Americans toughened by 9/11 on war,
crime
By
BILL HENDRICK
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The
terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, have dramatically hardened the
hearts of a majority of Americans, making us more hawkish about war
and more zealous about punishing criminals, a researcher meeting in
Atlanta said.
"Our work suggests these attitudes changed after Sept. 11 and may
not change back for many years," said Craig Anderson, a
psychologist at Iowa State University and one of several
researchers at the annual meeting of the American Psychological
Society who presented studies on the impact of Sept. 11. "People
are now more willing to go to war, and to favor harsher treatment
for people convicted of crimes."
His study involved hundreds of people who were questioned a year
before the attacks on attitudes toward war and criminal punishment.
On a 5-point scale, the average response was 2.8. Ten days after
the terrorist strike, the same people were questioned, and the
average jumped to 3.1, "which is statistically significant," he
said.
"There's been an increase in favorable attitudes toward violence,"
he said in an interview at the conference, which ended Sunday.
"It's probably due to news coverage, how the attacks were
framed."
Questioned late last year, another group also seemed more gung-ho
about war and strongly in favor of harsh punishment for
criminals.
"If you think of Sept. 11 in terms of criminal acts, it makes sense
you'd harden attitudes toward criminals," he said. "If you think
then about war, then that incident would make people less
opposed."
The attitudes may explain why "there's been very little public
debate against the war in Iraq and very few protests. Sept. 11 has
encouraged the notion that Washington is right and that might makes
right."
In another study, psychologist Mark O'Dekirk of Meredith College
found that Americans' memories of Sept. 11 apparently are becoming
more vivid as time goes by.
Enron Used U.S.
Government to Bully Developing Nations
Inter Press Service
by Emad Mekay
WASHINGTON - Defunct energy
giant Enron used the U.S. government to coerce the World Bank and
poor nations to grant concessions and resolve its investment
problems, according to documents and correspondence released by the
Treasury Department.
Enron, a bankrupt company
that allegedly paid no taxes in the 15 years before it went broke
in 2001--despite earning billions of dollars in declared
profits--regularly and aggressively called on staff from Treasury,
the State Department, the office of the U.S. Trade Representative
and the World Bank to meet with foreign officials to favorably
resolve its problems and disputes with their governments.
[...]
THE WAR
ON FREEDOM
:
The 9/11 Conspiracies
Was the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq planned long before
the tragedies of September 11, 2001? Why did many WTC survivors
mention bombs? Why did normal security measures consistently fail
that day? Why has no one in government been fired or even
reprimanded for failure to anticipate and prevent the attacks? For
that matter, who was truly behind the strikes? Who and where is
Osama bin Laden? What connects the bin Laden and Bush families?
If the purpose of the perpetrators of 9/11 was to end traditional
American freedoms, they may well have succeeded. Laws rushed
through a Congress that never had a chance to read them while under
a declared state of emergency have curtailed our freedoms.
Research for The War on Freedom was begun on September 11, 2001 and
culminated in a contract with a major New York publisher. Despite
passing a legal review and the excited interest of the editors, the
book was suddenly canceled with the explanation that it may
“upset the families of 9/11 victims.” These families,
as well as the public, deserve the truth, even if it is not
“politically correct”.
Comment: The above
is a blurb for a book by Jim Marrs. Has anyone had a chance to read
it, and pass along a review to the Signs Team?
General
calls intelligence 'wrong'
Banned weapons' lack
surprises top Marine in Iraq
By
Greg Miller
Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON - The top U.S.
Marine commander in Iraq said Friday that U.S. intelligence was
"simply wrong" in its assessment that Saddam Hussein intended to
unleash chemical or biological weapons against U.S. forces during
the war, but he stopped short of saying there was an overall
intelligence failure.
"It
was a surprise to me then, it remains a surprise to me now, that we
have not uncovered weapons," Lt. Gen. James Conway, commander of
the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said from Baghdad in a
teleconference with reporters in Washington.
"It's not for lack of
trying," he continued. "We've been to virtually every ammunition
supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they're
simply not there."
Conway said he still
believes it is possible that weapons of mass destruction will be
found. But his comments are likely to feed concern in Washington
that the prewar intelligence on Iraq was flawed.
Amid
the mounting criticism, CIA Director George Tenet took the unusual
step of issuing a statement Friday denying that the agency's
assessments on Iraq were politicized.
"Our
role is to call it like we see it - to tell policymakers what we
know, what we don't know, what we think, and what we base it on,"
Tenet said. "That is exactly what was done and continues to be done
on intelligence issues related to Iraq."
He
added that he was proud of the work done by the agency's analysts,
saying, "The integrity of our process was maintained
throughout."
Conway, the Marine
commander, acknowledged that "intelligence failure" is "too strong
a word to use at this point." But he said, "What the regime was
intending to do in terms of its use of the weapons, we thought we
understood - or we certainly had our best guess, our most
dangerous, our most likely courses of action that the intelligence
folks were giving us. We were simply wrong. But whether or not
we're wrong at the national level, I think, still very much remains
to be seen."
Conway's remarks came as
the Pentagon disclosed details of its plans to send a new team of
more than 1,000 experts to search for evidence of proscribed
weapons. Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton, the director of the Defense
Intelligence Agency's human intelligence service, will lead the
effort.[...
US 'is an empire in
denial'
Historian accuses Washington of failing to face the
facts
Fiachra Gibbons The Guardian
The United States is a "danger to the world" because of its
denial that it is a military and economic empire, according to
Niall Ferguson, historian and new-found darling of the American
right. Prof Ferguson is author of Empire: How Britain Made the
Modern World, the book whose tie-in TV series controversially
concentrated on the liberalising latter days of the British
empire. He said that America's refusal to admit to "what it was"
meant it risked never learning the lessons of British expansionism.
"The United States is the empire that dare not speak its name. It
is an empire in denial, and US denial of this poses a real danger
to the world. An empire that doesn't recognise its own power is a
dangerous one."
Prof Ferguson passed up a dinner invitation from the US
secretary of state, Colin Powell, to address the Guardian Hay
Festival. He told his audience that, with military bases in
three-quarters of the countries of the world, and 31% of all
wealth, America made the British empire at its zenith in 1920, when
a quarter of the globe was pink, look "like a half-baked thing".
But he warned that America was too much of a military empire to
last, too fond of short-term interventions in Haiti, Lebanon and
now Iraq that lacked "sustained commitment to the dirty work of
rebuilding". [...]
Comment: That's a
sweet way of putting it, but Prof. Ferguson is perhaps putting too
nice of a face on it. Once one has had a
look at the what really has gone on behind the scenes,
and not just what the monopoly media tells us, it is impossible to
believe that government are in denial regarding their true
intentions. They may be just a bunch of puppets, but they have
their jobs, and are performing them to some schedule we can catch a
glimmer of after putting the facts together.
"We come not as conquerors, but as liberators."
-- George Bush (2003)
"Not as tyrants have we come, but as
liberators."
-- Adolf Hitler (1938)
US mends split with Russia
but France and Germany out in cold
By Rupert
Cornwell in Washington
02 June 2003
The Independent
With
smiles and a firm handshake, George Bush and Jacques Chirac set
about repairing Franco-US relations yesterday. But Washington in
particular is making it crystal clear that the process will take
some time, to put it mildly.
Three
days in Europe have merely confirmed in public what Bush
administration officials have been saying for weeks in private,
about how the US intends to deal with France, Russia and Germany,
the leading opponents of war with Iraq on the United Nations
Security Council. [...]
With Mr
Bush smiling beside him, Mr Putin told reporters: "I must say the
fundamentals between the United States and Russia turned out to be
stronger than the forces and events that tested [our
relationship]." The fundamentals, in this case, are Moscow's
support in the war on terrorism, and its increasing alignment with
the West.
Germany's
opposition, by contrast, will not be forgotten. Mr Bush and
Chancellor Gerhard Schröder did shake hands and exchange a few
pleasantries. But there will be no bilateral session in Evian, and
no invitation for Mr Schröder to the White House, let alone
Crawford. The US intention is to play on Germany's enduring
historic insecurities by keeping it out in the cold.
With
France, however, the resentment goes deeper still. The sin of Paris
lay not in opposing US policy on Iraq, but in its systematic
marshalling of that opposition on the Security Council and beyond.
Unanimous passage of resolution 1483, lifting UN sanctions on Iraq,
has mended a few fences but neither side will give ground on the
fundamental issue. "We have not changed our point of view and
neither has the United States," M. Chirac's spokeswoman said.
[...]
In that
sense, his early departure from Evian is not merely a
less-than-subtle signal of his feelings towards M. Chirac. It
reflects Mr Bush's own belief that such sessions, with their
rambling agendas and set-piece dinners, are not a very profitable
use of his time.
Comment: As we read the news day in and day out,
we see the final pieces of the American Empire being laid out.
Below there is a story of the Indian Prime Minister getting a few
words with Bush at a dinner in St. Petersburg. Reading the original
article in the Times of India, we can almost feel the
adreneline pumping in the reporter as we learn that Prime
Minister Vajpayee sat to
the left of Bush at the same table as Putin and the Italian
neo-fascist Berlusconi. His air of breathless excitement leaves us
ill. The press the world over comments on how France, Germany, and
Canada are "paying" for their opposition to Bush's invasion and
occupation of Iraq. The message is clear: "You are either with us
or against us". This was Bush's message to the world after the coup
of 9/11. He is now making sure everyone knows he was serious. This
in spite of the fact that these countries each did more to assist
the occupation of Iraq than many of the so-called "coalition of the
willing" by allowing US warplanes to use French and German
airspace, through Canadian ships in the warzone who were part of
the "war against terror". Trouble was, they didn't kowtow, they
didn't kneel before the new Emperor and allow him to kiss them on
the head. They did not admit their subservience to the new "King of
the World".
Putin has made up and is back in the club, at least for
appearances. Is this because he is ruthless against "terror" in
Chechnya? Or is it a ruse on the part of the Russians? The United
Nations, long the bogeyman of the New World Order conspiracy
fanatics, has been left aside, consigned to "humanitarian tasks"
that are obviously outside of the competence and interest of the
US. There is no social net within the country for America's own
poor. Why should we expect them to provide it for the citizens of
other countries? And where are these conspiracy theorists now when
the "New World Order" is being imposed upon the world by the
Americans themselves? According to some of them, the Americans were
being manipulated to send troops to Iraq so that foreign forces
could be brought in the the US to quell rioting there! What
rioting? The Americans are asleep, complicit in the rape of the
world, comfortable in the warm glow of watching Bush in his flight
suit kick foreign butt.
As the evidence of WMD in Iraq is shown to be
non-existent and falsified, the same game begins for Iran. The same
threats and outrageous claims are being made by the same gang of
liars. But the press is so busy waking up to how they were
manipulated for Iraq that they seem oblivious to the fact it is
happening again. Of course, they still have some catching up to do
for the faked "crash" of the airliner at the Pentagon. The idea of
a coup d'état, that members of the American government planned
the death of their own citizens in order to carry out a
totalitarian takeover, is still outside of the realm of possibility
for even the most critical observers. They'll admit it was possible
in Germany. They'll admit it could happen in a banana republic
elsewhere in the globe -- financed and planned by the American
intelligence services -- but they are unable to see it when it
happens right in their own front yard.
We are in the endgame of a age-old drama. At stake is the
fate of your soul. It sounds outrageous, but that is part of the
manipulation. It is so outrageous that you are meant to roll over
and go back to sleep. "Comets?" "Transducing energy?"
"Hyperdimansional controllers in cahoots with the most corrupt and
power-hungry leaders on earth?" "Time loops?" "A new Atlantis?"
Outrageous, indeed.
You have a choice. You can roll over and remain asleep,
or you can start to look at the world around you with new
eyes.
It is your choice.
I was silly to trust
America
By Max
Hastings
01/06/2003
Even by
the standards of the Bush Administration, last week was a
remarkable one for diplomatic folly. Paul Wolfowitz, the Assistant
Defence Secretary, disclosed that the US wilfully exaggerated the
threat of weapons of mass destruction, to rally support for an Iraq
war. Likewise, Wolfowitz's boss, Donald Rumsfeld, declared that he
has little expectation of finding any WMDs. He then launched a new
round of sabre-rattling against Iran. So much for the gleeful
banner under which President Bush greeted a homebound American
aircraft-carrier crew: "Mission accomplished".
The
leading lights of the US Defence Department always made it plain
that disarming Saddam was a pretext for regime change in Iraq. Yet
that pretext was the basis of a massive American diplomatic
offensive. Tony Blair explicitly told the British people that
disarming Saddam justified taking Britain to war. That argument was
fraudulent.
Some of
us, who accepted public and private Whitehall assurances about
WMDs, today feel rather silly. Robin Cook is crowing, and well he
may. He said that WMDs did not exist. He appears to have been
right. It is irrelevant that the Allies won the war. The Prime
Minister committed British troops and sacrificed British lives on
the basis of a deceit, and it stinks.
Meanwhile
inside Iraq, it has become irrelevant to criticise the Americans
for past failure to anticipate the problems of making the country
work. The question is whether they intend to commit resources on a
scale commensurate with the task, now that the requirement is
plain. The example of Afghanistan, where Washington seems
untroubled by post-war anarchy, is not encouraging. The Americans
shrug that today's warlordism offers Afghans better lives than
yesterday's Taliban, and that outcome should suffice.
[...]
Bush Remarks Confirm Shift in Justifying
War
Standard
of Proof For Weapons Drops
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 1, 2003
In
asserting last week that "we found the weapons of mass destruction"
in Iraq, President Bush presented a far less expansive estimate of
Saddam Hussein's chemical, biological and nuclear capabilities than
the one his administration had used for months in justifying the
war.
Since
last August, Bush and his top lieutenants said it was an absolute
certainty that Iraq remained in possession of significant
quantities of banned weapons, particularly chemical and biological
munitions. But Bush's remarks Thursday, in an interview on Polish
television, made clear the administration had lowered its standards
of proof. The president asserted that the discovery in Iraq of two
trailers, with laboratory equipment but no pathogens aboard, was
tantamount to a discovery of weapons.
"We found
the weapons of mass destruction," Bush asserted in the Thursday
interview, released Friday. "We found biological laboratories. You
remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he
said, Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological
weapons. They're illegal. They're against the United Nations
resolutions, and we've so far discovered two. And we'll find more
weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the
banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong. We
found them."
Bush's
assertion, one of many recent administration statements shifting
focus from Iraq's weapons to Iraq's weapons programs, indicated the
president would consider its accusations justified by the discovery
of equipment that potentially could be used to produce weapons. But
the original charges against Iraq, presented to the United Nations
and the American public, were explicitly about the weapons
themselves. [...]
Flashback:
Alleged Pedophiles at Helm of Britain's War Machine, Massive
Cover-Up
By Mike James: January 28 2003
A child-sex scandal that threatened to destroy Tony Blair's
government last week has been mysteriously squashed and wiped off
the front pages of British newspapers. Operation Ore, the United
Kingdom's most thorough and comprehensive police investigation of
crimes against children, seems to have uncovered more than is
politically acceptable at the highest reaches of the British elite.
In the 19th of January edition of The Sunday Herald, Neil Mackay
sensationally reported that senior members of Tony Blair's
government were being investigated for paedophilia and the
"enjoyment" of child-sex pornography:
"The Sunday Herald has also had confirmed by a very senior
source in British intelligence that at least one high-profile
former Labour Cabinet minister is among Operation Ore suspects. The
Sunday Herald has been given the politician's name but, for legal
reasons, can not identify the person.
There are still unconfirmed rumours that another senior Labour
politician is among the suspects. The intelligence officer said
that a 'rolling' Cabinet committee had been set up to work out how
to deal with the potentially ruinous fall-out for both Tony Blair
and the government if arrests occur."
The allegations are the most serious yet levelled at an
administration that prides itself on the inclusion in its ranks of
a high quota of controversial and flamboyant homosexual men, and
whose First Lady, Cherie Blair, has come under the spotlight for
her indulgence in pagan rituals that resemble Freemasonic rites.
Unconfirmed information also suggests that the term "former Labour
Cabinet minister" is misleading and that the investigation has
identified a surprisingly large number of alleged paedophiles at
the highest level of British government, including one very senior
cabinet minister (known to Propaganda Matrix.com).
The Blair government has responded by imposing a comprehensive
blackout on the story, effectively removing it from the domain of
public discussion. Attempts on the part of this journalist to
establish why the British media has not followed up on the
revelations have met with a wall of silence. Editors and
journalists of The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The
Independent, The Sunday Times, The Observer, The Sunday Telegraph,
The Daily Mail, The Daily Express, The Mirror, The Sun, the BBC,
Independent Television News and even The Sunday Herald have refused
to discuss the matter.
Speaking from London, freelance journalist Bob Kearley told me:
"Whether or not a D-Notice has been issued is not clear. But based
on some of the feedback I've been getting it's apparent that
editors and media owners have voluntarily agreed not to cover the
story at this time. Operation Ore is still being reported, but not
in regard to government ministers, and it's taking up very few
column inches on the third or fourth page. Don't forget that the
intelligence services are involved here, and Blair is anxious to
ensure that the scandal does not rock the boat at a time when the
country is about to go to war."
"You can imagine the effect this would have on the morale of
troops who are about to commit in Iraq. In fact morale is
reportedly quite low anyway, with service personnel throwing their
vaccines into the sea en route to the battlefront and knowing how
unpopular the war is with the British people. And a lot of
squaddies I've met think there's something weird going on between
Bush and Blair. If you're then told that the executive responsible
for the conduct of the war is staffed by child-molesters ... well,
then Saddam suddenly looks like the sort of bloke with whom you can
share a few tins [beer]."
Comment: Blackmail? Is this an
explanation for Blair's cosy relationship with Bush and his support
of the illegal and unjust war in Iraq? See also
Child porn arrests 'too
slow'
Israel Signals Support for Palestinian
Premier
By
Jeffrey Heller
Sun June 1, 2003 03:42 PM ET
JERUSALEM
(Reuters) - Israel signaled support on Sunday for efforts by the
Palestinian prime minister to persuade militants to stop attacks on
Israelis, removing an obstacle to the success of a summit with
President Bush.
"A
cease-fire -- that's fine," a senior Israeli government source told
Reuters. "The point is, at the end of the day there have to be real
steps to disarm and dismantle the Palestinian terrorist
groups."
Israeli
leaders had said Mahmoud Abbas's call for a truce by Palestinian
groups behind suicide bombings in Israel fell short of a crackdown
envisioned by a U.S.-backed peace "road map" Bush plans to promote
at the three-way summit on Wednesday.
It was
not clear why Israel had shifted position, but U.S. envoys have
been meeting with both sides since Friday to prepare the ground for
the talks in Jordan's Red Sea port of Aqaba.
"I think
today what needs to be done...is keep calm, not raise issues that
do not have to be dealt with at the moment," Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon told reporters. "I hope this way we will get to where
we want." [...]
Bush to pressure
Musharraf on cross border terror
TIMES NEWS NETWORK &
AGENCIES[ MONDAY, JUNE 02, 2003 12:01:28 AM ]
LAUSANNE: US President
George W Bush indicated he will talk to Pakistan President Pervez
Musharraf on the need to end cross-border terrorism when he meets
him later this month.
He
said this in response to Prime Minister Atal Bihari
Vajpayee’s insistence that success in dialogue with Pakistan
was not possible without an end to cross- border
terrorism.
Authoritative sources told
reporters accompanying the Prime Minister that Bush agreed with
Vajpayee that successful Indo-Pak dialogue is not possible without
an end to cross-border terrorism.
Bush
indicated he will talk to Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf when
he meets him in Washington later this month as well as at the
Presidential retreat in Camp David...
Bush
also made ‘‘very laudatory’’ references to
the Prime Minister’s initiative on Pakistan.
Asked what was the litmus
test for concluding that cross-border terrorism had ended, the
sources said, basically India has to be convinced that Pakistan has
taken a strategic decision to end terrorism and that it is
sincere.
Asked whether India was
convinced, the sources said, "not yet".
They
pointed out that it was not a question of closing down of two or
three terrorist camps in Pakistan. It has to be ten, twelve or
fifteen camps that provide the infrastructure which is of concern
to India.
India does not have any
report on the closure of the camps.
Wolfowitz: Changes to U.S.-S.
Korea military alliance needed
6/1/2003
12:42 PM
CAMP
GREAVES, South Korea (AP) — Changes to American troop
deployments will make South Korea less vulnerable to North Korean
threats, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said Sunday, as he
sought to ease friction over the countries' military
alliance.
U.S.
troop redeployments have been a touchy subject between Washington
and Seoul since Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in April
that troops stationed near the border between the two Koreas could
be shifted south, moved to other countries in the region or brought
home.
About
37,000 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea. Seoul worries that
reductions would put it at greater risk of attack from the North.
Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have increased because of the
North's suspected nuclear weapons development.
"We
believe there are adjustments and realignments and enhancements
that both of us can make to our forces that would give us a
stronger deterrent posture — not that it's weak now,"
Wolfowitz told reporters after speaking with troops at Camp
Greaves, near the demilitarized zone that separates North and South
Korea.
Wolfowitz, who was meeting later
Sunday with South Korean Defense Minister Cho Young-kil, didn't
elaborate on the changes.
Wolfowitz
Bombshell: Saddam Behind 9/11 Attacks and OKC
Bombing
Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, said by some to
be the architect of America's war on Iraq, reportedly suspects that
Saddam Hussein played a significant role in the three worst
terrorist attacks ever on the U.S. - the Sept. 11 attacks on the
World Trade Center and Pentagon, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and
the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Discussing his soon-to-be-released Vanity Fair interview with
the top Pentagon official, Sam Tanenhaus told WABC Radio's Monica
Crowley on Saturday: "Wolfowitz states that there's a very strong
connection, he's convinced, between Saddam and the first World
Trade Center bombing in 1993. This is a very controversial idea and
yet Wolfowitz embraces it and has for quite some time."
The Vanity Fair writer added, "Also I was told by a source very
close to him that Wolfowitz entertains the possibility that Saddam
was involved in the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995."
While a media firestorm has erupted over Wolfowitz's comments
suggesting that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction played a smaller
role in the decision to go to war than previously thought,
Tanenhaus said the press has missed the real news in his
report.
"[There are] allegations he made or that others close to him
have made that, to me, are much more startling," the author told
WABC's Crowley. "That's what I thought was going to be the news
[coming out of this interview]."
In a transcript on the interview released by the Pentagon,
Wolfowitz also indicates that he suspects Saddam was involved in
the 9/11 attacks.
Asked why Iraq was at the top of the U.S.'s list when it came to
taking action in the war on terror, Wolfowitz told Tanenhaus that
Saddam's weapons of mass destruction played a role, but then
added:
"Plus the fact, which seems to go unremarked in most places,
that Saddam Hussein was the only international figure other than
Osama bin Laden who praised the attacks of September 11."
Discussing the secretary's comments on MSNBC on Friday,
Tanenhaus said that the reason Saddam's role in 9/11 never became
the centerpiece of the Bush administration's rationale for war was
because there was no consensus on the issue.
"The secretary himself has said both in his interview with me
and at other times, particularly in the interview with me, that
there were sharp disagreement[s] about, for instance, Saddam's
involvement in other acts of terrorism," Tanenhaus explained. He
cited the "World Trade Center in '93 and in 2001, September 11, and
other connections with al Qaeda."
President Bush's supporters have been mystified over why the
administration never spotlighted the claims of two Iraqi defectors,
who, two months after the 9/11 attacks, detailed to U.S.
intelligence evidence linking Saddam to training in 9/11-style
airline hijacking operations.
Last month, U.S. District Court Judge Harold Baer awarded the
families of two World Trade Center victims $104 million based on
evidence linking the 9/11 attacks to Salman Pak, a terrorist
training camp located 25 miles south of Baghdad.
US 'to appoint Iraqi leadership'
BBC
Online
Plans to allow a national conference of Iraqi groups to elect
an interim administration may be scrapped, a senior US official in
the country has suggested. Instead, he said, a political council
made up of 25 to 30 Iraqis may be appointed following consultation
between the US-led coalition authorities and political and
religious groups.
The
original plan was to assemble a national conference in July with a
wide variety of delegates, who would themselves select a new
administration.
In a
parallel move, a constitutional convention would be set up to draw
up a new constitution, which would then be put to a
referendum.
The
official said the proposals were provisional and based upon
consultation with the Iraqi people, before adding that they were
motivated by a real sense of urgency.
The
BBC's Richard Miron in Baghdad says there is growing frustration
among Iraqis towards the coalition, as well as a sense of suspicion
at its motives.
He
adds that the unveiling of these new ideas may be designed to
lessen the political pressure upon the US-led authorities, who have
been heavily criticised for the breakdown of security and basic
services within much of Iraq.
Washington has admitted that it did not anticipate the total
collapse of the Iraqi administration following the fall from power
of President Saddam Hussein as coalition forces entered
Baghdad.
Iraqis ignore gun amnesty
Sunday, 1 June, 2003, 14:51 GMT
Weapons collection points have opened around the Iraqi capital,
Baghdad, as part of a gun amnesty aimed at restoring law and order
after the US-led war.
But the
initial response by Iraqis has been sluggish, and correspondents
say not a single weapon had been handed in at several police
stations visited by them.
The BBC's
Richard Myron in Baghdad says that with continuing security
problems and political uncertainty, few people are willing to give
up their arms.
New
firearms controls are due to begin in two weeks' time, when the
US-led administration says it will seize any weapons not conforming
to the new rules.
People
will be allowed to keep guns up to 7.62 mm - the calibre of the
Kalashnikov assault rifle - at home without licenses for
self-defence.
But they
need to get permission to carry them outside. Other weapons must be
registered with the authorities. [...]
A Grim Graveyard Window on
Hussein's Iraq
By SUSAN
SACHS
New York Times
ILLA,
Iraq, May 30 — He was a good soldier, so when he heard the
first crack of the executioners' guns, Fadel al-Shaati said he
instinctively dropped to the ground and pressed himself against a
wall of the freshly dug trench.
He could
not get it straight in his mind. The men firing at him were
comrades in arms, men of his own Iraqi Army. But they had
inexplicably dragged him from his bed in his nightclothes, as they
had so many others, and forced him, blindfolded and bound, into
this pit in the darkness of night.
Now, 12
years later, Mr. Shaati cannot remember if the women and children
beside him screamed as the bullets hit, or whether the men in the
hole moaned as they died. He only recalls a moment of hollow
silence when the soldiers stopped shooting.
Then came
the throaty rumble of a backhoe and the thud of wet earth dropping
on bodies. He survived but saw hundreds of other innocents buried
in another of Saddam Hussein's anonymous mass graves.
The
killing ground of Hilla lies between pockmarked fields, stands of
date palms and tufted pastures where sheep and cattle graze. Even
today, after the bullet-shattered remains of more than 3,000 people
have been pulled from its soil, there is nothing much to
distinguish it on the pastoral landscape. [...]
No one
really knows how many people were slaughtered by the Iraqi
government over the past 35 years. It apparently killed its
citizens on a huge scale, both systematically and indiscriminately.
Human rights groups, which have tried to document the carnage for
years, estimate that nearly 300,000 Iraqis are missing and were
probably executed. Tens of thousands more, according to Iraqi
opposition groups, may have been imprisoned and tortured, their
lives warped forever by what they saw and experienced.
The
executions took place through the late 1970's and 1980's, when
Iraq's Arab neighbors and most Western governments considered
Saddam Hussein an ally against the threat of Islamic militancy in
Iran. They occurred, survivors and witnesses said, while American
troops were still occupying much of southern Iraq, sometimes just
on the outskirts of the killing fields, in the weeks after the
Persian Gulf war in 1991. [...]
U.S. convoy attacked in
Baghdad
Sunday,
June 1, 2003 Posted: 1710 GMT
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A U.S. Army convoy came under attack Sunday
in a Baghdad neighborhood where support for ousted Iraqi leader
Saddam Hussein once ran high, witnesses and U.S. sources
said.
U.S.
military sources at the scene would not discuss any American
casualties, but witnesses and U.S. troops did say some Iraqis were
wounded.
A U.S.
soldier told CNN that attackers with rifles and rocket-propelled
grenades fired on a group of U.S. Humvees at about 4:30 p.m. (8:30
a.m. EDT) in the northeastern neighborhood of Azamiyah. The fire
came from a mosque, the soldier said.
Reinforcements backed by tanks
and armored personnel carriers responded to the scene, leading to a
second gun battle. Witnesses said an older Iraqi man was killed in
that battle. [...]
Troops Attacked in Baghdad in Fresh Signs of
Resistance
By PATRICK E. TYLER
BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 1 — Gunmen firing rocket-propelled
grenades and assault rifles attacked an American military convoy
late today in the neighborhood where Saddam Hussein made his last
public appearance on April 9, the day the capital fell to allied
forces.
At least one American soldier was wounded and one Iraqi civilian
was killed in the firefight that erupted on the busy square in
front of the Abu Hanifa mosque, according to an Iraqi hospital
official who treated the wounded. Other medical workers said three
Iraqi civilians were also injured.
"This is just the beginning!" shouted a woman who identified
herself as Shahrezad, a bank manager. "You are our enemy. You
entered Iraq searching for weapons, but where are the weapons?" she
asked, referring to chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
Some residents cheered the attack, and said they longed for the
return of Mr. Hussein. But others in the crowd said they were happy
Mr. Hussein was gone, and blamed hard-line supporters of his Baath
Party for firing on American forces.
Senate to probe Iraq weapons
intelligence
6/1/2003
6:11 PM
WASHINGTON (AP) — Two
Senate committees want to investigate whether U.S. intelligence
accurately pointed to banned weapons in Iraq as claimed by the Bush
administration in going to war, senators said Sunday.
More than
11 weeks have passed without conclusive evidence of an Iraqi
program to develop weapons of mass destruction, senators said, and
it's time to investigate whether intelligence reports saying so
were correct.
An
investigation doesn't mean senators think that something was done
incorrectly, Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Armed
Services Committee, said on CNN's Late Edition.
"By the
fact that we're just investigating it, should not in any way
indicate that we're putting any credibility doubt against" the CIA
or the Bush administration, Warner said.
He said
his committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee might look
jointly into the situation.
One
member of the Intelligence panel, Sen. Bob Graham, running for the
Democratic presidential nomination from Florida, went further than
other senators in declaring on CNN that the government might have
willfully distributed erroneous information on Iraq's
arsenal.
"If we
don't find these weapons of mass destruction, it will represent a
serious intelligence failure or the manipulation of that
intelligence to keep the American people in the dark," Graham said.
[...]
Comment: Note how
Warner dances around the real issue - heaven forbid he insult the
credibility of Bush or any of his thugs! At this point, how can
there be even the slightest question as to whether or not the Bush
administration lied about Iraq?
Intelligence on Iraq weapons may have been
flawed: Australia
AFP
SYDNEY --
Australia's defence minister conceded on Monday that intelligence
reports suggesting Baghdad possessed weapons of mass destruction --
the primary reason used to justify the invasion of Iraq -- may have
been flawed.
Defence
Minister Robert Hill told the The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper
that the Australian government joined the US- and British-led
invasion of Iraq in March in the belief the regime of Saddam
Hussein was hiding banned weapons.
'On the
basis of what we understood, the action was the right action to
take,' he said.
'If it
turns out there were flaws in what we understood, then I think we
ought to say there were flaws. But it's too early to say that,' he
said.
He
admitted that the Australian government did not have any
corroborating evidence of its own to justify its claims that Iraq
possessed weapons of mass destruction. [...]
Mr Howard
defied broad public opposition to joining the war in Iraq by
arguing that Saddam's possession of banned weapons and his ties to
global terrorism posed a direct threat to Australia.
No clear
evidence of such links to terrorism have surfaced in
Iraq.
Reports
from Washington over the weekend said members of President George
W. Bush's administration distorted intelligence reports about
Iraq's banned weapons to press for war.
The case
against Iraq was based largely on assumptions rather than hard
evidence, Newsweek reported, citing unnamed administration and
intelligence officials.
US spy agencies not taking blame if banned
weapons not found
WASHINGTON (AFP) Jun 01, 2003
In an
environment of score-settling, finger-pointing and strong language,
those in the US intelligence community are not eager to pay the
price for the alleged exaggeration of the Iraqi threat.
The
"spooks," as they are called, believe they did their jobs right,
said Vincent Cannistraro, former counterterrorism chief for the
Central Intelligence Agency. [...]
"All I
can tell you is there is a general feeling among CIA analysts that
intelligence was politicized and that the CIA and (Defense
Intelligence Agency) was not given full consideration because the
Pentagon, the policymakers, including the vice-president's office,
did not want to hear that message. They wanted to hear a hardline
message supporting a policy they already adopted," Cannistraro
said.
In a New
Yorker magazine article earlier this month, author Seymour Hersh
said a little-known Pentagon office, the Office of Special Plans,
played a role in the George W. Bush administration's presentation
of evidence on Iraq.
Created
by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz in the wake of the
deadly September 11, 2001, terror attacks, the office succeeded in
having its opinion prevail at the White House that the CIA and
other agencies did not perceive the reality of the Iraqi
threat.
The OSP
developed its more-alarming conclusions on the threat of weapons of
mass destruction and Iraq's links with al-Qaeda through information
from Iraqi defectors provided by the Iraqi National Congress, Hersh
reported.
"A lot of
the material that we got on this came from defectors. Some of that
may have been wrong. My hunch is a fair chunk of it was right and
the CIA historically does not like to use defectors that much. I
think the Defense Department has been more attuned to what they've
said and we'll see after this is over who is right," former CIA
director James Woolsey said. [...]
Comment: No one
will ever take the blame for this "blunder." First of all, the
blunder was not a blunder at all, but a coldy calculated move. And
while the rest of the world is busy deciding who's at fault for the
invasion of Iraq, the Bush Reich will move along into Iran. Why
aren't Americans demanding Bush's impeachment? Perhaps the true
"failure of intelligence" has occurred within the American
people.
US Faces
Growing Charges of War Crimes
by Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS - When General Tommy Franks, who coordinated the
recent U.S.-led military attack on Iraq, was asked about civilian
casualties, he shot back: ''We don't do body counts.''
Less than two months after the invasion of Iraq, there are no
definitive figures of the civilian casualties -- unarmed men, women
and children who died in the 44-day military assault. But there are
a growing number of attempts to determine that number and to hold
Washington and its allies responsible.
Several human rights groups are calling for the creation of
either a war crimes tribunal or an international commission of
justice. Additionally, several non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) say they will pressure Washington to pay compensation for
the killings of innocent civilians -- a common practice in U.S. law
courts.
The Commission on Human Security (CHS), which is overseeing the
'Iraq Body Count Project' estimates between 5,000 and 7,000
civilians died in the attack, or more.
Marla Ruzicka of the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict
(CIVIC) says her door-to-door survey teams in Iraq have concluded
that ''somewhere between 5,000 to 10,000 people died in this
conflict''.
[...] Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights
says Washington should be hauled up before an international war
crimes commission and held accountable for civilian deaths in
Iraq.
''In any war, the number of civilians killed is critical,''
Ratner told IPS.. ''It is that number that can help determine
whether or not the military complied with the Geneva conventions
(governing the conduct of wars).''
”And in each military engagement, the number of civilians
killed cannot be out of proportion with the value of the military
target. Franks' statement is practically saying that the laws of
war do not apply to the United States,'' he added.
Last week, a Belgian lawyer filed a lawsuit in Brussels charging
Franks with war crimes. The action was submitted on behalf of 19
Iraqis, allegedly victims of cluster bombs and U.S. bombings of
civilians, under a law that permits Belgian courts to try
foreigners for war crimes.
This week, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) challenged
a U.S. military accounting of the bombing last April of a hotel in
Baghdad in which two journalists were killed.
After an investigation the CPJ concluded there is no evidence
that U.S. forces were fired on from the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad,
where nearly 100 journalists were holed up before the building was
shelled by U.S. forces.
[...] ''It is very clear that war crimes were committed in
Iraq,'' says James Jennings, president of Conscience
International.
First, U.S.-led forces targeted and killed many civilians during
massive bombing of facilities unrelated to military objectives,
such as government ministries serving civilian needs, as well as
hospitals, schools and homes.
Secondly, he told IPS, the military used disproportionate force
with its so-called ''covering fire'' technique, which means
indiscriminate shooting at shops, homes and mosques, killing many
civilian non-combatants, including women and children.
Jennings said that at least one Marine battalion commander
admitted as much to 'Time' magazine when he said -- after the
killing by his unit of nearly 100 Iraqis without an injury to his
men -- ''Let's quit pussyfooting, and call it what it is. It's
murder, it's slaughter.''
But since the United States and Britain hold veto powers in the
United Nations Security Council, most human rights groups doubt
that the world body will create a war crimes tribunal for Iraq.
That does not mean it is not essential, says one expert.
''Whether or not the question of accountability in Iraq is
addressed successfully could make or break the prospects for peace
and stability in that country,'' said Michael Posner, executive
director of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights.
[...] ''The United States says it cares about the 3,000 people
killed during the attack on Sep. 11 (2001), but it doesn't seem to
care about the tens of thousands or even millions of civilians that
have been killed by U.S. attacks on other countries over the
years.''
Wheeler said that his coalition believes that the invading
powers must be forced to pay reparations for the death and
destruction they have caused in Iraq. ''Yes, compensation is due
for all of the damages, and civilian loss of life, caused by this
illegal and unprovoked war,'' he added.
Jennings pointed out that besides civilian killings, ''the use
of tons of depleted uranium munitions, which cause genetic defects
into the next generation, and of 1,500 cluster bombs that have
killed and maimed numerous children, may also be classified as war
crimes.''
''In short,'' he said, U.S. technological progress has far
outstripped its moral development.''
"The charge of deception is inescapable," said Germany's largest
newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
No weapons in
Iraq? We'll find them in Iran
Iraq: They told us Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, but
they've found none. Were they lying? By Neil Mackay
The spooks are on the offensive. In their eyes, it still remains
to be seen whether Tony Blair lied to the British public by
claiming that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), but as
the Prime Minister's own intelligence officers now say, Parliament
was misled and subjected to spin, exaggeration and bare-faced
flim-flammery.
It is now seven weeks since the war in Iraq ground to a
confused, stuttering halt and still not one WMD has been found. A
couple of possible mobile bio-weapons labs have been located, but a
close examination showed they hadn't seen so much as a speck of
anthrax or nerve gas. Blair and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw made
clear before the invasion that the UK was entering the war to
disarm Saddam. We were specifically told this was not a battle
about regime change, but a battle to 'eradicate the threat of
weapons of mass destruction'.
Ironically, it was the ultra-hawkish US Defence Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld who let the cat out of the bag when he said on Wednesday:
'It is possible Iraqi leaders decided they would destroy (WMDs)
prior to the conflict.' If that was true then Saddam had fulfilled
the criteria of UN resolution 1441 and there was absolutely no
legal right for the US and UK to go to war. Rumsfeld's claim that
Iraq might have destroyed its weapons makes a mockery of the way
the US treated the UN's chief weapons inspector Dr Hans Blix. The
US effectively told him he wasn't up to the job and the Iraqis had
fooled him .
To add to Blair's woes, Paul Wolfowitz, US deputy defence
secretary and the man credited with being the architect of the
Iraqi war, told American magazine Vanity Fair last week that the
Bush administration only focused on alleged WMDs because it was a
politically convenient means of justifying the removal of Saddam.
'For bureaucratic reasons we settled on one issue, weapons of mass
destruction,' the leading neo-conservative hawk said, 'because it
was the one reason everyone could agree on'.
Then to cap it all, a secret transcript of a discussion between
US Secretary of State Colin Powell and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw
came to light on Friday showing that, even while they were telling
the world that Saddam was armed and dangerous, the pair were
worried that the claims about Iraq's WMD programme couldn't be
proved. Powell reportedly told Straw he hoped that when the facts
came out they wouldn't 'explode in their faces'.
So how on earth did the British people come to believe Saddam
was sitting in one of his palaces with an itchy trigger finger
poised above a button marked 'WMD'? And if there were no WMDs, then
why did we fight the war? The answer lies with Rumsfeld. With
September 11 as his ideological backdrop, Rumsfeld decided in
autumn 2001 to establish a new intelligence agency, independent of
the CIA and the Pentagon, called the Office of Special Plans (OSP).
He put his deputy, Wolfowitz, in charge. The pair were dissatisfied
with the failure of the CIA among others to provide firm proof of
both Saddam's alleged WMD arsenal and links to al-Qaeda.
Regime change in Iraq had been a long-term goal of Rumsfeld and
Wolfowitz. Even before Bush took over the presidency in September
2000 the pair were planning 'regime change' in Iraq. As founders of
the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), one of the USA's
most extreme neo-con think-tanks, the pair were behind what has
been described as the 'blueprint' for US global domination -- a
document called Rebuilding America's Defences. Other founders of
the PNAC include: Vice-President Dick Cheney; Bush's younger
brother Jeb; and Lewis Libby, Cheney's chief of staff.
The Rebuilding America's Defences document stated: 'The United
States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf
regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides
the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American
force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of
Saddam Hussein.'
The PNAC document supports a 'blueprint for maintaining global
US pre-eminence, precluding the rise of a great-power rival and
shaping the international security order in line with American
principles and interests'. It also calls for America to 'fight and
decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars' and
describes US armed forces as 'the calvary on the new American
frontier'.
The UN is sidelined as well, with the PNAC saying that
peace-keeping missions demand 'American political leadership rather
than that of the United Nations'. That was the policy blueprint,
but to deliver it Rumsfeld turned to the Office of Special Plans.
Put simply, the OSP was told to come up with the evidence of WMD to
give credence to US military intervention.
Protesters
rampage in Geneva
Police have used rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannons
against anti-globalisation protesters in Swiss and French cities
near Evian where the Group of Eight (G8) summit is being held.
A 15-kilometre (10-mile) exclusion zone has been placed around
the summit venue itself to prevent protesters from getting close to
the politicians and delegates.
In the Swiss city of Geneva authorities spent more than nine
hours battling with demonstrators as they rampaged through the city
centre.
Shop windows were smashed and stores looted, leaving the city
streets awash with broken glass and choking fumes from tear gas
canisters.
After protestors began to hurl rocks and petrol bombs, the
German police were brought in for reinforcements, storming the
front line to scatter the rioters and chasing ringleaders all over
the city, the BBC's Emma Jane Kirby in Geneva said.
In Lausanne demonstrators wearing black face masks blocked roads
with burning barricades and attacked the hotel area where some
summit delegates were staying before being driven away by riot
police with tear gas.
Several demonstrators were injured, one seriously, reports
said.
The protests came as many world leaders, including US President
George W Bush, gathered in Evian for the summit of the world's
leading industrialised nations.
Protesters say the summit will achieve little in terms of
addressing the needs of the world's poor.
At the summit, the diplomatic rift caused by the US-led war in
Iraq was expected to overshadow proceedings.
France's President Jacques Chirac, the leading opponent of the
war, greeted Mr Bush with a handshake and a smile on his arrival,
in what was their first meeting since the war.
The French president also sought to play down differences with
his American counterpart.
He praised Mr Bush's recent announcement of a major US financial
contribution to the battle against Aids in the developing world,
and called on the European Union to make a parallel effort.
For their part, the US is said to be in no mood to forgive
so-called diplomatic "wrecking tactics" employed by France and
another G8 member, Germany, that prevented United Nations Security
Council backing for the war.
US threatens to sink French plan to stop the West undercutting
African farmers
By Andy McSmith in Evian 02 June
2003
Poltical fallout from the Iraq war is threatening catastrophe for
millions of farmers in Africa, because the Americans may torpedo a
French plan to ban the dumping of subsidised farm produce in
African markets.
British diplomats have been working frantically to bridge the
gap, in the hope of keeping alive the plan, which has Tony Blair's
personal backing.
The US spends between $3bn (£1.8bn) and $4bn a year
subsidising 25,000 American cotton farmers - more than its annual
aid budget to the entire African continent - flooding the world
market with cheap cotton, while in west Africa, 10 million people
rely on cotton growing for their livelihood. A typical small farmer
will make about $300 a year.
The European Union is also guilty of undercutting African
farmers, through the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), turning
Europe into the world's biggest exporter of white sugar, with
disastrous results in countries such as Malawi, Zambia and
Mozambique, which are in effect locked out of the European market.
The EU also dumps subsidised milk and wheat on markets from Kenya
to Senegal, while restricting imports of African produce.
The French President, Jacques Chirac, has proposed a moratorium
on all subsidies of produce that are sold in Africa, which could go
a long way towards enabling African farmers to achieve
self-sufficiency. But the plan has had a frigid reception in
Washington. The US says its export credits should be exempt.
The American reaction is a striking departure from the normal
courtesies of G8 summits, in which the host nation usually puts up
proposals and the following year's host nation - in this case the
US - promises to follow them up.
By contrast, President Chirac's proposal has been given
enthusiastic public support by Mr Blair, not only because it will
benefit Africa, but because Britain has been pushing for reform of
the CAP against French resistance. He has promised that the idea
will be followed up when the British host the 2005 G8 summit.
Justin Forsyth, of Oxfam, said: "This proposal is a casualty of
the Iraq war. The Americans don't want a specific focus on Africa
and they don't want to support a French proposal."
Comment: As stated in yesterday's
"Sings of the Times" page, any talk of "aid to Africa" is purely
for public consumption (or rather deception). The extreme imbalance
of wealth that exists must be actively manipulated to be
maintained.
Report: Arizona may sit out orange
alerts
6/1/2003
4:06 PM
PHOENIX,
June 1 (UPI) -- Budget and personnel constraints have become enough
of a burden that Arizona officials are giving serious consideration
to taking a pass the next time the nation's terror alert status is
raised to orange, the Arizona Republic said Sunday.
Arizona's
governor and homeland security director both support the idea of
not following the federal government's lead in ratcheting up
security measures unless a specific threat to the state is
detected.
"It
creates incredible problems: overtime, financial, functional,"
Frank Navarrete, the state's homeland security director, told the
newspaper. "It is not quite to the point where it creates havoc,
but it's quite disruptive."
Raising
the orange alert routinely sends state and municipal governments
into action -- deploying additional police and National Guard units
to bridges, nuclear power plants, airports and other possible
terrorist targets. Local authorities already operating under
significant budget constraints pick up the tab for overtime and
other expenses. [...]
Torture, murder and
cannibalism: how two UN men died in Congo
By Declan
Walsh in Bunia, D R Congo
02 June 2003
The Independent
Death,
when it came, must have been a relief for the two UN soldiers.
Stationed at an isolated gold mine in war-racked Ituri province,
they were supposed to be observing peace yet fell victim to some of
the worst horrors of war in the Democratic Republic of
Congo.
When the
bodies of Major Safwat Oran of Jordan and Captain Siddon Davis
Banda of Malawi were finally recovered, their UN colleagues were
aghast. Their corpses were covered in cigarette burns, shot in the
head and had their sexual organs cut off.
The
circumstances of the murders in Ituri, northeastern Congo, last
month are still under UN investigation. But details are emerging.
They will give pause for thought to the 1,400 troops, some of them
British, many of them French, due to deploy this week to rescue the
blighted UN mission.
On 6 May
a vicious battle erupted in Bunia, 40 miles to the south, the
prized town at the heart of Ituri's ethnic cauldron. Militiamen
from the Hema and Lendu tribes drew blood with guns, knives, spears
and poisoned arrows. Within a week, more than 430 people would
die.
A week
later Mongbwalu, a once thriving but now desolate gold-mining
centre, was still calm. But the townspeople, also fearing an
attack, began to flee. So did the two UN military observers,
according to a local aid worker who helped recover their bodies.
Major Oran and Capt Davis Banda sent a radio message to their
superiors in Kisangani, 400 miles to the west across a swathe of
impenetrable bush. Later in the day, they were carrying their bags
from their house - once home to the Belgian mine boss - when Lendu
fighters tackled them. Accusing them of collaborating with the
Hema, they carried them off. The two soldiers were never again seen
alive. [...]
Zimbabwe opposition leader 'arrested'
Police in Zimbabwe have arrested opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai at the start of a week of planned protests called to
drive President Robert Mugabe from power, opposition supporters
have reported.
Mr
Tsvangirai, who leads the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), was
said to have been picked up at his house and taken to a police
station in Harare.
Other opposition leaders are reported to have gone into
hiding.
Harare is very quiet, with few people turning up for work,
reports say.
Police and army patrols are out in force, with road blocks on
the main routes leading into the city centre, and the roads around
President Mugabe's official residence have been closed.
The
authorities have declared the protests illegal and warned that
anyone taking part in them will "face the full wrath of the
law"...
The
High Court in Zimbabwe banned the protests - called by the MDC -
after police filed an application saying they would undermine law
and order and challenge the country's constitutional
democracy.
Slumming it - the theme park
that will recreate sheer poverty
By James
Palmer
02 June 2003
The Independent
It will
be the world's newest slum, built to order, and it will be based on
some of the planet's worst in Africa, Asia and Central
America.
But the
model shanty town, sprawling over 6.5 acres (2.6ha), is not being
built to accommodate the poorest of the poor; it is intended to
educate the richest of the rich.
The
latest US theme park, opening in Georgia this week, will give many
Americans an unprecedented insight into how "the other half"
lives.
The park
has been created by Habitat for Humanity, a non-profit group that
builds low-cost housing, at its headquarters in Americus. Millard
Fuller, its founder, expects the Global Village and Discovery
Centre to attract up to 70,000 tourists in its first
year.
Devoid of
the rides and rollercoasters of the typical American theme park,
children will get their thrills in the Global Village by making
bricks and tiles in mock squalor, and discovering - albeit briefly
- what it would be like to live in a scorpion-infested
shack.
"Essentially, it's a theme park
for poverty housing," said Mr Fuller. "You'll come out of the
centre and walk right into a slum. You'll see the kind of pitiful
living conditions so many people in the world have."
Visitors
will also see examples of the homes Habitat has built for poor
nations. "We think we'll recruit a lot of volunteers this way," Mr
Fuller said.
'Bed chains' for Canada Sars
violators
Sunday, 1
June, 2003, 09:38 GMT
BBC
A top Canadian health official has warned people that they might
have to be "chained to a bed" if they violate the strict Sars
quarantine rules in Toronto.
The
Toronto authorities are investigating four deaths linked to Sars
which have raised fears that the outbreak could be spreading
further than previously thought.
The
deaths last week happened at a hospital away from areas identified
as being affected by the pneumonia-like illness.
"I don't
know how people will like this, but we can chain them to a bed if
that's what it takes," said Ontario Health Minister Tony Clement.
[...]
Gene therapy 'causes leukaemia'
Ania
Lichtarowicz BBC health reporter
Scientists in the United States have warned that some forms of
gene therapy may cause patients to develop cancer.
Writing on the journal Nature Genetics, the researchers have
found that genes inserted into cells to replace faulty copies may
be spreading and damagining healthy genes.
The
news comes after a number of children developed leukaemia following
gene therapy treatment.
High
profile gene therapy trials have been stopped in France and but are
continuing in the UK despite a number of children developing
leukaemia follwing treatment.
Fireworks Shows Put in Doubt by New Rules
By JIM ABRAMS The Associated Press Friday, May 30,
2003
WASHINGTON - Small towns across America could be without fireworks
this Fourth of July if federal agencies can't settle on new
homeland security restrictions on shipments by train.
"It's getting stupid. Do they really think a terrorist will use
a firecracker to blow up a building?" said Don Lantis, of North
Sioux City, S.D., whose family-owned pyrotechnics company puts on
300 to 400 shows around the country every Independence Day.
Because of uncertainty over how to comply with the government's
anti- terror laws, railways have refused to handle fireworks since
early this year, cutting off the main method of transport for
shipments arriving at West Coast ports from China and other Asian
countries. On May 5, the government issued regulations on fireworks
transport by air, water and truck but has yet to decide on new
guidelines for trains.
On Thursday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman James
Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., wrote the secretaries of Justice,
Transportation and Homeland Security, urging them to quickly come
up with interim rules to comply with last year's passage of the
Safe Explosives Act.
"The lack of action on rail transport threatens to prevent the
delivery of fireworks for the Fourth of July in many areas of the
country," he said.
UFO’s Found to Be Active over the Caspian
Sea
As
Baku Today already reported last month, on May 19 at 17:00 the
inhabitants of Baku witnessed an unusual flying object in the
sky.
02/06/2003 03:12
Baku Today
By Emin Allahverdiyev
It
did not look like a plane or other type of vehicle. It appeared
right in the center of the city. According to witnesses, the flying
object was “hanging” in the sky for over two hours, it
was white and stretched.
Never before had alien flying objects appear at such an early time
and never before were they observed with by so many people.
This appearance of the UFO had a great impact on the city and
rumors began to spread all over. Some of these rumors say that it
was not a UFO, but something else… but what exactly, nobody
could tell.
The head of the space seismology sector and member-correspondent of
International energy-informational academy for the UN, Fuad
Gasimov, commented on this recently in a local newspaper. Mr.
Gasimov confirmed the fact, that the flying object that appeared in
the sky on May 19 was truly an apparatus from another planet.
“This fact is not surprising. For a long period of time, all
facts about UFO’s were being denied,” he said.
“As usual, they were denied at the authoritative level, by
famous scientists, who, by the way, were not scientists in fields
relating ufology.” [...]
Exorcism planned for school toilet
'ghost'
20:21
Sunday 1st June 2003
Ananova
A village
in India is planning to hold a Hindu religious ceremony to drive
away a ghost from a school toilet.
Residents
of Kapurawala village, near Jaipur, are so scared they have stopped
sending their daughters to the government middle school for
girls.
It is
reported three students suffered epileptic fits after visiting the
toilet.
One of
the teachers obtained a quick transfer after being "gripped by
fear" of a spirit that prowled near the toilet.
Sub-Inspector of Police Hakim
Singh told United News of India: ''Nobody has seen the ghost, but
the school toilet, suspected to be the devil's den, was brought
down by villagers.''
The
villagers, who believe the ghost is still haunting the school, say
they are determined to hold a yagya (a fire purification ceremony)
to exorcise the ''ghost'' and to bring girls back to
school.
And Finally...
Was Benjamin Franklin's kite experiment a hoax?
BY
ROBERT MATTHEWS
Sun Times
LONDON--It was one of the
most famous experiments in science: Benjamin Franklin, the
18th-century American inventor and statesman, risked his life
flying a kite directly under a thundercloud to prove that lightning
was a form of electricity.
But
a new book suggests the inventor actually invented the
story.[...]
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