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December 28, 2002 -Today's edition of As the World Burns Brought to You by The Bush Junta, Produced and Directed by the CIA, based on an original script by Henry Kissinger, with a cast of billions.... · crime against humanity. International Law. A brutal crime that is not an isolated incident but that involves large and systematic actions often cloaked with official authority, and that shocks the conscience of humankind. · Among the specific crimes that fall within this category are mass murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts perpetrated against a population, whether in wartime or not. -Black's Law Dictionary God Bless America & Pass the Ammunition - My writings reflect the understanding that humanities chosen course of ecological destruction is the essence of ignorance, wholly unsustainable and akin to collective suicide. Worse yet, humanity is additionally seriously flirting with total global nuclear annihilation via World War III. To my mind our very survival is at stake and the status quo is as good as a death sentence for all life as we know it. Those who believe otherwise will likely find my writing "extreme" and/or "offensive." I make no apologies. Those who think similarly will know that my words are a sincere and passionate call for direct action demanding sanity, justice and world peace… Now! September 11: Guilt in High Places - Evidence of official complicity in the actual events of 9-11 North Korea has threatened to "destroy the earth" if the US resorted to nuclear war against it. South Korea's president, Kim Dae-jung, and the president-elect, Roh Moo-hyun, sought to calm the mood by saying they wanted a peaceful resolution. While Russia expressed concern at the North's weekend announcement, the deputy foreign minister warned the US not to aggravate the crisis. Bush Discovers Hunger and Looks the Other Way - The only president we've got went down to the Capitol Area Food Bank in Washington, D.C., the other day for a photo-op with people who can't afford to eat. "I hope people around this country realize that agencies such as this food bank need money. They need our contributions. Contribution are down. They shouldn't be down in a time of need," said GeeDubya Bush. - It's commendable of the president to urge us to contribute to food banks, but since his No. 1 domestic priority is to enrich the rich while leaving the poor to charity, we are stuck with a quandary he noted himself--need is up, and contributions are down. And as the charities have been screaming for years, they cannot possibly replace government programs. - Number of seniors who will be cut off of meal programs because of the Bush budget: 36,000. - Number of families who will be cut off of heating assistance because of the Bush budget: 532,000. - Number of homeless kids who will be cut off of education programs because of the Bush budget: 8,000. - Number of kids who will be cut off of after-school programs because of the Bush budget: 50,000. - Number of kids who will be cut off of child care because of the Bush budget: 33,000. 800,000 lose jobless benefits at midnight - Almost 800,000 jobless workers lose their unemployment benefits at midnight Satur day because the U.S. House of Representatives recessed in November without extending them. The emergency program extended state-funded benefits by 13 weeks in most states and by 26 weeks in three states with the highest unemployment levels -- Oregon, Washington, and Alaska -- and was scheduled to end December 28 no matter how many weeks of paychecks an unemployed worker had received. Those who lose their benefits Saturday "join another million jobless workers who have already exhausted all of their unemployment benefits," according to the AFL-CIO's Web site. "In addition, some 95,000 jobless workers will run out of state unemployment benefits each week and be left without jobs or temporary federal unemployment assistance," the Web site said, quoting a nonpartisan research center. AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney called the cut-off of the benefits extension "an economic catastrophe." "The Republican leadership in the House of Representatives and President Bush should feel ashamed," Sweeney said. Mass Layoff Statistics Program Is Discontinued - This is the final news release for the Mass Layoff Statistics (MLS) program. Since 1994, the Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration has funded the program. That funding will end on December 31, 2002. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has been unable to acquire funding from alternative sources and must discontinue the MLS program. Comment from reader who sent in the link: People supposedly said of Mussolini, "well, he was a fascist dictator, but at least he made the trains run on time." On the other hand, I read somewhere that in fact what Mussolini did was to suppress reports about delays. The trains didn't run on time, but (except for those immediately involved) no one knew about it. In that spirit, here's a notice that the U.S. government will no longer keep track of mass layoffs. Easier for Bush to speak of prosperity when the statistics on unemployment aren't being kept. Easier to make people who've lost their job think it's a personal failing, not a systemic one, so they won't disturb the powers that be. Iraq today handed United Nations weapons inspectors a list of 500 scientists associated with its weapons programs. The list was demanded by chief inspector Hans Blix. Utility crews scrambled to restore power Saturday to tens of thousands of homes and businesses left in the dark after a deadly storm whipped the coasts of Washington and Oregon. More than 300,000 homes and businesses were without power at the height of the storm Friday, and nearly 30,000 remained without power Saturday morning. - The storm dumped snow in the Olympics and Cascades, but high wind caused most of the problems. Sustained wind of 49 mph was reported in West Seattle, with gusts to 62 mph. The strongest gust -- 128 mph -- was recorded at White Pass, Wash., in the Cascades. - Meanwhile, California officials issued flood warnings in Napa and Humboldt counties as yet another storm approached that state during the weekend. Heavy rain in the last few weeks has put the top half of the state on flood alert, said Carolina Horne, meteorologist in the weather service's Bay Area office. 71-vehicle pileup in Houston blamed on fog - "It looked like a battlefield," Valenta said. "Vehicles in all kinds of positions, burnt, the fires were still going ... it's just something you see out of a movie, and you just don't expect it to happen, but it does happen." Terrorist acts targeting Grozny are being financed by unnamed Arab countries, Moscow's leading anti-espionage agent says. The head of the anti-terrorist branch for the northern Caucuses, Col. Ilya Shabalkin, said orders were coming from a well-known rebel, Shamil Basayev, and a representative of the "Muslim Brotherhood" -- Abu Al Walid. - The comments come as Russian officials revised the death toll in the twin bomb attacks on a pro-Moscow government building in the Chechnya capital downwards to 40. The number of injured in Friday's suicide attacks has jumped to 152. At least six Middle Eastern students studying in Colorado have been jailed in the past 10 days for failing to take enough college classes as required by their student visas. The students ran into trouble when they showed up to register with U.S. immigration officials, as required by new rules to track foreign students. When they reported, they were jailed and required to post $5,000 bonds for enrolling in less than 12 hours of college credit. The Immigration and Naturalization Service says the students are being detained because under-enrollment is a violation of their student visas. The students are not suspected of any other offense. "We're concerned about the heavy-handed nature of the enforcement and their lack of understanding of their own regulations," said Chris Johnson, director of international education at the University of Colorado at Denver. "Students are being detained unfairly and callously." One University of Colorado at Denver student was jailed last week because he was one hour shy of a full load after receiving college permission to drop a course, Johnson said. Seventy-one passengers and 10 crew members aboard Royal Caribbean's Majesty of the Seas have reported symptoms of flu-like illness, the latest in a series of such reports aboard cruise ships in recent weeks. The ship left the Port of Miami Monday carrying 2,630 passengers and 870 crew members for a four-day trip to Nassau, Bahamas; Coco Cay, Bahamas; and Key West, Florida, where 35 of the ill passengers chose to leave the ship, a cruise line spokeswoman said. They were driven in a bus back to the Port of Miami. An Iraqi scientist said he refused to be interviewed by UN weapons inspectors at their Baghdad headquarters, which he compared to "Guantanamo camp," where the US holds suspected terrorists in Cuba. "Why I refused to meet in UNMOVIC, in Canal Hotel?" Kadhem Mojbil told a press conference in English. "My feeling, my inside feeling is, I look at this place as the Guantanamo camp," he said. "I am not a prisoner, I am a free man, a free Iraqi man." The interview finally took place on Friday at Iraq's best hotel, the Rashid. The United States has detained at the Guantanamo Bay camp hundreds of men captured mainly in Afghanistan and believed to be either Taliban militants or members of the Al-Qaeda network of Islamic radical Osama bin Laden. Other countries also threatened by Pakistan - Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani warned that countries other than India could be at risk if they did not recognise the 'terrorism' coming out of Pakistan. "I want to warn the international community that if they don't realise that the epicentre of terrorism has shifted from Afghanistan to Pakistan, then which country will pay the price when, I can't say," Advani told a function of the Central Reserve Police Force on Saturday. - Pakistan quickly allied itself with the United States after the September 11 attacks last year, dumping its support for Afghanistan's extremist Taliban and providing logistical support to the military operation that toppled the regime. India, which also joined the US-led coalition against terrorism, has repeatedly accused Washington of being too soft on Pakistan over Kashmir. Comment: Keep in mind that the terrorists in Pakistan are being financed and trained by the CIA. So, who's on first? Israeli destroyed the homes of two Palestinian militants in the West Bank city of Hebron on Saturday after gunmen shot dead four seminary students at a nearby Jewish settlement, military sources said. In the Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis, Palestinian witnesses said Israeli troops near another Jewish settlement opened fire, killing a nine-year-old Palestinian girl as she stood outside her home. The army said it was checking the report. The militant group Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for Friday's attack on the settlement of Otniel near Hebron, saying it wanted to avenge Israel's killing of eight Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Wednesday and Thursday. Two of the four dead seminary students were unarmed off-duty soldiers, participating in a program that lets religious Israelis study as part of their military service, an army spokesman said. An army statement said their attackers were dressed in Israeli army uniform, armed with M-16 rifles and carried a large quantity of magazines. The Vatican, trying to counter charges it did too little to stop the Nazis persecuting Jews, has set February 15 as the date when it will release archives relating to relations with pre-war Germany. The archives will, however, be available only to scholars who must make a formal request, it said on Saturday. They include documents from 1922 to 1939, when Eugenio Pacelli -- later to become the wartime pope, Pius XII -- was Vatican ambassador in Berlin. The river Seine that cuts through Paris is swelling into such a fast-flowing torrent that the city is shifting precious artworks from nearby gallery basements and lining up a fleet of rescue boats. A favorite haunt of peace-seeking romantics, the Seine snakes sedately, in drier times, through the French capital. But weeks of rain soaking into waterlogged subsoil have set alarm bells ringing. Experts say it is only a matter of time before the Seine bursts its banks and spills into underground stations, cellars and sewers -- as it did almost a century ago. "It will happen. If not this year then next year. We are not far from the first alert level, and we're getting a lot of rain," said Paris environmental official Alain Pialat. Dreading being caught unawares by the kind of floods that swamped central European cities in August, Paris city planners have advised riverside museums like the Louvre to pack up valuables kept in basement rooms and move them to safety. President Bush said on Saturday the United States would confront the danger of "catastrophic violence" posed by Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction. Assessing the past year and outlining future challenges in his weekly radio address, Bush also vowed to turn an anemic U.S. economic recovery into sustained growth and to prosecute the war on terror with "patience, focus and determination." Speaking a month before U.N. arms inspectors submit a report on their hunt for banned weapons in Iraq and as the United States continues to build up forces in the Gulf, Bush called Iraqi President Saddam Hussein a danger to his neighbors and to world peace. Despite a lack of concrete evidence of Iraqi involvement in attacks against the United States, including the Sept. 11 hijacked plane assaults, Bush linked his anti-terror campaign to disarming Saddam. December 27, 2002 WHAT…is Truth? A difficult question; but I have solved it for myself by saying that it is what the voice within tells you. How then, you ask, [do] different people think of different and contrary truths? Well, seeing that the human mind works through innumerable media and that the evolution of the human mind is not the same for all, it follows that what may be truth for one may be untruth for another, and hence those who have made these experiments have come to the conclusion that there are certain conditions to be observed in making those experiments… It is because we have at the present moment everybody claiming the right of conscience without going through any discipline whatsoever, and there is so much untruth being delivered to a bewildered world. All that I can in true humility present to you is that Truth is not to be found by anybody who has not got an abundant sense of humility. If you would swim on the bosom of the ocean of Truth, you must reduce yourself to a zero. To see the universal and all-pervading spirit of Truth face to face one must be able to love the meanest of creation as oneself. And a man who aspires after that cannot afford to keep out of any field of life. That is why my devotion to Truth has drawn me into the field of politics; and I can say without the slightest hesitation, and yet in all humility, that those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means. [ Mahatma Gandhi] U.S. is using torture to interrogate top al-Qa'ida prisoners - The United States is subjecting top-level al-Qa'ida captives in its custody to extraordinary physical and psychological coercion, blurring the line between acceptable interrogation techniques under international law and outright torture, according to a detailed report in yesterday's Washington Post. - Some of these "stress and duress" techniques come close to practices denounced by the US State Department in its surveys of human rights violations. Washington has upbraided Israel, Turkey and Jordan, among others, for using sleep deprivation – defined by the United Nations as torture. - In some cases, the officials told the Post, prisoners will be taken out of CIA custody and handed over to foreign intelligence services – notably from Jordan, Egypt and Morocco – with a reputation for torturing political prisoners. The CIA will keep itself clean by staying out of the room but then take full advantage of any information its allies manage to extract. - As one official directly involved in the process put it: "We send them to other countries so they can kick the shit out of them." Another suggested – probably accurately – that US public opinion was more interested in results than in playing by the rules. "If you don't violate someone's human rights some of the time, you probably aren't doing your job," one official was quoted saying. North Korea to expel atomic inspectors - The International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed South Korean media reports that North Korea intends to expel its inspectors. The North Korean news agency was quoted as saying earlier that the IAEA team is no longer needed. Communist North Korea wants to restart a nuclear reactor at Yongbyon that was closed in 1994 under an agreement with the USA. It's capable of producing weapons-grade uranium, but North Korea denies any such intention. North Korea says U.S. wants confrontation - North Korea accused the United States on Friday of seeking to overthrow its political system, adding that Washington was rushing into an extremely dangerous confrontation.A statement on the communist country's official Korean Central News Agency said a U.S. demand that it scrap its nuclear programme, as a condition for talks was a prelude to a surprise attack. President Bush has denounced North Korea as a member of an "axis of evil" with Iran and Iraq, which also accuses Washington of seeking to topple its president, Saddam Hussein. US Sec. of Defence Rumsfeld said on Monday that the United States, which is focusing on ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, could fight two wars at once and win and that North Korea would be mistaken to assume Washington would be distracted by the Iraq crisis. Pyongyang may have A-bomb in 30 days - The North Koreans moved 1,000 fresh fuel rods containing uranium to the Yongbyon nuclear reactor yesterday, saying that they wanted to restart it to produce electricity. The move comes just a week after they unilaterally disabled monitoring equipment and seals put in place by the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency under a 1994 deal with the US in which North Korea promised to stop its nuclear programme in return for supplies of oil. The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog accused North Korea of "nuclear brinkmanship" yesterday as the Stalinist state moved closer to firing up an atomic reactor capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium. Mohamed el-Baradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said the move by North Korea to re-start its nuclear programme "raises serious non-proliferation concerns and is tantamount to nuclear brinkmanship". - The US position is that the North Koreans are not interested in military conflict but in upping the ante in negotiations over shipments of fuel oil and other necessities. The latest crisis began in October when Pyongyang confirmed US intelligence findings that it has been operating a secret uranium-enriching programme. In retaliation, the US, South Korea, the EU and Japan stopped deliveries of fuel oil – part of a 1994 agreement that was in return for a nuclear freeze. The official China Daily lashed out at the United States on Friday, saying recent remarks by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld were "hawkish and dangerous" after he warned North Korea of his country's military might. Rumsfeld on Monday said it would be a mistake for North Korea to feel emboldened over its nuclear weapons program while world attention was focused on Iraq. He said the U.S. military was capable of fighting two major conflicts at once. - Rumsfeld's comments reflected U.S. anger at "being inconvenienced at a delicate stage of its war-planning against Iraq," China Daily said in an editorial. The newspaper took a harsher line than any Chinese Foreign Ministry official has taken thus far during the stand-off. - China fought alongside North Korea against the United States in the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in a truce between the North and South. The United States has 37,000 troops stationed in the South. North Koreans are facing a cold, hungry winter - When North Korean leader Kim Jong Il visited a factory and saw that no one was wearing overcoat, he took off his own before having his picture taken with them. The gesture from their Great Leader deeply touched the workers, state-run media said. Such tales abound these days from the communist state's Korean Central News Agency as the isolated regime tries desperately to boost the morale of people in one of the world's poorest countries. This year, North Koreans face the prospect of their coldest, hungriest winter in years. The United States and its allies have stopped supplying fuel oil ever since the North revealed that it has been running a secret nuclear program in violation of a 1994 accord with Washington. And on Friday, the World Food Program said it will not be able to reach 2.9 million vulnerable North Koreans — barring immediate contributions from major donors such as the United States and Japan, which are increasingly unhappy about helping the recalcitrant Pyongyang regime. The immediate victims will be the North's children and elderly — including 760,000 children in nurseries — who depended on outside relief, says the WFP, the Rome-based U.N. relief agency that coordinates aid shipments to North Korea. - North Korea advocates "juche," or self-reliance, as a national philosophy. But it was reduced to begging for outside aid starting in the mid-1990s when floods devastated its already inefficient, Soviet-style economy, and triggered widespread hunger. - The famine sent tens of thousands of people wandering in search of food, often across the border into China, North Korea's last remaining ideological ally. "Trains often sat idle for two or three days in each station, waiting for electricity," Lim said at a recent lecture to South Korean college students. President Nixon ordered a worldwide secret nuclear alert in October 1969, calling his wartime tactic a "madman strategy" aimed at scaring the Soviets into forcing concessions from North Vietnam, declassified documents show. It didn't work, as Moscow displayed no concern. The reason is unclear. The Soviets may not have cared, may not have been as influential as Nixon believed - or, like the rest of the world, might not have noticed the alert. The aim of the alert was kept secret from even the generals who put it into place. The bluff was part of what Nixon described as a "madman" strategy to his new administration at the outset of 1969: ratcheting up military pressure on the North Vietnamese at unpredictable intervals to pressure them into concessions at peace talks in Paris. Nixon believed this would accelerate accommodation by the North Vietnamese, forcing them into an agreement that would leave U.S. ally South Vietnam in place. Before Trent Lott's decision to step down as leader of the Senate last week, the Bush administration appeared increasingly undecided about its position toward affirmative action in a case that will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court next spring. Now with Lott out of the picture, however, a number of conservatives who are opposed to racial preferences said President Bush should take a firm stand against the practice of considering race in college admissions. ... . Roger Clegg, general counsel for the Center for Equal Opportunity, said Lott's comments initially put Republicans, and the Bush administration in particular, under considerable pressure on issues of race. But Republicans took a noble stand, Clegg said, by pressuring Lott to step down. "Now that they've gotten rid of Lott, Republicans are actually in a stronger position than before the Lott fiasco to oppose racial and ethnic preferences," he said. "They have great credibility on this issue. They made it clear they take the principle of non-discrimination very seriously and they decided they didn't want a majority leader who lacked credibility on this issue." ... Attorney General John Ashcroft and Solicitor General Ted Olsen wanted to take a stand against race-based admissions. A controversial company linked to a sect called the Raelians, whose founder Claude Vorihon, describes himself as a prophet and calls himself Rael, says that it has produced the world's first cloned human baby. However, the announcement has been viewed with deep scepticism by the scientific community at large - and no proof has so far been put forward. At a press conference, Clonaid claimed the birth of a healthy cloned baby girl, nicknamed Eve by scientists, who was born by Caesarian section yesterday to a 31-year-old US mother. - Clonaid's director is Dr Brigitte Boisselier, former deputy director of research at the Air Liquid Group, a French producer of industrial and medical gasses. - The Raelians believe humans are the result of a genetic engineering project run by super intelligent extra-terrestrials. Clonaid is viewed sceptically by most scientists who doubt their ability to clone a human. - Boisselier did not immediately present DNA evidence showing a genetic match between mother and daughter, however. That leaves her claim scientifically unsupported. Dr. Michael Guillen, a former medical correspondent at ABC's "Good Morning America," told reporters at the news conference he was lining up "independent world-class experts" to perform DNA test on the mother and baby. He said he was not being paid by Clonaid. The group expects four more babies to be born in the next several weeks, another from North America, one from Europe and two from Asia. Two of the couples are using preserved cells taken from their own children before their deaths, and one is a lesbian couple, she claimed. Boisselier said: "You can still go back to your office and treat me as a fraud," she said. "You have one week to do that." Most scientists, already skeptical of Boisellier's ability to produce a human clone, will probably demand to know exactly how the DNA testing was done before they believe the announcement. Turkey to await UN move before decision on Iraq war - Turkey's unofficial leader, Tayyip Erdogan, says Ankara will decide whether to back a possible US war against Iraq only once the UN Security Council has adopted a resolution approving military action. Turkey is facing intense pressure from its key ally the United States to provide support for a possible operation to topple the regime in Baghdad. Turkey's parliament voted in the early hours of Friday to amend the constitution so that Erdogan, leader of the ruling party, can ultimately become prime minister. He's not now able to take the office because of a jail sentence for inciting religious hatred. While Baghdad and Washington continued their war of words, the prospects of real fighting got the cold shoulder from Turkey, home to strategic US air bases, which said it wanted UN approval for war before any action. - He signaled that Turkey, home to NATO air bases, was not convinced by US allegations that Iraq holds weapons of mass destruction. "The report of the UN inspectors on weapons of mass destruction is important to us," Erdogan said, referring to a report due to be submitted to the UN Security Council on January 27. At least 41 people were killed when suicide bombers caused two powerful explosions which ripped through the headquarters of the pro-Russian Chechen government in Grozny, Chechen officials said. The suicide bombers in a truck and a jeep drove through fencing around the building and went on to strike the building itself, according to the Chechen interior minister, Ruslan Tsakayev, as quoted by the Interfax news agency. - The attack was one of the bloodiest to strike at the pro-Russian administration in Chechnya. A bomb attack on a police station in Grozny on October 22 left people dead. Moscow and Tehran will next month sign an accord over the return of nuclear waste from a power plant that Russia is building in southern Iran, Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev said. Negotiators have completed drafting the agreement in which "Russia pledges to deliver and Iran pledges to return" the nuclear fuel and it should be ready for signing within a month, Rumyantsev told a press conference on his return from a visit to Iran. - The United States, which has branded Iran part of an "axis of evil" bent on acquiring nuclear weapons, fears the radioactive waste could be diverted to the secret development of such weapons. Washington has voiced concern over Russian support for Iranian nuclear power plants, and Israel has said it fears that Russia's construction of the Bushehr plant could help the Islamic republic develop a nuclear weapons programme. Rumyantsev reiterated the Russian position that Russo-Iranian cooperation in the nuclear sector was being conducted in line with international agreements on non-proliferation and was "purely civilian." The work at Bushehr is about "70 percent completed," Rumantsyev said, noting there were about 1,200 technicians working at the site, 60 percent of them Russian and 40 percent Ukrainian. One of the most violent days of the intifada in recent weeks, with nine Palestinians killed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, came as the Israeli government ordered the army to "turn up the heat" on the Palestinians. Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz commanded the military to "step up the pressure and act with all the force required against terrorists wherever they are," the ministry said Friday. A spokesman for the ministry of defence added that the order to "turn up the heat" on the Palestinians was issued by Mofaz during a meeting with the country's top brass and the Shin Beth internal security services on Thursday. Syphilis outbreak in L.A. County leads to calls for more testing - A countywide 62 percent increase in the number of syphilis cases reported by gay men has prompted health advocates to call for more public outreach and testing programs. The significant increase, which represents about 360 new cases reported so far this year, has alarmed public health advocates because many of the cases involve men already diagnosed with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. "The implications are that gay men are having more unprotected sex," said Karen Mall, director of prevention for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation in Los Angeles. Though syphilis is curable, it can cause serious complications for anyone who has HIV, she said. "Syphilis can lead to neurological problems, blindness and even death," Mall said. "If you are HIV positive and contract syphilis, complications can come much sooner and be much more powerful." China has closed down a total of 3,300 Internet cafes in the course of a six-month crackdown, state media said Thursday. Since a fire at an Internet cafe in Beijing killed 24 young people in June, officials have checked a total of 45,000 cafes throughout the country, Xinhua news agency said. During the inspection campaign, a further 12,000 cafes were ordered to cease business temporarily while irregularities were straightened out, the agency said. The report suggested a less-sweeping crackdown than previous reports which had reported that more than 90,000 Internet cafes had been closed down. Two youngsters who wanted to sing along with Barney the Dinosaur opened a music book and discovered a photograph of a man and woman in a naked embrace. The photo, which ran under the words "Wilder Sex," was in a "Sing-Along Songs Barney" book a couple bought for their 4- and 7-year-old children. Rosemarie Arnold, an attorney for the unidentified family, said the photo came from a review of pornographic movies published in a German-language magazine. The children found the photo when a plastic panel fell off the book, Arnold said. Along with the English-language "Wilder Sex," she said the page included other adult movie reviews, written in German, that were rated with pairs of lips instead of the more common stars. Publications International Ltd., the book's Illinois-based publisher, has had similar problems in the past and claims the China-based company that produces books is to blame for the errors. Former 'most wanted' hacker going back online - A man the federal government once labeled "the most wanted computer criminal in U.S. history" has won a long fight to renew his ham radio license and next month can resume surfing the Internet. Kevin Mitnick, 39, of Thousand Oaks, California, served five years in federal prison for stealing software and altering data at Motorola, Novell, Nokia, Sun Microsystems and the University of Southern California. Prosecutors accused him of causing tens of millions of dollars in damage to corporate computer networks. Mitnick was freed in January 2000. The terms of his probation, which expire January 20, require he get government permission before using computers, software, modems or any devices that connect to the Internet. His travel and employment also are limited. Mitnick has been allowed to use a cell phone for a couple of years and received permission this year to type a manuscript on a computer not connected to the Internet. "Not being allowed to use the Internet is kind of like not being allowed to use a telephone," Mitnick said Thursday in a phone interview. Mitnick said he is starting a firm to help companies protect themselves from computer attacks. He said the end of his probation will allow him to do hands-on work. Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines officials removed about 75 passengers from a ship in Key West and sent them to Miami by bus, after the guests fell ill during a four-day sail to the Bahamas, a spokeswoman said. The Majesty of the Seas, an 880-foot vessel which can accommodate 2,744 passengers, was making a scheduled stop in Key West Thursday morning when the sick passengers, many of whom had been quarantined in their cabins aboard the ship, were loaded onto two Miami-bound buses. "This was handled terribly," said Adam Hoffman, a Connecticut man who was among the passengers sent to Miami. - More than 1,000 passengers have recently become sick on cruise ships and the CDC is looking into more than 20 outbreaks of the virus on cruise lines, more than it has seen in the four previous years combined. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and his wife Maggie were taken to a hospital Friday after an overnight bout of stomach flu that caused each of them to faint, the mayor's spokeswoman said. The 60-year-old Daley and his wife suffered a miserable night of violent vomiting, diarrhea and dehydration that led to fainting spells for both, the spokeswoman said. Bush family sets sail on three-night cruise Undeterred by recent outbreak of stomach viruses - Former President George Bush and his son Jeb Bush, the Florida governor, planned to embark Thursday on a three-night holiday cruise with their wives, other relatives -- and security agents. The family was joining about 2,500 other passengers aboard the Disney Wonder, its stern adorned with a figure of Donald Duck dangling from a rope. "This is a personal, family vacation, a much deserved and needed one," said Katie Muniz, the governor's spokeswoman. The ship was bound for the Bahamas under blue skies and an unusually chilly wind. Jeb Bush has said he was undeterred by the recent outbreak of stomach viruses that have sickened some cruise passengers. The Wonder wasn't among the affected ships. "I'm not worried at all about the health issue, I'm more worried about just being on a boat, getting along without e-mail and stuff," he said with a laugh last week. December 27, 2002 FEARLESSNESS IS the first requisite of spirituality. Cowards can never be moral. - Fearlessness is a sine qua non for the growth of the other noble qualities. How can one seek truth or cherish Love without fearlessness? As Pritam has it, 'The Path of Hari (the Lord) is the path of the brave, not of cowards.' Hari here means Truth, and the brave are those armed with fearlessness, not with the sword, the rifle or other carnal weapons, which are affected only by cowards. - There is so much superstition and hypocrisy around that one is afraid even to do the right thing. But if one gives way to fear, even truth will have to be suppressed. The golden rule is to act fearlessly upon what one believes to be right. - Each individual must be taught the art of self-defence. It is more a mental state that has to be inculcated than that our bodies should be trained for retaliation. Our mental training has been one of feeling helpless. Bravery is not a quality of the body, it is the soul. I have seen cowards encased in tough muscle and rare courage in the frailest body… The weakest of us physically must be taught the art of facing dangers and giving a good account of ourselves. - We stand on the threshold of twilight--whether morning or evening twilight we know not. One is followed by the night, the other heralds the dawn. If we want to see the dawning day after the twilight and not the mournful night, it behooves everyone of us…to realize the truth at this juncture, to stand for it against any odds and to preach and practice it, at any cost, unflinchingly. [ Mahatma Gandhi] 9-11, Mossad, the CIA and “False Flag Operations” - European intelligence experts dismiss the Bush “war on terrorism” as deception and reveal the realpolitik behind the bombing of Afghanistan. - In Germany, where war plans for Afghanistan were already being discussed in July [2001] and where several of the “Arab hijackers” lived and studied, intelligence experts say the terror attacks of Sept. 11 could not have been carried out without the support of a state secret service. Eckehardt Werthebach, former president of Germany’s domestic intelligence service, Verfassungsschutz, told American Free Press that “the deathly precision” and “the magnitude of planning” behind the attacks would have needed “years of planning.” Such a sophisticated operation, Werthebach said, would require the “fixed frame” of a state intelligence organization, something not found in a “loose group” of terrorists like the one allegedly led by Mohammed Atta while he studied in Hamburg. Many people would have been involved in the planning of such an operation and Werthebach pointed to the absence of leaks as further indication that the attacks were “state organized actions.” Andreas von Bülow served on the parliamentary commission which oversees the three branches of the German secret service while a member of the Bundestag (German parliament) from 1969 to 1994, and wrote a book Im Namendes Staates (“In the Name of the State”) on the criminal activities of secret services, including the CIA. Von Bülow told AFP that he believes that the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, is behind the Sept. 11 terror attacks. These attacks, he said, were carried out to turn public opinion against the Arabs and boost military and security spending. “You don’t get the higher echelons,” von Bülow said, referring to the “architectural structure” which masterminds such terror attacks. At this level, he said, the organization doing the planning, such as Mossad, is primarily interested in affecting public opinion. The architectural level planners use corrupt “guns for hire” such as Abu Nidal, the Palestinian terrorist who von Bülow called “an instrument of Mossad,” high-ranking Stasi (former East German secret service) operatives, or Libyan agents who organize terror attacks using dedicated people, for example Palestinian and Arab “freedom fighters.” The terrorists who actually commit the crimes are what von Bülow calls “the working level,” such as the 19 Arabs who allegedly hijacked the planes on Sept. 11. “The working level is part of the deception,” he said. [Added note: This tactic is called a “false flag operation” or a “false flag recruitment”, used by both the CIA and Mossad for purposes of propaganda.] “Ninety-five percent of the work of the intelligence agencies around the world is deception and disinformation,” von Bülow said, which is widely propagated in the mainstream media creating an accepted version of events. “Journalists don’t even raise the simplest questions,” he said, adding, “those who differ are labeled as crazy.” Both Werthebach and von Bülow said the lack of an open and official investigation, like congressional hearings, into the events of Sept. 11 was incomprehensible. Horst Ehmke, who coordinated the German secret services directly under German Prime Minister Willi Brandt in the 70s, predicted a similar terrorist attack in his novel, Torches of Heaven, published last year, in which Turkish terrorists crash hijacked planes into Berlin. Although Ehmke had long expected “fundamentalist attacks”, when he saw the televised images from Sept. 11, he said it looked like a “Hollywood production.” “Terrorists could not have carried out such an operation with four hijacked planes without the support of a secret service,” Ehmke said, although he did not want to point to any particular agency. [...] Under the influence of U.S. oil companies, the [unelected] Bush administration blocked Secret Service investigations on terrorism, while it bargained with the Taliban to turn over Osama bin Laden in exchange for political recognition and economic aid, two French intelligence analysts claim. In a recently published book, Bin Laden,la Verite Interdite (“Bin Laden, the Forbidden Truth”), the authors, Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, reveal that the FBI’s deputy director John O’Neill resigned in July [2001] to protest official obstruction of his investigation of terrorism. O’Neill had been in charge of national security in New York. While with the FBI, O’Neill led an investigation of Osama bin Laden and had forecast the possibility of an organized attack by terrorists operating from within the country. O’Neill had investigated the USS Cole bombing in Yemen, the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. In 1995, FBI agents working under O’Neill captured Ramzi Yousef, a suspected lieutenant of bin Laden, who was among those convicted for the World Trade Center bombing. O’Neill was considered a top-notch investigator and was known for his pugnacity. He was barred by U.S. Ambassador to Yemen Barbara Bodine from that country. That dispute reportedly involved a struggle between the State Department, which sought to preserve relations with Yemen, and the FBI, represented by O’Neill, who wanted access to Yemeni suspects. O’Neill, 49, was hired as chief of security at the World Trade Center following a 25-year career with the FBI and died on Sept. 11, the first day of his new job. O’Neill reportedly died after reentering the building to assist others. Brisard said O’Neill told them that “the main obstacles to investigate Islamic terrorism were U.S. oil corporate interests and the role played by Saudi Arabia in it.” [Added note: The unelected Bush regime is full of oil industry people, and the Bush family has long been involved in the oil business. George Bush Senior was also Director of the CIA under President Ford, from 1974-76.] FBI Admits: No Evidence Links 'Hijackers' to 9-11 - After seven months of non-stop declarations by U.S. government spokesmen that there exists solid proof tying 19 Muslim men to plotting the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, FBI Director Robert Mueller has now admitted quite the opposite. That 19 Muslim men who have apparently disappeared have been named as the hijackers is not in doubt. What is in doubt is whether those 19 men were actually plotting anything, either individually or together. The amazing possibility remains that others carried out the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, using the identities of the 19 Muslims who have been assigned guilt in the tragedy. Mueller made this claim despite the fact that in the immediate wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, a variety of U.S. officials and media sources speciously announced, almost instantaneously, that there was firm evidence not only that these 19 Muslim men were agents of Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda “network” but that they were indeed the individuals who hijacked the doomed flights on Sept. 11. Mueller seems to forget that early government and media reports loudly hyped “discoveries”—letters and other documents—in the luggage and personal belongings of the presumed hijackers which “proved” that they were on a “mission for Allah,” etc etc. Now Mueller’s comments seem to contradict everything that’s been said. The FBI has asked colleges across America to pass on personal information about foreign students and staff to help prevent terrorist attacks, infuriating civil liberties activists and liberal politicians who believe the request is illegal. The letters, sent to hundreds of universities in the past few weeks, seek the "names, addresses, telephone numbers, citizenship information, places of birth, dates of birth, and any foreign contact information" for all foreign staff and students. This is the latest move by John Ashcroft, President George Bush's far right-wing Attorney General, to come under heavy criticism. He has been repeatedly accused of infringing the Bill of Rights with heavy-handed law enforcement techniques that have so far failed to net a single high- profile terrorism arrest. According to The Washington Post, which revealed the request for information, Mr Ashcroft was told in a curt letter from two Democratic Senators last week that he was pushing the limits of his power. Edward Kennedy and Patrick Leahy, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said: "This law requires both a court order and a showing that the request is specifically tailored to a terrorism investigation. The FBI request does not appear to fulfil either of these requirements." A similar warning was issued by the Association of American College Registrars and Admissions Officers,which instructed 10,000 institutions not to pass on information unless served with a court order. "Non-consensual release of private student information ... could expose institutions to significant legal consequences," it said. - Last week, several hundred people from the Middle East and Africa, who came forward voluntarily to register with the immigration authorities in California, were thrown in jail for minor irregularities. This week, three Arab and Iranian immigrant groups sued the government to try to stop similar arrests without a warrant. BLAIR SLAMMED OVER IRAQ WAR BY HIS OWN PRIEST - After the service Fr Russ, a family friend, told the Daily Mirror violence and loss of life are not God's way to solve the world's problems. Father Russ, priest at St Anne's Roman Catholic Church near the PM's Chequers home said: "Man must live by the will to integrity rather than the will to power. The PM is caught up in the will to power game. That is his problem. "He has had a moral surrender from his past. His positions have changed over the years... He may not like me very much for telling you but it is my job to try to speak the truth from God." Father Russ's comments came as Catholic, protestant and Muslim heads urged Mr Blair and George Bush not to go to war but to strive for peace in an "already troubled and dangerous world". More than 20 bishops in Britain signed a strongly-worded statement to the two leaders insisting a pre-emptive strike on Iraq would be "illegal, unwise and immoral". In his Christmas message from the Vatican, Pope John Paul II said war must be avoided even though terrorism leaves the world in fear. The 82-year-old added: "May humanity accept the Christmas message of peace. "From the cave of Bethlehem there rises today an urgent appeal to the world not to yield to mistrust, suspicion and discouragement." The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams launched a thinly-veiled attack on Blair and Bush. He said: "It is as if the wise, the devious and the resourced can't help but make the most immense mistakes of all. "The strategists who know the possible ramifications of politics miss the huge and obvious things and wreak havoc and suffering. Despite better communications, intelligence and surveillance, the innocent continue to be killed. Here we all are, tangled in the same net...stepping deeper and deeper into tragedy." Israeli troops shot dead seven Palestinians in raids across the West Bank and swept back into Bethlehem to reimpose a curfew on Thursday, ending a brief Christmas respite from occupation. - The flurry of Israeli army operations drew vows of revenge from Palestinian militant groups, aggravating hostilities which the United States wants kept in check to help it cultivate Arab support for possible war against Iraq. In Bethlehem, troops fired teargas at Palestinians shopping near the town center, ordering them by loudspeakers to return home, and resumed patrols in front of the ancient Church of the Nativity, which Christians revere as Jesus's birthplace. "The curfew was put back in place a short time ago for operational needs," an Israeli military source said. - The return to Bethlehem coincided with rapid-fire sweeps for militants in other West Bank cities and towns reoccupied by Israeli forces following a spate of suicide bombings in June. Israeli military sources called the raids "counter-terrorism operations." - "The escalation of violence by (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon is aimed at creating a volatile atmosphere which he believes will serve him in his election campaign," Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo told Reuters. "Sharon is inviting retaliation because he wants ... to prevent any possibility of an agreement (between Palestinian factions) on a cease-fire," he said. Sharon's government says any internal Palestinian truce discussions have not been serious. At least 1,746 Palestinians and 671 Israelis have been killed since Palestinians launched an uprising in September 2000 after negotiations on Palestinian statehood hit an impasse. Iraq said on Thursday U.N. arms experts had found no evidence of weapons of mass destruction in one month of intrusive inspections across the country. After a month of inspections, UN experts have yet to find proof to support US and British allegations that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said. His remarks came as Baghdad appeared headed for a new confrontation with Washington after a senior Iraqi official said that the country's scientists may refuse to talk with UN weapons inspectors. "The American administration of evil and (British Prime Minister Tony) Blair are claiming that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, and the UN weapons inspectors have unveiled these lies and allegations," Ramadan said. He added that Baghdad had accepted UN Resolution 1441 mandating the return of the weapons inspectors "not to accommodate the Americans and their evil allies, but to unveil before public opinion the terrorist aims and aggressiveness of the United States." Meanwhile, Russia warned a war on Iraq could distract the world's attention away from the ongoing military campaign in Afghanistan and allow international terrorism to proliferate. "Switching the focus off Afghanistan and shifting it to Iraq may augment the threat of international terrorism which is coming from Afghan territories that are not under Kabul's control," Deputy Foreign Minister Yury Fedotov told the ITAR-TASS news agency. He reiterated Russia's view that the international community currently had no proof of a link between the Iraqi regime and international terror organizations. "Nobody has been able to provide any evidence of this link." - Washington has sought to tie Iraq to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network. Let's be clear, it's Mr Bush who can't lose face - Just think of the headline 'Saddam wriggles free again' - it induces apoplexy in the White House - You can present the coming attack on Iraq as proof irrefutable of a superpower's imperial arrogance, as another example of the world's true rogue nation acting unilaterally to settle a score (having first bullied or bribed a few other countries into going along with it, to give the enterprise a respectable veneer). - Mr Bush is locked in. The words "regime change" are avoided these days, but no one doubts he has decided to get rid of Saddam, come what may. Whatever Iraq does, the bar is set higher. Now Baghdad faces the near-impossible task of proving a negative, that it doesn't have weapons of mass destruction. Even if inspectors with the best Western intelligence come up with nothing, any outcome with Saddam still in place as Iraqi leader is unacceptable. At this point, we confront that most powerful driving force in human affairs: face, or rather the importance of not losing it. Just think of those headlines if America's legions are pulled back. "Bush's bluff called" or "Saddam wriggles free again". The very thought of them must induce apoplexy in the White House. This President's projected image of relentless purpose, his strongest political asset, would lie in ruins. The Army plans to quickly deploy its new Shadow 200 spy plane if the United States goes to war against Iraq. In the Persian Gulf, the Navy has America's newest attack jet — the F-18 Super Hornet — ready for its first extended wartime action. The Air Force is planning a swarming air campaign against Saddam Hussein that would utilize new ways to use precision-guided munitions. Two American pilots accused in a fatal "friendly fire" incident in Afghanistan took amphetamines before it occurred, an enquiry has found. The pilots were taking the drugs prescribed by the United States military when they killed four Canadians last April, according to US Air Force investigators. They are awaiting a court martial hearing due to start next month. - The pills, which are illegal in the US, are given to combat pilots who are involved in long eight or nine-hour sorties in small controlled doses, say the military. The Air Force stopped prescribing the 'Go' pills, as they are known by the pilots, in 1993 after reports that crews using them during the Gulf War became addicted. But the drug has been quietly reintroduced in recent years. - The Air Force says they are a medical tool that is essential for combat pilots being sent to war over Afghanistan and, possibly, Iraq. As American forces prepare to take on Iraq in a possible Gulf War II, analysts agree that the bad publicity and popular fears about depleted uranium (DU) use in the first Gulf War, and later in Kosovo and Afghanistan, have not dented Pentagon enthusiasm for its "silver bullet." US forces in Iraq will again deploy DU as their most effective - and most controversial - tank-busting bullet. A middleman claiming to represent the father of Pakistan's nuclear program offered Iraq help in building an atomic bomb on the eve of the Gulf War, according to U.N. documents, diplomats and former weapons inspectors. While there was no indication Pakistan's government was involved in the offer, former inspectors who spoke on condition of anonymity said Pakistani officials were uncooperative when the U.N. nuclear agency tried in the mid-1990s to investigate whether the scientist was really behind the proposal. The alleged offer to Iraq, made by an unidentified agent purportedly speaking on behalf of Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, was shown to The Associated Press. The revelation follows news reports this fall that Pakistan had assisted North Korea (news - web sites)'s nuclear program and comes at a time when U.N. inspectors are poring over Iraq's latest arms declaration, looking for both clues to its weapons programs and any possible omissions in its report. Pakistan denies any link to Pyongyang or Baghdad and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca last week said President Pervez Musharraf has given his assurance that nothing is being given to North Korea. Comment: This is really interesting considering what we have already discovered about Pakistan's role as the middle-man between Al-Qaeda and the White House/CIA. Does this mean that the CIA INTENDS for Iraq to have Nukes? And just what do they wish for Iraq to be provoked into doing with those purported Nukes? Drop them on Israel, maybe???? Saddam Hussein has used his traditional Christmas message to warn the United States that the Iraqi people are ready for holy war and "martyrdom". - He repeated Iraq's position – which infuriates Washington and fuels the US calls for war – that it no longer holds any weapons of mass destruction, saying he was confident that the UN inspections, if conducted properly, "will expose all the American lies". Three members of al Qaeda delivered a message this month from Osama bin Laden to a leading Algerian Islamic rebel believed to be in neighboring Niger, news reports said on Thursday. The three emissaries, all Saudi nationals, traveled through Syria and Egypt and met Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a regional leader of Algeria's Islamic rebel Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat. The group, known by its French acronym GSPC, is on the U.S. black list of "foreign terrorist organizations." Algerian military officials say it has between 350 and 380 men and operates mainly in the east of the country. The daily L'Expression, quoting reliable sources, did not say what the content of Bin Laden's reported message was. The Arabic-language news network, notorious for broadcasting the statements of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda colleagues, plans to open an English-language website in early 2003 and begin distributing English-language news programming by satellite and cable late next year. Since it began broadcasting in 1996, Al Jazeera has brought unprecedented Arabic-language journalistic scrutiny to the regimes of the Middle East. Now its executives and journalists say they want to provide English speakers in the US and elsewhere with more accurate and informed reporting about the world's most turbulent region. The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said yesterday North Korea had moved fresh fuel to a reactor that the United States says must stay mothballed because it can be used to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons. The announcement by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) heightens a tense international confrontation that has followed the breakdown of an 8-year-old agreement restricting North Korea's nuclear program. On Tuesday, North Korea's defense minister accused Washington of pushing the Korean Peninsula to the brink of nuclear war. A Venezuela opposition leader warned President Hugo Chavez he would have to choose between "ballots or bullets" to leave office as a general strike entered its 25th day. As strife in the vital oil industry mounted, opposition negotiator Americo Martin said Chavez was facing defeat whatever he did. "The alternatives are ballots or bullets, elections or sinking in the swamp of a fratricidal war," Martin said at a meeting of striking oil workers in Caracas. "The fate of this country is in the hands of the government, either violence which will defeat it or elections, which will also defeat it," he said. India and the United States signed a pact under which they agreed not to send each other's nationals to a world tribunal, in a victory for Washington's efforts to scuttle the International Criminal Court. At least 14 other countries have already signed such agreements with the United States, but India is significant as most of the others are small or closely identified as US allies. The US-India agreement states there will be "non-extradition of nationals of either country to any international tribunal without the other country's express consent." - US President George W. Bush's administration strongly opposes the ICC, saying the tribunal could bring politically motivated charges against Americans, including civilian military contractors and former officials. The dollar slipped to three-year lows against the euro and a four-year low against the Swiss franc in holiday-thinned Asian trade on Thursday as worries over a possible war with Iraq continued to pressure the greenback. Traders said sentiment remained bearish for the U.S. currency as speculation is growing that the United States will attack Iraq shortly after January 27 -- the deadline for United Nations arms inspectors to give their reports to the U.N. Security Council. Israel's military intelligence chief has told lawmakers that any U.S. assault on Iraq is likely to be in early February, the Israeli parliament's spokesman said on Wednesday. "I think the market is almost 100 percent convinced that there will be war," said Koichi Ono, economist at Daiwa Institute of Research. U.S. retailers, reeling from a lackluster holiday season that is forecast to be the weakest in more than 30 years, may ring in the new year with steep markdowns on clothing, accessories -- and profit forecasts. Analysts cut earnings estimates for retailers ranging from sector leader Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to upscale jeweler Tiffany & Co. Inc. on Tuesday, a day after major chain stores reported another week of tepid sales in what was supposed to be the biggest shopping period of the year. Jordanian doctors have reportedly extracted a fetus from a girl who was only recently one herself, a 10-day-old infant who now occupies a strange and rare place in medical history. Newspapers Thursday, displaying color pictures of the tiny baby and the fetus after the operation, quoted a senior surgeon at the government-run al-Bashir Hospital in Amman as saying the infant was in good health and discharged from hospital. - Mazen Naseer, head of the pediatric surgery department at the hospital, was reported as saying the fetus was linked with an umbilical cord to the baby's liver. He said the umbilical cord contained an artery that supplied blood to the fetus. - The surgeon said the fetus was found inside a membrane within the infant's belly. He added that the membrane also contained liquid. Naseer said the baby's mother had suspected something was wrong with her child when she discovered her belly was swollen and took her to the physician for tests. The doctor described the medical case as "very rare," adding that only about 70 such cases have been reported worldwide. |
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