Puppet Masters
No-one injured in blast that shattered windows and damaged cars
A bomb blast shattered the windows of the Indonesian embassy in Paris this morning.
The gas cylinder package had originally been inside the elegant Rue Cortambert building but was removed by an observant member of staff.
No-one was injured in the explosion in the French capital that also damaged several cars.
Chief Political and Security Minister Djoko Suyanto said: 'Indonesia's embassy in Paris has reported an explosion in one intersection near the embassy at 5.20am local (Paris) time.
'It is not certain what the target of the bomb was. The Indonesian ambassador is in the location but couldn't go near. Windows at the embassy are broken.

Nicolas Sarkozy, flanked by his yes-men and women, speaks in front of the Jewish school where four people were killed in Toulouse.
Having vowed to find the shooter who killed three children and a rabbi outside a Jewish school and three soldiers of Arab descent, Sarkozy's role as France's leader in a national emergency may bolster him just a month before the first round of the presidential election, especially if security jumps up the list of voter concerns, analysts and pollsters say.
The case is enabling "the re-presidentialization of Sarkozy's image," said Eric Bonnet, a pollster at BVA Institute in Paris. "It can help him be seen as more of a unifier than he normally would be."
This year, some 1,147 went up in flames in this crazy fashion. It's easy for mindless vandals to get away with such acts, since an automobile can be torched almost as easily and rapidly as lighting a cigarette. The victims of this madness are the innocent owners of destroyed vehicles, who might even be prevented from earning their living as a result of the loss of their automobile.
While everybody is surely reassured to discover that no less a man than Nicolas Sarkozy himself is disgusted with this plague, and determined to eradicate it, the means suggested by the president are somewhat bizarre. What he suggests is a weird kind of indirect punishment for young vandals who burn automobiles. A condemned youth would be prohibited from passing his test, in the hope of obtaining a driver's license, for as long as he hasn't reimbursed the cost of the automobile(s) he happened to burn.
Police hunting a gunman suspected of killing seven people in southern France have surrounded a flat in Toulouse.
The 24-year-old Frenchman from Toulouse has said he belongs to al-Qaeda and acted to "avenge Palestinian children".
Police are now negotiating with the man, who is still said to be heavily armed but has indicated he may give himself up in the afternoon.
Two police officers were injured in exchanges of fire during the raid and there are reports of a fresh blast.
The suspect's brother is under arrest.
The suspect's mother, who is Algerian, has been brought to the scene, but Interior Minister Claude Gueant, who is in attendance, said she had refused to become involved as "she had little influence on him".
The minister said the suspect had made several visits to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
On March 6, 2012, the US Congressional Research Service released a report to the US Congress concerning Restrictions on the use of American weapons by recipient countries.
For those who have followed the subject there was not a whole lot new in the CRS study, yet it is instructive in identifying Israel once again as far and away the most egregious violator of virtually every provision of every US law which purports to regulate how American weapons are used.
In accordance with U.S. law, the U.S. Government is mandated to enforce strict conditions on the use against civilians, of weapons it transfers to foreign recipients.
Violations of these conditions can lead to the suspension of deliveries or termination of contracts for such defense items, and even the cutting off of all aid to the violating country.
Section 3(a) of the 1976 US Arms Export Control Act (AECA) sets the standards for countries to be eligible to receive American arms and it also sets express conditions on the uses to which these arms may be put.

French activists rip open bags of MON 810, a variety of Monsanto's genetically modified corn after entering a Monsanto storehouse.
"Due to the proximity of the planting season," said Agriculture Minister Bruno Le Maire along with Francois Fillon, Minister for Ecology and Sustainable Development, in a press release on Friday, authorities "decided to take a precautionary measure to temporarily prohibit the cultivation of maize MON810 on the national territory to protect the environment."
All prior plantings of MON810, trade name YieldGard, become illegal on March 20.
Headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, Monsanto announced in January that it would not sell genetically modified corn in France due to public opposition.
Over the course of a year, 29-year-old Amine El Khalifi, who was clearly mentally ill and often high on cocaine and other drugs, was persuaded by an FBI informant to agree to attack the U.S. Capitol. Because El Khalifi didn't have a gun, a bomb or a car, the FBI informant graciously offered to provide him all three - and thus El Khalifi was driven to the U.S. Capitol building by the FBI, handed a gun and a bomb, and then arrested as an "al Qaeda operative."

Three captured Taliban insurgents are presented to the media in Ghazni province.
The report carried out by the Afghan Independent Rights Commission and the Open Society Foundation documents numerous cases of torture in Afghan detention facilities between February 2011 and January 2012.
The document has credible evidence in 11 recent cases where practices such as "beatings, suspension from the ceiling, electric shocks, threatened or actual sexual abuse, and other forms of mental and physical abuse" were commonplace. Researchers also discovered widespread violations of prisoners' rights were in evidence, "including the right to counsel and family notification."
According to the study, these techniques are "routinely used to obtain confessions or other information."










Comment: So that's a wrap then: the killer is an 'Islamist', he threw the gun used in all three shootings out the window of his flat and his motive was revenge against Israel.
And now France is in a state of high alert 6 weeks before Presidential elections...