TONY Blair last night issued a clear threat to Iran and suggested that military action against the Islamic republic could no longer be ruled out by the international community.

Departing sharply from Britain's previous cautious stance, the Prime Minister expressed his fury at the president of Iran's call for Israel to be "wiped from the face of the Earth".

The president's comments, following growing unease over Iran's continued nuclear programme, its defiance of a UN inspection regime and its alleged interference in Iraq, have sharply increased international tensions.

Speaking after the European Union leaders' meeting at Hampton Court outside London yesterday, Mr Blair declared that Iran would be making "a very big mistake" if it believed Iraq will distract European and US leaders.

Admitting that he has previously come under pressure to rule out military action against Iran, Mr Blair predicted that in the wake of the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's comments on Israel, he will now face calls to consider that very option.

"If they carry on like this, people are going to believe they are a real threat to world stability," Mr Blair said. "If they carry on like this, the question people are going to ask me is, 'When are you going to do something about this?'"

Describing himself as "very angry" and Mr Ahmadinejad's comments as "a disgrace," the Prime Minister said he held very little hope of Iran changing course without some form of international intervention. [...]

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has caused a political storm by calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map". The hardline authoritarian President was speaking in front of 3,000 students at a conference in Tehran entitled "The World without Zionism".

The west reacted angrily to Ahmadinejad's statement. The British Foreign Office described it as "sickening". The White House said that it "underscores the concerns we have about Iran's nuclear operations". Israel's Vice-Prime Minister Shimon Peres called for Iran's expulsion from the UN, saying that the remark "contravenes the United Nations charter and is tantamount to a crime against humanity".

Whilst this reaction might sound like moral outrage, it can hardly be described as such. The term 'moral outrage' describes anger provoked by the violation of some ethical principle. To allow ourselves to be morally offended by one nation's president calling for another country to be "wiped off the map" we must first have ensured that our own actions do not contravene the same operative ethical principles. In this respect, every citizen of the UK, the US and Israel has a very long road to travel.

In 1947, the UN decreed that historic Palestine should be partitioned, with 56 percent of the land going to the 600,000 strong Jewish population and the remaining 44 percent going to the 1.2 million strong Arab population. Earlier, in 1938, the Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion, later the first Prime Minister of Israel, wrote, "[I am] satisfied with part of the country, but on the basis of the assumption that after we build up a strong force following the establishment of the state -- we will abolish the partition of the country, and we will expand to the whole Land of Israel". In the 1947-49 Arab-Israeli war, around 800,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their historic homeland by Israeli forces subjecting them to assasinations, rapes and massacres. Israel seized about 78 percent of the British 'Mandate' Palestine by force of arms, with Egypt and Jordan taking the remainder. The Palestinian state decreed by the international community had been forcibly 'wiped off the map', to use Ahmadinejad's phrase. Successive Israeli governments ensured that it was never to emerge.

Does calling for the elimination of a state constitute "a crime against humanity", as Shimon Peres contends? If so, then Ahmadinejad would be joined in the dock by every Israeli official who has not only advocated but effected the policy of expansionism that continues to prevent a Palestinian nation state from emerging. The list would be long and illustrious. [...]

Since 1967 Israel has held further occupied territory in open defiance of international law. It has built vast settlements on that land and repressed the occupied population with a ferocity that has been savage in the extreme (more of which in a moment). In spite of this Shimon Peres has, with considerable self-restraint, never described Israel's actions as crimes against humanity, or conceded its right to be a part of the United Nations, whose laws it treats with utter contempt.

The outrage displayed by western politicians at Ahmadinejad's denial of Israel's right to exist was nowhere to be seen when Dov Weisglass, one of the principal advisers to Israeli premier Ariel Sharon, set out his government's strategy to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state in an interview last year. [...]

In the interview, Weisglass left very little to the imagination: "[...] Effectively, this whole package that is called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed from our agenda indefinitely".

Did the stated intention of keeping Palestine off the map "indefinitely" cause the White House any of the "concern" it expressed this week at the remarks of the Iranian President? Hardly. Weisglass boasted that he had achieved "all this with authority and permission. All with a presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress." [...]

Despite Israel's continued expansionism, open dismissal of Palestinian self- determination, brutal treatment of civilians in the occupied territories and total rejection of international law, the Blair government's self-declared "admiration" for Sharon's "courage" extends far beyond mere warm words. The historian Mark Curtis, formerly of Chatham House and a specialist in British foreign policy, notes that "[UK] arms exports [to Israel] doubled from 2000 to 2001, reaching £22.5 million as Israel stepped up aggression in the occupied territories. Supplies included small arms, grenade-making kits and components for equipment such as armoured fighting vehicles, tanks and combat aircraft. [The UK] has recently supplied Israel with machine guns, rifles, ammunition, components for tanks and helicopters, leg irons, electric shock belts, tear gas and categories covering mortars, rocket launchers, anti-tank weapons and military explosives".

The contribution of Britain's principal ally, the United States, hardly requires any review. By one estimate, US support for Israel between 1973 and 2002, military and otherwise, totalled $1.6 trillion, over $5,700 per head of population, more than twice the cost of the Vietnam War.

Moral outrage on the part of Britain and the US was conspicuously absent, as the weapons they had sold to Israel were put into murderous effect during the early years of the second intifada. US historian Norman G. Finkelstein describes the conduct of our Israeli ally: "To repress Palestinian resistance, a senior Israeli officer in early 2002 urged the army to "analyze and internalize the lessons of…how the German army fought in the Warsaw ghetto." Judging by Israeli carnage in the West Bank culminating in Operation Defensive Shield - the targeting of Palestinian ambulances and medical personnel, the targeting of journalists, the killing of Palestinian children "for sport" (Chris Hedges, New York Times former Cairo bureau chief), the rounding up, handcuffing and blindfolding of all Palestinian males between the ages of 15 and 50, and affixing of numbers on their wrists, the indiscriminate torture of Palestinian detainees, the denial of food, water, electricity, and medical assistance to the Palestinian civilian population, the indiscriminate air assaults on Palestinian neighborhoods, the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields, the bulldozing of Palestinian homes with the occupants huddled inside - it appears that the Israeli army followed the officer's advice. When the operation, supported by fully 90 percent of Israelis, was finally over, 500 Palestinians were dead and 1500 wounded."

Finkelstein quotes a Human Rights Watch report on the Israeli assault on the Jenin refugee camp in April 2002. According to the report, a "thirty-seven- year-old paralyzed man was killed when the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] bulldozed his home on top of him, refusing to allow his relatives the time to remove him from the home"; a "fifty-seven-year-old wheelchair-bound man…was shot and run over by a tank on a major road outside the camp…even though he had a white flag attached to his wheelchair"; "IDF soldiers forced a sixty-five-year-old woman to stand on a rooftop in front of an IDF position in the middle of a helicopter battle."

An Israeli soldier who operated a bulldozer in the assault on Jenin breathlessly described the experience: "I wanted to destroy everything. I begged the officers…to let me knock it all down, from top to bottom. To level everything…. For three days, I just destroyed and destroyed…. I found joy with every house that came down, because I knew that they didn't mind dying, but they cared for their homes. If you knocked down a house, you buried 40 or 50 people for generations. If I am sorry for anything, it is for not tearing the whole camp down.…I had plenty of satisfaction. I really enjoyed it."

As pressure builds on Iran over its nuclear weapons programme, the remarks made by President Ahmadinejad will be seized upon as evidence of Iran's pathological depravity, and justification for the increasingly menacing stance the US and the UK are taking towards it. Tony Blair expressed his "revulsion" at the Iranian President's statement. Saying that he had never heard of the president of a country saying they wanted to wipe out another country, Blair added: "Can you imagine a state like that with an attitude like that having a nuclear weapon?".

The Prime Minister is of course well aware that he has no need to use his imagination. His government arms and otherwise backs just such a country: Israel. [...]

A British member of Parliament suggested trade sanctions against Israel, which she blamed for Arab violence that is their "only outlet" because of military checkpoints and "the so-called security wall."

MOSCOW - Russia is ready to continue its political dialogue with Iran and expand cooperation in all areas, Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov said at a Wednesday meeting with Iranian First Vice President Parviz Dadwoodi in Moscow.

"We are convinced that under the new Iranian leadership, we will maintain and advance our friendly relations," he said.

"Relations with Iran rely on a solid legal groundwork and have developed into a multifaceted partnership," he said. [...]

MOSCOW - Russia, Syria's close ally since Cold War times, will do all it takes to block any attempt to slap economic sanctions against Damascus, a Foreign Ministry spokesman was quoted as saying on Wednesday.

The United States and France threatened Syria with economic sanctions earlier this week if Damascus did not cooperate fully with a U.N. probe into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. [...]

On the eve of the day that is expected to bring indictments against current and former members of the Bush White House, there are rumors circulating in the media and around the punditocracy of DC about what will occur tomorrow.

I spoke to a well known TV journalist yesterday outside the US Court House in DC and we agreed that this prosecutor's prevention of leaks from his legal team was unprecedented in a city that thrives on leaks. The rumors are mainly emanating from the defense side of the house. But here's the latest from the rumor mill (all very speculative but all from "insiders"):

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will seek a Leakgate Grand Jury extension and possibly another separate Grand Jury to look into criminal matters not directly associated with the CIA leak...

Karl Rove may not be indicted tomorrow but will remain under investigation by an extended Grand Jury...

Others report that Rove may still be trying to negotiate a deal with the prosecutor in return for his cooperation...

Judith Miller of the New York Times remains under investigation for inconsistent statements before the Grand Jury...

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is facing "problems" on the domestic home front as well as from the Special Prosecutor...

The names of John Bolton, David Wurmser, and CIA officer Frederick Fleitz have been added to the list of potential targets of the prosecutor for engaging in a criminal conspiracy to divulge the covert identity of Valerie Plame to Libby and other White House officials . . .

The Bush White House is gripped in panic with an increasingly volatile George W. Bush, using the saltiest of language, accusing his closest aides of betrayal and disloyalty . . .

Younger White House staffers are appalled at how fast the White House, which operated on strict organizational discipline, is unraveling in the midst of the biggest scandal to hit Washington since Watergate. Stay tuned.

Vice President Cheney and his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, overruling advice from some White House political staffers and lawyers, decided to withhold crucial documents from the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2004 when the panel was investigating the use of pre-war intelligence that erroneously concluded Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, according to Bush administration and congressional sources. [...]

The new information that Cheney and Libby blocked information to the Senate Intelligence Committee further underscores the central role played by the vice president's office in trying to blunt criticism that the Bush administration exaggerated intelligence data to make the case to go to war. [...]

In recent weeks Fitzgerald's investigation has zeroed in on the activities of Libby, who is Cheney's top national security and foreign policy advisor, as well as the conflict between the vice president's office on one side and the CIA and State Department on the other over the use of intelligence on Iraq. The New York Times reported this week, for example, that Libby first learned about Plame and her covert CIA status from Cheney in a conversation with the vice president weeks before Plame's cover was blown in a July 2003 newspaper column by Robert Novak.

The Intelligence Committee at the time was trying to determine whether the CIA and other intelligence agencies provided faulty or erroneous intelligence on Iraq to President Bush and other government officials. But the committee deferred the much more politically sensitive issue as to whether the president and the vice president themselves, or other administration officials, misrepresented intelligence information to bolster the case to go to war. An Intelligence Committee spokesperson says the panel is still working on this second phase of the investigation.

Had the withheld information been turned over, according to administration and congressional sources, it likely would have shifted a portion of the blame away from the intelligence agencies to the Bush administration as to who was responsible for the erroneous information being presented to the American public, Congress, and the international community.

In April 2004, the Intelligence Committee released a report that concluded that "much of the information provided or cleared by the Central Intelligence Agency for inclusion in Secretary Powell's [United Nation's] speech was overstated, misleading, or incorrect."

Both Republicans and Democrats on the committee say that their investigation was hampered by the refusal of the White House to turn over key documents, although Republicans said the documents were not as central to the investigation.

In addition to withholding drafts of Powell's speech -- which included passages written by Libby -- the administration also refused to turn over to the committee contents of the president's morning intelligence briefings on Iraq, sources say. These documents, known as the Presidential Daily Brief, or PDB, are a written summary of intelligence information and analysis provided by the CIA to the president.

One congressional source said, for example, that senators wanted to review the PDBs to determine whether dissenting views from the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, the Department of Energy, and other agencies that often disagreed with the CIA on the question of Iraq's programs to develop weapons of mass destruction were being presented to the president.

An administration spokesperson said that the White House was justified in turning down the document demand from the Senate, saying that the papers reflected "deliberative discussions" among "executive branch principals" and were thus covered under longstanding precedent and executive privilege rules. Throughout the president's five years in office, the Bush administration has been consistently adamant about not turning internal documents over to Congress and other outside bodies. [...]

Karl Rove's only full-time foreign-policy advisor is Michael Ledeen, a rabid anti-Arab, pro-Israel activist. The FBI is investigating Ledeen for procuring forged documents on nonexistent WMD, which George Bush used to justify his war on Iraq. When Joseph Wilson exposed the farce, Rove helped "out" Wilson's CIA wife. Did Ledeen procure the documents for Rove, and how might he have done that? The story includes multinational stool pigeon Rocco Martino, Italian spy Francesco Pazienza, wanted CIA spy Robert Seldon Lady, and Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin, who's under charges of giving US secrets to Israel. Karl Rove's foreign-policy advisor, Michael Ledeen, proclaimed "the rightness of the fascist cause" in 1972. In 1984 he got George Bush Sr to appoint Iranian arms merchant and Iranian/Israeli double-agent Manucher Ghorbanifar as a middleman in the scandalous Iran-Contra affair. Ledeen has been a fixture in Washington and Israel ever since, advocating a modern version of the Crusades against Islamic nations. Based on what he has said and written, I believe Ledeen is insane.

Michael Ledeen, Rove's "brain," is one of the leading advocates for a US attack on Iran. The Washington Post quoted Ledeen as saying that Rove told him, "Anytime you have a good idea, tell me." I guess that means we can look forward to the Bush team drumming up a war with Iran. [For more, see articles by Dan Froomkin of the Washington Post -- the main man of the mainstream media pursuing the Rove Scandal.]

George Bush Jr., when he assumed the presidency in 2000, already knew that he was going to settle the family score with Saddam Hussein. His "brain," Rove, quickly enlisted Ledeen to trump up a causus belli.

EARLY 2000: ROCCO MARTINO AND THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Rocco Martino is a 66-year-old Italian gentleman who worked on and off for the Italian SISMI (analogous to the CIA) for many years and who also peddled the same information to various spy organizations and publications -- a convicted felon and international stool pigeon, just the kind of person Ledeen's associates needed.

After being fired by SISMI (for receiving stolen checks, among other things), he convinced the French intelligence in 2000 that he knew all about Africa and the trafficking of conventional and nonconventional arms. To avoid stepping on the toes of Italian intelligence, the French gave him a contact, or handler, in Brussels. Martino's handler in Brussels asked him to obtain every type of news or reference to contraband uranium from Niger ("NYE-jer) -- a former French colony in the Sahara desert (not to be confused with ex-British Nigeria in W. Africa), where mining was under the jurisdiction of two companies controlled by the gigantic French mining company Cogema.

Martino soon was knocking at the door of the embassy of Niger in Rome, where he met an Italian functionary (a "lady," by most reports -- but this was no lady, but rather ROBERT SELDON LADY, a CIA operative). Martino provided the French with documents showing that Iraq may have been planning to expand trade with Niger. In fact, the first set of documents did not refer to uranium, and the trade plans were probably the typical sort of relationship Arab oil states had with a whole range of third-world countries.

Martino was surprised when he saw that the French immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion and thought that the documents indicated an Iraqi interest in uranium. (We now know that Iraq had no nuclear program.) "We need additional confirmation and more detailed information," said the French secret service. Martino set out to satisfy his French patrons with additional documents.

JANUARY 2001 BREAK-IN AT NIGER EMBASSY

At night, between the first and second of the January 2001, a mysterious thief came to the embassy of Niger in Rome and into the residence of the counselor in charge. It turned out that some letterhead and seals (see photocopy) were missing. A second dossier on Niger-Iraq trade soon came into Martino's hands, one that included references to uranium trafficking. Martino claims he got it from embassy personnel and that he thought it was authentic.

Martino passed it on to the French secret service, who had paid for it, and also to Panorama [a magazine owned by Bush ally and Italian president Silvio Berlusconi], which assessed it by dispatching a female reporter to Niger. Panorama also turned the file over to the US Embassy in Rome for cross-checking in the US.

The female journalist soon told Martino that the trip to Niger had not produced any real confirmation, and also the French confirmed to Martino that the reports he had passed on to them were groundless. In other words, Bush's war rationale was debunked way back in 2001 by amateur and professional sleuths.

Furthermore, it was a very amateurish forgery, not likely produced through official channels by any state intelligence agency with their vast resources. However, it was soon resuscitated as the Bush administration, in its first year, ramped up its public relations campaign for war.

ROME MEETING IN DECEMBER 2001

Michael Ledeen organized a meeting in Rome to gather evidence to support the planned war. Present were:

1. Michael Ledeen, Karl Rove's foreign policy advisor and organizer of the meeting 2. Nicolo Pollari, head of the the Italian equivalent of the CIA, the SISMI 3. Italy's Minister of Defense, Antonio Martino (no relation apparently to the spy Rocco Martino), Pollari's boss 4. Larry Franklin, an American who presently is being prosecuted in the US for giving classified information to an Israeli front group, AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) -- which some would call "spying," even though he has not been charged with espionage 5. Harold Rhode: member of Dick Cheney's Office of Special Plans, protege of Ledeen, go-between with Iraqi exile and CIA asset (at the time) Ahmed Chalabi.

This little group dusted off Martino's discredited second dossier on Iraq-Niger trade, with the uranium references. The Bush administration now had its causus belli.

CAUSUS BELLI: A PIECE OF CRAP

The accompanying figure shows a bit of the cobbled-up intelligence report on stolen letterheads, forged by amateurs -- most likely Ledeen's friend, Francesco Panzienza. This document, which can be viewed at the Israeli site http://www.4law.co.il/Le838k.html, is the "evidence" on which George Bush sent almost two thousand young Americans and untold thousands of Iraqi civilians to their deaths.

SPRING 2002: JOE WILSON TO NIGER

Former US Ambassador (to Gabon) Joseph Wilson made the trip, apparently at the behest of the CIA, to determine the authenticity of the charges in Martino's documents, even though the CIA already could see they were forgeries. Even the Panorama reporter could have saved him the trouble. Wilson reported back to the CIA that there was no proof that Iraq had sought uranium in Niger. The US government knew there was no proof.

FALL 2002: USING THE CRAP

In London, Tony Blair spoke on September 24, 2002, for the first time on the attempts of Saddam Hussein to obtain uranium from Africa. Bush soon began to drive in the nail using the same argument. Remember, Martino had delivered the phony dossier this was based on to the US embassy in Rome over a year before. The US State Department and CIA rejected it and even Panorama had debunked it. The Pentagon, too, knew it was false, of course, but the Wolfowitz-Feith-Perle Defense Policy Board axis plus Bush and Cheney and their respective aides, Karl Rove and I. Lewis Libby (both now subjects of interest to US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald and his grand jury in Washington, DC), went with it anyway.

The Rest is History: "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein...

...recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Sixteen little words in Bush's January 2003 State of the Union message that will be remembered in history with more honorable presidential words like, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" (FDR). Bush was going on the forged documents procured by Rocco Martino, debunked by all pertinent experts, and debunked by Joseph Wilson. The US overcame Iraqi opposition -- temporarily (resistance became "suicide," now wonders, for whom?) -- mainly by bombing civilian structures rather than fighting, beginning on March 19, 2003 [...]

WASHINGTON (AP) - Karl Rove won't be indicted Friday as prosecutors and his lawyers try to resolve questions in the CIA leak investigation, two people close to Rove told The Associated Press. The White House still braced for an indictment against another top aide.

In discussions Thursday, Rove's lawyer was told by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's office that investigators had not completed their investigation into Rove's conduct in the case and they would continue investigating, the people said, speaking only on condition of anonymity because of grand jury secrecy.

Fitzgerald scheduled a 2 p.m. EDT news conference in Washington, along with an FBI investigator in the case.

The decision means Rove is not out of legal jeopardy but will continue working at the White House and cooperating with prosecutors. He has already testified four times before the grand jury investigating who leaked Valerie Plame's CIA identity.

The news wasn't expected to be as favorable for Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. White House colleagues expected an indictment charging Libby with false statements in the probe.[...]

The Vice President of the United States is actively lobbying for torture right now. Not in the 1800's. Not in the 1950's. Right now. And the sick thing is -- he has an excellent chance of winning.

We look back at things like the McCarthy Hearings or Japanese internment camps and shake our heads in disbelief.

Can you believe what happened in America back then? After seeing what's happening right now, the answer is -- absolutely, I see exactly how it happened.

There is a defense spending bill that is in conference committee right now with an amendment attached to it that says the US must follow the Army Field Manual when dealing with detainees and must not treat people it captures with "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment." Can you imagine anything less debatable?

Of course, we are now debating it. And we might lose. The Vice President went down personally to the Senate to try to kill this amendment earlier in the process. The Senate showed rare courage and independence by voting against him 90-9. The nine Senators who voted in favor of "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" should never be allowed to walk into our Congress again. They soil the ground they walk on. That is hallowed ground. All those patriots didn't die so these men could say America stands for darkness.

These men are traitors to the idea and principles of America. And now one of them is leading the conference committee that will decide whether the amendment will be in the final bill. Ted "Bridge to Nowhere" Stevens (R- Alaska) is one of the Republicans who voted for torture and he is charged with representing the Senate on this bill. Of course, the House has already voiced their opinion in favor of torture (there was no formal vote in the House, but their representatives are lobbying to kill the amendment in conference).

As I write this, I think, what kind of a world do we live in? What have we become?

I still can't believe this is the America I love and cherish. The America that was supposed to bring freedom and enlightenment to the rest of the world. The beacon of light.

I continue ... the President has threatened to veto the entire defense spending bill if he is not allowed to continue torturing people. Just yesterday there was another report of at least 21 homicides of detainees under our supervision. We beat and strangled some of these people to death. I guess this is the type of thing Rush Limbaugh would call a frat house prank.

What have we become?

The House and the Senate are trying to decide whether we should continue to torture people or leave bad enough alone. The thought of holding the people who ordered and condoned these actions accountable hasn't even crossed anyone's mind yet.

How can this administration argue that it was a few rogue soldiers who committed the abuses at Abu Ghraib (and all of the other prisons all over Iraq and Afghanistan), when they are arguing for the right to treat detainees with "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" right now?

These are the people who said they were going to bring dignity and morality back into the White House. I know a lot of people voted for this President because they thought he is a good Christian, just like them. Let me ask you, is this what Christianity is all about? Do good Christians argue for cruelty, degradation and inhumanity?

Either Christianity is twisted or Bush has twisted Christianity. Either way, if you claim to be a moral person proud of being a Christian, stand up against this barbarity or never speak of morality again.

This is not some long past error that is too late to correct. The final vote on this bill still hasn't taken place. We can make a difference. We can stand up for the real America.

Or we can admit to ourselves that we have become a country of cruel and degrading inhumanity -- a country of torturers. Jesus, what have we become?

GENEVA, Oct 25 (IPS) - U.S. human rights groups have denounced before the U.N. Human Rights Committee that there are perhaps dozens of secret detention centres around the world where Washington is holding an unknown number of prisoners as part of its "war on terror".

This week in Geneva, the Committee began to examine the United States' compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, particularly with regard to its anti-terrorism activities.

On Monday, the members of the Committee, made up of 18 independent experts with recognised competence in the field of human rights, heard presentations from U.S. non-governmental organisations that accuse Washington of grave rights violations.

Priti Patel, an attorney and representative of the New-York based group Human Rights First, reported to the Committee members on the secret detention centres for individuals allegedly linked to terrorism.

"There are locations you know about, like Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, and Bagram in Afghanistan," commented Patel, "but there are other locations which you know exist, but you don't know exactly how many or where they are."

According to Patel, these are transient facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan that are close to conflict zones, but move around, to wherever the United States decides.

"There are around 20 of them in Afghanistan, but you don't know how many people are being held there, and you don't know how they are being treated," Patel told IPS.

"And then there is the worst case scenario, which is you don't know even their location," she added.

For example, Patel remarked, "we don't know if people have been held in Diego Garcia (a small island in the Indian Ocean, home to a U.S. military base), but we have enough credible reports to make us believe it."

And while the United States refuses to deny or confirm the existence of these secret detention centres, "we know that at least 36 people have been held in secret locations," she stressed. [...]

TOLEDO, Ohio - A coin dealer and major GOP donor at the center of a scandal in Ohio state government was charged Thursday with illegally funneling $45,400 in contributions to President Bush's re-election bid.

Tom Noe was accused in a federal indictment of giving money to 24 friends and associates, who then made the campaign contributions in their own names. In that way, he skirted the $2,000 limit on individual contributions, prosecutors said.

"It's one of the most blatant and excessive finance schemes we have encountered," said Noel Hillman, section chief of the U.S. Department of Justice's public integrity section.

Calls to the White House and Noe's attorneys were not immediately returned. Prosecutors said the Bush campaign has cooperated with their investigation.

Noe also is under investigation over an ill-fated $50 million investment in rare coins he managed for the state workers' compensation fund. Noe has acknowledged that up to $13 million is missing, and Ohio's attorney general has accused him of stealing as much as $6 million. But no charges have been filed in that case.

The coin dealer contributed more than $105,000 to Republicans, including Bush and Gov. Bob Taft, during the last campaign. [...]

U.S. Attorney Gregory White said prosecutors were negotiating Noe's surrender with his lawyer. If convicted, Noe faces up to 15 years in prison and fines up to $950,000.

Maybe for a moment George Bush thought Bill Frist was calling late Wednesday evening to tell him he was quitting as Senate majority leader on account of his own deepening legal problems, stemming from insider stock deals.

But no, Frist was phoning about problems not his own. He told Bush that the conservative Republican mutiny over the Miers nomination had carried the day. The votes for Miers just weren't there.

Thursday morning Bush called it quits, using executive privilege as the excuse. Supposedly at issue were disclosure requests for legal memos Miers had written as part her job as White House counsel.

At least, since night had fallen, Bush could be confident it wasn't a call to tell him that the federal grand jury assembled at the US District Court had issued indictments against top White House aides Rove, Libby, Hadley, Hanna and Wurmser, with Cheney as unindicted coconspirator.

That treat, or portions of it, awaits Bush on Friday. If he has time for any political counsel Rove may have advised Bush it was better to throw the Miers bone to the Republican ultras today. Then to rally them to the President's side over the weekend, when indictments may dominate the headlines and the Sunday talk shows. [...]

Bush, after five years, is now at the point Clinton reached in the early summer of his first year in office: a total collapse in political credibility. Clinton reached out to a Republican fixer, David Gergen, and to Jesse Helms' campaign strategist, Dickie Morris, plus the most squalid denizens of his own party.

Who can Bush turn to?

The first lifeline would be a dishonorable mention of Dick Cheney in the grand jury's indictment, prompting the all-powerful vice president to resign.

The path would then be clear for a return of the old guard, with James Baker ­ the man who fixed Florida for Bush in 2001, as the Renovator. The corporate sponsorship of the White House would shift from Halliburton to the Carlyle Group.

It would be the Revenge of Bush 1, already heralded by the recent onslaughts on Cheney's neocons by Brent Scowcroft and Powell's number two, Lawrence Wilkerson. It's a theme worthy of the great classical tragedians.

As a legal noose appears to be tightening around the Bush/Cheney/Rove inner circle, a shocking government report shows the floor under the legitimacy of their alleged election to the White House is crumbling.

The latest critical confirmation of key indicators that the election of 2004 was stolen comes in an extremely powerful, penetrating report from the General Accounting Office that has gotten virtually no mainstream media coverage.

The government's lead investigative agency is known for its general incorruptibility and its through, in-depth analyses. Its concurrence with assertions widely dismissed as "conspiracy theories" adds crucial new weight to the case that Team Bush has no legitimate business being in the White House.

Nearly a year ago, senior Judiciary Committee Democrat John Conyers (D-MI) asked the GAO to investigate electronic voting machines as they were used during the November 2, 2004 presidential election. [...]

The non-partisan GAO report has now found that, "some of [the] concerns about electronic voting machines have been realized and have caused problems with recent elections, resulting in the loss and miscount of votes." [...]

Among other things, the GAO confirms that:

1. Some electronic voting machines "did not encrypt cast ballots or system audit logs, thus making it possible to alter them without detection." [...]

3. "Falsifying election results without leaving any evidence of such an action by using altered memory cards" can easily be done, according to the GAO.

4. The GAO also confirms that "access to the voting network was easily compromised because not all digital recording electronic voting systems (DREs) had supervisory functions password-protected, so access to one machine provided access to the whole network." This critical finding confirms that rigging the 2004 vote did not require a "widespread conspiracy" but rather the cooperation of a very small number of operatives with the power to tap into the networked machines and thus change large numbers of votes at will. With 800,000 votes cast on electronic machines in Ohio, flipping the number needed to give Bush 118,775 could be easily done by just one programmer. [...]

In essence, the GAO study makes it clear that no bank, grocery store or mom & pop chop shop would dare operate its business on a computer system as flimsy, fragile and easily manipulated as the one on which the 2004 election turned. [...]

"Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive!"
--Walter Scott

The conspiracy that bubbles around Judith Miller protecting a source -- whose name she couldn't remember -- and Robert Novak using his column to out undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame should soon evaporate. The next step should lead Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald to the heart of the matter: a much more pernicious conspiracy designed to mislead the United States into war with Iraq. The crime to name a covert CIA official pales in comparison with conspiring to lead the nation to war under false pretenses. [...]

Now, it begins to emerge that the White House undertook a major effort to mislead and manipulate the media and U.S. public opinion in general in order to get support for an unjust war. [...]

The unraveling of the Valerie Plame affair is but a step toward exposing this truly epic scam. Beyond compromising the identity of a CIA officer, the Bush administration had carried out what former intelligence official Larry Johnson called "a classic 'covert action' program against the citizens of the United States." [...]

Thanks to the prolonged investigation over the Plame case, some members of the media and the rest of the public have regained their bearings. Some reporters might even recall that right after Novak published Plame's name, Bush promised publicly that he would fire any staff involved.

In July, he weakened that threat to: "If someone committed a crime they will no longer work in my administration." [...]

Bush continues to act as if none of this concerns him and the justice of his war effort. The next time he says we're going to "stay the course" in Iraq, the Democrats should respond by claiming that Bush wants to stay the course of total failure and pay for it with the lives and maimed bodies of young men and women. [...]

Saul Landau is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies.

WASHINGTON - The grand jury probe into the leak of a covert CIA officer's name has opened a new window into how the Bush administration used intelligence from dubious sources to make a case for a pre-emptive war and discarded information that undercut its rationale for attacking Iraq. [...]

A Knight Ridder review of the administration's arguments, its own reporting at the time and the Senate Intelligence Committee's 2004 report shows that the White House followed a pattern of using questionable intelligence, even documents that turned out to be forgeries, to support its case - often leaking classified information to receptive journalists - and dismissing information that undermined the case for war.

The State of the Union speech was one of a number of instances in which Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and their aides ignored the qualms of intelligence professionals and instead relied on the claims of Iraqi defectors and other suspect sources or, in the case of Niger, the crudely forged documents. [...]

U.S. intelligence had no evidence of any alliance between Iraq and al-Qaida, and many analysts doubted that Saddam would give such weapons to Islamic extremists. [...]

The White House, however, based its case on an analysis by a secretive Pentagon unit formed by then Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, a proponent of attacking Iraq. The Pentagon analysis concluded that Saddam and al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden were working together. The Pentagon and the CIA later disowned the findings. [...]

CHICAGO - The U.S. dollar, Treasurys and American stocks could sell off if top White House aides are indicted on charges they leaked the identity of a CIA employee, analysts said Thursday. [...]

Any charges could create "political paralysis" at the White House, said Brian Dolan, head of currency research at New Jersey-based trading firm Gain Capital.

Charges would be "detrimental to the dollar, a psychological blow," said Alex Beuzelin, senior market analyst with Ruesch International in Washington. They would distract Bush from important economic issues like high energy prices, patches of slower growth and deficit reduction, he said. [...]

"A spike in interest rates from current levels could potentially prick the housing bubble, which Fed Chairman nominee Ben Bernanke is convinced does not exist," said Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital. [...]

The best historical reference for investors may be the fallout of the Watergate scandal, which was limited to Nixon aides, although did ultimately lead to the president's resignation, said Dolan.

But the U.S. was just coming off the gold standard at that time, so currency markets behaved differently than they do today. [...]

The greenback fell over several days to a four-month low against the Japanese yen during December 1998, when the House approved two articles of impeachment against Clinton.

But that example differs from the current situation somewhat, says Dolan, because it directly touched the president.

If anything, investors are looking for any excuse to lighten some dollar holdings; it's made a six-week charge without much pause against the yen, to two-year highs, driven almost exclusively by bets for higher U.S. interest rates. The dollar is just off three-month highs against the euro. [...]

This story was supplied by MarketWatch. For further information see www.marketwatch.com.

DALLAS - Exxon Mobil Corp. rewrote the corporate record books Thursday as the oil company's third-quarter earnings soared to almost $10 billion and it became the first public company ever with quarterly sales topping $100 billion. Anglo-Dutch competitor Royal Dutch Shell PLC wasn't far behind, posting a profit of $9 billion for the quarter.

Those results led Democrats in Congress to demand a new windfall profits tax. "Big oil behemoths are making out like bandits, while the average American family is getting killed by high gas prices, and soon-to-be record heating oil prices," Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement.

But Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said President Bush opposes such a move and is instead considering a wide range of proposals to help cushion consumers, including the creation of an emergency reserve of gasoline and other refined products. [...]

WASHINGTON - Along with ebbing public support for the Iraq War, US President George W. Bush also faces diminishing backing for his domestic agenda, from tax cuts to homeland security, according to a poll published.

Forty-three percent of those asked by a Harris Interactive survey for The Wall Street Journal supported Bush's proposal to make tax cuts passed during his first mandate permanent, down from 52 percent in August.

Fifty percent disapproved of Bush's position on homeland security, against 43 percent who approved, the poll showed.

Additionally, 53 percent disagreed with his environmental policies with 34 percent backing them, while 53 percent also disapproved of his efforts to provide hurricane relief against 43 percent in favor.

On Bush's appointments to the US Supreme Court, 49 percent disapproved compared to 41 percent who approved.

Separate findings from the same survey of 1,833 people from October 11-17, published by the newspaper on Tuesday, found that for the first time, a majority of respondents thought the Iraq war was the "wrong thing to do".

Let us never forget that "those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it." - George Santayana

228 years ago, a great experiment was undertaken that has since shaped the world in a way never thought possible by mankind. A small group of colonists decided to break away from their king and empire and declare themselves an independent nation and free from the tyranny and unjust treatment of that empire. What started out from most humble beginnings would eventually encompass the globe with its power and influence. Like all empires before it, it too will one day cease to remain at the height of its glory and will eventually succumb to its excesses and egocentric view. [...]

Like empires of the past, the United States is indeed an empire in both scale and influence. Unlike any other empires before it, however, the United States is one that spans the globe and even reaches out into space. The reasons that our nation has risen to such power and influence in such a short time scale are many and varied, but a few need to be noted in particular, as they are some of the key elements of our nation that have been the most changed.

The system of government in the United States was born out of great deliberation and effort, borrowing ideas and concepts from several previous systems of governing and government that eventually culminated into what we see today. A framework that denotes the citizenry as the primary focus is one that is both bold in concept and noble in principle. We enjoy a system of economy that was meant to benefit and encourage forward thinking, hard work, and freedom from most governmental control. We were the first nation that by our very design has encouraged not only a melting pot of cultures, but a mix of ideas that would eventually result in the world's greatest system in nearly every aspect of how a civilization is measured.

Unlike the empires of Rome and the former Soviet Union, the United States does not rely upon satellite states for the purpose of buffering from invasion or as its primary means of economic well being. However the United States does most certainly have a de facto system of host states. It should be noted that, according to a publication from the Department of Defense [i], the United States currently has a military presence in 192 nations and troops stationed in 135 of them. This means the United States has a military presence in just over 70% of the world's nations, making the United States far more influential and widespread than any empire before it.

The 2006 United States military budget is slated at 441.6 billion dollars which is as much as that of the next 17 largest nations combined. This means that the United States has spent nearly as much money as the entire rest of the world on military expenditures and six times as much as Russia, which is the world's second largest military budget. This does not include the additional "supplemental" monies already requested by President Bush for Iraq and Afghanistan to the tune of 81 billion dollars. Nor does it include money in the budget devoted to military spending for Defense/Civil programs ($44.5 billion);, Homeland Security ($33.3 billion);, and Veterans Affairs ($68.3 billion), all pushing the total closer to 668.7 billion dollars. In addition when we add in the fact that a good deal of this money is borrowed and comes with interest, which of course is rarely considered publicly in budget requests, this adds approximately 130 billion to the bill, making a round about figure of 799 billion dollars. In essence the United States is realistically spending about 30% of its total government funding on the military... [...]

As the face of global warfare changes it seems that for once the United States is lagging behind, not because we have the world's largest military but in spite of it. The future of global warfare is not one of bullets but one of dollars. This is one commodity we are starting to fall behind in as we are financially leveraged all the way up to our grandchildren. As the economies of the European Union, Russia and especially of China are surging forward with greater and greater growth, the United States is running up trade and budget deficits that offset a greater portion of our own growth. Using history as a guide, it becomes very clear that the United States, like many empires before it, has turned to militarism as a means to cling to its current hegemony. [...]

Manufacturing jobs have decreased from 34% in 1950 to just 13% currently, in contrast, service based jobs have increased from 59% to 82% during the same time period.[iv] Industries hardest hit by this change in our economic base have been the textile and steel manufacturing sectors which have been traditional staples of the US economy. Boeing has been surpassed by Airbus as the worlds leading manufacture of aircraft. Ford and Chevy stocks have been relegated to junk status as Toyota now leads the world in the manufacture of automobiles. The United States is once again poised to become a net importer of food, something that has not been the case for over 50 years.

Our consumption in relation to the rest of the world is well documented. The United States, with less than 5% of the global population, uses about a quarter of the world's fossil fuel resources - burning up nearly 25% of the coal, 26% of the oil, and 27% of the world's natural gas. As of 2003, the U.S. had more private cars than licensed drivers, and gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles were among the best-selling vehicles. New houses in the U.S. were 38 % bigger in 2002 than in 1975, despite having fewer people per household on average. According to an article in Scientific American, if the rest of the world were to rise to the same level of consumption as that of the United States it would require the resources of four more planet Earths.

When former First Lady Barbara Bush was shown at the Houston Minute Maid Park for the final game of the Chicago White Sox-Houston Astros World Series, she was roundly booed at one watering hole here in the nation's capital.

It was at the Houston Astrodome following Hurricane Katrina that Mrs. Bush commented that "underprivileged" evacuees from New Orleans had a pretty good deal -- "this is working well for them." The editor suspects that Mrs. Bush's appearance at the World Series was booed in more places than Washington, DC.

The Federal Opposition has accused the Government of being "drunk with power" after announcing it will present two major pieces of legislation into Parliament on consecutive days.

The Government plans to introduce the anti-terrorism laws on Melbourne Cup day and the workplace relations package the day after.

Labor's Stephen Smith thinks it is proof the Government is out of control.

"This whole process angers me because what we find is a Government drunk with power, arrogantly ramming things through the Parliament," he said. [...]

Mr Beazley believes Mr Howard is trying to hide behind the famous horse race to avoid scrutiny of the legislation. [...]

"Now we've seen them do some pretty low things over the years but hiding behind Australia's great national sporting event, the Melbourne Cup, to have Parliament debate and pass through your shoot-to-kill laws is as low as you can go," Mr Beazley said. [...]

Mars, Nasa/Space Science Institute Mars will not be this close until 2018 Mars is set for a close encounter with Earth, approaching to within 69.4 million km (43.1 million miles) of our planet in the early hours of Sunday.

With good conditions and a lack of cloud, amateur astronomers will be able to get an unusually good look at Mars.

The Red Planet will not swing this close to Earth for another 13 years. [...]

For India's astrologers, even at 69,4-million kilometers away, Mars is too close for comfort.

The red planet, named after the Roman god of war, will be at its closest to Earth since 2003 on Saturday and won't come as near for another decade, prompting some astrologers to predict trouble, destruction and plain old bad luck.

"Mars influences Earth in a big way and these days it is very close. This sort of period is adverse for humanity as a whole. Various places on Earth will see earthquakes, tornados, fires and volcanic eruptions," said Ashok Kumar Joshi, an Indian astrologer.

Astrology has been practiced in India for thousands of years as part of a widely held belief system that the future can be divined from planets' movements in relation to the stars.

The previous Hindu nationalist-led government went so far as to push for it as an area of scientific study at the university level, despite most scientists dismissing astrological predictions as pure superstition.

But both astronomers and astrologers agree that Mars is coming close and is sitting in one zodiac house, a celestial section defined by star patterns as seen from Earth, for six months instead of the usual 45 days.

Astrologers say this phenomenon explains why Earth has been hit recently by a series of hurricanes and earthquakes.

"Mars, which is known to be destructive, is sitting on Aries. Two months are gone and we have four more to go. Natural disasters related to fire, earth, air and water might affect people the world over," leading Indian astrologer Niraj Mancchanda said on his website.

Astrologer Joshi said the 7,6-magnitude earthquake that hit northwestern Pakistan and parts of Indian-administered Kashmir on October 8, was a direct result of a rare combination of killer planetary forces and numerology.

"The worst is not yet over and bigger earthquakes could follow," he said, adding hurricanes Katrina and Wilma were also directly related to the planetary alignment.

In the United States last week, CNN journalist Wolf Blitzer raised eyebrows when he asked evangelical Christian minister Jerry Falwell if recent natural disasters meant the biblical end of days was on the way. Falwell said he wasn't qualified to forecast the end of the world. [...]

"Communities should hold special prayers as they create positive vibes in the atmosphere. It will change the energy equilibrium and it will become favourable with the sound of mantras."

Sun worshippers took to Brighton beach in their hundreds yesterday, where the temperature hit 18.1 C. In Kinlochewe on the far north-west coast of Scotland, it was a balmy 22.4 C.

Just four days before Hallowe'en, Britain was enjoying the warmest 27 October since records began in 1880.

As the UK basked in the freakish heat, it seemed almost churlish to seek an explanation. But these days, in the shadow of global warming, extreme weather patterns come with a health warning attached. Why was it so warm?

The weather experts explained that the mini-heatwave was the result of a large area of high pressure over southeastern Europe and low pressure well to the west of Ireland.

Sandwiched in between these two weather systems was Britain, which happily found itself right in the way of a warm southerly breeze blowing directly from the hot sands of north Africa. The dryness of the air was explained by it coming from the continent rather than from the Atlantic. The Scottish glens enjoyed the added benefit of a meteorological phenomenon known as the Fone effect, when air warms even further after descending from higher ground.

Is this yet more evidence of climate change? Was this the sort of October day Britain might expect in a world where global warming has become reality?

The Prince of Wales said yesterday that climate change was one of the greatest problems facing man. Meanwhile, the chief scientist, Sir David King, reiterated his belief that global warming was a greater threat than terrorism. [...]

BULLETIN:
TROPICAL STORM BETA INTERMEDIATE ADVISORY NUMBER 6A
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL
8 AM EDT FRI OCT 28 2005

...TROPICAL STORM BETA GETTING CLOSER TO SAN ANDRES AND PROVIDENCIA AS IT CONTINUES TO MOVE SLOWLY NORTHWARD...

A HURRICANE WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FOR THE ISLANDS OF SAN ANDRES AND PROVIDENCIA.

A TROPICAL STORM WARNING AND A HURRICANE WATCH REMAIN IN EFFECT FOR THE ENTIRE CARIBBEAN COAST OF NICARAGUA FROM THE BORDER WITH COSTA RICA NORTHWARD TO CABO GRACIAS A DIOS NEAR THE NICARAGUA/HONDURAS BORDER...AND ADJACENT ISLANDS. HURRICANE WARNINGS WILL LIKELY BE REQUIRED FOR PORTIONS OF THE COAST OF NICARAGUA LATER TODAY.

A HURRICANE WARNING MEANS THAT HURRICANE CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED WITHIN THE WARNING AREA WITHIN THE NEXT 24 HOURS. [...]

NEW YORK - New York City has many odors, but when the city began to smell a little too good, New Yorkers became alarmed.

Residents from the southern tip of Manhattan to the Upper West Side nearly 10 miles north called a city hot line to report a strong odor Thursday night that most compared to maple syrup, The New York Times reported Friday.

There were so many calls that the city's Office of Emergency Management coordinated efforts with the Police and Fire Departments, the Coast Guard and the City Department of Environmental Protection to find the source of the mysterious smell.

Air tests haven't turned up anything harmful, but the source was still a mystery.

"We are continuing to sample the air throughout the affected area to make sure there's nothing hazardous," said Jarrod Bernstein, an emergency management spokesman. "What the actual cause of the smell is, we really don't know."

Although many compared the smell to maple syrup, others said it reminded them of vanilla coffee or freshly-baked cake. All seemed to agree that it was a welcome change from the usual city smells.

"It's like maple syrup. With Eggos (waffles). Or pancakes," Arturo Padilla told The Times as he walked in Lower Manhattan. "It's pleasant."

Late-night mystery: Dozens of readers from across Israel told Ynet about unusually loud "explosions" and tremors throughout the night, but attempts to shed light on the source of the blasts has been met with uncertainty.

At least one possibility has been discounted, with the country's seismological institute saying no earthquake occurred.

Police officials estimated the loud sounds were a result of sonic booms created by IDF fighter jets on their way to attacking Gaza, but the army insisted there was no unusual Air Force activity across the country overnight.

Central Police District Spokesman Yigal Haddad said police received numerous calls overnight from concerned citizens reporting explosions.

"The residents reported explosions heard from Netanya (north of Tel Aviv) to Rishon Lezion (south of Tel Aviv.) Many residents said the explosions came from the direction of the sea," he said. "Police personnel who heard the blasts themselves said they sounded like sonic booms. We still don't know what caused the explosions. We had similar reports during the week."

Meanwhile, police in Haifa also received calls regarding a possible earthquake, but no damages were reported.

The nighttime explosions have apparently become a routine occurrence throughout the Sharon region, north of Tel Aviv. In recent nights there have been other reported about blasts heard in the town of Herzliya, but the source of them is unclear. [...]

CALIFORNIA - Bright twinklers were nearby Mars and Venus, say astronomers -- or were they?

Mysterious, bright lights in the night sky Wednesday that alarmed or bemused scores of Bay Area residents were not mysterious at all but most likely a pair of planets whose orbits around the sun are carrying them close to Earth right now.

Others are not so sure. [...]

Residents across California and people as far east as Las Vegas reported seeing the lights in the sky late Wednesday. Those who called space officials at Vandenberg Air Force Base on the Central Coast and the Federal Aviation Administration drew the usual response Thursday: No, there were no missile launches, no wandering airplane pilots had failed to file flight plans, no military jets were aloft, and no one was suggesting UFOs. [...]

Belief in ghosts and the survival of some immaterial essence beyond the span of human life dates back thousands of years. Ancient Egyptians would visit the family plots of departed relations to provide food and clothing for the journey beyond, and Enlightenment era-scientists conducted ghoulish experiments to determine the precise location of the soul. At the start of the 20th century, Duncan Macdougall, a respected surgeon, thought he had determined the precise weight of the soul by using an ornate Fairbanks scale to track weight loss as people died.

Most religions tell us that the soul goes somewhere after death - traveling to heaven, hell, or a pleasant afterlife resort; reincarnating into a new body; or remaining in the ground until the Second Coming. Obviously, they can't all be right. But solid evidence is tough to find, and despite some credible research conducted by scientists, the results have been inconclusive so far.

In a new book on attempts to settle the question, Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, author Mary Roach ultimately concludes that although most accounts of reincarnation and life after death aren't completely convincing, not all can be easily explained away. After a year on the road, visiting labs, observing supposedly reincarnated children, and enrolling in a medium school, she ends up by choosing to believe in the possibility of an undefined "something" more.

My own research began in the 1970s, sparked by synchronicity and an unexplainable "journey." After receiving a book by Helena Blavatsky, the famous Russian occultist and founder of the theosophical movement, published in 1888 - the same year as a "lucky" silver dollar I used to carry in my pocket and also the publication date of an unusual antique book that had mysteriously "appeared" in my apartment - I became curious about what such coincidences might mean. That led to the discovery of a key turning point in Blavatsky's life: her first encounter with a psychic investigator named Henry Olcott in Vermont.

In 1874, Blavatsky followed Olcott to Chittenden, a small town near Rutland, to see the "manifestations" of William Eddy, an alleged medium. Their resulting alliance led directly to the founding of theosophy, an impressive synthesis of Buddhism, occultism, and Western philosophy that became enormously influential in subsequent decades. [...]

On the fourth anniversary of the September 11th attacks, Laura Knight-Jadczyk announces the availability of her latest book:

In the years since the 9/11 attacks, dozens of books have sought to explore the truth behind the official version of events that day - yet to date, none of these publications has provided a satisfactory answer as to WHY the attacks occurred and who was ultimately responsible for carrying them out.

Taking a broad, millennia-long perspective, Laura Knight-Jadczyk's 9/11: The Ultimate Truth uncovers the true nature of the ruling elite on our planet and presents new and ground-breaking insights into just how the 9/11 attacks played out.

9/11: The Ultimate Truth makes a strong case for the idea that September 11, 2001 marked the moment when our planet entered the final phase of a diabolical plan that has been many, many years in the making. It is a plan developed and nurtured by successive generations of ruthless individuals who relentlessly exploit the negative aspects of basic human nature to entrap humanity as a whole in endless wars and suffering in order to keep us confused and distracted to the reality of the man behind the curtain.

Drawing on historical and genealogical sources, Knight-Jadczyk eloquently links the 9/11 event to the modern-day Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She also cites the clear evidence that our planet undergoes periodic natural cataclysms, a cycle that has arguably brought humanity to the brink of destruction in the present day.

For its no nonsense style in cutting to the core of the issue and its sheer audacity in refusing to be swayed or distracted by the morass of disinformation that has been employed by the Powers that Be to cover their tracks, 9/11: The Ultimate Truth can rightly claim to be THE definitive book on 9/11 - and what that fateful day's true implications are for the future of mankind.

Published by Red Pill Press

Scheduled for release in October 2005, readers can pre-order the book today at our bookstore.