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On December 27, 1947, about a month after the decision by the UN General Assembly to establish two countries, one Jewish and one Arab, and before the bloody clashes between the two nations turned into a war - Israel's War of Independence - the Haganah (the pre-state army) issued an order for what was called Operation Zarzir (Starling). In this order one can see the first comprehensive, operational plan for what would several decades later be called "targeted assassinations."
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BEIJING - A secret U.S. plan to attack Chinese nuclear weapons sites more than four decades ago prompted Mao Zedong to temporarily abandon efforts to improve living standards, Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday.
Mao moved many factories to mountainous areas in China's remote southwest region to keep them from being hit by U.S. air raids, it said, citing a new book from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government-funded think tank.
The focus of China's 1966-1970 five-year plan shifted from "improving people's livelihood to preparing an all-out war against the 'imperialists,' particularly the United States," according to the authors of "The Research Report on China's 10 Five-Year Plans."
Mao moved many factories to mountainous areas in China's remote southwest region to keep them from being hit by U.S. air raids, it said, citing a new book from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government-funded think tank.
The focus of China's 1966-1970 five-year plan shifted from "improving people's livelihood to preparing an all-out war against the 'imperialists,' particularly the United States," according to the authors of "The Research Report on China's 10 Five-Year Plans."
LUXEMBOURG - The European Union's top court scrapped a controversial EU decision approving the transfer of personal data about European air passengers to US authorities.
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that the decision to approve the data transfers, taken in May 2005 by EU governments and the European Commission, was "founded on an inappropriate legal basis".
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that the decision to approve the data transfers, taken in May 2005 by EU governments and the European Commission, was "founded on an inappropriate legal basis".
In light of the 'insider' fingerprints left all over the 9/11 attacks, a few recent stories made us sit up and take notice. On Monday, the U.S. Capitol building (seat of the great American Democracy inaction) experienced a 'power out' that caused an evacuation for about an hour. Strangely enough, a spokeswoman for Potomac Electric Power Co., said the electricity shut off automatically after there was "a momentary drop in voltage due to customer operations up the lines" away from the Capitol.
Running Time: 00:45:08
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Darpa, the Pentagon's far-out research arm, may have publicly abandoned its creepiest programs, like Total Information Awareness. But the agency, as shown at its DarpaTech conference, still has a project to make you run full-speed into your bunker.
Mighty Isis
Darpa wants to start planning for a blimp, three times the size of Goodyear's, that would keep watch over an entire city.
Hovering 70,000 feet above ground, the ISIS (PDF) airship (short for Integrated Sensor Is Structure) would use a giant, flexible radar antenna to give, in the words of Darpa program manager Larry Correy, a "dynamic, detailed, real-time picture of all movement on or above the battlefield: friendly, neutral or enemy."
Relatives of the victims of the Beslan school hostage massacre today accused Russian authorities of covering up the facts as the judge read the verdict against the sole alleged surviving attacker for a third day, describing horrific conditions inside the school.
The victims' family members said they believed Nur-Pashi Kulayev was guilty but they expressed frustration that the year-long trial had failed to reveal all those responsible for the 331 deaths - more than half of them children - in the small southern Russian town.
Judge Tamerlan Aguzarov, who has already indicated Kulayev's guilt as he sums up the case against him, read victims' accounts of the hostage-takers growing increasingly nervous and aggressive as the three-day crisis in September 2004 wore on.
By the second day, they were refusing to let the more than 1,200 captives leave the stiflingly hot sports hall where they were held to go to the bathroom.
The victims' family members said they believed Nur-Pashi Kulayev was guilty but they expressed frustration that the year-long trial had failed to reveal all those responsible for the 331 deaths - more than half of them children - in the small southern Russian town.
Judge Tamerlan Aguzarov, who has already indicated Kulayev's guilt as he sums up the case against him, read victims' accounts of the hostage-takers growing increasingly nervous and aggressive as the three-day crisis in September 2004 wore on.
By the second day, they were refusing to let the more than 1,200 captives leave the stiflingly hot sports hall where they were held to go to the bathroom.
Gamal Mubarak, son and probable successor of the Egyptian president, visited the US last week, allegedly to renew his pilot's licence. While in Washington, he happened to be passing the White House and decided to drop in and say hello. It's only courteous, and I must try it myself sometime.
Gamal - or Jimmy as his friends call him - had a chat with Steve Hadley, the president's national security adviser, and also met vice-president Dick Cheney and secretary of state Condoleezza Rice.
While he was having his cup of tea with Mr Hadley, President Bush "dropped by to greet Mr Mubarak and convey his best regards to his father, President Hosni Mubarak", according to a White House spokesman.
What exactly was going on here is still a mystery. "Jimmy" holds no government post in Egypt, though he is assistant secretary-general of the ruling party - not the sort of post that usually opens doors to all the highest people in the United States.
Gamal - or Jimmy as his friends call him - had a chat with Steve Hadley, the president's national security adviser, and also met vice-president Dick Cheney and secretary of state Condoleezza Rice.
While he was having his cup of tea with Mr Hadley, President Bush "dropped by to greet Mr Mubarak and convey his best regards to his father, President Hosni Mubarak", according to a White House spokesman.
What exactly was going on here is still a mystery. "Jimmy" holds no government post in Egypt, though he is assistant secretary-general of the ruling party - not the sort of post that usually opens doors to all the highest people in the United States.
Here is the real story on Libya, corroborated by multiple sources. Kaddafi cut his deal in 2003 only after the British and Americans assured him that Bush would settle for "policy change"-that is, giving up his nukes-rather than regime change.
