"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."

Democrats submit a resolution to fire Rumsfeld. Rummy, meanwhile, continues to seek international help for Iraq, while his Pentagon and military pals turn up the heat on the Bush administration. Perle changes his story on the pre-invasion Iraqi peace offer.

The IAEA says there's no evidence Iran is making nukes, but they leave the door open just enough so that Bushy and gang can invade if they want.

The EU obtains approval to impose steep tariffs on US-made goods. Bush could back down and remove duties on European steel - the question is, will he? If he doesn't back off, the US economy may suffer yet another blow.

Feds are trying to scare us with dirty bomb stories and missing radioactive material yet again. IG Farben, builder of Auschwitz, and builder of the Bush family fortune is going belly up. Since 1991, a World Trade Center's worth of Iraqi children continue to die every month.

A mysterious beast is prowling around Oklahoma.

Secret Service Hides Cheney as Plane Enters Restricted Area

By RICHARD W. STEVENSON
The New York Times
November 11, 2003

WASHINGTON, Nov. 10 — The Secret Service hustled Vice President Dick Cheney into a secure site on Monday morning after a small plane flew into restricted airspace around Washington, government officials said.

The plane was intercepted by two Air Force F-16 fighters, whose pilots determined that it was not a threat and escorted it out of the area.

President Bush was on his way to a fund-raiser in Little Rock, Ark., at the time, and Laura Bush was in Maine. [...]

Comment: This article naturally brings back memories of 9/11 and more importantly the still unanswered questions concerning the glaring evidence that there was fore-knowledge of the attacks and complicity at the highest levels of the US administration. One the most significant unanswered questions is why standard FAA (Federal Aviation Authority) and US military emergency procedures were not followed as they had been many times before and since as evidenced by the above article. As we shall see the procedures for such a situation as occurred on 9/11 are extremely well established, dating back many years, yet the most important of these that could have saved the lives of thousands of US citizens were deliberately circumvented on Sept. 11th 2001.

Firstly, we need to look at just what constitutes an "emergency situation" in relation to a commercial airliner in the US. Most of the information below is taken directly from the FAA site.

An Air Traffic Controller (ATC) may request military jets to intercept (or 'escort') a commercial aircraft in response to any serious problem which the Air Traffic Controller cannot solve through radio contact. Perhaps the most common problem is that a commercial jet has deviated from its authorized flight path. ( FAA Order 7400.2E 14-1-2)

When a commercial jet deviates from its approved flight path, it creates a potentially deadly hazard: it could collide with another jet. It is therefore reassuring that the FAA has an exacting standard for what constitutes an emergency

"Consider that an aircraft emergency exists ... when: ...There is unexpected loss of radar contact and radio communications with any ...aircraft."
-- FAA Order 7110.65M 10-2-5

"Emergency Determinations

"If...you are in doubt that a situation constitutes an emergency or potential emergency, handle it as though it were an emergency."
-- FAA Order 7110.65M 10-1-1-c

The FAA online manual describes how an escort (i.e., a fighter jet) might communicate with a commercial airliner which fails to respond to radio contact. The FAA has a chart entitled:

"Intercepting Signals "Signals initiated by intercepting aircraft and responses by intercepted aircraft."

According to the chart, which is available on-line, if a commercial jet is intercepted in daytime, the escort fighter jet may communicate by:

"...Rocking wings from a position slightly above and ahead of, and normally to the left of, the intercepted aircraft..."

This conveys the message, "You have been intercepted." The commercial jet should respond by rocking its wings, indicating it will comply.

The escort then makes a "slow level turn, normally to the left, on to the desired heading [direction]."

The commercial jet is supposed to respond by following the escort.
(FAA 'AIM' 5-6-4)

The ATCs in control of the planes on 9/11 would have been left in no doubt then that they were dealing with an "emergency" in relation to the 4 planes. Neither would they have been in any doubt as to what to do next, both the FAA and the Defence department make it explicitly clear:

"In the event of a hijacking, the NMCC will be notified by the most expeditious means by the FAA. The NMCC will, with the exception of immediate responses,...forward requests for DOD [Department of Defense] assistance to the Secretary of Defense for approval." Defence department publication

"The escort service will be requested by the FAA hijack coordinator by direct contact with the National Military Command Center (NMCC)."
- FAA Order 7610.4J 7-1-2

A high-ranking FAA official - called an Air Defense Liaison Officer (ADLO) - is stationed in the headquarters of NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command. The purpose: to help the FAA and the military work together to handle emergencies as quickly as possible. Escorts are usually scrambled from NORAD bases, such as the Otis Air Force Base on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, or the air base at Langley, Virginia.

"Normally, NORAD escort aircraft will take the required action. However, for the purpose of these procedures, the term "escort aircraft" applies to any military aircraft assigned to the escort mission."
- FAA Order 7610.4J 7-1-2

Note in the above that off course aircraft is a COMMON problem, indeed this happens on a DAILY basis. So when an aircraft goes off course and in the event that communication cannot be established the ATC must consider that there is a possible hijacking in progress, and his next and immediate step is to request Air force "escort jets" to check out the situation.

As you can see from the above description, interception is not necessarily an aggressive act. Usually it is requested because routine communication has become impossible and the jets are required to further assess the situation directly. Only in the event that the aircraft continues not to comply is shooting it down considered. This procedure has been followed many times in the past:

Flashback: Small Private Plane Ordered to Land in Vicinity of Bush Ranch

13 September 2001

"A small private plane flying unauthorized in the vicinity of President Bush's ranch near Crawford was ordered by the military to land Thursday, a sheriff's deputy said....

"The Federal Aviation Administration declared that the plane was unauthorized and ordered its occupants detained, Plemons said. At that point military officials, flying in two jets beside the plane, got on the pilot's radio frequency and ordered the Cessna to land...

"The plane landed on a private landing strip near State Highway 6, about eight miles from the Bush ranch near Crawford....

"In [a second incident, in] Wood County, Sheriff's senior Dispatcher Rodney Mize said a private plane was forced down by two military pilots in A-10 Warthog jets about 11:30 a.m. The jets flew one above and one below until the private plane's pilot landed at Wisener Field near Mineola."

The ' Boston Globe' reported that:

"[Marine Corps Major Mike] Snyder, the NORAD spokesman, said its fighters routinely intercept aircraft.

"When planes are intercepted, they typically are handled with a graduated response. The approaching fighter may rock its wingtips to attract the pilot's attention, or make a pass in front of the aircraft. Eventually, it can fire tracer rounds in the airplane's path, or, under certain circumstances, down it with a missile." 'Boston Globe,' 15 September 2001

Flashback: Payne Stewart's Lear jet crashes killing him and 5 others on October 25th 1999 as reported by ABC news:

"[...] First, a fighter jet from Tyndall, Fla., was diverted from a routine training flight to check out the Learjet. Two F-16s from another Florida base then picked up the chase, later handing it over to two Air National Guard F-16s from Oklahoma, which handed it over to two F-16s from Fargo, North Dakota."

"[...]officers on the Joint Chiefs were monitoring the Learjet on radar screens inside the Pentagon's National Military Command Center." "Several Air Force and Air National Guard fighter jets, plus an AWACS radar control plane, helped the Federal Aviation Administration track the runaway Learjet and estimate when it would run out of fuel." -- 'CNN,' 26 October 1999

The official NTSB investigation into the crash states:

"At 0933:38 EDT (6 minutes and 20 seconds after N47BA acknowledged the previous clearance), the controller instructed N47BA to change radio frequencies and contact another Jacksonville ARTCC controller. The controller received no response from N47BA. The controller called the flight five more times over the next 4 1/2 minutes but received no response.

About 0952 CDT,7 a USAF F-16 test pilot from the 40th Flight Test Squadron at Eglin Air Force Base (AFB), Florida, was vectored to within 8 nm of N47BA.8 About 0954 CDT, at a range of 2,000 feet from the accident airplane and an altitude of about 46,400 feet,9 the test pilot made two radio calls to N47BA but did not receive a response."

Do the math yourself, within 15 minutes of the air traffic controller being unable to establish communication there was a Air Force jet within 2000 feet of the plane! This is called following procedure and it is done every time unless someone gives the order to stand down. That order can only come from the upper echelons of the US government and defence department.

In an interview with "Meet The Press" Vice President Dick Cheney was asked about the events of Sept 11th and in particular the scrambling of jets or lack thereof. Unsurprisingly Dick indulges in cover up and outright lies.

"Vice Pres. Cheney: ...As best we can tell, they [American Flight 77] came initially at the White House and...

"Mr. Russert: The plane actually circled the White House?

"Vice Pres. Cheney: Didn't circle it, but was headed on a track into it. The Secret Service has an arrangement with the F.A.A. They had open lines after the World Trade Center was... "

"Mr. Russert: Tracking it by radar.

"Vice Pres. Cheney: And when it entered the danger zone and looked like it was headed for the White House was when they grabbed me and evacuated me to the basement...

Mr. Russert: What's the most important decision you think he (President Bush) made during the course of the day?

"Vice Pres. Cheney: Well, the...I suppose the toughest decision was this question of whether or not we would intercept incoming commercial aircraft.

"Mr. Russert: And you decided?

"Vice Pres. Cheney: We decided to do it. We'd, in effect, put a flying combat air patrol up over the city; F-16s with an AWACS, which is an airborne radar system, and tanker support so they could stay up a long time "It doesn't do any good to put up a combat air patrol if you don't give them instructions to act, if, in fact, they feel it's appropriate.

"Mr. Russert: So if the United States government became aware that a hijacked commercial airline[r] was destined for the White House or the Capitol, we would take the plane down?

"Vice Pres. Cheney: Yes. The president made the decision...that if the plane would not divert...as a last resort, our pilots were authorized to take them out. Now, people say, you know, that's a horrendous decision to make. Well, it is. You've got an airplane full of American citizens, civilians, captured by...terrorists, headed and are you going to, in fact, shoot it down, obviously, and kill all those Americans on board? And you have to ask yourself, "If we had had combat air patrol up over New York and we'd had the opportunity to take out the two aircraft that hit the World Trade Center, would we have been justified in doing that?" I think absolutely we would have. Now, it turned out we did not have to execute on that authorization. But there were some - a few moments when we thought we might, when planes were incoming and we didn't know whether or not they were a problem aircraft until they'd diverted and gone elsewhere and been able to resolve it.

MR. RUSSERT: And that will be the policy of the United States in the future?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, the president will, I'm sure, make a decision, if those circumstances arise again. It's a presidential-level decision, and the president made, I think, exactly the right call in this case, to say, "I wished we'd had combat air patrol up over New York." -NBC, 'Meet the Press' 16 Sept 2001

Firstly, Cheney completely avoids the fact that the "flying combat air control" was not dispatched until after 3 of the 4 planes had been off course for over an hour and had already hit both the WTC towers and the Pentagon! He then claims that it is no use "to put up a combat air patrol if you don't give them instructions to act (shoot down the planes)" this is patently ridiculous given the above detailed FAA procedures on how to deal with emergency situations and the fact that they had been followed to the letter on many previous occasions. Why were they not followed this time? It is likely that the ATCs involved in attempting to contact the planes followed procedure, the Air Defence Liaison Officer (as mentioned above) in NORAD was more than likely contacted, yet at some point in the chain of command the order was given to stand down.

The result was that, as admitted by a NORAD spokesman, no jets were scrambled until 75 minutes after it became clear that a hijacking was taking place, and the fate of 2,764 people in New York was sealed. The ultimate repercussions of this act of mass murder by members of the US government and their controllers is yet to be fully understood, but with the world now embroiled in a continual and bogus "war on terror", with many thousands of innocents in Iraq and Afghanistan already massacred and the US population falling further and further into a media induced slumber, the future looks bleak indeed.

Feds Concerned About Dirty Bombs

By JOHN SOLOMON

WASHINGTON (AP) - Despite tightened security, terrorists still have a "very significant" chance of obtaining enough radioactive ingredients to create a dirty bomb, federal investigators conclude.

This finding arises from studies that document more than 1,300 disappearances of radioactive materials in the United States over the past five years. Most have been recovered, but some losses remain unsolved.

Comment: The Bush Reich takes yet another step toward yet another terrorist attack on US soil. We may need to remember this quote when al-Qeada is blamed yet again for terrorist activity. From the above article:

Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokeswoman Beth Hayden said the agency recognizes the potential dangers of such materials and al-Qaida's interest in them. "There are millions of sources," she said. But she added most of the 1,300 lost radiological materials were subsequently recovered, and the public should keep the threat in perspective.

"The ones that have been lost and not recovered, I'm told, if you put them all together, it would not add up to one highly radioactive source," Hayden said. "These are low-level sources."

U.S. Advisor Says Iraq Peace Offer Was a Trap

Sun November 9, 2003 01:43 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A last minute peace deal offered by a top Iraqi official in the run up to the war that toppled Saddam Hussein was a trap designed to discredit U.S. policy, an advisor to the Pentagon said on Sunday.

Richard Perle, former chairman of the Defense Policy Advisory Board who had met with a Lebanese businessman who conveyed the Iraqi offer meant to prevent an invasion, said the offer had not been credible.

Perle told ABC television's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos" that the offer by former chief of intelligence, Gen. Tahir Habbush made through Imad Hage, a prominent Lebanese-American businessman, was one of many approaches for a last-minute peace deal.

"There were a number of governments that were trying to broker something with the Iraqis," Perle said. "So this was not credible, this offline approach, indirect as it was." [...]

The offer that came to Perle was to allow the United States to inspect for weapons of mass destruction, which the Iraqis said they did not have, and to turn over a top al Qaeda operative who was in Iraqi custody.

Perle said it also included oil concessions and he thought it was part of an effort to use that offer to discredit U.S. intentions.

"This was a trap," Perle said. "I think it was clearly a trap. It was intended to discredit the administration's policy, it was intended to discredit our effort to liberate Iraq." [...]

FLASHBACK!

Possible Deal Aborted?

Claim: U.S. Government Spurned Peace Talks Before the War With Iraq

By Brian Ross and Chris Vlasto
ABCNEWS.com

Nov. 5 — A possible negotiated peace deal was laid out in a heavily guarded compound in Baghdad in the days before the war, ABCNEWS has been told, but a top former Pentagon adviser says he was ordered not to pursue the deal.

A prominent Lebanese-American businessman said he secretly met with Iraqi intelligence officials just days after Secretary of State Colin Powell laid out the U.S. case for war at the United Nations in February.

Imad Hage, the president of the American Underwriters Group insurance company and known in the region as having contacts at the Pentagon, told ABCNEWS he was first approached by an Iraqi intelligence official who arrived unannounced at his office in Beirut.

A week later, according to Hage, he and an associate were asked to come to Baghdad, when Hage says he met with Saddam Hussein's chief of intelligence, Gen. Tahir Habbush, later labeled the Jack of Diamonds in the deck of cards depicting the most-wanted members of Saddam Hussein's regime. Habbush is still at large.

"He was conveying a message," said Hage. "He was conveying an offer." Hage said Habbush laid out terms of a negotiated peace during a four-hour session beginning at midnight at a compound in Baghdad.

Hage said Habbush repeated public denials by the regime that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction but offered to allow several thousand U.S. agents or scientists free rein in the country to carry out inspections. "Based on my meeting with his man," said Hage, "I think an effort was there to avert war. They were prepared to meet with high-ranking U.S. officials."

Hage said Habbush also offered U.N.-supervised free elections, oil concessions to U.S. companies and was prepared to turn over a top al Qaeda terrorist, Abdul Rahman Yasin, who Haboush said had been in Iraqi custody since 1994.

Yasin is one of the FBI's most wanted terrorists, indicted in connection with the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Hage says Habbush claimed the United States had refused earlier offers to turn him over. "He said we want to show good faith," Hage told ABCNEWS.

Yasin remains at large and is now thought to be one of the people behind the recent wave of attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq.

Throughout the period of the negotiations claimed by Hage, the Bush administration publicly maintained it would not conduct negotiations with Baghdad to avoid a war that did not first involve the unconditional departure of Saddam Hussein from Iraq or his surrender.

But Richard Perle, the then chairman of the Defense Policy Advisory Board, said in the weeks leading up to war with Iraq, he told the CIA but they refused the plan to meet with Iraqi officials to discuss a possible peace deal along the lines of the plan outlined by Hage to ABCNEWS.

"Although I was not enthusiastic about the offer, I was willing to meet with the Iraqis," Perle told ABCNEWS. "The United States government told me not to." Perle would not disclose which official or arm of the government rejected the talks. [...]

A senior U.S. official said the government was unaware of anyone who was in a position to offer a deal that was acceptable to Washington at the time. [...]

And a senior White House official said the United States exhausted every legitimate opportunity to resolve it peacefully and it was "Saddam Hussein's unwillingness to comply after 12 years and some 17 United Nations Security Council resolutions, including one final opportunity, that forced the coalition to act to ensure compliance."

The official also added that Saddam was given 48 hours notice to leave before the United States initiated military action.

Comment: First Perle says he was not allowed to make the deal, and now he has changed his story by saying that it was clearly a trap.

Case for war made up, say top names

By ANDREW GUMBEL in Los Angeles

11/10/03: (The Independent) An unprecedented array of United States intelligence professionals, diplomats and former Pentagon officials have gone on record to lambast the Bush Administration for its distortion of the case for war against Iraq.

In their view, the very foundations of intelligence-gathering have been damaged in ways that could take years, even decades, to repair.

A new documentary circulating in the US features one powerful condemnation after another, from the sort of people who usually stay discreetly in the shadows.

They include a former director of the CIA, two former assistant secretaries of defence, a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia and even the man who served as President George W. Bush's Secretary of the Army until just a few months ago.

The two dozen interviewees reveal how the pre-war intelligence record on Iraq showed virtually the opposite of the picture the Administration painted to Congress, to US voters and to the world.

They also reconstruct the way senior White House officials - notably Vice-President Dick Cheney - leaned on the CIA to find evidence that would fit a preordained set of conclusions.

"There was never a clear and present danger. There was never an imminent threat. Iraq - and we have very good intelligence on this - was never part of the picture of terrorism," says Mel Goodman, a veteran CIA analyst who now teaches at the National War College. [...]

Comment: Is this new attack the next round in a battle between the Rummy/Pentagon clan and the Bush administration?

US soldier killed in Iraq as Rumsfeld seeks international troops

AFP
Tuesday November 11, 4:04 PM

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has called for "a lot of troops" from other countries to help stabilize Iraq, after the deaths of a US soldier and a Kurdish fighter working with Iraq's border guard. [...]

In Washington, Rumsfeld told reporters the United States is seeking troops in larger numbers from 14 countries in addition to 32 others that already have provided some troops to the coalition forces in Iraq.

"I would like to see a lot of troops from other countries. And I'll tell you why: I think it's important for other countries to have a commitment to Iraq, and to the success in Iraq," he told reporters at the Foreign Press Center here.

"But we don't want it to be countries that don't want to be there, or countries that don't want larger numbers there. Because we feel people ought to do that which they believe is in their best interest," he said. [...]

Comment: If this last statement is true, why does the US harshly criticize countries such as France and Germany that decide that becoming involved in America's mess in Iraq is not in their best interest?

Twenty-Six House Democrats Push to Fire Rumsfeld

Mon Nov 10, 6:54 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A group of more than two dozen House of Representatives Democrats on Monday said they had introduced a resolution urging President Bush to fire Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

"This resolution would make official what so many members of Congress already believe -- that the soldiers in Iraq and America's foreign policy would be helped greatly if Donald Rumsfeld would leave," Rep. Charles Rangel of New York said in a statement.

Rangel said he so far had 25 co-sponsors to the resolution who were "willing to stand up and say what so many policy makers know, that the first step to bringing our troops home is to send Donald Rumsfeld home."

The resolution said Rumsfeld misled the American public on assessments of progress in the war and occupation, sent U.S. forces to Iraq "without adequate planning and sufficient equipment," and "demonstrated a lack of sensitivity" in statements on the war and U.S. casualties.

With members of the deeply divided, Republican-controlled Congress pushing for adjournment before the end of November, the resolution would be highly unlikely to come up for a vote.

Personal Voices: Ashcroft's Attack On Greenpeace

By John Passacantando, AlterNet
October 30, 2003

Yesterday the Greenpeace ship MV Esperanza arrived in Miami. However, rather than pulling into port, as Greenpeace ships do throughout the world, she will remain at anchor.

The Port of Miami has refused us entry because John Ashcroft's Justice Department is prosecuting us for a protest action last year. The prosecution is unprecedented. Never before in U.S. history has an entire organization been prosecuted for a peaceful protest by its supporters.

For years we have worked to end environmental destruction and human rights abuses in Brazil's Amazon rainforest. Destruction of these habitats threatens clean air and water, animal and plant species, and the people and cultures who depend on forests for their way of life. Large criminal enterprises, using bribery, extortion, slavery and murder, continue to ravage the Amazon and export their contraband.

Last year, two Greenpeace activists climbed aboard a ship carrying Amazon mahogany wood. They held a banner that said "President Bush: Stop Illegal Logging."

Instead of halting the shipment, the government is prosecuting Greenpeace in federal court in Miami. It has charged Greenpeace under an obscure 19th-century law never intended for this purpose. A trial is now set for December.

Leading legal experts, quoted in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and publications around the world, agree that this prosecution is disturbing and poses a threat to free speech.

From the Boston Tea Party to the civil rights movement, public protest actions have helped bring positive change in the U.S. Our actions worldwide have played a critical role in, for example, stopping atmospheric nuclear testing, protecting Antarctica from exploitation, and banning radioactive waste dumping at sea.

But if this prosecution succeeds, non-violent protest may become yet another casualty of John Ashcroft's attack on civil liberties.

Yard fury over Bush visit

By Patrick Sawer, Evening Standard
This is London
November 10, 2003

White House security demands covering President George Bush's controversial state visit to Britain have provoked a serious row with Scotland Yard.

American officials want a virtual three-day shutdown of central London in a bid to foil disruption of the visit by anti-war protestors. They are demanding that police ban all marches and seal off the city centre.

But senior Yard officers say the powers requested by US security chiefs would be unprecedented on British soil. While the Met wants to prevent violence, it is sensitive to accusations of trying to curtail legitimate protest.

Met officers came in for heavy criticism when banners were torn down and demonstrators prevented from coming within sight of Chinese President Jiang Zemin during his visit in 1999.

But with tens of thousands of protestors from around the UK set to join blockades and marches during the Bush trip, US officials are reportedly insisting on an "exclusion zone". [...]

Comment: These powers requested by American security that have shocked Scotland Yard seem to be the norm in the US these days.

The evangelicals who like to giftwrap Islamophobia

The world's largest children's Christmas project has a toxic agenda

Giles Fraser
The Guardian
Monday November 10, 2003

It all sounds innocent enough. Operation Christmas Child "is a unique ministry that brings Christmas joy, packed in gift-filled shoeboxes, to children around the world". Over the past 10 years, 24 million shoeboxes have been delivered, making it the world's largest children's Christmas project. Every US president since Ronald Reagan has packed a shoebox for Operation Christmas Child. In the UK, thousands of schools, churches and youth clubs are doing the same. Some will fill their boxes with dried-out felt tip pens and discarded Barbie amputees. Others spend serious money on the latest GameBoy or Sony Walkman.

But what many parents and teachers don't know is that behind Operation Christmas Child is the evangelical charity Samaritan's Purse. Their aim is "the advancement of the Christian faith through educational projects and the relief of poverty". And a particularly toxic version of Christianity it is. This is the same outfit that targeted eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall and was widely condemned for following US troops into Iraq to claim Muslims for Christ.

It's run by the Rev Franklin Graham - chosen by George Bush to deliver the prayers at his presidential inauguration - who has called Islam "a very wicked and evil religion". Graham, the son of the evangelist Billy Graham, is from the same school of thought as General William Boykin, US deputy undersecretary of defence for intelligence, who described America as waging a holy war against "the idol" of Islam's false god and "a guy called Satan" who "wants to destroy us as a Christian army".

Across the UK, children in multicultural schools are being encouraged to support a scheme that is, quite understandably, deeply offensive to Muslims. Under pressure from those who have complained that Operation Christmas Child is a way of promoting Christian fundamentalism through toys, evangelical literature will now be distributed alongside shoebox parcels from the UK rather than inside them - as if this makes any real difference. Little wonder that such organisations as the fire service in south Wales, which had allowed its depots to be used as collection points for shoeboxes, has decided to suspend its involvement. Other organisations are reconsidering their participation.

What is most resented about Samaritan's Purse is the way it links aid and evangelism. "We have no problem with people going into a country to do evangelical work," said Hodan Hassan, a spokeswoman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "But when you mix humanitarian work in a war-torn country with evangelisation you create a problem. You have desperate people and you have someone who has food in one hand and a Bible in another." [...]

US evangelicals employ a selective biblical literalism to support a theology that systematically confuses the kingdom of God with the US's burgeoning empire. It is no coincidence that the mission fields most favoured by US evangelicals are also the targets of neo-conservative military ambition. To use Jesus as the rallying cry for a new imperialism is the most shameful reversal of all, for he was murdered by the forces of empire. The cross spoke of Roman power in just the way Black Hawk helicopters speak today of US power. [...]

US-picked Baghdad official dies after being shot by US soldiers

Top U.S. general warns of harsh measures unless attacks stop

Report: No Evidence Iran Was Making Nukes

By The Associated Press
Newsday.com
November 10, 2003, 2:48 PM EST

The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency has found "no evidence" Iran is trying to make nuclear weapons, but cannot rule out the possibility because Tehran previously hid parts of its program, diplomats told The Associated Press.

The report, drawn up by the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, says Iran has been cooperating with the agency since September, the diplomats said on condition of anonymity. [...]

Comment: Once again, the UN appears to have told the truth and then qualified it to cater to the US.

High Court Will Hear Guantanamo Appeal

By ANNE GEARAN, Associated Press Writer
Mon Nov 10, 9:31 PM ET

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear its first case arising from the war on terrorism, an appeal asking whether foreigners held at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba may contest their captivity in American courts.

The case concerns more than 650 prisoners held essentially incommunicado at Guantanamo Bay. The Bush administration maintains that because the men were picked up overseas on suspicion of terrorism and are being held on foreign land they may be detained indefinitely without charges or trial. [...]

Former Zyklon-B maker goes bust

By Jonathan Charles
BBC Europe correspondent

The German company which produced the poison gas used in Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War is to file for bankruptcy.

IG Farben employed thousands of slave labourers at the Auschwitz death camp and its Zyklon-B was used to murder millions of Jews and other prisoners.

The company is one of the few surviving reminders of Germany's Nazi past.

It was stripped of all of its chemical plants by the Allies after the Second World War, but continued to control a variety of other assets.

Now IG Farben says it is filing for bankruptcy after an investor defaulted on payments. [...]

Comment: IG Farben will continue to exist:

At the end of WWII the allies split up IG Farben into companies that are now the top pharmaceutical concerns on earth among them Bayer, Hoescht, BASF, the Agfa-Gevaert Group and Cassella AG. Many of Wall Streets favorite pharmaceutical/chemical companies behind the proliferation of genetically-altered foods, transgenic animals, human cloning, dangerous psychiatric drugs, deadly vaccines and pesticides-such as Aventis-are subsidiaries of these same companies. [ The G. W. Bush Gang]

The Bush family fortune comes from these deals with Farben and supplying the Nazis:

Thousands of German opponents of Hitlerism were shot or intimidated by privately armed Nazi Brown Shirts. In this connection we note that the original "Merchant of Death, " Samuel Pryor, was a founding director of both the Union Banking Corp. and the American Ship and Commerce Corp. Since Mr. Pryor was executive committee chairman of Remington Arms and a central figure in the world's private arms traffic, his use to the Hitler project was enhanced as the Bush family's partner in Nazi Party banking and trans-Atlantic shipping.

The U.S. Senate arms-traffic investigators probed Remington after it was joined in a cartel agreement on explosives to the Nazi firm I.G. Farben. Looking at the period leading up to Hitler's seizure of power, the Senators found that " German political associations, like the Nazi and others, are nearly all armed with American ... guns.... Arms of all kinds coming from America are transshipped in the Scheldt to river barges before the vessels arrive in Antwerp. They then can be carried through Holland without police inspection or interference. The Hitlerists and Communists are presumed to get arms in this manner. The principal arms coming from America are Thompson submachine guns and revolvers. The number is great. " [...]

For his part in the Hitler revolution, Prescott Bush was paid a fortune.

This is the legacy he left to his son, President George Bush. [...]

Read the entirety of Chapter 2 of the Unauthorized Bush Biography The Hitler Project: Bush Property Seized--Trading with the Enemy for more shocking connections between Hitler and US and Jewish banking interests. Also read about Prescott's concerns about suppressing the truth in the US, and how Prescott maintained the horrifying working conditions in Poland.

Just like today the media was complicit in keeping a Bush's crimes secret:

October: The investigation spreads when Prescott Bush is accused of running a NAZI front group. All of the shares of Union Banking, its subsidiaries-Holland American Trading and the Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation, the Harriman Fifteen Holding Company and the Hamburg-Amerika Line, are seized by the U.S. Government under the Trading with the Enemy Act [Office of Alien Property Custodian, Vesting Order No. 248. The order was signed by Leo T. Crowley, Alien Property Custodian, executed October 20, 1942; F.R. Doc. 42-11568; Filed, November 6, 1942, 11:31 A.M.; 7 Fed. Reg. 9097 (Nov. 7, 1942)]. Amazingly, this does not garner ANY publicity, the New York Times business section merely stating that the Union Banking Corporation had "moved its offices" [The New York Times on December 16, 1944,pg 25] – this could be because, along with supplying the NAZIS, STANDARD OIL also supplied the U.S. Navy - Eva. [ The Bush-Nazi Connection 1924-1942]

Since 1991, a World Trade Center's worth of Iraqi children continue to die every month

Broadening Our Perspectives of 11 September 2001
by David T. Ratcliffe
September 2002

Compared to what occurred over 11 years ago, the dangers today in the expanding quantum breakdown of adherence to the foundations of international law cannot be overstated. We must educate ourselves, friends, and acquaintances about what is being squandered in our name . Otherwise we become accessories after the fact to the destruction and death that threatens to engulf all life on earth.

This brings us to the central meaning of " Sanctions and War on Iraq: In 300 words ". [22 ]What does it say about our society and culture that since 1991, a "World-Trade-Center's worth of Iraqi children continue to die every month" as a direct result of the crimes against humanity perpetrated under the direction of the last three Presidents of the United States? What does this fact mean to each and every person in this nation-state who pays annual taxes, the largest portion of which goes to the ongoing expansion of the United States military? As tax-paying members of the United States, can we reconcile our culpability for these Iraqi deaths with the deaths of people one year ago in New York, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania?

Facing these questions is extremely difficult. But face and resolve them we must. As responsible citizens, confronting these questions does not compare with the experiences of the people who died on 9-11 and those who died throughout Iraq from 1991 to today. [23 ]As so frequently stated these days, "We will not forget", let us remember there is more to the story than only the events of 9-11. [...]

As seemingly insurmountable and intimidating may be the fear that "there's nothing I can do" about the great transformational events occurring now in the world, encouragement to act comes from knowing there are people who care, people who people stand up and speak out for what is right and true. Nelson Mandela's words on September 10th speaks directly to what needs to be said and addressed, clearly and without obfuscation.

"If you look at those matters, you will come to the conclusion that the attitude of the United States of America is a threat to world peace. Because what [America] is saying is that if you are afraid of a veto in the Security Council, you can go outside and take action and violate the sovereignty of other countries. That is the message they are sending to the world.
"That must be condemned in the strongest terms. And you will notice that France, Germany Russia, China are against this decision. It is clearly a decision that is motivated by George W. Bush's desire to please the arms and oil industries in the United States of America. . . .

". . . Scott Ritter, a former United Nations arms inspector who is in Baghdad, has said that there is no evidence whatsoever of [development of weapons of] mass destruction [by Iraq]. Neither Bush nor [British Prime Minister] Tony Blair has provided any evidence that such weapons exist. But what we know is that Israel has weapons of mass destruction. Nobody talks about that. Why should there be one standard for one country, especially because it is black, and another one for another country, Israel, that is white." [...]

Comment: Can anyone deny the fact that we have Nazis in the White House intent on genocide and world wide fascism?

Iraq 'faces severe health crisis'

11 November, 2003

The people of Iraq may have poorer health for generations as a result of the war, according to a report.
Medical charity Medact says this year's conflict disrupted immunisation programmes and destroyed water systems, increasing levels of disease.

Environmental degradation and smoke from oil fires are adding to the health problems of Iraqis, it reports. Continuing insecurity in Iraq, along with the breakdown of public health services, are exacerbating the problem.

Entitled Continuing Collateral Damage: the health and environmental costs of war on Iraq, the report estimates that between 22,000 and 55,000 people - mainly Iraqi soldiers and civilians - died as a direct result of the war.

It says that mines and unexploded bombs continue to kill and maim.

The report says that the conflict and its aftermath have put the most vulnerable in society - women, children and the elderly - at risk. [...]

BBC appoints man to monitor 'pro-Arab bias'

By Tom Leonard, Media Editor
The Telegraph

The BBC has appointed a "Middle East policeman" to oversee its coverage of the region amid mounting allegations of anti-Israeli bias.

Malcolm Balen, a former editor of the Nine O'Clock News, has been recruited in an attempt to improve the corporation's reporting of the Middle East and its relationship with the main political players.

Mr Balen, who left the BBC three years ago, will work full-time with the official title of "senior editorial adviser".

It is the first time the corporation has made such an appointment. Insiders say it is a signal that senior executives feel that the Middle East is an area over which the BBC needs to take particular care.

Relations between the corporation and the Israeli government hit a low point this summer when the latter "withdrew co-operation" in protest at a BBC documentary about the country's weapons of mass destruction.

Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, later barred the BBC from his meeting with the British press during a visit to London.

The BBC has also been the target of Downing Street accusations that it toed a pro-Baghdad line over the Iraq war and that it influenced the Today programme's handling of the dossier story that is the subject of the Hutton Inquiry. [...]

Comment: There is always hell to pay if you don't fully embrace Zionist propaganda, and if you don't keep quiet about their plans. So far, we have not turned up a bias one way or the other for Mr. Balen.

French protesters hijack TV news

11 November, 2003

France's minister for the arts has summoned managers of a state-owned TV station after Monday's main evening news bulletin was interrupted by protesters.

A group of disgruntled temporary workers in the entertainment industry invaded the France-2 studio and gathered behind the presenter waving posters demanding "Justice for the Workers".

Shortly afterwards, the demonstrators were allowed to read out a statement protesting against proposed changes to unemployment benefits for casual workers in the arts.

Culture and Communication Minister Jean-Jacques Aillagon has demanded an explanation of the incident.

Ladies and gentlemen, I leave you the podium, here you go, take my seat. And we're listening to you

"This hijacking of the TV news bulletin seriously contradicts the principle of freedom of information which is exclusively the responsibility of the editorial staff," he said in a statement.

In the studio, TV presenter David Pujadas gave up his chair to the protesters spokeswoman.

"We've decided to allow them to speak for a minute to express their demands," he told viewers. "Ladies and gentlemen, I leave you the podium, here you go, take my seat. And we're listening to you". [...]

Woman Gets $350,000 Settlement For Fla. Airport Strip Search

Local6.com
2:11 p.m. EST November 10, 2003

MIAMI -- The federal government has agreed to pay $350,000 to settle a lawsuit by a Houston woman who says she was singled out for a strip search by Miami airport agents because she is black.

Rhonda Brent's search and dozens of others prompted changes in federal law and policies based on claims that customs inspectors made it a national practice to single out minority women for unjustified, humiliating searches in the 1990s. [...]

Cowardly senators duck Iraq $s vote

Al Neuharth

11/10/03: (USA Today) The exclusive club called the U.S. Senate has 100 members. This week 94 of them ducked and ran before a pre-arranged voice vote gave President Bush the $87.5 billion war check he wanted.

The six senators who had the guts to stay around to voice a vote:

• Robert Byrd, D-W.Va.
• Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I.
• Byron Dorgan, D-N.D.
• Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii
• Harry Reid, D-Nev.
• Ted Stevens, R-Alaska

Among the six, Byrd shouted a loud "No!" The other five voted "Yes."

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., is an admired acquaintance of mine. Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., is a longtime respected friend. But both were wrong in agreeing to the cowardly voice vote so senators didn't have to go on record on the controversial bill.

Republicans who favored it were afraid constituents might think the price is too high. Democrats against it feared being called unpatriotic. [...]

Comment: It is incomprehensible how anyone can still believe that anything even remotely resembling freedom and democracy still exists in the good old U$A. How can freedom possibly be alive and well when the people and their representatives in government are afraid of speaking their minds for fear of being labeled unpatriotic?

French terror suspect had photos of nuclear reactor in Sydney flat: report

PARIS (AFP) Nov 11, 2003

Australian police have uncovered pictures of a nuclear reactor and a list of bomb-making components in the apartment of a French man suspected of planning terror attacks in Sydney, French radio reported Tuesday. [...]

Taiwan army to shop for locally made armoured vehicle fleet

TAIPEI (AFP) Nov 11, 2003

Taiwan's defense ministry said Tuesday that the army has decided to purchase the first locally developed eight-wheeled armoured vehicle rather than to buy from the United States.

"The army has made a breakthrough in the acquisition of expertise on the research and development of a new eight-wheeled armoured vehicle under the 'Yun Pao' (Cloud Leopard) project," defense ministry spokesman Huang Suey-sheng told reporters. [...]

US goods set to double in price as Europe plans huge trade war

By Stephen Castle in Brussels
The Independent
11 November 2003

American jeans, Florida orange juice and dozens of other US products could double in price from next month because of a growing transatlantic trade war.

The World Trade Organisation gave the European Union permission yesterday to impose huge import tariffs, which will allow price increases of between 8 and 100 per cent on a range of goods.

The row, which began when America imposed special duties of up to 30 per cent on European steel last year, reached a climax yesterday when the trade watchdog gave a final decision in favour of the EU. It said the US action was "inconsistent" with free trade commitments. Europe can now impose duties on products ranging from T-shirts and lavatory paper, to bras, pantyhose, suspenders, ballpoint pens, ski suits and bowling alley equipment. Harley Davidson motorcycles were included in an early draft of the sanctions list, but were not included yesterday.

The EU says its sanctions, amounting to €2.2bn (£1.5bn) a year, will come into force on 15 December unless Washington drops its steel duties. The sanctions would be the biggest in the history of the WTO. [...]

French ministers caught speeding to traffic calming ceremony

Ananova.com
07:14 Tuesday 11th November 2003

Two French ministers have been caught speeding outside Paris while travelling to an unveiling ceremony for the county's first speed cameras.

Auto Plus says its reporters used hand-held radars that recorded transport minister Gilles de Robien cruising out of the capital at 61mph on a road with a maximum speed limit of 43mph. [...]

The radar initiative is part of a campaign by the government to try to curtail French road deaths, where roughly 8,000 people die annually - more than in any other European Union country.

Pill May Help People Overcome Fears

By JANET McCONNAUGHEY, Associated Press Writer
Mon Nov 10, 3:30 PM ET

NEW ORLEANS - Scientists say a pill may help people overcome their worst phobias. In a small study released Monday, a drug already on the market for tuberculosis helped people who were terrified of heights get over that fear with only two therapy sessions instead of the usual seven or eight.

The study, led by Michael Davis, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Emory University School of Medicine, was described at a session about unlearning fears at the Society for Neuroscience meeting.

Davis based his work on research that had found the transmission of a certain protein to a brain receptor were critical to overcoming fear. He found that the TB drug, D-cycloserine, aids the transmission of the crucial protein. [...]

Power station shut down in Russia after breakdown

MOSCOW (AFP) Nov 11, 2003

A nuclear power station in the southern Russian town of Volgodonsk was shut down Tuesday after an unspecified fault, the ITAR-TASS news agency reported.

The station which has only one functioning nuclear reactor is located in the town of Volgodonsk in the southern Rostov region.

Nuclear energy officials were not immediately able to determine what caused the problem. There was no immediate information about any possible radiation leaks during the accident.

La. Judge's Blackface Costume Draws Fire

Monday, November 10, 2003

NEW ORLEANS — A white judge is under fire for going to a  Halloween party costumed in blackface makeup, an afro wig and a prison jumpsuit with shackles around his wrists and ankles.

State District Judge Timothy C. Ellender's costume stereotyped blacks as criminals and convicts, said Jerome Boykin, president of the  NAACP's branch in southern Louisiana's Terrebonne Parish, where Ellender's court is located.

"For a judge to take the time to paint his face black with shoe polish, put on an afro wig, a prison jumpsuit and shackles ... and walk around in public, I feel he ain't fit to be a judge," Boykin said Monday. [...]

NHS murder claim (UK)

November 2003

12,000 members of the public are demanding a public inquiry, a police investigation and a second inquest into the suspicious death of baby Sunaina Chaudhari, aged 5 months, on 26 October 2000, in a British National Health Service, NHS hospital.

Sunaina's aunt, Neelu Berry, a qualified pharmacist, found massive evidence, in the medical file, of drug poisoning and drug overdoses, prescribed for Sunaina immediately before her death which have never been considered as a possible cause of death. Parents removed two cotton wool balls from each eye, when they lifted the eyelids at a mortuary, to find hollow eye sockets.

Two pathologists, a Coroner, and Police maintain that the eyes are in their sockets. Access to the family to carry out private investigations on the eyeballs, for potassium poisoning, and on the frozen body, to determine the extent of unlawful organ removal whilst Coroner and Police were aware of murder allegations, is being blocked by the NHS, via the mortuary at Central Middlesex Hospital. [...]

The family of Baby Sunaina face jail for publications on websites and leaflets and for public demonstrations whislt petitioning for a public inquiry into her suspicious death in a British hospital. Six doctors from Great Ormond Street Hospital, London, took action against the family, under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 claiming over £48,000 in legal costs from the family.

The family are furious at Master Fontiane ordering a £10,000 interim payment to the doctors when they are legally entitled to lobby for an investigation into the death under the remits the Criminal Law Act and Human Rights Act 1998. They say that if the doctors claim that they are being libelled, then they should take appropriate action under the Defamation Act, which is heard before a jury, and not Protection From Harassment Act heard by a single Master.

Murders go unsolved as smuggling grows

Judi Villa and Ryan Konig
The Arizona Republic

Two out of three killers are getting away with murder in Phoenix this year as the city's homicide tally climbs toward a record. Through October, 216 people were killed in Phoenix, more than in all of last year. At the current pace, Phoenix will pass the record 241 homicides in 1994.

Beleaguered homicide detectives say they are so overwhelmed by bodies that, in some cases, they can do little more than just document the murder scene and move on to the next one. [...]

Two million Britons 'malnourished'

Around two million Britons are so underfed they would be classed as malnourished, a new report suggests.

Disaster looms in western Sudan

Desertification of grazing areas has increased tensions

A humanitarian disaster is looming in western Sudan where over half a million people have been displaced by fighting, warns the United Nations. [...]

Beast or bunk: is a mysterious creature on the loose?

There have been numerous sightings of a mysterious beast in the mountains of southeast Oklahoma. Now, a scientific team claims they have proof of the ape-like primate.

The first reported sighting was back in the 1800s. Since then, dozens of Oklahomans claim to have seen a strange ape-like creature. [...]

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