers in the park, put on a show for the few people who were there to see it. [...]

Carbon 'sinks' in doubt
Forests may not soak up as much, research shows

PETER CALAMAI
SCIENCE WRITER

OTTAWA—Striking findings are emerging from research at the world's largest open-air climate-change experiment that will prove troubling to Canada's policy-makers and challenging for scientists.

The results strongly suggest that Canada's forests won't be able to soak up anywhere near as much excess carbon dioxide as the federal Kyoto action plan assumes.

Because higher carbon dioxide levels make plants grow faster, Ottawa was counting on our forests to soften the impact of greenhouse warming by taking in more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it for decades in the soil as organic matter and other forms of carbon.

By 2008, roughly one-sixth of Canada's Kyoto target reduction in carbon dioxide emissions annually is supposed to come from these forest and farmland "sinks." Federal officials have never made public the detailed studies to support that estimate.

Now, research warns that the projected carbon storage by our forests could be cut in half because of interference from ground-level ozone, a leaf-scorching gas that also comes from burning fossil fuels. And the forests could become a net source of carbon dioxide years sooner than projected.

"Any benefit you get from high carbon dioxide is largely wiped out by ozone," David Layzell told MPs and policy advisers at a briefing about the carbon cycle here this week.

Coke to Launch Cholesterol-Reducing Orange Juice

By Paul Simao
Fri October 24, 2003 01:29 PM ET

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Soft drink maker Coca-Cola Co., which is battling rival PepsiCo Inc. for control of the growing health drinks market, said on Friday it was preparing to launch a cholesterol-reducing orange juice.

The world's largest soft drink maker will begin rolling out Minute Maid Premium Heart Wise on Monday in the United States. It expects the drink to be widely available throughout the nation by the Thanksgiving holiday in November.

The product will contain plant sterols, an additive that has been used in cholesterol-fighting margarine and other food products. Plant sterols have been shown to cut bad cholesterol levels by about 10 percent when used consistently. [...]

Three 'witches' kill themselves

Three members of the same family accused of being witches have committed suicide, Indian police say.

They took their lives after fellow villagers publicly humiliated them, forcing them to eat human excrement.

The deaths occurred in the village of Kamalpura in the state of Bihar, in eastern India, where attacks on people accused of witchcraft are common. [...]

Christians heckling anti-war protesters

The Most Unconventional Weapon

By DANIEL BERGNER
The New York Times

Amuzati Ndjoki says he witnessed rebel soldiers devouring his family. In Beni, a town of one paved street where motorbikes buzz past a dusty clothing shack called the Armani Shop, Amuzati Ndjoki sat in a white plastic lawn chair on a guest-house porch. He is a Pygmy. As he told what he had seen, the soles of his shoes didn't touch the concrete. But his voice was steady enough.

He had heard, a few months earlier, that a rebel army was approaching his part of the jungle, nearing his clan's encampment of low round huts roofed and sided in banana leaves. He recalled the warnings from those who came through, escaping ahead of the attack: ''They are eating people. They are cutting the bodies as they do for animals. They make fires.'' [...]

Bodies Of Three Toddlers Found In Fridge

Sapa Sunday 26th October, 2003

The bodies of four-year-old twins, and their three-year-old neighbour were found in a fridge at their home in Gamogotlane near Mokopane, South Africa, on Saturday, Limpopo police said.

Police Captain Malesela Ledwaba said a family member found the children's bodies in an unused fridge, which was switched on at the three-year-old's home.

The children went missing on Friday night. An inquest docket has been opened. Ledwaba said a post mortem would be conducted to establish the cause of death.

Girl expelled for writing story about killing teacher

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- A high school freshman expelled for writing a fictional account of a student who falls asleep in class and dreams of killing a teacher can return to school Monday while officials reconsider the disciplinary action. [...]

Gemstones found on Mars

Durangoan reports he saw UFO

October 25, 2003
By Patricia Miller
Herald Staff Writer

Tim Butler doesn't believe in flying saucers. His perception is more sophisticated. It was a flying boomerang that caught his attention. [...]

The boomerang, Butler said, was notable for what it didn't have: It lacked markings, a cockpit, portholes, a tail and dorsal fins, stabilizing equipment, propellers, engines, and rivets.

"It wasn't thermalling and didn't make a sound," he said. "There was no heat distortion behind the end. I thought it had to be a military drone at one point but there was no contrail, no propulsion." [...]

Scientists investigate spate of unexplained sea mammal deaths

By JAY LINDSAY
Associated Press

BOSTON - The string of sea mammal deaths began in mid-summer, when humpback whales were spotted floating lifeless off Massachusetts. At about the same time, dead minke whales and harbor seals began turning up along a 75-mile strip off the Maine coast.

The only obvious link between the deaths was that scientists couldn´t explain them. [...]

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